#chopped up panels might be better than full pages….

[fkapple]

Emily and Shane on aliens

#stardew #stardew fanart #stardew valley #stardew emily #stardew shane #fanart #comics #sdv fanart #sdv shane #sdv emily #sdv emilyxshane #Clint is Not Looking #Shane is #Emily’s conspiracy theories are probably benign #I’ll leave backgrounds to the professionals #slowly figuring out how to format these lol #chopped up panels might be better than full pages…. #doyyoyoy

[makeste]

BnHA Chapter 282: Aizawa Defeeted

Previously on BnHA: Oh my god do we even care about that at this point. Tomura made a speech; Gran Torino died; Deku lost his shit and tried to strangle Tomura to death with his bare hands; Ryuukyuu came back from Wherever She Was and tried to grab Tomura but he punched a hole through her giant hand; and now he’s grabbing his Quirk-Be-Gone bullets and is ready to cause some mayhem okay?? That about sum it up?? Is anyone even reading this?? CAN WE JUST GET ON WITH IT I’VE WAITED AN ENTIRE WEEK.

Today on BnHA: Well I guess let’s start with what doesn’t happen: Bakugou doesn’t lose his quirk. HE LUCKED OUT!!... for now, anyways. Because, thanks to a near-impossible-to-predict series of events (seriously, raise your hands if you had “Aizawa gets shot but goes full World War Z on his own ass” on your bingo card), Tomura has seemingly regained his regeneration powers, which means that his other quirks are probably back online as well! So we’ll see how that all goes. Anyway so in the meantime Shouto’s back, looking very mad that everyone temporarily forgot he was a main character. And Gigantomachia is back as well! Or almost, anyway. Also, you’ll never guess who broke another one of his arms! Go on, guess. But at least he still has the arm, though, which is more than we can say for certain other people’s limbs. Poor Aizawa is literally on his last leg. He and Tomura really got off on the wrong foot. He chopped his leg off, is what I’m saying. It’s that kind of chapter folks.

you guys I’m losing my whole fucking mind. I straight up deleted the tumblr app off my phone for 24 hours so that I wouldn’t be tempted to log in and risk potentially being spoiled. and I’m happy to say that it worked! so here we are now, completely spoiler free, and let me just say that if Horikoshi decides to cut back to Gunga Mountain now, I will either cry for hours or abandon the series forever and go do something more productive with the rest of my quarantine like learning how to play sad songs on the guitar

all right. here goes

so we’re opening with Deku, who is currently comprised of 100% rage and 0% mercy, and is doing that thing where only the whites of his eyes are visible. and basically he’s just thinking “I’VE REALLY GOT TO HOLD ON TO THIS GUY AND MAKE SURE HE DOESN’T DO ANYTHING ELSE HOMICIDAL.” which is a solid game plan, but perhaps not so easily accomplished

-- oh my god this poor kid is still in denial, I can’t. why are you doing this

is there even still a Gran Torino to tend to at this point? after Tomura bulldozed a hole through his torso, and you went and finished the job with your own fucking attack? sob

but I guess the law of Tragic Shounen Mentor Deaths mandates that Gran’s should be at least as drawn-out as Nighteye’s was, though. so he’s probably only Mostly Dead, which is still Slightly Alive if I remember my Princess Bride correctly, and I think I do

so now the rest of these stooges are finally catching up with us here

yes, my friends. a bullet. WELCOME TO MY LIFE FOR THE PAST FUCKING WEEK. anyways I have a LOT of pent-up energy here just fyi. there may be a lot of unnecessary screaming in this recap

FUCKING WYOMING SMASH Y’ALLSSSS

I HAVE NO FUCKING IDEA WHAT JUST HAPPENED SOB. DID HE JUST HAMMER FIST TOMURA’S HEAD INTO THE GROUND. DID HE SNAP HIS FUCKING NECK AT 100%. IN AN IDEAL WORLD HE WOULD HAVE JUST CHOPPED TOMURA’S ARMS OFF WHILE SOMEHOW MANAGING TO AVOID BREAKING ANY OF HIS OWN BONES IN THE PROCESS, BUT I HAVE A FEELING THIS SITUATION WILL NOT BE RESOLVED IN ANY KIND OF MANNER ONE WOULD CONSIDER “IDEAL”

(ETA: fun fact: this attack did absolutely nothing except make things approximately 100x worse. but you tried Deku. you tried.)

THE FUCK KIND OF PORTENTOUS BULLSHITTING TITLE IS THIS. OH MY GOD, I DON’T EVEN KNOW WHAT EMOTION I’M HAVING RIGHT NOW, IT’S JUST A LOT OF LOUD THOUGHTS

anyway so if you’re just joining us, Tomura just pulled two bullets out of his pocket, the good guys finally noticed, and then Deku did a smash and everything exploded. the radius of this attack actually looks wide enough to have potentially involved Aizawa, who probably does NOT want to get any debris in his eyes right now, and also Gran, who probably doesn’t particularly want to be hit by another deadly attack for the third time in the past ninety seconds. anyway so I guess what I’m trying to say here is WHAT WAS THE POINT OF THAT YOU LITTLE GREEN LUNATIC

AHHHHHH

he got the one!! the one that was in Tomura’s right hand!! but what about the one in his left ahhhhhhh

(ETA: lmao at Kacchan being the one to blow up the same bullet I was so sure he was going to be shot with. saw the writing on the wall, huh kid? what do we say to the god of foreshadowing?? ‘NOT TODAY.’ ...except that we’re still not actually out of the woods yet so you still better watch yourself lol.)

...

based on the font here, these are Tomura’s thoughts. which he is thinking immediately after getting the lower half of his jaw very painfully cronched by the VERY homicidal sixteen-year-old still clinging to him. anyway so Tomura’s thought processes are as inscrutable to me as ever lulz

and Deku’s arm looks broken again, yaaaaay. but at least it’s his left arm and not his right! so that’s nice. now they can match

[SHRIEKS]

HE YEETED IT. IT HAS BEEN YEETEDED. HE DID A YEET. [sobbing] he DiD a YeEt oH my GOD

DID IT HIT SOMETHING!?!?!?

my reading process here is as follows: 1) scroll down exactly one panel. 2) scream even though absolutely nothing has happened yet. 3) WRITE THAT DOWN 4) REPEAT

DKSFJLKHSDLGKHLI

DID IT HIT HIM!?!? DID IT GET HIM IN THE LEG SOB ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS. JUST LIKE THAT?? BOOM GUN BULLET LEG!!?

YOU GUYS IT REALLY HIT AIZAWA AND NO ONE DID A GODDAMN THING?? it wasn’t even drawn out or anything??? it just HAPPENED, within like four pages??? NO SLOW MO?? NOT EVEN A REACTION PANEL WHAT THE FUCK

son of a bitch I would so dearly like to grab Manual and RockLockRock’s heads right now and just conk them together real hard. YOU STUPID FUCKS sob YOU HAD ONE JOB!!! IT REALLY WAS JUST ONE!! AND YOU WERE SHARING IT!! SO IT’S MORE LIKE HALF A JOB!! AND YOU STILL COCKED IT UP IN ABSOLUTELY NO TIME AT ALL OH MY GOD

(ETA: they should blow this panel up and make it into a t-shirt and make Manual and RLR wear the shirts every day for the rest of their lives. half a job, you guys. please go away I cannot even look at you right now.)

FUCK MY EVERYTHING

(ETA: I still can’t figure out if this horrific angle is due to the earlier damage from the Noumu, or if Tomura really just flung the bullet THAT hard. honestly I’m surprised it didn’t just slice right through him with that kind of velocity. “no thanks because then I wouldn’t get to write a scene where he chops his own leg off” oh okay well when you put it that way, Horikoshi.)

if I recall correctly this is the leg that he said was “twisted”, no? yeesh. might just want to chop it off real quick, then. s’not like it’s doing you any more good. does anyone know if zombie rules apply or not with this sort of thing?? shit

?!?!

“THANKS”?? okay what. did it hit him or not??

-- oh my god WAIT. WAIT. WAIT. WAIT. WAIT. WAIT. WAIT

I WAS -- I WAS JOKING I -- FFFFFFFFKJK

jesus fucking christ. when I said “might just want to chop it off real quick” literally FOUR PARAGRAPHS AGO, I can tell you that the one thing I did NOT expect was for Aizawa to be all, “you know what, that’s a good idea”, and then YOINK OUT HIS TRUSTY HERO SHANK AND GO FULL 127 HOURS ON THIS BITCH. "LALALA WE’RE GONNA DO IT RATIONALLY TEEHEE” like excuse me, the fuck

anyways. I don’t even know what to say. thank you Aizawa’s leg for your sacrifice, and for always supporting him. literally. oh my god I came here ready for my son to enter a new phase of character development, and for the manga as a whole to enter a new phase of glorious, glorious angst. no one told me I’d be sitting here making puns instead. what a fine, confusing day

anyway though let’s just fucking hope it worked. and side note, if Aizawa Shouta really did chop off his own fucking leg just now and somehow STILL managed not to fucking blink, I think we might as well just go ahead and hand him the Biggest Badass In The Series award right now because no one is ever going to top that. nope. not happening

it is truly a testament to Shigaraki Tomura’s unfathomably mysterious sexy villain energy that he still somehow manages to look hot with only half a face

also no one in this manga actually feels pain, do they. not Deku, not Aizawa, not Tomura, no one. no wonder none of them have any self-preservation instincts to speak of

um

did someone just randomly explode just now. at this point it might as well happen, right

oh it’s the shockwave from Deku’s Wyoming attack, apparently. how nice of it to have a delayed reaction for absolutely no reason

anyway so Deku’s being flung back, but he’s grabbing onto Tomura again with Blackwhip. but oh shit you guys, if Tomura escapes Deku and Ryuukyuu’s clutches and still has any bullets left in his pocket, we may still be able to salvage this Bakugou quirk situation after all. would be nice to be able to actually do something with all of these “happy quirk losing day” balloons that I ordered

(ETA: actually, believe it or not I honestly like this better. Tomura using AFO was always the more dramatic option anyway. and now that we’ve done the bullet thing everyone has presumably let their guard down again, which, good.)

I love how Tomura apparently hasn’t noticed that Aizawa’s just amputated his own leg? to be fair he’s probably distracted by all the explosions and such

also gotta love how Deku’s arm-breaking attack seemingly just made everything worse for no reason. and also how Manual and RockLockRock are once again just standing there doing absolutely nothing

SO NOW GUESS WHAT’S HAPPENING

I MEAN IT! GUESS. BECAUSE YOUR GUESS IS AS GOOD AS MINE LOL

OH WELL OKAY THEN

just like we all saw coming!! ...

so is this Endeavor’s attack?? Bakugou’s?? either way, hot damn. fortunately for Tomura he is apparently operating under the same guidelines as the U.S. Federal Reserve, in which mutilated bills may still be exchanged at face value if more than 50% of a note identifiable as United States currency is present. basically as long as roughly half of him is still vaguely Tomura-shaped I assume he’ll be fine

(ETA: in hindsight I should have immediately been able to identify this as a Shouto attack based solely on how murdery it was lol.)

OH MY GODDDD

KRANCH?!?

OH MY GOD LOL WHAT. LOL. REMEMBER EVERYONE’S THEORIES FROM LIKE TWENTY YEARS AGO LOL. SHOUTO WHAT THE FUCK. DID YOU STOP FOR DRIVE THRU

AND MEANWHILE DEKU’S BACK ON THE SCENE GIVING ARGUABLY EVEN LESS FUCKS THAN BEFORE, IF SUCH A THING IS EVEN POSSIBLE. SO FAR THIS CHAPTER HAS PRECISELY ZERO THINGS THAT I ACTUALLY EXPECTED IN IT, WHICH IS VERY IMPRESSIVE

IT ALSO HAS A LOT OF SMASHING

a LOT. of smashing, guys. feels like... 60% smashing, 20% severed legs, 20% Kranch

-- oh no oh SHIT oh shit oh shit

(ETA: um so I really can’t tell how far that wound extends and whether or not Aizawa still has his right eye, shit.)

first of all how did Deku get here next to Aizawa when he was just over there with Tomura, what. and second, I think Aizawa just blinked, oh shit. probably on the verge of passing out after CHOPPING HIS OWN LEG OFF which STILL hasn’t been acknowledged yet?? did I just completely misinterpret all of that back there or what

(ETA: there was seriously so little attention called to this that I scrolled back up to confirm it probably like half a dozen times. apparently Horikoshi thinks that THE MOST BADASS THING TO EVER HAPPEN IN THE MANGA should be completely downplayed. whereas if it were me, there’d be an entire two page spread of JUST THE LEG. WITH MUSIC PLAYING. EVEN THOUGH IT’S A MANGA.)

YEPPPPPPP. fuck

look at him though. he’s so happy. this is why I can’t stay mad at you no matter how deranged you get you little maniac

so is quirk-stealing back on the menu then or what. don’t think I’ve been lulled into any kind of false sense of security by any of this lol

-- ARE WE SERIOUSLY CUTTING AWAY

so Todoroki really went after them ALONE. the better to put his dad right back up at the top of the Lose Your Quirk Sweepstakes finalists. well... second-to-top, maybe. like I said I will not be lulled

yuh-oh

why do I feel like the odds of Gigantomachia arriving to herald the end of this chapter just shot up DRAMATICALLY

so the next page is almost entirely just a list of cities that the news anchor is telling people to evacuate because they’re in Machia’s path. along with a bunch of dead heroes lying around everywhere, and Ochako being all ominous

(: weren’t they, though? heh. this is going to be so, so bad (: (: (:

-- fuuuuuuuuuuu

aaaaaand that’s it. hahahaha. okay then let’s summarize

Bakugou defied all expectations and kept his quirk (FOR NOW)!

Aizawa cut his own fucking leg off and it WASN’T EVEN REMOTELY ACKNOWLEDGED FOR REASONS I CAN’T UNDERSTAND (R.I.P. AIZAWA’S PRECIOUS LEG. YOU ALWAYS PUT YOUR BEST FOOT FORWARD)

Kranch showed up after 157 years and is probably wondering why the heck I keep calling him “Kranch” now. THINGS CHANGE WHEN YOU’RE MIA FOR A WHILE MY LITTLE STARBUCKS CHRISTMAS CUP

Deku broke his arm for the 78th time

Tomura regenerated but seems to think Aizawa’s quirk is actually gone for good, which I’m pretty sure it’s not. so if they can keep him from destroying everything long enough for Aizawa to turn it back on again, we might possibly still survive this

and lastly, Machia is about to kill all of these stupid people frolicking around outside of this fitness club who are probably so proud of themselves for not being glued to their phones 24/7 because they prefer to LIVE LIFE IN THE MOMENT, THANK YOU VERY MUCH. well that’s on you my friends. at least it’ll be a quick death. ffff

#bnha 282 #aizawa shouta #shigaraki tomura #midoriya izuku #todoroki shouto #bnha #boku no hero academia #bnha spoilers #mha spoilers #bnha manga spoilers #makeste reads bnha #sorry for all the leg puns #it's in my nature #I can't help it if I find this kind of situation humerus #...oh no wait that's arms #dammit

[theonetheycallhannah]

The Treatment of Capt. Syverson- Chapter Three: Therapeutic Activity

Pairing: Captain “Sy” Syverson x OFC (Shane Benton)

Summary: Tensions reach a boiling point during treatment one evening, Shane goes to her own veteran for advice, and takes the first step toward happiness…hoping beyond hope that everything doesn’t blow up in her face.

Masterlist with links to all parts HERE!

Word Count: 2.4k

Warnings: None, yet… ;) But maybe I should be putting language warnings in here…there are some bad words. And not to spoil but…there might be a bit of kissing in this one…

Author’s Note: Guys, I cannot stress to you enough how much I am enjoying telling this story. My goodness. To sort of combine my passions of writing and Henry with something I know so well like therapy (I’m a secretary like Heather, not a therapist), it really just makes me happy. The next chapter is already done, also, it was initially part of this chapter, but it felt too long, so I’ll be posting it separately later. I know, I’m a tease. Have Henry spank me. Lol.

Disclaimer: Unfortunately for me, Henry is not mine, le sigh, and all mention of him, his characters, any characters from his films, or his precious doggy, Kal, are strictly for transformative and recreational use. I neither ask for, nor accept payment for the work I post on Tumblr or AO3. Unbeta’d because this is for fun and escapism.

Tags:

@onlyhenrys

@cavillryarchive

@summersong69

@titty-teetee

@bloodyinspiredfuck

"This sounds…kinda dumb…" Sy expressed his thoughts on today's warm up with Shane.

"Oh, trust me, it looks even dumber than it sounds. But it works. And it's easier on your knees than doing it the right way. You ready?" he looked at the treadmill, inclined at 3% grade as if it was Everest itself, and looked back at her. "I'll start slow." she raised her eyebrows at him.

"You know just what to say to a girl." he teased as he stepped up, still gingerly, even after eight weeks of therapy. Crutches mercifully jettisoned two weeks ago. He was on his way to being his fighting fit self. With a foot on either track beside the belt, but facing away from the control panel, he waited for her to press start. He took a breath and nodded.

"Test the belt with your bad foot first, and then when you're ready, step down with it. Remember what I've told you about which foot should lead when ascending and descending stairs or hills?"

"Good go to Heaven, Bad go to Hell. So I go up with the good leg and go down with the bad leg."

"A+ student. Okay, when you're ready…any time…Sy, this is an hour session…I have to kick you out in 55 minutes…chop chop." she cajoled him, but he wasn't budging.

"It feels…weird going this way, Shane." If she had been a less kind person, she would have called it whining…she called it nothing, instead.

"I know. Do you need to walk backwards around the clinic a little more to get you used to that sensation?"

"Hell yeah. If that means you're gonna spot me like you did before…felt kinda like dancin'." it was a perfectly legitimate and above-board treatment strategy. They stood back to back, Shane guiding Sy as he practiced walking backward and pushing off with the extensor muscle group, which had been weak. Sy had suggested holding hands, but Shane had compromised with the idea to link arms. Not that she wasn't dying to hold his hand…she was. But that had not been the time. The time was still weeks away. At least.

"I was thinking I'd have you try it with Jordan. He's got a free hour right now. And I can assess your technique. How does that sound, Twinkle Toed Romeo?" Immediately he placed a tentative foot down onto the slow moving belt trying to adjust to the odd sensation of walking up a hill backward.

"Ah, so I now know that all I have to do to get you to do something silly is threaten you with Jordan. Filing that away for a rainy day."

"Come on, you're breakin' my heart, sunshine."

"Aww, don't be ridiculous. I've seen therapists do way more embarrassing things to their patients in the name of treatment."

"Tell me!"

"Sorry, but it's classified information. Protected under the Health Insurance Privacy and Portability Act. I could literally get fired for telling you, and there are way cooler things to get fired for!" She'd always said it. And she meant it. She didn't fool around when it came to HIPPA, and there was no way she was gonna lose her job over a stupid slip like that.

"Any examples of things you'd rather get fired for?"

She thought for a few minutes. She used to have a list.

"Hmm, telling off my bitch of a boss," he looked shocked at her use of a bad language word, which he'd never heard from her. She nodded. "Telling off an asshole patient," sleeping with a patient…

"What about sleeping with a patient?" It was late in the day, the only person still there was Heather in the office, and a few therapists still documenting. Nobody in the gym to hear him echo the thoughts in her head. As if he could read them as clearly as a page in a book. Large print. She looked at him in shock.

"Sorry. That was over the line."

"It was…but…"

"But?"

"But…it would not be the least cool reason to get fired."

"It wouldn't?" she shook her head, reluctantly.

"Especially if the patient was…amazing, and kind, and…fucking gorgeous…"

"Young lady, that language today, I have never!" he exclaimed clutching at his broad and beautiful chest.

"I know, but, Sy…this is all hypothetical, and theoretical, and IF I was GOING to get fired how would I CHOOSE for it to happen and WHAT policy I would go against. People don't just CHOOSE to be fired, you know?" she was nervous and rambling.

"You know what people also don't choose? Who they care about, and have feelin's for. Who they--"

"Don't finish that sentence, Sy." She couldn't hear him say the word he was going to say. She couldn't let him start that. Not when there was too much complicating their situation.

She walked off to her treatment room, needing some space.  Some time.

She didn't get that space or time. Sy hobbled in behind her, looking like a man on a mission. And she knew from his war stories that his missions tended to be successful…even the one that got him his walking papers wasn't a total loss.

"Sy, you still had like, five minutes on the tr--"

His big hands found the sweet spot where her neck met her skull. He took a big breath and closed the distance between them, his lips landing light as feathers on hers, her soft skin welcoming the roughness of his beard, though everything else about the kiss was terribly gentle. Almost chaste. Even his beard wasn't so rough that she worried about beard burn…she'd be filing that away for later, as well. Against her willpower and better judgement but in full cooperation with her desires and instincts she began kissing him back, daring to deepen it by opening their mouths a bit, and sliding her hands up the back of his red tee that sported a black skull. All of his shirts were entirely too tight, but you'd never catch her complaining. Even after several months away from active duty and really, most activity at all, his body was still so solid and powerful.

"Ain't that a daisy…Fuck, I've wanted to do that since my first appointment." he chuckled, lightly.

"Sy…"

"Don't. Don't try to argue or tell me you don't feel it. This energy between us. I've seen it in your eyes, Shane. I've felt it when you touch me. It ain't nothin, sunshine. It's a whole lotta somethin'."

"I know, but I need this job. And I WANT this job. Being a therapist is the only thing I've ever wanted to do. Helping people. People like you. Getting them better. It's what I was meant to do. And there's no place like this in the area for me to treat such a diverse clientele and build my skill set. It's not without it's problems, but it's where I'm meant to be."

"I get that. And you should do what you were called to do. You're too good at this not to do it. But Shane, isn't it worth pushing back on some policy if it could mean you get to have some personal happiness, too?"

"I'm worried they'll make me choose." Actually, it was more than that. She was worried about which choice she'd make. Giving up a ten-year career with excellent benefits despite its pitfalls, or giving up someone she could hardly stop thinking about, who made her heart pound when he smiled, and who was rapidly shaping up to be someone she could see herself sharing a life with…making either choice terrified her for very different reasons.

"You shouldn't have to choose. Any boss who'd make you deny yourself what we could have just because of some ridiculous policy…well, they ain't worth the gas that brought 'em to work today. Y'understand me?"

She nodded, smirking at his idiom, "You don't know my boss."

"Well, maybe I oughta GET to know her, if it's like that. I have a way of throwin' my weight around, case ya hadn't noticed." he shot her a smug grin.

"Ya don't say?" she retorted, brimming with sarcasm, literally still wrapped in the evidence of said weight in the form of his muscular arms, warm and thick, encircling her. Even though she felt like her life was up in the air, she had never felt more safe. "I'll try to have a chat with her about it this week. Our schedules rarely align, and usually that's how I like it, but I'll try to move some things around if nothing naturally falls into place."

"I'll be happy to lend my voice or even come talk to her, if need be." he offered, ever the gentleman.

"I appreciate that, Sy, truly. But I think it would be best not to involve you unless it becomes absolutely necessary. We have several more treatments to get through today, though. You didn't finish on the tread mill, do you think you're warmed up enough?"

"Oh, darlin', I'm plenty warm." he grinned down at her sliding a hand down her side.

"Shit, am I gonna have to start being extra careful with what I say to you until this gets sorted?"

"I really doubt it'll matter, Shane. Ain't much you can say I can't make dirty." she could tell by the satisfaction on his face that this was a point of pride for him.

"Lay down and shut up."

"Yes, MA'AM!" he complied with a little too much enthusiasm. She didn't know whether to roll her eyes with amusement or grow increasingly feral…apparently there was room for both as long as she didn't act on the latter. Yet.

~~~~~~~~

She dismissed Sy for the day, instructing him to behave himself until she gave him the all clear, and even then, if she got the green light to see him outside of therapy, sessions would still be about getting him stronger, and not flirting. Or at least mostly. They settled on a 90/10 ratio by the end. She was a weak woman.

She went into the office where one of the senior therapists, Anita, was still charting and snacking on some pretzels.

"How was your day, Nita?" she asked affectionately. Anita had been her mentor since she started with the clinic over ten years ago, and was now part time, flexing toward retirement. She'd miss her.

"Oh, long, Miss Shane. As they tend to be more and more these days. What about yours?"

"Ah…just…nothin'." she shouldn't go into it all until she talked to Susan, their boss.

"Mmm, that's no nothing nothin', that's a something nothin'. Come on, kiddo. Spill." she offered Shane one of her pretzels and kicked out the chair next to her. Again, she was a weak woman. She took a pretzel, sat, and chewed it for a moment, collecting her words.

"What do you think about…starting relationships with patients?" she searched her reaction for any snap judgement or emotion, but only a narrowing of her eyes occurred.

"Is this about that Captain Sexypants who just left?"

"I'm going to kill Heather. I'm not the one who came up with that nickname and I'm not the one who started the whole having feelings conversation. I was going to be miserable until he was discharged, at least."

"Why would you need to make yourself miserable, Shane?"

"Because the policy. About dating patients."

"Technically the policy only says you shouldn't treat family/close friends if you feel you wouldn't be able to maintain objectivity or would be uncomfortable yourself. But that you should disclose any relationship to your supervisor for review."

"See, what's Susan gonna say?"

"Who cares? The policy is the law. And the board of directors governs the policy. Not her. Tell her in an email if you can't work out a time to talk to her before you see him next. Hell, I sent my boss a memo back when I started dating Ron. And look at us now! 20 years strong."

"No way!?" Shane was flabbergasted. She had never known that Anita's husband Ron had once been her patient.

"Oh yes. I wasn't long out of PT school, my first husband had passed away and I needed an income, so I got my PT license and about a year into working here, Ron got put on my schedule. I knew from the eval, he was meant for me. So I typed up a memo, sent it to Morton, our boss at the time, and told Ron I was free on Friday after work."

"Sy just…I don't know, we have this…connection…a spark. I've never felt it with anyone else."

"Are you concerned that seeing him socially would affect how you treat him here?"

"I'm more worried keeping my feelings for him bottled up while I treat him will get so distracting I'll become less effective."

"Well, then, if you get any push back, tell Susan that." Anita said. "Just be forthright. Honest. And speak with integrity. She'll have no cause to refute it, then. And send it tonight."

"Okay. Thanks Anita. You're the best."

~~~~~~~~~

Shane spent too long, probably an hour, at least, drafting her email to Susan. It read:

To: Susan DeForrest

From: Shane Benton

Subject: Re: Treatment Policy

Susan,

I wanted to bring to your attention a situation that has presented itself with one of my patients. I have been treating him almost exclusively for several weeks now, apart from my week on PTO, and he has progressed to both of our satisfaction as well as the ordering physician. However, we have come to be quite friendly and he has expressed great interest in seeing me outside of therapy. This is something that I too would like to engage in, and I plan to accept the next time I speak with him.

From my understanding of the policy, the only thing that would prevent me from treating him as a social acquaintance would be my own comfort level and ability to remain objective. I have every confidence that my objectivity regarding his case will remain intact. I am also completely comfortable with it, and if that changes, I will transfer him to another therapist. Furthermore, I have no doubts that I will be able to maintain the highest level of professionalism throughout our treatments.

Thank you, and if you feel we need to discuss any of this further, please let me know.

~Shane Benton, DPT

And send…whew. She needed a big glass of wine tonight.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Up Next: Chapter Four- E-Stim

#netflix sand castle #sand castle #henry cavill #henry cavill fanfic #henry cavill x ofc #captain syverson #captain syverson fanfic #captain syverson x ofc

[youngavengerscameos]

I make no secret of the fact that I love Loki. They’re tied with America as my favorite Young Avenger, and they're one of my favorite comic characters period. Reading War Scrolls #2 sparked a rant about different authors treatment of him since ya v2, which is under the cut

TLDR; I despise what Jason Aaron has done with Loki in The Mighty Thor, and War Scrolls #2 felt like it was trying to bridge Aaron’s terrible Loki take with the good one from ya v2 and Agent of Asgard and lead back on a better path, and it hit me right in the heart and gives me hope for Loki’s future. I really, really hope Oliveira gets to write more about any and all of the Young Avengers in the future, and getting to see more of Robles art would be a godsend

A lot of my love for Loki comes down to 1 thing: The only thing I love more than a well written antihero is a well written redemption arc. And Loki’s redemption arc, from Journey into Mystery to Young Avengers v2 to Agent of Asgard is one of the most well crafted I’ve ever encountered in any form of media. The form Loki is left in at the end of Agent of Asgard as the Goddess of Stories is my favorite version of the character (and frankly is still how I conceptualize them). God of Stories Loki is a version of the character rife with possibilities for new stories, and a great way to return them to their mythological trickster, nether good nor evil roots

And to see the VERY NEXT AUTHOR completely disregard all of that was incredibly frustrating. I love how Jason Aaron wrote Jane Foster!Thor in his run on The Mighty Thor. But the way he’s utilized Loki’s character is pathetically lazy. He reverts Loki to a villain, and doesn’t even bother to show WHY on page. If we’d seen on the page why Loki’s working with the bad guys, why he thinks he’s doing the right thing, what he hopes to achieve, how he became like this again, it would be one thing. But to utterly disregard the character’s new status quo and revert them to the very fate they spent the last 3 ENTIRE SERIES fighting against and not even have the writing chops to do it on page, to explain why or what happened, no, it just happens off panel, is such a slap in the face to the multiple authors who spent so long redirecting the character

(Not to mention using a trickster character as a simple, obvious double agent is the laziest way to write a trickster ever. It comes nowhere close to utilizing Loki to their full potential. If they’re not AT LEAST a quadruple agent with tons of seemingly contradictory plots going at once, you’re not trying hard enough)

Aaron dropped the occasional hint that Loki was working on some grand plan, and yet those hints have come to nothing. There was no grand plan Aaron was waiting to reveal. Loki doesn't actually do anything or have any affect on anything. Aaron shat on everything that’s been done with Loki’s character for years for no pay off.

Which is frustrating as hell, but then I got to The Might Thor #700 and read this:

The narrators here are the Norns, the Fates who take on a storytelling role. To not just disregard everything the previous authors have done, but to turn it on its head and actively mock it on the page is infuriating. Loki changes her own fate, she becomes the Goddess of Stories, and THE VERY NEXT AUTHOR goes “lol no you can’t do that and you’re delusional for even trying.” This issue it the final straw that makes Aaron’s writing not just a bad Loki take but an truly terrible one. He doesn’t just disregard the previous stories, he actively works against them. And all for nothing

Nothing comes of all this. Nothing. Loki has no effect on the War of the Realms. There’s no reason for him even to be here. Aaron backtracks years of character development for nothing.

Spoilers for War of the Realms: and then he kills off Loki (again). And I didn’t even care anymore. He killed off my favorite character and I actually though “hey this might be a good thing, maybe she can get a fresh start. Again”

How badly are you fucking up as an author if you kill off a favorite character and I don’t even care?

Which brings us to War Scrolls #2. This short story feels like an attempt to bridge Aaron’s pathetically awful, lazy, empty version of Loki with the actually meaningful one from ya v2 and Agent of Asgard by an author who actually gives a shit about the character. It was an emotional sucker punch. It made me feel more in 10 pages than Aaron has done in hundreds of pages. Oliveira packs so much amazing content into so few pages, and Robles art is beautiful and helps it hit even harder. I really really hope we get to see more of their work, because it’s obvious how much they care about these characters

#young avengers #agent of asgard #loki #comic: war scrolls #comic: The mighty Thor #nicole chatters #this isn't even touching on Aaron's ignoring of Loki's queerness #because GOD that is also infuriating in a way that deserves its own giant rant #he writes with the most gendered language possible in the English language and ALWAYS refers to Loki as male every chance he gets #Is it really that difficult for you to acknowledge that Loki's a girl sometimes????

[thebibliomancer]

Essential Avengers: Avengers Annual #7 + Marvel Two-In-One Annual #2

December, 1977

A joyous various winter type time period for you and yours!

Due to these issues issues coincidentally falling in December and also wanting to get back to the main book as soon as possible, I’m doubling up issues in this post. It’s a Yule-esque miracle, perhaps.

I wanted to get this out last Friday but I couldn’t make it in time before I had to visit my family for pre-Christmas.

Anyway, lets get into it.

The Avengers and Captain Marvel and some jerk named Adam Warlock team up to fight Thanos.

We’ve seen this before but the Avengers got kicked off the field so Drax and Captain Marvel got to hog all the Thanos to themselves. Maybe they’ll get their asses beat by him personally this time.

Dangit, maybe I should have saved this for when Infinity War came out? Eh. I can always cover Infinity Gauntlet. Its Avengers-adjacent.

Without further ado, let us commence without stealing someone’s catchphrase.

We start with Adam Warlock being moody and in space, the two prime facets of his character.

In brief, Adam Warlock was created by evil scientists to be the Perfect Man. He was then beaten near death by Thor and went back to his cocoon. Later, the High Evolutionary named him Warlock, gave him the Soul Gem, and sent him to Counter-Earth to become its champion where he gained the name Adam. Then he became involved in a predestination paradox with his evil future self the Magus and had to murder himself in the future to prevent his evil future self from existing. Thanos helped with this for his own nefarious purposes.

Warlock has been tracking Thanos, following the trail of destruction as it were. But he finds Gamora, Thanos’ most faithful servant.

Gamora is a lot different than in the movies. For one thing, she’s dying.

She discovered his secret plan of Stellar Genocide to wipe out all life and so he left her for dead.

Gamora: “He’s quite mad, you know.”

She says, master of understatement.

Gamora also reveals that the only person Thanos fears is... ADAM WARLOCK.

Warlock swears he’ll hunt down Thanos. But he won’t do it alone. bwoop. His forehead jewel eats Gamora’s soul. As it do.

He also scream exposits at no-one that he thought Thanos was a friend but Chaos and Order whispered to him while he slept that Thanos was a betrayer and also that Warlock is the Champion of Life, the natural foe to Thanos, Champion of Death.

Usually its worrying when voices tell you not to trust your friends but Warlock is kind of intense so I won’t tell him if you won’t.

Shouting into the void done, Warlock heads off to Earth. Which is a good segue for the Avengers portion of this Avengers Annual.

It is a dark and stormy night. Iron Man is brooding by the window. Scarlet Witch is trying to get Vision to go talk to him. And Beast has revised his policy on kissing and telling with Cap apparently into it.

Scarlet Witch finally convinces Vision to talk to Iron Man by basically saying they’re the same kind of stubborn stoic jerk who hides their emotions and Vision is like fine geez good logic.

Iron Man doesn’t really have an answer to give though. He just has a foreboding feeling.

Iron Man: “It’s just that ever since I arrived here tonight, I’ve had this unexplainable feeling of danger -- of forces at play about me. I don’t want to be here but I can’t bring myself to leave!”

Captain Marvel: “That’s because you are meant to be here this night, just as we are.”

CAPTAIN MARVEL (not those ones) AND MOONDRAGON!

Coming in through the window. And dripping on the carpet. Because fuck politeness, amirite?

It took all of my willpower to not edit this panel to have Tony say “Iron nipples... rigid! They sense danger!”

Because why would you choose that panel and pose to detail his chest dials?

I wonder how awkward it is for Iron Man and Moondragon to be in the same room. He was kind of an ass to her the majority of the short time she was on the team. And then she sabotaged his new roster by quitting and then convincing Thor and Hellcat to also quit.

Maybe that’s why it seems like they’re glaring at each other. Or perhaps Tony is just mad she’s taller than him.

Anyway, weird feelings are going around because Captain Marvel and Moondragon were also drawn to the mansion with a premonition that their powers would be needed.

This same premonition must have also drawn part-time Avenger Thor here.

‘No, I just wanted to hear stories about Beast’s love life. Now was this hair curling an euphemism or did grooming serve as foreplay in this encounter?’ Thor might have said.

Okay. Maybe I’m curious. Don’t judge me.

Anyway, the Avengers and guests ponder what kind of horror might be approaching that would need such an assemblage to stop.

A few hundred light-years away, a Playstation rendered TIE Fighter shoots a beam at a star and then the star kerplooies.

And a few hundred light-years back, Moondragon feels millions of voices cry out in terror and then were suddenly silenced.

I’m not being flippant. She basically Obi-wans.

Beast is being flippant. Doing card tricks and laughing off the idea of psychic screams and talking winds. This from the guy who was on a team with Professor X and Jean Grey. Won’t be laughing once Jean pulls the same shit on a different star, I tell you that.

He also won’t be laughing right now because Adam Warlock appears out of nowhere just to sass Beast.

I truly believe Adam Warlock’s true superpower is drama. He’s even got his own weird speech bubble quirk.

Anyway, he’s another person for this assemblage. But he also brings word of their common foe: THANOS.

Apparently it was supposed to be sort of a surprise? They haven’t said his name until now but if you’ve read any of the stuff Adam Warlock appeared in you’d recognize that Gamora worked for Thanos and the distinctive shape of Thanos’ ship, which is not actually a poorly rendered TIE Fighter. Its actually much bigger.

If you haven’t read any of the previous Adam Warlock stuff well then sucks to be you. He’s barely introduced here in this Avengers book.

But Thanos? Thanos gets a whole page of recap and introduction. By Adam Warlock. His best frenemy.

What’s weird is that apparently everyone is making faces like ‘yeah we know all this already’ and Warlock sees those faces but just keeps plunging on anyway.

So yeah we get through the stuff where he turned into a giant wireframe head in space and Captain Marvel chopped a Cosmic Cube to bits.

Now apparently Thanos is one of those villains who doesn’t think they could possibly lose but sets up some contingencies just in case. See also: Ultron.

Being ungodded left Thanos floating helplessly in space. And apparently he can breath in space. But then his not TIE-ship retrieved him and he began scheming anew.

But here’s the problem (from Thanos’ perspective): Death abandoned him for his failure. So he decided he needed a grand romantic gesture to win her back. Aka: where most of Thanos’ horrible atrocities start.

And on a scroll from a dead world, he found his answer. And the answer is what his answer always is. Gathering the six shiny things.

Yup.

This is the first time Thanos gathers the Soul Gems. Later to be called Infinity Gems once Thanos in a later story realizes he kind of underestimated them.

Actually the Infinity Gems got a bit of play before they were revealed to be Collect Them All Become God powerful. The Elders once tried to use them to kill Galactus because they were mad he was older than they were.

We get a brief montage of Thanos retrieving all the Gems. Stealing one from the Stranger, liberating another from a prison satellite, finding one in a cave, getting one as an epic drop from killing a monster named Xiambor, and finding one on the Moon because of course there’s one on the Moon.

The final one he was afraid to make a grab for because it was Adam Warlock’s Soul Gem and could steal Souls.

Instead, Thanos pretended to be his friend, worked together with him to defeat Warlock’s evil future self Magus because comics, and secretly siphoned off some energy from Warlock’s forehead bling without Warlock even knowing.

And then he transferred those energies and the energies of the other five Gems into a giant synthetic Gem. A truly, truly outrageous plan.

Truly a better telling of how he collected six things then the full miniseries that preceded Infinity Gauntlet and was just Thanos being smarter, stronger and more handsome than anyone else ever. I heard Thanos was shredded. I heard he had an eight pack. Etc.

When Gamora discovered that he planned on blowing up every star, she tried to backstab him but she was no match alas.

So most of this exposition Warlock learned by eating her soul with his forehead.

Meanwhile, hundreds of light years away, Pip the Troll arrives at Thanos’ Sanctuary ship to pay the “old gang” a visit. Nobody seems to be home so Pip loudly talks to himself, objectifying Gamora and insulting Thanos and basically digging himself into a hole.

I mean, in fairness, Thanos would have killed him either way. Now that he doesn’t need to pretend to be nice to Warlock, there’s no need to be civil to Pip either.

Lets just assume that something bad happens off-screen. Because we are changing scenes again.

So we have Thanos a) doing something crazy as a grand romantic gesture for Death and b) gathering several powerful gems. What’s next on our Thanos bingo game?

Invading Earth with a giant space armada? -checks- Yup.

And its such a giant space armada its twice the size of the giant Skrull armada from the Kree-Skrull War. These imaginary numbers are way bigger than those imaginary numbers!

(How does Thanos keep getting people to sign up with him if he inevitably leads them to their deaths and then laughs at them??)

The Avengers prepare to go fight an entire space armada by themselves again (seriously, start building space defenses, the Earth). And Adam Warlock just skips out without so much as a goodbye.

As the heroes prepare to go into battle we get some good character beats from each of them. And they each kind of lead into each other. Its good stuff.

Moondragon ponders how Thanos always shatters any peace she finds. Later on down the line, he even interrupts a date with her girlfriend. Thanos is the worst. Anyway, he also killed her family and caused her to be adopted by Mentor of Titan so really he’s always been screwing up her life.

Iron Man grapples with fear. He’s going to fight Thanos for a fourth time and wonders if he should have his head examined. Each time he’s fought Thanos he barely survived. And the last time the Avengers fought Thanos, they were only able to thwart his schemes. They didn’t even fight the man. Are the Avengers just heading for an unmarked grave among the stars?

(Maybe I should have saved this for Infinity War, geez)

Captain Marvel ponders how little they truly know about Thanos. And also he hugged Death and still lives. Whats the deal with that?

Thor is just thinking ‘man its about time I get to deck this Thanos fellow in the face.’

Vision wondering if decking Thanos will even win the day. Thanos is in effect a mutant demi-god. Because apparently the Titans of Titan are an evolved offshoot of the gods of Olympus. Which I guess makes Hercules and Thanos related? And also, wuh?

Captain America wishes they had more information about Thanos’ firepower and plans. But also suspects that Warlock knew more than he let on. Which will continue to be Cap’s frustration every time he ever works with Adam Warlock, who tends to use the superheroes of Marvel as disposable pawns in his inscrutable chess games.

Beast wonders who Adam Warlock even is. He was skeptical about this whole thing until he looked in Warlock’s eyes, the eyes of someone who has seen life, death, and infinity.

Scarlet Witch though is thinking that Adam Warlock is totally evil and that he and his Soul Gem could one day prove to be their foe.

And hey. She isn’t even wrong. Because Adam Warlock’s Evil side the Magus tries to take over the universe. And his ostensible Good side? She tries to KILL EVERYONE.

I sometimes think Adam Warlock only ever falls mostly on the side of good because of spite against people that side with evil.

And then the time for pondering ends. GIANT SPACE FLEET.

God. What a spread.

The Avengers really should start evolving their strategies against massive space invasions because the plan is still to send Thor and Iron Man out the airlock to dogfight spaceships individually while the Avengers’ shuttlecraft makes a run for Thanos’s H-shaped flagship.

A massive laser cannon aimed at space would be really helpful right now but some jerk time traveler never lets us have one.

Oh. And this is kind of a suicide mission. In that the Avengers looked at the odds and thought welp we’re boned. And decided to snatch victory from the jaws of numerical disadvantage anyway even in dying.

Wait, where the shit is Wonder Man? He usually has something to say about the Avengers grimly and dutifully marching off to their deaths. Usually of the ‘I wish that were me I me I don’t want to die but I do kind of want to retain dignity while I rush into death anyway.’

Anyway. Thor starts breaking space stuff FOR MIDGARD! FOR ASGARD! FOR LIFE! while Iron Man... has to be more indirect. Since repulsors are laser punches, he uses them to redirect the enemy’s ionic rays back into their allies.

Although if you think about it, hitting a spaceship going as fast as it is with a punch laser would probably punch a hole in the hull. No sense putting an extra step into it.

And technically with no sound in space, this would be more accurate:

Just Thor loudly screaming nothing as aliens asphyxiate.

Anyway.

With exactly two people running distraction (even though Captain Marvel can also fly through space I guess they need to keep some muscle to fight Thanos), the Avengers reach Sanctuary II.

Creating a kind of seal with the bomb bay doors somehow, Captain Marvel blasts a hole in the hull.

Beast: “I imagine a small army of aliens is waiting below to massacre us.”

Captain America: “So what are we waiting for, Avengers? LET’S GO!”

Nice.

Just wading hip deep into an army of alien malcontents. Now that’s cosmic.

If Avengers: Infinity War doesn’t have Vision fist a crocodile man, then the Marvel Cinematic Universe has failed.

Anyway, the Avengers do their Avenger things. Beast acrobats around and makes the wise-cracks.

Vision just stands still and lets someone shoot through him. As I get further and further into this liveblog I realize more and more how much Vision can just passively win battles and realize where Wonder Man got the idea from during his pacifism phase.

Scarlet Witch does a probability hex at a pig/bug/devil alien wearing no pants but wearing boots and a belt and bling to make his gun hand explode.

Moondragon smugly asserts that she needs no help. And she also reaches an armament control panel so she can turn the Sanctuary II’s guns against the rest of the fleet.

Also, there’s a giant cyborg space ape named QU’LAR THE MASSIVE.

He lasts for exactly two panels before Captain Marvel tells him to sit on it and possibly ruptures every one of Qu’lar’s organs.

Related to this, it strikes Captain Marvel that things have been a bit too... easy. It was too easy to get through the Sanctuary II’s hull. Too easy to reach it in the first place. And too easy to beat up Thanos’ forces.

If Thanos wanted to stop them, wouldn’t he be throwing worse at them?

He barges into the ship’s central section expecting the other shoe to drop.

Oh hey. Its empty. Well, except for Adam Warlock and Pip the Troll.

Adam Warlock: “His name was Pip, and he was my friend. Perhaps my only friend. He was joy and light to my darkness and damnation. He was unique among the heavens... and Thanos destroyed his mind and left him for me to find. First Gamora, now Pip. All about me those I love are falling. This cannot be allowed to go on. Nor, by my Gem, shall it!”

And Adam Warlock om nom noms Pip the Troll’s soul.

Alas, Pip. You were. Someone who existed. And who I have no strong feelings about at all. I guess Warlock’s Good side trying to kill everyone makes more sense if Pip was his idea of joy and light.

Anyway, by eating Pip’s soul, Warlock now knows what Thanos is really up to. Because Thanos did the villain thing and monologued his plans before destroying Pip’s brains. And Warlock absorbed that knowledge when he ate his soul.

So why did Thanos brag about his plans and then leave Pip’s husk for Warlock to find and learn from? Shrug. Thanos planting the seeds to his own destruction is ridiculously common even at this point. Its why he becomes a farmer later. He got so much experience with planting.

Anyway, Thanos is in an exact replica of his ship (Sanctuary III?) on the other side of the sun. The flagship and the fleet and all was just a distraction.

Of course, the fleet lured the Avengers out here in the first place. If he had just snuck up on the sun and destroyed it, he might have gotten away with it. More seed planting, perhaps.

But even as Warlock and Marvel approach the apparent real Sanctuary II, it fires its Starkiller at the Sun and starts suncrushing it.

The Sun goes red and purple and begins to flare. Eight minutes later, some astronomers are really going to freak.

But not if Captain Marvel has anything to say about it! He full-speed rams into the ion-laser projector that Thanos’ big synthetic Soul Gem was housed on.

I mean, maybe aim for the big gem next time, Marv?

Because Thanos is like oh darn I guess I’ll just replace the projector and get back to murdering stars?

Then Adam Warlock finally catches up and proclaims that he’s going to kill Thanos.

He gets one punch in before Thanos counterattacks and mortally wounds Warlock.

And since he’s dying anyway, Thanos asks if he’ll rely a message to Death.

Thanos: “Tell her I follow shortly behind you, bringing an offering of undreamed of magnitude... the stars!”

-Warlock plops to the ground, probably not going to deliver that message at all-

Thanos actually seems kind of disappointed on how smoothly this is going. He expected the Champion of Life to be more of a challenge.

THEN THOR AND IRON MAN BURST IN

Because its just one thing after another with heroes.

While Thor and Thanos exchange fisticuffs and... hammercuffs? Iron Man decides to attack the big shiny thing. Because he for one knows you attack the weak point for massive damage.

With the giant synthetic Soul Gem decided, Thanos’ plans and his chance to regain his love’s favor have been thwarted.

He teleports away, vowing that they’ve earned his enmity and will have few remaining minutes of life.

But I’m sure that everything is fine and will continue to be fine forever.

So now what?

Captain Marvel wakes up, probably with a horrible headache, after his face first tour of Thanos’ projector. And he sees Warlock talking to Warlock?

Whaaaaaaaaaat?

Okay, so context. In the Adam Warlock comic, Adam Warlock traveled into the future to absorb his own soul to keep his future self from becoming his evil future self the Magus.

In-universe, this only happened months ago. And also right now.

But the months have felt like an eternity to Adam Warlock as everything he has ever loved or accomplished has fallen to ruin or died. His whole life has been a failure and he welcomes its end.

So Adam Warlock om nom noms his own soul.

And goes back to his present to live out the events that will lead him to getting his soul eaten by himself.

All the while having the soul of Adam Warlock inside and outside the soul gem.

COSMIC!

Having watched this all, Captain Marvel is mostly confused. As is anyone else who didn’t read the Adam Warlock series.

Even with Thanos’ plan to kersplode the sun thwarted, his forces still prove a threat so Thor, Marvel, and Iron Man decide to head back over to the fake Sanctuary II to help the other Avengers.

What to do with Adam Warlock’s body? Eh. Leave it. He’s at peace now. And he’ll peacefully rot in space. Probably like he always dreamed.

Or maybe give him a proper burial?

Throughout Marvel’s conversation with the two Avengers, a green-hued Warlock has been coming to terms with life after death.

Being absorbed into the Soul Gem means being reunited with everyone it has eaten. Gamora. Pip. Some other people probably from Adam Warlock’s own mag. And the realm within the Soul Gem is a land of peace where all can live as one and share a collective memory and heart.

A land where hearts are an open book, where understanding is bred, and the ego is muted. In the Soul Gem there can only be love.

Not bad for a piece of jewelry normally portrayed as evil and voracious.

So a happy ending for Adam Warlock. And a happy ending for the Sun. And a happy ending for the Avengers who decided that they’re not doing any corpse disposal. Happy ending for everyone except Thanos whose grand romantic gesture was thwarted and the idiots he always manages to inspire to follow him who are getting their teeth punched in by the Avengers.

BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE

December, 1977

I’m not ashamed to say that one of my favorite comic book tropes is when someone hits someone with someone. But only if they’re using said person as a bludgeon. Throwing the person is the coward’s way out.

So last time: Just scroll up. Thanos was going to blow up the Sun but Iron Man blew up his bling and Adam Warlock achieved his fondest desire and died.

This time: Peter Parker’s plot senses are tingling.

He senses... that a crossover needs him.

His plot sense also recap the events of the Avengers Annual issue and-

is that an upside down cyclops? What the heck!

Uh, anyway. Yeah. Just a recap of the Avengers Annual. Which is mighty obliging. A less scrupulous writer would have dropped a brief text recap and made you buy the issue to find out what happened.

Anyway, Peter’s dream goes beyond just the events of Avengers Annual #7. He starts dreaming of THINGS NOT ON PANEL. Except now they’re on panel because he’s dreaming of them.

Also, I lied. Its not Peter’s plot sense that's tingling. Moondragon just beamed a recap into his dreams.

After Avengers Annual #7, Thanos teleported back over to the other Sanctuary II where the Avengers were still fighting his diverse crowd of alien jerks (why do villains always believe in diversity more than the heroes do?).

With some actual leadership, they go from being an ineffectual mob mostly existing to make the Avengers look cool to a fighting machine.

In five panels, the fight turns against the Avengers and they all lie defeated.

Well, except for the away team of Captain Marvel, Thor, and Iron Man.

They take an additional page to defeat.

Thanos goes right from organizing his mob in their defeat of the Avengers to an armament control console with no time for gloating in between (which you know is very hard for Thanos) and blasts Thor, Captain Marvel, and Iron Man while they’re flying back towards the fake Sanctuary II.

I was going to joke that its because this isn’t an Avengers book that the Avengers can be totally stomped in two pages. But that’s just their life, isn’t it? Even in their own book they aren’t free of getting taken out humiliatingly easy, are they?

Thanos then had all the unconscious heroes put in stasis beams. Y’know that thing where the heroes are all lined up in a row but unable to move but there aren’t any obvious restraints? Well this time it works by keeping the heroes a micro-second out of sync with reality.

Without the giant synthetic Soul Gem, Thanos can’t blow up every star. But with the Soul Gem on the dead deceased corpse of Adam Warlock, maybe he can still blow up a star. And conveniently, he happens to be near a pretty one called Sol.

Maybe just blowing up the one star in Marvel that matters will be enough to appease death.

And then Peter wakes up, the recap portion of this recap over.

He only wonders why Moondragon chose him to send this message to. He’s a friendly neighborhood Spider-Man not a powerhouse or cosmic dude.

And we cut to Master Order and Lord Chaos basically being to blame. Their game against Death goes poorly and they’re forced to put their reserves in play.

I.e. Spider-Man and Ben Grimm, the Thing.

Because Spider-Man realizes ‘hey wait I can’t webswing into space, I need to borrow a spaceship’

And he knows just who to borrow one from.

Cue a funny moment where Spider-Man startles the Thing while he’s engrossed in reading Salem’s Lot causing him to accidentally inhale his cigar.

Oh what shenanigans you get up to, Peter.

But he gets the Thing to stop complaining about Spider-Man disrespecting the security system by shouting at him to STFU. Ben realizes that maybe Spider-Man has troubles.

So he pours Peter some coffee and listens to his story. And immediately asks what Peter has been smoking. Old tennis shoes maybe?

Which is. Ben knows that real drugs exist, right?

But since Peter is serious about it Ben figures what the heck. There’s an experimental spaceship he was supposed to test-pilot when he got the chance and now’s as good a time as any.

Spider-Peter doesn’t really have... exact directions but the spaceship’s tracking systems will track down Thanos’ ship if its up there.

Spider-Man: “If? Still have your doubts, then?”

The Thing: “About your story? Perish forbid such a thought. How could anyone doubt the word of a man in blue and red leotards who crawls on walls?”

Police, I’d like to report a murder.

But despite Ben’s skepticism, they find Thanos’ giant H on the very next page.

The Thing: “Appears like I was wrong about you this time, Spidey. My apologies.”

Spider-Man: “What do you mean ‘this time’?”

The Fantastispacecraft gets caught in a tractor beam and dragged inside the giant H (for Hate?). Ben kicks the door of his spaceship out so he can immediately go out and start punching some space goons.

Thus making the ship nonviable for a return trip. Good thinking, Ben!

Spider-Man joins in the goon punching, although he admits that monster bashing isn’t his usual comfort zone. But if he fights the small fries which basically look like weird people then he should be good.

He’ll let the Thing fight the giant space serpent.

AND USE THE SPACE SNAKE TO HIT PEOPLE WITH. That’s what I’m talking about, Ben!

Meanwhile, Thanos watches this on a monitor. He must be wondering how many heroes he aggroed today. They just keep showing up.

So he has the gravity turned off in the chamber Spider-Man and Thing are in. That’ll show them.

And Thanos’ men, who I guess trained for just this sort of contingency, waste no time blasting Spider-Man and the Thing while they’re discombobulated.

Its a bit of a shame. I wanted to see if Spider-Man would try to use his webs. A much later comic than this made the point that without gravity, Spider-Man’s webbing would splurt out instead of thwip out in nice lines. I wanted to see if that would be used here, decades before the first time I saw it.

Meanwhile, Master Order and Lord Chaos continue to commentate on the crossover. Another round goes to Death with Spider-Man and the Thing temporarily out of play. Still, they both expected this.

Summoning Spider-Man and the Thing was a ploy to get Adam Warlock back on the field from the emerald hill zone.

Meanwhile, in the land of emerald skies (they look purple actually) and green hills, Adam Warlock exposits about recent events.

Yup. He sure died. And now he lives in the Soul Gem, a paradisaical world where he can forget about his worries and his strife. All within the Soul Gem are one and live in harmony for harming another would be harming oneself. Yup, afterlife in the Soul Gem is good and will remain good forever.

Elsewhere and while, Spider-Man and the Thing wake up at the foot of the hero display case and/or stasis beam.

Thanos didn’t get the chance to gloat earlier so he’s seizing the opportunity now.

His henchaliens are preparing stasis beams for Thing and Spider-Man but in the meanwhile, look at how awesome Thanos is. He collected the Avengers better than the Collector ever did. Suck it, old man.

Spider-Man decides to hear Thanos out, hoping that encouraging Thanos to ramble will give them time to plan. And Thanos knows he’s being played but what the hell, he loves to hear himself talk.

So he explains to the heroes that he’s having another stellar projector prepared which will use the Soul Gem’s power to cause the Sun to go nova (but not that one. Or that one. Marvel has a lot of Novas).

And then he explains that he’s doing this as a grand romantic gesture for Death. Recaps how he fell out of her favor by fucking up his plan to become god with the cosmic cube. But anyway, yeah, thats why the Sun and countless lives on Earth must die. So Death will be really impressed with him.

Ben Grimm doesn’t find that a good motivation so he punches Thanos in the dick.

Thanos just no-sells it and purple energy blasts the Thing unconscious.

Annnnnd Spider-Man realizes he’s out of his league so when Thanos asks him if he wants a turn, he just webswings away.

Thanos: “WHAT?! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?”

Spider-Man: “Leaving! This is the Avengers’ hassle.”

For some reason, Thanos takes exception to this and orders his alien mooks to bring back Spider-Man’s head.

Except now what? He doesn’t know how to fly spaceships so he can’t just steal the Thing’s ride (also its no longer air tight). He can’t stay here, he’ll just get killed. But he can’t go back to Earth because if Thanos blows up the Sun, Earth will get a whole lot less hospitable.

So if he’s dead either way, he might as well stay. And if he’s staying, he might as well do something. But he can’t fight Thanos directly. He’d sweep the floor with Spider-Man and probably any hero Spidey knows.

Except.... maybe Thor?

Okay, good plan. Good plan. Free Thor. Save the world. Have everything be good forever. Spidey is glad he talked himself out of that blind panic spiral.

Meanwhile, another Master Order and Lord Chaos intermission. They sure are glad that Spider-Man didn’t let his self-preservation overrule his strong heart.

So Spider-Man loops back around to where Thanos showed him his Avengers collection. And darn, Thanos is still there. And also he changed his mind. He’s not adding Spider-Man to his collection now. So there.

Spider-Man decides the thing to do is smash the stasis beam projector WITH HIS BODY.

So the Avengers wake up and immediately charge Thanos. While Spider-Man limply hangs half out of the machinery. Oh, and the Thing woke up by this point too.

That’s some quality Assembling! Good job, Spider-Man. Probably fracturing half of your bones was worth it.

Thanos summons his army of mooks and we get down to a real rumble.

Weird that apparently Adam Warlock will be needed to resolve this scenario. Thing and Thor seem to be thumping Thanos pretty effectively while the rest of the heroes keep the small fry off their backs.

And the other heroes are playing it very strategically. Captain Marvel is keeping an eye on the overall crowd composition so that one of the heroes can go and bust up any attempt to build up or consolidate a position.

Yeah, I’d say this is in the bag.

But just as Thor and Thing are still kicking Thanos’ ass and looking good doing it, Thanos eye beams Thing unconscious and puts Thor on the ropes.

Dangit.

Spider-Man regains consciousness, still stuck hip deep in some defunct machinery and realizes that he must Do Something. In fact, he feels as if everything depends on the decision he makes next.

In happy paradise green land, Adam Warlock is struck with a terrible migraine and realizes that the plot needs him for one last hurrah.

Spider-Man’s spider-sense spider-leads him to notice Adam Warlock’s Soul Gem, encased in a glass globe.

So obviously he should break that, right?

Yeah.

And with the Soul Gem freed from containment, Adam Warlock manifests as a naked fire man and proclaims himself the Ultimate Avenger.

(Was Adam Warlock ever in the Ultimate Universe? I can only think if he was, his re-imagining would have been endlessly disappointing.)

And Ultimate Avenger Adam Warlock (with kung fu action grip) could not rest while Thanos remains a threat to the universe.

And Ultimate Avenger Adam Warlock is so very, very tired and wants to rest. So Thanos will have to go.

So Ultimate Avenger Adam Warlock takes Thanos for granite because that’s just something Ultimate Avenger Adam Warlock can do.

Fuck you, I don’t have to explain anything. Its cosmic.

Which leaves just the cleanup.

Thanos’ army immediately surrenders.

Which is a good decision for them because they’re probably going to get released with no punishment aside from the hits they’ve already taken.

Spidey objects but Captain Marvel asks what he would suggest doing with them? Put them in Earth jail? That’s ridiculous, Spider-Man. You ludicrous radioactive Spider-Man.

I guess.......... space jail isn’t an option for some reason? They’re kind of accessories to the destruction of a star and conspiracy to commit another star murder.

When Jean Grey and/or the Phoenix did that it was a whole to-do but I guess its just okay this time because it didn’t personally inconvenience the Shi’ar?

Maybe Captain Marvel is just lazy and doesn’t want to do the considerable amount of paperwork it would take to arrest an army.

No Sam Vimes this Mar-Vell.

Perhaps realizing they were dicks before, the Avengers decide to actually have a funeral for Adam Warlock. They bury him on some random space rock.

And they leave his Soul Gem right on his grave for anyone to steal. WHICH HAPPENS AND CAUSES INFINITY GAUNTLET.

Geez, the Avengers. Geez.

Also according to his tombstone, Adam Warlock was only ten years old. He was a melancholic child.

Later, aboard the fake Sanctuary II which was apparently Sanctuary III all along and maybe you could have mentioned that earlier and prevented a lot of name confusion for me, personally.

Spider-Man mourns the loss of Adam Warlock. He didn’t know him that well but the universe feels much emptier without him.

And the Thing suggests they check to see if Sanctuary III had a coffee pot anywhere. SPACE COFFEE (do not drink in space).

And within the Soul Gem, Adam Warlock resigns himself to living in paradise free of any strife, problems or pain. Or darn. Well he’ll manage.

And the Thanos statue cries because Death doesn’t love him. And also petrification is often portrayed as a living death so he doesn’t even get to be with his crush.

Phew.

Two annuals back to back was a bad idea. And almost nobody is even going to read this today because I have almost nobody that even reads these on a non-holiday day and today is Christmas so people are probably going to be with families and singing to the Christmas raptor.

Well. Here it is anyway. The last stand of Adam Warlock.

And that’s the major thing to bring up.

This is Avengers Annual and Marvel Two-in-One Annual. A book about the Avengers and a book about the Thing and his amazing friends. But the story that spans these two issues is about Adam Warlock. The others are just along for the ride.

The giant cosmic space heads even say as much. Spider-Man is only here to get the real star of the show on stage. The Thing is only here because this is his team-up book (and because Spidey needs transportation).

Its kind of a tendency of Adam Warlock to make any story about him. Both in and out of universe. He’s kind of self-absorbed.

Whether you like these stories probably comes down to whether you like Adam Warlock. Because on this day the Avengers, Spider-Man, and the Thing took the backseat to the space messiah who hated to wear pants.

Other than that? Pretty good.

A good Thanos plan. An intentional downgrade from his plan to become god in terms of ambition. But possibly even worse because he planned to blow up every star just to get Death sempai-dono to notice him.

This is the end for Thanos for a while. He’s still a stone statue during the Death of Captain Marvel in 1982. Thanos doesn’t stop being stoned until 1990.

People that didn’t read Adam Warlock’s book probably don’t really get why Thanos was most scared of this golden brooder but I think turning into a naked fire man and turning Thanos to stone is context enough.

So happy and merry whatever. Next time I get back to the main book but we’re still going to have the Avengers storming a giant thing in space.

During this time in their lives, the Avengers just storm giant space things more often than typical.

#Avengers #Thanos #Iron Man #the Vision #Scarlet Witch #Thor #Captain America #Beast #Adam Warlock #Captain Marvel #Moondragon #the Thing #Spider Man #Marvel Two in One #Essential Avengers #Essential marvel liveblogging #I've already said plenty words #happy this time of the year

[templified]

Best WordPress Gaming Themes

New Post has been published on https://www.templified.com/best-wordpress-gaming-themes/

Best WordPress Gaming Themes

Video games and the gaming industry as a whole are absolutely blowing up, they’re more popular than ever.  For example, Grand Theft Auto 5 has generated about 6 BILLION in revenue since it’s release.  That’s the most of any media ever created.  More than any album, any movie, any book…you get the picture.  It’s no surprise that the audience for blogs related to gaming are growing more popular every day too.  If you’re a gaming enthusiast and you want to blog about the gaming industry, you’ll want to find that perfect blog to get your content out to your audience.  WordPress is an ideal platform to help you spread your message.  Not just any theme will do, you want to find a gaming theme that looks great on any device and has the features you want to create custom post types for your video game related content.  If you’re posting tutorials, walkthoughs or video clips of game action, these themes are going to offer enough features and widgets to get the job done.  Start a gaming magazine today with one of these fantastic WordPress gaming themes.

Arcane

Arcane wants to help you build the best gaming website possible and it’s got all the design chops, as well as the features, needed to do just that.  This is about bigtime scale too, the Arcane WordPress theme allows you to go big.  Users can quickly and easily create tournaments, challenge each other, keep track of matches and plenty more.  Arcane is absolutely about building a community and bbPress helps make that happen.  WooCommerce ready, perfectly responsive for great style on all devices, video blocks, parallax blocks and more, this Arcane theme has all the style you could possibly want, yet it never sacrifices functionality.

Demo More Information Get Hosting

Crystal Skull

Ultimately, Crystal Skull is a pretty straightforward magazine theme, but this particular style lends itself to gaming magazine sites specifically.  The design is a little bit funky, the embellishments are modern and even maybe a bit futuristic.  Powered by Visual Composer and offering WooCommerce support, this Crystal Skull theme has tons of features you’ll only find in really high end magazine site.  The reviews feature is a must have for a modern gaming magazine template, allowing you to rate games by multiple criteria.  But your readers can get into the act too, helping to create even more depth of content.  That helps keep your site fresh and helps keep folks coming back for more.  Parallax blocks, video blocks and other cool layout features keep interest levels high, so this theme is great for walkthroughs, reviews, tutorials and more.

Demo More Information Get Hosting

Rhino

Rhino is a gaming theme for WordPress, made by Tesla Themes with the gaming industry in mind.  Gaming sites are incredibly popular and if you can keep at it, you can build a pretty good niche and grab tons of readers who are interested in what you have to say.  Rhino allows you to even monetize your work, which is helpful to motivate you to keep creating new, outstanding content.  Game developers and game bloggers alike can both benefit from this awesome theme, announcing the latest news and notes about upcoming releases.  With video post types, you can show off gameplay videos and more with a premium, responsive layout.  There’s also a handy subscription feature where readers can subscribe to get all the newest information and posts as you make them, really helping with engagement and building repeat visitors.

Demo More Information Get Hosting

Ultra

Ultra is a premium drag and drop WordPress theme that offers a premade demo specifically crafted for gaming magazines.  It installs with one click, importing all demo data, menus, layouts and even images, so you can get started incredibly rapidly, even if you’re not an expert at WordPress.  With a clean, flat design and a professional, easy to use admin panel, you’ll be making awesome content and building an audience very quickly with Ultra.  There are over 60 other demo sites included too, with more available from the community of users who can submit their own designs and layouts, so you can really increase your site’s design capabilities that way.  Ultra is responsive, allows you to set up a WooCommerce shop and you can publish all kinds of content from walkthroughs and tutorials to news and notes about the latest video game releases.

Demo More Information Get Hosting

Game Addict

The Game Addict is one of the best WordPress gaming themes out there right now, if you really want to have the flexibility to adjust nearly every setting throughout the entire theme.  With Game Addict, you’re able to slide around various modules on any page to construct the perfect design for your gaming readers, which gives you a lot of room to create the perfect website. This theme also lets you create and handle ClanWars, improving action and creating a solid community around your site.  Pretty cool, right?  We think so too.

With perfect bbPress integration, your website turns into a full fledged gaming discussion hub, and the entirely responsive layout is consistently perfect for those browsing on tablets or smartphones, incredibly important since App games like Pokemon Go and Clash of Clans are so popular these days. Not to mention, this theme comes packaged with a variety of backgrounds and unlimited color schemes, providing the perfect arena for branding your website however you need it to be branded.

Demo More Information Get Hosting

Godlike

This is Godlike, a groundbreaking WordPress gaming theme for crafting a gaming community with online forums, images and video galleries for game-play.  You can use this theme to sell your own game too, if that’s what you’re looking to do, since it’s WooCommerce ready.  There are dozens of shortcodes, important for creating additional functionality on your site.  There are unlimited layout variations possible and the modern, sleek and attractive design will make your readers keep coming back for more.  Just add content.  (That’s the hard part!)

With one-click demo data import, custom page options and Visual Composer included, you’ll be up and running quickly within moments and your site is going to look incredible on any device, since Godlike is fully, natively responsive.  Contact Form 7 is also supported, as are a variety of menu styles and locations.  Free lifetime updates, strong support and rock steady code all make this a fantastic choice for creating an online gaming community or selling your very own game online.

Demo More Information Get Hosting

Coolist

Gaming magazines with viral capablities are a fantastic way to help build user engagement and drive traffic to your money site.  Coolist is a wonderful combination of features and ease of use, making it simple for your users to share your content, like and follow posts and more.  Coolist is a wonderful way to help make your blog the best it can be.  When you look for a beautiful magazine or blog theme, you will need to pick one which has a good number of functional attributes that help market your content, no matter what that content is, which is why Coolist is such a great solution.  It does all that, with style.  It’s a nearly perfect balance between form and function, equally adept at showing off gaming videos as walk-throughs and tutorials.  With a site built around the Coolist theme, you’ll be bringing in loads of new traffic every day.

If your magazine needs a truly unique homepage, Coolist may have what you’re looking for, with flexible and ultimately arterable layouts for the front page and every page for that matter.  Coolist allows you to sort categories on each page using AJAX, which makes the pages dynamic and still keeps them in the eye of the SERPs.  There are three pre-defined locations for post positioning, so you can show off what’s new, what’s trending and what’s hot.  Enable or disable sliders, choose from nearly a dozen different row layouts and even swap out and tweak the hot, new and trending styles.  Coolist loads up really, really fast, scoring a 95% on PageSpeed score from Pingdom.  There’s one click dummy data import, a bunch of free plugins, there are super helpful HD video tutorials available when you’re setting your site up, tons of short codes and more.  Coolist is simple one of the better WordPress magazine themes of the year.

Demo More Information Get Hosting

PixieBolt

PixieBolt is a WordPress theme that was specifically created for eSports teams, gaming clans and other organizations.  The style is cool, it’s really on point with what a gaming crew might be into and the features perfectly complement the design.  PixieBolt is trendy in terms of code and design, so it’s up to date and fast.  Premium features that any eSport group might need?  yeah, PixieBolt’s got them.  This fantastic gaming theme offers the usual customization for colors and fonts, but it also goes a little bit further.  PixieBolt offers sponsorship and partners sections, unlimited team areas, blog and news with archives, matches and tournaments, Twitch, HitBox and Azubo streams and a ton more.

The layout is fluid, because you absolutely need this theme to be responsive, tons of your traffic is going to come from mobile devices.  The style is cool, modern and fresh.  The layout is easy to navigate and so incredibly visual.  The news section is great for written news and videos too, so players can read up or watch the latest gameplay videos.  This is the absolute best eSports theme around for WordPress.

Demo More Information Get Hosting

Exit Game

Okay, you’ve got to forgive me with this theme because it’s a little different than everything else on this page.  That’s because it’s completely unique.  This is Exit Game, a theme built for escape rooms.  Never heard of them?  Well, here’s a website that you might want to check out, I think the descriptions do a pretty good job of explaining what these ‘escape rooms’ are all about.  Anyway, if you’ve been considering a new website for your escape room business, I think Exit Game is a great choice.  Now, of course, you could adapt a general purpose theme to get the job done, but what fun is that?  Exit Game is perfect for quest games, puzzle rooms, and other fun entertainment offerings.  It’s professionally designed, it’s easy to manage and customize, it’s coded well and well supported too.  A great value, if this is the type of thing you’re looking for.

Demo More Information Get Hosting

#Gaming

[lucyariablog]

Education as a Marketing Strategy: 8 Brands Doing Online Classes and More

Few would argue about the power and value of educational content – whether a blog, an e-newsletter, a white paper, or a how-to video. However, some brands have taken this concept further by developing full-fledged classes and curricula for their audiences.

Let’s look at eight brands that give their audience opportunities to get an education in unique and entertaining ways.

Renasant Bank: Marketing strategy takes step above boring classes

Renasant Bank, a 113-year-old Mississippi-based regional bank, had been offering financial literacy classes and support to local universities for some time. Although it didn’t need name recognition – the bank has that – it did want to find a way to be recognized as offering more than checking accounts.

Two years ago, Renasant took a page from the popular TV show, Shark Tank. “For years, we’ve partnered with universities to do business competitions. After looking through their pitches, giving students ideas, and realizing that no one knows this is going on, we thought, ‘What if we got a partner to do a TV show?’” says John Oxford, Renasant’s director of corporate communications.

The show, Brand New, was produced with the help of Mabus Agency, and aired its first episode in June 2017 on MPB, the Mississippi PBS affiliate.

Students from the University of Mississippi, Mississippi State University, and Southern Mississippi submitted business ideas, which a panel of judges from Renasant and local business partners narrowed to six. Spotlights on those students, their ideas, and the competition that followed were filmed and featured in four 20-minute episodes.

“Banks are often perceived as boring, but as far as content goes, you can help differentiate yourself by taking a calculated risk to show what your brand does,” says Oxford. The ability to distribute your story across multiple channels makes it even more effective, he adds.

Creating educational #content can differentiate your brand, says @johnoxford1. Click To Tweet

From conception to airing took about two years, with a production time of three to four months. “The challenge is always getting buy-in, but everyone at Renasant loved the idea. You don’t hear about a lot of banks doing things like this,” says Oxford.

It helped that those involved in the project and the marketing for the show came up with a well-thought-out multifaceted concept, explains Oxford. “We are able to chop up segments and get shorter pieces of content to share on Facebook and various social media. We can also email it out to our customer base,” he says.

Another tactic has been targeting each participating university with mobile and social ads. “Students on the show are also promoting it to their friends, and the schools are promoting it on their websites,” says Oxford. “It’s a key market for us. The millennial market is really who banks like ours are looking to connect with.”

Renasant not only helped create and produce the show, but it paid the prize money (a few thousand dollars) to each of three winners. “It was never a product campaign; it was a straight goodwill campaign. We want to be looked at as a partner that helps drive entrepreneurism in our state. Even though Mississippi is often looked at as rural, these students are coming up with ideas that are as cutting edge as anywhere,” says Oxford.

HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT:

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Widen: Online courses bring higher customer retention rate

Widen, a digital asset management company, launched its educational arm WidenUniversity in 2014 to help customers master the complexities of topics like metadata, governance, and analytics. Through the educational portal, the company offers everything from free webinars to three-day paid live training courses. The sheer volume of educational content available to customers and buyers is a huge differentiator for Widen, says Courtney Roe, customer experience strategist.

“Widen’s consistent delivery of high quality educational content builds trust and respect, and creates an affiliation deeper than simply using a tool from a software vendor,” adds Jake Athey, vice president of marketing.

.@WidenEnterprise’s high quality content builds trust and respect with prospects and customers. @JakeAthey Click To Tweet

He says education has been core to Widen’s marketing and customer experience, as evidenced by its change in customer satisfaction measures over the last five years. “Widen’s Net Promoter score (an index that quantifies customers’ willingness to recommend a product/service to others) increased from 37 in 2014 to 56 in 2017,” he says. This year, it is launching Widen Essentials live training and hopes to see continued gains.

Athey also attributes the company’s customer retention rate of greater than 96% and other marketing KPI growth in part to the educational efforts. For instance, between 2012 and 2016, the company’s primary lead collection channel grew by 35% year over year. And the new customer acquisition rate increased by 22.5% year over year in the same period.

HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT:

How to Use How-To Content to Create and Retain Loyal Customers

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Schneider Electric: Online classes as B2B marketing tactic cultivates more customer data

Schneider has earned its place as an energy industry thought leader, while generating direct revenue, brand affinity, and leads via its Energy University. With over 900,000 courses taken, and 200-plus course offerings in 13 languages, Energy University has found a lucrative way to capitalize on the massive library of content it already commissioned, plus its access to in-house domain experts to vet the curriculum.

“When you make accessible your thought leadership, your technologies, your innovation in an effort to educate people so they understand better how they can create greater efficiencies or greater sustainability within their operations, you become a trusted advisor,” says Susan Hartman, global program manager for Energy University. “Even more, you become a partner they want to do business with when the time is right. And many of them do just that.”

Thanks to the copious amounts of customer data Energy University collects at touchpoints in the learning management system, Schneider Electric is better able to understand who the potential customers are and their needs, so they can be matched to the right products and solutions.

.@SchneiderElec’s Energy Univ offers copious data to help marketers understand their customers. @dawnpapandrea Click To Tweet

Zappos Insights: Online shoe retailer creates educational spin-off

Zappos Insights began in 2008 when CEO Tony Hsieh offered headquarter tours, and public interest grew so rapidly Zappos needed a streamlined way to manage it. Today, Zappos Insights is an educational program, a membership community, and a professional “camp” designed around the company’s core mission of making work more fulfilling.

Although it might be considered more employer branding than content marketing, the educational component contributes to the brand’s storytelling. For instance, the Mentor on Demand program allows companies and individuals to pay for a mentorship with top Zappos executives. There’s also a membership subscription online training model for those who want to learn about the organization.

Apple and Williams Sonoma: Stores offer on-site classes

Apple always had its Genius Bar in retail locations, but recently it expanded its educational sessions. Now it offers in-depth training sessions in all 495 stores under the brand Today at Apple. Just check out your nearest Apple location and find 30- to 90-minute sessions on everything from How to Get Started with Coding and Watercolor and Brush Techniques to How To: Edit Video on Mac.

“At the heart of every Apple store is the desire to educate and inspire the communities we serve,” said Angela Ahrendts, Apple’s senior vice president of retail, in a press release announcing the initiative.

Williams Sonoma, the upscale cookware and bakeware retailer, has been offering on-site cooking classes and demonstrations for more than 50 years. Its 220 retail locations each feature special classes including “Knife Skills” and even “Junior Chef” classes.

HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT: Live Experiences Reinvent the Way Customers Interact With Brands

MailChimp and Hootsuite Academy: Brands offer online classes for free or a fee

The email marketing platform MailChimp offers a variety of classes via SkillShare. Free courses include Getting Started with Online Marketing, which encompasses 14 short videos led by Allyson Van Houten, product marketing lead at MailChimp. Nearly 30,000 students have taken that course, which totals one hour and 11 minutes.

The social media management tool Hootsuite offers free courses, which have been taken by more than 200,000 professionals. One intermediate course is titled Social Media Strategy – From A to Z.

There is also a 40-hour Advanced Social Media Strategy Certification course for $999, which is created in partnership with Syracuse University’s renowned S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications. To date, 30,000 people have earned a certification through the academy.

.@Hootsuite partnered with @SyracuseU to offer a #socialmedia strategy certification course. @dawnpapandrea Click To Tweet

Conclusion

Many brands – both B2B and B2C – have a lot of educational content in a multitude of forms. But fewer brands curate that content (or create that content) with the intent of becoming recognized as an educator by their prospects and customers. To do it well, follow the footsteps of these eight brands.

CMI offers educational opportunities too. CMI University hosts an exclusive online, go-at-your-own-pace curriculum to help you do your job better and grow your career. Register today. Enrollment is limited and ends December 15, 2017 for winter semester.

This article originally appeared in the November issue of CCO magazine. Subscribe for your free print copy today.

Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute

The post Education as a Marketing Strategy: 8 Brands Doing Online Classes and More appeared first on Content Marketing Institute.

from http://contentmarketinginstitute.com/2017/12/education-marketing-strategy/

[eelgibbortech-blog]

8 Brands Doing Online Classes & More

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Few would argue about the power and value of educational content – whether a blog, an e-newsletter, a white paper, or a how-to video. However, some brands have taken this concept further by developing full-fledged classes and curricula for their audiences.

Let’s look at eight brands that give their audience opportunities to get an education in unique and entertaining ways.

Renasant Bank: Marketing strategy takes step above boring classes

Renasant Bank, a 113-year-old Mississippi-based regional bank, had been offering financial literacy classes and support to local universities for some time. Although it didn’t need name recognition – the bank has that – it did want to find a way to be recognized as offering more than checking accounts.

Two years ago, Renasant took a page from the popular TV show, Shark Tank. “For years, we’ve partnered with universities to do business competitions. After looking through their pitches, giving students ideas, and realizing that no one knows this is going on, we thought, ‘What if we got a partner to do a TV show?’” says John Oxford, Renasant’s director of corporate communications.

The show, Brand New, was produced with the help of Mabus Agency, and aired its first episode in June 2017 on MPB, the Mississippi PBS affiliate.

Students from the University of Mississippi, Mississippi State University, and Southern Mississippi submitted business ideas, which a panel of judges from Renasant and local business partners narrowed to six. Spotlights on those students, their ideas, and the competition that followed were filmed and featured in four 20-minute episodes.

“Banks are often perceived as boring, but as far as content goes, you can help differentiate yourself by taking a calculated risk to show what your brand does,” says Oxford. The ability to distribute your story across multiple channels makes it even more effective, he adds.

Creating educational #content can differentiate your brand, says @johnoxford1. Click To Tweet

From conception to airing took about two years, with a production time of three to four months. “The challenge is always getting buy-in, but everyone at Renasant loved the idea. You don’t hear about a lot of banks doing things like this,” says Oxford.

It helped that those involved in the project and the marketing for the show came up with a well-thought-out multifaceted concept, explains Oxford. “We are able to chop up segments and get shorter pieces of content to share on Facebook and various social media. We can also email it out to our customer base,” he says.

Another tactic has been targeting each participating university with mobile and social ads. “Students on the show are also promoting it to their friends, and the schools are promoting it on their websites,” says Oxford. “It’s a key market for us. The millennial market is really who banks like ours are looking to connect with.”

Renasant not only helped create and produce the show, but it paid the prize money (a few thousand dollars) to each of three winners. “It was never a product campaign; it was a straight goodwill campaign. We want to be looked at as a partner that helps drive entrepreneurism in our state. Even though Mississippi is often looked at as rural, these students are coming up with ideas that are as cutting edge as anywhere,” says Oxford.

HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT:

Widen: Online courses bring higher customer retention rate

Widen, a digital asset management company, launched its educational arm WidenUniversity in 2014 to help customers master the complexities of topics like metadata, governance, and analytics. Through the educational portal, the company offers everything from free webinars to three-day paid live training courses. The sheer volume of educational content available to customers and buyers is a huge differentiator for Widen, says Courtney Roe, customer experience strategist.

“Widen’s consistent delivery of high quality educational content builds trust and respect, and creates an affiliation deeper than simply using a tool from a software vendor,” adds Jake Athey, vice president of marketing.

.@WidenEnterprise’s high quality content builds trust and respect with prospects and customers. @JakeAthey Click To Tweet

He says education has been core to Widen’s marketing and customer experience, as evidenced by its change in customer satisfaction measures over the last five years. “Widen’s Net Promoter score (an index that quantifies customers’ willingness to recommend a product/service to others) increased from 37 in 2014 to 56 in 2017,” he says. This year, it is launching Widen Essentials live training and hopes to see continued gains.

Athey also attributes the company’s customer retention rate of greater than 96% and other marketing KPI growth in part to the educational efforts. For instance, between 2012 and 2016, the company’s primary lead collection channel grew by 35% year over year. And the new customer acquisition rate increased by 22.5% year over year in the same period.

HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT:

Schneider Electric: Online classes as B2B marketing tactic cultivates more customer data

Schneider has earned its place as an energy industry thought leader, while generating direct revenue, brand affinity, and leads via its Energy University. With over 900,000 courses taken, and 200-plus course offerings in 13 languages, Energy University has found a lucrative way to capitalize on the massive library of content it already commissioned, plus its access to in-house domain experts to vet the curriculum.

“When you make accessible your thought leadership, your technologies, your innovation in an effort to educate people so they understand better how they can create greater efficiencies or greater sustainability within their operations, you become a trusted advisor,” says Susan Hartman, global program manager for Energy University. “Even more, you become a partner they want to do business with when the time is right. And many of them do just that.”

Thanks to the copious amounts of customer data Energy University collects at touchpoints in the learning management system, Schneider Electric is better able to understand who the potential customers are and their needs, so they can be matched to the right products and solutions.

.@SchneiderElec’s Energy Univ offers copious data to help marketers understand their customers. @dawnpapandrea Click To Tweet

Zappos Insights: Online shoe retailer creates educational spin-off

Zappos Insights began in 2008 when CEO Tony Hsieh offered headquarter tours, and public interest grew so rapidly Zappos needed a streamlined way to manage it. Today, Zappos Insights is an educational program, a membership community, and a professional “camp” designed around the company’s core mission of making work more fulfilling.

Although it might be considered more employer branding than content marketing, the educational component contributes to the brand’s storytelling. For instance, the Mentor on Demand program allows companies and individuals to pay for a mentorship with top Zappos executives. There’s also a membership subscription online training model for those who want to learn about the organization.

Apple and Williams Sonoma: Stores offer on-site classes

Apple always had its Genius Bar in retail locations, but recently it expanded its educational sessions. Now it offers in-depth training sessions in all 495 stores under the brand Today at Apple. Just check out your nearest Apple location and find 30- to 90-minute sessions on everything from How to Get Started with Coding and Watercolor and Brush Techniques to How To: Edit Video on Mac.

“At the heart of every Apple store is the desire to educate and inspire the communities we serve,” said Angela Ahrendts, Apple’s senior vice president of retail, in a press release announcing the initiative.

Williams Sonoma, the upscale cookware and bakeware retailer, has been offering on-site cooking classes and demonstrations for more than 50 years. Its 220 retail locations each feature special classes including “Knife Skills” and even “Junior Chef” classes.

HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT: Live Experiences Reinvent the Way Customers Interact With Brands

MailChimp and Hootsuite Academy: Brands offer online classes for free or a fee

The email marketing platform MailChimp offers a variety of classes via SkillShare. Free courses include Getting Started with Online Marketing, which encompasses 14 short videos led by Allyson Van Houten, product marketing lead at MailChimp. Nearly 30,000 students have taken that course, which totals one hour and 11 minutes.

The social media management tool Hootsuite offers free courses, which have been taken by more than 200,000 professionals. One intermediate course is titled Social Media Strategy – From A to Z.

There is also a 40-hour Advanced Social Media Strategy Certification course for $999, which is created in partnership with Syracuse University’s renowned S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications. To date, 30,000 people have earned a certification through the academy.

.@Hootsuite partnered with @SyracuseU to offer a #socialmedia strategy certification course. @dawnpapandrea Click To Tweet

Conclusion

Many brands – both B2B and B2C – have a lot of educational content in a multitude of forms. But fewer brands curate that content (or create that content) with the intent of becoming recognized as an educator by their prospects and customers. To do it well, follow the footsteps of these eight brands.

CMI offers educational opportunities too. CMI University hosts an exclusive online, go-at-your-own-pace curriculum to help you do your job better and grow your career. Register today. Enrollment is limited and ends December 15, 2017 for winter semester.

This article originally appeared in the November issue of CCO magazine. Subscribe for your free print copy today.

Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute

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[gabrielcollignon]

Education as a Marketing Strategy: 8 Brands Doing Online Classes and More

Education as a Marketing Strategy: 8 Brands Doing Online Classes and More

Few would argue about the power and value of educational content – whether a blog, an e-newsletter, a white paper, or a how-to video. However, some brands have taken this concept further by developing full-fledged classes and curricula for their audiences.

Let’s look at eight brands that give their audience opportunities to get an education in unique and entertaining ways.

Renasant Bank: Marketing strategy takes step above boring classes

Renasant Bank, a 113-year-old Mississippi-based regional bank, had been offering financial literacy classes and support to local universities for some time. Although it didn’t need name recognition – the bank has that – it did want to find a way to be recognized as offering more than checking accounts.

Two years ago, Renasant took a page from the popular TV show, Shark Tank. “For years, we’ve partnered with universities to do business competitions. After looking through their pitches, giving students ideas, and realizing that no one knows this is going on, we thought, ‘What if we got a partner to do a TV show?’” says John Oxford, Renasant’s director of corporate communications.

The show, Brand New, was produced with the help of Mabus Agency, and aired its first episode in June 2017 on MPB, the Mississippi PBS affiliate.

Students from the University of Mississippi, Mississippi State University, and Southern Mississippi submitted business ideas, which a panel of judges from Renasant and local business partners narrowed to six. Spotlights on those students, their ideas, and the competition that followed were filmed and featured in four 20-minute episodes.

“Banks are often perceived as boring, but as far as content goes, you can help differentiate yourself by taking a calculated risk to show what your brand does,” says Oxford. The ability to distribute your story across multiple channels makes it even more effective, he adds.

Creating educational #content can differentiate your brand, says @johnoxford1. Click To Tweet

From conception to airing took about two years, with a production time of three to four months. “The challenge is always getting buy-in, but everyone at Renasant loved the idea. You don’t hear about a lot of banks doing things like this,” says Oxford.

It helped that those involved in the project and the marketing for the show came up with a well-thought-out multifaceted concept, explains Oxford. “We are able to chop up segments and get shorter pieces of content to share on Facebook and various social media. We can also email it out to our customer base,” he says.

Another tactic has been targeting each participating university with mobile and social ads. “Students on the show are also promoting it to their friends, and the schools are promoting it on their websites,” says Oxford. “It’s a key market for us. The millennial market is really who banks like ours are looking to connect with.”

Renasant not only helped create and produce the show, but it paid the prize money (a few thousand dollars) to each of three winners. “It was never a product campaign; it was a straight goodwill campaign. We want to be looked at as a partner that helps drive entrepreneurism in our state. Even though Mississippi is often looked at as rural, these students are coming up with ideas that are as cutting edge as anywhere,” says Oxford.

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Widen: Online courses bring higher customer retention rate

Widen, a digital asset management company, launched its educational arm WidenUniversity in 2014 to help customers master the complexities of topics like metadata, governance, and analytics. Through the educational portal, the company offers everything from free webinars to three-day paid live training courses. The sheer volume of educational content available to customers and buyers is a huge differentiator for Widen, says Courtney Roe, customer experience strategist.

“Widen’s consistent delivery of high quality educational content builds trust and respect, and creates an affiliation deeper than simply using a tool from a software vendor,” adds Jake Athey, vice president of marketing.

.@WidenEnterprise’s high quality content builds trust and respect with prospects and customers. @JakeAthey Click To Tweet

He says education has been core to Widen’s marketing and customer experience, as evidenced by its change in customer satisfaction measures over the last five years. “Widen’s Net Promoter score (an index that quantifies customers’ willingness to recommend a product/service to others) increased from 37 in 2014 to 56 in 2017,” he says. This year, it is launching Widen Essentials live training and hopes to see continued gains.

Athey also attributes the company’s customer retention rate of greater than 96% and other marketing KPI growth in part to the educational efforts. For instance, between 2012 and 2016, the company’s primary lead collection channel grew by 35% year over year. And the new customer acquisition rate increased by 22.5% year over year in the same period.

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Schneider Electric: Online classes as B2B marketing tactic cultivates more customer data

Schneider has earned its place as an energy industry thought leader, while generating direct revenue, brand affinity, and leads via its Energy University. With over 900,000 courses taken, and 200-plus course offerings in 13 languages, Energy University has found a lucrative way to capitalize on the massive library of content it already commissioned, plus its access to in-house domain experts to vet the curriculum.

“When you make accessible your thought leadership, your technologies, your innovation in an effort to educate people so they understand better how they can create greater efficiencies or greater sustainability within their operations, you become a trusted advisor,” says Susan Hartman, global program manager for Energy University. “Even more, you become a partner they want to do business with when the time is right. And many of them do just that.”

Thanks to the copious amounts of customer data Energy University collects at touchpoints in the learning management system, Schneider Electric is better able to understand who the potential customers are and their needs, so they can be matched to the right products and solutions.

.@SchneiderElec’s Energy Univ offers copious data to help marketers understand their customers. @dawnpapandrea Click To Tweet

Zappos Insights: Online shoe retailer creates educational spin-off

Zappos Insights began in 2008 when CEO Tony Hsieh offered headquarter tours, and public interest grew so rapidly Zappos needed a streamlined way to manage it. Today, Zappos Insights is an educational program, a membership community, and a professional “camp” designed around the company’s core mission of making work more fulfilling.

Although it might be considered more employer branding than content marketing, the educational component contributes to the brand’s storytelling. For instance, the Mentor on Demand program allows companies and individuals to pay for a mentorship with top Zappos executives. There’s also a membership subscription online training model for those who want to learn about the organization.

Apple and Williams Sonoma: Stores offer on-site classes

Apple always had its Genius Bar in retail locations, but recently it expanded its educational sessions. Now it offers in-depth training sessions in all 495 stores under the brand Today at Apple. Just check out your nearest Apple location and find 30- to 90-minute sessions on everything from How to Get Started with Coding and Watercolor and Brush Techniques to How To: Edit Video on Mac.

“At the heart of every Apple store is the desire to educate and inspire the communities we serve,” said Angela Ahrendts, Apple’s senior vice president of retail, in a press release announcing the initiative.

Williams Sonoma, the upscale cookware and bakeware retailer, has been offering on-site cooking classes and demonstrations for more than 50 years. Its 220 retail locations each feature special classes including “Knife Skills” and even “Junior Chef” classes.

HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT: Live Experiences Reinvent the Way Customers Interact With Brands

MailChimp and Hootsuite Academy: Brands offer online classes for free or a fee

The email marketing platform MailChimp offers a variety of classes via SkillShare. Free courses include Getting Started with Online Marketing, which encompasses 14 short videos led by Allyson Van Houten, product marketing lead at MailChimp. Nearly 30,000 students have taken that course, which totals one hour and 11 minutes.

The social media management tool Hootsuite offers free courses, which have been taken by more than 200,000 professionals. One intermediate course is titled Social Media Strategy – From A to Z.

There is also a 40-hour Advanced Social Media Strategy Certification course for $999, which is created in partnership with Syracuse University’s renowned S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications. To date, 30,000 people have earned a certification through the academy.

.@Hootsuite partnered with @SyracuseU to offer a #socialmedia strategy certification course. @dawnpapandrea Click To Tweet

Conclusion

Many brands – both B2B and B2C – have a lot of educational content in a multitude of forms. But fewer brands curate that content (or create that content) with the intent of becoming recognized as an educator by their prospects and customers. To do it well, follow the footsteps of these eight brands.

CMI offers educational opportunities too. CMI University hosts an exclusive online, go-at-your-own-pace curriculum to help you do your job better and grow your career. Register today. Enrollment is limited and ends December 15, 2017 for winter semester.

This article originally appeared in the November issue of CCO magazine. Subscribe for your free print copy today.

Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute

The post Education as a Marketing Strategy: 8 Brands Doing Online Classes and More appeared first on Content Marketing Institute.

#Business

[makeste]

BnHA Chapter 283: I'M MARY POPPINS Y’ALL

Previously on BnHA: Everyone was all, “Tomura what do you have?” and Tomura was all,” a quirk bullet!” and they were all, “NO!!” He then threw the bullet at Aizawa, who ironically actually did have a knife, and since no one bothered to say “no!!” this time he proceeded to CHOP OFF HIS OWN LEG. Just, schwoop. Lopped it right off. Didn’t even fucking care. Anyway so then Tomura was all, “you know what who even needs quirk bullets” and somehow broke free from both Deku and Ryuukyuu to go claw off Aizawa’s face. Thankfully Todoroki “I've spent the past eight chapters puttering around waiting for the coolest moment to strike” Shouto finally decided to join the fray by impaling Tomura, and everyone was all, “ahaha, classic Shouto”, and Tomura was all, “don’t worry though I’m fine”, and it seems like he really is now, since he’s finally regenerated and all his wounds have healed again! The chapter ended with Gigantomachia stampeding towards Jakku, which is super terrible, but what else is fucking new.

Today on BnHA: The Gunga kids spend a few pages standing around letting all that trauma soak in nice and deep as Machia rampages on towards Jakku. Back in the Shigaraki Wastes, the heroes regroup, which mostly consists of the remaining conscious adults tearfully being all “you kids get out of here... save yourselves...” and the kids being all “YOU JUST SIT THERE AND CHILL, DAD” and “[EXPLETIVES]” and “I’M YOUNG AND FILLED WITH RIGHTEOUS SHOUNEN RAGE”, all of which is very entertaining to me and makes me very proud. Anyway so then Tomura’s body sort of explodes a bit, and he’s all, “what”, and then it finally sinks in that he might have popped out of the toaster early, so he tries to end the fight right there and then with another round of Decay. Except that Deku counters it by SPONTANEOUSLY LEARNING HOW TO FLY, which is probably SO CONFUSING for all the non-Gran-and-Kacchan people around, which is just one of the many things I love about it. And the other things I love about it are that it’s (1) THE MOST BADASS THING EVER, and (2) just, really fucking great. So yeah. Rage, Deku, rage.

OH NO MY BABIES

don’t tell me. I’m not sure I want to know what it is they’re looking at. how many of the pros are fucking dead now ffffmg

also that is an extremely intriguing chapter title, though. 75? as in percent?? oh my god is something finally going to go fucking right for our heroes. or at least, you know, less wrong

OOOF

dammit Momo he was supposed to go to sleep! WHAT THE HELL WAS ALL OF THAT MATH FOR, THEN. did he grow bigger, or did she just somehow miscalculate the dosage, or is he finally going to go night-night halfway to Jakku?

btw Momo I’m not actually mad at you, you’re still the only one who fucking did anything at all. if anyone tries to give you shit, just look them in the eye and ask them “okay and how many things did YOU do?”, and they’ll be like, “oh shit, none”, and you’ll be all “yeah that’s what I fucking thought” because YEAH

OH MY GOD SERO ANGST

I have never seen Sero this badly shaken before. it’s somehow so shocking?? holy shit you guys, I know I’ve been saying for ages “lolo all these kids about to be traumatized af” but somehow it’s one thing to know it’s coming, and another to finally actually see it. oh god

anyway let’s just hope all of the grown-ups aren’t actually fucking dead. but based on all of the kids’ expressions, it really feels like a lot of them might be, and that’s just... ...

and they had to see it. right? is that what this is implying?? holy shit. they watched it all happen. that’s it, the rest of this arc is cancelled, please proceed directly to the emergency therapy arc right now

TOKO!!

holy shit look at the size of that rock that fell on the medical tent. and DS pulling people out of the wreckage. it really feels like everywhere you turn this arc, the intrepid young scamps of U.A.’s first year hero class are the ones out here keeping things one step from total disaster

oh shit

excuse the hell out of me young Momo but what the hell is up with this use of the word “dead” with the implied “like everyone else” hanging there at the end?? what is up with that. that’s a very bad sentence I don’t like that at ALL

and what the actual hell is this panel of FATGUM AND TAMAKI IN THE MIDDLE OF THE CARNAGE, TWO PEOPLE WHOSE NAMES I’M QUITE SURE ARE ON THIS CONTRACT OF “PEOPLE WHO AREN’T ALLOWED TO DIE” WHICH HORIKOSHI IMPLICITLY AGREED TO THE MOMENT I STARTED READING THE MANGA. BOY WHAT

JESUS MOTHER F. CHRIST

THAT’S. THAT’S, UH

OH THANK FUCK

I mean, I already knew they survived, though. so WHY AM I STILL SO FUCKING ANXIOUS. good grief

and in before Majestic fucking dies on the next page, having saved the children with his very last act. I fucking hate you Majestic, you blue-balling child-preserving magnificent wizard bastard

HE FRISBEED THEM TO SAFETY GAH

WHY COULDN’T YOU DO THAT TO MACHIA THOUGH. BUT AT LEAST HE SAVED THE BABIES. TOO BAD HE’S FUCKING DEAD hahaha sob sob sob

is anyone still alive?? did the guys who were fighting off Snoopy Sno-Cone and RD back at the mansion at least make it out in one piece??

(ETA: from here on out all of these guys shall be referred to as Schrodinger's Heroes until further notice.)

so now Mineta is questioning whether or not their Smart Momo Plan even fucking did anything, which. same, Mineta, honestly. but it must have!! right?? ????

anyway so here’s some more panels of everyone dying do you want to see them. sure. why not

can we get back to the Tomura fight now. I’ve had just about enough of this, I’d like to see some 75% business now before this turns into the most depressing chapter of all time

BOOOOOOO

goddammit. well for now my money’s on Machia collapsing just as they make it back to Jakku. so Momo’s plan does eventually work, but the League still makes it back to Tomura thus ensuring more shenanigans can take place. goddamn, lol, just when I thought the arc was nearing its climax. feels like it just fucking respawned with a full life bar

also Toga is really looking... not great. I’m so scared for whoever she ends up fighting after this. OCHAKO MY SWEET BABY GIRL PLEASE WATCH OUT

WHY ARE YOU STILL HERE

PLEASE ARREST HIM FASTER. holy fuck if you fucking screw this up and he gets rescued I SWEAR TO GOD

oh wait is he just here to provide more backstory on Gigantomachia

GO BURNIN’, YOU GOT THIS. also, gonna be honest, at this point I really would not mind if Machia did a little less living for Tomura and a bit more dying

FINALLY!!!

FKFKF Aizawa not looking too good oh god. and Deku looks like he’s about to spontaneously develop ALL OF HIS REMAINING QUIRKS JUST LIKE THAT ON THE SPOT, FUCK YOU TOMURA

oh my god DON’T GET DISTRACTED!!

Shouto’s arrival is either about to make Endeavor more useless than ever, or suddenly a whole lot LESS useless, and right now it’s up in the air and I am excited but also scared

EXCUSES EXCUSES

BLAH BLAH BLAH. “SORRY I’M LATE, I WAS SAVING PEOPLE’S LIVES,” Shouto lies through his teeth, clearly not aware that Tomura has a built in GPS and knows full well that Shouto was actually only a few feet behind Bakugou and Deku and so that explanation doesn’t fly at all. the real truth must be something so embarrassing that he’s ashamed to admit it. did you get lost. did you run into an NPC who wouldn’t let you pass until you had completed some sort of quest

THERE YOU ARE KACCHAN, I WAS WONDERING

just as enraged as Deku! it’s almost like he just witnessed his sensei chopping off his own leg and subsequently almost being murdered or something

(ETA: actually lol I think he’s mad at Deku, for taking off earlier and leaving him behind with Gran. though there’s no law that says he can’t be mad about two things at once! anyway so do you guys think that being beaten to the punch by Deku here may perhaps frustrate this young man and contribute to his decision to return the favor at some point later on in this battle, perhaps with dire consequences? hmm.)

anyway so if you all are keeping up with the math, and I think you are, it seems like just about every one of the adult pros is either down for the count (Aizawa, Gran), or recovering (Endeavor, Ryuukyuu??), or Might As Well Not Even Be There (a certain TWO OTHER PEOPLE WHO ARE STILL IN A TIME OUT AND HAD BETTER BE THINKING GOOD AND HARD ABOUT WHAT THEY’VE DONE. OR MORE PRECISELY, DID NOT DO OR EVEN ATTEMPT TO DO). anyway so all of that means that the only ones actually ready and raring to go here in Round 2 against the newly regenerated and POSSIBLY HAS HIS DECAY QUIRK BACK Shigaraki Tomura are... drum roll...!

okay but FUCK YOU GUYS though oh my god YOU’RE EVEN RUINING THE DRUM ROLL

DID YOU NOT EVEN NOTICE HIS LEG BEFORE?!?!? holy -- can I -- can I please just slap them, I --

anyway so RockLockRock looks like he has something to say here. probably going to tell Deku to take Aizawa and run, as if Deku isn’t the fucking glue holding this entire operation together at this point now that Aizawa is KOed. can you believe these guys are so incompetent they’ve actually got me arguing in favor of the child soldiers now, what even

...fuck

shit. that face. he’s ready to die to give them all a chance. he knows he wouldn’t last two seconds against Tomura and yet he’s willing to sacrifice it all. damn it RLR... okay fine your time out is done now, but I’m still calling your parents

unfortunately, you’ll never believe it, but Deku doesn’t seem all that inclined to listen to this man telling him to bail and save his own skin sob

ngl though I am living for the Enraged Vengeance Deku we’ve been seeing in these last couple chapters. maybe now everyone will stop dismissing him as just a soft boi who always eats his vegetables and doesn’t swear, and remember that in truth he’s actually a mildly unhinged feral child with an infinite pain tolerance and a god-given talent for never listening to any life-prolonging advice that adults give him ever

oop don’t tell me he’s gonna do the Decay thing again, shit

-- uh

“eh?” lmao what the fuck. my boy's torso just opened up like a fucking door hinge and all he can say is “eh.” this fucking manga

like he’s seriously just calmly standing there trying to assess what the heck has gone wrong

you really don’t feel pain do you. “haha lol what why is my arm falling off I thought I fucking ascended”

OH MY GOD

IT’S OCTOBER THIRD. looool the fuck

Tomura. my sweet little S+ ranked death machine with an A rank in knowledge. who’s spent the past 15-20 minutes battling to the death with the number one fucking hero and all his pals. who all just HAPPENED to be there all ready and waiting to fight him the instant he woke up. Tomura. buddy. did it really only just occur to you that maybe something went wrong somewhere along the line. that maybe things were not, in fact going according to keikaku. that maybe the heroes didn’t just sit around waiting for you to finish cooking in your villain bake oven. like please forgive my impudence but TOMURA ARE YOU STUPID, is what I’m saying, I guess. but gently

(ETA: SHIGARAKI TOMURA, WHOSE ARM IS CURRENTLY DANGLING BY A THREAD: “hold up lol what day is it.”)

I really like how Deku’s just crying nonstop this entire time though. but like, you know. crying with RAGE

lol and he’s figured it out as well, and I fucking love the connection his mind made, look at this

sudden feelings of solidarity. “WE’RE NOT SO DIFFERENT, YOU AND I” lmao

AHH MIRKO

how does she still have two legs?? Horikoshi I can’t believe you forgot how many legs your own favorite character has. but anyways yes this has been your friendly reminder that Mirko saved EVERYONE and should have a battleship named after her

okay NOW he’s doing the thing

good job Tomura you finally got them!! good thing none of them can fly, or Float. RIGHT, DEKU

AHAHAHAHAHA YESSSSS

YOU LOVE TO SEE IT. AND A BLACKWHIP/FLOAT COMBO, TOO! TOMURA, YOU WERE SAYING??

(ETA: he even grabbed Kacchan too. “I can fly by myself!” YOU SHUSH MISTER.)

(ETA 2: and what I also love about this is that we know the SIXQUIRKS are seemingly in tune with Deku’s emotions, so it honestly makes perfect sense that in the heat of the moment with Tomura threatening to kill all these people that he cares about, the quirk just basically acts on his instinct to save and doesn’t stop to ask questions. we’re saving everyone, no buts. and he even activates Float at long last, acting on that same instinct. honestly Kacchan had the exact right idea the whole time, all the way back in chapter 217. “it’ll activate when he’s in trouble, right?” exactly.)

NO GRAN STOP NO ONE ASKED FOR THESE FEELS

OH MY GOD

NEVER HAVE I STANNED THIS BOY SO HARD. HOT DAMN

he’s so fucking mad. omg??! omg

okay so I’m gonna try my best to explain why I love this so much lol. all right. so the thing is, it’s actually so rare for Deku to actually take the reins like this. even though he’s the main character, even though he’s All Might’s heir, his personality is such that he genuinely doesn’t mind being in the backseat and is perfectly content to share the spotlight with others, or even relinquish it completely. BnHA has had... how many arcs so far? hold up let me check

-- okay I just checked and it’s 18. so, 18 arcs. and out of all those arcs, Deku has had a solo fight in approximately... five of them. and two of those fights were against Bakugou and Todoroki, respectively, so he was still sharing the spotlight even then. aside from that, he’s fought Muscular, Gentle, and Overhaul (oh, and Shinsou, I guess). that’s it! and it’s been almost 300 chapters! and again, he’s the main character. in a shounen manga. like seriously though, that is wild

and so seeing him here like this on the last page, ready to throw hands with Tomura, presumably while using Blackwhip as some sort of physical barrier to coat his attacks and prevent Tomura from trying any more Decay shenanigans with him? dude. I FELT THAT HYPE. it’s just a really effective way of keeping me from getting Main Character Fatigue like I might get in most other shounen series. because Deku doesn’t get the spotlight all that often in comparison, it still feels fresh to me, especially now with him actually going up against the Big Bad. just, idk what else to say except “hell yeah” lol

anyway, so I don’t even know how long it’s gonna last, and I expect that Kacchan and Shouto aren’t going to be content to just sit back and let Deku have all the glory either (Kacchan in particular is probably frothing at the mouth already), so in all likelihood it’s probably going to be more of a 3-on-1 than a 1-on-1. and it’s also very likely to end with Tomura gaining the upper hand and trying to take OFA! and so in truth this is a very fleeting moment of triumph, and the most premature of celebrations! but even so... damn. and also I just love seeing shounen kids lose their damn minds and explode with angry determination. and I especially love seeing it with Deku, because I love the reminder that beneath that sweet, unassuming nerdy exterior lies a core of fucking steel. that look in his eyes, though. TOMURA ARE YOU SCARED. you should be a little scared, lmao

anyway. so that’s the chapter! and I’m really glad we ended on this note, not just because Deku is a badass, but also because like I was saying earlier, this was about as bad a situation as the good guys have ever been in, and I felt like the manga was starting to lose that feeling of hope that still needs to be there at its core even when things are at their darkest. idk, I feel like we needed this. Tomura got a chance to catch his breath in the last chapter, and now it’s the heroes’ turn. whew

#bnha 283 #midoriya izuku #shigaraki tomura #class 1-a #bakugou katsuki #todoroki shouto #bnha #boku no hero academia #bnha spoilers #mha spoilers #bnha manga spoilers #makeste reads bnha #I just wish one of the blackwhips had been kind of dangling above him like an umbrella so my gotg 2 reference would make a bit more sense #eh but you all get it right #because... you know... the flying... and stuff #bah

[oldguardaudio]

This Miami Times article is an Excellent Example of FAKE NEWS – Marco Rubio Is Skipping a Miami Town Hall Tonight

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

The article is posted below for editorial purposes.

By Fake News Typist – Jerry Iannelli, 

The very first thing one notices obviously is a photo of Senator Rubio drinking from a water bottle. Of the thousands of available photos of the man, why use the water bottle picture? Because Fake News Typist – Jerry Iannelli wants to show US Senator Rubio is as bad a light as he possibly can, so any slap is worthy of this mullet wrapper.

Mullet Wrapper @ Hoax And Change

What else makes this a FAKE NEWS Story, by Fake News Typist – Jerry Iannelli? Let’s see…

Marco Rubio has been in Europe all week, Why? No one really knows!

Why would Fake News Typist – Jerry Iannelli say no one really knows! When he provides the answer, in the very next sentence no less.

Members of Rubio’s staff told the Tampa Bay Times yesterday that the Florida Senator is meeting with representatives from Germany and France this week to discuss alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election.

Need another example? Here goes…

But conveniently, the trip has put an entire ocean between Rubio and his angry constituents, just as his Republican colleagues nationwide are being bombarded with fury over their plans to repeal Obamacare. Earlier this week, Rubio used the trip as an excuse to skip citizen-backed “town hall” meetings across Florida.

The Fake News Typist – Jerry Iannelli insinuates, without any backup, that US Senator Rubio took this Europe trip to avoid town halls. But you see these “citizen-backed” town halls are planned by the George Soros/Barack Hussein Obama sponsored Organizing for Action the radical – anti-President Trump group. Not by voters in the district. Normally, one thinks that the elected official and their staffers would set up their own town hall meetings.

Another snark by Fake News Typist – Jerry Iannelli 

And while Rubio’s back in town tonight, he’s still skipping a town hall where hundreds of Rubio’s constituents plan to show up at the Universalist Unitarian Church in Southwest Miami-Dade County that the senator won’t attend.

Even the extremist group itself notes on the event page that the Senator is out of the country. It is hard to “skip” something you never had input into planning.

And the final deceitful statement by Fake News Typist – Jerry Iannelli, or at least the last one I have time for today is this ->

His senate-vote record is abysmal. Now, when his constituents actually want to talk to him, Rubio is busy doing the one thing we never would expect: Working.

What the  Fake News Typist – Jerry Iannelli fails to note is his Savior, Barack Hussein Obama, had a much worse voting attendance record when he was a Senator, than Senator Marco Rubio does. Yep, tis true, Barack Hussein Obama missed 137 out of 213 votes as he ran for president or 64.3 percent of votes. His career absentee rate was 24.2 percent. In 2004, then-U.S. Sen John Kerry of Massachusetts missed 89.8 percent of votes.

Hey Jerry Iannelli, Fake News Typist! Do a story on the Bat Child Escapes, maybe the National Inquirer will run it. It would be better reading than this Mullet Wrapper,, that calls itself the Miami New Times.  Such frauds and liars.

FAKE NEWS uncovered at HoakAndChange.com

Marco Rubio Is Skipping a Miami Town Hall Tonight

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 2017 AT 8 A.M.

BY JERRY IANNELLI – A FAKE NEWS TYPIST

Photo by Gage Skidmore / Flickr

Marco Rubio has been in Europe all week. Why? No one really knows! Members of Rubio’s staff told the Tampa Bay Times yesterday that the Florida Senator is meeting with representatives from Germany and France this week to discuss alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election. But Rubio’s office declined to say what cities he’s actually visiting, or even what countries the meetings are taking place in.

But conveniently, the trip has put an entire ocean between Rubio and his angry constituents, just as his Republican colleagues nationwide are being bombarded with fury over their plans to repeal Obamacare. Earlier this week, Rubio used the trip as an excuse to skip citizen-backed “town hall” meetings across Florida.

And while Rubio’s back in town tonight, he’s still skipping a town hall where hundreds of Rubio’s constituents plan to show up at the Universalist Unitarian Church in Southwest Miami-Dade County that the senator won’t attend.

The meeting was planned by Miami’s chapter of the national Indivisible Movement, one of the largest anti-Trump groups to form after last year’s election. The group has successfully mobilized scores of local constituents to show up to GOP town hall meetings around the country, to ask Republicans what the hell is going on in D.C.

Indivisible has been compared to a “left-wing Tea Party,” albeit one that conducts itself in a far more civil, fact-based, and Sarah-Palin-free manner.

Please read web version for embedded content

The group says it asked Rubio to come to the meeting, but he ignored all the requests.

“Indivisible Miami offered to co-host an event with Florida U.S. Senator Marco Rubio, who has yet to respond to numerous petitions and calls for an open forum in which his constituents can engage freely with the Senator,” Indivisible Miami’s Broward County affiliate, Indivisible South Florida wrote online earlier this week. The event is co-sponsored by the organizers behind the Miami Women’s March, as well as a group called the “South Florida Against the Insanity” Action Group.

“The purpose of the Town Hall is to create a regular citizen forum for the exchange of ideas, concerns and desired legislative outcomes with elected officials who represent the State of Florida,” Indivisible South Florida wrote online. The groups have not yet released a list of the event’s speakers.

But there are even more signs that Rubio’s European vacation diplomacy mission might have been fairly impromptu: Indivisible Miami says they’d scheduled a meeting with the senator yesterday, but Rubio’s office abruptly canceled on them on Monday, ostensibly because the besuited sea slug Rubio hopped a plane to Germany and/or France to talk to his European counterparts for the week.

Please read web version for embedded content

But whether the secretive “mission” (we can only hope Rubio is actually underneath the Kremlin, judo-chopping Russian agents in the neck like ex-Secretary of State John Kerry) is warranted or not, Rubio will, yet again, come across as a man afraid of criticism or standing up for himself.

Around the country, angry constituents have flooded town-hall meetings, screaming at representatives who have been trying to take away their health care and/or straight-up lying to them. Earlier this month, Florida Rep. Gus Billrakis, a Republican from New Port Richey,  tried to tell people that Obamacare created “death panels” that can decide to kill your sick grandparents. This is patently false, and Billrakis was satisfyingly shut down on camera for lying like a jackass to the people he works for.

Rubio, meanwhile, has been criticized for years for skipping work days to spend time campaigning for president. His senate-vote record is abysmal. Now, when his constituents actually want to talk to him, Rubio is busy doing the one thing we never would expect: Working.

This post has been updated with information from Rubio’s travel schedule.

This Miami Times article is an Excellent Example of FAKE NEWS – Marco Rubio Is Skipping a Miami Town Hall Tonight This Miami Times article is an Excellent Example of FAKE NEWS - Marco Rubio Is Skipping a Miami Town Hall Tonight…

#Marco Rubio

[templified]

Best WordPress Gaming Themes

New Post has been published on https://www.templified.com/best-wordpress-gaming-themes/

Best WordPress Gaming Themes

Video games and the gaming industry as a whole are absolutely blowing up, they’re more popular than ever.  For example, Grand Theft Auto 5 has generated about 6 BILLION in revenue since it’s release.  That’s the most of any media ever created.  More than any album, any movie, any book…you get the picture.  It’s no surprise that the audience for blogs related to gaming are growing more popular every day too.  If you’re a gaming enthusiast and you want to blog about the gaming industry, you’ll want to find that perfect blog to get your content out to your audience.  WordPress is an ideal platform to help you spread your message.  Not just any theme will do, you want to find a gaming theme that looks great on any device and has the features you want to create custom post types for your video game related content.  If you’re posting tutorials, walkthoughs or video clips of game action, these themes are going to offer enough features and widgets to get the job done.  Start a gaming magazine today with one of these fantastic WordPress gaming themes.

Arcane

Arcane wants to help you build the best gaming website possible and it’s got all the design chops, as well as the features, needed to do just that.  This is about bigtime scale too, the Arcane WordPress theme allows you to go big.  Users can quickly and easily create tournaments, challenge each other, keep track of matches and plenty more.  Arcane is absolutely about building a community and bbPress helps make that happen.  WooCommerce ready, perfectly responsive for great style on all devices, video blocks, parallax blocks and more, this Arcane theme has all the style you could possibly want, yet it never sacrifices functionality.

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Crystal Skull

Ultimately, Crystal Skull is a pretty straightforward magazine theme, but this particular style lends itself to gaming magazine sites specifically.  The design is a little bit funky, the embellishments are modern and even maybe a bit futuristic.  Powered by Visual Composer and offering WooCommerce support, this Crystal Skull theme has tons of features you’ll only find in really high end magazine site.  The reviews feature is a must have for a modern gaming magazine template, allowing you to rate games by multiple criteria.  But your readers can get into the act too, helping to create even more depth of content.  That helps keep your site fresh and helps keep folks coming back for more.  Parallax blocks, video blocks and other cool layout features keep interest levels high, so this theme is great for walkthroughs, reviews, tutorials and more.

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Rhino

Rhino is a gaming theme for WordPress, made by Tesla Themes with the gaming industry in mind.  Gaming sites are incredibly popular and if you can keep at it, you can build a pretty good niche and grab tons of readers who are interested in what you have to say.  Rhino allows you to even monetize your work, which is helpful to motivate you to keep creating new, outstanding content.  Game developers and game bloggers alike can both benefit from this awesome theme, announcing the latest news and notes about upcoming releases.  With video post types, you can show off gameplay videos and more with a premium, responsive layout.  There’s also a handy subscription feature where readers can subscribe to get all the newest information and posts as you make them, really helping with engagement and building repeat visitors.

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Ultra

Ultra is a premium drag and drop WordPress theme that offers a premade demo specifically crafted for gaming magazines.  It installs with one click, importing all demo data, menus, layouts and even images, so you can get started incredibly rapidly, even if you’re not an expert at WordPress.  With a clean, flat design and a professional, easy to use admin panel, you’ll be making awesome content and building an audience very quickly with Ultra.  There are over 60 other demo sites included too, with more available from the community of users who can submit their own designs and layouts, so you can really increase your site’s design capabilities that way.  Ultra is responsive, allows you to set up a WooCommerce shop and you can publish all kinds of content from walkthroughs and tutorials to news and notes about the latest video game releases.

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Game Addict

The Game Addict is one of the best WordPress gaming themes out there right now, if you really want to have the flexibility to adjust nearly every setting throughout the entire theme.  With Game Addict, you’re able to slide around various modules on any page to construct the perfect design for your gaming readers, which gives you a lot of room to create the perfect website. This theme also lets you create and handle ClanWars, improving action and creating a solid community around your site.  Pretty cool, right?  We think so too.

With perfect bbPress integration, your website turns into a full fledged gaming discussion hub, and the entirely responsive layout is consistently perfect for those browsing on tablets or smartphones, incredibly important since App games like Pokemon Go and Clash of Clans are so popular these days. Not to mention, this theme comes packaged with a variety of backgrounds and unlimited color schemes, providing the perfect arena for branding your website however you need it to be branded.

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Godlike

This is Godlike, a groundbreaking WordPress gaming theme for crafting a gaming community with online forums, images and video galleries for game-play.  You can use this theme to sell your own game too, if that’s what you’re looking to do, since it’s WooCommerce ready.  There are dozens of shortcodes, important for creating additional functionality on your site.  There are unlimited layout variations possible and the modern, sleek and attractive design will make your readers keep coming back for more.  Just add content.  (That’s the hard part!)

With one-click demo data import, custom page options and Visual Composer included, you’ll be up and running quickly within moments and your site is going to look incredible on any device, since Godlike is fully, natively responsive.  Contact Form 7 is also supported, as are a variety of menu styles and locations.  Free lifetime updates, strong support and rock steady code all make this a fantastic choice for creating an online gaming community or selling your very own game online.

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Coolist

Gaming magazines with viral capablities are a fantastic way to help build user engagement and drive traffic to your money site.  Coolist is a wonderful combination of features and ease of use, making it simple for your users to share your content, like and follow posts and more.  Coolist is a wonderful way to help make your blog the best it can be.  When you look for a beautiful magazine or blog theme, you will need to pick one which has a good number of functional attributes that help market your content, no matter what that content is, which is why Coolist is such a great solution.  It does all that, with style.  It’s a nearly perfect balance between form and function, equally adept at showing off gaming videos as walk-throughs and tutorials.  With a site built around the Coolist theme, you’ll be bringing in loads of new traffic every day.

If your magazine needs a truly unique homepage, Coolist may have what you’re looking for, with flexible and ultimately arterable layouts for the front page and every page for that matter.  Coolist allows you to sort categories on each page using AJAX, which makes the pages dynamic and still keeps them in the eye of the SERPs.  There are three pre-defined locations for post positioning, so you can show off what’s new, what’s trending and what’s hot.  Enable or disable sliders, choose from nearly a dozen different row layouts and even swap out and tweak the hot, new and trending styles.  Coolist loads up really, really fast, scoring a 95% on PageSpeed score from Pingdom.  There’s one click dummy data import, a bunch of free plugins, there are super helpful HD video tutorials available when you’re setting your site up, tons of short codes and more.  Coolist is simple one of the better WordPress magazine themes of the year.

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PixieBolt

PixieBolt is a WordPress theme that was specifically created for eSports teams, gaming clans and other organizations.  The style is cool, it’s really on point with what a gaming crew might be into and the features perfectly complement the design.  PixieBolt is trendy in terms of code and design, so it’s up to date and fast.  Premium features that any eSport group might need?  yeah, PixieBolt’s got them.  This fantastic gaming theme offers the usual customization for colors and fonts, but it also goes a little bit further.  PixieBolt offers sponsorship and partners sections, unlimited team areas, blog and news with archives, matches and tournaments, Twitch, HitBox and Azubo streams and a ton more.

The layout is fluid, because you absolutely need this theme to be responsive, tons of your traffic is going to come from mobile devices.  The style is cool, modern and fresh.  The layout is easy to navigate and so incredibly visual.  The news section is great for written news and videos too, so players can read up or watch the latest gameplay videos.  This is the absolute best eSports theme around for WordPress.

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Exit Game

Okay, you’ve got to forgive me with this theme because it’s a little different than everything else on this page.  That’s because it’s completely unique.  This is Exit Game, a theme built for escape rooms.  Never heard of them?  Well, here’s a website that you might want to check out, I think the descriptions do a pretty good job of explaining what these ‘escape rooms’ are all about.  Anyway, if you’ve been considering a new website for your escape room business, I think Exit Game is a great choice.  Now, of course, you could adapt a general purpose theme to get the job done, but what fun is that?  Exit Game is perfect for quest games, puzzle rooms, and other fun entertainment offerings.  It’s professionally designed, it’s easy to manage and customize, it’s coded well and well supported too.  A great value, if this is the type of thing you’re looking for.

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#Gaming

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Best WordPress Food Blog Themes, Recipes and Lifestyle

New Post has been published on https://www.templified.com/best-wordpress-food-blog-themes/

Best WordPress Food Blog Themes, Recipes and Lifestyle

If you’re a blogger trying to share recipes, sell recipe books, or you’re just an all-around food enthusiast, you’ll want to find the ideal WordPress food Blog theme. But with so many themes out there, how do you pick one?  Seriously, it shouldn’t be that hard, but there are hundreds and hundreds of food blog themes out there, how can you find the right one for your website?

You’ll certainly want to find a theme with a responsive design, so that your website looks great on all devices. So many people access recipes and stories about food via their mobile devices, so it’s more important than ever that you give them a great user experience. We found an amazing assortment of WordPress themes, many with recipe building plugins included, some of them integrating with other plugins to help you create an amazing food-related website. No matter what type of blogging you’re doing, recipes or restaurant reviews, selling kitchen implements or something else entirely, one of these amazing WordPress themes should be perfect for your website.

With every one of these WordPress themes, you’ll get a theme that is easy to customize and one with fantastic support from the developer. These truly are the best WordPress food and recipe blogs available anywhere.

Foody

Built for restaurants and food stores, Foody is a WordPress theme that I think has earned a spot in our collection of the best food blog themes.  For bakeries, pizzerias, organic food stores and all sorts of restaurants, not to mention food blocks, foodie is a great option. This team has seven Unique Home Page layouts that are all built to Showcase your food and beverage products. There’s a Coffee Shop version, a wine shop, Sushi Store and More. I think that for selling products and blogging about food, this theme is a great option. This template has an online reservations and booking feature, the code base is incredibly solid, it loads fast and it’s very easy to configure. There are multiple header options, your color scheme can be edited with ease and I think it’s perfect for all sorts of food related websites.

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Salt and Pepper

This theme, Salt and Pepper by Tesla Themes, is a great option for recipe bloggers.  I think the design is clean and simple enough to attract the attention of even the most finicky reader. Salt and Pepper is a WordPress theme that was built for sharing recipes and cooking tips. It makes it very simple to establish connection with wide-ranging audience, this theme is perfect for chefs, lifestyle bloggers and cooking experts. Whether you have very complicated needs or a relatively simple website is in your future, this template has civil great features that you should consider. There’s a handy recipe filter, ingredients list and cooking methods short codes. This SEO optimized theme wants to help you rank your site as high as possible. There are tons of different useful Pages like the about us page, contact page, built-in blog and more. Certainly, this is a theme of well worth considering.

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Enoki

Incredibly sophisticated, completely elegant and built personal and food blogs, Enoki is a really great choice for many bloggers. This theme has a perfect five star rating on themeforest, and it seems to keep getting better with every update. Enoki works perfectly with woocommerce, the clean style makes it perfect for cookbooks, cooking classes, recipes and other food-related blogs. I think this name is creative and elegant, a really neat theme and it’s even easy to use. With the clean, Timeless design of the inoki theme, your readers will never be distracted and that helps provide a great user experience.

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Notumn

Notumn is a clean and minimalist, elegant and creative WordPress theme that has absolutely no clutter, it’s a gorgeous and minimalist theme that provides the right look for a high quality recipe blog website. You’re not limited to just sharing recipes though, many people use this highly rated WordPress theme as a lifestyle blog, photography portfolio, travel blog or magazine. Some even love it as a personal WordPress blog theme. No matter what use you choose, you’re going to get a lot out of this fantastic thing. There’s a live customizer, MailChimp support, Instagram support which is very interesting, it’s ready for translation and the responsive design is incredible. This theme is SEO optimized and loads incredibly fast, so you’ll always get the most out of your SEO efforts with the Notumn WordPress theme.

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Flexblog

Flexblog is a simple, fast and creative WordPress theme that is 100% GPL licensed. It’s always fun to find a GPL theme and one with such a beautiful design as Flex blog is a true Rarity. This SEO optimized, AdSense ready WordPress blog theme is great for food and recipe blogs. You can use this template for any sort of lifestyle or personal blog. If you want to get the most out of your blogging efforts, a responsive and retina ready theme like Flex blog is something you really should consider. This pain load fast, is SEO optimized and it is one of the highest rated food blog themes on themeforest.

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Vanda

Vanda is elegant, fully customizable and creative. This theme, which has a perfect rating on themeforest, is woocommerce ready, was built on the stable and fast loading underscores framework and it has all the design chops that you would need to create mesmerizing WordPress recipe blog website. With Vanda you can post all of your favorite recipes and cooking techniques, the fina cludes a recipe timing option for preparing and cooking food, cuisine type and ingredients checklist and steps list. There are four different post Styles so that you have fine control over the look of each of your posts and there are also tons of other totally customizable options to help make your recipes look the very best that they can.

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Hannah

Hannah is a simple and stylish WordPress theme that was Bill as a lifestyle, magazine and recipe Blog theme. This responsive theme has a one-page site version, a landing page version or a full blogging magazine website. There are plenty of useful features included with the Hannah WordPress theme like it’s SEO optimized performance and fast page load times. For lifestyle magazines and fashion blogs, recipe blogs and even selling products with woocommerce, Hannah is a full service solution to a lot of problems. You can select your favorite layout type, this theme is widget ready and there are promo boxes that you can populate with any sort of content you might want. Custom headers are available for each page or post and there are tons of high-quality, useful or short codes to add more functionality to your website.

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Look

Look is a WordPress theme that is certainly am on my favorite lifestyle and food or recipe blog themes. This theme has a very simple design but it’s incredibly easy to customize. With WooCommerce available, you can set up an online shop to go with your recipe block. If you want to provide the best possible user experience, a simple and beautiful blog or magazine theme like the look theme gives a very slick presentation to all your content. This theme is 100% responsive, has plenty of powerful theme options to help make running your blog easy. The look WordPress theme is optimized for speed, it’s one of the fastest magazine or blog themes available. Purely responsive, this theme looks great on any size screen and with a few specialized plugins, you can build one of the best recipe blogs on the net.

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Setwood

Setwood is a clean and engaging lifestyle blog that also works perfectly as a food blog. This theme is clean and simple to look at, it’s responsive and beautiful too. For Creative websites dealing with food or fashion, lifestyle or personal blogs and even travel blogs, this woocommerce ready WordPress blogging theme was developed to be as easy to use as it is beautiful. It produces as satisfying user experience for everyone. This template has received nothing but 5 star reviews so far on ThemeForest, so it’s a very high-quality theme that you can trust to help make it website the best it possibly can be.

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Healthy Food

Healthy Food is a fresh food store, a multipurpose WooCommerce theme with five lovely demo sites to showcase what this template is capable of. Healthy food offers multiple different header Styles as well as footer options, which can combine to give your website a really unique look. Healthy food has a powerful admin panel, this template offers plenty of options through a highly intuitive interface. There’s a one click demo installation option, that helps get your template up and running fast. Google handles the fonts, so your typography can be just what you wanted it to be. With over 800 fonts, and counting, Google is the most popular typography set up on the internet. This Healthy Food theme also supports multi vendors, which could be a really interesting thing for a farmer’s market website?

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Verdure

Looking for a clean WordPress theme for healthy lifestyle blog or food blog? Well, it might be that you’ve been looking for Verdure. This theme has a modern-style about it, it was built for tea houses or coffee shops, though I think that it works just as effectively as a general food blog. It’s got an incredibly clean style about it, the typography is top-notch and with a variety of blog options, I think that you can really make a great impression on anyone who is searching for what it is that you have to offer. This template has a really relaxing feel overall, I think that the layout and feature list makes it ideal for any modern blog that wants to integrate a woocommerce store to sell products. This theme is great for any business that wants a clean and organic feeling website to Showcase products, portfolios and blog posts.

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The Flavour

ThemeFuse’s theme called “The Flavour” is a delightfully crisp parallax WordPress theme with an incredibly clean, straightforward layout, along with a subtle, smooth and very effective parallax scroll feature.  All of that combines to give The Flavour a well-earned place among the very best WordPress themes for restaurants, cafés, food carts or food trucks, delis, catering companies or any other type of food and beverage business you could name.  With the right images, there’s no reason you need to use this theme for just a restaurant, it’s an all around solid theme for anyone who wants a creative, fun and unique way to present their content to the world.  The Flavour WordPress theme is flexible, it’s very customizable and it’s not at all difficult to make those little adjustments to your site that every webmaster wants to do.  The Flavout is also responsive and retina ready, meaning your site’s display won’t be compromised on any kind of viewing screen, from a traditional desktop display to a handheld device like a smart phone.  That’s why we recommend this theme to anybody who needs a great parallax theme.  Here’s our collection of WordPress restaurant themes.

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Fresh

Fresh is a super-tasty, delectable WordPress theme and it’s a flawless choice for a terrific and really efficient website for your establishment, no matter whether it’s a ethnic foods like Norwegian or Pakistani, fast casual, limited service restaurants, sandwich shops, taco stands or barbecue restaurants.  But what this Fresh theme is really built for is to be an online food store, maybe for a farmer’s market or small, organic farm.  Farm to table food is getting pretty big and this theme can help you carve a slice of the pie. This cutting edge, flexible, beautiful, easy to use and efficient WooCommerce ready WordPress theme lets you market new items, get in touch with potential customers, sell existing products, develop your online business and supervise delivery and product stock and much more.

Should you wish to use an excellent WordPress plugin to create a magnificent site, consider the adaptable, user friendly visual page builder WordPress plugin, Visual Composer.  Visual Composer and Fresh work together perfectly.  This one is very easy to use with lots of fantastic help and documentation, incredibly adaptive so it’s possible to use it on virtually any site, one that gives numerous helpful, popular functions, well coded and responsive so that it looks great on virtually any screen and made with a graceful, beautiful style.

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#Food

[templified]

Best WordPress Food Blog Themes, Recipes and Lifestyle

New Post has been published on https://www.templified.com/best-wordpress-food-blog-themes/

Best WordPress Food Blog Themes, Recipes and Lifestyle

If you’re a blogger trying to share recipes, sell recipe books, or you’re just an all-around food enthusiast, you’ll want to find the ideal WordPress food Blog theme. But with so many themes out there, how do you pick one?  Seriously, it shouldn’t be that hard, but there are hundreds and hundreds of food blog themes out there, how can you find the right one for your website?

You’ll certainly want to find a theme with a responsive design, so that your website looks great on all devices. So many people access recipes and stories about food via their mobile devices, so it’s more important than ever that you give them a great user experience. We found an amazing assortment of WordPress themes, many with recipe building plugins included, some of them integrating with other plugins to help you create an amazing food-related website. No matter what type of blogging you’re doing, recipes or restaurant reviews, selling kitchen implements or something else entirely, one of these amazing WordPress themes should be perfect for your website.

With every one of these WordPress themes, you’ll get a theme that is easy to customize and one with fantastic support from the developer. These truly are the best WordPress food and recipe blogs available anywhere.

Foody

Built for restaurants and food stores, Foody is a WordPress theme that I think has earned a spot in our collection of the best food blog themes.  For bakeries, pizzerias, organic food stores and all sorts of restaurants, not to mention food blocks, foodie is a great option. This team has seven Unique Home Page layouts that are all built to Showcase your food and beverage products. There’s a Coffee Shop version, a wine shop, Sushi Store and More. I think that for selling products and blogging about food, this theme is a great option. This template has an online reservations and booking feature, the code base is incredibly solid, it loads fast and it’s very easy to configure. There are multiple header options, your color scheme can be edited with ease and I think it’s perfect for all sorts of food related websites.

DemoMore Information Get Hosting

Salt and Pepper

This theme, Salt and Pepper by Tesla Themes, is a great option for recipe bloggers.  I think the design is clean and simple enough to attract the attention of even the most finicky reader. Salt and Pepper is a WordPress theme that was built for sharing recipes and cooking tips. It makes it very simple to establish connection with wide-ranging audience, this theme is perfect for chefs, lifestyle bloggers and cooking experts. Whether you have very complicated needs or a relatively simple website is in your future, this template has civil great features that you should consider. There’s a handy recipe filter, ingredients list and cooking methods short codes. This SEO optimized theme wants to help you rank your site as high as possible. There are tons of different useful Pages like the about us page, contact page, built-in blog and more. Certainly, this is a theme of well worth considering.

DemoMore Information Get Hosting

Enoki

Incredibly sophisticated, completely elegant and built personal and food blogs, Enoki is a really great choice for many bloggers. This theme has a perfect five star rating on themeforest, and it seems to keep getting better with every update. Enoki works perfectly with woocommerce, the clean style makes it perfect for cookbooks, cooking classes, recipes and other food-related blogs. I think this name is creative and elegant, a really neat theme and it’s even easy to use. With the clean, Timeless design of the inoki theme, your readers will never be distracted and that helps provide a great user experience.

DemoMore Information Get Hosting

Notumn

Notumn is a clean and minimalist, elegant and creative WordPress theme that has absolutely no clutter, it’s a gorgeous and minimalist theme that provides the right look for a high quality recipe blog website. You’re not limited to just sharing recipes though, many people use this highly rated WordPress theme as a lifestyle blog, photography portfolio, travel blog or magazine. Some even love it as a personal WordPress blog theme. No matter what use you choose, you’re going to get a lot out of this fantastic thing. There’s a live customizer, MailChimp support, Instagram support which is very interesting, it’s ready for translation and the responsive design is incredible. This theme is SEO optimized and loads incredibly fast, so you’ll always get the most out of your SEO efforts with the Notumn WordPress theme.

DemoMore Information Get Hosting

Flexblog

Flexblog is a simple, fast and creative WordPress theme that is 100% GPL licensed. It’s always fun to find a GPL theme and one with such a beautiful design as Flex blog is a true Rarity. This SEO optimized, AdSense ready WordPress blog theme is great for food and recipe blogs. You can use this template for any sort of lifestyle or personal blog. If you want to get the most out of your blogging efforts, a responsive and retina ready theme like Flex blog is something you really should consider. This pain load fast, is SEO optimized and it is one of the highest rated food blog themes on themeforest.

DemoMore Information Get Hosting

Vanda

Vanda is elegant, fully customizable and creative. This theme, which has a perfect rating on themeforest, is woocommerce ready, was built on the stable and fast loading underscores framework and it has all the design chops that you would need to create mesmerizing WordPress recipe blog website. With Vanda you can post all of your favorite recipes and cooking techniques, the fina cludes a recipe timing option for preparing and cooking food, cuisine type and ingredients checklist and steps list. There are four different post Styles so that you have fine control over the look of each of your posts and there are also tons of other totally customizable options to help make your recipes look the very best that they can.

DemoMore Information Get Hosting

Hannah

Hannah is a simple and stylish WordPress theme that was Bill as a lifestyle, magazine and recipe Blog theme. This responsive theme has a one-page site version, a landing page version or a full blogging magazine website. There are plenty of useful features included with the Hannah WordPress theme like it’s SEO optimized performance and fast page load times. For lifestyle magazines and fashion blogs, recipe blogs and even selling products with woocommerce, Hannah is a full service solution to a lot of problems. You can select your favorite layout type, this theme is widget ready and there are promo boxes that you can populate with any sort of content you might want. Custom headers are available for each page or post and there are tons of high-quality, useful or short codes to add more functionality to your website.

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Look

Look is a WordPress theme that is certainly am on my favorite lifestyle and food or recipe blog themes. This theme has a very simple design but it’s incredibly easy to customize. With WooCommerce available, you can set up an online shop to go with your recipe block. If you want to provide the best possible user experience, a simple and beautiful blog or magazine theme like the look theme gives a very slick presentation to all your content. This theme is 100% responsive, has plenty of powerful theme options to help make running your blog easy. The look WordPress theme is optimized for speed, it’s one of the fastest magazine or blog themes available. Purely responsive, this theme looks great on any size screen and with a few specialized plugins, you can build one of the best recipe blogs on the net.

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Setwood

Setwood is a clean and engaging lifestyle blog that also works perfectly as a food blog. This theme is clean and simple to look at, it’s responsive and beautiful too. For Creative websites dealing with food or fashion, lifestyle or personal blogs and even travel blogs, this woocommerce ready WordPress blogging theme was developed to be as easy to use as it is beautiful. It produces as satisfying user experience for everyone. This template has received nothing but 5 star reviews so far on ThemeForest, so it’s a very high-quality theme that you can trust to help make it website the best it possibly can be.

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Healthy Food

Healthy Food is a fresh food store, a multipurpose WooCommerce theme with five lovely demo sites to showcase what this template is capable of. Healthy food offers multiple different header Styles as well as footer options, which can combine to give your website a really unique look. Healthy food has a powerful admin panel, this template offers plenty of options through a highly intuitive interface. There’s a one click demo installation option, that helps get your template up and running fast. Google handles the fonts, so your typography can be just what you wanted it to be. With over 800 fonts, and counting, Google is the most popular typography set up on the internet. This Healthy Food theme also supports multi vendors, which could be a really interesting thing for a farmer’s market website?

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Verdure

Looking for a clean WordPress theme for healthy lifestyle blog or food blog? Well, it might be that you’ve been looking for Verdure. This theme has a modern-style about it, it was built for tea houses or coffee shops, though I think that it works just as effectively as a general food blog. It’s got an incredibly clean style about it, the typography is top-notch and with a variety of blog options, I think that you can really make a great impression on anyone who is searching for what it is that you have to offer. This template has a really relaxing feel overall, I think that the layout and feature list makes it ideal for any modern blog that wants to integrate a woocommerce store to sell products. This theme is great for any business that wants a clean and organic feeling website to Showcase products, portfolios and blog posts.

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The Flavour

ThemeFuse’s theme called “The Flavour” is a delightfully crisp parallax WordPress theme with an incredibly clean, straightforward layout, along with a subtle, smooth and very effective parallax scroll feature.  All of that combines to give The Flavour a well-earned place among the very best WordPress themes for restaurants, cafés, food carts or food trucks, delis, catering companies or any other type of food and beverage business you could name.  With the right images, there’s no reason you need to use this theme for just a restaurant, it’s an all around solid theme for anyone who wants a creative, fun and unique way to present their content to the world.  The Flavour WordPress theme is flexible, it’s very customizable and it’s not at all difficult to make those little adjustments to your site that every webmaster wants to do.  The Flavout is also responsive and retina ready, meaning your site’s display won’t be compromised on any kind of viewing screen, from a traditional desktop display to a handheld device like a smart phone.  That’s why we recommend this theme to anybody who needs a great parallax theme.  Here’s our collection of WordPress restaurant themes.

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Fresh

Fresh is a super-tasty, delectable WordPress theme and it’s a flawless choice for a terrific and really efficient website for your establishment, no matter whether it’s a ethnic foods like Norwegian or Pakistani, fast casual, limited service restaurants, sandwich shops, taco stands or barbecue restaurants.  But what this Fresh theme is really built for is to be an online food store, maybe for a farmer’s market or small, organic farm.  Farm to table food is getting pretty big and this theme can help you carve a slice of the pie. This cutting edge, flexible, beautiful, easy to use and efficient WooCommerce ready WordPress theme lets you market new items, get in touch with potential customers, sell existing products, develop your online business and supervise delivery and product stock and much more.

Should you wish to use an excellent WordPress plugin to create a magnificent site, consider the adaptable, user friendly visual page builder WordPress plugin, Visual Composer.  Visual Composer and Fresh work together perfectly.  This one is very easy to use with lots of fantastic help and documentation, incredibly adaptive so it’s possible to use it on virtually any site, one that gives numerous helpful, popular functions, well coded and responsive so that it looks great on virtually any screen and made with a graceful, beautiful style.

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#Food

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Best WordPress Food Blog Themes, Recipes and Lifestyle

New Post has been published on https://www.templified.com/best-wordpress-food-blog-themes/

Best WordPress Food Blog Themes, Recipes and Lifestyle

If you’re a blogger trying to share recipes, sell recipe books, or you’re just an all-around food enthusiast, you’ll want to find the ideal WordPress food Blog theme. But with so many themes out there, how do you pick one?  Seriously, it shouldn’t be that hard, but there are hundreds and hundreds of food blog themes out there, how can you find the right one for your website?

You’ll certainly want to find a theme with a responsive design, so that your website looks great on all devices. So many people access recipes and stories about food via their mobile devices, so it’s more important than ever that you give them a great user experience. We found an amazing assortment of WordPress themes, many with recipe building plugins included, some of them integrating with other plugins to help you create an amazing food-related website. No matter what type of blogging you’re doing, recipes or restaurant reviews, selling kitchen implements or something else entirely, one of these amazing WordPress themes should be perfect for your website.

With every one of these WordPress themes, you’ll get a theme that is easy to customize and one with fantastic support from the developer. These truly are the best WordPress food and recipe blogs available anywhere.

Foody

Built for restaurants and food stores, Foody is a WordPress theme that I think has earned a spot in our collection of the best food blog themes.  For bakeries, pizzerias, organic food stores and all sorts of restaurants, not to mention food blocks, foodie is a great option. This team has seven Unique Home Page layouts that are all built to Showcase your food and beverage products. There’s a Coffee Shop version, a wine shop, Sushi Store and More. I think that for selling products and blogging about food, this theme is a great option. This template has an online reservations and booking feature, the code base is incredibly solid, it loads fast and it’s very easy to configure. There are multiple header options, your color scheme can be edited with ease and I think it’s perfect for all sorts of food related websites.

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Enoki

Incredibly sophisticated, completely elegant and built personal and food blogs, Enoki is a really great choice for many bloggers. This theme has a perfect five star rating on themeforest, and it seems to keep getting better with every update. Enoki works perfectly with woocommerce, the clean style makes it perfect for cookbooks, cooking classes, recipes and other food-related blogs. I think this name is creative and elegant, a really neat theme and it’s even easy to use. With the clean, Timeless design of the inoki theme, your readers will never be distracted and that helps provide a great user experience.

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Notumn

Notumn is a clean and minimalist, elegant and creative WordPress theme that has absolutely no clutter, it’s a gorgeous and minimalist theme that provides the right look for a high quality recipe blog website. You’re not limited to just sharing recipes though, many people use this highly rated WordPress theme as a lifestyle blog, photography portfolio, travel blog or magazine. Some even love it as a personal WordPress blog theme. No matter what use you choose, you’re going to get a lot out of this fantastic thing. There’s a live customizer, MailChimp support, Instagram support which is very interesting, it’s ready for translation and the responsive design is incredible. This theme is SEO optimized and loads incredibly fast, so you’ll always get the most out of your SEO efforts with the Notumn WordPress theme.

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Flexblog

Flexblog is a simple, fast and creative WordPress theme that is 100% GPL licensed. It’s always fun to find a GPL theme and one with such a beautiful design as Flex blog is a true Rarity. This SEO optimized, AdSense ready WordPress blog theme is great for food and recipe blogs. You can use this template for any sort of lifestyle or personal blog. If you want to get the most out of your blogging efforts, a responsive and retina ready theme like Flex blog is something you really should consider. This pain load fast, is SEO optimized and it is one of the highest rated food blog themes on themeforest.

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Vanda

Vanda is elegant, fully customizable and creative. This theme, which has a perfect rating on themeforest, is woocommerce ready, was built on the stable and fast loading underscores framework and it has all the design chops that you would need to create mesmerizing WordPress recipe blog website. With Vanda you can post all of your favorite recipes and cooking techniques, the fina cludes a recipe timing option for preparing and cooking food, cuisine type and ingredients checklist and steps list. There are four different post Styles so that you have fine control over the look of each of your posts and there are also tons of other totally customizable options to help make your recipes look the very best that they can.

Demo More Information Get Hosting

Hannah

Hannah is a simple and stylish WordPress theme that was Bill as a lifestyle, magazine and recipe Blog theme. This responsive theme has a one-page site version, a landing page version or a full blogging magazine website. There are plenty of useful features included with the Hannah WordPress theme like it’s SEO optimized performance and fast page load times. For lifestyle magazines and fashion blogs, recipe blogs and even selling products with woocommerce, Hannah is a full service solution to a lot of problems. You can select your favorite layout type, this theme is widget ready and there are promo boxes that you can populate with any sort of content you might want. Custom headers are available for each page or post and there are tons of high-quality, useful or short codes to add more functionality to your website.

Demo More Information Get Hosting

Look

Look is a WordPress theme that is certainly am on my favorite lifestyle and food or recipe blog themes. This theme has a very simple design but it’s incredibly easy to customize. With woocommerce available, you can set up an online shop to go with your recipe block. If you want to provide the best possible user experience, a simple and beautiful blog or magazine theme like the look theme gives a very slick presentation to all your content. This theme is 100% responsive, has plenty of powerful theme options to help make running your blog easy. The look WordPress theme is optimized for speed, it’s one of the fastest magazine or blog themes available. Purely responsive, this theme looks great on any size screen and with a few specialized plugins, you can build one of the best recipe blogs on the net.

Demo More Information Get Hosting

Setwood

Setwood is a clean and engaging lifestyle blog that also works perfectly as a food blog. This theme is clean and simple to look at, it’s responsive and beautiful too. For Creative websites dealing with food or fashion, lifestyle or personal blogs and even travel blogs, this woocommerce ready WordPress blogging theme was developed to be as easy to use as it is beautiful. It produces as satisfying user experience for everyone. This template has received nothing but 5 star reviews so far on ThemeForest, so it’s a very high-quality theme that you can trust to help make it website the best it possibly can be.

Demo More Information Get Hosting

Healthy Food

Healthy Food is a fresh food store, a multipurpose WooCommerce theme with five lovely demo sites to showcase what this template is capable of. Healthy food offers multiple different header Styles as well as footer options, which can combine to give your website a really unique look. Healthy food has a powerful admin panel, this template offers plenty of options through a highly intuitive interface. There’s a one click demo installation option, that helps get your template up and running fast. Google handles the fonts, so your typography can be just what you wanted it to be. With over 800 fonts, and counting, Google is the most popular typography set up on the internet. This Healthy Food theme also supports multi vendors, which could be a really interesting thing for a farmer’s market website?

Demo More Information Get Hosting

#Food

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Few would argue about the power and value of educational content – whether a blog, an e-newsletter, a white paper, or a how-to video. However, some brands have taken this concept further by developing full-fledged classes and curricula for their audiences.

Let’s look at eight brands that give their audience opportunities to get an education in unique and entertaining ways.

Renasant Bank: Marketing strategy takes step above boring classes

Renasant Bank, a 113-year-old Mississippi-based regional bank, had been offering financial literacy classes and support to local universities for some time. Although it didn’t need name recognition – the bank has that – it did want to find a way to be recognized as offering more than checking accounts.

Two years ago, Renasant took a page from the popular TV show, Shark Tank. “For years, we’ve partnered with universities to do business competitions. After looking through their pitches, giving students ideas, and realizing that no one knows this is going on, we thought, ‘What if we got a partner to do a TV show?’” says John Oxford, Renasant’s director of corporate communications.

The show, Brand New, was produced with the help of Mabus Agency, and aired its first episode in June 2017 on MPB, the Mississippi PBS affiliate.

Students from the University of Mississippi, Mississippi State University, and Southern Mississippi submitted business ideas, which a panel of judges from Renasant and local business partners narrowed to six. Spotlights on those students, their ideas, and the competition that followed were filmed and featured in four 20-minute episodes.

“Banks are often perceived as boring, but as far as content goes, you can help differentiate yourself by taking a calculated risk to show what your brand does,” says Oxford. The ability to distribute your story across multiple channels makes it even more effective, he adds.

Creating educational #content can differentiate your brand, says @johnoxford1. Click To Tweet

From conception to airing took about two years, with a production time of three to four months. “The challenge is always getting buy-in, but everyone at Renasant loved the idea. You don’t hear about a lot of banks doing things like this,” says Oxford.

It helped that those involved in the project and the marketing for the show came up with a well-thought-out multifaceted concept, explains Oxford. “We are able to chop up segments and get shorter pieces of content to share on Facebook and various social media. We can also email it out to our customer base,” he says.

Another tactic has been targeting each participating university with mobile and social ads. “Students on the show are also promoting it to their friends, and the schools are promoting it on their websites,” says Oxford. “It’s a key market for us. The millennial market is really who banks like ours are looking to connect with.”

Renasant not only helped create and produce the show, but it paid the prize money (a few thousand dollars) to each of three winners. “It was never a product campaign; it was a straight goodwill campaign. We want to be looked at as a partner that helps drive entrepreneurism in our state. Even though Mississippi is often looked at as rural, these students are coming up with ideas that are as cutting edge as anywhere,” says Oxford.

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Widen: Online courses bring higher customer retention rate

Widen, a digital asset management company, launched its educational arm WidenUniversity in 2014 to help customers master the complexities of topics like metadata, governance, and analytics. Through the educational portal, the company offers everything from free webinars to three-day paid live training courses. The sheer volume of educational content available to customers and buyers is a huge differentiator for Widen, says Courtney Roe, customer experience strategist.

“Widen’s consistent delivery of high quality educational content builds trust and respect, and creates an affiliation deeper than simply using a tool from a software vendor,” adds Jake Athey, vice president of marketing.

.@WidenEnterprise’s high quality content builds trust and respect with prospects and customers. @JakeAthey Click To Tweet

He says education has been core to Widen’s marketing and customer experience, as evidenced by its change in customer satisfaction measures over the last five years. “Widen’s Net Promoter score (an index that quantifies customers’ willingness to recommend a product/service to others) increased from 37 in 2014 to 56 in 2017,” he says. This year, it is launching Widen Essentials live training and hopes to see continued gains.

Athey also attributes the company’s customer retention rate of greater than 96% and other marketing KPI growth in part to the educational efforts. For instance, between 2012 and 2016, the company’s primary lead collection channel grew by 35% year over year. And the new customer acquisition rate increased by 22.5% year over year in the same period.

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Schneider Electric: Online classes as B2B marketing tactic cultivates more customer data

Schneider has earned its place as an energy industry thought leader, while generating direct revenue, brand affinity, and leads via its Energy University. With over 900,000 courses taken, and 200-plus course offerings in 13 languages, Energy University has found a lucrative way to capitalize on the massive library of content it already commissioned, plus its access to in-house domain experts to vet the curriculum.

“When you make accessible your thought leadership, your technologies, your innovation in an effort to educate people so they understand better how they can create greater efficiencies or greater sustainability within their operations, you become a trusted advisor,” says Susan Hartman, global program manager for Energy University. “Even more, you become a partner they want to do business with when the time is right. And many of them do just that.”

Thanks to the copious amounts of customer data Energy University collects at touchpoints in the learning management system, Schneider Electric is better able to understand who the potential customers are and their needs, so they can be matched to the right products and solutions.

.@SchneiderElec’s Energy Univ offers copious data to help marketers understand their customers. @dawnpapandrea Click To Tweet

Zappos Insights: Online shoe retailer creates educational spin-off

Zappos Insights began in 2008 when CEO Tony Hsieh offered headquarter tours, and public interest grew so rapidly Zappos needed a streamlined way to manage it. Today, Zappos Insights is an educational program, a membership community, and a professional “camp” designed around the company’s core mission of making work more fulfilling.

Although it might be considered more employer branding than content marketing, the educational component contributes to the brand’s storytelling. For instance, the Mentor on Demand program allows companies and individuals to pay for a mentorship with top Zappos executives. There’s also a membership subscription online training model for those who want to learn about the organization.

Apple and Williams Sonoma: Stores offer on-site classes

Apple always had its Genius Bar in retail locations, but recently it expanded its educational sessions. Now it offers in-depth training sessions in all 495 stores under the brand Today at Apple. Just check out your nearest Apple location and find 30- to 90-minute sessions on everything from How to Get Started with Coding and Watercolor and Brush Techniques to How To: Edit Video on Mac.

“At the heart of every Apple store is the desire to educate and inspire the communities we serve,” said Angela Ahrendts, Apple’s senior vice president of retail, in a press release announcing the initiative.

Williams Sonoma, the upscale cookware and bakeware retailer, has been offering on-site cooking classes and demonstrations for more than 50 years. Its 220 retail locations each feature special classes including “Knife Skills” and even “Junior Chef” classes.

HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT: Live Experiences Reinvent the Way Customers Interact With Brands

MailChimp and Hootsuite Academy: Brands offer online classes for free or a fee

The email marketing platform MailChimp offers a variety of classes via SkillShare. Free courses include Getting Started with Online Marketing, which encompasses 14 short videos led by Allyson Van Houten, product marketing lead at MailChimp. Nearly 30,000 students have taken that course, which totals one hour and 11 minutes.

The social media management tool Hootsuite offers free courses, which have been taken by more than 200,000 professionals. One intermediate course is titled Social Media Strategy – From A to Z.

There is also a 40-hour Advanced Social Media Strategy Certification course for $999, which is created in partnership with Syracuse University’s renowned S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications. To date, 30,000 people have earned a certification through the academy.

.@Hootsuite partnered with @SyracuseU to offer a #socialmedia strategy certification course. @dawnpapandrea Click To Tweet

Conclusion

Many brands – both B2B and B2C – have a lot of educational content in a multitude of forms. But fewer brands curate that content (or create that content) with the intent of becoming recognized as an educator by their prospects and customers. To do it well, follow the footsteps of these eight brands.

CMI offers educational opportunities too. CMI University hosts an exclusive online, go-at-your-own-pace curriculum to help you do your job better and grow your career. Register today. Enrollment is limited and ends December 15, 2017 for winter semester.

This article originally appeared in the November issue of CCO magazine. Subscribe for your free print copy today.

Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute

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