#hard enough to get started on stuff; I want to lower the barrier to entry to as close to zero as I can

[bearhatarmy]

I really really miss photography. 

Photography feels like an old friend I’ve lost touch with. It pains me greatly that I just don’t have the energy or stamina to do it anymore. It really filled a creative void after I was unable to create my original comedy posts any longer. My illness keeps taking and taking from me and it is a challenge to find ways to adapt and cope.

The saddest part is that I felt like I was just starting to master photography as an art form. I was at that point where I could instinctively do all of the technical things and concentrate purely on the art. Lighting was becoming intuitive to me instead of a complicated puzzle I had to solve each time.

Yes, I took a lot of photos that I am really proud of. (Which I am spreading throughout this post).

But sometimes I mourn the photos I could have taken if my chronic illness hadn’t worsened.

It’s also hard seeing the new cameras and lights that have been released since I had to stop. I *just* missed a technological revolution. New features that would have allowed me to do more with less energy. To push the boundaries of my creativity. To get shots I could only dream of back then.

Full frame mirrorless cameras have opened up so many creative possibilities. The low light performance, the detail, the dynamic range--it has all been improved greatly in just a few years. But there are also many automated usability features that allow the camera to offload work and concentration from the brain. These new digital wonders can even be used as cinematic quality video cameras--something I would have liked to have explored.

I had to take these match photos in a pitch-black room, with a reversed lens, with no control over my aperture, and a manual flash. It took forever to time it properly because I had a whopping 3 frames per second. It would have been a cinch with a mirrorless camera, with super fast burst modes and an electronic viewfinder. You can see exactly what your image will look like before snapping it. But you can also “see in the dark” using a high ISO preview. Before you had to use a live view mode on the back screen. But on older cameras that mode was clunky and slow and... it just sucked.

Enlarge!

MOAR BIGGER!

Weirdly, one of the biggest advances is due to a shortened “flange distance” where the lens connects to the camera body. It seems like a small thing. Literally only a centimeter or so. But because of the lack of mirror, camera designers are able to move the lens closer to the sensor and design more advanced lenses with incredible sharpness. Combined with increased megapixel counts, that would have been amazing for my macro photos.

Electronic viewfinders take the guesswork out of exposure--even in bright sunlight where screens get washed out from glare. And being able to compose portraits with highly accurate eye-tracking autofocus would have been a tremendous advantage. 

No more “focus and recompose.” 

No more “Did I get the eye? Let me zoom to 100% on this tiny screen.” 

I could have spent more of my concentration getting natural expressions from my subjects and composing my photos without distraction.

And IBIS! 

I missed out on motherhecking IBIS!

This photo of my wonderful friend Erin was taken handheld at sunset. The original RAW version was extremely dark--even though I was using a high ISO. I had to do a ton of work to get this to not look like noisy garbage. But there just wasn’t any other way to capture it... UNTIL NOW.

IBIS (eye-bus/👀-🚌) or “in-body image stabilization,” allows the camera sensor to kind of... float. You can eliminate camera shake caused by the subtle micro-movements when handholding. 

How do I explain it? Ummmm...

It turns the sensor into a chicken head.

So instead of increasing the ISO (which is like a volume knob for light which gets grainier as you crank it), you can lower your shutter speed. In the past, depending on the lens, 1/60th of a second was about as slow as you could set it. With IBIS, as long as the scene you are capturing is relatively still, you can take photos in very low light without a tripod. This is great because tripods are a pain in the ass and you can’t always have one handy. Plus, you can combine an IBIS camera with a stabilized lens to get a de-blurrification multiplier. Then you can get sharp handheld photos that are technically considered long exposure. I’ve heard people say they got sharp photos exposing at several seconds. Literally going from a fraction of a second to 2 goddamn Missisisppi. I can’t even quantify how many fantastic photos are being taken right now that would have been unusable blurry messes a few years ago. We get to enjoy these photos all because they installed a chicken head inside cameras.

AND DARN IT ALL TO HECK I HECKING MISSED IT, GOSH HECKING DANG IT!. 

Sorry... didn’t mean to curse like a sailor that stubbed his toe while stepping on a Lego. 

I think I’ll have a cool refreshing root beer to calm my IBIS envy.

(Those water droplets are a total fraud, by the way. It’s fake blood without the red added.) 

And with the progress in battery and wireless technology, artificial lighting has become lighter and more portable while still being powerful enough to compete with the sun. I could have used strobe lights in my little studio, packed them up into a small case, and gone to the middle of the field to use them there.

Yes, I was able to convert my old studio lights to be “portable-ish” but we had to lug so much equipment to accomplish this photo of Brittany in the red dress. The battery pack alone weighed as much as one modern light. I was stuck in bed for a week afterward from all of the carrying of heavy gear.

Before that, this was my hacked together “outdoor” light. The Flash-O-Tron 3000. It looks cool but it was delicate and hard to get through doorways.

After charging 12 AA batteries overnight, I had to drag this contraption outside at the buttcrack of dawn to get my favorite photo of Otis. 

I had to use a handheld mirror to reflect my popup flash in the direction of the Flash-O-Tron 3000 to trigger it. It worked about 25% of the time. Oh, and I was laying on cold wet grass, manually tracking Otis--who refused to sit still. I had to line up a single autofocus point on his head for every snap. The concentration required felt like my brain was juggling chainsaws.

But guess what they invented last year?

PET. EYE. AUTOFOCUS. 

ARE YOU KIDDING ME? 

A little robot inside the camera is all, “Hey, that’s your dog’s eye!” and just follows it no matter where your pup moves.

I NEEDED THAT SO BAD!

This shot took 10 minutes of me trying to lock onto his eye with a macro lens. The depth of field at that distance was the width of his eye and, again, he does not sit still. 

I want a time machine so I can go back and retake every blurry Otis photo. 

Also, many of the modern strobes have NO WIRES. You just stick a thing on top of your camera and you can set off lights several football fields away. My photo studio has tons of wires routed in the ceiling and coming out of the walls. 

[Hi-Res Version]

And then those wires all go into a weird analog remote with old school sliders that controlled the power of the flashes. But the sliders were difficult to finely adjust.

Now you can load an app on your phone and adjust the flash power digitally and adjust the brightness in 10% increments. You can save lighting ratios and recall them instantly. And you can preview your work with high powered LED modeling lights so you don’t have to take 50 test shots. 

No more nudging a light and taking a picture. Raising the power and taking a picture. Swapping out a modifier and taking a picture. Back and forth, back and forth. 

Essentially, what you see is what you get, so setting up lighting takes a fraction of the time and effort with these new lights and cameras. That would have been so helpful with my disability.

Oh... the lights are less expensive too.

The future of camera tech looks exciting as well. I think the computational photography that is in the latest smartphones will soon be added to more professional cameras. That is going to make high-end photography so much more accessible to anyone who wants to try it as a hobby. The learning curve will flatten further, and as long as you are creative, you will be able to take beautiful, high-quality photos.

Some might say that not having all of the new tech helped me gain important experience, expertise, and problem-solving skills. Some believe the inconveniences are a photographer’s trial by fire. The struggle makes the art more authentic. And since I learned how to do it the hard way, my journey is more valid than some photography influencer on Instagram with an iPhone.

To that I say... BULLLLLSHEEIIIT.

Those inconveniences just made me SUPER DUPER TIRED.

And some of those influencers take really kickass photos. Not all of them are butts either.

I love photography but there is a reason I had to stop. Like anything, doing it well was a lot of work. I always ended up having to quit taking photos much sooner than I wanted. I had to scale back my ambition to fit my energy requirements. I could only do photography on days when my body was cooperating fully. I had to cancel many photoshoots because the preparation was just too much to handle. And after my bigger projects it took me forever to recover.

GIVE ME ALL THE CONVENIENCES PLEASE.

That “you have to struggle” attitude is no-good-gatekeepy-ableist crap. 

Old photographer grumps are upset because they spent years learning how to focus manually on horseback and use the sunny 16 rule and develop film in a converted shed they built by hand and now “those darn kids” can use an iPhone on a skateboard while doing a kickflip with their eyes closed and still pull focus.

However, despite there being a lower barrier for entry, the technological improvements add new complications to the advanced side of things. So you can make photography as difficult as you desire if you are willing to learn new stuff. Which old school photo grumps are notoriously averse to.

This new tech has all kinds of novel things to discover and figure out. There is drone photography. There is advanced macro photography using robotic focusing rails and ever-improving focus stacking software. You can now network more lights together than ever before. Karl Taylor did a photoshoot with 12 lights! (Captain Picard would totally lose his shit.) Long lasting batteries and computerized sliders have created new timelapse possibilities. Stabilization software allows complex hyperlapse videos. Better low light performance and sharper lenses with big apertures combined with stacking or star trail software has improved astrophotography. Advances in material science have allowed darker and darker high quality neutral density filters for extreme long exposure photos. New focus tracking algorithms have allowed for wildlife photography that was never possible before. You can capture fast-moving birds in the sky from farther away and still get amazing detail. Faster burst modes allow people to capture split-second action. Never miss a good header at your kid's soccer games. (Is that a thing? I have no kids and don’t remember how to soccer.) IBIS allows photography without a tripod. So now people can trek to harder to reach areas, AT NIGHT, and take sharp photos with little noise. Increased dynamic range and new HDR displays will allow photographers to take images of lights and capture their actual intensity. What if the lights in photos could glow like they do in real life? Think about a neon sign at night in the rain reflecting in a puddle. That would look so neat. 

Not to mention learning how to process photos in editing software is an entirely separate and challenging skillset you can master. There are thousands of techniques you can learn to elevate your images. Dodging & burning, frequency seperation, and compositing, oh my! Programs like Lightroom and Photoshop are constantly updated with new features that expand possibilities.  

None of that is easy. It will all require diligent study and practice to master. Technical skills will always be an aspect of photography that anyone can pursue. But not everyone will need as much technical skill to start having fun and create art. 

And much to the chagrin of those grumps... phones are perfectly viable to create that art and they will keep getting better.

You might find it odd that this love letter and goodbye to photography has so much talk of technical gadgetry. But, for me, it isn’t out of place in this sentimental essay. Technology was my first love. My parents bought me a 66mhz Packard Bell computer when I was 12 and technology was the first thing I was ever good at. I learned every function of that machine. I would sometimes break it just so I could learn how to fix it. I took it apart and put it back together. It was my first true obsessive hobby. I found my creativity soon after, and I immediately used that technology to help me create art. I wrote comedy. I learned how to digitally paint. I recorded music. And eventually I found photography. It was the perfect marriage of technology and art. I could nerd out as much as I want while still getting my creative fix. 

So yeah... I miss it all. 

I miss all of the technical nerdery. I miss trying out new gadgets. I miss editing the photos I’ve taken. I miss taking pictures of my beautiful friends. I miss taking pictures of weird products. I miss asking Delling to call apiaries to find me freshly dead bees so I can take macro shots of their fuzzy little torsos.

I really hope some day I find a treatment that gives me enough energy to take photos again.  

Thankfully my writing helps me feel creative and productive and fulfilled. And it’s something I can do even if I’m not able to get out of bed. And I am grateful I have so many awesome people that actually want to read what I have to say.

So thanks to everyone for that. 

I always find a way to move forward. That’s just the nature of surviving chronic illness. But glancing back at what I lost is a pain I never quite get used to. 

Though, writing this has helped. 

Looking back at all that I accomplished has helped. 

And I do feel lucky I was able to accomplish what I did--even if missing it makes me sad sometimes.  

[quagmireisadora]

[Jonghyun / Taemin] After the Fire

Prompt: A is a struggling writer going through a creative block, until B literally crashes into their life, claiming that they are a modern-day muse.  Rating: R-ish(?) Warnings: some explicit descriptions Length: ~10,000

Summary: Drawn to danger, I burned my own house down.

(Written as part of the Winter of SHINee fic fest. Please go support all the entries there)

------

“... we thank you for your manuscript and applaud your efforts in completing another book. Unfortunately, it is not quite in the vein of what we are looking for. Please stay in touch for…” 

In Jonghyun’s eyes, there is only one way to construe the letter—your stuff isn't sexy enough.

He knows the standards the publication house upholds. When he’d first applied to write for them, presenting a short story full of elucidated gasps and pants and whatnot: he’d done his research. The other writers and their works are miles apart from what he could ever produce. Those books are too salacious, too irreverent for him to match.

So, he knows there is a yardstick, and that he is required to be faithful to it, if he must help retain their astronomically high readership. 

Honestly, though… the only reason Jonghyun writes erotic literature is because it is easy money. 

Coming straight out of college, he first tried his hand at working for obscure webzines. That was a very weird, isolating experience. His colleagues were constantly embroiled in intellectual and cultural debates, the likes of which a man of his upbringing could never participate in—the elegance of noir films, the chaos of punk history, the artful French New Wave. Not only did these subjects evolve outside the barriers he grew up between, the webzines’ subscribers were largely foreigners, rendering a monolinguistic man like him… well. Useless.

Following this, he’d done a stint at small, virtually unknown publications. He’d written largely ignored thought pieces for national papers. He’d even submitted the less embarrassing specimens of his attempted poetry to the Metropolitan office of which, none were imprinted on subway doors. Yet.

To the interested employer, his CV reads like a grocery list of jobs: I did everything I possibly could with my mediocre talent, just so I could earn a living. And he doesn't mind that—encourages that thought, in fact. It is Jonghyun's earnest belief that only by downplaying his past professional experiences will he ever get a step ahead, climb a rung higher. It is also Jonghyun's earnest belief that dream jobs do not exist and, in this economy at least, settling is a good idea when you have qualifications as meaningless as his. 

So no, he doesn't turn any work down. Nothing is beneath him. And that attitude has led him here—to writing cheap erotica for easy money.

Except, Jonghyun hasn't a single erotic bone in his body. 

He is a man, most certainly. Red-blooded as they come. But something about writing down the act, about describing it in the most colourful and drawn-out details... femininity must surely be a prerequisite, he thinks. To notice the way that things look or sound or feel or taste in those short moments. To recreate that passion, that ecstasy, that urgency with paragraph upon paragraph of meticulous and explicit narration: one must need a very observative mind. Or a hyperactive imagination. Because something that lasts just a few minutes from his perspective, can only be recreated with such intensity if it were a woman on the other side of the pen.

So no, Jonghyun doesn't do sexy. Despite having penned three short novels, all with the reluctant perusal of internet porn, he doesn’t do sexy. He doesn’t do softcore, he doesn’t do taboo or wild or… anything, really. He just isn't capable of indelicacy like that. He reasons he can probably try romantic, but that’s not what this specific job entails, does it? No, and the letter is good evidence of that, he realises, stowing his last manuscript away for recycling. 

 Where sexual depravity is concerned, Jonghyun is running on empty. And if things don't change soon, his bank account will too.

------

His mother doesn't know, of course. She thinks her poor son, her youngest baby, is so deeply mired in the nine-to-five that he doesn't even have time to visit these days. Writing is time-consuming. Writing entire novels, even more so. He doesn’t tell her what his job is, though. He keeps it vague. I’m working at an office. I’m working for a big company. I’m working in a building on Saemunan-ro.

As common a name as Kim Jonghyun is, a pseudonym is useful in many ways, he realises. He doesn’t get strange calls from distant relatives, demanding what the hell does he think he’s doing, while ignoring the fact that they went looking for erotica in the first place. He doesn’t have his young cousins approach him with was that really you, hyung? or can we get an early copy of your next one? His friends and ex-associates don’t have a clue. He would like to keep it that way: Minho already gives him a hard time about growing into an old shut-in, if he had the faintest idea of what was going on behind those closed doors and drawn curtains… Minho would no longer be a friend, Jonghyun wagers with shame.

Even so, the question of inspired writing—if he can call it that—still remains. Rather, the question of how he will pay next month’s rent, how he will settle the stack of overdue power and internet and water bills, still remains. Seoul is an expensive city to live in by oneself, and he cannot move back under the same roof as his mother and sister, not with a scandalous job like this. 

At this point he has no way of stimulating his mind without resorting to stealing from other writers. 

And so, the idea of a fan-meeting event is a sort of lifeline. He figures it could help if people show appreciation for his work: even if those people are wild-eyed and pimple-faced oily young men who should be ashamed of themselves, his morality yells wordlessly. But he is no one to judge. And if they prove to be a motivation, if they can help him get out of his block, then all the morality in the world can go to hell. 

The event isn’t as clandestine as he imagines it to be, either. Outside the venue is a board yelling out a “SHIN YUN BOK PUBLICATION AUTHORS’ CONVENTION”. The doors are wide open. The sound of chatter, the smell of food, the murmur of excitement, all floats out to the lobby just outside. 

When he enters, his face obscured by a surgical mask and a large pair of sunglasses, the place is packed. A man is on stage, calling out polite directions for crowd control. Jonghyun recognises him as his employer. Or at least, he is the guy who interviewed him over a grainy skype call late one night. He self-consciously checks his disguise and walks deeper into the fray.

A semi-circle of tables is arranged around the hall, each nominated to a writer. Upon studying the occupied seats, Jonghyun’s premise is solidified when he realises eight out of ten appear to be women. Somehow, this information impresses him.

When he ducks under the ropes and is stopped by a security guard, he points at the only empty table in wordless explanation. Some awkwardness ensues: a request for ID, a weary denial on the basis that pseudonyms aren’t on any ID, a quick consultation by text message, an unenthusiastic “OK, sir. This way, please.” Soon after, Jonghyun has taken his place and assumes the target of many pairs of staring eyes in the room. Some point and snicker, some watch him awestruck, some even take photos. Selcas! Like he is some sort of celebrity! He feels uneasy and oddly vulnerable, fidgeting with his sunglasses as they threaten to slip on the sweat beading his face.

But when the doors are finally shut and the event declared open, Jonghyun’s jealousy soars.

There are lengthy, winding lines of people waiting to speak to nearly all the other writers--but not him. No one approaches him. Not for the first ten minutes, not for the next half hour. In spite of all the staring from before, no one wants to speak with him. No one is interested in getting his signature. 

It is only now, at such a place and such a time, that a series of paranoid questions fills his head. Does anyone read his books? Does anybody like them? Is he not popular? Is his work insignificant, even in circles like these? 

If the number of people dying to speak with the others is anything to go by… then no. Jonghyun is not in the least bit popular. 

He overhears his neighbour chuckle to say things like, of course there is a sequel coming out or yes, I based that character on myself. There are squeals, there are gasps, there is enough veneration to drown Jonghyun in self-pity. Suddenly, he wishes for that love and admiration. He wishes someone would ask him interesting questions and expect fascinating answers; dote on him just the way they dote on the rest of the panel.

His jealousy is poisonous enough that it spreads through his blood. His eyes burn with it, his pulse throbs against it, he feels it bristle in and out of his nostrils with every breath. His sweat begins to sting. His solitude starts to prick. His confidence dwindles to nearly nothing. The weight of envy makes him slide lower and lower into his seat. He plays with his marker and acts nonchalant. Acts like he is unaffected. But in truth he feels like crying. He feels like going home. He feels like quitting-- 

When his latest book is suddenly slammed onto the table, he yells and jumps a foot off his seat. Eyes turn to him again, this time with thinly veiled distaste rather than disinterest. He looks up at his assailant to find a lanky young man donning fashionable sunglasses and equally fashionable clothes. 

“Sign, please,” the guy says in a tone that borders on demanding. 

------

What surprises Jonghyun isn’t the fact that he has a “fan” in someone like Lee Taemin, as he introduces himself later. It is more astonishing to him that other people immediately follow his example and accost Jonghyun with copies of his work—some that look well used and dog-eared to the point that he is afraid to touch them. More and more readers who claim to love his writing flock over, while this Taemin character stands by. Silent, watchful, critical. 

As he doles out autograph after rushed autograph, Jonghyun can’t for the life of him understand how the situation reversed itself in the blink of an eye. 

“Uh… thank you?” he expresses uncertain gratitude. “I was. Surprised.”

“Mm hmm, so what do you want to do next?” the guy counters, folding up the sleeves of his baggy tee-shirt. The crowds have long dissipated. Security has rounded up all the stragglers, even the rowdy ones trying to get too close to that overly popular writer who went by the penname of Eonsook. But no one seems bothered by Taemin. No one cares that he is still here, still engaging in lazy conversation, going at his own pace. Everything about this is so peculiar. Everything is the opposite of his expectations.

“Well, I was about to go home and eat dinner, so—”

“I meant,” an exasperated look berates him. “What do you want to do for your next project?”

There is no answer for that. Jonghyun doesn’t plan these things out. He sits in front of the screen and starts to pour things onto it until he realises none of it is usable. Then he gives up. Rinse, repeat.

But he is expected to answer now. He is expected to say something rooted in a fully formed thought. He is expected to answer this man, this person who appeared out of nowhere and somehow managed to single-handedly create the interest Jonghyun was looking forward to. So, is there also an expected answer? Is there a right and a wrong response? Should he take the question as a cue to say something else, something scripted for such interactions? He doesn’t know.

He settles for a vague, “Uhm, is there anything in particular that Taemin ssi likes to read?” If he has learnt something from his time writing about politics, it is this: the best answer to a difficult question is another question.

An indifferent shrug replies. “Don’t really care. As long as there’s sex in it.”

He’d make a great politician, Jonghyun thinks as he starts to gather his things. “Well. I’m sure you’ll find plenty to satisfy you, then,” he gestures around them at the nearly vacated hall. 

The man on the stage waves to him, he waves back. They will probably speak on the phone later on, and Jonghyun will bombard him with questions.

“But I like what you write,” Taemin continues, drawing is attention back. Physically holding his chin and turning his face so they are looking at each other again. “I want you to write more. Much more. A series!” there is a hint of excitement on those puffy lips.

Jonghyun knows not to aggravate people like him. People who are probably more dangerous than they appear to be. He takes a cautious step back. “I… I wish I could, sir. But you see—”

“I’ll pay you to do it.” A sure motion pulls an expensive-looking wallet out. A wad of cash is counted before nearly all of it is set onto the table. “An advance. I’ll give you three times that when you’ve finished the first draft. How about it?”

He stares at the fan of ten thousand won notes. Rent, he reminds himself. You must pay rent by the end of next week. But what the hell is he going to write?! “Sir, I’m… I’m really very sorry. I don’t have any plans to write the next book and. And I’m not even sure what to write so—”

“I’ll help with that,” Taemin insists. “You need ideas, I’ll give you all the ideas you need. I’ll… I’ll be your muse,” he decides.

Jonghyun stares for a long uneasy moment. Where is security and why aren’t they doing anything? he wonders. He takes another step to back away from the weird man. But the money is right there, perfect bright green rectangles that seem to have come fresh out of the mint. The overlapping portraits of Sejong the Great are all pleading with him to be pocketed. Just say yes! the king is shouting out, even in that placid gaze. You don’t have to follow through, just take the money and run! He can’t find you, anyway!

No. That would be disingenuous. That wouldn’t be right. No matter how desperate his situation, Jonghyun would never resort to thievery. He shakes his head and stays his hand, making no move to accept the money.

“I’m sorry. I can’t help you, Taemin ssi,” he bows and rushes off.

------

Their story begins and ends at Namdaemun.

She looks at its sombre face, artillery fire still marking some of its masonry and disrupting the course of the story. Their story. It is the gate that reaches out for a hug, she thinks when a cold wind picks up and threatens to swoop her shivering self away. It is the gate that offers an embrace, arms angling out from its stiff middle, like a father consoling his sad and broken child. How odd it looked in its place. How quaint, to be the only survivor of its own story. No more kings roam under its elegant archway. No more guards train their arrows from the pagoda. No more tigers rustle nearby under the cover of trees, desperate to find a meal.

This gate… this thing. It shouldn't be here. But someone has shown it their kindness and tended to it; fed it with mortar and concrete and newly painted timber. Someone has seen fit to breathe new life into it.

Their story begins and ends here.

She met him once, then many times, upon the tufts of grass framing Namdaemun. She met him and with every meeting the distance between them diminished from feet to inches to barely anything. She met him, met all of him, met every place on him with every place on herself. His hands would smell of spice. Of coal and heat and rain… perhaps he tended to a garden in their time apart. He had the gentlest hands. When he touched her, they felt like lamps against her skin. His warmth would intoxicate her.

Maybe he was made of fire, she would wonder in the hours they lay next to each other, breath stuttering and pulse racing. Maybe he was a jinn.

“You’re not small enough to fit in a lamp,” she would tease him when they'd stumble over each other.

In her loneliness, she’d dream of him, floating on clouds made of cotton. She'd imagine him traveling from land to unknown land and sea to unending sea. She would imagine him soaring, his skin burnished and his eyes like bronze.

But he is long gone, now. He has left her side and his hands warm someone else's days. She is the survivor of her own story. She is a stiff gate looking for someone to embrace, someone to comfort. She endures, just as Namdaemun endures. They stay and they wait, the gate and her, in the hope that someday there will be a finale to their respective stories.

And then they will breathe a unified sigh of relief.

------

Jonghyun supposes it would’ve been wise to expect a second meeting.

He is still shocked when the time comes: a buzz from downstairs, a murmured excuse about routine maintenance, a knock on the door that sounds far too eager to be just pest control. 

When he opens the door to find the familiar lanky frame, he panics. There are no more disguises obscuring the distance between them now. Each man is plainly visible to the other. Jonghyun feels caught. Trapped, like a wild animal hunted until metal teeth closed around his leg. He frantically searches for something to hide behind, forgetting that he could simply shut the door again.

The creepy man named Lee Taemin invites himself in. He saunters casually, ambling the length of the hallway, looking around the room and humming, appraising it, measuring it. Measuring Jonghyun, who is still shocked and unable to react in a way that protects him.

“Wh-what’re you—?!” he begins when some of the shock has worn off.

“You don’t make a lot of money, do you?” Taemin cuts him off. “Why don’t you accept my offer? I’ll pay you plenty. More than you’ve probably ever seen. Then you can move out of this dump.” Even as he says this, he runs an appreciative hand over a row of books. “I can help you realise all your dreams, you know?”

“How did you even find me?!” Jonghyun counters. 

“Does it matter?” the other drawls, shaking his head in exasperation. He swings his arms around himself as he walks, and when his palms meet, he lets them clap together. Like he’s out on a relaxing stroll in the park. Everything about the setting is preposterous. “I tracked you down, now I’m here, and I’m giving you a second chance. Isn’t that what’s important?”

He stares, trying to figure out this puzzle of a human being. What is this guy? How is he so at ease right now? What is this game he’s playing and why? Why with Jonghyun, of all people? Does everything out of his mouth sound like that? Like a simple fairy tale? I’ll do this, then you do this, then we’ll live happily ever after. Ridiculous!

He’s only ever seen people like that on dramas. Badly written and poorly acted dramas.

“Please leave,” Jonghyun requests, maintaining a formal tone despite all the peculiarity of the setup. “Or I'll call the police.”

Taemin clicks his tongue. “Not until you answer me.”

“Sir, I can’t be bought for no reason.”

“But I’m giving you a reason,” Taemin points out as if the concept is too difficult for Jonghyun to understand. Which it is. “I pay you, you write for me. I like what you write, I pay you to do more. It’s like…” he gestures, standing in the middle of the room, his stance oddly graceful and formidable at the same time. “Like when a king enjoyed an artist of his court and promised his patronage,” he illustrates. “That’s what we’ll be like.”

The smile on his face is a perfect representation of a magician’s. Maybe he is something of a trickster, Jonghyun thinks. Maybe he likes to put on a show and confuse people.

“The publication house already pays me,” he informs. 

“After you finish the book,” he is challenged. It isn’t a lie, but how does this guy even know?1 “And only proportional to the sales. I’ll pay you regardless. In fact,” Taemin points. “I want you to write these books especially for me. My eyes only.”

So that’s it? Jonghyun wonders. Just a rich kid feeding his own kinks? He scoffs and rakes through his hair, sitting down at his desk to think.

He decides to consider it, because yes, he needs the money. Yes, he wants to stop living in fear of sleeping hungry. Yes, he doesn’t want to be destitute at the age of thirty-one, before he’s even had a real relationship, let alone marry and have kids. 

But can he really uphold his end of a deal like that? Can he really write what this guy is expecting him to write?

“I’m not good at… at sexy things,” he finally declares, motioning with his hands as if to show they were empty. “I have to work very hard at it. I can’t do it the way the rest of the authors do, and—” he sighs, remembering the way crazed readers had flocked to everyone else’s tables. Remembering his sales numbers, and the words of the manager of the obscure bookstore as he complained about having to lug all the unsold copies back into storage.

Trash, he’d called them.

“Really, I’m not even sure why you came to me, when someone like… I don’t know. Eonsook? She’s the better choice, clearly.”

Taemin walks closer, his lips pursed like he is thinking of a convincing argument. Maybe he is, from the way his eyes are so focused and bright. There is an unbreakable determination in his every movement. He crouches in front of Jonghyun, sighing as he looks up. 

“Your first book,” he begins. “A story about a man with a delusion. That he is in love with a woman. They fight, then they grow close together. And then, the man is cured through therapy. But,” he clicks his fingers. “His delusion has been passed to the woman. Brilliant idea,” he compliments. “Excellent writing. And yeah, sure, the sex stuff left a lot to be desired but…” he shrugs. “I liked the story. I liked that there was more to look forward to than just two people going at it. And you wrote to tell us that story, not to satisfy my needs, I could see that,” he assures. “So why not do more of that?”

Jonghyun gives a soft laugh despite himself. “Because that book sold less than a hundred copies. And the feedback was dismal—”

“Fuck the feedback,” Taemin shakes his head, a frown creasing his features. He looks young; too young to be involved in disreputable matters like this. Or… maybe at the perfect age to waste his time on such prurient endeavours. “Fuck what any of them think. They don’t know what they’re talking about.”

“And you do?” Jonghyun doesn’t mean to be so standoffish but he cannot help it. Here is a stranger, coming out of nowhere, to validate him and say nice things about his pathetic attempts at writing. Here is someone trying to convince him that sales don’t matter, popularity doesn’t matter, even the adoration of the readers doesn’t matter. Then what does? Jonghyun confronts with a scowl. What does this guy know?

Taemin chuckles. “All I know is this. I like everything you write.”

------

“This world is built on supply and demand,” Taemin explains. 

He’s still here, hours later. By Jonghyun’s benevolence, of course. They are sitting on the floor, a laptop with a blank word document between them. The cursor is blinking… blinking incessantly. It taunts with each flicker.

Tell your story, Taemin said to him. Tell your story. Write it all down. Whatever you’re thinking of. It doesn’t matter what it is, as long as your put it down in words.

Easy to say. Because try as he might, he doesn’t know where to start. He doesn’t even have the shadow of a beginning, forget the middle and the end. There is no story in his mind, no words waiting at his fingertips. 

This is a waste of time.

Taemin continues regardless. “The readers of this kind of stuff... their lives are filled with disappointment. With reality. They want the impossible: sultry encounters, beautiful getaways, improbable scenarios. You see?” he signals like his words are shedding light on abstruse philosophical concepts. “They want what they can’t have. And writers like Eonsook understand that. They supply that demand. That's why she’s always making bestsellers.”

Jonghyun considers this for a moment, seeing some truth in those claims. He takes a look around his own apartment, eyes roving over the small desk and small sofa and small kitchen. It is a liveable space, he reckons. It is better than a half-basement, or a slum with toxic asbestos roofing and poor access. But he is aware that in the bigger picture, he is still poor. He is confined. He is restricted. He is at the bottom of a heavy and insurmountable hill. 

Disaffection comes easily to people like him. And short of being on the wrong side of the law, there is only one way to be at ease with his circumstances.

To pretend.

“But you? You fuck everything up,” Taemin carries on, amusement in his features. “You take that supply-demand model and turn it on its head. You say, I decide what I'll write. I decide what I produce. This is my art, not my bread. This is more than a paycheck for me. This is more than a popularity contest for me. That's what I see you think, and…” he shakes his head, chuckling as he reclines on his palms. “I gotta say, I find that really ballsy.”

A small balloon of pride inflates Jonghyun’s chest at the words, to his own surprise. He shifts and clears his throat. “Th-that’s all well and fine, but… but it doesn’t help that no one will read my stories.”

“Tell me something,” the other contests. “Why did you start writing in the first place? And—” he holds up a finger between them. “Don’t tell me it’s for the money. You could do anything and earn money. Why this specifically?”

“W-well, because… because what else am I going to do with a major in—?”

“No,” another shake of the head stops him. “No. Don’t answer from up here,” Taemin taps his temple. “This isn’t about rationality. This is about how you feel. About why you feel that way. Give me the answer in here,” he reaches forward and pokes a finger into the centre of Jonghyun’s chest.

He stares at the perfectly shaped fingernail, at the faint pink that dissipates into flesh below the joint. Why does he write? What compels him to scribble on stray pieces of paper? What makes him put his thoughts down on phone notes? What is it that surges in his chest when he’s in the shower, when he’s about to go to sleep, when he’s listening to a beautifully sad song for the first time? What makes him write? 

“I… I have a lot to say,” he concludes. It feels like an admission of guilt—freeing. Splitting the restraints he’d been struggling against for… perhaps, years. It is like a large weight has come off his shoulders and now he can stand up straight. Now he can float off the ground. Now he can fly. He sighs and closes his eyes. “I have a lot to say. About… everything. And I—” he shakes his head, looks up from the finger, glances at the blank screen, turns his attention to the face of someone who is listening. Someone who is here and who does not appear to be in any hurry to leave.

“I really want someone to listen.”

With a pleased smirk, Taemin tilts his head and nods. “So start talking.”

------

He wonders what sounds he would hear, if he were up on the moon. 

Would he hear the distant roll of waves? The rushing and ebbing of tides, their froth effervescent in the shell of his ears, their folding and retreating as sharp as the feeling of sand between his toes. Would he hear the occasional beep of a passing space shuttle? Would he see the face of another human in the window of the craft as it zooms past, their hands mirroring a wave and their faces reflecting each other's smiles? 

What would he hear in that vacuum? 

Would he hear the patter of his heartbeat, like water dribbling off a tin roof to roll along the eaves and fall against leaves, touch the ground, seep into the earth and become lost? Would he hear it speeding and softening like the tides, waxing and waning like the moon, repeating itself over and over, spinning like the earth does, like the stars do, like this universe does? Or would he feel an urgency in his lungs, the frenzy to drink in as much breath as he could, to gather as much oxygen in each inhale and retain it until his sight shook and his hearing went dissonant and he realised that he could hear nothing on the moon?

Nothing?

Maybe it would be hope. Maybe he would hear the sound of unfiltered sunlight hitting his skin. Maybe he would hear the whisper of a solar wind playing with his hair. Maybe he would hear his smile, his happiness, his joy even in solitude like that. Maybe he would hear something like that. Maybe it would be melodious to his ears, maybe he would dance to it, on the ashen rigoleth, the dead and cracked surface of the moon. Maybe he would float from crater to crater and find himself repeating circles, large ellipses that never ended. No beginning and no end. Maybe he would hear the most perfect sounds that ever existed. Maybe he would hear the sonorous representation of heaven.

Maybe the moon is full of music.

------

Jonghyun stretches his arms and arches his back, rolling his neck tiredly. The light outside his windows has dimmed by a large degree. The sun has gone down hours ago, without his noticing. He blinks and feels around himself to reach for a light switch. An afterimage of the laptop screen remains in his vision for a while as he stands on complaining legs and ankles. A grumble in his stomach alerts him of the time. Dinner time. 

“Taemin ssi…?” he calls out, rubbing his eyes. “Taemin—”

It takes him a moment to realise he is alone. “Eh?” he scratches his cheek, trying to recall the sound of the door opening and shutting. He can’t tell how long it has been since the other left. There are no traces of his visit, no discarded teacups, no dirty plates with crumbs, nothing. He checks the bedroom, the bathroom, just to be sure. But it’s true: he has been a bad host. 

Jonghyun really has been doing nothing but writing. 

Searching for his phone to type out an apology, he realises belatedly that he doesn’t have a contact saved under “Lee Taemin.” With a repentant pout, he hums to himself. Next time, he promises himself. I’ll make it up to him next time.

When he’s settled down in front of his laptop again, this time with a steaming bowl of kal-guksu, he makes a choked sound at how much he has typed. Scrolling through page upon page of a very coherent-looking storyline, a reverberating surprise runs its course through him. Did he really do all this? Was that guy really serious about all that stuff? Has his inspiration finally returned to him, after all this time, all these years?

A muse… he feels the hint of a smile playing under his cheeks. He has a muse. 

“That… isn’t that something imaginary?” Minho asks him when he excitedly gushes about the encounter. “Like, something that old men used to think up so they could make paintings and all that?” 

“You’re just looking for an excuse to call me old,” Jonghyun dismisses. They’re lying on Minho’s carpet, listening to music. The sun is streaming through tall slider doors, and the usual sound of traffic is absent on a Sunday morning like this. Even the shadows look blue, their hue fluid and sparkling like light bouncing off of water. He feels calm, he feels like he is cradled in a hammock. As they relax side-by-side and read off their phones, there is a plot swirling in the back of Jonghyun’s mind. It buzzes and stirs, waiting to break out and lay itself down in orderly lines and sentences. He nurses it, pets its back, scratches it between its ears. He gives it a name. 

But it can wait.

“Look at this,” he scrolls through a namuwiki article on the Muses, holding it out for the other to see. “It says this famous novelist from America calls his bowling trophy a muse. Wah…! He’s written so many famous books!” 

“He’s old, too,” Minho snorts before he’s swatted at by an annoyed Jonghyun. “OK, OK!” he defends. “OK. I get it. You have a muse. So, is she hot?” he grins and rolls onto his elbows, a happy glimmer in his large eyes. “Does she pose for you? Do you get to take her on dates? How does it work?”

“It’s a guy,” Jonghyun frowns. 

“Really?” Minho hums, the slightest disenchantment pulling at his lips. “But it says here that muses are supposed to be beautiful women. Look,” he wrests the phone away from his friend and goes to the image section of the article. 

His point is proven by several old and colourful depictions of elegantly posed women, loose garments draped over their voluptuous fronts. There is no hint of an awkward lanky male form in dark and brooding clothes that blend him into his bleak surroundings. The women’s expressions are calm and filled with wisdom, unlike Taemin’s youthful fervour. The only feature that is barely reminiscent of the young man are the dark, mystical eyes.

Something inside Jonghyun grows uneasy.

“I mean…” he shrugs, hoping to give an explanation. He doesn’t have one, not at that moment. He doesn’t know how to defend his experience. All he knows is a name, some very sound advice, and the promise of money… money he hasn’t yet received, mind. He realises he is dealing with a stranger, after all. That if he isn’t careful, his prefatory suspicions of Taemin being a dangerous guy might still come true.

“Look, why don’t I introduce the two of you when he visits again?” he offers as justification, trying to push the issue aside. “You’ll like him, he’s got an... entertaining sort of personality, you’ll see—”

“I have a better idea,” Minho rejects the response. “Why don’t you just let me read one of your books, eh? I searched for your name and nothing comes up, you know? Are you really getting published at all? Or are they just taking you for a ride and stealing your work—?”

“Let’s just,” Jonghyun holds his hands up between them. He feels alarmed at the turn their conversation has taken. “Look. Let’s talk about this later, OK?”

“Hyung…” Minho makes an exasperated face, but he’s a good friend. His words are rooted in concern. He slowly settles back onto the floor, giving up on his argument, intertwining their legs. The soothing sounds from his music system take over once again.

What remains is Jonghyun’s fear of losing a dear friend.

------

“Who are you, really?” he shoots his misgivings the first chance he gets.

It has been many weeks since their last meeting. He has been progressively furthering the new book, or whatever it turns out to be in the end. What first sat as an idea in his scribbled notes has grown tall and strong. He now has chapters, and multiple plotlines that diverge from and converge on each other. He has dialogues, he has beats, he has imagery, he has descriptions. He has woven all the ends to make one whole, one complete mass, one continuous flow. Things are coming together, and Jonghyun is amazed at his own progress.

But his gratitude doesn’t dilute his distrust.

As soon as he barges into the apartment, Taemin demands to read through whatever there is so far. For a long time, he sits reposed on the sofa: silent for once, interest wavering only when he is addressed.

“Huh?”

“Are you just some rich chaebol kid looking to spend his dad’s money? Is this… just fun for you?” Jonghyun expounds on the interrogation. There is some insecurity in his tone, some residual lack of confidence from previous encounters that have left him wounded. Even he can tell. But he continues, unabashed in his self-preservation. “All this… this muse stuff. What’s in it for you?”

“I told you,” Taemin offers an apathetic shrug. “I like your writing.”

“I thought you like books with lots of sex,” Jonghyun frowns and counters, pointing at the tablet in the other’s hold. “I don’t have any of that in there.”

“Are you planning on keeping it that way?”

“Well, I wasn’t really going to, but—wait, no, listen to me,” he is nearly distracted, and the momentary look of triumph on Taemin’s face leaves him flustered. “I need to know who you are. I need to know why you’re doing this, and I need to know now,” he places his ultimatum. “Or I’m not writing another word.”

Taemin sits up and releases a slow exhale. His gaze is amused. It roves over his host, appraising him like a teacher would a child on his first day of school.  

“What if I don’t tell you?” he posits. It’s not a challenge. His tone is chatty, conversational. As if he’s asking, what if cars could fly. He leans forward and smiles that magician smile again. “What will it change, if you know? Is it going to fix your life? Is it going to rid you of all your problems? Is the world going to make sense?” he motions with his hands. “Of course not. So why do you want to know?”

“Because—!” Jonghyun wants to say it will sate his curiosity, but he can’t admit that. Something about that feels like a confession. He can’t speak his mind like that.

“Look, I like that you’re curious,” Taemin reads his mind anyway, still smiling. “I like that you want to learn about things you don’t understand. I think that’s important for a writer. But I think what’s more important is figuring out what the real question is.”

He blinks with confusion. “The real question…?” he shakes his head. “What do you mean?”

“I mean that you’re writing this thing,” the other waves the tablet. “And you’ve advanced really far into the storyline. Things are getting exciting, characters are finally starting to become full people I can be invested in. I can’t put this book down even if the house was burning,” he compliments. “But there’s something missing. And I can’t tell what it is, except that it exists. In there,” another poke into Jonghyun’s ribcage. “Maybe the question you should be asking then, is what is missing? What else do you need? What else is there for you to find?”

A clearing of the throat, a shift of the seat. Jonghyun won’t acknowledge it, but the words resonate with him.

Missing. Something is missing. Something needs to be found. Something is waiting to be discovered. Something that he requires to complete this story… or maybe complete himself. Something that once sat in an empty slot in his chest must be recovered. He doesn’t mean for the thought to be so profound. But it is that very same profoundness that makes him believe it’s probably true. Something is missing inside him. Something is missing from his life. Something is missing from his world. And he needs to find it.

“Will you help me look?” he entreats his muse.

A magnanimous stretch of the arms replies. “It’s what I’m here for,” Taemin grins and falls back onto the cushions, continuing to read.

------

They stand outside the apartment block and Jonghyun is still not sure about this.

“Look, I really don’t think—” he starts to beseech, but Taemin silences him with a wave of his hand. He clicks on one of the call buttons and a ring starts to go, only raising the panic in Jonghyun’s gut.

“Just meet with her,” the other persuades, rational as always.

When someone answers on the other side of the line, it’s as if his entire body freezes until he is nudged. “U-uhh… yes. M-my name is uh… I mean. That is—”

“Is this a prank call?” the woman asks with anger in her voice.

Another nudge shakes his senses up. “N-no…!” Jonghyun insists. “Uhm, we—you and I. We work for the same company. M-miss Eonsook.”

A long pause. Some rustling of cloth. Some whispered conversation in the background. Then the woman’s voice returns. “OK, come on up,” she finally acquiesces before a loud buzz swings the front door open.

“Go!” Taemin hisses at him, grinning wide under the dark sunglasses that have become his signature.

The building isn’t much different from Jonghyun’s own apartment block, but there is something lighter about everything. It feels… nicer. There are planters with pretty flowers along the corridor. The lifts are clean and fully functional. The walls are devoid of posters and advertisements. TV sets can be heard outside some of the doors, as can the whistle of pressure cookers and the nagging of mothers. The atmosphere is homely, welcoming. He doesn’t feel like he’s intruding on anything, so he continues to walk in confidently.

He reads the numbers on each unit as he passes by, taking in the unfamiliar surroundings and wishing Taemin were accompanying him.

When he’s at the door he was looking for, he rings the bell and waits.

The woman who answers him is somewhat recognizable. He remembers seeing the straight jet-black hair, the round jaw, the parrot-hooked nose, the no-nonsense stare. Even if he has never before glimpsed her puffy lips or heard her soft voice, he remembers her from the fan-meeting—and possibly from other occasions, when they bumped into each other at the publication office.

Nobody can tell she is one of the most popular writers in the country.

“Ah, hello,” he bows low and his sunglasses slip off his face to clatter to the ground. He scrambles to put them back on, but simply pockets the disguise when he notices the turn in her mouth. “M-my name is—”

“You must be the person who writes as Grapefruit,” she guesses correctly. Her diction holds a soft lisp. Barely there, unlike Minho’s often baby-like pronunciations. He blushes and nods at the floor in response to the question.

“Come in,” she invites him, the grille door swinging outwards.

Other than the ordinary-looking furnishings, her home is full of photos. As he pulls the surgical mask to his chin and wanders through the apartment, Jonghyun cannot help but study them all, turn by careful turn. All over the walls she has displayed pictures of herself, her family, her friends, and another woman. A sister, he guesses at first, before correcting himself when his eyes go to a shockingly intimate polaroid.

He doesn’t realize he is staring until he hears his host pointedly clear her throat.

“Some juice?” Eonsook offers the glass on a tray. He accepts and stands awkwardly for a few minutes, shifting from foot to foot.

“Y-you have a very nice place—” he begins.

“So,” Eonsook cuts him off, showing him a seat. “How can I help?”

“H-help?” he blinks, his thoughts clouded.

She raises her eyebrows, wets her lips, digs her teeth into the lower one. “It’s a polite way of asking why you’re here,” she clarifies. He can tell there is laughter waiting to bounce out of her throat. In everything she does, there is an underlying strain of confidence. She exudes it in waves that come off her and lap at his own chest, nearly pushing him back with their force.

“R-right! Yes, of course,” he jumbles with the glass in his hold, looking around for a moment before accepting the proffered seat. “I—I came to ask you for… for advice.”

She follows his example and sinks into an armchair, crossing her legs and watching him for a moment. A long and entertained moment. “Oh?”

“Y-yes…” he insists. “You see. I’m—I’m currently working on this book, and. And I’m at this part that I need to research before I write it. So…”

“What kind of part?” her interest is immediate.

He tries to think of a way to describe it, nervously scratching the back of his neck and fumbling with the collar of his tee shirt. He feels unreasonably nervous, cognizant of the sweat beginning to stream down his back. “W-well…” he tries.

“Is it a sexy part?” she asks.

“N-not really.”

“Hmm, I guessed as much,” she leans back into her chair. “I’ve read your work. You’re not much of an erotic writer, are you, Grapefruit ssi?” she sums him up with narrowed eyes. And yet, there isn’t any sign of malice in her observation. He glance is approving, in fact. Admiring. “Your stories are very different. Emotional. They’re for a very… cerebral audience. Is that always your intent?” she asks with some fascination in her gaze.

He blinks up at the ceiling, thinking of a genuine answer, not wanting to disappoint her for some nameless reason.

“No,” he concedes after a while. “I think it’s just… because of the kind of person I am. I think it requires me falling in love first before… before my characters fall in love.” He runs a finger over the rim of his condensate-covered glass, nodding contemplatively for a moment. “W-what about you?” he asks. “What is your intent? When you write, I mean.”

She hums, crossing her arms across her front. “Intent…” she hisses a breath in. “There doesn’t always have to be one, you know?” she says conversationally. “Like you said, we can feel very strongly about something, and then write about it. Tell a story around it. I think that’s possible,” she accepts. And when she smiles, he feels an odd sense of solidarity with her.

“What… what does Eonsook ssi feel strongly about?”

The woman smirks. “You were staring at her just now,” comes the simply reply. Accompanying it is the smooth motion of a hand coming up to support her chin, a ring glinting on its third finger.

Jonghyun bumbles an apology.

“There is nothing else I feel as strongly about,” she reveals. “There is no one I love as much, no one I care about as much, no one who matters to me as much. And so,” she holds out a hand between them. “I write about her. About us. I suppose…” she finishes with a grin, a clever gleam nestled in her eyes. “I suppose you can say she’s my muse.”

“A muse…!” Jonghyun’s heart runs on a treadmill at the words. “Do you think…” he begins, shifting forward in his seat. She mirrors the movement. “Do you think you could teach me? How you find the courage to tell your stories?” he requests.

“Courage?” Eonsook chuckles. “It doesn’t take courage to make people happy, Grapefruit ssi,” she shakes her head. “Because that is what we do. We ultimately make people happy with our work. They read it, they smile, they feel good. Maybe they forget about it after some time. Maybe some of it stays with them for years. Who knows?” she shrugs. “As long as we get them to smile.”

He feels awe at that. “As long as they smile…” he nods again, this time in understanding.

------

With every jump of his hips, he is filled with a murder of crows that flutter to the far edges of his body—to the villages settled in his fingertips and the townships developed in his toenails. With every jump of his hips the leaves inside him quiver from the force, as birds take to the skies between his stomach and lungs.

When they travel, when they journey through him, his sighs tell the tale of that journey. They sing like bards, reciting how the crows travel carrying messages tied to their feet. The sighs paint pictures of beaks pecking at his outer edges, his boundaries, his geographical territories. With every jump of his hips he is breaking those boundaries, violating the treaties that hold those borders sacred. With every jump, he is less self-contained, less of an uncontested dominion.

He secedes. He surrenders his independence. He lets himself be taken captive by the thrum of the man below him. Inside him.

With every jump of his hips, he abdicates the throne of his identity. He makes the other king. Gives his crown to another head. And the crows carry news of this shift in power to all the lands that were once under his reign. They carry the news, propelled by the sighs, released at every breath, every hitch, every gasp. Every jump.

In his own kingdom, he is now a pauper.

To have meaning, to be defined by a name and description—all this no longer applies to him. The other man has changed his definition. The other man has made him… not him. But if he is not himself, who is he? If he is not who he was born as, if he is no longer the man he introduced himself as, who is he? What is his name, now? What can he call himself? How will he present himself to strangers, if he is a stranger to his own self? If he looked himself up online, what would the results be? Would they just become strange unreadable symbols?

If he is not himself, then he does not exist: or, at least… this is what he has always thought to be true.

But now his hips jump, and his voice breaks, and he calls out a name that doesn’t belong to him. With every jump, he becomes a blurry existence.

------

They grow close, Eonsook and Jonghyun. They become friends.

She talks to him often, sometimes on the phone, other times over dinner. On a second visit to her apartment, he learns the other woman from the photos is Gwiboon, who talks a mile a minute and laughs like an erupting volcano. The two of them accept Jonghyun like he has always belonged in their life, always had a place in their home and their hearts. They are kind to him. They are kinder than most others have been.

Perhaps because there is nothing to hide from them. He doesn't have to lie about what he does for a living, doesn't have to make up stories about how he spends his free time. He doesn't have to shut his doors and draw his curtains with them. There is nothing to be ashamed of, in their company.

It's freeing.

Jonghyun continues to write, faster and longer than ever before. He writes like he breathes. He enjoys how uninhibited it makes him feel. He finds himself feeling more and more confident about this story, even going back to the rejected manuscript and making edits with a red marker. He meets Taemin at a café and spends most of the time scribbling in a notepad as they hide from other patrons in a corner booth.

With every page he writes, a mass of pride grows in his ribcage.

“So, what now?” Taemin asks him one afternoon, having finished the latest draft and giving it his seal of approval. “Where does the story go from here?”

“Hmm...” Jonghyun nurses a cup of coffee. It is early in the morning. He has been organising his books and wardrobe and even his thoughts while the other read. He has been carefully making his way through all that needs to be settled—in his writing and outside it.

“I could write some more about the way the characters feel. You know, build more plot buffer. Or,” he gives half a shrug. “I could. Resolve it in a certain way.”

“A certain way,” Taemin raises an eyebrow. “What way?”

“Well. They could. I don't know. Fall in love, and—” the other is vehemently shaking his head before Jonghyun even finishes his sentence. “What? Why not?!”

“Too forced,” Taemin disapproves. “It would just be pandering to your readers, when the story doesn’t naturally flow that way. Consider everything that’s happened. There is no justification for them falling in love. All they've done is meet a few times and exchange... banter.”

“Sometimes that's enough!” Jonghyun defends, then softens. “Is... is it not?”

“You tell me.”

“No, you tell me!” Jonghyun insists. “Is it not enough for them to know each other? To enjoy the company? To... to feel comfortable with each other? That should be enough sometimes, right? Wouldn't that be enough for you?”

“Is that the real question—?”

“Yes! Yes, it is!” Jonghyun shouts, and as he does, he is painfully aware of the fact that this is not how he had planned for this conversation to ensue. He is conscious of the fact that he has made it a confrontation rather than keeping it within the bounds of an emotional exchange. There is a feeling of being put under an unannounced spotlight, its glare harsh against his face. He breathes hard, gripping the edge of the kitchen counter before him, doubling over in preparation for the rest of his episode.

“Yes, it is,” he repeats in a quieter, gentler tone. When he straightens up, he stares at the other with pleading eyes.

“What am I to you?” he repeats with some desperation.

Taemin looks satisfied at the question, like he has been waiting a long time for it to emerge. He remains relaxed despite the friction, despite the anxiety in his host. He continues to smile like an illusionist, continues to watch like a judge. “Before I answer that,” he begins in a calm, collected voice. “And I will answer it. But before I do, I need to you to tell me first: what am I to you?”

The reaction enrages him. “No,” Jonghyun warns. “No. Enough games. Enough running around in circles. You’re never honest with me. You only talk about this… this shit!” he angrily motions at the tablet the other had been reading from. “You can’t avoid this anymore. You have to answer me now.” He holds a hand up between them and counts. “Who are you? Why are you helping me? What do I mean to you?”

“Hmm,” Taemin rocks back and forth. “You really want me to tell you?”

Jonghyun makes wide, aggravated motions. “Who else will—?!”

“You want me,” Taemin clarifies. “To tell you. Who I am,” he raises his eyebrows. “You really don’t know? Have you really not known? All this time?”

“That’s why I’m asking—!”

“No, you’re not,” the protest is cut off. “You’re asking because other people are asking: what does he do in there all day, who is he with, who is this muse he’s talking about all of a sudden. You’re asking because you need to give them an answer. An answer that isn’t really the answer,” the corner of Taemin’s lip turns up. “Isn’t it?”

“Wh-what…?” Jonghyun shakes his head, the hair on his arms standing on end.

Taemin skips off his stool, meanders around the counter, advances on him.

Jonghyun’s breath sounds like an elasticized gong. His inhales are like rubber bands, stretching on for hours and hours. He is buzzing, like he sits inside something alive. Inside a heart and the lights decorating Namdaemun at night are made of lamps that glow soft and warm as if someone is holding him in an embrace and showering him with solace while their eyes are speaking to him in a different tongue in a speech of a foreign land where jinn live and grant wishes and there is nothing to see for miles except murders of crows carrying messages on their feet telling the world that the empire has fallen the world is coming to an end and the—

------

Mapo bridge.

It talks to him. It asks how he is, if he’s eaten yet. It tells him to turn his head up and look at the blue sky once. It tells him it loves him. It tells him that the brightest moments in his life are yet to come.

Jonghyun cries hard enough that his body shakes from the force. Minho stands very close, looking worried and reaching out for a hug. But he is told to wait. Not yet. He is told to wait, Jonghyun will need him soon.

Words are everything he is. Words are his life and soul. His bone and sinew. His drifting days and sleepless nights. Words have created him, penned him down—not the other way around. They have built him up, bound his loose pages and given him a spine. They have made him Kim Jonghyun. They have made him a writer, a poet, an artist. They have made him what he is. And he would never have realised this, were it not for Taemin.

Were it not for himself.

“I write for myself,” he claims to the sad and bloated waters of the Han, knowing the other is listening. Somewhere. From within the crevasses of his mind, Taemin is listening. “I write for myself.” It is a heavy claim to make. It is heavy as lead. It is tied to Jonghyun's feet as he trains to run his ink across a coastline. The claim is heavy enough to need lugging around on his hipbone. It is heavy, it is full. Like an earthen pot spilling its contents.

His face is drenched when he speaks those hefty words, when he acknowledges them. He sobs and his fingers tighten on the rails of the bridge, the place he would often visit when he felt sad and alone. But he isn’t alone. Minho is here for him. Eonsook and Gwiboon wait in a car nearby. And Taemin.

Taemin exists in the beats of his pulse.

Behind him, traffic swishes past. In front of him, the river hushes his crying. “I write for myself,” he lets go of the full pot and watches it splash, watches its shards rock a little on the ground, after they've separated from the whole.

많이 힘들었구나

He touches the words of the bridge and nearly answers out loud. He nearly says yes. Yes. It was tiring. It was terrifyingly easy to give up on my dreams. He rocks a little in place and finally Minho gathers him into a tight hold, stroking circles on his back.

It was awful, Jonghyun wants to say. But I found him. I found myself. I found contentment. I found it. And now I can walk away from you saying yes. Yes, it was tiring. It was hard. But now my breath comes easily. My heart beats easily. My life runs easily. I am alive. I am free. I am happy.

I love myself.

#jongtae #long fic #shinee

[thesunshinedissociation]

A Maria-Centric View of Our System

I realized this morning that my hope when I tell friends about our plurality is that they’ll assume they’ve been interacting with several of us and thus their feelings towards the presumed singlet will just be re-understood as towards at least several of us, if not the whole system. But also as far as I know we haven’t really told anyone how to tell us apart. So, from my point of view, here’s something of a description of each of us. (Thankfully, as far as I can tell, I have a nice spot in the system for this.) I’ll go from most to least active. 

Maria: Me. Self-description is probably the hardest, but as best I can tell, I’m the one who’s best able to get desires going. Especially for pleasure. Like, whereas the others will be very lost trying to find something they want, I can be somewhat hedonistic at times. I also do get a lot done, which is good since I also have a lot of energy and a really good tolerance for being alone.  Some people don’t seem to like me as much, especially after some of my more reckless decisions. (I just noticed my name is one letter away from mania...) Which has made me all the more aware of how okay I am with being alone. Also, I feel about fifteen years old inside, and it can be kinda scary at times since I still have the responsibilities of someone ten years older.  I used to be pretty bad on a stimulant addiction. Lately I’ve noticed I don’t like nicotine. My drug tolerance seems generally lower. But, I also don’t have anorexic tendencies, nor do I have money anxiety. On the other hand, the others don’t love my love of candy and snacks. Nor do they always love when I go on spending sprees. Oh well. At least I enjoy myself. (The near-constant physical pain is less pleasant. As is being constantly overheated. While I’m often derealized, that’s not so bad because it makes the world less scary. I feel myself as very real, which is nice. The distorted perceptions are weird but workable. The ability to give myself a buzz without drugs is really fun.) I imagine I’m usually pretty identifiable by my energy. I’m also more concerned with my aesthetic than most of the others, but my external appearance usually ends up at least somewhat chaotic. 

Natalia: The caretaker of the group. We’re really close, usually able to talk to each other at will, switch with each other almost at will, and when one of us come around, the other is rarely far away. She’s pretty protective of all of us, and has run into conflict a few times when keeping everyone away to keep us safe. Our roomates say she’s remarkably responsible. Which is fair; most of the stuff that has to get done like cleaning the house or putting food in one of the anorexic/depressive alters falls on her. Sadly, she’s not as good at having fun. But she says she’s usually content. Which, hey, if being caring is what makes her happy, that seems alright. I appreciate having someone around to keep me calm when things go awry. Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if half of my coping skills were just to turn to her for help. She’s also usually pretty easy to identify by behavior alone, I imagine. Like, her primary drive is to take care of anyone she cares about. She usually keeps her appearance more tame, but it’s not super important. 

Victoria: Sometimes she can feel really great, but it’s pretty fragile. On any day she’s out, there’s a good chance she’s going to crash hard. Usually because she can’t handle being alone, and will very quickly suspect that she’s too socially inadequate to carry on. She’s also more isolated in the system, especially since her falling out with Natalia and Lizzie a few months ago. (But they weren’t very compatible to start with.)  I’m not sure how much she has going for her besides some attachment problems. Either her appearance will be too depressed to even wear clean clothes or else when she’s doing well socially (or when ego-inflated by other means) she’ll make herself as attractive as she can. Which makes sense given her felt need to be attractive. (Thank goodness we all reflect externally enough to keep track of all of our problems.) If you look at the DSM entry on BPD, all nine criteria fit her pretty well. Though also she’s often tormented by Natasha. Her access to the rest of the system is pretty bad; she’s especially prone to amnesia, and she’s a bit in denial, still.

Natasha: The arch-persecutor. She’s angry and violent, usually towards us. She doesn’t really trust anyone outside the system, so she abuses us to keep us safe from them. I can’t remember her fronting for a long enough period of time to really have much to say about how she acts outside.  We’re learning to work with her. I hope someday she can be okay. As much as we fight, I do care about her. I understand why she’s easy to dislike, though.

Jeanine: She’s a bit farther away from me in the system so I don’t know her very well. I can see the playlist she made for herself on Spotify is totally the most unique. (We all share one account, and most of us have playlists for ourselves.) She can be way more fight-y than most. I used to think she was just basically the protector that followed Jasmine, but she’s spent enough time out on her own that I’m not so sure. (While interactions go in all sorts of directions, I seem pretty close with Natalia, Jasmine with Jeanine, and Victoria with Natasha.) She’s not as mean as Natasha, not as self-assured as I or Natalia, not as responsible as Natalia, not as energetic as me, but she is nonetheless aggressive, energetic, self-assured, and responsible.  The hard rock/heavy metal section of our closet basically only exists for her.

Jasmine: The other teenager in the system. Except she’s also about as sad as Victoria. Thankfully instead of having outbursts, she’ll just glue herself to a couch and sleep for two weeks excepting when she absolutely has to get up. And even then, while most of us can pull it together for a social obligation (like, Victoria can attempt suicide, fail, and then go to work or a party or whatever), Jasmine will actually call off.  Which I guess means when we actually need a break for whatever reason, she is the best-equipped to handle it. She’s also either aro/ace or close to it, so she’s useful for romantic failure. Though the intensity of her platonic feelings can be a bit much. As I write this, I’m realizing who’s going to be handling all the writing we have to do. Hint: It’s mostly me, featuring Natalia. Victoria will help when she’s not crashing. Jeanine and Jasmine are less helpful since their life ambitions are more artistic than academic. (Which is another good hint as to who’s out: We don’t even have the same long term ambitions!) I’m pretty sure she’s still the only one with her hairstyle. It looks good, so I wouldn’t be surprised if someone else uses it sometimes. That said, she also easily puts the most effort into her appearance. (We make a good team, what with me having the will to buy nice clothes and her wanting to wear them. If only we got to be together more. Someday, hopefully.)

Emily: The child of the system. She’s seven years old, and she can’t talk. She also pretty much only comes out deep in the night or when there’s a fight. I imagine her childishness and silence is pretty identifiable. Everyone except maybe Natasha cares about her a lot. We do our best to take care of her, though admittedly we dream of someday someone else caring about her, too. Best I can tell, she’s stuck in a neverending flasback of trying to get help but finding nobody. I don’t know what trauma she’s holding, and I’m a little intimidated by the idea of finding out.

Lizzie: She used to be out more, I think. She wanted to get into politics and redirected our life in that direction for a bit. We all call her the bleeding heart of the group, though she’s less into the direct and forceful caring like Natalia and more into standing up for people and being a force for more widespread good. She also had quite the incident a few months ago in the inner world with Natalia and Victoria. She stopped coming out as much as Natalia picked up where she left off. Someone else will have to fill in more on her.

Olivia: She’s not out much, but also I know she feels pretty good about herself. Probably at least as good as I do about myself. She used to use our legal name, though mostly because she felt the most strongly connected with it. Like, she said for once she actually felt like that person. We realized her using that name is super confusing, though, and led people to think she’s the “core”, “original”, or otherwise the One Alter Worth Saving. Which is, on the one hand, just false. Maybe she was the first, but maybe Emily was! Or maybe I was! All being first means though is being the first one to form out of the not-yet-unified infant mind. If we ever do fuse, that will be removing the barriers between us, not destroying any of us. But that’s like putting a jigsaw puzzle together--there’s no “core piece” of a puzzle that all the others fuse to.  Anyway, I don’t know her super well because she’s not very active, inside or out. So I’m tapping into stuff from like six months ago. But hey, if we do get her out, she does at least know how to handle the social professional world pretty well. Or maybe her confidence and assertiveness just works to her advantage in our current setting.

Marina: Last seen in September, she’s not out much, and she’s incredibly intense. She’s closest to me, and I don’t see much of her. I imagine if I’m in dire need of someone to unleash hell outwardly, she might pop in? She really doesn’t like the system as a whole and will actively thwart others’ efforts. I think ever since I stopped being so apathetic towards the others she hasn’t had her chance to come out, since usually we’d tag team, me taking advantage of the system and her just destroying it. Now I take care of ourselves. (Maybe someone else will have a better view of her, though. Maybe I’m wrong about being closest with her.)

Adrianna: She hasn’t been around much lately, though she used to be. Only one who had to have a name assigned to her since her self-esteem is so low she wouldn’t give herself one. (She called herself “nameless” in our notebook. And if it wasn’t clear from the Olivia paragraph, some of us are trying to actually run this system instead of continuing the complete chaos that came from having a mysterious personality roulette for years.) I don’t remember her super well. I think she’s a bit more of a pushover than anyone else, at least. Like, Victoria may get attached, but she does at least know how to speak up for herself. Adrianna is good enough at handling troubling emotions to stay functional while keeping her suffering hidden. Though she does talk to us a lot when she’s out. 

Angelica: I know she exists, because she made a note of it in our notebook, but I don’t really know her. Not around much, to my knowledge.

-Maria

[hillbillyoracle]

Divination with DnD Dice

There seemed to be enough interest in the DnD Dice Divination system that I decided to go ahead and write it up. I couldn’t fit it all on here though so I might be making more posts in the future about it. I’ve included the most important stuff here to get started. 

I’ve included a zine to download and print off if you want to take it with you. I actually recommend the zine, it’s a better format than what tumblr would let me put together. 

Please consider tipping me and definitely credit me where you can. 

I know there are other systems out there and I don’t have a monopoly on dice divination but this guide did take a lot of time to put together and is built on my own collection of frameworks, meanings. 

Dice sets can be picked up for cheaper than most basic tarot decks making the barrier to entry lower. My goal was to create a system that could get a similar level of complexity of information to tarot and oracle cards. I found in test readings, I could get roughly the same as I would get from a four card reading. So it’s a good start! 

It’s my mission to make divination more accessible, tipping me helps me devote more time to this.

Zine: https://www.scribd.com/document/380692727/Divination-With-DnD-Dice

If Scribd gives you trouble try here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/21613135

Read description for printing directions or it might not come out right. 

If you can’t print it off, the same information is included below the cut.  

Hope someone finds this useful! 

D4 - Element

1 - Air - Mental, Academic, Communication, Anxiety

2 - Fire - Spirituality, Passion, Ideals, Anger

3 - Water - Emotional, Romantic, Connection, Depression/Sadness

4 - Earth - Physical, Material, Home, Emotional Block

I use the Element dice to give an indication for the area of life the reading pertains the most too. I look for indications with other dice as to what the element dice might be speaking to more specifically, but it gives me a place to start.

 D6 - Problem

1 - Plot - drama, conflict, things outside of your control, change

2 - Character - another person is blocking/causing problems, fixation on a person, possibly even loss of a person

3 - Thought - paradigms getting in the way, not in touch with reality, judgmental, fear/anxiety, getting stuck in your head

4 - Diction - how a person talks is causing problems, speaking too much/too little, passive aggression, divisive or hateful language

5 - Song - Harmony with another, being out of sync with oneself or another, learning to join the choir/group, teamwork

6 - Spectacle - Things seem worse than they actually are, petty fights, aesthetic/surface level changes, playing with how things are perceived to achieve an outcome

The Problem dice is based on Aristotle's Six Elements of Tragedy, a dramatic and literary analytical framework. I use this to see what might be the at the crux of the problem in the area the Element dice indicated. The Action Needed dice can also refine the Problem.

 D8 - Action Needed

1 - Right View - seeing the situation for what it truly is, actions have consequences, material reality, paradigm shift

2 - Right Resolve - being intentional, recommitting, choosing what is right, dedication and ambition

3 - Right Speech - be honest/don't lie, don't be passive aggressive/be forthright, speak compassionately and for the benefit of others.

4 - Right Action -  don't harm others, act compassionately and for the benefit of others, take positive action

5 - Right Livelihood - don't profit from harming others, long term commitment to benefiting others, take only what you need and give what you do not, ethical employment

6 - Right Effort - Exert influence on your environment to cultivate a better internal world, set strong boundaries, avoid negative influences and seek out positive ones, "just do the thing"

7 - Right Mindfulness - Don't make things out to be more than they are, see them for what they are, know life is in transition, don't define the self by these external transitory states

8 - Right Concentration - unification of the mind/body, unlocking higher levels of thinking and feeling and operating, don't let desire for what might be get in the way of what is, healthy detachment

The Action Needed dice is based on the Eightfold Path of Buddhism. While the particulars of the path vary by the different schools/traditions, these seem to be the most common English translations. This dice is usually pretty straight forward, especially when taken in consideration with the rest of the dice.

 2D10 - Difficulty

Pretty self-explanatory. The higher the difficulty, the longer the process will take. Gives an indication about how important or long term the reading will be.

 D12 - Time

The number can refer to a month of the year which you may have your own associations you can pull from or classify into a season and pull meanings from that. I use the seasonal method most often.

Winter - focus on the self, rest, restore yourself, weather the storm, be the light the world isn't giving you, inner strength

Spring - new beginnings, plant seeds, the rain and the storms lead to new growth

Summer -  wait to harvest, find shade, relax

Fall - harvest, make preparations for winter, celebrate accomplishments.

You can also think of what sabbat is in that month and the lessons inherent in that holiday. It can also be time of day.

9-5 - Work related, stress, out of your control

5-12 -  Free time, friends and family, hobbies

12-9 - rest, dream, restore yourself

AM if there are more even than odd numbers and PM if there more odd than even. You can also take the month and the time to be literal if the reading calls for it.

 D20 - Lesson

1 - The Magician - jack of all trades, master of none, experiment, unfocused, learning, skilled but unrefined, beginning

2 - The High Priestess - balance, intuition, insight, between worlds, lessons learned while solitary

3 - The Empress - growing, flowering, creativity, taking what you have and making it thrive, thriving where you're planted

4 - The Emperor - expand, leader, confidence, step up and create the life you want/need, protect what/who you have

5 - The Hierophant - balance between material and spiritual, lessons learned from teachers, benevolence, structure

6 - The Lovers - connection, union, positive outlook, nostalgia, romanticism, love given freely

7 - The Chariot - power, confidence, leadership through passion/emotional intelligence, decisive action

8 - Strength - rely on internal direction/sense of self, internal strength and peace, resilience

9 - The Hermit - internal knowledge and discovery, minimalism, truth is inside you, you are capable on your own

10 - The Wheel of Fortune - things are outside of your control, this too shall pass, ebb and flow of fortune, reversal of luck

11 - Justice - objective truth, standing by/doing what is right, lawful good, cutting ties with deceivers, protect the community

12 - The Hanged Man - Insight, understanding impermanence, sudden realization, enlightenment, major paradigm shift

13 - Death - the old makes way for the new, the cycle of life, we all die in the end, reinvention

14 - Temperance - spiritual balance, abstaining from negative influences, taking responsibility for one's internal well being

15 - The Devil - materialism as bondage, enjoy pleasure without becoming victim to it, pleasure seeking as escapism

16 - The Tower - being shaken to the core, foundations pulled up, self of self overturned, ego shaken

17 - The Star - uneasy hope, possibilities, leaving and traveling, opportunities somewhere else, dare to dream

18 - The Moon - deception, things aren't always what they appear, intentions and actions do not line up, reflect, see the true nature of things

19 - The Sun - relax and enjoy your accomplishments, celebrate with friends and family, share your abundance, revel in joy

20 - Judgment - shine a light on everything, be honest, be critical and fair, lay firm boundaries, take up the old and make it new

The lesson dice is there to indicate what can be learned from the situation. Every situation is an opportunity to grow and evolve. It's based on the framework of the Major Arcana as teachers and posits that every situation can likewise be a teacher to us all. This dice can help refine the problem dice as well. It can be hard to keep this dice from getting preachy so make sure to be honest about what this dice is saying but temper it so as not to be patronizing.

 Putting the Reading Together

Like all divination, the goal is to look for patterns and craft those patterns into coherent themes. Like reading a novel, you’re reading between the lines to make the reading more useable than the raw info the dice turn up. An example of my notes for a reading are:

D4 - Element: 2 - Fire

D6 - Problem: 3 - Thought

D8 - Action Needed: 3 - Right Speech

D10 - Importance: 51 - Middle

D12 - Time: Evening/Summer

D20 - Lesson: 8 – Strength

This is the reading I gave:

“The reading suggests there’s some conflict stemming from letting passion overtake reason in your interactions with others. You believe very passionately in your ideals, but how you talk about them to others looks like it’s causing tension. This seems like it will be of moderate difficulty to grapple with, not easy but by far not the hardest thing you’ve dealt with. The reading suggests being mindful of your words and advises to concentrate on your inner power rather than seeking validation for your ideas from others. “

When pulling together a reading you want to look for conflict, strengths, and resolution.

There was a lot of fire (passion) and air (communication) in this reading, while they work great in harmony, they can really hurt the user when out of balance so that was the conflict. Passion is a beautiful thing even when it’s not in alignment and I didn’t want the reader to think their ideals were the problem since the rest of the reading pointed out their words so their passion was their strength. The resolution lay in relying on their own internal strength for validation rather than others, that that would lead to better communication and less conflict overall.

I’m still learning myself. It takes practice so don’t give up!

--

I hope this was helpful! Please let me know how this works for you. I’m totally open to people changing it to fit them better but I wanted to provide a model for how this could be done. I also got some really solid readings out of it. So it definitely has potential. 

#astraglomancy #dice divination #tarot #witch #witchy #witchblr #dnd #dnd dice #divination #pagan #magick #dnd divination #Dungeons and Dragons #witchcraft #dice

[pimientos-especiales]

So I was on this website trying to print out a bread recipe, and this article caught my attention

SAY NO TO NUTELLA, IT IS POISONING YOU AND YOUR CHILDREN

I’m like, oh boy, this oughtta be good. IT DOES NOT DISAPPOINT. 

In order to protect our kids from the harmful GMO foods, we all must stand and say one large and loud NO. These foods are even advertised as healthy ones.

Yeah the literal decades that GMOs have been around with absolutely no evidence of harmful side effects are like... whatever. And yeah bitch, corn IS healthy, GMO or not (fun fact, all corn is technically genetically modified. We’ve modified it so much over the millennia that the kind we eat can’t grow on its own anymore. Also it used to look more like a pretzel stick before all our genetic modifications. 

Image source: http://thescientistgardener.blogspot.com/2010/04/how-teosinte-lost-its-shell.html

People are convinced by the intensive advertising that Nutella is healthy for our kids, but the bitter truth is that it cannot be even listed in the group of healthy foods. 

All right. I mean it’s a nut spread, so yeah, it’s not on my list of most healthy foods. 

In fact, all the ingredients contained in Nutella aren’t harmful or GMOs, but the product will be harmful with only one bad ingredient. 

[citation needed]

You should know that there are four harmful substances included in Nutella.

The Dangers of Nutella:

Oh boy here we go! 

Soy

The Asian people will disagree with this statement because the soy is part of their diet for centuries. Actually, they consume small amounts of naturally grown soybeans, opposite of the western civilizations today that eat artificial soy in pretty big quantities. 

Fun fact: Literally nothing in this article has any sort of source backing up any of these claims. 

Now I know, from using my eyes, that in the U.S. we do in fact have actual soybeans on the market. I’ve eaten them many times. What is artificial soy? They don’t say. 

Nutella contains soy lecithin which is dangerous for the human’s health. 

Was this written by a robot? “The human’s health” who talks like that? 

Soy lecithin is apparently produced from soybean oil, so... not artificial. It’s literally produced by actual soybeans. It takes some science to get it out, but it’s a byproduct of soybeans, and not like... fake soybeans. Also the first result in my search bar says soy lecithin is widely used even in health food stores. It’s a pretty neat article, it lays out the pros and cons of soy lecithin, pointing out there’s more benefits than risks. Also it’s full of sources to external websites! https://draxe.com/what-is-soy-lecithin/

It is connected with thyroid depression, uncontrolled weight gain, late menstruation, fatigue, premature entry into puberty and breast cancer.

Late menstruation AND early puberty, at the same time? Also as a woman, I wouldn’t complain about starting my period later than it did. Actually, don’t we have a problem in this country with girls starting puberty a little too early? Like, when they’re younger than 10? From the hormones they were putting in cow milk? This website, written by an author about a book someone else wrote, talks about the declining age for the start of menstruation and puberty: http://www.cwhn.ca/en/node/39365

(see, it’s not that hard to get sources, even when you’re cherry-picking to back up your own opinion)

Also that article I linked to earlier (the draxe) one says soy lecithin may PREVENT cancer, lower cholesterol, relieves menopause symptoms, and help deal with stress. So basically the article that has sources is saying the opposite of the one without sources. HM. 

I’ll give them the thyroid thing, the thyroid is dumb and sensitive as shit, it probably does wig out over soy lecithin. 

Sugar

Nutella contains derived from GMO sugar beef 

what

which is inexpensive and filled with pesticides and altered sugar that our body cannot recognize. 

Okay there’s no such thing as “sugar beef”. What are you talking about?? Okay according to Nutella, they have BEET SUGAR, which is different from sugar beef (which sounds like a weird nickname you’d give your hung husband). Pretty much every food has pesticides on it. That’s why GMOs are so popular, they breed stuff into them so they’ll naturally repel bugs and won’t be covered in pesticides! Oh, oops. And golly, the Nutella website says their beet sugar/sugar cane is non-GMO. Talk about a coincidence!

And aren’t beets a root vegetable? How much pesticides would be on the sugar extracted from a root vegetable? 

I’ll say it again, it is very cheap. These sugars are considered as neurotoxins since they can penetrate the blood brain barrier which results with elimination of the brain cells. They are also related with ailments such as ADHD, ADD, autism, migraine, anxiety, depression, etc.

Yeah, companies like it when things are cheap to harvest and produce, because people don’t like buying expensive food. GOLLY. 

Also considering scientists still have no idea what causes autism, [x] doubt. All right, I’ll give that it does make sense to link neurotoxins with neurological impairments. The blood-brain barrier works to prevent toxins from reaching the brain. It’s just, you know, if there’s a lot of that stuff in your blood, it’ll get to your brain. 

I’m not convinced, however, that sugar from beet roots are neurotoxins. 

Also, manganese is a neurotoxin but also there’s a Daily Recommended Value for adults and children to consume it. So, neurotoxins on their own aren’t bad for you. If you had way over the daily recommended value like every day, that would be bad. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manganese#Biological_role That article has like 200 sources on it! 

ALSO if you want to talk about Nutella being bad, just point out that it has a lot of sugar in it. If it was healthy, it wouldn’t have sugar. Or at least, not as much sugar. The end. 

Skim Milk

You can see a green meadows and happy cows on every milk package, which is an advertising trick of course. 

Where the hell are you shopping that it’s just a label that says “SKIM”?

The milk inside is not a skim milk, but pus filled milk of sick cows that were exposed on GMO including corn, antibiotics and many other things that are meant to decrease the costs. 

“Decrease the costs” of WHAT? You not only have no sources, but you don’t elaborate on what you’re talking about! 

Milk is NOT pus-filled. Food sellers don’t want their food to be gross. That’s just logic. 

I brought up the cows on hormones thing, I think places are getting better about not pumping their cows full of stuff, but okay, I’ll give you that one, crazy lady. 

“many other things” [citation needed][what things?]

At the end the resulting product is odorless milk that contains powdered milk. Powdered milk contains the most dangerous type of bad cholesterol.

Okay so according to Nutella, they used skimmed milk powder. Which makes sense, since it’s not a dairy product, that there wouldn’t be FRESH MILK but rather, powder. 

The lady who wrote this is one of those judgmental bitches who complains about women formula-feeding their babies, I’m sure. So, powdered milk is just milk that’s evaporated, pretty much. Because dry stuff has a longer shelf life than wet. Apparently the powdering process makes the cholesterol really concentrated, but there’s a lot of debate about whether it’s bad or not. 

Here’s an article about soy milk. It’s not a super professional source, but it’s well-written, at least. https://www.organicfacts.net/skim-milk.html

Vanillin

The label of every vanillin says that it doesn’t include artificial colors, but the vanillin itself is an artificial flavor. 

This part is honestly what prompted this post. Just read it again. You want to me to take your scare-mongering seriously and you say that? 

Also here’s the Nutella page on vanillin

So, uh, they flatout say that their vanillin is synthetic. The nutritional label says the vanillin they use is an artificial flavor. What it also says is “contaisn no artificial colors”. So this dumbass is accusing Nutella of lying because they can’t read a label or think artificial colors and flavors are the same thing.

Nutella also goes on to explain, in a way that matches what I’d already read, that although vanillin is naturally produced by vanilla pods, they can’t get enough vanillin just that way, so they synthesize some of it. Vanilla is so hard to harvest, because you get like no flavor even out of a ton of beans, so that’s why natural vanilla is so much more expensive than vanilla extract.

It is able to trick our brain and make you feel the true vanilla flavor. 

Natural vanillin smells like vanilla, so... okay.

The brain is easily tricked.

The truest thing this article has said.

 Vanillin is a neurotoxin which is capable to kill the brain cells. 

Oh here we go again.

In addition, vanillin makes us addictive 

you mean addicted? You got paid to write this article! 

while connecting the receptors in the brain and releasing serotonin, the hormone of happiness.

Oh no, this food makes you feel happy when you eat it! Throw it away! If only mankind were capable of self-control and could just stop eating something sometimes if they realize they’ve had too much of it today! Everyone should be sad all the time always!

Also, anyone notice that these terrible side effects are all opposite to each other? One of them causes depression but another causes happiness. Do they not balance each other out? Or is it some sinister thing like first the sugar makes you depressed, then the vanilla makes you happy, so you think you need to keep buying the Nutella to keep yourself happy because the Nutella is making you depressed? And then you’re broke and homeless because you spent all your money on Nutella.

Also, apparently there’s like 0.08 g of vanillin per 400g container of Nutella. So that’s 0.0002%. For 400 g. A serving size is about 37 g, so that’s 0.0074g of vanillin per serving. So, negligible. THE HORROR. 

 It is produced in China petroleum-based factories which makes this country one of the largest producers of vanillin in the world.

I mean it’s nit-picking, but what a poorly-constructed sentence. 

China is one of the largest producers of pretty much everything. It’s a large country and companies know they can get really cheap labor from there. 

I hope these facts

“that I couldn’t be bothered to provide ONE source for” 

are enough for you to decide to throw away these neurotoxins, GMO sugar, cheap and artificial vanilla and say one big, decisive NO to Nutella.

Don’t Forget To Share With Your Friends And Family On Facebook, As You Might Help Someone In Need!

Yeah if I know anyone in need I’ll forward them this article. Sure they’re penniless and homeless because of all the Nutella they bought, but at least they’ll have a printout of this article to use for firewood!

Also I can’t believe they didn’t mention palm oil! Now, Nutella says their palm oil is ethically harvested and sustainable and isn’t contributing to deforestation, but if you’re going to write an article full of unsourced half-truths anyway, why not bring that up? 

Here’s the Nutella website that I referenced a few times: https://www.nutella.com/en/us/inside-the-jar1 Sources also came from Wikipedia, because it was sometimes the only source I could find that had professional sources on it and weren’t like “hippiebullshit.org” websites. 

I just really liked that even the organic/healthy eating websites were contradicting this person. Also, shockingly, the article was closed for comments! 

Now I’m no expert, but Nutella has sugar and cocoa in it, so just from that I would assume it’s not actually the health food Nutella pretends it is. But I think it’s going to be among the least of your worries when it comes to food that may kill you. 

#long post #the gmos are poisoning our water supply!

[junker-town]

A conversation on the limits of human endurance

Just how far can the human body go, and is there a limit on what we’re capable of enduring? These questions have fueled scientists’ imaginations for centuries. Now we may have a clearer answer.

In early June, a team of researchers published a paper in the academic journal Science Advances that suggested the limit of human endurance is burning energy at 2.5 times your basal (resting) metabolic rate.

In other words, the point at which your body is burning more calories than it can consume. Once you hit that rate, and everyone does eventually, your body begins to lose weight and it’s a long slow grind down to nothing.

The test subjects were a group of runners who set out to complete the Race Across America, a series of marathons stretching across the country over a period of 20 weeks. Like the other endurance disciplines the researchers tested, the runners began burning far more than 2.5 their BMR, but eventually settled into a consistent L-curve pattern.

It’s a fascinating discovery for the world of human endurance where theories have ranged from the physiological to the neurological. One that has become prominent in recent years is the Central Governor theory, which suggests your brain is the ultimate arbiter of your body’s limits.

We talked to Herman Pontzer, an evolutionary biologist and anthropologist at Duke University, who played a leading role in the study. (Portions of this interview have been lightly edited for clarity.)

SB NATION: Let’s start with a layman’s summary of what your team found.

HERMAN PONTZER: We were invited by Bryce Carlson, who is the race director for Race Across America, where people ran a marathon a day every day for five months from the Pacific coast to Washington, D.C.

What we found is they’re burning tons of calories a day. Something like 6,000 calories a day at the beginning of the race. A bit less toward the end as their bodies adjust to the workload. That’s what we started out to do: figure out the energy cost of something that extreme.

And then when we took that extreme event and put it into the context of other really long, multi-day even multi-month events that have been measured. Everything from the Tour-de-France to shorter events like Iron Man triathlons to longer events like pregnancy.

What we found is that we had mapped out the boundaries of what humans are capable of. We mapped out the limits of human endurance. We didn’t start out with that intention. But we actually had an entry way into mapping out this whole boundary and understanding the envelope of human capability.

SB: And that is, essentially, you are spending up to 2.5 times your basal metabolic rate.

HP: That’s a complicated piece that either we haven’t done a great job of explaining it every time or people pick it up differently every time. You can definitely burn more than 2.5 times your BMR. When you run an ultramarathon you are burning well over your 2.5 times BMR during that event.

We wanted to ask two related questions, but they’re different questions. One is, what are the boundaries of human capability? That’s the complicated thing. You can do higher intensity work for a shorter amount of time, you can do less intensity work for a longer amount of time. It’s analogous to the fact that you can sprint for a 100 meters but you have to run a lot slower if you want to run a marathon.

There’s that same kind of speed versus duration relationships at these higher levels of endurance multi-day things playing out. It’s a different physiology, but it’s an analogous system. So we can map out that sort of sloped relationship between duration and intensity.

Then we can ask another question, which is: What can you do forever? As we slide along that intensity gradient, is there a point where we can actually go forever and really be sustainable for years? That’s a slightly different question.

What we found is when you look along that gradient from high intensity to lower intensity long-term endurance events, people at above 2.5 times their BMR are losing weight. We made the argument that if you’re losing weight you can’t do that forever because obviously, you’d die.

It’s a two-part answer and those things got conflated in funny ways in the press. ‘Oh, that means that all you can ever do when you’re doing the Tour de France is 2.5 times your BMR.’ and that’s not what the paper says at all. I can understand how that happens, but you’d do well to make sure that’s clear.

SB: There are so many different theories on the limits of endurance, like lactate threshold (muscle tolerance for lactic acid buildup) and VO2Max (oxygen uptake efficiency) . There’s other factors like heat and hydration, and the Central Governor theory that suggests the limits are in your mind. Has there been much of a reaction from those quarters?

HP: The short answer is yes. People who take the Central Governor view of things, and there’s two school of thought. There’s the Samuel Marcora view and the Tim Noakes view. I’m sure you’ve read Alex Hutchinson’s book (Endure), which is fantastic. I can’t do any better than that, summing up those schools of thought.

The Central Governor theory -- I don’t think anyone would disagree with this -- even if your brain is the organ that’s shutting you down and setting your limits, it’s doing that based on all your other systems. It’s doing that based on how hard your heart and lungs and mitochondria are cranking away. It isn’t this peripheral switch that shuts you down, but those peripheral signals are important.

What we haven’t done a good job yet — and this is an exciting area of science — is trying to walk those two areas toward each other and find out where we meet in the middle. Because temperature will shut you down and running out of carbs and bonking will shut you down.

But I don’t disagree at all. I think it’s right on, that the brain is the central organ that’s setting the limits. But what the brain’s listening to, exactly, and how it’s perceiving your expenditure is an open question. We’ve got to figure that one out.

SB: To be clear, when we talk about the limits of endurance, people can push really, really far.

HP: Absolutely. We did the best we could and got every credible measurement of every high-end ultra-endurance event that we could find and that’s how we designed that limit. For example, we have the Tour-de-France in there, we’ve got Iron Man triathlons, we’ve got the Western States ultra marathon, we’ve got the guy who just broke the Appalachian Trail record.

We’ve got all the stuff we could find that had a credible energy expenditure attached to it, and we couldn’t find anything that breaks the limit. During the review process, one of the reviewers asked about a study that we had somehow missed. It had a person do 31 Iron Man triathlons in 31 days.

SB: Oh, my God.

HP: I thought, oh boy, I better check that one out. So we estimated out his energy expenditure out as well as you can do and it fits the line perfectly. I really don’t have any credible measurements that surpass it.

That’s not to say that somebody won’t break through that barrier. That’d be awesome. I’d love to see that. The data brought us here and the data will move us forward.

SB: Can you train your BMR? Is there any practical application for athletes?

HP: Two things there. Let’s assume for a moment that it’s a really hard limit like we really think it is. As you get better and better at these things, what you’re training is how close you can approach that ceiling before your body shuts itself down. When you train at these high-end workloads, that’s what you’re training.

The second thing I’d say, it might be something like the 100-meter sprint record or the two-hour marathon. We seem to be up against a real physiological limit of what the human body is capable of in those track and field events that have been run for a century. I hope to see someone run a 2-hour marathon, that would be amazing. But nobody’s going to run a 1:30 marathon.

I suspect, and what we suggest in the paper, is that what we’ve mapped out is that same kind of limit, but for multi-day events.

SB: Why does this work appeal to you?

HP: I’m an evolutionary biologist and evolutionary anthropologist. I want to understand how the human body evolved and how it works and how the past shapes the present. I’m interested in physiology through that lens. I’ve always been drawn to these questions about energy expenditure because that’s the currency of life.

Life is a game of turning energy into kids, from a crude biological perspective. We don’t really understand much about a species until we understand how it’s spending these calories. Now today with the obesity crisis, which is really a crisis of too much food energy coming in, not enough being burned off, these energy metabolic questions have real practical applications.

They have cool applications in sport and exploration, so there’s this big wide open arena of understanding better our metabolism. It’s a fun place to work.

SB: That leads to the other big takeaway, which is that pregnant women are the ultimate endurance athletes because they can sustain this rate for nine months.

HP: That’s right! When I was wondering what are some of the hardest, longest things that humans do, as a biologist, pregnancy came right to mind because we know that’s a huge energy cost for moms. It made sense to plot that out and I was really tickled how pregnancy sits right on that same boundary.

We’ve mapped out this envelope of human capability and on the high intensity short end you’ve got ultra marathons and Iron Mans. In the middle length you’ve got Tour-de-France. And out there on the other anchor holding down the other end of the envelope is nine months of pregnancy.

[blackguard]

Homecoming

     “Are you sure you want to head in there like this?  You don’t have to face this head on.”  Makoto’s the first to voice her concerns, as per usual, biting her lower lip as I turn to face her.  It’s the same proactive caution of hers that’s saved us so many times before.

     “Ooh, a heist! Now you’re talking, Queen.” Mona chimes in, appearing behind my shoulder.  “I can recon the place before you head in and map out an optimal route.  I’m sure Skull can make some kind of obnoxious distraction for us,” he says, turning to aim a feline grin at my blond teammate.

     Ryuji’s furrows his brow in a glare at the cat before turning his attention to me.  “Normally I’d tell the furball to can it, but he’s on to something there.  Makoto and I can keep ‘em busy while you do your thing.  We can fake some kinda argument, make it loud enough to get their attention.  Practically be doing the hard work for you.”

     Makoto flips her hair with a devious smile as she steps forward to me.  “My thoughts exactly.  So, what do you say, Leader?  One more for the road?”

     Without so much as a suggestion from me, my Thieves leap into action for my sake, already concocting an elaborate plan.  It’s a wonderful reminder of just how much we’ve come to trust and care for each other.

     I shake my head at them with a wry smile.  “Take it easy, team.  This is a one man job and I’m the one man for it.”

     Right now though, this isn’t a job for the Phantom Thieves.  This is something I’ve got to do myself, so I can close this chapter of my life for good.

     “Please, just head back to the hotel with the others for now.  If I need a hand, I’ll text you right away. Okay?”

     Makoto closes her eyes and sighs.  She knows just how stubborn I can be, especially about stuff like this.

     “Fine,” she says grabbing my hand and squeezing it in hers.  “But you better have the message ready to send before you go inside.  Got it?”

     I pull out my phone and show her it’s screen, displaying our group text, the word, “Jenga,” typed into the entry box.

    She rolls her eyes at me, muttering, “Clever,” before giving me a peck on the lips.  “I’ll see you back at the hotel.  Be safe.”  Letting go of my hand, she begins walking back.

     “Well, I’m not kissing ya, but good luck in there, man.  You say when and we’ll come running.”  Ryuji claps me on the back before following after Makoto.

     Morgana leaps off my shoulder before doing the same.  “Watch your back, Joker.  There’s no telling what they might try to pull.  …Oh and we’ll pick up dinner on the way back!”

    With a chuckle, I wave my friends off as they fade in to the summer evening.  As soon as they turn the corner down the street, my reassuring smile vanishes as a grim frown takes its place.  Withdrawing my glasses, I flick the arms open before sliding them on.  After straightening my spectacles with a push to the bridge, I breathe deeply and head up the road to the house I’m looking for.

     My knuckles rap against the door five times.  Several seconds pass before the lock clicks into place and the door swings open.  Standing in the doorway, still clutching the door, is woman in her early forties with a head of flowing, but frazzled black hair.  She stares at me with her jaw agape and her eyes bulging.  Her hands move over her chest before she finally speaks up.

     “Akira!?  What are you doing here?!  ...And why are you wearing glasses?”

     I keep my hands in my pockets as I shift my stance slightly to the right, hoping my lowered brow and frown properly illustrate my incredulity.  “…Good to see you too, Ma.  Can I come in or…?”

     She looks around in a panic before she backs away and opens the door further.  “O-Of course…!”

    Adjusting the straps of the bag hanging on my shoulder, I exhale deeply from my nose as I head inside.  Past the front door, I kick off my shoes and look around the living space.  To no surprise, everything looks the same as it did a year ago.  I walk further in as my mother flusters at a distance from me, attempting to start up a conversation on something other than my sudden arrival.  Ignoring her, I walk upstairs and into my old room.

     Inside, it’s looks like it’s been frozen in time.  If I took a picture of the place the day I left, not a thing would look different than it does now.  The same blue wallpaper, the same hanging open closet door, the same smashed action figure on my desk…  I don’t even need to see the dust to know this place hasn’t been touched.  Easier to pretend I was never here that way, I guess.

    Letting my bag fall off my shoulder, I open my mental map and begin checking off items.  Books, toys with sentimental value, old Karate belts, what consoles and games I can fit in my bag and the folded up box inside it; all stuff I couldn’t take with me when I had to leave.  The box is pretty weighty by the time I’m done, but it’s nothing I can’t manage.  After one last look over the room I grew up in, I leave it for the last time.

    Heading back downstairs, I see beside my mother a similarly middle-aged man with a head of close trimmed black hair and a dusting of stubble across his jaw.  Whatever conversation they were having is cut off as they both stare up at me.  The old man’s gaze is a bit sharper than ma’s worried grimace, but I’ve been accustomed to this paradigm for far too long to be fazed by it.

    “Akira, why didn’t you tell us you were coming back today?”  My father’s quick to address the tension, attempting to establish control of the situation while he has the chance.

     I continue descending the stairs as I respond to him.  “Hello there, father.  I just came by to pick up my stuff.  Didn’t think there was any need to make an event of it.”

    My mother stammers, struck dumb by my blunt approach to this catastrophe.  My father is taken aback, but recovers more quickly.  “What are you talking about?  Son, you owe us an explanation for what’s going on here!”

    “Actually, I don’t.” Reaching into my bag, I pull out a folded up legal document and present it to the both of them.  “As you can read here, I’m just an independent minor reclaiming his property.  Nothing worth talking about.”

     With a flick of my wrist, I fold the paper back up and return it to my bag.  Dad lets his jaw hang open for a solid few seconds before forcing himself back into a cold glare.  Ma is wracked without outright horror, staring at me as though I’ve driven a knife into her heart. Her eyes well up with tears before she runs to my side.  Her filed nails claw at my skin as she grasps at my forearm, sobbing through her words.  “Akira, we’re so sorry!  We didn’t want to send you away!  When you were arrested we-“

     “Stop.”  As gently as I can manage, I pry her hands off me while interrupting her.  “We don’t need to have this conversation.”

     Dad steps in, breaking his terse silence. “I beg to differ, young man.  We sent you to Tokyo for your own good.  Holding that against us just isn’t-“

     “Not one call.”  I cut him off.  “Not one letter.  Not one visit.  I was in Tokyo for a year without so much as a word from you two.  I went to prison and I never even heard from either of you once!”  Feeling myself losing my cool, I stop before I can get any more worked up.  Ice in my veins, I continue.  “I’m done here.  For any further inquiries, you’ll have to talk to my lawyer.”  Slipping Sae’s business card into my mother’s hands, I walk back into my shoes and out the front door.

    Making it a few blocks away from the house, I collapse, my back against the barrier wall of the suburb.  Sinking down until I reach the concrete, the emotion pours out of me.  Setting down the box, tears run down my face as I grit my teeth and slam my fist against the concrete beneath me.

     My first day at school.  Birthday parties.  Family vacations.  I spent so much time with the both of them.  I thought they loved me.  I thought I was their son.  All those years together and all it took was one crooked politician for them to abandon me entirely.  It’s nothing short of heartwrenching.

     I lose track of time as I vent the awful feelings stored up inside me.  Stopping only occurs to me when I feel something wet on my right hand, the one not pressed against my eyes.  It’s not a proud moment when I realize the wetness is my own blood.

     Sweeping away the gravel from the scrapes, I reach around myself to retrieve my phone without bloodying my pants.  Tapping through to my recent calls, I raise the device to my ear as the dial tone rings.  To no surprise, it’s quickly cut off by Makoto’s voice.

     “Hey, are you okay?”  Worry is evident in her tone.  In the background can hear Futaba arguing with Yusuke, something about who got what pieces of the sushi selection.

     I chuckle quietly into the receiver as I answer her.  “I’m fine, I’m fine.  Job’s done.  How’re things over there?”

    “Inari, I swear I will reach down your throat and scoop that roll out if you don’t-“  Futaba’s threats echo through the room over what sounds like Ryuji attempting to restrain her.  It’s faint, but I think I can hear Haru giggling too.

    Makoto spares them a snicker herself before answering.  “It’s a normal night for us.  Or, it would be if you were here.”  She pauses for a moment and I can hear the smile in her voice.  I can’t help but smile myself.  “Come back soon, okay?”

    “Is that Akira?  Makoto, tell him to hurry up!  It’s a free for all back here!”  Ann yells directly to Makoto through the chaos of the room.

    With a half-joking time limit set, I push myself off the wall and back onto my feet. “Well, you heard her.  I better get moving.  See you in a few.”

     “And be quick about it.  See you soon,” Makoto says before she hangs up.

     Finding my motivation renewed, I slide my phone back into my pocket and pick my things back up.  The way I handled things, some people might say I lost my family tonight.  I don’t see it that way myself.  After readjusting my bag, I head off into the night, back to the family I’ve made for myself.

#Drabble #Been meaning to write this one for quite a while #Enjoy the uncomfortably relatable family drama

[promptistrashqueen]

A Royal Commission (6)

This fic references irl shit too, so imagine hollywood/pop culture still exists in Eos?

I started this late today and you guys sent me asks like “Please more” as if I could ever not write more of this… as if my love for @fleetstreetfatality would let me. Also she’s not feeling well so please, bury her in love <3

Loqi’s voice breaks Prompto’s concentration as he finishes touching up some tiny leaves on a young woman’s tattoo, luckily he’s used to it so nothing happens, but it’s still annoying.

“Hey, you’re big client’s back.”

Prompto huffs a sigh, because these days it seems like everyone wants him to work on large pieces so that means nothing to him. He tosses a thumbs up over his shoulder and goes back to finishing up his work, trying not to be too impatient for the store to close.

When he’s done he reminds her how to care for the work and hands her a card in case she needs anything as well as a sheet about touch ups and other things she needs to know. She’s nice enough but Prompto really doesn’t even remember her name and he’s grateful when she doesn’t try to flirt with him or anything, it’s been happening a lot.

When he’s alone again Loqi sticks his head back in, “Seriously, I’m sending them back, the lobby’s getting crowded with people gawking and he looks like a twat out there, surrounded by them.”

Prompto blinks and then he feels his breath rush out of him because oh. That big client. Damn Loqi for not just saying it was Noctis and letting the Prince be harassed instead.

“Seriously? Next time just send him back right away...big client...he’s Noctis ya ass!”

Loqi rolls his eyes but doesn’t leave just yet, leaning against the opening and toying with the curtain that’s still mostly pulled shut.

“He can’t already be back for more after yesterday...Prompto, you’re not, seeing this dude are you?”

Prompto sighs and puts on his best “fuck-you” smile, “Does it matter? You and I ended a while ago and I am an adult.”

Loqi flips him off, “You know why I asked, the Lucian Prince? If he ever finds out where you come from, do you think he’ll want anything to do with you then? It would ruin you, us, everything.”

He doesn’t wait for Prompto’s reply before shoving away and calling back, “I’ll send him.”

Taking deep breaths, Prompto grips the edge of his drafting table hard. He hates to admit the truth in Loqi’s words and curses himself again for letting himself hope, for agreeing to the lunch dates and dinner with Noctis. He squeezes his eyes closed and sighs, “fuck”

“Fuck what? Man, you alright?”

He shoots up and turns, plastering on a smile that does turn more genuine when he see’s Noctis. He can’t help it, the Prince just makes him feel good.

“Yeah, just been a long day, you know?”

Noctis nods and his expression says that he knows all about long days, “Yeah….you like Italian?”

Leave it to Noctis to skip the platitudes. Prompto appreciates his ability to leave things alone though, especially now.

“Love it. As long as I can get something with white sauce? Stomach’s a little bitch otherwise.”

Noctis’ lips quirk at the corner and he nods, “Isn’t white sauce a normal Italian thing? If not, Ignis has been feeding me something weird my whole life?”

Prompto slaps his shoulder, because he knows that tone of voice, that “duh they have it” one that makes him bite back a smile.

“Sasshole.”

“You like it.”

True. He’s so screwed. Prompto looks around his space and decided, screw it, it’s picked up enough he doesn’t have to be methodical every night as long as the hazardous stuff is taken care of.

“The other’s can close tonight, I’ve got a date with noodles….and you I guess.”

He smiles and holds out a hand, Noctis’ expression softens and he takes it, lacing their fingers together and bumping shoulders with Prompto as the artist leads him out.

He cringes a little, the entry is still full of people and they all immediately turn their attention to both Noctis and himself and he curses Maddy again. It only takes a split second before someone gasps, “Ohmygod are they holding hands?”

Fortunately there seem to be some pretty alright people in the crowd because someone replies, “You don’t hold hands with your artist? What kind of trust is that?”

The first camera shutter is followed by a lot of hand waving from a few people and Prompto realizes, grateful, they’re trying to block opportunities to take photos. Noctis pushes him a little and he navigates the cram of bodies to the door, yelling loudly back to Charlie and Loqi, “Good luck! See you tomorrow!”

He vaguely hears Charlie laughing and swearing from Loqi that makes him hope none of the crowd were easily offended.

They’re free and the evening is pretty, the city lights creating the usual halo as they reach for the wall. Prompto finds himself pausing to look at the distant hazy barrier, only slightly visible, it reminds him of how much he doesn’t belong here, with a Prince. Noctis’ fingers tighten around his and he tears his gaze away, offering a reassuring dip of his head to the Prince’s concerned expression.

He’s learning quickly, Noctis isn’t great with words, but that suits Prompto fine. He’s a chatterbox most the time but he’s never been good with deep stuff really. He squeezes Noctis’ hand in thanks and watches the way his shoulders relax.

“The Italian soda’s at Giacamo’s are choice. You have to get one.”

Prompto almost stops again, eyes widening. After Mama Claire’s he’d assumed Noctis would be taking him someplace similar, blue collar and relaxed, where he would fit in.

“Giacamo’s is black tie!”

Noctis shrugs, giving him a look, “I’m the Prince. Rules don’t apply on this one.”

Prompto gawks at him as they come to a stop next to a car, “Okay, but dude! I’m a pleb and a tattoo artist, they’ll probably assume I’m trying to rob them!”

Noctis opens the car door, “Oh no, a robber, I guess you’ll get sent to trial and spend the next ten to fifteen years in jail. If only you knew a charming Prince to help you!”

Prompto just sticks his tongue out. He makes a small surprised noise when Noctis ducks down quickly and swallows the appendage, pressing their lips together and letting his own tongue drag over Prompto’s, playing with the stud in it.

Prompto’s eyes slip closed and he melts a little, fuck Noctis is a good kisser. He leans into the touches, pulling back just enough to tug Noctis’ lower lip and tilt his head before kissing him again.

Noctis steps back, Prompto leaning forward in an instinctual chase, “You keep kissing me like that, we’re going to miss dinner.”

Noctis seems surprised at himself as the words come, like they were a thought that’s escape, it’s a feeling Prompto understands because he can’t seem to stop himself from answering, “Maybe I’m not so hungry.”

They stare at each other and Noctis takes a step forward, like he’s going to give in. Before he can reach him though Prompto actually sees the car he’s sitting in.

“Holy Shit!”

“What?” Noctis’ face pinches and the heat turns to confusion and it’s really pretty cute but Prompto’s too busy being blown away for that.

“Am I touching...did you put me in a fucking Aston Martin?”

Noctis blinks and then he starts to laugh, despite the way Prompto is frowning at him with large, shocked eyes.

“Dude, Prince remember? I don’t like it either, but I mentioned a date and Gladiolus refused to give me the keys to anything else!”

Prompto just nods, “Uh-huh, blame him. You just wanted to give me heart attack. The car, Giacamo’s? What’s next, a diamond necklace?”

Noctis looks sudden sheepish and shifts a little, rubbing the back of his neck, “Er-actually….”

Prompto’s face is trying to do things he’s not familiar with and he opens his mouth but can’t find the words. Fortunately Noctis starts to laugh again, shoulders shaking, “No! But you should’ve seen the face you just made!”

Prompto briefly wonders what the penalty for strangling a member of the royal family is, but Noctis’ bright eyed laughter is too infectious for him to stay upset and he laughs along until Noctis is buckled in beside him, pulling smoothly into traffic.

The restaurant looks exactly like the photos of it and Prompto swallows the nerves he feels as he looks at the building, but Noctis is calm beside him as they pull up. He gets out and has a word with the valet, the fucking valet. Prompto tells himself it’s either get out with Noct or have a really bizarre drive with a valet and opens his door.

He can’t afford this, is the next thing he thinks that’s not just whoa. They’ve been greeted without any question to their dress, and seated in a private booth without having to see more than a glimpse of the elegant people dining in other parts of the business. Prompto’s pretty sure the waiter-or maitre’d or whatever has shoes worth more than his entire life, except the shop of course.

“Uh, I’ll get the uh..is there any way to get just water and a leaf of lettuce because that still might break the bank here.”

Noctis glares at him over the top of the menu Prompto is using to try and hide his embarrassment over not being able to pay.

“Yes, I choose an insanely expensive restaurant so you could pay. Who do you think I am, a Kardashian?”

Prompto snorts at that but his anxiety eases some, “Fine. You keep spending money on me and I’m going to feel terrible charging for your tattoo.”

Noctis shrugs, “I model it for your little pleb shop and we call it even?”

“Aaaand I’ve changed my mind. Double charged.”

They lapse into silence as Prompto looks over the menu, trying not to cringe a little. Not that the prices are even listed, that’s how he knew. “So, uh, how did you end up doing it? The shop and everything?”

Settling on what he wants, and firmly not thinking about the cost, Prompto sets the menus down, fiddling with his bracelets thoughtfully.

“I...I guess I didn’t really fall into it, but that’s what it feels like? I got really into photography when I was younger, my early memories are pretty vague and I guess I wanted to create new ones I wouldn’t forget so easy? I dunno dude, I just eventually started drawing from my photos and after a field trip to see some surrealist art at school...I fell in love? Putting it on my skin seemed like the next step, holding on to memories you know, and they saw my sketches and we started talking and before I knew it I had my own gun. Charlie and Loqi and I were all shop mice around the same time and when old Lima retired we decided to start our own place. So I guess, I never found anything else to do?”

Noctis listens carefully and Prompto hopes he doesn’t pick up on the small lie, because he remembers his childhood with a clarity he wishes on no one.

“That’s...really cool.”

Prompto grins at him, “Yeah, not as cool as being a Prince or whatever but..eh.”

Noctis rolls his eyes but his smile falls a little, “Sure. At least you got to choose.”

They both get quiet, but then Prompto bumps Noctis’ foot with his own and reaches to take his hand, offering him support.

“Oh! There’s a new arcade bar that opened like, two blocks from my house and…”

They fall into a conversation about games and drinking as their food comes and before either of them are really aware of it their sitting, full as they could manage on good food and sucking on after dinner mints.

Prompto’s relaxed and it’s nice and probably pretty good because he didn’t even try to look at the bill..he really doesn’t want to know and Noctis didn’t even blink.

They stand and Noctis takes his hand again, going back the way they came with a togo bag hanging from his free wrist.

The valet is already waiting for them and Prompto tries to look cool as he gets back into the ridiculously expensive car after a meal at a ridiculously expensive restaurant where he was exempted from the dress code.

Noctis laughs, he must be making a face, and leans across the center to kiss his cheek.

“I’ll take you home, give me your address.”

Prompto shakes his head, “Not after that you won’t. Can’t have you seeing my shack. Besides I’ve got to walk off some of the noodles. The shop is fine.”

Noctis huffs at him but shrugs, “Alright, but by the fourth date I expect to be able to drive you home.”

“Four? My glass of wine wasn’t aired long enough and you’re expecting two more dates?”

He’s flicked for that one and chuckles a little to himself before closing his eyes contently, enjoying Noctis’ presence as he drives him back.

When he opens them again Noctis’ seat is empty and he turns his head to find the Prince leaning into his space through his open door.

“Sleepy?”

“Mmmm” Prompto feels like he’s not fallen asleep but he must have. Noctis’ eyes are soft and the curve of his lips gentle as he leans in, pressing their foreheads together and cupping Prompto’s cheek.

He kisses him slowly, their lips just touching as he breaths in and then slowly moulding together as Noctis uses his hand to tilt Prompto’s chin. It’s one of the best kisse Prompto thinks he’s ever had, all warmth and affection and the promise of another meeting.

Noctis slowly pulls away, hand lingering on Prompto’s cheek as he does before he allows Prompto to get out of the car.

“See you soon blondie.”

Prompto smiles at that, “You too charmless.”

#Part 6 #I uh #they keep eating together i dunno #Promptis #FFXV #FFXV Fanfiction #A royal commission #Prompto #Noctis #cute boys #Italian food #goofs #kisses #fleetstreetfatality

[vintage-story-time]

MANHATTAN MADNESS by Chili Peeler

Chapter 8

Julie sat up and reached behind her, unfastening her now unnecessary top. She pulled the leather straps off her shoulders and peeled the top off her body. Her fresh-fucked silicone breasts barely sagged as she threw the top on the floor. "Fuck, I love your body," Jim said as she lay on her side by him, "Did you ever dance like Beth?" Julie laughed, "No." Then continued, "That was never an option for me." Her hand dipped down between his splayed legs and began stroking his deflated balls. "I prefer being in the background, pulling the strings." Jim turned his body so he was on his side facing her and let his right hand begin massaging the underside of her breasts, enjoying the firm heavy weight of her fake tits. "Why are we doing this tonight?" Jim asked, sincerely curious, "I mean.. is it because I'm Beth's brother."

"Now why would you think that?" Julie said, that wicked smile beginning to creep back onto her face. "I sort of get the idea that would be something you'd go for...I should be off limits since Beth is your...girlfriend....but I think you like wild stuff like that." "I'll admit that that was part of it." Julie conceded as her hand squeezed his nut sack lovingly. "I also can't resist young men; you're always so hard and eager to please....but, I could ask you the same question. You knew Beth and I are lovers and it didn't stop you." Julie had a point there. Here he had gone a slept with his sister's lover and a portion of his attraction was probably found there. It was a real turn-on in fact, sharing Julie with Beth. Still he didn't want Beth to find out; it might ruin her thing with Julie. "I hope we can keep this to ourselves," Jim confessed, "I'd hate myself if Beth found out and it caused any problems between you two." "Our secret is safe with me...you know, if you want to fuck me, we better stop talking and get down to business." Just like that, Julie slipped back into her temptress voice as her hand slid up along the bottom of his half-hard dick. "Oh, man, am I going to fuck you!" Jim chortled, "Just get me hard and get those pants off." "First things first...I've got your cum on my chest...I'd really like it if you'd rub it into my tits." With pleasure!" Jim moved his fingers up into a puddle of his juices and then went to work smearing her left nipple with it. Encouraged by the way her hand began beating his rising member, he was soon using his entire palm to knead and rub his spunk on both her tits. Julie was loving it, too. "Mmmmmm, feel how hard my nipples are!" "I can't believe how small they are," Jim confessed. Julie must have had a pretty small pair of tits before her surgery. "Suck on 'em!" Julie sighed as her she arched her back, lifting her left melon-like mammary toward his lips. Jim lowered his face and took her pencil-thick nubbin into his mouth and began swirling his tongue against its stiff rubbery stalk. Julie began almost immediately to vocalize her pleasure, "Oh, that's it, stud!...Mmmmm....oh, you hot fucker.....lick your cum off my nipple." Jim almost pulled his mouth away; he hadn't been thinking about that since he'd rubbed it into her skin but that salty taste wasn't all sweat. He was tasting his own cum. Back in Nebraska, that would be homo activity so he had some natural ingrown trepidation. But it was turning Julie on, so he forged ahead. He let his hand start sliding down between their prone bodies, down her stomach and under the top band of her short skirt and the tight pants underneath. He wanted to diddle Julie's puss before he peeled her pants off and dropped between her thighs....... In a flash, Julie's hand was off his dick and pushing his hand away. Surprised by another denial of entry into her holy of holies, he raised his mouth from her succulent teat and leaned away from her. "What now?!" he asked, breathing hard. "If I'm gonna fuck you, I should be able to finger you." "Oh, you poor boy....I must have given you the wrong idea." She leaned toward him and kissed his chest, then continued rolling onto her stomach. "Did you think you were going to get my pussy?" "Christ, you said you wanted me to fuck you!" Jim said exasperatedly. "I do want you to fuck me," Julie assured him, "just not where you had in mind......I want you to fuck my asshole!" Her eyes danced with a wicked mischief as she knew the proposal would be unexpected. "Holy....are you serious?" Jim asked excitedly. He'd seen a girl in those blue films take on two guys at once, one of them taking her up the ass, but he'd never dreamed he'd be in bed with a woman that wanted it there. Of course, Julie was just the kind of woman that would - no sexual hang-ups at all. "Pull off my skirt and you'll see just how serious I am." Jim did just that. He moved onto his knees, straddling the

back of her knees and pulled down on the skirt to reveal an oval-shaped slit in the bottom of her tight leather pants. Julie's voluptuous ass filled the pants so completely that the slit was naturally spread wide, revealing the deep cleft in her buttocks. Julie's leather-strapped top had been made to accentuate titfucking and her pants were made for backdoor sex and backdoor sex only. The slit did not dip low enough that Jim could get any view of her pussy; Julie's stinginess even went that far. "Niiiiiiiiiiice," Jim said as his hands began to stroke her ample ass; he loved the contrast of the soft leather and the even softer skin of Julie's asscheeks. He'd always gone for girls with small, tight butts; school cheerleaders or even cruising some sophomores. But Julie's ass was....substantial. That was probably the best word to describe it. It was a full-grown woman's ass.....and she wanted it fucked! Julie twisted her upper body to look back at him over her left shoulder. Her left hand came back and pulled her ass open. Jim found himself looking at her sweaty, lightly-haired asshole. The dimpled area surrounding it was darker in color and striated. "Finger it...go ahead, it won't bite you!" she prompted him. Jim used his right hand to pull her right cheek apart and he slid his left index finger down onto her puckered opening. He ran his fingertip around her hot, damp entrance a few times and Julie hunched her hips back at him to spur him to investigate further. Slowly he stuck his finger against her sphincter and it slid through her elastic barrier. "Yeah, stick it up there," Julie hotly demanded. "Mmmm, I like that." Jim was amazed at the heat that surrounded his probing digit; it felt like it had been inserted in an oven on low heat. It didn't feel particularly tight around his single finger except at her sphincter where it gripped his knuckle. Experimentally he began thrusting his finger in and out, watching it draw out her moist butthole slightly before it slid down his finger. He wondered if he'd be able to get all of his cock up her ass; Julie was large in stature, so his money was on her. There was no time like the present to find out. "Ready for some cock up your ass?!" Jim put on a confident tone as he looked up at Julie's watching face. He knew she'd liked hot talk and he wanted to show her that he was eager to try it. "Always," Julie said sexily, "Pull my skirt all the way off." Jim did so and as soon as he cast it on the floor, Julie grabbed a pillow and slid it under her hips, raising her derierre slightly as she spread her legs wider on the bed. Jim kneeled now inside her legs instead of straddling them. "Now, before you go plunging in there, I want you to use some spit to get your knob slick. The rest should go in without much trouble," she promised. Jim spat several times into his hand and rubbed the slippery wetness all over the flared head of his renewed erection. He scooted forward until his knees were against the inside of her thighs. That was Julie's signal to lower her chest onto the bed, reach around with both hands and pull her cheeks wide for him. "Man, I wish I had a camera," Jim told Julie as he leaned over her stretched out frame, supporting himself with his left arm as his right hand guided his glistening dickhead down into her asscrack. It really was an erotic sight - this lovely goddess holding her ass open for him, inviting him to sample yet another new sexual activity. She was being a great tour guide; it appeared she liked everything under the sun except straight sex. He ran his dick cap slowly down her crack until it fed into the deep indentation of her asshole. He pressed downward and had no success at first. "Shove it a little harder," Julie encouraged. "Get the head in and we're home free, baby." Nervously, Jim hunched forward, then tried even harder. All at once his cock helmet disappeared through her tight sphincter ring. "Oh, God, that's tight!" Jim gasp. Her sphincter

squeezed his shaft just behind his buried knob like a vise. "It'll loosen, baby, just let it sit for a minute....don't tell me you never had to let a girl adjust to your big dick?......I've bet you've stretched out quite a few teenyboppers back in Nebraska!.......feel it, it's not so tight now, is it?" "No, that feels a lot better," Jim had to admit. The muscle ring had loosened to the point that it was still tight but not so tight that it hurt. Julie released her ass, brought her arms back up under her body and raised herself up on her elbows. She whipped her long black hair to the side with one of her sexy head tosses and twisted her upper body to look back at their union. "Ooh, look at that big fucker sticking in my ass!" she said like a X- rated porn star, "Okay, give me the rest!" Jim kissed her shoulder, then moved his mouth to nibble her earlobe. He slowly began pushing his hard dick down into her musky hole, leaning further over her to get the right angle instinctively. "Oh, yeah!...God, shove it in, baby! Aaaaah...mmmmmm.....open my ass right up, lover!" Julie throatily whispered, her mouth so close to his own ear. Her ass felt like a hot, tight, oily glove; it seemingly sucked him inward until the top of his hand, which clenched the base of his half- buried prong, pressed into her soft ass cheeks. He took his hand away, sliding it under her stomach as he worked another inch into her gorgeous rear. "Fuck, this is wild!" Jim groaned as he moved his mouth forward along her jaw line, until his lips were on the side of her mouth and her tongue was coming out to greet him. Their kiss was awkward due to the way her body was twisted but her heat was transmitted. She was getting really turned on now, there was no faking going on. Like an excited, anxious stallion, Jim lunged forward and the final two inches of his throbbing cock pushed into Julie's seemingly bottomless shithole. The front of his hips and dangling nuts lay on her slightly trembling, leather-covered ass. She moaned into his mouth, the vibrations coursing through her captured tongue. After another moment, their lips parted with a wet smacking sound and it was Julie's panting voice that filled the still bedroom. "God, I love it!....I love getting fucked up the ass....come on, do it, Jim!" "Okay, okay," Jim rasped and he dragged several inches of cock out of her hot depths and then sank it back in. "Oh, man, I could get used to this! Shit, I can feel your muscles squeezing me. Are you doing that on purpose?" "Mmm hmm," she sighed as he began fucking her ass. "Feel this?" "Aaaah, Christ!" Jim grunted as her shitter tightened up, then relaxed again. He took the opportunity to begin screwing her butthole faster, enjoying the series of sexy clenchings that Julie began with her tail muscles. "That's the way to fuck that ass!...aaahh....aahhh....Fuck it, you horny bastard.....oh, yeah, uunnhuhhh...mmmmmm!" Julie was using her voice like she was using her inner muscles. Jim attacked her ear with his tongue, worming it in there, knowing that he loved it when a girl did that. Julie sighed and then shook her head to make him stop. Either it was too sexy or she was ticklish. Undaunted, his right hand slid up the front of her body and began groping her fabulous tits, the tits he'd fucked about fifteen minutes ago. His fingers slid into the bottom of her cleavage and he could feel some of his spunk hiding in there. "Found some..of my jizz between..your tits." Jim said into her ear as he continued plunging her upthrust ass. She gave an excited squeal but he wasn't sure whether it was due to his discovery or to a hard thrust he delivered to her immediately after. Then he felt her hand move over his and she drew his hand up to her face and began sucking on his fingers, nursing on them like they would spurt more cum than what she could taste on his fingers. Jim was glad he'd come once already because Julie's erotic finger sucking and her hot asshole taking

his hard dick would have made them blow his load. As it was, he felt good, felt strong. He began pumping her anal chute strongly. "Stuff my ass with cock!" Julie blurted as she drew his fingers from her mouth, "Fuck it.....oh YEEAAHH.....just like that, just like that, stud! ...God, I'm gonna come big time....." That's just what Jim wanted to hear; he wanted to get Julie off good. He wanted her to want him. He wanted to fuck her again and again while he was in New York, before he went back to the boring farm. They continued their anal ballet for another ten minutes before Julie finally got her rocks off. Julie had begun grinding her hips into the pillow that she lay on and throwing her ass up to meet his descending rod. Jim slowed his thrusts, wanting to catch his breath, and Julie just went on fucking herself on his near stationary prick. During the course of their lovemaking, Julie had moved her legs nearly together and Jim had moved his knees to straddle her thighs. Now he leaned back on his knees, letting his hands grip her straining waist as he looked down to watch her stuff her asshole again and again with his still member. She did that for about 30 seconds and then became flustrated. "Please, God, fuck me...fuck my ass hard!" Julie commanded as she swept her left hand back to grip his ass. There was an urgency in her voice and he knew she must be near her orgasm. "I will!...take it, Julie...ah, shit......fuck that ass up at me!" Jim said, getting caught up in her dirty language as he slid his hands up to grip her shoulders and began throwing his thick prick into her squirming butt with wild abandon. "OOOH....AAAHHH.....MMMMMMMMMMAAAAHHHHHH!" Julie's ass began jerking and her asshole clamped down hard on his flashing manhood. His sister's lover was getting off from his energetic ass fuck! He felt his own peak racing toward him then. Her tight, spasming rectum was begging for his own explosion. He gritted his teeth as he tried to delay it..he'd had the hottest sex of his life that evening and he didn't want it to end... he wanted to remember every detail....her tits wrapped around his dick....his cum splashing onto her neck.....her hot butt milking his ready-to-blow joystick. "UUUUUUUUUNNGGHHHH!" he bellowed as he slammed his cock deep one last time in Julie's undulating tush and began firing his second cumload of the night, "UUUNNGGH...UNNGGH....OOH, FUCCCKKK!" His dick twitched and jerked in her nasty hole as Julie purred in delight. "Mmmmm, I can feel your cum," Julie reported to her sweating teen lover as her ass muscles, back under her control after her orgasm, worked to drain every last drop of love from his deflating cockshaft. Finally both became still and Jim began massaging her back as she slumped forward on the bed. "You got off, right?" Jim asked. "Sure did," Julie said dreamily. "You were great...but I think you ought to get out of here now. Liz might be here soon." Jim looked at the clock and decided she was right. He could probably get it up again but it wasn't worth the risk of discovery. He pulled his prick from Julie's stretched out asshole and sat beside her. She made no move to get up, so he kissed the side of her face and got off the bed. "Hey," he heard her say and turned back to her. She had raised herself back up on her elbows. "I've got something planned for you tomorrow, stud...if you're interested?" "You know I am." "Good." she said, her voice full of the promise of more delightful sin. Jim went to bed that night like it was Christmas Eve.

#MANHATTAN MADNESS by Chili Peeler #Chapter 8

[rayfollowsfromhere]

Sapphic September Day 11

Eleanora opened her eyes to find herself in bed, in the guest room. She blinked a few times as she sat up. Her barrier was throbbing at the walls. It had only been three days.

A quick inventory told her that Domi had wrapped her arms in a thin layer of gauze - probably to keep whatever smelly stuff she'd slather on safe from the sheets. Or the sheets safe from it. Whichever, the smell was horrendous, sulfuric almost.

Buzzing drew Eleanora's gaze to the side table, where her phone sat with a post it note stuck to it's back.

'Called Sera. She's worried. - D'

"Fuck!" Eleanora unlocked her phone to find half a dozen missed calls from Seraphina and twice as many texts. She dialed immediately.

"Eleanora Bond!" Seraphina's voice was pitched high and her tone was tight. "What happened? Domi said something about a demon and her sister and the box and-"

Eleanora cut her off swiftly, "Just a rough discorporealization." Sera huffed. "Okay, very rough. There was a demon, but Oriana got me back to my body, the box did it's thing, now it's dead."

"And you passed out." Sera's voice was quiet. Eleanora could picture her perfectly, wrapped up on the couch. She sniffled, "Domi said your arms looked like they're burned."

Eleanora glanced down at the gauze, "Well, now I know what happens when I touch a ghost." Sera sniffed again. "Honestly, Sera, I'm fine. The only thing I'm worried about is whether it was Domi or the sheriff that carried me back inside."

"What?" Sera's voice deepened, and there was a faint chuckle to her word. "Why in the world would that matter?"

"Simple," Eleanora lowered herself back down onto the bed, "I swore I'd never let a man take me to bed."

The laughter that bubbled out of Sera eased the itch of her arms more than the smelly antibiotic ointment that Domi had smeared over them. Eleanora could almost drift back to sleep listening to it.

Rather than go back to bed, Eleanora got up. She carefully pulled a sweatshirt over her shoulders to hide her arms and then she walked out of the room. Instantly, she knew why the barrier was starting to fail.

"Were there this many people here when I passed out?" Eleanora's appearance in the hallway had drawn the eyes of the dozens of people currently mingling about the Davies home. There was food, there was hugging, and most importantly, grief.

Deputy Gomez glared at her from across the room, her nose in the air. From the whispers that immediately stopped when she stumbled into the main room, Eleanora gathered that the sheriff had carried her inside while Domi followed with her things. Including the empty vodka bottle.

Not a good look, Eleanora could appreciate that.

"Should you be up?" Domi appeared out of the crowd with a frown. Her eyes darted down to her arms, "Not that I don't want a full explanation, but…" Her eyes darted back up, "You still look like you lost a fight with a bear."

Eleanora shrugged. "Where's the sheriff? If I have to give the full story I only want to do it once." Her fingers twisted in the loose material of her pants. She'd rather not give it at all honestly.

Domi led her outside, onto the porch. There was much fussing about her arms before she disappeared back inside.

"Oh! Domi!" Eleanora called out, and the woman stopped at the door. When her head turned, Eleanora spoke in a rush, "I'm gonna have to ask you about Galvin."

There was a swift nod after Domi's head turned back to the door. An even quicker breath. When she returned it was with the sheriff, his wife, and Stella. Alexa wasn't shocking, but Stella kinda was.

"Stella was Galvin's wife," Domi fidgeted as she sat on the railing. Her fingers clinched the column beside her so hard that her knuckles turned white.

Eleanora squinted at the hair dresser. Stella stared back, eyes flat and mouth a thin line of disapproval, "If Domi hadn't told me she saw her sister, I wouldn't be here."

"Fair," Eleanora leaned back on the bench Domi had sat her on. "Domi's a hard core skeptic."

"I thought Emmett should get his head checked out when he said there was a demon," Alexa added with a frown. "Even with Domi corroborating…"

Eleanora met her eyes, nodded. She took a breath, "So, to put it simply. The town has been infested with ill intent, aimed at Amity Lawn from what I saw on this side of the veil." Eleanora sneered, "Stupid demon meant I couldn't get close enough on that side."

"Stop." Domi growled as she shook her head, "Why don't you start with what you were doing in that field?"

"Oh." Eleanora swallowed, "That's called discorporealization. It lets me walk on the other side of the veil while still alive."

Four sets of eyes blinked at her.

"I was essentially a ghost, but with none of the perks, and without being dead."

The eyes continued to stare at her, now unblinking.

"What part of that is confusing you?" Eleanora sighed.

Stella snorted, "Besides all of it?"

Alexa nodded her agreement, "That sounds like something out of a Lifetime movie."

"If you make a Jennifer Love Hewitt reference, I'm not telling you anything," Eleanora narrowed her eyes and she was pleased when Alexa took a half step back. "Any other questions?"

None of them spoke.

Eleanora smiled then, "Good. So, I discorporealized myself so I could see how far the intent had traveled. It's odd to be able to see it on this side of the veil and it was well-established at Amity's house when I was there."

"That's when Beau and Zora saw you teleport right?" Emmett rubbed his thumb along the side of his head. Eleanora nodded.

"Yeah. As much as I don't like the witch comparison, aparating is kind of a good analogue." Eleanora puckered her bottom lip in a pout.

Domi cleared her throat, "Why was Ana there?"

"She followed me," Eleanora shrugged, her lips quirked up, "it worked out in my favor, cause I can't run as well on that side." She probably owed the younger Davies sister her life actually.

"Oriana helped you get away from that demon then?" Emmett asked, brow furrowed, "You said they're summoned by hate."

Eleanora's eyes flickered to Domi and Stella, "Yeah." Stella raised an eyebrow. "The ill intent that was bleeding through to our side, I thought it was anger. Probably about Galvin or his parole."

"The demon caught you off guard," Alexa murmured. She tsked. "You weren't prepared, were you?"

"I had the box, and the gun," Eleanora fidgeted, her shoulders shrinking, "But yeah. If I'd suspected it was hate, not anger, I would have made my entry point the park instead."

Stella knocked on the railing, "What does any of this have to do with Galvin?" Eleanora lowered her nose as she looked at her. "What? Spit it out!"

"The hate is targeted at Amity, and Amity killed Galvin." Domi stated, her eyes focused on Eleanora. "You think it was one of us?" Eleanora nodded.

"Well, duh, of course they hate him." Alexa scoffed, "What else are they suppose to do? Forgive him?"

Eleanora grinned at her, "I like you." She ran a hand through her hair and scrunched up her nose at the sticky sweat that coated her hand. "But hate is pretty rare. It takes a lot of love to turn into hate."

"What does it mean?" Domi's asked, voice wavering, "The hate. Did it…is that why Ana's dead?"

That. That was the part Eleanora didn't want to explain.

"Maybe." Eleanora admitted. She locked eyes with Domi, "When demons get involved, there's this tendency to…well, to influence behavior. They can't make you do anything, but they feed of living souls so there presence tends to, to aggravate."

Emmett closed his eyes, "So, what your saying is that the I'll intent, the hatred is poisoning the town?"

"Yup!" Eleanora popped the p and watched the four of them shift uncomfortably. "I'm hoping Galvin can help me fix it though." Her eyes shifted to Stella, "Zora wouldn't happen to be his would she?"

Stella raised a brow, nodded, "Why?"

"Cause he's at rest," Eleanora thought about his grave. There hadn't been even a trace of his energy there. "But even a soul at rest will pop in to check on there kid."

"You want to use Zora to talk to Galvin?" Stella's arms crossed and her lips pursed.

Eleanora sucked in her cheeks, she chewed on the inner flesh of her mouth before finally clicking her tongue. "That's…not exactly what I mean."

#sapphicseptember #sapphicseptember2019 #daily writing challenge #the life and times of a writer #writing #writers on tumblr #writeblr #writblr

[topicprinter]

Hey - Pat from StarterStory.com here with another interview.Today's interview is with Ruan Deyzel of Spoke Works cc, a brand that sells bicycle chain lubricant.Some stats:Product: Bicycle chain lubricant.Revenue/mo: $25,000Started: February 2008Location: PretoriaFounders: 1Employees: 5Hello! Who are you and what business did you start?Hi I’m Ruan Deyzel I started a business 11 years ago in the South African cycling industry that develops, manufactures and sells the SMOOVE Chain Lube and SMOOVE PREP chain cleaner.We have since grown and currently export to 15 countries selling SMOOVE products to discerning cyclist.We have grown 60% year on year over the last couple of years making us very excited and somewhat nervous in a good way for what the future holds!We are more determined than ever to work hard and to hold on for the ride!imageWhat's your backstory and how did you come up with the idea?At the age of 11, my friend’s dad bought him a Diamondback Topanga Mountainbike this was about 1989 - I still vividly remember how amazing it was and how badly I wanted something like that.At the time, South Africa was still very much in the grip of the apartheid regime and due to the sanctions imposed by the rest of the world, most consumer goods were locally made.I started saving and made little business plans until I had enough money to buy myself an imported Mountain Bike. From that day on, my life has been revolving around two wheels. I worked in bike shops learning how to sell, work on bikes and how the inner workings of business work.The mechanical aspect of bicycles was what came most natural to me and the fascination of the technology in cycling kept me motivated to learn more. At the age of 28, I got married and not long after that my wife was expecting our first child, at the time I was the manager of a big Bicycle store.Working in retail wasn't paying much, I just wasn't earning enough money to support my wife and child, just having a basic lifestyle was making us get further into debt with every month that went by. I started building high-quality bicycle wheels at night after work in our little apartment under the staircase to boost our income and after a few months doing endless calculations I told my wife that I think I can manage to make up my salary building wheels and servicing suspension forks.I saw a small gap in the market at the time and that is how Spoke Works was born, we serviced Suspension for all the other bicycle stores around us and quickly built a great reputation for building some of the best wheels in South Africa. We made some money but I realized that our income was limited by my two hands and the number of hours in a day, it was very hard to scale the current business model we had!I’m a tinkerer and maker, always trying to fix things that are broken and to improve things that frustrate me. One of those things was chain lube, a small but very frustrating part of riding a bicycle. You often have to choose between using a lubricant that causes a black sticky mess on your chain leaving marks on your legs (rookie tattoo’s) or a cleaner alternative that you have to reapply during the ride because it won't last more than 30km’s. Nothing out there could do both, keep everything clean while giving great durability.I started bouncing the idea of some people and most of them told me that there are way to many chain lubes on the market, I knew this from the days that I was involved in retail. There are just some products like supplements, chain lubes and bike wash that you see a new brand all the time due to little barrier to entry, they all tell the same story and offer the same performance. I knew that I really had to solve a problem worth solving and a problem that is not just my own but that its common enough that everybody riding a bike will be relieved by the performance that my product offers. I knew that It had to be good enough to instantly create the wow factor with anybody that gave it a try to stand out and be taken serious.imageTake us through the process of designing, prototyping, and manufacturing your first product.I came up with a set of fundamental specifications that I wanted to achieve based on what the issues where of all the other lubricants on the market, my father always told me to aim high!When I told one of my best friends what I felt my chain lube had to be able to achieve I vividly remembered him letting out a cuss word and starting to laugh telling me that it's impossible for a chain lube to do all that. Right there I knew that I was aiming high enough!I started mixings ingredients together in my garage testing them on our morning rides getting feedback from my wife, trying different combinations until I thought I had something that was good enough to give to more people to test.I chose about 40 test riders from all walks of life over all cycling disciplines, I chose people that didn't know each other so that they couldn't influence each other's opinions, I made coded samples and gave each person a set of little bottles and a questionnaire to complete with each round of testing. To be honest I gave up a few times, but luckily my wife encouraged me to keep going! The feedback from the test riders kept me very humble, if the sample was bad 30 people told me so, I kept on making small improvements until I managed to not just achieve the performance specifications that I set out to do but in many cases improve on them by a healthy margin! While this was going on we were still running our wheel building and suspension servicing business to keep food on the table!The next step was to come up with a brand and packaging. I have always been a big fan of good packaging and striking simple well defined brands. There is something that just makes a swiss chocolate taste better when it's packaged beautifully, I wanted some of that for my own product we spent a good part of the next 2 years working part time with some amazing creative people to come up with SMOOVE and the whole visual language around it.Consumer buyer behavior is a science and I knew I had one chance to nail it. We didn't have money to pay for all this and somehow scraped it together to pay for it using very creative ways , credit cards, small bank overdrafts but to name a few.I’m a firm believer to start with the end in mind, so as far as I could plan ahead I tried to set things up that I will be able to scale it with as little money as possible and one day be the number one selling chain lube in the world. I went to the best packaging companies and with some persuasion convinced them to lower their minimum order quantities to levels that I could manage with the funds that I had available. I came up with simple manufacturing methods that I could give some people jobs with and that was easy to scale up when I had to with little effort and money.Some of them worked well and others we had to change as the demand and our experience grew.imageThis was our first bottle and box we made using a live stock dosing pump. It gave Tony a great right hand forearm but was way to slow!imageWith almost everything in place at this time I knew it was time to start finding a way of protecting our brand and product against copying, to be honest it was a bit scary because I know very little about the legal stuff and I have heard some horror stories about how quickly legal costs can escalate.I ended up with a South African law firm Spoor & Fisher, they specialize in patents and trademarks. They were absolutely wonderful and gave me advice that was most helpful to my brand and product and most importantly help that I would be able to afford.They were very accommodating over the next few years with payments. I guess the most important thing was that I did what I said I was going to do and they trusted me for that.Describe the process of launching the business.I always tell myself that I cannot just sit in my office hoping for business to come my way, I think it's human nature to come up with little excuses why it's not a great time to go see that new customer, area of the country or new country.The best thing is to get in the car or in the airplane face your fears and make it happen! I still remember it very well, it was a rainy Monday morning I took our first 6 boxes of SMOOVE that we made and drove to the closest bicycle dealer an hour later I had my first order and at the end of they day I had managed to sell the 6 boxes I had with me in the car. I kept on doing that until I covered all 300 bicycle dealers that we have in South Africa.A big part of our income was spent on having a good online presence that looked professional with a clear message. I managed to set up a deal with a company called Dieselbrook brand consulting, they take care of all our online needs including design work and copywriting. It's super important to us to always look great and have a well thought out strategic online presence with everything we do.I guess we were kind of lucky with the type of business and product that we have, we didn't need a huge amount of capital to get it going, I think without realizing it, I was always looking for something that will suit my appetite for risk and exposure. I have always been more comfortable with smaller risks rather than making or losing it all in one go. We kept on trading and reinvesting small amounts of our own money in growing the business. Most of our capital came from an overdraft facility that we have with our bank, it was the cheapest interest rate and easiest to acquire and the numbers worked for us.Since launch, what has worked to attract and retain customers?I believe that growing too fast can be detrimental to your business especially if you are going to do your own manufacturing and fund your own growth like in our case.I don't know what the exact number is but about 50% growth year on year is already posing enough of a challenge.We have actively made the decision to grow SMOOVE as organic as possible using the old school word of mouth approach, of course, it's possible to supercharge this with social media using authentic lifestyle post that hopefully inspire people to get on their bikes and ride.Being a wholesale manufacturer we have found that the big online type stores like amazon and also the distributors that have adopted a B2B only approach without any sales reps are really bad at setting new trends.We need good people to tell the dealers about our products and the benefits of our products and at the same time need good bicycle dealers to actively sell to the end consumer. This is probably considered an old school approach but after much trial and error we have found that it works best for us.How are you doing today and what does the future look like?Since we launched SMOOVE we have closed down all other activities that we started the business on to solely focus on the manufacturing and distribution of SMOOVE products its so easy for us to dilute our resources and lose focus. We have been able to secure distributors in about 15 countries and have been in negotiations with half a dozen new distributors in countries around the world. It's always hard to find the right fit so a lot of it is done on gut feel trying to get like minded companies that are willing to put in the hard work with us to grow our business.We have been steadily ramping up production with the production methods that we learnt over the last few years always making sure that our input costs stay in control to make it profitable for every body in the supply chain including ourselves.Every new distributor that we add to the list have to start from scratch in their own country, it takes time to establish a new product in any market but we have found that a lot of what worked in the South African market can be applied to other markets with great success.In the short term we want to grow our list of countries from 15 to 30 and also be able to cope with the demand in terms of our manufacturing capacity and in the long term we want to be one of the top selling chain lube brands in the world using this distribution platform to launch and distribute more products carrying the SMOOVE logo. Its very important to us to only add products that have the same quality and performance that SMOOVE is known for.imageA* Sea Otter classic in California showing our products for the first time in the USA.*imageShowing Smoove to Brazil in São PauloThrough starting the business, have you learned anything particularly helpful or advantageous?The last 11 years have been a very steep learning curve for me, I have learned a lot about myself about what I'm really bad at doing and what i’m really good with.I have learned how to deal with the frustration of having to do lots of tasks that are not in my sweet spots like admin and bookkeeping but at the same time learning everything about what makes my business tick and understanding things better that make us lose money or be profitable.I have learned the value of having my wife as my most trusted partner helping me build this business from the ground up trusting her to take the burden of dealing with the books and finances of my shoulders so that I can have the freedom to lead the business to success. I have learned how to find the elusive work-life balance to have the time to invest in my children and my marriage.I have learned how to be patient, how to wait for things that are worthwhile and how to roll with the punches. I have learned how to be resourceful with very little at hand and to always have a plan to get us to the next month end. I guess the stress that goes with all of that becomes a way of life and after a few years you are addicted to it in some way or the other.There is always some luck in business being there at the right time with the right product, but I also believe that we have been very blessed over the last 11 years and that we are merely clay in the hands of our Lord Jesus Christ.What platform/tools do you use for your business?Some of my most favorite tools in our business is WooCommerce we use it for our B2B site and it integrates seamlessly with Sage Accounting our bookkeeping platform.Our B2B site almost immediately took a lot of work of my shoulders automating the whole ordering and payment process.What have been the most influential books, podcasts, or other resources?By far the most influential book that I have read was Shoe Dog by Phill Knight the founder of Nike.I felt a very big relive reading about his early struggles with multi-tasking, raising capital and cash flow problems.I think that business owners can often feel isolated and alone facing the problems they have and reading about great companies like Nike and that they went through exactly the same issues really makes it better!I also often listen to podcasts by Guy Raz called how I built this for pretty much the same reason while driving or riding my bike.Advice for other entrepreneurs who want to get started or are just starting out?I would say that some of the best advice that I can give any aspiring entrepreneur is to start with the end in mind. Always try to think what the effect of your current decision will be 5 or 10 years from now. It's often a few small wrong decisions that eventually catch up to you.Get started!! I think people often plan and strategize too much while you sometimes just have to get your head stuck in and get going. You will very soon find out where you have to make changes and where the opportunities are.Be honourable, I always thought that South Africa is a small place and that you have to look after your name over here but have realized that in any industry with the way that information travels the world is a small place! Make sure that every business dealing is ethical and honorable no matter how big or small!Where can we go to learn more?www.smoovelube.comhttps://www.instagram.com/smoovelube/https://www.facebook.com/Smoovelube/https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCo9e89eZsYNQgvjost8zOtwLiked this text interview? Check out the full interview with photos, tools, books, and other data.For more interviews, check out r/starter_story - I post new stories there daily.Interested in sharing your own story? Send me a PM

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[mreugenehalsey]

Being Black in Specialty Coffee

Who do you picture when you think of a barista in specialty coffee? How about the average customer in a third wave coffee shop? Although people of colour are represented throughout the supply chain, most obviously in production, the average consumer of specialty coffee is young, white, and male. The chances are that the barista who makes your coffee is also white.

But why is this? And what’s it like to be black in specialty coffee? To find out more, let’s have a conversation with some black industry professionals about their experiences.

You may also like Slavery & Specialty: Discussing Coffee’s Black History

A barista prepares a drink. Credit: Gabriel Rhodes

Why Most Specialty Coffee Consumers Are White

The National Coffee Association’s 2019 National Coffee Drinking Trends (NCDT) survey found African-Americans to be the least represented racial category of Americans who had consumed coffee in the last day, at 54% versus 64% for white Americans.

This evidence supports the generally accepted view that people of colour don’t drink as much coffee as their white counterparts. In a 2016 post on her blog, The Chocolate Barista, Michelle Johnson stated bluntly, “Black people don’t drink coffee, especially specialty coffee.”

One contributor to this divide is the relative expense of specialty coffee. People of colour are more likely to live in poverty in both the United States and the United Kingdom. The divide is even more pronounced in inner cities, where specialty coffee is most likely to have a firm hold.

Gabriel Rhodes is a barista at Blue Bottle in San Diego. He tells me, “Speciality coffee… creates an economic dividing line between those who can afford a $4 cup of coffee and those who cannot. It’s hard to push an agenda of gentrification with black and brown faces at the forefront.”

Cydni Patterson, a barista at People’s Coffee in Durham, NC. Credit: Cydni Patterson

There’s also the issue of how coffee is advertised. In an 2018 article for Roast, Phyllis Johnson, the president of BD Imports, wrote about the relationship between marketing and race in coffee. She argues that “producers of carbonated beverages and juices have been quite successful in targeting marketing campaigns toward African-American communities, and African-Americans over-index on consumption levels in these product categories.” She links the use of white, middle class male celebrities as spokepersons for coffee to the racial divide.

Maliesha Pullano is the founder of Mamaleelu Cold Brew in Kalamazoo, Michigan. She links the lower rates of coffee consumption by people of colour to colonialism.

“It seems like to my knowledge – and I’m no expert – that coffee isn’t consumed as much, even though it’s something that’s produced and then sent away,” she says. “And I know that us black people don’t consume coffee as much, just from my own anecdotal experience.

“I think that colonialism, to me, will always [make me] just think of black and brown people being producers, but on this [consumer] side of it, we’re not the beneficiaries.”

The modern coffee industry reflects its foundations in the slave trade. In the 17th century, indentured black and indigenous people produced the crop in colonial states for the consumption of wealthy, white European consumers. To some degree, this dynamic continues today. Most of the world’s coffee is grown in Latin America and most consumers are in wealthy nations in the global north.

Maliesha Pullano, of Mamaleelu Cold Brew. Credit: Kaitlin LaMoine Photography

The lack of black representation behind the bar is also a contributing factor. Cydni Patterson is a barista at People’s Coffee in Durham, North Carolina. She says, “Your customer base is only as strong as how comfortable they feel in your bar.

“When you go to these [specialty cafes], you have Ethiopian coffees or you have the Kenyan coffee, or here you have coffee from Honduras. And then you look behind the bar, and there’s nobody from there.”

But why aren’t there people of colour behind the bar?

Barriers To Entry

Because coffee shops are established venues for white, middle class customers staffed by employees of similar backgrounds, many people of colour may not consider the coffee industry a viable career option.

“[If we’re] primarily talking baristas, shift leads, café managers, etc., it’s all about economic exposure,” says Gabriel. “This also applies to employment, but from the context of not having access to spaces that require more complexity and training.

“Most of our communities have to step outside of their comfort zone to experience coffee, but are met with unwelcoming environments due to economical barriers and conditions. For members of the black community in coffee, there are many layers of division that ultimately keeps black folks away from pursuing careers in the industry altogether.

“How empowering would it be if it were common knowledge that coffee culture originated in Africa, and is the source for the success of this billion-dollar industry?”

Derrick Johnson at Arctos Coffee and Roasting Company in Spokane, WA. Credit: Claudia Gunhus

“There weren’t a lot of, like, people who looked like me,” Cydni tells me. “I remember being at this cupping that I wasn’t allowed to get to until I was a shift leader at one of the locations. When we’re talking about knowledge, and respecting that it’s a craft, you can’t withhold information and experience from people just starting out simply because you just want to give them enough information for them to be functional but not enough information for them to grow.

“When we’re talking about inclusivity and diversity and spaces, we cannot always centre white intentions and white growth,” she says.

Derrick Johnson is a barista at Arctos Coffee and Roasting Company in Spokane, Washington. He tells me about when he first started out in the industry. “I was able to have, like, a management position, but actually [when] I think about it I wasn’t the first choice. The first choice was a white girl who was, like, leaving in a month or two, and… I was the second choice.

“I can’t attribute that 100% to any reason, but there is an element of it where [I wonder if being black was] part of the consideration, whether or not that was a factor,” he says.

Arctos Coffee and Roasting Company. Credit: Arctos Coffee and Roasting Co.

Being The Token Black Person

Several of the people I spoke to told me that they had experienced feeling like they were a token black person and that the pressure to represent their community was uncomfortable.

“Having that sole token representation filling that weight on your shoulders, that anything that I say, anything that I do, is going to be what people perceive black people as being as a whole, it’s a lot of stress and it’s a lot of pressure,” says Derrick.

“You really feel like you have to kind of filter yourself. [It’s] not even [being] just a model for the majority, but the model for the minority as well. You can’t really be fully you.

“It’s just a whole other level of stress that you really can’t understand unless you’re part of that minority group.”

Minority stress is a recognised condition caused by chronically high levels of stress faced by members of stigmatised minority groups. Studies have linked it to physical and mental health conditions including high blood pressure and anxiety.

A shot of espresso at People’s Coffee, where Cydni Patterson is a barista. Credit: People’s Coffee

“As a barista, we constantly have to deal with the shape-shifting that the dominant culture requires of us in order for them to feel comfortable,” Gabriel tells me.

Code switching is a term used to describe the ways that marginalised people adjust their language, behaviour, and appearance to ease their entry to and success in social contexts based on the dominant culture. For some, the pressure to adapt their true self to appease others can be exhausting, particularly when dealing with microaggressions and racism.

“I don’t really respond to the negative stuff in a respectable manner these days,” Cydni tells me. “We’re all growing. Sometimes I’m like, big mad… Other people express their anger in different ways and express their experiences differently. Just for once I would like to not have to be this palatable version of me.”

She tells me that she finds inspiration in Michelle Johnson and her blog, The Chocolate Barista, which she says gave her the courage to “have big feels” and to write them down. “That’s what I’ve always respected about Michelle. She’s just her all the time.”

In an industry where you’re constantly toning down who you are and code switching to make others more comfortable, it can be empowering and inspiring to see someone like yourself be authentically and unashamedly herself.

Inside People’s Coffee, where Cydni Patterson is a barista. Credit: People’s Coffee

Questioning If You Belong

Several people I spoke to reported feeling insecure about their place in the coffee industry. “It’s been a challenge,” Maliesha tells me. “When I first started out, I tried to go to stuff… but it just felt like a bro-fest, and I didn’t feel comfortable.

“And I’m not saying they did anything deliberately to make me feel uncomfortable. It’s just the knowledge… that the systematic oppression has done its job. The system likes keeping people in their place.”

Maliesha’s experience highlights the importance of representation in encouraging others to join the industry. “I’ve always looked for opportunities to just do other things and I haven’t found other people who look like me to do it. That speaks a lot in 2019,” she says.

“This industry was one of the world’s largest economies in 2014 [when I first started Mamaleelu Cold Brew], but I couldn’t find anybody to mentor me who looked like me.

“I’m so thankful to have met Phyllis Johnson,” she continues. “She’s been in the coffee industry 20 years and she’s had a lot of the same experiences, so that validates my experience for me, that it’s not just me being aloof or not trying to get into areas.

Products from Maliesha Pullano’s Mamaleelu Cold Brew on sale in a shop. Credit: Mamaleelu Cold Brew

How to Make Coffee More Racially Diverse

So, what can we do to make the coffee industry both more diverse and more welcoming of people of colour?

“I think the only way to address racial inequality in the coffee industry is directly,” Gabriel says. “The majority of the time, these conversations are used to validate a coffee shop or for an employer to claim that they’re inclusive to obtain more business.

“If you really care about racial inequality in the coffee industry, go out and directly engage with the folks who need to be included. Talk with them about what can be done to make the industry more approachable for them.”

Others suggest evaluating your hiring practises and business relationships and considering whether you are really supporting minority communities. “It’s putting your money where your mouth is and putting your brain where your mouth is. You know: think about these things and unpack yourself,” Maliesha says.

“Figure out your biases. Do not shy away from them, and then see how you can support black members of society or businesses of colour. That’s going to eventually affect your community in a positive way,” she tells me.

Gabriel Rhodes behind the bar at Blue Bottle, San Diego, CA. Credit: Gabriel Rhodes.

Cydni encourages business owners to learn about the community they’re based in and engage with local people in meaningful ways.

“A lot of times, the cheaper land [is the land] my peoples were relegated to live in,” she says. “If you’re gonna put your shop in a neighbourhood that is historically exploited, you should put the effort into hiring practices and find people who know the area.

“It makes more sense to… get to know the neighbourhood, [to] hire people in the neighbourhood… Do certain things to facilitate [your shop] being a part of this, not to ostracise people and then up local prices more.”

The view from behind the bar at Arctos Coffee and Roasting Company, where Derrick Johnson is a barista. Credit: Arctos Coffee and Roasting Co.

Derrick raises the notion of tokenism. “A big issue for employers specifically is how it’s going to be perceived: whether [the public thinks] they’re hiring people because they’re actually qualified and they deserve that spot, or if everyone’s gonna think, ‘oh, that person obviously got it because they’re black and they’re filling the diversity quota,’” he says.

One way that employers can avoid accusations of tokenism and ensure that they’re hiring the most qualified people without bias is to use blind hiring techniques. This includes removing candidates’ names and identifying features from applications before evaluating them, and using anonymized interviews such as phone interviews. Employers can also support training and mentorship for people of colour to encourage their development to leadership positions.

“How can we make these spaces feel safer for larger demographics of people and not just the dominant culture?” Gabriel asks. “By being conscious of diversifying our bonds in the workplace.”

Derrick says that he sees improvement but that it’s a slow process. “It’s being pushed in the positive direction, which is what we want, but it’s definitely not something that’s a fast process, or is anywhere near where it should be for many black professionals and people of colour who have so much to contribute,” he says.

And whether you’re a coffee professional or consumer, you can contribute by calling out incidents of racism and being an ally. “Not actively doing things to make this right is doing things to keep it wrong,” says Cydni.

Bottles of Maliesha Pullano’s Mamaleelu Cold Brew. Credit: Mamaleelu Cold Brew

There’s no easy solution to racial inequality within the coffee industry, but we have a responsibility to listen and learn from lived experiences.

Take a look at your own professional and personal relationships ad consider whether you can be an advocate or ally. Do your hiring practices prioritize diversity? And as a consumer, do you seek coffee shops and suppliers that employ under-represented communities? By collectively listening and acting accordingly, we can work towards making the coffee industry a more equitable place.

Found this interesting? You might also like A Conversation With Women in Coffee Roasting

Written by Sierra Burgess-Yeo.

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MacBook Air vs. MacBook vs. MacBook Pro: What’s the Best Basic Mac Laptop?

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You need a laptop. Nothing fancy, just enough to surf the Web, use Google Docs or Microsoft Office, and store and view your photos. And you want a Mac. And you want it to be slim and light enough to carry with you everywhere. This should be an easy choice, right? Unfortunately, Apple’s MacBook lineup is incredibly confusing right now, with a lot of overlap between the MacBook Air, MacBook, and the entry-level MacBook Pro. But we think that if you’re looking for just a solid, everyday Apple laptop that gives you good performance for the lowest price, it’s hard to do better than the MacBook Air.

No matter which Mac laptop you choose, you’re going to get a similar overall experience. They all run the same operating system (macOS) and applications. For most everyday work and school tasks, you won’t likely notice the differences in performance between models. And all of these models are light and slim enough to carry around all day. For most people, the differences come down to things like storage space and the variety of ports.Read on for our quick take on each of Apple’s basic laptops. Need something more powerful? We have an entire guide dedicated to picking the best MacBook. However, if you don’t absolutely need a new Mac laptop right now, we recommend waiting: Apple’s laptop lines are due (some might say overdue) for updates.

MacBook Air

Apple MacBook Air

The least expensive MacBook you can buy

The 13-inch MacBook Air has the longest battery life, a great keyboard, good performance, and legacy ports. But Apple hasn’t updated it in years and it has a lower-res display than other models.

$849.00  from Apple

*At the time of publishing, the price was $1389.It’s been more than three years since the 13-inch

MacBook Air

received any serious updates, so you might wonder if you should bother spending your money on this older machine, especially when the newer MacBook Pro and 12-inch MacBook are nearly as thin. But the Air’s processor is actually a bit faster than the one in the MacBook, which is to say fast enough for most everyday uses, and Apple has shown a commitment to supporting older machines with newer operating systems. (I just installed High Sierra, the newest version of macOS, on a 2011 MacBook Air.)The MacBook Air also has the longest battery life of any Mac laptop. Staff who’ve used versions of the Air over the years say it can last for almost a full work or school day of real-world use, whereas the MacBook and MacBook Pro will need a charge by early afternoon. Another big advantage over the 12-inch MacBook and the current MacBook Pro are useful “legacy” ports—two USB-A 3.0 ports, an SD card slot, and a Thunderbolt 2/Mini DisplayPort—which means you won’t need adapters to use most existing peripherals. And the Air is the only MacBook left that still has a great keyboard and the useful MagSafe magnetic power connector.The Air’s biggest downside is that it’s the only MacBook without a Retina display. Its 1440×900 resolution looks fine—just not as good as that of the higher-res screens on other models. Still, the Air’s other advantages may make getting this model worth giving up some screen quality.Because the Air is older, it’s the cheapest of Apple’s lightweight machines. Also, legitimate third-party resellers frequently offer it for hundreds of dollars off Apple’s price, and Apple itself regularly offers heavily discounted refurbished models with a full one-year warranty. If you want a solid MacBook at the lowest possible price, the Air is your best option.

MacBook

Apple MacBook

The smallest and lightest option for road warriors

The 12-inch MacBook has a Retina display and a superthin, 2-pound design, but its single port, slower processor, and mediocre keyboard are significant drawbacks.

$886.52 from Apple

*At the time of publishing, the price was $1,300.The 12-inch

MacBook

is the way to go if you want the smallest and lightest Mac laptop possible and you’re willing to pay more for it: Its pricing starts at $1,300 (though that gets you 256 GB of storage, twice that of the $1,300 entry-level Pro and $1,000 Air).To achieve the 12-inch MacBook’s svelte design, Apple had to make a few sacrifices. First, it has a super-thin keyboard that Wirecutter staffers have had some issues with. Its keys can be sticky, and there’s a general discomfort when typing on it, due to its shallow keys. The new keyboard is reportedly more prone to failure than past Apple keyboards too, and we are concerned about its long-term reliability. Apple is now addressing these keyboard failures with a service program for eligible models, which covers free repairs for four years after your initial purchase. Although this offering does help ease the pain of the keyboard’s shortcomings, it doesn’t change the fact that Apple’s new keyboard isn’t as comfortable or reliable as its predecessor.We think that unless getting the smallest possible machine is your highest priority, there’s only one compelling reason to choose the MacBook over the Air right now: The MacBook’s higher-resolution display is noticeably sharper than the screen on the Air, which can be a big difference if you’ll likely be staring at the screen for hours a day. But this difference isn’t essential to how you use the machine, and we think the Air’s legacy ports make it a lot more usable on a day-to-day basis if you need to connect to printers or displays or anything else.

MacBook Pro (13-inch, 2017, Two Thunderbolt 3 Ports)

Apple 13-inch MacBook Pro

The best for future-proofing

The 13-inch MacBook Pro (without Touch Bar) offers very good performance in a thin, light body with a fantastic display and two Thunderbolt 3/USB-C ports.

$1,694.00 from Apple

*At the time of publishing, the price was $1,799.00.The

MacBook Pro

(13-inch, 2017, Two Thunderbolt 3 Ports)—yes, that’s really how Apple refers to it, to differentiate from the model with the Touch Bar (13-inch, 2017, Four Thunderbolt 3 Ports)—is the machine to get if you want the most power and largest, sharpest screen without breaking the $1,500 barrier. It’s practically the same weight as the also-13-inch Air, and among all the sub-$1,500 machines, it has the fastest processor, meaning it will feel a bit snappier at times—but not enough that you should buy it for its speed alone.The MacBook Pro’s Retina display looks great, though this version of the Pro has only two Thunderbolt 3/USB-C ports, which are an advantage over the Air’s array only if you have the right accessories to take advantage of them. (If not, you’re looking at purchasing many of the same adapters you’d need with the 12-inch MacBook.) The MacBook Pro also uses Apple’s newer

mediocre keyboard design

. This is the model to buy if you’re willing to spend more to future-proof yourself—in preparation for when USB-C is the default connection type, or just to have the model that is most likely to remain usable the most years down the road—but you’ll pay $400 to $500 more than the cost of an Air to get those benefits.

[miettawilliemk1]

Calling to the next action

Every website needs a proper call-to-action. Since I wrote the first version of that post way back when we have often been referring to that same post. It seems very hard to add focus to a homepage, somehow. I might be going out on a limb here, but I also think theme developers should design with this in mind. A lot of themes are designed to clutter a page with widgets and buttons that totally reduce focus on the main items on a page. Don’t even get me started on image sliders and video backgrounds…

We’re building sites not just to entertain people, but also to let them buy or do something. A site needs a great user experience to get people to use it. Increasingly, we see that UX is an integral part of the SEO process, not to mention conversion. So in this regard, we can all agree that a homepage needs a great call to action (CTA). Now that you have a visitor clicking that main button or link on your homepage, you should think of what happens next. The visitor lands on a second page. One of your goals is met; you prevented a bounce. Now you need to convert that visitor into a customer or subscriber.

Optimize your site for search & social media and keep it optimized with Yoast SEO Premium »

$89 - Buy now »

Info Every page has a call-to-action

Although a call-to-action is very important on a homepage, of course there could, or perhaps should, be a CTA on every page of your website. The contact form has a call-to-action, of course. A quote form in the sidebar has a CTA. Buttons for your own products, like in our sidebar, have or even are call-to-actions.

For every page on your website, you should decide if there is a CTA related to the content of that page, or that the content is solely for informational purposes and that call-to-action should be to achieve something else.

Let’s go over some call-to-actions you might encounter while going over your website:

Product page

This should be the obvious one. Every product page needs an ‘Add to Cart’ or ‘Buy Now’ call-to-action. That button, as in most cases this is a button, needs to stand out, is usually accompanied by an ‘amount’ select box and is present in all shops. Otherwise, the shop is merely a catalog.

In my experience, eCommerce shops tend to cram all kind of things around that button:

Social share buttons;

way too large size options (people will find these anyway);

related products;

color options.

I am sure you can come up with more clutter like this. Don’t get me wrong: these items should be available, I just highly doubt they need to take the focus away from the ‘Add to Cart’ button. Just make them a lot smaller than the call to action and locate them a bit further away from that button.

The image above is an extreme example of a designer trying a minimal approach. One of the main reasons I dislike it is because I had to scroll to see the ‘Add to shopping bag’ button. I would create a block with all the options, but choose the right form elements to reduce clutter, keep the form options short and compact and focus on the important stuff. A select list for color, a select list for size, some code logic to make sure only available stock is shown.

I think that would be my main show stopper, by the way. Seeing the product I want, clicking to a product page and landing on a page that says ‘Out of stock’ instead of ‘Order now’. At least give me some alternatives, but rather tell me when it will be available again (approximately) and maybe even give me an option to reserve the item. Read more about eCommerce usability and UX in our ultimate guide.

Quick Quote or Contact form

There are quite some sites out there that have a form in a sidebar to ‘Request a quick quote’, or ‘Quick contact’, like the one on the right. Now slap me silly and call me Susan, but if I have to fill in all these fields, that is not a quick contact to me. Let’s be honest, what do you need to know? Email and name, perhaps? Just ask that.

Now, I recently had a discussion with someone who shed a different light on this. The guy in question pointed out that the form was intentionally a bit longer to filter the entries. In his opinion, people that were willing to fill in the extra fields were more likely to become serious customers. If there are just a few fields, it’s too easy to fill in the form and hit ‘Send’.

This is, of course, a matter of quality over quantity. And it is related to the product or service at hand as well, but he certainly had a good point here.

It does not imply the form on the right is the form I would prefer. Why split up first and last name? Why ask email address and telephone number? Even a form that asks for more details can be more focussed than this.

Besides that, the Send button is also a not really appealing. ‘Send’ feels just a lot less right than ‘Please contact me!’. That will also enlarge the button to make it stand out more.

Text on your call-to-action

When thinking about text for your CTA button, there are a few things that are important:

First of all, you need to be sure you’re using an active voice. An active voice is action-oriented, and so literally calls people to action. And that’s exactly what you want. Make people want to click your button!

Make sure your button text is specific to what people are doing. ‘Send’ is just too generic. Use something like “Sign up!” for a newsletter, or “Contact us” for a contact form. The text has to explain what the button will do.

Use small and simple words. You need to keep your button text as simple as possible. People have to understand what it means immediately.

Lastly, creating urgency can convince people to click your call-to-action. You can do this by, for instance, having limited time offers or by telling people how your product can help them or solve their problems now. This can even be a text next to your call-to-action.

But just like Frank Luntz put on the cover of his book Words That Work: “It’s not what you say, it’s what people hear.” So you definitely need to test whether all these tips will actually work for you. There’s no guarantee that what has worked for us, or any other company, will work for you.

Contact details

If the main goal of your website is getting in touch with potential buyers, the main concern on the website is to make it absolutely clear how you can be reached. List your phone number and please don’t be afraid to be a bit bold:

This works in more than one way:

In a responsive design, the telephone number can be inserted right below the logo so that the mobile visitor can get in touch right away;

even if people do not click it, the very presence of it makes that a visitor is confident you can be reached in case of any problems, lowering barriers to buy at your online shop;

of course, people will be able to call you without the hassle of turning your website inside out to find your phone number;

a local number might stimulate local buyers to buy at your place.

Regarding that last one, Peninsula Air Conditioning told us that the general 1300 number did not emphasize enough that it is a local business and customers had told him that. Changing to the local number, created recognition and increased trust in the website.

Of course, they created a secondary, textual call-to-action right below the local number, to assure visitors from other cities than Sydney, that the company could still help with their air conditioning needs.

It’s a nice example that the CTA on your contact page does not always need to be something you can click.

Learn how to write engaging copy and how to organize it well on your site: Combine our SEO copywriting and Site structure training. »

$249 - Buy now »

Info Subscribe to newsletter

The last example I would like to mention in this post is the Subscribe to Newsletter option. Again, you only need an email address for that. Even if you would want more details, you can always ask for these later.

The subscribe to newsletter call-to-action can be on every page, below every post or after every check out page. The main difference between the contact or quote form mentioned above is that it is a lot less clear what the consequences are. It’s quite clear that filling out a contact form leads to the company contacting you.

The newsletter subscription might result in an email a day or once per fortnight. It might be an email listing just excerpts of posts on a website, or it might be something ‘extra’ for subscribers. Being clear on what’s going to happen after subscribing, reduces the barriers to trust you with my email address. Making clear that you will not send any spammy emails also helps a great deal, for obvious reasons.

In conclusion

All in all, there are many call-to-actions to be defined after that one on the homepage. And these are equally important. I am sure you have forgotten these on projects. I am also sure your customers cannot always be convinced of the need for that second call to action. They might be too modest, or they focus on a matching design way too much. Blending in a call to action is never the right choice. (Ghost buttons, anyone?)

Enlighten me with your thoughts on this in the comments below. I’d love to see some examples of great call-to-actions as well, but please please me with designs gone wrong. There are plenty of those out there!

Read more: ‘eCommerce SEO checklist’ »

http://ift.tt/1E4I0sa

#Calling to the next action

[lindasharonbn1]

Calling to the next action

Calling to the next action

Every website needs a proper call-to-action. Since I wrote the first version of that post way back when we have often been referring to that same post. It seems very hard to add focus to a homepage, somehow. I might be going out on a limb here, but I also think theme developers should design with this in mind. A lot of themes are designed to clutter a page with widgets and buttons that totally reduce focus on the main items on a page. Don’t even get me started on image sliders and video backgrounds…

We’re building sites not just to entertain people, but also to let them buy or do something. A site needs a great user experience to get people to use it. Increasingly, we see that UX is an integral part of the SEO process, not to mention conversion. So in this regard, we can all agree that a homepage needs a great call to action (CTA). Now that you have a visitor clicking that main button or link on your homepage, you should think of what happens next. The visitor lands on a second page. One of your goals is met; you prevented a bounce. Now you need to convert that visitor into a customer or subscriber.

Optimize your site for search & social media and keep it optimized with Yoast SEO Premium »

$89 - Buy now »

Info Every page has a call-to-action

Although a call-to-action is very important on a homepage, of course there could, or perhaps should, be a CTA on every page of your website. The contact form has a call-to-action, of course. A quote form in the sidebar has a CTA. Buttons for your own products, like in our sidebar, have or even are call-to-actions.

For every page on your website, you should decide if there is a CTA related to the content of that page, or that the content is solely for informational purposes and that call-to-action should be to achieve something else.

Let’s go over some call-to-actions you might encounter while going over your website:

Product page

This should be the obvious one. Every product page needs an ‘Add to Cart’ or ‘Buy Now’ call-to-action. That button, as in most cases this is a button, needs to stand out, is usually accompanied by an ‘amount’ select box and is present in all shops. Otherwise, the shop is merely a catalog.

In my experience, eCommerce shops tend to cram all kind of things around that button:

Social share buttons;

way too large size options (people will find these anyway);

related products;

color options.

I am sure you can come up with more clutter like this. Don’t get me wrong: these items should be available, I just highly doubt they need to take the focus away from the ‘Add to Cart’ button. Just make them a lot smaller than the call to action and locate them a bit further away from that button.

The image above is an extreme example of a designer trying a minimal approach. One of the main reasons I dislike it is because I had to scroll to see the ‘Add to shopping bag’ button. I would create a block with all the options, but choose the right form elements to reduce clutter, keep the form options short and compact and focus on the important stuff. A select list for color, a select list for size, some code logic to make sure only available stock is shown.

I think that would be my main show stopper, by the way. Seeing the product I want, clicking to a product page and landing on a page that says ‘Out of stock’ instead of ‘Order now’. At least give me some alternatives, but rather tell me when it will be available again (approximately) and maybe even give me an option to reserve the item. Read more about eCommerce usability and UX in our ultimate guide.

Quick Quote or Contact form

There are quite some sites out there that have a form in a sidebar to ‘Request a quick quote’, or ‘Quick contact’, like the one on the right. Now slap me silly and call me Susan, but if I have to fill in all these fields, that is not a quick contact to me. Let’s be honest, what do you need to know? Email and name, perhaps? Just ask that.

Now, I recently had a discussion with someone who shed a different light on this. The guy in question pointed out that the form was intentionally a bit longer to filter the entries. In his opinion, people that were willing to fill in the extra fields were more likely to become serious customers. If there are just a few fields, it’s too easy to fill in the form and hit ‘Send’.

This is, of course, a matter of quality over quantity. And it is related to the product or service at hand as well, but he certainly had a good point here.

It does not imply the form on the right is the form I would prefer. Why split up first and last name? Why ask email address and telephone number? Even a form that asks for more details can be more focussed than this.

Besides that, the Send button is also a not really appealing. ‘Send’ feels just a lot less right than ‘Please contact me!’. That will also enlarge the button to make it stand out more.

Text on your call-to-action

When thinking about text for your CTA button, there are a few things that are important:

First of all, you need to be sure you’re using an active voice. An active voice is action-oriented, and so literally calls people to action. And that’s exactly what you want. Make people want to click your button!

Make sure your button text is specific to what people are doing. ‘Send’ is just too generic. Use something like “Sign up!” for a newsletter, or “Contact us” for a contact form. The text has to explain what the button will do.

Use small and simple words. You need to keep your button text as simple as possible. People have to understand what it means immediately.

Lastly, creating urgency can convince people to click your call-to-action. You can do this by, for instance, having limited time offers or by telling people how your product can help them or solve their problems now. This can even be a text next to your call-to-action.

But just like Frank Luntz put on the cover of his book Words That Work: “It’s not what you say, it’s what people hear.” So you definitely need to test whether all these tips will actually work for you. There’s no guarantee that what has worked for us, or any other company, will work for you.

Contact details

If the main goal of your website is getting in touch with potential buyers, the main concern on the website is to make it absolutely clear how you can be reached. List your phone number and please don’t be afraid to be a bit bold:

This works in more than one way:

In a responsive design, the telephone number can be inserted right below the logo so that the mobile visitor can get in touch right away;

even if people do not click it, the very presence of it makes that a visitor is confident you can be reached in case of any problems, lowering barriers to buy at your online shop;

of course, people will be able to call you without the hassle of turning your website inside out to find your phone number;

a local number might stimulate local buyers to buy at your place.

Regarding that last one, Peninsula Air Conditioning told us that the general 1300 number did not emphasize enough that it is a local business and customers had told him that. Changing to the local number, created recognition and increased trust in the website.

Of course, they created a secondary, textual call-to-action right below the local number, to assure visitors from other cities than Sydney, that the company could still help with their air conditioning needs.

It’s a nice example that the CTA on your contact page does not always need to be something you can click.

Learn how to write engaging copy and how to organize it well on your site: Combine our SEO copywriting and Site structure training. »

$249 - Buy now »

Info Subscribe to newsletter

The last example I would like to mention in this post is the Subscribe to Newsletter option. Again, you only need an email address for that. Even if you would want more details, you can always ask for these later.

The subscribe to newsletter call-to-action can be on every page, below every post or after every check out page. The main difference between the contact or quote form mentioned above is that it is a lot less clear what the consequences are. It’s quite clear that filling out a contact form leads to the company contacting you.

The newsletter subscription might result in an email a day or once per fortnight. It might be an email listing just excerpts of posts on a website, or it might be something ‘extra’ for subscribers. Being clear on what’s going to happen after subscribing, reduces the barriers to trust you with my email address. Making clear that you will not send any spammy emails also helps a great deal, for obvious reasons.

In conclusion

All in all, there are many call-to-actions to be defined after that one on the homepage. And these are equally important. I am sure you have forgotten these on projects. I am also sure your customers cannot always be convinced of the need for that second call to action. They might be too modest, or they focus on a matching design way too much. Blending in a call to action is never the right choice. (Ghost buttons, anyone?)

Enlighten me with your thoughts on this in the comments below. I’d love to see some examples of great call-to-actions as well, but please please me with designs gone wrong. There are plenty of those out there!

Read more: ‘eCommerce SEO checklist’ »

http://ift.tt/1E4I0sa

#Calling to the next action

[samiaedithg]

Calling to the next action

Every website needs a proper call-to-action. Since I wrote the first version of that post way back when we have often been referring to that same post. It seems very hard to add focus to a homepage, somehow. I might be going out on a limb here, but I also think theme developers should design with this in mind. A lot of themes are designed to clutter a page with widgets and buttons that totally reduce focus on the main items on a page. Don’t even get me started on image sliders and video backgrounds…

We’re building sites not just to entertain people, but also to let them buy or do something. A site needs a great user experience to get people to use it. Increasingly, we see that UX is an integral part of the SEO process, not to mention conversion. So in this regard, we can all agree that a homepage needs a great call to action (CTA). Now that you have a visitor clicking that main button or link on your homepage, you should think of what happens next. The visitor lands on a second page. One of your goals is met; you prevented a bounce. Now you need to convert that visitor into a customer or subscriber.

Optimize your site for search & social media and keep it optimized with Yoast SEO Premium »

$89 - Buy now »

Info Every page has a call-to-action

Although a call-to-action is very important on a homepage, of course there could, or perhaps should, be a CTA on every page of your website. The contact form has a call-to-action, of course. A quote form in the sidebar has a CTA. Buttons for your own products, like in our sidebar, have or even are call-to-actions.

For every page on your website, you should decide if there is a CTA related to the content of that page, or that the content is solely for informational purposes and that call-to-action should be to achieve something else.

Let’s go over some call-to-actions you might encounter while going over your website:

Product page

This should be the obvious one. Every product page needs an ‘Add to Cart’ or ‘Buy Now’ call-to-action. That button, as in most cases this is a button, needs to stand out, is usually accompanied by an ‘amount’ select box and is present in all shops. Otherwise, the shop is merely a catalog.

In my experience, eCommerce shops tend to cram all kind of things around that button:

Social share buttons;

way too large size options (people will find these anyway);

related products;

color options.

I am sure you can come up with more clutter like this. Don’t get me wrong: these items should be available, I just highly doubt they need to take the focus away from the ‘Add to Cart’ button. Just make them a lot smaller than the call to action and locate them a bit further away from that button.

The image above is an extreme example of a designer trying a minimal approach. One of the main reasons I dislike it is because I had to scroll to see the ‘Add to shopping bag’ button. I would create a block with all the options, but choose the right form elements to reduce clutter, keep the form options short and compact and focus on the important stuff. A select list for color, a select list for size, some code logic to make sure only available stock is shown.

I think that would be my main show stopper, by the way. Seeing the product I want, clicking to a product page and landing on a page that says ‘Out of stock’ instead of ‘Order now’. At least give me some alternatives, but rather tell me when it will be available again (approximately) and maybe even give me an option to reserve the item. Read more about eCommerce usability and UX in our ultimate guide.

Quick Quote or Contact form

There are quite some sites out there that have a form in a sidebar to ‘Request a quick quote’, or ‘Quick contact’, like the one on the right. Now slap me silly and call me Susan, but if I have to fill in all these fields, that is not a quick contact to me. Let’s be honest, what do you need to know? Email and name, perhaps? Just ask that.

Now, I recently had a discussion with someone who shed a different light on this. The guy in question pointed out that the form was intentionally a bit longer to filter the entries. In his opinion, people that were willing to fill in the extra fields were more likely to become serious customers. If there are just a few fields, it’s too easy to fill in the form and hit ‘Send’.

This is, of course, a matter of quality over quantity. And it is related to the product or service at hand as well, but he certainly had a good point here.

It does not imply the form on the right is the form I would prefer. Why split up first and last name? Why ask email address and telephone number? Even a form that asks for more details can be more focussed than this.

Besides that, the Send button is also a not really appealing. ‘Send’ feels just a lot less right than ‘Please contact me!’. That will also enlarge the button to make it stand out more.

Text on your call-to-action

When thinking about text for your CTA button, there are a few things that are important:

First of all, you need to be sure you’re using an active voice. An active voice is action-oriented, and so literally calls people to action. And that’s exactly what you want. Make people want to click your button!

Make sure your button text is specific to what people are doing. ‘Send’ is just too generic. Use something like “Sign up!” for a newsletter, or “Contact us” for a contact form. The text has to explain what the button will do.

Use small and simple words. You need to keep your button text as simple as possible. People have to understand what it means immediately.

Lastly, creating urgency can convince people to click your call-to-action. You can do this by, for instance, having limited time offers or by telling people how your product can help them or solve their problems now. This can even be a text next to your call-to-action.

But just like Frank Luntz put on the cover of his book Words That Work: “It’s not what you say, it’s what people hear.” So you definitely need to test whether all these tips will actually work for you. There’s no guarantee that what has worked for us, or any other company, will work for you.

Contact details

If the main goal of your website is getting in touch with potential buyers, the main concern on the website is to make it absolutely clear how you can be reached. List your phone number and please don’t be afraid to be a bit bold:

This works in more than one way:

In a responsive design, the telephone number can be inserted right below the logo so that the mobile visitor can get in touch right away;

even if people do not click it, the very presence of it makes that a visitor is confident you can be reached in case of any problems, lowering barriers to buy at your online shop;

of course, people will be able to call you without the hassle of turning your website inside out to find your phone number;

a local number might stimulate local buyers to buy at your place.

Regarding that last one, Peninsula Air Conditioning told us that the general 1300 number did not emphasize enough that it is a local business and customers had told him that. Changing to the local number, created recognition and increased trust in the website.

Of course, they created a secondary, textual call-to-action right below the local number, to assure visitors from other cities than Sydney, that the company could still help with their air conditioning needs.

It’s a nice example that the CTA on your contact page does not always need to be something you can click.

Learn how to write engaging copy and how to organize it well on your site: Combine our SEO copywriting and Site structure training. »

$249 - Buy now »

Info Subscribe to newsletter

The last example I would like to mention in this post is the Subscribe to Newsletter option. Again, you only need an email address for that. Even if you would want more details, you can always ask for these later.

The subscribe to newsletter call-to-action can be on every page, below every post or after every check out page. The main difference between the contact or quote form mentioned above is that it is a lot less clear what the consequences are. It’s quite clear that filling out a contact form leads to the company contacting you.

The newsletter subscription might result in an email a day or once per fortnight. It might be an email listing just excerpts of posts on a website, or it might be something ‘extra’ for subscribers. Being clear on what’s going to happen after subscribing, reduces the barriers to trust you with my email address. Making clear that you will not send any spammy emails also helps a great deal, for obvious reasons.

In conclusion

All in all, there are many call-to-actions to be defined after that one on the homepage. And these are equally important. I am sure you have forgotten these on projects. I am also sure your customers cannot always be convinced of the need for that second call to action. They might be too modest, or they focus on a matching design way too much. Blending in a call to action is never the right choice. (Ghost buttons, anyone?)

Enlighten me with your thoughts on this in the comments below. I’d love to see some examples of great call-to-actions as well, but please please me with designs gone wrong. There are plenty of those out there!

Read more: ‘eCommerce SEO checklist’ »

http://ift.tt/1E4I0sa

#Calling to the next action