#Neil: Anyone from the (location) Target?

[jtl-fics]

Fluent Freshman - Part 23

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There were a few reasons that Andrew and Neil could not get past reception to go see FF or get updates on his current condition.

The first reason was that visiting hours were long over by the time they had arrived a little after midnight.

The second reason was that hospitals, in general, don’t just give out information on their patients to any random person that walks in and asks for an update on their condition. They are ESPECIALLY hesitant to give out updates on patients when the people who are asking can’t give you anything other than a first name, general description, and the reason that the patient is in the hospital.

Somehow “Completely average looking guy with the last name Smith who was stabbed in the stomach” is not enough for the receptionist to go off of.

“There are multiple people here that fit that description. I would need at least a first and last name before I could even begin to start seeing if you were someone who we even could give updates to. No, I will not continue to play your fun little game of guess the first name.” She says when Andrew opens his mouth to start listing off names alphabetically again.

So now Andrew and Neil found themselves under the watchful eye of a security guard as they sat in the back corner of the front reception area.

“I can’t believe we still don’t know what Smith’s first name is.” Neil says his face is buried in his hands as he and Andrew sit in the uncomfortable chairs trying to figure out where to go from here.

“I think she knows exactly who we want to see.” Andrew scowls towards the receptionist who, long used to the ire of the public, pays him no mind. Andrew just refused to believe that there were that many brown haired, brown eyed, average height and weight guys who had suffered a stab wound to the stomach that would have been admitted in the last two hours.

“I just hope they actually are looking after him and that no one went and forgot about him in an hallway somewhere.” Neil says hands sliding up into his hair to grip.

“That wouldn’t happen.” Andrew dismisses despite knowing that Wymack had ABSOLUTELY forgotten FF at a stadium once during the period where FF had been low presence to keep his family from bothering him.

The U-turn he had pulled had definitely been illegal when FF called and asked where the bus was when they had been on the road for five minutes. Wymack had felt terrible about it but FF had just seemed relieved that the bus had come back for him.

Wymack.

Andrew pulls out his phone and dials a familiar number. Wymack, reliable as always, picks up on the fourth ring with the sound of cursing as he got the phone up to his ear. “What.” He asks and Andrew can hear the sounds of driving and Kevin’s infamously train-like snoring in the background.

“What’s Smith first name. You know it.” Andrew demands.

“Classified.” Wymack clips back immediately.

“I need to know it so that we can get updates.” Andrew hisses.

“He isn’t interested in people knowing it and you wouldn’t be able to get updates anyways.” Wymack dismisses.

“We want to be able to head back to see him.” Neil tries.

“Visiting hours are long over Josten. You know that I’m not settling that bet that you little fuckers have floating around about this.” Wymack responds back.

Andrew grits his teeth and then forces himself to relax his jaw, “It’s not about the bet.” Andrew shuts his eyes in irritation.

That stupid bet.

The betting culture within the Palmetto State Foxes Exy team that Reynold’s had cultivated held strong even after her graduation with the remaining Foxes. The Bet had started when one of the other freshmen had mentioned that it was funny that FF went around like Cher or Madonna. The realization that none of them knew FF’s first name was one that had them placing bets on a multitude of things. Things like: “Do you wanna bet it’s a super normal boring name?”, “Do you wanna bet that it’s a weird foreign name?”, and “Is FF intentionally not giving it out to people or since he goes by his last name normally he has no idea that anything is amiss?” Had lower pools since you were betting on a spectrum. The bet with the highest pool is: “What is FF’s first name”.

Wymack had categorically refused to answer it and all other attempts to discover FF’s first name had been met with frustration. There was a solemn agreement that no one could just go and outright ask him since that would ruin all of the fun. Andrew had agreed to not ask when the team had collectively filled his freezer with ice cream cake and he was a man of his word.

The general belief (after the revelation of his major and the number of languages FF spoke) was that FF’s name was just not easy to pronounce for English speakers.

Andrew hadn’t participated but he know that the Foxes do have a running list of names they know it’s not. (Greg, Will, Smith (again), Matt, Kevin, Neil, Andrew, Aaron, Nathaniel, Jack, Beyonce (Sheena’s drunken guess), Nicholas, John, Fred, Garfield, Frank, Alfred, Augustus, Adam, etc. (Andrew had been trying to guess with the receptionist for a while))

“You’re coming here aren’t you? We can get updates when you get them.” Neil says.

“He’s in emergency surgery right now and will remain there for the next few hours most likely. There’s not going to be any updates hopefully.” Wymack says with a sigh loud enough that they can hear it over Kevin’s snoring.

“Surgery? He needs surgery?” Neil asks sounding surprised s if FF hadn’t been stabbed to the hilt into his stomach with one of Andrew’s knives. He’s about to give Neil some shit for the question before remembering that if there was any person who would think that a stab wound to the stomach wouldn’t necessitate surgery it would be Neil “I’m Fine” Josten.

“Yes Josten, he needs surgery. They have to stitch up his stomach and the surgeons are also going to be dealing with some of the ulcers that were ruptured by the knife.” Wymack explains likely coming to the same conclusion that Andrew had on Neil’s stupid question. “They were a bit worried about him bleeding out but he stabilized before the surgery.” Wymack sighs.

“I’m going the hospital since I’m Smith’s medical proxy. If anything goes wrong with the surgery I want to be there so I can make an informed decision on his care.” Wymack says and… Andrew figured there’d be surgery but to hear it and the possibility that something could go wrong, that the last thing FF had said to him had been something non-sensical about “Gracie Hart wouldn’t have gotten stabbed. I’m Cheryl at best.”as he’d started succumbing to all the blood loss. “If you could stick around long enough for me to drop Kevin off with you I would appreciate it.” Wymack says.

“What if he needs a blood transfusion?” Andrew says.

“Smith is AB-, it’s the second easiest blood type to transfuse into. Go home Andrew.” Wymack repeats.

Andrew works his jaw irritated that there didn’t seem to be a path to getting his way.

“We’ll stay here until you get here.” Andrew agrees, “But you’ll get an update before we leave.” He adds.

Wymack sighs, “Fair enough.” He says before hanging up.

It’s 45 minutes of waiting and tossing a few more name possibilities at the receptionist who seems more amused than anything at their continued attempts to guess their friend’s first name (Neil goes through the entire list of names that he’s gone by and none of them get the thumbs up).

Wymack comes through the doors with a half awake Kevin Day following his steps. “I have another favor to ask you.” Wymack says instead of any form of greeting.

“I’m not going to leave Kevin in the car overnight again. It was just that one time.” Andrew says with a roll of his eyes and honestly he’d been punished enough listening to Kevin bitch, moan, and sneeze for the following week while talking about all the supplements he was taking.

“Not that,” Wymack pauses, “I have two favors to ask you. First don’t do that. Second, would you be able to pick up Smith’s grandma from the airport tomorrow?” He asks.

Andrew blinks.

“She’s coming here?” He asks.

“I updated her on my way here. She booked a flight and will be arriving around noon tomorrow.” Wymack says and Andrew doesn’t know why he’s confused by this. FF’s grandma got him two still warm pies to cheer him up on Thanksgiving.

He’d stabbed that woman’s grandson.

“I’ll pick her up.” He agrees.

Shorter one today

NEXT

MASTERPOST FOR ALL PARTS OF FLUENT FRESHMAN AU

Per your requests:

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The requests to be added to the tag list keep being spread out across a few different areas. If I missed you please just ask again in the replies I promise I just missed you.

As stated before if you’re up here and I spelled it right but you didn’t get a notification there might be something switched around in your settings that won’t let me tag you properly?

#Fluent Freshman AU #Might be taking a bit of a break after this post #I wanna figure out the overarching joke of the next part #So FF is under the knife getting stitched up so he doesn't make an in person appearance this chapter #Kevin is coming along with Wymack because he wants to figure out the recovery time and PT FF will need #They were planning on having him be the starting Dealer next season #Honestly he can't BELIEVE that Romero would fuck up his line-up like this #Yes Kevin is aware that he is not the Captain #FF never lets anyone forget who the Captain is #It's Captain Neil #Neil and Andrew try to become close to the receptionist so she will release FF's first name #But god they are both super bad at small talk #Andrew and Neil: So...busy day? #Receptionist: Actually considering the fact its Black Friday it wasn't that bad #Neil: Is it...is it that dangerous? (Thinking about FF this morning) #Receptionist: I've seen body builders get their thigh bones snapped in half by exhausted stay at home moms for a blender you tell me #Neil: Anyone from the (location) Target? #Receptionist: Oh that was a bloodbath didn't you see the news? #The misconception that FF is a cool badass guy continues to grow throughout the Foxes #AFTG #AFTG AU #AFTG OC #AFTG Fic #FF - Pt 23

[itsthemysterykids]

Mha au but they're league of villains!

Coraline: Puppet Master, a girl who’s quirk allows her to put people under her control by shooting strings from her fingers and having them connect to her victim’s limbs like puppet strings. When her quirk manifested, she accidentally seized control of her teacher and she fell to the floor like a rag doll, horrifying the other students. Since that day, they treated her like a villain, avoided her at all costs, and it only got worse when one student decided to “teach the villain a lesson.” They cornered Coraline and used their Quirk, a fusing quirk to fuse a button over her eyelid. Before they could get the other eye, Coraline put the student under her control and had them attack students while she ran away, never to be seen again

Wybie: Metalsmith, once an honors student and a candidate for UA’s Support Course with a quirk that allows him to create armor or any weapon he desires found himself in a Quirk accident caused by heroes. The accident left the entire right half of his body severely burned, and he self consciously covered it with tungsten, the strongest metal in the world, but in the process, this limited his senses. But this isn’t what turned him into a villain, no it was when the heroes ruined his life again by hunting him down like an animal simply because he matched the description of a villain spotted in the area. Since that day, he’s hated heroes with a passion

Norman: Wraith, a boy who never had a chance. His quirk, Poltergeist, gave him all of the powers of a ghost, horrifying his peers and even his parents. They all shunned him, blamed him for any incidents at the school that weren’t even his fault, and soon, his classmates got physical. Having enough, Norman summoned his full power, sending a surge of electricity all throughout the school, either killing or incapacitating everyone. Before the police could arrive, he ran, never looking back

Neil: Power-Up was once the top athlete at his school, and despite his “quirkless” status, he thrived… Until the incident. One day at a hockey game, some quirkist people came to heckle him and said some many offensive terms, and he tried to ignore them, but one? It really got to Neil. Then something inside him just snapped. He turned to the main heckler and his eyes seemed to glow a bright yellow. He gripped his hockey stick now pulsing with yellow energy, and fired the puck… Which killed the heckler. Everyone evacuated, causing a panic and attracting the police. Neil, not wanting to get arrested, used his newfound quirk to escape at an amazing speed, and that was the last anyone has ever heard of him

Dipper: Sir Stalk is a villain with a Quirk that allows him to know where everything and everyone is at all times. His classmates of course, found this to be creepy and subjected him to an endless cycle of bullying, calling him a ‘stalker’ and ‘creep’. When they weren’t doing that, they were forcing him to reveal the locations of their other targets and any girls for them to harass. Word of this spread and soon, everyone in the school was against Dipper. The only person he had was his sister, a girl fortunate enough to have a ‘normal quirk,’ but even she was subject to scrutiny just for being his sister. Then one day, Mabel snapped and the whole school suffered

Mabel: Stitches, a villain with a Harley-Quinn-like personality and an affinity for yarn, she’s someone you’ll want in your side. Her quirk allows her to control yarn, and for that, she was liked. Until people found out what Dipper’s quirk was. Despite it all, she stayed by his side, bearing through the taunts, harassment, and the teachers who were of no help and had the gall to blame Dipper for a fight where he was clearly the victim! And when she tried to come to his defense, one student told her to shut up, saying no one cares what a villain’s lousy sister has to say. It wasn’t the insult towards her that made her choke everyone in the hallway, it was what they called Dipper. They’ve called him ‘creep,’ ‘stalker,’ ‘freak.’ But never ‘Villain.’

Raz: Slink was once an acrobat in his family’s circus. One day, Raz was about to perform a new but also dangerous trick using his quirk which allows him to stretch his limbs to any length. The trick involves a tightrope, his family sitting on his stretched arms, and no net. Before he could wow the crowd with the final part of the act, a team of heroes crashed through the circus tent and caused Raz to stumble and drop his family to the ground. Raz was so devastated when they didn’t make it and demanded for the heroes responsible to face punishment… But as always, the heroes faces no punishment and instead, were hailed for trying to stop a dangerous villain. And when they addressed the passing of the Aquato family, they made the interview all about themselves, only pretending to be remorseful for the cameras. To make sure Raz didn’t try to bring this up again, a member of the HPSC stopped by the orphanage and downright threatened to take away his quirk and put him in poverty. So enraged, Raz ran away from the orphanage, vowing to put an end to the corrupt hero society

Lili: Poison Oak, a lonely girl at a private school who preferred the comfort of her plants. Because of her loner status, she was often the subject of bullying and harassment. Her main bullies would often use their quirks on her, figuring it would be easy to win any fight because of Lili’s ‘weak flower quirk’. And any attempt to address her problems teachers went unheard and only made things worse for Lili when her bullies found out. One day, Lili just could take it anymore. They had the audacity to poison her favorite plant and instead of the flowers she would usually make, Lili created cacti and poison Ivy… That grew from students’ and teachers’ skin. The dangerous flora overtook the school, forcing Lili to run away, knowing she’ll definitely be blamed.

Realizing they have nothing left to lose, they go on crime sprees, but really, it’s just so they can survive

They all live in an abandoned cafe after being taken in by the most notorious villain known to man. Cipher.

Raz and Wybie will often (Every day) vent about so-called “heroes” and their corrupt ways while the others rant about quirkist assholes… Though, they two aren’t so different

Lili keeps cacti as pets and names them after vigilantes. The real heroes

Sometimes when Coraline is bothered by the button over her eye, she’ll scratch it, but because it irritates her eye, Wybie has to get her to stop

Ever since the accident, Wybie has been terrified of fire and will tense up whenever he sees a flame

Mabel knits little dolls of the people who bullied Dipper… Right before stabbing them

Whenever he’s upset, Neil will watch clips of his hockey highlights, but it only results in making him more upset

When they’re infiltrating training arenas for hero students, Mabel and Coraline like to torture them psychologically

Dipper acts as lookout

Lili has any plants in the area restrain the students while Raz restrains them with his limbs and then Wybie will threaten them with his weapons unless they answer any questions

Neil leads the heroes on a wild chase with his enhanced speed

Norman will possess a more powerful hero and use their quirk to threaten the hero students and pro heroes into surrounding

#coraline #mystery kids #paranorman #gravity falls #psychonauts #the mystery kids #ask stuff #answered ask #bnha league of villains #bnha #my hero academia #boku no hero academia

[eyes-of-mischief]

weekly fic recs | 23

fandoms: aftg, bnha, bsd, hq, mdzs

aftg

the icarus to your certainty by sinistercacophony

(explicit)

Andrew knows how to get what he wants. He knows how to ask, how to indicate boundaries, and how to stab someone in the gut if they choose to ignore those boundaries. That’s really all he’s ever needed. He doesn’t let men touch him. He doesn’t let people get close enough to try.

Except Neil.

Except he wants Neil. In ways he’s never wanted anyone before. Never trusted anybody before.

catoptromancy by sandersea (SHCombatalade)

Neil Josten dyes his hair the color of mud in a hotel bathroom outside of Wichita. Nathaniel Wesninski sneers at him from the mirror.

bnha

Internet Enemies by cassiopeia721

At school, Midoriya Izuku is ignored at best. At home, he's raised by a single mother who seems to be always taking night shifts, and who he communicates with almost exclusively through notes on lunch boxes and texts lying about his location. As such, Midoriya Izuku turns to the internet— or more specifically, an All Might fan server on discord— for companionship. Like most things in his life, it goes wrong eventually. It just takes longer than usual.

won't you show your moves to me by vain_flower

(explicit)

Bakugou Katsuki has been frequenting a BDSM club with little luck finding the right kind of dom.

Enter Midoriya Izuku, the kink veteran who knows just how he deserves to be treated.

bsd

The Heart of Your Murderer by full_moon_pills

“Dazai,” Ranpo interrupts. “You do the emergency surgery.”

He’d foolishly believed no one would make him do these things anymore—that he was free.

or: Dazai is forced to operate on Poe, and unwanted memories arise.

force of destiny (series) by setosdarkness

(mature)

simply put, a killer!dazai x police!chuuya, post-canon reincarnation AU ♥

hq

The Loyalty of a Traitor by DeathBelle

(explicit) (graphic depictions of violence)

Iwaizumi Hajime was an undercover officer with a single objective: Infiltrate the Seijoh Syndicate of the Yakuza and tear them down from the inside out. His primary target was the boss, Oikawa Tooru. The job itself was simple enough, until Iwaizumi got in too deep and absconded not only from the mission, but from the city itself.

Now, two years later, he’s dragged back into Tokyo’s unsavory underworld. A grisly string of murders is plaguing the city, and the culprits are most definitely Yakuza. The problem is discovering which Syndicate is responsible, and Iwaizumi – the leading expert on Yakuza affairs – is the man most suited for the job.

Despite his determination to stay away from Tokyo – and from Oikawa – Iwaizumi finds himself right back in the middle of Seijoh, and it feels a lot more like home than he’d care to admit.

and it may be foolish to fall as i do by orphan_account

(explicit)

There's a trampoline in the middle of the courtyard across from Kuroo's first class.

mdzs

falling like feathers and cherry blossoms by silversshadow

When Mo XuanYu is sent home in disgrace, the last thing he expects is to find out that he now has a younger brother.

AKA, the one where Wei Ying reincarnates as Mo Ying.

#some thirsty fics in here huh #i swear im not doing this on purpose #weekly fic recs #no prompt #aftg fic recs #bnha fic recs #bsd fic recs #hq fic recs #mdzs fic recs

[your-krazy-uncle-bob]

Regime Approves Continued Intimidation of Brett Kavanaugh

Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh can tell you all about what kind of people we are up against.

When he was nominated to the Supreme Court, Democrats outrageously lied that he is a serial rapist, producing witnesses that no adult would regard as credible. When it was leaked that he might help restore the integrity of the judicial system by overruling Roe v. Wade, mobs of thugs assailed his home; the White House pointedly refused to condemn this.

In the midst of the siege, an armed moonbat showed up at his house with the admitted intent to kill Kavanaugh. The Democrat-controlled media barely mentioned this. Rather than tone down his rhetoric in the aftermath, Joe Biden egged on the liberal mob to be “viscerally angry.”

Leftist thugs reacted to Roe’s repeal by following orders from prominent Democrat Maxine Waters to harass their opponents in public. Kavanaugh was driven out of a DC restaurant, being forced to escape through a back door rather than eat in peace like a citizen of a civilized country.

The response from an increasingly arrogant White House: “This is what democracy is.”

Seeing is believing:

Now we know what they mean when they repeatedly bark the phrase “our democracy.” They are referring to a system under which anyone who puts up resistance is relentlessly intimidated by goons.

The Biden Regime is encouraging people to violate federal law. But if laws could be used against powerful Democrats, Biden would be in Leavenworth facing a firing squad for treason.

Morton’s Steakhouse now faces the wrath of the mob for daring to serve food to someone leftists don’t like. Moonbats are bombarding it with bad reviews to wreck its reputation.

Other members of the tolerant Democrat base are offering bounties for information on opportunities for the mob to set upon Supreme Court justices who do not vote as they are told:

A liberal protest group is offering cash to anyone who sees the conservative justices of the Supreme Court and provides their location. The justices targeted by the group ShutDownDC are John Roberts, Brett Kavanaugh, Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, and Amy Coney Barrett. The group tweeted that it is willing to give “$50 to anyone who gives a confirmed sighting and $200 if the Justice or Justices are in the same area 30 minutes after their location is given.”

Twitter apparently has no problem with this. It clearly violates the guidelines…

Twitter, the platform on which ShutDownDC announced its “bounty,” does not allow users to “engage in the targeted harassment of someone, or incite other people to do so.”

…but with leftists, all ethics are situational. Jordan Peterson has been banned from Twitter for refusing to pretend that Ellen Page is a man. Meanwhile, this is still up on Twitter, despite the attention it has drawn:

Hold on, it gets even more disgusting. Chasten Buttigieg, the homosexual paramour of our supposed Secretary of Transportation, with whom Pete Buttigieg canoodled for months on end instead of showing up for work at the height of the supply chain crisis, approves of the mob’s behavior — and taunts Kavanaugh:

“Sounds like he just wanted some privacy to make his own dining decisions,” [Chasten] Buttigieg tweeted.

Responds Jon Gabriel of Ricochet:

“What happens if MAGA types start showing up where ever you and Pete go? This continued escalation is a dangerous game, especially since Kavanaugh just had an assassination attempt on him. You don’t want the world you’re advocating for.”

Oh yes he does want it, if he is anything like his “husband” Pete and the rest of today’s Democrats. As for what would happen if MAGA types were to stoop to similar thuggery, the ongoing January 6 inquisitions make that clear.

On tips from Wiggins, TCS III, Bluto, Blackjack, KirklesWorth, MrRightWingDave, and Varla.

moonbattery.com

[whats-rambled-rambled]

Long Nights - part 4

Neil x Reader

Chapter 4: World gone mad

(see chapter 3, 2, 1)

summary: inverted heist calls for inverted training

warnings: 18+, explicit language, gun mention, crackheadery, and possible whiplash

author’s note: Hi, yes, I know, took me ages, but hey, I hope it's worth the wait! 5.2k words, how even--

Anyway.

The song for this part is Bastille - World Gone Mad

Enjoy! All feedback is greatly appreciated, let me know what you think?

——————

Tag list: @cxnnienikas @neutron-stars-collision ​ @ergunbilge @invertedneil @wanderedaway @mellifluous-cosmos @wonderwoman292 @buckysgoldenheart @townmoondaltwistle @theriverbeneaththeriver (please let me know if you want to be added/removed from the list)

-----

The fact that you knew how to handle guns wasn’t equal to you being very good at it. Or enjoying it, for that matter. Sure, you could more or less hit the target, especially with some useful tips you got from Neil regarding a trigger finger discipline, but still - you’d rather avoid reaching for a pistol altogether.

You put back the weapon you’d been training with and Neil handed you another one. You couldn’t really tell the difference, at least until you checked the magazine. The lack of ammo meant you finally got to the fun bit that Neil teased in The Protagonist’s office and you smiled, looking back at your companion. He grinned at you, the gaze sparkling behind yellow-tinted safety glasses as he pointed at the wall next to the targets you used for practice.

“Just aim and pull the trigger. ” Seeing your nod, he added, “Okay now, be careful, it might feel--”

The bullet whizzed back into the chamber of your pistol and your eyes widened.

“Oh fuck me sideways,” you hissed under your breath.

“-- a bit weird, yeah.” Neil chuckled at the shock painted on your face. “All right?”

“Yeah, just processing.” Trying to blink the consternation away, you asked, “How do you make these? You put it into that...turnstile and voilà?”

Neil shook his head. “No, it’s not that simple. We receive a stash every now and then, we don’t know how to manufacture those,” - he smirked - “at least not yet. I do have a few theories I’m working on in my spare time, but...” hesitating for a moment, he raked a hand through his hair and sent you a nervous smile. “Wouldn’t want to bore you to death, though.”

“Dude, come on, with that smooth and soothing voice of yours? You could read the yellow pages to me and I’d still listen like that--” you mocked a dreamy heart-eyes expression, watching with satisfaction as that remark pushed Neil further into a flustered state.

Apparently, when explicit teasing got a little-to-no reaction now, you could still make him blush with a more wholesome compliment. As you started laughing, he rolled his eyes and scrunched the nose slightly, joining you with a stifled giggle. Grinning, you continued a little softer, “I’m not gonna lie - I probably wouldn’t understand a majority of the physics jargon, but I’d still want to hear all about that.”

A thankful look you got in return made your chest clench painfully, and your mind wandered off to those breaks near the river, and Neil’s animated rants. You knew one thing. Anyone who had ever ridiculed him for his passion for even the nerdiest things could rot in hell, and you’d gladly see to it personally.

A disgruntled huff coming from behind made you both snap out of the moment.

“Oi, lovebirds, I’d appreciate it if you could leave all that to after I prep you for the mission.”

Bottling down your annoyance, you batted your lashes at the commander, who’d just come back with keys to one of the conference rooms near the range.

“Oh, I’m terribly sorry, you have my full attention now.”

Ives nodded, waving at you to follow him. Meanwhile, Neil’s small smirk let you know that he noticed that faint undertone in your voice, but he said nothing, patiently waiting for the events to unfold.

Another person was waiting for you at the door. You recognized the woman who’d driven you to that abandoned factory on your very first day - you’d never gotten properly introduced, but you remember asking Neil about her once and he called her Wheeler. To be honest, with these guys you never knew if they used their real names, nicknames, codenames, or whatever. Not that you cared, quite used to it in your own line of business. You exchanged a court nod with her and went into the room.

As you sat down at the big table and Ives booted a projector, your eyes bore into the man. Definitely one of those types who enjoyed his beret and the paramilitary structure of the field branch of the organization. Probably a bit too much. You bit back a smug grin.

Those were particularly fun to mess with.

Ives caught your piercing stare and stopped the brief of the location.

“What?”

“Nothing,” you said, propping the chin on your palm, a polite smile on your lips. “It’s fascinating.”

He furrowed his brows, perplexed.

“What is?”

“How your commanding presence literally adds you inches,” you said, using all your willpower to keep a serious face. “I wonder if it works only for your height or--”

Neil’d futile attempts at masking an amused snort with a cough didn’t go unnoticed. Ives shot him daggers and then glared at you. “For fuck’s sake, would you focus?”

Your eyes flared up at the threat in his voice and you pouted, taunting him further.

“Or what, you’re gonna spank me?”

“No, I’m gonna shoot you,” he deadpanned.

You raised a brow.

“Kinky.”

Ives groaned, turning to Neil.

“How you survived this long without choking her is beyond me.”

Neil puffed his cheeks and gestured vaguely, but as he opened the mouth to answer, you chimed in, with a shit-eating grin plastered on your face.

“Oh, he very much did so, all right.”

The awkward silence that followed was pretty satisfying.

“Can we keep her?” asked Wheeler casually, leaned back in her chair, fiddling with a bullpen.

Ives gaped at you all, then slumped his shoulders in defeat, sliding a hand through his features. He was so done you could almost hear The Sound of Silence playing in the distance, but apparently, his sense of duty was stronger than the urge to leave you without finishing the briefing, so he just drew a deep breath and continued.

“...anyway…”

You caught Neil’s glance and you couldn’t help but poke the tip of your tongue out at him. The mischievous sparks in his eyes reflected your own as he shook his head, tugging the bottom lip between the teeth. Wheeler’s curious gaze flitted between you two, and as you didn’t feel like drawing too much unnecessary attention to yourself anymore, you focused on the plan that Ives was persistently going through.

Time frames. Blueprints. Entry points. Exit routes (you spotted at least one additional way he left out, but you weren’t sure if you could drag Neil through there, judging by that alley performance, so you didn’t bother to mention it out loud). Everything seemed clear enough. You still had no idea how being inverted would affect the lockpicking, but when you voiced that, Ives promised you some time to figure it out before the mission.

The mission. Huh. It wasn’t that much different from your usual assignments - at least if you forgot about that tiny insignificant detail like moving backwards in time - but something in this paramilitary and/or espionage vibe made your heart beat faster with excitement.

It had been quite a long time since you had company at the job. Working alone had its perks, but you wouldn’t mind a trusted partner in crime having your six for a change.

Another thing that you certainly wouldn’t mind - seeing Neil in tactical gear. Not that either of you would need one, but the image got planted in your head and suddenly you wished you’d had a bottle of water.

You realized that everyone was looking at you expectantly. Shit, was there a question or…?

“I’m good,” you said, shooting in the dark, hoping that would be enough to cover your distracted ass.

Ives squinted, but fortunately, that was an acceptable answer.

“Well, as you two can proceed straight from here - Wheeler, they’re all yours.’

“Okay,” - she smiled and stood up - “we don’t have any turnstiles on-site, but there’s one in the base outside the city, I’ll talk you through the basics on the way.”

So that little daydream cost you a chance to come back home to prepare? Grand. The problem was - you needed your heavy-duty tools, but you’d rather eat rocks than back away in front of Ives. Luckily, he called on Neil to wait for a moment, so that was your chance.

“Umm, Wheeler?” you asked quietly, following her outside.

She glanced at you curiously.

“What’s up?”

“I know I said I’m good, but could we stop by my apartment for a second, please?” An awkward grimace ran through your face. “I gotta pick up my tools. You know, just in case.”

She wasn’t surprised by your request. Moreover, she sent you a knowing smile.

“Sure thing,” she said and winked, and then it was your turn to present a slightly flushed face. “I’ve got you.”

----

You didn’t know what to expect from the whole inversion process.

The first time your brain stuttered was when Wheeler pointed at something she called the proving window, just in time for you to see the three of you coming out on the other side. You caught inverted-you glancing back at your present self; the schooled expression, but with the gaze shining with anticipation.

The second time was when it was you on the other side, looking at your wide-eyed past self. Feeling the incoming headache, you took a deep breath and followed Wheeler and Neil to the stand with oxygen masks.

“How are you feeling?” asked Neil, handing you the equipment.

“Weirdly normal.” You shrugged. “Or maybe not more backwards than usual, if that makes any sense.”

He smiled lightly.

“It’s the airlock. When you see the outside, you’ll get a whole new perspective.”

Wheeler nodded. “What he said. And to recap: you’re inverted, the world is not - all forces will be pushing back on you. Besides gravity.” She double-checked the oxygen bottle secured to your belt. “Just mind things that might be rising instead of falling.”

You furrowed the brows.

“Wait, didn’t Ives mention the rain?”

Neil smirked from behind the mask.

“Afraid of getting wet?”

“Never.” You grinned, meeting the sparkling blue eyes. “Should know that by now.”

Wheeler snorted and shook her head, walking to the panel near the exit.

“You’ll have plenty of time to finish the job before you move far enough to catch up on that. Although, if you ever find yourself in the inverted rain, here’s a tip: pop your collar.”

“Why would you--” Oh. The sole thought of the water going up from the ground to the sky made you nauseous. You swallowed with effort, leveling your breath in the mask. “...right.”

Wheeler opened the door and you almost gasped at the view. The golden rays of sunset (...or was it technically a sunrise now?) flickered on the training grounds’ equipment as the sky painted the scarce pools of muddy water with greyish violets and reddening oranges. Leaves shuffled in the wind, their dance almost satirical with that inverted spin.

Wheeler’s voice stopped your mind from wandering further into the landscape.

“Okay, ready? Ives asked me to remind you not to try any cowboy shit, you need to be in one piece at the end of the training.”

“Yes ma’am,” you mocked a salute and stepped outside, stretching your limbs, readjusting to the reality being slightly off. Neil stood right beside you watching you warming up, ready to take you to the obstacles section.

But as soon as the airlock’s doors closed behind you, you spun around, tapping his shoulder - “Tag, you’re it!” - and without waiting for his reaction, you leaped towards the assault course.

Surely that turned out overly optimistic. You counted on the element of surprise and a head start, but Neil had an experience with running while being inverted, while you… well. You tried.

“B+ for effort,” laughed Neil, catching up on you even before you reached the first obstacle and tapping you back. “But you can do better than that.”

“Just you wait!” you retorted and vaulted over a low hurdle, the mild confusion caused by the dumbfounded senses slowly eased up as you tuned out the brain and let the muscle memory guide your movements. Because hey, in the end? Yes, the natural forces were acting up against you. Yes, Neil had years of inverted training behind him. But you’d been challenging different obstacles your whole life, and courses like this one were your favourite playgrounds.

You caught on him by the next wall, playing dirty and tugging at his leg, pulling him down before he could jump to the other side. The exasperated huff he gave you in protest got lost in the squelch of mud under your feet, the sound more like a suction instead of the much-expected splash. Shuddering with disgust at such abomination, you rushed to the set of monkey bars, hearing Neil following up closely. You gritted your teeth, swinging your body to help yourself get through the part, and that’s when you felt a light tap on your foot.

You glared to your left, where Neil was gaining an advantage over you.

“Damn you and your infinite legs, man! It doesn’t count!”

“Losing looks good on you,” he said, landing and then instantly ducking under your reached out hand.

“Too bad it’s not gonna stick,” you scoffed as you ran after him to jump on one of the parallel logs. Balancing was easy enough, even with inversion; it gave you the perfect opportunity to plan ahead, while Neil had to maintain full focus. “Must say - all that sass definitely makes you like... ten percent hotter.”

But you’d taught him well, apparently, and instead of losing his pace, he only shot you a quick glance accompanied by an arched brow.

“Only ten?”

“Dunno, come over here and let me take a closer look,” you teased, getting a short chuckle in response. “No?” - you sighed - “Alrighty then.” And you leaped to the side straight into Neil, pushing him off the log. He yelped and grabbed you by the shirt, the momentum sending you both straight into the mud. You landed on top of Neil, collapsing into his arms for a moment to catch a breath and to stop laughing.

You leaned back to look him in the eyes.

“Okay, maaaybe fifteen,” you panted, booping his mask as you would do to his nose.

Neil snickered and nodded.

“I’ll take it.”

When your gazes met, his features softened, and he tucked a strand of hair behind your ear gently. You smiled behind the mask and sat up, straddling his waist. Neil was studying you closely, his hands grazed your sides and rested on your hips. Nibbling at your bottom lip, you leaned over him again and slowly reached out, and--

“Simba…” you choked out with reverence, brushing a muddy thumb across his forehead.

Tears from the held-back laughter threatened to spill any second as you observed Neil blanking out in utter confusion. The five stages of grief ran through his expression and then he closed his eyes and sighed theatrically.

“The fate of the world is in the hands of a complete madwoman.”

...the what now?

You tilted your head, grinning.

“Aren’t you a little dramatic?”

Then, without a warning, Neil shifted under you, rolling you off him and pinning you down.

“Birds of a feather and all that,” he said, clearly enjoying the way you squealed and squirmed as the mud got under your shirt. “You think you got a hang of the inverted movement already?”

“I don’t know,” you shrugged. Neil realized your intentions a second too late. A handful of mud splashed on his face and you chuckled with satisfaction. “Yeah, now I think I’m ready to go.”

You turned up at the airlock soon after, looking like something that cat dragged in, but beaming widely. Dreaming of a hot shower and a clean set of clothes, you put down the mask and the oxygen container and headed to the turnstile.

Wheeler was waiting for you near the machine, and seeing the state you were in, she just gaped at you both, trying to come up with an adequate question.

As you noticed her quizzical look, you gave her a thumbs up and smiled.

“If you ain't dirty, you ain't here to party! Wooo!” you whooped, throwing your hands up and trotting past her straight into the turnstile.

Right before reverting yourself back to your original state, you heard Wheeler’s hushed question.

“You two all right?”

And then Neil’s answer.

“Don’t worry, we’re good.”

--------

The truck’s engine hummed steadily, which could only mean you were on some sort of highway. At least the container stopped wobbling, so you could practice in peace.

No wobbles meant no excuses, though. You sighed, readjusting your grip on the tools.

Neil had fallen asleep some time ago, after making sure you figured out the locks and hearing your solemn promise that you would follow him soon.

One day after that eventful night, then inverting and going straight back without proper sleep. You knew he was right and you needed at least a nap. But you couldn’t. Not before you were absolutely sure you got it. The usual locks weren’t that bad. The inverted ones were a whole other story.

It’d taken you long enough to crack them in the safety of your own apartment, without the weird physics, ever-present even within the air-locked container. Without the pressure.

The fate of the world.

What the fuck was that supposed to mean?

You didn’t even know what was that thing you were supposed to retrieve soon. It was okay, you didn’t need to. It was a quite common situation in your work history. That kind of knowledge could be dangerous, after all.

The pin clicked and you sighed again, squeezing your eyes shut to stop the burning sensation even for a moment.

Besides, you were doing it for Neil. The memory of that panicked look on his face when he’d seen the documents was enough to keep you going.

But did he have to say that?

You had to do it. Not only because you felt responsible for him, in a way. What you’d told the boss was true and you weren’t the only one at fault for Neil not being fully ready for that assignment. He was your friend, wasn’t he? And there was no way you’d leave a friend in need.

You pressed your lips together, forcing yourself to breathe.

Probably a stupid joke, nothing more.

But what if he was being serious? What if that thing out there was really that important? And you were about to fuck everything up because you couldn’t get your shit together fast enough to figure out the bloody inverted mechanism again. And with every minute wasted and not spent on resting there was a higher chance of messing up at the actual location.

Hell of a locksmith you were, huh?

The feedback from the tools came with a final warning like a sobering slap. If you were to continue, they would snap any second now.

You let out a shaky breath and retraced from the lock, hiding your face in the palms.

A gentle touch on your shoulder almost made you flinch. Of course, he had to wake up in the middle of your breakdown.

“Go back to sleep, we still have a few hours left,” you muttered into your hands, trying to collect yourself.

“Not before you talk to me,” said Neil as his fingers slid down your arm. He was crouching right beside you, the blue eyes boring into you with concern. “What is it?”

You sighed and shifted in your seat to face him.

“Wanna make sure I got it, that’s all.”

Neil’s brows knitted together.

“But I saw you open that lock once, why--”

“Once! And that’s exactly the problem!” you fumed and glared at the table. “I can’t crack it again, I--” your voice wavered and you gritted the teeth in frustration. “What if it was a stroke of dumb luck? Should I start praying for another one to happen there?”

Another delicate touch, this time on your knees, was enough to make you look back at Neil. A shade of smile tainted his lips as he searched your gaze.

“Someone used to tell me all the time that if you did it once, you can do it again.”

You hung your head and huffed, “Maybe that someone was full of shit.’

“I know for a fact that she wasn’t,” he chuckled, taking the tools out of your clenched fists and putting them back at the table. “She was utterly brilliant,” he continued, reaching for your cramping, trembling hands and taking them in his, ”and always reminded me to take a break instead of agonizing over a stubborn lock.”

That you did, all right. Your laugh sounded awfully close to a sob. God, if you weren’t exhausted.

Mustering enough strength to look him in the eyes, you squeezed his hands, trying to convey all the gratitude in the gesture. And hide that bit of embarrassment, too.

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” he said and his thumbs brushed over your knuckles. “Scoot over.”

You moved back on the provisional bench, making enough space for him to sit next to you. And so he did, not letting go of your hands even for a second. He started rubbing small circles into them and you grunted softly. Neil gave you a knowing smile and soon enough, his fingers glided between your forearms and fingertips, applying pressure to the tensest places, careful strokes and precise moves bringing a much-needed release. You couldn’t help small groans escaping your mouth, every one of them adding to the self-satisfied grin hiding in the corner of Neil’s mouth. But then, instead of teasing you, his features softened and you caught his glance, warm and sheepish.

“I don’t think I properly thanked you for offering to help me with this mission.”

“I couldn’t let you have all the fun,” you laughed and winced as Neil’s thumbs worked on your wrists. “Don’t thank me yet, we still need to pull it off first.”

“Well, maybe we already have, from the typical point of view,” - he pondered, lighting up - “seeing that we are moving back--”

“Neil, please, I’m all for discussing it later, but right now it’s about to give me a pounding headache.”

When you met his eyes, you noted with relief that he didn’t mind you cutting him off like that. He knew that you were tired, nothing more.

“Right, sorry.” Then he looked at you with determination, suddenly serious. “Whatever happens… thank you. It means a lot.”

“Of course,” you said quietly as your heart ached with unexpected fondness.

Neil smiled, shaking off the sentimental moment. His hands cupped yours and gave them a light squeeze.

“Now would you please get some rest?”

“Will you tuck me in?” you grinned and batted your lashes at him, earning an amused snort in return.

“I can even sing you a lullaby if that means you’ll fall asleep faster,” he said, standing up and tugging at your hand.

“Ah, I’m afraid I’m gonna crash too fast to properly appreciate it,” you giggled as he kited you all the way to the resting area at the front of the container. “But I’m definitely taking a rain check on that.”

“Sure.” One final brush of his thumb over your fingers and he let go of your hand, smirking. “Now sleep, I’ll wake you up when we get there.”

-------

Neil proved to be an excellent companion.

You disabled the alarms simultaneously, paying attention to all the possible silent traps. Forcing the main locks went smoothly, almost surprisingly so. For having something of such importance hidden there, the owners of the place seemed strangely old-fashioned; it shone through the antique decor of the lofty apartment as well as the security choices. Too easy. Tuning out an intrusive thought rattling in the back of your head, you scouted the dark rooms, careful not to leave any traces of your presence.

There.

The office you saw in the photos.

...but they’d redecorated.

“That’s one fancy safe they got there,” you said nonchalantly, eyeing the ornament piece of metal lit by your flashlight, “Too bad it somehow got left out at the briefing.”

Neil’s face dropped when he followed you inside the room.

“Christ, and what now?”

Good question. You’d worked with safes before, hell, you’d cracked a fair share of them using simply manipulation. But never going bloody backwards in time. How would that even work? Was it normal or inverted?

Well, there was only one way to find out.

“I’ve got this.” And that’s how you felt, despite the initial panic. There was a method to it, and you had most of the things you needed with you. Perks of overpreparing. The only issue was-- ... “It might take a while, though.”

Neil nodded.

“Let me know if you need anything.”

“Keep an eye on the time for me, I gotta focus,” you said, reaching into your backpack and accidentally pulling on the thin tube. Right. “...and maybe on the oxygen levels as well?”

“Will do.”

Your brain switched into the challenge mode, and your fingers tingled to give it a try. Armed with a sound amplifier and a little notepad, you sat down next to the safe and got to work.

Figuring out your way in was meant to be a hit and miss, doubly so with the goddamn inversion. But minute after minute, click by click, you determined the first contact points, and the years of experience took you from there. You scribbled numbers and variations in the notepad, fully focused on the task. Almost there.

Another combination. Inhale. Exhale. Pull.

Gotcha.

“Neil?” you called out in the hushed voice as the beam from the flashlight landed on a small metal box of a peculiar shape.

He was next to you in no time.

“That’s it,” he said, kneeling down. He reached inside and took out the box, then carefully placed it inside his backpack. The blue eyes glimmered in the dim light. “Good job!”

“Thanks,” you smiled and closed the safe. “Now let’s get out of here.”

You gathered and packed all your stuff, double-checking for any leftover signs of your entry.

Then you heard it. A faint, slightly off patter against the huge windows. You froze in place as your mind tried to grasp the view of trickles of rain coming up the glass.

Neil glanced outside, not mindful of the absolutely bonkers scene that wiped any coherent thought from your head. Although judging from how quickly his face lost all the colours, the view he got was even more disturbing.

“Christ…” he uttered, shooting you a panicked look. “We’ve got company.”

You dashed to the window to see for yourself. A group of people was crossing the empty street, moving pretty much normally, and that only meant...

Fuck.

“The owners?”

Neil shook his head. “Impossible. The third party, probably.” With his hand already on the holster, he hesitated, considering the options.

But there were only two: fight or flight. The problem was - the numbers didn’t look good for you to try pushing through the crew downstairs. And as for the second one, your initial exit routes seemed to be cut off already.

Although, there was still one path left. You almost smiled to yourself. He was not going to like it.

“Let’s go through the roofs.”

Neil’s eyes widened. “Are you sure?” he asked, scanning your face for any sign of doubt.

There was none.

“Yes, but we have to leave right now.”

He swallowed with effort and nodded.

As soon as you bolted out of the apartment and rushed up the stairs, the footsteps coming from the lower levels quickened. Time was running out.

You were about to barge outside when Neil grabbed your hand as if he sensed what was going to happen next. The doors opened and you lost the momentum, startled by the view. Heavy showers replaced the drizzle you saw through the window, intensifying the nauseating effect.

The last strands of sanity threatened to leave you, but Neil’s touch was like an anchor, grounding you and keeping you from spiraling further.

“Which way?” he shouted through the hammering, almost deafening rain.

You blinked rapidly and looked around to match the data from the brief to the actual location.

“Over there!”

Wishing you’d had a goddamn collar to pop, you leaped to the side, guiding Neil through your only escape route. You let go of his hand to vault over the vents, and just as your feet touched the surface again, you heard distant yells behind you. Shit.

The high density of the area was working in your favor, but only for so long. There was meant to be a gap between the buildings sooner or later, and one of them was coming right up. The jump was doable, even for Neil - all you needed was speed and a decent launch.

But when your companion noticed the edge of the roof, he slowed down and stopped by a low parapet wall, cursing.

“No fucking way!”

“Yes fucking way, Neil, come on! We don’t have time!” you urged him as the voices behind you grew louder.

He swallowed with effort, too transfixed on the gap. You bit back an impatient groan and grabbed him by the shoulders, forcing him to look at you.

“Neil, listen to me. You can do this. All you need is a run-up.”

He didn’t seem convinced. You gritted your teeth, trying to keep your own rising panic in check.

“Do you trust me? Yes or no?”

He met your eyes and his features hardened. There.

“I do.”

And when you opened the mouth again, the first bullet whizzed past you. You flinched, but maintained the eye contact, afraid to lose Neil’s newfound confidence. “Then go first, I’m right behind you.”

Neil nodded and backed away quickly. Watching him jump, your heart skipped a beat, but he landed on the other side without too much trouble. Good. Your turn.

You dashed towards the rim and another bullet missed your legs by a hair’s breadth, hitting the parapet wall right ahead of you. A little close to the top, as you noted, jumping on it to leap across the gap.

But the realization came a moment too late. The wall crumbled under your feet.

Enough for you to not make it to the other side.

Someone screamed.

Was it you?

It didn’t matter.

The world dissolved in a flash of agonizing pain.

And darkness.

----

Static beeping. The smell of disinfectants. And your every particle throbbing in dull pain.

Somebody was having a quiet conversation nearby. The Protagonist… and Neil?

A wave of relief flooded over you. He’d made it.

Grunting, you opened your eyes and squinted, waiting for your sight to readjust to the poor light. Weird. Why would they keep you in such a pitch-black room?

“Gents?” you called out, carefully shifting upwards, wincing. “Would you mind getting the lights?”

The conversation stopped and you heard a gasp.

“Lights? But it’s the middle of the day?” said The Protagonist, but Neil cut him off.

“You’re awake!” Footsteps and a sudden touch on your hand. Neil’s voice trembled slightly, as well as his fingers. “Are you okay?”

You bored into darkness, hoping to see the familiar face.

To see anything.

To see.

(next chapter ->)

#neil tenet #neil tenet x reader #neil x reader #tenet #robert pattinson #neil tenet fanfiction #tenet fanfiction #neil tenet imagine #the protagonist tenet #ives tenet #wheeler tenet #long nights

[truecrimesstuff]

The Columbine High School Massacre:

Columbine High School is a public school situated in Columbine, Colorado, United States. It was the place where one of the deadliest mass shootings of 20th century United States history occurred.

Columbine High School in Littleton, Columbine.

The day was April 20, 1999, and was a normal Tuesday for the students and faculty of Columbine High, who had absolutely no idea the nightmarish things that the day had in store. Referred to mostly as the Columbine High School Massacre, it unfolded as two 17 year olds namely Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris attempted to detonate a bomb and went on a shooting spree that resulted in 13 deaths and 20 others severely injured.

Eric Harris, one of the perpetrators.

According to reports, Harris and Klebold became friends during seventh grade and were considered inseparable as seniors. Though there were speculations that they conducted this massacre as they were subjected to bullying and remained isolated most of the time, these claims were later said to be untrue by many of their classmates and Dylan's mother herself who claimed that Dylan had a small circle of friends of which Eric was only one. Klebold and Harris had started planning for the massacre from a year prior and had acquired two 9mm firearms and a further two 12 gauge shotguns. In addition to the firearms, the two teens had also constructed improvised explosives with the help of the internet and an infamous book named "The Anarchist Cookbook." Together they constructed a total of 99 bombs including Pipe bombs, Molotov Cocktails, Crickets, Propane tanks converted into bombs, and many others. Harris and Klebold's actual motive isn't properly known but they planned and hoped the massacre would cause the most number of deaths in U.S. history, which then meant exceeding the death toll of the Oklahoma City bombing.

Dylan Klebold, another perpetrator.

On that infamous day, Eric and Dylan arrived at school in different cars at a little past 11:00 A.M. They then parked their respective cars in separate locations. They had already planted bombs at a distance from school which they thought would act as distractions, they had further improvised their cars into explosives and had also planted bombs in the cafeteria. These homemade bombs had the potential to kill and injure everyone who was near. But except for one bomb which was planted as a distraction at a distance from the school, all the other bombs failed to detonate. When the bombs failed, Harris and Klebold who had armed themselves with firearms hiding under the black trench coats that they had worn to school that day, prepared themselves for their ultimate act.

The ones first to be tragically targeted by the perpetrators were two 17-year-old students named Rachel Scott and Richard Castaldo, sitting at the west entrance to the school and eating lunch. Dylan Klebold who was approaching them threw a pipe bomb at the parking lot which only partially detonated giving out smoke making onlookers believe it was just a stupid prank. Without wasting much time, Harris shot Scott four times killing her instantly, while Castaldo was shot eight times in the chest, hand, and abdomen leaving him paralyzed from the chest down.

Eric then pointed his gun at three students who were standing at the stairs down West Entrance. Those three were: Daniel Rohrbough, Sean Graves, and Lance Kirklin. Harris fired at them, instantly killing Rohrbough and severely injuring Graves and Kirklin.

They then targetted five students sitting on the hillside grass at a distance from the West entrance. Of the five three escaped without any injury, while one named Mark Taylor was shot in the chest, arms, and legs and feigned death to escape while one other student named Michael Johnson was shot at his face, leg, and arm but was able to run and escape the shooters.

The two boys then walked inside the West entrance. Klebold went inside the Cafeteria but didn't shoot at any of the students who were already inside. Meantime, Harris started shooting at Anne Marie Hochhalter who was trying to flee, which severely wounded and paralyzed her. Klebold came out of the cafeteria and accompanied Harris up the stairs all the way shooting at students and throwing pipe bombs which didn't detonate properly. Several witnesses heard them say "This is what we always wanted to do. This is awesome."

At 11:22 A.M a custodian called the assigned resources officer to Colombine, Neil Gardner to assist an injury in the senior parking lot. At 11:24 as he was exiting his car, he heard another call on the school radio informing him about the shooters. At the same time, Harris who was at the West entrance turned and fired shots at Gardner who fired back. No one was injured in this firing and Neil immediately reported on his police radio regarding the ongoing shooting. The shooters then started walking through the North hallway shooting anyone and everyone they encounter. Klebold shot Stephanie Munson at the ankle but she escaped the school without any further injury.

By this time six deputies had also arrived and were trying to assist the wounded at the entrances when Harris again came back and tried firing at them. The authorities fired back at him and he retreated inside the building. No one was injured in this gun battle.

Dave Sanders, a teacher, and coach at the school along with two custodians named Joe Curtis and Jay Gallatine initially told students in the cafeteria to remain under the tables, thereby saving many lives. After some time they tried to evacuate students up the staircase into the second floor. The stairs were located in the Main South hallway where unfortunately Harris and Klebold were heading from the North Hallway. Sanders and the students encountered them face to face. They fired shots that hit Sanders twice in the neck and back but missed the students. The students ran into a science classroom while Sanders remained unconscious at that very place and later when gained some consciousness crawled into the science area where a teacher brought him into a class with 30 students. The teacher also brought in Aaron Hancey, a student with some knowledge of first aid from another classroom even when the commotion was ongoing behind them. With the help of a teacher named Teresa Miller and another fellow student Kevin Starkey, Aaron Hancey administered first aid to Sanders and was able to keep him alive for three hours.

Harris and Klebold now entered the library where 52 students along with two teachers and two librarians were hiding. Harris fired his shotgun at a desk and a student Evan Todd was hit in the eye and back by wood splinters but wasn't severely injured. They then walked towards the two rows of computers where Kyle Velasquez, a disabled student was sitting. Velasquez was shot in the head and back and died at spot. While shooting at the roof and glass panes they were saying how long they had been waiting for this and it seemed as if they were enjoying themselves and even were heard shouting things like, "Yahoo!". They were also asking the students to stand up by themselves as the library was about to explode anyway but no one did.

Klebold removed his trench coat and fired at a table nearby which injured three students named Daniel Steepelton, Patrick Ireland, and Makai Hall who were hiding under it. As Harris moved away, Ireland who was himself injured tried to assist Hall whose neck was severely wounded. While doing so, Ireland's head slightly raised above his table and Klebold shot him twice in the head but he ended up surviving. Harris instead walked down the computer rows and shot under a table, which hit a 14-year-old Steven Curnow on the neck and he later succumbed to his injury. He then fired at the adjacent table under which 17-year-old Kacey Ruegsegger was hiding. The bullet that hit her severed a major artery and went completely past her shoulder.

Harris then moved to another computer table with two students named Casey Barnall and Emily Wyant who were hiding under it. He taunted them initially and later on shot Barnall on her head, thereby killing her on the spot. At this time, Harris's gun had recoiled and hit him on his face and the students recall seeing him with blood around his nose and mouth.

Dylan Klebold too set into momentum and started going around the tables. Under one table he found 18-year-old Isaiah Shoels, 16-year-old Matthew Kechter, and 16-year-old Craig Scott who was also the brother of Rachel Scott, the first victim of the massacre. Klebold taunted Isaiah Shoels with derogatory racial remarks and was later on joined by Harris. Both the shooters fired under the table. Harris shot Isaiah Shoels in the chest and killed him while Klebold shot Matthew Kechter who was also later found dead. Scott was left uninjured in the blood of his friends and he tried to feign death.

The shooters then moved towards the east side of the library and Klebold shot at a nearby table injuring an a 17-year-old Mark Kintgen in the head and shoulder. He then turned to another table and fired shots injuring 17-year-old Lauren Townsend, Valeen Schnurr, and Lisa Kreutz. Townsend died on the spot.

The shooters moved from table to table searching for people to kill. Harris moved to a table that hid 16-year-old Nicole Nowlen and John Tomlin, he shot at them twice. It was reported that Tomlin who moved out of the table after his injury was shot repeatedly by Klebold which ultimately killed him. A 16-year-old Kelly Flaming was huddled next to a table and not directly under it due to lack of space. Harris fired from behind her and hit her on the back, killing her. He kept shooting in her direction which later injured 18-year-old Jeanna Park.

The perpetrators then moved to the central part of the library where they spread their weapons on a table. Harris didn't stop even now and fired at a table, which injured 15-year old Daniel Mauser in his ear and hand. Mauser tried to defend himself by shoving a chair at Harris who in turn fired another shot point-blank at Mauser's face killing him. They again shot some students under a table at the south side of the library severely injuring three 17 year-old students Austin Eubanks, Jennifer Doyle, and Corey DePooter. DePooter succumbed to his injuries and was declared dead. Many heard Klebold tell Harris about knifing some students but they didn't implement it.

The victims of the massacre.

Both the shooters walked out of the library at 11:36 A.M. After they had left, the injured along with the uninjured students and faculty started carefully evacuating the library through the North Entrance. Craig Scott helped Casey Ruegsegger leave the library which ultimately saved her life. Patrick Ireland who was unconscious and Lisa Kreutz who was unable to move had to be left behind.

Klebold and Harris aimlessly walked around the school firing shots in the air moving from the cafeteria to the hallways. At 12:00 P.M they re-entered the library which was now empty except for those injured. At about 12:02 P.M, they engaged in another gun battle with the police through the library windows. At 12:08 P.M both the shooters pointed the guns to their heads and took their own lives

The infamous photo of Harris and Klebold in the cafeteria 8-10 minutes before their suicide.

SWAT teams were stationed outside the school at about 12:00 P.M. At 1:00 P.M two squads moved inside the school looking from classroom to classroom for survivors and dead bodies. At 2:38 P.M a partially paralyzed Patrick Ireland crawled from under the table where he had laid unconscious and dangled out of the window with a hope to fall on the arms of the SWAT team members but instead landed painfully on the roof of a vehicle. The authorities were severely criticized for this incident. At 2:40 P.M the authorities found the room full of students in the science area along with the severely wounded Dave Sanders. By 3:00 P.M Sanders was moved to a more accessible room by the SWAT team and a paramedic was rushed in who later declared that Sanders had no pulse. Patti Nielson, an art teacher hiding in the adjacent room to the library, and Lisa Kreutz who was left bleeding in the library was later evacuated at 3:22 P.M with four others. The authorities discovered the bodies of the perpetrators in the library at 3:30 P.M. The total death count was 15 along with the perpetrators and another 24 were critically injured.

At 5:30 P.M bomb squads were called in due to the numerous explosives found around the school and they were successful in disposing of the bombs along with those the shooters had attached to their cars. On 21 April 1999 at about 10:00 A.M the bomb squad declared the school to be safe for officials to enter. On April 22, the officials discovered the bombs in the cafeteria. USA Today referred to the Columbine massacre as "planned as a grand, if badly implemented, terrorist bombing."

In the aftermath, classes at Columbine were held at the nearby Chatfield Senior High for the last three weeks of the school year. In August 1999 students returned to the school which had undergone some renovations. Many faculty and students developed PTSD and a 17-year-old student named Greg Barnes who witnessed Sanders death committed suicide in May 2000.

Later on it was found that both Harris and Klebold had kept regular journals where they had written about their plans of the massacre. Moreover, they kept tapes detailing their plans and reasons for the massacre. Since most of them were shot in the Harris's house basement, the tapes were called Basement Tapes. Examining these tapes and journal entries, many experienced personnels as well as the FBI concluded that the killers were victims of some mental illnesses. Harris was claimed to be a clinical psychopath with a messianic level superiority complex and Klebold was depressive and was also claimed to be schizotypal according to some other professionals. Harris was later given the title of the mastermind behind the attack and Klebold was seen as someone who used the massacre to end his life. Most people have varying views on this.

After the Columbine High School Massacre, many US schools enacted zero-tolerance rules regarding provoking or threatening behavior of any type. Mark Manes, the person who was later found to have sold a gun to Eric Harris along with ammunition was sentenced to 6 years in prison, along with another man named Philip Duran, who introduced him to Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold. In subsequent times, the Columbine shooting influenced many other school shootings across the USA. Fear of similar events arising led to sometimes closing down of entire districts. Ralph Lurkin who examined twelve major school shootings said that in eight of those the perpetrators made direct reference to Columbine shooting along with Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold.

After the attacks, the police authorities was severely criticised over the slow response and progress of the SWAT teams during the shooting and police departments reassessed their tactics and now train for Columbine-like situations after criticism.

Picture Courtesy: Pinterest.

#true crime #columbine school shooting

[wulfrann]

A wingman winged (Palmetto by the Sea part 1)

All for the game

Rating: Teen and Up

Relationship: Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard, Neil Josten & Allison Reynolds, Allison Reynolds/Renee Walker (side)

Additional Tags: AU - Modern Setting, AU - No Exy, First Meeting, Eden’s Twilight, Neil ‘Best Wingman’ Josten

[Part 1 of the Palmetto by the Sea series - Chapter 1/1 - 3k words - Published 2020-12-10]

Summary :

It's a Saturday night at Eden's, and Allison needs Neil's help to approach the object of her long-suffering crush - that is to say, she needs him to distract the girl's intimidating friend long enough that she's able to approach in the first place.

(TW: alcohol, sexual harassment (short-lived), brief display of violence, smoking)

[Read on Ao3]

*

A wingman winged

The music thumps the ground in rhythm, low and deep like a pulse as it throbs through the club and reverberates into the bodies twisting as one on the dance floor. Eden’s Twilight isn’t really Neil’s scene, but the dark aesthetic and ever-shifting neon lighting make it easy to blend in. The shadows bend and stretch over his scars, reducing them to odd tattoos at first glance - and he makes sure he never gets a second. The clothes he’s wearing are nice enough and all black, but neither form-fitting nor revealing. Standing next to Allison’s brand of tastefully flashy clubwear, he’s no more than a foil. Seduction is her domain, and she thrives on it.

Which is what makes the fact that she’s asking him for help absolutely baffling.

“I’ve seen you wrap more than half this crowd around your little finger like it was nothing. Why can’t you just do the same with her?”

“You don’t understand,” Allison repeats for the third time that night. She has her chin in her hand and is leaning over her drink, swirling the expensive cocktail around with her straw. “I’ve tried everything, and the most I’ve gotten is for her to look at me. She hasn’t even tried to buy me a drink.”

“Have you tried talking to her?”

Allison scoffs. “I don’t set myself up for failure. She’s given me no sign that she’s interested. Besides, that little troll of a man she keeps around would probably bite me if I tried.”

Neil snorts at that. He’s seen the man in question glare people away, from both himself and his friend, all evening - on one occasion, he’s almost certain that the man even pulled out a knife. There’s no mistaking the way that the light glinted off of the blade, not even from across a crowded nightclub. Neil would recognise that brief flash anywhere.

His friend though, she looks friendly enough. White hair dyed rainbow at the tips, a silver cross, a few piercings. She’s wearing a black dress that wouldn’t look out of place in daylight and a soft smile that Neil is tempted to believe is fake just because of how earnest it looks. She’s also got the muscle structure of an athlete, a fact which Allison has reminded him of enough times that he’ll probably never be able to forget.

“Couldn’t you just accept your defeat and move on?” Neil tries, but he’s known Allison long enough that his heart isn’t in it. She’s never been one to give up.

“Don’t be ridiculous. Have you seen the arms on her? I’m getting her in my bed whether her little bodyguard likes it or not.”

“What if she’s straight?”

Allison shakes her head at him in that way that means he’s failed at some kind of social task and starts to count her points off her fingers. “Neil, the woman is ripped, has an undercut, rainbow hair, and armpit hair.”

“How do you know-”

“I have eyes. Besides, that blond troll she always comes here with is definitely gay, and everyone knows queer people travel in group.”

Neil throws a skeptical glance towards the unlikely duo, but doesn’t argue. None of what Allison listed strikes him as particularly telling, but he’s been told that his ‘gaydar’ is ‘absolutely abysmal’ on numerous occasions by about everyone he knows except Kevin, who's just as bad as him if Allison can be trusted.

Neil might as well accept his fate. “What do you want me to do?”

Allison grins at him. “I knew you’d see it my way.”

*

Locating the two of them isn’t as easy when he’s not sitting on the upper level but standing right here in the crowd, surrounded by people and blinded by the rapidly changing lights. Years of hyper-vigilance end up paying off once he’s gotten his bearings right, however, and he starts making his roundabout way towards the section of wall they’re leaning on. The man is sipping on some kind of drink and staring blankly into the distance while the woman does most of the talking, though she does glance in Allison’s general direction more than once in the amount of time it takes Neil to reach them. He doesn’t blame her - even he has to admit that Allison’s dancing is a thing of beauty.

Neil, on the other hand, only ever pretends to dance. He’s gone out with his friends often enough that he’s picked up a few generic moves and can blend in, but it just - doesn’t appeal to him. Still, what little grasp he has on it is enough to get to his target unnoticed.

One falsely awkward step later and he’s got a glassful of whiskey and coke soaking into the man’s black tank top and dripping down his pants.

The hand wrapped around his arm, steadying him, is an unexpected addition. Neil’s previous drink messed his balance at the last minute and he’s pretty sure he’d have fallen to the floor if he hadn’t been caught. The man’s grip is undeniable strong, but it’s the eyes that really hold Neil down to his spot. He can’t quite tell the color because of the many strobing lights and colored neons flashing around, but he thinks they might be brown.

“Oops,” Neil says, straightening himself up with exaggerated movements. The man’s eyes flicker down his drenched top before sliding back up to Neil’s eyes without so much as a frown. “Sorry for your muscle shirt,” Neil adds as an after-thought, digging the word out of an afternoon spent (unwillingly) shopping with Allison.

The man arcs a single eyebrow. “You’re drunk,” he says, with one of the flattest voices Neil has ever heard.

Neil smiles widely, swaying a little on his feet. He still has the man’s hand wrapped around his bicep. “No,” he retorts, slurring the words a bit, “I’m Neil.”

The eyebrow arcs up even higher. Neil’s smile widens. He’s about to say something else, whatever sentence he can think of that would maintain the man’s attention on him, when someone else’s voice cuts in.

“Andrew, you’re soaked!”

Neil turns towards the woman, spying Allison making her way over from behind her, and raises his now empty glass. “My fault. I wasn’t looking.”

She smiles. From close up, it looks even softer than Neil thought. “That’s okay, it happens,” she says, then glances down where the man’s hands - Andrew’s? - is still holding on to him. “Are you okay? Can you stand?”

“Yeah, I just tripped,” Neil reassures her, then looks over at Andrew, whose eyes haven’t left his face. He’s… staring, with an intensity that catches Neil off-guard. And then he’s not, because Allison is coming over and calling his name. The hand drops from his arm like it was burned.

“Neil! There you are.” She puts a hand on his shoulder, then turns, falsely confused, towards Andrew and his friend. “What happened?”

“Nothing,” the woman says, looking a little stunned.

“Your friend spilled his drink on me,” Andrew states, throwing a look at his own friend.

“I was just going to ask the barman for paper towels,” the object of Allison's scheming adds, already half-turning away.

Allison doesn’t hesitate one second before following suit, offering her help. When the woman starts to protest, she takes hold of her arm and all but drags her to the bar. Neil watches the interaction without holding back his smile.

When he turns back towards Andrew, the man is staring at him with a frown.

“Sorry again for your shirt,” Neil offers, though he forgets to make himself sound like he means it. “You should probably take it off.”

The arched eyebrow comes back, and Neil realizes what he just said with a choked laugh. “I didn’t mean it like that. But it would dry faster,” he adds, feeling stupid. Andrew doesn’t look convinced, though, so he feels compelled to add, “I don’t swing.”

“I don’t watch baseball,” Andrew deadpans.

“I’m not talking about baseball,” Neil says, grimacing in disgust. “It’s not even a real sport.”

The look Andrew gives him is the blankest one yet. Neil looks down into his empty glass, then at Andrew’s tank top.

“You really should rinse it down, at least,” he ends up saying. “Otherwise it’s going to stick.”

Andrew stares at him a little longer, then downs his glass and starts to move in the direction of the bathroom. For some reason, Neil follows.

The bathroom is painted mostly black, like just about everything in Eden’s. Only the large sink is white. Neil leans back against it and watches as Andrew grabs a few paper towels from the dispenser and soaks them with water, then starts to wipe at his shirt. He thinks about helping, but remembers the way Andrew avoided touching anyone on his way to the bathroom and figures that there’s not much he could do, anyway.

“You’re not drunk,” Andrew states after a while.

Neil debates lying as Andrew throws the wet ball of paper away and walks to the dispenser to get more, but decides against it. “No, I’m not. I don’t like it.”

Andrew barely glances at him. “You play drunk well for someone who doesn’t like it.”

“S’not hard,” Neil says, shrugging, then figures he might as well come clean and adds: “Allison needed an excuse to talk to your friend.”

Andrew meets his eyes then, eyebrow arched up. “Did she try buying her a drink?”

“That’s what I said.” Neil smiles, then shrugs again. “Apparently she’s been trying to get your friend’s attention for weeks, but nothing’s worked.”

Andrew lets a sharp breath out of his nose, which Neil guesses is the equivalent of a laugh, if the lack of facial expression he's shown so far is anything to go by. “If that’s what she thinks, then your friend’s blind.”

Neil grins. “I’m glad. I thought I’d caught her staring a few times, but I wasn’t sure.”

“Renee likes to think she’s subtle.”

“Well, at least they’re talking now. I don’t think you’re getting those paper towels though,” Neil adds, watching Andrew wash his hands with a distracted kind of fascination. Somehow, the dark armbands encasing both of Andrew’s forearms make his hands stand out. Broad, and worn, with an odd elegance in the way they move. Neil would bet a lot of money on Andrew having some kind of manual career, at the very least a hobby. Something meticulous.

It’s only after Andrew’s wiped his hands and thrown away one last paper towel that Neil realizes he’s been staring, and he moves his eyes to Andrew’s face instead. He finds him with his head tipped slightly to the side, looking at him with the faintest hint of curiosity on his face.

Neil is about to say something - he's not sure what - when some guy he’d barely registered on his radar suddenly steps into his space.

"Hey there, pretty face,” the guy slurs, exhaling cheap booze right into Neil’s face. “Were you waiting for me?"

Neil looks up at the guy's face and begrudgingly resists the urge to bash an elbow into his nose. "Obviously not," he spits.

Hoping that it's enough for the guy to take his hint and leave, Neil starts to turn back towards Andrew. He is immediately jostled back towards the guy as a large hand grabs his chin and twists. "Hey, I was talking to you, Scarface."

"Wow, I've never heard that one before," Neil retorts, rolling his eyes. "You know, you should really make up your mind, asshole. Either I'm pretty or I'm not. Now get lost," Neil says, and is about to jam his knee into the guy's crotch when something tears the asshole away from him. Neil's balance is shaken by the movement, but he manages to stay upright by gripping the sink.

"You don't touch people without their permission. Hasn't anyone ever told you that?" Andrew says, pressing down upon the hold he has on the guy's arm, which he's twisted behind his back with one hand. He has a knife pressed to the guy's throat with the other. His voice is flat enough to cut. "If I see you again, I'll gut you. Understood?"

The guy nods and Andrew sends him sprawling onto the floor. He scrambles quickly to his feet and promptly runs out the door. Light glints off the small knife’s blade, clutched so tightly Andrew’s knuckles look white.

"Thanks," Neil says in the silence. "But I could have handled it."

"I don't care," Andrew snarls back.

Neil looks at the tension oozing out of Andrew's every cell and decides to keep silent. It's the right decision, judging by the way Andrew closes his eyes and starts packing up the tension, folding it back inside little by little. Neil knows the feeling.

The knife vanishes from his hand (and into one of the sheaths Neil suspects are sewn into the armbands), and Neil follows Andrew out of the bathroom. They stand by the door for a bit while Neil watches Andrew scanning the crowd with a clenched jaw. The tension is still there, even packed up, even pressed down tight under the surface of his skin. It needs more space than that to leave.

"Let's get out of here," Neil offers.

Andrew glances at him, then nods. Neil takes a hold of the hem of Andrew's shirt and leads the way out of the club.

*

The night's chill is a welcome change of pace after the density of the packed club's air. Neil inhales a gallon of it as soon as they've stepped outside, and hears Andrew do the same. It smells of cigarette butts and wet asphalt. He had no idea it'd rained.

A faint click on his right - Andrew lights a cigarette and offers him another one. Neil takes it and watches the smoke spill out of Andrew’s mouth like magic, grabbing hold of the lighter only as an afterthought. The metal is smooth under his touch and slightly warm over the imprint of Andrew’s hand. Neil brings the cigarette to his lips and takes a drag, closing his eyes to focus on the burning air flow rushing down his windpipe. He blows it out smiling, eyes trailing after the faint grey cloud. Andrew’s eyes are on him.

“Thanks,” he tells him, raising his cigarette in the air.

They smoke in silence. Neil lets the little circle of fire eat away at his cigarette without taking another drag, content just to breathe and to watch as the tension coiled so tight in Andrew’s chest unwinds, seeping out, one exhalation at a time, into the quiet night.

The quiet can’t last forever, however, especially not on a Saturday night at Eden’s doorsteps, and so the peace is brutally broken a few minutes later as a group of inebriated twenty-somethings spill out over the sidewalk laughing loudly and singing songs. Andrew adroitly sidesteps one of them as he staggers to the side before getting dragged back by his friend, brushing shoulders with Neil. They got their stuff back from the cloakroom when they stepped out and Andrew’s wearing a leather jacket over his muscle shirt, black as the rest of his clothes.

Andrew looks at the group staggering its way down the street until they’re far enough they can barely hear them. “Are you hungry?”

Neil shrugs. “Kinda. Why? Are you asking me to dinner?” Neil asks, smile tugging at his lips. “I doubt we’ll find anything open.”

Andrew smothers the butt of his cigarette on the wall and tosses it into the trashcan Eden’s staff left by the door, then gestures at Neil to follow. It goes against about every instinct Neil has cultivated along the years, but he does.

He doesn’t know why. Andrew’s back is broad and he walks at a steady pace, with an assurance that doesn’t look learned and yet still probably is. Neil remembers the way Andrew looked when he bent the asshole’s arm behind his back, like what he really wanted was to break it in half but knew that he had to hold back. His voice hadn’t faltered then, either. Neil wonders if it ever does.

They stop in front of a motor bike parked some way off of the club, street lights glinting off of the metal and black bodywork. Andrew gets a helmet from some kind of locked compartment and hands it over to Neil, who takes it by reflex.

“Where are we going?” he asks, turning the helmet around in his hands. He’s starting to wonder whether Andrew’s even aware that there are other colors outside of black.

Andrew grabs a pair of gloves out of the compartment and slips them on. “A kebab joint,” he says without looking at Neil. “It’s open until 3.”

 Neil considers the bike, then the helmet in his hands. “I’ve never ridden on a bike before.”

“Don’t get on before I tell you to. Don’t make me lose my balance. When the bike leans into turns, lean with it,” he drones out. “If you do that and hold on, you’ll be fine.”

Neil considers Andrew. The solid stance of him. Once he climbs on the bike, he’ll have no control until they stop.

“Okay.”

There’s a buzzing beneath his kin.

*

The kebab joint is a tiny square of neon light squeezed in-between two higher-end shops, and the only open place to sell food for miles around. There are no tables and no interior, just a counter with a window display that reminds Neil of ice-cream shops, filled with meat fillings, some kind of fried rolls, and a handful of sad-looking pastries. The items are listed above and to the sides - hamburgers, kebabs, paninis, all with various meats and side dishes and an array of sauces Neil’s never heard of before. He has no idea where to start, and so asks for the same thing Andrew ordered.

They pack the smell of cheap food and fat in plastic bags and leave the shop front to sit by the pier. The kebab is greasy and would have made Kevin scream, but the meat is tasty and the sauce is good, and it’s somehow the perfect thing to eat right now.

Through the cloud of their food wafts the sharp smell of iodine. They claimed a spot of the pier to sit, legs dangling through the railing, and the wood too smells of salt, is so ingrained with it that it sticks slightly to the skin and leaves imprints of tiny crystals on their clothes.

They eat in silence; the wash and backwash of the sea beneath the pier is a rolling whisper, swishing quietly past the piles and back again, a dark rippling sky in movement. There is no agitation around them, yet still it seems as though the sea swallows all sounds, pillows the silence with its mass, shaping a quietude with depth. It’s a quality of peace Neil has never felt before.

He’s just about finished with his food when his phone buzzes.

[From: Allison] where r u??

Neil snorts. Andrew raises a quizzical eyebrow at him, but he just shakes his head.

[To: Allison] I left 30 minutes ago, but thank you for noticing.

[From: Allison] was busy :-*

[From: Allison] u haven’t been kidnapped right? did u go home?

[To: Allison] No and no. I’m at the pier with Andrew.

[From: Allison] ?????

[From: Allison] was that a joke???

Neil huffs out a laugh, enjoying the confusion, and puts his phone on silent as more texts keep coming in. Andrew’s phone buzzes once, but he doesn’t check it - just grabs a cigarette and his lighter, replacing the smell of their meal with another. The smoke drifts up and disperses, yielding to the handful of stars valiantly fighting against the electrical constellations of city lights. The moon is gibbous amongst them and fractal upon the sea; Neil distractedly notices that it’s waning, as the curve makes a d and Jean’s trick somehow never left his mind, despite his lack of interest in the conversation at the time.

It makes Andrew look even paler, this lighting. His hair is made of silver and the volumes of his face either stand out or cave, stark and almost unreal.

Andrew’s eyes flick to his.

“Staring.”

Neil smiles. He takes the cigarette from Andrew’s hand and takes a drag, blowing memories up, up, up until they’re gone.

“What do you do?” he asks when he hands the cigarette back. “For a living, I mean.”

Andrew doesn't answer. He just looks at Neil and pulls on his cigarette. A bit of wind blows the smoke sideways, across his cheek and back to land.

"If you won't tell me, I'll guess," Neil says when it's clear he's not getting an answer, and pretends to study Andrew's appearance for clues. "You could be an artist. You look like one." He grins at the unimpressed look on Andrew's face. "Bit of a cursed poet vibe, with the piercings and all that black. Strong aesthetic. I guess you could be a musician, too."

The corner of Andrew's mouth twitches. "Shallow."

Neil shrugs. Appearances tell a lot more than people think, but he's pretty sure he got it wrong. He doesn't actually know how artists are supposed to look like - that's not really the kind of things he learned to watch out for - but it's as good a guess as anything. "It's either that or undertaker."

Andrew blows smoke out through his nose. "Sorry to disappoint, but I just serve drinks."

Neil hums. "Full time?"

"No. I also cook."

"You're a chef, and you still eat food like this?" Neil asks, waving at the plastic bag sitting between them.

"Aide," Andrew corrects. "Anas' is the only decent place still open. I don't see you complaining."

"It was pretty good," Neil grants, then adds, because it's only fair: "I'm a student."

"Late calling?"

Neil smiles. "Something like it."

An eyebrow shaped like a question. Neil ignores it in favor of the sea, but the weight of Andrew's gaze stays fixed on him like an anchor. He wonders if Andrew's trying to guess what something like it may hide; wonders how far away from reality he's wandering, trying to find something reasonable; wonders, even, how he'd react if Neil told him the truth. Whether he'd balk at the scars that prove it or stare at them the same way he's staring at the ones across his face now, blank and unwavering, on the upside of bored.

*

Riding on Andrew's bike the second time is just as exhilarating as the first. The city flies by in a blur - the docks, the bars, the empty streets, they blend together and melt together until there's nothing really left but them, passing. Alone. A figment caught between two worlds.

When Andrew drops him off, the ground still moves beneath his feet. Neil shoves his hand into his pockets and grins, feeling absurdly carefree.

"Thank you. For the ride and for the food - it was amazing."

He means it. Andrew is looking at him like he's trying to figure out if he does. He holds out his hand, and Neil frowns.

He looks to the sky and sighs. "Your phone."

"Oh," Neil says. He puts his phone in Andrew's palm.

Andrew takes one glove off and puts his number in quickly. He tosses his phone back to Neil and brings two fingers up to his temple in salute.

The bike roars to life, the noise filling the street until it's gone. Neil looks down at the brand new contact in his phone, carefully prodding at the little bit of warmth beneath his sternum.

Matt, Dan, Wymack, Allison, Abby, Kevin, his therapist, his dentist and his doctor. Andrew's number brings the staggering total amount of contacts into his phone to a very satisfying 10.

#andreil #tfc #aftg #neil josten #andrew minyard #all for the game #the foxhole court #allison reynolds #renee walker #renison #modern au #palmetto by the sea #a wingman winged #no exy au #fanfiction #wulfrann writes #this has been sitting in my wips for 9 months rip

[comrade-meow]

GERMAN CHILD-PROTECTION REGULATORS are on the verge of blocking one of the world’s largest pornographic websites. The officials are set to issue a blocking order to the country’s biggest internet service providers saying a pornographic website, believed to be xHamster, should be made inaccessible to Germany’s 83 million people.

The blocking order, which may be issued in the coming weeks by the Commission for the Protection of Minors in the Media (Kommission für Jugendmedienschutz in German, or KJM), follows a failure by xHamster to introduce age-verification checks to stop under-18s from accessing pornography. The order is the latest salvo in a two-year campaign by regulators to compel all pornographic websites accessible in Germany to implement age-verification checks.

Legislators around the world—including in Canada, France, the UK, and some US states—are looking to introduce more measures aimed at stopping children from accessing adult material online. But the move by Germany is one of the most sweeping measures taken so far, with critics comparing it to censorship.

German officials are taking action against four major pornography websites, says Marc Jan Eumann, chair of the KJM. The group, which represents the country’s 14 state media authorities, is responsible for enforcing a broad treaty agreed upon by all states around the protection of children. It is in addition to other German laws on child protection. Eumann refuses to confirm the four websites the KJM is taking legal action against. However, German reporting says the cases are against xHamster and three websites, YouPorn, Pornhub, and MyDirtyHobby, all of which are owned by MindGeek.

The regulators have been trying to force pornographic websites to introduce age-verification checks—which can involve the uploading of identity documents—since September 2019. Much of this has been pushed by one state regulator, Tobias Schmid of the State Media Authority of North Rhine-Westphalia, who has been criticized for his views on sex, but the matter is now also being handled by the KJM.

Eumann says companies should put in place age-checking systems to make sure their visitors are not children. The law says pornographic content should be accessible only by adults, Eumann says. In all four of the cases the pornography websites, which have German-language versions, are accused of not introducing age-verification systems.

One pornographic site, thought to be xHamster, was first contacted by regulators in March 2020 and then the others by June 2020. The requests for age verification have now turned into a legal tussle, and three cases are waiting for hearings in one of Düsseldorf’s administrative courts, Eumann says.

In the case of xHamster it is believed there was no response from the website’s owners. As a result, the case is thought to be the most advanced and could result in the order issuing the site to be blocked in Germany in the coming weeks. At the end of June 2021 the KJM identified the company that hosts xHamster and asked it to make the website unavailable. “We have a blocking order for the hosting provider, which is based in the Netherlands,” Eumann says. “If the host provider does not comply, we will take the last step.” That order expired at the start of this week, the KJM has confirmed. “The last step is taking actions, a blocking order, against German access provider,” Eumann adds.

In reality this means issuing a blocking order to Germany's biggest web providers—including Vodafone, Deutsche Telekom, O2, and 1&1—demanding that they block the website for people trying to access it in Germany. The largest providers will be targeted first, with smaller ones following, and it is likely a block would happen at the Domain Name System (DNS) level. When you are browsing the web, the URL that you type into your browser’s address bar is converted to an IP address by DNS. Imposing a DNS block would mean anyone typing the pornography site’s address into their browser wouldn’t be able to see the page.

It’s likely German web companies may challenge any blocking orders through the country’s legal system—meaning the battle over age verification could be dragged out for years to come. Officials initially tried to get the web companies to voluntarily impose web blocks on xHamster in August 2020, documents show. The internet providers refused to block the sites voluntarily, potentially setting in motion a lengthy legal showdown. “We've already talked to them, they are not happy,” Eumann says.

A spokesperson for 1&1 says it would “assess” any blocking order as and when it is received. “Legal requirements for website blocking orders are quite high according to the Supreme Court (BGH) Judgements,” the spokesperson says. A Vodafone spokesperson says they would look at any order if and when it is received. None of the other web companies replied to a request for comment. MindGeek did not respond to a request for comment and xHamster declined to comment, citing ongoing legal proceedings.

Making pornographic sites introduce age checks to make sure people accessing them are over 18 isn’t a new suggestion—but it is one that’s proved controversial. In 2017, the UK passed the Digital Economy Act, which required adult websites to introduce age-verification technology for all visitors from the UK. But the law, which was dubbed the porn block, was delayed multiple times before collapsing altogether in October 2019.

History could repeat itself in Germany but the idea of age verification is taking off around the world. Europe’s Audiovisual Media Services Directive requires companies to put measures in place to protect children, a bill in Canada is looking to introduce age verification but has faced privacy concerns, Australia has recommended using digital IDs to access pornography and officials in Utah have been pushing a law that would require new smartphones and tablets to have pre-installed and on-by-default pornography filters. France has also threatened to block pornographic websites that don’t put age-verification systems in place.

But German regulators are the closest to introducing any blocks—and the approach is proving divisive. Paulita Pappel, a cofounder of adult site Lustery and the curator of the Pornfilmfestival Berlin, says the worst-case scenario would be if Germany “creates this firewall, that they start blocking sites and say France follows suit. That would push production companies even further to the margins. They would probably move their servers”.

Pappel says that such moves are “comparable to China's censorship” and could put the pornography industry back decades in terms of its reputation. She worries the focus on age verification will filter down to adult companies with less resources to implement them. “Smaller companies, queer performers of color, these are the people that are going to suffer the most,” Pappel says, adding that there should be more of a dialogue between regulators and the industry to ensure positive outcomes and provide young people with better education around sex.

Eumann argues that the actions it is taking are not about pornography itself, but rather protecting children. “We're not going from this perspective that we have something against pornography,” he says. “It's not against net neutrality, it's not against freedom of speech. It's just for protection of the minors.”

Since the UK proposed age-verification checks around half a decade ago there have been questions about the effectiveness of any such systems. A multitude of age-verification technology companies have sprung up, and experts say to best protect people’s privacy and security there need to be consistent standards in place. This also applies to laws around the world: it is easier for pornographic websites to put age verification in place if multiple countries have the same requirements. One point of tension is social media: Some proposed age-verification laws focus only on commercial pornography websites and ignore the huge amount of adult content on websites such as Reddit and Twitter.

“There is a legitimate question about how effective this kind of legislation will be,” says Neil Thurman, a professor in the University of Munich’s department of media and communication, who has studied pornography regulations and people’s opinions on them. Thurman recently surveyed 1,000 16- and 17-year olds in the UK and found that 63 percent of them had seen pornography on social media, while 47 percent of them had seen it on dedicated pornographic websites. (It also found those seeking out pornography would be more likely to do so on dedicated pornographic sites).

Then there’s the question of how well any such systems work. Simply using a VPN or Tor allows you to get around location blocks that are placed on content. Someone in Germany can easily set their location to the UK to avoid local restrictions in much the same way that some people use VPNs to access US Netflix in the UK or BBC iPlayer in Europe. And both teenagers and regulators are very aware of these limitations. Thurman’s research found that 46 percent of the teenagers surveyed had either used a VPN or Tor in the past—another 23 percent knew what they were. The KJM says it doesn’t expect its age-verification laws to stop every person under the age of 18 from accessing pornography.

To date, only one major international pornographic site has introduced age-verification checks in Germany. On May 25, subscription-based website FanCentro, which lets adult performers sell access to their content and has ten million users, introduced age checking developed by UK-based firm Yoti. Nicholas Hörger, FanCentro chief sales officer, says the US firm decided to follow German rules to protect its adult influencers who could potentially be held liable if their subscribers don’t complete age checks. The company spent six months reviewing different age-verification options before picking Yoti’s.

Hörger says the move has gone down well with its German influencers but says he suspects other companies are waiting to see the results of regulations and legal challenges before they adopt any such technology. “In addition to the potential loss of adult consumers, a platform must pay for each verification attempted, which can become costly, depending on your business model and platform,” he says.

So has the age-verification tech made any difference? Hörger refuses to share specific numbers on whether it has resulted in a decrease in users but admits there has been a difference. “There is a percentage of adults who still don’t feel comfortable uploading their ID on an adult site,” Hörger says. “FanCentro’s age verification check happens after they’ve input a credit card or bank details, so we know it’s not an issue of age, but rather concerns about privacy. It’s possible this will change over time.”

#Anglo.txt

[inspector-montoya-fox]

here’s why Thieves in Time is a bad game

before y’all try it, i just want to say that i’ll be as unapologetically petty and sarcastic as i want and fucking rip this game to shreds. yes, this is how i’ve spent my days since Thieves in Time came out. sitting alone in my room, staring at the wall, crying and complaining. because it has since been my life’s aim and dream to think about it every day, state the negative things about it, and become an evil essay witch on this half-dead website. *evil laugh*

Story:

References: i want to start with the smallest problem, but one that annoys me to this day. in the original trilogy, there weren’t a lot of references but the ones that were included were meticulously researched and well thought-out (i’m specifically referring to that Neil Diamond Carmelita vinyl gag, but can’t find the original post). the references in Thieves in Time however, were obviously just the creators’ interests. Turning Japanese, Clan of the Cave Bear and Bentley’s “hacksona” presented as Rambo just scream 1980s (which i’m assuming is the decade the creators grew up in), and Of Mice and Men is classic literature about the Great Depression, which subsequently started being taught in school in the US during the 1980s. it feels like the creators just went ‘let’s discuss what our lives had in common during our teen years and put that in’ instead of researching it first. and, here’s the thing: when you’re adding references, in order to make them funny or interesting, they have to fit in with the property or the character that’s connected to them in some way. Don Octavio was an opera aficionado so his episode’s title card pays homage to the Phantom of the Opera, young Muggshot was influenced by the movie “The Dogfather” because he’s a gangster, etc. these were funny because they were so spot-on with these characters. if every character in the Sly Cooper universe references the same type of stuff (from the 1980s) and shares the same interests, it’s just claustrophobic and uninteresting. i’m pretty sure i’m not the only one who had to look up these ultra-hetero, scrotum references when the game came out. that’s because they were specifically tailored to be funny to them, and not their target demographic which were kids in 2013.

Narrative: now that we got that out of the way, let’s look at the narrative. at the end of Sly 3, Bentley says he’s building a time machine. Sanzaru took that joke and decided to run with it as the premise for their game. ok, not the best idea, but i get it - you’re literally picking up where the last game left off. since all the storylines were wrapped up, they could’ve done something different like Sly’s kids or Bentley and Murray’s families, but this isn’t an essay about suggestions so...... time travel (i want to say that it’s, again, an 80s reference but whatever) was pretty ‘out there’ in 2013. i mean, even Plants vs Zombies 2, which was released that year, had to do with time travel (yes, i’m referencing an app). but Sanzaru had the advantage of applying this premise onto already established mythos and lore. the story had definite potential: someone is threatening Sly’s lineage so he has to travel back in time to save the day. the player would get to explore new locations and iconic eras in history, and, of course, the main selling point: playable ancestors. how could you screw that up? welp.... let’s think about the plot holes here for a sec. Bentley’s device would take the gang back in time when given an item from the specific era. stop. this right here is called ‘over-complicating’. how did they know the items would take them directly to the point where the specific ancestor was in danger? the Feudal Japan period lasted for 700 years: how did the machine know when and where to drop them off? and if the gang could return to the present at any time, why didn’t they do so when they were in trouble? oh right, the machine was broken. so how did they return the baddies to the present after they defeated them? i mean, why did they use the Grizz’s crown to travel to Medieval England if they went back to the present to drop him off to Interpol first? and on that note, how did they drop the baddies off to jail without getting caught and without Carmelita being around? i can already hear you thinking but these are total details that aren’t important, you jerk! well, yea, they truly are details and i truly am overthinking it. and yes, i truly am a jerk. but let me tell you something: when Sanzaru chose to make a new Sly game, did they not think ‘oh we’ll have to follow up Sly 2 and Sly 3′s stories’ which were well thought-out narratives with depth and various themes and didn’t have huge plot holes (as seen by my analysis through the episode project) ???? and did they also not think that their game would come out eight years after the last one, having expectations at an all-time high???? yea, that’s what i thought.

Characters: i’ll make a different section for Sucker Punch’s characters, so this is for Sanzaru’s original ones. name one iconic original character from Thieves in Time. i’ll wait... nope. not one. that’s because all of them were absolute shit. and here’s where i want to touch upon Sanzaru’s over-reliance on the trilogy. Ms Decibel (perhaps the most obvious copy) is a mix between Don Octavio, Miz Ruby, and the Contessa. El Jefe is Rajan if he went to the gym. Toothpick has Sir Raleigh’s temper and tendency to grow in size. and the Grizz is... whatever the fuck he is. (don’t worry i didn’t forget Le Paradox and Bob). there’s a difference between studying & creating similar characters and blatantly plagiarizing older characters because you lack the creativity. oh, boo-hoo this evil jerk’s telling it how it is. this set of villains is so lacklustre, i don’t even know where to begin. El Jefe is a tiger, even though we’ve already had two major tiger villains and one tiger flashlight guard. ok. Rajan could summon lightning because of the Clockwerk heart but El Jefe can do the same, how exactly? Toothpick is an armadillo (good) from Russia (better) with an obsession with the West (excellent) who can also grow huge (very bad). it’s never explained how or why. why?????? just tell me why. i want to know. i really want to know. Ms Decibel is an elephant who got into a tragic accident which left her with the power of hypnosis. music and hypnosis have already been done, but ok, i’ll give you the benefit of the doubt. so how do we use this character? spend the entirety of her screen time making jokes about... wait for it... her weight !!! this is top-notch comedy... really? like... really? the creators’ humor is a crime, at best. fart jokes and fat jokes all around. oh, and then there’s the Grizz. what the fuck where they thinking? just, what the fuck. i guess the guys at Sanzaru thought black people speak in rap? is that it? apart from it being extremely offensive, it’s also a blatant copy of Dimitri’s backstory. like, his introductory cutscene even has his paintings thrown at him and into the trash, like the intro cutscene for The Black Chateau. honestly, all of these villains caused me several types of pain, but not as much as...

Bob & Le Paradox: the absolute worst. i can just imagine the meeting going something like this: Sly’s ancestors are awesome! i wish we could fit them all in the game... here’s an amazing idea! what if we use one of the game’s few levels to introduce a brand new ancestor! yea! let’s make him dumb as fuck, strip him of any athletic prowess, and retcon the entire lineage by having him be the first Cooper ever! the kids will love a prehistoric level! ..... could you kindly point out where and when did ANYONE ask for this? i remember @ironicsnap​ saying something like the game is good until Bob. no, it was already bad - Bob just lowered the standard. like, a lot. people love Murray and his gameplay is neat, but no one ever thought ‘oh i wish we had a Cooper character with Murray’s game style’. why would they waste the opportunity to bring in Henriette, Thaddeus, Otto, literally any ancestor? why??? but they went ahead and created their own Cooper, and that wasn’t even the end of it. they had to make him dumb. they had to make him unbearable. they had to ruin the Cooper ancestry by adding this mess to the lineage. Sucker Punch made sure that all the ancestors were unique, but at the same time made all of them suave and funny and slick and you wish you could be them! well, fuck that. also, his name is Bob. Bob Cooper. it’s been 7 fucking years and i still can’t wrap my head around it.... so now, let’s talk about Le Paradox. i don’t have to mention the previous main villains, but i will. Clockwerk killed Sly’s ancestors and father, and was seemingly an eternal threat. Neyla was a psychopath who fooled everyone on her journey to becoming immortal by resurrecting Clockwerk. Dr M opened up the possibility for Sly’s dad to be a jerk instead of a hero, and died trying to unlock the Coopers’ legacy. how does Le Paradox compare? well, he’s a sleazebag skunk who was mad because of his dad’s downfall to the Coopers. that’s it. no twist, no depth, no clever dialogue. nothing. there’s nothing there. this is a new character, unfamiliar to everyone, who was hyped up for 5 levels and defeated in the conclusion. why was he a match for Sly? i don’t know. how did he fight for his life and ultimately tricked Sly into helping him? i don’t know. how the hell did he kidnap Carmelita? i don’t know. was it the power of persuasion? no, he’s revolting. so i literally don’t know. there’s no backstory, no fleshing-out the character, nothing. all we’re given to work with is a brief info-dump about his dad and how he escaped prison. i don’t know what else to say apart from how big a humiliation this was for Sanzaru and their team of writers. you had 8 years to work on something and this is what you came up with? anything would be better. anything would best this utter cliché of a villain, a distasteful misogynist, crybaby, idiot with an accent. literally anything.

Arcs & Themes: let’s take a look at the formulaic subplots for the gang’s members. apart from dealing with Le Paradox, everyone had a small arc. Sly had to deal with his break-up with Carmelita. Bentley had to deal with his break-up with Penelope. Murray had to deal with playing second fiddle to Bob. Carmelita was a damsel in distress and sex bait for the ancestors. the ancestors had their own mini storylines along with reacting to Sly’s presence. there you have it. i summarised it all for you, nice and neatly. are there any themes like in the previous games? nope. i promise you i’m not lying when i say that i tried hard to come up with something, even some speck of a detail i could use to over-analyse the story and come up with some ideas on themes. nothing. there are no themes. the subplots are character-driven and the player gives it 0 emotional investment. there is nothing to analyse, nothing to talk about. maybe even a theme for each level, like a spooky level or something? nope. the levels are dependent on eras and historical periods. the variation here is ok. Feudal Japan, Wild West, Prehistoric Australia, Medieval England and Ancient Arabia  - pretty good selection. i’ll give them credit for it. but that’s it. due to the absence of themes, the hubs feel empty. there’s no replayability factor. after you collect the bottles and masks and treasures, there’s nothing. i would spend hours revisiting the trilogy’s hubs, just roaming around. the hubs here are huge and empty. there’s nothing to reminisce about. nothing to recall. oh that’s where this mission went down. no, nothing like that. the aforementioned subplots are resolved during mission cutscenes and then they’re gone. you don’t have to explore spooky Prague alone as Bentley to have him overcome his fears, you don’t have to find out miners abducted Murray’s beloved Guru and search the Australian outback for him, you don’t have to hold back your tears when you’ve reached the end of the Cooper Vault and Sly asks his dad for help. nothing.

Gameplay:

Controls: as soon as i laid my hands on the controller the first time i played the game, that fateful afternoon, i knew something was up. Sly would respond 1 second late after you pushed something on the controller. it felt clunky, is what i’m trying to say or, as my sister put it, it felt heavy. and she was right. the controls were clunky and heavy and didn’t feel light, like playing as a thief should feel. i don’t know shit about game mechanics but this definitely didn’t feel right. the hubs are also chunky in design, the cliffs are huge and so cyclical or hexagonal, that when you parachute your way to them and are just an inch close, Sly will automatically just drop because he can’t grab onto them. running as Sly doesn’t feel fast, silently obliterating guards from behind feels slow, and swinging, grabbing, pickpocketting, and hanging aren’t fun anymore. presentation-wise, @designraccoon​ goes into detail here, in an absolute gem of a post. in short, the gameplay animations make Sly look less sneaky. Sanzaru didn’t even consider a thief’s movements.

Missions: why the fuck would you remove the player’s option to choose between which mission to do first? why would you do that? the game lays out what goes first, sometimes having only one mission available in the hub. and the missions aren’t even enjoyable. firstly, the loading screens take up to 5 minutes, maybe even 7-8. secondly, there’s hacking every 2 missions. the missions don’t have any dialogue to make them fun, lack in interesting puzzles, what more can i say? they’re overly easy and lack any challenge whatsoever. at least there’s variation in gameplay (hacking, RC car, fishing, costumes, ancestors, turret etc.) but because of the controls, even these get tiresome. the missions are solely there to progress the story and that’s why the operations are merely ‘storm the main baddie’. the trilogy had some pretty interesting missions which made sure to complete jobs required to take down the big bad. e.g. kidnap General Clawfoot to take down the security, hack Contessa’s computer to make sure Carmelita will be freed, steal voices to tempt Neyla, and then take down the Contessa. the missions in Thieves in Time lack substance and variety. and the hacking (all three styles) sucks.

Collectibles: here’s another fantastic idea: have players collect costumes in order to collect bottles in order to collect treasures in order to collect masks in order to unlock funky Sanzaru logo-themed merch! what was the reason for the collectibles? in previous games, collecting all bottles would unlock special abilities. that was it. it’s the same thing here too, but there’s less incentive? i mean when you have to collect 1000 things, what’s the point? the treasures are random and very few are references to the trilogy, so whatever. and the masks unlock... superhero costumes for what reason exactly? oh, and then there’s also the achievements for your Playstation account, like ‘open the map in every single location you visit’. what fun! if the reason for collecting the treasures is to play godawful hacking minigames in order to get masks, what’s the point? decorate your paraglider with the Sanzaru logo? or have Bentley dress up as discount Robocop? i mean including masks in the interior locations was cool, but the bottles were always supposed to be something you could do whenever your soul desired. sometimes i left them last before the operation, sometimes i collected them before the first mission. so i was pissed when i found out that, in some cases, you had to unlock the episode’s costume in order to get the all the bottles. so, fuck off.

Animation: i’ll keep this short. the animation was terrible. do you remember that tumblr blog from a while back, where she dedicated the posts to pointing out the mistakes in the animated cutscenes? yeah. point is, there were lots of them. the animation style was bad, the character design was ugly, the characters’ movements were unnatural. everything about it was shit. looking past the bad decision to drop the trilogy’s comicbook-style animated cutscenes, couldn’t they have hired someone better? someone with more experience? their concept art was awesome. couldn’t they hire that guy and have it be comicbook style if he wasn’t trained in animation?

Legacy:

The Players: let me ask a genuine question: who was this game made for? kids growing up in 2013? maybe so. because it feels like Sanzaru didn’t even consider the fans of the trilogy. actually, it felt like a huge fuck you. Sucker Punch made their trilogy for whoever. there were great stuff for kids, but adults would pick up and appreciate the references, the real-life setting (e.g. tobacco use, existence of nightclubs, spice instead of drugs, etc.). that’s why all three games are timeless classics. judging by Thieves in Time’s humor, the game wasn’t targeted for adults. so, it doesn’t make sense to use an already established property, beloved by its fans, to attract a new audience consisting of nine year-olds who’d laugh at Murray dressing up as a woman. if they really wanted to appeal to the fans of the original, why retcon everything? why change who the first Cooper was? when the gang’s stranded in Saudi Arabia, why have Sly say ‘i couldn't remember a time since we've teamed up that we felt so defeated’? the gang’s been in way deeper shit before. why the ‘Sly’s dad vs Le Paradox’s dad’ deus ex machina? Sly’s dad wasn’t famous because of stealing the world’s largest diamond, what the fuck are you even talking about? do the guys at Sanzaru have such big egos and bravado that they needed to change the original games’ lore? were they so preoccupied with leaving their signature on a property which was never their own? i don’t know who needs to read this, but i’m stating FACTS.

Characters: now let’s talk about Sanzaru’s treatment of the Cooper gang and the ancestors (female characters will get their own section). why would you change the characters like that? if it wasn’t for the voice acting, i’d say this is a completely different Cooper gang. there’s no wise-cracking band of best friends, going on heists and being proud of their brotherhood and bond. all that is replaced with the formulaic story arcs for each member. the trilogy’s cutscenes and dialogues made sure to establish how Sly, Bentley and Murray have lived together since they met at the orphanage, play videogames all day and order chinese food and pizza and whatever. through missions and their adventures, they face obstacles they have to overcome as a gang, and when Sly 3 came around, their friendship was put to the ultimate test when they almost disbanded. Thieves in Time was too lazy to add to this. Sanzaru thought ‘oh the trilogy showed how they’re best friends so we might as well have them focus on their own stories separately’ and if this is truly the case then i ask again: who was this game made for? because new fans would never know how tight the gang was just by playing Thieves in Time. there’s a lack of genuine friendship moments. like, what happened when Sly came back after faking his amnesia? that’s completely ignored. where’s the witty banter? the ‘wizard & sitting duck’ type of jokes? nothing of the sort. what we get is fart jokes and Murray wanting to dress up as a woman. on that note, what was that all about? ok, have him dress up as a geisha to get in. fine. have El Jefe slap his ass, have him perform in a painfully lengthy dance sequence, have him dress like that during the rest of the episode, and then have him be persistent about getting the belly-dancing gig? the hell? Murray was always kinda goofy but this just feels kinda homophobic? it feels dragged out and unfunny. and then there’s the ancestors. i said it once before and i’ll say it again, Sanzaru deprived me of a buff Arab daddy Salim Al Kupar and gave us that elderly shit instead. all jokes aside, the redesigns were uninteresting. why take away Tennessee Kid’s facial hair and give it to Galleth? i legitimately think all the ancestors were boring. i mean, their gameplay was cool, especially Tennessee Kid’s guns, but in terms of character, they were just some dudes. did they believe that Sly was their descendant from the future? maybe. did they care? nope. they all had the same storyline of dealing with Sly’s arrival, flirting with Carmelita and getting their canes stolen. that was it. the fans waited for so long to get even a glimpse of the ancestors in action, and Sanzaru downplayed all of them. they reduced them to useless idiots too occupied with women and food, incapable of getting their canes back from stupid Le Paradox. and they didn’t even stick to the lore. no ma’am. let’s make Rioichi the inventor of sushi !! because that makes total sense and would defo fit in with the character and the property! why. just, why. you were handed the lore !!! you were given all this rich backstory and you threw it all away to replace it with trash !!! complete trash.

Changes & Inconsistency: i want to briefly mention some changes that pissed me off. where’s the laser glide move? it was an important turning point at the end of Sly 3, so why did they get rid of it? Sly is a master thief who’s traveling back in time, so you’d think they’d actually make him a master thief. also, the changes in the binocucom and Bentley’s slideshows in order to modernise them. if Sucker Punch managed to place the mission starting points at locations where the binocucom would show the objective clearly, so could Sanzaru. instead, they chose to have it be a moving camera, floating around the hub. and Bentley’s slideshows were absolute classics, opportunities to include gags and have Bentley show off in his own way. you just had to change it into a tablet, didn’t you. omg you’re still looking at small details like these? yes sweetie, i consider the details because i think they shape the game more than anything. if i didn’t consider the details, then my opinion on the game would be incomplete. when i praise the trilogy i don’t only look at story and gameplay. because i’m unbiased like that. here, i’d also like the mention Dimitri. what a fucking waste. you either include him in the game or you don’t. but don’t give me some half-baked shit on how he’s working for the gang back in present day. Dimitri staying home, waiting on the gang to call him in order for him to give them details on the villains. how does that even slightly resemble anything about Dimitri’s character? they didn’t even include his voice, some greasy sweet Raccoonus Doodus dialogue.

Female Characters: you know it’s all been leading up to this. this is the crux of the Thieves in Time hate. i don’t want to say the game is misogynistic so i’ll call it anti-feminist. why? just answer me. why? why did you have to disrespect Carmelita like that? right off the bat, they swapped the pants for the skirt. in what world does an active inspector who’s always on the scene wear a skirt? Carmelita now wears a skirt because her only role in the game is to be the love interest. Carmelita now wears bright red lipstick and has a new hairstyle, which would be ok if only it wasn’t Carmelita. Carmelita now plays up her inner sassy Latina because she’s pigeonholed into the ‘angry ex girlfriend’ role. they compartmentalised her, tried to sexualise her because she couldn’t possibly be one of the boys. nope. let’s take a respected woman, high in rank and as physically able as Sly, and turn her into a cliché, an angry ex girlfriend for comedic relief, strip her of her abilities and have her be kidnapped twice, have every exchange with her be about how attractive she is, have almost every male character in the game flirt with her, have her boyfriend be jealous of his own ancestors because they’re flirting with her in order to create purposeless love triangles, and then, after all that, dress her up as a belly dancer and distract some guards while the rest of the gang do the heavy lifting. that last one was really the nail on the coffin. did Bentley have other ways to enter that door? absolutely. so, what the fuck? why did i come back for a good Sly game 8 years later and receive a game where you have to shake your controller to have Carmelita shake her ass? why did they have the guards’ eyes pop like that? why did no one stop them? and it isn’t just Carmelita. it’s Penelope too. god forbid we have a female character who doesn’t have a waist smaller than my finger, and a voluptuous physique. why was the redesign so drastic? the story stuff is also nonsensical. why did she leave? wasn’t she happy with Bentley? i watched her speech about turning on the gang about a thousand times and it still doesn’t make any sense. like, i literally don’t understand. what was her motive? and why reverse her story of overcoming the Black Baron persona and the connotations of a meek woman hiding behind a man’s disguise? why repeat it, shamelessly? do the guys at Sanzaru only know women who have recently broken up? why does Carmelita, Penelope and Ms Decibel all go through break-ups during the game? why does Penelope go against Bentley before they even break up? why waste the opportunity to introduce a new, well-written villain and use it to repeat something already done? why???? no woman is safe from Sanzaru because Ms Decibel... boy, did i feel bad for her. apart from continuously reminding us that she’s haha fat!! she’s also presented as a blind lovefool. love? what a silly concept only women believe in! Ms Decibel had a crush on Le Paradox (for some reason i can’t even fathom) and for that she must pay by being utterly humiliated. and what do ALL women do when a guy breaks up with them? they get so angry! yikes, stay clear guys! ....why does Sanzaru hate female characters? i’m genuinely curious. i mean, what forced them to depict women like this? i’m sorry, i can’t take much more of this.

Ending: and how do you end a disappointment that came 8 years late and didn’t even have a sequel guaranteed? yeap, you guessed it! a cliffhanger. but not just any cliffhanger - a total fuck you to anyone and everyone. with a single move Sanzaru instantly screwed over the franchise. the fans, the creators, the characters, anyone looking to continue the series. everyone. WHY would you trap the protagonist in the past? WHY? did you feel defensive about something that wasn’t even yours and went ‘well you can continue the series but the sequel will have to do with time travel’. why did you think it was a good idea? how does it even slightly resemble a good ending? someone fill me in please. because i don’t think i’m being unreasonable, i’m just telling it how it is.

Conclusion:

i did it. i fucking wrote it in all its motherfucking glory. the idiots at Sanzaru could’ve given us an amazing game but instead of working on how to make it better or including extra levels, they wasted their time on deciding what killable baby animal to include in each hub or what the backstory for each treasure should be. how fucking distasteful. and to think i’m an idiot myself for trying to force myself to like it because i was so in denial about how bad it was. i’ve just outlined everything wrong with that cursed game. i’m exhausted.

#yOu'Re rEaLLy pEttY ! sOrRy hAd tO UnFoLLoW #i think i covered everything #THIS IS AN AMAZING ESSAY #this is the crown jewel of my time on tumblr #i love myself so much #sly cooper #anyone who even remotely comes for me because of this WILL get blocked #the birds really think i care about my rep on this fucking hellsite #HAHAHAHAHAHHAHA

[angerissue]

Character Survey.

Real name: Dr. Robert Bruce Banner, Ph.D..

Single or taken: Single, and this probably isn't going to change anytime soon. He has a number of ingrained emotional issues, and ideological issues that pertain to his condition, that prevent him from seeking romantic relationships and even just becoming close to someone. One-night stands are possible, because they don’t involve emotional commitment from either party, but real relationships scare the hell out of him. The closer that someone gets to Bruce, the more he fears hurting them or being hurt himself.

Abilities or powers: He has an extremely high IQ, almost unprecedented intuition when it comes to the sciences and its numerous technologies, and a great ability to think outside the box and solve complicated, confounding problems. Also, he can turn big and green, which makes him capable of inhuman physical feats and gives him a ridiculous healing factor. This cannot be understated; he can literally recover from decapitation if the conditions are right. It's debatable whether these qualify as gifts or curses, because of the experiences they've created for Bruce in the past, but they're definitely abilities at the least.

Eye colour: Brown. Sometimes green if he’s in a mood.

Hair colour: Dark brown with some grey.

Family members: Rebecca Banner (mother / deceased), Brian Banner (father / incarcerated), Jennifer Walters (cousin / alive), Susan Drake (adoptive aunt / unknown), Elaine Banner (aunt / deceased).

Pets: In The Persistence, he owns a white knockout mouse named Eddie, who came from a selection of ailing lab mice that he experimented on with the Hulk's plasma. He doesn’t have pets in other verses, though he wouldn’t mind a cat, or a dog with a calm and mellow demeanour, as long as his living situation and overall routine is constant and undisturbed. Otherwise, it will never be a possibility. Back when General Ross' squad broke down his door in Brazil, he needed to abandon a mutt named Rick, and it hurt because he’d become very fond of him. He doesn't want to do this to another animal.

Hobbies or activities: He loves hiking and jogging (with trails in forested areas being his preferred location), cooking and baking, gardening, reading textbooks and science journalism, bait fishing, programming and experimenting, travelling, sightseeing, meditation, yoga, collecting and listening to vinyl records, and being a rebel by listening to police scanners and going after bad guys if he doesn't have much else to do. But even if it seems like he's not outwardly doing anything, he's probably still occupied — he tends to spend a profuse amount of time in his own head, ruminating and reflecting on future goals, whether it involves anticipating or dreading them. He also likes to contemplate new concepts and designs for technologies.

Animal that represents them: Definitely a pangolin, because you can’t look at a pangolin and the way it carries itself and not think of Banner from a purely visual perspective. Add on the fact that their bodies are covered in hardened scales for defense, and how they curl up into a ball whenever they're upset and threatened, and you have a metaphorical version of Bruce, who tends to shy away and retreat into himself whenever he's having a lower moment, and has a lot of deep-seated defensive mechanisms on display during social interactions. But seriously, these animals just want to walk around eating ants, minding their own business. They don’t have a bone to pick with anyone... Which is also similar to Bruce. And did I mention that pangolins are endangered, because they're frequently hunted and trapped by humans for their supposed “beneficial properties” in medicine (none of which are proven)? That's similar to how Banner has been followed all over the place by the U.S. military, just because they perceived his condition to be useful somehow.

Worst habits: Take your pick. Distancing himself from other people even when he could use the company, self-flagellation, humouring his guilt complex even when he's not responsible for certain negative outcomes, repressing or suppressing his emotions when he needs to express them (or the opposite, staying as the Hulk so he can stew in those strong emotions and therefore punish himself for whatever he “did wrong”), running away from connections that involve real commitment, especially romantic ones.

Role models: Steve Rogers for his patriotism and overall sense of morality, Neils Bohr for his defense of the Bohr atomic model (which had been a radical theory for the time) and subsequent successes, Ernest Rutherford for similar reasons, and his mother when he was younger, though he doesn’t remember much about her because he was only six when she died. Same goes for his aunt, Susan; while he spent more time around her than Rebecca in total, he was rather emotionally absent by this point because of all the trauma earlier in his childhood. In general, his role models tend to be people who remain strong in the face of adversity and judgement, and stick to their values for the benefit of others. All the above people qualify in that sense, for different reasons.

Sexual orientation: Heterosexual.

Thoughts on marriage and kids: Nope, and bigger nope. He would love to have a close connection with someone, however much he's actually repressed the desire for the time being, and some part of him does want to have a child — however, he always concludes that it wouldn't be worth it. Bruce believes marriage would be a shackle for anyone who's unfortunate enough to become his partner, and it would open them up to potential threats from people who could use them to get to him and his condition. And children are a no-go because Bruce doesn’t want them to have a father like him; he might be absent for a lot of their upbringing, and either unstable or otherwise unaccommodating in temperament if he’s upset. And he'll constantly be trying to hide his condition from them as well, because god forbid they find out their father is a monster, and they feel like a freak because of it. He's been in a position where he felt like an anomaly as a child, and he's not interested in subjecting his children to this. He also loathes the idea of bringing children into the world because he would not be able to ensure their safety — after all, he can’t even ensure his own. So to Bruce, he'd be setting them up for endangerment just because they’re related to him, similar to how his partner would become a target as well.

Style preferences: Safe and conservative, and not flamboyant by any means. He usually sticks to warmer and neutral palettes, and cuts/styles that are classic and unlikely to fall out of style; this includes his suits, jackets, pants, and shirts. We're talking chinos and slacks, poplin dress shirts, wool sport coats and blazers. Most occasions will see him wearing the dress shirt, slacks, and sport coat together. If he's feeling more adventurous, he'll pair a sport coat with a crewneck, or he could even go with a polo shirt and jeans, but the latter is rare. In general, Bruce's most interesting piece is a brown leather bomber jacket, which he usually wears in the warmer months; colder weather will bring out a peacoat (and he loves to pop the collar in lieu of using a scarf). As far as cost goes, Bruce is fairly well-off between the royalties from S.H.I.E.L.D. and other work he's done here and there, but even so, he doesn't purchase outrageously expensive clothing and tends to go for the mid-upper brands. He'll do made-to-measure, but not full bespoke. He finds any further spending to be superfluous.

Approach to friendships: Cautious and uncertain about them, and tends not to approach people first, because he would hate to overstep his boundaries / make someone uncomfortable. Rather accommodating to people he considers friends, but he's extremely quick to duck out if they can’t meet him eye-to-eye regarding touchy topics, like decisions that affect the well-being of many people. This is the reason he shunned his friendship with Tony after they debated about the Sokovia Accords. Being an introvert, he’s one of those people who doesn't like bothering his friends; even if they make it abundantly clear that he's welcome anytime, he'll hesitate, but he’s completely okay and even happy if those friends approach him instead. He doesn't always like when his personal space is invaded, or if someone touches him, but he'll start to make exceptions if he becomes more familiar with someone. He loves the people that he can consider friends, but he always views the friendships as something that could dissolve in a heartbeat. On some level, even unconscious, he's always expecting things to end.

Thoughts on pie: An acceptable desert. Bumbleberry, strawberry rhubarb, and pumpkin are his favourites. He prefers the homemade variety, and because of it, he tends to make his own, butter crust and all, avoiding store-bought unless it’s particularly memorable — or if someone buys a slice for him. He’s appreciative like that.

Favourite place to spend time: Somewhere he can guarantee that he's not being watched; these are most commonly his labs in the Northwind Observatory, quiet and secluded trails, or his chambers in the Crown City citadel on Sakaar. Not only do these locations ease his anxieties about being studied, inspected, or followed, but he feels less of a pressure to put on false pretenses and exhaust himself with social niceties, many of which may be fabricated. He doesn’t need much external stimulation, because he’s fine simply turning inward and thinking, without paying much attention to his surroundings, but he’ll certainly admit to spending a ton of time tinkering with pet projects if he’s in the labs. Obviously, Bruce prefers to be alone in most of these cases. But if he's with someone he cares about, whether a friend or a romantic partner, and can openly express himself around them, that's nice for him too.

Swim in the lake or ocean: Lakes, without question. He has some bad memories of being in the ocean, whether it’s about the time he was tossing and turning in glacial waters after his failed suicide attempt, or clawing his way out of a quinjet that crashed into the water while his alter started to take over. Bruce remembers all that, and it's not pleasant. The openness of oceans perturb him as well; lakes are usually far more intimate and amniotic because they’re often surrounded by forests, which allows him to feel safer and less exposed.

Their type: Someone who is, and is comfortable with showing, some semblance of dependence on him, which would placate his need to fill a provider role and not simply be a charity case; he's had enough of that between begging on the streets and asking Tony Stark for boarding. (This doesn't mean he's looking for someone who's a total pushover, cannot make their own decisions, or is emotionally needy, because those would make him run in the other direction, frankly.) Someone who can hold their own and stand up for their beliefs when necessary. Someone who can challenge him intellectually, though not necessarily in an academic sense; it really just depends on how much they can expand his own perspective by giving their own. Someone who really understands his needs and issues. And obviously, someone who isn't scared of his condition, because it's going to manifest a lot. It needs to; he doesn't really have a choice in the matter. Hulk is another story, but fortunately, he doesn't show up enough to really be an immediate concern, and Bruce and his partner can cross that bridge when they reach it. Physically, he's usually attracted to women who are slightly shorter than him; their hair can be anything from blonde to brown, and he prefers body types that are similar to his own; more on the slender side but not necessarily fragile.

Camping or indoors: He’d rather be indoors. He isn’t extremely fond of camping, if we’re using the most common definition of "pitching a tent, cooking with a fire made from sticks and tinder, and spending the night in the woods with the bears and the bugs". There are indeed occasions where he cannot stand to be indoors, whether because he’s feeling claustrophobic (a common symptom of abstaining a little too long from transformations), or he simply needs some time away from other people in the geographic sense, but in those cases, he��s more likely to go for a walk or hike, not set up an entire campsite and spend the rest of the night outdoors. For him, camping is meant for a survival-type situation rather than a recreational one. The closest thing to camping he'll do is living in a cabin with a wood stove and local water supply, which he’s done a few times over the years. He's even purchased a few cabins by the time his Persistence verse rolls around, so if one of the properties are compromised, he could always retreat to another one.

Tagged by: @mynameisanakin​! Tagging: @fallencomrade​ , @asgardianhammer​​ , @alongingwithin​ , and anyone else who wants to do this.

#( meme response. ) #( headcanon. ) #( multiple. )

[philosophiums]

{god okay finally i’ve finished!!!!! i’ve got drafts of all five parts done and am starting to go through and revise, which i will post as i complete. i could revise three or four more times but like...... don’t have time for THAT. so here’s the neil-in-a-dress au that @microolli​ has been drawing. hopefully this ends up being even *close* to what you were hoping for}

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Part One: Targeted

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

North Carolina’s humidity is reaching critical mass, and every breath of Andrew’s feels a little too much like warm water, like he shouldn’t be letting it into his lungs. Sundown didn’t help cool things off, and the breeze that had been blowing through the cracks in the windows has since choked off and left the three of them treading water. If he’d wanted to drown, he would have picked a better location; even he deserves something classier than a shitty black van parked on the side of some shitty two-lane road, lights off to hide better in the dark.

It’ll storm soon. Later tonight or tomorrow, but this slow buildup of airborne swamp water has to produce something destructive – there’s no other option. He just wants to be happily settled in some air conditioning before the sky splits.

Andrew sweeps his eyes up to check on Aaron beside him, noise-cancelling headphones settled over his head and eyes trained on the screens in front of him, and then he pivots to look at Nicky in the driver’s seat, whose hand is caught in his hair as he tries impossibly hard to stay alert.

Three hours have gone by. Something awful twists in the pit of his gut, instinct letting him know that whatever peace they’ve managed to hold is about to be disrupted. “Check in,” he says, returning to his original position, head down and eyes closed, his hands loose between his knees. He focuses on breathing and listening; those are his only concerns right now.

“One,” Dan’s voice scratches through his headphones, and then, “two,” as Matt follows suit. They’re in the building, the closest to the client, and no matter how much Wymack likes to go on about teamwork and making an effort to participate, this mission is on Dan and Matt’s shoulders. If something goes wrong and the client gets injured, it’s their fault. Allison and Renee count off three and four respectively, and their feedback is clearer because they’re closer – outside the building on the perimeter, sweeping circles back and forth to make sure nothing’s been planted. Andrew thinks it’s a pointless maneuver for only two people, that the gap in their patrol leaves a massive opportunity for anyone, but he doesn’t bring it up. Nicky’s five, which at least confirms that he’s still awake, and finally, from a full state away, Kevin and Wymack check in as six and seven. Aaron doesn’t get a number, both because Andrew’s eyes are on him and because he’s tasked with staying entirely focused on the cameras that they have running – so much so that Andrew’s in charge of the audio from everyone’s microphones and comms.

It’s absolutely pathetic that it takes nine people to keep one man alive when it should require only two, and take maybe four for padding on the wealthier clients. But before last year, Fox Den, Inc. couldn’t even manage with eleven people on-sight. Circumstances changed. People died. Kevin bled his way across several state borders and proclaimed he was staying, and then Andrew was convinced to stay, too. Sometimes, when Wymack bribes Andrew with just the right incentive, the whole plan runs smoothly. But usually they only barely manage to keep their clients alive, let alone unharmed. It’s as if their presence alone causes mayhem to kick up from the dust, and Andrew thinks that they would have better luck killing people for money – especially since right now they tend to get people killed and lose money – but the only time he voiced this, he got glared at and overruled. Maybe they’d manage better if they could work as a team, but Andrew’s more interested in keeping his family alive than the client, so shit tends to fall apart when anything gets serious.

Why Wymack hasn’t fired Andrew yet is really anyone’s guess. Probably because Kevin’s favorite mantra is that Andrew’s full of potential but lacking initiative.

Kevin thinks too much.

The venue they’re casing is a small but high-end party in a public building, the room reserved and vetted for by the property owners. The chatter coming through Matt’s microphone is mundane, if more muffled than normal given the dress restrictions of the event. There’s some money talk – in the way that wealthy people talk about money, which is to say there’s conversation about new business ventures and investments and how “overpriced but worthwhile” education is for their children. The conversation makes that dark lake in Andrew’s chest ripple with his anger, but none of the topics raise anything close to concern. There haven’t been any red flags all evening.

And Aaron hasn’t made any motion yet tonight to signal anything amiss on the screens, and there hasn’t been a perimeter breech that Allison and Renee have found, and there’s been no interruption of new information from Wymack or Kevin.

So, why does Andrew still feel like something’s about to go wrong?

He trusts his gut. “One, circle closer to the client,” Andrew instructs, head still down and eyes still closed. The van dips quickly towards the driver’s side and Andrew’s heart drops with it, but he doesn’t move at all. He assumes that it’s only Nicky turning around to look at him – Andrew hasn’t bothered to give orders pertinent to the mission in four… no, five jobs now.

“Something come up?” Dan asks, tone down as the chatter around her sways in and out of Andrew’s hearing, coming in from her headpiece and her suit mic as a unit of sound that only barely lines up and makes sense together.

Of course, Andrew could tell her the whole truth, which is that nothing solid has come to his attention. There’s no evidence that the job is about to go south. Matt is already close to the client. But the strangling snag of his gut has never lied to him before – so much trauma has tuned him to know exactly when it’s coming. “Yes,” he says, which is enough of the truth to assuage her, and doesn’t elaborate.

“Andrew?” God, Kevin needs to not be talking right now. Andrew’s fists clench between his knees. “Did you notice something? What did you hear?”

“I can’t hear anything with you filling up the radio waves.” And really, what a poor fucking design for this part of the plan, but Andrew stops thinking about how Nicky should be solely in charge of communication when he catches sight of Aaron moving, and that jerky motion drags all of Andrew’s attention to his twin.

His head snaps up, and he watches Aaron’s mouth move in a slow, incredulous way, though he can’t hear him at all given the chaos that suddenly erupts through Andrew’s headphones. He rips them off and drops them, welcoming the bang of silence through his head. With the way Aaron slumps in his chair, there’s no way the client is still alive.

“What the fuck just happened?” Nicky asks, and Andrew would bet it’s into the comm system as well, but he’ll just bog down the channel, since that’s what everyone else is asking, too. “Shit.” He moves like he’s about to bail from the front seat, and Andrew’s not sure if Nicky’s thinking about running inside or coming around the van to join them in the back, but he’s not taking chances.

“Stay put, Nicky. He’s dead.” Andrew says it with a sigh.

Nicky swears again, but he stops acting like he’s leaving.

Andrew’s slow to stand up, left leg braced out so that he doesn’t have to rush to find his balance. It’s been a long night, and it was all for nothing; now all that’s left is figuring out what the fuck happened. Aaron pulls off his noise-cancelling headphones and tosses them to the lip of a desk in front of him, and Andrew takes a step and a half to come up behind him.

“Rewind it,” he says. “Show me.”

Aaron doesn’t move right away, and their synced sluggish responses make Andrew wonder if the damp air has become something thicker without them noticing, or if they’re both starting to wonder what the point of them doing this is. It feels rote, so Andrew doesn’t rush Aaron into moving. Eventually, Aaron leans forward and rewinds the tape.

When the recording starts to play, all Andrew sees is boring rich white people milling about in clean-cut fashion. He finds their client in the upper corner of the main screen, and the middle of the right screen; Matt is half-visible in the main screen and gone in the left, and Dan is invisible in all three. He watches the main screen, sees Dan come in from the bottom, casually slipping through the crowd with a mellow urgency that no one picks up on. And then the client just drops.

No obvious killer.

Well. Shit.

“Again,” he says, eyes staying on the screen even when Nicky decides to scramble between the front seats and join them.

Once more, Aaron rewinds the tape. Andrew delegates them each a screen. “Watch the top left corner only,” he says, because now they need to find whoever killed their client and lost them more money and reputation. They go through until Aaron stops the tape and rewinds again, and again until Andrew stops him. “There.” He points at the figure, the one he noticed last time but this time is sure of.

“How can you tell it’s her?” Nicky asks, leaning closer to the screen as if proximity will make the pixels any more clear, as if it will make the cutting silhouette in the black dress and close-cut curly auburn hair turn around and show her face. “She’s so far away from him.”

As if that hadn’t been Andrew’s first hesitation in picking her out. “Watch her hand,” he says, and moves aside as Aaron rewinds the tape one last time to watch. A second before their client crumples, the woman raises her arm, fingers shaped like a pistol aimed at their client, and pulls it back like it’s been fired. There’s no weapon in sight, but their client dies anyway.

When they get back to Columbia, they’ll have to comb through all of the video footage to look for any other occurrence of the woman throughout the night, but for now they have authorities to deal with, and then Andrew is going to start drinking.

#the foxhole court #tfc #tfc fic #microolli #idk what to tag this as we're here now #my fics

[baixueagain]

All my emails with tumblr thus far. As you can see, they’ve been passing me between different members of staff (”Alfredo,” “Justin/Jay,” and “Carmen N.”), dodging my questions, copy-pasting from the easily accessible Help Center already on tumblr (as if I can’t look that up myself), and attempting to gaslight me about the fact that they falsely accused me of a very serious felony, not to mention that they terminated - not suspended - my last blog without a warning or an explanation. Please note that this is the first time in seven months (when my original blog bai-xue was terminated) that anyone at tumblr has responded to me at all, and that in that time two more of my blogs were terminated, one accompanied by a false accusation and the other with no explanation whatsoever. 

Additionally, in June, @bullet-farmer very kindly wrote to @support on my behalf. They responded to her emails almost immediately, and continued emailing back and forth with her until she cc’d me and I responded to the email chain. After that, they ceased speaking to bullet-farmer altogether.

@staff​ @support​ I’d really love to hear an explanation for all this, not to mention an apology and an assurance that this sort of unprofessional behaviour won’t be repeated.

Check under the cut below for transcripts of all the emails so far.

July 18, 2:38 PM GMT 

Me (Karen) to Tumblr Support:

Hello,

I am wondering if there is any way I can further verify my account with tumblr to keep from getting terminated.

I have been terminated three times due to harassment campaigns. It has impacted my business as an indie artist and writer, since I am trying to use tumblr to build a following. After ten successful years on this site, I have had to rebuild my account from scratch three times within the last six months.

I wish to continue using tumblr, but I can only assume that the trolls who have targeted me before will do so again, and will continue to submit false reports to get me terminated.

Please tell me, how can I avoid this and protect my account from this happening again? I am willing to provide whatever personal information is necessary.

Thank you,

Karen

July 18, 3:18 PM GMT

Tumblr Support (”Alfredo”) to Me

Hi Karen,

Thank you for writing in. Your email is already verified. Any blogs reported by Tumblr users are reviewed for validity by our Trust and Safety team before they are terminated. If you believe you are being harassed, we ask that you use our online Abuse forms located here:

https://www.tumblr.com/abuse

To report a post in the mobile apps, just click the share icon (that paper airplane) and choose "Report." That'll open the form and you can tell us what you're reporting from there. To report an entire blog, tap the blog's username to view their blog, then tap the little human icon, and then tap "Report."

Please select the form that most closely corresponds to the violation you’re reporting, which will help us correctly route your complaint.

We appreciate you taking the time to write in.

Tumblr Community Support

July 18, 6:21 PM GMT

Me to Tumblr Support (”Alferdo”)

Hi Alfredo,

Email verification is not what I am talking about. I am talking about how to protect my blog from being wrongfully terminated again. It has been terminated three times due to false mass reports from trolls. I have been using tumblr for years to build an audience for my artwork, and now, because I have been terminated so many times, that audience is gone and my art business is suffering. 

There has to be a way to protect myself from being terminated due to false accusations and false reports. How can I, as a professional and an artist, make sure that this stops happening to me? I am sure there is some way that professionals such as Neil Gaiman protect their blogs from being terminated due to trolling efforts. What information do I need to send you to keep this from happening to me again? I am happy to provide a passport or a residence permit.

Please, I have reached out for help so many times in the last six months, and you are the first person to ever answer me. Please help me.

Karen

July 18, 9:18 PM GMT

Tumblr Support (”Justin/Jay”) to Me

Hello,

Thanks for writing in again. Please take a look at our new Community Guidelines.

As of December 17, 2018, adult content is no longer permitted on Tumblr. Any newly uploaded content flagged as adult will be hidden from public view. We will also flag existing adult content, with the ultimate goal of removing as much of it as we can. This new policy negates the need for Safe Mode, so this feature no longer exists. These new policies are the same regardless of your age.

If any of your content is flagged as adult, we will notify you by email. The email will outline steps you can take to review the content in question. If you disagree with the classification of your flagged post, you will have a chance to appeal the decision.

Please let us know if you have any additional questions.

Thanks,

Jay,

Tumblr Community Support

July 18, 10:06 PM GMT

Me to Tumblr Support (”Justin/Jay”)

Hi Justin,

If you take a look at my terminated blogs bai-xue-lives and bai-xue-lives2, you will see that I never posted any adult content. I have followed community guidelines quite closely. Nevertheless, I was still reported by trolls, and I was still terminated because of those reports. In the case of my blog bai-xue-lives, two of my posts were flagged, and I successfully contested them. I was then terminated anyway weeks later. In the case of bai-xue-lives2, none of my posts were ever flagged, and it was terminated today without warning or explanation. 

Tell me, how am I to avoid being terminated again if I follow the rules and still get falsely reported by trolls anyway? I'm sure you can understand that I now find it very hard to trust that your staff will actually look into the reports, because despite following the rules I have still been repeatedly punished despite the fact that I'm the one being bullied by those falsely reporting me. 

As I said above, I am quite willing to send in any form of identification you need to ensure that my blog will not be terminated due to false reports again. I am genuinely concerned that someone with a grudge, possibly a disgruntled ex of mine, has been abusing the report function in order to get me repeatedly terminated. I have no doubt that this will continue unless I have some form of insurance that I can be safe from false accusations. 

As I have said before, these repeated terminations have cost me the fruits of the small part time art career that I spent over seven years building on tumblr. I like tumblr. I want to continue using it. But how am I to do so with any confidence, when I follow the rules and still get punished? 

I have sought every avenue of help that I can and received no answer for seven months. Today was the first time anyone ever answered me, but it has only been with rote suggestions that I have already tried.

Please help me. I want to be able to use your site with the confidence that I will not be punished for something I didn't do, and the assurance that the people who dislike me will not be able to use your report function to act out petty grudges. Please, I will do whatever is necessary to have this assurance. 

Karen

July 19, 7:57 AM GMT

Tumblr Support (”Carmen N.”) to Me

Hello Karen,

Thanks for following up.

I can assure you that every reported blog is verified by another department of our company which is carefully reviewing all your content. If you get suspended you receive an email in which the reasons for your suspension are mentioned.

As long as you stick to our Community Guidelines while posting, there shouldn't be any problem.

Please let me know if you have any questions.

Have a nice day!

Carmen N Tumblr Community Support

July 19, 10:18 AM GMT

Me to Tumblr Support (”Carmen N.”)

Hi Carmen,

I am afraid that is very much untrue. When my blog bai-xue-lives was terminated, I received an email from your team accusing me of posting ch*ld p*rn*graphy, something which I have never done and which I consider a very serious accusation. When I asked for proof, I received none.

In the case of my most recent termination, I received no email whatsoever, and I was not "suspended," as you put it. My blog simply disappeared with no explanation, after I had broken no rules. No posts had been flagged, no warnings had been given. I had not even been on that account for a month (June 28-July 18).

Again, I ask you: how am I to continue to use your service when it is quite clear that I can be terminated at any minute, without warning, even when I have broken no rules? 

Karen

[Attached: The June 28 email sent to me when my blog bai-xue-lives got terminated, which accuses me of “inappropriate content involving minors” and “the possession and distribution of ch*ld p*rn*graphy” (censored for anti-bot safety purposes).]

#long post #tumblr #tumblr staff #tumblr support #signal boost #staff #support #termination #tumblr fail #cp mention #cp tw

[smmpanelwiki-blog]

10 Benefits of Content Marketing for Small Businesses

A great content marketing strategy primarily involves creating high quality content and giving it away in order to connect with and nurture a loyal audience that will trust you and buy your product. Content marketing is an excellent investment for any business, big or small. In fact, according to a study done by DemandMetric, 90% of all organizations use content in their marketing efforts.

10 Reasons Why Your Small Business Should Invest in Content Marketing

The benefits are worth the investment. Consider the following advantages of investing in small-business content marketing.

1. Build Trust and Strengthen Customer Relations.

The more that you educate and provide value for your target audience, the more trust you can build over time. By educating and informing your target audience about their biggest challenges and pain points through blog posts and other types of content, you strengthen your relationships with customers and work to build trust based on the value that your content provides.

2. Increase Brand Recall.

You can’t recall something you haven’t seen. Investing in content marketing gets your business out there and creates top-of-mind awareness. That way, more people will remember your brand when they are need of your products or services.

3. Improve SEO.

SEO (search engine optimization) plays a vital role in content marketing. Without good SEO, your digital content will not rank, which decreases the chances of anyone locating you business online.

4. Increase Web Traffic.

Good SEO and content marketing helps you increase and maintain a steady stream of web traffic. According to Neil Patel, certain businesses have seen as much as an 800% increase in web traffic due to content marketing.

5. Keep Your Website Updated and Relevant.

Businesses who consistently provide fresh content on their blog see as many as 126% more leads than those companies without a blog.  A huge part of content marketing is keeping things relevant for your consumer base.

6. Attract Potential Customers.

DemandMetric tells us that 70% of customers prefer to discover a service or product through an article rather than another type of advertisement. This makes sense considering we have been conditioned to ignore the barrage of online advertisements and people search out articles and information.

7. Move Prospects Through the Sales Funnel.

Increased web traffic through content marketing is a step in the ultimate process: making sales. Good content marketing helps you move customers through the sales funnel faster.

8. Establish Authority for Your Industry.

People want to know that your company has the experience and expertise they are seeking. Content marketing helps build authority for potential customers and provides an opportunity to showcase your company’s knowledge and experience within your industry.

9. Rise Above the Competition.

Keeping your content marketing fresh and relevant helps separate your business from similar businesses.  It enables you to highlight your unique value and fill in content gaps your competitors may be missing out on.  Content marketing also increases your chances of ranking above your competition in the search engines and other online channels.

10. Increase ROI.

According to a study done by Kapost, content marketing produces 3x more leads per dollar spent when compared to paid search. Content marketing, among all the other benefits, also drives higher conversions. In fact, it has six times the power of traditional marketing for converting people into leads and leads into customers (Source: Oracle.com).

[myhealthbeautyconcerns]

Best SEO Tools used in 2021

The term SEO refers to the process of optimizing a website for search engines. SEO is the process of making efforts to improve the ranking of a website or piece of content on Google.

The main distinction between SEO and paid advertising is that SEO involves “organic” ranking. Which means you don’t have to pay to be in that spot. To put it another way, search engine optimization is the process of improving a piece of online material. So that it appears near the top of a search engine’s page when someone searches for something.

Consider it this way: When someone searches for “vegan lasagna,” they’re probably looking for a recipe, ingredients, and instructions on how to prepare it. You’d want people to locate your vegan lasagna recipe if you wrote an article about it. You must rank above all other vegan lasagna recipe websites in order for people to locate it. It’s not easy, but that’s the point of SEO marketing.

Let’s take it a step further: A search engine like Google is where the bulk of online searches begin. In fact, Google is the starting point for 75% of those queries.

You must first grasp how search works in order to better comprehend how to rank your content higher in the search engines.

Consider this: When someone searches for “vegan lasagna,” they’re likely looking for a recipe, ingredients, and preparation instructions. If you created an essay about vegan lasagna, you’d want people to be able to find it. In order for visitors to find your vegan lasagna recipe website, it must rank above all other vegan lasagna recipe websites.

Why Use SEO Tools?

SEO solutions relieve you of the time-consuming task of keyword research and data analysis. You can examine what’s working and which elements of your approach could use some modification with these tools. The top SEO tools will also give you information on how you compare to your competition and where your biggest chances are. They also allow you to track search success across countries, regions, and languages.

It will get better. If you manage multiple websites, SEO tools can let you assess the effectiveness of each one on the fly. Many entrepreneurs who run many websites wind up entering a lot of information into spreadsheets and manually analyzing it. However, this quickly becomes overwhelming, increasing the likelihood of false reports. Fortunately, SEO software can save you hours of work and deliver precise reports with a single click.

Best Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Tools

Ahrefs: SEO Keyword Tool

Google Search Console: Top SEO Tool

SEMRush: Marketing SEO Tools

KWFinder: SEO Keyword Tool

Moz Pro: SEO Software

Ubersuggest: Keyword Tracking Tool

Answer The Public: Free SEO Tools

SpyFu: Free SEO Tools

Woorank: SEO Ranking Tool

Majestic: Marketing SEO Tools

Google Trends: SEO Checker Tool

SEOQuake: Free SEO Tools

Siteliner: SEO Analysis Tool

Fat Rank: SEO Tools

Keywords Everywhere: SEO Keyword Tool

Screaming Frog: SEO Tools Online

Serpstat: All-in-one SEO platform

Bonus Tool: Incognito

Ahrefs: SEO Keyword Tool

Ahrefs is one of the most used SEO tools on the internet. When it comes to the major website crawlers, it is only second to Google. Ahrefs’ Site Audit feature is the best SEO analysis tool available, and SEO specialists can’t get enough of it. The tool will show you which portions of your website need to be improved in order for it to rank higher in search engines. From the standpoint of competitive analysis, You’ll probably utilize Ahrefs to figure out what backlinks your competitors have so you can use them as a starting point for your own brand. This SEO tool may also be used to locate the most linked to material in your niche, verify and mend broken links on your website, and obtain an overview of your top-performing pages (so you can see what information is drawing in the visitors).

Google Search Console: Top SEO Tool

Google Search Console is a free tool that allows anyone with a website to monitor and report on their site’s status in Google SERPs. Simply add a code to your website or go through Google Analytics to check your website before submitting your sitemap for indexing. Although a Search Console account is not required to appear in Google’s search results, it is recommended. With this account, you can manage what is indexed and how your website is represented. Search Console can help you understand how Google and its users view your website and assist you to adjust for better performance in Google search results as an SEO checker tool. It’s particularly important for new websites because it allows site owners to submit web pages for indexing by search engines.

SEMRush: Marketing SEO Tools

SEMRush and other marketing SEO tools are common choices among SEOs. Experts adore them because they make it simple to assess your rankings as well as spot adjustments and fresh opportunities. The Domain Vs Domain comparison, which allows you to instantly compare your website to your competitors, is one of the most popular aspects of this SEO tool. Keywords and domains will be able to be compared. The On-Page SEO Checker tool makes it simple to keep track of your rankings and get advice on how to enhance your website’s performance.

 KWFinder: SEO Keyword Tool

Long-tail keywords with low competition can be found using an SEO keyword tool like KWFinder. This SEO tool is used by specialists to locate the ideal keywords and generate backlink and SERP analysis reports (Search Engine Results Page). Their Rank Tracker application makes determining your rating and measuring your progress based on a single metric simple. Plus, if that wasn’t enough, you’ll get a slew of new keyword suggestions to assist you to improve your website’s ranking.

Moz Pro: SEO Software

Moz Pro, an SEO program, keeps coming up as one of the top SEO tools that professionals actually use. Despite Google’s constant algorithm updates, Moz was always up to date, according to several experts. Others commended Moz’s chat site, which they said allows them to always get a thoughtful response to whatever question they have. Moz is a full-service powerhouse that can help you with keyword recommendations or a site crawl. You may learn a lot about how well your website is working as well as how to enhance it. You can also download the free MozBar toolbar to see your website’s stats while visiting any page. If you’re interested in learning more about SEO, you should attend MozCon, their annual conference.

Ubersuggest: Keyword Tracking Tool

Ubersuggest is a free keyword-finding tool created by Neil Patel that helps you identify keywords as well as the search intent behind them by displaying the top-ranked SERPs. With hundreds of ideas from our free fantastic keyword tool, you can identify the ideal terms to employ on your website, from short to long-tail phrases. Keyword volume, competition, CPC, and seasonal trends are among the metrics Ubersuggest offers in its reports. This tool can help you decide if a keyword is worth targeting and how competitive it is for both organic SEO and paid PPC.

Answer The Public: Free SEO Tools

You may quickly identify themes to write about for your blog using free SEO tools like Answer The Public. I’ve previously utilized this tool to build articles around specific keywords in order to improve my online ranking. Assume you’re in the fitness industry. This free SEO tool may be used to build content around keywords such as fitness, yoga, jogging, Crossfit, and exercise, and it can be used to cover the entire spectrum. It’s fantastic for discovering featured snippet chances. If you engage a freelancer to write content for you, all you have to do is download and send them this list. It would take you only five minutes, making it one of the most expedient ways to generate SEO subjects for new websites.

SpyFu: Free SEO Tools

While SpyFu’s subscription version is fantastic, several of our experts praised its free features. If you’re just getting started, you can simply progress to the paid features as your business grows. You can quickly see how many times a keyword is searched each month and determine how challenging it is to rank for that keyword. You may also look into your competitors’ keywords to see which ones they employ. You can also use Google Ads to search your competitor’s or your own website to see how many organic keywords they have, how many monthly clicks they get, who their paid and organic competitors are, and what Google Ads campaigns they’re running. It’s one of the most in-depth SEO analysis tools available.

Woorank: SEO Ranking Tool

Woorank, a leading SEO analysis tool, provides both free and paid alternatives for tracking and reporting marketing data. You can enter in your competitors’ names to see the keywords they’re after so you can target the same ones. To optimize for consumers and search engines in the best way possible, try to learn how keywords perform over time. Most crucial, recognize what your website is missing in terms of both technical and content. Woorank can assist you with identifying duplicate content, downtime, and security issues, as well as providing recommendations for how to resolve them.

Majestic: Marketing SEO Tools

According to experts, Majestic is one of the greatest marketing SEO tools. It contains a plethora of useful features, such as The Majestic Million, which displays the ranking of the top million websites. Is your website one of those that made the cut? The Site Explorer function gives you a quick overview of your site as well as the number of backlinks it has. It may also be used as an SEO keyword tool to determine the best keywords to target, with capabilities such as site comparisons and rank tracking.

Google Trends: SEO Checker Tool

Google Trends has been around for a long time but is rarely used. It not only provides information on a term, but it also provides significant insight into the topic’s tendencies, which can be useful at any point in a company’s development. Although Google Trends has been available for quite some time, it is rarely used. It not only provides definitions for terms but also an important insight into the topic’s trends, which can be valuable at any stage of a company’s development.

SEOQuake: Free SEO Tools

SEOQuake is widely regarded as one of the greatest free SEO tools available. This Chrome extension is an SEO checker that runs on-page site audits, evaluates both internal and external links, and performs website comparisons to see how you compare to your competition. Keyword analysis, such as keyword density, an easy-to-read SEO dashboard, and an export option. That allows you to easily download and share data with important members of your team are among the other features of this SEO analysis tool.

Siteliner: SEO Analysis Tool

Siteliner is a duplicate content checker application that can help you detect duplicate content on your website. What is duplicate content, exactly? Content that is identical to that found on other websites. Google punishes websites that use it. You may scan your entire website with SEO tools like this one to look for duplicate content, broken links, average page size and speed, the number of internal links per page, and more. Your text will be rewritten by QuillBot. Start by typing or pasting something into this box, then hit the enter key.

Fat Rank: SEO Tools

SEO Fat Rank, a Chrome extension, makes it simple to analyze the performance of your website. This SEO keyword tool will tell you how well your keywords are performing. You can use keywords to narrow down your search and see your rank per page for each phrase you optimized for. It will tell you that you aren’t ranking for that term if you aren’t in the first 100 results. This data enables you to better optimize your website for that keyword and make any improvements.

 Keywords Everywhere: SEO Keyword Tool

Another useful SEO Chrome extension is Keywords Everywhere. Which gathers data from multiple SEO tools such as Google Analytics, Search Console, Google Trends, and more to help you find the best keywords to rank for. These free SEO tools make choosing the optimal keywords for your website much easier. Rather than browsing through many websites each day, you may save a lot of time by using just one application.

Screaming Frog: SEO Tools Online

Ribbit Experts consider Screaming Frog to be one of the top SEO tools available online. They appreciate how much time they save while using this application to execute site audits because it analyses your website so quickly. In fact, everyone we spoke with felt that Screaming Frog provides insights faster than most SEO tools available online. This tool also alerts you to duplicate material, problems that need to be fixed, incorrect redirections, and spots where link building may be improved. Top SEO specialists rated their SEO Spider tool as the finest feature.

Serpstat: All-in-one SEO platform

Serpstat is a growth-hacking platform that helps you achieve your SEO, PPC, and content marketing objectives. It will be a terrific choice if you’re seeking an economical all-in-one tool to tackle SEO duties, assess competition, and manage your staff. Many professionals are now using the program. Because it has keyword and competitor analysis data for all of Google’s global areas. Serpstat is also well-known for its impressive features. The most popular is a tool called Missing Keywords. Which shows you which keywords your competitors are ranking for in the top 10 search results but you aren’t.

Bonus Tool: Incognito

Switching to Incognito mode and conducting Google searches will provide you with unbiased, “clean” searches. That will help you understand what your users see and get when searching for terms. When you use the autofill options, you will be presented with ideas for semantic keywords to employ. Searching in Incognito is one of the best free SEO tools since it reveals you where you genuinely rank on a results page for a specific query.

The post Best SEO Tools used in 2021 appeared first on Soft Trending.

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[whats-rambled-rambled]

Smoke & Mirrors - part 4

Neil x Reader

Chapter 4: Save me

(see chapter 3, 2, 1)

summary: what’s gonna happen if we lock them together for some time...?

warnings: some violence, language and other explicit things, 18+ 

author’s note: 4,8k words, just because I thought I needed to add more plot to it because you wanted 2 shorter chapters instead of a longer one. Who’s laughing now? 

Reading this may cause a slight whiplash. Sorry, not sorry. 

song for this chapter: Aimee Mann - Save me 

Anyway, enjoy and let me know what you think, please?

----

The Protagonist’s eyes darted at Ives. 

“And what did she say?”

“Short answer? Nunya,” Ives shrugged, closing the door behind him.

Wheeler giggled and TP looked at her in confusion.

“Long answer,” continued Ives, joining the other two by the coffee machine, “is that as long as they're doing their job, it doesn’t matter who they are fucking in their free time.”

“And are they?”

“What, fucking? I thought we’ve already--”

“No, doing their job,” TP pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. “I have a mission for them, but it requires locking them together for a significant amount of time.”

Wheeler took a sip from her cup. “If they don’t bond, they’ll bone, and I’d say it’s better than killing each other.”

Ives snorted, clearly amused, but TP hid his face in his palms and groaned lightly.

“Was that your plan all along?”

Wheeler gave them an innocent smile. “Wasn’t yours?” she asked, and as she caught the exchange of looks, her eyes lit up. “You’re welcome.”

-----

You found the car parked near the front door and you had to admit - that grey-ish sedan was the dullest, most ordinary vehicle you’d seen in a while. And that’s why it was perfect.

Neil tossed you the keys and proceeded to load your bags into the trunk. You went to check the GPS setting. The total route was calculated for a little over 5 hours, which gave you enough time to go over the details of the assignment at least once on the way there.

As your mission partner took the passenger seat, you handed him the tablet with all the documents loaded up and ready to go. He nodded, fortunately sparing you the small talk and unnecessary comments, and started reading through them out loud as you followed the GPS directions to your destination.

What you didn’t expect was an almost insultingly short length of reports from the previous stakeout teams, and even a slightly more detailed operation brief was not enough to keep you occupied for too long. Exhausting all the work-related topics, you tensed, suddenly uncomfortable in the silence between the two of you. Especially since you caught Neil’s stare, because if his furrowed brows could be any indication, you had a feeling he might start asking way too many questions any minute now. 

As the radio crackled again, you groaned in frustration. There were still two hours left of traveling through the middle of nowhere, and you’d appreciate any distraction that wouldn’t make you want to drive into the nearest tree. Unlike talking to your partner. 

Neil opened the glove compartment and searched through its contents. He found a thick CD case and started flipping through pages curiously. With the corner of your eye, you saw a grin lighting his face when he finally picked one. 

As you heard the familiar piano notes, your knuckles on the steering wheel turned white. Oh, fuck no.

You glared at Neil, who was gently swaying his head, eyes closed, fighting himself to keep a straight face. When the lyrics started, he pressed his palms to his chest right over his heart and looked at you as he mouthed the words.

//When I was young

I never needed anyone

And making love was just for fun

Those days are gone//

You gritted your teeth and focused back on the road, trying to keep in check the rising anger already boiling the blood in your veins, as Neil was clearly feeling the song more and more with every line.

Well, at least this time he wasn’t--...

And then just as the chorus was about to hit, Neil mimicked the opening drum sequence and spread his arms wide, singing along:

//All by myself

Don't wanna be

All by myself

Anymore//

“If you don’t change that fucking song in the next 10 seconds, be ready to walk all the way to the city--...”

“Come on, it’s a classic!” he complained, the biggest smile not leaving his face even for a moment.

You smacked your tongue, finding your most casual voice, “...and I’m not gonna be bothered with pulling over.”

Neil turned down the volume so the music was barely audible, and while it was not what you’d asked him to do, he didn’t give you a chance to scold him. 

“I bet you’ve spent at least one evening listening to that song with a big box of ice cream on your lap,” he smirked, closely watching your reaction to his words.

You could feel your ears burning. Fucking hell, you really hated his guts.

“No,” you scoffed, but even you were not convinced by the sound of that. Judging by Neil’s expression, neither was he. You winced and groaned, ”...shut up!” 

“Nothing to be ashamed of,” - he shrugged - “been there, done that.” 

“Of course you have,” you couldn’t help but snicker at the image planted in your head. 

The blue eyes studied you for a while longer before focusing back at the view outside the window. Meanwhile, the song ended, getting replaced by an instrumental track. You turned the volume up and for the next minute or two, you drove in silence. 

When you heard a light chuckle, you glanced at Neil again. There was something peculiar in the look on his face, a soft gaze in contrast to a knowing grin.

You sighed.

“Do I wanna know what you’re grinning about now?”

Neil raised a brow and his lips parted in an even wider smile.

“Probably not.”

You shook your head, drawing a long breath, wondering how you were going to survive the next forty-something hours together. You could just hope that being at the actual location and starting the real work was going to make it easier. 

Grounding yourself, you stared into the darkness stepping back under the car’s headlights as dusk slowly turned into night. You noticed a faint glow of city lights reflecting in the clouds over the horizon and you relaxed slowly, tuning out anything other than the road ahead. 

Just as the CD player jumped back to the first song again and you switched to a local radio station, now clear of static, you realized your companion had been unusually quiet for the last half an hour. You looked at the passenger seat only to find Neil deep in his sleep and your heart started beating a little faster. Suddenly, everything about the sight seemed endearing - the peaceful face under the ruffled blonde hair, the slightly open mouth almost hidden behind the turned-up collar of the dark navy jacket, the way he wrapped his arms around himself in a little self-hug…

Your lips curled into a fond smile and as your chest clenched painfully, you turned the radio down, wishing you could do the same thing to your feelings just as easily.

-----------

The second you pulled over in the alley at the back of the abandoned hotel, two figures emerged from the door and rushed in your direction. You recognized the fellow agents and jumped out of the car to make the exchange as smooth as possible. 

“Ten-minute window until the patrol comes back,” you said to a short brunette, taking your bags out of the trunk and passing her the car keys.

“Got it,” she nodded, handing you the room key in return. “Our report should be ready before we reach HQ, I will send it to you ASAP.” 

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d think that the lack of an easy escape plan is intentional,” said Neil as he grabbed one of the bags and looked around.

“But it is,” you shrugged, walking into the building and heading to the nearest staircase. “No loose ends. You’re either good enough to make it out undiscovered and alive, or you get revealed and --...”

“...and then even having the cavalry on call is not going to make a difference, I get it,’ he sighed, matching your two-steps-at-once pace up the stairs, “Can’t say I like it, though.” 

“So let’s try not to do anything stupid so we don’t get caught, shall we?”

A corner of your lips twitched as you heard him scoff at your remark, but to your surprise, he didn’t take the bait. Huh.

When you reached the room, you turned the lock and looked around, taking mental note of the location of every piece of equipment left by the previous team - two cameras, night vision binoculars, and a parabolic microphone placed by the windows. Some parts of the blinds on the windows were broken, others were missing, but the remaining parts still provided a decent cover from the curious eyes peeking up from street level. Other than that, the room was exactly what you would expect from a stakeout location - peeled-off wallpapers of an undefined color, a small table with an electric kettle, a couple of chairs, a mini-fridge, and a mattress. 

As you went to check the last few minutes registered by the camera, Neil started unpacking the supplies. Seeing nothing interesting on the feed, you grabbed one of the water bottles he’d just put on the table and took a seat by the window, your usual first-hour-of-stakeout enthusiasm fending off the tiredness you felt after the long drive.

Neil took a laptop and sat on a chair at the other window, alternating glancing outside and typing in a message to TP with a quick update on your situation.

Your main objective was to observe the building on the other side of the street, especially one loft that was suspected to be a meeting place for one of the smuggling cells’ bosses. Snapping photos of the vehicles pulling over, of the visitors, and reporting any odd activity straight ahead. The usual. But it was past midnight already and your targets were having a pretty quiet night, apparently. 

As Neil finished filing in the paperwork, he stretched his arms and groaned.

“Tea?”

You rubbed your eyes, a sudden wave of sleepiness flooded your brain as soon as you lost focus on the mission. 

“Yes, please, there should be a box with a green one somewhere.”

“Ah, pity, I don’t know how well it’s gonna mix with the biscuits,” said Neil in a ridiculous posh accent, making you facepalm in response. 

Partially, to hide an amused smile. 

You really were that tired, huh?

“I take my tea with no sugar, no biscuits, and no snarky comments, thanks,” you huffed as your eyes followed him to the table.

“I, too, don’t like talking over a cuppa.”

“What did I just say--” you groaned, smacking your thigh in frustration.

Neil giggled and rolled his eyes, now lit by a playful twinkle. “All right, one ‘green tea no bullshit’ coming right up.”

“Thank you,” you sighed, glancing up to the ceiling as if it was supposed to help with the alarming level of annoyance in your system.

Less than two hours on-site and you already wanted to strangle him. 

Among other things.

And before you could stop your tired brain, it brought up a memory of that karaoke night. 

His hands roaming through your body. The sound of a belt buckle hitting the floor. Your frantic gasp when you felt him inside you. His firm grip on your hips. The heart racing in your chest. Your longing body pressing itself into him even further. His uneven breath on your neck. The quickening pace of his thrusts. Your eyes squeezing shut. His muffled moan when you tugged at his hair. The cold wall against your cheek. Your fingers interlocked. His arm wrapped around you tightly. The things whispered into your ear---

“Your tea.”

“Hmm?” you mumbled, blinking rapidly and focusing your gaze on a thermal cup in front of your face. “Oh, thanks.”

Neil studied your expression curiously, a sly grin hiding in the corner of his mouth.

“Pleasant daydream?”

“Maybe,” you sent him a smug smile and raised a brow.

His lips parted slightly at the implication. Drinking his tea, he schooled his features and sat back on the chair. 

You spent the next moments enjoying the hot beverages, the silence becoming more comfortable with every sip you took. But as the time went by and you ran out of tea, the peacefulness turned into boredom. 

Finally, Neil shuffled in his seat and turned your way. 

"We should play a game."

Even though it sounded tempting, you didn’t trust those roguish sparks in his eyes. 

“We already had a chance to play ‘yellow car’,” - you shrugged - “not my fault you chose a nap instead.”

His puzzled face gave you a hint he didn’t get the reference. Pity.

“I was thinking about some sort of...questions game,” he said and cleared his throat, shifting in his chair again. "To get to know each other better."

"Why?" you stared at him with your mouth open, suddenly taken aback. 

He gave you a half-smile. "Don't you think it's weird that the only thing I know about you is all the ways to turn you on and piss you off?"

"Wouldn't be so confident about that ‘all’ part…" you huffed and lost a train of thought as you spotted the familiar flare in his gaze.

"You’re sure you wanna challenge me like that right now?"

A cold shiver ran down your spine at the way his voice got lower. You gritted your teeth as your mind started racing to find a way out of the dangerous waters. 

"Aren't you a master of multitasking?" you teased, batting your eyelashes.

"And aren't you scared of having an actual conversation?" Neil narrowed his eyes and grimaced slightly. 

"Fine!” you fumed as you tossed your hands in the air in defeat. “Why don’t you get straight to the point because I have a weird feeling you have a very specific question in mind."

A silence that dropped after your words was heavy and you realized you’d made a mistake.

"Actually, I do,” he said, tilting his head and locking his gaze on you. “What's up with you and kissing?"

...shit, walked right into that one, huh? 

You pulled one leg up on the chair, glancing outside the window to avoid the blue eyes boring into you. "It's nothing."

“Didn’t look like nothing to me.”

Sighing, you rested the chin on your knee and wrapped your arms around it, as if that little bit of comfort was enough to make the conversation easier. Your ears were burning, your heart pounded heavily in the clenched chest, and it all was only adding to your frustration. Because it really was nothing. Or maybe it should have been, and that was the issue.

“If you don’t wanna talk about it--”

Your eyes darted at Neil only to meet his soft look. A shadow of concern on his face wasn’t helping, but you were grateful that he was willing to give you a way out.

Although at that moment, you felt you owed him an explanation. 

“No, it’s just that it’s a bit silly,” you said, wincing. “I’m gonna tell you, but if you laugh, I will murder you in your sleep.”

Neil smiled lightly in encouragement.

“Got it.”

So you took a deep breath and squeezed the first word past the lump in your throat.

“It’s just that kissing to me was always something… special,” you cringed, fully aware that you sounded like a flustered teenager. “Like it really meant something. Do you know where I’m going with this?”

Neil’s brows knitted together.

“I think so, yeah.”

“Good,” you sighed, forcing yourself to breathe again. “And some time ago, I made a mistake and opened up too soon, burning myself. Fuck, it’s pathetic, I know, I just…” you hesitated and looked away, feeling the rising panic. You were exposing yourself, again. “...maybe I’m just wired that way and we should leave it at that. And never talk about it again,” your voice was hollow, the result of your brain’s desperate attempts to keep your emotions bottled up, just to keep you safe. 

And after what felt like forever--

“Okay.”

You shot him a thankful look, too overwhelmed to say anything. 

Neil got up, moving his shoulders in small circles to get rid of the stiffness. As he walked by you on his way to the bathroom, he patted your arm lightly. Reassuringly. The tip of your nose tingled and you bit the inside of your cheek, cursing a sudden wave of softness clouding your mind.  

A few minutes passed and Neil was back. He fell on the chair heavily, slowly massaging his temples with the tips of his fingers. Catching a question in your stare, he shook his head and grinned.

“What?” you asked, squinting suspiciously.

Neil chuckled, leaning back and spreading his legs. “Trying to figure you out is giving me a headache.”

You rolled your eyes and scoffed, focusing on the view outside the window. 

“Who we are and who we need to be to survive are two different things, you know.”

“So it’s all an act?”

You looked back at him, suddenly perplexed. “What is?”

“This,” he gestured vaguely in your direction and shrugged. “Or rather your usual behavior.”

You snorted. “Oh, I am a real ray of sunshine, but somehow being around you makes my inner bitch jump out,” you teased, meeting his amused gaze. A corner of your lips curled and you exhaled slowly. “I don’t know, after some time you learn life is easier that way, and at one point the line blurs,” you stopped for a second and frowned, wondering what had gotten into you tonight. “Does it make any sense to you?”

Something new tainted Neil’s features as he looked away, smiling sadly.

“You have no idea.”

Just as you opened your mouth to ask what was wrong, the blue eyes darted back at you.

“I’ll take the first shift, already had my nap after all,” the little laugh escaping his mouth felt forced. “You must be exhausted. Try to get some sleep.”

Oh you were exhausted, all right. But all of the sudden it felt as if he wanted to get rid of you and you couldn’t help feeling a bit hurt by that. There was something in his presence that gave you a hint that it wasn’t the best idea to pressure him about it now, and you slumped your shoulders, nodding.

“Thank you,” you said quietly, getting up. All that held-back fatigue was going to hit you in full force any minute now, and you really wanted to be laid down by then.

A few moments in the bathroom and you were back in the room again in more comfortable clothes. You rolled out a sleeping bag on the mattress and slipped into it, covering your mouth as you let out a small yawn. 

“Wake me up if anything happens or you need me to take over, will you?”

Neil shot you a quick look from his chair. 

“Sure thing,” he gave you a weak smile. “Goodnight.”

“‘Night,” you mumbled. 

You curled up and closed your eyes, hoping the heaviness you felt in your chest would be gone by the morning.

--------

It took your still half-asleep brain a moment to remember where you were and what was going on. You looked around as much as you could without moving your body to avoid revealing that you were no longer asleep. Oh right, the stakeout. 

You noticed Neil sitting on the floor by the only floor-to-ceiling window near the corner of the room, looking outside. The early morning light seeping through the blinds was reflecting in the disheveled blonde hair, a fitting addition to his overall tired appearance. It seemed like he’d spent most of the night working through whatever bothered him after your last talk, but he seemed more at peace now. You studied him in a little moment of sleep-deprived self-indulgence, musing over the dark quarter zip pullover, those absurdly long legs in khaki pants--...

Okay, enough. You sat up, rubbing your face.

“How’s the mattress?”

Hearing Neil’s raspy voice made you quite tempted to invite him over to check for himself.

“Passable,” you replied instead, stretching your arms and wriggling out of your sleeping bag. You nodded at the cameras. “Anything?” 

“Not really. One visitor, already on the list,” he said as his eyes followed you around the room.

“All right,” you sighed, flipping the switch on the kettle. “I need coffee, you want some?”

“No, thank you, but if you could pass me a bottle of water--”

You grabbed one and tossed it to him, heading to the bathroom. 

When you finally looked and felt like a decent human being again, you went back to finish making coffee. As you walked to the windows with the thermal cup in your hands, you caught Neil’s resigned stare. You sat down on the floor in front of him, leaning your shoulder against the wall. A glimpse of internal battle clouded his features and you tilted your head, waiting for him to speak up first.

“I didn’t want this,” he blurted out, and when nothing else followed the statement, you cleared your throat. 

“You have to be more specific, I’m afraid.”

Neil clenched his jaw. You noticed a hint of frustration in his eyes, but then his shoulders dropped and he let out a nervous chuckle, fastening his gaze on the view outside the window.

“I wanted to do things by the book. When TP recruited me… I thought I’d be just another field agent and I was okay with that,” he sighed and grimaced. “But he insisted on fast-tracking me, even when I told him it wasn’t fair to the rest of you.” Neil shook his head slowly and a corner of his lips twitched. “He promised me one of his best agents’ help on the way though. Imagine my surprise when the agent in question kept snarling at me and shoving me around instead.” 

When Neil looked back at you, you realized the meaning behind his words and your mind went blank. You stared into the blue eyes with your mouth open, trying to process everything you’d just heard and its implications.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” you breathed out, feeling light-headed.

“Why?”

“Nobody told you…?” you asked, but his confused expression was his only answer. And you simply couldn’t believe that he hadn’t known all this time. “I’d been working my ass off for that position,” you huffed, studying his reaction to your words closely. “And then you showed up.”

Neil’s face dropped as he finally connected all the dots. “Fuck...I had no idea, I’m sorry.” 

Seeing his sincere look, you sighed, raking fingers through your hair. Fucking hell, what a mess. The impossible mix of emotions swirled inside you and you giggled hysterically, suddenly finding the whole situation absolutely hilarious. 

“And I had no idea I was supposed to babysit you,” you said as you stretched your legs, positioning them alongside Neil’s. 

“Thought we were having a moment here,” he scoffed, smiling lightly.

You smirked and tapped his thigh with your foot.

“Think again.”

Neil tapped you back, stifling a chuckle. “You’re insufferable.”

“Too bad you can’t do anything about that now, huh,” you teased, wiggling your brows as you nibbled at your bottom lip.

The blue eyes lit up. “Just you wait till we finish the job,” he said slowly and placed a hand on your ankle.

But before you could respond, you heard a phone alert and Neil jumped at his feet.

He read the message quickly. 

“Seems like we are about to see some action after all,” he said, pressing the phone to his ear. You downed your coffee and joined Neil by the table.

“Hold on, I’m gonna put you on speaker… okay, now”

“Hope you two are rested,” TP’s voice filled the room. “We intercepted a phone call. Our target is expecting a delivery in the next hour or so. Significant enough that from this moment on, the mission objective changes.” You exchanged looks with Neil, knowing well what was coming next. You walked back to the windows to keep an eye on the street. “We have a chance to prevent this shipment from spreading to different sellers. I’m sending the cavalry your way. But you’ll need to assess the situation as it progresses.”

“Means we might have to engage early, got it.”

“It’s your call, Neil. And as we have enough intel now… no loose ends. Good luck.” said TP and hung up.

Neil tossed the phone on the table and dashed to the bags to prep the equipment. You noticed movement in the loft across the street and snapped a few pictures before looking back at your partner.

“Are you good to go? You haven’t slept tonight.”

He glanced at you and gave you a smug smile. 

“How nice of you to worry about me.”

You could feel the usual annoyance mixed with a new emotion, but maybe you were just glad to be back on familiar waters.

“Nah, I’m worried about the mission,” you snorted. “Especially if we may end up going in there alone.”

“I’m okay. How does it look out there?”

You looked outside again and tensed as a van appeared at the end of the street. “We’ve got company.”

Neil changed you by the window and you rushed to get ready.

-------

After clearing the back entrance, you found yourselves in the underground garage. 

Splitting up, you took down the guards one by one without raising any alarms. 

Neil checked the van and then you both made your way upstairs. You knew there were at least five more people in the loft, but you had to rely on the element of surprise because the cavalry was still on their way. 

As you got to the door, you cocked your pistol and met Neil’s determined stare. You nodded. 

Bursting through the door, your instincts kicked in, allowing you to put a bullet into two men before they had a chance to realize what was going on. In the next second all hell broke loose. You knew one thing - you somehow underestimated the numbers. And just as you thought that maybe you got lucky and got every last of them, someone grabbed you from behind and you felt something cold and sharp pressed against your neck. Fuck.

You dug your fingers into the arm wrapped around your shoulders, but a stinging pain made you stop any further attempts at breaking free. The blood pounded in your ears and everything seemed to slow down. 

You noticed Neil standing in front of you with a gun pointed right next to your head. 

He secured a grip on his pistol and the man holding you yelled something at him, but you didn’t listen, focusing completely on the blue eyes, now filled with a silent question, looking straight into yours.

You let out a shaky breath and blinked slowly. 

A gunshot echoed through the room.

The pressure on your neck lowered and you heard a thud of a body fitting the floor behind you. 

Neil lowered his gun. 

You stared at each other for what seemed like forever.

“Nice shot,” you said, composing yourself first.

He gave you a weak smile, and just as he opened his mouth to say something, your comms filled with a familiar voice.

“We’ve missed all the fun, eh?”

------

Neither of you said anything on the way back to the HQ, not counting the short answers to the questions asked by Ives, but even he gave up after a while seeing you weren’t in the mood for talking.  

You got your duffel bag out of the trunk and looked around. Neil was standing at the bottom of the stairs leading to the building, talking on the phone. You walked up to him slowly, waiting for him to finish the conversation.

“Do they need us to get in to file a report?” 

“No, I convinced TP to give us the rest of the day off,” he said, hiding the phone in the pocket of his jacket. “We can do that first thing tomorrow, I’m just gonna drop the equipment now.”

“Great, thanks.”

You couldn’t wait to get back to your apartment. You tossed the bag on your arm and smiled at the thought of a long hot shower and crashing in your own bed. 

There was just one thing you needed to do first.

Neil took a step towards the building and without thinking too much about it, you reached out for his hand.

“Neil…?”

He stopped and turned around, puzzled. His eyes dropped to your joined hands and slowly moved up to your face. 

You gave him a nervous smile.

“Thank you.”

His features softened and he squeezed your hand gently.

“Don’t mention it.”

And then he smirked.

...of course.

“Guess that makes us even.”

(next chapter->)

#neil tenet x reader #neil tenet #neil tenet fanfiction #tenet #robert pattinson #tenet fanfiction #the protagonist tenet #ives tenet #wheeler tenet #neil tenet imagine #neil x reader #smoke & mirrors #tags hate me

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Best SEO Tools used in 2021

The term SEO refers to the process of optimizing a website for search engines. SEO is the process of making efforts to improve the ranking of a website or piece of content on Google.

The main distinction between SEO and paid advertising is that SEO involves “organic” ranking. Which means you don’t have to pay to be in that spot. To put it another way, search engine optimization is the process of improving a piece of online material. So that it appears near the top of a search engine’s page when someone searches for something.

Consider it this way: When someone searches for “vegan lasagna,” they’re probably looking for a recipe, ingredients, and instructions on how to prepare it. You’d want people to locate your vegan lasagna recipe if you wrote an article about it. You must rank above all other vegan lasagna recipe websites in order for people to locate it. It’s not easy, but that’s the point of SEO marketing.

Let’s take it a step further: A search engine like Google is where the bulk of online searches begin. In fact, Google is the starting point for 75% of those queries.

You must first grasp how search works in order to better comprehend how to rank your content higher in the search engines.

Consider this: When someone searches for “vegan lasagna,” they’re likely looking for a recipe, ingredients, and preparation instructions. If you created an essay about vegan lasagna, you’d want people to be able to find it. In order for visitors to find your vegan lasagna recipe website, it must rank above all other vegan lasagna recipe websites.

Why Use SEO Tools?

SEO solutions relieve you of the time-consuming task of keyword research and data analysis. You can examine what’s working and which elements of your approach could use some modification with these tools. The top SEO tools will also give you information on how you compare to your competition and where your biggest chances are. They also allow you to track search success across countries, regions, and languages.

It will get better. If you manage multiple websites, SEO tools can let you assess the effectiveness of each one on the fly. Many entrepreneurs who run many websites wind up entering a lot of information into spreadsheets and manually analyzing it. However, this quickly becomes overwhelming, increasing the likelihood of false reports. Fortunately, SEO software can save you hours of work and deliver precise reports with a single click.

Best Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Tools

Ahrefs: SEO Keyword Tool

Google Search Console: Top SEO Tool

SEMRush: Marketing SEO Tools

KWFinder: SEO Keyword Tool

Moz Pro: SEO Software

Ubersuggest: Keyword Tracking Tool

Answer The Public: Free SEO Tools

SpyFu: Free SEO Tools

Woorank: SEO Ranking Tool

Majestic: Marketing SEO Tools

Google Trends: SEO Checker Tool

SEOQuake: Free SEO Tools

Siteliner: SEO Analysis Tool

Fat Rank: SEO Tools

Keywords Everywhere: SEO Keyword Tool

Screaming Frog: SEO Tools Online

Serpstat: All-in-one SEO platform

Bonus Tool: Incognito

Ahrefs: SEO Keyword Tool

Ahrefs is one of the most used SEO tools on the internet. When it comes to the major website crawlers, it is only second to Google. Ahrefs’ Site Audit feature is the best SEO analysis tool available, and SEO specialists can’t get enough of it. The tool will show you which portions of your website need to be improved in order for it to rank higher in search engines. From the standpoint of competitive analysis, You’ll probably utilize Ahrefs to figure out what backlinks your competitors have so you can use them as a starting point for your own brand. This SEO tool may also be used to locate the most linked to material in your niche, verify and mend broken links on your website, and obtain an overview of your top-performing pages (so you can see what information is drawing in the visitors).

Google Search Console: Top SEO Tool

Google Search Console is a free tool that allows anyone with a website to monitor and report on their site’s status in Google SERPs. Simply add a code to your website or go through Google Analytics to check your website before submitting your sitemap for indexing. Although a Search Console account is not required to appear in Google’s search results, it is recommended. With this account, you can manage what is indexed and how your website is represented. Search Console can help you understand how Google and its users view your website and assist you to adjust for better performance in Google search results as an SEO checker tool. It’s particularly important for new websites because it allows site owners to submit web pages for indexing by search engines.

SEMRush: Marketing SEO Tools

SEMRush and other marketing SEO tools are common choices among SEOs. Experts adore them because they make it simple to assess your rankings as well as spot adjustments and fresh opportunities. The Domain Vs Domain comparison, which allows you to instantly compare your website to your competitors, is one of the most popular aspects of this SEO tool. Keywords and domains will be able to be compared. The On-Page SEO Checker tool makes it simple to keep track of your rankings and get advice on how to enhance your website’s performance.

 KWFinder: SEO Keyword Tool

Long-tail keywords with low competition can be found using an SEO keyword tool like KWFinder. This SEO tool is used by specialists to locate the ideal keywords and generate backlink and SERP analysis reports (Search Engine Results Page). Their Rank Tracker application makes determining your rating and measuring your progress based on a single metric simple. Plus, if that wasn’t enough, you’ll get a slew of new keyword suggestions to assist you to improve your website’s ranking.

Moz Pro: SEO Software

Moz Pro, an SEO program, keeps coming up as one of the top SEO tools that professionals actually use. Despite Google’s constant algorithm updates, Moz was always up to date, according to several experts. Others commended Moz’s chat site, which they said allows them to always get a thoughtful response to whatever question they have. Moz is a full-service powerhouse that can help you with keyword recommendations or a site crawl. You may learn a lot about how well your website is working as well as how to enhance it. You can also download the free MozBar toolbar to see your website’s stats while visiting any page. If you’re interested in learning more about SEO, you should attend MozCon, their annual conference.

Ubersuggest: Keyword Tracking Tool

Ubersuggest is a free keyword-finding tool created by Neil Patel that helps you identify keywords as well as the search intent behind them by displaying the top-ranked SERPs. With hundreds of ideas from our free fantastic keyword tool, you can identify the ideal terms to employ on your website, from short to long-tail phrases. Keyword volume, competition, CPC, and seasonal trends are among the metrics Ubersuggest offers in its reports. This tool can help you decide if a keyword is worth targeting and how competitive it is for both organic SEO and paid PPC.

Answer The Public: Free SEO Tools

You may quickly identify themes to write about for your blog using free SEO tools like Answer The Public. I’ve previously utilized this tool to build articles around specific keywords in order to improve my online ranking. Assume you’re in the fitness industry. This free SEO tool may be used to build content around keywords such as fitness, yoga, jogging, Crossfit, and exercise, and it can be used to cover the entire spectrum. It’s fantastic for discovering featured snippet chances. If you engage a freelancer to write content for you, all you have to do is download and send them this list. It would take you only five minutes, making it one of the most expedient ways to generate SEO subjects for new websites.

SpyFu: Free SEO Tools

While SpyFu’s subscription version is fantastic, several of our experts praised its free features. If you’re just getting started, you can simply progress to the paid features as your business grows. You can quickly see how many times a keyword is searched each month and determine how challenging it is to rank for that keyword. You may also look into your competitors’ keywords to see which ones they employ. You can also use Google Ads to search your competitor’s or your own website to see how many organic keywords they have, how many monthly clicks they get, who their paid and organic competitors are, and what Google Ads campaigns they’re running. It’s one of the most in-depth SEO analysis tools available.

Woorank: SEO Ranking Tool

Woorank, a leading SEO analysis tool, provides both free and paid alternatives for tracking and reporting marketing data. You can enter in your competitors’ names to see the keywords they’re after so you can target the same ones. To optimize for consumers and search engines in the best way possible, try to learn how keywords perform over time. Most crucial, recognize what your website is missing in terms of both technical and content. Woorank can assist you with identifying duplicate content, downtime, and security issues, as well as providing recommendations for how to resolve them.

Majestic: Marketing SEO Tools

According to experts, Majestic is one of the greatest marketing SEO tools. It contains a plethora of useful features, such as The Majestic Million, which displays the ranking of the top million websites. Is your website one of those that made the cut? The Site Explorer function gives you a quick overview of your site as well as the number of backlinks it has. It may also be used as an SEO keyword tool to determine the best keywords to target, with capabilities such as site comparisons and rank tracking.

Google Trends: SEO Checker Tool

Google Trends has been around for a long time but is rarely used. It not only provides information on a term, but it also provides significant insight into the topic’s tendencies, which can be useful at any point in a company’s development. Although Google Trends has been available for quite some time, it is rarely used. It not only provides definitions for terms but also an important insight into the topic’s trends, which can be valuable at any stage of a company’s development.

SEOQuake: Free SEO Tools

SEOQuake is widely regarded as one of the greatest free SEO tools available. This Chrome extension is an SEO checker that runs on-page site audits, evaluates both internal and external links, and performs website comparisons to see how you compare to your competition. Keyword analysis, such as keyword density, an easy-to-read SEO dashboard, and an export option. That allows you to easily download and share data with important members of your team are among the other features of this SEO analysis tool.

Siteliner: SEO Analysis Tool

Siteliner is a duplicate content checker application that can help you detect duplicate content on your website. What is duplicate content, exactly? Content that is identical to that found on other websites. Google punishes websites that use it. You may scan your entire website with SEO tools like this one to look for duplicate content, broken links, average page size and speed, the number of internal links per page, and more. Your text will be rewritten by QuillBot. Start by typing or pasting something into this box, then hit the enter key.

Fat Rank: SEO Tools

SEO Fat Rank, a Chrome extension, makes it simple to analyze the performance of your website. This SEO keyword tool will tell you how well your keywords are performing. You can use keywords to narrow down your search and see your rank per page for each phrase you optimized for. It will tell you that you aren’t ranking for that term if you aren’t in the first 100 results. This data enables you to better optimize your website for that keyword and make any improvements.

 Keywords Everywhere: SEO Keyword Tool

Another useful SEO Chrome extension is Keywords Everywhere. Which gathers data from multiple SEO tools such as Google Analytics, Search Console, Google Trends, and more to help you find the best keywords to rank for. These free SEO tools make choosing the optimal keywords for your website much easier. Rather than browsing through many websites each day, you may save a lot of time by using just one application.

Screaming Frog: SEO Tools Online

Ribbit Experts consider Screaming Frog to be one of the top SEO tools available online. They appreciate how much time they save while using this application to execute site audits because it analyses your website so quickly. In fact, everyone we spoke with felt that Screaming Frog provides insights faster than most SEO tools available online. This tool also alerts you to duplicate material, problems that need to be fixed, incorrect redirections, and spots where link building may be improved. Top SEO specialists rated their SEO Spider tool as the finest feature.

Serpstat: All-in-one SEO platform

Serpstat is a growth-hacking platform that helps you achieve your SEO, PPC, and content marketing objectives. It will be a terrific choice if you’re seeking an economical all-in-one tool to tackle SEO duties, assess competition, and manage your staff. Many professionals are now using the program. Because it has keyword and competitor analysis data for all of Google’s global areas. Serpstat is also well-known for its impressive features. The most popular is a tool called Missing Keywords. Which shows you which keywords your competitors are ranking for in the top 10 search results but you aren’t.

Bonus Tool: Incognito

Switching to Incognito mode and conducting Google searches will provide you with unbiased, “clean” searches. That will help you understand what your users see and get when searching for terms. When you use the autofill options, you will be presented with ideas for semantic keywords to employ. Searching in Incognito is one of the best free SEO tools since it reveals you where you genuinely rank on a results page for a specific query.

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