#seconded like two months after I wrote this the internet is genuinely so boring it’s driving. me insane

[delicateimage]

I’m leaving the internet forever

[burnedbyshoto]

a brush of luck

— In a world where soulmates exist you can communicate yours with a brush of a pen. It just doesn’t help that you are a certified idiot with a skill in misplacing things. —

⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆

pairing: todoroki shouto x reader

warnings: fluff, angst, soulmate!au, cursing

word count: 4,229

a/n: this is for the bnaharem collab and I was super horrible and was not ready and i just woke up and threw this together please dont hate me uhuhuhuhhh see the masterlist here!!!

message to join my tag list!

⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆

“Hey, y/l/n, you forget this!”

Your hair was falling into your face, your face flustered, and your binders filled with paper seemed to be liquid as they slowly fell to the ground.

Kaminari stood behind you when you turned around. His lips were picked into a kind smile. It was a teasing one too by the small glint in his eyes while he held onto your backpack and phone. A look of self-realized stupidity washed over your face when your head threw back into a groan. How stupid were you, really?

“I’m so sorry!” you exclaimed, throwing your things onto the nearest desk. You felt the tips of your ears burn with embarrassment when Kaminari helped you slip on your backpack and pocketed your phone in the jacket pocket. “I swear I’m the most forgetful person in the world.”

“Well, you do really clinch the title of the person who would forget their head if it wasn’t on their shoulders.”

Snorting, you shoved him with your shoulder, and he helped you regather your things with a low groan.

“Let’s see the tattoo,” you grin, ready to head out once again. Groaning loudly, Kaminari didn’t seem to want to give in to your demand, but still, with a twitch of his eye and a shove of his sleeve, he showed off his arm. “You know what, I’m going to say it—”

“I’m going to say it, I don’t care that you broke your elbows,” Kaminari finishes the phrase with you with a snort.

“Do you think it’s the first thing out of their mouth or matching tattoo?” you asked curiously when you blond best friend also prepped to leave the classroom for the day. 

“I hope its the first thing out of their mouth, imagine how fucking ultra sexy foxy hot that would be,” Kaminari moaned, his eyes rolling to the back of his eyes at the thought. Gagging at the visual horniness of that thought, you walked away, grinning at the way that Kaminari stumbled over his feet to catch up with you.

This was the world you lived in, the world of soulmates.

You weren’t sure when they had first started, but you know that it wasn’t always a phenomenon that was around. When you roamed the internet looking at old, old stories on soulmates, these theories, these worlds were built on one single concept.

They wrote about a world of black and white for everyone until that fateful moment, or matching tattoos for everyone. But no, this world was much more complicated, much more detailed. Yes, in the world there were a lot of theories that ended up being true, but the thing they didn’t see coming was that every couple — every polyamorous relationship consisted of a unique theme.

Kaminari’s soulmate was linked with tattoo’s, and the purpose behind said symbol was unknown, unheard of until he met them. Yours, as you could guess and know, was also different. Pressing your fingers against the pen that sat on the inside pocket of your uniform jacket, you smiled when Kaminari’s arm was thrown around you.

“At least you’ve never lost or forgotten that pen of yours, that would be dangerous!”

“I promise I will never ever forget it.”

⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆

You sat on your bed nearing midnight. You were cocooned into your blankets flipping through your Hero Lawbook that you were supposed to have read months ago, but now finally was. Humming to yourself, you read through the apparent laws and the not so evident laws.

For instance, there is a law that Pro Heroes are not allowed to eat off the edge of buildings anymore! American transfer students had littered so much it became a law!

Snorting to yourself, you flipped the page.

But something warm pressed into your forearm, the most heated energy that sent shivers down your spine. It was comforting as it was ethereal. The second your body recognized the feeling, the Hero Lawbook went soaring across the room, and you grabbed your pen that was waiting at your side for ages now. 

Hi, sorry I’m just able to get back to you. I had a bunch of homework and friends who just let me leave them.

Smiling to yourself, you twirled the pen in your fingers and scribbled down your response:

It’s all good, I’ve been studying this entire time too, was just bored and didn’t respond to you earlier today!

Your soulmate theme was straightforward and quite comprehensive — it was dubbed the Forearm and Pen theme (you hated that theme). You could communicate with your soulmate by writing with the pen on your arm, but it only worked with that pen, nothing else.

The year you were to turn sixteen, you received a pen from literally out of the blue. You remember celebrating New Year with your class in your first year at U.A.; it had been an enjoyable night! Everything in life was still going fantastic, and your class was finally past the excellent friend’s point and felt like a genuine family. You remember hugging and telling everyone good night, still being fifteen at that point, and stumbling back to your room exhausted.

When you had gotten back to your room, you didn’t even undress; simply tugging off your pants and removing your bra, you threw yourself onto the bed. But you had landed on something stiff and painful, groaning your hands shuffled for whatever it was that you fell on, and when you grabbed it, you froze at the sight of the white box. 

Was this a gift?

Your entire life, you had always wondered if you did have a soulmate, most people you knew after all had soulmate markers that appeared since birth. But you were perfectly normal. You saw all colors; you had no shared pain; there was no tattoo, no mind link, no dream meetings.

Nothing.

You were normal.

Sighing, you opened the box, hoping that it was from someone you at the very least respected.

Inside was a silver pen.

You blinked your eyes rapidly, unsure of what you were looking at, there were no initials, no engraving, nothing. 

It was an exquisite pen, and despite what you thought, it was very, very light. Frowning, your fingers pushed down on the pen, but there was nothing that came out, was there no ink?

Shrugging, you dragged it against your arm feeling the way that the cool tip delicately massaged your arm. It felt nice.

“Holy shit!”

Your eyes saw the pretty grey silvery ink on your forearm. It stood out against your skin, the ink appearing nowhere else but your arm, and then it hit you.

This was for your soulmate!

With excitement tearing through you, your exhaustion no longer bitting on your skull, but the overwhelming need to know that this was for your soulmate shook you awake. Twirling the pen in your fingers, you couldn’t help but start writing.

OMG HI

You sat there staring at your forearm, unsure as to what to do next. What do you do next?

Hey?

If your heart could be anywhere but your chest, you were nearly positive it existed within your throat at this very moment. This was nervewracking, holy shit.

Sorry, you don’t know me, but I’m ___ ___.

You frowned when you tried to write your name, it was stopping you.

It seems that we do have some rules to this entire thing.

They responded back to you, and as if they could hear you, you groaned loudly.

This soulmate shit was already stopping your excitement, it seemed.

From that very first night, the two of you were able to discover a few things. First off, anything too personal was not allowed to be written out. So names, location, and gender were the biggest ones. Birthdays were not, and you were quick to find out that both of you were still fifteen. Second of all, just because you couldn’t figure out where exactly you both were located, you did manage to put together that you were both in Japan. Third of all, your soulmate was a Hero in Training just like you and was a male. Last, of all, you were quick to realize that you were in love with the way your body felt like it was gently warming up whenever he messaged you.

I think I deserve a round of applause.

You grinned after writing your sentence, your eyes watching while the warmth filled your body and his writing slowly appearing on your forearm.

Did you not forget anything today? I find that hard to believe.

You had to suppress a scream.

WELL, IT HAPPENED! I GOT EVERYTHING I NEEDED TO BRING BACK TO MY ROOM WITH ME!!

Weren’t you the one who forgot to bring your entire backpack to school the other day?

NO! I said I almost did, but my bestie got it for me!

How do you forget everything? I think you should try to make a list to make sure that you always have things you need for the day.

... I do… but I always lose the list, and im always running late…

You’re the worst…

Congrats bbg, I’m your soulmate

The world really doesn’t want to bless me with a good life, it seems…

HEY, THAT’S MEAN!

The two of you banter for what seems like hours, the night sky fading from blackness to the deep blue of the sky right before the sunrise. You had spent the entire night curled into your pillow, your face shoved into the soft fabric to suppress your chortling snorts because you geniunely enjoyed interacting with your soulmate. But it was late, and you both had classes early that next morning.

Okay, asshole, I need to sleep! I got this stupid test tomorrow that I did not study for. I'll write to ya tomorrow!! Goodnight!!!

Don’t be rude to your soulmate :( but goodnight, and good luck on that test, sorry for keeping you up.

Smiling at his words, you put the pen to your forearm one last time.

I will never ever accept your apology for making me stay up, I love talking with you, goodnight soulmate, sweet dreams.

You placed the pen down, your eyes fluttering close, heavy with sleep. But still, no exhaustion could suppress the fluttering warmth in your body when words appeared on your arm. 

Sweet dreams, soulmate.

⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆

“Fuck, sorry,” you groaned when you sleepily slammed into the person standing in front of you. 

Blinking tiredness away from your eyes — poorly at that too — you focused up at Shouto. Grinning, you waved at your classmate, who looked almost as exhausted as you felt and definitely looked.

“It’s okay,” he nodded at you stepping to the side so that the two of you could walk side to side.

“You ready for that test today?” you asked after moments of silence.

You and Todoroki Shouto were not as close as you would like to be. Since day one, you had always had a thing for the duality of a man, and while it was mostly superficial feelings derived from the fact that he was attractive above anything else, it still made you awkward around him. At the time, your feelings were still holding you down, you always fully believed that you had no soulmate, so you thought maybe you could sweep him off his feet. It was rumored that his scar covered up his own soulmate mark, so there was no way for him to know who his soulmate was.

Selfishly and embarrassingly, you hoped that you could have him.

Then you met your soulmate, and things changed.

But now you and your classmates were all eighteen and held the world in your hands, yet you couldn’t speak to him usually still.

“There’s no test today?” Shouto stilled, his eyes narrowing in confusion, and your eyes screwed too.

“Isn’t it… Friday? We have a Hero Law test?”

“Y/l/n,” Shouto snorted a grin spreading across his features, “It’s Wednesday.”

If there was a god, he would shoot you right now.

Your cheeks burned with embarrassment while you walked faster to the classroom, Shouto keeping up with your pace easily, he was taller than you after all.

“Shut up,” you warned, your gaze not reaching Shouto’s who was staring at you.

“I wasn’t speaking.”

“I could hear you thinking!”

Shouto put on a smirk, his eyes teasing you, and his mouth dropping to speak, but there was a loud interruption.

“Y/L/N-CHAAAANNNNNN!!!!”

Both of you turned to see Kaminari chasing after you, his arms waving, looking out of breath.

“YOU FORGOT YOUR JACKET AND TIE!”

Shouto chuckled beside you, and you stared down to see that you were, in fact, only wearing half of your uniform. If there’s a god, he will end you now, you thought.

⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆

You're not serious right now, are you?

Going on three years of knowing your soulmate, or at the very least talking with him, you thought you had a good understanding of who he was. He was strong, powerful, and kind. He came off a bit standoffish at times but was the dumbest person you’ve ever known. Common sense was not his friend, and that was okay. 

Even at times when the two of you had your differing opinions because it did happen, it never snowballed more into a small annoyance that the two of you would apologize for and move on. But this was something that shouldn’t have had become a fight, it shouldn’t have been anything more potent than a difference of opinion, but when you suggested entertaining the thought of when the two of you would finally meet, he was uncharacteristically cold. 

Hurt by his tone, you told him, and he said you to grow up until it became this written fight.

Why couldn’t you talk about meeting?

Why didn’t he want to think about what would happen when the two of you would meet?

It was getting ugly for no reason, a fight just to fight, and it was making you nauseous.

But he crossed a line that couldn’t be fixed when he wrote a simple sentence:

Just because you’re my soulmate doesn’t mean I have to love you, meet you, or marry you.

So there you sat, your bottom lip trembling with tears streaking down your blotchy face. He wasn’t being serious, was he? There was no way… no fucking way this was him. The warmth that flooded your body with his new message felt ice-cold, poisoning you from the inside out while you read it.

You're my soulmate, but I have no obligation to do anything with you now or ever. The world chose you for me, not me. I didn’t choose you. I don’t owe you anything here. Soulmates are bullshit and don’t fucking bother messaging me again if you expect me to fall in love with you just because our “souls are connected”

It was needless to say that you didn’t respond back, not because you felt like he should love you because of your connected souls, but because your sobbing and broken emotions left you curled into a ball, ready for a sleepless slumber to take you.

⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆

“You don’t look too hot,” Kaminari told you, hitting you with his foot when your bleary and puffy eyes stared at your best friend.

Kirishima and Mina, who were sitting beside him, elbowed him at the same time, berating him for his insensitive comment. You could feel Sero and Bakugou staring at you, their eyes concerned and curious. 

“What’s eating ya up?” Sero asked, and you found a rock-forming in your throat when you shrugged.

“Soulmate problems…”

“That was fucking obvious,” Bakugou rolled his eyes, taking a drink of his water. “Tell us the problem, not a stupid summary.”

Surprisingly that’s all it took for you to come undone, and you explained what happened with tears falling down your face and a sniffling nose. There was a lot to tell them about it, and you showed them the pen while explaining the entire story. They listened to every word you uttered, faces concern but taking in everything you said.

“You’re an idiot,” Bakugou spoke the second you were finished, his eye twitching while he glared at you. You swallowed thickly, placing the pen on the table while Bakugou edged closer towards you. “He’s not wrong, you know, stupid fucking soulmates are just this irrational solution to an irrational problem. Love is much more complex than that, and you don’t seem to have been fighting for him in that way either, sure you seem like good friends, but that doesn’t give you the right to expect him to love you. But he was a complete fucking dick about it, so I say kill him.”

Your — and all of the rest of your friend group — eyes widened at his words. With nothing to follow him up, you all continued to stare at him while he munched on his food.

“WHAT ARE YOU FUCKING EXTRAS LOOKING AT!”

“Is Bakugou a love expert?” Mina’s stage whispered to the group.

“He almost was, but then he said to kill y/n’s soulmate, so probably not anymore,” Kirishima responded back.

“SHUT THE HELL UP BEFORE I KILL YOU!”

⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆

It took four days before the warm feeling shot through your body again.

Fuck, I'm really sorry, I was a complete fucking dick. I said a lot of things, and i didn’t mean to say I was angry and upset, and I know that you're upset, rightfully upset, but i don’t want to lose you.

No matter how long it took for him to get back to you, your heart squeezed with euphoria and poison, your hands moving to grab your pen in your pocket.

It wasn’t there.

Oh no. Oh no. Oh no. Oh no. Oh no. Oh no. Oh no. Oh no. Oh no. Oh no. Oh no. Oh no. Oh no. Oh no. Oh no. Oh no. Oh no. Oh no. Oh no. Oh no. Oh no. Oh no. Oh no. Oh no. Oh no. Oh no.

You tore apart your room, trying to find the silver pen but you couldn’t find it.

Stay as mad as you want, I just… please talk with me soon, even if it takes five days. I'm sorry, soulmate.

Frustrated tears poured down your face, nausea almost making you wheeze when you stared at the words you wanted to reply to.

⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆

One day after he apologized:

Don’t want to bother you, just wanted to apologize again and say that I miss you, talk to you soon.

⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆

Five days after he apologized:

I’m not really sure if this is normal or not… I'm not really… educated when it comes to romance and shit like that, especially when it comes to someone being upset with the other… my female classmates told me that I should expect a response from you soon. I'm really sorry, please write soon.

⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆

So it seems that i’ve fucked up to the point of no return. I'm sorry, I miss you, I love you. Maybe one day I can reconvince you that I'm your soulmate for a good reason, but I guess I’ll have to work on that.

It had been fourteen days since he had apologized, and you sat in your room with tears streaming down your face. You wanted to respond back, but even fourteen days of tirelessly searching U.A.’s entire campus, ripping it stone by stone, there was no finding your pen. Every day without fail, he gave you an update of his day and another apology. Every day they got more hopeless, more pained.

This was his last message for a while, he needed time to work things out with himself now, the strain of this and graduation coming soon being too much to handle at the moment. 

Wiping your tears for what felt like the hundredth time within this past twenty minutes, you stood up on your wobbly legs to go downstairs for water. You were dehydrated and absolutely needed to get out for both fresh air and water.

Walking down the stairwell with swollen eyes, you groaned when you slammed into a body when you opened the door to the common area. 

Shouto blinked down at you, and you felt your throat clampdown at the pained look in his own eyes.

“Have you been—”

“Are you—”

You both spoke over each other, and despite the horrid feeling coursing through your bones, you cracked a smile.

“I’m getting water,” you explained with a shrug. “Long night ya know, just needed to replenish my system so I can cry some more.”

Shouto stared at you, and with horror, you realized precisely what you had said.

“Oh my god, ignore me!” you squeak, covering your face trying to move past him, but Shouto seemed to be curious now and followed after you.

“What’s making you cry?” he asked while you rush to the fridge to get your glass of water.

“What’s got you upset?” you counter downing the cup of water.

Shouto sighed, leaning against the counter of the island in the kitchen. “Would it be weird to say its soulmate issues?”

Swallowing the water in your mouth, you shook your head, a tired smile on your face, “Embarrassingly enough, my issue is also with soulmate stuff.”

A joyless chuckle escaped his mouth, and Shouto’s head tilted backward. You studied his jaw and the way his body seemed tense, too tense.

“What happened?” you press gently standing next to him, shouldering him gently.

“I fucked up, and now my soulmate won’t talk with me,” he says slowly, his head nodding while he glances at you. “I guess telling your soulmate you don’t want them is a bad thing.”

You snorted, nodding your head in agreement, “It’s not just a bad thing, its a super fucked up thing.”

Shouto sighed in agreement, and there was silence when you took another drink of your water.

“I didn’t know you were in contact with your soulmate, though,” you smile wistfully, your hand twirling the cup on the counter. “How’d you meet them?”

“I actually don’t know who they are,” Shouto admitted with pursed lips, and your eyebrows scrunched in confusion. “I have that soulmate thing where you write on your arm, and they can read it.”

Showing off his arm, you glanced at the pale skin. You nodded your head when he pulled out a silver pen that looked similar to yours.

“Well,” you shrug your shoulders, motioning him to write. “I’m no expert, but let’s see if I can help you get your soulmate to forgive you.”

“T-They haven’t responded to me in two weeks…” Shouto’s voice cracks, and the number burns a hole through your stomach. “I’ve written every day, but no answer. I don’t really know what to do, and all the girls in the class don’t really know what to do. Bakugou also said to go fuck myself over it, so I don’t think I really have had any help.”

Ignoring the twisting in your stomach, you willed your weirdness away to shuffle in your seat, “Well, you haven’t asked me, asshole, come on, let’s see what I can do.”

Shouto chuckles, his head nodding, “That is true, but to be fair, you’ve been anywhere, but in the dorm these past few weeks.”

“I lost something,” you mutter embarrassed, but you shake away your problems and point at his wrist. “Write an apology.”

You watched when he wrote, the words expressing his apology and love seeping through the silvery ink on his wrist. You told him to add things to delete things, but in the end, it ended up feeling like a genuine and sincere apology. You watched his pen leave his skin and a warmth shot through your arm. 

Shivering, you looked at your arm, trying to see what your soulmate had written to you even though he said he was going to stop.

The words he wrote appeared on your skin.

Your eyes widened when you stared at Shouto, who was also staring at your arm. 

Your eyes met in an almost world-altering way. This entire time, for three whole years, the two of you had been by each other and never knew. Midnight conversations wasted through ink instead of face to face. Your heart hammered in your throat, and tears once again poured from your eyes when you both stood at full height, staring at each other.

Todoroki Shouto was your soulmate — he was yours, and you were his.

“I’m so sorry, y/n, I don’t know what happened to me. You didn’t deserve that, and fuck, I’m so sorry—”

“I lost my pen, and I couldn’t respond back, I forgave you, but I had no way of reaching back! But I was always forcing myself onto you—”

You both interrupted the other, and now you stared at each other, drinking in the presence of each other and belittling yourselves for not knowing sooner; looking at it now, it was just so obvious. You can’t help it and pull him into a hug. His strong arms wrap around you, and you can hear his hammering heart on your ear, and it fills you up with the familiar warmth when he writes you. This seemed to be a brush of luck it seems.

“Can I kiss you, soulmate.”

“Please do.”

[moonlightserenadeeznutz]

Warlocks Are Attacking: Full muggle timeline.

(Hello internet, welllllcome to film theory!)

This is a detailed timeline of the headcanon I made about James Sirius Potter being in a band, specifically the tl during which the band pretended to be a lost 80s band in the muggle world, explained in this post (which I recommend reading first otherwise you may be quite confused).

This is honestly a super random thing I wrote when I was bored, but I ended up getting super invested in it so guess what, you guys are subjected to it as well now!

Written in the style of a YouTube video, I’ve heavily based the discography of Warlocks are Attacking on the band I Don’t Know How But They Found Me.

Enjoy!

~ On April 17th 2025, a piano cover of The Scientist by Coldplay was released on the YouTube channel JSHarkness04. A completely ordinary- if not low quality- video where the person behind the camera is neither seen nor heard.

More covers are uploaded over the coming months in the same style, and really the channel gains no special interest or notoriety. A few edit videos are uploaded, the usual crack stuff, and a few more covers.

On January 23rd 2026, a vlog is released showing the YouTuber moving into his new house. We finally hear and see the person behind the camera, a British dude around early twenties whose name is revealed to be Alex, and his girlfriend. Again, there’s nothing out of the ordinary in this video, and it’s only a few minutes long.

A few more piano covers are uploaded, as well as another edit video, and then...

This is where it starts.

On May 3rd 2026, a video is uploaded entitled “Warlocks are Attacking”. In it, Alex talks about how he was clearing out the attic of his new home when he came across some old cassette tapes. All the tapes had writing on them, all different, except for the phrase “Warlocks are Attacking”. Judging by the labels, it appeared to be the name of a band, while the rest of the writing could be taken as song titles: Bleed Magic, Do It All The Time, Nobody Likes the Opening Band, etc. Alex said he had listened to some of the tapes, and confirmed that they were songs correlating with the titles. Alex said he’d never heard of the songs before, nor could he find any trace of the band’s existence online, but that some of the tapes had been dated 1986.

This video didn’t really have a conclusion, but only two days after it was uploaded, another video- only a minute long- was uploaded entitled “New Channel”, where Alex explains that he would be setting up a new YouTube channel to showcase the songs he’d found on the tapes, and hopefully be able to find out who the band was.

On May 25th, two videos on Alex’s new channel, given the name “Warlocks are Attacking” were uploaded. The first one was 30 seconds long entitled “Introduction”, which was nothing more than a man’s voice introducing the band. It didn’t cause much suspicion, especially since the record label that the band was apparently signed to was called “None You Jerk”, obviously a fake label. So the introduction could most likely just be a joke made by the band and recorded.

The second video was a simple lyric video for the song “Nobody Likes the Opening Band”. And in the description he explained the story again of how he found the tapes, and asked if anyone knew the song, or the band.

More songs were uploaded, Choke, Bleed Magic, Absinthe etc. And soon the channel started to grow, both from people who genuinely enjoyed the music, and people who were intrigued as to whether or not this really was a lost 80s band, or whether the entire thing was fake.

Theories started circulating, and people started to try and find hidden messages. They started with the username of the original channel JSHarkness04 but search J Harkness, or even JS Harkness, and the only real result you get is Captain Jack Harkness from Doctor Who. So it seemed that the only thing that the username implied was that the YouTuber was perhaps a Doctor Who fan.

People searched for hidden meanings in the piano covers, the moving house vlog, even the random edits. But no one came up with anything. So eventually people started to give up and accepted the fact that the whole thing was real, and the songs really were from old cassette tapes found in some guy’s attic.

That being said, there were a select few people who just weren’t convinced. Mainly because of the fact that the songs were good. They weren’t experimental pieces from a band trying to find its sound. They had their sound. They knew what they were doing. So how come no one had ever heard of them? Did they really never play these songs to anyone? Not even for an underground gig?

Well, that’s the thing. There’s no saying they didn’t. If you heard a song forty years ago at some random gig, would you remember? And even so, a number of things could have happened that would have stopped the band from ever having their songs released. Maybe they broke up, maybe they couldn’t find anyone who wanted to pick up their songs, maybe they died was one theory someone had.

Point is, the quality and consistency of the songs was really the only evidence that this whole thing was fake, and even that evidence was sketchy.

But then, on November 7th 2026, an altogether different video was uploaded titled “Comfortably Numb- Pink Floyd (cover by Warlocks are Attacking) (found footage!)”

In the description of this video, Alex claims that he found some video tapes in the attic that had been hidden away. A few had been recorded over, but he was able to find a few complete videos of the band.

In this video, we see three band members in what looks like a garage jamming out a cover of Pink Floyd’s Comfortably Numb. And people went crazy. Not only did we finally see what the band members looked like, but we also found out their names. The video, which was dated 1983, had credits edited to the beginning, easily done in the 80s so there was no implication that it wasn’t legit.

Anyway, the credits show that the singer in the video is called Noah Mori, the keyboardist is called Lyra Thomas, and the drummer is called James Potter.

People took apart this video piece by piece, trying to find evidence of either the band being new, or some connection to the YouTuber. Maybe something in the garage was from a time after 1983, maybe the 70s Doctor Who poster in the corner had something to do with JSHarkness04. But all in all, once again, there really was nothing to suggest that it wasn’t real.

However, one thing that was noticed was that, when comparing the singing voice of Noah to the singing voice in the other songs released, they sound completely different.

So despite everything, no one could say for sure who the band members were. We didn’t know if the drummer and the keyboardist were the same, nor did we know who the new singer was. We didn’t even know if they had more than three band members by the time 1986 rolled around, or even if some of the original members had left. All we knew was that the singer had been switched, either with a new singer who wasn’t in the video, or with James Potter, since he was the only other guy in the video.

After the video was released, not much else happened, except the occasional release of another song, which were combed by theorisers looking for evidence that the songs couldn’t have been written and recorded in the 80s but once again came up short.

By this point, the band had grown a real cult following, increased even further when the songs were put on Spotify by Alex.

On March 18th 2027, another video was released, titled “Choke- Live Performance” and showed footage of an actual gig where the band was playing their song, filmed on an old camcorder by someone in the audience, completely unprofessionally as the camera would bob down every so often. Once again no evidence was found of it being faked. However, it did open new possibilities: the band had played gigs. Which means that someone must have seen them play. Not only that but it confirmed that the singer had been switched to James Potter, while the drummer was now Noah, and Lyra was still the keyboardist.

People went onto various sites trying to find anyone who may have been present at a gig in the 80s to see the band live, but no one came forward.

Well, a few people did. But the only evidence they could give was their word, so no one knew whether or not to believe them, which means no one could for definite write off the gig as being fake.

The next stir in the band’s fanbase came with a video simply entitled “???”, a one minute video, with the same voice as the introduction, talking about indoctrination:

Indoctrination program, designation "CVM51-D". Congratulations, you have been selected. You are special. Only the very best and brightest are considered for placement in our patented Temporal Arts program. We invite you to follow along, as we work together to decode and exploit the secrets of time and space for our benefit. Each volunteer pairing will be assigned a chaperone. Our white shadows will oversee your progress. Be sure that our company's interests maintain the highest priority throughout your journey. Please enjoy your experience, and remember: Time is on our side.

Predictably, people were very excited to analyse the text, and while it could still be taken as just a joke by the band, and therefore still no evidence of the band being new, it was an odd thing for the band to do if their songs were never released. A waste of time in a way, especially after already doing it once with the introduction. The voice also wasn’t familiar, though some say that it sounded a little like Noah when compared with the Pink Floyd cover, but putting on an American accent and edited to sound like something out of a PSA.

Another song was released entitled “Need You Here” and then came an actual music video. Or at least, an attempt at a music video.

It was for the song: “Nobody Likes the Opening Band” and in the video we see James singing on a stage, with Lyra playing the piano in a corner and Noah entering onto the stage to play the accompanying tambourine. It’s clearly a music video rather than footage from a show, considering the rather humorous moments that it involves, but executed with complete seriousness.

It also cuts out at the end and shows footage from some kids show which, according to Alex in the description, was called Bagpuss, and was aired in the UK from February 12th 1974 to May 7th of the same year, indicating that the music video had perhaps accidentally been taped over.

(Badly edited example I made of the end of the mv).

While the music video itself didn’t cause too much of a stir, the kids show at the end did, as people claimed that if the show had aired in 1974, and the band hadn’t established itself until at least 1983, how had they managed to accidentally tape over the video with the tv show? People thought it was deliberate, and therefore a sign that the band wasn’t real. Others claimed Alex had done it himself as a joke.

Looking back in the coming months, people saw this video as the start of the band slowly revealing itself to be not what it first seemed. But more evidence didn’t come for a while.

After the release of the song “Mad IQs”, another music video was released, and this one seemed much more professional, as if the band was really trying to make a proper video. It was still filmed in the 80s camcorder style, and it was still very simplistic, and possibly low-budget, again implying that this was a band doing everything themselves.

Released on the 23rd December 2027, the video was a cover of “Merry Christmas Everybody” and once again had the rather quirky vibe of the Opening Band video, where James is unsmilingly singing the song while Noah sits next to him... playing dead? And Lyra comes in halfway through and begins decorating the lifeless Noah with Christmas lights. So at least, if nothing, we know the band has a sense of humour.

An acoustic cover was released of Choke, then a few more songs. And then another music video which so far was the most professional out of all of the ones released. The song was called “Social Climb” and for the video, they actually had a set: a very fancy mansion. We don’t know whether they rented the mansion out, if they borrowed it from a friend, or if one of them even lived there, but by this point they had seemingly become determined to be a real band, which is why the whole idea of them having no recognition whatsoever was odd.

But it was the next video that caused much more of stir, and was the real proper beginning of the band revealing their true identity.

On the 12th September 2027, another cover video was released of David Bowie’s “Heroes”, though was much more in the same style as the Comfortably Numb cover, suggesting that this video was made quite soon after. It was still filmed in the same garage, though with a little more editing, and James was now the singer, and Noah the drummer.

Once again it had credits, but this time they were a little different:

Songwriter/drummer: N. H. Mori Keyboardist: L. A. Thomas  Singer/guitarist: J. S. Potter

Doesn’t seem like anything out of the ordinary, right? Well, that’s what most people thought too, but others were adamant that the initials were a sign, because if you notice, James Potter: J S Potter.

People were convinced that the initials JS were linked to the username JSHarkness04, and even brought up the 70s poster of Doctor Who seen in the first footage video as evidence that the username was something to do with James, and therefore showing that the entire thing was contrived.

Some people accepted this, but a lot of people were still sceptical. After all, it could easily just be a coincidence.

Another song was released, and then one more music video on November 16th.

This one was the most different- and the most professional of all the music videos on the channel, for the song “Do It All The Time”.

According to the description, it was sent to Alex by “an anonymous donor” saying that it had once been aired as an educational video in their school, around the year 1987/88.

And while the video could have been created in the 80s, it’s format is much more satirical than anything. The description could easily have said that it was another- and much better- attempt from the band at creating a music video, but instead the description gave an explanation that seemed... off. Not because the uploader had grown cocky, but because the band was finally making its transition from being surrounded in theory to being simply aesthetically satirical.

That being said, it still wasn’t concrete evidence.

There wasn’t another video until December 23rd. Another Christmas one, this time for a song called “Oh Noel” with James sitting alone in front of a decorated fireplace and singing.

Another subtle reference to the band’s identity was revealed with the lyric “I met you in December ’93”, obviously quite a few years after the band was supposedly around.

The next music video was for “Modern Day Cain”, and this is where the band’s identity properly moved away from the convincing 80s set up. The music video had a similar vibe to “Do It All The Time”, though the content was different. In this case, the video was mock footage from a TV show, which, according to the description was called ‘Superstar Showcase’, aired in 1989.

No such TV show ever existed, which was rather obvious by the footage, as once again it was very satirical.

So by now, only the most stubborn of fans were still convinced that the band was really from the 80s.

But no one was really disappointed. The band had executed their persona well. They had maintained the belief that they were a lost band for over two years, and revealed themselves so subtly that people hardly noticed.

The entire act was wrapped up on April 17th 2028, exactly three years after the first video was uploaded on JSHarkness04′s channel, with the release of a cover of “Debra” by Beck. A song released in 1999.

I should mention by this point that the channel JSHarkness04 had been uploading relatively consistently the entire time, most likely for the extra realism to the act. But once the act had been dropped, the channel went dormant.

Since then, the band has been releasing new songs here and there, and they still keep up the 80s persona, but now that they don’t have to be so careful, they’ve been able to have more freedom over what they post. An official music video for “Choke” was released, with the description:

“Pop Time Live was a short-lived music television program that aired briefly in Eastern Europe in the early 1980s. The show, and its producers, had hoped to capitalize on the then popular ‘Italo Disco’ movement, but audiences found its lack of authenticity objectionable. Labeled ‘NOT FOR BROADCAST,’ it is believed that this particular Warlocks performance never made it to air due to the band’s refusal to properly pantomime to their own song.”

Again, no such show existed. So now it was clear that the band was now a fully satirical 80s persona, and eventually they made live appearances, and even interviews, where people were finally able to find out exactly who they were, and that the band had actually been formed in 2021, and their plan to pretend to be an 80s band had first been made up by Noah who filmed one of their performances when they were first starting out (and James was still the drummer, Noah the lead singer) with the idea already in mind. And Alex was a friend of the group who had agreed to play along, but that the Warlocks’ YouTube channel wasn’t run by him, but by all three members of the group.

And as of now, that really covers the entire timeline of Warlocks are Attacking.

~ But heeey. That’s juust a theory. A film theory. Aaand cut.

[mattness]

Space Dementia

Sorry for the long wait. I did not have time to continue the translation. Now I'm here and I promise to soon finish to translate fanfic  As usual, sorry for silly mistakes and typos  OTP: Jennifer Wright/Robert Grey

Pleasant reading!

Chapter IX.

Derry met Jennifer overcast weather, that offered its not hit surprised. Audi drove slowly into the Wright's house, stopping in front of the garage. Turning off the engine, she got out of the car and accidentally slammed the door. It seems that a deafening sound was heard at the other end of the block, and the glass miraculously remained in place. Jen swore under her breath and reached into the trunk for her suitcase. "Jennifer!" Chester exclaimed joyfully as he left the house and headed for his daughter. "Daddy, hi!" the brunette happily smiled, instantly appearing in his father's strong and warm embrace. "How are you?" "Good. Repair is almost finished, there were a couple of rooms", the man briefly told and helped the girl to bring a suitcase to the house. "I've got promoted to chef at work, and now our diner is famous all over Derry because of my cooking." "Wow, I'm so happy for you!" Jen said softly, kissing him gently on the cheek. They went to the spacious kitchen, which was renovated in the first place. Now the room was not so dark and nothing no longer repelled. The large windows were filled with sunlight and illuminated the room beautifully. In the center was an expensive oak table, the old stove changed to a new one, as well as a refrigerator with kitchen cabinets. Under the round sink is a dishwasher. In general, the kitchen was all that is necessary for a professional chef such as Chester. "Dating, dad?" girl casually asked, while his father prepared everything for dinner. "What are you talking about?" Chester was genuinely surprised. "Come on. There's nothing wrong with that. I'll be glad if it turns out you have a girlfriend." Jennifer placed the plates on the table. She watched closely as a slightly embarrassed smile appeared on dad's face. It often happens that the brunette was smiling just as he is. And now she saw him as almost her own reflection. Jen barely kept smile knowing that he has someone there. "For example, there is one, so to speak, a lady who is very pleasant to me", admitted confused Mr. Wright, taking a heated pan with food and came to the table. "And what about you?" "It's quiet", Jen shrugged. "I don't really care about that." More conversation about the relationship they did not start, deciding to enjoy each other's company. The girl was able to let go of herself and finally to forget about the pressing challenges. When you're with a loved one, nothing matters except every minute you spend together. Jennifer, after living a few months apart from dad, realized that it is not necessary to miss any opportunity to meet. The fact that he wasn't getting any younger every day was particularly disturbing to Wright. She wanted to devote a full month of her vacation to her father. The working week began quietly, and to sit in the house Jen did not want, while Chester went to the cafe to delight new visitors. Naturally, the brunette was not sitting idle and wrote articles, but other than that she wanted to do something else. Walkings through the Derry special pleasure not bring. She was constantly haunted by an unpleasant oppressive feeling, it was worth staying on the streets for more than half an hour. Bad thoughts crept into her head: about the missing people in New York, about the children, who through the fault of some madman, would never return home from school on Jackson street. So Jen tried to do without the walks, not leaving home unless absolutely necessary. Still, she had to go back to the supermarket, where the clothing store position of the packer of goods was still relevant. Besides, the money never are not redundant, in between times she thought. The brunette enthusiastically performed the work, occasionally in the evenings sending e-mail copies of articles for Mrs. Johnson, who was still happy with everything. She even insisted that Wright spend more time with her father, arguing that she needed to gain strength and accumulate inspiration to return to New York. However, Jennifer did not mind. Vacation paid, and seems to be ahead of her waiting for a great business trip somewhere in Florida. Everything was going perfectly, and nothing could spoil her good mood. * * * Another working day at the clothing store was in full swing. To the music playing in her headphones, Jennifer unpacked numerous boxes of goods that came this morning. By the way, the weather in Derry surprisingly improved, and the girl was happy to go to work on the bike. Now the sky outside the window was a pure blue, and the cirrus clouds were slowly passing overhead. The sun was already shining somewhere on the West side, reminding of the imminent approach of the evening. The girl quietly hummed to herself, not noticing how the door to the warehouse opened. A sharp touch to the shoulders made Jen cry out in fright. She swore loudly and turned to the man who liked to scare people while they were busy. Her heart immediately calmed down, and breathing returned to normal. In my head for a few seconds swept thousands of options, it could be the one she so carefully tried to forget. But fortunately for Jan, it was only Riley, another employee of the store. A crazy sixteen-year-old girl with a nose piercing and short-cropped black hair. She pretended to be a jerk and tried fiercely to communicate with Jen. "What's up, packer?" Riley asked, sitting down on a table near the entrance to the warehouse. "You have nothing to do? Jennifer snorted as she continued to cut the tape. "You're scaring me…" "I'm bored. There's nobody in the store. I walked around the entire supermarket", with a heavy sigh, began to tell the girl. "Nothing interesting is happening here." "What's stopping you from just sitting there and reading a book? Bear with me for five minutes, and I'll go out and buy you cigarettes, so be it." In response Riley smiled. Jennifer snorted, mentally wondering what is a difficult child, it seems, had nothing except the stupid pack of cigarettes. However, it was easy to tell what she wanted from life. Wright was sure that all the puberty of girl just cause of bad habits. As soon as the clock stopped at two, Jen threw a yellow leather jacket over her shoulders and headed out of the store with Riley. In the nearest stall, Wright bought the cheapest pack of cigarettes and handed to the girl along with the change. "Now will you leave me alone?" rolling her eyes, quipped Jennifer. "No. Come with me to the parking lot behind the supermarket", Riley giggled, opening the pack and already squeezing one cigarette with her lips. "I'm bored standing there alone." The brunette sighed, agreeing. She didn't have much to do during lunch anyway. Jennifer usually went either for a walk in the park, which was located nearby, or was in the store, sitting quietly in the warehouse by the window, reading the news on the Internet or a book. Riley, unlike her, wasted no time Smoking almost half a pack for the whole meal. Then the girl smelled so much that Jen could barely contain her coughing fits, but she preferred not to say anything to her: sooner or later the habit would affect her health. The girl stopped at the back entrance to the mall next to Riley. Jen crossed her arms and watched the girl calmly smoke, peering into the distance. "Do you have a boyfriend, a packer?" suddenly decided to talk Riley: apparently, silence between them the beginning of its depressing. "Not your business”, Jen snorted, and glanced to the Parking lot, where stood the old wreck and the car of the middle class. "I'm not asking you who you're sleeping with." The teenager burst out laughing. "Come on, Jennifer! I'm just trying to be friends", Riley smiled, shoving Wright lightly on the shoulder. "What's wrong with that?" "Really, I'm not particularly eager to have with you friendship", the brunette calmly replied with a sigh. The girl sprinkled again, not wanting to say anything. She threw her cigarette butt on the ground and smothered it with the sole of her torn sneakers. Suddenly her attention was drawn to a dark blue Aston Martin coming into the parking lot. The car came to a smooth halt a few meters away from them, and the driver turned off the motor. While the girl was watching the expensive sports car, Jennifer was standing next to her and completely immersed in thoughts. "This is a car..." Riley whispered breathlessly and admiringly, pulling Jen out of her thoughts. "I'd ride one of those." Wright raised her eyebrows in surprise, noticing the familiar Aston Martin. She immediately frowned as the car door opened smoothly and the driver stepped out of the passenger compartment. A tall brunette in black glasses and an expensive suit put a cigarette in mouth and lit it with a lighter. Of course, Jennifer recognized him only by the top of his head — Robert Grey was as handsome as ever. "I would have asked him for a cigarette", the girl smiled dreamily, glancing at Jen, who crossed her arms again. "But I'm not going to be lucky." Heart skipped a beat, reminding Wright of forgotten feelings in just three months. And what the hell was Grey doing here? How did he find her again? The girl remembered how the word didn't tell him about what is going to come here during the holidays. They never called or agreed to meet again. Robert just disappeared, and Jennifer felt that it was not necessary to impose. Now, seeing him again, the brunette was hurt. He is a moron not even bothering to write after all these stupid promising kisses! Wright spent a few days worrying that she'd done something wrong, blaming herself for wanting to leave New York. But of course it wasn't her fault. Jen realized this slightly later. "Try your luck, Jennifer? Riley asked, grinning slyly. The girl said nothing, suddenly feeling Grey's look herself. Having overcome herself, Wright went down the stairs and slowly went to the expensive sports car. She noticed that Robert smiled contentedly as he exhaled another cloud of smoke and tossed his cigarette butt aside. With each step, Jennifer felt more confident. The desire with all her strength to kick the face of Grey's was growing inside and haunted. Wright stopped in front of Robert, who took off his glasses and playfully flashed his green eyes. "Hi, honey", the man greeted her with a dazzling smile, as if nothing had happened. This was the last straw in the bowl of patience. Jen swung her right hand and slapped him. A resounding slap was heard echoing throughout the Parking lot. Discouraged, Grey rubbed his flushed cheek, and watching them, Riley gasped in amazement: "Wow, guys!" gasped the girl, and decided to get out of harm's way, not wanting to look at the unfolding drama. Robert burst out laughing, straightening up and looking at Jen puffing with anger. The girl was ready to swing a second time, but restrained herself. "It's good to see you, too, Jennifer", Robert smiled insolently, taking his hand away from his face. "What the fuck are you doing here?!" cried out from the overflowing of her anger, the brunette. "It's been almost three months, and you show up here like nothing happened and say, 'hi, honey'?!" Grey snorted, mentally noting that Jen was right. Still, it was a little awkward. He really wanted to appear earlier, but the circumstances were different. It was so good in Pennsylvania that he didn't want to go back to native Derry. However, remembering Jennifer and her stories, Robert decided to come back. He hoped that the unexpected appearance would cause her a few other feelings. "Not my fault. So it happened", shrugged Robert. "So it happened?" outraged Jen clapped her hands together. "And what prevented you to call me or write? God, I broke my head over you thinking I did something wrong! Not only do you somehow miraculously materialize where I am, but you're always playing the innocent asshole!" The man barely held back a smile as he watched her. He took a step closer to Jennifer, carefully placing his hands on her fragile shoulders. Girl discontentedly grumbled, dodging his hands. Robert touched the brunette's face, lifting her chin with his fingers to look at her. Jen, pouting like a little child, frowned. "Please forgive me, Jenni", Grey insinuating whispered, staring at the blue eyes and with interest starting to read the thoughts of tossing girl. "I promise it won't happen again." She breathed in the familiar scent of cologne, feeling like she was giving up. She groaned, knowing that fucking missed and now were ready to pounce. But Jen tried not to show it. Still, she was hurt and still unclear how he found her. Robert, continuing to look smug, calmly continued to read every thought in Jennifer's head. "Just tell me why you didn't call?" Jennifer sighed heavily, looking into the large green eyes. "There was no time, honey", Grey said gently, and the brunette's body immediately went goose bumps. Over the past two months, that he spent far from Jennifer Wright, Robert managed to study almost all habits lovers people. He read a lot of articles and books about relationships, learned what to do and what not, learned almost everything that so carefully avoided a huge amount of time. Even had to learn how those pesky human beings pleasure yourself is not only stupid kisses. All this was terribly alien and new to him. From the strange manifestation of "love" for his alien mind always seemed weird and gross. Maybe the practice is not as disgusting as watching all sorts of movies and reading books? Yes, Robert decided to change his tactics. Now the plan seemed much more effective, and would surely work faster than its standard intimidation and fear-inducing. First he would drive her mad those, that will allow themselves love, and then will take advantage of these and, breaking the weak and loving a girl, finally gobble up. She would feel unbearable pain, perhaps even hatred towards him, but it would not really bother Robert. He is fully satisfied with the negative feelings of the girl, and then will tear her into small pieces, eating the tender flesh. "How did you find me?" "I thought you said you had a house here." "I didn't say a word about my vacation," Wright protested, crossing her arms. In fact, now the girl not so much worried about how he learned of her location and the temporary workplace. Her head is spinning just thinking about the fact that Rob never lost. The feelings that were born inside became stronger, and Jen could barely control herself. She still thought she was acting like a lovesick teenager. "Does it really matter?" Grey boldly cut the last step between them and dropped his hands to his fragile waist, pulling in a girl who didn't resist too much. "How about dinner?" "I'm still mad at you", Jen breathed out in embarrassment as he leaned toward her. The brunette hugged his shoulders, barely holding back a smile. "Don't be a child, Jenni", Robert whispered, his tongue clacking, and he was about to kiss her plump lips covered with a pink sheen. In the latest moment Wright dodged, and a man buried his nose in black hair. The girl frowned and stepped back, crossing her arms again. She bit lower lip, feeling her insides tighten with resentment. Robert irritably rolled her eyes at this painfully familiar smell. "What now, Jennifer? I said I was sorry." "How long are you staying here?" Wright asked coldly. "Long", Grey replied meaningfully, without really explaining anything. "You could say I'm here for work." "Really? In the middle of nowhere, and for work?" He nodded. She watched as Robert took another cigarette from the pack. The faint light of the lighter instantly ignited it, and Grey breathed the first cloud of smoke into Jen's face, causing her to cough with displeasure. He burst out laughing and walked around the car to get behind the wheel. "Can I pick you up tonight?" he suggested calmly, lowering the car window from the passenger seat. "Why?" "We have another date on schedule." "Really? Just another?" Jen snorted, leaning over and peering into the car. "Maybe more", Robert smiled fascinatingly. "I'll call you, Jennifer." The girl could not help but burst into a gentle smile, feeling a pleasant warmth filled her soul, starting to warm her from the inside. The dark blue car left the parking lot, and the brunette, standing all alone for a couple of minutes, decided to go back to work, where it was impossible to avoid stupid questions from Riley. Jen tried to speak a little or nothing at all to say, while restless the girl was around. The working day went on quietly, and none of the superiors did not know that Jennifer accidentally extended her lunch for ten, and maybe more minutes. Meeting with Robert gave her strength for the rest of the day, and now the smile on Jen's face could not be erased by anything. Even Riley was a lot less pissed off today than usual. Something inside told her that tonight and the night she would be away from home with her father. At least, she hopes so. During a short break, Jen sat by the window, watching the twilight envelop the streets of Derry. The sun had long set over the horizon, and the sky was painted crimson. The lights slowly lit up, and there were fewer and fewer cars in the Mall Parking lot. Radio standing on the window quietly creaking, ominous, and does not prevent to dream Jennifer… * * * "...According to the latest data police, in Derry over the last month the establishment four man", suddenly heard a girl, distracting from their dreams. Frowning, she turned up the volume of the radio, "But it wasn't just Derry that was losing people. We also know that about fifteen people have gone missing in the States of New York and Pennsylvania…" Wright hesitated, starting to put in mind the location of Robert and the disappearance of people into a single puzzle. Everything was one to one: wherever Grey went, there almost immediately began to disappear people. Maybe it's just a stupid coincidence and nothing else? Maybe it was just her own speculation. From his stories of her own life, she could hardly tell that he was a violent maniac-the killer who was now so desperately wanted by the police. Jennifer was at a complete loss: she did not know what to think and who to believe. "Law enforcement agencies urge you to remain calm and observe the curfew. The police are making every effort to get on the trail of the criminal who commits…" Jen turned off the radio, not wanting to hear anymore. News every time they made a bad thoughts, forcing her to blame Robert Grey in all the disappearances of people during his every movement in the country. She hoped he had nothing to do with these crimes. Although the loss of people still could not be called a crime. They're just missing, doesn't mean they're dead. * * * The hands of the clock stopped at eleven in the evening, and the dark blue car slowly slowed down near the house where dad had been waiting for Jen. The lamp standing near the window in the living room still burned, saying that Chester either read before going to bed or watched TV. He'll probably be surprised to see her come home late. Jen smiled at her own thoughts and looked at Robert, who, like her, had noticed the light. "He must have been waiting for you", Grey suggested, smiling warmly. "He'll understand", she said, leaning back in her seat and looking into the eyes opposite, which seemed black in the dimness of the car. "Thanks for tonight, Rob." "Thank you." Jen burst out laughing, already closing his eyes and getting another sweet kiss, which for this evening was set. However, a simple kiss the girl already couldn't get enough, wanting more. Wright waited patiently for the right moment. She knew that the man didn't want to rush. Robert watched every action, feeling what she felt, and absorbed everything like a sponge. Embarrassment, tenderness and sympathy together constituted some thermonuclear mixture of, which well can be was get enough of not worse, than fear. He allowed himself to relax, trying to enjoy this strange and unusual process. Robert deepened kiss by biting her lip and making her moan. For the first time he touched the warm pliable female tongue, not wanting to devour it immediately. The girl answered with pleasure, showing what and how to do to get the maximum pleasure from the process. She knew it was Grey's first experience, but she still hadn't said a word about it. Robert was surprised, because in how many films and books he had studied, the first experience of someone with a more experienced partner always caused ridicule or surprise from the second. "I'll go", Jennifer gasped into his mouth, pulling away. He nodded and brought the breath back to normal, saw as the girl slowly went to the house. As soon as she disappeared behind the door, Robert, pleased with himself, pressed the gas pedal to the floor and drove away. * * * Two weeks later Jennifer got home from work late. She quietly opened the front door, which creaked plaintively, and went to an empty cold house. All around has long been plunged into the darkness of the night. Jen wearily took off his shoes and put the keys on the nightstand. She walked down the dark corridor, feeling her feet freezing with each step. The floorboards were still creaking, and the draft made she shiver. The girl yawned and began to slowly climb to the second floor. She didn't want to think about anything now, except the bed, where she wanted to be as soon as possible to fall into the Kingdom of Morpheus. The shadow cast by the curtains of the window on the second floor of the house suddenly distorted and imperceptibly followed the girl. Wright, suspecting nothing, opened the door to the room and tried as quickly as possible to find the hand switch. The enveloping darkness was oppressive, and the knowledge that Jen was alone in the big house did not make her feel any better. Black shadow assumed the shape of a clown, sharp claws which are already stretched to the shoulders of the girl. It softly chuckled, barely holding back, not to bare his fangs. Copiously flowing saliva began to drip on the floor. Jennifer swallowed, nervously, suddenly sensing someone's presence. Her heart started to pound as something hit the floor. She stepped quickly into the room and turned on the light, turning sharply to face the dark corridor. She breathed out a sigh of relief, making sure that there was no one behind her. She was just imagining things. Wright once again sighed and fell on the bed, wearily rubbed the bridge of nose. Today was too heavy day, and now it is necessary to have a good rest that tomorrow with new forces to go to work. Probably tomorrow will appear again and Robert will be invited her to the next date. From these thoughts on lips girls immediately, a smile appeared. A pleasant warmth spread in the soul, and the image of Robert Grey in an elegant black suit appeared before his eyes. However, a sharp roar sounded somewhere on the first floor, immediately dispelled all dreams. Jennifer jumped up on the bed, very frightened. She rose silently to her feet and, glancing at the baseball bat in the corner of the room, walked slowly to the door. Tightly gripping the bat in her hands, Jen crept down the dark corridor to the stairs. The heart was again in a crazy rhythm, as if it was about to jump out of his chest. An unpleasant cold filled the room, and steam came out of his mouth with each exhalation. The girl came to the stairs, with horror looking down. The distance to the first floor became unbearably long. Taking a breath, the brunette began to descend the stairs. Suddenly, stumbling on her own feet, Jennifer shrieked and flew down to the bottom of the stairs. She fell with a crash and cursed, hitting her back painfully on the floor, and the bat that fell out of her hands was immediately next to her, falling on her right leg. "Shit!" Jen hissed, clutching at her ankle, which was swollen in an instant. The sound of the water caught her attention abruptly, and she immediately forgot about her unfortunate landing. Somehow rising to her feet, she headed for the kitchen. The bat was in her hands again. Wright turned on the light and once again cursed: luckily, no one was there. Stupid hallucinations suddenly took over her mind. Jen frowned, thinking, that this on soil suddenly the onset of the solitude. Brunette came into the kitchen and inspected everything. Drops of water fell steadily into the sink from the tap. They resembled the ticking of a clock that hung on the opposite wall from the ceiling. Was Jen afraid of the water? The fantasy played out, and she thought someone was in the house. Wright breathed a sigh of relief and was about to go back into the room when she turned and screamed in terror.

[boreum-dal]

la confiture, pt. i

fandom: miraculous ladybug (adrinette, nino/alya)

summary: marinette dupain-cheng is one step closer to her dream of becoming a top chef when she’s hired to cook at the famed restaurant, la confiture. but to get to the top, she’s got to surpass adrien agreste, her rival and the son of la confiture’s owner.

too bad he’s so sweet that he’s nearly impossible to dislike.

and too bad she loves when he invites her over after work to test out new dishes at his apartment.

and too bad his relationship with his father makes her want to hold him and never let him go.

and–just like that, her dreams don’t seem so simple anymore.

cross-posted: ao3

Marinette had nearly forgotten about the fruit tarts. When she’d first seen them on the new menu for the week, she’d wondered, somewhat wildly, if Adrien secretly read her blog; after all, he’d introduced that dish into the dessert menu only two days after she’d posted about her fruit tarts. But even given Ladybug Patisserie’s immense popularity, she couldn’t imagine that Adrien Agreste, sous chef at one of the top restaurants in the country, found the time or the energy to read the weekly exploits of someone who couldn’t bake to save her life. It had to be a coincidence.

Adrien grinned, surveying the room. His eyes paused when they met Marinette’s. His head tilted to the side, and his lips quirked up ever so slightly at the corners, as if he were sharing a private joke with her that no one else in the room would understand. For a brief few seconds, Marinette felt the air leave her lungs, and then she blinked and forced herself to turn her attention back to her linguine.

It had to be a coincidence, she thought again to herself. Still, she was suddenly grateful she’d kept herself anonymous on the blog all these months.

la confiture

part i.

“Everything sucks.”

“It does not. You’re so dramatic sometimes.”

Marinette Dupain-Cheng lifted her head from her arms and aimed a glower at her best friend. “Do you have room to talk?”

Alya Césaire shrugged, shuffling mangled, dull looking eclairs that around on Marinette’s counter in a way that would have been quite aesthetically pleasing if the eclairs themselves weren’t so ugly. “I can admit it, at the very least.”

“Fine! I’m dramatic! But why can’t I be dramatic and good at baking?”

“Practice makes perfect,” Alya sang, lifting her camera up to her eye and squinting through the lens at the perfectly arranged, deformed eclairs.

“You’ve told me that a million times before,” Marinette moaned, dragging her feet to the love seat in her living room and flopping down into it. “How about a different proverb?”

“Fine, then. Some people just can’t have everything. How about that?” The camera clicked several times.

“Well, that’s just rude and discouraging.” Marinette blew a strand of hair out of her face.

Alya finally looked up from her camera and laughed. “Why are you so down on yourself, Mari? This kind of stuff is gold! You get tens of thousands of hits on your blog every time you post something new. Being bad at baking is your lifeblood. You should own it.”

“I don’t want to be bad at baking, though! I could be the best cook in Paris, but I can’t expect to ever make sous chef at La Confiture when I can’t even bake a cookie without burning it.”

Alya raised an eyebrow. “You really think you can beat Gabriel Agreste’s own son out of the position?”

Marinette pursed her lips grumpily. “I could if I had the baking part down. In a couple of years. Maybe.”

Alya shook her head and resumed taking photos. “I don’t get it. I’d much rather run a successful blog with thousands of followers than be a star chef at some boring restaurant.”

“It’s not just a restaurant, Alya!”

“I know, I know. It’s La Confiture.” Alya made a gagging motion.

“Whatever. You were salivating over that silk pie slice I brought you the other night,” Marinette said, walking back over to the counter and picking up an eclair. She took a bite and had to tug a little at the pastry with her teeth to get it to break. The pastry was rubbery and tough in her mouth, but the cream filling was pleasant, at least. She made a mental note to emphasize that on her upcoming blog post.

Alya grinned. “Didn’t you tell me Adrien Agreste made that pie for the staff?”

Marinette threw the half-eaten eclair at Alya’s face.

---

“You look like you need a drink.”

Adrien Agreste gave a weak laugh. “I was hoping you’d notice without my having to ask. Just a beer, please.”

Nino Lahiffe cracked the lid off of a green bottle and slid it over the bar to Adrien, who took it gratefully and sipped. Nino returned to wiping down the counters, which he’d gotten back to a relatively clean state after dinner service had finally ended. “What’s got you down?”

“Just tired,” Adrien mumbled, sliding the beer bottle between his hands on the lacquered surface of the bar. “You know, the usual.”

Nino frowned at Adrien’s slumped-over form. Adrien straightened up a little—although he knew Nino wasn’t the type to judge, the way his friend peered at him through the round glasses sitting on the bridge of his nose made him feel particularly scrutinized.

“Did you fight with your dad again?”

Adrien laughed. “That obvious?” He lowered his voice. “Don’t tell anyone, please.”

“Dude. You know I would never,” Nino said reassuringly. He glanced around before opening his own beer bottle. “Cheers.”

“Seriously, though, how did you know?”

Nino shrugged. “Just a guess. I saw him stalk out of here a few minutes ago with murder in his eyes.”

“Do you think any of the other employees saw?”

“Nah. And if they did, it’s not like their first thought would be that he must have had a fight with you. He’s just like that, so it’s not unexpected.”

Adrien laughed again, this time genuinely. The laugh felt good in his stomach, like a medicine. “Thanks, Nino.”

“Anytime. So what was it about this time?”

Adrien leaned against the back of the barstool with a sigh. “He’s upset about that Vogue interview.”

Nino frowned. “How could he be upset about it? Our reservations got booked into next Christmas after it went to publication.”

Adrien saw the printed interview, the crisp black-and-white portrait of him in his chef’s uniform, arms crossed and an uncertain smile on his face, in his mind’s eye, and wanted to retch. “I didn’t expect them to, but they published that line about me wanting to go back to school one day.”

Nino stared at him for a moment before bursting out incredulously, “That’s it? Where you literally just say, ‘I don’t know, it might be nice to go study astrology or something in another life’ or something like that?”

“Astronomy,” Adrien corrected. “And yeah. He said it doesn’t look good when I don’t say my whole heart is in cooking.”

“You were talking about another life. That was the question! ‘What would you do in another life?’” Nino shook his head and took a swig of his beer. “That man is ridiculous. I could never tell him, because he pays me, but he is ridiculous.”

Adrien smiled weakly. “I know. I get that he wants to pass down the business and that I have certain duties and expectations to fulfill because of that, but… I can’t pretend to understand the extremes to which he’ll go.”

Even though Nino did not respond, Adrien felt his friend’s eyes on him, and he suddenly struck with guilt. “But look, Nino, I mean—I… He’s not wrong. I should’ve been more careful, right? It doesn’t look great if I say that I’d rather do something else. It would’ve looked better if I’d said no matter what reality I’m in, this is what I’d like to be doing, don’t you think?”

Nino looked at him with an expression that Adrien couldn’t and didn’t want to place—a cross between exasperation and pity. “Whatever you say, man.”

---

 Adrien dropped his keys on the kitchen counter and immediately undid the top three buttons of his uniform. As he switched on the light, a black cat brushed up against his ankles, nudging its head insistently at his shin until he reached down to pick the cat up.

“Hi, Plagg,” he said, using one finger to scratch affectionately under the cat’s chin. Plagg’s purrs rumbled through Adrien’s chest as he held the cat against himself. “Did you have a long day, too?”

He let Plagg down and turned immediately to the laptop on his island counter, flipping it open and seating himself on one of the stools. When the screen loaded, he pulled up his browser and clicked on the first link he’d saved to his favorites bar. A header that read “Ladybug Patisserie” loaded, and immediately beneath that, the latest post, simply entitled “fruit tarts.”

Adrien felt a stupid grin spread across his face. He’d been hoping for and looking forward to this all evening. Ladybug’s writing describing her baking adventures always read in a sweet and hilarious kind of way that made Adrien feel like he was listening to a favorite song while driving or lying back on a soft mattress after a tough day. Tonight’s entry was no different.

After last week’s disaster with the eclairs, I decided that maybe I was just a little too ambitious about my (hopefully?) burgeoning baking skills. I purposely chose something much easier, by all accounts that the Internet and various cookbooks could provide me: the fruit tart. As one site so aptly states, “Fruit tarts are impressive-looking desserts that are not difficult to make at all.” Perfect! Exactly what I’m looking for! How did they know?

Whoever wrote that post was wrong, because that person has yet to meet me. The fruit tart has four components: the shortcrust, the vanilla cream, the glaze, and the fruit toppings. Please read below to see how I miraculously manage to screw up each and every element of this impressive-looking dessert that everyone in the world but myself is capable of making!

Adrien caught himself chortling loudly as he scrolled through the introductory paragraphs and onto the photos, which showed, in hysterically excellent lighting, Ladybug’s progress as she slowly assembled the elements of the dessert and the spectacular finish: soggy-looking fruit turning to mush over a lumpy vanilla filling that seemed mildly off in color somehow, all in a shortbread crust that had crumbled significantly when she’d removed it from the mold. She hadn’t even gotten to put the glaze on the fruit, as she’d burned it in the pot (also showcased in another well-lit and well-framed photograph).

Adrien laughed delightedly at the conclusion, in which Ladybug lamented her lack of intuition for baking but vowed to be back next Wednesday with something new, as usual. He scrolled back up through the post, trying to identify exactly where she’d gone wrong. Now that he was looking more for technical issues than humor, he could see some glaring problems already. He chewed on his lower lip, wondering if he should mention it to her in the comments. He’d never tried to interact with this faceless heroine who was easily his favorite person on the internet, even if he’d never seen her or met her or knew anything about her, other than that she was a horrible baker with a great sense of humor. But she’d made his day quite a bit brighter, and he thought the least he could do was offer her some simple tips to make this recipe easier next time around. His fingers hovered hesitantly over his keyboard for half a second, and then he began typing in the comments box below the post.

Hi, there, Ladybug. I’m a huge fan of your blog. Baking can feel like a thankless practice, and I admire your ability to keep a sense of humor about it instead of bashing your head into a wall! If you don’t mind, here are a couple of tips from someone who bakes regularly. First, I’m sure you know this already, but it seems like you’re not whisking quickly or often enough when you stir in the egg mixture. Even with a strainer, it’s hard to get a smooth filling without lumps in there if you let the entire bottom of the mixture solidify into cooked egg, which is what I suspect happened. As for the shortcrust, try using a food processor instead of your hands to make the mixture. It might feel less “authentic,” but it’ll get you better results, and no one (except for us) has to know. :)

Adrien paused, wondering if he should leave a name. He thought better of it on the off chance that someone else at La Confiture frequented the blog as well and would call him a know-it-all. His eyes landed on Plagg, who was now fiddling with a toy shaped like a fish that Adrien had bought him two weeks ago.

Thanks as always for your hilarious and uplifting posts. Looking forward to next week’s.

Adrien typed “Chat Noir” into the name box and hit “submit.”

---

Marinette pulled open the double doors of La Confiture with urgency and ran her way through the restaurant toward the kitchen, unraveling her scarf and shrugging off her jacket as she did so. She could already hear the noise of knives hitting cutting boards, pots and pans clanging over the dull roar of numerous conversations overlapping each other as various chefs de partie shouted orders to the commis chefs and porters.

She tried to tamp down her panic. Gabriel Agreste was absolutely unforgiving of tardiness, even when it was for a true emergency; Marinette couldn’t imagine the dressing down she’d receive for being two minutes late just because her doctor’s appointment had run behind. She kicked herself for not just leaving the appointment when she’d first realized she wouldn’t make work in time.

She ran through the kitchen doors and skidded to a stop, scanning it quickly and then breathing a sigh of relief when she did not see Gabriel’s face. Still, Adrien would be responsible for overseeing all the staff when Gabriel was absent, but—

“Ah, Chef Dupain-Cheng. You’ve decided to come in today, after all,” a voice said from beside her, and Marinette jumped so high that she could have touched the ceiling if she’d reached her hand up.

Adrien Agreste chuckled, arms crossed as he came up to her.

“Chef!” Marinette flushed. Even if he wasn’t his father, Marinette didn’t like getting caught being late, particularly by her rival. It made her look lazy and undedicated—the last thing she needed when she wanted to move up the ranks. And she wanted Adrien to consider her as serious competition. “I apologize for arriving late,” she said quickly. “I was at the doctor’s and my appointment ran over the scheduled time—I should have just canceled it—”

“Nonsense,” Adrien said, waving a hand in the air. “No one’s hurting for you arriving a few minutes late. It’ll be our little secret. Just try not to let it happen again when my father is around. He can be pretty scary, as you know. It’s not fun to get yelled at in front of the entire kitchen staff, trust me.”

Marinette stared at him, slack-jawed.

“Everything okay, by the way?”

“H-huh?” Marinette was still too startled by Adrien’s casual response in the face of her tardiness to really process his next question.

“You were at the doctor’s, you said. I hope everything’s okay.”

“Um—oh, yes,” Marinette blurted out. “Just an annual checkup.”

“Oh, good. Well, I’m glad you’re looking after yourself, Chef Dupain-Cheng. Not enough of us do in this profession, which is pretty counterproductive, if you ask me.” Adrien smiled at her. 

“I—” Marinette couldn’t muster up a proper response. What was the proper response? She’d never been spoken to with such… humanity by a superior in the kitchen, at least during working hours, before. The proper response, she supposed, was to shut up and get to work. “Thank you, Chef.”

She scurried toward the locker room to hang up her coat and scarf, willing herself to forget about the exchange with Adrien in its entirety. Gabriel had told her upon hiring her that there wasn’t any room for distraction in his kitchen; although he never mentioned anything about those distractions coming from his own son, Marinette suspected that still wouldn’t really constitute a valid defense.

---

Prep time passed in a quick, stressful blur, and Marinette still felt like she was hardly ready when it came time for the staff to eat before dinner service. She’d been quite prepared to skip the staff meal altogether so she could prepare more, but Mylene, the entremetier, had been insistent that she join the rest of the group.

“You’ve got to eat something,” Mylene had urged her, tugging at Marinette’s sleeve. “A chef who passes out in the middle of dinner service won’t be any good. Come on.”

Marinette took the seat next to Mylene in the posterior dining room where the staff ate their meals before service. The air in the room was jovial, with everyone discussing their plans for the upcoming holiday break as they passed large family-style bowls of pasta and salad from person to person.

Mylene reached toward the bowl of seafood linguine in front of them and began to pull some onto Marinette’s plate. “Hurry and eat, you must be starving! You didn’t have breakfast this morning, right?”

Marinette obediently stuffed a forkful of pasta into her mouth. She was grateful for Mylene’s maternal nature; growing up, Alya had always been the one to look out for Marinette when she needed it, and she realized how fortunate she was to find another figure like her at work.

“All right, everyone, could I please have your attention?” Adrien called, standing up from his seat at the opposite end of the table. “I’d like to run back over tonight’s menu for a moment.”

Marinette glanced up from her bowl. Adrien’s profile glowed with a faint gold lining produced by the already-setting Parisian sun streaming through the windows behind him. He began reciting the day’s dishes with a sense of poise and polished confidence beyond his years, and all eyes and ears in the room were on him now with an almost-reverent level of attentiveness.

Not for the first time, Marinette noted silently that somehow, even though he was not nearly as terrifying as his father, Adrien managed to command the respect of the staff in a way that Gabriel Agreste himself could not. Although she tended to keep her distance from Adrien, if Marinette had to guess, she supposed this had something to do with his kindness—how his energy filled the room with warmth, while conversely, the air seemed chillier when Gabriel spoke.

“Next are scallops from the Calvados coast, pan-seared, served with farofa and sweet red pepper chutney. The final dish before we move on to the cheese course will be honey-roasted duck with candied sweet potatoes, black garlic, and lemon…”

Marinette found herself daydreaming, for what had to be the thousandth time, about what it would be like for her to be the one standing up there, reciting a menu that she had gotten to create herself. She suspected it would take her eons to get to Adrien’s level of adeptness in designing the menu and the grace with which he led the crew, which was a little disheartening, given that they were around the same age. Then again, as Alya liked to remind her, Adrien had been trained for this his whole life by one of the top chefs in the world, while Marinette had only begun cooking in university and had risen quite quickly up the ranks since then.

“So you’ve already proven a lot can happen in a few short years!” Alya had told her just a few days ago.

“...and dessert will consist of sugared beignets in a bitter chocolate dipping sauce, and miniature winter fruit tarts topped with pear and persimmon and a grapefruit glaze.”

Marinette had nearly forgotten about the fruit tarts. When she’d first seen them on the new menu for the week, she’d wondered, somewhat wildly, if Adrien secretly read her blog; after all, he’d introduced that dish into the dessert menu only two days after she’d posted about her fruit tarts. But even given Ladybug Patisserie’s immense popularity, she couldn’t imagine that Adrien Agreste, sous chef at one of the top restaurants in the country, found the time or the energy to read the weekly exploits of someone who couldn’t bake to save her life. It had to be a coincidence.

“Have a great dinner service, everyone. Just think—one more night, and then you get a nice three-day break for the Christmas holiday!”

The room cheered, and Adrien grinned, surveying the room. His eyes paused when they met Marinette’s. His head tilted to the side, and his lips quirked up ever so slightly at the corners, as if he were sharing a private joke with her that no one else in the room would understand. For a brief few seconds, Marinette felt the air leave her lungs, and then she blinked and forced herself to turn her attention back to her linguine.

It had to be a coincidence, she thought again to herself. Still, she was suddenly grateful she’d kept herself anonymous on the blog all these months.

---

“The last customer of the night just left,” Adrien announced to the kitchen. “I couldn’t be happier with how smoothly things went tonight. Thanks to everyone here, we just had our most successful Christmas Eve dinner service in years.”

The kitchen staff cheered and applauded. Kim, the rotisseur, let out a loud whoop from the back. Adrien grinned. “Let’s finish cleaning up and get out of here so we can enjoy our breaks, shall we?”

Spirits high, the staff worked at double its normal speed to finish breaking down and cleaning the kitchen, and before Adrien knew it, workers were walking out the door in twos and threes, calling out cheerful wishes for happy holidays to each other.

Adrien waved goodbye to Nino, and then he glanced over the empty, immaculate kitchen with satisfaction, marveling at how efficient everyone had been today. It was just his luck that things would go this well when his father was traveling to a conference and not even here to see it, but he wouldn’t complain. Four days without Gabriel breathing down his neck, even if it meant spending the holidays without his only family, was a welcome respite from the tremendous pressure weighing him down lately.

He couldn’t wait to just sleep for the next couple of mornings, to stop at a coffee shop and really sit down to enjoy a café au lait, to visit the market with the intent to truly create and not to just to sell, maybe even to try to whip up something new in the comfort of his own kitchen without the specter of his father criticizing him, to—

To do all of this alone.

Adrien untied his apron and sighed, rubbing the back of his neck as he shuffled into the locker room and sat on the bench lining the wall. Grateful as he was for the break from his father, he deflated a bit realizing how lonely the next few days would be. Besides Chloé, who was in New York City for the holiday with her parents, the rest of the La Confiture staff were really the only other people with whom he interacted on a regular basis. Of course, he’d be the last person they wanted to see on their precious few days away from the restaurant. Even Nino probably needed a break from him, close as they were.

The slamming of a locker door startled him out of his thoughts, and he looked up to see Marinette Dupain-Cheng at the far end of the room, shrugging on a dark red pea coat and wrapping a black scarf around her neck.

“Chef Dupain-Cheng,” Adrien said, surprised. He stood up. “I didn’t realize you were still here.”

“Oh!” Marinette jumped and turned around, holding a hand to her chest. Her hat was askew over her hair. She walked over to him. “I didn’t even see you when I walked in here!”

Adrien laughed. “Sorry if I startled you.”

Marinette shook her head. “That’s okay, I should have been paying more attention.” She slipped her hat off of her head and held it in both hands before turning her eyes up at him. She paused, as if pondering her next sentence carefully, but when she spoke again, her question was quite simple. “What about you?”

“Me? What about me?”

Marinette looked around the dim locker room as if the meaning of her question were obvious. “Were you… Were you planning on sticking around longer?”

“Oh—no, I was going to lock up and head out in just a few minutes. Just…” He looked back at the bench. “I just needed a minute to take a breather after today.”

Marinette smiled. “That’s understandable.” She paused again, and then she let out a soft laugh. “There are rumors you sleep in here sometimes. I wondered for a second if I was catching you at bedtime.”

Adrien stared at her, momentarily stunned—it was the first time in the two months Marinette had worked at La Confiture that he’d heard anything unrelated to work, let alone a joke, come out of her mouth when she spoke to him. He burst into delighted laughter. “Is there really? I guess on occasion, it’s not too far from the truth. But I was planning on actually going home tonight, rest assured.”

Marinette’s smile seemed to touch her eyes more now, somehow, and Adrien felt his heart leap to life at the hint of a new friendship. Marinette had seemed so quiet and focused since she’d arrived at La Confiture; he’d accepted within a week of her starting in his kitchen, after a few unsuccessful attempts at casual conversation, that she had bigger things to think about than being friends with him. This was a lovely turn of events.

“Ah—by the way, Chef,” Adrien said, “your work was excellent today. I can’t tell you how many compliments your chutney received, even when the customers didn’t request to see you to tell you personally. You really are a wonderful addition to our kitchen.”

Marinette flushed. “Oh, I—well, thank you,” she murmured, tugging her hat—a black beanie with cat ears and green eyes knitted onto it—back on her head.  Adrien bit back a smile when he saw how much the hat reminded him of Plagg. “And thank you for not blowing up when I was late today.”

Adrien shook his head. “No need to thank me. My father and I…” he paused. “We have very different ways of running the kitchen.”

“I think your way works a little better for me,” Marinette muttered, and then her eyes went wide when she realized what she’d said. “I mean—no offense to Chef Agreste, of course—”

Adrien laughed again. “Your secret is safe with me.”

Marinette let out a sigh. “Thanks.” She looked up at him. “Are you—are you walking out now? Would you like me to wait for you to lock up?”

Adrien’s eyebrows rose. “Really? Yes, I’d love that,” he said, and then he blushed when he realized how desperate that sounded. “I—one second, let me just grab my stuff from my locker.”

He rushed off to grab his bag, elation and embarrassment warring with each other in his heart. When he returned and saw Marinette standing in the same spot where he’d left her, looking completely oblivious to his verbal blunder (and ridiculously adorable in that hat), elation won.

---

That concludes part one of this story! My plan is for it to be relatively short and sweet—no more than five parts, with each part being around ten pages or so. I hope you guys enjoyed! I love cooking, I love cooking shows, and I worked in a restaurant (although not nearly as nice as the one I’m portraying here) for quite some time, so I have really enjoyed working on this fic. That being said, I took a few liberties that probably need a little bit of explaining.

First, I’m not really sure that one needs to be an excellent baker to become a sous chef at a top restaurant. Here, Gabriel Agreste likes his sous chefs extremely well-rounded, and Marinette can hardly make a loaf of bread without ruining it. The mistakes she made are extremely amateur, so please suspend your disbelief—I unfortunately am not experienced enough in baking to know what kinds of mistakes are more common for people who know their way around the kitchen! 

Second, just by way of explanation: Gabriel is the chef de cuisine, or the head chef, of the restaurant. Adrien is the sous chef. Since Adrien is so experienced and good at what he does, Gabriel is in and out and takes on more of a managerial position, but he still commands the kitchen multiple days a week. Marinette has been hired as a saucier, or someone who prepares all the sauces and gravies and sautés the food. 

I tried to do a good bit of research about the environment in a top-tier restaurant like this, but of course, I’m likely to get things wrong with the zero experience I have actually having worked in one. If you catch anything that seems blatantly off (minus Marinette’s baking issues), please let me know!

---

next: ii

[newstfionline]

Friday, January 15, 2021

DC locks down a week before inauguration (AP) All through downtown Washington, the primary sound for several blocks was the beeping of forklifts unloading more fencing. There were no cars or scooters and seemingly no tourists Wednesday, just the occasional jogger and multiple construction crews at work. The U.S. Capitol that proved such a soft target last week was visible only through lines of tall, black fence. Two blocks from the White House, a group of uniformed National Guard troops emerged from a tour bus and headed into a hotel as a state of lockdown descended on Washington that will last through the Jan. 20 inauguration. More than 15,000 National Guardsmen from multiple states, some of them armed, will be in Washington. “Clearly we are in uncharted waters,” said Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser. The FBI has warned that armed protests by violent Trump supporters were being planned in all 50 state capitals as well as in Washington for the days leading up to the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden. Between the pandemic and the security threat, Bowser is flat-out asking people not to come to the District of Columbia for the inauguration.

Republican Party faces rage from both pro- and anti-Trump voters (Reuters) After riots at the U.S. Capitol by President Donald Trump’s supporters, the Republican Party is facing defections from two camps of voters it can’t afford to lose: those saying Trump and his allies went too far in contesting the election of Democrat Joe Biden—and those saying they didn’t go far enough, according to new polling and interviews with two dozen voters. And the choice confronting party leaders as they ponder a renewed impeachment effort—whether to continue backing Trump or make him a pariah—will almost certainly cost the party voters it needs to win future elections, Republican party officials and strategists say.

A tinderbox (The Media Today) Sam Lessin, an early Facebook staffer, wrote at The Information that “the move by social networks to deplatform President Trump last week was the right call.” But he added that the moment will be “remembered as a watershed moment for the history of free speech and the globally open internet. It has the potential to be a tinderbox that undoes the core of the internet as we know it.” Lessin says the moves will “create intense pressure to censor private messaging (starting with email) and that other countries will “now have a very legitimate argument they need their own control” of information platforms, and even the internet itself.

Defiance of virus dining bans grows as restaurants flounder BORING, Ore. (AP)—A line formed out the door during the lunch rush at the Carver Hangar, a family-owned restaurant and sports bar, and waitresses zipped in and out of the kitchen trying to keep up with orders as customers backed up in the lobby. Indoor dining has been banned in much of Oregon for nearly two months, but the eatery 20 miles southeast of Portland was doing a booming business—and an illegal one. The restaurant’s owners, Bryan and Liz Mitchell, fully reopened Jan. 1 in defiance of Democratic Gov. Kate Brown’s COVID-19 indoor dining ban in their county. “We’re not going to back down because our employees still need to eat, they still need that income,” said Bryan Mitchell, as customers ate at tables spaced 6 feet apart. “The statement that we’re making is, ‘Every life is essential. You have the right to survive. Nobody should tell you what you can and cannot do to provide for your family.’” Even as coronavirus deaths soar, a growing number of restaurants in states across the country are reopening in defiance of strict COVID-19 rules that have shut them down for indoor dining for weeks, or even months. Restaurants can serve people outside or offer carry-out, but winter weather has crippled revenues from patio dining.

Colombia struggles to keep social leaders safe (AP) Just taking a walk in the streets of Colombia’s capital can feel dangerous for Luz Nelly Santana. The Afro-Colombian community leader always wears a bulletproof vest. And she’s followed by a bodyguard assigned by the government. “I get death threats on the phone every month,” Santana said, “and once a man entered my office and said he was going to kill me.” Santana, who runs an organization that helps community leaders fleeing violence to settle in Bogota, is one of more than 3,700 activists given some sort of protection from Colombia’s government. The country is widely seen as one of the world’s most dangerous places to be a community leader or advocate for human rights or environmental issues. Last year 120 community leaders were murdered in Colombia according to the U.N.’s High Commissioner for Human Rights. Decades of bloody civil conflict involving government forces, leftist guerrillas, right-wing paramilitaries linked to landowners and powerful drug trafficking groups have created an atmosphere in which many factions feel little hesitation at trying to kill or intimate those who oppose them.

‘At 6 p.m., life stops’: Europe uses curfews to fight virus (AP) As the wan winter sun sets over France’s Champagne region, the countdown clock kicks in. Laborers stop pruning the vines as the light fades at about 4:30 p.m., leaving them 90 minutes to come in from the cold, change out of their work clothes, hop in their cars and zoom home before a 6 p.m. coronavirus curfew. Forget about any after-work socializing with friends, after-school clubs for children or doing any evening shopping beyond quick trips for essentials. Police on patrol demand valid reasons from people seen out and about. “At 6 p.m., life stops,” says Champagne producer Alexandre Prat. Trying to fend off the need for a third nationwide lockdown that would further dent Europe’s second-largest economy and put more jobs in danger, France is instead opting for creeping curfews. Big chunks of eastern France, including most of its regions that border Belgium, Germany, Switzerland and Italy, face 6 p.m.-to-6 a.m. restrictions on movement. Overnight curfews have become the norm in swaths of Europe but the 6 p.m.-to-6 a.m. curfew in 25 regions of eastern France is the most restrictive anywhere in the European Union’s 27 nations. Others countries’ curfews all start later and often finish earlier.

Facing New Outbreaks, China Places Over 22 Million on Lockdown (NYT) When a handful of new coronavirus cases materialized this month in a province surrounding Beijing, the Chinese authorities bolted into action. They locked down two cities with more than 17 million people, Shijiazhuang and Xingtai. They ordered a crash testing regime of nearly every resident there, which was completed in a matter of days. They shut down transportation and canceled weddings, funerals and, most significantly, a provincial Communist Party conference. By this week the lockdowns expanded to include another city on the edge of Beijing, Langfang, as well as a county in Heilongjiang, a northeastern province. Districts in Beijing itself, the Chinese capital, also shut down. More than 22 million people in all have been ordered to remain inside their homes—double the number affected last January when China’s central government locked down Wuhan. The flare-ups remain small compared with the devastation facing other countries, but they threaten to undercut the success the country’s Communist Party has had in subduing the virus, allowing its economy to surge back after last year’s slump and its people to return to something close to normal lives.

The rise of Chinese financial technology (Foreign Affairs) China’s emerging dominance in financial technology, known as “fintech,” poses a fundamental problem for the United States. Washington cannot trust that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) will harness its growing influence in financial markets for the benefit of all. More likely, Beijing will use fintech to occupy the high ground in global commerce, bolster its surveillance state, and lay the groundwork to challenge the U.S. dollar as the world’s reserve currency. The rise of Chinese fintech companies threatens to strengthen the world’s most pervasive surveillance state. The so-called data exhaust from billions of digital transactions supplements existing data from facial recognition, search histories, and social network connections, furnishing the CCP with GPS time and location stamps, transaction histories, travel logs, bank account details, and more. Together, this information allows Chinese authorities to closely monitor and control specific individuals and communities by reducing or canceling access to bank accounts, freezing travel routes, and denying entry to specific locations. Ominously, financial authorities in Hong Kong have recently begun asking banks to report transactions to help authorities identify pro-democracy activists.

“But in America…” (Foreign Policy) Chinese state media is still focused on the dysfunction revealed by the assault on the U.S. Capitol last week. As with Soviet propaganda about U.S. racism, Chinese propaganda is most effective when it goes after genuine U.S. failings. But the media has bent the Capitol story significantly toward Beijing’s own needs. Emerging themes include the chaos of democracy, the righteousness of China’s own censorship, and that the United States is making a mistake by going after China instead of fixing its domestic problems. One theme has especially resonated, though: guns. Like most of the world, the Chinese public views the U.S. attitude toward firearms with horror. The sight of armed marchers baffles people. In China, the issue has tragic salience in the death of Yiran Fan, a talented Ph.D. student in Chicago who was killed on Jan. 9 during a gun rampage.

‘Rent-a-person who does nothing’ in Tokyo receives endless requests, gratitude (Mainichi/Japan) A 37-year-old Tokyo man who says he rents himself out to other people “to do nothing” has been inundated with gratitude from Twitter users. “I’m glad I was able to take a walk with someone while keeping a comfortable distance, where we didn’t have to talk but could if we wanted to,” one user wrote. Another reflected, “I had been slack about visiting the hospital, but I went because he came with me.” Shoji Morimoto has been advertising himself as a person who can “eat and drink, and give simple feedback, but do nothing more,” since June 2018, and has received over 3,000 requests. He has about 270,000 followers on Twitter. Initially he had offered his “rent-a-person who does nothing” services for free, but he now charges 10,000 yen (roughly $96) per request. People rent him for various reasons. At times he will participate in a gaming session to make up numbers, turn up to send off people who are moving away, accompany those filing for divorce, or listen to health care workers who have become mentally unwell due to their exhausting work. It may be the case that somewhere in their hearts, everyone is longing for someone who will cheer them on. It seems that this may be why the “rent-a-person who does nothing”—who doesn’t tell you to “do your best” or that they “support you,” but stays by your side in silence, has seen endless demand.

Fire destroys homes of thousands in Rohingya refugee camps—UNHCR (Reuters) A huge fire swept through the Rohingya refugee camps in southern Bangladesh in the early hours of Thursday, the United Nations said, destroying homes belonging to thousands of people. The U.N. Refugee Agency (UNHCR) said more than 550 shelters home to around 3,500 people were either totally or partially destroyed in the blaze, as well as 150 shops and a facility belonging to a non-profit organization. More than a million Rohingya live in the mainland camps in southern Bangladesh, the vast majority having fled Myanmar in 2017 in a military-led crackdown the U.N said was executed with genocidal intent, charges Myanmar denies.

Lebanon begins all-day curfew as virus spins out of control (AP) Lebanese authorities began enforcing an 11-day nationwide shutdown and round the clock curfew Thursday, hoping to limit the spread of coronavirus infections spinning out of control after the holiday period. For the first time, residents were required to request a one-hour permit to be allowed to leave the house for “emergencies,” including going to the bakery, pharmacist, doctor, hospital or airport. Authorities came under pressure to take a tougher approach after the country’s hospitals ran out of beds with daily infections reaching an all-time high of 5,440 cases last week in the country of nearly 6 million people. Even before the coronavirus, Lebanon was going through an unprecedented economic and financial crisis that has seen its national currency and bank sector collapse and locked depositors out of the savings. Hospitals, long considered among the best in the Middle East, struggled to pay staff, keep equipment running and secure necessary medical supplies as dollars grew scarce. Furthermore, the country has been without a government since the old one resigned in the wake of the catastrophic Aug. 4 explosion at Beirut port, which put a further strain on hospitals, inundating them with injured. At least three hospitals were destroyed.

Central African Republic soldiers repel rebels at capital (AP) Security forces in Central African Republic repelled attacks by rebels trying to seize the capital early Wednesday after intense fighting on the city’s outskirts, officials said, in a major escalation of violence that has rocked the country since last month. At least one Rwandan peacekeeper has been killed, and another injured, according to the U.N. mission in the country. At least 30 rebels have been killed, according to Prime Minister Firmin Ngrebada. The rebels are protesting the re-election on Dec. 27 of President Faustin-Archange Touadera. Following the Jan. 4 announcement of Touadera’s victory, the rebel coalition threatened to take the capital. They had also taken towns in other parts of the country before the election. The army is supported in its battle against the rebels by forces from Rwanda, Russia, France and the United Nations.

Lack of Tiny Parts Disrupts Auto Factories Worldwide (NYT) Automakers braced for turmoil when the pandemic hit. They expected supply chain disruptions and plummeting sales. But they never figured that a year later one of their biggest problems would be PlayStations. Strong demand for gaming systems, personal computers and other electronics by a world stuck indoors has sucked up supplies of semiconductors, forcing carmakers around the world to scramble for the chips that have become as essential to mobility as gasoline or steel. Virtually no carmaker has been spared. Toyota Motor has shut down production lines in China. Fiat Chrysler Automobiles temporarily stopped production at plants in Ontario and Mexico. Volkswagen has warned of production problems at factories in China, Europe and the United States. Ford Motor said last week that it was idling a Louisville, Ky., factory for a week because of the shortage. When Covid-19 hit, automakers slashed orders for chips in anticipation of plunging sales. At the same time, semiconductor makers shifted their production lines to meet surging orders for chips used in products like laptop computers, webcams, tablets and 5G smartphones. “Consumer electronics exploded,” said Dan Hearsch, a managing director at the consulting firm AlixPartners. “Everybody and their brother wanted to buy an Xbox and PlayStation and laptops, while automotive shut down. Then automotive came back faster than expected, and that’s where you get into this problem.”

[amieyhko]

The Last (for now) Days of Being a Student

29 Oct 2018

Honestly though, my last semester in uni wasn't very studious. I had one course called Sixteenth Century English Literature in which the professor basically mocked all forms of religion and pointed out all the sexy details in Shakespeare's sonnets. For the final exam, which was three essays long, I wrote one very indignant essay about why I needed more women in literature and how all of the supposedly feminist writers in the sixteenth century were full of *$#% (but in a literary chic way). I got an A.

To top off the not-student like behavior, I TA-ed for my advisor's Freshmen English class. I survived a semester before and couldn't be prouder of myself for the job I was doing. It was mostly writing emails to students, making photocopies now and then, and sending reminders to the professor. The most excruciating part probably was correcting their essays' grammar and spelling. My friend said "Why bother? They probably won't read them," to which I retorted "CUZ I LIKE BEING RIGHT!"  On the anonymous end-of-the-term survey, I've received many confessions of love to which I awww-ed and laughed. But most of them genuinely thanked me for the effort I put into emailing them, asking them questions, and drumroll correcting their grammar.

But why bother reading about my boring school life when you can read about what I have been doing not in school! Here is what went down in my life from April - June 2018.

The Diary of Anne Frank

The best way to cure jet lag is to go straight into tech week the following week. I have experienced many ailments from traveling and found jet lag from Europe to Asia is quite the worst. Fortunately, I signed myself up to run the lights for the Butterfly Effect Theatre's production of The Diary of Anne Frank. This was our second run but this play just doesn't get old. Fun fact about this play: this show's original Broadway cast had young Natalie Portman playing Anne. The Diary has been adapted into many plays but this version doesn't deify Anne into a hero figure but truthfully illustrates the inner drama of a teenage girl and the struggles of seven people living in a cramped up space. Honest to God, I cry almost every curtain call.

During the production, I read many young people don't believe that the Holocaust happened—this information killed me a little. It's absurd that someone wouldn't believe in a historical event with monuments and memorial sites all over the world with many primary sources and survivors who are still alive to tell their stories. Don't even get me started on how good some great works of fiction are based on WWII, like The Reader, Everything is Illuminated, and The Fiddler on the Roof… Also, there was a group of high school students in Taiwan that dressed up as Nazi soldiers and marched around the school for an event. Ignorance is not bliss, naïve is not cute—history is there for us to reflect and learn. I somehow took these news very personally, maybe because I grew up listening to the same Bible stories as the Jews, maybe because I cannot stand uneducated people, probably a combination of both.

A representative from Israeli cultural office was invited to open the show (we had free falafels, hummus, and pita during the last run of the show but not this time, insert whimpering). The weekend swooshed by. I was just thankful I could be a part of a show that spoke a story that some started to neglect.

That was the last time I worked with this theatre company because 1. they did have one last show August but I was helping another show the exact same time 2. rent issues with the theatre space 3. the artistic director got a new job in Vienna. He moved early September and he basically sold everything from costumes to lighting equipments. It was a hectic process to watch a theatre company that I truly felt at home turn into a goodbye yard sale. I learned a lot about running low budget shows, programming with too-old consoles, but most of all I made connections with people I know I will meet again in this tiny theatre world.

Fashion Revolution Taipei

April was a month where I went crazy juggling all about. I collaborated with Totes & Tees, a small social enterprise that focuses on ethical and zero-waste fashion. I have been following this small company for a while through a mutual friend and was really interested in what they did. The owner was also going to be one of the hosts for Fashion Revolution 2018 in Taipei. The idea was to have a runway showcasing up-cycled items handmade by many different designers. I was to crochet a beanie from a no-longer-used piece of fabric. Sadly, I couldn't participate on the actual day because I went on a family trip to…

Rome & Paris

To say this was a family trip would be a misleading statement. My parents were there to lead the seminars they have been running for 10+ years. As I mentioned in Update 3.0, their heart is for the Chinese speaking people all over the world. The Asians basically took over a whole hotel on the outskirts of Rome to host Fathers' School and Mothers' School simultaneously. This meant, there needed to be a baby sitting club. Slowly raise your hands if you're a pastor kid you basically did everything that was assumed of you! (Did I volunteer? Did I chose to be their child? We'll never know) No, I'm not being bitter, I just simply love poking fun at my stereotype. Besides, I was asked nicely to participate in taking care of the children—a member from the Taiwan side of the team had activities prepared for them, I just had to support. I said "WHY NOT? I JUST DID THIS A MONTH AGO!"

But, this crowd was tough. It wasn't like calming down super rowdy Hungarian-Romani children nor was it like being dragged around by crazy bubbly Filipino kids. These were well-educated, cellphone-hogging Chinese-looking kids who preferred classily sitting on chairs, not the floor, chattering away in Italian. Of course, they were all embedded in their Chinese-ness from their parents, so they still understood most of what we were trying to do. However, whenever the head teacher asked them to do something extremely "Asian", my TCK heart ached, feeling all the "well, they are NOT going to relate to that at all…."

Because the seminar lasted three out of the five days we were at Rome, we only had enough time to look around the Vatican and trot around to sneak peek here and there. One of the free days was taken over by a tour set up by the local church. They took us around historical sites that were related to the early underground churches and Apostle Paul. We visited way too many cathedrals that all of them started to look the same. The most memorable place was the underground tunnels where the early Christians escaped to and hid from the Romans. Going to a Christian school, we would always play Underground Church when we had class sleepovers—even though it was just a game, the danger felt extremely real. But as I stood in the tunnel, I could actually really imagine how real their fear must have been. I was in awe of the way these early Christians kept their faith even in the dark, cold underground.

After eating one too many cones of gelato and faking one too many Italian conversations in Spanish, we arrived in Paris. They were only going to host Fathers' School so umma and I had plenty of free time. However, being the only linguistically competent person in the group (but honestly, my French is basically nonexistent), I had to take everyone around the city. I was annoyed at having no time to myself and just my parents but thankfully, appa had three days free and the crowd let us be for two of those days.

Paris' reputation really proceeds itself, it's a bit dirty, there are more rude strangers than nice people, and they really hate you if you ask "parlez-vous anglais?". Despite all the negative stereotypes, I took my little tour group all around the places I've researched in advance. I was also allowed to go off on my own when I wore them all out by 5 p.m. I'm proud to say I've actually hit all the touristy places I wanted to visit with and without the group. We even visited Versailles kudos to the fact umma is so internet-savvy that she actually researched. She was very intent on visiting a few places like Château de Versailles, the top of the Eiffel, and the Louvre—her excuse always being "I'm never coming here ever again!"

After two-ish weeks of venturing around Western Europe, we emptied out the 99 cents cheese blocks at the local Carrefour market, squished it into our luggage, and sat on a long plane ride. Umma commented that I seem to be the "vacation type", she couldn't understand how I could still be so chipper being gone from home so long. Although her observations were accurate, I wouldn't have wanted to stay longer unless I started taking French classes or something—the language barrier was devastating.

Sharon McGill Memorial Service

My dorm mother passed away from cancer last fall. Her favorite drink at Starbucks, toffee nut latte, just came round again. I received the news via McGill dormie Facebook group while I scrolled through my phone during class, bad idea. My commute back home that day seemed five times longer than usual. Halfway through my walk home from the bus stop, I ran into umma. She asked if I wanted to go to Costco with them, then asked why I don't look so well. I honestly had no clue how to break the news. Appa's car rolled around to pick us up for Costco, I said Sharon died, we cried a little and had a moment of silence. I always thought about how umma and Sharon, appa and Terry are the same age. My mums and dads. They are some of the most important people of my life and one of them was gone.

I'd like to think I had enough time to process through this situation. Then I'd realize that not all valleys in life are empty holes. You don't just get over it. You live with their memories. Some days will pain you more than others but they're there to remind you that you are that much alive. You can still feel. As cheesy as I'm starting to sound, this is something I have been needing to remind myself lately.

After what seemed like too long, the day of Sharon's memorial service came. I hopped on the familiar bus from Taipei to Taichung. Visiting high school wasn't a big deal but I've never thought I'd visit because my dorm mum passed away. The auditorium was filled. Dorm kids had priority seats. Terry gave a bear hug to everyone who made it. The whole thing began with Terry mumbling to the mic "Alright, let's get this over with," to which I definitely chuckled. I didn't even bother holding back my laughter or tears or both as they came and went throughout the service. At the end, I could just feel this was a closure that everyone who knew Sharon deserved. I cannot describe what kid of feeling that was. The feeling of home? Feeling of clear certainty. Maybe everyone's love for Sharon somehow became a tangible atmosphere. I must say it almost felt like a wedding.

During the reception, there was a photo time where Terry was huddled around 30-something out of 120-something of his dorm children. Later on he said that was the highlight of his day. He also said no one was allowed to leave the dorms before midnight, to which most of us complied to. Most of the dorm kids that showed up all graduated around '02 or '03 so I was just a little bit very intimidated, mostly because I forgot the fact that we were all bound by the similar experiences of studying in Morrison while living in a dorm with the same dorm parents. It was a good evening to be a McGill Dormie.

Bye Hair Day

I have been notorious for the way I treat my hair. If you know the song "Grace Kelly" by Mika, well, in the chorus, he is singing about my hair circa 2013-2015. Then I stopped. I hated the way my hair felt dry and crinkly, I wanted my normal long hair back. I also remembered I've always wanted to donate my hair to a cancer foundation. It was just something I wanted to cross off my bucket list. So I've been growing my hair out ever since—it took way longer than I thought. Throughout my hair growth, two significant people in my life died from cancer. It felt like I had way more reason to donate now.

June 16th was the date. My friend also wanted to join in. We found Little Princess Trust, an organization that gives out free wigs to young girls who have lost their hair due to illnesses. Their guidelines said they love receiving longer hair because they're more popular. After some measuring I decided to get a buzz cut so that I could maximize the length of hair I could donate. Besides, I've been wanting to have crazy buzzed hair after a couple of years of freakishly long hair. Fickle me, I know.

My hair stylist washed my hair way thoroughly, dried it for what seemed like an hour, tied it up into sections, and snip, it was in a plastic bag. My buzz cut buddy and I couldn't stop rubbing our heads the following few days.

But my oh my, I did not know that a head of hair was keeping me warm all this time. I was constantly dealing with extremely cold overhead AC on buses and I eventually caught a really bad cough for three plus weeks. I now never leave my house without a hat of some sort.

My hair has become so short that I have been tracking my days with hair length. My best friend, Fanny keeps saying it's like watching a little infant grow every week. I told her to stop being so overly dramatic.

oh dear, this is getting real long

Instead of asking how someone's day was, Sharon would ask us three things: 1. what was the low point of your day? 2. high point? 3. what have you learned today? or what do you think Jesus is teaching you today?

So to boil down my April to June into a few pointers, it sucked that I got really sick for almost a month, but I loved getting to travel and do a lot lot lot of things. I'm learning that well-done goodbyes are possible. Currently, I'm learning to do just that—slowly closing up gaps responsibly, honestly, and kindly. God is also teaching me that I'm allowed to chose and do what I love (but more on that next update).

Thank you for catching up on my life, I promise the next post will be just as long.

[mistakemessenger-imagines]

What about the RFA and Unknown and V finding out that MC has a career in the arts (author, artist, actor or something like that?) @saeranlover

Lol it’s been like 5,000 years since I’ve done a request, here you go bbies

Yoosung:

It was always a lingering thought in Yoosung’s mind

The thought always came randomly, but sometimes he swore that he  recognized your voice

Like the one time you yelled “Come at me!” at a friend who was teasing you and he just froze for a second to think about why it sounded familiar

It wasn’t until one day he was testing out a LOLOL character he’s never played before and she screamed out a line of dialogue before her attack

And suddenly he heard your voice behind him perfectly recreate the line

He turned around to see you cheekily grinning from your place on the bed

But it was wiped off your face soon enough because baby boi just pounced you into a big hug

“MC WHY DIDN’T YOU TELL ME YOU VOICED A CHARACTER IN LOLOL I WOULD’VE PLAYED AS HER MORE OFTEN IF I KNEW.”

You giggled as he rapidly asked you other things you voice acted in and gawked when he recognized the other characters you’ve voiced in games and cartoons

He’ll shyly ask you to reenact his favorite lines or scenes and his inner fanboy will show

Yoosung’s never really been into the behind the scenes stuff but he already somewhat was a fan of yours before so he’s basically dating his favorite VA

Silly lil’ peanut is gonna ask for your autograph on his merch of the characters you’ve voiced

Jaehee:

She found out during one of your nights in

You were in the kitchen preparing the snacks while Jaehee sorted through the set of musicals the two of you had rented for tonight (you finally convinced her that watching ‘Promiscuous Jalapeno’ for the 8th time in a row was a little much)

Once that was all said and done, you cuddled up to Jaehee while the movie started as she fed you popcorn

Oh crap, you recognized this movie

You actually got the part of the main dancer in this film (it was your typical dance batte film)

You somewhat never wanted her to find out  that you were an actor/dancer in fear of always being compared to Zen

Once your character was introduced, Jaehee’s eyes squinted a little at the screen before gasping and shaking your shoulders

“MC, MC, IS THAT YOU?”

“U-uhm nooooo...?”

“Wait, why would you keep this secret from me?”

After explaining your reasoning as to why, she just pulled you into a tight hug

“I’d never compare you anyone else, I love you just the way you are, famous or not!”

After watching the movie, she put aside the time to scour the internet for every performance you’ve been in and is about to be the proud owner of all your merch

jaehee please no that was our grocery money

Zen:

“lolol zen have you seen mc’s latest cover?”

“Cover? What’re you talking about?”

“the one on her youtube channel???”

“...”

“you do know what she does for a living, right??”

After Seven endlessly mocked Zen for not knowing what his own girlfriend did for a living, Seven graciously provided the link to your Youtube channel

Zen then proceeded to spend the next 3 hours of his life going through

your entire channel

He knew that you liked to sing and sounded like an angel but this

This is something extraordinary

You actually made a living doing this and he never even knew!

 He finally made his way up to your latest cover (which was uploaded about a week ago), and HO L Y  C R A P

It was the song he’s practiced at home for months on end for a musical he recently just starred in!

When you get home that night, you’re bombarded with compliments and questions (mostly compliments)

You explained that you never recorded around him because you were afraid that he might’ve thought you were going to use him for popularity

“Babe, I know you would never do that NOW WILL YOU PLEASE DUET WITH ME--”

Guess who has the best mashup cover of ‘Butterfly’ now

Jumin:

Coming home a few hours early was indeed a rare occurrence for Jumin

Usually when he came home, you were instantly there to greet him with a hug and kiss

He called your name, but there was no response, just a faint typing sound

After hanging his coat on the coat hanger, he began walking towards the noise, his hands already working on loosening his tie

“Ah, here you are, my love,” he said upon entering the officeroom

“Jumin, you’re home early,” you smiled, letting your husband wrap his arms around your shoulders and resting his chin atop your head

“The office had to close early for some renovations,” Jumin explained, “but I’m more interested in what you’re working on.”

“I’m working on my next book!”

The surprised look on his face made you remember that you never brought it up to him before, but now is as good as time as any to explain

Jumin seemed genuinely intrigued as he listened to your explanation on your book series, which was apparently very popular

When you finished, he asked if you could lend him the first addition, as he did enjoy reading in his spare time

And soon enough, he was hooked

He’d have long talks with you over dinner on how he wasn’t expecting a plot twist or how well you wrote your characters

Or about how you should hurry and finish the next book because you left him on a cliffhanger

707:

He’s known since the background check that you had a job in digital art but he tucked that away in the back of his head because there were too many other things happening at the time (eg the hacker, your sudden appearance, his emotions and job...)

It isn’t until one day where he’s been able to work for a few hours straight without you lecturing him about how he should take a break

So he got up from his chair, slapped his right leg a few times to wake it up, and ventured outside his office to find you

To no surprise, you were huddled inside in the bedroom, but this time with your drawing tablet in hand

“Hey Saeyoung,” you tiredly muttered, eyes still glued to the laptop screen

His eyes trailed to where you were looking and a look of mock hurt morphed on his face, “MC, how dare you draw a picture of another man!”

You stifled a laugh at your boyfriend’s dramatic tone, “Zen just asked me to draw some things for his website so I’m--”

“You should me drawing me instead! Here, I’ll even pose for you!” 

You regret even looking behind you, because Saeyoung was already stripping down to his boxers, need I remind you the pair with cat faces on them

“DRAW ME LIKE ONE OF YOUR FRENCH GIRLS.”

“SAEYOUNG PUT YOUR CLOTHES BACK ON AND GET TO BACK TO WORK!”

V:

Usually you were making some sort of noise in the house, but today you were oddly quiet

“MC? Where are you?”

“I’m in the living room,” you hollered back as he started making his way over, “Be careful not to bump my arm though.”

“What’re you doing?” he asked, taking a seat on the floor next to you

You explained that you liked paint and used it as a way to make some extra pocket money

V was very happy and excited to hear that you had an artistic career just like him

You were always delighted to describe the paintings to him, and you always did it with such passion

After awhile, he started to miss photography and he so badly wanted to see your work for himself

So he decided to get the eye surgery

Once he did, he was shocked at how much he can see your heart poured onto the canvas

You often went out into nature together and sit there together for hours to photograph/paint and enjoy one another’s company

You also loved painting some of V’s older photographs and he loved it and every single one is framed in the house

#artsycouple

The day you painted a picture of the sun and gave it to him, he cried

Unknown:

The first time Saeran ever walked into your room, his eyes immediately darted to the big, colorful collection of sticky note pads on your desk

He picked one up, noting that every one had a slightly different drawing than the others, “What’re these for?”

“Oh, I’m an animator! I like to use these sticky notes when I’m bored.”

He never got to watch cartoons as a child so this was all new to him

Watching you peacefully work is very, very soothing to him, to just watch the lines fill with color so smoothly

You even let him have some of your already drawn-on sticky note pads and he likes to flip through them when he’s nervous or needs to calm down when something’s bothering him

His favorite is the one you made for him where it goes “I love you, Saeran!” with a cute little doodle of a cartoony-looking you kissing his cheek on it

As mentioned before, he never got to watch cartoons or movies as a kid and he’s willing to watch the ones you’ve worked on

It always amazes him that you made what was on the screen and he loves it (he’s never said it out loud but it shows on his face)

He really enjoys the ones that are story-based rather than the nonsense slapstick ones (which is what Saeyoung enjoys, much to his dismay)

Seeing the childlike innocence in his eyes is heartwarming and you wouldn’t trade it for the world 

[theexistentialstudentblog-blog]

Time

I feel like I am acutely aware of time these days. I mean we all get those days where we watch the clock continuously. Perhaps we’re anxious about waking up for our daily responsibilities the following morning, and subsequently find ourselves pondering the time, staring at the alarm clock (or in most of our cases, switching our phone’s on to check the time). This is pretty normal. I do it often myself; I feel as though my alarm might not sound, or I forgot to turn it on. (If you knew me, you’d realise how likely of a prospect that is). So I find myself tossing and turning and constantly checking the time on my phone. Usually it’s still early in the night and I literally have nothing to worry about, but when we have important things on our agenda- it’s pretty normal to be on our toes a little more!

Then there’s the usual time checking when we’re at work, school, or wherever. We are wishing the minutes, hours etc to pass, craving the sweet relief of comfortable clothes, TV, and bed. Again, it’s pretty normal.

For some reason, though, I feel like my awareness of time has gradually grown way out of proportion, and has become somewhat of an annoyance! It’s making time drag so much more, because all I ever do is wonder. At work is where I have it the worst; I check the clock constantly. I know people who strive to stay away from the clock as long as possible, rightly realising that time seems to go slower if you’re eyeing the clock all day. But for some reason I can’t stay away. My mind goes something like this;

“Okay. It’s a six hour shift. So I have a half hour break, which means 5 and a half hours of actual labour and I’m free. If I have my break after three and a half hours, I only have two hours to go until home time.” Blah blah. My mind will work out shift times and hours, when to have my break so that I am working for as long as I can possibly handle until my legs are close to giving out and I have to finally take my break. (may seem like a slight over exaggeration, but the pain I get in my entire body just by standing for a couple of hours is actually getting ridiculous, I feel like a 90 year old woman). So it’s a pretty accurate account. And then I find myself walking back and forth to the till points to check the time. 

“Well it’s been an hour now, which means I have roughly two and a half hours till my allocated break... maybe I can hold out for three hours? If not, at least that half hour before my break will go quickly, because I’ll be excited to go on my break. Maybe I can even sneak down a little earlier, so that half hour after my three hours might actually be 20-25 minutes.” Jheeze. What am I like? My shifts can vary, too. Some days I’m doing jobs like keeping an eye on fitting rooms, which means time feels very slow but I also like the silence of the fitting rooms, being able to collect my thoughts and not feeling like I have to be doing something every second in case I take a breath and get caught “doing nothing”. (My mind works like this, go figure!) But some days I am doing what I love, merchandising, making things looks great! Those shifts can go very fast. Sundays, too, since we close an hour after I arrive and my shift is only four hours. Those days, my mind can work out time more effectively, I guess!

“Okay so there’s one hour until the store closes. But in 45 minutes I’ll hear the store announcement that the door will be shutting soon, and those 15 minutes don’t count ‘cause they go fast and you stand around talking while you wait for people to leave.” Not that I do that, I usually carry on working if I’m focused on a specific area, but my brain still assumes those 15 minutes are nothing). “Now I have three hours left. In an hour, two people go home. In two hours, there will only be me and one person on this floor. That’s less pressure. That hour will go quickly because I can relax a bit and sit down, maybe sort out clearance”. 

Yep, I pretty much plan my entire day at work down. Although, you’re probably assuming I must really not like going to work. That’s not strictly true. The people there are very good to me and although I don’t fit in with the staff as much as I did in my old store, I still feel comfortable around them. We all do our jobs, but take the time to have the odd bit of banter (barring a few people of course!) But yeah, it’s nothing to do with the job in itself. Because, apart from not being paid for the past two months due to technical reasons (also not their fault), I am enjoying it. Soo, it’s probably just me and my brain. Because I get it with University, also. Oh heck, I get it often, there.

I don’t really need to bore you with the workings of my inner mind, with that one. The truth simply is, I just want time to pass, as soon as freaking possible. People are great, way better than my previous years (although I miss my best friend from uni loads!) But I can’t deal with the constant battle to want to be at home. Like I genuinely do less at uni than I do anywhere else, because I can’t do anything when I am around other people. That really has to change but that’s whole other ballpark. Point is, my awareness of time, and constant need to know what point in the day it is, is very disconcerting. Anybody else have this? Getting tired of waking up six times a night having a mini (and the odd full blown) panic attack, thinking it’s later than it is and that I have miss work or uni. (Okay, work, because missing uni isn’t exactly a new or strange.. or rare.. occurrence for me, haha!) 

But yep. That’s me and my completely random and off-topic blog post about my unrelenting desire to know the exact time... at all times. So i’ll lie here now, at 42 minutes past midnight, attempting to work out how many hours sleep I will get if I go to sleep within the next hour (of course, that’s never going to happen)... so that’ll be fun! This was just a random off topic post because my mind is running at a pace I cannot keep up with and I decided to write my thoughts down in the form of a blog post to settle them- as well as to create more cringe-worthy moments for me to look back on in the future and cry with embarrassment as I realise I opened up to the internet about random shit nobody cares about.. woohoo! 

Good night and happy blogging! Lest we forget that time is passing by at a marginal speed and some day (which seems like an eternity away but will approach us very fast) we will all be dead and this post, and every post we’ve ever written- word we’ve ever wrote or spoken, will be forgotten and lost in time until we and all traces of us have been wiped off of the face of the earth completely! 

(I apologise if you didn’t gather from my username that I am filled with existential dread with a hint of nihilism.. but I also call myself a Christian so maybe I’m just a whole new breed, lmao). 

[r-aizza]

Digital or Traditional? Scout Magazine and Preview Magazine’s Take on Digital Publishing

A Little Info on How Magazines Came to be

The first magazines were published as early as the 1700’s in America. Magazines were considered a luxury for only the rich and sophisticated were able to afford these periodicals, and it contained series of poems, essays, and even opinions on politics. But soon enough by the 1830’s, magazines were able to cater to the more general public, although it focused more on amusement and entertainment rather than information. As time went by, the life of the magazine started to  branch out; compulsory education and the increase in literacy became directly proportional to the increase in demand. Thus, specialized magazines were born. Periodicals were now created for specific fields; may it be for law, for musicians, for artists, and many more.

Time does indeed prove to be a great and essential factor, as it determined how the magazines are shaped and formed as we know it today.

We are a generation who witnessed the growth of technology and its potential to become greater. News and current events are now easily accessible. As time goes by, we have become accustomed to acquiring tons of information in a matter of seconds; whether the news may be as monumental as Trump’s questionable policies or as mundane as your bestfriend’s online rants. This has become everyone’s default lifestyle that the media - especially the print media -  has adjusted to our silent demands and have begun molding their publications to fit the needs of the modern audience. From having to flip through flimsy pages, digital media now offers information acquisition with just the single touch of our fingertips.

A Traditional & Digital Kind of Rivalry

Several years back during the cusp of technological advancement and the obsoletion of the dial-up, we were still devouring print media like our lives depended on it. Technically, it was the only reliable source of information there is. National Geographic and Reader’s Digest subscriptions filled up our mailboxes, and newspapers would be piled up after absorbing the current events for that day.

That is how life was when print media, or otherwise known as traditional media, was our only option. But now in more recent times, a new contender takes center stage; the era of digital media. From paper to pixels, from flipping to scrolling, reading habits have truly shifted. This is due to a number of factors. Some of which include:

One, readers and their smartphones are practically welded together, and acquiring news and articles is now faster and more efficient than ever. People, especially the workforce, are always on the go, and having up to date news right in the palm of your hand is something that makes life less complicated. And,

Two, digital media takes relatively less time and money to produce. Unlike print media which goes through extensive processes and the production thousands of copies, digital content goes through a less extensive route of codes and links, a single online copy that can be accessed through millions of devices across the world.

As we try to understand the different challenges both traditional and digital publications experience, our group ventured out to two publications - namely Scout Magazine and Preview - to highlight the various aspects in which the digital age has both affected them and also gain an in-depth analysis regarding the media’s ever-changing surroundings. Trying to get in touch with these publications was no easy task especially for us students, but nevertheless we were able to get an interview and get the information we needed.

A Trip to the digital world: Scout Magazine

Scout Magazine is a magazine under Hinge Inquirer Publications that caters to the millennials and is run by millennials themselves. For that reason, it enables them to create articles that genuinely gives interest to the people in their generation a.k.a the millennials. Since Scout is a magazine, it also needed digital presence which led to the creation of their own website around late 2015. Scout decide to start a website because most of their audience are online and also to reach a larger audience.The publication's target audience are clearly the millennials and nowadays most millennials are online.  The website started as a repository just so they have an online presence. However, today Scout’s website also become a full time thing. They focused on building their website as well to produce content.

They may have reached out to their audience through social media websites but they cannot go against Facebook in terms of garnering the number of people that they are able to reach.

“So the best that we do is we go with the grain. Like parang kung sasabihin ng facebook na yung trend, photos are good for now tapos in the next few months mag-iiba. Kasi we take into account yung science ng Facebook which comes first. But I don’t think we can never get out of facebook. ”

And when it comes to competitors,

“we don’t think to compete parang we just to be like part of the flow”.

Although millennials run Scout, their biggest challenge is creating the content itself. Everyday they are faced with the challenge to write articles about the recent trends and at the same time, making sure that what they put out is aligned with their brand in order for the audience to know that it is Scout who wrote this. In addition, Scout believes that their true indicator of success is not found in the number of likes they garner online, but rather in their brand and identity and in the content that they put out.  If they stay true to their brand and people recognize them for it, that is when you can tell that they have indeed made a mark in the industry.

“It’s all about diversifying your content”  

Nowadays, especially our generation, we get easily bored when reading long articles that is full on text. However, it helps a lot when articles have gifs, pictures or videos that would balance out the content. that's what Scout did as it was also taught by the writers from the Philippine Daily Inquirer.

Moreover, it is a challenge to keep the audience’s attention to read their articles.  We asked Scout if they think that their audience would notice if they go MIA online. Their response was that, “there were times when the people do not even notice that Scout’s website is down. It would really depend on the time or the article itself. Sometimes when we share their articles on Facebook and our website is down, the audience will either comment or message us about the issue.” However, they also claimed that their website is not only the basis of their online presence but also their social media accounts.

In the end, their view on success is that whatever content they publish, must show and voice out their brand.

A Trip to the Traditional World: Preview Magazine

               In the Philippines nowadays, fashion has continuously becoming a staple topic. More and more Filipinos learn how to dress, what’s in and what’s not. Well, you can say that they don’t just get this from anywhere, that they learn these things from something. Luckily, we got to interview the pioneer magazine that has led to this country’s fashion advancement: Preview Magazine.

            Preview Magazine is under Summit Media, and was founded and launched back in 1995. Preview Magazine was the first ever magazine of Summit Media. Preview Magazine is currently the leading local fashion magazine taking the Philippines by storm. According to Summit Media’s website:

“Preview champions Filipino talent by collaborating with the best photographers, designers, and creatives in the country, giving them a venue to unleash their creativity. Preview prides itself in bringing forth well-curated content, as seen through its unparalleled editorials and pages.”

Preview Magazine has a total monthly readership of 320,000-360,000 and they release their magazines 11 times per year and selling it for P150.00 per issue.                                                                                 

The readers find it easier and more convenient to read online as they do not have to buy magazines and they do not have any spare papers lying around their houses. Luckily, Preview Magazine does not feel that threatened when it comes to digital publishing since they have been digitally publishing their magazines for a while now. Preview Magazine also has their own domain at preview.ph and other social media accounts [facebook.com/preview.ph, twitter.com/previewmag, Instagram.com/previewstylebible] Times are changing and publications must quickly realize that the methods they employed in the past may be obsolete today.

In the upcoming decade and years, willingness of a company to branch out and explore other areas will likely be one of the factors that determine whether a magazine survives or falters. For the print media industry as a whole, there is a pressing need to adjust to a new reality. There are solutions. There are opportunities. And like what Preview Magazine did, they branched out and adapted to the ever-changing trend. Also, they also felt like they had no choice but to follow the trend. Since, if they did not branch out to social media, they might lose readership and they can’t get left behind, and nobody wants to get left behind.

The internet affects the future of publishing because it affects the readers of the paper. Because of the internet, nowadays the reader does not have to use money to get information. They can just go online and read about it, selecting which articles they want to read. There are numerous websites that are available online for this such as Yahoo News, The Huffington Post, and local ones such as Rappler. However, these are only the major ones, there are so much more blogsites that are going around posting blog posts.

Furthermore, Preview Magazine does not only invest on their website, but they also have mobile apps that users can download on their iPhones and/or Android phone so they can stay updated with Preview Magazine. Other than this, they also have this what they call “E-Mags” that people can access through Apple, Newsstand, Buqo, Zinio, and Google Play.

                Preview Magazine doesn’t feel that threatened, as mentioned before, when it comes to the emerging digital publishing. Since they have been, and still are, the leading local fashion magazine. The worry here I think is how they would be able to continue producing good content, which has proven to be not a problem to them since June of 1995, when they launched their first issue.

However, as much as Preview Magazine liked the idea of digital media, since they can branch out to different platforms, they said that it still depends on how you the reader wants to receive information. They said that digital media/publishing is perfect for people who want quick information while the printed materials are perfect for those who want to enjoy whatever they are reading and savor in the glossy pages of the magazine.

Future of the Publications

As millennials, we are on social media almost 24/7 craving for news, videos, pictures; basically information that we desire and heed on. We want to be up to date with the latest news and trends. With these publications striving to relate and interact with its audience, we believe that going for digital media is the way to connect to the modern audience. As how we consume news and information is gradually shifting to fit the flow of the modern age, it is safe to say that we will only continue to experience changes as we go down the road of media innovation. As Bill Gates once said, “The Internet is becoming the town square for the global village of tomorrow.”  In other words, the physical world may be large and vast, but because of the Internet and social media, we have all become connected in ways we haven’t imagined before. Because of the Internet and social media, the world only became smaller.

Print media is here to stay. But digital media is here to conquer. Both publications embraced the idea of creating their own digital based content to cater to the changing tides of the media and its audience, while at the same time still sticking to their traditional roots. Other than that, what keeps these publications going is the idea of expanding and reaching out to their target audience, to establish a relationship between content-provider and consumer, and to create their unique identity to everyone.

[romaniassexdungeon]

LeoJidemic- gay and terror

Day two- social media

Pairing: LeoJi

Second fill for @rarepairsonice

I’m gonna be honest- most of these are LeoJi. This was the one that first gave me the idea to fill these prompts out as fics and not art, when I kept thinking of what Leo and Guang Hong would say watching a certain bad film together, and how they would probably make a habit out of watching awful films and laughing about it, so at least something good came out of me watching Birdemic. Not a lot, but something.

Unfortunately, it meant I had to watch the film again to write this and now I wanna die. You might want to have the film open in another tab to understand what’s going on.

Warnings: alcohol and some sexual humour

...

There were moments in Guang Hong’s life when he knew the best course of action would be to say a firm ‘no, that sounds like a terrible idea and something I’ll regret’ but deep in his heart, he knew the only thing he’d be saying was ‘let’s do this Leo. That’s a great idea, Leo’. ...I’m in love with you, Leo and would do anything for you down to watching the worst films in existence.

At this point, Leo didn’t even need ‘Viktor Nikiforov will be there’ to convince Guang Hong to do the reckless and ridiculous. He could do it with his own charm. Nothing Leo suggested they did was something Guang Hong would be genuinely uncomfortable with, or either illegal or immoral, just things that made him question what exactly his heart was doing here. It was now thanks to Leo that he’d taken Viktor Nikiforov’s actual real life boxers to the face; had stayed up til four in the morning swapping local memes when he had an exam the next day, purely because it was fun; prank-called half their friends; both dressed up as playboy bunnies last halloween to go trick-or-treating, which ended up in them receiving more money than candy; and end up buying a whole horde of stuffed animals every time they met up without fail.

Still, this would be a laugh. Sure, he’d hate himself, his life and worry for the future of cinema, but there would be a few laughs along the way, right?

Right?

Movie ‘dates’ between them were commonplace now, squeezed into whatever time they both had together that wasn’t interrupted by school, college, practice or much-needed sleep. First thing on the agenda was both their top favourites, get that squared out of the way, then films that had been banned or censored in each other’s countries and new releases neither had seen yet. When the pool of possible films to watch started becoming a little underwhelming, Leo suggested they go all out with finding films so bad they were an adventure. As something of a film snob, Guang Hong wasn’t sure he could see where the humour was there. Even when Leo put on ‘the Room’, Guang Hong had mostly been terrified. For humanity and every film industry in the world. It was agony. Torture. Only the start of a string of terrible ideas.

Over time, Guang Hong did find these late nights all the more enjoyable, no school or practice the next day, curled under his bedsheets in his and Leo’s own little world. Well, maybe Leo couldn’t be there in person, but Guang Hong could cuddle up to his tablet. Between Leo’s jokes and some genuinely unbelievable moments, Guang Hong found himself having to stifle laughter more often. He still felt bad for the world though.

There was no way one could not laugh in mild terror at the poorly animated Titanic musical with the rapping dog, though Leo’s laughter seemed to turn to sobbing at the singing mice. The other Titanic musical, the one where no one ended up dying, created more confusion than humour though, but even they had to laugh at the ridiculous plot. Foodfight was just straight up disgusting though, same with the bee-human relationship in Bee Movie.

And now, all Guang Hong had to do was read the title of the youtube video on their shared screen to know he was in for a long night.

Birdemic.

Birdemic…

Bird… demic...

BIRD-FUCKING-DEMIC?

Or to give it it’s proper title: Birdemic: shock and terror.

Shock and terror seemed to be pretty apt words here.

“Where do you find these?” he groaned.

On a webcam in the corner, Leo just shrugged. “Internet.”

“Why can’t you watch hentai like a normal person?”

“We can watch some of that together if it floats your boat, babe,” Leo told him slyly.

“Nah, my parents might walk in. Not that I’d want them to walk in and see me watching this either.”

“Shall we start then? I’m in the mood for some self-loathing.”

Guang Hong chuckled. “I’m not but play away.”

“Let’s do this.” Leo hit the play button, and after some poorly animated company logos, Guang Hong was greeted with a car scene. Not a car chase, but a guy driving his car along a country lane. For the first four minutes of the film. That was it. There were credits, of course, and some calming music; an overture? Really? Didn’t that go out of style in the sixties or something? Okay, not a terrible start, but it was a little dull.

“My favourite bit so far is the Portuguese subtitles,” Leo commented. “I think whoever wrote them’s brain broke from this.”

“I don’t speak Portuguese,” replied Guang Hong sadly.

“Neither can I, technically, but you don’t really have to to understand a sarcastic ‘Ator 10/10’,” he gave a slightly worried smile, “I should warn you, I’ve only seen one scene from this beforehand and… we’re in for a treat, let me tell you.”

“Yay,” Guang Hong groaned, “camera’s a bit… lopsided.”

“So’s his parking,” replied Leo once the overture had finally stopped and what was presumably the main character got out of his car.

“He looks lost.”

“And confused.”

When the main character finally entered a cafe, the waitress greeted him… or what Guang Hong thought was meant to be a greeting. It seemed more like a threat. Who edited this? “What the-”

“I’m gonna need to replay that.” Yup, the waitress definitely seemed to shout ‘hi’ at the protagonist. What did he ever do to her? Was it going to cut to a ‘one month earlier’ scene of him leaving a lousy tip?

“Why does the audio keep cutting out?” he asked.

“Because someone apparently got their cinematography degree free in a cereal box.”

“I wish those were really a thing.”

“I wish this wasn’t a thing.”

I wish we were a thing, Guang Hong’s brain slyly told him. He hoped he’d not said that out loud. It was hard to tell this late at night.

“Hot girl alert!” cried Leo, breaking Guang Hong’s heart ever so slightly. “What’s she doing in a movie like this?”

“Probably can’t act.”

“Yeah...”

“Did he just get up without ordering anything to chase after her? Who does that?”

“Yeah, wake up and smell the restraining order already!”

“He’s so creepy,” Guang Hong whined.

“And you were right, she can’t act,” replied Leo, “I mean, he’s still the worst, but-”

“Lee Seung Gil trying to be sexy is less wooden than him,” the boy finished helpfully.

“He’s creeping me out too,” Leo wrinkled his nose.

“I’m a fashion model.” “And a beautiful one too.”

“Ever seen an ugly model?” asked Leo.

“He’s running after her again?”

Leo burst out laughing. “She looks so uncomfortable leave her alone!”

“So are we just watching his day now?” asked Guang Hong after a few minutes, “like, his whole boring day?”

“Seems so.”

“Give this film all the awards. All of them.”

“Oh good, now he’s at work. Fucking riveting.” Leo flopped back in his chair, giving a groan like a dying buffalo.

“At least it’s going well from him.” The protagonist had started cheering, but even that sounded fake and half-assed. “I hope his office is more than fifty feet away from any modelling studios.”

“Speaking of which,” Leo nodded at a shot of said studio, “let’s see how she’s getting on.”

“Are we just watching her have photos taken in different clothes now? Yay.”

“Oooh, she got signed by Victoria’s Secret.”

“That easy, huh?”

“So they’re letting everyone’s dreams come true before they’re killed in the Birdemic? That’s nice of them.”

A few moments later, and Leo burst out laughing. “She has a flip phone? What the hell? Even my grandma has a smart phone.”

“This conversation’s so fake I’m surprised Phichit isn’t using it as makeup.” He didn’t know why he said that; Phichit was lovely. He’d probably have laughed at that anyway.

“That’s mean,” Leo chided, “they’re not very good at splicing each shot together though. Wow.”

And a few moments even later, Guang Hong was watching a basketball scene, for some reason. Or two guys giving up playing basketball because of a heatwave… in winter? Okay. “‘A day without sex is a day wasted man’? What on earth-”

“A day watching this film is a day wasted.”

“I had cake today; I wouldn’t consider that a day wasted.”

“I wish I had cake.”

“I wish we were watching something else.”

The next scene, however, was even more absurd.

“This guy’s installing a solar panel… is that all there was to that scene?”

“Seems so,” Leo gave a shrug.

“Where are the birds anyway? You promised me a birdemic, de la Iglesia.”

“Give it some time. There’s the bad romance plot to get out of the way first.”

And bad romance plot there was, complete with dates devoid of all chemistry. Really, it was the characters repeating pretty much what had happened in the movie already, with bad audio. It was so boring, in fact, that Leo left halfway through to make himself a Margarita. The cocktail, not the pizza. Guang Hong didn’t blame him, but it also meant Leo missed an actual moment with some chemistry involving the love interest talk about her cat.

“If I could afford it, I’d have at least ten of them.”

It was then that Guang Hong wondered, in horror, if this was actually a webcam filming one of Yuri and Otabek’s dates. He was going to throw up.

When Leo came back, complete with alcoholic drink, Guang Hong requested he pause the movie so he could sneak into the kitchen and grab a milkshake. Maybe they could make a drinking game out of it. The next scene involved Love Interest [he couldn’t remember any of their names] summarizing to her mother everything that happened. Leo downed his cocktail and went to make another.

“Did her mom suggest she get herself a sugar daddy?” he asked when they’d resumed watching.

“Best character in the whole damn film.” Guang Hong wondered if that’s what Yuuri’s mom had told him at some point.

“Please don’t let the two friends do it,” whined Leo, “I’m not sure I could take the weirdness.”

“Why does she have one plain white poster with ‘imagine peace’ on it? Who has that in their room?”

“She’s hot too,” Leo mumbled.

“If only she could act… if only any of them could...”

The next scene almost broke Guang Hong. “Are they just gonna… keep clapping… this whole time?”

“Whilst the audio keeps cutting out? Oh God.”

“Your God cannot help you anymore,” Guang Hong moaned.

“No really, that was the whole meeting? Them all clapping? Who made this?”

“Oh no wait, the guy’s friend has a remote controlled car. Think that was in his briefcase?” Guang Hong giggled, “it’s what I would take to a meeting.” Oh boy, did he just love Perpetually Horny Friend.

“-Chicks love cars, if you wanna get into their pants you better have a nice, hot ferrari.” “She’s my hot ferrari.”

“You’re my hot ferrari, Jiji,” said Leo with a lopsided grin, now on his third Margarita. Guang Hong really needed to have a word with him about that nickname...

“You’re mine, treasure.” Sometimes Guang Hong didn’t know if what they had was bromance or just straight up romance. That was also something he needed to talk to Leo about at some point, and was looking forward to it less than explaining Leo kept affectionately referring to him as ‘penis’. It was funny when they were alone, less so when walking down a busy street in Shanghai.

“Wow, a double date to see ‘an inconvenient truth’, how romantic.” Leo rolled his eyes. “And is that girl wearing an ‘imagine peace’ t-shirt?”

“Of course, guy who wants ferrari how wants an environmentally friendly car. This by any chance trying to push a clean energy agenda?”

“Maybe. Though to be fair, when I saw ‘an inconvenient truth’ I wanted to live in a cave.”

“If they wanted to make more of an impact with their global warming message, they should’ve set it here instead.”

“Is that guy’s friend talking about sex again?” Leo pulled a face, “he makes Chris look like a nun.”

“Funny image. Wish there were birds in this.”

“Give it time.”

So Guang Hong did. What he got instead was more stiff, lifeless romance right up to a drawn out dance scene in an incredibly empty bar. Seriously, just the main couple and the guy singing. Not to mention the dancing was less than impressive. Or was it impressive in how bad it is? It was like watching his parents, or a drunk Yuuri. No wait, drunk Yuuri was way more entertaining.

“I know what my next short programme music will be,” Leo commented with a laugh.

“Not if I do it first,” replied Guang Hong, grinning stupidly. He’d even steal the couple’s crap dance moves.

That scene, as long winded as it was, ended all too soon for them, and now they were faced with what could be the most awkward, wooden sex scene in the history of film. No really, it just looked like someone was filming to random people making out in their underwear. It was just unedited kissing on a bed… Oh God, was Leo showing him porn? He wished it was them in that motel. Was that what Leo was trying to say?

He didn’t have time to dwell on it though because, at last, he was greeted with the birdemic. And boy was that worth the wait. He’d almost jumped out of bed at the sudden onslaught of screeching from what he assumed was poorly-animated birds.

“Holy fuck,” whispered Leo.

“Are those birds… dive bombing into houses and exploding… whilst making plane noises?” Guang Hong’s brain was on the verge of melting at this point. Oh, and the explosion effects were just as bad as the birds themselves. This was hell for him, but at the same time there was something glorious about it.

No wait, the animations of the birds hovering in the air was the worst special effect. He was going to cry.

“They’re just floating in front of those houses,” hissed Leo in disbelief, peeking out between his fingers, “there’s no attacking animation.”

“I know this is probably not what needs to be focused on,” said Guang Hong, “the couple are wearing the exact same clothes from the night before. They’re not even rumpled or anything, not even their hair.”

“Must’ve got tired from sucking face and not done anything else. Just gone straight to sleep.”

“Weak.”

Leo’s eyebrows shot up. “Christ. I’m almost scared to find out what it would be like to make lo-”

“Oh I’d cover you like a birthday cake. I would condition your hair with my jizz.”

“Dude, same,” Leo drew out the last word, grinning stupidly. “I’d bend you over like a car seat.” No wonder Phichit- along with everyone else- had no idea if they were dating or not.

“It’s late and I’m being silly,” Guang Hong tried to explain.

Leo wiggled his eyebrows and held up his glass, “don’t worry about it; I’ve not been adding lime juice to the last five of these.”

“You’ve had five...”

“Have you been watching this damn film?”

“Not recently, we’ve been talking.”

“Well the best scene’s about to come up,” Leo rubbed his hands in anticipation.

Guang Hong’s eyes flickered back to the video on screen. “Who’s this dude and why is he collecting coat hangers?”

“To fight the birds.”

“...Coat hangers?”

“I know right? They’re birds, not abortions.”

“Leo!”

Leo held up his glass again. “Five! Remember?”

“Bloody hell...”

“Here we go,” Leo grinned with glee and Guang Hong’s brain finally melted.

They were swatting at birds… with coat hangers. If that wasn’t enough, the birds were just poor animations, barely moving on the top layer of the shot. They weren’t hitting them, and the birds kept flapping, stationary. This was it, this was what was going to kill him.

“What the fuck,” he whispered, covering his face with his hands and keeping the tablet propped on his knees.

“Told you!” Leo had actually fallen off his chair laughing. He was purple in the face by the time he’d managed to climb back up.

“How long of this crap is there left to go?” he moaned.

“About forty minutes. Why?”

“I’m not sure I can make it,” Guang Hong wiped his forehead, “the birds got me… go on… without me… tell my wife I love her...”

“Babe please, hold on for me!”

“I… can’t...” And Guang Hong collapsed on his pillow, eyes shut and tongue lolling.

“Come on man stop fucking around we still have forty minutes of this shit to go.”

[creactivist-universe]

I started a post yesterday, but  I think it’s lost to the internet now.  I don’t remember what I wrote, but I think it was related to reading through my high school blogs.  

I’ve scheduled my first therapy appointment in three years!  I have my first appointment on February 9th at the ungodly hour of 7:45am.  I’ve cycled back to, “I can’t live with this ADD and depression and it’s seriously impacted my life on no less than two occasions.”  To be honest, after reading my old journals and reflecting on the past 10 years, I’m beginning to think I may suffer from, at the very least, a mild form of bipolar.

I have a few reasons for this, but let’s see if I can form a relatively coherent argument before my mind flits elsewhere.

I think at this point, a few, if not most of my close friends are aware of my struggle with depression.  I was diagnosed in high school and have felt it to varying degrees the past 15 years.  I don’t like to talk about the two big instances in which it severely impacted my life, but I think it could be cathartic right now.  I take that back.  I think it’s 3.

The first. This is really the first time I’ve thought critically about my high school experience and how my depression truly impacted it.  No one except those in charge of my grades and the colleges I applied to know this, but I almost failed out of high school.  On the outside, no adults were truly aware of what I was doing.  I was in honors and AP classes, took early bird P.E. because my schedule was so full, played clarinet in the band, sang soprano in choir, wrote and acted in plays, did speech & debate, and several other activities.  By all appearances I looked like an energetic and bright teenager who knew what they wanted and where they were going.  But in reality, I was struggling.  I wasn’t completing assignments, I was self-harming, and I was becoming obsessive about people and ideas from a time when I thought I was happier.  Reading through my old posts is a rollercoaster of emotions and sometimes it doesn’t feel like the same person was posting these different entries.  I’d go from admitting that I’d cut myself and hated myself, and how obsessed I was with an old friend I thought I was madly in love with to talking about how amazing I was, how productive, that happiness was a choice, and obsessing over an internet boyfriend. Of course, it is hard to separate the ‘teen-ness’ from the mental illness, but I do remember that this was around the time I started to feel like I was two different people.  That there was a me that did everything right, and everything aligned the way I needed and wanted to and I was capable of great things and then there was a me that was a piece of shit, that looked at my excited self as something less than human and an embarrassment.  By the end of high school, even though teachers had consistently told me I was one of their brightest students, I barely had a 2.0.

The second. My first two and half years of college were amazing.  I was involved.  I received amazing grades.  I partied hard and worked harder.  I founded the environmental club at my community college and attended conferences on issues I cared about.  I transferred to Iowa State and worked for national nonprofit while in school.  I helped organize a 200 student conference, spoke on a panel about the future of food and land grant universities in California.  I was on the economics committee for model UN and attended the political science club.  I joined a sorority based around science technology and was so involved I barely had time to thing.  Then like a switch everything changed.  I stopped attending classes.  I never left my room.  I didn’t turn in assignments.  And once again, teachers and my adviser all expressed that oh so common concern, “You’re one of the brightest students in my class, but you’re just not turning in your work.”  I spiraled down, and I spiraled fast.  Before I knew it I was meeting with a dean from the College of Life Sciences, sobbing in their office, begging to be given a second chance.  Needless to say, they basically told me I had to leave, but that I could come back once I got my shit together.

The third. After being ‘academically dismissed’ from college, I fell into a routine of work and partying.  Suddenly I was putting all the energy I used to have for school and my passions, I was putting in to hanging out with this amazing group of people in Ames.  I felt manic.  I didn’t sleep much, I drank a lot, and I made a lot of poor choices.  I adopted 5 chickens I had no business attempting to care for.  I welcomed a heroin addict in to my home and heart.  I would start and end parties, or randomly disappear once I’d decided I was ‘bored.’  Then, as if by magic, I found an opportunity to do the type of work I’d always wanted.  It’s wasn’t glamorous and it was a lot of work, but I was so excited.  I came a Canvass Director with the Fund for the Public Interest and I got to canvass door-to-door on issues that were important to me and crucial to the safety and security of Americans.  I moved to Chicago and worked 12 hours a day, 100 hours a week.  I was exhausted and overwhelmed, but I always felt that I was putting in the hard work I needed to gain the experience to truly run my own nonprofit or get involved in government.  When it came time for my contract to expire we started discussing my next step.  Joe said I’d make a great Campus Organizer (even though I REALLY wanted to be a fellow.)  Even though I had misgivings about the position, I went around and asked everyone in the office who’d ever been a campus organizer about the job.  I even fucking emailed Andre, the executive director of US PIRG and had an hour long coffee meeting with him where we talked about my past experiences, my goals for the future, and the work I’d done with his network of organizations.  I was referred to work for MASSPIRG by the god damn director of the US branch of the organization.  Like the top guy.  And getting selected to work in Massachusetts is  HUGE DEAL. It’s where the first PIRG was started on college campuses in the 1970s.  It’s where they send some of their strongest organizers.  I was on track to really move up in the organization and making a bigger impact.  But like so often happens, like a slap in the face, my depression came back with a vengeance.  Suddenly, I wasn’t following in the foot steps of people like Barack Obama. (If you’re curious about the ‘community’ organizing he did in college, he was a Campus Organizer for PIRG.  Either in New York or New Jersey, I can’t remember.)  I had the same job our president once had and I was in charge of organizing students on two college campuses and when we geared up to pass the bottle bill during the next election, they wanted to expand my jurisdiction temporarily to the community.  I was organizing for a ballot initiative and I was in charge of making sure that as many people as possible knew how to vote on election day. (Here’s a brag: The county in Mass that I was in charge of voted for the bill by a higher percentage than anywhere in the state.  Inevitably we lost as Coca Cola spent $5 in ads against us.)  Suddenly, I was faking press conferences, and missing meetings with senators.  I was afraid to leave my room and rarely went to the colleges I was supposed to organized.  I felt overwhelmed and underprepared.  And like always, by the time I tried to reach out for help it was too late.  I had to drive 3 hours to Boston to be told they were letting me go.  I’d never been fired before.  I’d never failed that hard before.  Up until this point, I had genuinely felt like I’d made up for my mistake in college.  That the universe had someone lined everything up perfectly for me and that there was some greater purpose to my life. Now I just felt like a shitstain in the history of humanity.  I took the six months we had left in our lease to essentially just sit on pause.  I worked, I smoked, and I drank.  And right when things were starting to look up and I’d finally gained a solid group of good friends, I moved.

Back to Iowa. Back to hear.  Almost to now.  Where I have a great job with amazing benefits that many people would kill for.  Bah.  I’m actually on a roll today and there’s so much more I want to say, but I need to get going and finish getting ready for work.

[the90dayfianceblog-blog]

season 7, episode 3

Michael and Juliana

Michael’s back from Brazil. We see him with his immigration lawyer, who seems to be one of the better lawyers we’ve seen on this show. The age gap and the South American country are triggers, she explains, and it isn’t an exact science. Anyway, enough of that – we completely drop the prostitute storyline and skip right over the results of the police report to the big news: Juliana got the visa. Michael prepares for her arrival. He orders a Hummer limo (what machismo bullshit) and gets a $10 bouquet of flowers that changes into a different bouquet of flowers when he gets to the airport. Cue airport reunion. She’s crying and happy. She loves the limo. “Do you want to do a limousine porno?” he asks. He smirks at his own joke and she is, understandably, horrified. “No,” she replies, eyes glued to her phone. He pivots quickly and pulls out champagne – 1996, the year she was born. She slugs it while ogling the New York skyline. Look there’s the Empire State Building, he says, one of the tallest buildings in the world. (It’s 47th, but okay.) She’s proud of herself for making it here. She talks more about her rags-to-riches story. Well, rags-to-middle-class, anyway. He brings out the ugly five-color necklace, which she hates. If she liked it, she would have probably put it on immediately. That is what we have seen before in this show. He points out the meaning of the five colors, and she mumbles “mm-hmm,” eyes glued to her phone.

We’re in Greenwich now, he says, and you can tell because look, there’s a Bentley. This guy’s entire identity is about money. Michael calls Max, and she becomes visibly nervous. He unconvincingly reassures her when asked if his kids will like her. They pull up to a very unflashy apartment, and they walk in to find a scene straight out of Hoarders. “The house is a disaster,” she says, and it is. “We’re moving, right?” she asks and he looks sheepish and doesn’t answer. Max and Cece are charmed by her. She’s intimidated by Max and how smart he is – a reminder of just how young and immature she is. Max and Cece made an adorable spread of gummy-worm cake, eggs, fruit, cinnamon rolls, and avocados. I’ve heard on the internet that avocados are dessert in Brazil, says Max, while Cece stands there proudly. They are TOO MUCH. Cece designates seats and outs Max for helping very little with the meal. I was the taste tester, he says. Again: TOO. MUCH. Juliana is good with the kids, and her conversation with them is natural. By contrast, Michael doesn’t interact with his kids much at all, and is even kind of condescending. I wonder whether the ice cream talk was staged and what kind of relationship he really has with them. Michael tees us up the meeting between Juliana and Sarah, which is apparently happening next week. He doesn’t think they’ll get along. We see the same sound bite again with Sarah saying “I don’t want you to parent,” so I’m dubious that the talk actually goes poorly.

Alyssa predicts: again, they will totally get married. Juliana is going to live off of Michael as she jumpstarts a modeling career in the US. Work is always mentioned first for her. I don't think it will last. Laura predicts: 100% getting married. Again, the quid pro quo is still going on (money for arm candy). Wait, am I even allowed to say quid pro quo now?

New couple: Mike and Natalie

We finally meet our new couple. Mike, 34, is from….Phlegm, Washington? Oh, Sequim. In any case it’s in the middle of nowhere. We see him riding an ATV with no helmet, so we already know he has a penchant for excellent life choices. He’s 6’7” and “likes attention,” so the height thing clearly makes up a large part of his identity. His town has 7,000 people, and his family has owned a tree farm there for 100+ years. He just bought said farm from his dad, which was expensive and put him in some significant debt. Why his dad sold the farm is unclear, and we don’t hear any more about it. Work on the farm is never done, he laments, but fortunately, he has a trusty ranch hand in the form of his Uncle Beau, who has approximately two teeth and lives in the barn. I’m a young chicken, says Beau, and I live off the land. He has as many screws loose as he has missing teeth, but he is precious. Mike has always wanted to be married, and was married before. She left him for another woman. Big yikes. He used to weigh 340 pounds but then lost 80 pounds in two years. That’s objectively impressive to do on your own. He’s got some work ethic. His best friend Matt met a Ukranian girl, Svitlana (presumably on one of the sites that produces many of these couples), and Svitlana’s best friend is Natalie.  Svitlana wants all her friends to have the plush US life that she has (we assume), so Matt gets her number. Matt texts Natalie one day, one thing leads to another, and he eventually goes out to Ukraine to see her. He likes that she’s outdoorsy and full of life. She’s very pretty, blonde, and thin. He’s average-looking, but tall – and she looks pretty tall too, so that probably earns him considerable extra points. Three months later they go to Paris together, where he proposes.

We see him video-call her. He mentions how boring it is there, that all the restaurants close at 10. She looks not enthused at the possibility of this. I for one am surprised to learn that there are restaurants there at all. She’s nervous about leaving her mom, but she says her mom will feel better knowing that she’ll have grandkids soon. Mike is uncomfortable. We’ll take that one step at a time, he says. We learn that he hasn’t told her about all of his debt.

She is at her visa interview, and Mike and Beau are getting the property ready. They are putting blue paint in the pond. “Why are we doing this?” asks Beau, and I am not really sure either. She calls him looking all sad, and evidently there is a delay with the visa. About six months until I can come “home,” she says (ok, cute), and we hear nothing more. He presses her, but she says all her documents are fine. He takes this at face value. We do not. My-kull can get a visa but she can’t? They mention she has two college degrees. No way her documents are fine. Come see me in the meantime, she says, I need you. Obviously he doesn’t have the money, but it takes about 10 seconds of puppy dog eyes for him to change his mind. We see in the preview for next week that her MO for this Ukraine trip is to make a baby. Yeeeeeesh.

Alyssa predicts: I think they will eventually get married. I kind of like them... Though there needs to be more honesty in his finances.

Laura predicts: They’re definitely getting married. They seem to genuinely care about each other and seem level-headed enough to work through this big secret he’s keeping from her. But it’s early...

Tania and Syngin

They wake up at the hotel and she – and I can barely even type this – plays with his armpit hair. Violent cringe.

The four of them (yes, the friends are STILL there) go out for vegan sushi, which makes perfect sense given all the excellent restaurant choices in New York. Tania says, to his face, that her friends come before him. “Not what I wanted to hear,” he mumbles, the poor guy. Are you sick of us, one of the friends asks, and he’s quick to say no, but he admits he would really like to spend some time alone with Tania. This is ignored. The friends grill him about work. He has a few ideas – bartender, fireman, Hollywood actor – and these insufferable bitches tell him to “pick a lane.” He points out that he wants to leave his options open because he doesn’t know exactly what he wants to do. “Does Tania’s ambition make you nervous or scared?” the friend replies – are we talking about the same bartender who lives in her mom’s shed? – and he says no, it’s why he loves her. The friend comes to the kids question, and he says he’d like kids three years from now. He’s lying, says Tania, he wants them in 7 to 10 years. The friends make a judgy face for the thousandth time. Tania declares she is “popping his sperm back in her” after the first kid. He’s not thrilled withthis conversation. He didn’t even know she wanted two kids. Tania isn’t worried, though, because she “always gets her way.” Why this conversation needs to occur in front of her horrible friends is beyond me.

Later, another dinner at a nice steakhouse (where’s she getting the money for all this?), just the two of them. He’s happy to finally have some time alone with her. She declares they need a white board and a corkboard to figure all their shit out in 90 days. They proceed to argue about kids again. He declares he won’t be pressured into it, and that there’s so much that she wants to do (travel, namely) that would be far more difficult with kids.  This, as with most things he’s contributed on this topic, is fair and sensible. Tania quickly gets mad and turns it into a feminist issue – “do you think women don’t do things when they have kids? Don’t ask me that question. You wouldn’t ask a man that question.” Sorry, what? Yes, you would. “Your problem,” she continues, “is that you don’t know what it’s like to plan for anything. How many jobs have you quit?” She says I’m having kids with or without you, and I’m literally putting off having kids for you because I was going to find a sperm donor before I turned 30. We get to hear the much-awaited response from him, “It’s almost like you wrote the story and I’m just a character in it.” She starts off affronted, but it doesn’t take long for her to admit he’s right – that she has this vision of her life and he’s either in or he’s out. “Can we talk about something happy?” she says, and he looks decidedly unhappy. He doesn’t believe in scheduling life, he says, and he’s sad. Even his floppy hair looks less floppy.

Alyssa predicts: They won't get married. At least I hope they don't, for both of their sakes. They obviously have not talked about very important things. Tania lacks maturity and Syngin lacks some direction.

Laura predicts: No way they get married. Do they even know each other? Signs increasingly point to no.

Robert and Anny

We learn that they had sex in the living room while Bryson was asleep. Could have done without that info. He agrees to take her shopping when she says she doesn’t have enough clothes. He takes her to a secondhand store, which ends up being the theme of their entire segment this episode. It’s actually a really nice-looking secondhand store – not your run-of-the-mill Goodwill. But she’s pissed. She hates everything. “Lots of ugly rags,” she proclaims. She wants Chanel and Versace…names she’s heard of, I guess. She likes “elegant clothes.” A hipster sales clerk with an edgy buzz cut comes over to assist. I didn’t know there were hipsters in Florida. Anyway, she makes things worse by informing Anny that everything in the store is used. Anny is incredulous. She bought a lot of nice clothes in the DR, she says. I guess she left those all behind in anticipation of her new Chanel wardrobe. The sales clerk is still standing there for some reason making awkward faces. Anny eventually storms out. Robert is pissed in response to her attitude, and he still won’t just say what the real problem is, which is that he has no money to buy her shit. The man shares a bed with his kid, for fuck’s sake.

Later, they go to dinner. She is wearing an electric blue plastic club dres, two sizes too small, with her black bra featuring prominently. I recall the comment about “elegant clothes.” She’s still talking about the thrift store. We didn’t have these kinds of disagreements over the phone, he admits, as though that were remotely surprising. They get to the restaurant, and they start talking wedding. She wants a ceremony on the beach in Miami with a full menu full of seafood. She’d even like to move to Miami. He reacts with anger. He’s not going to give her a “boo-coo wedding,” whatever that is. “What the fuck is up with you?” he asks, and she offers to throw her glass of wine in his face in response. She points out that he promised to buy her all these things and now he’s not following through. She refuses to eat. She storms out, her wine untouched. In the car, she asks him to apologize. “I’m sorry you’re inconsiderate and a big ass crybaby,” he offers.

They get home. They begin arguing about who is going to sleep on the couch. She gets in the bed with her dress and makeup on and pulls the covers over her, pouting. They both agree they do not like this side that they’re seeing of each other. I got Bryson a babysitter, he says, so this should be a special evening. He pulls out the lingerie he bought. The mood shifts instantly and dramatically. She loves it. He admits he’s seeing a lot of red flags (yeah, a 36-hour relationship will do that), but he’s an eager participant in the sex that is implied by the ceremonial closing of the bedroom door. Gross.  

Alyssa predicts: They are not going to get married. I'm not even sure what they have told each other (again, everyone needs to be more honest about their financial situations!) and their argument was mostly degrading each other. I no longer like either of them.

Laura predicts: I have the least faith in them of any couple, even less than Mursel and Anna. Not getting married. 

Mursel and Anna

Mursel and Anna go to a park, holding hands. We see a misleading sign: “Nebraska: The Good Life.” I realize how much taller and bigger she is than he is. I also realize he carries a man purse. They pull out the translator app for a Serious Conversation. It is tedious and painful. Think Paul and Karine, but worse because they’re actually trying to have an intelligent conversation about something other than cheating and divorce. Dinner with Anna’s mom was “very sad,” Mursel admits. She presses him on the family issue. She’s afraid he’ll leave. He responds that he doesn’t think his family will find out. He explains to the camera that in Turkey, people would shame him if they knew. He says to Anna he’ll tell his family in ten years. He says to the camera he’ll tell his parents on their deathbed, because then they’ll have to forgive him. It’s not possible, she says, to keep a secret for that long. “Where do we go from here?” she asks, and he doesn’t know. “This is our destiny,” he says, and she doesn’t know what that means. “It’s your destiny, not mine,” she offers anyway. It’s not much in the way of an ultimatum, and he needs one.

Later, we see a group heart-to-heart with the boys. He tells them the truth at Anna’s insistence. He tells the boys his family wouldn’t talk to him if they knew about them. I want you to be understanding about this, he says. Joey, the oldest, is not having it. It’s Mursel’s own problem not theirs, Joey figures, since it was his choice to come to America. The six year old asks, heartbreakingly straightforward, “so you don’t care about us?” No, I want to make you happy, Mursel says unhelpfully. He’d really like to bring Anna to his precious, beautiful Turkey, and if not for the kids he would have. The boys all look really sad. Anna wonders whether she’ll have to end up choosing, and is emphatic that she would choose her kids. But she says this to the camera, not the kids, and they need to hear it.

Alyssa predicts: again, they are not going to get married. There are rumors that Mursel is like Sumit (i.e., has a wife in Turkey) but I don't necessarily believe that. There are major cultural and familial issues between these two that cannot be resolved through a phone translating app.

Laura predicts: They’re not getting married. She is realizing, albeit way too slowly, that she cannot reconcile her relationship with him and her relationship with her kids.

Sasha and Emily

Emily is in labor. The hospital looks like a horror movie. It’s dark and cramped and old. It’s a step or two above the South African hospital. She does get some painkillers, though. Sasha says he’s never been in the hospital when he had children, and that it is unusual for Russian men to do so. When his last kid was born, he was working or something, he doesn’t really remember (boy, you just heard a collective “hell no” around the globe--as quoted by one of our SOs). But he’s doing it out of the goodness of his heart because she can’t speak Russian. He texts her family some updates. Emily is glad he’s there by her side. Well, if sitting in the corner far away from her counts as “there by her side.” There’s a complication, and they end up doing a C-section. It’s incredibly graphic and I do not watch most of it. When they pull the baby out, he is limp and silent, which is horrifying. But then he’s fine and they’re happy. He has lots of hair and they keep calling him “Dave,” which is not a baby name. Sasha finally shows some emotion, and Emily is strangely unemotional. I don’t understand them separately or together.

Alyssa predicts: they'll get married because I think they deserve each other. I am glad both Emily and Baby Dave are okay. I have also never met someone who didn't know where they were as their child was being born.

Laura predicts: I think they’ll get married still, but he’ll leave for the next shiny objects - or, he’ll fly with the wind blowing, or whatever. Damn it, I forgot that awesome metaphor already.

[anneedmonds]

Why I’m Logging Off For Christmas…

Sorry, I know that the internet is full of people boring us with news of their phone detoxes, social media bans and internet usage culls but I’m going to jump on the bandwagon and tell you all with why I’m going completely offline for Christmas. And I can tell you that it’s not because I’m sick of Instagram (bloody love it, not even ashamed to admit I’m probably addicted to it) and it’s not because I’ve lost motivation or become mentally constipated – I have over two dozen posts in my drafts waiting for a final edit – and it’s definitely not because I need some time to reignite my creative spark or whatever other excuses make the rounds at this time of year.

No, the truth of the matter is that we have nine of us here for Christmas dinner, eleven for Boxing Day dinner and a stream of different visitors from the 23rd until New Year’s Day. All of them sleeping over, many arriving with children of varying sizes, who will no doubt be noisy and exhausting. Hopefully all guests will wear pyjamas, because I’m not doing daily linen changes for every room –  a quick spritz of air freshener and a re-tautening of the fitted sheet is about the limits of my upstairs hospitality! I’ll cook and pour drinks until the cows come home but do not ask me to change a duvet cover. It has to be the worst domestic task, surely?

Anyway, I thought that I would throw myself wholeheartedly into the hostessing game which means that I won’t have time for my usual insane work/life juggling. I realised, earlier this month, that I haven’t had a proper holiday for about eight years – yes I took off three weeks after both of the babies were born, but recovering from a C-Section with exploding breasts and crazy hormones isn’t exactly downtime. I’m talking dedicated eat-all-the-Lindt-balls downtime where you’re not drafting blog posts on the inside of the pizza box or trying to re-enact precious/funny/poignant moments so that you can upload them to Instagram Stories.

I mean the sort of downtime that makes you forget that you have a job, that frees your mind from the shackles of ambition and discipline and determination. Because who can keep up that sort of mental exertion for years on end without a break? It’s like doing the Grand Prix five days a week and then analysing your performance on your off days.

So yes, I am going to spend some time practising new recipes and trying to make sense of my AGA cookbooks, which tend to be the most dithery, imprecise cookbooks I’ve ever had the misfortune to read. They say things like, “pop the turkey into the roasting oven for between 2 and 6 hours, depending on how much you’ve got cooking in the other ovens. If you’re drying your boots on the simmering plate then add another twenty minutes per pound of meat – if your AGA also heats your hot water then it’s very important that nobody takes a bath or has a shower for twenty hours before you wish to start cooking Christmas dinner.”

Bloody AGA. I both love it and hate it. Really, as a cooker, it’s ridiculous. Yes you can throw in a quiche or a pizza on a whim and the oven is always on, but the downside of this is that THE OVEN IS ALWAYS ON. Imagine having a washing machine that continuously spun around with a load of sudsy water inside and when you fancied washing something you just opened the door and chucked in the dirty laundry?

“Oh I just love my WASHA,” you’d say to anyone who’d listen. “It’s on all the time! I never need to press one button and take five seconds to put a washing tablet into the drum – it’s just on! All the time!”

“But Betty,” they’d say – if indeed you were called Betty, “isn’t that an awful waste of energy, water and detergent?”

“Probably,” you’d say, “but it generates so much unnecessary heat that you can dry the dog blanket over the top of it!”

I jest. I do like the AGA. It’s like having the world’s biggest radiator sat in the kitchen. So big and hot that it can only be connected from October to April because otherwise the walls begin to melt, like a Dali painting. Good job that there’s an extra module on the side – one with electric ovens and a gas hob, powered by a gas cannister up the garden. But the fact that there has to be an extra cooker that’s – well – a normal cooker… tell me again what the point of the AGA bit is?

Right. I’m off. I was going to film a makeup video, edit it, schedule it, write the blurb to go with it, polish off three blog posts to keep you going over Christmas and then cap it all off with a series of Instagram Stories showing you some last minute gift ideas, but there has to be a moment that you call it quits, doesn’t there? I’m such a workaholic I could genuinely carry on for another evening (last night it was until 2am) and then throughout another day, but the kidlings await (one dressed as a fairy, the other in a policeman’s oufit) and I have to do the Big Shop at Sainsbury’s.

Some Christmas reading, to tide you over:

Firstly, a lovely interview that I did for Space NK detailing my Sunday Routine – the beauty products I use, the TV series I watch and the exact amount of time I spend in the bath before Mr AMR recycles my water! Read it here.

Then a great feature with Red Magazine called My Life In Hair. I shot the photos with the amazing Jane McLeish-Kelsey and wrote about the styles that have shaped my adult hair life. You can read that online here.

Finally, a post I wrote on loofahs; more absorbing than it initially sounds, if only marginally. It went up earlier this week but for some reason didn’t format and was an absolute nightmare to read, so here it is with spacing and actual paragraphs.

Now all there’s left to do is to thank you for your immense support this year in what was a slightly difficult twelve months. If you missed why and would like to catch up then my post on grief is here – it’s not particularly cheery, but probably puts things into perspective if your family are driving you mad over the festive season! I hope that you all have an amazing Christmas and a glorious, enthusiasm-filled New Year – I’m looking forward to more hilarious chats with you all in 2019. I’ll be back in two weeks, raring to go and full of random ideas for blog posts…

The post Why I’m Logging Off For Christmas… appeared first on A Model Recommends.

Why I’m Logging Off For Christmas… was first posted on December 23, 2018 at 7:58 am. ©2018 "A Model Recommends". Use of this feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this article in your feed reader, then the site is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact me at contact@amodelrecommends.com Why I’m Logging Off For Christmas… published first on https://medium.com/@SkinAlley

[allforshow93bsqo476-blog]

Where Will Allforshow93 StripCamFun Be 1 Year From Now?

Greater than a decade in the past, Once i was increasing up in Finland, my product of an attractive female was Pamela Anderson from “Baywatch.” She was my father’s preferred. Every time the boys at school questioned me who I Googled when my mother and father weren’t property, I stated, “Pamela,” and also the identify was greeted by using a unanimous nodding of heads.

I didn’t treatment much for her nude photographs, but I preferred that she was of Finnish heritage.

My nonsexual inner thoughts for Pamela were just one of several things which produced me an outcast. Yet another was that I most popular personal computers to persons. And so, as a youngster who cherished participating in board video games, I quickly discovered I could Enjoy them on the web with strangers with a Finnish gaming Web site.

To obtain the internet site, you typed your user title while in the blank discipline, waited for any slot to open and afterwards uncovered you in the principle chat space, where you could problem folks to your spherical of blackjack, keno or billiards. Other than it appeared not one person else was there to Perform Those people video games critically. The screen was a continuing stream of filthy messages.

I noticed not one person needed http://www.bbc.co.uk/search?q=Allforshow93 to message using a boy in his early adolescence, but a lot of were being clamoring to talk with a sexy woman. And that’s wherever Pamela came in. To desire fellow gamers, I necessary to turn into a woman.

Utilizing Pamela’s age and several of her defining capabilities to create my new persona, I logged in towards the chat home as “CharlottaDD35.” Then the messages arrived pouring in.

I accepted an invite to Engage in billiards from Jarkko25. A screen popped up, and we were being escorted to A non-public area, where by an issue from him appeared inside the message box: “Are you experience frisky?”

“Why do you check with?” I typed.

“Could it be limited?” he requested.

I didn’t fully realize what he intended, but I understood it absolutely was dirty.

I waited a second after which wrote, “Yes.”

“Awesome,” he replied. “Age?”

“35,” I wrote. “But I love younger Adult men.”

“That’s sizzling. What do you seem like?”

I quickly Googled “Pamela+Anderson” and described what I noticed from the search results: “179 cm, blonde. I love to don heels and limited attire.”

“Mmmh. Do you've big breasts?”

“Indeed.”

“D-cups?”

“Yes.” I was firm to provide him everything he wanted.

“What kind of Gentlemen do you prefer?” he questioned.

Considering James Bond motion pictures, I stated: “Another person like Pierce Brosnan. Somebody who requires cost. Anyone trendy.”

“I am able to absolutely take cost,” he said.

I took a sip of my Kool-Assist. “6-pack?” I questioned. Now was time for me to be demanding; usually it wouldn’t seem real. Using a six-pack was a matter I’d listened to was desirable.

“Probably not,” he reported. “But I have one from the fridge.”

I laughed. Probably this man was wonderful.

What followed was my initial-at any time cybersex session, with him typing suggestive remarks and me typing, “Mmmh,” which looked as if it would perform for him.

My masquerade went on for months. I became a learn of giving Gentlemen the things they wished. The sheer amount of fascinated Adult men meant I might be picky, as well. I wished a conventionally handsome and pretty youthful gentleman. And considering the fact that I was a woman of these types of higher caliber, I didn’t Believe it absolutely was an excessive amount of to question.

I personalized my story to suit the opposite participants’ passions. I had been married with two young children. I'd a prosperous husband who couldn’t fulfill me sexually. We lived in a massive glass household with a private Seashore in one of Helsinki’s most distinctive suburbs. And due to the fact I had been a bored, lonely housewife, I normally required anyone to come back around and care for issues.

I discovered newbie pictures of naked women on line to send on the men and patched up regardless of what incongruities emerged: “The picture doesn’t Use a experience simply because I don’t want my partner to understand I’ve been submitting my shots on the net” or “I never give my quantity to strangers right until I’ve gotten to understand them very well ample.”

The back story also authorized me an escape just in case my dad and mom obtained household. “My partner just walked in, so I need to go now,” I would say. “Can’t wait around to talk to you quickly.”

I preferred this online seduction A great deal greater than I imagined I would. I explained to myself it was the Risk: of obtaining caught, of fooling the Gentlemen, of breaking rules. Whatever the scenario, I’d grow to be addicted. Each day right after school, I'd personally keep on my quest for the ideal gentleman.

That’s After i stumbled on Jussi. He described himself as a person who was 23, beloved the gym and had a 6-pack. He played ice hockey and basketball, masculine sports I’d usually wished to be superior at. But he was emotive much too. He despatched me messages such as, “You sound like an unbelievable lady” and “I'm able to feeling these types of heat in these messages of yours.”

He questioned me the usual thoughts: What are you donning? Exactly where do you like to do it? How do you like it?

I provided my standard answers: I used to be donning absolutely nothing (“I just acquired out of your shower and love to cool my body In a natural way”). I preferred executing it on just about every floor of the home and especially in public sites. All of the yoga I did designed me very adaptable, And that i beloved staying lifted up and twisted into adventurous sexual positions.

But then he started to look at what he hoped to uncover on the positioning: specifically, a romantic relationship that was actual and significant. I agreed I had been tired of sleeping all around far too. Typically I blocked a man at the time he began to insist on Conference in person, but Jussi was affected individual and sweet. I desired to continue conversing with him.

We logged in at the same time, day following day. I altered the routine around my school days by expressing, “I’ll ought to fall off the kids initially, so I gained’t be home right until three p.m. tomorrow.” He worked night time shifts for allforshow93 cam a safety guard, so he was constantly on-line Once i desired him being.

After a few weeks, he reported: “Can we meet presently? Please Charlotta.” He explained to me that he was Sick and tired of chatting Which if I didn’t say Sure, he wouldn’t think I was a true man or woman.

What we experienced was serious to me, and I didn’t desire to disappoint him. So I agreed.

We set a date for seven p.m. each week later. We agreed to meet on a street corner in the center of Helsinki, mere blocks from the place I lived. I hoped we'd figure out one another just because we had been chatting for therefore very long and experienced this sort of a powerful relationship.

As the times passed, nevertheless, the impossibility of it started to dawn on me. Even though I were to go meet him and have previous the First explanations, I could never come to be what he imagined me to get. And another thing dawned on me at the same time: I was starting to know I might be gay, and that’s why I was various from everyone else.

At seven p.m. that evening, my mother set sausages and French fries on the desk for dinner. I sat in silence, answering her questions having an absent-minded yes or no. Taking a look at the clock, it strike me: Jussi was now standing out while in the chilly evening, by yourself.

I wondered how long he would wait: Twenty minutes? 30? An entire hour? Would he camp out at a nearby cafe although wistfully on the lookout out of the window, hunting the passing group for Charlotta’s face?

I imagined him sitting around the bus on his way dwelling for the suburbs, hoping there’d been a mix-up: I’d both overlooked the day or mistaken time. I imagined him logging on to the chat room and scanning the checklist for my consumer name, only to return up empty: I’d blocked him to verify I didn’t have to read through by any excruciating messages.

A few several hours just after dinner, my mother came to knock on my doorway to tell me it absolutely was bedtime. As I lay by itself in the dark, I felt a similar loneliness Jussi have to have been sensation.

I would like there had been a way for me to inform him what his on-line companionship intended to me: That he had designed it possible for me to generally be myself inside of a strictly gendered world of Pamela Andersons and James Bonds. That he experienced helped me believe I had been funny, fascinating and price speaking to. That he had, if only by his presence, built it feasible for me to start to approach my sexuality.

By pretending for being somebody I was not, I'd shown him my genuine self, one particular I were too worried to expose to any person else. And in the end, I had been in the position to embrace that true self, an acceptance that may allow me — many years later on, as an Grownup in Ny city — to find real appreciate as an actual individual.

[anseladams03]

How to Improve Your Alexa Ranking in 30 Days or Less

Numbers don’t lie.

When it comes to the popularity and overall value of your business, it’s important to have a solid Alexa Ranking.

Why? It’s a common metric that potential business partners, investors, etc. will use to determine the state of your business.

They’ll use it to gauge your business’s health and whether it’s trending up or down.

The lower your Alexa Rank, the better, and vice versa.

This is why so many business owners agonize over their Alexa Rank and work tirelessly to improve it.

In this post, I’d like to discuss two key things.

First, I’d like to talk about the factors that Alexa assesses when determining rankings.

Second, I’d like to offer a tangible strategy you can use to improve your Alexa Ranking in 30 days or less.

Let’s hit it.

What’s an Alexa Rank?

Just to be sure we’re on the same page, allow me to formally define an Alexa Rank.

According to Avangate,

“It’s a ranking system set by alexa.com (a subsidiary of amazon.com) that audits and makes public the frequency of visits on various web sites.

Alexa’s support section clarifies matters even more by explaining how its traffic rankings are determined:

“Alexa’s traffic estimates and ranks are based on the browsing behavior of people in our global data panel which is a sample of all Internet users. Alexa’s Traffic Ranks are based on the traffic data provided by users in Alexa’s global data panel over a rolling 3 month period.”

Here’s what Google’s Alexa Rank looks like at number one:

And here’s what Quick Sprout looks like at the moment:

Not nearly as good as Google but solid nonetheless, considering the fact that the lowest ranked website is somewhere around 30 million.

Which factors does Alexa analyze?

Before we can formulate a game plan, it’s important to understand what Alexa is looking at when assigning a ranking to websites.

Fortunately, Alexa is very upfront about how its data is calculated.

According to the Alexa Blog, “Every day, Alexa estimates the average daily visitors and pageviews to every site over the past 3 months. The site with the highest combination of visitors and pageviews over the past 3 months is ranked #1.”

“The site with the least is ranked somewhere around 30 million. If no one in our measurement panel visited a site over the past 3 months there is no rank at all for that site.”

They also provide a couple of graphs to illustrate this:

Of course, Google receives more traffic than any other site on the Internet.

It gets more daily visitors and pageviews, so it sits at the top of the mountain.

Alexa also points out the fact that the closer you get to the top of the plot, the harder it gets to move up a rank.

While it may be fairly easy for a site ranking 24,500,132 to move up to, say, 20 million, it’s significantly more difficult to climb from 50 to 40.

The main takeaway is that it’s all about two key factors: (1) average daily visitors and (2) pageviews over the last three months.

That being said, here’s what you need to do in order to improve your Alexa Ranking quickly.

Certify your site metrics

If you don’t mind making a small investment, it’s a good idea to use Alexa’s Certified Site Metrics.

This will give you an Alexa Certified Code, which will directly measure your site’s traffic.

It offers several advantages:

You get a more accurate Alexa Rank

You have access to more in-depth analytics reports (there’s a private dashboard)

You can closely monitor your site’s performance

You also have the option of displaying unique visitors, pageviews, and ranks publicly

Here are the different pricing options:

It’s also important to note that you get a free monthly SEO audit with the “Insight” plan and a full site audit with the “Advanced” plan every two weeks.

This is just something to keep in mind when choosing a plan.

Here’s a screenshot from Alexa support, explaining how to get your site certified:

The bottom line is that certifying your site metrics gives you an advantage over other websites.

You can gain a clearer perspective on the health of your site and are equipped with tools to improve your ranking.

Produce epic content

Sorry if I sound like a broken record with the whole “epic content” thing.

But when you break it all down, it’s an essential component of online marketing on many levels.

I’m not going to bore you with all the gory details, but it’s extremely important to create A+ content that genuinely satisfies your audience.

Check out this guide I wrote on Neil Patel for pretty much everything you need to know on the subject.

This will be a necessity for boosting your Alexa Ranking.

Get quality backlinks

What are two critical factors that Google takes into account when assigning a ranking to your website?

Trust and authority. In fact, “Domain trust/authority represents 23.87% of Google’s ranking algorithm.”

One of the most straightforward ways to increase your site’s trust/authority is to obtain quality inbound links.

You know the drill. They need to be from reputable, relevant websites.

I realize this is obviously easier said than done.

I wish it was as easy as putting out a few decent blog posts and having multiple big name publications chomping at the bit to link to you.

Of course, it’s a fairly arduous process.

But at the end of the day, it all goes back to creating great content.

In fact, I like to adhere to the 90/10 rule of link building, where “90% of your effort should go into creating great content, and 10% into link building.”

And when it comes to the process of link building, there’s one technique that outshines all the rest: guest-posting.

Now, I’m not going to rehash what I’ve already written about this topic here. But you can learn the essentials from this guide on Quick Sprout.

If you can get even a few guest posts published on reputable websites, this should result in an improved Alexa Ranking within a month.

Analyze your competitors’ keywords

Here’s a question for you.

What’s your motivation behind wanting to improve your Alexa Ranking?

I bet it’s to have a better ranking than your primary competitors. Right?

Of course, you’ll want to outperform the competition. But how do you go about it?

One of the best ways to gain an edge with your Alexa Rank, and with SEO in general, is to analyze your competitors’ keywords.

You’ll want to know which keywords are bringing them the most traffic, generating backlinks, and so on.

Once you know which keywords are driving the bulk of traffic to their websites, you can optimize your site for those keywords and build momentum.

It’s like killing two birds with one stone. Not only will your Alexa Rank improve, your overall SEO rankings should improve as well.

But how can you analyze their keywords?

I recommend using Google’s Keyword Planner.

There are a lot of tools out there, but this is perhaps the most universal. Besides, Google is usually the go-to source for Internet data.

Here’s what you do.

Go to your Keyword Planner dashboard.

Click on “Search for new keywords using a phrase, website or category.”

Under “Your landing page,” type in the URL of a competitor.

I’ll just use quicksprout.com as an example:

Click on “Get Ideas” at the bottom, and your screen will be populated with a list of competitor keywords.

Here are just a handful that popped up from my search:

The great thing about using the Keyword Planner is that you can instantly determine the volume of monthly searches and the level of competition for each keyword.

Creating better content that outperforms your competitors is a great way to gradually boost your SEO and at the same time improve your Alexa Rank.

But in order to see a significant improvement within 30 days, I would suggest first going after the “low hanging fruit,” meaning keywords with minimal competition and a lot of searches.

Focus on those initially for a surge in your ranking.

Conclusion

In many ways, your Alexa Rank directly affects the health and progress of your business.

It’s something that key stakeholders will often look at when determining whether or not your company is worth doing business with.

Therefore, achieving a favorable ranking (at least in the top 100,000) should be a priority.

If you follow this formula, I can pretty much guarantee that you will see at least a reasonable improvement fairly quickly.

However, if your site ranks really poorly, it may take awhile to get to the point where your business is attractive to stakeholders.

And because your Alexa Rank is such an important metric, I recommend making your efforts at improving it ongoing.

How big of a factor has your Alexa Ranking been in terms of business partnerships and opportunities?

from Quick Sprout http://ift.tt/2l1ogna from Blogger http://ift.tt/2lSWYRz February 17, 2017 at 09:35PM