#but it's 71 pages so the odds are probably not this?

[filet-o-feelings]

WIP Thursday

Thanks for the tag @hippolotamus I passed out like 3 hours earlier than usual last night and hadn't written anything anyway. Still haven't, because work has been terrible and exhausting this week and by the time I clock out my brain is mush. So until it resolidifies how about another randomly selected snippet from library boy:

His brain has decidedly not taken well to the weird sleep schedule he’s had over the past several days, and halfway through the class he stops trying to pay attention altogether. He pulls out his phone and starts scrolling mindlessly through social media because he doesn’t want to disrupt the class by leaving midway through.

As soon as class is over, he heads to the library. He should be making his way to another class, but there’s no chance he’ll be able to focus. Today is a scrap day, and he’ll reset his brain with a decent night’s sleep tonight and be ready to tackle academia once again tomorrow. But for now, he doesn’t want to disappoint his parents by letting them know he’s skipping classes - although he’s pretty confident they don’t know his schedule anyway - he’s not taking chances, and decides to spend the afternoon in the library, killing time. 

The library is packed, but he finds a corner to hide out in, thankful that libraries are by nature quiet places. He lays his head on the table and moments later, jerks awake. He wakes his phone screen to glance at the time, confirming that he didn’t actually fall asleep, at least not for more than a minute or two, tops.

He needs a distraction.

Looking around the library he catches a glimpse of the shelves where he found David’s first note and remembers. He’s not going to get his hopes up, but checking will at least give me a moment of distraction, and walking for a minute might help keep him awake longer.

#wip day #library boy #no idea what i have or haven't shared of this yet #but it's 71 pages so the odds are probably not this? #poor wip has been stuck at 71 pages for nearly 6 months

[tilebytiles]

this has probably already been talked about lol but i was trying to find the puppets website for funsies and instead came across this really odd rabbit hole??? full story under the cut so i don't clog the dash or anything

so for context i have the ecosia extension installed and when i typed in "the last shadow puppets" and nothing came up i was like Hmm ok sometimes the results can be 50/50. so i hit a recommended search at the bottom that threw in the word "website" and the first 2 results were wikipedia and the domino page but the third was theageoftheunderstatement.com.

the immediate thing that threw me off was that the first sentence on the page is "Like monthly car insurance site prudentplus.com these guys are different." What. there's like a whole description of the band (which is out of date now cause the page is from 2010) but then underneath it, there's a whole thing about fast food delivery insurance (???) and how to get it, what the best way is etc etc. the prudent plus comment does have a link that leads to the insurance company in question and from what i can tell it was still active as recently as last year.

at the veeery bottom of the taotu page is "search here for uk short term cover" which has another link that leads to another page on the site about car insurance for foreign drivers. this has another link like 3/4 of the way down the page that leads to a different site that from what i can tell hasn't been updated in over a decade (at the very bottom it says copyright 2006/13).

its worth noting that if we hop back to the main page there's a box on the left side with all the songs off of taotu listed as well as a link at the bottom that leads to a page about no deposit car insurance in the uk. every song leads to a different page on the site describing the storyline of the song (and mv, if it has one) as well as the sound of the song. most of the song pages lead to different insurance things. standing next to me leads to disqualified driver insurance, calm like you leads to lorry insurance, the chamber leads to builders / business property insurance, only the truth leads to architects / beautician liability insurance, black plant leads to convicted driver insurance, and the time has come again leads to personal liability insurance.

at the bottom of the home page is the name peter marsden. initially i just tried searching his name up but then i realized the answer was right in front of me and i searched it up with "prudent plus" slapped on the end. sure enough, a page on the prudent plus site came up introducing the staff, including a man named peter. at least at the time the "about us" page was set up (idk if its still updated) he was 71 and "has an obsession for creating images of cars, people, monsters and other strange objects and beings in unusual, and sometimes impossible, environments." very cool peter!

i didn't check all the links on the songs because i didn't think there'd be much there but my only guess for the website's existence is that the insurance people saw the popularity of taotu and decided to make a page about it while promoting their insurance stuff. outside of that i have no fucking clue. maybe they're just big tlsp fans. good on you peter

#the last shadow puppets #tlsp #taotu era #this was just. #the strangest find #idk if its much of a rabbit hole in the first place but i still think its neat #like a little piece of internet history

[twixtandshout]

Tagged by @pidgeonpostal! And not tagging anyone else because I have SOILED the original template (soiled it!!) in deference to my [brushes off skirt] mostly clean public-facing appearance.

...I’ve been making a lot of Spongebob memes lately for someone who has not seen Spongebob.

How many works do you have on AO3?

71!

What’s your total AO3 wordcount?

...306,834. Jesus.

How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

Uh. Many! I do a lot of one-offs (and/or start long things I never finish) in many different places. My top three fandoms by fics written are RWBY (29), Undertale (25), Gravity Falls/Transcendence AU (4).

Bet you can’t tell where my hyperfixations have fallen. 

I’ve also got some Pokémon and Sonic the Hedgehog fics back on my ff.net account, or I think I still do, anyway, but let’s never go back there pls

What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

1. Sweeter Than Honey (Undertale): Taking a Completely unsurprising first place, with over 600 more kudos than the runner-up, the haphazard Underswap fic featuring a post-college self-insert I wrote just after high school! I shake my head some at how overblown and ridiculous the gap between this and all my other stuff is (c’mon, guys, I’ve written way better fics), but this is also the fic which prompted me (and at least one other person!) to start using they/them pronouns. I’ve gotten a lot of really sweet comments about how seen and appreciated it’s made people feel, so I can’t get down too far about it.

2. To Be A Hero (BNHA): I don’t count myself as part of the BNHA fandom, for a number of reasons, but for something that’s arguably the main motivation for the entire plot, Midoriya’s quirklessness is something I’ve never thought has been handled well. This fic marked the first time I (somewhat tentatively) claimed the disability label (thanks again to Sweeter Than for prompting that realization) to hold that lens over canon. It also really shot up my chart, dang! It’s the only thing here I’d consider “recent.”

3. Three-Sentence Shipping (Undertale): Self-explanatory.

4. Brothers Beyond Bonedaries (Undertale): Ah, the way-overcomplicated AU³ I got nowhere close to finishing. One of the things I really like about Undertale is the interface screw, how Toby Fox uses the medium of the video game to pull off crazy things and enhance his game, but most of the fic written for the fandom seems dedicated to explaining it away, grounding it, rather than taking it to the next step and messing with the medium of fanfiction when you keep the story going. I tried to do something cool like that here, playing with questions like narrator and authorship and breaking the fourth wall, even taking the “final boss” fight to a “totally separate” fic reached through the first by link – but, well, then I never finished it, which probably didn’t make anything less confusing for the poor folks who missed the intent.

5. Spirit and Such (Gravity Falls: Transcendence AU): A whole fic written to line out a particular image I had, which, naturally, never made it to the page. I consider it a bit of a cautionary tale for myself when it comes to writing (near-)original content; there’s a lot I look back on and cringe. I still love the characters, though – well, the important ones – and I think just stepping away from the tried-and-true Mizar formula nets it a star sticker here.

Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

>w>; I try, but a lot of the time I just don’t have anything to say? Like, oh, you liked it? Neat. There’s not much to respond to in comments like that, and then I’m weighing falling down on an ~obligation~ to respond to every message in my inbox vs annoying people with copy-paste fluff responses all down the page. Plus I know I make more of an effort to comment on things that didn’t get the attention I feel they deserve, so if I’m driving up my own comment count with nonsense, am I preventing myself from being in a position to receive more comments later? And then if I do comment, am I being too effusive or running people’s ears off explaining things they don’t actually need to know? Sometimes people just want to express interest or admiration and don’t necessarily want a whole peek and guided tour behind the curtain.

Can you tell I have anxiety? x3;

Anyway, I do respond when I can. And I keep most of the comments I’ve gotten to go back and reread. 

What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

Hm, hmm. Lots of stuff in the TQ Nonsense series would probably qualify! I’m thinking of Unfixable, Wolfsong, and Ethanol. And there’s Bursting Through A Blood-Red Sky (I Can Live, I Can Breathe), of course, but that was always intended to have a fix-it epilogue. It’s just that I wrote it in a couple of hours day-of, stared at it, and decided I didn’t wanna just then. But now that’s As Long As You’re Still Burning Bright (I’m Still Awake), and that’s probably the best romance I’ve written, so that one worked out.

Do you write crossovers? If so what is the craziest one you’ve ever written?

Now and then! When the urge strikes. Uhhh, I’ve got a series of Doctor Who x Undertale crossovers I actually made a whole dang verse for that never made it to print. Get a couple great comments on that every few months or so. I think the World Trigger x Undertale crossover is probably weirder, though, by virtue of WT being a very small fandom. My enthusiasm kinda sputtered out on that one.

Mostly I just daydream crossovers with whatever happens to catch my eye at any given moment. I have a lot!!!! Though odds are out on whether I manage to remember any of them once the initial thought’s passed, lol.

Have you ever received hate on a fic?

Gotten a couple eyebrow-raising comments, but I think mostly I’m just too small a writer to draw that kind of attention.

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

I don’t? think so? Think my tastes are a little niche for most people to bother ^^;

Have you ever had a fic translated?

I had someone apologize once for any language mistakes in their comment cause they had to run it through a translator! That’s not what you asked (the answer is no), but it’s very flattering to think that someone liked my fic enough to read and comment despite the language barrier.

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Yes! :D @pidgeonpostal was gracious enough to agree to co-write Five Nights at Denny’s with me off an idea about shoes. This has fulfilled a long-held dream of mine (collabing with someone, not the shoes) and also introduced me to some lovely people.

What’s your all time favorite ship?

Who has time for just one? ;3c Honestly, I care more about the characters and how the relationship – any relationship – between them changes them than I do about ~A Ship~ as a solid, bounded noun-object. I’ve got characters I like more and less and feelings about who does and doesn’t have chemistry in which directions with whom, but finding anything that agrees with those preferences is hard, harder when you take alloromanticism into account. I’ll play in any sandbox with cool toys, especially if other folks have already built sick sandcastles there.

What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

[kicks every single unfinished fic further under the bed] What nooo no WIPs here, everything on my account is either finished or does not exist

I’ve got a couple extra chapters of Sweeter Than floating around unposted, but 1. that fic’s a mess 2. high school Twixt and post-college Twixt are different people and trying to contort myself into three other me-shapes just cause people Like this fic is not something I’m super interested in 3. it’s headed for an emotional dip and I’d rather leave it where it is than post two chapters, stall out again, and leave folks with a bad end.

As for other fics... it’s looking more and more likely that v7 of my Yellow Brick Road AU will never actually make it out. >w>; I’ve got some really great ideas, but not enough to make me feel like I know what I’m doing, and that’s a big roadblock. Plus trying to engage with RT’s Atlas-Mantle worldbuilding in any serious capacity is... a headache. I can’t recommend the Happy Huntress Cinematic Universe enough, but it leaves some pretty big shoes to follow! And I’ve got small feet. <w<;

What are your writing strengths?

Dialogue’s fun, probably as an extension of characterization. I love tearing into what makes people tick, especially against the backdrop of their environment, the story they’re in, and the people they’re up against. Voice is a double-edged sword; I’ve been told my writing is really recognizable and individual, but on the other hand, I’ve been growing frustrated with with the limits of my narrative ability. There’s a strong rhythm I keep when I write (you might notice it here, even) but that leaves me feeling predictable and stale. I’m not sure I’m great at setting as a matter of course, but I’m pretty good at describing setpieces where the need comes up; that comes from my background in poetry, as does the fun I have with sublimating and abstracting complex imagery. And I think I bring some needed nuance to the universal. For good or ill, I don’t do what “everyone else” is doing.

What are your writing weaknesses?

Well, writing, for one thing. If I don’t know how something’s going to go and don’t have the urge to write it, it isn’t getting done, which means there’s a billion things that will never see the page and a few hundred more that are never getting finished. I lose momentum easily and have a hard time getting started, and I put way too much standing on finding a foothold with other people; as critical as I am of my work, I have high expectations for the stuff that passes muster, and it never seems to measure up. I’m also really uncreative. Yeah, I can mix up elements and extrapolate events, but coming up with things wholesale is really hard, which is why I avoid it wherever possible and steal/reskin stuff from other places instead.

What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

Something along the lines of “Hoo boy, I am Not qualified for this but hopefully it’s decent anyway.” Maria’s Spanish lines haven’t been a big deal – I’ve used it sparingly and, as a Latin language, it should be easy for English-speaking audiences to pick up on the gist – but I’ve had a harder time with Tai’s Chinese, both because I have Even Less background there and because it is, of course, an entirely different language system. If I write it out in English or Romanized italics, am I colonizing it or changing the meaning? If I write it out in the presumed-original characters (presumed because it’s Google Translate and who knows if I’m even barking in the right forest), am I confusing or alienating my presumed-majority-English-speaking audience? Where should I put the translations? Should I put the translations? And for Frisk’s sign language, thinking back, are the brackets I used instead of quotes alienating/infantilizing? I like that different characters give the text between a different feel, but I’m not an ASL speaker – and I’m pretty sure the word is “speaker,” which would only reinforce that that demographic would rather I didn’t do that. It’s important for all these characters, I think, that they use non-English language where it makes sense; it’s part of who they are. But as a white monolingual English-speaker, I don’t think I can really weigh in.

What was the first fandom you ever wrote for?

Thaaaat’d be Pokémon, followed closely with Sonic the Hedgehog. Whether those fics are still on my ff.net account or not (pretty sure I’ve purged them, but you never know) I’ve still got a couple saved to a folder on my current laptop, ostensibly so I can look back and see how far I’ve come and more practically to allow for the possibility of furthering group cohesion through public shaming.

What’s your favorite fic you’ve written?

I still like the idea behind The Man Who Is Atlas, and Burning Bright (Still Awake) gets props for being my current fic, though it’s currently in that spot where I’m excited to get new chapters posted but also quietly marking everything up in red pen. I think Harbinger gets the crown here, at least for now.

#answerin' stuff

[fortysevenswrites]

all the odd numbers <3

Alllllllll the odd numbers? Okayyyyy then.

1. when you have cereal, do you have more milk than cereal or more cereal than milk?

It’s been a loooooong time since I’ve had cereal, but definitely more cereal, added milk as needed. The last thing I can handle is soggy cereal.

3. what random objects do you use to bookmark your books?

I’m that asshole who dog-ears her book pages. Sorry not sorry.

5. are you self-conscious of your smile?

Not really.

7. do you name your plants?

Lol I’d have to keep plants to name plants. The closest I’ve gotten is when I was house-sitting for my sister and thought I murdered her strawberries last summer. Turns out, I didn’t.

9. do you like singing/humming to yourself?

Not really. I do most of my singing to myself in my head.

11. what’s an inner joke you have with your friends?

Too many to count.

13. what’s something that made you smile today?

I bought these sour gummy snakes at the market today. Had them for brunch. Meal of champions.

15. go google a weird space fact and tell us what it is!

According to the great google and Arizona State University, there are more trees on earth (3 trillion) than there are stars in our galaxy (100-400 billion). That’s a lot.

17. what color do you really want to dye your hair?

Overtone, the hair dye company, has been advertising this color blend called Merlot, which is a mid between red and purple and it’s SO my vibe.

19. do you keep a journal? what do you write/draw/ in it?

I try to, but by the time I’m done with my day, I forget to journal. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

21. talk about your favorite bag, the one that’s been to hell and back with you and that you love to pieces.

answered here

23. what’s your favorite thing to do on lazy days where you have 0 obligations?

answered here

25. what’s the weirdest place you’ve ever broken into?

answered here

27. what’s your favorite bubblegum flavor?

I don’t chew gum.

29. what’s something really cute that one of your friends does and is totally endearing?

My best friend does this nose crinkle thing that is adorable.

31. what is your opinion of socks? do you like wearing weird socks? do you sleep with socks? do you confine yourself to white sock hell? really, just talk about socks.

I wish they would just FUCKING FIT. So I don’t wear socks unless I have to.

33. what’s your fave pastry?

Chocolate croissants. Hands down. 

35. do you like stationary and pretty pens and so on? do you use them often?

I have the handwriting of a twelve year old boy, so stationary is wasted on me. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

37. do you like keeping your room messy or clean?

I am blind to most messes. My closet is on the floor, pretty much.

39. what color do you wear the most?

Black. Hands down.

41. what’s the last book you remember really, really loving?

Any book in the Sigma Series by James Rollins. I am trash for a good military thriller.

43. who was the last person you gazed at the stars with?

Probably not since I was still working at the summer camp I grew up at, so, years ago, and probably with my campers.

45. do you trust your instincts a lot?

Yeah. My instincts are always right.

47. what food do you think should be banned from the universe?

I don’t do bananas. 

49. do you like buying CDs and records? what was the last one you bought?

Oh man, I used to LOVE buying CDs. The last record I bought was a vinyl of Haley’s Badlands when she did a club concert around the corner from where I live. It was SO much fun. Do I have a way to play said vinyl? No. 

51. think of a person. what song do you associate with them?

I recently got news about a person who I used to work with back in the ye olde. The song I’m thinking of is Fuck You Very Much by Lily Allen. So, uh, take from that what you will.

53. have you ever watched the rocky horror picture show? heathers? beetlejuice? pulp fiction? what do you think of them?

Beetlejuice is one of the best movies of all time. I’ve actually never watched RHPS all the way through. And I’ve never seen Heathers or Pulp Fiction.

55. what’s the most dramatic thing you’ve ever done to prove a point?

Quit my job.

57. go listen to bohemian rhapsody. how did it make you feel? did you dramatically reenact the lyrics?

Like I could conquer the damn world. And yes, I did sing along. Duh. And now I want to listen to Radio Gaga. So thanks for that.

59. what’s your favorite myth?

I’ve always been a huge fan of the story of Serenity and Endymion. Goes back to my Sailor Moon phase. As one does.

61. what’s the stupidest gift you’ve ever given? the stupidest one you’ve ever received?

I don’t think any of the gifts I’ve given, gag or not, are stupid. Even the socks I’ve given (and gotten).

63. are you fussy about your books and music? do you keep them meticulously organized or kinda leave them be?

Not really. I like knowing where the books I go back to regularly are, but that’s really it. I used to be really organized about my music back when iTunes was a thing. Now I really just listen to music via YouTube.

65. is there anyone you haven’t seen in a long time who you’d love to hang out with?

Yes, and that’s as far as I’m going to go on that nonsense. It’s been nine damn years. Ugh.

67. how do gloomy days where the sky is dark and the world is misty make you feel?

SO FUCKING GOOD. Love days like that.

69. what are your favorite board games?

Uhhhhhh....I haven’t played board games in years. 

71. what’s your favorite kind of tea?

I used to drink green tea before I realized caffeine gave me serious anxiety.

73. what are some of your worst habits?

A great many things.

75. tell us about your pets!

My four-legged roommate Bishop. She’s the black cat I’ve always wanted and she’s the biggest, brattiest baby and she screams when she wants me to pay more attention to her. I am also the the aunt to four dog nieces, Belle (black lab mix), Raven (beagle mix), Ivy (miniature aussie), and Cora (husky/german shepherd mix), and two dog nephews, Sebastian (miniature schnhauzer) and Sven (husky/german shepherd mix). 

77. pink or yellow lemonade?

Pink when I’m feeling fancy. 

79. what’s one of the cutest things someone has ever done for you?

Someone I know, two years ago, the day after he met me, snuck me a cookie from the leftovers after team meal. It’s been a problem ever since.

81. describe one of your friend’s eyes using the most abstract imagery you can think of.

They change colors, but most often, somewhere between fanfiction yellow, and the color of dead moss. And they’re the best.

83. what’s some of your favorite album art?

I don’t really have thoughts on album art? But I have my Halsey Badlands vinyl right in front of me and it’s pretty cool.

85. do you read comics? what are your faves?

Not often, but I have a giant pile of Power Rangers comics that I’ve been meaning to read through for like...ever.

87. what are some movies you think everyone should watch at least once in their lives?

Blazing Saddles, Pacific Rim, Beetlejuice, Crazy Rich Asians

89. are you close to your parents?

Well that’s a complicated question. Let’s just leave it at that.

91. where do you plan on traveling this year?

Well I was supposed to go to Hawaii for a friend’s wedding this summer, but she pushed it back to 2022, which makes sense. Other than that, California at some point to see my grandparents because I haven’t seen them in over a year because of the pandemic.

93. what’s the hairstyle you wear the most?

Either a ponytail or a messy bun. Sometimes I’ll wear it down, but it depends on which day I am between shampoos. My hair is, well, finicky at best.

95. what are your plans for this weekend?

I have a module for a course I’m taking that I need to watch and do the homework for. Maybe go up to my sister’s house once my niece gets back from her dance tournament

97. myer briggs type, zodiac sign, and hogwarts house?

MB is steeped in eugenics so, no thank you, and also I just don’t have time to take the quiz. I’m a Taurus, and damn straight am I a Taurus. And I’m a Slytherin, full stop (though apparently I’m also a Ravenclaw, which makes sense).

99. list some songs that resonate to your soul whenever you hear them.

marjorie by Taylor Swift, any song on Halsey’s Badlands album, The Pit by Silversun Pickups, Jet Pack Blues by Fall Out Boy, and Save Rock and Roll by Fall Out Boy, to name a few.

these are actually hella fucking cute y'all (except, you know, all the odds)

#asked and answered

[the-explodin-kittins]

Take Your Breath Away: Basics of Breath Play

Author: Norische

Within the vast selection of BDSM activities not one is as dangerous as breath play. To be quite blunt there is NO safe way to participate in breath play. This is the only activity, that I am aware of, that strictly violates the Safe Sane Consensual regiment. All the instructional articles about breath play state basically the same thing, it can be done with a moderate amount of risk. Nowhere, in over 140 pages of information did I find one single reference to being able to participate in breath play safely. In my honest opinion if it cannot be done safely. DON’T DO IT! But that is just my opinion. Also if you are determined to experience this form of edge play…. NEVER ATTEMPT BREATH PLAY ALONE!!! Autoerotic Asphyxia Autoerotic Asphyxia, also known as sexual hanging, is the practice of inducing cerebral hypoxia, usually by the means of self-applied ligatures or suffocating devices, while the individual masturbates to orgasm. The most common participants in this practice are adolescent and young adult males, ranging in age from 15 to 29. Autoerotic Asphyxia counts for 6.5% of all the self-induced adolescent deaths and 31% of all adolescent hanging deaths within the past 10 years. Since in the majority of such deaths it is a family member that finds the individual, the “scene of the crime” is frequently altered to cover up the sexual nature of the death. Due to this fact and since the only ones that get reported are the individuals that die… the true number of individuals that participate in this activity may never be known. Deaths related to autoerotic asphyxia have been reported in victims as young as 9 and as old as 80 yrs, with 71% of the individuals being less than 30 yrs old. The most common form of Autoerotic Asphyxia is constriction of the neck, or hanging. This form decreases the amount of blood flow to the brain leading to cerebral hypoxia. The resulting effect is lightheadedness, exhilaration, almost giddiness; these effects along with the shear excitement of the moment multiply the effect of masturbation. Unfortunately the reduced blood flow to the brain also will create disorientation, weakness, loss of coordination and drowsiness. Hence and individual may loose the ability to release themselves from their self-induced prison, and the end result is simply put… death. There have been documented cases of Autoerotic Asphyxia since the early 1600’s. Oddly enough it was once used as a treatment for erectile dysfunction and impotency. Some documentation noted that a hanged man would sometimes get an erection even ejaculate while being hanged, this indeed may have been the focus point for the interest in the odd practice of asphyxia during sexual actives. Many different cultures have a history of sexual asphyxia, from the Orient, to the South America, from the Celts to the Native Americans; this dangerous practice has held the imagination of many individuals for centuries. The general taboo of this deadly practice has allured thrill seekers as well as the curious for decades. The dramatic effects of this unusual decadence kept individuals trapped within the weavings of its web. The sudden stop at the end of this ride is what keeps others at bay, and leery of ridding this deadly roller coaster. Where The Danger Lies Some people have asked what the real danger in breath play is…that one is actually simple…death. Death does have a tendency to be sort of permanent, and in my honest opinion it can really mess up an otherwise fabulous evening, and it is damn inconvenient to boot. One statement I have heard is that “breath play is ok as long as you don’t do it until the slave/submissive lapses into unconsciousness.” This statement is disturbing for several reasons. First, there is no medically valid way to know exactly when an individual will become unconscious. Second, when someone looses consciousness it is not an end it is merely a symptom, ranging from mere oxygen depletion to cardiac arrest. Third, if the breath play involves choking then damage to the larynx can occur at any time and is an extremely serious injury that would need medical attention immediately. Breath play is dangerous whether the slave/sub loses consciousness or not, although the risk of permanent damage or even death is multiplied exponentially when it is taken to that extreme. Basic Facts Choking 1. Anytime there is pressure put on the neck, such as with choking you run the risk of causing severe and perhaps permanent damage to the carotid arteries. This may lead to numbness, weakness, dizziness and difficulties speaking. 2. The larynx is incredibly fragile and easily injured; pressure to the larynx should be avoided at all costs. Any injury, even a minor injury to the larynx, may cause swelling of the airways leading to coughing, choking and inability to speak, and possibly the inability to breath. 3. While choking someone the airway may become obstructed by the tongue. Swelling of the tongue and lips is quite normal when someone is being choked. Unfortunately it is impossible to tell just how much swelling is going to occur, since each individual is different, it is also impossible to tell when the swelling will reach that dangerous level. 4. Also the reduction of blood flow to the brain tissues during choking may cause Ischemia. Since blood contains both oxygen and glucose, when ischemia occurs, it can lead to hypoxia which is a reduction of oxygen to the brain, as well as hypoglycemia which is low blood glucose level. Prolonged hypoxia – ischemia is associated with Ischemic Attack (stoke), Transient, Brain Infarction, Brain Edema, Coma and other conditions. 5. Another associated physical problem is cerebral anoxia. Hypoxia is the reduced oxygen flow to the brain; anoxia is the total absence of oxygen within the brain tissue. If oxygen is prevented from reaching the tissues for too long, tissue death can occur. If severe, it can cause irreversible brain damage. Less severe cases can cause sensory distortions and hallucinations. Hence pressure on the carotid arteries can lead to ischemia, which is directly associated with hypoxia and if the restriction of oxygen to the brain continues for more than three to five minutes then cerebral anoxia is a very real possibility. If the circulation to the brain is insufficient for more than three to five minutes the consequent damage can lead to death even days or weeks after the initial incident. 6. The lack of blood flow to the brain may also force the heart to beat more rapidly or beat erratically in an effort to increase the level of blood to the brain; hence, heart arrhythmia. 7. Oxygen deprivation of the heart or Anoxaemia will trigger what is called premature ventricular contractions or PVC’s for short. Basically the lower the heart gets on oxygen the more PVC’s it generated and the more vulnerable to their effect the heart will become, thus this will increase the possibility of ventricular fibrillation and the risk of its causing a cardiac arrest. There is no way to know when this will happen to a particular person, during a particular session, not even with the most advanced cardiac monitors available. Bags and Gags Placing a barrier of some form over the slave/sub’s mouth and nose during play is another popular method of breath play. The use of a plastic bag is probably the most popular barrier used, followed closely by tape and barrier gags. This form of breath play has it’s own unique set of problems to add to the above list. 1. Sometimes when an individual begins to choke they will vomit, if the individual is unable to expel the vomitus, mucus or saliva they may inhale this material into his or her lungs. Normally a person will not actually draw the materials completely into their lungs, but if there is a barrier in place the chances of this occurring is raised exponentially. Even removal of the barrier immediately will not prevent damage to the respiratory system. Aspiration may lead to unconsciousness, cyanosis, cardiac arrest and the cessation of breathing. 2. Another thing to remember is that when you use tape, the most common being duck tape, there is a very real possibility of an allergic reaction. This may cause swelling of the air passageways, anaphylactic shock, unconsciousness, and again even death, depending on the degree of allergic reaction. Any form of breath play has some basic health risks. These risks depend on the age, and health of the slave/sub, it also depends on the specific type of breath play you are participating in. No list can be truly complete because of all the possible pre-existing conditions that may be present, but I believe this will give you some idea of the dangerous nature of breath play. 1. Elevated blood pressure 2. Heart attack 3. Stroke 4. Heart failure 5. Heart arrhythmia 6. Choking 7. Injury to the larynx 8. Cerebral anoxia 9. Cerebral hypoxia 10. Brain Edema 11. Brain Infarction 12. Coma 13. Aspiration 14. Allergic reaction or anaphylactic shock 15. Loss of consciousness 16. Hallucinations 17. Panic Attack 18. Seizures 19. Injury due to fall (during loss of consciousness) 20. Asthma attack The list goes on and on; while this list only has the most dramatic possibilities they are still very real possibilities. The cumulative damage from repeated breath play is still in question, researchers have experimented on a variety of animals but the information is still pretty sketchy. One fact is quite certain, reduced blood flow and in turn reduced oxygen to the brain kills brain cells. Once a brain cell is damaged it cannot be repaired or replaced, this is one of the few cells in the human body that does not regenerate. One author I found had a disturbing way of looking at this….. “…our brain is set up so that we can endure a lot of brain damage without any real consequences.” “….it is all a matter of being conscious of the risk and deciding what level of damage you are comfortable with.” This author goes on to state that he happen to be very comfortable with the damage done if he keeps the breath play itself to 30 seconds or so….my opinion is that this individual is facing no true danger as he is the Dominant individual within the relationship, there for it is irrelevant what he is comfortable with. Since there is no current way to tell what level of brain damage has been done until it is too late, my question is how can anyone be conscious of the risk; hence, how can someone truly consent to this type of play if they are not informed of all the facts, specifically the risks. Who tends to be injured or who has the highest mortality rate in reference to lack of oxygen during breath play. 1. Men over the age of 40 2. People with a history of seizure disorder 3. People suffering from mental illness, especially manic-depressives in the manic phase 4. Anyone under the influence of drugs or alcohol (even prescription drugs) 5. Anyone taking any form of digitalis or tricyclic antidepressants 6. Anyone with a history of respiratory, heart, or blood pressure problems 7. People who are overweight (especially if they have high cholesterol levels) 8. Anyone that has a cold or other respiratory problems at the time of the play cession. 9. Anyone that is diabetic or hypoglycemic. Since I am not a medical doctor I cannot list all the possible people that are at risk because my list would be honestly rather short… 10. Everyone else Safe, Sane and Consensual….once again those words come up. Is this play safe…no. There is no safe way to do breath play. Is this play sane…no. Since you cannot do this play safely and cannot predict the level of damage done there is no true way to intelligently say it is sane. Is this play consensual…no. Without the ability to fully understand the risks, and possible long term dangers with this type of play then you cannot give informed consent, hence it cannot be consensual. I find any play that does not fall under these simple guidelines to be out of my range of participation, I have in the past done breath play…but it is now on my hard limits list. How can I ask someone to give up his or her life for me… I cant. Since this is exactly what I may be doing when it comes to breath play I do not consider it an acceptable method of BDSM play at this point. The thrill is exhilarating; the moment is a wondrous flow of emotion, adrenalin, and anticipation. But no matter how spectacular the effects of the moment, no matter how high someone can get or the feeling of trust that must be present, nothing is worth the loneliness if something goes wrong. As with everything this is my opinion, take what you will and leave the rest. If you wish to contact me, my email address is [email protected]. If you wish to see more of my work you may find a complete listing of all my writings at…. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Norisches_Quill/ in the files section.

[elenajohansenreads]

Books I Read in 2020

#75 - Room, by Emma Donoghue

Around the Year in 52 Books: A book with the major theme of survival

The Ultimate PopSugar Reading Challenge: A book with only words on the cover, no images or graphics

Mount TBR: 71/150

Rating: 2/5 stars

The book that I started last night and felt absolutely compelled to read straight through to the end became, this morning when I finished it, a dreary slog that didn't satisfy the questions it raised in the beginning.

Seriously, this did not pay off its premise.

So many other reviewers, now that I've finished the book and skimmed some of the reviews, hated Jack's narration and listed in detail why, all the quirks and odd word choice and Capitalization; and I feel that, but I also feel that the situation he was in explained it all adequately, and any annoyance I felt at the style was overwhelmed by interest in the story. I was hooked. It was horrible and gripping and I wanted to know what was going to happen and how they were going to escape and what would become of them afterward.

The escape itself is thin. It probably shouldn't have worked, but I'll give it a pass because at least it wasn't belabored. Ma thought of it, explained it, Jack got scared and whined, but he did it, and it didn't take more than a handful of pages to get through.

Once they're both back in the real world, though? The book completely fell apart, because as interesting as it might be to see from Jack's own perspective how he deals with an environment he's never known--the whole world--by focusing on that the book almost completely ignores Ma's struggles with reintegration. Her attempted suicide feels more like an excuse for the narrative to force Jack to deal with someone else for a change than it does a consequence of her precarious mental health. I wasn't interested in seeing Jack go to the mall with his aunt and uncle, I wanted to see Ma's recovery.

There's plenty of disturbing things in this book on the surface, but I'm walking away from it with some equally disturbing thoughts about motherhood, because not only does Ma repeatedly imply or outright state that Jack's life is more important than hers, the narrative seems to think so too, focusing narrowly on Jack's pain and Jack's struggles while his mother suffers in the background, almost entirely off-screen, and all in support of furthering Jack's story. It's not exactly the same as being fridged, but in many ways it echoes that harmful trope, and I don't care for it.

#booklr #adult booklr #book review #room #emma donoghue #book photography #my photos #my reading challenges #mount tbr 2020 #around the year 2020 #popsugar challenge 2020

[noonetosmilefor]

lets get personal.

thank you for asking me these,@uneven-odds. <3

1: 6 of the songs you listen to most? - currently: stronger than ever, redemption, crazy to love you, an evening i will not forget, lose you to love me and outgrown.

2: If you could meet anyone on this earth, who would it be? - Mark Hamill.

3: Grab the book nearest to you, turn to page 23, give me line 17. - “He stood up, got to the other side of the street, kneeled and looked down at his feet.”

4: What do you think about most? - my future.

5: What does your latest text message from someone else say? - “For sure.”

6: Do you sleep with or without clothes on? - most of the time with clothes but sometimes without.

7: What’s your strangest talent? - i don’t think that I have any strange talent.

8: Girls… (finish the sentence); Boys… (finish the sentence) - Girls, are lovely. Boys, are as lovely as girls are.

9: Ever had a poem or song written about you? - yeah, a poem.

10: When is the last time you played the air guitar? - uff, I guess it’s been a bit.. maybe 2017 at Nova Rock.

11: Do you have any strange phobias? - no.

12: Ever stuck a foreign object up your nose? - yeah.

13: What’s your religion? - atheist.

14: If you are outside, what are you most likely doing? - going for a walk.

15: Do you prefer to be behind the camera or in front of it? - behind.

16: Simple but extremely complex. Favorite band? - All Time Low!

17: What was the last lie you told? - “I did it.”

18: Do you believe in karma? - yes.

19: What does your URL mean? - it’s a line from a song.

20: What is your greatest weakness; your greatest strength? - my greatest weakness are people who are close to me, cause sometimes i’d do everything for them even if it doesn’t make me happy. my greatest strength is that i’m a good listener.

21: Who is your celebrity crush? - T O M   H O L L A N D !

22: Have you ever gone skinny dipping? - yes.

23: How do you vent your anger? - honestly? screaming and crying.

24: Do you have a collection of anything? - yeah, Loki  & Kylo Ren Funko Pop figures haha.

25: Do you prefer talking on the phone or video chatting online? - video chatting online.

26: Are you happy with the person you’ve become? - sometimes. it’s 50/50.

27: What’s a sound you hate; sound you love? - Dermot Kennedy’s voice.

28: What’s your biggest “what if”? - what if, i could’ve done it?

29: Do you believe in ghosts? How about aliens? - yes and also yes.

30: Stick your right arm out; what do you touch first? Do the same with your left arm. - right arm: my laptop, left arm: my knee.

31: Smell the air. What do you smell? - candles.

32: What’s the worst place you have ever been to? - Frankfurt.

33: Choose: East Coast or West Coast? - west coast.

34: Most attractive singer of your opposite gender? - Alex Gaskarth.

35: To you, what is the meaning of life? - being fully happy with your life and everything around you.

36: Define Art. - art is what other people create and love.

37: Do you believe in luck? - no.

38: What’s the weather like right now? - *insert a starry night from van gogh here*

39: What time is it? - 11 pm.

40: Do you drive? If so, have you ever crashed? - yes and also yes.

41: What was the last book you read? - Das Geschenk by Sebastian Fitzek.

42: Do you like the smell of gasoline? - no.

43: Do you have any nicknames? - yes. (a few crazy ones too.)

44: What was the last film you saw? - Das perfekte Geheimnis.

45: What’s the worst injury you’ve ever had? - well i broke both of my arms 4 times each so haha.

46: Have you ever caught a butterfly? - no.

47: Do you have any obsessions right now? - yes, i’m obsessed with Dermot Kennedy’s music.

48: What’s your sexual orientation? - heterosexual.

49: Ever had a rumour spread about you? - yes.

50: Do you believe in magic? - yes.

51: Do you tend to hold grudges against people who have done you wrong? - sometimes.

52: What is your astrological sign? - cancer.

53: Do you save money or spend it? - spend it haha.

54: What’s the last thing you purchased? - chocolate.

55: Love or lust? - lust.

56: In a relationship? - no.

57: How many relationships have you had? - 2.

58: Can you touch your nose with your tongue? - nope.

59: Where were you yesterday? - mostly home.

60: Is there anything pink within 10 feet of you? - no.

61: Are you wearing socks right now? - no.

62: What’s your favourite animal? - horse.

63: What is your secret weapon to get someone to like you? - well idk really haha.

64: Where is your best friend? - probably asleep in her bed haha.

65: Give me your top 5 favourite blogs on Tumblr. - @uneven-odds, @crispsevans, @speak-fluent-sarcasm, @lifeismymiracle and @vivienvalentino. 

66: What is your heritage? - austrian.

67: What were you doing last night at 12AM? - watching a YouTube video.

68: What do you think is Satan’s last name? - 666 haha.

69: Be honest. Ever gotten yourself off? - yes.

70: Are you the kind of friend you would want to have as a friend? - idk about that tbh.

71: You are walking down the street on your way to work. There is a dog drowning in the canal on the side of the street. Your boss has told you if you are late one more time you get fired. What do you do? - save the dog and apologize to my boss.

72: You are at the doctor’s office and she has just informed you that you have approximately one month to live. a) Do you tell anyone/everyone you are going to die? b) What do you do with your remaining days? c) Would you be afraid? - yes, the closest people. travel to new zealand. no.

73: You can only have one of these things; trust or love. - trust.

74: What’s a song that always makes you happy when you hear it? - an evening i will not forget.

75: What are the last four digits in your cell phone number? - 6963.

76: In your opinion, what makes a great relationship? - trust & honesty.

77: How can I win your heart? - by buying me food and books.

78: Can insanity bring on more creativity? - yeah.

79: What is the single best decision you have made in your life so far? - living my life the way i want to.

80: What size shoes do you wear? - 39.

81: What would you want to be written on your tombstone? - well, she’s gone haha.

82: What is your favourite word? - sleep.

83: Give me the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the word; heart. - love.

84: What is a saying you say a lot? - it is what it is.

85: What’s the last song you listened to? - moments passed by (oh what a surprise) Dermot Kennedy.

86: Basic question; what’s your favourite colour/colours? - blue.

87: What is your current desktop picture? - my cats loki and harry.

88: If you could press a button and make anyone in the world instantaneously explode, who would it be? - i wouldn’t want anyone to explode.

89: What would be a question you’d be afraid to tell the truth on? - do you trust me?

90: One night you wake up because you heard a noise. You turn on the light to find that you are surrounded by MUMMIES. The mummies aren’t really doing anything, they’re just standing around your bed. What do you do? - go right back to sleep.

91: You accidentally eat some radioactive vegetables. They were good, and what’s even cooler is that they endow you with the super-power of your choice! What is that power? - teleportation.

92: You can re-live any point of time in your life. The time-span can only be a half-hour, though. What half-hour of your past would you like to experience again? - easter with my whole family.

93: You can erase any horrible experience from your past. What will it be? - the death of the mom from my half-sister.

94: You have the opportunity to sleep with the music-celebrity of your choice. Who would it be? - it’s kind of weird, i just would go have dinner with Dermot and that’s it haha.

95: You just got a free plane ticket to anywhere. You have to depart right now. Where are you gonna go? - New Zealand.

96: Do you have any relatives in jail? - no.

97: Have you ever thrown up in the car? - no.

98: Ever been on a plane? - yes.

99: If the whole world were listening to you right now, what would you say? - THANK YOU!

#about me #personal asks

[humansoulsarg]

Super Spice World X Playthrough Solve

http://pangenttechnologies.tumblr.com/post/180947341337/

This post presented a publicly visible Signal and Noise video titled ‘Super Spice World X: Spice Girls playable in Super Mario Bros X / SMBX’

The video can be accessed here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IY1P1qXq3nc

A very impressive amount of work went into customizing this version of Super Mario Bros. X, converting it into a Spice Girls game, and since it’s Pangent Technologies who created this, there’s probably puzzles to be found! (spoiler alert - there’s a lot, and some may not yet be fully cracked.) So onward to the solutions! (Nearly three months after the post - apologies for our delays on this end.)

After watching the playthrough and enjoying the Spice Girls soundtrack and customized graphics, it’s time to dig into what’s presented that could possibly be a puzzle. Most Pangent puzzles lead to link IDs from websites such as YouTube (11-character link IDs), Mediafire (15-character link IDs), Pastebin (8-character link IDs), Imgur (7-character link IDs). So we’ll be on the lookout for anything that might be a representation of such a code.

At 1:04, we see Ginger encounter some platforms of various heights which seem a tad suspicious. After closer investigation, it appears there are 16 evenly spaced possible platform heights, so a hex code is suggested. With a little bit of decoding work, we get this…

The hex string is almost a mediafire link, just one character short. Adding a ‘6’ before the final '4’ yields this code:

33 35 64 38 72 61 31 76 7a 32 72 67 6d 6f 64

which becomes

35d8ra1vz2rgmod

Leading to a mediafire ZIP archive titled Library1.ZIP - http://www.mediafire.com/?35d8ra1vz2rgmod

The Library1.zip file contains three images, which will be investigated in further detail later, let’s stick with just the top level of codes for now, trying to glean everything we can from the playthrough video first, then investigating further into what was found, as it appears we may be getting multiple layers of puzzles here.

At 2:33, Scary Spice encounters some curiously colored coins in a dungeon. This same pattern is also seen at 3:15.

Using the standard Pangent color mapping, these coins can be decoded as octal values:

6415467143144 1426115617265 6215315363610

Grouping as octal ASCII we get:

64 154 67 143 144 142 61 156 172 65 62 153 153 63 61

Which decodes to:

4l7cdb1nz52kk31

Our second mediafire link: http://mediafire.com/?4l7cdb1nz52kk31 This time to Library2.zip

At 4:40 there’s some more Pangent-colored coins in a repeating pattern over some oddly placed blocks. There may be more than meets the eye here, but it doesn’t appear to be straightforward coin to color conversion or a punchcard grid. Let’s move along and revisit if needed.

At 6:25, Ginger encounters an array of coins in a grid.

After further investigation, it’s noticed that there are 16 row heights for coins, and it appears each column (save #21) only has one non-yellow coin. Pulling out those heights, with 1=bottom and F=top, we get:

37 66 70 70 33 74 37 79 78 6c 7a 6f 32 30 76 -> 7fpp3t7yxlzo20v

Which is a valid mediafire link, this time to Library4.zip http://mediafire.com/?7fpp3t7yxlzo20v

From 7:30 to 9:05, Ginger is swimming around in a strange new world, yet we were unable to find any clear codes in this segment. Perhaps there’s more?

At 10:20, there is a collection of coins and bricks in groups of 8 suggesting binary. Since there are 15 groups of 8 it seems very likely we’ve found another mediafire link.

Sure enough, decoding yields:

01110011 01100111 01101100 01101100 01100111 01100100 01100001 01100110 00110111 00110000 01100001 00110100 01110110 01111000 00110011

sgllgdaf70a4vx3

Which does lead to a valid Mediafire. This time Library3.ZIP: http://www.mediafire.com/?sgllgdaf70a4vx3

And that takes us through the playthrough, we’ve found Library1 - Library4 in mediafire links, and while there is some other suspicious content, perhaps we’ve discovered what we need to progress? Let’s move along.

Here we will link to imgur albums for each of the Libraries, so the curious reader can investigate the images on their own, before digging into the ones we found additional puzzle hooks within.

Library1 https://imgur.com/a/hMDMVP4 bookcover2.jpg bookcover3.jpg ifonly_140.jpg

Library2 https://imgur.com/a/fnvw3yK bookpage0.png bookpage1.png ifonly_144.jpg

Library3 https://imgur.com/a/ZSiV8UM bookcover1.jpg dontpanic-exc.png ifonly_146.jpg

Library4 https://imgur.com/a/FIY3V4i bookpage3.jpg bookpage4.jpg ifonly_148.jpg

The 'ifonly_###.jpg’ images appear to be pictures of those pages in Geri Halliwell’s book 'If Only’ while the other images are a mixture of pages/covers from 'Real Life: Real Spice’ and a few other odds and ends thrown in, including an excerpt from something related to the Hitchhikers Guide to the Universe, perhaps a script from a play? So, let’s dig into these Library images to see if we can knock anything loose.

In Library3/dontpanic-exc.png, there is a QR code hidden in the blue channel. it decodes to a string of triple letter combinations, with only 7 distinct three-letter groups:

ZAG LAF RIV LAF OEG RIV LAF ZAG RIV LAW VTM OEG OEG RIV RIV OEG RIV OEG LAF RIV RIV VTM LAF LAF RIV RIV VTM IPS ZAG RIV OEG OEG OEG OEG RIV ZAG OEG RIV LAF RIV LAW LAF RIV LAF RIV RIV ZAG RIV LAF LAF RIV ZAG LAF RIV ZAG ZAG RIV

By reversing the groups, noticing some patterns, assuming it decodes to something starting with 'media’ and brute forcing a bit, this key is found:

RIV-1 ???-2 IPS-3 LAF-4 ZAG-5 OEG-6 VTM-7 LAW-0

155 145 144 151 141 40 141 65 166 66 153 71 144 71 146 161 166 70 154 164 145 media a5v6k9d9fqv8lte http://mediafire.com/?a5v6k9d9fqv8lte

This mediafire link is to Window1.zip containing images punch_01.png and spiceworld.jpg.

There does not appear to be anything hidden in the spiceworld.jpg image, but the punch_01.png definitely looks suspicious, and we are inclined to think it might represent a 'window’ into something. Perhaps something found in a 'library’? We’ll see, we’ll see.

Library2/bookpage0.png is a grid of Spice Girls:

20 total cells, each with a border and image color. Writing the color/number pairs using the standard Pangent color code, we obtain:

39 34 31 78 37 6b 33 75 73 66 41 49 44 45 4D 38 76 72 69 37

Which decodes to:

941x7k3usfAIDEM8vri7

Looks promising as there’s a backwards 'MEDIA’ in there, but we’ve gotta do some shifting around before getting:

MEDIAfsu3k7x1497irv8

http://mediafire.com/?fsu3k7x1497irv8 ZIP File Window2.ZIP with image files: stay_spicy.jpg punch_0x.png

So this second 'Window’ again has a 'punch’ file, and another image which does not appear to hide any further content, just a shout out image from the Spice Girls book.

Library2/bookpage1.png is a punchcard grid over a page from the Spice Girls book. Adding the grid and recoloring yields:

Reading off the characters gives:

h8dhak4kkrrrezgAIDEM

or, reversed:

MEDIAgzerrrkk4kahd8h http://mediafire.com/?gzerrrkk4kahd8h

This mediafire link is to a ZIP archive entitled 'Pecola Papercraft’ which contains 29 pdfs, each containing a printable template that can be cut out and folded to create one of the Pecola Papercraft characters.

In Library4/bookpage4.jpg there is hidden text in the blue channel:

pnxmnsltojwdmfuirhmwnxyftxytfqqhydtzfymhfj ymfsprhzktwuqtrnslkwtfifsljsymxhmstqtzbjxqtsihg

reversed: ghistqxjbztqtsmhxmysjlsfiftwklsnrtquwtkzhrpsfmy jfhmyfztdyhqqftyxtfyxnwmhriufmdwjotlsnmxnp

We have assumed these strings are Vigenere enciphered text from a reduced alphabet (a-p max, for hex values) but we have not been able to determine any valid strings as of yet from these codes. Feel free to crack and report!

The barcodes in Library1/bookcover3.png are scannable and lead to mediafire links:

median86lbazk21m57mx http://www.mediafire.com/?n86lbazk21m57mx

medialbynvsckbva1kpb http://www.mediafire.com/?lbynvsckbva1kpb

These are each archives containing images of Pecola characters:

The First Ones (ペコラ1.zip):

The Second Ones: (ペコラX1.zip)

Each image contains the Pecolas numbered 1 through 26 from the previously discovered Pecola Papercraft ZIP archive. Converting the Pecolas to A-Z based on their number in the ZIP gives us the following strings:

The First Ones (ペコラ1.zip):

YKOTOGRGMURGPKETRGQKDUSGVJLUNFYFCTTFSJGTYF

The Second Ones: (ペコラX1.zip):

SJOQONNKAKMQWUJEEXJGLNQLQWGGAXYJCHZHDOPLSH

The first one can be Vigenered with 'Pecola’ to get a reduced alphabet:

JGMFDGCCKGGGAGCFGGBGBGHGGFJGCFJBAFIFDFEFNF

Then, converting the letters to hex via A=1, B=2, …, J=0, K=A, P=F gives:

07C64733A7771736772727877607360216964656D6

reversing that gives:

6D6564696120637067787272776371777A33746C70

which decodes to:

media cpgxrrwcqwz3tlp http://mediafire.com/?cpgxrrwcqwz3tlp

This mediafire contains Window3.zip where we get another 'punch’ (punch_0A) and two images (negs_1, negs_2) of Spice Girls Negatives.

The string from the second Pecola image set can be decoded to a reduced alphabet using the vigenere key 'realliferealspice’ to become:

BFOFDFIGJGMFEFBCAGFGACIGMFCGPFJBADIDDDEDND

Reversing and using A=1…P=F hex decoding:

4d45444941206f736c7931767132656c7079646e62

this decodes to:

MEDIA osly1vq2elpydnb http://mediafire.com/?osly1vq2elpydnb

This is where we find Window4.zip containing colours_ofthe_world.jpg and punch_00F.png

So now we have 4 Windows to go along with our 4 Libraries. And Each of the 4 Windows had a 'punch’ while each of the four Libraries had an 'ifonly’ so try to pair those up.

It turns out that works, and they can be combined where the punch blocks overlay on the ifonly pages, marking individual letters in a reduced alphabet string.

The matched up images can be found in these albums:

https://imgur.com/a/3ikA0Fr - with book, opaque windows https://imgur.com/a/UzBHWYk - without book, just the letters punch_01 over ifonly_140 punch_0A over ifonly_144 punch_00F over ifonly_146 punch_0X over ifonly_148

These are the groupings and decodes of each one:

ifonly_140: aebffcgekenfhcddbefccgefbfeGdgegpfIg 15266375a5d683442563375626574757f697 reverse it: 796f757475626573365244386d5a57366251 hex: youtubes6RD8mZW6bQ http://youtu.be/s6RD8mZW6bQ YouTube video with hex title 'focus’ Shows 15 seconds of 'stressed Leslie’ messing with the camera, ends with her yelling 'Alex!’

ifonly_144: gfpdjGgdadafpfpfofmdadefbfegdgegpfig 76f407741416f6f6e6c4145626574757f697 reverse: 796f7574756265414c6e6f6f614147704f67 hex: youtubeALnooaAGpOg http://youtu.be/ALnooaAGpOg YouTube video with hex title 'should’ Shows 'stressed Leslie’ saying how she punched Alex and now Kristi is crying.

ifonly_146: gfhfmfhfffickgccfcbgcficecccccadididednd 7686c6866693a7336327369353333314949454d4 reverse: 4d4549494133333539637236337a3966686c6867 hex: MEIIA3359cr63z9fhlhg http://mediafire.com/?3359cr63z9fhlhg SSWX-GIF.ZIP Collection of files for Super Spice World X including a readme.txt explaining the system

ifonly_148: fgkfdcgclfggdgagbglfIfgfgcggagafifdfefnf 67a64373b677471727b6967673771716964656d6 reverse: 6d6564696171773767696b727174776b37346a76 hex: mediaqw7gikrqtwk74jv http://mediafire.com/?qw7gikrqtwk74jv SSWX-PNG.ZIP Several folders of MIDI and PNG files for Super Spice World X

With those four decodes, it appears we’ve completed a set! You should now have access to all the files you need to play your own version of Super Spice World X, should you so choose. And even with the possibly unsolved portions, it does appear we’ve reached a satisfying conclusion to this Pangent Path.

Stay Spicy Pangents!

#video #unlisted video #puzzle #puzzle solution #human souls arg #submission

[sourkitsch]

all the odd numbers

You’re Killing Me

(1) Do You Sleep With Your Closet Doors Open Or Closed?

Closed!

(3) Can You Whistle?

Very poorly.... ok no I can’t

(5) What Is Your Favourite Colour?

Golden Yellow!

(7) What Is The Temperature Right Now?

37 F

(9) How Many Followers?

661.... 5 more to my fav number....

(11) What Is Your Eye Colour?

blueish greenish brownish grayish? like hazel but if hazel had a blue base

(13) Do You Sing In The Shower?

Yup! It helps me wake up in the morning. Sorry to my hall mates tho

(15) Grab The Book Nearest To You, Turn To Page 64, Give Me Line 14.

“the ball did not fall back into her hand stretched up to catch it, but”- Grimm’s Fairy Tales (specially from “The Frog Prince”, which I did an art piece about at a precollege program a few years back! It sucks but I was like 14 so w/e)

(17) Last Person You Cried In Front Of?

In person? Probably my friends Olive, Sarah, and Alec. I just cried on the phone to my mom like 3 days ago tho.

(19) What Did You Have For Lunch?

Tuna Sandwich and green beans

(21) Favourite Animal?

Tiger!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(23) What Time Do You Usually Go To Bed?

3am

(25) Do You Prefer To Swim In A Pool Or The Ocean?

THE OCEAN I fucking LOVE the ocean

(27) Bottled Water Or Tap Water?

Either! I’m not picky!

(29) Post A Gif Of What You’re Currently Feeling Right Now.

(31) Dogs Or Cats?

Cats by a long shot! I’m just starting to get over a crippling fear of dogs rip

(33) PlayStation Or Xbox.

I guess Playstation? My friend has one. I don't really care

(35) Do You Believe In Magic?

Yes and no? I belief very much in the power of belief. If someone believes something hard enough I think it can manifest in the real world.

(37) Can You Curl Your Tongue?

Ye

(39) Is There Anything Pink Within 10 Feet Of You?

My cat’s littol beans

(41) Have You Ever Caught A Butterfly?

Nah I’ve been afraid of bugs since I was a kid! Including Butterflys

(43) Do You Have Strange Dreams?

Yup yup yup I get nightmares quite often cause of trauma and stuff. Violent, disturbing, weird. oof

(45) Name One Movie That Made You Cry.

Every Movie. Most recently? Fantasia

(47) If I Handed You A Concert Ticket Right Now, Who Would You Want The Performer To Be?

Ghost!

(49) Are You A Heavy Sleeper?

Yes and no? It’s hard to fall asleep but once I'm asleep it’s hard for me to wake up

(51) Do You Like To Read / Write?

I like the idea of doing them! I wish I could focus on books and writing but whoops dropped my adhd

(53) Would You Rather Carve Pumpkins Or Wrap Presents?

Carve Pumpkins!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(55) What Season Are You In Right Now? (Weather)

Winter

(57) Post A Screenshot Of Your Tumblr Feed.

no

(59) Coffee Or Tea?

Tea! Coffee makes me jittery

(61) What Is Your Sexuality?

I just label it as queer bc it’s complicated

(63) Favourite Pokemon?

Skitty

(65) What’s Your Opinion On Instagram Stories?

They’re fine! I use them on my finsta and occasionally on my art acc

(67) Are You A Virgin?

Nah man that ship sailed years ago

(69) If You Were Far From Home And Needed To Sleep For The Night, Would You Choose To Rent A Crappy Motel Room For $60 Or Sleep In Your Car For Free?

I don’t have a car and I do have anxiety, so motel!

(71)  Whats The Next Movie You Want To See In Theaters?

To Dust “A Hasidic cantor in upstate New York, distraught by the untimely death of his wife, befriends a local community college biology professor and the two embark on an increasingly literal undertaking into the underworld”

(73) What Is Your Favourite Quote Right Now?

“From childhood’s hour I have not been As others were—I have not seen As others saw—I could not bring My passions from a common spring— From the same source I have not taken My sorrow—I could not awaken My heart to joy at the same tone— And all I lov’d—I lov’d alone— “

- From “Alone” by Edgar Allan Poe

(75) Did You Like Swinging As A Child? Do You Still Get Excited When You See A Swing Set?

Yes, No.

(77) What Games Do You Have On Your Phone?

Plague Inc., Pokemon Go, all of the Rusty Lake games, and my new fav The Arcana

(79) Been On The Computer For 5 Hours Straight?

Yeah I’ve been workin on art

(81) Do You Like Meeting New People?

...No.

(83) Do You Sleep With Your Bedroom Door Open Or Closed?

Open so my cat can roam around, but closed and locked if there's company over.

(85) What Do You Wear To Bed?

t-shirt, underwear, shorts. pants if I'm feeling chilly

(87) Are You A Day Or Night Person?

Night. Like a vampire

(89) Tell Me About A Dream That You Had And When It Happened.

hm. no thanks.

(91) What Sounds Are Your Favourite?

thunder, rain, my cat snoring, someone humming, the scratch of pencil on paper

(93) How Do You Look Right Now?

sleepy

(95) What Tattoo Do You Want?

So many! Rn I guess something else by my friend Cam, their work is gorgeous!

Jesus CHRISt

[thisguyatthemovies]

About a boy

Title: “Boy Erased”

Release date: Nov. 2, 2018

Starring: Lucas Hedges, Nicole Kidman, Russell Crowe, Joel Edgerton, Cherry Jones, Flea, Joe Alwyn, Xavier Dolan, Troye Sivan

Directed by: Joel Edgerton

Run time: 1 hour, 51 minutes

Rated: R

What it’s about: A young man in Arkansas comes out as having gay thoughts to his minister father and mother, who send him to a religious-based conversion therapy facility.

***

Title: “Beautiful Boy”

Release date: Nov. 9, 2018

Starring: Steve Carell, Timothee Chalamet, Maura Tierney, Amy Ryan, Christian Convery

Directed by: Felix Van Groeningen

Run time: 1 hour, 52 minutes

Rated: R

What it’s about: A young man struggles with drug addiction while his father tries to help him.

How I saw them: We should get used to seeing Lucas Hedges (age 21) and Timothee Chalamet (age 22) in great movies for many years to come. Hedges (“Manchester by the Sea”) and Chalamet (“Call Me by Your Name”) already have Academy Award nominations in acting categories to their credit, and those probably won’t be their last. They seem to show up in a lot of great movies. In fact, both played key roles in 2017’s critically acclaimed “Lady Bird.”

Now they have starring roles in similar movies released within a week from each other, Hedges in “Boy Erased” and Chalamet in “Beautiful Boy.” Both give us the kind of powerful, movie-carrying performances we have already come to expect from them in movies that are important if less than flawless.

Both films, based on true stories, center on young men whose fathers are trying to help them, but in starkly different ways.

Hedges plays Jared Eamons, an 18-year-old in Arkansas who throughout high school lives the kind of life his father (Russell Crowe) has set up for him. He plays sports and has a cheerleader girlfriend. He works at his father’s car dealership, and it is made clear that he will be taking over the business someday. And he attends the church where his father preaches.

But his father’s plans are derailed when Jared goes off to college. He makes friends with another student, Henry (Joe Alwyn), and they become running partners. But one night, Henry stays the night in Jared’s dorm room and forces himself on his friend sexually. This leaves Jared confused, and the confusion worsens when Henry, in the guise of a school counselor, tells Jared’s parents that Jared was the perpetrator. Jared, pressured by his father, admits that he “thinks about men.”

The father, citing his faith, can’t accept this, and his wife (Nicole Kidman) dutifully goes along with a plan to send their son to a religious-based conversion therapy facility. It is, in many ways, a horrible place, and Jared struggles with whether to rebel against the facility’s leaders (actor/director Joel Edgerton and Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea, in a truly creepy role) or “fake it and make it” so that he is not admitted to the facility on a long-term basis. He also has been told by his father he will be disowned if he lives a homosexual lifestyle.

The conversion process is difficult to watch, as the young people face mental and physical abuse and seem generally unhappy. If you have never questioned the purpose of religion, you might after viewing “Boy Erased.” Fourteen states in the U.S. have banned conversion therapy, but it still happens, with parents and religious leaders subscribing to the theory that you can “treat” homosexuality the way you can treat mental health issues and drug addiction. Edgerton does a good job of not overtly condemning the process or the people behind it, but what happens on screen speaks for itself.

Chalamet, as Nicolas Sheff, also has a father who wants to “cure” him, but in “Beautiful Boy” the issue is drug abuse. Sheff is a popular, attractive and talented young artist who also is troubled. At a young age, he starts trying drugs and finds he prefers being high to reality. His drug use quickly overwhelms him, and while still in high school he is admitted to a drug treatment facility. A pattern familiar to those who have dealt with addicts is established. Nicolas gets clean, says his drug-using days are behind him but then relapses. He keeps hitting bottom, but his bottom keeps sinking lower and lower.

Unlike Jared’s father in “Boy Erased,” Chalamet, at least at first, has the unconditional loving support of his father, David Sheff (Steve Carell, in a strong performance that matches Chalamet’s). In fact, David Sheff, by all measures a loving and sympathetic father, tries too hard to help Nicolas. His efforts begin to smother Nicolas, and they become a detriment to himself, his wife and their young children. He eventually learns what everyone trying to help an addict must accept: You can’t fix the addict.

Like Jared’s “conversion” in “Boy Erased,” Nicolas’ downward spiral in “Beautiful Boy” is tough to watch. And while “Boy Erased” gives us at least some resolution and hope in the end, the only semblance of a happy ending in “Beautiful Boy” comes after the final scene fades out.

Both movies benefit from strong leading performances that help cover up shortcomings. “Beautiful Boy” director Felix Van Groeningen takes a page from Christopher Nolan’s playbook with a series of flashbacks and flashbacks within flashbacks, to the point that following along can be difficult despite the repetitive nature of Nicolas’ relapses. The movie also has an odd but sometimes obvious soundtrack, with artists ranging from Neil Young to Nirvana to Sigur Ros to Aphex Twin. “Boy Erased” stacks its most emotional moments on top of each other toward the end of the movie, perhaps lessening the impact of each, if only slightly. It also starts veering into predictable territory as it heads toward its ending.

But those are minor complaints given each film’s impressive performances. Especially those of their young leading actors.

My score: “Boy Erased,” 85 out of 100; “Beautiful Boy,” 71 out of 100

Should you see them? Yes. Both can be a difficult watch, but they are important films that likely will lead to much thought and discussion.

#movies #movie review #movie recommendation #Beautiful Boy #Boy Erased #lucas hedges #timothee chalamet #steve carell #russell crowe #nicole kidman #conversion therapy #drug addiction

[enstoreretail]

Managing Customer Relationship: The 5 Things you must do

Introduction

One of the essential elements of having your own business, particularly if you provide a service to people rather than a product, is managing and keeping a strong connection with your consumers. People would naturally choose to spend their money with a company that has provided them with a positive customer experience. Even the stats point to the same conclusion: firms have a 60 to 70% probability of selling to their existing customers versus a 5 to 20% chance of selling to one of their new prospects.

There is always an opportunity for improvement in your customer relationships, no matter how wonderful they are. The ideal method to go about it would be to employ CRM for small company software explicitly designed for fostering your customer relationships.

Managing customer relationship: 5 things you must do

Engaging your consumers is the key to developing great customer connections, regardless of the size of your company.

This is critical if you are delivering a service to your consumers. Sure, it's crucial if you're selling a product. Still, when you're providing a service, things get a little more personal, and leaving a nice impression, as well as a pleasant experience, might be what differentiates you from your rivals who provide a comparable service. According to studies, by 2020, customer experience will be the most important differentiator between brands, even surpassing price and product itself. When engaging with your consumers, it is critical to reaching out to them through their following or subscribing to your service. For example, if your consumers find you on social media, they will respond better if you contact them through your Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram page rather than texting or calling them.

We've previously established that current customers are more likely to spend more, but you should also know that returning customers spend 67 per cent more than new ones. This indicates that even if you made a big investment in a loyalty programme that rewards repeat consumers, your income would increase dramatically. So, for example, you might provide limited-time discounts, coupons or welcome them to a loyalty or referral programme to your repeat clients. This not only encourages consumers to make further purchases but also makes them feel appreciated as customers.

Customers prefer to buy from companies and organisations that recognise their followers and respond to their comments. However, an even better method to strengthen your customer relations is to regularly solicit input and utilise it to improve a current product or service or, ultimately, create a superior one. There are various ways to contact your target audience, and because 71% of them never turn off their mobile devices, getting feedback shouldn't be too tough.

Customer connections, like all other relationships, must be continually fostered if they are to flourish. In other words, you must stay in touch with your consumers, whether through Christmas cards, birthday tweets, newsletters with product and service updates, or the odd email expressing how much you appreciate their loyalty and confidence. Customers are more inclined to go somewhere else if you are not in their minds.

Receiving a complaint about your product or service may appear to be the worst thing that could happen to your company, as it may ruin your reputation in no time, given the speed with which word of mouth, particularly bad word of mouth, spreads on social media. However, you can not only prevent this by responding to client concerns, but you can also transform a previously poor customer experience into a pleasant one. To ensure that each complaint is handled as efficiently as possible, how you and your team manage disagreements should be part of your internal policy. You should also give enough training to each employee on this subject.

Conclusion

The quality of your product or service is not the key to your company's success. It is how you handle your consumers. Understanding your target audience's requirements and maintaining a positive connection may cost time, effort, and money, but it is the finest investment you can make. When an organisation is successful in this endeavour, it may improve loyalty, a better reputation, and more revenues.

[pianosmasher]

for the ask meme: odd numbers!

Oh, worm? Alright let’s do this shit

1: 6 of the songs you listen to most?Since I already answered this song, here’s six songs that I listened to the most when I was sixteen:

”Thrash Unreal” - Against Me!”An Ocean Between Us” - As I Lay Dying”The Modern Leper” - Frightened Rabbit”The Outer Banks” - the Album Leaf”Hide and Seek” - Imogen Heap”Jesus” - Brand New3: Grab the book nearest to you, turn to page 23, give me line 17.“No you listen here, buckaroo.” Could not have picked a better line if you asked me to.

5: What does your latest text message from someone else say?“Hell yes!”

7: What’s your strangest talent?I can juggle and do a few of those metal screams.

9: Ever had a poem or song written about you?One of each, though both authors have never admitted it to me specifically.

11: Do you have any strange phobias?I’m terrified of anything with a stinger, but that’s about it.

13: What’s your religion?Whatever it is, I’m losing it.

15: Do you prefer to be behind the camera or in front of it?Behind the camera. I love catching candids of my friends, and I’m not very photogenic anyway.

17: What was the last lie you told?I told my boss that I needed caffeine before I could talk to him (I don’t - just like mornings to myself), though most people will say my last lie was that last part to the previous question.

19: What does your URL mean?Too long to explain in full here, but basically: to me, piano as an instrument represents the way the art of music can endure in spite and because of institutionalized learning practices. Guitar, meanwhile, represents the improvised result of a pure drive to create the art in one’s heart by any means necessary. Between those two ideologies, I’ll side with the guitar every time.

21: Who is your celebrity crush?Oscar Isaac.

23: How do you vent your anger?Decimate them in a verbal argument - in my head if I’m angry for a bad reason, out loud if I’m angry for a good one.

25: Do you prefer talking on the phone or video chatting online?Phone calls are the best. Nothing feels better than shooting the shit with someone through my headphones while I stare at my bedroom ceiling. 

27: What’s a sound you hate; sound you love?The sound of a perfectly tuned E major chord on a guitar in standard tuning puts me at such an ease. The worst sound is probably a fork scraping across the surface of a plate.

29: Do you believe in ghosts? How about aliens?Ghosts, nah. Aliens, maybe.

31: Smell the air. What do you smell?Cat hair.

33: Choose: East Coast or West Coast?I’ve only ever been to the east coast, so either that side wins by default or I should be disqualified from making this decision

35: To you, what is the meaning of life?Figuring out the best way to kill our time and reach people.

37: Do you believe in luck?More than most things.

39: What time is it?I started this at 11:30 PM last night. Then my computer crashed and I lost all my answers, so I’m going back through it again at 10:27 AM this morning. So pick your favorite of those?

41: What was the last book you read?At Your Own Risk, by Derek Jarman

43: Do you have any nicknames?None that have stuck around, unfortunately.

45: What’s the worst injury you’ve ever had?I had a gash in my knee when I was seventeen due to a skateboarding accident. Not fun. I spent my first three weeks of summer bedridden that year. 

47: Do you have any obsessions right now?Between the Buried and Me.

49: Ever had a rumour spread about you?Too many to count at this point.

51: Do you tend to hold grudges against people who have done you wrong?Not as a general rule, no. I tend to be forgiving to a fault, and try as best as I can not to regret that tendency.

53: Do you save money or spend it?I feel I have a good balance of both, knowing when to treat myself and when to live off rice and beans for a while.

55: Love or lust?Love is easier.

57: How many relationships have you had?I think this is my ninth?

59: Where were you yesterday?First work, then rehearsal at Champion studios, then Starbucks for a production meeting, then back to rehearsal, and then home to feed the cat.

61: Are you wearing socks right now?Yes.

63: What is your secret weapon to get someone to like you?Ask them to talk to me as long as they like about something they’re passionate about, actually engage with what they’re saying to me, and finally learn more about that interest in my spare time to show them that I care.

65: Give me your top 5 favourite blogs on Tumblr.@teddyberika has the best shitposts. @shortsightedseer has the worst ones. @peoplegettingreallymadatfood always surprises me beyond belief. @animalmusicthemes is a recent favorite. @shitmystudentswrite is an old favorite.

67: What were you doing last night at 12AM?Trying to fill this out the first time and watching the new Lindsay Ellis video on Marxism.

69: Be honest. Ever gotten yourself off?Are you kidding

71: You are walking down the street on your way to work. There is a dog drowning in the canal on the side of the street. Your boss has told you if you are late one more time you get fired. What do you do?I’m saving the dog. My boss could be bluffing, but the dog definitely isn’t.

73: You can only have one of these things; trust or love.I honestly can’t tell the difference between the two.

75: What are the last four digits in your cell phone number?5309

77: How can I win your heart?Take your time and take me as seriously as I take you.

79: What is the single best decision you have made in your life so far?Moving to NYC.

81: What would you want to be written on your tombstone?“Did everything he could while he could.”

83: Give me the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the word; heart.An actual, beating heart.

85: What’s the last song you listened to?“Famine Wolf” - Between the Buried and Me

87: What is your current desktop picture?A possum covered in paint, making art on a canvas spread out across the floor

89: What would be a question you’d be afraid to tell the truth on?“Who are your friends?”

91: You accidentally eat some radioactive vegetables. They were good, and what’s even cooler is that they endow you with the super-power of your choice! What is that power?Teleportation. Eat your vegetables, kids.

93: You can erase any horrible experience from your past. What will it be?No specifics due to involving real life people who don’t need to be name dropped on Tumblr Dot Com, but I burned a bridge a while back that I’d still rebuild, if given the chance.

95: You just got a free plane ticket to anywhere. You have to depart right now. Where are you gonna go?Nashville. I owe it to David and my mom, and I miss all the music, too.

97: Have you ever thrown up in the car?Actually… not that I can remember? As much as I’ve vomited in my life, it’s never been due to motion sickness.

99: If the whole world were listening to you right now, what would you say?Register to vote.

#Ask Ross #sunnybaudeclaire #thanks Claire! #what a challenge #there are like three song references in the post collect em all

[darhwolf]

all

1: 6 of the songs you listen to most?dunno lol probably any of the 4 songs from Courtney Barnett that I have on my phone (Elevator Operator, Depreston, Nobody Really Cares if You Don’t go to the Party, and Debbie Downer). Dunno lol

2: If you could meet anyone on this earth, who would it be?Well there’s a few people so... @lifecankindofsuck @annoyinglyoptimisticbread @gerards-slutty-jacket, or Markimoo 

3: Grab the book nearest to you, turn to page 23, give me line 17.The moat surrounds your fortress, preventing enemies from

4: What do you think about most?Uhhh such a fucking odd queston I honestly have no clue my mind jumps around a lot

5: What does your latest text message from someone else say?Imma not include group chats so... some shit from sprint about texting in the UK. I don’t get texted a lot :/

6: Do you sleep with or without clothes on?I prefer without but I usually wear pajamas

7: What’s your strangest talent?I can slap my thighs really fast I dunno lol

8: Girls… (finish the sentence); Boys… (finish the sentence)With the first thing that comes to my head?Girls just wanna have funBoys will be boys

9: Ever had a poem or song written about you?Nope and it’ll probs never happen so whatever ¯\_(:/)_/¯

10: When is the last time you played the air guitar?Never rip

11: Do you have any strange phobias?None that are out of the ordinary

12: Ever stuck a foreign object up your nose?A Q-Tip with vaseline

13: What’s your religion?I don’t have one

14: If you are outside, what are you most likely doing?prbably sitting on a bench alone being lonely lol

15: Do you prefer to be behind the camera or in front of it?behind

16: Simple but extremely complex. Favorite band?The Beatles

17: What was the last lie you told?I think it was something my dad got angry at me for and then a waiter came up and I faked a smile for the waiter if you call that lying

18: Do you believe in karma?Sometimes

19: What does your URL mean?Absolutely fucking nothing lmao

20: What is your greatest weakness; your greatest strength?Weakness? my cripplingly low self esteem. Strength? My desire to help people

21: Who is your celebrity crush?Probably Maisie Williams. Used to be Ariana Grande cuz she’s absolutely adorable

22: Have you ever gone skinny dipping?No but it sounds like fun

23: How do you vent your anger?profane language lmao

24: Do you have a collection of anything?not really no. but I do have all 50 state coins

25: Do you prefer talking on the phone or video chatting online?Video chatting as long as the other person can hold the conversation

26: Are you happy with the person you’ve become?physically? hell fucking no. Mentally? nope. Emotionally? still no rip. But I am happy that I can help people with their problems.

27: What’s a sound you hate; sound you love?hate? crying. (human crying not baby crying) it makes me cry too ;-;Love? uhhhhhhh rain

28: What’s your biggest “what if”?What if I never actually find an s/o?

29: Do you believe in ghosts? How about aliens?I want to believe

30: Stick your right arm out; what do you touch first? Do the same with your left arm.The wall. A rocking chair

31: Smell the air. What do you smell?Cotton (from my blanket)

32: What’s the worst place you have ever been to?I dunno lol

33: Choose: East Coast or West Coast?West coast, but I’m going to the East coast for College. West cost is more progressive I believe

34: Most attractive singer of your opposite gender?Ariana Grande I guess

35: To you, what is the meaning of life?It’s 42. I’m too lazy to give a full explanation or something like that

36: Define Art.Uhh I dunno lmao

37: Do you believe in luck?Yeah. Either Luck or RNGesus

38: What’s the weather like right now?Sunny

39: What time is it?6:33 PM

40: Do you drive? If so, have you ever crashed?Yes. No

41: What was the last book you read?Pet Semetary

42: Do you like the smell of gasoline?it’s OK. Too much and I hate it.

43: Do you have any nicknames?Mom, Dad, A-Dog (from my uncle)

44: What was the last film you saw?Gremlins. In theaters? A Quiet Place

45: What’s the worst injury you’ve ever had?Smacking my head on a piano bench corner (3 stitches needed)

46: Have you ever caught a butterfly?yes

47: Do you have any obsessions right now?nope

48: What’s your sexual orientation?Sexual orientation? Het. but romantic orientation is bi

49: Ever had a rumour spread about you?Nope

50: Do you believe in magic?Hell yeah or something like that

51: Do you tend to hold grudges against people who have done you wrong?Nah. Unless they were especially awful

52: What is your astrological sign?Aquarius or Aries

53: Do you save money or spend it?Save

54: What’s the last thing you purchased?some micro transaction

55: Love or lust?Love

56: In a relationship?I feckin wish

57: How many relationships have you had?technically, none. One was long distance puppy love, the other wasn’t a relationship

58: Can you touch your nose with your tongue?yes

59: Where were you yesterday?In Heathrow airport

60: Is there anything pink within 10 feet of you?Eraser tops

61: Are you wearing socks right now?nope

62: What’s your favourite animal?DOGGOS

63: What is your secret weapon to get someone to like you?Wait I have a secret weapon? oooh tell me

64: Where is your best friend?I uhhhhhh @annoyinglyoptimisticbread and @lifecankindofsuck and @gerards-slutty-jacket hey where are you

65: Give me your top 5 favourite blogs on Tumblr.NO SPECIFIC ORDER @annoyinglyoptimisticbread @lifecankindofsuck @gerards-slutty-jacket @umbrellas-and-raincoats @30-minute-memes

66: What is your heritage?Germany I think or something

67: What were you doing last night at 12AM?Sleeping lmao

68: What do you think is Satan’s last name?Phillips. I dunno some casual last name

69: Be honest. Ever gotten yourself off?Yes many times lmao. Has anybody else gotten me off? nah. never probably gonna happen either lmao

70: Are you the kind of friend you would want to have as a friend?yesssssss somebody I could actually like pull aside to talk about shit in my life

71: You are walking down the street on your way to work. There is a dog drowning in the canal on the side of the street. Your boss has told you if you are late one more time you get fired. What do you do?Fuck yeah the doggo and I are in this shit together now

72: You are at the doctor’s office and she has just informed you that you have approximately one month to live. a) Do you tell anyone/everyone you are going to die? b) What do you do with your remaining days? c) Would you be afraid?a. Yes.b. I don’t know ;-;c. yes

73: You can only have one of these things; trust or love.Can I not fucking choose this kinda question is hard on me

74: What’s a song that always makes you happy when you hear it?I dunno

75: What are the last four digits in your cell phone number?8119

76: In your opinion, what makes a great relationship?Trust, communication (bitches fucking love communication), and actual love between the two (or more) partners

77: How can I win your heart?I don’t know this is too difficult of a question I guess just talk to me I don’t fucking know

78: Can insanity bring on more creativity?kinda maybe

79: What is the single best decision you have made in your life so far?I dunno lmao

80: What size shoes do you wear?don’t remember too lazy to check

81: What would you want to be written on your tombstone?I dunno leave it up to my family

82: What is your favourite word?Banana

83: Give me the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the word; heart.love

84: What is a saying you say a lot?I dunno lmao

85: What’s the last song you listened to?Probably Elevator Operator

86: Basic question; what’s your favourite colour/colours?a dark blue like rain I don’t know what shade exactly it is

87: What is your current desktop picture?EEVEES!

88: If you could press a button and make anyone in the world instantaneously explode, who would it be?Some shit named Diego. He was a dick to me all throughout middle school and never apologized once

89: What would be a question you’d be afraid to tell the truth on?Do you have depression?

90: One night you wake up because you heard a noise. You turn on the light to find that you are surrounded by MUMMIES. The mummies aren’t really doing anything, they’re just standing around your bed. What do you do?Sit and wait, but get ready for something to happen

91: You accidentally eat some radioactive vegetables. They were good, and what’s even cooler is that they endow you with the super-power of your choice! What is that power?Invisibility. You can actually do a LOT of good with invisibility like if somebody tries to rob a bank, you walk in, invisible, with a gun and reveal yourself only to shoot them or something like that

92: You can re-live any point of time in your life. The time-span can only be a half-hour, though. What half-hour of your past would you like to experience again?Eating a birthday cake I guess I dunno :/

93: You can erase any horrible experience from your past. What will it be?FUCKING EVERYTHING ABOUT MY DEPRESSION AND SHIT

94: You have the opportunity to sleep with the music-celebrity of your choice. Who would it be?Why music celeb?But it would be Ariana Grande

95: You just got a free plane ticket to anywhere. You have to depart right now. Where are you gonna go?Fuckin Japan cuz it’s so cool

96: Do you have any relatives in jail?nope

97: Have you ever thrown up in the car?yeah lol

98: Ever been on a plane?many many times

99: If the whole world were listening to you right now, what would you say?“Hey stop fucking each other over and lets focus on not fucking making the human race go extinct mmkay?”@annoyinglyoptimisticbread THANKS FOR THE ASK

[booksaremyoxygenn]

Looking for Alaska: Best Quotes

“Francois Rabelais. He was this poet. And his last words were ‘I go to seek a Great Perhaps.’ That’s why I’m going. So I don’t have to wait until I die to start seeking a Great Perhaps.” (p 5)

“At some point, you just pull off the Band-Aid and it hurts, but then it’s over and you’re relieved.” (p 7)

“Things never happened like I imagined them.” (p 8) 

“He - that’s Simon Bolivar - was shaken by the overwhelming revelation that the headlong race between his misfortunes and his dreams was at the moment reaching the finish line. The rest was darkness. “Damn it,” he said. “How will I ever get out of this labyrinth!” (p 18-19)

“That’s the mystery, isn’t it? Is the labyrinth living or dying? WHich is he trying to escape - the world or the end of it? (p 19) 

“Feeling - probably for the first time in my life - the fear and excitement of living in a place where you never know what’s going to happen or when.” (p 29) 

“For we are engaged here in the most important pursuit in history: the search for meaning. What is the nature of being a person? What is the best way to go about being a person? How did we come to be, and what will become of us when we are no longer? In short: What are the rules of this game, and how might we best play it?” (p 32)

“I’ve never been religious, but he told us that religion is important whether or not we believed in one. in the same way that historical events are important whether or not you personally lived through them.” (p 33) 

“I guess I stay with her because she stays with me. And that’s not an easy thing to do. I’m a bad boyfriend. She’s a bad girlfriend. We deserve each other.” (p 38)

“Y’all smoke to enjoy it. I smoke to die.” (p 44) 

“And it occured to me that I could have made up any last words for Millard Fillmore and Kevin probably would have believed me if I’d used that same tone of voice, the Colonel’s confidence rubbing off on me.” (p 48) 

“I wanted to be one of those people who have streaks to maintain, who scorch the ground with their intensity. But for now, at least I knew such people, and they needed me, just like comets need tails.” (p 49) 

“Be present in this class. And then, when it’s over, be present out there.” (p 90)

“I may die young,” she said. “But at least I’ll die smart.” (p 52)

“It’s from an Aleut word, Alyeska. It means ‘that which the sea breaks against,’ and I love that. But at the time. I just saw Alaska up there. And it was big, just like I wanted to be. And it was damn far away from Vine Station, Alabama, just like i wanted to be.” (p 53)

“Jesus, I’m not going to be one of those people who sits around talking about what they’re going to do. I’m just gonna do it. Imagining the future is a kind of nostalgia.” (p 55)

“You spend your whole life stuck in the labyrinth, thinking about how you’ll secape it one day, and how awesome it will be, and imagining that future keeps you going, but you never do it. You just use the future to escape the present.” (p 55)

“You never get. That’s the whole point.” (p 55)

“Sometime you lose a battle. But mischief always wins the war.” (p 56) 

“God will punish the wicked. And before He does, we will.” (p 71) 

“I’m just scared of ghosts, Pudge. And home is full of them.” (p 80)

“because I do, Alaska Young, I do love you and what else matters but that.” (p 82)

“It’s not life or death, the labyrinth.” “Um, okay. So what is it?” “Suffering,” she said. “Doing wrong and having wrong things happen to you. That’s the problem. Bolivar was talking about the pain, not about the living or dying. How do you get out of the labyrinth of suffering?” (p 82) 

“They love their hair because they aren’t smart enough to love something more interesting.” (p 84) 

“You shall love your crooked neighbour / With your crooked heart.”(p 85)

“I wanted so badly to lie down next to her on the couch, to wrap my arms around her and sleep. Not fuck, like in those movies. NOt even have sex. Just sleep together, in the most innocent sense of the phrase. But I lacked the courage and she had a boyfriend and I was gawky and she was gorgeous and I was hopelessly boring and she was endlessly fascinating. So I walked back to my room and collapsed on the bottom bunk, thinking that if people were rain, I was drizzle and she was a hurricane.” (p 88) 

“Night falls fast. Today is in the past.” (p 89) 

“Don’t you know who you love, Pudge? You love the girl who makes you laugh and shows you porn and drinks wine with you. You don’t love the crazy, sullen bitch.” (p 96) 

“I finally decided that people believed in an afterlife because they couldn’t bear not to.” (p 100) 

“The Great Perhaps was upon us, and we were invincible.” (p 103) 

“Because no one can catch the motherfucking fox.” (p 104)

“Tonight, we were invincible.” (p 107) 

“There comes a time when we realize that our parents cannot save themselves or save us, that everyone who wades through time eventually gets dragged out to sea by the undertown - that, in short, we are all going.” (p 120)

“We are all going,” McKinley said to his wife, and we sure are. There’s your labyrinth of suffering. We are all going. FInd your way out of that one.” (p 121)

“Pudge, what you must understand about me is that I am a deeply unhappy person.” (p 124) 

“But a lot of time, people die how they live. And so last words tell me a lot about who people were, and why they became the sort of people biographies get written about.” (p 128) 

“I know so many last words. But I will never know hers.” ( p 142)

“And now she was colder by the hour, more dead with every breath I took, I thought: That is the fear: I have lost something important and I cannot find it, and I need it. It is fear like if someone lost his glasses and went to the glasses store and told him that the world had run out of glasses and he would just have to do without.” (p 144) 

“More than anything I felt the unfairness of it. the inarguable injustice of living someone who might have loved you back but can’t due to deadness.” (p 151) 

“Meriwether Lewis’s last words were, : I am not a coward, but I am so strong. So hard to die.” I don’t doubt that it is, but it cannot be much harder than being left behind.” (p 151) 

“Oh God, Alaska, I love you. I love you,” and the Colonel whispered, “I’m so sorry, Pudge. I know you did,” and I said, “No. Not past tense.” (p 152) 

“At some point we all look up and realize we are lost in a maze.” (p 158) 

“It’s like now you only care about the Alaska you made up.” (p 165)

“And maybe it was only because Alaska couldn’t hit the brakes and I couldn’t hit the accelerator. Maybe she just had an odd kind of courage that I lacked, but no. (p 167) 

“I wondered if there would ever be a day when I didn’t think about Alaska, wondered whether I should hope for a time when she would be a distant memory - recalled only on the anniversary of her death, pr maybe a couple weeks after, remembering only after having forgotten.” ( p 172) 

“I knew that I would know more dead people. The bodies pile up. Could there be space in my memory for each of them, or would I forget a little of Alaska every day for the rest of my life?” (p 172) 

“You can’t just make me different and then leave,” I said out loud to her. “Because I was fine before, Alaska. I was fine with just me and last words and school friends, and you can’t just make me different and die.” For she had embodied the Great Perhaps - she had proved to me that it was worth it to leave behind my minor life for grander maybes, and now she was gone and with her my faith in perhaps.” (p 172) 

“I am going to take this bucket of water and pour it on the flames of hell, and then I am going to use this torch to burn down the gates of paradise so that people will not love God for want of heaven or hell, but because He is God.” (p 174) 

“A woman so strong she burns heaven and drenches hell.” (p 174) 

“I’m tired of you acting like you were the only guy who ever wanted her. Like you had some monopoly on liking her.” (p 185) 

“And, anyway, we didn’t know how much it might mean. Last words are always harder to remember when no one knows that someone’s about to die.” (p 187) 

“Everything that comes together falls apart.” (p 196) 

“The Buddha said that suffering was caused by desire, we learned, and that cessation of desire meant the cessation of suffering. When you stopped wishing things wouldn’t fall apart, you stopped suffering when they did.” (p 196) 

“Because memories fall apart, too. And then you’re left with nothing, left not even with a ghost but with its shadow.” (p 196)

“She didn’t leave me enough to discover her, but she left me enough to rediscover the Great Perhaps.” (p 212)

“An ambulance. . . I almost wished it was someone I knew, to give new form and depth to this sadness I still felt.” (p 213)

 “It shocked me when I realized that I wasn’t the only person in the world who thought and felt such strange and awful things.” (p 213) 

“But it doesn’t much matter when you have just now realized, all the time later, that you are still alive.” (p 214)

“What is your cause for hope?” (p 215) 

“After all this time, it still seems to me like straight and fast is the only way out - but I choose the labyrinth. The labyrinth blows, but I choose it.” (p 215) 

“I know you loved her. It was hard not to.” (p 218) 

“I had just now realized that I forgave him, and that she forgave us, and that we had to forgive to survive in the labyrinth. There were so many of us who would have to live with things done and things left undone that day. Things that did not go right, things that seemed okay at the time because we could not see the future. If only we could see the endless string of consequences that result from our  smallest actions. But we can’t know better until knowing better is useless.” (p 218) 

“I would always love Alaska Young, my crooked neighbor, with all my crooked heart.” (p 218) 

And of course the long letter on pages 219 - 221

#Looking for Alaska #John Green #Alaska Young #Miles Halter #Takumi #Motherfucking fox #Young Adult Books #Quotes #Book Quotes #Novel Quotes

[clarencenicholsonata]

Product Page Checklist: 11 Points To Boost Traffic & Transactions

Product pages are one of the most important pages you can have on an eCommerce website. Get your product page right, and both your traffic and transactions will flow in nicely. Get it wrong, and your marketing efforts may fail short of your expectations.

The average conversion rate of an eCommerce store is 2.42%. Poorly designed product pages are one factor that can influence this percentage. A poorly designed and optimized product page can be potentially costing your website a huge amount of potential revenue.

In this guide, we’ll detail what you need to do to ensure your product pages are performing as well as they can. It doesn’t matter if you’re a brick-and-mortar company or operating on a D2C model; these tips will all be relevant.

First, we’ll look at how to optimize your product pages to drive traffic from organic search. Then we’ll break down things you can do to ensure this traffic has the best chance of converting.

Table of Contents

Add Product Schema

Don’t forget about the basics of SEO

Make the most of internal links

Do your best to avoid duplicate content

Make sure your product pages load quickly

Social Proof

Product Descriptions

Product Photography

Delivery & Return Information

Cross-Sell Opportunities

Be instantly contactable

Traffic

While you may be running paid search campaigns and social ads to quickly drive traffic to your product pages, optimizing your product pages for organic search is still a must.

If you have a vast eCommerce website, this can sometimes become very difficult and time-consuming. Unoptimized or even duplicate page titles are commonly found. There are, however, a few vital things you can do to ensure that your product pages have a good chance of ranking.

1) Add Product Schema

Product Schema has been around for a while now and has two main benefits to eCommerce websites.

Firstly, it gives Search engines a very easy way of understanding the content and purpose of the page. If you’re selling tires online, having structured data will help Search Engines understand this is a product for sale rather than a blog post reviewing the tire.

Secondly, if you’re able to use all the elements available you’ll be able to enhance the appearance of your organic search listings for your product pages. This will make it much more prominent and enticing to click for users. These rich results can include a star rating, pricing, and availability, and much more.

The example above shows what a product page search result could look like with the product schema successfully added. The only thing to be careful of here is price. If a competitor is also ranking for the same keywords and has a lower price, a user may be more inclined to click the cheaper result.

If you’re lucky, your eCommerce platform will be able to automatically add this to your product pages using the information available in your product catalog. If you want to check if your product pages have schema added quickly, simply go to Google’s Rich Results tool and enter the URL in question.

Back to Top

2) Don’t forget about the basics of SEO

There will always be the basic things you have to get right with product pages. This includes an optimized page title, H1 tag, URL, and meta description.

Page title

Include the manufacturer’s name, if applicable, and anything very specific to that product. In the example above the page, the title included tire size, which is very specific. This could also be an SKU number if your product is part of a larger machine or apparatus. Users may specifically search for those factors to get to the exact product they want quickly.

*Use an enticing meta description. *

If you don’t set a meta description, Google will create its’ own using the content on the product page, which may not be the best. So you want to set your unique meta description that will entice users to click your result.

If you’re able to set your product meta descriptions in some kind of templated way, this is fine, to begin with - especially for large eCommerce stores - but ideally, you’ll want unique descriptions for each product. Try to include power words and unique selling points in your description if you can. Free delivery or returns? Make sure you include that.

A nice short optimized URL (or as best as you can get it)

Product page URLs can get very, very messy. Again this will largely depend on your eCommerce platform and how they handle product URLs. More often than not, you may be stuck with an SKU number in the URL, which is fine as long as other aspects are optimized.

But you’ll want to keep them as clear as possible. Below are good and bad examples of product URLs.

Now Amazon is probably the largest eCommerce website in the world, so optimizing URLs may be nigh on impossible for them to do.

Back to Top

3) Make the most of internal links

Product pages are not the easiest to build links to, so to combat this, you need to ensure you have a good number of internal links that flow through to your product pages. There are some easy ways you can do this.

Have your most important category and product pages in the main site navigation

Having your key product and category pages in the main navigation is a way to increase the internal authority of these pages. It’s also a clear signal to Google of the site hierarchy and what pages are important.

If we look at the below example from Not On The High Street, we can see a clear structure with main categories in the top navigation. A user is then easily able to navigate through the rest of the subcategories via a drop-down menu.

Implement breadcrumbs onto your category and product pages

Having breadcrumbs implemented isn’t just useful for user navigation, but it also gives Google a clear indication of the relationships between a category, subcategory, and product page. It also helps make the website very easy for Google to crawl quickly.

Going back to our BFGoodrich tire example, you can see breadcrumbs have been implemented on the product pages as well.

Once breadcrumbs have been implemented, they can be marked up with breadcrumb schema which will appear on the search results. This will give Google further information on the site structure and hierarchy. This schema can then also appear in search result pages like in the example below.

Link from your blog posts to product pages and vice versa

Even if you’re on an eCommerce website, you need a blog. If you have a library of relevant guides or blog posts, these are a great way to link to individual product pages and category pages with optimized and varied anchor text.

If you don’t have any, you can always start a blog and create some. Not only does this create additional opportunities for relevant internal links, but it also allows you to rank for additional related keywords your product page won’t be able to rank for.

A quick win will be to see what pages have the most backlinks pointing to them currently and seeing if you can add any relevant internal links to the product pages you are trying to push.

Back to Top

4) Do your best to avoid duplicate content

The bigger your eCommerce website, the bigger this issue could be. As your product catalog grows, it can be easy to cut corners to save time. This often comes in the form of using “templates” across your website. Templates ultimately can result in duplicate content.

For example, using the same 300-word template for the on-page content of each product page will seem like a great idea that saves you a bunch of time and stress. You may think changing the title, and odd keyword is enough to make the content unique. But you’d be wrong.

The more you do this, the bigger the issue will be. If you’re set on using templates, try to make 3-5 different ones instead of just using the same. Then, it may take more and effort, but make sure every title tag, description, and piece of on-page content is 100 percent unique.

Sticking with our example from Sams club, you can see each tire size variation has been addressed in the page title and meta description.

Sam's club also goes one step further and ensures that each description is different for each tire size.

For this to make the biggest impact quickly, go through your most important product pages that are ranking and driving traffic now and ensure the content is unique and optimized.

Back to Top

5) Make sure your product pages load quickly

Page speed will always be important for SEO and conversions, in fact, research has shown that 40 percent of shoppers will leave a page if it doesn’t load within three seconds.

Make sure you compress images and upload the right sizes, so they aren’t resized in the browser. Standard speed optimizations across your website will also help out here. Going back to the example of Sam's club product page, we can see there is room for improvement when you run this through Google's PageSpeed Insights report.

It will also be checking out the Core Web Vitals for your product pages, as these will potentially become very important in the coming years.

Back to Top

Transactions

If your product pages are getting traffic but not converting, something’s wrong. Whilst this could be pricing issues, or perhaps an issue with the website, more often than not it’s because users don’t feel comfortable making the purchase.

The below points will go a long way in convincing users to add to their basket and begin the checkout process.

6) Social Proof

Social proof can come in many forms and is one of the most effective ways to drive eCommerce sales. In fact, research has found that reviews make customers 71% more comfortable purchasing a product.

Social proof examples you can use could be:

Product reviews

Urgency signals

Showing stock levels

Showing awards your product has won

User-generated content

In the below example from Schuh we can see they clearly display reviews, and also use the urgency signal of “selling fast” which appears when you first load the page.

They also use other aspects of a great product page, such as highlighting free delivery and having multiple high-quality photographs. We’ll discuss these in more detail further on.

Social proof can have a massive impact on driving more transactions. Yieldify regularly runs these types of campaigns for their clients because they consistently get results. For example, they showed a message of reassurance to users that had been on a product page for 15 seconds without adding a product to their cart.

This visual displayed the widely-recognized Trustpilot logo, coupled with a 5* review score to build trust and encourage in-session conversions.

This campaign was particularly successful and led to an increase of more than 50% in both revenue and impressions. So even a fairly simple and broad social proof aspect used across your website has the potential to make a big impact.

Back to Top

7) Product Descriptions

Your product description is your chance to explain what the product is and why it’s worth purchasing. Product descriptions should supply customers with all the important information about the features and benefits of the product so they’re compelled to buy.

A common mistake here is to use the same product description that suppliers give you. You shouldn’t do this. For one, other sellers may be lazy and just copy and paste this as well. And two, it won’t do a good job of selling the product - most of the time, it will just explain what it is.

If we take a look at the below example from BPI sports, you can see the section in the red box nicely explains what the product contains, how the ingredients work, and the benefits. They also have another section (highlighted in green) that dives deeper into the benefits of the products.

This highlighted green section allows users to quickly digest the main benefits of the product. The keywords that have been bolded also point to features the user will want to see or use.

Back to Top

8) Product Photography

Product photography can sometimes be neglected. But that’s potentially another costly mistake you’re making.

Well-known eCommerce craft website Etsy found that the quality of images was the most important factor in an online sale for 90% of its users.

If we take a look at the Nike product page, you’ll see a multitude of product images from all different angles. The box highlighted in purple is a video that auto-plays when you land on the page.

Back to Top

9) Delivery & Return Information

Unforeseen delivery costs and unfavorable return policies are two main factors that cause cart abandonment. 60% off abandoned carts are due to extra costs (shipping fees), according to research from the Baymard Institute.

You need to ensure this information is clearly presented throughout the customer journey to avoid this from happening. One of the best places to do this is product pages.

At this point, users have seen the price of the product and will want to know how much it's going to cost to deliver. Going back to our Schuh example, you can see they highlight delivery costs in a number of different places to overcome this issue. They even highlight a 1-year return policy.

Back to Top

10) Cross-Sell Opportunities

If a user is viewing your product page, this presents a great opportunity to cross-sell other related products. This is a great tactic eCommerce websites can employ to increase their average order values.

In the below example, we can see beauty brand Glossier cleverly cross-selling sets that the current product being viewed is part of. They also advertise this with a money-saving incentive.

Yieldify again have run campaigns like this that have proved very successful for clients. For example, for SKYN Iceland, they set up a campaign targeting visitors purchasing Hydro Cool Firming Eye Gels. Once this product was added to the basket, they suggested a complementary product. This resulted in a +23.1% uplift in conversion rate and boosted order value by 14.94%.

Carefully think about your products and what would work well as sets or bundles or frequently bought together items that you can use as cross-sells. You can easily incorporate these into your product pages. If you’re not doing so, you risk missing out on potential incremental revenue.

Back to Top

11) Be instantly contactable

If a user has any last-minute questions or doubts, you need to be in a position to quickly answer these. This is where live chat software comes in very handy.

For instance, a user could be viewing a pair of shoes that have caught their attention, but they may have some final nagging questions that they want an answer to. Do they wait for a potential length email reply? Do they try social media? Call?

Most customers at this stage won't wait around for an email response or want to jump in a phone queue to ask a quick question about a product they are considering. When they can’t get an answer quickly, they’ll leave your site and look elsewhere.

Schuh has a live chat feature clearly present across every page on their website by placing it in its top navigation bar.

According to Moxie Software, 62% of customers expect live chat to be available on mobile devices, and if available, 82% would use it. So if you don’t have it, you’re again missing out on a potentially huge revenue-saving opportunity.

Live chat can also help you drive home those conversions. Research shows that live chatters spend 60% more per purchase and are 2.8 times more likely to end up purchasing a product. Added to this, if the session with a live chat agent is good, 38% of customers reported making a purchase.

Back to Top

Related Reading

10 eCommerce Marketing Experts Share Their Top Growth Strategy

How to Increase Ecommerce Sales: 12 Proven Tips & Strategies to Try

8 Timeless eCommerce Business Ideas You Can Start Today

The Ultimate e-Commerce Glossary: 50 e-Commerce Terms You Should Know

14 Best eCommerce Marketing Tips & Strategies to Boost Sales

Bringing it all together

So as you can see, product pages have a lot to offer eCommerce stores and should not be neglected.

Hopefully, these 11 pointers will give you some food for thought when it comes to your product pages. As a quick summary, here’s your checklist.

Add product schema if you can

Ensure you have well-optimized page titles, H1 tags, and meta descriptions

Don’t forget about internally linking to product pages

Try to avoid duplicate content

Make sure the page loads quickly

Add social proof to your product page

Create enticing product descriptions

Make sure you have a wide range of high-quality photos

Clearly display your delivery and returns policy

Cross-sell relevant products

Make sure you’re easy to contact!

Quickly check that you are doing all these things to see if you’re missing out on some quick wins.

Wondering how you make all of the above work together seamlessly? It can be tricky.

Use this free product page template from Yieldify for inspiration if you’re reviewing your product page designs. It contains all the aspects your product pages will need to convert more visitors into customers.

Written by our guest writer James Garnier, a Content Marketing Manager at Yieldify.

Yieldify gives eCommerce marketers total freedom to personalize their companies’ websites, 100% code-free.

.flex-container { align-items: center; display: flex; flex-direction: column; justify-content: center; } @media(min-width: 768px) { .flex-container { flex-direction: row; } } from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8230801 https://ift.tt/3vrBkUx via IFTTT

#IFTTT #RSSMix.com Mix ID 8230801