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ragingbookdragon · 3 years

Text

Nightwing & The Niece Of Midnight

Dick Grayson x Reader One-Shot

Word Count: 1.9K Warnings: Explicit Language

Author's Note: Aye, look who's back with a Dick fic? Get it? Dick fic? Cause I wrote Dick Grayson. No? Alright...enjoy! -Thorne

She glared at the tall man as she leaned against the pillar, her arms tightly crossed over her chest. “I don’t trust him,” she muttered. “I don’t trust him one bit.”

the man next to her glanced out of the corner of his eye and asked, “Who? Nightwing?” She nodded, causing him to laugh. “And why not? Everyone trusts Nightwing. Even the supervillains, sweets.”

She turned her glare from the said man to the one next to her and bit, “That’s the exact reason. Who the fuck in their right—well, right might not be the word to use—mind trusts someone like him?”

He crossed his arms, turning to her. “What’s ‘someone like him’ mean?”

(Y/N) grunted, glowering at Nightwing, who was now laughing and leaning on the speedster that had tagged along on the mission. “Someone who goes around grinning like an idiot all the time. He’s too happy. Too…nice.”

“So, you don’t like him because he’s nice to everyone?”

She eyed him and muttered, “I don’t like or trust someone who’s not selfish in some way. Everyone is selfish. It’s in our DNA.” (Y/N) paused, looking back at the onyx haired man. “Besides, he’s annoying to look at.”

The man beside her hummed in amusement, quipping, “I don’t know about that…he’s very pretty.”

(Y/N) blinked, glancing at him, and deadpanned, “Lucas. You’re married.”

He grinned, pearly whites flashing her way. “Andrew thinks Nightwing is good looking too.”

(Y/N) exhaled through her nose and griped, “I hate you both.”

Lucas barked a laugh, and threw an arm around her neck, pulling her close to him. “Well, that hurts my feelings, niece.”

She yelped, trying to pull away, but he held on, nuzzling the side of her face. “Ow you asshat! You’re scratching my cheek with your scruff!”

“I know!”

“I’m gonna tell Uncle Andrew if you don’t let go!”

“Ooo like I’m scared of the man I sleep next to at night!”

“I’m gonna plant my foot so far inside your as—”

“Hey Midnighter! Athena! Are you gonna keep fooling around or are you gonna join the mission briefing?”

(Y/N) turned her gaze to Nightwing, who wore a grin, and her lips tugged downwards as she shoved against Lucas.

He got the hint, letting her go, and turned to Nightwing, a smirk on his lips as he replied, “Who needs a mission briefing when you’ve got the two best mission wingers on the team?”

“Because of that exact point, Midnighter.” Nightwing waved them over. “Come on. We’ve got work to do.”

(Y/N) felt Lucas nudge her back and she begrudgingly moved her feet, muttering, “I hate him.”

Lucas hummed, fiddling with the royal blue cape she wore. “You’ll live. He’s not that bad, (Y/N). He really is a good person.”

She yanked the cape from his grip and swished it around her body. “I’ll be the judge of that one,” she declared.

***

The two crept along the hallway, (Y/N) leading, Nightwing following close behind. She felt along the wall and murmured, “I’m not feeling any type of vibrations, so it’s safe to say that the rooms are empty.”

“Can you hear anything?”

She rolled her eyes, adjusting the spartan helm she wore. “I don’t have super-hearing, Nightwing.”

“Really? I thought that because your powers were so similar to Apollo’s, that you would. What differences in his and your powers are there, (Y/N)?”

She whirled around, faster than he could react, shoving him up against the wall; his eyes widened behind his domino mask, whereas hers narrowed behind the golden helmet. “I don’t know how close you are with your other teammates, but rest assured, you and I aren’t. Don’t ever use my name during a mission. That’s how people’s identities get discovered and that’s how people get hurt. During missions—you know what, during anytime you see me, it’s Athena and that’s it. Do you understand?”

He blinked in shock, then nodded quietly. (Y/N) stared at for a moment, then released him, turning on her heel and continuing down the hallway.

He walked behind her, staying silent for a few minutes, then he quietly asked, “Why don’t you trust me, Athena?”

(Y/N) grunted, opening a door, and slipped inside. “The reasons for distrust are irrelevant.”

He cast a quick glance down the hallway before leaning against the doorway, watching her survey the room. “I think in order for us to work together, we need to trust each other.”

(Y/N) barked a laugh and turned to face him. “Is that what you think?” He nodded, making her laugh again. “Nightwing, trust is an overrated commodity…so long as we can agree to not let each other die, then that’s all we need to understand.” She walked past him, stopping until they were side by side. “Trust that.”

Nightwing once again followed her to the end of the hallway, then said, “Your uncles trust me…actually, now that I think about it, most people do. You seem to be the only one who doesn’t.”

“My uncles are their own people. I can’t make them believe what they want or don’t want to.”

“Did I do something to you that I’m unaware of? If I did, let me know so I can try and make it right.”

“No.”

“No, I can’t make it right or no I didn’t do anything?”

“You did nothing to me.”

“Then why don’t you like me?”

(Y/N) rolled her eyes as she fiddled with a control panel. “Will you shut up and stop asking questions, Nightwing? I’m not here to play twenty questions with you.”

He glared at her back, crossing his arms over his chest; he was getting irritated with her. “Then what are you doing here? If you don’t like me or the team, why are you on it?”

“Because my uncle asked me to come.”

“Did he want you to make friends with the other kids because you don’t have any of your own?”

(Y/N) clicked her tongue, turning around to face him, a glower in her eyes. “Have you ever been thrown through six consecutive cinderblock walls? Because if you keep babbling, that’s exactly what’s going to happen.”

He leaned forward, getting in her face. “Do I look like I’m scared of you?”

“Can I ask you a question, Nightwing?” He blinked, not expecting her question, but waved for her to continue. “Do you know why they gave the name ‘Apollo’ to my uncle?” He shook his head. “Apollo is the sun god. He’s strong and powerful, something my uncle is. I mean, just look at the feats he’s accomplished. But do you know why they’ve named me, ‘Athena’?”

(Y/N) leaned in closely, the faceplate barely brushing his skin as she whispered, “Athena is the goddess of wisdom, war, and military victory—something I like to refer to as, strategy. There’s a reason I’m referred to as one of the deadliest anti-heroes alive. No one escapes the battlefield alive when it’s under my control.” She searched his hardened blue eyes and questioned, “You’re not scared of me?” (Y/N) hummed, then she threatened, “You should be.”

She pulled away and hit the blinking panel, watching as the door opened before them, then slipped inside, leaving him standing there stunned.

***

She hissed curses as she slipped down the snowy hillside towards the edge, the sounds of her uncle’s screams in her ears. “Shit-Shit-Shit!”

Her hands fumbled in the snow, grasping at anything to stop the sliding, but she grabbed nothing. Her gaze darted over her shoulder a moment, taking in the cliff and the drop below, and as she reached the edge and slid over, time seemed to slow down. Her heart pounded in her chest as her body went light, and she began to drop. As she began to drop, a hand shot out over the edge, gripping her wrist guard.

She gasped in shock, looking up to see Nightwing leaning over the edge, his eyes wide as he exclaimed, “I’ve got you!”

(Y/N) nodded breathlessly, grabbing at his arm with her other hand, her feet pushing against the cliff wall. He strained, a grunt passing his lips as he pulled hard, tugging her over. They collapsed into the snow, (Y/N) resting against his chest, his arms wound tight around her.

One of his hands caressed the exposed skin on her back, and he comforted quietly, “It’s alright…you’re okay…you’re safe.” (Y/N) stayed silent, her heart still pounding against her ribcage at the scare; he leaned back a bit, a hand coming up to cup her cheek. “Hey, Athena…are you okay?”

She met his eyes, and nodded, whispering, “…Thank you, Nightwing.”

He flashed her a smile, murmuring, “Dick.”

(Y/N) recoiled, anger flashing in her eyes as she fumed, “Excuse me?!”

Recognition shot across his face, and he shook his head, stammering, “N-no! My name! It’s Dick!”

She paused, rage dissipating as she remarked, “Oh…oh, that’s what you meant…I thought you were insulting me.”

He chuckled and nodded. “Don’t worry, you’re not the first who’s reacted like that.” (Y/N) hummed, and he looked back at her, smirk dropping into a small smile. “You know, you hide a beautiful face behind that Spartan helmet you wear.”

Her hands shot up to her head, and she grimaced as she realized her helm was gone. “Motherfu—that was the only helm I had.”

Dick tipped his head side to side, helping her to her feet. “You know, I’m friends with an Amazon who’s probably got an extra set of Greek armor stored away somewhere…if you’d like to come with me?”

(Y/N) tugged at the cape she wore, curling it around her body, lips pulling a frown. “If I didn’t know any better, it seems like you’re trying to be my friend.”

Dick grinned, nudging her arm. “I’m just trying to prove I can be trusted…is that such a bad thing?”

(Y/N) walked off, her feet sinking into the snow as she climbed. “No…it’s not.”

When she hit the top of the hill, she was pulled into a hug by her uncle, and she grunted as he squeezed her. “I’m fine, uncle.”

He shook his head, squeezing her tighter. “Nope! I watched you take a dive off a cliff, we are hugging!”

(Y/N) inhaled, patting his back. “There, there, uncle…let go.”

After a moment, he did, holding her face in his palms. “You scared me.”

“Sorry…I slipped.”

Before she could say anything, a smirk worked onto his lips and he quipped, “But Nightwing saved you. See…told you he’s a good guy.”

(Y/N) grunted at him, flipping her cape as she walked off. “I’m leaving.”

“You swoon! You sigh! Why deny it oh-oh!”

“I hate you.”

“Now don’t be proud! It’s okay, you’re in love!”

“I am not, and we’re not discussing this anymore.”

“I wonder what Apollo will say?”

“Shut the fuck up.”

A ways back, Dick stood there, a smile on his lips as he watched the two family members go back and forth; he raised a hand to his ear, speaking quietly, “Hey B? You there?”

A moment later, a gruff voice sounded over the comm. What?

“Is there a regulation for Midnighter and Apollo’s niece in Gotham City?”

…Why?

Dick glanced back at (Y/N) who was holding Lucas in a headlock, humor across his face as rage flashed on hers. He chuckled and replied, “Because I’m thinking about inviting her over for a while.”

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wakaoujisenhime · 3 years

Note

Ah!~ I fall in love with your Takao headcanons! Can I ask headcanons about Takao from best friends to lovers?

A/N: But OF COURSE, you can, the more Takao you guys want, the better for me! ٩( ᐛ )و

So this will be a continuation from his best friends headcanons I made a while back and for those who’d like to see a spicier version of the more or less same troupe, I linked a similar request I got below! Hope you’ll enjoy this! ❤️

Tags: Takao x reader ✅ fluff ✅ friends to lovers ✅ slight angst ✅

☞ 𝕡𝕒𝕣𝕥 𝟙 ☞ 𝕤𝕡𝕚𝕔𝕪 𝕧𝕖𝕣.

━━━━☆ ━━━━☆ ━━━━☆

living with your best friend didn’t change your relationship as much as you thought it would

the two of you were still clinging to each other like leeches, supporting the other during hard times and in general providing a shoulder to cry and lean on when needed

now that you were roommates and not only neighbors you saw Takao every single day and that came with many advantages

you both shared the housework and came up with cooking/cleaning/laundry schedules that made your joint life so much easier

Takao had decided to start working after graduation while you continued your studies (and occasionally worked at a part-time job close to your apartment)

it heavily depended on your individual schedule, but in general, the two of you had agreed that the first one home should be the one to prepare dinner and help the other one out a little

usually, Takao would be the first one home and every time you came back he greeted you like some kind of butler, helping you out of your jacket, taking your bag, leading you to the kitchen where he showed you that evening’s dinner, and lastly he’d conclude his small tour at the bathroom where he had run a bath for you

both of you were so close that all of your neighbors (especially the older ones) continuously teased you, saying what kind of cute couple the two of you were and some even went as far as to ask when you’re wedding was going to be

in the beginning, your and Takao’s cheeks would flush ever so slightly but the longer you lived there the more used to it you got, and in the end, it even reached a stage where you’d counter their remarks with your own witty and comical ones

comments such as theirs didn’t bother you that much, or at least that’s what you thought ...

a couple of months after moving in you invited some members of Shuutoku’s basketball team over for a friendly get-together and a warm dinner

it had been a lot of fun

people were teased, embarrassing situations were denounced as hilarious, compliments fell left and right, and what not

at some point though Miyaji - the club’s former captain - raised the question of whether Takao and you had finally started a romantic relationship

it was just a well-meant question and perhaps a subtle hint and yet your best friend began to deny that so strongly that you couldn’t help but feel aggrieved from his over-exaggerated reaction

the evening was kinda ruined for you and some of them noticed it and felt bad for you

in the end, Miyaji actually came up to you and apologized, saying just how much he’d regretted asking you something that was seemingly a taboo-topic

since then the relationship between your best friend and yourself was quite shaky, you began avoiding too much body contact with him, tuned down your clinginess, and even started avoiding him at times

some people think that Takao isn’t the brightest and assume that he’s quite dense, but you knew better

it didn’t take him even a week to notice that something was wrong with you and before you knew it he waited for you to come back home and asked you to take a seat across from him on the couch

“(Y/N)-chan...I’m aware that something’s been bothering you for the past few days and I know that some topics are better left unsaid, but I really hate seeing you suffer because of maybe something I did.”

his words stabbed your heart like hundred knives and even if you’d planned to keep your hurt pride to yourself, you knew that communication was key in any kind of relationship so with a bitter smile you told him about everything, how his reaction had hurt you more than his captain’s harmless question and how these new and yet unknown thoughts had begun to cloud your mind with masses of doubts

there was a brief break during which Takao’s expression grew unbelievably sad, he had expected anything but this

and then finally after what felt like hours he whispered out your name, got up from his chair, and slowly walked towards you, kneeling in front of your seated figure

“I’m truly sorry...I-I wasn’t aware of how much this actually bothered you,” he paused as he took your hands into his own and continued, “all I wanted was to make Miyagi drop that theme fast since he’s the type to talk about one topic for hours and I really didn’t want to make you uncomfortable since that evening was meant for recollecting and updating each other about our daily lives and not a relationship counseling...”

with a sigh you shook your head and couldn’t help but laugh at just how ridiculous this situation was, Takao joined you not long after

after that small misunderstanding, you two needed a bit until your relationship had normalized, but you’d be lying if you said that everything was back to how it used to be

once the imagination of Takao as your boyfriend had entered your mind you began to realize just how close the two of you truly were

him tending to your needs every time you came back home late, resembled that of a worried father-to-be whose wife was to go into labor soon

the way he always jokingly offered himself as your dinner was a cliché joke and sometimes an invitation one would often see in romance series that once again fell between lovers

and the worst for your heart was how the word ‘personal space’ wasn’t even present in his vocabulary, he’d hug you whenever he could, lean himself on your back and leave his chin in the crack of your neck at every given opportunity, and let’s not mention whenever he had trouble falling asleep (which was basically almost every day)

all those small and seemingly irrelevant gestures which didn’t usually affect you were now the trigger for a deep-red blush along your cheeks and an increased heart rate

and it didn’t help that Takao would constantly tease you whenever he noticed your flushed face

as time went by though you noticed that something between you two had indeed changed

now his mere presence was enough to make your heart thump wildly against your chest

the only comfort you found was that he himself had started blushing more often as well

you thought that nothing of deeper meaning was behind it and just blamed it on your behavior, but what you didn’t know was that Takao was experiencing the same thing as you

for him, it was as if every single touch - no matter how featherlight it was - set his skin on fire

every ever so small and gentle smile or grin you directed his way, immediately brightened up his mood

and let’s not even talk about the small things you do for him, like cooking, preparing some late-night snacks for whenever he has to work on a project until very late in the evening, folding his laundry, ironing his shirts, and so on...

both of you were slowly starting to acknowledge the other as an essential part of your respective lives

on top of that, innocent and sweet thoughts such as kissing each other on the lips, taking a bath together, or just doing silly things such as hiding from the people outside so that you can feel each other’s lips began dominating your minds

and what choice did the two of you have but to bottle these feelings up and hide them from each other just because you didn’t want to ruin your friendship

it was painful of course, but you continued to put yourself through with it, determined to keep this a secret for as long as necessary

unfortunately, Takao wasn’t made out of the same cloth and was slowly but surely feeling how everything was about to explode pretty soon

and then finally one day when the two of you went out shopping together some of your elderly neighbors stopped you yet again and began interrogating you guys as usual

“Have you two dears finally admitted your feelings for each other?”

there it was, their favorite question, that was strangely accurate this time

you were ready to debunk it yet again, but Takao suddenly took a hold of your hand, squeezed it slightly, and announced: “Not yet, but I’m about to!”

three pairs of wide eyes were fixated on the slightly blushing young man who stood beside you and while you were still trying to decipher whether you’d heard him right he faced you and even took a gentle hold of your second hand

“(Y/N)...I feel like this should’ve happened sooner, but my fear of losing you as my constant pillar of support was too big. Your presence was always something extremely helpful and soothing, but as of late I started to truly notice just how much more it was for me and my life. The sheer imagination of me being without you hurt me more than any game my team lost, any missed promotion chance or anything negative for that matter,” he paused and took a deep breath before continuing, “what I’m trying to say is that...(Y/N), I’d like you to become my lover.”

silent gasps could be heard, but you were too overwhelmed to pay any attention to it

the fact that he’d felt the same way and was stuck in the same situation as you were truly unbelievable, but now that you knew it all those small things you’d denounced as an effect of your own unusual behavior made sense

you looked up into the slate blue eyes of the man you’d fallen for and slowly removed your hands from his tight grip, only to then wrap your arms around his neck and bring him closer to you

Takao immediately seized the opportunity to do the same, he was anxious about what you were about to say so he at least wanted to savor what might be his very last embrace from you

“Took us long enough now didn’t it?” was all you said before you confidently took a hold of his cheeks and brought his face closer to your lips until they touched

while you two kissed ever so passionately and drowned in the liberating feeling of mutual love, the two older women next to you smiled while commenting on how they’d always known and how bad you two were hiding it

after you’d finally separated from each other you gave him your obvious answer to which he simply giggled and out of happiness began cuddling and kissing your face all over

this was truly a wonderful moment, it might not affect your relationship all too much but it was nonetheless a step towards a new and yet unknown experience that the two of you would live through while constantly supporting each other ...

#knb headcanons #knb imagines #knb fluff #knb angst #knb takao #takao x reader #━𝙺𝙽𝙱 #━𝙰𝙽𝙾𝙽'𝚂 𝙴𝙲𝙷𝙾

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mosswillow · 3 years

Text

Iced Coffee - Dark!Stephen Strange x Reader.

Summary:

You met Stephen Strange your last year of medical school. He was godlike and you were infatuated. You liked him and in return he humiliated you. Years later you were over it; made a career for yourself.

He saw you again, remembered you, wanted you. He was going to show you that he had changed, win you over. You would be his and he would protect you forever, he just had to prove himself.

Series Warnings:

18+ adult content, Dark, Rape/noncon, obsessive behavior, stalking, doctor/medical themes, mild/moderate doctor kink, needles (chapter one, not sex related), violence, abuse, kidnapping, forced marriage, smut, escape attempt, dirty talk (my best attempt at least).

Potential warnings, a non-exhaustive list: Oral, praise kink, mild degradation (Will not include whore or slut)

You can join the tag list here.

A/N: Now that I’ve been writing for a few months I’m experimenting with different styles. If you’ve read my other stuff lmk what you think (ask, comment, message, whatever.)

Thank you to the unnamed requester and @couldntbedamned for this request. 🖤

By Clicking keep reading you confirm that you are over 18 and understand that this content is mature and potentially triggering.

CHAPTER 1

Stephen was the most brilliant man you had ever met. School was a joke to him, he easily outperformed everyone no matter the subject. He was confident, lived his life with this air of superiority, and you were obsessed. You couldn’t keep your eyes off of him, sat next to him in class, helped him when he asked. He was nice to you too, he was an asshole almost all the time but when he talked to you it was gentle, respectful.

It was October third when it happened, the date would forever be burned in your memory. He turned to you and asked you the date.

“It’s october third,” you smiled.

He thanked you and touched his hand to your arm and you felt a spark, you were sure he felt it too.

But he didn’t feel it, you were so very wrong.

You found out just how wrong you were that evening in the worst possible way. It was so unexpected, so hurtful. You walked into the small coffee shop you and your friends frequented and saw them all in the corner, socializing. A stab of pain struck you in the chest; nobody invited you. Maybe you should have backed away, recognized you weren’t wanted but you heard your name. You thought they had seen you, called you over.

They hadn’t seen you though, weren’t talking to you.

They were talking about you.

“Poor thing, thinks she has a chance with me,” you heard Stephen laugh.

You walked behind him, tears welling in your eyes and someone nudged him awkwardly. He looked up and made eye contact with you. A tear fell down your face as you backed away from the group. It was like a nightmare, like looking down and seeing you were naked, but this wasn’t a dream. It was horrifyingly real.

“Pathetic,” you heard him say to the laughing group of people you called friends.

It broke you.

You spent the remainder of your time in school avoiding him and every friend who had been there. You poured yourself into your studies and came out of it stronger than before, like a phoenix being reborn - You were brand new, beautiful, powerful.

You became a doctor and scientist and a damned good one at that. But Stephen was always better. Every conference, every medical magazine, he was there; always at the top. You could never escape him.

Until his accident.

He was suddenly gone, you couldn't believe it. Dr. Stephen Strange, the most accomplished neurosurgeon, lost his hands. The shock wiped through the medical community, a travesty they said. It wasn’t a travesty to you though, It was almost uncomfortable how happy you were at his downfall. It felt so freeing to see the great and mighty Doctor Strange fall so far, for your bully to lose the thing that was most precious to them. He became irrelevant, dropped from magazines and conferences and disappeared without a trace. You were truly content for the first time in your life. You were free.

Stephen flexed his fingers and smiled. It was a long road to recovery but he did it, he was a neurosurgeon again and even better now. He was godlike, able to perform surgeries that he could only dream of before. He wasn’t just going to get his life back, he would flourish, go above and beyond his already impressive list of accomplishments, he would dominate.

He walked into the conference full of confidence, an arrogant smile plastered on his face. The gasps and stares made him stand even straighter, walk with even more purpose. He always loved being the center of attention, it made him feel superior.

It was his addiction, to be special, better than everyone around him. The craving for greatness was a consequence of his birthright. He needed to be better because he was better. His brain was like a radiant flame, he shined brighter than everyone around him and he knew it.

“Stephen, good to see you,” a group of colleagues surrounded him, patting him on the back. He felt at home, this was where he belonged.

The auditorium started filling and he followed the group in, sitting in the back and opening his pamphlet. It wasn’t usually his type of lecture to listen to but he had time to kill before his next panel. The speaker, a specialist in infectious disease, worked at New York Hospital where he would start back on Monday. He closed his pamphlet and waited patiently for the presentation to start.

She walked onto the stage and his body tensed as he watched her prepare for her speech. Stephen’s brain was on fire, the attraction to this stranger like nothing he had ever felt. His thoughts turned less than appropriate as he stared at her ass. He saw no panty lines and couldn’t help but imagine what did or did not lie beneath the skirt's thin fabric. She wasn’t a conventionally attractive woman but that made her even more beautiful in his mind. She was perfect for him, a mix of everything he was physically attracted to in one person. Women had thrown themselves at him but he didn’t want any of them, he wanted her.

Then she started speaking and a new wave of attraction washed through him as her intelligence became apparent. Who was this woman? He rarely felt attraction like this, attraction that consumed onto his whole being. He needed to get to know her, needed to touch her, smell her hair, hold her hand. He was obsessed.

He didn’t even realize her presentation had ended until everyone started applauding. Stephen stood and clapped along. He watched her exit the stage and as he walked closer her face suddenly flashed into his memory. He knew her years ago in med school. She liked him, she followed him around like a puppy.

Excitement built as he approached her, but she gave him one look and her face fell into a grimace.

“Stephen Strange,” He held his hand out.

Her reply was cold, “We went to school together,” she spit, ignoring his outstretched hand.

“Yes, we did, didn’t we. I’m very interested in what you’re working on. Maybe we could get together, have dinner?”

“No,” she turned and walked away from him.

“Hey,” He yelled at her, but she kept walking, giving no acknowledgement of his obvious frustration.

It didn’t take him long to catch up, he reached out and grabbed her shoulder pulling her around to face him.

“What is this hostility about?” He asked.

Her body went rigid and she wrenched her shoulder out of his hand, “Poor thing, thinks she has a chance with me,” She said through gritted teeth.

He remembered in that moment what had happened, how he used her for short lived friendships.

“I’m not that person anymore, I’m sorry, let me show you,” be begged.

“You called me pathetic,” She snarled.

“It was so long ago, please.”

She stood up tall and leaned into him. “Pathetic,” she called him before walking away again.

He stood there dazed, never having been discarded so callously. He couldn't leave it like this, he would show her he had changed and she would forgive him. He was determined. He was the great Doctor Strange and he could do anything.

A sob took over your body as you read the little piece of paper. It was over, no more money for research. The conference was your last hope to find funding and you didn’t succeed. You looked at a little blue vial and picked it up. It was a bad idea, you knew it was, but this medicine could help so many people. If you didn’t try it right then you may have never known if it worked or not. You removed your jacket, swabbed your arm and filled a syringe. A tear fell down your cheek as you depressed the plunger.

It immediately started burning, beginning in your arm and flowing throughout your veins until you were screaming in pain. The room spun around and your vision started to blur. You stood and took a few shaky steps before falling to the ground and curling into a ball. Quiet whimpers escaped your lips as you struggled not to pass out from the pain.

A knock rang through your ears and you lifted your head slightly.

“Hey, it’s me,” called a voice from the other side of the door.

Stephen, of course he would show up at the worst moment possible. You were in so much pain and part of you wanted to ask for help but you couldn’t. If anyone found out you could lose your licence and Stephen was someone you were sure would turn you in.

“It’s not a good time,” you yelled.

“I just wanted to apologize for my behavior, I was an asshole but I’ve changed. I really have.”

“Go Away Stephen.”

The doorknob jiggled and you held your breath. You had locked it, you were sure you had.

“Hey, I’m getting worried, open the door,” he demanded.

“I’m sad, ok, lost funding for my research. I don’t want you to see me cry. Happy? If you’ve actually changed you’ll leave!” you put your hand over your mouth to cover a groan, the exhaustion of talking having caused intense pain in your lungs.

“Oh, um, sorry to bother you,” he murmured.

You sighed in relief as the sound of his footsteps disappeared and then hugged your aching body, shivering and crying softly as excruciating pain moved around. It suddenly felt like you had been thrown in a freezer. It Was so cold, why were you so cold?

You shivered and cried on the floor for hours until sleep finally took you, giving a slight respite from the worst day of your life.

Series master list ~ Next Chapter

#dark!stephen strange #stephen strange x you #Stephen strange x reader #dark!stephen strange x reader #dark fic #dark marvel #dark!mcu

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omg-im-such-a-masochist · 3 years

Text

ILLICITUS: CHAPTER 4

Prompt: Y/N is a respectful narcotics agent, she worked hard to have her work recognized in a prominently male work field. She‘s assigned to the most important case of her whole career, investigate and apprehend the biggest drug dealer of U.S.A, the only thing she didn’t count on, was for the bastard to be so damn charming.

Word count: Long-ish

Pairing: Mob!Roman Reigns x Reader

Warnings: +18, dirty talk, blackmail, cursing, conspiracy.

Tagging: @ziasaph , @marlananicole , @mindofasagittaruis , @reigns-5sos , @nicolewoo , @bayley-no-friends , @lilred91 , @auawdo , @lustyromantic

Notes: Where is this going to?...To catch up with the previous chapters just hit my Masterlist! Y’all know the drill loves,sorry for misspellings,english isn’t my first language (bla bla bla),check out my other stories if you’d like to(it would make your girl here very happy 😊) You can check out my other stories on my Masterlist and my newest story as a fixed post. Okay,now let’s get to the fun part, shall we? Hope you’ll enjoy 😉

I walk from Matt’s office to my desk in utter shock.

*What the hell is going on?* Is all I can think about. What seemed to be the opportunity of a life time (career wise) is becoming a true nightmare. One I couldn’t wait to wake up.

“Hey, kid! My office, NOW!” Jeffrey screamed

*Oh God, that’s all I needed right now*

“Yes, Jeffrey?” I reluctantly asked

He urgently closed and locked his office’s door

“Why did you locked the door?” I ask suspicious

He ignored me and motions for me to sit down. He was so nervous that it would be irrelevant to try to do anything but obey him.

“Happy?” I said bitterly

“Did you knew I was being tracked?” He whispered

“What do you mean?”

“Someone wiretapped my house!”

“Wait, wait. What? Are you serious Jeffrey?”

“Do I look like I’m joking to you, kid?” He angrily whispered

“Why would someone wiretap you?”

“How the fuck would I know? The only thing I know is that it came from the Bureau”

“How do you know that?”

“Because we are the only ones who use that type of technology. You can’t find that shit on the streets! Which makes me think why the fuck is somebody from this building minding my business?”He whispered screamed again

“Ok, first of all, you need to calm the fuck down! You’re little temper is not helping me to think at all. And you’re practically demonstrating to the person who did that, that you know about the wire. So take a deep breath, old man” I whispered and in an attempt to calm himself down, Jeffrey lit up a cigarette.

“Alright, where did you found the wiretap?”

“On the cable modem. We leave it at the leaving room”

“Ok, have you had any problems with your internet signal?”

“No. Why?”

“Sometimes in order to place a wire inside the house, they cause an external problem in the signal so you’ll call the cable company and someone from investigation will get inside the house to put the wire, pretending to be someone from the cable company” I explained and he gave me a puzzled look

“What?” I ask

“How do you-“

“They did that in New York to catch the Mob bosses. What kind of cop are you Jeffrey that doesn’t know about the biggest take down of the five biggest mob families of New York?” I tease

“I’m getting old, that’s my excuse” He laughs

“So if nobody came to fix anything, they must have came in normally then....has anyone from the Bureau came to your house recently?”

“Oh fuck. Everybody, kid”

“Everybody?”

“Yeah, two weeks ago, remember?”

“Shit, your birthday party” I dropped my head in defeat

“We have at least 30 suspects” He mumble

Something tells me whoever is doing this is trying to put me against Jeffrey so I decided to come clean with him

“Jeff, someone requested for a tracker on Roman Reigns”

“Please tell me you’re shitting me” He murmured “Who signed?”

“Apparently me”

“WHAT?” He screamed

“Shhhhh, someone will hear you!”

“What do you mean with ‘apparently you’?”

“My DEA ID number was in the requested by space”

“And how could someone get that?” He asked

“According to Matt, anyone who’s smart enough. He said is not that difficult, you just need to know where to look” I sighed

“Do you know when it was installed?”

“Yesterday, as I was there. Whoever did it wanted to make sure the timing matched perfectly....My biggest fear is for him to find out before I can remov-“ I was cut off by my phone ringing with an unfamiliar number.

“Y/L/N” Was my greeting

“Good morning, agent Y/L/N.”

*Oh fuck no!* I thought

“Good morning Mr. Reigns, how can I help you?”

“Well, I would like for you to join me for lunch, I have a subject I would like to discuss with you”

“I’m afraid I can’t, sir. I have a lot of work and-“

“Oh I’m certain your work can wait agent Y/L/N. Since you have some explaining to do”

“I beg your pardon?” I was already preparing myself for what I knew it would be inevitable

Roman laughs amused “Y/N. Did you really thought you could put a tracker on me and I wouldn’t find out? C’mon baby, I thought you were smarter than that!”

“Mr. Reigns, it’s not what you think-“

“I’m not gonna discuss this through a phone call. Be here at noon!” His voice colder than a bucket of ice

He hung up, before I could even protest it.

“What is it?” Jeffrey asked

“He found out and wants me to explain it” I faintly whispered

“Fucking great!” He grunts “Are you gonna go? Do you want me to go with you?”

“I have to go, I got no choice. And no, if I show up there with you is just gonna make things worst”

He nods “What are you going to do, kid?”

“Pray Jeff...pray like a fucking nun!”

......................................................................

“There she is! The little sneaky spy” Roman smirked at me “Please, sit” He motions to his office chair. The same one I sat the first time I was there.

“So, are you going to explain to me about this little thing?” He dropped the tracker on my lap

“Mr. Reigns, I know how this looks to you but I can guarantee, I didn’t requested this”

“You didn’t? Then how come is your internal identification number upon the request by line?”

*Of course he knows about that too*

“That’s what I’m trying to find out, sir”

“So what? You’re not trying to pull up the old trick that somebody is setting you up, right Y/N?”

“I know is hard to believe and if was in your position I would have the same disbelief as you right now, but unfortunately that is the pathetic truth”

“Do you expect me to believe that, agent Y/L/N?” He chuckled

I stare at him, responding “No, Mr. Reigns. I expect you to be reasonable, I would be naïve to think that I could do such an immature move like putting a tracker on you and expect you not to find out about it. As a matter of fact I would be straight up dumb if I thought that, that would ever work. So no I didn’t do it, somebody else did and that’s the reality, now whether you want to believe it or not it’s not my problem” I was taking a big risk talking to him like that, but it was the only thing I could do right now, bluff.

Roman places both of his hands on my thighs, leaning down until our faces are uncomfortably close.

“You play a dangerous game, Y/N. A very, very dangerous game” He licks my bottom lip “But I like that, it turns me on” Roman dragged his nose upon my neck, breathing in my scent

“You turn me on” He whispers in my ear “The things I can see myself doing to you are pure torture because that’s all what they are: imagination, and I want them to become reality. I want to see you spreading your legs for me, I want you in all fours on top of my bed, I want your pretty lips around my cock, I want my face in between your thighs, I want to fuck you in whatever pace I feel like it, I want you to take every inch of my cock, I wanna feel you stretching around me baby, moaning for me to go deeper and harder”

This man...The things he says, his voice so deep, his cologne filling up my nostrils and intoxicating me on his scent, on him.

“Roman” I whispered, but he continued

“You know there’s a chemistry between us, I know you can feel it too babygirl, so why hide it? Why suppress it, when we can put this stamina to good use, baby? I want it, you want it, it’s a simple math”

“That wouldn’t be very professional, I’m afraid” I mumbled

He leans back to look me in the eyes

“The tracker isn’t very professional as well is it?”

“I already told you it wasn’t me”

“And do you think a judge in court will care? There’s your personal DEA number in there, a number that technically only you have access to it and as far as I’m concerned that little tracker would be considered an invasion of privacy, I could sue not only you but the DEA for that. I mean, I signed an official document allowing you to search for anything you want in my professional life, not on my personal one and that tracker was installed on one of my private cars. Do you see my point, Y/N?”

“You want me to fuck you in order for you to keep your mouth shut” I angrily murmured

“Well, biologically speaking I would be the one to fuck you not the other way around” He smirked

“You’re so low, Roman” I spat

“Roman? No more formalities I see, I like that” He smiled

“Not happening” I shake my head vigorously

“What? Do you find me so repugnant that the thought of sleeping with me is that horrifying?” He asked amused

“It’s not that-“

“Oh, so you do find me attractive?” He asks pretending to be surprised

“Modesty doesn’t suits you, Mr. Reigns” I mocked

“So what is it?”

“If I do it, it’s gonna be like signing my guilty sentence. I would be screwing you to somehow make me innocent” I answered

Roman pulled me up from the chair, hugged my waist resting his hands mere inches from my ass.

“No baby, screwing me would be the equivalent to not getting fired, not having a billionaire lawsuit filled against you and not spending the rest of your life in prison” He smiled, now caressing my butt cheeks

“So babygirl, what’s gonna be?”

TO BE CONTINUED

Please let me know your thoughts on this series so far, feedbacks are always nice and appreciated 🥰❤️

#roman reigns one shot #roman reigns x reader #roman reigns fanfiction #roman reigns smut #roman reigns imagine #roman reigns #wwe x reader #wwe smut #wwe imagine #wwe fanfiction #illicitus series #masochist writes

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absolutepokemontrash · 3 years

Photo

This took forever…  (Click for Quality!)  SO! I finally got a proper fully colored drawing of my Obey Me MC! Character info + her relationship with the bros under the cut so I don’t clog up the tags!

Character info first!

Himiko is the third oldest in a family of seven sisters and is arguably the most responsible of the bunch. You could say she’s the Lucifer of her family, but if you’d like to continue living I’d recommend against saying that.  

She puts on the facade of a proper and polite lady but deep down she’s hiding a metric tonne of snark and sass, and even deeper she’s hiding a caring older sister type who would take a bullet for you.

You may be asking yourself, why is she wearing a devil horn headband? The answer? Spite. She was wearing it pre Devildom too so it has nothing to do with the boys!  

Her family is *incredibly* wealthy, so while she did learn a lot of things, it’s kind of turned Himiko into a bit of a dumbass when it comes to normal everyday household things. Ask her how to understand the political history of Japan and she’ll give you a five hour lecture on the topic, but ask her to cook dinner and you’ll need to call the fire department.  

Her birthday is December 25 and she’s 20 years old at the start of the game.

Himiko has… problems with emotional intimacy. She’s never really had the opportunity to really bond with anyone outside her sisters, so the idea that she could ever care deeply for someone that ISN’T family is absolutely terrifying to her. (Welp, bad news for her because she’s about to be forcibly adopted into a family of crazies)  

When she first got dropped into the Devildom… Hoo boy… her entire life she had been put on a pedestal and no one other than her sisters had dared to say ANYTHING critical of her in her presence and now she’s figuratively AND literally at the bottom of the food chain… let’s just say reality hit her hard in the face.

Relationships!

Himiko thought Lucifer was the one sane person in the entire House of Lamentation. That opinion did NOT last long. After the first attempted murder and the shit he said at the retreat, Himiko and Lucifer’s opinions of each other were in the gutter. Then the London trip happened! Their opinions of each other rose! Then the first timeline’s Belphie incident happened and oh wow would you look at that, back into the gutter. Damn. FINALLY, after all the time travel shit, they both think of each other as a pain in the neck, but if anything happened to the other there’d be blood spilled. It’s tough when Himiko’s biggest flaw is her own pride and she’s actively needling the Avatar of Pride.

Mammon was Himiko’s worst nightmare made reality. This person, widely regarded as a scumbag moron was supposed to protect her??? Uh uh. No. Mammon thought that Himiko was the human embodiment of annoying. At least till the Goldie hostage situation, Himiko mainly went along with it because she wanted revenge for all the eating-related threats and name-calling. Now, Himi’s way to prideful to ever admit this buuuuuut, she was incredibly lonely during her first week. She needed a friend and she needed one FAST. Before the two needed to binge TSL, Himiko took Mammon shopping under the guise of needing him to carry her shopping bags, and ended up buying him a sick new jacket and sunglasses. You can buy affection right? Apparently. Or was it the compliments she gave him while she was making him try on the jacket? We’ll never know for sure. Listen, just because the two of them want to spend a lot of time together DOES NOT MEAN THAT THEY HAVE A CRUSH ON EACH OTHER ALRIGHT?! HAND HOLDING SHOULDN’T MAKE HIMIKO THIS NERVOUS UGH-

W E E B P O W E R U N I T E! Well, not at first. Himiko’s a closet weeb! She probably teased the crap out of Levi about how much he obsessed over his “totally stupid” anime. It was all fun and games until Levi walked in on Himiko watching Sailor Moon. “YOU LIKE ANIME?!” “N-NO!” “YOU’RE AN OTAKU TOO!” “W-WAIT! NO I’M NOT!” “WHAT’S YOUR FAVOURITE ANIME????” “…Madoka Magica.” Now the two are anime and gaming buddies! At first Levi was miffed about Himiko’s rampant hypocrisy buuuuut they both moved past it for the greater anime good.

Satan and Himiko’s joined energy is too much for Lucifer to handle. The two are constantly pestering him to let them get a cat, and they somehow found the time to collaborate on a 50 slide PowerPoint presentation on why Lucifer would suck 55% more if he didn’t let them get a cat. At first, Himiko was low-key intimidated by Satan, and he generally seemed pretty disinterested in most of the shenanigans she got up to until they made a pact. Now they’re pretty good buddies and think quite highly of each other.

Himiko: The circumstances of one’s birth is irrelevant, it’s what you do with your life that matters.

Satan: Thanks Himiko. That’s nice of you to say.

Levi (whispering to Himiko): Are you quoting Mewtwo???

Himiko (whispering): Shut up! It’s making him feel better isn’t it??

If this were a musical, Asmo definitely would sing a rendition of Popular with Himiko. Before the pact was made, Himiko *really* wanted to be Asmo’s friend but would never admit it, his sass was impeccable! Asmo thought Himiko was cute yeah, but nothing special. After the pact, total besties. It takes a true friend or a certified insane person to tell the Avatar of Lust that the shade of blue he’s going to go clubbing in isn’t doing him any favours and he should change into different shoes. The Himi/Asmo duo is to be feared by all who come across them.

For the love of all things good in the world DO NOT LET BEEL AND HIMIKO NEAR YOUR FRIDGE! At the start, Himiko found Beel’s near constant eating annoying as HELL. Like, he’s the avatar of gluttony but all that *gross* junk food must be wreaking havoc on- Holy shit junk food is amazing. After the hiding Luke incident where Himiko’s big sister instincts ™ kicked in and she got between Beel and Lucifer, Himiko had to come to terms with the fact that she may *actually* care about some of the people she had met. After all the other shenanigans, Beel is basically her thousands of years older little brother.

Belphie… hoo boy… strike one: He took advantage of Himiko’s rarely seen sweet side. Strike 2: he fuckin killed her dude! Belphie is yet to hit strike 3. I like to think there’d be a mini lesson between 16 and 17 where the two hash out their issues. After that, their relationship is probably the closest to an actual sibling relationship. They annoy and tease the everloving shit out of each other but if anyone messes with one of them the unfortunate soul will have to deal with the other AND Beel.

I might do the undatables if anyone actually cares and I’m not just talking to a brick wall lol. Thanks for making it this far and reading all my OC brainrot!

#Obey Me #Obey Me!#Obey Me! MC #Obey Me MC #Obey Me Lucifer #Obey Me! Lucifer #Obey me mammon #Obey Me! Mammon #Obey Me Leviathan #Obey Me! Leviathan #Obey Me Satan #Obey Me! Satan #obey me! asmodeus #obey me asmodeus #obey me beelzebub #obey me! beelzebub #obey me! belphegor #obey me belphegor

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kojinnie · 3 years

Note

Hello, I hope youvare doing fine !

It's for the Twisted Match-up ! My worst personality traits are : being too judgemental, run away from problems and insecure (idk if the second one can be considered a personality trait). My fav, character would be Hanji 😁

-🌱

Tags: a break-up fic, mild angst, modern!au

Summary: Reader left Hange with a farewell note, and in the reader’s absence, Hange finally confesses how they truly feel about you.

A/N: Thank you for the req, sweetie! Hange is perhaps my #1 character in the whole AOT and I always tried to refrain from writing about them as I fear I may not do my love justice. But for you, I tried and hope you’ll enjoy it~

- They/them for Hange's pronoun.

“I should’ve known,” Hange Zoe muttered to themselves. There was no contempt nor sadness in their voice, just a plain acknowledgment.

The seat that you sat on earlier was now empty after you left abruptly, leaving enough space for all Hange’s unanswered questions of what caused your departure. The diner where you left Hange alone had suddenly became packed since lunchtime had started, and in that commotion of people coming in and out, Hange realized that they had understood since long time ago why you would eventually leave, they just didn’t want to acknowledge it sooner.

For better or worse, the two of you shared a lot in common and one of those is the ability to trick oneself into thinking that everything was alright, until it’s not.

Hange left for a business trip the past week, and the last time the two of you met, there was an obvious spite in you. It started with messages left unreplied and calls that Hange missed from you, as they were preparing for a big project. You knew already that Hange was the type to immerse themselves in their work. There was a fire you could never put out and that was Hange’s devotion for their work. But for once you wanted to be prioritized and Hange missed every chance to do so.

Hange had the capability to trivialize feelings as if it is secondary to almost everything, and they thought if they were to return to you after the trip, with their big smile and their ramblings about all the amazing things they saw while away, you would cave in and share their excitement all the same.

“I should’ve known,” Hange mumbled on their own again, staring at your drink that was left untouched by you, “you were never on board.”

You had left the leather notebook that Hange gave you on your last birthday wide open on the diner table. Within, you had written all the things you wished you could say to them that you never had the courage for.

Dear Hange— you wrote. Hange sighed as a realization suddenly grew inside them, while looking at the words that you had written in blotted inks. Hange was only a line into your letter, upon realizing that they never knew how your handwriting looked like until now. The way certain alphabets twisted in a way Hange had never seen before – how many months had passed since the two of you had been together? And yet it never passed Hange’s mind how your words would look like written, nor did it ever bother them for not knowing.

Hange put your letter down and reached out to the other side of the table to sip your untouched drink for a while. They needed time to process your departure.

Hange knew that you had been crying while writing the letter. Evident by the blots in the ink and the crumpled edge. It’s odd because rather than feeling upset, Hange felt a sense of achievement for picking up the details, which sparked an uncanny inner struggle within them, “Could it be…” Hange mumbled to themselves, “that I don’t care?”

For the longest time, Hange had taken pride in being perceptive and observant – at least that’s what Levi and Erwin often call them,and maybe the compliment started to get into Hange’s head, as much as they would not like to think of their vanity. Yet the ironies persisted; that Hange would pick up small, irrelevant details but would be oblivious to something so obviously displayed in front of their eyes: how unhappy you were.

I couldn’t say this to you directly, because I know you have such power on me, to make me sit and smile and pretend that everything’s okay. To make me laugh and praise as you talk and talk about how exciting the things you do with Erwin and Levi.

“Oh…” realization continued to hit as Hange reminisced the way your face lit up whenever they shared to you all about their works and achievement. Hange thought you were genuinely rejoicing their achievement and took it as yours as well, but then Hange realized moments too late that you weren’t.

Has it ever occured to you that I also want to be celebrated and it’s not always had to be about what you and your accomplished peers have achieved?

Hange leaned back to the booth cushion, gazing aimlessly at people rushing their meal, for lunchtime was going to be over soon. Hange remembered that one evening, you were hungry and Hange took you to this diner, where the two of you sat at this very booth. You didn’t touch your food, you were sighing repeatedly and moved about in your seat. Hange knew how an agitated person looked like.

“Something wrong?”

You shrugged off, sighing heavily, “My end-year review is coming up soon,” There was an obvious worry in the way you spoke, “I don’t think I’m gonna get promoted.”

Hange remembered that they sat there in silence for a while, before stuffing their mouth with roasted ham they ordered, “Urgh, that sucks. But don’t worry though, I’m sure you’ll do fine—oh anyway, did you check today’s headline?” And with no hesitation Hange dropped the topic you were about to pour out that night.

Hange started to realize the problem.

I needed your reassurance but you were too.. out there.. with your experiments, researches and business trips to even realize.

When I go out with you and your friends, and all of you were laughing for things I didn’t understand… I often wonder whether you were laughing with me, or at me.

Hange realized that it wasn’t fair, for the two of you equally. They realized that they should’ve involved you more and not just used you as an outlet to pour their stories excitements at times. Hange felt guilt creeping within them, but quickly muttered in defense: “How am I supposed to know? You never told me.”

“You’re so quick to judge,” Hange said again, almost whispering, to the empty seat in front of them, with their fingers tracing the lines of your writing, “Is that how you thought of us all along?”

“What do you need reassurance for anyway?” Hange’s wondering was quick to turn into annoyance, “I don’t read minds.”

I’m not as good as you, you wrote. The ink almost faded out beyond recognition, you must had cried the worse when you got to this part, Hange thought.

Never will be as good as you. Or Levi. Or Erwin. I know I should be proud of you – but why all I ever felt was envy and jealousy?

Weren’t you supposed to be my solace, Hange?

“You should’ve told me…” Hange finally resolved, dragging their gaze to the afternoon view through the diner window. Bustling city felt so hollow without you. You were supposed to have a lunch with Hange, first time after they returned from the business trip. Hange had so much to talk about, things they pent up throughout the trip because Hange couldn’t wait to share it to you. To see the smile looming on your face, something so beautiful for Hange – one that they didn’t encounter often in their suffocating, busy life.

Hange thought, maybe you were quick to judge because you had been hurt by every type of people that had ever came into your life. Maybe to assume the worst from people had given you aid from being disappointed by people you love. Hange tried to understand, but without you knowing, for Hange, no validation or praise from anybody had encouraged them more than yours. You were the only validation Hange sought after. And to realize that maybe you never meant all those had finally started to hurt Hange, as much as they tried to shrug it off.

“You shouldn’t have left,” Hange regretted going to the loo, or not coming to their sense faster to realize that you were hurting. Maybe you wouldn’t have space and time to slip away and to only leave this notebook behind. Yet Hange also cursed your fear of confrontation, leaving everything to your worst assumption, “then maybe we could talk this out.”

“Unless you never wanted to, to begin with.” Hange cursed themselves for not better at reading between the lines of your words. Maybe that was why your hands were no longer warm to their touch, nor was your kiss as long and deep as they used to. Maybe deep inside, despite your smile and your nods, your heart was no longer home.

I wish you could see who am I really and not as a figment of your imagination, you wrote, with sides of the page crumpled from the tears you had left upon writing it.

The line struck a final understanding for Hanji, as they muttered in regret, “I won’t,” deep inside really wishing that you were there in front of them, “because you always see less of yourself and that’s never who you are.”

“You’re more than all of your self-pity.” Hange reiterated, finally closing the notebook where you had poured all your heart into, “you’re more than all that.”

And Hange wished you would have known.

Honestly I feel like there's a void in the ending. Like something's misplaced. Sorry if it feels weird, I'm still tryna recover from chapter 138 😭💔

#hanji x reader #hange x reader #hanji zoë #hange zoë #attack on titan #shingeki no kyojin #aot #snk #aot fanfiction #snk fanfiction #🌱 anon #requested #kojins twisted match-up

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0hxneybee · 3 years

Text

Step Right Up

Title: Step Right Up

Paring: Jeno (NCT Dream) x Reader

Genre/Tags: Fluff, NonIdolAU, Established Relationship

Words: 1.8k

Warnings: N/A

A/N This idea literally came out of nowhere but I found a really pretty photo from a carnival and I was like, yeahhh I have to do this lol. Also with ✨my amazing skill and talent✨ lol I got it finished and proofread on Valentine’s Day. Enjoy ♥

The cheers of the Carnival had been the background noise of your hometown for weeks now. Work had kept both you and Jeno busy and time was running out before the carnival would pack up and head to the next city. You two were both able to get off work early one day so you both got refreshed and Jeno picked you up to take you to the carnival. You could feel your excitement growing as if you were a kid again when you see the lights of the carnival getting closer and closer.

When Jeno finally finds a parking spot you get out and start making your way to the admissions booth. As you're walking Jeno wraps his arm around your shoulder bringing you close giving you a kiss on the cheek. You smile and blush as you wrap your arms around him giving him a hug as you stand in line to get tickets. You wait patiently until you get the front as Jeno pays for the admission and hands back muted pink-colored tickets. You thank the person working and start looking around for your first game or ride. “Okay I know it is really cheesy but I wanna go to the ring toss first.” You say as you hold the warmly printed tickets in your hands. “Yeah, no problem Y/N” Jeno responds as he leads the both of you through the crowds to get to the ring toss stand. “Step right up! Step right up! Toss the ring onto the bottle and win a prize for you or your loved ones.” The guy at the booth shouts trying to attract more people. Jeno gets the attention of the guy as he makes his way over to you two. “Will you be playing today sir or will the pretty lady try her hand at the game?” He asks, holding a small bucket of metal rings. “Just her this time, if I play you might have to restock all the prizes.” The guy running the stand laughs at the comment and puts the bucket down in front of you taking the ticket you had put out. “Best of luck!” he says as he runs over to a family nearby who are wanting to play as well.

You take a deep breath, focus Y/N. Jeno starts to giggle behind you and you turn around. “Jeno you’re gonna make me lose my concentration.”

“I’m sorry I couldn’t help it, you looked too cute with your serious face on.”

“I am serious about this!” Jeno wouldn't believe you because you had the biggest smile on your face but you did not let it deter you, you were gonna win.

So you didn’t end up winning and missed pretty much every shot you took. You miserably pouted into Jeno’s chest as he thanked the guy running the booth returning the bucket. “Hey Y/N it’s okay you know how rigged these games can be sometimes.” “I know but I really thought I had at least one of them back there.” Whatever you said sounded muffled by Jeno’s jacket so he just chuckles and says, “I know what will make you feel better.” you look up at him doe-eyed, “I’ll get you some cotton candy and lemonade, my treat.” A smile instantly stretches upon your face and you laugh linking your arm into his. “You’re treating! Lead the way then!” Jeno shakes his head and laughs as you make your way to the food area.

The smell of funnel cake, corn dogs, and popcorn fills your nose as you get closer to the food stands. You and Jeno split off as he goes and gets cotton candy while you wait in line for lemonade. You know it’s mostly just water and powder flavoring but the nostalgia you get from drinking it is worth it. As soon as you get the overpriced souvenir cup you take a big sip and scrunch your face as the lemons hit your tastebuds followed by the giant bits of granulated sugar after. “Pink or blue?” Jeno says as he brings two bags of cotton candy to you. “Both, it tastes better that way.”

“They're made of the same stuff, just different food coloring.”

“That is absolutely irrelevant and I still stand by my statement of eating it together.”

“Whatever.” Jeno shakes his head with a smile and divides the color so you’ll have an equal amount of both. “Did I ever show you that video of a raccoon getting cotton candy and then going and putting it in water to clean it, but the water just dissolves it instead and the raccoon gets confused. It was so cute and funny.” You giggle as the both of you start to walk around the carnival enjoying the cool air. Continuing your walk around the carnival you take in more of the lights, conversations, and screams filling the air. The sky set ablaze by the sunset had nothing on the flashing lights on each individual game and ride here. “I remember going to fairs like this when I was in middle school,” you start telling Jeno, “my friends and I would save up enough money to get an unlimited rides wristband and stay there for hours. Did you ever go to a fair or carnival before this one?”

“It’s not my first time here but back home we had more of an amusement park, carnivalesque type place, called Lottie World, it was super cool.” You nod enjoying the small talk and continue to walk down the rows.

Your train of thought was broken when you heard the same iconic phrase once again. “Step right up and try your luck to win the prize of your dreams!” You hear as you walk past a giant hammer and bell. Next to it, you see the prizes and you gasp which stops Jeno in his tracks. That’s it, you want it, it was a plush cat in the shape of a square about the size of a soccer ball. “That is so cute!” You say as you point it out to show Jeno. “Yeah Y/N,” he chuckles, “you know these games are rigged, we saw how it is at the ring toss game.”

“But Jeno this would be a piece of cake for you!”

“Not if it’s rigged.”

“Jeno please, it’s a cat plush, in the shape of a square! How is that not adorable?”

“You really like it?”

“Yes”

“Okay,” Jeno smiles and gives you a kiss on the forehead. He walks up to the guy running the stand and gives him one ticket. In return, the guy at the stand gives Jeno the hammer and opens the gate to let him in. “Let’s go babe! You got this!” You cheer as other spectators join to watch to see if Jeno could hit the bell. Jeno winds up the hammer over this shoulder and slams down on the target. You hear the whizz of the spring and watch as it flies up with a ding. You’re mouth drops. “YOU DID IT!” You shout and laugh as Jeno also has a face of disbelief. The rest of the spectators clap and cheer as you see Jeno point out to the plush cat for the guy to grab. When he comes back, you embrace him and the cat in a big hug and rock from side to side as you both start to laugh. “Thank you!”

“No problem Y/N.”

“What’s their name?”

“You can name them, they’re your cat now.”

“What about Luna?”

“Luna, I like it.”

The both of you had already made a few laps around the carnival and were starting to get tired from the food coma and long day you’ve both had. That still didn’t stop you from looking for one last ride you wanted to go on before you head home. You had passed by the Teacups ride several times and always let catch your eye a little longer than the others. “Hey babe, what about the teacup ride? We have one last ticket left and I don’t want it to go to waste.” Jeno nods in agreement and you make your way to the line.

Once you were let onto the ride you ditch Jeno and speed walk to the closest purple teacup you could find and let yourself in. Having already settled in once Jeno gets there he lets himself in and closes the door behind him. “Jeno before the ride starts can we take a photo together please?” You ask as you already had your phone in your hand with the camera open. “Y/N I don’t know my face has been super puffy today.” Jeno turns his head to the side avoiding the camera. “Please, just one I promise,” you start as you lean in to give Jeno a kiss on the cheek, “then I hope you have a stomach of steel because we are about to go so fast.” Jeno laughs at the comment turning back in so the two of you could get a photo together. As soon as you put your phone away you hear the buzz of the ride warming up and starting to move. You give Jeno a mischievous side-eye and start turning the wheel like crazy. Before you know it the cup starts picking up speed as Jeno finally joins in the help you turn the wheel. You laugh as you let go letting the wind whip around you as the lights of the ride blur together before going back into spinning the wheel.

When the ride came to an end, you could no longer see straight. Standing up you almost fall right back down as your vision swirls around you. You somehow fumble out of the cup and get to the nearest rail to steady yourself. Jeno laughing himself into hysterics behind you as he helps guide you out of the ride area. “I don’t fully regret going as fast as we did cause it was fun but oh my goodness the world will not stop spinning.” You say slightly holding your arms out continuing to try and balance yourself. Suddenly Jeno gently holds your head in his two hands making you look directly at what looks like two Jenos. “You okay?” He asks as your vision comes back to you ever so slowly. You nod. “Good, I wanna make sure you could see this.” He says as he leans in to give you a kiss. You close your eyes and kiss him back and while the world stopped spinning in one way it started spinning around you in another. When you open your eyes again you can clearly see Jeno and smile. He smiles back bringing you in for a hug. “You ready to head home now?

“Yeah, thank you for today.”

“Of course I had a lot of fun.”

“Me too.”

You two make your way back to Jeno’s car reminiscing over the night you had together. What a great day.

#nct dream #nct fluff #nct #nct 2020 #nct dream fanfic #nct dream imagines #nct jeno #nct lee jeno #nct dream jeno #kpop #kpop fanfiction #kpop fanfic #kpop fluff #lee jeno #lee jeno fanfic #lee jeno fluff #nct jeno fanfic #nct dream jeno fanfic

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aestheticstom · 5 years

Text

Sunsets (t.h.)

Summary: Tom and reader are having difficulties with their relationship. they both want to announce their relationship to the public but Tom is scared that fans are going to hate on reader because she was once a fan. she isn’t popular like him.

warnings: maybe some angst? texts in italics are flashbacks! (:

>>> SUNSETS PART 2 <<<

W/c: 1.9k

A/n: This is my first EVER fic!! i’ll be gladly taking criticisms! requests are open! send me an ask if you want to be added to my Sunsets tag! i’ll try to post pt.2 as soon as possible. sorry for the repost. tumblr’s shitting me

You prepared some popcorn to eat while watching your boyfriend’s interview. The interview went on and a question made you nervous.

—

“Hey, love I think it’s time we talk about going public, what do you think?” Tom asked. You were laying on the couch, Brooklyn Nine-Nine playing at the TV screen in front of you. Laying on Tom’s lap while he softly brushed your tangled hair.

“I’d love that, babe” you replied almost mumbling, “but what did your manager say about that?”

“He’s alright with it,” Tom shrugged, “and I want to show you off to the entire world, I want them to see how beautiful and amazing you are,”

“You’re really something else,” you chuckled, “whenever you’re ready babe, “

—

“So Tom, there are rumors going on about you and y/n l/n being in a relationship. Can you confirm anything about that?” Kimmel asks. The rest of the Avengers cast looked at Tom waiting for him to deny or agree to anything Kimmel just asked. They knew about you and Tom being in a relationship but they didn’t want to be involved with the rumors.

“Oh I- uh um,” Tom chuckled in response.

Why is he struggling? We already talked about this. He should’ve confirmed it by now. It’s been months since agreeing to go public. You thought.

For maybe about thirty seconds of waiting for Tom, he finally perched his head up to face Jimmy. “Um no, we’re not together. She’s just uh- a fan, which I met on tour. Yeah, so nothing’s going on at the moment.”

You immediately reached for the remote and turned the TV off as fast as you could bumping the popcorn making it scattered everywhere. You cried until your eyes hurt. You felt your chest tightening as you repeated what your boyfriend said on live television

‘She’s just a fan’

Ouch.

You and Tom met at one of his press tours for Homecoming, so you know to yourself you were just a lucky fan. You just got lucky, very lucky to be exact. But couldn’t he have just said you were friends? Then maybe you would have accepted him denying your romantic relationship with him. But no, apparently you were just another fan he met. Damn.

—

The tour ended for just about a week after tom attending Jimmy Kimmel’s show. He’s excited to see you, but something hurts inside of him. He knew you watched the interview. You always have.

His heart was pounding in his chest like a hammer hitting a cloth. He stared at the door of your shared apartment and he fished for his keys in his pocket. He walked in dropping his bags on the floor while closing the door behind him.

“Hey y/n I’m home, babe.” Tom shouted plopping down on the sofa. It was silent. You were nowhere around. “Y/n?” Still silent.

He walked in the bedroom just to find half of the clothes in the closet were gone. It was just his clothes left hanging. He never admitted this to himself but he knew, he knew you would somehow move out. He was too fragile to wrap his head around the reality of you leaving him.

Tom fell on the well-made bed, smelling of your coconut shampoo. Uncontrollable tears fell from his big brown eyes. Sobbing intensely, pushing his head deeper to take in the scent. He knew you were excited in announcing your relationship with him and he just stepped on it like it was nothing.

You never really cared about what other people would say, you were carefree, you just want to go out in public with him. Go to the movies without Tom getting stopped by his fans and you standing awkwardly just…there. You admired his fans of course, but the feeling of being irrelevant made you sick. Being set aside while they gush over Tom, hurt you.

You were in a cafe near your new apartment, you were drinking iced coffee while doing some studying on your laptop. Your phone went off and a familiar name popped up on your screen.

Tom: y/n can we talk? Please talk to me.

Tom: let me explain, y/n. I miss you.

You were teary-eyed reading the messages. You knew this day would come, you knew you had to confront him soon. But not sooner than you thought. After about thirty minutes, you closed your laptop and opened your phone clicking on Tom’s message.

Me: Hey Tom. Let’s meet at the beach? Maybe before 6pm would be great. See you there.

You fought yourself from typing ‘I miss you too’ it was hard but you managed to not type it. It was 4:38PM so you still have an hour or so to prepare for meeting your boyfriend.

—

You were sat on the picnic blanket that you spread out on the sand, listening to the calming waves as it splashed. There wasn’t anyone at the beach rather than you. Who would go to the beach in the middle of December? Apparently only you.

It was peaceful, unlike the past weeks without Tom. You were reminded of the text messages after his interview, you replied to him coldly, not wanting to have the conversation through the phone about what just happened.

“Y/n?” Tom was standing still when you looked up at him. You caught his eyes with yours, his eyes full of sadness and sincerity.

“Hey Tom,” you replied smiling at him. Tom immediately smiled back but he saw your eyes didn’t twinkle like the stars as it used to. “Come sit with me,” You patted the spot next to you which he completely obliged.

“Y/n I’m sorry, I’m really so-” He lets out a choke of sobs. You were watching him suffer but you don’t know what to do. “I hurt you and I’ll never forgive myself and I don’t- I don’t want to lose you y/n,”

“Tom, how can you say that to me? A fan? That’s what you can think of? Tom? I’m pretty sure you heard yourself say that, but never once have you thought of saying I’m a friend? Or I’m Harrison’s friend? You completely said I’m just a fan, cutting every relationship off Tom.” You paused to look at him. He has his hands covering his face to keep you from looking at his disheveled look.

You waited for him to respond as your tears fall freely from your cheeks. The waves don’t calm you anymore. It suddenly felt as though the waves were crashing down on the both of you. The ocean breeze kissing your cheeks made you shiver.

“I’m sorry y-y/n I don’t-“ Tom replied through his uncontrollable sobs, “I don’t think I’m ready for our relationship to be out there, you know? I’m scared, love. I’m scared that once we set our relationship to public you’ll get overwhelmed with everything.”

Love. You always felt safe with that nickname. But now it feels like a knife cutting through you.

“You don’t think I can handle everything? College, being a celebrity’s girlfriend, and being attacked by his fans? It would be a lot, yes but I would fight for us, Tom. But I guess you wouldn’t, and that’s okay. We’ll find ourselves together again Tom. You know that I love you right? I will, always.” You replied. “Maybe we need to take some time off our relationship, just to think about everything. I’m sorry,”

It hurts you to cut ties with your favorite person but you know it’s for the best. Tom has his career ahead, you want to be with him the day he’s accomplished everything. You’re already graduating, your relationship just adding extra stress to your finals. You have had enough.

It was silent for a moment. Tom stopped sobbing but tears are still falling off his eyes. He turned to completely look at you. You’re staring at the horizon, watching the sunset. Your tears falling down slowly as the sun does the same. The sun will sink as you start afresh just without each other for a while. There is no certainty that you both will end up together again. But he clings to every word you said. “We’ll find ourselves together again.”

Tom stared at your beautiful figure, as he thinks you are the sunset yourself.

“I-I guess you’re right, love. I’m sorry y/n. I love you, I love you so much.” With that Tom placed a long kiss on your forehead, eyes closing shut as he endured his last moment with you. He stood up and walked away. He doesn’t want to argue with you for your decision. He respects you with all his heart but it broke his heart to pieces when you broke up with him.

You stayed silent watching him walk away. You wanted to call out and run to him. You could, but you wouldn’t. You simply laid there and cried until the moon finally peaked.

You let yourself be sucked by your bed. Saying sorry to the pillow that’s catching all your tears. You loved sunsets and that was the last sunset you shared with him.

Now you hated sunsets. It disgusts you now but somehow you reminded yourself that you have to move on with your life or else you’ll be stuck there wanting him even more.

—

You just bought iced coffee when you passed a bookstore on your way home. You walked inside letting the smell of books indulge your presence. You sipped your coffee while shuffling through books. You picked two books that you’d like to read.

You paid for the books then you made your way home, opening your door and plopping down the couch as you opened your new books. You read for a solid thirty minutes when a familiar name stumbled upon your eyes.

Tom. There was a character named Tom. You have never seen Tom since that day you broke it off with him. It has been a year and a half. Tom was successful as ever and you graduated college with honors. You were also successful, but without him you still felt like losing.

You still love him. You try to deny it but you kept missing him. You still support him silently though, liking every picture he posts and then spending a large amount of money just to watch his movies.

You often wondered how he was doing. Is he okay? Is he really with Zendaya? It hurts you to see fans shipping him with Zendaya but you brushed it off considering you weren’t together anymore.

As you continued to read, you didn’t realize the sun setting and it’s already half past eight. You walked to your kitchen finding something to cook but you settled in ordering pizza. You dialed the pizza shop as you poured yourself wine, plopping down once again on your couch as you continued binge-ing on the office.

A faint knock was heard throughout your apartment. “Coming!” you shouted at the door as you got up and gathered the payment for the pizza delivery guy.

“Hey how much was it again?” you asked the man while holding the door open with your right hand and holding the money on the other. You heard nothing from the other person causing you to look up at them.

Oh god.

“Tom,” You stared at him tears forming in your eyes but you held back. “Wh- why are you-” You cleared your throat “Why’re you here?” Eyebrows furrowing as you fight back the tears. Despite the darkness of the night, you could still see how brown his eyes are. If you keep staring at his eyes you’d want to kiss him right then and there.

“Y/n, can we talk?”

…

He was meant to love you after all.

–

>>> SUNSETS PART 2 <<<

#aestheticstom fic #Tom Holland x reader #peter parker #peter parker x reader #tom holland x y/n #tom holland imagine #tom holland fanfiction #tom holland angst #marvel fic #cigarettes after sex #tom holland au #sunsets

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ardenttheories · 5 years

Text

@fun-with-colors

I saw your tags. I’m here to theorise.

Knights of Light, for as long as I’ve been able to understand them, have always seemed to me to be the type that just come across Knowledge. There’s no real intention on their part to find it; it just happens to be right there, waiting for them.

They’re the kind that get messages from the Horrorterrors in their dreams, though they’re never aware that their dreams are from other beings. They can’t fully comprehend what they’re seeing, even in a dreaming state, and as a result transfer it into something they can analyse, find meaning in, and understand.

For instance, when I originally had Dane (from my AU Ectostuck) classpected as a Knight of Light, one of his biggest theories was “mothman is real”. He got this information from the revelation in his dreams that he was going to be prototyped with a Mothsprite, and that he would die early into the game. In technicality, this would make him a Moth Man.

If we want to go wholly narrative with this, then we can assume that a Knight of Light is physically capable of hearing or interacting with the narrative. They’re likely able to dream about it as if it’s an open book, or can just innately recognise it in the back of their head, as if it’s transcribed somewhere and playing out in a voice that their subconscious can hear.

They might not be fully aware of what it is, and as such, they’re more likely to assume that they’re just good at Knowing things. But this also means that they can use the narrative in an exploitative way.

If the Knight of Light is a few steps ahead in the narrative and can “read” that their next reaction is to bow to a person they actually don’t like, they can completely avoid that outcome. They can exploit it by knowing what’s going to happen, and doing something else.

Lets say that Terezi were a Knight of Light instead of a Seer of Mind. If she knew that killing Vriska on the meteor would much, much later on lead to a doomed timeline, and that letting her live would get them all killed, all because she had the narrative playing out in the back of her head at all times, then she’d know immediately that she’d just have to get the drop on Vriska and knock her out.

She wouldn’t know why, per se, knocking Vriska out is the best option, but she’d know that it has to be done - and in doing so, she’d completely skip any of the events that led to Game Over.

Of course, Knights of Light would also be able to tell if a narrative speaker is present, and they’d be able to exploit that voiced narrative in order to trick the narrator.

A Knight of Light in Meat could’ve easily gotten the drop on Dirk because they’d have known almost instantly that Dirk was in control of the narrative. They could then use that Information and play along until such a point that Dirk can’t fight them back, and while they wouldn’t know he was the narrator or that he was using the narrative specifically, they’d be able to guess that Dirk had been controlling everyone the entire time and wouldn’t be swayed by his influence.

(In other words, much like Dave, they’d hear Dirk’s voice in the back of their mind - but they’d hear it in full clarity, and they’d be able to decide what they do and don’t do, how much they give away.)

Hell, a really good Knight of Light could be able to control the narrative itself without meaning to. If they exploited it to the full, they’d be able to change that narrative in their head - the actual narrative that they’re being exposed to - the same way that Dirk changes the narrative of Pony Pals. The original narrative would still be there, but you’d have sections crossed out or written over by the Knight of Light, subconciously or completely intentionally.

I mean, this could even be done physically. Think of the book Calliope reads that details the story of the Alpha and Beta kids. If a Knight of Light got their hands on that and actually wrote over it, the things they wrote would come True.

Light has so much to do with the Plot and Importance, it’s very easy to say that a Knight of Light would become the main character of any narrative they’re present in - likely turning something like Homestuck from the 2nd persona to the 1st - and that they’d have a significant effect on the narrative as a whole. I think, however, they’d never be fully aware of it.

Like, they’d get the idea and the concepts, but they’d see it as just that; concepts. A way to visualise what they’re doing rather than what’s actually happening. They’d only realise that as Truth if they ever become a Realised player or (more likely) the Ultimate Self, but even then I’d say it’s more lowkey.

After all, Rose is a Light player - a literal Seer of the Plot - and she doesn’t have as much of a narrative grasp as Dave does (being that she isn’t aware that Dirk’s controlling the narrative in Meat, and doesn’t host any concern to the physical text during Candy, either. She sees the plot and the story, but not the words). It’d make sense that the Knight can interact, but can’t actually see.

Of course, Light is a more metaphysical aspect - one of the idealist ones, rather than the realist Aspects, such as Time - so it’s always going to be a fact that it’s easier for a Light player to mess with the out-of-universe things.

In that sense... A Knight of Light could be the player to recongise that they’re in a story, but see it as a sort of “alternate universe” sort of deal. I don’t think they’d realise that there’s a narrator - that Andrew Hussie, for instance, is writing Homestuck itself - but they’d know that there’s people who can see, and people who can help. They could likely exploit that by interacting with a real-world audience. They’d be 4th wall breakers, if they got really good at it. Knowing that something’s there, but maybe not wholly what.

They’d also be able to exploit the things the narrative doesn’t focus on. I think I mentioned this before, but I’ll go over it again with a deeper focus; Dave has always loved breadsticks, but this wasn’t relevant enough for us to know, and thus wasn’t written in the narrative. There’s likely a thousand other things he likes that we don’t see - and it’s logical to think that there’s a thousand things he does that we don’t see, either.

For instance, we know that all the characters collect the Grist that drops from the monsters. We don’t see them do it, but they must do, because their Grist counter goes up.

We also know that they must eat and pee. It’s just... human biology. We don’t see it because watching that isn’t relevant to the story, but surely they must do.

We also know that they must walk places without us actually seeing them do it. We don’t see every step of their travels; sometimes we just see where they end up. Maybe they picked a flower while walking. We’ll never see that flower, but it’s still there, on their person.

Maybe they give that flower to someone else. We still won’t see that flower, because it’s not imporant. This flower could move from person to person and we’d never know.

In the same vein, we’ll never know what happened between Dirk and Jake during their relationship word for word. We missed a lot of that. The build up wasn’t as important as the actual breakup and fallout; so there’s a thousand things they could have done and said to each other during that time that we’ll never see.

Naturally, a Knight of Light could exploit this. Imagine they just randomly brandish an incredibly powerful item that the narrative isn’t prepared for, all because they did the quest for it off-screen. Imagine that they take detours all across the map whenever we’re not focused on them so that they can avoid specific points of confrontation later in the narrative, or so that they can help set up something off screen that ends up being invaluable later.

A lot of what they do would have to have some sort of on-screen significance - it’d be a Knight of Void, probably, who hides things that’re never seen again within the narrative, and only they who can stop it from ever being revealled, thereby creating their own purposeful plotholes (that only stay irrelevant for as long as even the author doesn’t mention or explain it) - but they could exploit those lapses within the narrative wholly.

There’s a lot that can come from the narrative when you really think about it, and I’m so glad I always read tags so I didn’t miss that! This post got so much longer than I intended it to be, all because I kept thinking of more and more that a Knight of Light could exploit within the narrative. I think I need to end it here, though, in case it gets too long. But, for a final thought:

When you read this text, you are essentially reading my voice. I am influencing the way you read things in a very clear and precise way. However, if you didn’t know that this was, in and of itself, a form of narrative, you wouldn’t maybe focus on the fact that I am a real person writing these words with a specific purpose. You wouldn’t know that every word is being transcribed from my thoughts onto a page, and that there is an overarching figure to contend with. You would know that there is a narrative being made, and that is as far as you’d be able to get. This is the experience of the Knight of Light.

They would be able to understand my arguments, and they would be able to garner everything they needed from them - but they wouldn’t know that these words have an author. They’d interact with the narrative, change it, disobey it - but they wouldn’t talk as if they knew that a wider figure, a god-like figure, is writing it all down.

In Homestuck, Rose knows there’s a plot but doesn’t focus on the idea of finding the author in order to change things, even though there is still an author physically writing their story even after Hussie (the character) has died, and their narrative focuses more on them as real people than as fictional characters. In some ways, this is because that would get too meta. A character who knows there’s a conceptual “story” is one thing; a character who knows they don’t truly exist, because everything they say is being written down by someone else, someone bigger, is another.

So when you think about the Knight of Light, it’s always best to imagine that their influence ends with the in-universe understanding. They can break the 4th wall, but not come through it; they can exploit the plot, but not the author; they can recognise that a story��s being told, but not that there is someone responsible for it - at the very least, not someone who isn’t already present within the universe.

#homestuck #ardenttheories #knight of light #classpect analysis #classpect powers #fun-with-colours

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hes-writer · 5 years

Text

Harry would rather much hang with his ex

Prompt; Soo maybe you could write that Harry is dating a new girl and they are going to a club or something like that and there is Kendall Jenner and Harry is totally ignoring his girl for her. But at the end,l he apologizes and he asks her to be his official girlfriend. @coldnightfun

Y/N and Harry were exclusive at the moment. They’ve been seeing each other for a while after being introduced through their mutual friend. Met each other at a wedding, hit it off and soon went on their first date in which they were both absolutely nervous for but nonetheless, it worked out just fine since they went on a consecutive second and third date.

So maybe Harry hasn’t asked Y/N out officially, but it sure does seem like they had eyes only for each other. Attached to the hip, some would say. But Y/N would much rather have the assurance that she and Harry are on the same page and that her feelings are being returned at the same level. He just needed to actually say it to her and she’ll be good.

When Harry’s good friend, Alexa Chung, sent invitations out for her birthday party, Harry instantaneously took the chance to ask Y/N out as his plus one. Y/N hesitated on saying yes since it wasn’t really her type of scene. Somehow, his charm got to her and she was currently spritzing setting spray on her meticulously done makeup. Her hair was done in a high ponytail, making sure to brush the baby hairs out of her face. All she needed to do was put on her dress and heels.

“You look beautiful, love” Y/N jumps a little, not expecting Harry to be standing at the doorframe of her apartment so early. She’d given him a key recently, insisting that he needs it in case there was an emergency.

“Jesus Harry! Don’t scare me like that,”

Harry chuckled before strutting over to his love and admiring the beauty in front of him.

“You look absolutely amazing, Y/N. Probably won’t be able to take my eyes off of you,” He pecks her forehead instead of her lips which had Y/N yearning for him to ask the golden question.

——-

As soon as they arrived at the party, Harry was whisked away by the one and only, Kendall Jenner. He wasn’t literally taken away from her, per se, his attention was just not on her. Kendall greeted Harry with an enormous hug and a peck on the cheek to which Y/N squints her eyes at in uncertainty. She gets herself in control, though, figuring out if there were any recurring feelings going on between them. When she concludes that there weren’t, she relaxes. At first, Y/N was alright with it figuring that the pair probably needed some time catching up as Y/N recalls Kendall saying,

“I haven’t seen you in so long, Har!”

To which Harry retaliates with, “Don’t worry, Kenny. We can catch up, are you free for lunch tomorrow?”

And usually she wouldn’t be bothered by Harry making plans with his friends, but this is Kendall Jenner they’re talking about, his ex-girlfriend. Maybe Y/N was just a bit biased since all her previous relationship ended badly except for one, and she figures that being friends with your ex was a one in a million possibility.

The three of them set out to find their designated tables, Y/N visibly sulking when Harry’s hand reaches up at Kendall's lower back leaving Y/N to try to grasp a the cuffs of his leave. Harry doesn’t notice and continues walking at Kendall’s pace, leaving Y/N approximately two steps behind.

When Harry and Y/N find their dinner table with the accompanying name tags, Harry was deeply saddened to find out that Kendall’s table wasn’t near close to theirs–or his, Y/N could do just fine without her around. He leans over to hug her goodbye before reminding her of their lunch plans for tomorrow. Kendall walks off to sit at her table and Y/N sighs in relief. She and Harry could finally have some time to chat.

That wasn’t the case, however. Or maybe it was–it’s just that Harry keeps getting distracted by his phone. His thumbs tapping away at the illuminated screen while Y/N speaks about the paper she’d written for class.

“And then the professor said that citing your papers is the best way to ma–“

“Uh huh, mhm” Harry mumbles, a sure proof that he wasn’t listening to her at all since she didn’t even finish her sentence yet.

“Are you even listening to me?”

“Yes, n-no I’m not sorry,” Harry looks up from his phone apologetically, “Kendall’s just telling me about this new place that opened downtown. Thinking we might go there tomorrow.”

Y/N purses her lips, a crease forming between her brows. She feels left out by the way he’s and she’s not sure if she should feel this way since Harry and her were exclusive, so technically he can still go out with other people. But should he really?

“Anyways love, what were ya’ saying about your prof?” Harry urges her to go on, clicking his phone off and turning to her completely.

Just as Y/N was about to open her mouth, Harry’s phone buzzed in his hand and he immediately looks down on it, laughing. Y/N looks down at her lap, feeling disinterested in her own story, losing the motivation to actually tell it.

The PA squeals from the static before Alexa’s voice was heard throughout the room.

“Hello all, dinner will be served in ten minutes,”

Y/N tummy growls a little growing hungry as time passes. She makes small talk with the people on the table and genuinely enjoys some of the conversations. That, until Harry, taps her shoulder.

“Hey Y/N, I’m going over to Kendall’s table for a bit,”

Before she could reply, he was fast-walking towards the direction of Kendall’s table.

—-

Dinner was about to be served and Harry had still not come back yet from wherever he drifted off to. The waiter sets a plate full of food in front of her and one asks if there was somebody sitting beside her. Deciding that she should probably look for Harry, Y/N shoots him a text about his whereabouts. Harry replies,

“Sitting w kenny for dinner

is that ok?”

Y/N’s mouth drops agape. Did he really just ditch her on her first party amongst big names?

“what???

harry come back here please”

She receives no reply from him and she’s forced to say no to the waiter. So much for being exclusive.

——

The whole evening, Y/N has not heard from Harry. Her phone remains notification-less and she walks off to the mini bar by the side of the room. She asks for a glass of wine before sighing, letting her eyes roam around the room in hopes of catching a glimpse of Harry.

And, oh boy, did she find him. Not only him but Kendall with her skinny figure grinding against Harry. She turns back around to the counter, downing her drink in one go, deciding that she’s had enough of him. She gathers her purse, standing up and walking towards them.

Y/N taps his shoulder, being blown off twice before her consistent patter annoys him and he eventually turns around.

“I’m leaving,” she says dully. Y/N watches as his face turned from a look of annoyance to recognition, to confusion.

“Wha-why? We just got here,”

“We got here three hours ago, Harry. And I’ve been with you for less than half of that time. I’m going home,” Y/N crosses her arms over chest, turning on her heel and strutting away towards the exit. She almost makes it out. Almost

“Y/N! Y/N wait!” Hearing her name, she picks up speed and makes it outside the street, preparing to holler for a cab before a hand takes hold of her elbow.

She turns around to see Harry panting, hands on his knees in front of him.

“Why are you leaving? Have I done something wrong?”

She scoffs at his cluelessness. Had he done something wrong? He’s really gonna ask that?

“I know I’m not as popular as anybody else here tonight, but I don’t deserve to be treated like trash or some kind of irrelevant to be put at the back burner by you for the whole night!”

Harry blinks at her owlishly, lips forming an ‘o’ but obviously still not getting the gist of the situation.

“I’ve been waiting for you for hours, Harry. You left me alone at our table to sit with her and you’re asking me if you did anything wrong?” She gasps out incredulously.

“And I know that we’re exclusive and definitely not official but seeing you so close to her hurts me. I don’t know if you’re as serious about me as I am to you but if not, then we shouldn’t waste our time anymore,”

It takes Harry a bit of time to fully comprehend the contexts of situation; how Y/N felt that whole night, Y/N putting her lovely self down all because he decided to pay attention to somebody else, and most importantly, Y/N essentially saying that a relationship between him and her is out of the question especially since he probably saw her grinding with Kendall on the dance floor. Y/N patience wears thin and she grits her teeth, preparing to catch a cab late at night once again.

“Wait Y/N, don’t leave. Please don’t leave,” Harry begs. She scratches her head, palms opening and closing to relieve the tension coursing through her body.

“What do you want now?”

“I-I know that we’re exclusive and I’m an absolute idiot for doing what I did back there,” His head flicks towards the house. “But I really really like you Y/N and I want you to be mine. I see a future with you and if you feel the same way, I hope you’ll say yes,”

He gnaws on his lip, nervous about the response he’ll get from Y/N.

“You really hurt me, Harry”

“I know, God, I know and I’m so sorry Y/N. I hope you can forgive me,”

She sighs before nodding, how could she ever stay angry at this man

He smiles widely, arms opening for a hug. He engulfs her in his strong arms while she weakly pats his back. His face buried itself in her hair, he mumbles,

“Will you be mine?”

——

LMAO @ the ending I’m sorry it sucks

#harry #harry styles #harry styles angst #harry styles fanfiction #harry styles imagines #harry styles one shot #harry styles writing #harry styles writings #harry styles x reader #harry styles x you #harry styes blurbs #harry styles blurb #harry styles fluff

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emma-nation · 5 years

Text

Thinking Of You (Mona x MC Fanfiction) - Chapter 5

You said move on Where do I go? I guess second best Is all I will know

Summary: Years later, Allison has everything she wants, a brand-new internship as a doctor, a handsome boyfriend… but her first nightshift won’t go as expected…

Genre: Romance, Angst

Tag list: @zoe6111, @simsvetements, @mvrinettes, @whoinvitedalx, @scarlet-letter-a0114, @abunchofbadchoices, @kamilahmademedoit, @janurary, @talkinlikeateen, @eagle-one-1, @andreear17, @tia-bi, @monagf, @monahott, @fal-carrington (let me know if you want to be tagged!)

Notes:

- English is not my first language, forgive me for any mistakes.

- Loving Mona’s personality, that was my favorite chapter to write so far, as it includes more of her POV than Allison’s. I hope you enjoy it too.

The following days passed quickly. Allison closed herself, avoiding both Dr. Carlson and Mona. She wasn’t ready to give a final answer, to any of them. Breaking up with Griffin and declining the opportunity his father was offering could be the end of her newly-started career. On other note, she couldn’t measure the consequences of breaking Mona’s heart. She’d probably go away and do something stupid out of anger. She felt guilty, as she’d act exactly like her ex, abandoning her all over again.

That morning though, she had no alternative, Mona had one last medical appointment with her.

“Well,” she grinned. “The latest results of your exams came back great. You’re officially discharged.”

“Yay, that means I’m officially kicked out of your house too?” Mona joked.

“Of course not. You’re welcome to stay as long as you need.”

“Actually, I wanted to talk to you about it, but…” she looked down at a watch on her wrist. “There’s somewhere else I have to be.”

“Oh,” Allison smiled, “where is it?”

“You’ll find out later.”

Mona blew her a kiss and left through the door. Deep down, Allison could tell she noticed how she was keeping a distance since that night. Yet, she was respecting it and giving the space she needed.

“That night…” she thought. The night she confessed her feelings, followed by the news she could be going to another continent in only a few weeks. If only she could make a decision that wouldn’t hurt anybody’s feelings.

———-

“And full freedom, finally,” Mona waited outside the hospital for a taxi. She was supposed to be meet her lawyer again in a few minutes. On the phone, she announced she had really good news for her.

A luxury car parked near where she was standing. Though she was locked up for almost a decade, she was already familiar with that brand-new model. A well-dressed man came out from it, speaking on his cell phone. She read the sign marking the spot he parked.

“The infamous Dr. Carlson,” she thought. “Nice car, Doc. In my old days, I’d love to take it for a ride.”

He didn’t notice her. The heated argument he was involved in, didn’t allow him to.

“I told you to not call me, not on this number!” He grunted, clenching his teeth. “I know… I know… I’m finding a way. I’m gonna get rid of…” suddenly aware of Mona’s presence, he changed his expression quickly. “I’m gonna get rid of this laboratory, of course. They have been causing us a lot of harm. The quality of their products certainly dropped. The medication they’re supplying isn’t as effective as before.”

He hung up and passed by her, with a smile on his face.

“Good morning, Miss.”

“Morning, doctor.”

Mona gave him one last suspicious glance. By her experience, she couldn’t help thinking how shady was the conversation she just heard.

Dr. Moron’s behavior quickly became irrelevant, when inside a hotel room, her lawyer handed her a small package, containing money from the time she worked in prison.

“This isn’t much,” Dr. Terri Williams told her. “But it’s enough to help you to settle down, while you seek for a better job.”

“As if anybody is willing to employ me.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll be handling that too. I have some contacts, I’ll help you to find something.”

“Are you my lawyer or a fairy godmother?” Mona grinned, throwing herself at a comfortable couch, while the female lawyer typed something on her laptop. She opened the package and handed the woman some of her money. “Here, all these trips from Philadelphia to LA, they must cost you a lot. It’s the least I can do.”

“There is no need,” she answered, distracted. “The amount I was paid to take your case was more than enough.”

“Huh?! But… you said you took me as part of charity program?”

“Oh! Nevermind! I… mistook you for another client. This one I’m reading about right now.”

“Okay…”

Leaving her alone, Mona followed to her next stop. The mall.

———-

When she arrived, carrying some bags, Mr. Wheeler was still home, for her displeasure. She rolled her eyes. He was distracted, working on an evidence board he had set on the living room.

“I have an alibi,” she announced as she entered, only to provoke him. Allison’s father looked at her and scowled in response.

“Busy this morning, huh?” He asked sarcastically, noticing the bags she was carrying.

“Yes, my money and it’s all legal. For the time I worked in prison. It’s not much, but at least I don’t have to wear Allison’s clothes anymore. And I bought myself a cell phone too.”

“Good for you. What do you plan to do with the rest? Find an apartment, I suppose?”

“It’s not enough yet. But I’ll get a job soon,” Mona sat on the couch, observing the pinned pictures of corpses on the board. “Gross!”

“This is what happens when you get involved with wrong people and drugs.”

“In case you’re implying anything, I’ve never done any drugs. I barely had any alcohol in my life. Kaneko wouldn’t allow us to drink, besides being underage, we couldn’t risk to harm the property we were supposed to deliver.”

“The property you stole, you mean.”

Mona replied with a wink, focusing her attention on her newly-acquired phone. There was a lot she wanted to find out on the internet, starting by Allison’s social network. She could spend hours admiring all those beautiful pictures she posted through the years. Then, she went to search for news from her former crew partners. With no luck. They should still be hiding under new identities.

“Do you see the link between all of them?” Mr. Wheeler asked, getting her attention.

She got up and approached, examining all the pictures closer.

“Hmmm… a bunch of rich frat boys who partied too hard?”

Detective Wheeler sighed.

“That too. But they were all brilliant students, athletes, with a bright future ahead of them. What led them to death was a synthetic drug, that promised to enhance their performance, among other things.”

“Do you have any ideas of who could be supplying them?” Mona was intrigued.

“Sadly, we haven’t found a concrete clue yet,” Detective Wheeler told. “We suspect from students, inside these universities.”

Mona grabbed a paper that was hanging in the evidence board, reading a detailed laboratory analysis of the drug found on the students’ system.

“College students aren’t capable of developing anything of this sort, Pops,” she explained. “They could be selling, but who’s creating… you need to aim higher. Someone powerful, wealth and with a big knowledge of science and chemistry. The composition here is quite complex.“

He looked at her, admired and surprised.

“How do you even know all of that?”

“Didn’t you read my files? All those scholarships I had gotten… I used to be a science whiz.”

She grinned, grabbing her bags and going to Allison’s bedroom, where she had important plans to make.

———-

Allison got home at evening, stressed as usual. She caught herself arguing with a patient’s mother, who wanted to know more than she did, and would refuse to submit her son to any exams or procedures. It was a lot of work to convince her to do so. When she entered, an investigation board was placed in the middle of the living room, with creepy pictures of corpses. Which almost made her throw up.

“Oh dad…” she thought. Mr. Wheeler wasn’t the kind who used to bring work to home. “This case is really consuming you.”

She threw her purse on the couch and followed to the guest room. Her bedroom’s door was half-opened, suggesting Mona was inside.

“Hey you,” she opened it. Mona was finishing getting dressed, looking absolutely stunning in a black dress that valuated her body features. She had also applied a perfect make-up. “Whoa!”

“Like what you see?” She teased, smiling.

“U-uh, y-you look… great. But where are you going?”

She noticed Mona blushed a little and looked down, letting her raven black hair cover her face a little bit.

“I was wondering…” she bit her lower lip nervously. “Would you give me a chance to repay everything you’ve been doing for me? There’s this new restaurant I passed in front, on the first day I left prison, and I really wanted to visit. Come with me?”

Allison stared at her in silence. She was completely torn, while she wanted desperately to accept, she knew where it could lead them.

“It’s not a date,” Mona assured. “But if you don’t want it, that’s okay. I’ll go by myself and eat until I have no strength to come back home. I’m gonna ask all the dessert available in the menu.”

“When I said you could eat normally, I didn’t mean you could exaggerate,” Allison said. “In this case, I better follow you. Only to make sure.”

“As you wish, Doc.”

———-

When they arrived at the restaurant, Allison was surprised by the place. Mona had already made a reservation for them in a VIP area outside, surrounded by trees, with a special illumination and a band, singing live-music.

She chuckled, remembering how soft and romantic Mona could be, just like when she took her to Prom, renting a limo and giving her the night she ever dreamed about. Though she spent the entire way complaining about the fact she wasn’t allowed to drive yet, she now looked relaxed and happy.

“You shouldn’t spend so much money, Mona,” she told. “You need it.”

“Chill out, Allison. I still have some to keep until I get a job. It’s just… we never had the chance of doing something like this. I mean, go out together and chat. When we were starting having it, that stupid Brotherhood…”

She clenched both of her firsts with the memories.

“Mona, it’s over. And I completely understand what you did. You only did it to protect yourself and to protect m–… all of us.”

“Exactly.”

They placed their orders, Allison was in shock with the amount of food Mona ordered for herself.

"What?” She grinned. “After spending eight years in prison and weeks on a special diet, I’m carving real food. I’ve been dreaming about this moment for years!”

“Well, I’m your doctor,” Allison laughed, stealing small bites from her plate. “I need to make sure this food is safe.”

After some minutes in silence, she decided to enjoy Mona being so open and sociable to start a conversation. Ask things she had been wondering all along.

“Tell me more about you. About these years.”

“I was in jail?” Mona gave her a confused look.

“But… don’t you have any stories or anyone you met in there?"

Mona silenced. Allison couldn’t tell if the question had upset her or if she was attempting to remember anything interesting.

"Not really, I had some really dark days. Especially after my judgment. I even considered…” she stopped. “Anyways, I spent most of my time working and studying. As you can tell, I’m not much of a sociable person, I didn’t have many friends. But it doesn’t mean I didn’t make a few girls fall in love with me.”

A hint of jealousy involuntarily erupted in Allison’s chest. As much as she tried to control herself, she wanted to know more.

“Oh, any of them still holds a special place in your heart?”

“I never said the feeling was mutual.”

Mona took a sip of her juice, her brown eyes never leaving hers, as if she knew exactly how Allison was feeling inside.

“What about you?” She wanted to know. “Any mind-blowing stories from Langston?”

“Oh, I made some good friends but I wasn’t the partying type. I’d spend most of my time in the library.”

“Please, don’t tell me you met Cliff in the library?”

“It’s Griffin, but…” Allison blushed. “Yes.”

“How boring,” Mona rolled her eyes.

That conversation brought some painful memories to Allison’s mind. The endless days she spent at the library weren’t studying anatomy or biochemistry, but researching law books, to find a possible manner to get Mona out of jail. Being in the same classes, one day Griffin joined her and his kindness helped to ease a little of her pain. Yet, she took a long time to develop romantic feelings for him. Months, years, maybe.

She still remembered their first night of love. She didn’t felt any pleasure. She spent hours crying under the shower, wishing it was Mona that was sleeping by her side in the bed. He’d never compare to her, or make her feel the same way she felt in the night of her Prom.

“Allison?” Mona’s voice brought her back to reality. “Are you alright?”

“Yes, I just… some bad memories. That’s all.”

“Oh, I was starting to think I’d have to eat this giant bowl of ice cream all by myself.”

“Only in your wildest dreams!”

———-

The way back home was silent. Allison could feel Mona had became tense for some reason. They never had a conversation about that night. Allison never gave the opportunity. While she didn’t regret it, she was confused about her engagement and her move to New Zealand.

When they entered home, Mr. Wheeler hadn’t arrived yet.

“I have something to tell you,” she spoke softly, deciding it was the right moment. “About the other night.”

“It never ends well,” Mona whispered to herself.

“I got this offer… Griffin’s father will be working on a big research in New Zealand and he wants us to integrate his team. He even bought us this house and… that would make us anticipate the wedding to two weeks from now.”

Mona didn’t say a word. She didn’t have to. Her face was giving away how deeply hurt and angry she was.

“You get incredibly stupid when you drink, you know?” She shook her head in denial. “But, congratulations.”

She was about to leave to her bedroom, when Allison held her arm.

“Mona, wait! I meant every word I said that night, but… I don’t know what to do. It’s a lifetime opportunity and…”

“And Griffin is not an unemployed car thief, that went to prison twice and will never be able to fulfill all your dreams? I get it, Allison. It was fun when we were young, but now? You want the real thing. A top-class job, a fancy house, a good-looking husband with a perfect reputation and some spoiled children.”

Her heart was thundering inside her chest… Three words that wouldn’t leave her mind were ready to be said loud and clear…

“I want…”

“Don’t you dare to say you want me to be happy,” Mona interrupted her. “I don’t need your pity! With the rest of my money, I’m returning to Bronx, where I should never had left in first place.”

“...you,” Allison finished the sentence in a whispering tone. Mona never listened, she had already slammed the bedroom’s door. “Damn it, why don’t you give me a chance to say it?”

All she needed to leave Griffin, the hospital and everything behind was for Mona to say it back. If she said she wanted her too, there was no more doubts or questionings, she run straight to her arms.

———-

When Mona woke up in the next morning, Allison had already left. Which was a positive thing. She wasn’t ready to see her face yet. Somehow she felt used. Betrayed.

As she arrived in the kitchen, Detective Wheeler was still having breakfast. She rolled her eyes, wondering what would be the lecture or insult of the day. She decided to spare him the work and deliver the news he waited so long to hear.

“Morning, Pops,” she poured herself some coffee. “I have good news for you.”

“Actually, Mona,” he folded the newspaper he was reading. It was the first time she called her by her alias. Something was terribly wrong about it. “I wanted to thank you.”

“Great, Allison already told him I’m leaving,” she frowned. “That only proves she doesn’t give a damn about me.”

“Our conversation yesterday. You gave me a new perspective about my case and how we could work on a solution.”

“Uh, really?” She looked at him surprised, finding herself a seat at the table.

“All we have to do is to implant someone inside an university, to observe these young students and catch the supplier, who will eventually led us to whoever is creating those drugs.”

“Good, Pops. The world is really changing, in case of causing trouble, I’ve helped the police. I’ve earned my place in Heaven after that.”

He stared her, directly in the eyes.

“My point is, I can’t think of anyone better for the job than… you.”

#playchoices #ride or die #mona #mona x mc #mona rod #choices stories you play #ride or die fanfiction

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lettersfromn0where · 5 years

Text

OC Interview Tag

Rules: Pick a character from your WIP and have them answer these fifteen questions, then tag people. Thanks to @leonajasmin-writeblr for the tag! These characters are from my original WIP, The Radiant, which is about a group of teenagers who developed strange abilities as a result of growing up next to a nuclear waste dump. (Don’t buy a house near a nuclear waste disposal site, kids.) I’m going to use three because they’re beans and I love them and also can’t choose. Meg is regular text, Gigi is italics, Diya is bolded italics.

1. What is your full name?

Margaret Mai Lien Pham. Margaret is...an elegant old lady name my parents liked, Mai Lien is a nod to my Vietnamese heritage, and Pham is one of the most common Vietnamese surnames (and my father’s).

Genesis Chantal Cappellini (if you call me Genesis, I will murder you in cold blood), because I have strange parents. Chantal was chosen because not very many names sound nice with “Genesis,” and Cappellini is a super obscure last name that happens to be my family’s.

Diya Sunita Patel. Not sure why I was named that, but it’s nice, I suppose.

2. What does your full name mean?

Margaret means “pearl,” Mai means “cherry blossom,” Lien means “lotus,” and Pham means “extensive.” Two flowers and a gem...hmm, I wonder what my parents were trying to get at there. (More likely than not it was chosen just because it sounded nice - I doubt they would’ve named me “cherry blossom lotus” if they were going for meaning.)

Genesis means “origin” and is a book of the Bible, Chantal means “stone,” and Cappellini is - I kid you not - a type of pasta. Yup, I’m named after a book of the Bible and a pasta shape. WHY, MOTHER? WHYYYYY?

Diya means “gift,” Sunita means “one of good character,” and Patel means something roughly like “village chief.” That sets a pretty lofty standard...

3. What are your nicknames/other names?

Meg! I don’t mind being called Margaret, but no one really does. Sometimes my best friend calls me other random nicknames for Margaret - I think I’ve been Maggie, Daisy, even Maisie once - but to everyone else, it’s just Meg.

Gigi. No one outside of my family and one person I’ve known since I was four even knows what my real first name is, so yeah, it’s always Gigi. Which is as it should be. A very select group of people can call me Gen, but again, 99% of the time I’m just Gigi.

I don’t really have one.

4. What’s your gender?

Author here: not going to bother with the fancy writing because they’re all female.

5. What’s your sexuality?

Author here: Gigi is straight, but the other two girls’ sexualities are totally irrelevant to the story.

6. Where are you from?

Phoenix, Arizona.

Originally from Chicago, but moved to Phoenix when I was so young that I’ve never thought of myself as being from anywhere else.

Also Phoenix. Thing to look forward to about going away to college: not being in Phoenix.

7. How old are you?

Turning seventeen in two weeks and a junior in high school.

Sixteen - I’m a sophomore.

Seventeen and a junior, like Meg, but at different schools.

8. What is your magic form/what species are you?

Human, but genetically enhanced (by accident, not experiment) - I can instantaneously predict the outcomes of situations, mathematically, when I see them.

Enhanced human - I shatter glass when I sing or raise my voice.

Human with powers - I “disappear”/turn invisible in direct sunlight.

9. What does your human form look like?

Average height, fairly thin but not tiny, very straight black hair. I’m naturally quite pale but tan easily, which I hate.

I’m very, uh...fun-sized. As in: 4′ 11.” I’m pretty petite in general but sorta curvy; I have olive skin, suuuuuper curly brown hair (VERY ANNOYING TO MANAGE), and green eyes. People have told me I’m cute but I would prefer to strike fear into the hearts of mankind...maaaybe. ;)

I’m 5′ 10″ - that’s what people usually notice about me first. That, and that I always wear my hair waist-length and in a braid. Otherwise, I have brown eyes, bronze skin, and black hair.

10. What’s your aesthetic?

I don’t know if I have one, honestly. I like things to be neat and organized, though, so I guess it would be kind of minimalistic? I really like floral things, too.

Is chaos an aesthetic? I guess not. But if I had to choose...backstage in a theater on show night. That’s my place, my home, and I suppose my aesthetic too.

Orange. Anything and everything orange. Bright colors. Fruit. You get the idea.

11. Who’s your best friend?

Phoebe Vu. She’s the daughter of my parents’ oldest friends, so we grew up together - same school, same church, same everything for as long as we can remember. We’re both very nerdy, but in different ways - she does my computer science homework, I do her biology - and we’ve been doing everything together for so long that I couldn’t imagine my life without her.

Uh...maybe Cassidy Donnelly? She’s my best friend from theater. And I’ll never admit this, but I’ve got a soft spot for Alex Allende, a guy I’ve gone to school with for eleven years and pretend to hate but very obviously don’t, too. We don’t even really get along, but he knows me better than almost anyone.

At school, I have only one friend, Jeremy Waller - he, like I, doesn’t really fit into any other groups, so we hang out a lot. But in truth, it would really be my brother, Deb (short for Debaditya, which no one calls him because most people can’t pronounce it). He’s a year older and we try to bash each other’s heads in from time to time, because siblings, but we’re extremely close. No one matters more to me than he does.

12. Would you ever get a piercing/tattoo?

Nope. Not my thing.

Uh, maybe if I had to for a role? My ears are pierced, but otherwise no.

Sure, why not? I’d get, like, one of those cute miniature tattoos, but a piercing sounds painful.

13. When are you happiest?

My family and Phoebe’s used to go to a lake house somewhere up north together every summer, and we’d always take out a boat and go tubing and shove each other off the dock and night-swim - I miss those days. I don’t think I’ve ever been happier than I was at the lake. Other than that, when I finally grasp a difficult math concept - I’m pretty good at it, but I struggle sometimes, and finally getting a concept is one of the best feelings in the world.

When I’m performing. Musical theater has been my life since I was a little kid and I never feel quite the same as I do when I’m onstage, whether I’m in the chorus or belting out a solo - it’s where I feel most at home and alive.

When I’m trying something new. I’m very adventurous, and I hate monotony, so I’m always happiest when I’m doing something I’ve never tried before. Routine bores me - I need my dose of adventure.

14. What’s your biggest secret?

My ability (power? Do I have powers? I guess I do). I haven’t told anyone except Phoebe - I’m terrified of how my family would react if they knew.

The fact that I might be in love with Alex, my true first name, and the real reason I had to drop out of the Spring musical - not because I ‘didn’t have time,’ but because I’d shatter all the windows if I ever sang again.

I don’t have a lot of secrets...maybe that I’m realizing, after saying I’d be a doctor all my life, that I actually hate biology with every fiber of my being?

15. What was your first impression of [each other]?

Author here: this is set a week after the rest of the things, after they’ve all met at a support group for enhanced kids.

Meg: I was a little taken aback by Diya’s enthusiasm - I’m kind of introverted, and she can be A LOT. I was impressed by Gigi’s confidence but a *little* weirded out by how blunt she could be.

Gigi: I thought Meg needed a hug (I was right) and admired that Diya could eat an entire box of Pop Tarts by herself - which was what she was doing when I first met her. Not very deep.

Diya: You know that meme where it’s, like, “I’ve only had (name) for a day, but if anything happened to her, I’d kill everyone in this room and then myself” (I’m paraphrasing here, so those aren’t the exact words)? That was me as soon as I met Meg. She is a PRECIOUS TRAUMATIZED BEAN (her parents kicked her out shortly before we met). My first impression of Gigi was “yup, she’s definitely in love with that Alex kid,” and I also noticed how extroverted and theatrical she was right away.

Thanks for the tag! I don’t have a lot of writeblrs on my radar, so anyone who wants to do this is heretofore tagged. :)

#the radiant #WIP #tag game #Gigi Cappellini #Meg Pham #Diya Patel

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artificialqueens · 6 years

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oh, the weather outside is frightful 2/? (craquaria) - teenwitch

AN: Hi, I’m teenwitch. I was blown away with all the positive feedback on the last chapter of this fic aw so here’s a part 2. Thanx soso much to everyone who had kind words to say ! many many words of fluffy smutty christmas stuff jus 4 u! TW for use of the word slut

Also I’m really sorry to admins for not doing my tags last time, I wasn’t sure how but I’ve worked it out now :)))

Brianna texts Aquaria when she gets home. They’d both made a half hearted attempt to clean themselves up before exiting the bathroom, passing Monet and Kameron (Kameron sitting on Monet’s lap and Monet leaning around her to mouth something unintelligible but animated at Brianna, holding her hand to her ear in the universal gesture for “call me” with an excited grin) on their way to the coat check. In the elevator, Brianna had unlocked her phone to order an uber and Aquaria had snatched it out of her hand right away, typing in her number before flashing that blinding grin and thrusting it back into Brianna’s hand. Aquaria’s ride had arrived first and she’d kissed Brianna goodbye on the cheek, gripping her wrist tightly and telling Brianna to “text me, ok?”. Her face had been confident but an edge of uncertainty had softened her tone. Brianna had smiled, tried to make her eyes warm at Aquaria as she assured her she would. And so Brianna does. She doesn’t know what to send ; “hey, it was cool when you came around my fingers in the bathroom of your workplace” ? so she settles on her favourite heart emoji, the pink one with the little sparkles. She briefly considers red, to match the dress Aquaria had been wearing, before deciding that a plain red heart is too generic. She texts Monet “;))) see u tomorrow?” before dropping her phone, stripping out of her dress and bra and climbing naked into bed. Brianna’s grinning as she falls asleep.

Aquaria wakes up at midday (so sue her, it’s three days til Christmas and her office is closed until the new year) and the first thing she does is check her phone. There’s 3 texts from Brianna and a knot Aquaria didn’t know was in her stomach unties itself. Last night Brianna had texted and she’d texted back and then Brianna hadn’t and Aquaria had fallen asleep with her phone in her hand. She unlocks her phone and reads “I almost did the red heart to match ur dress but it seemed too basic” and then “oh ! duh!” and then 3 of the emoji with the little lady dancing in the red dress. It’s silly and it makes Aquaria grin as she types out a response before swinging her legs out of bed and padding across the hallway to her shower. She catches herself humming as she’s shampooing her hair and blushes a little. I mean really, Aquaria she scolds herself over a woman you met not even 24 hours ago ? But Brianna had been lovely. Aquaria’s thoughts drift to the night before as she rubs shower gel over her small breasts. She pinches a nipple, like Brianna had done, and feels heat coil low in her stomach. She lets her hands slip down and around her body to grab at her ass and gives herself a slap, thinks of Brianna, again, before she trails her hands around to between her legs where she’s already so wet. Wet just from thinking about Brianna and the way she’d touched Aquaria with those strong hands. Aquaria’s whine echoes, high pitched and needy, off the tile of the shower as she slips a finger past her entrance. She’s pathetic, she thinks as she fucks herself, so desperate for a woman she barely knows. Aquaria cums imagining Brianna standing in the doorway, watching her.

“Heeellloooooo” Monet flings open the door to her apartment, wearing a thick white facemask. Brianna cackles and follows her inside, dropping the box of pizza she’d been carrying on Monet’s kitchen counter “you better have saved some of that for me, Mrs Doubtfire. I’m nearly 40, I need all the help I can get!”

“Of course dearie! It’s in the bathroom!” Monet says, still in character. Then, dropping the phony British accent, “33 is not nearly 40, Cracker!”

“It might as well be! I have wrinkles Monet, look at this face!” Brianna pulls her skin back taught across her face in Monet’s bathroom mirror, pulling a face at herself before beginning to smear the white mask over her forehead

“Girl, shut up!” Monet calls from the kitchen “and tell me everything about last night, you left with Aquaria! And do not even try to tell me you didn’t fuck in that bathroom Miz Cracker, I saw the state of the two of you.” Satisfied she’s covered her face evenly, Brianna runs out of the Bathroom and jumps onto Monet’s small couch, claiming her favourite throw blanket and wrapping it around her shoulders. “Tell me everything!” Monet repeats as she settles in next to Brianna and opens the pizza box. And so Brianna does. By 9pm they’ve covered both Aquaria and Kameron in detail. Monet had taken Kameron home, fucked her, and Kameron had asked Monet to get dinner with her tomorrow night before she’d gone home (“do you think she meant it as, like, a date? Like a date-date?” Monet had asked until Brianna rolled her eyes so hard her brain hurt). Brianna had also found out that Aquaria was young (Monet wasn’t sure how young though), occasionally stand of fish but generally very sweet and was junior fashion editor for the same magazine Monet worked at. She desperately wants to see Aquaria again. “Just text her girl, ask her to go skating or to a movie or something” Monet says, hugging Brianna goodbye at the door. And so, as she tends to when Monet suggests something (Brianna still cringes when she thinks about certain incidents from their early twenties), Brianna does.

The next time Aquaria sees Brianna, it’s Christmas Eve. She’d planned her outfit 2 days ago, as soon as she read Brianna’s text. This afternoon she’d put it on, decided it looked stupid and then spent 2 hours trying on and discarding various tops and dresses. It was irrelevant to Aquaria that they were going ice skating, and most of her clothes would be covered by her heavy coat anyway. She had left the house wearing lipstick and turned around halfway down the stairs to her apartment to go back and wipe it off. She wants to kiss Brianna. And now she’s actually looking at Brianna, and her chest is 10 times tighter than it had been before. Brianna’s an old hollywood angel, her long blonde hair as full as ever, bouncing down over the collar of her brown fur coat, which nearly reaches her ankles. The only thing missing is red lipstick, Aquaria thinks, grinning as she notes that Brianna’s bare lips match hers. Brianna hasn’t spotted her yet, she’s looking away from Aquaria at the people circling the ice, her chin propped up in her hand. Aquaria wants to take a photo. She’s actually fingering her phone in her pocket, debating whether or not it would be too stalkerish, when Brianna’s head snaps around towards her and her face breaks out in a grin. “Hi!” She hurries over to Aquaria, blonde waves bouncing , and wraps her arms around her waist. She’s shorter than Aquaria remembers, as Aquaria hugs her back she can rest her chin on the top of her head. Brianna pulls away and grins out a breathy “How are you?”, already leading Aquaria over to the skate hire booth. Her eyes are warm and Aquaria feels less nervous already.

They’re skating, and Aquaria is good at it. The second they’d got on the ice she’d pulled fluidly away from Brianna, gliding off and around the rink, turning to skate backwards and grin at Brianna as she lifted one leg off the ice and out in front of her body. Brianna had watched slack jawed as Aquaria did a little twisty jumpy thingy in the middle of the rink before lifting her leg up over her head. She looked so graceful and beautiful, her long limbs propelling her forwards, a strand of black hair falling over her pink cheeks. She’s flexible, too Brianna’s brain had added, and she felt her cheeks grow hot. “Are you done showing off?” Brianna had asked Aquaria when she skated smoothly back to her side, chest puffed out proudly “How did you even do that?!”. Aquaria had just shot her a shit eating grin before taking off skating again, this time more slowly, tugging at Brianna’s hand for her to follow.

“I took 8 years of dance and 2 years of figure skating” Aquaria admits, as they skate in tandem, Brianna feeling clumsy next to Aquaria’s effortless, strong movements. They keep chatting as they skate, about childhood hobbies, games and aspirations, then Kameron and Monet (Aquaria squeals and flails her wrists around when Brianna tells her that they’d had a successful date last night) then music and movies and fashion, interrupting themselves with little anecdotes here and there. “So,” Aquaria says, reaching out to steady Brianna as she stumbles slightly “why are you taking me out on Christmas Eve? Don’t you have, like, family to see or something?”

Brianna’s breath hitches at Aquaria’s firm grip on her forearm. “Well, my family is Jewish, so I’ve never really celebrated Christmas. We usually go for Chinese food and watch movies on Christmas Day, but my sister lives in Florida now and my mother’s away on a spiritual retreat this year, so it’s just me” she explains “I’d actuallly forgotten it was Christmas Eve, if I’m honest. Oh God, I hope I didn’t ruin your plans!” She turns to Aquaria, feeling cross at herself for blanking on the fact that Aquaria quite probably had had something to do tonight.

“No, not at all!” Aquaria laughs a little at Brianna’s worried face “I’m on my own too! My mom and stepmom are on vacation in Hawaii, so I’m orphaned this year.” Brianna doesn’t know whether or not she should ask Aquaria if she has plans for tomorrow. She wants to, but how weird does that seem, asking Aquaria to spend Christmas with her on their first date. She worries her bottom lip, debating, when a voice crackles over the loudspeakers at the side of the rink “closing in 30”.

“I guess that’s us” Aquaria smiles at her “I know a place about a block away that does mulled wine in the winter?”

On their way out of the cosy little bistro, Aquaria stops in the middle of the street, tugging Brianna back where their hands are entwined. She tilts her chin up to the sky and is silent for a moment before she huffs disappointedly “No stars” she says sadly in response to Brianna’s quirked eyebrow, “I love the stars”. It’s silly, but Aquaria feels genuinely disappointed. She does love the stars, she’s always thought of them as her friends, looking out for her at night. Sometimes she talks to them in her head, when there’s something she needs to figure out.

“New York and its damn light pollution.” Brianna says, and she must catch some of the upset on Aquaria’s face, because she drops her hand and wraps her arm around Aquaria’s waist instead, pulling her close to her side. It’s clumsy, walking like this, their heights and gaits don’t match and Brianna’s hip bumps into Aquaria’s thigh. Aquaria can’t bring herself to care though, Brianna’s warm and she’s pretty and she’s taking Aquaria back to her apartment. Her thumb is stroking circles into Aquaria’s side and Aquaria’s cheeks are warm from the wine and the tenderness of it all.

“Do you know much about the stars? Like, constellations and stuff?” Brianna asks

“Yeah, a little.”

“Tell me?”

And so Aquaria does. She starts with Aquarius, because that’s hers, and is halfway through Cassiopeia when Brianna fumbles for her keys in her coat and lets them into a looming building.

“This is me”

“It reminds me of the apartment building from ghostbusters” Aquaria tells Brianna as they start up the stairs “You’re Sigourney Weaver”.

“No way!” Brianna sounds almost offended “I’m definitely the demon in the fridge!”

Aquaria is slightly out of breath by the time they reach Brianna’s apartment, it’s been 7 flights of stairs. Brianna, of course, doesn’t seem affected in the slightest, and has enough breath to draw out a “ta daaaaaa” as she flings open the door and flicks on the light. Brianna’s apartment is cluttered in a cosy way. The walls are cream but decorated with various artworks and photographs, some in frames, some just taped up. Her red couch is draped in a colourful crochet blanket and several bright cushions, which should clash with the garish pattern of her curtains, but don’t. Aquaria spots plants on one windowsill and candles in various states of melted on another. It looks like a home in a way that Aquaria’s apartment, with its chic minimalist decor, doesn’t.

“It’s beautiful” Aquaria breathes, and means it.

“It’s not much, but it’s my home” Brianna takes a running jump onto her couch and sits up to take off her shoes. Aquaria plops down in the armchair opposite her and eases off her own thigh high boots, groaning as the muscles in her legs flex

“God, my calves hurt. I forgot that skating made them so sore.”

And then Brianna is on her knees in front of Aquaria, shoving Aquaria’s heels aside and taking her left leg in her hands. Aquaria starts to ask her what she’s doing but a moan comes out instead as Brianna’s strong fingers dig into her calf, rubbing deep circles right into where Aquaria’s muscle aches.

“Mm?” Brianna hums, looking up at Aquaria

“Mmm” Aquaria hums in confirmation, eyes fluttering shut. The way Brianna massages away the tension reminds Aquaria of the way her mom used to rub the growing pains out of her legs when she was a child. Aquaria feels herself getting wet at the thought, at being looked after by Brianna. By the time Brianna’s on the other calf, Aquaria’s squirming in her seat, sure she’s soaked through her panties.

“Good, baby?” Brianna asks, glancing up at Aquaria’s flushed face.

“Yes” Aquaria gasps, and as Brianna’s fingers trail up past her knee and over her inner thigh, she can’t help the thrust of her hips up off the chair. “Please” she whispers as Brianna’s hands trail higher.

“Please what, baby?” Brianna’s grip is suddenly strong on her upper thigh and Aquaria feels herself throb “What do you need?”

“Need you to touch me, Brianna, please” Aquaria hears the whine in her own voice and flushes. Brianna just grins and slides her hand up Aquaria’s thigh to her rub up against her clothed pussy.

“Here?”

“Yes” Aquaria’s voice cracks and she throws her head back, squeezing her eyes shut tight against the threat of tears. She’s so turned on and all shes wanted for days is for Brianna to fuck her, she needs it and Brianna’s teasing and it’s not fair and -

“Okay baby. Shh baby, it’s okay, I’m gonna take care of you.” Brianna pulls down Aquaria’s panties and buries her head under Aquaria’s skirt in one smooth motion, licking a stripe up the centre of Aquaria’s bare pussy. Aquaria lets out a broken moan as Brianna sucks at her clit, and cants her hips up to meet her tongue. Brianna’s strong arms wrap themselves around Aquaria’s thighs for better leverage, spreading them further apart as she licks into Aquaria. Oh God, Brianna’s doing this twisty thing with her tongue that’s hitting all the right spots inside her and then she’s pulling out to lap at her clit, grazing it with her teeth enough to make Aquaria whine and then she’s plunging her tongue back inside and ohit’ssogood and Aquaria’s close within minutes. It’s when Brianna pulls away entirely to bite harshly at Aquaria’s inner thigh before sucking back down over her clit that Aquaria cums. Brianna licks her through it, humming happily, until Aquaria reaches down to pull her away. When Brianna surfaces her face is flushed and she’s grinning, Aquaria’s wetness shiny on her chin. Aquaria can taste it, and the spice of mulled wine underneath, when she pulls Brianna up for a passionate kiss. “You taste so good baby you came so good” Brianna murmurs against her lips “Bedroom?” Aquaria nods fervently and lets Brianna pull her to her feet.

The lights are off in Brianna’s room but the curtains are open, so light from the city below fills it with a soft yellow glow. Aquaria’s lips are on Brianna’s neck and her hands under her coat to tug at the zipper of her dress immediately, and Brianna shivers as her clothes fall to the floor. Aquaria pulls back to rid herself of her own clothes, she’s not wearing a bra again, and Brianna feels herself throb as she takes in Aquaria’s naked form in the dim light. “You’re beautiful” she breathes, and she means it, loves the long leanness of Aquaria’s body, her small breasts and smooth, white skin.

“You’re beautiful” Aquaria leans down to kiss her hard and hungry, nipping at her bottom lip and then her neck, sucking down. Brianna knows there’ll be a mark there tomorrow and she grins as she tangles her fingers in Aquaria’s hair, gives it a little tug to hear Aquaria make that beautiful little whine before guiding them to her bed. It’s hot and dirty as they lay down, Aquaria crawling on top of Brianna and discarding her bra immediately before attaching her mouth to Brianna’s chest. She places open mouthed kisses over Brianna’s exposed breasts and kitten licks at her nipple, before biting down, hard.

“Ah, fuck” Brianna hisses, reaching around to deliver a slap to Aquaria’s bare ass. Aquaria lets out a sound that’s halfway between a giggle and a moan, so Brianna slaps her again, harder. Definitely a moan this time. Brianna grins, of course Aquaria loves being spanked, the little slut. She’ll have to explore that later, though, because Aquaria’s kissing down her stomach now, hooking her fingers into the waist and of Brianna’s panties and tugging them down over her legs. Aquaria delivers a gentle kiss to Brianna’s clit and immediately pushes two fingers inside her. Brianna moans, loud and slutty, loving the burn as Aquaria’s knuckles catch on her entrance. As Aquaria shifts to straddle her hips, Brianna reaches up feel out her cunt, slipping her middle finger into the tight ring of muscle and crooking it forwards to rub up against Aquaria’s g spot.

“Oh fuck yes, Brianna” Aquaria gasps, walls clenching around Brianna’s finger “more”.

Brianna obliges and adds a second finger, fucking Aquaria a little faster. Aquaria’s got three fingers inside Brianna now, and she’s fucking her hard, just how Brianna likes, thrusting her fingers in and out while her thumb rubs down roughly over Brianna’s clit. Brianna can hear the slick, wet sounds of her pussy swallowing Aquaria’s fingers each time she pushes in. It’s obscene, and it makes Brianna buck her hips up to meet Aquaria’s hand just a little harder. She’s hitting the right angle with every thrust now, and Brianna’s not going to last, not with the way Aquaria’s fucking herself on Brianna’s fingers above her, making the most delicious little noises.

“Aquaria” Brianna brings her thumb up to play with Aquaria’s clit “Aquaria, I’m -“

And then Aquaria’s fucking Brianna even harder and Brianna’s cumming around her fingers, hard, with a long, low moan. She feels so good everywhere that she doesn’t register Aquaria riding out her own orgasm against Brianna’s hand until she hears her broken moans of “Briannabriannabrianna”. Brianna thinks she could cum again just listening to that.

When she’s come down from her high, Aquaria sucks her fingers clean, humming around the digits before laying down beside Brianna on the bed. They kiss softly until Brianna feels Aquaria shiver and she motions to Aquaria to stand up so they can both settle in under the blankets. Aquaria snuggles up to Brianna’s side, her head on her chest and her arm slung over Brianna’s waist.

“Aquaria?” Brianna stretches out her arm to play with Aquaria’s hair

“Mm?”

“Do you want to stay tomorrow? I mean, like, spend the day with me? I know it’s Christmas and you probably have plans with friends but I just thought I’d - ”

“I don’t have plans” Brianna feels Aquaria smile against her boob “I’d love to stay tomorrow”

Brianna feels warm in her stomach and her chest. She reaches out for Aquaria’s hand and brings it up to her face, kissing her palm and the inside of her wrist before letting it drop.

“Brianna?”

“Mm?”

“Can we try making mulled wine tomorrow?”

“Oh yeah. Good idea”

Aquaria hums happily and nestles further into Brianna’s side, tangling their legs together.

“Yay! You’re the best, Brianna.”

The way Aquaria says it makes it sound true, Brianna thinks as she falls asleep.

#craquaria #miz cracker #aquaria #lesbian au #smut #fluff #rpdr fanfiction #submission #teenwitch #oh the weather outside is frightful

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marketingcomcaio · 4 years

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30 Lessons After 30 Million SEO Visitors

As you can see from the screenshot above, I’ve driven 30 million visitors to my website from SEO.

Technically it’s more, but who’s counting.

What’s funny, though, is I barely look at my traffic, even as Google continually rolls out algorithm updates.

I know that sounds contradictory because if you are an SEO, why wouldn’t you obsess about traffic, right?

Well, it’s because I’ve learned some hard lessons over the year… mainly because I’ve made a lot of mistakes.

So today, I wanted to share them with you so that you can learn from my mistakes… so here goes:

Lesson #1: Don’t obsess over rankings, obsess over conversions

I used to check my rankings every single day. Literally.

On top of that, I would log into Google Analytics 4 to 5 times a day and continually check my traffic.

That’s all I cared about back in the day… boosting my organic traffic.

But here is the thing: As my rankings and traffic went up over the years, my revenue didn’t go up proportionally.

For example, during one quarter in 2017, my SEO traffic went up 39.52%, but my revenue from SEO went up only 4.29%.

I quickly learned that traffic isn’t everything. If you can’t convert the traffic into revenue it doesn’t matter.

That taught me that you need to focus on the right keywords that drive conversions and continually optimize your site for conversions.

An easy first step for you to take is to install Crazy Egg and run a heatmap to see where people click so you adjust your design and copy to get more sales.

Lesson #2: The easiest way to grow your SEO traffic is international expansion

You already know that I get a lot of SEO traffic, but do you know what country drives most of my traffic?

If you guessed United States, you are wrong.

Brazil is my most popular region, followed by India.

International SEO is the easiest way to expand and grow your traffic. Here are a few posts that you should read before you expand your SEO globally:

How to create a global SEO strategy

Fundamentals of international SEO

How to correctly setup your site for international SEO

How to profitably expand your SEO globally

Lesson #3: Keywords are very, very, very, very important

When I used to write my content, I didn’t obsess about the keywords when I should have.

My team actually proved me wrong on this.

I used to focus on writing content for humans and didn’t worry about search engines. My team, on the other hand, obsesses about keywords.

Just look at the growth of our traffic in Brazil because of our obsession with the right keywords.

One simple thing I do before writing that has really helped is I head over to Ubersuggest and type in a few of the keywords that I want to go after.

Once it loads, you’ll see a report like the one above. I want you to then click on “Keyword Ideas” in the left-hand navigation.

You’ll see a report that contains a list of keywords that you could potentially be targeting.

Make sure you click on the “Related” tab, as well as “Questions” and “Comparisons” … scroll through the list. You’ll see hundreds of keywords. Pick all of the ones that are relevant and ideally have a high cost per click (CPC). These are the keywords that’ll not only drive traffic but revenue as well.

Whenever I write a blog post, I go through this step. Every single time.

Lesson #4: AMP pages can drive more SEO traffic

AMP pages load faster on mobile devices than non-AMP pages.

If you aren’t familiar with the AMP framework, read this.

What most people won’t tell you about AMP pages is that:

In regions like the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom, countries with decent Internet infrastructure, you won’t see much of an increase in traffic.

In regions with poor Internet infrastructure, like Brazil, you’ll see a 10 to 15% lift in mobile SEO traffic by having AMP pages.

AMP pages don’t convert visitors into customers as well as normal responsive web design. So, you’ll have to work on testing your AMP pages so you can boost your conversion rates.

Lesson #5: SEO will never convert as well as paid ads

When I started off with SEO, I would run projections on how much the traffic would make me.

But the numbers were always off, even if I was able to get the rankings.

Here’s the main reason: If you are bidding on terms like auto insurance through ads, you can drive people to a landing page that looks like this:

But if you want to rank organically, you’ll have to do it through content. So, your page that ranks well will look more like this and convert less…

It doesn’t mean SEO is bad. In reality, it’s much cheaper in the long run than paid ads and will produce a better ROI. But don’t just assume that if you get 100 visitors from paid ads and 3 purchases that you’ll have the same conversion rate with your SEO traffic.

Chances are it will be significantly lower by maybe 2 or 3x, but because SEO is cheaper, it will be much more profitable.

Lesson #6: Remarketing is one of the best ways to generate an ROI from SEO

If you get a ton of traffic from SEO, there is a simple strategy you can implement to boost your conversions.

Remarket everyone on Facebook, Google, and YouTube.

That way people come to your site, read your content, and build trust with you and your brand.

Then you remarket them throughout the web with ads that prompt your products or services and send them to a landing page that will drive sales.

I’ve been doing this for years, just look at my old remarketing ad…

For the regions I use remarketing in, it is responsible for 46% of my leads.

Lesson #7: Don’t forget to update your old content

I publish one new blog post a week. I’m working on increasing this as I get more time, but for now, it is one a week.

Can you guess how many blog posts I update on a daily basis? Technically it is 0 (me at least), but my team focuses on updating at least 3 old blog posts per day. That’s roughly 90 a month.

Once you have a few hundred pages, make sure you focus on updating your old content or else your traffic will quickly drop.

You can use this content decay tool to see which posts you should update first.

This will help you continually grow your SEO traffic instead of hitting plateaus or seeing your traffic take massive drops.

Lesson #8: Don’t forget to optimize your title tags

One of the easiest ways to grow your rankings is to optimize your title tags.

If you can write persuasive copy and get more clicks, you’ll quickly move up on Google.

In Brazil, we spend more time doing this than we do in the United States.

We get a similar amount of impressions in Brazil, but we have more people focusing on improving our title tags and testing. Hence, we get 95% more SEO traffic in Brazil.

If you want tips on boosting your clicks, check out this article.

Another simple hack is to use the “Content Ideas” report in Ubersuggest.

On the right side of that report, you can see social share counts from Facebook and Pinterest. And on the left side, you see titles of articles.

Typically, if people like a title they share it more. So, look for titles that have a lot of shares as it will give you ideas on what you can use on your website to get more clicks and boost your rankings.

Lesson #9: Don’t put dates in your URL

I used to put dates in my URLs like:

Neilpatel.com/2017/12/title-of-post/

This causes search engines to assume that your content is related to a specific date. And after that date gets old, search engines assume your content is irrelevant and outdated.

The moment I removed the date from my URLs, I grew my SEO traffic by 58% in 30 days.

youtube

If you have dates in your URL, make sure you 301 redirect your old URLs to your new ones once you make that change, or else your rankings will drop.

Lesson #10: Don’t be afraid to use popups

Don’t you hate popups? Well, who doesn’t?

But people use them because they work.

The majority of your pages that will rank are blog-related content. And blog posts tend to drive fewer direct conversions because people are on your site to read the content.

In order to maximize your conversions from SEO, you should consider using exit popups so you can convert more of those visitors into customers as they leave.

When you leave this site in most cases, you’ll see a popup that looks like:

And it drives you to this quiz, which allows me to convert SEO visitors into customers.

You can easily copy me by using Hello Bar. It works for all industries including B2B and ecommerce and even lead generation sites.

Lesson #11: Brand queries affect rankings

Everyone talks about how you need links to boost rankings.

But very few people talk about brand queries.

As Google’s ex-CEO and ex-head of web spam both emphasized how brands are important.

One of the big reasons for my growth in SEO traffic is the growth in my brand. I’ve seen a direct correlation in which the more people who find me from my name, the more SEO traffic I get.

Just look at my brand growth over time:

I’ve received over 1.9 million visitors over the last 16 months from people typing in variations of my name in Google.

Lesson #12: Don’t waste your money on paid links

I’ve been doing SEO since I was 16 years old. That’s a long time…

When I started off as a kid, I dabbled in paid links and I used to dominate Google for terms like online casino, online poker, web hosting, auto insurance, and even credit cards.

And I was making a killing off of affiliate income from these sites.

But it was all short lived.

Why?

Because I bought links. And eventually Google penalized all of those sites.

If I never purchased links, those sites would have taken longer to rank, but they would have been around today, and I would have generated more income overall.

Don’t buy links, it’s bad and shortsighted.

Lesson #13: Guest post to build a brand, not to build links

I already covered the importance of branding above.

A great way to build your brand and indirectly boost your SEO traffic is through guest posting.

But don’t use guest posting to build links.

Most sites that offer guest posts, nofollow them (which they should), and Google is smart enough to know what a guest post is, hence they ignore guest post links from sites like Forbes.

It’s pretty easy to spot a guest post for both a human and algorithm…

But if you are using it to build a brand, great. Focus on the content quality and not links.

Lesson #14: Don’t forget to interlink

Do you know what some of my highest ranked pages are?

The ones that are interlinked.

It takes anywhere from 6 months to a year for many of the interlinks to kick in, but it is still effective none-the-less.

Every time I wrote content, I used to make sure I link out to my older pieces of content when it made sense. But I made a big mistake… I wasn’t going into my older pieces of content and then adding links to my newer pieces of content.

That one change was game-changing for me. It took time to see the results but it worked exceptionally well.

It’s how I rank high for terms like “email marketing”.

Lesson #15: Google isn’t the only game in town

Although Google is the most popular search engine, it isn’t the only one you need to focus on.

Did you know that YouTube is the second most popular search engine?

Even Bing gets a lot of traffic.

If you want to rank high on Bing, follow this.

Or if you prefer video, watch this:

youtube

As for YouTube, this guide will teach you YouTube SEO. It works really well, just look at my YouTube SEO traffic:

Over the last 28 days, I received 429,501 video views through YouTube SEO.

Lesson #16: Speed is everything

The faster your server and the more optimized your site, the more traffic you’ll get.

Years ago, my friend Otis added more servers to his site GoodReads.

Within a month, his SEO traffic went up over 20%.

Speed is part of Google’s algorithm, so optimize it for both web and mobile.

A quick way to see your site’s speed is to enter your URL here.

You’ll see a report that breaks down your mobile and desktop load times as well as what you can do to improve them.

Lesson #17: Quality over quantity

SEO used to be a game of quantity over quality.

That isn’t the case anymore. With over a billion blogs, Google has its fair share of sites to choose from.

Just look at About.com. Eventually they renamed it Dotdash and changed their strategy.

They took all of their About.com content and moved it over to 6 vertical based sites and deleted 900,000 pages of junk content.

This grew their traffic and revenue by a whopping 140%.

Focus on writing high-quality content. It’s why I blog less and try to make my content amazing.

Lesson #18: Tools are better than content marketing

I used to focus all of my energy on content marketing because it drove a lot of links and SEO traffic.

But over time, I realized that creating free tools builds more natural links than anything else I have ever tested.

Just look at Ubersuggest. I spent years creating it and look at how many links it has generated…

30,603 backlinks! That’s a lot of links.

If you don’t have the resources to build a custom tool like me, you can always start with buying a white label tool from Code Canyon for $10 or $20. They literally have tools for almost all industries.

Lesson #19: Don’t rely only on SEO

When I first got started in SEO, all I could think about was SEO.

To me, it was the best marketing channel out there because it allowed me to compete with large companies.

Even to this day, I still love SEO more than any other channel.

But it doesn’t stop me from leveraging other marketing channels.

See, years ago you could build a business off of one marketing channel.

Yelp was built through SEO. Dropbox through social media referrals. Facebook through email invites…

Those days don’t exist anymore. You can’t just build your traffic from one channel.

Although you should do SEO, you should also try paid ads, social media marketing, email marketing, push notifications, and anything else that comes out.

Diversify your traffic sources and don’t just rely solely on SEO.

Lesson #20: People love linking to data

Spending money and time to gather your own unique data is an easy way to build links.

Check out my posts on content marketing trends and social media trends.

I’ve added tons of unique data, stats, and charts to each of those posts.

The end result? Extra backlinks. 🙂

The content marketing trends post received 447 backlinks.

If you don’t have the time to gather custom data you can always find someone on Upwork to help you out.

Lesson #21: Don’t forget about Infographics

One of my favorite SEO strategies that still works well today is infographics.

I have tons of them on the NeilPatel.com blog.

I didn’t start off with infographics here… I used to do them on my old blog Quick Sprout and KISSmetrics.

Here’s an interesting stat for you when I used to crank out infographics on KISSmetrics.

Within a two-year period, from 2010 to 2012, 47 infographics generated 2,512,596 visitors and 41,142 backlinks from 3,741 unique domains. They also generated 41,359 tweets and 20,859 likes.

If you don’t have money to hire a designer, you can use Infogram or Canva to create one on your own.

Lesson #22: Google doesn’t penalize for duplicate content

You don’t want to post tons of duplicate content on your site as it’s not the best user experience, but keep in mind that Google doesn’t penalize you for duplication.

They may not just rank the duplicate content as well.

So, if you spend all of this time producing amazing, unique content, why not publish it FIRST on your own website.

Then after a few hours or days if you want to be safe, take that exact content and publish it on Facebook, LinkedIn, and anywhere else that will accept your content.

Literally, take all of the words and paste them onto those social channels.

It will get you extra awareness and branding. Plus, the content should already be indexed on your site, so Google knows it came from your first… and I doubt you care if the duplicated version on LinkedIn ranks. That’s still great branding.

In other words, don’t be afraid to repurpose your content even if it causes duplication.

Just look at this post, for example. I’m also repurposing it into a 4-part podcast series.

Lesson #23: Don’t recreate the wheel

I used to spend hours a week doing keyword research trying to figure out what new terms to rank for.

Eventually, I figured out an easier and better way to find new content topics and keywords to go after.

Go to Ubersuggest, type in your competitor’s domain name and hit search.

In the left-hand navigation click on Top Pages.

You’ll see a report that shows you all of the popular pages on your competition’s website. This will give you ideas for the type of pages you should create on your website.

Then I want you to click “View All” under Est. Visits (estimated visits). This will show you all of the keywords that drive traffic to that page.

You now have a list of topics and keywords for each topic to go after.

Lesson #24: Don’t pick a generic domain name

Remember how in Lesson 11 I talked about brand queries and how they helped rankings?

After I learned that, I decided to go buy exact match domain names where the domain name was the keyword.

That way I would get lots of brand queries without trying.

Well, there’s an issue… even if you rank high, what you’ll find is you will have a low click-through rate in most cases.

If you have a low click-through rate, it tells Google your brand isn’t strong and people don’t prefer it, which can hurt your ranking.

So instead of focusing on exact match domains, unless you have millions to spend on branding like Hotels.com, focus on building a memorable brand.

youtube

Pick something that is unique, easy to spell, and easy to remember.

Lesson #25: Learn from blackhat SEOs, but don’t go over to the dark side

Blackhat SEOs come up with some interesting data and experiments.

Many of them don’t work for long, but they are interesting none-the-less.

Although I don’t recommend practicing blackhat SEO, I do recommend following them.

The easiest way you can learn from them is by reading Blackhat World.

People there share some interesting insights, especially every time there is a major Google algorithm update.

Again, I don’t recommend practicing blackhat SEO, but following them may help you uncover “white hat” techniques that can increase your rankings. Not everything they do is bad… many of them use legitimate tactics as well.

Lesson #26: Short URLs rank better than long ones

My URLs used to be the title of my blog post.

For example, with this post I would have used this URL in the past…

Neilpatel.com/blog/30-lessons-after-30-million-seo-visitors/

Eventually I switched to short URLs.

Google just prefers them. And I’ve seen it firsthand. That’s why I use short ones now.

URLs at position #1 are on average 9.2 characters shorter than URLs that rank in position #10. So, keep them short.

Lesson #27: The power’s in the list

If you want your content to rank high on Google, you need more people to see it.

Whether it is from social shares, or from push notifications or email blasts… the more people that see your content, the more engagement it will get, and the more people that will link to it.

I used to do a ton of manual outreach every time I published a new blog post and I would email people asking them to link to me.

And it works, it’s just time consuming and a pain.

These days, I have a better strategy… send out an email blast every time I publish a new post.

I can now get anywhere from 20,000 to 50,000 clicks per email I send out.

Now of course you won’t get that from day one as it took me years to build up my email list.

But you can start today by collecting emails. You can easily do that through Hello Bar.

And as your list grows, so will the clicks to your blog and the number of links you get, which in turn will increase your rankings.

Lesson #28: Don’t let your foot off the peddle

This was one of the hardest lessons I learned.

It’s exhausting to continually blog and do your own SEO. Sometimes you just want a break.

With my old blog, Quick Sprout, I used to publish 12 blog posts a month and I did that consistently for 3 years.

One day I decided that I wanted to stop for a month. So, I took a 30-day break.

Guess what happened to my traffic?

It tanked by 32%.

So, then I started blogging again. And guessed what happened to my traffic after I started blogging?

It didn’t come right back.

It took me 3 months to get back to where I was.

When things are working for you, don’t slow down. Keep pushing harder, even if you are exhausted. Because the moment you stop, you’ll drop, and it is a lot of work to get back to where you were.

Lesson #29: The best SEO advice comes from conferences

The best SEO advice I have ever learned over the years has come from conferences.

And no, I don’t mean by sitting in on the sessions, although you can learn from those too.

The best SEO secrets and advice I learned came from networking. When you go to these conferences, hundreds if not thousands of other SEOs are there. And when you go to the bar after hours and mingle with people, you’ll quickly pick stuff up.

You’ll be shocked at what people tell you. It’s how I learned a lot of the good tactics that I still use today.

Lesson #30: Never stop learning

This one may sound obvious but when things are going well, people get complacent.

Google makes on average 3,234 updates per year and that count has been increasing over time.

Just think about that for a bit… that’s roughly 9 algorithm updates per day.

Because they are changing so quickly, you won’t survive if you don’t stay up to date.

Yes, the ideal strategy is to do what’s best for your users or visitors as in the long run, Google wants to promote those sites, but it doesn’t mean that you can ignore the changes happening in the industry.

Read all of the SEO blogs out there, attend conferences as I mentioned above… experiment on test sites… push yourself to be better.

That drive of always improving and always wanting to learn more has helped me tremendously. It’s one of the reasons for my growth in rankings over the years.

Conclusion

There are a lot of lessons that you will learn as your rankings grow and as you spend more time on SEO.

But hopefully, you don’t have to waste time and go through the same mistakes I made. You don’t want to learn these lessons the hard way.

That’s why I decided to share them. I want to save you the time and help you achieve your traffic goals faster.

Which SEO lessons have you learned?

The post 30 Lessons After 30 Million SEO Visitors appeared first on Neil Patel.

30 Lessons After 30 Million SEO Visitors Publicado primeiro em https://neilpatel.com

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remelitalia · 4 years

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30 Lessons After 30 Million SEO Visitors

As you can see from the screenshot above, I’ve driven 30 million visitors to my website from SEO.

Technically it’s more, but who’s counting.

What’s funny, though, is I barely look at my traffic, even as Google continually rolls out algorithm updates.

I know that sounds contradictory because if you are an SEO, why wouldn’t you obsess about traffic, right?

Well, it’s because I’ve learned some hard lessons over the year… mainly because I’ve made a lot of mistakes.

So today, I wanted to share them with you so that you can learn from my mistakes… so here goes:

Lesson #1: Don’t obsess over rankings, obsess over conversions

I used to check my rankings every single day. Literally.

On top of that, I would log into Google Analytics 4 to 5 times a day and continually check my traffic.

That’s all I cared about back in the day… boosting my organic traffic.

But here is the thing: As my rankings and traffic went up over the years, my revenue didn’t go up proportionally.

For example, during one quarter in 2017, my SEO traffic went up 39.52%, but my revenue from SEO went up only 4.29%.

I quickly learned that traffic isn’t everything. If you can’t convert the traffic into revenue it doesn’t matter.

That taught me that you need to focus on the right keywords that drive conversions and continually optimize your site for conversions.

An easy first step for you to take is to install Crazy Egg and run a heatmap to see where people click so you adjust your design and copy to get more sales.

Lesson #2: The easiest way to grow your SEO traffic is international expansion

You already know that I get a lot of SEO traffic, but do you know what country drives most of my traffic?

If you guessed United States, you are wrong.

Brazil is my most popular region, followed by India.

International SEO is the easiest way to expand and grow your traffic. Here are a few posts that you should read before you expand your SEO globally:

How to create a global SEO strategy

Fundamentals of international SEO

How to correctly setup your site for international SEO

How to profitably expand your SEO globally

Lesson #3: Keywords are very, very, very, very important

When I used to write my content, I didn’t obsess about the keywords when I should have.

My team actually proved me wrong on this.

I used to focus on writing content for humans and didn’t worry about search engines. My team, on the other hand, obsesses about keywords.

Just look at the growth of our traffic in Brazil because of our obsession with the right keywords.

One simple thing I do before writing that has really helped is I head over to Ubersuggest and type in a few of the keywords that I want to go after.

Once it loads, you’ll see a report like the one above. I want you to then click on “Keyword Ideas” in the left-hand navigation.

You’ll see a report that contains a list of keywords that you could potentially be targeting.

Whenever I write a blog post, I go through this step. Every single time.

Lesson #4: AMP pages can drive more SEO traffic

AMP pages load faster on mobile devices than non-AMP pages.

If you aren’t familiar with the AMP framework, read this.

What most people won’t tell you about AMP pages is that:

In regions like the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom, countries with decent Internet infrastructure, you won’t see much of an increase in traffic.

In regions with poor Internet infrastructure, like Brazil, you’ll see a 10 to 15% lift in mobile SEO traffic by having AMP pages.

AMP pages don’t convert visitors into customers as well as normal responsive web design. So, you’ll have to work on testing your AMP pages so you can boost your conversion rates.

Lesson #5: SEO will never convert as well as paid ads

When I started off with SEO, I would run projections on how much the traffic would make me.

But the numbers were always off, even if I was able to get the rankings.

Here’s the main reason: If you are bidding on terms like auto insurance through ads, you can drive people to a landing page that looks like this:

But if you want to rank organically, you’ll have to do it through content. So, your page that ranks well will look more like this and convert less…

Chances are it will be significantly lower by maybe 2 or 3x, but because SEO is cheaper, it will be much more profitable.

Lesson #6: Remarketing is one of the best ways to generate an ROI from SEO

If you get a ton of traffic from SEO, there is a simple strategy you can implement to boost your conversions.

Remarket everyone on Facebook, Google, and YouTube.

That way people come to your site, read your content, and build trust with you and your brand.

Then you remarket them throughout the web with ads that prompt your products or services and send them to a landing page that will drive sales.

I’ve been doing this for years, just look at my old remarketing ad…

For the regions I use remarketing in, it is responsible for 46% of my leads.

Lesson #7: Don’t forget to update your old content

I publish one new blog post a week. I’m working on increasing this as I get more time, but for now, it is one a week.

Can you guess how many blog posts I update on a daily basis? Technically it is 0 (me at least), but my team focuses on updating at least 3 old blog posts per day. That’s roughly 90 a month.

Once you have a few hundred pages, make sure you focus on updating your old content or else your traffic will quickly drop.

You can use this content decay tool to see which posts you should update first.

This will help you continually grow your SEO traffic instead of hitting plateaus or seeing your traffic take massive drops.

Lesson #8: Don’t forget to optimize your title tags

One of the easiest ways to grow your rankings is to optimize your title tags.

If you can write persuasive copy and get more clicks, you’ll quickly move up on Google.

In Brazil, we spend more time doing this than we do in the United States.

We get a similar amount of impressions in Brazil, but we have more people focusing on improving our title tags and testing. Hence, we get 95% more SEO traffic in Brazil.

If you want tips on boosting your clicks, check out this article.

Another simple hack is to use the “Content Ideas” report in Ubersuggest.

On the right side of that report, you can see social share counts from Facebook and Pinterest. And on the left side, you see titles of articles.

Lesson #9: Don’t put dates in your URL

I used to put dates in my URLs like:

Neilpatel.com/2017/12/title-of-post/

This causes search engines to assume that your content is related to a specific date. And after that date gets old, search engines assume your content is irrelevant and outdated.

The moment I removed the date from my URLs, I grew my SEO traffic by 58% in 30 days.

If you have dates in your URL, make sure you 301 redirect your old URLs to your new ones once you make that change, or else your rankings will drop.

Lesson #10: Don’t be afraid to use popups

Don’t you hate popups? Well, who doesn’t?

But people use them because they work.

The majority of your pages that will rank are blog-related content. And blog posts tend to drive fewer direct conversions because people are on your site to read the content.

In order to maximize your conversions from SEO, you should consider using exit popups so you can convert more of those visitors into customers as they leave.

When you leave this site in most cases, you’ll see a popup that looks like:

And it drives you to this quiz, which allows me to convert SEO visitors into customers.

You can easily copy me by using Hello Bar. It works for all industries including B2B and ecommerce and even lead generation sites.

Lesson #11: Brand queries affect rankings

Everyone talks about how you need links to boost rankings.

But very few people talk about brand queries.

As Google’s ex-CEO and ex-head of web spam both emphasized how brands are important.

One of the big reasons for my growth in SEO traffic is the growth in my brand. I’ve seen a direct correlation in which the more people who find me from my name, the more SEO traffic I get.

Just look at my brand growth over time:

I’ve received over 1.9 million visitors over the last 16 months from people typing in variations of my name in Google.

Lesson #12: Don’t waste your money on paid links

I’ve been doing SEO since I was 16 years old. That’s a long time…

When I started off as a kid, I dabbled in paid links and I used to dominate Google for terms like online casino, online poker, web hosting, auto insurance, and even credit cards.

And I was making a killing off of affiliate income from these sites.

But it was all short lived.

Why?

Because I bought links. And eventually Google penalized all of those sites.

If I never purchased links, those sites would have taken longer to rank, but they would have been around today, and I would have generated more income overall.

Don’t buy links, it’s bad and shortsighted.

Lesson #13: Guest post to build a brand, not to build links

I already covered the importance of branding above.

A great way to build your brand and indirectly boost your SEO traffic is through guest posting.

But don’t use guest posting to build links.

Most sites that offer guest posts, nofollow them (which they should), and Google is smart enough to know what a guest post is, hence they ignore guest post links from sites like Forbes.

It’s pretty easy to spot a guest post for both a human and algorithm…

But if you are using it to build a brand, great. Focus on the content quality and not links.

Lesson #14: Don’t forget to interlink

Do you know what some of my highest ranked pages are?

The ones that are interlinked.

It takes anywhere from 6 months to a year for many of the interlinks to kick in, but it is still effective none-the-less.

That one change was game-changing for me. It took time to see the results but it worked exceptionally well.

It’s how I rank high for terms like “email marketing”.

Lesson #15: Google isn’t the only game in town

Although Google is the most popular search engine, it isn’t the only one you need to focus on.

Did you know that YouTube is the second most popular search engine?

Even Bing gets a lot of traffic.

If you want to rank high on Bing, follow this.

Or if you prefer video, watch this:

As for YouTube, this guide will teach you YouTube SEO. It works really well, just look at my YouTube SEO traffic:

Over the last 28 days, I received 429,501 video views through YouTube SEO.

Lesson #16: Speed is everything

The faster your server and the more optimized your site, the more traffic you’ll get.

Years ago, my friend Otis added more servers to his site GoodReads.

Within a month, his SEO traffic went up over 20%.

Speed is part of Google’s algorithm, so optimize it for both web and mobile.

A quick way to see your site’s speed is to enter your URL here.

You’ll see a report that breaks down your mobile and desktop load times as well as what you can do to improve them.

Lesson #17: Quality over quantity

SEO used to be a game of quantity over quality.

That isn’t the case anymore. With over a billion blogs, Google has its fair share of sites to choose from.

Just look at About.com. Eventually they renamed it Dotdash and changed their strategy.

They took all of their About.com content and moved it over to 6 vertical based sites and deleted 900,000 pages of junk content.

This grew their traffic and revenue by a whopping 140%.

Focus on writing high-quality content. It’s why I blog less and try to make my content amazing.

Lesson #18: Tools are better than content marketing

I used to focus all of my energy on content marketing because it drove a lot of links and SEO traffic.

But over time, I realized that creating free tools builds more natural links than anything else I have ever tested.

Just look at Ubersuggest. I spent years creating it and look at how many links it has generated…