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fountainpenguin · 3 years

Text

It’s an Update

Hello, Riddle here! I know I’ve been pretty quiet on Tumblr lately. Here’s an update on my situation:

I will definitely post more fanfic updates soon. I’ve picked at drafts, but haven’t posted anything lately. Here are the reasons why:

I got a new IRL job. It’s a good fit for me, but I have less free time than I used to, of course. It’s a job that involves writing lots of articles on a variety of topics, and I enjoy how every day is a little different

Most of my free time for the last year has gone towards my mod work at the Creature-Crossing ARPG, and to my personal CC writing. I’ve been working on new activities over there (my recent favorite being our seasonal familiar shows... I won first place in the summer show!) and I have a lot of plot plans that are coming together now. If you ever want to see my original characters and read my CC writing, you can find my character directory HERE and my Table of Contents HERE.

Once November 1st hits, I won’t be preparing for the release of any more CC activities or events. All future activity or event releases will be overseen by the other mods, and I’ll simply be someone they can ask for extra help if needed. This is a big change for a mod who spent the last 12 months working on new releases, and will give me back some of the free time my IRL job will eat

The Creature-Crossing admin (my boss) greenlit my request to bring an assistant on the mod team who will specifically help me with a lot of my behind-the-scenes work, such as data entry and organization. I’ve never had another mod who specifically helps me with the back end duties before, so that will be awesome. I will need to spend some time training them, but once they are official, that will take some of my workload off and allow me more free time for this blog and personal writing time.

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Fanfic updates you can expect to see soon:

- Reedfilter Rules

- Frayed Knots

- Origin of the Pixies

- Debut of Factor It In, my Kid Math-centric “WordGirl” fanfic (Subtitled “Tales of a third-grade superhero in training”)... Yes I am still in love with this idiot boy, expect lots of doodle pages soon

- The 130 Prompts project is on a slow-burn writing schedule... I’ll write for it when I want to, but I mostly want to focus on Origin and Knots this year.

Further info below the cut. There is more info about non-Fairly OddParents ‘fics in here too (under “non-FOP fanfics”), so if you’re looking forward to Mario World or “WordGirl” ‘fics from me, give this a click so you know what’s coming!

So, what does this update mean for your fanfics?

They’ll be active again soon! I’ve been picking at them behind the scenes, trying to build up a buffer. In an ideal world, I would love to release a new chapter for SOMETHING every Friday. I doubt this will be possible, but it’s something I would love to work towards in the future. Realistically, you can probably expect some kind of fanfic update once every two Fridays (two updates per month).

There might be some Fridays where posting an update is not possible. Instead, I’ll make a post about what progress I made instead. In the past, I often overworked myself to get a chapter out in time for my old deadline. I will not be doing that anymore, but will instead hold myself to a goal of “Make progress on something every week.”

In the best ideal world, I would love to post one FOP fanfic update per week and one non-FOP fanfic update per week. This is not likely to happen for a long, long time, but that would be the dream.

Here are the things I most likely worked on if there is no fanfic update:

- A fanfic chapter draft that needs more time

- A sideblog profile

- A Toyhouse profile for personal characters

- IRL work or mod work may have kept me busy this week

- Creature-Crossing writing... I will try to prioritize my fanfics more, but my CC writing is still important to me and I will be working on it in a lot of my free time too. At the moment, I have a hard deadline of December 14th that I need to meet if I want to release huge plot drama on the day that it happens in canon. I’ve been building up to this for a long time, so I’m really excited about that.

I currently have summer or autumn 2022 planned as the “finale” for the majority of my plot to explode. I will be hosting a member-run event in Creature-Crossing that will last for two months, so a lot of my time from January until the event’s release will be spent doing event prep. Once the event ends, my story content will mostly be a “return to slice of life.” Stories will be more casual one-offs as characters grow, live their lives, and start their own families. Hitting seasonal deadlines for plot will no longer be so important. I’ll be giving Creature-Crossing work less attention after that, and much more attention to my fanfics.

- I may not have a fanfic chapter out each week, but I WILL post a note every Friday to let you know what I have been doing with my time. You’ll see me around. Feel free to send Asks and talk!

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What non-FOP fanfics would you like to work on?

For literal years, I’ve been claiming I want to post Mario World fanfics. This is still something I want to do. I tag Mario World posts as “mushrooms and more.” I’ve already done a lot of worldbuilding, I have thousands of words of content written for this fandom... I just haven’t posted any of it. I hope to do this soon.

- “WordGirl” fanfics are prioritized over Mario World fanfics. After I finish my first “WordGirl” multi-chapter, I will probably be ready to post my Mario World ‘fics. I may possibly post some Mario World one-shots in between other fanfic updates. Might take another year or more before I touch Mario stuff unless there’s high interest in seeing it sooner?

I also really want to write some WordGirl ‘fics and get more involved with the fandom community. I’ve been building headcanons and lore for this show ever since I was a kid, and I have multiple ‘fics for this fandom that I want to write.

- “AlgoRhythm” is a ‘fic I have already posted on FFN and AO3, about WordGirl introducing Kid Math to the villains in town

- 28 Cities is a ‘fic I started about Rhyme and Reason before they arrived in Fair City. I put it on hiatus since it didn’t seem like anyone was interested, but I’m willing to post more for it if there is interest in it now that years have passed and I’ve gotten more followers who like WordGirl. I have a lot of worldbuilding and plot I never shared for it

- Factor It In is a ‘fic I’ve been working for a while that parallels the official show from the moment Kid Math arrives in town. It focuses on Rex’s struggle to adjust to this world as a child coming into his superpowers for the first time (Y’know, the whole “superheroes don’t have powers when they’re on their home planets” thing), his struggle to adapt to the social world of a non-logical planet, and Becky’s struggle to help him become accustomed to Earth and learn to share it with her as well. If the episode “Kid Math” was a full-length novel about Rex’s arrival and character development, that’s what this story is. This is the highest priority of all my non-FOP ‘fics... I’ve had a cover image made for 6 months and even though I tried setting it aside, I’ve always been super inspired to write for it. If I felt like it would be a good idea to commit to weekly updates alongside my FOP updates, I would, haha.

- I have two one-shot WIPs called “Squishy Feelings” and “A Little Ambiguity”, one of them focusing on Becky and Rex talking about the events of “Rhyme and Reason” and what it means for Rex’s secret identity, and the latter being a future ‘fic showing WordGirl and Kid Math dealing with life 10 to 15 years down the road. I’ll probably post the latter, not sure yet on the former.

- If desired, I may make a WordGirl specific sideblog where I post lore, answer Asks, post character profiles [smaller than my FOP sideblog ones], and mention fanfic updates. If you would be interested in this, feel free to send me an Ask requesting I do this. If there’s not interest, I’ll just keep my WordGirl stuff on the main blog.

- I’d like to get more involved in the WordGirl community, so I’ll probably post more content and reblog more art and headcanons

I also have a handful of miscellaneous ideas I might follow through with. I’d like to write at least one “TUFF Puppy” fanfic so I can say I did. In a perfect world I would like to finish the two “Danny Phantom” and “Bunsen Is a Beast” fanfics I started because... I just kind of want to dip my toe in each of the Hartman shows once since I already went through all the effort of worldbuilding for them to make them canon in a single Hartman show universe. “ChalkZone” is another show I adore and might touch someday (You may recall I have a full outline planned for an FOP/ChalkZone crossover ‘fic called “Dust to Dust”).

Will I write all of these things? Maybe not. I have no idea if I want to spend the next 10+ years writing fanfics, or if I’ll simply be done with all misc. fanfics immediately once I decide to be done with my main ‘fics. I definitely intend to write for a few more years and finish my main ‘fics, but I might not go through with some less popular side ‘fics if life is getting busy for me.

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What is the posting schedule for FOP ‘fics?

Reedfilter Rules, Frayed Knots, Origin of the Pixies, the 130 Prompts project, and “Come What May” are all high priority FOP writings. I will swap between them depending on my mood that week.

Here are some other ‘fics I want to work on.

- If you like, you can send me Asks requesting I work on a specific story above the rest. I will try to prioritize whichever stories interest you guys most.

Snips and Snails is a ‘fic I started and posted the first chapter for years ago. I’m not sure when I will get back to it, as I ran into some writer’s block. It’s still on tentative hiatus for now..... Possibly forever, though I hope it isn’t forever since it’s only supposed to be, like, five more chapters.

Pink and Gray is on official hiatus. I actually have a lot written for it, but I know it’s a little weird to put so much time and energy into Gary and Betty content when... well, let’s be honest: they’re my niche favorites and most of you probably don’t care. So, I am lifting my usual “no spoilers” policy from my Ask Box. If you would like to ask about my Gary and Betty backstory headcanons, feel free. I will tag my replies as “ridwriting spoilers” for anyone who wants to blacklist the tag, and spoilers will be hidden under a Read More line.

I’d like to return to this story someday because there are tons of things I like about it (ranging from Betty’s secret tattoos to Gary’s plot drama with his mom to the background drama between Talon and Anti-Cosmo, but I always feel immense pressure to make it extra cool to make up for the fact these are weird side characters, so... it’s officially at the bottom of the priority pile. Once Talon shows up in Frayed Knots and readers understand who he is and why he exists, I’ll consider coming back to it.

Identity Theft is a story about Foop and his time in the alternate dimension he was flung into following the episode “Playdate of Doom.” To put it short, Foop was abused by alternate versions of his parents in this dimension and he witnessed some pretty intense stuff, including the death of the alt version of himself who existed in that reality. The trauma he experienced resulted in his alternate personality, Hiccup. Foop himself has very few memories of what happened, as Hiccup has all of those memories. This story is canon in my works, and it is regularly referred to during the 130 Prompts as part of Foop’s backstory. It’s my highest priority side story to work on.

Along the Cherry Lane is a 20-chapter work focusing on the lives of the main human cast from age 11 to age 30, with one chapter showing a snippet of their lives each year. You see Timmy raising Tommy and Tammy in this ‘fic, and it ends with them receiving godparents. Since the 130 Prompts don’t give humans much attention, this ‘fic does. You’ll probably see it debut two years from now, closer to when the 130 Prompts is ready to talk more about humans.

If this becomes a popular ‘fic of mine, I’ll probably write a sequel or continue it past Chapter 30 and write about Tammy and Tommy living with fairies, but I won’t if there’s no interest in that.

Little Imperfections is a Pixie AU ‘fic of mine about what life would be like in a universe where the Fairies are even more like insects than I play them as during my main works (where I already play them as semi-similar to insects). In this world, the Head Pixie is a figurehead whose duty is to reproduce for the sake of the colony and do nothing else, and he’s bored out of his mind until he befriends Sanderson, who introduces him to music. It’s extremely self-indulgent and silly because I like Pixies.

Francis is a multi-chapter ‘fic about bully Francis’s life getting yet another fairy godparent in a long string of memory wipes and godparents. It takes place during the canon series, and when you see an “orange fairy” mentioned in some of my writings, it’s usually referring to this fairy. His name is Rover and I occasionally post art of him. I feel like I can’t truly call myself an FOP fanfic writer until I actually write about a godkid and their godparents, haha...

Hawthorn Haven is a side ‘fic that will be posted towards the end of the 130 Prompts, as it veers off from the prompts in its own self-contained multi-chapter story. It will be approximately the length of “Baby, You’re a Rich Man.”

Acacia Arcadia is a far-past ‘fic detailing the fall of the ancient fae, the imprisonment of the nature spirits, the rise and fall of the chimera nation, the fall of the Martian genies, and the early days of the cloudlands. This is close to the bottom of the priority pile... It’s something I spend time on for personal reference to ensure accuracy in my other ‘fics, but it’s probably not what you guys came here to read.

AA has a bunch of characters in it that you might vaguely recognize, such as Ezekiel Whimsifinado, Evadne, Ione, Two Feathers, Rho, and Sablewood (If you’re astute, you might recall cloudland legends and landmarks in modern day that refer back to these characters). There are also a lot of characters who were reincarnated as Anti-Fairies, in accordance to traditional Anti-Fairy beliefs; Foop for example exists as a main character in one of his past lives, and you’ll see a hint dropped about each of his lives in the first chapter of Identity Theft. My tentative plan is to use Foop’s past lives as my central characters, following the events of each part of the timeline until he gets killed and reincarnates at a later point of the timeline.

I also keep some one-shots in a file I call Mixed Nuts and I may possibly post them someday (they’re mostly just one-shots of main cast characters I do to get a feel for their personalities, I have some Wanda and Cupid in here). @zachbrightside and I are also working on a collab ‘fic called Like a House On Fire that shows more of Timmy and Chloe’s lives during Season 10 (especially around the time of “Which Is Wish?”) No news on a release date for that yet.

As I’ve said before, once all my other FOP works are complete, I will write Devil’s Backbone, which is my far-future ‘fic and the finale of my FOP writing. I do not plan to write any more FOP content after that story is finished, as I expect to have all other FOP projects done by then.

- Devil’s Backbone is a finale 'fic, so all worldbuilding from all stories is fair game to blend together, and it’s highly recommended you read everything else first. This story has been outlined since 2016, and it might not be published for another 10 years... Who knows! But it’s something I always work towards as a concrete endgame goal.

- If something serious comes up in my life and I officially decide I don’t want to write this story, I will post the outline for it. The link to this draft is included with all the other Google Docs links I have in a far-future queued post unveiling my WIPs in case I unexpectedly die and you still want to know how my stories would have gone, so you’ll get access to this story eventually even if I die young. Yes, share access is turned on for them all and I do take extra careful measures to be sure that post doesn’t get posted early skldfj

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What is the plan for the main blog?

Every Friday, I will post either a fanfic chapter or a progress update. You can blacklist the tag “ridlife” if you do not want to see the progress updates on your dashboard. Fanfic updates will not have the “ridlife” tag, so you will not be blocking them.

During the rest of the week, I might post doodles, reblogs, or general comments. Basically... you’ll see the blog become active again. Feel free to send in Asks about my worldbuilding and thoughts on fanfic characters.

@fountainpenguin is my personal blog, so you will see non-fandom things on here sometimes

@riddledeep is my FOP-exclusive sideblog. It contains all my lore notes and goes into a ton of depth, more than my fanfics give in one breath

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What does this mean for the Riddledeep sideblog?

I really want to go back and edit those character profiles that were posted early by mistake. The reason they were queued is because if I turned them into drafts, they would have been buried all the way at the beginning of my draft collection, and I have many, many drafts saved. There are no page numbers to navigate quickly through the draft collection, so I would have to click through each page one by one if I ever wanted to look at them. I hated doing this, which is why I kept my posts queued.

I was regularly updating the queue deadlines, trying to keep things in the order I wanted to post them in, but Tumblr made a change to the way drafts are dated and it kept throwing off my system. My inability to remember when my queued things would post combined with my busy schedule led to some profiles being posted early and incomplete. I want to fix these.

Over a year ago, my good friend Vulpix150 helped me finalize my designs for the Aos Sí and Daoine Sith. I’ve been sitting on that art in secret for a while, and at some point I plan to post it on the sideblog and talk more about that lore.

Updating fanfics is my higher priority (and it was the priority my followers voted for when I asked you to send votes to my Ask Box a while back). So, I will usually spend my free time working on fanfics unless I need a break from them and want to work on sideblog profiles instead. Thank you for your patience!

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TL;DR

I’m posting fanfics again soon. I’m going to take a more relaxed approach to posting them. I’m going to post more of what I want to post and what I feel motivated to post, not always a main ‘fic update. If I’m not “feeling it” when working on a draft, then I’ll set it aside for a while unless I know my followers and readers have high interest in the next chapter of that story. I always write for me first, but if I know there are other people who care a lot about a story, then of course I want to write it for you too!

I’m going to embrace my decade-long love for WordGirl and post more ‘fics and art or this fandom. I’ve always been a little shy about doing this, but I’m ready to make it an official fandom on my main blog (unless there are lots of requests for WordGirl things to be contained in their own sideblog). I will be posting the first chapter for a ‘fic called Factor It In very soon. Love my easily frustrated alien kiddos having a long day.

I am working on Creature-Crossing stuff too, and will be especially busy in November and December. Updates will be slow for a few months, but I hope to find my groove and a good pace soon.

Each Friday, I will post either a fanfic update or a mention of what I am working on. I will be checking in on Tumblr regularly. Feel free to talk! I much prefer you send messages to my Ask Box, not my private messenger, please <3

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Is there a specific story of mine you like and want more updates for?

Asks and reviews help me know which ‘fics people are enjoying. I plan to keep writing ‘fics no matter what, but I definitely give more time to the ‘fics that get more attention (and I have been spending so much time writing for Creature-Crossing because that’s where the attention was coming from)

It’s easy to stay motivated and get the next part of a story out soon if I know that people like it. It’s always harder if you feel like people are silently judging you and ignoring your posts. So, let me know what you’re interested in. And if you only leave Likes or Favorites instead of asks and reviews, that’s okay too! Thank you for interacting anyway and enjoying my work.

Thanks for reading!

#WordGirl #Factor It In #Kid Math #FAIRIES!#ridlife #riddleverse mention #ridwriting #Mushrooms and more #Satirical vocab alien child show #Frayed Knots #130 Prompts #Origin of the Pixies #Pink and Gray #Acacia Arcadia #Devil's Backbone #Hawthorn Haven #Along the Cherry Lane

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hermannsthumb · 5 years

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OOOH AUTUMN FIC MEMES !!! okay if you aren't terribly busy and wouldn't mind, of course, i'd love to see the prompt "hayride" and/or "flannel shirt" for newmann :3

from autumn fic meme here: 25. Hayride + 28. Flannel Shirt

HELLO ERICA....YES OF COURSE.......have some post-movie newt and hermann as roommates with a side of mutual (not that they realize) pining

————————————————————————

It takes Hermann ten days to agree to the idea when Newton first proposes it, and even then, he’s skeptical; he blames his allergies first (dust, dead leaves, mold), his back (extra-sensitive to being jostled about), his schedule (too busy, Newton, really, perhaps next year), before Newton—evidently quite desperate—finally decides to just bribe him into it. “It’s literally thirty minutes,” he begs, “it’s fun, and I’ll do the dishes for a whole month afterwards. A whole month! For thirty minutes of fun bonding with me.”

This is no small compromise: in all of their time sharing close quarters, from the professional nature of their laboratory to the more—well, er—intimate friendship of their two-bedroom-flat, Newton has never once put a single plate in the dishwasher, never once wiped down a single coffee mug, never once even offered to rinse off a damn fork. “Make it two,” Hermann says, “and you’ve got a deal.”

“You’re a dick,” Newton says, but agrees to the terms.

Hermann knows Newt will get lazy and fall back on the deal in a week or so, but even that one week will be a welcome change from the usual course of things (i.e., Hermann doing everything) and a great big sacrifice for Newton (i.e., eating chips on the sofa in his underwear) he can’t imagine is worth it. All to pay $20 to sit in the back of a tractor full of hay and be shaken and jostled around for half an hour. Absurd.

“It’s fun. It’s a fall tradition,” Newton shouts over the engine, “like dressing up as a slutty nurse or remaking ‘Halloween’ for the tenth time.” A woman sitting across from them pulls two children closer to her knees and shoots Newton a dirty look; Newton smiles sheepishly. “Dressing up as a wholesome, chaste nurse,” he corrects, “who—”

They drive over a particularly large bump, and Newton bounces off his bale of hay and to the wooden planks of the tractor bed at Hermann’s feet. “Ow.”

Hermann rolls his eyes and offers a hand. “Here we are, Newton,” he says, helping him to his knees with a grunt, “up you go—”

“Thanks, mom,” Newton says. He squeezes back in next to Hermann, wriggling strictly more than necessary, elbow jostling into Hermann’s side; Hermann jabs him back with his own elbow. “Anyway, it’s important for us to, you know, do that kind of stuff now. Normal stuff. Annual traditions.” His eyes flicker down to his boots. “Together. You and me.”

Hermann coughs. He knows the point Newton is trying to make, at least: until recently, they haven’t had the time to do these sorts of things, or even the time to consider these sorts of things—it was difficult to put an effort into making annual traditions when the odds were high they wouldn’t survive that year, let alone the next. And Hermann would know. He calculated the odds himself. “You and me,” he echoes.

It’s their first autumn they’re settled in as roommates. Colleagues. Friends. It makes sense. Friends make traditions together. Newton is only his friend.

(The Newton of now is far more mellow than the Newton Hermann shared a laboratory with for nearly a decade. He’s less prone to shouting. Less prone to arguments. More prone to listening to Hermann. Softer, somehow, even physically, his hair a bit longer, his stubble a bit scruffier, his cheeks a bit fuller. It’s different—not better, not worse, but different. Hermann finds it suits him. Hermann finds it suits him very, very well. Sometimes, when Newton shuffles around in the early mornings in nothing but boxers and a hoodie, when he sits next to Hermann on their couch and offers him coffee with a smile, when he packs Hermann lunch and doodles a few Sharpie hearts on the brown bag, Hermann doesn’t want to be just his friend.)

“I’m surprised you’ve never done one of these before,” Newton is saying. “Didn’t you grow up on a farm?”

“It wasn’t an actual farm,” Hermann says. “But there were—chickens. And an old barn.” There was a broken-down and rusted old tractor in the barn when they bought the property, and plenty of fields (though quite overgrown), so Hermann imagines it’d been a farm at least at some point in time. It wasn’t when he lived there.

The answer seems to satisfy Newton. “My dad used to drive us out to the middle of nowhere to go on these every October,” he says. The wind is blowing the hair from his face, and he’s smiling in that way that makes Hermann feel funny—makes his chest tighten up, his pulse race. “Hayride, then pumpkin picking. Then we’d drive all the way home to carve them for our front step.” Another elbow against Hermann’s side. “We should totally go pumpkin-picking next weekend.”

“What’s the point? We can just go to the shops for one. Probably half the price.”

“Yeah, but that’s not fun,” Newton says.

The tractor hitch jerks and jostles them again, and Hermann’s back hits the wooden bench hard. “This isn’t particularly fun either,” he snaps. “It’s uncomfortable, it’s crowded, it’s bloody cold, too—” It’s freezing, actually, only more so because they’re moving. Hermann’s already planning a hot shower when they get home.

“You’re such a baby,” Newton says.

“A baby?”

“Here I am,” Newton says, “trying to make memories with my best friend—” Before Hermann can even begin to comment on his choice of words, Newton is suddenly yanking off his flannel shirt—leaving himself wearing nothing but his jeans and a tight t-shirt—and tossing it at Hermann. “Just wear this and stop whining.”

Hermann stares at it dumbly. “Your—?”

“Yes,” Newton says. “My flannel. It’s warm. You’re gonna look dumb with it over your sweater, but you’ll be warmer.” When Hermann opens his mouth to protest, because it’s Newton’s flannel, Hermann won’t take it and let him freeze instead, Newton shakes his head and shoves it against Hermann’s chest. “I’m serious, Hermann. I gotta a lot of body heat. I’ll survive.”

Hermann pulls it on over his sweater. It’s large on Newton—Newton, who’s shorter than Hermann, but stockier and nowhere near as skinny—which means it fits easily over all of Hermann’s layers, and it is, indeed, very warm, though it makes Hermann feel a bit like a marshmallow. It also smells like Newton: like his aftershave, his Old Spice deodorant, his fruity shampoo, the coffee he manages to spill on himself every single day. It’s like being wrapped up in Newton’s arms. Like a great big hug. (Or so Hermann assumes; he and Newton don’t make a habit of hugging.)

"I look a ridiculous,” Hermann declares.

“You look cuuuuute,” Newton says, grinning, and knocks the heel of his right boot against Hermann’s left oxford. “Like a big, puffy—”

“Three months, Newton,” Hermann warns. “Three months—“

He means to tack on, retroactively, to Newton’s dishwashing sentence, but they go over another bump, and this one sends Hermann losing his balance and falling forward right into Newton’s lap. “Whoops,” Newton laughs. Hermann blinks dazedly up at him. “You okay, dude?”

Even sideways, and hovering above Hermann with his hair in his face, Newton is distressingly handsome. Hermann’s always found him distressingly handsome. It’s very unfair. “Yes,” Hermann says. “I lost my balance.” The wind carries another whiff of Newton’s deodorant towards him, and his mouth goes dry. He feels dizzy. “Er—would you mind, Newton—?”

It’s Newton’s turn to help him straighten back up; though, when he’s finished, he doesn’t move his arm out from behind Hermann’s back, but curls his fingers around Hermann’s waist instead. “A pumpkin,” he says, breath puffing out warm against the shell of Hermann’s ear, and Hermann must fight to not shiver, “from an actual pumpkin patch. We can each carve a side. How about that?”

“Only if you clean up the mess,” Hermann relents, finding it very difficult to deny Newton anything at the moment.

Newton’s grin returns. He gives Hermann’s waist a squeeze. “Deal.”

#newmann #maria's fanfiction tag #they gay.#newts-geiszler

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hamilton-one-shots · 5 years

Text

Hamilton Omegaverse 2

Mr Jefferson

Good afternoon. I'm writing you to let you know that you've been chosen as this month's interviewee for the Revolutionary Post and I'm going to be the one to conduct your interview. If you're interested, I was hoping we could schedule a time and place for this week.

John Laurens

He sighed and began sketching for a few minutes before hearing his computer bing with a response.

Mr Laurens

Thank you for telling me this, this is a great honor for me. If you're free, perhaps we could meet at my home office this weekend? If not, I'm open most of the time. Whatever is most convenient for you is fine with me.

Thomas Jefferson

Well, that was good.

Mr Jefferson

For personal reasons, I would prefer meeting in a more public setting. If this cafe works for you, I could meet with you Saturday at around noon.

John Laurens

He attached a hyperlink to the word cafe and sent the email, getting a response, once again, within a few minutes.

Perfect. I'll see you Saturday at noon.

Thomas Jefferson

John smiled to himself and added the date to his calendar, pondering over how the details would play out.

Alexander knocked on the door a few minutes later and poked his head in. "Hey, I was just wondering how you were doing. Have you emailed the devil yet?"

John chuckled. "Yeah, I emailed him. But why do you hate him so much? He doesn't seem too bad."

Alexander groaned. "Can I come in? Washington hates it when I begin ranting in the hallway."

"Yeah, sure." He shrugged and watched as Alexander walked in and shut the door behind himself.

"Jefferson is such an entitled piece of shit and he runs this blog, acting like some hero who saves people, as if anyone actually reads that crap. You could get the same information off of Pinterest."

John chuckled. "You clearly haven't read anything recently. He's apologized for past entitled behaviors and helps people with their personal financial issues. I actually used his blog to help me get this job and every part time job I could get in high school."

Alexander furrowed his eyebrows. "Why would you need so many part time jobs?"

"Partly because people fired me as soon as I had my first heat, partly because my dad didn't want to pay for suppressants, partly for a few other reason that aren't really your business."

"Yeah, that's fair." He nodded and sat down across from him. "So, you're really going through with this?.."

"Yep. And I'm getting a bonus for it, so thank you." He smiled.

"Geez, I should give you all of my work in that case," Alexander said, jokingly.

John shrugged.

"So, when are you doing this?"

"Saturday, noon. We're meeting at this cafe, somewhere that all dynamics mix in."

"You know he's going to know you're an omega, right?"

"So? It's not like I'm trying to hide it. I just don't feel comfortable surrounded by alphas and I don't want to make him uncomfortable by surrounding him with other omegas. Or, you know, make the other omegas uncomfortable."

Alexander nodded. "That's fair. I hope you have fun."

"I just hope this doesn't all go to shit."

And it was all that John was worrying over for the next few days, hoping and praying that his first big project would go well. His cartoons were pretty popular so far, but this was actually writing something. It was something that he wanted to explore at some point with that company, but he wasn't expecting an opportunity so soon.

So, when it came to the actual day of the interview, he woke up early in the morning and took a shower, putting on a scent blocker for the first time in a while. He was far from ashamed of his omega status, but he wasn't sure that this Thomas Jefferson would be so cool about it and didn't want such a small detail to derail the interview. He got dressed in a button up shirt and dark jeans, pulling his hair back into a ponytail before going outside, waiting for his Uber.

When it arrived, he got in and went to the cafe, finding that Thomas hadn't arrived quite yet. Well, it made sense. He was a few minutes early. That didn't stop him from being nervous... He just ordered a coffee and a sandwich and waited, waving as Thomas Jefferson walked in.

"John Laurens?" he asked as he walked over.

John stood up and shook his hand, nodding. "That would be me, yes."

"It's nice to meet you." He smiled and sat down with him.

"I hope you don't mind, I already ordered for myself."

"It's no problem. I'll go get my own food, then we can get started."

"Sounds like a plan." He smiled and pulled out his laptop, getting the questions ready and taking a few bites of his sandwich as he waited.

"Thank you for waiting. Alright, I'm ready when you are."

John smiled and began asking his questions, one by one, noting down every word of his response, wanting to make sure he got a thorough interview. The way he saw it, if he had too much detail, he could cut it out more easily than he could add to an interview that he took too few notes on.

"You're really getting every detail in there, aren't you?" Thomas commented with a slight chuckle. "Not that I mind, but this is your first interview, isn't it?"

John chuckled awkwardly. "Is it that obvious?.. I'm a cartoonist, but the guy who was assigned to this... he's not a fan of you."

"Really? Let me guess, was it Alexander Hamilton? I've been getting hate comments from him for the longest."

"Yeah, him. I bet he's going to love the fact that you know his name."

He shrugged. "I don't mind his hate. It's not like he's the only one that sends me that stuff, but he does seem like the most relentless."

"He seems like the type, yeah." He smiled.

Thomas nodded. "So, was there anything else you needed to ask?"

He glanced down at his list, shocked to find that they were all filled in. It seemed like it had only been a few minutes. "No. We're done here."

"Great." He smiled and stood up. "I'll be looking forward to reading what you write about me."

"There's nothing you wanted me to cut out, right?"

"Nope. Your questions weren't too personal, but not too formal. I liked it." He smiled again before walking out.

John grinned, proud of his work, before walking out of the cafe and getting his ride back to his apartment, spending the rest of the weekend writing his piece. Truth be told, he didn't really hang out with anyone. He didn't fit in with really anyone. All of his omega friends were still living with their parents, trying to go out and find their true mates, and his beta and alpha friends were in college, angry at the fact that he got a job without doing the same, as if he didn't try to get into college. So, he kind of just spent his time alone with his pets, a cat and a dog, respectively named Turtle and Palomino for their fur colors. His cat, Turtle, was white with a round patch of black on his back, stomach, and the top of his head, and Palomino was a golden retriever mix with lighter blond hair on his tail, legs, his head, and down his neck. They were both adorable and young. John planned on adopting one pet, but the two fell in love with him and he fell in love with them and he ended up getting two pets. They were his best and only friends and he wouldn't have wanted it any other way. That Monday morning, he emailed his interview to Washington, who forwarded it to Alexander to edit and look over.

Jooooohhhhnnn

You need to become a writer! You made this guy seem almost human!

Alexander

John laughed at that and got up, going over to his office. Unfortunately, since he didn't have as many ongoing projects as John did, he worked in a more public space with other alphas there, staring him down. He just ignored them and leaned against Alexander's desk. "You really thought it was that good of a piece?"

"I think you were great. You should try to write something else for Washington. I sent him the final thing and asked him to read it over and he said you 'exceeded expectations'."

John nodded. "Nice. I'll talk to him about it later this week."

"You'd better. You just started working here and he's already complimenting your work. You deserve to move on up."

An alpha sitting across Alexander's space scoffed quietly. Alexander couldn't quite hear it, but it was loud and clear to John, who'd gone his entire life hearing the same thing.

"I'll do it."

And he did. That Friday, their issue with John's interview in it went out and sold well, not anymore because of John's interview in particular, but there were good reviews left on the online article. So, John worked up enough mental strength and walked into Washington's office, knocking on the door. "Sir? May I speak to you for a minute?"

"Yes, of course. Just shut the door behind you."

John did just that before making his way across the room and sitting in front of his boss. "I was just thinking... About the article I wrote.. I know it was a simple one, but I was hoping you'd let me write more. Something else."

"But you're a cartoonist full time already. I wouldn't want it to interfere with your work."

"It won't. I can finish cartoons quicker than you probably imagine. I can do my regular work along with this. I don't need extra pay. I can do it for what I'm earning now."

Washington nodded a bit and studied John, seeming to be thinking it over before he made a decision. "Alright. I believe I have a solution to this problem. I will give you some assignments and a deadline. This will be for a month. At the end of the month, we'll discuss this again."

He smiled widely. "Thank you! I promise you won't regret this."

"We'll see," he said, though his expression showed that he actually had faith in the omega. "You can go. I'll send you the assignments."

John nodded and got up, making his way out of the office and back to his own. Now, in the breaks between cartoons where he normally found himself doodling or checking his apartment camera to make sure his buddies were okay, John was writing. He poured his hardest work and his best writing into every article, sending them to Alexander for approval each time. They weren't perfect, of course, John was not a writer by trade, but they were something. That Friday, he found himself working past hours without even realizing it until Alexander poked his head in.

"John, our shift ended almost an hour ago."

"What?.." He glanced over at the time. Oh, crap, Alexander was right! "I have to get home!" He jumped to his feet and got his things together, shoving them into his bag before beginning to run out of the office, stopped by the alpha.

"Hey, are you alright?"

"Yeah, sorry, I have a dog and a cat and I have to get home and feed them. I just need to call a cab."

"Nonsense. I'll drive you home, if that's alright with you."

John would've been lying if he said he wasn't unsure about the idea at first, but... Well, he supposed he was close enough to Alexander to call him his friend, wasn't he? He could trust him enough to give him a ride. Besides, it was an omega only apartment. If Alexander tried anything, there was a beta guarding the door who he could call for help. "That would be great, thank you."

Alexander smiled and lead John to the parking garage, showing him to his car. It was no luxury model, but it was a nice car.

John got in and put on his seat belt, holding his bag in his lap and trying to ignore how confined it felt with the strong, alpha scent surrounding him as much as it was.

As they began driving out of the garage, Alexander turned to ask John where he lived and noticed his posture, how tightly wound and defensive he looked. He frowned at that and rolled down the windows, letting the scent of the crisp, fresh, autumn air replace his inky scent. Once John began to visibly relax, he smiled and turned back to the road. "So, where do you live?"

"It's this omega only apartment. It's, like, a five minute drive."

"Alright." He followed John's directions and took him straight to his apartment building, dropping him off in front of the doors. "I'll see you Monday!"

"I'll see you then." John smiled and waved at his friend as he left. Friend.. He loved his pets, but it was nice to have a human friend. He chuckled and went inside, feeding his furry friends before making himself some dinner, just heating up some leftovers, and getting back on his laptop, switching between working and watching Netflix.

#hamilton #hamilton fanfic #alexander hamilton #john laurens #thomas jefferson #george washington #omegaverse #2 #chapter 2

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oathkeeper-of-tarth · 6 years

Text

From Down This Low

The fateful first meeting of Bismuth and Rose Quartz, or: Bismuth can’t help but care far too much. From Working Title: eeEEeeeeEE BISMUTH, same source as Quite Contrary and other snippets.

(Back when I wrote the first draft of this, ages ago, it was pretty straightforward. Now it’s suddenly got a dozen implications per anything Rose says, a ton of bittersweetness, and altogether is just sad where I never originally intended it to be, but here we are and that’s just how it is in this post-ASPR world.)

~2400 words. Briefly featuring a ruby (who isn’t our Ruby) and a pearl (who isn’t our Pearl), and a warning for Homeworld is Horrible brand content and minor character death.

---

From Down This Low

For centuries to come, Bismuth would remember with perfect clarity the well-respected Benitoite architect coming to inspect a relatively fresh arena building site on the promising new colony, her ruby guard escort and pearl by her side. It was hard to forget, too, all the warnings and instructions the overseers had made sure every single bismuth on-site was well aware of, had drummed into them under pain of a variety of terrible fates.

Then, almost as soon as the inspection started, the slip-up and the bit of earth that was supposed to have been flattened long ago, the shouts of one of the ruby guards and the bismuth next to her desperately trying, and failing, to regain control of a long girder.

And it would be downright impossible for her to forget the growing horror of the pearl staggering and slipping backwards into the mouth of one of the recently dug foundation pits, trying desperately to keep herself together, her form glitching and increasingly out of her control, hands clutching at the cracked gem on her throat like it could possibly help stop the webbing, flaking damage.

For a moment Bismuth felt something like hope - the Benitoite actually looked upset, even concerned. But that got snuffed out quickly enough, as soon as she spoke, in that drawl that made Bismuth shiver and feel like the refraction of her entire form was slightly off.

“Oh dear, no... I'll never get a replacement in time for the hosting next cycle…”

The callous disregard was, perhaps, the worst part of it all. It was just a pearl, yes, but Bismuth wanted to scream, it’s your pearl. Surely you owe her something, some small speck of feeling? She has to be more than an inconvenience to you, in the end.

Benitoite then proceeded to make a big fuss about destruction of property and compensation. The bismuth ended up harvested and the inattentive ruby guard shattered on the spot with the most sickening of sounds. The pearl…

Well, the pearl was left at the bottom of the pit, right where she'd fallen, twitching and glitching out and grasping at her throat as the crack in her gem deepened, and as it became clear that nobody cared about her save as an argument anymore.

Once the visitors finally left, and work was done for that rotation, Bismuth sneaked back on site and made her way down into the pit, and quietly held the pearl’s more and more immaterial hand. She did her best to try avoid looking too long at the tiny leftover ruby-red shards scattered about them, but they glistened, and they played in front of her when she closed her eyes, and they deserved better.

She stayed with the pearl as long as she could, took her with herself when the pearl couldn't hold on anymore and retreated into her crumbling gem, then hid her away in a nook in a half-built wall, next to a tidy pile of red shards - as many as she’d managed to find. The pearl never came back out.

(Rose could have helped her, was a thought that would resonate, centuries later. But Rose had burst onto this particular stage just a little too late, and her healing tears even later.

It built and built and built into the realisation that she couldn't sit around and wait for Rose to save everyone.)

Bismuth had no patience for meddling guards, not after the day she’d had. So when a rose quartz with the curliest cloud of bright pink hair Bismuth had ever seen trotted over to the edge of the construction site and very conspicuously tried to catch her eye, she kept her back turned.

“There are no delays. The arena will be ready for you all exactly as ordered,” she grumbled, barely managing to bite back just in time for you to wreck it and reduce good, hard, costly work to piles of rubble. Typical. “Did you need something else?”

“I just wanted… to ask you a few things.”

Bismuth turned, despite herself. The rose quartz looked sheepish and awkward, toying with the pink diamond emblazoned on the front of her uniform, with an air of having just sprung out of the ground about her. Everything about the situation seemed to slot into a familiar place, and Bismuth sighed.

“Okay, listen, I know I’ve helped some of you out in the past, but I can’t go around secretly fixing every barracks wall before your regiment gets in trouble with the agate, not with the schedule they have us on here.” Bismuth rolled her eyes, “Pink Diamond needs her giant statues, yesterday! And besides, I remember telling your pals to keep it on the down low when I last gave you a hand. Who told you to come get me?”

The quartz hastily waved her concerns away. “Oh, no, you misunderstood. I really do just want to talk. Nobody sent me here.”

“Talk.”

“Yes! Talk. Maybe…” the quartz shot a vaguely nervous look around them, pointedly catching on the few stragglers still on-site, “in private.”

Bismuth narrowed her eyes. “You’re a strange one. But fine. I know a place we can go.”

It took her a few more minutes to finish up the chiseling on her current block, then she shapeshifted her hands back, dusted them off, and motioned for the quartz to follow.

She took them to a small stretch of beach at a nearby lake that was due to be drained soon - probably as soon as the terraforming unit could spare a lapis for an hour or two. But for now, it was a pleasantly quiet place to sit and think - or brood, which she’d been doing quite a bit of lately.

Bismuth sat down on a beached log, and the quartz followed suit. She was almost comically entranced with the play of sunlight on the lake’s surface, it seemed a shame to interrupt. But Bismuth doubted either of them could afford to hang around indefinitely.

“So,” she prompted, toying with a bit of driftwood she found at her feet. “Can’t say I’ve really talked to a rose quartz before. Don’t you lot usually get nicer assignments? We just get amethysts who’ve gotten on their commander’s bad side keeping us in line here, officially.”

The quartz ignored her words completely, choosing instead to lean over. “What’s that you’re drawing?”

“Hm? Oh,” Bismuth noticed she’d started doodling in the dirt. “A habit. Nothing much. Sometimes when I come here I just like to… get some ideas out, visualise. That sort of thing. Does no harm, and gets washed away eventually.”

The quartz was staring at her so wide-eyed and so fascinated, Bismuth couldn’t suppress a chuckle. “Okay, look, you saw the scaffolding back there, right? For the pillars?” A nod. “Well, I was just thinking, and honestly when I draw it out it really seems to hold up - instead of the stuff Benitoite has us doing with them, we should do something like this.”

She’d already sketched out the supports, and added some detail to indicate where she’d have the load distributed and the arches go, just to make it clearer for the uninitiated - or, well, her entire audience.

The look the rose quartz gave her turned oddly pointed. “So you don’t think the pillars should be handled the way they are? Surely… surely Her Diamond’s Architect Benitoite is right?”

Bismuth huffed. “No, of course not. They’ll be gone in a couple thousand rotations, worn down to tiny floating bits. Besides, they’re ugly. Now this,” she pointed out the swirling lines in her hasty mud sketch, “this would be much better, much more durable, and it would look spectacular. And even Pink Diamond might be pleased with something, finally, instead of having us do everything over and over again. Benitoite is as clueless as a chunk of shale.” Then she thought back to the architect’s haughty drawl, and her pearl, and the nook in the wall, and she found her mood rapidly darkening. “But hey, like anyone cares what I think. Might as well be the dirt under their feet. And that’s exactly where I’ll end up anyway.”

The quartz looked sadly at where Bismuth had thrown down her stick and smudged away most of the drawing in one frustrated swipe of her foot.

“You don’t seem to have much love for your superiors, or... Pink Diamond,” she began, slightly hesitantly.

“Love?” Bismuth snorted. “Love your Diamond is something meant for other Gems. All I’m supposed to do is get my work done as quickly as possible and get out of the way even quicker, so it can be properly enjoyed by those it’s actually meant for.” She turned to the quartz. “Listen, er-”

“Rose,” she happily supplied. No facet or cut or any sort of designation. Bismuth raised an eyebrow, but decided to shrug and roll with it.

“Right. Rose. You look like a fresh face, so here’s a friendly hint: the arenas are for you to wreck, but best keep out of the fancy places, yeah? They don’t want you there any more then they want me. If some upper crust tries to make you believe that she does, stay away from her. It’s not worth getting entangled in any of that, and it can get real dangerous for you real fast.”

Rose frowned, but nodded. Bismuth wasn’t sure she was coming across properly, but she’d done her best with the warning. She seemed to have gotten her to think, at least - Rose certainly looked like she was mulling over something serious.

“I actually… I wanted to ask you something,” she spoke up after a stretch of slightly strained silence.

“Yeah? Your big secret that we needed to talk in private for?” Bismuth had no idea what it could possibly be, but she also couldn’t see any harm in it. And hey, if she could help a newbie quartz with something that was bothering her, why would she not?

Rose didn’t respond immediately, but spent a while looking out at the lake again. A breeze started up, and made her rich, pink curls dance around her shoulders - she was certainly a sight to behold, as impressive as quartzes generally went. Then she turned back to look Bismuth in the eye, gaze heavy with something unrecognisable. “What would you want to build?”

“What?” Bismuth laughed, far too loud. “Listen, princess, I just hammer away, I don’t make the calls-”

“But if you could!” Rose sounded breathless, and had drawn closer, wide-eyed and expectant and oddly excited, then took one of Bismuth’s hands between her own. “Imagine if there was a place- if you could get the chance to figure it out for yourself. If you could pick anything at all to build, what would it be?”

Anything at all.

It felt like a thousand ideas and wild thoughts were flitting through Bismuth’s mind, yet not a single one wanted to stay and become solid. But rubies and pearls featured prominently, and supports and safety nets and sanctuaries and things she couldn’t even begin to put into words, and she knew yesterday was still messing her up but it was just so hard to put any of it out of her mind for long-

Bismuth pulled away and forced out another nervous laugh. “What do you want with me, you weird hunk of quartz? What’s gotten into you?”

Rose became far more serious - solemn, even, and her dark eyes seemed to bore into Bismuth’s very core. “I saw you yesterday. With the pearl.”

Bismuth tried to hide her flinch behind a grin she knew had to be terribly unconvincing, and found herself scrambling to come up with a believable excuse. “Well, you know how it is… no way am I ever getting one for myself, so why not make use of a chance to play a little pretend...”

Rose shook her head, the endless curls following the movement almost entrancingly. “You don’t have to put up that front with me.”

“Front? Hah, what? Come on-”

“I saw you,” Rose repeated simply, “and I saw that you cared.”

Bismuth didn’t have an answer to that, so Rose continued.

“You were so gentle. You sat there and let her cling to your hand right until the end, when there was nothing but risk in it for you. Not many Gems I know would do something like that.”

Her companion didn’t seem quite so innocuous anymore, and that air of newness and innocence and curiosity seemed to have an altogether different feel to it now, and an odd undercurrent. “You’re right,” Bismuth admitted, with an anger that somehow felt very old. “That’s how they have such a tight hold on all of us. We help them keep us down and use us, because we do it to each other.”

Rose raised an eyebrow. “They? Sounds like dangerous talk.”

Bismuth shrugged. “Maybe it is. Maybe it should be, because we could be dangerous. Maybe I’m tired of so many Gems like me being… underestimated. Or worse.”

Bismuths were easy enough to make, she knew. They were built to be sturdy and durable, capable of withstanding heavy loads and gruelling work and punishing conditions of colonies-to-be. The investment just made sense, but once they wore down or fell victim to some inevitable workplace accident, that was that. It was a loss, yes, but an entirely bearable and replaceable one, and what were a few bismuths compared to a glorious newly erected spire, or a magnificent temple to honour the Diamonds? What was a handful of rubies if the fight was won, in the end, or a string of pearls gone out of style?

The way Rose was looking at her, though. The things she was asking. That was new. “Who are you?” Bismuth finally asked.

Rose lowered her voice conspiratorially, even though a quick glance around confirmed they were still alone. “I’m someone who’s had some dangerous thoughts, too. And I’m looking for Gems who want to help.”

Want.

“Well,” Bismuth said, feeling the beginnings of something oddly like promise, or that bit of hope she’d felt - or feared - snuffed out yesterday, “what did you have in mind?”

The smile on Rose’s face would have been terrifying, had it been aimed at her. As it was, she felt almost compelled to match it.

“Sabotage.”

#bismuth #rose quartz #steven universe #fanfiction #oathkeeper writes things #my fic #let's get down to bismuth #in fact #eeEEeeeeEE BISMUTH #bis has the whole class solidarity thing going on i love her #so very much #this wasn't at all what i'd planned to do today but i had Feelings #what can you do #long post

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woozibby · 6 years

Text

Biker!Jun; How You Meet

I have a new posting schedule which is here, so please check it out!

Time for Biker!Jun now, i got quite carried away with this, so it’s super long compared to my normal ‘how you meet’ scenarios. So I hope you all enjoy!

Warning: Swearing, Alcohol, Drugs.

Unedited

——

Currently, it’s 11:27pm and it’s 20° and I’m dying from the heat. Anyone in Wales/UK knows what the heat has been like recently.

Anyways, let’s get started.

I’m going to try doing this a different way this time and see how to goes, please tell me if you like it...

Let’s start with a bit of character background.

(Y/N), aka you, a twenty-year-old in the midst of doing a physiology degree. Your best friend is Bora, who you share your dorm with.

You and Bora are total opposites. You love to stay in, read, Fangirl/boy. Bora, on the other hand, loves to party and have a good time.

If she couldn’t drag her boyfriend Hongki, yes I ship Bora and Hongki, to a party that’s where you’d come in.

And since you weren’t about that party life, it normally took her a few days to warm you up into going.

So this is where it begins.

It was a warm Wednesday morning when Bora, first approached you about the party that was happening that Friday night.

You sat at the dining room table in your dorm eating some cornflakes, when Bora slid into a chair beside you and places her head in her hands as she blinked at you.

“No”

You instantly said, without her needing to say anything.

She gasped, her mouth open wide.

“I never even said anything!”

You sent her a look, with one eyebrow raised.

“You don’t need to, I know why you were going to ask and my answer is no”

She let out a small huff, crossing her arms over her chest as she pouted.

“No fair! You could have at least humoured me a bit”

Taking a final spoon full of your cereal, you send her another look.

“Fine fine, go ahead ask”

Bora’s smile widened and she clapped her hands together.

“(Y/N), will you please go to the party on Friday”

You smiled before dropping the smile and looking at her with a plain look.

“Nope”

Bora let out a dramatic sigh and rested her head on the dining room table.

“Okay, okay, fine!” She says, not loving her head.

You let out a small giggle and pat her on the head before getting up and putting your dish into the dishwasher.

Picking up your bag that was on the side, you throw it over your shoulder and send her a small smile.

“I’ll see you later, I have a load of classes today”

She just mumbled to herself, waving you off with her hand.

Giggling at her, you say your goodbyes and leave the dorm to head to your first uni lesson of the day.

Since the dorms weren’t too far away from campus, you got there with time to spare.

The classroom was still quite empty, which wasn’t surprising. There were a few students sitting in their usual places and one person caught your eyes.

You hadn’t seen him before, or at all for that matter, you didn’t even think he was a student of this course.

He had dark brown hair, you couldn’t see his eye colour as he had a pair of aviators covering his eyes. He also had a large leather jacket over his shoulders.

He seemed to notice you and he pulled his aviators down as he stared at you and a smirk formed on his lips.

You made a face to yourself, but (jung)shook it off before sitting down in your usual seat.

You started to get your stuff out of your bag when you heard the chair next to you scrap against the floor and someone sits down.

You didn’t bother looking up as you continue to get your stuff ready, even when the person began to talk you didn’t look over.

“Hi there”

You look over to see it was the guy was sitting at the back of the room. He still had his aviators on and the smirk was still plastered over his face.

Pulling the aviators down again. He raised an eyebrow.

“Nice to meet you”

You pushed your lips together and let out a silent sigh.

“Nice to meet you too I guess?” You said, turning back to your stuff.

Realising you still had your bag on your lap, you move and put it over the back of your chair and open the pad of paper you had before doodling down the date on the corner of the page.

He sat there, watching you until you let out a huff and turned to him.

“Are you even meant to be in this class? Because I’ve never seen you here before”

He chuckled, removing the aviators.

“Are you saying you would have noticed me before?”

You sent him a blank look.

“Just answer my question”

He chuckled again as he shrugged.

“I might be, or I might not be”

“That really doesn’t answer my question”

The guy opened his mouth to speak but got cut off by your teacher entering the room and calling out to everyone.

You hadn’t noticed more people had entered the room whilst the guy was talking to you.

Sinking into your chair, you clicked your pen as the teacher began the lesson.

The guy’s eyes stayed on you for a few moments longer before he too turned to the teacher and began paying attention.

“That’s it for today” Your teacher called out after an hour and a half.

You smiled to yourself before putting your stuff back into your bag and getting up from your seat.

“So,” The guy started, as you were leaving, he quickened his pace so he was walking next to you. “Are you going to the party on Friday?”

“Nope” You popped the p and turned your head so you weren’t looking in his direction.

“Why? It’s meant to be the party of the year”

You rolled your eyes, before stopping suddenly and turning to him.

“They say that about every party and why does it matter? Anyways, I don’t even know you”

He started to smirk again and shrugged slightly.

“Well you could always get to know me, I wouldn’t complain”

You scoffed, rolling your eyes.

“Yeah, no thanks”

A call of your name, caught your attention as Bora ran up to you.

She had a denim skirt on with a light pink top and her backpack straps were falling off of her shoulders.

“(Y/N)!” She giggled, linking her arm with yours.

“Bora!” You copied.

Her eyes went to the guy behind you and her smile dropped and she rolled her eyes. Bringing her gaze back to you, she smiled again.

“Come on, let's go get coffee before our next class starts”

You hummed as you agreed and she dragged you off to the local coffee shop that was on campus.

Once you were so far away, Bora scoffed as she quickly looked behind you two.

“I don’t want to sound bitchy, but be careful talking to him” Bora started and you raised an eyebrow in confusion.

“What are you on about?”

Bora just stood there blinking at you

“Jun, the guy you were talking to back there”

Your mouth made an ‘o’ shape and you nodded your head.

“I don’t really know him, he just tried to talk to me”

Bora rolled her eyes again, before shrugging the topic off.

“Let’s talk about something else now” She laughs

She turned to you and raised an eyebrow, you could only roll your eyes and laugh knowing what she was going to ask.

“Have you changed your mind about the party on Friday?”

“You’re really not going to take no for an answer are you?”

Bora thought to herself for a few moments before shaking her head.

“Nope”

You let out a sigh before nodding your head.

“Sure sure, fine I’ll go if it makes you happy”

A large smile broke out over Bora’s face and she nodded her head rapidly.

Time skip to the Friday night!

It was a few hours before the party.

You were in your room, starting to get ready. Bora had some music on. You didn’t know who it was, but it didn’t stop you from bobbing your head along with the music.

Bora waltzed into your room with a bathrobe on and her makeup bag in her hand.

You were sat at your vanity table, and Bora plopped herself in front of your full-length mirror and started to do her own makeup.

As you were getting ready, Bora coughed to get your attention.

“So has Jun talked to you since Wednesday?”

You shrugged, your eyes went to her through the mirror.

“I mean, I’ve seen him, but I haven’t spoken to him why?”

Bora sighed, looking down at her makeup that was spread out across your floor.

“It’s only cause he has a track record with breaking hearts, so I know you barely know him or have barely talked to him, but just be careful if you do”

A smile covered your face and you turn in your seat to look at her.

“I love you, you know that right?”

Bora laughed, sending you a finger heart.

“I love you too”

After getting ready, you and Bora take a few photos in the mirror in the dorm hallway, because as Bora says, ‘it’s for the memories, plus to prove to everyone we are a real snacc’.

So with that, you made your way to the party that was at one of the frat houses.

The house belonged to one of Bora’s boyfriend friends. Even though you didn’t know them, you trusted Bora’s instincts enough to go. Especially when you were good friends with her boyfriend too.

Before you even got to the party, you both could hear the music from down the street.

You were sharing a can of beer as you both walked to the party.

Bora giggled to herself, as she took the can of beer from your hands and sipped at it.

“This is going to be great”

You smiled to yourself, even though you weren’t the party type, you were still quite excited to see what would happen.

When you arrived at the party, Bora rushed off to a group of people you recognised but didn’t really know.

Going over to the drinks table, you grab yourself a drink and gulp it down, partly to calm yourself down, before getting another one.

You started to move through the crowd of people that were in the frat house, you look around to see there were people you recognised, some people you didn’t know and some people who you used to know from high school.

Finding Bora again, you smile as you pat her on the arm and stand next to her. She smiles back, linking your arms and introducing you to the people she was talking to.

“Guys, this is (Y/N)” She starts, motioning to you. “(Y/N), this is Seungcheol, Hoshi, Minghao and Mingyu”

You nod awkwardly, waving your hand as you muttered hello.

Seungcheol smiled, leaning forward slightly.

“So you’re (Y/N)?” He asks, making you look at him confused.

“Yeah?”

Seungcheol motions to the other boys as he chuckles.

“It’s the (Y/N)”

You raised an eyebrow to Bora and she just shrugged.

“They’re always like this, just ignore them”

You just nodded your head, listening to her and just letting what they were saying go over your head.

“So, (Y/N), you know Jun right?” Seungcheol asks and this time the other boys lean in slightly too.

You shrug.

“Not really to be honest”

“Oh really? Well he seems to know you”

You send them a look as you raise your eyebrow.

“Is that meant to sound creepy in any way?”

You hear a scoff from beside you and Bora rolls her eyes.

“Can you guys not talk about Jun, I don’t need my best friend to be heartbroken over him”

“Oh come on, he may have made some mistakes in the past, but you know Jun has a good heart” Minghao speaks, causing Bora to roll her eyes again.

“I’ll believe that when pigs fly” She fires back and Hoshi replies.

“If I throw a piece of bacon will that count?”

You cover your mouth to try and stop laughing making Hoshi to send a smile in your direction.

Bora huffs, turning slightly to walk away.

“I need to go get another drink, I’m not drunk enough for this”

With that, she walked away and you turned to look back at Seungcheol.

You hadn’t noticed, but Minghao and Mingyu had wandered off and now only Seungcheol and Hoshi were left standing next to you.

“I know Bora has good intentions,” Seungcheol starts, leaning against you slightly so he could talk in your ear for you to hear him over the music. “But Jun really isn’t all that bad”

“okay,” You said simply. “if you say so, but I really can make my own decision on it”

Seungcheol laughed, nodding his head to himself.

“No wonder he likes you”

You raised an eyebrow at him in question, but he just waved you off and told you he was going to get himself a drink.

Hoshi was already talking to someone, so you didn’t want to disturb the conversation so you started to walk around the house again to see who or what you could find.

You praised whatever lived in the sky when you found a snack table and started to pick at the food. Food was one of the loves of your life, apart from that singer you loved.

After you had finished picking at the food you wanted, you made your way back to the drinks table and refilled your drink.

After a few cups, you felt the alcohol take effect and you started to not care too much about people being around you.

So you went to the dance floor and swayed to the music, a smile covered your face and even though at that moment you didn’t know where Bora was, you didn’t mind.

You were having fun.

You soon finished your drink and pouted at your cup when someone came up beside you holding out a red solo cup.

Looking up, you see someone you didn’t recognise with a cup in their hand.

You raised an eyebrow at them, but raised your hand to take the cup anyway and before you could another hand came out of nowhere and slapped the cup out of their hands.

The person gasped and turned to who knocked it.

“Dude! What the fuck?”

You look up to see Jun with an angry look on his face.

“Don’t try that to anyone else here, or you’ll be dead before sunrise”

The other person’s face seems to go pale at Jun’s threat and nods their head quickly.

Jun turns to you, grabs your hand that was still in the air and dragged you through the kitchen and out to the back of the house.

The cold hit you and you could see your breath in the air. Shaking your head to yourself, you pull your hand from Jun’s grip and it causes him to stop and turn to you.

“What just happened back there?”

Jun sighed, running his hand through his hair frustratedly.

“The fucking asshole tried to drug you”

“And you were just watching them all night to noticed?” Jun went silent, shaking his head.

“I wasn’t watching him,” He started, before letting out a sigh. “I was watching you”

You sent him a look before questioning him.

“And why were you watching me?”

“Because I didn’t know how to talk to you, I know Bora doesn’t like me so she’s probably warned you already”

“I can make my own decisions on who I should and shouldn’t talk to, but you’re right, I’m not going to totally ignore what Bora’s was saying”

Jun nodded his head, his kept his gaze anywhere else but you.

“I may have hurt some people’s hearts in the past, but that wasn’t intentional, I don’t like treating people like that”

You stayed silent, watching him, examining him. You tried to find any signs of him lying, or of him being deceiving, but you couldn’t see any.

“I understand if you can’t believe me, or don’t want to believe me but know I really want to get to know you”

You took a step forward, maybe it was your mind telling you to do that or maybe it was the alcohol letting you be braver and you looked up at him.

You didn’t let him move his gaze away.

“Well then let’s get to know each other, by just being ourselves and not by what other people tell us”

Jun stares into your eyes and the first genuine smile you’ve seen him smile crosses his face.

“I’d really like that”

“Well then, I’m (Y/N)” You reintroduce yourself and Jun chuckles.

“I know, I’m Jun”

You giggle too.

“I know”

You both stood there for a moment, staring at each other.

“Are you really a student at the uni?”

He just shrugs casually.

“No, I just get bored so I show up, but now I have a reason to”

------

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pet-diary · 6 years

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【#GradblrChallenge & 100 Days of Productivity】

■ 08.19.18 // (day 019/100) ————————————————

My last #gradblrchallenge post was on Thursday. I’ve been really bad about posting the past few days because I’ve just felt like I didn’t have much to say... I also just haven’t felt very productive school-wise, since I don’t even start until October and there’s only so much pre-planning I can write about before I start to feel like a broken record. I sort of feel silly posting about grad school when I have zero experience with grad school so far (other than interviews), and I haven’t even started my program. I know that will change very soon, so it does matter. It’s also interesting to go through the pre-grad school process, where you’re worried about all the wrong things, learning about everything for the first time, etc. But I feel a little silly posting about it because I feel like I’m just clogging up the real grad student’s posts. Lol, I know I’m being ridiculous. I’ll try to just get back to posting, and hopefully I have something interesting to offer regardless of where I’m at right now. If anyone in grad school for psych or social work or something is reading this, I would love to chat with you about it! I’ve talked to a few people so far about their programs, and it’s been helpful to hear how things work, what they like and don’t like, what they’re going through. I want to have a better understanding of what I’m getting myself into.

Some things I’ve done recently:

spent a lot of time online window shopping (when you “shop” all day but don’t end up buying any of the stuff you added to your cart),

researching new phones (both online and at the phone store),

waiting for my maintenance guy to come and then dealing with all that (clogged sink and bath, clean up),

taught Trev how to play Skyrim,

went out to eat once, and to a coffee shop once,

cooked some yummy meals,

bought some notebooks I didn’t need on Amazon,

took Trev to the theosophical society library,

and generally just being kinda lazy...

Yesterday, we ordered some new phones... Ours were getting old and worn out (battery life, general use, camera failing, etc), so we decided to just bite the bullet and get some new ones. Since phones are RIDICULOUSLY PRICED, it ended up being a better deal to get a brand new Note 9 for me, and an S9 for Trev, because they had a BOGO deal going where you get one phone free and a free pair of headphones and stuff like that. I had to change my phone number though to be eligible, so that’s going to be a pain in the ass to go through and update on every form and account I own..........

Oh well though. I’m super psyched about the S pen!! It’s a Wacom pen and it’s active, meaning it’s pressure sensitive, meaning I will be able to draw on my phone like it’s an actual Wacom tablet. How cool is that???? I currently own a Jot Pro, which I love, but it’s passive. There’s no pressure sensitivity, it’s not as detailed. It’s great for doodling, but it isn’t very practical for trying to seriously draw something. I know at the end of the day, it’s still a little tiny phone screen and I’m not going to spend my days training to join Clamp, but maybe I can get in enough practice to finally feel comfortable moving forward with my web manga idea! (｡･ω･｡) It’ll be nice to have a properly working camera again, too. I’d like to start filming videos for YouTube again, and currently my camera crashes even on the lowest quality option... The phone isn’t out yet but once it’s out they’ll ship it and hopefully it’ll be in my hands and working soon! It’ll be kind of sad to say goodbye to my 512 Austin area code number... I felt like it gave me some cred...... But I’ll have a new Seattle number, so I guess I’ll have Seattle cred... It makes me a little sad though. I’ve had that number for YEARS. Plus now I won’t match Trev’s number...

Today my school emailed the orientation schedule, so I’ll be posting about that soon. I’m hoping to go out and buy a few things I need for school (mainly, a decent binder for this loose leaf textbook I just dropped $100 on ಥ‿ಥ ). Hopefully my next gradblrchallenge post will be a little more relevant to gradschool...

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michaelandy101-blog · 3 years

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How one can Run Advertising and marketing Group Conferences That Do not Suck

New Post has been published on http://tiptopreview.com/how-to-run-marketing-team-meetings-that-dont-suck/

How one can Run Advertising and marketing Group Conferences That Do not Suck

Conferences suck. They’re time for folks to keep away from doing precise work, stare blankly at one another, throw in generic feedback to seem like they’re paying consideration, and for those who’re fortunate, perhaps come out with some depraved pocket book doodles.

Is that how folks understand your marketing conferences? I hope not, as a result of they do not truly must be that approach.

Flip your marketing conferences into one thing helpful by — you guessed it — creating compelling content! (Oh my gosh, inbound marketing ideas work in actual life, too!)

As your workforce grows, it is vital for everybody to get in a room collectively and discuss what they have been engaged on of their nook of the world. So to make sure these marketing conferences aren’t blocks of time your workforce dreads, make notice of the following tips for methods to make marketing workforce conferences really helpful to your staff.

How one can Run an Efficient Assembly

Whereas this put up will primarily give attention to marketing conferences, I wish to deal with a team-agnostic part about efficient conferences as an entire.

As I stated above, conferences could be a grandiose waste of time. It is tempting to run your work by others, collect suggestions or affirmation, or just keep away from the robust stuff by calling conferences.

I am right here to let you know — do not do it. Step one to working efficient conferences is to solely schedule conferences when completely needed.

Quarterly conferences to report on firm progress and vital information? After all. Month-to-month conferences to the touch base on KPIs and recruit assist for tasks? Sounds nice. Weekly conferences to report on present obligations and asks? I am torn on whether or not this one is important, however for big groups or groups with new staff, this might be a great transfer.

Each second in a gathering is time away from heads-down work, the work that arguably strikes your corporation ahead. Are conferences essential to take a break, contact base, and rally along with your workforce? After all.

Secondly, to know the effectiveness and effectivity of a gathering, ask your workforce. Ask, “is [meeting] helpful for you? If so, what are its top two benefits for you?” This will help you perceive what proportion of your groups finds worth in your conferences and what parts or agenda objects might be able to be eliminated to save lots of time.

Talking of agendas, let’s talk about subsequent what your marketing assembly agendas ought to resemble.

Advertising and marketing Assembly Agenda

Whether or not your marketing workforce assembly is weekly month-to-month, this part will clarify the content material it’s best to each single time. We additionally advocate making a slide deck that you simply undertaking to your workforce in every assembly so you’ll be able to all comply with together with every agenda merchandise.

Advertising and marketing Assembly Agenda Instance

For each assembly, it’s best to have a devoted agenda slide that lays out three issues:

What might be mentioned in at this time’s assembly

Who might be main every dialogue

How a lot time is allotted for every dialogue

Check out one in every of our current marketing workforce assembly agenda slides:

Outlining who’s speaking, what they’re protecting, and the way a lot time they’ve to debate it can assist forestall the assembly from getting derailed. It’ll additionally forestall folks from delving into unproductive conversations which are finest had at one other time and place.

As for what parts needs to be in your marketing assembly agenda, let’s talk about what to cowl throughout your marketing assembly.

Overview Vital Metrics

Do a fast assessment of your most vital marketing metrics. These should not be area of interest metrics, like electronic mail unsubscribe fee, social media attain, or weblog subscriber development; save these to your month-to-month conferences the place you assessment month-over-month progress.

These needs to be the metrics your marketing workforce is measured on. In different phrases, on the finish of the month, what metrics will let you know whether or not the marketing workforce succeeded?

Whereas each enterprise will probably assessment one thing totally different relying on their enterprise mannequin, listed below are some concepts for you:

It is vital to assessment your workforce’s vital metrics as a result of these are the way you’re measured onas an total marketing workforce. And for those who do not all understand how you are faring because the month progresses, particular person contributors cannot do something to step up and assist your workforce’s numbers enhance.

A Little bit of Training

Advertising and marketing conferences needs to be a wholesome mixture of state-of-the-union content material and academic content material. Every week, have a pair workforce members current briefly about fascinating tasks they have been engaged on. This serves two functions: it lets folks know what their workforce members do all day, they usually get to study one thing new!

Give it some thought … would not it’s fascinating for a blogger to study a little bit bit a few PPC experiment? Or for a social media intern to study in regards to the outcomes of the most recent electronic mail A/B test?

Sharing lessons from projects helps everyone expand their knowledge base, sidestep landmines if a project backfired, and implement effective new techniques that they never knew worked.

Boom — everyone leaves your weekly meeting a smarter, better marketer!

The Nitty Gritty Retrospective

Your meeting should also contain a review of the projects each employee (or if you’re a larger marketing department, each team) worked on last month/quarter/year, plus the results they’ve seen.

This is good for a few reasons. First, it keeps everyone accountable knowing that each meeting they need to stand up in front of their colleagues and explain just what they do all day. Second, everyone gets to learn from what everyone else worked on and become generally better marketers. Third, it helps everyone identify how individual teams are faring, and what projects they’re doing to improve their own metrics.

For example, if you have a social media team, this is their opportunity to report on the success of every single social network they manage. How is their reach faring? How much traffic are those networks sending to your site? How many leads are being generated? Why are some networks more successful than others?

While your weekly meetings (if you have them) may focus on more high-level, team-based metrics, a monthly or quarterly meeting is a good opportunity to do a deep dive into the channels and metrics that enable the entire team to meet its goals.

How You’ll Meet This Month’s Goals

After the retrospective, each employee or team should also present on their individual goals for the month or quarter, and how exactly they will meet those goals. This is not the time to be generic.

Teams should explain, point by point, everything they’ll be doing during the time period to meet the metrics they’re measured by.

For example, let’s say the email marketing team is responsible for driving more reconversions this month. What exactly will they do to, well, do that? Well, that slide might have some initiatives like A/B test email copy with and without a P.S., anoffers analysis to determine which offers convert at the highest rate, list segmentation experiments, tailoring lead generation offers to align more closely with personas to improve CTR … the list could, and should, go on.

This is also a critical time in your meeting for feedback. Build in time during every presentation — at least 5 minutes, more if you find you need it after a few meetings — for each team to solicit feedback on their proposed projects. This will help individual teams from getting derailed on projects that might not help them meet their goals, or perhaps other members of the marketing team have fantastic ideas that the teams hadn’t even thought of yet!

Big Wins

A little bit of recognition is a good thing. Set aside a couple of minutes — come on, you can’t find 5 minutes? — to showcase some of the amazing things your team members or department as a whole have accomplished.

This could be anything from press coverage, speaking engagements, engaging with power players on social media, a smash hit blog post, an email that received unprecedented click-through rates … you get the point. It’s easy to harp on where you’re falling behind, but a little cheerleading can help rally your team and remind them just how successful they can be when they put their mind to it.

Solicit Help

Everyone should have the opportunity to solicit help from team members during your marketing team meetings. The larger your team gets, the easier it is to work in silos — but everyone has their own little super powers that sometimes go unnoticed.

If there is a platform during every meeting for employees to share (if they need it) something they need a little help with, you may find others pipe up with a simple solution or resource that solves the problem.

There should also be a few minutes built into each presentation for a little feedback. If someone is presenting on the progress of an ongoing project, part of “soliciting help” may be getting feedback on what steps to take next. For example:

Is this project still worth pursuing?

How should we measure the success of this project?

Does anyone have a solution to a major roadblock?

So while there should be a few minutes at the end of each meeting dedicated solely to giving employees the floor to solicit help, time for feedback should be built into presentations if the presenter needs it.

6 Tips for a Productive Marketing Meeting

Stay on time.

Don’t allow computers.

Build in time for a break.

End every meeting with action items.

Consider your remote folks.

Review metrics and celebrate wins.

You know what content to include in your marketing team meetings. Now, let’s discuss how to make those meetings run smoothly. These tips, despite helpful content, can make or break the usefulness of any marketing meeting.

1. Stay on time.

Start on time, you end on time, and honor the budgeted time set for individual presentations. I know it’s hard, especially when there’s a good discussion going on, but delegate a timekeeper who lets presenters know when they’re coming up to the end of their allotted time.

If you’re vigilant about this, people will start to self-edit their presentation, and meeting-goers will self-censor their comments, only contributing what truly needs to be said.

2. Don’t allow computers …

… said the internet marketing company. Seriously though, only the meeting coordinator should have a computer to pull up the agenda and presentations.

If others bring their laptops, you’ll find people can’t help but check their emails, get little bits of work done, and chat online, no matter how riveting the presentations are.

3. Build in time for a break.

Your weekly meeting may only be 30 or 60 minutes, but your monthly meeting could take a lot longer. In that case, build in time for people to get up, stretch their legs, go to the bathroom, get coffee, whatever.

You’ll start losing people’s attention otherwise.

4. End every meeting with action items.

Whatever you talked about during your meeting should be revisited briefly at the end of the meeting, preferably by the meeting coordinator. If you spend 20 minutes talking about how to solve your lead shortage problem at the beginning of your 90-minute meeting, there’s a good chance some of the to-dos and initiatives trickled out of people’s minds.

Make sure there’s someone taking notes throughout the meeting, and allot five minutes at the end of every meeting to review what people should start doing once they walk out of that meeting room.

5. Consider your remote folks.

Whether your entire team or just a few members are remote, it’s important to consider the remote meeting experience. As a remote worker myself, dialing into meetings as one of the few remote attendees takes a bit to get used to.

Research helpful technology to mitigate the gap between in-office and remote workers. Zoom is clearly an ideal selection, however different know-how like The Meeting Owl by Owl Labs could also be a great match to your workforce. At the beginning of every assembly, take a look at your connectivity and stroll by your slides to make certain the message is evident for people at dwelling.

Supply: Getty Pictures

Most significantly, collect separate suggestions out of your distant workforce members to know their struggles and accommodate their requests.

6. Overview metrics and rejoice wins.

You already know these marketing metrics you determined to measure and assessment within the first part? Those that famous your workforce’s progress all through the month?

Now’s the time to see whether or not you hit your targets or not! When you hit your targets, do two issues: rejoice, and clarify precisely why you hit these targets. That second one is crucial. Somebody ought to clarify what marketing actions strongly contributed to you hitting, say, your leads aim. That approach you’ll be able to repeat these actions this month!

Conferences Do not Must Suck

Conferences are a needed a part of work. They seem to be a time to rejoice wins, ask for suggestions or assist, and get aligned along with your workforce and firm.

Sit down along with your colleagues to audit your assembly schedule and see the place you’ll be able to trim time or minimize conferences altogether. Efficient and environment friendly conferences are way more vital than conferences for the sake of it. Your workforce will thanks.

Editor’s notice: This put up was initially revealed in July 2012 and has been up to date for comprehensiveness.

Initially revealed Jan 14, 2021 eight:30:00 AM, up to date January 14 2021

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hispydamy618 · 6 years

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Momma Damy Bee needs your attention!

Hey, Damy here. So some of you already know what has been going on the past weekend.. If you don't know what has been going on recently check the last two Tumblr text posts posted on this blog, but anyways I'll explain it.

Just the week that passed, (not my family but my dad to be more specific) grabbed my iPad without my consent and therefore found out about everything that was held in it. Artwork for The Onydex Trilogy, references for different web comics, logos for both web comics and some YT shows I host, etc.. which obviously needed a lot of explanation. The thing that worried me is that he doesn't know about my YT channel and my social media was a secret, not to my entire family, but to my dad. As you guys have seen in the past few posts, he is strict with these kind of stuff by reasons that I don't want to rephrase over again. He sat me down and wanted an explanation of all of that. I was extremely weak and numb on that moment to being able to explain anything. Not because I didn't want to but because I couldn't both physically and mentally. Most of my friends already know this part so far. Since I didn't give an explanation, he asked me to delete everything and to cleanse my iPad otherwise he'll do it. And I felt horrible mostly because I wasn't able to post The Onydex Trilogy as I was supposed to.

Now here's the update..

I'm considering.. not coming back but considering posting stuff from time to time when I'm not around my family. Yes, guys. It'll be a secret again to my dad specifically and here's why:

If I ask him: "oH dAd c-Can I pOst wEbComiCs AnD vIdeOs aGaiN oN my SocIal MedIa??" Not only he'll disapprove or will keep his eye on me, but he'll be like: "yOu hAve sOciAl MedIa tHat I dOnt kkNow oFFf!!??" Yes, guys. He doesn't know of my social media. When he saw my iPad as I said earlier I couldn't give an explanation of anything because I was both physically and mentally weak. All that I could say was "Yes. No. I don't know.. It's just a practice doodle/video." I didn't want him to check my social media because him checking my iPad was enough stress for me.

So, back to the subject. I wouldn't say that I'm coming back but more that I'm posting fanart and stuff that I like from time to time. I'll be coming back step by step. Now here's some stuff I wanna clarify.

Let's say that everything will be back to normal but this time I'm taking more drastic measures in order for my dad not to know BUT if he finds out I'll stand up to him because this is what I love to do.

Stuff that won't continue and why:

-Foreign Fire: This was based on a dream which was interpreted on a web comic who I had the help from someone. If you're fan of this comic and REALLY want to see how this story concludes I suggest you look at @foreignfireofficial and see one of the first rebbloged posts.

-Requests/Free commissions: I have enough in my hands to being able to manage to get some time for requests and such. All the artwork I'll do and post will be for either a project, web comic, fanart, etc. I'll ONLY accept your request if it's meant to appear on a video or some project per say.

-Discord server: I'm not going to redo something that doesn't have a popular demand. I'll just redo it if my fans/followers really wish for one. So for now I'll be on Cole's server so far.

Stuff that will continue/is still on stake:

-As you can see I'm back on charge of my social media so you can contact me here as if was meant to be.

-Spaceling: This web comic has received some positive feedback and has been around the community with a popular demand. For now it's on hiatus and it'll come back sometime next year. Either way, it was already decided by the co-writers and me to have this long hiatus for us to rest.

-YT channel content: Stuff will be posted from time to time as I always do so it's not a big of a difference. I'm not entirely sure if I'll be able to find a proper schedule to do covers/comic dubs/etc, but I'll try my best. Btw, I'll post a video explaining this post so if you wanna see it, stay tuned. Same with Scriptless! Right now Scriptless is on hiatus because us three have stuff to do and need to find a time to get together per say.

-Fanart/artwork: Yes! This'll definitely come back! Some stuff might change but I'll say it's pretty much the same.

-The Onydex Trilogy: As I said when my iPad was cleansed, I lost the two videos that were supposed to be uploaded that day. HOWEVER, I saved five Spanish-translated songs from The Masquerade on my Google Drive (Intro/Rabbit Hole, Worry For Naught, Tranquil, Road (this one was hard to made) and The Masquerade. I still have the files on my Gmail of the artwork for The Onydex Trilogy made by @ipskrimson and the vocals by @flappy007 for soNGS I WONT SPOIL. I'll find a time to post those two songs I won't spoil and it'll be one-shot thing, meaning I'll record, edit, post and then erase from my iPad thing, all in one day. Trust me I've done this before. I don't want this effort to go to waste. It won't be called The Onydex Trilogy, it'll just be a Spanish cover of those two songs. Later on the future I'll post a video with the five songs saved on my Google Drive.

And more important update, my YT channel name won't longer be "Winx Onydex" now it is.. *drum roll* "The Onydex."

(I'll suggest you change my YT channel name if I've ever done a collab with you, but that's up to you.)

In conclusion...

You could say that I'm coming back but a lot of things are going to change regarding schedule, time of procedure and the times I post. But I'll say it's pretty much the same. If you have any questions, feel free to ask me. And as to how am I feeling..? I couldn't feel even greater.. ✨

As to who inspired me to do this?

She knows who she is. 🐝

#damy speaks #important update #hispydamy618 #the onydex #damy situation

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riichardwilson · 4 years

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It’s Good To Talk: Thoughts And Feelings On Creative Wellness

About The Author

Jhey makes awesome things for awesome people! He’s a web developer with almost 10 years of experience. Working with and for names such as Eurostar, Uber, … More about Jhey …

With so much pressure to be our best selves and use every waking moment to develop skills, it’s easy to lose track of our own wellbeing. Self-improvement and commitment to your craft are great — but only if you find the right balance.

In fields as fast-paced and technical as web design and development, it’s easy to lose sight of our own wellbeing. For many, there’s a constant sense of trying to keep up or ahead. We may not even realize we’re doing it.

Ask yourself, when was the last time you stepped away for a day and didn’t think about coding or design for a day? For me, that’s very hard to answer. For many, it’s a vocation that we can’t switch on and off. We can’t turn it off at 5 or 6 PM. Let’s talk about that and ways we can deal with it.

It’s important to start right off the bat by saying this article isn’t a dictation. The aim here is to spark interest, engagement, and discussion. These are things that sometimes get lost in the whirlwind industry we are a part of. Different things work for different people, and these words are written with the best intentions.

Why now? I’d planned to write something about this topic at the tail end of last year. I was making my way back from my first NodeConfEU and feeling inspired by a talk I attended, “Building Open Source Communities with Tierney Cyren”.

I made a bunch of notes, then life and other commitments cropped up and the article made its way to the backburner. But, that’s OK. And that’s kind of where this post leads us to. It’s OK if you didn’t write that post, work on that side project this weekend, and so on.

Pressure Culture

If you’re reading this, odds are you’ve seen or experienced pressure culture — that constant, nagging expectation to dedicate every waking hour to skills development and side projects, even if your heart might not be in it. This pressure can be self-imposed, and whether we like it or not social media also plays a big part. If we aren’t careful, it can eat away at us.

Pressure culture isn’t something that’s popped up recently. It’s been around a long time, a constant looming external force. Left unchecked it can fill you with guilt, anxiety, and other feelings we aren’t fond of.

Work/Play balance by The Awkward Yeti. (Image source: theawkwardyeti.com) (Large preview)

This is a common result of the idea of ‘The ideal worker,’ with pressure coming from those higher up in workplace hierarchies. These ‘Never say no’ employees feel obliged to wear themselves thin in order to progress in their careers. There’s a great Harvard Business Review article called “Managing the High-Intensity Workplace” that explores this mindset.

Social media pressure is also very real. The tendency to idealize our online lives is well documented. We often forget that we are likely only looking at someone else’s highlight reel. That is true of work as well as play. If we forget that and spend a lot of time-consuming content from those we idolize, that pressure creeps in. We want to be as awesome as the people on our feed, but at what cost?

There was a period a little while back where tweets like this were quite frequent:

Get home.

Watch Netflix or do more coding learning?

Seems like a small decision.

For one night it is.

But multiplied over a year, this decision defines your future.

— 𝗪𝗲𝗹𝗹 𝗣𝗮𝗶𝗱 𝗚𝗲𝗲𝗸 (@WellPaidGeek) November 6, 2019

The message is completely understandable. Time is valuable. The hard truth is that if you want to get far in your career, prepare to put in the hours. Nothing gets handed out. Self-improvement and commitment to your craft are great, but only if you find the right balance.

Messages like those above put you under an enormous amount of pressure. That pressure isn’t healthy, and can actually hamper your development. It can lead to things like burnout and potentially, even depression. What is burnout? This study phrases it quite well:

“Burnout is a psychological syndrome characterized by emotional exhaustion, feelings of cynicism and reduced personal accomplishment.”

It’s not a nice place to be. I can speak from experience here. Feeling as if things are bearing down on you and you need to keep up. “I need to make that new thing or learn that new framework to keep up with my peers.” I remember seeing tweets from people. They’d say things like, “I missed a day of my bootcamp course. I’d better do double tonight.” This makes for sad reading. You don’t want to end up resenting what you do for a job.

Burnout cannot only impact your personal wellbeing, but can also affect other areas of your life. Does your work suffer as a result? Do you still have the energy to give it your full attention? How about that creative spark? Is it gone? We’ve all heard of writer’s block. Well, creative’s block is a thing too!

The above tweet was a great example of how social media can influence us. Read the responses and engagement. There’s an almost 50⁄50 split on how it’s perceived. This response from Chris Coyler was great:

I don’t mind the sentiment here, but don’t burn out!https://t.co/Ho7CPcamEb

Just last night I had some stuff in mind I really wanted to get done on the ol laptop but I was just too tired after putting the kid down so I literally watched Netflix and everything will be ok

— Chris Coyier (@chriscoyier) November 6, 2019

And it’s so true. It’s OK to sit back and not force yourself to work on things. It’s fine to take the night off, the week off, and so on. Those projects will still be there for you. They’re not going anywhere. You might even decide you don’t want to return to them at all, and that’s fine too! It’s all about balance.

With the pandemic and many of us in lockdown, this trend has reared its head again. I’ve seen my fair share of messages implying if you haven’t picked up new skills with your new free time, you’ve wasted it. As if it’s some kind of opportunity. Not that a global pandemic is exhausting enough right?

Hopes and Dreams by The Awkward Yeti. (Image source: theawkwardyeti.com) (Large preview)

Even now, pressure culture is not black and white. The free time gained where we had other commitments is an opportunity. An opportunity to try something new or do something we haven’t had the time for. It might be that that thing is ‘rest’. For me, my weekend commitments halted, so I decided to finally start streaming. And, I’ve loved it! Still, I try not to let it take up more time than my other commitments would. If it gets too much, I take a break and step away.

Handling Pressure Culture

Getting AFK (Away from keyboard)

How can we combat these feelings of pressure? It sounds like the opposite of what our minds tell us, but one way is to get away from that keyboard. Disconnect and go do something else. I’m not saying lock up your laptop for a week and go cold turkey, but a break does you good.

Go for a walk, read a book, do nothing! We already saw that Chris enjoys a night with Netflix! I myself recently picked up a stylus for the iPad so I can go chill out on a bean bag and sketch doodles. There’s also a 1000 piece puzzle laid out on a table downstairs that’s quite good to sit next to zone out with.

Yes, it’s difficult at the moment. We can’t make a trip to the theme park or the cinema or even hit the gym. But, we can still get AFK. Even sporadic breaks throughout the day can do you wonders. I often get up every once in a while and do a few handstands!

This is true even when the world isn’t in crisis. Getting away from things can be great for you. It’s not healthy to tie yourself to the same thing 24 hours a day. Step back, broaden your scope, and appreciate that there’s so much more on offer for you. Close this tab and get away now if you’d like. I’d prefer it if you stuck around until the end, though.

Getting AFK pic.twitter.com/tXSxB52gLk

— Jhey (@jh3yy) June 14, 2020

It might not even be a case of getting physically AFK either. There’s a Slack community I’m in that has this notion of ‘fun laptop time’ which is an interesting idea. Have a separate machine that you can unwind on or do other things on. One that isn’t logged in to social media perhaps? One that you can do ‘fun’ things on. Maybe that is still coding something or creative writing or watching a live stream. The possibilities are endless.

Give yourself space to live away from your work. This article on Lifehacker cites the case that taking up something new can help with burnout. I can relate to that too. Scheduling something completely unrelated to work is quite good at this. For me, I know when the season is in full swing, I’ll be spending some of my Saturdays AFK running around a field.

Footballlll! 🥳 pic.twitter.com/0c1XEIQMBu

— Jhey (@jh3yy) July 14, 2020

With AFK, we’re mainly referring to sitting at a desk with a physical keyboard. Odds are, if you have a smartphone, the little digital one on that isn’t far away. A FOMO tip that might seem counterintuitive is to share being AFK. Share what you’re up to with people. It might surprise you how much people appreciate seeing others getting AFK. Rachel’s been plane spotting for example!

Just picked this up on my PiAware tracker and watched it go overhead. https://t.co/MHPoXlPzmZ

— Rachel Andrew (@rachelandrew) May 28, 2020

Please Talk

And that leads us to the title of this post. It’s good to talk. Is there a stigma attached to talking about our feelings and struggles? Yes. Should there be? Hell no!

FOMO, burnout, depression, anxiety, and so on. They’re all real things and likely touch more of us than we know. I listen to various podcasts. I remember one in which the speaker and guest spoke about almost an obsession with chasing goals. When you reach that goal, you hit a low. Maybe it didn’t fill that void you were hoping for? But, although I wasn’t having a conversation with them, hearing that did me some good. It was relatable.

I’d had this feeling inside, never expressing it. Now I knew it wasn’t uncommon. So I spoke about it with other people, and they could relate too. One big example for me was buying my house. It had been a goal for a year or so to get on the property ladder. Once I got the keys, it was a bit deflating. But, I should’ve been super happy about it.

Return of Me by The Awkward Yeti. (Image source: theawkwardyeti.com) (Large preview)

We could all bottle those things up. But, speaking about things and getting your thoughts out can go some way in taking the pressure off. Another perspective can really help you out! It might be hearing something as little as ‘I do that too’ or ‘Don’t be so hard on yourself, you’re doing great!’ that can go a long way. It’s not that you’re fishing for compliments, but it sometimes takes that other perspective to bring you back to reality.

Now don’t get me wrong. Talking about things is easier said than done, but the results might surprise you. Based on my own experience and others I’ve spoken to, here are some things you can do to combat those negative feelings.

Be willing to take the first step. Interaction doesn’t have to be a dying art. It won’t work for everyone and you can’t force others to embrace it. There will be those who do, though, people who feel exactly the same and were looking for someone to talk to.

Speak more openly. I’ve personally been terrible at this and I don’t mind admitting it. I’m getting better though. I speak more openly with those I engage with both on and offline and I’m happier for it. The takeaway being that there’s no shame in being yourself and doing what you want to do. If you’re being made to feel that way, it could be a good time to shift your circle or change up those you engage with. One nifty tip if you work remotely and feel isolated during the day is to set a reminder for yourself. For example, set a reminder every day at noon to reach out to people. This is quite effective. Most IM services can do this. For example, with Slack: /remind me "Reach out to people!" every weekday at 12:00 pm

If it can’t be offline, take it online. You don’t have to speak to people in person. Hop on a call with someone. Or even a video call. There are also so many online communities out there now too. If you don’t want to talk about how you feel, it’s great to even talk about what you’re up to or hear what others are up to. You soon realize people aren’t churning 24 hours a day like social media might have you think. I’ve recently joined an online community of creatives on Discord. I must say, it’s been brilliant. The Party Corgi network has been a game changer for me.

Broaden your scope. It’s so easy to lose track and become so focussed on your own little circle. I ended up randomly hopping around Twitch the other day. And I sat there and thought to myself, “This is brilliant”. There are so many creatives out there doing fantastic things, things I wasn’t even aware of. Why do I get so fixated on my own little bubble?

One tip that trumps all others? Be humble. You gain more from being positive. Good vibes breed good vibes. Plus, no one likes a hater.

To Conclude

It’s completely normal to feel a sense of pressure or get that horrible ‘imposter syndrome.’ But, don’t let it get to you. Do what you can and what you want to. Don’t sacrifice your health to get ahead. It’s OK to step away sometimes.

The next time you feel a little overwhelmed with things and feel that pressure coming for you. Have a chat with a family member, reach out to a colleague, even an online acquaintance. Maybe share it with folks at Smashing? I love seeing what people get up to.

If this is a career you plan on sticking with, what’s the rush? You might be doing this for tens of years. Embrace your journey. It’s not a race. For one thing, you might not even be on the same road.