#Posts like these and their tags/responses are always such a goldmine
Text
hot & heavy
chapter ten: a hidden gem, my own goldmine
neighbor!joel x f!reader
series masterlist
series rating: E (18+ MDNI)
series summary:
over the course of three summers, joel miller becomes woven into your life. the first summer is spent falling for him; nannying his daughter and sneaking around with him in a burning love affair. you know how you feel about joel, he isn’t so sure about how it all is gonna work. the second summer is brief. a month spent at home after graduation and before you move to boston for your dream job. one look at you, one time hearing your voice, and joel is hooked again. he pines over you for that month, but you think — how is long distance of over a thousand miles going to work for a single dad? the third summer, you return home burnt out and pride bruised from your post-grad life. you need time to feel at home again, like your complete self, so you’ve come back home with no return ticket booked. it’s only a matter of time before joel seeks you out, slowly spending more time with you. without an inevitable end to the summer looming over you both, what chances are you willing to take?
word count: 10k
warnings: NO OUTBREAK (don’t need to worry about the mushies), no use of y/n, inexperienced reader, age gap (joel is 30/31, reader is 22), canon-divergent (sarah is 7 y/o), nanny au, pet names (sweetheart, darling, sweet girl, mariposa, etc.), polite southern manners, feeling familial and self-pressure, ESTABLISHED relationship FINALLY, spanish cause joel is latino, fingering, unprotected p in v, dirty talkkk king joel miller, soft (and soft dom) joel, possessive joel, mentions of depression diagnosis and symptoms, struggling with self, discussion of co-parenting, angst, MAJOR doubt! and a slumber party! yay!
a/n: thank you as always to the bestie/cousin/sister wife/sweet, sweet gf @northernbluess for beta-reading this chapter, seriously i can't write without you so you're stuck with me. also this chapter is a little heavier in spanish then before, so if there are any corrections needed, please comment or message me! i went through multiple translations to try to find the best/most common, but things are bound to slip through the cracks.
Joel’s been catching up with some chores around the house this evening after Sarah’s gone to bed: dishes are washed and put away, counters wiped down and floors mopped. He reset the living room after he put the laundry in the dryer, settling onto the couch with a long sigh. Hands rub at his tired eyes, muscles aching for his bed but he is determined to stay up until you text him that you’re back at your friend’s house safe.
A few of your friends from college ended up with jobs in Austin, and tonight you’d all arranged to go out downtown. You had, sweetly, invited Joel to tag along but when you mentioned that the only other guys there would be boyfriends of your friends that were your age, he politely declined. Well, he used his daughter as an excuse because he didn’t want to admit that he was a little insecure about the age difference, even still.
It’s not even a large one, you’re twenty-five and he’s thirty-three, but with a nearly ten year old kid and his own business, he’s willing to bet he’s in a much different place in life than your friends' significant others. And if there isn’t a lot of common ground, Joel knows he’s not the most social or conversational.
Resting his eyes, his head rolls back onto the couch while the TV drones on about the latest Astros game. A short buzz from his phone in his pocket peels his eyes open, yawning quietly as he fishes the device out and flips it open.
FROM: Mariposa
Cn u pcik me up pLs????
While deciphering your drunk text, another couple are delivered and he keys down to see them as he chuckles at the antics.
I miiss u
Eveynoe is w their BFs n I wnt mine
Plesaseeeeeee J
Before he can type a response to you, an incoming call blocks out his screen, his thumb hitting the accept button quickly and bringing the phone to his ear.
“Feelin’ alright, Mari?”
A hiccup on the other line makes him laugh quietly again, your voice coming in over the music and people in the background, “No, not alright. M’sad.”
“Why’re you sad, sweet girl?”
“Cause you’re not here. Every—everybody’s…No I didn’t want a vodka water, gross! I wanna vodka soooooda with lime…Oops, sorry J. What was I saying?” A giggle from your end pulls a smile on his face, only slightly worried at your level of intoxication.
“You were telling me why you’re sad.”
“Right! M’sad cause all my friends have got their boy—” One hiccup. “Boyfriends here. And you’re aaaallllll the way at home.” Another hiccup. “I wanna be home with you.”
“I see. Well, I don’t want you to be sad, darlin’, so m’gonna come pick you up. How’s that sound?”
He hears a gasp into the phone and your voice gets quieter, imagining you holding the phone or turning your head away to a nearby friend.
“He’s coming! Jus’ to pick me up though, we gotta get back for Sar—Sarah…Yeah, she’s so cute…Well, yeah duh, he’s a DILF…I mean, to me I guess he’d be a DIAF…‘Dad I Am Fucking’…Oh, shit!” There’s a rustling as he laughs to himself overhearing your conversation, a smug smile on his face from you bragging to your friends. “M’sorry, J, god I totally forgot I was on the phone!” You punctuate your sentence with an incredulous laugh before quieting down to hear Joel.
“That’s alright, Mari. M’gonna drop Sarah with Tommy and then come and get you, okay? Can you tell me where you are?” Joel is already standing from the couch, grabbing his keys from the entryway before making his way upstairs to get Sarah into the car.
“Ummm…One sec!” The line rustles again while he stands at the top of the stairs. “Okay, we’re at that place on 11th, Nickel City.”
“Yeah, I know where that is, sweetheart. Be there soon, okay?”
“Okay. Tha—” One last hiccup. “—nks, J.”
“Anytime, amor. Anytime.”
With Sarah dropped off at Tommy’s, Joel goes into town to pick you up. It takes another twenty minutes from Tommy’s place, finding a parking spot not too far from the bar. He slips in the door and starts to comb his eyes over the crowd, most people stepping out of his way from his intimidating frame while he weaves through the masses.
Spotting you off to the side at a high-top table, some friends he recognizes from your photos dotted around the surface as well. You’re wrapped up in a conversation with the person next to you while you sit on a stool, Joel’s eyes finally landing on the person you’re talking to. It’s another man, about his height, maybe a few inches shorter. He’s got light hair, a clean-cut look with some fancy shirt on. Clearly, the guy is flirting with you, standing closer and leaning an arm around the back of your chair. Knowing how drunk you sounded over the phone, it occurs to him that you likely don’t even realize this guy’s body language, a primal possessiveness taking over his judgment.
He’s waited years for you. There’s no way in hell he isn’t putting on a show for this guy to send him a message.
Joel rolls his shoulders back, chest raising with the corrective posture. He saunters over to the table, politely smiling and waving as your friends must recognize him and welcome him to the group. He walks right up to the other side of your chair, placing a hand on your lower back and brushing against the skin exposed by the tank top you’re wearing.
A small gasp exhales from you with the surprise contact, turning your head and beaming when you see him. The look makes the wings of his butterfly flap faster, beating in time with his heartbeat.
“You’re here! M’so happy to see you.” He matches your smile before he is crushed in a hug, your arms around his neck. Unraveling from each other, you turn back toward the other man, before one of your other friends comes over to tell you something, pulling you away but still within arm’s length for Joel to keep his hand on you.
Joel reaches his hand out toward the man, “Nice to meet you…”
“Colton.”
“Nice to meet you, Colton. Are you one of the college friends?”
Colton gives a weak handshake to Joel, shaking his head with a laugh, “No, actually, never met any of ‘em until tonight. Well, except Taylor. M’relatively new to town, met Taylor through work, so you know how it is. Trying to make some connections.”
Joel has to hold back his eye roll, annoyance clear on his face at the skirting around that this Colton is doing. Joel’s heard it before from Tommy — going up to a girl and using the ‘new in town’ line to get a conversation started and to hopefully get them to leave with you to ‘show you around’.
Mine. You’re mine, he repeats to himself, the jealousy pumping in his veins.
“So’re you one of the college friends? Or an Austin friend?” Colton makes polite conversation while you turn in Joel’s arm and wrap your own around his back. Tugging on his t-shirt the fingers of one of your hands slip under the material and skim across his skin. Joel clears his throat, chuckling dryly as he keeps his gaze on Colton.
“Uh, not quite. M’the boyfriend.” His head nods to his side to you, a tight, smug smile on his face as he watches the gears in Colton’s head turn.
It’s not happening for him tonight. Or ever.
“Oh shit! You must be Joel! We’ve been waiting for you. I’ve just been making sure she’s had some water and didn’t wander off before you got here. She’s been talkin’ about you all night, made me think about how many times I’ve drunkenly ranted about my girlfriend.”
“Your girlfriend?”
“Yeah, Taylor’s my girlfriend — she’s the one with blonde hair right across the table.” Colton beams down the way as Taylor makes eye contact with him, waving to the woman as she smiles back at him.
The man is a golden retriever. And Joel thought he was some douchebag trying to hook up with his girlfriend. Joel opens his mouth to apologize for his cold behavior, but before he can your head pops up from his chest, grabbing his attention. Hands at his back scratch your nails against his skin, humming contently as you press a sloppy kiss to his jaw.
Colton considers his duties relieved and goes to find his girlfriend before Joel can thank him, leaving the two of you at the end of the table. Joel pulls his chin in to look down at you, smiling softly and moving a hand to the back of your neck.
“You alright, sweetheart?”
“Yeah, jus’ happy you’re here. Missed you.”
Joe presses a kiss to your forehead and you hum again, swaying sleepily in his arms. “M’glad you called me, Mariposa.”
“Can we go home now please?”
“Yeah, Mari, ‘course we can. You want me to bring you to your house?” His hands move to your sides, running up and down against the fabric of your tank top. You hook your arms around his neck and shake your head, a tiny “humpf” accompanying it.
“No, home.”
“My house?”
“Yes! Home. Wanna sleep in your bed, s’comfier than mine.”
“Yeah, sweetheart, I can bring you home.”
A warm stirring is felt in his chest, steadying you in your stance and keeping an arm around your waist. You say goodbye to your friends, all of them waving to you both as Joel steers you through the bar and to his truck outside.
Joel calls Tommy on the way home, his brother telling him that Sarah’s out cold and he can bring her back in the morning when she wakes up. He presses for an answer about why Joel had to drop Sarah off, but Joel ignores Tommy’s question again and hangs up.
Safely back at his house, he helps you out of the truck and inside, walking behind you on the stairs as you stumble. It’s like a baby deer learning to walk — he’s never seen you this drunk, tipsy, sure, but never at this level. A smile crosses his face as he imagines a moment like this in the future with you, maybe after a night out for the two of you or maybe even after your wedding.
Your voice pulls him out of his thoughts, tripping over your feet at the landing and recovering on your own. His hand hovers at your back, ready to break your fall if it happens.
“I’m alright, m’alright. Jus’ tripped a lil’.”
To be safe, Joel holds your hips the rest of the way up and into his room, sitting you on the edge of the mattress and gathering a t-shirt from his drawers for you to wear to bed.
“No, I want the funny one that I like,” you whine, waving a hand back at his dresser. Joel shakes his head to himself, chuckling about the fact that you still have a preference for sleep attire.
He grabs the shirt you’re talking about, a worn and washed one that he got as a joke from Tommy a few years ago. He normally wears it to sleep himself, if he wears one, or around the house if he knows he won’t be going out. It’s faded black now, yellow text that reads ‘I do know it all…I just can’t remember it all at once.’
Upon finding it in his drawer last week, you laughed hysterically and made him put it on for a Polaroid. You’ve also requested it every time you’ve stayed over since.
In front of you again, with the correct shirt, he kneels down and pats the outside of your thighs. “Can you stand for me, sweetheart?”
Using his shoulders as support, you stand on sea legs, swaying back and forth as he looks up at you. “Can I take off your skirt, darlin’?”
“Yeah, you can, cutie.” You giggle and sway wider, playing with the curls at the top of his head, turning his head to your will as he unbuttons and unzips your denim skirt. “You got some grays mixed in here, mister.”
“M’getting old, Mari. No surprises there.” He chuckles and helps you lift each foot to step out of the tube of material completely, rubbing a hand on your calf before he stands in front of you again. He’s faced with a pout, brows knit together in anger.
“You’re not getting old. You’re literally in your thirties. Not old.”
“Say that to the gray hairs then, sweetheart.”
“Gray hairs—“ Hiccup. “Mean nothing ‘sides the fact that you’re gonna be a silver fox. My silver fox.”
A content smile, closed lips, pulls the corners of your mouth up. Heavy eyelids cover your irises halfway, the sight of you so drunkenly drowsy is utterly adorable to him. Fingers grip the bottom of your tank top, kissing your forehead.
“Can I take off your shirt?”
“Take it all off, bay-beeee.” Your swaying causes you to stumble again, Joel catching you before you fall back onto the bed. Once you’re steady, your own hands slip under his shirt, running over his tummy while you press sloppy kisses into his neck. “Mm, want you so bad, J.”
“I love you, darlin’, and you know I want you all the time, but not tonight. You need to get some water and go to sleep. For a while.” A defeated sigh blows against his skin, rocking back on your heels and Joel holding your weight to bring you to stand straight again. “Arms up, baby.”
You comply without another ask, lifting your arms as if they’re heavy weights, allowing Joel to tug the material over your head. With a slight slap sound, your arms drop back against your sides. Joel takes off your bra for you and gets you into his t-shirt, giving you a small kiss. He walks you to your side of the bed, tucking you in.
“Be right back, sweet girl. Gonna get you some water and then you can go to sleep, okay?”
“Okay.” You sigh, nesting into the sheets and duvet. Your eyes close, soft hums filling the room as he runs downstairs, filling a glass of water and grabbing ibuprofen to leave at your bedside for the morning.
Returning to his room, he coaxed you to sit up, having you drink half the glass. He changes for bed himself, stripping down to his boxers and slipping under the covers, pulling you closer with an arm around your waist.
“G’night, Mari.”
“Mm, night, J. Thanks for coming to get me and bringing me home. Like sleeping next to you lots more than a sleepover with my friends…”
“Like sleeping next to you too, Mari. Missed you all night. M’glad you’re home now.”
“Nightie night.”
“Nightie night, sweet girl. Don’t let the bedbugs bite.” He pinches your side playfully, breathing a laugh out of his nose at your yelp and squeezing you closer. With a kiss to the top of your head, he lulls you to sleep with his fingertips running up and down your spine, thoughts going right back to those flash images of a future with you.
“Love you, Mariposa.”
There’s an ache all over your body, eyes too sore and crusted over with sleep to peel open when you first wake up. Light peeks through the curtains, shining onto the bed and directly at your face, making you groan into the pillow and attempt to roll over.
Unfortunately, your body is telling you to get up, find water or pain meds or some coffee, you really wouldn’t be all too picky at this moment. Rolling over onto your back, you reach out to your side and feel bedding underneath your hand, pouting to yourself when you finally open your eyes and see Joel’s gone. As you sit up, you can hear the shower turn on in the bathroom attached to his bedroom and you can hear some quiet humming from the other side of the door. A smile crosses your face, the idea of a shower nestling itself in your mind and feeling like it would be the only thing to get rid of all of this hangover.
On the nightstand next to you, there are two burgundy-colored tablets and a half glass of water, vaguely remembering last night when Joel made you drink the other half before going to sleep. Washing down the ibuprofen with the entirety of the water, you start to recount what you can recall from the night before, cringing internally when you get to the point that Joel showed up to pick you up. You don’t really remember getting home, but looking down at the t-shirt you’re wearing clues you in that Joel must have done most of the work to get you into bed.
Slipping out from under the duvet, you set the empty glass back down and slink over to the bathroom, twisting the knob and opening the door. The squeak of the hinges breaks your sneaking attempt and Joel’s humming stops.
He speaks up over the sound of the water, “Mariposa? That you?”
“I sure hope no one else would be sneaking into the bathroom this morning. Unless you have another drunk girlfriend you had to pick up from the bar,” you laugh at the self-deprecating joke, picking up your toothbrush and squeezing out a dollop of toothpaste to clean your teeth. And to get rid of the taste of tequila lingering on your tongue.
The shower curtain slides back a bit and Joel’s head sticks out, goofy grin on his face with curls hanging on his forehead. “Nah, just got the one. How’re feeling this morning?”
“Like I got beat up by a bunch of vodka sodas and a couple of tequila shots.” Your words are muffled around the foamy toothpaste, leaning back against the counter facing him.
“Yeah, you were pretty drunk, darlin’. But it was honestly cute, you’re a funny drunk.”
Turning back toward the sink, you fold over the sink to spit out and rinse your mouth out, groaning softly, “God, please tell me I didn’t do or say anything embarrassing.”
“Nothin’ too bad, but there were some things that I will be committing to memory,” Joel laughs and winks, the noise getting louder as you groan again and roll your head back.
“This is the worst part about getting drunk. People holding stupid shit you said over your head.” Crossing your arms in front of your chest, you look at Joel across the few feet separating you and watch him shake his head and grin sweetly.
“I’ll tell you what you said, sweetheart, but I think you’re in too physically fragile of a state right now.”
“God, you are right about that,” you sigh and shake your head, propping yourself off the counter you were leaning on, crossing the tiles to be only a foot from Joel’s face, “Can I join you? A shower sounds like exactly what I need right now.”
He nods quickly, halfway through the question and you chuckle at the antics, pulling the t-shirt over your head and slipping off your panties to leave both in a heap with Joel’s clothes. He opens the curtain for you and steps back toward the other wall while you close the curtain and drag yourself under the stream of water.
A sigh relaxes your chest and shoulders, closing your eyes as you let the warm water run all over you. Joel’s hands brush across your skin, the feeling of his work-worn palms sending a tingle of excitement down your skin and chilling your body even under the hot water. His thumbs cup under your breasts while the rest of his fingers splay out on your ribcage, tips of them toward your back as he holds you closer to him.
“Mm, you’re so beautiful, d’you know that, mi Mariposa? La mujer más hermosa del mundo (The most beautiful woman in the world),” Joel mumbles against your skin when he nestles into the crook of your neck, curving his back to fit with you perfectly. His hands wander from your ribs, circling around your back and drifting down to the swell of your ass where they settle with a gentle squeeze.
“I think I’m getting better at Spanish 'cause I understood that. And it was very sweet, thank you, J. I think you’re the most beautiful man in the world.” You giggle and feel Joel exhale a chuckle against your neck, peppering slow and spaced kisses along your shoulder.
“You also told me something else about what you think of me last night. Well, it was to one of your friends but you were still on the phone with me so I heard,” he stretches to full height again with a smug smirk, squeezing your ass again as you sigh.
“Oh god, what did I say to you? Did I feed your massive ego?” you tease, bringing your hands up to his shoulders and lightly scratching your nails against his skin.
“I learned that I am a DILF last night. Or according to you, I am a DIAF to you. Dad I Am Fucking.” He can barely get the last sentence out around his loud laugh, your embarrassed reaction of wide eyes and jaw dropped egging him on more.
“Stop, I cannot believe I said that. And that you heard! You’re never going to let me live that down.”
“Not a chance, sweetheart. Not a chance,” Joel can’t wipe the giggly smile off of his face as he continues, “Oh, and you also were definitely really into me getting you into pajamas last night. I asked if I could take off your shirt and you said ‘Take it all off bay-beeee’. Which was very tempting.”
“Oh my god, if you don’t stop telling me all of this right now, I won’t take anything off for you again.” It’s a thinly veiled threat, both of you know it holds zero weight.
“Alright, alright. I’ll stop.”
“Thank you,” you breathe out as you turn toward the shelf in the shower, reaching for the body wash before Joel intercepts your hand, holding it in his and lowering it to your side. He presses his chest to your back, the contact also nudging his hard cock into the flesh of your ass.
“Y’know, I woke up this morning after you were all over me last night with a fucking hard on. Aching for you. And then you come in here and ask to join me in the shower, made it come right back…” he leans down, kissing your shoulder, up your neck and to your ear, “D’you still want me, Mariposa? Hm?”
One of his hands drifts to your inner thighs, coaxing your legs apart and swiping two fingers from your entrance to your clit. Your arousal coats his fingers, a quiet whimper leaving your lips in an exhale, eyes closing and head rolling back against his shoulder.
“You still want me, mi dulzura? Feels like you do,” his lips are against your ear, voice low and gravelly, and he slowly circles your clit as you continue to whimper and writhe in his arms, “Sounds like you do, too, mi amor. Y’know, we have the whole house to ourselves, Mariposa. I want you to be loud for me while I touch you. Understand?”
Lost in the sparks of pleasure slowly building, your words get caught in your throat as one of your arms reaches up to wrap around to the nape of his neck. At the lack of response to his question, Joel pinches your clit before pulling his hand away.
“No, no, no, please. I understand. I’ll be loud for you, J. Please touch me…”
You grip the curls at the back of his head, biting your lip and opening your eyes again to look at Joel’s head at your side. His hand comes back, his thumb rubbing your clit while his middle finger sinks into you until the first knuckle. He keeps his eyes on your face, slowly working the finger in and out of your cunt, never giving it to you fully.
“Fuck, don’t tease me, Joel. Please, pretty please, gimme more.”
A deep chuckle rumbles from his chest, his nose nudging at your cheek to turn your head straight toward the tiled wall, pressing open-mouthed kisses along your jaw.
“You want more, Mariposa?”
“Pleasepleaseplease.”
“Mm, and are you going to be good? Give me all your pretty sounds that I love?” Joel pushes his entire middle finger into you now, holding it there, “If I give you what you want, you gotta be loud for me, pretty girl.”
“I will, I promise.” You wiggle your hips to get any more friction building, grumbling in frustration when Joel’s other arm tugs your hips back against him, strapping you to him like a seatbelt. The thumb against your clit leaves, and as you’re about to complain again, Joel adds another finger and starts to thrust them in and out frenetically, the heel of his palm rubbing the sensitive bud at the front of your folds.
A sinful moan rolls from your gut, bouncing off of the walls of the shower and drowning out the sound of the water for a few seconds. You can feel Joel’s satisfied smirk against your skin, his mouth dipping to the crook of your neck to suck at your pulse point and leave his mark. His hand continues its rapid pace, your legs bending as they start to give out the closer you reach to the edge. To attempt to hold your weight, you lean your arms against the tiles, feeling yourself being held up by Joel’s arm tightened across your hips.
“Fuck, Joel, feels so fucking good. Oh!” Your voice pitches up when his fingers graze that spot inside your walls, the sound catching in your throat. Joel pushes deeper with his fingers, hooking them to find that same spot and petting against it with small strokes of his fingers. The sounds coming from you are uncontrollable, head falling back against his shoulder as a mess of his name, lustful whimpers and whines, and wanton moans echo in the steaming shower.
“That’s it, pretty girl, I can feel how close you are. Nearly squeezing my fingers out of ya.” Joel’s small groan vibrates against your shoulder, his hard-on being pressed into your back and leaking pre-cum. You can feel yourself clench around his fingers, the edges of your vision blurring as you near your peak. “Gonna come for me, Mari? Gonna be a good girl and come all over my hand so you can be ready for my cock?”
His words are the final push, pleasure oozing around his fingers and dripping down your folds, warmth spreading in your body as your nerve endings tingle. You can hear yourself moaning his name, small encouragements spoken in your ear as Joel continues to fuck his fingers into you throughout your orgasm. When you’re fully present in your body again, Joel slips his fingers out of you slowly, turning your head and kissing you deeply.
“Need you so fucking bad, Mariposa,” he says against your lips, kissing you fervently before speaking again, “Wanna bend you over and make you take my cock, and you’ll tell me how good it feels filling you up. You want it, pretty girl?”
“Need it, J. Please, I need you so bad.” You kiss him this time, pressing your hips back and grinding against his cock, the rumble of a mouth muffled into your mouth as your tongues meld together. Joel pulls away and grips your hips, turning both of you so his back is facing the stream of water.
“Hands against the wall, amor, arch your back for me—” You follow his instructions with one of his large hands skimming along your spine, folded to an angle at your hips. “That’s it, baby. So good for me.”
Joel takes his cock in his hands, teasing his tip at your entrance and earning a whine from you. A dark laugh is heard faintly from behind you, an equally quiet sigh of relief when he gives you just the tip.
“Mm, fuck, Mari. Estás tan apretado, y húmedo, y cálido. Nunca me voy a cansar de este coño. (You’re so tight, and wet, and warm. I’m never going to get tired of this pussy.)”
Before you can formulate any sort of response, despite not fully knowing what he said, Joel gives you a few more inches of his cock, stuttering out a moan from you before his hips set a rough, desperate pace. Grunts and groans, moans and whimpers fill the bathroom, your names exchanged back and forth as he fucks you from behind. His hands hold tightly onto your hips, digging in to surely form bruises to match the hickey at your collar, and to keep you from being rammed into the wall with how hard his thrusts are.
“More, fuck, gimme all of it, J. Want you to fill me up, make it hard to fucking walk straight.”
There’s a vibrating rumble that resonates in your own chest, Joel completely pulling out on the downstroke and heaving his chest up and down with shallow breaths.
“Fucking dirty girl. Mi chica sucia. Filthy, baby.” He runs his fingers down the line of your spine, still arched for him. You feel him lined up at your entrance again, whimpering for him and pressing your hips back to try to get him inside. Joel chuckles, shaking his head, “Mm, can’t get enough of my cock, can you, sweetheart? Greedy little thing.”
Your jaw drops open with a toe-curling moan, Joel’s hips thrusting his throbbing cock into your waiting cunt to fill you completely, the same rough and hard pace set as he makes you knock forward and brace against the wall with every movement.
“Take it, darlin’. Oh, fuck, aguantarla. Puedes aguantarla, mi dulzura. (Oh, fuck, take it. You can take it, my sweetness.)” Joel’s head rolls back with another guttural moan, tilting forward to watch his cock disappearing into your dripping hole. “Fuck, such a pretty pussy. And it’s all fucking mine, isn’t that right, Mariposa?”
“Y-Yes! Fuck yeah, it’s all yours, J. No one could ever fuck me like you,” you glance over your shoulder and he makes eye contact, a wide, knowing smile on his face. Your cunt clenches around his cock, his brutal pace hurtling you toward the edge. Just as you’re about to ask for that little bit more, he reads your mind and slips one of his hands around your front, errantly rubbing circles in your clit.
“Can feel you around me, Mari, know you’re close. You gonna let me fill you up with my come? Gonna milk my cock with your tight pussy?”
All you can do is nod, eyes shutting tightly as moans squeak out of you. One hand reaches back to grip his wrist as he keeps you right there at the edge.
“Say it, baby. Say it back to me and I’ll let you come. Give you just what you need.”
A deep breath brings enough air into your lungs to rasp out, “Please fill me up, Joel. Wanna milk your cock of everything you can give me, want you to be dripping out of me all day. Remind me of how only you can have my pussy.”
“Fuck yeah, that’s right, sweetheart. Such a good girl.” Joel eyes that you have a hand bracing you still, letting go of your hip as he fucks you, rubbing your clit continuously. He reaches his free hand around to your mouth, prodding his thumb at your lips and humming when you take it into your mouth and suck. After a minute, he pops out his saliva covered digit and brings it back to your body, pushing into the tight ring of muscle facing him. The sensation of stimulation at all three places barrels you to your high, pussy gripping his cock as everything tenses and pleasure rocks your body and clears your mind.
With the tightness felt in both holes around him, Joel takes one, two, three more thirsts before he’s spilling into you, ropes of come coating your walls and lazy jerks of his hips fucking it deeper into you.
After a moment, Joel pulls out of you slowly, gathering all that dribbles out of you and pushing it back inside with his fingers, causing a shudder down your spine.
The two of you come down from your peaks, the water running cold now. Still needing to clean yourselves, Joel washes your body while you shampoo and condition his hair as he folds over to gently exfoliate your legs. The tasks get swapped, Joel washing your hair while you wash his body.
Stepping out, he grabs a towel for you, wrapping it around you tightly and giving you a sweet, chaste kiss. He gets another towel for himself, both of you drying off and heading back into his bedroom to get dressed again.
You sit on the edge of his bed in your clothes from last night, one of his shirts pulled over your tank top and tucked into your skirt. As you comb your fingers over your wet hair, you look at Joel as he pulls on a pair of jeans standing next to his closet.
“Hey, I have a question for you, actually.”
“Shoot, darlin’.”
“Am I remembering correctly that last night when you came to the bar, you were acting a little jealous toward Colton? Did you think he was flirting with me or something and you got all possessive?” you giggle quietly.
Joel blushes and shakes his head with an overexaggerated eye roll. “Pffft, no. Don’t remember it happening like that, probably a bit clouded in your memory.”
Laughing more, you stand up and cross over to him, hands splayed on his soft tummy and head tilted away from him.
“Oh, sure. Sure, J, we’ll go with that if it makes you feel better.” Reaching up you give his cheek a gentle pat and wink at him, giggling faintly before he gathers you up in his arms and gives you a kiss.
“Good, 'cause it does make me feel better. ‘Sides can you blame me for getting a little jealous? We’ve waited like three years to get this right with each other, m’not letting it go.”
“Me neither, which is why you don’t ever have to be jealous cause it’s only you, baby.” You send him a wink and a grin, giving him a kiss before you both hear the front door open, Tommy’s voice echoing upstairs as he calls out for Joel. He looks down at you, biting his lip.
“I didn’t think he’d be bringing Sarah home this early. Uh, d’you mind that he’s here or should I jus’ say…” he trails off awkwardly, waiting for your thoughts on how to broach the fact that you’re over here, in Joel’s shirt and clearly have stayed the night with your wet hair from the shower.
“If you’re fine with him knowing, we can tell him. That is if Sarah hasn’t spilled the beans already.” Joel laughs faintly and nods, running his hands up and down your arms.
“That is highly possible. But guess we’ll have to find out when we head downstairs. And I’m apologizing now for any stupid shit my brother says.”
“You act like I don’t know Tommy already.”
“You don’t know Tommy as my girlfriend. He’s going to give you some shit, and he’s going to give a lot to me for keeping it from him.”
“Think I can survive Tommy Miller. Now, c’mon, get a shirt on, and let’s go. I need some coffee.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Joel descendsed the stairs ahead of you, rounding the corner into the kitchen and greeting his brother as Tommy pours himself a cup of coffee. Sarah is already at the table, cereal bowl in front her as she eats and reads her book. Joel grabs two mugs from the cabinet, earning a confused look from Tommy before you walk into the room, the confusion melting into mischief. His brother nudges at Joel’s arm and winks.
“Ah, así que esta es la razón de su aventura nocturna en la ciudad. Puedo ver por qué estabas tan desesperada por mi ayuda. (Oh, so this is the reason for your late-night adventure into the city. I can see why you were so desperate for my help.)”
Joel’s eyes roll into the back of his head, “Cállate, Tommy. Necesitaba que la llevaran a casa, así que le di una. (Shut up, Tommy. She needed a ride home, so I gave her one.)”
“Claro, claro. Un paseo. (Sure, sure. A ride.)”
“Pendejo de mierda (Fucking dumbass).”
“¿Qué? No estoy diciendo que haya algo malo en ello. Estoy feliz de ver a su hijo si significa que usted consigue algunos. Finalmente. (What? I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with it. I am happy to watch your child if it means you getting some. Finally.)” He laughs when Joel glares at him, Tommy crossing over to the table and covering Sarah’s ears. “Además, ella está jodidamente caliente. No sé lo que ve en un viejo como tú. (Plus, she’s fucking hot. Don’t know what she sees in an old man like you.)”
“Yo tampoco. Y deja de hablar de ella así. (I don’t either. And stop talking about her like that.)” Joel’s voice grits out the last sentence, his short fuse being tested with Tommy’s teasing this morning.
“No, realmente, ella es casi diez años más joven y podría conseguir a quien quisiera, pero ¿eres tú? Mejor empieza a apostar por los caballos, hermano. (No, really, she’s almost ten years younger and could get anybody she wanted, but it’s you? Better start betting on the horses, brother.)” His younger brother comes back to stand next to him, picking up his mug and taking a sip.
“Déjalo. (Quit it.)” Joel sends him another glare, grabbing the milk out of the fridge to add some to your cup.
“Maldita sea, tal vez tengo que contratar a una niñera para Sarah cuando está en mi casa. O tal vez la contrate yo mismo. (Damn, maybe I gotta hire a nanny for Sarah when she’s at my house. Or maybe I’ll hire her myself.)”
When Joel looks back at Tommy, he sees him eyeing you as you talk to Sarah at the table, smacking him upside the back of his head.
“Tommy, si no te callas la mierda ahora mismo, lo juro por Dios. (Tommy, if you don’t shut the fuck right now, I swear to god.)”
“Qué? Ella tu novia ahora? (What? She your girlfriend now?)” The young Miller questions, raising an eyebrow.
“Sí, lo es. Así que deja de hablar de lo caliente que es mi novia. (Yeah, she is. So stop talking about how hot my girlfriend is.)” Joel states matter-of-factly, shutting the fridge after returning the jug of milk.
“I understood some of that actually,” you say with a proud smile on your face, one of eager mischief on Tommy’s across the room.
Joel whips his head to you, wide eyes, “What did you understand?”
“You called him an asshole. Something about Sarah. The word girlfriend was thrown in there.”
Joel sighs quietly in relief, picking up your prepared mug of coffee.
“Oh, and something about you being old. And that your brother thinks I’m hot. ” Tommy sputters on his drink as he starts to laugh loudly, a deep blush warming Joel’s cheeks. You walk over to him and take the mug out of his hand, giving him a kiss on the cheek. “Nothing to be embarrassed about. Cause you’re not old and Tommy just wishes he wasn’t single at thirty years old.”
Joel laughs and Tommy waves your comment off, rolling his eyes before winking at you, “Oh please, you wish you found me before this old man.”
“Sure, Tommy. You can think that all you want, but I met you both on the same day.” Joel barks out a laugh, a smug grin on his face from you holding your own toward Tommy.
Joel looks at his brother, a smile growing on Tommy’s face, “Well, maybe you needed to get your eyes checked that day, Posey. Cause you’d have to be blind to not pick me over the decrepit ass.”
“Y’know, I’m happy to set you up with one of my friends. She likes the type of cute guys who think they’re funny.”
“I know I’m funny, Posey, so not sure if it’s gonna work out. But yes, I would like to be set up with this friend of yours, please…” You laugh and nod, sipping your coffee before answering.
“I’ll work some magic for ya, Tommy.”
“I like this one, Joel, better keep her around so she can be my wingman.”
“You say ‘this one’ as if there have been others,” Joel rolls his eyes and continues, “And I certainly don’t need your advice on that front Tommy. She’s got me as long as she wants me, but please dear god, you should not be his wingwoman. Don’t subject yourself to that torture, Mari.”
The three of you chat to catch up, Tommy genuinely asking about your time in Boston and telling you how glad he is that you’re back around to make his people happy again. The comment swells your heart before your attention is pulled to Sarah as she asks about having a sleepover with you.
“I would love to throw a sleepover with you, sweet pea. I’ll bring over all the goodies to your house and we can stay in your room and watch movies and paint our nails and do all the fun girly things.”
“Yes! And Daddy and Uncle Tommy aren’t allowed ‘cause no boys.” She points at the two of them, both of them frowning and sighing.
“Can I at least be at home, mija?” Joel jokes, and the three of you laugh as Sarah seriously considers her answer.
“Yeah, that’s fine, but you gotta leave us to do the sleepover things ourselves.”
“Deal, Bug. I can do that.”
“Oh yes! It’s all decided then, we’ll have a sleepover when your week at camp is over.” You clap your hands together and grin, already planning everything you need to do this week to prepare for it.
“Damn, Mari, you brought a lot of stuff for one night with Sarah.” Joel eyes you from head to toe, a duffle on your arm, and shopping bags in your hands. He takes the plastic bags from you, holding the back door open for you before following you over to the island to set down all of your purchases. “You do know it’s only Sarah, right, darlin’? None of her friends are coming. This is a practice run for a sleepover.”
“I know, but I wanted to make the first girly sleepover she has at her house fun. I loved having my friends stay over when I was younger, and I dunno, you’re a boy so you don’t get it.” Rustling around in the bags, you start to pull out snacks and candy, along with fun new nail polishes and nail stickers, new hair clips, some young-girl-friendly makeup, and new pajamas for Sarah and you.
“Sweetheart, this is all really nice, but let me give you some money for it all. This is a ton of stuff.” Joel glances at the counter covered in supplies, and before you can answer he’s walking to the front door to get his wallet from the entryway table.
You call out after him, “I’m not going to take it so don’t bother trying! It wasn’t even that much anyway.”
Popping back around the corner into the kitchen, cash in hand, he shakes his head with a mocking laugh, “You’re funny. Even if it was five dollars, I’m giving you ten. Now please take the cash.”
Joel stops in front of you, hand out with a hundred in his hand. A dry laugh leaves your chest, pushing his hand away as you continue to sort through everything from the shops, “Not happening. This was way less than a hundred dollars too, so definitely not accepting that. Go put it back in your wallet, Miller.”
“You’re so goddam stubborn sometimes.”
“Oh, yeah, and you’re not?”
“Hey, I didn’t say that. I know I’m stubborn, that’s why this argument is happening. And why I am about to do this.” Joel steps behind you, slipping the bill into the back pocket of your shorts. You groan, fishing it out and shoving it back in his hand, pushing at his chest.
Joel rebuttals with another attempt, stepping toward you but you step back, backing around to the other side of the counter as he follows closely. You hold your arms out to keep space between the two of you, not being able to hold back a laugh as you start to pick up the pace in your cyclical chase.
“Joel! I’m not taking your damn money, leave it!”
“Mariposa, please, we both know I am way more stubborn than you and m’not gonna stop unless you take it.”
Shaking your head, you turn around to actually move into a speedwalk-jog kind of walk around the kitchen, serpentining your steps.
“Darlin’, I can still catch you if you walk like that.”
“Well, I’d like to see you try.”
Joel takes that statement as a challenge, suddenly catching up with you and wrapping his arms to your front, slipping the bill in the waistband of your shorts before letting you go, putting his hands up in the air.
Wordlessly, you snatch the money from your bottoms, throw it on the counter, and go back to the pile of purchases on the counter. After all of that, you start to unload the drinks in the fridge and open the pantry to throw the sweets and other snacks on one of the shelves. Joel stands and watches you, eyes going back and forth between following your movements to all of the things lying out, including the money.
A feeling kicks up in your chest, tightening your insides with a wring. Small moments send you back to feelings like these, unsupported by actual occurrences but your brain doesn’t care about what actually happens; it prefers the what-ifs. What if this doesn’t last, what if you’re too young, what if you’re too anxious, too broken, too much and it all comes crumbling from under you before you fully realize it? What if this is one of those moments you look back on as a sign? It’s taut and consuming, begging you to say something about it to release the corkscrew.
“If this is too much or if I’m overstepping a — I don’t know — a parental boundary 'cause she’s not my kid, and I know that, of course, but I wanted to do this for Sarah. M’not the nanny that you have to reimburse anymore, I just thought it would be fun to make it like how my sleepovers used to be as a kid…”
Joel’s brows stitch together with what looks like confusion or concern, rounding the kitchen island and standing next to you. A hand on your hip closest to him presses into the flesh there, turning you toward him as the other hand reaches up to tilt your chin to him. Your eyes avoid his, embarrassment heating your body with licks of flames.
“Can you look at me? Please?” His voice is unwavering but shy, boyish. You answer with a flick of up, meeting his own stare. “Mari, sweetheart, this isn’t about anything like that. I know you aren’t ‘the nanny’ anymore, and if I’m being honest, I don’t think you were ever just ‘the nanny’ to either of us. I was being pigheaded, and I didn’t want you to take on doin’ all of this yourself. It’s jus’ automatic for me to want to cover for Sarah, with any sort of activity. Not that I don’t want you to do all of this. I can’t even begin to explain how much it means to me that you care so much for Sarah. I’m just, I’m being her dad. And not giving you the means to do things for her yourself. M’sorry.”
“You don’t have to apologize, J. I should have better explained myself from the beginning. I want to be a part of your lives, I want to….I don’t know, I don’t want to take the place of her mom, obviously, but I want to be someone she can do girly things with if we’re gonna be together for a while—”
“Not if, Mari. I don’t plan on letting you go without a serious fight,” Joel’s thumb brushes against your cheek as he holds your gaze, “I am so grateful and so relieved that Sarah has someone like you in her life. ‘Specially right now with everything around her mom leavin’, you’re exactly what she needs. What we both need…I will take the money back. But next time we’re splitting it, and every time after that ‘til it’s time that it’s coming outta a joint account.”
When Sarah arrives home from her playdate, Joel retreats upstairs after ordering pizza for the two of you (and him, because he claimed he was gonna sneak down) to watch something on the small tv in his bedroom. You and Sarah changed into your new pajamas and got all of the snacks moved into the living room, trekking blankets and pillows and stuffed animals from her room and around the house to build a nest on the floor in front of the couch.
Sarah had chosen The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants out of the stack of movies you had rented, popping it in and sitting back with you while you had her pick out a color for her nails. The two of you talked about camp and the past school year, her confessing a crush she has on a boy in her camp group this year. There’s only a few details you get from her as you paint her nails, giggling with her when she gets shy and telling her about your first crush.
Sarah eventually is the one to paint your nails, turning out a bit messy and abstract during the process but nonetheless it was fun. As she’s finishing up a second coat on the last nail of yours, the doorbell rings for the pizza and Joel jogs downstairs a minute later to answer the door. Carrying the boxes over to the kitchen after he paid and tipped, he grins at you and nods to the set up.
“Is that every pillow in our house?”
“Well, no, you still have the ones on your bed cause you were sitting on ‘em,” you reply as you walk into the kitchen behind Sarah, fingers splayed apart, careful not to smudge. The younger Miller does the same, looking up at Joel when she stands next to the pizza box.
“Daddy, can you get the slices for me? I don’t want to mess up my nails that Posey painted for me. Look at them! They’re so pretty!” She raises her arms up to give Joel a look, his hand taking one of hers and inspecting it.
“Gosh, Bug, these are just gorgeous. Mari did a great job,” he grins at you, giving you a wink at the same time an idea pops into yours.
“I could do your nails, J. They could match Sarah’s!” Your suggestion is immediately supported by his daughter, her small stature jumping up and down in front of him.
“Yes, yes! You need to get your nails painted, Daddy!”
“Wasn’t this sleepover ‘no boys allowed’?” he arches a brow before he grabs a piece of pizza, plopping it on a plate for Sarah to take into the other room, “If I can stay for longer than it takes to paint my nails and hang out and eat your snacks, you can absolutely paint my nails.”
Sarah takes her plate from her dad, grinning ear-to-ear as she retreats back to the blanket nest. Joel makes a plate for you, carrying it out with his own and setting them on the coffee table. With a groan, he lowers himself to the ground, leaning his back against the couch and holding out his hands to you.
“Go for it, sweetheart.”
“D’you want the same thing as Sarah or something different?”
“Hmm, what d’you think, mija? Should we match?”
“I think you should give Daddy the color I gave you, Posey. It’s so pretty!” she leans back against you, using you as a backrest while she eats her pizza carefully with her wet nails, engrossed in the movie.
“Alright, guess it’s decided then. We’ll be matching,” you smile at him, taking one hand in yours to pull it closer, relaxing it against your thigh as you open the polish bottle. Concentrating on the tasks at hand, Joel wiggles his fingers when you aren’t in the midst of painting to get your attention, holding up a piece of pizza near your face.
“Eat, darlin’. Gotta fuel your artistic brain,” he winks and smiles sweetly at you, earning a quiet laugh before you lean in and take a bite chewing as you go back to painting. You switch hands after a few more bites, giving him a break to eat his own pizza and you yours while the three of you watch the movie. Once your job is done, you close the bottle tight and set it on the table, getting Sarah’s attention to look at it.
“How’d I do, Sare-Bear? Does your dad look pretty?” Her giggles pull some from all of you, nodding and clapping her hands together.
“Daddy, you need some of my pretty stickers and then Posey needs to take a picture with her camera.” Sarah stands and moves over to the pile of beauty supplies, grabbing the pack of nail stickers you bought and picking out a sheet. She sits next to Joel, stickering around his face as he closes his eyes and lets it all happen.
“Is this what happens all the time at girl sleepovers?” He peeks an eye open at you, getting a wide smile and shrug.
“Guess we’ll have to have some more for you to really find out.” Sarah steps back from her handiwork, and you pick up the Polaroid camera, lining up the shot from the side of Joel where there’s multiple star stickers clustered around his eyes. The shutter snaps when he looks at you, spitting out the image. You hand it to Sarah to watch it develop, showing you both quickly before going to hang it on the fridge along with a few other of your shots. You snap another of him looking at you directly, soft rounded eyes filled with affection.
Once you set the camera down, holding onto that photo for yourself, his hands find your thighs, running over the soft cotton of your PJ pants.
“Thank you for doin’ this for her, she hasn’t been this happy and giggly since before you left last summer.” Joel leans in, giving you a gentle, lingering kiss. “I love you. So, so much, Mari.”
Instead of answering, you give him another kiss before Sarah walks back in, settling between the two of you on the floor nest, cuddling up within your little unit of three to finish out the movie.
A few nights after your slumber party, you sneak over to Joel’s again before bed, using the key to the back door that he had made for you. He’s sitting on the couch, a line of sight to the door and a sleepy smile tugging at his lips when he sees you.
Padding your feet across the floors, you climb onto the couch next to him and curl your legs under you while you lean into his side. His arm wraps you up and his lips press against your forehead with a content sigh.
“Hi, Mari.”
“Hey, J.”
“How was your day, darlin’?” he asks as he turns off the TV, fingers ghosting up and down your bicep.
“Good, it was good. Babysat for the O’Connors today with the little baby. She’s so adorable, just a day full of baby giggles.” You grin and Joel smiles back at you, nodding along, “And then after that I drove to therapy and had that for an hour and then went home and waited to come see you.”
“M’very glad you’re here. Can’t sleep without you anymore,” he kisses your temple, “How was therapy, amor?”
“Today was a little hard. Talked more about maybe looking into medicine cause I feel like it isn’t fully there yet. But I do feel like I am happy. Like in my heart. My brain just can't keep up. Still have a lack of interest in things and not a lot of energy like I used to.”
Joel hums an acknowledgment, looking down at you on his shoulder, “M’here if you need to talk about anything, sweet girl.”
“I know. Thank you,” you give him a chaste kiss, smiling drowsily, “How was your day?”
“Pretty alright. Had to go fill in for someone who called in sick today at a job site so I’m exhausted from all the lifting and using machinery. But the framing is all done which means there’s something that looks like a house standing on the lot,” Joel chuckles softly and glances out the front window, “And then, uh, ran into your mom when I got home. She must’ve been running out for something but she stopped to talk and invited me and Sarah and Tommy to celebrate the Fourth with y’all.”
You sit up, grinning excitedly, “Really? Oh my gosh, that will be so fun. Our first official holiday together. Even though it’s just the Fourth of July. Kind of lame.”
Joel chuckles along with you, nodding his head and avoiding your eyes, “I mean, I told her yes ‘cause I didn’t think you’d mind. But the more I got to thinkin’, I guess, I just—I think I need some more time before we tell your parents about us.”
Your face falls before you can hide it, Joel’s hand immediately reaching to cup your cheek delicately, “M’sorry, sweet girl. I just don’t think it’s a good idea for us to do it at a family event and maybe it might be best if we can sit them down sometime to talk about it all.”
A slow nod keeps you quiet, in your thoughts, rambling out an agreement as you bring your eyes to Joel’s again, “Yeah, yeah, I understand. I agree. Would be best to wait a little while longer.”
“Thank you, darlin’. M’so glad you agree. We’ll find the right time, eventually,” Joel gives you a tender kiss, lingering against your lips for a few more dopey exchanges. He pulls away, standing up and gathering you up with him, leading you to his bedroom and getting into bed with you, “Night, Mariposa. Love you.”
“Night, J,” you reply meekly, the small sound of your voice easily brushed off as fatigue. Joel keeps you close, spooning you with his front against your chest, falling asleep behind you quickly. You can’t rest, especially after that short and decided conversation.
Why did you agree so easily? And why was he even asking for more time? His daughter knows, his brother knows, your friends know. What’s any different about your family? Is he afraid that if he breaks your heart he’ll have to move? But why would he even think about that possibility when all he’s told you is how much he loves you, how he’ll be yours until you want nothing to do with him anymore?
Every reassurance that he’s given you is flooding your mind, those doubts and fears worming their way into the sweet memories and poisoning them with twisted words.
Every time he’s said he loves you, does he mean it? Or is he only saying it to say it, to placate your anxieties about the future of you two by committing in a way?
Is this push back about telling your family a response to you not being ready to say ‘I love you’ back? Is he getting fed up with waiting for it?
Are you too much too quickly? Weaving yourself too tightly into his life and his daughter’s life? Is he going to start to drift, to put off telling your parents until he can end it?
These thoughts cycle in an endless loop, keeping you up while Joel sleeps soundly beside you. Nausea stirs in your stomach, rapid heart beating from the spiraling of your mind keeping you wide awake until the early hours of the morning.
The only way you can manage to fall asleep is turning in Joel’s arms, cuddling into his chest and breathing in his scent to halt the carousel of negativity in your brain long enough for his even breaths to lull you to sleep.
One last question flashes to you before you’re finally asleep:
What happens when Summer ends?
taglist: @beskarandblasters @undrthelights @swiftispunk @joelsversion @asirenbyanyothername @ellenmunn @ja-ehyun @sw33tp1xie @marisemonteiroo @brunetteeras @beee-haw @jenna-mcgraw19 @whore-4-pedro @katifefe @joelmillerswifu @itsgiorgiaz @soph55 @wild-hearts-runfree @youcancallmeelle @jupitre @starkovli @thatgeminigirlx @livingdeadmaria @bunnyskisses @houseofballoonsth @casual-obsessions @pedro-pascal-lvr @bimbodolls-world @burningnerdchild @tuquoquebrute @mrsvedder12 @estelivi28 @bongsrconfusing @addictedtotlou @angie2274 @pedrostories @pedroholicx @theelishad @johnwatsn @elissaaa @felicityofbakerstreet @atinylittlepain @northernbluess @cannolighost
#joel#writing#joel miller x reader#joel miller x afab!reader#joel miller x female reader#joel miller x f!reader#joel miller smut#joel miller angst#joel miller series#tlou fanfic#tlou fic#tlou fanfiction#joel miller fanfic#joel miller fanfiction#joel miller fic
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TWST MOOTSTERLIST
get it. because- okay nevermind i'm so sorry for the pun
@0klwkan: aavvie!! my first twst mutual and the person who brought me into it in the first place!! they are SO cool go check them out :DD vian my beloved <333 jamil smoocher 🫵🏽.
@shutupkida: kida!! i got to know her through stalking her blog because of her awesome fics the bllk-twst crossover! :DD i'll work on it i promise i just need to get my brain juice working :'D
@nem0-nee: KABABAYAN (1) honestly her art is just ??????? *chef's kiss* i am smooching your art i am eating it i am putting it on a pedestal and staring at it mwah. nemo reigns in chaos supremacy 😌
@officialdaydreamer00: ireneeee 🥺 my Soulmate 🥺🥺🥺 they're just like me fr fr. i saw them on auburn's blog and went 🫵🏽. 🫵🏽🫵🏽🫵🏽. wedding planner, fellow muse, tweel kisser, super mega amazing 😌.
@shyhaya: i saw haya on irene's blog and went ??? friend! very shy, but the art is *chef's kiss*, and her responses to tag games are very entertaining <333
@mangocat21: they've got AWESOME art :DD new to art??? seriously?? with that style?? i am deceased dead gone ascended to heaven that is SO cool OoO got into twst for leona got trapped by the floyd >:3
@azulashengrottospiano: auburn!! literally married to azul and writes absolutely BANGER fics. i'm still kicking my feet and giggling over some of them ///>v<///
@the-v-lociraptor: fellow muse!! her boy yuliy is a GIANT and VERY fun to draw :DD also her art and lore??? 🛐🛐🛐
@valerie-leech: valerieee!! she's so pretty omg and her art is AMAZING :DD fellow muse (and tweel kisser..? or is it just jade.. :00)
@i-like-forgs: ryoko!! fellow muse and a cool person 😎 i always see them on my activity feed thank you 🥺
@taruruchi: KABABAYAN (2) her art is so good like ???? VERY entertaining and a great mutual too :DD
@starry-night-rose: ellis!! her stuff??? so many things planned out and her ocs are SUPER intriguing :DD looking at u rn in curiosity and interest
@shkrmpp: shrimpy!! i saw one of their posts that said new moots were welcome so i proposed ^v^ <333 and their WRITING.. emotions go brrrr
@hydrangea-breeze: hydra!! her writing????? reading it all up and going 👀👀👀 and her posts and tags too i love reading them they're so entertaining ^v^
@totallymem3: KABABAYAN (3) her art???? going yes yes yes every time 😌 her yuu sounds SO fun to see and know about :DD
@synchronize03: YOU. you were responsible for the blowing up of my airport-leash-but-twst meme. a GOLDMINE of reblogs 😌
@ceruleancattail: ceruuuu!!!! cater kisser coughcough they are AMAZING as in VERY. VERY AMAZING. eloquence and elegance and flustering-capabilities are off the CHARTS they constantly make me go ADFGHJKHGFDSDFGHJKJHGH with their fics
@cookiesandbiscuits: KABABAYAN (4) cookie!! i saw her follow me one day and went :0000 called me cool once and i love her for it 🥺 PLAYLIST MAKER!! i was looking through some stuff again and found you!! went so THAT'S who cookie was how could i forget 😭😭😭 music taste is *chefs kiss* i'm gonna be jamming along to songs with you mwah mwah
@names-are-dumb: COLE I'M SO SORRY I DIDN'T SEE YOU IN MY TWST ACCOUNT FOLLOWS I AM ASHAMED FOR THIS GRIEVOUS OVERSIGHT 😭😭😭 anyway! this guy's brain is HUGE. like. the midas lore?? hello?? looking looking looking but also not going in with a ten-foot pole if i can help it ya boy's kinda scary but fascinating. very fascinating indeed 😌
@the-dumber-scaramouche: KABABAYAN (5), likes bicol express according to one of the posts i first saw on her blog :DD mainly simps for ???? definitely kaveh but there's a lot of conflicting posts for twst, and did i mention how ENTERTAINING her tags are I'm grinning ear to ear just reading them
@vioisgoinginsane: vio!! fellow jade faver (?) 🥺🥺🥺 her scenario posts are GENIUS and i love love LOVE her reblogs and tags. super supportive too like ????? <333333
@luvkamishiro: new moot!! BANGER art and ideas like seriously :000 seems super nice too :DD
@perfectlyunadulteratedjellyfish: KABABAYAN (6) dan!!! so nice 🥺 looking forward to getting to know them more :DD
@allioaro: new moot!! i saw her ruggie as housewarden post on my dash and got intrigued :DD her art is so cute it looks so soft and pretty 🥺🥺🥺 IMMACULATE and fun vibes detected as i looked through her blog 😌 idia smoocher >:D
@shinysparklesapphires: sapph!!! i CANNOT believe you haven't put here yet i SWEAR i already wrote one for you :((( absolutely INTERESTING OCs right here, and she's so cool??? first one to draw my babygirl everiu other than me thank you SO much 🥹🥹🥹 xeir oc lore?? once again going 👀👀👀👀👀 INTRIGUED by it 😌
@katriniac: ooooh she cooool. not much info about her, we just started following each ohter one day and i have no recollection of past interactions but SUPER honored to be moots with you!!
@dove-da-birb: DOVE!!!! they're so cool and supportive and nice and ASDFGHJKFJLDRNGNRJVNFHDQWHSLFJF 🥺🥺🥺🥺 AWESOME writer and friend and also their OCs????? writing blog is @da-birb-writes-sometimes go check it out for super good stories it'll be so worth it mwah mwah
@honkai-freak: new moot!! met them during the I-tweel-I wedding and they asked to be an usher! :DD
@somany-fandoms-solittle-time: aims!! fellow theater kid 🥺🥺🥺💖💖💖💖 has BANGER ideas and great music taste like seriously also so fun to interact with????
@murderisokay: new moot!! new to tumblr, apparently, but that's okay :DD vil smoocher?? 👀👀👀 also their artstyle is super cute and neat it's so nommable XD
@twistwonderlanddevotee: sofia!!!!! new moot and already a RIOT to be around :DDD like seriously she's so fun and she makes awesome wallpapers???? ALSO LIKES ARTEMIS FOWL AND MLB YES YES YES
tags i can copy-paste for convenience 😎 (apologies if you receive a double notification :'D): @0klwkan, @shutupkida, @nem0-nee, @officialdaydreamer00, @shyhaya, @mangocat21, @azulashengrottospiano, @the-v-lociraptor, @valerie-leech, @i-like-forgs, @taruruchi, @starry-night-rose, @shkrmpp, @hydrangea-breeze, @totallymem3, @synchronize03, @ceruleancattail, @cookiesandbiscuits, @names-are-dumb, @the-dumber-scaramouche, @vioisgoinginsane, @luvkamishiro, @perfectlyunadulteratedjellyfish, @allioaro, @shinysparklesapphires
more moots..? :00 yeet me an ask or comment or reblog if you wanna :DD let's be mutuals! ^v^
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Fic: you don’t know how you got here (you just know you want out)
I wrote a fic for the @dtqkbigbang! What better way to inaugurate this Tumblr, yeah?
Title: you don’t know how you got here (you just know you want out)
Rating: M
Words: 16K
Fandom: DSMP
Ships: Quackity/Schlatt, Quackity/Wilbur, Quackity/Karl/Sapnap
Summary:
Like every other severed employee of DSMP Inc, Alex exists as two different people, who share the same body but know nothing about each other. Every morning when he goes to work, Alex becomes Quackity, and until now he’s been content to leave his other life a mystery.
But then late one night in a diner parking lot, Alex is confronted by a strange older man with mutton chop sideburns and alcohol on his breath, whom Alex can’t remember having met before but who clearly recognizes him, who calls him “Quackity” and tells him they’ve been lied to. And less than five minutes later, that man is lying dead on the ground.
Notes:
Mind the tags!!!!! This is a weird one!! Q is not having a great time!
I'm also planning to expand on it, so if you enjoy what's been posted so far, definitely keep an eye out for more. :3
Preview:
Alex needs to stop doing this.
He’s gonna get a formal reprimand if he keeps missing his clock-in window at work — it’s the one part of his job description he’s really responsible for, and warnings keep turning up in his locker, polite anonymous form letters printed on plain white paper. And probably the worst that would ever happen is a ding to his end-of-year bonus, but Alex isn’t gonna risk it. He needs this job – this job in particular, with all its peculiarities, with all the ways it keeps him sane. He needs to be standing in the office elevator no later than nine fifteen tomorrow morning. He should already be in bed right now.
Instead, he’s alone in a booth at McPuffy’s at one in the morning, nursing a bad-idea coffee with a notebook open in front of him, pretending like maybe he’ll work on his music if he stares at the blank page a little bit longer. He’s primed for a singer-songwriter era right now, after all — if being dumped by one fiance is great material, then two should be a goldmine. And maybe it would be, if he ever let himself think deeply about where he’s ended up — about the cold bed he’ll go home to tonight, or the empty apartment he’ll wake up in, or the rings that sit wrapped in a handkerchief at the bottom of his nightstand drawer. If he sat with how any or all of that felt, maybe he’d be the musician his mama always believed he could be.
But that’s not the choice he’s made, is it? That’s not the road he decided to take.
Funny, how people will judge you if you get blackout drunk every night as a way to cope…but if it’s your job that swallows your days, that strangles the part of you that feels much of anything at all, that’s fine. That’s capitalism, baby. That’s the system working as it should.
Alex doesn’t need to ask his waitress for the check. He gets the same thing every damn time, and he tips the same way — an empty coffee cup and a few crumbs of toast left on his plate, a ten dollar bill pinned under the salt shaker. There’s only one other customer, and he doesn’t look up as Alex takes his coat down from its hook. No one looks at Alex at all as he leaves, and he tells himself that’s how he likes it.
He’s alone because he wants to be. He chose this for himself.
The night air is a shock — cold in a way that makes all the muscles of his back seize up. He’s already got his keys in hand, tucked into his coat pocket as he walks between pools of streetlight.
Later, Alex won’t really remember what he was thinking about — probably hoping his car will start, or wondering if he should stop at the all-night pharmacy to buy more melatonin. He’s on auto-pilot, after all, normal thoughts for a normal night, variations on a bone-deep familiar theme.
Alex won’t remember what he was thinking, but he’ll remember the exact moment his night went off the rails; the pivot on which his life would turn.
Someone coughs, wet and painful-sounding and loud as a gunshot in the silent parking lot. There’s a rasp of gravel and asphalt under a heavy shoe.
Alex stops and turns toward the sound, his body humming with fresh adrenaline. He’s small and tired and alone. He calculates how long it would take him to reach his car; he slots his keys between his fingers, makeshift spikes on a fist he hopes he will not have to use.
A figure steps out from behind a pickup truck, stumbling forward into the light. A man, easily twice Alex’s size and at least a head taller – even stooped and shambling like this – leans heavily on the truck as he shuffles closer. He’s coatless and hatless, dressed only in a rumpled suit and a stained white cotton shirt, a cardinal necktie hanging loose around his neck, his dark hair and mutton chop sideburns heavily salted with gray. Even from here — at least ten feet away — Alex can smell that he’s been drinking. He reeks of whiskey and vomit.
Alex’s grip tightens on his keys. His voice is too high — too obviously scared — as he asks, “Can I help you with something?”
The man’s sharp bark of laughter dissolves into more coughing, and he wheezes as he catches his breath. There’s a smirking chuckle in his voice as he says, in a rough-throated rasp, “Jesus Christ, Quackity…you took your fucking time in there, you little shit.”
#dtqkbigbang#quackbur#tntduo#pumpkinduo#c!quackity#c!schlatt#c!wilbur#severance AU#seriously I have a giant-ass outline for this story and I will finish it or die trying#sometimes you are two guys in one bod and both of those guys are gay idiots having a very hard time#my fic
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♯ 𝐔𝐓𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐋𝐘 𝐋𝐎𝐕𝐄𝐒𝐈𝐂𝐊.
by @/jabamin | [nanami/ fluff]
this is one of those fics that just makes me love fluffy and kind of domestic settings, especially with a character like kento because man can’t catch a break actually 😭 but for some reason, this fic has been one that gave me a palpable sense of comfort in his comfort and relief, is that crazy idk?
if i could bring you anything, i swear to god i'd bring you peace
by @/haikyuuhoo| [geto/fluff]
i know my pretty wife is keen to nanami, but this is such a sweet geto fic i simply couldn’t keep this to myself!
nanami’s gym routine
by @/callm3senpaii (deactivated) [nanami/smut]
lastly kind of a curveball 😭 but i just thought about this post you made in response to this fanart of nanami lifting weights and this just further confirms your genius brain
how it'll be
by @/kentomilk | [nanami/ fluff]
so i've been contemplating this since it was posted but this is something i wrote and published and have been debating how to bring it up to you, which should've been easy considering how supportive you've been but anxiety lol 🥲 truth be told you are a key figure in inspiring me to write this because of the fanart of nanami shaving you tagged me in :)
if this is something i continue i'd definitely seek to fine-tune and calibrate my writing style so it's not just word vomit 🫠
but i'd like to thank you for tagging me in that which kickstarted me actually writing and not contemplating as well as for your endless kindness and support of course 🥹
as for my wishlist, i have no preferences! whatever you want to boost/ promote I'm open to it regardless of fandom/ character if you're up to that! 🫶🏼
thea. THEA!!!! I'm screaming, I'm YELLING! I'm going to read and reblog every single one of these fics, thank you so much for participating in the fic swap. I am SO EXCITED to read each and every single one of these, and I am especially excited to read your fic! thank you for sharing, I am thrilled to know that you are writing now and I want you to know that I will continue to be your biggest cheerleader. AHHHH I'm gyrating in my seat, this is the best thing to come home to!
OKAY, enough of my screaming. here are some fics I'd like to recommend to you! I'm going to give you a little bit of everything, so hold on to your damn horses, here we go:
Attack on Titan:
DTF Only by @/mochimooon (nsfw) - this is a completed series and every single part of this is a BLAST. It features a different aot man in each chapter and mochi writes each of them SO WELL. It's smutty, delicious, laugh out loud funny, our reader is fabulous, and just an utter joy to read. Highly recommend! Mochi is a fantastic writer, please go check out their other works in their masterlist, each one is a treat.
Gossip! by @/bloompompom (Eren x f!reader, nsfw) - another fantastic series that is on-going. I think you may be following her already, but if not, bloomy is an incredible writer and I recommend each and every single one of her works (binge her entire masterlist whenever you can, you won't regret it)! This series has me by the fucking THROAT. It's rockstar!eren x pop star!reader, enemies-to-lovers, need I say more? I don't want to give too much away because I think it's better if you just read it for yourself, but I am in LOVE with this series. Constantly on the edge of my seat, salivating for the chapter!
method acting by @/seeingivy (Eren x f!reader, sfw) - yet another fabulous series by another fabulous writer. ronnie always amazes me with her talent. it's an actor!au (can you tell I love my aus?!) full of angst, drama, FLUFF, everything you want in a series. I absolutely love the world-building in this. When you get a chance, please do check out her masterlist because it's a goldmine full of treasure.
Jujutsu Kaisen:
Office Crush by @/todorosie (Choso x f!reader, nsfw) - CHOSO CHOSO CHOSO!!! I love this fic so much, I cannot stress this enough. He is so shy and sweet in this. And I love our reader because she is gentle with him. This is peak romance, it seriously made my heart flutter when I read it. also, spoiler alert: car sex 🤭. IT'S A MUST READ. You may be following her already, but if not, check out Sorin's other works because they're all spectacular.
I mean, I could go on and on with other recommendations, but these are just a few that come to mind that I think you'd enjoy! also, shocking, but I didn't include any Nanami bc I'm trying to change it up a bit lol. Also, apologies if you've already read these!
love you thea!! ♥️ thank you for participating in this!
nikki's first annual fic swap!
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How to find great contractors for your online business: 5 steps
If you’ve been following along in our hiring series you’ve now reached the point where you are ready to hire, but now you’re wondering how to find great contractors for your online business.
If you’ve missed our earlier lessons check out the following:
Why you should hire a team for your small business: 5 great reasons
What not to outsource in your online service business: 11 critical things
What you should outsource first: the 5-step process to help
As a brief reminder, thinking about how to find great contractors should be approached as a thoughtful and intentional process. You want to find the perfect fit and it is better to not hire at all than hire the wrong person just to get the work “done”. That's the whole reason why you want to know how to find great contractors right? Not just anyone but great!
My 15+ years of financial and operational experience compels me to remind you that turnover costs your company a buttload of money! The more often you must do this because you didn’t know how to find great contractors, the more money you will waste.
Turnover happens but it should NOT happen because you lack the skills necessary to hire effectively and know who you really need in the job.
How to find great contractors - Step 1: The job description
The secret for how to find great contractors starts with the job description. The main way that people fail at writing job descriptions is they write something general and broad. I find that women struggle with this most because they have been conditioned to not seem demanding or needy.
But if you aren’t clear on what you’re looking for – the people applying for your job won’t be clear on whether the job is for them. You will lose out on great candidates who can’t picture themselves in the role and get applications from people with no standards who literally applies to everything. These are not the people you want.
Your how to find great contractors job description must address the following things:
- Company culture
- Specific expectations about things you value (like attendance, responsiveness, quality, communication, etc.)
- Specific deliverables
- A timeframe for how many hours the person should expect to put in
- Any personality items that are important to you
I also feel compelled to remind you that you should not (nor are you legally allowed to) discriminate against someone based on race, age, gender, or religion.
How to find great contractors – Step 2: The job posting
Now you may think that the best practice when considering how to find great contractors is just to blanket job postings everywhere. I disagree strongly. Posting jobs on Facebook, Indeed and other places like that will get you a bunch of fluff and junk to sift through for maybe one great candidate.
So how to find great contractors?
Upwork. Upwork is a pool of people intentionally seeking contract work (not always true in other places) and provides several key features. First, you can see their ratings from other businesses that have hired them. Second, Upwork has protections in place for you as the hiring entity that you don’t have to pay if you don’t get your work. There is a screenshot captured work tracking, and weekly time tracking with time limits so you can keep costs under control. It’s a great place to find hourly help and you WANT hourly help.
Why do you want hourly? Because you are test driving (which we’ll get to in a minute). You want to really know if the job description you made is correct, the scope of work is right, the time scope is on point and the person is worth it. Hourly work allows all that without a long-term commitment.
So, post your job description on Upwork and see what kind of applicants you get. If you need inspiration for how to write your post do some searching on Upwork for how others are titling and tagging their job descriptions and see what kind of traffic they are getting. You don’t need a million applicants, but you want options. Upwork is basically a goldmine for those who want to know how to find great contractors.
How to find great contractors – Step 3: The Screening
Now, you’ve had some folks apply and it’s time to start screening. The screening process is one of the most overlooked components when business owners are thinking about how to find great contractors.
But hiring is a lot like dating. It is a good idea to create a set of non-negotiables before you start the hiring process so that it’s easy to weed people out before you meet them.
I will use my own business as an example, but you should create criteria for screening that matters to your business. Because really, while I'm giving you all kinds of advice no one can tell you how to find great contractors if you don't know what you're looking for.
Since I own a financial firm, accuracy is one of the most important qualities I look for. I also look for people who are open to feedback and can follow sets of instructions that may contain multiple steps. Responsiveness is the last key attribute that I look for.
I also don’t hire for experience as much as motivation. Why? You can’t make someone want to do a good job, but you can easily teach them how if doing a good job is naturally important to them.
So, my how to find great contractors criteria are as follows:
- Spelling and grammar must be correct – including capitalization – again, I’m looking for accuracy and attention to detail so if their resume is full of typos or they didn’t capitalize their own name (this has literally happened to me) I will not hire them
- Did they answer my written questions in Upwork fully? I usually ask multi-part questions in Upwork to see if the person will pay enough attention to read the questions and address each part. This is my version of seeing whether they pay careful attention to all the words in the instructions.
- Have they done something to advance themselves at each job they’ve had? I don’t care what job it is, have they done their best to excel? One of my best hires was at my corporate job and the gal I hired had no clinical experience at all. In fact, she worked in housekeeping. She was clearly very young and smart and could have been doing lots of things and most people would treat housekeeping like a job you shouldn’t try at. I mean, cleaning bedpans at the hospital is not glamorous by any means. On her previous review in that job, she was given a “Far exceeds expectations” which, after all my years at the company, I knew was hard to achieve. I immediately wanted to meet her because if someone gave their all at a thankless job like housekeeping, I wanted to see what she could do for me. I did hire her, and the recruiter said that this gal had been trying to get work in the clinical side of the company for two years, but no one would hire her without experience. Their loss, she was fantastic!
After they pass this test, I give them a call or email and they have 24 hours to respond. If you are actively applying for jobs 24 hours is completely reasonable. We live in the age of cell phones and constant connection and there are few places you can go where you literally can’t respond to a call.
This is the time to be strict, not give people grace. You WANT to screen people out here. You don’t want to start by cutting people slack, that always ends badly. They need to earn slack once you’ve hired them and you know they are great!
How to find great contractors – Step 4: The interview
After you’ve screened them, I recommend a two-step interview process. When you’re trying to determine how to find great contractors, you want to first start with a phone interview.
Why? So that you can tell how they sound over the phone. It also gives you an opportunity to screen them again without seeing them. If someone sounds gruff or like someone who doesn’t fit with your idea of customer service, or the vibe is just off then you can simply not invite them back for a video interview.
Have a few questions ready for the phone interview. I recommend ones like this:
- Tell me a bit about yourself
- Tell me what interested you about this position
- How do you see this job fitting into your overall vision for your career
These questions will help you assess them on a personal level, whether they have a clear understanding of what the job is and if they are even thinking about how this position fits into their long-term plans.
This process again should screen some folks out. Because the key to knowing how to find great contractors is a stellar screening process. By the time you get down to video interviews, 2-3 candidates are ideal.
If you already have a team, it’s a great idea to involve them in the video interview so that they can provide feedback about the fit of the new person into the team culture. Multiple sets of eyes and ears help weed out things that you may not notice but others will.
The questions I like to ask in this interview center around the candidate giving me specific examples of how they’ve handled certain situations. It’s a challenging type of interview style but it works super well. I’ll give you some examples below but what I’m looking for is a specific example and if they say what they “would do” or give a general statement of how they “would” handle things then I know they didn’t really listen to the question.
Some examples of these questions are:
- Tell me about a time when you gave exceptional customer service
- Tell me about a time when you had to solve a problem that you didn’t feel you had all the information to solve
- Tell me about an experience you’ve had working with a diverse population
- Tell me about a time you made a mistake, how did you find out about it and what happened
- How do you actively manage your stress
- Tell me about the best and worst boss you’ve ever had
For the question that is “tell me about a time” you should get a specific story and it should have a happy ending – like it should all turn out well. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve asked those questions and in the end, the customer was still unhappy. That’s your customer service example? Pass!
I ask about diversity because inclusion is important to my business, and I know it’s so much more than race or language (things people typically focus on).
Finding out how they relay a story of them making a mistake is also very telling. I know that mistakes happen so if they say they’ve never made one. Red flag! If they made one, caught it, and then put a system into place to prevent it from happening again? Gold star.
If they do not have an active strategy to manage stress – they need one.
And lastly, I just like to hear them describe bosses because they have no idea what my management style is like and I will know which category they would put me in based on their description.
Always complete all the interviews before you hire and be thoughtful about it. The key to knowing how to find great contractors is to take it slow and put them through a rigorous hiring process.
How to find great contractors – Step 5: The test drive
Read the full article
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How to Drive Traffic to Your YouTube Channel - Video
1. Have Quality and Keyword Rich Descriptions
The video description is where you can better inform the search engines and users just what exactly your video is about. This will help increase the click-through-rate and thus the views, as users will know what to expect in your video.
Try to both stand-out and remain generic; you should capture interest while still trying to rank for short-tail keywords. Entice users above the fold with your descriptions and optimize them correctly for the YouTube search engine as you would with a normal SEO meta description.
Youtube video description
2. Use Descriptive and Keyword Rich Titles
This is where your keyword research will come into play. A descriptive and interesting title will do two things: provide keywords for the algorithm to sort for relevancy purposes and attract users and inform them about what the video is about. To conduct keyword research, you can use typical SEO methods like using keyword planner or other keyword research tools.
YouTube keyword research
To check keyword popularity on YouTube, go to keyword planner and select YouTube search on the far right. Optimizing your video content for the right keywords will help gain organic views by informing users and the search engine just what your video is about.
track_your_profiles_leaderboard_728
3. Optimize Your Thumbnail Image
Your thumbnail image, like a hero-image, can work wonders when increasing your YouTube views whether they’re on the organic results page, suggested videos section, or appearing on social media. Use high-quality images that feature readable and engaging fonts and facial-closeups, if they’re featured in your video.
Youtube video thumbnail images
Have your thumbnail be a visual correspondent to your title and description to boost your video views.
4. Use Tags
YouTube video tags further help distinguish what your video content about and helps the algorithm understand what users will view when they see your video. These, along with your description and title, should reflect the core of what your video is about. Think short-tail SEO again.
YouTube video optimization tags
If you need keyword help, you can use keyword planner, as mentioned above.
5. Provide Content that Educates or Entertains or Both
Your video content should provide value to the viewer; whether it’s teaching them how to do or understand something, or simply keeping them engaged and entertained. When users find your content valuable, they’ll return for more and increase the views on your other future video content.
6. Create Transcripts of Your Videos
Captions or transcripts of your videos have been heavily debated as to their ability to increase your YouTube ranking. However, closed captions can help get more YouTube views as they cater to international audiences and the disabled.
Ranking well for YouTube’s organic results can increase your views immensely and provide a sustainable method of viewership traffic. Buying YouTube views may provide a quick boost in views, but it’s not a good long-term solution as behavioral analytics are more meaningful ranking factors in the eyes of YouTube’s algorithms.
Increase Views With Your Video Content
The content in your video is the most important factor in deciding just how many views it will get. Good content will result in better behavioral analytics that YouTube’s algorithm will recognize and reward your video with better organic search positioning.
7. Use Guest YouTubers
Similar to guest posting for blog content, guest YouTubers, industry influencers, or persons of note with their own following can do wonders for boosting your views. Similar to influencer marketing, guest YouTubing can entice your users with household industry names and provide a different and unique perspective to your industry’s sphere.
Offer a link to one of their videos or websites in your description and you can form a beneficial relationship built on reciprocity.
8. Piggyback off of Viral Trends
Create video content that piggybacks off of already existing viral trends. There’s already a built in market desire to view content within the context of a viral phenomenon, so you should tap into it.
A good example is all the YouTube videos that were made in response to the United Airlines PR fiasco.
unamo social media YouTube video mention
It’s not always easy or possible to tie your video content in with ongoing trends; however, if you can find a clever way to do it, you can boost your views on YouTube with the help of a hungry public looking for more trending contextual content.
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Dear Hurt/Comfort Exchange writer
Hello, fellow writer! First of all, I really want to thank you in advance for taking up the challenge to make something for me, I appreciate it so much. I really enjoy being surprised (especially with pairings where Canon leaves a lot to the imagination and everyone has their own headcanon) so you're absolutely free to write anything you wish and mostly take this letter as suggestions if you need inspiration.
I don't have much to say for likes, I have some fandom specific ones but overall I'm fine with anything. I tend to love heavy introspection, conflicted relationships and angst with an happy ending/bittersweet tone, but I'm really fine with anything. I also want to point out that you're free to combine my tags/prompts however you wish and that while I didn't bother to include "both hurt" for any of these ships, it's absolutely always allowed. As for dislikes:
- any kind of dub con and on page rape unless otherwise specified. I can accept harassment and such, but not too graphic
- AUs, especially fluffy modern AUs and supernatural ones (Canon divergence within the original universe is fine and encouraged) My only real exception is Romeo and Juliet where I do enjoy modern AUs as long as they still keep the violence/hate/gang war element of the play
- sex described in any detail. I'm not bothered by it and I don't mind allusions, jokes or fade to black, but the scenes itself hold no interest for me
- cheating (jealousy is fine and so is crushing on more than one person at once with all the guilt it entails, as long as it leads to poly, healthy or not, or stays a frustrated wish)
- unrequited love that doesn't get resolved either by the two getting together or the pining person finding their true love
- eating disorders or tbh even dwelling on appearance related insecurity is a no no
GOTHAM
I want to preface I'm a DC newbie, so I can't really appreciate crossovers or influence from other media and I wouldn't want futurefic, especially not involving BatCat, I just want to see them as kids For BatCat I would prefer something set between season 1 and the first few episodes of season 3, before they start their weird on/off relationship. The one exception would be the killing for the first time prompt, in relation to what Bruce does in the beginning of season 4, and that horrible plot line with Selina's mom since it's such an ansgt/hurt comfort goldmine . I think canon offers a lot of possibilities with them already, they do a lot of rescuing each other and I'd like anything that is cute and sweet. Something from their time living on the street together would be adorable too.
For Selina/Bridgit I would be happy with anything: a cute moment of them living on the streets as kids, Selina helping Bridgit to work through Dr Strange's conditioning, or something angstier while Bridgit still thinks she's a goddess and Selina her servant and Selina trying to show how much affection as she can while in that framework and things that blur the lines between comfort and act of service/worshipping like washing, taking of care of poor little Bridgit's burns etc.
For Oswald/Ed... Wow, there's so much potential. Any moment from their first meeting, a What If where Oswald regrets his deeds and decides to thaw Ed himself and then nurse him back to health, the two of them adopting Martin... Anything really, I haven't read much on these two
GAME OF THRONES
What I want with Yara/Dany is mostly something to give me joy after that godawful ending. So I would love something set post ending, with Dany being exiled/imprisoned, in a terrible mental state and only Yara who's still loyal/taking care of her. Though also Yara coming to terms with her last brother's death would be something wonderful
SIX OF CROWS
No particular ideas here. Any moment pre—book with them getting hurt in missions, Inej's first kill, the tattoo removal, or something like what happened in the prisoner cart, with Kaz having a serious breakdown and Inej being the only one to notice and try to comfort him, knowing most of her instinctive reactions would make everything worse because of his issues
INHERITANCE CYCLE
Murtagh and Nasuada are my childhood otp and I would honestly squeal to get anything at all about them would make me giggly. I like the idea of an AU where Murtagh is rescued early with baby Thorn in a tow before Galbatorix can completely break them with the torture, or something more emotional/psychological post saga, where they must help each other heal from their Shared Trauma and mental issues they both seem to have in the last few chapters. If and only IF you feel like it, this is the one fandom where I am ok with sexual abuse as a past event as I used to occasionally write Galbatorix as having had a relationship with Morzan in their former days and viewing Murtagh as a replacement in more than one sense.
ROMEO AND JULIET This is somewhat complex. First of all I want to say I made somewhat of a mistake in nominations phase by nominating some d ships as All media types while others nominated some as Shakespeare, but I'm absolutely ok with fic based on Shakespeare or any production of Presgurvic's musical. Exceptions are the 2010 revival and ensuing tour and Takarazuka productions. Also while I said I am okay with AUs here, I'd prefer they not be based on the 1996 movie in aesthetic/characterization, though the stakes/situation of the feud is a good example of what I imagine for modern au. Now going specifically about each of my prompts:
For the Romeo/Juliet ones I mostly want emotional hurt/comfort, either set during their wedding night or in a AU where they manage to leave together. It always bothered me that it's assumed they just went straight to fucking on their wedding night: I love the idea that they, well, somewhat fought over the Tybalt issue, snuggled, comforted each other for their losses and imminent separation and Romeo's obviously very traumatizing murder experience, maybe got to know each other a bit more and shared about their insecurities, their clearly a lot to unpack family baggage... There's lot of potential here. I am very attached to the play, so I do like to believe in them being soulmates/true love rather than a random fling, silly as that is, so I'd like the tone of the whole thing to be according, and I am pretty attached to the canon ages too (almost 14 as per canon for Juliet and please not too much older Romeo) so ofc the no sexual stuff beyond the vaguest throwaway mention rule holds especially true here.
Regarding the Montague boys anything tied to the pretty self explanatory prompts is perfectly fine, either set in the present or as a cute childhood flashback. I would definitely appreciate some kind of AU where they all live but are badly hurt or mentally scarred in the course of the events Now, for the various combinations of Benvolio/Mercutio/Tybalt... again, plenty of self explanatory tags. I think these three characters and which tags would best fit which of them are very dependent on personal headcanons and I don't want to limit that at all, especially for individual relationships as opposed to the ot3. I'm definitely very interested in exploring the dynamics of their love triangle and possible polyamory and the obvious hurtful effects it has, (I generally see Mercutio as the center with Benvolio and Tybalt somewhat disliking each other at the beginning, though that can absolutely change, later! ) jealousy, feeling of inferiority by each of the boys, guilt, abandonment issues, the like. My first instinct is to imagine Bencutio as together and Tycutio as bitter exes who may or may not go for another round at any moment, but the reverse or any other combination of Drama is fine too. I also love scenarios, for either individual ships or ot3, that explore the effect of the feud on their lives: someone having to be nursed back to health after a duel gone too far, someone being traumatized by their first serious act of violence, the unrealistic expectations/responsibility/toxic masculinity Tybalt and Benvolio are loaded by their families and so on. An AU where Mercutio survives the duel but is very badly hurt and Tybalt is guilt stricken by his own deed and starts to realize his feelings for him as he helps take care of him would be lovely.
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[old] guidelines
// these are my original rules. though they are still generally relevant, my newer, shorter, more concise rules post is here
A love letter from me to you! Please take it to heart.
The Lowdown:
mod is an artist & supportive af｜selective｜primarily plot-motivated｜operates on mutual respect｜your friendly rpc fairy godbitch; gimme your wishlists｜zero tolerance for OC negativity & bigotry｜triggers present｜18+ content present｜consistent but occasionally capricious activity｜OOC communication appreciated｜lots of love abound ♡
Mod Sal (they/them/theirs; 24; PST)
I study medicine and social justice with emphasis on emergency medicine and sex work, respectively. In addition to being a writer I’m also an activist, artist, and scholar. I’ve been writing Bel since 2015. She’s a very intricate and highly dynamic character who has gone through many changes over the years via her interactions. I look forward to developing her even more with your muse(s)!
Before I talk about the kind of conduct I’d like on my blog, this is the type of roleplayer and friend I aspire to be. I’ll strive to be as attentive and supportive as I can about your muse, ideas, as well as ooc presence. If we’re mutuals, you can expect plenty of inboxes, tag games, headcanons, relationship tags, to be tagged in & sent posts relating to our muses, general interaction, and emotional support proportional to the depth of our interactions when I’m online. I’m an unapologetic 1-person hype squad at heart and will do my best to spread the love and return the love I get.
If I’m not around here, you can find me on my snk blog and/or discord by request. I muse Eren and Levi as secondary muses, but they won’t be nearly as active as Bel and are only available to established mutuals. I also have untagged resource & nsfw musing side blogs.
Interactions
When it comes to interactions, nothing motivates me more than an eagerness to develop our muses’ relationship. Depending on what works best for you, we can work on this via inbox submissions, plotting, or simply interacting. I have a tendency to write para/novella-length replies, but will strive to match you in length and style. Please include something I can actively respond to in your reply, because neutral replies can be very difficult to build upon, and please do not godmod her based on assumptions and/or stereotypes about her character/profession.
With regards to ask responses, please feel free to turn them into threads by tagging me in a new post and cutting your replies. I’ll turn asks into threads if they inspire me, but you’re under no obligation to continue them if you’re not as motivated. When cutting, please don’t cut me out. Also, please don’t reblog asks with your reply or reblog replies with my tag if I don’t reply quickly enough. I track of all my threads to the best of my ability, so please check there first if you want to know the status of our thread. If I’ve missed a thread of ours, please help me out by sending it to me in a message so I can add it to the tracker. If you lose muse for a thread, please don’t feel pressured to continue it. We can always take a break or start something new. I don’t cap my threads and am always open to new interactions.
Selectivity
Though I run a selective blog, I am not very selective in nature. I do have a preference for original and SnK/AoT characters, especially those that inspire me and challenge me. I’ll primarily look for interactions by checking blog rules for oc-friendliness, reblogging promos, asking to be mutuals in the tags, then follow back after that initial follow is granted. If you don’t want me to follow you, please block me completely because otherwise I’ll think it’s a mistake/glitch and follow you again. On the topic of glitches, they do happen so I apologize ahead of time if that happens above or below my radar.
I don’t tolerate oc-negativity or ooc bigotry and will handle my blog accordingly. If you align yourself in any way with TERF, SWERF, homophobic, ace-exclusionary, racist, and/or xenophobic rhetoric, please do not interact. It’s important for me to surround myself with enriching content and community. I have boundaries and will be setting them for my own comfort as well as respect yours because mutual respect between muns is key to a healthy rpc.
Sourcing
Please don’t do it. This goes for starters, ask memes, wishlist posts, and wanted connections. I understand we might not be the muse/mod duo you have in mind and that we don’t fit every situation, but please don’t fill my notifications with this sentiment, especially if we don’t have any established interactions yet. If our blogs have that much in common, there’s so much we could be musing about. If this happens excessively without us having any interactions, I’ll unfollow and/or block because I am a roleplay blog, not a resource hub. If you’re interested in my musing/resource posts, please show interest in muse interactions as well. The latter is why I’m here and there’s nothing more disheartening and discouraging to my creativity than being used and/or ignored when I present things.
Original Character Disclaimer
It pains me that something like this needs to be said, but Bel wasn’t created to force ship with your muse and/or overpower our threads. I will absolutely under no circumstances tolerate any form of OC negativity. I don’t care if you think they’re “cringey”, “underdeveloped”, “overpowered”, or any other iteration of not meeting your personal criteria of a good character. Opinions are valid but unsolicited bullying is not. It is important to realize that canon characters are still original characters bar their capitalistic franchise. The mods of original characters are a goldmine of free and original content and deserve to be judged by conduct, not content.
If you’d like to support OCs, I invite you to scroll through and reblog a thing or two from my OC positivity tag, as well as follow and engage in meaningful interactions with the OCs in your orbit. Your encouragement could be what makes a content creator’s breakthrough, so please be kind and supportive. Saying you’re OC-friendly while providing an extensive grocery list of double standards OCs must abide by to be considered acceptable isn’t OC-friendliness. Likewise, musing an OC doesn’t automatically make you incapable of being exclusive (unintentional or not) so please be cognizant as well and lets support each other.
Shipping
That being said, I’m just like every other mun. I enjoy shipping and the occasional smut scene given the chemistry is right and both muns are equally invested in the relationship as well as comfortable with it. The more we develop our muses, the more complicated their relationship will be and the more likely I’ll personally gift you with fanart. Above all, your comfort is paramount to our interactions so please communicate with me. Likewise, please respect my comforts when I speak of them. I am much more likely to be enthusiastic about shipping than Bel is, however, so please be patient with us and respect her boundaries as well.
# FREE THE FPN . SFW // ONLY IT’S NOT
This is the tag I will use to mark sexually explicit content. Bel is somewhere on the ace spectrum, but is nonetheless a sensual character and has a couple verses that engage in sex work. Bel’s struggles with her identities are a very big part of her personal characterization, so please be patient with her. [Marilyn Monroe’s hinted asexuality] Likewise, if she’s not into your muse, please don’t push such interactions unless we discuss them as a plot element.
Trigger Warnings
The SnK universe is rampant with violence, gore, psychological trauma, profanity, and grey morality. Furthermore, I enjoy writing dark themes and will provide the disclaimer now that this may be a rather trigger-heavy blog. However, that doesn’t mean you have to be subject to all these themes. If you’d like me to tag things in a certain way, please don’t hesitate to let me know because your comfort is important to me. I’ll gladly create a new tag for you to blacklist/filter and add it to my tag list. Furthermore, this blog will have the occasional explicit content so please don’t interact if you’re under 21.
Activity
I’m finishing up my bachelor’s so classes and coursework will keep me from here sometimes. Furthermore, I struggle with mental illness and domestic abuse in my home environment, so bouts of these may also pull me from activity. I’ll be doing my damndest to keep my issues off the dash but if things are especially severe and I feel the need to post about it and/or reach out, I’ll use a semicolon tag (#;). Nonetheless, musing, roleplaying, and plotting helps keep my spirits up so please keep me updated with your muse and share your discord with me, if you’d like. I’d love it so much if we could continue developing our muses as I slip off of and find my way back to tumblr, and I’d appreciate you very much as a writing partner and friend. ♡
Accessibility
I’m not very savvy with code, but I do try my best to keep my blogging accessible as I tinker and learn. If you struggle with accessing any part of my blog, let it be font size, style, or anything else, please let me know and I’ll do my best to accommodate because I don’t want to perpetuate elitism or ableism in the rpc. As far as reply formatting goes, I’ll usually stick to once small text (particularly in novella length replies via ctrl shift -) and spare use of italics, bolding, and strikethrough text. I may use unicode and/or zalgo for art captions, personal musing posts, crack threads, and other posts that call for it. Every once in awhile, I will blog from mobile and as a result post text in default size, but I’ll still cut my posts and at worst, separate our replies with a symbol or icon if I can’t blockquote text through html.
Permissions
One of my favorite things about roleplaying is sharing content and playing tag games. If you come across anything that reminds you of Bel and/or our interactions/plotting, please show me! Even more so, if you’re a content creator, you have complete and total freedom to use her and her inspirations in your work. I only ask to see it! Likewise, if I ever create any art for you, please acknowledge it at the very least. If you send in an art request and I deliver, please reblog it. Failure to do this kills my creativity as well as generosity so... please.
Exclusive to this blog are my own art and edits as well as those gifted by friends. Please don’t ransack our labors of love and re-purpose them as your own. Bel’s Iva & Marie icons were collected by yours truly with a beautiful frame made by Shane. Other people who have contributed their talents throughout the years include madcapraccoon, L, desertbl00m, Eris, Justice, sangre-rebelde, emptyolivejar, desimouse, and the many rp blogs that have interacted with her. I’d also like to give a special shout-out to sjokohama for the boundless enthusiasm given to her development as well as the readers who have enjoyed and left amazing comments on her original fanfiction. She wouldn’t be out here if it weren’t for Y’all ~ ♡
If you feel like something should be added to or clarified in these guidelines, please let me know. I realize I have a lot to say as a consequence of being here for so long, but I still want to keep my conduct as transparent and accessible as possible.
Thank you for reading! Please feel free to like this post and interact ~ ♡
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Wan High Weeping (Part 36)
Jet got loaded into an ambulance and he was getting loaded into a cop car. Jet the rapist, the predator. He got a cushy trip to the hospital. And he was off to jail. Chan cursed again, they ought to be thanking him, he was the hero in this situation. Hell, that Sokka guy was a pretty decent hero.
But instead of a congratulations they had cuffed both of them and were hauling them off.
“This is fucking ridiculous.” Chan muttered from the backseat. “I saved her! I didn’t do anything wrong.”
“You have a record Mr. Haga.” Remarked the woman behind the wheel. “In fact, I do recall being one of the officers to escort you home after your last incident.” She paused and he knew that she was going to ask his least favorite question. “Did you take your medication tonight?”
“No, I…” What was he going to say? He couldn’t tell her that he’d been drinking. He was horribly lucky that they didn’t see any alcohol, and even luckier that he had parents who could pay them off if they did. “No, I forgot, I was a little busy.”
He let the conversation die there, finding it lost under many layers of red. Jet had well and killed his closest friend and he was going to walk as a free man. He had been conversing with Jet this whole time, if it weren’t for Chu-Leng, Jet probably would have been the one to fill in for Ruon-Jian.
He rested his elbows on his knees and his face in his hands. This was frustrating all the way around. Maybe it was time to call it quits, the parties, the cliques, friendships…
It took all of his willpower to not deliver a blow to the carseat in front of him.
Friendship, what a load of bullshit. The fake ones stay and the real ones die.
It was time to quit Usha too. When he got out of this cop car and to a cell phone, he’d cut her out as fast as he could manage.
He’d cut them all out, if he had to.
He tightened his fists, he was teetering on the edge of an outburst. All of those people in his house and not one of them would ask if he was alright. They’d approach him and make inquiries, sure. But those questions will only be about when the next party is.
They pull him out of the vehicle, and not gently.
He found himself in a room with only a table and two chairs and he wondered if he should be demanding a lawyer.
His parents were going to kill him.
Absolutely kill him.
And they didn’t even know just what had transpired in their house.
A man sat down and introduced himself as officer Yu-Ron. Needless formalities. He’d been in this building enough to know the man’s face and see his name tag. Yu-Ron sat down and sighed. “I was hoping that I wouldn’t have to see you back here so soon.”
“Yeah, well, maybe fighting cripples and shoving my ex wasn’t thrilling enough for me.” He wished that he hadn’t said it, out loud it sounded as awful as it was. “So I guess I had to go and beat the fucker who harassed my friend until he died.”
Just what the hell was he doing, dropping all of that without a lawyer in sight.
Yu-Ron nodded.
He had just dropped a blatant confession. Was bail even an option in cases like these? “Look, I was defending that...that girl, what’s her name? We both know I’m an asshole, but even I have boundaries. He was trying to...he was about too…” He rubbed his hands over his face. “He was going to...rape someone. In my house. At my party. I couldn’t just let him do it okay.”
Yu-Ron remained quiet. A tactic that he fell for every time.
“Look, man, I think that he did it before.” Chan sputtered. “That’s why TyLee was there. Because she knew. And Ruon knew and that’s why Jet made his life hell.” He rubbed at his hairline and slapped his hand down on the table. “Fuck, man, I couldn’t stop it from happening. I couldn’t save my own friend. I couldn’t let it happen again.”
He was truly a fool offering so much information without a lawyer in sight. He leaned back in his chair and held his palms to his hairline. He released a puff of a breath. “I need my pills, man.”
.oOo.
It was a relief to wake up in his own bed, even if it was 4:25 in the morning. He didn’t know how many strings his parents had to pull to keep him from waking up on that stiff holding cell mattress. He didn’t know if they had pulled any at all. Perhaps his own cooperation had done him well for a change. Maybe, saving Katara had been a good enough reason…
He was almost certain that he was going to be pulled in for a second round of questioning eventually.
Chan tried not to think about that as he brushed his teeth and set it down to find his comb. He slicked his hair back and sulked to the breakfast table. The house was still a horrible mess and his father was sitting in the middle of it, flipping through a news article. “I wonder how long it will be until this…” he gestured about the room, “makes the papers.”
He didn’t think that it would take a long time at all, actually.
“How many times do you expect us to do this for you? How many times are we going to bail you out? Did you know that we are going to have to cut back on our food budget and take a lower tier phone and internet plan for this?”
He did not.
“Your medications cost money that you are spending on parties and possible jail time.” His father continued.
“One of these days you’re going to do something that we can’t bail you out of.” His mother added. He hadn’t even heard her rifling around the pantry. “From the sound of it you almost had.”
Chan didn’t want to do this right now. He fished his pills out of his pocket and popped two, he’d be needing them to take him through this conversation. He wished that she would just give the pills time to take effect.
“We let you throw all of these parties, Chan. We let you invite as many people as you want. We even let you have beer! All we asked was that you didn’t get the cops called on you and that you had the place clean by the time we got home.”
He wanted to scream at her, to throw it in her face that maybe she should have been more strict with him. It began to occur to him that maybe he hated their constant absence. That maybe all of this freedom was too much for him. Perhaps the spike in the magnitude of his parties was some sort of challenge. A way to indirectly beg them to tighten their rules.
“There are cigarettes all over the place, beer bottles, a bag of--I don’t even know what this is! I even found one of your party guests passed out in our bathroom this morning! God, what else has gone on in this house that we haven’t seen?”
He didn’t speak fast enough so his father interjected. “Have you even seen everything that goes on in this house.”
Apparently he had not. “It was a house party, of course I don’t know about everything!” He hollered.
“A girl was assaulted in our guest bedroom!” Mrs. Haga shouted back.
“Yes! I stopped that from happening! That’s why I was in…”
“You wouldn’t have had to if you didn’t host a party like that in the first place.” His father argued.
“So what? Are you going to ban me from having anymore?” He questioned. “Maybe you should have been responsible enough to do that in the first place. You’re my parents.”
“We were trying to give you freedom.” His mother rebutted.
“We have given you everything you wanted and then some.” His father raised his voice. “We let you choose your own career path, we let you…”
“Oh for fuck’s…” His hands were clawing at his hairline again. They were really throwing all of that at him. They were going to pin it all on him. God forbid, they ever came home to give him something to do other than party. “Maybe if you guys were actually around I wouldn’t need fucking strangers for company!”
Maybe if he hadn’t lost Ruon…
“Do not use that word around your mother!” Mr. Haga snapped.
“Christ!” Chan slammed his fist against the wall. “At least keep yelling at me for something that fucking matters.” They were making him wish that he had woken up in a cell. He made his retreat, knowing very well that they wouldn’t follow him. He wanted them to. He wanted their fury, he wanted consequence. At least fury and punishment was attention. But as soon as his foot met the first stair the conversation was over.
Likely it wouldn’t come up again unless he brought it up.
They had better things to do; a vacation to be had or a family business to run.
He wished that their hotel chain would go under. They’d lose all of their luxarey, but at least he’d have parents.
He needed a distraction, something. Anything. He turned on his computer and glanced over his social media accounts. According to the drunks and the ignorant it had been a successful party. He almost clicked out.
Almost.
Usha had so kindly uploaded a few pictures of Azula. He knew he vowed to cut her out, but lord did Usha know how to create a distraction. He had his own image of Azula to share, he supposed that she would be a good distraction. She could handle it, she always did, so he commented on the post.
.oOo.
Monday passed by cruelly uneventfully leaving him plenty of time to think about Ruon and Jet. He stopped at Azula’s locker with Chu-Leng and Usha to slip a few notes in the girl’s locker. For once he was content to follow instead of call the shots.
He took his seat in June’s class.
“She making this too easy.” Chu-Leng snickers.
“Yeah, she really is.” Chan agreed, watching the girl in question enter the room.
As Azula took her seat, Chu-Leng leaned over again. “I mean first she gifts us with a goldmine of photos and then she leaves us a nice window to put them all in her locker. This is rich dude.”
He didn’t know what Chu-Leng was expecting him to do so he just snickered along until his friend retreated.
As soon as the boy did, Chan wished that he would have kept the conversation going. Because now he was thinking again. He was thinking about his nightmare. It was a horrible thing really, he was back at his party but, oddly, it was he under Jet--his pants well and discarded. TyLee and Katara were there too, in later stages of Jet’s sick fantasy. Azula was there too, the old Azula. Smaller and smug-er, with a wickedly delighted gleam in her eye. She was watching. She didn’t care, in fact she was almost amused. She let Jet straddle him. She laughed as he did so.
Irrationally, think of the dream made him mad at the real Azula.
Irrationally, he wanted to hurt her for what she had allowed in his dream.
She didn’t know…
By third hour he decided to skip the rest of the school day. It was a drag. At least if he stole away to do doughnuts in his car, he wouldn’t think anymore. So he pulled his car into the nearest gravel parking lot. He shifted the car into first gear. His adrenaline spiking as he accelerated, he turned is wheel sharply to the right. He yanked on the hand break. Feeling the car slid and spin takes the edge off of the spinning of his mind and his world.
He didn’t know how much time and gas he wasted. He didn’t know how much dust he’d kicked up. It didn’t matter because at least his mind had quieted. At least the adrenaline had calmed.
.oOo.
It had been a temporary fix. He was angry all over again and didn’t have enough gas for anymore drifting. Not that it would help anymore, he’d driven ridiculously fast on Tuesday as well, that kind of adrenaline was losing its power. Dream Azula entered his mind and he latched onto that image as he emptied soda can after soda can into his locker. He finished each by violently flattening the can on the floor and whipping it across the hall as hard as he could, only stopping when he heard the tell-tale heel clicks of a teacher. He scrambled away, hiding in the crowd, waiting for Azula to arrive.
Her reaction was lackluster. No surprise on her face, no dismayed cry. He realized that she wasn’t reacting at all. He was irked even further so he stormed up to her locker and slammed it shut in her face. "Thought that you could use a drink."
"Very thoughtful, Chan." She still wasn’t reacting to his satisfaction. No, her voice was flat and emotionless. He didn’t understand where her bite had gone. He almost let her walk away. But he couldn’t stand it. He needed to coax that spark. He wanted her to lash out at him. He wanted her to say something awful back, something that would destroy him as Jet had broke Ruon-Jian. So he hustled to catch up with her and offered her a round two. "So, are you going to pay me for eating half of the food at my party?"
"I provided entertainment, you should pay me." She had given him wit, but the comment had no power behind it. It was missing the sting he craved.
So he pushed a third time. "That's true, it's a gift that keeps on giving." If he was going to rouse her temper he would have to do better than that. "Honestly, I don't think I've ever seen anyone eat like that! I don't know how you can eat so much at once." He added a laugh. But he wasn’t satisfied with his insult, it wasn’t even that good. "There's something wrong with you."
He waited eagerly for a vehement, world destroying blow. But Azula never delivered. Instead he watched her attempt to get comfortable in her chair. He had the opportunity for one more insult. He thought that this one would be good enough to earn him the mental slap that he craved. "Careful, you're going to break it!"
The only slap he earned Chu-Leng giving him a high five.
He almost didn’t hear Azula mutter a soft, "probably."
Chan stopped laughing, had she really just agreed with him? She wasn’t supposed to agree with him. She was supposed to get angry and tear him apart. But her head seemed to dip, she was withdrawing. Something in him stirred unpleasantly. The feeling only grew worse when the bell rang and he watched her leave.
And he realized that he had just created a new problem for himself. He wasn’t just thinking about Ruon, TyLee, and Katara anymore. He was thinking about his stupid ex. His ridiculously pretty, highly insecure ex.
He wondered if he should try to catch up to her and apologize. But she seemed occupied at lunch and somehow the thought of apologizing to her sent a trill of fear down his spine.
.oOo.
He didn’t see her in class on Thursday and his unsettled feeling grows. The feeling flourishes when they pulled him into the office. It ebbed away some when he saw officer Yu-Ron standing in the doorway. The man didn’t speak to him at all as he drove him to the station. “So why can’t we just do the investigation here, in school?”
The question went unanswered.
Yu-Ron led him into another room. Apparently Yu-Ron was just his escort. The woman sitting at the other end of the table had a stony and stern wrinkled face. Her badge read, ‘Officer Park Yoka’. She addressed him coldly. “Do you know what involuntary manslaughter is, Mr. Haga?”
He swallowed. He had a pretty vague idea.
“Involuntary manslaughter is an unintentional murder, if you will. Perhaps you don’t even realize that it is about to happen. It can be negligence or recklessness. It can be drunk driving. It can be a prank gone wrong. Or, it can, very commonly, be bullying.”
His stomach sank.
“Around mid afternoon, Azula Kasai was transported to the hospital after she was found in her car with an empty bottle of diet pills and an empty bottle of klonopin...”
His throat ran dry as she listed a third medication.
“Among others, she mentioned your name multiple times en route.”
He knew that the woman was waiting for him to say something for himself, but he couldn’t seem to sputter anything intelligible. He hadn’t wanted her to die, he just wanted to alleviate his school-hour boredom and look cool as he did so. He just wanted a reaction. “She wasn’t supposed to…”
“Yes, that is why it is called involuntary manslaughter.” The woman laid her icy eyes upon him. “You’re very lucky Mr. Haga. Ms. Kasai is still alive. It would do you well to hope that the girl doesn’t press charges.”
Chan’s mind races. His parents couldn’t take another hit like that. He was going to have to wipe his social media. The officer seemed to read his mind. “Kasai is a smart woman, she has acquired more than enough proof to pursue a good lawsuit.”
Chan leaned back in his chair and put his hands behind his head, he almost wanted to burst out in a fit of bitter laughter right there. He had dodged a bullet with the beating of Jet, but they were going to get him for this. He supposed that Azula would be the one to end his reign of terror.
He just wondered how many other people his ex would be taking down alongside him.
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TAG - S2E20 ‘The Man From TB5′ Review
How brilliant was this!
First, the title – a nice little tribute to the TOS episode ‘The Man From MI5’ (S1E17).
The opening scene had a lovely image. Just another continuation of Jeff in the boy’s lives. I love how Gordon was sat on the desk as the boys always used to do that in TOS, so it makes sense they do so with their younger TAG incarnations. It just made me smile.
Gordon, Gordon, Gordon – we all know he likes Lady Penelope, but this was just hilarious in my opinion.
“Glad to help. Enjoy the party.”
“Did I hear party? Need a date? I can be there in no time. Scott, let me borrow Thunderbird One.”
“Uh, thank you Gordon, but I already have a date.”
The desperation and the way he turned and whispered to Scott, brilliant. Not to mention, that John looked like he’d trade places in a second without being asked. I loved Alan’s reaction. We know the way to get him off that tablet now.
And Scott knew the whole time. Gordon whining was incredible with this as an answer;
“He wanted it kept quiet.”
“But I’m the obvious choice. John hates social… anything.”
There were so many brilliant things in these first scenes, so I will ramble on, with the aid of dialogue, which just made me laugh. Gordon should really know by now, not to open his mouth.
“Besides, who’s going to do space monitor duty?”
“Funny you should mention that.”
“I had to ask.”
“Hmm, walked into that one.”
“And who do you think’s taking him up there?”
“Ohh…”
And maybe so should Alan.
Lady Penelope, you liar! I love how Parker just turned around to join in. Very impressive stop of the car too.
“It’s just a quiet, little charity auction.”
“I may have understated the “quiet” part, a… a bit.”
“hAnd the “little”.”
This image…
Gosh, that’s a lot, and all of this was before the opening!
Post the opening, the greatness continued. In fact, I don’t think it ever cut out.
“I thought there’d be a lot less… this: people, talking, in person.”
Bless him. His expression throughout the party.
“I mean communications is my job, I talk to people all over the world, I’d just rather do it from space.”
“Exactly why I wanted to get you off that station.”
We all know she worries about him, ever since ‘EOS’ (TAG S1E8).
But, John’s good at his job, but I can see where he gets the aversion to people from. Being Jeff Tracy’s son probably led to you facing a lot of reporters and cameras, besides, he always loved space, so I suppose it makes sense that the two things he loves should go together. I’m actually quite surprised at how well he was dealing with gravity. (Or maybe Lady Penelope was just responsible for grounding him).
Parker is just… I think I could make the man my hero.
“Place like this his ha ‘otbed for pickpockets. hIn my day, this would ‘ave been ha goldmine.”
“No one is going to pick anyone’s pockets tonight.”
“Not while hI’m hon watch, M’Lady.”
A very nice reference indeed, because if I remember rightly, in the TOS episode (after which this is named) that is exactly what Parker was off planning to do!
EOS, you are amazing! I loved her playing Gordon up whilst her parent was technically away. She doesn’t half know how to play him either. My favourite of the lines;
“Hair style not recognised. And not very stylish.”
“We speak of this to no one.”
“To the rocket!”
That probably should have been done in the first place… just like Alan suggested.
It was a nice tactic of the writers to play on Parker’s newfound friendship with Sherbet so soon. It proves to us for once they haven’t created something (such as EOS – yes, you can tell I like the AI) and then forgotten it’s there to be used. Although saying that, she appeared in this episode too! So did almost all of our favourite brothers. It’s been a good few weeks.
John on Earth! Again – only a week after his last appearance. And, in a suit: he looks impressive in a suit. I like TAG putting him in the danger line, it allows way more expansion for his character. In short, I approve of the amount of John screen time in recent weeks.
I loved this little interchange. John was just so awkward, and you can tell he had no idea how to deal with this extravagant over-the-top woman.
“And what exactly do you do, dear boy?”
“Me… uh… I… well… I work in space.”
“Space! What a coincidence. We just bought the pent house in the new Estrella Orbital. Perhaps we’ll see you there sometime.”
“Considering my line of work for your sake I hope not.”
We also got to see Thunderbird Three dock with Thunderbird Five. A rarity, but something I love just for small reasons. It’s sad we couldn’t see a John and Alan moment though in their natural environment.
EOS was definitely having fun though.
“Sorry, didn’t catch the access code.”
“We’ve never needed an access code before.”
“New protocol. Protection against Space Pirates.”
“I think we need an assist from “Mr Party”.”
“Yeah, that or I’m using explosives! Thunderbird three to John, your housekeeper would like an access code.”
“The code is, “EOS, let them in, or I’ll swap your processors with a pocket calculator”.”
“Code accepted.”
Except, this was just another episode which proves John to be her parent. She really treats Alan and Gordon like younger brothers too.
Hmm… I’m not sure I would give those away if they belonged to my father. It’s a nice token I suppose, but I wouldn’t personally do it. Each to their own though.
And yes, The Hood was predictable.
Oh EOS… You’re not making it easy for them at all. I love the gravity going off line and of course the slip up;
“Sorry, still offline. If John were here, I’m sure he could get them working.”
“Gordon to John, your AI’s being evil again.”
“EOS!”
“It’s not me this time!”
““This time”!”
“I mean…”
I suppose the only word for that is payback. Still, you can tell Gordon is no expert in communications like John. Fog, anyone?
John is brave. Still, because I know I said that last week. (Where did the fork come from though?)
Bernard Bottomsley is very foolish, for once I agree with the villain.
Of course, The Hood’s “dramatic” exit just has to the make the cut into this review.
It reminds me a little of the film version of ‘Richard III’ where he ‘falls’ (The Ian McKellan version, if anyone wants to know what I mean).
And, oh look! The Hood stuck true to his word and turned off the jammer.
Thank goodness for magnetic socks. I wish we could actually have those. John really is trying to challenge Spiderman for the title though.
All I can say, is Alan learnt fast. I think we can see now why it’s Alan who swaps with John. Space just isn’t for Gordon. And nor is EOS.
I thought the dinging chair idea was imaginative. Poor Sherbet, travelling alone.
I don’t think John is ever going to live down the new nickname: Party Boy. I loved the rescue though and of course, my favourite line for the episode;
“I got you, Party Boy.”
“Thanks, Scott. Just put me down anywhere. Anywhere… anywhere but here!”
And EOS on holo-communications with John! Yes, I thought we’d never get there. If I was able to go into space, I would definitely agree with John too.
#Thunderbirds#Thunderbirds Are Go#TOS#TAG#The Man From TB5#The Man From MI5#Series 1#episode 17#series 2#episode 20#Scott Tracy#John Tracy#Virgil Tracy#Gordon Tracy#Alan Tracy#Brains#Jeff Tracy#Grandma Tracy#Lady Penelope#Parker#Sherbet#The Hood#The Mechanic.#Umberto Sandalid#Bernard Bottomsley#Andres Williams#Rasmus Hardiker#David Menkin#David Graham#Angel Coulby
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Rio & Nancy
Rio: If you wanna head home 'fore nan and granddad are ready, you can always have a lift back with us Nancy: Thanks Nancy: I'm in no rush though Rio: Having a good time then? Nancy: Sure Nancy: It's not a classroom, I'll take it Rio: Yeah, I bet you're buzzing Nancy: You mean you can't tell? Well, that's devastating Nancy: I reckoned on it being so obvious, like Rio: I mean, your poker face ain't all that, babe, if you wanna be real about it Nancy: More of a resting bitch, I know Nancy: The good news must not have sunk in yet Rio: Give it a few Nancy: Yeah Rio: Anyway, can't do anything about it now Rio: May as well enjoy your summer Nancy: Like I said, I already am Nancy: Aside from the prospect of going home Rio: 👍 Rio: How bad can it be Rio: he's taken one for the team Nancy: No, he's made sure exams mean more than they did before Nancy: and made me the focus since he's a less than safe convo topic Rio: Well, your family's inability to communicate is longstanding and not my fault so I'm not gonna take the blame for it, nor is my baby Rio: Sorry, like Nancy: I didn't ask Nancy: It's not my fault that his fall from grace makes me their poster child for success now either, I definitely never asked for that Rio: If you're going to feel so sorry for yourself, don't be surprised when people feel it for you in return Rio: Oddly enough our decision to have a child wasn't exactly about you Nancy: I'm only surprised the pity party isn't full already Nancy: My brother tends to take up a lot of space Rio: Please Rio: We've got no reason to be sorry, either definition Rio: we're happy, if you lot wanna be miserable then the party is all yours Nancy: Does he know that? Does he feel it? 'Cause he sounded like he wanted me to be sorry for him many times over when we last spoke Rio: Like I said, you're all crap at communicating Rio: but thanks Nancy: Yeah, and he's one of the worst Nancy: If I feel sorry for anything, it's for you, for that much, like Rio: Fuck off Rio: I don't need your pity Nancy: Don't tell me to fuck off Rio: Why not? You've seen fit to talk to me how you please Nancy: 'Cause you're judging my communication skills like its your job, for one thing Nancy: And for another, I haven't said anything like that to you, ever Rio: You said in as few words as possible that you don't think Buster really wants our baby, implying that I don't know him and we don't talk, whilst you were at it Rio: but no Rio: the f bomb in response, so much worse, Jesus Nancy: No I haven't Nancy: All I've said to him is that his timing is ridiculous and when was the last time we even spoke, me and you? Before exams probably so Rio: What does it matter to you, or your parents for that matter Rio: He's still going to Uni, he's still doing everything they want Nancy: I don't care what they want Nancy: I care about him and how hard it's gonna be Nancy: I won't be here to help either of you, not even in the same country, so excuse me for being worried Rio: When ain't life? Rio: You can't let that stop you from doing what you want Nancy: You don't need to make it harder on yourself, Jesus Rio: Well that ain't how it's going to be, or how we see it Nancy: It's easy for him to see it that way when he never admits that he needs help or that anything could possibly be a struggle in the slightest Nancy: He's just perfect and everything will be, end of story Rio: I help him Rio: and I know that, I knew that before this even started Nancy: I know you do and you know I love you, yeah? I'm not saying this to be a bitch to you Rio: I know Rio: but I don't get why you can't translate your worry into supporting him, that is literally all he needs from you Rio: instead of the constant barage of questions Nancy: because I'm scared for him and he scares me Nancy: how little he thinks about anything Nancy: He just wants and he gets and I'm the only one who cares if it'll work out or not Nancy: you know that's what he's always been like Rio: It's going to work out Rio: even if you wanna talk worst case scenarios, we have to get divorced, yeah Rio: he'll still have the kid, I'm not that bitch Nancy: I hope it does Nancy: Genuinely Nancy: You know that Rio: I think I do Rio: but you don't always show it Rio: I know it's a lot Rio: but it's hard for him when none of you seem happy for him or even say it's alright, like Rio: why do you think he can't admit he needs help, when has he got it? Nancy: Do you? 'Cause when you got together I had to re-evaluate everything I thought I knew about him and you Nancy: He says he's loved you since he was a kid, I was there, I have almost the same memories Nancy: But I don't Nancy: at all Rio: Why does it matter? We were all kids Nancy: 'Cause all this time he was so unhappy and I didn't know, okay Nancy: I didn't do anything Rio: None of us did Rio: He didn't want you to know, anyone Rio: you can't take blame for it like you wilfully ignored cries for help but he's trying now Rio: he needs you now, okay Nancy: I'm trying too Nancy: I just Nancy: I don't know him, if I ever did Nancy: How am I meant to know what to do? Rio: You did Rio: You were close then, just because you didn't know this one thing doesn't mean you weren't Rio: You wouldn't tell him about every crush you had, especially if you felt shame about being gay or there was another reason you knew he could judge you for it, you know? Rio: Just, try and be nice to each other, simple and as stupid as it sounds Rio: that's all you gotta do in this world though Nancy: You can say wanting to fuck my teacher, that's pretty shameful, babe Nancy: Lord, did you really have to do the one thing that scares me most to test me Nancy: Babies are terrifying Rio: Well you know, I assume you weren't child thirsting after your reception teacher like 👌👌👌 nice cardigan miss Rio: Nah Rio: they're just people Rio: I guess that's kinda the problem though Nancy: Hey, she was cute! And very attentive Nancy: Well, not to be dramatic and turn this into a therapy session but the last time I was properly excited for a baby to be born, he died Nancy: And now we don't talk about him Rio: That isn't going to happen again Rio: and you could talk to Buster about him Rio: he's thinking about him too Nancy: Does he talk about him to you? Rio: Yeah, a little Rio: we're going to give the baby his name as a middle Nancy: Really? Rio: I should say we don't know it's a boy yet, we just think it is Rio: but I won't say 'if not, the next one' and freak you out further, like Nancy: Go ahead, I'm just out here openly crying at the beach Rio: I'm sorry Rio: you can use my ugly dress as a hankie if you wanna Nancy: It's not that bad Rio: It's years old 'cos everything I own now would leave no need to announce this Rio: tempting but probably not Nancy: You should have come to me, my wardrobe runneth over Nancy: Literally, I need to have such a huge clear out before uni starts Rio: You planning to reinvent yourself as a minimalist? 😏 Rio: local charity shops gonna be a goldmine, like Nancy: Reinvent myself, yeah, as that, no Nancy: I get it, not tempting to come over when I'm being a bitch Nancy: I'm sorry you have to suffer that dress as a result, babe Rio: Well you know, or we could say I was giving you space and time Rio: politer Rio: I'm not even sure it was ever mine Rio: maybe it was yours, the ultimately bitchery to get it out of my system Nancy: Not to be that bitch or lesbian stereotype, okay, but what's under it? Can you not just remove it now the secret's out? Nancy: Be you again Rio: 😂 Rio: Still got it, babe Rio: I guess I can now Rio: It's weird Nancy: Do it for my brother if not me Nancy: You think I need to sort my face, look at his right now Rio: Poor boy Rio: at least I didn't straighten my hair, then he'd really be devastated Nancy: 😂 Nancy: I wish you had, I'd have taken so many pics to post and tag him in Rio: 😏 Pure evil, like Nancy: Genetically, sorry Nancy: Not saying you should watch The Omen again or anything but Rio: 😲 How rude Rio: but if I remember correctly that fucker was adopted so it would've been more cutting to come at me with Rosemary's Baby, like Rio: slacking Nancy: Oops, horror movies not really my forte Rio: You should reconsider Rio: yeah the bitch always dies, but she's usually half-naked beforehand, like Nancy: Are you gonna put your arm around me when it gets scary though? I think not Rio: You know I would you just ain't vibing 💔 Nancy: Lies! I just told you to strip Rio: True enough Rio: There's hope yet then Nancy: I'm sorry for being a bitch this whole time Nancy: I've missed you, it feels like exams lasted years Rio: I know, it was stressful and I weren't even taking them so God knows how you lot survived Rio: How do you feel about them, genuinely? Nancy: I know you love him, but how much of a prick was he during his, like 1-10? To make me feel better Nancy: I feel bad but like, I always do about that stuff so Nancy: It doesn't mean anything Rio: Oh, 11, for sure 😏 Rio: no, it was hard though, he was stressed as fuck Rio: you'll have done what you needed to do, I know Nancy: At least you could play the pregnancy card, like DO NOT STRESS ME, BOY Nancy: I basically had to shut myself away to get the same effect Rio: I feel it, Junior looks like this is his first time seeing sunlight in years, he hasn't taken his sunglasses off Rio: know they're prescription but come on Rio: as for the pregnancy card, great for getting out of arguments you've probably caused being a crazy bitch, like Nancy: I don't think he remembers who any of us are 😂 Nancy: It's not too late to have some actual fun today, is it? Nancy: You need it too, Buster said you've been pretty sick Nancy: He's dramatic, but still Rio: Of course not Rio: Someone suggested going to the pub to celebrate but as I'm the one with the baby I can make sure they choose somewhere nice with a decent cocktail list and beer garden, not a grotty old man pub, like Rio: Just morning sickness but it was pretty shitty and lonely when he was at School and so was Indie Rio: but fingers crossed I'm over that now so Nancy: We have to do something about that dress first Nancy: Come with me before we go anywhere else Nancy: I will save you Rio: 🙌 Rio: If you take me near a maternity section, we will brawl Nancy: God no Nancy: I'd burst into flames Rio: 😂 Rio: You remembered suncream today though, yeah? Nancy: Yes, mum Nancy: Maternity clothes are actually disgusting and I'm not letting it happen to you Nancy: Or my niece or nephew, how embarrassing to look back on Rio: It's just not necessary either Rio: do you know how big most clothes go these days like Nancy: Thank you! Like be more creative than that Nancy: If you wear a smock I'm disowning you Nancy: I don't care if you're having twins in a heatwave Rio: You'll be glad to know it ain't, unless one of them was hiding real stealth, but I'd be much bigger, pretty sure Nancy: Yeah, you'd need more than that dress to hide behind, right? Mum was such a ridiculous size with us, the pics are actually like something out of a scary movie Nancy: Say what you like about her, and do, but she always looked good Rio: Honestly, poor bitch Rio: Feel her small girl pain in a way you can never Rio: feeling like a human ball some days and it is just the one Nancy: Why do you think I'm not taking you to a maternity section, they'd think I was the one with a baby on board Nancy: No offense but kill me Rio: Oh bitch no Rio: like, is daddy excited or terrified, Nance? Rio: straight girl bants Nancy: I nearly threw up in my mouth Nancy: Not morning sickness, sorry lads Rio: You keep down your breakfast if you getting in my car, thank you very much Nancy: Such a mum 😏
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Stay Calm And Read Smashing
About The Author
Juggling between three languages on a daily basis, Iris is known for her love of linguistics, arts, web design and typography, as well as her goldmine of …
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It’s that time of the month! Join us as we share the latest news and highlight the things we’ve been working on and have also enjoyed reading over the past month.
It’s nice to have an overview of the most important things in one place, but do feel free to follow us on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and subscribe to our RSS feed as well as our bi-weekly newsletter. We like helping you stay on top of things and making life at least just a little bit easier!
For all the times we asked folks about Smashing, most still seem to believe that we’re some sort of large publishing company situated somewhere in the United States — both of which are wrong. It all started in Freiburg, Germany, and the team consists of folks scattered all over the world — with most of us not working fulltime for Smashing.
That’s right, working remotely is quite familiar to us, and so with the current situation going on with COVID-19 that is making everyone uneasy, we’d like to make the best of things and help our friends who are having to work or lead teams remotely for the first time. Our editor-in-chief, Rachel Andrew, has prepared a nice post to help you stay connected and keep learning while we go through this together.
You may have already heard that SmashingConf SF has been postponed to November due to the unfortunate travel restrictions and many other reasons. It was truly a difficult decision for the team to make, but we believe it is the best way forward — safety and health always come first.
Without further ado, here’s a short update of things going on at Smashing and some super creative work shared from and to the community!
Happy reading — from my computer to yours!
Designing With Ethics In Mind
After months of hard work, the “The Ethical Design Handbook��� is finally here — and it’s shipping! The response has already been overwhelmingly positive, and we’re excited to share reviews with you soon. There is still quite a bit of work to do on the web, but our hope is that with this book, you will be equipped with enough tooling to slowly move a company towards a more sustainable and healthy digital footprint!
Of course, you can jump to the table of contents right away, or download a free PDF excerpt to get a first impression of the book — we’re sure you won’t be disappointed! Read our official release post with all the details →
Always Learning New Things From One Another
We all have busy schedules, but there’s always time to pop in those earplugs and listen to some music or podcasts that make you happy! We’re moving on to our 12th episode of the Smashing Podcast — with folks from different backgrounds and so much to share! You’re always welcome to tune in and share your questions and thoughts with us anytime!
Apart from the heart-breaking news about our postponed SmashingConf SF, our SmashingConfs are known to be friendly, inclusive events where front-end developers and designers come together to attend live sessions and hands-on workshops. From live designing to live debugging, all of our speakers like to go into detail and show useful examples from their own projects on the big screen.
Here are some talks you may like to watch and learn from:
The first SmashingConf took place in Freiburg back in 2012, so there are so many more talks you can watch. See all SmashingConf videos →
Shining The Spotlight On React, Redux And Electron
Mark your calendars! Next week on March 19, we’ll be hosting a Smashing TV webinar with Cassidy Williams who’ll be explaining how to organize a modern React application and build an Electron application (with React). Join us at 17:00 London time — we’d love to hear your thoughts and experiences you’ve had with React in your projects!
Smashing TV is a series of webinars and live streams packed with practical tips for designers and developers. They’re not just talks, but more like conversations and “here-is-how-I-work”-sessions. Smashing Members can download recordings, and also receive discounts and lots of goodies to make their membership worthwhile. Tell me more →
Trending Topics On SmashingMag
We publish a new article every day on various topics that are current in the web industry. Here are some that our readers seemed to enjoy the most and have recommended further:
“Why Are We Talking About CSS4?”
by Rachel Andrew
Around the web and within the CSS Working Group, there has been some discussion about whether we should specify a version of CSS — perhaps naming it CSS4. In this article, Rachel Andrew rounds up some of the pros and cons of doing so, and asks for your feedback on the suggestion.
“Setting Height And Width On Images Is Important Again”
by Barry Pollard
Thanks to some recent changes in browsers, it’s now well worth setting width and height attributes on your images to prevent layout shifts and improve the experience of your site visitors.
“Setting Up Tailwind CSS In A React Project”
by Blessing Krofegha
This article introduces Tailwind CSS, a CSS library that gives you all of the building blocks you need to build bespoke designs without opinionated styles. You’ll also learn how to seamlessly set up Tailwind CSS in a React project.
“Introducing Alpine.js: A Tiny JavaScript Framework”
by Phil Smith
Ever built a website and reached for jQuery, Bootstrap, Vue.js or React to acheive some basic user interaction? Alpine.js is a fraction of the size of these frameworks because it involves no build steps and provides all of the tools you need to build a basic user interface.
“How To Design Mobile Apps For One-Hand Usage”
by Maitrik Kataria
90% of the smartphones sold today have >5-inch displays. Bigger screen real estate presents newer challenges and opportunities for app makers and designers. Let’s look at how designing apps for one-handed usage can solve those challenges.
Best Picks From Our Newsletter
We’ll be honest: Every second week, we struggle with keeping the Smashing Newsletter issues at a moderate length — there are just so many talented folks out there working on brilliant projects! So, without wanting to make this monthly update too long either, we’re shining the spotlight on the following projects:
P.S.: A huge thank you to Cosima Mielke for writing and preparing these posts!
Find And Fix Errors In Your Designs
We all know those moments when we are so immersed in a project that we lose the distance we need to be able to catch little inconsistencies: an incorrect border-radius around an image or missing styles or text, for example. If you’re designing in Figma, the free and open-source plugin Design Lint makes finding and fixing errors like these easy so that no bug makes it into production.
A free and open-source plugin for Figma built to help you find and fix errors in your designs.: Design Lint.
Design Lint checks for missing text, fill, stroke, and effects styles, and catches incorrect border-radius values on all your layers. To not interrupt your workflow, the plugin automatically updates as you fix errors. The repo is available on GitHub, so feel free to write specific rules to tailor the plugin to your needs.
Learn CSS Positioning With… Cats!
Could there be a better way to learn CSS positioning as with a bunch of friendly cats? That’s probably what Ahmad Shadeed thought, too, when he created his interactive guide to how CSS positioning works.
Meow! Ahmad Shadeed has prepared a great guide for you to learn everything about CSS positioning!
The guide teaches you to use CSS to position three cartoon cats and their blanket inside a box, and once you’ve grasped the concept, you can start tinkering with the interactive demo that visualizes how the result changes as you edit the values. Now who said learning can’t be fun?
Intimacy, An Interactive Short Poem
An inspiring experiment comes from the French graphic and interaction design student Thibaud Giffon: “Intimacy”. The interactive short poem uses abstract images, sound, and text to explore intimacy from different angles.
The “Mixed Up” musical poem is brought to life (sound ON) by just moving your cursor across the cords. Try it out!
Compassion, distance, confusion, touch — these are four of the eight chapters that make up the poem; and each one of them reflects the topic in its own, unique way: with warm and harmonious waves or circles that melt into each other but also with dissonant strings or colorful bubbles that burst as they make space for themselves. Beautiful!
All Your SVG Icons In One Place
Having one central place to organize all your assets is always a good thing, not only for teams — to keep track of what you have and to quickly find what you’re looking for. The free cross-platform app Iconset is such a place: it helps you collect, customize, share, and manage all your SVG icon sets.
Organizing SVG icons all in one place with Iconset.
To make it easier to find the icon you’re looking for, you can organize your icons in sets or with tags, and, once you’ve found the icon you need, you can drag it directly into your favorite tool. A real timesaver. Iconset supports cloud services like Dropbox or OneDrive so that all your icons are always in sync between team members. The app is available for Mac and Windows.
An Ancient Hero’s WebGL Adventure
A reluctant hero on a quest he never asked for — that’s the story behind the browser-based adventure video game Heraclos. Set in ancient Greece, the young Heraclos stumbles across an amphora that belongs to one of the gods. He is declared to be the chosen one and gets sent off to climb the secret mountain and return the amphora to his owner.
Heraclos, an adventure video game made in WebGL.
What makes the game so noteworthy is the fun twist in the interaction between the hero and the god (a parody of common heroic stories) but also the technical background: Heraclos was designed in only three months by a group of students at the Gobelins school of images in Paris — with WebGL and Cannon.js. A great example of what’s possible on the web.
An Open-Source Screen Recorder Built With Web Technology
Have you heard of Kap, yet? The open-source screen recorder is one that is definitely worth checking out if you’re frequently doing screen recordings.
Kap, an open-source screen recorder built with web technology.
Built with web technologies, Kap produces high-quality recordings in GIF, MP4, WebM, or APNG formats. You can include audio (even from your microphone), highlight clicks, and trim the recordings. As a bonus goodie, there are also options to share your recorded GIFs on Giphy, deploy them with ZEIT now, or upload them to Streamable. Perfect for technical demos.
Open Peeps, A Free Hand-Drawn Illustration Library
584,688 possible combinations. That’s the number of different characters you could create with Pablo Stanley’s hand-drawn illustration library Open Peeps.
“Open Peeps,” a hand-drawn illustration library created by Pablo Stanley.
Open Peeps lets you mix and match different vector elements to create diverse personalities: combine clothing and hairstyles, change emotion with facial expressions, set the scene with different poses — the possibilities are sheer endless. And if you’re in a hurry, Pablo also prepared some ready-to-download Peeps that you can use right away. Open Peeps is released under a CC0 license, so you are free to use the illustrations in both personal and commercial projects. A great way to add a handmade touch to your design.
How To Make Inputs More Accessible
In 2019, WebAim analyzed the accessibility of the top one million websites, with a shocking conclusion: the percentage of error-free pages was estimated to be under one percent. To make our sites inclusive and usable for people who rely on assistive technology, we need to get the basics of semantic HTML right. With its credo of starting small, sharing, and working together, Oscar Braunert’s article on inclusive inputs is a great starting point to do so.
Starting off with the basics of WAI, ARIA, and WCAG, the article explores how to make inputs more accessible. The tips can be implemented without changing the user interface, and, as Oscar puts it: “If in doubt, just do it. Nobody will notice. Except some of your users. And they will thank you for it.”
An Open-Source Font For Developers
High readability, quick text scanning, no distraction — these are just some of the demands developers have on a typeface. Well, the free and open-source typeface JetBrains Mono meets all of them beautifully.
JetBrains Mono’s typeface forms are simple and free from unnecessary details. Rendered in small sizes, the text looks crisper.
To do so, Jet Brains Mono takes advantage of some small but mighty details: Compared to other monospace fonts, the height of JetBrains Mono is increased while the characters remain standard in width to keep code lines to the length developers expect. To improve readability even further, 138 code-specific ligatures reduce noise so that your eyes need to process less and whitespace becomes more balanced. Clever! JetBrains Mono comes in four weights and supports 145 languages.
The Ultimate Guide To iframes
With a lot of articles advising against them, iframes don’t have the best reputation. JavaScript developer Nada Rifki sees things differently: She suggests not to let their reputation prevent you from relying on iframes. After all, they have many legitimate use cases.
The ultimate guide to iframes written by Nada Rifki.
To help you form your own opinion on this controversial element, Nada wrote an ultimate guide to iframes which explores iframe features and how to use them; tricky situations where iframes might come in handy; last but not least, how you can secure your iframe against potential vulnerabilities. A great opportunity to see things from a different perspective.
A Guide To Console Commands
The capabilities of the developer’s debugging console have evolved significantly in the past years — from a means to report errors to automatically logging information like network requests and security errors or warnings. There’s also a way for a website’s JavaScript to trigger various commands that output to the console for debugging purposes. And while these features are mostly consistent between browsers, there are also some functional differences.
“A Guide to Console Commands” by Travis Almand
If you’re looking for an overview of what console commands are capable of, Travis Almand put together a helpful guide. It covers Firefox and Chrome and examines various commands that can be used in the browser’s console output or with JavaScript. A handy summary.
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Website Design & SEO Delray Beach by DBL07.co
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source http://www.scpie.org/stay-calm-and-read-smashing/
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Stay Calm And Read Smashing
About The Author
Juggling between three languages on a daily basis, Iris is known for her love of linguistics, arts, web design and typography, as well as her goldmine of …
More about
Iris
…
It’s that time of the month! Join us as we share the latest news and highlight the things we’ve been working on and have also enjoyed reading over the past month.
It’s nice to have an overview of the most important things in one place, but do feel free to follow us on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and subscribe to our RSS feed as well as our bi-weekly newsletter. We like helping you stay on top of things and making life at least just a little bit easier!
For all the times we asked folks about Smashing, most still seem to believe that we’re some sort of large publishing company situated somewhere in the United States — both of which are wrong. It all started in Freiburg, Germany, and the team consists of folks scattered all over the world — with most of us not working fulltime for Smashing.
That’s right, working remotely is quite familiar to us, and so with the current situation going on with COVID-19 that is making everyone uneasy, we’d like to make the best of things and help our friends who are having to work or lead teams remotely for the first time. Our editor-in-chief, Rachel Andrew, has prepared a nice post to help you stay connected and keep learning while we go through this together.
You may have already heard that SmashingConf SF has been postponed to November due to the unfortunate travel restrictions and many other reasons. It was truly a difficult decision for the team to make, but we believe it is the best way forward — safety and health always come first.
Without further ado, here’s a short update of things going on at Smashing and some super creative work shared from and to the community!
Happy reading — from my computer to yours!
Designing With Ethics In Mind
After months of hard work, the “The Ethical Design Handbook” is finally here — and it’s shipping! The response has already been overwhelmingly positive, and we’re excited to share reviews with you soon. There is still quite a bit of work to do on the web, but our hope is that with this book, you will be equipped with enough tooling to slowly move a company towards a more sustainable and healthy digital footprint!
Of course, you can jump to the table of contents right away, or download a free PDF excerpt to get a first impression of the book — we’re sure you won’t be disappointed! Read our official release post with all the details →
Always Learning New Things From One Another
We all have busy schedules, but there’s always time to pop in those earplugs and listen to some music or podcasts that make you happy! We’re moving on to our 12th episode of the Smashing Podcast — with folks from different backgrounds and so much to share! You’re always welcome to tune in and share your questions and thoughts with us anytime!
Apart from the heart-breaking news about our postponed SmashingConf SF, our SmashingConfs are known to be friendly, inclusive events where front-end developers and designers come together to attend live sessions and hands-on workshops. From live designing to live debugging, all of our speakers like to go into detail and show useful examples from their own projects on the big screen.
Here are some talks you may like to watch and learn from:
The first SmashingConf took place in Freiburg back in 2012, so there are so many more talks you can watch. See all SmashingConf videos →
Shining The Spotlight On React, Redux And Electron
Mark your calendars! Next week on March 19, we’ll be hosting a Smashing TV webinar with Cassidy Williams who’ll be explaining how to organize a modern React application and build an Electron application (with React). Join us at 17:00 London time — we’d love to hear your thoughts and experiences you’ve had with React in your projects!
Smashing TV is a series of webinars and live streams packed with practical tips for designers and developers. They’re not just talks, but more like conversations and “here-is-how-I-work”-sessions. Smashing Members can download recordings, and also receive discounts and lots of goodies to make their membership worthwhile. Tell me more →
Trending Topics On SmashingMag
We publish a new article every day on various topics that are current in the web industry. Here are some that our readers seemed to enjoy the most and have recommended further:
“Why Are We Talking About CSS4?”
by Rachel Andrew
Around the web and within the CSS Working Group, there has been some discussion about whether we should specify a version of CSS — perhaps naming it CSS4. In this article, Rachel Andrew rounds up some of the pros and cons of doing so, and asks for your feedback on the suggestion.
“Setting Height And Width On Images Is Important Again”
by Barry Pollard
Thanks to some recent changes in browsers, it’s now well worth setting width and height attributes on your images to prevent layout shifts and improve the experience of your site visitors.
“Setting Up Tailwind CSS In A React Project”
by Blessing Krofegha
This article introduces Tailwind CSS, a CSS library that gives you all of the building blocks you need to build bespoke designs without opinionated styles. You’ll also learn how to seamlessly set up Tailwind CSS in a React project.
“Introducing Alpine.js: A Tiny JavaScript Framework”
by Phil Smith
Ever built a website and reached for jQuery, Bootstrap, Vue.js or React to acheive some basic user interaction? Alpine.js is a fraction of the size of these frameworks because it involves no build steps and provides all of the tools you need to build a basic user interface.
“How To Design Mobile Apps For One-Hand Usage”
by Maitrik Kataria
90% of the smartphones sold today have >5-inch displays. Bigger screen real estate presents newer challenges and opportunities for app makers and designers. Let’s look at how designing apps for one-handed usage can solve those challenges.
Best Picks From Our Newsletter
We’ll be honest: Every second week, we struggle with keeping the Smashing Newsletter issues at a moderate length — there are just so many talented folks out there working on brilliant projects! So, without wanting to make this monthly update too long either, we’re shining the spotlight on the following projects:
P.S.: A huge thank you to Cosima Mielke for writing and preparing these posts!
Find And Fix Errors In Your Designs
We all know those moments when we are so immersed in a project that we lose the distance we need to be able to catch little inconsistencies: an incorrect border-radius around an image or missing styles or text, for example. If you’re designing in Figma, the free and open-source plugin Design Lint makes finding and fixing errors like these easy so that no bug makes it into production.
A free and open-source plugin for Figma built to help you find and fix errors in your designs.: Design Lint.
Design Lint checks for missing text, fill, stroke, and effects styles, and catches incorrect border-radius values on all your layers. To not interrupt your workflow, the plugin automatically updates as you fix errors. The repo is available on GitHub, so feel free to write specific rules to tailor the plugin to your needs.
Learn CSS Positioning With… Cats!
Could there be a better way to learn CSS positioning as with a bunch of friendly cats? That’s probably what Ahmad Shadeed thought, too, when he created his interactive guide to how CSS positioning works.
Meow! Ahmad Shadeed has prepared a great guide for you to learn everything about CSS positioning!
The guide teaches you to use CSS to position three cartoon cats and their blanket inside a box, and once you’ve grasped the concept, you can start tinkering with the interactive demo that visualizes how the result changes as you edit the values. Now who said learning can’t be fun?
Intimacy, An Interactive Short Poem
An inspiring experiment comes from the French graphic and interaction design student Thibaud Giffon: “Intimacy”. The interactive short poem uses abstract images, sound, and text to explore intimacy from different angles.
The “Mixed Up” musical poem is brought to life (sound ON) by just moving your cursor across the cords. Try it out!
Compassion, distance, confusion, touch — these are four of the eight chapters that make up the poem; and each one of them reflects the topic in its own, unique way: with warm and harmonious waves or circles that melt into each other but also with dissonant strings or colorful bubbles that burst as they make space for themselves. Beautiful!
All Your SVG Icons In One Place
Having one central place to organize all your assets is always a good thing, not only for teams — to keep track of what you have and to quickly find what you’re looking for. The free cross-platform app Iconset is such a place: it helps you collect, customize, share, and manage all your SVG icon sets.
Organizing SVG icons all in one place with Iconset.
To make it easier to find the icon you’re looking for, you can organize your icons in sets or with tags, and, once you’ve found the icon you need, you can drag it directly into your favorite tool. A real timesaver. Iconset supports cloud services like Dropbox or OneDrive so that all your icons are always in sync between team members. The app is available for Mac and Windows.
An Ancient Hero’s WebGL Adventure
A reluctant hero on a quest he never asked for — that’s the story behind the browser-based adventure video game Heraclos. Set in ancient Greece, the young Heraclos stumbles across an amphora that belongs to one of the gods. He is declared to be the chosen one and gets sent off to climb the secret mountain and return the amphora to his owner.
Heraclos, an adventure video game made in WebGL.
What makes the game so noteworthy is the fun twist in the interaction between the hero and the god (a parody of common heroic stories) but also the technical background: Heraclos was designed in only three months by a group of students at the Gobelins school of images in Paris — with WebGL and Cannon.js. A great example of what’s possible on the web.
An Open-Source Screen Recorder Built With Web Technology
Have you heard of Kap, yet? The open-source screen recorder is one that is definitely worth checking out if you’re frequently doing screen recordings.
Kap, an open-source screen recorder built with web technology.
Built with web technologies, Kap produces high-quality recordings in GIF, MP4, WebM, or APNG formats. You can include audio (even from your microphone), highlight clicks, and trim the recordings. As a bonus goodie, there are also options to share your recorded GIFs on Giphy, deploy them with ZEIT now, or upload them to Streamable. Perfect for technical demos.
Open Peeps, A Free Hand-Drawn Illustration Library
584,688 possible combinations. That’s the number of different characters you could create with Pablo Stanley’s hand-drawn illustration library Open Peeps.
“Open Peeps,” a hand-drawn illustration library created by Pablo Stanley.
Open Peeps lets you mix and match different vector elements to create diverse personalities: combine clothing and hairstyles, change emotion with facial expressions, set the scene with different poses — the possibilities are sheer endless. And if you’re in a hurry, Pablo also prepared some ready-to-download Peeps that you can use right away. Open Peeps is released under a CC0 license, so you are free to use the illustrations in both personal and commercial projects. A great way to add a handmade touch to your design.
How To Make Inputs More Accessible
In 2019, WebAim analyzed the accessibility of the top one million websites, with a shocking conclusion: the percentage of error-free pages was estimated to be under one percent. To make our sites inclusive and usable for people who rely on assistive technology, we need to get the basics of semantic HTML right. With its credo of starting small, sharing, and working together, Oscar Braunert’s article on inclusive inputs is a great starting point to do so.
Starting off with the basics of WAI, ARIA, and WCAG, the article explores how to make inputs more accessible. The tips can be implemented without changing the user interface, and, as Oscar puts it: “If in doubt, just do it. Nobody will notice. Except some of your users. And they will thank you for it.”
An Open-Source Font For Developers
High readability, quick text scanning, no distraction — these are just some of the demands developers have on a typeface. Well, the free and open-source typeface JetBrains Mono meets all of them beautifully.
JetBrains Mono’s typeface forms are simple and free from unnecessary details. Rendered in small sizes, the text looks crisper.
To do so, Jet Brains Mono takes advantage of some small but mighty details: Compared to other monospace fonts, the height of JetBrains Mono is increased while the characters remain standard in width to keep code lines to the length developers expect. To improve readability even further, 138 code-specific ligatures reduce noise so that your eyes need to process less and whitespace becomes more balanced. Clever! JetBrains Mono comes in four weights and supports 145 languages.
The Ultimate Guide To iframes
With a lot of articles advising against them, iframes don’t have the best reputation. JavaScript developer Nada Rifki sees things differently: She suggests not to let their reputation prevent you from relying on iframes. After all, they have many legitimate use cases.
The ultimate guide to iframes written by Nada Rifki.
To help you form your own opinion on this controversial element, Nada wrote an ultimate guide to iframes which explores iframe features and how to use them; tricky situations where iframes might come in handy; last but not least, how you can secure your iframe against potential vulnerabilities. A great opportunity to see things from a different perspective.
A Guide To Console Commands
The capabilities of the developer’s debugging console have evolved significantly in the past years — from a means to report errors to automatically logging information like network requests and security errors or warnings. There’s also a way for a website’s JavaScript to trigger various commands that output to the console for debugging purposes. And while these features are mostly consistent between browsers, there are also some functional differences.
“A Guide to Console Commands” by Travis Almand
If you’re looking for an overview of what console commands are capable of, Travis Almand put together a helpful guide. It covers Firefox and Chrome and examines various commands that can be used in the browser’s console output or with JavaScript. A handy summary.
(cm, vf, ra, il)
Website Design & SEO Delray Beach by DBL07.co
Delray Beach SEO
source http://www.scpie.org/stay-calm-and-read-smashing/
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Text
Stay Calm And Read Smashing
About The Author
Juggling between three languages on a daily basis, Iris is known for her love of linguistics, arts, web design and typography, as well as her goldmine of …
More about
Iris
…
It’s that time of the month! Join us as we share the latest news and highlight the things we’ve been working on and have also enjoyed reading over the past month.
It’s nice to have an overview of the most important things in one place, but do feel free to follow us on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and subscribe to our RSS feed as well as our bi-weekly newsletter. We like helping you stay on top of things and making life at least just a little bit easier!
For all the times we asked folks about Smashing, most still seem to believe that we’re some sort of large publishing company situated somewhere in the United States — both of which are wrong. It all started in Freiburg, Germany, and the team consists of folks scattered all over the world — with most of us not working fulltime for Smashing.
That’s right, working remotely is quite familiar to us, and so with the current situation going on with COVID-19 that is making everyone uneasy, we’d like to make the best of things and help our friends who are having to work or lead teams remotely for the first time. Our editor-in-chief, Rachel Andrew, has prepared a nice post to help you stay connected and keep learning while we go through this together.
You may have already heard that SmashingConf SF has been postponed to November due to the unfortunate travel restrictions and many other reasons. It was truly a difficult decision for the team to make, but we believe it is the best way forward — safety and health always come first.
Without further ado, here’s a short update of things going on at Smashing and some super creative work shared from and to the community!
Happy reading — from my computer to yours!
Designing With Ethics In Mind
After months of hard work, the “The Ethical Design Handbook” is finally here — and it’s shipping! The response has already been overwhelmingly positive, and we’re excited to share reviews with you soon. There is still quite a bit of work to do on the web, but our hope is that with this book, you will be equipped with enough tooling to slowly move a company towards a more sustainable and healthy digital footprint!
Of course, you can jump to the table of contents right away, or download a free PDF excerpt to get a first impression of the book — we’re sure you won’t be disappointed! Read our official release post with all the details →
Always Learning New Things From One Another
We all have busy schedules, but there’s always time to pop in those earplugs and listen to some music or podcasts that make you happy! We’re moving on to our 12th episode of the Smashing Podcast — with folks from different backgrounds and so much to share! You’re always welcome to tune in and share your questions and thoughts with us anytime!
Apart from the heart-breaking news about our postponed SmashingConf SF, our SmashingConfs are known to be friendly, inclusive events where front-end developers and designers come together to attend live sessions and hands-on workshops. From live designing to live debugging, all of our speakers like to go into detail and show useful examples from their own projects on the big screen.
Here are some talks you may like to watch and learn from:
The first SmashingConf took place in Freiburg back in 2012, so there are so many more talks you can watch. See all SmashingConf videos →
Shining The Spotlight On React, Redux And Electron
Mark your calendars! Next week on March 19, we’ll be hosting a Smashing TV webinar with Cassidy Williams who’ll be explaining how to organize a modern React application and build an Electron application (with React). Join us at 17:00 London time — we’d love to hear your thoughts and experiences you’ve had with React in your projects!
Smashing TV is a series of webinars and live streams packed with practical tips for designers and developers. They’re not just talks, but more like conversations and “here-is-how-I-work”-sessions. Smashing Members can download recordings, and also receive discounts and lots of goodies to make their membership worthwhile. Tell me more →
Trending Topics On SmashingMag
We publish a new article every day on various topics that are current in the web industry. Here are some that our readers seemed to enjoy the most and have recommended further:
“Why Are We Talking About CSS4?”
by Rachel Andrew
Around the web and within the CSS Working Group, there has been some discussion about whether we should specify a version of CSS — perhaps naming it CSS4. In this article, Rachel Andrew rounds up some of the pros and cons of doing so, and asks for your feedback on the suggestion.
“Setting Height And Width On Images Is Important Again”
by Barry Pollard
Thanks to some recent changes in browsers, it’s now well worth setting width and height attributes on your images to prevent layout shifts and improve the experience of your site visitors.
“Setting Up Tailwind CSS In A React Project”
by Blessing Krofegha
This article introduces Tailwind CSS, a CSS library that gives you all of the building blocks you need to build bespoke designs without opinionated styles. You’ll also learn how to seamlessly set up Tailwind CSS in a React project.
“Introducing Alpine.js: A Tiny JavaScript Framework”
by Phil Smith
Ever built a website and reached for jQuery, Bootstrap, Vue.js or React to acheive some basic user interaction? Alpine.js is a fraction of the size of these frameworks because it involves no build steps and provides all of the tools you need to build a basic user interface.
“How To Design Mobile Apps For One-Hand Usage”
by Maitrik Kataria
90% of the smartphones sold today have >5-inch displays. Bigger screen real estate presents newer challenges and opportunities for app makers and designers. Let’s look at how designing apps for one-handed usage can solve those challenges.
Best Picks From Our Newsletter
We’ll be honest: Every second week, we struggle with keeping the Smashing Newsletter issues at a moderate length — there are just so many talented folks out there working on brilliant projects! So, without wanting to make this monthly update too long either, we’re shining the spotlight on the following projects:
P.S.: A huge thank you to Cosima Mielke for writing and preparing these posts!
Find And Fix Errors In Your Designs
We all know those moments when we are so immersed in a project that we lose the distance we need to be able to catch little inconsistencies: an incorrect border-radius around an image or missing styles or text, for example. If you’re designing in Figma, the free and open-source plugin Design Lint makes finding and fixing errors like these easy so that no bug makes it into production.
A free and open-source plugin for Figma built to help you find and fix errors in your designs.: Design Lint.
Design Lint checks for missing text, fill, stroke, and effects styles, and catches incorrect border-radius values on all your layers. To not interrupt your workflow, the plugin automatically updates as you fix errors. The repo is available on GitHub, so feel free to write specific rules to tailor the plugin to your needs.
Learn CSS Positioning With… Cats!
Could there be a better way to learn CSS positioning as with a bunch of friendly cats? That’s probably what Ahmad Shadeed thought, too, when he created his interactive guide to how CSS positioning works.
Meow! Ahmad Shadeed has prepared a great guide for you to learn everything about CSS positioning!
The guide teaches you to use CSS to position three cartoon cats and their blanket inside a box, and once you’ve grasped the concept, you can start tinkering with the interactive demo that visualizes how the result changes as you edit the values. Now who said learning can’t be fun?
Intimacy, An Interactive Short Poem
An inspiring experiment comes from the French graphic and interaction design student Thibaud Giffon: “Intimacy”. The interactive short poem uses abstract images, sound, and text to explore intimacy from different angles.
The “Mixed Up” musical poem is brought to life (sound ON) by just moving your cursor across the cords. Try it out!
Compassion, distance, confusion, touch — these are four of the eight chapters that make up the poem; and each one of them reflects the topic in its own, unique way: with warm and harmonious waves or circles that melt into each other but also with dissonant strings or colorful bubbles that burst as they make space for themselves. Beautiful!
All Your SVG Icons In One Place
Having one central place to organize all your assets is always a good thing, not only for teams — to keep track of what you have and to quickly find what you’re looking for. The free cross-platform app Iconset is such a place: it helps you collect, customize, share, and manage all your SVG icon sets.
Organizing SVG icons all in one place with Iconset.
To make it easier to find the icon you’re looking for, you can organize your icons in sets or with tags, and, once you’ve found the icon you need, you can drag it directly into your favorite tool. A real timesaver. Iconset supports cloud services like Dropbox or OneDrive so that all your icons are always in sync between team members. The app is available for Mac and Windows.
An Ancient Hero’s WebGL Adventure
A reluctant hero on a quest he never asked for — that’s the story behind the browser-based adventure video game Heraclos. Set in ancient Greece, the young Heraclos stumbles across an amphora that belongs to one of the gods. He is declared to be the chosen one and gets sent off to climb the secret mountain and return the amphora to his owner.
Heraclos, an adventure video game made in WebGL.
What makes the game so noteworthy is the fun twist in the interaction between the hero and the god (a parody of common heroic stories) but also the technical background: Heraclos was designed in only three months by a group of students at the Gobelins school of images in Paris — with WebGL and Cannon.js. A great example of what’s possible on the web.
An Open-Source Screen Recorder Built With Web Technology
Have you heard of Kap, yet? The open-source screen recorder is one that is definitely worth checking out if you’re frequently doing screen recordings.
Kap, an open-source screen recorder built with web technology.
Built with web technologies, Kap produces high-quality recordings in GIF, MP4, WebM, or APNG formats. You can include audio (even from your microphone), highlight clicks, and trim the recordings. As a bonus goodie, there are also options to share your recorded GIFs on Giphy, deploy them with ZEIT now, or upload them to Streamable. Perfect for technical demos.
Open Peeps, A Free Hand-Drawn Illustration Library
584,688 possible combinations. That’s the number of different characters you could create with Pablo Stanley’s hand-drawn illustration library Open Peeps.
“Open Peeps,” a hand-drawn illustration library created by Pablo Stanley.
Open Peeps lets you mix and match different vector elements to create diverse personalities: combine clothing and hairstyles, change emotion with facial expressions, set the scene with different poses — the possibilities are sheer endless. And if you’re in a hurry, Pablo also prepared some ready-to-download Peeps that you can use right away. Open Peeps is released under a CC0 license, so you are free to use the illustrations in both personal and commercial projects. A great way to add a handmade touch to your design.
How To Make Inputs More Accessible
In 2019, WebAim analyzed the accessibility of the top one million websites, with a shocking conclusion: the percentage of error-free pages was estimated to be under one percent. To make our sites inclusive and usable for people who rely on assistive technology, we need to get the basics of semantic HTML right. With its credo of starting small, sharing, and working together, Oscar Braunert’s article on inclusive inputs is a great starting point to do so.
Starting off with the basics of WAI, ARIA, and WCAG, the article explores how to make inputs more accessible. The tips can be implemented without changing the user interface, and, as Oscar puts it: “If in doubt, just do it. Nobody will notice. Except some of your users. And they will thank you for it.”
An Open-Source Font For Developers
High readability, quick text scanning, no distraction — these are just some of the demands developers have on a typeface. Well, the free and open-source typeface JetBrains Mono meets all of them beautifully.
JetBrains Mono’s typeface forms are simple and free from unnecessary details. Rendered in small sizes, the text looks crisper.
To do so, Jet Brains Mono takes advantage of some small but mighty details: Compared to other monospace fonts, the height of JetBrains Mono is increased while the characters remain standard in width to keep code lines to the length developers expect. To improve readability even further, 138 code-specific ligatures reduce noise so that your eyes need to process less and whitespace becomes more balanced. Clever! JetBrains Mono comes in four weights and supports 145 languages.
The Ultimate Guide To iframes
With a lot of articles advising against them, iframes don’t have the best reputation. JavaScript developer Nada Rifki sees things differently: She suggests not to let their reputation prevent you from relying on iframes. After all, they have many legitimate use cases.
The ultimate guide to iframes written by Nada Rifki.
To help you form your own opinion on this controversial element, Nada wrote an ultimate guide to iframes which explores iframe features and how to use them; tricky situations where iframes might come in handy; last but not least, how you can secure your iframe against potential vulnerabilities. A great opportunity to see things from a different perspective.
A Guide To Console Commands
The capabilities of the developer’s debugging console have evolved significantly in the past years — from a means to report errors to automatically logging information like network requests and security errors or warnings. There’s also a way for a website’s JavaScript to trigger various commands that output to the console for debugging purposes. And while these features are mostly consistent between browsers, there are also some functional differences.
“A Guide to Console Commands” by Travis Almand
If you’re looking for an overview of what console commands are capable of, Travis Almand put together a helpful guide. It covers Firefox and Chrome and examines various commands that can be used in the browser’s console output or with JavaScript. A handy summary.
(cm, vf, ra, il)
Website Design & SEO Delray Beach by DBL07.co
Delray Beach SEO
source http://www.scpie.org/stay-calm-and-read-smashing/
source https://scpie1.blogspot.com/2020/03/stay-calm-and-read-smashing.html
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Text
The complete guide to Instagram listening
Is your brand keeping an ear to the ground through Instagram listening?
Because there’s arguably no busier place than Instagram right now when it comes to customers sounding off.
Listen: Instagram isn’t just a place to post snapshots anymore. From shout-outs and questions to customer complaints and concerns, having a strong pulse on what your followers want is always a plus.
And Instagram’s recent, rapid growth signals the importance of social listening to make smarter business decisions.
What do your customers want and expect from your business? What are your prospects’ first opinions of your brand? How about your competition?
The answers are out there.
That is if you’re listening for them.
It’s time for a crash course in Instagram listening. Whether you’re prioritizing brand awareness, social selling or customer service, this quick guide to social listening on Instagram can help you reach your goals.
What is Instagram listening?
Instagram listening is the process of following conversations regarding topics, keywords, brands and hashtags related to your industry and using those insights from those conversations to inform your social media strategy. Beyond social media, insights from Instagram listening can be used to…
Determine your overall brand health and sentiment
Monitor the activity of your competitors
Identify potential customers, partnerships and influencers
Influence marketing and product decisions
Uncover industry trends and happenings
Brands can’t afford to live in a bubble when it comes to their Instagram presence. Through social listening, brands can better understand everything from big-picture industry insights to how to better serve individual customers. Instagram listening helps put interactions such as mentions, comments in shares into a context that helps brands grow.
Why Instagram listening matters so much
Instagram is a strange beast as far as customer interactions go. Not only do you have traditional customer service concerns to respond to, but also user-generated content and industry hashtags to keep an eye on.
Let’s look at a shining example of how social listening on Instagram can help you connect with customers. Brands such as TOMS manage to illustrate both the challenges and need for Instagram listening.
How so? TOMS’ current #endgunviolencetogether campaign is a prime example of brands getting real. Some brands might rightfully second-guess such a bold approach to activism, but TOMS tackles the issue head-on. Doing so has resulted in an overwhelmingly positive response from customers, but you better believe the brand carefully listened to their base before rolling the campaign out.
Meanwhile, TOMS continues to use their Instagram to respond to customer questions and concerns. As Instagram continues to boom, its status as a customer service hub will grow against the likes of Twitter and Facebook. TOMS takes stock of what customers want to see from their products in addition to individual concerns.
TOMS also has hundreds of thousands of users creating user-generated content on Instagram. In addition to activism and customer service, they’re likely keeping a close eye on which of their products are most popular among their base.
Remember: Instagram listening is about more than @mentions, comments and #hashtags
Just as it’s important to understanding what Instagram listening is, it’s arguably just as important to break down what Instagram listening isn’t.
Specifically, don’t mistake Instagram listening with Instagram monitoring.
What’s the difference? Simply put, social media monitoring is the act of tracking @mentions, comments and hashtags. This is obviously something that brands should do and monitoring is a crucial aspect of listening.
But while these interactions matter, they aren’t the be-all, end-all of the conversations happening on social media surrounding your brand.
For example, consider that not every mention of your business on Instagram involves a tag. More robust monitoring through tools such as Sprout can help you pick up on such conversations to understand what customers are saying beyond your mentions.
Similarly, think of all the other conversations and hashtags in your industry that might miss if you’re just looking for mentions of your brand name or campaign key terms. With in-depth hashtag analytics, brands can see which tags get people talking and which tags can likewise help them expand their reach.
Through Instagram social listening, brands actually take the feedback from the aforementioned conversations and data points on Instagram and translate them into action.
How does Instagram listening work, though?
Good question!
Instagram listening involves creating queries based on your business, location, hashtags and keywords relevant to your business. Sprout’s social media listening features help do the legwork by aggregating those specific conversations.
Looking for love? Complaints? Want to know what your competitors are up to? Sprout can clue you in.
In addition, brands can create their own listening queries for Instagram using boolean syntax and rules logic.
Non-technical translation? You can dig deeper into customer conversations without having to search by hand again and again.
Social listening likewise goes hand in hand with sentiment analysis. In other words, how are folks reacting to your brand on Instagram? Whether it’s “yay,” “nay” or “meh,” sentiment analysis can directly inform what you need to do to better serve customers and score more love from your Instagram followers.
Coming up with an Instagram listening strategy
Of course, understanding Instagram listening and how it works is only half the battle.
How the heck do you turn all of these metrics and observations into action?
Your social listening strategy ultimately boils down to your goals. Below is a snapshot of how brands of all shapes and sizes can use Instagram listening to influence their marketing campaigns.
Conducting competitive analysis
Perhaps one of the best uses of social listening is competitive analysis.
Consider ultra-competitive markets such as the beauty industry where new products are constantly popping up from brand to brand. Listening to tags and popular posts from other businesses in your space can help you better position yourself in the face of stiff competition.
Improving your products
If you want to know how to improve your own products and services, who better to ask than your own customers?
However, not all feedback from your followers is going to be direct. Although some might see likes, comments and shares as mere vanity metrics, they can be a valuable currency for determining what your customers want to see.
Identifying potential customers
Social listening isn’t just about the customers you have: it’s about discovering new ones, too.
Industry and community-specific hashtags are a goldmine for finding folks who might be interested in your product. This rings true for people who don’t know about you yet or might be looking for a new spot in your space.
Let’s say you’re a local restaurant in search of potential patrons and foodies in your area. Instagram is a treasure trove of potential exposure and insight regarding what prospective customers want.
Discover industry trends
Social listening is invaluable for tracking industry trends. In addition to knowing the tags your audience follows, it’s smart to understand how they’re responding to such trends to influence your own marketing campaigns.
Inform your content strategy
On a related note, Instagram listening can keep you from copycatting your competition.
For example, brands need to differentiate their tone, content calendar and captions if they want to realistically stand out on Instagram. Effective listening can help you uncover tags and trends that your competitors might be missing out on and how you can fill the void.
Monitor your customer sentiment
Let’s say you’ve launched a new product or campaign.
You obviously want to know how your audience feels about it, right? Is it building buzz?
Again, you may not always get those answers from direct mentions, but chances are there are users out there who can provide a concrete answer. Here’s a great example from the #beersnob tag:
What Instagram listening tools are available?
Let’s say you want to go all-in on Instagram listening.
While basic brand listening is possible through native searches on Instagram, to say that doing so manually would be tedious is a major understatement.
After all, brands need to be able to track multiple tags and competitors in addition to their own mentions. Given the sheer amount of content posted to Instagram daily, sifting through it all is no small feat.
With the help of an actual Instagram listening tool, however, digging into industry conversations on Instagram is a cinch.
Again, Sprout’s robust suite of social listening features is a game-changer for brands looking to step up their Instagram presence. Businesses can track dozens of queries beyond simple hashtags with the help of our query builder. Doing so ensures that you have a holistic understanding of your brand and industry.
Additionally, reporting and analytics provide a comprehensive view of your listening so you can make data-driven decisions. Second-guessing a campaign or your next move on Instagram? Look no further than your numbers for peace of mind.
And with that, we wrap up our guide!
Is your brand on board with Instagram social listening?
Social listening is undoubtedly one of the most important trends for social-savvy brands to watch in 2019.
And given the current rocket strapped to Instagram, the platform should be a top priority as far as listening goes.
Rather than let those critical conversations and moments with your audience fall by the wayside, smarter Instagram listening can inform everything from individual campaigns to your overall marketing strategy.
We want to hear from you, though. How are you handling social listening on Instagram? Do you feel like you have a strong pulse on the platform? Let us know in the comments below!
This post The complete guide to Instagram listening originally appeared on Sprout Social.
from http://bit.ly/2BSOxw5
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The complete guide to Instagram listening
Is your brand keeping an ear to the ground through Instagram listening?
Because there’s arguably no busier place than Instagram right now when it comes to customers sounding off.
Listen: Instagram isn’t just a place to post snapshots anymore. From shout-outs and questions to customer complaints and concerns, having a strong pulse on what your followers want is always a plus.
And Instagram’s recent, rapid growth signals the importance of social listening to make smarter business decisions.
What do your customers want and expect from your business? What are your prospects’ first opinions of your brand? How about your competition?
The answers are out there.
That is if you’re listening for them.
It’s time for a crash course in Instagram listening. Whether you’re prioritizing brand awareness, social selling or customer service, this quick guide to social listening on Instagram can help you reach your goals.
What is Instagram listening?
Instagram listening is the process of following conversations regarding topics, keywords, brands and hashtags related to your industry and using those insights from those conversations to inform your social media strategy. Beyond social media, insights from Instagram listening can be used to…
Determine your overall brand health and sentiment
Monitor the activity of your competitors
Identify potential customers, partnerships and influencers
Influence marketing and product decisions
Uncover industry trends and happenings
Brands can’t afford to live in a bubble when it comes to their Instagram presence. Through social listening, brands can better understand everything from big-picture industry insights to how to better serve individual customers. Instagram listening helps put interactions such as mentions, comments in shares into a context that helps brands grow.
Why Instagram listening matters so much
Instagram is a strange beast as far as customer interactions go. Not only do you have traditional customer service concerns to respond to, but also user-generated content and industry hashtags to keep an eye on.
Let’s look at a shining example of how social listening on Instagram can help you connect with customers. Brands such as TOMS manage to illustrate both the challenges and need for Instagram listening.
How so? TOMS’ current #endgunviolencetogether campaign is a prime example of brands getting real. Some brands might rightfully second-guess such a bold approach to activism, but TOMS tackles the issue head-on. Doing so has resulted in an overwhelmingly positive response from customers, but you better believe the brand carefully listened to their base before rolling the campaign out.
Meanwhile, TOMS continues to use their Instagram to respond to customer questions and concerns. As Instagram continues to boom, its status as a customer service hub will grow against the likes of Twitter and Facebook. TOMS takes stock of what customers want to see from their products in addition to individual concerns.
TOMS also has hundreds of thousands of users creating user-generated content on Instagram. In addition to activism and customer service, they’re likely keeping a close eye on which of their products are most popular among their base.
Remember: Instagram listening is about more than @mentions, comments and #hashtags
Just as it’s important to understanding what Instagram listening is, it’s arguably just as important to break down what Instagram listening isn’t.
Specifically, don’t mistake Instagram listening with Instagram monitoring.
What’s the difference? Simply put, social media monitoring is the act of tracking @mentions, comments and hashtags. This is obviously something that brands should do and monitoring is a crucial aspect of listening.
But while these interactions matter, they aren’t the be-all, end-all of the conversations happening on social media surrounding your brand.
For example, consider that not every mention of your business on Instagram involves a tag. More robust monitoring through tools such as Sprout can help you pick up on such conversations to understand what customers are saying beyond your mentions.
Similarly, think of all the other conversations and hashtags in your industry that might miss if you’re just looking for mentions of your brand name or campaign key terms. With in-depth hashtag analytics, brands can see which tags get people talking and which tags can likewise help them expand their reach.
Through Instagram social listening, brands actually take the feedback from the aforementioned conversations and data points on Instagram and translate them into action.
How does Instagram listening work, though?
Good question!
Instagram listening involves creating queries based on your business, location, hashtags and keywords relevant to your business. Sprout’s social media listening features help do the legwork by aggregating those specific conversations.
Looking for love? Complaints? Want to know what your competitors are up to? Sprout can clue you in.
In addition, brands can create their own listening queries for Instagram using boolean syntax and rules logic.
Non-technical translation? You can dig deeper into customer conversations without having to search by hand again and again.
Social listening likewise goes hand in hand with sentiment analysis. In other words, how are folks reacting to your brand on Instagram? Whether it’s “yay,” “nay” or “meh,” sentiment analysis can directly inform what you need to do to better serve customers and score more love from your Instagram followers.
Coming up with an Instagram listening strategy
Of course, understanding Instagram listening and how it works is only half the battle.
How the heck do you turn all of these metrics and observations into action?
Your social listening strategy ultimately boils down to your goals. Below is a snapshot of how brands of all shapes and sizes can use Instagram listening to influence their marketing campaigns.
Conducting competitive analysis
Perhaps one of the best uses of social listening is competitive analysis.
Consider ultra-competitive markets such as the beauty industry where new products are constantly popping up from brand to brand. Listening to tags and popular posts from other businesses in your space can help you better position yourself in the face of stiff competition.
Improving your products
If you want to know how to improve your own products and services, who better to ask than your own customers?
However, not all feedback from your followers is going to be direct. Although some might see likes, comments and shares as mere vanity metrics, they can be a valuable currency for determining what your customers want to see.
Identifying potential customers
Social listening isn’t just about the customers you have: it’s about discovering new ones, too.
Industry and community-specific hashtags are a goldmine for finding folks who might be interested in your product. This rings true for people who don’t know about you yet or might be looking for a new spot in your space.
Let’s say you’re a local restaurant in search of potential patrons and foodies in your area. Instagram is a treasure trove of potential exposure and insight regarding what prospective customers want.
Discover industry trends
Social listening is invaluable for tracking industry trends. In addition to knowing the tags your audience follows, it’s smart to understand how they’re responding to such trends to influence your own marketing campaigns.
Inform your content strategy
On a related note, Instagram listening can keep you from copycatting your competition.
For example, brands need to differentiate their tone, content calendar and captions if they want to realistically stand out on Instagram. Effective listening can help you uncover tags and trends that your competitors might be missing out on and how you can fill the void.
Monitor your customer sentiment
Let’s say you’ve launched a new product or campaign.
You obviously want to know how your audience feels about it, right? Is it building buzz?
Again, you may not always get those answers from direct mentions, but chances are there are users out there who can provide a concrete answer. Here’s a great example from the #beersnob tag:
What Instagram listening tools are available?
Let’s say you want to go all-in on Instagram listening.
While basic brand listening is possible through native searches on Instagram, to say that doing so manually would be tedious is a major understatement.
After all, brands need to be able to track multiple tags and competitors in addition to their own mentions. Given the sheer amount of content posted to Instagram daily, sifting through it all is no small feat.
With the help of an actual Instagram listening tool, however, digging into industry conversations on Instagram is a cinch.
Again, Sprout’s robust suite of social listening features is a game-changer for brands looking to step up their Instagram presence. Businesses can track dozens of queries beyond simple hashtags with the help of our query builder. Doing so ensures that you have a holistic understanding of your brand and industry.
Additionally, reporting and analytics provide a comprehensive view of your listening so you can make data-driven decisions. Second-guessing a campaign or your next move on Instagram? Look no further than your numbers for peace of mind.
And with that, we wrap up our guide!
Is your brand on board with Instagram social listening?
Social listening is undoubtedly one of the most important trends for social-savvy brands to watch in 2019.
And given the current rocket strapped to Instagram, the platform should be a top priority as far as listening goes.
Rather than let those critical conversations and moments with your audience fall by the wayside, smarter Instagram listening can inform everything from individual campaigns to your overall marketing strategy.
We want to hear from you, though. How are you handling social listening on Instagram? Do you feel like you have a strong pulse on the platform? Let us know in the comments below!
This post The complete guide to Instagram listening originally appeared on Sprout Social.
from SM Tips By Minnie https://sproutsocial.com/insights/instagram-listening/
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