#that’s using the normal hyphen so hopefully it does actually still work | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

m0e-ru · 3 years

Text

eight months in somebody actually asked me abt visualive instead of me immediately annoying ppl about it without former notice. I might actually write properly for once 😳😳😳

OK OK!!!!! In this essay I will.... I will.... Visualive Adachi.... Visu/BURSTS INTO TEARS/

OKAY OKAY for real I just care Visualive so much (as someone who can’t fully understand Japanese AHAHA)

First I’ll add some foundation about what Visualive really is, then I talk abt Adachi in the latter parts of it because this is technically the first time I’m properly talking about this hehe 🐿

T....table of contents???

Visualive

Visualive the Evolution

Masami Itou

Visualive Adachi

Visualive the Evolution Adachi

Terms and Legend

VL - Visualive

VLE - Visualive the Evolution

stage - shortened for “stageplay”

面白い - omoshiroi (it’s just that specific)

Yuuya - VL Hero name

Hayato - VLE Hero name

Baba - Hero

Masami - Adachi

Taniguchi - Dojima

Saotome - Daisuke

Mamiya - Izanami

I add honorifics but sometimes I forget the hyphen intentionally or unintentionally I’m sorry if it makes it hard to read lol

all links have automatic timestamps for easy viewing. i mean. i hope the timestamps work

VISUALIVE “Persona 4.” A stage adaptation of SMT: Persona 4 by Atlus. It adapts the first part of the story, from the hero’s arrival to after recovering Mitsuo Kubo from the TV world. It also ends on a cliff hanger, showing a teaser of Shadow Naoto being projected on the screen.

It takes up a speedy recapitulation of the hero’s spring life, before slowing down and showing in depth his school life in summer. A day before Morooka-sensei’s death, there is a little skit with Kou, Daisuke and Adachi. The hero walks into the conversation before the two other boys leaving, and Morooka-sensei walking in on the student and detective. The next day follow’s the teacher’s death and the Investigation Team (IT) begin investigating their new lead.

From the words “visual” and “alive,” the niche of this stage was meant to be the fusion of live acting and visual digital projections. All seen from the stageplay with the colorful cast of actors and CG animations being projected on the screen. This offers an opportunity for characters to summon their personas, perform cool visual effects, change the backdrop, or even confront their own Shadows.

Performed in Sunshine Theater from the 15th to the 20th of March 2012. The screenplay was written and directed by Shintaro Asanuma from the theatrical group “bpm.” The video production produced by Shutaro Oku, a film director and visual planner. He later takes over as director for VISUALIVE THE EVOLUTION, the sequel stage. The stage music was produced by Shunsuke Wada, with a special show exclusive vocal track sung by Shihoko Hirata.

On this note, I haven’t seen any sort of original soundtrack released for any of the stages and I’m SO SAD. The last song in Mitsuo’s boss fight was such a BANGER and literally EVERYTHING ELSE Marvelous, Wadasan please take my MONEY

Regarding the cast, there were some special accommodations for Teddie, Rise, and Nanako, all of which did not have live actors at the time. During the casting, actors for the three characters could not be found or simply left the directors unsatisfied they couldn’t cast anybody. An exception for Rise, who was able to have a live actor in the sequel stage. It has been stated that there weren’t any “pretty boy” actors that fit the “Teddie Criteria.” While there weren’t any child actors that were believed to portray Nanako well.

Teddie was only ever seen in his bear costume while Rise was busy talking through a call, all voiced by their video game cast. Nanako has never appeared on stage, only being scarcely mentioned in the script. Again, this is different in the sequel stage where her role was extremely important and was shown as a screen projection.

VISUALIVE “Persona 4” THE EVOLUTION. A sequel stage. Beginning abruptly in the middle of Shadow Naoto’s boss fight, the story continues from there until the “true end” of the game’s original story. *Certain characters are introduced while others have been reintroduced. And on a personal note, when it’s all comedic in the beginning, it’s all for what’s coming right after.

I don’t know if I’m salty or just find it really funny AHAHA I might go talk abt it some other day with more context ehehe

Performed in The Galaxy Theater from the 3rd to the 9th of October 2012, only a few months after the PSVITA Persona 4 Golden release, which is July 2012. The screenplay was now written by Jun Kumagi while directed by Shutaro Oku. And music production finally taken over by Shoji Meguro himself.

---

HAHAHA this is starting to look like a wiki page. moving on. I might start rambling rn

(warning LONG !!!! aaa,,)

My thoughts on the stage adaptations. For the first Visualive (VL) I believe it’s pretty close to canon! I enjoy the characterization and how much love and care was present when handling the entire production.

Actors were busy playing the game itself, wherein a PS2 was present in the practice room. Along with magazines and game guides explaining the game’s story and the characters itself. Actors performing together and even improv acting together to get a grasp of their characters. All of them knowing well of Persona 4 as a well loved game, delicately handling their characters and hopefully performing them right while making the audience happy.

The staff taking care of each other while the director and video producer, Asanuma-san and Oku-san, working together well to make their vision into a reality.

The same thing happened with VL the Evolution (VLE) and literally every other good stage. Except... I feel the script kinda got out of hand with too much liberty where it feels a bit more disconnected from canon. But! It makes up for it in its content, whether comedic or (INCREDIBLY) dramatic! It’s great as its own story at that point. So in this case, I like to take the first VL and get to connect it canon, while I don’t know what the hell happened in VLE to the point I’ll just enjoy it as its own content.

These opinions deserve its own essay, post whatever bc I have SO much to say abt this. ANYWAY. VL ADACHI

---

Tohru Adachi is portrayed by Masami Itou (伊藤マサミ), a screenplay writer, director and an stage actor himself. He does have a single character voice role along with a fellow troupe member in the same franchise, but mostly works as the former three. He is part of Asanuma-san’s entertainment group “bpm.” On a similar note, Masashi Taniguchi, Dojima’s actor, was also part of their group from 2011 to 2016, which may explain their good synergy as the boss and the bumbling fool dynamic. I mean, somebody’s gotta get hit in the head every few skits.

With Masami-san being an important part of the cast, he doesn’t appear as often as Taniguchi-san in backstage content like the VL bonus disk or the official blog. Mentioned in his own personal blog, he had been busy with his roles as assistant director (I am assuming also for VL).

Also fun to note, because his role is mainly comic relief, he has been using his liberty to change up the material almost everyday making each performance exciting. This also leaves some other actors jealous of his freedom in his role, such as Saotome-san, Daisuke’s actor.

---

VL Adachi really has a... how do I say this? an adorable speech pattern (THE SAME SPEECH PATTERN THAT DROVE ME MAD TRYING TO DECIPHER I THOUGHT YOU WERE A CITY BOY OSSU OSSU MY ASS /shakes you violently/). Overall, he really fits the loose lipped bumbling fool, and his accent really makes him seem more casual and invested. What I’m saying is... VL Adachi either actually has genuine empathy or he actually has more energy to fake it (compared to some other edgelord. i mean you saw my p4ga analysis. I’m sick of him lol ahaha).

One of my favorite ways to explain this (OTHER THAN CHAIR CAR ADVENTURE MY BELOVED WE’LL GET TO THAT LATER) is the rice field scene with him and Dojima. It’s overanalyzation time 🎉

youtube

(43:04)

While investigating, Adachi whines about being tired while Dojima smacks him in the head. In this case, it’s established that Adachi doesn’t want to be there, yes? It’s the country, it’s hot and it smells like green.

"Ah... Dojima-san..! Why don't we take a break? (...) There really is nothing out here... Is the criminal still even here at all? (...) I wonder if I've passed being a rookie yet. Haha, but this city doesn't even have convenient transportation. I can't go to leisure lands (recreation, amusement parks, arcades, ect.) and head home at all."

Adachi then tries to tell Dojima a story. “when I got to this city after being newly assigned, I met an interesting guy (...) Yeah, I remember that the cherry blossoms haven't bloomed yet. So, I was driving my car and got near the station and--” Dojima gets a phone call.

Adachi politely puts his hands down waiting for his boss to finish so he can finish the story. Again and again, Adachi attempts to talk to Dojima about a story he’s so persistent trying to tell someone about. It was so 面白い that he would find someone to talk to about it. Even being polite and patient enough to wait for a chance to speak. He even gets fed up with it and blows up in front of his boss, clearly irritated he’s not given a chance to talk.

Sure, it could be Adachi feeling fed up like a normal person where someone agreed he to listen to him, before being constantly ignored. Or Adachi trying to be a more annoying whiny brat, depending on where you look at it.

If the story wasn’t too “interesting” to Adachi, he would’ve just brushed it off and stopped talking to Dojima entirely, or start up new small talk, or even complain some more. But no, he had a story he wanted to voice out so bad that he got irritated that the one person in the vicinity couldn’t listen to him.

Only after Dojima told him to continue their investigation elsewhere did Adachi finally stop and focus on something else. Maybe that story was for another day, or maybe it was never meant to be told.

What if it was just original (game) Adachi? He’d find a way to squirrel out of the investigation as usual, or push Dojima to “investigate” elsewhere. “Hey boss, don’t you think it’s hot? Why don’t we go elsewhere? We’ve seen this place too many times to count and I doubt anything new’ll turn up. How about we take a break at Junes, y’know? Where it’s cool? C’mon boss,” something like that.

og Adachi is just really annoying and silly to me. Some grown man thinking he can freeload because he never gets anything out of putting in more energy and effort? I don’t care how tall he is, I will smack him in the head.

Yeah VL Adachi whines, too, but at least it doesn’t look like he’s going to escape and waste his time somewhere else. He just sucks it up stops trying to leave the situation.

Or maybe I’m getting this all wrong and VL is exactly the same and my rage just gets dampened because of Masamisan’s execution of character hmm...

SO. What was his story about anyway? The one he really wanted to share to Dojima?

I mean... it’s obvious enough

youtube

First day in town? Spring? Actually mentioned driving a car when literally out of every single persona 4 media at the time was there not a SINGLE mention of Adachi having a car OTHER THAN the same stageplay it’s being mentioned in?

A story, from somewhere around uhh four? five months ago? was something that he remembered so dearly and was willing to share despite it obviously embarrassing him even if he puts the blame on a certain somebody in the same story?

Or maybe it’s because he really had nothing to talk about ever since he realized all his stories from the city weren’t actually that funny or interesting in the first place.

BUT then that would mean out of all the things he could talk about—more whining, complaining, complimenting, small talk—he insisted about talking about this story in particular.

Okay, look. I’m just. Just. As someone who talks too much, of course I have things I actually want people to hear out of all the bullshit that comes out of my mouth. And if the thing I actually want people to listen to doesn’t even get heard, I’d go mad.

Sure, Adachi’d be fine when his complaints or intentionally unfunny jokes get brushed off. But a story of a guy that he thought was so funny, interesting, 面白い gets ignored, he really blew up, even just for a split second, maybe.

And ALL the things that happened in that story—on his first day in Inaba! His car got dented, he had to deal with a weirdo dumbass employee that knew zero personal space, yelled in his ear, who didn’t know how to do their job, got his station reputation messed up on the first day, got his ass grabbed, got (unintentionally?) mocked for his lame stories, and got his car dented for the SECOND time. Probably MORE

And he STILL wanted to talk about it /punches through concrete wall/

yes I’m overthinking about this of course i am

This little tidbit of VL Adachi kinda makes me go insane sometimes—his entire characterization in VL in particular. It was really refreshing to see and how they included both of his characters in it, his facade and how irritated he is of a lot of things underneath. And how flexible his character is immediately working with other characters when there’s sudden improv to balance the situation. Like him and Dojima, Morooka, the attendant, or even Yuuya (hero) himself.

I’ll take Taniguchi-san’s messing around in the VL bonus backstage disc in place of Masami-san being so busy he couldn’t appear in it as often as other characters.

For stagetime that lasted for fifteen minutes or less, my appreciation for VL Adachi, even if he was just comic relief, really rocketed. I say VL, bc Adachi the edgelord he’s supposed to be in literally every other media is something I analyze separately.

I haven’t even gotten to VLE oh my GODDDDD

Like I said, I don’t really regard VLE close to canon but as something to be appreciated for what it is by itself. But the way Adachi was characterized there, in or out of character, still struck me.

---

Yes, there was his strange fan-agreed-canon which is,,, now canon obsession with cabbages (not that that’s a bad thing lmao). There was also him being a lot more jumpy and intimate in a clowny way, patting people on the shoulder or even downright hugging them just to mess around. Even FORGETTING who the same goddam loser who grabbed his ass almost a year ago is. But like, can’t blame him they literally changed their actor (and screenplay writer) AHAHAHA

ha... no more comedy, only dorky sword fights now

(speaking of sword fights I think it’s a fun thought how Mamiya-san [Izanami, also one of the youngest in the cast] admitted it was his first time doing sword fight choreography and even thanked Masami-san and other staff members for guiding him)

One thing unintentionally in character was Adachi accidentally nabbing the sushi overdosed in wasabi. Masami-san didn’t actually account for a joke sushi and didn’t immediately eat it—until Taniguchi-san (who also made Dojima go off his shits compared to VL) jokingly yelled at him and even riled up the audience for him to eat it. He even went off stage to get water just for him to eat the goddam sushi.

And Masami-san did! (kinda choked, but he’s fine).

Continuing from the same scene, while being overly giddy about sushi dinner (and I mean overly--he was singing about it while hopping to the Dojima residence), he tried to remind the two, Dojima and Hayato (hero), that Nanako was sleeping. Probably where she was sick if the scene was translated from the game.

youtube

(30:07)

And... the dramatic parts of VLE

Adachi was the one who reported to the IT that Dojima was chasing Namatame in the rain. While Naoto was discussing Namatame’s journal entries, Adachi, as giddy as he is, took it from Naoto’s hands and reveled in the discovery of evidence so childishly(?). He even ran to Dojima when he began regaining consciousness and immediately called the nurses to help him wheel Dojima to the ER.

Then, The Hospital Scene™️, right after Nanako flatlines.

youtube

(1:02:02)

Adachi, who recently walked into the scene, immediately worries about Dojima and IT who were ALL crying. He looks down, devastated—before yelling how Dojima’s heading to Namatame’s room.

He yells in terror and the same grief at his injured boss, all while running past and even jumping over children, who fell to the ground sobbing, to get to him. He continues yelling in a pained fashion while immediately reprimanding Dojima to stop. He gets carried by the collar before being tossed to the ground at Hayato’s feet, all while being pat by the same boy.

Dojima makes his speech about how unfair it is for the ‘killer’ to be alive when his daughter isn’t. When he finally falls to his knees, Adachi rises from the ground, humbly saying he’ll do his best to take care of Dojima (or something like that I’m in tears I literally can’t do VLE’s hospital scene i h8 this). He finally starts crying along with everyone else, being pushed away again but still tries again, trying to usher his boss away from the door.

With the help of the guard in front of the door, they all disappear off stage

please... I know this scene doesn’t need that much translation because of how important this scene is in the entire story. and I know my narratives aren’t enough so just,,,, just watch it please it’s so much more than this. everyone’s acting was just spectacular

youtube

(1:08:47)

So, after the IT (YOSUKE. JUST YOSUKE. good job Mae-chan) stop themselves from k wording Namatame, it was ADACHI who reported Nanako’s miracle recovery. He ran to the same corridor where they all cried in, even panting and falling to the ground in relief trying to report the good news. Then he pats Hayato on the shoulder and says he’s going to Dojima.

With this... /slaps roof of half of VLE/ ALL of this....adachi.... adachisan.... he Cares™️..... holy shit.....

now. comparing to the game. do you even remember what og Adachi did? did he.. even do anything?????

youtube

(56:39)

NO!!! he just stood there!!!! being a bumbling fool but.... inappropriately!!! man. he didn’t act concerned enough.

adachi: /walks into a bunch of kids crying outside a hospital room/ “lmao why tf are y’all crying? did uhhh what’s her face uhhh nanako. did she d word or something? rip, I guess lol” LIKE????? CAN YOU IMPLY FASTER

and then he’s like “wgat hmm Where’s Dojima-san Heading Because That’s Not The Way To His Room 🤔” and only when he’s asked he actually mentions he’s heading to Namatame’s room and still needs to get choked by a first year for the room number like..... zero consideration

and his boss??? where his daughter he loves so much just??? di*s???? and he’s so devastated he’s doing what he can that very moment while he’s so numbed of thinking of the consequences???? And adachi goes “uhh boss that’s illegal” LIKE. BITCH. /punches through a concrete wall but harder/

---

And??? His confrontation scene??? Like, I know they mashed it up w his tv confession scene to save stagetime for other scenes BUT IT WAS SO MMBMBMBMMGN /gestures in a good way/

youtube

(1:15:56)

UM?? guy behind everything??? in a vulnerable area where he could easily get physically assaulted bc hes not in the tv world w his persona?? Trash talks women like he absolute misogynist he is??? getting yelled at by a bunch of kids and YELLING BACK IN THE SAME AGITATED MANNER even TAUNTING THEM then and there to GET HIS ASS?????

og Adachi was such a pussy he got caught and just scurried off into the TV world where he ended up having powers like...ok....scared of getting beat down by a bunch of highschoolers unless you have powers...ok....

he only taunted them to get him when he was in the tv world too.....he rlly couldn’t say shit in the real world huh... lol

(yeah yeah this shows how VLE Adachi knew abt his TV world powers which would make you think if he ever went into the tv world and came back out alive. Or he’s really just a badass who doesnt give a shit abt anyone’s opinions and CAN beat anyone’s ass. i have a separate thing abt this but bc i like to laught at vle rather than overthink its own lore i might. not. idk lol)

and ??? VLE Adachi can??? He can swordfight??? he doesn’t even NEED a gun—he even reflects bullets w his blade (but apparently he can still get slapped by a flying fan more often than any other attack). His fight choreo was just...so poggers. He’s like short villains done good—like??? he’s short compared to everyone else!!! but he makes up for it for stuffing all the energy inside him while is bursts out making him him the over energetic gremlin he is!!! go VL adachi!!!!

(am I low key making fun of Madono-san in the TUUSH stageplay I’ve seen four minutes of? maybe)

OK!!! Yes I was gushing abt Masami-san again back to Adachi.

It’s portrayed that while not being afraid to admit his crimes, he also goes out of his way to be a bastard and have the gall to get a bunch of kids to fight him, one on eight. He can use a katana, probably a narrative dark reflection of the hero, Hayato which I thought was nice—and he can fight!!! It also shows his persona, yes, but...it doesn’t make it clear if he’s overwhelmed by his Shadow like in the game, where his eyes were yellow and he was emitting a dark aura.

But it gets interesting how he sees he’s getting overwhelmed and starting to lose his edge towards a bunch of kids. He falls to the ground even banging the floor like a whiny brat while literally the IT tries to tell him to turn himself in. Again, like a brat he tells everyone to shut up—before getting incapacitated. While some of the IT rejoice, he bolts up unaccepting of his defeat—before getting hit in the stomach.

youtube

(1:23:54)

And his words from when he drops his katana, “Why..?” He grabs the foldable chair against his stomach, and with a remorseful look in his eyes, he says “I’m sorry..!”

THEN HE BACKFLIPS—then Hayato slashes him.

In a tone of disbelief, he goes “no way...” and collapses to the ground, being possessed by Ame-no-Sagiri.

Blah blah blah then Teddie rockets himself into the eyeball spy cam and then they both explode aaaaa

Teddie survives but I really don’t know where Adachi went. Not even a mention by Dojima if he turned himself in or was ever found—or I need to review VLE for the 48274827482nd time hehe

WHOO then the whole cast appears for the dance number at the end of show YAHOO

#long post #persona 4 #persona 4 visualive #persona 4 visualive the evolution #tohru adachi #sulululat #pagsususuri #p4 #p4v #p4ve #//HAPPY 4K WORDS VL ANON #// if theres anything u want to ask... im right here /collapses/#// i almost went ham over actor relationships like. talking abt bpm was ENOUGHHH we're talking about the character not the assistant direct #// aaa this took so long... i literally mashed up so many other idea documents into one.. man.

16 notes · View notes

stahlop · 4 years

Text

Making a Memory (5/?)

Well, here we are. Chapter 5. This chapter was a beast to write. Hopefully, you'll be satisfied with the answers this chapter provides.

Thanks again to my betas, @profdanglaisstuff and @thisonesatellite. I thought they were going to hack this chapter with a machete. Turns out, they wanted me to add a bit more. So that was amazing to hear.

Check out the banner artwork by @gingerchangeling. There is also artwork by @mariakov81 at the end of this chapter.

Enjoy!

Chapter 1 2 3 4

Ao3

Defeating Gideon had been surprisingly easy, if Emma called sacrificing herself and hoping to God and any other gods that were around that her sacrifice meant she would get to live her Happy Beginning with her family and new husband, despite having just been stabbed in the gut. And thank goodness it was True Love’s Kiss worthy, because Emma really hadn’t wanted to die. And considering that was the final battle, she felt it was the least scary out of everything they’d had to face in the past. The Black Fairy just preened and monologued most of the time, while Gideon had his heart stolen, so she couldn’t blame him for him wanting to kill her (she had immediately asked Belle to put a protection spell on his heart, like Regina had with Henry and she had with Hook after their hearts had been taken, which Belle readily agreed to).

But now life was… well it was normal. And normal was not something Emma Swan-Jones (yes, she was hyphenating) had seen in the past few years. And it was... strange. It was strange living a perfectly normal life with Captain Hook as her husband, who insisted on using the iPad to find healthy recipes for dinner since he knew she would eat Pop Tarts or bear claws for breakfast and Granny’s for lunch. It was weird seeing him just lounging about in sleep pants on the weekends when they weren’t working (thankfully, David still worked weekends for them so they could have time for themselves along with the actual Three Musketeers spread throughout the week, who made pretty good deputies), or taking her and Henry out on the Jolly Roger to go fishing, or any other number of domestic fantasies she’d once had about idyllic life in Maine. What wasn’t strange was after a year of domestic bliss when the stick had shown the words ‘pregnant’ and she hadn’t freaked out about it whatsoever.

Because there hadn’t been any danger in over a year, which was the longest the town had gone since she’d arrived. Nothing, nada, zero, zip, zilch. Just some bad dreams which was to be expected after everything they’d gone through in such a short amount of time. And which had made her and Killian a little more carefree. It wasn’t as if they were getting any younger. She was pushing 32 and Killian was… well, they’d agreed he’d be 36 according to the paperwork Regina had magically made for him. Killian hadn’t taken kindly to being on the closer end of 40, but Emma had insisted that it just made him more worldly, and if they did ever venture outside of Storybrooke, he could freely talk about things he had done in context with his age. And now parenthood was going to be part of that.

“When does it get to the good stuff?” Hope huffed, interrupting Henry’s reading of the epilogue of his book. They were sitting in a tent in the woods only a few miles from where Henry was going to meet their parents later that day. Alice seemed to be having the time of her life, completely enthralled with the sequel to her favorite book, which seemed to be the real life account and love story of their parents and the defeat of multiple villains, until the final battle happened three years after Henry brought her to town. She’d read it the entire drive to the campsite and Hope had discovered she was a very enthusiastic reader. She constantly yelled or gasped or cried at something that happened in the book. Hope had gotten a chance to read much of it last night and the rest when the sunlight filtered into their tent that morning. She’d always been an early riser, unlike her mother and Henry. Hope had to admit it had been a fun adventure tale, (although the first few chapters chronicling the first year Emma had been in the town of Storybrooke had been pretty boring and in the last few chapter everyone seemed wildly out of character), but she wasn’t sure if she actually believed this was a true account of anything, like Alice and Henry did. Henry had insisted that he read the final chapter to them together, so they could understand what had happened.

“Not every chapter needs to be action packed or full of chase scenes.” Henry admonished her. “Besides, don’t you want to hear about what happened after your parents' Happy Beginning?” Alice clapped giddily while Hope rolled her eyes. Henry had always been a bit dramatic growing up, but Hope still couldn’t wrap her head around this whole fairytale business Henry was trying to sell her.

Killian was ecstatic to learn he was going to be a father. Although, after everything he’d been through, the thought of having a child was a little daunting. He’d never imagined he would ever become a father. Of course, he and Milah had discussed it, but having a baby while being a pirate would never have worked. Once she had died he’d never even considered it until he met Emma. And now it had finally come to pass that he was being given the opportunity to become a father. He already knew having a child would be the greatest adventure he’d have in his life.

Of course, when the ultrasound indicated they were not only having a girl, but two of them, Killian’s head went a little fuzzy and he had to sit down with his head between his legs so he wouldn’t pass out (Emma had teased him about it for days after and brought it up to everyone they came across).

Twins!

They were having twins. When he’d finally got his head on straight he picked Emma up in his arms (again reminding her he’d carried rum barrels bigger than her) and twirled her around. He was excited, so excited. Not only was he going to get the chance to be a father, but he’d get to do it twice in one go! His dreams quickly became consumed by little girls with his hair and Emma’s eyes, or Emma’s hair and his eyes. They’d be sailing, play sword fighting, drawing, all the things he wanted to teach them. They quickly agreed on names for the two girls. Alice for his mother and Hope because of everything they had gone through and the hope that had gotten them through. Emma had insisted that they use the names Cleo and Margaret for middle names, to honor two influential women in her life. So, from then on, Baby A became Alice Margaret, and Baby B was Hope Cleo. For the next few months everything was complete bliss.

When Emma hit her third trimester, her mother, knowing that twins could come early, insisted on hosting Emma a baby shower. Emma agreed on the condition that it was a small affair. No grand balls or carnivals like she was wont to do. And so, on a sweltering hot day in early September, Emma entered Granny’s which had been closed down just for them, to find a large group of women waiting for her. Snow had stayed true to her word and not invited the whole town. Emma was relieved to see many familiar faces, including Ruby and Dorothy who had used the ruby slippers to come to the event, Belle who had brought a two-year-old baby Gideon with her (even though it still freaked Emma out slightly that this tiny child had once tried to kill her), Ashley and Aurora with their broods (they had both added one more child over the past few years), Elsa and Anna, and even Mulan had made the trip, though her girlfriend, Merida, had refused the invitation, Emma couldn’t blame her since she’d only known Emma when she was dark.

Things had been going great. Regina had made her lasagna, much to Granny’s chagrin. Zelena was even giving helpful tips despite Emma having sped up her pregnancy (she reminded Emma that she had done midwifery research when she’d first come to town). It was nice that everyone in town was actually getting along despite the terrifying last few years. Emma really shouldn’t have been surprised when it all went to hell.

Alice gasped so loudly that Hope actually jumped from her seated position on the tent. Her heart had immediately started pounding in her chest.

“Geez, Alice!” Hope said perturbed. “Lighten up. It’s just a story.”

“It’s not just a story.” Alice argued. “We’re reading about our mother. If anything, you should be the one more concerned as you got to actually grow up with her.” She sniffled as her anger gave way to tears. Hope almost wanted to roll her eyes, but she knew how strongly Alice felt about this all being real. Hope still wasn’t sure what Henry’s endgame was here, but she did know that she and Alice were sisters. She knew that with every fiber of her being. But Snow White and Prince Charming were their grandparents? The Evil Queen had cast a spell to bring them all to their land to get her happy ending? Their mother was married to Captain Hook (considering Alice knew her father had a false hand, she seemed quite surprised that’s who their father turned out to be), a former villain turned hero? It all seemed a bit much. She hoped there would be a simpler explanation somewhere down the road, but she was determined to let Henry play out his little fantasy for the time being until he brought their parents to them later that day.

“I’m sorry.” Hope sighed, placating Alice. “Please continue, Henry.”

A swirl of golden smoke appeared in front of them. Emma immediately went on the defensive, a ball of white light forming in her hand. She could see Regina conjuring a fireball at the strange plume of smoke and out of the corner of her eye she saw Granny duck behind the counter for her crossbow.

As the figure in the smoke came into view, Emma took in the mass of dark curls framing an olive face from under a black hood. The woman had big eyes with heavy lids and red lips that almost put Ruby’s to shame. Her burgundy gown seemed out of place for the modern town of Storybrooke, in that it looked like it belonged more in Camelot than even the Enchanted Forest. It was trimmed in the exact same shade of gold that her swirl of smoke had been. Emma realized she’d been staring too long at the woman who had just crashed her baby shower, but she had the overwhelming sensation thrumming through her body that she knew this woman somehow.

“Who are you and what do you want?” Emma growled at the woman who had made no attempt to do anything after her grand entrance. The room had gone impossibly quiet. Even the children who had attended with their mothers weren’t making a peep. Granny still stood behind the counter, crossbow in hand, but she too wasn’t making any comments. Regina still had a fireball ready to go, it’s fire crackling at her fingertips, but nothing else happened.

“I’ve slowed down time.” The woman said with a deep voice, one that seemed as soothing as a lullaby, but chilled Emma to the bone. The voice seemed familiar to her as well, although she couldn’t recall from where. “They can’t perceive what we are doing right now, but that’s why they’re not responding to me and only you know what’s going on.” The woman smirked at her. Emma had the impression she was supposed to be impressed.

She wasn’t.

“I’m only going to ask you one more time.” Emma said, using all her strength to pull her hand back, a ball of magic swirling within. Her other hand instinctively went over her stomach to shield her children. “Who are you and what do you want?”

“Oh, my sweet dear.” The woman said in what Emma assumed was supposed to be a motherly tone. It sounded sweet and calming, but Emma could hear the evil lurking underneath. “Haven’t your dreams told you why I’m here yet?”

A cold chill ran down Emma’s spine as she realized how she knew this woman. She’d been in her dreams! Floating above her, the woman would chase her through the streets of Storybrooke threatening to take something from her. Something that would…. make the woman stronger, if she recalled the dream correctly.. Emma had dismissed it as an anxiety dream; the woman representing any number of villains that could spring up and ruin her happiness. But here she was, in the flesh, and already Emma had failed to protect anyone around her.

“You asked why I was here.” The woman said, her voice suddenly going from calm and soothing to cold and calculating. It now sounded like nails on a chalkboard to Emma’s ears and she couldn’t suppress another shiver that ran down her body. The woman gave a simpering smile at her. It made Emma sick to her stomach. She still had her magic at the ready though. She was not giving this woman an inch.

“My name is Gothel…”

“Like from Rapunzel?” Emma spoke without even thinking. Gothel turned to her slightly frazzled from Emma’s outburst, but schooled her features back to the smile that creeped Emma out to no end.

“I have never bartered a child for greens, nor kept one in my tower. Nor have I kept a child in my tower to keep my youth.” She said menacingly, her face pinched. “Yes, I have done my research into what your realm thinks of me.” Gothel’s features changed back to look like a woman who would dote on a child rather than hold one against their will. “I am simply an ordinary elemental witch. Content to commune with the four elements and let them use me for what they need.”

Emma did not miss what she had said.

“And what do the elements need?” Emma was quickly losing her patience. And she had to pee. Two babies didn’t leave a lot of room for her bladder.

Gothel smiled at her. “I knew you’d understand.” She practically purred. “It’s not what they need, Emma dear, but what they have told me. Some very disturbing things they have told me, and unfortunately for you, it means that your children are a danger to me.” Her blue-gray eyes flashed almost black. She slowly made her way up behind Emma and spoke directly into her ear. “This is not a warning, this is an absolute truth. Enjoy what little time you and your children will have together, because I will not let the whispers come true.” And with that Gothel poofed out of the diner in her golden smoke.

Immediately, the patrons of the party sprang back to life, almost speeding up comically. Everyone looked around for whomever had come from the golden smoke, but all they saw was Emma crumpling to the ground holding her stomach and sobbing.

Alice gasped as Henry read the last part and grabbed Hope’s hand, as if the move would comfort her as well. Hope was in no need of comforting. She just wanted to get to the end of the story so she could understand. The story was taking place in early September and Hope knew they were born in late September so there was no suspense if this was supposed to be about their birth. She knew her mother was alive and well, so she knew nothing bad was going to happen to her. This all just seemed... redundant.

She could see Henry staring at her, gauging her reaction. Alice seemed close to tears and Hope couldn’t understand why. She’d never even met her mother.

“So what is this evil supposed to represent, an almost miscarriage? We were born, so obviously everything is okay.” She rolled her eyes at both Henry’s eagerness and Alice’s sadness.

“Wow!” said Henry with a shocked expression that then turned into a smile. “You really are just like mom. She didn’t believe me either.” He looked back down at the book, preparing to continue reading. “Don’t worry, the interesting part is coming up.”

Being at the hospital, not knowing what was happening to her or her babies was the scariest thing Emma had ever faced in her life. And that was saying a lot considering everything she’d faced. But she wouldn’t know how to even look at Killian if they lost their girls. The men had gone out on the Jolly Roger during the party, taking a pleasure cruise, so to speak, so Regina had to poof out to them to let them know what had happened. Killian came rushing into her room, and grabbed her hand, and a fresh wave of tears spilled down her face.

The barrage of questions came from his lips immediately. “Are you okay? Are the babies okay? What did the doctor say? What happened? Is there a new villain? Are you okay?” It actually made Emma’s heart sing, the level of concern he had for her.

“I think I’m okay, same with the babies. Whale just assessed me to make sure I had nothing external wrong. We’re going to do an ultrasound to make sure the babies are good.” She paused for a moment, dragging his hand to her cheek, something that always soothed her. “It seems there is a new villain in town. Her name is Gothel.” He quirked an eyebrow since she had shown him Tangled. Gothel had not been anyone he’d ever come across in his travels, so they’d figured she’d been made up for the story. “She said our babies are a danger to her and she won’t let whatever is supposed to happen, happen. She said this wasn’t a warning. Just the truth.” Her voice started to waiver again.

Killian pressed a kiss to her forehead as she let the tears fall again. How many times was she going to put him through this? How many times was there going to be danger that he could do nothing to prevent from happening? But instead of comforting her some more or telling her everything would be okay like he was prone to do, he stood up, his body vibrating with anger, his hand pulled away and fisted on his jeans.

“I’m going to talk to the Blue Fairy.” He said suddenly. “After Whale tells us that the girls are alright, because they are going to be alright, Swan. This...Gothel... wouldn’t have told you that they’d be a danger to her if they weren’t going to be okay. This was a scare tactic. An intimidation. And I will not have my family worried about some impending doom. We’ve come too far for this to happen now.” Emma reached for his hook and pulled him toward her.

“Just stay with me for now. We’ll worry about this when we know everything is alright.”

But according to the Blue Fairy it wasn’t alright.

“Well, she’s definitely more than an elemental witch.” Emma and Killian stood in the Blue Fairy’s office, which was covered with large tomes, smaller books, and even a few scrolls.

“So you’ve heard of her then?” Killian asked darkly.

“Yes and no. She goes by many names, Gothel being one of them. Gothel actually means godmother and being an elemental witch means she’s most likely descended from a forest nymph or dryad. Possibly even from Gaia herself.” Emma saw Killian immediately get a worried look on his face.

“I take it Gaia is bad?” Emma asked, suddenly feeling the weight of not finishing high school or going to college coming back to rear its ugly head at her. Killian grimaced and she could see him thinking of the best way to tell her what she was not understanding.

“Gaia means earth in Greek.” He stated plainly. It didn’t take Emma nearly as long to figure out what that meant as she thought it would.

“Wait! You think Gothel is descended from Mother Earth?” she exclaimed.

“I think she’s exactly who she says she is,” the Blue Fairy said before Emma could spiral out. “But I think she’s a lot more powerful than she’s letting on.” She paused and gave a sigh before continuing on. “I found a prophecy in an old book. Probably as old as me. I think it’s the prophecy that Gothel is alluding to, but I need to study it first before I decide if it actually pertains to you. I don’t want to mislead you or give you false hope or false terror if it’s not the correct one.”

Emma wanted to rip the paper out of the Blue Fairy’s to read what it said. She could feel Killian tense up next to her, most likely thinking the same thing. But she calmed herself. How many times had she ‘jumped to conclusions’ before examining all the evidence first? It was one of her biggest flaws when she first started sheriffing and she wasn’t going to start doing it again. She took a deep breath to calm herself.

“Okay.” Emma said, squeezing Killian’s hand to let him know that they needed to let the Blue Fairy do her job. “We’ll trust your judgement. Just let us know as soon as possible so we can come up with some sort of a plan. In the meantime,” Emma said, turning toward Killian. “I’ll put a protection spell around our house, the bug, and the sheriff station.” She turned back to the Blue Fairy. “Do you know of any protection spells we can use on ourselves or the twins?”

The Blue Fairy shook her head. “Unfortunately, protection spells can only protect objects and people within them. And you know from personal experience that they aren’t one-hundred percent effective.” The Blue Fairy said. Emma nodded, remembering her experience with Regina and her mother, Cora, in Gold’s shop years ago.

“Here.” The Blue Fairy said, conjuring up some chalk and pressing it into her hands. “This might help. It’s infused with fairy dust. It may look like glittery chalk, but it’ll have a little more kick to it than a spell and regular chalk.” Emma squeezed it and mouthed a silent ‘thanks’ to the Blue Fairy. Killian gave a slight bow.

“Thank you Lady Blue.” he said before they turned and left.

Hope was about to scream into her pillow. She checked her watch, noting that there was another hour before Henry had to leave to meet her mother and Alice’s father. She wondered if this epilogue would ever get to the point. She still had no clue why she and Alice had been separated and why their ‘parents’ didn’t remember each other. This whole thing was getting more and more absurd by the moment. Now Gothel had been brought into it? She remembered seeing that movie as a kid and not really thinking that Gothel had been a subpar villain compared to some of the other Disney villains out there. She knew in the real version the witch had no purpose for taking the baby except in trade. But in Henry’s version it was seeming like she had no real connection except for a random prophecy. Now she felt like they were veering into Harry Potter territory.

Henry must have sensed her frustration, again, because he paused his reading to stare at her. “I promise, Hope, this will all make sense soon,” was all he said before diving back into the book.

Emma and Killian spent the next few weeks in fear. The twins weren’t due until mid-October and they had no idea if Gothel would come around again. Both Emma and Killian, plus the Blue Fairy, Regina, Gold and David had been trying to figure out where Gothel had come from and how she had gotten into Storybrooke. Once they realized that the waters that came from the well were the same waters in Lake Nostos, Tiny had managed to take some of the burned beans he’d saved from years ago and restore them. They now had plenty of beans to make portals to go all over the realms again, but they were highly regulated by David, Snow, and Regina. People in Storybrooke could travel by portal, but, as far as anyone in town knew, no one from any other realm could travel to them. Usually someone from Storybrooke took a portal to the other realm, gave them a bean and took another portal home. They didn’t want beans falling into the wrong hands and becoming a black market trade item again. Of course, there always seemed to be beans regardless. But, there were only a few select people who knew about Storybrooke. How in the world would Gothel know about them and how in the world would she find them?

While everyone else was working on the Gothel problem, Killian had discovered online that some really rare phenomena were going to be happening in the night sky. “There a Harvest Moon tonight!” he yelled animatedly. “I wonder if it will be orange like a true Harvest Moon or red like the Blood Moon?” Emma loved when he got passionate about astronomy, the man who was once guided by the stars. “It’s also a Super Moon,” He said almost in a teacher-like voice, “because it’s so close to your realm. And….” he paused for what Emma assumed he felt was an even more amazing discovery “It’s also a lunar eclipse!” Killian grinned widely. “Even in my hundreds of years, Swan, I’ve never seen anything like this!”. Emma could only hope that she’d be able to stay awake for it.

Killian had just started cooking an early dinner so they could just gaze at the night sky when the first contraction hit.

“Are you okay, Emma?” Killian dropped the mixing spoon and ran over to her.

“I…I think I just had a contraction.” Emma was concerned. The babies weren’t due for another month, but she also knew twins could come early.

“Do we need to head to the hospital?” Killian asked, clearly nervous and concerned.

“No.” She said, kissing him on the cheek. “Water hasn’t even broken yet. Let’s have dinner. Lord knows they won’t let me eat in the hospital while I’m in labor.” Emma was surprised at how calm she was over this. Considering the last time she’d given birth she’d been chained to the bed and not even taken a look at Henry, she was feeling very empowered. Being in charge of her pregnancy the way she wanted to be had a way of doing that. They sat down to eat for their last meal as a family of two (Henry was at Regina’s, but they’d both be at the hospital when they felt it was time to go), when the contractions started ramping up.

“I think it’s time to head to the hospital.” Emma said. Killian grabbed the go bag that they’d packed and headed to his old Jeep Cherokee they’d bought on a trip to Boston.

“That’s what kind of car Papa drives!” Alice exclaimed, interrupting Henry just as the tension was getting good.

Henry smiled at her. Hope was feeling something akin to anticipation. She felt like they were finally getting somewhere in the story with their impending births. She knew that had to reveal something.

“Are you alright, Hope?” Henry asked, concerned. “You’ve been really quiet.”

“I just want to finish the book!” She said through gritted teeth. She really needed to know how this pertained to them, and all of Alice’s disruptions were starting to grate on her nerves.

Henry nodded at her and Alice and continued.

Alice Margaret Swan-Jones arrived at 9:07 on September 27th, 2015. The lights flickered around the hospital on Emma’s final push. Whale had been concerned (once Alice had been bundled up and placed in Emma’s arms) that it could have been Gothel, but Emma assured him that it was most likely her magic, and that the same thing had happened when Henry was born, only she hadn’t been aware it was her magic at the time.

There was a perfect view of the eclipse from the window in their room. Emma and Killian watched as the almost blood red moon traveled across the sky and then disappeared when it was caught in the Earth’s shadow. Emma was glad she had this rare occurrence, plus her new daughter to keep her mind busy while she waited for her other daughter to make her appearance. Hope seemed to be taking her time, and it was making Emma nervous. She knew she could ask Killian to invite Henry and her parents and any other number of people who were anxiously awaiting updates into her room to meet Alcie, but she really wanted to wait until both babies were out. Whale had also started talking about a c-section if Hope didn’t make her presence known soon, as twins usually were born within minutes of each other, not hours. Right as the moon started to peak out from the shadow of the Earth, a huge contraction hit Emma again. It seemed Hope was finally ready.

Hope Cleo Swan-Jones was welcomed into the world at 12:27 on September 28th, 2015. Emma and Killian were astounded when they realized that their girls were born on separate days, but they were just thrilled that they were safe and healthy. Emma had almost hoped her relatives and friends had gone home instead of waiting around, but they were all there, ready to see the newest additions to the Swan-Jones clan.

Henry insisted he be the first to see his new sisters, followed by Snow and David. Even Regina was permitted to hold them, something Emma could see she cherished, being allowed to be part of their family. It was almost three in the morning by the time everyone started to filter out and the Blue Fairy arrived, a look of despair written on her face.

“What is it?” Killian immediately asked. He had Alice in his arms and hugged her protectively.

“The prophecy is as I feared.” She looked down at the floor, almost as if the prophecy she suspected belonged to them was her fault.

“How can you be sure?” Emma asked. She had been drowsy just a few seconds ago, but now it was if caffeine had been put into her IV drip.

The Blue Fairy pulled out a thin piece of parchment from thin air and handed it to them. It was written in an elegant script, something Emma would associate more with a love letter rather than a prophecy.

When the moon becomes red with blood,

And darkness covers the land

Two will be born.

One ere the witching hour and one hind

To conquer nature’s sinister conjurer

By separation will make stronger

And reconciled on the day and night the true harvest moon meets.

Emma read through it several times, not quite understanding. Her mind was swimming from the events of the day and that adrenaline jolt she’d just had was now coming down. She was desperate to know and understand, but she just couldn’t focus at the moment.

“Killian, take Hope.” And she immediately passed out.

“Is it over?” Hope wondered, thinking that was an odd place to end the epilogue.

“Almost.” said Henry, but before continuing on he asked, “Did you understand the prophecy?”

Hope thought about it. “The moon becoming red with blood and the darkness is obviously the Harvest Moon and lunar eclipse,” she said.

“And the witching hour is usually midnight.” Alice interjected. “So it’s saying one would be born before midnight and the other after, just like we were.” But I’m not sure about the rest.” Alice frowned.

“Well then.” Henry said, noting that there were only a few pages left until the book was finished. “Let’s see what we can find out.”

Emma awoke to sunlight streaming in her window and Killian and the Blue Fairy deep in a whispered conversation. At first she was confused about why the Blue Fairy was in their bedroom, but as her arm hit the guard rail of her bed, she remembered that she’d given birth to the twins that night. She quickly turned to see the girls both sleeping soundly in their bassinets to the side of her, and she breathed a sigh of relief.

“Ah! There’s the happy little mother!” Killian whispered loudly and got up to kiss her on the forehead.

“What have you learned?” Emma asked, keen to understand the prophecy and how to defeat Gothel.

“Well, we know this prophecy pertains to us because it mentions the twins and the fact that they’d be born last night on either side of the eclipse during the Harvest Moon. All that business in the sky last night was apparently a welcoming celebration for them.” Killian joked halfheartedly.

Emma shook her head to clear away the last vestiges of sleep that clung to her.

“May I see the prophecy, please?” She asked, holding out her hand for the parchment. The Blue Fairy handed it to her. Both she and Killian tried to say something about it, but Emma put out her hand to stop them. She needed to look at the prophecy and come to her own conclusions before she heard what they had to say.

“Okay. I understand that the first half pertains to our girls, but what about the second half? Nature’s sinister conjurer seems to be a fancy way of saying Gothel. Being separated from something makes her stronger? And what does it mean by a true Harvest Moon?”

Killian stepped forward and took the prophecy back from Emma’s hand. “That’s what we’re trying to figure out, love. The Blue Fairy and I have already hypothesized what it could mean. But, don’t forget, prophecies don’t necessarily mean what you think they mean.” He placed the prophecy down on the side table and took a picture of it with his phone so they could study it more later.

“So what do you hypothesize then?” Emma asked curiously. Her brain was still too muddled to even guess at what the second half could mean.

“Well,” the Blue Fairy began, “judging from her cryptic message at your shower, we think that she thinks your twins can do some damage to her, or vanquish her in some way. Nobody seems to have heard of her in any other realm that I’ve been able to reach out to. And the only Gothel people know of here is the Rapunzel fairy tale, which, from all accounts, seems to have been completely made up and not based in any truth.”

It didn’t make any sense to Emma. Why would a seemingly low-level witch, that didn’t seem to have made any sort of name for herself in either the good or evil camp, want to hurt her children? Why would a prophecy be written about her children defeating this unknown witch, who by all accounts hadn’t done anything to anyone yet?

Yet.

“Have you looked into other prophecies that might pertain to Gothel? Anything about an elemental witch or nature’s sinister conjurer like our prophecy calls her? Maybe she hasn’t turned evil yet. Or maybe this whole thing leads her to turning evil.” Emma said, letting her thoughts take over.

“A self-fulfilling prophecy you mean?” Killian asked. Emma could see his mind working. “Like that Oedipus Rex fellow who killed his own father and married his mother?” Emma laughed at one of the few outside of fairy tale literary references she actually recognized. She was about to say something when a loud wail pierced the air.

“Looks like one of our little ladies has awoken from her slumber.” Killian said, walking over to the bassinet and picking up Alice, who was practically eating her fist.

“She’s hungry.” Emma said, holding out her arms for Killian to put Alice in. The Blue Fairy rose and told them she’d look into other prophecies that might pertain to Gothel. Emma got Alice all ready to nurse when another wail was heard.

“Ready to try and change a diaper?” A nurse said, entering the room. Emma laughed at the horror-stricken look upon Killian’s face.

Hope let out a deep sigh. This epilogue was getting them nowhere, and it was too long. Hadn’t anyone ever told Henry that the epilogue should wrap things up and not bore the reader? But Henry wasn’t paying attention to her, nor was Alice. They were totally engrossed in the story that Henry was reading. Hope checked her watch and noticed that Henry would need to leave in half an hour. She really hoped the story would be finished by then, though that seemed impossible at this rate.

It was two years before Gothel made herself known again.

Two years in which the twins learned to crawl, and walk, and talk, and gained teeth, and grew hair, and had their own little personalities.

Two years in which Snow insisted on getting as many pictures of the girls as possible in matching outfits that she insisted on buying for them.

Two years of Henry writing down every small story that happened and filling books as the author.

Two years of silence in which Gothel was almost forgotten.

Almost.

It was a month after the twins turned two that the Blue Fairy started hearing whispers from the Enchanted Forest about a new evil that had taken root. Just small things at first, nothing she even felt was necessary to tell Emma and Killian about. A spark that ignited a forest fire, but no casualties. Spells that seemed to have gone wrong leading to bad weather, or higher or lower tides that affected the lands. But then, the reports escalated to the decimating of crops, the killing of livestock, the burning of entire forests. It seemed the ‘elemental’ witch was using the elements to drive out the citizens of what she was now calling ‘her’ forest.

Emma had started having nightmares about her daughters being taken away from her, or trapped in a tower that she couldn’t reach. The worst were the dreams where she and Killian and the twins were separated and she couldn’t find them all to put their family back together. She would cling to Killian crying while he stroked her hair and kissed the top of her head, reminding her that they were safe, while showing her their sleeping girls in their cribs through the baby monitor.

After one such night, Emma and Killian were rudely awoken by a pounding on their front door. This immediately set the twins off, which is why Emma was very rude when she flung the door open.

“WHAT THE….” she started, but then saw the Blue Fairy standing before her looking as though she hadn’t slept in weeks. Her clothes were wrinkled, her eyes had purple circles around them, and her usually neat and tidy hair looked like she’d stuck her fingers in an electrical socket.

“I’ve figured it out.” She said, not waiting for an invitation into the house, but just barging in and heading to the kitchen table.

Emma looked perplexed as Killian came in holding both girls on either side of him. He handed Hope to Emma while he put Alice in her high chair.

“Figured out the prophecy?” Killian asked, gathering items to make breakfast for them all.

The Blue Fairy nodded.“Everything! Who Gothel is. Why she’s after you. Why we haven’t been able to find anything about her previously!” Emma barely remembered to place Hope in her high chair before sitting down, her mind whirling.

“I’ve been wracking my brain trying to figure out why and how she came to you two years ago, when she was unknown to anyone. It didn’t make any sense. Even the prophecy I found was written by a seer only a few months before Gothel came to you. And then there was only recent happenings that suggested that Gothel was fairly new, so I went to the Enchanted Forest and consulted with an Oracle.” She paused, Emma inferred, to collect her thoughts.

“The Gothel that came to see you was much more powerful than the Gothel that is currently trying to terrorize the Enchanted Forest. She was able to cross realms and slow down time. Not even Regina or the Dark One at the heights of their power could do something like that. Rumplestiltskin had to get Regina to curse the entire Enchanted Forest in order to cross realms. Gothel, at this point and time does not have the capability to do this.” Hope banged on her tray, startling them all.

“You’re saying at this point and time.” Killian said as he cracked eggs for breakfast. Emma had to admire how he could stay so domestic while being told about someone who was trying to harm their children. “I’m assuming that’s not just for dramatic effect.”

“You would be correct. The Gothel that visited you came from the future. That child she bartered for in her story? Used to make the same kind of time traveling spell Zelena attempted to do. According to the Oracle, she’s been studying up on you and your family ever since she came into possession of the prophecy and figured out who was going to destroy her. It seems she’ll become quite the vicious ruler, even worse than Regina, if that’s possible. She’s trying to recover the land of her foremothers by ridding it of all humans. It seems our theory about her being a descendent of Gaia is true and she’s reclaiming Gaia’s land for all elemental witches because we have destroyed it too much for her liking.”

Emma tried to wrap her head around what the Blue Fairy was telling her. A very sizable foe had traveled back in time for the express purpose of warning her that her daughters were a threat and that she would be coming after them because of a prophecy. She knew she must be missing something, because she was feeling very much like Harry Potter learning about why Voldemort had attacked him as a baby, but having not understood that he fulfilled the prophecy just by going after Harry. Had Gothel shown her hand by warning them?

“So, what does all this mean?” Killian asked, bringing over a bowl of scrambled eggs to the table on top of plates for everyone. He scooped some onto the girls trays and then plated some for himself and Emma, the Blue Fairy shaking her head when he offered her some.

“It means she’s going to try and separate us all at some point, according to the prophecy.” Emma said matter-of-factly.

A grim mood settled over them, the twins too young to understand happily eating their eggs with their hands.

The Blue Fairy bid them farewell and promised she’d do more research into how to avoid the prophecy, but Emma knew that prophecies were usually unavoidable, but could often be circumvented to a degree.

Unfortunately, it was too late.

It was the next day when Gothel came back. Emma, Regina, and the Blue Fairy used all the magic they could to keep her at bay, but her magic was much too strong. She had all four elements on her side to work with, and their magic was not enough to defeat the original source of magic.

After weeks of Gothel beating the town down with rainstorms, hurricanes, carnivorous plants, and almost anything else from nature that could be thrown at them, it was Regina who finally had the idea for them to leave Storybrooke. Gothel’s magic wouldn’t work outside of the town. Emma was adamant that they stay and fight. She couldn’t leave the people that she loved to fight this witch without her. But even her parents begged her to get out of town after weeks of Gothel attacking them. They’d holed up in Regina’s crypt, protected by blood magic, the one type of magic Gothel didn’t seem to be able to break. But because of the high price blood magic required, they couldn’t use it to protect the whole town.

“It’s the only way, Emma,” Snow and David pleaded with her. “We can let you know when we’ve defeated her or figured out how you and the girls can defeat her. Please.” Snow was crying into Emma’s shoulder. Seeing how much her parents were scared for her finally got her to change her mind. She and Killian packed up all they could into her tiny, yellow bug and into Killian’s Jeep. They would head out of town the next morning. Henry insisted on coming with them, much to Regina’s chagrin. But he was 17 and wanted to see more of the world and help protect his little sisters.

Emma was reminded of their goodbyes at the town line when Pan had cursed the town and she and Henry had to leave while everyone went back to the Enchanted Forest. Only this time, she had her husband and children with her, and the Snow Queen’s Scroll to get them back in when the threat of Gothel was gone. She would still be able to talk to her family and friends on the phone, or even video chat. Everything was going to be okay.

Emma had Hope and Henry waiting in the Bug, while Killian had Alice in his Jeep. They were about to cross the town line when Gothel appeared, floating in front of them. She threw a bolt of her magic below her directly onto the town line stopping them in their tracks, cackling the whole time.

“You think you can run from me and my magic?” She threw her head back in a shriek, her black curls whipping all around her in a black halo.

Everything seemed to be going in slow motion. Emma wondered if Gothel had slowed down time again, but she realized it was just the fear of the moment. Emma got out of the car, her magic crackling in her hands.

“This ends now!” Emma said angrily. She was tired of this. Tired of the fear that had hung over them for so long. She just wanted to defeat this bitch and go back to her normal life.

“You wanted to separate yourselves from your family to defeat me, fine! I’ll make sure you are separated from everyone. No one will even remember you were here.” And with that she pulled out a bottle from her dress pocket and uncorked it.

“No one here will remember you and you won’t even remember each other.” The liquid from the bottle had begun to bubble and golden smoke started to pour forth from it. “This whole town will never remember the Swan-Jones family. And you will only know who you leave town with.” Emma’s eyes widened with realization that if they left town she wouldn’t know Killian or Alice, and they wouldn’t know her, Hope, and Henry.

“Emma, Killian, you have to leave!” Regina shouted at them. Snow and David nodded in agreement, tears streaming down their faces. “The prophecy says you’ll defeat her, somehow you’ll figure it out, even without your memories. Now go!”

Emma and Killian looked at each other, both of them now realizing that they would not know each other once they crossed the town line. That their love story would not get a happy ending. And that their twins would both grow up without one of them.

“I love you, Swan.” Killian said from where he stood next to the Jeep, his hand on the handle ready to get back in. “Never forget that.”

Emma nodded, tears streaming down her face. “I love you too. We will have our happy ending.” They smiled at each other, not even having enough time for one last kiss. Emma sat herself in the front seat and the both drove through the golden fog over the town line together.

Emma only vaguely remembered the Jeep that kept up with her most of the way on her trip down to Boston. She was too concerned with how worried Henry seemed to be about their move, probably still reeling from Neal’s death a few weeks prior. She hoped their move to a new place would help him find the peace that he so desperately sought.

Tag List: (Let me know if you want to be added or removed)

@profdanglaisstuff @thisonesatellite @mariakov81 @hollyethecurious @winterbaby89 @jennjenn615 @kmomof4 @superchocovian @lfh1226-linda @ilovemesomekillianjones @cssns @itsfabianadocarmo @xsajx @qualitycoffeethings @snowbellewells

#cssns #cssns20 #captain swan supernatural summer #cs ff #Captain Swan #captain swan ff #gingerchangeling #inspired by the parent trap #mariakov81

44 notes · View notes

money-deck · 3 years

Text

How to start blog and make money online

S-EDUCATE’S Quickstart guide to blogging

Already have a blog name and idea—and just want to get started?

Go to BlueHost and sign up for a Basic Plan for just $2.95 per month. This is the best web host for beginners, and the easiest way to get a great blog up and running.

That price is for a three year plan, but it is the best deal. Bar none.

Set up your account. When it asks you what you want to add on, choose domain privacy and protection (trust us, it’s worth it).

To build the rest of the website you’ll need to:

Install WordPress. It’s the best website builder out there. Once you install it, this is where you’ll actually be blogging.

Choose a theme. These designs determine how your website will look.

Start blogging. Let your ideas flow in a consistent writing schedule.

If you want to make money, the steps are simple from here: Find your first customer, then your second customer, then your third customer, then your—well, I think you get the picture.

Of course, there’s a ton of different ways to make money. We’ll dive into that later.

Let’s dive into the entire blog making process in full.

Step 1: Find a blog idea

This is arguably the most important step for your blog.

Choosing your blog’s topic (or niche) determines the rest of the website’s future. This is what you’re going to be writing about and — hopefully — making money from.

The good news: There’s practically an audience out there for every single topic you might be interested in.

BUT there are some topics that tend to perform better than others. You need to find the topic that both appeals to a big audience while appealing to you.

To find the perfect blog niche, you’ll need to answer two questions:

1. What am I interested in?

What topic do you love? What are you obsessed with?

This is the basis of your blog niche. After all, if you don’t love the topic, you’re not going to want to write about it day-after-day.

To help answer this question, I suggest looking towards several areas:

Talents. Is there something you’re naturally talented at? Maybe a sport, game, or musical instrument.

Expertise. What skills and knowledge have you built up over the years? Maybe there’s something you went to school for that you can write about now. Think academic subjects or skills like languages and car repair.

Career. Your current career can be a fantastic place to write about. For example, if you’re a developer for a startup, you can start blogging about front-end development or the tech industry.

Hobbies and passions. Is there a topic you just love learning about? Think about the things you do in your free time. Maybe it’s reading books, or working on your fantasy novel, or repairing that old car in your garage. This can be great topics to write about in your blog.

ACTION STEP: Write down 10 – 15 topics you’re interested in. Pull up a Word document or sheet of paper and actually write this down. It’ll help you keep your ideas focused. Plus, you can refer back to it later when you make your final decision.

2. What are other people interested in?

This area is a bit trickier.

You need to find out what other people are interested in as well. Otherwise, you might find yourself with a blog that doesn’t draw in a lot of people.

For example, you might think that a blog all about how wonderful your dog is is super interesting — but is that going to draw in a lot of people?

On the other hand, a blog about how to take care of and train dogs appeals to a much bigger audience of readers.

You need to take your personal interest and find a way to make it universal. Think aback to how you initially gained interest in the topic. How did you gather expertise in the topic?

Think of all the questions and confusions you had when you started out and what helped you gain expertise.

To help, here are a few popular categories that always do well:

Personal finance

Fitness

Online business

Investing

Productivity

Real estate

Careers

Test prep

Freelancing

Pro tip: Use Google’s Keyword Planner tool to see how often people search for a specific category or niche. It’ll reveal what people are and aren’t interested in.

ACTION STEP: Take a look at your list from before. Do any of them fall under these categories? If not, that’s okay! There’s probably still an audience out there for one of your topics.

For now, I want you to choose a topic from your list that you want to turn into a blog. Once you do, you’re going to make it even more specific and niche it down.

For example, you might want to start a personal finance website. Niching it down might mean you make a personal finance website for millennials making $100,000 a year. Or for thirty-somethings who want to retire early. Or whatever else

Step 2: Find the perfect domain name

Now the fun part: choosing your blog’s name. For this, I have good news and bad news.

Bad news: Most of the very “best” domain names are already taken. The Internet is decades old. Makes sense.

Good news: That doesn’t matter because we’re going to find the best one for you.

Here are a few good rules-of-thumb to keep in mind when choosing a good name:

Keep it short. Don’t force potential visitors to have to type a bunch of words to visit your website. We recommend no more than 14 characters.

Choose a .com, .org, or .net. These are the easiest ones for people to remember.

Easy to spell and pronounce. You don’t want to spell it out constantly for people when you mention your blog’s domain.

Avoid numbers and hyphens. Not only does it look clunky in the URL but it’s also difficult to type out when you add hyphens.

Use your name. It’s pretty likely that your name is available as a domain. That makes it the perfect choice for a personal blog. I’ll speak more on this later.

When you come up with a domain you like, head to BlueHost to see if it’s available using their domain tool. If it is, great! If not, you now have two options:

Search until you find an available domain. I highly recommend you do this until you find a domain that’s available. If you’re going to write a blog, sharpen your synonym skills by searching other words and phrases that might be available. Trust me. As a working writer, this is a VERY crucial skill.

Purchase a domain name. While it is possible to buy a domain from someone who already has it, that’s an advanced option and can get expensive fast. Low-quality domains will usually go for a few thousand dollars. Highly quality domains that are two words can easily go for $10,000 to $50,000. I’ve even been in discussions to purchase domains for over $100,000 and the really hot ones can break seven figures. Not to mention all the hassle that comes from finding the person who owns the domain, negotiating with them, and transferring the domain if you can get an agreement.

Your best bet is to keep going until you find a domain that you like and can purchase directly from a domain registrar for about $10.

We go into lots of detail on which domain registrar to use here. But I highly suggest you buy a web host that allows you to register a domain for free. That means going with BlueHost.

Using your personal name as the domain

If this is your first blog and you’re not completely sure what you want to blog about, I recommend that you use your personal name.

The reason is that changing your domain later will mean that you have to start over from scratch. There are a lot of mistakes in blogging that can be corrected later; having the wrong domain isn’t one of them.

Let’s say you pick a domain like fitnessfordoctors.com. Then after six months, you realize you’d rather be doing personal finance blogging for doctors. You’d need to get a new domain and start over from scratch.

Personal domains are much more flexible — it’s just a name after all. So if you jump categories after a few months, it’s not a big deal. Take down any old content that’s not relevant with your new direction, start posting new content, and you’re good to go.

That said, personal domains have two major downsides:

Scalability. It’s much more difficult to recruit other writers or grow your blog beyond your personal identity later on.

Sellability. Personal blogs, even if they’re generating serious cash, are much harder to sell. Prospective buyers want a site that isn’t dependent on a single person.

These are pretty advanced problems to have though. So if this is your first blog, the benefits of using your name as the domain greatly outweigh the costs that only show up down the road.

ACTION STEP: Pick a domain name and run with it.

While it’s important to pick a good, brandable domain name, the most important thing to do in this step is to make a decision and go. You don’t want to be stuck in the dreaded state of “paralysis by analysis.” Instead, just choose one based on the system above and run with it.

Go deeper: Want to learn more about this topic? Check out our article on how to buy the right domain name.

Step 3: Sign up for BlueHost

A web hosting provider offers server space to host your website. This is where your website “lives.”

People who visit your website do so through this server. It’s one of the most important elements of your website.

We went through all the main hosts for WordPress sites (by far the best tool for blogging) and put together our recommendations here.

But really the choice boils down to one option: BlueHost

Visit BlueHost

NORMALLY $7.99/MONTH

FREE DOMAIN AND SSL CERTIFICATE

RECOMMENDED BY WORDPRESS

30-DAY MONEY BACK GUARANTEE

GET A 63% DISCOUNT!

For your first blog, you want a host that is popular, trusted, easy to use, reliable, and reasonably priced. No need for anything fancy.

BlueHost fits this need perfectly. The best part is that its plans start at $2.95/month (when using our discount link). That’s a steal considering how many positive reviews it gets.

For the vast majority of folks starting blogs, BlueHost is going to be the best bet for hosting their blog.

ACTION STEP: Sign up for BlueHost

If you’re just starting out and would like very affordable, yet reliable web hosting, BlueHost is perfect.

Step 4: Install WordPress

Your website needs a content management system (CMS). This allows you to create and manage blog posts.

There’s only one option for this: WordPress.

Seriously, just use WordPress.

That’s because it’s easily one of the most powerful, easy to use, and customizable CMSs out there.

WordPress powers 30% of ALL websites. That’s how popular it is.

Use WordPress for your blog, end of story.

Because of how popular WordPress is, most web hosts offer a one-click install for WordPress. It’s super easy.

Of course, you might want to use a dedicated blogging platform like Medium or even LinkedIn. There are a few good reasons to go with a blogging platform. However, I generally recommend owning your own platform. That way you have fuller control over who your audience is and what you get to write.

ACTION STEP: Install WordPress on your host.

Here are the instructions to install WordPress on BlueHost with just a few clicks:

Log into your Bluehost account.

Open My Sites on the side menu.

Click Create Site.

Enter your blog’s name and tagline. Click Next.

Choose the domain you want to install WordPress on.

Choose the directory you want to install it on. Click Next.

Step 5: Pick an eye-catching WordPress theme

One of the best parts about WordPress is that it’s really easy to change the way your website looks.

On top of that, you don’t need to know anything about coding.

WordPress uses “themes,” little packages of code that can be swapped in and out. Whenever you change your theme, your site will also change but your blog content stays the same.

This makes it very easy to evolve your site over time without having to rebuild your entire site from scratch.

For now, you’ll need to pick your first WordPress theme.

The number of themes out there makes me dizzy. There are… a lot.

When picking a theme for any of my blogs, I go straight to StudioPress. The themes are a bit more expensive at $130. (Most themes go for $20–50.) But it’s totally worth it.

StudioPress was purchased by WP Engine and WP Engine now includes all the StudioPress themes as part of its hosting package. It’s a nice freebie if you are already planning on hosting your site with WP Engine.

If you want a wider selection of WordPress themes at standard prices, Themeforest is the most popular WordPress theme marketplace. You’ll find just about anything you want in its selection.

ACTION STEP: Purchase a theme and add it to your website.

After you purchase your theme, log into your WordPress blog, go to the Theme section which is under Appearance in the WordPress sidebar menu. Then follow the instructions for adding the theme.

You’ll have to upload the theme files to WordPress and activate the theme from within WordPress. You can find the upload option by going to Themes > Add New, a button towards the top. Then you’ll see this option to upload:

You’ll be able to manage any themes you’ve uploaded to your WordPress blog from your Themes section:

Step 6: Install WordPress plugins

One of the best parts about WordPress is that it’s infinitely customizable. Since it’s open-source, you can change it to do whatever you want.

The easiest way to make changes is with plugins. Plugins are little batches of software you can install within WordPress to get extra functionality. This is how you’ll add a bunch of extra features to your site without having to code anything yourself.

BUT be careful here and try not to go overboard.

Some bloggers will install dozens or even hundreds of plugins on their blog. That can cause a bunch of problems later on.

Not only can plugins cause unexpected conflicts with each other, they become a security liability since it’s unlikely that every plugin owner will maintain the plugin over time. They also become a huge headache to manage.

When you have that many plugins, you’re never sure which plugin is causing a particular problem.

I like to keep my plugins limited to 5–10 amazing plugins.

ACTION STEP: Download helpful plugins

Here are a few of my favorites:

Akismet – Required for every blog, it automatically filters a ton of comment spam which is a problem for every blogger. This is one of the few plugins that I happily pay to upgrade.

Yoast SEO – The most highly recommended SEO plugin, it handles a bunch of SEO tasks automatically for you and also makes on-page SEO tasks a lot easier.

Contact Form 7 – The most popular contact form out there. Set up a contact page on your site and then use this plugin to create a contact form that will email you any time someone fills out the form. Super easy.

TinyMCE Advanced – A bunch of improvements to the WordPress editor that makes writing in WordPress a lot easier. These days, I usually skip this one. I write all my posts in Google Docs and then format them in WordPress using its default HTML editor.

WP Super Cache – A good plugin to speed up your site.

MailChimp for WordPress – More on this below. It’s the easiest way to connect your WordPress site to a MailChimp account, create an email sign up form, and start collecting email subscribers.

WordPress Popular Posts – Easiest way to add a list of your most popular posts to your blog sidebar. The list will update automatically.

Step 7: Install Google Analytics

Google Analytics is a free website analytics tool from Google. It allows you to do things like:

See how many people are visiting your website

Find the demographic info of your visitors

See what blog posts and pages are receiving the most visits

But it can get very complicated, very quickly.

Which is why we’re going to ignore the majority of what’s in Google Analytics for now.

All you need to do is create a Google Analytics account and install it on your blog.

And while there are plenty of good reasons to install Google Analytics, there are two big ones I’d point to:

First, Google Analytics stores your data over time. When you’re ready to dive in later, you’ll be thankful that you’ve been collecting data since the beginning.

Second, it’s exhilarating to watch people visit your site in the beginning. I remember the first time Google Analytics recorded a visitor on my first blog. I thought it was a mistake. “Someone visited my site? Really? Why would they do that? Who are they? Did they like it?”

Seeing those first visitors come in will give you a huge motivation boost. Even if you only check Google Analytics to see your total traffic, it’s well worth the time it takes to set up.

It’s also pretty easy to set up. Here’s a step-by-step guide to help:

Step 1: Log into Google Analytics

This is simple. Go to Google Analytics and click on Start Measuring.

If you’re not logged into a Google account, it’ll ask you to login to your Google account. If you have one, do so. If not, create one and login with that.

Step 2: Create your Google Analytics Account

On this screen, it’ll ask you to provide an account name. Use the name of your website or blog for this.

Don’t worry about the boxes with the checkmarks for now. You can always change them later.

Once you do that, click on Next at the bottom.

Step 3: Choose what you want to measure

This screen asks you to choose whether you want to measure a website, an app, or a combination of both.

Choose Web since you’re creating a blog.

Then click Next.

Step 4: Fill in the property details

It’ll now ask you to fill in some details about your website including its name, the URL, your industry category, and your timezone.

Once you’ve done that, click on Create at the bottom.

Step 5: Copy and paste the tracking code onto your site

Once your account is created, you’ll have a unique JavaScript tracking code for your site. When you copy and paste that snippet of code into your site, Google Analytics will start collecting data for you.

Voila! That’s it. You are now tracking Google Analytics for your website.

Step 8: Set up your email list

Every marketing engine I’ve built for companies has relied on emails at its core.

And there’s a good reason for that: Email lists are the best marketing tool. Period.

Think of your email list as a giant laser ray you can focus on any offer you want. Selling consulting? Pitch your list to the reader.

Publishing a new blog post? Pitch your list at the bottom of the blog post.

A podcast just interviewed you? Pitch your list to the podcast’s audience.

Of all the marketing channels that have come and gone over the years, nothing compares to the power of a high-quality email list.

Even if you’re not sure what to send your email subscribers, that’s okay. The important thing is you start gathering a list of subscribers and build the foundation early.

ACTION STEP: Create an email list.

Using ActiveCampaign or other email marketing services, start collecting emails on your blog so that the list is ready for you as soon as you need. It takes time to build a decent size list so your future self will be extremely grateful if you set it up now.

Even a super basic opt-in in your blog sidebar is enough to get you started.

Don’t even worry about sending any emails yet unless you want to. The main thing is that you’re collecting email subscribers from the beginning. Email lists can be a gold mine once you have a few thousand subscribers, and the money really rolls in once you have 10,000 subscribers and above.

Step 9: Pick a blogging cadence

Writing blog posts isn’t a sprint, it’s a marathon. Actually, it’s more like a multi-day backpacking trip.

The best bloggers settle into a consistent writing pace they can maintain for a few years. That’s right, years.

Here are a few posting frequency rules of thumb:

At the bare minimum, find a way to post once per week. This needs to be a substantial post, too: 2,000 words at least. I recommend you start here.

Serious bloggers will post 2-3 times per week.

Larger sites quickly get to 5-7 posts per week. This requires multiple authors.

The heavy hitters who push things to the limit will do 25-50 posts per week. No joke, this is for large businesses using content marketing as their primary customer acquisition channel. HubSpot is a classic example of this.

Look at this chart of blog posting frequency from Orbit Media’s survey of more than 1,000 bloggers. What do you notice?

A few takeaways: 14% of bloggers post monthly. But let’s get real, monthly isn’t really consistent enough for your readers to anticipate a new blog post from you.

If you post weekly, you’re already posting more regularly than 37% of other blogs — this gives you a huge advantage.

ACTION STEP: Start posting at least once a week.

I know writing isn’t easy. After writing blog posts full time for three months, I always want to throw my MacBook out the window. It’s a grind for all of us. This is why I recommend starting at one post per week.

That still gives you the majority of the week to focus on other aspects of your site while also giving you a break from writing blog posts all the time.

A really great post should take you two days to complete. The first day is for research and outlining, along with as much writing as you can complete. The second day is for finishing the writing, proofreading, and publishing the post in WordPress.

Also, push quality as hard as you can. The key to building a site and traffic over time is to write posts that are more valuable than what other people have already published in your category.

Step 10: Build an audience

There’s a super famous article in blogging circles: 1,000 True Fans.

Basically, getting 1,000 true fans means you can fully support yourself. You can quit your job, work from wherever you like, and be in complete control of your life. All from hitting a very reasonable goal of 1,000 true fans.

With blogging, you’ll build your audience of 1,000 true fans slowly and consistently.

As long as you keep at it, you will get there. Typically, it takes a few years.

ACTION STEP: Use this system to get 1,000 true fans.

Here’s what to focus on in order to get there faster:

Always post at least once per week. Never skip a week.

Start posting 2-3 times per week if you can.

On every post, push on quality as hard as you can. Google the topic and see what other people have done, then ask yourself how you can write something even better.

Write stuff that hasn’t been written to death already. Find a new take or perspective on your topics that other people haven’t already covered.

Find your voice and be authentic so people can get to know you. This builds connections with your audience faster. A quick hack for this is to pretend that you’re writing your posts to a close friend.

Allow your readers to comment. Disqus has a ton of users and allows readers to leave feedback, praise your post, or leave criticism for it. If you’re up to engaging your first core readers, leverage this to make a solid connection with them.

To push even harder, get active in other online communities. Post in Facebook groups, subreddits, on Twitter, do podcast interviews, get speaking engagements when you can – anything and everything. Be as helpful as you can be in these communities.

For all of your content, constantly ask yourself, “How can I make this as valuable as possible?

As your blog audience matures you will want to change your traffic strategies as you grow.

Step 11: Monetize your blog

There are three ways blogs make money.

Yes, only three. They are:

Infoproducts. Online courses, webinars, e-books, etc.

Affiliate programs. You work with a brand to promote their products and you get a cut of any sales.

Freelancing and consulting. You use your blog as a platform to find clients and customers for your own services.

Here’s a quick primer on how they work:

How Infoproducts Work

I could write a book on this. For now, we’ll keep it simple. Here’s the model:

Get people to visit your site.

On your site, give them a reason to subscribe to your email list.

Once they’re an email subscriber, run them through a launch funnel. These are email funnels specifically designed to sell infoproducts. Usually, these are courses that include a bunch of video lessons.

Depending on your volume and target market, you’ll convert about 0.5% to 1% of new email subscribers into a customer at a price of $500-$2,000 for your course. At volume, that adds up fast.

Now, this sounds too good to be true. While there are a few catches, it’s mostly true. What are the catches?

First, you’ll need to get extremely good at direct-response copy.

Second, it helps to be in the right category. People want money, status, and relationships.

How Affiliate Programs Work

It’s pretty simple: You go about creating as large of an audience as possible. Then, throughout your content, you recommend products that are helpful to that audience.

When your audience clicks through the link of that recommendation, they get a special tracking code. If they end up purchasing, you get a cut of the sale.

The main downside is that only a small percentage of people will ever click through and an even smaller percentage of people will purchase. So it really helps to have a massive amount of traffic in order to make enough money from your blog.

How freelancing and consulting works

While infoproducts and affiliates are the main ways to make serious money, you also need serious traffic in order to make them work. At least if you want them to work well enough to make six figures per year…

That’s why I believe freelancing and consulting is the best way for beginners to start making money fast blogging.

To make money quickly, this is by far your best option. It’s also the easiest to do.

When I worked at I Will Teach You To Be Rich, our freelancing programs taught thousands of people how to get started freelancing. What always blew me away was how life-changing those first few freelancing gigs are.

I went through that exact change myself. Years ago, I started my personal blog larslofgren.com and got a few freelancing clients doing it. I’ll never forget that first $100 payment sent via PayPal. The amount sounds so small now, but the real impact was knowing that I personally produced that income myself.

Guess how much traffic that personal blog of mine has? Only a few thousand visitors per month, spread across about 20 blog posts.

Anyone can create a blog that size and use it for freelancing lead generation. It’s enough to build a client base that pays you $3,000 to $5,000 per month. That’s enough to quit your job. That’s life-changing.

And it’s a much easier goal to hit than a full-ramped affiliate or infoproduct marketing machine. You always have the option to build that stuff later anyway.

What about all those other monetization methods?

Most of them are a waste of time. The impact on revenue is marginal, it’s a complete distraction. A few are worth doing for marketing and branding. The rest should be ignored entirely. Here’s the list that bloggers always try at some point:

Books – Great for marketing. Adds a ton of credibility to your brand. But you won’t feel the impact on revenue at all.

Events – I loathe events with every fiber of my being. All the risk is front-loaded, all contracts get locked up ahead of time, they’re a pain to sell, and you don’t even know if you’ll make any money until right before the event. Even if you do make money, the margins are terrible. For me, these are complete distractions and a huge opportunity cost for the business.

Banner ads (Google Ads, formally Adsense, for example) – The last time these made any decent money was around 2003. These days, I’m not even sure it’s possible to get banner ads to cover your hosting bill. I’m only partially joking.

Speaking – Done the right way, occasional speaking can be a great brand builder. And while it sounds amazing to get paid $20,000 per speaking gig, it’s not nearly as amazing once you learn most speakers never get paid, it takes months worth of work to create a talk that commands that kind of fee, you really need a New York Times Bestseller in order to charge real fees, and you’ll get so sick of hotel rooms after the first year that you’ll never want to travel again. Do speaking gigs when good opportunities come up; don’t build a business on them.

Don’t let this discourage you though. The important thing is that you get started building your blog and writing. Do it consistently and stick to the system, and you’ll find that success comes quicker than you think.

That brings us to our last action step…

LAST ACTION STEP: Keep Growing! Read articles on how to start and grow a successful blog

We’ve been writing about blogging and how to make money blogging on Quick Sprout for years. Check out Everything About Blogging for an annotated list of what you should read next.

#make money 2021 #blogging #make money online

0 notes

calicofigs · 4 years

Text

Punctation, Plasticity and Potatoes

Yesterday my daughter wrote a letter to her teacher. I helped very little since she is an immersion student and I don’t know much Spanish.

So, when she asked me how you would say coronavirus, I suggested she just write it in English. She did. Then she stopped, looked intently at the words, looked up at me, and then looked at the words again. I braced myself, for whatever hard to answer but important question she was going to ask: “When can we go back to school?” “Will my teacher get sick?”

She said, “Mom, should I put a hyphen between corona and virus?”

Her 8th grade brother yelled from the living room, “You don’t need a hyphen but if you really want to use one, you could say Covid-19 instead.”

Now, fellow English teachers and other punctuation aficionados, before you start swooning over the fact that in this time of pandemic and uncertainty some things are still sacred, like the hyphen, and by extension marks such as the semi-colon and comma (Oxford or otherwise), you should know that she did not heed her brother’s advice and wrote corona-virus.

And I for one applaud her and think that we should all embrace flexible thinking and unorthodox ways of doing things. Anyone who has been on social media lately, especially if s/he is a parent of school age children, has been inundated with an abundance of schedules and charts that will help families set routines, accomplish scholastic goals and engage in creative or artistic endeavors. I might add, parenthetically, that after only four days into this quarantine I am not particularly worried about my kids’ inability to appreciate Van Gogh or the Obama portraits or to create something spectacular out of glitter, markers and construction paper. Well actually just markers and construction paper since I threw out all of the glitter a few years ago during an unfortunate incident involving the dog and glue. And as you know, glitter is not really an essential item for which one should leave the house during a pandemic. So, in addition to not planning DIY art projects or taking virtual tours of MOMA, I also have not implemented a schedule that mandates a 7:00am wake up, an hour of quiet choice time, an hour of silent reading, 30 minutes of active screen time and 20 minutes of affirmations and gratitude while saluting the sun and listening to a new-age remix of Mozart and waves hitting the shore.

I am encouraged when I read posts about teenagers who are using up their 30 minutes of allotted lunch arguing about how much milk to put in macaroni and cheese and preschoolers who are pumping out entire bottles of soap into the sink. I feel like measuring the cat’s tail to compare its relative length to that of my sister’s cat’s tail which was shortened in a freak accident and running around the house with a potato that bears a striking resemblance to a human butt which came as a free add-on from the misfit and overstock company that ships our vegetables, are worthy uses of one’s time.

Now to be completely transparent, I have always disliked and failed miserably at kid reward charts, set-in-stone routines, inflexible due dates etc. etc. The only reward chart I actually made was for the now 8thgrader in an attempt to get him to sleep in his own bed when he was about three-years-old. He never earned a star and spent much of elementary school next to me at night but thankfully he is sleeping in his own bed now because the other two and the 60-pound dog still crawl in. When I decided the kids needed to do their own wash, there was no reward chart. I just stopped washing their clothes, which leads me to believe that being forced to wear dirty underwear is a much stronger incentive than receiving a shiny star-shaped sticker. I do make a bi-weekly calendar for my 10th grade English class, however, there is a running joke with my students about whether I am referring to the revised calendar or the revised revised calendar.

Notwithstanding my personal aversion to inflexible schedules, I do believe there are other important reasons to wean ourselves from the comfort of rigid routines and become more open to change. In the first place, we cannot expect that our routines and ways of doing things as families, schools, businesses, and governments can simply be transferred to our home. But perhaps, and even more importantly, we might learn that once life returns to “normal” or a “new normal” there are ways we have been doing things that are antiquated, pointless, or rooted in inequity. Already we have seen that transferring the school schedule to home and allotting 30 minutes for a “lunch” period, will not work for students who rely on schools for food and cannot simply go to the kitchen and make themselves a sandwich. We are seeing the way people (myself included) who are accustomed to high quality medical care whenever we want it, will need to deal with test, bed and ventilator shortages. Hopefully, we will realize that the fear we are experiencing about lack of medical access is something others have felt constantly and to a greater degree. Even ICE is, according to National Public Radio, “halting most arrests amid Coronavirus Crisis.” I doubt, this stems from any benevolence or concern for human welfare beyond that of the ICE officers. However, if we see that indeed halting these kinds of arrests does not lead to the apocalyptic scenarios supported by our current administration we might realize we don’t actually need to be arresting and deporting. By being flexible and changing our routines we may challenge the assumptions we hold about the way we do things and like a palimpsest our world can be rewritten anew as we rub out the antiquated and inequitable and retain the pragmatic and principled.

I do realize that I write this from a position of privilege. I can be at home and the time I need to spend prepping for the one class I teach is minimal. Since it has taken me 15 years to be “almost done with my doctorate” another year won’t matter, so I can set that work aside. I do not have to institute routines so that I can keep working from my kitchen table while making sure my children are doing schoolwork. And I certainly would not advocate abandoning all structure, routine and normalcy even under the best of circumstances. I will however, find a novel way to cook with that ass of a potato, hyphenate things with abandon and maybe even mess around with the umlaut in surprising and unconventional ways.

0 notes

misslunamiste · 7 years

Text

Six Years

A story for Esen Zephyre, essentially Round 00 of MYRIAD Island.

ONE

Esen stared at the door in front of her and raised her hand, intending to knock, but she hesitated. She felt something in her stomach, a twinge of nervousness or anticipation, something she hadn’t felt in a while.

“You’re hesitating,” Alyss observed, and Esen turned to face her. The black hoodie Alyss wore to cover her hair felt a bit out of place considering that she could change her appearance, but she had insisted that using her powers would have made things more confusing.

“I know,” Esen said quietly, swallowing. “What if they don’t live here anymore, or gave up, or-?"

“They’re your parents, Esen. I’m sure that they never would have given up on you, especially with the descriptions you gave me.” Alyss assured her. “And if they’re not here, we’ll find them. I have experience in tracking people down."

“It’s been three years, I…I don’t know what to say to them, what to do…” Esen ran her hands through her hair. “How do I explain this?”

Alyss swallowed, putting a hand on Esen’s shoulder. “The explaining…we’ll get to that. Pinn and Ajax will be happier that you’re alive. You said earlier that you wanted to see them again and you were afraid that you wouldn’t be able to. Take that chance now, Esen. Do what I never could.” She told her, and Esen got the feeling that there was a lot that Alyss wasn’t saying.

Regardless, Esen nodded and turned around, knocking on the door before she could change her mind. “They’re probably going to think I’m bringing you home as a date.” She said offhandedly to distract herself.

Alyss smirked. “I’m a pretty good catch."

The door opened.

Ajax began to ask a question, then stopped.

He called to Pinn.

Esen could feel herself crying, but she was happy.

“I’m home."

TWO

“I think you might be a bad influence.” Esen observed after Sek told her about her latest heist. She was sitting in her room with her tablet in front of her, notebooks from school scattered around her.

“Oh, you’re just getting that now?” Sek smirked, putting the stack of money on a side table in her enormous room in what Esen assumed was an enormous mansion. “Old habits die hard, and with this new ability, the possibilities are limitless."

Esen nodded. “Speaking of limitless, have your powers…grown?” She asked cautiously.

Sek froze, hesitating. She hadn’t been expecting that. “It’s hard to tell, with the whole dying and memory wipe thing, but I think I can use my powers on people."

Esen frowned. “Or you haven’t been sleeping.”

Sek shrugged. “Or that. Dying gives you a whole load of problems, along with the psychological torture the government put you through. At least I got compensation.” She then frowned. “Why do you ask?"

“It makes sense that our powers would grow stronger, I’m just not sure if they have yet.” Esen answered, clearly unsure. “It’s what I think about between psych classes."

“I can’t believe you’re becoming a shrink."

THREE

“I didn’t know your friend was rich, Esen,” Pinn observed as the family walked up the elaborate stairs to the house in front of them.

“I didn’t know either, and he didn’t remember before that…” Esen frowned.

“This is the right address, right?"

“You checked twice, sweetie,” Ajax assured her, smiling, “and Alyss did check to see if this was the right address. What is she up to, anyways?"

Esen shrugged. “Visiting friends, I think? Or she’s doing something dangerous as a vigilante. She’s never super clear when she calls.”

Pinn nodded. “At least she cares enough to check up on you.”

“That is true,” Esen agreed, smiling. She reached over and rang the doorbell. As soon as the door opened, she couldn’t help but grin. “Liam!” She exclaimed.

He grinned, leaning forward and giving Esen a hug. “Actually, it’s Elian now, but the enthusiasm is appreciated.”

“Wait, is that…"

“My real name, yes.” Elian smiled. “Elian Maxwell-Dara is a bit more real than ‘Liam Smith’.”

Esen frowned as her family entered, a butler offering to take their coats. “You hyphenated? After everything that happened?”

Elian shrugged. “Regardless of what he did, he was my father, Esen. I…I’m still debating whether he knew I was his son or not, we never found his body so it’s not like we could have asked or found out.”

“He did have a small soft spot for you, if it helps.” Esen suggested.

“I think it was microscopic if it was there.” Elian scoffed, then took a moment to inhale. “Enough talking, let’s go eat."

FOUR

“I think we should break up."

The words were out of Esen’s mouth before she could process what she was doing. The next words were apologizing on her behalf, saying the same phrases she’d used before.

“It’s not you, it’s me."

“There’s a lot going on in my life right now."

“I think being friends would just be easier."

For the most part, that was true. Being in a relationship was harder than Esen remembered, things were never as easy and she found herself constantly worrying about her significant other. It didn’t help that Esen was getting older and horribly out of practice

None of her friends really had any advice for her, which left Esen confused. When she was dating Cass, she found things to be easier, and found herself more carefree. They were breaking and entering, for god’s sake. Now, Esen couldn’t get a coffee without being nervous.

Hours later, she stared down at the tub of ice cream that she was eating from with sadness. Breakups were never easy, especially when you knew that they were coming from the moment you started a relationship. The only thing that Esen could hope was that something interesting would happen to take her mind off her commitment issues.

FIVE

Alyss grinned. “You’ve been practicing,” she observed as she threw another punch at Esen’s face.

Esen blocked the punch, then took a step back, obviously winded. “I have, but I need a break,” she gasped out, “and water.”

Alyss nodded, grabbing a water bottle and tossing it to Esen, then taking one for herself. After taking a long sip, she finally spoke. “Yeah, get hydrated kid. I gave you a hell of a workout.”

“It would be easier if I worked out during Project Infinity.” Esen shrugged. “I wasn’t sent out on missions because of what they did, so I figured I didn’t need the stuff."

“Self defense is important, especially now.” Alyss advised. “Especially after-"

“After what?” Esen asked, concerned. “What happened?"

“Just vigilante stuff, but nothing that could be traced back to me.” Alyss sighed.

“Hopefully. If they trace it to me, they could trace it to you, and after what happened, you…you shouldn’t have to go through something like that again.”

“Alyss, nothing’s going to happen to me.” Esen assured her. “It’s been five years, and even if something does happen, I’ll be ready. I’m more worried that you’re going to get yourself killed."

“Don’t be. I’ve got experience."

“And the mentality of an eighteen-year old."

“Your point is?"

Esen sighed. “Less risks, please? I’m twenty five, I don’t need a heart attack."

Alyss rolled her eyes, smiling. “Okay, mom.” She teased. “Let’s get back to work."

SIX

“I’ll be home in a bit, just going to find a piece in the music library.” Esen told Pinn on her way across campus.

“Honey, we have music here, and there’s plenty digital.” Pinn told her, his frown coming across in his voice as they talked on the phone.

“I know, but I like the smell of all the old papers and I could find something new!” Esen smiled. “I’ll be quick, okay?"

“I know you will.” Pinn sighed. "Call me if you need any advice, okay?"

“Of course I will, Dad. I love you."

“Love you too, Grey."

“Hey!” Esen objected, and she could clearly hear Pinn’s laughter from the other end. “I thought we agreed not to do that."

“It’s too cute not to use, Esen. Your father agrees with me.” Pinn told her, and she could hear shouts of agreement from Ajax as well. “I’ll let you go, call me if you need anything."

“Talk to you later then.” Esen nodded, then they said their goodbyes and hung up. She smiled, enjoying the clear night sky, and the serene campus around her.

Things were starting to look up for her. She’d completed her music major and was finishing up her work for psychology before going to medical school. She had made friends and taught plenty of kids how to play the piano. She even had a date lined up - a guy she’d met a few years back. Life was getting back to a new normal.

Just as she was thinking this, she felt a sharp sting in her neck and instinctively pulled out what had caused it.

A tranquilizer dart.

Esen pulled out her phone and called Pinn, feeling the effects start to take hold.

“Esen, honey, what do you-“ Pinn asked, before Esen cut him off.

“Dad I’ve been hit with a tranq I’m gonna pass out I can’t make it in time.” Esen rambled, feeling her movements get slower but fighting the effects best she could. Out of the corner of her eye she could see a figure shrouded in darkness.

“Where are you, is there anyone else there that can call for help?” Pinn asked hurriedly, and could be heard running out of the house with Ajax in tow.

“I’m at school I love you I’m scared.” Esen tried to make a coherent sentence, then tripped forward, her phone slipping out of her hand. She pulled herself over to it, feeling sleepier and sleepier.

“-hang on Esen, we love you and -” was the last thing Esen heard before the darkness overtook her.

The figure walked forward, shutting off the phone call before smashing the phone under their boot. They looked over at Esen, sighing.

“Two down, thirty more to go.”

#MYRIAD Island #Project Infinity #Esen Zephyre #Alyss Okand #Sek Thoth #Elian Dara

0 notes