#i keep finding them in bookmarks like “something was here. someones restricted it for just them tho. sucks to be you”

[blarfkey]

Tips on Beta-ing Fic in Fandom

Hello! So I’ve noticed from some of my experiences and the experiences of others that not everyone fully understands how to beta a fic or how to ask for a beta reader.

And I get it. Editing is a delicate process, it's terrifying to ask someone to look at your work, and it's equally terrifying to feel responsible for the quality of someone else’s writing. 

So I decided to write up a little guide. I enjoy being a beta reader and learned how to while I got my minor in creative writing and through participation in many writer workshops but being a good beta doesn’t require an education like that.  A lot of bad experiences I’ve seen or heard about could be avoided with communication and basic courtesy.

More under the cut:

First of all, there are different levels of editing that require different levels of depth and commitment. A lot of issues crop up when two people have a different idea of what’s expected. So here is a way of looking at the different levels.

1. SPAG (SPelling And Grammar): This is the most basic level and has the least amount of time commitment. The beta looks for issues in grammar and spelling such as: comma rules, homophones, run on sentences, anything that obscures meaning, ect. This is the easiest level to ask for since it requires a basic read through and no knowledge of canon or characters or the fandom at all. If you are with a new beta whom you don’t know well, I would start with just this level. 

2. Flow and Efficiency: this gets a little deeper into SPAG. A beta on this level would flag passages that slow down the pace of the story, words that are repeated too often, dialogue that doesn’t make sense or sounds awkward, pronoun confusion, sentence/paragraph order, ect. This requires more time and re-reading the fic more than once to do a thorough job. 

3. Characterization: This deals with how in character your dialogue and actions feel in your story. If you’re writing a character for the first time or you don’t have a full understanding of them in canon, it can be helpful to ask a writer well versed in writing that character to take a look at your characterization. This does require more of a commitment than the others and you need to communicate with each other to discuss what seemed out of character and why and what alternatives could be taken instead.

4. Plot and Story: This is the  biggest commitment for a beta and not something you ask a person to do real quick or even ask a person to do if you don’t know them very well. This type of editing asks someone to look at the story overall and see what is working and what is not working as far as plot goes.

Did the writer develop the story in a way that makes sense, did they lay down the seeds of the development throughout the fic, are they sticking to a theme, are they contradicting themselves throughout the fic, did they repeat a scene, ect? For multi-chapter fics, this requires a long term beta/writer relationship over the course of each chapter update.

You should not ask someone brand new to beta at this level for an update chapter, especially if they haven’t read your other chapters first or aren’t familiar with your writing. This level requires an immense amount of trust between beta and author and a huge time commitment for a beta.

~~~

Now that we understand the different levels of editing, here are some common courtesy guidelines for both authors and betas:

Author:

1. Decide beforehand what level you want your fic to be beta’d for. Communicate clearly exactly what you want your beta to look for and at what level you would like them to edit. You don’t have to use my guideline above exactly, but be clear if you want deeper edits than SPAG, for example. And understand that deeper edits, such as on structure and plot and characterization, require a lot of commitment on behalf of the beta reader. It’s understandable if they do not or are unable to give you that level of commitment so be clear about it upfront. 

2. Be clear on your deadline of when you want this done.

3. Be clear on the length, pairing/characters involved, rating, and major content warnings when asking for a beta. 

4. If you share a google doc, do not let any beta have full editing privileges. Even if you trust them, you won’t be able to see all the changes they make so you can learn from your mistakes. Keep the restrictions to commenter only. 

5. Be upfront and honest about  how sensitive you are to different kinds of feedback. Especially if you’ve been hurt in the past, be honest about what feedback you do not want.

6. Remember, you do not have to change everything a beta suggests. This is your story and even though they’ve done you a favor, it's ultimately your decision and judgement on your own fic.

That being said, you don’t need to argue with a beta about their suggestions. If you don’t agree with most or all of their ideas, they are not the beta for you. Thank them for their time and then follow through with your own suggestions or find a different beta.

Beta/Editor: Here are some basic courtesy rules you should follow when you are beta-ing.

1. Do not engage with fic that makes you uncomfortable, even if you want to be kind to a friend. Your reluctance shines through in your efforts and it does not end well for anyone. If you start a fic and then find you are uncomfortable with it, politely tell your author that you cannot continue. Do not do so in a way that shames their fic. You do not have to go into personal reasons why you cannot finish the fic, just tell them you are unable to do so. 

2. Stick to the deadline you agreed to. If something comes up, let the author know as soon as possible so they can find someone else, especially if they are on a publishing schedule or have an exchange deadline. 

3. Word all your non-spelling edits as suggestions, not commands. Ultimately any changes are the author’s decision and up to their discretion so it comes off as very rude and controlling when you use commands, as if you naturally know better than the author does at telling their own story. This also means that you should not change anything in the document without telling the author if they have given you full edit access on a google doc or word doc, ect. 

Some ways of phrasing you can use to make suggestions:

     A. “Could” and “can” instead of “should” and “need”.

For example:  For example, Maybe you could move this paragraph to the beginning because of ____ reason instead of You need to move this paragraph to the beginning. 

     B. “I think” at the beginning of a suggestion, so it's clear it's your opinion and nothing else.

I think this paragraph works better at the front of the chapter rather than the end.

     C. “Maybe” with a question mark.

This is one of my favorites. Think of it like brainstorming with someone. Maybe you could move this paragraph to the front of the chapter? Maybe X Character could do Y instead?

4. Always explain why you would make a change to story, flow, or characterization so the author understands your intent and reasoning.  

5. Do not judge someone’s writing. This is their story and their ideas. Do not try to steer the plot in the direction you would want to take it, do not kinkshame any of their smut, do not criticize their story/pairing choices because they aren’t to your tastes. The goal is to improve what they already have, not change it to match what you personally like. 

6. Do not offer only critical feedback without something positive. This is very important. Even if you are just at level one SPAG, leave a comment or highlight a passage, turn of phrase, line of dialogue that you enjoyed or leave a note at the bottom of something you think they did well. 

Asking for critical feedback is terrifying, and if there is not a balance of positive and constructive feedback, authors can be discouraged from writing further if they think all they write is bad or needs work. 

The way I did it in writing workshops is that I put every negative comment in between two positive comments. This might be unrealistic for beta, but you cannot beta a fic without leaving any positive feedback at all. 

~~~

Communication and clear expectations go a long way in a good author/beta relationship. It helps to find someone whose fic they have written or bookmarked align with your own tastes if you want deeper edits. Make sure you have similar ideas on characterization, head-canons, interpretations of canon lore.

At the end of the day, however, it’s fanfiction. It is written for free and for fun. Little things that would not cut it in professional publication can slide in an fanfic and there should not be pressure to make a fic as perfect as a professional, published piece unless the author gives you that explicit expectation.

Please comment or send an ask/message if you have any questions about beta-ing!

#fandom #beta #beta readers #editing #fic editing #fanfiction #fic

[junewild]

may we have your cupcake recipe? <3

HELL YEAH, thank u anon. i’ll give you vanilla, citrus, spice, and chocolate cupcakes & if you want anything else let me know! this is going to be stream-of-consciousness rather than linear recipe, because unfortunately that is how i bake. if you want a linear recipe, let me know which particular set of pieces you want and i can write it up for you. i’ll even guesstimate times and such.

BEFORE YOU READ FURTHER: this is very long. if you are not into cupcakes, bookmark this for later when you suddenly decide to make cupcakes and keep scrolling. now with new added read more for additional readability <3

making cupcakes takes me about two hours if i’m doing two batches or an hour and a half if i’m doing one. it might take you a little longer the first time because you don’t quite know what order to do things in or how long everything takes. i like to start my fillings first because they take longer to be ready, then turn on my oven, then mix my batter, then make the frosting while cupcakes are baking.

SUPPLIES

you will need: a cupcake tin, cupcake wrappers, at least one large mixing bowl (2 is recommended to avoid a lot of washing dishes between steps), a hand mixer or a lot of elbow grease, spatula, whisk, small bowl, a small grater or microplaner, a piping tip + bag (or just a plastic bag with a hole cut in one corner) and at least one saucepan or small frying pan. measuring spoons/cups are useful but i’ve tried to include thicknesses and alternatives so you can eyeball it if you have to (i usually do, just because i know what i’m looking for lol)

you will also need some of the following (check your specific cupcake type to find out which): a box of cake mix or ingredients to make your own cake mix, cream cheese, condensed milk, butter, powdered sugar, lemons/limes/oranges, chocolate, vanilla extract (real is recommended; i know it’s more expensive but the increase in quality is worth it if you can), lemon extract, heavy cream, pumpkin pie spice (or at least nutmeg + cinnamon), and fruit of your choice.

CUPCAKE

okay so: box mix is fine. it’s good. great, even. as long as you do this: replace the oil with butter. add an extra egg. i don’t care how many eggs it calls for. i know it feels like a lot of eggs. add an egg anyway. add a sprinkle of extra salt. a tsp or so. you’ve already made a good cupcake!

vanilla:

add a tablespoon (about three capfuls, if you don’t have measuring spoons) of REAL vanilla extract if you can afford it (or i really like the vanilla paste that has specks of bean in it. 10/10)

citrus:

one teaspoon (one capful) vanilla extract. two-ish teaspoons of lemon extract. zest of one lemon. zest of one orange (i like blood orange particularly much) or lime. replace 1/2 cup of the water with lemon and lime or orange juice. add about a tbsp of extra sugar.

spice:

two teaspoons pumpkin pie spice (you can see the spice in the batter without it discoloring the batter) + one tablespoon vanilla extract.

chocolate:

it’s already perfect xoxo. JUST KIDDING. add a tablespoon of vanilla extract.

instructions:

these ratios are for 24 cupcakes. take your cupcake pan and line it with cupcake papers. you can grease the top of the pan if you’re anxious, but it shouldn’t be necessary, especially if you have a nonstick pan. then just mix your batter until it’s not particularly lumpy and fill your cupcake papers about a third of the way full. a quarter cup measure is easiest for me to use bc the amount that easily comes out of it is about the right amount & it drips less than a spoon does. then i like to use a spoon to push the batter up the sides a little so it holds the fillings better.

FILLINGS

you can mix and match the hell out of these, honestly. i typically do cheesecake in everything & then fruit in vanilla or citrus cupcakes, specifically apple or cranberry in spice cupcakes, & chocolate in vanilla or chocolate cupcakes.

cheesecake:

one package softened cream cheese + 10 oz (2/3 a 14 oz can) condensed milk. stir on low heat until smooth, then add 2 teaspoons vanilla extract. DON’T add sugar. it’s not supposed to be very sweet.

fruit compote:

literally just half a cup or so of frozen or fresh fruit. i’ve done this with raspberries, strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, cranberries, apples (fresh and cubed is best), and peaches. anything is fair game, honestly. i want to try stewed kumquats and plums at some point. if frozen, add a tiny bit of water. if fresh, add about as much water as you have fruit. squeeze some lemon and lime in there. add sugar to taste. for the apple spice mix, add another teaspoon of vanilla and a teaspoon of pumpkin pie spice.

IMPORTANT: you do NOT want this to be sweet. this is NOT jam. it should be a little tart when you taste it. if it’s not thick enough, slurry a tbsp of cornstarch in a little bit of cold water and stir it in. it should be thick enough to not drip off of a spoon when you turn it upside down.

ganache:

heat a cup of heavy cream on very low heat. i like to do a double boiler: saucepan half-full of water, bowl full of cream in the saucepan. when the cream is warm, stir in most of a package of dark chocolate chips. stir HARD—whisk the shit out of it. DO NOT let any of the water get into the bowl!! you want the ganache to be gloppy when you lift it with a spoon—it has to not soak into the cupcake mix.

instructions:

so you have your 1/3 full cupcake wrappers with the batter spooned a little bit up the sides. using a small kitchen spoon, drop a spoonful of cheesecake into each cupcake. then top that with a spoonful of ganache or a spoonful of fruit compote (or both! it’s your kitchen!). spoon batter over the top and down the sides. fully covered, it should come to just under the top of the cupcake wrapper—i usually have 1/4 to 1/8 of an inch grace.

pop that in the oven according to the box instructions. i usually find that cupcakes with fillings take the longer time listed, rather than the shortest one. when your time goes off, touch the top of a cupcake. if it feels firm (think: ripe plum; you can push on it and it’s soft but it doesn’t cave in), it’s probably done. you can also put a toothpick down one of the sides, rather than the middle. pull your cupcakes out of the oven, put in your second batch, and set these aside to cool.

FROSTINGS

there are two frostings that go well here. i tend to like buttercream for vanilla and citrus and cream cheese for apple spice and chocolate. your mileage may vary. this is where the sweetness comes from, without overwhelming the cupcake!

buttercream:

let two sticks of butter (one unsalted and one salted) soften on your countertop. DON’T melt them. when they’re room temperature and you could mold them with your fingers, put them in a bowl. a mixer is best for this stage, but you can do it with a whisk and spatula if you’re determined, have patience, or can switch out with someone else. whip the butter a little. add five cups of powdered sugar, a cup at a time.

for a vanilla cupcake, add a tablespoon of vanilla extract (or vanilla paste! the specks are SO cool looking!) and use heavy cream to even out the texture until you think it’s pipeable (you’re looking for “holds its shape without being Chunky”). for a citrus cupcake, add a teaspoon of citrus extract and lime juice until it’s pipeable. two sticks of butter is too much, but one stick usually isn’t quite enough, and i prefer to have extra to practice piping with.

cream cheese frosting:

let one package (8oz) of cream cheese soften on your countertop. mix it in a bowl until smooth. add about four cups (3/4 a regular water cup, i think) of powdered sugar—again, we’re looking for “pipeable without being inflexible”. add a tablespoon of vanilla extract/paste and use heavy cream if you need to soften the texture at all.

both of these frostings take coloring very well. something that i personally love is doing a sort of gradient, where i’ll add red to one side and mix it well, yellow to another side and mix it well, make some orange in the middle, and leave some white here and there. then spoon from each section into a piping bag and voila, free beautiful swirls. you can also use a knife to frost your cupcakes, but i think piping is fairly easy to pick up on if you try it a few times, and it makes your cupcakes look that much more professional.

instructions:

make SURE your cupcakes are COOL TO THE TOUCH before you frost them! pop them in the fridge if you’re in a hurry! a single layer of piping should be enough, but decorate if you want. icing sugar is pretty. don’t go too overboard with sprinkles—they make it hard to eat.

voila! cupcakes.

SUBSTITUTIONS

i have made these gluten-free, dairy-free, corn-free, vegan, etc etc. gluten free box mix is fine. your own powdered sugar (powdered sugar + tapioca starch) is great. you can do a coconut milk pudding instead of cheesecake or ganache. you can do baking soda + vinegar instead of baking powder (1/4 tsp bs + 1/2 tsp vinegar per tsp baking powder). if you’re allergic to fruit, i am SO SORRY for you but please try the chocolate ones. you can substitute any extract, any flavor profile, any combination of ingredients. if you’re using a commercial egg substitute, just add an extra 1/4 cup of it. if you’re using flaxseed, just add an extra tablespoon of flaxseed + 3 tablespoons water.

it may not come out exactly the same as the standard ones, but my friends with dietary restrictions still swear by them. i have never brought cupcakes home from a party. i don’t think anyone who’s ever tried one has not gotten a second helping. people who swear they aren’t cupcake people love these cupcakes. (it’s because they aren’t overly sweet or moist or dry and they aren’t one-note, because the fillings add complexity of texture and flavor. there you go, now you know how to describe your new cupcakes to people).

congrats! you’re about to be everyone’s favorite party guest!

#personal #askposting #i apologize in advance for how much is in here ❤️ #i’ll try to put a read more on this when i get on a laptop #most of these recipes are not Mine in that i did not solely invent them. however i have altered them & mixed & matched them & etc etc #so they’re yours now

[barashikki-dialoversoc]

03. First Taste

Word Count: 1859

Warnings: infliction of pain, dub con (biting and kissing)

-----

The first few days of settling in were… interesting.

Bara was able to set up her room with her belongings. She had to start adjusting to a night school schedule. But the most difficult part was dealing with the brothers.

Some were tolerable, like being in the same room as Shu, Subaru, or Reiji was calm. Bara kept to her business and didn’t bother them if they had to share a space. Most of her time was spent in a chair or on a sofa reading her own book when moments like this happened.

But if one of the triplets entered, it was a whole other story.

Ayato constantly pestered her with continuous flirting and obnoxious behavior. Thankfully for her, she had a lot of patience and was able to bore Ayato quite quickly by ignoring him and not returning reactions he wanted from her. Kanato was sometimes annoying, but Bara found herself abandoning her book usually to converse with him since he wasn’t as forward as his brothers. Although she did find she isn’t a fan of his clinginess if he did happen to hug or lean against her. Laito… he was hell. Bara found herself having to remove herself completely from him and usually having to find another brother to get him to go away.

Thankfully today, the only one in the room with her was Shu. Both of them were in their own respective areas, Shu on the sofa with his earbuds in and Bara in an armchair reading one of her newer books on herbal medicine. From what she noted from when around Shu, she did her best to not verbally make comments to herself when reading.

It wasn’t until noise came from someone walking in the room did Bara pull her eyes off the pages of her book. She spotted the smaller figure and gave a small smile.

“What are you doing?” Kanato asked her.

“I’m currently reading a book. Did you want to see which one?”

His expression panned a bit, showing his interest faded. “You’re always reading. It’s boring.”

Bara’s smile weakened slightly. “Well, it’s my main hobby. And my other hobby I enjoy I don’t think I’d be allowed to do here.”

Kanato rolled his eyes at Bara’s reply. “I’m bored. I want to do something fun.”

A bit of frustration came from Bara as she tried to tolerate Kanato’s pestering nature. It’s obvious he wanted her attention, but she didn’t know how to do it right.

Then an idea struck her.

“What about yours, Kanato? Is there something you like to do for fun that multiple people can do?” She asked.

“I like spending time with Teddy… Sometimes he and I have our own little tea parties.” Kanato looked at his bear affectionately. His eyes then wandered to Bara before speaking again. “Say, you could have a tea party with us right now.”

Bara did a quick glance at the time, seeing it would still be a while before she had her planned sleep. She could do it, although she hadn’t had a tea party since she was a little girl. “I’m able to. Just let me take care of my book and then we can.” She got up and put her bookmark in the book as she did so. Kanato was hot on her heels as they made their way to her bedroom, where Bara tucked her book into the small nook she had made on the desk.

“So…” Bara began as she stood back up and began to turn around. “What type of drinks do you like at your…” She was stopped short when facing Kanato, finding him way too close to her for comfort and the immediate grip on her arms slightly painful.

His head dipped down to her neck, inhaling her scent. This time the nuisance of a scarf wasn’t there, so it was all free reign for Kanato to explore the smell coming from Bara.

“What’re you…”

“Shut up.” Bara could hear Kanato take in a deep inhale after his comment. Her skin tickled where his nose was at.

“For a drink… I’d rather have blood than some measly tea that’s going to be bitter.” Kanato scrunched his face up at the thought of something too dark touching his tongue. It had been a long time since there had been a sacrificial bride, he wanted fresh blood. The scent of Bara’s was enough to send him wanting to divulge in as much as he could.

“W-Wait…” Bara attempted to push against Kanato, gently, as she knew he was fast to anger. “Could you at least not bite hard? And maybe not somewhere that could prove dangerous to me?” She knew it was going to be inevitable that he would bite her, but she wanted some assurance she wouldn’t be completely uncomfortable or seriously injured if so.

Kanato only looked at her from his spot. She couldn’t see his gaze, but he sent one of irritation in her direction. A mere human girl would not change what he wanted. If he wanted to feast on her here, then he would. And why care about her comfort when he was the one who was hungry and suffering for so long?

His lips made connection with Bara’s skin, making the girl flinch away from the touch. She was scared, and rightfully so. But Kanato wasn’t having any of it, he wanted to drink now.

His arms went to wrap completely around her with one hand snaking up and grabbing the nape of her neck and also tangling his fingers in her hair there. The grip was hard and firm, restricting Bara from moving her head anymore. A small whimper came from Bara as she went to brace herself.

She had fended off others who had pestered her for her short time there, so she still had no idea how bad a bite would be. The grip alone from Kanato was already hurting her. She could feel the harshness of the yank on her hair, the steel tight-like grip of his arms also left her in a position of only shallow breaths as well.

In the next moment, it was only Bara’s cries of pain as Kanato dug into her flesh with his fangs. Blood pooled out rapidly, making Kanato latch his lips against Bara’s skin as well to trap any of the red liquid from escaping. The pain continued to radiate for the period Kanato had his fangs dug into Bara’s jugular. They left a stinging sensation as he pulled them out, but Kanato didn’t stop there. He kept his lips latched on, sucking on the skin the wound was put into, drawing out more blood and bruising the skin there.

In an attempt, Bara nudged her head slightly, only earning herself another bite from Kanato. She was not to move or else he would punish her for going against him, although it was also difficult to tell if it was more for his pleasure. Her body also was pulled even closer to him, tighter, and for more access to her neck and shoulder. More bites began to litter her neck and some went down onto her shoulder as her cardigan was pulled away.

There was no way to fend for herself, Bara had to endure it. Her grip began to loosen on Kanato’s shirt, fingers still clinging on, but not as secure as before. It was an odd feeling, her own self being drained from her, and the side effects of losing the blood being the weakening of her limbs and a small buzz begin in her head.

She could feel as they shifted, her back up against something flat and cold, probably her desk. Even if she was slightly dizzy, it was hard for her to understand what was going on when not in proper focus. Even when another whimper came from her lips, she wasn’t aware, not even with how it affected the vampire still taking his fill from her.

Kanato continued to suck on her flesh for a few more moments before turning to lick the wounds. They sealed up quickly, acting upon the abilities he had to keep a human from bleeding out. But not only that but the taste of this girl’s blood…

Slightly sour, but delectably sweet. The slight tingle on his tongue as he had drunk from her made him want more. The way it smoothly flowed, like a sweet and sugary drink, down his throat was a feeling he wanted to continue to taste. And he definitely didn’t want to share it with any of his brothers.

He was obsessed.

Kanato went to use his hand behind Bara’s neck to reposition her head so he could look at her face. She was still squinting from the pain, trying to endure how he was treating her. It was cute to him, seeing her suffer from his hand. But he also knew… that little noise she made was the first sign he could break her into what he wanted, to make her his perfect doll.

She had the features for it. The soft jawline, it was rounder instead of following the obsession over the v-shape, that those in the current country focused on. She had slender eyes, not wide, but just large enough to show off her grayish-green eyes, a rare trait for someone in this region as well. Small lips that were the right size for her face. A soft nose, strong enough to be prominent but still delicate in features. And the feel of her hair… was soft, completely straight if not tousled around too much. She looked like she could be a perfect living doll for Kanato.

While he wanted more of her blood, he wanted to taste another part of her. To see how innocent she truly was.

With a simple hoist, Kanato drew Bara back up towards him. She clung to him for safety, making the vampire enjoy the moment more. First going to him for protection, now relying on him so she didn’t possibly fall. It made him all too giddy.

“I want to taste more of you,” Kanato muttered as he pulled Bara’s face close to his.

She tried to look at him with as much focus as she could but struggled to properly comprehend. “What do you…” Bara was cut off with Kanato’s lips slipping and fitting against hers.

A small “chu” could be heard as Kanato disconnected, but like with the bites he didn’t stop at one. More kisses were placed against Bara’s lips as Kanato reveled in the taste of her flesh and small bits of her inner mouth he did delve into. He wanted more, to taste more of her.

The kisses became deeper, some sounds of squeaks and surprised gasps leaving Bara as Kanato continued to ravage her mouth. She had no experience and she wasn’t expecting someone to commit such an act with her for quite a while. It’s thanks to this that Kanato could break in so easily, enjoying every little bit he could explore of her mouth.

This taste…

It’s going to get addicting.

#Bara Shikki #Bara Shikki Story #diabolik lovers oc #dialovers oc #dl oc #Bara Shikki Series #writing #oc writing #Bara x Kanato #oc story

[kauaiphotographers82]

How to Choose Your Perfect Wedding Photographer

Your EXCITED, ENGAGED and ON A MISSION to find that special wedding photographer that is going to help you and your spouse remember and relive the day you said, "I do.". If this sounds a little like a match making idea then you're right. Of all the vendors that you will choose to help you make your wedding day fantastic, your photographer will spend the entire day with you. Think about it, your baker will bring the cake and leave, your florist will hand everything over and leave, your wedding planner will check up on you from time-to-time while there but your photographer will always be there recording every moment. Once you realize this and search for "wedding photography" or "wedding photographer" in Google and you'll find yourself staring at a list between 2 - 12 million results. You don't have the time or the desire to even begin to click and search through all of them so here are ten questions to help you find your perfect wedding photographer.

1. You can't know what you want until you know what you want.

Because there is uniqueness in your love and passion with each other your wedding portraits should reflect that uniqueness. As a result, you need to understand and be able to articulate the style of photography that will best fit for you. To do so you need to ask yourself two questions:

a. What types of movies do you and your fiancée like to watch and what types movies can you see yourself in? The movie(s) you choose will give you an idea as to the over all feeling of the photographs you most likely want to have. If you like family based movies then you are going to most likely want photographs that have an emphasis on friends and family. On the other hand, if you enjoy romantic, action or high drama movies, then you might be more interested in photographers who are able to produce dramatic photos that focus on you.

b. What magazines would you like to see yourself in? Every magazine has a customer base demographic. And this is not by accident. Do you like the photographs from Vogue, GQ, Modern Bride, or W? Look through magazines and find photographs that you would like to see yourself in and cut out those photographs for future reference.

2. Searching for photographer on the web

Because there are so many websites just using the best keywords to find what you are looking for can be a daunting task so here are some ideas to make it a little easier. Use words that are specific to you concerning the type of wedding photography that you are looking for. In addition you will want to search under the words of where you are getting married and/or where you would like to find your photographer. Here are some ideas:

These sites will give you more than enough results to look through. Once you see a list, start to visit as many sites as you can but ONLY LOOK AT THE PHOTOS. Your goal is to find a photographer with photos that you can see yourself in and that you would be proud and excited to show your friends and family.

3. The Photographers' Website

The website is the wedding photographers personal gallery of their best work. The purpose of visiting the website is to not only assess if you like the photographer's style but also to get more aquatinted with the photographer too. Once you click on the website then take some time to visit the "about us" or "bio" section of the website. Get to know the photographer a little bit. Once you do this ask yourself if this were someone you would befriend. You may want to make a list of photographers to compare them. However, no matter how good or bad the photos are, if you do not think that you would befriend the photographer then that photographer should most likely not be considered. While perusing the galleries begin to write down some notes about what you like about the photos, if you can see yourself in those photos, and if you would refer others to the photographer. Don't be shy about your comments; be honest as if you were looking at your own photos. If you are not impressed with the photos then quickly move on t o the next site. Never stay on a website any longer than you need to. **Remember to resist any temptation to look at prices or any unrelated categories like children portraiture and/or high school senior portraits while on the website. You are on a mission so always remind yourself to stay on task. Once you determined that you like the photos on the website then bookmark that website and move on to the next one. You, Your Best Friend, and Your Nemesis Should I really trust my "gut feeling" on such an important decision? I can only answer a resounding "YES." Our "gut feeling" is typically comprised of knowledge, past experiences, and perception of future events based on your learned knowledge. Making a great decision is going to be a matter of research and personal experience. So take your time and learn and see as much as you can so that when the time comes to make this important decision you will be excited and extremely confident that you made this decision.

4 - LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION

Believe it or not, not every photographer can produce artistic portraits in any given venue. As a Bride, you need to be honest with yourself and with your photographer about your photographic expectations for that day. You must always remember that you are hiring a photographer for a specific reason, to capture individual moments from that day so that those memories will never be forgotten. A big component of your day will be the location and venue you choose for your celebration. You need to know the venue's photographic expectations and restrictions. Here are some questions to ask your venue:

1) Does the venue allow flash photography?

2) Are there any insurance requirements?

2) Are there any time limits in any venue that the photographer should know? (You can ask the vendor this question and let the photographer know about this.)

3) Are there any places at the venue that cannot be photographed? You need to know your venue's policies on photographs and where they can and cannot be taken.

4) Ask the venue if there is anything that the photographer needs to know that you haven't asked. (phrase this as a question as you did with the others.)

5) What was the worst infringement of the venue's photographic policies? (This will give you an idea of how serious they are about their policies and what is important to them.) Be sure to bring up these answers with the photographer during your meeting. Know more here Kauai photographers

HOW DO YOU GET THE BEST PHOTOGRAPHER FOR YOU AND YOUR LOCATION?

Ask your vendor for personal recommendations and view the photographer's website. Put those sites that are most in line with your style in the list of your other potential photographers.

When viewing websites ask yourself: -

Does this photographer have that ability to adapt to his surroundings? (Are there a variety of photographs from a variety of locations?) Is the photographer creative enough to be able to take high quality portraits anywhere? (Is the photographer creative in posing?) Is the overall personality of the website something that you like? (Would you be confident to recommend a friend to the same website to get their advice and their recommendations on photographers) Quality professional wedding photographers know how to use their surroundings as a backdrop for your romantic portraits. If you are going to have a candle light wedding then the photographer is going to have the equipment to correctly expose for that extremely low light setting. If you are getting married on the beach then your photographer will need the equipment and knowledge to ensure that the sun does not over power your beautiful dress and smile.

5 - Book Early, BOOK ASAP!!!!!

The key here is to make sure that you are happy and comfortable with your photographer. You never want to choose and settle on a photographer because of time or pressure from the photographer, friends, or family. Give yourself some time and space. This is really up to you. You need to feel comfortable and secure with your decision. Once you are comfortable and sure about the decision then sign the contract and be happy that that decision is out of the way.

6 - Calling or contacting your perspective Professional Photographer

Once you have a list of photographers then start calling! When you speak with your perspective photographer for the first time there are a few things you may want to keep in mind. Let the photographer know that you have seen their website and are impressed with what you have seen and you would like to ask a few questions that were not covered on the website. When you speak to a photographer you need to approach it as an interview. Remember, you are hiring a professional to do a job that cannot be repeated. There are no "do-overs" with wedding photos so try to get to know the photographer as well as possible.

Here are some things to keep in mind:

THE INTERVIEW:

You should approach this call as an interview. It is really to find out what this photographer is about and decide if you would like to meet the photographer in person.

When the photographer answers the phone how does he sound? Happy? Sad? Annoyed? Or glad to speak with you? Remember, you are calling the photographer's business phone number. The photographer knows that you are calling for a business reason. [ There is no excuse for the photographer to answer any other than happy and glad to speak with you.] Ask open-ended questions such as: what do you like about weddings, How long have you photographed weddings, what got you started in photographing weddings. Ask any questions that you can think of about their personality and wedding photography career. Ask about date availability and the location of the wedding and reception. How long has the photographer been in business? What does the photographer like best about photographing weddings? Are you a full-time or part-time photographer? (The purpose of this question is still just to see who this person is.) THINGS TO CONSIDER: When you make the appointment let the photographer know where you live and times you are able to meet. Also find out what location where the photographer is coming from then ask the photographer where would be a good place to meet in between. You want to listen to see if the photographer is flexible enough to go out of his/her way for you. If the photographer is not able to meet with you on the dates that you have given then the photographer should offer some suggestions that would help the both of you After the interview, if you are happy and your intuition says yes, then set up an appointment.

WORD OF CAUTION: Professional Photographers make their living on providing photographic services and not talking over the phone. The photographer may have a "strong urge" to have you meet them in person. This is not bad! What is bad is how they urge you to make an appointment. The photographer should converse with you and help you make the best photographic decision possible. Beware if the photographer is refusing (tone or verbal) to answer questions and wants to quickly set up an appointment. However, if the photographer is open with you and offers you advice and questions about what you want then the photographer has already decided that you are a good match for them and will want to set up an appointment with you. As always, if you feel comfortable then set up an appointment. Since there are more photographers than you could possibly meet in a year it is important to only set up appointments with 3-4 photographers. You may want to allocate four hours of time for each meeting. This takes into account travel there and back and speaking with the photographer. You can see then that if you are not careful you could end up making searching for a photographer your new full-time job.

7 - PACKAGES, COLLECTIONS, INVESTMENTS

So far we have spoken about the process of getting the best photographer for your wedding but have not even touched the topic of what you are going to actually get at the end of the day. Some photographers call the contents of what you get packages, collections, an investment, or a commission to supply you with your wedding day photographs. Surprisingly most photographers offer the same contents as other photographs. What is important is getting what you would like to have for the future and not what you think you need now. You want an album because of the story that you want to show to your relatives and your future grandchildren. Slide shows are nice because you can have music set to photos that will be heirlooms. Digital Negatives and Reprints: Some photographers will sell reprints directly to you. This means that you will only get prints of your wedding day (this is separate from your album) when you pay the photographer for them. These prices will vary depending on the size of the prints and how many you request. Other photographers will create a combination package in which you receive a CD/DVD composed of an unlimited or limited number of photos. You may be able to reprint these photos on your own or you may be only able to view them on a computer and email them with no option to make your own reprints. Albums: Albums, Albums, and more Albums! As the wedding industry grows, more and more companies are offering albums so it is important to see a model of the album you are choosing. It is important to see the album model because two photographers may use similar names for albums that in the end are not so similar.

Questions about the album you should ask:

1 - How many pages are in the album?

2 - What choices do I have about the album?

3 - On average how many photos will fit in the album? Some photographers will offer other products but the main thing that you want to consider is what you are looking for. Are you looking forward to having a plenty of prints to give away and a large album to show your friends and family or are you looking for something small like a day album? These are questions that you are going to have to consider thoughtfully. Whatever your choice is, make sure that there is clear communication between you and your photographer.

8 - CONTRACTS: Who needs them?!

A friend told me once that, " contracts keeps friends friends and enemies from killing each other." Because of the nature of the service you are requesting from the photographer it is incredibly important that you get everything that you agreed to in writing. Be sure that the type of album, numbers of pages, and the amount of time that you are requiring from you photographer is in writing. The reason that this is important is because if something were to go wrong then it can be held up in court. Contracts keep people a little more honest than if you didn't have one. Personally, I go over everything in the contract before the contract is signed. This way, everyone understands what is going on and communication of what is expected is clear.

9 - PHOTOGRAPHER THE INTERVIEWER

The photographer should interview you just as much as you should be interviewing the photographer. As stated before, "not everyone is for everyone" applies here as well. The photographer should ask questions that identify your personality and the personality of your relationship with your fiancé. I always ask questions such as:

1 -- When did the two of you meet?

2 - How long did you date before you were engaged?

3 - What is the most important detail in your wedding that you are most excited about?

4 - Is the venue you have chosen really important to you?

The photographer needs to ask questions that are going to tell a little bit about the couple and what's important to them. If the photographer doesn't know what is important to you then the photographer most likely will not photograph what is important to you. This most likely will result in you not being completely happy with your final product. In short, the photographer should have a good idea as to who the couple is and what is important to them.

10 - THE LAST QUESTION YOU SHOULD ASK YOURSELF.

What's your gut feeling? Remember decisions that you make cannot be based on what you thought was true or what you hoped will be true. The best answer you can make about the decision is based on the information that you have now. In short, consider your gut feeling, remember what you want out of the photographer and the style that the photographer produces, and have a great time choosing the photographer that will best photograph you.

[white-rose-week]

White Rose Week 2019: That Day on the Airship - Chapter 4

Audience Prompt: Jealous

Admin Prompt: Home

(Now also available on FF and AO3!)

Weiss and Ruby had been cuddling and quietly chatting for nearly a half hour. In the back of their minds, they were still aware of the harrowing week they’d survived and the potentially doomed mission they were on, but neither had to say they wanted to avoid those topics, it was a given. Besides, they had far more important things to discuss.

“I’ve been meaning to ask, you…” Weiss started with innocent curiosity. “What’s your favorite type of cookie?” She asked as she reached into the box of treats that she and Ruby had momentarily interrupted their cuddling session to bring from the countertop down to the floor with them. She inspected the small, chocolate-coated morsel before popping it into her mouth.

“Oh, I could never choose one.” Ruby’s expression was similar to that of a mother asked to name their favorite child. “Cookies are as complex as wine, they just take less time to make, don’t give you a hangover, and taste a million times better. It depends on the season, the baker, what’s paired with it…”

“Cookies have pairings?” Weiss asked with the tone of a diligent student. She wasn’t particularly interested in becoming a cookie gastronomist, but she was willing to engage in almost any conversation if it meant seeing Ruby talk passionately.

“Totally! Same concept as with wine and cheese, some combinations of flavors just taste better than others. Some go better with skim milk, some with whole, others are actually best with just water, and some reach the peak of their flavor if you eat a piece of fruit or ice cream with it instead of a drink.”

“My girlfriend, the cookie scholar.”

“Yep! But if I had to choose a favorite type of cookie right now, it’d be these ones here by a mile.” Ruby took another bite, beaming at Weiss.

“Really? Dust Scout cookies are nice, but they’re still factory made, and we aren’t pairing them with anything, so what makes them better than, say, a cookie from the fanciest bakery in Mantle?”

“Of course they’re paired with something!” Ruby said as she slipped the hand into Weiss’, intertwining their fingers. “They’re paired with you, automatically making them the best in the world!” She popped the rest of her cookie into her mouth and beamed, proud of her sappy comment.

“I walked right into that one.”

“Doesn’t make it any less true!”

“Fine. I’m inclined to agree that a cookie enjoyed with you is the best cookie in Remnant, but I’d like to find time to pair you with a cookie from a proper bakery.”

“You won’t have to twist my arm to get me to agree to that.”

“I’m sure I won’t. I’d also like to take you to go on a shopping date at my favorite clothing boutique.”

“I’ll help you pick out as many things for yourself as you want, but I probably won’t try anything on. I’m guessing everything will be too fancy for my taste.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure. It’s a combat skirt boutique.” Weiss smirked lightheartedly.

“Nevermind! I’m trying on everything in my size!”

“I haven’t even told you the best part yet. Every single piece they carry has pockets!”

“No. Way.”

“Yes way! And their designs are gorgeous.”

“Yay! I could really use a new combat skirt. I know I’ve only had this one for a few months, but sometimes it feels like I’ve been wearing it for more than three years.” Ruby glanced down at her attire, which had somehow survived multiple large-scale battles with minimal damage. “I love the design, but it might be time to try something different.”

“I’m sure you’ll be turning heads regardless of what you wear. Just watch out for snobby aristocrats. Some of them have a tendency to think their money can buy literally anything and anyone.”

“Uh ohhh! Do I need to worry about someone getting jealous?” Ruby wiggled her eyebrows jokingly.

Weiss rolled her eyes and let out a small scoff. “Don’t be ridiculous. I think we’ve been through more than enough to not have those types of trust issues. I want you to watch out for them because what I am worried about is Yang hospitalizing some highborn idiot for trying to hit on you. I’d prefer to keep our interaction with law enforcement to Winter and Ironwood.”

“Oooh, good point. Yeah, I’ll be careful.”

“Wonderful. I don’t expect us to run into creeps, but given our luck, I figured I should warn you.”

“Have I told you that you’re an awesome girlfriend? Because you’re an awesome girlfriend.” Ruby leaned in towards Weiss and gave her a quick peck on the lips before reaching towards her belt and positioned her face within inches of Weiss’. “Let’s get our first official picture as a couple!” She pulled out her scroll pointed the camera towards them.

“What for? It’s not like you can post it anywhere, the CCT is still down.”

“I don’t care about posting it, silly. It’s for me! Say ‘cookie’!”

Weiss was barely able to react in time, but she smiled just in time for the flash on Ruby’s scroll to blink. The photo turned out surprisingly well, with Ruby grinning like her hyper-excited self and Weiss smiling with peaceful contentment.

“Perfect!” Ruby exclaimed as she began tapping on her scroll.

“What are you doing with it?”

“Putting it where I’ll see it as often as possible!” She said, handing the scroll to Weiss. The same screen contained the same image as before, but with parts of it obscured by small icons. “My home screen!”

Weiss took another moment to look at the photo before she returned Ruby’s scroll and produced her own.

“I want one too.”

A/N: As always, I hope my writing was able to bring you some joy. Thanks to everyone who has liked, reblogged, followed, fav’d, kudo’d, and bookmarked so far! I’m approaching this impulsive project of mine with a staunch “I’m doing this for me, it’s fine if nobody else likes it” mentality, but I have to admit that knowing people other than myself are enjoying my writing is even more gratifying than I’d anticipated.

This was the most difficult chapter to write so far by a large margin, primarily because of additional restrictions I put on myself. It is also the one I’ve used the themes the least in, so enjoy some extended notes!

From the start, I knew that I did not want to use the theme of jealousy to pit Ruby and Weiss against each other, and I forbade myself from discussing their home lives, geographic origins, or use the concept of 'wherever you are is home for me’. While those approaches have a significant amount of potential depth, I figured that many others would be writing stories from those angles far better than I could.

I tinkered with several ideas for 'jealousy’, including having Weiss talk about wanting to go out of her way to make others jealous of Ruby as a form of putting her on a pedestal out of love, but I didn’t think Weiss would want to call attention to herself or Ruby that way, at least not in Atlas. I also considered having them get into a compliment war and be playfully jealous of each other, but I thought that would just boil down to me trying to find different phrasing for the same types of compliments. Plus, I already had Weiss gush about how strong Ruby is in the last chapter. In the end, I felt that having the concept of them being romantically jealous brought up and swiftly shot down entirely was the most appropriate thing to do given my portrayal of their characters. Plus, the kicker of Weiss being concerned that Yang’s reaction to someone hitting on Ruby would be worse than her own seemed fun.

For 'home’, I thought of the 'home screen’ idea relatively early and couldn’t come up with anything that felt better given the scenery and previously mentioned limitations. I thought Ruby being eager to have a selfie with Weiss and then ending with Weiss wanting one too was sweet, and I was relatively confident that this use of 'home’ would be unique.

These approaches for the themes left my chapter outline significantly shorter than I wanted, but it actually ended up working in my favor, as it gave me space to let the characters truly relax and be themselves for the first time after a VERY long day. It also let me reuse the cookies I placed in the kitchenette back in chapter one, and not having at least one mention of combat skirts felt like a crime.

#white rose week #white rose #whiterose #rwby #fiction #weiss schnee #ruby rose #submission #day 4 #wrw2019

[madokasoratsugu]

so hmst. ever think of fritz/lucette in a realistic scenario world w/out curses bc i do, way too much (even w my admittedly shitty knowledge of medieval times LMAO). pls have this dumbass meta that got way out of hand at 4.5k words lol..... aka i just really wanted to write forbidden romance about queen lucette and her personal knight fritz :”)))

ao3

happily ever afters are not for someone like lucette.

she is crown princess of angielle, the most prosperous kingdom to enjoy peace for over a decade on the continent and she will make it remain so, no matter what she must do. mother taught her to be unkind and unforgiving, but father’s rule taught her what that would cost. (‘your very life’; and lucette could die of laughter. her life was given to her country the moment the king placed his crown upon hers. her life was given to her citizens the moment she took her mother’s life. her life was no longer hers to live the moment she gave her first cry as a babe. )   

her mother taught her how to be a ruler, her father teaches her how to be a queen - what lucette must be willing to take (land and gold and unworthy men), to give (her future, her dreams, her happiness - but what are they, in the grand scheme of angielle, of her citizens’ days of peace?

what is she worth that they are not?) she knows the answer, through mother’s lessons that bear cruel truth her father never speaks of, but her knight makes her doubt.

jewels and gold lay heavy upon her, with him beside lightly dull in that scuffed armour and pressed uniform. surely, lucette knows, her worth is more than all the citizens in the land, not just for her riches and beauty, but for the blood that runs through her veins, the royal authority she wields with the ease and capability both rulers before her did. (her rule is made of fear and compassion and kind unkindness - blood must be split as must peace reign, one cannot go without another. cruelty is easy, forgiveness is easy, to find the balance is not but lucette rules with perfect grace balanced on that taut line, ready to cut her throat like the executioner’s axe on the council’s ruling at any moment.) but when he smiles, a secret crook of lips and a carefully angled head, the perfect fall of hair over face; the worth of a man tips, unbalances, and she finds herself slip, slip, slipping - and it’s roses and sunbeams and delicate gentleness lucette wishes she wielded instead, pretty and perfect and pure like all fairy tale heroines are, like all knights will rescue and cherish. lucette is a queen, but she is twenty and longing and impervious to the worst and only curse to befall any royal - love. aching, unattainable love for her very own knight.

(‘give none of yourself to them.’ mother gasped, blood dying her lips a beautiful crimson. ‘for they will give nothing back, my love. they took me, but in the end, i return to you.’ lucette cannot draw the blade out, hands tight around the hilt the queen had forced into her hands. in the end, her mother returns to her. and she returns to no one.)

lucette will use every means to claw her way to the crown, every man given to her to escape death even for another day, another hour, another minute. (bent over choking on her own vomit, steel boned corset catching knives and needles; continuous rescheduled trips to the outdoors; after all, men can be so, so inventive in the ways of killing. yet what is suicide but another method of death?) trained poison courses her veins, experimental cuts litter her abdomen, bows and arrows whittled thinly useless; lucette riella britton will give all of herself but her death. her mother might have taught her not to give a life she doesn’t own, her father might have expected her to die for his cause; in the face of both their righteous morals, lucette swallows another bud of aconite. palms pressed against lips, swallowing, relishing the bitterly sweet poison.

fritzgerald aiden leverton is assigned to her at age eighteen. he is clumsy and imperfect and a man by no standard other than the sword, but at fifteen and still feeling phantom daggers in her sides, poisons burning her guts, lucette has no complaints. not in the way he handles himself, not in the way he fights, not in the way he is, charming and captivating and strong. only in the way he intervenes. (“i can’t let you do this.” torch in hand, ready to burn the flowers at a moment’s notice. “would you rather your liege die?” hesitation on one’s part, and the ache of realisation of the likeness of all men throbs through another. “i’ll protect you.” “not forever.” “watch me.”)

in merely two years, fritz has had her entire personnel overhauled; incompetent fools who turn blind eyes to last minute changes in the menu or unnamed guests who request to be let in at balls. natural charisma, an unrelenting tongue and the favour of the king; using everything and everyone at his disposal and then some. throughout it all deflecting swords and arrows and daggers, both others and her own. and it infuriates lucette, how easily he overturns her expectations, her denials and rejections and pessimism and weaves it all into useless, tragic hope a princess like her cannot have. and it enrages lucette, how quickly the knives are turned against fritz instead; ministers’ cutting sharp proposals of misconduct, advisors’ petty contributions, the maids’ gossips, the blade of his own father. and it - confuses lucette, how familiarly fritz still smiles, and calls her title with a lilt that bears no trace of anything, anything at all. (“i can’t let you keep doing this.” roles reversed; the knight heaving a laugh that nearly goes south. “i was trained for this much.” voice muffled behind a gloved hand, face pale, forehead drenched with cold sweat. even water can be deadly, in a castle. “are you disobeying me?” “on this, i will be.” a slightly lowered hand, a mischievous smile, something foreign and insatiable curling, twisting in the princess’ abdomen. “i could have you executed for treason.” “that’s harsh, my princess.” “then promise.” “i promise nothing but to protect my charge, irregardless of cost.” a sword in one hand, her behind the other. fought for and protected and cherished and lucette - crumbles.)

fritz is made of soft and kind things that royalty are not allowed to dream of. wildflowers, the brays of sheep, a bookmarked bird feather. untethered kites, whirl of spinning threads, the first bloom of a morning glory. first, there is jealousy and spite, childish cold shoulders and biting words. knight to e5; restricted, leashed, threatened. next, there is echoing envy, hidden looks of sullen frowns and biten back sighs. knight moved to its leisure, lengths long. then, there is complex, contorting, confounding - (‘they will give you nothing back’), not-quite quiet smiles and lower lips that ache to be bit. knight and queen left. (check.)

feverish and in pain, still he smiles. (“you shouldnt be here.” voice so hoarse his usual laugh is grated to nothingness from tire. “neither should you.” the words come out unintended; meant as a scold, an order, a warning. he is hers to command, but knelt by his bedside, silks spilling around her and rough cotton covering him; imbalanced, neck running an invisible line of red, she cannot find the power. polished crystal cold against her lips, but his chapped ones are warm, so, so warm. fritz swallows the force fed antidote, eyes closing, breathes evening, calming; lucette wonders if he felt as she did when he first arrived before her, like a spring storm.) flushed and oddly turbulent, she finally smiles.

it is a year after the failed coup that lucette hears her mother again, newly crowned. the head knight takes more than just the people’s trust in the royal family - and lucette becomes queen a year after her father breathes his last. ophelia is still in mourning, emelaigne already promised to brugantia, rod too young and too occupied with the patrons of his songs. there is no one else more worthy. again, weighted by gold and jewels, lucette does not meet fritz’s eyes once during the ceremony. (“my queen.” a bow, a light quirk of lips that cannot lift her spirits as it usually does. “i cannot do this.” a sudden low whisper, an afraid admission. “i am not mother. i am not the king. i -.” brilliant, beautiful, ugly red staining her lips, sunken teeth breaking them. a quick thumb wiping the red, then gently, easily, cradling her clasped hands. lucette is nineteen and aching and still feels the grooves of the hilt she’d buried in her mother; but when fritz calls those tightly overlapping fingers a prayer for the dead who do not deserve her nor the forgiveness she still gives, lucette bends over and drips tears onto their hands, and wishes, for the first time in her life, to be worthy of the person before her; holding her gentle and kind and soft in a way lucette is not allowed to dream of.)

fairytales speak of both truth and lies - princes upon white horses will always arrive to sweep their princesses off her feet, but not all princesses have a prince voyaging for their hand. it is those dainty and delightful that do, like emelaigne and her charming prince klaude. lucette is made of too many thorns to bloom into a rose, too many rules and laws to be accepted without hesitation. perfect princes are rare, and only to be paired with the most pure, most perfect of princesses; with a cheerful disposition, an innocent worldview and no blood on her silky smooth hands. lucette does not mourn for her loss, not when she has never wanted such a gain. but during nights, as she flips through the books her sister left her with, she finds herself tracing over the figures of men in shining armour and wonders if the same rules apply to knights, too.

still; knights are dirty and scuffed in tunics and dull metal, too scarred bodies that are meant to wither on a battlefield, with too naive thoughts and too bloodied hands, too alluring smiles and too bright a laughter, paired with gentle eyes and chapped lips and kinder words than she knows, she’s heard; that captures, enamours her to him, to a mere knight who will not lose to any prince; for he is no less endearing or kind or perfect - but lucette is a queen and cannot be galvaning with a born commoner. her father lost the respect of nobles for his flight of fancy, died for it; lucette will not. lucette will - (throughout the coronation, fritz stands beside, decorated in white gold and an ivory white uniform pressed to his form, a one shouldered cape’s strap diagonally bound across his chest that bears a multitude of colourful medals, hair pinned back on one side, showing off a scar that runs over his jaw. he is lightly dull and when he bends at an angle, head tilting and lip curving a secret crooked smile, her chest dips and does not rise for a long, long, long time. the new weight that rests upon her head reminds her to let the breath out.) not.

it takes another two years into being queen before the talk of marriage is tossed upon the table. it’s late, by lucette’s expectations. she’d have thought those ugly vultures would have said something six months after her crowning. a king from a nearby country laughs when he hears of her disdain during a ball, and lets her in on the terror and awe the new queen had inspired into countries since her rule. with time, things have only just become stable, he supposes, a too shrewd guess from a small kingdom’s king. if he and his brothers were not already taken lucette would gladly join hands with them. (“but i am sure that is not what you are concerned with.” the king smiles, knowing. lucette eyes the man said to be the calm before a storm, warned against even neutral as their country’s stance is, and he returns her look with a finger pressed over his lips, keeps his impassive smile. “may fortune favour the lovers.”)

it does not come as a surprise why he is the only one who expresses his support for her. not only is he one of the only royals to have figured out lucette’s little infatuation (“jack of all trades indeed” fritz had whistled nervously when lucette showed him the king’s letter.), in terms of wealth, political and military might, there is only one other country to rival angielle’s. it may be on another continent, but that is of little consequence to a power hungry king, eager to wage war. and lucette knows all too well the easy way nobles and aristocrats alike give up on their futures, so the lack of enthusiasm surrounding her love life other than to increase angielle’s might is something she’s always expected. but the sudden pain in her chest at the thought of marrying another, spending her future without fritz by her side, is not something she had ever expected. (she pulls fritz to her personal library one early evening, for reasons unknown to even herself. it is decided, the date, the venue, the person. letters are being written as she stands, plans being made, people informed and gossip being spread; her heart is thudding painfully and her eyes are sore and her hands shake - “my queen?” “i’m sorry.” it is the only thing she ever seems to say to him, apologies and more apologies, and she wishes she were smarter, prettier, purer, lovelier, more worthy - then fritz is cupping her face and kissing her, and all that fills lucette’s head is longing and love and fritz.)

this is not smart at all. they are in a library, and even with it being reserved to the queen herself and the door locked behind them it is not smart. but in the heat of the moment, hands clutching, roaming, tangling, nothing is clear to the duo but the breathless, flushed person before them. (“are you - are you sure? i can stop.” a silencing kiss, a soft, soft murmur of consent. and the next word he utters is her name, and the happiness she was supposed to have given up on wells up in her in waves, breaking out of her by the returning call of his name.)

everything comes to a promised end after the night. one last, dear memory, and by morning, lucette is in her office, signing the document dismissing fritz as her personal knight, post-wedding. it will be easier for them both. it will be kinder, she convinced herself, as she wept into his chest and he held her, lower lip trembling. (“i’m sorry.” it is not the first time fritz has apologised, but the sorrow that aches in his words is new and vulnerable. lucette shakes her head, burying her face deeper into his chest, his arms tightening around her waist. “thank you.” it is the first time lucette says the words properly, instead of conveying it through action and blushes, and it makes the happiness in her ache as much as the sorrow must in fritz.) lucette’s hands do not shake as she presses the royal seal over the melted wax. once more, she hears her mother’s pained words, and closes her eyes. once more, everything of a queen is taken from her, and she returns to no one.

adding onto her already packed days, wedding preparations only serves to leave lucette with no time for her own at all. the choosing of silks and satin, the decor of the ceremony, the fine details that must go into it, and the continuous correspondence with her soon-to-be allies - the list only goes on and on and on and lucette is glad, if only because she can take her mind off her knight that still fastidiously stays by her side; still there at daybreak outside her chambers, still there late into the night outside her office. the words they exchange are strictly managed, limited, by their incapability to let go and forget. it is sudden jerked back hands, forced down laughter and sealed away smiles. some days they forget, and lucette stills with a held back sigh as fritz brushes a wayward strand of hair away from her eyes, as fritz’s lips linger too long over the back of her hand, as fritz smiles. but they are quickly reminded, as fritz smooths her hair beneath lucette’s crown, as fritz lets go of her hand too swiftly, as fritz turns away. (the hurt grows and grows and grows until it roots itself in lucette and numbed pain wars in her body every second of every day, burning and screaming and killing her. lucette does not think even the death of either parent had hurt this much. she aches and aches for his word, his touch, his smile, to simply be by his side again. buries these feelings, these needs, deeper and deeper and deeper down until she cannot remember them; until she is asleep and wakes up with tear stains on her pillows, her cheeks. presses her palms to her lips, swallows down the screams for a man a queen cannot allow herself to long for, and agonises in the bitterly sweet name she cannot speak.)

it is a week before the wedding, six months since the night, when a pain strikes lucette’s chest. it is the last of the celebratory balls prior to her wedding, and with a hand twisted into her chest, lucette finds herself wracked with pain she’s forgotten in the midst of her heartache; dressed in complacency and a plain wired corset, lucette curses, loud and uncouth, angry and tired and drowning sadness. everything swims in her vision, blurring, hazing, and lucette cannot tell the difference between this night and the ones of the previous six months; tears are gathering in her eyes, her gut is twisting, her every bone is threatening to shatter and she slides down the side of her bed, the need to live warring with the screaming need to simply let everything come crashing down and end. she has betrayed her mother, her father, her kingdom, her love - lucette has given all of herself over and over and over and she suddenly understands her mother’s last words not as chains but as warning sirens; lucette feels the grooves of the hilt like the petals of aconite, and remembers death is her own to take. (but before she can truly make it so, someone is hauling her up, forcing her into a stagger into the lavatory; gloves clattering metal as they hit the rocks, fingers are forced down her throat - vomit spilling out and lucette is made to live another day. when she runs out of liquid to expel, there is a cold cloth gently wiping her mouth, a worried gaze staring down at her. lucette is the one to turn away, this time. “you should have left me.” she says, throat raw and scratched from the scorching bile, from crying senselessly for the man who she leans against. fritz holds her with his clean arm, presses those lips she’s longed for for days and nights now against her crown, murmurs, “never.” lucette bites down on her lip, tastes beautiful red and bites harder. “leave me.” pushes him with an arm, forcing distance between them. “leave me!” a scream that does not break under the weight of the words, a sob that doesn’t translate. the warmth leaves her, his reluctant footsteps fade, and the emptiness of death is all that remains; long tipped from balance, lucette bows down into her skirts that billow silk around her, muffled cries spilling out of her cold, cold lips dyed crimson.)

the days pass by in a giant mass, and lucette lets herself be pushed along with the changing days, performing her role as well as any queen should. returns to being lucette riella britton, a queen, a monarch, a beloved ruler worthy of the titles she’s earned and the country she governs; wills herself to forget about lucette, a queen, a monarch; a woman unworthy of the love a clumsy, imperfect man by every standard he is measured by blessed her with. (with her own hands, lucette kills the cherished, protected, beloved girl; kills her weakness, her happiness, her mother and father both had taught her she is not allowed to have in their own ways, in their own deaths.)

lucette sits by her window, the outfitting of the day done. maids’ dismissed early, servants ordered not to disturb her until dinner, lucette’s gaze flits over the dust that catches in the setting sun, gloved hand fingering the multiple strands of pearls that lace her neck (“so you never forget.” her fiance had written in the card of the gift, sadistic in his connotations behind the choker, the collar.), and thinks of her inherited kingdom, the inherited grudges. closes her eyes, and forces herself to breathe. to not think of what another would have gifted, would have said, would have laughed and blushed in the way she delights at the new treasure (a roadside store pendant, a cut flower, a fluttering kiss). breath hitching, suddenly unclasping the latch of the choker, tossing it onto the vanity with a loud clatter. the burst of frustration quickly gives way to deflated resignation, and lucette puts away the accessory in a drawer. it would not look good if she damaged a wedding gift on the eve of the ceremony itself.

reaches up to undo her hair, when there’s a sudden bang, then a crash, and frenzied yells mixed with the clanging of swords and armour meeting floors. lucette stares at her door, jumps as a masked man barges in, and sweeps her onto one arm, the other outstretched and wielding a familiar blade. lucette barely has time to speak, to think; the man moves faster than her thoughts can, than her trained knights do. the cries for help not leaving her, instead bubbling, incredulous laughter nearly does; as the queen clutches tighter onto her kidnapper whose hair blends seamlessly into her gown, pure white and silver. (he is made of soft and kind things that royalty are not allowed to dream of, lucette knows, but forgets that even the gentlest of creatures turn into beasts when what they protect is threatened, forgets that fritz’s hands are dyed with the same beautiful crimson that her mother and her had both tasted, forgets that fritz is aconite - elegant and deadly and the only one she has given her death to.)

“you are not happy.” fritz says plainly, when they reach the stables. he knows his queen like the back of his hand, that his poor disguise is nothing to her, that her calm command over the past months is nothing but a poor facade to him. still, duty bound, royalty, the crown heavy on her head, lucette cannot answer. is not allowed to. the horse whinnies, and fritz shushes it fondly, strokes it’s mane. the saddle upon it is adjusted for two. “lucette.” he says, with a lilt that bears no trace of anything, anything at all. “it’s your choice. i will not blame you for anything. i never have.” under the rising moon, his smile does not wane; sure and gentle and accepting and whole. and it dumbfounds lucette, how effortlessly he comes to her aid, frees her, loves her, and asks for nothing but her happiness in return. (it is the same as when she was fifteen, when she was seventeen, when she was nineteen, and now twenty-one. it is the same. it always has been.)

her life is not hers to live, but her heart is hers to give. (”take me away.” lucette says, a whisper so loud it is a command that makes fritz’s lips curl in a wolfish fashion, as light as lucette feels, even clad in jewels and gold.)

now, there is simply love, a smile that has always stayed, always yearned, and a girl who has lost her bite, perfectly imbalanced. knight to queen. (checkmate.)

yet in the end, queens are queens, as knights are knights. happily ever afters are not made for a royal whose smallest sigh can bring an end to another’s empire; in these stories, tales of a knight who absconded with his queen is not a fairy tale to be told.

in the end, people will tell tales of the day angielle’s queen returned with the body of her knight who met his tragic end saving her from a daring abductor, of the inauspicious day angielle’s queen both murdered and married. he tried to take their queen from them, the people will say, and so their queen took his life in return. people will tell tales of the courageous knight who gave his life to take back their queen, who died for his kingdom. people will mourn and cry for the country’s loss of a brilliant soldier, but not for long enough; but not as long as the queen. people will tell tales of angielle’s brave queen, who loses her knight and her husband months apart of each other, and still rules with the grace and authority of those before her - unlost to grief, to pain. a worthy queen, a blessed queen, a queen to guide and rule and lead even alone, people will say. truly, even with all the tragedies that surround, lucette riella britton was a woman who was born to bring angielle to heights no kings have witnessed, people will say, already forgetting their past cruelty to their young queen in the face of prosperity she brought.

people will continue to spin tales and stories, but only one will read the truth by candlelight in his chambers (he earns the right not by being king jack albrecht cygnea, but by being the only friend the lonely queen had, the only one who had offered his kingdom, his hand, not as a prize but as solace), the hand pressed aconite a testament to its truth. (the letter writes of lucette riella britton, a woman loved by fritzgerald aiden leverton’s, truth. she begins her tale by clearing up the mysteries that surround. the king who tried to own her who dies by her schemes. the identity of her kidnapper. the truth of her escapade. she tells of the second life that she ends with a knife pressed into her hands, the first life she ends willingly. she gives her life to him, he gives his death to her. it is only poetic, it is only right, it is the only solution a queen and a knight can find, in this society that will not allow them to be together. he had forgiven her for sinning by doing the same himself, so to this man who has loved her from the very beginning, to the very end, she gives all of herself that he takes; from queen to woman to wife. then, years later now, with her kingdom secure in the hands of her nephew, she forgoes her title with death given to her by her sweetly bitter aconite, reclaims the name ‘lucette’, and finally returns to him.)

#cinderella phenomenon #cinderella phenomenon visual novel #lucette riella britton #fritzgerald aiden leverton #slight mention of other charas #tw suicide #tw emetophobia #tw blood #tw murder #melon writes

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via Pamela Benavides,

easy ways to make money online with income replacement academy

youtu.be/G1fAPgDGglM www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLM6H7kTHehk4mF3dnSMQxwrlNa… 40 easy ways to make money quickly Owen Burek by Owen Burek in Make Money Updated 3 April 2020 Share Tweet Money bagOn this page you’ll find all the best ways to make money in your spare time whilst at university based on our own experience. We’ll keep adding new ways to this page so go ahead and bookmark it. And please do share your own ideas in the comments!

Top ways to make money online and offline No-risk matched betting free bets from matched betting

Hands down the quickest way to make a lot of money (well, without breaking the law). Lots of students have genuinely made £100s from this technique. It’s completely legal, risk free, tax free, and anyone over 18 in the UK can do it (Not in UK? Skip to no. 2).

It works by taking advantage of free bets regularly offered by betting sites through ‘matching’ them at a betting exchange. Matched betting eliminates the risk (you are betting both for and against a certain outcome).

This leaves you being able to squeeze out the free bet, which can be as much as £100. Multiply this by how many betting sites there are and you can quite easily come away with a profit of a few hundred pounds.

Owen walks you through how to make your first £13 profit (using a real life example) in this gem of a guide to matched betting. If you know of any better way to make £40/hr sitting at home, please let us know!

Online surveys paid surveys

An increasingly popular way for students to make money is to fill out online surveys in their spare time. Research companies are always recruiting new members worldwide to answer surveys and test new products.

For a few minutes of form filling, you can make a couple of quid which is paid as cash or rewards. You can bag up to £3 ($5) for some surveys!

A few good ones to try are: Toluna, LifePoints, Branded Surveys, InboxPounds, Onepoll, i-Say, Opinion Outpost, YouGov, Pinecone, SurveyBods, Hiving, Panel Base, Prolific, Valued Opinions, Panel Opinion, The Opinion Panel, Survey Junkie.

Also sign up for Swagbucks which rewards you for surveys as well as simply surfing the web, watching videos and playing games.

Update: See our new full guide to the best paid online surveys!

Paid for searching the web Interested in earning cash for doing what you already do online? This has to be one of the easiest methods of making money online without really any effort or change in your behaviour.

This innovative idea by Qmee.com rewards you for searching in Google, Bing, Yahoo, Amazon and eBay. You just install a simple add-on to your browser and when you conduct a search there may be a few sponsored results alongside your normal search.

qmee paid search

Each Qmee result has a cash reward attached – if you are interested in it simply click on it and collect your reward.

The best thing is there is no minimum to cashout – our first one was just 72p wired to our Paypal account. You also have the option to donate it to charity.

Sign up now for free and start earning from your own searches! Click here to start.

Online market trading Whilst this isn’t necessarily an easy way to make money, investing in stock markets can be lucrative if you learn to do it properly and safely. By the same token, you may suffer significant losses if you don’t take it seriously.

Today there is no need to fund the yachts of Wolf of Wall Street style stock brokers. You can do it all yourself with the help of online market trading platforms.

Having spent many hours researching this new opportunity, I’ve been experimenting with the popular platform eToro.com.

eToro has over 12 millions users worldwide and offers free practice accounts. It has been featured in the BBC 2 documentary “Traders: Millions by the Minute” and sponsors several Premier League football clubs.

etoro trading

One of the best things on eToro is the CopyTrader feature. This lets you literally see, follow and copy the investments of other top performing traders.

Follow George’s complete guide to trading on eToro to learn more. I think $200 is a good amount to get the most out of the learning curve by trying out a few different markets. If nothing else you’ll learn a great deal about various investments and industries.

Please be aware that all trading involves risk. eToro is a multi-asset platform which offers real asset ownership and high risk leveraged ‘CFD’ products. 75% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs with this provider. You should consider whether you can afford to take the high risk of losing your money. This content is not financial or investment advice.

Start your own website owen burek

Interested in generating passive income? You need a website. It’s THE way to make money while you sleep.

Starting a website with Bluehost takes less than 20 minutes, costs hardly anything and can be done by an 82 year-old. It only takes a bit of plugging on social media to get your first visitors, and there are plenty of ways to monetise your site.

Save the Student is just one example of a successful website, started at university by Owen Burek in his first year, which has since grown into a full-time and sizable enterprise.

Read Owen’s step-by-step guide on how to start a website in 20 minutes. It’s really one of the best assets you can have.

Review websites & apps for cash usertesting.com

Well it seems like you’re pretty nifty with a web browser, so perhaps it’s time to turn pro and browse websites as a paid and fun job!

Introducing UserTesting.com – a new platform that pays everyday people to review all kinds of websites. Each review takes around 20 minutes and bags you $10 (£6.50) via Paypal.

Simply sign up here, complete a test review and look forward to receiving websites in your inbox.

The ‘Disney Vault’ secret disney vault Credit: Walt Disney Pictures Inc.

To keep demand high across generations, Disney Studios carefully restrict the supply of some home release classics. They are locked away in the ‘vault’ for 8-10 years before being released for a short unspecified time.

Buy them in this window at normal retail price and you can turn a nice profit when they go off sale for another decade or so.

For example, in 2011 you could buy Beauty and the Beast on Blu-ray 3D for just £24.99. In just a couple of years it was on Amazon for a staggering £74.99!

Disney vault

Importantly, not all Disney releases are subject to the vault and only the true classics will maintain such demand.

Right now there are just 2 titles out of the vault which I would recommend snapping up. They are Bambi Diamond Edition Blu-ray and The Lion King Diamond Edition Blu-ray.

‘Get Paid To’ sites coins

Similar to making money from online surveys, GPT sites reward you in cash and vouchers for completing various offers or activities online.

The most popular sites today are Toluna, Swagbucks and InboxPounds.

New! Join our ‘make money’ mailing list for the best opportunities every month. First name Email address

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Become a delivery rider or driver Make money as a delivery driver

Got a bicycle, motorbike or car? What about a Smartphone? That’s all you need to make some extra money by delivering food or people whenever you’ve got some spare time.

Sign up to delivery specialist companies like Deliveroo who are always on the hunt for new riders. They allow you total flexibility to work when you want, delivering food from restaurants to the customers’ door. You can make up to £16 an hour.

Double-up your opportunities by directly contacting local takeaways and bigger chains like Dominos to see if they have any delivery jobs going.

Write and publish a Kindle eBook If students are good at anything, it’s researching and writing. With the Amazon Kindle store, anyone can publish an eBook and make money.

And the Kindle app is now available on almost any device (laptops, iPads, smartphones and yes, Kindles) so your global market is huge!

List your book for £1.49 – £6.99 and you earn 70% of the sale. Considering Amazon is the ultimate selling machine (and remember people are looking to spend), that is a fantastic deal.

kindle ebooks

The key to success with eBooks is to create value, and write non-fiction. Simply bundling information you have researched and compiled on a common problem (eg. ‘secrets’ to finding a job) and then presenting it in an easy to digest format (an eBook) justifies someone spending a few quid on it.

Another big tip is to have a great cover designed (browse these) so it stands out, and once your book is live on the Kindle store it’s really important to get some reviews so it shows up higher in results. Encourage readers to leave an honest review at the end of your book.

The best thing about this lucrative idea is that once you’ve invested the time (say 20 hours), you’ll earn a passive income for years to come! For a step-by-step guide to publishing and earning with eBooks, see “How to write a nonfiction eBook in 21 days”.

Affiliate marketing awin affiliateIf you’ve got a good presence on social media or perhaps you even have a blog or website, you can start bringing in money immediately by promoting all sorts of companies, products, services and offers online.

Sign up as a publisher on the Awin network, check their offers blog or browse the merchant listings to find something you think your friends would be interested in, grab your affiliate link and share it. If someone buys (can be within up to 90 days) using your link you’ll make a nice commission.

To take it a step further, set up a website (read our guide) or a topical Facebook page and invite all your friends to join it and post your affiliate offers on there.

Mobile phone recycling mobile recycle

You can earn good money and help the environment by recycling your old mobile phones and other unused devices. Maybe ask your parents if they have any lying around too.

Head to our page on making money from old phones for the best companies to use and how to ensure you get all the cash quoted to you online.

Become a ‘Clickworker’ The Clickworker.com concept is based on ‘internet crowd-sourcing’ where businesses advertise specific, scalable tasks they need completing quickly. And for us, it’s an easy way to make fast cash from our couch.

clickworker

There are a variety of tasks, but most commonly they involve mindless data entry, web research or form filling. You are rewarded and paid in cash (via Paypal) for the work you do, and you can choose for what and when you work. Give it a go. [If you’re US based, also try Amazon’s ‘Mechanical Turk’].

Claim tax back Many students work part-time or during the summer months, and others will be on placements or paid internships. More often than not, if you are a student working during the year, you will be overpaying income tax.

Why? Simply because few students reach the personal tax-free income allowance each year but are put on an emergency basic tax-code by their employers meaning tax is being paid when it shouldn’t be.

Click to use the Tax refund calculator

To learn more and calculate how much tax back you might be due, see our guide on student tax refunds.

Get cashback when shopping Our Quidco Cashback I earned this much in 2 years

This is not only a way to make money but also to save money as a student. If you look at it in a different way then you are making money with every purchase you would have made anyway, whether it be 10% or 0.5% cashback.

There are a number of cashback sites out there which pay you the commission they otherwise would have earned.

We recommend signing up with Top Cashback, Quidco.com and Swagbucks which are free and offer the best selection of retailers and exclusives.

Part-time job bar jobs

A part-time job is the obvious first choice, opted for by most students looking to supplement their student loan. It provides a pretty steady flow of income and can enable you to gain valuable work experience.

But good jobs are not always easy to find!

Start with our student job search, then check local classifieds and your university careers service for vacancies.

It’s also worth signing up with CV Library, a free service which will match your CV with suitable part-time jobs and career opportunities.

Read our guide to finding a part-time job whilst studying for more tips.

Gigs on Fiverr Fiverr pranks

Fiverr is now the world’s largest marketplace for people to make money selling small services (known as ‘gigs’).

What you offer could be absolutely anything, from writing and translating, social media posting, playing pranks and teaching to creating music, voiceovers and short video clips for people all around the world!

The default price is $5 (hence Fiverr..), but you can attach extra services to gigs for more money. Whilst it might not seem like much, it can quickly add up and there are plenty of examples of people making a really good living from the site. The key is to get a system in place which minimises the time spent on each gig.

But there is another way to profit even more from Fiverr for potentially far less work. How? By simply reselling gigs elsewhere. For example, find a decent logo designer then reply to jobs on Upwork or even local classifieds. A $5 spend can easily become $50+, and it’s repeatable!

If you’re not interested in selling at all there’s SO much good stuff you can get done for yourself. Have a browse and get inspired!

Review music for money If you love music, make it your business by reviewing unsigned bands and artists online for cash with Slicethepie.

It can take a while to build up your reputation but some users of the site have said that they earn £40 a month. This may not sound like much, but if it’s something you enjoy then it shouldn’t be hard work and is another thing for your CV. Money you earn will be in $US but anyone can sign up and review.

slicethepie

To get started, head over to Slicethepie now or read our quick guide for more info.

Sell your notes If you don’t mind sharing your notes with other students it’s a great way to generate a little extra cash. There are sites out there that you can upload your notes to, along with your price, and then when another student downloads them you get paid.

Most of these sites like Nexus Notes and Stuvia are free for you to list your notes but tend to take a cut of your profit in order to handle the marketing etc so that you don’t have to go out there and promote your notes yourself.

You will most likely have to upload PDFs but it’s worth it for the return and you can submit handwritten notes but you’re likely to make more money if they’re typed up.

Sell second-hand course books One great way to make money is to buy other students’ textbooks at the end of the year, and then sell them just after freshers’ week – when the new intake of students know that they need them!

You can either advertise on campus or list them online very easily on Amazon Marketplace (just bear in mind they take a commission on books sold).

Here are 28 other things you can sell right now!

Competitions Entering competitions of course comes with no guarantees, but there is a growing community of so-called ‘compers’ in the UK consistently making up to £50,000 a year through all sorts of competitions.

Types of competitions available to enter vary from simple registration forms and Facebook page liking to answering questions correctly over the phone to being a TV game show contestant. Imagine you made it onto Deal or No Deal instead of just watching it!

Start by entering our very own monthly student competition (Follow our Instagram page to see when our next one is)!

competitions

Then head to our active competitions page to enter other free competitions that we have found. Just note that some of these sites may send you spam so use an alias email address and opt-out of as many of the offers as possible.

For loads more tips on achieving success and making money from competitions, read our guide to entering competitions.

Buy and sell domain names domain-for-sale

A domain name is just a website address (eg. ‘savethestudent.org’ or ‘mysite.co.uk’) and there are lots of extensions (.com, .net, .co.uk etc).

They cost as little as $0.99 to register with GoDaddy.com yet premium domain names can fetch $1,000s if not millions when sold on. In 2007 VacationRentals.com went for a cool $35m!

Now you’re probably not going to come across anything like that, but you can still turn a quick profit with a bit of searching. The trick is to find available domain names which have some commercial value, snap them up and then list them for sale on a site like Sedo.com.

Mystery shopping be a mystery shopperToday becoming a mystery shopper is easier than you think and you can get rewarded handsomely.

There are dozens of agencies that pay you to visit all sorts of shops and restaurants to feedback on how they are performing. We’ve reviewed the best agencies in our guide how to become a mystery shopper.

Tasking apps are another form of mystery shopping, where you earn rewards for completing small local tasks. It can be a lot of fun too!

Be an Extra Do you fancy yourself as a budding young actor or just that person that walks past in the background shot of an episode of Eastenders? It could be you if you apply to be an extra in TV or film.

The pay isn’t bad either: £60-80 a day on average, and you hardly have to do anything!

There are lots of casting agencies that place willing extras. They make their money by taking a cut from your earnings, so always ask what that is before you take on work.

Head over to our how to become an extra guide for 5 of the better agencies, plus lots more advice on getting your first gig.

Sell all your old CDs, games and movies If you are looking to make a very quick buck, then selling your old bits and bobs that are cluttering up your room is a good idea.

The best thing about it is that you can rip all the songs and films onto your laptop or external hard drive before selling them. This means that you are only really selling the plastic and artwork!

You can earn anything from 10p to £20 per item, and the earnings can really add up if you have a large collection. Whilst you’re at it, see if your parents have any ‘clutter’ they’d be happy to see the back of.

You can also sell almost anything for free on Amazon Marketplace or Preloved and sites like MusicMagpie will pay you instantly for sending in unwanted items.

For more tips and places to sell check out our guide on selling DVDs, CDs and games.

Sell on your education! graduate_studentBecoming a tutor to other students is easier than ever. Until recently your market was limited to local face-to-face sessions, but thanks to online tutoring sites you can go global!

Udemy allows anyone to create an online course (on literally anything!) and get paid forever after as users take it up.

For one-to-one tutoring, list yourself on Superprof and UK Tutors.

You can expect to earn upwards of £10 an hour, and you don’t have to be highly qualified to tutor younger GCSE or even A Level students. Get started with our guide to making money as a private tutor.

Sell your photos If you think you’ve got a good shot and a little creativity, try uploading your photographs for free to stock websites. A good starting point is Adobe Stock or Getty Images.

Make more money selling photo subjects that have fewer search results but you feel would have some demand. It might be a good idea to test them out in print first yourself (get free photo prints here).

Rent out your car parking space car parking spaceSome student accommodation comes with a drive or garage. If you aren’t using your parking space and you live in a busy area then you might be in luck. There are plenty of people that may work in the city centre and are fed up of paying through the roof for daily parking.

Advertise your space on Gumtree, Parklet or Just Park.

Or, check out our full guide to renting out your parking space.

Babysitting It’s a classic money-maker, and for good reason. You get paid (well) to watch TV and not very much else – hopefully!

If you are wondering what to charge have a look at local ads, but you can expect to be paid over £9ph even if you aren’t trained in childcare.

Aside from advertising yourself, it’s free to create a profile on Care Babysitting. It really can be easy money (unless you get stuck with the child from hell!).

Our guide to babysitting walks you through the main considerations. For instance, in the UK you will need a DBS (Disclosure and Barring Service) check to look after small children, even though some parents may not ask for one.

Dog walking & sitting If babies ain’t your thing, then maybe canines are… dog sitting is big business. Students especially are likely to have free time during the day when others are out at work and worried about their pets at home.

You could bag around £8 an hour per dog, and it’s also a great way to keep fit.

Join Care Pet Care who are best for dog sitting and also Tailster who specialise in dog walkers.

Become your own bank be your own bank

‘Peer-to-peer’ lending is the future of banking. It cuts out the middle-man, passing on higher interest rates to you and cheaper loans to borrowers. And it’s all managed online from the comfort of your sofa.

Founded in 2010, RateSetter was the first to reimburse lenders on late payments or defaults through its ‘Provision Fund’. Effectively it is designed to be like a normal savings account. To date RateSetter say no investors have ever lost money, and they are fully FCA regulated.

Right now you can expect to achieve up to 4% fixed return, depending on how long you choose to lend for. If you can, go for the ISA account to earn interest tax-free.

Update: for a limited time also get this £20 bonus when you deposit just £10.

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via Easy Ways To Make money Online,

easy ways to make money online with income replacement academy

youtu.be/G1fAPgDGglM www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLM6H7kTHehk4mF3dnSMQxwrlNa… 40 easy ways to make money quickly Owen Burek by Owen Burek in Make Money Updated 3 April 2020 Share Tweet Money bagOn this page you’ll find all the best ways to make money in your spare time whilst at university based on our own experience. We’ll keep adding new ways to this page so go ahead and bookmark it. And please do share your own ideas in the comments!

Top ways to make money online and offline No-risk matched betting free bets from matched betting

Hands down the quickest way to make a lot of money (well, without breaking the law). Lots of students have genuinely made £100s from this technique. It’s completely legal, risk free, tax free, and anyone over 18 in the UK can do it (Not in UK? Skip to no. 2).

It works by taking advantage of free bets regularly offered by betting sites through ‘matching’ them at a betting exchange. Matched betting eliminates the risk (you are betting both for and against a certain outcome).

This leaves you being able to squeeze out the free bet, which can be as much as £100. Multiply this by how many betting sites there are and you can quite easily come away with a profit of a few hundred pounds.

Owen walks you through how to make your first £13 profit (using a real life example) in this gem of a guide to matched betting. If you know of any better way to make £40/hr sitting at home, please let us know!

Online surveys paid surveys

An increasingly popular way for students to make money is to fill out online surveys in their spare time. Research companies are always recruiting new members worldwide to answer surveys and test new products.

For a few minutes of form filling, you can make a couple of quid which is paid as cash or rewards. You can bag up to £3 ($5) for some surveys!

A few good ones to try are: Toluna, LifePoints, Branded Surveys, InboxPounds, Onepoll, i-Say, Opinion Outpost, YouGov, Pinecone, SurveyBods, Hiving, Panel Base, Prolific, Valued Opinions, Panel Opinion, The Opinion Panel, Survey Junkie.

Also sign up for Swagbucks which rewards you for surveys as well as simply surfing the web, watching videos and playing games.

Update: See our new full guide to the best paid online surveys!

Paid for searching the web Interested in earning cash for doing what you already do online? This has to be one of the easiest methods of making money online without really any effort or change in your behaviour.

This innovative idea by Qmee.com rewards you for searching in Google, Bing, Yahoo, Amazon and eBay. You just install a simple add-on to your browser and when you conduct a search there may be a few sponsored results alongside your normal search.

qmee paid search

Each Qmee result has a cash reward attached – if you are interested in it simply click on it and collect your reward.

The best thing is there is no minimum to cashout – our first one was just 72p wired to our Paypal account. You also have the option to donate it to charity.

Sign up now for free and start earning from your own searches! Click here to start.

Online market trading Whilst this isn’t necessarily an easy way to make money, investing in stock markets can be lucrative if you learn to do it properly and safely. By the same token, you may suffer significant losses if you don’t take it seriously.

Today there is no need to fund the yachts of Wolf of Wall Street style stock brokers. You can do it all yourself with the help of online market trading platforms.

Having spent many hours researching this new opportunity, I’ve been experimenting with the popular platform eToro.com.

eToro has over 12 millions users worldwide and offers free practice accounts. It has been featured in the BBC 2 documentary “Traders: Millions by the Minute” and sponsors several Premier League football clubs.

etoro trading

One of the best things on eToro is the CopyTrader feature. This lets you literally see, follow and copy the investments of other top performing traders.

Follow George’s complete guide to trading on eToro to learn more. I think $200 is a good amount to get the most out of the learning curve by trying out a few different markets. If nothing else you’ll learn a great deal about various investments and industries.

Please be aware that all trading involves risk. eToro is a multi-asset platform which offers real asset ownership and high risk leveraged ‘CFD’ products. 75% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs with this provider. You should consider whether you can afford to take the high risk of losing your money. This content is not financial or investment advice.

Start your own website owen burek

Interested in generating passive income? You need a website. It’s THE way to make money while you sleep.

Starting a website with Bluehost takes less than 20 minutes, costs hardly anything and can be done by an 82 year-old. It only takes a bit of plugging on social media to get your first visitors, and there are plenty of ways to monetise your site.

Save the Student is just one example of a successful website, started at university by Owen Burek in his first year, which has since grown into a full-time and sizable enterprise.

Read Owen’s step-by-step guide on how to start a website in 20 minutes. It’s really one of the best assets you can have.

Review websites & apps for cash usertesting.com

Well it seems like you’re pretty nifty with a web browser, so perhaps it’s time to turn pro and browse websites as a paid and fun job!

Introducing UserTesting.com – a new platform that pays everyday people to review all kinds of websites. Each review takes around 20 minutes and bags you $10 (£6.50) via Paypal.

Simply sign up here, complete a test review and look forward to receiving websites in your inbox.

The ‘Disney Vault’ secret disney vault Credit: Walt Disney Pictures Inc.

To keep demand high across generations, Disney Studios carefully restrict the supply of some home release classics. They are locked away in the ‘vault’ for 8-10 years before being released for a short unspecified time.

Buy them in this window at normal retail price and you can turn a nice profit when they go off sale for another decade or so.

For example, in 2011 you could buy Beauty and the Beast on Blu-ray 3D for just £24.99. In just a couple of years it was on Amazon for a staggering £74.99!

Disney vault

Importantly, not all Disney releases are subject to the vault and only the true classics will maintain such demand.

Right now there are just 2 titles out of the vault which I would recommend snapping up. They are Bambi Diamond Edition Blu-ray and The Lion King Diamond Edition Blu-ray.

‘Get Paid To’ sites coins

Similar to making money from online surveys, GPT sites reward you in cash and vouchers for completing various offers or activities online.

The most popular sites today are Toluna, Swagbucks and InboxPounds.

New! Join our ‘make money’ mailing list for the best opportunities every month. First name Email address

Privacy policy

Become a delivery rider or driver Make money as a delivery driver

Got a bicycle, motorbike or car? What about a Smartphone? That’s all you need to make some extra money by delivering food or people whenever you’ve got some spare time.

Sign up to delivery specialist companies like Deliveroo who are always on the hunt for new riders. They allow you total flexibility to work when you want, delivering food from restaurants to the customers’ door. You can make up to £16 an hour.

Double-up your opportunities by directly contacting local takeaways and bigger chains like Dominos to see if they have any delivery jobs going.

Write and publish a Kindle eBook If students are good at anything, it’s researching and writing. With the Amazon Kindle store, anyone can publish an eBook and make money.

And the Kindle app is now available on almost any device (laptops, iPads, smartphones and yes, Kindles) so your global market is huge!

List your book for £1.49 – £6.99 and you earn 70% of the sale. Considering Amazon is the ultimate selling machine (and remember people are looking to spend), that is a fantastic deal.

kindle ebooks

The key to success with eBooks is to create value, and write non-fiction. Simply bundling information you have researched and compiled on a common problem (eg. ‘secrets’ to finding a job) and then presenting it in an easy to digest format (an eBook) justifies someone spending a few quid on it.

Another big tip is to have a great cover designed (browse these) so it stands out, and once your book is live on the Kindle store it’s really important to get some reviews so it shows up higher in results. Encourage readers to leave an honest review at the end of your book.

The best thing about this lucrative idea is that once you’ve invested the time (say 20 hours), you’ll earn a passive income for years to come! For a step-by-step guide to publishing and earning with eBooks, see “How to write a nonfiction eBook in 21 days”.

Affiliate marketing awin affiliateIf you’ve got a good presence on social media or perhaps you even have a blog or website, you can start bringing in money immediately by promoting all sorts of companies, products, services and offers online.

Sign up as a publisher on the Awin network, check their offers blog or browse the merchant listings to find something you think your friends would be interested in, grab your affiliate link and share it. If someone buys (can be within up to 90 days) using your link you’ll make a nice commission.

To take it a step further, set up a website (read our guide) or a topical Facebook page and invite all your friends to join it and post your affiliate offers on there.

Mobile phone recycling mobile recycle

You can earn good money and help the environment by recycling your old mobile phones and other unused devices. Maybe ask your parents if they have any lying around too.

Head to our page on making money from old phones for the best companies to use and how to ensure you get all the cash quoted to you online.

Become a ‘Clickworker’ The Clickworker.com concept is based on ‘internet crowd-sourcing’ where businesses advertise specific, scalable tasks they need completing quickly. And for us, it’s an easy way to make fast cash from our couch.

clickworker

There are a variety of tasks, but most commonly they involve mindless data entry, web research or form filling. You are rewarded and paid in cash (via Paypal) for the work you do, and you can choose for what and when you work. Give it a go. [If you’re US based, also try Amazon’s ‘Mechanical Turk’].

Claim tax back Many students work part-time or during the summer months, and others will be on placements or paid internships. More often than not, if you are a student working during the year, you will be overpaying income tax.

Why? Simply because few students reach the personal tax-free income allowance each year but are put on an emergency basic tax-code by their employers meaning tax is being paid when it shouldn’t be.

Click to use the Tax refund calculator

To learn more and calculate how much tax back you might be due, see our guide on student tax refunds.

Get cashback when shopping Our Quidco Cashback I earned this much in 2 years

This is not only a way to make money but also to save money as a student. If you look at it in a different way then you are making money with every purchase you would have made anyway, whether it be 10% or 0.5% cashback.

There are a number of cashback sites out there which pay you the commission they otherwise would have earned.

We recommend signing up with Top Cashback, Quidco.com and Swagbucks which are free and offer the best selection of retailers and exclusives.

Part-time job bar jobs

A part-time job is the obvious first choice, opted for by most students looking to supplement their student loan. It provides a pretty steady flow of income and can enable you to gain valuable work experience.

But good jobs are not always easy to find!

Start with our student job search, then check local classifieds and your university careers service for vacancies.

It’s also worth signing up with CV Library, a free service which will match your CV with suitable part-time jobs and career opportunities.

Read our guide to finding a part-time job whilst studying for more tips.

Gigs on Fiverr Fiverr pranks

Fiverr is now the world’s largest marketplace for people to make money selling small services (known as ‘gigs’).

What you offer could be absolutely anything, from writing and translating, social media posting, playing pranks and teaching to creating music, voiceovers and short video clips for people all around the world!

The default price is $5 (hence Fiverr..), but you can attach extra services to gigs for more money. Whilst it might not seem like much, it can quickly add up and there are plenty of examples of people making a really good living from the site. The key is to get a system in place which minimises the time spent on each gig.

But there is another way to profit even more from Fiverr for potentially far less work. How? By simply reselling gigs elsewhere. For example, find a decent logo designer then reply to jobs on Upwork or even local classifieds. A $5 spend can easily become $50+, and it’s repeatable!

If you’re not interested in selling at all there’s SO much good stuff you can get done for yourself. Have a browse and get inspired!

Review music for money If you love music, make it your business by reviewing unsigned bands and artists online for cash with Slicethepie.

It can take a while to build up your reputation but some users of the site have said that they earn £40 a month. This may not sound like much, but if it’s something you enjoy then it shouldn’t be hard work and is another thing for your CV. Money you earn will be in $US but anyone can sign up and review.

slicethepie

To get started, head over to Slicethepie now or read our quick guide for more info.

Sell your notes If you don’t mind sharing your notes with other students it’s a great way to generate a little extra cash. There are sites out there that you can upload your notes to, along with your price, and then when another student downloads them you get paid.

Most of these sites like Nexus Notes and Stuvia are free for you to list your notes but tend to take a cut of your profit in order to handle the marketing etc so that you don’t have to go out there and promote your notes yourself.

You will most likely have to upload PDFs but it’s worth it for the return and you can submit handwritten notes but you’re likely to make more money if they’re typed up.

Sell second-hand course books One great way to make money is to buy other students’ textbooks at the end of the year, and then sell them just after freshers’ week – when the new intake of students know that they need them!

You can either advertise on campus or list them online very easily on Amazon Marketplace (just bear in mind they take a commission on books sold).

Here are 28 other things you can sell right now!

Competitions Entering competitions of course comes with no guarantees, but there is a growing community of so-called ‘compers’ in the UK consistently making up to £50,000 a year through all sorts of competitions.

Types of competitions available to enter vary from simple registration forms and Facebook page liking to answering questions correctly over the phone to being a TV game show contestant. Imagine you made it onto Deal or No Deal instead of just watching it!

Start by entering our very own monthly student competition (Follow our Instagram page to see when our next one is)!

competitions

Then head to our active competitions page to enter other free competitions that we have found. Just note that some of these sites may send you spam so use an alias email address and opt-out of as many of the offers as possible.

For loads more tips on achieving success and making money from competitions, read our guide to entering competitions.

Buy and sell domain names domain-for-sale

A domain name is just a website address (eg. ‘savethestudent.org’ or ‘mysite.co.uk’) and there are lots of extensions (.com, .net, .co.uk etc).

They cost as little as $0.99 to register with GoDaddy.com yet premium domain names can fetch $1,000s if not millions when sold on. In 2007 VacationRentals.com went for a cool $35m!

Now you’re probably not going to come across anything like that, but you can still turn a quick profit with a bit of searching. The trick is to find available domain names which have some commercial value, snap them up and then list them for sale on a site like Sedo.com.

Mystery shopping be a mystery shopperToday becoming a mystery shopper is easier than you think and you can get rewarded handsomely.

There are dozens of agencies that pay you to visit all sorts of shops and restaurants to feedback on how they are performing. We’ve reviewed the best agencies in our guide how to become a mystery shopper.

Tasking apps are another form of mystery shopping, where you earn rewards for completing small local tasks. It can be a lot of fun too!

Be an Extra Do you fancy yourself as a budding young actor or just that person that walks past in the background shot of an episode of Eastenders? It could be you if you apply to be an extra in TV or film.

The pay isn’t bad either: £60-80 a day on average, and you hardly have to do anything!

There are lots of casting agencies that place willing extras. They make their money by taking a cut from your earnings, so always ask what that is before you take on work.

Head over to our how to become an extra guide for 5 of the better agencies, plus lots more advice on getting your first gig.

Sell all your old CDs, games and movies If you are looking to make a very quick buck, then selling your old bits and bobs that are cluttering up your room is a good idea.

The best thing about it is that you can rip all the songs and films onto your laptop or external hard drive before selling them. This means that you are only really selling the plastic and artwork!

You can earn anything from 10p to £20 per item, and the earnings can really add up if you have a large collection. Whilst you’re at it, see if your parents have any ‘clutter’ they’d be happy to see the back of.

You can also sell almost anything for free on Amazon Marketplace or Preloved and sites like MusicMagpie will pay you instantly for sending in unwanted items.

For more tips and places to sell check out our guide on selling DVDs, CDs and games.

Sell on your education! graduate_studentBecoming a tutor to other students is easier than ever. Until recently your market was limited to local face-to-face sessions, but thanks to online tutoring sites you can go global!

Udemy allows anyone to create an online course (on literally anything!) and get paid forever after as users take it up.

For one-to-one tutoring, list yourself on Superprof and UK Tutors.

You can expect to earn upwards of £10 an hour, and you don’t have to be highly qualified to tutor younger GCSE or even A Level students. Get started with our guide to making money as a private tutor.

Sell your photos If you think you’ve got a good shot and a little creativity, try uploading your photographs for free to stock websites. A good starting point is Adobe Stock or Getty Images.

Make more money selling photo subjects that have fewer search results but you feel would have some demand. It might be a good idea to test them out in print first yourself (get free photo prints here).

Rent out your car parking space car parking spaceSome student accommodation comes with a drive or garage. If you aren’t using your parking space and you live in a busy area then you might be in luck. There are plenty of people that may work in the city centre and are fed up of paying through the roof for daily parking.

Advertise your space on Gumtree, Parklet or Just Park.

Or, check out our full guide to renting out your parking space.

Babysitting It’s a classic money-maker, and for good reason. You get paid (well) to watch TV and not very much else – hopefully!

If you are wondering what to charge have a look at local ads, but you can expect to be paid over £9ph even if you aren’t trained in childcare.

Aside from advertising yourself, it’s free to create a profile on Care Babysitting. It really can be easy money (unless you get stuck with the child from hell!).

Our guide to babysitting walks you through the main considerations. For instance, in the UK you will need a DBS (Disclosure and Barring Service) check to look after small children, even though some parents may not ask for one.

Dog walking & sitting If babies ain’t your thing, then maybe canines are… dog sitting is big business. Students especially are likely to have free time during the day when others are out at work and worried about their pets at home.

You could bag around £8 an hour per dog, and it’s also a great way to keep fit.

Join Care Pet Care who are best for dog sitting and also Tailster who specialise in dog walkers.

Become your own bank be your own bank

‘Peer-to-peer’ lending is the future of banking. It cuts out the middle-man, passing on higher interest rates to you and cheaper loans to borrowers. And it’s all managed online from the comfort of your sofa.

Founded in 2010, RateSetter was the first to reimburse lenders on late payments or defaults through its ‘Provision Fund’. Effectively it is designed to be like a normal savings account. To date RateSetter say no investors have ever lost money, and they are fully FCA regulated.

Right now you can expect to achieve up to 4% fixed return, depending on how long you choose to lend for. If you can, go for the ISA account to earn interest tax-free.

Update: for a limited time also get this £20 bonus when you deposit just £10.

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#Easy Ways To Make money Online

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How To Start A Successful Blog In 2020 And Make Money

Cooldown dear, I know what brings you here. Feel relaxed, ok. You’re here in Mini Billionaire. There’s a fire in your belly that you want to know how to start a successful blog. I love that. I feel it too. I want to help you burn even brighter, beautiful. I want to help you build the blog you have craving for, that blog that you have been dreaming of. I will take you through some series of stages, just bring a cup of coffee and enjoy this article while sipping your coffee.

Step 1: Select A Niche

Before going into blogging, you need to first find what you are good at in order to know which niche is best for you, and also how to make it profitable, also know who are your ideal readers. In a nutshell, a niche is a topic that you write about always, or even exclusively, in your blog. Niche blogging is creating a blog on a particular market or indirectly advertising that market. They are easy to monetize by using affiliate links and adverts etc and thus become profitable. If you want to choose a niche, choose the right niche, the one you are passionate and interested about, so even when you are writing you can bring something out of it and also help with your view regarding the niche in order to stand out of competition.

Step 2: Choose A Blogging Platform

There a lot of blogging platforms out there which include free and self-hosted platforms (self-hosted is recommended). The free blogging includes: Wordpress.comBloggerTumblrWix The availability of these free blogging platforms is tempting, hence by blogging on them, you don’t have control over your blog entirely. They will be putting some rules and restrictions on the blog. You cannot monetize your blog or at some point you need to upgrade to get certain restrictions removed on your account. So, if you’re serious about blogging, please don’t start with free blogging platforms. Self-hosted platforms on the other hand allow the use of your own crafted domain name aside from following your domain registrar hosting company’s rules and regulations, you are going to have full control of your blog and its contents. The choice of Content Management System (CMS) is yours when it comes to management of the blog entirely. Its named self-hosted because you are going to use your hosting space and domain name. Do you want to start your blog NOW? If YES, being a new Blogger you should try using Bluehost, a company powering over 2 million websites globally. I was able to get a special discount for my visitors which include not limited to: Free Domain Name30-Day Money Back GuaranteeDiscounted Price of $2.75 per month Click Here to Start (Get 65% Exclusive Bluehost Discount)

Step 3: Pick A Domain Name

When you were born, a name was given to you by your parent. So, as a new blogger, you will be a father or a mother to your blog, so finding a suitable name for your blog is your responsibility because it will serve as your unique address on the internet. Your domain name will continue to be yours for as long as you are paying your annual fee of $8 to $15 for a (.com) domain. After giving your blog a name, users can easily access you through the name of the domain or some can easily find you through search engines like google and bing. And advice is to go for a (.com) domain, because people are familiar with (.com) domains worldwide but some other extension can work as well, for example (.co), (.org) or (.net). Recommended Tool for Domain Name Search:

Step 4: Get A Hosting Account

Choosing a reliable hosting account is the key to a successful blog. Come to think of it, if I give someone my home address and whenever he comes he will not find me there, what will he think of me? I know what you’re thinking, a liar, right? The same applies to a blog, choosing a reliable hosting account that keeps your account active 24/7 to your potential readers without any downtime is a key because a hosting account is a place where your files are stored online. Choosing a bad hosting account can cause a lot of problems to your blog because whenever your visitor visited you, he might find you at some point and otherwise at other points. So, choosing a good and reliable hosting account is a major piece of the puzzle to creating a successful blog.

Step 5: Starting A Blog on Wordpress

In this step, I will take you along the procedures on how to create a hosting account with the domain name and also set up your WordPress blog. I will help and take you along with some screenshots on how to make a blog with Bluehost, just take your time and go through it. https://youtu.be/tVxHyQhJy9Y Visit Bluehost.com Firstly, open your browser and type “bluehost.com” or follow this link and click “Get Started Now”.

Select Your Hosting Plan After clicking the “Get Started Now” button, it will take you to a page that you can choose your hosting plan base on your requirements. You can choose the “Basic” option is you’re just starting, but the “Plus” option is the recommended one. As your blog is growing, you can move to the next option.

Set your Domain Name Giving your blog a good name has a positive impact on it, so take your time to brainstorm and come up with a nice name, something awesome and new. Then input the name in the “new domain” box and Bluehost will tell you whether it’s been taken or not (i.e. its availability). And if it is not available, Bluehost will provide you with the list of similar names to select from.

Register for Bluehost After selecting your domain name, Bluehost will then take you to the next page which is the registration page where you will fill out your personal and billing info which will take you a couple of minutes.

Select your hosting option In here, you have to pay more attention to your hosting options. You can see that from the dropdown menu, the 12-month package has the lowest price, the other options are awesome and great when it comes to long term investment.

Note: You can uncheck those additional boxes, because they can only add some charges to your final payment. Launch your Blog with Bluehost Congratulations, we are almost done! Once you have your domain and your web hosting connected together, then its wordpress setup time. Go to your Bluehost cPanel account, find “My Sites” section, and click on “Install Wordpress”. That is the easy one-click setup rendered by Bluehost. After which it will ask for your email address, which it will send a completion message with link to your backend login and how to set your password.

Now, if you go to your site’s URL, you will a “Coming Soon” page, because the site is not live yet.

Step 6: Find the Right and Beautiful Theme

First impression matters, that’s why the need for beautiful and elegant wordpress theme is of utmost priority. You want if a person visits your blog today, to stay longer and also come back tomorrow and be a regular reader of your blog. You also want your visitors to easily navigate through your site and find the information they are looking for.  So, finding the right theme is important. You can find a lot of themes in Envato Market, but the key things you will be looking at when choosing the right theme are as follows: Read the descriptionCheck for ResponsivenessCheck the RatingsPreview the Theme Once you find the theme you’re looking for, you can easily navigate to your backend and install it. Don’t forget to populate the site with your content as what you bought was just a skeletal theme with no content on it.

Step 7: Write Content and Promote your Blog

After you successfully set up your domain name and web hosting, and also set up your theme, then your system is complete and the world await to start hearing your message. Truth be told, you must learn how to write blog content, as your readers are there to read and gain something new from it, because readers are there to find something to interact with and come back to get more. Here are the 3P’s that make a great content, so follow them: Point: In here, you state your main idea you’re covering (i.e. point).Prove: In here, you give an example of the idea you’re covering (i.e. prove).Perform: In here, you give a simple way to execute the idea (i.e. perform). If you want to promote your content on the internet, follow the following guides: Let your friends know about your blog.Submit your blog to search enginesSubmit your blog to bookmarking sitesBe active in your nicheBe active on social mediaComment on other blogsGuest BloggingStart Building Your Mailing ListAdvertise on the Web (Paid Traffic)

Step 8: How to make Money Blogging

After you set everything and you’ve started posting great content on your blog comes how to make your blog a stream of making money. That’s simple. These are the lists on which you can monetize your blog: Running ads on your BlogAffiliate MarketingSelling your Products and ServicesWriting and Selling e-BooksSponsored Posts There are numerous ways to monetize your blog of which these are few. Just pick the method that suits you and easy for you to get started. I hope this helps you on your journey to how to start a successful blog in 2020. Read the full article

#howtostartasuccessfulblog

[astudyinimagination]

the second Obi-Wan & Mara chapter

WOW, I can't believe all the attention this got so quickly! Thank you to everybody who did a bookmark or gave a kudos! (Still, reviews mean love. :D ) I'm not sure when I'll be able to post the next chapter, so if you want to read more stuff for this AU, check out my tag for it! It goes pretty far into the future of the story, so... here be spoilers.

Today, Obi-Wan learns "Celina's" real name and story, and decisions are made. Warnings for discussion of child abduction and abuse (because this is Palpatine we’re talking about), and said child’s reaction to it (it’s not pretty, but as a girl who grew up with an emotionally abusive father, I stand by it).

This fic is now called The Hermit and the Orphan, and it’s the first in The Family You Choose series!

FFN || AO3

Chapter 2: Mara

As Obi-Wan ushered Celina into his house, he looked at the place with fresh eyes for the first time in ten years. It was small and cramped and rough. It wasn’t his home; it was just a place he lived in. Home had burned, and then been mutilated into a palace for the author of its destruction.

This is no place to raise a child. He nearly started—where had that thought come from? Obviously, he needed to give the girl some much-needed care in the present, but he would have to find someone willing to take her in if she was, as he suspected, parentless. Like you gave up Luke when you owed it to both his parents to take care of him? He shook himself, trying to shake off this sudden madness—he knew that, someday, he would have to train Luke and possibly Leia as well in the way of the Jedi, but they were young children yet and he was not yet prepared for that day!

Raising another child would be foolish. I failed Anakin. I’ll not fail another.

Speaking of the girl, she was studying his dwellings with the gaze of a child learning to observe their surroundings in minute detail. “Nice place,” she said finally, with the kind of flippancy that was the specialty of pre-adolescent children.

“It’s not much, and it’s not home,” Obi-Wan said dryly, moving towards the kitchenette. “But it is a roof to keep the suns out.” He paused. “Are there any food restrictions I should know about before I fix you supper?”

Celina shook her head, sitting on a bench and watching him move around the kitchen. Silence  settled between them, almost comfortably, and as he worked, Obi-Wan attempted to piece together what he knew about the child. She could be no older than the Skywalker twins, and she had been taught to use the Force, at least to shield. She also knew well how to fight, and wasn’t willing to trust anyone at the drop of a hat. None of these things were particularly enlightening, alone or put together: they merely built up to the vague picture of a child born to a Jedi parent, one who had escaped the Purges.

She was also alone now, so it was safe to assume that that parent was dead.

He glanced at her as he worked and tried to find features reminding him of any Jedi he knew, even if there had been thousands he hadn’t. If anything, the girl could have passed for a child between himself and Siri Tachi, but Siri had been killed before Celina would have been born, and Obi-Wan had never been intimate with Siri or Satine or anyone else. Much to your regret now, eh? He sighed and shut down that voice. He had enough regrets without dwelling on the women he’d loved, and something told him madness lay that way.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the child’s eyelids drooping and smiled. “You could take a nap before supper, if you like.”

She jerked herself upright, blinking. “No thanks.”

“As you like.”

Finally, the stew was finished, and he handed a bowl, a spoon, and cup of water to the child, who accepted them with gratitude and relief in her green eyes. How long had it been since the girl had had a decent meal?

Too long. She’s much too thin.

Obi-Wan took a seat himself and began to eat the very plain food he’d concocted. He’d never been a good cook—Anakin had been, not he—and in his ten years on Tatooine, he’d never before had to foist his cooking upon another being.

Celina didn’t seem to care, nearly choking as she wolfed the stuff down.

“Careful,” Obi-Wan said mildly, not expecting to be heeded. After another bite of his own food, he ventured, “What’s your real name, little one?”

She stopped, and stared at him, as if silently saying that she’d have to be pretty stupid to trust him that far.

Undeterred, he pressed on. “Very well, I’ll tell you mine. My real name is Obi-Wan Kenobi.”

She did choke a little on that, eyes flying wide open. “You’re kidding!”

“I assure you, I’m not.” Clearly, his reputation preceded him.

“You’re one of the Jedi who escaped the Purges!” she said in awe. “You’ve got the highest bounty on your head in the Empire!”

Obi-Wan raised an eyebrow. “Do I? Fancy that. How does a girl your age know about the Empire’s Most Wanted?”

She pondered that for a moment. “I like to know what’s going on in the galaxy.”

That was a truth, but not the truth he’d asked for. “Celina,” he said gently. “You don’t have to be afraid of me. I’ll not harm you. I want to help you.”

“Mara,” she blurted out, not meeting his eyes. “My name is Mara Jade.”

Interesting—she was actively hiding something. And why should the daughter of a Jedi dance around the truth with another Jedi?

Unless she wasn’t trained by a Jedi. He suppressed a shiver at the thought and smiled warmly at her, leaning forward and extending his hand towards her. “Mara Jade, it is nice to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you,” she said automatically, taking his hand and letting him shake hers. She looked just barely frightened.

Obi-Wan sighed. “Mara. I will not hurt you, I promise.”

“You shouldn’t promise that,” she said softly, pain in her eyes. What had happened to this little girl to put that look there?

“Why not?” She was hiding something from him, and she was afraid he’d hurt her. She knew that he had an astronomically large bounty on his head. As the silence dragged on, he really did not like the picture that was now forming in his head. “Mara?” He kept his voice very gentle. “You were not trained to use the Force by a Jedi, were you?”

Her eyes went wider, but she shook her head.

“Little one, whatever the person who trained you has done, I trust that you yourself are innocent.”

“I thought the Jedi believed in evil by association,” Mara whispered.

He nodded slowly. “Yes. I’m afraid we did. But I am no longer what you might call a proper Jedi.” He softened his voice again. “Who was your teacher, Mara?”

She didn’t speak. Instead, he felt the shields around her mind sink away, and the bright light that was her presence in the Force came seeping through and filling the space around her. Only… now that he could pay attention, there were small threads, filaments, of shadow running through the light. He grasped one thread, carefully, and followed it to its source.

A memory. A memory of a decayed face, yellowed teeth bared in a rotten smile and brighter yellow eyes flashing in pride. “My child,” rasped a voice that had withered significantly, but not to the point that Obi-Wan could not recognize it immediately. “My little Hand.”

He withdrew back into himself with a gasp and stared at her, his body numb. “The Emperor? The Emperor trained you?!”

Her small body tensed, eyes wary, shields slamming back into place. “Yes.”

Obi-Wan took a deep breath, forcing his wildly beating heart to calm. “Right. Very well. You’re not the first child he’s taught.” Unbidden, his thoughts turned not only to Anakin but to Maul, as well. Had Maul ever been innocent? He must have been, at some point—no one was born evil, not even a Hutt. Not even Anakin. And not small, scared Mara.

“Forgive me, my dear,” he said softly. “I did not intend to frighten you.”

“I’m Sithspawn, or near enough,” she said bitterly. “You should intend to kill me.”

He stared at her, horror piercing his shock. “Do you want me to?”

“...no.”

“Very well, then.” He sighed, and dragged both hands down his face. “Why are you here, then, and not on Coruscant?”

“Imperial Center,” she corrected automatically. He snorted at that. “I… ran away.”

He raised both eyebrows. “Why?”

“Because… because… because I found out that he had my parents murdered when he took me as a baby, that’s why.” She looked fierce for a moment, and then the moment was gone. “Among other things,” she muttered.

A shiver crawled up Obi-Wan’s spine. Stealing Force-sensitive babies and murdering their parents—this was Palpatine’s galaxy. Not so different from the Jedi, though, is it? Of course you didn’t murder the parents, but you still took their children. He took an unsteady breath. “I see,” he said at last.

Mara looked up at him defiantly, and for one painful moment, he saw Anakin at that age instead of her. Arguing—he didn’t even remember what it was about, just the stubborn anger in Anakin’s eyes, his clenched jaw, his stiff posture.

Palpatine had gotten his claws into Anakin so young, and Obi-Wan bore some of the blame for that, but the Sith Lord had started on Mara even younger.

Obi-Wan set down his bowl, rose from his chair, and went to sit beside Mara. She stiffened further, hunching up to make herself as small as possible, and with a fresh wave of horror, he recognized the reaction: the response of a child who believed they were about to be hit. He reached out cautiously and wound an arm around her tiny shoulders; her body did not relax. “Mara.” He tried to infuse his voice with all the warmth and tenderness he could. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

Still, she said nothing, but he caught a flash of self-loathing from her, and his chest tightened. She believed she should be hurt, or at the very least, that she deserved no kindness.

“I’m sorry,” Obi-Wan continued slowly, “that he did.”

She looked up then, confusion replacing the pain in her eyes.

“And, frankly, I think it was very brave of you to run from him and everything you’ve ever known. Not many people have that kind of courage.” She shook her head, but he began to rub her back in slow, soothing circles. “He called you his ‘hand’; what does that mean?”

She took a shuddering breath, truly looking like a young child for the first time since Obi-Wan had met her. “‘Emperor’s Hand,’” she said, voice small. “His special agent, an extension of his will—investigation, espionage, negotiation… assassination. That’s what he was raising me to be.” She paused, but Obi-Wan said nothing, merely continued rubbing her back. “He said that I was his Hand, like I was his only Hand—over and over again. The only one. Special. Until… I was slicing into databases a few weeks ago, just for fun, you know? And… I found the others. The other Hands. For a long time, I could only just think… Why? Why would he do that to me? Let me think I was special when… when I wasn’t? Why didn’t I ever know any of them, or about them?”

She paused again, taking a calming breath. “It was so hard, shielding everything from him, then, and I felt so awful. I told myself he must have had a good reason for what he did—he always did.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “That’s what I always told myself: he has a good reason for it. But this time… this time made me wonder if… if he’d lied about anything else.

“So I went looking. I looked up my own file. I bypassed all the safeguards around it and got the complete thing. That’s when… that’s when…”

“When you found out about your parents,” Obi-Wan murmured.

She nodded mutely.

“So you ran away.”

“I didn’t know what to do,” she burst out, so much raw pain in her voice that Obi-Wan felt as if his own heart might bleed. “I wanted to hurt him.” She choked. “I wanted to kill him. He was like my father and I loved him and I wanted to kill him.”

Obi-Wan folded his arms around her and pulled her close. She relaxed just a little, but there was no trace of tears in her voice—just pain, infinite and unending as the desert. “It’s all right to cry, little one,” he murmured into her hair. Would that he had let Anakin cry more often, hypocrite that he was, rather than telling him to release his emotions into the Force.

“I can’t. I can’t cry; I haven’t been able to… not since I found out. It hurts too much.”

He understood. Watching the holorecording, watching his... brothersonbestfriend... murder children, kneel before a Sith Lord… He understood only too well.

He stroked her hair, a small part of him wondering where these paternal instincts had come from. He’d never acted this gently with Anakin. Perhaps if I had, I would not have lost him. No, Anakin had only begun to teach him to be this gentle, and Ahsoka, whom he’d met when he’d been older, more patient, more willing to learn, had completed the lesson.

The small child in his arms shuddered and relaxed only gradually. There would be no tears this time, he knew. But she was so young and perhaps she could move on with her life where he seemed largely unable to.

“Mara,” he said softly, “you’re welcome to stay here for as long as you like.”

She shook her head. “...I’d be putting you in danger. My shields will slip, and he’ll sense me.”

Obi-Wan smiled. “Mara, let your shields down for a moment.”

She pushed away from him and stared up at him. “What?”

He nodded encouragingly. “I want to show you something.”

“He’ll know where—”

“He won’t. I promise.”

Her thin eyebrows slanted severely downward, but she closed her eyes, and he felt her shields lowering again. A tendril of her consciousness poked out from behind the shields, cautiously, curiously. He waited.

After a second, her eyes opened wide. “What… what is that?”

He smiled ruefully. “That, my dear, is the planet.”

“It’s so… it’s so bright. It’s so much.”

He nodded. “I hadn’t noticed the first time I came here, but when I came to stay, I couldn’t help but feel it.” The Force was strong here in a way he’d never felt before, not even on Coruscant, with its untold trillions of inhabitants. Coruscant was alive with people, but Tatooine, for all its bleakness, was simply alive. “This planet is very old. It has many memories and many secrets. Did you know that it was once a green world?”

Mara shook her head, both eyebrows rising.

“It wasn’t always a desert. And people believe that, someday, the water will return, and the desert will fade into life.”

“That’s impossible,” Mara said flatly.

“Perhaps. But I do understand the appeal of the idea.” Obi-Wan met her gaze squarely. “Mara, this planet is too loud for him to hear you all the way from Coruscant. He won’t find you out here, I promise.”

Her face twisted, clearly torn between wanting to believe him and being afraid to trust him. “He used to do that,” she said softly. “Assure me that I was safe, that I was…” Loved.

She hung her head, and Obi-Wan felt a surge of blinding anger towards the man, the monster, who had twisted Anakin into a monster and had dealt so much damage to such a young girl.

Anger is not the Jedi way.

What’s the point of being a Jedi if I can’t be angry about something like this?

He took a calming breath, nevertheless, and reached into his robes. “Do you know what the Jedi teach—what the Jedi taught—about lightsabers?”

She looked up with a frown and shook her head.

“That a Jedi’s lightsaber is his life. That it is a symbol of who he is, that it can mean the difference between life and death.” He withdrew his own saber from his robes and extended it, pommel first, to Mara. “This weapon is my life. My life, in your hands.”

She took it with an expression of awe—had she ever held a lightsaber before? She looked back up at him again. “You’d trust me… with your life?”

“Yes. Because I believe that you are a good person, no matter what Palpatine did to you. Because I want you to feel safe.”

She shook her head slowly. “...I don’t… I don’t think…”

“Give it a week,” Obi-Wan said gently. “Give it a couple of weeks. Give yourself some time to rest. And at the end of two weeks, if you really want to move on, well, then…” He sighed. “I’ll help you to do so.”

She looked at him with those big green eyes, and he saw both Anakin and Ahsoka for a moment before he saw Mara. Small, vulnerable, hurting, defiant, brave… strong. He had failed two children very dear to him in the past; he couldn’t fail this child before him now.

He extended his hand to her. “Deal?”

After a moment, she took it. “Deal.”

#Mara Jade #Obi Wan Kenobi #Star Wars #SW AU #the Obi Wan adopts Mara AU #The Family You Choose #sw fic #Sky writes stuff

[dragon-moms]

Entry 111 - Gloria

Today I begged for a favor.

The morning meeting made it clear that they had started interrogating Philly. Nothing from the reports I was getting suggested she was being treated poorly, but it was one thing to interrogate a dragon, and another a human like her. There were still plenty who had ties to the war in the adjudicators and otherwise. It was only a matter of time, really, before someone got a bit too angry.

But the Queen was adamant that everyone would be protected as we drew up a potential official peace treaty to go with Philly’s transfer to the humans. So there was some breathing room. And until I was out of breathing room, I needed to work towards a positive outcome. Dagger was right: flying and hiding forever could wait to be a last resort.

“Let me explain you to Maude first, before you talk, if that’s alright,” I said.

“Who is Maude?” Dagger’s voice asked.

“She’s the Black from the bit of my past we saw the other day.”

“Oh…” ey said, thinking.

“She’s…” I normally just said “friend,” but for some reason, with all Dagger had seen, that seemed like not enough. “She’s important to me, we’ll say that.”

“You love her,” Dagger said, sighing. “I’d like to love someone sometime…”

“I do love her, but not…” I shook my head. “It’s complicated. But yes. Anyway, just give me a moment, okay?”

“Sure,” ey said. “It’s the only thing I’m good at, lurking quietly…”

I headed into the archives and found Maude sitting at her desk, working on some paperwork. She looked up and gave me a surprised look. “Hi, Glory,” she said. “I assumed you’d keep hiding from me, with all the meetings and everything.”

“Hey, Maude,” I said, doing my best to smile as I came over and embraced her. “Can you come with me to take a look at the restricted section? I’d go myself, but, you know, the door.”

“Right, of course,” Maude said, looking at me oddly. “Let me get my keys.” She pulled them out of the desk and then, taking another look at me, set the little “be back soon” sign on her desk as well.

We walked back to the restricted section and Maude unlocked it. Once inside, I shut the door behind us.

“Is everything okay?” Maude asked.

“...sort of,” I said. “But first, I need to introduce you to someone.”

Maude stared at me for a moment, then looked at my bag. “You… don’t tell me you have a human with you…”

“Not that,” I said.

“Everyone’s more interested in humans than me anyway…” Dagger’s voice said. “Maybe I should just pretend to be one…” I tried to swallow my expression of annoyance. I hadn’t explained em yet.

Maude looked around frantically. “Who… said that?”

“That’s my friend, Dagger. Ey are…” I tried to find good words.

Dagger materialized, extra angular as ey hovered above us and looked at Maude. “A very dead ghost,” ey said.

Maude jumped back against me. I sighed and hugged her. “Are you serious?” she managed to get out.

“Yeah,” Dagger said, clearly calming a bit and sighing. “Sorry I’m not a human.”

“Ey are the child of one of my friends,” I said. “Ey are helping me with the current situation. In secret.”

“Right…” Maude said. She was still staring at Dagger. “What, exactly, are you made of?” she asked em. “There’s some sort of elemental reversal at your core but I’m not quite sure how…”

“Why would I know?” Dagger snapped, looking pointy and annoyed again. “Ask my mom if you wanna tear me apart like that.”

“Sorry,” Maude said, looking embarrassed. “I’ve just… never seen something like you before. But you’re right, I’m being rude.”

“Of course I’m right…” Dagger said softly.

“Anyway,” I said, trying to gain control of the conversation again. “I wanted you to meet Dagger in case ey need to ask you something,” I said. “Ey can move around unnoticed and ey might need your help at some point… and surely you’d be safe talking with someone who wasn’t there.”

Maude nodded. “In theory.”

“And I have a research question,” I said. “If that’s okay.”

“Should be for most things… what do you need to know?” Maude asked.

“I need to know about White Dragons,” I said.

Maude stood there, thinking, clearly trying to come up with any lead that would make that statement less ridiculous. “I… guess I don’t know what that is,” she said.

“It’s a scary story,” Dagger said. “From back when I was alive. A cult that kidnapped dragons,” ey said.

“And when were you alive?” Maude asked.

“I don’t know,” Dagger said, sighing. “I never really asked my mom how much time has passed. Millennia ago?”

Maude gave me a “I am going to play along for now but there’s clearly a lot more you need to tell me” look. “Okay,” she said, “so old folklore then? That gives me a place to start, at least. Can I at least ask you why you need to know about them?”

“I need one to rise and break her bonds,” I said.

“What does that mean?” she asked. “What is that supposed to do?”

“I have no idea on either count, really,” I said. “But that’s the plan for now.”

“Not one of your better plans,” Maude said.

“Well, you know, desperate times,” I said.

Maude looked to the door. “I should get back out there. And I get this feeling you should not be having long secret meetings right now.”

“Sounds about right.”

“I’ll see what I can send to your dorm room tonight… you are still there, right?” Maude asked.

I nodded.

“Okay…” Maude said, and reached for the door.

I just pulled her closer and licked her.

“Glory…” she said, swishing her tail in embarrassment. “Your friend is here…”

“It’s nothing new,” Dagger said, sighing. “You should see how mushy my sibling and their girlfriend get… but I’ll give you privacy...” Ey disappeared.

“A bit forward, even for you,” Maude said as she put her weight against me and let me lick her again.

“Maybe,” I said. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay…”

“Just… may not get to do this much more, so I need to get it in now.”

“Don’t be silly,” Maude said. “You know I’ll be here…”

I didn’t know what to say to that.

Maude frowned. “I don’t like that expression…”

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“Take care of yourself. Please?”

“I’m… going to do my best,” I said. “I’m at least going to make this work out, I promise you that.”

Maude gave me a lick, and I held her for a little longer, before I left the room.

When I got back to the dorm after the evening meeting, there were several books filled with bookmarks waiting on my desk. I did my best to read through them.

“These are exactly what you were saying,” I said. “Just scary stories. There’s nothing actually substantial that I can see.”

“Well, is there supposed to be?” Dagger said.

“I guess not,” I admitted. “Maybe Flare was right, and it’s just the name of some terrorists… but I can’t really ask Philly to form a terrorist group. That doesn’t actually fix the problem.” I sighed. “Just, when you reacted like it meant something, it felt like there must be more to this, right? But maybe that’s just wishful thinking.”

“These are just storybooks, though, right?” Dagger said, flowing eir neck in an unsettling way to take a look at one of the covers.

“Seems like it,” I said. “But if we wanted information elsewhere, I wouldn’t even know where to ask Maude to start looking.”

“Maybe there’s someone who’s already looked,” Dagger suggested. “Someone who reads all this sort of thing.”

“I guess? I don’t know them,” I said. I looked inside the front cover, at the little piece of parchment that tracked use. “Or… maybe I do,” I said.

Dagger joined me looking at the parchment. The last borrow before me was from “Successor Ivana.”

“You know the Successor?” Dagger asked. “I guess you approved her, huh…”

I nodded, and checked the other books. Every one of them had been read by Ivana. I closed my eyes and thought. “This could be just another coincidence. I could be wasting the little time I have.”

“I guess so,” Dagger said.

“But she called herself a historian when she was interviewed for approval,” I said. “I figured that entire interview was lies, but maybe not.”

“Can we just go talk to the Successor?” ey asked. “Isn’t she guarded or something?”

“Probably couldn’t talk to the Successor, no,” I said. “But we can talk to Miss Nobody.”

Dagger sighed. “I have no idea who you are talking about… I’m always in the dark…”

“It’s okay. I’ll introduce you,” I said.

If I was going to pursue this long-shot, I might as well go all in, right?

#dragons #moms #dragonmoms

[laurelkrugerr]

Autonomy Online: A Case For The IndieWeb

About The Author

Ana has a background in design, video and photography and started developing for the web over 10 years ago as a hobby. Fortunately she’s never looked back and … More about Ana …

There is an alternative to corporate bubbles online — it’s called the IndieWeb. Build your own personal websites, control your online presence, and learn on your own terms.

Web 2.0 celebrated the idea of everyone being able to contribute to the web regardless of their technical skill and knowledge. Its major features include self-publishing platforms, social networking websites, “tagging”, “liking”, and bookmarking.

Many individuals and companies began creating these platforms so that anyone could contribute to the Web, and not just people who had the privilege to learn to code. In fact, to recognize our contributions to the web, “we” were Time magazine’s Person of the Year in 2006.

Simpler times. (Image source: TIME USA)(Large preview)

Nowadays whether you’re consuming or sharing content on the web, it is likely to be via a big website. Twitter, Youtube, or a Facebook-owned service are popular examples. Whilst this gives us the advantage of being able to participate in a larger conversation at almost no monetary cost, there is also the downside of potentially losing all our content if a company closes, as has happened in the past.

In the past few years, I began to notice I was losing control of online life. What follows is a case for why the IndieWeb is a great opportunity for personal development, taking ownership of your content, and learning by building personal websites.

Learning On The “Corporate Web”

After years of seemingly endless growth and acquisitions, we have ended up with a handful of big websites that control our whole online identity, data, and privacy. The main mode of participation on the web, for many people, is through major web corporations that need to own data to sell to advertisers. This has become what many people call the corporate web, where users are the product and engagement is king.

The corporate web allows our family and friends and anyone with lower-tech skills to develop their web presence and have access to the digital world. Anyone can sign up to a handful of social media websites and see and interact with what people are sharing, especially at times of physical distance.

However, nothing online is truly free. Many of these websites rely on advertising revenue for income. Consequently, these websites need to change a lot to keep the engagement up so that the users don’t leave. This is not always in the best interest of the people who use it.

Exploring The Corporate Web

Social media websites allowed me to find and connect with industry peers. When I first started working as a web developer, one of the first things I did was to sign up to popular social media websites and subscribe to updates of people who also worked in the industry. Some of them I personally knew but others were recommended to me by the algorithm itself and throughout the years I would adjust my subscription list.

Regardless if it was shared via an article or a social media post, lots of things I learned were because someone wrote about it and I was able to read it for free. And when I engaged I was potentially building a professional network from my home. All this for free! How cool is that?

However, as time went by I began to lose control of what I wanted to see and when. In order to increase engagement, many social media websites began to use algorithms to dictate what they thought I wanted to see and they also started to show me things I didn’t actually subscribe to. While now I can rationalize this, at the time I was just entering the industry so I thought I was the one who needed to catch up on everything.

Social media doesn’t take breaks, but at some point in my life, I needed a break from it, which made me realize that my personal development was going to suffer. I began to experience strange anxiety of missing out because I also knew that I couldn’t scroll through my whole timeline to see everything that was shared while I was offline. It became really hard to search and find anything I had a glimpse of some weeks ago.

Making Stuff On The Corporate Web

So far I’ve been talking about consuming content, but I also wanted to share. While one may always be keen to continuously improve their craft, I was feeling an intense pressure to follow trends and build things using the latest shiny thing for the sake of being employable and impress people I’ve never met. Even sharing stuff that immediately reaches many people, would come with its own limitations as I would be using a platform not built by me.

Most importantly, it was doing a disservice to a whole group of people who can’t even join certain corporate websites because of the geopolitical restrictions of where they live. There is always the possibility of having your account (and your content) removed at any time if the corporation decides you’re breaking a rule.

Whether it would be accessibility, character limits, moderation, or even the option of not receiving feedback, many times it felt unwelcoming and intimidating. Often I felt like an impostor and as if I was running a never-ending marathon.

I began to ask myself, “who am I doing this for?” Is the “corporate web” bringing to the surface “corporate values” that get in the way of personal development?

What Is The IndieWeb?

Do you ever wonder what would happen if your social identity was stolen or reassigned by the corporation to someone else? Or, as I mentioned before, if these big websites close down, and all the content you created is gone? Corporate websites control who, when, if, and where the content created by its users can be accessed.

I didn’t wonder about these things until 2017. It was in ViewSource that I saw a talk by Jeremy Keith that introduced me to the IndieWeb called “Building blocks of the IndieWeb”. The IndieWeb is a community of individual personal websites connected by principles that lead to an alternative to the corporate web.

(Large preview)

IndieWebCamps are an opportunity to work on my personal website blog and to ask for help. Photograph by Julie Anne Noyingurce.

The IndieWeb community is about creating or improving your personal website while also helping others to build theirs, either by documenting or creating tools. To help create an alternative to the corporate web, members of the IndieWeb community have built tools that anyone can use on their personal website that helps create the interaction and community building between personal websites.

One of the principles of the IndieWeb is that you own your content and that principle alone solves one of the main problems I mentioned above. Other tenets include:

Ownership of your identity. I didn’t realize until this point how much it made sense to have a “one true version” of yourself online instead of multiple accounts spread on many websites;

Using tools you’ve built yourself. At some point, I thought the worth of the things I built were related to the number of people who can use it. IndieWeb promotes the idea of building something for me and actively using it;

Documenting your journey. I used to be an active blogger and I had stopped when I began to work as a developer. At the time I was afraid of writing beginner-friendly content and this principle helped me embrace every bit that I wanted to share;

Contributing to open-source. Before joining the IndieWeb community I felt that I had nothing to contribute anywhere. For the first time in my life, I began to edit wiki pages, create issues in GitHub, organize meetups, and give talks. There are all examples of not only contributing to open source but also contributing to a community;

As I learned more about the IndieWeb, I found support and encouragement, especially as I read about the principles of plurality and using what one makes. That’s when I found a sense of freedom and permission to build something for myself — even if it only serves me and even if it has already been built by someone else too.

Creating A Personal Website And Learning From It

How many times does one have the opportunity to build a website from scratch at work? When you have a job in a really big company it is an unbelievably bureaucratic process to change anything we consider “base code”, especially how to choose a particular flavor of framework. I couldn’t believe I was so excited to write every cool thing inside an <head> tag! I’ve lost count of how many “Hello worlds” I’ve created and binned in my lifetime when I had a real “product” to build: me.

When I began my quest to have an IndieWeb blog I chose to build almost everything from scratch but it isn’t necessarily the only option. If someone wants a full-fledged Indie Website without coding, there are services that support IndieWeb (Micro.blog for example) as well as some known CMS such as WordPress.

At the time, on my daily job, I was mostly writing JavaScript so I felt that this was an opportunity to do something a little bit different. I started to follow a couple of IndieWeb websites that were using static website generators and right now I am using Eleventy. My decision was based on visiting IndieWeb blogs that I liked that were also using this particular static website generator and looking up their code in Github. There isn’t a right or wrong answer here.

Building my personal website and blog from scratch forced me to refresh my HTML, accessibility, and CSS knowledge (with the bonus of no one telling me I wasn’t allowed to use the latest CSS cool things). As I began to IndieWebify myself, I learned so many new things! For example:

Jamstack (a stack that generates static code that doesn’t depend on a web server);

Microformats (extensions to HTML represent commonly published things like people, locations, blog posts and more. They provide an API to the information on your website);

Micropub (which is a standard API for creating content on a website);

Microsub (provides a standardized way for reader apps to interact with feeds);

Webmentions (a standard that allows you to notify another site that you’ve interacted with them);

Web Sign In / IndieAuth (a federated login protocol for Web sign-in that allows you to use your own domain to sign in to other sites and services);

Owning my content made me want to connect to APIs of existing “corporate websites” and also, where possible, automating the process of syndicating to them when I share something (also known as POSSE).

Now, the IndieWeb doesn’t require one to automate this process. You’re already adhering to the idea by publishing on your own domain and sharing the link to the original manually, for example, on Twitter! But the possibility to automate this process exists too and it is a great experiment. Similar to “what should you use to build your own website”, there is no right answer — as long as it works.

Exploring how this could work, led me to experiment using services like IFTTT to connect my RSS feed to my Twitter account. Other times, it made me navigate for hours in GitHub to see how other people built their own services to automatically publish on social media from their websites.

There are still many things I want to build and learn. For example, when I was able to bring my content from a corporate website into my server I grew the desire to optimize that output, so I began to make changes on my deployment build. This is something that would likely not happen at work or maybe I wouldn’t find the inspiration or need to build for anything else.

(Large preview)

A snapshot of POSSE and IndieWeb posts. The flow begins on a personal website, syndicated to social media where interactions are backfeed to the original blog post. The original blog post can also receive and show interactions from other blogs via Webmentions.

Building my personal website and blog into my playground has been the place where I’ve learned the most. It is where I can experiment, write, build, try, and learn without censorship or limitations.

An unexpected consequence is that I felt more confident in writing on my blog compared to social media. Social media feels like a tiny stage with a massive audience compared to my blog that allows me to have a massive stage production but only perform to those who want to be there. I have control of who can interact with it (by not having comments available) and plenty of room to express myself without having to censor what I do.

So I also began to blog more and after I blog, I share on social media because we can then have the best of both worlds. My content may be buried by an algorithm in social media but that can never happen on my own personal website.

With Webmentions and publisher services, I can see what interactions my blog posts had on some social media websites. In order to receive Webmentions, you must have a Webmention endpoint. Luckily, lots of people have shared ways of how you can build one. While I still haven’t dared to create mine from scratch, I’ve been using a service called Webmentio.io to create and host my endpoint so that I can receive Webmentions. As for sending them, sometimes I do it manually using Telegraph but I’ve recently had a go at automating that process as well using Webmention.app.

Other great services, like Bridgy, send Webmentions for comments/replies, likes, and reposts on some social media websites like Twitter which also helps the process of “backfeeding” the interactions back to the original post. I recommend experimenting with existing services as it may be a bit overwhelming to build everything from scratch.

By slowly creating an alternative to the corporate web, one can have one place to document and share — a fixed place that anyone at any time can go back to whenever they need. All this while keeping the door open for all the good things that corporate web offers with the bonus of a very personalized touch.

My current website is a constant work in progress but I have a lot of joy when I scroll through my archives. I am always excited to improve it and try new things, I can break it and fix it at my own pace and I don’t have a deadline on it. It is my safe space.

Where To Begin

The IndieWeb community is open for everyone. You can start today by buying your domain name and building a homepage. With this single step alone, you will already have one place that anyone in the world can visit to be in touch with you.

Ever since joining the community, I participated and organized events, met great creators, and challenged myself with not only code but also in topics like privacy and ethics. I discovered new and fantastic personal websites and blogs that I probably wouldn’t find via social media and felt less alone in this constant journey of learning in our industry.

If you relate to anything I’ve said above and would like to get started there is a page that goes into more detail. We have an online chat room and weekly community meet-ups where you can connect with other members of the IndieWeb community who are happy to share their experiences and answer questions.

Dive straight into some welcoming guides built by community members (that anyone can contribute to) like IndieWebify.me and the IndieWeb Guides. I also recommend looking out for blog posts with IndieWeb introductions on personal websites as they all have different voices that may match your way of learning.

The wonderful thing about the IndieWeb community is that you’re welcome to do what works for you. It isn’t about following trends and there isn’t only one ‘right way’ to build things — just your way.

(fb, ra, il)

Website Design & SEO Delray Beach by DBL07.co

Delray Beach SEO

source http://www.scpie.org/autonomy-online-a-case-for-the-indieweb/ source https://scpie1.blogspot.com/2020/08/autonomy-online-case-for-indieweb.html

[riichardwilson]

Autonomy Online: A Case For The IndieWeb

About The Author

Ana has a background in design, video and photography and started developing for the web over 10 years ago as a hobby. Fortunately she’s never looked back and … More about Ana …

There is an alternative to corporate bubbles online — it’s called the IndieWeb. Build your own personal websites, control your online presence, and learn on your own terms.

Web 2.0 celebrated the idea of everyone being able to contribute to the web regardless of their technical skill and knowledge. Its major features include self-publishing platforms, social networking websites, “tagging”, “liking”, and bookmarking.

Many individuals and companies began creating these platforms so that anyone could contribute to the Web, and not just people who had the privilege to learn to code. In fact, to recognize our contributions to the web, “we” were Time magazine’s Person of the Year in 2006.

Simpler times. (Image source: TIME USA)(Large preview)

Nowadays whether you’re consuming or sharing content on the web, it is likely to be via a big website. Twitter, Youtube, or a Facebook-owned service are popular examples. Whilst this gives us the advantage of being able to participate in a larger conversation at almost no monetary cost, there is also the downside of potentially losing all our content if a company closes, as has happened in the past.

In the past few years, I began to notice I was losing control of online life. What follows is a case for why the IndieWeb is a great opportunity for personal development, taking ownership of your content, and learning by building personal websites.

Learning On The “Corporate Web”

After years of seemingly endless growth and acquisitions, we have ended up with a handful of big websites that control our whole online identity, data, and privacy. The main mode of participation on the web, for many people, is through major web corporations that need to own data to sell to advertisers. This has become what many people call the corporate web, where users are the product and engagement is king.

The corporate web allows our family and friends and anyone with lower-tech skills to develop their web presence and have access to the digital world. Anyone can sign up to a handful of social media websites and see and interact with what people are sharing, especially at times of physical distance.

However, nothing online is truly free. Many of these websites rely on advertising revenue for income. Consequently, these websites need to change a lot to keep the engagement up so that the users don’t leave. This is not always in the best interest of the people who use it.

Exploring The Corporate Web

Social media websites allowed me to find and connect with industry peers. When I first started working as a web developer, one of the first things I did was to sign up to popular social media websites and subscribe to updates of people who also worked in the industry. Some of them I personally knew but others were recommended to me by the algorithm itself and throughout the years I would adjust my subscription list.

Regardless if it was shared via an article or a social media post, lots of things I learned were because someone wrote about it and I was able to read it for free. And when I engaged I was potentially building a professional network from my home. All this for free! How cool is that?

However, as time went by I began to lose control of what I wanted to see and when. In order to increase engagement, many social media websites began to use algorithms to dictate what they thought I wanted to see and they also started to show me things I didn’t actually subscribe to. While now I can rationalize this, at the time I was just entering the industry so I thought I was the one who needed to catch up on everything.

Social media doesn’t take breaks, but at some point in my life, I needed a break from it, which made me realize that my personal development was going to suffer. I began to experience strange anxiety of missing out because I also knew that I couldn’t scroll through my whole timeline to see everything that was shared while I was offline. It became really hard to search and find anything I had a glimpse of some weeks ago.

Making Stuff On The Corporate Web

So far I’ve been talking about consuming content, but I also wanted to share. While one may always be keen to continuously improve their craft, I was feeling an intense pressure to follow trends and build things using the latest shiny thing for the sake of being employable and impress people I’ve never met. Even sharing stuff that immediately reaches many people, would come with its own limitations as I would be using a platform not built by me.

Most importantly, it was doing a disservice to a whole group of people who can’t even join certain corporate websites because of the geopolitical restrictions of where they live. There is always the possibility of having your account (and your content) removed at any time if the corporation decides you’re breaking a rule.

Whether it would be accessibility, character limits, moderation, or even the option of not receiving feedback, many times it felt unwelcoming and intimidating. Often I felt like an impostor and as if I was running a never-ending marathon.

I began to ask myself, “who am I doing this for?” Is the “corporate web” bringing to the surface “corporate values” that get in the way of personal development?

What Is The IndieWeb?

Do you ever wonder what would happen if your social identity was stolen or reassigned by the corporation to someone else? Or, as I mentioned before, if these big websites close down, and all the content you created is gone? Corporate websites control who, when, if, and where the content created by its users can be accessed.

I didn’t wonder about these things until 2017. It was in ViewSource that I saw a talk by Jeremy Keith that introduced me to the IndieWeb called “Building blocks of the IndieWeb”. The IndieWeb is a community of individual personal websites connected by principles that lead to an alternative to the corporate web.

(Large preview)

IndieWebCamps are an opportunity to work on my personal website blog and to ask for help. Photograph by Julie Anne Noyingurce.

The IndieWeb community is about creating or improving your personal website while also helping others to build theirs, either by documenting or creating tools. To help create an alternative to the corporate web, members of the IndieWeb community have built tools that anyone can use on their personal website that helps create the interaction and community building between personal websites.

One of the principles of the IndieWeb is that you own your content and that principle alone solves one of the main problems I mentioned above. Other tenets include:

Ownership of your identity. I didn’t realize until this point how much it made sense to have a “one true version” of yourself online instead of multiple accounts spread on many websites;

Using tools you’ve built yourself. At some point, I thought the worth of the things I built were related to the number of people who can use it. IndieWeb promotes the idea of building something for me and actively using it;

Documenting your journey. I used to be an active blogger and I had stopped when I began to work as a developer. At the time I was afraid of writing beginner-friendly content and this principle helped me embrace every bit that I wanted to share;

Contributing to open-source. Before joining the IndieWeb community I felt that I had nothing to contribute anywhere. For the first time in my life, I began to edit wiki pages, create issues in GitHub, organize meetups, and give talks. There are all examples of not only contributing to open source but also contributing to a community;

As I learned more about the IndieWeb, I found support and encouragement, especially as I read about the principles of plurality and using what one makes. That’s when I found a sense of freedom and permission to build something for myself — even if it only serves me and even if it has already been built by someone else too.

Creating A Personal Website And Learning From It

How many times does one have the opportunity to build a website from scratch at work? When you have a job in a really big company it is an unbelievably bureaucratic process to change anything we consider “base code”, especially how to choose a particular flavor of framework. I couldn’t believe I was so excited to write every cool thing inside an <head> tag! I’ve lost count of how many “Hello worlds” I’ve created and binned in my lifetime when I had a real “product” to build: me.

When I began my quest to have an IndieWeb blog I chose to build almost everything from scratch but it isn’t necessarily the only option. If someone wants a full-fledged Indie Website without coding, there are services that support IndieWeb (Micro.blog for example) as well as some known CMS such as WordPress.

At the time, on my daily job, I was mostly writing JavaScript so I felt that this was an opportunity to do something a little bit different. I started to follow a couple of IndieWeb websites that were using static website generators and right now I am using Eleventy. My decision was based on visiting IndieWeb blogs that I liked that were also using this particular static website generator and looking up their code in Github. There isn’t a right or wrong answer here.

Building my personal website and blog from scratch forced me to refresh my HTML, accessibility, and CSS knowledge (with the bonus of no one telling me I wasn’t allowed to use the latest CSS cool things). As I began to IndieWebify myself, I learned so many new things! For example:

Jamstack (a stack that generates static code that doesn’t depend on a web server);

Microformats (extensions to HTML represent commonly published things like people, locations, blog posts and more. They provide an API to the information on your website);

Micropub (which is a standard API for creating content on a website);

Microsub (provides a standardized way for reader apps to interact with feeds);

Webmentions (a standard that allows you to notify another site that you’ve interacted with them);

Web Sign In / IndieAuth (a federated login protocol for Web sign-in that allows you to use your own domain to sign in to other sites and services);

Owning my content made me want to connect to APIs of existing “corporate websites” and also, where possible, automating the process of syndicating to them when I share something (also known as POSSE).

Now, the IndieWeb doesn’t require one to automate this process. You’re already adhering to the idea by publishing on your own domain and sharing the link to the original manually, for example, on Twitter! But the possibility to automate this process exists too and it is a great experiment. Similar to “what should you use to build your own website”, there is no right answer — as long as it works.

Exploring how this could work, led me to experiment using services like IFTTT to connect my RSS feed to my Twitter account. Other times, it made me navigate for hours in GitHub to see how other people built their own services to automatically publish on social media from their websites.

There are still many things I want to build and learn. For example, when I was able to bring my content from a corporate website into my server I grew the desire to optimize that output, so I began to make changes on my deployment build. This is something that would likely not happen at work or maybe I wouldn’t find the inspiration or need to build for anything else.

(Large preview)

A snapshot of POSSE and IndieWeb posts. The flow begins on a personal website, syndicated to social media where interactions are backfeed to the original blog post. The original blog post can also receive and show interactions from other blogs via Webmentions.

Building my personal website and blog into my playground has been the place where I’ve learned the most. It is where I can experiment, write, build, try, and learn without censorship or limitations.

An unexpected consequence is that I felt more confident in writing on my blog compared to social media. Social media feels like a tiny stage with a massive audience compared to my blog that allows me to have a massive stage production but only perform to those who want to be there. I have control of who can interact with it (by not having comments available) and plenty of room to express myself without having to censor what I do.

So I also began to blog more and after I blog, I share on social media because we can then have the best of both worlds. My content may be buried by an algorithm in social media but that can never happen on my own personal website.

With Webmentions and publisher services, I can see what interactions my blog posts had on some social media websites. In order to receive Webmentions, you must have a Webmention endpoint. Luckily, lots of people have shared ways of how you can build one. While I still haven’t dared to create mine from scratch, I’ve been using a service called Webmentio.io to create and host my endpoint so that I can receive Webmentions. As for sending them, sometimes I do it manually using Telegraph but I’ve recently had a go at automating that process as well using Webmention.app.

Other great services, like Bridgy, send Webmentions for comments/replies, likes, and reposts on some social media websites like Twitter which also helps the process of “backfeeding” the interactions back to the original post. I recommend experimenting with existing services as it may be a bit overwhelming to build everything from scratch.

By slowly creating an alternative to the corporate web, one can have one place to document and share — a fixed place that anyone at any time can go back to whenever they need. All this while keeping the door open for all the good things that corporate web offers with the bonus of a very personalized touch.

My current website is a constant work in progress but I have a lot of joy when I scroll through my archives. I am always excited to improve it and try new things, I can break it and fix it at my own pace and I don’t have a deadline on it. It is my safe space.

Where To Begin

The IndieWeb community is open for everyone. You can start today by buying your domain name and building a homepage. With this single step alone, you will already have one place that anyone in the world can visit to be in touch with you.

Ever since joining the community, I participated and organized events, met great creators, and challenged myself with not only code but also in topics like privacy and ethics. I discovered new and fantastic personal websites and blogs that I probably wouldn’t find via social media and felt less alone in this constant journey of learning in our industry.

If you relate to anything I’ve said above and would like to get started there is a page that goes into more detail. We have an online chat room and weekly community meet-ups where you can connect with other members of the IndieWeb community who are happy to share their experiences and answer questions.

Dive straight into some welcoming guides built by community members (that anyone can contribute to) like IndieWebify.me and the IndieWeb Guides. I also recommend looking out for blog posts with IndieWeb introductions on personal websites as they all have different voices that may match your way of learning.

The wonderful thing about the IndieWeb community is that you’re welcome to do what works for you. It isn’t about following trends and there isn’t only one ‘right way’ to build things — just your way.

(fb, ra, il)

Website Design & SEO Delray Beach by DBL07.co

Delray Beach SEO

source http://www.scpie.org/autonomy-online-a-case-for-the-indieweb/ source https://scpie.tumblr.com/post/627710570518511616

[scpie]

Autonomy Online: A Case For The IndieWeb

About The Author

Ana has a background in design, video and photography and started developing for the web over 10 years ago as a hobby. Fortunately she’s never looked back and … More about Ana …

There is an alternative to corporate bubbles online — it’s called the IndieWeb. Build your own personal websites, control your online presence, and learn on your own terms.

Web 2.0 celebrated the idea of everyone being able to contribute to the web regardless of their technical skill and knowledge. Its major features include self-publishing platforms, social networking websites, “tagging”, “liking”, and bookmarking.

Many individuals and companies began creating these platforms so that anyone could contribute to the Web, and not just people who had the privilege to learn to code. In fact, to recognize our contributions to the web, “we” were Time magazine’s Person of the Year in 2006.

Simpler times. (Image source: TIME USA)(Large preview)

Nowadays whether you’re consuming or sharing content on the web, it is likely to be via a big website. Twitter, Youtube, or a Facebook-owned service are popular examples. Whilst this gives us the advantage of being able to participate in a larger conversation at almost no monetary cost, there is also the downside of potentially losing all our content if a company closes, as has happened in the past.

In the past few years, I began to notice I was losing control of online life. What follows is a case for why the IndieWeb is a great opportunity for personal development, taking ownership of your content, and learning by building personal websites.

Learning On The “Corporate Web”

After years of seemingly endless growth and acquisitions, we have ended up with a handful of big websites that control our whole online identity, data, and privacy. The main mode of participation on the web, for many people, is through major web corporations that need to own data to sell to advertisers. This has become what many people call the corporate web, where users are the product and engagement is king.

The corporate web allows our family and friends and anyone with lower-tech skills to develop their web presence and have access to the digital world. Anyone can sign up to a handful of social media websites and see and interact with what people are sharing, especially at times of physical distance.

However, nothing online is truly free. Many of these websites rely on advertising revenue for income. Consequently, these websites need to change a lot to keep the engagement up so that the users don’t leave. This is not always in the best interest of the people who use it.

Exploring The Corporate Web

Social media websites allowed me to find and connect with industry peers. When I first started working as a web developer, one of the first things I did was to sign up to popular social media websites and subscribe to updates of people who also worked in the industry. Some of them I personally knew but others were recommended to me by the algorithm itself and throughout the years I would adjust my subscription list.

Regardless if it was shared via an article or a social media post, lots of things I learned were because someone wrote about it and I was able to read it for free. And when I engaged I was potentially building a professional network from my home. All this for free! How cool is that?

However, as time went by I began to lose control of what I wanted to see and when. In order to increase engagement, many social media websites began to use algorithms to dictate what they thought I wanted to see and they also started to show me things I didn’t actually subscribe to. While now I can rationalize this, at the time I was just entering the industry so I thought I was the one who needed to catch up on everything.

Social media doesn’t take breaks, but at some point in my life, I needed a break from it, which made me realize that my personal development was going to suffer. I began to experience strange anxiety of missing out because I also knew that I couldn’t scroll through my whole timeline to see everything that was shared while I was offline. It became really hard to search and find anything I had a glimpse of some weeks ago.

Making Stuff On The Corporate Web

So far I’ve been talking about consuming content, but I also wanted to share. While one may always be keen to continuously improve their craft, I was feeling an intense pressure to follow trends and build things using the latest shiny thing for the sake of being employable and impress people I’ve never met. Even sharing stuff that immediately reaches many people, would come with its own limitations as I would be using a platform not built by me.

Most importantly, it was doing a disservice to a whole group of people who can’t even join certain corporate websites because of the geopolitical restrictions of where they live. There is always the possibility of having your account (and your content) removed at any time if the corporation decides you’re breaking a rule.

Whether it would be accessibility, character limits, moderation, or even the option of not receiving feedback, many times it felt unwelcoming and intimidating. Often I felt like an impostor and as if I was running a never-ending marathon.

I began to ask myself, “who am I doing this for?” Is the “corporate web” bringing to the surface “corporate values” that get in the way of personal development?

What Is The IndieWeb?

Do you ever wonder what would happen if your social identity was stolen or reassigned by the corporation to someone else? Or, as I mentioned before, if these big websites close down, and all the content you created is gone? Corporate websites control who, when, if, and where the content created by its users can be accessed.

I didn’t wonder about these things until 2017. It was in ViewSource that I saw a talk by Jeremy Keith that introduced me to the IndieWeb called “Building blocks of the IndieWeb”. The IndieWeb is a community of individual personal websites connected by principles that lead to an alternative to the corporate web.

(Large preview)

IndieWebCamps are an opportunity to work on my personal website blog and to ask for help. Photograph by Julie Anne Noyingurce.

The IndieWeb community is about creating or improving your personal website while also helping others to build theirs, either by documenting or creating tools. To help create an alternative to the corporate web, members of the IndieWeb community have built tools that anyone can use on their personal website that helps create the interaction and community building between personal websites.

One of the principles of the IndieWeb is that you own your content and that principle alone solves one of the main problems I mentioned above. Other tenets include:

Ownership of your identity. I didn’t realize until this point how much it made sense to have a “one true version” of yourself online instead of multiple accounts spread on many websites;

Using tools you’ve built yourself. At some point, I thought the worth of the things I built were related to the number of people who can use it. IndieWeb promotes the idea of building something for me and actively using it;

Documenting your journey. I used to be an active blogger and I had stopped when I began to work as a developer. At the time I was afraid of writing beginner-friendly content and this principle helped me embrace every bit that I wanted to share;

Contributing to open-source. Before joining the IndieWeb community I felt that I had nothing to contribute anywhere. For the first time in my life, I began to edit wiki pages, create issues in GitHub, organize meetups, and give talks. There are all examples of not only contributing to open source but also contributing to a community;

As I learned more about the IndieWeb, I found support and encouragement, especially as I read about the principles of plurality and using what one makes. That’s when I found a sense of freedom and permission to build something for myself — even if it only serves me and even if it has already been built by someone else too.

Creating A Personal Website And Learning From It

How many times does one have the opportunity to build a website from scratch at work? When you have a job in a really big company it is an unbelievably bureaucratic process to change anything we consider “base code”, especially how to choose a particular flavor of framework. I couldn’t believe I was so excited to write every cool thing inside an <head> tag! I’ve lost count of how many “Hello worlds” I’ve created and binned in my lifetime when I had a real “product” to build: me.

When I began my quest to have an IndieWeb blog I chose to build almost everything from scratch but it isn’t necessarily the only option. If someone wants a full-fledged Indie Website without coding, there are services that support IndieWeb (Micro.blog for example) as well as some known CMS such as WordPress.

At the time, on my daily job, I was mostly writing JavaScript so I felt that this was an opportunity to do something a little bit different. I started to follow a couple of IndieWeb websites that were using static website generators and right now I am using Eleventy. My decision was based on visiting IndieWeb blogs that I liked that were also using this particular static website generator and looking up their code in Github. There isn’t a right or wrong answer here.

Building my personal website and blog from scratch forced me to refresh my HTML, accessibility, and CSS knowledge (with the bonus of no one telling me I wasn’t allowed to use the latest CSS cool things). As I began to IndieWebify myself, I learned so many new things! For example:

Jamstack (a stack that generates static code that doesn’t depend on a web server);

Microformats (extensions to HTML represent commonly published things like people, locations, blog posts and more. They provide an API to the information on your website);

Micropub (which is a standard API for creating content on a website);

Microsub (provides a standardized way for reader apps to interact with feeds);

Webmentions (a standard that allows you to notify another site that you’ve interacted with them);

Web Sign In / IndieAuth (a federated login protocol for Web sign-in that allows you to use your own domain to sign in to other sites and services);

Owning my content made me want to connect to APIs of existing “corporate websites” and also, where possible, automating the process of syndicating to them when I share something (also known as POSSE).

Now, the IndieWeb doesn’t require one to automate this process. You’re already adhering to the idea by publishing on your own domain and sharing the link to the original manually, for example, on Twitter! But the possibility to automate this process exists too and it is a great experiment. Similar to “what should you use to build your own website”, there is no right answer — as long as it works.

Exploring how this could work, led me to experiment using services like IFTTT to connect my RSS feed to my Twitter account. Other times, it made me navigate for hours in GitHub to see how other people built their own services to automatically publish on social media from their websites.

There are still many things I want to build and learn. For example, when I was able to bring my content from a corporate website into my server I grew the desire to optimize that output, so I began to make changes on my deployment build. This is something that would likely not happen at work or maybe I wouldn’t find the inspiration or need to build for anything else.

(Large preview)

A snapshot of POSSE and IndieWeb posts. The flow begins on a personal website, syndicated to social media where interactions are backfeed to the original blog post. The original blog post can also receive and show interactions from other blogs via Webmentions.

Building my personal website and blog into my playground has been the place where I’ve learned the most. It is where I can experiment, write, build, try, and learn without censorship or limitations.

An unexpected consequence is that I felt more confident in writing on my blog compared to social media. Social media feels like a tiny stage with a massive audience compared to my blog that allows me to have a massive stage production but only perform to those who want to be there. I have control of who can interact with it (by not having comments available) and plenty of room to express myself without having to censor what I do.

So I also began to blog more and after I blog, I share on social media because we can then have the best of both worlds. My content may be buried by an algorithm in social media but that can never happen on my own personal website.

With Webmentions and publisher services, I can see what interactions my blog posts had on some social media websites. In order to receive Webmentions, you must have a Webmention endpoint. Luckily, lots of people have shared ways of how you can build one. While I still haven’t dared to create mine from scratch, I’ve been using a service called Webmentio.io to create and host my endpoint so that I can receive Webmentions. As for sending them, sometimes I do it manually using Telegraph but I’ve recently had a go at automating that process as well using Webmention.app.

Other great services, like Bridgy, send Webmentions for comments/replies, likes, and reposts on some social media websites like Twitter which also helps the process of “backfeeding” the interactions back to the original post. I recommend experimenting with existing services as it may be a bit overwhelming to build everything from scratch.

By slowly creating an alternative to the corporate web, one can have one place to document and share — a fixed place that anyone at any time can go back to whenever they need. All this while keeping the door open for all the good things that corporate web offers with the bonus of a very personalized touch.

My current website is a constant work in progress but I have a lot of joy when I scroll through my archives. I am always excited to improve it and try new things, I can break it and fix it at my own pace and I don’t have a deadline on it. It is my safe space.

Where To Begin

The IndieWeb community is open for everyone. You can start today by buying your domain name and building a homepage. With this single step alone, you will already have one place that anyone in the world can visit to be in touch with you.

Ever since joining the community, I participated and organized events, met great creators, and challenged myself with not only code but also in topics like privacy and ethics. I discovered new and fantastic personal websites and blogs that I probably wouldn’t find via social media and felt less alone in this constant journey of learning in our industry.

If you relate to anything I’ve said above and would like to get started there is a page that goes into more detail. We have an online chat room and weekly community meet-ups where you can connect with other members of the IndieWeb community who are happy to share their experiences and answer questions.

Dive straight into some welcoming guides built by community members (that anyone can contribute to) like IndieWebify.me and the IndieWeb Guides. I also recommend looking out for blog posts with IndieWeb introductions on personal websites as they all have different voices that may match your way of learning.

The wonderful thing about the IndieWeb community is that you’re welcome to do what works for you. It isn’t about following trends and there isn’t only one ‘right way’ to build things — just your way.

(fb, ra, il)

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source http://www.scpie.org/autonomy-online-a-case-for-the-indieweb/

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[celticnoise]

I’ve been following, with some dismay, all the goings on in the Westminster election this week.

Aside from being awful to behold, it is going to be an interminably long campaign, one of those ones which is going drag on and on and on.

All I’m grateful for, at this time, is that cup final weekend comes first. I would not want that occasion ruined by a newly minted Tory government preening and strutting across my TV screens, and that’s what it looks like producing.

I should, I guess, add the words “at the moment” to that sentence, because honestly I would not bet on the outcome of this one with Dave King’s dirty money. No outcome is so far outside the realms of possibility as to be considered outlandish or ridiculous. There is a reality TV star who boasted about sexually assaulting women in The White House and this country would have had a Halloween Brexit if much of the populace had gotten its way.

Nothing, at this point, can reasonably be ruled out.

Elections are a dangerous business. Even if you’re storming ahead in the polls and look unbeatable, they can find a way to trip you up. Ask Hillary Clinton. Ask Theresa May. Clinton, in particular, looked as if she couldn’t lose when you considered her opponent.

But complacency, bad strategy and the air of scandal that wafts around that family like body odour made that a tougher race than it needed to be.

Had either party run any other candidate in that race it would have been a landslide and the world would have a very different feel to it at the present time.

The current volatility in the electoral system makes this a singularly bad time, in some ways, for me to want to look at the old idea of putting a fan on the board.

I’ve heard every argument against this. Lawwell and his people will say the board is full of fans already, but they know what they can do with that hoary old guff. We’re not talking, here, about some prawn sandwich millionaire with a soft seat in the stand who’s forgotten what it’s like to sit on a plastic folding chair under a leaky roof in December.

We’re talking here about someone who puts their money into the club … as opposed to those who draw a salary or a dividend and take money out. One tends to give you a slightly different perspective from the other, and it may be time we had that balance.

The question as to how we’d pick the candidates, and where we’d draw them from, is a valid one. We already have fan reps, but a lot of them have been in place for years now and you wonder if they would have anything new to bring to the table.

Putting a fan on the board is, after all, a different ballgame from having someone represent supporter’s groups.

We all know that a fan would not have a lot of power to influence club strategy. Or we think we do anyway. I know for a fact that just having a supporter in the boardroom when major issues are being debated would be a game-changer.

Resolution 12 would never have been so easy to dismiss out of hand if there’d been an ordinary punter in that room at the time.

There would, naturally, be a lot of arguments about where said fan “came from.” That is, what organisations or groups would be vying for that place? The Trust has long wanted a fan on the board, but the CSA would stake their own claim and they’d have a good one.

On top of that, some of the bloggers have become quite prominent in the politics of the club. Where do they fit in? That’s not me recommending myself; the idea appals me, to be frank, and I’ll tell you why that’s the case; whoever ended up on the board would be seriously restricted in terms of what they could disclose about goings on inside Celtic … it would actually be the greatest hindrance to doing the job of writing about the club that I could think of.

But there would need to be some kind of mechanism by which fans could choose their representative. It would have to be fair, and transparent, and something everyone could understand. This is all supposing that the idea ever got off the ground.

I have to be honest, I no longer understand why certain clubs – including ours – are opposed to this idea. Oh I can see full well why Sevco doesn’t want a fan on the board; they are an embarrassment enough in the stands, and that club has a lot going on inside the walls that it wants to keep secret, even from their own supporters.

Celtic is well run. If there is stuff going on that the fans don’t need to know then fair enough, but I trust that it’s nothing that would jeopardise our future or anything that the fans knowing about would either precipitate or stave off a crisis.

I know a lot of fans would argue against this. A lot of them believe we need professionals running our club. But who says that the fans themselves couldn’t bring something special to the table? Who says they couldn’t make a contribution?

The AGM this year is going to be showdown between the board and fans over Resolution 12 so, the issue is moot as far as the coming meeting goes.

We would need to play the long game here, and push this onto the agenda over time. It won’t be the first time folk have tried to put it there, but our board is dead set against this proposal … it is high time, though, that some of our fan groups came together to think this through and lobby for it properly.

It is high time this was given the consideration it deserves.

The CelticBlog will be doing a series of quizzes from now on … please take our first one below, and pass it along.

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