#way happier with this one than the original also. crazy how that ''art improvement'' thing workS

[wuntrum]

jennifer('s body) 💞 redraw of this piece

[princesslocket]

🥣 Made With Love 🥣

Hi hi! Before we get to the fanfic, I'd just like to say a big thank you to @ina11writingexchange for hosting this awesome writers exchange! I'm so glad to have been able to participate for this round as well as being given the opportunity to gift @hachuna yet another gift this year!

With that being said, I hope you enjoy this Hachuna! It was a lot of fun to write ((Btw this fic is also cross-posted on AO3 if anyone is interested in reading it there too! The link is in the title))

If anyone were to ask Endou Natsumi what her favorite pass time activity was, she’d automatically answer with “cooking!” and then excitedly list off all the dishes she had made within the past week. It always amazed her friends just how passionate she was about preparing food in the kitchen.

However, she hadn’t always been a fan of cooking.

Natsumi’s love for cooking had originated during her time spent managing the Raimon soccer team in her middle school years. In the beginning she had been quiet hesitant to even try making a rice ball but after she mastered the art of the rice ball, her love for cooking sparked almost instantaneously. It only took preparing a couple more meals before Natsumi was fully onboard with the idea of preparing food in general. It filled her with a sense of pride whenever she was able to witness the team enjoying the meals she, Haruna, and Aki made for them. The compliments they dished out were a great source of ego boosting as well, but she always made it point to stay humble. And even after the team graduated, leaving her with no one else to cook for, Natsumi continued to search up new recipes to try making for herself in the comfort of her own home.

Over the years her cooking had improved, albeit not as significantly as everyone had hoped for, but just enough to where she no longer mixed up the salt and sugars when she tried baking the occasional birthday cake. It was a subtle yet profound type of improvement that left Endou that much more hopeful for their future meals seeing as he had married her not too long after her cooking had started to improve.

One thing that really helped Natsumi improve in her cooking was through the aid of an old looking cook book she just so happened to borrow from Endou! She’d seen the book several times laying in various places throughout their house but had never bothered to look through it until one day when her curiosity got the better of her and she found herself rejoicing at all the cool looking recipes inside. Oh the joy she felt while flipping through the pages was almost too good. How had she not opened the book sooner?

Following the days upon opening the cook book, Natsumi happily followed the messily written instructions provided by the cook book to prepare dishes that she could only assume had been passed down from Endou’s family. She would later find out from Endou himself that the cook book she had been using was actually Endou Daisuke’s hissatsu manual. The discovery came as quiet a shook to Natsumi seeing as she had been following the instructions of the book for several weeks, even going as far to serving a boy named Matsukaze Tenma some of said dishes as well. But all Endou could do was laugh at the situation they found themselves in.

“You mean to tell me that this really isn’t the kanji for egg?”

“I’m positive, Natsumi. These are the instructions for God Hand- Wait a second! How were even able to mistake this for a cook book? I thought you knew what Daisuke’s hissatsu manual looked like?”

“It’s been a while since I last saw it okay!”

Even after the discovery of the ‘cook book’s’ true nature was revealed Natsumi continued to use it. Admittedly, the food Natsumi made following the hissatsu manual never inherently tasted terribly bad. So what harm was there in letting her continue to use it? As long as Endou was there to assist her with some of the misinterpreted kanji of the book, everything was fine.

Unfortunately, not all good things lasted forever. On one particular day an unforeseen disaster appeared out of nowhere…

Natsumi had been preparing dinner in the kitchen when it happened. She hadn’t thought anything of it at first. Ever since Endou took over as Raimon’s coach, he would occasionally return home late, so why would this time be any different? As the minutes ticked by Natsumi continued to prepare dinner. While she maneuvered around the kitchen she kept herself entertained with the quiet sound of the T.V. playing in the background.

Although she usually paid no mind to what the news anchors were saying, something about that night in particular urged her to listen carefully. She had been cutting away at a bundle of carrots when a certain news report caught her attention. Although they weren’t showing video footage of the incident taking place, the news anchors reported a massive car crash near Raimon.

Upon hearing the name of the school, Natsumi put all food to the side and quickly ran to her phone, dialing up Endou to ask if he was still at the school. Knowing her husband, he would most likely be assisting whoever had been unfortunate enough to get hurt outside of their old school. But when he didn’t answer her first, second, or third call, Natsumi began to worry. The news anchors wouldn’t disclose the names of the people involved in the accident, nor would they show the faces of anyone other than the reporter on duty. They did, however, announce the arrival of special dispatched services on the scene as well as the name of the hospital the heavily injured were being taken to.

After a while Natsumi’s phone began to ring, which she immediately answered. Letting out a sigh of relief, Natsumi pressed the phone to her ear, ready to hear Endou’s cheerful voice. With everything appearing to be taken care of on screen, Endou was surely going to fill her in on everything that had happed. It was a good thing she had prepared so much food for the night!

“Natsumi, it’s Kidou, we don’t have much time- It’s Endou… He got into a car crash and- You need to hurry. An ambulance is already taking him to the hospital but… I’ll fill you in on everything once you get here-“

“I’m on the way.”

Within seconds Natsumi was already racing out of the house, dinner abandoned in the kitchen and T.V still playing quietly in the background. She did everything in her power to get to the hospital as fast as she could but it was too late. By the time she came rushing in through the hospital doors, Endou had been pronounced dead.

Time flashed by in a blur following Endou’s death. His funeral came and went, the days following blended together a little too seamlessly and Natsumi’s love for cooking diminished along with her once cheery life. Without Endou around, she no longer held the motivation to prepare any kind of meal in or out of the kitchen. Even when Haruna, Aki, and Fuyuka tried to rekindle their little cooking arties, Natsumi couldn’t bring herself to make anything. Everything she had ever made was out of her love for Endou.

As time went by, Natsumi slowly began to store her cooking utensils away. If she wasn’t going to be cooking anymore, than why bother keep them out in the open to collect dust?

She was in the middle of labeling a soon to be packed away box of kitchen ladles one day when the sound of knocking stopped her. Setting her marker to the side, Natsumi walked to the front door. Her knees nearly buckled when she gazed out the peep hole to see who was outside.

Standing just outside the door was Endou… But it couldn’t be him, right? He had passed away months ago. She had gone to his funeral and everything! There was no way her could possibly be standing outside. As she was thinking these thoughts an almost indescribable feeling washed over her. Suddenly she couldn’t remember attending a funeral nor could she remember why she had started packing away all her cooking supplies. It was as if she was just now waking up from some type of horrible nightmare, a nightmare had clouded over her real life for the past several months.

Whatever nightmare she been under was finally over. Any trace of sadness and despair melted away the longer she stared at Endou. Instead, the feelings were replaced with joy and relief. Although the sudden change in feelings were a little unexpected, they weren’t unwelcomed. In fact she was all the happier to embrace them!

Not wanting to keep Endou waiting any longer, Natsumi decidedly threw the door open, startling Endou as it swung to the side, and proceeded to jumping into the arms of the man in front of her.

“Mamoru!” Tears were streaming down her cheeks as she pressed herself as tightly as she could to her husband. “I can’t explain it but it feels like I haven’t seen you in forever! Where have you been all day?”

“Woah! I missed you too! Oh man, Natsumi, you wouldn’t believe all the crazy things that happened to me ‘today.’ I’ve got so much to tell you but, uh, I think it’d be best if we went inside first.” Contradictory to his own words, Endou hugged Natsumi even closer to himself, thus rendering any attempt to head into the house useless.

For several long minutes the two stood outside their house, hugging each other, and exchanging a few words before wither one of them made any real attempts to pull away. But when they did, it was Natsumi who moved away. She waisted no time in dragging Endou inside and towards their dining room table, pulling out a chair for him to sit in and then rushing off towards their refrigerator in search of something for them to eat.

Strangely enough, the refrigerator was once again filled with an abundance of food Natsumi had almost no recollection of buying. She glanced a look to Endou, who at first made no comment, but as soon as she turned her back had heard the faintest of words from him.

“I guess time really did reset itself.”

From that day on life returned to normal, or as normal as it could be with Natsumi knowing her ‘nightmare’ had in fact been real but was now a part of a separate timeline of sorts. But seeing as their current timeline was restored, Natsumi decidedly let her supposed bad months drift away.

She started cooking again, only this time she followed tutorials online through YouTube and an odd app called TikTok. When Endou asked why she was following so many different cooking videos, Natsumi would claim that “the hissatsu manual could only offer so much.”

Despite her best efforts her cooking still left much to be desired from. But Endou never truly cared about the overall outcome of the food he’d be offered.

“It’s the thought counts.” He’d tell himself whenever a dish was placed in front of him. “If it’s for Natsumi, I’d gladly eat a thousand more meals of her cooking- I’d do anything to make her happy.”

[doomednarrative]

2018: A (Personal) Year in Review

I put off writing in general so much, but I’ve put off this particular post long enough. 

And no, this isn’t about the general world or the country. It’s about my personal life, and it’s mainly a vent/personal rambling post, so I’ll put under a read more. If you don’t care to read it, that’s totally fine. 

But anyways. Here we go: 

2018 was...a fuckin ride, to put it in simplest terms. 

For those who are new and unaware, lemme briefly bring you up to speed about the end of 2017 for me, cause it’s important to the context of this entire thing:

December 17th of 2017, when I was on my third day home for Christmas break from college, I packed a backpack, and I left my dad and stepmom’s house for good. 

Their house had been abusive for years, and my mental health was in the absolute tank in college. I was feeling casually suicidal and had a full on breakdown about having to come home for winter break. After a fight I got into that night with my stepmom after she found me texting some friends on Discord (which I wasn’t supposed to have, even tho I was almost 19 and an adult at the time,) she got Pissed, and so did I. I had finally had a group of friends who supported me and helped me out so much, and I didn’t want to loose them. And I couldn’t stand the abuse, the treatment of me like I was a child with no privacy or personal autonomy, the constant pushing for me to date my one long time friend and to be straight, or my parent’s inability to accept me as their son and not their daughter any longer. 

I was given a choice, and told if I decided to leave, I wasn’t welcome back. A few months before, my best friend had said that their parents had a safe space for me to go if I ever needed it. They had been aware of how bad some things had been with my parents and feared for the worst, so they offered me a home if it came down to that. And that night, it came down to that choice. 

I packed one backpack of stuff I was allowed to bring (solely because it was stuff I bought) and I walked to my friends mom’s house, and by the next morning, I was at her dad’s house, safe and sound. 

2018 became the year of learning how to be an adult in a house that treated me as one, and in a house that didn’t put my personal safety and mental health in danger. 

2018 was...well, it was simultaneously the worst and best year of my life. 

Early on, I could tell my parents weren’t going to let my off easy for leaving. My mom wasn’t a problem, she had been out of my life for almost two years at that point, and hadn’t attempted to make contact with me for a long time. 

But my dad and my stepmom? Oh, they were determined to make my life as bas as they could while not being physically around me. 

First thing they did? They tried to take all of my possessions from my dorm at college without my knowledge, because they thought that They owned that stuff. I only found this out because I called the college to formally drop out and ask when I could pick up my stuff, and they informed me my parents were already planning on picking up my stuff for me. 

Me and my now adoptive parents ended up making an impromptu trip, four hours up and four hours back, that night to my college campus to make sure that I could get my possessions before they could. And we were successful.

Next thing my dad did to screw me over after moving out? 

That bastard stole about 700$ from a joint bank account I had with him to use for college. That was money I earned from about 7 months of work at my summer food truck job. And he took it because he legally could since it was a joint account, and didn’t tell me. i found out when I went into the bank to withdraw that money and open a separate account. 

So I was starting off the year with already some setbacks. 

Thankfully, I Was able to replace my birth certificate and social security card relatively easily, so that was in my favor at least. 

Then, come my birthday on January 26 last year, I got a letter. Two letters to be specific. One from my stepmom, and one from my dad. 

Both were full of manipulation and guilt tripping language and just. Gaslighting and more emotional abuse. They had somehow gotten my address from when I had set up my separate bank account and changed my information in the bank system.  And they decided to send me abusive shit as a birthday present. 

I’m not gonna lie, it hurt a lot. 

They continued to try to do stuff like that. They called me multiple times from different numbers, they called police on my adoptive family to say that I was crazy and that my parents were like. concerned for my safety because i had blocked their phone numbers after the first two phone calls. They texted me from different numbers, just. A lot of different bullshit. 

February was the first time I saw my dad since leaving. I had gone to a screening of Love Simon, as it was really important to me, and somehow thru some stalkery methods, he knew i was there and he confronted me in the theater lobby after the film. (When I asked how he found me there, his answer was ‘I have my ways.’ I never posted about this encounter when it originally happened.)

He proceeded to be transphobic to me in public, demeaning me and humiliating me in front of everyone in the theater, told me I was the reason my siblings were now in therapy (which is a lie, my brother was already in therapy for anxiety long before I left), calling me crazy, telling my adoptive mother that I “needed help” and that “she’ll outstay her welcome.” He said a lot of awful things, and eventually I left the theatre in tears after screaming at him that I was his son and that this shit was why I left in the first place, and that he should go fuck himself.

Thankfully, I didn’t see him for months afterword, not til october, right before I left my retail job that he and my stepmom found out I worked at. I saw my stepmom three times at that job, once with my siblings (which is the only time I’ve seen them since leaving and that was. Very hard to deal with and a very emotional time), and twice without my siblings. The times she came without them, she was an absolute fucking asshole to me, still spewing her abusive rhetoric about how I was in the wrong for leaving, and how my father did nothing wrong when he saw me in February. 

She and my father only left me alone after I told them that I would not get into an argument while I was on the clock, and that if they didn’t leave I’d call the store security guard. 

After that, they haven’t done anything else. Yet. We’ll see what 2019 holds. 

But, aside from the bullshit with my parents, 2018 had its other ups and downs. More ups than downs, but it still had it’s rough moments. 

I got a job in early May as a sales associate/cashier/fitting room attendant for a well known Coat Factory chain store. 

That job was pure fuckin hell, and I’m glad I don’t work there anymore. The last week that I was supposed to work there before leaving for my new job, I got pulled into the side office by the manager on duty (she wasn’t an actual manager, she just had closing priviledges) and she Screamed at me about how a customer complained about me, she hated me, my coworkers all hated me, all three of my managers hated me, and how she was tired of my attitude and how she couldn’t wait til I was fuckin gone. The whole issue that night had started because of her and how she couldn’t properly communicate to me where she wanted me to be that night and what duties she wanted me handling. She took out her frusteration at her own mistakes on me, and I had had enough. I stood my ground with her and didn’t let her walk all over me, but I went home that night, bawled for about two hours because being yelled at is a trigger for me, and she had been all in my personal space like she was going to hit me, and then I emailed my general manager the next day and told her she could replace me for my last two shifts and I wouldn’t be coming in for them. 

I haven’t stepped foot in that goddamned store since I left that night. 

I have a different job now. I work as an overnight personal care assistant at a nursing home, but it’s a higher end one, and it’s not bad. It can be stressful and super draining at times, but enviornmentally its a better job than the retail one ever was, so it’s good. 

My mental health has been a wild ride as well. I won’t get into the full details here, but let just say that uh. I’m 99% sure that I’m both ADHD and autistic, and I’m thinking I have some form of ptsd as well from years of trauma shit. I’m not suicidal anymore, but I have bouts of depression and anxiety and sometimes anger that last for days to weeks at a time. It’s...rough, to say the least. And dysphoria doesn’t help any of that. 

But I’m alive and fighting, and that’s the important part. 

Not everything this year has been bad tho. There’s been a fair amount of good too, and I’m greatful for it. 

December 23rd I celebrated my first year aniversary with @curious-corvids, and i couldn’t be happier about that. He’s been there thru this Entire ride, and he’s been such a positive force in my life, and I hope to keep him around for years to come. 

Similarly, March 18th this year will be my one year aniversary with @sinclair-solutions, and that I’m immensely happy about as well. They’re such a wonderful person and just. i’m very lucky to have them, I really am. they’ve also been here thru everything, and I could never thank then enough for that. 

I made some friends in the past few months that I can’t imagine what my days would be like without them in it. Kathy, Jay, Fi, and Evan are such great people, and I’m lucky to have them around. 

I got the chance to meet Ren, Lu and Erin in person for the first time at DragonCon, and went to both my first comic convention and my first out of state trip alone with them, and it was honestly the best five days of my life. I can’t wait to do that again with them this year. 

I’ve been steadily improving at art this year and took commissions for the first time, and that’s been a very fun thing to do. 

I’m actually able to like. Afford to buy things for myself and spend my money without interferance, and thats such a change from how my parents used to control my finances. 

Overall 2018 was just..a wild ride. 

2019 is sure to bring better things. With luck this month, I should be starting the process of legally changing my name, and that will be a very freeing thing to do. 

I turn 20 on January 26th, and just. 

I didn’t think I’d actually make it to 20. That’s a personal milestone for me, to have made it this far. 

Whatever this new year brings tho, here’s to hoping it goes better than 2018. 

Here’s to hoping I’m better this year than I was last year. 

[ruffoverthinksthings]

Does the Descendants universe have collages?

I assume you meant “Colleges”as in “institute of higher learning, characterized by a focus oncritical thinking, independent research, and specialized educationalcurricula.”

Yes, the Descendants universedoes have colleges, and plenty of them.

With the lack of magic, andthe extreme focus given to science and technology as a solution tocompletely replace it,* it is in their new civilization’s bestinterests to have systems meant to educate their population, breednew generations of researchers, innovators, and professionals whowill keep technology marching along at a steady pace if not by leapsand bounds, helping support the ever changing and growing needs oftheir society.

The only exception to thiswould be Camelot, which by order of King Arthur, is permanently stuckin the Middle Ages. (This is canon, and is mentioned off-hand by Benin The Return to the Isle of the Lost.)**

In an interesting case of theTemporal Clash that happens in Auradon, places like Ancient Greecedid retain colleges that were the sole domain of the wealthy andwell-off, “bastions of wisdom and enlightenment” as Plato or hisDisney counterpart would put it; but there are also institutions likethe ones you see today that are much more accessible, the next stepforward for majority of the population after they finish high school(or whatever mandatory education is in Auradon).

They serve the purpose ofboth educating their students and making them much more effectiveworkers, citizens, and happier people in general (ignorance is itsown kind of hell), and being hubs for research, culture, andinitiatives that are either too unprofitable for private companies towant to invest in, or are a less corporate, much more liberal andflexible entity that is a part of the industry/field.

Some examples off the top offmy head:

The Iduna Institute of Foodand Agricultural Science (AKA “Cocoa College”)

Located inArendelle, this is Auradon’s premierecollege/research center when it comes to all matters involvingagriculture and food, be it for reform and programs aimed atimproving farmers�� lives while keeping them from becoming obsoleteby the fast-improving technology they often pioneer and help saidfarmers deploy, ways to sustainably and reliably feed their evergrowing populations without taxing their environment too much, andfinding new and innovative ways to satisfy our hunger without havingto resort to the infamous “nutri-block”*** any more than wereally need to.

All of this is frequentlyovershadowed by the fact that initially, they were literally builtand funded to produce “The Best Chocolate Anyone’s Ever Tasted,Ever” to quote Princess Anna of Arendelle, and are actuallystill doing this to this day, though they have made their goal themuch more realistic “The Best Chocolate Anyone’s Ever Tasted, ForThis Year.”

The annual “Chocolate Ball”is a widely attended event by anyone who’s anyone, wealthychocolate lovers everywhere, along with a scant few enthusiasts whoare lucky enough to find the silver stickers inside the wrappers ofproducts being sponsored by “Cocoa College” that year.

It’s widely criticized as avastly overblown and self-indulgent abuse of power by the reigningqueen and her sister (and later on, the second in line to thethrone), kept going only because:

The exorbitant entrance feesand money raised are donated to charity and government programs,along with being heavily taxed in general;

There are few completelylegal things the competitors aren’t willing todo, that oftentimes far exceed the monetary estimate of whatthey would earn from a lifetime’s worth of selling a product with asingle, or the much coveted double Seal of Royal Approval;and,

The products with silverstickers are frequently produced by a series of small, independentfarmers, or corporations that are known to be much more enthusiasticabout their legally mandated “social responsibility” programs.

(And completely offleft-field here, I did NOT expect to write this much about “CocoaCollege” all in one sitting.)

The Auradon Extreme Weatherand Climate Research Center (AKA “The Hot House”)

It seemed only appropriatethat Auradon’s primary research center for living in the harshest,most hostile, and deadly environments would be in a series ofman-made underground tunnels some kilometers from Agrabah.

Here in the “Hot House,”its students and its resident researchers work hard to figure outnewer, better, cheaper ways for Auradon’s residents to “Seek,Sleep, and Sprout”--that is to say, safely explore new environments, comfortably live inthem full-time by choice, then start to work in and manipulate theirenvironment to better suit their needs and that of the rest ofAuradon, to the point where average people will start to wantto live in there—in any environment, or corner of the worldthey so please.

They’ve got biomes that areeven hotter than Agrabah in the peak of summer, standing out of theshade, with a giant circle of sunbathing mirrors pointed directly atyourself, and focused with laser-like precision on you.

They’ve got biomes where ifyou or your equipment don’t freeze solid within the first minute ofstepping in after the airlock shuts behind you, it’s considered asuccessful design that merits further iteration and study in thehopes that you or your equipment will freeze solid within twominutes.

They’ve got biomes whereit’s not a question of “if” you are going to get struck bylightning, it’s “how soon after the airlock shuts behind you”and “how many times in the same spot.” (The current record are“five minutes and forty-three seconds” and “seven.”)

The designs, the safety gear,and the clothes you can see here are oftentimes described as “alien,”“like something at the bad parts of a drinking binge,” and“didn’t realize something like that could even be a thing.”

And that’s after theyrefine, improve upon the designs, and make them functional andfashionable, along with understandable to the populace at large.

In a nutshell, the Hot Houseis best described by their motto: “To explore whole new worlds, andmake them our home.”

The Halls of Remembrance

Unlike the Museum of CulturalHistory which is content to just educate and show-off the relics andpractices of a bygone era, the Halls of Remembrance in Greek seek to keep themalive, or even bring them back from the dead.

The courses and the classesoffered are incredibly rich and varied, all unifiedby the fact that they are for traditions, vocations, and arts thatare either now completely obsolete, quickly being outpaced bytechnology, or have simply fallen out of the tastes of the public atlarge to be viable outside of a publicly-funded institution such asthis.

Want to learn about Medievalstage plays? Slave songs from New Orleans? Weaving and making threadusing a spindle? The crafting and the use of weapons throughoutcivilization, especially the originals that the current designs theRoyal Guard SIA (Standard Issue Armaments) werebased on? Medicinal horticulture before modern pharmaceuticalsrendered that largely obsolete?

The Halls have a class and aprofessor for that, and oftentimes with highly specific variantsshould you want to specialize.

About the only issue anyone--visitor, student, or staff--has is that while it’s very easy to find the entrance, onceinside these vast, expansive halls filled with classroom uponclassroom upon classroom, it’s very easy to get turned around and unable to findthe class you originally intended to enroll in at the time you weresupposed to be there, or even just know where in the complex you are.

(The architect, Daedalus,blames being introduced to 3D modeling and the ease with which thatyou can go completely crazy, without having to deal with theintegrity of the materials of your models, finding enough physical room tobuild it in, and having to create an entirely new model of a ladderor other supporting structure once the original gets too high.)

Fortunately, the Royal Guardis very keen about recording and monitoring who enters, and everyonecomes out eventually at some point, oftentimes with a number of new,interesting skills in all manner of vocations, arts, and sciencesthat have long ceased to be useful outside of conversations atparties.

You’re guaranteed tolearn something new at the Halls of Remembrance, you just don’tknow what.

* One that has failedmiserably, with how the Descendants themselves keep showing thatmagic is far more useful, and very dangerous when most of thepopulation do not have it, nor are people used to dealing with it.

** What modern amenities, ifany, were allowed is up in the air, and I imagine this did not worknearly as well as his majesty Arthur intended it to. Feel free toask.

*** A “nutri-block” is agiant brick of mostly human-edible complex carbohydrates, dominantlyfiber. It is loaded with most of the necessary nutrients and mineralsthat one needs to continue functioning from day to day. It’s cheap,easy to produce, and keeps astoundingly well, but even the RoyalGuards at Faraway and the Borderlands only ever eat them as acomplete and absolute last resort as the experience is likened to“literally chewing on tree bark, except much worse--at leastthere, it tastes just of wood, and not also of cardboard, pulp, andglue.”

[filipeteimuraz]

The Step-by-Step Guide to Creating Scannable Content

Rarely do people read content from beginning to end.

Maybe it’s because of our “microwave,” instant gratification culture. Maybe it’s because millions of other articles are vying for people’s attention.

Or maybe it’s because reading from screens takes about 25% longer than reading from paper. Research has even indicated that readers experience an unpleasant feeling when reading online text.

Whatever the case may be, it’s crucial to take the right approach when writing for online readers—a new approach.

There’s a certain art to digital writing that differs significantly from writing traditional paper text.

If you expect to convert more of your audience into actual customers, you need to crack the code.

You need to switch up your game plan.

In my early days of writing, I didn’t realize this. I had an eye for visual appeal, but I was unsure of how this applied to blogging. There I was, blogging away every day without realizing how people were viewing my articles.

Now, I have a better idea of how people interact with written content online.

What you’re viewing right now is a result of my research and testing.

It’s about scannable content.

What you’re up against

First, let me set the stage for the idea of scannable content.

Did you know that 55% of people spend fewer than 15 seconds actively on a page?

That’s not ideal when your goal is to keep visitors exploring and to get them interested in your product/service/brand.

You’ve got only a small window to grab their attention and motivate them to read your content. And it’s not realistic to expect visitors to read it in its entirety. Hardly anyone does that anymore.

In fact, research on the way people read websites found that only 16% of their subjects read a webpage word by word. Most participants—79% of the test subjects—scanned new pages they came across.

The takeaway is that less than two out of 10 people will actually read an entire blog post. The vast majority will be highly selective about what they read and will merely scan through it.

Another interesting thing is that just because content gets shared doesn’t mean reading engagement increases.

Chartbeat analyzed 10,000 articles shared on social media and found “that there was no relationship whatsoever between the amount a piece of content is shared and the amount of attention an average reader will give that content.”

This graph illustrates this phenomenon:

What’s the solution?

It’s simple. You need to become adept at writing scannable content. This is what the modern digital reader is looking for (whether they consciously know it or not).

What exactly is scannable content?

According to Forbes,

“scannable content is short, sweet and to the point. Sentences and paragraphs are brief. Bold text and bullet points highlight key points. Links to other content are used to provide your readers with supplemental information.”

This writing format is geared toward 21st century readers, who primarily read content on a screen as opposed to a book or any other print publication.

It’s specifically tailored to streamline the way readers absorb information to keep them interested.

And it works.

Dr. Jakob Nielsen even found that scannable online content boosted readability by 57%. If you’re used to conventional writing (e.g., large blocks of text), you need to throw that approach out the window.

You need to embrace scannability. Fortunately, there’s a step-by-step process you can follow.

1. Write short paragraphs

You might have noticed that I prefer to use short paragraphs in my content.

Really short. In fact, a lot of my paragraphs are only a single sentence in length.

That’s not by accident.

I would say that this technique is perhaps the most important when it comes to creating scannable content.

Allow me to provide you with an example. Here’s a large, ugly block of text:

You probably find yourself straining your eyes to read through it.

And here’s some text broken down into much smaller, more digestible chunks:

Which do you find more aesthetically pleasing and easier to read?

I would bet you’d say the second one.

It’s broken up in a way that allows you to move seamlessly from one point to the next without it taxing your brain in the process.

The key is to include only one idea per paragraph and make it a maximum of four sentences. However, I try to stick with just one to three.

Remember that white space is your friend, so use plenty of it to break up text into smaller chunks.

2. Keep your sentences short

There’s no reason to drag your content out by writing long-winded sentences and using PhD-level vocabulary words that only the academic elite will understand.

You need to remember that your audience will consist of a lot of different readers with varying levels of education (and vocabulary).

If readers have to continually check the dictionary just to understand what you’re trying to say, it defeats the whole purpose.

That’s why you’re better off keeping your sentences fairly brief and not getting overly wordy just for the sake of sounding smart.

As a rule of thumb, any more than 16 words per sentence is too long.

Be practical, and try to simplify complex information as much as possible so that everyone can understand it. “Dumb it down” if you have to, but keep the value high.

3. Follow the four-syllable rule

A simple strategy to ensure your writing isn’t wordy is to avoid using any words with more than four syllables.

For instance, you would want to stay away from:

Unintelligibly

Appropriation

Lackadaisical

You get the idea.

Your readers should be able to maneuver their way through your content without becoming exhausted during the process.

4. Use subheaders

Most readers won’t be interested in every single point of your article.

Instead, most readers would prefer to bounce around to seek out the few pieces of key information that interest them the most.

You can accommodate this desire by including several subheaders throughout the body of your content.

This breaks it down in a logical way that makes your content “flow.”

If you read posts from any of my blogs including Quick Sprout, Crazy Egg, and Neil Patel, you’ll notice that I take full advantage of subheaders.

They serve as a quick and easy way to locate main points and accelerate the scanning process. Just make sure that each subheader encapsulates what the following paragraphs cover.

Also, try not to get too clever or cute about it. Instead, keep your subheadings simple and practical.

5. Use bullet points

Who doesn’t love bullet points? I know I do.

They seamlessly break down information so readers can extract key data without having to think too much about it.

Here’s a good example of bullet points used to perfection:

Rather than writing out your list in a sentence, separating your points by commas, create a bullet list, and your readers will love you for it.

6. Sprinkle in images

Images serve two distinct purposes.

First, they serve as an eye candy and fulfill your reader’s subconscious desire for visual stimuli.

Second, they provide periodic breaks between blocks of text.

Both help keep readers on your site for longer and encourage them to engage with your content.

I try to throw in an image at least every few paragraphs or so because I know the images I use enrich my content with information and add validity to my points.

I recommend using data-driven pictures (like graphs) or images to serve as examples, rather than merely using “placeholders,” because these will really add to the overall depth of your content.

7. Add links to external sources

To add authority and credibility to your writing, it’s a good idea to include quotes, data points, graphs, etc. from reliable sources.

I do this with pretty much every piece of content I write. It backs up my argument and proves that I’m not just pulling statistics out of thin air.

But since it’s not practical to include every gory detail, you’ll want to simply include a key sentence or two and insert a link to the original source.

If your readers wish to learn more about a certain topic you cover, they can simply visit the link. As a result, this won’t bog down your content with extraneous information.

8. Create lists

I love lists.

There’s something about breaking down content in a logical, sequential order I find satisfying. It keeps things neat and tidy.

Apparently, I’m not alone.

A study performed by Buzzsumo and Okdork analyzed over 100 million articles to determine which received the most shares. According to their findings, lists were the second most shareable format (only infographics were shared more).

If you really want to maximize the scannability of your content, use plenty of lists.

I’m not saying do this for every single piece of content you create because it will become redundant, but 50% or so should be a good number to shoot for.

Lists are a great weapon to have in your arsenal because they lend themselves to being scanned naturally.

Conclusion

Creating scannable content has arguably never been more important than it is today.

By accommodating the modern online reader and presenting information in a streamlined, visually appealing way, you can improve the reader’s experience.

This technique is also effective for preventing “cognitive overload,” which can drain a reader’s mental energy.

The end result is happier readers who spend more time on your site and who are more likely to convert.

http://www.quicksprout.com/the-step-by-step-guide-to-creating-scannable-content/ Read more here - http://review-and-bonuss.blogspot.com/2019/03/the-step-by-step-guide-to-creating.html

[theconservativebrief]

Do you have a job that you secretly believe is pointless?

If so, you have what anthropologist David Graeber calls a “bullshit job.” A professor at the London School of Economics and a leader of the early Occupy Wall Street movement, Graeber has written a new book called Bullshit Jobs: A Theory.

He argues that there are millions of people across the world — clerical workers, administrators, consultants, telemarketers, corporate lawyers, service personnel, and many others — who are toiling away in meaningless, unnecessary jobs, and they know it.

It didn’t have to be this way, Graeber says. Technology has advanced to the point where most of the difficult, labor-intensive jobs can be performed by machines. But instead of freeing ourselves from the suffocating 40-hour workweek, we’ve invented a whole universe of futile occupations that are professionally unsatisfying and spiritually empty.

This, at least, is the story he tells in his book. Much of it is persuasive, some of it overly simplistic, but nearly all of it is interesting. I reached out to Graeber to talk about the book and the broader phenomenon of “bullshit jobs.”

I wanted to know how we got to this place, if there are any real alternatives, and what, if anything, people can do about it.

A lightly edited transcript of our conversation follows.

Sean Illing

What are “bullshit jobs”?

David Graeber

Bullshit jobs are jobs which even the person doing the job can’t really justify the existence of, but they have to pretend that there’s some reason for it to exist. That’s the bullshit element. A lot of people confuse bullshit jobs and shit jobs, but they’re not the same thing.

Bad jobs are bad because they’re hard or they have terrible conditions or the pay sucks, but often these jobs are very useful. In fact, in our society, often the more useful the work is, the less they pay you. Whereas bullshit jobs are often highly respected and pay well but are completely pointless, and the people doing them know this.

Sean Illing

Give me some examples of bullshit jobs.

David Graeber

Corporate lawyers. Most corporate lawyers secretly believe that if there were no longer any corporate lawyers, the world would probably be a better place. The same is true of public relations consultants, telemarketers, brand managers, and countless administrative specialists who are paid to sit around, answer phones, and pretend to be useful.

A lot of bullshit jobs are just manufactured middle-management positions with no real utility in the world, but they exist anyway in order to justify the careers of the people performing them. But if they went away tomorrow, it would make no difference at all.

And that’s how you know a job is bullshit: If we suddenly eliminated teachers or garbage collectors or construction workers or law enforcement or whatever, it would really matter. We’d notice the absence. But if bullshit jobs go away, we’re no worse off.

“People were really waking up and realizing that they wanted to do something useful, wanted to help others. They were realizing that something is wrong, that if you go into a profession like education or social services, they treat you poorly and pay you little.”

Sean Illing

You talk about these jobs as morally and spiritually corrosive. What does that mean?

David Graeber

We’re all taught that people want something for nothing, which makes it easy to shame poor people and denigrate the welfare system, because everyone is lazy at heart and just wants to mooch off other people.

But the truth is that a lot of people are being handed a lot of money to do nothing. This is true for most of these middle-management positions I’m talking about, and the people doing these jobs are completely unhappy because they know their work is bullshit.

I think most people really do want to believe that they’re contributing to the world in some way, and if you deny that to them, they go crazy or become quietly miserable.

Sean Illing

What’s interesting to me is that this is precisely the outcome we shouldn’t expect in a capitalist system. A free market ought to eliminate inefficient, unnecessary jobs, and yet the reverse has happened. We’ve got all these jobs that really shouldn’t exist but somehow do, and maybe it’s as simple as people need something to do, so we keep inventing bullshit jobs to keep them busy. But I’ll ask you: What the hell happened?

David Graeber

That’s the really interesting thing. You expect this outcome with a Soviet-style system, where you have to have full employment so you make up jobs whether a need exists or not. But this shouldn’t happen in a free market system.

I think one of the reasons is there’s huge political pressure to create jobs coming from all directions. We accept the idea that rich people are job creators, and the more jobs we have, the better. It doesn’t matter if those jobs do something useful; we just assume that more jobs is better no matter what.

We’ve created a whole class of flunkies that essentially exist to improve the lives of actual rich people. Rich people throw money at people who are paid to sit around, add to their glory, and learn to see the world from the perspective of the executive class.

Sean Illing

Many of the non-bullshit jobs, the jobs that are truly useful and necessary, have been lost to automation, and the truth is that they were far more difficult and tedious than the bullshit jobs of today. Is it necessarily a bad thing that they’ve been replaced?

David Graeber

Well, you could also just replace them with no jobs. Great economic thinkers like John Maynard Keynes were predicting that technology would advance such that we would achieve a 15-hour workweek by century’s end, but that didn’t happen. Instead, we just kept inventing bullshit jobs.

But what if we just accepted that technology can perform a lot of the essential tasks and just worked less? What if we just spent more time doing what we actually want rather than sitting in [an] office pretending to work for 40 hours a week?

“I think most people really do want to believe that they’re contributing to the world in some way, and if you deny that to them, they go crazy or become quietly miserable”

Sean Illing

This is the same critique Marx made in the 19th century. Marx said we have this perverse and unjust system, which is propped up by perverse and unjust values, but the system persists because the people suffering the most are mad at the wrong people, and if only we could get rid of all this and liberate people, they could spend their days fishing or creating art or whatever and we’d all be happier. But this is a theory, albeit a lovely one.

David Graeber

No question, and I don’t run away from the Marxist aspects of this. One of the themes of the book is that the system reproduces itself because it’s very much in the interests of the ruling class. I get called a conspiracy theorist for saying this, but I don’t see it that way. We should be conspiring to get rid of this.

I think this system creates absurd forms of resentment where people actually resent people who have real jobs. You see this in Europe with all the austerity programs after the financial crash. There is all this talk about tightening belts, except for the guys who caused the crash. They still get their bonuses, but the ambulance drivers and the nurses and the teachers have all got to sacrifice.

The logic is insane, and it always falls on the people who are most vulnerable, who do the hard and necessary jobs.

Sean Illing

There’s a lot to pull on there, but I want to stay on the original point, which is this idea that people would be happier if we exploded all of these bullshit jobs overnight.

David Graeber

I’m an anthropologist, and I can tell you there are plenty of societies where people work three or four hours a day. Most peasant societies worked that. You’d work 12 hours a day during harvest time and in the off-season you’d work two or three hours. The average medieval serf worked way less than we do, and the same is true of tribal societies around the world.

We imagine that if we take people’s work away, they’ll just sit around, drink beer, watch TV, and be depressed all day. But we just don’t have any experience of having time, but societies that do come up with all sorts of things to do.

Sean Illing

Right, but these other societies are defined by radically different cultures and values, so it’s not nearly as simple as that. But I’ll circle back to that in a second. It seems to me that you want a world in which employed rich people subsidize unemployed non-rich people — is that right?

David Graeber

I don’t suspect that’s the way it will work out. I want a world where basic needs are provided. I call for basic income, but it doesn’t have to be basic income. I simply want people to be free to decide for themselves how they want to contribute, and I obviously want fewer bullshit jobs.

But calling it a subsidy is not quite right because you can’t really measure what people are doing. That’s why I talk about caregiving labor. A lot of the value that’s produced in society, like half of the value that’s produced in society, is produced by people who aren’t actually getting paid for it. I’m thinking of people who take care of the home or do important volunteer work or sacrifice in other ways that aren’t rewarded in our current economic system.

People will still need to be paid for doing important engineering work or medical work or scientific work or other necessary jobs, but we have to adjust our values to recognize that there are plenty of ways to contribute to society, and a lot of it doesn’t fall under what we currently consider “work.”

Sean Illing

Here’s why I struggle: We’ve got this complex economic system which requires an enormously complex bureaucracy to prop it up. Plus, we’ve created a culture that reinforces this in a thousand different ways, and cultures don’t change easily or quickly.

So we can’t move from the world we have to the world you want without a total paradigm shift, and I have no idea how to achieve that.

“If we suddenly eliminated teachers or garbage collectors or construction workers or law enforcement or whatever, it would really matter. … But if bullshit jobs go away, we’re no worse off.”

David Graeber

I’m a revolutionary. I think we need a paradigm shift, and I think a lot of people are slowly realizing this. They’re pissed off and frustrated with the status quo, but they don’t see a path to a different world or a different system.

Sean Illing

So you’re a revolutionary? Does that mean you want to burn it all down and start from scratch?

David Graeber

You can never start from scratch, and most successful revolutionaries have deep traditions to draw on. But I do believe we have to start thinking imaginatively about systems that are fundamentally differently organized. Shifts do happen in history. We’ve been taught for the last 30 to 40 years that imagination has no place in politics or economics, but that, too, is bullshit.

Sean Illing

Say someone reads this and thinks, “Yeah, you’re right, my job is bullshit.” What would you have them do? What would you have us do?

David Graeber

We need to change what we value. I thought Occupy Wall Street might have been the beginning of something like this. People were really waking up and realizing that they wanted to do something useful, wanted to help others. They were realizing that something is wrong, that if you go into a profession like education or social services, they treat you poorly and pay you little.

I think we need a rebellion of what I call the “caring class,” people who care about others and justice. We need to think about how to create a new social movement and change what we value in our work and lives.

People have a sense of what makes a job worthwhile; otherwise, they wouldn’t realize that what they’re doing now is bullshit. So we need to give this more articulation, and we need to unite with other people who want the same things. That’s a political project we can all get behind.

Original Source -> Bullshit jobs: why they exist and why you might have one

via The Conservative Brief

[benjamingarden]

Getting Started: Chick Check List and Resources

If you haven’t taken the backyard chicken plunge yet, let me warn you: Chickens are addictive! You’ll never be the same.

Before I dove in, I was a bit nervous. It’s one thing to grow up in the country and have chickens where my parents kept things running smoothly and I just had to scoop poo from time to time, but it’s totally different to be in charge of them without any adult experience (or so I thought). Back in the day, chickens were considered a food source. They weren’t named (well, except Phyllis Diller, a Polish with wild feathers sticking up on top her head). They weren’t pets. And I wasn’t solely responsible for them.

Yet, as an adult living in the city, I wanted more control over my food, even if just a little. I didn’t see my city chickens (i.e.: pets with names and personalities) as a complete food source themselves, but I did see them as a way to have fresh eggs delivered daily from the back yard.

Harriet with her first batch of hatched darlings

And, I have to say bringing those first cute chicks home was one of the best decisions I’ve made as an adult. I love ‘my girls’ and what they’ve brought to my life—which is much more than free-range eggs I expected (which would have been enough).

Spring is the kick off of chick season. So if you’re ready to jump into the movement of keeping chickens in your backyard, there are a few things you need to know first:

Check to Make Sure You Can Have Chickens Where You Live

While chickens have become more popular, there are still areas that don’t allow them. Make sure to check with your local city, town and county ordinances. If you live in the city, there will most likely be limits on the number of hens you can have (typically in the 3-5 range) and most won’t allow roosters at all (you don’t need them for egg production, which is good).

If your area allows chickens, but you live in an H.O.A, check with them too.  There might also be guidelines about where your coop can be placed (if you’re in the city or suburb) in relation to your house, the neighbors, the front sidewalk, etc. Doing a little research up front can save you potential problems later on.

Learn About Chickens

Learn about chicken care as well as chicken breeds. There are over 250 kinds of chickens with unique characteristics. Decide which of those characteristics are most important. For some people, it’s important to have docile birds because they have children or grandchildren. For others, the whole point of chickens is the eggs, so good egg layers are most important? Others love collecting different colored eggs (white, light brown, speckled, dark brown, green, blue, etc) and look for breeds that specifically lay the colors they’re seeking. You can see my favorites lists here, and the reasons why, and how to pick the best ones for your situation.

Talk to people that already own chickens. Ask them questions. Find out the good and bad from a real live person who is raising chickens. They won’t gloss it over for you.

Take classes, if you can. Often local feed stores or even nurseries will hold backyard chicken classes for a nominal fee (and sometimes for free). The nice thing about a local class is that you can get pointed in the right direction for supplies (like the best place to buy chicks or feed, etc.) and they will probably already know local laws regarding chicken keeping in your area.

And don’t forget online chicken information. You can start here, with the chicken section on this site, or visit our sister site, City Girl Chickens. And Backyard Chicken has a great forum to ask questions and interact with other chicken owners.

Find a Place to Buy

Once you’ve learned about chickens and still want them, and after you’ve chosen your breeds of chickens you’d like, it’s time to find out where you can get them. With the rise in chicken popularity, you have a good chance to get at least some of what you want locally, but if not, there are several mail-order chick companies (like My Pet Chicken) that can send them to you (fresh hatched chicks don’t need to eat or drink for a couple of days because they’re still living off the yolk they just hatched from. Hatched chicks are shipped off quickly before the food and drink issue becomes a problem and you will usually have to arrive at the post office to pick them up.)

With over 250 different kinds of chickens to choose from, you might not be able to find every single breed of chicken you’d like to have. Some might be rare or endangered. Or not as popular in the country/region you live in. It’s always good to have backups on your list, if picking the breed is important to you.

Do You Need a Brooder?

If you want to start with chicks, you’ll need a brooder. This is a ‘chick nursery’ of sorts: a place to keep baby chicks warm and safe during the first few weeks of their life. A brooder will be equiped with a heat lamp to help them stay at the right temperature until they grow out of their fluff and into some feathers (they can’t regulate their body temperature until they have feathers). Set a brooder up before you bring your chicks home. Here’s information on how to set up a brooder. It’s not hard and doesn’t need to cost a ton. I often use a free appliance box from a local home improvement store where I can add a heat lamp and a tiny roost (it will take them a little while before they can balance on a roost, but it’s good practice and once they can, they love it).

Do You Need a Coop?

If you don’t have a coop, build or buy one BEFORE you bring chicks home—even BEFORE you go look at those cute fluffy things that you won’t be able to resist. Trust me on this one. The 6-8 weeks the babies need to stay in a warm, protected environment flies by at crazy speed and before you know it you’ll have a flock of chickens, ahem, with no place to live. Like I said, trust me on this one. Here’s my coop-building story (learn from my mistakes!!). And here are a few coops to fuel your inspiration.

A coop doesn’t have to be work of art (although some are). It has to adequately house (and keep safe) the number of chickens you’ll be keeping. If you’re thinking about building your own coop, here are some basics to cover when you do.

This is a great resource for those of you looking to build your own coop–there’s over 40 FREE plans for different coops–there’s a search feature that allows you to narrow down the results by the size, cost and difficulty. And FREE is a very good price. Go check it out over at The Happy Chicken Coop.

My first chicken coop

Feed and Water

If you’re bringing home chicks, their food will be different from an older hen. For chicks the feed is known as ‘chick starter’. You can choose from medicated or non-medicated (here’s how to choose which is best for you). When you pick up your feed, grab a chick feed container. There are a couple different kinds and both are super inexpensive.

You also might need grit for chicks. Grit is little ground up rocks that chickens eat to help them digest their food (they don’t have teeth to help them chew). It’s important that they have access to grit (if the chick starter doesn’t contain it) to help prevent a crop plug up (the crop is where the food goes after the bird swallows it. The grit helps grind the food down in the crop–think of the crop as a first stomach of sorts). They will be able to tell you at the feed store if you need to add grit or not.

As for water, it’s good to start with the smaller, quart-sized waterers for the little birds, so they don’t accidentally drown in too much water.

Bedding:

Bedding will need line the bottom of the brooder (as well as the coop once the flock moves out there). Some people, for the first few days, use paper towels or puppy pee pee pads. When the chicks are very young, they might eat or inhale pine shavings, so staying away from the shavings for a few days is a safer thing to do. Having said that, however, I have always used pine shavings without any problem. Other options for the brooder include old rags or anything that is absorbent, non-toxic and isn’t slick (and also doesn’t get slick when it’s wet).

Really, you can use just about anything, EXCEPT for newspaper or things that get slick. Slick surfaces can cause spraddle leg where the chicks legs go to either side (think of doing the splits) and can’t support her body or allow her to stand.

It might feel like a LOT to think about and learn about, but it’s not really that bad. And chances are, if you’re like most people who dive into backyard chicken keeping, you’re gonna LOVE it. And before too long, it will all be second nature.

A Few More Resources:

Finally, before I sign off, I’ll leave you with a couple of books you might enjoy and find helpful:

Raising Chickens For Dummies by Kimberly Willis and Rob Ludlow This is a great guide for anyone wanting to get into chickens. It’s pretty comprehensive and easy to read. This book does a good job at covering all the bases in chicken raising. Because of that, it’s my favorite go-to chicken resource.

Chicken Coops: 45 Building Plans for Housing Your Flock by Judy Pangman This book is a WONDERFUL resource for gleaning ideas in making your own backyard coop. There’s many great coops in the book with pictures and plans to get your juices flowing.

Since becoming a chicken owner, I haven’t ever had a single regret. Aside maybe waiting so long to do it. And because of that, I’ve become a chicken ‘pusher’…I think everyone should enjoy the benefits of owning chickens! It would make the world a happier place.

Getting Started: Chick Check List and Resources was originally posted by My Favorite Chicken Blogs(benjamingardening)

[twentysomethinginorlando]

MegaCon Part Two: Meet Your Heroes

New Post has been published on https://twentysomethinginorlando.com/megacon-part-two/

MegaCon Part Two: Meet Your Heroes

Memorial Day decided it wanted to be even busier than usual this year. Rather spending my Thursday night finishing my cosplay preparations, I found myself at a movie in full pirate garb with my friends before our trip to MegaCon on Friday. You can read about this, and the morning’s adventures in MegaCon Part One: But First, Cosplay.

Thankfully, it didn’t take me too much longer to find the most important booth at MegaCon: Karen Hallion’s. If you’re not familiar with her work, Miss Hallion does amazing art. She is most famous for her crossover art with Disney characters and Doctor Who, but she does so much more than that. Lately she’s developed an original character named Celara that I really like. My favorite part of her is this cute little orange fox/cat/critter sidekick who reminds me of a cross between Duffy and my cat. I can’t wait to see what kind of adventures the little guy goes on. I’ve met Miss Hallion at the last two MegaCons. She’s just the nicest person and takes time with everyone even though her booth is always slammed. The best part is I somehow manage not to turn to Jell-O when I talk to her. I picked up a print of Celara and the TARDIS. I was torn between that one and the Hamilton one, but that’s just because the little fox looks so darn cute in his outfit. I like Hamilton but I’m much more a Whovian. I asked her if the fox has a name yet, and she told me the two she’s debating between but she’s stuck because she wants it to be just perfect.

I completely understand. This blog had a whole lot of titles before I settled on this one.

As I was finishing talking to Miss Hallion and putting my print away, someone tapped me on the shoulder. I turned around expecting it to be someone asking for a photo and there was a guy with a microphone asking if he could interview me. Okay. That’s different. Well, why not.

He asked me about why I was Korra with a keyblade, and then he asked me about how I felt about the lesbian undertone of the ending of the series. I might have slightly bitten his head off without meaning to when I corrected him that Korra and Asami are bisexual, not lesbians. I get really angry about that. I also talked about how annoyed I am that is literally all anyone wants to talk about now that it ended that way. The show stood on its own well before that final scene.

Frozen Gaming interviewing me.

I think my aggressiveness sort of scared him and the interview ended quickly. At least I think it did. Apparently I do better when you put a camera in my face than I do when trying to talk to celebrities. The guy with the camera man was dressed as Ash from Pokémon and he apologized for their ambushing me, and gave me a card with their YouTube information. Their name is Frozen Gaming and much like me, I think they’re just starting out and I wish them luck.

You can see the interview here, but they cut most of it. Warning: Some of the language in the video is NSFW.

The new print wouldn’t fit in the bag with the first two prints, so I stopped at a random booth to see if they had a bag. They did, and she was very nice, and I wound up buying three postcard prints from her. Pikachu and Barry Allen for me, the Punisher for Jay.

We wandered the floor until a little after two when I was starting to get over whelmed with the crowds. I have worked in one of the world’s busiest theme parks and yet MegaCon phases me, because that makes sense. We headed back to the food area to find a place to sit for a bit and I rechecked the schedule. I had forgotten about the Improvengers show and now it was too late to line up. There were only two other panels I wanted to see: the Hillywood Show and James Marsters’. Sadly they were within half an hour of each other, and James Marsters obviously won.

I wasn’t sure what the line would be like for his panel, but I remember how crazy the Firefly panel lines were two years prior so we went ahead upstairs to line up. Basically this meant we got to camp on the floor for a while and rest and recharge, and look at our phones for the first time all day. I reached out to a couple of friends I knew were there, but hadn’t seen yet, and we agreed to meet after the panel. I had also been looking for a particular booth all day in Artist Alley and hadn’t seen it, so I went to their Facebook to ask the booth number.

While we were waiting, I saw a Black Widow and Star Lord walk by with their own keyblades, and I had to chase after them to get a photo. I didn’t want to interrupt them before they got in line, and we got some nice person in line to take photos on both Black Widow’s and my phones. We compared construction techniques, and I have a few ideas I want to steal to improve mine in the future.

Kingdom Hearts crossovers are popular this year!

They let us into the room around 3:30, and, boy, do I like walking around a keyblade on my shoulder. It makes it really hard for people to move past you. Having an intimidating pirate next to you also helps. We wound up in the second row after the VIP section and I left the keyblade across our laps until the row was filled. We talked through what all we still wanted to do before we left and made a list so we wouldn’t miss anything.

The panel actually started exactly on time to my surprise. I thought he might be late again. They played a highlight reel of his many roles over the years, and I was extremely disappointed the shot of him jumping on top of the coffin in “Once More, With Feeling” was not in there. The host welcomed him out and went over the rules for questions. Before he took the first question, James asked everyone in the audience to put their hands in their air and “scream like your team won the thing”.

Someone asked about a charity he just won an award for, and he talked about CASA, which is an association that helps foster children. Someone asked about how he got into acting, and apparently when he was fourth grade he played Eeyore in a school play. The live action Winnie the Pooh film Disney is doing got brought up and now someone would want him to do Eeyore’s voice. His response was absolutely perfect, in the exact voice, “Oh, Pooh.” Now I will be heartbroken if anyone but James Marsters plays Eeyore. He was asked about his work on the audio books of the Dresden Files, which Jay tried to explain to me and I quickly shushed him. I have never gotten around to reading them, but I know about them. “I have no idea why Jim Butcher picked me. No idea whatsoever.” He was asked about the hardest episode he had to shoot on Buffy, and he talked about how difficult the bathroom scene was, and the toll it took on him. “It put me in therapy. Which actually turned out to be a good thing because I’m much happier now.” He talked about where that story line came from, and the struggle and triumph of Spike gaining his soul. He talked about some of the struggles of going from stage acting to film, and “trying not to lie to the audience”.

Someone asked about his role on Torchwood. He had been on tour with his band, Ghost of the Robot, and his road show manager refused to go out to dinner with him because Doctor Who was on. So they ordered room service and watched it in her room, and within fifteen minutes he was hooked. He went down to his agent’s room and asked him to try to get him a role on Doctor Who. Russel T. Davies said no, but they had a perfect role for him on Torchwood, and they had been looking for someone to fill it. He also talked about being interviewed by the BBC for the homophobic backlash against Torchwood, and his response was apparently, “We’ve got a backlash!? That’s great!”

He was asked his favorite role he had ever played. Without hesitation he said, “Spike. Absolutely Spike. If you asked me to pick between Hamlet and Spike, and Joss is good but Shakespeare’s just a little bit better, sorry Joss, but I’d pick Spike. Absolutely.” Then my favorite question was about his favorite episode, because it turns out we have this in common.

Apparently the cast was very nervous about the musical because they thought Joss was “flushing the show”, but they decided to do the best they could anyway and hope it didn’t suck. Well, it certainly doesn’t suck. It’s my favorite episode of anything that has ever happened.

He also loved killing the Anointed One.

The time was up far too quickly, but I’m so happy this was the one panel I made time for. Three years ago, I had never seen Buffy. Then I didn’t understand why Spike was so popular when he was such a bad guy, then I was cheering as he and Buffy kissed at the end of “Once More, With Feeling”. His line to Buffy at the end of the series about how he loves her was one of my favorite quotes long before I ever saw the show, and I was so beyond happy it was his line.

We filed out of the panel and I stopped for a picture with a spot-on Buffy cosplayer before we went to find my friend Kimberly. Sadly she was in the South Concourse and I was in the North, but she was leaving soon and I was determined to find her. Tradition must be upheld and I have pictures with her at every MegaCon.

It thankfully didn’t take us too long to get across the building and I found her as Black Widow with our friend Mihn as Chirrut. I finally got to introduce Jay to her and we talked for a few minutes before we headed back to the floor. It was already five and we still had several things to cross off our list.

Our first stop was the Hillywood Show table. I had been putting this off because I wanted to meet them, but didn’t know what to say. They’re two sisters who do parodies, and while they aren’t the only reason I started making them myself, they definitely influenced me. Going up and telling them that would be awkward though, and probably giving them too much credit. So I decided I would just ask for a photo, because then I could meet them and it wouldn’t be weird, right?

Wrong.

The only way to get a photo was to buy something, which is fine except they only had merchandise from their three latest parodies: Sherlock, Supernatural and Suicide Squad. Three fandoms I am not a part of to begin with, and I like their older parodies better. I told them as much when they asked which was my favorite, “Harry Potter Deathly Hallows Part 2.” “Oh but that one’s so old!” Long story short, I wasn’t getting a photo without paying ten dollars and it just wasn’t worth what I make an hour to me. Not when I just wanted to talk to them for a moment. Lesson learned, never meet your heroes. (Well, sometimes. Miss Hallion and Robby Cook were great!) I tried not to tear up when I walked away. It wasn’t that upsetting, it was just a very long day without a lot of sleep and it hurt my feelings a little.

Author Nick Braker.

Our next destination was the booth whose number I had to track down on Facebook. Nick A. Braker is a science-fiction writer from my hometown, and his son Chris was one of my best friends in college. Last year I’d been posting on Twitter about heading to MegaCon and he’d texted me I should go see his parents. Well I did, and then I had dinner at their house when I was home for my birthday last year, so I wanted to go say hi.

He’s one heck of a writer. He’s turned out three books in a very short time and he’s got two more coming. If everything goes according to plan, I’ll hopefully be venturing back into video production to produce some book trailers for him.

Now all we had to do was find the three booths we wanted to buy things from and we could leave. This should have been simple. It was not.

I wanted to find Brandon Kenney’s booth so I could buy his Lilo and Stitch Splash Mountain print and the booth with the Disney Parks style buttons. Jay wanted to find the independent fairy tale comic so he could get the preview issue. After wandering in circles through the aisles for twenty minutes with no luck, I went back to Karen Hallion’s booth because I knew I could find her. She collaborates with Mr. Kenney on occasion so I knew she would know where his booth was and her sister and business manager gave me directions. Miss Hallion happened to be standing in front of his booth when I got there, and I said, “Oh, I could have just followed you!” I couldn’t decide if I wanted the big or small Splash print, and Jay told me to just get the big one. I also picked up the pack of three Stitch stickers he had.

We resumed our wandering and I still had the change in my hand, which proved dangerous as I impulse bought a big Pikachu sticker for my bullet journal. Well, at least it has a purpose.

I straight up lucked into finding the Disney Parks buttons booth. I even followed him on Instagram earlier in the day and wasn’t smart enough to look there to see if he had his booth number posted. They were two for five so I picked Gaston and BB-8. I could have happily bought them all, and some of his prints, but I was trying not to go overboard. The artist’s name is Joey Quintin and he had a series of Disney characters dressed as cast members that was just fantastic. I asked him why Anna got to be a Skipper, and admittedly his reasons were good. He asked who I would want to see. “I don’t know, but I am a Skipper so I’m a little picky!” “That’s fair.”

Jay was ready to give up on finding the independent comic booth, but I was determined. It was the only thing he had really wanted all day, and it did look extremely cool. One of the main characters was the son of the Big Bad Wolf and he was on the cover with a brunette Aurora. We thought we knew the general area and we knew they had black and white sketches hanging on either side of the booth, but of course after a while everything just blends together. We went in circle after circle, and I must have passed the Brakers ten times now that I knew where they were. I was getting increasingly frustrated, but I do not give up easily. The warning message played that the show floor would be closing in half an hour, so we were almost out of time. Neither of us had been smart enough to take a picture of the booth or the name of the comic to look in the program.

ARGH.

Hero Cats!

I got distracted by the Hero Cats booth and wound up buying a comic and a button, but it’s literally about cats saving the world so I feel like that was another good impulse buy.

After about fifteen more minutes of circling, I finally spotted the booth and raced over to them. “Oh thank goodness.” The artist had returned and I honestly think we confused him and the nice woman we’d spoken to earlier, but I was so out of breath.

They had two comic options, the normal one which was one out of five hundred, or the variant which was one out of a hundred. The normal was $10, and the variant was, well Jay heard $50 and I heard $15 and I don’t which one of us was right because I bought the normal one. It came with a free black and white print, but of course the one Jay wanted wasn’t actually a print.

It was an original sketch. He offered to make a print of it and we could pick it up at a future con, but I elected to take the Beast print home and buy a second comic in the future. The series is titled The Chronicles of Zelaria: Dynasty of Darkness and Jay now owns #106 out of five hundred of the preview issue. I haven’t looked at it much yet, but I am already looking forward to seeing more after the description the author gave us while we were there.

We could finally head out, and began the long trek back to the car. I had tried to be good about switching which shoulder I carried the keyblade on throughout the day, but my back was aching. Jay’s pirate boots were killing him, and we were very happy to start stripping off the outer layers of our cosplays. I hadn’t realized how little my vest breathed until I took it off.

I hadn’t wanted to try to carry Duffy and the keyblade so he had to stay in the car. He didn’t seem too mad at me thankfully, I did let him watch Pirates the night before.

MegaCon is absolutely one of my favorite things about living in Orlando. I’m a little sad I didn’t get to go more days, there were other celebrities I would have liked to see like the Flash stars and Stan Lee. I’ve seen Stan Lee twice before, and he’s wonderful but this is his final Florida appearance. Getting off work on a holiday weekend is just too difficult in the hospitality industry, but I’ll be there at least one day next year. I never plan on missing it.

A pretty good haul!

Cost: A one day ticket purchased in advance was $41 after tax. The four day option I was looking at previously was $99 before tax. My portion of the photo op was $35. I probably spent close to $40 on cosplay supplies, and another $30 towards the keyblade, but a good chunk of that was the jigsaw which we won’t have to purchase again. I came home with a little less than half of my original spending cash. Parking was $15.

Duration: All day, whether you go for one or four.

Value: Absolutely worth it. Can’t wait to see who they announce for next year.

Add Ons: There are VIP ticket options, autographs and photos. The prices change from year to year based on what guests are attending.