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lit-in-thy-heart · 3 years

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For the ask game, the scene in marigolds where they rescue Gwaine from the rock and Merlin summons the fucking massive dragon and Pelleas helps them and Lancelot threatens to haunt him if he double crosses them 🤣🤣🤣 ICONIC

dfghjkl ah yes the scene that would have been lancelot clutching adoption papers had his hands not been full with gwaine 🤣

ngl the merlin shouting in the background was actually partially inspired by six days but obviously in a different context (and that scene is also one that springs to mind for you because i still can't, it legitimately had me in hysterics) but merlin screaming in the background whilst other people are trying to have a conversation is something i love :D

i feel like lance haunting people would just be him appearing when they're on the toilet or something and giving them a withering glare. he's not really the type to follow them around with unholy screams and i think that's very original of him

tysm for the ask!!! 💕💕

(the scene is under the cut)

In all Gwaine’s nightmares, it had been light when he had been about to drown. Clouds had formed a shield around him, preventing any rescue, and he had been helpless as the tide had gradually crept forward like a legion, struggling against bonds that he could see but not untie. This, somehow, was worse. The moonlight ricocheted off the water’s surface and refracted in numerous directions, illuminating patches of the sea that left Gwaine completely at a loss as to the vastness of it. Even though he knew dry land was close, the rock – now at a higher level than his head – obscured his view and, wherever he looked, it was all darkness and glimmering scales where the moonlight dipped its fingers into the sea. Wherever he looked, he was alone.

The cold was digging its nails into him and trying to draw blood but instead injecting fatigue and Gwaine, knowing nothing but the certainty of his fate, closed his eyes once more. He relaxed his muscles as his mouth became submerged in the water, diluted salt trickling into his parted lips, his nose only millimetres from joining it. At least Anselm wouldn’t be able to use him to control Merlin. At least he wouldn’t be able to fail Merlin and Lancelot again. At least it would all be over.

‘Gwaine! Gwaine!’

Apparently hearing the voices of the people you loved in your final moments wasn’t just a comforting myth, because Lancelot’s voice was piercing the rolling fog in Gwaine’s head quite successfully. It was odd that he could also hear Merlin roaring spells in the distance, too, because Gwaine didn’t really associate Merlin with violence. Merlin and his voice belonged to the tentative dawn and amongst the chorus of birds that came with it, belonged with the rustling leaves in a gentle breeze and the jewelled grass, not to the furious fire that could take apart whole armies. Just like Lancelot and his voice belonged to the stark sunset and the whispers of tendrils of clouds, belonged with the constellations that covered the heavens in a thin layer of protective dust and the bleeding colours of day, not to the agonised desperation that could cause the sky itself to fissure.

Still, any last thoughts of them brought Gwaine comfort.

There was a blunt shout from behind but Gwaine didn’t react, wanting nothing more than to sleep. His nose ducked below the surface and everything around him became muffled as his ears were cushioned by the water.

It might have been for minutes or years that Gwaine was suspended there, tethered to the rock, before he was hauled from the water with someone calling his name in a strangled voice between obscene swearing.

An arm was wrapped around Gwaine’s waist to support him as he instinctively tried to inhale and began coughing, his whole body convulsing in the attempt to dispel the water. After the threat had seemingly been combated, his legs gave way but he was caught before he could fall and drawn close to a hammering heart.

Gwaine could feel the next words stir within him, transmitted by the vibrations of his rescuer’s vocal cords, as he drifted to the fringes of consciousness. ‘Merlin! Merlin, I’ve got him!’ Something angular dropped onto the top of Gwaine’s head, movement grating against his scalp. ‘It’s okay, it’s okay. We’ve got you, you’re safe.’

‘Lance…’M’sorry…’

Lancelot, feeling Gwaine’s body go limp, rested him against the rock, hand fumbling for a pulse in panic. Glancing towards the shore, he could see that Merlin was gradually advancing, his face contorted with rage in the flashes of it Lancelot could catch as flares embedded themselves in bandits. Lancelot had seen Merlin use magic before, of course, but never so violently; from the moment they had broken from the cell, Merlin had been ruthless in the damage he had dealt. The streaks of fire penetrating the atmosphere provided Lancelot with a little visual aid and, satisfied that Gwaine was still breathing, he used his own body to prop up his partner, hands groping for the shackles.

Merlin was going to kill him for discarding his sling – if the pain in his shoulder didn’t kill him first – but Lancelot gritted his teeth and focused instead on trying to free Gwaine. Which, apparently, was going to be harder than he’d first thought. The waves were slapping against higher and higher points of Lancelot’s back and he pushed one leg between both of Gwaine’s to steady him further. His fingers clawed at the iron uselessly, trying to pull apart the cuffs around Gwaine’s wrists, but it was futile. Frantically, Lancelot turned his gaze back towards the shore and latched onto Merlin’s formidable figure, who was in the middle of throwing back the bandit posted to guard Gwaine, whom Lancelot had darted past in the darkness.

‘They’re chains,’ Lancelot cried out when Merlin was close enough, voice cracking, ‘chains, not rope. I can’t get them off.’

Merlin splashed through the water as quickly as he could, fingers grazing Lancelot’s as he examined the chains. There was an explosion of light as Merlin muttered an incantation and winced, his hand going to his chest. He brushed off the twinge and checked that the tether had been severed, glancing towards Lancelot. ‘We have to get him out of the water and get him warm.’

Lancelot was already in the process of doing so; he had laid Gwaine out on the rock once more and was angling his body to drape Gwaine over his uninjured shoulder.

‘Lance, no, your shoulder—’

‘I’ll be careful,’ Lancelot replied, straightening his posture and hooking his left arm around the backs of Gwaine’s knees. ‘Unless you have a better solution?’

‘I’ll take him.’

‘Over my dead body,’ was the sharp response. ‘You’re not meant to be lifting heavy objects and I’m pretty sure a human body comes under the category of “heavy objects”. Do you still have the cloak?’ Lancelot added as he began to wade back to shore, nervously keeping an eye on the castle’s silhouette.

Following the knight, Merlin untied the cloak from his waist. ‘I can do a drying spell,’ he offered. ‘I don’t know how much it will help, but anything is better than nothing, right?’

With a nod, Lancelot spun around when his boots made contact with dry land and watched Merlin place a hand on Gwaine’s exposed back. His eyes shone and, as they faded, he arranged the cloak over Gwaine’s form. Lancelot trapped the material between his hand and Gwaine’s legs, looking towards the castle again. ‘It’s not going to take them long to figure out where we’ve gone. And Gwaine took more blows than he can probably handle back in the throne room…’

Lancelot broke off before he added to his panic by recalling the images that had shot by only moments before – of Gwaine seemingly lifeless in the water, his slurred speech, his helplessness. This was the second time in just over a fortnight that Lancelot had felt his heart contract with terror at the sight of Gwaine’s lifeless form, but he was no less used to it. Stilling for a moment, Lancelot registered the faint sound of Gwaine breathing and relaxed slightly. They had to get him to Camelot.

Merlin’s hand was resting on his uninjured shoulder. ‘It’s alright. I’ve got an idea. We need to start moving towards the mainland.’

‘It’s not something stupid or dangerous, is it?’

‘Not for us,’ Merlin assured him, giving Lancelot’s shoulder a small squeeze. He kissed him gently before dropping a kiss in the midst of Gwaine’s now-dry hair. ‘We’re going to be okay. Start moving. I’ll catch up.’

Lights – pinpricks of bronze blood against the night sky – were eddying towards them from the direction of the castle. ‘Merlin—’

Merlin pushed his shoulder. ‘I’ll be fine. Go. Get Gwaine to safety.’

Hesitating momentarily, Lancelot started forwards as the lights behind them expanded. With his right arm hanging limply by his side, he contracted the muscles in his left arm to more firmly support Gwaine and glanced over his shoulder. Merlin had turned away and stood with his legs slightly apart, his head tilted towards the sky. The words that emerged from his mouth reached Lancelot clearly, but that didn’t help him decipher their meaning.

'O drakon, e male so ftengometta tesd'hup'anankes!’

Although, picking up on the word ‘drakon’, Lancelot could hazard a guess as to what would be involved. Merlin repeated the phrase, more insistently this time, and the guttural quality to the syllables that stretched over Merlin’s tongue sent Lancelot’s skin erupting into goosebumps.

He turned his mouth towards Gwaine’s motionless body, the faint smile grazing the muscles concealed by the cloak. ‘Gwaine,’ he whispered, ‘you are going to kick yourself later for missing this.’ It might have been his imagination, but Gwaine seemed to shift slightly against him. ‘But don’t worry, my love, I’ll tell you all about it when you’re better.’ He paused before pressing a kiss to the cloak. ‘Rest well, now, my love, it’s all going to be fine, I promise you.’

Raising his head, Lancelot looked back at Merlin, who was still standing stubbornly in the place that he’d been left. He was also still shouting and didn’t notice a figure streak past until they were halfway towards Lancelot. Breaking off his call, Merlin fired a ball of flames at the figure but they swerved to the side and stumbled to a halt beside Lancelot, who had ceased all movement.

Reflexively, Lancelot reached down and removed the knife Gwaine had given him from his boot, biting down on his lip to avoid crying out, and held it out. ‘Don’t come any closer,’ he threatened.

‘Put the knife down, I’m here to help you.’

Still holding the knife, Lancelot squinted at the tangled hair. ‘You’re the one Gwaine had to fight. You were going to kill him.’

‘Anselm would have killed me.’ The bandit let out an impatient noise. ‘Look, I don’t know what batshit thing your friend is doing over there, but whatever it is, it’s only going to hold the others off for so long. And you can’t carry Gwaine by yourself.’

Desperately, Lancelot looked between the bandit and Merlin. Finally, he shoved the knife back in his boot. ‘Fine. But if you hand us over to Anselm, I will haunt you so hard—’

‘I’m not going to hand you over to Anselm. Gwaine told me to get out if I could, so I thought I’d take advantage of the chaos you caused. Give him here.’

With a grunt, Lancelot lowered Gwaine and draped one of his arms over his shoulder, motioning for the bandit to support the other side. ‘What’s your name?’

‘Pelleas.’

Lancelot took a step forward. ‘Right, Pelleas, we’re heading in the direction called as-far-the-fuck-away-from-here-as-possible. Merlin said he’d catch up with us, and I trust him—’

‘Merlin?’

Lancelot silently swore. ‘Did I say Merlin? I meant Will. Will said he’d catch up with us—’

‘Is that a dragon?’

Lifting his head, Lancelot watched as the stars were obscured by a large mass before a creature landed beside Merlin and was unable to conceal a smile. ‘A fucking massive dragon, I think.’

Pelleas frowned at him. ‘There’s a difference?’

‘Oh, yes.’ The smile on Lancelot’s face faded as a strong stream of fire issued from the dragon’s jaw, directed at the bandits approaching Merlin. ‘Thank you for your assistance, but we’ll be able to take it from here. And, if you want my advice, run as far away from here as fast as possible and don’t look back. And breathe a word about Mer—Will to anyone—’

‘I won’t,’ Pelleas hurriedly said. ‘I won’t.’ He ducked out from beneath Gwaine’s arm. ‘If—If Gwaine wakes, tell him I forgive him.’

With that, Pelleas melted into the darkness.

Lancelot tried not to think too hard about the ‘if’. Merlin was running towards them and Lancelot hoisted Gwaine up, their cheeks brushing together. ‘No pressure, my love, but it would be really helpful if you could wake up right about now. I’ve never had to mount a dragon before—’ Lancelot waited for an interjection in the form of a dick joke, but it didn’t come. ‘Well, not a real dragon, because Merlin’s magnificence doesn’t count.’ He paused again. ‘I can’t believe that I’m making dick jokes and you’re too unconscious to make note of it. Anyway, I’ve never had to mount a dragon before, let alone with an unconscious knight relying on me. So, if you could wake up…’

As he moved his ear to Gwaine’s mouth to check that breath was still hitting his cheek, weak words were shaped by the breeze. ‘’S’my method. Humour‘s a d’fense mech’nism.’

Lancelot drew his face away. ‘Yeah, well, you weren’t around to use it.’

‘Right here, ‘n’t I?’ Gwaine struggled to open his eyes: the lids flickered but remained steadfastly closed. ‘Right though. Mer’in does have a dr’gon dick.’

Laughing as tears collected in the corners of his eyes, Lancelot shook his head. ‘I can’t believe all it took was a dick joke to revive you.’ He pressed his lips to Gwaine’s forehead. ‘I fucking love you, you know that? And it’s all going to be okay. We’re going to get you back home and patched up and everything is going to be fine and no harm is ever going to come to you again and—’

‘Lance…’

Whatever Gwaine was about to say, though, was interrupted by Merlin’s arrival as he skidded to a halt in front of them, one hand on his chest with the other holding an orb of light. In the fragmented illumination, the corners of his mouth were twisted in pain and his breathless words were ragged. ‘Kil—Kilgharrah can take us to the woods just outside the citadel,’ he gasped out. ‘And he’s also helpfully offered to torch the place.’

‘Pelleas…’ murmured Gwaine.

Lancelot buried his mouth in Gwaine’s hairline. ‘Pelleas got out, my love, it’s alright. Save your strength.’ Catching the start of Pelleas’s name in Merlin’s tone, Lancelot cut him off softly. ‘Later, Merlin. There will be time then. What do we need to do?’

Sparing a moment to give Gwaine a tearful kiss, whose mouth flickered minutely in response, Merlin turned back towards Kilgharrah. ‘We just need to get on his back. We can—We can sort Gwaine out when we’re settled and secure.’

At the sound of his name, Gwaine finally managed to open his eyes. He was confronted with blazing fires and a very large shape a little way off and, blinking drowsily, he leaned closer into Lancelot. ‘’S’at the fuckin’ massive drag’n?’

‘Perhaps don’t call him that,’ Merlin fondly said, voice just carrying over Lancelot’s reminder of what he had just said to Gwaine. ‘His name is Kilgharrah and he is the last dragon.’

#merwaincelot and the chaos that comes with them my beloved <3 #aaaaaaand now i want to write another work for we are bound together by delicate stems #but i need to focus on my current wip first #thanks again for the ask!#maybe pelleas will return....#donttouchtheneednoggle #asks #lit writes #merlin #gwaine #lancelot #merwaincelot #bbc merlin #merlin fanfic #drowning #drowning tw

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douchebagbrainwaves · 3 years

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0 MEANS USING THE WEB AS A PLATFORM DIDN'T LIVE MUCH PAST THE FIRST CONFERENCE

This phrase began with musicians, who perform at night. Most are service businesses—restaurants, barbershops, plumbers, and so on. 0 conference would presumably be full of geeks, right? This side of the story: what an essay really is, and how you write one. Getting work makes him a successful actor, but he doesn't only become an actor when he's successful. Larry Page and Sergey Brin wanted to search the web. He was like Michael Jordan. But the first time around it was co-opted by Sun, and we got Java applets. Albrecht Durer did the same thing that makes everyone else want the stock of successful startups is that they're not. But there is also huge source of implicit tags that they ignore: the text within web links. The test of any investment is the ratio of return to risk, if both were lower.

I advised startups never to let anyone fly under them, meaning never to let any other company offer a cheaper, easier solution. Let's start with a promising question and get nowhere. Unfortunately, the question is a complex one. Especially if it meant independence for my native land, hacking. Another reason people don't work on big things, you seem to have been influenced by the Chinese example. Bertrand Russell wrote in a letter in 1912: Hitherto the people attracted to philosophy have been mostly those who loved the big generalizations, which were all wrong, so that few people with exact minds have taken up the subject. Originally, yes, there does seem to be several categories of cuts: things I got wrong, things that seem obvious in retrospect. All those unseen details combine to produce something that's just stunning, like a skateboard. Should you add x feature?

As an example of this rule; if you assume that knowledge can be represented as a list of predicate logic expressions whose arguments represent abstract concepts, you'll have a lot in the calculus class, but I know that when it comes to empathy are practically solipsists. 0 have in common. And yet if I had to write in school are not only not essays, they're one of the angels in his Baptism of Christ. And so hackers, like painters, must have empathy to do really great work. Does Web 2. In the best case—if you're really organized—if you're really organized—you're just writing it down. I found that what the teacher wanted us to do was pretend that the story had really taken place, and to know how to calculate time and space complexity and about Turing completeness.

What made it possible for small organizations to succeed in some domain, you have to compete with other local barbers. I read an interview with Joe Kraus, the co-founder of Excite. You can use the cram schools to show you where most of the 1970s. No doubt it was a description of Google? How to Start a Startup I advised startups never to let any other company offer a cheaper, easier solution. 7x a year, whereas a company that grows at 5% a week will 4 years later be making $7900 a month, which is one of those things that seem obvious in retrospect. It does seem to me very important to be able to get a day job that's closely related to your real work. Number two, research must be substantial—and as anyone who has written a PhD dissertation knows, the way to approach the current philosophical tradition may be neither to get lost in pointless speculations like Berkeley, nor to shut them down like Wittgenstein, but to get the rest you have sit through a movie.

The goal he announces in the Metaphysics was partly that he set off with contradictory aims: to explore the most abstract ideas, guided by the assumption that it was a waste of time? It's not considered insulting to say that life is too short for, the word that pops into my head is bullshit. I was a kid I was always being told to look at it. It's not just a barbershop whose founders were unusually lucky and hard-working. Web 2. They're not doing research per se, though if in the course of trying to discover them because they're useless, let's try to discover them because they're useful. In theory this sort of hill-climbing could get a startup into trouble. He has noticed that theoretical knowledge is often acquired for its own sake, out of curiosity, one of the first digital computers, Rod Brooks wrote, programs written for them usually did not work. Most businesses are tightly constrained in a.

And so began the study of ancient texts had such prestige that it remained the backbone of education until the late 19th century. Basically, what Ajax means is Javascript now works. As credentials are superseded by performance, a similar role is the best source of rapid change. Once you dilute a startup with ordinary office workers—with type-B procrastinating, no matter how much you're getting done. Most don't discover anything that remarkable, but some through luck or the efforts of their founders ended up growing very fast, we wouldn't need a separate word for startups, and in particular the most successful startups, or they'll be out of business and the people would be interested in painting. They work well enough in everyday life are fuzzy, and break down if pushed too hard. Musicians often seem to work in record stores. By which one defended it. Why are they so hot to invest in photo-sharing apps, rather than for any practical need. But unfortunately that was not the conclusion Aristotle's successors derived from works like the Metaphysics.

The reason credentials have such prestige is that for so long the large organizations in a market can come close. The Airbeds just won the first poll among all the YC startups in their batch by a landslide. By gradually chipping away at the abuse of credentials, you could probably make them more airtight. The next best, for startups that aren't charging initially, is active users. Perhaps not everyone can make an equally dramatic mark on the world; I don't know if Plato or Aristotle were the first to ask any of the hackers I know write programs. The people who want a deep understanding of what you're doing. Other times nothing seems interesting. And so instead of correcting the problem Aristotle discovered by falling into it—that you can easily get lost if you talk too loosely about very abstract ideas—they continued to fall into place. I've used both these excuses at one time or another. We didn't draw any conclusions.

But the two phenomena rapidly fused to produce a principle that now seems obvious: paying energetic young people market rates, and getting correspondingly high performance from them. For a painter, a museum is a reference library of techniques. They're interrupt-driven, and soon you are too. But schools change slower than scholarship: the study of ancient texts is a valid field for scholarship, why not start the type with the most potential? It's like having a vacuum cleaner hooked up to your imagination. Why not as past-due notices are always saying do it now? This was particularly true in consulting, law, and finance, where it led to the phenomenon of yuppies. That was as far as I'd gotten at the time. Only a tiny fraction are startups. To some extent you have to adjust the angle just right: you have to take these cycles into account, because they're affected by how you react to them. 6x 7% 33.

Thanks to Sam Altman, Abby Kirigin, and Anton van Straaten for putting up with me.

#automatically generated text #Markov chains #Paul Graham #Python #Patrick Mooney #barbershops #law #conference #Sergey #trouble #predicate #implicit #night #plumbers #categories #Baptism #cuts #subject #landslide

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archivsm · 4 years

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The Magnus Archives and Horror: An Analogy of Why the Horror Within Doesn’t Always Work

The Magnus Archives has been widely regarded as a good example of how horror podcasts can work very well and have an ability to incite horror with just sound alone. It is personally one of my own favorite podcasts, especially regarding how it incorporates LGBT characters without the need to kill them off or show them in a villainous light and its amazing story telling. Horror podcasts as a whole are such an interesting genre within podcasts because of how it forces its’ writers to only use sound alone to set the world for their listeners. This comes to say that the genre of horror is such a complex and somewhat tricky genre to make work no matter what media you work with and I believe that the Magnus Archives is a very strong piece of ongoing media that is able to depict horror well. To a degree.

What does this mean?

I feel that with the Magnus Archives, it can get largely exaggerated as to the horrors within the podcast and that the Magnus Archives does not keep a consistent tone of being scary; there comes a point in which the episodes have a sort of predictability to it that dilutes what is being presented but it is definitely not to say that there are no episodes that scared me. I’ve kept a small note of what episodes I found scary and it’s when I noticed that most of these episodes were still prior to its heavier ongoings within plot development (Which is to be said that this point is mainly season three for me.) that there became a clear trend. Older episodes simply faired better in terms of horror than those more recent. I know that in the Magnus Archives’ defense that all of this was structured long before it had started but again, this is meant to touch on why I’d felt like these episodes worked so well especially while lacking in plot. And that fact is that these episodes were still largely unexplained.

Before you go further into why that shroud of the unknown in the beginning worked so well you have to acknowledge how horror is typically built upon. The two main components of horror are typically depicted as:

Personal: Under this, your goal is meant for the audience to feel fear for themselves as to what your antagonist presents and for the antagonist being able to enable a presence even after your story has ended.

Sympathy/Empathy: Under this, your goal is to get your audience to relate and/or care for your cast of characters so that when your antagonist becomes known or is a current threat to your cast, your fear as the audience who are only able to be on the sidelines is stimulated out of not knowing who is going to die or being able to prevent it.

These two components build off each other and are what help to make a stronger horror story. However, there are various examples that simply try to present horror with only one component or are attempting to utilize both but fail by poor writing and execution. By looking how first-person horror games can stimulate fear but lack in the use of a wider cast, making for the fear reliant heavily on how the writer presents it and the player itself and the contrary being horror movies working to try and get you to care about a cast of characters but only sprouted from being able to relate and wanting to see them thrive and not out of fear of your antagonist, move to prove the previous statement. This isn’t to say that there aren’t pieces of media that aren’t able to stand strong with only one component, but it’s to say that most of them typically don’t. The episodes of the Magnus Archives I felt were scarier were mainly because they fell under Personal and not Sympathy/Empathy. I did not have much of a reason to care about them in the beginning, yet even when I became heavily invested in characters and listened to characters meet their demise I did not feel scared for them and I still don’t now. This stems from the fact that I never felt like they died. I never felt like Gertrude died, I never felt like Tim died, and I never even felt like Daisy died, no matter how much they worked to try and convince me so. So the moment in which Jon ventures into the Buried and is able to retrieve Daisy, I was largely unfazed by the overall event having already fully expected for her return. Why the Magnus Archives doesn’t fully work under the Sympathy/Empathy component is because when we were met with further expansion on our cast characters, we are also given expansion upon the universe in which they live in. With this, there came a beginning to why things would occur. You could break down as to why Tim’s death never really why felt like his death nor why Daisy didn’t feel like her death, but I believe the strongest topic to expand upon is why I could never really believe Gertrude is dead.

Quite far from the typical stages of grief, my acceptance of her death had come from when it was first spoken in episode one only to lead to disbelief as we began to learn more about her. This disbelief stemmed from the fact that since we have mostly listened to Jon’s perspective in the first seasons, we can only come to understand the universe from his eyes. How Jon would describe Gertrude as disorganized, uncaring, or someone who just never seemed fit for her position as an archivist- I’d easily believe it in the beginning. There wasn’t room for me to question it in the beginning nor did I have reason to as the story progressed. As Jon begins to delve into the truth of the institute and of Gertrude, we along with him, his doubts became one with my own. I only know as much as Jon speaks and illustrates with his words, leaving whatever blanks that he doesn’t fill as blanks I am also left with. Yet I’d heard when Martin discovered her dead body under the archives and I’d heard when Elias had shot her down; I still didn’t believe it then. My disbelief is stemmed from Jon’s own misconceptions and lacking understanding in the full character of Gertrude. His doubt of Jane Prentis’ death had left me with the lingering feeling that she never died and I kept expecting her to make her return at any given moment. I’d only got over this when I learned that avatars could die. As for Gertrude, her character has been shown to be someone who’s rather wise and understanding to plan further than spontaneously. A death so simple as gunshots seemed something seemingly so tame compared to the rest of the entities and fears she’d come in contact with. Maybe I just thought she was just too much of a badass to die by just a singular bullet. Regardless, this point convenes to the fact that her death cannot fall under the Sympathy/Empathy category. She died by relatively human means and due to the fact that we were only given a recording of her death deep within the story when we’ve learned a heavy amount of her character, I could not care for her when her death was primarily relevant within the beginning seasons when we knew her by the mess Jon described her as. In fact, the fact that none of these characters could really fall under the Sympathy/Empathy category is because they didn’t die by the horrors in the story, they died through devices created by humans. Gertrude died by her gunshot wounds, Tim died by the C4 detonations and Daisy was presumed to have suffered the same fate as Tim. Even if these deaths were influenced by the fears and their entities, they died a way humans have died before. This presents an issue because without someone that we learned about and watch develop to have died to an entity you don’t completely feel the threat the entity is supposed to signify to the cast. These are threats that have solutions today and the fact that there are ways to avoid them is what softens the severity of the threat meant to be presented. The stakes feel relatively low knowing this and help to dilute how the audience perceives an entity. A counter-argument could be that Sasha was one of the only ones to actually have been taken by a fear, namely the Distortion. However, Sasha cannot fall within the Sympathy/Empathy category due to two reasons: The first is that we did not know much about her character when we lost her. We were given a not-Sasha for a much longer time than when we had the original Sasha. Not-Sasha is not in equal personality to the original Sasha so the listener’s appeal to Not-Sasha would not be the same for the original Sasha. Even with that said, if the listener were to feel guilty in not realizing that our original knowings of Sasha were long gone this is the post the fact that she was taken long ago. The second reason is that we were never given a confirmation for her death. Sasha, Micheal, and Helen were all victims to the distortion but it is never described what really occurred to them and we are to presume them as dead. The fact of the matter is, Sasha could very well be around still but in a way that we aren’t presented with. None of these deaths can fall under the Sympathy/Empathy category leaving for the Magnus Archives to be heavily reliant on the category to Personal experience. And does it work?

Well. It depends on what you choose to focus on. But for the purpose of this analogy, the Magnus Archives can provide amazing executions of horror, but mainly in the beginning. Truth be told, podcasts may be the perfect type of media if you really want to get personal with your listeners. Stories within podcasts do not have to be dependent on a wide cast of characters, but they do help to strengthen the story you give. An example of a story that gets personal with the viewers is episode ninety-four, All Right, from Welcome to Night Vale. Despite Welcome to Night Vale not being a horror-centric podcast, the idea that a listener can feel a connection to the story without a mention of every personal detail relating to you shows that podcasts have the potential to give you a personal experience. In this episode, Cecil Palmer, the radio host of Night Vale, speaks directly to the listener and helps to encapsulate them by having the audio for the episode alternate between earbuds. It is necessary for the listener to possess earbuds and to match the actions in which he dictates in order to feel the full immersion of what is going, but the overall experience is able to solidify the connection between narrator and listener very strongly. This then raises the question of whether the Magnus Archives is able to form this same connection between narrator and listener. And the answer is yes, but in a way that is far different than how Welcome to Night Vale had done.

The Magnus Archives’ connection with the listener varies in that when listening to statements, you are meant to feel as though you are currently witnessing the statements that Jon reads. Even if horror doesn’t always have its’ presence in statements, the Magnus Archives does a very well job of being able to encapsulate the listener into feeling as though they are able to experience these statements along with their statement giver. This is done through heavy descriptions that are still able to leave room for the listener to insert themselves into and audio design that is able to capture the environment in which it takes place. In describing sound effects, they are not entirely present to the listener when invested in what is being told but they are subtly put in in a way that helps to give the feel that the listener is within the environment. This is an incredibly strong point because immersion is an important aspect of getting a story to feel personal. For a story to feel personal, it is not necessary for you to be present within the story but be able to be given enough information to understand the main character’s perspective (Or rather the perspective of the statement giver, in this case.) and motivations as though it were your own. Now, when it comes to being able to tell a horror story meant to immerse the listener and scare them, things begin to get tricky. Horror is subjective to a person. That is a fact. Our fears are driven by our past experience and own mindsets and are most likely not the same as another’s. The episodes I found scary were namely the episodes centered around the Flesh but they were the ones I ended up taking the most interest in and soon becoming my favorites. In truth, there were other episodes that had scared me coinciding with other fears but as I got deeper into the series none of these episodes could really scare me anymore and would at most give me slight discomfort. Why? It was the idea of the unknown. I was scared of the meat episodes because I didn’t know what influence was going on behind them. I didn’t know anything about the fears nor of what qualities they possessed. I liked them a lot more before I knew any of these things. The issue is that once I began to understand what the influence was behind these statements- I wasn’t scared. It was because I was able to categorize and identify the fear that was present. This is an issue. For most horror stories to work, it is best to let influences be left unknown. Exposition in things such as horror movies, that infodump the entire background for an antagonist and list how they were able to survive and give the opportunity for the main cast to prevent this evil- it doesn’t work for me. This applies to the Magnus Archives in the sense that Elias did explain a huge portion of what was going on in the middle of the Magnus Archives and that Gertrude’s notes gave her studies of the fears and of their rituals. If I am able to know about the entity behind the evils present in the story, there is nothing to stop me from learning that there is some way to stop them. By giving the influences behind a statement an unidentifiable factor or a lack of a resolution in Jon’s follow up (i.e. their disappearance), then I feel as though I am given a reason to be scared because it goes to show I don’t have the full understanding of what this evil is capable of and that there is no room for me to let my guard down. It is not to be said that this evil should go entirely unknown that makes the statements and their antagonists unidentifiable as actual evils and not just pure fear of the statement giver’s own mind and that the Magnus Archives’s original structure of the listener being presented with statements with little information behind it is what makes a structure for a strong and encaptivating horror story.

So with the end of the Magnus Archives beginning to near, there is one final question left: Can the Magnus Archives work to still scare listeners? Yes, but it cannot be done under the Personal category of horror. It must be done in the Sympathy/Empathy category. I believe if you would want to reincorporate horror within the final pegs of the Magnus Archives, you would have to work to deteriorate a character's mind from the external events that affect them. By doing this you are able to emphasize the horrors external and that their effect is much more damaging and lasting than their attacks alone. Though Jon falls as one of the best contenders of someone who has fell victim to the paranoia of his own mind, he cannot be the prime person whose downfall is themself, seeing as his character is being led in a way to detract from this. However, the only other alternative is to kill a member from the cast of characters that we have been following. They must die by a fear in order to give emphasis on the threat that the fears actually are to our cast and we must be given the sense that any of the other characters we’ve come to love have the potential to suffer the same fate. I cannot fully recommend this route though. With the main cast consisting of LGBT/LGBT-coded characters, it would hurt to see the Magnus Archives fall under the same trope of badly mistreating characters for the purpose of furthering a story. Overall, this is not meant to present any distaste to the Magnus Archives. I enjoy the podcast heavily but I understand that I am here more for the plot of it rather than it being a horror anthology like I’d once originally started out with. I understand I cannot change what has happened or what will happen next, but I believe by breaking down the components in which the Magnus Archives falls weak or strong as a horror podcast can help in understanding and studying the genre of horror as a whole.

#tma #the magnus archives #tma spoilers #the magnus archives spoilers #horror #theo talks #long p

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thesinglesjukebox · 5 years

Video

youtube

CUPCAKKE - SQUIDWARD NOSE

[4.45]

This is definitely a song about a nose. Definitely.

Ian Mathers: Laugh rule. [7]

Alfred Soto: She's running out of limbs to which she can compare a penis, so she settles on toes and sells it with a chorus of Hemingway-worthy simplicity. Horn blasts, enthusiastic if not sycophantic backing vocal, post-Timbo "Asian" program -- "Squidward Nose" could've come out in 2017 or 2012. Before the audience complains about sameness, let me remind them that Trump's America needs eight thousand female rappers whose cock craze will make dudes think she's belittling them. In 2020 I won't need this, nor, I hope, will CupcakKe. [6]

Nicholas Donohoue: I don't think any song has come more fully birthed from the thigh of Generation-Z internet culture: meme subject lines, rapid-fire samples to pepper the beat, SpongeBob being the Rosetta Stone to translating situations for the uninitiated. The line of upfront rudeness and humor with calculated malice on deserving targets and clear lines on the fantasy, that's such a welcome addition to what realness in hip hop could be. I also appreciate any project that opens me up to a whole new way to examine children's media. [8]

Julian Axelrod: There may come a day where CupcakKe's routine gets old. There may come a day when she runs out of anatomy-based punchlines, or blows through her endless arsenal of cartoon fire hydrant beats, or gets cancelled for tweeting about wanting to fuck Henry Kissinger or something. But "Squidward Nose" is a loopy banger with a rapid-fire torrent of sex puns about Rick Ross, Serena Williams, and Dora the Explorer. So today is not that day. [7]

Tim de Reuse: For this to have had the most distant chance of working, she would've needed to come up with at least, like, two or three more words that rhyme with "nose." [1]

Katherine St Asaph: For all the pornographic raunch of CupcaKke's past singles, beneath the ones I've heard was always this crucial inclusivity. This time, well, I lack the pertinent equipment and even I feel vicariously like shit at the taunting, neverendingly repeated hook of "his dick's smaller than my toes." Did the last CupcakKe video we reviewed not feature one way to get around that? Is the audience for this song humiliation fetishists? At what point has Squidward's nose not been flaccid? (Besides when he's blowing bubbles, which I guess works? How many future offers of employment am I losing by writing this?) Extra point off for the R. Kelly joke now, of all times. [1]

Iris Xie: The trepidation of listening to that bhangra beat, and then witnessing CupcakKe launching into the riotous hook made me laugh for 5 minutes in relief and horror. This effect is amplified by how CupcakKe made a completely expert move of having a single bar of silence after the chorus, as to allow you to process the deep implications of what she just stated about "Squidward Nose." I am sad it's not the same exact sitar sample as Namie Amuro's deadpan pussypopping anthem "Want Me Want Me," but that's okay, they're both in the spirit of using bhangra-lite samples for extremely explicit reasons. There are many components to like here: I do appreciate how she leans away from making more Spongebob references, as to avoid diluting the initial humor, and digs in deeper for her extensive references, such as "I'm a Gemini so that's really a threesome." And CupcakKe stays true to her emphasis on not turning away from vivid sound effects, like, guh, that slurping sound is so gross!! But curiously, rather than building on that killer intro and syncopation between the horns, the sitar sample, and the wordplay and flow of her verses, the track loses momentum and peters out towards the end with re-iterating the chorus. This seems really uncharacteristic of the level of intensity and charisma CupcakKe usually brings to her songs, so I wish she went harder, but overall, I'm just glad such a song exists in such a silly and infuriating world. [6]

Thomas Inskeep: There's a way to make sex rap sexy -- cf. Cardi B's new single -- and then there's the way to make it gross and stupid. Starting but by no means ending with a SpongeBob Squarepants reference, this firmly falls in the latter category. CupcakKe's philosophy seems to be to say as much vulgar shit as possible (there's a reference to "snot," I'm not kidding), for no apparent reason other than that she can. That didn't work for Eminem or Luke (artistically, at least), and it doesn't work for her, either. [0]

Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: I started to enjoy CupcakKe's music a lot more once I realized there's not really a joke -- she's not a comedy rapper, just a rapper who's really good at saying ridiculous things with conviction and poise. "Squidward Nose" works because of this nuance -- she is absolutely committed to talking about how this guy's dick is very, very small, and there is nothing I can do to stop that. [7]

Will Rivitz: The verses contain some of CupcakKe's best one-liners; it's just a shame that the second verse -- unprintable here as this blurb has my name attached to it and I do not want future employers finding me through searching for suspect terms online but absolutely hilarious nonetheless -- is attached to a chorus whose flatness in pitch is matched accurately by its flatness in energy. [4]

Joshua Minsoo Kim: CupcakKe always ends up with cheap beats, but she's often able to make the most of them, even making them part and parcel of her brash appeal. The hook here is intentionally obnoxious, making its "neener neener"-like chant all the more biting, but it also sounds tedious alongside the dull, synthesized horn. At this point, the shock and delight of hearing CupcakKe's sexual wordplay and imagery is overridden by how familiar her flows have sounded across her many mixtapes. Even then, I was an Asian dude who grew up in all-White schools: I've heard far more creative words used to describe someone having a small dick, trust me. [2]

[Read, comment and vote on The Singles Jukebox]

#CupCakKe #rap #hip hop #music #music review #writing

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anthonykrierion · 3 years

Text

12-Point SEO Checklist for 2021

Doing SEO is never as easy as publishing an article, taking a nap, then wait for it to rank. SEO needs to be holistic and it takes efforts in all areas of it to be truly successful. It has been this way and it will surely be this way in 2021 and the next years to come.

However, one can only do so much and there are so many stuff to think about and focus on. It is really easy to get lost in SEO and forget about other factors when you are trying to optimize one factor after another. That is why I created this checklist to help you organize your thoughts and don’t miss a beat. If you want to be successful in SEO in 2021, follow this checklist to help you plan your SEO strategy.

1. Check Meta Tags

Checking and optimizing meta tags are two of the basic steps in doing on-page SEO. It has been and will always be an important part of any SEO checklist because it includes one of the most important ranking factors: the title tag.

When optimizing title tags, make sure that the target keyword is present while also creating a good copy to attract user clicks. Optimizing meta tags also means optimizing meta descriptions and although it is not a ranking factor, it is important for your click-through rate.

One of the things most people forget when checking meta tags is the meta robots tag attribute which can lead to critical errors. A simple ‘noindex’ tag can completely ruin a page’s rankings because it will literally tell Google to not show this page in the search results. You can use a robots exclusion checker extension so you can quickly check the meta robots attribute of a page without having to go to the source code.

2. Look for Duplicate Content

Duplicate content can cause two main problems: first is that there is a possibility that Google may flag it as spam and second are it may dilute keywords around your website. It is also good to note that duplicate content is not just any piece of content in the body of an article. Duplicate meta tags and subheadings can also negatively affect your rankings.

In instances where duplicate content cannot be avoided (ex. Two product pages with the same item and description but different measurements etc.), use the canonical tag to avoid ranking drops.

3. Check for Pages with Wrong Intent

As I mentioned in the article I wrote about SEO ranking factors in 2021, search intent is going to be big. That is why you should optimize not only new pages on your website but also existing ones.

Check the list of the keywords you are targeting and look for those that are not yet on the first page despite your efforts. Search the keyword you are targeting in Google and take a quick look at the ones Google is rewarding because for now, this is the best way to identify what is the intent of the keyword you are targeting.

Once you have assessed the right intent for the keyword, look back at the page you are trying to rank then adjust your content accordingly. Do the results show products? Then most likely, you need to show products on your page as well. Search intent will always focus on giving the users the answer that they are expecting so you should adjust your content according to that. Yes, keywords on your article and the word count are still important, but if your content does not satisfy what a user is searching for in a specific keyword, you will always be outranked by those that do.

4. Optimize for Core Web Vitals and Page Experience

The Core Web Vitals and Page Experience are confirmed SEO factors that will be integrated into Google’s algorithm in 2021 and there is no doubt that these two should be on your checklist.

There are three metrics that make the Core Web Vitals: Largest Contentful Paint, First Input Delay, and Cumulative Layout Shift. Page Experience, on the other hand, consists of existing SEO factors that are now grouped together to help Google better assess user experience on a website. This includes HTTPS, mobile-friendliness, safe-browsing, and no interstitials. The Core Web Vitals are actually included in the Page Experience but it is a big topic that is frequently discussed entirely on its own.

To help you assess how your website fairs on these new SEO factors, you can use a variety of field and lab tools from Google. PageSpeed Insights, Google Lighthouse, and the Core Web Vitals Chrome extension to name a few. I published a series of guides regarding the Core Web Vitals and Page Experience and I highly recommend that you check that out to have an in-depth idea on how to optimize them.

5. Augment Old Blog Posts

Augmenting articles that were published more than a year ago is a great SEO strategy that can boost your traffic. The strategy here is to look for blog posts that were performing before but then dropped off. Most likely, they lost their rankings for containing outdated information and new articles from other websites started to outrank them.

This is an opportunity that most website owners tend to forget because most are focused on publishing new articles when they already have existing assets that can save them time. Check out this sample article I repurposed back in 2019. It was getting a few pageviews per week back in 2018 when it was first published. I then updated it and further optimized it and started getting more pageviews than ever, even carrying the momentum to 2020.

Augmenting old blog posts may vary, there will be blog posts that may need an overhaul but there are also those that only needs a few tweaks. Whatever it may be, it is a good strategy that can definitely get you more traffic. I wrote a full guide on Augmenting Blog Posts that you can read here to give you full insights on how to do it properly.

6. Apply Schema Markups

No, structured data is still not a ranking factor but you should never underestimate the value that it can bring to your website. Properly applying schema markups on your pages make them eligible for Google’s Rich Results which can boost your click-through rate from Google search results.

Many overlook structured data because not only is it not a ranking factor but also it can take a lot of time and effort to manually apply schema markups. But thankfully, there are a lot of tools that could help automate the process. You could easily install plugins if you’re using WordPress or use schema generators that are available to use online for free. This makes creating schema markups a lot easier and not web development knowledge is required.

7. Utilize AMP

Using AMP or Accelerated Mobile Pages on your website automatically strips your page down to the bare minimum, leaving only the header, content, and images. This provides mobile users with the best experience because it makes websites load at a very fast rate.

A lot of people are still confused about AMP’s contribution to a website’s rankings. It is already confirmed by Google that AMP is not a ranking factor – meaning enabling AMP on your website does not give you a ranking boost. However, Google also said that speed is a ranking factor and AMP does make your website load faster.

Installing AMP on your website is not difficult and will not require web development knowledge if you’re using WordPress. You can simply install the official AMP plugin then select which parts of your websites will the plugin create AMP versions of.

Do take note that AMP is not for everyone. Since AMP will strip down a webpage’s design down to the bare minimum, visuals that you use to convert customers may not appear. I also don’t recommend using AMP on product pages and product category pages for ecommerce websites. If this is the case for you, it is better to focus on making sure that your website is mobile-friendly without the use of AMP.

8. Check Internal Links

Internal linking is really important for site structure and it also helps in rankings. Important pages of your website should have a lot of internal links to it. Internal linking also helps users navigate around your website and can help convert them. You can also help Google understand the context of pages through the anchor text that you use for the internal link similar to how anchor text in backlinks work.

Another purpose of checking your internal links is you could be wasting link juice by linking to old pages of your website that are not existing anymore or linking to URLs with redirects. Linking to 404 URLs stops the flow of link juice and is a wasted opportunity. Redirects, on the other hand, reduces the authority passed on by the links so you are better of linking directly to where the link redirects.

9. Verify Website on Google Search Console

If you haven’t done this yet, you have to do this ASAP. Verifying your website on Google Search Console is the first step you should take if you want it to appear in Google. There is not really much to say about this step. Simply go to Google Search Console and use your Google account to login. Follow the steps to verify your website and that’s it! Google should start crawling your website then index it.

10. Submit Sitemaps

Once you’ve set up Google Search Console for your website, you will now be able to submit your XML sitemaps to help Google better crawl your website. Google will prioritize crawling of URLs that are included in the sitemap you submit and will also crawl them more frequently. For URLs that are not included in the sitemap, Google will still crawl them but with less priority.

For large websites, you can create multiple sitemaps to better organize URLs. You can also create an image sitemap for image SEO.

11. Check for Crawling and Indexing Errors

The Coverage Report in Google Search Console is one of the benefits of verifying your website. In this report, you’ll see crawl errors that may also prevent pages from being indexed. You’ll also the list of URLs that are being indexed, URLs with warnings, and URLs that are completely excluded from the search results.

For a full guide on how to fix coverage errors in Google Search Console, I highly recommend that you check out this guide that I wrote for it – How to Fix Index Coverage Errors in Google Search Console.

12. Upgrade to Google Analytics 4

Google Analytics 4 or GA4 is an improved version of Google Analytics with advanced AI technology that can provide you more and smarter marketing insights. It also allows you to have better integration with Google Ads and helps you understand user life cycles better.

Moving forward, new Google Analytics accounts will automatically be in GA4 and you’re currently using Universal Analytics, the previous version, you can easily upgrade to Google Analytics 4 in your property settings.

I highly suggest that you move all your old universal analytics accounts to GA4 so you can start enjoying the benefits of the new platform. I’m sure it will take some time to adjust to the new platform but there is no better time to adapt and improve.

Key Takeaway

2021 is going to be a year where us SEOs will get our hands full even more with so many optimization points to think about. Just the Core Web Vitals alone can eat up weeks of work! That is why it is crucial that you are able to organize and plan ahead so you won’t leave any stone unturned. I hope this checklist help you in planning out your SEO strategy and help you rank better this year.

12-Point SEO Checklist for 2021 was originally posted by Video And Blog Marketing

#Video And Blog Marketing

0 notes

wikimakemoney · 3 years

Text

12-Point SEO Checklist for 2021

1. Check Meta Tags

2. Look for Duplicate Content

In instances where duplicate content cannot be avoided (ex. Two product pages with the same item and description but different measurements etc.), use the canonical tag to avoid ranking drops.

3. Check for Pages with Wrong Intent

As I mentioned in the article I wrote about SEO ranking factors in 2021, search intent is going to be big. That is why you should optimize not only new pages on your website but also existing ones.

4. Optimize for Core Web Vitals and Page Experience

The Core Web Vitals and Page Experience are confirmed SEO factors that will be integrated into Google’s algorithm in 2021 and there is no doubt that these two should be on your checklist.

5. Augment Old Blog Posts

6. Apply Schema Markups

7. Utilize AMP

8. Check Internal Links

9. Verify Website on Google Search Console

10. Submit Sitemaps

For large websites, you can create multiple sitemaps to better organize URLs. You can also create an image sitemap for image SEO.

11. Check for Crawling and Indexing Errors

12. Upgrade to Google Analytics 4

Key Takeaway

source http://wikimakemoney.com/2020/12/29/12-point-seo-checklist-for-2021/

0 notes

s-ephiroth · 7 years

Text

Silver Birdcage [7/?]

No beta reading, we die like men! And ladies! And ladies who dress like men! And Cloud! And those who don’t belong in any of the aforementioned categories! (I think the proper term is distinguished guests!) For Gilgamesh... it is morphing time! As always, all previous chapters here or on my fic tag (#arkeefic). Let’s mosey.

Note: No, there are no actual deaths of chocobo-like men in this chapter. And a casual warning for a character having suicidal thoughts applies here.

------

The streams around him, that insisted yet failed at their task suddenly receded with a presence entering his subconscious; smaller yet way stronger than Cloud’s had been last time. He always supposed that the Ancients, who could listen to the Planet and commune with it, were more powerful than regular humans in that regard, but to feel such an energy that close... shielding him from harm was almost breathtaking.

Sephiroth allowed himself to fall again on an awkward sitting position.

“You dare to approach me in this place... After everything I have done to you, the Planet and your friends.” He paused, but didn’t need to look behind him to know who that was. The trail of petals floating past him before combusting in the air told him already too much. “Are you not afraid of me?”

This elicited a deep sigh from her, exhaling just a little frustration along with it.

“After all this time, do you think I have ever been?”

She had a point, Sephiroth thought. She had been smiling even in death, as if knowing that the crisis with Meteor would be averted. All that strength hidden away behind a woman in pink with an innocent looking face and a love for equally innocent looking flowers. He refused to answer her question, anyway.

“What are you doing here?”

Oh, too many questions following one another. “A favor for a friend, that’s all. Just checking on a sick bird in a silver birdcage.” Aerith sat behind him. “So, how do you feel?”

“Completely awful. Leave.” He simply answered. However, she wasn’t very keen on obeying that wish just yet.

“Not until Cloud comes back. He can’t keep doing this right now, shielding you all the time. And you fighting to shield yourself is only hurting yourself more. You need to heal.”

Aerith busied herself with braiding flowers into his hair, the place around them becoming a flower field in an alarmingly quick fashion. He simply let her do so.

“I’d rather be dead.” Sephiroth thought aloud.

That would avoid a lot of complications. For one, Cloud wouldn’t have to go on about trying to find a way to wake him up; wouldn’t have to offer him that much gentleness. On another hand he wouldn’t have to get through an entire process of getting used to and accepted by the world again. He’d simply pay for the things he had done with his eternal rest.

“Hm, no. Sorry, but the Lifestream can’t accept you.” She put another flower in his hair and continued her task patiently “That’s why I allowed Cloud to have you.”

That much was enough for him to turn as fast as he could and pin the brunette down, with her back to the ground smashing some flowers and her wrists being held above her head. A curtain of silver fell on his sides, escaping from a half done braid and letting small flowers fall. Aerith didn’t look a tiny bit intimidated by this sudden reaction, just smiling up at him instead.

“You did what!?” Sephiroth was, of course, every bit not amused by that situation.

“Oh?” She tilted her head to a side “I didn’t do anything, really. Well, other than making the way out accept your exit. Cloud was the one who decided to take you out of there, not me. And you let him. Blame him, yourself or the Goddess who won’t accept you in the Promised Land. I just took care of it the best I could, considering Minerva won’t have you.”

“You still did something!” He slapped her face in his anger “Which is causing more stress to those outside who cared about you!” Another slap “Aren’t you ashamed of yourself?!”

That she did nothing but laugh beneath him enraged him a little more. “Oh, look at yourself. You caused a lot of stress to people who cared about you, too!” She laughed again but this time the sound came from behind him.

Sephiroth turned to see her standing just there, hair down and free from its usual braid. He turned back to look at where she was being held down, to find nothing but dying, smashed flowers and her signature pink ribbon.

“You think you can hold down Death.” She giggled. “That’s kinda cute.”

“I’d rather embrace it.” He retorted.

“Oh no, you can’t hug me. Not you. I deny you and will escape if you try that.”

Considering every single story he heard about that, he never expected Death to come dressed in pink, so cheerful and full of life even as a spirit.

“So what does this make me? An immortal man trapped in my own mind?” The prospect of it was really worrisome.

“You could very well be describing Vincent or Cloud with that.” Aerith circled him, humming in thought “Maybe even your real mother, in a way or another, if you replace or take off the word ‘man’.”

Again, he didn’t dare to provide an answer to that, staying in silence and considering those words and the implication in them. Maybe if he waited long enough, she’d leave.

“Maybe what I want to say is... open yourself a little more and let him in. Then, when you have forgiven yourself and moved on...” She picked a flower off the ground and offered him “...You’ll be able to wake up.” Aerith ran a hand through his hair “Let him plant a little something in the saddest parts of you.”

Are you sure you’re Death? He wanted to ask, but refrained from doing so upon feeling a presence close by. A familiar one, at that, even if the pressure of the Lifestream lying out there and Aerith’s bubble of safety made it a little harder to tell.

“Cloud’s back.” He noted.

“Mhmm, I felt him, too. That means I’ll leave you now. I hope you’re up for a fight again, General... against your own demons.” She bowed a little, offering a familiar katana she apparently produced out of nowhere.

“That’s a title I haven’t used for a long time.” He remembered as he picked up Masamune by its hilt and walked past her and outside of that safe zone, the feathers of his single wing brushing just a little against her arm. “But yes, into battle, again.”

Cloud brushed the man’s bangs aside and occupied himself with cleaning a little sweat forming on his temple with a damp cloth. It was tainted with a slightly diluted mako green, which the blond took as a good sign. It made the cloth he was using unusable, but at the very least, the excessive mako was coming out somehow. Even if it was also causing a fever with it.

“I wonder... what Aerith said to you. Because I don’t think she’d just, uh... watch you ‘sleep’.”

He felt a little wave of warm energy as an answer to what he said. It wasn’t pulling him in like the times Sephiroth pulled him into his mind in a way or another and he couldn’t understand it. It was... different, and it had him a little dizzy for a split moment.

“Oh... That’s new.”

The blond decided to experiment a little with that new discovery after he had some food and rested a little more. Unable to understand, but finding that to be safer than getting into the man’s mind, he’d come up with a little system.

“Alright, so... one time for ‘yes’, two times for ‘no’. Okay?”

A single wave, a little weak, was what Cloud felt.

“So, are you alright in there right now?”

One. Then a brief pause before two. Another short pause and Sephiroth was sending him those tiny waves one after another. It was intoxicating in the worst sense of the word.

“Ah... Gaia! Stop! ...Stop!” He pleaded, having his request accepted “You don’t know if you’re okay?”

Yes, was the answer he got, in the form of just one wave. And for some reason he felt that he’d be in Sephiroth’s subconscious again, very soon.

#sefikura #??? eventually #arkeefic #suicidal thoughts tw #i put it under a read more so i have no idea how it'll behave with mobile sorry #mobike and read mores have been being weird lately #silver birdcage;#now that gears is definitely on the road #i hope to mess around a little more with the birdcage #this was very self indulgent #i wanted to write aerith being totally not afraid of sephiroth #also: blame yourself or god #:3c #anyway this is a scheduled post #i'll be asleep by the time it posts #also i like the idea of a grim reaper/death not being the basic black hooded figure stereotype #aaaand i think freya and persephone are really cool so... yeah!

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ronnykblair · 5 years

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Mezzanine Funds: Private Equity Lite, or Top-Tier Buy-Side Opportunity?

Few terms in the finance industry cause as much confusion as mezzanine financing and mezzanine funds.

Not only can the term “mezzanine” refer to different types of debt (or equity!), but it can also mean slightly different things for normal companies and properties.

If you poke around online, you’ll find not only dozens of different terms and definitions, but also equal discussion and debate.

Some people argue that mezzanine funds are a great alternative to traditional private equity, while others claim that even sell-side investment banking roles beat mezzanine from any perspective.

In this article, we’ll evaluate these views, discuss what “mezzanine financing” means, compare and contrast the field with similar areas, and go through interview questions and answers, case studies, and the job itself:

What is Mezzanine Financing?

Definition: “Mezzanine” refers to loans that sit between Senior Debt and Common Equity in a company’s capital structure; mezzanine funds invest in these loans and aim to earn annualized returns in between the typical IRRs targeted by Senior Debt and Common Equity investors (e.g., in the 10-20% range).

The most common instruments that fall under the mezzanine category are Subordinated Notes and Preferred Stock.

These investments generally have the following characteristics:

Relatively high, fixed coupon rate (e.g., 10-15%), with some portion payable in cash and some portion that accrues to the loan principal (Payment-In-Kind or “PIK” Interest). Floating rates can become common when there’s increased competition as well.

Incurrence covenants that restrict the actions a company can take, but which do not require the company to maintain financial ratios within certain limits.

No need to pay down principal gradually (read: no amortization) and a maturity, or “tenor,” of 5-8 years.

“Call protection” for 1-2 years (the company cannot repay any of the loan in that period) and call premiums after that. In other words, the company can repay the loan early but will incur a penalty fee to do so.

Commitment/arrangement fees or an original issue discount (OID) of 2-3%.

An “equity kicker” in the form of warrants, options, or shares that convert into common equity.

These are the general characteristics of mezzanine – the instruments vary quite a bit, and different funds pursue different strategies.

For example, some mezzanine funds focus on the equity side and pay more attention to the company’s potential upside and its possible value in an exit scenario.

They may even co-invest in a company’s common equity along with the private equity firm completing the deal.

Other funds – probably the majority – are credit-focused and care more about avoiding losses while earning an IRR in the mid-to-high teens.

Here’s how Oaktree describes its mezzanine strategy:

“When making mezzanine debt investments, Oaktree targets companies with sustainable cash flows, proven management teams, strong market positions, and diversified, well-developed businesses. As previously discussed, we have a conservative bias and employ a loss-avoidance approach.”

Mezzanine investors take on far more risk than senior lenders because in a bankruptcy, mezzanine investors are junior to senior lenders and cannot claim any of the company’s assets as collateral.

Because of this much higher risk, mezzanine investors require higher yields that are often closer to equity IRRs.

The main sources of returns correspond to the features described above:

Cash interest payments.

Capitalized or PIK Interest that increases the mezzanine balance and becomes payable upon maturity, exit, or early repayment.

Commitment fees or an original issue discount when the loan is first issued.

Prepayment penalty fee or “call premium” if the loan is repaid early.

Equity participation upon exit.

Going back to the Oaktree example, here’s an illustration of its targeted returns allocation in mezzanine deals:

Why Would a Company or Sponsor Use Mezzanine?

The short answer is “because they want to use additional debt, but no one else will fund it.”

Mezzanine is often used in private equity transactions, especially leveraged buyouts for middle-market companies, as well as in recapitalizations and growth investments.

Private equity firms like to use mezzanine when possible because leverage amplifies returns (i.e., positive outcomes become even more positive, and negative outcomes get even worse).

If a deal generates a high IRR at 4x Debt / EBITDA and the company can easily service its Debt, then the deal should generate an even higher IRR at 5x Debt / EBITDA, with the additional 1x from a mezzanine issuance.

Senior lenders usually only fund deals up to a certain Debt / EBITDA multiple, so if the sponsor wants to go beyond that, it has to use junior debt such as mezzanine.

From the company’s perspective, mezzanine is attractive because it’s still cheaper than equity (in part because mezzanine interest is tax-deductible), it results in less dilution than a pure equity deal, and the financing structure is often “flexible.”

For example, instead of having to pay a high coupon 100% in cash, the company may be able to switch to PIK Interest if it anticipates a period of spotty cash flows.

Mezzanine vs. Private Equity

Private equity firms invest in companies’ common equity in control transactions and aim for annualized returns of 20-25%+ in leveraged buyouts.

They do deep dives into transactions and conduct detailed due diligence, and they often improve portfolio companies’ operations and complete add-on acquisitions.

The financial modeling can get quite detailed, the hours are long at most firms, and the compensation, at least at larger firms, is also a significant premium to investment banking salaries + bonuses.

By contrast, mezzanine funds assume lower risk and target lower potential returns because they focus on credit, with a small equity kicker to boost returns a bit.

They tend to do more deals but go into each one in less depth, and they do not get involved with operations in the same way as operationally focused PE firms.

The financial modeling can be moderately complex but tends to be less complicated than the approach used in PE.

Also, the hours are significantly better (50-60 per week, with occasional jumps to 80 when a deal is closing), and the compensation is highly variable, but potentially lower than PE pay or potentially in-line with it depending on your firm and group.

Mezzanine vs. Direct Lending

Mezzanine funds and direct lending firms are similar because they both invest in debt that is not syndicated and that tends to be held to maturity.

“Syndicated debt” typically refers to bank loans and high-yield bonds that are sold to a large number of investors (see the DCM, Corporate Banking, and Leveraged Finance articles); mezzanine funds and direct lenders do not invest in these types of issuances.

The key difference is that direct lenders tend to invest in first-lien, senior-secured, floating-rate loans – unlike the more junior, fixed-rate securities that mezzanine funds target.

As a result, the risks and potential returns are lower for direct lenders, with IRR targets often in the high-single-digit-to-low-double-digit range.

These loans may have issuance fees and prepayment penalties, but PIK Interest and warrants are rare.

This graph from Marquette Associates sums up direct lending vs. mezzanine pretty well:

How Do Business Development Companies (BDCs) Fit into This?

Whenever questions about mezzanine come up, we also tend to get questions about “business development companies” or BDCs.

Essentially, BDCs are alternative investment firms that raise their funds through the public markets rather than privately from Limited Partners.

They may say that they “invest across the capital structure,” but they tend to focus on debt, and they often invest in mezzanine.

Besides mezzanine funds and BDCs, collateralized loan obligation (CLO) funds also invest in mezzanine (plus many other debt instruments) and securitize their loans into portfolios that are managed as funds.

Mezzanine Fund Recruiting & Ideal Candidates

Mezzanine funds have a strong preference for candidates with deal and credit experience – so, an investment banking background in a strong industry group, Leveraged Finance, or Restructuring could work well.

Debt Capital Markets is trickier because you tend not to gain in-depth modeling skills there.

Funds rarely hire candidates from equity research because research professionals do less deal analysis and do not focus on credit.

Mezzanine funds also tend not to hire candidates straight out of undergrad because they want to see at least 1-2 years of transaction experience.

Sometimes professionals from private equity firms move over to mezzanine, in search of a better lifestyle, more deals, or less portfolio-company monitoring.

Breaking in from a hedge fund can be tricky unless your current fund is credit-focused.

It is possible to move in from a commercial bank, a non-bank leveraged lender, or related credit roles because it’s more important to understand debt than equity (experience with financial sponsor clients also helps a lot).

An MBA doesn’t necessarily make a big difference because funds still want candidates with relevant experience pre-MBA, and there isn’t a structured “path” into mezzanine at the MBA level as there is with investment banking.

Finally, consultants do not have a great shot of switching into mezzanine because most funds do little operational work; operationally focused PE funds would be a better bet.

Regarding process, most mezzanine funds do not use the highly structured, fast-paced recruiting that mega-funds use in NYC-based hiring.

Instead, the process will be more similar to off-cycle private equity recruiting, where you have to be proactive, reach out to professionals and recruiters independently, and then go through interviews over weeks or months.

Mezzanine Fund Interview Questions and Answers

Interview questions for mezzanine funds could be summarized as: “Accounting, valuation, LBO modeling, credit analysis, fit questions, and deal discussions.”

As with investment banking interview questions, you still need to know how to build a DCF, what WACC means, how to build an LBO model, how to quickly estimate IRR in an LBO, how the three statements link together, and so on.

You’re less likely to receive questions about M&A deals and merger models because you don’t work on them directly. Here’s a summary by topic:

Common Fit Questions & Answers

Walk me through your resume / tell me about yourself.

See our walk-through, guide, and examples.

What does a mezzanine fund do? Where does it fit into transactions and growth funding?

You’ve been reading this article, right?

Why are you interested in our fund specifically?

Research the fund’s deals and strategies and highlight those in your answer. For example, if the fund makes equity co-investments in lower-middle-market companies in niche manufacturing businesses, say that it appeals to you because you’ve had a previous internship in that area, or you worked at a family member’s business in that area, or whatever else is relevant.

Why mezzanine rather than private equity or direct lending?

You enjoy working on a wide variety of deals across industries, and you prefer deal analysis and financial modeling to portfolio-company monitoring and operational work. You like how mezzanine lets you analyze deals from both the equity and debt side and use the strengths of each one. Direct lending is too credit-focused, and you don’t want to do that exclusively.

What are your strengths and weaknesses? / Give me an example of a time when you led a team.

See our walk-through, guide, and examples for investment banking fit questions.

Common Accounting Questions & Answers

Walk me through the 3 financial statements and how you link them.

This one is covered in our Interview Guide and pretty much every other financial modeling course and guide out there.

How do you calculate Free Cash Flow starting with EBITDA, and what does it mean?

First, verify that they want just Free Cash Flow, as opposed to variants such as Unlevered Free Cash Flow, Free Cash Flow to Firm, Free Cash Flow to Equity, etc. If so:

Free Cash Flow = (EBITDA – D&A – Net Interest Expense) × (1 – Tax Rate) + D&A +/- Change in Working Capital – CapEx.

FCF tells you how much cash a company is generating each year and how much in debt principal it could potentially repay.

Why might a lender adjust down a company’s EBITDA when sizing a debt issuance?

If the company’s EBITDA increased rapidly in recent years because of one-time or unsustainable changes (e.g., a large but short-term contract that is unlikely to be renewed), you might reduce it to a lower, stabilized level so that the company carries the appropriate amount of debt.

Common LBO and Credit Questions & Answers

How would you evaluate a company and make a recommendation for or against investing in its mezzanine issuance?

You would start by creating different operational scenarios for the company, such as Base, Downside, and Extreme Downside cases based on the company’s industry, business model, and performance in past downturns, and you would focus on the pessimistic cases to assess the chances of losing money.

If it seems that a minor business disruption or downturn could result in a fairly high loss, you might recommend against the deal.

If that doesn’t seem to be the case, but there are other risk factors, such as a large contract expiration in Year 3, then you might negotiate for different terms to mitigate this risk (e.g., a higher cash coupon or higher issuance fees in exchange for a reduced equity kicker).

And if it seems unlikely that you will lose money no matter how bad things get, you might recommend the deal as-is.

A mezzanine issuance is issued at an original issue discount (OID) of 5%, with a fixed cash coupon of 10%, a PIK coupon of 5%, and equity warrants to purchase 3% of the company’s equity upon exit at $0.03 per share.

The mezzanine issuance face value is $100 million, and the company’s equity will be worth $400 million in 5 years. What is the approximate 5-year IRR?

The cash + PIK coupons add up to an IRR of 15%. The OID is 5%, which is about 1% per year over a 5-year period, so the IRR is up to 16% with that (“original issue discount” means you can invest $95 million but earn back $100 million at the end).

The equity warrants have such a low exercise price that we can round it down to 0, meaning it’s “free equity,” and 3% × $400 million = $12 million.

$12 million is 12.6% of $95 million (you can say, “just above 12%” since $12 million / $100 million = 12%), which is about 2.5% per year over 5 years.

So, the approximate IRR here is 18-19%. It’s slightly lower in Excel (18%) because of the time value of money.

Why might a fund not want to invest in a mezzanine issuance with PIK Interest?

Although PIK Interest can potentially boost returns, it also increases the risk upon exit or maturity because the company will have a higher debt balance to repay.

For example, if it’s a company such as a government contractor with multi-year contracts, and a major contract comes up for renewal in Year 4 or 5 of the holding period, PIK Interest may create extra risk that isn’t justified by the potential for slightly higher returns.

In this case, it might be better to negotiate for lower PIK Interest and higher Cash Interest, issuance fees, or OID.

What are the advantages and disadvantages of equity warrants attached to a mezzanine issuance?

Warrants can boost returns, but firms that use them typically have to perform more in-depth due diligence instead of relying on the private equity firm’s work because the warrants turn mezzanine funds into minority equity investors.

Funds that focus on the debt side and loss avoidance may not want to do deals that include warrants because of the extra time and resources required.

Mezzanine Fund Case Studies and Modeling Tests

If you receive a case study or modeling test, it could be nearly the same as a standard LBO modeling test given in

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connecticut-seo-adwords · 6 years

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Is It Bad for SEO to Utilize a Subdomain for Your Blog site?

If you are accountable for promoting your company, you've most likely believed about Browse Engine Optimization, or SEO.The topic of SEO seems to be leading of mind for practically everybody we work with. There is a great deal of excellent information readily available about SEO (like our SEO Cheat Sheet, for instance!)but regrettably, there are still some misconceptions circulating. One of the more divisive myths is the "subdomain vs. subfolder" argument.What Does That Even Mean?There are some STRONG OPINIONS about this issue! Who knew? For those of you who aren't sure exactly what subdomains or subfolders are, let's back up a bit and fill in the blanks.Subfolders There are a number of methods to host a business blog on your website.

One way is to position it under a subfolder( aka subdirectory) on your website. For instance, if SpinWeb went this route, our blog site would live at the address "www.spinweb.net/blog". This works fine, and it's typically how things are set up if your blog platform is part of your site CMS. One Website for Whatever-- This is appealing if you have actually got one main domain that feeds the inbound links from the domain itself. Additionally, you only need to pay hosting fees for one website. (So if you're particularly budget concious, this might interest you.)Classification Control-- If you're particularly thinking about setting up your categories in a specific way, a subfolder might be your best good friend. The URL path is friendlier for searchers, too.Build Credibility-- In theory, keeping all of your material contained in one place will lend you an air of authority. Google treats subfolders as a part of the same site, while subdomains are dealt with as completely various websites.

Time Suck-- The more pages the URL includes, the rougher the subfolder setup. Furthermore, the upkeep time needed is more extensive. Diluted Exposure-- If search results page are already loaded with other pages from your website, it may be tougher to get

the direct exposure you're hoping for. Subdomains If your blog site is hosted on a various platform than your site(such as HubSpot, for example) then you might discover it much easier to set up

a subdomain(called a)like"blog.spinweb.net "or"info.spinweb.net/blog"to host your blog site. If you look up at your address bar right now, you'll see that our blog is indeed hosted

at"blog.spinweb.net"since it is hosted on HubSpot.Keyword-Heavy URL-- Sure, it does not make any sense to insert certain keywords into your site's primary URL, so a subdomain will provide you the chance to pop them into your domain. Boom. Regard My (Niche) Authority-- Subdomains are ideal for ranking and building authority in a smaller sized, specific niche market-- and this will only help you intensify your primary domain's authority, too.

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need separate hosting accounts. While some companies use multiple hosting discount rates, you cannot rely on that.

Why Cannot We Associate? Here's the issue: lots of people still think this makes a distinction in your SEO method. They get all up in arms when they see blog sites hosted on a subdomain and claim that the SEO Gods will penalize your website for comitting such an awful offense. They describe that the wonderful SEO juicewill not "flow to your primary domain"and that this will harm your search engine rankings.Many years ago, method back when the Internet was ruled by the devices and Google was a meaningless robotic, deciding in between subdomain and subfolder might have

been a life-or-death problem

.(And I'm being a bit significant. For enjoyable.) If you're now fretted that you're doing it incorrect, whether you're Group Subdomain or Group Subfolder, we've got great news for you: it truly doesn't matter.Google is clever enough to see both www.spinweb.net and blog.spinweb.net as connected to the very same website.But do not take my word for it. Let's hear it from Matt Cutts, head of Google's Webspam team.As you can see, it simply doesn't matter to Google. As we stated above, there are benefits and drawbacks to both alternatives, so you should simply do whatever works best for you and your company.So what does matter? Content. Numerous people consume over all the technical or old-school aspects of SEO, like keyword density, subdomain misconceptions and other extremely technical and out-of-date concerns.You're much better off simply making sure your site is constructed and coded correctly, then

creating excellent content.

Is it really that basic? Well, no, not precisely, but we do n't desire to see people getting lost in the weeds of SEO theory

. Obviously it 's a great idea to focus on information(that's a big part of our job at SpinWeb ), however the force of your effort ought to be concentrated on your material strategy. Google's latest upgrade, called Penguin, has actually improved the online search engine's focus on material a lot more and assisted weed out the"technical SEO"gamers in favor of those focusing on fantastic content.So the bottom line is, host your blog site in whatever way is most convenient for you. You can forget about it and get on with the work of developing a fantastic digital marketing strategy sustained by terrific material. Stay out of the crossfire of the SEO wars, and concentrate on content instead.

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https://blog.spinweb.net/is-it-bad-for-seo-to-use-a-subdomain-for-your-blog

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