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laughing-with-god · 5 years

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BTS Reaction #4- Love At First Sight

HOSEOK- “I’ll be out in a second!” You called out to the front of the shop as you heard the bell ring that told you a new costumer just entered.

You eyed the pot in front of you and nodded to yourself. It looked like enough soil, so you smiled and took off your gardening gloves. You headed to the front counter, where a smaller yet older lady stood by, eyeing the place with a secretive grin on her face.

“How may I help you ma’am?” You asked politely. She smiled at you and gestured to all the flowers by the huge bay window.

“Do you offer flower delivery?” She asked.

“Of course. Most of our flowers are delivered with a note though. Do you have one with you?” You told her.

“Well, my son’s birthday is next week and I have the card. I just don’t know what kind of flowers I should send with it.” She hummed thoughtfully as she gazed around the shop.

“Roses seem to be a costumer favorite, however poppies are in season and we have a few out back.” You answered blandly. Your boss was always telling you to push the roses and poppies, since they were the most expensive. Personally, you thought they were over-rated.

“Hmm...what do you think?”

“If you don’t mind me suggesting, I would think our white and yellow daisy bouquet would be nice. White is for purity and innocent love, while the yellow stands for luck and good health.” You advised her carefully while eyeing the flowers.

She seemed to think about this for a bit, before nodding and handing you a birthday card.

“So how much will that be?”

.....

It has been four days since the lady came in for the bouquet of flowers for her son. Today was the day that the flowers would be delivered and you quietly made sure the arrangement was in order, cutting off any last minute thorns.

“Hey, (y/n)!” You boss yelled out from his office. You stalked forward ended up at his doorway.

“Yes Sir?”

“The delivery man just broke his ankle. I’m going to need you to due all the deliveries today.” You let out a deep sigh as you noticed the weather outside get gloomier and gloomier.

“Okay sir.”

....

You ended up in front of a factory like place. The address you got lead you here and you wondered if this son worked as a factory worker. You hurriedly skipped to the entrance as you felt rain began to trickle down from the sky.

The factory was empty and instead filled with many people running around with lights, cameras, makeup and outfits. Suddenly, a lady holding seven cups of coffee bumped into you.

“Um, excuse me, where can I find a Hoseok?” You asked.

“He should be done with his photo shoot right about now.” She gestured over to a corner of the factory that held a table with food. Photo shoot? You followed her direction and saw a tall man standing by it, stuffing a rice cake into his mouth. You guesses this was Hoseok, as there was no one else there.

“Umm...Happy Birthday?”

He turned around and looked at you with wide and glossy eyes. In shock of you, his jaw dropped as a rice cake fell from his mouth.

Years later, Hoseok would swear to god he thought an angel was delivering him flowers that day.

JIMIN- You huffed loudly, annoyed. You weren’t sure why you signed up for this. Sure you loved makeup and trained hard to get where you have gotten. However, you were more into special effects or maybe even some avant-garde makeup for model art. Never before would you have thought that you would be doing some arragont kpop idol’s makeup. Plus the job wasn’t challenging at all, pop on some eyeliner, smokey eye, TONS of BB cream, highlighter and sometimes blush. Nothing too crazy. However bills needed to be paid and you were told a makeup artist working for a certain popular kpop group all of a sudden got really sick, so they put you to work immediately. You showed up to the backstage of some music show, where a stylist informed you of the concept and implied certain aspects that should be brought out on your idol’s face. You were taken to your vanity and was left with the promise of a man named ‘Jimin’ arriving shortly.

You quietly sorted out your own makeup along with some of the supplies that was previously laid out for your use. Silently, you prayed that this Jimin guy wasn’t rude or a high class diva. Yet, as usual your logical side took over and you began to ponder.

This group is supposedly VERY popular, you’re at a very famous music show and from the looks of it; this backstage dressing room that this group got was very nice and filled with attentive staff members all rushing to do something.

You sighed.

This guy was probably one of the most well-known idols in Korea. And fame is very hard not to get to your head. You mentally prepared yourself for a Diva...or divo, rather.

Suddenly, you felt movement beside you and you realised someone had sat in the seat. You slapped a brave face on and took out the primer and a foundation brush, you were still looked down and you wanted a quick peek of who this guy was sat down and ready for your appliance, while reaching over for a blender your eyes gazed up so you can see this mans face through the mirror.

He was already looking at you through the mirror’s reflection. Staring rather...

His puffy eyelids and under-eyes practically smothered his own eyeballs, however you could tell that he was -without a doubt- staring at you. You realised he may not be informed of why you (someone he’s never seen before) are now doing his makeup so you smiled, bowed and introduced yourself before continuing.

“Hello, I’m (y/n) and I’ll be doing your makeup until your artist gets back. Please take care of me.”

His seemingly stunned face was now curled up in a cute, childish grin. You watched very amazed as his shoulers shrugged up to look smaller, his eyes completely dissapear behind the aeygo bags and and a gummy smile took over, revealing some pearly whites that a colgate commercial would be glad to have. You kinda wanted to squeal but got ahold of yourself since you had to be proffesional.

“So your my new makeup artist?” Suprisingly a thick and raspy voice came out of his pouty lips that held a strong busan accent. You shook your head and reminded him that you said you were just here until the other one got back. To which his smile dropped to a cute pout and his whole face scrunched up in what you can only describe as determination. While you began your first steps of his face, you would’ve sworn you heard him mumble; “We’ll see about that.”

At the end of the day, a representative from Bighit called and offered you a permanent position as Jimin’s makeup artist. You attempted to decline, but they seemed oddly persistent that you take the offer...

(gif is when you tell him you aren’t his new makeup artist)

TAEHYUNG-You were a huge fan of BTS. And like most Army, you found yourself growing a soft spot for one particular member. Yours’ was Taehyung. You just saw alot of yourself in him. Both of you are really weird and quirky but funny and caring people notheless. Sometimes misunderstood but more intillegent than what people gave you credit for. You loved the alien boy because you were an alien yourself.

You were so over-flowing with love that you decided to make a fan-account/blog for him. You gained hundreds of followers because they loved how funny and unique you are, you also were really friendly and decided to chat with other fans openly on there. You excitedly annouced that you were going to a bts fanmeet in your city, to which your followers all liked and commented how jealous they were and how lucky you were. Some demanded you take pictures and video, which obviously you were gonna.

You got an ask notification the night before the event. It read, ‘OMG (y/n) I’m so happy you get to see them in person. I hope that taehyung recongizes you. Lol, wouldn’t it be funny if he jumped up after you tell him that your followers also call you alien and yell “THERE YOU ARE, MY LONG-LOST ALIEN SOULMATE! Which planet are you from?!” Anyway good luck tommorow~’

You laughed while reading this and typed back a sassy but odd reply before going to bed.

The next day you arrived at the fan meeting and although you were extremely nervous, a weird sense of calm hit you when you were about to go up to the table. You said hello to the first members, letting them know how wonderful they are and how much their music meant to you when suddenly you were face to face with your bias.

“Hey Tae oppa. You’re my favorite member and idea type and I just want you to know that I understand your antics very well given I’m labeled as weird too by some people.”

He looked up from signing your abulm but stopped in his tracts when he made eye contact.

“What’s your name?” He said, oddly still and not at all like the goof ball persona he had on when meeting other fans. You got scared for a second. Had you offended him or something?

“Y/n” you had said. He nodded in thought for a moment before continuing his signature and asking you some weird questions. Like how many kids you wanted or would you rather stay in or go out for a date. Before long you were shooed onto the next member, not before receiving a long and thoughtful stare from your bias.

At the end of day you were still thinking about the strange encounter you had with the man. You wondered if there was something about you that caused him to act more reserved or if he was just having a bad day? You thought about posting your experience to your followers to gain some insight but then thought against it. After all, idols are human too and the last thing you would want is to stir him up into a controversy.

You received a private message from your blog and when you went to open it, you were left confused.

‘I’m from Saturn. How about you? Love the blog btw, you weren’t kidding when you said you were odd too’

What followed after that was a selfie of Taehyung that you knew for sure was not recycled from the internet. Meaning he had to have taken that as he was speaking to you. He was even wearing the same outfit he had on during the fan signing.

He found your blog and was set on making your ‘alien couple’ fantasy into a reality.

JUNGKOOK- Being a college student was really hard. Constant stress and lack of funds caused you to suffer some mild anxiety. Like right now for example. You were currently looking at the list of books you’d need for the upcoming semester when your heart stopped beating from sheer shock. How in the devil’s butthole were you gonna find a way to pay for this?

“You know, I know a local bookstore that has a lot of university books for like a third of the price if your interested. You won’t have to pay like hundreds of dollars.” Your friend told you, trying to calm you down from the sheer panic attack that was about to hit you. She wrote down the address and told you to find it. With that, you bounced to find yourself some cheap books that won’t cost as much as a couple months’ worth of rent.

You found the shop and found the things you were needing. All except one. You just had one more book to buy but unluckily for you, it was super hard to find. You skimmed the shelves of this cute little shop, humming to the music they were playing in the background.

And then there it was.

The book you were in desperate need for in order to understand your class and pass.

But....it was in the hands of another.

A very good looking guy whom wore a white shirt, beanie and some timbs. You recognized him, given that many students at your school were fans of him and his group. But in this moment did you care at all that he was famous???

No.

If anything it made you more vengeful.

You were barely able to pay for food, and an idol who has everything at his finger tips was gonna steal a deal from you? Yeah, you were gonna let that happen.

“Yah! I need that book! You see unlike you, I am a broke student who REALLy needs that discounted book for a class! As an idol, I’m sure you could afford to buy it at full price!” You screeched in his face.

He looked up and was about to retort when he went silent and his big doe eyes got a glossy look. You continued to rant, somewhat blowing off steam on this innocent guy but little did you know, he wasn’t hearing a word. Lost in space (more like your face), all he could hear was the distant sound of wedding bells and angels singing. It was hard to see who was more insane in this scenario, the person who freaked out at a stranger for grabbing the book you wanted due to panicked stress and possibly the beginnings of a mental breakdown. Or the guy who sat there, let himself get berated bc he was too focused on planning his future wedding with this seemingly crazy person.

(Later he did buy you the book, after you swore to go to dinner with him.)

(GIF of him just staring at how gorgeous you are)

#bts reactions #jungkook #taehyung #bts #hoseok #jimin #loveatfirstsight #bts fluff #kpop #bangtan boys #love #namjoon #yoongi #jin #suga #rapmonster

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sky-fortress · 5 years

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oc masterpost

uhh so with the oc question thing i reposted i realized i’ve never actually made a masterpost of my characters, so here it is! it’s going to be a long one, so everything of importance is under the keep reading.

each character will have their own little info blurb (length depends on how developed they are and how much i have to say about them)

this post will also be linked in the bio of this blog and on my art blog (( @sazand0ra )) so if i reblog an oc question post and you want to ask something, you can just pop back and look! ❤

PKMN TRAINERS

Phika “Phoenix” Artemovich

Phika is an Interpol agent, rank Superintendent, who lives in Jubilife City. She started on her Pokémon journey around Sinnoh when she was 10, traveling for about six-seven years and visiting Johto and Kanto in the process. She joined Interpol when she was 17 and has been working there for 12 years (she’s 29 as of right now).

She’s not the most mentally strong (she cries very easily), as work leaves her stressed and sleep-deprived, though she always tries to perform her best. On top of that, she also believes that she was cursed by Darkrai when she was 19 -- though she doesn’t dare let anyone in Sinnoh know because of how superstitious people are. Phika is very kind and gentle, earning her the codename “Agent Mother,” and is very protective of her friends, family, and Pokémon.

PKMN Team: Infernape (starter), Luxray, Gengar, Milotic, Togekiss, Steelix

Bella Émilie

Bella is a Pokémon trainer from Courmarine City in the Kalos region. She ran away from home at age 14 after receiving a Froakie from Professor Sycamore (he made a special visit to Courmarine City to talk to her about being a trainer w/o her mom’s knowledge). As a result, Bella is fiercely independent and almost unbearably stubborn -- she’s also carrying along quite the superiority complex with her, hiding deep-seated feelings of inferiority with a cold and aggressive exterior.

She ended up taking on Team Flare as per the plot of X/Y, though she never really got along with the main friend group (Calem, Shauna, Tierno, and Trevor). Her and Calem also had their own rivalry, though she never thought of it as one because of how easily she beat him down every time they battled (her superiority complex shone through whenever they interacted). However, as of now, nine years later (she’s 23), she’s mellowed out some, though those feelings of inferiority haven’t quite gone away. Bella’s also close friends with Phika and may or may not have a small crush on her (she does), though she does tend to worry about how little Phika takes care of herself.

PKMN Team: Greninja (starter), Talonflame, Sylveon, Haxorus, Lucario, Meowstic

Lyssa Ahreiz-Ridecki

Lyssa is a mechanic from Goldenrod City in the Johto region. She wasn’t really that interested in Pokémon battling when she was growing up, and preferred to spend time in her dad’s workshop, helping him to tinker with and fix machines, and go around the city with him fixing appliances and other things for people. As a result, she became a mechanic herself, establishing a name for herself in Goldenrod City and the surrounding area (her father is very proud of her for that).

However, her talent unintentionally got her caught up in organized crime. Lyssa was recruited by the Pokémon Pinchers to work as a mechanic for them, fixing their Control Gauntlets and Z. Z. Flyers. Though she wasn’t told at first everything about the devices she was fixing, Lyssa eventually figured out what was going on and tried her best to throw a wrench in the works (figuratively) whenever she could. Eventually, as the leadership of the Pinchers began to break down, she left -- and ended up getting a little more into Pokémon battling, after realizing that she might need to be able to defend herself better in the future. Right now, she’s caught up with an android named Robyn and Silph Co, but that’s still developing.

PKMN Team: Pidgeot (starter), Ambipom, Drowzee, Honchkrow

Robyn

Robyn is an android created by Silph Co. that currently resides in an apartment in Goldenrod City. Her main purpose is to spy on residents in the city and steal their info, then transmit it back to Silph Co for their own purposes. She also goes out and gambles with the money she steals from people -- while no one has figured out yet that she’s actually a robot, there are some regulars at the Game Corner who are starting to get suspicious of this short, white-haired girl who’s apparently some sort of gambling genius.

Her apartment room was discovered accidentally by Lyssa, who followed her home after seeing her in the Game Corner, and soon figured out that she was in fact, some sort of robot. She tried to mess around with Robyn’s circuitry, not knowing who made Robyn, and now has a target painted on her back by Silph Co.

PKMN Team (for defense): Porygon-Z, Meowth, Espeon

Nicky Griffin

Nicky is from a large, large, large performing family in Castelia City, Unova. She grew up playing the violin and learning to dance, taught by her grandmother and two older sisters. She’s the fourth out of eleven siblings, and has too many cousins, aunts, and uncles for her to keep straight. Because she’s not the oldest, or the youngest, or the best performer, Nicky turned to street art to try and distinguish herself -- her alias is Nee-Coletti -- and while her family doesn’t know about her “other hobby”, at least not totally, they probably wouldn’t mind (at least she hopes so). She also does a lot of street performance, playing her violin while her Pokémon dance -- something they’ll also do in battle.

She left on her journey initially to return a Pokédex that Bianca lost when she was visiting Castelia City, and went to Aspertia City, since she’d heard that’s where Bianca was heading. By the time she got to Aspertia City, Bianca had left, though she was able to get some mentoring from Cheren, and ended up getting her first Gym Badge from him. They’re still friends, and will call on the X-Tranceiver when they have the time. Nicky’s also friends with Bianca, who she met after finally returning the Pokédex -- they get along great!

PKMN Team: Lopunny (starter), Mienshao, Scrafty, Emolga, Roserade, Floatzel

Alexandra “Alex” Rye

Alex is a Pokémon Trainer from Lentimas Town in Unova and is the third oldest out of five kids (she’s the exact middle child and she’s not super happy about that). She grew up putting on puppet shows for her younger siblings and other kids in town with dolls she made herself, and eventually started making her own clothing as well. She was hurt in a landslide when she was about 13, delaying the start of her journey for a year, and now walks with a slight limp as a result.

She loves ghost and dark pokemon (her team is made up of conventionally “scary” pokemon), from time she’d spend in the Strange House outside of Lentimas Town. In fact, that’s where she met her first Pokémon, Banette, who just followed her home one day. They’ve been friends ever since. However, to other people, she’s not as nice -- Alex is perpetually bored with her life, and will usually mess with other people (stealing their things, scamming them with magic tricks, etc) with the help of her Pokémon for a little bit of excitement.

PKMN Team: Banette (starter), Mismagius, Hydreigon, Galvantula, Drapion, Zoroark

Nova Roscoe

Nova’s a coordinator from Slateport City, in the Hoenn region. She’s still a little inexperienced, since she’s young, but more than makes up for it with enthusiasm! She also loves coordinating her Pokémon’s outfits with hers when they perform -- sometimes she’ll buy plain dresses and sparkle them up a bit just for fun. (i don’t have that much for Nova,,, she’s one of my least developed characters so there’s that)

PKMN Team: Dustox (starter), Froslass, Skitty, Natu

Juno Xe

Juno is a florist who took over running her parents’ flower shop in Konikoni City. She’s not much of a fan of battling, but did take on the island challenge with her twin brother, Yarrow, at the urging of their parents -- it’s tradition, after all, so they should at least do it (they couldn’t stay in the shop forever)! For the most part, Juno’s very good with handling customers, though her phony-sweet “customer service” voice will start slipping out when she gets annoyed -- with customers or her brother.

She has a huge fear of losing people/saying goodbye after her older sister was caught in an accident involving Team Skull. Her parents never told her the entire truth of what happened (that her sister was actually part of Team Skull), though regardless, the incident left her terrified of losing people close to her. As a result, she can be unintentionally controlling and toxic -- something that Yarrow experienced first hand while he was still back at the family’s flower shop.

PKMN Team: Dartrix (starter), Stoutland, Oricorio, Espeon, Liligant, Alomamola

Yarrow Xe

Unlike his twin sister, Yarrow abandoned the family’s flower shop in favor of wandering aimlessly through the various regions in the Pokémon world. He enjoyed taking on the island challenge and relished the freedom that he was given while traveling -- making coming back to the flower shop incredibly difficult. The expectation of their parents is that the two of them would complete the island challenge and then come back to manage the shop, and while Juno was fine with that, Yarrow was completely opposed to it.

However, he was easily taken advantage of and manipulated by Juno when he tried to leave. Yarrow had (and still has) emotional trauma left over from when their sister died that he never worked through properly, or even acknowledged, leaving him emotionally unavailable and unable to express himself properly (though that last part goes back to when he was a child). He eventually broke away after the two of them had a huge fight, and never looked back -- he doesn’t even like going back to Alola, if he can help it. He’s stubbornly independent and tries his best to keep people away from him (emotionally and physically), and is a fierce competitor in battle. Yarrow’s noticeably gentler around his Pokémon, and sometimes opens up to them -- though this is only because they can’t actually say anything back to him that he would understand.

PKMN Team: Decidueye (starter), Tsareena, Umbreon, Alolan Raichu, Bewear, Komala

MYSTERY DUNGEON (they’re all gijinkas btw)

also spoilers for all of the mystery dungeon games below

Merrie (Psyduck)

Merrie is the hero of Pokémon Blue/Red Rescue Team (i’ve only ever played blue but i’d assume the two are the same) and the co-leader of Rescue Team Feathers! She’s a a bit of a glutton, and will sometimes snack on apples while she and Chica are exploring dungeons together. Because she’s a Psyduck, she’s prone to getting bad headaches, especially if she doesn’t use the move Confusion a lot in battle. She’s also incredibly clumsy and forgetful -- she sometimes forgets that she used to be a human in the first place.

Moveset: Water Gun, Scratch, Ice Beam, Confusion

Chica (Combusken)

Chica is the sidekick of B/R Rescue Team, though because of Merrie’s forgetfulness, she manages a lot of the team stuff and job requests. It was her idea to form a rescue team, though sometimes she wonders if joining forces with Merrie was such a good idea. She can come of as very brusque and guarded if you catch her at a bad time, but she is very protective of Merrie (though this usually shows through her rolling her eyes and scolding Merrie for getting into whatever trouble’s going on this time).

Moveset: Flamethrower, Attract, Brick Break, Peck

Siobhán // Soren (Charmander)

Soren is the hero of Explorers of Time/Darkness/Sky, and the co-leader of Team Chikomander. She carries around a bat with a few odds and ends stuck in it as a weapon, and is usually very quick to anger, especially if those she’s close to are threatened. For the most part, she’s sweet and helpful, and genuinely enjoys her job as a member of Wigglytuff’s Guild -- though she does argue with Chatot about the whole money thing from time to time.

The reason she has two different names is because when she was in the future, her name was Siobhán -- she also wasn’t a human, but a weird mash of Darkrai after the Dimensional Hole he was traveling in was attacked by Palkia (this video is where this whole thing comes from and since i personally really like this theory, it’s now soren’s backstory). When she arrived in the past and met Rita, she didn’t want to give her name to a complete stranger, so she said her name was Soren. This caused some confusion when Grovyle was introduced to the mix, and it was revealed that the two of them used to work together in the future.

Moveset: Flamethrower, Slash, Shadow Claw, Sunny Day

Rita (Chikorita)

Rita is the partner of EOTDS and the other co-leader of Team Chikomander. She’s a big bookworm, and likes to keep books in their bedroom at the guild (though she sometimes worries that Soren will set them on fire by accident). Her weapon of choice is a green tome that she uses to summon grass attacks -- she doesn’t really need it, but it makes her more confident in battle. Rita can be a bit of a coward sometimes, and is known for being bossy, but she does try her best as an explorer (and to keep Soren out of trouble).

Moveset: Solar Beam, Magical Leaf, Light Screen, Synthesis

Úrsula (Dewott)

Úrsula is the hero of Gates to Infinity, and the co-leader of The Hydroclaw, handling most of the jobs and other requests (her weapon of choice is a naginata). She came to the Pokémon world from Venice, Italy, though at this point she doesn’t remember much about her life in the human world. Soon after she came to the Pokémon world, she convinced Axel to go and talk to Quagsire about buying the land he wanted even though his money had been stolen a hours ago (this is all a different au where Quagsire is still part of the underground so some things are a little different). She’s stubborn and incredibly loyal to her friends, almost to a fault -- she’d do anything for them, so she can be easy to take advantage of if you get close enough to her. One of her favorite pastimes is cooking, and she’ll sometimes get up early in the morning to cook breakfast for everyone, just to show she cares. She expresses a lot of emotions through cooking and food.

Moveset: Water Pulse, Razor Shell, Pursuit, Fury Cutter

Axel (Fraxure)

Axel is the partner of GTI, and the other co-leader of The Hydroclaw, handling the development and building of Paradise. He comes off as intimidating to many -- partly because he’s a dragon type, partly because he carries around an axe with him. However, as a surprise to some, he’s actually gentle and kindhearted for the most part, though he still does have some lessons to learn in terms of friendships and other emotional connections (and Quagsire’s going to make sure he learns those lessons at some point). He also really likes Úrsula. Like, really, really likes her. The two of them are practically joined at the hip.

Moveset: Dragon Dance, Dual Chop, Pursuit, Dragon Claw

Ramona “Rara” (Treecko)

Ramona is the hero of Super Mystery Dungeon, and the co-leader of The Ash-Roses. She’s mute and communicates through her own form of sign language, as well as written notes. Between her and Cinders, she handles a lot of the logistics of the team, including packing travel bags and planning their explorations. She still struggles with the aftermath of the Dark Matter incident, and blames herself for not seeing what was going on with Nuzleaf sooner.

dark matter au ramona: in this au, ramona ends up falling under the control of dark matter along with nuzleaf. dark matter is able to take advantage of her insecurities about her place in serene village and feelings of resentment towards some of the other villagers. it’s found out she’s being controlled by dark matter on the top of revelation mountain, and instead of going to the voidlands with cinders, she works with nuzleaf, yveltal, and the beheyeem going around and turning Pokémon to stone.

Moveset: Giga Drain, Energy Ball, Dragon Breath, Pursuit

Cinders (Cyndaquil)

Cinders is the partner of PSMD, and the other co-leader of The Ash-Roses. He’s cheerful, chatty, and has a tendency to get himself and Ramona into trouble very often. Cinders is also really passionate about exploration -- like really, really passionate, to the point of near obsession -- and will sometimes get ahead of himself when it comes to exploring new places. Since he’s also the reincarnation of Mew (or whatever that whole thing was it was a blur for me tbh), he also has the ability to read people’s minds, though this happens sporadically. He’ll usually say the thoughts he hears from others out loud, or respond to them as if it was part of the conversation. This usually freaks people out quite a bit.

dark matter au cinders: cinders is pretty much the same throughout this au until it’s revealed that ramona is under the control of dark matter. from that point on, he’s more frightened and desperate than normal cinders, and becomes much more subdued after the whole dark matter incident blows over. he and ramona don’t really have the same kind of friendship that they had before, either.

Moveset: Flame Wheel, Double Kick, Quick Attack, Ember

OTHER

these two are from a world that i was working on with a friend a while back. we aren’t doing anything with said world anymore, but i decided to keep these two around and develop them (and hopefully their world) a little bit more, because i was already attached to them by the time we stopped working.

for some basic background info: polaris and gabriel are from a nomadic tribe up in the north of the world called eira-taith. one of the traditions of the tribe is that, to be considered an adult, you have to travel on your own for one year and then return. when polaris went out on his journey, he came back to find everyone dead. gabriel was technically the only survivor because he had ran away in search of polaris before everyone else was wiped out. as of right now, they just wander around the world together -- they don’t really have a place to go.

Polaris Eider

Polaris is the oldest out of six in his family. Because he was the oldest, he was treated as a “third parent,” and given the responsibility of looking after his younger siblings before he left on his year-long travel. He would force down his own feelings and problems to properly be able to take care of everyone else, and as a result, isn’t the most emotionally expressive. He’s not very talkative, and usually has a stern expression on his face. Polaris is also a skilled archer -- however, that’s about all he can do in terms of weaponry.

Gabriel Eider

Gabriel is the second oldest out of six -- meaning that after Polaris left, he would be the one in charge of taking care of all of their younger siblings, at the age 14. He ended up cracking under the pressure and anxiety of Polaris not surviving on his own, and ran away, fortunately right before their tribe was wiped out. At some point, he was attacked by a group of bandits and was blinded, losing both of his eyes. His anxieties only worsened afterwards, though he tries his best to hide that and his blindness through being combative, stubborn, and overly-dramatic at some times, much to Polaris’ chagrin. Before losing his sight, he could use both a bow and arrow and daggers, though he’s not able to do all that much now.

#very long post #fortress characters #character masterpost

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wynndygoon · 6 years

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1st Anniversary!

This will be sort of a recap post encompassing all of what has happened over this first year. So get ready, this will be a long post!

I started this blog shortly after I got my drawing tablet as a means to try and get better at using the damn thing. Needless to say, I think that it has been more than a success and has also been an amazing opportunity to meet all of you amazing people who have gotten invested in Noma and what she is and who she is as a character. And, while this past year hasn’t been perfect, it has been a wondorous experience filled with laughs and new bonds that frankly, I never would have made otherwise. Same goes to me trying out new things such as streaming, downloading Discord, and just flat out putting my art out there in this world for people to see and hopefully fall in love with.

So this whole blog, and the lady we all know and love, Noma, wouldn’t have been here if it weren’t for chance. If you are new or never read the post explaining her past, the short version is: I had a Blaziken that hatched from an Egg in pokemon Black. It was a female, and I named her Noma, and it turned out that she had a bunch of good EV’s and IV’s, so I used her a lot through the game. Well when X and Y came out, I got the launch event Torchic that had better stats than Noma, so in a stupid move, I wonder Traded her away, hoping that someone else would like her just as much as I did. Fast forward a few months before I started this blog, and one of my friends traded me a bunch of pokemon since he didn’t really play much anymore. Long story short, he traded me back Noma. So while I had this idea about starting a pokemon ask blog, I never knew which pokemon i wanted to use, until Noma popped back into my life. As soon as that happened, I knew I had to make her my character.

So next came the design phase, and while I never was amazing at creating characters, I knew that I had to try and make her look unique to stand out from the crowd. And When I say unique, i think I went a bit too overboard with her, but at least we can still tell she is a blaziken, right? Anyways, I knew that I wanted to make her somewhat Tomboy-ish, while still having her be feminine as to not confuse people. I also knew that one easy way to accomplish this was to make her a little more fluffy and poofy, so believe it or not, I started with her hair design and went from there. I knew that if i could nail the hair, then everything would kinda fall into place. So that is why she has just SO MUCH HAIR, because form a design point, it was necessary. Also, making her wear clothes would help her stand out seeing as many poke-ask blogs leave their characters nude. Speaking of which, I am going to address something about Noma right here: SHE DOESN’T HAVE BOOBS ALRIGHT. I know it looks like she does, but since she has so many feathers and is very fluffy, wearing clothes would be difficult. So what she has to do is stuff her chest fluff into her tank tops, and purely because there is so much of it, it lumps up under the shirt. So all the people asking to see Noma’s “Chicken Breasts” ( those were some real asks BTW), sorry, no luck there.

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THIS SECTION IS ALL OF MY FAVORITE ASKS AND REDESIGNS OF NOMA

So, now that I have the character created, It’s time to draw her and make a post on here. Im not gonna lie, that first night was nerve wracking. I didn’t have the slightest clue as to what was going to happen, if anyone would see the post, or hell, if anyone would like it.

But here she is, the main attraction in her first appearance on the blog. Happy, inviting, and not nearly as fluffy as what she is now. For some of you newer followers, yes, this is how it all began. Notice that she isn’t as tall, or fluffy, or as vibrant as what you know her as, but yes, this is what everyone saw for a couple of months while I started out. This WAS her design.

So, with this outta the way, it’s time to answer some asks, but to do that, I had to think of her personality. So, I just made her personality be fun. someone who can be sassy, sarcastic, kind, loveable, and genuinely nice. It’s up to you to decide o how well that comes across though.

This ask was: “Why are you such a Boss Ass Blaziken?” and this is where I went into her story in a little more detail and made it feel more like a story rather than a simple explanation of events. It was the first question I got and I had a lot of fun working on it because at least one person took the time out of their day to send me something.

Here is Noma explaining her Favorite Region that she has been to. And this was kind of a first for the blog since we got to see what she looked like below the crop top. And yes, its just a crop top with her chest fluff stuffed into it. Take note how much shorter she was when I started this blog. Like, I never realized this before, but for a blaziken, she was a midget. Also, can we just ignore some of the glaring anatomy issues here? I was still kinda working on her design here.

And here we reach the first Big re-design of Noma. While not much besides her hair changed, this was the part of her life that she started dyeing her hair different colors to make her design more unique. She also has a bit more of a neck and her hands are also more suited to a blaziken’s with the gray part instead of all red like the first post. In this ask, she was answering what her favorite past times are. Out of all the asks that I have done so far back then, THIS was my favorite to work on, just changing up her hair style felt so refreshing and honestly makes her look so much different.

THIS. FREAKING. ASK. this was the one that started a bunch of people to harass me to essentially draw nsfw of Noma. At the time of answering this ask, I was midway through a show called Panty and Stocking, go check it out if you haven’t, it’s hilarious and really good. But the ask was: “What is your favorite hairstyle?” So I decided to have a little fun and I started out just drawing the hair to make the reference to Panty and Stocking, but I thought that nobody would actually catch the reference, so I decided to go big or go home and reference the entire character of Scanty. If only I knew what kind of hell I would have unleashed for the next few months. Despite all of the perverted asks and messages I received, this was an insanely fun ask to draw, and it was also a challenge to try and recreate Scanty, but in a Blaziken form. Also, notice how her hands reverted back to red. I never said I was consistent.

So that slightly NSFW ask was the last actual drawing i posted for quite a while because then, I started college and was so nervous and scared and focused on doing well that i just didn’t have time to draw or play video games because of all the stress. I would literally wake up, go to school, go to work, come home, and sleep. and that was it. My next few posts actually weren’t Noma related, so I won’t cover them.

This was the first ask I had for ASK MAGIC which had Noma’s type change to water for 3 asks. Each of these weren’t all that exciting, but I am including this here because it was a milestone for the blog that NO ONE HAS USED SINCE! HINT HINT.

This wasn’t an ask, just a drawing idea I had for Halloween. She is still rocking her crazy hair with 3 different colors now and frankly, I have no idea what I was thinking giving her a rooster comb AND and ponytail, but hey, it works. SO if you couldn’t tell she went as a rooster for Halloween and her hands also magically changed back to red. But she also dyed her chest fluff in the shape of a heart which was another small design change.

HERE SHE IS THE FIRST MAJOR REDESIGN THAT ACTUALLY CHANGED SOME STUFF ABOUT HER. First of all, she doesn’t have the weird red neck that she had that just made her chest fluff look glued on, her fluff is on the entirety of her neck, and her neck is now longer, giving here a taller appearance. I also changed the look of her chest fluff to look like it surrounds her from behind also, and I changed the fluff on her face here too. Sure they may not be the biggest changes, but they made her a hell of a lot easier to draw and i think made her look better overall too.

This is just a better look of her, and is also my icon. See how she looks less like a midget and more graceful? The re-design was for the greater good.

This ask was SUPER fun: “My last ask was mean, but if you could choose any other type, what would it be”. This was when i could encompass all of what made Noma, Noma. The new redesign looks flawless, and we actually got to see an almost full body drawing of Noma. Glaring anatomy issues aside, I still really think that this was one of my better works of Noma.

I had a Thanskgiving ask set aside to put here, but I am really not too proud of that one, and also because it was during the time when I lost my grandmother, so I’m just going to leave it out so I don’t get too emotional about it.

You think I would have learned my lesson about showing Noma in anything REMOTELY NSFW, but nope, here we have her in her underwear. The ask was: “I am liking this new look!” and yeah, I tried to go for a cheap visual gag, not only in the fact that she isn’t decent, but also in the name of her boxers. American Eagle in the pokemon world would more than likely be Unovan Braviary, like come on, that’s comedy silver at best.

Look at this Eye-sore. I tried to do a candy cane look wit her hair, but I think it fell flat and looks too busy. But the Ask was: “Do you have any jewelry?” While this doesn’t look as good as I hoped it would have, this was certainly a lot of fun to draw.

This was my absolute favorite non-ask post to draw because i used my actual ugly christmas sweater to design hers. I know the perspective is off here, but that is purely because of the angle I took the picture at.

THIS COMIC WAS AN ABSOLUTE BLAST TO DRAW, PLUS IT ALSO INTRODUCED NOMA’S LOVE INTEREST, EM, WHICH IS STILL A PART OF THIS BLOG SO SEND HIM SOME ASKS PLEASE. ALSO I DO NOT OWN EM, HE IS A CHARACTER OF BANANAMUTTBREAD, SO GO GIVE HIM A FOLLOW, HE IS AN AMAZING PERSON.

This was a difficult drawing to do, not because of the characters, but because of the shading and lighting, and yes, I know, its not the best, But I am still very proud of it nonetheless. But, yeah, this is a mash up of Lethal League which is an amazing game and Noma. The reason I chose Candyman to draw, was because he was simple, and because he is a pain in the ass to fight against.

By this point in the blog’s life, I had just bought my dog Bella, and started a new semester at college. With my toughest classes all piled on top of each other, i didn’t have much time to draw, so there wasn’t much to be posted then. However, I did introduce a new character, not a pokemon, but instead a bee character I came up with. Her name is Grain, and she is super cute, so go check out the art i made of her!

With me posting again halfway through last semester, the first ask I got was about Noma’s hairstyle. To be honest, I have no idea what kind of style that is, so let’s just move on.

Oh boy, my first piece i did on stream. This was another small redesign I did just to get back into the swing of redrawing Noma and making sure I could remember how to draw her. also, I tested out a new form of shading that I really like and will probably continue to use from here on out.

#asknoma

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zandyin · 6 years

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Don’t mind me - I’m reposting some old posts from another blog here cause it’s... relevant. :y This post is from 2016 l m a o

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I got up too early today and have a lot of time to kill, so here’s a rambling of my Devil Summoner: Raidou Kuzunoha ship headcanon/mechanics. Yeah. Talking about Louis->Raidou, Raidou/Dahn, and why I’ll probably never draw the obvious slash ship most people have.

This is seriously not going to be interesting if you haven’t played DSRK2 and/or don’t ship any of those.

LOUIS –> RAIDOU

Anyone who follows my art blog probably knows I draw quite a bit of Louis -> Raidou, lmao. It’s been a while since I played DSRK2 (and I have a very shoddy memory in general), but I’ve always seen Louis’ interest in Raidou as very… curiously amused? It’s not a romantic attraction in any sense of the word, and (in my headcanons) Raidou does not reciprocate the feeling at all, haha.

I just like to think grand ol’ Louis Cyphre just wants to have some fun by flirting with a cute boy who may or may not actually be a challenge to take on in a fight. Maybe Louis kinda likes the idea that someone like Raidou can subdue him, if only for a little while. Plus DSRK2 doesn’t hold back on mentioning how beautiful Raidou is – and he is! – so I think even Louis would fall a little for the sideburn detective. :v He sees a lot of potential in Raidou. Iirc, he was interested in seeing Raidou again after the events of the second game for… whatever reason.

Louis doesn’t flirt with the intention to get the goods from Raidou, but at the same time, he probably wouldn’t mind if it went that way. :’^) It’s very one-sided, though. Which is why I’m always writing it as Louis -> Raidou. You could say I like the aesthetic of a one-sided flirting prince of hell towards a beautiful yet unobtainable detective swordsman.

In most of my headcanons, law Raidou just finds it annoying, while chaos Raidou doesn’t reciprocate either but does use it to his advantage. And Louis knows! But Louis always feels like he is in control or he IS in control, so he lets it happen. Anything that happens, Louis has allowed it or knew it would be an outcome. He’s fine with pretty much anything as long as he can watch Raidou do his thing.

Still, I draw too much Louis->Raidou when the main pairing I really love is…

RAIDOU/DAHN

Yes, in that order! This one I’m a bit more serious about. I doubt my words can accurately convey that feeling, but I will try my best!!

Alright, so… where to begin. I was one of those hopeless fools who was easily lead on by a fujoshi seamstress in Mannen-Cho to consider these two as a ship. I used to have the screenshots somewhere, ah!!! I googled it and she asks Raidou if Dahn is “an old lover” and if he came to Mannen-Cho to be with him. Ah… I’m so impressionable.

Anyways, pushing canon aside, I started to really dig the contrast between Raidou and Dahn. Raidou being a very proper looking city boy and Dahn being an unruly looking country boy. Before I burn holes into my own head from rolling my eyes, let’s keep going!

If you play as law Raidou, up to this point he does what he’s told. Usually I think his best interest aligns with those of the Capital. I like to think that… over the course of DSRK2, lmao, Raidou gets to know Dahn. From guy he’s supposed to track down to guy he starts helping to undo the major mistake he made (don’t trust any blond young men!), I think Raidou would start to see the other side of life – going after what you personally want, circumstance and expectations be damned. Dahn has a wild aura about him. I want Raidou to be intrigued by it. I want Dahn to start seeing the other side, too. His rashness led to quite the string of incidents that he clearly did not want to happen, haha. Raidou inspired by Dahn to be a bit more selfish, while Dahn inspired by Raidou to be a bit more selfless…! I know Dahn was doing what he wanted for Akane, but Akane was sort of okay with doing it “for the greater good”, so I do feel Dahn was acting selfishly. That’s what a big brother’s gonna do, tho.

SPOILERS AHEAD FOR END OF DSRK2, which you’ve probably played and finished if you’re even reading this!

“You made me realize you can shape your own future if you take action for what you believe in… Even a stubborn jackass like me was able to change… I’m sure the ones who see you in action will [also change]” – Dahn, right before the Shinado Dahn fight.

Haha, I forgot how much Dahn changes so much towards the end of the game. He hasn’t completely changed, but he starts seeing things the way Raidou does… tragic that he doesn’t get to continue living and show that change. Law Raidou strikes him down, as that’s his duty and promise. From Raidou’s side, I like to imagine he started to think about doing things for himself. Not… unleash a swarm of bugs kinda things for his own means and ends, but just being a bit more-!! Selfish!

Okay, through all of that, you’re probably wondering, “The hell? Where is the ‘ship’ aspect to this?” It’s pretty basic. I love Raidou and Dahn’s dynamic sans shipping as well, however I think Raidou’s new found “selfishness” would manifest itself in – wait for it – slowly being attracted to Dahn.

Big surprise there.

Going even further away from canon, Raidou being intrigued by Dahn!! And the way he does things. Maybe he finds Dahn’s accent cute, as Raidou is no stranger to interesting accents. His demons have all sorts of accents, I’m sure. I wanted Dahn to be that one thing, that one person he could be sort of selfish about – and in Chaos end headcanoning, that’s the Raidou who gives into that selfishness. Law Raidou… well, he still feels that attraction, but he doesn’t let it stop him from doing what he has to do.

Then just completely forget canon after this point, but I’ve thought of too many cute headcanons that make me ship this ship beyond help lmaooooo like you can stop reading here

Dahn’s aware Raidou’s a looker at first, but it doesn’t really start to get to him till they start working together post-Chaos end. Suddenly he finds himself looking at Raidou more often, feeling ‘weird’, and in general wanting to be closer to Raidou as they become friends. I like to imagine this kind of Dahn would even slip heavily into his implied Tohoku-ben(?) accent when Raidou’s really close to him. :’^))))

Raidou always lowkey being into Dahn’s wild look. Doing things on purpose to make Dahn’s accent really apparent like ‘accidentally’ brushing up against him… in whatever situation. Raidou happily staring at Dahn all while being quiet. It makes Dahn uncomfortable to be looked at with such a kind/hungry look, but he likes it. :v Raidou enjoying his new found selfishness with Dahn while still doing his job to protect the people of the Capital….Wow, I’m going to stop.

And honestly, as with most ships, I have a friend who loves Dahn as much as I love Raidou. We’re always bound to pair our favs together. I shipped Raidou/Dahn before we met, but having someone else to share with definitely strengthens the feelings towards it, haha. [Note from present me: Aw, sad, I’m not friends with that person anymore. :d It was a messy split and I got custody over Raidou/Dahn in the end LMAO I’m kidding]

SO THAT’S WHY I DRAW LOUIS -> RAIDOU WITH THAT SORT OF “FLAVOR”, yet I never draw Raidou/Dahn. Maybe because I’m too lazy to draw Dahn’s outfit. That’s definitely it.

NARUMI/RAIDOU

I just don’t feel it. That’s basically it. I see all the fodder for it, but somehow… I was not taken in. Life would be easier if I shipped only this because I can find a toooooon of art and doujinshi for them.

Try looking for Raidou/Dahn doujinshi where Raidou’s the top! GOOD LUCK!! I own two of them and am still hunting down one I saw the cover of last year. If you… find any…………….. lmk. [Note: I FINALLY FOUND THAT DJ AT THE END OF 2017, I HAD BEEN LOOKING SINCE 2015 Y’ALL!!!]

Since this is my personal blog, feel free to ask me questions and I’ll reply publicly (or privately if that’s what you want) if you wanna talk shop. Send me headcanons for Louis -> Raidou or Raidou/Dahn.

#zandyin au

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jaybug-jabbers · 3 years

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Bug Run 5: Bugs In The Big City

Gen 5 is the Bug Generation, without a doubt. It introduced 18 new bug types, more than any other gen, and many of those species are absolute favorites. The list includes the first-ever Mythical Bug, Genesect, and the unique Fire/Bug Volcarona. Gen 5 had the first new bug Gym leader since Bugsy in Gold/Silver, and introduced some amazing staples such as Quiver Dance. Truly, Gen 5 was a grand time to be a bug.

Gen 5 also happens to be my second-favorite pokemon generation. I have been anticipating this run for quite a long time.

A quick review of the challenge run rules!

1.) The team must be bug types only. HM slaves required for progression are the exception but will never be used in battle (even just to switch in to faint). Also, all the bug pokemon on the team must come from this generation.

2.) No healing items used during battle (unless the foe uses them first, and then you may only match the items one-for-one). Held items are allowed.

3.) No over-levelling. Pokemon should be at roughly normal levels for a given area and not be at a higher level than the maximum-levelled pokemon in a gym leader’s team. Again, this is so pokemon can win on their own merits.

Now that we’re clear on the rules, it’s time to strap in with my starter, the squishy little Green Bean, and get started on my grand adventure!!

Despite my better judgment, I did choose Snivy before promptly dumping him in my PC, sealing my fate to fight a rival with a fire starter. Considering my own starter would be 4x weak to fire, this might be described as Fucking Dumb, but fear not! The elemental moves don’t kick in until a bit later in the game!

And besides, I picked up a Venipede in the dark grass on Route 20 quickly enough, so my team now consisted of two squishy grubs. Tremble before us!

The first gym is the adorkable Cheren in our hometown, but it isn’t really anything to get worried over. Skipping over to Virbank takes a little more effort, but my team hits level 20 each by the time we face her and it’s still manageable. Green Bean just clocks Koffing out with a bunch of Tackles (and uses a handy Pecha berry) and Tonka takes care of his fellow brethren with a Screech and some Rollouts.

I call bullshit, though, Roxie. What drugs are you giving your poke to get it to evolve before mine?

After this gym and a few more Team Plasma shenanigans, we take a boat to the big city, Castelia. I enjoy exploring the city at my leisure. They did a great job with this city and I feel like it’s way easier to navigate than the city in X/Y, honestly.

It also has a lot of fun details like this little nod to older players. Anywho, in the process of my travels among the city and its glamorous sewers, Green Bean evolves into Swadloon and then, the very next level later, into his magnificent final form, Leavanny. So I guess Bean’s been enjoying his adventures since his friendship maxed out so fast!

Next is kicking the pants off Burgh and making snide remarks about his anatomy. I have to hand it to Burgh, though– his gym looks fucking beautiful. I adore the cocoon aesthetic and whatever the hell pool of rainbow madness is going on up here in his art studio, and the music is great too. Heck, I even love his outfit and chunky butterfly belt buckle. It’s just a shame he’s so easy to beat. You need to step up, man, represent our bug brethren better.

Soon after, we pass through the Desert Resort and pick up our next team member, the rock hermit crab Dwebble. I forget to take a picture of him freshly caught, but rest assured he is both smol and adorable. His typing and moves are a great asset against Flying types.

The gym after Burgh is in Nimbasa, which has been moved to a fashion show since Pokemon Black/White. Elesa’s pokemon spam Volt Switch rather obnoxously, but Green Bean resists the move and sort of just took the hits while using Razor Leaf. Why Razor Leaf? Because Static is annoying. Lucky she got a crit on Emolga to help speed things along. Elesa’s ace, Zebstrika, has Flame Charge, which I don’t need to tell you is scary for a Bug/Grass type. Somehow, though, he took the hit??? Back to more Volt Switch shenanigans and Elesa used a potion in there somewhere, so I got to potion Green Bean back up and let him finish things off.

Things were running pretty smoothly. On the way out of Nimbasa, we ran into Charles, who apparently is a heartbreaker, which he is keen to repeatedly mention. After we break him, Tonka has a little surprise for us.

Giant murder centipede horse is finally here! Love this thing.

Our next major landmark is to pass through Driftveil City, but I’m actually content to make a side-trip before heading right to the local gym. There are some electric caves nearby that beckon us.

I don’t know how Nest Balls exactly work, but I had a few so I tossed one. I kind of dig their color scheme. Anyway, our bug collection has now grown to four. Well, I also grabbed a Karrablast on the way to the caves, but I won’t be using it on this run. I can’t evolve him on my emulator in any legitimate way, so it wouldn’t really be worth the effort of training him.

After training my new little electric tick a bit, I head for the Ground-type gym. Obviously Zippy won’t be much use in this particular gym, but don’t fear! She’ll prove her worth later on.

For this gym, I had to strategize a little. Pangea took care of Krokorok with a couple Bug Bites. The ace, the steel mole, was a worthy opponent. I screeched twice with Tonka before going down to Rock Slide, then came in with Green Bean and landed a critical hit with Razor Leaf. It went down in one. Finally, Sandslash was easy pickings for Green Bean. Our levels were on par with his team, as usual.

The next gym was Flying-type. Honestly, not that big of a deal after Pangaea and Zipzap evolved. One Rock Slide took out Swoobat, then a couple Screeches on Skarmory before Rock Sliding it to death (although Crustle barely survived the Steel Wing, ouch). Her final was Swanna, but one Electro Ball took that out. Water/Flying gives a pretty big weakness, after all. My team was at levels 34-37.

The Professor wanted me to move on to the next town after I defeated the gym, but I actually had a little backtracking I wanted to do first. It seems I got a little too hasty in my eagerness for progress and left something important behind.

So I finished exploring the ghost tower in the area, then backtracked through Chargestone Cave, finished off some trainers and such in there, before returning to Driftveil. There was a little cave entrance I needed to take. After lots of wandering … . . .

We found what we were looking for. It was a quick and easy capture, on my second Dusk Ball. It helped that I had my Crustle out front to deal with the fire moves.

After that, we were finally ready to move on. And we had built ourselves a team of five by now:

These bug runs are supposed to be a challenge run, but to be honest, with this team, things haven’t been all that difficult. Everyone’s quite the powerhouse. Truly, gen 5 is the Era of Bugs. We have one final member to add on, but that won’t come until much later. So for now, this is the crew, and I think we’re pretty well set here.

I’ll leave this post for now! This was meant to be the halfway post, but I think we’re a little past halfway. Ah, well! Still more game to come.

This is a repost on a new blog. The original post was on Feb 15, 2019.

#pokemon #bugrun #bugrun5 #mycontent #pokemon playthroughs

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theonyxpath · 4 years

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So, we’re between Kickstarters now that the V5 Cults of the Blood Gods KS is over. And what a fantastic run that was! Over 500% funded and over 2500 backers that produced three additional V5 projects as Stretch Goals!

Trail of Bone and Ashes – a collection of playable stories.

Forbidden Faiths – expanded information and additional rules for cults.

Faithful Undead – new SPCs and their cultish coteries, and LORESHEETS!

We were also able to fund TWO pay bonuses for the writers, whose text that we provided to backers really went a long way in ratcheting up everyone’s excitement. Which we feel really great about, as we do about all the fantastic commentary from backers.

All in all, it was just a delightful KS experience – a great way to start the new year.

Which brings us to the next Kickstarter we’re setting up right now, for Hunter: The Vigil 2nd Edition. (That’s the teaser graphic for the game up above.) After we set it up, we still need to get WW/Paradox‘s OK on the info presented, so we can’t really give a date yet.

If it isn’t obvious, this is a game set in the Chronicles of Darkness, and uses the CofD 2e rules set. (Not the Storypath System, though, which is Onyx Path‘s house system and not one we can freely mix in to WW-owned game lines).

Distant Worlds art by Seth Rutledge

One thing that came out of discussions during the Cults KS, and from meetings at MidWinter, is that as Onyx Path has evolved our business model during these past eight years, it’s not obvious why we do things as we do them.

A lot of stores that carry RPGs still aren’t aware that we are putting books into stores, and other than you fabulous folks who read this blog every week (You do read this blog every week, right? You should, most doctors I know recommend it), there are people out there in our community that also aren’t sure where and how to get our books.

KICKSTARTER

Let’s start with Kickstarter and how and why we use a crowd-funding platform. We use it primarily at this point to create a up-front buzz, and garner up-front funds, so that we can print more books than backers have pledged for, and then put those books into stores. KS helps us with getting a rough idea of the kind of interest there is out there for a project, and we can use that info in estimating (guessing) the number of books we need available for stores.

We’re certainly still learning how to estimate. Pugmire and Monarchies of Mau both went back second print runs as we ran out of copies for retailers. Not immediately, and it’s a great problem to have, but even so. We’re keeping a close eye on V5 Chicago By Night, because that has the potential to shift a lot of our thinking on these numbers for stores. Maybe not. We’ll see.

During a Kickstarter campaign, we like to use Stretch Goals to create added “support products” for the game. Usually smaller books that add to the main idea of the KS’d project. Sometimes different sort of projects, like anthologies, or working with other companies so they can create these extra projects. That way, folks don’t just KS a single book, they help us with launching a bunch of connected projects.

We advertise all over, I talk about each KS here in the weeks – usually just over four – that it runs, and we have demo and designer streams on ours and others’ Twitch channels leading up to and during the KS. Even so, some folks miss the KS, which brings us to:

BACKERKIT

Backerkit is one of a bunch of venues that sprang up to help KS creators after the Kickstarter campaign was over. I like BK and what services they offer, but other KS creators use other ones. The advantage to any of them, though, is that they provide us with more tools to get backer rewards out, and help backers and those who missed the KS, upgrade or even get the KS’d project.

Since we put up each KS’d project’s BackerKit page about a month after the KS is over, and until the KS shipping process starts at least six months later you can go there and up your pledge or “pre-order” the project, BK serves as an easy and accessible ramp towards our release. But before the release to backers, we have another stage to the project:

BACKER PDF

Once all the layout is done; text is laid into the format and illustrations and design elements are laid in, and any approvals are OK’d, then we send out links to backers so they can download the Backer PDF.

Now, this is not the final PDF. We still want our backer community involved, so we also provide a link to a sheet where interested backers can post any errata that they find. This is an important fine-tuning point in the process, so we truly appreciate everyone who takes the time to review and send us notes about the PDF.

It’s up to the dev(s) whether or not they deem any notes as things that need to be corrected, but obvious errors are usually obviously errors once someone points them out, so errata feedback has proven to improve our projects over and over again.

We use these corrected PDF files to create Final PDFs, that backers can update in their DTRPG Library, and to create the PoD printing and traditional printing files. If a book of our has been KS’d to get into stores, then it is traditionally printed and bound. That’s really the point of most of our KSs at this point: get them traditionally printed on big turn-y printing presses and bindery machines.

Why? Because traditional printing prints a “print run”, hundreds or thousands of books are printed and bound in one “run”. This is far more cost effective than Print On Demand (PoD), which prints a book and binds it after you order it. Then prints another one and binds that for the next order.

Then, once the books are done being made, they move into:

SHIPPING BACKER REWARDS

This is one of the toughest and most expensive phases of doing a Kickstarter, and one I can and have gone into great detail on in terms of the challenges KS shipping presents, but for the purposes of this post, it’s a stage that leads to:

GETTING BOOKS INTO RETAIL STORES

This is really the newest stage for us, and we continue to fine-tune our best practices. Simply put, our sales partners solicit orders from distributors and stores and then ship our books out to them. This happens after the KS Backer Reward shipments have been sent, but we don’t wait for every single shipping problem, like bad addresses or damaged shipments, to get resolved.

So, it’s usually the month after KS Backer Rewards ship. At the same time, we put the Final PDF and the PoD versions of the project live on DTRPG, for all those people in our community that can’t get to stores or prefer PDFs. And many stores do have online ordering of the traditionally printed versions, too.

This means that you can go to your Friendly Local Game Store, look for books we have KS’d on the shelves, and either pick them up there or ask your Retailer to order them for you. Please do, because they may not realize we have started to get projects into stores again.

Here’s that process in a line: KS => BackerKit => Backer PDFs errata => final files => Backer Rewards => On Sale in stores and PDF/PoDs at DTRPG.

Of course, we still create projects that we don’t KS and we don’t put into stores, so their process would be more this: Advance PDF on DTRPG => errata => final PDF and PoD at DTRPG.

Hope that all of the above helps folks find our projects out there in the gaming wilderness!

Dark Eras 2 art by Alex Sheikman

A FEW OTHER THINGS:

Still related to Kickstarters, though, we’re not done with them yet. We recently sent out the Backer PDFs for both Dark Eras 2 for Chronicles of Darkness, and They Came From Beneath the Sea! and reaction has been fantastic. Matthew, in particular, has been touched in his cold, dead, heart by the warm reception to the TCFBtS! Backer PDF as it has been his baby since he first pitched the idea to me several years ago.

In fact, we even saw Backers wearing They Came From Beneath the Sea! shirts at MidWinter just over a week ago.

At MidWinter, in case you missed it, we announced several new games I mentioned last week as well, including They Came From Beyond the Grave!, the next in the They Came From… series. This game will focus on the sort of 60s – 70s horror typified by Hammer Horror films, Roger Corman films, and the Dark Shadows TV show.

In fact, there is even a built-in, two time period, part of the game where you can also play in that pseudo Victorian or Edwardian era that those sorts of media loved to play around with. Flashbacks to an earlier life? Prologue for the 70s? Time travel? All possible with this.

We also announced Trinity Continuum: Assassins, a parallel setting for the Trinity Continuum core rulebook setting. This is really a great way to start to emphasize the strength of the Continuum concept in the Trinity Continuum. Sort of a dark mirror universe that can be separate from your core setting, or as connected as you want it to be. Stylish, deadly, and often amoral except for one thing – but expert killers nonetheless.

There was also an announcement for TC: Adventure!, which is the retooling of the original Pulp-genre game, although set about 10 years later in the 1930s. Most of my favorite pulp magazine adventures were set in that decade and into the 40s, so it made sense to me, plus, now players can find themselves with real opportunities to foil Nazis!

Although it was kind of lost amongst all the other hoopla, we are thrilled to be able to let Changeling: The Lost 2e fans know that we are also working on The Hedge for that gameline. As you might imagine, this book features an exploration of that most treacherous and terrifying barrier between our world and, well, a lot of really horrifying and/or beautiful things.

Finally, here’s a heads-up that the New Year brought a change and we have ended our Exalted 3rd monthly PDF releases so that we can create the remaining entries for both Hundred Devils Night Parade and Adversaries of the Righteous and get both those books finished and out on DTRPG in PDF and PoD versions.

Yugman’s Guide art by Bryan Syme

But fear not, true believer! We won’t let your craving for monthly PDF releases go unsatisfied! Instead we will be presenting sections of Yugman’s Guide to Ghelspad for Scarred Lands every other month, alternating with chapters of Vigil Watch. Two different ways to learn about the Scarred Lands setting.

So there you go! Hoping the info here was helpful as you travel with us on our Onyx Path. A sometimes confusing path as we grow, but it’s still:

Many Worlds, One Path!

BLURBS!

Kickstarter!

Next on Kickstarter, we are looking at Hunter: The Vigil 2nd Edition for Chronicles of Darkness!

Onyx Path Media!

This Friday’s Onyx Pathcast is a deep dive into the riotous They Came From Beneath the Sea!! Check it out direct on Podbean, or your favorite podcast venue! https://onyxpathcast.podbean.com/

A bumper schedule on Twitch this week with Vampire, Chronicles of Darkness, Scion, Pugmire, Aberrant, Scarred Lands, Changeling: The Lost, Hunter: The Vigil, Changeling: The Dreaming, Mage: The Awakening, and even more Scarred Lands and Vampire besides!

As ever, subscribe to our channel over on twitch.tv/theonyxpath

Our YouTube channel continues filling up with content, including the Onyx Path News! Do stay subscribed to youtube.com/user/theonyxpath to catch the news when it comes out live!

And here’s Occultists Anonymous‘ latest offerings:

Episode 74: A Lonely Road The cabal performs some investigative magics in The Town, preparing to leave out on the Golden Road. The Golden Road provides dangers quickly enough… https://youtu.be/ujWouzwjenk

Episode 75: Trials & Air Miles The Rookery Cabal continues down the Golden Road after confronting the Minotaur. Further barriers stand before them that challenge more than just their bodies. https://youtu.be/qSd_gymS8FA

The Primogen launched a video handling V5 Cults of the Blood Gods right here: https://youtu.be/2JMV_VJrjwQ Do give him a subscribe!

Red Moon Roleplaying continue their actual play of Changeling: The Lost, V5 Cults of the Blood Gods, and close their chronicle of V5 Chicago by Night on their YouTube channel, Spotify, their website redmoonroleplaying.com and everywhere else good podcasts might be found!

Please check any of these out and let us know if you find or produce any actual plays of our games!

Electronic Gaming!

As we find ways to enable our community to more easily play our games, the Onyx Dice Rolling App is live! Our dev team has been doing updates since we launched based on the excellent use-case comments by our community, and this thing is awesome! (Seriously, you need to roll 100 dice for Exalted? This app has you covered.)

On Amazon and Barnes & Noble!

You can now read our fiction from the comfort and convenience of your Kindle (from Amazon) and Nook (from Barnes & Noble).

If you enjoy these or any other of our books, please help us by writing reviews on the site of the sales venue from which you bought it. Reviews really, really help us get folks interested in our amazing fiction!

Our selection includes these latest fiction books:

Our Sales Partners!

We’re working with Studio2 to get Pugmire and Monarchies of Mau out into stores, as well as to individuals through their online store. You can pick up the traditionally printed main book, the screen, and the official Pugmire dice through our friends there! https://studio2publishing.com/search?q=pugmire

We’ve added Prince’s Gambit to our Studio2 catalog: https://studio2publishing.com/products/prince-s-gambit-card-game

Now, we’ve added Changeling: The Lost 2nd Edition products to Studio2‘s store! See them here: https://studio2publishing.com/collections/all-products/changeling-the-lost

Scarred Lands (Pathfinder) books are also on sale at Studio2, and they have the 5e version, supplements, and dice as well!: https://studio2publishing.com/collections/scarred-lands

Scion 2e books and other products are available now at Studio2: https://studio2publishing.com/blogs/new-releases/scion-second-edition-book-one-origin-now-available-at-your-local-retailer-or-online

Looking for our Deluxe or Prestige Edition books? Try this link! http://www.indiepressrevolution.com/xcart/Onyx-Path-Publishing/

And you can order Pugmire, Monarchies of Mau, Cavaliers of Mars, and Changeling: The Lost 2e at the same link! And NOW Scion Origin and Scion Hero AND Trinity Continuum Core and Trinity Continuum: Aeon are available to order!

As always, you can find Onyx Path’s titles at DriveThruRPG.com!

On Sale This Week!

This Wednesday, we will be releasing Trinity Continuum: Aeon symbols – all the Orders, Aeon, and the game logo – on shirts and other merchandise on our RedBubble store!

Conventions!

More conventions will be listed for 2020 in the weeks to come-

And now, the new project status updates!

DEVELOPMENT STATUS FROM EDDY WEBB (projects in bold have changed status since last week):

First Draft (The first phase of a project that is about the work being done by writers, not dev prep)

Exalted Essay Collection (Exalted)

N!ternational Wrestling Entertainment (Trinity Continuum: Aberrant)

Contagion Chronicle Ready-Made Characters (Chronicles of Darkness)

Trinity Continuum: Adventure! core (Trinity Continuum: Adventure!)

Duke Rollo fiction (Trinity Continuum: Aberrant)

TC: Aberrant Jumpstart (Trinity Continuum: Aberrant)

RUST (Working Title) (Scarred Lands)

Under Alien Suns (Trinity Continuum: Aeon)

Mission Statements (Trinity Continuum: Aeon)

Adversaries of the Righteous (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Hundred Devil’s Night Parade (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Novas Worldwide (Trinity Continuum: Aberrant)

Redlines

Kith and Kin (Changeling: The Lost 2e)

Dragon-Blooded Novella #2 (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Many-Faced Strangers – Lunars Companion (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Second Draft

M20 Victorian Mage (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)

Exigents (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Crucible of Legends (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Development

Heirs to the Shogunate (Exalted 3rd Edition)

TC: Aberrant Reference Screen (Trinity Continuum: Aberrant)

Monsters of the Deep (They Came From Beneath the Sea!)

Scion: Demigod (Scion 2nd Edition)

Tales of Aquatic Terror (They Came From Beneath the Sea!)

Across the Eight Directions (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Contagion Chronicle: Global Outbreaks (Chronicles of Darkness)

Contagion Chronicle Jumpstart (Chronicles of Darkness)

Manuscript Approval

Scion: Dragon (Scion 2nd Edition)

Masks of the Mythos (Scion 2nd Edition)

Trinity Continuum Jumpstart (Trinity Continuum Core)

Post-Approval Development

Scion LARP Rules (Scion)

Mummy: The Curse 2nd Edition core rulebook (Mummy: The Curse 2nd Edition)

Titanomachy (Scion 2nd Edition)

One Foot in the Grave Jumpstart (Geist: The Sin-Eaters 2e)

Player’s Guide to the Contagion Chronicle (Chronicles of Darkness)

Editing

Lunars: Fangs at the Gate (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Geist 2e Fiction Anthology (Geist: The Sin-Eaters 2nd Edition)

Dragon-Blooded Novella #1 (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Legendlore core book (Legendlore)

Mythical Denizens (Creatures of the World Bestiary) (Scion 2nd Edition)

Pirates of Pugmire KS-Added Adventure (Realms of Pugmire)

Yugman’s Guide to Ghelspad (Scarred Lands)

Trinity Continuum: Aberrant core (Trinity Continuum: Aberrant)

Terra Firma (Trinity Continuum: Aeon)

Deviant: The Renegades (Deviant: The Renegades)

Lunars Novella (Rosenberg) (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Buried Bones: Creating in the Realms of Pugmire (Realms of Pugmire)

Post-Editing Development

TC: Aeon Ready-Made Characters (Trinity Continuum: Aeon)

Night Horrors: Nameless and Accursed (Mage: the Awakening Second Edition)

City of the Towered Tombs (Cavaliers of Mars)

W20 Shattered Dreams Gift Cards (Werewolf: The Apocalypse 20th)

TC: Aeon Jumpstart (Trinity Continuum: Aeon)

Vigil Watch (Scarred Lands)

Scion Companion: Mysteries of the World (Scion 2nd Edition)

Cults of the Blood Gods (Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition)

Wraith20 Fiction Anthology (Wraith: The Oblivion 20th Anniversary Edition)

Hunter: The Vigil 2e core (Hunter: The Vigil 2nd Edition)

Let the Streets Run Red (Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition)

M20 The Technocracy Reloaded (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)

WoD Ghost Hunters (World of Darkness)

Indexing

ART DIRECTION FROM MIKE CHANEY!

In Art Direction

Trinity Continuum: Aberrant

Hunter: The Vigil 2e – All KS art is in.

Ex3 Lunars – Art is in.

TCfBtS!: Heroic Land Dwellers – LeBlanc working on finals.

Night Horrors: Nameless and Accursed – Finals should be in end of month, lining up layout artist.

Cults of the Blood God (KS)

Mummy 2

City of the Towered Tombs – Had to recontract this, moving along now.

Let the Streets Run Red

CtL Oak Ash and Thorn – Contracted.

Deviant

Vigil Watch – Contracted.

Legendlore (KS) – Starting to gather art needs for KS.

Technocracy Reloaded (KS) – Artwork for KS in progress.

Scion Companion – Working on art notes for that with Meredith.

TC: Aeon Terra Firma – Getting that rolling out.

In Layout

Trinity Continuum Aeon: Distant Worlds – Travis doing the layout on this.

Pirates of Pugmire – With Aileen.

Yugman’s Guide to Ghelspad

Scion Mythical Denizens – Headed to proofing.

Contagion Chronicle – Getting files together for Josh.

Proofing

Dark Eras 2 – Backer PDF out to backers, errata coning in.

Trinity Continuum Aeon Jumpstart

They Came from Beneath the Sea! – Backer PDF out to backers, errata coming in.

VtR Spilled Blood – Josh finishing.

Chicago Folio – Inputting corrections.

Wraith20 Anthology – At WW.

At Press

V5: Chicago – Shipping to backers.

Geist 2e (Geist: The Sin-Eaters 2nd Edition) – Shipping to fulfillment shippers.

Geist 2e Screen – Being printed.

DR:E – Shipping to fulfillment shippers.

DRE Screen – Being printed.

DR:E Threat Guide – Helnau’s Guide to Wasteland Beasties

Memento Mori – Awaiting errata for input.

Today’s Reason to Celebrate!

Here in the US, today is the holiday celebrating Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday! History has underscored that MLK, Jr. was a human being, flawed like all humankind, but nevertheless he was a person trying to make the world better. And he paid the ultimate price so often paid by those who dream of such things.

#Onyx Path Publishing

0 notes

vidmarket32514 · 6 years

Text

Content Marketing is About Customers, Not Keywords

Content Marketing is About Customers, Not Keywords written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Marketing Podcast with John Jantsch About Content Marketing

I have content marketing on the brain so I thought I’d write about it today. “Boy, there is a topic that nobody’s covered” said nobody ever.

Here’s the thing though, I think it’s one of those topics that is misunderstood and certainly evolving. Content has fallen squarely into strategy as far as I’m concerned. I often call it the voice of strategy.

Looking at your website, website’s structure, your SEO plan, and content or editorial plan, overlap significantly in the category of strategy, and while you have to address them in an integrated way, you also have to start thinking differently about content and how you’re going to use it to meet some of your business objectives.

Ever since the major algorithm changes that everybody talks about, the hummingbirds and the pandas, where low-quality content and dubious backlinks really got slapped, a lot of SEO people are really starting to come to realize that content is everything that drives that entire industry.

Let’s not forget when Google’s came up with RankBrain either. This is their artificial intelligence engine that learns not only about what people are searching for, but what they did when they found it, how they engaged, how they dwell, and how they share.

In fact, one of the most important metrics or ranking factors in the future is going to be engagement. So creating your content around getting engagement is not only a good thing from an awareness and trust-building standpoint, it’s also a very crucial ingredient in how content is going to be ranked.

Towards the end of 2017 I created a guide for local marketing, so I wanted to create content that was specific to understanding and outlining the challenges of getting a local business to rank to get customers, and by local I mean that they are in a community and most, if not all, of their customers, are in that community and interact by coming into their store, or their place of business, or that they go out and have a sales call with that person.

There’s a lot of content on local marketing. It’s a really hot topic right now, and with that guide, I was able to rank number one in Google for various search terms around local marketing in about two week’s time.

I have a lot of pages that are on page one, about 1700 last time I looked. So obviously I’ve got a tremendous amount of momentum, and so I’m not going to suggest that just anybody can do this.

There’s a lot of terms I don’t rank for in this approach. Identifying a term, a problem and a challenge that a prospective client has, and then putting all of my energy into getting that content to rank, is what took me from, you know maybe page two or three to the actual number-one spot, and this now is generating significant traffic, and links, and opportunities.

Understanding intent

The key to anything I talk about is how to understand intent. What problems, questions, or goals does your client have?

Keep in mind that they’ll probably change along the way when they’re trying to find a product or a service like yours. To discover your customer’s intent, look at emails that you’ve sent. Talk to your sales or service reps. What questions are they answering?

It’s important to do keyword research, and SEO folks will still tell you that that’s step number one. I’ve certainly done a lot of education around this idea of how to do keyword research, and it’s important, but it’s a starting point only. If you stop there, you’re only going to get one piece. You’re going to optimize your content for keywords.

People aren’t keywords and their problems aren’t necessarily keywords. People may express problems in ways that turn into key phrases, but the content today has to be customer-focused. Go out and talk to your customers. Look at reviews. Look at your competitors. What are people saying?

Those are oftentimes some of the best markers, or clues, to find the real problems that people want to be solved. Many times what we find isn’t the stuff that we want to put on our website. It’s the little things.

Do you show up on time? Do you return my calls? Do you clean up the job site? Those are things that are real problems that you or your competitors are actually solving for their customers because they are turning up and voluntarily writing those words as though they are talking to another prospective client.

It’s some of the best content you can get, but don’t forget to talk to your customers and ask them a lot of questions as well.

Helpful tools for content marketing efforts

There are a couple of tools out there that we use all the time. Answer The Public is a relatively new tool where you can put in a search term and you’ll get all kinds of variations, ideas, and questions that people ask.

Questions are so great and so valuable because there’s a lot of intent. If somebody just types in a couple of words, “referral marketing,” for example, it’s not often easy to tell what their intent is, but if somebody types in “how to set up a referral marketing program,” it gives you a pretty good idea of what they’re looking to do.

We also use BuzzSumo which is another great tool that shows the most shared content related to your phrases. A lot of times the fact that people are sharing content means that it hit the nail on the head. It addressed a problem or answered a question.

I wish I could tell you that you’ll magically get five themes that will just be the perfect thing that you need to write about, but it’s not that simple. There’s a bit of art in this. I can’t always tell clients exactly what I’m going to find, but I always find it.

Choosing content

The last piece of this is that a lot of times people make the mistake of saying, “Well, we’re this kind of company, but the most popular content people want is X, Y, and Z.”

There are a couple problems with just choosing content that you think will be popular. It’s very hard to be customer-focused.

If you’re a business that serves a certain type of customer, but you’re choosing content because it’s popular but you aren’t an expert on the topic, or you don’t have a unique point of view about that content, you’re probably not going to produce something that is customer-focused.

After you do keyword research and talk to your customers, you’ve got to take your unique twist, approach, and expertise, and bring those to it so that it will be completely relevant for your customers.

Once you’ve done your keyword research, the next step is to create themes for your content. To come up with your themes, you must think in terms of a body of work, almost like chapters in a book, that you’re going to put your emphasis on, maybe for an entire month, and create content that will allow you to outrank competitors for key search terms.

You must stay very focused to do this.

Creating content packages

The best way to rank for any search terms is to know your customer better than anyone else and create, what I call, a content package to address your known client problems and challenges.

So what’s a content package? I’m going to go back to the local marketing guide example. I create a page, like The Ultimate Guide to Local Marketing, that becomes an actual core page on my site (not a blog post). I turn that page into a table of contents of sorts that includes all the major elements of local marketing.

From there, I create numerous posts that point directly back to that page, and I link them all together with categories, anchor text, and a little bit of theme magic in WordPress that allows me to display related content.

All of these pages, along with some useful curated content from some very high-domain authority sites, really create this depth of content that allows you to then rank for, in this case, key local marketing problems.

It’s like I’ve built this little wing on my website where the major jumping-off point is almost like a table of contents. You go to that page and there’s audio, video, and a whole list of links to other content that is related to a sub-category.

I’ve taken local marketing, I’ve broken it up into five sub-categories, and then those sub-categories blast out to all kinds of other content on my site.

The beauty of this is that I’ve now got a lot of content that I’d written in the past that I was able to bring to this, but going forward, I’ve got a lot of content that I will continue to write into the future, and I will link it to this page, so this page will continue to get updated and freshened up. If I do a webinar, maybe on local marketing, I’ll go ahead and put the archived video on the page.

While I targeted the key phrase “local marketing guide,” it is starting to rank for dozens of related terms because of the depth of that content. As a bonus, one of the posts for using Ad Words for local business, which is one of the categories, has also jumped to the number-one spot for related search terms.

The power of interlinking and building a table of contents or chapters-in-a-book approach is the most potent way to rank for content today as far as I’m concerned.

Now this may feel like a lot of work and that’s because it is, but the bar’s been raised, and those that jump high enough are rewarded.

These pages are generating significant traffic, links, and opportunities. When people come to the main page, there’s a lot to consume, so they stay on the page. Bounce rate is almost nothing because they click and dwell on those links, and they visit more links because it’s all woven together, so Google sees high engagement in this form of content.

In addition, these pages become tools for all of our advertising and lead generation efforts.

So what next? Simply choose more themes and repeat the process every month. After a few months, you’ve created a massive content machine that is focused on your ideal customers, expertise, and unique point of view, not keywords, which will assist in driving business and leads, not just spammy clicks.

http://ift.tt/2DS3QEf

#FEED 9 MARKETING

0 notes

restatebrk24219 · 6 years

Text

Content Marketing is About Customers, Not Keywords

Content Marketing is About Customers, Not Keywords written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Marketing Podcast with John Jantsch About Content Marketing

I have content marketing on the brain so I thought I’d write about it today. “Boy, there is a topic that nobody’s covered” said nobody ever.

I have a lot of pages that are on page one, about 1700 last time I looked. So obviously I’ve got a tremendous amount of momentum, and so I’m not going to suggest that just anybody can do this.

Understanding intent

The key to anything I talk about is how to understand intent. What problems, questions, or goals does your client have?

It’s some of the best content you can get, but don’t forget to talk to your customers and ask them a lot of questions as well.

Helpful tools for content marketing efforts

Choosing content

The last piece of this is that a lot of times people make the mistake of saying, “Well, we’re this kind of company, but the most popular content people want is X, Y, and Z.”

There are a couple problems with just choosing content that you think will be popular. It’s very hard to be customer-focused.

You must stay very focused to do this.

Creating content packages

The best way to rank for any search terms is to know your customer better than anyone else and create, what I call, a content package to address your known client problems and challenges.

I’ve taken local marketing, I’ve broken it up into five sub-categories, and then those sub-categories blast out to all kinds of other content on my site.

The power of interlinking and building a table of contents or chapters-in-a-book approach is the most potent way to rank for content today as far as I’m concerned.

Now this may feel like a lot of work and that’s because it is, but the bar’s been raised, and those that jump high enough are rewarded.

In addition, these pages become tools for all of our advertising and lead generation efforts.

http://ift.tt/2DS3QEf

#Content Marketing is About Customers #Not Keywords

0 notes

repmrkting17042 · 6 years

Text

Content Marketing is About Customers, Not Keywords

Content Marketing is About Customers, Not Keywords written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Marketing Podcast with John Jantsch About Content Marketing

I have content marketing on the brain so I thought I’d write about it today. “Boy, there is a topic that nobody’s covered” said nobody ever.

I have a lot of pages that are on page one, about 1700 last time I looked. So obviously I’ve got a tremendous amount of momentum, and so I’m not going to suggest that just anybody can do this.

Understanding intent

The key to anything I talk about is how to understand intent. What problems, questions, or goals does your client have?

It’s some of the best content you can get, but don’t forget to talk to your customers and ask them a lot of questions as well.

Helpful tools for content marketing efforts

Choosing content

The last piece of this is that a lot of times people make the mistake of saying, “Well, we’re this kind of company, but the most popular content people want is X, Y, and Z.”

There are a couple problems with just choosing content that you think will be popular. It’s very hard to be customer-focused.

You must stay very focused to do this.

Creating content packages

The best way to rank for any search terms is to know your customer better than anyone else and create, what I call, a content package to address your known client problems and challenges.

I’ve taken local marketing, I’ve broken it up into five sub-categories, and then those sub-categories blast out to all kinds of other content on my site.

The power of interlinking and building a table of contents or chapters-in-a-book approach is the most potent way to rank for content today as far as I’m concerned.

Now this may feel like a lot of work and that’s because it is, but the bar’s been raised, and those that jump high enough are rewarded.

In addition, these pages become tools for all of our advertising and lead generation efforts.

http://ift.tt/2DS3QEf

#Content Marketing is About Customers #Not Keywords

0 notes

bathrem22032 · 6 years

Text

Content Marketing is About Customers, Not Keywords

Content Marketing is About Customers, Not Keywords written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Marketing Podcast with John Jantsch About Content Marketing

I have content marketing on the brain so I thought I’d write about it today. “Boy, there is a topic that nobody’s covered” said nobody ever.

I have a lot of pages that are on page one, about 1700 last time I looked. So obviously I’ve got a tremendous amount of momentum, and so I’m not going to suggest that just anybody can do this.

Understanding intent

The key to anything I talk about is how to understand intent. What problems, questions, or goals does your client have?

It’s some of the best content you can get, but don’t forget to talk to your customers and ask them a lot of questions as well.

Helpful tools for content marketing efforts

Choosing content

The last piece of this is that a lot of times people make the mistake of saying, “Well, we’re this kind of company, but the most popular content people want is X, Y, and Z.”

There are a couple problems with just choosing content that you think will be popular. It’s very hard to be customer-focused.

You must stay very focused to do this.

Creating content packages

The best way to rank for any search terms is to know your customer better than anyone else and create, what I call, a content package to address your known client problems and challenges.

I’ve taken local marketing, I’ve broken it up into five sub-categories, and then those sub-categories blast out to all kinds of other content on my site.

The power of interlinking and building a table of contents or chapters-in-a-book approach is the most potent way to rank for content today as far as I’m concerned.

Now this may feel like a lot of work and that’s because it is, but the bar’s been raised, and those that jump high enough are rewarded.

In addition, these pages become tools for all of our advertising and lead generation efforts.

http://ift.tt/2DS3QEf

#Content Marketing is About Customers #Not Keywords

0 notes

piatty29033 · 6 years

Text

Content Marketing is About Customers, Not Keywords

Content Marketing is About Customers, Not Keywords written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Marketing Podcast with John Jantsch About Content Marketing

I have content marketing on the brain so I thought I’d write about it today. “Boy, there is a topic that nobody’s covered” said nobody ever.

I have a lot of pages that are on page one, about 1700 last time I looked. So obviously I’ve got a tremendous amount of momentum, and so I’m not going to suggest that just anybody can do this.

Understanding intent

The key to anything I talk about is how to understand intent. What problems, questions, or goals does your client have?

It’s some of the best content you can get, but don’t forget to talk to your customers and ask them a lot of questions as well.

Helpful tools for content marketing efforts

Choosing content

The last piece of this is that a lot of times people make the mistake of saying, “Well, we’re this kind of company, but the most popular content people want is X, Y, and Z.”

There are a couple problems with just choosing content that you think will be popular. It’s very hard to be customer-focused.

You must stay very focused to do this.

Creating content packages

The best way to rank for any search terms is to know your customer better than anyone else and create, what I call, a content package to address your known client problems and challenges.

I’ve taken local marketing, I’ve broken it up into five sub-categories, and then those sub-categories blast out to all kinds of other content on my site.

The power of interlinking and building a table of contents or chapters-in-a-book approach is the most potent way to rank for content today as far as I’m concerned.

Now this may feel like a lot of work and that’s because it is, but the bar’s been raised, and those that jump high enough are rewarded.

In addition, these pages become tools for all of our advertising and lead generation efforts.

http://ift.tt/2DS3QEf

#Content Marketing is About Customers #Not Keywords

0 notes

seo75074 · 6 years

Text

Content Marketing is About Customers, Not Keywords

Content Marketing is About Customers, Not Keywords written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Marketing Podcast with John Jantsch About Content Marketing

I have content marketing on the brain so I thought I’d write about it today. “Boy, there is a topic that nobody’s covered” said nobody ever.

I have a lot of pages that are on page one, about 1700 last time I looked. So obviously I’ve got a tremendous amount of momentum, and so I’m not going to suggest that just anybody can do this.

Understanding intent

The key to anything I talk about is how to understand intent. What problems, questions, or goals does your client have?

It’s some of the best content you can get, but don’t forget to talk to your customers and ask them a lot of questions as well.

Helpful tools for content marketing efforts

Choosing content

The last piece of this is that a lot of times people make the mistake of saying, “Well, we’re this kind of company, but the most popular content people want is X, Y, and Z.”

There are a couple problems with just choosing content that you think will be popular. It’s very hard to be customer-focused.

You must stay very focused to do this.

Creating content packages

The best way to rank for any search terms is to know your customer better than anyone else and create, what I call, a content package to address your known client problems and challenges.

I’ve taken local marketing, I’ve broken it up into five sub-categories, and then those sub-categories blast out to all kinds of other content on my site.

The power of interlinking and building a table of contents or chapters-in-a-book approach is the most potent way to rank for content today as far as I’m concerned.

Now this may feel like a lot of work and that’s because it is, but the bar’s been raised, and those that jump high enough are rewarded.

In addition, these pages become tools for all of our advertising and lead generation efforts.

http://ift.tt/2DS3QEf

#Content Marketing is About Customers #Not Keywords

0 notes

personalinjurylawyer93555 · 6 years

Text

Content Marketing is About Customers, Not Keywords

Content Marketing is About Customers, Not Keywords written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Marketing Podcast with John Jantsch About Content Marketing

I have content marketing on the brain so I thought I’d write about it today. “Boy, there is a topic that nobody’s covered” said nobody ever.

I have a lot of pages that are on page one, about 1700 last time I looked. So obviously I’ve got a tremendous amount of momentum, and so I’m not going to suggest that just anybody can do this.

Understanding intent

The key to anything I talk about is how to understand intent. What problems, questions, or goals does your client have?

It’s some of the best content you can get, but don’t forget to talk to your customers and ask them a lot of questions as well.

Helpful tools for content marketing efforts

Choosing content

The last piece of this is that a lot of times people make the mistake of saying, “Well, we’re this kind of company, but the most popular content people want is X, Y, and Z.”

There are a couple problems with just choosing content that you think will be popular. It’s very hard to be customer-focused.

You must stay very focused to do this.

Creating content packages

The best way to rank for any search terms is to know your customer better than anyone else and create, what I call, a content package to address your known client problems and challenges.

I’ve taken local marketing, I’ve broken it up into five sub-categories, and then those sub-categories blast out to all kinds of other content on my site.

The power of interlinking and building a table of contents or chapters-in-a-book approach is the most potent way to rank for content today as far as I’m concerned.

Now this may feel like a lot of work and that’s because it is, but the bar’s been raised, and those that jump high enough are rewarded.

In addition, these pages become tools for all of our advertising and lead generation efforts.

http://ift.tt/2DS3QEf

#Content Marketing is About Customers #Not Keywords

0 notes

mortlend40507 · 6 years

Text

Content Marketing is About Customers, Not Keywords

Content Marketing is About Customers, Not Keywords written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Marketing Podcast with John Jantsch About Content Marketing

I have content marketing on the brain so I thought I’d write about it today. “Boy, there is a topic that nobody’s covered” said nobody ever.

I have a lot of pages that are on page one, about 1700 last time I looked. So obviously I’ve got a tremendous amount of momentum, and so I’m not going to suggest that just anybody can do this.

Understanding intent

The key to anything I talk about is how to understand intent. What problems, questions, or goals does your client have?

It’s some of the best content you can get, but don’t forget to talk to your customers and ask them a lot of questions as well.

Helpful tools for content marketing efforts

Choosing content

The last piece of this is that a lot of times people make the mistake of saying, “Well, we’re this kind of company, but the most popular content people want is X, Y, and Z.”

There are a couple problems with just choosing content that you think will be popular. It’s very hard to be customer-focused.

You must stay very focused to do this.

Creating content packages

The best way to rank for any search terms is to know your customer better than anyone else and create, what I call, a content package to address your known client problems and challenges.

I’ve taken local marketing, I’ve broken it up into five sub-categories, and then those sub-categories blast out to all kinds of other content on my site.

The power of interlinking and building a table of contents or chapters-in-a-book approach is the most potent way to rank for content today as far as I’m concerned.

Now this may feel like a lot of work and that’s because it is, but the bar’s been raised, and those that jump high enough are rewarded.

In addition, these pages become tools for all of our advertising and lead generation efforts.

http://ift.tt/2DS3QEf

#Content Marketing is About Customers #Not Keywords

0 notes

inetmrktng75247 · 6 years

Text

Content Marketing is About Customers, Not Keywords

Content Marketing is About Customers, Not Keywords written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Marketing Podcast with John Jantsch About Content Marketing

I have content marketing on the brain so I thought I’d write about it today. “Boy, there is a topic that nobody’s covered” said nobody ever.

I have a lot of pages that are on page one, about 1700 last time I looked. So obviously I’ve got a tremendous amount of momentum, and so I’m not going to suggest that just anybody can do this.

Understanding intent

The key to anything I talk about is how to understand intent. What problems, questions, or goals does your client have?

It’s some of the best content you can get, but don’t forget to talk to your customers and ask them a lot of questions as well.

Helpful tools for content marketing efforts

Choosing content

The last piece of this is that a lot of times people make the mistake of saying, “Well, we’re this kind of company, but the most popular content people want is X, Y, and Z.”

There are a couple problems with just choosing content that you think will be popular. It’s very hard to be customer-focused.

You must stay very focused to do this.

Creating content packages

The best way to rank for any search terms is to know your customer better than anyone else and create, what I call, a content package to address your known client problems and challenges.

I’ve taken local marketing, I’ve broken it up into five sub-categories, and then those sub-categories blast out to all kinds of other content on my site.

The power of interlinking and building a table of contents or chapters-in-a-book approach is the most potent way to rank for content today as far as I’m concerned.

Now this may feel like a lot of work and that’s because it is, but the bar’s been raised, and those that jump high enough are rewarded.

In addition, these pages become tools for all of our advertising and lead generation efforts.

http://ift.tt/2DS3QEf

#Content Marketing is About Customers #Not Keywords

0 notes