#sadly no one really wants to hear it. or I save my comments for boosts that I also forget about

[becca4leafclover]

✨️Fantasy Life🌙 Yuelia 🦋✨️

Aka I am so excited my favorite game of all time is FINALLY getting its deserved Switch sequel!!!

#i have SO much to say about this skin LOL #sadly no one really wants to hear it. or I save my comments for boosts that I also forget about #becca places pixels #minecraft #minecraft skin #minecraftskin #pixel art #blockbench #fantasy life #fantasy life 3ds #art

[swampstew]

Captain_CumShot - Chapter 2

Welcome to Raven's Reading Nook - a small corner of this blog dedicated to cozy story times. Take a seat on the chaise lounge, plug your electronic device in so you can enjoy this multi-chapter, full blown smut story. The Captain is the snack and sadly, I have nothing to offer to soothe the yearning. As always, links to Wattpad and AO3 at the bottom. Enjoy, from your favorite loyal, cabin hoe♥

Summary: You treated yourself to a tier upgrade😘

Minors DNI you will be blocked - for adult audiences only.

Admin: Thanks for upgrading your subscription to Tier III! The Captain will want to thank you personally ~ drop your next available hour slot and we’ll set it up.

You: 10 PM

Admin: Talk to you soon ~

10:00 PM

Captain: Hey doll. I’ve seen your likes and comments around here for a while and I’m chuffed that you finally upgraded. What changed?

You: Truthfully, I challenged myself to save up so I can really treat myself when I felt I needed it. Especially after the last year and four months at work.

Captain:…

Captain: You waited ONE YEAR and FOUR MONTHS before you felt like you needed a break?

Captain: I’m flattered you’ve chosen me as your reward but gat damn girl. You need to treat yourself more often.

Captain: What the hell do you do for a job??

You: I’m an accountant at a small but valued firm, so we’re kind of just always busy! Especially at tax time which is ALMOST over. So I spoiled myself a few days early.

Captain: Congratulations ~ Do you work in a stuffy office with a buncha dorks?

You: Well I wouldn’t say dorks and it’s not a closet! I work in an office building with maybe less than 50 other people. I have a corner office so yay for small wins!

Captain: Aye that’s the least they can do fer’ya!

Captain: Do they make you dress business professional like you’re gonna meet the president every day or is it a normal place that lets you dress like a human being?

You: Haha, nothing so refined. Business casual for the most part, Fridays we can wear jeans, and sometimes during the seasons they’ll do a morale boosting themed clothes week thing.

Captain: 🤔

Captain: Does anyone enjoy that?

You: Some do, some don’t. The bosses buy a big lunch spread though so it’s not all bad.

Captain: Tell me, are the morale boosting bits mandatory?

You: You’re not required to dress up. They don’t technically say you have to be at the luncheon but they do have someone sweep the desks to make sure no one is still working. I think they legitimately think they’re providing a “break” for us but like, a paid lunch hour would be a thousand times better.

Captain: Bet.

Captain: You ever skipped it all together? Just said fuck it and hid on the roof to scroll on your phone and eat lunch?

You: Sometimes my car! We have a secure parking garage and its air conditioned so it’s quiet and not boiling hot.

Captain: Hooray for small victories.

Captain: Have you ever gotten uncomfortably turned on enough that you’ve escaped to your car to get relief?

You: 😳

You: Maybe once or twice. I’m always afraid of getting caught.

Captain: I’d make sure we wouldn’t.

Captain: See I personally fucking hate it when instead of just paying people more, employers make their people do a whole dog and pony show. Leave people alone!

Captain: This is literally a crime.

Captain: If you’d let me, I’d come and save you from those stupid lunches.

You: 🤔

You: I wouldn’t hate that!

You: Not sure you could pull it off though, you would garner a lot of attention just from standing, you’re just that attractive 👉👈🥺

Captain: Relax, I’m nothing if not professional. Want to hear my grand scheme that I cooked up, just now?

You: Oh go right ahead!

Captain: I’d start by doing research into your company and get the lunch reservation details of these luncheons. I would then pose as an employee dropping off the food order/doing set up and while everyone is gathering, I would linger a little, totally incognito, and slip out to find your office if you haven’t already entered the room.

Captain: Should I continue? I’m really proud of this scheme actually.                           

You: Please, I wonder how you plan to get away scot-free and not get me fired!

Captain: You’d not only get fired – you’d get off, repeatedly and it would be a seasonal thing cause I’d never get caught. I think it would be a professional bonus because then you’ll be so satisfied at work, you might even get a promotion or pay raise or some shit😏

You: This I gotta hear

Captain: Where was I?

Captain: Just kidding

Captain: I would then smuggle you to the parking garage under the guise that you’re my ‘job equipment’ or whatever, and then, I’d take you to your car. Ideally, I can convince you to get in the van I rented as part of my infiltration disguise so I can actually sit and stand without breaking my neck. The windows are blacked out, I keep anchors and blocks on the wheels to keep it stable, and then I rock your fucking world.

Captain: Still with me?

You: I am

Captain: You’re probably thinking, ‘but if you’re as beastly as I think you are, won’t I be screaming my brains out?’

You: I was!

Captain: As a professional content creator – amongst other trades – I know a thing or two about sound proofing. There’s always a gag if you’re into that.

You: I could be persuaded…

Captain: I have a lot of things I’d like to persuade you to do in there.

Captain: Do you normally participate in the themed clothes or do you keep it professional?

You: I don’t usually, not really my thing.

Captain: I see.

Captain: Back to my scheme ~

Captain: After I’ve successfully fooled everyone and have you in my clutches, I’d take you to my van where you can have a lunch break actually worth attending.

Captain: I would first take off my disguise and reveal that it was me all along! After you get over your initial surprise, I’d ask you what you’re hungry for.

You: Oh I get options?

Captain: Hell yeah doll. Your choices can range anywhere from a quick snack to a mega meal.

You: Do the options change too?

Captain: I don’t believe in constraints. Unless they’re kink-related.

Captain: I think since you’re the kind of doll that doesn’t splurge too much on ‘erself, I’d start you off with a ‘left no crumbs.’

Captain: What that entails is me, sitting you all pretty like on a seat cushion, starting ngwith something soft and sweet. Kisses up the arm, on the neck, slow, building up anticipation. I’d tease you over your clothes, petting your kitten until I feel your wetness through the fabric.

Captain: Pepper your body with kisses and bites to keep you on edge. When I have you down to just your undergarments, I’d sit you in my lap. Spread your thighs open. Start rubbing your pussy until you’re leaking all over my hand. I’ll let you have a quick orgasm, a small and sweet one. But don’t think we’re done.

Captain: I might take my pants off to feel you a bit better. Push you down on my hard-on as I wrap an arm around your waist to keep you still. I’ll use my free hand to play with your pussy again. Rubbing you, flicking you, lightly smacking you, rubbing your clit, finger fucking you. Rub my big dick against your trembling body to make you even more sensitive.

Captain: Since you only have an hour, I’ll make sure you look presentable before you go back to the office. Where you can spend the rest of the day sitting in the mess I’m going to leave. How does that make you feel?

You: I’m…speechless, in a good way…Shit that’s really hot. It makes me feel devious, a bit dirty, like I really want to do it.

Captain: Damn and I haven’t even finished telling you what’s included in your lunch?

You: 🤐

You: Please forgive me

Captain: I could never stay mad at you doll.

Captain: As I was saying ~

Captain: I can’t let you leave your break without feeling fully satisfied.

Captain: Before you go, I’d spend some time with you against the van wall. If you’re into it, I can use rope to help keep you standing. I encourage it, you’re gonna need it.

You: I’m into it, I’m into it 🤤

Captain: Heh. Freak.

Captain: I’d keep you still and propped up, putting your blouse on, keeping my lipstick stains and bites hidden underneath. I’d pull your panties and bottoms over your ankles, slide your soaked underwear up your thighs…

Captain: And give you dessert.

You: What am I having??!

Captain: Me.

Captain: I’d pull your panties up your thighs but not put them on entirely. Leaving them maybe a few inches from your twitching pussy. Then I’d finally let you see my cock.

Captain: Do you want to touch it?

You: Yesss🥺please let me touch.

Captain: Don’t worry you’ll be feeling it.

Captain: I’ll prod my cock against your clit, slide it up and down your puffy lips, maybe push in a little bit.

Captain: After I get it nice and wet with you, I’d stand in front of you and fuck your body. I won’t go in in, I’ll slide in between your desperate lips, make you clench over my cock with your needy pussy, I’ll hit your delicious ass cheeks, pull back out and rub against your clit until you’re crying.

You: Oh my fucking god.

Captain: I’m not done.

Captain: While I do this, I’ll rub my thumb down on your clit, and I won’t stop until you’ve cum over my cock, frustrated yet relieved.

Captain: But don’t be disappointed just yet because the next part is my favorite part.

Captain: As you’re coming down from your orgasm, I’ll finish myself off. Jerking myself in front of you and finishing right on your cunt.

You: 🥵

Captain: Yeah.

Captain: I’d milk my length to cover you, watching it drip from your vulva and trembling lips down to your underwear and thighs. Whatever falls further down I’d wipe with my thumb and make you lick it off.

Captain: Then I’ll pull your panties up nice and high, make sure they sit on your hips just right, don’t want any of me to spill out. For good measure, I might even rub your underwear against you some just to smear it in you some more.

Captain: I love cum play.

Captain: I’ll pull up your bottoms, wipe your tears, and send you away with a kiss on the cheek and a slap on the ass.

Captain: How does that sound doll?

You: I would fucking die!!! I want this so bad fuck why would you DO THAT TO ME?!?🥵🤤 FUCK! You’re so hot, all I want is to touch you and be touched by you😩

Captain: Are you touching yourself?

You: If I said yes?🥺

Captain: I’d say me too. Check out the photo gallery later, you’ll see the load I blew for ya😘

Captain: Glad to add you to my harem of Cabin Hoes. I’m not supposed to have favorites, but I think I’m gonna grow fond of you.

Captain: G’night doll. Thanks for subscribing😘

<end chat>

Leave a vote/kudos/like to tip OR hit bookmark/add to reading list/reblog to subscribe.

#eustass kid #Captain_CumShot #onlyfans fanfic #firstmatesimp #one piece fanfiction #eustass kid smut #one piece eustass kid #ao3 author #wattpad author #eustasscaptainkid #kid pirates #swampstew stories #swampstew

[salazarslytherin]

happy days (f.w x gn!y/n)

requested: nope! send in your own requests here!

summary: in which fred takes y/n on a special date

cw/tw: like maybe 0.5% angst, 99.5% fluff

word count: 2.9k

🃛 masterlist!

a/n: i'm pretty sure reader is gender neutral in this one! i made sure not to use any pronouns or prominent mentions to y/n's body or anything. i really hope y'all like it, i don't really ever write fluff so i hope it's good! please leave a comment, like or reblog to help boost xx

“Jump!”

“What?! Are you insa-”

⚔︎.

It was probably a bad idea to be doing this. Actually, it was most definitely a bad idea to be doing this. But when has a ‘bad’ idea ever deterred the infamous Fred Weasley? In fact, the thought of anyone calling one of his ideas ‘bad’ just spelt encouragement in Fred’s mind.

You’d learnt that lesson two months into meeting the Weasley twins, and it’s only engrained itself in your mind further since. There’s never been a point to try to dissuade Fred, it’s best to just go along and hope the ride isn’t too bumpy along the way. After dating Fred, these bad ideas had expanded themselves to different categories- risky places to be intimate, weird ways to cheer you up with confessions of love, and dangerously stupid dates.

The last category was where today’s bad idea landed.

⚔︎.

Three days ago, Fred had the “most ingenious, marvellous, uniquely exciting date idea Hogwarts has ever seen!” He’d disappeared in the middle of lunch, dragging George along with him, mumbling to himself, “I can’t believe I didn’t think of this sooner!”, leaving you confused, sat alone in the Great Hall.

“Where are they going?”

Harry, Ron and Hermione popped up behind you, seating themselves down in the twins’ now deserted seats.

“I have absolutely no clue.”

⚔︎.

That’s how you found yourself here, two days later. A Saturday, you were all set to go on a Hogsmeade trip with some of your Ravenclaw friends when Fred ambushed you. Popping up out of a closet and scaring the living lights out of you, he dragged you behind him, laughing as you shouted at him.

“Freddie! What are you doing? I’m supposed to go meet Renee and the others right now!”

Regardless of the fact that Fred was making you miss plans you’d already made, you were beaming from ear to ear.

“Georgie’s already told ‘em you can’t make it. Now hurry up

This being your OWLs year, you’d hardly had the time to see Fred this term, busy studying while he went off doing whatever it was he did when you weren’t around. Being a year younger meant he had already studied everything you’d studied, and while he offered to help you a lot, you’d rather he go have fun than sit around revising old material with you.

Combined with the Triwizard Tournament and the fact that the twins saw this as the golden opportunity to sell products to customers other than Hogwarts student, you’d only had three dates in the almost three months since school had started.

“Where in the name of Merlin are you bringing me, Fred!”

“You’ll see soon enough darling!”

⚔︎.

Soon enough turned out to be ten minutes later, the two of you panting as you’d finally made it all the way across to the other side of the castle and up the stairs to the Astronomy Tower.

The sun was shining brightly down upon the two of you, the tall windows welcoming the late November winds into the room. A chest sat next to one of the ledges, Fred finally letting go of your hand for the first time in ten minutes, reaching down to open it.

He took a piece of cloth out, closing the chest before you could sneak a peek at the contents, tucking the wooden box under his arm.

“Is this the brilliant date idea you were talking about the other day? I’m not going to lie to you Freddie, cloth doesn’t really scream ingenious to me. In fact, it seems like you brought me up here to clean.”

Raising your eyebrows at the ginger, you gestured at the fabric in his hand as he laughed at you, stepping up onto the ledge.

“Fred? What’re you doing?!”

The boy turned towards you, holding out a hand.

“Come up here.”

Your eyes widened.

“No! Are you insane?”

Fred’s hand faltered a bit, arm relaxing against his body as he looked into your eyes.

“Do you trust me?”

Silent, you stepped up next to Fred, clinging onto his hip and arm, knees shaking slightly at the height you were at.

“I trust you with my life.”

Adjusting the chest under his arm, Fred pulled you into his embrace.

“That’s good to hear. Because it’s time.”

He looked down, dropping the piece of cloth, before tilting your head up to look at him, stepping one foot off the ledge and into the skies.

“Jump!”

“What?! Are you insa-”

You were cut off by screams erupting from your mouth as the ground disappeared below you- Fred pulling you with him, laughter bubbling from his chest.

“Oh my God, I’m going to die-”

You reached the ground a lot quicker than you’d thought possible, your eyes squeezed shut, bracing for the imminent death that would come.

Instead, you felt a weird, soft surface, almost like a water bed, rippling under you as you landed on your knees.

“Am I in heaven?”

Your eyes opened slowly, eyes meeting the clouds around you, only for a shadow to cover the sights surrounding you.

“No, but I think I am.”

A kiss landed on your lips as you fell back on the odd surface, Fred falling on top of you.

The kiss was short and sweet, but quickly forgotten as you remembered what had happened moments prior, hitting Fred on the chest as you took in your surroundings.

The surface you had landed on wasn’t a surface at all- in fact it was, a rug? It looked eerily similar to the cloth Fred had thrown off the tower earlier, only, about thirty times bigger, and flying.

You looked at Fred, confused. The tall ginger boy beamed back at you, gesturing grandly.

“Welcome, to your very own magic carpet ride!”

⚔︎.

After lecturing Fred on how incredibly dangerous the start of the date had been, you finally had the chance to process the reality of the date.

“Where are we going, then, on this magic carpet ride?”

The boy hummed, pulling out blankets and a pillow from the, now enlarged, chest, spreading them around the carpet that was hovering near the tip of the Astronomy Tower, awaiting further instruction from the two of you.

“Well first, I was thinking we could stop by Hogsmeade to get some snacks, maybe buy some of the Christmas gifts you wanted to go get today, then we’re flying off to explore Scotland! Well, the part of Scotland we’re in, anyways. Just for a few hours, then we’ll be back to watch the sunset.”

He looked at you for approval, which you granted with a wide smile.

“That sounds beautiful Fred.”

⚔︎.

Walking around Hogsmeade, Fred had shrunk the rug and tucked it into his pocket, the chest shrunk even smaller than it had been the first time you’d seen it.

“Alright, so I think you’ve gotten enough sugar quills to last you a lifetime. Where to next?”

Chewing on a sugar quill, you scrunched your nose in his direction, pulling him into the quaint little jewellery shop you liked to frequent.

The little old lady who owned the place was one you’d become acquainted with over the past five years, Mrs Kingston never minded that you rarely bought anything, understanding that most of her second-hand jewellery was still quite pricey for a student to afford.

Still, you tried your best to save up and buy the pieces you really liked. Recently, you’d been eyeing a necklace, a simple Celtic knot on a thin chain that shone brightly no matter how much light lit up the room. Mrs Kingston explained to you it was an old betrothal necklace, oft seen in pureblood families back in the Victorian era. It’s now seen worn by a lot of the heirs of these old families- in fact, you’d spotted Draco wearing an heirloom similar to it.

“Mrs Kingston!”

“Hello y/n, how are you?”

Fred nodded at the woman as he shuffled around the shop, looking in the display cabinets with vague interest whilst the two of you made small talk.

Your eyes wandered the familiar glass cabinet, landing on the soft velvet that was empty of the familiar Celtic knot, furrowed brows returning to meet Mrs Kingston's clouded eyes.

“The necklace!”

The woman nodded sadly, looking just as dejected as you felt.

“I'm sorry dearie. A boy came in a while ago to buy it. Might've been one of the ones you came with a few weeks back.”

Your head hung low, muttering out a soft 'oh' as she explained to you, nodding in response.

“It's okay Mrs Kingston. I'll see if there's something else I'd like to save up for instead. Thanks, see you next time!”

Thinking back to the last Hogsmeade trip when you'd come down to the shop, your heart lifted a bit, a smile returning to your face as you turned to face Fred.

“Alright, let's head to the bookstore.”

⚔︎.

The ginger's hand clutched yours tightly, the two of you cuddling under the thick blanket as you flew around mountains, pointing out animals, both magical and non-magical, that you'd seen around the place.

Fred looked at you quizzically. Since leaving Mrs Kingston's, you had seemingly forgotten the necklace. Even more, it seemed like you'd gotten happier since finding out someone had gotten the necklace. During the lunch you two had gotten at the Three Broomsticks, the both of you finding Madam Puddifoot's a bit nauseating, you were practically bouncing on your heels as you spoke to some of your friends about the upcoming Christmas celebrations.

“I thought you'd be more upset that the necklace is gone, I remember you talking about how much you liked it last time.”

You shrugged, a wider smile gracing your lips as you looked at him, nuzzling further into his chest.

“I love it! That's why I'm so happy Cedric got it for me. ”

Fred halted, pushing you away from him.

“I-, what! Why would Diggory be getting you a betrothal necklace?!”

You looked up at your boyfriend, furrowing your brows at his outburst.

“What! You know Ced's one of my best friends. Remember when we came to the shop a few weeks back? You, George and Lee were goofing around and then just bolted while I was telling Ced about the necklace. I guess he just came back to get it for me.”

Fred huffed, rolling his eyes as he heard you talk about Cedric, pulling away from you more.

“How could you be this blind!”

You looked at Fred, a bit hurt that he'd lost his temper at you for no reason.

“Why are you getting so worked up over this? It's not like he's proposing to me!”

The boy scoffed, throwing his hands up into the air.

“Well, it's clear that he'd do it without a thought! The boy's in love with you! That's the only reason why anyone would get you something that expensive!”

You laughed frigidly, shaking your head at how irrational your boyfriend was being, pushing the blanket off of you to move away from him.

“What, he can't just have gotten me the necklace because I'm a good friend? Merlin Fred, he's the only one who's actually been with me to go see the necklace, and is the only one who would logically know to get me the necklace.”

You turned to look him in the eye, your jaw clenching as he turned red.

“Besides, Cedric knows me best.”

Fred let out a frustrated 'ugh!', and grabbed the wooden chest that he'd charmed to stay in one corner, grumbling under his breath.

“You think Diggory's the one who knows you best? You think that he's the only one that could have gotten you the bloody necklace?”

A velvet box was brandished from somewhere deep in the chest, Fred propping it open to reveal a dazzling silver necklace, reflecting the afternoon sun into your eyes.

“The. I don't understand. But how?”

Fred snapped the box shut, moving to kneel in front of you.

“As I said just now, I know you best.”

He popped open the box again, this time moving to remove the necklace from the velvet, lifting it fully into the sunlight.

“I was listening when you were talking to Diggory, and even though I'd run away that day, I knew exactly what you wanted.”

He shuffled behind you, unclasping the necklace to bring it around your front.

“I said that he's in love with you, which I still think is true, by the way, and that's the reason why he would have possibly gotten it for you, is because I love you, and that's why I got it for you.”

The chain clipped around your neck, the cool metal contrasting your warm skin as Fred leaned down to press a kiss above the clasp, sending a shiver down your spine.

“Freddie, I had no idea.”

You spun around to face your boyfriend, pressing a deep kiss to his lips, hands landing on his neck to pull him impossibly closer to yourself.

“Clearly. I had this whole plan! All foiled by your cluelessness. I was going to wait until sunset, with the scenery all around us, then surprise you with it and ask you to be my date to the Yule Ball!”

You looked at Fred, your mouth falling open in shock.

“But you just had to bring up Cedric, and how he 'knows you best'. Maybe you should go with him to the Ball.”

You chuckled at the childishness of the Weasley boy in front of you, the pout framing his lips deepening as you laughed at him.

“Well then maybe you should go with Angie, I'm sure she'd be happy to have you.”

Fred gasped loudly, shocked at the audacity of you bringing up his old crush.

“Don't you even dare suggest that.”

⚔︎.

“How did you think of all this?”

The boy shrugged, opening the chest, to pull out a thermos. You were sat above the Black Lake, watching the setting sun on the horizon ahead, red bleeding into orange and blue.

“Honestly, I’m ashamed it took me so long. Remember this summer when you had me ‘round your place and we watched Aladdin with your parents?”

You nodded, fluffing the pillows to make yourself more comfortable, the setting sun casting shadows on the Weasley boy, making him look even more handsome than usual, if that was even possible.

“At that time, I’d already thought that the magic carpet seemed awfully similar to a broom. Then, that day at lunch some firstie was humming that one song they sang when flying the blasted thing, and I thought, blimey! Why didn’t I think to just recreate the bloody thing! So, here we are.”

While talking, Fred spread the thick blanket to cover more of you, pouring hot chocolate out of the thermos he’d brought into mugs that he’d gotten without you knowing, both shaped in little hearts.

“D’you, um, d’you like it?”

Handing the pink mug to you, a sheen of red descended on your boyfriend’s cheeks, not just from the cold, but also fear and embarrassment, scared you didn’t like the date he’d spent the last three days planning.

“I love it!”

You leaned forward, planting a soft kiss on Fred’s lips, leaving traces of cocoa on them.

“But I didn’t love the part where you made me think I was plunging sixty feet to my death!”

The boy groaned playfully, lying back onto the carpet with his head hanging over the edge.

“I know! I’m sorry! I just thought it’d be exciting! A nice surprise! Besides, did you really think I’d let my lovely little Y/N die? I need you around darling.”

You scoffed, sipping on the hot cocoa as you stared at the Astronomy Tower in the distance, your first and now, final destination of the day, a hand creeping towards Fred’s to hold it in a tight grip, unconsciously afraid he’d fall.

“I don’t know! Maybe this was your ultimate prank! Bring us both to heaven to fight God or something.”

Now it was Fred’s turn to scoff, sitting back up to shove his hands under the blanket, squeezing your hand in return.

“First off, if I ever fought God I’d need George there with me. I don’t think that just the two of us could take him. Secondly,”

Fred cupped your chin with his free hand, bringing you in for a deep kiss, catching you by surprise as you braced yourself on his shoulder with your free hand. His tongue teased your lower lip, making a moan slip out while his tongue entered your mouth. Exploring each other, your entangled hands fell apart- his coming to grasp your neck, bringing you closer to him, yours gripping his hip, drawing circles on the bone.

After what seemed like an hour, but also felt like seconds, the two of you fell apart, breathless as you panted, staring into each other’s eyes.

“I don’t think either of us are making it to heaven darling. Think we’re condemned to hell forever, you and I.”

You looked into his coffee coloured eyes, pupils dilated as he scanned your face, his favourite pastime, memorising every crevice and pore. Your hand found its way to the necklace sitting around your neck, fingering the knot that symbolised eternity in your hands.

“Well if I’m going to burn in hell for an eternity, then I’m glad I’ll be burning with you Freddie.”

#mine #writing #fred weasley #fred weasley x reader #harry potter #harry potter imagines #harry potter oneshot #fred weasley imagine #fred weasley fluff #harry potter fluff #fred weasley oneshot #gender neutral reader #fred weasley x gender neutral reader #hp angst #hp imagine #hp oneshot #hp smut #fred weasley smut #fred weasley angst

[kpoppwriter]

Play Nice

❧ @peachyhan​ asked: Okay, but hear me out: for your royalty au, the idol and Y/N both have siblings that are getting an arranged marriage, so they (the idol and Y/N) see each other at all of the gatherings and stuff Bonus points if they're enemies😼

❧ Genre: royalty AU (Prince!Seonghwa x Prince(ss)!reader)

❧ Words: 777

❧ Warnings: drinking of champagne by reader and Seonghwa

❧ Synopsis: You hated Seonghwa with all of your being but when he proposes an idea, you decide it’s worth it to play nice for once.

❧ A/N: so this idea was sent to me a while ago by @peachyhan​ and I’ve been saving it for when inspiration stuck. It is currently 2:50am as I start writing this...why must I torture myself

~※ Main Masterlist ※~

The ballroom was alive with chatter and music. Lords and Ladies danced in the middle of the room as the band played sweet songs for them to move to. Laughter could be heard mixing in with the music, the room feeling rather bright and joyus. 

For you, however, it was a grim time. You’d rather be anywhere but here. You barely knew any of these people and the people you did know were quite dull. Conversations with anyone you talked to always went to the topic of the newly betrothed couple, your sister and Prince Hongjoong. Instead of having to listen to the same conversations over and over again, you stuck yourself in the far corner of the ballroom hoping no one would approach you. Sadly, your plan didn’t work out too well. While you were sipping on the champagne you’d been nursing all night, someone approached you. 

“Hello Y/N.”

Your eyes looked up at the figure in front of you. Your nose immediately scrunched up like you had just tasted something bad. 

“What do you want Seonghwa?” you sighed 

“What, am I not allowed to talk to you?”

“No you’re not,” you huffed, “I told you I don’t like you.” 

Seonghwa chuckled to himself as he moved to stand beside you, his back leaning against the wall. You wished he would just walk away. He seriously was the last person you wanted to talk to right now. 

You and Seonghwa had been enemies for who know how long now. You honestly forgot why you started to hate him in the first place but you were too stubborn to forget that you disliked him. He left a sort of bad taste in your mouth. There was just something so irritating about his quiet cockiness and his attractive charm. It really made you want to smack him. 

The feeling of Seonghwa’s presence beside you was the opposite of comforting - it was rather disturbing actually. You just wanted him gone so you could relish in your grumpiness alone. 

“I can tell you aren’t having fun and it isn’t my fault this time” he said, “Why are you even here?” 

“You know why I’m here. I have to be,” you grumbled

“Ahh yeah, your sister is engaged to Hongjoong,” he clicked his tongue

“Please don’t bring it up. I really don’t want to talk anymore about it.”

“Neither do I! It’s the only thing anyone here is talking about.”

You got a little boost of happiness when you heard the exasperated sigh leave Seonghwa’s lips. Knowing he was also being berated with comments of the engagement and the annoyance that resulted of that made you feel a bit better - not because you weren’t alone in your feelings but because you enjoyed seeing him annoyed.  

“Aww poor baby doesn’t want Joongie to get married,” you mocked 

“Yes I don’t want him to get married,” he said plainly, “Which is why I actually came over to propose an idea.”

“An idea? What are you talking about?” 

“We work together to stop your sister and Hongjoong’s marriage.”

“Wait- us working together?” you let out a sardonic laugh, “Never in a million years would I work with you.”

“I don’t want to work with you either but if it means never having to do any of this again,” he gestured to the party happening around the two of you, “Then I’ll do it.” 

His reasoning was sound. You hated having to dress up and pretend you were having fun when you’d rather be anywhere but there. It was exhausting. Seonghwa could tell you were still hesitant but you were starting to come around. 

“I promise I just want to do this. No hidden motives and no tricks,” he raised his hands in surrender, “I’ll even promise never to talk to you again if you agree to help me.”

“Really? Like genuinely?” you asked wide eyed

“Yes,” he sighed, “I promise I won’t bother you ever again.”

“Deal.”

You outstretched your hand towards Seonghwa. He rolled his eyes before taking your hand and shaking it, sealing your deal. You looked around at the other partygoers and noticed how some of their eyes were on you and Seonghwa. You quickly pulled your hand away.

“You should go,” you said curtly, “Unless you want rumors of us being betrothed to start.”

He let out a scoff, his hand snatching the drink from your hand. 

“No one would ever think I was interested in you.” 

He downed the rest of your champagne before walking away from your corner. You felt like there was steam coming out of your ears. You wanted to slap him so bad. But for now...you had to play nice. 

#kpop #kpop blog #kpop writing blog #ateez #ateez reactions #ateez reaction #ateez headcanon #ateez headcaons #ateez scenarios #ateez scenario #ateez fluff #ateez angst #ateez au #royalty au #ateez royalty au #ateez x reader #ateez x you #ateez seonghwa #park seonghwa #seonghwa fluff #seonghwa angst #seonghwa x you #seonghwa x reader

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XX

Pairing: Johnny Suh x Reader x Min Yoongi

Genre: Angst; Fluff; Friends to Lovers; Coworkers to Lovers

Word Count: 16.1K

Warning: Language; Past Infidelity (not by anyone in the pairing); Mild mention of not great mental health; Implied Smut at the end. 

Rating: PG15

My Weird and Mildly Chaotic Banner Maker: @dee-ehn​

My Lovely Dweeb Beta Reader: @guktro​

A/N: This fic was crafted for the DramaVers collab hosted by the ever so lovely (never tell her I called her that) @namluve​. My fic is based off the K-Drama/Web Drama, XX, which you can watch here if you feel so inclined. Would recommend. (Psst... it’s only 5 episodes all under an hour long.)

Summary: When you work your whole life to reach your dreams of owning a bar you hope that having that dream ripped from under you without notice isn’t a part of life’s plan. And you definitely don’t imagine that it comes with suddenly being business partners with your ex-best friend. But life doesn’t work in the way we want it. At the end of the day you try to focus on the things that make life better, until the two men in your life who hold your heart (something you didn’t think possible) meet and hit if off so well that you’re sure your life is moments from collapsing completely.

The entire time Hyuk spoke YN sat there feeling like she couldn’t process his words. She heard all of it and took it in, but she was stuck on what he’d said when she’d walked into their bar to do inventory on the one day they were closed. Hyuk wasn’t supposed to be there, so it shocked her to see him pacing about but then he blurted something out and she’d never had the chance to exit her shocked state.

“YN, did you hear me?” he asked.

She wasn’t completely pulled from the surreal feeling she experienced, but enough of her became present enough to look at him and nod. Of course, she wanted to retreat into thoughts that said it was all a dream when she saw the pity in his eyes.

“I really am sorry, YN. I had to sell it and I know I said I’d give you a heads up if I ever wanted or needed to give my share up, but it couldn’t be helped. It was the only way to get my father to give into appointing me a position on his board before he found someone else. But I found someone who's done well with other bars and she’s just trying to expand her portfolio, so I’m sure she’ll sell you her half when all is said and done,” Hyuk reassured.

None of his words helped her feel good about it though, if anything she felt worse after hearing him. It became more real as he explained things to her for the third time that night. Her dream of the bar being hers had been so close, she’d almost had all the money to buy him out and it all came crashing down.

To think her phone calendar had a day three months in the future as the day she’d succeed. For a moment all she could think about was deleting it, so instead of responding she pulled out her phone and did just that.

“What are you-” he started, until he noticed what she did.

“YN, I-”

Her standing abruptly was what cut him off the next time; plus startled him to the point where he almost slid from his bar stool. His klutzy actions usually brought her some joy no matter how brief, but nothing in her could muster up any positive emotions.

After she took a deep breath she stared at him with a neutral expression and spoke. “You can put everything I need to know in the office for me to check in the morning. Anything else can be sent to me via email. That includes the new co-owners contact information so that I can set up a meeting with them so we can discuss things. If I need something you didn’t give I will contact you. I hope everything works out just the way you want it, Hyuk. I’m leaving now, lock up behind yourself and mail me the keys.”

With that she turned on her heel and walked out of the door, she needed to put some distance between her and him. As well as her and the bar. Not even Hyuk calling out for her stopped her from leaving, nothing he had to say was something she needed to hear. At least not while her world crumbled before her eyes.

From there she went home. The process was a blur as she relied on muscle memory to get her on public transportation and then walk the rest of the way. By the time she came to she was inside and knocking on the door to her roommate’s bedroom.

“YN, I thought you wouldn’t be back until three,” Johnny said as he opened the door, voice laced with sleep.

However, his inquiry seemed to no longer matter as he took YN in. She’d stopped holding it all in and her body slouched, shaking slightly as the tears poured down her face. Every second or so she opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out until the sob finally released itself.

Johnny had her in his arms instantly. Not a word was uttered as he used one hand to press her face close to his chest and the other to rub slow circles into her back. And even when she calmed enough to speak, he merely shushed her and pulled her into his room. She wasn’t allowed to say a word until she was dressed in one of his too big t-shirts and they were cuddled in his bed.

She appreciated it too, because even though she’d been ready to talk her mind needed time to collect itself before she blurted out nonsense.

“Hyuk sold his share of the bar to someone else. Needed to let it go for his dad to give him some position at his company or some shit,” she whispered.

She felt Johnny’s body stiffen as she finished and then felt him take several deep breaths as she felt his heart speed up. He wasn’t a person quick to anger, but in certain situations he just couldn’t stop how quickly it came to head. Especially when he was proven right in a way he wished he wasn’t.

Minutes ticked by as he did his deep breathing and YN expected him to blow up or point out how he’d warned her, but nothing came.

“No, I told you so?” she asked.

That got a laugh out of him, though it was bitter.

“You know I won’t. This isn’t like when you bust your ass trying to get down from a table while drunk. This is your dreams being tampered with by a prick who couldn’t even show his dad he was responsible by co-owning a successful bar, but still managed to get what he wanted at your expense.”

Displeasure coated his every word and though it should’ve made her sad to think of her former co-owner and his shitty behavior she couldn’t help but laugh. It was because as he spoke she remembered all the times Johnny had snubbed or called the man out on his bare minimum rich kid behavior to his face. Johnny had never liked him and it was always clear to everyone, so he never missed a chance to be petty.

Sadly, that amusement went as quick as it came.

YN sighed. “Well, it is what it is now. Can’t change what’s already done. At least he said they only want to own it temporarily to pad their portfolio or some shit.”

In an instant, Johnny pulled back and looked at her with wide eyes.

“So, there’s still a chance?”

Though the hope in his voice boosted hers, she couldn’t get herself to give in. So instead of being as enthusiastic, she nodded.

Johnny’s eyes narrowed at that. “I will allow your non-excitement to slide because you are in shock and hurt, but you’re not going to go back to thinking this is a pipe dream. You can and will get the bar all to yourself. And let’s not forget you’re close to saving enough to start your own elsewhere if it falls through. And before you say it, I know this is your dream place in your dream location, but remember you had another dream location before this.”

Naturally, her best friend didn’t even allow her to voice her negative thoughts, something she was grateful for in that moment. She’d had a rant about how she should give up and all kinds of downer nonsense ready to spill out before he’d called her on her bullshit.

Another sigh escaped her and she nodded before laying her head on his chest again.

“Are you opening today?” she asked.

“No. After the bridal party, who wanted to drink and make perfume all night, I needed a break. And because they went well over their time I got paid double so I could miss three days and still not feel the loss.”

“Then can we stay in bed all day?” she asked.

“Sure, we can order something and watch TV. But can we sleep first, you woke me up too early,” he whined.

It was noon.

YN shrugged. “Fine with me, but I need to go get a bon-”

Before she could finish that sentence a dark purple bonnet was shoved in her face and she barely grabbed it before a thought came to her.

“You did steal it!”

“No, you left it in here after you took down your braids that one day. I found it somewhere in my dirty laundry. I for one don’t need a bonnet and for two, after the time I borrowed your SPF lotion and you nearly murdered me I learned my lesson,” Johnny said.

“You almost made me go outside ashy. My skin was being uneven with its six shades of brown instead of one, I didn’t need it to be dry too.”

He rolled his eyes at that but adjusted them a little so he could press a kiss to her forehead and then got comfortable.

“Yes, yes I know. Now put it on and go to sleep,” he said.

Part of her wanted to say something more, but she simply slid the bonnet over her hair, which was twisted, and laid down.

As her eyes closed her brain drifted to the horror of her morning, but she fought it off and tried to focus on the positive. Johnny was right; she had options, which didn’t leave her at a complete loss no matter how things went and that was a good thing.

Plus, she had Johnny by her side, even if it wasn’t always in the way she wanted. That thought brought a twinge to her heart, but she cuddled closer and reminded herself that moments like that were enough.

“He just dropped it all on you at once? I knew he was a self-centered prick, but damn,” Yoongi commented.

YN had relayed what happened to her main bartender when they’d both come in to prep the bar before it opened. She planned to keep it from him until she met her new co-owner, but he saw through her the moment she walked in that afternoon. Fighting him was futile, something she learned within the first six months of him working there, so she just spilled everything as she wiped down the bar stools.

“Yup. No warning at all, just told me with everything done before I could object. Something about thinking just being straightforward would lessen the blow. Since I prefer bluntness and all that,” she mumbled.

Out of the corner of her eyes she noticed Yoongi pause as he wiped down the counter and turn to look at her fully.

“Does that dumbass still not know what the word blunt means? Because it’s sure as fuck not screw over your business partner and the only person who kept a business afloat while he cried to daddy about not getting the position he wanted because he’s a failure. Fucking weirdo,” Yoongi shouted.

Though it wasn't really funny YN couldn't help but throw her head back in laughter, pausing in her cleaning as it coursed through her. She couldn't even stop the tears that came along with it.

When she finally pulled it together Yoongi was cleaning again, but the smile he wore showed he was happy with his handy work. And YN was thankful for it. He always knew just what to say to make her laugh when she needed it, even if the joy only lasted for a few seconds. It was one of the things that drew her into him as they got to know each other. Past his introverted defense mechanisms was a sweet man who often just did his best to help wherever he could.

The only person keeping her sane most days.

“Well, yeah he is a dumbass I will finally and fully admit it. But, he was a dumbass keeping me from having to put off certain things to keep this place moving forward, so for a time he was worth something. Now he’s just a fucking headache fucking up my plans.”

Silence filled the room after that as they finished sanitizing everything and got the bar set up for patrons. They were ready an hour in advance, which wasn’t something they usually did with YN preferring it to be only thirty minutes before the last thing was finished, but she didn’t want them working as she met the new co-owner.

There was nothing in her that wanted to impress them, but she preferred all the things be in tip top shape and nothing left to worry over as she handled something so stressful. It shouldn't have felt like that, but meeting someone she didn’t know and didn’t choose in a bar they would both own wasn’t fun. Especially when she thought about other people who’d come in before wanting to be her business partner but wanted everything changed. Something that wouldn’t happen.

“You can take a break and go out if you want. I can meet them alone,” she said as she checked one of the mini fridges under the bar one last time.

She expected Yoongi to say he’d go grab coffee from his favorite place to give him that final boost to keep on his customer service voice all shift, but he shook his head no. He grabbed a bottle of water and sat down at one of the tables farther into the bar. It confused YN and she planned to say something, but then the sound of a door opening caught her attention.

They both turned their attention to the intruder and YN immediately felt like the wind was knocked out of her.

In the door of her bar stood Chae Hyungwon, her ex-best friend.

Thankfully, he appeared just as shocked as she was, though he tried his best to pull it together. His usual fake confident smirk made an appearance and his gaze shifted from her to the space around them. His head nodded every so often and soft sounds of approval slipped from his lips as he did.

YN knew it was him avoiding her gaze to prepare whatever non-caring act he planned to put on with her, but that didn’t ease her at all.

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

After several seconds of blatantly ignoring her Hyungwon responded.

“Is that any way to speak to your new boss?” he asked.

Shock wasn’t the word that YN used to describe how hearing those words felt, mostly because it wasn’t what coursed through her. It was more like amusement at being some sort of joke to the universe. Amusement and immense sadness.

“Co-owner. You are my co-owner. And let’s not forget that I own most of it,” YN said.

Hyungwon’s eyes went wide. “You’re the co-owner?”

That was a small win for her.

“Ah, so Hyuk didn’t just decide to withhold information from me. At least he’s a consistent idiot,” she said.

There was a beat of silence before YN pulled herself together and decided that she would unleash her feelings later and handle her predicament in that moment.

“So, shall we sit and talk?” she asked.

Hyungwon stared at her for a moment before nodding. At that YN motioned towards a table she’d set up for them and went to sit down. She waited a moment for him to settle in before pushing a folder across the table. And though clearly confused he took it and flipped through the contents.

He scoffed. “What is this, a college orientation? Am I to read and sign all of these, then be punished if I fail to do them or disregard them?”

“Yes.”

That startled him, but YN didn’t give him time to recover.

“That contains all the information that you need to know about this business. How it is currently run, it’s vendors, it’s monthly costs, the excel sheets we use to track information so that we can make small changes here and there to stay on top of how to best run things. And as you saw on top, explains the rules that I’ve laid out for you as co-owner. They are the same for anyone who wants to take on that role and besides small adjustments have remained the same throughout my use of them. They are not fYNible. With a compelling argument I may be willing to bend something but the odds are virtually nonexistent. They must be understood and abided by and any of them that are major violations will be cause for termination of your co-ownership, without a mandatory buyout from me. Which is something that was in the contract that Hyuk gave you, so you’ve already agreed.”

“That’s not allowed. I saw it, but it didn’t go into-”

YN laughed. “You signed a contract without meeting with the other co-owner, the person who owns fifty-five percent of this bar. Thus, not allowing yourself the chance to get all the information. Which means you forfeit the right to suddenly demand a change on something you agreed to blindly. My rules are not outlandish, they are just specific and demand that you are serious or at the very least don’t get in my way.”

Laughter escaped Hyungwon, but it clearly held no humor. For a moment he looked prepared to argue or leave, but he simply reopened the folder and read over the first few sheets. Though there were a few sounds that were akin to disapproval that wasn’t what reflected on his face when he glanced up several minutes later. It was more so a look of mild amazement.

“This keeps anyone who buys in from doing anything slightly shady behind your back or straight up dumb without mutual decision. It’s ironclad, makes sense not to put it directly into the contract since you’re opposed to negotiating that part,” he said.

Part of her felt proud, though it was solely because she knew she’d done things well in that respect. But the other part of her was displeased that the pride appeared from hearing a form of praise from Hyungwon, even if it wasn’t directly from impressing him.

Naturally, he couldn’t leave it on a positive note though.

“Too bad you didn’t come up with one where it stopped him from fucking you over,” Hyungwon mumbled.

“Yeah, so sad, if only we could make those kinds of things for everyone we encounter. Though I guess something for me to hold people accountable for fucking me over wouldn’t be something you’d be personally interested in. Could be used against you,” YN said without missing a beat.

Hyungwon’s face went red after that and she could see a flurry of emotions playing out on his face but could pick up on none. Not that, that lessened her amusement at all. She’d gotten a reaction out of him and it was childish, but felt wonderful nonetheless.

“Is there anything else you need to show me?” Hyungwon finally asked after a minute.

YN nodded and stood from her seat.

“I can show you around the place and explain how things run. However, I ask that you hold all questions until you have absorbed all the information, I don’t mind if you use your phone or something to write things down as I talk. But if you think it’s important to know please stop me and ask.”

All she got was a nod before she led him around the space. She showed him the back rooms, including the office, and explained how things worked schedule wise with everything. Then she brought him back out front and pointed out things behind the bar to get him acquainted with how things worked. Then she led him through the space and showed him the balcony that gave the best access to their view of a skyline and water off in the distance. Once finished she brought him back inside and was about to wrap it up, but then he spoke.

“How many employees are there?” he asked.

“Including myself seven. With the way we currently operate, more aren’t needed, but there is still a chance we could hire a few more.”

Hyungwon nodded. “And I’m guessing he’s one.”

That was the first time YN glanced Yoongi’s way since Hyungwon appeared and she turned to see the male drinking his water and scrolling through his phone.

“Yes, Yoongi has been here almost a year now.”

At the sound of his name Yoongi looked up and while he didn’t seem particularly fond when he glanced Hyungwon’s way he did offer YN a smile, one she returned happily.

After that her attention moved back to Hyungwon who glanced between the two of them and looked prepared to say something but didn’t.

“Well, is there anything else you need or would like to see? We open pretty soon so we’re running low on time,” YN said.

Seconds ticked by as she watched Hyungwon stare at her but seem off in his own little world. It was something that was the norm for when he debated on what to say or do so it wasn’t surprising, but it made her uncomfortable.

“Hyungwon,” she called out.

He snapped out of it and cleared his throat. “No. I’m good. I’ll just sit off in one of the back corners for a while to watch how things go and then leave.”

A nod and then YN left him to do what he wanted. The two waitresses for the night arrived just then and everyone got their behinds into gear. Then minutes later their customers began filing in.

Though YN’s mind reeled from what happened she didn’t get the chance to linger on it, because work became the focus quickly. She enjoyed bartending so she did that alongside Yoongi and though the place wasn’t packed, people tended to order drinks rapidly. And since their bar had made its name for mixed and signature drinks it wasn’t just rounds of shots. They needed to mix drinks and do it right, half-assing it to get it out quickly wasn't something they did. Especially since part of the draw for some, besides the drinks, was watching them being made. They enjoyed some sort of show with it, though neither YN nor Yoongi went all out to impress, just did what they needed to with focus and a slight flourish.

So, by the time she caught her breath and wasn’t focusing on anything work related and glanced up to find Hyungwon she noticed his former spot taken up by someone else. He was nowhere she could see, so she assumed he left and felt herself sigh in relief. It didn’t clear the chaos she kept at bay in her mind, but helped it settle some.

However, she again didn’t get time to linger on it because they’d done the last call and an influx of orders came on. She and Yoongi worked to get them out and were thankful when people began to leave, some stumbling to the exit with the help of security.

From there everyone immediately began working on their sections to clean and an hour and a half later they were all on their way out the building. YN saw off her waitresses and security then prepared to say her goodbyes to Yoongi only for him to be giving her a look she saw when he’d offer to join her on the way home and she’d deny.

Which meant that fighting him on it would’ve been useless, so she just began walking towards the train station.

For several minutes they did so in silence and though YN seemed calm it was clear that she was fighting something off. Something she didn’t want to talk about or at least that’s what she told herself until Yoongi spoke up.

“You can scream if you want,” he said.

That made her pause and then laugh loudly. It brought on looks from the few people lingering about late at night, but she didn’t care at all. One would’ve thought she was laughing at the idea of screaming to release her feelings, but it was more so that screaming is what Johnny had her do when the incident happened years before. He got her drunk, took her to the top of a building and they screamed until she was a laughing mess on the ground. He’d had to carry her home after.

“I wish that was the fix for this. Hell, I wish I didn’t have such a strong reaction to him after all this time.”

Again, silence filled the space as they began walking away and neither of them spoke again until they were seated in a half-deserted train car. Yoongi took that as the perfect moment to bump her shoulder to get her attention and it worked.

“You could tell me about it. You don’t have to of course, but it could help the feelings a bit,” he offered.

At that YN sighed and her eyes closed. A lot of her screamed to let it die so she didn’t have to deal with the emotions again, but a smaller voice reminded her that the feelings would always be there and she probably only felt so intensely because she’d been forced to endure them in front of someone who didn’t know what happened. If it had been Johnny or her by herself she’d be better about it. And she had to remind herself she trusted Yoongi a whole lot, so telling him wasn’t the end of the world by any means.

Once she’d made peace with her choice her eyes opened and she turned so her back leaned against the small wall blocking her seat from the door. She knew that if she told him it had to be while looking at him.

“As you may know I have an ex that Johnny loathes with his entire being. I’m sure you remember that drunk rant that he gave the first month of you working there,” she paused to see his response and once he nodded she continued. “Well, I know he went on and on about planning to beat up all the people who’d ever hurt me, so there were a lot on that list. Anyway, he got to talking about an old friend before he ran to the bathroom to throw up. That friend was Hyungwon or my new co-owner, I don’t think I told you his name. But yeah, he was my best friend. Like that friend I made the moment I came to orientation and looked every bit of the confused foreigner I was. We clicked and he felt like the best friend I’d made in my entire life. Even helped me figure out how to work up the nerve to talk to my ex to ask him out.”

YN sighed and used her hand to push back a few loose curls that had slipped from her bun. The voice telling her to shut up got louder and she knew if she wanted to stop she could, but something about the attentive look on Yoongi’s face stopped her.

“In our senior year things were beyond stressful. He was dealing with family business stuff and his father has always been a difficult man. While I was dealing with trying to find a job so I could keep a visa and stay in the country, while also trying to graduate. We barely saw each other and I barely saw my boyfriend either despite usually sleeping at his every night. I decided to change that one night, I messaged Hyungwon to schedule a hang out and he agreed. Then I grabbed some food and snacks and headed to my boyfriend’s. I was at most an hour earlier than when I said I’d be coming, something not out of the norm for me and it wasn’t like he didn’t know.

“It was so quiet that I assumed he was asleep. I made sure to keep quiet as I settled in and then creeped towards the bedroom. However, I didn’t make it there, because while a few feet away the door swung open and I was met with him in his boxers and a disheveled Hyungwon. They didn’t notice me right away or at least I like to think so since they started making out and didn’t stop until I cleared my throat. The expressions of shock at that point are barely a memory because I’d started to tear up and just turn and left. They both attempted to reach out, but obviously I shut them down.”

After she finished Yoongi’s expression shifted to shock and then anger.

“And yet he acted like he was superior and has nothing to be sorry for when he came in today. What kind of bullshit is that? He should at least appear apologetic,” he said.

YN went to answer, but they were at her stop so she waited until they were off the train and up the steps.

“Hyungwon’s default expression is resting bitch face, especially when trying to hide some sort of emotion behind it. And he will lay it on thick. But he also is likely to force that and a haughty demeanor because he just does. It’s a defense mechanism, especially when he feels wronged in some way. He turned it on me a week after it was clear I wasn’t forgiving him. He’d prefer to be the one who is uncaring, then to endure too much emotion. No matter if he’s the cause of it.”

“What kind of fucked up shit is that? He messed up, not you. You had every right to refuse to deal with him or forgive him,” Yoongi said.

YN shrugged. “To a degree it’s a defense mechanism that I understand even if I don’t agree, but sometimes it does make him more of a douche than he’s going for. But it is what it is.”

They walked the short distance to her apartment in silence and YN couldn’t help but realize how much better she felt. It didn’t fix everything, but it helped more than she thought it would. Johnny usually was the one to get her calm enough to process the rest and she knew that once she told him the news he’d help her overcome the lingering emotions more, but with the chance to vent to the two people she trusted the most it was different.

Once they reached her apartment she turned and pulled Yoongi into a hug. He went stiff for a second before he hugged her back.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

“No problem,” he said in return.

She held him for a few seconds longer after that and then let go, gently nudged him towards the cab that pulled up at the most convenient time out of nowhere. Or at least she tried to pretend she didn’t order it when he wasn’t paying attention, but just like every other time she did it he saw through her.

They waved at each other and she went inside once the cab pulled off. On the elevator up she couldn’t stop the smile on her lips. Her brain had halted its existential crisis and focused on the memory of Yoongi’s own smile as the car departed. It was beyond cute and she’d told him that when she’d first saw him do it, but what she felt in the elevator was different. There was an all-consuming happiness and a weird feeling in her stomach as she thought of it then.

The smile didn’t leave until she was sitting at the table with Johnny eating fried chicken too late at night and telling him what happened. He ranted and raved, even made a few threats, which brought the feeling back again, but that time directed at her roommate.

Weeks passed, and though YN hated the arrangement for multiple reasons she got used to it. Hyungwon didn’t try to implement any major changes and most of what he did was stuff she’d planned to do months later when they had more than enough funds for it.

Though there was one thing she’d agreed to that came with some regret. Or at least regret is what filled her as she had to endure a couple who didn’t understand distance and chose to sit at the bar.

The moment they strolled in, clinging to each other, they’d made a beeline for her side of the bar and told her how they’d seen the bar mentioned on the account of some popular new actor and then promptly shoved a phone in her face to show her. All it took was a single glance to know that she’d never seen that man in the bar before and the picture had been taken around a time they weren’t open. He was sitting on the bar’s balcony with a drink in hand and you could see people enjoying themselves behind him, but they appeared to focus on appearing in the right angle of the picture for it not to be fully staged. Which meant it was Hyungwon’s doing.

YN agreed to allow him to expand social media reach because though she did it, sometimes it wasn’t the best that it could be. However, their definitions of expansion differed and about four celebrities that had never been there had posted about having such a good time at that bar. Something that brought in business, but also forced YN and her staff to lie when asked by customers. And customers asked a whole lot when they came in, needing every detail down to what the celeb smelled like.

It was annoying but arguing about it with Hyungwon ended up with her just conceding in annoyance every time. Despite the nuisance of it, she truly didn’t have it in her to keep the back and forth with him on the subject. Doing it just didn’t prove to be worth it.

So, she and everyone endured the nonsense. Though as she watched the couple get increasingly touchier she almost stormed off into the back office to put a stop to it once and for all. In fact, she’d turned to tell Yoongi that she was going to step away but was distracted in a second.

“YN!” Johnny shouted as he approached the bar.

From the moment she laid her eyes on her best friend she noticed the offness. The giant stumbled a little while he walked and there was a slur to his words. His clothing was also a little less put together than usual and though not noticeable to most people it’s something she picked up on after years of enduring his quirks.

“Johnny, I thought you had a date,” she said.

That immediately made him frown at her. Of course, she guessed how well that had gone, but she knew that he preferred to explain to her about how bad it was, so she got the true dramatic effect. So instead of saying anything she allowed him to take up a seat at the bar and got him the coldest bottle of his favorite beer that she had. He took it happily and downed half of it before he began his story.

“She wanted me to be a third in her relationship. Brought the boyfriend and everything. Which we all know I’m fine with and my dating profile says that, but you warn a person beforehand. She said she was single and then boom, boyfriend suddenly.”

He paused and downed the rest of the bottle, which was quickly replaced with another by Yoongi who happened to be moving by. Johnny gave him a grateful nod and picked it up, but just held it.

“And that would also not be the worst thing in the world, but then the entire time the guy kept sizing me up and then asking the most sexually invasive questions. At one point he asked me how big my dick was and seemed ready to whip his out so that we could compare them. I had to drink to get through the entire thing and sped out of there the moment the bill for dinner was paid. Blocked her dating account, her social media, and number on the way here. Then had to block his number, because apparently blocking her wasn’t enough of a hint for them,” he said.

YN winced hearing that part, because she couldn’t imagine enduring something so awkward and then creepy as that. Nor could she imagine not understanding when someone wasn’t interested after such intensive blocking.

Pathetic was the word that came to mind.

“Well, I’m glad you escaped them. You get to drink that one and one more, then you switch to water. Also go back and heat up my lunch or have someone grab it for you, you need something else in you and I didn’t get around to eating it myself,” YN said.

That changed Johnny’s demeanor in an instant and he glared at her, but before he could scold her about not eating properly Hyungwon appeared.

“YN, if you’re not busy up here can you come back into the office to help me with something? It’ll only be a few minutes, I want to know I’m doing this right,” he said.

Johnny’s glare shifted from her to Hyungwon, but neither of them paid him any mind.

“Sure, I’ll be back there in a sec,” she said.

Hyungwon nodded and disappeared again. And though it was clear that Johnny had something to say YN ignored him, turning to tell Yoongi only to get shooed away before she could open her mouth. She shot him a quick thumbs up and then hustled back to the office.

“What’s up?” she asked as she closed the door behind her.

The moment Hyungwon had her close enough he pointed to the screen of their computer and started to explain how he’d tried to do something in the excel sheet for the month’s vendor expenses but something went wrong. He walked her through the whole process before she stepped in to show him what he’d done wrong for it to not to work. And then they went over some of the other sheets to ensure they were right, as well as some of the vendor request forms that needed to get done by that time the following week.

It was an easy conversation and though weeks before YN thought she’d still be awkward and apprehensive; she’d managed to find a good groove in dealing with Hyungwon as a business partner and ignoring the pain from the past. He was someone who put himself fully into his work, so it wasn’t hard to mesh with him on the subject. In fact, he got more work down in the weeks he’d been on board than Hyuk in the years he was YN’s partner. She never minded doing all of the work before, but she also would never deny that having some of the weight off her was refreshing. Even in situations where she had to double check and teach Hyungwon the ropes a few times.

When they were done she stood from her seat and stretched, her eyes meeting the clock to see she’d been back there for almost an hour.

“Is there anything else you need?” she asked.

Though Hyungwon shook his head at first, he stilled for a moment and then whipped around to look at her. The expression on his face startled her with its seriousness, his eyebrows furrowed and the frown on his lips was intense. There was also a glint in his eyes that she recalled from when he found out some not happy news and a part of her worried greatly about what he’d say.

“Actually. I would like to apologize,” he said.

That confused YN for a second because she’d still be in work mode, until she saw the way his body sagged and then it clicked in her head. Her hands went up in defense as she shook her head rapidly.

“You don-”

“Please let me talk?”

And though her whole body screamed to not let him continue she couldn’t find it in her to not let him get whatever it was off his chest. So, she took a deep breath and nodded so that he’d continue, she didn’t trust herself to say the right thing.

“I know I apologized then and I meant it, even if I did the thing where I pretended like it wasn’t my fault and that you should’ve forgiven me. I fucked up on so many levels and I didn’t mean to. I need you to know that it was never my intention, I just… I don’t know how to explain it. That night is a weird blur of sadness, drinking, and feeling someone wanted to be in my presence and cared about my feelings. I gave in for stupid and selfish reasons. He told me you’d broken up over a week before, but even then it wasn’t an okay thing to do. I know that. I knew when I agreed. I knew when it happened. And I knew the entire time after.

“I have no valid excuse for my betraying you like that. I just want you to know that I’m sorry. And I’m even more sorry that I’m messing with your dream. It wasn’t my intention at all. I swear to you I didn’t know you were the co-owner when the contract was signed. And I’d planned to back out after I found out, but it was too early in the contract for me to be able to sell it to you and I would’ve had to sell it back to him. And I’ve worked with Hyuk before, he will continue to fuck things up. And I guess I’m using a lot of words to say I’m sorry and I’m rambling, so again I’m truly sorry.”

By the end of his tangent YN was left confused and unsure. She could see the sincerity, something he’d never been able to fake, and she knew he felt sorry for his actions when it happened, but she didn’t know how to respond. There was nothing in her head that felt like an accurate response to what he’d said. Especially the apologies, because she’d forgiven him a year after the incident. Not in a whole ceremonious way of letting it go to move on, but she realized she moved one already. The hurt wasn’t gone and she knew if she saw him her reaction would not be positive, but she knew that if she did see him and he spoke to her she’d probably be willing to talk it through with him. Hell, she’d thought about it for half a second when he first stepped foot into the bar, but he’d chosen the snooty demeanor and she’d thrown it away in an instant.

All of that uncertainty must have been clear to Hyungwon, thankfully, because he cleared his throat to regain her attention and then smiled at her. A real smile. The first smile she’d seen on his face since the first time she’d seen him again.

“You don’t have to say anything right now. You don’t have to say anything ever really. We can act like I didn’t say anything at all and keep going how we’re going. I just wanted you to know that,” he said.

YN’s mind scrambled to find a response after that because it didn’t want to have said nothing, but she ended up nodding and walking out without saying a word. She’d made sure to keep her expression light and offered a small smile before she turned away so he didn’t think she was running from him or hated him.

With her mind going a mile a minute she stepped into the staff bathroom to use it and run a cold, wet paper towel across the back of her neck to help calm her down. When she got worked up she got hot and needed to be brought down before it spiraled. It only took five minutes before she felt ready to head back out to the bar, though she wasn’t completely herself as she went.

A large part of her wanted to go back and yell at Hyungwon and then have a heart to heart, but she willed herself to keep moving forward.

However, when she reached the end of the hall she wished she’d done that. People seated at the bar had left and moved elsewhere, which made it easy for her to spot Johnny nursing a glass of water. He looked ready to drink it, but something else had his attention. Someone else.

Yoongi was standing directly in front of him, body bent over so that his arms rested on the bar between them. He wore a wide smile and reached over to poke Johnny’s cheek as they laughed together.

They were so close to each other and so comfortable, that it was almost romantic. Then with bated breath YN watched as Johnny ran his hand through his hair and winked at Yoongi, something he only ever did when he was flirting. A quirk that she’d pointed out to him once that he’d never noticed he did. But that wasn’t what made her stomach churn, it was the light blush that coated Yoongi’s cheeks as he punched Johnny’s arm.

Both men were flirting with each other and by their expressions it was far from the playful kind they’d done once when some girl kept hitting on Yoongi and wouldn’t understand no until Johnny stepped in as his “boyfriend.” Oh no, their flirting was real and natural.

And YN didn’t know which one it hurt more seeing do it.

At least once a month there was an event held at the bar and so YN wouldn’t open it to the general public. And by some miracle one fell on a Sunday and was during midafternoon, which meant she didn’t have work the next day and they wouldn’t be open late into the night. Both things were something she needed after over a week of feeling at her lowest.

The down feeling wasn’t new by any means, but it didn’t make it easier. Nor did her avoidance of Johnny, who usually knew the right things to say to get her out of a funk.

It was a consequence of her avoiding her roommate.

After she’d seen his interactions with Yoongi at the club she’d gotten over things pretty quickly, but they didn’t stop there. Though both males had talked before their communication ramped up. They were texting often and sometimes even video chatting. Along with that came an increase of them hanging out. On one free day YN had swung by to bring Johnny food at his shop, but when she appeared Yoongi was already there and they were eating. Of course, they invited her to join and she did, but it hadn’t been fun for her. Which was how she described all her hang outs with them. It was the constant third wheel kind of feeling and seeing as she had no time to adjust to her realization of feelings for both of them, she definitely didn’t have time to adjust to them possibly getting together.

All of it was too much at once and only aided along the low she felt. Which meant she turned to avoiding them when she could. Some things were changing for the club and that meant she had a built-in excuse to be busy. That coupled with her clearly being down meant that they left her be when she said she wanted to venture out alone or with other friends. And they definitely didn’t stop her if she just said she wanted to lay in bed all day and be left alone. She’d ensured that she did it a normal amount so not to alarm them and it worked for her.

Well, only worked in the matters of not being forced to third wheel. Though the times they hung out in the apartment while she locked herself in her room didn’t do much for her whole, dealing with feelings plan.

Not that she dealt with them well when not around them.

However, the day of the event she saw the light at the end of the tunnel for her funk. YN woke up feeling on top of the world and everything ran so smoothly from then on. They’d set up, received the guests, and kept the event running without incident. Minus the very drunk man who got weirdly passionate about telling the story about how the wine he was drinking was made and then proceeded to spill it.

Hell, even seeing how Hyungwon and his boyfriend mingled without issue brought her some sort of joy. And that joy was how her brain drowned out the voice that told her that Hyungwon’s boyfriend seemed familiar and not in the good way. Something that would have persisted if not for Johnny having approached her.

“Isn’t that the guy who showed up to that weeklong dating event with a different person each time?” he asked YN.

That was all it took for her brain to kick into gear and her head whipped over to look where Hyungwon stood with him. It took a single second to see his face and then recall all the times he’d come in with people and sometimes left with someone else. Or at the very least flirted with others, slipping people, including YN, his number while his date was preoccupied. He’d made her uncomfortable.

Those things weren’t cool and alone were enough to alarm YN, but that wasn’t the issue she found herself focused on when she stared him down. No, the problem was that when Hyungwon had appeared at the bar and introduced his boyfriend he’d spoken of how they’d been together for almost two years. That series of events had happened only two months before he became her co-owner. Meaning the man was a worse cheater than she’d thought he was.

“Oh, fuck me,” she groaned.

“Yeah,” Johnny said.

Though YN avoided eye contact with him most days the tone of his voice made her finally meet his gaze and it wasn’t comforting. In fact, he appeared a bit uncomfortable and unsure of how to react to the situation. She thought it was because of what happened, but then she glanced down to his hand and saw a business card in it. It showed Hyungwon’s boyfriend’s name and work info, but with a quick flip YN saw another number scribbled on back along with something about calling for a good time.

The man held no shame. Hitting on people with his longtime boyfriend present and the photographer of the event no less. Someone they’d hired to work it and would report back to them for how everything went. Truly the worst possible person because despite the possibility of lack of moral compass, the odds weren’t that great that he wouldn’t tell the person who hired him what transpired with their boyfriend.

A headache from it all was an understatement for what YN felt about it. But she knew what she had to do despite it all.

“Just…” she trailed off, taking the card from him and slipping it in her pocket. “Just don’t talk to him about it. I’ll bring it up when we wrap up for the night. It’s better I do it.”

“Are you sure?”

She wasn’t but nodded anyway.

Johnny didn’t believe her, but when she shooed him away to continue taking the photos he went without much hesitation.

From there she just worked to get through the last two hours of the event. She kept the bar going and even took a turn as a waitress when things got a little hectic since she hadn’t thought she’d need many staff on hand for something not that big.

Naturally, she hoped that it all was enough to keep her mind preoccupied, but that wasn’t the case. Any time she wasn’t focused, even for a second, her brain thought about it. And it was worse whenever she glanced up to see the both of them together as if one of them wasn’t a horrible human being. So much of her hated the idea of Hyungwon being hurt like that, even with their own past. No one deserved that. Plus, they’d made a lot of progress since he’d made that apology and YN had started to feel good around him. Like she actively wanted to be there. They’d even eaten lunch together a few times.

By the time everyone had cleared out and the staff was almost ready to go she snapped out of her own thoughts of dread to pull Hyungwon to the side. She said something about something she needed him to look over before he left for the night and he followed her to the office without hesitation. Which was good for her nerves, but not enough to quail the new set of anxiety that hit when his boyfriend said he’d wait and sat down at one of the tables. She would’ve preferred if he’d not been there to be confronted in her presence, but she didn’t have the luxury, so she pushed through.

When they entered the office she took a deep breath and turned to face Hyungwon, who appeared a bit startled and she assumed her expression aptly portrayed the discomfort and nerves she felt.

“I could prolong this because that’s totally what I want to do, because this makes me extremely uncomfortable, but I feel like you need to know. Your boyfriend has been here before. And not like just a random patron, but a person coming here on dates with people. Even attended a few events with a date in the last three months or so. And for the most part they’re always different people. And to make matters worse he’s always flirting with someone else when his date is away or even right in front of them. He’s hit on multiple staff members before, including me. Also, he slipped Johnny his card, with his personal number and a… flirtatious message on it.”

YN spoke so quickly she wasn’t sure he understood her, so the frown that appeared on his lips was what she used to indicate she could continue going. She reached into her pocket and pulled out the card, but before she could hold it up for him to see or hand it to him his hand was on her wrist.

Startled, she looked up to see the frown had left his face and he’d gone for a much more neutral expression, though his eyes held fire behind them. It almost made her flinch.

Hyungwon scoffed. “I didn’t think you’d stoop to this. He’d never even heard of this bar before I told him I was going to become a co-owner nor would he have the time to do that. Also, what could possibly be the problem with coming here with other people if he did. He can bring friends to events or out for a night of partying. My goodness YN why would you even try to spew such false info-”

Before he could finish, YN put a hand over his mouth. That confused him but didn’t stop the way he looked at her. And that only made her angrier.

She’d listened to his little rant about how she was wrong and hoped that he would change course. Hoped that the way his tone wavered every now and then was indication of him not believing his own words, but he kept going. If she hadn’t stopped him YN was sure he’d descended into words much less passive in calling her liar and into much more hurtful talk. And with the way she felt she couldn’t endure that. She refused to be hurt by him when all she wanted to do was help.

“I would never make up something like that. And I am not as stupid as to think people hanging out in a bar or doing the bare minimum of hugging is cause to deem them together. Nor would I sit here and make up being uncomfortably flirted with and Johnny getting his number and a not so ‘I want to be friends’ note from him. Something I was just going to show you. But that doesn’t matter to you apparently. Because someone who's been harmed by something as bad as cheating would totally make that up for shits and giggles or for some sort of revenge. Because I of all people who has let much worse slide would do that, right? Don’t believe me, that’s fucking fine. Live your life thinking I’d lie about that or misunderstand. But if you want to pull your head out of your ass you can look at this card, you can look at the files on the computer to see pictures from events, you can check the bar’s website and social media for the pictures too. Hell, go ask Johnny for them. He has more than he gave up and with the way he was making out with most of them I’m sure he has something to show that.”

After that YN didn’t wait for a reply, she simply turned on her heel, grabbed her bag, and stormed out of the room. She went out front so she could tell her manager to finish locking up and tell Johnny she wanted to leave, but when she got out there she saw something that made her feel even worse.

Johnny and Yoongi were standing across from each other at the bar laughing and being all touchy. It wasn’t the worst thing ever, but then they leaned in close enough that they looked ready to kiss until Yoongi happened to notice YN and turned to look at her. His smile dropped and he stepped away, moving to get from behind the bar but she didn’t stay put.

YN all but sprinted out of the building with three voices calling out to her. And she didn’t stop until she was in a taxi, sobbing and asking to be taken to some bar that was far away from her own business and home so they wouldn’t stumble upon her.

From then on time moved in a way that she couldn’t comprehend. She reached the bar and immediately muted her ringer to avoid calls or texts. And once inside she greeted the bartender she was familiar with and asked for a drink. Something she did until she was so drunk that she just barely was cognizant of what was happening around her. Of course, she wanted more, but she needed to be responsible despite all the things that had crumbled right in front of her.

“I called you a taxi, it’s out front. Go home YN,” JB, the bartender, said.

Though part of her wanted to say no she simply nodded, paid, and headed out to the taxi that waited for her. She managed to walk normally until she reached the taxi where she stumbled a bit and had to be helped inside. Once she and her driver were in their seats she slurred her words and told him her address. He grunted and they were off.

The whole drive her brain kept trying to figure out how’d she’d deal with Johnny when she got home or Yoongi when she had to work. Her brain was so hazy that she couldn’t form full ideas for Johnny, but decided she’d just have someone else take her shifts with Yoongi. That answer made her so proud that she smiled and patted herself on the back.

However, the back patting stopped when the driver stopped and she got out, only to realize he’d dropped her a few blocks from her apartment. He’d driven off by then and she felt slightly more sober, so she started her trek home. There was some tripping over her own feet and stopping when her vision blurred but she did okay.

Ten minutes in though she felt her stomach drop as she heard a voice.

“YN? Got damnit, YN where have you been?” Yoongi called out.

Though she heard him clear as day she continued walking without even a glance backwards. She even put a pep in her step, though that was less about avoiding him and more about being miffed about the use of her full first name.

“YN, could you stop,” he said.

She continued ignoring him. Even when she stopped to put in the code to her building, when she stopped to wait for the elevator, and when both of them stood in the small space together. Yoongi was displeased, but he didn’t force anything simply followed behind her.

He tried to speak again once they entered the apartment, but he wasn’t the only one.

“Can you just answer m....”

“Where the fuck have you been? I’ve been calli...” Johnny started

Regardless of their concerns she continued to ignore them both, even tuning out what they had to say as she kicked off her shoes and deposited her bag on one of the hooks near the door. The plan was to walk past them and into her room where she would pass out, but as she made her first step she tripped over a box that she hadn’t seen.

Thankfully, they caught her and got her standing and steady. She muttered a quick thank you and then looked at what had been her undoing, only to see a box she’d asked Johnny to move multiple times.

That surely brought up some anger as her head whipped up so she could glare at him.

“Why can’t you just listen to what I say? Or better yet understand that there is an issue? That all signs point to a fucking problem if you do something like that? Why? I’ve almost hurt myself like ten times already and you have yet to move it!”

Johnny’s own anger subsided a little and he appeared sheepish for a second, mumbling an apology and moving the box out of the way. He turned to her after, but she didn’t want to hear whatever he had to say or talk about, so she attempted to storm off to her room as planned. Attempting was key in that, because the moment the foot that hit the box touched down on its own she cried out in pain.

“Fuck,” Johnny said as he caught her and held her up.

“Stupid fucking box!” she screamed.

“Oh, fuck. What can we do? How can we help?” a panicked Yoongi asked.

YN cursed a few more times as the throbbing settled in.

“Just take me to my room. I just want to sleep and not deal with this shit.”

Both men nodded and helped her to her room, carefully placing her down on the bed. From there she slipped off her jeans - she had leggings on underneath - and shrugged off her heavy sweater so she only had her sports bra on. After she got comfortable in the bed, using a pillow to put under her throbbing ankle and threw a bonnet over her hair, thankful to be wearing it braided.

As she got comfortable and prepared to sleep she realized that neither of them had left and when she prepared to tell them to both men crawled into the bed with her, getting on either side.

“What are you do-”

She wasn’t allowed to finish though because Johnny cut her off.

“Can we just stay? We know we stressed you out in the last few minutes and we feel like shit. It would make us feel better and if you say no, we’ll just sit on the floor or outside your door.”

Yoongi nodded. “We’d just feel better closer.”

Though she opened her mouth to argue she found that with the pain in her ankle and the alcohol wearing off she was too tired for it. So, she said nothing and closed her eyes, wrapping her arms around herself and laying completely still until she fell asleep.

Or mostly fell asleep. With the two of them in her bed so close and radiating so much body heat she found it hard to slip completely. Not that either of them could tell that she wasn't asleep.

"It has to be more than the Hyungwon situation. I think I know what it is and that means we need to tell her soon,” Yoongi whispered.

"Wait. What? We have everything set for a week. Can it not wait?"

"Have you seen how she's been acting lately? She's pulling away from both of us and a week gives her more time to put more distance. We won't have a chance to come clean by then or even get a proper conversation in about it. She'll just think it's pity or not feel enough to care."

"Okay, tomorrow then?"

"Yeah, it's an off day and she's ahead of all her work, so even if she goes in it'll be fine."

Silence followed that and then soft snores.

Their words confused her, but she also felt her stomach drop as she imagined them saying they were together or any other thing that would make her distressed. Her mind couldn’t stop thinking of possibilities and she finally knocked out as a way to avoid the overthinking.

When she woke up it was around three in the morning and it was because she was overheated. Confusion filled YN as she couldn’t figure out the problem, only to open her eyes and see both men cuddled into her from either side. Everything came rushing back to her at once, but she was still tired enough that she prepared to ignore it and go back to sleep.

Until she noticed their hands intertwined over her body. Nausea hit fast and before she knew it, she slipped from the bed and exited the room. It was the only time she was happy that either of them were heavy sleepers.

She limped from her room and went to Johnny’s. She created a similar set up for her ankle and pushing down all negative thoughts she cuddled into one of his plushies and went to sleep. Though not nearly fast enough to stop the tears.

The day after chaos reigned, YN woke up surprisingly early but didn’t dare leave Johnny’s bed. She waited in the dark in silence until she heard Yoongi leave and then slipped into her room as Johnny was in the kitchen making coffee. She’d barely made it in without him catching her, but once she was inside and the door was locked, him knowing didn’t matter.

From then on she tried not to think about anything that occurred and just got undressed and into the shower. The focus was on getting clean and hoping that that hot water would help along her still sore ankle; resting it through the night had been enough to keep it from getting too bad and it hadn’t swollen.

After she was cleaned she made quick work of getting dressed and taking down her hair, allowing her twist out to take full form. It needed a little sprucing up and then she was done. Ready to tackle the day.

Though she didn’t know how.

Every few seconds her brain focused on the sounds of Johnny moving around the apartment. Mostly because he wasn’t in his room, but out in the living room near her door which meant that he awaited her exit. She hoped that he would leave and she would have an opening to slip out and avoid him a little longer, but she knew he was stubborn and didn’t have to work that day so he had all the time in the world.

Since grabbing her stuff and escaping wasn’t a perfect plan she was forced to sit on her bed and think out other ones. There was the obvious choice of talking to him, but with all that went on her head she didn’t want that. Plus, she wanted to be a punk for a while and not deal with whatever it was him and Yoongi planned to tell her. That left things like stay in her room all day, exit via the fire escape and come through the front to grab her bag and shoes, or just go out of her door and walk past him. Staying in her room would drive her up the wall and the fire escape on the building was not the best and she’d have to jump a foot or two to get off it, something that would agitate her ankle.

That meant that she had to walk past him, which meant she needed an excuse. She sat there thinking for a while until she remembered something important she’d put off and planned to do after the event. Something that was important to keep her business running and that she told Johnny about.

It was perfect.

So, after taking a deep breath she stood from her bed and exited her room with some faux confidence and a whole lot of fake indifference.

The moment she was in sight Johnny stopped his movement. He looked ready to move closer to her but seemed to think better of it. Something she was thankful for since she didn’t know if she could get away from him if he was close enough to stop her. He wouldn’t hurt her and would let her go if she asked but being stopped messed with the whole flow of things for her.

YN didn’t linger too long on what he was doing and just walked to the front door and slipped on her shoes. She then grabbed her bag and made sure her wallet and phone were there before her hand touched the door to open it.

And that’s when Johnny spoke up.

“Do you want to talk about what happened? I feel like we should talk about it. Among other things,” he said.

For a second that made YN freeze, but she recovered rather quickly. Maintaining her “indifference” she turned to look at his face for the first time since she walked out and shrugged.

“Maybe later. Don’t really feel like dealing with anything besides spreadsheets and those tax forms I need to get out by tonight,” she said.

Though Johnny still appeared prepared to push he seemed to resign himself when she said tax forms. As an owner of his own business he knew that was important and it took her awhile to get everything ready for her accountant. Which meant he simply collapsed onto the couch and nodded.

With that small victory YN opened the door and walked out. Part of her said she should at least say bye or when she’d be back, but she knew talking to him longer would’ve made it harder for her. She’d nearly cracked when she saw the worry and sadness etched into his face.

Time is what she needed.

No one foresaw five days of it to go by though. Not even YN.

After she’d bypassed Johnny she’d genuinely ended up too busy to have the energy for any sort of conversation. Mountains of paperwork hit and there were issues left and right. Even when she was in Johnny, Yoongi, or Hyungwon’s presence it was so work related that they didn’t even attempt to talk about anything else or ask her to speak later.

Even at home she was left alone, especially because she’d fallen asleep while responding to Johnny about what to order for dinner one night.

Friday night was when things slowed down and she took her usual shift bartending. It was a packed night because they were handling an event that they themselves were running to get more business. Which meant that most of the staff worked, as well as Hyungwon and Johnny who was hired to take pictures to go up on social media and their website.

It put YN right in the middle of all of them and it was uncomfortable, but she kept strong. Well, she committed to giving them the silent treatment unless it was about work. And it worked out pretty well for her, she managed to get through most of her shift without giving into any attempts to talk or pull her to the side.

The non-plan gave way for reasons she couldn't foresee though.

While she left to the backroom to grab more tequila she was trailed by Hyungwon, who’d tried to get her alone the moment she’d come to work that day. He was begging for a moment of her time even as they made their way back towards the bar, but she held strong. Something she regretted the moment she passed the bottles to Yoongi so he could prep drinks and then turned to see someone she didn’t want to.

Her ex, Jisoo, stood right in front of her bar with a few friend’s laughing it up. None of them noticed her for the first several seconds, which she was thankful for, but it didn’t last long enough for her to fully pull herself together. When Jisoo turned to request a drink he was met with a clearly shocked YN.

Jisoo appeared surprised as well, but he pushed that aside to smirk at her with a quickness.

“YN, I didn’t know you worked here. I just got back into the country and this was the first place my friends recommended. Small world. Oh, Hyungwon… what a surprise to see you here too,” Jisoo said.

That snapped YN out of it and she turned to see Hyungwon glaring at the male, his hand in a fist as he stared him down. For a moment she was reminded of the past as she looked at him. The pain rose up for a second and she felt sick having them in the same place, but she pushed it down. Despite their falling out they’d done well since reconnecting and she was mostly past it all, even close to asking him to hang out like a friend. Allowing a piece of shit ruin that wasn’t okay.

Never again would she allow Jisoo to ruin things for her.

With that spark of anger and confidence she turned to stare down Jisoo herself. She noticed Yoongi closer than before and Johnny standing behind the little group ready to pounce, but she waved them off. YN needed it to be her who went off.

“I own this bar and Hyungwon here is my co-owner, so naturally we would be here,” she said.

For a second Jisoo was knocked off his game, but it wasn’t long before he bounced back. He was like Hyungwon that way and YN hated it.

“Oh? I thought you two were no longer on speaking terms?” he said.

“Well, clearly what you thought was wrong,” Hyungwon chimed in.

Hyungwon’s words elicited a laugh from Jisoo for some reason and it made YN uneasy, but she held her ground. No matter what he threw she knew she could take it. There was no way she’d allow him to see her hurt or crying.

Jisoo shrugged. “I guess so. You’re still with Ji-ah though, right YN? Last I heard you and her hit it off.”

That was the thing to force a humorless laugh from her lips. Only Jisoo would mention her other ex whom he knew she’d broken up with a while ago when she’d moved to take a job at a company out of the country. A company that Jisoo worked at, at that.

Of course, he had to be a trash human in more aspects than one.

“No, but you know that. Since you hit on her, took her on a few dates, slept with her and then told her how you knew me. That's why you asked her out in the first place. You remember that, right? Oh, and you have to remember how she told your job that and so they demoted you, plus moved you to a different branch,” YN said.

And at last the smirk left his face. While pleased by that, YN didn’t ignore the way he tensed and the anger that covered every inch of his expression.

“I feel like you’re the one who should remember. Like remember how you cried when you saw us together. The hurt on your face as I kissed hi-”

Before he could speak anymore Hyungwon almost punched him in the face. If it wasn’t for YN hip checking him and thus making him stumble he would’ve made impact on Jisoo’s right cheek.

Once Hyungwon was settled and being held back by a staff member YN’s attention focused solely on Jisoo.

“I don’t want you or your friend’s here. Ever. So, I’m going to ask you to leave. There will be no argument. No putting up a fight. No asking to be given another chance. You will leave and never return, am I understood?” she said calmly.

Naturally, Jisoo opened his mouth to reply but YN cut him off by whistling. Within seconds two security guards were at the bar and Jisoo’s friends dragged him towards the exit. It was clear that he wanted to say or do something, but he left without much issue and after that YN could breathe.

However, breathing meant that it all came crashing down on her and the next thing she knew she ran to the office with tears streaming down her face.

The intention was to get in there alone and ride out whatever wave of emotion hit until she could pull it together and go back to work like nothing happened. Of course, that meant that the first part didn’t happen.

Hyungwon had followed behind her and slipped in before she could fully close the door. Though it bothered a part of her she didn’t have it in her to say anything or react. She did have the energy to cry harder though, her attempt at silent tears only lasting seconds before sobs wracked her body.

In her head all she could think about is what happened all those years ago. Except the pain she felt was amplified. YN knew it wasn’t because of that or at least the feeling wasn’t solely because of that. No, because after reliving that in her head her brain brought up every other failed relationship and honestly all the failures in her life. It didn’t stop playing the flashbacks until it reached the more recent things to fuck up her life plans and the uncertain romantic feelings she had to endure.

It was all too much, especially when it came at her all at once.

She ended up so in her own head that she didn’t feel Hyungwon pull her into his arms and hold her close. Didn’t hear the apologies and words of reassurance. Didn’t hear the curses about her ex. Didn’t even feel when he moved them from standing to sitting in a chair, her on his lap with her face in his neck.

And time passed so swiftly that she couldn’t tell how long they’d been like that once she’d come back to. But it didn’t matter because it heightened her embarrassment of what had occurred and she attempted to escape him, only to be held in place by bony fingers.

Once she stopped fighting Hyungwon removed one of his hands and used it to lift her chin, forcing her to look at him.

“Your crying is valid and don’t you dare think otherwise. None of that embarrassed or frustrated bullshit because you deserve to be able to release all that,” Hyungwon said.

Even after years apart he still knew her reactions to being overwhelmed through and through, and in that moment she was eternally grateful.

With a nod from her he didn’t stop there.

“That was unexpected and I’m sorry he was here. I forgot how horrible he could be and then he’s just gotten worse over time. You’d think someone would stop playing those games and trying to mess with people’s mental and emotional stability, but alas here he is. I think his company was planning to do an event here, I’ll tell them we’re canceling it and that he’s the reason. Might even throw in some security footage for good measure.”

YN opened her mouth to object, but Hyungwon gave her a look that shut her up.

“Besides that, and I know this is a horrible time, I want to apologize. The way I acted a week ago was uncalled for. When you said it, I believed you I really did. It was just something that wanted to deny that he would. Not necessarily for my own feelings, though they did come into play. But also, because he’s the one who came to me. I had no interest in him whatsoever, but he was persistent in a way that wasn’t creepy and I thought who would work that hard to just throw it away. Especially when they’d been the one to bring up the subject of marriage recently.

“So, I went on the defense and instead of just checking what you had to say or denying it and moving on I went to the worst possible conclusion. Said things I didn’t believe even as they left my mouth. And thus, for the second time since meeting you hurt you in a way that wasn’t okay in the slightest. And I understand that you may not want to work towards friendship. I like to think we were close to getting back or wanting to deal with me. I just want to apologize because you deserve one and I know I was in the wrong.”

What neither of them expected, least of all YN, was her to start crying again. Her head dropped onto his shoulder and she felt her body shake again as she let it out. Though she could tell he was confused by the way his body tensed, he didn’t say anything and simply rubbed her back gently as she cried it out.

About five minutes later YN spoke.

“You’re a fucking idiot and an asshole.”

Hyungwon laughed. “True. But you know what happened when you tried to get me to be nicer for that month. If we’re being honest you made me worse.”

YN laughed that time, remembering how Hyungwon spent every day being closely watched by her as he tried to not be snarky with people. By the end he’d given up and snapped on some annoying man that wouldn’t leave them be and she was sure she saw tears in his eyes as he ran away from the fuming Hyungwon.

He mellowed out after that, but when someone truly tried him he was a lot more than he used to be. YN marked that as a major fail and stuck to keeping him calm when he rightfully deserved to put someone in their place, which was oddly often at their school.

“Yeah, a mistake on my part. But at least I got you to start counting to ten before you unleashed yourself.”

“Ah yes, what a great help that is. Ten seconds longer of dealing with the idiots.”

They both laughed that time and when they pulled it together they talked. About everything in detail. Nothing was left off the table and by the end YN felt less weight on her shoulders.

By the time they were done about an hour and a half had gone by, meaning they’d been back in the room for over two hours and the bar was shutting down.

“I guess I should go help since I flaked on my shit at the end,” YN said as she got up from Hyungwon’s lap.

At first he nodded and got up too seemingly ready to follow her and the next he was giving her a look and grasping at her wrist.

“What?” she asked, confused.

“You need to talk to them.”

A groan escaped her immediately and her head tilted back as she blew out a puff of air.

“Nope. None of that. Talk to them. Tonight. And don’t be a stubborn brat and not let them finish what they have to say. I’m sure it would clear up a lot of things for her,” Hyungwon said.

There was no use in arguing because he would win and she knew he was right, even if she didn’t want to admit that to herself.

“Fine.”

And that was all it took for him to release her and take the lead on exiting the office. However, YN didn’t get the chance to leave right behind him. The moment Hyungwon was out, both Johnny and Yoongi stumbled in forcing her to take several steps back.

They both appeared nervous and disheveled, which helped calm YN for some reason. Though it didn’t get rid of all the feelings like she would’ve preferred.

“We need to talk. Now. We can’t keep putting it off,” Johnny blurted out.

If YN didn’t know how frazzled he got under pressure she’d be shocked by his actions, much like Yoongi who stared the man down eyes wide, but she’d known Johnny long enough to expect that kind of thing. What she was shocked about is how he didn’t dive into explaining right then and there.

Once she was sure he was done talking and that Yoongi had nothing to say she took over.

“We do need to talk. But it would be better not here. So, after we close up and at the apartment, yeah?”

That appeared to shock Yoongi more and Johnny too. They both probably assumed she’d be resistant or straight up tell them no. Things she debated on for half a second but couldn’t go through with.

“Okay,” they both said.

With that YN patted both of them on the shoulder and headed out to help.

About an hour after that everyone was done and headed out of the door. They said their goodbyes with the staff - and Hyungwon who hugged her while threatening what would happen if she didn’t give either man a chance to talk - then they got in a taxi to go back to the apartment.

Silence prevailed, which made YN awkward since she was sandwiched between them in the back seat, but she didn’t let it take over her. At least not too much. She held strong despite it and managed to make it out of the car and into the apartment without thinking of making a run for it.

The same couldn’t be said for either of the men though. YN hadn’t faced them until she was rid of her jacket and shoes and sat on the love seat, but the moment she did they froze. For a second they stared at each other both expressions unsure, but then they seemed to come to a consensus and finally fully entered the apartment, taking a seat on the couch.

Again, they were immersed in silence, but that only made things more tense.

“Go ahead,” she said.

Thankfully, they didn’t take long to react to that.

“We,” Yoongi started, pausing to look at Johnny before continuing. “We know we’ve done a horrible job at making things clear to you. We’ve been a little secretive and haven’t made the most effort in ensuring you were okay when we saw that something was off. It was a major fuck up on our part, one that could’ve prevented if I hadn’t been so stuck on keeping a certain timeline on how we should talk to you about this. And I’m starting to ramble when it was agreed upon that I would tell you so we could get straight to the point. And oh my fucking goodness, will I stop it already. Okay, basically we both want to date you.”

YN felt her entire body tense as confusion filled her.

“Excuse me?” she said.

That went unheard though.

“That’s not how we agreed you’d say it,” Johnny whined.

Yoongi scoffed. “It is. Well, not exactly but all the words I used were in the agreed upon statement.”

“Maybe, but you could have at least tried to eas-”

“Excuse me!” YN shouted.

That stopped Johnny and got both their attention.

“You don’t get to drop a bomb like that and then not elaborate. Especially to a very confused person whose last week has been trash. Explain yourselves.”

There was another silent moment of them staring at each other and then Yoongi gestured for Johnny to go ahead. Johnny rolled his eyes but turned his full attention to YN before speaking.

“What Yoongi said was true, we do both want to date you. But before you start to spiral and come up with your own conclusions let me fill in a few things. We’ve both known Yoongi for over a year now, you more than me. And he and I have always clicked despite how worried you were that he would slap me upside the head for being too friendly and getting in his space. It’s an easy kinda friendship we’ve had going, but then that day at the bar a few months ago we really clicked. I know we’ve been obvious about the attraction and it’s only built over time.

“The thing is we soon realized that both of us also feel something for you. Those feelings are from before we ever looked at each other that way and despite the growing feelings between us it was still there. Yoongi just about lost his shit when he realized and was very confused. And well, you know that most of my relationships have been poly, so it was nothing new for me. Though still kinda surprising because I thought I’d continue to live my life not acting on feelings for you I’ve felt for years.”

“I’m sorry what?” YN practically screamed.

The interruption earned her a glare which quieted her despite wanting an answer.

“As I was saying. I was planning to not act on them, but then suddenly someone else who I liked felt the same way for you as I did and it felt like a chance. That plus Hyungwon telling me I was an idiot for not realizing the crush you had on me before you got with dickwad back in college after he overheard me talking to Yoongi. But either way everything aligned and after I got Yoongi to accept that this was a viable option we started doing those group hangouts. To us they were test dates, but then we… well we…”

“We realized that we weren’t including you as much as we thought and could tell how third wheeling it felt,” Yoongi said.

Johnny nodded. “Yes, that. We failed to factor in as people who know each other, but don’t know each other and who are using those outings as dates we’d get caught up in each other. Which we realized but didn’t realize how bad until yet again Hyungwon overheard us. Told us we were idiots, because it was clear that you felt something for both of us and yet we were both going around acting like a couple in early days while dragging their friend who didn’t know we liked them around. And then we decided to fix things, but then the falling out with Hyungwon happened and nothing worked so we were unsure of what to do next besides maybe cornering you. So, yeah.”

With the way Johnny so abruptly ended that YN was left unsure of how to proceed. What had been said was a lot to take in. Not because it was wild or out of her comfort zone, but because despite feelings she’d had no time to process her own. She knew how she felt about them both, but she’d never allowed herself to linger on it too long to address how to handle things. And when she found herself finally admitting it things went to shit and she thought the only people she’d been interested in in years were on their way to dating each other without her ever having a real chance of seeing if either of them felt the same way.

Since YN hadn’t gotten that out of the way she definitely had no time to factor in any poly relationship. Like Johnny said she did know he was into it, but Yoongi wasn’t someone she knew well enough to know if he was down for that. He didn’t judge it, but not caring about how people lived their lives and actively participating were two different things.

Just the thought of having that conversation with him made her nervous despite it being more of what he would have done in the past and not in her present since she’d heard that he’d agreed with it. At least that’s what she thought they said. Her brain was frazzled.

“Hold on,” she finally said after minutes of silence. “So, I’m clear. You both want to date me and each other? You just failed to realize that you should’ve gotten to know each other better and go on dates alone, before trying to test out a poly relationship with me without my knowledge?”

“Yes,” Yoongi said while Johnny nodded.

Without warning pillows from the loveseat were in YN’s hands, she was standing, and said pillows were making contact with each male’s body.

“You. Two. Are. Fuckin. Idiots. How. Could. You. Not. Think. That. Through? What. Happened. To. Being. So. Got. Damn. Smart. Huh?”

Each word was spoken in time with the pillows swinging down on them. And though they squirmed they didn’t try to dodge or take them away from her. They let her keep going until she was satisfied.

Upon her clearly giving up her attack they both reach out and pull her down onto the couch so her body stretched out across them.

“Yes, we’re idiots. And we’re sorry about not thinking things through and telling you. But we’re idiots who are smitten with you and would like a chance to date you,” Johnny said, his hand moved to find the spot at the back of her head that she enjoyed being scratched. She didn’t even care that he was messing up her hair a little, just relaxed into the feeling.

“Ditto,” Yoongi said.

That drew glares from Johnny and YN, which he responded to by throwing his hands in the air in surrender.

“We are really sorry. And if you could let us date you, it would make me very happy,” he said.

His second response sated both of them and they relaxed back into their little moment. And as time ticked by they all grew more comfortable. There was more to talk about, but they cleared the space and it was clear they were all relieved. YN most of all.

Though she tried not to show it, YN felt giddy and wanted to giggle as she watched them both interact with each other and her. So much so that it slipped out when they both leaned over to press kisses to her cheeks. It seemed to amuse them, but she was so embarrassed she slipped away to change and scolded herself for the behavior. Not that she didn’t do it again when her mind replayed what happened.

They spent the rest of the night watching TV and eating food they’d ordered. It was peaceful and comfortable, so much so that they almost fell asleep on the couch.

Two in the morning rolled around before they all dragged feet to climb in Johnny’s bed and knock out. YN wanted to sleep on the outside of the bed, but ended up sandwiched between the both of them, not that she complained about it.

Once they were all comfortable they said their good nights and tried to sleep, but one adjustment by Johnny against her ass had YN slapping his arm.

“You cannot possibly be hard right now,” she whined.

Johnny pressed closer after that, grinding his dick against her ass more.

“You can’t possibly be calling me out on it right now as if it hasn’t happened before,” he mumbled.

“And both of you can’t possibly be having this conversation while I try to sleep. Go to bed before the next thing you’re both complaining about is how bruised and sore your asses are,” Yoongi chimed in.

Though it was meant as a means to shut them up all it did was elicit whimpers from both of them at the thought. That’s when Yoongi sat up and stared down at them and even in the dark they could see the smirk.

“Oh, you like that do you?”

They both nodded eagerly.

“Then strip.”

Neither of them had ever moved so fast in their lives and it was beyond worth it. Complaining was kept to a minimum the next day, but only because Yoongi took very good care of his babies and made sure to kiss their booboos all better.

#dramavers #bangtanhq #kwritersworldnet #heartsforbts #btswritingcafe #johnny x reader #yoongi x reader #johnny angst #yoongi angst #johnny fluff #yoongi fluff #johnny suh x reader #min yoongi x reader #suh youngho x reader #seo youngho x reader #suga x reader #johnny fanfic #yoongi fanfic #nct fanfic #nct fan fiction #bts fanfic #bts fanfiction #kpop fanfic #kpop fanfiction #fanfic #fan fiction #yoongi x black reader #johnny suh x black reader #yoongi x poc reader

[shorkbrian]

ASKS

Hello again, asks are compiled under the cut. Please block the tag #shorkbrian answers a lot of asks# If you’d prefer not to see these types of posts from me. If I haven’t answered your ask, it’s because I’m saving it for a thirst, drabble, or fic.

I don’t ignore asks, but sometimes getting around to them overwhelms me lol. pls accept my apologies lol k here we go

I am very glad, I legit was so scared that it was too long and that it’d be disappointing bc the smut wasn’t super IN YOUR FACE yknow? But man am I glad to hear that.

I’m looking directly @ you

Someone noticed omg!!!  A lot of times I just put whatever song I played on repeat while writing that fit, but I have a *yandere* playlist that I listen to and it gets me going. Ty for noticing!!!

I’ve considered opening them permanently but I just... idek. I’d have to start deleting or ignoring the requests I don’t vibe with and Idk how to handle that lol. But thanks for the well wishes, hope your next few months treat you well friend!

Watermelon sugar why

Srsly you’re sweet but just wait until I start to really get going with all my nasty kinks okay, then you’ll be rethinking this strategy hunty lol!

I literally stalk @.vermiliren and @.kazooli and @.seita lol. Maybe when I get my blog more cleaned up, I’ll create a list of creators that I enjoy, along with fic recs. For now, here’s a link to my AO3 bookmarks which I read one like almost every single night bc I’m a horny gremlin.

I am the shark king. Sharks are my thing bro u don’t even know. I love them so much, they're dumb and big and beautiful and yeah I wish I was a mermaid who got to swim with them. Also I changed it bc I’m trying to make my blog more *professional* and all that so I can start being taken seriously askjakjdf

Compliments suck, if I'm being down and out honest. This does not bother me at all, I’m just unsure how to respond. I think I would prefer no comments, but I’m trying really really hard to just say “thank you!” and move on before I get uncomfortable. Having to fight with someone about how I perceive my self worth is exhausting, and especially so for the poor person that was just trying to say something nice and be nice to me. 

They do make me quite uncomfortable my dear lad/lassie/lasso. Say what you wish in the tags tho ! I don’t really reply to those, so there’s no pressure on me to have to say something back. I do however, see all the tags ppl use and some of them make me laugh so hard cause they’re so spot on, and it makes my day. like “Mark me down as scared AND horny” and “Bakugou better be able to bench 165 cause imma throw my fatass in his mf lap” and it kills me.

I SCEREAMED AKDHGSYDGASJSD this is the only format I'll be taking asks in now, no compliments just a yes/no answer to if my works help u cum god bless

you used the /gen!!!!! IDK what these are called but the /S and /gen and /J save my life!!!!

Frick you’ve figured me out, I do try to put like a nail-in-the-coffin sentence at the end. A lot of times it never works right, but I cannot for the life of my figure out how to end a single post ever. If anyone knows hmu pls ty

(Also ps I checked out ur blog cause yans are my jam and it is very much Not garbage!!)

That’s very kind of you, but pls don’t stay up past midnight it’s bad for ur Brian you’ll make bad decisions bro trust me all of my stuff is written after midnight

You will lafff..... but I will tell anyways..... I was prescribed a “life coach” after I got out of the hospital, which was really just a poorly disguised softcore “make sure u don’t yeet urself” type of thing. He had me write down things I liked about myself, and when I returned the sheet of paper still blank, he wrote stuff down for me. Like five sentences of “My hair and skin are unique and special” “I like animals and enjoy being kind to them” “I am worthy of respect” etc etc. and I had to look in a mirror twice a day and say those sentences to help “boost my self worth”. It sucked so bad dude, and I like got upset about it every time it came up, until finally my therapist was like “... this aint doin this sad bitch no good” and my parents got designated for yeet watch instead.

I know, logically, that (the majority of) people are not purposefully taking time out of their day to make me feel bad. They're trying to be encouraging and loving, and I appreciate it so much. But like... what do I say? If I say thanks, it’s almost like acknowledging what they're saying as true, and I can’t live with myself thinking I’m more than I am. I’m sorry you’ve had experiences that make compliments difficult for you also, I understand bro and I hope that your future holds healing and peace for you. 

Hopefully I won’t vent as much anymore lol, I’ll try to do that on my sideblog where I reblog really trigger-y memes akjdafhkjf. But thank you for your kind words bro, they’re appreciated and put in a nice lil jar.

Ah dw! This doesn’t sound like a jab. I think all of us r so sad n depressed and feel unworthy of love, so the fantasy of a Yan coming and forcing it on us and not leaving even when we lash out is just..... so attractive my heads gonna explode

me, thinking about kiri at any given moment like:

I have the next Hybrid! Kiri fic like lined up, but I’m so demotivated be I was SO CLOSE to finishing, and then wiped my computer like an IDITO

Waso, I’m taking horseback riding lessons bc my mom went:

and my grandpa told me that one of his horses was named Awaso and I immediately thot of u fun fact. But you’re so very kind, and I enjoy seeing you in my inbox. I’m never tired of u homie. You are loved and important, and it’s not an illusion. Even random strangers on the internet can feel soft towards you bro, and dats me, I’m the random stranger that likes u.

So I took Russian for a year, my dear friend, because I wanted to see if the language myth of “Russian is the hardest, Korean is the easiest” was true. I would say yes. So instead of like translating this and typing out a coherent response, I’ve resorted to google translate I’m so sorry but Виктор мог плюнуть мне в глаз, и я бы поблагодарил его. Also, the way Vitya is written in cryllic makes my heart swell it looks so cozy idek what I mean by that but it does? I treasure you man, hope to see you around in the new year and maybe??? we be good friends

Can any year be good when Kirishima Eijirou doesn’t exist?

cryface;;sad.jpg

I just imagine anyone who comes across my stuff, sitting at their computer shocked and slightly horrified, maybe turned on like

Daddy Aizawa makes me

Wait!! I have something to aid your troubles!!

ur welcome now u can be horny whenever you’d like 

pls every time we talk about Kirishima I have to act surprised like 

LISTEN BBYGORL I have had therapist Suga in the works since *checks notes* November. I am excited for it yeahhhhhh but sadly, I don’t think I will be continuing piano teacher Suga. The story is petered out in my mind, idk where it would go. Therapist sugarbird tho? We have some thots about this. Coming soon to theaters near you

#shorkbrian answers a lot of asks #pls block that tag if you don't want to see these kinds of posts #inbox was getting fulll #tysvm for continuing to support me

[chickensarentcheap]

Sanctuary -Chapter 42

Warnings: none

Tagging: @c-a-v-a-l-r-y​, @alievans007​, @thunderintheshadows​, @innerpaperexpertcloud​, @valkyrie-of-the-light​

Despite the suffocating humidity and sweltering heat, it's a relief to get out of the hotel. She'd spent the last three days confined within the four walls of their room, trying desperately to keep her mind off of not only what happened at McMann's house, but the terrifying consequences that followed. Plagued by incessant worry about the safety and well being of the kids,  waiting on pins and needless for the random and all to brief updates that Ovi would send throughout the day.  And now the torturous minutes and hours before the IRA would get back to them with their decision.  The fates of the McMann kids...and their own...in the hands of the very kind of people that Tyler went into battle against while on the job.  It's a nauseating turn of events; having to put all of your faith and hope into individuals known world wide for the brutal acts.  To trust them to save lives instead of ending them.

Tanis sticks tight to her side. It was the one and only stipulation that she'd had to agree to for a short couple hours of freedom; the other woman could not leave her side, and under no circumstances was she to wander off on her own. Not even if it was only a couple feet away. There was no telling who was a threat now;  with McMann and the Buckmans working together, their reach is incredibly long and they have endless resources and people at their disposal.  If she wanted to get outside and attempt to function as a 'normal' member of society, she had to have protection at all times.  Tanis is pleasant enough;  talkative,  articulate,  educated on a wide variety of subjects that helps keep conversation lively and fresh. Tall and athletically built; broad shoulders and fit, well toned muscles, her blond hair cropped short to her head in a stylish and modern pixie, dazzling green eyes that are constantly taking in the people and the action around them.   She doesn't carry herself with an unabashed cockiness that most Marines do;  her posture is loose instead of rigid,  she smiles often,  she doesn't puff out of her chest in an attempt to intimate anyone that so as much looks in their direction. To the untrained eyed, they'd appear as if they were just two friends out for a day on the town; chatting and laughing, bags of shopping on their arms. But Esme knew the truth. Which the woman is really there.  And she knows that there's gun tucked into a holster on Tanis' right hip, hidden under the baggy white t-shirt she sports. This is a job. Nothing more, nothing less.  Once it's over, they'll each go back to their separate lives. It's the way things have to be; you don't fraternize with the client. All ties cut the moment the job is finished and money has exchanged hands. It's easier that way. No bonds formed, no feelings hurt.

Ovi is an exception to the rule.    He'd needed further protection; he wasn't safe in Mumbai, not with his father in prison, Saju dead, and Asif's associates looking for payback.  And most importantly, he'd needed a chance at a real life. He'd needed to know what it was like to part of a family. To have people that respect and love him. For far too long he'd gone through life being treated like a thing instead of a person, and it had been a difficult adjustment for him. Going from having 'handlers' and paid help to having parent figures and siblings. It had been a struggle for him to adapt; their rules were incredibly lax compared to those that had been placed upon him in Mumbai, but they were still things that were expected of him.  And he'd struggled to go from the rigidly strict to the rather relaxed and casual.  It wasn't just a chance of scenery, but an entirely different change of pace and a way of life.  No private schools, no chauffeurs taking him place to place. He had set curfew but was allowed to have friends; he could go to the mall, take in a movie, hang out a park. He no longer had people hovering over him and dictating his every move. And as much as he'd hated that life...his old life, it had still been hard to not be controlled in such fashion.

It had been good to talk to him that morning. He'd sounded tired, but he was happy. Secured in his ability to keep himself, Chloe and the kids safe. There was no evidence of fear or uncertainty in his voice. The trust that Tyler had placed him had been an enormous ego boost; he was confident, resolved, with no worries about who may be following them or may try to get to the kids. He would handle it. Those were his exact words. Whatever...whoever...came their way, he wasn't the least bit afraid.  A stark change from the slightly immature and self conscious kid that they'd left behind almost two weeks ago.  And it was the first time since Tyler had told her that he'd put Ovi in charge of their kids that she'd felt truly confident in his decision.

“Forgive me for asking this,” Tanis says, as they wander through the main shopping district; sipping smoothies and chatting like old friends. “And I hope I don't come off to personal or sounding rude.”

“I live with five males, I have been asked an obscene amount of personal questions and pretty much heard every possible rude comment under the sun in the past five and a half years,” Esme grins. “I have two four year old's that are obsessed with fart jokes and think the word 'ass' is the funniest thing they've ever heard. Do you know what that's like? That much 'boy' in one house? I mean, my husband has enough testosterone for half the planet, I swear. Never mind adding in his three mini me's and a teenage boy.”

Tanis laughs. “My parents had all girls. I'm the last of five. I thought that was hell to grow up in.”

“Oh don't get me wrong, I would take five girls over one boy any day. My girl has been a walk in the park compared to raising boys. I mean, she's full of attitude and piss and vinegar, but she's been so easy. She picked up everything so quick and she's been always so eager to learn new things. And she's obsessed with cleanliness and tidiness. But the boys? Oh my god. How do they get pee everywhere? Are they not paying attention? Are they waving it around like firehouse? How does it get on the floor, the baseboards and the wall but none in the actual toilet? Ughhh...” she shudders.  “...that's why I won't clean the bathrooms anymore. That's a man's job. So gross.”

“Sounds like there's never a dull moment at your place,” Tanis grins.

“It's a zoo. I'm not even joking. It's mess and it's noise and it's utter chaos. But at the same time, it's awesome. It's our mess and our noise and our chaos. You get used to it. And you miss it when it's gone. This last week and a half has been hell. Not being under the same roof as them. Not being able to hug them and kiss them and tuck them in at night. I complain about the craziness, but I miss it. As weird as that sounds.”

“That doesn't sound weird to me. That sounds pretty normal, actually. This will all be over. This whole nightmare. And we'll get you back home. Where you belong.”

Esme gives a smile of appreciation.  The words have a nice sentiment behind them, but there's still so much that has be done. So much risk involved.  And she tries to push those thoughts out of her mind.  Not wanting to think about what could go wrong, but what will go right. “What did you want to ask me?” she inquires, as she sips at the smoothie in her hand. It's about all she can stomach. If that. Nothing has been staying down despite the anti nausea (and baby safe) medication a local pharmacist had recommended her. It's always been bad; fatigue and all day sickness (never mind just the morning), but it's never been this bad.

“How the hell did you ever wind up with Mark? Because he's a bit of a...”

“Douche canoe?”

“Well I was going to say prick, but douche canoe works too.  I mean, he's my boss and I have to respect while on the clock and in his presence, but what the fuck is his issue? He's a total ass wipe.”

“And this is him being friendly and diplomatic if you can believe that. This is his good and charming side. Wait until you get to meet the rest of him. It's a real treat. To say the least.”

“How did you ever end up with him? You seem so...I don't know...normal...”

Esme laughs. “Don't ever let Tyler hear you say. He can tell you that I am far from normal.”

“Mark is just so...Mark...and you're just so...you.  You're just both so different from one another.  He treats everyone like shit and you seem so welcoming and friendly with people. I find it hard to believe that someone like you would even get mixed up with such a complete and utter tool.”

“He talked a good game when I first met him.  I hadn't been in the Corps for very long. I didn't have much life experience under my belt. And suddenly this older guy showing interest in me. He was mature, charming, he had a very authoritative way about him that was strangely appealing. He was my commanding officer, so there was that whole rush you get when you know you're going against the rules and there will be hell to pay if you get caught.  I was young. Inexperienced. And stupid. So very, very stupid.”

“Is it true he let a stewardess give him a blow job in the plane bathroom on the way back from your honeymoon?”

“Sadly, yes. That's one hundred percent true. I should have just dumped his ass when that happened. Got the marriage annulled. But he swore he'd never do anything like that again and it was just a 'one off' and he got all that kind of behaviour out of his system.  So I believed him. Stupid little naive girl that I was.”

“So it got worse instead of better?”

'Not right away. It got better. And it stayed that way for about eight months and then he just went off the deep end. He'd gotten back from Iraq and was having a hard time with some of the things he saw and heard over there. Which, don't get me wrong. I get.  That shit fucks with your head. There's even things now that still bother me. Images and sounds and smells that come back out of nowhere. But he went right off the reservation.  It's like something inside him snapped and he couldn't hold back his true self any longer.  I should have left right away...the first time he ever hit me...but...” she shrugs.

“People think it's so easy.  That it's as simple as just packing your things and walking out. That it's not. Nothing is ever that simple.”

“You've been through it too?”

Tanis nods. “My ex husband was the exact same. He was a narcissist. And a sociopath. A violent one. I stayed for three years. I lost everything because of him. My friends, my family. They didn't understand why I didn't just walk away. I tried explaining to them that it wasn't that easy, but they didn't get it.”

“People don't if they haven't lived through it themselves,” Esme reasons. “I used to be one of those people. Who used to judge the women for not leaving. Then I became one  of those women. It woke me the hell up right quick, let me tell you.  I put up with his shit for two and a half years.  And in a way, I'm still putting up with that. That crap never leaves you. It stays in the back of your mind. All the horrible things they've said. All the times they've told you that weren't good enough or that no one could ever possibly love you because of how messed up you are, or that someone could never love you the way they do.  You think you've gotten over it, but you haven't. It's always there.”

“And then when you do meet someone and are happy, all those come out and work against you. And you listen to them. And you believe them.”

“Exactly. It's a vicious circle. It's a horrible existence. And it takes someone really strong and really patient to help you deal with all of that.”

“You found that though,” Tanis smile. “Someone like that. You're one of the lucky ones.”

“I have put that man through hell. Or my brain has, I should say. I have snapped and said some horrible, horrible shit to him.  I think about some of the things I've said to him and I want to crawl into a hole and die. Tyler has his issues, don't get me wrong.  He is far from perfect.  But he sure as hell doesn't deserve the things I've said to him. But he sticks around. Shockingly.”

“Because he knows that's not you saying the things you say. He knows it's what you've been through. And he loves you. Anyone can see that. It really burns Mark's ass you know,” Tanis chuckles. “Seeing the two of you together. The one the two of you look at one another.  He can not handle it.”

“That's because he's such a miserable fuck, he expects everyone else to be too.  Can you believe my own mother stayed friends with him? Knowing what he'd put me through? How messed up is that? She loves Mark but hates Tyler because he's the one took me away from my home and forced me stay in Australia and blah blah blah.  That is her sole reasoning for not liking him. Yet Mark is a total sleaze ball who gets off on hitting women and she loves him. “

“She sounds just as messed up as Mark.”

“You think? She's a real piece of work. And now Nik is hooked with him? Of all people that I thought would be smarter than that, it's her. She is far from being a stupid woman. Or a weak one.  Yet she chooses to be with him? Ughhh...” Esme shudders dramatically.  “...if that isn't enough to make me puke, I don't know what is. And believe me, I don't need any extra reasons to puke. Do you have kids?”

“No. But I haven't completely ruled them out. I'm in a good place with my life right now. I've met a pretty good guy. We're taking things slow, but...”

“Zak, right?”

“How'd you...?”

“It's all in the way he looks at you. The way he watches you when you talk. That little smile he has when you walk into the room. It must be a guy thing.  Maybe they're better at expressing it with their faces than they are with their words. Tyler gets so embarrassed if someone brings up 'the look'.  And he tries denying its mere existence, but it's there. Whether he wants to admit it or not. He doesn't like to talk about those things.  But let me just say this, he's not always a hard ass. He's got a soft side to him, and a huge heart. But whatever you do, do not tell him I told you that. He will deny, deny, deny and I'll never hear the end of it.”

“I know Mark's my boss and I should probably watch the things I say out of respect for him, but...”

“No. Speak your mind, girl.  You probably don't have anything to say about him that I haven't said a million times myself.”

“...you really traded up the second time around. Like you went from here...” she holds her hand just below her waist “....to here...” she raises her hand way above her head.  “...and I totally didn't mean that to represent the difference in size, but I guess it's appropriate.  You went from like grade F beef to like Triple grade A.”

“The difference is night and day. In every respect.  And that's what makes thing even more screwed up. Because your brain believed everything some asshole said, so you have no idea how to even let someone love you.  You're so used to being treated like garbage that when a decent guy comes along, you don't know how to deal with him.  You expect the worst, get the best ,and then you don't know what to do with it.”

“So you get scared and push it away,” Tanis concludes.

“Exactly. And believe me, I pushed long and hard for a while. And he refused to budge.  He just tried even harder.  And believe me, there were many times he could have told me to go fuck myself and taken off and he would have had every right to do it. But he never did.  He's a stubborn shit, let me tell you.  Which is probably why he didn't die that day on the bridge in Dhaka. Everything has be on Tyler's terms. It's your way or his way. There is no in between. He has to be in control. I guess he figured he hadn't lost all control yet so why give up?”

Tanis smiles. “Something tells me you had something to do with it to. I mean, you stuck around for a guy you barely knew.”

“Well the sex was amazing and I wasn't ready to let that go yet. I wasn't finished using him for his body yet.”

The other woman laughs at that.

“In all honesty,  I did what I dd because I wanted to. Because it felt like the right thing to do. He was in that mess because of me. Well Ovi, too. But if he hadn't have kept us around, he wouldn't have gotten out of there and not ended up as fucked up as he was. Sometimes I wonder if he regrets it. That he did decide to keep us around. If he wishes he'd listened to Nik and just left us in the street.  I mean, he wouldn't have all the issues that he has now if he had have ditched us.”

“I have a feeling that he never even considered the ditching you guys part.”

“He says he didn't. That it was never an option. But I couldn't really blame him if he thought about it at least once. It's all about survival right? Self preservation? Sometimes the only person you can worry and care about is yourself.”

“It must have been hard. The aftermath. Of Dhaka.”

“It was...” she fidgets with the straw in her drink,  pulling it up, pushing it back down,  trying to find the appropriate words to describe exactly what it had been like. Without completely losing her grip on her own emotions. She's normally a sensitive person to begin with, but now the hormones have decided to cause havoc within her body and even the smallest of dirty looks from someone have her ready to burst into tears.  Just that morning she'd had a meltdown because the mint of the hotel toothpaste was 'too strong'.

“...hard...” she says.  “It was hard. To see someone like that. All the tubes and all the wires and bandages and stitches and what not. He was a mess. He should not have survived that. Even the doctors told me when they took him to surgery when we first got there that they didn't think he'd even get off the table alive.  And he almost didn't. He coded three times. They said if there had been fourth, they wouldn't even have bothered to bring him back. That the lack of oxygen would have led to a catastrophic brain injury.”

It's painful to relive it. Even more painful than those moments on the bridge when she'd fought to keep him alive.  The agonizingly long wait in the OR family are; that bloody and torn tactical vest clutched tightly to her chest. The one that she'd nonsensically tried to scrub clean in one of the public bathrooms because he 'might need it again'. The doom and the gloom that had been in the surgeon's voice and in all the voices of the doctors and specialists that had come and gone through his room in the ICU.  Not one of them believed he would make it. The blood loss was too severe. The damage too great.  He'd never be the man he was before. Maybe not even a fraction of it. And the more they tried to prepare her to say goodbye, the tighter she held on.

“And I know that sounds weird because I'd just met him and there's no way I should have ever felt that strongly about him so soon...” she continues. “...but I can't explain it.  I can't explain what I felt. I just know I felt it. And I wasn't ready to let him go. We had too much to look forward to. Plans we made. We were legitimately going to work at things and see where we really stood in each others lives. If there was more to it than those five days in Dhaka. But we never got the chance. It didn't go the way we wanted it to.”

“But things worked out,” Tanis reasons.  “In the long run.  It might have been what you had planned, but they still worked out. Look how far you guys have come. From that day until now.”

“Yeah, he's still trying to solve everyone else's problems and getting hurt doing it.”

“I don't mean in that way. As in the job.  He made it out of that hospital. Even when all logic and even science said he shouldn't. He survived that and now look.  You're married, you've got amazing kids, one on the way...” she gives a smile, and pats Esme on the tummy. “...it's a great life. Even if doesn't seem that way sometimes.”

“Yeah. It is actually,” she agrees, and then smiles as she lays her own hand on her stomach. It will be a while before her body starts to visibly change. She'd been nearly twenty weeks before even the slightest bit of a bump began to show with Millie.  The twins had shown earlier, obviously. And Declan had just been enormous right from the start.  He was easily going to be over six feet tall by the time he hit his teen years, and probably built like a linebacker.

“Last one?” Tanis asked, nodding down at Esme's stomach.

“Oh hell yeah. This is it. I thought we were done at three. At least we agreed to stop at three. After the twins, we were done. That was it. Declan was a complete and total shock. We were actually using birth control and that kid still made his appearance. So if anything was meant to be, it's him.  And then we decided why not one more , and well,  it happened a lot sooner than we thought it would, but it happened.”

“I like to think things like this happen for a reason,” Tanis says. “Everything says that your Declan shouldn't be here. In the same way that doctors and science and all rational logic say hat Tyler shouldn't be here. But they both are.”

“When you put it that way, maybe I should play the lottery. With those kinds of odds running in my house,”  Esme muses.  “I know how lucky I am. That Tyler even survived. I saw how bad he was; the amount of blood he lost.  He honestly probably should have never made it off the bridge alive.   And sometimes I think it take it for granted that he did.  That I take him for granted.  I'm just so used to him being around that I sometimes forget how close it came to him not being around.”

“I think we're all guilty of that. Taking the people in our lives with granted.  Their presence for granted.”

“Makes me feel like a shitty human when I think about it. All the times where he's annoyed the shit out of me and wish he would go away and leave me alone. What if I wished those things and it happened? What if the last words I ever said to him were awful? If I actually let him walk out the door without telling him I love him. Imagine having to spend the rest of your life with that kind of guilt?”

“It's why we can't let a day go by without telling people how we feel about them,” Tanis says.  “We have to live each day with someone as if it's the last we'll ever spend with them”

****

She's startled to see him when she arrives back at the hotel; there are still two hours before his meeting with McMann and he hadn't planned on returning until after it was over.   So it's a nice surprise...and a huge relief...to see him there lounging in the middle of the middle. Leaning back against the headboard with those long legs stretched out in front of him, his hand clasped at the back of his neck, his eyes closed.   He doesn't respond to the sound of the door opening and closing; not a single muscle twitching throughout his body or in his face. Chest slowly rising and falling with each steady breath he takes. And she ditches her shopping bags and purse in the closet by the door and kicks off her shoes, bare feet against the soft carpet as she wanders further into the room.  The mattress dipping slightly as she climbs onto it,  shuffling on her knees towards him and then climbing into his lap, a knee on either side of him, arms around his torso and head resting on his shoulder.  She closes her own eyes; he's warm and soothing, his body hard and strong, his familiar scent still intoxicating after all these years.. And when she sighs against him he finally moves; turning his face towards hers and pressing a kiss to her forehead, both arms wrapping around her.

“Hi,” she says, voice muffled against the side of his neck.

'Hi.”

“What are you doing here?”

“I'm staying in this room too,” he playfully reminds her.

“You weren't supposed to be back until later.”

“Well I came back early.”

“Why?”

“Because I missed you and wanted to see you.”

He can feel her smile against his throat.  “That's a very good reason,” she declares, a places a kiss to the scar that mars his neck; the one that will forever serve as a reminder to just how close he'd come to ceasing to exist.

“The best reason,” he says, his palm moving in slow, smooth circles in the middle of her back. “Did you eat something?”  He can't help himself; his protective nature is coming out in full force. It's bad enough when it's just her he's worrying about and trying to keep safe, but now there's a baby inside of her and he has twice as much to lose.

“A little bit. What your spawn will let me keep me down.”

“When we get home and we get you into a doctor you can go on that medicine you were on the last time. It helped, yeah? You didn't puke that much with Declan.”

“It was a life saver,” she confirms.  “You smell good.”

“You wouldn't have said that a half an hour ago, trust me.”

“Even on your worst days you don't smell that bad. I kind of like how you smell. Even on your stinky days.”

“You smell good too...” he turns his face towards her, nose against her temple.   “...strawberries?”

“Your favourite.”

“Yeah...” he grins.  “...they are.”

She relaxes against him; the curves of her body soft and supple against firm muscle.  She keeps her eyes closed; unable to look at that scar for too long. Normally it doesn't bother her; it serves as a daily reminder that he is still alive and she is lucky to have him.  But today it hurts; it cuts deep and vicious and she can't bear it.  

“Where were you when you called?” she asks. “Your cell reception sucked.”

“That's why I hung up and sent you a text message instead.”

“Where were you?”

“Just had a team meeting.  With Yaz, Mark, and his guys.  In an industrial park about ten minutes from town.  We didn't want to take the chance that the wrong people saw us all together.”

“Makes sense.”

“Did Mark call you?”

She hears the tension in his voice, feels the way his muscles tighten, how that vein in the side of his throat begins to pulsate. “No. Why? Should he have called?”

“I thought maybe he would. To rat on me.  We sort of got into a thing.”

“Yeah?” she runs her fingernails along his hair line at the nape of his neck. “Did you finally beat his ass?”

“Not as much as I would have liked to, no. I think I broke his nose though.”

“Well considering you could have broken his neck, a broken nose is pretty tame. What did you get into it about?”

“What do you think?”

“Awww baby....”  she pushes her hand through his hair; letting the longer strands on top slip between her fingers. “...were you defending my honour?  My knight in slightly tarnished armour.”

“I said some things I probably shouldn't have said. But I fucking snapped and it all just came out.  He's just so fucking ignorant and smug and everyone thinks he's this great guy. Which makes me hate him even more. So I lost it. Said some shit I shouldn't have said in front of other people. About you and him.”

“I'm sure whatever you said, he had it coming. So...”

“It wasn't my place to say those things. About you.  I should have just kept my fucking mouth shut. But he just pissed me so bad and...”

“Tyler...” she pulls back to look at him, holding his face in her hands. “...I don't care what you said. It's things that should have been said a long time ago, I'm sure. It's probably things he needed to hear. And if you just so happened to punch him in the face while saying those things...”

“It was an elbow, actually.”

“I'm not going to be upset at you for sticking up for me.  Everything I told you about him...about all the things he did...it was all true. So I don't mind those words being out in the open now.  Maybe now that someone has finally brought them up and holding him accountable for his shit, he'll straighten himself out. You know he's seeing Nik right?”

“Yeah, I heard.”

“It doesn't bother you?”

“I think she can do a hell of a lot better.”

“You don't think it's weird that my ex is doing whatever with your ex?”

“She is not my ex.”

“Well maybe not an ex girlfriend, but she's an ex something.”

“Putting it that way means I have a lot of exes out there.”

“You dirty boy,” she winks at him. “No wonder you know how to do things you do. You have lot of practice under your belt. All those different women in all those different cities. Do you have a score sheet somewhere?”

“It's not that many.  But hey, a man has needs, so...” he shrugs.

“I guess you don't like studying alone that much after all,” she teases, and he gives a scowl and then wraps one arm around waist, lifts her into his chest and then dumps her onto her back in the middle of the bed.  “Is this where you punish me?” she inquires, as he kneels between her thighs and leans over her, a hand on either side of her head, outstretched arms bearing his weight.  “Is there where I get in trouble for being a smart ass?”

Tyler shakes his head, then places a chaste kiss to her lips before sliding down the bed; fingertips gentle as he pulls up the bottom of her t-shirt, pushes down the waistband of her shorts and then presses his lips to her stomach. Where their baby...his baby...is safe and secure. And it's a moment that is so pure and so beautiful...a moment of vulnerability from such a big, strong, brave man...that it brings tears to her eyes.

“Baby...” she reaches down to push his hair out of his eyes.  “...are you okay?”

He nods.

“You don't seem...I don't know...you.”

“I'm fine,” he assures her, giving her that that half frown, half smile that reveals that he is in fact, not fine at all.  And his hands are on her hips as he rests his forehead against her stomach.

“Tyler...” she tugs at his hair, forcing him to look up at her.  “...what's going on? And don't say nothing. Because I can tell there's something happening inside that brain of yours.”

He attempts another smile. This one a little brighter and reassuring. “You know how I get. Right before shit's about to go down.”

“No. This isn't that.  You don't act like this. You're quiet and sullen and broody when you're going into a job. This is different. You're different.”

“I love you,” he says.  “So much. I need you to know that.”

“Tyler...” she frowns. “...what is going on?”

“Say it,” he pleads. “I need to hear you say it.”

“I love you too. You know I do. Tell me what's wrong. I can tell something is wrong.”

“I just wanted you to know that. That I love you. You know, just in case.”

“Don't talk like that.  Please. I don't want to hear you talk like that.”

“There's something I need to do. Something I can't tell you about. It's better that you don't know. I need you to trust me.  That what I'm going to do, I'm doing for you. And the baby.  For our kids.  I don't want you to ask me about it.  Because I can't tell you. It's for your own good. And for mine.”

“Tyler...what...?”

“Just trust me, okay? I need you to trust me. That this is the way things have to be done. I wouldn't do it unless it needed to be done.  Just know that it's for you and my kids.”

“You're scaring me. What's going on?”

“I can't tell you. I'm sorry. I want to tell you. But I can't. I'm so sorry, Esme.”

She see the tears that well in his eyes, hears the emotion that  causes his voice to crack.  “You're going to be okay, right? At least tell me you're going to be okay.”

“I'll be okay,” he promises, pressing one last kiss to her stomach before moving up the bed, once more kneeling between her thighs as he takes her face her hands and kisses her. Long and soft. Heart breakingly sweet.  “I'll be okay.”

#tyler rake #tyler rake fan fic #tyler rake fan fiction #chris hemsworth character #extraction #sanctuary

[itsclydebitches]

RWBY Recaps: “ACE Operatives”

We’re back, folks! I have to say, I think overall this is one of the strongest episodes we’ve gotten since “The Lost Fable.” Are there still concerns? You know it, but on the whole I’ve got to give credit where credit’s due. So with that unexpectedly optimistic mindset, let’s dive in.

We open right on the group’s first mission and for a moment I was worried that, like with Oscar’s shopping, this time skip would be passed right over. Especially after we hear Pietro apologize for “holding onto your weapons for so long,” telling us that between the Academy tour at the end of last episode and this mission today, at least a few weeks have passed. Long enough for one guy to re-design multiple combat outfits and weaponry, plus an additional boost here and there. Luckily, the first part of the episode cuts among three distinct times: when they got their weapons, when they first heard about the mission, and this present day flight/landing, which as a technique I like quite a bit. It gives us a sense of each time while keeping us moving forward. No one is thinking, “Ugh. Do we really need to hear a mission briefing when most of last episode was learning about this plan in the first place?” because we already know this is taking place in the past. Just sit through the snippet and then the rest of the info will come through voice-overs while the group jumps out of an airship. Good balance of exposition and action.

What we learn in these flashbacks is that Ironwood wants to use an abandoned dust mine for the satellite’s launch. Only problem? It’s inhabited by a very old, extremely dangerous geist. Kudos to the writing team for the Volume Two callback. I’ve always been intrigued by Oobleck’s comment that grimm are capable of learning if they continue to survive and here we finally see an example of that. This geist isn’t just strong, it’s smart enough to hide in the mines themselves.

Shot over all this we see Atlas military personnel taking out the everyday grimm in the surrounding area, proving that their weapons can handle that task in most situations. Why doesn’t Ironwood’s robots have that then? Or as others have pointed out, something even more powerful like Penny’s lasers, or some of the upgrades the team gets? Chock it up to lack of funds... or simple plot setup. If the robots had been able to take out a bunch of grimm easy-peasy then there wouldn’t have been any cool premiere fight for our group. Then again, all of this casts their snarky comments about Ironwood’s defenses in a new light. Clearly they’re a force to be reckoned with when the plot actually allows it.

We likewise see the group receiving their new gear and... okay. Here’s where the griping starts. Though it’s admittedly small compared to most of my criticisms. First off, why is Jaune receiving a random scrap of Pyrrha’s outfit? Logically this makes no sense to me. Pyrrha’s body disintegrated into a bunch of dust. I can buy Jaune incorporating other armor and fabric into his gear because they were living together and Pyrrha must have spares, but where did this come from? Did Pietro go ask a family member for a random memento for the (from his perspective) equally random teen that showed up? It’s entirely possible that I’m missing something---I’m sick as a dog at the moment and am probably one fever degree away from mild hallucinations---but the whole setup seems incredibly weird. We see Jaune open his box. We see his look of shock. He see him fingering a torn piece of Pyrrha’s skirt. But how does all that come together in any logical way?

More importantly... why? Why is this still a thing? I get it, Jaune is grieving, but to be frank this has been his one-note characterization for over three volumes now. More importantly, everyone else is grieving too. This is another case of the writing prioritizing what the audience knows over what characters know. Meaning, we got to see how close Jaune and Pyrrha were. We know they were in love, but outsiders like Ironwood and Pietro see them as a unified team. Why not give a scrap to Jaune, Nora, and Ren? Really, that’s what rankles the most: this continuing focus on Jaune over the rest of his team. Especially when that focus just leads us in circles of the ‘Jaune is sad’ variety. I thought we were supposed to be learning more about Nora this volume, so why not give her something to remember Pyrrha by? I realize we’re only through the third episode, but in a series that averages twelve each volume, that’s a fourth of our material gone. Please. I’m begging you. Enough about Jaune. We’ve watched him cry and rage and lash out for three years now. He’s gotten to move through every type of grief the writing could throw at him. Let someone else take the spotlight for a change.

(It’s also just all around weird because Jaune is smiling sadly, implying he’s moving on, but then we have Clover narrating about how they’re “going to kill this thing...” which reminds us of Pyrrha’s murder in a way not really conducive to the whole ‘moving on’ vibe... it’s just odd.)

Second gripe: why doesn’t Oscar get anything? I’ve written before about how overall the group still treats Oscar as the outsider and boy oh boy, do we see that trend continuing here. I’ll speak about this more in a moment when we get to the Ozpin situation, but for this scene in particular there’s no reason he shouldn’t be included. If Jaune can get a cool addition to his shield after updating his own outfit, Oscar can get a cool addition too. Take five seconds to have Pietro point out that, as a random farm kid buying combat gear for the first time, he didn’t totally hit the mark. Here are a few things to keep you safer. Hell, you could even have Pietro---who we have established goes above and beyond in his inventions---pull Oscar aside with an updated weapon and Oscar could have gotten all quiet, examining his cane, eventually thanking Pietro, but emphasizing that he doesn’t think he should change things just yet. Or without anther’s input. Or, if Atlas doesn’t want to waste funds on the farm boy let him get a haircut like literally everyone else! We could have allotted Oscar a few seconds of screen time instead of getting what we always get: the team banding together and him nowhere to be seen.

He’s a part of this mission. He’s integral to this mission. He is a main character now. It’s about time the writing started acknowledging that.

The final flashback, at least, includes Oscar a little more. I realize my screenshot isn’t the best, but the expressions here really do say it all: Ruby mindlessly geeking out over new tech while Oscar stands sadly in another doorway.

We hear him say, “Hey... Ruby?” before he’s cut off and we return to the present.

We’ll get back to him in just a moment. For now, the airship opens to reveal everyone’s new look, which isn’t actually a reveal because this scene dominated the trailer. 

Ah well. I have to say though, from here on out one of the main reasons why this episode feels strong to me is because of the overall dynamic among the characters. First, it was smart to break everyone up into different teams to search for a hidden grimm. If they’d tried to cram twelve characters into the same shot for the rest of the episode it would have been a disaster. Second, these smaller teams allow for the sort of teasing/comfort/playfulness we’ve grown used to among these characters, but have largely lost over the last two volumes. One of my favorite moments is when Yang is caught staring at Blake’s new haircut and we get a look at this massive blush.

Not to ship on main, but please note the parallel between this moment and Nora/Ren, two characters who are more firmly established as a canonical couple. Although... here when Nora compliments Ren’s hair he shuts her down pretty hard. There’s none of the casual indulgence we’re used to from him. Since when does Ren insist that Nora take a mission seriously, outside of making those requests in an equally teasing manner? Nora notices as much too, clearly upset, and Jaune is just... dense. It makes me wonder though if this is the direction they’re heading in for Nora. Give her romance troubles in the form of Ren pulling away now that their relationship has had a chance to sink in.

Not sure I’m a big fan of that. Granted, it depends on how they handle it, but on the whole I’m not really invested in reducing Nora’s rare and much needed development down to a cliche ‘Oh no. A boy doesn’t like me’ plot-line. We’ll have to see though.

I also really liked the moment between Weiss and Blake a little later. This is how you tackle racism in your story. Not by having the group risk their world-saving mission by Weiss impulsively throwing civilians into the trash, but by having an incredibly privileged woman acknowledge her privilege. Weiss mentions how angry this mine’s failure made her father, but she doesn’t use the abuse she suffered as any sort of excuse, like she would have in the earlier volumes. Instead, Weiss acknowledges for herself how hard that time was and then apologizes not only for what he’s done to the faunus, but also for “all my complacency in it.” Weiss was a child. We can’t hold her to the same level of responsibility as Jacques. But as a privileged woman in this world Weiss’ complacency does perpetuate her father’s active sins. So it’s fantastic that she admits as much to Blake. In front of all the others, no less. To me, that’s a far better sign of growth than what we got last week.

It’s also during this time that we see Blake eyeing the SDC boxes with anxiety. It could just be bad memories. It could imply that she had some hand in this particular attack. I hope it implies that she’s thinking about Adam because... is anyone going to bring him up? Seriously? Two teammates killed a guy. The self-defense aspect doesn’t erase the fact that they each rammed a piece of a blade through his stomach and watched him topple over a waterfall. We should be dealing with this! Not reducing it to one hug from Ruby right before a major battle. Hopefully this is setup for some (now long overdue) reflection.

Meanwhile, an interaction that doesn’t work as well is when Ruby comments on how freezing she is and Weiss notes that without proper equipment or aura insulation you can freeze to death in an hour. So... is that what the group is doing then? Wasting precious aura whenever they’re outside because Blake wants her arms unzipped, Weiss wants bare spots around her chest, and Yang needs to artistically keep one leg and one arm totally unclothed? The issue is not, “How does the group stay warm?” because plenty of stories have logistical questions like that and unless you’re a fan overly invested in the minutiae, you shrug it off. When is the group going to the bathroom during these endless missions? Who’s carrying pads for when three of them hit their periods at once? No one cares. Rather, the issue is that the writing draws attention to the question and then fails to answer it. Just like they did when suddenly death via cold was something that had to keep them in the creepy town when death via cold was never a concern up until then. Where was hypothermia when Yang insisted Ozpin hash out all his secrets in the snow? It’s a rather convenient ‘Sometimes it’s an issue, sometimes not,” situation. Obviously aura isn’t doing much to keep them toasty though if Ruby feels the need to comment on how cold she still is. And that attention then invites further questions like, “Why then are they still dressed inappropriately for the weather? Should we expect them to fall more quickly in battle because aura is going towards making sure they don’t freeze to death in under an hour?” Better to just leave it alone.

Talk of the cold leads into Oscar though because Yang comments, “I suddenly don’t feel so bad about leaving Oscar behind.” Which... no. You did leave him behind. Don’t try to make that palatable with stupid upsides like, ‘Well at least he’s warm!’ Worse, the group does nothing to justify that decision. Realistically I can buy why they’d leave Oscar out of this mission. We’ve established that this particular grimm has already taken out a lot of people and, without Ozpin, Oscar is still a newbie fighter. With the exception of the train and one grimm in the premier, I don’t think Oscar has fought many grimm at all. So really, it would take two sentences to establish this. Tell us that this mission is way out of his skill range and throw out that he’s training with Ironwood or something. That’s it. That’s all it takes, but the writing bypasses that and leaves us with, ‘The group left Oscar behind... for reasons?’ Which, in the context of his entire time with them looks really, really bad. Because they left him out of the dinner in Haven. And the hunt for supplies at the farm. And in retrieving the relic. And left him alone at the Argus house. And left him out of the upgrade joy. We’ve now established a trend of the group outright ignoring Oscar, whether it’s during bright celebratory moments or agonizing traumatic ones. Doesn’t matter, he’s left out of the loop, and now we see the same thing happening here. Rather than a simple and logical, ‘Oscar isn’t ready to fight a super old geist,’ what we’re left with paints the situation as, ‘Oscar is left behind because Ruby disagrees with him.’

Because without clarification, that’s the context. We get another (very short) flashback where he (thank you, thank you) points out that what they’re doing to Ironwood is precisely what Ozpin did to them. (Although Oscar tries to soften this by saying it only “feels like” the same thing.) Ruby looks guilty for a second... and then that’s it. We’re back to at least a day later where they’re on this mission, they’ve left Oscar behind, and Ruby is re-explaining why her morals are sound.

I’ll admit I’m pleased that Yang points out that they agreed no more lies and no more half-truths. I honestly didn’t expect her to say even that much against her precious sister. But still, on the whole this dilemma isn’t much of a dilemma at all. It’s reading precisely like the airship debacle: a few characters giving token disagreements but when push comes to shove whatever Ruby wants, Ruby gets. You know how above I pointed out how much I like the split present/past business so that we can have a balance between talking and action? Yeah, that only works if the talking is generic exposition. We don’t need a long-winded discussion about the details of this mission. We do need a substantial discussion about the absolute hypocrisy the group has fallen into. That split between past and present is important. Are you honestly going to tell me that over all these days---if not, arguably, weeks---the group never once had a conversation about this? That we don’t get to see that downtime filled with some actual growth? And we could have easily achieved that with the current setup. Extend Oscar’s flashback into something significant, leaving the geist battle for next week. Let him be angry for once, furious that after all the shit they put Ozpin through, and by extension him, they’re just going to turn around and do the exact same thing without even an apology? An acknowledgment that they were wrong? Or create space to have that discussion now. Harriet comes out of the mine saying a part of it has collapsed and they need time to clear it, giving Team RWBY the chance to really hash some things out and disagree for once. Instead, as expected, secret keeping is framed as the right decision without anyone but Oscar acknowledging the hypocrisy in that. They even go so far as to say, “Why don’t we play along for a while before me make any major decisions.” Newsflash:

Graphic design is my passion, all.

Overall it’s not quite as pro-protagonist as it could have been, but it’s not great either. We’re left with the fact that the group has this time sitting with their own lies and apparently, after all that, what they’ve settled on is denial. Great. Fantastic. I hope Oscar finds new friends at the Academy who encourage him to really call them out on this later.

We also learn that Ruby gave the relic back to Oscar. So the writing is self-aware enough for her to acknowledge that carrying it around on her belt is a horrendously bad idea, but not self-aware enough to keep her getting it back in the first place? Imagine you hired someone to transport a priceless painting to your super safe vault and then when it finally arrives you go, “Actually, you did such a good job getting that here I think it’ll be safer in your hands as you go about your life. Rather than the vault I specifically built for it.” Except the painting is a magic relic, the vault is also nearly impenetrable via magic, and the transporter is now a 14yo who, as established, is the weakest fighter of the group. For the love of Ironwood’s characterization, please let that relic be a fake.

Really, on the whole that moment could have been touching... but again, context. ‘Here’s the relic back that I basically stole and then ripped all Ozpin’s trauma from him by wasting an invaluable question.’ Yeah. All the while everyone is still talking as if Ozpin isn’t even there. Ironwood, in his ignorance, has been the one person to actually address him, despite the fact that the entire group knows he’s listening in. You know that feeling when you’re sitting with a bunch of people you’re not particularly close with and it’s clear they’re deliberately not including you in the conversation? Yeah, it’s like that only a thousand times worse. No wonder Ozpin still hasn’t tried to come out. No one cares about his vessel, they still actively hate him, and they’re all hypocritical to boot. I’d stay hidden too.

Anyway, back to the actual plot. Qrow has been paired off with Clover and at first we get a really excellent conversation about teamwork. We as the audience know precisely why Qrow prefers to work alone, but when he slips and Clover manages to catch him, it functions as a fantastic counter. See? Qrow might have bad luck, but this is precisely why he does need to be around others. They can help him when things get tough.

However, that message is severely undermined when it’s later revealed that Clover’s semblance is good luck.

Not only does that remove the previously stated wonderful message---because now it’s not about Qrow learning to accept help, it’s about how Clover’s semblance just conveniently cancels his out---it’s just an iffy stretch of my suspension of disbelief. Really? Out of all the people they could have met, that Qrow could have been paired with, he happens to find the one guy with the exact opposite semblance to him? Clover is an incredibly handsome and charismatic guy. He’s the leader of the strongest kingdom’s strongest team. He just happens to have the best version of Qrow’s greatest weakness. I know I said I wanted more passive semblances, but I would have preferred something other than this heavy-handed introduction.

Although... are they passive? I had to pause the episode for a moment when Qrow throws out, “sometimes I can’t keep it under control” because excuse me?? There are times you can keep it under control? Since when? How? I know we’re loose on our semblance rules here, but c’mon. Is Qrow’s entire life governed by a trait outside of his control or not?

We see a similar issue cropping up at the end of the episode when Harriet informs Ruby that there’s “something else” going on with her semblance. Look. RWBY isn’t Dragon Ball Z. The characters don’t need to tap into unheard of powers every season to keep things interesting. As Yang herself points out, Ruby already has super special silver eyes. 

Her semblance is speed and transformation and transforming other people along with her. Weiss is already a super special Schnee with a super special hereditary semblance that creates glyphs and summoned fighters of whatever she’s killed. Blake is already a super special Belladonna with ties to the world’s biggest resistance group. Yang... okay, Yang is admittedly an ordinary girl with an ordinary background and that’s one of the things I still love about her. She grows stronger through more training, better strategy, and turning any weaknesses into strengths---like her arm. It’s so much more powerful to give characters that kind of arc than to fall back on, “[gasp!] You were secretly special all along.” So who knows what else they’re going to add to Ruby’s semblance. Whatever it is, it’s not needed.

I will say though that semblance issues aside, I’m liking the Ace Ops way more than I thought I would. Given that introducing five more characters was, objectively, a bad move. But they’ve got real personality attached to them. I appreciated that Clover thanked Qrow for the save (they could have made a guy that ‘perfect’ way more arrogant) while the rest spent a good portion of the time teasing RWBYJNR like they’re little siblings. Which I adored. For the first time in volumes we got to see our heroes portrayed exactly as they are: teens in training. Nora says that it “feels like we’re an actual huntsmen team,” acknowledging that they’re not yet. They’re the students following the professionals, helping out without getting in the way. It stood out to me that the geist fight is identical to the one we got in Volume Four, with the exception that it’s way, way better. They come up with Jaune’s strategy to remove the limbs in an instant, rather than taking the entire fight trying and failing to do damage. I don’t think a single member of the Ace Ops took a hit, despite the fact that this geist was a huge threat to the rest of the Atlesian army. Like Team RWBY at times, there was seamless communication, perfect execution, and the one time they made a mistake? Ruby was there to help them out. I really appreciated that the writing had RWBYJNR sit this one out until their particular skills---in this case Ruby’s speed---was actually needed, as opposed to an arrogant, ‘How dare you not let us fight!’ where they endanger themselves and others by insisting that they know best. 

This is the RWBYJNR I want to see more of. Ozpin remains a huge, glaring issue, but if the writer’s can keep this sort of attitude in mind we’ll be making good strides away from the horror that was Volume Six. No more, “We don’t need adults,” please. As a bunch of adults just demostrated, they’re way out of your league.

Finally, we end the episode on Tyrian again. Showcasing RWBY’s new love of horror tropes, he appears beneath the flickering lamp light (complimenting the jump scare we got with Blake earlier on). He approaches Forest, the activist from the airship, and we end with Tyrian’s tail coming his way. Did he just poison him? Did he kill him? What’s the end goal here? Just sow chaos by leaving a bunch of bodies lying around? It’s unclear, but whatever is going on, Tyrian sure is busy.

Also, RIP #FRWBY.

Until next week!

Minor Things of Note

I like that Jaune and Blake both looked at their hair before we cut to them with new looks. Still not over Jaune’s style though. He’s french fry head now and no one will convince me otherwise.

It looks like Blake’s blade has been welded back together with a bit of yellow something-or-other...

Bad execution on an otherwise cool introduction to Marrow’s semblance. That was epic how he managed to stop both centipede grimm at once, but then Harriet just... slams them? Awkwardly? They don’t even disintegrate? Idk. Her end of that team attack didn’t live up to Marrow’s.

Team JNR has a very “headfirst approach.” True enough. Although, it’s not like they had an easy way to stop like their Ace Operative teammates. They did the best they could under the circumstances lol.

Jaune also has a landing strategy! I would have rather the writing just acknowledge that than give us that weird moment with Pyrrha’s fabric.

Not sure if I like Qrow’s new outfit or not. To be fair, that man would look stunning in a paper bag, so I’m not sure I’m an objective judge of any change here. Also to be fair, my own fashion ‘skills’ leaves something to be desired. So I think I’ll just bow out of this particular conversation.

#rwby #rwby volume 7 #rwby volume 7 spoilers #mymetas #rwby recaps

[sparklydreamies]

Pastel Smudges

Group: NCT (Dream)

Pairing: Jaemin + Jeno

Genre: Fluff, platonic relationship

Summary: Jeno just can’t seem to paint the second hand right.

Word Count: 1,746

“Jesus Jeno, don’t put your nail polish remover so close to your laptop, you’re gonna knock it over.”

Today was NCT Dream’s first day off from practicing and promoting for over a month, but of course they couldn’t enjoy it properly due to all of the rain pouring down outside the comfort of the dorms. Most of the members decided that they were going to sleep in and watch movies all day. Jeno wanted to spend the day doing something he had been wanting to do for ages, but never had the time for. 

He was sitting on the floor of the living room, in between the coffee table and the couch. His laptop was open on the table, playing a nail tutorial video he saved a few weeks back. 

“Jaemin, you worry too much.” Jeno murmured, just loud enough for the other boy to hear. He hit play on the video as he twisted the top off of the pastel pink paint. 

“That laptop cost so much money, so when you ruin it, don’t say I didn’t warn you,” Jaemin nagged, leaving to go take a shower. 

Jeno silently mocked the boy as he left, but quickly swiveled around to make sure Jaemin didn’t see it. Say what you want about Na Jaemin, but Jeno knows the dangers of not going along with his badgering. So, he moved the remover liquid from the coffee table to the side table beside the couch. 

The video did a good job with instructing him on how to apply the polish. Jeno never had much of an artistic flare when it came to things like makeup and nails, but he wanted to try hard to gain it. He always found things like this really beautiful, and wanted to show that boys could be beautiful just like girls can.

Jeno wiped off the slight bit of polish that got on the skin around his fingers, which ended up smudging the sides of his nails. he had to pause the video multiple times, since his amateur hands were not as nimble and accurate as the lady’s in the video. 

Jaemin always took long showers, so Jeno was surprised when he saw the boy walk into the kitchen. Jeno checked the time to see that he had been working on his nails for the past half hour. 

“Oh Jae...” he moaned, closing his polish again. “This is so hard, my back hurts from sitting here so long.”

Jaemin chuckled a little bit as he walked over to the couch, sitting beside where Jeno was on the floor. “That’s the price of beauty,” Jaemin sing-songed, making Jeno scoff. “Can I see them though?” Jaemin asked, holding out his hand.

“They’re not finished yet,” Jeno said, “but fine, take a look.” Jeno placed his unfinished hand into Jaemins for inspection. “They’re not done,”

“They’re not bad, Jen,” Jaemin admitted, and Jeno scoffed for the second time. 

“You don’t have to sound so surprised, Jae,” Jeno mumbled. Jaemin released Jeno’s hand and stood up from the couch, patting the other on the head. 

He began to walk back to the kitchen before he said “I didn’t think your sausage fingers were capable of making art!” Jeno tried to punch his legs as he walked away, but Jaemin jumped out of swinging range. 

Jaemin sat at the kitchen table and began scrolling through twitter mindlessly, trying to pass time. 

Jeno continued to work on his nails, sighing and groaning every now and then when he made a mistake. He ended up having to take all of the nail polish off of his pinky finger because the smudge he made was too noticeable. 

“Ah shit!” he hissed after he ruined his thumb polish by testing to see if it was dry or not. Jaemin giggled at his frustration from the kitchen, asking if he wanted help. “Shut up, Jae. I’m doing fine.” 

Not even five minutes after that, Jaemin heard his name being called from the living room. He closed his phone and made his way back to his previous position on the couch, next to Jeno who was obviously frustrated. 

“Are you finished yet?” Jaemin asked him, once again holding out his hand for the boy to take.

“One hand, yeah,” Jeno gave his finished left hand to Jaemin. 

“Really? You’ve been working on this for about an hour, and you’re only done one hand?” Jaemin teased, making Jeno even more frustrated than he was. Jaemin turned his hand over, eyeing the finished product of Jeno’s labour. “Oh wow, Jen it’s actually pretty good,” he admitted, and Jeno felt his ego boost a little bit by that. “I hope it stays on for a long time, or else that’s precious time down the drain for you.” Jeno nodded in agreement. The last thing he wants is for this polish to last for three days and then peel off. 

“So what about your second hand?” Jaemin asked, reaching for his other hand. He ran his thumb over his right hand nails, and he saw that there was just a little bit of pink polish staining the skin around them. 

“I mean I tried, but I’m right handed so it’s pretty hard to do,” he admitted sadly, which made Jaemin sad. Jaemin had been joking around about his nail polish, but it seemed to make Jeno happy. Jaemin wanted to protect anything that made Jeno happy. Plus it looked so pretty on his nails.

Jeno pouted slightly and looked up at Jaemin. “Jaemin,” he asked, “will you please help me put the nail polish on my other hand?” 

Jaemin sighed a bit. It’s not like he wanted to spend an hour putting pink nail polish on his friend, but Jaemin found it very impossible to say no to Jeno when he pouted like that. It was like a magic spell. Or maybe, more like a curse.

“Please, Jaemin?” Jeno begged, “I can’t put it on myself, and it will look weird if I walk around with only one hand painted.” 

Jaemin frowned at Jeno. “Fine. I’ll help, but you are buying me dinner tonight to make it up.” Jeno’s eyes lit up and he quickly agreed with the deal. “So.. what do I do?” Jaemin asked, shifting down to sit with Jeno on the floor. He reached over the other’s arm to grab the pink polish. 

“Okay, I’ll play the video back for you, and I’ll pause it when you need me to,” Jeno offered, but Jaemin nodded him off. “Why not?” 

“I think I’ll understand better if you explain it to me,” Jaemin countered.

“But I suck at explaining things,” Jeno said, but Jaeming tsked him off. 

“Just try your best,” Jaemin told him, “after all, you can tell me if you like yourself. She can’t even see your nails. You’re a better judge of this.” 

Jeno nodded his head, and instructed Jaemin on how to start. Jaemin held his breath as he applied the first layer of pink on Jeno’s nails. 

“Jae, you got more on my skin than you got on my nails,” Jeno complained, but Jaemin shook his head. 

“I’ll get it after.” 

They went on like that, Jaemin trying his best to make the coats even and smooth, and Jeno calling him out on everything he misses. When Jaemin was done, he moved to stand up. 

“No no no,” Jeno said, “we have to let it dry, and then you have to put another coat on it.”

Jaemin groaned at him, asking why. Jeno simply shrugged and said “That’s how it is.”

“Why do they make nail polish that is so thin it needs more than one coat? Why not just make it thicker? I don’t understand this!” he said, and sat back down on the ground. 

“It will dry faster if you blow on it.” Jeno offered. Jaemin looked at him in disbelief. 

“Blow on it yourself, Jen!” Jeno frowned at him, giving him the same exact pout that roped Jaemin into this in the first place. His eyes were bounding him in. “Goddamn it, fine.” Jaemin gave up trying to keep his dignity. 

He began to blow lightly on the fingers, making Jeno smile a bit and comment on how much it tickles. 

Finally, Jeno deemed the paint dry enough for a second coat. Jaemin was fairly careful with the first coat, wanting it to look nice and make Jeno happy, whereas with the second coat, Jaemin just wanted to be done. 

“Jaemin, you’re getting it on the skin again!” 

“Sorry, Jeno!” Jaemin took a paper towel and tried to rub it off carefully. 

“Who had the sausage fingers now, huh?” Jeno commented, making Jaemin pretend to hit him. 

Jaemin sighed at him. “You’re such a brat, Lee Jeno.” 

“But you love me a lot, right?” Jaemin stayed silent, picking up the tiny brush again. “Right?” Jeno repeated.

“Right..” Jaemin agreed, smiling slightly at the other boy’s nails. If Jeno wasn’t so cute, there was no way Jaemin would have stuck around to help him this long. 

“I love you too, Jae,” Jeno said, and Jaemin warned him not to be cheesy.

They moved on for a little while longer. Jaemin was getting used to the little instrument, and was moving faster by the end. His brush strokes were more accurate, and he began hearing more encouragements than complaints from his “client”. 

“I think I’m done,” Jaemin announced. Jeno inspected his nails, and smiled at all of the tiny smudges and light pink stains on his skin. Somehow, Jaemin even got pink nail polish on Jeno’s wrist. “Is it satisfactory?” Jaemin asked, hoping that Jeno would say yes, not only because he wanted to be done, but also slightly because he wanted Jeno to be happy with it. 

“Well,” Jeno started, “Mine is much better-”

“-well we already knew that-”

“-but, I think since it has your love in it, it's good enough.” Jaemin pretended to punch him in the arm, and stood up from his spot. 

“You know what, this was actually kind of fun.” Jaemin admitted. “You were annoying, but it was a good way to pass time.”

“I wasn’t annoying, you just weren’t doing it right, Jae,” Jeno tried to justify, making Jaemin scoff down at him. 

“Whatever.” Jaemin began to make his way back to his and Jeno’s shared room. “Anyways, I’m just glad you liked it,” he said.

“Jaemin?”

“Yeah?”

“You forgot the clear coat...”

“Screw off, Jen”

#Nct dream #nct dream fanfiction #nct #nct fanfiction #nct u #nct 127 #nct 127 fanfiction #fluff #nct dream fluff #nct 127 fluff #nct fluff #nct fanfic #nct 127 fanfic #nct dream fanfic #nomin #jeno #lee jeno #na jaemin #jaemin #nomin fanfiction #nomin fanfic #nomin ff #nomin fluff #nomin angst #nomin smut #nct angst #nct dream angst #nct 127 angst #nct smut #smut

[lakelandseo]

How Lead Generation Tactics Can Boost Your Link Building Results

Posted by AnnSmarty

How effective is your link building campaign? I bet your answer is “I wish it could be better.”

Talking to business owners and executives on a daily basis, I have yet to meet one who would be satisfied with their link building strategy.

Everyone needs links, yet they are getting harder and harder to get.

The solution?

Change your link building mindset.

How link building is similar to lead generation

In any business marketing strategy, we’re really interested in one thing: sales.

Yet, if we keep focusing on that end goal, we won’t achieve much. A customer may need up to eight touchpoints before they finally make a purchase. If you only focus on that final sale, you’re missing out on all those extra steps that drive your customer to buy.

It may sound obvious (so I’ll stop here) but the point I’m trying to make is: Marketers cannot focus on the final sale. We need something in between — a secondary metric that will bridge the gap between “a stranger” and a “a buyer”.

This is where the notion of a “lead” came from, i.e. a contact which we consider our prospective/possible/future customer.

A journey from a “a stranger” to a “lead” is shorter and much more predictable than a journey from “a stranger” to a “a buyer”, and once we turn a visitor into a lead, we can reach out to them in a much more meaningful and personalized way (via email, Facebook re-marketing, on-site personalizations, etc.).

What does this have to do with link building?

In link building we need links, just like in marketing we want sales. But focusing on the final goal is just as limiting in link building as it is in marketing.

Very few link builders these days do anything beyond sending an email, then using automated follow-ups. There’s no “lead generation” in link building. It’s either “link or no link” reporting.

And that’s where that process is broken.

In link building, all those bloggers, publishers, editors, etc. may also need several touchpoints (from something beyond an email). Furthermore, they may not be proper decision makers within the publication you are targeting.

If you apply that lead generation process to link building, you may see much better results, and more importantly, those results will keep growing the more leads you acquire.

How to add lead generation processes to your link building strategy

1. Define your linking leads prior to creating content

In B2B marketing, this is called outcomes-focused data strategy, which basically means you need to know exactly what you want to achieve (the outcome) before you start developing your strategy of achieving said outcome.

This concept is — sadly — seldom applied to link building.

What usually happens:

The content team creates what they think is a great content asset.

The outreach team identifies website owners who are likely to be interested in that asset, and starts the outreach.

Both teams are working in isolation.

But what happens if you turn that process around?

The outreach team shows the content team what’s attracting links on a specific topic (with examples). This insight should come from prospect research, current or upcoming trends, from previous outreach campaign data, etc.

The content team (in collaboration with the outreach team) creates something better than what currently exists on that topic. At this point, both the teams may involve those linking leads in the actual content creation (by reaching out and asking for expert opinions on the topic).

The outreach team delivers that content to the contacts they identified prior to the content creation.

Depending on the outlined link building opportunities, the linkable assets should take a specific format or angle, for example:

Curated lists of resources: Make sure your article fits one of the existing categories in the list, better fills a gap, or fixes an existing broken link.

Links from influencers or experts: Prior to publishing your article, reach out to those influencers and get their quote (opinion) to include in your article. Influencers are more likely to link when they’re featured on that page.

Links from peers and friends: Follow those people everywhere and start interacting with them on a daily basis. Think of this as “lead nurturing” — increasing your chances of creating long-lasting partnerships.

Editorial links from popular blogs: Track down authors and editors of those sites and start interacting with them on social media. Consider inviting them to contribute a quote to your article as well.

By letting your link building research guide the content creation process, you will end up with a highly successful campaign that is still delivering links (without the need to do the active outreach anymore).

2. Organize your linking leads

As we said previously, in link building the end goal is a link. But different leads will need a different number of touchpoints to finally link. Plus, more links are better than one.

This is where a lead nurturing process comes into play.

Just like B2B marketers using different methods to “warm up” leads and take them close to a sale, in link building you will get many more links if you keep reaching out to your leads to remind them of your asset.

If you’re using an outreach tool (both Pitchbox and Link Hunter are good options, depending on your budget and complexity of your project), it will handle some of the lead nurturing for you. At the very least, any outreach solution will:

Save all the emails you sent

Update the email status and dates (replied, bounced back, followed up, etc.)

Many link building teams will find that sufficient. I recommend going further and using a solid customer relationship management approach, which would also include:

Creating a detailed profile for each lead (which would also include their sites and columns, social media profiles, etc.)

Reaching out on social media (through ads and/or manual outreach)

If you want to go even further, you can adopt a well-organized customer relationship management strategy towards your linking leads. To get you started, here’s a solid comparison of major CRM types, as well as lead generation and nurturing platforms allowing you to properly organize and monitor your link building prospects.

You can set your link acquisition workflow and automate some parts of it (like follow-ups) while being in full control of everything that is going on.

3. Find alternative contacts and decision makers within each publication

In B2B, this process is called “account-based marketing”, i.e. when you know exactly which company would make your ideal customer and you start researching how to best onboard it.

In link building, this strategy applies to huge multi-author publications that would make ideal and ongoing backlink providers for your content. Think of the New York Times, Mashable, or a huge research magazine in your niche.

Emailing one of their authors with a request to link to your study or your infographic may not be enough (in fact, it will hardly ever be enough).

To investigate publications I’m really interested in getting links from, I use the following tools:

LinkedIn

I don’t use Linkedin for outreach, but I just love its company profiles, which show me which friends (or friends of friends) I have associated with those entities. I have been introduced to quite a few great publications this way:

Twitter bio search

While Linkedin may be useful to identify existing contacts, Twitter is great for building new ones. For bigger publications, all you need is to find people including that publication in their bios.

A tool called Twiangulate is a great and free option for doing that: Just specify the company name (or its Twitter handle) as a keyword and the tool will find all the Twitter profiles that include it:

Now create a separate Twitter list to keep in touch with all of them.

Website’s “About Us” page

This may seem obvious, but it’s often a missed step. Many publications list their whole editorial team with all the emails included on their “About” page.

Try developing an outreach strategy for each of those emails. For example, a CEO may not be the best contact to request a link from, but they may reply and give you clearer directions for who to speak with, so ask for a contact!

4. Diversify your touchpoints

In my experience, an email is still the most effective link building outreach method. Truthfully, I’ve seen better success with a follow-up email versus the initial email.

But other ways to reach out certainly increase your chances of hearing back. These include:

A simple Twitter follow or retweet (no requests here)

A DM (especially when journalists claim their DMs are open for pitches and ideas)

A comment on their personal site

A LinkedIn message

Adding a contact to a Twitter list (Twitter will notify them)

Tagging them on social media (especially when they’re referenced or quoted in your content)

The bottom line here: Simply being there may remind them of your request and prompt them to open your email.

5. Diversify your assets

With diverse touchpoints comes the need to diversify your assets. Your outreach will be more effective if you give your linking leads something of value to include in their article.

If your initial email and the first follow-up weren’t successful, try creating a visual summary (an infographic) in your second follow-up to give them something fresh.

The process may turn quite easy and effective if you provide your outreach and content teams with tools enabling them to handle the creation of those assets. These tools include:

Venngage (to create slideshows and infographics)

Google Docs (to create ebooks and whitepapers)

Surveys (to collect ideas and stats)

Invideo (to create videos)

6. Keep an eye on your team performance

Your team is everything. If you fail to train them properly or distribute tasks among your team members effectively, the whole process will fail to move along.

At the very least:

Include your outreach team in your social media marketing so they can extend their outreach methods beyond emailing. Tools like Agorapulse will help in that process. You can set up lists, monitor certain keywords, save and delegate certain updates to turn them into tasks, etc.

Track your outreach activity. Tools like Email Analytics will help you with that. It will generate daily and weekly reports showing you how actively your team was emailing and how many responses they got. It will also save all emails to backup conversations.

7. Optimize your landing page

Your linkable asset should make an instantly positive impression on the people you email. There may by different ways to achieve that, but certain things help for just about any SEO campaign:

Your page needs to be ad-free

I’ve seen lots of people not willing to provide “a free link” to a page that is monetized with ads. There’s no point in arguing with your linking leads on that. It’s easier to remove the ads from the page you’re actively link building for at the moment. Besides, more often than not, it’s very easy to do.

Create CTAs targeting your linking leads

This one is a little bit advanced, but it will help a lot. Adjust your CTAs on the linkable asset page to fit your linking leads rather than your regular ads.

For example, instead of “Sign up for a free trial”, you may include a press coverage link or invite visitors to download additional data or resources.

Using Facebook pixel to record everyone who initially landed on the site through your linkable asset is another great way to re-market your asset to your linking leads.

8. Keep an eye on those links

Very few people will reply to you saying they have indeed linked to your content. But knowing if they have is important because conversion is a crucial part in the lead nurturing process. It doesn’t stop your relationships with your lead, but it impacts your interactions going forward. Those leads who end up linking to you are your best friends. Cancel your follow-ups, thank them, and keep interacting with them on social media.

Again, if you are using an outreach platform, chances are the link tracking will be included. Otherwise, check out Site Checker that has a handy link monitoring feature included.

Conclusion

Safe links mean those we cannot control. This turns a link building process almost into a form of art, or a well-manufactured serendipity (one of my favorite business concepts). You need to do a lot before reaching your end goal, all while keeping your end goal in mind.

These days, when any site owner — professional or amateur — is bombarded with link requests, you need to up your link building game. Luckily, there’s a neighboring marketing area that you can learn from: lead generation. Adopt more complicated and more diverse outreach methods to acquire great links to your website. Good luck!

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

[epackingvietnam]

How Lead Generation Tactics Can Boost Your Link Building Results

Posted by AnnSmarty

How effective is your link building campaign? I bet your answer is “I wish it could be better.”

Talking to business owners and executives on a daily basis, I have yet to meet one who would be satisfied with their link building strategy.

Everyone needs links, yet they are getting harder and harder to get.

The solution?

Change your link building mindset.

How link building is similar to lead generation

In any business marketing strategy, we’re really interested in one thing: sales.

Yet, if we keep focusing on that end goal, we won’t achieve much. A customer may need up to eight touchpoints before they finally make a purchase. If you only focus on that final sale, you’re missing out on all those extra steps that drive your customer to buy.

It may sound obvious (so I’ll stop here) but the point I’m trying to make is: Marketers cannot focus on the final sale. We need something in between — a secondary metric that will bridge the gap between “a stranger” and a “a buyer”.

This is where the notion of a “lead” came from, i.e. a contact which we consider our prospective/possible/future customer.

A journey from a “a stranger” to a “lead” is shorter and much more predictable than a journey from “a stranger” to a “a buyer”, and once we turn a visitor into a lead, we can reach out to them in a much more meaningful and personalized way (via email, Facebook re-marketing, on-site personalizations, etc.).

What does this have to do with link building?

In link building we need links, just like in marketing we want sales. But focusing on the final goal is just as limiting in link building as it is in marketing.

Very few link builders these days do anything beyond sending an email, then using automated follow-ups. There’s no “lead generation” in link building. It’s either “link or no link” reporting.

And that’s where that process is broken.

In link building, all those bloggers, publishers, editors, etc. may also need several touchpoints (from something beyond an email). Furthermore, they may not be proper decision makers within the publication you are targeting.

If you apply that lead generation process to link building, you may see much better results, and more importantly, those results will keep growing the more leads you acquire.

How to add lead generation processes to your link building strategy

1. Define your linking leads prior to creating content

In B2B marketing, this is called outcomes-focused data strategy, which basically means you need to know exactly what you want to achieve (the outcome) before you start developing your strategy of achieving said outcome.

This concept is — sadly — seldom applied to link building.

What usually happens:

The content team creates what they think is a great content asset.

The outreach team identifies website owners who are likely to be interested in that asset, and starts the outreach.

Both teams are working in isolation.

But what happens if you turn that process around?

The outreach team shows the content team what’s attracting links on a specific topic (with examples). This insight should come from prospect research, current or upcoming trends, from previous outreach campaign data, etc.

The content team (in collaboration with the outreach team) creates something better than what currently exists on that topic. At this point, both the teams may involve those linking leads in the actual content creation (by reaching out and asking for expert opinions on the topic).

The outreach team delivers that content to the contacts they identified prior to the content creation.

Depending on the outlined link building opportunities, the linkable assets should take a specific format or angle, for example:

Curated lists of resources: Make sure your article fits one of the existing categories in the list, better fills a gap, or fixes an existing broken link.

Links from influencers or experts: Prior to publishing your article, reach out to those influencers and get their quote (opinion) to include in your article. Influencers are more likely to link when they’re featured on that page.

Links from peers and friends: Follow those people everywhere and start interacting with them on a daily basis. Think of this as “lead nurturing” — increasing your chances of creating long-lasting partnerships.

Editorial links from popular blogs: Track down authors and editors of those sites and start interacting with them on social media. Consider inviting them to contribute a quote to your article as well.

By letting your link building research guide the content creation process, you will end up with a highly successful campaign that is still delivering links (without the need to do the active outreach anymore).

2. Organize your linking leads

As we said previously, in link building the end goal is a link. But different leads will need a different number of touchpoints to finally link. Plus, more links are better than one.

This is where a lead nurturing process comes into play.

Just like B2B marketers using different methods to “warm up” leads and take them close to a sale, in link building you will get many more links if you keep reaching out to your leads to remind them of your asset.

If you’re using an outreach tool (both Pitchbox and Link Hunter are good options, depending on your budget and complexity of your project), it will handle some of the lead nurturing for you. At the very least, any outreach solution will:

Save all the emails you sent

Update the email status and dates (replied, bounced back, followed up, etc.)

Many link building teams will find that sufficient. I recommend going further and using a solid customer relationship management approach, which would also include:

Creating a detailed profile for each lead (which would also include their sites and columns, social media profiles, etc.)

Reaching out on social media (through ads and/or manual outreach)

If you want to go even further, you can adopt a well-organized customer relationship management strategy towards your linking leads. To get you started, here’s a solid comparison of major CRM types, as well as lead generation and nurturing platforms allowing you to properly organize and monitor your link building prospects.

You can set your link acquisition workflow and automate some parts of it (like follow-ups) while being in full control of everything that is going on.

3. Find alternative contacts and decision makers within each publication

In B2B, this process is called “account-based marketing”, i.e. when you know exactly which company would make your ideal customer and you start researching how to best onboard it.

In link building, this strategy applies to huge multi-author publications that would make ideal and ongoing backlink providers for your content. Think of the New York Times, Mashable, or a huge research magazine in your niche.

Emailing one of their authors with a request to link to your study or your infographic may not be enough (in fact, it will hardly ever be enough).

To investigate publications I’m really interested in getting links from, I use the following tools:

LinkedIn

I don’t use Linkedin for outreach, but I just love its company profiles, which show me which friends (or friends of friends) I have associated with those entities. I have been introduced to quite a few great publications this way:

Twitter bio search

While Linkedin may be useful to identify existing contacts, Twitter is great for building new ones. For bigger publications, all you need is to find people including that publication in their bios.

A tool called Twiangulate is a great and free option for doing that: Just specify the company name (or its Twitter handle) as a keyword and the tool will find all the Twitter profiles that include it:

Now create a separate Twitter list to keep in touch with all of them.

Website’s “About Us” page

This may seem obvious, but it’s often a missed step. Many publications list their whole editorial team with all the emails included on their “About” page.

Try developing an outreach strategy for each of those emails. For example, a CEO may not be the best contact to request a link from, but they may reply and give you clearer directions for who to speak with, so ask for a contact!

4. Diversify your touchpoints

In my experience, an email is still the most effective link building outreach method. Truthfully, I’ve seen better success with a follow-up email versus the initial email.

But other ways to reach out certainly increase your chances of hearing back. These include:

A simple Twitter follow or retweet (no requests here)

A DM (especially when journalists claim their DMs are open for pitches and ideas)

A comment on their personal site

A LinkedIn message

Adding a contact to a Twitter list (Twitter will notify them)

Tagging them on social media (especially when they’re referenced or quoted in your content)

The bottom line here: Simply being there may remind them of your request and prompt them to open your email.

5. Diversify your assets

With diverse touchpoints comes the need to diversify your assets. Your outreach will be more effective if you give your linking leads something of value to include in their article.

If your initial email and the first follow-up weren’t successful, try creating a visual summary (an infographic) in your second follow-up to give them something fresh.

The process may turn quite easy and effective if you provide your outreach and content teams with tools enabling them to handle the creation of those assets. These tools include:

Venngage (to create slideshows and infographics)

Google Docs (to create ebooks and whitepapers)

Surveys (to collect ideas and stats)

Invideo (to create videos)

6. Keep an eye on your team performance

Your team is everything. If you fail to train them properly or distribute tasks among your team members effectively, the whole process will fail to move along.

At the very least:

Include your outreach team in your social media marketing so they can extend their outreach methods beyond emailing. Tools like Agorapulse will help in that process. You can set up lists, monitor certain keywords, save and delegate certain updates to turn them into tasks, etc.

Track your outreach activity. Tools like Email Analytics will help you with that. It will generate daily and weekly reports showing you how actively your team was emailing and how many responses they got. It will also save all emails to backup conversations.

7. Optimize your landing page

Your linkable asset should make an instantly positive impression on the people you email. There may by different ways to achieve that, but certain things help for just about any SEO campaign:

Your page needs to be ad-free

I’ve seen lots of people not willing to provide “a free link” to a page that is monetized with ads. There’s no point in arguing with your linking leads on that. It’s easier to remove the ads from the page you’re actively link building for at the moment. Besides, more often than not, it’s very easy to do.

Create CTAs targeting your linking leads

This one is a little bit advanced, but it will help a lot. Adjust your CTAs on the linkable asset page to fit your linking leads rather than your regular ads.

For example, instead of “Sign up for a free trial”, you may include a press coverage link or invite visitors to download additional data or resources.

Using Facebook pixel to record everyone who initially landed on the site through your linkable asset is another great way to re-market your asset to your linking leads.

8. Keep an eye on those links

Very few people will reply to you saying they have indeed linked to your content. But knowing if they have is important because conversion is a crucial part in the lead nurturing process. It doesn’t stop your relationships with your lead, but it impacts your interactions going forward. Those leads who end up linking to you are your best friends. Cancel your follow-ups, thank them, and keep interacting with them on social media.

Again, if you are using an outreach platform, chances are the link tracking will be included. Otherwise, check out Site Checker that has a handy link monitoring feature included.

Conclusion

Safe links mean those we cannot control. This turns a link building process almost into a form of art, or a well-manufactured serendipity (one of my favorite business concepts). You need to do a lot before reaching your end goal, all while keeping your end goal in mind.

These days, when any site owner — professional or amateur — is bombarded with link requests, you need to up your link building game. Luckily, there’s a neighboring marketing area that you can learn from: lead generation. Adopt more complicated and more diverse outreach methods to acquire great links to your website. Good luck!

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

#túi_giấy_epacking_việt_nam #túi_giấy_epacking #in_túi_giấy_giá_rẻ #in_túi_giấy #epackingvietnam #tuigiayepacking

[bfxenon]

How Lead Generation Tactics Can Boost Your Link Building Results

Posted by AnnSmarty

How effective is your link building campaign? I bet your answer is “I wish it could be better.”

Talking to business owners and executives on a daily basis, I have yet to meet one who would be satisfied with their link building strategy.

Everyone needs links, yet they are getting harder and harder to get.

The solution?

Change your link building mindset.

How link building is similar to lead generation

In any business marketing strategy, we’re really interested in one thing: sales.

Yet, if we keep focusing on that end goal, we won’t achieve much. A customer may need up to eight touchpoints before they finally make a purchase. If you only focus on that final sale, you’re missing out on all those extra steps that drive your customer to buy.

It may sound obvious (so I’ll stop here) but the point I’m trying to make is: Marketers cannot focus on the final sale. We need something in between — a secondary metric that will bridge the gap between “a stranger” and a “a buyer”.

This is where the notion of a “lead” came from, i.e. a contact which we consider our prospective/possible/future customer.

A journey from a “a stranger” to a “lead” is shorter and much more predictable than a journey from “a stranger” to a “a buyer”, and once we turn a visitor into a lead, we can reach out to them in a much more meaningful and personalized way (via email, Facebook re-marketing, on-site personalizations, etc.).

What does this have to do with link building?

In link building we need links, just like in marketing we want sales. But focusing on the final goal is just as limiting in link building as it is in marketing.

Very few link builders these days do anything beyond sending an email, then using automated follow-ups. There’s no “lead generation” in link building. It’s either “link or no link” reporting.

And that’s where that process is broken.

In link building, all those bloggers, publishers, editors, etc. may also need several touchpoints (from something beyond an email). Furthermore, they may not be proper decision makers within the publication you are targeting.

If you apply that lead generation process to link building, you may see much better results, and more importantly, those results will keep growing the more leads you acquire.

How to add lead generation processes to your link building strategy

1. Define your linking leads prior to creating content

In B2B marketing, this is called outcomes-focused data strategy, which basically means you need to know exactly what you want to achieve (the outcome) before you start developing your strategy of achieving said outcome.

This concept is — sadly — seldom applied to link building.

What usually happens:

The content team creates what they think is a great content asset.

The outreach team identifies website owners who are likely to be interested in that asset, and starts the outreach.

Both teams are working in isolation.

But what happens if you turn that process around?

The outreach team shows the content team what’s attracting links on a specific topic (with examples). This insight should come from prospect research, current or upcoming trends, from previous outreach campaign data, etc.

The content team (in collaboration with the outreach team) creates something better than what currently exists on that topic. At this point, both the teams may involve those linking leads in the actual content creation (by reaching out and asking for expert opinions on the topic).

The outreach team delivers that content to the contacts they identified prior to the content creation.

Depending on the outlined link building opportunities, the linkable assets should take a specific format or angle, for example:

Curated lists of resources: Make sure your article fits one of the existing categories in the list, better fills a gap, or fixes an existing broken link.

Links from influencers or experts: Prior to publishing your article, reach out to those influencers and get their quote (opinion) to include in your article. Influencers are more likely to link when they’re featured on that page.

Links from peers and friends: Follow those people everywhere and start interacting with them on a daily basis. Think of this as “lead nurturing” — increasing your chances of creating long-lasting partnerships.

Editorial links from popular blogs: Track down authors and editors of those sites and start interacting with them on social media. Consider inviting them to contribute a quote to your article as well.

By letting your link building research guide the content creation process, you will end up with a highly successful campaign that is still delivering links (without the need to do the active outreach anymore).

2. Organize your linking leads

As we said previously, in link building the end goal is a link. But different leads will need a different number of touchpoints to finally link. Plus, more links are better than one.

This is where a lead nurturing process comes into play.

Just like B2B marketers using different methods to “warm up” leads and take them close to a sale, in link building you will get many more links if you keep reaching out to your leads to remind them of your asset.

If you’re using an outreach tool (both Pitchbox and Link Hunter are good options, depending on your budget and complexity of your project), it will handle some of the lead nurturing for you. At the very least, any outreach solution will:

Save all the emails you sent

Update the email status and dates (replied, bounced back, followed up, etc.)

Many link building teams will find that sufficient. I recommend going further and using a solid customer relationship management approach, which would also include:

Creating a detailed profile for each lead (which would also include their sites and columns, social media profiles, etc.)

Reaching out on social media (through ads and/or manual outreach)

If you want to go even further, you can adopt a well-organized customer relationship management strategy towards your linking leads. To get you started, here’s a solid comparison of major CRM types, as well as lead generation and nurturing platforms allowing you to properly organize and monitor your link building prospects.

You can set your link acquisition workflow and automate some parts of it (like follow-ups) while being in full control of everything that is going on.

3. Find alternative contacts and decision makers within each publication

In B2B, this process is called “account-based marketing”, i.e. when you know exactly which company would make your ideal customer and you start researching how to best onboard it.

In link building, this strategy applies to huge multi-author publications that would make ideal and ongoing backlink providers for your content. Think of the New York Times, Mashable, or a huge research magazine in your niche.

Emailing one of their authors with a request to link to your study or your infographic may not be enough (in fact, it will hardly ever be enough).

To investigate publications I’m really interested in getting links from, I use the following tools:

LinkedIn

I don’t use Linkedin for outreach, but I just love its company profiles, which show me which friends (or friends of friends) I have associated with those entities. I have been introduced to quite a few great publications this way:

Twitter bio search

While Linkedin may be useful to identify existing contacts, Twitter is great for building new ones. For bigger publications, all you need is to find people including that publication in their bios.

A tool called Twiangulate is a great and free option for doing that: Just specify the company name (or its Twitter handle) as a keyword and the tool will find all the Twitter profiles that include it:

Now create a separate Twitter list to keep in touch with all of them.

Website’s “About Us” page

This may seem obvious, but it’s often a missed step. Many publications list their whole editorial team with all the emails included on their “About” page.

Try developing an outreach strategy for each of those emails. For example, a CEO may not be the best contact to request a link from, but they may reply and give you clearer directions for who to speak with, so ask for a contact!

4. Diversify your touchpoints

In my experience, an email is still the most effective link building outreach method. Truthfully, I’ve seen better success with a follow-up email versus the initial email.

But other ways to reach out certainly increase your chances of hearing back. These include:

A simple Twitter follow or retweet (no requests here)

A DM (especially when journalists claim their DMs are open for pitches and ideas)

A comment on their personal site

A LinkedIn message

Adding a contact to a Twitter list (Twitter will notify them)

Tagging them on social media (especially when they’re referenced or quoted in your content)

The bottom line here: Simply being there may remind them of your request and prompt them to open your email.

5. Diversify your assets

With diverse touchpoints comes the need to diversify your assets. Your outreach will be more effective if you give your linking leads something of value to include in their article.

If your initial email and the first follow-up weren’t successful, try creating a visual summary (an infographic) in your second follow-up to give them something fresh.

The process may turn quite easy and effective if you provide your outreach and content teams with tools enabling them to handle the creation of those assets. These tools include:

Venngage (to create slideshows and infographics)

Google Docs (to create ebooks and whitepapers)

Surveys (to collect ideas and stats)

Invideo (to create videos)

6. Keep an eye on your team performance

Your team is everything. If you fail to train them properly or distribute tasks among your team members effectively, the whole process will fail to move along.

At the very least:

Include your outreach team in your social media marketing so they can extend their outreach methods beyond emailing. Tools like Agorapulse will help in that process. You can set up lists, monitor certain keywords, save and delegate certain updates to turn them into tasks, etc.

Track your outreach activity. Tools like Email Analytics will help you with that. It will generate daily and weekly reports showing you how actively your team was emailing and how many responses they got. It will also save all emails to backup conversations.

7. Optimize your landing page

Your linkable asset should make an instantly positive impression on the people you email. There may by different ways to achieve that, but certain things help for just about any SEO campaign:

Your page needs to be ad-free

I’ve seen lots of people not willing to provide “a free link” to a page that is monetized with ads. There’s no point in arguing with your linking leads on that. It’s easier to remove the ads from the page you’re actively link building for at the moment. Besides, more often than not, it’s very easy to do.

Create CTAs targeting your linking leads

This one is a little bit advanced, but it will help a lot. Adjust your CTAs on the linkable asset page to fit your linking leads rather than your regular ads.

For example, instead of “Sign up for a free trial”, you may include a press coverage link or invite visitors to download additional data or resources.

Using Facebook pixel to record everyone who initially landed on the site through your linkable asset is another great way to re-market your asset to your linking leads.

8. Keep an eye on those links

Very few people will reply to you saying they have indeed linked to your content. But knowing if they have is important because conversion is a crucial part in the lead nurturing process. It doesn’t stop your relationships with your lead, but it impacts your interactions going forward. Those leads who end up linking to you are your best friends. Cancel your follow-ups, thank them, and keep interacting with them on social media.

Again, if you are using an outreach platform, chances are the link tracking will be included. Otherwise, check out Site Checker that has a handy link monitoring feature included.

Conclusion

Safe links mean those we cannot control. This turns a link building process almost into a form of art, or a well-manufactured serendipity (one of my favorite business concepts). You need to do a lot before reaching your end goal, all while keeping your end goal in mind.

These days, when any site owner — professional or amateur — is bombarded with link requests, you need to up your link building game. Luckily, there’s a neighboring marketing area that you can learn from: lead generation. Adopt more complicated and more diverse outreach methods to acquire great links to your website. Good luck!

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

[nutrifami]

How Lead Generation Tactics Can Boost Your Link Building Results

Posted by AnnSmarty

How effective is your link building campaign? I bet your answer is “I wish it could be better.”

Talking to business owners and executives on a daily basis, I have yet to meet one who would be satisfied with their link building strategy.

Everyone needs links, yet they are getting harder and harder to get.

The solution?

Change your link building mindset.

How link building is similar to lead generation

In any business marketing strategy, we’re really interested in one thing: sales.

Yet, if we keep focusing on that end goal, we won’t achieve much. A customer may need up to eight touchpoints before they finally make a purchase. If you only focus on that final sale, you’re missing out on all those extra steps that drive your customer to buy.

It may sound obvious (so I’ll stop here) but the point I’m trying to make is: Marketers cannot focus on the final sale. We need something in between — a secondary metric that will bridge the gap between “a stranger” and a “a buyer”.

This is where the notion of a “lead” came from, i.e. a contact which we consider our prospective/possible/future customer.

A journey from a “a stranger” to a “lead” is shorter and much more predictable than a journey from “a stranger” to a “a buyer”, and once we turn a visitor into a lead, we can reach out to them in a much more meaningful and personalized way (via email, Facebook re-marketing, on-site personalizations, etc.).

What does this have to do with link building?

In link building we need links, just like in marketing we want sales. But focusing on the final goal is just as limiting in link building as it is in marketing.

Very few link builders these days do anything beyond sending an email, then using automated follow-ups. There’s no “lead generation” in link building. It’s either “link or no link” reporting.

And that’s where that process is broken.

In link building, all those bloggers, publishers, editors, etc. may also need several touchpoints (from something beyond an email). Furthermore, they may not be proper decision makers within the publication you are targeting.

If you apply that lead generation process to link building, you may see much better results, and more importantly, those results will keep growing the more leads you acquire.

How to add lead generation processes to your link building strategy

1. Define your linking leads prior to creating content

In B2B marketing, this is called outcomes-focused data strategy, which basically means you need to know exactly what you want to achieve (the outcome) before you start developing your strategy of achieving said outcome.

This concept is — sadly — seldom applied to link building.

What usually happens:

The content team creates what they think is a great content asset.

The outreach team identifies website owners who are likely to be interested in that asset, and starts the outreach.

Both teams are working in isolation.

But what happens if you turn that process around?

The outreach team shows the content team what’s attracting links on a specific topic (with examples). This insight should come from prospect research, current or upcoming trends, from previous outreach campaign data, etc.

The content team (in collaboration with the outreach team) creates something better than what currently exists on that topic. At this point, both the teams may involve those linking leads in the actual content creation (by reaching out and asking for expert opinions on the topic).

The outreach team delivers that content to the contacts they identified prior to the content creation.

Depending on the outlined link building opportunities, the linkable assets should take a specific format or angle, for example:

Curated lists of resources: Make sure your article fits one of the existing categories in the list, better fills a gap, or fixes an existing broken link.

Links from influencers or experts: Prior to publishing your article, reach out to those influencers and get their quote (opinion) to include in your article. Influencers are more likely to link when they’re featured on that page.

Links from peers and friends: Follow those people everywhere and start interacting with them on a daily basis. Think of this as “lead nurturing” — increasing your chances of creating long-lasting partnerships.

Editorial links from popular blogs: Track down authors and editors of those sites and start interacting with them on social media. Consider inviting them to contribute a quote to your article as well.

By letting your link building research guide the content creation process, you will end up with a highly successful campaign that is still delivering links (without the need to do the active outreach anymore).

2. Organize your linking leads

As we said previously, in link building the end goal is a link. But different leads will need a different number of touchpoints to finally link. Plus, more links are better than one.

This is where a lead nurturing process comes into play.

Just like B2B marketers using different methods to “warm up” leads and take them close to a sale, in link building you will get many more links if you keep reaching out to your leads to remind them of your asset.

If you’re using an outreach tool (both Pitchbox and Link Hunter are good options, depending on your budget and complexity of your project), it will handle some of the lead nurturing for you. At the very least, any outreach solution will:

Save all the emails you sent

Update the email status and dates (replied, bounced back, followed up, etc.)

Many link building teams will find that sufficient. I recommend going further and using a solid customer relationship management approach, which would also include:

Creating a detailed profile for each lead (which would also include their sites and columns, social media profiles, etc.)

Reaching out on social media (through ads and/or manual outreach)

If you want to go even further, you can adopt a well-organized customer relationship management strategy towards your linking leads. To get you started, here’s a solid comparison of major CRM types, as well as lead generation and nurturing platforms allowing you to properly organize and monitor your link building prospects.

You can set your link acquisition workflow and automate some parts of it (like follow-ups) while being in full control of everything that is going on.

3. Find alternative contacts and decision makers within each publication

In B2B, this process is called “account-based marketing”, i.e. when you know exactly which company would make your ideal customer and you start researching how to best onboard it.

In link building, this strategy applies to huge multi-author publications that would make ideal and ongoing backlink providers for your content. Think of the New York Times, Mashable, or a huge research magazine in your niche.

Emailing one of their authors with a request to link to your study or your infographic may not be enough (in fact, it will hardly ever be enough).

To investigate publications I’m really interested in getting links from, I use the following tools:

LinkedIn

I don’t use Linkedin for outreach, but I just love its company profiles, which show me which friends (or friends of friends) I have associated with those entities. I have been introduced to quite a few great publications this way:

Twitter bio search

While Linkedin may be useful to identify existing contacts, Twitter is great for building new ones. For bigger publications, all you need is to find people including that publication in their bios.

A tool called Twiangulate is a great and free option for doing that: Just specify the company name (or its Twitter handle) as a keyword and the tool will find all the Twitter profiles that include it:

Now create a separate Twitter list to keep in touch with all of them.

Website’s “About Us” page

This may seem obvious, but it’s often a missed step. Many publications list their whole editorial team with all the emails included on their “About” page.

Try developing an outreach strategy for each of those emails. For example, a CEO may not be the best contact to request a link from, but they may reply and give you clearer directions for who to speak with, so ask for a contact!

4. Diversify your touchpoints

In my experience, an email is still the most effective link building outreach method. Truthfully, I’ve seen better success with a follow-up email versus the initial email.

But other ways to reach out certainly increase your chances of hearing back. These include:

A simple Twitter follow or retweet (no requests here)

A DM (especially when journalists claim their DMs are open for pitches and ideas)

A comment on their personal site

A LinkedIn message

Adding a contact to a Twitter list (Twitter will notify them)

Tagging them on social media (especially when they’re referenced or quoted in your content)

The bottom line here: Simply being there may remind them of your request and prompt them to open your email.

5. Diversify your assets

With diverse touchpoints comes the need to diversify your assets. Your outreach will be more effective if you give your linking leads something of value to include in their article.

If your initial email and the first follow-up weren’t successful, try creating a visual summary (an infographic) in your second follow-up to give them something fresh.

The process may turn quite easy and effective if you provide your outreach and content teams with tools enabling them to handle the creation of those assets. These tools include:

Venngage (to create slideshows and infographics)

Google Docs (to create ebooks and whitepapers)

Surveys (to collect ideas and stats)

Invideo (to create videos)

6. Keep an eye on your team performance

Your team is everything. If you fail to train them properly or distribute tasks among your team members effectively, the whole process will fail to move along.

At the very least:

Include your outreach team in your social media marketing so they can extend their outreach methods beyond emailing. Tools like Agorapulse will help in that process. You can set up lists, monitor certain keywords, save and delegate certain updates to turn them into tasks, etc.

Track your outreach activity. Tools like Email Analytics will help you with that. It will generate daily and weekly reports showing you how actively your team was emailing and how many responses they got. It will also save all emails to backup conversations.

7. Optimize your landing page

Your linkable asset should make an instantly positive impression on the people you email. There may by different ways to achieve that, but certain things help for just about any SEO campaign:

Your page needs to be ad-free

I’ve seen lots of people not willing to provide “a free link” to a page that is monetized with ads. There’s no point in arguing with your linking leads on that. It’s easier to remove the ads from the page you’re actively link building for at the moment. Besides, more often than not, it’s very easy to do.

Create CTAs targeting your linking leads

This one is a little bit advanced, but it will help a lot. Adjust your CTAs on the linkable asset page to fit your linking leads rather than your regular ads.

For example, instead of “Sign up for a free trial”, you may include a press coverage link or invite visitors to download additional data or resources.

Using Facebook pixel to record everyone who initially landed on the site through your linkable asset is another great way to re-market your asset to your linking leads.

8. Keep an eye on those links

Very few people will reply to you saying they have indeed linked to your content. But knowing if they have is important because conversion is a crucial part in the lead nurturing process. It doesn’t stop your relationships with your lead, but it impacts your interactions going forward. Those leads who end up linking to you are your best friends. Cancel your follow-ups, thank them, and keep interacting with them on social media.

Again, if you are using an outreach platform, chances are the link tracking will be included. Otherwise, check out Site Checker that has a handy link monitoring feature included.

Conclusion

Safe links mean those we cannot control. This turns a link building process almost into a form of art, or a well-manufactured serendipity (one of my favorite business concepts). You need to do a lot before reaching your end goal, all while keeping your end goal in mind.

These days, when any site owner — professional or amateur — is bombarded with link requests, you need to up your link building game. Luckily, there’s a neighboring marketing area that you can learn from: lead generation. Adopt more complicated and more diverse outreach methods to acquire great links to your website. Good luck!

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

[xaydungtruonggia]

How Lead Generation Tactics Can Boost Your Link Building Results

Posted by AnnSmarty

How effective is your link building campaign? I bet your answer is “I wish it could be better.”

Talking to business owners and executives on a daily basis, I have yet to meet one who would be satisfied with their link building strategy.

Everyone needs links, yet they are getting harder and harder to get.

The solution?

Change your link building mindset.

How link building is similar to lead generation

In any business marketing strategy, we’re really interested in one thing: sales.

Yet, if we keep focusing on that end goal, we won’t achieve much. A customer may need up to eight touchpoints before they finally make a purchase. If you only focus on that final sale, you’re missing out on all those extra steps that drive your customer to buy.

It may sound obvious (so I’ll stop here) but the point I’m trying to make is: Marketers cannot focus on the final sale. We need something in between — a secondary metric that will bridge the gap between “a stranger” and a “a buyer”.

This is where the notion of a “lead” came from, i.e. a contact which we consider our prospective/possible/future customer.

A journey from a “a stranger” to a “lead” is shorter and much more predictable than a journey from “a stranger” to a “a buyer”, and once we turn a visitor into a lead, we can reach out to them in a much more meaningful and personalized way (via email, Facebook re-marketing, on-site personalizations, etc.).

What does this have to do with link building?

In link building we need links, just like in marketing we want sales. But focusing on the final goal is just as limiting in link building as it is in marketing.

Very few link builders these days do anything beyond sending an email, then using automated follow-ups. There’s no “lead generation” in link building. It’s either “link or no link” reporting.

And that’s where that process is broken.

In link building, all those bloggers, publishers, editors, etc. may also need several touchpoints (from something beyond an email). Furthermore, they may not be proper decision makers within the publication you are targeting.

If you apply that lead generation process to link building, you may see much better results, and more importantly, those results will keep growing the more leads you acquire.

How to add lead generation processes to your link building strategy

1. Define your linking leads prior to creating content

In B2B marketing, this is called outcomes-focused data strategy, which basically means you need to know exactly what you want to achieve (the outcome) before you start developing your strategy of achieving said outcome.

This concept is — sadly — seldom applied to link building.

What usually happens:

The content team creates what they think is a great content asset.

The outreach team identifies website owners who are likely to be interested in that asset, and starts the outreach.

Both teams are working in isolation.

But what happens if you turn that process around?

The outreach team shows the content team what’s attracting links on a specific topic (with examples). This insight should come from prospect research, current or upcoming trends, from previous outreach campaign data, etc.

The content team (in collaboration with the outreach team) creates something better than what currently exists on that topic. At this point, both the teams may involve those linking leads in the actual content creation (by reaching out and asking for expert opinions on the topic).

The outreach team delivers that content to the contacts they identified prior to the content creation.

Depending on the outlined link building opportunities, the linkable assets should take a specific format or angle, for example:

Curated lists of resources: Make sure your article fits one of the existing categories in the list, better fills a gap, or fixes an existing broken link.

Links from influencers or experts: Prior to publishing your article, reach out to those influencers and get their quote (opinion) to include in your article. Influencers are more likely to link when they’re featured on that page.

Links from peers and friends: Follow those people everywhere and start interacting with them on a daily basis. Think of this as “lead nurturing” — increasing your chances of creating long-lasting partnerships.

Editorial links from popular blogs: Track down authors and editors of those sites and start interacting with them on social media. Consider inviting them to contribute a quote to your article as well.

By letting your link building research guide the content creation process, you will end up with a highly successful campaign that is still delivering links (without the need to do the active outreach anymore).

2. Organize your linking leads

As we said previously, in link building the end goal is a link. But different leads will need a different number of touchpoints to finally link. Plus, more links are better than one.

This is where a lead nurturing process comes into play.

Just like B2B marketers using different methods to “warm up” leads and take them close to a sale, in link building you will get many more links if you keep reaching out to your leads to remind them of your asset.

If you’re using an outreach tool (both Pitchbox and Link Hunter are good options, depending on your budget and complexity of your project), it will handle some of the lead nurturing for you. At the very least, any outreach solution will:

Save all the emails you sent

Update the email status and dates (replied, bounced back, followed up, etc.)

Many link building teams will find that sufficient. I recommend going further and using a solid customer relationship management approach, which would also include:

Creating a detailed profile for each lead (which would also include their sites and columns, social media profiles, etc.)

Reaching out on social media (through ads and/or manual outreach)

If you want to go even further, you can adopt a well-organized customer relationship management strategy towards your linking leads. To get you started, here’s a solid comparison of major CRM types, as well as lead generation and nurturing platforms allowing you to properly organize and monitor your link building prospects.

You can set your link acquisition workflow and automate some parts of it (like follow-ups) while being in full control of everything that is going on.

3. Find alternative contacts and decision makers within each publication

In B2B, this process is called “account-based marketing”, i.e. when you know exactly which company would make your ideal customer and you start researching how to best onboard it.

In link building, this strategy applies to huge multi-author publications that would make ideal and ongoing backlink providers for your content. Think of the New York Times, Mashable, or a huge research magazine in your niche.

Emailing one of their authors with a request to link to your study or your infographic may not be enough (in fact, it will hardly ever be enough).

To investigate publications I’m really interested in getting links from, I use the following tools:

LinkedIn

I don’t use Linkedin for outreach, but I just love its company profiles, which show me which friends (or friends of friends) I have associated with those entities. I have been introduced to quite a few great publications this way:

Twitter bio search

While Linkedin may be useful to identify existing contacts, Twitter is great for building new ones. For bigger publications, all you need is to find people including that publication in their bios.

A tool called Twiangulate is a great and free option for doing that: Just specify the company name (or its Twitter handle) as a keyword and the tool will find all the Twitter profiles that include it:

Now create a separate Twitter list to keep in touch with all of them.

Website’s “About Us” page

This may seem obvious, but it’s often a missed step. Many publications list their whole editorial team with all the emails included on their “About” page.

Try developing an outreach strategy for each of those emails. For example, a CEO may not be the best contact to request a link from, but they may reply and give you clearer directions for who to speak with, so ask for a contact!

4. Diversify your touchpoints

In my experience, an email is still the most effective link building outreach method. Truthfully, I’ve seen better success with a follow-up email versus the initial email.

But other ways to reach out certainly increase your chances of hearing back. These include:

A simple Twitter follow or retweet (no requests here)

A DM (especially when journalists claim their DMs are open for pitches and ideas)

A comment on their personal site

A LinkedIn message

Adding a contact to a Twitter list (Twitter will notify them)

Tagging them on social media (especially when they’re referenced or quoted in your content)

The bottom line here: Simply being there may remind them of your request and prompt them to open your email.

5. Diversify your assets

With diverse touchpoints comes the need to diversify your assets. Your outreach will be more effective if you give your linking leads something of value to include in their article.

If your initial email and the first follow-up weren’t successful, try creating a visual summary (an infographic) in your second follow-up to give them something fresh.

The process may turn quite easy and effective if you provide your outreach and content teams with tools enabling them to handle the creation of those assets. These tools include:

Venngage (to create slideshows and infographics)

Google Docs (to create ebooks and whitepapers)

Surveys (to collect ideas and stats)

Invideo (to create videos)

6. Keep an eye on your team performance

Your team is everything. If you fail to train them properly or distribute tasks among your team members effectively, the whole process will fail to move along.

At the very least:

Include your outreach team in your social media marketing so they can extend their outreach methods beyond emailing. Tools like Agorapulse will help in that process. You can set up lists, monitor certain keywords, save and delegate certain updates to turn them into tasks, etc.

Track your outreach activity. Tools like Email Analytics will help you with that. It will generate daily and weekly reports showing you how actively your team was emailing and how many responses they got. It will also save all emails to backup conversations.

7. Optimize your landing page

Your linkable asset should make an instantly positive impression on the people you email. There may by different ways to achieve that, but certain things help for just about any SEO campaign:

Your page needs to be ad-free

I’ve seen lots of people not willing to provide “a free link” to a page that is monetized with ads. There’s no point in arguing with your linking leads on that. It’s easier to remove the ads from the page you’re actively link building for at the moment. Besides, more often than not, it’s very easy to do.

Create CTAs targeting your linking leads

This one is a little bit advanced, but it will help a lot. Adjust your CTAs on the linkable asset page to fit your linking leads rather than your regular ads.

For example, instead of “Sign up for a free trial”, you may include a press coverage link or invite visitors to download additional data or resources.

Using Facebook pixel to record everyone who initially landed on the site through your linkable asset is another great way to re-market your asset to your linking leads.

8. Keep an eye on those links

Very few people will reply to you saying they have indeed linked to your content. But knowing if they have is important because conversion is a crucial part in the lead nurturing process. It doesn’t stop your relationships with your lead, but it impacts your interactions going forward. Those leads who end up linking to you are your best friends. Cancel your follow-ups, thank them, and keep interacting with them on social media.

Again, if you are using an outreach platform, chances are the link tracking will be included. Otherwise, check out Site Checker that has a handy link monitoring feature included.

Conclusion

Safe links mean those we cannot control. This turns a link building process almost into a form of art, or a well-manufactured serendipity (one of my favorite business concepts). You need to do a lot before reaching your end goal, all while keeping your end goal in mind.

These days, when any site owner — professional or amateur — is bombarded with link requests, you need to up your link building game. Luckily, there’s a neighboring marketing area that you can learn from: lead generation. Adopt more complicated and more diverse outreach methods to acquire great links to your website. Good luck!

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

[camerasieunhovn]

How Lead Generation Tactics Can Boost Your Link Building Results

Posted by AnnSmarty

How effective is your link building campaign? I bet your answer is “I wish it could be better.”

Talking to business owners and executives on a daily basis, I have yet to meet one who would be satisfied with their link building strategy.

Everyone needs links, yet they are getting harder and harder to get.

The solution?

Change your link building mindset.

How link building is similar to lead generation

In any business marketing strategy, we’re really interested in one thing: sales.

Yet, if we keep focusing on that end goal, we won’t achieve much. A customer may need up to eight touchpoints before they finally make a purchase. If you only focus on that final sale, you’re missing out on all those extra steps that drive your customer to buy.

It may sound obvious (so I’ll stop here) but the point I’m trying to make is: Marketers cannot focus on the final sale. We need something in between — a secondary metric that will bridge the gap between “a stranger” and a “a buyer”.

This is where the notion of a “lead” came from, i.e. a contact which we consider our prospective/possible/future customer.

A journey from a “a stranger” to a “lead” is shorter and much more predictable than a journey from “a stranger” to a “a buyer”, and once we turn a visitor into a lead, we can reach out to them in a much more meaningful and personalized way (via email, Facebook re-marketing, on-site personalizations, etc.).

What does this have to do with link building?

In link building we need links, just like in marketing we want sales. But focusing on the final goal is just as limiting in link building as it is in marketing.

Very few link builders these days do anything beyond sending an email, then using automated follow-ups. There’s no “lead generation” in link building. It’s either “link or no link” reporting.

And that’s where that process is broken.

In link building, all those bloggers, publishers, editors, etc. may also need several touchpoints (from something beyond an email). Furthermore, they may not be proper decision makers within the publication you are targeting.

If you apply that lead generation process to link building, you may see much better results, and more importantly, those results will keep growing the more leads you acquire.

How to add lead generation processes to your link building strategy

1. Define your linking leads prior to creating content

In B2B marketing, this is called outcomes-focused data strategy, which basically means you need to know exactly what you want to achieve (the outcome) before you start developing your strategy of achieving said outcome.

This concept is — sadly — seldom applied to link building.

What usually happens:

The content team creates what they think is a great content asset.

The outreach team identifies website owners who are likely to be interested in that asset, and starts the outreach.

Both teams are working in isolation.

But what happens if you turn that process around?

The outreach team shows the content team what’s attracting links on a specific topic (with examples). This insight should come from prospect research, current or upcoming trends, from previous outreach campaign data, etc.

The content team (in collaboration with the outreach team) creates something better than what currently exists on that topic. At this point, both the teams may involve those linking leads in the actual content creation (by reaching out and asking for expert opinions on the topic).

The outreach team delivers that content to the contacts they identified prior to the content creation.

Depending on the outlined link building opportunities, the linkable assets should take a specific format or angle, for example:

Curated lists of resources: Make sure your article fits one of the existing categories in the list, better fills a gap, or fixes an existing broken link.

Links from influencers or experts: Prior to publishing your article, reach out to those influencers and get their quote (opinion) to include in your article. Influencers are more likely to link when they’re featured on that page.

Links from peers and friends: Follow those people everywhere and start interacting with them on a daily basis. Think of this as “lead nurturing” — increasing your chances of creating long-lasting partnerships.

Editorial links from popular blogs: Track down authors and editors of those sites and start interacting with them on social media. Consider inviting them to contribute a quote to your article as well.

By letting your link building research guide the content creation process, you will end up with a highly successful campaign that is still delivering links (without the need to do the active outreach anymore).

2. Organize your linking leads

As we said previously, in link building the end goal is a link. But different leads will need a different number of touchpoints to finally link. Plus, more links are better than one.

This is where a lead nurturing process comes into play.

Just like B2B marketers using different methods to “warm up” leads and take them close to a sale, in link building you will get many more links if you keep reaching out to your leads to remind them of your asset.

If you’re using an outreach tool (both Pitchbox and Link Hunter are good options, depending on your budget and complexity of your project), it will handle some of the lead nurturing for you. At the very least, any outreach solution will:

Save all the emails you sent

Update the email status and dates (replied, bounced back, followed up, etc.)

Many link building teams will find that sufficient. I recommend going further and using a solid customer relationship management approach, which would also include:

Creating a detailed profile for each lead (which would also include their sites and columns, social media profiles, etc.)

Reaching out on social media (through ads and/or manual outreach)

If you want to go even further, you can adopt a well-organized customer relationship management strategy towards your linking leads. To get you started, here’s a solid comparison of major CRM types, as well as lead generation and nurturing platforms allowing you to properly organize and monitor your link building prospects.

You can set your link acquisition workflow and automate some parts of it (like follow-ups) while being in full control of everything that is going on.

3. Find alternative contacts and decision makers within each publication

In B2B, this process is called “account-based marketing”, i.e. when you know exactly which company would make your ideal customer and you start researching how to best onboard it.

In link building, this strategy applies to huge multi-author publications that would make ideal and ongoing backlink providers for your content. Think of the New York Times, Mashable, or a huge research magazine in your niche.

Emailing one of their authors with a request to link to your study or your infographic may not be enough (in fact, it will hardly ever be enough).

To investigate publications I’m really interested in getting links from, I use the following tools:

LinkedIn

I don’t use Linkedin for outreach, but I just love its company profiles, which show me which friends (or friends of friends) I have associated with those entities. I have been introduced to quite a few great publications this way:

Twitter bio search

While Linkedin may be useful to identify existing contacts, Twitter is great for building new ones. For bigger publications, all you need is to find people including that publication in their bios.

A tool called Twiangulate is a great and free option for doing that: Just specify the company name (or its Twitter handle) as a keyword and the tool will find all the Twitter profiles that include it:

Now create a separate Twitter list to keep in touch with all of them.

Website’s “About Us” page

This may seem obvious, but it’s often a missed step. Many publications list their whole editorial team with all the emails included on their “About” page.

Try developing an outreach strategy for each of those emails. For example, a CEO may not be the best contact to request a link from, but they may reply and give you clearer directions for who to speak with, so ask for a contact!

4. Diversify your touchpoints

In my experience, an email is still the most effective link building outreach method. Truthfully, I’ve seen better success with a follow-up email versus the initial email.

But other ways to reach out certainly increase your chances of hearing back. These include:

A simple Twitter follow or retweet (no requests here)

A DM (especially when journalists claim their DMs are open for pitches and ideas)

A comment on their personal site

A LinkedIn message

Adding a contact to a Twitter list (Twitter will notify them)

Tagging them on social media (especially when they’re referenced or quoted in your content)

The bottom line here: Simply being there may remind them of your request and prompt them to open your email.

5. Diversify your assets

With diverse touchpoints comes the need to diversify your assets. Your outreach will be more effective if you give your linking leads something of value to include in their article.

If your initial email and the first follow-up weren’t successful, try creating a visual summary (an infographic) in your second follow-up to give them something fresh.

The process may turn quite easy and effective if you provide your outreach and content teams with tools enabling them to handle the creation of those assets. These tools include:

Venngage (to create slideshows and infographics)

Google Docs (to create ebooks and whitepapers)

Surveys (to collect ideas and stats)

Invideo (to create videos)

6. Keep an eye on your team performance

Your team is everything. If you fail to train them properly or distribute tasks among your team members effectively, the whole process will fail to move along.

At the very least:

Include your outreach team in your social media marketing so they can extend their outreach methods beyond emailing. Tools like Agorapulse will help in that process. You can set up lists, monitor certain keywords, save and delegate certain updates to turn them into tasks, etc.

Track your outreach activity. Tools like Email Analytics will help you with that. It will generate daily and weekly reports showing you how actively your team was emailing and how many responses they got. It will also save all emails to backup conversations.

7. Optimize your landing page

Your linkable asset should make an instantly positive impression on the people you email. There may by different ways to achieve that, but certain things help for just about any SEO campaign:

Your page needs to be ad-free

I’ve seen lots of people not willing to provide “a free link” to a page that is monetized with ads. There’s no point in arguing with your linking leads on that. It’s easier to remove the ads from the page you’re actively link building for at the moment. Besides, more often than not, it’s very easy to do.

Create CTAs targeting your linking leads

This one is a little bit advanced, but it will help a lot. Adjust your CTAs on the linkable asset page to fit your linking leads rather than your regular ads.

For example, instead of “Sign up for a free trial”, you may include a press coverage link or invite visitors to download additional data or resources.

Using Facebook pixel to record everyone who initially landed on the site through your linkable asset is another great way to re-market your asset to your linking leads.

8. Keep an eye on those links

Very few people will reply to you saying they have indeed linked to your content. But knowing if they have is important because conversion is a crucial part in the lead nurturing process. It doesn’t stop your relationships with your lead, but it impacts your interactions going forward. Those leads who end up linking to you are your best friends. Cancel your follow-ups, thank them, and keep interacting with them on social media.

Again, if you are using an outreach platform, chances are the link tracking will be included. Otherwise, check out Site Checker that has a handy link monitoring feature included.

Conclusion

Safe links mean those we cannot control. This turns a link building process almost into a form of art, or a well-manufactured serendipity (one of my favorite business concepts). You need to do a lot before reaching your end goal, all while keeping your end goal in mind.

These days, when any site owner — professional or amateur — is bombarded with link requests, you need to up your link building game. Luckily, there’s a neighboring marketing area that you can learn from: lead generation. Adopt more complicated and more diverse outreach methods to acquire great links to your website. Good luck!

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