#selecting the statistics i use....leaving out the little details...

[astridcookie]

I love writing essays i feel like a little news reporter selecting the information to put in to prove my point...

#cookie talks #selecting the statistics i use....leaving out the little details... #all to support the point i want to make....all to make my target audience happy with what i did.... #careful with my language....what terms do i use.... #like a little game to me #i pretend i am a little reporter...writing my piece.... #i <3 spreading misinformation #/j

[desn512sarahwhitehead]

Reflective Statement Writing Exercise

Reflection on my research skills 

What specific forms of research did you do? What really helped inspire/extend your poster designs? How could you improve your research? 

I knew I wanted to do something based around nature/outdoors/wildlife in New Zealand because that's a big part of my love for Aotearoa  

I found a few issues that I experimented with eg. pollution, unswimmable waterways, animals going extinct and also looked into the Greens Party and some projects they were doing that revolved around these issues.  

Because New Zealand for the most part is actually a very clean and environmentally friendly country, some statistics that I found didn’t seem accurate. They were either way too extreme and unrealistic, or quite minimal, and therefore I didn’t see a reason to make a poster speaking up about it.  

Reflection on my creative process 

What design processes did you employ? Eg. sketching, experimentation in InDesign, development of selected design ideas, print testing etc. Which processes helped push your ideas + shape your posters? How? What are the strengths and weaknesses within your design process? 

Should have done some print testing instead of leaving it to the day as colours and transparency didn’t come out very well and then I was in a rush to fix and finish  

Should have done some more experimentation, maybe more so sketching on paper to get my ideas down. Sometimes when I make designs straight in InDesign I get carried away, forget the purpose of the posters and end up making something that I am happy with, but doesn’t fit the guidelines. I think if I were to get my ideas down on paper first it would make it easier for me to see a vision in front of me and then make it digitally.  

Reflection on my decision making 

How did you make decisions to develop the project and its responsiveness to the brief? What did you find hard + which decisions were easy? What did you do when you were stuck? You may refer to your Rationale for ideas, but do not repeat the content 

Experimented with a range of themes but struggled to pick a final theme to base my posters off of 

Found it hard to make the typography do the talking in the poster  

In my final posters, I still wanted a little bit of imagery, so I added it to the typography, I thought this way it gave the poster a bit more detail but technically it was still the type doing the talking?? 

Reflection on the overall progression of my work and leaning 

What have you learned so far? What were some of the challenges and breakthroughs? What insights do they suggest for your work for the rest of the semester? Are there any skills or processes you need to revise or improve? 

Struggling using InDesign, I feel as though I could have created better work in Photoshop with the range of effects and more quickly. Not quite used to using it yet.  

Need to watch some more videos on how to do fun techniques, because since I don’t really know what's available, yet I tend to just stick to basic/plain techniques, effects, and fonts.  

I think doing some more poster research, particularly typography posters, to really get into my head that it's the type that needs to be the base concept of the posters. Doing more research and exploration of other artists may help me broaden my ideas. 

[leiawritesstories]

Improbability

Rowaelin Month, Day 26: You’re seeing my roommate and accidentally walked into my shower. Featuring Sam and Rowan as roommates. :)))

Word count: 1542

Warnings: language, little bit of math gobbledygook that I stole from my stats class.

Enjoy!

~~~~

“Mate, you alright with my girlfriend coming over today?” Sam called out to his roommate. “We’re probably going out, but I asked her over here first.”

Rowan pulled out one of his earbuds and stuck his head out his bedroom door. “Yeah, that’s totally fine, just for God’s sake warn me if you’re going to do the dirty on our couch, bud.”

“THAT WAS ONE TIME!” Sam yelled, “and I was 100 percent sure you had football!”

“It’s called soccer, Cortland!” Rowan laughed, never missing the chance to poke at his British roommate. 

“Whatever, mate. You’re good with Ae hanging out here for a bit, yeah?”

“Sure am. She’s a fun person.” Rowan put his earbud back in and returned to doing his homework, or rather, swearing at his statistics textbook. Some fifteen minutes later, he heard the door of his and Sam’s dorm open.

“Anybody home?” enquired a throaty female voice. “Someone told me he was at home, but obviously he’s too busy to go out today. Guess I’ll just go drink with the girls, then.”

“And leave me lonely?” Sam asked.

Aelin Galathynius, who’d been dating Sam for almost two years now, smiled. “Never.”

He returned the grin and pulled her into the living room, where their conversation faded into a blur of noise too dim for Rowan to interpret. Not that he minded…much. Aelin was hilarious, though, and he loved hearing her make cracks at Sam’s British habits, her friends, her day, and pretty much anything else she thought deserved a snarky comment. 

Slamming his stats book closed, Rowan huffed a sigh and decided that he could use a quick shower to relax a little before heading out to training. He grabbed his towel and a bar of soap and went into the tiny dorm shower, which was low enough that he, at 6’3,” had to crouch to fit under the shower head. Grumbling to himself about the stupidity of whatever idiot architect designed dormitory showers, he stood under the stream of hot water and tried to make sense of all he still had to do. Which was too much. After somewhere around five minutes, he stuck his head out of the shower, realizing the dorm had gone awfully quiet. 

Maybe Sam and Aelin were out, then, he thought.

Rowan turned off the shower and reached for his towel, giving himself a quick dry-off before stepping out. He was just wrapping the towel around his waist when the door swept open.

“Oh, shit, sorry, I didn’t realize you were in here!” gasped Aelin.

Rowan gaped at her, forgetting that the only thing between her and a prime view of what he may or may not have been doing in the shower was a dark green bath towel.

A too-thin green bath towel.

Aelin’s turquoise eyes traveled down his frame, decidedly not missing a single detail. A pink flush spread over her cheekbones, and she hastily backed out of the bathroom and shut the door with a firm click.

Rowan swallowed whatever he’d thought he might have said and told his raging male hormones to calm the hell down. Quickly, before anyone else could walk in on him, he pulled on his practice jersey and sweats and went back to his room, where he grabbed his soccer bag and hauled ass for the gym.

He spent the entire 90-minute workout trying and miserably failing to get the image of Aelin Galathynius in her unfairly attractive blouse and miniskirt blushing at his nearly-nude self out of his mind. When he got back to his dorm, having showered in the locker room, this time without anyone interrupting, Sam and Aelin were gone. Sam had left a note on his bedroom door, stating that he’d probably be back around three. Checking his watch, Rowan groaned. It was almost two, and he’d broken down and signed up for stats tutoring at four. 

He just hoped that whoever the tutor was, they’d be able to help him get his mathematical shit together and pass the course. 

~

Two hours later, Rowan walked into the library and took a seat in the study room marked with a sign that read “STATS 320 TUTORING 4 PM.” Nobody else was there, but to be fair, he was a little early. He plopped his textbook, notebook, and calculator onto the table and waited. 

And nearly fell off his chair when Aelin Galathynius walked into the room.

“What the hell?”

“What the hell, what?” she asked, obviously amused at his reaction. 

“I--I didn’t expect to see you here, that’s what the hell. You here for tutoring too?”

“Yes and no.” Rowan blinked in confusion. Aelin’s little smirk grew bigger. “I am the tutor, Rowan. You’re here for my assistance…and expertise.” She winked.

He felt himself flush at the image that conjured. “Yeah, expertise, in stats, right?” He knew full well he was stammering like a fourteen-year-old on his first date, but that about summed up how his roommate’s girlfriend made him feel right now.

“Correct.” Just like that, Aelin was all business. She set her backpack down, closed the door, and sat across from Rowan. “So. How can I help?”

He sighed. “I’m stuck. I need this class, it’s the last math I have to take for my major, I’m usually decent at math, and I’m fucking stuck on a concept my professor said was fucking simple.” 

Aelin listened to his mini rant without comment. She pulled out her own stats notebook and calculator from her backpack and slipped on a pair of glasses. Rowan cocked his head. 

“I didn’t know you wore glasses.”

“Reading glasses, Whitethorn. I’m supposed to wear them whenever I’m reading, on my laptop, or studying, but do I? Hell no.” She grinned. “Don’t tell my optometrist.”

“Given that I don’t know them, no problem.” He returned her grin.

She flexed her fingers and turned her attention to Rowan’s math. “Right, big bad soccer boy. Where are you stuck?”

He flipped his book to the section on conditional probability distributions. “Here. I took notes, and it seemed logical enough, but I completely tanked the quiz we just had, and I don’t know where I went wrong.”

Aelin scanned the quiz. “You’re reading the graphs wrong.”

“What?”

“Conditional probability is the probability of an event occurring given that a certain condition is satisfied.” She opened her notebook to a blank page and drew a horizontal line. “Any time you see a condition, that condition goes in the denominator.” She pointed to one of the problems he’d answered wrong on the quiz. “What’s this question asking you to determine?”

“Probability that a student chosen at random is an engineer given that the selected student is female.”

“Right. So, you take the condition, the ‘given,’ and put that number in the denominator. Remember you’re only looking at the row labeled ‘female,’ because that’s the condition. Once the condition’s written in, you find the other part of the question, in this case the number of female engineers. Put that number in the numerator, divide by the denominator, and there you have the probability. Does that make sense?”

“Condition in the denominator…” Rowan mumbled, writing it in his notes. He looked up at Aelin and smacked his hand flat on the table. “Aelin, I’m a fucking idiot. I spent so much time trying to look at the totals that I didn’t remember to keep the condition, I--goddammit, I’m stupid.”

“You’re not stupid, Rowan, lots of people struggle with conditional probability at first.”

“I’ll bet you didn’t.”

“Oh, I did. A lot.”

“Really? But you just explained this shit to me better than my professor.”

“I…I happen to like stats. Might be part of my major description, but I just find working with the numbers extremely satisfying.”

“What’s your major?” he asked, intrigued.

“Don’t judge me.”

“Nope. Promise.”

“I’m in finance.”

His eyebrows shot up. “I’m impressed.”

She blushed. “Thanks. It’s a lot of stats and spreadsheets and yelling at each other about the stock market, but I really love it.”

“You’re making me look bad; I’m just your standard pre-PT student athlete”

“Standard pre-PT student athlete,” she mocked, “don’t sell yourself short, Whitethorn. Pre-PT is nothing shabby.”

“Yeah, but not remembering a stupidly easy math concept sure as hell is.”

She snickered. “Fair enough. Is there anything else I can help you with, or is that all for this session?”

He flipped through his notes. “That’s all I had for today, but I’ll probably be back at some point whining about another tricky concept.”

Aelin grinned, closing her notebook. “Wait until you get into chi-squared models. I’ll be here then, waiting for all the stats students to come crying to me while I plug seventeen equations into my spreadsheet and hope it actually calculates the quarterly interest this time.”

Rowan shook his head. “You lost me at ‘chi-squared,’ Aelin.”

“Oh, trust me, it’s fun.”

“As much fun as you and Sam have?”

Her voice dropped to a sultry purr. “Your couch would know.”

Before he could sputter out a response, she’d shouldered her backpack and was walking out the door. Rowan watched Aelin Galathynius leave, wondering how fast he could make up an excuse to talk to his roommate’s brilliant girlfriend again.

#my writing #rowaelin month #day 26 #college au

[anti-endings]

I’m fairly sure at this point that Naruto is more or less fascist propaganda. There are so many things that we as a fandom want to turn a blind eye to yet when SNK was called out for being fascist, we had no problem boycotting it because it wasnt an anime that we’d come to love throughout our childhood. Unfortunately Naruto was a lot more subtle and pulled a fast one on us towards the end - 14/15 years after its initial release. 

Theres a lot of intricate reasons as to why I’d call it fascist but I’ll list the general points to be made that everyone can easily recognize. 

• Genocide for the good of the nation. This one is pretty obvious but I thought I’d get it out of the way. Slaughtering possible defectors of the state is apparently an honourable and justified choice. Even if some members of the oppressed minority were completely unaware of their leaders planned coup or had no desire to revolt against the system, each and every single one of them apparently deserved death. 

• Brainwashing children into military violence goes completely unquestioned by the narrative. The only people who challenge this idea are portrayed as “hateful.” The best example of this is how the narrative feels the need to emphasize that Itachi murdering his clan was his own decision. I just find it awfully strange that we’re expected to believe that a 13 year old, who was sent to fight in a bloody war for his country when he was just a toddler and was shown to suffer from severe PTSD, apparently wasnt brainwashed with threats of war on his impressionable child brain when he was already completely numb to the concept of killing people. Itachis history details the story of a brainwashed child soldier yet goes to great efforts to brush it aside and give Itachi the autonomy that he never actually had. On a meta level it’s pretty messed up that Itachis actions as a result of his brainwashing, was praised by Hashirama Senju - the ultimate force of “peace” who founded the village and “the will of fire” that were so expected to admire. 

• Consistent denial of blatant military violence. In the manga, the truth about the Uchiha massacre is covered up by Naruto, Sasuke and eventually Sakura to “maintain honour of the Uchiha.” This makes absolutely no logical sense whatsoever. How is it more honourable to say that a clan was slaughtered by a rogue criminal of their own (further perpetuating the selfish, bloodthirsty and power-hungry stereotype) when the truth is that an oppressed group of people were slaughtered off by the government? How can an act of genocide be prevented by a future government when the truth is actively censored by the governemnt? Neither Naruto nor Sasuke did anything to implement some sort of bill of human rights, laws or Geneva conventions in honour of Uchiha to prevent more innocent bloodshed at the hands of the state.

• Ultranationalism at every opportunity. The village is literally gated off. No one enters or leaves without permission from authority. The unification of the village under the statist military + the slaughter of any and all potential defectors is pretty telling. Its scary that “the will of fire” and protecting the state is the only honourable and good goal/ideology to have in this series as shown by Sasuke only ever being seen as “not evil” when he is beaten down into conforming to the government.

• Evil is in the genetics of the oppressed. This was pretty unsettling to witness and I’m surprised there havent been more people speaking out about it. Ideologies are inherited not just by fate, but by your genetics. The Senju-Uzumaki obviously have “The will of fire” which is known to be the supreme ideology. It consists of uniting and enduring the hardships of the world under the totalitarian government but NEVER pursuing revolution or change for the better. “The curse of hatred” is its counterpart which has its origins exclusively to the Uchiha. Its explained to be Uchiha culture to some degree. The narrative very desperately tries to paint the pursuit of revolution to prevent more violence as evil, bloodthirsty and selfish. This, in reality, makes no sense. Why are the Uchiha hateful for trying to fix a situation for the better of their family yet somehow the senju arent characterized by hatred despite openly hating the Uchiha? Simply put, the Uchiha are GENETICALLY undesirable and their push for equal rights are characterized as hateful, selfish and lonely. In reality, Madara Uchiha would not become a rogue ninja who decides to attack the entire village including his own family with Kurama because he could not get equal rights for the Uchiha. This doesnt add up with why he was so angry in the first place. Non of the “bloodthirsty” actions of any Uchiha do. They’re a fictional race of people that are only evil by the design of the author to portray oppressed people as selfish and aggressive. Towards the end of the fourth war, the story of Ashura and Indra is told to Naruto and Sasuke. Indra is apparently the original Uchiha who was influenced by some deranged evil spirit to pursue power over unification for completely selfish purposes. This is very unfairly equated to Sasuke and the rest of the Uchiha clan to explain to audience that the Uchiha are inherently evil and selfish detractors. 

• To be a revolutionary is to be lonely. This ties into my last point. Sasuke is constantly referred to as lonely by just about everyone in the cast, Naruto especially. This has always been bothersome because Sasuke wouldnt have been lonely if his entire clan wasnt slaughtered by the very same people that Naruto stands by. This point is incredibly simple yet its overlooked because the anti-uchiha propaganda is so successful in what it sets out to do. To add onto this point, what if Naruto had simply said to Sasuke “I believe you have every right to bring the murderer of your clan to justice and I’ll stand by your right to justice every step of the way” instead of physically fighting him and screaming at him all the time? Sasuke isnt inherently lonely exclusively by his own means, he is alienated by everyone around him. The narrative acknowledges Sasukes emotional unfulfillment, IGNORES the real reason why hes lonely and then states that the only way that Sasuke will find a sense of family through the acceptance of his peers is if he conforms to the government and adopts the hegemonic ideology…. after “repenting” for ever daring to get justice for his clan in the first place. This eerie emotional blackmail is completely normalized and unquestioned by the narrative. It sends a harrowing message to the audience that it’s more desirable and fulfilling to conform to the government despite their poor treatment of your people and should you question otherwise, you must repent for forgiveness. 

• The leader of the village is the most powerful member of the military, who is chosen exclusively through nepotism by a rich man who owns the land instead of the people, and is in power for an indeterminate length of  time. Again with the military obsession! Not even necessarily the best military commander or anyone with experience in any leadership position at all. This is partly fascist due to the fact that theres no limitations on what a Kage can do to their village, they’re selected through nepotism and not democracy and they’re in power for as long as they please no matter how the public feel. The leader is not necessarily someone who is shown to be compassionate, responsible, trustworthy, intelligent or reliable. In fact, you could be a known, unpersecuted war criminal like Danzo and still get the position. 

• To add on to that, war criminals in the Government or Military go completely unpersecuted and often unpunished - as shown by Danzo and the village elders. The village elders are still in the same position during the events of Boruto as they were in over 20 years ago when they conspired to execute the Uchiha massacre. Naruto and Sasuke know of their involvement yet havent held them accountable in any way. 

• Child soldiers are sent to die for the government. It seems that only Obito notices this when Rin dies. The second he becomes critical of the fact of this reality is the second he becomes “hateful” and “evil." 

Theres plenty more but I’ve already spent an hour typing this up and checking over every little detail. Generally speaking, much like SNK, the theme of Naruto is to just simply ENDURE hardship, stay loyal to your government at all costs even if they cause the hardship and NEVER revolt. Naruto as a character serves as the purpose of being as reductive as possible to every single character that faces hardship with "I too was lonely and oppressed but I coped by worshipping the government for a sense of emotional validation and you can too!" 

#anti naruto #anti konoha #submission

[literaila]

how could this ever be different (2) ?

part two 

spencer reid x reader 

summary: Spencer goes undercover in Las Vegas, he may just catch feelings along the way... warnings: innacurate things about Las Vegas because I’ve never been, BAU stuff, dumb spencer, love him, nothing else, except this is really just a “get to know y/n”  series masterlist here

**

Spencer wasn't sure what he was expecting. 

There were so many things that could happen, so many possibilities, so many things that were unknown, so many things he didn't have the statistics for. 

He didn't know anything about going undercover, nothing besides the week he got to spend cramming his brain with information before he left for Las Vegas. 

He hadn't gotten very far. 

It seemed that every situation was unique, that no agent who had ever been undercover could give any information. Every person, every unsub, was different, and there was no specific way to deal with the situation. 

Spencer didn't like going into situations he didn't know anything about. 

He’d asked Garica to get him a file on Y/N. 

And here's what he knew about her: she had a masters degree, which wasn't being put to use, she’d been working at that same bookstore for two years, she’d lived her whole life in Las Vegas, she had a brother, and her parents weren't anywhere to be found. 

That was it. Just tiny details. 

He hoped it would be enough to get him started. 

After a week had gone by the plans were made, he was going to live in a small apartment close to the book shop, he was going to send a report once a day, and otherwise, no one was to contact him unless he needed anything. 

He was going to be completely alone. With a murder suspect. 

He would be fine. 

They all said he would be fine. They were probably right. He could do this. 

***

Spencer hadn't slept at all the night he’d moved in. 

He hadn't brought everything, knowing that- hopefully -he would be moving back home in only a couple of weeks. But even with the few things he had brought, his toothbrush, books, and some clothes, he still had to unpack. 

And it didn't exhaust him like he had hoped it would. 

He’d tossed and turned all night, anxiety wracking at his bones. He had no idea what he was doing, no idea what to expect, and on top of that, he had people depending on him. 

The more-than-usual dark spots under his eyes could prove that. 

But he had a job to do, he had a girl to get to know, and a murder to catch. 

He walked to the bookstore early in the morning, hoping to get there before it opened just so he could know where he was going. Although he had lived there as a kid, things had changed so much, he could only recognize the layout, not the places. 

It was a small little shop. It looked like a bookstore with a cafe in it. He could tell there was no one in there, which he had guessed, it being only five in the morning. 

He was going to wait. There was a bench close enough to the store, he would wait there and finalize his plan. 

It turned out that Spencer was more tired than expecting. And that the bench he was sitting on was extremely comfortable. 

He fell asleep thirty minutes into waiting. 

The sun rested on his face in a warm glow, his body was curled into itself- at least as much as it could be while sitting on a bench -and his hand rested gently against his face, holding his head up. His eyes fluttered as he breathed, in and out, on a bench where he was just supposed to wait. It was so warm. 

People passed by and gave him acknowledging looks. All of them knew what it was like to fall asleep after a night out. 

Spencer didn't see them, too at peace to notice anything around him. 

Except, of course, the person gently shaking his shoulder. 

He opened his eyes to be blinded by the sun, he could feel the red forming on his cheeks, a sunburn imminent. He could only see a shadow of a person standing in front of him. 

He wondered why he was being blinded by the sun for a moment before he remembered falling asleep. 

Oh. 

He sat up, his back cracking at the quick motion, he squinted his eyes and looked back up at the person who had woke him up. 

They were staring at him with anxious eyes. 

She was. 

“Are you alright?” her modulated voice sounded almost as anxious as her eyes looked, her mouth turned down as she waited for his response. He could tell how closed off she was, her arms crossed over her chest, her leg shaking as she stood in front of him. 

He shook his head, trying to wake his mind up, trying to get his eyes to stay open. He still felt so tired. 

“You’re not? Is there something I can do? I can call-” she rushed out again, her face only more panicked. Spencer quickly realized she thought he was shaking his head at her question.

“No, no.” he interrupted her, not wanting her to get too overworked. “Sorry,” he anxiously laughed, rubbing a hand over the back of his neck. “I just fell asleep waiting for the stores to open.” 

He looked back up at her eyes, her insistent eye contact making him nervous, and he watched as she squinted at him. 

“Are you sure?” she asked again, almost as if she thought he was lying to her. 

“Yes, yeah” he cleared his throat, standing up, his legs wobbling under the pressure. “Um, I’m fine,” he said again, his eyes widened as he got used to the quick rush of blood to his head. 

“Sir, I can call you a cab. Um, I don't know if you should be walking around alone in your condition.” Her voice caught his attention again, and he looked down at her, noticing the height difference between the two of them. He hadn't noticed she was still standing there. 

His brows furrowed and his mouth shaped into a flat line, “In my condition?” he asked, confused, almost offended. 

“Alcohol can do dangerous things to the body, and of course, I’d pay for the taxi, I just don't want you to get-” 

“I’m not drunk.” Spencer interrupted, finally realizing why she looked so nervous at his insistence that he was okay. 

“You’re not?” she said, her words much slower now. 

“No, I just fell asleep.” when she still looked doubtful he continued “I swear. Just a bit dizzy is all.” 

She turned away, tucking a stray piece of hair behind her ear, suddenly more self-conscious, more guarded. “Okay then,” she said, making eye contact one more time before looking down again. “I’ll uh, I’ll let you do whatever you meant to do today,” she paused again and Spencer watched her start to walk away. “I’m sorry for bothering you, have a good day!” she called before walking off. 

Her behavior was strange. Her body language had changed so quickly, her confident demeanor transformed in an instant. Spencer shook his head again, reminding himself that he had a job to do. No matter how confused he was, he had to go meet their unsub. 

He walked down a street for a moment, finding the right bookstore from earlier quickly. He took a look inside, saw the lights on, the shop lit up so early in the morning. 

He took a deep breath. He reminded himself that he could do this, that it wasn't going to be as difficult as he was imagining. His team trusted him, he needed to trust himself. 

He took another deep breath and walked in. 

It was so much different inside. 

It smelled like spices, like a million different coffees all combined. It was bright in there, the sun helping, but the lights doing even more magic. There were lights everywhere, providing a sense of warmth, of comfort. 

Spencer looked around at the books. It was a small shop, smaller than most bookstores he frequented at, but there were so many books. Different spaces were built into the walls to hold more books, bookshelves lining areas. There were little cabinets next to the tables close to what Spencer guessed was the cafe, little cabinets that held more books. 

It seemed so peaceful, so much like a different world. 

It was strange that a murder could be resting between those comforting walls. 

He walked around for a moment, glancing at all the book titles, amazed at the selection hidden between the different covers. 

No, no. He had a job to do. 

He walked to the front, already aware that she would be there today, it said so on her schedule which Garcia had conveniently gotten for him. 

But there was only one person there. 

The girl. 

The same girl that had thought he was intoxicated. 

She must have noticed him out of the corner of her eye, because she looked over a little bit shocked, a gasp leaving her mouth. He was worried he had scared her before she started talking, a hand raised up to her chest as if she was trying to catch her breath. 

“Oh. It's you.” Her eyebrows were raised, and she looked surprised at his presence. “Sorry,” she said motioning to the book on her lap, an explanation of why she had been so surprised he was there. “Usually no one comes in until at least eight.” 

Spencer swore he could feel the tension in the room. It was so much different in the store than it had been outside, her quick change in confidence hadn't since changed back, and she still seemed closed off. 

Why? 

Spencer stared at her another moment, thinking of how she didn't seem like a murderer, she seemed compassionate. She had been worried about him earlier, she had wished him a good day, she had offered to call and pay for a cab just so he got home safe. 

She didn't seem anything like the sadist they had profiled. 

In one quick moment, Spencer blurted out “You’re Y/N?”. 

She looked a bit confused, a bit surprised, possibly offended at his tone of voice- the tone he was regretting only moments after -and a bit horrified. 

After watching her face for a moment Spencer realized his slip up. 

He wasn't supposed to know her name. 

“How do you know my name?” 

“Oh um,” Spencer started, quickly looking for a way out, he looked down at her name tag, relieved that it was actually her name. “Your nametag.” he finished, looking back up at her eyes, trying to be convincing, cursing himself for letting it slip. 

“Oh,” she said, all the emotions Spencer could see only a second ago draining out of her like water. “Okay. Can I help you?” she asked, her voice changing significantly. Spencer guessed this was her customer service voice. 

He almost wanted to laugh. 

His heart was beating loud in his chest. He was even more nervous now that he knew who she was, knew that she was the unsub, knew that she hadn't caught him yet. 

“I’m just looking,” he said, all of his plans going to fail. He needed to talk to her, he needed to get to know her, but he had already made a mistake, and he was so confused that she was his suspect. 

“Okay. I’m here all day today,” she answered, looking away from him, back down at her book. 

It was a weird introduction. 

All of the things that had happened near this unsub was weird. 

He needed to come up with a new plan. 

He sat down in an old chair next to a small table. He had a view of the front and a cabinet of books next to him. 

And he watched. 

*

Five hours later and Spencer was still watching. 

He just watched. 

He figured that observing for today would be alright, that his team would understand, that it was his assignment, that he could do whatever he wanted as long as he did his job. Observing was a good place to start. 

He ordered himself a coffee, which Y/N brought to him with cautious eyes.

And he sipped it as he watched. 

She seemed to be the only person working. At least this morning. She worked both the register and the cafe, moving back and forth almost effortlessly. He watched as she quickly rang up customers, and made other peoples coffees. 

She had very expressive eyes. Eyes that seemed to put all of her emotions on display. He could tell when she was worried when she was being careful around someone when she genuinely seemed happy to do something when there was someone she liked there. Her eyes changed with every movement, with every thought that seemed to cross her mind. 

It made Spencer's job just a little bit easier. 

She seemed to know that her emotions were on display for the world to see because she closed herself off, she avoided eye contact with almost everyone, besides a couple of customers that seemed to know her. She looked up and down, and everywhere except for someone's face. It made Spencer wonder why she had been so willing to look at him earlier that morning. 

He watched as she directed people to different books, as she carefully recalled someone's order of coffee. He watched her blow the hair out of her eyes, and smile at each person that walked up to her, he listened to her voice- which he now knew to be the customer service voice as he had guessed earlier -listened to her talk to each customer, ask how their days had been. He watched it all. 

Occasionally he looked down, focused on the book he had picked out, tried not to seem too suspicious, read through the pages like he always did. 

That part was simple. 

What wasn't simple was the girl. This girl who was supposed to be a murder. This girl who he was supposed to be arresting in only a couple of weeks. 

She wasn't anything like they’d profiled. 

She was empathetic, and she worked with the customers like she’d been doing it all her life, she smiled, and she expressed her thoughts, and she asked them about their days. She never looked at any of the women walking in with any extra malice, she never did anything that seemed even slightly threatening. She just worked, and she never got mad. Not even at the customers who seemed to expect the world from her, not even when they got mad at her for just doing her job. She never once snapped, never once lost the smile that seemed to be plastered on her face. 

She closed herself off sometimes, but that was the only closest to anything they’d profiled. 

She was so much different than he’d been expecting. 

That made him nervous. He wasn't sure if they had profiled something wrong if he was doing something wrong, he wasn't sure if he was doing anything right. There was something off. Something wrong. 

He hated the unknown. 

He hated that even though she seemed like an open book he didn't know anything about her. The first day wasn't going well. 

He told himself that it was fine, that he would ask Derek for help, that it was only the first day, that he would figure it out tomorrow. 

He told himself that over and over, still, it felt like there was something wrong. 

He was debating himself in his head when he felt a tap on his shoulder. 

A strangely familiar tap. 

“Um, hi, again.” she started, looking away from him. “I’m about to take my break in around fifteen minutes. And I have to kick you out. I’m sorry.” 

Spencer frowned. 

“You can come back in an hour! I just need to eat lunch and I-” 

“Oh, no it's not that sorry. Just thought of something. Of course, I’ll get out of your way.” Spencer quickly shut the book he was reading, noting the page number, and placed it on the stack of books he’d already read so he could take them back to the bookshelves. 

He was about to walk away when she stopped him. 

“Did you read all of those?” she said softly, and when Spencer turned her eyes were wide, almost shocked. When she noticed him looking at her, she moved back, crossed her arms again. He frowned for a moment before remembering how she seemed to take that before. He looked down at his books. 

“Yeah. I- um I read really fast.” 

She shook her head, smiled a different smile then he’d seen before, and chuckled a little. “No, I read fast. That looks like you skimmed a couple of pages off of each book, and decided you were done.” 

Spencer smiled at her a little bit, used to the question, watched her, looked for any signs of jealousy. 

“I just read fast,” he said again, watching. 

“There's 14 books here!” she exclaimed, a full-on smile now filling her face. Spencer was more confused. Why did that make her smile? Why wasn't she closed off anymore? 

His question went answered when she heard how loud her own voice was when she clapped her hand over her mouth when her brows furrowed and she looked almost angry. 

He was confused when he watched her relax when her shoulders went slack and her eyes turned away from him. 

“I- Customers-” she stuttered, and she walked away. 

Spencer felt himself confused, felt his heart race, watched as this girl walked away. 

He didn't know anything about her. 

It was day one and he didn't know anything about her. 

He decided he needed more time to think. 

He decided it was time to leave. 

He would be back tomorrow. 

***

Met unsub today. 

She has a weird way of closing herself off in certain instances. 

She doesn't seem to connect easily, but I didn't get close enough to tell. There have been no other signs of sadism, and nothing that alerts me to psychopathic tendencies. 

More tomorrow. 

Agent Morgan should call me. 

I have questions. 

Dr. Spencer Reid. BAU. 

***

masterlist here 

love you 

#spencer reid smut #spencer reid #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid x you #spencer reid x y/n #criminal minds imagine #criminal minds x reader #criminal minds #criminal minds rp #criminal minds headcanons #spencer reid fanfiction #spencer reid fan #spencer reid fanfic #spencer reid fic #mgg #mgg x reader #mgg blurb #mgg fanfiction

[myheartrevealedocs]

Untouchable- Ch 5: Poison (S1E13)

Summary:  A Spencer Reid x OC fanfic that retells select episodes, starting in season 1, from the point of view of Lydia Ambers, a forensic scientist.

Warnings: murder, swearing, drugs

Ch 4 | Ch 6

~ ~ ~

Rain was such a strange thing in Lydia’s mind. The sound of it hitting the window next to her was soft and gentle, and so many people spoke of it like it was cleansing or refreshing. But all Lydia had to attribute it to was mud and sickness. It didn’t leave her excited for spring. She didn’t think of it as food for flowers or a new start. She thought of floods. Confinement. Tears… 

“What’s up with you?” Spencer asked, startling Lydia out of her thoughts.

“What’s up with me? What’s up with you! You’re late!” she responded, watching him sit across from her at the booth and put down his coffee.

“I just got back from a case last night,” he defended. “I figured you wouldn’t mind if I took a little extra time to take a shower before leaving.”

She looked up at his hair to find it was indeed damp, but it could easily be from the weather outside. “Fine, you get a pass. Also, I don’t need you anyway,” she joked.

His face changed to one of hurt. “Wow. I mean, you don’t, but-”

“Sarcasm, Spencer.” She couldn’t help the grin spreading across her face. “Although, I am doing alright so far. I’m working on these extra assignments my criminology professor gave me. How was your case?”

“It went well. Found the unsub, saved the kid.”

She nodded. “That’s great!”

And they descended into silence, as they had the last time they’d met, both of them working on their own assignments.

After Lydia and Spencer had talked about helping her get her PhD, they’d made plans to meet off hours at a coffee shop so that Spencer could give her some advice for speeding up the college process. It had been terrifying at first. She’d been ready to completely back out, but Spencer had been insanely patient with her, able to convince her (after some rambling and statistics) that she was more than capable. He’d advised her who to talk to and what to ask teachers about their courses and so on to organize her thoughts. And then he just… sat with her as she worked. If she was ever confused on an assignment, he had her back. It was reassuring.

About halfway through their meeting, Spencer had put away his paperwork in favor of a book, but he found his pace excruciatingly slow. He wanted to invest himself in it, but he couldn’t stop himself from looking up at her when he knew she wouldn’t notice.

When she was extremely focused, her teeth would pull mindlessly on the dead skin on her lips. That’s what she’d been doing when he got there and saw her gazing out the window, not even realizing he’d walked in. But he hadn’t wanted to push her on that. And now all her energy was focused on her online work.

He also noticed another small tick when she was struggling with a question, because she always did it before asking him for help.

“How long have you worn a ring?” he asked her, watching her spin it loosely around her knuckle. It was a thick silver band, which was clearly too big for her fingers, and she was constantly switching it between the pointer and middle finger on her right hand.

She raised an eyebrow, but her manor was curious, rather than questioning. “I’ve had this ring since I was 16. Why do you ask?”

“I’ve just never seen you wear it before, is all.”

“It was my dad’s wedding ring,” she confided. “And you’re right. I don’t wear it when I go on cases, because getting latex gloves on and off is hard enough and I’m terrified of losing it.”

He took this answer gracefully, but Lydia could tell he was dying to ask why she had her father’s wedding ring rather than him. And before she could go back to her work, he spoke up again.

“You know, I’ve been really curious about something and you’ll have to forgive me if it offends you, but when we met, I asked you about why you had a limp and you didn’t tell me.”

She silently let go of a sigh of relief that this wasn’t related to her father (or at least, not to his knowledge). “Yeah, sorry about that. I know I was… weird that day.”

“So was I,” he reassured her. “But I’m kinda weird all the time.”

It was a sweet sentiment, but she was quick to shake her head at him. “Not at all. ‘Weird’ to me is far from the definition of Dr. Spencer Reid.”

It was like his eyes sparkled when he smiled at her. She found herself wanting to see it all the time and had to keep herself from staring.

“Right. My leg. Well, in actuality, my foot. I broke it when I was a teenager and it healed incorrectly,” she explained. “The arch is all sorts of messed up. But it doesn’t hurt and I can’t afford surgery anyway so I just let it be.”

“I’m sorry.”

She laughed, absurdly. “What for?”

“You didn’t want to get your PhD, because you couldn’t afford to go through any more years of school than you needed to and now you tell me that you’ve got this limp for the same reason? I don’t want to make any assumptions about your financial status, but I honestly do feel sorry that you think you need to sacrifice these things for it.”

This comment seemed to trigger something in Lydia and Spencer racked his brain for any indicator of what that may be.

“Well, I’m here, aren’t I?” she responded, but it didn’t have her previous spark of interest in the conversation, so he just agreed and let her go back to her work.

~ ~ ~

“You missed the briefing,” Gideon informed Lydia as soon as she picked up her phone. It had been a week since she’d had her second meeting with Spencer and she was sitting in her apartment, working on her schoolwork.

“What briefing?”

“Jet leaves in 30 minutes. You’re needed on a case.”

Lydia scoffed. “Gideon? That’s not a heads up. This would be my 3rd case before my 50 day limit was up, why am I coming along?”

“Do you want the job or not?” he asked, frustrated, but Lydia could tell it was just his impatience.

“Of course I do. I’m on my way. But I know there’s got to be a good reason to call me in after a briefing and against Chief Strauss’s wishes.”

He sighed on the other end before continuing. “We’ve got a poisoning case. LSD. You’re a chemistry expert, so I need you.”

“Reid’s definitely more of an expert than I am. But I’ll do what I can.”

“If we all determined our worth to the team by comparing ourselves to Reid, it wouldn’t be a team… it’d be Reid,” he argued. “I’ll see you on the jet.”

~ ~ ~

“How do you want to handle the press?” Gideon directed to JJ as they all settled down for their flight.

“We still don’t even know how these people got dosed. I think it would be irresponsible to issue a warning without specifics,” she reasoned. “It’ll just cause panic. I did notify the local PD, though, to be discreet.”

“How is it possible that none of these people knew how they got poisoned?” Morgan asked and before Lydia could stop herself, she murmured,

“It’s possible.”

JJ and Morgan both looked at her with concern, the rest of the team just stayed silent and they considered how this case might affect her after what happened with her roommate. The effects of her sudden drugging had been vastly different, but in the end, Lydia could understand the victims of this situation and how they must be feeling now that they’ve come out of their intoxicated state.

Hotch cleared his throat, returning to Morgan’s question. “None of them remembers anything about the day it happened.”

“These people are so messed up, it’s made it difficult for local PD to retrace the victims’ steps,” JJ explained.

“I suggest we split up the victims, see if there’s a pattern in the victimology,” Gideon began.

“Most of them are still in the hospital,” Hotch told him. “I’ll call local PD to meet us there.”

“I’ll check the lab reports,” Spencer offered. “Maybe there’s a clue to the unsub’s motive in the specific nature of the poison he used.”

“Ambers, you’ll go with him,” Hotch ordered, handing her her own file to review the details of the case. “I want you to be supervising the lab tests and keep us updated on everything you find. Especially if any new victims come in.”

“I-” She blinked down at the reports and pictures she’d just been handed. “Unchaperoned?”

“You aren’t a girl in the Regency Era,” Gideon teased. “You can handle it.”

“Don’t break any lab equipment,” Hotch insisted. “But yes, since we don’t exactly have a crime scene for you to analyze and you have experience in the lab as well, I want you there. Don’t worry about having a supervisor for now.”

She nodded, wanting to accept before he changed his mind. She didn’t miss Gideon’s smirk either as she accepted her new assignment. He was excited for her.

And she was kind of excited, too.

~ ~ ~

Spencer kept pace with Lydia as she navigated the hospital for the clinical lab. She was surprisingly confident in herself, finally getting to work a case that wasn’t up to suspect. She didn’t have to wonder about the colors on little girls’ paintings or try to date the wax underneath a satanic symbol. No, labs were natural sciences.

And she was an expert in those.

They were met at the door by one of the biochemists. “Hi. You must be the FBI agents. I’m Dr. Marilyn Keyes.”

“Hello. I’m Dr. Spencer Reid with the Behavioral Analysis Unit and this is our forensic expert, Lydia Ambers.”

Lydia did her best to greet the woman calmly, but her heart rate picked up when Spencer called her their ‘forensic expert’. She made a mental note to ask him about it later, seeing as she definitely was not considered an expert on the team. She was an intern.

“Alright, I’ve got the results from the blood tests here, but there isn’t much to say. The LSD levels were scarily high.”

“Were there traces of any other drugs in their system?” Spencer inquired.

“Only one,” Dr. Keyes replied. “Rohypnol.”

Lydia raised an eyebrow and turned to find Spencer doing the same. “But rohypnol is a roofie. If the unsub’s goal was to give a bunch of people a wild trip, why give them a sedative?” she asked.

“Because one of the most well known effects is amnesia,” Spencer reasoned, but Lydia shook her head.

“I just don’t see what would make a person poison all these people with a strong hallucinogen and then knock them out before seeing the effects.”

“But it didn’t knock them out,” Spencer argued. “They all still went about their day as normal.”

“Mixing drugs to get a precise effect like that is insanely difficult. This guy has to have some background in science.”

“One of the victims, Jack Fisher, got extremely violent and beat his son almost to death.” Lydia’s eyes shot open. This was news to her, seeing as she missed the briefing. “Are you sure there wasn’t anything like PCP in their systems to cause an aggressive outburst?”

Dr. Heyes shook her head. “We only found LSD and rohypnol.”

“If you don’t mind, I’ve been assigned to oversee the lab work on any new cases brought into the hospital and to keep my team informed of the information as it comes in. May I stay in here?”

Dr. Heyes seemed surprised by the request, but nodded. “Of course. I’ll find you a space to set up.”

As she did that, Spencer turned to go. “I’ll go tell the team what we know so far. Call Gideon or me if you figure out anything else.”

“You got it.”

With him gone, Dr. Heyes paused, her eyes wide. “He’s a doctor?” she asked, completely bewildered.

Lydia laughed. “Yes. He’s got 3 PhDs, in fact.”

If Dr. Heyes’s jaw could hit the floor it would have. “And you, you’re an FBI agent?”

“No,” Lydia said quickly. “No, I’m just an intern. They only sent me here because I’m the only one on the team who was trained in a lab setting. I just got my BS in chemistry.”

She decided not to mention Reid’s credentials, mostly because if the biochemist asked why they didn’t leave Reid here instead, she wouldn’t know what to say.

“But you are so young! You don’t even look like you’re 20 yet!”

“I’m 21,” Lydia assured her. “And he’s 24. Which to be honest, is extremely young to have 3 PhDs, but you know, he’s older than I am, so I think him being an agent is less of a stretch.”

“When did you get a job with the FBI?” she inquired.

“After I graduated this past spring. I’d met them while they were working a case and I guess they were in the market for someone knowledgeable in forensics. Here I am!”

It was a lie, at least to Lydia’s knowledge. The only thing she knew about the offer put in front of her was that Gideon fought for her to get it and Hotch’s boss, Chief Strauss, was not pleased that the position existed at all. But Dr. Heyes took the response and left her to pull out her laptop and try to remind herself about everything she learned about spiking and these specific drugs when she went to UCSC.

~ ~ ~

“We’ve found another victim,” Gideon informed her over the phone. “Her boyfriend worked at the cafe where many of the victim’s had been seen the day they were dosed. We brought him into custody, but it doesn’t look like he did it. And, from what you’ve told us so far about the process of creating this mix of drugs, we’ve ruled out a prankster. They're too disorganized to do this. From a look at other factors we think we’re looking at an avenger here.”

“So, someone’s got a personal vendetta against one of the victims and the rest are just collateral damage? Or was this just his test run?”

“My guess, when he gets the person he’s going for, it’s not exactly going to end in a bad trip and some memory loss.”

Lydia sighed. “One hell of a test run. I mean, I’m looking at these results, Gideon. And the statements from the victims. This guy has made quite the concoction.”

“The profile says he may have an accomplice, but if so, he’ll dispose of them soon. If any new cases come in, let us know immediately.”

“Will do,” she said, hanging up on him.

Not 20 minutes later, her phone was going off again, this time it was Spencer.

“Hey.”

“The hospital’s about to be swamped. We’re on our way there now.”

“Swamped? Why?” she demanded, looking up at all the biochemists and pathologists at work. Shit.

“A leak hit the news. They didn’t mention why or how people were getting dosed, only that it was happening. The people are in a panic and many people are going to come in with completely psychosomatic symptoms.”

“Fabulous,” she grumbled. “Well, I can give you the results of any of the tox screens, but they won’t be in for a while. Especially if people start barging in.”

“We’ll talk to doctors and nurses and find out who is definitely not psychosomatic. Make sure that their blood gets tested first.”

“We’ll be ready,” she assured him.

~ ~ ~

“We’ve got a Lynn Dempsey,” Dr. Heyes said, offering up her lab results. “She just got in, tested positive for rohypnol, but negative for LSD.”

“Interesting,” Lydia said, scanning the file. “Maybe she just got roofied?”

“That doesn’t explain her symptoms, though. She was apparently heavily sedated when she got in, but now, she’s struggling to breath. Nausea, difficulty swallowing, and she’s lost control of leg movement.”

“What are you guys thinking?”

“She was taking an antibiotic recently, which, in the case of a severe overdose, could cause these symptoms, but an overdose like that is not an accident. That plus rohypnol is an interesting mixture.”

“Have you guys looked at any biological toxins?” Lydia inquired and she shook her head.

“We didn’t think that was the sort of thing we should be looking for.”

“It’s hard to determine what we should or shouldn’t be looking for. The LSD and rohypnol combination was interesting enough by itself. If this guy’s as good as he appears, I doubt he’s buying drugs from street dealers. He could have access to all sorts of things.”

“I’ll get on it,” the doctor informed her and hurried off.

Lydia grabbed her phone. “Gideon?”

“Whatcha got?”

“Lynn Dempsy? Rohypnol and something else. The lab technicians are working on it now. But, she’s a bad case. Either the target or the accomplice.”

“You get Garcia, I’ll call Hotch. He’s on his way to the hospital now. JJ and Reid are already there, they might have already seen her.”

“Got it. Calling Garcia now.”

She fumbled with her phone some more and got Garcia’s contact.

“Sugar! How can I help?”

“The team’s gonna need everything you’ve got on a Lynn Dempsey. We’re looking for connections to the substances the unsub’s using or perhaps anything to indicate someone wants revenge against her.”

The sound of her furious typing could be heard over the line. “Alright. I’ll send whatever information I get to their phones. Right now, all I’m seeing is that she works for Hichcock Pharmaceuticals.”

“There’s something to that. Let Gideon know. I’ve gotta go,” she finished, seeing Dr. Heyes already on her way back with papers in her hand. “Did you find something?”

“Lynn Dempsey has been exposed to clostridium botulinum bacteria,” she explained.

Lydia’s eyes widened. “Botulism?”

The doctor nodded.

Lydia was up from her seat in an instant. “I’ve gotta tell Reid. I’ll be right back.”

She threw her phone into her back pocket and ran from the lab to get to the ER.

“Reid!” she called once she reached the waiting room. He turned, JJ following suit. Hotch was on a call over the front desk. She ran up to them, not wanting to disturb anyone around them. “It’s botulism.”

“Is that what the lab reports say?” he demanded, pulling her away from the people and into a hallway.

“Yes.”

“Botulism toxin is the deadliest substance known to man. It blocks acetylcholine receptors, paralyzing it’s victims until basically choking you to death,” he explained, knowing Lydia was already aware of this.

“And without an antitoxin, Lynn Dempsey in there is screwed.”

He put his hand up to his chin. “New Jersey is the pharmaceutical and chemical capital of the US. There’ll be quite a few people with access to the toxin. It could easily be ordered in the form of botox.”

“But, it’d have to be purified,” she reasoned. “Lynn Dempsey is an executive assistant. She wouldn’t know how to do that. And she doesn’t fit the profile. But, she does work for a pharmaceutical company, so if she’s the accomplice, they might have met at work.”

He opened his mouth to add to that, but JJ called, “Reid.”

She was standing in front of Dempsey’s room, looking in.

“I think she’s trying to say something.”

He ran over to enter the room with her and Lydia walked over to Hotch to see if there was anything she could do.

“Then, you should look for Lynn Dempsey, 45,” he was saying over the line. “Garcia’s emailing a picture to your phone.”

There was silence for a moment, and Lydia watched JJ and Reid try and piece together what Dempsey was saying to them. But, the doctor had to rush in as her heart rate started increasing quickly.

“Or working with him,” Hotch offered, but Lydia wasn’t sure of the context. “I’ll call you back. Lydia, what are you doing up here?”

She looked up at Hotch and was terrified for a moment that she’d done something wrong. “I came up here to talk to Reid about Dempsey. She’s been poisoned with deadly toxin found in botulinum bacteria. And without an antitoxin within the first 36 hours, she won’t make it. Reid and I were discussing how the unsub might have gotten this toxin.”

“What were you thinking?” he asked.

“Well, Lynn works for a company with access to this toxin, but it needs to be purified from other drugs. She likely wouldn’t have this ability. We were thinking accomplice.”

He nodded. “That’s what Morgan and I were discussing. We found all the victims went to First New Jersey Federal Bank the day they were dosed and from the security footage, it looks like Dempsey was replacing candies from the candy bowl. The CDC is testing the candies now.”

“Alright. I’ll head back to the lab and start listing off any new victims that come into the hospital.”

“Thank you,” he responded and watched her go.

~ ~ ~

“So, if they worked together, let's start with people who fit the profile who’ve had a recent stressor,” Hotch reasoned, the rest of the team together in the station.

“Like anyone fired from Hichcock in the past 6 months,” Morgan offered. “I’ll call Garcia.”

Gideon’s phone went off beside him. He picked it up and announced, “It’s Lydia. Lydia, you’re on speaker phone.”

“Hey, you said you thought Lynn Dempsey was replacing the candies at the bank?” she started.

“Yes, why?”

“I’m looking through the medical records of the original victims and one of them was severely diabetic.”

“He wouldn’t have taken candy from the candy bowl at the bank,” Reid realized.

“That doesn’t make sense,” Hotch said. “We have the candies here and they’ve tested positive for rohypnol and LSD.”

“Well, not that it means that much, but the amount of LSD in the victims was fairly even across the board, but I’m finding vast differences in the rohypnol. It could be that some of the victims didn’t finish the candies and others did, but I think you should look at those tapes again and check if everyone took a candy. Maybe the unsub contaminated multiple objects at the scene?”

“It’s a bank, what else do you ingest that comes from a bank?” Gideon argued.

“I’ll look over those tapes,” Reid offered. “Thanks, Lydia.”

~ ~ ~

Lydia was finally starting to settle down, thinking she’d done her part in the case now that the last of the tox screen tests had come through and they hadn’t turned up with any strange new victims, when Hotch called her.

“Hello?”

“Ambers, we’ve got a guy named Ed Hill in custody. I want you to search his lab for any indications as to what he planned to do next or who his target was. I’m having Garcia send you the address now.”

“Wait, Agent Hotchner-” she cried, knowing he tended to hang up abruptly. Once she was sure he wasn’t going to cut her off, she continued. “I don’t have a vehicle with me.”

“Nevermind, then. I’ll have Morgan get you.”

“Thanks.”

“And Lydia?”

“Hm?”

“Hotch is fine.”

She bit down on her lip to stop herself from grinning like an idiot. “Got it.”

Once he’d gotten off the phone, she closed up her laptop and grabbed her case file.

“Leaving?” Dr. Heyes asked.

“Yes. I’m off to analyze a scene. Thank you for all your help today.”

She smiled. “Thank you for catching the guy who did this.”

“We’re not sure yet-” she started, but left it there, not sure how to continue. Dr. Heyes understood and let her go, but it left Lydia with an inexplicable feeling.

No one had ever thanked her before for her work. Not that she’d done a lot of work before this and when she’d interned at the police station in Santa Cruz, almost all of her time was spent in a lab. But, it nevertheless felt nice to know that people thought she was doing good.

And as she got to the front of the hospital and waited for Morgan to pull up she realized something. While she was here, working for the BAU, she was doing good.

~ ~ ~

The jet was silent on the way back to Virginia. Almost as soon as they boarded, everyone found a spot to rest and had fallen asleep. Lydia had considered shutting her eyes and trying to join them, but deep down, she knew she wouldn’t fall asleep. And without something to distract her, she’d end up letting her thoughts wander, which recently hadn’t ended well for her.

A quick look at the scene and a confession from Ed Hill was the end of the case. Unfortunately, they weren’t able to prevent his suicide, but she had far too much on her mind to dwell on that as well.

Lydia thought about Jenna fairly often, unsurprisingly. She wondered sometimes if she’d been aware of the other two girls’ deaths, maybe she would have been more alert and able to prevent Jenna’s. And she was constantly thinking about what had happened between the last thing she remembered and the time that Jonathan Carrey drugged her. Did she see or hear him before he was able to sedate her? Maybe she’d tried to scream, but couldn’t. Mostly, she wondered if she’d done something dumb, like opened the door for him or simply asked him why he was there.

She knew that in that memory relapse, if she’d called for help, Jenna could have made it out just fine. That was mostly why it hurt.

The other reason was because she had profited so greatly on Jenna’s murder. She’d gotten a job. And it made her feel guilty that any good could have come to her at the expense of another. She just had to hope that Jenna didn’t despise her for it in the afterlife.

But Jenna wasn’t the only death on her mind. Recent events had reminded her of her mother’s death and despite the fact that Lydia had long since recovered from the emotional toll it took on her as a child, she’d likely never have closure over what happened and it was difficult recently to be reminded of that.

But either way, she was glad her job allowed her to give closure to the families of other tragedies.

“Aren’t you going to sleep?” Hotch asked, sitting across from her and nodding towards the book in her hands.

She smirked and made the same motion towards the cup of coffee he just made for himself. “Aren’t you?”

“I know I’m going to have a lot of paperwork when I get back. I’m preparing myself for that.”

She closed her book and sat up straighter. “I’m not much good at sleeping without help. I’ve had to take sleep aids for most of my life.”

“I’m sorry,” he told her, honestly.

“It’s never really been an issue unless I haven’t had access to any. I’m sorry you have to stay up late filling out paperwork,” she returned.

“Lydia,” he started after a pause. “I’m truly sorry if I’ve ever made you uncomfortable while working this job. I want you to know that I don’t have anything against you, I was just stressed your first few cases.”

“That’s alright,” she reassured him, quickly. “I’m not upset. I was worried that perhaps I was doing something wrong, but I didn’t realize how much my behavior affected your job. And Gideon’s, although I don’t control what he does. I can’t promise that I won’t end up doing something stupid and getting myself fired, because sometimes things happen, but I promise that I will do everything in my power to make it clear that you and Gideon aren’t responsible for my actions.”

“Well, we are,” he argued, which made her giggle, quietly.

“Besides, I get to call you Hotch now. That must mean we’re best friends.”

“Best friends, hm?” He wiggled his eyebrows at her over the rim of his coffee cup and took a large sip.

They’d settled into silence and Lydia was about to pick up her book again, when he said, “Lydia? I want you to know that I was given access to some of your family history when we were considering hiring you…”

A part of her had been wondering if this conversation was going to come up. Gideon had talked to her about her sister, but he never pushed her to talk about her parents. And Garcia had let the topic go after they had their conversation about secrets, leaving Hotch, who she’d never had a private conversation with before, to be the one to confront her.

“Garcia told me that you’d get the information from her background check,” she agreed. “Why?”

“I wanted you to know that sometimes these cases become difficult when they remind us of something personal. And I want you to be aware that if you are struggling while working on a case or something personal is on your mind, we’re all here for you. The team is just that, a team, and many have been through similar things to you. I want you to know that you aren’t alone in this.”

Lydia could feel tears pricking at her eyes. She didn’t think she’d ever reach the point where she broke down in front of one of them. She’d gotten so good at stopping herself that sometimes it scared her. But the offer was one of pure concern. Hotch had built a family in his team and he was opening his arms to her.

And she wasn’t really sure how to show him that she understood.

“On my first case,” she began, “we took Allison Crawford’s brother into custody. Frank. And he had an orange prescription bottle with him.” She remembered the details slowly, trying to piece together what she was thinking at the time. “And it was weird to see. Because it’s not like I don’t see those anymore, I do. But that one made me think of my mom. And it made me angry.” She shook her head, pulling herself out of the memory. “It was gone before I even knew what was happening. I’m not particularly worried about an inability to do the job. But I guess, that’s something.”

She was grateful to look into his eyes and see that he understood. And it had been a long time since she felt like she could speak openly about her life to someone and not feel weird. Or like a burden. Or pitied.

“It’s the same as when people call me Miss Ambers. I know they mean it respectfully, but it always takes me back to sitting in psychiatry or therapy offices with her. The doctors always called her ‘Miss Ambers’.”

Unbeknownst to her, another person on the plane who could imagine what she was going through had been drifting in and out of sleep and heard her confession. Reid didn’t open his eyes, afraid that she might be upset if she found out someone other than Hotch had been listening. But he took in the bits he had picked up and decided that he would keep collecting pieces of Lydia’s story until he could make out a picture of her life.

#criminal minds #cm #spencer reid #spencer reid x oc #criminal minds fanfiction #criminal minds fanfic #criminal minds oc #cm fanfiction #cm fanfic #cm oc #spencer reid fanfiction #spencer reid fanfic #untouchable #untouchable ch5 #fanfiction #fanfic #oc #lydia ambers #aaron hotchner #penelope garcia #jason gideon

[stcrr]

elle fanning. cis female. she/her.  ／  lorelei “lorrie” gunther just pulled up blasting which witch by florence + the machine  — that song is so them ! you know, for a twenty-three year old musician, i’ve heard they’re really -reclusive, but that they make up for it by being so +observant. if i had to choose three things to describe them, i’d probably say chipped glitter nail polish, a silver gilt mirror, losing yourself in the beat of the music. here’s to hoping they don’t cause too much trouble ! ( ally, 22, est, she/her )

me: i don’t have a type when it comes to muses! also me: unveils this new muse that is also introverted and anxious but this time with more glitter. anyways, meet lorelei, starr to her fans, and lorrie to her friends, an observant girl, gifted mimic, misfit, mirror, and musician. kind of a jem and the holograms/hannah montana/perfect blue hybrid. details under the cut, like for me to hyu to plot !! 

(also her pinterest im really proud of it you guys)

statistics.

full name. lorelei amelia gunther. nicknames. lorrie. aliases. starr. occupation. singer-songwriter. age. twenty-three. date of birth. february 1st, 1997.  nationality. american. ethnicity. white (austrian and irish).  gender | orientation. cis female | queer. hometown. boston, ma. zodiac sign. aquarius sun, scorpio moon, pisces rising career/voice claim. lorde.

height. 5′9 weight. 120lbs build. willowy.  distinguishing features. wide eyes, full lips, constant bags, probably has glitter in her hair.  health. 7/10; has no major illnesses but eats like shit, has a whack sleep schedule, is a dysfunctional adult basically. she’s also big depressed but you know how it be. 

positive traits. ambitious, intuitive, observant, imaginative, independent,  neutral traits. talkative, intense, impressionable,  negative traits. anxious, avoidant, moody, secretive, resentful, aloof, 

likes. the nighttime, storms, baggy clothes, mountains, weed, lsd, books, blanket forts, lying on the floor, singing, cryptids, cemeteries,  dislikes. being herself, deadlines, dolls/puppets, the paparazzi, social media, planning ahead, the outdoors, conflict, the beach, 

history. 

(tw suicide mention, anxiety attack) (tldr at the bottom)

her mother called her lorelei after the sirens of the rhine; she insisted her first cries were the sweetest song. and lorelei continued to have a beautiful voice; she sang more than she spoke. but only at home. 

she never responded to lorelei, though, not really; it felt too grand for her. she was a chicken-legged girl who liked overalls and goosebumps books. she was just lorrie.

she grew up in a lower-middle class region of boston, ma. her father was a salesman, and her mother was a travel agent. 

for a while, at school, she didn’t speak at all. she was diagnosed with selective mutism at age five, and it took until she was thirteen to overcome it completely. 

this was not at all helped by the fact that her parents had a nasty divorce when she was seven years old. her father used her mother’s ten-year-old suicide attempt against her in court to prove she wasn’t stable, and gained full custody of lorelei and her two older brothers. her oldest brother, matthias, sided with their father, but the middle brother, jeremias, sided with their mom, and tried to run away to his mother’s house basically every month. he ran away for good when he was fifteen, living with his girlfriend’s family. 

what helped her overcome this selective mutism, at least at first, was her middle school drama class. at home, lorelei had always been an excellent mimic. she did her favorite impressions for her drama teacher, and she encouraged her to try some monologues and scenes. as she got better at acting, she realized that she didn’t have to be herself; she could be somebody else. and that made talking all the easier. 

by high school, she was no longer selectively mute, but was still anxious and shy. she was, however, a total drama kid, and still loved to act. she could be outrageous, incredible on stage; she wasn’t being herself, after all, so if people were judging her, it was the character they were judging, not her. 

still she was def the kind of girl who had a mental breakdown every four months and dyed/cut her hair/gave herself bangs. she could never quite shake the feeling that she was an outsider looking in, separated, different. 

she still loved music, and as she grew older, she started to write songs. it was her secret dream to be a musician. one of her theater friends talked her into singing one of them when she was sixteen, and then encouraged her to try out for the talent show. she was able to get through the audition, though she was a little nervous, but she knew it would be fine. she was on stage all the time, this would be fine. 

but this time, she had to be herself in front of the entire school, and she froze up, not a sound leaving her lips. she doesn’t remember leaving the stage; only remembers that suddenly, she was in the girls bathroom, sobbing her eyes out. 

her friends comforted her that night, partying in their basement like they always did, but thats when lorrie had an idea. what if she didn’t perform as herself? 

that’s when a starr was born. 

as lorelei dressed herself up in all the holo and glitter she had, she created starr in her head; she was born beloved, charismatic, fearless, this glitz and glamor girl who had it all, but what now? even at the top, she found emptiness. she was a beautiful supernova, so breathtaking you forgot she was really a collapsing star. 

starr was lorrie’s ultimate muse; she wrote song after song for her in the next few months, until, finally, she asked some of her friends to help her record a music video. she didn’t expect this music video to get 60 million views in a matter of weeks. 

royals, of course, blew the fuck up, and she had people calling her house to get her to sign with this record company or that record company, and her eventual producer flew her out to la with her dad. and, of course, the rest is history. (her dad also blew a lot of the money she earned as a minor but she got rid of him and that’s neither here nor there.) 

however, as she got more and more into the la lifestyle, she began to rely more and more on starr as an alter ego. people liked starr, after all, and lorrie didn’t even like herself. she played the part of the dignified, wise, and eccentric former queen during interviews, when recording, at after parties and award shows. 

even her first major relationship she got while acting like starr, someone fearless and fun, basically a manic pixie dream girl. if you’ve ever listened to the album melodrama, then you know how badly that ended. 

that’s around when she realized that starr had taken over her entire life. coming home from a house party absolutely zonked, she looked in the mirror and didn’t recognize herself, didn’t see that nerdy, overall-clad chicken-legged girl from her family pictures. 

she stripped her clothes off, scraped the makeup off her face until her skin was red and dry, dragged a brush through her hair to get rid of all the product, and pulled on a hoodie and leggings she had brought with her to la a year ago. she wrote the first draft of all the songs in melodrama in the coming hours. 

however, she still wrote from starr’s perspective, knew she’d perform it as starr. it may be far more personal, but lorrie wasn’t ready to come out just yet. in fact, she’s kind of been hiding the last year or so, a full-on depression mess. 

tl;dr lower middle class nerdy girl from boston overcomes crippling social anxiety through acting, finesses this into an alter ego to be a musician, hits it big, loses herself in the alter ego, has a disastrous relationship, and tries to become herself again. 

present.

first of all, her real name is Known to the public, but not her “brand” outside of starr. it’s proven to be a boon as of late; she’s known for basically being a walking sailor moon cosplayer, not a skinny woman in baggy jeans and a big black hoodie.

since she’s trying to work on herself, she’s kind of in a creative slump. like, she still has more than enough royalties off her music to keep her going, but her agent and producer are both pushing her to clean up some of her songs and record them for a new album. she can still write as starr, but it feels... different, now. melodrama was far more personal than pure heroine, and she wants to continue to grow; writing as starr feels like reverting back to her sixteen year old self. but she’s too scared to write as herself So....

at events though she’s still in the gauze and stars people expect from starr. 

trying to reach out to her mom and brother jer again. not her dad, fuck her dad. 

loves true crime, the supernatural, and conspiracy thought. is probably watching a true crime doc rn. 

she’s just starting to leave her house for the first time in like... a year? like she’s only started to get out again in the last few months.

as for drugs, she def drinks, but she’s more likely to smoke weed. also, she’s a big fan of lsd, but holds herself off to only tripping every few months.

is considering moving to the woods and being the lonely crone everyone whispers about. or maybe switching to voice acting. 

she fuckin hates dolls. literally her worst nightmare is being trapped in some collectors’ doll rooms.  

wanted connections. 

melodrama ex (0/1) - the ex she wrote her breakup album about. can be any gender. i literally want this connection so bad kfdskjkadsfds

best friend (0/1) - someone who was with her throughout her... Transformation

squad (0/3) - bc who doesn't love a squad. this is the vibe i’m going for (sound warning)

icon (1/1) - someone lorrie looks up to and like... majorly doesn't wanna disappoint. - filled by kami!!!

musician buddies (0/?) - they bounce lyrics off of each other, you know how it is.

rival pop star (0/1) - idk i just think it would be Neat. maybe even with a plot that they had a major falling out and now they have to pretend to get along.

hookups (0/?) - or other messy shit

texting crush (0/1) - really weird concept but like... i imagine lorrie would have the number or snap or insta or whatever of this muse and they get talking after melodrama and she just... lays it all out. they don't really talk in person, but she feels really close to them and definitely develops a crush

weed buddy (0/1) - they come to her house and smoke and complain its great

friend turned enemy (0/1) - maybe someone who adored starr but doesn't like who she is now?????? idk idk

enemy turned friend (0/1) - maybe someone who thought starr was fake af but then meets lorrie being Herself and is just like "oh you're a Human" idk idk

bonus.

as a thank you for making it to the end of this fucking enormous intro, please take a moment to enjoy these tik toks reflective of lorrie’s personality (they’re also???? great on their own) 

lorrie talking/singing to herself alone in her house 

honestly she has tinkerbell vibes

drunk mouths speak sober thoughts

and thats on mental illness

#excess:intro #admittedly another novel #also i've been vibing to pure heroine all day and like #im going THROUGH IT #suicide mention tw #anxiety attack tw #drugs tw #also a notice i am not going to be making an open starter since... the event is TOMORROW so #i'll just reply to a few

[saipng]

Love Conquers All

Fandom: Good Omens

Pairing: Aziraphale/Crowley

Rating: E

Word Count: 8661

"You can stay at my place, if you like."

Aziraphale and Crowley spend the night after the Apocalypse-That-Never-Was at the demon's flat. It's all quite well and lovely.

According to a meticulous and accurate research conducted by a group of unnamed and unimportant scientists, a typical human being generally has three possible responses to the onset of an inevitable Apocalypse.

The first one is spending the rest of their quite limited time with their loved ones - a fairly common, if boring answer. Second, doing something they’d never done before but always told themselves they would, one day, perhaps when they’ve got the time, or the weather was just right. And third one - getting drunk. There were statistical outliers, of course, there always were in these kinds of research, but ultimately the third option proved to be the most popular response by a long stretch.

Therefore, it was safe to draw the conclusion that in the event of a hypothetical Apocalypse people here and there all around the globe would, as they say, “party like there is no tomorrow”.

Because, indeed, there wouldn’t be.

It just so happened that the inevitable Apocalypse proved to be quite evitable, and the moment Adam Young decided that he did not want to be rid of this world quite yet, the tension that was sizzling in the very atoms of all creation had dissipated. Things have returned to normal, as normal as they could have possibly been and always were for humanity.

The planet resumed its course, leaving its many residents in blind wonder at what in Heaven’s or Hell’s name had transpired in the last couple of days of their existence.

(News networks will inevitably call it mass hysteria. Conspiracy channels will rightly call it the End Times, though those people who listen to the News would only scoff and roll their eyes.)

Aziraphale and Crowley did not have the luxury of ignorance. They were there, in the corporeal flesh, at the very epicenter of Armageddon, watching the fabric of reality tear apart at the seams as four children faced off against Four Horsemen, nuclear weapons were preparing to launch all around the world, and the ground cracked under their feet to reveal Satan incarnate.

Frankly speaking, a bottle of wine to share was the least they could allow themselves to indulge in after all that.

“Oh. There it is,”- Aziraphale murmured, watching as their ride home slowly traversed the quiet streets of exhausted Tadfield.

They were sitting on a weary bench at the far end of the town, having said their awkward goodbyes to all the odd humans they’ve met in their race against the End Times, being more than certain that future would bring them together yet again.

They now had a future to look forward to, after all.

The angel furrowed his brows.

“It says “Oxford” on the front.”

“Yeah, but he’ll drive to London anyway,”- The demon sniffed, taking a sip from the bottle, - “He just won’t know why.”

The air around them hung unnaturally still, deafeningly quiet even with the gentle whirr of the bus engine. Tadfield never was a particularly bustling village, per se, but after last week tonight was like the ringing after an explosion had finely tuned down.

Aziraphale looked down at his hands.  

“I suppose I should get him to drop me off at the bookshop,”- He declared, not exactly sure of why he even bothered declaring it. He wasn’t exactly sure of quite a number of things these days, actually.

The silence stretched on between them, Crowley pursing his lips, eyebrows knitted together in worry.

He swallowed hard.

“It burned down, remember?”

Aziraphale blinked.

Ah. Of course.

There were, admittedly, a few things going on today, but he still felt quite foolish forgetting this one prominent detail.

It burned down.

Indeed.

“…You can stay at my place, if you like.”

At that, the angel snapped his head towards the other being.

Crowley’s voice was soft, bordering on a whisper, and was it not for the silence of the night Aziraphale would have missed it entirely.

Something heavy settled in his stomach just then - something so desperately familiar.

Something desperately frightening.

“I don’t- I don’t think my side would like that,”- He stammered out as a last resort.

Resort against what, again, he wasn’t exactly sure.

“You don’t have a side anymore. Neither of us do,”- The demon assured him, soft, so eternally soft, that Aziraphale couldn’t help the breath that got caught in his chest. A breath that he hardly needed, -“We’re on our side.”

The lone bus neared, its lights disturbing the perfect darkness of the night. Crowley raised his hand to catch its attention.

“Like Agnes said, we’ll have to choose our faces wisely.”

The ride to London was long, longer than it had any right to be and then some.

Neither of them complained.

It was enough, for the time being, to move along through the English roads in silence, the creaking of the well-worn seats and the occasional yawn of the tired driver merging into a sort of an odd ballad sung in honor of the End that never was.

There was something mesmerizing about the shine of the street lights, the glint of the moon, the imposing structure of the corporate buildings, as though being trapped inside of a realistically abstract painting.

The World was as infinitely beautiful as it was mundane.

Crowley silently passed their bottle of wine on to Aziraphale, who took it without a word. Neither missed the significance of them sitting side by side on this empty old bus, lowering their inhibitions by drinking thrice the amount a regular human would be able to intake. Neither made a comment about it.

Aziraphale shifted closer.

They got out several blocks too early, and while the angel was certain it was because they were well beyond intoxicated to remember where they were going, Crowley insisted he just wanted to take a walk and ‘admire the magnificent sights created by human ingenuity, which were nearly annihilated in the impeding world-ending catastrophe’.

In not as many words, of course.

They sauntered around dimly lit streets, yellow and orange under flickering lights, gentle late August breeze wafting the smells of the night through the air – those of exotic foods and stale alcohol, of expensive perfume, of gasoline, and of rain that just recently passed. Crowley revealed yet another bottle from underneath his jacket. Aziraphale couldn’t say he wasn’t glad to have it.

Their walk back to the demon’s flat wasn’t necessarily a long one, but it was all too tempting to take detours to stare at a particularly old bookshop or look inside a floristry to assess their selection of succulents. Both of them enjoyed narrow side streets - there were more secrets to be found where no one would normally look, more little quirks of humanity to discover in between commercial buildings.

Crowley lived on the other side of Westminster Bridge, past the river bank of Waterloo, normally filled to the brim with tourists taking in the sights and non-tourists rushing through while grumbling about the tourists. Right now, though, it was completely empty, miraculously so, save for a few stray creatures of the night.

Aziraphale stared at the ground, deep in thought. The air was still, the commotion of the city a ways behind them. The only sounds accompanying their walk were the resolute clicking of Crowley’s Oxfords on the hard concrete pavement, and the quiet swishing of the leftover wine in the bottle. The angel blinked to focus his bleary vision, finally lifting his eyes to meet their reflection in the tinted sunglasses.

“The- The sound of footsteps,”- He nodded, taking a satisfied sip, -“I’d miss it. If the- What’s it called- Apoco- Alpaca- If it ended. The world. I’d miss. Footsteps.”

Crowley hummed, tilting his head in what appeared to be a questioning manner.

“Think- No, really, think about it. There’re no shoes in Heaven. Or- or in Hell. None. Not even, not even socks. There’s hardly any, any ground at all Up There.”

He pointed up, and Crowley instinctively looked. “Huh.”

“So that’s- That’s what I’d miss. If. End. Your turn, dear.”

Crowley furrowed his eyebrows, concentrating doubly hard after that speech. He reached for the bottle in Aziraphale’s hand, taking a large gulp. Thought harder.

He focused on the angel’s loafers and the soft, barely audible sound they gave off as he padded along. He decided he quite liked it. Took another sip.

“Mm, drinkin’,”- He finally mustered, taking yet another swig and finishing off the bottle. It disappeared from his hand immediately after, -“‘d miss that.”

“Now, now,”- Aziraphale shook his head, wagging a finger for emphasis, -“That’s chant- cheating, Crowley. Everyone would miss drinking. Be more creative.”

“But ‘d bloody miss it,”- Crowley persisted, scrunching up his nose in disdain, -“They don’ have booze like this Down There.”

“Up There they don’t have any at all.”

“Oh. Ouch,”- The demon winced, just as Aziraphale stepped into a pothole, stumbling forward in the most ungraceful manner. Crowley threw an arm around his shoulders, surprising even himself with his dexterity in spite of all the alcohol, and Aziraphale took a hold around the other’s waist to steady himself.

“Ah. Exc-Excuse- Um, thank you.”

Crowley tightened the hand around his shoulders.

“I’d miss drinkin’ with you.”

Aziraphale raised his infinitely wide blue eyes to stare, blinking in surprise, before offering the most brilliant smile that would put the sun itself to shame.

“Likewise, dear boy. Likewise.”

They continued on, leaning heavily against one another, dragging along their all too heavy feet. A comfortable silence settled in, and Crowley kept counting windows on the passing houses because that suddenly seemed like the most important task in the world. He kept forgetting what number came after four.

And windows really were incredible, weren’t they? Houses in general were quite the invention. Not to mention street benches and fences. Trees weren’t exactly an invention, but he was glad to see them planted alongside the road anyway. A perfect balance of urban and natural.

He threw his head up to the sky, watching as the last of grey clouds gave way to surprisingly bright stars, shining on through air pollution and city lights. Really, so much creativity and beauty could have been erased within moments. And how come he’s never noticed how the sky at night was not entirely black but rather a soft gradient of blues and purples? Or how the street lights elongated weirdly when you squinted your eyes and looked at them at different angles? Or how warm and soft Aziraphale’s hand felt on his hip?

The world was so different at night, so precious. Other creatures had to realize it too, as one jumped from a low window sill and padded across the road to settle on an empty bench.

Crowley stared at the cat that began to groom itself, an almost manic smile spreading across his face.

“Cats!”- He exclaimed, triumphant, -“‘d miss those. Miss those quite bit. I like cats.”

He really did. They had a mind of their own, those creatures. He could respect that.

Aziraphale stared at him like he had no clue what was going on - indeed, he forgot about the game they were playing in favor of watching the far off lights glint off of the still waters of the Thames.

“Hey, Azera- Aphaz-,”- The demon concentrated, forcing his brain to say it right, -“Hey, Aziraphale.”

He always made the effort to say it right.

“What you say we get a cat of our own, mm? A lil’ creature might be nice.”

Aziraphale blinked in thought, -“Cat, you say?”

It just so happened he quite liked cats too. They were graceful. Elegant. And they knew how to clean themselves. Even the prospect of shedding fur didn’t distract Aziraphale from their pristine.

“Mm, yeah, ‘was just thinkin’,”- Crowley continued, waving his free arm around way too much, -“‘d have it one week, you’d have it the other. That way it won’t turn too good or too evil-“

“We’d be its Godfathers.”

“Yeah, exactly,”- The demon laughed, shaking his head, -“Firs’ time kinda failed.”

“I think we’ve done a marvo- a bloody good job with ol’ Warlock.”

“We’re great.”

“We are.”

“Should check up on him sometime.”

“Mhm.” Aziraphale readjusted his grip on Crowley’s side, moving his long fingers to rest under his jacket as they made their way onto the desolate bridge.

“We- We could name her Cerberus,”- Said Crowley, his voice cracking uncharacteristically.

“Pardon?”

“The creature. Cat. We can call her Cerberus.”

Aziraphale looked, for a lack of a better word, scandalized. “No. Absolutely not- No way in Heaven, I say!”

“You never appreciated my sense of humor.”

“It’s hardly amusing- it’s vile.”

“Well, what’s your suggestion then?”- Crowley leveled him with a cold stare.

The angel flustered, dragging his eyes away. “Oh, erm- Well, I haven’t… Whiskers, perhaps?”

“An’ you said I wasn’t creative.”

“Well, pardon me for-“- Aziraphale interrupted himself halfway through, mouth hanging agape as he gawked out towards the Thames. And before Crowley could register what happened, he was being dragged along by an overtly enthusiastic angel, the sky and ground mixing into a colorful kaleidoscope of drunken haze.

“My word, Crowley, would you look at that view! Those lights!”- Aziraphale shouted, surging forward across the street to the other side. Crowley felt sick.

It was his turn to stumble, then, as he tripped over the curb which separated the sidewalk from the road (and was placed there, he suspected, to spite him specifically). The hard metal fence bore into his back as he turned to break his fall, Aziraphale stumbling in right after and landing square onto the demon’s chest.

Crowley shut his eyes to keep the world from spinning.

“It truly is remarc- bloody pretty, that’s what it is!”

It took a few steady breaths that he didn’t actually need before Crowley could open his eyes again – and he couldn’t help but stare.

“Yeah. Yeah ‘s beautiful.”

Aziraphale turned to look at him, shaking his head. “No, no, Crowley- You’re not looking! The view- The lights!”

Crowley blinked lazily behind his sunglasses, continuing to stare at Aziraphale’s face, his soft golden curls practically surrounded in a shining halo of stars. “’m lookin’ at the brightest light of all, angel.”

“How can you be looking if it’s behind- Oh.”

They stared at each other in silence for a long moment, Crowley brought up his hand to the angel’s face, gingerly stroking a thumb under his bottom lip.

“Are you trying to tempt me, demon?”

He barked out a laugh.

“Who, me? Can’t imagine.”

Aziraphale smiled, pulling back, letting his fingers brush against Crowley’s chest. “Come now. Correct me if I’m mistaken, but I believe we’ve got a bottle of bourbon waiting for us at your place?”

It just so happened that his place was suddenly that much closer than it should have been. The London Eye’s lights shimmered brilliantly behind them, but Crowley wouldn’t see that. He hardly bothered turning back.

Crowley’s flat was about as luxurious as it got, located on the twentieth floor with a view to the House of Parliament. Not that a demon necessarily needed a flat, but he did like to indulge in finer things humanity came up with.

Plus, it provided a place for his plants.

“Say, Crowley, what is it that you do again?”- Aziraphale asked as they were making their way up in the fully-mirrored elevator. Crowley quirked an eyebrow.

“Torture lost souls for all eternity?”

“No, I meant, here. In the human world-“

Before the demon could interject with another half-witted jab about his wicked activities, Aziraphale quickly continued.

“What is your profession?”

“My p- Profession?”

“I mean, you’ve got- You’ve got a flat in the middle of London! You drive a Bentley- Er, well, used to- Wh-What I mean to say is, don’t people ever worry- wonder where you’ve got the money from?”

“You know as well as I do where I get the ‘money’ from,”- The demon scoffed, feeling all that much more sober already, -“Where do you get your money from?”

“At least I run a legitimate business-“- Aziraphale protested as he made his way down the ever-stretching hallway, only to be interrupted by a ludicrously loud moan resonating throughout.

He snapped his mouth shut with a click, eyes growing wide as he turned around to stare at Crowley. The other shrugged.

“Wasn’t me.”

The first moan quickly followed by another, and then another, and then a string of curse words so revolting, it would make Satan himself blush furiously. It certainly did Aziraphale.

“Looks like my neighbors are having a party,”- Crowley mused all too delightedly, staring at the jumping knocker on the door opposing his own.

(Here it should be noted that the scientists conducting the end of the world research found that ‘having sex’ was just as popular of an answer as ‘getting drunk’. At that point they turned to look at one another, shrugged, and proceeded to attribute those responses to either the first or second categories.)

“Well this is- That is quite- That is to say-“- Aziraphale fiddled with the hem of his vest, as he always fiddled in worrying or uncomfortable situations.

“You’d think a place as expensive as this would have better soundproofing, eh?”

It wasn’t that angels were necessarily ashamed of or condemning all acts sexual – Aziraphale prided himself on having a healthy and reasonable relationship with that aspect of humanity in spite of never actually participating in it himself. However, knowing of something and experiencing it, albeit somewhat second hand, were completely different concepts. Perhaps if he was sober enough he’d react differently, but as it were, desperately avoiding eye contact with the door or Crowley was all he was capable of doing in this situation.

Crowley sighed. “Let’s get inside, angel. I’ll make sure all of… that stays out here.”

As much as it would have delighted him to taunt Aziraphale further, he really wasn’t certain he wasn’t going to discorporate on the spot.

“Y-Yes, yes, that would be good. Quite good, really.”

Just a few moments later the angel found himself in an unfamiliar room, sitting on an unfamiliar couch, watching a familiar figure pour all-too familiar liquid into a couple of glasses.

Crowley’s flat was the very opposite of what Aziraphale would call ‘good taste’ – all grey and concrete, with huge windows and large rooms containing barely anything in them but a few pieces of overtly shiny furniture. He was certain there had to be some kind of a sin for having all the chairs in one’s home resemble thrones. He couldn’t quite recall what it was.

“Real- Really, how long’s it been since you’ve last visited?”- Crowley slurred, missing the glass he was holding entirely and spilling bourbon onto the counter. It ended up full anyway.

“Oh, I don’t quite- I don’t believe- Why, I-I don’t think I recall, dear- The 80s, was it?”

However, sitting on this extravagant red leather sofa, surrounded by lavish exuberant green plants and enormous windows looking out towards Big Ben, he couldn’t say he wasn’t enjoying it – and maybe, somewhere deep down, even finding a new appreciation for what he always imagined to be wasteful excess.

The demon sneered, making his was over to the couch with the glasses and the bottle, -“You’ve got to do better than that, angel! You ‘aven’t even seen my- my TV! I’ve cable ‘n everythin’.”

Aziraphale wasn’t quite listening anymore, paying more attention to the steady onset of London traffic than anything his counterpart was saying. He was, as they say, rather drunk.

It really was rare that he would seek out Crowley’s company first, and when he did it was always on business. Admittedly, business more often than not turned into either drinking or dining, but the point stood that he wouldn’t allow himself to indulge in the demon’s presence for longer than strictly necessary.

Not even when he desperately wanted to.

His eyes trailed over to scan Crowley’s form, sitting in that familiar spread out pose that Aziraphale could hardly imagine was comfortable, watching TV that he didn’t realize was now turned on to one of the News networks. The host was saying something about mass hysteria, but the angel was focused on something else entirely.

How queer was it, he thought as he watched the reflection of London traffic in Crowley’s sunglasses, that he always had such a wonderful time in his company. They were never anything more than work associates, he would always tell himself, and if he was being drunk or particularly honest, he would even go as far as to call them friends. But now his eyes kept trailing back to Crowley’s hand lying idly next to his, and his mind to the reckless couple next door. He wondered if Crowley has ever done anything like it – though, he must have. It was practically his job. Aziraphale poured himself another glass of bourbon. He stared at Crowley’s hand again.

Surely it would be alright to hold it, wouldn’t it? They held hands multiple times before. There was nothing special about it. Then again, now he’s made it weird by thinking about it too long. But, of course, Crowley wouldn’t have any idea how long he’s thought about it, so it would hardly be weirder than any other time. And what if all those other times were weird too?

He downed his glass in one go and firmly slid his hand across the couch before he could change his mind yet again. His fingers slipped into spaces between Crowley’s, surprisingly cold in the summer warmth.

The demon slowly lolled his head to the side to throw a questioning look at Aziraphale, who was firmly avoiding his eyes. Then he blinked down to stare at their locked hands.

And in another stunningly lively move, Crowley was suddenly toppling over Aziraphale, pinning his wrists over his head and staring down at him from behind his sunglasses.

The angel gasped in surprise.

“Why, darling, could it be that you’re trying to tempt me?”- He grinned, leaning in just that much closer.

Darling, Aziraphale noted mentally. That was a new one.

“Hardly able to, my dear.”

He wriggled one hand free and reached out to pinch the sunglasses off of the demon’s nose. Crowley swallowed hard.

“You might want to check up on that,”- He whispered, blinking languidly, bringing up a hand to stroke Aziraphale’s cheek. It was burning.

Aziraphale always found his eyes fascinating. Even after all this time he still wasn’t quite certain if it was okay to bring it up, how sensitive of a subject it was – but they always seemed to hypnotize him right in place. Very on the nose, he had to admit.

“Do you- Is this- Um, do you really-“- He tried to no avail, licking at his dry lips, his drunk mind trying to tie together a single sentence in spite of the sudden dizziness, -“Um, is this- Do you really think that this is- That this is wise, Crowley?”

He was unable to tear his eyes away from the demon’s piercing gaze. His throat was suddenly too tight.

“I ‘aven’t got the faintest what you’re referring to,”- Crowley lazily smirked down, his hand still pressed against Aziraphale’s cheekbone, thumb stroking gently.

The angel furrowed his brows, his own free hand finding its way to Crowley’s wrist. He licked at his lips again, the air surrounding the two of them suddenly that much warmer. He was practically burning.

“I believe you do.”

Crowley was burning.

“…How long, Aziraphale.”

The angel didn’t dare pretend he didn’t understand the question, finally found the strength to avert his eyes and stare at House of Parliament instead. The lights really were so beautiful…

That all too familiar heavy feeling settled in his stomach again; that feeling that he desperately tried to suppress. Run away from. A feeling that was rejected by his very nature, yet lingered like a lasting aftertaste.

The TV was now turned off.

“Far too long, dear. Far too long…”- He muttered, barely audible if not for the all-encompassing silence of the flat.

“How. Long.”

Aziraphale shut his eyes, wrinkling up his nose as the alcohol left his system practically against his will. He needed to be drunker- so, so much drunker.

“Why, decades, dearest,”- He swallowed down, feeling as though if he had a heart it would surely stop beating right then and there, -“Eight of them, if I’m not mistaken. Give or take a few, that is.”

Crowley didn’t respond, and Aziraphale dared to turn only to see a ghost of a smile trace his lips. There was something… almost tortured about it.

The angel exhaled hard, feeling as though he might just catch on fire.

“How-“

“Centuries, angel,”- His voice was quiet, gentle, so incredibly, unfairly gentle.

Aziraphale blinked, eyes growing wide- “No-“

“Six of them, if I’m not mistaken-“

“No-! No, I would have-“- He leaned up on his elbows, mouth dry, hands suddenly shaking.  No, it couldn’t have been- He would have known, he would have felt it!

He was an angel, it was in his very nature! But looking at Crowley then, in that moment, he couldn’t- He didn’t feel any different.

Crowley always felt just like Crowley.

“Would I lie to you?”

Of course, Aziraphale hardly could account for the fact that once something was there long enough, one simply stops noticing it, no matter how prominent it was.

That’s why you don’t exactly notice the beating of your heart or the rush of blood through your veins; why you don’t exactly stop to take note of the air around you and how easy it is to breathe. It is simply there – a fact of life that always has been, and, if you’re lucky, always will be.

The demon smirked, tilting his head.

They were close now, ever so closer. Closer than they have ever been.

Aziraphale didn’t have any organs, of course, not any physical ones, but something in his chest still ached. His soul, perhaps. His very being.

“Crowley, I-“- He began, gently tracing a thumb under his jaw, the heat almost painful to his fingers, eyes darting to his lips if only for a moment, -“…May I?”

And Crowley was leaning in in seconds, lips hovering just inches away. They didn’t need to breathe, but both hungrily swallowed each other’s air, heavier than the weight of the world combined in that small space between their existences.

“Of course. Of course you may, angel,”- Crowley murmured, not quite touching, so close and so far, his own hands trembling terribly.

Aziraphale exhaled hard, leaning forward while everything in his angelic being screamed at him, scorched at his core. His hand traveled back, getting lost in the demon’s hair, the other holding onto his neck, moving almost as though through heavy water, something in the very air resisting, pushing him away.

“Well… This is… An unprecedented outcome, now isn’t it?”- Crowley tried to smile, poorly masking the crack in his voice with a cough.

The angel couldn’t help the nervous laugh that bubbled out of his throat, -“Yes, it- it really is. Ineffable, you might say-”

Crowley kissed him.

And when they finally connected, it was as though inferno itself broke out inside Aziraphale’s chest, as though he was fully submerged in a bucket of ice cold water – as though he could finally breathe again. His eyes fell shut instantly, the contact almost physically painful, his hands grasping at Crowley’s hair, the collar of his shirt, whatever force pushing him away was now gone entirely, replaced with a desperate need to pull him closer, closer, so much closer-

He didn’t know whether this was because Crowley was a demon or because he was just Crowley, had no point of reference to compare this to, but it felt as though hellfire was licking at Aziraphale’s lips, his skin, his very existence. That familiar dark feeling returned, twofold, threefold, overwhelming him whole to the point of drunkenness yet again, and in the next moment the angel was opening his mouth in pure lustrous desperation.

Crowley welcomed him entirely, sliding his tongue over, releasing a low, rumbling moan which resonated throughout the angel’s chest. Aziraphale tasted of honey, of clouds, of lemongrass, of angel cake, and something so very remarkably fresh. Every touch was sending him over the edge, his shaky hands barely managing to support his weight, overwhelmed by the burn, the pain, the sweetness, the need.

That new cologne made his head spin.

And in the next moment they really were spinning, turning over as Aziraphale roughly flipped him onto his back, towering above him without stopping to break contact, kissing him as though his very life depended on it. Crowley released a surprised gasp into his mouth, threading his fingers into the angel’s feather-like hair before reciprocating, soft, tender, pulling away only when he felt he couldn’t take it much longer without completely discorporating.

It could have lasted a month. It could have lasted ten seconds. He wasn’t sure anymore.

The room was swimming, detached from reality, a vague assimilation of shapes and colors.

Aziraphale breathed hard above him, eyes half-lidded, expression darker than anything Crowley has ever seen before. His gut twisted painfully.

“Angel…”- He began, voice raspy and hardly his own. He forgot what he was going to say entirely, as Aziraphale was now taking off his coat, shrugging it off to the floor, leaning back in and gently biting down at his bottom lip. Crowley couldn’t help the mewl that escaped his throat, the breath that got caught somewhere in his chest.

Six thousand years - six thousand goddamn years – and every second was worth the wait just to have Aziraphale lightly press his lips to his jaw like that, to feel that heavenly tongue run down the side of his neck, making him squirm in place, desperately swallow in the air he never needed until now.

There was something scratchy in his stomach then, something sending sparks all throughout his body, making his hips buckle forward against his will, his limbs no longer listening as he threw a leg over Aziraphale’s back, bringing him closer.

The angel paused in leaving a trail of particularly wet kisses down Crowley’s throat, changing his direction upwards to press his lips against his ear instead, whispering, -“Are you alright, dearest?”

And Crowley barely found it in him to turn his head, stare Aziraphale into those forever blue eyes, now nearly all the way black with the pupils diluted. He exhaled a shaky breath, pressing his nose into the angel’s cheek, inhaling hard.

“I am better than I ever was. The best I’ve been since I fell, Aziraphale,”- He felt the angel’s hand travel further south, his fingers now stroking at his hip, -“And- And what about you? Are we going too fast again, angel?”

He grasped at Aziraphale’s shoulders, closing his eyes as he waited for the answer. It was nothing new – it took centuries for them to sit on the bus side by side. Crowley was prepared to wait several more if he had to.

They had all the time in the world now, after all.

Aziraphale brought his hands back up to cup Crowley’s jaw, before catching his lips in another slow kiss.  

“On the contrary, dear,”- He smiled against his skin, sweet, tender, and so eternally burning, -“I believe it is long overdue.”

And as though to prove his point, the angel shifted and now Crowley could feel a resolute hardness prodding at his thigh. He stopped breathing for good this time, eyes blown wide as he turned to face Aziraphale.

“Bedroom. Now.”

“Oh- You- You have a bedroom?”

“Now I do.”

The angel blinked as he was suddenly being tugged from the couch towards a door he could swear wasn’t there before, stumbling ever so slightly on the way in.

The room was as large as any other in Crowley’s flat, all greys and plants, with those giant windows facing out towards Big Ben. It didn’t seem to matter that with the door placement it should have technically been in the middle of the outside hallway. In fact, reality didn’t seem to matter at all just then.

“Wh- I don’t remember adding these,”- Crowley paused in his tracks, taking a moment to feel the silk canopy bed curtains between his fingers. Aziraphale couldn’t help the blush that formed on his cheeks.

“O-Oh, that was me. I just- I, um, thought it might be a bit more… Intimate, this way?”

The demon turned back with a delighted smirk, one that was practically bordering on a grin.

“Is that so?’

It struck Aziraphale quite prominently just then that Crowley was, indeed, really incredibly beautiful. With those striking yellow eyes, that lean pose, the fiery ginger hair and the constant bemusement that seemed to never leave his thin lips – the angel blinked in surprise at his own realization, taking a few definitive steps forward to let his fingers undo the first button on Crowley’s shirt. He bit his bottom lip, tugging back the fabric to reveal a slender collar bone.  

“Aziraph-?”

“I think I understand it now, the whole ‘devilishly handsome’ business,”- He smiled, allowing his fingers to continue undoing the buttons.

Crowley’s hands were now firmly grasping him by the elbows as he was leaning against the canopy, looking as though his legs might just give out if not for the support. Aziraphale leaned in, tasting more of that painfully hot skin, toppling them both over onto the bed as the demon underneath him released another loud whimper.

He hardly bothered to resist that dark overwhelming feeling, letting it encompass him whole as though someone switched off the very sun, allowing it to take control completely, following its every whim and desire, his hands travelling over Crowley’s ribs, his back, his slender hips, his mouth moving down the exposed chest. His fingers felt as though they were continuously stung by innumerable needles, the pain sending electric jolts throughout his body and right into his abdomen. He bit down hard at the side of Crowley’s navel, licking at the teeth marks when he heard the demon underneath him let out a low hiss.

Crowley could only do so much not to completely dissolve on the spot, digging his fingers into Aziraphale’s hair which he could swear was glowing, his other hand tangled up in the bed sheets. The angel’s mouth reached the hem of his trousers and didn’t stop there, continuing on to leave wet kisses down the front of his pelvis, making Crowley’s hips buckle forward violently and his eyes roll back in his head.

“Fuuuuck, angel- Oh holy- Oh, fuck-“- He swore loudly, tugging Aziraphale upwards, capturing his lips in his own, desperately licking at the inside of his mouth.

And in the next moment their clothes were gone entirely, flesh against flesh, Aziraphale gasping in shock and Crowley lulling his head back as electricity coursed throughout his body.

“Crowley!”- The angel complained loudly, the tone of his voice having some weight if not for the brilliantly red blush spread throughout his ethereal face, -“That’s cheating!”

Crowley panted hard, hands thrown over Aziraphale’s back as he held on for dear life, -“No- No, angel- You were the one cheating- With your teasing and your- I- I simply made it more fair.”

And how could Aziraphale possibly argue with that when he was now looking at him from underneath those hooded eyelids, his erection prodding at his hip, his fingers practically burning a hole in his skin. He breathed out hard, moving ever so slightly as Crowley’s fingers found their way to his chest, brushing over his nipples, that resolute pressure building up in his stomach with every stroke.

“Al- Alright. That is to say, um- Quite- Quite well, indeed-“

Aziraphale released a shaky breath, his hands suddenly too cold despite the astounding heat between their bodies.

If there was one thing he admired about Crowley it was that he was completely unpredictable – brash in all his decisions and ideas, always bold and straightforward and so unlike Aziraphale. Unlike any angel, in fact.

Unlike anything Heaven.

And looking at him now, suddenly completely and utterly naked, putting a definitive damper onto the angel’s hard work of undressing, taking it to himself to strive forward and simultaneously wait for Aziraphale to catch up – well, he couldn’t help but lose his composure for a minute or two.

This was Crowley. His Crowley.

Right here, right now, underneath him, completely naked and unashamed - and so obviously desperately, thoroughly, so overwhelmingly in lo-

“Please don’t tell me you’ve suddenly remembered the Old Testament,”- Crowley quirked an unimpressed eyebrow, interrupting the long moment of frozen silence.  

Aziraphale, in turn, didn’t hesitate to scoff, perhaps even having the gull to look slightly offended.

“Excuse me, this has nothing to do with the Testaments- Not that the Old one should matter anyway, it has been outdated for quite some time- “

“Then are you going to do something? Or should we just go for tea and crumpets instead?”

The angel blinked.

“Oh, crumpets-?”

“Aziraphale.”

“Sorry, sorry-!”- The angel sighed, the minuscule movement sending a jolt of pleasure up his back as their bodies brushed against one another, having him cough to mask a moan building up in the back of his throat, -“Th-Th-This is all too new to me, all too human-“

“Then let’s figure it out together, yeah?”- Offered Crowley, voice suddenly much gentler, his hips slowly bucking upwards, making Aziraphale exhale sharply.

“W-Wait- You mean to tell me... You’ve never-?”

“Of course not,“- The demon replied immediately, looking everywhere but the angel’s face

“Never-!?”

“Nope.”

“In six thousand years-?”

“Yup.”

“Not even once-?”

“And why would I.”

“But weren’t you ever curious? Didn’t you ever want to-?”

“Oh, I wanted to...”- Crowley suddenly leaned up, his lips pressing against Aziraphale’s throat, taking a moment to leave a wet mark on his skin, -“But you weren’t ready.”

Aziraphale swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing up against the demon’s lips, his jaw dropping slightly. He wanted to say something else, something entirely unnecessary, perhaps, or maybe something that needed saying all along - but then Crowley was capturing his lips again and all he could do in that moment was reciprocate with as much force as he could muster, kissing him deep, needing, wanting-

He closed his eyes, letting his instincts take over once again, letting that feeling that he would now forever associate with Crowley lead him to new, never before considered places – and in the next moment, Crowley was crying out, throwing his head backwards as Aziraphale’s suddenly slick fingers found their way to his backside.

“What are you- Fuck, angel, what are you doing!?”- He hissed out, voice hoarse and trembling, fingernails digging into the angel’s shoulders.

“Erm, preparing you? I believe that is the standard custom-“

“Shit, just get it over with- I’m a demon, for heaven’s sake, I can-“

Whatever it was Crowley could do was lost in a particularly loud moan that resonated throughout the room once he felt Aziraphale’s middle finger prodding at his entrance, his back arching out as his eyes rolled back in his head.

He was practically falling apart in his arms at the smallest movement, and the angel could not look away. He’s known Crowley for six thousand year – six thousand goddamn years – and in all this time he has never, not once, have come even close to seeing him so utterly and purely destroyed. Aziraphale pressed his lips to his chest, letting his tongue taste the spice and the bitter sweetness of his sweat, watching his every move, every pant, every squirm as he added in another finger.

He could not look away.

Crowley looked beautiful. Crowley was beautiful.

And in that moment Aziraphale felt it yet again, that something that tugged at his chest ever so often – that time in the Garden when they first met, that time in Rome when they dined together for the very first time, that time in France when they had crepes, that time in the church when the bombs fells, and all and each and every other time after and in between – he felt it now once more, and he suddenly knew exactly what it was.

Indeed, maybe, he always knew.

The demon bit down the back of his hand to stifle his moan, and Aziraphale knew that he wanted to know him – know him in a very biblical way. He needed it.

He wanted it.

“I want you, Crowley,”- He whispered against his chest, voice low and rumbling, resonating throughout every electron of the charged air between them. Aziraphale pulled his fingers out, adjusting his also suddenly slick erection to the demon’s entrance, that dark feeling becoming him entirely.

“You have me, angel,”- Crowley whispered back, and Aziraphale realized all too clearly that whoever said that angels weren’t capable of sin were absolute liars.

In that moment, this one angel felt pure lust, and there was nothing in the entirety of the whole damn Creation that could have prevented him from following through with this temptation.

He slowly pushed his hips forward, biting down on Crowley’s shoulder hard, filling him up and feeling absolutely whole himself.

“Fuck,”- He swore, loud, unapologetic, feeling as though the entirety of Heaven and Hell combined could not have possibly separated them in that moment. He felt Crowley’s hips jerk wildly, a ludicrously lewd moan escaping his lips as he barely whispered “Say that again”.

And so Aziraphale did, swearing loudly, wantonly, over and over and over again as he moved his hips in rhythm with Crowley’s, his head suddenly clouded over with sparks and flashes of absolute pure bliss, the heat between them rivaling that of Armageddon itself. Pure fire was coursing through his veins as his lips somehow managed to find Crowley’s, perhaps pulled together by a force stronger than that of any magnet, their kiss slow and chaste in spite of the absolute fireworks going off in the angel’s stomach.

Crowley’s legs locked behind Aziraphale’s back, his hands digging into his shoulders hard enough to leave deep bruises, fingernails tearing at the fragile skin, as the angel’s own hands desperately held onto his sides, moving deeper, harder, more urgent with each passing second, their bone marrows mixing into one as their existences transcended human, Heavenly, or Hellish understanding - becoming something else entirely.

Aziraphale was suddenly looking at his own face from underneath himself, knowing full well Crowley was above him, there, still with him, still moving, rocking, gasping for air as one, and as their lips connected once again, he opened his eyes only to see the demon back where he belonged, his eyes staring intently into his own, a new understanding written into them. The angel bit at the side of his neck, feeling a pulsing vein with his tongue, Crowley’s heat around his hardness overwhelming.

The universe itself stopped existing just then. All of Creation was gone, save for the two of them.

That was what it felt like, at least – and who’s to say that in that one short, insignificant moment, one falling angel and one rising demon really weren’t the only ones in being.

Aziraphale came with a soft cry, something in between Crowley’s name and a swear, hot sweat rolling off of his back as he took a moment to let his vision adjust and his breathing steady. He didn’t dare move again as his consciousness settled in and realization of what they’ve done took over. He pulled out slowly, exhaling hard, feeling exhausted, dirty, weak, manic.

Feeling so remarkarbly, utterly human.

“Aziraphale…”- A voice dearer than any other quietly resonated throughout the room.

And when Aziraphale cautiously opened his eyes again, the angel couldn’t breathe.

It was a good thing that he was already half-lying down, or he would have surely fallen over in that moment. Crowley was looking at him – really, truly, sincerely looking, his eyes lost, diluted, exhausted, and so, devastatingly, purely, frantically full of love Aziraphale couldn’t help his arms giving out from underneath him, having him fall flat onto the demon's chest.

The drunk feeling returned with the force of being hit by a speeding truck, that feeling of absolute love knocking the very wind out of the angel’s soul, having him take a moment to even remember to exist. Never has he felt anything quite like it, not even in Tadfield, and certainly neverdirected towards himself.

That unadulterated, whole, ethereal, mesmerizing, eternal feeling of complete and utter love.

Crowley loved him.

The thought alone was enough to ascend him into Heaven - if he didn’t know what the place was like.

It coursed throughout his entire body, that pure ecstasy that swelled within his corporeal form and overflowed into the universe; that pulsing, shrieking sensation of love, love, love, love that made the past, the present, and the future bleed together into one beautiful, disastrous mess that washed over him in waves like a warm tide at a sunny beach on a tired afternoon.

It was love, he was loved, he was loved by Crowley and-

Aziraphale snapped his eyes open.

There was now something very tangible burning at his fingers, something beyond the realm of abstract feeling, and he turned his head only to realize the entirety of the canopy curtains were on fire. Actual, literal fire.

Their bed was burning.

“Oh, dear-!“- The angel mumbled as he shot upright, waving a hand to make the raging flames disappear. The damage was done, of course – most of the bed sheets were gone, and the canopy was now slowly but surely falling apart piece by piece. The floor and the walls were a blackened mess of scorch marks.

One of the bed legs cracked under their weight.

“Oh, my- Oh- Oh, I-I’m… I’m so sorry, Crowley, let me just-“- Aziraphale tried to stand up, to move and fix the damage that was no doubt a result of their recklessness- but in the next moment, Crowley was suddenly laughing, hard, bubbling, throwing his head back in pure delight as he pulled the fidgeting angel close to his chest, dropping back down on the mostly destroyed mattress.

The leg gave out then, and one corner of the bed dropped down to the floor with a resolute thud.

Crowley laughed harder.

Aziraphale failed to see the humor in the situation, but after a moment of stunned silence he chuckled along anyway, too dazed and utterly exhausted to even bother thinking about doing anything other than tucking himself into the crook of his demon’s neck.

He suddenly remembered that he was loved.

“Well that was... Something. Ineffable, even,”- Said Crowley and Aziraphale didn’t even need to look to hear the smile in his voice, -“…Didn’t know my plants could bloom like that.”

The angel exerted a fraction of an effort to look around just then – and indeed, the various plant life Crowley had placed around the room was now sprouting numerous flowers the names of which Aziraphale could hardly recall. He was certain there were quite a few of them that weren't supposed to actually exist.

“I don’t believe they can, dear,”- He mumbled, feeling a blush creep up his neck. Yes, this was definitely the result of their little exercise as well, -“I quite like it, though. Our very own little Eden.”

It really was. A bit more constricted space-wise, but lovely nevertheless.

Crowley tensed underneath him.

“A-Ah, but it doesn’t have to be!”- Aziraphale was quick to correct himself, sitting up again, ready to miracle it all away, -“Let me just fix this for you, yes-?”

“Don’t you dare, angel,”- Crowley suddenly snapped, roughly pulling him back into an all-encompassing embrace. Aziraphale gasped at the contact.

“R-Right, sorry, I’m just- Let me at least fix the bed-“

“No. Leave it.”

“But-“

“I said leave it, Aziraphale,”- The demon burrowed his nose in the angel's hair then, inhaling sharply as his thumb gently stroked down his arm, -“It’s perfect the way it is. I don’t want you changing a single damn thing.”

Aziraphale couldn’t help the smile that formed on his lips. Lying there, on pieces of destroyed rubble that could hardly be called a bed anymore, surrounded by a multitude of plants the likes of which could not be found anywhere else on this Earth, he could not possibly be happier. Heaven had nothing on being held like this in Crowley’s arms, knowing that he is loved. By Crowley.

Crowley, who was now reaching for the pair of sunglasses that suddenly appeared on the side of the mattress.

The angel caught him by the wrist, stopping him halfway.

“Why bother? It’s just us here,"- And then, when he didn’t reply, -“I really do love your eyes, Crowley. They’re wonderful.”

The demon took a long, long moment to stare at him then, slowly bringing up a warm hand to cup his jaw and leave a soft, quick kiss at his lips. His eyes were practically glowing, as bright as the lights of London.

“Aziraphale… I…”

“I know, Crowley,”- Aziraphale replied immediately, his chest clenching painfully. Delightfully, -“I felt it. I know.”

Crowley had always felt like Crowley, and that much hasn't changed. What the angel has come to learn in the span of these several hours, is that Crowley always felt like love.

The demon exhaled then, blinking slowly, and that was perhaps the very first time in six thousand years that Aziraphale saw him blush.

He promptly turned away, scoffing.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t even like you.”

The angel arched his eyebrows in surprise – before bursting into a fit of giggles, scooting up closer to bury his face in Crowley’s neck.

“You do.”

The demon smiled softly, holding onto Aziraphale tight, as though if he let go this all just might disappear. He was so angry for the past six thousand years. So thoroughly annoyed and pissed off and disgusted – with the angel, with the world, with himself.

He thought it was because that was just the way he was – it was in his very nature to feel nothing but the very worst. But now… Well, maybe it wasn’t all so bad. Maybe he didn’t need to be so angry after all.

Maybe, this was… Okay.

“I love you, Aziraphale-”- Crowley finally admitted, out loud and out there for the entirety of all Creation to hear, -“-More than you could ever know.”

“I love you, Crowley-“- Aziraphale replied right back without missing a single beat, turning his face to stare Crowley right into his eyes with those unbearably vibrant blues, -“-More than you have ever realized.”

Whether it was the tone of his voice, the look in his eyes or the touch of his flesh against his own, for the first time since he could remember, Crowley was certain that he could actually feel it. He felt love.

He was loved.

Aziraphale made him feel holy.

Holier than Heaven ever could.

There would be a lot of things yet to come – in the morning there would be strange new sensations and awkward conversations, strained limbs and tender kisses. There would be a realization of what happened this night, a recollection of an experience shared, and a coming up with a brilliant plan that would fool Heaven and Hell itself. There would be punishment avoided and life preserved. There would be St. James Park and cold metal benches. There would be jokes and laughter, and dinner at the Ritz.

There would be a nightingale singing in Berkley Square.

But all of that would come later.

In this one, eternal moment, an angel and a demon lay together as one, holding each other in their arms. Love, blooming in between.

For humanity. For the world. For each other.

There would be many things to come – but most of all, there would be love.

And love, as we know it, does conquer all.

#this is very long and im sorry #long post #good omens #ineffable husbands #fanfiction #sai.fic

[huffpostarts]

The Very Best Holiday Presents For Dogs To Eat!

We've spent the last couple months testing as well as curating the most effective holiday gifts for dogs (and their individuals)-- and today's suggestions are all presents for your dog to EAT! If I needed to guess, I think today's possibly our dogs' favored day of the gift overview!

When it concerns screening edibles, I don't rely on the dogs. They do not have one of the most critical tastes. My initial step is to evaluate components to see if it's something I really feel comfortable giving them. Currently, I'm not a person that's "all health, constantly." I such as to balance a little bit of junk food from time to time. These victors, though, all rank actually very for being nutritious-- as well as I added our preferred supplements to balance out too many Christmas cookies. I had a tough time tightening it down, so right here are our favorite seven ideal holiday presents for dogs that they can EAT!

DGP

Let's kick this off with our supplement fave. I've covered this before, and if you have a dog with joint troubles or you simply desire preventative care, this is the one for you. DGP is all about sustaining flexibility as well as versatility, as well as if your dog is already on a glucosamine-type supplement, it can be included in provide extra support. Lucas has bad hips, as well as he's beginning to get a bit older-- though he appears unaware of that-- as well as likes to play at dog daycare eventually a week. It was taking its toll on his joints, but with the DGP, he currently appears to be rather solid. I'm SUPER satisfied with this supplement, as well as my big boy is going to stay on it without a doubt!

Indigo Triple Chews

Dental health and wellness is important, yet we aren't fantastic about brushing these guys' teeth. We look for oral products that maintain their teeth clean and their mouths healthy and balanced. The Indigo Triple Chews are by FAR our faves. They're digestible as well as grain-free. They integrate benefits by consisting of antioxidants as well as probiotics with the dental treatment. But why we enjoy them: They really are durable. We've tried every sort of dental chew, and also they complete them SO fast. Also quick for just how expensive they are. These seriously last longer than any other we tried. I desired a statistics, so I offered one to Lucas prior to I took a seat to write today. It took him from 3:24 up until 3:51. In my house, that's a Christmas miracle.

Fruitables Holiday Edition: Vanilla Snowflake Flavor

So, these deals with have without a doubt the very best story to them. They are made with genuine snows! Seriously! You can watch a video of them gathering the snow. These are tiny, crunchy treats that are made with 300 snowflakes in every bag. How funny and also adorable is that?! The active ingredients are quite allergy-friendly, as well. The deals with don't contain any wheat, corn, soy, man-made shades, or preservatives. While the young boys uncommitted too much regarding those aspects, they did gobble them up! I definitely like the story and also think these would make a very sweet stocking stuffer for any kind of fortunate pup!

Zuke's.

Complete disclosure: If you have a dog who is as food sensitive as Cooper is, Zuke's have actually not been the best deals with for him. Somehow, they actually intensify his sensitive stomach. For more details about dog sensitive food then visit https://petsish.com/best-dog-food-for-sensitive-stomach/ . The large young boys, on the other hand, couldn't. get. enough. We like Zuke's for training because they have a strong smell and are easily gotten into bits. These jerky ones, though, have a lamb that we're attempting with Coop, therefore much, so excellent! The other flavors are wonderful for the other dogs. There are a couple different beef options and turkey, as well. These jerky treats-- made from completely secure meat sourced in the United States and New Zealand, instead of China-- consist of genuine meat, carrots, blueberries, apples, as well as antioxidant-rich natural herbs. We damage them right into little items to make use of when we're collaborating with the dogs outside because the solid odor keeps them engaged. These are treats we NEVER wish to run out of!

Train-Me Treats.

We do a lot of training around here, and also we use treats for nearly every little thing from normal walks the block to instructing brand-new methods to dealing with whatever Cooper's brand-new fear-of-the-moment is. To keep them interested, we have to mix up the benefits. These training treats from Crazy Dog were brand-new to me, and they've been working so well. They're soft-- a lot far better than crunchy when training-- and all listing meat as the initial ingredient. They can be found in bacon, hen, and beef flavors as well as either 4-ounce or 6-ounce bags.

Animal Naturals of Vermont supplements.

Many years earlier, we drove from DC to Indiana. After that, later, from Indiana to Louisiana. After that, once again later on, from Louisiana to Indiana. Sigh. All those miles with the dogs is rather stressful, so we had actually been acquiring Pet Naturals of Vermont calming treats. They have a HUGE range of supplements beyond the preferred soothing treats, however, and we've been using the Daily Best for Emmett (although, I believe perhaps he needs the elderly formula) as well as the Skin + Coat. They're well-formulated as well as definitely have a great flavor-- the young boys gobble them up. Perk for any person with an allergy-prone dog: The Skin + Coat version is flavored with duck, making it more widely endured!

PetSafe 2-Meal Automatic Pet Feeder.

If you reside in a multi-pet house, this may not be the Christmas present for you (unless you have a feline that has separate access from your dog or something). My herd demands being fed at a particular time. Every. Single. Day. Breakfast is at 7. Dinner is at 5. I know not everybody has pets so diligent concerning their feeding times, yet these guys firmly insist. For a while, Coop was additionally eating lunch. And, actually, Newt gets a challenge toy mid-day. Anyhow, this item would certainly be a dream if you needed to do a mid-day feeding or if you had a late meeting or supper strategies and intended to feed your family pet on schedule. For a dog like Emmett-- that takes, roughly, 15 pills a day some of which need to be timed with dishes-- this would be a lifesaver if you needed to leave early/come house late. All you do is load the feeder, established a timer, and also TA DA! Your pet is fed the right amount at the right time, even if you have to go out or are running late! $34.95 for the 2-Meal (1.5 cups per side) version (HINT: The 5 cup version is coming later on in the week!).

Barker Kitsen deal with selection-- No much longer available.

You people, I'm in love. Can you be in love with a family pet merchant? I sure am! This online store is devoted to "under-the-radar items," which implies you're going to discover something NEW in their shop. I seriously enjoyed poking around, as well as I check out family pet items all-the-live-long day! From their objective: "The business's goal is to assist quality-minded pet owners make premium item choices to keep their family pets healthy and satisfied, while providing arising as well as unknown brands nationwide direct exposure as a circulation source for their products." As I claimed, I'm in love! They sent us a lot of deals with to try: Raw Bistro free-range bison liver and flaxseed deals with, natural pleasant potato treats from 2 Dogs Treats, Bixbi's Skin and Coat chicken bust jerky, as well as Scrappy Moo deals with. Not one of those deals with was a flop. We enjoyed them ALL. (Cooper can even consume the bison! Yippee!) And the product packaging is incredibly cute. Incorporated with the fantastic goal, I'm head over heels!

#dog food

[meditativeyoga]

Find Serenity in Savasana

Award yourself everyday by taking a 15-minute break for actual relaxation.

I was plunged on the flooring of a dressing space in a huge outlet store at 7:40 p.m. enjoying my adolescent little girl try out what looked like the 5,000 th set of jeans. It was taking 'for ev-vah,' as she would claim, and also I was actually tired. Much more compared to that, I really felt overwhelmed, like the lead character in some poor desire, endlessly running from job to job. Exactly what was I doing below? Why wasn't I home resting after a complete day of training, composing, food preparation, and owning youngsters around? For that matter, why do so much of us prevent taking a nice, scrumptious break daily?

The response is intricate, both in my life and also, I'm thinking, in your own also. First, our days have plenty of jobs, consultations, and tasks. Second, statistics reveal that we are functioning longer hrs and also bringing even more job home with us compared to ever. Innovation has given us particular freedoms, yet it has also enabled us to work at all times. It's now simple to check a bank equilibrium online at 1 a.m. or make that little organisation call from the cars and truck.

My preferred sign of overload is when I'm rushing around and I call from my mobile phone to my home addressing machine to leave myself a message concerning something that I absolutely have to do that day-very efficient. I think I'm not alone in this actions, it seems we are all on overload a lot of the moment.

What's the result of this constant busyness? We're exhausted and also burnt out. I lately asked my yoga exercise trainees to elevate their hands if they had actually been stressed-out during the previous week. I got a near-universal program of hands and also some incredulous looks. Why wouldn't they be stressed-out? We currently expect to be.

It should be kept in mind that anxiety isn't always a bad point. Actually, it's an essential physiological action when we regard a risk. Take the instance of an unfamiliar person following you down a dark alleyway-when you pick up risk, your body responds by turning on the supportive worried system, also understood as the fight-or-flight action, as well as bringing you to a hyperalert state, ready to react. ( For a much more detailed description of these physiological effects, see the post, This Is Your Body on Stress.) Yet when the body repeatedly and needlessly goes into this state day after day, our health suffers. Persistent stress and anxiety could interfere with food digestion, sleep, sex drive, fertility, and more.

What techniques can we adopt-aside from chucking everything as well as transferring to a covert paradise-to ease this feeling of rashness as well as fatigue? Exactly how can we stop the sensation that there are way too many points to do and inadequate time to do them?

Resting in Personal Paradise

I propose a formal leisure duration of 15 to Thirty Minutes daily, everyday, in Savasana (Remains Pose). Not just is Savasana (noticable sha-VAH-suh-nuh) central to all traditions of hatha yoga exercise, however it could be maded with hardly any difficulty. You can choose an easy variation with few props or a lavish, completely propped, 'Calgon, take me away' version.

Savasana made use of to be part of every yoga exercise course. Regretfully, I now speak with students that teachers skip it and also recommend 'doing it later.' Or I listen to that some instructors do Savasana for five minutes. They might unknown that it takes at the very least 15 minutes to unwind deeply. In some nations, there is a siesta every day. I choose an everyday siesta through Savasana.

There are several justifications for not exercising Savasana, and also I've heard them all. Do it anyway! First, you could need to reconsider exactly how you assume about time. The one point most individuals say about time is that there is not sufficient. Right here's a radical idea: Everyone that lives worldwide has exactly the exact same quantity of time every day. Some have a lot more education and learning, some have more wide range, some remain in much better health and wellness, but everybody has the exact same amount of time. It is how you make use of that time, and how you regard the quantity of time you have, that can enhance or reduce stress and anxiety.

The truth is, you might have to quit that TELEVISION sitcom or stand up to speaking on the phone reworking the exact same old thing, yet if you assess the different time slots in your day, you'll locate space for at the very least 15 mins of do-nothing rejuvenation.

Savasana Strategies

Some people want to exercise Savasana very first point in the early morning as component of a normal yoga method. Others use it as a midafternoon break as opposed to drinking a mug of coffee. Still others want to rest briefly when they obtain home from work, before the night's tasks start. Find a time that works finest for you and also exercise at the same time every day. Consider utilizing a timer. I find that a timer enables me to completely relax without stressing that I'll finish up existing in Savasana for hours, not able to obtain up and also complete my day.

Think of exercising Savasana daily as a present to on your own, your family, and also the globe. Taking a restorative break on a daily basis will certainly not just make you really feel better, it will likely make you more pleasurable to be around. When you're unwinded, you're less likely to overreact in the face of trouble. A well-rested, balanced person is more most likely making selections that will certainly impact the world in a favorable way.

A Simple Setup

Here's more great information: Everything you require for Savasana could be located existing around your house. The basic kind of Savasana requires only a quiet space, a comfy surface area to push, and also a number of props. For the standard present, you'll require a support for your head, such as a little pillow or folded up blanket, and also a rolled blanket or huge cushion to support the rear of your knees. For added relaxation, I recommend a soft cover for your eyes as well as another covering to maintain you cozy, you can additionally use socks.

Lie down on your back. Area the small pillow or folded up covering underneath your head so the neck is well supported as well as the chin goes down listed below the level of the forehead. Take a minute to relax the legs and also let them drop open. With the hands dealing with up, spread out the arms far from your body so the arms do not touch the sides of your rib cage. You need to have a large sensation, as if you are using up as much room in the area as possible.

Set your timer for 15 or 20 mins (you can work up to 30), cover your eyes, and also lie back. Occupy to 20 consistent, even breaths, progressively boosting the inhalations as well as exhalations. After that completely release, release any controlled breathing, enable your body to go down into the flooring, and also observe your ideas without reacting to them, as if they were clouds drifting past you in the skies. When you listen to the timer, exhale and also flex your knees to your chest. Roll to one side, letting the eye cover fall off on its own, and also use your arms to sit up slowly.

Savasana as Stress Management

If you stay in Savasana long sufficient, you will ultimately experience three different phases of the pose. The first is what I call physiological leisure, it takes most individuals concerning 15 minutes. Initially, you might seem like the mind is still accelerated as well as connected to thoughts, feelings, and also muscle movement. However slowly, the mind waves and also the breath reduce down, as well as the blood stress decreases.

As the body and mind relax, the genuine Savasana can start. Throughout this second stage, recognition of the outside globe begins to dim. You could hear audios, but they will not interrupt you. Instead, everything will begin to drift further as well as further away.

In my point of view, the second stage is one of the most recovery for the body and comforting to the mind. A secondary school student once explained Savasana to me as, 'Your body sleeps as well as your mind watches.' I like this summary, because the mind never ever entirely quiets down, however as you loosen your recognition with the physique, you could separate from the constant whirl of ideas. After that you could just witness them, simply as you would certainly see the climbing and also dropping of your upper body with the breath. As this occurs, you'll really feel a lot more secure as well as prepared to be where you are.

The final state of Savasana occurs when the mind completely releases. It is thought that the mind waves reduce down to their most affordable frequency. You will feel separated from the outdoors up until the timer rings or your instructor's voice brings you back to the present.

Give on your own time to drop right into at the very least the 2nd stage daily. Some days you will get the 3rd state as a present, however don't worry if you don't. Simply keep exercising as well as it will advance.

I sometimes ask my yoga exercise students if they assume the world could be a much better place if every person practiced Savasana on a daily basis. The consentaneous answer is always yes. So allow Savasana start with you, today. Rather than thinking about it as a worthless completing position that isn't really necessary, think of your energetic yoga practice as a preparation for the real, deep yoga of Savasana.

#Hatha yoga #Yoga #yoga practice

[pepplemint]

Fanfic Recc:s

I had this since a long time back actually, I think. I figured I might as well post it and give ya’ll something lol.

  —————————-——————-———GEN——————————-——————-———-

Room with a View by isabeau25 (10,089 words): Lance manages to carve out a space for himself in a hidden part of the castle. The rest of the team find their way there eventually. ———- This was one of those fics I didn’t really expect to get as into as I did. Is really sweet and focus on the original team as a family. You know how you sometimes see art where everyone in a giant cuddlepile and it’s just too sweet and everyone is so comfortable with each other? This have got the same feeling, plus some Langst

————————————————-  Accepting Amelioration by XILVerify (4887 words): Shiro trusts his team with his life, but after what he and his daemon experienced at the hands of the Galra… well, trusting them with his soul is the one thing he just can’t bring himself to do. Or so he thinks. Daemon AU. Post season 1 speculation.  ———- Shiro and Hunk is a pair that have gotten very little bonding time in canon, so seeing them together here put in a situation where they are trapped in a distressing urgent situation is both interesting and engaging. I don’t know much about His Dark Materials or daemons to be honest but it’s explained well enough within the fic and I enjoy these representations very much. WARNING: Mentioned previous-to-fic assault

————————————————- The Purity of Sin by IcyPanther (105,002 words): Lance's first diplomatic mission had gone wrong. Very, very wrong. Instead of allies on planet Macka, he and Keith found only enemies who want to sacrifice them to their Goddess. The two Paladins are going to have to work together to survive the harsh desert, severe injury, relentless pursuit, with the added problem that in addition to losing copious amounts of blood, Lance is losing his senses one... by one... by one... ———- I’m sure most people have heard of this fic already but god damn it is INTENSE. You will feel stuff. I am terrible at keeping attention and tend to stay away a bit from longer fics but I couldn’t stop reading. WARNING: Explicit violence, religious rituals, character death

————————————————- Bury the Sun by maychorian (26,734 words): Sam Holt has been a captive of the Galra for more than a year. He has lost all hope of escape or rescue. But when a new prisoner arrives in his underground cell, a boy who seems to carry the sun in his smile, everything begins to change. ———-    An unexpected pair as Pidge’s dad kinda takes Lance too under his wings. This is really sweet at the same time as you can never forget the terrible situation they are really in. WARNING: Violence and mentions of torture

————————————————- I'll Be Your Journal by BreakTheDawn (5756 words): “Lance,” Hunk had pleaded. “I can’t believe you just did that to me,” Lance covered his face as his breaths started to become heavy and uneven. Looking back, Hunk doesn’t know how he knew, but he did. He knew at that point that if he didn’t fix that. Didn’t fix Lance. Then he would lose him. Hunk could not let that happen

....

Or, that one time that Hunk crossed the line. ———-  I just love Hunk and I love seeing his perspective. Also Hunk and Lance friendship... There’s too little of it in the world honestly.

————————————————-

The Cost of Winning by IcyPanther (9596 words): "The Blue and Green Paladins serve no purpose to the Empire," the Galran commander smirked at his bound captives. "And as such you have no use except as arena fodder." He chuckled. "Give us a good show before you die." / Lance is determined to protect Pidge and save her from the arena. She will not die here. Over his dead body. Hopefully it's not quite that literal of a promise. ———- I’m starting to see a pattern here uuuh anyway I love this fic, I love Pidge and Lance working together. WARNING: Violence, Character Death

————————————————-

A Little Unsteady (Hold Onto Me) by DeerstalkerDeathFrisbee (13,385 words): Takashi Shirogane is nine years old when he holds his brother for the first time. “I’m here,” he’d whispered to his fussing baby brother, “I’m here, I’m here, I’m here.”  And Keith stopped crying. He didn’t laugh; he looked up at Shiro with big, skeptical eyes. A challenge. Like this tiny person was saying ‘oh yeah, prove it’. And Shiro, newly nine years old, promised that he’d prove it.Shiro and Keith's childhood in moments. ———- There’s a lot of Keith’s background story here that I fell really strongly for (though not canon compliant, I just like it.). If you’ve ever had that kind of relationship where you are like an older sibling figure, you can really feel this in your bones. WARNING: Child Abuse

————————————————-

Leave Them Stunned and Stuttering by BossToaster (ChaoticReactions) (10,527 words): Five Times Shiro couldn't be knocked off balance, one time he was, and one time he trusted the team to see. Or, when sibling bonding goes wrong. ———- A little bit Everyone/Shiro. It’s fun to see the team all bond over trying to mess with Shiro.

———————————————— Fatalistic Daydream by Engineer104 (27,873 words):  Being a low-ranking Galra soldier stationed in a virtual backwater isn’t stopping Pidge from finding out what happened to her family. But the secrets she’s keeping from her friend Keith on top of the unwanted attention of an Altean prisoner-of-war are definitely...slowing her down. ———- Interesting AU where the Galra and Alteans are actively at war. Technically this is tagged as Pidge/Lance but there isn’t anything actually romantic so I feel it fits the gen category.

——————-——————-——-—--—--SHANCE———————————-——————-—-

Racing on the Thunder by Jennypen (5435 words): Freshman Shiro is pretty hung up on Senior Lance at the Garrison, but no-one else shares his opinion. At least, not until a hostage situation changes everything. ———-   I love this!! Baby Cadet Shiro (who are not so baby-looking) pining after the older Cadet Lance, and Lance is a BAMF.

————————————————- Closer to Your World by CastleSL (29,576 words): Students will be carefully selected and tested for the opportunity to fly out to Kerberos for scientific research. Only one student may be selected. Application and Testing will commence during the third trimester, June 21XX. There was more on the page, statistics and requirements and more details, but it was legit. The flyer was printed on standard Garrison announcement paper, the document signed by the Dean and board of directors. The chance to go to Kerberos. Hunk took a moment to think, then clapped his hand on Lance’s back, smiling. “Well, I’m rooting for ya, buddy.” He said, and Lance beamed like that was all he needed in the world. ———-   It’s been a while since I read this fic but it’s nice with a lil longer Shance fic - it’s also really well written. A sequel is also being written right now that is also good. WARNING: Mentioned character death

————————————————- 

Full Moons and the Mornings After by Impetus (6496 words): Shiro is an unlucky werewolf who can’t control himself during the full moon. Lance really needs to stop letting stray wolves into his apartment. ———-   This is like my favourite werewolf fic ever hahahaha. I love when werewolves are portrayed as big dumb dogs. It’s really cute and they’re both big pining messes.

————————————————-  Jaded by Impetus (8728 words): Shiro is the leader of Voltron. He is the strength and the calm in the face of the thundering storm of the Galra. Lance is someone Shiro doesn't quite understand. Shiro is someone Lance wants to understand with all of his heart. ———-   WARNING: Major character injury

————————————————- The Luxury of Lacking Confidence by oldmythologies (13,695 words): They knew how it worked; Lance was always the damsel in distress and Shiro was the big strong hero who came to save him. When Shiro’s lion is hit by a vicious attack, he is knocked off course and careens into an ice planet. Lance finally elects himself the hero and has to save Shiro from his own injuries and the Galra ships searching the planet. Shiro, feverish and low on blood, is forced to confront his demons; Lance has to learn how to fight them off. ———-    WARNING: Major character injury

————————————————- Tris for Guys by quiddative  (2907 words): It was all Keith’s fault—him and his stupid biceps showing up at intramural basketball two nights ago without his trademark cropped jacket (which was almost as outdated as his mullet) and making everyone swoon. And what was worse, even Shiro, their hotter-than-hell yet sweeter-than-sugar RA and current object of Lance’s helpless affections, seemed impressed. He actually went up to Keith after his team had pummeled everyone else into the ground, clapped him on the back, and uttered the words that Lance had been daydreaming about for approximately fifteen thousand years: “Great job, buddy!” So, as soon as he got back to his room that night, he logged into his student account and signed up for the first available complimentary personal training session the college’s gym offered. ———- The story of how Lance thirsts so hard he even makes the ultimate sacrifice and goes to the gym. Lance’s “voice” here is great.

————————————————-  Slowly, Surely by needchocolatenow (2997 words): Shiro is tasked with an assignment to deliver important cargo to Altea. Lance is his second. -- Or, the fic in which Shiro and Lance take a road trip through space in an unfortunately named shuttle. ———- Just a really cute story where humans have moved into space and Shiro pines and is as awkward as a kid with his first crush.

————————————————-  ordinary people are everywhere by lein (5625 words): The note, situated in the bottom right corner, reads simply: ‘Will you be my Valentine? Yes or yes.’ Surrounded by little hearts and unaddressed, it seems a little out of place nestled next to the carefully crafted drawings of both pigeon lance and the deviantart stamp Pidge sent to Keith that made him cry for upwards of an hour before he had wordlessly crawled atop the table to recreate it as closely as he could. Shiro grins as he picks up a black dry erase marker and circles a yes. ———- This fic is so underrated! It’s super cute and I fell in love already at the summary, but the fic in itself is really well written and nice.

————————————————- Lance's Guide on How to Embarrass Yourself in Front of Your Insurance Adjuster by Eilera (2035 words): “This is for my mama, Hunk. She was so worried about this whole thing. They just finished renovating. I’m not gonna let her down. If my name isn’t Lance fucking Hernandez Martine-holy fuck he’s gorgeous.” “Oh no. No. Lance do-“ Lance didn’t even hear him because there was a fucking gorgeous god walking up the path to the front door.

(In which Lance is helping his mama with an insurance claim and he was not prepared for the smoking hot insurance adjuster.)

———- Lance is Lance and this was funny and cute.

————————————————-  Left Side Or Right? by liddie (2698 words): When Lance accidentally locks himself out of his dorm room he finds himself on Shiro's doorstep hoping that this falls under Shiro's offer of  "Let me know if you need help with anything."

Luckily for him, it does. ———- Piiiining I love it...... I really do

————————————————-  Lactose IntolerLance by humblenoodle (1807 words): Shiro's aware, at least, that his current course of action is humiliatingly stupid, and he should really stop while he's still ahead.

But it’s not like he could just casually waltz up there and ask for Lance’s number, maybe even a date. That’s not how this worked. ———- 

This was really funny and cute, pining Shiro at his most awkward.

————————————————- Define Dancing by starbear (5495 words): “Dancing?” Shiro made a small, scoffing little laugh. “You’re kidding, right? “What? No,” Lance said, “Why?” “I can’t dance.” “Lies.” “No, I’m serious,” Shiro said, “Two left feet. I’m terrible.” “That I absolutely do not believe. I bet you’ve just never really tried.” Lance stood, abruptly, an unsettlingly determined look on his face. “C’mon, let’s do it.” “Do...what?” “Dance, duh,” Lance said. “Let’s go.”

Shiro learns how to dance, and falls in love along the way. ———-  I tend to like fics that are snippets through time, but this one stand out :)

————————————————- Ten Days by WashiPuppy (??? words): Most people never got to learn exactly what their mind is worth, how resistant it is. Lance knew now, and the answer was ten days. It only took ten days for something in him to break that he wasn't sure he could get back.

Shiro had survived a year and come out as someone still able to smile, to be kind and gentle with those around him. Scarred, but not shattered.

Lance wore no new scars. But he still hadn't made it ten days.

———- So you like slow burn? Well what about the characters doesn’t even interact for three thirds of the fic lmao. Honestly though this fic is really good and well written! The focus isn’t on romance at all and I even forgot about it a couple of times, but none the less it’s 100% worth the read.

————————————————-  Black to Blue by PuppetMaster55 (153,825 words): Lance, the undisputed (no longer, since he finally got the team to stop questioning his position like a month ago) leader of Voltron finds himself in the absolute strangest scenario: being the Blue Paladin.

Lance, still finding his place on team Voltron, wakes up to the weirdest world: one where he's the Black Paladin.

OR, I take a universe where Lance was always the Black Paladin and have him swap bodies with canon Lance, throwing both sets of teams for a trip.

———- I mean I assume most people have already read this fic but just in case someone missed it? Read it. This is the Lance as Black Paladin au you always wanted.

————————————————-

Breaking Wind by AshesTheTerrible (10,044 words): Shiro is settling into his new body and finally trusting himself to rekindle things with Lance. Intimacy proves to be a lot of stumbling after such a long time without. And nobody is safe from awkward bodily functions during sex, not even Shiro. ———- Like the mature dumbass I am I love this fic about farting. It’s really well written and have such a good, soft relationship though it’s worth it ok.  WARNING: Explicit

————————————————-

ticket to ride by mettaverse (2085 words): The officer raises his hand. “You were going thirty miles over the speed limit for a date?” Lance opens his mouth and the officer lowers his sunglasses just to glare at him. “Sixty in a thirty lane. You know how fast that is?” “Um. Fast? Pretty fast?” “Dangerously fast.” He pulls a pad of paper out of his pocket. “I'm gonna have to give you a ticket.” ———-  Short AU-fic that I just find really cute

————————————————- 

How to Dig Your Own Grave by flyingisland (8804 words): The complete anthology, written from first-hand experiences and mortifying, soul-crushing interactions between Lance McClain and one very attractive neighbor. ———- This fic is kinda wonderful. Lance mess up so bad over and over and it’s hilarious. It’s all fine though in the end ;)  WARNING: Explicit, Sex Work (Pornography)

————————————————-

easier to lose by quiddative (???? words): Shiro is at the peak of his NHL career. Unfortunately, being famous has its downsides, particularly when it comes to dating. And that’s on top of the fact that he’s still in the closet.

However, a chance meeting with college student Lance, who seems to be the only person in the entire city who doesn’t know who he is, gives him hope that maybe he won’t die alone after all. Just as long as he can keep his identity a secret. ———- This fic isn’t actually finished when I add it here, but I expect it to be soon. I kinda love sport-AU’s not gonna lie. This one hit me right in the weak spot.

———————-——————-—-—--—--KLANCE————————-——————-————-

Five Minutes by WhatTheBodyGraspsNot (4176 words): When Keith is unwillingly tricked into a speed dating session by Shiro, he finds himself meeting several unusual characters. The most unusual of all, however, is the loud one in the letterman jacket. He's obnoxious and has no regard for the other people around him and he keeps making his way closer and closer to Keith within the ring rotations. Can Keith pull himself together to get through this meeting? Or will he find himself interested by the end of their five minutes? ———-   I like Keith being stubbornly set on being bitter and hating things he’s dragged into lol. Even when he kinda really doesn’t.

————————————————- gladly break my heart (for you) by godsensei (1747 words): “You want me to... touch you?” Lance asks, a mildly dubious look on his face. Keith feels his face go hot. “Yes! You touch everyone else. I just-- we’re boyfriends, right?” he asks, feeling stupid, but so hopeful. Lance searches his face for a moment, before his eyes soften, a sweet smile blooming on his lips. ———-   This is just fluff and touch starved Keith and I’m all for it. ————————————————- i want your heaven and your oceans too by mothpoem (11,610 words): “Not—not that you’d be my rebound! I mean, you’d be helping me take my mind off of this guy, but to be a rebound, I’d have to have dated him first, I think, and he doesn’t even know I like him, so. You wouldn’t be a rebound. At worst, we become badass partners-in-crime with a grudging respect for each other, at best, we’re soulmates for life and this is fate trying to help us find happiness. So. Um.” Lance swallows and looks up at the Blade of Marmora soldier through his lashes. “What say you?” They look down at their hands for a moment, fingers twisting together in deep thought. Then they’re pulling their gloves off, revealing pale, half-bruised knuckles of the human variation, and their mask is dissolving, giving way to big blue-purple eyes and an achingly familiar jet-black cowlick. “Who,” says Keith Kogane, in that low-pitched rumble that makes Lance’s stomach roil in the good way—holy fuck—“is this guy you’re trying to get over?” ———-   I drew a scene from this fic so I guess in a way I’ve already recc:d it, but I’m gonna do it again. I love awkward misunderstandings and Lance’s rambling in this fic is both kinda hilariously in character and well written. WARNING: Canon-typical violence ————————————————- Keith's Type by AmbitiousSkychild (24,050 words): “How would anyone notice what anyone else’s type is in the middle of all this?!” Matt demanded, laughing. “What’s Keith’s type?” Lance blurted out like an idiot. “It’s… obvious,” Pidge said. “He gets all flustered over shitty puns and most physical comedy. And have you seen the way he stares at Hunk when he’s going on about the mechanics of something? Like how the lions work? I’ve literally seen him blushing when Hunk goes into explanation mode.” “So, you think he has a crush on Hunk?” Lance squawked. “No. You bonehead,” Pidge laughed. “I’m saying any dad-joke-telling, klutzoid with good grades has probably got a pretty good shot at Keith.” Or: It figures that after years of getting it hilariously wrong face-to-face, Lance finally gets good at talking to Keith through a screen, which is, like, one of his biggest accomplishments. Then, Pidge makes the comment that Keith has a type, while heavily implying that it's Matt. But, listen, with everything going on with Voltron, the coalition, the Blade of Marmora, and Coran, Lance isn't going to get distracted worrying about it. Ask anyone, he's always been great with measuring levels of importance.... ———-   I kinda have a weakness for the emotional jealousy, the one that isn’t angry and hot but insecure and hits where it hurts. And yeah. Matt and Keith have (kind of?) a past together and Lance is alone-ish after Keith left the team. ————————————————- King and Reaper by PastelClark (35,512 words): Allura had told them once that Voltron was their destiny. If anything, Keith thinks, Lance had proven that while finding the lions might have been on the dime of some greater plan, compliance to their supposed fate was not strictly required in any remote sense of the word. In fact, by Lance's standard of doing things it was all rather bullshit. (Or: The story of the destruction of Earth and its aftermath, feat. questionable science in regards to weapons of mass destruction, gratuitous Star Wars references, theoretical chess games with the emperor of most of the known universe, explosions, the greatest bromance of all time, the worst romance of all time, far too many guns, concussions, extreme misuse of the French language, awkward flirting, and Lance in an overly-dramatic trench coat.) ———-   BAMF rebel leader Lance and mental images that kinda kick you in the inspiration, honestly. Everyone is older and different. Voltron kinda failed.

————————————————- Keith the Amnesiac by jilliancares (8878 words): In which an accident leaves Keith temporarily without his Voltron-filled memories and he may or may not spill a few of his better kept secrets to Lance. ———-   This story is great if nothing else because it feels so realistic in how it handled Keith’s amnesia. This is very much just what it’s like to have those small differences in how you perceive the world vs how you normally do.

————————————————-

Let's be (dis)honest by noero (1581 words): Lance is backed against his bathroom wall, one hand gripping his sink and the other nervously combing through his hair. Keith is in front of him — down on his knees — calling Lance’s bluff.  ———-   Nothing really to say about this other than I liked the competitiveness between Keith and Lance and it was fun. WARNING: EXPLICIT

——-—--—--——————-——————-OTHERS——————-——————-——————-

Sun In Our Eyes by MatchaMochi (9349 words): “Think you can beat me hotshot?” He doesn’t falter, just nods and holds up his sniper. His hands don’t shake, his lips don’t tremble, (his heart though, that wild erratic thing stuttering in his chest, makes the blood rush to his ears, makes him think: Oh god.) ///

In which Kinkade pines and Lance has too many feelings. ———- 

So this is THE Kinkance fic, but just in case someone didn’t read it yet - I’m gonna add it here. (RYAN/LANCE)

———————————————— i'm willing to wait for it, i'm willing to wait for you by ThePackWantstheD (10,338 words): Lance McClain is hard to hate. He’s easy to love. Or: James Griffin falls fast and hard for a charismatic cargo pilot, dates him for six months, and then waits for him for five years.

———-

This ship isn’t something I ever considered until this fic, but heck it got me on board. I like everyone’s reactions and James’ belief. (JAMES/LANCE)

————————————————

no need to say goodbye by smolsarcasticraspberry  (13,557 words): The juniberry tree blossoms every seven years, and when it does, a gateway opens up to another world - a world that Shiro first explores as a child. There, he meets Allura. They do not speak the same language, but children do not need words to play. Every seven years, when the gateway opens again, Shiro steps through to visit the girl he knows on the other side. But the gateway only stays open as long as the juniberry flowers bloom... 

———- This is one of those stories that are simply wonderful, even if you’ve never seen the original show because it build up such a cool new world in the relatively few words. It also deals with Shiro in the aftermath of war and pining. (SHALLURA)

————————————————

Drip Like Honey by avoidingavoidance (7171 words): In which Romelle recommends a hot Tumblr boy to Allura, but when she checks him and his stream out, she finds that he seems awfully familiar.

———- Obviously this is right up my alley. Da-mn. Allura is top as heck. WARNING: Explicit (SHALLURA)

———————————————— Frostbite by Rueitae (6109 words):  Pidge is a renowned super villain. Lance is a hero in training. During their latest encounter, Lance pushes his powers to their limit and Pidge has some soul searching to do.

———-  I doooo love superhero AU’s and this is both super sweet, funny, well written and paints a clear picture of the universe which we are thrown into. I like it a lot. (PLANCE)

#shance #klance #fanfic recs #voltron fanfic recs #fanfics #i need many tags so i can find shit again #There's gen and shallura and others too #mainly gen shance and klance though

[breselin]

CHARACTER STATISTICS

TAGGED BY : stole it~ TAGGING : I’m just gonna tag everybody who comes to mind because it’s a good meme

@furnezh | @lazhadeg | @unheimlig [ do your memes |: ] - @daemonczar | @lichsent | @quirofiliac - @edhelaran - @atlaslain - @nightslain | @executare - @xkuja - @garuvusu - @culturedconjurer - @grimmjxw - @despairforme - @bloodfcst - @groazei | @uccisore - @notxcrying - @lunafaeris - @sweettifalockhart - @ndeavor - @nevivorona - @chainedaccursed - @capjacke | @tribinds - @ofastrcmancy | @cielcrd - @envoyd - @gunslingir - @hallowedcraft | @dirkomaar [ and any of your blogs rye do it ] [ okay, pls take it and say i tagged you i already tagged a ton ]

——   PHYSICAL STATS;

RUNNING SPEED   —   9 / 10.

RUNNING ENDURANCE   —   10 / 10.

LIFTING STRENGTH   —   10 / 10.

CARRYING ENDURANCE   —   10 / 10.

JUMPING ABILITY   —   10 / 10.  ||  I mean, he can fly.

THROWING STRENGTH   —   10 / 10.

STEALTH ABILITY   —   4 / 10. || he doesn’t care.

PAIN TOLERANCE   —   10 / 10.

SWIMMING SPEED   —   9 / 10.

SWIMMING ENDURANCE   —   9 / 10.

STRETCHING ABILITY   —   10 / 10.

DANCING ABILITY   —   8 / 10.

CLIMBING ABILITY   —   10 / 10.

TOUCH SENSITIVITY  ( PLATONIC )   —   3 / 10.

TOUCH SENSITIVITY  ( INTIMATE )   —   8 / 10.

GENERAL REFLEXES   —   10 / 10.

OVERALL PHYSICAL CONDITION   —    10 / 10.  ||  he is said to be the perfect experiment outcome. SIDE NOTE: As being part of the ShinRa Elite force SOLDIER and being one of their Generals, aside from the stats that Sephiroth deems unnecessary for himself or can be outweighed with something else, he excels in pretty much all of it. He is, as well, said to be the strongest of them all, a soldier that was ‘better than the rest’. He is one of three [ aside from Angeal and Genesis ] that was the core of the Jenova-cells experimentation, and the only one of them being deemed the ‘success’ the scientists hoped for, despite still not being able to communicate with the planet as they had sought. Alas, still, he was the only one of the three that did not fall victim to the rapid age-deterioration coming as a side-effect and, instead, lives with the positive notions of incredible power and reflexes. 

——   MENTAL STATS;

ADVANCED MATHEMATICS   —   8 / 10.

SIMPLE MATHEMATICS   —   9 / 10.

SPATIAL AWARENESS   —   10 / 10.

CHEMISTRY UNDERSTANDING   —   9 / 10.

BIOLOGICAL UNDERSTANDING   —   10 / 10.

NATURE SCIENCES UNDERSTANDING   —   10 / 10.

CREATIVE INTELLIGENCE   —   10 / 10.

ARTISTIC ABILITY   —   8 / 10.

MUSICAL PROWESS   —   8 / 10.

MIMICKING ABILITY  ( AUDITORY )   —   8 / 10.

ODD PROBLEM-SOLVING —   10 / 10.

COMPREHENSION  ( SPOKEN WORD )   —   10 / 10.

COMPREHENSION  ( WRITTEN WORD )   —   10 / 10.

COMEDIC ABILITY   —   6 / 10.

COMEDIC TIMING   —   6 / 10.

OVERALL MENTAL PROWESS   —   10 / 10.  SIDE NOTE:  He is extremely intelligent, able to remember details of books/reports/data read or hears years prior and place the small pieces of information back together when only needed. A tactician, yet a lone wolf on the battlefield by his own will, in moments when his memory and mental capability is needed, he does exceed human limits with focusing apparently endlessly on a task, no matter how much it might impede him, still holding a high level of attention to any happenings in his surrounding .  As a General and leader of an army, he is used to finding the best tactics, needs to figure out the environment and use it to his battalion’s and his own advantage, making him a splendid military leader. Any other abilities he holds or his strive for skills [ like music, art ] mainly stems from his childhood and the fact that he was raised more by servants/assistants than actual parents [ aside from the fact of his faulty knowledge regarding his mother ], serving for him to proceed in mastering this or that skill read about in books, specifically his motoric play is highly enhanced, but also his desire for artistic freedom comes from that. If he isn’t able to be taught those skills by those who should do so, he would learn it all by himself. 

——   EMOTIONAL STATS;

INTERPERSONAL INSTINCT   —   9 / 10. 

INTRAPERSONAL INSTINCT   —   4 / 10. 

EXTROVERSION   —   7 / 10.

MORAL COMPASS   —   10 / 10. || as a SOLDIER. - 1 / 10. || after his fall

EMPATHY   —   7 / 10. || as a SOLDIER - 1 / 10. || after his fall

EXTRASENSORY ABILITY  ( PSYCHIC )   —   10 / 10. || he is able to control people, able to summon familiars, telepathy, weather control

EMOTIONAL ENDURANCE   —   10 / 10.

COPING ABILITY   —    5 / 10.

TENDENCY TOWARDS ABUSIVE BEHAVIOUR   —   0 / 10. || as a SOLDIER - 9 / 10. || after his fall

TENDENCY TOWARDS VICTIM BEHAVIOUR   —   1 / 10.

LEVEL OF DENIAL   —    3 / 10

PROTECTOR COMPLEX   —   8/10 / 10. || as a SOLDIER for first, with a partner the second - 0 / 10. || after his fall

DAMSEL COMPLEX   —   0 / 10.

EMOTIONAL INTIMACY  ( WITH PARTNER )   —   7 / 10.

EMOTIONAL INTIMACY  ( WITH FRIENDS )   —   3 / 10.

EMOTIONAL COMPREHENSION   —    5 / 10.

TENDENCY TOWARDS PANIC   —    1 / 10.  

GENERAL EMOTIONAL STABILITY   —    2 / 10. SIDE NOTE: This is a complicated one as we move between two very different ‘versions’ of him, thus the explanation will be longer. First: Despite his actual aloof and distant demeanour as a SOLDIER 1st Class, he does care for his friends, for his soldiers, being able to tease them and offer genuine advice, give them genuine care and extend effort towards their well-being. The way he presents himself is, first, pushed onto him by the masses and also ShinRa personally. Creating a super soldier and War Hero at a very young age, the image for him was carved out from the beginning, his person was used to get more recruits to join the rigorous training of becoming a soldier as well and - ultimately - also go into the very dangerous and side-effect ridden mako-injections, costing countless their sanity. He, as well as Genesis and Angeal, was used and it suited them more to have him be that one unattainable goal that everybody would want to reach, ultimately placing him on a pedestal. Second, he uses it himself. Being in the position where a new conflict could arise, loss is inevitable, so it suits him better and helps his mental state to have as little friends and close personal relationships as only possible. It does allow for him to have very select few he does let closer. Personalities that, so he thinks, are able to stand by his side and to not leave him [ and little does he knows that this is wishful thinking ].  Second: Then we also work with his personality after his fall. The man that turned from someone caring, yet a bit wintry except he desires to be different, into someone who holds little to no regard towards life, as per to add my favourite quote.

“ There was one SOLDIER named Sephiroth, who was better than the rest, but when he found out about the terrible experiments that made him, he began to hate Shinra. And then, over time, he began to hate everything. ” —Marlene Wallace, Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children  Frankly, he is able to still use all the emotional skills and mannerisms he was known and adored for, but he decides not to. Unneeded, disregarded, only changing should one come along [ amongst uncountable ] that, by an off-chance, manages to crack the ice around him; yet only to be permitted by himself and nobody else. Many of those hidden, little things he only shows towards those he cares for and those he trusts fall towards nought for he, now, only fights for his own goal. Even those he knew and had prior warm feelings for? Are now toyed with and twisted, turned as per his liking. It is, in itself, like two sides of a coin. Like light, devoured by darkness. And he is perfectly alright with that. 

#★ [ headcanon ] #[ phew ]

[superchartisland]

Championship Manager ‘93 (Domark, Amiga, 1993)

One morning in my final year of primary school, lined up on the playground for the start of the day as ever, there was an unusual request from the teacher. “Girls, go inside, and boys stay here”. We boys were to receive a lecture on the previous day’s activities. As part of a self-organised Year 5 vs Year 6 football match, we had stolen school equipment, bullied younger children off the playground, and generally behaved disgracefully. We were not to ever do anything like this again. I say “we”, but until that point I had no idea the incident had happened. The teacher quietly acknowledged at the end me and two others, standing there taking this all in, had not been involved. As innocents being subject to the collective punishment stung a little, but it also felt like a small mercy. She hadn’t drawn attention to how we had failed at being boys.

For the whole of my childhood that I can remember, football was a vital part of male social status. You had to like it and to not do so would be weird and suspicious. Maybe even gay. Liking it wasn’t enough, though, and there were additional criteria. First that was in terms of playing it well, and then in terms of making the right gestures with regards to supporting a professional team -- humour with a serious edge underneath, passion but not too much passion. You should care but not show it too much. Similarly you should be interested and know stuff, but not too much stuff. 

Alongside my lack of physical ability, the point about how to be interested was where I went wrong. It took until I was 20 and living next to Arsenal to form any proper attachment to one team, and my early interest in football was expressed as a voracious interest in facts and detail. Like a lot else in life, I wanted to pin things down to patterns and rules that could be understood. I wanted to know more and more. If it said in a book with the approval of Gary Lineker that it was very important to pass the ball in football, then boys on the playground who weren’t passing the ball were wrong and I could prove it.

Whatever was written down there, however much I could tell you about past World Cup winners and the current club teams of Eastern Europe, it wasn’t enough. All I needed was enough to boisterously express a view on Liverpool’s prospects for the season, but I wasn’t doing anything like that. It was readily apparent to everyone that in football, as in so much, I was failing to meet lots of unwritten social rules. It was no surprise that I was left out of that unapproved school match. It was no surprise that attempts to join in were met with anything from bafflement to cruelty. I was as weird as the boys who weren’t into football at all. If I was alone in primary school, though, I wasn’t set to be for much longer. There were a lot of other (mostly older) people who followed football with an eye for exacting detail. And in Championship Manager, they were to find a paradise. 

On the surface it is paradoxical that a series of some of the most complicated games this project will cover should also be one of the most casual. Casual, that is, in the sense of ‘casual gamer’, players not tied down to those immersed in the medium of video games. The most arcane JRPGs or most layered RTSs have nothing on the impenetrability of Championship Manager. I try to picture coming into Championship Manager from a starting point of no relevant knowledge and can only imagine it being incomprehensible. There's the rub, though. Developers Domark banked on football’s cultural dominance giving them a big enough pool of potential players who wouldn’t be coming to it from a zero starting point, and they got it right. The initial release, without real players or quite the correct leagues, was a success, and by the time they provided a ‘93 update with a more accurate simulation of the new Premier League, it was able to top the Amiga sales charts.

Championship Manager ‘93, for all that it tightens up some aspects of the very first game, is distinctly raw. Selecting a team - a pretty basic task as manager - is an unintuitive mission, involving clicking numbers, clicking players' names and then working out whether they're in the right positions. Stacks of options baffle and obfuscate further. None of the actions of management are particularly easy to do. But what it gives you is detail. Information. More of it than you could possibly know what to do with. Look at the entire page of attributes given to each player in your squad. Examine the squads, stats and records of any team in the football league, even ones several divisions away from your own. See all the other teams playing games and making player transfers. Step away from the actions of managing your team any time and look into the clockwork detail of this whole world ticking along. Even the extended loading time when you start a new game feels reassuring as to the depth of the simulation it’s got to work on creating. Like in Elite before it, the sense of immersion in your corner of the Championship Manager universe is enhanced by being able to see the rest of it going about its business without giving a shit about you. 

The engine used to display each match to you stands out from other games as well. Championship Manager ‘93 provides a general statement on which team is attacking, stats for attempts on goal, and, if you pause, a constantly updating rating for each player. It doesn’t make any attempt to graphically depict anything happening on the pitch, and instead it just gives a sparse text commentary on notable events. “Goal for Arsenal” will pop up out of nowhere. Or “I. Wright is through on goal” quickly replaced with “But he shoots wide!”. The terse messages provide a much greater sense of atmosphere and colour than any visual engine was capable of in 1993, and possibly greater than any would be in 2019. I can’t imagine any picture’s thousand words competing with the six word story that is “Hendry booked. He said too much.” It trusts in the game’s player to do much of the analysis and weaving of stories themselves, correctly figuring there were many people well versed in that.

Championship Manager’s way of doing things came at just the right time. The success of the Premier League was making football’s cultural dominance ever bigger. The tendency to cite so many football statistics from 'the Premier League era' means that anything from twenty-six years ago feels a lot older still. Maybe there's a parallel with British games history all but swept away after the takeover of bigger '90s powers. Personally, I have only ever watched football in that era, and grew up playing later editions of Championship Manager. The effect of playing a version of the original game, experiencing one all-conquering franchise placed at the cusp of another, is all a bit Deep Magic from the Dawn of Time. The names of the Arsenal players under my command are a strange mix of the familiar and the not. I vaguely remember the name Anders Limpar, but him getting in a huff and wanting to leave after I fail to pick him proves a surprise. 

Just like my team, Championship Manager ‘93 is not quite yet the Championship Manager I remember. It makes the game player’s actions as a manager too limited and difficult and doesn’t fit them as compellingly into its wider simulation. Analysing what is there and seeing small actions pay off, though, is still a great feeling. Looking into everyone’s ratings, trying to make sense of the flow of information and adjust my selection accordingly, I switch Ray Parlour to a more attacking position in my midfield. Watching him then score the opening goal in the next match is a delight. It’s a game that knows how to make you feel clever, and does it by providing you a set of rules, a ton of information, and stepping back to let you take it on from there. It had already targeted its audience; the concept was perfect for me.

By the time I was a few years into secondary school, my approach to football wasn’t such an outlier at all. Maybe some of it was just getting older, but there was a wider cultural change going on too, as the increasing success of Championship Manager suggested. More and more people also played fantasy league competitions that encouraged a data-driven approach to watching football outside of single-team fandom. The spread of the internet and all of its cultural impact was slowly ramping up. And Championship Manager was a regular talking point with friends and classmates. At one point my football knowledge, enthusiasm and lack of skill led to them electing me non-playing captain of our class football team, and while this was largely a joke, it wasn’t a cruel one. I was familiar enough with those to know.

Championship Manager might be a casual game series, but it never seems to be the target of gamer ire directed at ‘non-games’. I’d guess that more Animal Crossing players play regularly play other games alongside that series than Championship Manager ones, but somehow the latter get left out of accusations of ruining things for real gamers. And the simple explanation is that the clear majority of its players are men. It might not fit in to all of the masculine standards of the old playground, but it isn’t ultimately threatening to any of them. It’s the boy standing there in line alongside the other boys, even if it didn’t perform transgression and strength in the same way. In fact, it could easily be absorbed and tied up with the worst of the standards, misogyny and assumed heterosexuality and all. The examination of British adolescent masculinity that is the TV comedy The Inbetweeners gives an illustration. Jay, the one of the leads most characterised by fantasist bravado, is at one point asked about the game and responds in much the same way as all his been-there-done-that sexual boasts. "Championship Manager? Completed it mate.” 

The parallel was one which the series’s own marketing has been keen to use. There’s the ad in which a woman in a nightie looks on disapprovingly as her presumed partner excitedly opens his Christmas present of a Championship Manager game. You will have an attractive girlfriend, it says, and you will neglect her to play your football management simulation, because those are the things that men do.  And then there’s the even more blatant ad showing spurts of sun cream on a woman’s bare back forming a tactical diagram, under the text “What man doesn’t think about it every 6 seconds?” -- masculinity, hetero sex and computer football management brought together in a tighter knot still, with a taunt that there is something wrong with you if you don’t fit them.

Looking back at that morning standing in the playground, receiving someone else’s lecture, it turns out that in the long run I wasn’t failing acceptable masculinity at all. I’ve grown up, the world has changed, and mine is the winning side. Following the detail of football and playing games that involve complex information processing still bring me joy. But I’m aware that just standing there and being counted alongside all the other boys is to be part of the problem. Amongst those there with me on the new winning team are a bunch of guys who are still mentally in the same playground and still seething about what they had to go through and that the girls didn’t, claiming they are owed something in response. Acceptance doesn’t bring relief any more. Seeing what goes into winning, I want to lose.

Amiga chart, Edge 003, December 1993

#every number one #retrogaming #Amiga #Championship Manager

[deeplyaveragefourthgrader-blog]

Engagermate Review - Does It Really Help Your Instagram

What's Engagermate about?

Engagermate OTO is special software for Instagram. It works to help you make money from traffic on Instagram. It will allow you to attract likes, shares, or comments.

This will allow you to get tons of the most lucrative traffic. This software consists of many outstanding features. We'll learn more about them in the sections below.

Luke Maguire is the person behind this product. He's been active in this field around a long time. With his experiences, he created lots of great physical products. They've defeated even the most demanding customers.

We also reviewed a number of his quality products: Socialite Pro, Live Leap, InstaEasy, Viral Autobots and more.

Now let's learn about the powerful features that it offers in case you buy this product.

Outstanding Features and Advantages of Engagermate

Send messages directly

You may send an inbox to your customers when you follow them. This is an exclusive feature of software for Instagram.

Powerful tracking

This software will scan and find fans and automatically follow them. Moreover, you can participate in the content of the people you are looking to target.

Another great thing is that the software will automatically find out where your customers come from. It enables you to create the correct campaigns to create many potential customers.

This software contains a feature that notifies you of ongoing activities in your Instagram profile. It is possible to know well how to control your activity.

This software works extremely strongly with mobile devices. We all know traffic now comes primarily from mobile devices. With this feature, you will not miss a huge customer base.

Diversified connectivity

You can seek out visitors in different ways such as user profiles, location or Hashtag.

Automatically stop tracking

This tool will automatically unfollow when followers do not socialize with you for quite a long time. This helps to keep your friends list fresh.

Send messages

When there are traffic following you, the software will automatically send messages to customers so you don't miss potential customers. It is possible to increase interaction with customers.

Target potential customers

This software consists of commercial filters. So you are able to interact with prospective customers to create more sales.

I used this product as beta tester and now I'm going to make this fair review for you.

So you can expect everything out of my review.

Note1: Before describing main features, I'm going to offer you an overview about this product. Please take a look to my screenshot below:

This is main Engagermate dashboard:

From this main dashboard, you can enable the function you need, such as: like, follow, and unfollow.

And it also shows your summary of activities/today.

It includes 5 major modules, including: Preferences, Advanced settings, Direct, Optimizer, and Reports and Statistics.

This module comes with a few features as below:

From my screenshot above, you see you just have to set up your campaign at the beginning, and then the tool works automatically for you.

You may add more hashtags, more places,more followers to your campaign whenever you want with no restriction.

There are just a few features at the base like"such as newsfeed","such as settings","max and min settings","follow settings","unfollow configurations,"unfollow cycle configuration","company profiles configuration".

Totally your choice, you may use it or not. You can read the description about it from my screenshot above.

I am not going to explain more because it's very clear though.

2/Advanced Settings:

This module allows you to avoid interacting with some particular customers you want.

View my screenshot below:

Simply put any username you want into the box and done.

It allows you to download the file loaded with your own preferences, then you can use it again and again for your different IG accounts.

This module enables you send 20 messages into your 20 new followers each day.

It occurs at the time someone's else follows your profile.

The special thing here is you have to register first 4 existing usernames with 4 different messages by placing the data to the box like below:

I believe that the limitation with 20 messages is good because it enables you to avoid getting your account banned.

This module allows you to receive information about your configuration from the account.

For instance: You add some particular hashtags to your account during 1/May to 10/May, and this tool shows you the stat in this period. (you can select the period you want)

You can choose to check your stat under hashtags, accounts, or places as below:

For Instance, I'm going to select hashtag and here is my stat:

5/Reports and Statistics:

This section is where you can see your actions from your account.

Do you find it easy to spread? Even if you are a person who has no experience or abilities, you will not have any problems.

In addition, there'll be a video that will guide you step by step to take advantage of all the features of this tool.

NOTE:

This tool also comes with Mobile App (IOS and Android included).

What I love here is it comes with fully modules such as PC version, so you can get it from your mobile and you can use your mobile to manage your own IG account all the time.

What I am sure about this tool is it's totally different to other tools in the marketplace. Engagermate runs the subsequent procedure under particular objects, not automatic items.

Forget some tools you see on the market, they are following unclear objects on autopilot. They help you get major numbers of followers so quickly but your account will be banned shortly.

That is why I highly recommend you to get Engagermate today because it's safer.

Who Should Use It?

In my experience, this software is really for online businesses on Instagram. It's really for both newbies and professionals.

I strongly mention this product if you are

Affiliate marketers

Business owners on Instagram

Owner of stores on Instagram

Bloggers

And many other customers

Pros and Cons

Pros

▪ No need to interfere with other expensive software

▪ No skills or experience required

▪ 24/7 counsellor

▪ No need to pay for visitors

▪ No need to pay monthly fees

Cons

▪ I have not discovered any disadvantages when using this software. There is only a little note for one to always check your internet connection for the best results.

Cost and Evaluation (No Upsell For This Product)

To get all the features I just mentioned above, you need to spend 47 dollars. This is quite a great price for buyers. However, this price will not stay. It will increase after a couple of days to come. So, if you want to buy it, I suggest buying it today or tomorrow to get the best price.

In addition, there'll be a few other powerful upgrades to select from. You are able to view their details on their sales page.

Moreover, there'll be a 30-day return policy for you. In other words, when you are not happy with the software, you can ask the provider to repay the previous amount with no reason. You will have to wait a couple of days for you to complete this procedure. However, I think you will never have to click on the return button because it works so well and I experienced it myself.

Engagermate is actually software not to be missed if you are active on Instagram. I think if you are a wise person, you will understand what's really necessary for you.

You may refer to many different reviews about this software. But when you choose to purchase, return to my site and click on the hyperlink below to get the lowest price.

For those who have something else to learn about this software, you may leave me a comment below. I will answer you as fast as possible.

https://uprafficoto.com/

[thekeyideas17]

Google Adwords Tutorial: A-Z Guide to excel at Adwords

Google Adwords Tutorial

Google is a very prominent player in the ADs market. If we see statistically, it comfortably dominates the Advertisement Market as of now. This Google Adwords Tutorial will help you in mastering the master of Advertisement World.

The other ad networks like Bing Ads, Media.net are not that familiar as of now and to be honest have no competition with Google In short Google has a monopoly in Advertising.

Likely to stay this way for a very good amount of time. Let me introduce the Topic very neatly to you! I don't know what is your expertise in Adwords.

I am writing this article assuming you have no knowledge about what AdWords is and how does it work!

Without wasting much time let's dive into the topic straight away!

According to the statement on SearchEngineLand

Google AdWords launched with 350 advertisers in 2000. Today, more than 1 million advertisers generate tens of billions in revenue for the company. Well, 1 million advertisers are a lot of people if you are a Blogger.

Let's first understand what exactly is Adwords!

[caption id="attachment_627" align="aligncenter" width="640"]

Google-Adwords-Tutorial-Intro[/caption]

As you can see,

The User first selects a keyword for which he/she wants to display an Ad. It can be anything literally!

Then he/she creates an Ad Campaign(Explained Further in Detail what is a campaign)

Selects the budget and the time for which the ad is to be displayed

Finally, An Ad is displayed for the targeted keyword!

[caption id="attachment_629" align="aligncenter" width="640"]

Google-Adwords-Ad-Sample[/caption]

This looks very simple in the above image, right?

Well, if you have Knowledge on various factors of Adwords then it is pretty damn easy for you to be there.

Let m tell you Adwords also do require SEO to rank 1 for the targeted keyword as there will be others too competing for your keyword!

Types of Ads in Adwords

Following are the Ad types we generally see in Adwords

Text Ads

[caption id="attachment_631" align="aligncenter" width="640"] Google-Adwords-Text-Ad[/caption]

Infographic Ad

[caption id="attachment_632" align="aligncenter" width="640"] Google-Adwords-Info-Ad[/caption]

Video Ads

[caption id="attachment_634" align="aligncenter" width="640"] Google-Adwords-Video-Ad[/caption]

Dynamic Search Ads

Maybe a text ad or an Infographic ad

Most widely used

Easy to create.

The general process to create Dynamic Search Ad is similar to Normal text Ad Campaign(Discussed Further)

The advantage they have over others is that Google uses its intelligence ad algorithm to determine the keyword for which the ad is to be displayed.

Dynamic Ads are good if you have no active knowledge of Adwords.

AD Creation Tutorial

The Next Question is how do I create Ads!

Firstly, you need a Gmail Account(or rather any mail account for that purpose)

Go to your browser and type in Google Adwords(or Google Ads, anything you want)

If you are too lazy just click here

[caption id="attachment_637" align="aligncenter" width="640"]

Google-Adwords-Account[/caption]

Click on Start Now and fill in your details

Once you do that it will take you to the Adwords Dashboard.

Your dashboard will look something like this. Do not worry if the interface is a bit different. Google keeps it updating but the basic functional tabs are very much the same they don't change much and you will easily be able to locate it!

[caption id="attachment_638" align="aligncenter" width="640"]

Google-Adwords-Dashboard[/caption]

Click on Campaign -----> After that click on the Plus icon!

[caption id="attachment_639" align="aligncenter" width="640"]

Google-Adwords-Campaign1[/caption]

Once you do that, you have to choose the type of campaign you want to run

Sales

Leads

Website Traffic

Product and Brand Consideration

Brand Awareness and Reach

App Promotion

[caption id="attachment_640" align="aligncenter" width="640"]

Google-Adwords-Campaign-Type[/caption]

Choose the one you want to promote or say you want to run the ad for.

After that, you need to choose the type of Ad you want your (targeted) customer to see!

Text Ads

Info Ads

Shopping Ads

Video Ads

Select the one you want to display ad for!

Once you do that enter the website URL.

Now once you entered the URL choose the campaign name.

Now, choose the start and end date of your campaign.

Also, select the geographic location where you want your ad to run.

Here you can select All country and territory if you have a global or a very generic product which you are sure each and every person may be using in his/her daily life.

The next step is to determine the type of Language in which you want to promote your URL.

There are various options available to choose from!

I would like to leave it to you to decide what to choose and what not to choose!

For Android Apps

You have an android app as well? Don't worry we got that covered too!

If you are promoting your app, choose the available two platforms(Android or iOS)

Note:- Only Google App Store(Google Play Store) published apps are allowed to be promoted via Google Adwords.

You will have to add manually your app name in the search bar. When Google finds out the App then you are allowed to promote your app!

Once you do that, relax you are seeing your installs increasing slowly!

Google Adwords SEO Strategy!

You might be wondering I have got the topic wrong. But no, Google Adwords does require an SEO Strategy

The reason?

Let me tell you, you are not the only one who is using Google Ad Service. There are millions in fact.

Out of the millions, there might be at least thousands who might target the same keyword you are going to target. (Assuming you are into a competitive niche).

Now your next target is to beat those thousands who are competing against you!

Sounds Difficult?

To be brutely honest it is not that difficult if you do it smartly!

Let me be clear, this SEO is a bit different than the traditional SEO Strategy we apply for our blog posts.

There are some things that stay the same though!

There's no On-Page SEO neither there's Off-Page SEO. There's just SEO

This type of SEOing is some times referred to as SEM(Search Engine Marketing).

Now let's get the Business Started! First thing First,

Title of Your Ad.

You need to remember one thing very bluntly. You are advertising your product. We have got very little space for error.

Now, tell me which attracts you more?

A simple Plain Text Ad

A creative, catchy, well-sorted Text Ad

2 should be your Ideal Answer.

Think from a customer's perspective! Which ad if you were to click you would like to click on?

Obviously, the one you find it attractive and most interesting

The Point here is, make it as appealing as possible.

You can try various things in the Title to seek your potential customer's attention!

For eg, you may offer a Flat 20% Discount for your product!

[caption id="attachment_659" align="aligncenter" width="640"]

Google-Adwords-Title[/caption]

Here I know the discounted advertisement is not a Google Ad. It is just used for the purpose of Illustration! I hope you get my point!

One important thing about Title is that you shouldn't clickbait! Never!

If you fool your customer I guarantee you that the customer even if sees your ad in the future might not click on your ad as he/she has already been baited by your AD.

Cheery on the cake would be the negative publicity which you will receive for free!

Free things might cost you a customer!

Try to be creative and be at least 80-90% honest.

Description of the Ad

If the title is the heart of your Ad, the description is the second heart (I know that was a bad joke)

My point is, the description is as important as your Title!

Again the same thing I would like to repeat which is be honest and the same point of time be creative.

Remember one thing if your customer sees the Description then he is interested in your Ad.

Have a catchy description such that the customer is forced to click on the Ad.

Your Landing page

You successfully got your customer on your website? Now what?

Creating your Landing Page! This is the real task and challenge!

But what exactly is a landing page?

In simple words, for AdWords, a landing page is a page where the user is redirected once he clicks on your ad

You have got the lead now it's up to your creativity to convert it into a customer.

You need to have a solid Landing Page here!

[caption id="attachment_664" align="aligncenter" width="640"]

Google-Adwords-Landing-Page[/caption]

One thing I would like to mention it very profoundly which is you somehow need to collect the customer's mail-id or say any sort of communication media.

Why? Because, if the customer has clicked on your website means he/she is interested in your product!

If by chance you are not able to convert your lead now, maybe you could find him/her buying some other product at some other point of time by sending your customer product list.

Also Read:-Instagram Marketing: 7 Tips that actually work in 2019

Keyword Targeting and Selection Strategy

Keyword targeting philosophy is very much similar to the SEO Strategy that we follow for our Blogs.

First thing is to find the relevant keyword for your targeted product if not exact.

There will be certain situations where the Original or Exact keyword will be highly competitive.

Thus you can now make use of Google Suggestions or UberSuggest for that matter.

[caption id="attachment_661" align="aligncenter" width="640"]

Google-Adwords-Keyword[/caption]

Make sure you get your keyword strategy very correct as it is the pinpoint of your Ad Campaign. The keyword selection strategy is very much important in Digital Marketing as well as Blogging Field.

The budget of your Ad Campaigns

One of the most important factors you need to consider while advertising is your budget!

You cannot just go gaga spending money! After all, it is your hard earned money you need to spend it wisely!

ALong with the competition of the keyword, you must pay special attention to CPC (Cost Per Click) of the keyword!

CPC in Adwords terms is the amount of money you are going to spend for one click on your ad!

Do not Miss: -A Powerful Guide on Simple Pinterest Marketing Strategy

What Type of Google Ads should I choose initially at the start?

Well, that totally depends on you. If you are just starting out maybe you should go with Textual Ads.

Now if the condition is such that you have worked previously on a project and are assigned on a new project now then my suggestion would be to go with the Infographics Ads or Video Ads as we know Visuals are Stronger than Words.

The E-Commerce Advantage

If you have an E-commerce store then there is nothing as Good As Shopping Ads.

The only problem with Shopping Ads is that it requires a sort of tedious setup.

But again if you are just starting out in E-commerce then my suggestion would be to go for Text Ads initially until you have gained enough knowledge to switch.

One Important thing you should remember is that Google Adwords is all about experimentation.

If you are expecting high profits from the very first campaign your un then maybe you are wrong(Again even I may be wrong in my prediction, who knows?)

Don't Forget the new Responsive Ads Google Launched Recently. As the name suggests they are of responsible nature wherein they adjust themselves according to the device on which the keyword was searched on!

(I have explained Dynamic Search Ads above hence not an inclusion here!)

Only Google Search Network?

The next and very obvious question is should I only run my ads campaign for Google Search Network?

The answer is No!

You can run your ads on YouTube Channel, Third Party websites (Blogs).

Google being contextual Ad Network will take care of the ad relevancy while your ads appear on Blogs

One Advantage of running your ads on Blogs is that you will have a broader audience to reach and if your Ad is visually or textually appealing then you are sure of sales in my opinion!

You May Like:-8 Proven & Tested Copywriting Tips that work today as well!

Other Ad networks?

Some might be having Doubts which is should I only stick to Google Ads?

Well, I personally have not much tried other than Bing Ads.

But if you are keen on experimentation, then there is no harm in giving other networks a try on a low budget of course.

I hope I was relevant and clarified your doubts in this Google Adwords Tutorial.

If you still have any query you can always comment, I will try my level best to answer your queries!

Thank You for your time and patience!

[imfeelingreallyattackedrn]

5 Abnormally Quick Fat Loss Tips

POINTER 1: WORKOUT EFFICIENCY The suggestion below is that we're all really hectic, and also I don't have time to invest hrs at the fitness center or exercise almost on a daily basis of the week. I understand many people are in the same watercraft. So what is needed is an exercise regimen that can be performed rarely and also takes very little time, however still provides you wonderful outcomes ... ... now the only means to do this is to make use of a type of workout that creates fat loss while that you're NOT working out. Most preferred types of exercise supply most of their calorie and also weight loss throughout the exercise ... however this is not reliable since we can just exercise so much ... even the cardio and also cardio enthusiasts available can just stand say 5-10 hours a week of workout. So with 24 hours a day times 7 days, that offers us 168 hours in a week ... so also working out 5-10 hours a week still leaves us with 160 or more hours that we will not be working out ... ... it is these 160 hrs we must be focusing on if we want maximum fat loss in minimum time ... ... and also when you can do that, now you have actually obtained workout performance. So the concept is to get one of the most fat wearing out of those 160+ hrs that you're not working out ... ... and the best method to do it that I've located is by utilizing a really high level of strength combined with resistance training exercises carried out in relatively rapid succession. This kind of workout will certainly shed fat for up to 2-3 days after the exercise is over, so you can see why simply 2-3 sessions a week of this kind of exercise can double or perhaps three-way the amount of fat loss that can accompany common kind of workout in the so called "fat loss area". IDEA 2: FOCUS ON MICRONUTRIENTS FIRST Maybe one of the most important pointer I can give any individual trying to get and also remain lean is to look at food from a micronutrient viewpoint. This is not something you'll speak with most nutrition specialists, actually they'll inform you simply the opposite, to check out your food from a macronutrient sight (protein, carbohydrates, fats) ... ... this is what most people wind up doing, and it is still vital for fat loss, however the large juncture in my personal fat loss trip occurred when I started to concentrate on eating the majority of my calories from foods that are very loaded with nutrients instead of stressing over my healthy protein, fat, and also carbohydrate ratios. The foods I'm discussing are veggies, fruits, beans, beans, nuts, seeds. Now do not error this for a vegetarian or vegan diet, that's not what I'm talking about, but a diet that provides the body with the nutrients it requires to melt fat efficiently. Now, you'll see that I didn't include lean animal meats on this checklist. Well, that doesn't imply these foods won't assist you shed fat, they will, yet what I'm saying is you need to take your focus off of the whole healthy protein initially frame of mind and rather select a "nutrient first" way of thinking. I was raised, as I make sure a lot of individuals are, that any kind of excellent dish needs to begin with a big portion of beef or fowl, and that the nutrient abundant foods (like vegetables, fruits, beans, etc.) are a small component of that dish, if whatsoever. I'm saying you have to turn that formula entirely which a lot of your dish must be based in the nutrient crammed foods, with a smaller sized little the pet proteins. The truth is that these foods have the most nutrients, and when you offer your body the required nutrients without overloading it with foods that have little nutrients, fat loss become a lot easier since the cravings as well as food cravings that pester dieters nearly goes away. IDEA 3: QUIT DOING SITUPS As Well As USING ABS GIZMOS TO SHED STOMACH FLAB! OK, so this is a large one due to the fact that six pack abdominals resemble a status symbol nowadays on whether you're lean. I indicate back in the 70s and 80s, it was enough simply to have a flat tummy, now it's everything about the six pack ... for whatever reason. It probably has even more to do with the reality that individuals are fatter than ever before as well as points like six pack abdominal muscles are ending up being much more rare and of course they are that far more preferable as a result of it. So, a great deal of individuals are still bewildered by the area reducing misconception that you can do exercise a details location of the body as well as create localized fat loss. I must understand due to the fact that I hammer my newsletter customers with this misconception several times, but I still get question after inquiry concerning which abdominals or belly exercises or intestine blaster 3000 will certainly obtain them a collection of 6 pack abs! Look, you really can't lose fat from one location of your body particularly ... ... the only way you can lose belly fat, thigh fat, butt fat or any kind of various other fat is by lowering your general body fat portion. To put it simply, losing general body fat. The factor you have issue locations or body components is because you just have extra fat cells stored in that location genetically. And also we can not shed these fat cells, we are stuck with them unless we consider surgery, however we can diminish them, which's what takes place when we shed fat. We reduce the fat cells. So the key below is forgeting all those abdominals particular exercises for a while and also instead concentrate on lowering your total body fat portion by producing a calorie shortage with the appropriate diet regimen techniques and also including lean muscle to your body. Fact be informed, a good set of barbell squats to muscular failure done a couple times a week will do even more for shedding stubborn belly fat and getting 6 pack abs than 1000 crunches a week since the amount of calories as well as fat that will be shed from the squats will certainly much exceed those crises. Yeah, you'll need some abs certain exercises to construct the abdominal muscles, however nobody will certainly see them if they're concealed by layers of body fat. IDEA 4: DON'T COURT YOUR FAT LOSS DEVELOPMENT ON A RANGE Alright one more substantial blunder individuals make when establishing exactly how effective their the fat decimator system review program. To begin with, we're talking about fat loss here, not weight management. Weight-loss is the primary term, regrettably, because that's what we are taught at a very early age. But when it comes to losing real body fat, we have to take a look at our body composition, not how much we weigh on the range, yet just how much of our body is fat weight. This is really the only means to know if you're shedding fat or simply losing water weight or muscular tissue, which is extremely usual on most accident or crash diet ... ... individuals will wind up shedding a few extra pounds really quick and also get excit, but they do not look better in the mirror! I mean they could look much better in garments because water loss as well as muscle loss will make you look smaller sized in clothes occasionally, yet when the garments come off ... SUGGESTION 5: KNOW YOUR FAT LOSS NUMBERS I'm speaking about maintaining rating and also recognizing your numbers below ... ... if you don't understand the numbers, you have little chance of success in fat loss and health and fitness. Much like anything else in life, if you're not tracking what jobs and what does not function, you'll be making use of a shotgun approach that will certainly take a lot longer and also not function in addition to an approach that includes tracking. This is especially important in relation to your exercise as well as fat loss and fitness development. Allow's consider the business world for a minute. In any type of service, at the end of the day, results are measured by income, or the money that was made. If business proprietor doesn't recognize the numbers, they will not know if they have actually made any kind of cash. And also hence they essentially have no business! It's insane and pretty easy, but the most effective statistics a business owner can track. I'm a big NBA basketball fan, yet do you believe I would certainly enjoy viewing my favorite group if they didn't keep score? Of course not!