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spookiekewchie · 2 years

Note

Since you wanted an ask…..

Demon!Andy

So Andy finally impregnated sis like he planned and they have a beautiful baby girl!

So you know after the baby and with her PPD she’s feeling down a bit! It doesn’t help that Andy is always gone with work and stuff (or whatever you want his absence to be)

After a hype up from her bff, she decides it’s time to snap back to the bad bitch she is and get metaphorical grove back 😂

So we can do a time skip I guess!

Now the day has come! Time for her mommy makeover and it’s just in time because it’s her homegirls bachelorette party and they are going all out!

Andy sees what she is wearing and how bad she looks and he is like nopeeee but she goes out anyway! Drunk party shenanigans ensueeeee

As you Andy is hella possessive and a stalker! So he follows reader and he sees her get a lil to chummy with one of the strippers……

You can fill in the rest 😈

Can I Get It?

MINORS DO NOT INTERACT

Characters: demon!Andy Barber x woc!reader

Summary: Andy's been absent a lot since you've given birth to his twins, and it's taken a toll on you. Time for him to remind you that you're still his little angel.

READ: LOSING MY RELIGION / CHRIST IS COMIN', AND SO AM I / CALL ME WHEN YOU NEED / A HOLIDAY READ

Word Count: 3.9k+

Warnings: general language warning, soft dark demon!andy, angst, mentions of post partum, mentions of reader feeling unwanted, possessive Andy, mild violence, reader going off on Andy (lmao), unprotected sex (p in v), possessive sex, choking, multiple o's, petnames (Andy calls the reader little angel), daddy kink (just the name being used)

A/N: So this is a little time skip, but don't worry I still plan on writing the moments in between this and the last part thing I wrote for them. Loosely inspired by Adele's song Can I Get It. I made an attempt at proof reading but I probably missed some things so excuse any errors or typos. The image is edited by me (the black eyes), divider is by @firefly-graphics

DO NOT repost or translate my work anywhere. If you like it don't forget to reblog and share with others who might enjoy it as well.

You look down at your phone, thumb hovering over the send button before you choose to back out your entire reply and leave Andy on read. You’re still mad at him, and it’s not like he’s been the most attentive partner as of late. In your opinion Andy should be kissing the ground you walk on, especially after pushing out his twin demon spawn. You gave him not one, but two heirs, and he couldn’t even be bothered to be in your shared bed a good amount of the nights that he was actually home. Your blood boils at the thought of it, and you don’t bother considering that there might be a reason why Andy has been so busy lately. You shouldn’t have to consider it, if there’s something going on then he should just tell you.

Sipping on the cranberry juice and sprite that you’ve been nursing you sigh, it’d be so nice to pour a bit of vodka into your glass right now, but you’re still nursing so that’s not an option. Sliding your phone into your purse and rejoining your friends. It’s a bachelorette party and you don’t need to bring the mood down by worrying about Andy when you should be celebrating your friend getting married soon. It’s hard not to think about him though, especially when the whole argument earlier had been because of him not wanting you to leave the house in the short dress you were wearing. He wanted you under him, on top of him, wrapped around him, and he certainly didn’t want you around a bunch of half naked gyrating men. He knows that you won’t let yourself be tempted that easily, it’s more that you’re craving some time with your friends now that you’re finally starting to feel better and the postpartum isn’t wreaking as much havoc on your mental and emotional state any more. He feels guilty about not being there for you like he wanted to, but he swears the next time he won’t have to leave you alone with just Agatha as support again.

It’s something he might have told you if you hadn’t stormed out of the house and jumped into your car so you could speed off. He assumed you just needed to cool off, and he knows you won’t be trying to run. Not when you have two beautiful babies that you adore and that need you. That didn’t mean he particularly enjoyed arguing with you or you walking out on him.

That’s how he ends up watching you from outside your friends house, you’re laughing and sipping at your drink. It’s just you girls and he thinks that’s perfectly fine right up until the point that a dark truck pulls up and four men pile out in police officer uniforms. Each one of them is ridiculously built, and Andy already knows what’s about to happen. He clenches his jaw so hard that he can hear the creaking of his teeth under the pressure as he watches one of your friends open the door and usher them in with a squeal of drunken laughter. It sets his nerves on edge, and through the window he can see the men beginning their routine as they work their way around the room. You throw cash, his cash he notes bitterly, and laugh with your friends and despite knowing that he should be glad that you’re having a good time, Andy just seethes as he continues to watch you.

It feels like an eternity before the song finally ends, and the men start to break off with smaller groups of women. And then there’s you, wandering away to the kitchen by yourself to check your phone again. He wonders if you’ll actually text him back now that you’ve had your fun, but you just set the phone down on the kitchen island and pour more sprite into your juice.

“Now what is a hot mama like you doing off by herself.” A voice says from the kitchen entrance, and you nearly choke when you look over to see one of the dancers sauntering over shamelessly in this thong. You have half a mind to dismiss him, thinking he’s going to try and hit on you in hopes that you’ll slide him a bit more cash but instead he helps himself to a drink and leans on the island next to you. “I’m Adonis,” He gives you what is obviously his stripper name, and you do your best not to snort in laughter. “The bride to be told me you just had twins, and that you deserved a little extra attention.” He informs you, and you groan and bury your face in your hands. The male dancer catches sight of the large ring on your finger, glinting in the low light. It feels heavy right now, a reminder that you’ve tied yourself to Andy and right now you don’t even think he wants you. “Relax mama, I’m not gonna try to break up a happy home. But you gotta answer a question for me.” He continues, and you look up at him with curiosity.

“Did you seriously just have twins? Because damn girl.” He gives a low whistle, taking your hand and making you do a spin for him. “Like I might bat for the other team, but I got eyes mama and you look damn good!” He’s got you cheesing harder than you have in a while, and you don’t even think twice about it when you reach for your phone and open your photos so you can show him the many pictures that you’ve taken over the past three months. He presses in close to look at the screen, gasping at the pictures of your two bundles of demonic joy. A boy and girl, and then there’s the picture of Andy holding them that you pause on for longer than you’d like. He looks so happy holding them, so proud and content, it makes you think for a moment that he really only intended to use you as a human incubator. You don’t realize that tears are on your face until one drops onto your screen. You curse, wiping it away quickly and trying to pretend that you’re fine, but Adonis has already seen it and he’s quick to try and soothe you. “Hey it’s okay, I know I’m pretty but there’s no need for the tears.” He teases, and you give a watery chuckle. He’s sweet, and you’re quickly finding yourself grateful that your friend sent him in here to keep you company.

Unfortunately the moment Adonis innocently runs a hand down your arm that’s when Andy sees red. He assumes the worst, and one second he’s outside peering in, and in the next he’s got your friendly stripper by his throat.

You react in an instant, first trying to pry Andy’s hand off the sputtering man who has no idea what’s going on. “Andrew Stephen Barber!” You hiss, beating against his arm with your clutch until he’s focusing on you. “Let him go, you fucking bully!” You demand, and Andy’s glare doesn’t even make you tremble. You’re too angry with him to be afraid, you’re also hurt, assuming the worst things, and the one man that’s gone out of his way to make you smile is being threatened by your possessive demonic lover, so you can add embarrassment to your list as well.

“I saw him touch you.” Andy seethes, and you scoff in disbelief.

“First of all, I’m not his type. You might be though.” You snap, and Andy’s brows furrow before he puts that together and he chooses to release the gasping man. You hardly pay Andy any mind as you tend to Adonis, apologizing profusely, and getting him some ice for his neck. Ten minutes later, and another apology this time to your friends for having to leave early you all but stomp outside and slide into the passenger side seat of your car so that Andy can drive you back home with nothing from you but your stony silence. There’s a lot you want to say, but you won’t start a fight while he’s driving. “Are you going to talk to me?” Andy huffs out, gripping the steering wheel too tightly. “I said I was sorry, it was a misunderstanding.”

“Yeah, you misunderstood a man being friendly to your baby machine.” You mutter under your breath, but when Andy demands for you to repeat yourself you say nothing and simply glare out the car window while you fiddle with the heavy ring around your finger. The rest of the car ride is stifling, and you feel like you’re going to suffocate if you have to stay in the vehicle a second longer. The feeling gets worse when you see the house come into view, and without thinking twice about it you pull your phone out to dial Agatha. “Hey Agatha, do you think you could keep the twins overnight? I’ll pay you double if you can, but feel free to say no if you have plans.”

Of course she says yes, Agatha Harkness is more than happy to do anything and everything in her power to serve her dark lord and by extension you as well. You don’t dislike her, in fact she’s one of your favorite people, but right now when you’re in an emotional tailspin her happiness to do for you just because Andy’s laid his claim annoys you. You hate this, you hate feeling so out of control of your emotions, and so on edge that you just want to scream. You hate the irrational feeling that maybe you’re being too sensitive about things, but all the absence and the toll that motherhood has taken has left you feeling insecure.

Andy for his part just watches you angrily stomp through the house in silence, eyes narrowing as he follows at a distance until you reach the bedroom and kick off your heels. “What’s going on with you?” He finally questions, and something about his question just sets you off and it’s like an emotional bomb explodes in your chest. You whirl on him, dark eyes swimming with anger, and hurt as you clenched your fists at your side.

“Where would you like me to start, Andrew?” You snap at him, and you can see the muscle in his jaw jump when it clenches. You only ever call him Andrew when you’re angry with him, and he’s always torn between loving it and hating it because the amount of venom you can spit his name with is both arousing and infuriating. He doesn’t get long to dwell on it before you’re snapping at him again. “You’re never home, you’re barely in our bed with me when you are, and then you show up tonight wanting to act like I should just drop everything and cancel all my plans because now you have time for me.” You scoff, shaking your head as you begin to pace in an effort to expel some of the pent up energy you’re suddenly feeling. “That’s rich considering the fact that when I needed you these past few months you weren’t here!”

You don’t mean to yell, but tonight hasn’t gone as planned and having a happy moment ruined by Andy earlier has you feeling raw. “I gave you everything, Andrew,” you hiss at him, and he inhales a slow breath. In any other situation he would have put an end to this outburst of yours, but he’ll let you get this off your chest before he steps in and reminds you who the fuck he is. “Not that you gave me much of a choice,” you remind him, shooting a glare in his direction. You can tell he’s barely holding himself back from jumping on you and pinning you to the bed, but you’ve built up too much steam to just stop now. “But that didn’t matter because stupid little me fell in love with a demon.” You’re muttering that last part mostly to yourself, and the hurt creeps through the anger just enough for Andy to hear it. “You wanted me, I let you have me. You wanted an heir, I gave you two. TWO! Andrew, I gave you two children and then you just left me here with Agatha and two babies that I wasn’t even ready to have!”

He bristles at that, blue eyes bleeding black for a moment. “You got what you wanted, you always get what you want. And all I’ve wanted this entire time was you, and you couldn’t even give me that, and the second someone makes me forget that my husband has been a neglectful ass you show up and take that away too. It’s like you don’t actually want me to be happy.” You accuse, eyes dropping to the diamond ring sitting heavily on your finger. “Fuck! If you don’t want me anymore now that you’ve got what you wanted then just say that!” You fuss with the ring on your fingers, trying to pull it off only to find it fitting tighter than it had when Andy had first slipped it onto your hand. You know it’s the remaining baby weight you still haven’t shed, and you curse loudly as you rush to your vanity to try and get some lotion onto your hand in hopes that it’ll help the ring slide off.

Andy moves in a blur when he realizes what you’re doing, you feel him grip your wrist in his large hand to stop you and you use your free hand to push against his chest. “Stop it! It’s bad enough that you snatched me out of my life, knocked me up, ruined my body, and now you can’t even let me enjoy a night out. I don’t need to wear this if it doesn’t mean anything!” You hear a growl in response to your words, and in a dizzying move Andy roughly sits you on the vanity and leans in until he’s locked his gaze with yours.

“Are you done?” He questions, but it isn’t a question at all. There’s an edge to his voice, it’s low and dangerous and you haven’t heard that from him in so long that it makes you gasp out loud with a small shudder. “I admit that I’ve been neglectful, but I’ve been ensuring the safety of my queen and our children.” He tells you, and your mouth snaps shut. “Perhaps you’ve forgotten the time my enemies tried to take you, little angel, but I haven’t.” You haven’t forgotten necessarily, but you were under the impression that after the lengths Andy had gone to in order to get you back that it wasn’t an issue anymore.

Apparently you were wrong, and now you feel a little guilty for assuming the worst. Not guilty enough to stop being entirely angry with him though.

“Nothing to say all of a sudden?” He questions, and the emotional rollercoaster that you’re on has tears brimming in your eyes. “No? Alright, well let’s get a few things clear right now.” He starts, his hands moving to the short skirt of your dress to bunch it up over your hips slowly. “I took you because you’re mine.” He gives the fabric of the dress a pull between his hands until you hear the fabric ripping. “I got you pregnant because you’re mine, and I know what’s best for you.” The dress is in scraps now and it falls away from your body uselessly. Andy leans away just enough to look at you, and you feel the need to cover the softness of your belly with your arms. Andy pulls them away, and hums in satisfaction as he looks at you with pure admiration for the curves and plushness of your body. “There’s nothing wrong with your body, you’re perfect and you’re mine.” He steals your breath with a sudden kiss, and before you know what you’re doing you’re clinging to him. All the anger dissipating and giving way to need and desire as you return his kiss with months of pent up need.

Andy breaks away for a moment, lifting your ring hand into view to place a soft kiss to your knuckles. “If you ever try to take this ring off again because of assumptions, I will tattoo my name on you so you don’t forget what forever mine means.” You inhale sharply at that, swallowing thickly as you meet his stormy gaze. You don’t say anything for a long moment, but you don’t back down entirely. Sure he has a good reason for being absent, but he’s only telling you this after the fact and in your current emotional state it’s still not entirely good enough for you to just happily accept.

“Am I yours?” Your question shocks him, actually shocks him for a second because after all he’s just said you still have it in you to challenge him. He thinks for a moment that he’s created a monster, because there was a time when you would have never thought to question him like this. You lean forward, eyes searching his face for a moment before you place a hand against his cheek. Damn, you’ve missed him. “You say one thing, but your actions say another.” That has him growling in your face, and you just smirk at him as you stare into that black as night gaze. You know what’s coming next, and the anticipation has you dripping for him when he snaps his belt off like it’s nothing. He works himself out of his pants, and you don’t break the heated locked in gaze the two of you share.

You feel him hard and heavy against your folds when he yanks you to the edge of the vanity, and you clench around nothing. One of his large hands slithers up your body and settles around your neck. Your breath catches in your throat, and then it rushes out of you when you feel the sudden push of his cock entering you with a hard stroke. Andy curses, forehead resting against yours as he savors the feeling of you so wet and tight around his length. It’s really been too long, and being inside you again is like entering paradise. Your walls flutter and grip around him, your body sucking him in deeper as he begins to thrust.

His pace starts out steady, almost careful, because he knows it’s been a while and as eager as he is to remind you just who the fuck he is, he isn’t interested in hurting you. It’s not long though before he’s able to fuck into you the way he wants to, thrusts coming harder and causing the vanity to rock under you and slam against the wall. You cry out his name, hand sliding to the back of his neck and under his collar so you can dig your nails into his flesh. The hand at your throat grips just a little tighter, not enough to restrict your airflow, but enough to remind you that his hand is there. It makes you clench hard around his cock, and Andy groans against your mouth before he claims it in a possessive kiss. “What’s my name, little angel.” He demands, and the only sound that you can make is the loud moans that are tumbling past your parted lips.

“What’s. My. Name.” He punctuates each word with a harsh thrust that has your eyes screwing shut and louder cries rushing out of you.

“Daddy!” You manage to get the name out, free hand gripping against the wrist of the hand he has around your throat. His other hand is gripping tight against your ass, keeping you at the edge of the vanity and in the perfect spot to take each hard, deep thrust from his thick cock. Your legs bounce against his sides until you manage to lock them around his waist. There’s a crack from behind you when the vanity breaks after it hits the wall particularly hard, but neither of you stop to check on it. Both of you far too lost in each other and the pleasure that your bodies are feeling after being denied for so long.

“Who does this pussy belong to?” Andy growls against your mouth, and all you can get out is a breathy little “you daddy” before words are failing you again. He’s got you chasing your high, the coil twisting tighter and tighter until the pressure is maddening and you’re teetering on the edge of release. He can feel how close you are, and when he adds just enough pressure around your throat to restrict your airflow it causes that coil to finally snap. You let out a choked cry, body tensing and then trembling around him as your eyes flutter closed for a moment.

Andy keeps going, fucking you through your orgasm and drawing your pleasure out until you were moving a hand to push at his hips in an attempt to get him to slow down and let you have a moment. “Take it, you wanted it so fucking bad, so take it.” He grunts, lessening the pressure of his grip so you can take in air. You suck in a shaky breath, whining when he keeps your body in the perfect position to take his each hard thrust into your quivering cunt. “Where’d all that fight go, little angel?” He taunts, pulling his face away from yours so he can take in the fucked out expression that’s on your pretty features. “Just needed daddy’s cock in you didn’t you? Just needed me to fuck all the stress away.” He says, and you cry out when you feel his cock hitting that sweet spot inside you. You try to say something but the words are garbled and ruined when his hand tightens around your throat again.

“I know, I know. Daddy missed you too little angel, now be a good girl and take this cock.” You squeeze tight around him, on the edge again and it has him cursing and letting his head roll back on his shoulders. “It’s all for you, my little angel.” Tears prick at your eyes, a mixture of being so touch starved and having so much of him again all at once, the overwhelming pleasure he’s bringing you, and that emotional need to hear him remind you that he’s just as much yours as you are his. It sends you over the edge and he has you cumming again. Your vision whiting out for a moment as the wave of pleasure crashes over you, and you’re lost in it until the haze starts to clear and you register the feeling of Andy spilling inside you as he reaches his own climax.

He doesn’t pull out of you, and you can feel that he’s still hard as his length remains sheathed in your warmth. Neither of you say anything for a long moment, simply basking in the afterglow as Andy allows you to wrap your arms and legs around him. You hold onto him almost like you’re afraid he’ll say he has to leave soon, and he can sense the tension beginning to ease its way back into you. Without warning he lifts you into his arms, and the black depths of his gaze meet with yours as he carries you easily to the bed. “We aren’t done, little angel.” He tells you, depositing you onto the mattress before stripping off his clothing and climbing in on top of you. He cages you in, presses his body against yours until the only thing your senses can register is him.

“We’ve got so much time we need to make up for, don’t think I’m letting you out of this bed until morning.”

#andy barber x woc!reader #andy barber x black!reader #andy barber x reader #andy barber x woc #andy barber x you #demon!andy barber x woc!reader #demon!andy barber x black!reader #demon!andy barber x you #demon!andy barber x reader #andy barber reader #andy barber fanfic #andy barber fanfiction #andy barber fic #woc!reader #black!reader #trilla writes

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celticcrossanon · 3 years

Text

Thoughts on the Uniform Issue

I read a very good comment by nzcarol that I am going to post below:

"For whatever reason, the media are trying to create drama and conflict for the RF. There has been, once again, not a shred of evidence that the uniform thing is simply to appease PA and PH. No proof that they packed a tantrum and HM caved. I think the issue of clothing was already decided."

It makes far more sense to have the issue of uniforms decided in advance and the palace sticking to this than to have HM the Queen swayed by pleas/demands from Prince Andrew and Prince Harry. It also makes far more sense for a loving wife to give her husband the funeral he wanted than to change it for a child and a grandchild.

If HM the Queen has, for whatever reason, decided on all suits for the men, then I am putting that down to her grief and giving her a pass for it.

If, as seems far more likely, everything has been decided and the media is abusing people's emotions to get clicks and stir up conflict, then shame on them for doing so.

It is hard for me to keep a clear head on this issue, as I do understand the deep significance of wearing uniforms and it hurts to think that they will not be worn. I am (as we all are) still upset by Prince Philip's death and hence not in my usual cool-headed state when reading the news. So I understand only too well why people are upset over this and how their emotions are being jerked around by such reports.

Cards Drawn

I just drew some cards on this, very quickly. The question was: Will military uniforms be worn at Prince Philip's funeral?

The first cards that came up were the need to keep a pregnancy secret (Page of Wands, the idea of a royal baby and underlying energy Seven of Swords, secrecy, diplomacy - the cards telling me that this was the issue with the clothing, and not the uniforms).

I became frustrated, yelled at the cards that I wanted to know about the uniforms, cut the deck and pulled The Sun - the most positive card in the deck and a resounding Yes to uniforms being worn.

I then calmed down, shuffled the cards, and pulled again, and I drew the Five of Cups, a card of loss, with the underlying energy being Justice. I interpreted this as HM the Queen grieving over her loss and wanting to do justice to her husband with the funeral, which means that military uniforms will be worn.

So my cards say yes, military uniforms will be worn, and I expect to see them on Saturday (Sunday my time). I now have to go and apologise to my cards for yelling at them.

Edited for typos and missing bits of sentences and formatting.

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ladydorian05 · 4 years

Note

Fluff 4 and Angst 8 for Whiskey? From the sentence starters post?💓

Angst 8. “Is that blood?” “…No?”

Fluff 4. “Have you always been this beautiful?”

DArling!!! This became a monster of a fic, hope you like it, I struggled a bit with Whiskey, the mother fucker refused to do and say what I wanted him to, but at the end I got him to do it. (I’s probably a mess, but I’m proud of this mess)

The angst well there’s a bit of it but the fluff won over it. Tried to make it gender neutral AND THEN I failed so it’s F! Reader,there’s no Y/n (that I remember).

Give me something to write about from this list

Alright so here it is (excuse the title all my creativity went to the story):

Whiskey x f!reader

Warnings: Guns, mentions of death, some specific stuff but not really detailed or extremely gore like.

Word count: 2K and something

I apologise for any typo, I was too excited to post it to make any kind of proof read.

Small Edit: Okay I think a I fixed all the typos and filled in some things my tired brain thought it wrote but it actually didn’t. Plus Oloreaa’s suggestions.

His huntress

It was supposed to be an easy mission, the easiest assignment the both of you had been send to complete ever since you were paired up with agent Whiskey. Get inside the base of a small terrorist group, terminate their operations, call for clean up and go back to HQ. Easy. Until it wasn’t.

The base wasn’t that big, but it was well hidden underground inside an old nuclear bunker, surrounded by a thick forest, they counted seven men patrolling the perimeter and only two guarding the entrance, no cameras according to the new Ginger. The men were silently taken care of with the modified glove-crossbow on your right wrist and Whiskey’s electric lasso. 9 down, 5 to go.

“Ginger, I’m moving in,” you said.

“Copy that, you’re going underground, there’s a chance we’ll lose contact once inside.” His voice came through your earpiece.

“Got it. Whiskey, cover me.” Out of the two, you were better at being stealthy.

“You got it sweetheart.” With him at the entrance, you proceeded to go down a flight of stairs to get inside the base. You found yourself in a long corridor, three doorways ahead, two on each side of the hall and a bigger one at the end, you went inside the closest one to your right.

The small room was used to store wooden crates, inspecting an open one you found it was full of assault rifles of an impressive variety, another box held some bullet proof vests, it seemed like you stumbled upon their armoury. Idiots, who leaves all of their resources right at the entrance.

You go back to the corridor to check the second room, this one slightly bigger than the first. Inside you found at least 6 cots arranged to leave just enough room to walk around. Two of them were currently being in use.

Checking that your crossbow was loaded and with the safety off you slowly made your way to the man closest to the door, while you prefer to operate with your, according to the man that carries a whip and a lasso at all times, ‘weird’ choice of a weapon for it’s quiet characteristics, you can admit some times it wasn’t the most accurate choice, unless you were the one using it of course; still you couldn’t take any chances of missing.

Once you were happy with the distance, with a well-controlled move of a finger the metal arrow went flying, puncturing a hole into the side your target’s skull killing him instantly, you made quick work of the second one in much the same way.

You were about to retrace your steps when you heard the small noise of dirt scraping against the sole of shoes behind you. Discreetly grabbing one of the throwing knifes strapped to your torso in your hand, you waited for your would-be attacker to make their move.

Then you felt someone’s breath over your shoulder. Turning around you made an arc with your knife aiming to lodge it in the throat of whoever dared to sneak up on you.

However, your hand was stopped by a bigger hand wrapping round your wrist.

“How we doin’ darling?”

Oh, you’d recognise that accent anywhere.

“Whiskey! What the fuck are you doing here!?” You exclaimed in a hushed tone. The asshole had the nerve to throw a smug smirk at you, making his stupid dimple appear.

“Got bored waiting outside,” he said shrugging “besides I wanted to show you that I can actually be quiet.”

“Yeah, right I heard you coming. Come on, only three left and one more area to check.”

“Ladies first.”

Rolling your eyes, you made your way back to the hall. The last room seemed to be the biggest judging by the double doors keeping you out from it. Guns in hand, you flanked the left side while Whiskey took the right.

“So how do you want to do it? My way or your way?” You asked him.

“What’s the difference?”

“For starters, I don’t have much of a flare for dramatic entrances.”

“It was ONE time.” There was a moment of silence as you stared at each other. “Fine, your way.” He grumbled.

You slightly pushed your door to take a peek inside the room.

“Shit.”

All of the intel given to the both of you before leaving HQ was on point, the location of the base, the number of people guarding the entrance, their lack of actual surveillance equipment, even the fact that they had a big arsenal. Everything was just as they were told it would be, all except that their base was bigger than they thought and they had more people than anticipated.

Either these guys were smarter than you gave them credit for keeping most of their members inside their base or the Statesman intelligence department needed an upgrade. Probably both. This just complicated your ‘easy’ mission.

But you can’t blame the new Ginger Ale, even if he was a genius, he was still pretty young and had to step in to fill some big shoes when their dear former Ginger made the jump to field agent.

In any case, the lack of that particular bit of information got you and your partner into quite the sticky situation.

“What?” Whiskey’s attention focused on your troubled expression. “Jäger, what’s wrong?” The use of your code name snapped you out of your inner turmoil.

Slowly you closed the door, returned your gun to its holster and took a step back from it.

“Ginger, do you copy?” Nothing.” Ginger?” Fuck, no signal.

“Sweetheart, you okay there?”

“Maybe we should go back to their armoury and check if they have some grenades we can use” You muttered biting your thumb.

“Hey, sugar, talk to me, please.” Whiskey said grabbing your shoulders with his hands, you could see the worry in his eyes. “What did you see in there?”

“There are more than 3 people inside that place, and it’s way bigger than the other rooms.” You answered with a sight.

“Fuck, how many?” He took off his black Stetson and ran a hand through his hair.

“I don’t know, I counted at least ten moving around that side of the room. They were going over some board with a map.”

“Ten, okay, we can work with ten, we’ve taken more than ten before. Piece of cake.”

“Whiskey, that was just one side, there’s probably more of them.”

“Hey, calm down sugar. I know you don’t like it when surprises like this happen, I don’t like it either. But we’ve been through worse with less.”

“You’re right. You’re right.” You said nodding you head slowly, a plan already forming in your head. “Okay, we’ll go back to the first room and see what we can find.” He gives you a quick nod before leading the way to the room.

You were in luck, you actually found a couple of smoke grenades inside a smaller crate along with gas masks, they would work just fine. Taking one of the grenades and an assault riffle for each of you, together you walked towards the door.

“Hey, Whiskey, ready for the rodeo? In the end we’re actually going to do it your way.”

“Only if you’re ready for the hunt, Jäger.” He answered with a dashing smile.

“Always.”

“Alright, put your mask on.” You nodded; mask already secure on your face “On three. One. Two.” You pulled the pin of the smoke grenade.

“Three.” Whiskey kicked the doors open, giving you the chance to confirm that there were definitely more than ten people inside; and you threw the grenade inside. In seconds the whole place was filled with smoke, alarmed screams and the sound of people coughing.

“Hey sweetheart! Bet I can take more than you!”

“You wish”

At first it was fairly easy to pick on the men in the confusion of the surprise attack with the cover of the smoke. But it seemed the place had a better ventilation system than you thought. The smoke began to clear from the space and with the renewed visibility came the actual fight.

“Eight!” You heard Whiskey shout over all the noise

Shit.

You ripped the mask from your face. Bullets began to fly, both from their guns and yours. You were lucky to find that they only had handguns on them, their heavy so all weapons were back at the first room. Discarding your now empty rifle you grabbed your handgun from its holster. One by one the men began to fall, some with bullets others with crossbow bolts. The ones that didn’t have guns had knifes on them, you made sure to take care of the ones with guns first, and the ones with knifes, well none could get close enough to actually make use of them.

“Twenty-five! How you doing over there, cowboy!” You shouted over your shoulder after falling another knife guy.

You turned completely when you got no answer from the boisterous man.

“Whiskey?” You called, only now noticing that you were the only one still standing inside the room. “Fuck.”

You swept the room with your eyes in search of your partner, finding only the dead bodies of your attackers. He wasn’t there.

“Whiskey! I swear if this is a fucking joke, I’m going to kill you myself!”

How was that possible? Only seconds ago, you could hear the distinct noise of his custom-made guns. Was he taken? Where you so engrossed on your stupid bet that you didn’t even notice if your partner needed help?

FUCK.

Fear began to creep up on you, you were about to retrace your steps back to the way you came. Then you felt slight breeze coming from the back of the room, soon after you heard the crack of a whip.

Without thinking you ran in that direction finding a short corridor with a single turn to the right, it led to a flight of stairs and an open door. Taking two steps at a time you soon found yourself outside surrounded by tall trees.

Scanning the place, you finally found what you were looking for. A good 6 feet away from you, leaning his back on a tree, right hand still holding his whip while the other was holding his side.

You made your way to him, breathing heavily, you don’t know if it was because of the fight or the near panic state the disappearance of your partner left in its wake. And you certainly didn’t care.

“There you are sugar. Was beginning to wonder if you’d find the little back door in there.” Taking notice of you, he slid to ground with a grunt. “You seemed be having too much fun back there.” He looked at you with a smirk on his face once you were almost at his side. “So, how many did you take down?”

“Is that blood?” Was the only answer he got.

“…No?”

“Really, then what is that red liquid stuff coming out from your side?”

“Would you believe me if I told you it’s ketchup?”

“Seriously Whiskey!?”

“It’s nothing, just a scratch. One of the assholes got lucky that’s all, but hey, I got him back for it.” He said nodding to his left were a few feet away laid the beheaded body of a man. Some times you forget that his whip is also electrified.

“Whiskey? Jägermaister? Do you copy?” Ginger’s voice in your ear interrupted the reprimand that was about to come out of your mouth.

“Jäger here, good to have you back, mission completed, call in the cleaning team. And send case evac, Whiskey got hit.” You said as you took out a small emergency kit from a bag strapped to your thigh, removing Whiskey’s hand from his wound to take a look at it.

“You got it. ETA to your location 5 min, I had them on hold when I lost communication with you guys.”

“Thank you Ginger, Jäger out.”

“Have you always been this beautiful? How lucky am I to have such a vision taking care of me?” Whiskey said letting his body relax a bit more against the tree. “Mmmm, getting’ handsy already I see.” You felt more than heard the way his already deep and rich voice turned husky when you tried to get his clothes out of the way to press some gauze pre prepared with some antibiotic liquid.

“Really Whiskey?” You let out a sigh, exasperated with the man you were trying to help so that he wouldn’t bleed out before actual help arrived.

“What? The mission’s over, we got them and we’re both alive.”

“We’re still out in the open on enemy territory, what if there’s more of them?”

“Don’t think so. And back up is on the way.”

“So, this time is going to be you, huh? You’re breaking character already? Not even going to wait until we’re on the road.”

After becoming a couple, the both of you figured out that this was only going to work if you separated, even if only in a small way, your work from your private life and so you agreed that on any kind of mission you were first and fore most partners covering each other’s back, keeping the easy friendship and banter from the first year of your partnership. Even if that meant having to put up with his old douchebag personality.

It wasn’t always easy, especially when one of you got hurt, it was mainly in those circumstances when the charade fell apart and both of you behaved like the couple you actually were behind closed doors. Champ didn’t mind as much, bless you boss for putting up with both yours and Jack’s shit, as long as it didn’t affect your jobs.

It even became a game between you, on who would break character first.

“Nope.” He chuckled for a bit before his face turned into a grimace. “Fuck that hurts. Besides, it’s probably because of the blood loss.”

“Dammit Jack, even more reason for you to let me check that wound.”

“Alright, you win. With one condition.”

“What.”

“Let me use your lap as a pillow when you’re done.”

“If with that you’re going to let me work, then yes.” After that he stayed silent letting you work on his wound in peace. Once you finished applying a dry piece of gauze to help stop the bleeding, you patted his arm,” Come on hot stuff, get over here.” You watched as a big smile appeared on his handsome face.

Slowly you helped him get comfortable taking off his Stetson from his head, how he always manages to keep it on it’s beyond you, leaving it on your other side. “Hmmm yes. I’m feeling so much better already.”

“Just don’t get too comfy. We’re getting out of here soon.”

“Mmmhmm” You began to run your hands through his hair. “ ’M gonna fall asleep if you keep doing that.”

“Don’t you dare.”

“Then stop.” There was a moment of peace between you two, just enjoying the fact that both of you made it out of another dangerous situation. “So, how many?”

“Hmm?”

“How many did you get?”

“Oh, 25.”

“Really!?” His eyes opened up in surprise.

“Yup.”

“Damn baby. That’s my girl!” You could hear the smile in his voice.

“You?”

“20. Got distracted running after the asshole that poked me. Can you believe it? He actually tried to run away! No sir, not after poking my gut with a knife.”

“You call that poking!? God, I don’t want to know what you consider an actual stab.”

“Oh, you really don’t want to know! So, you won, my gorgeous huntress, what shall you ask for as a prize?”

“First, I want you to get patched up, then I want to take a shower, after that I was thinking about going back home and sleep for the rest of the day. The mission report can wait.”

“Hmm that sounds nice love. How about you wait for them to release me and we change that shower for a bath with me once we’re back home.” He said wiggling his eyebrows at you.

“But I still want to sleep the rest of the day after that, so don’t get any ideas.”

“We’ll see.”

The sound of a bunch of trucks closing in on your location brought you out of your small moment with the man you love.

“Well, looks like we’re going home sweetheart.”

#agent whiskey #agent whiskey x f!reader #jack daniels x f!reader #agent whiskey x reader #whiskey x reader #jack daniels x reader #Jeeez those last 5 minutes were the longest 5 minutes of my life #they just kept talking

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chelsfic · 4 years

Text

Chapter 2/18 - Safety - Bucky Barnes x OC Soulmate AU

Chapter One

A/N: I wrote this fic over the course of 2017-2018 and it was originally published on AO3. Recently, I re-read it and decided to do some light revisions in order to fix inconsistencies in the POV, some awkward diction and typos. Please note–I’m aware that a lot of people love this fic just as it is. This is not a rewrite, I won’t be changing major plot points and I’m purposely leaving most of the writing alone. Just sprucing it up. Since I wrote this before I started posting fic to Tumblr, I decided to take the opportunity of posting the revised chapters here as I edit them. If you got to the end of this A/N: thank you!!!

Summary: Soulmate AU! Bucky/OFC. Our soulmarks appear at the moment of our soulmate’s birth. The Asset’s mark appears in the Spring of 1987. The words imprinted into the skin of his forearm. “Please! Don’t hurt me…”

Warnings: Kidnapping, Angst, Violence, Eventual happy ending

---

“P-please! Don’t hurt me...”

The Winter Soldier’s icy gaze melted for a fraction of a second as the words crossed the space between them. He’d been calculating the exact angle of impact he could use to quickly knock the woman unconscious with the butt of his rifle when she uttered the plea. The words that--even now, in the middle of his mission--burned through his brain, firing his neurons with recognition and overriding his programming. Suddenly a new priority objective emerged: get her to safety immediately. With one fluid movement he hitched his rifle into the holster strapped across his back and dove forward, scooping the woman up and cradling her against his chest. He ignored her cry of protest, turned and sprinted toward the cover of the tower.

---

Sophie watched the change move across his face as he holstered his weapon and she cringed when he leaned over her. In a matter of seconds--well before her body had time to even think about reacting--he lifted her into his arms and ran off toward the Avengers Tower. In her stupefied state she could do little more than duck her head toward his shoulder for cover and emit a pitiful squeak of fright. Her one clear thought was how flattering it felt to be lifted as if she weighed nothing at all...especially considering the extra jelly donut she’d treated herself to that morning.

‘And this is why you are not the best girl for emergency situations!’ Sophie berated herself. She should have been wondering if this was a rescue or a kidnapping. Instead she froze and her brain presented her with inane observations about the scary, probable terrorist’s upper body strength. Rather than coming up with a plan or even screaming for help...she was just going along for the ride.

The man sprinted through the now empty lobby and burst through a fire door leading to a service corridor--equally deserted. Finding a recessed alcove he finally set her down, his gentle manner at war with the heavy duty body armor, tactical gear, and battle paint. He placed himself between Sophie and the exit, resting his hands on her shoulders and locking his emotionless eyes onto hers as he finally spoke.

“You’re safe now.”

Oh. Drat.

And with that he abruptly turned on his heel sprinting back the way he’d come and, presumably, back into the fray. Sophie stood there, clutching her purse to her chest in a white-knuckled grip and staring with intensity at the spot where he disappeared through the door. She didn’t move. She could hardly breathe. After a few seconds she felt her knees start to shake and slowly buckle. She slid down the wall and sat, curling her legs up beneath her. Her eyes never strayed from the door as if expecting the man to come back for her at any second. He had to, didn’t he? They were soulmates.

It seemed like forever before they finally found her. In reality it couldn’t have been more than ten minutes. Men in black tactical outfits approached Sophie slowly, cautiously--as if they expected some danger. She sat and stared at them owlishly, still semi-frozen and lacking her words. Eventually they seemed to realize that the girl wasn’t a threat and that she was very close to falling out of consciousness completely. They helped her to her feet, murmuring responses to the voices crackling through their earpieces. And then she really did faint.

---

Sophie woke to a feeling of complete well-being. She was tucked into a hospital bed and someone had put those comfy hospital socks on her feet. She felt like a baby tucked into a crib and completely separated from anything approaching adult responsibility. Then she opened her eyes. There was a very angry looking man with an eye patch sitting in a chair across the room and staring at her. To be fair...he might not have been angry. Sophie got the feeling that was just his resting face.

“Hi,” he greeted, his voice dry and matter of fact. “I’m Nicholas Fury, what’s your name?”

It took her a beat to remember and another before she could answer, “Sophie.”

She looked around at her surroundings. It looked like a normal hospital room, but from the future. Like she was in the medical wing on the Starship Enterprise. Nice.

The man seemed to recognize her confusion and he explained, “You’re in the medical ward of Avengers Tower. Pretty impressive, I know. You should see the gym. I’m here to ask you some questions about what happened this afternoon.”

“Oh.” She was still pretty dazed and wasn’t really following what this man was saying.

He fell silent for a moment, simply watching her with an assessing eye. Then, without warning--

“So, how do you know him?”

“I--,” she didn’t even know his name. “We just met....what happened? Where is he?”

“I was hoping you could tell me. You seemed to be on pretty friendly terms. He saved you from the fire fight.”

Sophie’s head started to ache. She closed her eyes, turning her face into the pillow with a pained groan.

“He said...the words. He said them…,” she mumbled, suddenly overcome with fatigue.

Fury sat forward in his chair demanding her attention, “What did he say?”

She settled into the pillow once more and drew her right arm out from under the thin blanket, turning her wrist over and stroking the words printed there.

“My words,” she explained.

She saw the flare of realization light within him.

“Well...shit.”

---

“Report,” the cold Russian voice ordered over the phone. The soldier sat stiffly in the back seat of a bullet proof SUV, flanked by handlers and holding the satellite phone awkwardly against his ear. He spoke in clipped Russian, reporting the mission status, including the irregularity of the girl. Long moments of silence hung in the air once he’d finished.

“New mission parameters,” the voice responded.

Tagged:

@watsonwise

#bucky barnes #bucky barnes x oc #james bucky barnes x oc #winter soldier x oc #winter soldier #sebstan #chelsfic

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longsightmyth · 6 years

Text

Queen of Glass, Chapter 3

All of these posts are typed up as I go with no forethought or planning and only a quick go-over for typos and clarity. The exception is this post, where I ran into the use of a slur that was upsetting to me personally and definitely more upsetting to a lot of people, especially non-cisgendered folks. I am uncomfortable putting it out in the open without a warning, and I’ll warn when I get to that point too. TO THE READ THROUGH.

There is a royal bathing chamber at a salt mine. I don’t know why I’m surprised anymore. Or did they leave and go to the palace when I wasn’t looking?

Celaena demands if she’s supposed to bathe herself. I would assume she was capable of applying soap to her body and rinsing it off, but I haven’t seen her use any of her actual talents yet just brag about them, so who knows? I am glad this part was cut, however, because it adds another layer of brattishness to the character:

Weren’t they supposed to have maids to do this? Or was she not esteemed enough to receive maids?

Maybe the maids don’t want to bathe me.

I wouldn’t want to bathe you either, Celaena. She further complains that the bath might be cold, and that cold or hot the water will be hell on her back (…?). Then she gets in the bath (which is an actual pool with steps and there are gold faucets and gold hooks and stuff seriously did they go to a palace or noble’s manor or Dorian’s private hunting lodge or whatever when I wasn’t looking?)

Never fear, Celaena, Chaol says her handmaidens should arrive soon. Why though?

While the Crown Prince had the voice of a celestial being, this man’s voice was filled with spite and grounded strength.

Glad that got dropped. Also glad this whole scene got dropped. It adds nothing but a royal bathing chamber in a salt mine (seriously I’m going to read back again and see if I missed something).

No? They don’t appear to have left. Skimming AHEAD to see if they leave. Okay two chapters later it says they departed at dawn, so I guess they’re still at the salt mine at this juncture. I can’t promise not to comment on the royal baths in a salt mine again, but for now we’re moving on.

As opposed to the published work, this one is definitely pushing the romance from day one. I mean, the published draft was pushing the romance from day one, but not quite this obviously:

If he hadn’t been a royal guard and she hadn’t been a great criminal, would they have gotten along? Perhaps even been friends? She suppressed a grin.

Perhaps even more?

At least in the published work Celaena is mostly still on board the hate train at this point. Even if she’s remarking on the good looks of both men, she isn’t contemplating their personalities this quickly.

I can’t believe I just typed that like it was a good thing.

There’s still a weird focus on breasts, but at least here it’s Celaena taking stock of how her body has changed I guess? It’s still a weird focus on breasts vs being able to see her ribcage or whatever. That doesn’t really change in the published version.

Okay, apparently the water is herb-filled, which does explain why it stings her back so badly. I’m not sure how Celaena knew it before (she specifically mentions that there isn’t any steam or scent in the room?) but okay.

Not okay: this entire next part. This is the part I warned for at the beginning of this. Some people may say I’m overreacting There’s a whole lot of insulting women by saying they look like men, for instance, and at one and I don’t care. I am unclear whether the author knew the connotations, but she still damn well knew it was a slur since she used it as an insult.

By the time her “handmaidens” arrived, Celaena Sardothien had washed herself using the soap and was in the process of drying off. Her back was as close to being clean as she could manage without suffering, so naturally there was still a bit of grime coating the skin around her wounds. The servants came in a group of four—and instead of being the delicate and quiet women that Celaena had expected, these handmaidens were more like handmen. They were all much taller and heavier than Celaena, with biceps that were nearly as large as her waist. They wore crisp white dresses that did not compliment their broad frames and their hair was drawn back so tightly that their brutish, hairy faces were stretched out. If it weren’t for the massive breasts that seemed on the verge of bursting out of their dresses, Celaena would have thought that they were actually men.

They took one look at the naked Celaena and rushed at her.

The poor assassin yelped in terror as the she-men dragged her back to the pool and threw her into the cold water (by now it had turned quite icy). Chaol Wydrael turned in time to see a pair of flailing legs and arms be tossed beneath the surface with a huge splash.

Honestly this is proof that SOMEONE, SOMEWHERE, read over all the terribleness in later books and decided it was fine, because this got removed. Don’t get me wrong - I am so glad this got removed. This should never have been written in the first place. I kinda want to see the comments from where this was originally posted because SURELY someone went ‘hey maybe that’s not cool’ so that I can retain my faith in general decency. What the fuck.

That being said, this did not make it to the published version, so it’s entirely possible that the author herself learned better. I’m not sure it’s likely, given Dorian’s comments in Empire of Storms, but it’s possible.

How the fuck did I ever forget that bit?

Wait it’s not over. Celaena continues to vocally doubt their femininity to Chaol (echoes of her comments about Kaltain a little? Even though Kaltain was TOO feminine for Celaena. Nobody can win, I guess). Chaol takes her to a room where “three very gentle-looking women” wait for her. These are her actual handmaidens, apparently. They are gentle when dressing her and dressing her wounds.

Celaena then deals with the bane of YA heroines the world over: corsets. Oh wait. We have to get some more fat-shaming in.

They had come into fashion, invented by some overweight fool from Belaegyr, just a few months before her capture, and the assassin had refused to buy one after going into a dress shop, trying it on, and feeling as if her rib cage were being broken in six places.

This isn’t limited to Throne (or Queen) of Glass by any means, but a corset is actually pretty comfy when it isn’t tightened to unreasonable lengths. They’re pretty supportive, and my back always feels great in them. Also I love how only naturally thin women are cool, but this is Queen of Glass and we knew that already. I do like the nod to fashions changing.

Chaol thinks she’s pretty.

His eyes widened as a grin spread across his face. Unlike the Crown Prince, his smile was not so seductive as it was foolishly amusing.

“Well, gods above! You clean up like a copper coin!” he laughed aloud. “My Lord will be very pleased indeed! I knew that there was something pleasant to look at underneath all that dirt. Now, my Lady, if you will take my arm, I would be more than happy to lead you to my Lord so that he may have a look at the princess we have created.”

He leads her off, presumably to see Dorian again. Celaena scowls the whole way, which I have to say is fair.

#myth reads queen of glass #myth reads #myth rags on Throne of Glass #bigotry #bullshit #slur #slurs #transphobia #I think?#just all the things

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thisdiscontentedwinter · 6 years

Text

hello again

Submission: Pointing out that ‘Racism might not come into the pattern" using “Hey, lots of people ship Shuri x Peter, or T'Challa x Erik, or "Magnus x Alec”!“ it’s like saying the STEM or gaming industry isn’t sexist because "Hey! We’re not sexist! Look there’s 5 women employees!!!” (among thousands of men employees). Or the USA doesn’t have racism because it had one black president. Of course in patterns there will still be outliers. But that it. They’re outliers, something (pairings that have PoC) that is out of the ordinary (white pairings).

Black Panther is different issue, since all main cast was black. I was talking about shows that have multiracial cast and people’s tendency to ship white x white. Tendency. Of course there’s Malec who is like, one of the very few? And another thing that makes Malec stands out is because they’re canon. If Malec wasn’t canon, if they’re just friends, would people have the 'initiative’ to ship them? I mean, again, Malec is a special case since Magnus is canon bi and Alec is canon gay, that fact alone is an additional incentive for fans to ship them.

“But when it comes down to Teen Wolf–this particular show and this particular fandom–my favourite character happens to be white.”

I don’t know, but I feel you felt that I was personally attacking you, and if I did, I’m sorry, but I’ve read my post and I don’t think there’s any part that was personally attacking you. I really really was talking about racism in general

But this feels like when I was talking to men about troubles that I have as women and they would say “Well, I never catcalled women!” I was not talking about you… I talked this to you because I feel I could get a nice discussion about race & racism with you. But I apologize again if in my previous submitted post I offended you personally.

But I agree with you with this:

Also, lack of representation in fandom is tied directly to lack of representation in the media itself. If the white ships are more popular, that’s not necessarily that fans are actively rejecting ships with POC in them–it’s just that white characters are over-represented in the media. I talked in a previous post about the ships coming out of Black Panther–and they are catching up fast.

I really hope there will be more movies where PoC are the majority of the cast, and they are represented properly. Oh and for the LGBT+ folks as well!

Another thing to clarify, I have never said, even once, that the dislikability of Scott is solely because of his race. My previous submitted post basically says race (and racism) has a huge part in shipping & likability of a character. And I know you’ve also said that racism in fandom exists because fandoms are made from people in real life, and racism exists in real life. But what makes me still submit post to you is because I feel you need to point out examples that downplays the effect of racism in media & you also need to clarify that you’re not racist. Or your anons who tell me to watch this show or that show to show that people ship PoC characters.

Okay. That’s good we have shows that are PoC oriented, or the main ship is PoC. But again, you (and they)’re pointing out one or two among hundreds of shows. What’s the point of telling me that? It’s like we’re back to the “Racism doesn’t exist in USA, we had Obama!” or like Rowling defending that Hogwarts is school that has students from various backgrounds because it has one Jew, three Asians, and one Black.

Don’t you get annoyed when we’re telling men the hardships of being women, and they kind of “downplay” it with “but women can do this and that and this”.

But for many other fans–and I would hope most other fans–this isn’t the case.

Preach! I do hope the same!

Oh, by the way, are these typos?

The fact Stiles isn’t the fan fave in Teen Wolf isn’t proof of racism.

I don’t know if more worm are discouraged from doing STEM degrees

And again, I am so sorry if I offend you. I think I do write some things that might be offending in this post. Thank you for giving me your time! And as always, sorry for rambling.

DW: Yes, those were typos.

Okay, and breaking it down again:

Pointing out that ‘Racism might not come into the pattern" using “Hey, lots of people ship Shuri x Peter, or T'Challa x Erik, or "Magnus x Alec”!“ it’s like saying the STEM or gaming industry isn’t sexist because "Hey! We’re not sexist! Look there’s 5 women employees!!!” (among thousands of men employees). Or the USA doesn’t have racism because it had one black president. Of course in patterns there will still be outliers. But that it. They’re outliers, something (pairings that have PoC) that is out of the ordinary (white pairings).

Except it’s not like saying that at all. It’s like saying “This particular Silicon Valley company is sexist, because sexism exists all across the tech industry.” You’re talking about a pattern that may be true across the board, but also may not be true when it comes to a specific company. Or, in this case, a specific TV show.

You’re saying “This particular voter here is racist because racism still exists in America” when that voter may have voted for Obama. You can show a pattern by using a lot of data points, but that pattern doesn’t prove that every data point you used is racist, or sexist, or whatever ist you’re talking about. You can’t extrapolate it backwards, because it simply doesn’t work that way.

In regards to my taking this personally, I wasn’t taking anything you specifically said personally, but I can only respond personally because I can only explain my reasons for shipping certain characters. I can’t speak for fandom, only myself. I can only tell you why I prefer Stiles over Scott, and why I prefer Sterek and Steter over other ships, and why I think Scott was badly written. And I can only tell you that in my case it has nothing to do with race, and that, from that, I can only assume it’s the same for many other fans.

Okay, you do know that you’re on anon, right? And that I don’t know what we have and haven’t discussed before? And that it is a very common tactic of the Scott stans to say that the only reason people don’t like Scott is because of race? That’s why I clarify that no, it isn’t. Not for me, certainly, but again, I can’t speak for the rest of fandom.

If you don’t like the answers I’m giving you, well, I don’t know what to tell you. Those answers aren’t going to change. I mean, we’ve agreed that racism exists in fandom because it also exists in life. What other answer can I possibly give you?

Okay. That’s good we have shows that are PoC oriented, or the main ship is PoC. But again, you (and they)’re pointing out one or two among hundreds of shows.

And until I’m a Hollywood executive, or you are, then there’s not much either of us can do about that, is there? All we can do is support the shows that do have good POC representation, and, like you said, my anons have provided some great tips about what shows to watch. But you seem to be equating talking up shows with good representation and POC ships as “downplaying the effect of racism in media”, so again, I’m really not sure what you’re seeking here.

#submission #representation

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fanfictionconnectionwordpress · 6 years

Text

Mystic Messenger Fanfiction | VanderwoodxOC Cerise - Tagged | Ch. 15 Return

***All of my NSFW scenes have had their passwords removed. =0 So, now you can get dat gud gud when you want it. Enjoy your weekly dose of Cherrywood!***

*Remember, this is a sequel to Vanderwood Backstory, and Cerise has a bio. You can support my writing on patreon and get access to my VIP Discord Server or other goodies like early chapter releases and hidden scenes. Tagged Chapter Directory*

It felt strange to Cerise, being in his weird place with nobody around. He'd been gone less than an hour, and she was already beginning to feel antsy. They had retrieved the rest of her pillows from the trunk of the car, and she spent a lot of her time buried in them and texting her boyfriend. He was so formal when it came to texting, but it was also kind of cute, too. The texts stopped coming at some point, meaning they must have arrived at their destination, and that's when she started to feel alone and just weird without him. Just like he said, he was checking in with her in twelve-hour intervals. It wasn't a lot, but it was at least something.

In the time between, she busied herself with exploring the house and watching TV while updating her blogs. She'd even managed to not burn the kitchen down. Coffee was a no-go, since she couldn't figure out the coffee maker. Obviously, there was only one thing to do there. Cerise took a sad picture with it and posted it, taking an hour or so to watch another show before she felt there was no doubt there many people explaining the mysterious workings of the coffee maker to her. After some reading, she was able to figure it out. Sometimes being cute and popular online had its perks. Cerise posted a new picture with her freshly made cup of coffee and thanked her followers.

While digging through the cabinet, she found a bag of chips she'd never seen before. They looked like they would be a good snack, so she opened a bag and took a bite. Nope. Nuh uh. Cerise found herself promptly spitting it out and taking a gulp of her still hot coffee to eliminate the taste from her mouth. Who could stand to even eat those? So gross. Her mind slipped to Marion. He certainly wouldn’t have eaten those chips. Was he eating right out there on his mission? Cerise did her best not to worry and keep herself occupied, but she couldn’t stop thinking about him like that.

The second day was coming to a close, and there was no sign of either of them. Marion was supposed to have come back…just two days, that had been what he’d said, so anxiety kept building higher by the second. Cerise checked her phone to see if maybe she had missed a text...something. She didn't like it...worrying wasn't going to get her anywhere, so she buried herself in the blankets and pillows of his bed and fell asleep.

Cerise wasn't sure how long she was asleep before a notification woke her up. She rubbed her eyes and sat up as she sleepily unlocked her phone to check it, letting out a sigh of relief when she saw that it was from Vanderwood, but soon her relief turned into concern. `Can't talk am okay Wil take longr than thouht` He was saying that it was going to take longer...and the way he was texting was so unlike him.

Panic began to set in. Did something go wrong? He said he was okay...but was he really? She wouldn't put it past him to tell her he was when he wasn't. Cerise wanted to reply, but it wouldn't have done any good. He’d said he couldn't talk, and she didn't want to possibly compromise him by spamming his phone. That jerk had better come back in one piece.

***

He had spent the entire trip to the mission point texting Cerise, wishing he could be there with her instead of in the car with Zero Seven. It sucked ass that when they got to their location, he couldn’t talk to her much anymore, and maybe he was somewhat distracted by that fact. This was just further proof to him of why agents couldn’t have loved ones, why he couldn’t keep working, why they needed to get this done. At least he was managing to keep up with separating himself from the kid by calling him by his agency name, but he felt like that wasn’t really doing him any good on this mission either. Vanderwood didn’t feel like he was his usual self.

The first and second day went as planned. Every twelve hours he would send Cerise a quick message to let her know that he was okay. By the time Zero Seven felt he’d taken down all of the security cameras and given them the best possible guess on where his brother would be, Vanderwood was ready to get this shit over with.

They had some trouble getting past a few guards, but they slipped easily through the corridors of the building using the blueprint Seven had found. At this point, there wasn’t even a point to calling him Zero Seven…This mission was an emotional one anyway, not even agency regulated. With the security system down, they only had to worry about running into people. There was a strange large room that honestly looked like a church from the outside. Now they just needed to get through that to get toward the main information hub where Seven thought his brother would be.

Everything seemed to be going as it should…right up until they entered the strange church like building. For whatever reason, the people inside had been expecting them. Vanderwood tried not to blanch at the number of people surrounding them. They all seemed like they were in some haze, and the one that was clearly Seven's brother was no better. He’d noticed him almost immediately, the white hair tinted in pink and mint colored eyes not keeping him from being almost the exact likeness of his twin brother.

Brown eyes traveled to the queen bitch as she stood. Really, she was rather pretty, but her heart was clearly ugly. "Can I start my revenge, Savior?" The twin had a weird manic tone to his voice, and Vanderwood furrowed his brows. What the fuck was he talking about? The queen bitch looked over to them, her eyes glassy. "Not until after we give them their cleansing."

He shifted away from her. What the fuck did that even mean? They were at a major disadvantage here. Fuck. Already completely surrounded, and no way to just escape. "You're not giving me shit." Vanderwood didn't like the sound of it, and now two men were laying their hands on Seven. He moved instinctively, knocking the first to the ground before punching the other in the face so hard that the man fell backwards. "Seize him!" The bitch shrieked and then he was on the ground as four men kicked at him. He was lucky that the first one's kick to his jaw didn't snap his neck.

Vanderwood tried to block out the pain as the next started going nuts on his abdomen, one kicking him in the back of his leg and another assaulting his shoulder blade. It hurt like Hell, and he would be damn lucky if he didn't start internally bleeding to death right there on the floor. No, he couldn't think like that. He needed to get back to Cerise. Vanderwood just laid there, waiting for it to stop and thinking of her.

When he came back to reality, they'd ended up in some sort of dungeon, constantly being watched by two guards. Vanderwood ran his hands discreetly over his body, wincing at the pain, but finding his phone and a few other weapons still stashed on him. At least he had his phone. They'd found his taser and gun and stopped at that, it seemed. If he risked a text to Cerise, there was a chance he'd lose his phone completely. Still, he needed to let her know that he wouldn't be home, needed to keep her from doing anything rash. Not that he knew what she would do or could do.

He tucked himself into the corner sending the text as quickly as he could with his left hand, since his right was out of use, thanks to the damage his shoulder blade had taken. `Can't talk am okay Wil take longr than thouht` There wasn't time to fix the typos or punctuation. He stuffed his phone back into his pocket before making his way over to his moping partner, limping a little. "So. What are we gonna do?"

***

It was the fourth day now…When he could manage, he’d sent messages to confirm to Cerise that he was alive, but he was sure that she was frightened. Honestly, he was a little frightened too. There were guards everywhere, and they could easily knock out a few, but then they would be swiftly set upon by another few.

There was simply no way they could get out of this, and every day Seven’s brother would come by to taunt them about this ‘cleansing’, which Vanderwood was pretty certain was drug related, something that gave him a whole different kind of terror. Seven wasn’t as useful as he needed to be either, begging his brother to hear him out every time he was in their cell. Vanderwood had to knock the kid over the head just to get him to pay attention instead of staring off into a corner. They needed to get out of here somehow.

After long drawn out whispers of conversation, Seven and Vanderwood had decided they needed to knock out the guards and call for the help of Seven's friends. Usually they had the agency to rely on, but considering they were about to release the information of the major members of the organization as soon as this mission was over, as well as the fact that this mission was unauthorized, that wasn't an option. Seven had assured Vanderwood that the rich kid could handle sending the right people, and as much as both of them didn't want to involve anyone else, they didn't have a lot of options left open to them.

It was only a matter of minutes after Seven had made the call that they heard helicopters overhead. Damn. The rich dude really was resourceful. After what seemed like hours, they were finally released from their dungeon, giving Vanderwood a massive rush of relief as they were out of that dirty environment and back in control.

Seven hadn’t been able to handle this well. He felt like he’d completely lost himself in all of this. His brother…there was so much wrong with this. V had been supposed to keep Saeran safe…Rika had been…It didn’t make any sense. The others…they were all involved now, and they all needed to get to a hospital. At least with Saeran on his way to the hospital, he’d be able to remove the agency threat by releasing the information on those agents who deserved justice brought down on them…Seven wasn’t even sure he felt like praying, even though it felt like his entire soul was being flushed down a toilet.

Everyone would be getting the, 'cleansing' flushed from their systems, so he needed to go with Saeran, although Vanderwood looked…all sorts of fucked up. “Mary, shouldn’t you come too?” His girlfriend was at the bunker, she was safe, but it seemed like that didn’t matter much to Vanderwood, who only gave him a glare in response to the pet name he hated so much. "I need to get home to Cerise."

And he did. She was probably all sorts of panicked, and he felt absolutely empty without her. Driving hurt like Hell. Any time he moved the muscles black with bruise, it hurt like Hell, and every time he opened his mouth, his jaw clicked painfully. Still, the only thing he could think of was Cerise, holding her close and filling what felt like an empty void in his soul. He didn't care that he was driving, opening his phone to look at the picture they'd taken before he left. It wasn't enough, but at least he could look at her and remember the joy of that moment. His moitié, the other half of his soul.

Once he parked. the thought of having a cigarette wasn't even on his mind, nor was sex, he was tense and agitated, but all he wanted was her in his arms, to bury his face in her hair. He pushed the door open, grunting at the motion before calling out to her, his voice betraying the pain he was in. "Cerise?" Was she in his room? He limped along to find her.

Cerise had been napping when she was woken up by what she could have sworn had been her name being called. She sat up on the bed and listened...could she hear someone? The possibility of an intruder hadn't even crossed her mind; the first thing on her mind was the possibility of it being Vanderwood. Quickly she got up and practically ran for the door, opening it. Her suspicions were confirmed; he was finally home.

A mix of emotions swirled through her when she saw him. Love, adoration, worry, empathy, anger...He’d said he was okay, so why did he look so beaten up? Cerise couldn't stop the tears from forming in her eyes as she ran up to him and threw her arms around him as gently as she could, knowing that he had to be in all sorts of pain. "You jerk...you lied to me...said you were okay..."

Vanderwood could only describe the sight of her as angelic. He wrapped his arms around her, grunting softly at the pain as he pulled her close, nuzzling into her hair and breathing in her heavenly scent. It was like stitching his soul back together. "I'm more than okay now..." That was cheesy, but he was too tired to berate himself. He had lied to her a little...this was incredibly painful. "I missed you so much, shortcake." Pressing kisses to the top of her head, he made a move to get back to his room, keeping an arm around her, not willing to let go quite yet.

If it wouldn't have hurt so much, he would have flopped onto his bed, but instead he sat slowly, the pain in his leg reminding him that maybe he should just be laying down. Honestly, he should get some pain-relieving patches on his bruises just to get towards functioning again, but even the thought of getting up again was painful. "Mon amour...Would you do me a favor and get the first aid kit from the bathroom?" So far, she’d been silently watching him. His jaw was clicking again, and he winced, going to pull off his shirt, revealing the mass of bruising on his abdomen and right shoulder blade.

Cerise hadn't been able to do much to support him on his way back to his room. All she could think was that he was really beat up. It was a scary sight. He had asked for the first aid kit, but she didn't move upon his request, and as he pulled his shirt off to reveal even heavier injuries, she found herself getting even more angry and upset. Marion most definitely wasn't okay. Cerise frowned at him and sat on the edge of the bed with her back to him, her arms crossed. "...If you're so okay, you can get them yourself." Her voice held a bit of bitterness. What he needed was a doctor, not a first aid kit.

She was pissed at him. Rightfully so, he deserved it. Vanderwood was about to gather up the strength to get up and retrieve the first aid kit when she went off to get it for him after all. Cerise figured she might as well give him what he wanted, because he wasn’t about to go to a doctor, and she wasn’t about to let him hurt himself more with getting up, even if a small part of her thought he deserved it.

Vanderwood wasn’t really sure how to feel at the moment, even though she was angry at him, he couldn’t help feeling so refreshed simply being around her. Cerise had wordlessly gotten up to fetch the first aid kit and bring it over, and now she was rifling through it instead of handing it to him. “Do you want me to-“ Vanderwood didn’t get to finish his sentence before she gave him a glare. Apparently, Cerise was not in the mood to let him take care of it. She had some idea of what to do and grabbed some pain relievers from the kit, preparing a glass of water and bringing that to him. "Open."

He did as she requested, opening his mouth for the pills and water and drinking it down. God, it felt like forever since he'd had something to drink. Vanderwood probably hadn't eaten in over 24 hours either, and he certainly smelled terrible after four days of not showering and sleeping in a car and on a cold dungeon floor.

His skin started to crawl, but he had other pressing matters to attend to. He reached for the kit to grab those little patches, not wanting to bother her any more than he already had. Cerise just glared at him. Vanderwood started with popping one on his jaw, a couple on his abdomen and then contorting himself to attempt to place some properly on his shoulder blade. Which, really, he shouldn't be attempting to do by himself, because that was just hurting him more, but he wasn't about to ask her any more favors. He'd pissed her off enough already.

Cerise had been watching silently as he attempted to patch himself up and kinda fail. What did he think he was doing? Really? Marion was an idiot, pretending that he was ‘okay’ and trying to take care of himself. It was only making her madder. Sighing, she grabbed a patch from him and placed it properly on his shoulder blade herself, making him snort softly that she was still bothering to take care of him despite how angry she was. God, he loved this woman.

She disappeared into the other room, and while she was gone, he pulled his pants down just enough to pop a patch on the back of his upper thigh. She didn’t need to see everything. It was about fifteen minutes before she reappeared with what looked like soup in a cup. The cup of soup was a welcome meal, even if he would never eat that normally.

His heart was doing that melty thing that it always did when she took care of him, too, and Vanderwood thought it was oddly romantic…in his own special way. Cerise had just figured that the soup would be easier on him, since his jaw had looked pretty bad. "I'm not really good at cooking, but this should be tolerable. " Marion just nodded as Cerise sat on the bedside beside him and offered to help him down it by placing the rim of the cup by his mouth.

Fucking Hell, she was amazingly kind, kinder than he deserved, and her help was more than he’d ever gotten from anyone other than maybe an agency nurse, and she got paid for that shit anyway. Vanderwood let her help him drink the soup down, feeling his stomach protest somewhat at finally getting food again, but knowing that it would settle before long.

As he finished off the soup, he reached for her, taking her hand and pressing a soft kiss to her knuckles. She deserved an apology, and he meant to give it to her. "I'm sorry...I should have told you. I didn't have much time to explain, and I didn't want you to worry...but I shouldn't have lied to you."

She enjoyed the feeling of his lips on her skin, but as much as she enjoyed it, she was still irritated with him. "Shut up, don't talk." Cerise was happy that he was apologizing, she just didn't feel like hearing it at the moment. He was just going to have to put up with that. She got up, taking the emptied cup with her to put away and then came back to clean up all the packaging mess from the first aid kit.

He did as she asked, clamping his mouth shut and watching her move about the room cleaning up. Vanderwood was happy she was picking up for him because otherwise it would have just driven him crazy. It was difficult to understand for him, the fact that his apology didn’t mean anything, but then he’d never been good with interpersonal things. Honestly, he couldn’t even remember the last time he’d apologized for something. Cerise was pissed…he deserved that…and it wasn’t like someone had to accept an apology even if it was given. Perhaps she just wasn’t ready for it? Hell if he knew, but he laid back on the bed as best as he could, letting her do the cleaning, despite itching to do so himself.

Shit, he needed a shower too. Vanderwood tried not to think about it. Tomorrow…tomorrow after he took her back home like he’d promised, at least not failing her there, he could clean, and he could shower in the morning. For now, just focusing on the fact that he would get to clean up soon was keeping him from wanting to scrape his skin off.

Cerise left the actual kit out in case he needed it, watching him as he was laying there in thought before settling on the bed beside him and getting as close to him as she could without hurting him. Lying beside him, she reached out to stroke his hair comfortingly. She was mad, yeah...but that didn't mean that she didn't care or didn't love him, and she was sure that he knew that. Right now, no matter how much of a jerk he was, she wanted to be close…to appreciate that he was back at all.

As she played with his hair, Vanderwood closed his eyes, enjoying the feeling of it. Cerise was angry, but the care was there. It was only too obvious how much she cared. No one ever cared for him like that in his life, and it made him smile, despite all the pain he was in. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close, feeling like he needed it after being away for so long, thinking maybe she needed it, too. Now he simply laid in silence, lightly playing with her hair, happy to be back with the love of his life.

Cerise felt the silence was much needed. She didn't want to snap at him too much, just needing some time to cool down before she was ready for normal conversation with him. The jerk had lied to her and was in so much pain. It hurt, made her chest feel tight. She welcomed his arms and gently snuggled into him, hoping she wasn't hurting him too badly. After so many days away from him and despite being upset, she was happy to be in his arms and beside him again. There was no way she could fall asleep after that, so she just laid there awake, enjoying the feeling of having her hair played with as she returned the favor

Vanderwood's thoughts drifted around as he felt himself relaxing into her. He hadn't even needed sex to get to this point and was honestly pretty proud of himself, knowing that it was all thanks to Cerise that he could relax like a normal human being. The two times they'd had sex had only served to prove to him even more. While he was still impatient as ever, his relationship with sex had changed into something else entirely.

He remembered the last time they’d had sex, making a sharp intake of breath as it hit him full force that he’d nearly forgotten to put on a condom. It was the first time that had ever happened to him, and knowing the way it felt being with her, seemed to him that he could easily forget again. Vanderwood internally slapped himself, not wanting to keep his thoughts drifting in that direction.

His arms tightened around her. Now wasn't the time to think about it. They'd talk about it tomorrow when he went with her to her apartment. Vanderwood felt incredibly stupid on many levels, but again, it wasn't the time. Why was he even thinking about it right now? He was exhausted, she was still angry, and he was passing out even with that moment of panic. After pressing a soft kiss to her forehead and nuzzling into her wealth of hair, he took some time to just breathe in her scent, not even realizing that he was sinking into sleep.

Cerise had felt his hold on her tighten, heard his sharp intake of breath, but now he was relaxing again. She didn't know what he was thinking, but it didn't feel like it was really the time to ask. He needed to rest, be able to recover. and she wasn't going to keep him up any longer than he needed to be. He was out shortly after kissing her forehead, easy to notice with the way he went lax. The room was cold, but he was warm, and alive. Such a jerk…Marion had terrified her, but she’d clung to the fact that he was okay only to now find out that he really wasn’t. That was what made her so mad. She sighed again and snuggled into him more, hoping not to wake him, but he was so exhausted that he didn’t even stir in his sleep.

She wasn't sure when she had fallen asleep, opening her eyes slowly and pulling back from him. For the first time since meeting him, she’d woken up before he did. Marion was out cold and was probably going to stay that way for a while, despite how light of a sleeper he was. Even a secret agent couldn’t train himself out of sleep when he was exhausted. Cerise did her best not to wake him as she carefully moved away from him to hop off the bed, heading to the kitchen to fix a glass of water to set by the bed in case he woke up. After grabbing some fresh clothes, she closed herself in the bathroom to take a quick shower, not wanting to use too much of the warm water. He was probably going to want to use the shower when he woke up.

The sound of the shower turning on was what finally woke him. He opened his eyes slowly and rolled over, groaning softly at how sore he felt. There was a glass of water on the table. A smile spread across his face as he realized Cerise must have put it there. Vanderwood drank it quickly before forcing himself out of bed. Gross, he felt rather gross in general, but Cerise was in the shower for now, and the best he could do was change clothes.

Energy wasn't exactly something he had a lot of at the moment, but he needed to eat, so he made his way to the kitchen, making some toast and grabbing some juice. Vanderwood set some out for her as well, not sure if she had eaten yet but guessing that she hadn’t. When she was done with her shower they'd just switch places, and then he could get delightfully clean. After that, back to her place. The thought of taking her home wasn’t one he was a fan of either, but she did need to be in her own place.

His thoughts stilled for a moment as he remembered what had panicked him last night. Fuck...They'd need to talk about that. It wasn’t a major emergency, but the fact that it could have been was enough to tell him they needed to talk sooner rather than later. It was strange the way that after coming back from something so dangerous and stressful, a person slipped into their normal life as though nothing had happened. Before he’d just continued on with training, so agency life was what had felt ‘normal.’ Vanderwood snorted at his own musings as he bit into a piece of toast.

***

Cerise finished her shower quickly, getting dressed as quickly as she could, too. Her hair was still wet, but she could dry it later, wanting to check on him first. She wrung out any excess water and threw a towel over her head before heading into his room. Her eyes scanned the room, finding he wasn't in bed anymore. "Marion?" Cerise called out and headed out into the kitchen, finding him there. She noted that he looked a little better, rested at least. "Morning. Shower's all yours." It would be silly to lie, she was still a little upset, but she had had same time to cool down. Sleep had definitely helped.

Vanderwood heard his name and perked up a little as she entered the room. "Morning..." His eyes scanned hers, checking to see if she was still angry, and it looked like she was, at least a little. "Thanks...I’ll be right back.” It would have been a lie if he said he wasn’t absolutely excited at the thought of taking a shower and washing off the dirt and grime. He chugged down the rest of his juice before wiping his mouth and giving the top of her head a quick kiss. Vanderwood limped as quickly as he could into his shower.

Cerise gave him a non-committal 'Hnn' before she sat down and nibbled on what he’d set out for her. Even though he was injured, he was still thinking about her, making her breakfast. God, she was being a brat. Briefly she wondered where the red head was, but since Vanderwood wasn't broken up about anything, she assumed he was okay. As much as they seemed to not get along, she could tell they cared about each other. There was no way Vanderwood would have let anything happen to him.

Vanderwood felt like he’d been in a dream-like state as he showered. It felt so good to have the hot water over his sore muscles, that and washing off all the grime. He tried not to think too much about the conversations they needed to have as he dried off and got dressed, packing up a little bag for himself before heading into the kitchen. "Want me to help you pack up your things, mon amour?" He was taking her home today...It felt a little weird, not that he was going to let her stay there alone tonight. The last time he saw her in that apartment, she was being attacked.

She had been a little lost in thought when he came back into the room and inquired about helping her. "Huh, what...?" She stared confused for a moment while her brain caught up. Right. The plan had been to take her back to her place when he got back. It had slipped her mind as a possibility, since he’d been so injured, but clearly, he was still sticking to the plan. That…probably shouldn’t have surprised her, considering how OCD he was. "Oh! No, I have it. " For one thing, she wasn’t about to let him hurt himself helping her, but for another, Cerise had packed up most of her things already while waiting for his return, besides the things she knew she was going to immediately need.

He didn’t really have much of a chance to respond before she was moving the dishes to the sink and washing them. It was oddly homey, and he found himself wanting this every day, the time together at least. Vanderwood lightly touched the bruise on his jaw as she ran off to grab the rest of her things, feeling just a light twinge of pain. The formerly black bruises were now yellow and orange in color, so it wouldn't be long before they were gone completely. It wasn’t even that long before she appeared again and stood in front of the garage door. “Ready when you are, Marion."

It felt awkward to him, the way he was stiff completely unrelated to his pain as he helped her to the care. Vanderwood couldn’t quite place his finger on it, maybe all of the things that they needed to talk about were just…picking at him harder than he thought. As he was about to help her into the car, he felt like he needed to say at least something. "Hey...shortcake..." She paused and looked up into his eyes. Maybe she was ready to hear it now? He gently slid his fingers along her jawline, urging her to lock her eyes with his. "I really am sorry." It wasn't like him to apologize to anyone. Usually, he had nothing to be sorry for, but with Cerise, he was as vulnerable as he could ever be. "I love you, Cerise."

His eyes were so genuine as he apologized to her, and she couldn’t help the way her heart responded or the relief she felt now as the anger had washed off of her. It's not like she could stay mad at him forever. Cerise caught his hand and nuzzled into it before bringing it to her lips and kissing his knuckles like he often did for her. "I know...I was....I was just scared. I want you to be honest with me, even if the truth hurts." Cerise moved to embrace him gently before she got ready to get into the car. "I love you too, Marion."

His face lit up with blush at her simple little actions, those small moments feeling like they mattered more to him than anything else. "I'll try my best. I'm not really used to...sharing my world." He lightly stroked her hair before taking her hand to help her into the car as he liked to do. Maybe what he'd just said didn't make much sense, but hopefully she understood.

It's not that he really made a habit of lying, but it was far more often that he just lied by omission, because he had to, as much as he hated lies. Vanderwood drove in silence for a while, biting his tongue. There was still that other thing they needed to talk about. For the time being she was blissfully unaware, but it wouldn't be long before she'd notice how agitated he was, if she hadn't already.

Cerise was lost in her own thoughts as he drove. She hoped that eventually Vanderwood would open up to her more, maybe trust her. Yeah, she would worry, but at least she would have a clear idea of what was going on and what to expect. It was a complete shock to her when she’s first seen him when he came back, and she didn't want that to happen again.

The silence was starting to become almost deafening. Cerise felt like there was something between them, something unsaid, and she wanted to talk, but decided to busy herself with her phone for comfort. The air seemed so strange. Did he want to talk too? She peeked over at him more than once, waiting for him to speak up.

Maybe it wasn’t the right time at all, but the thought was starting to become impossible to ignore, so Vanderwood decided to just get it out there. "I uh...I have to tell you something.” He needed to tell her something? She tensed up a bit. What in the world was he talking about? “We kind of might have a problem...Well, I don't think we have a problem...but the other night I got really distracted, and...I was so caught up in you I just, I uh...For the first time ever, I did something majorly stupid. "

She was giving him her full attention, her eyebrows furrowing in confusion as Vanderwood was getting frustrated with himself. His words were having trouble working. Talking to Cerise about these types of matters was constantly flustering. It would be so much simpler if he could just come out and say it. "I almost forgot to wear a condom." Oh great. Well, at least now it was said. He coughed softly, going back to biting his tongue as he watched for her reaction from his periphery vision.

Oh. Cerise was at a loss for words before she could gather her composure. It's not like she remembered either..."I...uhh..." What was the correct response? She took in a deep breath. "I won't get pregnant will I...?" Cerise internally screamed at herself a little. Obviously, he’d only almost forgotten, but now her mind was going down another path. "I think...I'm too young." It was a little like having cold water dumped on her all at once. What would she even do if she got pregnant? She felt herself start to panic a little but tried to talk herself down from it. Nothing had happened, it could have happened, but it hadn’t.

"I…No, but…We should get you on some birth control in the future, just in case…I forget." Vanderwood couldn't stop biting his tongue, her comment that she was too young just making him think more about it. Cerise felt she was too young…but he wasn’t sure no matter how old she was if he could ever be a father. "I can't..." He sighed heavily. She wanted his honesty, and she deserved it. "I can't be a father. After Caleb...I mean...He died in my bathroom. I knew something was up, and I left him at my place alone. Had I been a better parental figure than I was a brother, maybe none of that would have happened."

Vanderwood felt like his heart was crushing in on itself as he pushed his bangs back with one hand, keeping the other on the steering wheel. "I'm sorry. Really, I never thought I'd have anyone in my life again, and I certainly never thought I'd have a girlfriend or a family. I don't know." That was a heavy conversation to just lay on her. It hadn’t been meant to be that kind of conversation, just a suggestion to solve any potential forgetfulness.

He didn't like it, the pain that he felt, and he liked even less that now she was stuck feeling it too. It wasn't like he would run away if it ever happened. Vanderwood could never leave Cerise, but the thought of being a parent terrified him. Then again...No...Not now, and maybe not ever. His jaw was starting to get sore with how much he was biting his tongue. "I might not ever be able to give you that..."

Marion was clearly hurting so badly, and the air in the car was only feeling heavier, but at least he was telling her. That was all she could ask for right now. "Marion..." She listened to him talk, concern apparent in her eyes. "You were so young...a child can't raise another child. You did the best you knew how." Cerise put a hand on his leg and squeezed gently. "I can't say I understand how you feel, and I'm not going to pretend that I do. You've been through so much, and I've been through so little..."

Her heart ached for him. What happened with his brother was beyond his control, and Cerise wished that he could realize that, as hard as it was. Marion would probably beat himself up over it for the rest of his life. "I honestly....I never thought about it...but..." She paused, trying to search for the right words, "I want you to know that...all I need from you is yourself. That's all I want. You don't have to give me anything. "

Vanderwood listened, not really able to bring himself to talk with the knot that seemed to have formed in his throat. What she was saying...It wasn't wrong, but he would always feel like he could have done more, that he could have done something. His foot had gone off the gas, letting the car slow on its own as the weight of her words sank into him. 'All I need from you is yourself. That's all I want.' He pulled over, and Cerise was about to ask him why, thinking that maybe she had said something wrong before he was leaning over to slide his hand along her cheek and kiss her deeply.

He needed this right now. It was like his heart couldn't decide whether to disintegrate or to swell with affection, so it was doing both and he didn't know what else to do except this. She made the pain bearable when any other time he would have been slamming his hand through something or finding some random woman to just bury the pain. Cerise made him see things from a totally different point of view, with a new outlook on life.

She relaxed into his kiss. It felt like it had been forever since they'd last kissed, and she’d missed it, missed him. Cerise returned his kiss with fervor, letting him know how much she cared and how much she had missed him. Maybe one day he would be able to see himself through her eyes and stop blaming himself, even though it was a lot to hope for. Whether he could or not, she would stay with him every step of the way.

Vanderwood felt choked up, something now burning at his eyes. Was he crying? He was honestly crying. Vanderwood kissed her just a little longer, having missed the feeling of her lips on his. This wasn’t like when he sought physical release to make the pain go away, the pain was still there…just it was somehow a lot lighter.

It was so different, letting himself actually bear the pain, but it also felt good underneath it all. Vanderwood touched his cheek as he pulled away from her, fingers coming away wet, snorting softly at himself. Really, this just wasn't like him. He hadn't cried for so long it seemed, and now, here he was, crying in front of his girlfriend. It wasn't that he felt emasculated; it was just funny to him that after all these years she was what it took to break through his barriers. Seemingly, his whole life had been leading him towards her, somehow.

He pressed another kiss to her forehead, thumb stroking her cheek gently. "I love you. You're all I need." Cerise was surprised to see that he was crying when he had pulled away. If he was crying then..."I..." She started to sniffle as tears welled up in her eyes. "...I love you too." It wasn't that she was sad, she was actually really happy. Cerise just happened to be a sympathy crier. At least...that's how it was at first.

Once she started to cry just because he was crying, she started to cry harder as all the emotions from the past few days came flooding to her. Her entire composure broke, and she wasn't able to hold it in. Cerise didn't care if Marion thought she was a baby or if she was being silly, she just wanted to be close to him. After flinging her seatbelt off she leaned over to throw her arms around his torso and bury her face into him, sobbing. Really...he was the one who had all these problems and emotions to deal with and here she was making a scene and being a baby.

Vanderwood pulled her close despite the pain as she’d launched herself at him, nuzzling into her in turn as he gently stroked her hair, muttering softly into her ear. "Je'taime...Everything's okay." He continued to mutter sweet words, not really sure of what else to do. This was another of those new situations where he berated himself for not watching more romance movies, so he'd have known what to do. Vanderwood wasn't entirely sure why she was crying. Hell, he wasn't sure why he was crying, but right now he just wanted to hold her close and never let go.

After today, he was going to ask her to marry him. He’d already wanted to, had already thought about it before he left for his mission, had wanted that domestic bliss of watching her do the dishes just today…Yeah…Tomorrow he'd get a ring, and then he'd find the right time. It seemed like he held her there like that for hours as their tears dried up, but he still didn't let her go for a while longer, needing her close to him. "Je'taime, Cerise...Let's get you home, so I can hold you even tighter." That sounded cheesy but right somehow.

She didn't know how long they were there, and she didn't care. Marion didn't judge her, he just held her and told her that he loved her. It did wonders for calming her, and she could feel her tears lessen until she wasn't crying anymore. "...Je'taime aussi..." Cerise murmured into him and pulled back to put her seat belt back on, settling back down into her own seat. "That sounds good..." She was looking forward to potential cuddles, like she couldn't get enough of just having his arms around her, sharing their warmth. It was a beautiful feeling that she didn't think she could get tired of ever. Cerise leaned against the window and closed her eyes. The trip wouldn't be long, but a little relaxation never hurt anyone, and she even opted to ignore her rapidly buzzing phone.

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Tagged Chapter Directory

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ronaldsmcrae86 · 4 years

Text

How to Write a Testimonial in 2020: 7 Tips (+ 9 Examples)

Want to learn how to write a great testimonial? One that’ll build trust with readers and woo potential customers (or clients)?

In this handy guide, you’ll learn:

The proven structure your testimonials should follow to increase conversion rates and land more jobs;

The importance of statistics, storytelling, and authenticity;

How to ask someone for a testimonial;

And much more.

Let’s dig right in…

Tip #1. Follow a Proven Structure

Sometimes, the best way to identify “good” is to figure out what “bad” looks like.

So, what does a bad testimonial look like?

Well, bad testimonials usually make one or more of these mistakes:

They lack credibility. Who is “John”? What does he do? And why doesn’t he have a photo?

Too outlandish to be believable. Did this person really help you go from zero to $1,000,000 in three days? Even if it is true, it will be hard for people to believe. Be a real person, not an infomercial.

They’re boring and generic. A testimonial that goes on and on about unrelated, meaningless details isn’t going to convince anyone to do anything. Neither will testimonials that lack detail or authenticity.

With this in mind, let’s go over the elements of a good, persuasive testimonial.

The Structure of a Great Testimonial

Good testimonials should include the person’s full name and photo. Adding their company name and what they do gives a testimonial additional credibility.

But the best testimonials also contain these four elements:

Clarity. They paint a clear before and after picture.

Purposefulness. They guide the reader towards an action.

Positivity. A testimonial isn’t a snarky review on TripAdvisor or Amazon — you want people to be honest, but you want the overall tone to be optimistic.

Focus. Don’t ramble. Stay on point.

Examples of Testimonials With Good Structure

Here’s an example of great testimonial structure from Marisa Mugatroyd’s Live Your Message:

Full name and photo? Check. Clear, purposeful, positive, and focused? Definitely.

Here’s another good testimonial example (from Ahrefs’ newly-revamped homepage):

Both of these testimonial examples nail the basics.

Yours should too.

Tip #2. Be Specific With Details

Words and phrases like “way up” and “it was good” are ambiguous and can mean anything.

Did an article get over 10,000 tweets and LinkedIn shares on social media? Did revenue increase by 30%?

Don’t be vague — if it’s so, say so. Testimonials with statistics are excellent social proof.

But keep in mind:

Statistics aren’t the only way to add details to a testimonial.

In fact, sometimes, you’ll be in situations where specific figures or numbers can’t be shared. In those instances, explain the details of the problem, concerns that existed beforehand, or share pertinent background info that paints a compelling before-and-after picture.

Details In Practice

Let’s compare two testimonials I’ve received:

“Nyaima was pleasant to work with. I would work with her again.”

That’s nice, but does this testimonial really tell you anything? Not really. Compare it to this one:

“Nyaima was not only easy to work with, but her communication was also excellent. She met every deadline, and also offered sound suggestions that added to the quality of each of our projects. Because of this, we were able to complete a project that generally takes six weeks in only four weeks.”

The details in this testimonial help you envision what it’s like to work with me. A potential client thinking about hiring me doesn’t have to guess how this other client benefited.

Tip #3. Pull on the Heartstrings

A heartfelt story can move even the most cold-hearted person.

Remember your favorite comic or fairy tale from your childhood, like Batman or Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs? Each sentence reeled you in, line-by-line. You could relate to Batman’s losing his parents or the horrific treatment of Snow White, and you wanted to know how those situations would end.

There’s a reason for this — psychologist Lani Peterson says people are wired to pay attention to narratives and stories.

Translation? Telling a good story — one that weaves in narrative elements that sparks emotion within the reader, making them want to keep reading and take action — is a great way to craft a persuasive testimonial readers can relate to.

When your prospect relates to your customer testimonials, they take a step closer to working with you. They think, “wow, I have the same problem, maybe they can help me too” or “I am stuck at the same place, maybe working with this person will give me similar results.”

And one of the best ways to capture genuine emotion and story elements is using video testimonials. When done well, they instantly build trust with potential clients.

Storytelling In Practice

Airbnb rocks storytelling in their series featuring Airbnb hosts. They successfully display the humanity of hosts that prospects can relate to:

youtube

Here is another masterful demonstration by Intel:

youtube

The story is so rich, you can barely tell it’s a testimonial.

Tip #4. Be Authentic (But Don’t be Boring)

Have you ever read a college dissertation?

No offense to the hard-working women and men who pour countless hours into them, but they are not my first choice to read. They’re dry, clinical, and cerebral — all the things you don’t want your testimonial to be.

Boring testimonials will put your prospects to sleep. And prospects who are asleep can’t take action.

But it’s not enough to simply not be boring. Your testimonial needs to be truthful and authentic too.

That means being genuine, sounding natural, and using conversational words. Your goal is to spark internal conversation within the reader. And to do that, every word in a testimonial must be true.

Remember, when someone reads a testimonial you want them to relate, they should say, “Man, he or she sounds just like me.”

That’s why slang works and stringent grammatical rules don’t have to be followed. As long as the point can be understood and it is not an unintentional typo, leave it alone. The flaw adds realness.

Authenticity In Practice

Here’s an effective testimonial that Smart Blogger’s Kevin J. Duncan gave to Henneke Duistermaat for her copywriting course:

From his testimonial, you can (accurately) surmise that Kevin has probably known Henneke for a while, which makes his words feel genuine.

Tip #5. Use the Right Testimonial, at the Right Time, in the Right Place

There are several types of testimonials, but I’m going to focus on the big three:

Persuasive Testimonials. These demonstrate the impact the service had on the client or customer.

Overcome Objections. These are testimonials that speak directly to common objections and diffuse them.

Success Stories. These are miniature case studies where people share positive outcomes and happy endings.

Though they share the common goal of reducing resistance, each type of testimonial is most effective in different circumstances.

The Right Time

If you want to defeat objections, implement testimonials that address potential resistance on your sales page.

If a prospect sees another customer had similar concerns that were overcome, it will boost their confidence that moving forward with you is a good choice.

The Right Place

Avoid old school testimonial pages.

Most people only scan websites, and few visitors make it to a testimonials page. This is why you want testimonials sprinkled throughout your site to solidify your marketing messages.

Best placement:

Homepage

Product page (think of Amazon)

Sales and landing pages

Most popular page of your site (other than your homepage)

Inside emails, newsletters, print materials, and blog posts

Right Time, Right Place In Practice

Ramit Sethi, best selling author and creator of I Will Teach You To Be Rich, is a master at strategic placement and timing. Check out how he addresses potential objections using testimonials in his email sales sequence:

By implementing the right timing and placement, you seem like a mind-reader, answering the questions and objections of your prospects, moving them one step further in your sales process.

Tip #6. The Art of the Ask

Knowing the structure and components of a good testimonial is fantastic, but it won’t matter if you don’t have any testimonials to share.

Testimonials don’t automatically come unless you ask for them or put a system in place to keep them rolling in.

Similar to sales, people get timid when it comes to asking for testimonials. They feel like they are being a nuisance. But when you deliver superb services to a client, this is a small ask.

Why not remove all friction points and make it easy for you and them?

Ramit does a good job minimizing pressure by providing a template when he asks someone for a testimonial. He understands that even though your satisfied customers want to help, they are busy, and may be plagued by blank screen syndrome. A plug-and-play template remedies that.

Another option is to simply write the testimonial yourself and ask the contact to revise it, as needed.

How to Ask for Testimonials

Ramit uses the following script to request testimonials:

Her Business gives clients a simple plug-and-play template to complete:

And this leads us to the final tip…

Tip #7. Automation Makes it Easy

Savvy entrepreneurs and business owners systemize and automate as much of the collection and writing of testimonials as possible.

So should you. Collecting testimonials should be embedded in your business.

For example, Marisa Murgatroyd has a system that gets her a steady flow of testimonials — the “ask” is embedded right into the completion of her courses.

Students provide a testimonial as part of their graduation process. This process has landed her over 700 pages of testimonials that she can use in every area of her marketing.

You don’t have to copy her exact method, of course. Every system will vary based on your particular business. The key is to take friction points away that may interfere with you getting great testimonials, and to automate as many parts of the process as possible.

It’s Time to Write Persuasive Testimonials

No matter who you are or what you do, a well-written testimonial is a powerful tool that can boost your credibility.

In this post, you learned about the proven structure of powerful testimonials, as well the essential ingredients needed to turn good testimonials into great ones.

Now it’s time to put what you learned into action.

Want to build trust with your readers? Want to boost your credibility to potential customers or clients?

Testimonials are the answer.

Go get them!

The post How to Write a Testimonial in 2020: 7 Tips (+ 9 Examples) appeared first on Smart Blogger.

from SEO and SM Tips https://smartblogger.com/how-to-write-a-testimonial/

0 notes

williamlwolf89 · 4 years

Text

How to Write a Testimonial in 2020: 7 Tips (+ 9 Examples)

Want to learn how to write a great testimonial? One that’ll build trust with readers and woo potential customers (or clients)?

In this handy guide, you’ll learn:

The proven structure your testimonials should follow to increase conversion rates and land more jobs;

The importance of statistics, storytelling, and authenticity;

How to ask someone for a testimonial;

And much more.

Let’s dig right in…

Tip #1. Follow a Proven Structure

Sometimes, the best way to identify “good” is to figure out what “bad” looks like.

So, what does a bad testimonial look like?

Well, bad testimonials usually make one or more of these mistakes:

They lack credibility. Who is “John”? What does he do? And why doesn’t he have a photo?

With this in mind, let’s go over the elements of a good, persuasive testimonial.

The Structure of a Great Testimonial

Good testimonials should include the person’s full name and photo. Adding their company name and what they do gives a testimonial additional credibility.

But the best testimonials also contain these four elements:

Clarity. They paint a clear before and after picture.

Purposefulness. They guide the reader towards an action.

Positivity. A testimonial isn’t a snarky review on TripAdvisor or Amazon — you want people to be honest, but you want the overall tone to be optimistic.

Focus. Don’t ramble. Stay on point.

Examples of Testimonials With Good Structure

Here’s an example of great testimonial structure from Marisa Mugatroyd’s Live Your Message:

Full name and photo? Check. Clear, purposeful, positive, and focused? Definitely.

Here’s another good testimonial example (from Ahrefs’ newly-revamped homepage):

Both of these testimonial examples nail the basics.

Yours should too.

Tip #2. Be Specific With Details

Words and phrases like “way up” and “it was good” are ambiguous and can mean anything.

Did an article get over 10,000 tweets and LinkedIn shares on social media? Did revenue increase by 30%?

Don’t be vague — if it’s so, say so. Testimonials with statistics are excellent social proof.

But keep in mind:

Statistics aren’t the only way to add details to a testimonial.

Details In Practice

Let’s compare two testimonials I’ve received:

“Nyaima was pleasant to work with. I would work with her again.”

That’s nice, but does this testimonial really tell you anything? Not really. Compare it to this one:

The details in this testimonial help you envision what it’s like to work with me. A potential client thinking about hiring me doesn’t have to guess how this other client benefited.

Tip #3. Pull on the Heartstrings

A heartfelt story can move even the most cold-hearted person.

There’s a reason for this — psychologist Lani Peterson says people are wired to pay attention to narratives and stories.

And one of the best ways to capture genuine emotion and story elements is using video testimonials. When done well, they instantly build trust with potential clients.

Storytelling In Practice

Airbnb rocks storytelling in their series featuring Airbnb hosts. They successfully display the humanity of hosts that prospects can relate to:

youtube

Here is another masterful demonstration by Intel:

youtube

The story is so rich, you can barely tell it’s a testimonial.

Tip #4. Be Authentic (But Don’t be Boring)

Have you ever read a college dissertation?

Boring testimonials will put your prospects to sleep. And prospects who are asleep can’t take action.

But it’s not enough to simply not be boring. Your testimonial needs to be truthful and authentic too.

That means being genuine, sounding natural, and using conversational words. Your goal is to spark internal conversation within the reader. And to do that, every word in a testimonial must be true.

Remember, when someone reads a testimonial you want them to relate, they should say, “Man, he or she sounds just like me.”

Authenticity In Practice

Here’s an effective testimonial that Smart Blogger’s Kevin J. Duncan gave to Henneke Duistermaat for her copywriting course:

From his testimonial, you can (accurately) surmise that Kevin has probably known Henneke for a while, which makes his words feel genuine.

Tip #5. Use the Right Testimonial, at the Right Time, in the Right Place

There are several types of testimonials, but I’m going to focus on the big three:

Persuasive Testimonials. These demonstrate the impact the service had on the client or customer.

Overcome Objections. These are testimonials that speak directly to common objections and diffuse them.

Success Stories. These are miniature case studies where people share positive outcomes and happy endings.

Though they share the common goal of reducing resistance, each type of testimonial is most effective in different circumstances.

The Right Time

If you want to defeat objections, implement testimonials that address potential resistance on your sales page.

If a prospect sees another customer had similar concerns that were overcome, it will boost their confidence that moving forward with you is a good choice.

The Right Place

Avoid old school testimonial pages.

Most people only scan websites, and few visitors make it to a testimonials page. This is why you want testimonials sprinkled throughout your site to solidify your marketing messages.

Best placement:

Homepage

Product page (think of Amazon)

Sales and landing pages

Most popular page of your site (other than your homepage)

Inside emails, newsletters, print materials, and blog posts

Right Time, Right Place In Practice

By implementing the right timing and placement, you seem like a mind-reader, answering the questions and objections of your prospects, moving them one step further in your sales process.

Tip #6. The Art of the Ask

Knowing the structure and components of a good testimonial is fantastic, but it won’t matter if you don’t have any testimonials to share.

Testimonials don’t automatically come unless you ask for them or put a system in place to keep them rolling in.

Similar to sales, people get timid when it comes to asking for testimonials. They feel like they are being a nuisance. But when you deliver superb services to a client, this is a small ask.

Why not remove all friction points and make it easy for you and them?

Another option is to simply write the testimonial yourself and ask the contact to revise it, as needed.

How to Ask for Testimonials

Ramit uses the following script to request testimonials:

Her Business gives clients a simple plug-and-play template to complete:

And this leads us to the final tip…

Tip #7. Automation Makes it Easy

Savvy entrepreneurs and business owners systemize and automate as much of the collection and writing of testimonials as possible.

So should you. Collecting testimonials should be embedded in your business.

For example, Marisa Murgatroyd has a system that gets her a steady flow of testimonials — the “ask” is embedded right into the completion of her courses.

Students provide a testimonial as part of their graduation process. This process has landed her over 700 pages of testimonials that she can use in every area of her marketing.

It’s Time to Write Persuasive Testimonials

No matter who you are or what you do, a well-written testimonial is a powerful tool that can boost your credibility.

In this post, you learned about the proven structure of powerful testimonials, as well the essential ingredients needed to turn good testimonials into great ones.

Now it’s time to put what you learned into action.

Want to build trust with your readers? Want to boost your credibility to potential customers or clients?

Testimonials are the answer.

Go get them!

The post How to Write a Testimonial in 2020: 7 Tips (+ 9 Examples) appeared first on Smart Blogger.

from SEO and SM Tips https://smartblogger.com/how-to-write-a-testimonial/

0 notes

adscititious-cacoethes · 7 years

Text

Petrichor (12/12)

Pairing: Trevor C./Reader; other background/hinted relationships Chapter: 12 of 12 Warnings: Swearing, danger, violence, death (SPOILER: not major character or RT employee), also happiness and fluff and all that good stuff, vampires and werewolves and things that go bump in the night (PG-13) Word Counts: Chapter: 4,340 Total: 43,539 A/N: Here it is! Final chapter! Part of this is kind of dark, lots of climatic stuff, so if you’re worried please send me a note and I can explain what happens. If there’s something else you think I need to tag that I forgot, also please let me know! Thanks everyone for reading and sticking around for the ride, I really have grown attached to and love this world - please let me know if you want to see more of it! (even if reader is a different character). Also! I am going to be posting this on ao3 momentarily, once I fix a couple of typos and mistakes that I’ve caught since posting them on tumblr. So those of you who read fic on both tumblr and ao3, don’t fret! I promise it really is me and not someone stealing my work. I added a pseud to my account for specifically reader insert work, which is TurtleAds. I take prompts now! (see here for details). Reminder that this has a bunch of supernatural-y stuff, and also that this would not have seen the light of day (pun intended), if it weren’t for @chefgeofframsay. P.S. - Feedback would be cool P. P. S. - sorry if any chapters end kind of weird, this was written as one long thing and then I decided to break it up. Previous

It had been nearly a week since Blaine and Mica had been brought into “quarantine” at the penthouse with you, and you could tell they were both getting antsy. You had more than enough interaction with people every day to keep you satisfied, and plenty of books to keep your mind occupied, and, about once a day, you would try to meditate to trigger another Prediction, but none had come. However, since Blaine and Mica had (quickly) grown tired of poking fun at you (aka trying to get you and Trevor together) due to the only reaction out of you being eye rolls and glares and Trevor not even seeming to notice at all, they had begun to get on edge. And with Novus having seemingly gone off the grid, there was no immediate end in sight.

“Can’t I just go visit my dad in Egypt until this blows over?” Mica had nearly whined at breakfast that morning.

“But then you’d be leaving me here!” Blaine argued. You just shook your head and shared a look with Jeremy, who kept scratching his nose and had decided to continue reading Wolves! Were?: A New Wolf’s Guide to His Inner Beast that day.

“I can take you with me, Gibson, but you probably wouldn’t like the heat.”

“Anything to get me out of this damn penthouse!”

“What are you dicks damning my penthouse for?” Geoff’s raspy voice made everyone except for Jeremy jump (the werewolf, of course, smelling the warlock the moment he walked in the room).

“I’m sorry for my friends, Geoff.” You told him at the same time Mica declared, “We’re getting stir crazy in this place!”

“Well, tough luck, unless you can teleport there, which I doubt either of you can do. Even though Novus is after [Y/N], we have no idea what exactly he can do, and since some fae can possess people, I don’t want to take any chances.” Geoff stated as he poured himself some coffee, resulting in annoyed grumbling noises from your best friends.

Jeremy scratched his nose again, “What should I do, Geoff?” he inquired, looking up from his book at the warlock.

“If we don’t resolve this tonight, we may have to stick you in the basement this time. Sorry, buddy.” Geoff said with a sympathetic smile. Jeremy frowned and his shoulders slumped, but he nodded regardless.

“Wait, what? What’s going on?” Blaine asked, gaze bouncing between the two men. You reached out and softly cuffed him upside the head.

“Ow!” He exclaimed, hand flying to the back of his head, “What was that for?”

“The full moon’s tomorrow night, idiot.” You admonished him with a shake of your head, watching as understanding dawned in his eyes.

“It’s alright, [Y/N].” Jeremy reassured you, shifting in his seat a little.

Mica and Blaine weren’t the only ones getting restless, just for a different reason.

So, naturally, you spent the majority of the day hiding, reading to Gus and avoiding your friends because while you knew they didn’t blame you, you certainly felt shitty and responsible for their misery. And, on top of that, Jeremy would probably have to spend about twenty-four hours in a basement instead of running around doing wolfy things, and that made it even worse, because you were now a hassle to the people trying to protect you, too.

The only solace for the day, really, was a cheerful-as-ever Trevor (heh. That rhymed), who had brought dinner to you without you even asking. The two of you ate in silence, you on the bed and him at the desk, and then Trevor was scooping up your plate and waltzing out the door with a sing-song “Be right back!”

You went into the bathroom and washed your hands, humming something sort of tuneless as you dried your hands with a towel and walked back into the bedroom.

“You know, you’re almost more trouble than your worth.” A thin voice sneered, and you whipped your head up to see a fae that you knew could only be Novus, with pointed teeth and only one and a half wings sitting on your bed, rolling the hilt of a dagger between his hands. His friend, the Unseelie from the alley, was leaning up against the door, sneering at you with pointed teeth and a predatory look in his eyes. Your heart pounded in your chest and all the wind felt like it had been sucked out of you, all at once.

This can’t be real. This can’t be happening. Your panicked mind tried to deny it, but you also knew there was no denying the fact that somehow, the fae in front of you had teleported (presumably) into Geoff’s penthouse.

Geoff’s. Fuck. You had been spending your time – all of you had been spending your time – assuming that Geoff’s penthouse, which was essentially his fortress, was impenetrable, and yet you were staring at proof otherwise.

Wait. The rational side of your brain caught up with you, Trevor said he’d be right back. All you have to do is stall.

“You know, your big friend over here said that to me the first time, and if I remember correctly, that ended up with him getting shot.” You finally retorted, sounding much calmer than you felt. You stood up a little straighter, letting your feet lift off the ground slightly.

Big Sharp Teeth growled at you and lunged forward, and you instinctively hurled up a barrier, your energy pooling in your hands and being thrown into the air in front of you before you could think about the consequences. He didn’t reach your barrier, however, because Novus stopped him with a hand on his chest before he could get that far.

“Now, now, Aven, calm down.” Novus tutted, seemingly unperturbed by the defenses you had just constructed, and you realized belatedly that if he was a teleporter like Big Sharp Teeth (Aven), he could easily bypass it entirely. You dropped the barrier and crossed your arms over your chest.

“Do you want to know why you’re more trouble than your worth? All I wanted to do was kill Robin [Y/L/N]’s precious daughter, his only child, so he could begin the pain I’ve felt, the pain he solidified by ensuring that I was imprisoned. I was on top of the world, and had lost everything! And he had no pity for me, because I found a better, more rewarding lifestyle in rejecting the Seelie Court. It was going to be simple: Aven and his friend would capture you, and bring you to me, and then I was going to drop your dead body on your father’s doorstep for him to discover when he got back from vacation. But nooooo, you had to go and happen to run into some of Ramsey’s pets, and the bloodsuckers helped you get away. Fine. So then I was going to use my special talents and possess one of your friends to get around Ramsey’s guard dogs, but then the stupid goddess’s security system detected Aven’s entry. So I had to resort to this. Do you know how long it took to find someone who we could fly in at a moment’s notice, who could send us through Geoff fucking Ramsey’s barriers!” Novus was seething, hissing and spitting as he shouted at you, and you were paralyzed, terrified that if you so much as flinched he would be throwing that iron dagger straight into your chest.

But Novus’ ranting, raving speech also reminded you that they were in Geoff’s house, and Geoff always knew when people entered and exited his home, and if Geoff knew, then everyone knew, unless whoever they had found to get them through Geoff’s protective spells and barriers could also mask their existence from the warlock entirely. It was highly improbable, considering Geoff’s apparent magical strength, but not impossible.

“Sorry not sorry?” You offered, frowning a bit at the fact that Novus just cackled, the sound dark and thick and menacing, washing over you like tar and sticking to your bones.

Underneath his maniacal laughter, you hear shouting from down the hall, and then a thud against your door the force of it pitched Aven forward and bent the door. Novus immediately sobered up, and in the blink of an eye, he was in front of you, pushing you against the wall, one arm across your chest to pin you there and the iron dagger resting against your neck. You immediately started to feel it burning your skin, and you did your best to pull your head away, but there was nowhere for you to go with the wall at your back.

“What did you do? How did you alert them so fast?” Novus spit in your face, eyes wild.

Thud.

“Boss! What do I do?”

“Just hold the door, dipshit.”

Novus pushed the knife into your skin, just a little bit, and just underneath his chin, you could see Aven’s magical energy flaring to life, most likely trying to reinforce the door.

Thud. Creak.

You felt blood welling up against the dagger, the blade searing hot against your skin, and the burning smell started to waft into your nose.

“Better do this quick, then.” Novus sneered, eyes glinting with hunger and malice.

Smash!

The door shattered, and Novus’s head blocked your view, but the thud that immediately followed was probably Aven.

“[Y/N]!” It was Trevor, thank fuck it was Trevor, of course it was Trevor, and you watched Novus’s eyes go wide and nearly bug out of his head as he was quite literally ripped away from you. You covered your injured neck (why was it always your neck?) with your hand and slid down the wall, landing on your ass and looking up to see Trevor, eyes a dark red and fangs glinting, scrape his teeth against Novus’s neck while his hands wrapped around the Unseelie’s forearms with a crushing strength, the knife dropping out of his fingers. Behind him, a hulking demon stood, shoulders hunched and horns scraping across the ceiling, one clawed foot holding down and crushing the wings of an unmoving Aven.

Novus shrieked and thrashed, but Trevor was stronger, and you heard the sickening crunch of his bones cracking in the vampire’s grip.

“Now, now, none of that, stop your screaming, you kretin.” You heard Gavin say, and while you felt a little bit of the pull of the siren’s call, it wasn’t aimed at you. Novus immediately fell silent, whipping his head around to look at Gavin. You turned, too, craning your neck around your dresser to see the doorway, where Gavin stood, fist clenched and chest heaving. You could hear the footsteps and shouts of the others getting closer. Gavin didn’t move from the doorway until Geoff laid a hand on his shoulder, and even then he only stepped aside, not breaking eye contact to let a furious-looking Geoff and a stone-faced Lindsay through.

It was then that you finally registered the slick blood slowly leaking through your fingers, and even then, it was only because Mica had appeared in the doorway and was staring at you, horrified.

Geoff bent down and picked up the dagger. You could tell that he was holding his tongue, you could tell he wanted to scream and curse and flay the bastard that Trevor was holding alive with that knife. But instead, he held the dagger in an open palm, and turned to Lindsay.

She stared at Novus, “Your time has come.” She said, but her voice was not her own, booming and it seemed like it echoed tenfold, and you swore you could see an outline of a bird’s wings spreading out from her back. Geoff nodded, and a deep purple glow surrounded the dagger, before it thrusted itself (well, Geoff did it, but magically, not physically) deep into the Unseelie’s chest, right through the heart. Novus gurgled blue blood and dropped to the ground as Trevor let go of him, the demon slowly turning back into Michael in the background, Gavin closing his eyes and giving his head a firm shake. Trevor immediately turned towards you, falling to his knees in front of you and cradling your face in his hands.

“Are you okay?” He asked, earnestly, and his eyes were their normal, soft, earthy brown as they scanned your face, fangs retracting as his lips dropped into a concerned frown.

You nodded as best you could with your face in his hands, before a dark hand was on Trevor’s shoulder, pulling him back and kneeling beside you. Trevor made a move to protest but Mica just glared at him before blocking your line of sight to him with your head.

“Need you to move your hand so I can work my magic, girl.” She murmured, voice soft and soothing, and you let your bloody hand fall into your lap. Her own fingertips immediately pressed against where the dagger bit your flesh, and you could feel her warm, healing magic at work. Mica’s eyes slid shut and she muttered under her breath in a language you couldn’t comprehend (ancient Egyptian, probably), and after a few long moments, her eyes flickered open and she dropped her hands.

“You’ll probably still have a little scar, since it’s iron that did it, but you’re good now, [Y/N].” She stood and moved to offer you a hand up, but Trevor was faster.

The vampire darted forward and scooped you up into his arms, pulling you to his chest and burying his face in your hair. You could feel his lips moving, but it took you a moment to figure out what he was saying, but the muffled “I’m sorry, I’m sorry” was unmistakable once you’d deciphered it, and you wrapped your own arms around his midsection. You could hear the others chattering in the background; Michael and Jeremy hauling bodies out the door; Geoff was on the phone with someone. But that didn’t matter. All that mattered was Trevor, right then, right there. Trevor who was the first one in the room. Trevor who pulled Novus off you. Trevor who came to your rescue when you were too scared to do anything but hope help would come and try to buy yourself time. Trevor who was holding you like you were his lifeline. Trevor whose tears were falling into your hair.

You would later find out that whoever it was that had helped Novus and Aven get in had put a “blinder,” of sorts, on Geoff’s alarm, which would delay, temporarily, the activation of the charm that told him when people entered and exited the penthouse. Trevor would tell you that he had heard Novus speaking when he went to open your door, so he shouted for help and rammed his shoulder against it when the knob wouldn’t turn. Michael would tell you that he had heard Trevor from inside his room three doors down and, upon rushing into the hallway and seeing Trevor slamming his body into the door, immediately pulled the emergency alarm and shifted into his demon form, shoving Trevor out of the way to break the door down. Jeremy would tell you that he could smell Trevor’s rage and fear from down the hall, so strong, and he was unprepared enough that it made him stagger back and he would’ve fallen over if it wasn’t for Ryan stepping up behind him and catching him around the waist.

All of that was later, though. Right then, in that moment, Trevor was crying, so you pulled away a little to look up at him, reached up to wipe away a stray tear. One of his hands immediately slid to cup your face again, and when he gently rubbed his thumb across your cheek, you realized that you were crying, too.

“I’m sorry.” He whispered again, resting his forehead against yours, gaze drifting across your face, like he was searching for something and you held the answer.

“I’m okay.” You said, smiling a slightly watery smile at him, unsure of what else to say. And you were. You could still feel the phantom burn of Novus’s blade, and your wings ached from being slammed against the wall, but Mica had healed your wound and you had been quick enough to spread your wings open so that they didn’t get crumpled against the wall when Novus pushed you back. And Trevor was there, now, and maybe it was the fact that you liked him more than you had liked anyone in the world, ever, but you felt unbelievably safe when being held in his arms.

“Okay.” He breathed, and then you felt him square his shoulders, like he was preparing for something, and then the hand on your chin was tilting your chin up while his head dipped forward and then you were kissing.

Trevor was kissing you.

His lips were soft and his kisses gentle, just barely a brush of skin against skin. You almost couldn’t believe it, you felt like you were floating, but you reminded yourself to kiss back, damnit and then you were actually floating (if Trevor’s hands sliding to your hips and holding you there was any indication). As soon as he felt you respond and your arms reached up and wrapped around the back of his neck the kiss turned deeper, like he was desperate – like you were the air and he needed to breathe, but you were the one that needed air, not him, and you had to reluctantly break away and suck in some air.

The others in the room (because there were others, but you’d forgotten they were there) had politely allowed the two of you to have that moment, but as soon as she saw you pull away, Mica let out a loud wolf-whistle. You blushed and pressed your face into Trevor’s chest, but he just chuckled and smoothed a hand down your hair, whispering promises of safety and protection in your ear.

You stayed in Trevor’s room that night – your first time entering his room, actually, although you’re not sure why that panned out that way – and you barely had the words “Can you stay?” out of your mouth before Trevor was sliding into bed next to you, pulling you against his chest and pressing a kiss to your forehead with a mumbled “Of course.”

The next morning, your stomach churning at the thought of entering “your” room in the penthouse ever again, you timidly asked Geoff if it was possible to make the room just…go away. Geoff smiled a kind, sleepy smile, and Michael and Gavin graciously offered to take Gus and all of your stuff out of your room and deposit it in Trevor’s for you (Lindsay offered to supervise). After breakfast, you and Trevor and Geoff drove to the airport in a large passenger van, with the intent of picking up Jack, Ashley, and your parents. Although you knew it was over and everyone was fine, you still couldn’t stop yourself from pacing, shifting from foot to foot, regardless of how many times Geoff told you to cool it.

Trevor, eventually, took matters into his own hands (literally), pulling you into his side and wrapping an arm around your waist. When you looked up to question him, he just took the opportunity to lean down and press a kiss to your forehead. Geoff was noticeably less annoyed after that, but you could tell that he was trying (and failing) to subtly take pictures of the two of you.

The reunion with your parents and Ashley felt like something out of a movie. You saw them before they saw you, so you called their names and waved your hand in the air. Trevor let go of you and took a step backwards seconds before your father scooped you up into a hug, tears in his eyes as he spun you around. When he finally set you back on the ground, you saw your mom and Ashley standing there, waiting, the former with teary eyes and both with knowing smirks on their faces. You took turns hugging them both, your mom whispering to you about how proud of you she was and how brave you were.

You sheepishly introduced your parents to Trevor, who seemed pretty relaxed about it until your mother denied the offer of his hand in favor of a hug. His eyes went wide and he stared at you in fear over top of your mom’s head, which caused you and Ashley to dissolve into tittering giggles.

A few minutes later, Jack and a blonde woman you didn’t recognize – but you assumed was the warlock friend of Geoff’s – joined the group, having apparently elected to get the checked baggage before meeting up with you. You were too busy trying to tell your dad that you and Trevor were dating without being too obvious or giving him room to make a scene about it to notice the fact that Geoff nearly cried when he saw her, but you made a mental note to ask Trevor about it later when Geoff let Jack drive in favor of holding her hand in the backseat.

You smiled up at Trevor, who leaned down and kissed your nose, and nothing had felt more right in your life.

A week later, after your parents had gone home and Books and More Books had resumed business, you and Trevor were sitting on your bed (in your apartment – you didn’t want to give it up just yet in fear of making it seem like things were going “too fast,” even though the Mark on your shoulder told you that at the very least, the two of you would be “together” for a long time), in a familiar pose. The TV was on and the two of you were just talking about nothing, only instead of sitting side-by-side, you were curled up in his lap, your head on his chest, one of his arms around your waist and the other idly playing with your wings.

“Hey Trevor?” You started, lifting your head a little to look up at him (even though from your angle, you couldn’t see much more than his stubbly chin).

“Hmm?”

“Want to know a secret?” You asked, and Trevor pulled you away from his chest a bit so he could look you in the eye.

“Of course, I’m always down for secrets, especially when it’s you.” He said, a fond smile on his face. He punctuated ‘you’ with a long, cool finger reaching up to gently boop you on the nose.

You nodded, and took a deep breath, and then you willed your illusion away. Trevor’s eyes went wide, and you could see the faint glow you knew you were giving off reflected in them.

“You’re beautiful.” He breathed as he reached out to touch you, then hesitated, hand hanging in mid-air, and looked to your face, asking a silent question and searching for the answer. You nodded, smiling a little, and Trevor’s fingers were immediately tracing the vines on your skin (you were suddenly very happy that you had decided to wear a tank-top today). You let him explore for a moment in silence, until his fingers gravitated towards the large, fat leaf on your shoulder and sort of stayed there, tracing around the edges.

“That’s the secret,” You said, finally, reaching up to still his fingers, pressing his palm down until it perfectly covered the Mark, “that’s you.”

You smiled up at Trevor, and he gaped at you, gently lifting his hand so he could peer at the Mark underneath.

“That’s me?” He asked, voice filled with joy and wonder, and you giggled a little bit when you nodded.

“Marks appear and grow and stuff when important things and people happen in our lives. That one’s you.” You explained, and Trevor sort-of nodded absent-mindedly.

“But – not to like, not believe you, because I do, but I’m curious – how do you know?”

You wrinkled your nose up, trying to determine the best way to phrase it, “Besides it showing up after I met and got to know you, and besides the fact that “shoulder-touching” is your favorite form of non-PDA reassuring contact, I just kind of…do? Once you see it, on your body, you just know.”

Trevor nodded, his thumb tracing the leaf – his leaf – one more time before he cupped your jaw with his hands and pulled you into a soft, loving kiss. You melted against him when he pulled away, and the two of you stayed there like that, you not bothering to cover your Marks again once assured by Trevor that no, the glowy-ness did not mess up his sightline to the TV.

“Hey [Y/N], do you want to know a secret?” Trevor asked a couple hours later, when your eyelids were starting to droop with sleep.

“Mmhmm.”

“Geoff walked up to me this morning and started a conversation just so that he could tell me that when we get married, he wants to transfigure Gus into a person for the wedding. And that Geoff wants to officiate in one of those blue glitter tuxes.” Trevor did a good job of keeping a straight face as he spoke, but as soon as he was finished you both burst out into laughter.

“I can’t believe – Geoff…really?!”

Trevor nodded, “I thought he was – he was joking, but nope! Dead – dead serious!”

Eventually, your laughter subsided, and you rearranged yourselves so that you were laying down, wrapped up in each other’s arms.

You fell asleep quickly, so you didn’t hear Trevor’s whispered “I think I love you” against your hair, but that night you had a dream.

A dream where your vision was misty around the edges, where you stood and watched yourself in a white dress stand across from Trevor, looking dapper in a tailored black tuxedo, auras shining as bright as your grins, while a be-glittered Geoff in a blue suit stood between the two of you, reading from a small leather book.

#rt reader insert #ragehappy #trevor x reader #trevor c x reader #supernatural au #modern fantasy au #spoilers: bad guys die

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lifesobeautiful · 5 years

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Does Your Online Dating Profile Need Sprucing Up?

Is your profile looking as good as it could be?

A good retailer knows that inventory needs to be rotated every so often to give it a fresh look. Whether it’s redoing the display windows or moving the brighter colored blouses to the front of the rack, a little rearranging gives things a new look.

Your online dating profile is really nothing more than a marketing tool. If you want to attract more clients, you need to know how to improve your profile.

There are several ways you can give your profile a little attention without spending too much time. Here are some of the things you can consider:

Change your main profile photo or add a new one. Got a new haircut or great outfit you want to share? Snap a picture. If you happen to have photos of your yard or house, add a new photo with spring flowers in bloom.

Has anything changed about your life you think is worth mentioning?

Are your goals still the same? Are you still looking for a companion to go antiquing? Have you decided that the new person in your life should exhibit an interest in your new favorite-Asian Fusion foods? Add it.

Take a few minutes to review your profile for typos or other mistakes. Read it aloud or better yet, have a friend (who will be honest) read it and offer feedback.

If the dating site you use has taglines, like Match.com, change the tagline. Liven it up. If only the first few words are going to show, choose your tagline carefully. Do a little proofing as you go along to make sure you’re happy with the changes you’re making.

Think About Your Target Audience

Write for the person you want to attract. Try and get in his or her mind, just a little.

For example, I like men who read. That’s why I tend to be lengthy in talking about books and magazines I’m reading.

I prefer men who are conversationalists and those who want to talk about more than sports and their job. I make sure to indicate that I want that in a relationship to give men more information about me. This is a way to ensure compatibility.

Samantha Daniels, a professional matchmaker, writes for the Forbes online magazine. In her article called “Diversify Your Dating Portfolio”, she very cleverly compares dating portfolios with stock portfolios.

I’ve offered you some simple basic tips on freshening up your profile for spring but Daniels goes deeper. She suggests that you branch out, look at other ways to meet dates, and do some thinking about what you want in a relationship.

Invest In Yourself

No matter how you approach dating, there are times when you need to reevaluate how things are going. Take a look at your goals by doing some revisions and sprucing up of your online dating profile. Go deeper and spend serious time examining your dating plan.

The effort you put into it will pay off. We always feel better when we update and energize our lives. You’ll never know what dividends you might be opening yourself up to.

Do you ever revise your profile? What do you do to promote yourself in the dating world?

See Also: Dating Tips for Finding the Right Person

The post Does Your Online Dating Profile Need Sprucing Up? appeared first on Dumb Little Man.

This article was first shared from Dumb Little Man

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whatthefuckistevvs · 7 years

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Chapters: 14/? Fandom: Overwatch (Video Game) Rating: Explicit Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death Relationships: Junkrat | Jamison Fawkes & Roadhog | Mako Rutledge, Junkrat | Jamison Fawkes/Roadhog | Mako Rutledge Characters: Junkrat | Jamison Fawkes, Roadhog | Mako Rutledge, Reinhardt Wilhelm, Angela "Mercy" Ziegler, Reaper | Gabriel Reyes Additional Tags: Junkenstein AU, surgeries, Tags to be added as I go, Slow Burn, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Gore, Smut, Gentle Sex, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Stomach Bulge, Overstimulation, Size Difference, Creampie, Blow Jobs, Oral Sex, Dismemberment, Gutting, Disemboweling, thigh fucking, Frottage, handjobs, Torture, Nightmares, Burning, Abuse, Public Humilliation, Near Death Experiences, Degutting, Poisoning, Stabbing, eye gore, Eye Trauma, Decapitation, Nasty Decapitation, NO PROOFREADERS WE TYPO LIKE MEN, aka: my proof reader is asleep and i can't wait cus im impatient Summary:

He was a genius damn it, and he would make sure his genius would be recognized.

---

HELLO! Sorry this took a bit longer to write- this past few days have been an emotional wreck (you can pretty much guess why ahaha). Not to mention, this was quite a lengthy chapter to write! But it is done.

This is, technically, the final chapter. The last thing will be an epilogue that I'll be posting next week, probs. Thank you so much for reading this, for bookmarking it, for commenting, for your kudos- you guys make writing so fun ;_;

I want to make people forget about how shitty the world is for a second, i want people to forget about everything for a couple of minutes a day. if this is the way to do it, if i manage to make someone smile for a while and forget how fucked up everything is- then, I'm okay.

Thank you so much for reading, and I hope you like it! It's this and the epilogue later, baby!

#overwatch #roadrat #junkrat #roadhog #jamison fawkes #mako rutledge #my fics

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waywardmarauder · 7 years

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Of Pirates and Storms

Yet another short story for a Cannith NPC. This time featuring Captain Cela Vance as her and her crew of would-be pirates steal their prized ship.(I did not have time to proof read so there might be some typos here and there)

The night air was calm on the shores of the Urden port city of Takmeth. A city famed for many things throughout the empire but nothing more than for its masterful shipwrights. A tradition of near perfection reaching back to the earliest records of the empire Takmethian dry docks were things of beauty, commonly catching the eyes of General's and merchants alike; as well as the occasional thief.

The tale of this calm night is that of one such aspiring thief. A small woman by the name Cela Vance struggling to find a suitable place in the world for herself and those that have for whatever reason decided to follow her down into one of Takmeth's central dry docks that night. She dressed herself in common enough garb; loosely fitted pants that's legs flowed a bit with each step, a shirt ripped at the bottom she's grown too fond of to replace, a thin red leather vest left unbuttoned and allowed to hang freely on shoulders and a bandana tied around her forehead to keep a wild tussle of hair at bay. The grand scheme that had drawn the attention of these men and women to her back? Steal what was meant to be the new pride of the local General's fleet, a Frigate crafted by some of Takmeth's finest hands that had just touched the salt of the ocean a mere few hours ago.

Among those at Cela's back that night was the massive and masculine figure of the Dragonborn known to Cela as Krenik. His scaled skin gleaming a dull copper whenever a faint lamp light touched it, a long and stiff drape of scaled tendril like horn laid flat over Krenik's back. His attire was similar to Cela's, loose pants and a worn red leather vest, a bandana of similar color to her's was tied about his bare forearm and he didnt bother himself with any sort of shirt. The pair of Krenik and Cela moved ahead of their would-be crew mates in the dark. Moving between crates and other supplies left to the side of the dock by the builders. Hiding from the light and vigilant eyes of the small force of guard patrolling the area.

As they neared Krenik placed a hand on Cela's shoulder halting her step. He pointed past her to a single guard standing still by the only visible ramp leading to the new ships deck. His colors were of dull blacks and yellow, indicating him of a low ranking Urden Trooper. “Its now or never Captain.” Krenik's rough voice whispered behind her head.

Cela's eyes closed with a bit of a grimace. “It's too late to change the plan isn't it?” A low grumble from Krenik was her answer. “Can't I just stab him or something? I'm awful at this sort of thing...” Krenik's clawed hand pressed against her back giving her a gentle shove forward. Cela spun to slap his hand away. “Alright alright...just...I don't know...look away or something.” She sighed as the large Dragonborn rolled his eyes and turned awkwardly in the tight space between the crates. Cela pulled her vest closed, leaving the top exposed and pulling her shirt down to leave as much of her chest visible as she could. With a downward tug on her pants to show more of her hip line she took a deep breath and struck a confident sashay into the light.

“Hey, excuse me sir?” She called to the guard in a softer voice than she normally felt comfortable with. “I seem to be lost. I was supposed to meet my friends but I can't seem to find them anywhere.”

“That's a shame miss.” The guard said after noticeably swallowing a lump in his throat. “Perhaps I could uh...” His voice trailed off when Cela's thumbs hooked into the line of her pants, pulling their edge down ever so slightly. “I could maybe flag down one of the patrols to help you?”

“Oh but I was hoping that you...” While not paying attention to where her feet where Cela's foot caught a stray line of rope left out on the group causing her to stumble. “That uh...maybe you could help? Maybe?” She began to lose composure as the moment she dreaded came closer. “Your...uh...Big strong...man....ness.” She watched as the guard became less aroused and more confused the more she talked.

“Um...Maybe you should go home miss.” He said slowly, trying to figure out what exactly was going on.

Cela stopped within a few steps of him eyes closed, head slowly tilting downward. “Oh screw it. I'm never doing this again.” She said reaching a hand into a pouch on her waist. Before the guard could even question what she said she pulled a fist full of powder up and blew it into his face. Instantly the man began to stumble in place sputtering half formed words before Cela gripped him by the head and pulled him down to bash his forehead against a nearby lamp post.

As the guard crumpled to the ground the heavy steps of Krenik came up behind Cela. “Big strong manness huh?” He said dryly.

Cela had already knelt down to tie the guards hands to the post. “Shut it. I told you I'm not good at that.”

“Seemed to be doing fine until you opened your mouth.” Krenik added with a teasing smirk.

“Keep yours shut and go get the others. We're already behind schedule.” At that the Dragonborn left wordlessly back into the dark to signal the rest waiting for them. Within a few short moments a group of just over twenty people all wearing similar red leather vests boarded the deck of the ship.

Over the next few minutes they scoured the ship, giving it a quick once over of supplies before several of the crew reported to Cela that most of the ships cargo had indeed already been loaded in anticipation of the Urden General's arrive meant for the next day. There they waited in silence for the next few hours. Each hiding in their new posts, Cela and Krenik laying near the helm, watching the starry skies above slowly fill with dense clouds. A thin, wiry smile tugged at the edges of her mouth when the first drops of rain hit her face. She slapped Krenik's leg to get his attention and the Dragonborn jumped to his feet. He began ringing a warning bell and with it each and every crew member got to their feet and set to getting the ship set to sail. The plank to the deck splashed into the water just before a patrol of guard were able to rush up it. The sail fell into place and mooring ropes were cut free.

With a groan the new ship caught the growing wind and pulled out of its dock. Warning bells began to ring through the docks, soldiers both of full dress and those that seemed to have just rolled out of a bunk rushed to posts. Other ships began to gather their muster in an attempt to give chase. “Krenik!” Cela called from the helm. “Its not picking up fast enough! Do your thing!” Without a word Krenik ran to stand at the back of sail. Standing firm on the deck he took a deep breath and held both arms out to sides. Visible currents of wind quickly formed around his wrists and palms until he thrust arms up toward the sail, hurling a powerful, sustained gust of wind into the sails.

With this short boost their ship was able to gain considerable distance from the port before any other ship was able to give chase. Cela aimed the ship directly into the building storm around them, the storm she knew was coming. For hours they sailed, until they lost sight of any pursuit.

Once the storm showed signs of clearing and the crew relaxed they turned to cheer up at their new Captain, shouting her praises and congratulating her and themselves on their theft. Among all the cheering a question was finally asked. “What shall we call her ma'am?”

To which Cela quickly replied. “The Lonely of Crimson. And with her help we're gonna show Urden that they can't push us around any more! That little folks like us have got one hell of a voice! And more importantly! We've got cannons now!” The crew erupted in wild cheering. Breaking open casks of whatever wine and rums the intended captain of this vessel had stored aboard and settled into a celebration.

After her short speech Krenik approached Cela, giving the edge of his vest a tug in an attempt to draw attention to it. “Is that why you got everyone these?” Cela only gave him a shrug and grin before hoping the rail down onto the deck to join in with the rest of the crew.

#Cannith #City of Cannith #d&d #long post #short story

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sarahburness · 5 years

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Does Your Online Dating Profile Need Sprucing Up?

Is your profile looking as good as it could be?

Your online dating profile is really nothing more than a marketing tool. If you want to attract more clients, you need to know how to improve your profile.

There are several ways you can give your profile a little attention without spending too much time. Here are some of the things you can consider:

Has anything changed about your life you think is worth mentioning?

Take a few minutes to review your profile for typos or other mistakes. Read it aloud or better yet, have a friend (who will be honest) read it and offer feedback.

Think About Your Target Audience

Write for the person you want to attract. Try and get in his or her mind, just a little.

For example, I like men who read. That’s why I tend to be lengthy in talking about books and magazines I’m reading.

Invest In Yourself

The effort you put into it will pay off. We always feel better when we update and energize our lives. You’ll never know what dividends you might be opening yourself up to.

Do you ever revise your profile? What do you do to promote yourself in the dating world?

See Also: Dating Tips for Finding the Right Person

The post Does Your Online Dating Profile Need Sprucing Up? appeared first on Dumb Little Man.

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6 Tips for Building Your Marketing Career

Something every woman should know - WHY MEN LIE!

You’ve read the books. You’ve watched the videos.

You’re convinced that you belong in marketing.

Now, all you have to do is put that resume out there and wait, right?

Unfortunately, that won’t cut it anymore. Getting into marketing is easy. But how do you make it big?

That’s a different ballgame with its own set of rules.

And when you look at the projected growth rates for the marketing field – an increase of up to 10% by 2026 – you can’t afford to not get savvy with those rules.

That growth might be good news for the economy, but it can create challenges for the beginner marketer.

Luckily, there are a few tricks you can use to get the edge on your competition.

Here’s a peek into my rulebook for crushing it in marketing. Use these strategies to boost your marketing career and leave the competition behind.

1. Improve your communication

Whether it’s social monitoring tools, voice search, or multi-channel marketing automation, technology regularly changes the way we reach our audiences.

But it’s a lot to keep up with.

71% of marketing executives use six or more types of marketing technology in their day-to-day lives.

Trying to master one, let alone six, can be daunting and downright impossible for new marketers.

Fortunately, there’s an easy solution:

Go back to the basics and then dominate them.

No matter what new technology rolls out tomorrow, your basic communication skills are always in demand.

For proof, take a look at the top skills employers want when hiring fresh graduates for entry-level positions:

Over 80% of employers want to see written communication skills, and under 70% want verbal skills.

Comparatively, less than 60% of survey respondents highlighted technical skills as a top attribute. Less than 50% are looking for computer-specific skills.

That’s all great news for new marketers.

Whether you’re a fresh graduate or you’re making a career transition, you can develop communication skills on your own time.

And you can do it without spending any money or with only a small financial investment.

These skills will make you a better marketer. After all, what is marketing if not applied communication? And, it will make you a more employable in any industry.

It’s a win-win, right?

But how do you develop your fundamental communication skills?

It’s going to sound a little cheesy, but the answer that shows up in professional manuals is the same:

To become a better communicator, communicate more. And, specifically, write more.

As you practice your writing, let me give you a few resources to help you fine-tune your writing skills.

First of all, you should check out My Copyblogger.

Besides their regularly-updated blog, Copyblogger offers e-training courses, webinars, and resources through their My Copyblogger membership.

Signing up gives you access to exclusive e-books that help you develop your written communication and marketing skills.

Look at this top-level preview of their e-book releases for members:

With all of the e-books they offer, both long and short, Copyblogger is a killer resource for any marketer wanting to improve their writing.

Next, Grammarly is a must-have tool.

Grammarly is part proofreader and part personal writing assistant.

It offers more help than just catching typos. It uses contextual analysis to understand what you’re trying to say, and then it helps you say it better.

It also tracks your progress and shows how your skills stack up against other Grammarly users so you can see the trends.

In turn, that makes it easier to figure out what you need to focus on improving.

It also tracks your total word count, and it will show you advanced errors if you’re a premium user.

Being able to track your progress isn’t merely a marketing gimmick, either. Monitoring your own progress can help you stay motivated, set realistic goals, and improve your quality.

Grammarly is probably the best all-in-one tool that you can use. But there are a couple of others worth mentioning.

The web version of Hemingway Editor is a free resource for improving your writing. It tracks passive voice, adverbs, and readability – all of which impact how your audience perceives your writing.

Count Wordsworth is also a free analysis tool helps you polish your word flow. It tracks sentence length, syllables, and pauses.

Here’s the bottom line time:

If you want to get ahead of the technology rat race, then you need to get out of it. Focus on sharpening your foundational skills like writing to help your resume stand the test of time.

2. Specialize and socialize

Thanks to significant job growth, opportunities in marketing are expanding. But so is the competition.

And competing with other marketing hopefuls means that you’re going up against a field chock-full of communication experts.

It’s a lot to stack up against on paper. If you want to separate yourself from the pack, you have to specialize your toolkit.

In a 2017 study, the top-three skills that employers desired in new marketers were digital advertising, content creation, and content strategy.

Creating content and flaunting your curation skills can go a long way toward establishing yourself as a digital marketing guru. And here’s the best part:

You can get started free.

In fact, you can even convince other marketers to spread your reputation for you. How?

Create content for other people.

Specifically, create blog posts for major publications. It’s a great way to associate yourself with industry authorities and get your name out there.

But even more importantly, it also gives you the skill that 53% of marketers list as their company’s top priority.

This is probably why so many big-time marketers are such prolific bloggers. Take a look at this sample of the blogosphere.

The Ahrefs blog is full of data-rich (and often original) research, making it a great place to dive into the details of marketing’s technical side.

This also helps establish the Ahrefs team as subject domain experts. Tim Soulo, for example, is a prolific writer for their blog.

Tim doesn’t post to Ahrefs every day. But when he does, I know that he writes reliable blogs with research-heavy information about SEO.

He regularly introduces new ways of looking at data and marketing with rich technical details and an easy-to-read style.

And that alone is reason enough for you to follow him.

But his blog posts do more than get Ahrefs out there. They cement him as a quality writer and marketer.

Something he corroborates even further with his work at BloggerJet.

Do you want another real-life example of a professional making blogs (even other people’s blogs) work for them?

Look no further than Ann Handley.

Part marketing legend and part writing genius, Hadley uses her expert skills to keep her name at the top of the marketing influencer list.

Ann’s work is both witty and relatable. Her blog reframes complicated marketing concepts into easy and digestible posts. I never come away from her work without laughing and learning.

I guess you could say I’m an “annarchist.” If you want to hone your content skills, you should become one, too.

But it’s not just her razor-sharp sense of humor that keeps readers coming back for more. She’s consistent, she’s authoritative, and she doesn’t hoard her talent.

In addition to her work with MarketingProfs, she also guests posts for Entrepreneur and for Huffington Post.

If someone influential enough to author two Wall Street Journal best-sellers still guests posts for other organizations, shouldn’t you consider doing the same?

So, how do you get started with guest blogging?

Although there are a lot of avenues for publishing content as a guest, one of the easiest – and one of my favorite – ways to get started is through Medium.

Ultimately, no matter how you choose to hone your communication skills, adding authoritative pieces to your name won’t just help you sound like a better marketer.

It’ll make you look like one, too. And that brings me to the next topic:

Your portfolio.

3. Grow your portfolio

Your skills can’t grow without the opportunity to sharpen them.

But you won’t get many opportunities until you demonstrate that you already have some of the skills that you need to improve.

Because you aren’t able to secure opportunities, your skills deteriorate and don’t develop. You miss out on even more future opportunities because no one will give you one to start with.

This starts a self-defeating cycle.

In a 2017 survey, 64.5% of employers indicated they preferred hiring candidates with relevant work experience. This was even true in the case of college graduates.

So, whether you get into the marketing field through school or Internet hustle, you need experience in order to get more experience.

That’s frustrating, right?

Fortunately, there’s an easy solution to break the cycle and make you look pretty impressive, too.

You can volunteer. Specifically, volunteer with a nonprofit.

This will help expand your network and gain professional portfolio pieces.

It also helps signal your values to future employers and commitment to social causes like education and animal welfare.

You might even meet other marketers in the process. Radish Labs, a creative agency specializing in nonprofits, regularly promotes creative volunteerism.

Are you looking for ways to volunteer and beef up your portfolio but can’t find any local opportunities? VolunteerMatch is a great directory with plenty of remote opportunities.

With ample opportunities to grow your portfolio and get some serious Good Samaritan street cred, what are you waiting for?

Get out there and start making a difference for others to see a difference in your career.

4. Jumpstart your network

In some industries, it’s more about who you know than what you do. But in digital marketing, it’s about both.

And if you’re an inexperienced marketer, that can create a significant obstacle to launching your career.

It’s almost a chicken before the egg problem. How do you meet the right people if you don’t already know the right people to set up introductions?

After all, according to SilkRoad’s 2017 Sources of Hire report, employee referrals still lead the way as the top avenue for new job hires.

It’s the same kind of defeating cycle as the “experience without experience” conundrum I described in the above section.

You can’t grow your network because you need a network first to look reputable and gain people’s trust.

Fortunately, the solution to ending this cycle is just as simple:

Log out and look to the offline world to bolster your online network.

Are you needing to meet people in the industry? Attend local meetings and conventions and then make your connection online.

Here’s the great news:

Two of the biggest marketing conventions – INBOUND and the Growth Marketing Conference – are still on the horizon for 2018.

Hubspot backs INBOUND.

INBOUND

It includes all things marketing and selling in three strategy-packed days.

If you don’t want to commit to the sessions or their price tag, INBOUND also offers “community passes” for networking events. It’s a great option for new marketers with tight budgets.

The Growth Marketing Conference is also well worth your time.

Some of the biggest names in marketing attend the conference. It’s a two-day event full of networking events, tactical sessions, and innovative workshops.

Like INBOUND, this conference offers several tiers of participation, including access to networking and training sessions at a fraction of the full price.

Of course, one of the big downfalls of this approach is that the larger conventions tend to happen in larger cities.

But don’t worry.

Even if you can’t fit a major convention into your schedule, there are still a few other options for expanding your network.

You can host or join a local event through a service like Meetup.

This not only cuts out your travel costs but it also helps you build a local network and find – or organize – events on your own schedule.

Lastly, even if you can’t find any offline networking opportunities, there are some online options for building your credibility and network.

One solution is LinkedIn groups. Take a look at the four most popular groups below:

That’s pretty promising, right?

With three million connections possible, you should be able to find like-minded connections in no time and start growing your network.

5. Go big with data

If you want to beat the rat race, get ahead of it. And there’s no better way to get ahead than to develop some of the most in-demand skills on the job market.

And in 2018, that means you need to go big with data.

Statistics and analytics help marketers understand their audiences in a quantifiable way.

But that’s not all they can do.

Data-driven marketing techniques also help professionals make better decisions and acquire new customers.

They have the receipts to show for it, too.

Between 2016 and 2017, data-driven marketing expenditures and revenues rose to their highest ever, according to a DMA study.

But despite this significant growth, the marketing world is still experiencing a major talent shortage.

The datasets keep expanding, but the talent pool and preparedness of organization are on the decline.

Check out this later 2018 survey about marketers’ confidence in the ability of their organizations to handle data for marketing:

So what does this mean for your career? I can tell you in one word:

Opportunity.

With data becoming critical for marketers and business leaders across the board, there’s never been a better time to learn how to analyze data.

And thanks to the advent of several e-learning platforms, it’s never been easier, either. Here are a few of the places where you can dig into data and earn your analytic credentials from home.

Coursera offers university-grade education at an elementary school price point. Usually, courses run between four to six weeks.

Many of their courses provide free videos, and the selection for marketing analytics is huge.

And best of all, all of their classes are fully online, and they reward certificates upon completion.

In addition to career credentials, the forum can jumpstart your network and help develop your portfolio with peers.

Are you looking for a less academic option, or do you need to set your own schedule? If so, try Lynda.com.

LinkedIn acquired Lynda.com in 2015. Now, it’s a powerful resource for learning the ins and outs of marketing, SEO, content, design, and much more.

Unlike Coursera, the lecture series on Lynda.com consists of videos and guided exercises, so you can learn entirely at your own pace.

And, while you won’t have a forum to interact with other course learners, many of the videos include guided exercise files to help you practice your skills.

Plus, thanks to the integration with LinkedIn, you can automatically display your learning paths on your profile.

Check out a preview of some of the courses they offer for data analytics in marketing.

Lynda.com has classes that range from beginner to advanced levels. It has everything you need to hone your data skills from start to finish.

Another option is DistilledU.

Some of the largest names in business like Adobe, eBay, and Capital One use DistilledU. It’s an at-your-own-pace, interactive training option for SEO marketers who want to learn more about the field.

They also offer classes for marketers of all levels. They have classes that can teach you the fundamentals of SEO.

And they have highly advanced classes, too.

This makes it a fantastic resource for marketers of any experience level.

DistilledU offers annual and monthly memberships. So, whether you want to master marketing or just get a crash course in analytics, there’s a module to fit your schedule and budget.

Similar to Lynda.com, Skillshare provides e-learning for everything from design to data science to advanced marketing.

Here are some of their course offerings that are currently popular.

Instructors provide class projects to supplement video lectures with hands-on learning, making this ideal for those of you who prefer interactive education.

In summary, no matter what platform you choose, adding data analytics to your skill set is a great way to make yourself more attractive to future employers and outshine the competition.

6. Build your branding

Finally, if you want to step outside of your competition’s shadow, you have to build your branding and build it well.

That means that, besides developing your writing skills, you need to establish a distinct visual identity.

Without one, your brand can easily get lost in the fray, especially if you’re using stock images.

Getting lost means that your audience is ignoring you. And if your audience is ignoring you, you’ll never see your marketing career reach the next level.

But getting a grip on core marketing concepts and strategies is hard enough. How are you supposed to develop branding and make yourself stand out?

And what makes a brand’s visual style distinct?

No matter what channels you’re using, consistency is key.

Take a look at Content Marketing Institute’s homepage:

Now, take a peek at their YouTube channel:

By keeping the typeface and colors consistent, they establish an easy mental link for their followers. Users know that if they see that shade of orange, they’re looking at something from Content Marketing Institute.

Here’s another example. Look at MarketingProfs’ homepage.

Now, here’s their YouTube channel.

Again, you can see consistent colors and styles of images.

This is what it boils down to:

If your social media accounts don’t share branding, you’re making it harder for people to identify you as a marketer.

If you think branding is difficult, then think again. You can start your branding by creating a logo in about five minutes.

But if you want to take it a step further and you don’t have an army of in-house designers behind you, then you can turn to freelance boards for help.

Fiverr, Upwork, and 99designs are three of the most popular platforms for finding great visuals that fit any budget.

On Fiverr, freelancers (which they call “sellers”) provide service packages with their unique skills.

One of the upsides to using Fiverr is that they offer scalable bundles. These bundles will let you get as little or much design work as you need for a predictable price.

And because buyers reach out to sellers first, you won’t receive pitches that you aren’t interested in.

But that’s also the downside.

If you’re short on time, you can’t wait for offers and let the designers come to you. That means that this may not be the best option for marketers with a tight schedule.

Upwork (formerly oDesk) is another major freelancer board with a significant design community.

After setting up a business account, you have the option of posting a job and letting the pitches come to you. You can also invite some of Upwork’s top talent to apply.

Unlike Fiverr, you typically pay by the hour or project. Freelancers submit their proposals along with their price estimations.

Upwork is ideal for both big and small budgets. It’s a great option to test the visual branding waters without making major commitments.

Lastly, 99designs is a freelancing platform that specializes in branding and product design.

They provide matching services where they fit you with a graphic designer who meets your design needs. There’s also a contest option where the community competes to win your project.

The higher price of 99designs may not be ideal for your first project. But for those ready to commit, all design contests come with a 100% money-back guarantee.

No matter where you get your designs from, consistent branding colors are key for integrating older and newer designs seamlessly.

One easy way to do that is by using Adobe’s color system.

Here’s how.

Head to Adobe Color CC.

Click on “sign in” in the top-right corner. You want to be able to save your palette to share, so it’s important to get this step out of the way first.

Follow the link for “Get an Adobe ID.”

Fill out the sign-up form and click the blue “sign up” button to go back to the Adobe Color CC homepage.

Once there, begin picking colors by manipulating the color wheel. Here’s the default suggestion for my orange.

To play with the auto-generated palettes, use the left-hand menu to navigate. If you want to build a custom palette, you’ll need to select the last option.

Once you have a color palette you like, click the blue save button.

It will then prompt you to name your theme.

Click “save” and head over to “My Themes” using the top navigation menu.

You should now find your palette waiting in your library.

Hover over your palette to see your saving and sharing options.

Hit the download button to share your palette with future designers.

Since Adobe is the king of design suites – 90% of creative professionals use Photoshop – anyone you work with can open the palette directly in their choice program.

You can even use the same palette to customize resume templates and give your credentials the same eye candy from start to finish.

By the way, don’t forget to check out Adobe Color CC’s “Explore” option for inspiration before you go.

Ultimately, whether you use multiple freelancers or none at all, using the same color palette throughout will give your brand consistency no matter who is at the design wheel.

Conclusion

The field of marketing is expanding rapidly, and experts expect it to keep growing.

That means that you have plenty of opportunities. However, that also means that you have plenty of competition.

So, how can you stand out?

For starters, don’t get too caught up in new technology. Keeping on top of marketing technology trends as a newcomer to the industry is expensive and time-consuming.

Instead, focus on dominating your fundamental communication skills.

Next, you can separate yourself from the competition by specializing and socializing.

Create content for other industry blogs or use publications on Medium to give your name authority.

Portfolio pieces are a killer way to make your resume shine, even if they’re unpaid gigs.

Volunteer your marketing skills with a nonprofit to polish your sample pieces. Plus you’ll make a difference in the world and your career.

Networking is still a vital part of landing a job. More new hires come through employee referrals than through job boards.

Building an online network can be tricky. One way to expand your network rapidly is to look to the offline world and attend industry conventions.

Candidates with data skills are some of the most in-demand hires in any industry, marketing including. Build your analytics skills on your own time to elevate your career potential.

Branding doesn’t stop at written content. Having a distinct and consistent visual identity is key.

Even if you don’t have designers on tap, you can find great (and cheap) freelancers through platforms like Fiverr, Upwork, and 99 Designs.

Establishing a color palette keeps your branding consistent no matter who is behind the design wheel.

Adobe Color CC is a fast, easy, and free way to set up a color palette that the vast majority of creative professionals can use later.

A marketing career can be challenging to start, but it doesn’t have to be overwhelming. Follow these six strategies to give your career a boost and stay at the top of the trendline.

What strategies have you used to separate your skills from the marketing pack?

About the Author: Neil Patel is the cofounder of Neil Patel Digital.

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