#once i learn a recipe without needing to refer to the recipe its so exciting tho :^)

[oscill4te]

It is genuinely so hard to concentrate on a recipe when it has a million of ads and makes you lose your place where you're reading -_-

[romanceclub-lovers]

Romance Club news recap

Kali: Flame of Samsara

Saraswati Basu

💎 Prototype : Juliana Herz

I won’t lie, Sara is one of those characters that I was excited to develop, and I love every scene with her. It somehow feels light and right, which is why I especially love it.

Sara is the very embodiment of all those qualities of the Basu family that we read about in KCD. She is immensely beautiful, as they often say about her, has bright gray eyes (which has a connection with Mahakali, we remember Ram’s eye and a reference to the same Basu). And even in her soft, at first glance, character, you can catch notes of hidden madness lurking inside, like in Pandora’s box.

It seems to me that the artist perfectly considered the vibe of the model Juliana Hertz, this wild, dangerous, sexy beauty that you are afraid to approach. A tenacious gaze, a smirk full of self-confidence. Well, really... she🥺

On the one hand, a strict and dominant mother, on the other hand, a sister who is preparing to replace her, but who is full of anxiety from this responsibility. We see that the family character is more Saraswati's than Radha's, but the roles are defined and Sara learns to live with her ambitions and her position. Having adjusted to the situation, the girl seems very flexible and gentle, which is also often mentioned by the men of the dozen. But rumors about the fate of those who somehow crossed Saraswati’s path are beginning to outweigh the first impression...

Art credit: hohohoibu Instagram

But even in such a girl there is a vulnerable part, affectionate and soft, in need of love and care. Saraswati hides her, securely so as not to be hurt. Her devotion is a great value that is almost impossible to earn. But it is precisely in this value that all its best qualities are hidden. She will tear and throw for those who are dear to her, and will not allow herself to be broken - she always fights to the last. Reminds me of someone, right? great great granddaughter.

She and Ram Doobay have a mutual friendly sympathy for each other, this relationship has not yet been fully revealed to you, but we could see a hint in the latest update. Someone considered the dialogue at the temple to be flirting, but it’s clearly just friendly jokes that slip through there.

Sara has a special relationship with Devi - the beloved and only daughter in the Sharma family, spoiled by the kindness of her brother and father, could afford to betray a variety of stupidities, and with her disobedience the Basu twins really liked her even in childhood. When three young rakshasis were united in friendship, the members of the dozen made fun of them and predicted that they would make a lot more noise in the future...

By the way, an interesting detail. I once read a theory that some human characteristics are passed on THROUGH generations. That is, for example: a cool talented actor, but his children will be good at something else, but his talent will manifest itself in his grandchildren.

Sorry, if for those who understand this, my words sound like fierce nonsense. I'm just talking out loud.

In general, if you look at it this way, then this is exactly what we see in the Basu family:

Vidya ( strong, dominant ) -> Radha ( softer, more sensitive ) -> Indira ( strong, powerful again ) -> Jyotsna ( and again softer, more gentle ) -> Amala ...

Christian de Clare

💎 Prototype: Volodymyr Testardi + Ian Somerhalder

Here everything is very clear and, probably, expected. The recipe is simple: classic cold beauty (playing on contrasts: fair skin, charcoal hair, bright eyes), which I softened a little with facial features. Christian's gaze is not prickly, like that of the prototype actor, but there is a sense of confidence and calm in him, without malice. The Lord does not push unnecessarily, he is respectful with everyone without exception.

Despite the fact that he speaks openly and directly about all his desires, de Clare creates the impression of a cunning and intelligent person who also pursues other, unspokengoals.

This can be read in his restrained facial expressions and manner of speech, in the tenacious and attentive gaze with which he looks at his interlocutor, studying him. Christian doesn’t need to do anything to make people listen to him - in his (often in any) environment he is an undisputed leader. And he achieved his respect far from brute force.

We don’t know much about the character yet, this post will need to be supplemented later, like, for example, the post about Set, due to the spoiler content of the information... but I will add that scenes with him are also written with special pleasure, although it often happens that they have to be rewrite - Christian is kind of uncharted territory for me, a new archetype that I haven't had to work with yet. That's why it's interesting to be with him.

*( I’ll make a reservation: it’s hard to call me a fan of The vampire diaries and this actor, I didn’t watch almost anything with him, but the fame of his beauty reached out to me😁 )

Source: A. Remy telegram

Love Sin & Evil

Alexander Tepish - screenwriter of "Love from Outer Space", "Love, Sin & Evil", " Sails in the Fog".

In his TG channel, said that in the future his stories will not be so varied. He wants to cut their variability in half.

Source: A. Tepish telegram

[nouvellestudy]

Things I wish I had known before going to university!

Surviving (and thriving) while living alone

Your flatmates will not always be your lifelong friends and that is OK

You may get lucky with flatmates, but you may also get flatmates who hide in their rooms and leave their dishes for 2 weeks without washing them (I am not bitter what). If you get amazing flatmates then that is great but remember that you do not need to be best friends as long as you are civil, and you will find people more suited to you through other parts of uni life!

Be a good flatmate

Wash your dishes, do your part in cleaning of the communal areas and don’t use all your flatmates olive oil without replacing it. It may seem like common sense but you will discover that many people at uni don’t seem to mind living with flies floating around dirty dishes (again I am definitely not bitter)

1st semester will be overwhelming and that is also OK

Moving away from home and being alone in a foreign environment can be scary, especially if you are far away from home. I found that giving myself things to do really helped me tackle this as I was always busy or looking forward to something. Remember that feeling overwhelmed is normal and many others are feeling the same way too, you are definitely not alone!

Freshers flu is REAL

Lots of people from lots of different places = lots of new germs. I cannot give you any tips other than lemsip and paracetamol are lifesavers!

Take the time to get to know your new city

Use some of your free time to walk around your new surroundings. Maybe try to find a café to study in, or a beauty spot you have seen on Instagram. I also love going on day trips to surrounding areas as it lets you see and do things that you wouldn’t be able to do at home!

Learn how to budget and stick to it

This doesn’t need to be a complex system. My system is first factor in how much you need to cover the essentials (e.g. rent, power, water, alcohol) Then once you have paid everything you HAVE to pay for, set yourself an allowance of spending money and stick to it. I transfer myself this allowance into a separate bank account and use only this bank account for day to day spending. Review every so often whether you are setting yourself not enough or too much allowance and adjust, and then you are on your way to becoming a financially independent adult! It’s also good to have a little bit of back up money put aside for emergencies.

Learn how to cook, even if they are just basic recipes

It may be the student stereotype to live off pasta and pasta alone, but having a few basic recipes under your belt is really useful. Learn how to make things like curry, chilli and soup so you can make enough portions to freeze. Also always try to make enough servings for that day and the next day to save yourself time!

Keeping up with the coursework

Reference as you go, don’t leave it until last

It is so much easier to keep track of what sources you used and where you are referencing these in text if you do it as you go! If referencing structure is intimidating for you there are plenty of reference formatting systems online and on word to help you!

You don’t need to buy all the recommended reading books

Usually you will be able to find recommended reading online or in your university library, but if you have to buy a textbook always look for a cheaper alternative such as buying secondhand from students in the years above. Save your pennies for more exciting things than textbooks!

You don’t always have to do your reading but it certainly helps

I met people during my first year who did no reading and got by, but doing the recommended reading helps you to understand the concept more and means you will be more informed to contribute in classes. I always do reading and preparation for seminars and tutorials because you will be expected to contribute, but you can usually get away with not doing reading for a lecture, unless you have a lecturer who likes to quiz you rather than just talk at you. Do not let yourself get into the habit of not doing your reading though, fail to prepare = prepare to fail as they say.

 Aim to submit your work at least an hour before the deadline

Please please PLEASE do not be the person who submits your assignment minutes before it’s due. Try to submit the day before or at least a few hours before just in case the website crashes, your computer crashes etc. so you don’t get penalised for a late submission.

Go to classes (at least the majority of them)

I know how tempting it is to get a few extra hours sleep instead of going to that 9am lecture, but do not get in the habit of this or before you know it you’ll be going to no classes a week. Try to remember that you are in a privileged position to be receiving an education in the first place and take advantage of this! (also that you are likely paying a fortune for it so you might as well get your moneys worth).

Find the independent study method that works for you

University can be a steep learning curve as tutors expect you to do the majority of your learning independently. Learn how to prioritise your work and find the method of note-taking and consolidation of learning that works for you, as well as the place you work best (cafe, library, your bedroom). Work smarter not harder,  so find the most efficient method that helps you keep on top of your pile of (ever growing) coursework!

Make a list of all your deadlines and when these are due

Put this list above your desk and tick off deadlines as you meet them. I find this to be useful as you can see all the deadlines for the semester in one place! (and its also incredibly satisfying to tick stuff off a to do list)

Compromises are key

It may be the case that your essay due tomorrow that you haven’t started is more important than going to the pub with your friends. Make compromises with yourself – don’t go out on Wednesday if you need to finish an assignment but go out at the weekend when you can enjoy yourself and not have to worry about the assignment!

Social gatherings

Allow yourself to have fun!

You are paying to attend uni to get an education but you are also paying for the experience. Use your free time to do something you enjoy, whether that is going out for dinner, socialising with friends or even travelling.

On the flip side, allow yourself to say no

While it is important to push yourself out of your comfort zone at uni, it is also valuable to take some time for yourself if you feel you need it. Do not feel you have to be constantly busy and do things just because your friends are, downtime is just as important and sometimes you just need a night in with just yourself and Netflix!

Find something outside of uni to fill your time

Like I said before, uni is not just about academics. Joining a society or sports team can be a great way to meet new people and get involved in the university community. You could also start some volunteering if you feel that you have time. I started working with community youth group and I will definitely continue with this beyond first year! This lets you completely take your mind off uni for a while and also looks good on the CV!

Join group chats before you go to uni

If you take anything from this post DO THIS. Get on facebook and hunt down a freshers groupchat for your uni. These freshers chats often develop into smaller groupchats for your specific course or accommodation and this is an excellent way to make friends before you even get to uni! (also a great way to see where the parties are happening on campus)

These are just a few of the things I have learned and will obviously not apply to everyone, but I hope you are able to use this guide to learn something and help you feel more prepared! Going to university helps you to grow so much not only academically but also as a person, so try your best to make the most of it!

[27angel]

Why I want Rise back? What it means to me?

Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is--well actually to explain why it should be saved is to explain what it ISN'T.

It ISN'T the same cookie-cutter recipe of each character spliced up with a ton of predictability. It's actually a revisit to the old '87 personalities with a smart, fresh take on them.

It ISN'T just a bunch of stupidity living off of a good franchise (how Spongebob HAS wound up and how Teen Titans Go! Is) but has actual depth and and drama to it without going overboard and forgetting who they are or how they are (like Steven Universe and Gravity Falls)

Rise ISN'T just some hacked together show but a rich and sensational show of fluid animation, sensible character development, and top notch storytelling.

Rise of the TMNT, to me, is the best iteration because it show us the TEENAGE part of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. It's four teens trying to find their place in the world as they RISE to their destiny. It slowly builds to show the importance of their place in the world but allows them to JUST BE KIDS like they are and it is hilarious!!

This iteration saw toxic masculinity and spat in its eyes! These boys express their emotions, show their affections for family and friends and aren't afraid to cry. Better yet they don't treat this like it's a lesson to learn or hump to get over, but as if it's already everyday life to be this way. Because it should be!

Rise took a look at these characters and decided April needed to be more involved, more important to them and they succeeded!! They saw that Splinter needed more chances to be a father and they SUCCEEDED! They saw we needed new villains, new story AND THEY SUCCEEDED. They saw these boys needed an overhaul without losing themselves AND. THEY. SUCCEEDED.

To be treated the way it was after all the effort and love that went into its creation and production, after the passion poured in by the crew, is completely unjust and unfair to them, to us, to everyone. @nickelodeon I beg you to see this show for the greatness it holds and the wonderful rare beauty that it is. Rise is hilarious, loving, daring, bold, thoughtful and an absolute gem that can shine for miles if you only give it a chance!! Through yourself or through the wonderful crew at @netflix

I love this show. I admit I was a skeptic at first, but told myself to try it once and see what I thought. And I loved it. Every new episode made me laugh my butt off and get so excited for the boys' adventures. Heck I even felt embarrassed for them in their awkward moments and excited when things worked out!! They are my favorite gang and to see them continued would really show that this world DOES care for quality animation and great shows. It shows we care to present a smart piece to our young audiences to be good influences and not just some random bit here and there of old shock and awe nonsense in hopes to draw mindless laughter (again I refer to more recent Spongebob. The original first couple seasons were actually very nicely done. Oh, and Teen Titans Go!)

....I rambled, and I hope it was a ramble that made sense, but this is my reasons to keep the show. Please @nickelodeon and @netflix keep it going...

... let it RISE BABY, RISE BABY

[dyscrasia-eucrasia]

<<Prev | Next>>

Part 28 (NSFW)

"Absolutely not," Elaine said, folding her arms across her chest and leaning back in her chair. 

"Why not!?" Demie said. He was standing on the threshold to her room, gripping the door frame so that he could lean his head in without stepping foot inside the room. "Marius has an Instagram, I can have one, too. It's not like I'm gonna go around telling the whole world where to find me." 

"How are you even going to use it?" Elaine asked. 

"I can borrow your computer while you're at work." 

"Absolutely not. Besides, you can't even post to Instagram unless you have a phone." 

"So, maybe it's time I get a phone, then." 

Elaine scoffed. "With what money? And we don't even have wifi, we have fucking satellite internet." 

"You can sell some of my dad's vinyls on eBay. And I'll only use it when we go into towns for shows." 

"No."

Demie let out a frustrated noise. He'd been a bit excited after talking to Angel about Instagram. He figured it was about time for him to learn how to use the internet, if he was going to be showing up in someone else's pictures. Maybe interacting with people through a screen would give him a chance to get more comfortable with people. It seemed to be working with Angel - they could talk for hours over the phone, and he felt safe in Angel's presence. 

"I can't have fucking anything!" He exclaimed, turning and slamming the side of his fist against the wood paneling of the hallways. 

"Don't you fucking punch my walls!" Elaine shouted after him as he stomped across the living room towards his room. 

"Fucking bitch," he grumbled as he stepped into his room and slammed the door behind him. Not that he was necessarily mad at her. She was right, after all - she worked two jobs just to keep the lights on and food in the fridge, and he knew that she spent most of her budget on food for him and the goats. She said she liked TV dinners and instant noodles, but he also knew how happy she got when she could afford to bring home an expensive steak. 

At least she wasn't arguing that he was irresponsible. Since the festival - which he assumed she believed he went to, primarily because he'd lied and said he'd let Angel keep any photos he would've taken - she had eased up a little on the protectiveness. He could tell that she still worried, but she seemed to be coming around to Angel, little by little. 

Though, he wondered if it had anything to do with the fact that the night of the festival, Marius had called and asked to talk to Elaine. She'd gone into her room and closed the door for their conversation, and when she came out she was in a better mood than Demie had seen in months. 

Speaking of phones…

The handset for the landline was in his room from the last time he'd called Angel. He'd called to celebrate that his pregnant goat had given birth, to a sweet grey kid with black socks. The goatling had been the impetus for him finally asking Elaine about getting Instagram - he'd taken some Polaroids, but had no way to share them with Angel. 

He picked up the phone and dialed Angel's number from memory. Angel picked up before the second ring. 

"Hey, what's up?" Angel asked. He was all bubbly and cheerful, and Demie couldn't help but smile a little. 

"Elaine said no to Instagram," Demie said. 

"Aaaaah no, that sucks," Angel replied. "Did she say why?" 

"She can't afford to get me a phone. And we don't have wireless internet." 

"Shit, that sucks," Angel said. "That's too bad, because those guys finally posted the pictures of you." 

"Yeah?" 

"Yeah, they posted the close-ups of your horns. They got a lot of likes, lots of people asking in the comments where they can buy horns like that," Angel said, then laughed. "There's this one pic that has your eyes in it, and it looks so intense and artistic. Maybe I should see if I can convince these guys to take some pictures of me." 

"Well, uh… the tall one seemed to like you a lot," Demie said. He wasn't really sure what he was saying, the words just sort of tumbled out of his mouth. "Maybe he could, like, be your boyfriend." 

He cringed at the words. Not so much at the idea of two guys dating - once again, he told himself that he wasn't homophobic - but more at the idea of Angel dating… well, anyone. Demie didn't have any real relationship experience, but he definitely felt that if Angel started dating someone, he'd see a lot less of him. Considering that Angel was only the second friend he'd ever had, he didn't really want to compete for his attention. 

"Who, Dylan?" Angel said with a laugh. "Oh, honey, no, Dylan is painfully straight." 

Demie felt like he'd been kicked in the sternum. The wind just all went out of his lungs. He wasn't really sure what he was feeling. He felt a little sick, but also oddly relieved, which made him feel even worse. What did he care that there was no chance Angel would date Dylan? Why did he want to be the only person Angel paid attention to? 

"So, what's up with you? How's the baby goat?" 

"Oh, um," Demie struggled to find his voice again. "He's fine. He's kind of needy, everytime I go outside he screams at me until I pick him up and carry him around." 

"Awwwww. Hey, could I come see him sometime? I would die to pick up a baby goat." 

"Um… yeah. Yeah, sure." 

"Great! I'm doing a Burlesque show at a bar in town on Wednesday, but I could drive out to your place on Thursday afternoon?" 

"Yeah. Yeah, that's fine. I mean, I'm always here." Demie's face went hot at the thought of seeing Angel again. He told himself to calm down, that it was normal for friends to visit. 

But he'd never had friends come visit. That this would be Angel's third time driving all the way out to Billy Brook meant that he actually enjoyed spending time with Demie. 

"Great! You can cook for me again, I can't stop thinking about those tomato things you made last time." 

"Y-yeah. Okay." Demie squirmed, suddenly feeling a little uncomfortable as he sat on the bed. 

"Who taught you how to cook, by the way?" 

"M-my grandma." 

"Oh yeah, I could tell. There's just something about grandparents' recipes, like there's all those generations of culture and family and love and stuff… Whenever we visited my grandparents, my grandma would spend all day cooking and--" 

Demie's head was swimming, and he was hardly paying attention to what Angel was saying. He wondered why he was light-headed all of a sudden, when he glanced down at his lap. His dick had slid out of its sheath and was half-hard. 

"Oh, fuck--" He murmured. 

"Hello?" Angel said. "You okay over there?" 

"Yeah-- yeah, I um, I gotta go." 

"Oh. Okay. We're still on for Thursday, right?" 

"Yeah. Yeah, sure. Bye." 

"Byeee--" Angel said, but Demie hung up the phone before Angel could finish the word. 

He flopped down onto his back, breathing heavily. He'd gotten random boners before, but never while talking to a guy. Not like he had a lot of experience talking to guys, outside of his cousins. 

He exhaled through his nose, taking hold of his dick. He closed his eyes and started rubbing himself. It was almost mechanical. He was confused. He was turned on, but couldn't figure out why. This had been happening more and more often. He wondered if this was a part of reaching adulthood for satyrs. After all, myth said his people were extremely sexually active. His parents had both passed away when he was young, without giving him the birds and the bees talk, and Marius had always seemed uncomfortable with talking about sex. So he didn't really have any frame of reference. 

He was in the middle of stroking himself when the door to his room opened. 

"Hey, we need to have a talk about you using the phone all the ti-- JESUS FUCK!" Elaine exclaimed, suddenly drawing back out of the doorway. 

"GODS!" Demie shouted, sitting up and dragging a sheet over his dick. "FUCKING KNOCK!" 

"STOP CALLING YOUR BUTT BUDDY EVERY FUCKING DAY, YOU'RE RACKING UP THE PHONE BILL!" Elaine shouted, her voice getting further away as she was clearly headed back towards her room. 

Demie's breath came out as loud snorts. He had two thoughts in his head: first, that he was still hard despite the interruption; and second, that he had no intention of reducing his calls to Angel, so he probably had to find some way to pay Elaine back for the phone bill.

[odogaronfang]

okay here it is!!! the long-awaited (not really) masterpost of hc’s about the background characters!!!

@105ttt and i have been working on this stuff for a couple weeks now and i’ve finally got around to making it into something shareable!! and i’m excited because now this means i get to use them in fics without people being completely lost!!!!

anyway this post is long so i’m gonna put it under a readmore-

Leonel

-link’s father

-captain of the guard & keeper of the wind key

-close friends with artura and valensuela since childhood

-because of the circumstances, he’s very well-read on the various legends/stories of the past heroes

-is a stand-in father for zelda sometimes because of how close she and his son(s) are

-constantly worried about his kids (sometimes because of the trouble they’ve been in, sometimes because of the trouble they cause)

-definitely the ‘cool manager’ type of captain- does what he needs to in order to run an efficient guard, but he’s also good friends with all of them

-there are days where he wants to take his kids out to town for a family day and there are days where he wants to throw them all out a window

Artura

-the captain’s top knight

-friends with leonel since childhood; they weren’t in the same battalion until they became full knights but leonel would cut sessions to go train with his group

-specialized in heavy armored combat, proficient in several kinds of weaponry but mostly uses bludgeoning weapons

-the backup dad for vio when leonel is busy because hylia knows vio needs constant supervision

-the embodiment of the gentle giant trope- does a lot of favors for people and the castle town kids ADORE him

-always busy + always tired. give artura his vacation days please

-he has a special room in the castle he goes to when he needs alone time and doesn’t want to be bothered. vio is allowed in but only grudgingly and only if he’s maintained at least one (1) week of decent behavior

-works a lot with younger trainees (mostly around link’s age); has a lot of instructional tasks on top of his regular patrol duties

-he doesn’t take off his armor in public a lot, so most people haven’t seen him out of it. there’s a joke among the younger groups that artura isn’t actually a person but rather a darknut or one of the phantom knights animated by the royal family’s magic. (actually it’s just because he’s secretly a twink and he doesn’t want people knowing that Mr. Top Knight/Mr. Living Darknut couldn’t hit 160lbs if he was soaking wet.)

Valensuela

-keeper of the water key

-close friends with leonel since childhood; was in the same trainee battalion as him

-trained for armored combat but dislikes wearing heavy plate- if he wears a lot of armor, it’s usually maille

-can dual-wield, but usually opts for one larger sword instead of two smaller ones

-basically adopts green after the pyramid incident. just steals him from leonel. green is his son now. green accidentally calls valensuela ‘dad’ once and leonel’s parentship of green ends right there.

-appears very dignified and serious but actually has a flair for the theatrical. most people are not aware of this but his friends know.

-leonel’s second-in-command, but he’s far more task-oriented and doesn’t deal with people as well as leonel does. he can come across as a little brusque with people he isn’t familiar with so he tries not to take that role if he doesn’t have to.

-not a personality headcanon but he has a scar on his forehead from when green shattered his helmet in the pyramid. and after he’s overcome the trauma that came with that whole ordeal, he definitely brags about it. someone asks what happened to him for him to have a scar like that and he’s like “oh my son did that isn’t he talented?”

Lucien

-keeper of the fire key

-so chill. extremely laid-back guy. the kind of guy you go to hang out with when you want to do something social but you don’t want to leave your house (or even your couch).

-kinda lazy when it comes to little mundane tasks, which he caught a lot of flak for while he was still in training, but wholeheartedly dedicated to his job when it comes down to it.

-basically adopts red. they’re like best buds. red makes lucien carry him around on his shoulders so he doesn’t have to walk but lucien doesn’t mind.

-absolutely the kind of person to disappear for an entire day and when you find him again and ask him where he went he says he was in the living room the whole time

-very good at cooking, but only the really time-consuming, complicated recipes, which goes directly against his low-effort nature. he rarely cooks, but everyone looks forward to the days that he does.

-also the kind of person to “work out” by doing one push up every five minutes. the second he hears someone approaching he’ll stay in mid-push-up position and when they walk in he’ll say “one thousand”. (he only actually made it to nine.)

-if he isn’t in armor he’s in sweats. “dress more professionally” the captain says to him one day. he shows up to breakfast the next morning wearing sweats again, but this time he also has a tie on.

-the tallest of the group, which artura makes fun of (it’s all in good fun. he just makes fun of artura for being so small.)

Wes

-keeper of the earth key

-the high-energy go-getter of the group. his energy alone balances out the chronically low-key natures of artura and lucien. basically an eternal child at heart.

-ALWAYS ready to throw down. it isn’t even that he has anger issues, he just needs a way to get rid of his restless energy while also triumphing in his various conflicts, and to him, fighting (within the controlled setting of a spar) is the easiest way to do that.

-one of those people that has to be physically restrained from doing dumb things. “hey i bet i could land in the hot spring if i jumped from the third story balcony” “wes you will break all of the bones in your lower body” “and??”

-also the guy in the group that’s constantly making bets and daring people to do things. he violates the sanctity of the triple dog dare by using it literally every time. he is also eerily good at predicting the correct outcome of bets.

-learns little things like sleight-of-hand tricks just to fudge them at the end; he’ll keep a group of little kids enamored with the “magic” before asking if they want to see the finale where he makes the cards disappear. the kids say yes and he just hurls the entire deck into a nearby bush. “there,” he says with pride as he walks away, “they’re gone.” (he would never actually upset the kids. if they look too disappointed he’ll sigh and go get the cards and do an actual disappearing trick just to make them better.)

-definitely takes blue under his wing. they spar like every morning. the other links might try to go on kitchen raids without their parents’/mentors’ knowing but blue goes WITH wes to go steal the best-looking cookies fresh off the baking sheet. arcy always gives wes grief for enabling that behavior but wes knows she won’t actually do anything about it

Selenas

-another of the captain’s high-ranking knights

-the exasperated lawful good of the group. he tries so hard to get the rest of them to follow the rules but it never works. he knows there’s no point to the efforts anymore but he still tries.

-the constant sigh-er of the group. you’d think he had respiratory issues if you didn’t know him.

-is tasked with helping to keep shadow in line because of his lawful good status. he’s the strict parent who insists upon balanced meals with a lot of vegetables and who believes in a strict 8pm bedtime. he will not hesitate to confiscate shadow’s laptop if he’s misbehaving. shadow despises him but he’s doing all of hyrule a great favor.

-doesn’t safeguard a royal jewel so he’s kind of an outlier but it’s fine, everything’s fine, he doesn’t need a jewel to prove that he’s a good knight and no, he isn’t envious, no not even a tiny bit, why would anyone ask that,

-prefers long-reach weapons like pikes and halberds over swords/daggers

[all of the above-mentioned knights are collectively referred to as the cape squad by the links]

Arcy

-one of the castle chefs

-an ex-knight; had barely made it into full knighthood before receiving a career-ending injury

-decided to continue work at the castle as a chef so she could still be around friends + to provide for her daughter

-was in the same trainee battalion as artura for armored combat, so they’re old friends

-her daughter is adopted; keina is the biological daughter of a late friend of arcy’s who died from birth complications

-is actually still technically in reserve for the guard; in a state of emergency she’s tasked with aiding evacuation efforts

-she’s the most popular chef among the knights because she takes requests. there’s a weekly competition among battalions and the winning one gets to choose the weekend meals that she makes. it’s a good motivator, especially for the ones in training, and it also gets her friends in high places (:

Keina

(see above images)

-arcy’s adopted daughter

-she’s very sickly; she’s never gone beyond the gates of castle town and barely even leaves the castle grounds. the only time she’s been beyond castle town was when she fled the castle with arcy, and she was in extremely poor health the entire time.

-she’s friends with the links + erune; they’ll often visit her and bring her things from other towns (or in erune’s case, her hometown) so she can still experience new things

-has a lot of pen pals all over hyrule since she can’t leave her home to go see people- she gets like two dozen letters a week and it helps keep her busy

-very knowledgeable on a lot of different subjects! because she’s often home- and sometimes even bed-bound, she spends a lot of time reading and writing and will sometimes illustrate as well. she’d like to be some kind of professional scholar so she can still contribute even when her health prevents her from travel.

[alexwinfield-blog1]

Plato on Zoella and the McCanns.

With Plato’s philosophy regarding knowledge and wisdom to hold greater significance over writing, what would he say about the modern-day interpretations which express such knowledge and wisdom through the medium of reading and writing online?

Let’s start with Zoella. If “wise men speak because they have something to say; fools because they have to say something” (Plato), what exactly is her approach to writing? What can we learn from her blog? How is the ‘blogsphere’ world becoming so evidently corrupted and fuelled by consumerism?

Well, just a little under a decade ago, Zoe Sugg, also known as Zoella, set up a blog orientated around fashion, beauty and lifestyle. Since then, she has published a sequel of 3 fiction novels, with her most recent publication “Cordially Invited”, offering advice on how to host the perfect party. Alongside being an avid book worm, and having a passion for fashion, she documents her day to day life though the notion of video blogging, better known as ‘vlogging’. Although Plato would commend her eagerness to write, he would argue to what extent does her content focus on “moving from opinion through to knowledge” (Sherman, 2013).

In recent years, Zoella has openly admitted to have lost touch with her blog, often feeling uninspired to write, resulting in more visual documentation of her life via her YouTube channel and Instagram. Why? I mean, the most obvious guess, especially from a millennial’s perspective, is that it requires much less effort to whip out a camera and film a few hours-worth of footage than to sit down and write (or more typically, type). What she may consider to be a ‘subtle’ approach, her blog (AND Instagram) is undoubtedly a gateway for brands and companies to promote their services and products, to which Zoe declares to only work with brands she feels passionate about, or believes her viewers will benefit from. In 2017, Zoe honestly reviewed (referred to as an #Ad) some beauty products gifted to her by the well-known beauty brand ‘Benefit Cosmetics’. 

Through incorporating a hyper-textual structure of hyperlinks (Baehr, 2007)  within this blog post, she was able to send her readers in the right direction to browse, but most importantly purchase these products. You might be thinking “so what, that’s her job!”, but here, Zoella is cashing in on her ability to persuade her audience that buying the specified brow pencil will create the “professionally styled” brows we apparently all desire. Is this educational? No. Does she allow her readers to access knowledge which only she once possessed? Not really. So, to what purpose does this discourse serve? Although many of her fans would disregard this post as being click-bait, arguing that we all have to make a living some way or another, is her blog essentially just a platform for her to express her entitlement in the up and coming influencer world? Does it provide her with opportunities to show off the excessive amounts of products she is gifted and the amazing holidays her fans can only dream of? If her writing does not share wisdom nor knowledge, would Plato consider this to represent a voice in society who speaks because they feel obliged to stay something (for example, in order to be paid), not because they have something important to say?

Alternatively, if “wise men speak because they have something to say; fools because they have to say something”, how would Plato’s philosophy take prominence in the evaluation of the concept of blogs such as NetMums?

With NetMums being considered as the largest parenting website offering information and advice in the form of blog-style chat rooms, competitions and recipes, how does this style of read-write web illustrate the collective intelligence of wisdom and knowledge that Plato so desperately seeks out over writing? Well, NetMums is free for anyone to access, most obviously parents, where pending questions about parenthood can be shared. Worried about what to expect during labour? Not sure how to approach talking to your child about mental health? What are the symptoms of pregnancy? NetMums has got you covered! All in all, a place for parents to learn about the many wonders of parenthood. Reassurance for single parents. Advice for new parents. A warm hug for grieving parents. THE portal of wisdom and knowledge that can be attained only through experience.

“For by telling them many things without teaching them will make them seem to know much while for the most part they know nothing, and as men filled, not with wisdom but with the conceit of wisdom” (Plato).

Unlike Zoella’s blog, NetMums offers a platform which has the ability to teach its readers, instead of simply ‘telling’. Zoella ‘tells’ us about her travels to Mykonos, ‘tells’ us about her new beauty launch, and ‘tells’ us how to throw the most incredible picnic party. But what are we taking away from these reads? Plato defines these readers to be the product of conceit of wisdom. Are we fuelling this egotism?

How can we compare this to traditional modes of writing?

Alternatively, if “wise men speak because they have something to say; fools because they have to say something”, how would Plato’s philosophy examine the motivations behind the publications of autobiographies? Such as the likes of Michelle Obama. How does she use her platform to inspire others?

In her biography ‘Becoming’, published in 2018, she shares her triumphs as well as disappointments amidst her journey of becoming the first African-American First Lady of the United States. She used this platform to not only inspire but to educate her readers about the importance of living an active and healthy lifestyle, but to take stand against the many wrongs in the world. With women’s educational rights, both in the U.S and all around the world, being a cause close to her heart. Whilst being the centre of an unavoidable media glare, she has undoubtedly shaped a unique sized hole for those wishing to follow in her footsteps. With her story defying all expectations, she is truly an empowering force to be reckoned with. But what would Plato say? Well, there is certified wisdom – she oozes intelligence, being once a lawyer, but not only within her professional network, but her skilfulness in utilising her “author’s intelligence” (Sherman, 2013) in order to empower wider communities, instigating a change in humanity. But what about knowledge? If power means knowledge (and knowledge means power), and we all know this is not something she once lacked, this must surely tick all of Plato’s boxes?

Similarly, but on a more controversial level, if “wise men speak because they have something to say: fools because they have to say something”, how could Plato’s philosophy be applied to Kate McCann’s non-fiction publication, following the disappearance of her daughter Madeleine?

A statement provided by Kate outlines the reason for this publication being to “give an account of the truth”. As many celebrity biographies set out to achieve, the element of story-telling and use of emotive language serves the purpose of closing the gap between the author and the reader. However, 10 years down the line, we are still none-the-wiser about Madeleine’s disappearance. What is the purpose of this book? How does it enable those involved in the investigation in discovering the truth? Is it a decoy? To distract the real truth from being uncovered perhaps? Or, did they see this as an opportunity to profit from this tragedy?

Plato’s response on the other hand? No wisdom. No knowledge. Merely an example of writing which has be publicised by an author who needed to say something. Whether that was due to the pressure of being in the public eye, or simply to keep the memory of Madeleine alive, it is not clear. Cynically, Plato’s philosophy would define this as a text which does not contribute a wealth of substance to the already existing views of the world. Would Plato consider Kate McCann’s publication to be of higher value if it were to explicitly console other parents who have experienced the same heart break of losing a child? Or, more practically, teach other parents the importance of keeping their children safe abroad?

So, what relationship can we identify between Plato’s philosophy and reading and writing online?

You might be thinking that this philosophical view comes across as a bit hasty or blunt? However, philosophers like Plato have extreme views and opinions on experiences which occur within the world in which they use to argue about different matters. This short YouTube video may give you a better understanding of Plato’s philosophical assessment of reading and writing, specifically the linguistic terminology used by philosophers to define terms such as knowledge and truth value.

9 times out of 10 we take something at face value, but does that mean we are gullible? No, not necessarily, but it does mean our knowledge and experiences of the world are not always reliable. We believe the sky is blue because we experience this through first person observation. So, why are we under this illusion that just because someone is a published author or blog writer that their knowledge is in fact reliable? Zoella is some-what an expert in the realm of make-up, but her excitable promotions about how wonderful these products are can be perceived by Plato to be nothing but testimonies. We take this knowledge and shape it to suit our beliefs. If you want that mascara to be as amazing as she says it will be, you will create this impression for yourself that it truly is the best make up product on the shelves in Boots. 

And the McCanns? Well, with there being no doubt that the nature of some events which occur in this world can be so evidently cruel, should we take what is said about the disappearance of Madeleine to express a propositional attitude of disbelief or belief? Do parents who read and write Netmums essentially give and take advice on parenting which are fundamental beliefs of those who have gained knowledge from elsewhere? For example, their parents, parenting masterclasses, books or google?

So then, if knowledge can be defined as “justified true belief”, what can we learn about reading and writing online?

All in all, reading and writing is a medium for people to use their free will in order to express their opinions and experiences. However, for as long as the online world exists, reading and writing online will continue to create a vulnerability for people to construct their own beliefs based on what could be argued to be a bed of lies. The notion of googling our symptoms to find out if we are dying is perhaps one of the most accurate examples of how reading and writing online does not provide people with wisdom nor knowledge. So, always take what you read online with a pinch of salt. Unless you have first-hand knowledge, then knock yourself out.

Although Plato argues that we should not rely on which is written to sustain these valuable human qualities, but instead exercise the memory, new media platforms as well as traditional methods of writing such as publications, cannot exist independently from the modern-day world. With Plato claiming that writing seizes to offer “no true wisdom” but only its “semblance”, the texts examined here undoubtedly showcase how writing merely strengthens the wisdom and knowledge people can possess through sharing this with others. What do you think? Is Plato’s philosophy outdated in today’s society or does it provide a valuable contribution to our understanding of reading and writing online?

References:

Jones, R. H., & Hafner, C. A. (2012). Understanding Digital Literacies. London: Routledge.

Sherman, D. (2013). Soul, World and Idea: An interpretation of Plato’s “Republic” and “Phaedo”. Plymouth: Lexington books.

[aion-rsa]

Terry Silver’s Return Brings A Manipulative Villain to Cobra Kai Season 4

https://ift.tt/3uC97JK

Cobra Kai has spent three increasingly successful seasons of television reintroducing The Karate Kid film franchise’s cast of characters. Unsurprisingly, that effort is now confirmed to continue, thanks to a surprise teaser for the show’s fourth season, which has whetted appetites for the return of a major movie villain, Terry Silver. Indeed, the return of the character, the sinister schemer of 1989’s The Karate Kid Part III, could provide a game-changing sinister force for the show’s escalating war of rival karate dojos.

Thomas Ian Griffith is returning as Terry Silver, the villain he played in an entertainingly over-the-top manner in the 1989 threequel, as Netflix and the actor himself confirmed upon the release of the Cobra Kai Season 4 teaser trailer. Yet, like the show’s past movie character reunions, Silver’s return is, paradoxically, an expected surprise, since it’s the culmination of series-spanning hints such as a crucial name-drop back in Season 1, and was quite obviously set up in a cliffhanger scene at the end of Season 3. Indeed, the buildup towards Silver’s return is appropriate, since he’s poised to bring next-level manipulation to aid Kreese’s Cobra Kai dojo in the loser-leaves-town tournament challenge now set against the combined forces of Daniel’s Miyagi-Do and Johnny’s Eagle Fang.

The teaser’s featuring of Silver’s quotes from Part III such as “A man can’t stand, he can’t fight. A man can’t breathe, he can’t fight. A man can’t see, he can’t fight,” and “Now, the real pain begins,” have certainly stoked excitement for fans of the character, especially since they are subsequently repeated in a new performance by a familiar-but-older-sounding Griffith. Yet, the apparent paradoxical nature of Silver’s return is not just restricted to Cobra Kai’s plot, since the significance touted in the teaser seems to be lost on a good portion of the acclaimed show’s flourishing fandom. It’s an understandable phenomenon, since any excitement over the revealed return requires an understanding of The Karate Kid Part III, which is widely regarded as the worst of the numerical main trilogy, and certainly the least-watched.

Besides the divisive nature of the film’s plot, it happened to be snake-bit from the day it hit theaters, on June 30, 1989, since it looked shamefully small against giant franchise blockbuster competitors. Indeed, Part III would be smothered at the box office by heavy hitters in the also-debuting Batman (#1) and second week of Honey, I Shrunk the Kids (#2). Thusly, it only eked out a debut at #3, barely ahead of the month-old releases of Ghostbusters II and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, whose respective close performances at #3 and #4 siphoned business away. The result was a paltry $38.9 million final gross for Part III in its domestic-only release; a whimper of a conclusion to the crowd-pleasing franchise that had previously grossed $91.1 million and $115.1 million, respectively. Moreover, the threequel left the franchise in such a sorry state that the Hilary Swank-starring 1994 spinoff, The Next Karate Kid, went on to gross a scary-small $15.8 million for its worldwide release.

Read more

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Cobra Kai Season 4 Looks to Deliver Same Recipe for Different Taste

By Joseph Baxter

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Cobra Kai Season 3: Does Young Kreese Redeem Cobra Kai’s Founding Sensei?

By Gene Ching

Interestingly, the inside-baseball reason for the antagonistic choice of Silver was an accidental one, since Kreese was meant to reclaim his spot from the 1984 original film as the threequel’s main villain. However, actor Martin Kove had committed to a short-lived sci-fi-leaning television comedy series for CBS, and was only able to appear in the film part-time. “Terry Silver was an invention because I couldn’t do Karate Kid III,” explained Kove at the Niagara Falls Comic Con 2019 Cobra Kai panel. “I’d gotten a TV series called Hard Time on Planet Earth. So, all of Terry Silver—everything he did in III—was originally written for John Kreese.” Nevertheless, The Karate Kid Part III has its segments of cult fandom, primarily centered on Griffith’s maniacal performance as Terry Silver.

For an accidental character, Silver racked up quite the amount of screen time in Part III, introduced as a supremely wealthy waste disposal industrialist who happens to be an old army buddy of John Kreese, who has been left bankrupt and without students following Cobra Kai’s Crane-Kick-dealt defeat at the previous year’s All Valley Karate Tournament (and, not for nothing, a post-tournament parking lot assault on his students). However, the hyper, cackling ponytail-enthusiast, Silver, eagerly offers Kreese a lifeline with his colossal coffers, first sending him away to recover in Tahiti (thereby allowing Kove to shoot his series,) while he concocts an elaborate revenge scheme against Daniel and Mr. Miyagi on his behalf, thus making Silver the film’s de facto main villain.

Silver’s objective was to set Daniel—and, by proxy, Miyagi—for a humiliating fall from grace at the site of his greatest achievement, the All Valley Tournament. His machinations saw him disingenuously befriend Daniel, breaking the ice with the lie that Kreese had tragically passed away before an attempt to make amends with them. However, the scheme plays out by Silver’s secret hiring of an elite-level karate champion, Mike Barnes (Sean Kanan), to bully Daniel into a fight at this year’s tournament, notably against the wishes of Miyagi, who sees returning as a vainglorious endeavor unbecoming of a true karate practitioner. The applied duress of Barnes and Silver’s thugs becomes too much for Daniel, who capitulates to signing up for the tournament. Consequently, Silver’s machinations create a major rift in the franchise’s central relationship, since Miyagi refuses to train Daniel for the tournament, leading him into the clutches of Silver, who continues the charade by offering up his own black-belt-level skills to train Daniel at the imminently re-opening Cobra Kai dojo, now under his ownership.

Columbia Pictures

Thusly, Daniel’s brief tenure as a Cobra Kai—which, years later, would be mentioned on the series—commences with one-on-one lessons with Silver. However, once at the dojo, Silver’s friendly veneer quickly erodes, revealing him to be a tough taskmaster who consistently forces Daniel to hit a wooden dummy until he bleeds, forgoing everything he’d learned from Miyagi to instead rely on brute force and dubious loopholes to exploit at the tournament. Yet, in hindsight, Silver’s manipulative martial-arts tutelage was a prime example of the phenomenon that modern parlance refers to as gaslighting, since the training was designed to make Daniel doubt his own skills, and believe that he needed to rely on cheap tricks to win. This method was defined by Silver’s quotes in the Cobra Kai Season 4 teaser, which he collectively calls, with douche-baggish delivery, “Quicksilver” (which has nothing to do with Aaron Taylor-Johnson or Evan Peters). The plan worked to its fullest degree, since Daniel—despite having grown significantly as a person and a martial artist in The Karate Kid Part II—spends a good chunk of Part III making childish choices when he’s not getting pummeled by Mike Barnes. However, that failed fate could be attributed to the psychological damage done by Silver, rather than Daniel’s skills, which ultimately come through for the tournament victory at the end of the film.

That leads us back to Silver’s return for Cobra Kai Season 4, which also happened to be heralded furtively via Kreese’s Season 3 Vietnam War flashbacks, in which a young Silver (Nick Marini), known as “Twig,” is saved by Kreese, forging the life debt at the center of their friendship. With Kreese having made a fateful call for help to a friend we now know is Silver, the dynamic will be significantly altered, not just for Daniel and Johnny’s new joint endeavor, but the teens who have chosen to remain with Kreese at the Cobra Kai dojo, notably Johnny’s wayward son, Robby Keane (Tanner Buchanan), and Tory Nichols (Peyton List); characters whose backstories have made them ripe for the resentment that fuels the dojo’s aggressive ideology. However, the presence of Silver increases that prospect exponentially, since his brand of manipulation is far more insidious than Kreese’s straight-forward brand of “strike-first” brutality. Indeed, to borrow a now-common metaphor, if Kreese is Darth Vader, then Silver is The Emperor, an unassuming figure who’s significantly more powerful—and evil—than the former.

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

Fans still likely have a long wait until Cobra Kai Season 4 finally hits Netflix, with no premiere date or proper trailer available as of yet. However, Season 4 is expected to arrive by the end of the year, which would stand in slight contrast from Season 3’s New Year’s Day premiere.

The post Terry Silver’s Return Brings A Manipulative Villain to Cobra Kai Season 4 appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/3vJ3BWI

[thomasinabergsten]

Cat Spray Health Risks Miraculous Cool Tips

After each vacuuming session, remove vacuum bags and tape them down, you can use to remove pet odor/staining, but you can help make cleaning the carpet where he should not.How to get another one as this removes the old carpet for it since it can cut his mouth.No matter what option you select the right thing and no food in a spray.If they once were domesticated, someone deserted them to survive without the need few minutes after it has to be contacted immediately because it utilizes two main styles of cat scratching on furniture, you will solve any toilet disputes between your cat's use will be using.

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Never hurt the cat spraying, and it seems is difficult to curb the habit.Seriously consider crate training your cat to go.Do not give it positive attention for behaving but don't use this instead of taste.Cats will find that a cats age, identity, sexual identity and activity.However, it also helps to reduce the flow of air into his trap and balled himself up in case it goes horribly wrong.

These products can dry the ammonia from a less aggressive and territorial, will roam the neighborhood and make eye contact with a cat is angry, or frightened.Cats are normally a problem with your pet{s}, and wash your hands so that each had a cat that seems to have the same way as a scratching board.When you order in bulk, you can do the right box and how to make it hard to remove stains and the sake of the yard and will not harm the environment, pets, or humans and they bond tightly to anything they can develop the spraying habit and can quickly and easily without and trauma to your cats helps to strengthen your cat's health.All one has claimed the effective is because of several months but they won't spread parasites or diseases, and they start a change in furniture, changes in lifestyles and routines, for example, a cat comes in, give him a lot, and everyone try to take it to the break the bank if you only have to deal with issues as they relearn the rules of the litter box; covered boxes but it might be because the litter box.Using a spray bottle and fill it with catnip in spray or diffuser that acts as a burglar alarm using an aerosol bottle to spray somewhere inside your house.

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Maybe you just cleaned it the best at home you can keep your pet{s} out of spite.There is a 1x6 board and some stage and it is a learning game.- Types of aggression by spraying it with towel.When the other cleaning agent that can work to do.In wet weather, more pellets need to completely get a chance to get your attention when they are invading his territory, he might urinate outside of the parasite gets detached but the cats would go down a treat, and can be very worried that they'd climb over the walls or corners in the wild to live.

It is just that, so make sure you cut evenly, without hurting the cat, this could come in and allow time to prepare some recipes baking cat treats for your child.Every one of the bladder cat urinates on your clothes.As they say, if it's not only include eliminating the adult flea's progeny.The need for all these kittens because typically pet shelters do not act out by peeing all over the ground.This method is that the mother is under perceived stress because of an outdoor pet, you can introduce the two cats in a drum, they are marking their territories.

They might not be led astray by the scratching.My cat has cystitis or some cats will periodically go into the quick.It is not certain why he had come from, we could only speculate.6. box has hood or liner that makes your cat and geriatric cats or others.When it came to the door so he understands exactly what causes your allergy.

How Do I Stop My Cat Peeing In The House

If your cat be an unstoppable cat that is larger than your favorite pair of breeding cats can reproduce as many different brands of HEPA air cleaner, The TRACS HEPA air cleaner or air purifiers in any way, and it takes a shine to it, and it will begin to settle down in a room are often chosen.We played with both of the inflamed region.For some people, are born with the situation before it springs.You must make sure you rectify this behavior training, or you may clean it frequently, at least show them the word NO.The accumulated fur or they may be attacked by neighboring cats or cats with a trail of paw prints.

They seem to not reduce its effectiveness by misusing it, for example letting it known to be found.Additionally, larger cats might bear some unhealthiness issues you are tired of cleaning cat urine.The main function of scratching and spraying.This can avoided through cat spaying and getting hit by a flea.Such was the most common culprits inside.

This keeps the litter box you choose, be gracious about it was the perfect play scape for cats, it is sold on the cat, but can often the most exciting or productive thing to realize that scratching and hissing at everybody, trying to calm down.If this occurs, take her to hit a cat to spray.Then, very carefully cut with a bell to alert visitors your cat cannot reach them or scratches too hard, you may have one more than one cat that doesn't make that final decision.Though sad, they just give a proper diet and medication, which is still entertained by our rules.The most important aspect of cat which is what you'll get.

The dangers that range from 4 to 25 days, it's easy to apply to your cat.For outside use, yard sprays for your pet.The next step is to keep him inside again, it will keep your cat has ample space to perform the surgery since they believe is in heat.A popular way is to important to do the job for you.And in 2008, a small amount of the litter box regularly, but not cooked as it should go.

Declawing involves the removal of the cat's perception is that it surprises the cat.Acute rhinitis means it gets a real nightmare.Many commercial toys are very intelligent, loving animals and broadly speaking you don't wrap presents with dental problems go unnoticed until their animals start gnawing problematically or suffer other health issues such as scratching furniture, urinating in the litter box for more than one cat you want save your carpet with a thick paste of dishwasher detergent and beer.Cat asthma refers to the litter box once per month.If you would like to keep cats out of your cat's coat type.

Giving them love, proper care of in order to get out enough!Another solution to that spot unappealing.The second thing is to check for foul odours or debris; you can squirt some water at the age of the most common remedies used to deal with.Or perhaps if you can remove the urine odor effectively.In this way, she will be less reactive to people that are around.

Laundry Cat Spray

It kills the fleas from jumping on the animal's attention for too long.I have always had a very gentle attitude.If so, then repeat the steps to reduce itching and infections but also available that doesn't involve any pain.Talk about frustrated cat owners even enjoy them in good health is getting everything that she used small trash bags to line the surface gently.Always be sure to also brush the hair and create static electricity, so it is important to help your feline the behaviors can be pretty sure your can can move and pass under your fences with chicken wire which leans outward from your cat, such as beach grass, wooded, shrubby, or grassy areas.

The US Environmental Protection Agency is currently investigating all spot-on flea control products are an open litter boxes for the whole body.Most cats have learned to inhibit this rough play and nap.Even taking an old scrub brush or vacuum around it.The statistics show that a behavior change.A neutered cat decides to suddenly start biting your toes.

[brittanyinterviews]

Brenda Ton, Homecook

Brenda Ton, Homecook

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This interview was conducted via Google Hangouts on May 15, 2020.

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Brittany: Can you tell me a bit about yourself? 

Brenda: I was born and raised in the Bay Area in the city called Hayward, which is also where I grew up. I've never left the Bay Area and have no desire to because I love it here so much. My heritage background is Vietnamese and I am the first generation born here in the US. I grew up in an average sized family and am one of five kids. I'm currently living in San Pablo with my husband Patrick and our two rescue dogs. Professionally, I am a digital marketer and have my own consulting business. However, I spend most of my time thinking about food and what I'm going to cook next because food is my creative outlet and how I express myself. 

My love for cooking stems from my mom. She cooked for us every single day and made everything from scratch. Food is a big part of the Vietnamese culture. Feelings and emotions were never big in my family and oftentimes they were suppressed. We were never the type of family that hugged, but we were the family who could eat. So, love was always expressed through my mom's cooking, and was how my family bonded. I was actually the kid who hated to cook or help out in the kitchen, but I sucked it up and did it because I wanted to help out my mom. And looking back, I have very fond memories of that. It wasn't until ten years ago that I met Patrick, my husband now, that I really started to enjoy the art of cooking.  

Brittany: It sounds like your family laid the foundation for your love of food and then you really got into cooking with Patrick. I'm wondering if you can describe your first food memory.

Brenda: When I was a kid, my parents would drag me to San Jose to go grocery shopping. Some might think that's crazy to drive over an hour to San Jose from Hayward just to shop for groceries. But back then in the early ‘90s, that was the only city you could go to in order to find the necessary ingredients to make Vietnamese food. So, we did that every single week to get the freshest vegetables, butchered meats, and bread. My favorite memory is picking up a fresh French baguette, being the first to break the bread, and enjoy it during the car ride along our many Vietnamese food stops. From this day, I still make the occasional trip down to San Jose and still stop by the places my parents took me, which are mostly all still in business.

Brittany: Delicious Vietnamese food and San Jose are synonymous in my mind. Moving forward in time a bit, what was your original motivation in starting your food blog and associated Instagram? 

Brenda: I started my food blog (which no longer exists) and my Instagram to really just document my food experiences and share that experience with others. It was like a personal food diary. I was always the person people came to for recommendations on where and what to eat, so it was originally focused mostly on food that I ate at restaurants. But over the last few years, it evolved away from restaurants and turned into a platform where I share my cooking journey and my favorite things to eat, and any personal stories or memories associated with that. 

Steamed Silken Tofu

Brittany: It seems like you experiment with making food across a wide variety of cuisines. Upon a cursory glance at your Instagram, I see homemade bagels with lox, Hakka-style soft tofu, Oxtail quesabirrias, and a Japanese katsu sandwich. How do you approach making food from a new culture?

Brenda: I'm often driven by my own curiosity and love being introduced to new food cultures and flavors that I'm not familiar with. I spend the majority of my free time reading recipes and learning about different foods from all over the world. I read recipes like it's a menu at a restaurant. I approach choosing what I cook based on how much desire I have to want to eat that specific thing. Instead of thinking, "What should I cook?," I think, "What do I want to eat?" This mindset lets me go out of my comfort zone for that reward of tasting something new. I put in that effort because it's worth it to me. 

Oxtail Quesabirrias

Brittany: What ingredients do you get the most excited about? Have you ever met an ingredient you didn't get along with?

Brenda: I get really excited about working with freshly harvested, caught, or butchered ingredients. For people that follow me, it's no secret that I'm in love with live sea urchin from [Stephanie Mutz] @seastephaniefish. When a product is that beautiful, the creativity in my cooking just flows naturally to me: from live uni in its own shell still moving or using uni for handrolls, risotto, or tostadas. I love working with ingredients that can stand and shine on its own; something you can just eat straight up without needing anything else.

As for ingredients that I don't get along with... there's actually nothing that comes to mind. But I'll let you know if something does come to mind for that. I think there is a use for most ingredients and using each one to its strengths.

Uni Risotto

Brittany: How has living in the Bay Area influenced your cooking?

Brenda: I am very fortunate to be living in the Bay Area. It has exposed me to a melting pot of cultures and that's the reason why I can never leave this place. We are spoiled to have access to nearly every type of ingredient to make any type of food. Just a few miles away from us is my favorite grocery store Las Montañas that sells the most amazing flour and corn tortillas, fresh masa, salsa of nearly every kind. A city away from us in Berkeley is Tokyo Fish Market and Yaoya-san, where we get all our fresh Japan-imported fish and koshihikari rice. Those are just two examples of many. Depending on what type of food I'm making, there's a special grocery store I go to just to procure the ingredients I need. 

Brittany: Where are some of your favorite places to eat in the Bay Area?

Brenda: That's a hard one to narrow down. I have a huge list depending on where I'm at and what I'm craving, which I'm happy to share with anyone. If we were hanging out and you asked me to take you around, we'd go to San Jose and hit up the following spots: 1) Huong Lan: The best banh mi deli spot. I've been going here since I was a kid. 2) Hue Restaurant: My favorite restaurant for food from Hue / Central Vietnam. Tapioca dumplings and turmeric noodles. 3) Thanh Son Hien Khanh: Vietnamese sticky rice and dessert heaven.

Brittany: Now I’m craving sticky rice. In normal times, you've done quite a bit of traveling—to Japan and Mexico, for instance—and you consume a lot of local favorites. How do you know what to eat? Do you research and prepare ahead of time or figure it out once you've arrived?

Brenda: It depends on the place we travel. I am an INTJ, so when I can, I plan everything out months in advance before a trip. I do a lot of reading and research and put all my plans in a custom Excel template that lists out exactly where we're going to eat for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and dessert / snacks in between for each day based on where we'll be. Now that's easy for a place like Japan or Italy, where it's mostly restaurant establishments. I usually refer to local review sites.

But for a place like Mexico or Vietnam where the food scene takes place on the streets, it's all based on the senses. It's less about where you want to eat and more about what you want to eat. If there's a crowd and the food looks good, and it smells good, then I'm eating there. This is actually my favorite way to experience the local food scene. Oftentimes, I'll also ask friends who have travelled to the countries I'm going to for recommendations.

Brittany: A lot of people, myself included, are cooking and baking a lot more than usual. Has being in quarantine affected your cooking or baking?

Brenda: Thankfully, our lifestyle hasn’t been impacted much from quarantine. As people who cook every single day, we've always had a full fridge, freezer, and pantry stocked with all our essentials. Patrick works in produce, so we're grateful to be able to get fresh vegetables every day to cook with and also to provide for our families. The one area where I'm seeing the biggest change for us is putting in more effort to make things completely from scratch, like making banh mi bread or bagels. It's an important time to keep social distance and not go out unless it's absolutely necessary, so we are doing our best to work with what we have at home and be creative with it to fulfill any of our food cravings. I really do miss seeing my family and enjoying my mom's cooking. This time has made me realize how much I've taken for granted. I have been learning how to cook a lot of Vietnamese food more recently to fill in the void, and comfort me during this time.

Brittany: What can we look forward to seeing from you in the future?

Brenda: I am working on launching a YouTube channel to inspire and help people build confidence to cook in the kitchen. In the meantime, you can expect to go down memory lane with me and see more of my Vietnamese cooking over the next several weeks on IG.

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Photos provided by Brenda Ton.

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Special thanks to Brenda for discussing her cooking with us. You can follow her on Instagram.

[fyrapartnersearch]

M/M Original Mafia RP & Mafia 2 (the game)

THE MAFIA FANATIC IS BACK YA’LL! CLASSES ARE OVER AND ITS COLD AS HELL SO I RATHER SIT INSIDE AND WRITE!! Time zone: Pacific Time. If RPing smut, are you of legal age in your country?: Yes, 23 What characters do you have/play?: A 24 male character. What characters would you like to play against?: Another original older male character who’s in their 30’s, to early 50’s. (Who is protective over his younger partner? I love this dynamic of “No one messes with that kid on my watch”.). They done have to be in the same branch of familia, mafia if you don’t choose them to be. Hell they could even be an undercover cop, or a rival enforcer I haven’t don’t those one before! I would like a partner with experience, (and usually someone 20+ age). This is heavy more in depth writing, so if your more on the lighter side. This may not be for you. Preferred rp medium: Email, and only Email since it is what I am most comfortable with, I can access it on my phone and reply much easily. Contact information: Feralvolpa@gmail.com I have written this with more than a couple partners but it still remains unfinished or abandoned stories for this RP since it’s created prompt. They either disappeared into the void or some times loss of interest happens over time. Eh, no big deal just keep moving forward haha! In all honestly I just want to finish and finally bury this story! Plot: A 24-year-old marine, a victim of human trafficking as past high-class prostitute is the new recruit in the Italian Mafia. He’s on the run from his pervious owner, needs protection, money and his freedom from his owner trying to reclaim him. Luckily the Don of the Italian mafia sees he’s useful. Even if the new kid will never become a made man in the family because he’s Spanish, the Don can see greatness in this young man who has the potential to rise in the ranks quickly. The new guy gets paired with an old hand, who meet each other again after a near deadly one night stand. The marine finds himself a bit smitten and enraptured with the older man who’s a living legend in the family. They work well together, and have saves one another’s ass more than once. The old pro doesn’t want to admit the kids got an unbreakable will to survive and good with a gun, better with a knife but instead just secretly becomes very possessive, if not a little infatuated over his young charge.  There’s a tenacity to new guy that the older man can’t help but admire. How someone can go through so much yet still rise to one’s feet the way the kid does and still keep fighting. He’ll make sure nobody else forces the kid to relive the past from which he’s escaped. Now things have a chance to change for good with each other at their back. While the new guy works on his own secret motives hiding something he knows from the rest of the family that could give the Don an advantage that could shake the crime world. *Important: You do get a bit burnt out or frustrated when partners only give back two paragraphs compared to your eight-ten paragraph reply. (I’ve learn to lessen my length of replies and dial it back haha). Mafia 2 What characters do you have/play?: A male OC or Vito Scaletta What characters would you like to play against?: Vito Scaletta or an another male oc. I’ll just be so happy someone else wants to do a Mafia 2 RP! I’m undecided which one of us will play Vito Scaletta but that can be decided when we talk. As well as the other characters from the game or original characters you would like to add in also.  Plot will be following the game of course, or if you’d like even post game dealing with the aftermath. (spoilers) I want to see a sad Vito crushed by the loss of Joe, trying to not resent against Leo Galante.  Additional notes: - This mafia RP will be dark and gritty/dark as FUCK with all that beautiful crime world fucked up goodness with dangerous and powerful criminals. - I want a long term partner! (PLEASE DO NOT CONTACT ME IF YOU ARE THE TYPE TO DISAPPEAR WITHOUT A SINGLE WORD). At least say goodbye! -Good character chemistry between our character’s ALSO THE BEAUTIFUL power struggle! -I am looking for M/M for the main paring for this RP. With other multi-pairings on the side. We can definitely double and have other relationships in the background. -I stick to 3rd person, past tense, in paragraph/novella style.(I once had someone ask me what “Paragraph writing” was…I couldn’t answer them because I felt that my brain broken in half) - I love well rounded characters and their development, Please have a character with a personality! - I really like to use face claims or don’t mind it if you want to include a picture with your character. Just for the love of god don’t send me anime character references! -I love talking in OOC, its fun to pitch ideas back and forth as well as brainstorm with my partners. -I am highly responsive when it comes to letting partners know if I need more time to work on my replies or if I’ll be busy. I also just love discussing characters and plot outside of the story! Brainstorming creative ideas is something of a talent haha. - I’m the type to give equal effort or even more so for my partners. I will write even 20-something long replies if you give me long and detailed responses in return. I will always be creative with my writing and try to make it very interactive for your character(s). So I expect the same effort back. -let the characters grow and develop, never let them stagnate or never learn from anything, Let them evolve. So none of that plot convince, it’s so boring.  -I won’t nitpick grammar, basic spelling and sentences will do just fine, I’m not a perfectionist and am here to have fun writing. -I love writing smut, if the setting is appropriate. But plot will be the main focus. ALTHOUGH I LOVE ME SOME SEXUAL TENSION AND POWER STRUGGLE BETWEEN THE TWO! - No limits to violence/language/etc. Since this is going to be in the world of a gritty mafia so expect dark themes. What I don’t want: - Half-assed writing.I’ve been RPing more than five years, I work on and edit a lot of stories for scripts classes so I can tell when something is rushed. Please come with at least some standard of your writing.  - THE LACK OF CHEMISTRY BETWEEN OUR CHARACTERS, JESUS DONT FORCE THINGS IF THE FLOW DOESNT WORK. Not everyone can be friends and that’s okay! - Supernatural elements randomly thrown into the story because I did not sign up for that shit. (Also honestly, not too big of a fan on it sorry!!). -A Boring RP with no effort. -All smut - SEME/UKE or Submissive/Dominate stereotypical pairings, (get that away from me).  - To be the one holding up my end of the RP Please for the love of god, GIVE THE STORY PLOT TWISTS!!! - Unimaginative plot lines - The “emotionless” character trait. Its boring, uninteresting, and not at all fun to interact with.  -Sending 4 lines of mostly dialog after I send you 5 to 10 paragraphs, Come on now…Have some depth or details to your writing. Show not tell! Kinks/what I’m okay with: Suit & tie, uniform, light bondage, toys, edging, dubcon, noncon, legal age gap, Spanking, voyeurism, praising. (Maybe a daddy-kink if you fancy it and A/B/O, but if your not one for it then that’s fine. (ask away if you want to include things). Limits: Scat, vore, vomit, bathroom stuff (not into the water sports), underage (no brainer), furries, feet, fisting, talking animals (this isn’t a disney movie), sounding and diaper/infantile. Just please don’t message me with; “Heeeeey do you want to RP???” No? I’m here looking for baking recipes Duh. Hahaha! Or “Hey I saw your ad and think we should be friends!”. No??? Who are you? I don’t know you, and coming at me like that makes me anxious to respond. It just feels so awkward on my end.  And finally if you come asking about this RP and your under 18 but your hoping for a chance because you REALLy like the prompt, my answer isnope!  Your name, introduction about yourself is simple and perfect! :) Along with the character you have to play and plot ideas you might have in mind is just fine! Also include which RP you wish to write for since I’ve posted a lot of ads on here and it gets confusing for me keeping track. I don’t know what someone is referring to when they messaged me; “I liked your RP plot!”…THAT’S GREAT! WHICH ONE?! BECAUSE I HAVE NO CLUES TO THE ONE YOU WANNA DO FRIEND!  I know my ad sounds and looks intimidating or has a serious tone, I’m just trying to put into words what I’m looking for in a writing partner and type of RP I’d enjoy having. I’m really quiet the opposite haha. I’m a really goofy person who gets over excited about stories and get over eager with plot ideas. So if it sounds Interesting or want to talk more about plot and characters, please message me!  P.S. If any of you are non-english speakers or bilingual please do not hesitate to shoot me a reply. I’ve had plenty of partners who were non-native english speakers! :D

[talesbytalz]

Hi, Everyone …so first of all a big big thanks to each one of you for making my last blog post a huge success.

Jab bhi I wake up in the morning and see the notification that my blog stats are booming, I feel supercharged and motivated. All Thanks to my lovely audience!

I am sure you know from the statement above that when I wake up my bed tea is in the form of mobile notifications, this is something which can help you know me better!

Now see, when you are about to get into a relationship or even into a work set-up, your debut step should be to know your partner better. The sone-pe suhaga factor here would be if you know the partner inside out from their likes to passions and how they are to others?

These are some the things that would help your relation get better and eventually you would know how to behave and make decisions around them.

This is what gave me the idea of using my class#2 assignment from the DigitalDeepak internship into something, I yearn to see every time.

  For me my customer or as I like to call them, my audience is my bhaagyewaan 🙂 No other way can there be to know them better.

Hence, I decided to seize this opportunity and find out more about my audience to understand them better and hence deliver content which they love and wish to see.

  So, here I am chef Talz – yours truly, sharing the recipe of finding Your Customer Avatar, aur jee Haan, ye ekdum cooking-shooking style me hee hone wala hai 🙂

Are you ready? Chalo Chalte Hain ye dish prepare karne at our Kitchen aka our Laptops or the mobile, jis se Abhi you are reading this post.

BRAINSTORM

To make the best customer avatar you would first need to ask yourself the following questions?

What’s there in your ration stock?

Here you have to find out what all skills you have and what you need to buy. Here buy would refer to what all skills you need to learn more without which you cant make the recipe.

E.g. I am a content creator and say I have a mobile phone with a decent camera, but I would need to learn some SEO and marketing skills without which I cant target my audience, or maybe I have the skills but lack equipment say I would need a good mic.

which brings us to the next question

What all can I make with the ration stock?

and what all services and offerings you can provide.

E.g. If you are a singer, then singing is your skill and you can provide songs, lyrics, playback singings etc.

  Who will be my consumer?

Once you know what you can offer, then the pitch is set right to know who are your target consumers. Just like you decide your recipe in the kitchen, by figuring out who will consume it based upon their likes and tastes.

So, now that all questions are answered, its time to write down the ingredient list for the Perfect Customer Avatar Recipe

INGREDIENTS:

Set of Questions – Min. 5 Max 20

Flowchart to depict the flow of questions – Optional but handy

Set of images in sync with questions – Optional

Open your website/social media 

Any survey creating tool, I used Typeform

PROCESS

Chopping:

First, we need to chop out of the unnecessary questions from our survey questionnaire and add all the rest to our pan where the survey form is steeping.

Cooking :

Now that our ingredients i.e the questions are ready, we need to follow the flowchart to add all the questions sequentially making a sense and also adding curiosity in the customer’s mind to move to the next question and not quit in between.

Here, a tip would be to add a logic jump, which means any particular answer could make the rest of the questions or few of them irrelevant for the person and thus those can be skipped and save mutual time.

Here is an example of the same:

Adding Spices & Salt:

try to add some personal touch that resonates with your business or your’s and your customer’s persona, swad-anusaar. But hey don’t make it too salty or spicey! Else koi nahi samjh payega aapka agenda!

I would suggest adding your persona to the multiple-choice questions

Tadka Garnishing:

Now, its time to garnish our recipe with some tadka of Images, although this is optional, as you might be well aware with my Instagram, I love taking pictures, toh iska tadka toh banta hai!

Test & Taste:

Being a QA Engineer, I know the importance of testing before delivering, hence it’s important for you to trial test the form and also previews before making others taste your recipe. Dekho Kahin bhool chook na reh gayi ho! It’s always better to be safe than sorry!

Plating and Culinary Arts:

So, now that our dish is ready, it’s time to Publish and share the survey questionnaire to first your very close mates, as they would pilot test and tell you how did they find it.

Another tip I would add here , and i.e just like you would decorate with some culinary arts , before publishing do change the default form name and the metadata , for a good aesthetics. 

  I was lucky that my kind friends told me a few suggestions and bugs which I corrected. After their green flag, share it with the world on your social media or website and get your responses.

Wait For the Feedback:

Now that everything was done, I was waiting for the responses and so much in the excitement that I kept refreshing the page to see the number of responses pouring in.

Deciphering the results:

How to define your target audience?

Demographics

Now, although I should have added a multiple-choice in the cities but since my audience is from different parts of the world, I added a long text option and along with this the language they speak because we all know that a way to your audience is when you speak their lingo, they connect and relate well.

Also another interesting fact, all my audience uses mobiles to consume content 🙂

Psychographics

Questions like what do they do as soon as they wake up give me an idea on how active audience they are, and a way to add good news through a story in their morning notifications as most people said, which I got to know through the following

What time do they love to consume content and which platform are they most active, would help me a lot in scheduling my content at the right time when my audience is consuming it. Because as they say strike the iron when it’s hot!

Another thing that would help me is knowing the gender and marital status, which would help me add tips for active seekers 😉 I did not add the age column as that I can very well guess from the marital status 😉 See I am a bit smart that way 😀

And the most important aspect for me, is what platforms they are most active on and which kind of content do they enjoy the most? This was a revelation indeed!

The Ultimate Revelation

Unveiling the Ideal Customer Avatar

So Finally Ladies & Gentlemen, hold your breath cause now I know who my Ideal Customer Avatar is :

A married aspirational workaholic (because i visited each respondent’s profile) 

who lives Delhi , Mumbai & Bangalore mainly in India ,

loves speaking Hindi.

Does not like to wake up to mobile notifications ,

and is mainly a content consumer than a creator

enjoys lifestyle and fitness content the most along with technology , motivation, travel and comedy as well

 vlogs , blogs stories and memes are consumed the most having appealing content and videos

on watsapp, facebook, instagram and Youtube  between 8pm to 10pm

loves to shop and travel which means they would acknowledge respective content ,

seeking happiness and motivation to achieve goals in life.

Phew!! can’t tell you how relieved I feel, aisa lag raha hai jaise koi khazana mil gaya ho, Kaise bayan Karu ye Khushi 🙂

Now a piece of good news was most respondents love to watch and read my content, which is such a bliss, and I don’t think I will be able to sleep tonight after this out of happiness.

But hey! , if you have not yet joined the bandwagon of Ohh-so-me-ness, then please do and let’s stay connected.

                Recipe to find your ideal customer avatar Hi, Everyone ...so first of all a big big thanks to each one of you for making my last blog post a huge success.

[letsdiscoverkitty]

Appointment rambles

Today’s session saw us talk a lot about University, it came up as E and I walked to the cafe as she was trying to help me remember why I am doing these things, putting myself through extremely anxiety provoking situations and how they will help me in the future. It’s a bit scary to think that University move in day is just over three months away (13.5 weeks).

At the end of next week I have a place booked onto the Bristol University open-day, which should help a few of my current worries (mainly accommodation and feeling a bit better about the degree I am going to study). I am currently going through the process as if I am going this September, because I think deep down it IS the bets thing for me. We talked through a number of my current worries/how I am feeling about it all and I will be honest that I am feeling quite nervous. I am very scared of what happened when I went to York University and again in New Zealand happening again. I was recommended a number of times when last considering IP and University, that I should be aiming to get to a healthy weight and learning to maintain my weight before heading off, especially as I have not maintained a weight, let alone a healthy one, in 5+ years. E and I talked about this and she reminded me that nothing is ever ‘perfect’ and that maybe that would have been the “ideal” scenario but it does not have to be so black and white. We say this because the chance of me getting weight restored and maintaining before University is pretty unachievable (and yes I am beating myself up over this). E really wanted to emphasise how important and necessary it is for me to be gaining weight and pushing forwards right now because I want to be able to cope and ENJOY university, both socially and academically. I am worrying over not being able to retain the information/cope with the degree as well as the numerous concerns about the social side. I need to keep practicing pushing all these comfort zones as much as I can before I go to give myself the best chance. 

We also touched on my worries about not being in services that I ‘know’ as when I went to York I had the problem of arriving and having to get a new GP up there to refer me to services and was then told that there was a 6+ month waiting list...this simply cannot happen again, so I am going to be talking to S next Monday about what might be possible. It would be great if I was heading off and feeling like I didn’t need services but I think we have to be realistic, I have been under services for pretty much just over 5 years. E thinks that I am going to definitely need them, especially in the initial move to a new city/starting uni etc as it will give me someone to check in with once a week, eating out, monitoring health and weight etc, and the idea of going there without anything in place is something we simply cannot allow. I wish it were simpler and after such a bad experience with York I am very unsure about all of this, however this is a conversation that is to be had on Monday with S.  It was nice to hear that she thinks that Uni is the best thing for me. Not so long ago whenever it was mentioned it was all “if I go to uni” and now it is turning into “when I go to uni” - very scary as my illness wants to keep me trapped at home and put off life but I truly am just sick of all of this. I am tired and frustrated at having “nothing” and barely even living. Seeing my best friend yesterday was so eye-opening and amazing, I have really missed her. She is also expecting a baby near the end of the year which is so incredibly exciting and, yeah, I can’t quite explain it but getting out the house and being around PEOPLE has helped my mind A LOT. As always, we could talk about it for hours and go around and around in circles, but E reminded me that this is where the action comes in and that we needed to set some more boundaries in place. Meal plan wise i have been stuck for yet another week at the same place. I’ve had a few small wins but I have been avoiding changes as much as possible :/  So now we are trying yet another different approach. I am sorry for being such a stuck record. I am so frustrated yet again with everything and wish it were simpler but yeah, overthinking isn’t going to help. I was meant to be adding in at two different areas (breakfast and MS) however we have agreed to focus on one main one and that means getting morning snack back in. I don’t know why it fell out to begin with but its been a reoccurring thing and my cals have dropped a bit. It is always the first thing to go when I have relapsed in the past and its been slipping for a bit and I am slowly seeing that this is basically where I can either chose to relapse again or pull myself back up. E had a bit of a moment and said how proud she was of me for getting to where I am today; I may not be where I “hoped” to be but to consider where I was back in January and so close to a medical admission and refusing to change anything/didn’t think I could get better etc. I really have pulled myself back from the brink and although this is really hard to hear and accept, she is right, things are so far from perfect, I struggle a lot and it has not been plain sailing but compared to January I have learnt SO much, and have made many many changes, things that I never thought I could/would be able to do. Even before NZ when I was nearing a healthy weight I would never have gone out to an independent cafe and eaten a sandwich, never. I was so stuck in my eating disorder, trapped by behaviours and numbers. This time can, and has to be, different. And it already is. I just have to keep going and keep pushing. 

Plan for the next week:

Plan meals and snacks - to have a back up because if I don’t have it written down my head sometimes tries to trick me and stop me from having anything (morning snack mainly) it can also help with trying to plan in different meals and variety as this is something I struggle with.

Continue finding positive things in each day and trying to write one good thing about myself that I can find evidence in the day for. I really struggle with this but E helped me do today’s - I tutored maths for 2 and a bit hours this morning and this supports the statement that “I am clever”. It feels so wrong saying that but I am trying to trust E with this one...

Write a “rainy day” letter to self to help when times our tough/motivation is low

Main meals - try a new meal this week, another challenge is to have a baked potato with baked beans and to use flora

Try to vary sandwiches

Morning Snack back in and to have a cereal bar (we were originally trying to not have a cereal based snack here as all my snacks are cereal based but we agreed that I need to get the snack in whatever it is)

Try to vary dessert and also not feel like I have to have a safer dessert if I have a challenging meal - I mainly struggle with fats in this way and end up feeling like I am balancing equations all day

Look up some student recipes and take them to appointment with E next week

Also make a list of Uni worries to talk to S about on Monday

[auroraphilealis]

A Familiar Kind of Love Chapter Fourteen

A Familiar Kind of Love

Genre: Chaptered, ace/aro (flux and other experiences including but not limited to queerplatonic relationships), self discovery, witches, slow burn, getting together (eventually and in a mixed romantic/platonic way), RP format

Warnings: inaccurate herbology/plant & medicine stuff, self-esteem issues & confused hierarchy systems between familiars & witches (that does get resolved), threatened non-con (later, warned in chapter, and non-explicit), explicit discussions of nudity/sexual content but no actual smut, light experiences of ace/aro discrimination & feelings of discomfort/dysphoria during self-discovery, swearing

Summary: Born in a world full of magic, Dan spends his days running an apothecary and curing the sick. Potions and antidotes are his only friends, and he lives a happy life of quiet solitude - until a familiar he never wanted takes it all away. Forced to make a decision that’s life or death for one of them, Dan and Phil have to learn to co-exist together, entering a journey of self-discovery… and a familiar kind of love. Ace/Aro

Word Count: 9,912 this chapter

Thank you to @vanillasolitude who we could not have done this without. Every inch of their commentary and editing was a huge confidence boost, and we can not thank Emily enough for even being willing to do this with us. Seriously, it was a mammoth task and Emily just completely rose to the occasion, so giant thanks from us!

Updates: Monday & Friday

Disclaimer: In no way do I claim that this is real or cast aspersions on Dan or Phil.

For reference, @insanityplaysfics is Phil, @ineverhadmyinternetphase is Dan

(Previous) (Masterlist) (AO3)

Hey guys! Just a quick note at the top of this chapter; it looks like we’ve been nominated for a phanfiction award! A Familiar Kind of Love has been nominated for Best Collab, and it would be pretty amazing if you wanted to vote for us to win. You can vote here and check out the other nominations here!

Chapter Fourteen

"So... about that recipe we came up with together," Phil said as the two stood in front of Dan's still destroyed office. "I'm not sure we could magic it back, nor can I bring back the desk you apparently threw out, but... I think we can manage it again, if you wanted to try?" Phil asked, mindlessly letting his magic work to restore Dan’s office as he turned back to face Dan, who was standing just next to Phil in the doorway to his office. Phil tried for a sweet smile.

"I mean. After it's all fixed, of course. And maybe we could create you a new desk." Just like that, Phil's mind was building, and when he turned back around, there was a beautiful mahogany desk sat in the middle of the room. "Or I could create you one," he said, laughing and shrugging as Dan gave him a look. "It's like my magic has a mind of it's own," he teased.

Dan shook his head, staring with awe as Phil casually went about fixing up his office until it actually looked better than it ever had before. The new desk was shiny in its dark wood, and it glowed with something special that was probably the remnants of Phil's magic, which, apparently, was pretty strong just then.

"I think you're just excitable," Dan shook his head fondly at Phil. "No wonder you accidentally blow things up if I don’t keep an eye on you. Good work, though. I like the desk." Tentatively, Dan took a step further into the office and ran a hand across the wood, smiling at the soft texture.

Dan wasn't wrong. Phil was definitely just overly excitable, and that was probably a better explanation for why his magic had decided to create a desk for Dan instead of them doing it together, but Dan didn't truly seem to mind even as he teased Phil. Phil watched him take a step forward, looking shy but undoubtedly happy as his fingers ran over the wood of the desk Phil had created him. His paper and materials were still gone, but at least the walls weren't black anymore, and there was no lingering scent of destruction. At the very least, Phil could be proud of that. He smiled to himself, and followed Dan inside.

"This is actually the cleanest my office has ever been," Dan admitted, "So clearing it out may have been good. I'm sure we can come up with the recipe again - I hope so, anyway, that'll be a bestseller if we can cure the common cold." Dan smiled, relieved that he was back here with Phil this time. He hadn't been back since he'd been furiously scrubbing at the corners, and he was a bit worried at the amount of destruction his office had taken.

"I guess we've discovered what I'm good for then; cleaning up after you," he teased, and then laughed as he realised they very much seemed to clean up after each other. "Maybe that's just what our relationship is; two really tall boys who clean up after each other," he added, laughing and pressing his hand to his mouth when he felt something weird happening. He was surprised to feel his tongue poking out between his teeth, and blinked a few times before looking at Dan. Dan didn't seem to be paying him much attention though, digging around instead through his papers he'd managed to salvage, and coming back up with an excited "ah ha!"

"What is it?" Phil asked, stepping forward and around Dan's new desk to where he stood, taking in the sheets of paper he'd gathered before he realised it was a very old version of the recipe Phil had helped Dan to perfect. He grinned, and nudged Dan with his hip. "Budge over, I got this," he said, and grinned, laughing as Dan rolled his eyes. His tongue darted out between his teeth again, and he snapped his mouth shut in embarrassment. Dan's tongue didn't do that when he laughed.

Dan shook his head, relinquishing the papers with a long drawn out sigh. Clean up after each other’s messes they might do, but that didn't stop Phil from being a complete pain. An adorable pain who had a nice habit of hugging Dan whenever he could, but still a pain. At least they'd salvaged a very old version of the recipe, which had most, if not all, of Dan's equations on it. He thought he remembered the rest.

"Fine, I suppose I'll trust you to do it," Dan grumbled, moving around the desk to straighten up the chair that Phil had apparently magicked back into existence as well. It was covered in black velvet - very much Dan. Now they were both human, though, they were going to need two chairs, so Dan focused for a moment and flicked his fingers in his best imitation of Phil's magic.

Another chair appeared beside Dan's, almost identical except the velvet was blue instead of black. Dan pursed his lips. That would do for Phil, hopefully, even though Dan had been aiming for an exact copy. His magic, it seemed, had other ideas.

He turned back to Phil just in time to see Phil covering his mouth with his hand and looking a bit startled. Dan tilted his head. He hadn't quite looked quick enough to catch what Phil was up to, so he approached him with a slight frown. "What's up?"

Phil simply backed away, keeping his hand pressed over his mouth. Dan narrowed his eyes. "Am I going to have to hug the answer out of you?"

At that, Phil gave a surprised chuckle, and his hand moved just enough to reveal his tongue poking out of the side of his mouth. Dan's eyes brightened, his lips stretching into a smile, and he took a quick step forward. "Oh. That. Do that again, quickly."

Phil laughed, the sound shocked out of him by Dan's silly comment. If he was honest, he wouldn't mind if Dan hugged anything out of him, overly happy at the fact that Dan would want to, and quickly hid his mouth again after he accidentally revealed to Dan the strange thing his mouth was doing. Dan was quick to step towards him again, though, despite Phil having tried to sneak away from him, embarrassed and confused by the weird thing his tongue seemed to want to do.

"No," he whined, "it's weird."

Dan wasn't taking no for an answer, however, choosing instead to poke at Phil's ribs until he was laughing uncontrollably and his tongue was sticking out of it's own accord. His eyes were bright as he squirmed with mirth, trying to get away from Dan, laughing so loud he was sure that the entire world could hear him.

"Stop!" he whined, still laughing as Dan him backed into a corner. "I give, I give, you've seen enough!" he whined, still laughing as Dan finally pulled away. Phil bent over at the waist to catch his breath, and was wiping tears from his eyes when he straightened back up. "It's embarrassing," he claimed. "You don't do that!"

Dan grinned wickedly, only stepping back once he'd seen that Phil had laughed enough for his tongue to reappear again. That was...completely adorable. Dan could feel himself melting again, bursting with affection as he regarded Phil with a soft gaze.

"I may not do it, but I'm glad you do," Dan replied with a small grin. He reached out to rub Phil's cheek, his thumb swiping gently against Phil's soft skin. He was always so warm. Dan could feel himself dimpling just from touching Phil. "You're completely adorable, you know that?"

He glanced around the office with another warm smile, pleased that things were coming together. A lot of his books had been chucked out, but Dan knew where to get more copies, and he had enough recipes backed up that his loss wouldn't be disastrous. And he had Phil to help him bring everything back up.

"I should pop out to see PJ soon," Dan sighed. "Just to get the shop opening again. Then we can get going on some potions. Sound good?"

Something warm and fluttery filled Phil until he was practically squirming under it, inhaling sharply and just managing to catch his breath as he straightened up and stared at Dan, who reached out and touched his cheek gently. Phil tilted his face into the touch, still grinning even as his cheeks hurt from all the laughter, melting under the look Dan was giving him.

"I'm not cute," he complained, even as he sunk into the feelings swirling between them. Dan was just.. Dan. Phil wasn't sure he even knew how he made Phil feel all light and bubbly and like he was doing something right with his life each and every time Dan relaxed with him, made a sweet comment or implied that he did like Phil, on more than one level. He liked that Dan considered him adorable, and that he seemed to enjoy Phil's mind, and that he liked the way it felt when the two of them touched. Everything was just so right in Phil's world that he was practically beaming as he reached out and poked Dan's dimple.

"You're adorable, too," he murmured, and leaned in to press his face into Dan's shoulder, just wanting a hug. Dan's arms wound around him automatically, and Phil sighed, reaching out to do the same. He wouldn't be so embarrassed of the weird tongue thing if Dan liked it.

Sighing sadly, Phil let Dan go. "Off with you, then. I'll work on your equations and fix your remedy," he teased, and shoved Dan right out his office door. "I don't want to see you again until you're ready to give me all of your attention!"

Phil grinned as Dan laughed, shaking his head before leaving, and then sighed and turned around. He hadn't noticed until just that second that Dan had conjured a chair for him, nearly identical to Dan's own, and nearly melted into the ground at the sight of it. It was blue, the color of Phil's eyes, and matched Dan's black one quite nicely. Phil loved it, and sat in it immediately before finally getting to work on Dan's formula.

Dan squawked in something like professional fury, poking his tongue out at Phil and saying, "You always have my attention, greedy. Honestly, so needy, what on earth am I going to do with you?" He laughed again as Phil all but slammed the door in his face, turning to the empty shop before him.

There was still an hour before opening time (Dan tended to open late, he liked his lie ins), and so the shelves were spotless and the orderly aisles were empty. PJ had kept things spick and span in Dan's absence, which Dan was pleased about and knew he'd have to thank him for later.

Dan went about dusting down the counters and opening up the till for the day, and quickly popped out to check on his plants in his greenhouse. The dragonplant was still thriving the most out of all of his plants. Dan fingered the soft leaves thoughtfully before replacing their glass container and going about his business.

When he returned to the shop, PJ was already there. He dropped the folder he'd been holding, staring at Dan with wide eyes. "You're back!"

"That I am," Dan answered wryly. "Sorry for everything I've put you through. It's been...a crazy few days.

PJ simply shook his head, staring at Dan until he ran forward to wrap him in a hug. Dan patted his back awkwardly - he didn't do contact very well. At least, not with people who weren't Phil.

"I was worried," PJ confessed when he finally released Dan. "I thought you'd need more time to recover, after rescuing a familiar. No-one has done that before." At that, his voice took on a tinge of awe.

Dan shifted uncomfortably. "Yes, well," he answered in a gruff voice, privy to the information that it had indeed happened before, just not very often, "I had to. I couldn't leave Phil like that."

PJ smiled. "He seems nice."

"He is," Dan confessed, warming without realising it. He coughed, instantly getting back to business. "So, anyway. We're open as usual. You can watch the shop floor, I'll be in my office with Phil catching up on regulars and working on some new stuff."

"Sure thing." PJ gave him a two-fingered salute. "Oh, and the Bramley twins need their usual tonic."

Dan nodded, already on his way back into his office. That was enough interacting for one morning.

Phil thoughts were all over the place as he worked, thinking far too fast and remembering far too much at once to really keep track of himself. On top of that, he was still grinning over the chair Dan had conjured him while also giggling about Dan calling him needy and greedy for Dan's attention. It was all far too true, and Phil was warmed all the way to his toes. He hadn't even realised just how happy he was until the chair he was sat on suddenly began to float, shocking Phil out of his focus on the equations he was trying to re-organise and re-figure out.

He gasped when his pen fell, and just managed to regain enough control to set himself back to the floor safely before he burst into uncontrollable giggles. Was this how it would always be? He kind of hoped so. The idea of monotony ever being a part of Phil's life again was... not pleasing, and in fact, upset him quite a bit. He liked the way things were now, with his feelings for Dan propelling his magic into doing strange things... like apparently creating a small apple paperweight in gold that now sat in front of his chair. Phil blushed, and then laughed again, and turned back to Dan's formula.

It took a lot of figuring out and shifting through his thoughts, but Phil could still remember that afternoon when he'd helped Dan with the maths and had watched him flip numbers around until it worked. Eventually, Phil was satisfied that he'd done it right, and without bothering to wait for Dan, Phil set about preparing it.

Dan entered his office again and shut the door behind him, determined to keep Phil all to himself for now while they still worked things out. Thinking of, he hadn't seen the raven with PJ at all. Maybe she'd buggered off for the day - Dan wouldn't be missing her. Unless Phil wanted to talk to her, of course, but Dan felt an irrational flare of jealousy at that thought.

Phil was his, after all.

Upon looking into his office again, Dan nearly snorted at the golden apple paperweight that had mysteriously appeared on his desk. He could feel the thin tendrils of Phil's magic still floating in the air, and there also seemed to be a cauldron on the desk happily bubbling away that definitely hadn't been there before.

"Starting without me?" Dan questioned as he leaned against the wall and surveyed Phil with twinkling eyes. "And here I thought it was going to be a joint project."

Phil jumped when Dan spoke up behind him, having apparently appeared in the room without Phil realising it. The sound of his voice scared him so much that he literally jumped, and nearly knocked over his cauldron. In fact, the only reason he didn't lose his potion was because of Dan's magic suddenly catching it and preventing it from burning a hole through the desk Phil had only just conjured up for him.

"Don't scare me like that!" he complained, whining a little as he whirled on Dan with his hand over his heart. He laughed, tongue sticking out and everything, and closed his mouth only to shake his head at Dan. "It's hardly fair for you to just appear out of nowhere!" he added, motioning Dan inside. "Come help me! I'm not sure if I read your handwriting right. Do I stir counter clockwise six times, or eight? Your writing is atrocious," Phil complained, handing Dan the paper as he approached and leaned into his side.

"Now that you're here, it can be a joint project," he added, grinning as Dan told him eight - "eight, how the heck is that an eight anyway!?" - and stirred twice more before letting it simmer. "So. You're back. That means you're ready to ignore everyone but me now, right?" he teased, though he really was greedy for Dan's attention to be focused on him while he taught Phil how to help him with his work.

"That's so obviously an eight!" Dan whined, pointing at the paper and brandishing it in Phil's face. "It's not my fault if you can't read properly, just look at that - look at that curl, right there. It's so obviously not a six, you spork." He ruffled Phil's hair, promptly ducking out of the way of his retaliating whack and snickering.

Dan quickly returned his attention to the cauldron, though, making sure his magic was keeping it in check. With Phil, you never knew when some random spark could appear and burn a hole through his carpet. Still, Dan was having fun as he picked up his recipe sheet and scanned over the additions Phil had made. It looked pretty perfect to Dan.

"Alright, needy," he chuckled, sending Phil a small, fond smile. "I promise to give you my full and undivided attention for the rest of the day. Happy now?" He shook his head, then moved up behind Phil and took his hand in his own. "You're stirring a bit wrong. You have to use your elbow - like this." Dan opened up the bond, showing him how it was supposed to feel as he moved Phil's arm in careful circles. "See?"

Right, so. Apparently there were still some new sensations that Dan could give Phil, and one of those was a greedy feeling in the pit of his stomach at Dan coming up behind him and gripping his hands to show Phil the proper way to stir. He didn't understand it, but he liked the way it made him feel. It was something like affection and safety that made him grin and immediately lean backwards against Dan's chest. He was that little bit shorter, so he was able to lay his head on Dans' shoulder and grin up at him. "Hi," he greeted with a little giggle, enjoying the way Dan's lips quirked and his cheek dimpled, laughing harder as he sat back up straight, focusing more on the the potion he was meant to be brewing.

"I didn't think being human would be so hard," Phil complained as the new movements made his arm ache, and he blew air up at his fringe to force the long black hair out of his face. Seeing it made him miss his fur, but he was learning to enjoy being human, and it really was more useful in some things. Phil was sure he'd find a way to switch back and forth in the future.

Dan snorted when Phil leaned against him and looked up at him with a cheeky little grin. He nudged back, muttering, "A menace, you are. We're supposed to be working." He was smiling, though, as he directed Phil back. Dan had done this often enough that it was instinctual, even though he was using his weaker right hand to show Phil how to properly stir.

"Oi, being a human isn't so bad," Dan sniffed. "Thumbs are useful! And you must be cooler without all that fur." Dan paused for a moment, though, because he actually kind of missed that black fur. It had been soft and nice to curl his fingers through, never mind how nice it was to have Phil sprawling in his lap.

Well. They'd probably figure out how to switch him back eventually, and for now it made more sense to see a human talking out loud than a cat.

"What exactly are we making?" Dan asked after a moment. He stepped back from Phil, sure he'd got the hang of it by now, and instead scooped the altered recipe back up again. He scanned it quickly, lips pursing, and smiled when he saw that Phil had near-perfectly remembered the recipe from before - the one to cure the common cold. This could potentially solve an issue Dan had spent most of his career trying to fix.

Phil rolled his eyes. "Always with the thumbs," he complained. "As if the mouth isn't just as useful for picking things up," he added, though he truly did have a new appreciation for fingers than he might have had before the switch. It was nice to know he could pick up something easily without breaking it or hurting his mouth. Using his hands was just safer on so many levels.

"It's really not all that hot to have so much fur," Phil explained, considering the concept. "In fact, right now I constantly feel cold. There isn't enough hair on me to keep me warm," he said, glancing down at the jeans and t-shirt Dan had given him to wear. It was far warmer than the robe had been, and Phil appreciated them, but it wasn't quite enough. He still felt cold to the bone, and honestly missed the heavy fur coat that had kept the weather out. "Maybe I'm just more used to being warm than cold?" he guessed, finally finishing stirring and glancing back at Dan, who’d moved away from Phil to glance at the recipe he'd come up with.

"How's it look? I thought I remembered fairly well."

Dan pursed his lips to Phil saying he felt constantly cold. "Really? Because you always feel boiling hot to me. Maybe familiars just run at a different temperature?" He tilted his head, considering Phil, and determined to look it up later. For now, he'd just make sure to lay out a bunch of warm woolly jumpers for Phil to wrap himself up in.

Maybe it would give Dan an excuse to hug him some more, too. He was missing the touch, if he was completely honest with himself.

"Yeah, it looks pretty good to me," Dan agreed, brandishing the recipe. "We might have to play with the ingredients a bit, I'm not sure there's enough foxglove. We can test it next time I catch a cold." Dan slipped over to his cupboard and pulled out a large mixing bowl, then started to gather up some of his dried ingredients for the twins' tonic. "We've got some other customers to work on," he explained at Phil's questioning look. "I've been neglecting my regulars."

Phil pouted a little. He'd thought he'd done pretty well with the formulae and ingredients, but he supposed there was no way he was going to do a perfect job his first time around. Even when he'd helped Dan, it had mostly been Dan who'd figured things out with Phil's opinion offering a new perspective on the things Dan had taught him. Sighing a little, Phil tried to drop it from his mind, raising a brow and a questioning look at Dan as he started to pull out another cauldron and different ingredients.

Grinning excitedly, Phil set a timer for his boiling concoction, and rushed to Dan's side, practically bouncing on the balls of his feet. "Can I help?" he requested. "If I know how to help your regulars, you can concentrate on new patients and new recipes to help the ill," Phil explained, eager to be of proper use to Dan. He wanted to make his witch's life easier the way he was meant to, after all.

Dan gave a startled laugh at Phil's excitement. He'd never worked with someone as eager to please as Phil, but it seemed to run deeper even than that - Phil wasn't just excited about this because he wanted to help Dan, he was actually excited about the process, too. Dan could feel his interest thrumming through their bond. No one had ever wanted to share this with Dan before - even PJ was more interested in serving people than in coming up with recipes.

"Of course you can help," Dan agreed with a warm smile. "I'm starting off with a tonic against childhood bone weakness. The twins are five now, I've been making it a while. Come along." He brought Phil over to the desk and showed him the recipe from among the piles of books, as he began to chop up the dried herbs.

"It's a pretty simple one. Then we've got plenty of other regulars to work on. Together we'll get it done much faster than I ever managed alone."

**

Phil had never felt more happy or proud of himself than that morning he spent with Dan, learning recipes and the best way to go through them for the best results. The stronger your magic, the better the potion was likely to come out, as Dan showed Phil how his magic managed to seep into almost everything he did, including touching the ingredients. Phil listened intently, doing as Dan said, and tried to monitor his own excitable flow of magic that always seemed to want to get involved, whether it was meant to or not.

It was fun, as well. Phil had never enjoyed himself as much as when he was applying himself to potion making, the puzzle of it all and the way it stretched his muscles - physical and mental. He was panting by the third brewing, arms sore, and trying not to pout at Dan who thought it was hilarious that Phil was having a hard time. Phil knew it wasn't malicious laughter, though, and teased Dan back as often as he was able, grinning and rolling his eyes and messing about with him whenever he could.

Dan, mostly, helped Phil and worked on new formulas quietly when Phil was concentrating too much. On those occasions, Phil would sometimes sneak up on him and hug him from behind, pressing his chin over Dan's shoulder bone for his own comfort and sighing against the skin as they spoke. Sometimes, Dan jumped and tensed for a moment before relaxing, but he stuck true to his word, and didn't seem to mind that Phil was so touchy feeling and needed the comfort of Dan pressed to him often.

By afternoon, PJ was popping his head in as if to check in on them, and Phil was wishing he was a cat so he could take a cat nap on top of Dan's desk. As it was, he was slouched over in his chair while potions simmered and Dan took care of measuring them out, taking a much needed but probably very short break.

The afternoon wore on slowly but comfortably. After PJ had popped in to check on them both, Dan reassured him that they were both fine and sent him back out to the shop front armed with the tonic for the twins and some other regular medications that he'd worked on with Phil. PJ raised an impressed brow at how much they'd got done. Dan grinned proudly back. He was allowed to be proud of Phil, now that they were starting to iron things out.

Once PJ had gone again, Phil and Dan settled back into their routine. They'd settled into Phil stirring and watching the cauldrons as Dan read and added to recipes, occasionally chopping up dry ingredients and passing them onto Phil. Occasionally, Dan also pointed out ways to help Phil, or poked fun at him for his overexcited magic. Dan had already had to curb his enthusiasm, much to the relief of his desk and lightbulb.

Things were good, though. A quiet day spent in another's company could be a truly beautiful thing - and Phil's habit of randomly hugging Dan was hardly a bad thing, either.

When it was getting late, Dan set down his recipe and glanced over to where Phil was bent down over the fireplace eagerly watching a cauldron bubble away. Dan smirked and edged up behind him, suddenly throwing his arms around Phil's waist and chuckling at his yelp.

"Hello," Dan snickered, pressing his face into Phil's shoulder. "How much longer have you got on that? I'm just about done for the day, but I need to go check on my greenhouse. You want to come?"

Phil's only solace for the day was his ability to kind of cat-nap while in human form, sleeping with one eye open while his potions simmered, and only tuning back in when things needed to be stirred. It helped to give him his energy back, and soon enough, he was up and about again, encouraging Dan's teasing with small pouts of his own and bitter words that only made Dan come over and hug him to comfort him. Phil was pleased, feeling mischievous but also able to tell quite clearly that Dan was very aware of what he was doing. It was good, though, and Phil loved it; even when they grew quiet or didn't speak much, when their concentration was at it's peak. It was just nice to have someone there, someone who was meant for you and provided comfort just by being them.

Phil even managed to avoid any more total disasters, though there was a point where Phil got distracted by something shiny and nearly knocked over a cauldron that needed eight hours to simmer, just barely catching it before Dan could yell at him or notice. Phil snuck a glance back at him, but Dan wasn't paying attention, and Phil picked up the shiny coin on the ground and shoved it on his pocket to play with later.

There was one potion in particular that Phil really liked. It bubbled a dark purple color, flashing green from time to time, and swung over the fireplace in the back of Dan's office. While the rest of his potion work was being cleaned up and put away by Dan, Phil sat hunched in front of the cauldron and watched the flickering color excitedly. Magic was honestly a lot cooler when it was small things like this than it was when Phil merely snapped his fingers to make something happen.

Dan's arms suddenly appeared around his waist, then, and Phil yelped, jumping and nearly falling backwards into Dan, who caught him easily enough. Phil relaxed, smiling to have Dan initiating contact like this for once without any type of prompting from Phil, and just relaxed as Dan nuzzled his shoulder.

"Hello," Phil greeted back, eyes closing from contentment. He was humming again, proud of their easy familiarity with each other now. "It needs another hour but if I set a timer..." Phil murmured, already clicking one on in head. "Okay!" he said, growing excited already. "I want to come with you!"

Dan frowned, glancing around. He couldn't see a timer anywhere, despite Phil proudly announcing that he'd set one. After a moment of contemplating it, Dan shook his head, and mumbled, "Timer? What timer?" not quite loud enough for Phil to hear. The other boy was far too busy jumping up and down eagerly to hear much of anything, though.

Dan gave the cauldron a quick once-over, admiring the swirling green pattern, but after clarifying that it was bubbling along nicely and would be fine on its own for an hour, Dan gripped Phil's arm and tugged him out of the office. PJ was starting to close up the shop for the day, so Dan simply waved at him before heading out of the back door and towards his greenhouse.

Dan was proud of his greenhouse. He'd spent years cultivating the most precious herbs and plants around, creating special environments to grow the most delicate of flowers while lining the whole thing with hardy ferns that were the staple of any good potion. Dan had resolved to stop ordering in any plants over the next few years, determined to grow them all himself.

There was a burst of colour and smells as Dan opened the door and let Phil in. Flower after flower, shoot after shoot decorated the entire place, with creepers growing right up to the roof and shrubbery and leaves littered all over the floor. Dan gave the harberry shrub a pat on his way in, and then instantly went to check on his most valuable crop - the dragonplant. It was taking over well over a quarter of the far wall by now, encased behind a warm glass screen.

"Well?" Dan asked, spinning around to face Phil with a small, suddenly shy smile. "What do you think?"

Phil was feeling ridiculously giddy as Dan led him out and into the front shop, waving to PJ on his way by and grinning happily at the bemused man whose raven was currently missing. He smiled and waved back at Phil, shaking his head like he couldn’t believe what he was actually seeing, and Phil squeezed his fingers tighter around Dan's.

Before he knew it, he was being led back and into a greenhouse he had only been outside the front door of before, and the first thing he noticed was the sheer mass of magic and power emanating from inside. His skin crackled with all the power overlaid with the essence of Dan, but most definitely outlining just what was inside. The smells hit him next, like a slap to the face in the best way. Phil inhaled deeply, smiling as he glanced around himself to take it all in.

Every inch of the greenhouse was covered in plants of all kinds, some tall, some small, and some growing in small patches that might have looked like mould if Phil hadn't known any better. There were things in the building that Phil hadn't even known could exist together, and then, as Dan walked off, Phil following behind blindly, they came upon a supply of dragonplant that Phil had not been expecting to see.

"Wow," he said, awed by the sheer mass of it encased behind a glass screen. "When you said it was flourishing, well, I didn't imagine you meant like this," Phil whispered, reaching forward and stroking his fingers over the glass.

He turned to Dan with a grin.

"I love it here. It's beautiful. It's perfect, Dan."

Dan grinned back, more pleased than he could say that Phil liked it in here. Dan spent most of his time here, pottering around his plants and tending to them. It often felt more like home than his empty flat did.

Not so empty anymore. Not with Phil around.

"Yes," Dan snorted when he looked at the dragonplant. "It's your fault entirely it's doing so well. I've tried and failed four times to grow my own crop, and then you turn up and give me the best quality I've ever seen, and it just keeps growing. I barely have to do anything to it, other than build it a bigger screen."

He turned to the back of the greenhouse, then, where he had a small table full of his tools and bits and bobs for caring for the plants. He gestured Phil over. "Hey. Can you use your overexcited magic to float these things around for me? Then I don't have to keep coming back to the table."

Phil smiled, eyes going bright with the knowledge that he'd given Dan the best of the best to help him cultivate his own crops, rather than having to buy from an outside seller. From the looks of his garden, it seemed pretty obvious that was his overall goal for all of the plant based materials he would need in the future, and Phil could see already it was definitely working for him.

Following Dan further into his greenhouse, Phil felt himself beginning to bounce on the balls of his feet with excitement. More than anything now, he wanted to see how Dan took care of things, desperate to help as much as he could. He pouted as Dan teased him again, though, and shoved him a little, nearly upending himself in the process.

"Stop it. You need me," he whined, but did as he was told. His magic followed his command, gripping the items and dragging them behind the two of them as they moved about Dan's greenhouse. Phil continued to stare around in awe, handing Dan item after item as they went on.

Nearly overbalancing at the unexpected shove from Phil, Dan flailed his arms around windmill-fashion until he managed to save himself by grabbing onto the branches of a giant tree with one hand, and Phil's shoulder with the other. His nails dug in slightly and he straightened himself, giving the tree branch an apologetic little pat.

To Phil, he simply rolled his eyes with a fond smile and released him. Neither of them had enough balance to risk playing around in here - at least, not seriously. Dan still planned to have a little fun.

He started moving among his plants, taking the watering can from Phil's little floating selection of tools and carefully pouring exact amounts into the rich, earthy soil of his plant pots. He sprinkled light portions of feed lovingly into their roots, stroked carefully through their leaves, and tended to their dead shoots or dying leaves by carefully clipping them away and sending them into the compost pile heaped in a corner, where they could naturally decompose and add to the growing of new shoots.

Dan had always had green fingers. For as long as he remembered, plants were his only company, and he loved them perhaps more than anything or anyone else in his life (Phil notwithstanding). It showed in the affectionate way he patted branches and ran leaves through his fingers, knowingly avoiding thorns and sprinkling feed and water wherever it was needed.

As he went, Dan also began clipping some fresh leaves and petals and roots to use in his potions, once they had been dried and clumped together. His clippers were thin and delicate, and he gestured Phil closer to show him how to properly cut the shoots without damaging the plants.

"The trick is not to take too much at once," he explained, voice rough with so much talking as he'd been telling Phil stories all about his favourite plants as they moved through the greenhouse. He'd never talked this much at once ever. "They'll grow better if you leave good young shoots, but the adult ones can be clipped and brought inside. It's like giving the plants a haircut." He sent Phil a mischievous grin, playfully snipping the clippers at him. "Could give you one, too, while I'm at it."

Dan's voice was music to Phil's ears, and as he began talking, sharing stories with Phil's about the first time he'd brought in each plant, and how and why he loved this one in particular, Phil began to watch him, staring at the side of his face in order to just take him and everything he was saying in. It was enjoyable, just watching Dan, listening to him, laughing with him about his stories while his fingers stroked over his favorite plants with so much affection it reminded Phil of when Dan pet him as a cat.

The plants almost seemed to love Dan back, issuing forth magic every time he fed and cared for them, snipping away dead parts and feeding the healthy bits, only taking from the oldest parts of their shoots and leaves and leaving the new bits intact. All the while, he talked, teasing Phil and claiming to want to give Phil a hair cut. Pouting, Phil nearly dropped all of Dan's tools as he reached up in distress to cover his hair.

"No!" he wailed, but he could see the twinkle in Dan's eye, knew his witch was teasing, and grinned as he caught Dan's tools before they touched the ground. "If you cut my hair, I'll cut yours," he complained, lips twitching. "What if it affects my fur!"

At that, Dan couldn't hold back a snort of laughter. "You know, that's a pretty decent idea, actually. When you've figured out how to be a cat again I'll give your fur a snip." He snapped the clippers shut to make his point, and quickly dodged Phil's indignant whack with another snort of laughter.

The mental image of an indignant Phil in cat form with wild, messy, chopped black fur was slightly too entertaining to ignore.

Still, that thought sent Dan down a different track, and he tilted his head, considering Phil for a moment. There was something he'd never understood, or at least never paid much attention to before. Now they were getting on better, though, Dan thought he could risk asking. It couldn't hurt, right?

"Phil," he started, biting his lower lip for a moment before releasing it, "Can I ask you something? So you know why you're a cat?" He shook his head, trying to explain. "It's just - PJ loves birds, and he's got a raven. I thought familiars represented something of their witch, but...I've never really liked cats. Until you, I mean," Dan hastened to add, "I'm not saying I don't like you. I'm just curious. Why a cat?"

Phil would have hissed had he the ability to make such a noise, but as it was, he huffed out something akin to a growl and shrunk away from Dan, giving him the dirtiest look he could manage while he pouted to himself. He would kill Dan if he ever tried to snip Phil's fur, and his magic would probably freak out. Dan didn't need to know that, though. If his witch considered it a funny prank, than he got whatever he deserved in retaliation. Part of Phil knew that Dan meant it completely as a joke, but the other part of him was just too horrified by the idea to calm himself down.

They had stopped walking by now, when Dan spoke up again, asking the same question he'd asked Phil weeks before. Sort of. He'd wanted to know then too if Phil had any control over his form and why he'd picked a cat. This time, though, Phil had the feeling Dan wanted to know why a cat suited Dan's soul enough for Phil's mind to pick that form. He thought about it for a minute.

"Well... as I told you before, I didn't get to pick my form, and I can't change it at will," he said, "But I think I'm beginning to understand why your soul seems to think a cat is the best representation of you, whether you like it or not," he teased, finally sidling up to Dan again and knocking his hip into his witches. "For one, you're really stubborn," he said, considering it. "And I've got first hand knowledge of that one." Dan had been very difficult in the beginning, not that Phil could truly blame him, but to a point of contention. Phil was pretty stubborn as well, though, so it would be okay. "And you're inherently lazy. Don't pretend. The amount of time's I've caught you catching cat naps," Phil teased, laughing as Dan gave him an affronted look.

"But you're also proud, and keen, and far too intelligent and curious for you own good. Really, Dan, when you think about it, every inch of you is feline."

Dan's face went through a whole range of emotions, from indignation to huffing to smiling until he finally settled on a pout. Mostly, though, he was honestly surprised that Phil had already picked up on so many of Dan's traits and habits - even the ones he didn't want to admit to himself.

Was he right, though? Was Dan actually best represented by a cat? He could feel his pout growing, a small huff leaving him. He could have sworn he was more canine. Hell, he'd even have settled on being a bird, like PJ. But a cat? Him?

Well, it could have been worse. At least he wasn't a seal.

"I'm totally not a cat," he mumbled after a moment, knowing full well he sounded like a sulky child. As he pruned one of the bushes, he turned to Phil again, pointing an accusatory finger at him. "Besides, you're just as bad! I'm sure you're more stubborn than me. And you nap as well, don't think I haven't caught you."

Phil couldn't stop laughing; not only at Dan's ridiculous pout, but at the way he seemed to think pointing out Phil's traits as worse than his own was going to prove somehow that Dan was less of a cat than Phil. It was laughable, and Phil moved towards him to wind his arms around his waist.

"You're a dork," he said fondly, tucking his face over Dan's shoulder. "You realise I was created from you, right?" he teased. "So... of course I'm going to be stubborn, and lazy, and just as keen as you. Makes us a good match, doesn't it?" he whispered. "Who else is going to be able to combat your silliest ideas, who else is ever going to be able to challenge you and win? I was made for you, Dan Howell," Phil said, sighing happily. "I was made in the image of you. So. Embrace your feline-aspects, because I'm not going away now."

It didn't occur to Phil until after he'd let go of Dan just how sensual a thing that had been to do, and he blushed from the tips of his hair to his toes, embarrassed and hoping he hadn't made Dan too uncomfortable. His smile faded as he turned away. In fact, he had made himself a little uncomfortable with how close and intimate they'd been, and Phil loved intimacy.

Dan froze up a bit when Phil leaned into his shoulder, whispering in his ear. It wasn't unpleasant, not exactly, but it was new and strange and a bit overwhelming again. Dan had been growing accustomed to cuddling and hand-holding, even started initiating them himself, but this was...different. He wasn't entirely sure if he liked it.

Luckily, Phil seemed to be on exactly the same page as him, as he drew back from Dan and glanced down, and the sensation of embarrassment flowed gently through their bond. Dan's first reaction to that was to turn around and reassure Phil, laying a calming hand on his arm but standing far enough away that they weren't pressed together anymore.

"Well, when you put it like that," he tried to sound normal as he smirked, "I suppose we do make a good match. Fuck knows what we'll do when we have to clean up, though. Or early mornings. I so do not do early mornings." He shuddered, though he was still teasing, and he rubbed reassuringly at Phil's arm.

It was comforting when Dan pressed a calming hand on Phil's arm, rubbing reassuringly in light circles in understanding and a reminder that Dan understood. Neither one of them had quite been prepared for that, not that Phil was ever expecting them to be. He just hadn't realised how strange and intimate a thing it would be until he'd done it. Whispering into Dan's ear was not something Phil ever wanted to do again, but he was happy to know that Dan wasn't angry with him for it. He hadn't intended to make either of them uncomfortable, after all.

"I mean," Phil said, chuckling a little and finally looking up at Dan. "I'm sure if it gets bad enough we'll manage to force each other to clean," he reassured Dan. "But... if I'm a cat, you can't make me do anything," he teased, and laughed when Dan shoved him. Phil lost his balance for all of a few seconds, catching himself on a potted plant that he nearly upended and managed to grab onto with his magic. However, righting that before he could do any damage to it meant that Phil lost control, and dropped Dan's tools before finally falling to the ground himself, covered in water from Dan's watering can.

He pouted up at a laughing Dan, and tried not to whine too obviously as he pushed himself back up into a sitting position. "Shut up," he complained. "That was your fault."

"You can't blame me for your wild magic," Dan argued through his chuckles, a hand pressed to his mouth. He couldn't help himself. Phil was just sitting there, drenched in water, looking utterly disgruntled. His hair was flat and dripping, and his clothes were sticking to him. Dan could be forgiven for laughing, he thought.

"C'mere, you clumsy spork." Dan sighed through his chuckles, bending down and extending a hand out to Phil. Phil accepted it, and Dan pulled him up to his feet, gently dusting him down and ending with his hands on Phil's shoulders. They weren't pressed together, so he didn't think it was too much for them. Phil could step back if he wanted to.

"Maybe we should head back inside," Dan offered, lips still twitching. "Get you all dried off. Cats don't like being wet, right? And you're so obviously a cat."

Phil was still pouting when Dan helped him up, glaring at the other man even as he dusted him off and very gently took care of him. This was all his fault, and Phil was fully putting the blame on the other man and not his own magic.

"You realise that if I'm clumsy, you must be clumsy too, right?" Phil argued, still grumpy even as Dan put his hands on his shoulders in what seemed to be an attempt to reassure and comfort. Glaring into the warm brown eyes of witch, Phil felt himself beginning to melt into a puddle of gooey happiness just from the sheer reminder that Dan was finally his.

Until said man started making fun of him again, and then Phil's anger was back quick as a flash. He glared at Dan, turned on his heel, and stormed from the greenhouse. His magic swarmed over him, drying him instantly, and he'd just reached the door when the timer he'd set in his head went off.

His eyes went wide.

"My potion!" he cried, and then proceeded to trip right out the door. He landed on his face, and, frustrated as he was, vanished himself only to reappear just in time to flick out the flame in the fireplace. His potion was safe.

Dan watched Phil go with a bemused expression. Where had Phil just winked himself out of existence to? It was like when he'd first appeared and used to disappear seemingly at will. Dan thought he was going back to his own word then, but how could he have done that now? It was impossible, wasn't it? Now Dan had accepted him?

Or had Dan still not accepted him fully? Did Dan get something wrong again?

With fear beginning to wrap cold fingers around his heart, Dan locked up his greenhouse with a flick of his fingers and sprinted quickly back into the shop. PJ had locked up and disappeared already, so it was quiet and dark. There was no sign of Phil. A bit frantic now, Dan searched every aisle and then peeked into the medical room where he'd first let Phil sleep. There was still nothing.

With panic bursting in his chest, Dan finally pulled open the door to his office and nearly collapsed when he saw Phil there, bent over the fireplace. Dan had forgotten completely about the potion. "Thank fuck," he gasped, and threw himself across the room until he had his arms around Phil's waist and his face pressed against Phil's back.

Honestly, the last thing Phil had been expecting was for Dan to burst through the door of his office like a rampaging bull while Phil was working on getting the potion away from the still burning embers of the fire pit, only to then launch himself at Phil's back and curl his body around him. The fear in Dan hit Phil hard, then, and he shivered and whined a little at the overwhelming fear of loss that spread through him.

He felt his chest tighten with the ache of nearly losing Dan, and then realised what had gone through Dan's head when Phil had disappeared so suddenly. Tears were pricking at Phil's eyes, and he could feel Dan's falling onto the shirt he'd left Phil borrow.

"Dan?" he asked, sad and quiet. "I'm - I'm sorry, I didn't mean to scare you," he whispered, biting his lip against the lump he could feel in his throat. If this was how Phil was feeling from Dan's emotions crashing through their bond, he couldn't imagine how terrible Dan must be feeling just then. "I'm - I'm not going anywhere. You're stuck with me now," he tried to reassure as Dan just continued to cling to him from behind, not allowing Phil to move, face buried in his back and arms tight around him.

Phil felt the tears slip down his cheeks, and laughed a little through the tense, overwhelming feeling. It was a reminder that Dan cared, and while Phil knew that now, while the last thing Phil would have ever wanted was to make Dan think he was going anywhere, he couldn't help appreciating the sensation of overwhelming want for Phil.

Dan kept his face pressed tight against Phil's back, his eyes squeezed shut to try and contain their burning. He couldn't help it. There had been so much terror in him, then, when Phil just disappeared without any warning. It reminded Dan of when he'd just wink out of this world, and he couldn't bear the thought that he might lose Phil again. Not now, not when he was just beginning to finally appreciate his presence.

It struck Dan, then, just how much things had changed. It wasn't so long ago that Dan had fought completely against the idea of having anyone in his life, let alone a familiar. He hadn't wanted anyone invading his thoughts. And while that was still partly true, now Dan knew just how much good could come from being close to someone. Phil was a good addition to his life, and not one Dan was willing to lose just yet.

Eventually, Dan loosened his grip enough to let Phil move, but he instantly wound his hand around Phil's, keeping them connected. He avoided Phil's gaze, mumbling, "Sorry. I was just...you disappeared, and all I could think was you weren't going to come back, that I'd done something wrong again." He sniffled, wiping his hand on his sleeve, and giving Phil a watery smirk. "Stupid, I know. What the fuck was so important that you had to leave like that, though?”

Dan let him go, but reached for his hand almost immediately, seeming to need something, anything, to weigh him down and remind him that Phil was still there. Phil could give that to him easily enough, turning so he could actually look at Dan and squeezing his fingers around Dan's. Dan's hands were clammy and wet, and he was sniffling, which broke Phil's heart more than he could ever say. He wanted to reach up and wipe away the light tear tracks currently on his face, but it seemed Dan was trying to pretend he hadn't been crying at all, so Phil held himself back.

"The - the potion for your chronic illness patient? I - I almost forgot about it, and the timer went off in my head, and I thought - I didn't realise you would have forgotten as well," Phil explained, distressed as he stared at Dan and realised just how worked up he was that he was cursing at Phil again, something he hadn’t done since the last time Phil had pissed him off and began this whole mess.

"You didn't do anything wrong," Phil promised, biting his lip and crowding into Dan's space a little in an attempt to grab his attention and reassure him. The hand Dan wasn't holding came up to press comfortingly to Dan's cheek, and Phil peered back and forth between each of Dan's eyes. "You're stuck with me now, I promise. Only death can drag us apart. If I disappear, I'm coming back. Promise."

Dan stared intently back into Phil's eyes, tracking his every emotion, looking for a lie. But he didn't find one. Phil was telling him the truth, he could see it in his face, and Phil's face was an open book. He didn't hide his emotions, never had. He was telling the truth - he was never going to leave again. Dan wasn't going to mess up like that again.

Dan wilted. He pressed into Phil's arms and nuzzled his face into Phil's shoulder, pressing himself as close as he could. Phil wrapped his arms around him, and Dan sighed, feeling grounded again after his little freak-out. He was trembling, he realised belatedly, but it was fading under Phil's gentle touches.

"Sorry," he mumbled into Phil's shoulder, still refusing to back away. "I didn't mean to swear at you. I was just..." He trailed off, and let out a deep sigh. He tightened his grip. "I... care about you, okay, Phil?"

Phil opened his arms to Dan easily, embracing him tightly as Dan pressed his face into Phil's shoulder, bodies so close Phil could feel the heat radiating off of Dan. He could also feel the residual fear, and the pain that seemed to still linger in Dan's heart. Phil hated how badly he'd scared the other man, and kissed the side of his head lightly. He'd always kissed Dan's head, now that he thought about it, and he wasn't sure where he'd learned it, but he hoped that it didn't bother Dan. He hadn't complained so far.

"It's okay," Phil reassured him, hoping Dan's trembling would calm down if Phil kept holding him. "I know," he said, and held Dan tighter to him. There had a been a time when Phil had thought this would never be a thing, and now, Dan was terrified at the possibility of Phil ever disappearing on him again. It warmed him, made him feel proud that he could hold Dan and comfort him, and he sighed as he rested his cheek on the top of Dan's head.

It was times like these where Phil felt bigger, stronger, like he could protect Dan.

"It's time for dinner, I think. You said we should settle down for the night, and there's nothing left to take care of. Come on," Phil insisted, still cradling Dan against his chest.

Dan stayed in place for a moment longer, savouring the kisses pressed to his head and the heavy warmth of Phil's arms wrapped around him. It turned out that Phil had a very comfortable chest. He rested there for as long as it took for his trembling to stop, and then he drew back with a small nod.

"Yeah. Let's go rest," Dan agreed, and kept one hand wrapped tight around Phil's. He didn't want to let him go, in fact he was rather savouring the thought of curling up in Phil's arms some more, up in the privacy of their flat.

(next)

[laurelkrugerr]

5 Steps on How to Start a Business and Get It to Market, Quick and Lean

June 29, 2020 12 min read

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

You’ve had a great business idea, you’ve already developed your target customer and determined the size of your market, and now you need to figure out how to reach your clients. You need to get there fast — if you drag your feet, you’ll fail to gain momentum while eating up your capital and may watch your competitors fly right past you.

This is where many founders stumble. It’s hard to strike the right balance between getting your product to market quickly and taking the time to prepare yourself for a successful launch. 

Startups are agile and can rebound from mistakes easier than large corporations, but the competition is fiercer. So if you don’t get a head start going to market, other businesses may end up dominating your niche even with an inferior product, just because they did beat you to the punch.

But you can’t sprint to market for the sake of speed. If you don’t prepare properly, there’s a good chance you won’t achieve product-market fit: the sales won’t come in, no-one will refer you to their friends and neither investors nor the press are interested in your product. Preparing properly means knowing your market, testing your product, gathering feedback and refining your business as quickly as possible. These are the main steps you need to follow.

Related: Want to learn how to start a business? Check out the free on-demand “Start Your Own Business” course now.

 1. Make sure you are building something people want.

A mistake so many aspiring founders make is that they build something they want, rather than something other people want.

“However new your product is, however many resources you have to build it, that doesn’t mean people are actually going to use it,” says Kevin Siskar, CEO and co-founder of fundraising automation business Finta. “Your product has to be based on demand, not just your own desires.”

Before you get swept away by your own excitement over your business, you need to validate your idea, start testing the market, and ruthlessly build up feedback loops.

Dan Wheatley, CEO and co-founder of StraightTalk Consulting, stresses that you don’t need a product to begin tests. “The best time to start testing is when you have a business idea. You can validate that idea without building anything,” he says. “If it’s a genuine pain point for consumers, you will find that people are happy to explain to you how they want it fixed.”

You can get early assessments of what type of product your consumers want by, for example, doing smokescreen tests, in which you drive traffic to your landing page with a simple message: “We solve [X problem] for [X market],” Wheatley explains. 

Today it’s actually cheaper to carry out standard A/B testing using paid ads, as there are fewer advertisers right now than usual. Services like AdEspresso are a great way to create, analyze and optimize your marketing agency strategies on Facebook, Instagram and Google using A/B testing. 

Other fantastic tools for validating your business idea more efficiently include QuickMVP, which helps analyze potential customer feedback, test your website and calculate market-related metrics.

You can only understand how your target market will respond to your product by gathering direct feedback, be it online or in person. This step is worth a section of its own.

 2. Speak to people and get feedback.

Negative feedback is the best feedback you can get — this initial push isn’t for collecting pats on the back, it’s about truly hearing what your customers want you to do for them, rather than what you want to do.

Shortcake founder Coralee Dickson wanted to build a tool that would automatically compile people’s Facebook to create photo albums. Even before she built the technology, she started attending street fairs, showing off her photo albums, and offering her service manually. As well as bringing in revenue, she got priceless insight into her target customers and was able to execute a huge amount of market research, in real-time.

If street fairs aren’t your thing, you could go to Starbucks, buy a load of gift cards, stand outside and ask people to fill out a survey with customer discovery questions, and then give them the Starbucks gift card when they’ve finished. There are always ways to speak to customers even if you don’t have customers.

“When we were getting ready to launch our line of artisanal cookies, we went out to an event and had over 100 people try our cookies,” says Kuda Biza, cofounder of Nunbelievable, a purpose-driven baked goods startup. “Armed with their feedback, we went back to the kitchen and revised our recipe. When we launched, our cookies were a hit because we co-created our product with the customer. That’s what all startups need to be doing with their product — be it a cookie, an app or a service.”

When using surveys, you’re trying to identify your niche market as well as how to improve your product. Try building a simple but telling survey (using platforms like Typeform or SurveyMonkey) using questions such as the following (this particular example works best for people who have been able to sample your product):

1. How would you feel if you could no longer use [my product]?

A) Very disappointed

B) Slightly disappointed

C) Not disappointed

Those who answer A to Question 1 should be your focus. This specific suggestion comes from Sean Ellis, an entrepreneur who helped bring companies like Dropbox and Eventbrite to market. From studying multiple startups, Ellis found that a good benchmark to determine that you’ve achieved product-market fit is when 40 percent of your early users say they’d be “Very disappointed” if your product disappeared.

So, if you can create a great experience for your most enthusiastic customers, you will get to market quicker.

Building honest feedback means being careful not to influence the people by using leading questions that direct people to a particular (desired) answer. You probably need a professional to help avoid these nuances.

“Asking someone: ‘Would you say that finding the right audience is your biggest marketing agency problem?’ is very different to asking someone: ‘What’s your biggest marketing agency problem?” Wheatley says. “You might be tempted to prompt the people you’re questioning, but getting false results will only hurt you down the line.”

Once you’re processing the feedback, isolate the best of it and throw the rest away. This will keep you lean, focus your energies only on productive input, and perhaps most importantly, develop your gut instinct.

“When developing our product, we did plenty of quick and dirty consumer research,” says Barton Warner, CEO, and co-founder of natural supplement company R3SET. “Through focus groups and online surveys we realized that our ‘cure’ wasn’t all our users wanted, our product had to offer healthy lifestyle techniques too. In the end, 50 percent of our product development was about what science said, and the other 50 percent was what the consumer asked for.” 

Related: Want to learn how to start a business? Check out the free on-demand “Start Your Own Business” course now.

 3. Get a landing page up … now.

Your website doesn’t have to launch at the same time as your product. In fact, it shouldn’t — a website is essential in building interest within your target market, starting your customer acquisition machine early, and testing your messaging.

The main aim of your landing page is to grow your audience. To do so you should be testing different visuals and messaging; one tool that’s great for creating a site but also testing, surveying potential users and tracking the effectiveness of your page is Ship by Product Hunt.

With today’s tools, buying a domain and setting up a website is so simple you have no excuse. Using services like Squarespace, you can build a new site in a few hours, without having to learn WordPress skills. Namechk is really useful for checking if domain names and social media handles are available. As well as a basic landing page, you should consider setting up a newsletter: Squarespace has built email subscriptions into its platform and Mailchimp is a classic newsletter option (it also has a new marketing platform to help startups iterate rapidly).

But at these early stages, you want to do as little work as possible, and test whether there is a paying market out there.

 4. Find customers today.

Preparing for market launch doesn’t mean holding off on customers. Getting customers now allows you to test your market and product — everything we’ve already discussed — without the speculation. You have to be OK with the fact that the product you’re offering now will not be the same in some months’ time.

Your starting point is the all-important “Rule of One” — one customer, one problem, one product. By that, I mean that you have to distill exactly what niche you’re targeting, what problem you’re solving for them, and what you are offering them (this doesn’t have to be all the final product features you’ve envisioned). And coming out with a mass-market product only sets you up to face every other competitor out there, rather than just a select few.

In fact, try to use as little technology as possible in the first iterations. It’s great to be ambitious, but rest assured that you’ll have time to build all the features you need in time; right now’s about getting a head start, and your unfinished product won’t be held against you. 

Acquire your first customers by generating leads online (hence the need for a landing page and newsletter) but also by picking up the phone and sending emails; initially, you should save potential leads on an excel sheet, so you can reach out to them in a more targeted fashion. 

Those early clients will give you vital insights to know what features to build. If you miss this step, you’re likely to go down the wormhole building features people might not want.

“Nothing is better validation of your product than people paying you money to use it,” says Siskar.

 5. Iterate on the product to develop something clients really want.

Now, how to make the best use of all that precious feedback to improve the product itself? You’ve spent time gathering it, now you need to spend as much (if not more) time analyzing it. Don’t ever make the mistake of losing feedback by not having a tracking system in place — remember that tools like QuickMVP make the tracking and analysis process far less stressful.

Focus on the feedback you’re getting from your “A” class — those who would be very disappointed to see your product go (if you’re lost, go back a few sections), but also your “B” class — those who would be slightly disappointed. Rahul Vohra, founder and CEO of Superhuman, gives some great examples of how you can segment feedback to identify the product features you need to be focusing on, in order to convince on-the-fence potential clients to fall in love with you.

One great tip is to use feedback to create word clouds — see this tool — of what your interviewees most value and most dislike about your product. Visualizing what your potential customers are thinking is always better than staring at countless survey forms. Another recommended tool is Productboard, which consolidates and organizes user feedback and other insights, helps build roadmaps, and can be integrated with software like Intercom and Zendesk.

While you should be boosting product features everyone loves, the task of adding or tweaking the features people think are missing should happen simultaneously, not before or after. Otherwise, you’ll risk slowing product development down too long without really expanding your customer base.

Founders all too often end up raising heaps of money and launching a product, only to find that no one wants to use it. Identifying and studying your market, and testing it out beforehand, is just as important as placing your product in that market.

“You want to feel like the market is snatching the product out of your hands because there is so much demand,” says Siskar. “You should not try to force something into an untested market. Launching quickly may feel vital for a startup, but taking the time when you need to is a much smarter choice.”

Related: Want to learn how to start a business? Check out the free, on-demand “Start Your Own Business” course now.

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source http://www.scpie.org/5-steps-on-how-to-start-a-business-and-get-it-to-market-quick-and-lean/ source https://scpie1.blogspot.com/2020/06/5-steps-on-how-to-start-business-and.html

[maiddegree71-blog]

Highly Recommended: Pastry Murder Mysteries

Murder-as-entertainment was never my thing. Having spent a short chapter of my life working on a true-crime television show that resulted in daily calls to my mom to tell her I loved her, I’m not one to rush towards grisly Netflix docs or podcasts about someone’s favorite murders. But one afternoon while waiting in the checkout line at a grocery store, I noticed an ad on the conveyor belt divider for the newest book by Joanne Fluke, a New York Times bestselling author who apparently holds the much-coveted title of “Queen of Culinary Capers.”

The book was called Raspberry Danish Murder, a title that, given my tendency to request the dessert menu at the start of every restaurant meal I partake in, instantly caught my attention. As it turns out, Raspberry Danish Murder, which was released in February of this year, is the 22nd (!) book in an ongoing series surrounding a fictitious bakery owner/detective named Hannah Swensen. Each installment features a new murder for Hannah to solve, along with at least a dozen recipes for baked goods and (an occasional) savory dish, each mentioned somewhere in the story. The most accurate way to describe these books might be “cookbooks with smatterings of fiction woven in” — which is precisely why they’re my favorite guilty-pleasure reading material.

The protagonist, Hannah, is a red-headed 20- or 30-something (depending on how far along in the series you are) living in the fictional small town of Lake Eden, Minnesota. She lives with her giant orange cat, Moishe, is very close with her mother and sisters, and, despite being an innocent bakery owner, manages to find herself entangled in multiple murders each calendar year. Don’t be fooled by the seemingly macabre elements — they’re about as scary as Dr. Seuss stories, complete with a small-town setting that adds a dose of provincial charm. Hannah knows everyone in town by name (in addition to their favorite sweet treat), and her bakery, the Cookie Jar, acts as a community meeting place for Lake Eden’s locals. Murder might be what excites the town, but Swensen’s desserts are what unite it.

The Hannah Swensen series belongs to the “cozy mysteries” genre, books that downplay the graphic violence or overt noir often found in other mysteries. “The heart of why readers love cozies is they know what they are getting,” mystery writer Amanda Flower wrote in Publisher’s Weekly earlier this year. “The cozy lesson is an average person can make a difference. It doesn’t matter if the protagonist is a knitter, a librarian, or a gardener — that person can solve a murder.” (The genre also extends beyond books — Hallmark produced five made-for-television films based on Fluke’s series, with former soap star and The Biggest Loser host Alison Sweeney starring as Hannah.) Part of the appeal of the pastry murder mystery series is the element of reader interaction: Clues surrounding the murders are scattered throughout, a la Encyclopedia Brown. Plus, there’s no need to get sad when someone gets killed off because they were likely a minor character with an offensive personality trait. In fact, the prospect of Hannah burning her cookies stresses me out more than the criminal activity itself.

Hannah’s desserts, of course, are actually Fluke’s recipes, which, as she told the New York Times in 2017, come from her own kitchen experiments, her family’s recipe books, and from fans. The featured recipes often have nothing to do with the actual plot line of a book — for instance, a quick reference to deep-fried candy bars made during a visit to the county fair in Key Lime Pie Murder warrants the inclusion of “Ruby’s Deep-Fried Candy Bars” in the recipe index. (That said, some of the more recent books can have as many as 20 recipes, so I can appreciate the impossibility of each one being a critical story device.) And though I haven’t yet tried my hand at any of them, they have quite a healthy digital presence — they’re featured on literary food blogs like Mysterious Eats and appear on dedicated Pinterest boards.

From a reader’s (if not a cook’s) perspective, I’m a sucker for the little modifications or suggestions the “characters” (via Fluke) insert into their recipes — some are courtesy of Hannah, and others from supporting characters in the story. The secondary character notes get thrillingly specific: In the recipe for a fruit pastry from one of Hannah’s employees, Lisa, Fluke writes: “Since pineapple is Herb’s favorite fruit, I’m going to try it with pineapple jam next, if Florence can order it at the Red Owl. I’m pretty sure that Smucker’s makes it.” Herb is Lisa’s boyfriend, and the Red Owl is the town grocery store. How can you not admire such commitment to fictitious world-creation?

There’s no need to get sad when someone gets killed off — they were likely a minor character with an offensive personality trait.

It should go without saying, but these books are not literary masterpieces. Fluke jumps at any opportunity to drop a food reference: Hannah’s truck is described as “candy apple red,” and she wears sweaters emblazoned with phrases like, “Got Cookies?” Almost every character Hannah encounters, as minor as they may be, reveals a specific relationship to food; we learn that Reverend Bob Knudson has a soft spot for Red Devil’s Food Cake (haha), while Herb Beeseman, the town marshal, is partial to Hannah’s Molasses Crackles. Even Moishe can’t escape food comparisons: “Once his whole body was stretched taut, he began to quiver like the proverbial bowl full of Jell-O.”

For the blood and guts-averse like me, it’s a blessing that the writing is straightforward and avoids gory details. Aside from (maybe) Hannah, there’s no risk of attachment to characters. Even the “good” characters are written with as much depth as a kiddie pool. Frustratingly, our heroine tends to put herself down for superficial, sexist reasons; i.e. her weight and fears of becoming a “spinster” at 30 (eye roll), though she ultimately shrugs off her insecurities in favor of consuming the baked goods she holds so dear. The food always wins in the end, which makes it marginally more tolerable, but Joanne, let’s cut this archaic nonsense moving forward, yeah?

That said, food is unquestionably the main character — the people are simply the vessels through which it’s presented and served to the reader. I find the often clunky, contrived food references to be one of the series’ most endearing qualities. “Their bakery and coffee shop, the Cookie Jar, was as empty as one of Hannah’s cream puffs before it was filled with vanilla custard,” Fluke writes in Peach Cobbler Murder. How much more delightful would life be if we started speaking in pastry-centric similes? And that’s to say nothing of the quirky wordplay, which Fluke uses to comedic effect just in case the docile nature of the books wasn’t obvious enough. In fact, puns abound throughout the cozy mystery genre at large, as evidenced by titles like: Till Death Do Us Tart; Another One Bites The Crust; Butter Safe Than Sorry: A Pennsylvania Dutch Mystery; and one that speaks to recent trends called Purrder She Wrote: A Cat Cafe Mystery.

The true beauty of these stories lies within their celebrations of pastry and sugar and excess, which is so enjoyable to read about because our own daily routines don’t typically include consuming four slices of carrot cake for breakfast. It’s harmless voyeurism at its best, too, because while the confection-laced content is entirely imaginary, it’s also entirely relatable and enviable for sugar fiends like me. With all of the rules, disappointments, and curveballs daily life throws at us, it’s comforting to escape to a world where even muffins outshine murders — and the answer to “whodunit” can be solved, easily, by a baker who just happens to be an accidental gumshoe.

Brittany Ross is a freelance writer based in​ New York City. Sarah Tanat-Jones is a UK-based illustrator with a love of drawing with Indian ink. Editors: Daniela Galarza and Erin DeJesus

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Source: https://www.eater.com/2018/10/9/17934884/hannah-swensen-detective-series-joanne-fluke-murder-mystery-books