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winterknight1087 · 4 years

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Flower from the Fae (ch 37)

Chapter Title: It's Not Wrong if Dee Finds it on the Internet!

Summary: Virgil likes plants, but when he goes to investigate a plant his friend, Remy, tells him about, he doesn’t exactly check out the plant. Little does he know that the handsome man he meets there is a fairy who is about to challenge the world Virgil knows.

Word Count: 2777

Chapter Warnings: Sympathetic Deceit, Sympathetic Remus, cursing, disappearance discussion, (let me know if you need anything tagged, PLEASE)

Chapter Pairings: LAMP, Demus, Sleep/Picani

AO3 Link My Writing

A/N: this is chapter 37, so read the first chapter here!

Dee shifted the box once again. “I’m not getting in one of those ten-ton metal death traps again, Remy. Remus and I have managed quite well over the past seven years without using a car. You’re just whining to be annoying.”

“I never said you had to get in the car. All I said was that we could have put all the research into this woman you collected in the car so we didn’t have to carry it all.” Remy answered, opening the front door.

“Ladies, lord, and non-binary royalty watch me as I beat this geek and do it joyously!”

The two froze as they watched the Fae prince attempted to rap, getting into his advisor’s face. Once the prince finished his attempt, the advisor adjusted his glasses before launching into his turn without missing a single beat. Dee lost his grip on the box, shocked that this nerdy fairy was capable of destroying his prince so easily.

Do any of my friends have a single brain cell to their name? Dee couldn’t help but wonder as the spectators burst into cheers.

“Do we even want to know how this ended up happening?” Dee finally asked, shutting the door behind him.

“Remus showed Logan and Roman Epic Rap Battles of History. Princey then challenged Specs and got destroyed.” Virgil answered, grinning.

Logan blushed as he adjusted his glasses again. “It is of no matter.”

“What took the two of you so long! You asked us to come over like 5ever ago!” Roman gratefully jumped on the distraction from his shock.

“Had to carry half of Dee’s library over here,” Remy whined, dumping the box they were carrying onto the table.

“Why didn’t you just have us meet you at your place?” Virgil asked.

Dee glanced at Remus, who at least looked sheepish. “A Remus-mess. He found your edible glue recipe and attempted to make it.”

“But, you literally only mix the powder into water. How… Nope. Don’t want to know.”

“Could the two of you not have just driven over?” Logan asked.

“Dee and I don’t drive or ride in cars since the crash that hurt my brain and took DeeDee’s parents,” Remus answered.

“Did you two pick up the dye?” Virgil asked, cutting off Logan from asking more questions.

Remy tossed a bag towards the anxious man. “Purple and toxic green, as requested. Don’t stain our kitchen, again.”

“Alright, Remus, let’s do this!” Virgil said, grinning.

Remus was on his feet grinning. “Finally! I’m going to be a green crayon!”

“Have fun, boys!” Remy laughed as the two went into the kitchen. “Do you want to wait until they’re done to discuss Karen, or start talking?”

“Who’s Karen?” Pat asked Logan.

Logan looked uncomfortable. “Uh… well… I guess we can start… with something I didn’t tell the two of you about…”

Logan explained to the room about what happened with the woman. Once the half that hadn’t heard it originally were done asking what questions they had for him, they moved onto discussing what Remy had uncovered from investigating her dreams, which was very little.

“Other than the fact that the person did tell her what to do to rid herself of the magic, it’s just a catfish scam.” Remy ended.

“I disagree. I found the forum where she was looking for solutions to her blurting-out problem.” Dee said, pulling a paper from the stacks he had.

Roman looked at the other papers. “Are all of these from your investigation into this woman?”

“Yes.”

Emile shifted uncomfortably. “I really don’t like digging into someone’s life like this without their permission. Knowing your skill, we could be in some serious legal trouble if someone found out about any of this.”

Dee considered comforting the uncomfortable therapist by reassuring him that the personal identification he had on her was safely locked in his bag. He managed to keep himself from doing so, realizing that it would not, in fact, comfort the therapist knowing that Dee had managed to get Karen Smith’s social security number, a couple of credit card numbers, and some other serious information. He decided to just keep his mouth shut, which seemed to only tell the therapist what he wasn’t saying.

“DEE!”

“It’s really a good thing I found them! I pulled them off the internet for her. She should be grateful!”

“You’re going to get all of us into so much trouble if someone finds out!”

“Sure, Virgil gets to take a non-service animal into any and every store without you complaining, despite that breaking a ton of rules and laws, but I get the lecture.”

“Galaxy sits in silence in a bag or coat when she does go into a place! She doesn’t get into trouble like this!”

“And this information was just floating around on the internet! I didn’t do anything illegal to get it!”

“Having it is probably enough, Dee!”

Remy rolled their eyes as Dee and Emile started to really get into it. Emile was chill with a lot, but he drew the line when it came to illegal stuff. They glanced into the kitchen where they could see Remus and Virgil making a point to ignore the screaming from the living room as Virgil dyed Remus’s mustache.

“AH SNAKE!” Remy suddenly had their arms full of the Prince of the Fae, shaking and screaming.

“RUDE!”

“Not you!”

Logan sighed as he scooped up a small green snake off of the carpet. “I believe Roman means this snake, shifter. Though his reaction was a bit extreme.”

“Sally!”

“Alright, everyone just take a deep breath,” Remy announced as they dumped the prince onto the couch. “We’ve got more important things to discuss, over all this screaming at each other. Dee, take your green noddle from Logan and sit back down. Emile, we all know Dee has quite a bit of illegal information, so we can discuss it’s proper disposal after we discuss this Karen issue. If he thought it was important enough to print out, then we’ll hear him out.”

Logan handed over the small green snake. “I do have to say that this is an impressive amount of work done in the past three days, Dee. Sometime later, I would like to discuss your research methods, if you don’t mind.”

“Later,” Remy stated. “Now, what were you getting ready to show us, Dee?”

“First,” Dee answered before calling out. “Virgil, you still listening in?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Has Karen asked you for any herbs recently?”

“Uh… no, I don’t think so. It’s kind of unusual for someone to come ask me for any herbs directly. Only Sharon asks me directly.”

“Has she asked for some unusual herbs compared to normal?”

“Uh…” there was a pause. “Actually, yeah. If I remember correctly, she had some print out about new aromatherapy she wanted to try. I don’t remember the common herbs she needed but she did need Mugwort, Mullein, and Vervain. Normally, it’s stuff like lavender or basil or whatever. Why?”

Dee looked over the paper in his hand, muttering the three herbs to himself. “I found a forum post were Karen was given essentially a potion to, and I quote, ‘erase all traces of negative energy and mind tricks’. She had posted a couple of days later that it worked. There’s a whole list of herbs she’d need but a lot of them can be bought from the store. Take a guess what three herbs she could not buy from the store?”

“So, we have the answer to how she doesn’t have a trace of Logan’s magic,” Remy commented. “But, I wouldn’t have had to help you lug two-ton boxes of papers over here if there weren’t something else.”

“Well, the box you brought is…”

“Is?”

Dee awkwardly coughed out “…for Logan.”

“What’s in it?” Remy demanded, glancing at the box.

“Explanation of how this worked. I…uh… figured the pest would… like… to know how…”

“Aw, you do care.” Logan shouldn’t have managed to say that with as straight a face as he did, Dee thought.

“Whatever, pest.” He waved at the box he’d brought. “This is my research into who gave Karen the spell, a.k.a. her new boyfriend.”

“Which does not sound good,” Virgil called from the kitchen.

“That’s one way to put it,” Dee stated. “I agree with Remy that this person is definitely catfishing, but I disagree that it’s only for her money or whatever catfishers go for.”

Dee started to layout papers across the floor. “Logan, I asked you for specific files on a couple of fairies. Did you bring them?”

“You asked a fairy for something?” Remy feigned a gasp.

“For the rabbit hole I found myself going down, I’d make a deal myself for this information, so shut up,” Dee stated, accepting a folder from Logan.

He quickly read over the ten different missing beings cases. He pulled the papers out and added them to another stack he started to layout on the floor. Watching the shifter, both Remy and Logan paled, seeing what Dee was laying out.

“Geez, this looks like one of Remus’s murder maps for his novels.”

Dee looked up to see Remus and Virgil looking over the mass of paper. Virgil’s head was purple while Remus had a green head and, great magic help Dee, a green mustache. Dee nodded, solemnly as he took a seat on the couch, looking over the web of papers.

Logan looked at the shifter. “Let me get this straight. You are suggesting that this single account has sought out signs of supernatural from superstitious middle-aged women online and is the reason for their disappearances?”

“I’m not suggesting it, pest. The proof is right in front of you. The files you brought align with some records attached to the account early on. It all makes sense, and this comes from someone who proof-reads murder mystery novels for their feasibility.”

Roman eyed Dee, uncertainly. “I do not trust you, shifter. You are too knowledgeable about this kind of stuff.”

“Good because I do not like you pests.”

“Wait, Lo,” Virgil said, diving for one of the pages. “Avery. She was…”

“Yeah, I noticed that as well, Vee.”

Remy looked between the two of them. “What’s this about?”

Virgil took a slow breath before answering. “You asked why I was off a couple of days ago. Mothman, a.k.a. Robert told Logan and me a rumor about a green and purple-eyed woman who supposedly committed a number of atrocities in the Realm of the Fae. One of the fairies supposedly killed in that mess was this woman: Avery Green.”

“Well, if Dee is correct in his massive amount of research, she was not killed in the mess we’ve been looking into,” Logan said, looking at Virgil. “Three others are also laid out here, meaning four names were not killed in those attacks. That is finally something we can work with.”

“Uh… guys?” Emile said, reminding the beings that he was still here. “Shouldn’t we be worried that this account may be coming here? There is quite a bit of evidence suggesting that we should be worried.”

Dee cleared his throat uncomfortably. “If we all plan to keep Virgil safe, yes, we should.”

“Wait, why only me?” he asked.

“Hunters do not go after sandme-sand beings, so Remy is relatively safe. So long as I do not shift any time soon, there will be little pointing towards me. These posts discuss you and Logan, so whoever is behind these will be coming for the two of you. You are in the most danger as you can roam from the fairy circles whenever you want while Logan can just remain in his own realm.”

“OK, what if I stay in the Realm of the Fae until this mess is over with?”

“You cannot do so just yet,” Logan said, wincing at his own words. “Unfortunately, you still need to develop more of your own magic and we have to strengthen the bond between the four of us before it is feasible for you to stay extended periods within our realm. Essentially, building up a long-term tolerance for our realm, so to say.”

Remy looked at the fairy. “Sending him away does sound like a possible solution, though.”

“Dee as well.” Remus suddenly piped in.

“What.”

“I’m sorry, DeeDee, but I want you to be safe,” Remus said, softly. “If this is all true, even if you don’t shift, you’ll still have touches of magic that a trained hunter will know to look for.”

“He is correct, Dee,” Patton answered, looking uncomfortable with all of this. “While you may not be as much of a target as Virgil or us, if a hunter does come, you will still be in danger.”

“So, the three of you will have to leave,” Emile said, sadly looking at his partner.

“Excuse me, three?” Remy asked, shocked. “Hunters do not play with sand beings, Em. I’ll be fine. Plus, I technically can’t leave my post out here, not for that long. We can discuss this once Vee and Dee are out and safe.”

“Remy…”

“Emile, my leaving will cause trouble. Hunters know sand beings are vital to the sleep cycle of life, so they do not attack us. I will be fine. I can start some paperwork stuff for time-off request or whatever, but that will take time and for now, we need to focus on the actual targets claimed in the posts. Logan, how long until you think Virgil can jump circles properly on his own?”

“We were actually going to have him test that tomorrow,” Logan answered. “Why?”

Remy nodded. “We’ll make sure he can travel through them on his own first. I know a deal-style thing that will allow Dee to jump circles with Virgil, but it will not allow him to travel into your realm proper.”

“But, that’s not possible…” Roman answered, surprised. “Only fae and their witches can use the circles.”

“Correct, for the most part. Witches can use the circles for transport once they enter a deal. Companions, particularly of the animal kind, are capable of traveling with a witch, though. Did you never question how Gala was capable of going on your adventures?”

“Remy, I am not making a deal with those flying rats,” Dee stated.

Remy rolled their eyes. “And you won’t be. You’ll be entering a deal with a witch, who is our best friend.”

“So, after that? What?” Virgil demanded. “Dee and I just start our lives over somewhere else until we get a message from you lot saying that it’s safe to return when its entirely possible that that message will never be possible?”

“Until we can figure out how to keep the two of you safe,” Remy stated. “You’ll still be able to talk with your cuties, Virgil.”

“And I just have to leave my husband, friends, and snakes behind?” Dee demanded.

“Dee, please. I can watch over the snakes.” Remus said, softly, not looking at his husband. “We can still call and video chat and whatever. I know this feels like an attack on your pride, Dee, but please. I would rather make do with a long-distance relationship over having to… having to… Dee, please.”

“Ree, I can’t… I can’t just leave you.”

“Dee, I know that I can’t control my impulsiveness or words or not act upon even the weirdest idea that crosses my mind. But I’ll have Remy and Emile still. They can help keep me safe while you are away. I nearly lost you once, I can’t… not again. And this time, your dad won’t be at my side squashing any thought that you might not make it. Please, Dee.”

Could Dee really argue with him? Remus was nearly in tears with a green mustache drooping as it dyed. Yet, Dee also didn’t know how to function anymore without this chaotic being in his life. They’d been best friends since elementary school and married for the past seven years. How could he just leave?

Dee shut his eyes, trying not to cry as he answered. “You two bastards better keep a good eye on my idiot of a husband. Do you understand? If he’s hurt… a damn hunter will be nothing compared to me.”

“Of course, Dee. He can even take over our spare room.” Emile answered, wanting to ease Dee’s pain at this decision.

“It’s not goodbye just yet. We have a lot of work to do tomorrow, before goodbye.” Remy stated. “Now, will you two idiots go wash out your hair? It’s been like an hour. I’ve already dealt with in-too-long hair once. I’m not playing that game again.”

Next Chapter

Taglist: @that-one-nb-kid, @hufflepuffxfox

#Flower from the Fae #sympathetic deceit #sympathetic remus #deceit #remus #tw cursing #tw disappearances #Sage writes

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leaflovescloud · 5 years

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July;

I’m so glad that I’ve got this small little place for me to express my thought once in a while. But this time, something is different. Because, I just broke up recently and we are no longer in a LDR anymore.

How things could change huh? The irony. few months ago I was still deeply in love with this guy but now things are not the same anymore. To be frank, I still very much love him and I wish we didn’t have to do this. I wish I could do something to save us, me, and him. But what I’m lacking at this moment is a leap of faith. I’m not sure if I can do it again. I’m afraid of being vulnerable like this again.

I still remember he said it to me, “It’s best if we just don’t talk anymore.” I affirmatively agreed to that because I know it’d best for us to move on even though I really don’t want to move on at that point of time. I couldn’t recall how hurtful it was, but then again, he just kept texting me. And I couldn’t complain that I found it annoying cos it’s not. It’s just that, it’s making my life harder to move on.

I can’t deny it’s extremely hurtful to me. So, me being not thoughtful and extremely spontaneous, booked my flight ticket to Chiang Mai. Many have asked, “Why Chiang Mai?” “Thailand is dangerous.” “You sure you wanna go alone?” But for some reasons, it’s gonna sound super cliche, but I really did/ do know that CM is the right place to go. The fact that I ‘ve never been to CM doesn’t really matter. I feel that at that point of time, my life been giving me signals and guidance to visit CM on July. So I did it and I really did it.

It’s cool cos it’s my first time travelling alone, abroad. I mean it’s not a big deal for westerner by looking at the digital nomad trends. But it’s extraordinary for a girl from a very Asian cultured family. But again, I just know I have to do it and I couldn’t worry more. Of course, I have my considerations before this trip, like will I ever felt lonely etc. But life is just more than that, it’s really up to us to direct where our sail is going. Sometimes, we really have to believe in ourselves and make sure we are open to many other opportunities.

So there you go, I was in CM! The moment when I landed at CM, I was trying to figure out how to use the Grab service over there. Being worried of getting scams by cab drivers and puzzled by the Thai words shown on my grab apps, I eventually made my way to Stamps Backpacker - where I stayed for 5 nights. Honestly, while I was planning for my trips, such as deciding where to stay, it’s kinda a big headache to me, As I was tight on budget, so I can only afford staying in a backpacker hostel. But then again, there are just so many choices but Stamps backpacker just caught my eyes. Apparently, it’s a social hostel and there are events everyday. So I just thought it might be a good way to know people around. So when I was there, I was just completely in awe, I wasn’t able to spot an asian tourist like me. It’s full of westerners and me being an introvert started to be anxious. I quickly settled down and went out for dinner. And that’s how I met Tom, an Irish-Australian. We talked for a lil bit and he ended up buying me dinner which I was extremely grateful. Then, I got back to the hostel, thinking of joining hostel peeps for karoke/ pub quiz. But I was still too shy to blend in. So, me being shy and reluctant to go back to my room, I forced myself to have a G&T by the bar counter and hoping that someone would talk to me.

There you go, I talked to Brandy and Andrew. They were super nice and we ended up hanging together by the nearby bar - Fat Elvis where you get to sing. And that’s my first time trying out Sangsom Soda that completely knocked me out after lol. We had so much fun and we head to BB bar for another drinking session again. It’s fun to drink with people that I’ve never met before, like the owner of the hostel, the hostel staff and others. It really was a break through to me. Cos I usually only mix with people that I find comfortable with and I always there is no need to know more people. And... as far as I remember, my night pretty much ended here. But according to them, I was drunk. So what happened thereafter, I seriously had no idea at all lol. But it’s pretty much a good night.

The next day morning was bad. Pretty much super hangover but still managed to wake up pretty early. I quickly washed up, and headed out. For some reasons, CM just feels like home to me. Like i’m not even afraid of being alone, I just know where to go. So I just walk for a lil bit, visiting the small alley and had lunch at a local food store by the road side. I really enjoy eating at a food place like this cos it makes me feel like im a local! Then I headed to this super small but cute cafe - Graph Cafe. The coffee is awesome but it’s like 100 baht lol. I’m pretty sure I’ve got other options there but well, i’m on a vacation! So, couldn’t care less. I was just resting and trying to recover from my hangover. Then I decided to explore around the Old City. So while I was walking, again there’s much Asian tourists to my surprise. But I was just keep walking without even referring to my maps. and there you go, I was at this temple - Wat Chedi Luang. It’s peaceful, not much people, the architecture was awesome. Essentially there are just too many temples around CM, but by far this is my favourite one. Just thought that it is authentic and connected to my heart. Then I had dinner alone as well. After that went to this Night Bazaar - Ploeen Ruedee. It’s amazing, I’m feeling the vibes over there. But well, it’s full of westerners again, so I was just having beer while listening to the reggae live band. Then I took a tuk tuk back to my hostel and I thought that’d be the end of my night.

Then, I couldn’t recall what happened but I guess, my hostel peeps were going to a Reggae Bar. and I met Andrew so I asked him if he’s keen and there you go my second night drinking again lol. Honestly, the night life in CM is really something, it’s not too crazy, it’s chill but it also gives you a nice kick that you need lol. We went to Spicy, Vegas afterwards. Pretty much night clubs hopping lol. and me being pretty much drunk again.

The next day, I didnt feel that much of hangover. I had lunch with Andrew at a local khao soi place. After that, I had thai massage by myself, and decided to visit Doi Suthep without planning. Well, fair enough, I came to CM without a proper planning lol. I didn’t really know what to do. I just settled accomodation and flight ticket - and I guess that’s what I need to worry about. So I figured out my way to Doi Suthep, and the views up there is massive. I’m not sure if it’s true but I guess the reason why i fell in love with CM is because it’s pretty much like Penang. But I guess Penang has got more the “city” vibes various CM is pretty much kind of laid back. Then I had dinner with Andrew and went drinking afterwards again. The dinner place was super good as I recalled.

Anyways, I think there are still a lot more to write about my trip. But well. I guess the main purpose of me going for this trip is that I want to find myself, I want to love myself, I want to look for an answer to my doubt. I pretty much didnt manage to get an answer, throughout the trip I think I got myself into another muddles too. But again, everything happens for a reason, I just chose to accept it. Cos whatever it is, it all happened under my control, or in other words, I allow it to be happened. So there’s nothing much I can do about it. I guess it kind of just changed my mindset for a little bit or may be I learned how to handle things like an adult and not to be too harsh on myself.

Sometimes I wish I didn’t have to break up with Jackie. Cos I was totally clueless. I was just keep on thinking is this break up a reality that has to happen? is this some sort of signal by God? They say when you win some, you lose some. I’m not sure if this is what I have to sacrifice. I’m also not sure if I’m being too spiritual. But I’m just thinking perhaps putting a halt in this relationship is the right thing to do as well. Cos for the past few months, I’ve been living alone and the fact is that I thought I handled loneliness a lil bit too well. in a way I felt that I’m too strong whereas in reality I just know that I’m not. Also, being away from him for so long sometimes also makes me a lil bit clueless as to how a normal relationship should be? what do couples usually do? watching movie and having meals together? I have no idea. But whatever it is, I don’t feel that it’s something that I should worry for now. Cos I just figured out that it’s a good time to be with myself, and solely by myself. There are some thing that I need to sort it out, need to understand my inner need and I really need to love myself first before allowing someone to come into my heart. Because I don’t think I can handle someone I once loved leaving me like this again.

You know, while writing this, I was just thinking if I was a tad bit naive back then to even start a relationship with him 2 and a half year ago. Even though I did not regret a single bit. But I just thought that it was still magical even till today. Unfortunately sometimes circumstances make things hard and unfortunately, at this juncture, we are truly defeated by the circumstances - distance.

Whatever it is, perhaps it is true that you can’t have it both ways in life. sometimes, things are just too good to be true. Right now, even though my heart is broken but it’s healing. My heart is full after my CM trips, my results - it’s my first time getting dean’s list, I’m getting a decent job/ car, so I really couldn’t complain more. So I want to be grateful and live my life properly by properly loving myself.

Also, I couldn’t thank Darren and Sim enough for accompanying me these days. they might not realize it but I just truly appreciate them.

“Without fear or favour.”

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theconservativebrief · 6 years

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The first 24-hour Krispy Kreme in Ireland opened its doors on September 26, but unfortunately for doughnut-eating Irish night owls, its initial premise proved faulty within just a week. The following Wednesday, Krispy Kreme announced that the all-night shop would now close at 11:30 pm, demoting it to just a regular ol’ doughnut store.

The culprit was the same as it always is: Too many people were lured by a tantalizing idea that the promise-makers couldn’t, for a variety of reasons, fulfill.

In Krispy Kreme’s case, that meant a line of hundreds of honking cars in the wee-est hours of the morning, disturbing neighbors and causing huge traffic jams. But it’s a story that has replayed again and again over the past few years: A limited-edition product, a free event, or a huge sale sounds a little bit too good to be true on the internet and, of course, ends up being exactly that.

I have spent literal years of my life thinking about — and contributing to — this phenomenon. For about a year and a half, my job was to write listings for free and cheap family-friendly events for a New York City kid’s magazine. More specifically, my job was to make these two-sentence descriptions sound as fun and exciting as possible without straight-up lying about what parents and kids would actually find when they got there.

This led to a lot of vague phrases like “hands-on activities!” and “music, performances, and food trucks!” that didn’t totally capture the reality of the only two possible situations. The first is that these “hands-on activities” and “performances” would be extraordinarily dull and not worth leaving the house for. The second is that even if they were free and decidedly non-lame, it still wouldn’t be worth the ridiculously long wait times, brutal crowds, and general feeling of total dehumanization that anything with the word “festival” can bring. (Fun fact: you can slap the word “festival” on literally any event with more than one thing to do!) It wasn’t uncommon for us to receive emails from angry parents complaining about a too-crowded or otherwise disappointing day.

My next job was the opposite: I’d scope out sample sales and report on whether they were worth waiting in the multi-block lines. Almost always, my personal answer was, “Uh, no???” but this kind of lazy reporting was, unfortunately, frowned upon. So instead, as fashion writers are wont to do, I described many pieces of clothing as “worth” buying when in fact I had no intention of doing so myself.

i come home to ireland for the first time in months and the whole country is at a standstill over a krispy kreme

— The Chronic Project (@TheNapKween) October 3, 2018

Both experiences have instilled in me a deep skepticism about any kind of buzzy event or sale, to the point where I have a deep mistrust of anything with the words “food festival” or “sale” in it. But I think more people should have that, too.

Because over the past few years, there’ve been tons of examples of overhyped and ultimately disappointing events, and almost always, social media is to blame. It isn’t just that the internet makes it easy for us to stumble upon fun-sounding experiences and then share them with our friends — it’s that there’s now a social media ecosystem that makes real money off hyperbolizing what you’ll find when you go to them. Essentially, whole brands and publishers are built on causing you FOMO.

When Build-a-Bear Workshop held its “Pay Your Age Day” sale on July 12, thousands of shoppers across the US, Canada, and the UK lined up outside stores hours before opening, hoping for a chance to stuff and buy an animal for only the cost of their child’s age.

Build-a-Bear, however, was woefully unprepared. Most stores cut off lines by mid-morning, though some shoppers claimed that even if they arrived early enough, the barrage of crowds forced them to wait hours. Others said that despite their early arrivals, they were turned away and told to come back later, only to find that the store had already closed.

The fiasco may not have happened had Build-a-Bear been able to gauge interest far enough in advance — it had announced the sale just three days before it went down, and the event was quickly covered by national news outlets.

In a similar case, McDonald’s attempted to capitalize on a joke from the popular animated comedy Rick & Morty by rereleasing its Szechuan sauce, but ended up revealing how toxic some corners of the fandom could be. When it turned out that McDonald’s had either barely stocked the sauce or failed to tell some stores the promotion was even happening, thousands of angry fans protested outside stores and wreaked havoc inside them. On social media, others proposed boycotts or filing a class-action lawsuit against McDonald’s, which distributed so few packets of the sauce that, due to supply and demand, one woman was able to trade hers for a car.

As Vox wrote at the time, “McDonald’s made the classic mistake of a corporation that suddenly finds itself engaging with a large fandom: When fans began to interact with its branding, it signed up for the free publicity and easy marketing, but didn’t do the work of understanding just what kind of fandom it had on its hands.”

The peculiarities of the Rick & Morty subculture surely had something to do with the level of vitriol expressed toward McDonald’s. But the blame is also on the way McDonald’s teased and winked at fans in its advertisements: It knew the Szechuan sauce was an item that customers desperately wanted, and it failed to deliver.

And the biggest, most prevailing example of this kind of failure is the food festival. The idea of a free or low-cost never-ending feast, spread out over a maze of stalls with different cuisines, satiating every possible sort of person, and all attendees leaving happy and perhaps even culturally fulfilled, is generally far too enticing to ever reach its Platonic ideal. But because people keep organizing them, other people keep buying tickets.

In September 2014, the organizers behind the massively popular outdoor food market Smorgasburg attempted to arrange a one-time-only night market inside Central Park, to much fanfare. Though the event, which was to include food, drinks, DJs, and dancing, was scheduled to run from 5 to 9 pm, by around 6 o’clock, police had to turn hundreds of people away, which ended up resulting in tons of leftover food.

But it shouldn’t have been a surprise, really. Two years earlier, a similar fiasco occurred when the organizers of Bonnaroo attempted a giant food festival and concert in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park. It would be called the Great GoogaMooga and would be free to enter with registry, though attendees could also purchase $250 VIP tickets that promised exclusive viewing, attendance to culinary seminars, cocktail demos, and wine and beer tastings.

A GoogaMooga worker holds a sign as festivalgoers wait in line for food. Mike Lawrie/Getty Images

Though the festival ended up making headlines for its absurdly long wait times, technical payment issues, and the fact that beer and wine reportedly ran out by 3 pm, it wasn’t much better for the VIP customers. A Gothamist piece headlined “$250 VIP GoogaMooga Tickets: You Would’ve Gotten More Full Eating the Money” described some folks waiting “15 minutes for a bite of a mortadella hot dog and another 15 for a single piece of beef with some corn,” and zero vegetarian options to speak of. The VIP section eventually ran out of food entirely, leaving attendees to watch celebrity panelists like David Chang and James Murphy eat delicious food while they couldn’t.

These two are far from the only disappointing food festivals. If recent memory serves, most of them end up being a disaster on some level: There was the “unlimited” cheese festival in London whose cheese selection was in fact very limited, the African food fest with a measly two vendors, the “drunken hellscape” that was BrunchCon, the pizza festival that was such a scam that it ended up being investigated by the attorney general, and, uh, that other one.

Though food festivals that don’t live up to the hype and sales that get out of control are two different beasts, they share some important commonalities. The first is that both of them hinge on brands and organizers promising something they can’t always deliver. Build-a-Bear and McDonald’s may have had the tools and staffing to follow through on their promotions for some customers, but both failed to take into account the rest of the equation, which is that a massive number of people wanted to take advantage of them at the same time.

Very sad slices of pizza from September 2017’s disastrous New York City Pizza Festival. Facebook

The same goes for events — GoogaMooga may have been a lovely experience for all if only fewer people had shown up (but in that case, organizers knew exactly how many people had registered, and had no excuse not to be prepared).

Part of this is obviously due to how social media is able to spread information much, much faster than it ever has in the past. When Build-a-Bear announced its Pay Your Age sale on Facebook, the post was shared by nearly 20,000 people, exposing it to huge swaths of potential customers.

And thanks to Facebook’s events feature, an event that’s labeled “food night market” or “ultimate cheese festival” can travel enormous distances. When users click the “Interested” button on events that are set to public, that event will then show up on their friends’ timelines, so that even if neither party ends up actually attending, everyone involved will still be aware of its existence. Plus, it’s so simple to create a public Facebook event that even if said “food night market” has zero proof of its quality or viability, people are made to assume that it’s legit because it looks exactly the same as the superior ones.

But the other problem the internet poses, besides simply allowing more eyeballs on events, is that there are an increasing number of brands and publications whose businesses depend on getting you excited about going to them. There are the kinds of local magazines and blogs where I’ve spent years writing this kind of content. But in the past few years, there’s also been the ascent of Facebook video creators like Insider, Refinery29’s RSVP series, and BuzzFeed’s BringMe, which traffic in getting users hyped to visit a certain place or attend a specific event.

“This Cheese Festival Could Be Coming to a Place Near You Soon,” reads the title of one video by one of Facebook’s largest publishers, the viral content site LadBible. The video itself is the same kind of mobile-friendly, simple text-on-screen stuff you’ll see on any Facebook feed, and none of the footage is original — mostly it’s close-ups of different kinds of cheese and an aerial view of the festival, all provided by Cheese Fest UK. But it didn’t need to be any more complicated than that: All viewers needed to know was that there was a cheese festival possibly coming to a place near them soon. As of now, the video has 13 million views.

But when the actual Cheese Fest UK landed in Brighton last August, the event devolved into hour-long lines, cheese shortages, and expensive prices, and Cheese Fest was eventually forced to apologize.

Essentially, there’s an entire economy within social media that trades off people’s FOMO. And in order for these videos, posts, or events to go viral, they require organizers and publishers to hyperbolize as much as possible, without any real concern for what customers can actually expect to get for their time and money.

But until social media engagement and virality aren’t important markers of brands’ and publishers’ success, it’s not likely that we’ll see the tale of the overhyped and underwhelming event end anytime soon. The only thing we can do, really, is take our 10 million–view videos about rosé-soaked pool parties with a hearty dose of skepticism. Or just do what I do and avoid them all entirely.

Original Source -> The internet helps cheap, fun events spread faster than ever. It’s also totally ruined them.

via The Conservative Brief

#IFTTT #The Conservative Brief

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listiqueblog · 6 years

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How One Pillow Manufacturer Is Putting Amazon Fraudsters to Bed, One Scammer at a Time

In 1990, my dad set up shop with my mom, selling this pillow with a hole in the middle.

He’s a dermatologist, and made the pillow to provide relief to patients of his suffering from tender ears caused by a condition called Chondrodermatitis Nodularis Helicis (CNH for short).

They’ve been in business ever since then, and up until this year when my husband and I bought the business from them, they did everything exactly the same as they did back in 1990.

That means no advertising, marketing or sales channel changes in almost 30 years.

So, my husband I took over in January and have since changed everything (it is 2017, after all!)

We updated our website and joined BigCommerce in January of 2017.

From there, we put ads on Google.

Then, a few months ago, we started selling on Amazon.

That’s when our sales doubled!

My parents were shocked. “That’s the power of Amazon!” I told them.

We were going to be the next big Amazon success story –– I just knew it. And then, our listing was deactivated.

Someone else had the lowest price.

“OK,’ I said to my husband, “that’s impossible. Nobody else can have the lowest price for this pillow, because nobody else has this pillow. My dad invented it. We have the lowest price, because we have the only price.”

I was freaking out.

It was the first time either of us had ever experienced fraud — and I had no idea what was going on.

But that was then.

I’ve since learned that the kind of fraud we were subject to is a huge problem on Amazon.

I’ve also gone through all the necessary steps each and every time to make it stop. And for my business, I have it down to a science.

Let’s start with what not to do.

Take This Book With You

This full guide (all +17 chapters and +50 experts and their insights) is more than 35,000 words. That’s a lot to read on a screen.

So don’t! Download the guide below to print it out, take it with you, and start selling more on Amazon.

Download Now

What Happens When You Call Amazon About a Fraudulent Seller?

After that first incident, in my panic mode, I called Amazon customer service.

At that point, I had tried to do everything I could within seller central.

Nothing was working. So, I picked up the phone.

They wouldn’t tell me anything about the other seller.

I supposed that it made sense, after all, it’s private and it could be “somebody else’s business,” in theory.

But we’re the only ones who make this pillow, remember?

So I told Amazon:

“This person says they’re selling my product and they can’t be! Nobody else has my product. It’s my own product. Nobody has it.”

To be fair, they were very calm about the whole thing and let me freak out over the phone. They asked me to explain the issue entirely –– and that they’d look into it. So, I did.

Here’s what I told them:

Another seller listed my item

They used my picture with my hand on the pillow

They used the description that I wrote myself

They had *our* customer service number on there

And worst of all, they lowered the price to $5.47 –– when the cost is $59.95.

Let’s get transparent on the pricing part.

Our pillow costs us $20-something to make it. There’s no way somebody could have made a similar or knockoff product for even close to $5.

Of course, they weren’t saying it was a knockoff.

They were saying it was the real deal.

Our product.

Our custom-made, copyrighted product.

It was frightening, but Amazon was able to take that seller down decently quickly.

Problem solved, right?

Wrong.

As soon as that seller was taken down, a few hours later another one popped right up again. It’s part of the scam.

Beware the Amazon Seller Scam

Several years ago, Amazon had a big push to become a global marketplace, and so they opened themselves up and made it super easy for international groups or people to sell and open up a store on the platform.

Essentially, almost anybody, almost anywhere, can sell on Amazon within minutes.

It goes like this…

One scammer somewhere in the world says to a want-to-be Amazon merchant:

“Pay us a certain amount of money, and we’ll set you up with a store on Amazon. You pay us and we’ll set you up with a store with 20,000 items for sale. People buy the items from you, and all you have to do is drop ship. You never actually hold any items in stock at all.”

Now, I can only assume that somebody has a program which allows a “seller” to select many items at once and set a price that’s some very low percentage of the price that is originally on there.

It’s why our $59.95 pillow was listed at a little over $5.

I say that this is the case because when you go to the storefronts of these fraudulent sellers, they have hundreds, if not thousands of products listed, all at insanely low prices.

I’m at the storefront for HairWOW. You can see at the top left this newly launched store has 114,976 products! Including mine. Hopefully lots of other vigilant sellers are also reporting them. You’ll need the link to this storefront page to put in the email you send to Amazon.

The products they list alongside might be related, or not.

In our case, there was the CNH pillow, plus a lot of other bedding, and then a lot random stuff.

It’s almost always the case, however, that the scammers will target ‘Just Launched’ items, from genuine sellers with few or no ratings.

Yep, there’s my product, being “sold” by another seller and me. HairWOW is on top because of their lower price, and I’m second. If there was another lower price before mine, I would be bumped completely off the page. If that happens, just repeat all the steps in this article with each fraudulent seller. Usually the seller will be Just Launched, as in this case, and offer free shipping.

This has something to do with the way Amazon lists products.

If I’m a new seller (a genuine one) with no reviews, and I’m ‘competing’ as it were with two scammers, listing my product for a fraction of the price, then even though none of us has any reviews, the scammers will appear above me because their offering is less expensive.

Why Does the Scam Work In the First Place?

The scam works in part purely because of the sheer size of the Amazon marketplace.

Even if Amazon had a team dedicated to tracking down the scammers, it would be incredibly difficult to catch them all at launch.

In practice, the scam works because:

Before shoppers buy one of these fake items, they’re told it will ship from inside the U.S.

Then, as soon as they place the order, the fake seller changes the shipping information from U.S. Post, to China Post, and attaches a tracking number.

How do they attach a tracking number when there’s no product to send?

Yep, it’s fake, too.

Why put a tracking number in the first place?

Amazon pays sellers every two weeks. Items posted from China take between three and four weeks to arrive.

The plan is that they’ll get paid in two weeks, then, when in four weeks time the customer hasn’t received their item, that customer will complain to Amazon.

The customer will be refunded by Amazon, but by then, the fake seller has already been removed, and set up shop as somebody completely different.

Even if they succeed in getting a small fraction of those sales to work, the scammers are making money. The customer wastes time, but they eventually get their money back.

In the end, it’s the seller who’s losing out, because:

The customers are angry

Trust is broken

They might never want to buy from you again.

This has been the case with us a few times, and when I speak to customers who have been scammed, the conversation goes something like this:

“Hey, I haven’t received my order.”

“I’m sorry. I have no record of you buying from us.”

“I only paid $7.00”

And so I explain what’s happened, and usually they say, “Well, that sucks. Can I order now?”

But it’s a waste of everyone’s time.

Is There Anything Amazon Can Do to Fix This?

Probably.

Making sellers jump through a few more hoops before being able to list items would be a start.

Placing some restrictions on new sellers would help to curb the scammers, or at least slow them down.

But honestly, the way we’ve dealt with things on our own has been really effective, and if it can save you the hassle of going through what we went through, then I would be all too happy to share.

How to Stop the Amazon Scammers

There’s a bit of policing you’ll need to do yourself when it comes to taking down the scammers, but it’s totally worth it.

1. Keep checking your inventory.

If you have just a few items for sale on Amazon, then the first thing you ought to do is go to your inventory page on a daily basis — I do this multiple times a day — to make sure you’ve got the lowest price.

I’ve got my pillow, and I’ve got my extra pillow cover.

Those are my only two items. So I know that I should have the only price on Amazon.

There’s a little green check mark by each item saying, “Yes, you’ve got the lowest price.” I know if that’s the case, I’m fine.

This screenshot is of my inventory page. I checked it this morning and put a red box around the area I was looking at. I wanted to see check marks by both products showing I had the lowest price because I should have the only price, since no one else has my exact product. My extra pillow cover showed I did not have the lowest price, and instead showed someone else had it listed for less. Amazon puts a link there for me to click if I wanted to match their price – which tells me there’s a fraudulent seller out there (or maybe more than one) listing my item.

If you no longer have the lowest price, and you’re the only one selling that item, there could be problem.

If somebody has significantly undercut you on a similar item, do some research before going in guns blazing.

2. Get as many reviews as possible.

If your product has lots of positive reviews, it will help to keep you up high in the listings.

It’s also more work for scammers to fake reviews right after launch.

3. Be open and honest in your product description.

The other thing I do — since it’s my product that I own and manufacture — is to address scamming right there in the product description.

Here’s what I say…

“Beware fraudulent sellers! They don’t have a cheap knockoff version, they do not have a version at all. There is not an item, this is a scam.”

Explaining to people what’s going on –– that if they see something that seems too good to be true –– that it probably is, that helps a lot.

4. Send an email to Amazon.

The third thing –– the most important thing –– to do is to send an email to Amazon.

You don’t want to flood them with emails, or you don’t pester them with phone calls (it doesn’t work) but you do need to reach out.

The email is [email protected] — just send them one email per day.

If you’ve got a lot of fraudulent sellers on your account every day, just pick a time of day and then send them an email.

Here’s the format and process that I use.

Compose an email to [email protected]

Subject line: Possible Fraudulent Sellers

In the email body, put the name of fraudulent seller’s store, with a link to their storefront

Do this for however many fraudulent sellers there are

Underneath, say, “We believe the above sellers are engaging in fraudulent selling activity. Please investigate.”

Presto. They will sort it.

This is what it looks like:

To: [email protected]

Subject: Possible Fraudulent Seller

Body:

Seller Name: HairWOW (or whoever it is)

Link to their storefront: (paste here)

We believe the above seller is engaging in fraudulent selling activity. Please investigate. Thanks!

And then you wait. That’s all. If there are multiple fraudulent sellers, you can just list them all in one email.

Bonus tip: Lay the smack down!

Because I believe that everyone should be held accountable for their actions, I also go to that fraudulent seller’s store and click on the button that says, ‘Ask Seller a Question’, and I hit them with my standard shaming paragraph:

“Didn’t your mother teach you not to cheat people out of their money? Don’t you know you’re hurting people’s businesses? This is not a victimless crime. Shame on you.”

I have no idea how many times that’s worked, but it makes me feel much better.

I hope that helps you to navigate this more seedy section of Amazon, and that you won’t get discouraged from selling on what has to be one of the best platforms we’ve ever used — after BigCommerce, of course!

Want more insights like this?

We’re on a mission to provide businesses like yours marketing and sales tips, tricks and industry leading knowledge to build the next house-hold name brand. Don’t miss a post. Sign up for our weekly newsletter.

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