#this is the part where i reward tag readers CONTEXT TIME

[xxplastic-cubexx]

Why is Erik taking a shower and is fully prepared to fight naked in that panel 😭

my man turning into a baby is a typical tuesday activity but the second he wanna little naked shower fight NOW its suspicious 🤨

[hexonthepeach]

Taking a break from spending my Saturday writing and editing to say that some of the comments/commentary I've been receiving on agtbtb are broaching a personal boundary I feel I should be more clearly stated so as to not cause confusion. I don't think this has been done intentionally or with ill will so I want to address it from the lens of my personal feelings on the issue and allow those who feel differently to decide whether or not they would like to continue engaging with my work.

This is not the initiation of a conversation, this is me stating my boundaries to my readers before enforcing them as needed. My apologies if this is long, but there's a lot to unpack here.

tw: potentially triggering commentary under the cut re: SA and CPTSD

First, I don't think it's necessary to qualify my writing or my choices in how things are written with regards to my own trauma or identity. I would urge anyone who thinks this is necessary for authors to consider that many people do not have the ability to speak to it, and I say this as someone who physically and emotionally is still shaken by it (like full body tremors and feeling sick just having to write this) even if I decided a long time ago that I felt it necessary to share my experience as part of my own process of healing. Which is not something that I believe will ever be complete, by the way.

I have been writing and reading darkfic (dubcon/noncon) for as long as I have been an adult. I have also been a survivor of violent SA and DA for much longer. The two are not interchangeable in any way so much as to say that a lot of people who have experienced violence find comfort in writing/reading about it. I believe that fiction is a realm where individuals can explore things, including their own complicated experiences, without repercussions. It is a literal safe space to work through one's personal feelings in the face of a world that is incredibly skewed towards unjust exploitation. Just adding also: I do not believe there are moral ramifications to engaging with or producing work that is transgressive, it is only right to be cognizant and respectful of your audience, especially wrt proper tagging etiquette and keeping things accessible only with consent.

But I also think an audience should be respectful of creators, especially when this work is offered for free at great personal effort and care on their part. I welcome commentary and engagement, am desperate for it even considering the ratio of time spent making it to how little response some things get (all while knowing that engagement isn't easy and I could do more of it myself).

So as someone who knows intimately the conversations that happen internal and external in the wake of abuse and assault, I would ask you to not say stuff like "x deserves/deserved it" or other victim-blaming statements in relation to any of the characters I write experiencing sexual trauma or its repercussions.

In the context of agtbtb I bookended one assault with another on multiple experiences from the victimizer's POV not as a form of narrative punishment but as an attempt to demonstrate how fragile the boundaries of control/consent are in a world deliberately designed to enforce a hierarchy of domination and sexual violence. Omegaverse as a genre has this coded into it, it's why it's incredibly rewarding to deconstruct it and play with and I am hopeful that those who have been enjoying my take on it continue to do so. If not, I absolutely respect that and ask that you refrain from criticizing my interpretation unless I have made a clear misstep in tagging or am offensive, esp. re: inclusivity.

On a final note, I have also been through several fandom experiences where I have seen an unconscious bias towards judging the actions/motivations/interests of women, female or fem-coded characters outsized to those of men/male/masc. It's just gonna happen, especially when said male characters are idols who are being interpreted through ones own personal attachments vs. a self-insert proxy. I knew what I was wading into by making y/n a female aggressor in this story but I hope I have also made it incredibly clear that the circumstances of this person's life and relationships with others are formed on a foundation that is broken. I didn't write 100k reiterating the experience of enduring medical trauma and forced submission, dehumanization and imprisonment, suicidal ideation and hopelessness for a frankly normal response to their trauma to be read as "this person is being treated too kindly". I find that deeply unjust. The false ideal of the "perfect victim" has been used to subjugate women and to minimize their trauma, it is reactionary and patriarchal and if you have adopted that mentality I ask you to examine why. On the other side of that coin is how they recover or address that trauma, it is always personal and does not minimize the original harm.

I write flawed people and complex consequences, because I recognize that systems of abuse/oppression often lead to our own complicity in them or re-enacting that violence on others. The answer to breaking that cycle isn't retributive justice, ever. It's restorative. Of all the things I write related to self-insert fantasy that's the one that feels the most impossible for the world to accept so I understand if it's a hard pill to swallow for some, but I'll stand by it.

No one is exempt from this and my treatment of one character within the context of their relationships and their history is not a diminishment of anothers. As stated in another ask, this story is ongoing and I am doing my best to tell it the way I feel flows naturally from an unnatural premise.

Thanks for your patience as I tell it, and for your sensitivity to my perspective and boundaries with regard to its subject matter.

all my love

- ash

[maplewrites]

This or that game

Thank you @authorlaurawinter for the open tag! I'll go ahead and tag @toribookworm22 because I don't think they've done this one. Anyone else is welcome to participate!

historical or futuristic

futuristic. I just really don't like reading about sexism and romance isn't my favorite so I tend to stay away from historical things. I am not the biggest fan of the aesthetic that usually comes with historical things.

futuristic is more interesting to me because it is more exploratory. It's such an interesting "what if" and it's not necessarily a "I think this is how things will be".

opening or closing chapter

both definitely have their strengths. I have been more memorably disappointed by more closing chapters than opening ones. If the opening one is bad, you just put it down. If the closing one is bad, you've been let down. So you're more likely to remember the bad closing chapters than the bad opening ones.

for this reason, opening chapters.

light & fluffy or dark & gritty

I like both. based on what I usually read; light and fluffy. Based on what I get fixated on; dark and gritty.

animal companion or found family

found family. animal companions can be IN the found family. and a well written found family is honestly so rewarding to witness.

horror or romance

horror. I do not like romance. well done horror makes me go "oh shit this monster is so fucking cool".

hard or soft magic system

It definitely depends on the context. I enjoy soft magic systems when the magic is supposed to be confusing. If there is something semi sentient about the magic or if the magic comes from the planet or if there's magical creatures that are part of the world I think the magic does better if it's less defined because I think it can generally serve the story better that way.

Hard magic systems work better in places where maybe the main character is very familiar with the ins and outs of how magic works, they've grown up with it and they know how the pieces work together. Magic has rules and isn't shifted by things in unexpected ways. Magic isn't something that can just happen, it's something purposeful.

standalone or series

I think standalone novels are underrated. Everything seems to have a sequel these days. sequels are more marketable. you can sell more of the first book every time a sequel comes out.

I like a good series, but I think standalone novels have a place in my heart because they are no more than they are. They are a self contained story, I don't have to work before reading. They are books that stand up on their own and I feel like stories like that can more easily warm me up from the inside out.

one project or the juggling act

juggling act. You can't get writers block if everytime you get stuck on one story you move to another. It's more fun to hop between to projects I think. I know it can break up flow, but I think it works better for maintaining perspective. I think if you break up your work between more than one project you can better explore what it is about these stories that is important to you.

one award winner or one bestseller

lots of books can be a bestseller in something there are so many ways for something to be a bestseller. for a book to win an award, someone has to first nominate it, which means they had to love it enough to do so.

fantasy or sci-fi

fantasy. I like magic. I like swords. I like bow and arrow. I don't love guns except for western style. I don't really like the sci-fi aesthetic all that much.

first or final draft

first draft is like a first love. final draft is like someone who will stick with you forever.

love triangle in everything or no romantic arcs

no romantic arcs. Look. I just don't like romance. I HATE love triangles. They are often very plain and are poorly resolved. Not everything has to be romantic. A friendship can be so much deeper and more emotional than a love triangle. It can be so much more important to a story. It can be so much more impactful to a reader. Love triangles are just so dry to me. they're cliche and not even a good cliche.

constant sandstorm or rainstorm

rainstorm. sandstorms hurt. sandstorms are dry. rainstorms you can still get water. Sure, there's flooding, but your eyes won't be cut up and you can still breathe. biggest danger to people's lives is mostly the lightning and the flooding. the death threat of sandstorms is much more painful than the death threat of rainstorms. and just think of all the characters who can come back to the safe building, absolutely soaked and freezing. Them and their best friend get to bundle up by the fire and drink something warm.

[cutiesgaloree]

SHOW AND TELL !!

obey me! brothers x f!reader

context: fem reader teases the seven brothers by showing some cleavage!

warnings: mdni, suggestive, dubcon, some parts are shorter than others :')

reblogs are appreciated!

tags: @stygianoir

Lucifer

you sauntered into the eldest brother's bedroom, wearing shorts and a low v-cut shirt, your outfit hugging you in all the right spots

lucifer was at his desk, doing paperwork that the demon prince had once again pushed onto him

you leaned on his desk, laying yourself over his paperwork, breaking his focus

"luci, won't you take a break? you've been working so hard after all.."

lucifer merely raised an amused eyebrow, glancing at your chest threatening to expose itself and back up at you

he could see right through you

"i've got quite the amount of paperwork to get through. putting it off will be of no benefit," he said nonchalantly, waiting for your next move

shrugging, you got off his desk and skipped around it, plopping yourself on his lap facing towards him

he put his pen down and immediately held your hips, keeping you in place on his lap

"true, but such ambition should be rewarded, don't you think?" you replied, smiling mischievously

lucifer gave you those eyes (yk what i'm talking about) ;)

the hooded ones that screamed ‘ i'm gonna fuck you into tomorrow ’

"is that so?" he said, hands inching up your body, "and what might this reward entail?"

you continued smiling at him, "you'll see~"

Mammon

"CASINO NIGHHTTTT~" mammon cheered, bursting into your room

you knew it was time for you and mammon to go to the casino and have fun

hence why you were changing

and he just walked in on you...

he stared for a couple seconds before you reminded him he was staring

"h-huh?! me? staring?! a-at you? psh, yeah right!" he says, blushing furiously before slamming the door

you decided to go for formal attire

and i mean really formal

you were dressed in a tight fancy suit, the top buttons of your dress shirt unbuttoned

creating a perfect boob window 😍👍

mammon looked beet red when he laid eyes on you after you left your room

"o-oi! where do ya think you're goin' with t-that!" he yelled, pushing you back into the room

"why? does it look bad on me?" you sighed theatrically, glancing down in feigned disappointment

"no! you look too hot n i don't want anyone but me seeing you like that!" mammon blurted out before slapping a hand over his mouth and clearing his throat

"what i meant was, y-you look horrible! yeah, that's right! the suit looks down right.. u-ugly! so change into something else!" he barked, crossing his arms and huffing

"okay," you said, smirking and beginning to take off your clothes

right in front of him 😁

"woah woah woah! what're ya doing?!" he panicked, eyes wide as saucers and his cheeks redder than an apple

"well, you told me to change right?" you said smugly, "i'm simply following order from my first~ ah-!"

you squeaked in surprise upon being thrown into your bed by mammon, his face hidden in your neck, hands gripping your waist

"grr, ya shouldn't tease a demon-- unless you're ready for the consequences..."



Leviathan

it was game night for you and levi, but you'd been in the mood for something.. different.

and so you wore a short skirt and a hoodie

knocking on the door and entering after answering levi's code, the poor boy became flustered at how short your skirt was

"h-hey... you- what- why're you-?" he started, not being able to get out a sentence

you merely feigned innocence, tilting your head in mock confusion

"yes, levi?"

"uh, nevermind! it's nothing..! ugh, let's just start playing," he sighed, dropping the subject

as you two gamed, you began teasing him subtly

first, you scoot right next to him

the second he stops tensing, you lean your head on his shoulder

finally you draped your exposed legs over his lap and got comfortable, leaving him red

every touch had him jumping and tensing, but that last move made him slam the pause button

you spared him a confused glance despite knowing exactly why he stopped the game

"levi, why'd you stop the game? is something wrong?"

"n-no..! just thought we should take a break..." he trailed off

you smiled mischievously before nodding and stretching, your legs on display

now, in your new position, leviathan got first row tickets to seeing up your skirt

he gaped and whipped his head around

"h-hey! you can't just--!"

"can't just what, levi?"

turning back to look at you, his eyes widened in realization as he noticed your smirk

you had planned this all along

before you knew it, he had you pinned to the floor, eyes narrowing at you

"oh, yeah? so you think you can just walk in here and tease me?

well guess what? two can play at that game."

Satan

you and satan had been planning to have a reading session together in his room

but, of course, you'd been curious

to see what he'd look like if you just sorta...

pushed him off the edge >:)

and not in a pissed off way~

so, you wore a strapless shirt that exposed a lot of skin and cute pants that hugged your body beautifully

you knocked on his door, and upon his approval you entered

he was sitting on a small couch, reading calmly

"hello, (name)," he greeted, "i went ahead and began reading, but feel free to-- *chokes on spit*"

in case you didn't know, he did a double take after seeing how stunning you looked

"satan, are you okay?" you hurried over, bending right in front of him, giving him a great view of your chest

his eyes widened and he quickly glanced away, coughing a couple more times before clearing his throat

"ahem. y-yes, i'm fine... as i was saying, feel free to make yourself comfortable and start on your book."

you nodded and sat yourself next to him, situating yourself in a way that would be very.. comprising

he glanced at you often, a blush dusting his cheeks

"so..." he finally started after a while, "is there something special going on? i mean, you look.. particularly beautiful today, and--"

you hummed, setting your book aside before gently taking his book out of his hands and setting it aside as well

"what are you-- oi!"

satan yelped in surprise as you pulled him on top of you, laying down on the couch yourself

he gripped the sides of the couch in realization as he hovered over you

you smirked up at him and winked

that's all he needed to know before smashing his lips onto yours

you pulled him in and wrapped your arms around his neck

you two were breathless by the time he pulled away

only for him to pull you back in for another kiss

"i'll wipe that smirk off your face," he growled

Asmodeus

lmao what won't tease this man is the real question

anyways

you two were going to a party

and you decided to tease him ;)

by wearing a tight and skimpy dress <33

of course, as soon as he saw you he practically moaned

and at the party?

you were strutting your stuff, making the most of your drop-dead gorgeous dress

this man could not for the life of him take his eyes off you

a the dent in his pants became just a little more obvious

he soon dragged you into a private room

and the second he closed the door he corned you, littering your jaw and neck with kisses

"oh darling, you look absolutely hot in that dress," he said, "you wouldn't mind if i took it off of you, would you?"

Beelzebub

you had a workout session with beel soon

and you wanted to.. motivate him 😇

so you wore the most revealing athletic clothes you had and set out for the gym

beel was already waiting at the entrance when you got there

he was oblivious to your attire and you two began spotting for each other

or at least

you had thought he was oblivious

but you noticed how he had become a lot touchier with you during exercises, correcting your form even if it was fine...

his hands lingering on you more than they should...

and whenever he spoke to you, it was husky whispers in your ear that sent shivers down your spine...

yeah, he definitely noticed.

when you two finally finished, you two went to get some protein shakes at a nearby cafe before going home

of course, beel was still hungry, so you two went to the kitchen

you cooled down from your workout while he continued eating everything in the fridge (again)

feeling a rumble in your stomach yourself, you went over to the fridge

spotting something to eat, you had a devious idea

you bent over seductively in front of him as you reached down to get the food

before you knew it, beel slammed you on the counter

"hey, (name)... are you tempting me?"

you decided to pretend you were innocent

"what do you mean?" you said as sweetly as you could

"since we started our workout session, i noticed your outfit, y'know.. and then the way you bent over, you never do that," he said, eyes trained on yours

"whatever do you mean, beel?" you drawled your words, batting your eyes at him. beel groaned

"see? you're doing it again. whatever," he said, lowering himself between your legs

"now i'm hungry for something else. care to indulge me, (name)?"

Belphegor

you and belphie were gonna have a sleepover

which basically consisted of napping the entire time lmao

but today you were feeling devious

and so, you wore your most suggestive pajama set

you skipped happily over to his room and launched yourself onto the bed, hearing a muffled "oomf" under the mountain of blankets and pillows

chuckling an apology, you waited for him to surface and gave an innocent smile as he scanned your outfit, eyebrows raised in amusement

"so.. you want a last-minute change of plans for the sleepover," he said groggily

damn, he saw straight through you

"well sure," he continued, "but i don't know if this will be considered a sleepover if i keep you up all night~"

[delu-jean]

𝐈𝐬 𝐇𝐞 𝐌𝐢𝐧𝐞? (𝐏𝐭 𝟐)

(Akaashi x fem!/reader) -> Angst/Fluff? -> 3.2k 

Synopsis: Akaashi is strolling through Tokyo, and on that day, meets a boy who looks all too familiar. One whose eyes remind him of you. 

Part One: Is He Mine? 

Part Three: Is Her Mine? (Part. 3) 

Notes: Part two as promised! Maybe I’ll make a part three (haha >:)). Be sure to comment if you would liked to be tagged for the next part, and reblogs are always appreciated. 

-> Also, for those tagged in this post, I’ll tag you in the next as well ^^ 

“Y/n...please tell me.” 

“T-tell you what?” you asked nervously, as he felt just the same. Inhaling his breath, hoping he could keep calm. 

“Is...is he mine?” 

---

“Is he who’s?” 

“Mine Y/n...is he mine?” 

You stared at the gentleman. Though his question was reasonable (?), that was the first thing he was going to ask you?...after all of those years?...years of torment, resentment, and whatever else. Maybe you were overreacting, but yet again, you were a woman who stood by her morals. And that being the case, your instincts had said your reaction was as reasonable as his question. 

Some part of you wanted to snap. To holler at Akaashi for asking such a ridiculous question, yet the other part...was scared. You felt anxious when thinking of a proper answer. Was Ryu his?.... If taken out of context, he could’ve been asking if Ryu belonged to him, and of course he didn’t. Ryu wasn’t an object that could be owned by merely anyone. He was his own person, and that being the case, wasn’t something that could’ve been held down. Yet even though you could’ve interpreted it that way, you knew what Akaashi really meant. Yet you didn’t exactly have an answer. 

“Ryu?” 

“Yeah...” 

Akaashi seemed suspicious. He could tell you were hiding something, and even though very obvious, he didn’t want to assume. Hoping that you would confirm things so that you both could talk it out. Yet here you were, not giving him a response. He was confused to say the least, shouldn’t the answer have been easy? Ryu looked exactly like him, and plus, him not having a father was another takeaway. Using those facts should’ve given him enough confirmation. 

But then again, maybe the answer wasn’t as easy as it should’ve been. What if Ryu wasn’t his?...what if Akaashi had made an assumption out of impulse, because of a lingering feeling he had. One of which you sparked for him to feel. 

Maybe he was being delusional, and instead, was trying to make an excuse. An excuse to spend another minute, even a second with you there. Ryu was important to him as well. His or not, he respected that you had started a family, and was glad Ryu was a part of it. He adored Ryu, but he also admired you. Speaking of Ryu, the boy then clung onto you. He seemed confused about the interaction, and tried asking for clarification. 

“His? *GASP* Am I Akaashi’s brother!? Momma, you never told me!” he smiled happily, ecstatic at the news. 

“Eh-no dear, he’s not your brother,” you chuckled, for him to ask: 

“Then what did he mean? What did you mean, Akaashi?” you then stared at Akaashi. You knew he was smart enough to play things through, and even so, you still panicked the slightest bit. 

“I was wondering if you would be mine for the night, along with your mother. We could go grab dinner, or ice cream even,” you looked at him in shock as his eyes seemed determined. Needing an answer, and willing to get it in whatever scenario possible. 

“But what about Kuroo?” 

“Oh my, I forgot about that,” you then glanced at your watch. 

“Kuroo?...but how-oh….” Akaashi then thought about how you and Kuroo were very close friends. So close that sometimes, he would even find you hanging out with Kuroo, over himself. Though it wasn’t because you liked him (in that way), rather, you were both very good friends. Akaashi let it be since you both had mutual trust, and Kuroo was someone he was also friends with. Besides, Akaashi also respected your personal life with others, and so did you for him. 

They still talked till this day, and not once had Kuroo mentioned you having a child. But to be fair, Kuroo never mentioned you. That being because both you and Akaashi had broken up, and it would’ve been an uncomfortable topic. Still, Akaashi found it strange. If Kuroo knew, wouldn’t Bokuto have as well?...meaning that Akaashi would’ve known by now? His thoughts continued to trail as you looked at him in disbelief. 

You did have plans with Kuroo, but then, you also had a couple hours until he’d come around. Even so, you didn’t want to spend that time with Akaashi. He was one of the last people you needed to talk to. The grudge which still stood in your heart, clenched with each second he stood there. The anger which he had gifted you, was something that was eager to return. As you had thought this, you then stared at your son. He seemed thrilled to be with such a man, as he gripped onto Akaashi’s hand in excitement, saying: 

“Yay! We get to eat together!” 

“We’re going to have so much fun!” 

“Let’s try some bubble waffles!” 

You then remembered that even if you had felt that, your son instead felt joy being with Akaashi. And that being the case, you didn’t have the right to take that happiness away. After all, Ryu was not yours either. He wasn’t someone you could drag away from events, just because you had conflicts with a person. Though there were times where doing so was appropriate, was now really such an event?...not even you could answer that. But even though you couldn’t, his smile which brightened the mood, had answered for you. 

“Okay buddy, slow down. Fine, we can go with brother...Akaashi. We’ll meet Kuroo sometime later, just let me text him.” 

“Okay mom! Akaashi, Up!” you then eyed the boy, for him to insist regardless. 

“Please mom! He’s so tall, and I can see everything-” 

“Ryu no-”

“Sure, what not?” Akaashi then grabbed the boy, placed him on his shoulders, and secured his legs with his hands. You then sighed. If Akaashi had agreed, what could you do? You then texted Kuroo, grabbing your bag firmly as Akaashi spoke: 

“I know a place where we could grab ramen. If not, we could instead-”

“No, ramen is fine,” you said in a stoic tone. 

“Okay...then let’s get going.” 

---

The walk to the outdoor stand was awkward. Well...for you and Akaashi at least. The last time you two spoke, was the day he broke things off. He never reached out to you during that time, and now...here you both were. Expected to have a lengthy conversation, and to enjoy yourselves. Key word, “expected.” Though it would’ve been nice if you both could have talked care free, it wasn’t going to happen. That event occurred when both parties have mutually moved on. From Akaashi’s perspective, he still had lingering thoughts, yet kept them to the side. Going on with his life as he expected you did yours. Though he thought you had moved on, you had thought differently for different reasons. 

Even though you both had your differences, Ryu was there. Entertaining the both of you separately. He complimented you one second, and played with Akaashi the next. You had never seen Akaashi so enthusiastic with a child before. Though he wasn’t going all crazy, and acting like a kid himself, he was being a lot more open. Talking back and forth with Ryu, giving nice remarks, and also rewarding him...with that beautiful smile he bestowed. 

Even so, you tried to ignore it. Remembering that this entire ordeal was for Ryu, and not for your observations. 

“We’re here. What do you want Ryu?” 

“Hm, could I get the one with Tonkatsu? I’ve been craving it all day!” 

“Haha, sure buddy. And...you, Y/n?” 

“I’m not hungry, you guys go ahead,” Akaashi then sighed, obviously not believing you. 

“We’ll get two Tonkatsu ramens, along with Fukuoka ramen.” 

“Sure, that’ll be $18.35 please.” 

“Debit-”

“Um...I can pay for both Ryu and I,” you said, as you tried scrambling for your wallet. Akaashi then tapped the machine, placing his hand on your own (the hand in your purse). 

“It’s fine. Afterall, I already paid,” you shook your head, but let it go as Ryu pointed to a table. 

“Come on! Let’s sit!” 

---

“Akaashiii~!”

“What is Ryu?”

“How do you know mommy? Mommy would never talk to a stranger, so that means you both know each other.” 

“Oh...well, um,” Ryu was truly a bright child. One who caught on a little too quickly. He really did remind you of his father. Quick witted, yet wise with his tongue. Being certain to use specific words or sentences, to ensure/secure his curiosities. 

“Well...mommy and Akaashi were very good friends,” you replied. 

“Ahhh. So if that’s the case, why have I never met him before?” 

“Well you see-” 

“It’s because I live further away from you guys,” Akaashi answered. 

“But so does Kuroo,” Akaashi then pondered, and placed his hands together. 

“Hm, I guess you’re right. Well, maybe your mother has an answer,” the two black haired boys, then stared at you. Both were awaiting for an answer, and yet both had different intentions. One wondering out of pure curiosity, while the other...was waiting for an explanation. One which could clear up any, if not every misconception. 

“Well sweetie, sometimes good friends have to part ways. Everyone has their reasons, but most of the time…” you then looked at Akaashi. 

“It’s because it’s for the better,” his gaze was locked onto yours. The stare was unreadable. It didn’t feel tense, yet it was. Was it cold, hurtful?...you wouldn’t have known. But what you did know was that Akaashi was good, too good at hiding his thoughts. So good that when together, he would let things slip without reaction. Sometimes that was a great thing...and others...not so much. 

“Why would it be a good thing? You both were best friends!” you then placed a hand on his head, patting it gently. 

“Well...friends have to grow up. That doesn’t mean you can’t see them again, but, what it does mean is that you’ll have some time...alone. And that time...is used for you to grow.” 

“Ahh, I see mom! Is that why we don’t see Kuroo often?”

“Haha, no sweetie. That’s actually because we live further away. If Kuroo lived in our city-” 

“He would be living with us, right?” 

“Hm...I guess so,” Akaashi then looked in the other direction. There was no tint of emotion, just...silence. 

“Akaashiiii, the ramen is here!” 

“Oh, is it Ryu?” 

“Yeah, it is!” your bowls were then slid over. Ryu stared at Akaashi’s hands, and at first, Akaashi wasn’t sure as to why. Ryu didn’t touch his food, and at first, he was worried that the boy didn’t like it, but then noticed he was holding a pair of scissors. Pointing them towards the gentleman. Though confused, he then caught onto Ryu’s gesture. 

“Dear I can-” before you could finish your sentence, Akaashi started to cut his noodles. Making them bit size for the boy. It seemed like second hand nature, yet something new to him. Though, you would’ve felt more comfortable doing it yourself, you weren’t complaining as the job was now done. 

“Thanks Akaashi!” 

“No problem Ryu. Now, let’s eat.” 

---

You all then finished your ramen. Though you had said you weren’t hungry, you couldn’t help but eat it. After all of those years, Tonkatsu ramen was still your favourite, and Akaashi still knew. He was glad that he remembered the littlest of details. Ones which may have been overlooked. Ones he made sure to be attentive to. Not only that, but he was glad Ryu had enjoyed the meal as well. He truly was your son as he had the same tastes as you. Akaashi found it quite cute, and found it even more adorable as he ran out of the restaurant, shouting: 

“Mom, Akaashi! I want to play at the park!” 

“Hm...it’s a little late buddy,” Akaashi said, for you to respond: 

“It should be fine. We’ll be over here watching Ryu. No funny business young man!” 

“Okay mommy!” the young boy then climbed the slide, as Akaashi sat on the bench. Patting on it, indicating that you sat beside him. And so...you did. Your legs together, hands as well, as your head looked down. He then sighed, asking: 

“Do you feel uncomfortable? I can move if-” 

“No...it’s fine. We’ll be leaving soon, so no need to worry.” 

“Is Kuroo picking you up?” you then nod as he did the same. 

“I see...so...how have you been?” 

“Oh...um...I’ve been okay. I’ve done better, but...yeah.” 

“Hm, I see,” you really didn’t want to be in this situation. Maybe for him, it seemed civil, but to you...it was awkward. Neither of you knew what to say, and neither did you try to hide it (successfully at least). Akaashi then twitteled with his thumbs. A rare sight you would see every once in a while. Akaashi was a well spoken person, and usually had something to say in a well mannered way. But when he didn’t, or didn’t know what to say, he would play with his thumbs. Hoping that something would spring to mind. 

“You must be having fun.” 

“Fun doing what?” he looked at you. 

“Playing with your thumbs,” you smirked, for him to put his hands away. 

“Not really.” 

“Hm...so...what have you been up to?” you asked, curious and yet not wanting to know. 

“Nothing much...just work and well, Bokuto and I still hang out from time to time.” 

“Ahh, really? I’m glad. You both were the bestest of friends.” 

“And still are,” he smiled, while watching Ryu climb the monkey bars. 

“Hm, you have a girlfriend yet?” he then paused for a moment, for him to answer:

“No...not yet. I haven’t found anyone interesting.” 

“Ah, that’s unfortunate.” 

Was it really?...you wouldn’t know how to think after today. If you hadn’t met Akaashi here...you would’ve thought otherwise. Glad that he hadn't found someone else, for his actions sickened you. Such a gentleman, yet someone so cruel. You would feel awful if he had grasped someone, just as tightly as he did to you. Sprinkling you with such intoxicating, yet graceful pleas, and yet he left you there to rot in such doing. Such a passionate man, yet that same person could find passion in such coldness. 

For the past years, you had found him to be utterly despicable. After that one event...you couldn’t help but think that. But even so, after seeing him with Ryu today...you couldn’t help but melt. The two were so sweet together, and even though you hated to admit, had a spectacular relationship within just hours. They really acted as the best of friends, and Akaashi seemed to enjoy it. Not only that...but his smile...it was one which was truly admirable. 

You then stared at Akaashi, while he watched Ryu. He really hadn’t changed. He was calm, quiet, and reserved. His posture was on parr with the rest of his body. His hair was styled more neatly, and actually, it had grown a bit, along with his height. His figure, a lot larger than what it was in university, and his cologne smelled of lavender, along with a hint of pepper. It was a strange combination, but it worked. He really had grown up to be even more attractive. And that being the case, it surprised you that he didn’t have a partner. Said attractiveness, along with the kindness of his nature...had drawn you in, and yet dragged you out. Leaving you in a confused, and undecided state of mind. 

He then took note of your stare, and grinned. Secretly glad that your attention had averted towards him, yet, he was trying to be subtle. You truly looked astonishing tonight. Even after a couple of years, you still looked the same. That same highschooler who he had fallen in love with, the one who had constantly supported both him, and Fukurodani. The only person who truly understood such a stoic man. That same girl he would forever hold a place in his heart for. Although, now you weren’t just a sweet girl, but now, a beautiful lady instead. 

Deep down, he would’ve wished for a space to open. Allowing such a lady to make way into his heart. Hoping said lady, would do the same. And maybe, just maybe...a prince could join you both as well. Making his thoughts come true in the utmost blessed way. 

He made sure you didn’t catch onto his stare, the one which he had latched onto you. His attempts were taken very seriously, as he didn’t want to make things too obvious. Unfortunately, you did catch him in the act, and turned away, embarrassed. 

“Hm,” he smirked, as you fished for your phone. 

Kuroo ᕙ(`▿´)ᕗ

-> ‘Are you still coming?’ 

-> ‘Of course. Sorry, traffic delays. I should be there in ten.’ 

-> ‘Okay...see you soon’ 

You were about to turn of your phone, to then see Kuroo text:

-> ‘Also...don’t worry too much. You can do this Y/n, good luck, and I’ll be there soon.’ 

You then smiled, and Akaashi took note, thinking: 

‘She’s probably talking to her…ah...’ he sighed at the thought, to then ask: 

“Are you talking to your husband?...you seem happy,” he smiled. Even though smiling was a happy gesture, he couldn’t help but make it the opposite. Making his grin, feel ever so agonizing. 

“Ah...well...that was Kuroo,” Akaashi then batted a brow, surprised to say the least. He’d only seen that look on you when you were vulnerable. Whether you were scared, or secretly happy. Regardless, that was only around him...not even Kuroo had seen such a stare. But now that he saw you in such a state, it made him question if you, and Kuroo were in a relationship. That being the reason why he never brought it up, and vice versa. 

“Oh...I see. So that means,” Akaashi then started to think. Yes, the younger child looked like him, but then, there was also resemblance between both Ryu, and Kuroo. They both had black hair, Ryu had a peckish, yet sweet smile (like Kuroo...minus the sweet-), and the bits of information fit logically. If you and Kuroo had Ryu, it would’ve made sense. 

Both childhood friends who had grown together, to then realize what they wanted after he...had left you. Starting a family, and being with each other?.... Ryu looked like he could’ve been Kuroo's, or anyone for that matter. But even if Akaashi would have liked to think that way, the connection was too uncanny to deny.

Even so, Akaashi was still suspicious. Wondering as to why Ryu would be so reluctant towards his father. Why he would call “Kuroo,” well…”Kuroo,” and just as to why you both lived so far away. Maybe you both had a situation?...but then again, wasn’t Kuroo on his way to pick you up? Akaashi was confused, and felt like he was over-thinking things. Maybe Ryu wasn’t his...and Akaashi was instead looking for something...that wasn’t there...nor his to compensate. 

“That means what?...” he then locked his eyes, with yours. Though he was someone who was hard to read, you could tell how desperate he was. His stare, piercing right at you, hoping he could get an answer. 

“Y/n...could you please tell me...if he’s...mine?” you then saw the sorrowful expression, which struck him. The guilt which seeped in, had dug even further. Not sure how to tell him, nor how to phrase things. Your hands clenched, inhaling slowed, as your body trembled. He seemed just as scared for your response, to then hear: 

“He’s-”

“He’s mine, Akaashi...Ryu is mine,” Kuroo said, for silence to then fill. 

For Those Who Wanted To Be Tagged/Reblogged/Wanted A Part Two! ^^ :

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->Sorry to those who tags aren’t working qwq 

[yanderecandystore]

Trying to escape my family issues rn :< So if I make ask for some yandere Wan Shi Tong HCs? Idk - Cold Anon

I'm so sorry you're dealing with that Cold :(

I hope things get better for you, hold on just a bit, okay? Maybe find your happy place by doing the things you enjoy, that's mostly how I deal with it.

Would a cookie owl make things a bit better?

I won't open requests for ATLA because I feel extremely awkward about the idea of writing for them, even if I aged them up I would feel very awful about it.

So I don't want to write for any of the main cast/other characters with the same age as the main cast.

But owl spirit man can get this-

TW/Tags: I'm sorry for taking so long, but I couldn't help but end up feeling very stressed this past month // mentions of gaslight // owl behavior very briefly described

🍭꒰⑅ᵕ༚ᵕ꒱˖♡🍮꒰⑅ᵕ༚ᵕ꒱˖♡🍰꒰⑅ᵕ༚ᵕ꒱˖♡🍮꒰⑅ᵕ༚ᵕ꒱˖🍭

Who (I'm funny) [Yandere!Wan Shi Tong x GN!Reader - Headcanons]:

So- I don't know about y'all, but I prefer to leave some of the context ambiguous or up to the reader. I like presenting a couple of backstories and let y'all choose the ones y'all prefer- So let's start with that!

You could be a simple lonely anthropologist searching for the legend that is the mysterious library in the desert. You tried your hardest to search for it on your own, and despite the terrible trials that destiny may have put in your way, your efforts have been delightfully rewarded at the moment you finally found the library- Or at least part of what was left, the tallest tower that was still above the sand.

Maybe you were a sand bender, a mercenary who found the great tower and considered entering it with a couple of tribe members, hoping to find something worth taking from it.

Or maybe- You were accompanied by the friend group of the Avatar in a search for said mystical library, maybe you were just as invested in absorbing the knowledge as Professor Zei, maybe you two were associates- Or maybe you were just another bender going on a journey with the Avatar to save the world, it's really up to you.

Sadly, I suppose your story has a bitter ending boo, after all, whatever the situation you had found yourself in, there is no way he would simply let you leave.

You didn't offer him any worthwhile knowledge that he could obtain, yet he was kind enough to let you roam around the library without having to exchange anything for it. How odd, if you were with someone else, surely they would have to share something, even if what you shared was lackluster- Could he really be kind enough to leave you be, even after he stated that your kind isn't welcomed anymore?

Whenever you were accompanied by a group of people or not, your story would end the same sad way: You would be the first one who would be catched by Wan Shi Tong as your companions leave you behind- Unable to come back to rescue you as the entire library started to sink.

Let's say you were with the Avatar, I don't think Aang would leave you behind like that, at least not willingly. If Wan can grab you before anyone else, then I doubt he would need to grab the others, surely all he would do is kill them in the spot- He had planned something else for you, but even after getting separated by your group, you would still try to run away and find somewhere you could hide.

Although let's be honest, this bird asshole has lived here for longer than you have ever lived in this life- Surely it's only a matter of time before he finds you, but it would also be horrible for you to lose hope like that- Giving up would just mean he won, and you can't let that happen.

It could go way worse though, he could have successfully killed your companions, leaving you to witness the massacre.

Fighting is futile, resisting is futile, hiding is also futile. He knows where you are, you can run as much as you wish but eventually you would have to come to terms with how that's a waste of energy and time. Your life span is short, and playing games with him will only waste more of that precious time.

I think Wan Shi Tong would be very straight forward: You are a prisoner now, you are part of his collection, he won't kill you and stuff you in the wall but you are not allowed to leave at all, his foxes will make sure you won't be able to go far. The knowledge you were supposed to share with him has been substituted by- Well, yourself! You're an experiment, an whole experience he would like to analyze further, considering how that would be your way of paying him for "breaking his trust".

Basically: he is keeping you a prisoner as a way to punish you for either trying to steal something from him, or trying to use his knowledge against others. Also- Even if you were a well-mannered guest who just came here to learn a thing or two, Wan would still blame you (and your whole group) for being untrustworthy. Which means that he lied and manipulated the narrative to make it sound like you were the one being rude and a traitor of his good faith.

Wan is not above being manipulative and gaslighting, I doubt he would need to lay a claw on you if he wanted to cause some pain- Real pain comes from being unable to trust your own judgement.

He is certain he knows more than you, yet I highly doubt he knows how human relationships work, his judgment may be clean and unbiased but it doesn't mean he is 100% right- His attempt at closing the library from humans has only led to many, many humans getting their cities and villages destroyed. I doubt he would understand that being near a giant scary owl with a oddly smooth voice is quite frightening, or that you find his presence unwelcomed, or that you find him doing a 180 just to keep his eyes on you being pure nightmare full (even if other owls do that- Hell! You would have preferred if he was just like any normal sized cute owl-), etc.

If you have ever considered touching him, even for a little- I do think he would…. Appreciate it. He would get very taken back by it, almost as if you did something unthinkable, but I do think he would love some small hands playing with his fathers.

Be direct with him, and he will be direct with you, he will respect your right for privacy for the most part- And I bet his foxes will bring everything that a little captive like you could need to live a comfortable controlled life.

🍭꒰⑅ᵕ༚ᵕ꒱˖♡🍮꒰⑅ᵕ༚ᵕ꒱˖♡🍰꒰⑅ᵕ༚ᵕ꒱˖♡🍮꒰⑅ᵕ༚ᵕ꒱˖🍭

[jamestrmtx]

Fairytale Complex - [Undertale | Sans x Reader]

[Gender Neutral, Frisk's Parent Reader | Slow Burn]

Chapter Nine | Dating Tense! (Part 3 of 3)

[First] | [Previous] | [Next]

Your conversation with Undyne goes a similar route as with Toriel's: confronting a stranger in the name of protecting the one you held most dear, as a result ending whatever possible, friendly connections you could've likely formed with her right from the start -- without that complex context placed between you. Seeing everyone as your enemy is draining at its least, but the reward you visualize for everyone ahead makes it all seem worth it. That thought alone provides with strength to keep pushing forward, and even more so when you remind yourself over obtaining a possible happy ending of your very own, were you to resolve this situation with the monsters first.

With that thought in mind, you set the empty teacup down on the coffee table and take a deep breath in, preparing yourself to continue with the conversation. You're already halfway through the most difficult process with Undyne, so backing away now would be useless; thankfully, the tea has enough chamomile in it for you to quell your anger and turn it into sobriety, instead. Of course, that sounds way easier than it is, but -- compared to how you felt when talking with Toriel -- it's a difference as large as the distance between the sky and Earth. Keeping in mind all the kindness and patience you've been shown throughout the process helps with that, as well.

You stand up, continuing with, "I understand protecting the Underground was your priority, but…" You stop to breathe again. "Why… Why would you attack without waiting to see what Frisk had to say? If you were informed enough to know there was a human running free in the Underground, then couldn't you have known they weren't causing any harm, in the first place?"

Despite the tea, its effects and your subsequent calm don't last long. Frustration keeps you from staying in one, sole place without fidgeting, so you let energy out through a composed, back-and-forth pace across the living room. You stop for a second and face down at Undyne, who keeps herself seated, eye meeting with your gaze. "How many of those six souls were murdered, and…" Your breath hitches. "And how many of them were genuine, self-sacrifices? I… I wouldn't be so angry, if you were just honest with me and told me how many human lives were taken away without their honest approval, and exactly how many of them sacrificed their lives for you, in the end."

At the thought of Frisk, still selfless towards plenty of things based on how young they were and the education they received -- both at home and at school -- you keep your posture straight, eager to say more. "And was there really no other solution than taking those souls? If… If Frisk saved your kind without having to give up their own life for it, then why did all this happen? Why��� Why did six people have to die before a different solution could come around?" A pause and a sigh help you recollect your thoughts. "Or were they threatening the lives of your kind? 'Cause that makes a lot more sense than simply taking away the soul of the first human you saw, no matter their age, background, or intentions."

Undyne still stays silent for a while even after you're done, eye now cast down at the floor as she frowns and her hands hold onto her knees. "...Well," she says, trailing off with a sigh. "I was only ordered to chase after whatever human I crossed paths with." She lifts her gaze from the floor while a hand toys around with the scales on her neck, distracting herself from you. "It wasn't every day a human would fall down there, so we were eventually ordered to, well... kill whatever human did happen to end there… Indiscriminately." Finally, she makes eye contact with you, frown quivering as she takes another quick pause. "According to what we were told, it had been years since a human last fell down, so when Frisk arrived, I... I just sought after them without thinking twice."

"But if that many years passed by, couldn't your kind look for another solution? If… If Alphys built a new body for her friend out of nothing but scraps, and with two different forms -- mind you -- then... Then couldn't another scientist on similar or equal terms of knowledge have done something about all this? Why wait so long, if… if all it took was a child to find another solution for you?" Your voice breaks and your ire finally snaps with, "Where's your sense of justice? Or does it only apply when it's convenient?"

She notices the change herself, though she doesn't flinch nor retaliate; neutrality is her only reaction as she replies with, "(L/N), in all honesty, I…" Undyne stops, facing down again as her grimace deepens, sorrow dampening her eye. "I'm... I'm not sure how to answer that." 

Seeing you've reached a dead end, you glance over towards Alphys, who tries to look away, failing when you call out her name. "What about you, Doctor Alphys? Was there really no other thought in mind other than waiting for the next prey to arrive? Was there truly no…" Your breathing grows scarce, hinting at you losing your grip on the intensity of your emotions again. "Was there truly no other option than for us to be enemies? For your kind and mine to… to simply keep up with the damage our ancestors made and left behind?"

Alphys is shaking, yet you stay unfazed, only lessening your level of intimidation by uncrossing your arms and looking away from her, giving her some space and time to reply. 

"I'm n- not sure what to say, either, but… Y- You do have a point." She wrings her hands, her shaking attempting to compose itself through that. "But… As a f- former scientist of the Underground, I wasn't told much over what the rules were. One of the few things that I took part on was in... in creating Mettaton's new body." Her hands unwind, shoulders copying them. "I... I know he was programmed to k- kill humans, but like you mentioned: he was my friend before any of that happened, and so he already had a life and consciousness before I made that new version of him. It- It just so happened that I… I modified a few things so that he could-"

Her words are interrupted as Frisk walks into the living room, still sleepy-eyed. They rub their eyes with the sleeve of their shirt, and a frown presents itself when they take a good look at the scene before them. 

"What's wrong?" they sign, expression furrowed.

They take in everything around them, letting their face lose tension when their gaze moves on over to you, encouraging them to approach you. "You're here!" Frisk grabs your hand, taking a look at the time on your watch. Then, they raise an eyebrow, letting you go to continue with, "You didn't go to work today? Or did you leave early?"

You smile, let your guard fall, and bring them into your arms, holding them up. "The streets got flooded, so I couldn't go anymore after lunchtime," you say, kissing their cheek. "How've you been, though? Did you have fun at miss Toriel's new place? I've been here since twelve, but you were sleeping, so I didn't want to wake you."

They grin, nodding as they bring their arms firm around your neck, hugging you close. "I had fun." You tense a little at the sound of their voice despite there being more people besides Toriel, Brenda, or you around; how often selective mutism kept them from saying things out loud in front of other people made their voice a rare thing to hear in public, no matter how small the crowd was. It's only when they're alone with you or people of trust that they have the courage to speak up out loud -- a rare case was Frisk being capable of talking with Bubbles regardless of them having met him only once so far, yet you dismiss that one as them having simply gotten along well with him right from the start, rather than associating it with them truly forgiving you and wanting to defend you, as a result. "A- Are you gonna stay here, then? It's raining a lot!"

"I believe they have no other choice, dear," Toriel intervenes, easing out the tension left from your earlier conversation, still unfinished. 

She arrives next to you; a set of clothes are held out in her hands, these neatly folded and accompanied by some soap, a towel, and a roll-on deodorant. "(L/N) was waiting for the skies to clear up, but the rain and the floods have made it near impossible for any of us to leave this house." You set Frisk down and take the clothes, surprised to see a set of pajamas similar to Toriel's clothing style, and even some (men/women)'s underwear tucked underneath all the other items -- and unused based on the size tag still attached to it. "I am not sure if these sizes will fit you, but those clothes are all spares I keep stored away for guests." She lowers her voice and gets closer to you. "The undergarments are new, of course." She giggles, winking at you afterwards. "The bathroom is upstairs, if you would like to shower now."

You inspect the clothes again, frustration simmering down back to calm as you let your shoulders lessen their stress with a sigh. "Thank you, ma'am."

• • •

Barely two months into knowing the monsters, and you're already staying at their place. While Alphys and Undyne are capable of leaving under the current, wild weather at will if they were to take their needed precautions, neither Frisk nor you can step a foot outside without drawing it back in. The streets are a mess of puddles, nature-made swimming pools, and car alarms going off; the scenery outside is close to that of becoming something of a meteorologist's concern and a scientific anomaly, yet the news and every other information outlet available continues to report it as something of lesser concern than what it is.

As you stare outside, Frisk now resting on your lap, you worry over two things: the lost meeting at your office, and the stranded car belonging to Sans's brother. You comb your fingers through Frisk's hair, using that as a means of entertainment from your worries. They're still sleeping soundly, tired out by both finishing their homework and playing with you at the indoor, mini playground Toriel set up for them.

"I'll pay for any damages to your car as soon as this clears up." You direct your words at Papyrus, who stops gazing outside to face you, looking dazed. His mind looks to be somewhere else, though another squint at your appearance makes him snap out of it.

"That is the least of my concerns now, (L/N)." He smiles at you, leaving the window to crouch next to you, couch occupied with Frisk, Sans, and yourself. "I can go look for it tomorrow morning. And as for whatever damages it gets, I am certain my insurance will look over this case! There have been plenty of reports discussing the damages made by the rain, so it is not my greatest worry." His gaze falls on Frisk, a warmer look reaching his face. "Do you want me to carry them back to bed? It's getting late!"

"It's fine-"

"Please, I insist!"

You smile at his persistence, far more endearing than his older brother's. The thought makes you pay attention back towards Sans, who's still showing signs of exhaustion on his body, slumped over to the corner. His eye sockets are closed, dark circles beginning to show under them. 

"Thank you." You pay attention back to Papyrus, who takes Frisk in his hold, propping them safe with both arms.

You stand up, ready to help out, yet he dismisses your actions with the words, "Stay and chat with Toriel. I assume you both still have plenty to talk about, don't you? You should take this opportunity to talk with her and the other ladies! Perhaps then, you can leave this place with a different perspective by the time the rain stops."

"I will." You nod and watch him leave, carrying your child up in his arms with seemingly no difficulty. His steps fade as so does his figure, leaving you be with Sans sleeping at the couch, the owner of the house by the kitchen, and Undyne and Alphys standing by the living room. The pair's gazes are occupied on the window, carrying a similar expression to Papyrus's from earlier before.

You don't even know how to start up another conversation with the last one having ended poorly, yet try again by using the easiest route possible: going over to Toriel and asking if she needs help with dinner. You stand up and stretch out, legs numb with how long Frisk had been sitting on your lap. It's only fortunate tomorrow's Friday, the beginning of another weekend.

"Can I help with anything?"

Those are the first words you say as you enter the kitchen, greeted by the smell of boiling vegetables and the sound of a knife against a cutting board. Toriel's next to the stove, cutting some carrots, but stopping to look at you. A smile forms on her face, and she nods once, pointing with her gaze at the potatoes resting on the counter next to hers. "Did Frisk go back to sleep?" she asks, facing back at the carrots again, continuing with her work. "I am amazed at how much energy they have, and how little they want to sleep now that they've seen how many people are in this home. It is only when I insist that they need to rest up for the sake of their health that they do so."

While you're not sure if she's being indirect or not, the goat lady's words lead you to assume one thing, and that's Frisk not wanting to waste time sleeping when at the monsters' home. With you, they went out like a light, going to sleep right when you told them to. Only when there was a full house and when family members came to visit did they break that rule, far too excited over the new faces for them to sleep. 

"Papyrus took them back to their room," you reply, reminding yourself not to let your thoughts drift again. "And that's... normal for them, actually." You decide to be truthful with her, following Papyrus's advice. "They usually don't like to sleep when they're too excited about something. Every time my family visits, they're just a big ball of energy and don't sleep until everyone's doing the same." A smile forms at that, a memory from when your ex came to visit Frisk slipping through. "When my, um… ex-husband used to visit, they would stay up late playing games with him. So I guess Frisk feels the same way about you and their other monster friends."

With the potatoes already washed and peeled, all that's left is to cut them and throw them into the pot. You ask her over what size you should cut them, turning your back to her again when you're given an answer. "Is there anything you would like to ask me about, (L/N)?" Toriel asks, speaking in between cuts. "If there is any doubt you have over me, and even over Dreemurr, Sans, and others I know well, I can inform you about it. But as for things that are personal, that is up to them."

Thunder crashes at the nearby window just as you're slicing, finger almost ending up in the same condition as the potatoes, but prevented by your reflexes. The lights go out on par with another loud blast of lightning, plenty more violent than the first one. 

"Goodness!" you hear Toriel say. 

You follow the sound of her voice to see a sphere of flames held up in her hand; it reveals her face, now furrowed with worry. "Are you alright?"

"I'm alright." You set the knife aside and join her side, following her orders when she informs you there are candles on the bottom drawer beside her. You act quickly, taking them out and lighting them up with the help of her fire magic. "Are you?"

She nods, a gentle look crossing her. "We should go check on the others." Her gaze points back at the drawer, left open. "Could you bring more of those?"

"Of course, ma'am."

You take the emptiest box of the three and follow her out of the kitchen.

Your surroundings are now left pitch dark except for a bright and glowing, blue spear held out by Undyne, Alphys standing next to her. A tall figure holding up a smaller one can be seen near the couch, people who you assume are Papyrus and Frisk based on who's the only one left to find. "Has anyone seen Sans?" Papyrus asks, fret tracing his voice. "He's not on the couch anymore!"

Looking to where he points at, you see he's right. The couch is empty with the exception of your and Frisk's belongings. Not even a trace of him can be seen left around, making it appear as if he's outright vanished from existence, and not even the dim lighting produced by the candles can aid with tracking him down amongst all the people, objects, and darkness laid around.

While others assemble and call out for Sans as they search through all the rooms they could possibly imagine finding him in, you try to come up with a different solution besides that. Him disappearing was more than unlikely considering he didn't have any magic or energy left in him for teleportation, so you rule that out as a possibility and take a moment to observe your surroundings a bit closer. You look at the couch again, as if still expecting to catch a glimpse of him there despite what you're doing right now. But as fate would have it, your keys pop into your mind when you come across the sight of your suit jacket, umbrella, and all other belongings left behind on a corner of the couch, most of these stored away in a bag or left nearby it. 

Reminded over what your car keys have attached to them, you go look for them, bumping into someone right as you're about to make it there. 

You wobble and -- at the feeling of losing balance -- you act fast. You break your own fall and later grab onto the person to prevent them from falling, though you don't need to do much when you notice their height doesn't reach that much higher than your chest. Add to that your sturdier body helping with breaking the fall, and you've managed to stop the both of you from fully crashing into each other or stumbling to the floor.

You sit down on the couch when you feel you're losing your balance and hold the person upright. You then let go to look through your bag, retrieving the keys and -- along with them -- a small, solar flashlight hanging from it. The light's directed right at the person's face, revealing Sans's, who looks as if caught in a bad deed. 

"Are you okay?" You don't bother over bringing up the fact he face-planted right into your chest, nor that his hands gripped tight onto your waist for support; the sheer sincerity of his surprise at bumping into you makes you assume he hadn't done it on purpose.

"I'm, uh… I'm fine." His words are just as spacey as his gaze, and his irises point at the floor for a second, spacing off yet again. "Sorry about that." He sits right beside you on the couch, facing up to meet with your eyes. "I was gonna check up on the ceiling since it's rainin' so hard. Kinda looks like it'll start leakin' soon."

Thunder strikes again, sending the monster back into your hold. His hands grip onto your shirt next as he freezes up in place, just before he can get to reveal the true meaning over his disappearance.

"Are you… Are you scared over this?" You try to push down your amusement, yet are unable to when you see his grip is tight enough to remind you of a cat being frightened. 

When another one strikes, louder than the rest, you bring up another question while biting back a smile. "Is it… Is it the noise?" He tenses up even more, encouraging you to bring him closer, his current proximity far different from his attempts at flirting with you. "Sans." You call out his name, attempting to snap him out of it. "What's wrong? You're as cold as ice!"

He doesn't react, though you can feel him shake and shiver under your hold. You look down at him to see his eye sockets are tightly shut. How much he's scooted closer makes him sit on your lap, though his smaller figure helps you with keeping him safe and balanced in your hold. 

As you keep him that way, you can only ask yourself one thing:

Would you come off as an insensitive jerk if you decided to tease him over this in the future?

At the sound of a louder crash, the skeleton's unresponsive, caught up in his fear.

...Or would it work best not to take that risk?

For the time being, you hold him closer. 

The feeling of everyone's eyes on you surges when you move your eyes away from the skeleton to look around you. In contrast, you see Papyrus and Frisk too busy playing with a candle to notice what's happening, along with Toriel having all her attention on lighting more candles. It's only Alphys and Undyne who take notice, both their faces equally enlightened by what's unfolding on the couch. They look ready to yap their mouths off over the situation between you and the one clinging onto you, yet one sharp look of caution at the two keeps them from saying anything risky about it.

Whether they knew about Sans's fear you didn't know about, and whether he wanted it to be known you weren't aware of, either. For now, you hold him close, trying your best to ignore the women's stares and waiting until Sans snaps out of it. His hold on you's firm and close, needful and impartial as the thunderstorm continues to gain strength.

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Tag List (Comment or message me if you want to be added to [or removed from] it!)

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[thethoughtsfromthreeam]

Art History

Pairing: Marcus Pike x Reader

Warnings: Smut, public sex act

A/N: @pedropascalito wrote a NSFW alphabet for Marcus some time ago and had shown interest in a fic where Marcus finger fucks you next to a piece of art.  And like always, other people’s comments give me ideas.  So here we go, y’all.

Reminder:  I ain’t ever seen Pedro Pascal in FUCK ALL, I’m just coming up with this as I go along, using imdb.com, wiki, and 84,000 tabs I got open to plan out this shit.  I also write soft versions of his characters so if you’re craving asshole vibes, I ain’t got any but my own to offer.

Tags:  @zeldasayer , @romanticgumchewer , @beskars , @coolmaybelateruniverse , @the-feckless-wonder,  @pascalisthepunkest , @mandoandyodito , @randomness501 , @fioccodineveautunnale  

—***—

“Do you want to do inside first or check out the sculpture garden?” You looked at the map of the museum in your hands.  It had been his turn to choose the location for your standing monthly get away date and he had chosen well, a sprawling art museum housed in a Gilded Age mansion outside of Providence Rhode Island.  The impressive views of the Atlantic Ocean made the grounds an attractive place to start the day.

A slight chill in the air made you glad you chose you tweed cloak instead of the cardigan you debated on that morning.  It was just warm enough to keep the light breeze at bay but not heavy enough to overheat you.  Secretly you loved wearing the cloak, it made you feel like the heroine of some historic romance novel.

“Marcus?”  You prodded him gently with your voice as you watched his brows furrow in concentration. He was still looking at the map in your hands and you watched as something flashed over his face.  You could hear the gears turning in his head – he was clearly up to something.

He looked up at you and that boyish grin that never failed to make your stomach flutter was at full wattage.  He took the map and folded it up, putting it in his back pocket before taking your hand. You smiled as he began to walk towards the gardens.

“They have a spectacular selection of Holbrook sculptures on display.  You’re going to love them.”  As you walked, you passed an occasional person, but it was so quiet, it seemed as if you had the whole garden to yourself, allowing you to imagine yourselves as the only people in the world in that moment.

Marcus glanced down, watching the sunlight play peekaboo with your hair and face as you passed under the Japanese maples that lined the path.  He rubbed his thumb along your knuckles, almost absentmindedly, as you quietly chatted about the art you passed.  His deep voice was soft and your murmurs and comments seemed to flow like silk over him.

While history was more your speed, your passion for the subject matched his passion for art step for step and Marcus’ favorite thing about these dates was the way you bounced off each other.  For every story he had about an artist or piece or even style, you easily came back with facts and figures that put everything into further context. Sometimes you argued over meaning, but it was always stimulating.

By the time you made it to the far end of the garden where the Holbrook pieces were on display, an hour had passed, although with you, it felt like no time at all.  Marcus began to smile as the exhibit came into view.  Holbrook was easily one of his favorite artists and the pieces made his blood sing every time he saw one, a song usually only you could coax out of him.

You stopped to read the interpretation sign before entering the space and Marcus let go of your hand to walk ahead.  Because you didn’t have his wealth of knowledge, you almost always stopped to read the signage, to learn more about an artist or a piece of work.  Your head bowed as you read and from a distance, Marcus had angled himself to watch your reactions.

Holbrook wasn’t an obscure artist, but given the sensual look to his pieces, you discovered why he wasn’t exactly in a lot of textbooks.  You stepped into the garden and it felt as if you had fallen into an erotic daydream.  The almost carnal aura of the space was softened by flowers and trees that were soft and dreamy.

As you began to view the pieces, each one seemed to capture a passionate moment so perfectly that a small part of you felt like you were experiencing memories that were your own but weren’t.  You were examining a piece so intently; you didn’t notice the flush that crept across your body.  But Marcus did.

He stood a few pieces away from you, taking in the subtle changes of your body – how your posture relaxed, the way your eyes began to spark, the blush against your cheeks that could be mistaken as caused by the breeze.  And when you turned to move to the next piece, he could see your eyes beginning to darken.

But you weren’t the only one affected by the art and as you were reading, Marcus had been looking at a piece where one lover was kneeling between the legs of another.  The Kneeler captured the moment when the titular lover was pressing their lips against the inside of the thighs of their object of affection.  

He could feel his pants becoming tighter the longer he looked at the piece, but when he watched at you as you moved from piece to piece, the soft fabric of his boxers became almost unbearable.  His heart always fluttered at the sight of you, but seeing you become aroused by one of his favorite artists made his heart pound against his ribs.

You stood in front of Embracement, that feeling of déjà vu passing through you yet again.  Like all of Holbrook’s pieces, this one was made of marble and yet something about it made it seem soft and yielding.  Before you could think beyond that moment, Marcus walked up behind you, placing his large hands on your hips, becoming lost in the fabric of your cloak.

You turned your head to smile at him, feeling his hard body press flush against your own, his strong arms wrapped around your waist and pulling you close. You drew your hands up to rest on his wrists, feeling his warm skin beneath yours.  It never failed to humble you that someone as handsome and kind and smart would be interested in you.  Although you’d be surprised that Marcus felt the same about you.

He pressed his soft lips to your cheek before dropping his chin to your shoulder.  Standing like this, you could feel his voice rumble through his broad chest as much as you heard it come from his mouth.  His lifted one hand just long enough to point to the piece in front of you.

“Do you know the story?”  When you shook your head, he dropped his arm back down.  “Holbrook was married for years to a woman named Marian.  He said numerous times that Marian was his muse and the only woman for him.  When she became pregnant with their first child, he made this piece to celebrate.”

You looked at it again.  A woman lay on a bed, leaning against pillows as her lover lay between her legs.  Hands were wrapped around the hips and the man’s lips were pressed against the woman’s pubic bone.  Both were naked, but the hallmarks of arousal were evident in the details. Marcus’s voice continued and between your attention on the piece and on his voice, you failed to realize that he shifted his arms through the side openings of your cloak, bringing his hands to rest on your hips, with only the fabric of your skirt and panties between you two.

“Holbrook admitted that the piece came to him in a dream inspired by a memory.  He said that Marian was made to be worshiped by his body and with his art.  Rumor has it that their maid found the two of them laying exactly like this in the garden of their home.”

As the words flowed over you, Marcus’ hands began to move and for the first time you became aware of his touch as his fingertips pulled at your thin sweater to urge the fabric up.  When he finally touched your skin, you felt as if you were being set on fire.  His skin was hot against yours and the flush that had spread across your cheeks earlier began to spread throughout your body.  

“He said that no skin felt as soft as hers, like silk” One hand snaked northward, skirting the edge of your lace bra before cupping one gently.  Your nipples began to harden into tight peaks that throbbed in time with your clit and your hips began to slightly move in time with his words.

“Her lips were reported to feel like brushed velvet.”  His other hand traced gently along the waistband of your skirt before dipping below and into the soft cotton of your panties.  Your breath hitched and you tensed, your eyes opening wide.  Marcus pressed his lips against your temple.  “It’s okay, we’re completely alone.  Besides, no one can see my hands under your cloak.”

You pressed against him harder when his hands didn’t move, and you were rewarded with a low groan as your ass pressed against his erection.  You couldn’t stop the smile from playing against your lips even as they opened into a sigh when Marcus pressed an open kiss to your neck.

Marcus continued to tell the story of the piece, his voice rough with want. You stared at the sensual scene in front you, hoping it would ground you even has the strong, large fingers of his hands slipped through the curls at the apex of your thighs and into the folds of your slit.  Your hopes were for naught.

He felt your hips jerk forward at his touch and again when his fingers pinched your nipple through the lace of your bra.  His smile could be heard in his voice as your body bowed away from his as pleasure danced along your skin.  But that smile was wiped away when you used the new space between your hips to drag your hand along the front of his pants, letting the cloak cover your movements from any prying eyes.

Now it was his turn to jerk his hips, chasing your fingertips as they moved northward.  Your smile was no longer hidden and out in full force.  You moved your other hand from his wrist to deftly unbuckle his belt and unbutton his pants.  As you tugged the zipper down, Marcus began to gently rub against your clit.

You couldn’t stop the loud gasp from escaping your throat and he pressed his nose against the side of your face, urging you to keep it down.  You may have been alone, but the museum grounds were still open.  Someone could always walk into the exhibit and catch you.  When you nodded, he rubbed a little faster, his blood hot in his veins as he watched you dropped your head back and bit your lip to keep the groan from escaping your throat.

You forced yourself to focus more as you stuck your hand beneath the waistband of his boxers, feeling his cock hard and ready for you.  He dipped his head once again, using the fabric at your shoulder to soften his own moan.  Your hand went lower, brushing along the tip and gathering the moisture you found there.  With a sudden swiftness, you grasped his cock and dragged your hand as far down as your awkward position could let you.

“Fuck, sweetheart.”  His pants enveloped you and you lolled your head to the side to press your lips against his neck.  “So soft, like silk.  Like velvet.”

“Marcus.”  Your voice sounded desperate and he understood.  His fingers dipped lower to gather up your wetness before he plunged two fingers deep into you.  Your body tensed and curled forward as far as his arms would let you – his large hand still on your breast and keeping you pressed against him.

Soon his hand was setting a moderate pace, fingers continuously dipping into your dripping core, reaching that spot inside of you that made your toes curl inside your shoes.  You angled yourself enough so that you could match his pace with your hands, twisting and curling them against the heat of his erection.

Marcus felt as if he were on fire and it took all his will power not to drive his hips into your hands, knowing that at any moment someone could see him.  His blood rushed through his body and his nerves tingled at the thought. He never thought himself as an exhibitionist, but the close call of it all certainly spoke to his baser desires.

You, on the other hand, were lost in his fingers as the continued to pluck as your nipples and touch your very soul.  When he with drew his hand, your whine couldn’t be contained, but it was cut short when he began to rub your clit again.  Your hips continued to jerk as the passion brewing deep in your belly grew hotter and tighter.

“Marcus. . .”  You could barely get his name out, your voice raspy and filled with heavy desire.  He seemed to know what you wanted, and he dropped the hand at your breast down into your panties.  His stuck his fingers back inside of you and let his other hand continue to rub against your clit, the pace faster this time.

Your hands remained on his cock, tightening as your pleasure began to climb closer to its peak with every movement on his hands.  They barely moved now, but that didn’t matter as Marcus let himself fuck your fists like a horny teenager.  Both of your hips were moving faster, your orgasms drawing from your limbs and growing heavier in the pit of your stomachs.

Marcus began to kiss along your neck, open and wet against your skin. You focused on the scene in front you, knowing that the familiarity of this piece and so many others were not because you’d seen Holbrook’s work before.  No, it’s because these sculptures were your life lived.  You didn’t see Marian and Holbrook in front of you.

No.  That sculpture was you, nipples taunt in desire and lips slightly parted for the man laying between your legs.  It was Marcus’ lips that hovered above your public bone, kissing you so intimately until all thoughts were lost to you.  It was not Holbrook’s hands on those hips, it was the man behind you, whose soft skin brushed so lovingly against your own in an almost worshipful way.

When you came, your whole body seemed to explode and for a split second it seemed that the woman in the sculpture turned her head towards you and smiled a knowing smile.  You jerked against his hands, your moan low but deep and Marcus felt it reverberate through his body.  He followed you into the waves of pleasure, coming in your hand over and over until he felt spent.

The aftershocks rippled through your body as Marcus cupped your mound softly.  When you stopped shaking, he withdrew his hands and kissed your temple.  He pulled them completely out of your clothing and reached into his pocket for his handkerchief.  He wiped his hands and then yours, doing his best to clean the back of your cloak and the front of his pants.

Once all evidence of your tryst has been cleaned, he folded up the fabric and put it back into his pockets.  As he slipped himself back inside his pants, you straightened your skirt and looked back at the sculpture in front of you.  Nothing had change, the sculpture never moved and yet you felt an even deeper connection to the piece.

Marcus laid his hands on your hips, turning you towards him so he could drape his arms around your waist.  You did the same and as you looked at each other, the satisfied smiles on your faces seem to glow.  He dipped his head to softly kiss your lips and you willingly kissed him back, the soft sensuality of the kiss spreading through you.  It seemed to last long minutes, each brush of his lips drawing you back in until you could barely breathe.

He pulled his head back and looked down at you, the lust that had been there giving away to adoration and love.  His eyes reflected the same.  While he hadn’t anticipated this happening when he suggested you come here for your date, it was better than anything he could have hoped for.  You cocked your head to look at him.

“What’s going on in that brain yours, sweetheart?”  His voice was wasn’t as raspy as it had been, but it was still rougher than normal.

“I love a good art piece.  It’s very inspiring.”  You smiled.

He grinned and nodded in agreement.

[curiosity-killed]

Fic writer meme 2 electric boogaloo

Ty for the tag @veliseraptor & @mikkeneko ^-^

Tagging @aurumdalseni @gusu-emilu @hoarder-of-stories-27 @xihe-jun @perkynurples if you wanna but no pressure!

(under cut bc LONG)

How many works do you have on AO3? 

118

What’s your total AO3 word count? 

994,456 which makes me happy for no good reason except that it means I have written well over a million words total (including original fic and unpublished works) and that I will tip over that mark on AO3 itself when I post my next wip 🎉

How many fandoms have you written for and what are they? 

7: Voltron, MCU, Assassin’s Creed, MDZS/CQL, Supernatural, TGCF, and WOH

What are your top 5 fics by kudos? 

Oh this actually makes me happy bc the middle three are my favorites of my own fics 🥰🥰

a bow for the bad decisions (2671)

upon this altar (1121)

whipstitch (1095)

of swords and wings (975)

the dead horse (965)

Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

Yep! I generally try to respond to comments both as a thank you and because I find the conversations there super super rewarding! That said, I generally don’t reply to comments that: annoy me (okay sometimes I do bc I’m petty), are super old and I forgot to reply, or are from someone reading a finished fic chapter by chapter (I am SO appreciative and delighted by those comments but I feel bad replying like a week later when you’ve already finished the fic orz so I usually just reply to the latest comment)

What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

off hesperus LMAO yeah uh…can’t think of anything that really comes even distantly in second

Do you write crossovers? If so, what is the craziest one you’ve written?

Nah. My first fic was a crossover of MCU & Norse myth but I don’t really enjoy reading or writing crossovers

Have you ever received hate on a fic?

mm sort of I guess? I’ve gotten people with their pants in a twist especially over whipstitch (the iconic “wwx whump fetishist who only wants lwj to nut” DOES live in my mind rent-free and crack me up ngl) which is why I turned off anonymous comments till about after it was done. Mostly I’ve just gotten people yelling about how much they hate certain characters I clearly care about which is less hate and more ?? Sir this is a Wendy’s

Do you write smut? if so what kind? 

Very rarely & usually the half-finished kind bc I get bored partway through writing it 😅

Have you ever had a fic stolen? 

Not that I know of! I hope not lol

Have you ever had a fic translated? 

Yes!! and if she leads was translated into mandarin by AlllltheFish …I am still jazzed about it

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Nope!

What’s your all time favorite ship?

I’m boring but I don’t really have one? I tend to like different ships for different reasons that make them meaningful and important to me in a given moment so 😅 if I had to pick, I’d probably say AltMal and Hualian—the hurt/comfort, acceptance, and individual characters make them pretty lasting loves for me

What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

:’) so many.

nah, in all seriousness I don’t like to say things are abandoned because I tend to circle back to old ideas eventually. Ones I actually don’t think will ever be finished are: (1) the post-canon tgcf fic from the POV of hua cheng’s middle brother, (2) the AU where wwx grows up on Baoshan Sanren’s mountain, (3) the sequel to ‘i have watched you down the mountain’ where lxc and lwj work together to prevent some of the canon tragedies, and (4) the hualian pygmalion AU that was my first long-fic i started in this fandom 

What are your writing strengths? ah I hate this question despite having just answered it lmao I think I’m good at sort of immersing a reader in the story? Like I tend to write pretty visceral descriptions and stick to a relatively deep POV and based on reader reactions, that seems to somewhat effectively make people feel...a lot...??

What are your writing weaknesses? My biggest weaknesses come from structure imo. I have a really really hard time planning stories which leads to me getting stuck partway through the story and either having to force myself to trudge through it or abandoning the story because I don’t know what happens. Pacing is another definite struggle zone—I have a tendency to bounce from “30k of introspection” to “oh fuck all the plot has to happen RIGHT NOW.” And I almost never proofread! So there’s uh some struggle zones

What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic? Depends on the moment and purpose? In the context of CQL/MDZS & TGCF I tend to leave it for terms that are a) hard to translate well and b) well-known in the fandom/audience I’m writing for (e.g., familial terms like jiujiu or xiao-shu, martial family terms, occasionally units of measurement). 

I don’t mind it in certain other settings, again going back to where it would be difficult or clunky or lose important meaning in translation or if it’s used like…purposefully?? God I’m making no sense but like…I think there are times when another language is more effective, and perhaps more importantly, the switch matters. Like...there’s a part in Station Eleven where a character is suddenly cut off from his loved ones and sort of watching the apocalypse happen in real-time and his thoughts get kind of hung up on tu me manques—not ‘I miss you’ but the French where the structure more emphasizes ‘you are missing from me’—and I think that’s a great example of times where the switch matters both because of how it makes the reader shift their thinking briefly and of filling out a character and the emotional impact of a moment.

....no idea if that makes sense

What was the first fandom you wrote for?

MCU ;____;

What’s your favorite fic you’ve written?

Three way tie between whipstitch, of swords and wings, and upon this altar, with whipstitch just barely beating out the other two! 

[jenetica]

A Brief Note from Our Sponsors: Us.

Greetings! If you’re here, it’s likely that you have questions or complaints about our decisions regarding the Calendar Girls series. An ominous start to this discussion, but truly, we welcome you! If you’re here, it means you have been emotionally impacted by our work and, even though this context isn’t the cheeriest, we are so, so grateful you (1) enjoyed our work enough to care about it, and (2) want to develop a better understanding of our process so that you can engage with Calendar Girl more.

First of all, we understand why you’d be upset with us! The cliffhanger at the end of AotM was a DOOZY and leaves a LOT of important questions unanswered, and we left you readers hanging for a LONG time. This post will, hopefully, assuage the worst of your fears without giving away too many plot points.

That being said, please note that there WILL be spoilers ahead. If you want to see the story unfold as we intended, do NOT read this post further. We will tell you now that the post addresses the Deadpool’s identity, our decisions regarding the construction of AotM and the final cliffhanger, our decisions regarding developing the sequel as a prequel, and our plans for future installments. And, naturally, the accusations of “queerbaiting.”

Let’s get started.

QUEERBAITING

It makes sense to open with the most serious issue, so let’s talk about queerbaiting. For anyone here who doesn’t know, queerbaiting is defined as the purposeful insinuation of a homosexual/queer relationship, only to backtrack/subvert that insinuation to avoid the queer relationship. For an example, see: Supernatural from Season 4 and on. 

We have received accusations of queerbaiting for about four years, based exclusively on the reveal at the end of the final chapter. Similarly, we have received complaints that we duped readers into reading hetfic. So, to get things out of the way, yes, Deadpool is Gwen. No, it’s not a trick of the light, or a mistake, or some odd resemblance. They are one and the same. HOWEVER, that does NOT mean that we have queerbaited anyone.

First of all, the tags of the story are honest, and they always have been. AotM is tagged as a “Multi” fic, meaning that there are relationships of multiple orientations involved, and it is tagged with Peter/Gwen as well as Peter/Wade. Careless Whisper is tagged as F/M. We have never suggested or implied that the story would exclusively be slash fiction. We actually left multiple hints that Wade enjoyed femininity, at least as a practice, if not an identity. iFlail and I discussed this issue at length as we wrote/edited AotM and carefully crafted the story with queerbaiting in mind. 

Peter is an unreliable narrator, he always has been, and he always will be. In AotM, Peter assumes Wade is a man and thus, for the purposes of the narrative, Wade is one. The truth, however, is less clean than that. We won’t get into the details here, but safe to say, gender is not binary, it is not permanent, and it is not inexorably linked to one’s biology. Wade has a complicated history and a complicated/unique sense of identity. We have always intended for him to be that way, just as we always intended for him to be notably, pointedly smaller than Peter. 

The accusations of queerbaiting and/or conning readers into reading “het” fic are exclusionary of the greater conversation of gender identity. It was, frankly, disheartening to see so many people assume heterosexuality based exclusively on the last word of AotM. We hope that our work will challenge readers to be more mindful of the expansive world of gender, and to avoid assuming that a specific kind of pairing might involve specific kinds of body parts.

If you have any questions or reservations about our queerbaiting at this point, you are either welcome to keep reading future installments of this work to learn more, or you are welcome to stop altogether. The choice is yours. 

CONSTRUCTING THE STORY ARC - PRESENT, PAST, AND FUTURE

With that hot-button topic out of the way, let’s talk about the greater concept of ending a story of a cliffhanger, our thoughts behind building this series, and our goals for future installments. 

The second part of the Calendar Girl series, Careless Whisper, was written first, and it comes first chronologically. I (Jenetica) initially worked on the story by myself, as an exploration into the concept of “Gwen becoming Deadpool” to see how it might play out. I ended up writing a story I loved, so I moved onto the next part of the story, set four years later. This ended up becoming Angel of the Morning. 

@iflailfic, a good IRL friend of mine from college, came onboard (after I wooed her with several stories worth of porn, as you can see through a jaunt through my posted works) to help me edit. She fell in love with AotM and, as we worked on first draft edits, she floated the idea of AotM coming before Careless Whisper. Honestly, I rejected the idea at first (not sure if she actually knows/remembers that part, lol), because I couldn’t fathom how we would be able to link the parts of the story together. But, eventually, I began to realize her point: AotM introduces our protagonists, develops the “current” world for the series, and has a more dynamic/engaging plot. 

The cliffhanger was a joke at first. My idea. I think my exact words were something like, “LOLOL what if we just ended on ‘GWEN?’ OMG IMAGINE hahahahaha.” But, as we continued to edit… it became the perfect way to end things. Anything that came after that point felt like trash. If we’d expanded any further, we ran the risk of falling headfirst into Part 3 and doubling the size of AotM. Let’s be real, the ending is, all waiting aside, an absolute nuclear bomb on the rest of the story. 

We talked about the likelihood of enraged readers. But we rationalized it by telling each other/ourselves that we had Careless Whisper written, so the wait wouldn’t be too killer.

Best laid plans.

I (Jenetica) take full responsibility for the time it took to start posting again. Over the last four years, I have gone through a number of experiences that challenged my sense of self and pushed me to become a different person, including moving halfway across the country, attending a relatively prestigious law school where I was no longer “the smart kid in the room,” and losing the relationship that I later learned was toxic and abusive. I lost my confidence in a number of ways, including my confidence as a writer. I became terrified that I would never produce anything that lived up to AotM, and that I would disappoint the many (many!) readers demanding answers. Luckily for me, through that adversity I found rewarding friendships, a beautiful partner who treats me the way I’d always fantasized/written about people like me getting treated, and an engaging career that leaves me with enough energy to write. My experiences are mirrored by iFlail, who went through a different, but similarly life-changing, series of events. But through this all, we never lost hope in this story, and we always planned to complete the series. We are wiser, stronger people now, and we both believe that the story will be richer for it. 

Which brings us to now, and our plans for the future. We do NOT intend to wait another four years to post X Gon’ Give It To Ya, the third and final installment of the series. We have spent countless hours brainstorming the plot, and all that’s really left to do is put it to paper. But, for people who are afraid of being burned twice, we will warn you now that Careless Whisper is JUST a prequel. If you want to know what happens after the “Gwen?” reveal, you will not get any answers until XGGITY (which I have, as of just now, decided to pronounce as “Ziggity”). We hope you stick around to watch Careless Whisper unfold, but we will understand if you want to wait until XGGITY to start reading again.

IN CONCLUSION - FINAL THOUGHTS

The Calendar Girl series has received more attention than we’d ever dreamed, and regardless of whether you liked or disliked our work, we want to thank you for taking the time to read it. If you made it to the end of AotM, we did something right, and again, we are so grateful that so many people have stuck with us this far.

We encourage everyone, moving forward, to keep a close eye on the tags that we use for our stories. We may not tag everything relevant, for the sake of preserving mystery about the plot, but we will be sure to tag everything that may be triggering or concerning, like self-harm, violence, or expected brand of romantic/sexual interactions. We will be adding this warning to the beginning of each story in the series.

Additionally, we want to acknowledge that there is a stark difference between legitimate concerns about the story and unfounded attacks on our character. Our decision to make this post is our attempt to dissuade the latter: We are not queerbaiting, and we have no interest in “forcing” people to read content that is not to their taste. However, that doesn’t mean that our execution of AotM, Careless Whisper, and/or XGGITY will be beyond reproach. The conversation on gender politics has evolved tremendously over the years that we’ve been working on this series, and it will undoubtedly continue to evolve as we progress into the future. We encourage constructive (!!!) criticism and open conversation on ways that we can improve our story, even if it involves tweaking published work to avoid mishandling deeply personal issues.

That said, if, after reading this post, you are still upset and/or unconvinced about our intentions for this series, we encourage you to stop reading it. We are not compensated for this work, and we have spent hundreds (probably thousands, by now) of hours striving to make the Calendar Girl series the best that it can be, for our own benefit. We believe that it may be the best fanfiction we will ever produce, and our satisfaction with our work is our priority. We will continue to post with that priority at the forefront, and with the demands of our reader base playing second fiddle. Similarly, we expect our readers to prioritize their needs above all others. We ask for your patience and your kindness moving forward and, if you cannot give us that, you are welcome to close the tab and move on with your life to other ventures that suit your interests better.

For those of you that choose to stay: You are in for a hell of a ride. We are both anxious to get through Careless Whisper, because we are both SO excited to share XGGITY with you. We believe it’s going to knock your socks off. We hope to see you there. 

Thanks, everyone, and happy reading!

[silvysartfulness]

3, 4, 10, 15

3. What is that one scene that you’ve always wanted to write but can’t be arsed to write all of the set-up and context it would need? (consider this permission to write it and/or share it anyway)

Oh... There’s no “always” scene, what scenes get me going varies from story to story, fandom to fandom. On the whole, I’m not that scene-oriented - it is the set-up and context that really get me going? The scenes are just expressions of that! Sorry! XD

There are a whole bunch of scenes I’m looking forward to write, though! In the Roadtrip, I do hope my steam will keep going until I hit the really messy, rewarding parts where the characters actually really start connecting (and yes, that includes the sex!) Especially Xue Yang’s and Song Lan’s relationship has a lot of very juicy things to explore, emotionally and physically down the line - that’s the story bits my brain tends to disappear off to when contemplating future bits of this fic, at least at the moment! :D

4. Share a sentence or paragraph from your writing that you’re really proud of (explain why, if you like) 

From the published chapters, I'm very happy with the “teacup” scene from chapter 6 of the Roadtrip! I find it poetic, and I like how it seemingly offers a respite from the turmoil of the ongoing scene - only to then double down and enhance the hurt of it. Causing readers pain can be beautiful. ♥

----

He had owned a little teacup, once, on the Mountain, a treasured delicate thing of white porcelain, and in a careless moment he had dropped it. It had still looked whole, but the next time he poured hot water into it, it had made a tinkling, almost musical sound, the water draining out of it as all the invisible cracks opened at once.

Even then it had still looked like a whole cup, only crackled, and it wasn't until he tried picking it up that it fell into a hundred pieces at his touch.

The roaring storm in his head had reached a crescendo so overwhelming it was almost bleeding into silence, and in that silence, he could hear his heart making that almost musical tinkling sound, shattered, all cracks breaking open at once.

----

From unpublished chapters, I very much like the following little snippet! Xue Yang isn’t one to consciously feel sorry for himself, he likes telling himself how heartless he is, that he can’t be hurt. Which is a blatant lie, and sometimes he just can’t help but wallow in self-pity. ♥

It has all the ingredients I like - there’s hurt, poetic phrasing, multiple vividly visual allegories:

----

There had been a hole in Xiao Xingchen's world after Baixue, ripped out of him to cause hurt - a dug-out trap he'd somehow, ironically, stupidly fallen into himself. A vacant space in Xiao Xingchen's life for him to occupy for a while, knowing that smile, that endless tenderness. He could see the gap close between them now, see it happen, himself forced out like unwanted water from near-drowned lungs.

It hurt.

----

10. How would you describe your writing process? 

“Frustration”..? Writing doesn’t come nearly as naturally to me as drawing, and unless I get lucky and catch a wave, it’s a constant struggle. Especially these days, when my brain has suffered enough burn-outs that I have genuine problems with memory, concentration and executive function.

But the process itself tends to go: Headcanon wildly -> decide that headcanons are interesting enough to make for decent fiction -> sketch a bit and flail about ideas to unsuspecting people to fix visions in mind -> write a very loose outline in separate document -> open word processor -> hope like fuck the characters will be willing to start talking -> trying to get it all to snowball and keep up steam until project is actually finished

15. Which is harder: titles or summaries (or tags)? 

Tags. Tags fill me with dread. Tags feel like the bit where failure will bring purity antis or angry people in general down on my head, enraged, if I get it wrong. Tags give me the same undefined dread as filling in official forms (”What is your name?” I don’t know, I sob. I don’t know anything anymore!) I try?

Summaries are medium-hard, but I cheat and keep mine very short.

Titles, on the other hand, I love titles! For the Roadtrip, I’ve set up a challenge for myself that every chapter title should be able to be interpreted in at least two different ways, preferably more, with multiple layers of meanings and symbolism!

Like the “Sticks and Stones” chapter, for example, that starts very literally with Xue Yang fighting Song Lan with his pointy stick, ending up slammed down on the rocks - but it’s really about the very end of the chapter, and the implied “words can never hurt me” - ironically meant, since it’s Xue Yang’s words that almost kill Xiao Xingchen.

Same with “Poison In The Air” which both refers to the venom between all the characters at that point, and very literal corpse dust on the wind.

“Is it you?” of course paraphrases Xiao Xingchen’s question in Yi City, where he first says it after stabbing Song Lan through the chest, asking for Xue Yang to confirm that he’s alright. And then the same phrase when he’s on his knees, feeling Fuxue and realizing who the fierce corpse beside him is, and he says the same words, this time indicating Song Lan. In that chapter, he constantly sways back and forth in how he relates to them both, consciously leaving his questions undirected, to see which one of them will answer, a wordless “is it you?” aimed at them both.

“Reawakenings” alludes both to Xiao Xingchen regaining consciousness and him and Song Lan reconnecting, a reawakening of their affection (love) ending with them holding hands in sleep. “The Coffin House” is an evil red herring, that would seem to refer to Xue Yang’s and Xiao Xingchen’s past in Yi City, but where the final scene topples that perception on its head, grimly becoming something extremely literal.

Next chapter to be posted is called “Bitter Medicine”. Again to be interpreted both somewhat literally and figuratively. ♥

As for the whole fic itself, I wanted a title that 1: referred back to the Chinese origins of the Untamed, 2: something to do with roads and journeying, and 3: preferably something that captured the general air of the story I wanted to tell. I was very pleased to find the Chinese proverb I ended up using; 天堂有路你不走 地狱无门你闯进来: "Heaven has a road but no-one walks it - Hell has no gate, but men will dig to get there". 

It checks the first two boxes, and the sardonic irony of the whole quote fits these idiots and the way they’ve ended up hurting others but mostly themselves, and how they keep doing so inadvertently as they go along. They’re on the way to some sort of redemption, Heaven - but they’re making each others’ lives Hell as they go. They will get better at balancing things along the way, though - eventually. ♥

I could ramble about these metas forever, and I’m very very happy to have been given an excuse to do so! Thank you!! XD

There’s so much sneaky thought going into this story, and it’s a delight to actually be asked to talk about it! :D

[darkpoisonouslove]

I retaliate/reward you with writer asks 2, 3, 4, 12, 22, 24, 36, 37, 39 and 42 ;D

Sounds good to me. XD

Okay, let's break these down. (I've crammed things that should be separated in different paragraphs in the same paragraph because of the structure of the ask. I just think it is easier to navigate it that way even if more paragraphs would make more sense. That way every opinion is constricted in one paragraph and you can tell which point it refers to easier. (At least imo.))

(I can't put a read more link rn as I'm on mobile. Sorry.)

2. Don't use adverbs

I cannot begin to describe to you how much I LOATHE this. It is, by far, some of the stupidest writing advice I have ever read. No, I don't care Stephen King supports this. Stephen King writes mostly horror and in horror you need to maintain suspense so short and to the point is definitely better and cutting adverbs is certainly a way to do that. However, I don't think this applies to all writing. I think this isn't really a genre thing as much as it is a specific case by case thing. And in most instances I think this advice is bullshit. Think about it. Language was created to allow us to express ourselves. Cut all adverbs out of it and that narrows down your way to express yourself. It's kinda like "Oh, hey, my leading hand serves more purpose. I should probably cut off the other one because it's not that effective." Congrats, you just crippled yourself. It's the same with language. Why would you deny yourself the help of an entire group of "tools" to express yourself? I just don't understand it. I suppose you've seen the posts going around about "good" and "bad" adverbs so I won't go into that as I agree that an adverb is a good idea when it adds some meaning to the word that wasn't there before (eg. "cried happily"). Sometimes it can actually make things faster to just "tell" them rather than show them through the context. I think adverbs are as neat as any other part of language and deserve their place in writing.

3. Write what you know

Yes, you should know what the hell you're writing about. Whether it was something that you were familiar with before you started writing or you did your research on the matter. I might be a little biased on this because I kinda hate doing research so I can be swayed towards write only what you are completely familiar with but that would just make things boring. So I think you can write about stuff that isn't quite your area of expertise as long as you put the effort to research it to the proper level depending on what you need it for. If it's more of a mention, you don't need that much knowledge about it but if you intend to make it the subject of your writing, please make sure you understand what you're going to be talking about in the entirety of your story. I am begging you because when you don't, we end up with stuff like 50 Shades of Grey (and I'm not just talking about the sex parts since this book is full of poorly researched stuff that, shockingly, ends up being unbelievable at best, potentially harmful at worst). However, I think that applies to a greater degree to published fiction rather than to fanfiction but let's not get into that debate since it's a completely different topic and I already veered off course.

4. Avoid repetition

This I mostly agree with but it depends on the purpose of the repetition. If it is done in order to establish a theme or motif or to emphasize a point (without overdoing it, of course), I fully support it. (I do that a lot in my personal writing and it shouldn't be that hard to find examples of it when looking at my fics ("What Is the One Thing That Can Never Break?" is the best example of this but I have done it countless times in most of my fics if not all of them since this is one of my fave techniques).) However, there is a thin line between establishing a theme and making dead herrings aka something that is brought up repeatedly without any point to it other than boosting the word count since it doesn't lead to anything and it was already discussed at a prior point (which I might have done a few times myself in some of my longest fics). If you're bringing another angle to an issue you've already looked at or are furthering the point, you should be fine but this is indeed a thin line to tread so it demands a bit of caution. I do believe repetition can be a valuable technique in specific circumstances, though, so it all depends on how it is used.

12 is already answered here

22. Do not use semicolons

My personal opinion on this isn't very applicable to anything else because I am not really quite sure how to properly use semicolons so I avoid them. I also don't really like them in other people's writings. I'm sure they have their uses but I think a lot of authors also overuse them to make those horrendously long sentences that I hate (but have started becoming guilty of as well even though I think that if you can't remember how the sentence started at the end of it, it is too long and needs to be split in some way). It is why I haven't bothered to learn how to operate them. XD But I think that my point about adverbs should be applied here as well. It is another tool you can use and I am sure it can be helpful. So I am not necessarily against it and wouldn't tell someone to stop using them. Only, maybe try using full stops as well? And I'll try to do the same because, like I said, I have started becoming guilty of paragraph long sentences as well. (Just to be clear, sometimes longer sentences are okay. But not when literally every sentence is over 150 words. You need to break them down, spice it up with shorter sentences thrown in the mix.) Also, I think this is an instance of the trap of "bigger is better" for a lot of writers except that here it is "longer is better". It really isn't. And I can tell you why. My scenes have started getting thousands of words long and if I were to write novel, I could hit 50k words with about ten scenes. Most novels are up to 120k words total. Those would be 24 scenes in my numbers but don't you feel like a novel will need more than 24 scenes? Consice writing is definitely a good idea and it is much harder to cut things rather than to add (at least for me). Fanfiction gives more room with the word count but I still think that it is important to be able to convey your point in as little words as possible. (Btw, this is a tangent but long sentences and semicolons appear a lot in academic writing and I hate it even more there because it makes it more incomprehensible than it needs to be (and in a lot of cases it already is written to be as incomprehensible as possible). Just... start another sentence, I am begging you. This one already is a page long, for the love of everything in the world.)

24. Don't edit as you write

A complicated one. Mostly because I have done this. I used to do it a few years back. I (mostly) don't do it anymore. I might stop to edit a typo or change a sentence that just doesn't read right but nothing bigger than that. And you should, arguably, not do that either. Why? Because you may end up deleting the entire paragraph, page, chapter and all that perfecting will have been for naught. It has happened to me when I spent a ton of time perfecting the first chapters of several of my works and some of them I will never finish while others actually need to start from a different point in time so the whole chapter needs to go. Along with all of my efforts. I would say this is mostly for longer and chaptered projects since the structure of a one shot (depending on the length) is easier to figure out and you probably won't need to rearrange parts of it. And if something is really poking your eyes out, you can fix it real quick. But once you have the whole thing, it will be easier to see what needs to stay, what needs to go and what needs to be changed. Sometimes the temptation is hard to resist and it's fine if you give in as long as you're doing it with the knowledge that "yes, this may be all for nothing but I can't look at it like that for another second". Sometimes I would say that you need to go back and see where everything derailed if you can't move on. There was good advice that if you're stuck, the problem is probably a few paragraphs before the point where you hit a wall and it has helped me get over a block a time or two. However, if you can move on without touching anything, you probably should. That can also save you from deleting something that is actually good. I have felt like the whole thing I was writing was terrible but holding back from deleting or even altering anything and, instead, giving it some time to breathe has saved a few fics along the way from being completely butchered. So I think this is, generally, good advice because of the reasons I listed but just like any other rule, it can be bent and broken. (I would say fixing typos is a form of bending it which I allow myself all the time. Spelling is just really important to me.)

36. Never use a verb other than 'said' to tag dialogue

I hate this specific phrasing of it a lot. Never start any rule with never. Of course, you need to use other verbs as well since they were created to express the wide range in which a person may speak their chosen words. My problem with this is the reason that is usually given for it and that is that it distracts the reader. It has never distracted ME. Not a single time. And while I agree that using said most of the time works since people usually speak in a calm, even, steady manner which to describe as simply "said" works well enough, I think that other dialogue tags have their places too. Because people don't always say things. Sometimes they scream them, sometimes they whisper them, sometimes they hiss them, sometimes they snap and so on. Here I think a better phrasing would be to use Syndrome's lesson again that "when everyone is super, no one will be". Dialogue tags different from said are supposed to direct your attention to the change in tone. They're supposed to stand out. If everything stands out, nothing will. (This philosophy is so applicable to so many things and I think we have to take a minute to appreciate how valuable the lesson of "The Incredibles" is.) So as with every other writing tool, if used accordingly, dialogue tags (all of them, not just "said") can only be of help and will not hinder you in any way. Just don't put more frosting on the cake than there is cake, you know?

37. Do not start a sentence with a conjunction

FUCK THIS RULE so much. This one you have to keep to only in academic writing. The moment you step through the threshold of creative writing this rule should be crushed under your soles. I often start sentences with "and" or "but" because I am looking to emphasize whether this sentence agrees with the previous one or not. Think about it. When you say "I liked him. But I didn't trust him.", it reads very different from "I liked him but I didn't trust him.". It focuses your attention on that contrast and makes you pay more attention to the objection to the first sentence that comes in the second. That can be incredibly valuable and help emphasize what you're saying in a more subtle way than repetition would. This is one of my favorite techniques of focusing the attention on where I want it to be and I will never give it up. Sue me if you want. And see if I care.

39. If there's a story you want to read but it hasn't been written yet, you must write it

Must is too strong a verb. You are not obliged to write anything. I couldn't possibly write everything I want to see written in a single lifetime. Calm down there. I think what people need to understand here is more that "if you want the story done the exact way that you would do it, you will have to do it yourself because no one else will do it the very same way". Doesn't mean that someone can't come close enough (I had that luck once) but it is unlikely that they'll do it in a way that you won't have any complaints about. So, really, "if you want something done right, do it yourself". But this can also mean "you have something fresh that the world needs because no one else has done it yet" (or at least not the same way you would do it). Which is cool but you really don't owe anyone anything. If that story is what you want to read and write (emphasis on that because writing is hard and takes a lot of energy, guys), then great! Go right ahead. But if you don't feel like doing that, you can leave it alone. Someone else might do it in time but with that we loop back to my previous point. I think that you should write whatever you want to write whether no one has written it before or it has been done hundreds and thousands of times.

42. Write your first draft by hand

Very mixed feelings here. I used to do that. The main reason for that is that I didn't trust myself to edit quite as sufficiently if I wrote it directly in a document as I would if I had to transcribe it from paper to the computer. For me personally, it is easier to change sentences when there is only blank space after that sentence since I don't have to worry whether the next sentence I have will still make sense once I'm done rewriting the current one. It was just easier to change things. A way to deal with that is to just press enter a few times before you start editing the sentence so that it looks like there is nothing after it and you're free to change it as you please. However, writing directly in a document is definitely faster and since I was having a lot of things to do in a limited time, I started doing that. It helped get over the fear of a blank page to a degree. It is faster. And I don't think I have noticed a change in the quality of my fics. Not a negative one at least. I just know that if I had had to write the 10k+-word ones by hand before typing them on the computer, I would've lost it. It would've taken way more time and patience than I was willing to give these ideas. Writing the words by hand sometimes helps me feel them better, though, (if that makes sense) and I wouldn't completely give up on it. I like to go with my intuition when deciding whether to write it by hand or type it directly in a document and it has worked out well enough for me so far.

[brooke-schafer3]

Top SEO Practices For 2020 | Search Recon

Why SEO Is Important For 2020?

The hardest part about managing your SEO is the new developments that come with advancing technology. Social media, Google updates, website tool development, user platforms all change and develop over time. This requires all website development teams to keep a sharp eye on their SERPs and what they need to do to stay relevant, reliable, trusted, and popular.

It isn’t just about keyword density or meta tags anymore. Yes, all of the prior tools are still relevant. However, you need to look beyond your current practices and adopt new skills. Going from page one to the sand box or from the sand box to page one can mean all the difference in the world. If you are serious about how your potential clients find you via a search engine then you must be serious about your SEO every year and after every major development.

What Is On-Page SEO?

On-page or on-site SEO has become much easier to optimize, particularly with the number of tools on the web available. This article won’t dive into them too much as the assumption is that you have them under control. However, there is movement in the use of websites as a whole. Current on-page SEO isn’t just focused on tags and meta data. Google ranks based on what it perceives as a high-quality site as a whole.

This means you need to take a holistic approach to web development for maximum on-page SEO potential. Low click through rates and high bounce rates will kill your rankings. No matter how easy a key word is to rank, how you utilize your information is key. Classic on-page SEO practices will unlock the door but a high quality experience and adaptive structure will get your site through the door.

What Is Off-Page SEO?

Similarly, off-page or off-site SEO is built on a solid foundational idea that back

linking can raise your trust factor and worthiness to rank higher in Google. But what does that mean when how people use digital platforms change? It means that you need to evolve with the times and change your strategies as society changes how it interacts with the digital world.

The most significant example is social media. Profile links are trash in 2020. Some social media sites are worthless for as the sites themselves are no longer popular to draw an audience or click through rates. Google knows this and knows where people get their information.  Thinking about Facebook? Start a Facebook Group on your niche. Thinking about Instagram? Get influencers to grow your traffic. Thinking about TikTok? Again, it is all about the influencers.

What SEO Practices Should I Be Focusing On?

There are probably 10s if not 100s of things that you could be doing to maximize your SEO potential. But that doesn’t really mean anything if you don’t have content and authority to back it up. If you are ready to SEO optimize your website the best thing you can do is plan, plan, and plan again.

Write out your strategy from large groupings to individual actions. Make multiple checklists and an accounting of all of the costs for those actions. Make sure that each of your actions is either: 1) common and basic SEO necessity like meta tags and meta data; or 2) industry specific to your nice like influencer marketing for fashion dropshippers. Below are the items you will need to think about.

BERT And Optimized Experience

Is there a running tally for the number of Google updates? There have been too many to count. The BERT update was a major update. It knocked the breath out of a lot of people that use spun articles. Why? BERT affected most spun articles because BERT uses natural language algorithms to score the quality of your articles.

Regardless of the keyword density or the keyword stuffing or the quality of the spun article, BERT can weed out the ruffians based on the context of the conversation. So, you don’t have to use the same keyword over and over. You can talk natural, and must talk naturally. Instead of using “car accident attorney in Chicago” 10 times in a 1000 word article you can use any type of synonym for attorney and talk about accidents in general. BERT can recognize this.

Google made this change because it recognized that the reader wants engaging text. The reader doesn’t want a list of facts in sentence form repeated 50 times. The reader wants a narrative that supplies useful and diverse information from word 1 to word 1000.

High Quality Content

Content is king. Content will always be king. If you want to dominate your niche, you need to dominate your content. This isn’t particularly new. However, the trend for Google is to continually focus on the ability of your site to deliver content that is useful and authoritative to the world. Wikipedia ranks because it is useful and authoritative. Make your site the Wikipedia of your niche. Give the reader something unique and important. Google will reward your effort.

Google EAT Criteria

For Google, your web reputation comes down to 3 things, E-A-T. You can E-A-T the bear, or the bear can E-A-T you. (Hint: Google is the bear) E-A-T stands for Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. If you can promote these three qualities on your website then you will be light-years ahead of your competition. Start to increase the length of your articles. Start to use proper English and subdivisions.

Start to answer questions in your articles. For example say you are writing on widgets. The article body could be divided up into subcategories that all started with a question: 1) What type of widget should I use for X application? 2) What size widget yields the best results? 3) Where can I get the best and cheapest widgets? It is completely industry and niche dependent. However, the point is to show Google that your articles answer important questions and provide the expertise and authoritativeness to be very trustworthy (E-A-T).

Mobile First Development

How many people still use there desktop at home? A lot, sure. But how many people use their phone to brose? Literally everyone! Google is quickly moving to a mobile first indexing pattern. This means you need to develop your site as if the mobile experience is the only worthwhile experience. Soon it might be, at least as far as Google thinks.

Desktop or laptop browser optimization is secondary to the experience of the mobile user. This means that you need to focus on the utility of a smaller screen, no mouse, and near instantaneous load times. Super easy, right? Don’t worry, everyone is in the same boat.

Secured Websites

If your website isn’t protected by a SSL then you don’t need to worry about much else, you won’t be ranked soon anyway. SSL is the standard of the industry. Accept it, own it, and use it. Not only has Google started to enforce this standard but the users are becoming more aware of their own privacy concerns and navigating away from sites that aren’t secure.

Diversified Knowledge Portfolio

This is a fancy word for the fact that your off-site SEO needs to focus on your social media profiles. This includes YouTube. Your digital content is no longer just articles. Google will start to rank videos as the first listing for certain searches. Why? First, it does because it owns YouTube. Second, people use YouTube as a search engine. They don’t necessarily want to read something. Sometimes they want to be told something and shown it in motion. Think about all of the platforms your service or product could be on, not as an advertisement, but as useful content.

Keyword Search Importance

If your website isn’t protected by a SSL then you don’t need to worry about much else, you won’t be ranked soon anyway. SSL is the standard of the industry. Accept it, own it, and use it. Not only has Google started to enforce this standard but the users are becoming more aware of their own privacy concerns and navigating away from sites that aren’t secure.

Website Voice Search

As mentioned earlier, your content needs to answer questions. This is growing in importance due to smart home devices. Sure, people still physically type into Google things like: “how do I hot wire my car.” However, if they can just get Siri, Alexa, or Google’s Assistant to tell them how to do something, they will just verbally ask. “Hey, Siri, what is the weather out today?”

Start optimizing your content to make it friendly for voice searches. Start to answer the Who, What, When, Where, and Why questions related to your niche. For example, for SEO you could ask: Who provides the best SEO help? What is SEO? Where on my website is on-page SEO? When was the last Google update? Why is SEO important?

Final Takeaway

SEO may seem daunting. There are countless ways to either screw up or forget and miss something important. However, don’t forget that each item you do to maximize your SEO the better you are making your website. SEO is all about the long game, not the short game. Go into it with a plan, execute that plan, and then add or modify as the digital world evolves and changes.

Need help with SEO or marketing? Contact us or use a Free SEO Analysis button.

Free SEO Audit

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source https://search-recon.com/seo-top-practices-2020/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=seo-top-practices-2020

[remelitalia]

How to Use Email Images to Boost CTR

Email is one of the most effective marketing campaigns out there — in fact, the average ROI of an email campaign is 122%.

For those who aren’t afraid to take a few extra steps, email images will spice up your campaign and help your email campaign stand out.

I’m going to show you how to leverage images in email the right way.

Email Images: Yes or No?

You can use email images, but should you?

I want to start by asking a few questions, because these will help you determine if using email images helps or hurts you. Read these and answer yes or no:

Do my images support my brand?

Have I optimized the image size?

Am I using the right number of images?

Am I properly using image alt tags?

Are my emails easily accessible?

Chances are you may not even know the answer to all these questions.

If that’s the case, then you’re not getting all you can from your email images, and this guide will help you.

But it’s not quite that simple. Having email images can boost your email’s aesthetics, but how do you increase email click-through rates with images?

What Is a Good Email Click-Through Rate?

Your click-through rate is the percentage of people who click on an image, link, or video in your email to continue through to your content. The average click-through rate is around 2.5% across all industries.

This number might sound a little low, but keep in mind, we’re talking about click-through and not open rates, which is the number of people who read your email.  

Including images in your campaigns is a great way to increase engagement and improve your chances of driving traffic or even sales.

Images in Email Marketing: The Magic Ratio

Many marketers will tell you there’s a specific magic ratio of image to text, but it’s not always true. What is true is image-only emails will almost always cost you a trip to the spam folder.

Do that too much, and you’ll find your whole domain blacklisted.

That’s no good.

The ideal ratio is around 30-40% image to text. Any higher, you run the risk of triggering spam filters. Any less will make your email difficult to read.

The only way to find out what works for your audience is to test it! Use A/B testing to figure out what works and what doesn’t.

Keep Your Email Images Consistent

How many times have you searched for something on Google, found what you wanted, and clicked through to the website only to realize the link didn’t lead where you expected — at all?

It’s frustrating.

The truth is, you might be doing this to people right now without even realizing it.

Your email image needs to align with your brand and remain consistent throughout your marketing campaign.

Make sure when someone decides to open your email, it remains true to your company message, and all the emails look relatively similar.

If you’re using blue headers with a specific font in your campaign, it should match the landing page your visitor ends on.

Personalization and Targeting Are Key

Email personalization is more important than ever.

Why? 

Because there’s more impersonal spammy communication out there than ever before. Personalization changes the way your email appears based on the person you’re targeting.

Just think about it. How often have you received an email that seems like it was made for you?

Not often, right?

This is where you can get ahead of your competition by doing the things no one else is willing to do.

No product or service has “universal appeal,” so you need to narrow down your email images to a targeted audience.

According to Invesp, 59% of online shoppers find products more interesting when you personalize your marketing approach.

So, how do you personalize your email images?

Cater to Repeat Buyers

Find products people need to purchase regularly and appeal to people who bought in the past. Amazon uses this strategy, resulting in 60% conversions from their on-site recommendations.

Here’s an example from Wayfair that was based on browsing history:

Recommend New Products

Recommend products to customers based on their previous buying history. Go the extra mile and even call it “Selections for [insert name].” That strategy helps create an “in-store experience” for your subscribers.

It’s as if you went to the clothing rack and specifically picked out items you thought would look great on them!

Ask Questions

If you’re selling a service or a digital subscription, you can ask your subscribers why they haven’t made a purchase yet. Give them a chance to sound off on what’s holding them back.

Doing this not only helps the email feel more personal and intimate, but it allows you to get feedback on what you could do better.

The ALT Tag Is More Important than You Think

We all know the importance of ALT tags for website images, but what about images in email marketing?

Are you currently using ALT tags properly in your email campaigns?

When the email client doesn’t download images correctly, your ALT tag becomes your lifeline for a few big reasons:

When the email client doesn’t download the image, the ALT text displays to the email recipient.

ALT text provides context if images aren’t loading.

ALT tags make it easier for those who use screen readers and other accessible technology to understand the image.

When all else fails, the ALT tag might be the thing getting the email recipient to open.

How to Create ALT Tags for Emails?

On the back end, an ALT tag looks like this:

<img src=”youremailimage.jpg” border=”0″ alt=”How to Use Email Images in Email Marketing” width=”482px” height=”205″ />

Where it says “alt=” is where your ALT text goes. So, if an email image doesn’t load properly, that’s what will display across the email text area instead of the image.

The process of adding it might vary based on what email client you use. Here’s how to add ALT tags on MailChimp, for example.

Use the Best Format for Email Images

You have three primary formatting options for your email image. PNGs, JPEGs, and GIFs are the most common choices. Let’s look at the pros and cons of each.

PNG

Portable Network Graphics offer a large color palette, which means compressing the file size doesn’t impact the image’s resolution.

Another benefit is that you can add transparent layers, making it easy to embed the image on top of other content. This lets you blend the background image into an email with live text.

The only downside to PNGs is the file size is much larger compared to JPEGs and GIFs because of the image quality.

JPEG

JPEGs offer large image compression, but doing so impacts the quality of your image. When you reduce a JPEG image, it groups each section into larger blocks, which causes the image to become blurry — which isn’t a good look.

While these are the most common image types, I wouldn’t recommend using them for email images.

GIF

You get less color vibrance with GIFs because they use an 8-bit color palette compared to a 24-bit palette with PNGs and JPEGs.

The obvious difference is the animation effect. Using GIFs in your emails increases interactivity and can allow you to show more than one product with the same image.

How to Find the Best Email Images

Finding the right images to get your email message across is crucial. There’s a variety of different types of images you can use, and each has its own purpose. Let’s look at a few.

Charts and Graphs

Providing statistics and data is almost useless without a graphic to back it up. When you provide charts in your email to prove a point, it makes it much easier for the recipient to grasp your message.

Inside’s business newsletter has a Series A funding tracker where you can see what startups recently got funding above $5m:

This easily shows at a glance who got the largest amount of funding, by size and color.

Piktochart is an infographic tool that makes it easy to create free charts (with a watermark). Just enter the data and select the type of chart you want.

Stock Photos

Stock images are the easiest way to add images to your email marketing campaign. There’s a large assortment of sites to choose from like Shutterstock, Depositphotos, and Pixabay.

When sourcing the best image, choose something relatable to your audience. If you’re targeting middle-age moms of toddlers, find images that appeal to your demographic.

Don’t just add images to add images — make sure they have a purpose.

Screenshots

Instead of using a numbered list to explain how something works, turn the process into beautiful imagery with screenshots.

Awesome Screenshot is a browser extension on Chrome, Safari, and Firefox that makes it easy to capture screenshots directly from the browser. You can capture a whole page or a part and download it to your computer.

Personal Photos

Keeping it real and making things personal is never a bad choice. Email marketing is all about pulling back the curtain and showing people what you’re all about.

You don’t need professional photos to make sales, and the realistic and pure nature of personal photos can be what you need.

Illustrated Content

Illustrations are a nice way to expand your possibilities. While you might be able to do a certain amount of things with a product, an illustration can display limitless options while staying true to your brand.

Here’s an example from comedian Nate Bargatze announcing a drive-in tour. After this image, his email contained a text call-to-action with more information.

Consider hiring an illustrator on Fiverr or Upwork to get affordable illustrations.

User-Generated Content

User-generated content is huge. In fact, 76% of customers trust content coming from “average” people versus the brand itself.

UGC helps create trust, and it offers authority from a relatable audience. For example, imagine how an image of someone using your product in their home would outperform a stock photo or a cartoon using it.

Offer rewards to happy customers by having them upload images to social media using specific hashtags and use those images in your email marketing campaigns.

Never Send Image-Only Emails

While images are important – you should never send an image-only email.

Here’s why:

Image Blocking Is Real

If you work in the corporate world, you understand this point. Many companies block images by default, and in fact, 43% of email users have their images turned off.

So, if you don’t have your ALT text game up to par, your campaign won’t load properly.

Email Image File Size

Email image sizes can cause subscribers with slow connections to lag and become unresponsive. If your email takes too long to load, your subscribers are going to click out or even unsubscribe because they can’t get your emails to open correctly.

Email Accessibility Is Changing

More people are using voice assistants to read emails, and these do not recognize ALT text or HTML yet. So, if the user is trying to read your image-only email, you’re out of luck.

So, what’s the ideal email image format?

Background Images with Live Text

Remember earlier, when we talked about the pros of using PNG files for your email images? Here’s where this all comes together.

Background images applied as an element to the email allow you to put live text over it, providing the most accessibility. Even if the subscriber has images disabled, they’ll see the text, which ensures all your subscribers will get something from the email.

Bulletproof Buttons

Including your CTA in your image is a fatal error. If the image is blocked or doesn’t load properly, the button or CTA you have is hidden and completely missed by the recipient.

Using bulletproof buttons allows you to build the button with code, rather than images. So if everything fails and your image doesn’t load, the subscriber will still receive your text and CTA.

Conclusion

Email images are an effective strategy to increase your email campaigns’ success, but you can’t take shortcuts.

Using the right image size, format, and design is critical to ensuring your emails get delivered and get results.

Follow all of the best and worst practices outlined in this guide, and you’ll be well on your way to a higher click-through rate and a repeatable email process that will drive traffic for years to come.

Need some help perfecting your email image strategy? Drop a comment below.

The post How to Use Email Images to Boost CTR appeared first on Neil Patel.

Original content source: https://neilpatel.com/blog/email-images/ via https://neilpatel.com

See the original post, How to Use Email Images to Boost CTR that is shared from https://imtrainingparadise.weebly.com/home/how-to-use-email-images-to-boost-ctr via https://imtrainingparadise.weebly.com/home

[reviewandbonuss]

How to Use Email Images to Boost CTR

Email is one of the most effective marketing campaigns out there — in fact, the average ROI of an email campaign is 122%.

For those who aren’t afraid to take a few extra steps, email images will spice up your campaign and help your email campaign stand out.

I’m going to show you how to leverage images in email the right way.

Email Images: Yes or No?

You can use email images, but should you?

I want to start by asking a few questions, because these will help you determine if using email images helps or hurts you. Read these and answer yes or no:

Do my images support my brand?

Have I optimized the image size?

Am I using the right number of images?

Am I properly using image alt tags?

Are my emails easily accessible?

Chances are you may not even know the answer to all these questions.

If that’s the case, then you’re not getting all you can from your email images, and this guide will help you.

But it’s not quite that simple. Having email images can boost your email’s aesthetics, but how do you increase email click-through rates with images?

What Is a Good Email Click-Through Rate?

Your click-through rate is the percentage of people who click on an image, link, or video in your email to continue through to your content. The average click-through rate is around 2.5% across all industries.

This number might sound a little low, but keep in mind, we’re talking about click-through and not open rates, which is the number of people who read your email.  

Including images in your campaigns is a great way to increase engagement and improve your chances of driving traffic or even sales.

Images in Email Marketing: The Magic Ratio

Many marketers will tell you there’s a specific magic ratio of image to text, but it’s not always true. What is true is image-only emails will almost always cost you a trip to the spam folder.

Do that too much, and you’ll find your whole domain blacklisted.

That’s no good.

The ideal ratio is around 30-40% image to text. Any higher, you run the risk of triggering spam filters. Any less will make your email difficult to read.

The only way to find out what works for your audience is to test it! Use A/B testing to figure out what works and what doesn’t.

Keep Your Email Images Consistent

How many times have you searched for something on Google, found what you wanted, and clicked through to the website only to realize the link didn’t lead where you expected — at all?

It’s frustrating.

The truth is, you might be doing this to people right now without even realizing it.

Your email image needs to align with your brand and remain consistent throughout your marketing campaign.

Make sure when someone decides to open your email, it remains true to your company message, and all the emails look relatively similar.

If you’re using blue headers with a specific font in your campaign, it should match the landing page your visitor ends on.

Personalization and Targeting Are Key

Email personalization is more important than ever.

Why? 

Because there’s more impersonal spammy communication out there than ever before. Personalization changes the way your email appears based on the person you’re targeting.

Just think about it. How often have you received an email that seems like it was made for you?

Not often, right?

This is where you can get ahead of your competition by doing the things no one else is willing to do.

No product or service has “universal appeal,” so you need to narrow down your email images to a targeted audience.

According to Invesp, 59% of online shoppers find products more interesting when you personalize your marketing approach.

So, how do you personalize your email images?

Cater to Repeat Buyers

Find products people need to purchase regularly and appeal to people who bought in the past. Amazon uses this strategy, resulting in 60% conversions from their on-site recommendations.

Here’s an example from Wayfair that was based on browsing history:

Recommend New Products

Recommend products to customers based on their previous buying history. Go the extra mile and even call it “Selections for [insert name].” That strategy helps create an “in-store experience” for your subscribers.

It’s as if you went to the clothing rack and specifically picked out items you thought would look great on them!

Ask Questions

If you’re selling a service or a digital subscription, you can ask your subscribers why they haven’t made a purchase yet. Give them a chance to sound off on what’s holding them back.

Doing this not only helps the email feel more personal and intimate, but it allows you to get feedback on what you could do better.

The ALT Tag Is More Important than You Think

We all know the importance of ALT tags for website images, but what about images in email marketing?

Are you currently using ALT tags properly in your email campaigns?

When the email client doesn’t download images correctly, your ALT tag becomes your lifeline for a few big reasons:

When the email client doesn’t download the image, the ALT text displays to the email recipient.

ALT text provides context if images aren’t loading.

ALT tags make it easier for those who use screen readers and other accessible technology to understand the image.

When all else fails, the ALT tag might be the thing getting the email recipient to open.

How to Create ALT Tags for Emails?

On the back end, an ALT tag looks like this:

<img src=”youremailimage.jpg” border=”0″ alt=”How to Use Email Images in Email Marketing” width=”482px” height=”205″ />

Where it says “alt=” is where your ALT text goes. So, if an email image doesn’t load properly, that’s what will display across the email text area instead of the image.

The process of adding it might vary based on what email client you use. Here’s how to add ALT tags on MailChimp, for example.

Use the Best Format for Email Images

You have three primary formatting options for your email image. PNGs, JPEGs, and GIFs are the most common choices. Let’s look at the pros and cons of each.

PNG

Portable Network Graphics offer a large color palette, which means compressing the file size doesn’t impact the image’s resolution.

Another benefit is that you can add transparent layers, making it easy to embed the image on top of other content. This lets you blend the background image into an email with live text.

The only downside to PNGs is the file size is much larger compared to JPEGs and GIFs because of the image quality.

JPEG

JPEGs offer large image compression, but doing so impacts the quality of your image. When you reduce a JPEG image, it groups each section into larger blocks, which causes the image to become blurry — which isn’t a good look.

While these are the most common image types, I wouldn’t recommend using them for email images.

GIF

You get less color vibrance with GIFs because they use an 8-bit color palette compared to a 24-bit palette with PNGs and JPEGs.

The obvious difference is the animation effect. Using GIFs in your emails increases interactivity and can allow you to show more than one product with the same image.

How to Find the Best Email Images

Finding the right images to get your email message across is crucial. There’s a variety of different types of images you can use, and each has its own purpose. Let’s look at a few.

Charts and Graphs

Providing statistics and data is almost useless without a graphic to back it up. When you provide charts in your email to prove a point, it makes it much easier for the recipient to grasp your message.

Inside’s business newsletter has a Series A funding tracker where you can see what startups recently got funding above $5m:

This easily shows at a glance who got the largest amount of funding, by size and color.

Piktochart is an infographic tool that makes it easy to create free charts (with a watermark). Just enter the data and select the type of chart you want.

Stock Photos

Stock images are the easiest way to add images to your email marketing campaign. There’s a large assortment of sites to choose from like Shutterstock, Depositphotos, and Pixabay.

When sourcing the best image, choose something relatable to your audience. If you’re targeting middle-age moms of toddlers, find images that appeal to your demographic.

Don’t just add images to add images — make sure they have a purpose.

Screenshots

Instead of using a numbered list to explain how something works, turn the process into beautiful imagery with screenshots.

Awesome Screenshot is a browser extension on Chrome, Safari, and Firefox that makes it easy to capture screenshots directly from the browser. You can capture a whole page or a part and download it to your computer.

Personal Photos

Keeping it real and making things personal is never a bad choice. Email marketing is all about pulling back the curtain and showing people what you’re all about.

You don’t need professional photos to make sales, and the realistic and pure nature of personal photos can be what you need.

Illustrated Content

Illustrations are a nice way to expand your possibilities. While you might be able to do a certain amount of things with a product, an illustration can display limitless options while staying true to your brand.

Here’s an example from comedian Nate Bargatze announcing a drive-in tour. After this image, his email contained a text call-to-action with more information.

Consider hiring an illustrator on Fiverr or Upwork to get affordable illustrations.

User-Generated Content

User-generated content is huge. In fact, 76% of customers trust content coming from “average” people versus the brand itself.

UGC helps create trust, and it offers authority from a relatable audience. For example, imagine how an image of someone using your product in their home would outperform a stock photo or a cartoon using it.

Offer rewards to happy customers by having them upload images to social media using specific hashtags and use those images in your email marketing campaigns.

Never Send Image-Only Emails

While images are important – you should never send an image-only email.

Here’s why:

Image Blocking Is Real

If you work in the corporate world, you understand this point. Many companies block images by default, and in fact, 43% of email users have their images turned off.

So, if you don’t have your ALT text game up to par, your campaign won’t load properly.

Email Image File Size

Email image sizes can cause subscribers with slow connections to lag and become unresponsive. If your email takes too long to load, your subscribers are going to click out or even unsubscribe because they can’t get your emails to open correctly.

Email Accessibility Is Changing

More people are using voice assistants to read emails, and these do not recognize ALT text or HTML yet. So, if the user is trying to read your image-only email, you’re out of luck.

So, what’s the ideal email image format?

Background Images with Live Text

Remember earlier, when we talked about the pros of using PNG files for your email images? Here’s where this all comes together.

Background images applied as an element to the email allow you to put live text over it, providing the most accessibility. Even if the subscriber has images disabled, they’ll see the text, which ensures all your subscribers will get something from the email.

Bulletproof Buttons

Including your CTA in your image is a fatal error. If the image is blocked or doesn’t load properly, the button or CTA you have is hidden and completely missed by the recipient.

Using bulletproof buttons allows you to build the button with code, rather than images. So if everything fails and your image doesn’t load, the subscriber will still receive your text and CTA.

Conclusion

Email images are an effective strategy to increase your email campaigns’ success, but you can’t take shortcuts.

Using the right image size, format, and design is critical to ensuring your emails get delivered and get results.

Follow all of the best and worst practices outlined in this guide, and you’ll be well on your way to a higher click-through rate and a repeatable email process that will drive traffic for years to come.

Need some help perfecting your email image strategy? Drop a comment below.

The post How to Use Email Images to Boost CTR appeared first on Neil Patel.

[our-dailyimpact]

10 SURE WAYS TO SAVE MONEY BY VICKI ROBIN AND JOE DOMINGUEZ

1. Don’t Go Shopping

If you don’t go shopping, you won’t spend money. Of course, if you need something from the store, go and buy it. But don’t just go shopping. About 53 percent of groceries and 47 percent of hardware-store purchases are “spur of the moment.”4 Indeed, shopping—at malls and online—is one of our favorite national pastimes.

More than the simple act of acquiring needed goods and services, shopping attempts to fill (but fails, since we have to shop so often) myriad needs: for socializing and time structuring, for a reward after a job well done, for an antidepressant, for esteem-boosting, self-assertion, status and nurturing. An alien anthropologist might conclude that the mall is our place of worship, and shopping the central ritual of communion with our deity. Lewis Lapham observes, “We express our longing for the ineffable in the wolfishness of our appetite... The feasts of consumption thus become rituals of communion.”5 Consumption seems to be our favorite high, our nationally sanctioned addiction, the all-American form of substance abuse. So don’t go shopping. And while you’re at it, stay away from advertising that whets your appetite for stuff you don’t want. And for pity’s sake don’t tune in to the Home Shopping Network, and the like. You may be saving more than money. You may be saving your sanity, not to speak of your soul.

2. Live Within Your Means

This notion is so outmoded that some readers might not even know what it signifies. To live within your means is to buy only what you can prudently afford, to avoid debt unless you have an assurance that you will be able to pay it promptly and always to have something put away for a rainy day. It was quite a fashionable way to live a couple of short generations ago, before we started living beyond our means. There are two sides to the coin of living beyond your means. The shiny side is that you can have everything you want right now. The tarnished side is that you will pay for it with your life. Buying on credit, from cars to houses to vacations, often results in paying three times the purchase price. Is going to Hawaii for two weeks this year worth working perhaps four additional months next year to pay it off? This doesn’t mean you have to cut up all your credit cards—you just have to avoid using them as much as possible. We recognize that credit cards can be a way to put food on the table for those who unexpectedly hit hard times. But in general, it’s important to distinguish between necessity and indulgence so you have as little debt as possible to pay off. Living within your means suggests that you wait until you have the money before you buy something. This gives you the benefit of avoiding interest charges.  It also gives you a waiting period during which you may well discover that you don’t want some of those things after all. He who hesitates saves money. The bright side of living within your means is that you will use and enjoy what you have and harvest a full measure of fulfillment from it, whether it’s your old car, your old coat, or your old house. It also means that you can weather the economic bad times when they come—which they will.

3. Take Care of What You Have

There is one thing we all have that we want to last a long time: our bodies. Simple attention to the proven preventive practices will save you lots of money. Flossing and brushing your teeth, for example, could save thousands in dental bills. And eating what you know agrees with your body (judging by your energy, not by your taste buds) may save you thousands in expensive procedures—not to mention your life. Extend this principle to all your possessions. Regular oil changes are known to extend the life of your car. Cleaning your tools extends their life. (How many hairdryers and vacuum cleaners have choked to death on hairballs?) Dusting your refrigerator coils saves energy and could save your refrigerator. One big difference between living beings and machines is that machines are not self-healing. If you ignore a headache it will probably go away. If you ignore a funny noise in your engine you could throw a rod, burn out a water pump, or otherwise incur major (and costly) damage. Many of us have lived with excess for so many years that it no longer occurs to us to maintain what we have. “There’s always more where that came from,” we tell ourselves. But more costs money. And more may not, in the long run, be available.

4. Wear It Out

What’s the last item you wore out? If it weren’t for the fashion industry (and boredom) we could all enjoy the same basic wardrobe for many years. Survey your possessions. Are you simply upgrading or duplicating last year’s electronic equipment, furniture, kitchenware, carpeting, and linens, or are you truly wearing them out? Think about how much money you would save if you simply decided to use things even 20 percent longer. If you usually replace your towels every two years, try replacing them every two and a half years. If you trade-in your car every three years, try extending that to four. If you buy a new coat every other winter, see whether every third winter would do just as well. And when you’re about to buy something, ask yourself, “Do I already have one of these that is in perfectly usable condition?” Another way to save money is to ask, before trashing something, whether there might be another way to use part or all of it. Old letters and e-mails become scrap paper. Old dishcloths become cleaning rags. Old magazines become art materials. Old grocery bags become . . . grocery bags again, or garbage bags. A word of caution to the already frugal. Using something until you wear it out does not mean using it until it wears you out. If you must continually fiddle with a lamp to make it work and you’ve already tried repairing it, it may not be worth your life energy to coax it along for another year. If your car is taking you for a ride, costing more hours in tinkering (or more money in repairs) than it’s giving you in service, buy a newer one. If your knee joints are suffering from running shoes that have lost their bounce, it would be cheaper to buy a new pair (on sale) than to have knee surgery.

5. Do It Yourself

Can you change the oil in your car? Fix a plumbing leak? Do your taxes? Make your gifts? Change the tire on your bicycle? Bake a cake from scratch? Build a bookshelf? Refinish furniture? Plant a garden? Hem a pair of pants? Cut your family’s hair? Form your nonprofit corporation? It used to be that we learned basic life skills from our parents in the process of growing up. Then the Industrial Revolution put our parents in factories and, after the passing of child labor and mandatory public education laws, put us in schools. Next our grandparents were put in rest homes, removing the people who traditionally taught life skills to the children while the parents worked. Eventually home economics and shop classes had to be incorporated in the curriculum as supplements to the ever-decreasing skill-nourishment we got at home. By the 1970s it was no longer fashionable for mothers to stay at home with their children. By the 1980s many couples assumed it wasn’t even possible, economically, for either parent to stay home with their children. Is it any wonder that the only way we know how to take care of ourselves in the twenty-first century is to be consumers of goods and services provided by others? To reverse that trend, just ask yourself, when you’re about to hire an expert: “Can I do this myself? What would it take to learn how? Would it be a useful skill to know?” In the context of a fast-paced, high-tech life a “do-it-yourself” orientation might seem quaint, but most humans, throughout history and on the planet today, are far more able than most of us to make and provide for themselves what they need for daily living—and many experts think that we’ll be thrown back on our resources increase in the coming decades. Years ago, when Suzie T. was young and lived in Fiji with her doctor husband for several months, she was embarrassed by how the native Fijians seemed to revere them. She tried to diminish their respect to an appropriate level, but they would have none of it. Then she discovered that since they made—and could repair—every single thing they depended on to live, they assumed that Suzie and Bill made their transistor radio, watch, and typewriter. They were unable to understand that no, these were made by others and Suzie had no idea how. Basic living and survival skills can be learned through Web sites, adult education classes, extension agents, and, last but not least, books. Every breakdown can be used as an opportunity for learning and empowerment. What you can’t do, or choose not to do, you can hire others to do and tag along for the ride. Every bit of your energy invested in solving these breakdowns not only teaches you something you need to know for the next time but helps prevent mistakes and reduces the bill. One FIer tells the story of how her heating system failed one winter. Three companies sent out repair people to assess the problem and make a bid. Each one told her with absolute certainty what the problem was. Unfortunately, each told her a different story. So she cracked the books, meditated on the Rube Goldberg maze of pipes, came to an educated guess, and chose the company that came closest to her analysis, thus saving herself hundreds of dollars of unnecessary and possibly destructive work. By staying with the repairman and observing his work she also was able to avert a few more expensive mistakes and to save (expensive) time by doing some of the simpler tasks. A typical working couple might have paid ten times what she did to have the job done and then felt fortunate to have two paychecks “since the cost of living in the modern world is so high.”

6. Anticipate Your Needs

Forethought in purchasing can bring tremendous savings. With enough lead time you will inevitably see the items you need to go on sale by the time you need them—at 20 to 50 percent under the usual price. Keep current on Web discounts and catalogs and sale flyers of national and local catalog merchandisers. Read the sale ads in the Sunday paper. If you have access to the Internet, type “discount merchandise” or “price comparison” into your Web browser and find the current meta sites that allow you to comparison shop. Online auctions allow you to see the prices discounters and warehouses might be offering. Watch for seasonal bargains such as January and August “white sales,” holiday sales (such as Memorial Day and Labor Day), year-end clearance sales, and back-to-school sales—but be sure these are real sales. By simply observing the poor condition of your car’s left rear tire while it still has some life left, you can anticipate a need. By simply being aware of this need you will naturally notice the phenomenal tire sale that will appear in the sports section of your Sunday newspaper three weeks from now—and you’ll know it’s a phenomenal sale because you have been watching prices. In the shorter term, shopping at the corner convenience store can be expensive. Anticipating your needs—that you’ll be wanting evening snacks, that you’ll run out of milk mid-week or that you’ll need paper for your printer—can eliminate running out to the corner store to pick up these items. Instead you can purchase them during your supermarket shopping or on a run to the office supply store. This can result in significant savings. Anticipating your needs also eliminates one of the biggest threats to your frugality—impulse buying. If you haven’t anticipated needing something when you leave your house at 3:05, chances are you don’t need it at 3:10 when you’re standing at the gazingus-pin counter at the corner store. We’re not saying you should buy only things that are on your premeditated shopping list (although that isn’t such a bad idea for compulsive shoppers); we are saying that you must be scrupulously honest when you’re out and about. Saying, “I anticipate needing this,” as you’re drooling over a left-handed veeblefitzer or cashmere sweater is not the same as having already anticipated needing one and recognizing that this particular one is a bargain. Remember the corollary to Parkinson’s Law (“The work expands to fit the time allowed for its completion”): “Needs expand to encompass whatever you want to buy on impulse.”

7. Research Value, Quality, Durability, Multiple Use and Price

Research your purchases. The print and online editions of Consumer Reports and other Web sites and publications give excellent evaluations and comparisons of almost everything you might buy—and they can be fun just to read. Decide what features are most important to you. Don’t just be a bargain junkie and automatically buy the cheapest item available. Durability might be critical for something you plan to use daily for twenty years. One obvious way of saving money is to spend less on each item you buy, but it’s equally true that spending $40 on a tool that lasts ten years instead of buying a $30 one that will need to be replaced in five years will save you $20 in the long run. Multiple-use is also a factor. Buying one item for $10 that will serve the purpose of four different $5 items will net you a savings of $10. One heavy-duty kitchen pot can (and perhaps should) replace half a dozen specialty appliances like a rice cooker, a crockpot, a Dutch oven, a deep-fat fryer, a paella pan, and a spaghetti cooker. So, if you expect to be using an item, buying for durability and multiple purposes can be a good savings technique. But if you’ll be using the item only occasionally you may not want to spend the extra dollars on a high-quality product. Knowing what your needs are and knowing the whole range of what is available will allow you to choose the right item. Besides reading consumer magazines and Web sites, you can evaluate quality by developing a sharp eye and carefully examining what you are buying. Are the seams in a piece of clothing ample? Are the edges finished? Is the fabric durable? Is it washable or will you be paying dry-cleaning bills to keep it clean? Are the screws holding the appliance together sturdy enough for the job? Is the material strong or flimsy? Is the furniture nailed, stapled or screwed? Here is where you will become an expert materialist—knowing materials so well that you can read the probable longevity of an item the way a forester can read the age and history of a fallen tree. This is the opposite of crass materialism. This might not be as uplifting as standing in a redwood grove, but it is respecting the wonder of creation in its way. Everything you purchase has its origin in the earth. Everything. Knowing the wear patterns of aluminum versus stainless steel is honoring the earth every bit as much as lobbying for stronger environmental protection laws. Changing yourself and changing the system go hand in hand. By the same token, engaging only in personal strategies is inadequate. We all need to become active citizens and to encourage our local, state, and federal governments to provide high-quality public transportation, public schools, public hospitals, universal sickness-care insurance and other basics so that we can all be frugal together —and decrease gobs of personal spending.

8. Buy It for Less

If you’ve spent any time in the marketplace, you know you can pay a lot of different prices for the same item. Things don’t cost what they cost. They cost what you pay. Where you get the item and how much you pay often relates more to questions of values and convenience rather than differences in quality. All things being equal, however, the goal is usually to get it as cheaply as possible. The following section contains a few tips on how to do that. Comparison-shop by phone: Where do you shop and how did you choose it? Is it where you’ve always shopped? At the mall closest to your home? Where your friends shop? Where advertising or status-seeking has told you is the only place to shop? We research products via the Internet, compare prices there too, but try to buy locally—and for big items always do. For those items we comparison shop via the telephone. Once we know what we want, we phone around for the best price. The more educated you are about the product and the more specific you can be about the exact make or model you want, the more successful your bargain-hunting will be. You will be amazed at the range of prices quoted for the same item. If you prefer doing business with a particular store or supplier, phone-shop for the best price and then ask your favorite vendor if he or she can match it. Seven years before writing the first edition of this book, after much research, we decided we wanted a Toyota Tercel with a four-wheel drive. We then called every dealership within 100 miles—and shaved 33 percent off the highest bid by purchasing a demonstrator (a deluxe model with everything but air-conditioning) that had 3,600 miles on it. Seven years and 100,000 miles later, nothing had gone wrong. Seven years before this edition, the author pulled the same trick with a Honda Insight, at that time the most fuel-efficient hybrid car on the road. The new car was $24,000. One dealer offered a right-off-the-showroom-floor-but-2001 model for $16,800. A few calls later a new right-off the-showroom-floor 2002 model was offered by another dealer for $16,000. A similar 33 percent savings. Some things never change. Like phone comparison shopping. Bargain: You can ask for discounts for paying cash. You can ask for discounts for less-than-perfect items. You can ask for the sale price even if the sale begins tomorrow or ended yesterday. You can ask for further discounts on items already marked down. You can ask for discounts if you buy several items at the same time. You can ask for discounts anywhere, anytime. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Haggling is a time-honored tradition. The list price of any consumer item is usually inflated. As soon as you hear the words, “The list price is . . . you should say, “Yes, but what is your price?” According to Jim Dacyczyn you should be able to shave 24 percent off the sticker price for a car, but this strategy applies to more than houses, cars, and other major purchases. You have nothing to lose by asking for a discount at any store—from your local hardware store to a clothing emporium. A case in point was our recent outing to buy new running shoes. A $95 (list price) pair was sitting on the manager’s special rack with no price. They fit perfectly. We asked a salesman what they would cost. “$39.99,” he replied. “Would you take $30?” we asked. Surveying what he had left, he said, “Twenty-eight dollars.” We could have pointed out that haggling etiquette suggests that his counteroffer be higher, not lower, than ours. But we were astute enough just to shut our mouths, open our wallet and take advantage of a great bargain. By the way, this strategy works best at independently-owned stores where the owner has more authority to make instant decisions. So if the chain store has it for less, at least give the independent, local store owner a chance to meet the price. Buy it used: Reexamine your attitudes about buying used items. Most of us live in “used” houses—someone else probably built your home and inaugurated the shower, toilet, fridge, and more. Many of us drive used cars; if you define your needs and research prices via online sales outlets (like Cars.com, craigslist and AutoTrader.com in the United States)—or use a purchasing agent—you can certainly save a bundle. But what about everything else? If you are a thrift store or garage-sale addict, look at whether you are saving money or whether you are buying items you don’t need just because they’re “such a bargain.” But if you wouldn’t be caught dead in a Salvation Army thrift store, look around your town: thrift stores have become fashionable emporiums. Clothing, kitchenware, furniture, drapes—all can be found in thrift stores, and you may be surprised at the high quality of many of them. Donating brand-new items to thrift stores is one way that shopaholics justify excess purchases. If you just can’t bring yourself to shop at thrift stores, consider consignment shops. The prices are higher, but the quality is consistently high as well. In our experience, thrift stores are best for clothing, but garage sales are cheaper (and more reliable) for appliances, furniture, and household items. If you’re an early bird (arriving before the sellers have even had their morning coffee) you can often find exceptional buys—unless you get shoo-ed away because you are too early. On the other hand, the later in the day you go to a garage sale, the more eager the people will be to get rid of the stuff for a song.“Swap meets” and “flea markets” are two names for the same event—weekend open-air bazaars where you’ll find merchants of every stripe displaying their wares: shrewd hucksters, collectors of every kind and families hoping to unload their excess before moving across the country. Just as when you shop at discounters, you have to know your prices. Some clever nomads are working the flea-market circuit who will sell you tools, clothing, housewares, and other items for more than you’d pay at the shopping mall. In recent years, eBay and other online auctions have become a craze and helped move buying used from tacky to smart.

9. Meet Your Needs Differently

The principle of substitution says that there are hundreds if not thousands of ways to meet a need. Traditional economics would have you believe that more, better, or different stuff can satisfy almost any need and is just a credit card swipe away. But who says frugal pleasures are less pleasurable because they are less pricey? For example, what’s the best way to lift your spirits? An antidepressant? Running? Cognitive therapy? A change of scenery? Going to a funny movie? Helping someone in a worse pickle? Retail therapy? Which works best for you? Do you have just one strategy or many different ones? When you feel depleted, where do you turn? Rest? Exercise? Caffeine? Therapy (retail or talk)? TV? In other words, there’s a difference between needs and the strategies we use to “satisfy” those needs. The Chilean economist Manfred Max-Neef has studied needs and the strategies that satisfy them. He found that across time and culture the following needs are universal: subsistence, protection (safety), affection, understanding (making sense of life), participation (being part of some social process), recreation (in the sense of leisure, time to reflect or idleness), creation (making things), identity (who you are) and freedom (choosing for oneself). If these needs are not met, to some degree, in your life, likely you’ll feel dissatisfied and search for something to satisfy that longing. The consumer culture would say, “Shop!” Your habit patterns would say, “When I feel this way, I always. . . .” But let’s take one of these needs and see how to meet it by widening your repertoire of how needs can be met and then choosing the strategy (or strategies) that fits best. One of the universal needs Max-Neef identified is “freedom.” Freedom is the need for autonomy (making your own choices according to your own best lights) and independence (doing what you will, apart from the demands or expectations of others). In America, freedom has become deeply tied to mobility—getting in something with wheels (or wings) and going away. It’s also connected with not having to share with anyone, so you can have access to everything you want whenever you want. It is also linked to any product that will let you ignore the consequences of your actions—from antiaging cream to credit cards. Of course we are freedom-loving people—all people are! But here’s a substitution exercise I’ve run about freedom... If when I think “freedom” I think “travel,” what am I looking for? What values or desires lie behind that core need? Often it’s novelty and stimulation and getting out of daily and sometimes deadening routines. It’s needing some aimlessness and idleness in contrast to my norm of purposefulness. It’s learning—new languages, cultures, facts. Meeting new people. A slower pace with less stress. Swimming in a different set of assumptions, getting jolted out of narrow-mindedness. Tasting new foods. Indulging in a novel during a long flight. It’s being out of town and unavailable for all the meetings and decisions that tend to whittle down my store of daily joy. But do I need to travel to faraway places to experience these things? Remember, substitution as a frugality strategy isn’t about downgrading pleasure. It’s about ensuring that I get precisely what I am seeking at half the cost—or no cost at all. I’m not limiting myself (waaa!), I’m focusing on myself (yum!). Freedom from my daily routines might involve letting go of rigid standards (let the house be less clean), some burdensome responsibilities (don’t always say yes to those requesting my help), and some entrenched habits (why not go out to eat with friends more often)? With rising gas prices, people are traveling locally—seeing the sights within a day’s drive—and discovering exotic people and places nearby. Staying closer to home also reveals some hidden treasures in your backyard, or over the backyard fence—like your beautiful flower garden or your neighbor’s interesting stories. Stay put long enough and the details and delights of where you have become more evident. See, substitution isn’t deprivation, it’s about getting creative. Substitution also reminds us that consumption is rooted in changing a feeling state, which is a signal that a need isn’t being filled. We feel hungry so we eat to have a feeling of satisfaction. We feel lonely so we join a club or make a date to feel connected. We feel bored so we go to a movie or read a magazine or go on a trip to feel enlivened. As Max-Neef points out, most of our needs are not material! Substitution says, “When you feel a desire to shop, take time to trace it back to the need and ask if creativity rather than consumption might best fill it.” Donella Meadows cuts to the heart of it in Beyond the Limits: People don’t need enormous cars, they need respect. They don’t need closets full of clothes, they need to feel attractive and they need excitement and variety and beauty. People don’t need electronic equipment; they need something worthwhile to do with their lives. People need identity, community, challenge, acknowledgment, love, and joy. To try to fill these needs with material things is to set up an unquenchable appetite for false solutions to real and never-satisfied problems. The resulting psychological emptiness is one of the major forces behind the desire for material growth. Substitution isn’t a limitation. It’s liberation. It’s letting go of assumptions and habits, looking at the richness of reality and picking from the smorgasbord of pleasures available right in front of your nose.

10. Follow the Nine Steps of This Program

The steps of this program have been successfully followed by hundreds of thousands of people. These people have found that doing all the steps leads to a transformed experience of money and the material world. It’s the transformation, not the tips, that saves them money. Mild shopping addictions evaporate. Self-denial and self-indulgence both yield to self-awareness, which ends up being a much bigger pleasure. You can use this program as a series of tips or advice, or you can let it work its magic by doing the steps. They are a whole-system approach to money and stuff that changes your habits by changing your way of seeing. All the steps matter. They synergize to spur you on.