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safination · 1 year ago

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Partners in Death... and Life

Part 3: Not Everything You Hear From the Radio Should be Trusted

| Part 2: Radio Will be Dead if He Doesn't Explain Himself| Part 4: The Radio Star’s Co-host Just Wants To Do The Dishes||Masterlist| ao3| Tag-list| Parings: Alastor x wife!reader Tags: fem!reader, established relationship, hopefully not but just in case ooc!alastor (I'm still trying my best to keep him as canon as possible) Reader is in hell for a reason. Please take note of the following warnings: Body horror. Graphic descriptions of injuries, glass piercing skin, cutting of skin, cutting of chest. Dissection of Human muscles. Misogyny Just…be careful out there

Series Summary: After a seven-year absence, you find the man you were married to in life, not only back in town, but also helping... *checks notes*... the Princess of Hell run a hotel aimed at rehabilitating sinners who were sent to the bad place for a reason.

Hello. I usually aim to post on Wednesdays, and I knoooow it's not a Wednesday. But, in my defense, this chapter is longer than chapters 1 and 2 combined. Also, I tried to keep the body horror to a medium level. I tried to find a perfect balance of horrifying but also still readable. Would you guys want more body horror, or less, or is this a good amount? Updated: 5/01/2024 *just realized that I forgot to add the part I was supposed to add*

ﮩ٨ـﮩﮩ٨ـ♡ﮩ٨ـﮩﮩ٨ـ ﮩ٨ـﮩﮩ٨ـ♡ﮩ٨ـﮩﮩ٨ـ

The heart monitor beeps with a steady rhythm. The model’s ECG reading dip, but that’s normal for her species. You study the model asleep on your table, and take your place.

Turning to your interns, you adjust the fit of your gloves as say, “Are you ready?

From the other side of the table, Lys nods her head with such vigor that you’re afraid it would fall off. “I’m as ready as I’ll ever be!”

Heme takes their place next to you, wheeling the cart within your reach. “Aren’t there supposed to be more people here?” they ask, adjusting the fit of their mask with their shoulder. “We don’t even have an anesthesiologist present, and the technician dumped the tools and left without a word!”

Sighing, you take another look at the screen, and monitor the patient’s ECG readings. Just a couple of decades ago, you wouldn’t even be allowed to take five steps into a surgical suite, but in your death, you stare at the state-of-the-art Vox technology heart monitor.

“This was dumped at the last minute. And the Vees paid a hefty amount for the best,” you say, smiling to yourself. “I guess it doesn’t help that most of the staff have clocked-off for the night already.”

“It really doesn’t,” Heme says. You think they frown, you’re not actually sure. It’s hard to tell with masks on, but Heme sounds like they’re frowning.

“On the bright side, this is a special case, and special cases require special means,” you say. “Stick around, and I’ll make sure to show you something amazing.”

Lys squeals, jumping a bit, “I can’t wait to see your work.”

You turn to Heme. “Tell how you were guided into stopping the bleeding by Doctor Neisseria.”

Heme straightens, round their shoulders. “Hemostatic dressing for the capillaries,” they recite. “Then Lys clipped the bigger vessels, and Doctor Neisseria used an electrocautery for any that we missed.”

“Good,” you say. “Lys, is this your first time using a clip?”

“ . . . Yes,” Lys tells you. Even with a mask on, you could tell she was sulking.

You eye the cart between you and Heme, double checking that the technician brought everything you requested for. “It shows,” you say. “Practice every chance you get. Make a deal with some poor and down on their luck Sinner who wouldn’t mind making a deal for permission to poke around whenever you want. They’ll heal on their own if it’s not too severe or don’t—I mean, that’s how I did mine.”

Lys blinks at you. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

Your shoulder slumps. “ . . . Shall we just begin?”

Heme hands you a needle driver, the needle already clipped to it. A bunch of suture forms around your palm. It’s study, and made of pure Sinner Magical Energy, or just magic or whatever. It comes out of your and you have full control, that’s all you need to know.

Heme and Lys lean closer to observe the threads you make.

I don’t get to do this often.” You turn your head, motioning to the detached arm placed on the side. The skin has been stretched and the jagged and stringy muscle fibers sticking out tell you it’s been ripped off rather than slice. The radius protrudes out into the air, jagged and sharp. It would have hurt this model quite a lot. “Steady her arm please.”

Lys snatches the arm, holding it with confidence as she steadies it. “This is so cool.”

Heme hums. “Cool in a gross way.”

“Whether your patient is awake or not, a steady hand is key,” you say. “When you pierce your needle, be sure to do it right at the epidermis when dealing with the skin. Too deep and you’ll puncture the arteries or nerves.”

Lys brings the arm closer, and you do the first suture that will connect the limb of Velvette’s model. Valen-something apparently tore her up, but it wasn’t enough to kill her. So, they rushed her into the Emergency Room three days before this poor girl’s debut, and dropped her into your care with her arm and leg in an ice box.

You sew the model’s arm. The threads around your fingers are light, but sturdy. You entwine some around your fingers like some puppet master for better grip. Blood vessels, bones, nerves, and muscles. Not a single cell escapes your control.

You quiz your interns from time to time or tell them to take a closer look at where the vessels stick out the muscles, making sure they’re able to observe how a proper reattachment is conducted.

You study the threads connecting the arm to its body There are thousands of loose sutures. One single pull, and it will be completely reattached.

You shift your shoulders and crack your neck, giving it a slight stretch. “How long has it been?”

Lys glances at the clock behind you. “Five hours. I think it’s almost sunrise.”

“Be ready to be here for a while,” you say, rolling your shoulders. “The leg will be more complicated.”

Heme groans and their shoulder slump. “I guess I should just be thankful the model is mostly humanistic.”

You pull on the singular thread, and the stitches shorten until the arm is fully connected to its base. A thing line is the only indication that any limbs have been detached.

The door swings open and you snap your head at the sound.

“Hey doc!” The little Egg Boi saunters into the room, an envelope in his tiny hands. “I got something for you.”

Your feathers crack and sharpen. “If you wish to keep your shell,” you hiss at him, “you will leave this room before you contaminate it further.”

Egg Boi #04 wobbles a bit. “I was told to give you a message.”

A headache forms on your temples. You want to massage it, but that would contaminate your gloves. “Lys, show the egg to the observation room. Show him the microphone.”

Lys pouts a bit but exits the surgical suite.

Heme grabs the leg, and you begin again. You pause to take a deep breath. The threads don’t just appear out of thin air—they’re created because you will them to take shape. It gives as much as it needs to take from you.

Egg Boi# 04’s voice echoes on the speaker. “I have a note for you.”

“Read it then leave.” You pierce the tibia bone with your needle (special hell needle, you guess. Normal needles definitely cannot pierce bones) and connect it to the model’s leg.

Your concentration does not waver, even as Lys enters back into the room.

“ My dearest good doctor, ” Egg Boi #04 reads. “ What a helltastic day for –"

“Stop!” you exclaim, and the threads you’re producing fizzle a bit, “Is that from Alastor?”

“Uhhh . . . yes?”

“Give me 10 minutes.” You sew the model’s leg just like before, starting from bones, then vessels, the muscles, and finally skin, but this time at a much faster pace.

Thousands of strings connect the detached leg to its place.

Heme gawks at you. “I thought the leg was more complicated?”

“It is.”

“It took you five minutes to sew everything ,” they say. “Why did it take the arm until sunrise?”

“You wouldn’t have been able to learn anything if I went too fast.” You hand the needle driver to Heme, who takes it with eager hands “I trust you will be able to close for me?”

“Yes!”

“Go around the skin—remember not too deep,” you say. “Once it’s all connected, just one strong pull and the threads should work their magic. Lys, once she closes, you can practice your knots.”

The door closes with a swing. You discard your gloves then peel off your protective layers, but you keep the scrub cap on your head.

The Egg Boi waddles into the room, threatening to tip any moment. He holds up Alastor’s note and you’re forced to bend when you reach for it.

You open the envelope and sigh. “This is a letter, and definitely not a note ,” you say counting all the pages jammed into the envelope. “Notes are small pieces of paper, and not fifteen pages of paper scribbled back-to-back.”

You take one deep breath, flaring your nostrils as you contemplate your marriage choices, and begin reading.

Heme enters the holding room as you’re reading through the last page.

They take a look at the pages you’ve read. “Ohhhhh a letter?” they say, discarding their mask into the trash. Their gloves are next. “Who is it from?”

“My husband.”

“Why a letter?” Heme asks you “Why not just shoot you a text or a phone call?”

“He mumbles to himself when he writes, and he just loves hearing his own voice.” You turn to the Egg Boi once you’ve read the last word. “Tell Alastor I’m busy—I can’t leave work to go to the hotel on such short notice!”

“Right . . .” Heme leans against the sink. “Management will be dropping by this afternoon.”

Your eyes squint. “This afternoon? I was told there'd be visiting tomorrow!”

“Yes, they informed you last night,” Heme says. “It’s tomorrow now—morning, actually.”

Your eyes twitch as you turn to Egg Boi #4. “Tell him I will be early. Now go, run along now, lest you get scrambled.”

ﮩ٨ـﮩﮩ٨ـ♡ﮩ٨ـﮩﮩ٨ـ ﮩ٨ـﮩﮩ٨ـ♡ﮩ٨ـﮩﮩ٨ـ

Bustling sounds from the other side of the circus themed doors. You knock then take a step backwards, least Vaggie greets you with a fist to the face.

A crash sounds from the inside. The door slams open, and Charlie pops out, hair disheveled and sticking out in odd places. You see the relief oozing into her. Charlie’s smile relaxes and her eyes stop bulging at the sight of you.

She says your name with enthusiasm. “It’s just you! I am so glad to see you.”

You wave at her. “Hello, Charlie. It’s good to see you as well.”

“Would you like to come inside?” she says at the same time another crash sounds. Charlie’s smile turns sheepish. “I hope you don’t mind the mess.”

“It’s quite alright,” you say with a polite smile. “Who am I to judge another person’s mess? It can be quite entertaining sometimes.”

Charlies smoothens the stray hairs sticking out. It does little to actually fix it. “Sooooo what brings you by? Not that you’re not welcome here! Everyone is welcome here! We don’t discriminate at –”

The door swings wider and Alastor pops out with that permanent smile of his. “I called her here.”

Alastor helps you out of your coat as you enter through the doors, and drapes it over his arm. “I came early. I hope you don’t mind,” you say, glancing at the crudely attached banners. Strobe lights are being taped to the railings. Its brightness makes you blink. “Are you throwing a party? Is that why you called me here?”

Alastor hangs your coat on the rack. “We’re preparing for a sudden guest,” he says. “It seems we’ll have to delay our plans, only if you’re happy with waiting for me.”

Charlie shrinks and her eyes water a bit. “Alastor . . .,” she says with a frown. “If you have plans, that’s alright—go. We can manage without you here!”

“Not at all, this is where he needs to be right now,” you tell Charlie, placing a hand on her shoulder. Her smile brightens immediately. “Who will be the special guest today?”

Charlie fiddles with her fingers. “We invite my . . . dad .”

Alastor twirls his microphone. “The King of Hell himself.”

“Oh,” you start, “ the demon is coming here?”

“That’s actually Satan,” Charlie says with a smile. “Dad often gents confused with Satan but they’re not the same

“Oh . . . So, Lucifer is coming here.”

“Pretty much.”

You laugh a bit—you’re not even sure why. Maybe you shouldn’t have laughed. It sounded so awkward, even to you. “Well, how can I help? If it’s alright with you, of course.”

Charlie’s eyes brighten, and she shakes your shoulders. “Are you sure?”

Alastor grabs Charlie’s fingers with the tip of his own and pry them off you. “I’ve already come all this way,” you say, and turn to your husband. “I’m sure we can make the most out of this situation.”

Charlie leaves to change her clothes, and hopefully brush her hair while she’s at it.

Alastor offers his arm, and you loop your own around his, even when you know it’s unnecessary to escort you to a living area that’s five-feet away.

He leaves you, walking to the kitchen with a wave of his microphone.

The hotel looks the same, just more diverse colors hanging around. Niffty stalks past you without a word, engrossed in her task of sweeping the floor. Angel Dust or Vaggie don’t seem to be around, nor is Husk at his usual post. Only a one-eyed cat keeps you company.

On the table, deflated balloons are left forgotten with two pumps resting next to it. You take your seat, and complete the unfinished task.

You’re on the third balloon when Alastor presents a mug to you.

He leans over the chair, reaching his arms to place that ‘ Oh Deer’ mug on the table. It’s difficult to meet his eyes when he leans so far in front that his whole face is upside down.

His hair hangs in the air, and your husband looks goofy in such an awkward position that you can’t help but laugh. “You look awful this hellish morning!” he says, and his grin widens until his teeth show. “I thought you could use a bit of brightening up. You’re practically dozing off in the chair.”

“Thank you,” you say, a small smile on your face. “The coffee smells good.”

Alastor swings back, and lands next to you. “I know we agreed to leave such tasks to you,” he says and he waves his arms as he talks. “But you look ready to drop dead any second. Poor Niffty had swept about a hundred feathers on your short walk from the door to this chair—Long day?”

“ Longer day, actually. Yesterday’s long day turned into a late night that bleeds into today’s early morning.” You take a sip, and revel in its taste. Even after all these years . . . his coffee still tastes like acidic bean water. (If you smile, then that’s your business.) “The coffee tastes good.”

Alastor crosses his leg, cracking a laugh hard enough for his eyes to bulge. “You didn’t even try to check if it’s been tampered,” he says with that same wild smile. “Are you that tired, my love?”

You smile at him, lips curving bright and wide. “My deerest, did you place something into my coffee?”

“Not at all.”

“That’s disappointing,” you say, taking another sip. “That suit of yours could use some brightening up! A splash of this bean water would add such an interesting texture to it.”

“We’ll it good to see you’re not tired enough to lose your way with words,” Alastor says, smiling at you. “But if you’ve had a ‘ longer’ day, you could have sent the Egg Boy—"

“It’s Egg Boi, my deerest.”

Alastor squints, his brow furrowing as he does. “That’s what I said.”

“You said Egg Boy, deerest,” you tell him, taking a longer sip than usual to drown your laughter. “Those eggs are called Egg Bois . They have different numbers—except Frank.”

On the corner of his cheek—just where it’s always been—Alastor’s smile strains. “You said the same thing as I did.”

“Egg Bois.”

“Egg Boys.”

“Egg Bois .”

“Egg Boys .”

You chuckle a bit, and take another long slip. “If you say so.”

Alastor rolls his eyes and he makes it a point to show you he’s doing so. “You could have mentioned to that egg creature that you’d had a long day.”

“Management was dropping by my floor today.” You grab another balloon to pump it.

Alastor’s head tilts, and you hear the small crack of his neck. Static fills the air. “Well, I’m always glad to be used in such a way.”

You roll your eyes, making it a point to show Alastor that you’re doing so. The sharpened feathers and the glow of your eyes were just for the fun of it. “There is another reason why I dropped by the hotel.”

“Do tell!”

You knot the end of the balloon and throw it to the side. “Who am I to refuse the summon of the Radio Demon?”

“His wife.”

You snort, and toss a balloon at him. One balloon becomes two and now you’re just tossing whatever balloon you could get your hands on.

Alastor pops a balloon and static emits from his microphone.

You cross your arms, staring down at him. “I was going to use that.”

Alastor grabs the second pump.

An hour passes too soon. They always seem to do around your husband. The balloons are stringed and weighted. Razzle and Dazzle—the two lambs Charlie made a point to introduce you too—put up . . . er . . . interesting banner on the railings.

Sir Pentious slithers out the kitchen, a tray of cookies in his hold. The Hazbin Hotel looks lively. The space looks decent—live in — as if Sinners actually gathered and used the space. (Those are your favorite kind.)

Sir Pentious offers a cookie to you, and you munch on it. You give him a compliment for its taste.

By the entrance, with Vaggie to her side and Alastor at the other, Charlie takes a deep breath, her nostrils flaring as she does.

Vaggie gives her a smile, and Charlie opens the door.

The bringer of sin rushes to his daughter, drowning her in a hug.“Chaaaaarlie!”

Charlie squirms in his hold. “Heeeyy, Dad!”

Egg Boi #13 and Egg Boi #08 twist their poppers and confetti pops into the air. Niffty grabs her broom, sweeping the floor.

You watch Lucifer, and try to hide your smile. The King of Hell looks different from any paintings or drawings humans make. They can’t seem to capture how shy he looks. How awkward. No painting has been able to capture his search for a place to belong.

This Fallen Angel has blond hair. He’s not the brunette you thought he’d be, which was a shame for you rather liked brunets. It makes sense he’d be blond. Afterall, Charlie has blonde hair as well, and she is the spitting image of her father.

If someone told you it was Lucifer who birthed her, you wouldn’t be able to deny it.

“It’s finally nice to put a name to the face.” Alastor shakes Lucifer’s hand with his microphone, wiping his own right after. “You are much shorter in real life.”

You turn aways, coughing to hide your laughter as Alastor banters with Lucifer.

Husk rolls his eyes at you and grumbles. “Of course, you’d find that hilarious,” he says. “Everyone knows it's smart to insult Lucifer.”

You place a hand on your cheek. “Guilty as charged.”

Charlie brings Lucifer to meet your group. He calls Vaggie, Maggie. Smiles awkwardly when Angel Dust calls him a ‘short king’ . Lucifer waves back when Husk waves at him, and shrinks when Niffty jumps and pulls him by the collar. One by one, you’re introduced.

You extend your arm for a handshake.

Lucifer smiles awkwardly, shrinking a bit, but reaches out to shake your ha—

The chandelier crashes to the floor.

And oh God . . .

Lucifer begins to sing.

ﮩ٨ـﮩﮩ٨ـ♡ﮩ٨ـﮩﮩ٨ـ ﮩ٨ـﮩﮩ٨ـ♡ﮩ٨ـﮩﮩ٨ـ

Your hair sticks to your face.

Water droplets splash on your clothes. You accept your fate, and trudge through the rain, even as your fingers freeze. The breeze blows your hair, making you nuzzle into your damp coat. You should have brought an umbrella, or taken a cab. Just your luck, a sunny day turns into a drizzle that turns your shoes into a lake. You hate damp socks.

An umbrella blocks the rain from your soaked clothes.

You spring out of its coverage, spinning to look behind. Your arms jerk out, causing you to wobble because of the wet pavement. (That’s totally not embarrassing.)

“The point of an umbrella is to stay underneath it when it’s raining.” Alastor smiles, giving you a small wave.

You wave back.

“Oh . . . hello,” you say, adjusting the straps of your bag. Alastor takes a step forward, and you jump backwards. “I’m alright—I can manage by myself.”

“Why don’t you tell me all about your very capable self from underneath the umbrella,” he says, twirling the umbrella. “Come on, now.”

You dip your head inside. Alastor inches closer, but there’s still a respectable gap between your shoulders. “I’m really alright,” you say. “I quite love the rain.”

“Yes, the rain is a beautiful thing to frolic underneath when you’re in a meadow,” Alastor says. You can’t help but feel that Alastor is scolding you, “not when it splashes off buildings and drips off power lines and other items that have not been cleaned. We are in the city, my dear.”

“You really don’t have to.”

“My mother would roll in her grave and haunt me when she finds out I left a lady in the rain.”

“But—”

“Constant refusal is quite rude, you know,” he tells you. “And I still owe you one favor.”

“You really wouldn’t mind?”

“Not at all,” Alastor says with a smile that makes you smile back. “If it makes you feel more comfortable, I’m happy to leave my umbrella in your umbrella-less but capable hands, and be on my way.”

You shake your head, inching closer. “We can share if you don’t mind walking.”

“I love walks. It keeps me stimulated.”

Alastor follows your every step, covering you with an umbrella that was meant for one. You glance at his shoulder, and turn away to hide your frown. Half of his shoulder sticks out into the rain, gathering droplets, while not a single speck of water slides on you.

Alastor is giving you the bigger half of the umbrella.

“Would you mind holding this?” he asks.

“Not at all,” you say, and take a hold of his umbrella. Alastor is taller, and you have to quirk your arms higher to avoid hitting his head.

Alastor slips out of his coat. You watch him slide it off his shoulders and pull his arm out the slits. He’s wearing a vest—a fine vest as well. Alastor flicks out stray waterdrops. He leans close enough for you to smell his cologne. He drapes his coat over your shoulders, grabbing the lapels to adjust its fit. His body heat lingers. It’s warm . . . he’s warm.

Alastor pries the umbrella from your grip with a wide smile. “Before you say anything, the only response that I will be accepting is, ‘thank you’.”

“Thank you, Alastor.”

“You’re welcome.” He adjusts the angle of the umbrella, careful to keep every drop of rain from touching you, even at the cost of his own clothes. “Whatever made you decide to walk? There are cabs and busses for a reason.”

“It wasn’t that bad when I started,” you say. “Plus, I was eager to get home.”

He keeps his eyes ahead. “It’s still quite dangerous.”

You step over a puddle, narrowly missing it. “Dangerous?”

“Yes!”

“The sun is—well, was still up when I began walking.”

Alastor hums, shaking his head. “Murders and thieves do not magically dissolve in the sun.”

You smile to yourself. “I’m sure you’re quite knowledgeable on that subject.”

Alastor turns to you, and his hair shifts as he tilts his head. “Pardon?”

“I heard your voice on the radio this morning,” you tell him, adjusting his coat around your shoulders. “I caught the news segment.”

“Well,” he starts, his smile widening. He pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose, “you must have been busy when I mentioned the forecast then.”

You inch closer as much as he’ll allow you, trying to keep a respectable distance, but still close enough that Alastor doesn’t need to sacrifice his clothes to keep yours dry. “Speaking of radio, what brings you to this area?” you say. “Isn’t the radio station all the way across town?”

Alastor laughs in a way that makes you wish you’ve kept your mouth shut. “Have you been tracking my movements?”

“Not at all,” you say and try to mimic his laugh. It comes out strained instead. “I just know how to read a map.”

Alastor steps over a puddle. He places a hand on your back, guiding you away from it. “I just had some business in the area,” he says and drops his hand. “I turned the corner and I found you walking all alone in the rain!”

You smile, careful to keep your eyes forward. “I’m thankful to whatever beings that fated our paths to cross.”

Alastor leans closer, eyeing your hands. “Been gardening recently?”

You glance at your nails, at where stubborn soil sticks underneath the cuticle. “No . . . not at all,” you say slowly. “I guess you could say . . . light treasure hunting . . . ?”

“The more I get to know you, the more I find myself dumbfounded at your wide range of hobbies.”

“I hate seeing things go to waste.” You try to ignore the squish of your socks. You are definitely never forgetting your umbrella again. “For example, your garbage is my treasure.”

“What a wonderful philosophy to live by.” Alastor meets your eyes and smiles.

You smile back. “Indeed, isn’t it?”

Alastor’s hold on the umbrella stays firm, even as he follows you around the corner and across the street. Not a single drop of water lands on you. “What treasure were you able to find?”

“You have a lot of questions for me today,” you say and ignore the thumping of your heart. “I feel as if you know me more than I know you—I think that’s rather unfair.”

“Well, what would you like to know?”

You move your foot to avoid puddles of trash. The city could really use a good cleaning. “You know so much about my hobbies. So, I’d like to know some of yours.”

“There isn’t really much to tell,” he says. “The radio is my life.”

A strong breeze has you sinking deeper into Alastor’s coat. “You have your hunts.”

You glance at Alastor, and oh . . . his hair is as brown as his eyes. Wisps of hair stick to his face because of the rain.

Alastor’s brows furrow a bit, but you swear his smile turns sweet. “Those are more of a necessity than a hobby.”

“In what way?”

“The woods around my area have a lot of . . . let’s say, mammals that don’t necessarily belong there, it is as if someone just leaves them from time to time. I hunt a few here and there to thin the population a bit.”

You smile to yourself. “Well, tell me about the radio—What is that like?”

He places his free hand on his chest. “Why, it is the proper medium of expressing oneself, of course.”

“It must be nice having such a creative outlet,” you say. “Sometimes, I wonder how you’re able to come up with the most exciting segments.”

“Sadly, you would think after all these years of bringing success and money into the company, I would be allowed to have more control over my content.”

You step over another puddle. A small tug on Alastor’s arm, and he steps over it as well. “That is quite sad to hear.”

“For example,” he starts, adjusting his hold on the umbrella. “I wanted to have this whole portion just on crimes that have been committed.”

“Like . . . the news?”

“No, not at all,” he says. “I was thinking more on the lines of old cases like robberies and murders—some solved, some not. Unfortunately, the director said it would be too gruesome.”

“It really depends on how you choose to present it,” you say. “I think audiences would love a good mystery with a satisfying conclusion.”

“That is exactly what I thought so as well!” Alastor’s smile widens. “I came across this story . . . Oh, well I wouldn’t want to bother you with the details.”

“I’d love to hear this,” you say, chuckling. “Show me how you would present it.”

“One winter night,” he starts off with that never ending smile on his lips, “a child—no ordinary child—disappears in the middle of the night. There were no signs of a break in and nothing other than the child was taken from the home. Not a single dust was out of place.”

“Wait, what was so special about the child?”

“I will tell you,” he says. “That child was the two-year old son of aviator Charles Lindenberg! Some newspapers called the child the ‘Eaglet’ because his father had become the first man to fly across the Atlantic Oce—Oh, why are we stopping?”

He angles the umbrella, careful to keep you dry. You smile at him and point at the small apartment complex behind you. “This is where I live.”

Alastor doesn’t frown, but his smile droops a bit. “Oh . . . ” he says. “I was getting to the most interesting portion of the story—what a shame.”

“A shame, indeed,” you echo. “You have such a captivating way of conveying your words.”

“Thank you.”

The rain splatters on the umbrella. It’s not going to stop anytime soon. Your socks are damp and it’s starting to get colder. “Would you like to finish what you were saying?”

Alastor’s smile widens, just a bit, but it was enough for you to notice. “On the month of May, after continuous searching, a tiny little corpse was found abandoned on the side of the road. Forensics determined that the baby was bludgeoned to death.”

“It’s quite funny,” you tell him. “You talk of such gruesome murders but I find myself captivated.”

“Indeed.”

“Thank you for going out of your way for me, Alastor.” You slip out of his coat, returning it to him. It’s cold—has it always been this cold. “Will I see you around?”

“Of course,” he says. “We always meet in such unconventional places.”

You duck out of the umbrella, giving him one last smile and head up the steps. A twist of a doorknob, a few flights of stairs, and you would be home. You were tired, your socks are soaking, and the back of your clothes stick to your skin. So, why . . . why do you find yourself running back into the rain?

“Wait!” you find yourself exclaiming.

Alastor covers you with his umbrella. “What’s wrong?”

‘I . . . I may have a problem.” The words are slipping out of your lips. “Are you busy by any chance?”

“Not at all.”

“What about your business in the area?”

Alastor raises his eyebrows. “I can always come back.”

“Would you help me?” You bite the inside of your cheek.

“Of course.” Alastor brings the umbrella closer to you. “What can I do for you?”

“I think . . . ” you begin to say. Stop. Stop! You should turn back; head inside where warm clothes and a bath awaits you. “I think I’m in the wrong area.”

Alastor laughs, and it’s that same breathy and light laugh as before. He drapes his coat over your shoulder once more, and adjusts its fit to secure it around you. It’s the warmest thing you’ve ever experienced in your life. “I wouldn’t be much of a gentleman if I left a lady stranded in the rain.”

“Not at all,” you say with a smile that you do not remember smiling. “Lots of scary thieves and murders out there—apparently they don’t disappear during the day.”

Alastor nudges you along, down the path, to a destination either of you have the faintest idea where it will end.

Your feet stay locked in its place, and you hold Alastor in your gaze. (His bowtie is crooked, and even with his coat around you, he looks presentable. His vest matches his shoes. You note how his smile is asymmetrical, and how his eyes are still as brown as his hair. Alastor’s glasses are frosted, but he doesn’t seem to mind.)

“Are you alright?” Alastor asks you.

“I’m fine. It’s just . . . .” You shake your head and smile. “It would be a waste to forget this.”

“Come on,” Alastor says in a voice that is oh so soft. He offers his arm, and you hook your own around his.

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“ Motherfucker! ” Husk curses into the air, his ears quirking as he does. “Would it fucking kill you to be gentle with that shit?”

“I am being gentle.” You stare him down, keeping the towel pressed firmly against his foot. “Would you want to know what it’s like when I’m not? I’d be very happy to comply.”

“ . . . No.”

“Then settle down, Husker ,” you say and use your free hand to grab the forceps from the hotel’s medical kit. “This will be much easier if you stay still . . . or don’t and give yourself a harder time. I’m not the one with glass sticking out of my foot.”

Husk sinks into the clinic bed, sulking as he crosses his arms. He picks on the pillow, fidgeting with its seams. “ Bitch. ”

You raise your eyebrows and huff. “ Virgin. ”

“I am not . . .grandma. ” Husk’s fangs show when he growls.

Your feathers bristle. It’s smart to keep Husk talking, even if hurling insults is the way to do so. If it keeps him distracted, you won’t complain. “I died in my late twenties . . . or was it my early thirties — I honestly forget.”

The blood on his foot begins to clot, and you toss the towel to the waste basket. You walk to the sink, rinsing stray droplets of Husk’s blood with soap.

“Settle down then, grandma,” he says with a triumphant smile, and you roll your eyes. “Today, it’s your memories. Tomorrow, it could be anything.”

You plop on the clinic chair, waiting for your hands to dry. “Yes, it would make sense you’re familiar with the signs,” you shoot back, “considering you lived long enough to be called Pawpaw — Is that why you’re a cat?”

Husk barks a laugh, his wings flaring. He grabs the pillow and tosses it to you. It hits the side of the chair and langs on your lap. You pick it up and toss it back at him. “At least my husband didn’t walk out on me for several years without so much as a word.”

You chuckle, and settle his foot on your leg for better access. Taking your forceps, you brush away slivers of glass from Husk’s foot . . . or would this be his paw?

You clip a shard of glass, and glance at him. When Husk doesn’t whine like a little bitch, you pull a shard and drop it to the metal pan across you. “At least my marriage lasted even through death, Arachnid Simp.”

Husk rolls his eyes. You smile when his whiskers twitch. “Where did you even learn that word?”

“I see you’re not going to deny it.”

Husk sinks deeper into the bed.

“This wouldn’t be happening if you—I don’t know—wore these things called shoes ?” You pluck another shard of glass. Husk tries to jerk his foot away, but your hold stays firm. “They were invented a long, long, time ago, and were created to keep your feet protected .”

“Stop talking as if I’m a child.” Husk frowns and his teeth stick out. “Wearing them feels weird.”

“I guess they kind of are weird.” You grab a fresh towel when blood squirts out of Husk’s foot. “You die and then suddenly waking up to see you don’t have toes

A beat passes between you. “Do you . . . do you not have toes?”

You toss the towel, and pick out the last shard. “Wouldn’t you like to know, weather boy.”

“ What does that even mean ?” Husk growls, running his palms over his face.

“I . . . have absolutely no idea.”

You reach into the medical kit, grabbing some dressing. You peel the plastic and toss it to the trash, and press it against his foot.

Egg Boi #03 waddles up to you, a gauze roll in his tiny hands — you weren’t aware the little egg creature was in the room. You thank him with a smile, and wrap the gauze roll around Husk’s paw then his ankle. Satisfied, you clip it in its place.

“You’re all done,” you say. “It might be weird to step on it for a few hours, but it’s not impossible. The glass didn’t puncture you too deep.”

“Good to know.”

“Oh . . . and just in case, the amount of blood you saw isn’t anything to be scared of. There’s just a lot of tiny vessels on the foot. That’s why it took a while for it to stop,” you say and toss him a new set of gauze rolls and pads.

Husk stares at the items. “I don’t know how to use this.”

You stare at him, leaning into the chair. “Just slap the square on the skin and roll the gauze around your foot.”

Husk hops out of the clinic, keeping pressure off his injury.

It takes a while to clean up after yourself, but Egg Boi #03 keeps you company. The little egg speaks a lot of nonsense, but it’s entertaining nonetheless. You flick the lights, and Egg Boi #03 follows behind you.

The chandeliers had been dragged away, and the glass and debris cleared off the carpet.

Mimzy’s hug makes you take a step back.

You squirm in her hold, placing a placating hand on her shoulders.

“I am sooooo glad you are here!” Mimzy exclaims, shaking your shoulders. “This is like one big reunion, ay. Just between you and me, that Lucifer is a real looker—shame on Alastor for not warning a gal. I would have dressed better, and who knows? Maybe I could be the Queen of Hell. Ha! ”

Mimzy grabs your arm and drags you to the bar. Husk pours you a drink with a nod, and stalks away. Seeing him hop up the stairs makes you laugh.

You swirl your drink. “It’s always good to see you, old friend.”

“Not that old!” Mimzy swats your arm, a huge grin on her lips. “And there’s no need to lie to me, darling. I doubt you actually feel that way.”

“Well, I still have those burn marks on my wall from the time you decided to play bartender with matches.”

Mimzy barks a laugh, and her legs kick. “C’mon you can’t still be blaming me! If I remember correctly, it was Alastor who brought out the matches.”

Angel Dust walks up to you with Sir Pentious trailing behind him. You wave.Sir Pentious waves back, his hood flapping open.

“Mind if we join ya?” Angel Dust asks.

“Not at all,” Mimzy says. “I’m always weak to such lookers.”

Angel Dust takes the seat next to you and pushes back his hair. Sir Pentious takes the one behind him. “Sooooo, you two and Alastor run in the same circles.” He takes a drink. “And you guys are friends with him?”

You take a sip of your own drink. “You could describe it that way.”

“Well, those are your words, not mind, but I think it fits.” Mimzy glances at you, a knowing smile on her lips. “But our good doctor here is more than just—Hey! Why do you look so surprised?”

“Well, I just didn't know he had any of those. He's been here a while and is still a big, creepy mystery,” Angel Dust says. Sir Pentious nods, his head squeaking as he does “What's his deal?”

Mimzy is happy to explain tall, dark, and creepy’s ‘deal’ .

“But before that, he was the prime bachelor of my day,” Mimzy says. “Not a single lady wouldn’t want a taste of that twink. But eh . . . I wouldn’t wish marriage with Alastor on even my worst enemies. It would be a real shock when you die and find out your hubby’s got a real screw loose.”

“Well, it wasn’t a shock to me,” you say, rolling your eyes. You swirl your drink—hmmm, it’s good to know Husk still knows what you like.

“Not that there’s anything wrong with that!” Mimzy chuckles nervously. She scoots closer, elbowing you lightly. “You happy he’s back? I still remember the few months you’d visit my place to look for your deerest, most darling Alastor, Mimzy at the bottom of a bottle.”

Your eyes twitch. “Quite pleased actually,” you say and force a smile. “It’s great to finally see my husband again.”

“ Husband? ” Angel Dust chokes on his drink.

Sir Pentious tilts his head and his hat slides off a bit. “Oh you’re married?”

You show them your ring, wiggling your finger. “Indeed.”

Sir Pentious puffs out his chest. “I would love to meet thisss husband of yours,” he says. “If you cannot be my rival, he can fight in your stead.”

“That wouldn’t be a smart idea

Mimzy stares at him. “He’s not the brightest is he?”

Angel Dust drops his drink with a clink. “ Pause ,” he splutters. “Shut u—” He coughs, still reeling from his drink going down the wrong pipe. “Shut up. Plause. Pause!”

Sir Pentious frowns, and his tongue sticks out. “No one elssseee is talking.”

“There is no way,” Angel Dust says. He turns to you, eyes bulging. “I refuse to believe that Freaky got hitched.”

Sir Pentious gapes, and his hoop opens. “Alastor is married as well?”

Mimzy slaps her forehead and points to you. “He’s married to her!”

“You are mess’in with me,” Angel Dust says. “Well, you can’t trick me. I refuse to believe it, toots.”

Mimzy takes a swig of her drink. “No one’s mes’in with ya,” she says with bright eyes. “They had a big white wedding and everything. I even got to bless them with my singing.”

“I don’t believe you.”

Mimzy glares at Angel Dust, a hand on her hips and her noise in the air. “You calling me a liar?”

You place a hand on Mimzy’s shoulder. “It was a good day, wasn’t it?” you say.

“Could’ve been better without the rain,” she says shrugging.

The lights flicker. Static fills the air, making your skin buzz. The bar glows a faint green. “The rain made it sentimental actually,” you say and glance up the stairs. “We quite like the rain.”

Angel Dust crosses both sets of arms. “I thought you said you were friends.”

“ I said partners,” you tell him. “Alastor said friends.”

Angel Dust blinks at you and sighs. “So, you married him? Like you’re his wife.”

“I am, indeed!”

“Are you sure?”

“I sure hope so,” you say, crossing your legs. “It would be weird not to be sure considering I was there in a white dress, walking down the aisle.” Mimzy barks a laugh, and the feathers on her head sway. A part of you hopes she topples off the chair.

“Uh . . . Is this something we should know?” Angel Dust asks. “He’s not going to try to kill me because I learned about this right?”

“We’re not trying to hide it, but we don’t broadcast it either,” you say. “And well . . . no wife likes to be introduced as a ‘ friend ’.”

Sir Pentious’ tongue sticks out. “Does Alasssstor own your soul or something?”

You empty your drink and revel in the taste. “We got married back when we were alive.”

Angel Dust reaches across the bar, grabbing a whole bottle off the shelf with his long arms. He pops open the cork and takes a swig straight from the bottom. “I still have trouble belive you,” he says, squinting his eyes. “I just . . . I can’t!”

“Your belief, or lack of, won’t change the fact that I have a ring,” you say. “And it’s not really for you to believe, now is it?”

“Why . . . ?” Angel Dust’s mouth quirks into the cutest frown. “Why . . . ya’know?”

You sigh and place a hand on your cheek with a smile. “He makes me laugh.”

Angel Dust makes a face, and coils back like he’s been shot.

“Oh he’s a total kitten,” Mimzy says with a bright smile. She inches her glass closer to Angel Dust, and he fills it up for her. “Catch him in a good mood or pour him a drink and play some jazz and he’s totally harmless.”

“You still shouldn’t toss caution into the air, Mimzy” you say. “If I were you, I’d be wary about trusting Alastor just because he likes cleaning up your mess.”

Angel Dust crosses his arm, and his eyebrows quirk. “Ain’t he your hubby?” he says. “Isn’t there this whole spiel about trust and love and faith and all that other boring vanilla shit.”

“He wouldn’t be the Radio Demon if he could be trusted by just anyone, now would he?” you say. “It still crosses me when I remember how he lied to me.”

Angel Dust’s eyes shine. “You said no wife likes being introduced as a ‘ friend ’.”

“Yes?”

“It must have crossed you quite a lot, huh?”

You shrug, a bit confused. “I mean . . . I wasn’t really a big deal at the end of the day.”

Angel Dust’s smile widens and that golden tooth of his shimmer. “I want to know everything .”

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Despite the rain, clear skies show the moon, not a cloud in sight.

The flashlight clipped on your collar shines on your path. Your boots sink deep into the mud, but that’s alright. A few inches of goo won’t stop you from your destination. You adjust your leather medical bag—double checked that there are gloves inside.

Between those two trees, your treasure lies buried.

You lay your kit on some nearby stones and reach in for your gloves. You dig until bits of the cadaver’s skin stick out. You brush the soil of his chest and peel open the flaps of his skin. The underside of his skin has blood vessels attached to it. It was worth cutting out the fat to have a glimpse.

Superficial fascia connects his muscles to his dermis. You take your probe and disconnect the thin filament. It reminds you of spider-webs.

You discard your probe and exchange it for the bottle of formaldehyde. You can’t study the whole body, not when it’s exposed to the elements. His fingers are starting to rot, but that’s alright. The chest is all you need, for now. So, the chest is all you’ll preserve.

The cheesecloth you placed on him last night is still damp. Good, that means it’s been sanitized this whole time. You take the cheesecloth and wipe it against his open cavity, sanitizing every surface you can reach.

The formalin stings your nose and burns your eyes. It makes you cough, but you push through the pungent chemical.

You peel off the cheesecloth and use it to spread formalin into the deeper crevices between his skin and muscle.

Good. There are no maggots yet. It means you still have time.

You discard your gloves for a fresh pair and prepare your tools. You take your forceps and clip the scalpel blade onto the handle. You lay all your tools on a clean cloth for easy reach.

A human’s adipose tissue buildup is thicker than animals. This man’s fat is soft, easily squishable. Sadly, you’re not here to study his fat.

The scalpel blade is balanced perfectly. Throughout this Earth, no . . . not just Earth, but Heaven and Hell as well, nothing will ever be as perfect.

You slice through his adipose tissue, discarding it behind you, carving the cadaver until a nice rectangle opening forms. Muscles are grey, not like the red color printed on textbooks. You run your fingers along the smooth fibers of his pectorals. It’s slimy. That’s probably moisture mixing with the formaldehyde.

You quirk your shoulder to adjust the angle of your flashlight, still running your hand on his pectoral.

There, on the side of the chest where a muscle resembles a fan, do you find what you’re looking for.

Taking your probe, you define the muscle. You don’t use your scapple—never a scapple, because it could slice the fibers. You’ll scrape off the muscles later when it’s time to move on to the systems.

You take a pen and write your notes.

Muscle name: Serratus Ventralis. Description: The Serratus Ventralis appears to be a fan-shaped muscle, just like Hyman writes it to be. Although he’s not describing humans, I think it looks the same. Willd double check to see if such similarities are indeed correct. Just like the book says, I can see the muscle extending anteriorly and posteriorly from the scapula and to the walls of the thorax. The Serratus Ventralis appears to be divisible into anterior and posterior portions, with the anterior originating deeper into the body. (Will cut open if there is still time.) The posterior border seems to be where it originates from, and while it is buried by other muscles, I think it originates from somewhere between the ribs.

Origin, Insertion, Action: Origin: Textbook says it originates from the outer surfaces of the upper eight or nine ribs. (Will double check once I’ve moved on.) Insertion: The muscle fibers appear to move upward to the side. Inserts along the anterior surface of the medial border of the scapula Action: If it indeed is inserted from the scapula, this could mean that it could draw the scapula, forward, backward or against the body.

You flip to the previous page, and cross out Serratus ventralis. You move on to the muscle on your list: Xiphihumeralis. Based on the name, the muscle should pass through the xiphoid process to the sternu—

“Is this what you meant about my trash being your treasure?”

You startle, jumping back until a tree hits you and there’s nowhere else to escape. Run. Run. Run! Your heart screams at you, hammering in your chest. No one is supposed to be here. You’re supposed to be alone. You were careful—not careful enough, apparently.

Alastor emerges from the trees.

He waves at you when your gazes meet, but you don’t wave back. He’s smiling. “Hello,” he greets you with a gentle voice that strikes your core. It would be foolish to mistake his gentleness for kindness. “And yet again, I’m forced to comment on how you have such interesting hobbies.”

You press deeper into the tree, even if a knot digs into your back. “This . . . .” You pause, trying to find your voice. Do you run? “This isn’t a hobby. I’m merely studying.”

Alastor drops a bag on the ground. It looks heavy. “A man?”

“A cadaver,” you say, careful to keep your voice steady. You cannot let this man see any cracks. “They’re already dead, aren’t they? Wouldn’t it be a waste to let them rot like this? At least now, their sorry lives will be making a meaningful contribution.”

The admission of your crime was easy to say. You don’t want to know what that means about you.

Alastor laughs. It’s not that breathy and light laugh he had earlier. This one is lighter, more elated. “Please, tell me more.”

You harden your heart, searching for any speck of bravery. “Why would I?”

Alastor smiles until his teeth show. The moon makes his brown eyes glow—you did not think it would be such an attractive color. “I’m the one holding the large knife.”

You glance at his hand, and oh . . . that indeed is quite a large knife. It’s not even a kitchen knife, but a proper hunting blade meant to kill. “I see you’re resorting to threats,” you say and you don’t know why you do. It’s not really a smart idea. “I did not think you, a man, would feel the need to say such things to a woman.”

“That was barely a threat,” he says. “I’m just curious to know your motivation to dig up trash.”

“I’m studying—that’s my reason.”

Alastor waves the knife as he talks. “Are there no other dead bodies for you to prey on?” he says. “Don’t hospitals have an area specifically to keep the dead?”

“Only morticians or medical students are allowed access,” you say. “I am neither.”

“Why not become one then?”

“Women as doctors are still a relatively new phenomena,” you say. “There is not a single medical school in this area that will allow me to study, nor are there any that won’t bring me into debt.” Your blood boils and it replaces your thumping heart. It still beats in your chest, but it’s not because of fear. “I needed to find a way to learn, to study, and textbooks could only describe it in words. I want to see for myself.”

Alastor plays with the tip of the knife. “Sounds like a classic case of lusting for knowledge.”

“If lust is to be my sin,” you start and a wonky smile appears on your face, “pride would be yours. A classic case of judge, jury and executioner.”

“I do not need to explain myself to you.”

“Well, you are holding the larger knife,” you tell him, rolling your eyes. “Anything more you’d like to know?”

Alastor hums at you. “How did you figure it out?”

“A little bit of a suggestion?” you say, and you can’t help but smile to yourself. “You should buy suspicious items at different times and places. Your turn—How did you know I was here?”

“A little bit of a suggestion?” he echoes laughing like he’s told the funniest joke. “You shouldn’t have told me where you lived so easily. I thought I would have to hang around your clinic for a few days before I got your address.”

“I made sure to be careful.”

“You weren’t in the slightest,” he tells you. “Even an animal is harder to track. It was quite a surprise to see you heading in this direction.”

“Wait . . . ,” you say slowly. “Hang around the clinic? You . . . you were stalking me?”

“I wouldn’t say stalking,” he says, putting his arms up. “And if we’re pointing fingers, you would have had to follow me around for a few days to learn where I buried my trash.”

Your eyes drift to his bag, and then to his knife. Realization hits you like a cruel bus. You face heat. “You!”

“Me?”

“You lied to me!” you say, venom lacing your words as you puff. “You had no business in the area, nor did you randomly spot me! You followed to kill me, didn't you?”

Alastor smiles at you.

“Oh my God!” you scream at him, throwing your arms into the air. You point at him, glaring “You’re still going to kill me?”

“I can’t exactly let you leave, my dear,” he says, rolling his eyes. “What did you think?”

You stare down at him from your nose. “Don’t be so brainless,” you spit, crossing your arms. “If you would use this thing on your head called a, ‘brain’, and use it to think, you would be able to deduce that you’re currently not in cuffs.”

Alastor glares back at you, tightening his grip on the knife. You don’t give a single flying fuck.

“Since you are adamant on not using your brain, I shall do so for you,” you say, voice dripping with sarcasm. “If I wanted to rat you out to the coppers, wouldn’t I have done so already? Hmmmm?”

“Don’t speak to me as if I am a child.”

“I wouldn’t have to, if you aren’t thinking like one,” you say. “Why would I tattle on someone for giving me what I want.”

Alastor gives you a dry smile. “So much sarcasm to the person who does so.”

You cross your arms and lean against the tree. “I suppose I should be thanking you.”

”Will you?”

“No,” you say. “I don’t thank liars.”

You smile to yourself when Alastor rolls his eyes and furrows his brow. That strained smile of his is an extra bonus.

“If you’re going to kill me, be quick with it,” you say. “I’d like to die with my dignity as a lady.”

“How curious,” he says. “You’re not going to try and run? Fight me off in some clever way? Those are always the best kinds of hunts.”

You roll your eyes, making a point to show him that you are doing so. “That would be a waste of our time, wouldn’t it? And I think you’ll forgive me if I am not exactly keen on giving my murderer the satisfaction of experiencing ‘the best kinds of hunt’.”

Alastor laughs, breathy and light this time. He tosses the knife into the trees and puts his arms up as if surrendering. “It seems you have made me change my mind,” he says. “Not many are able to do so—especially not when I’ve settled on a hunt.”

“What an honor then,” you say, smiling dryly.

“Indeed, it is.” He takes a step forward, and when you don’t run, he walks to you and brushes stray dirt off your shoulders.

“Why change your mind?”

He smiles, inching closer to you. That is for me to know,” he says. “But, what I will say is I know potential when I see it.”

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“Someone, please, kill me again!” Angel Dust massages his forehead with one arm, using the other to empty the bottle. His third arm reaches into the bar shelves for a new one. You stare at his arms and wonder just how it got to be so long. “You’ve got to be shiting me right now. That’s your example? That’s your final answer?”

You pick at the wooden table, suddenly finding it hard to meet his eyes “Yes . . . ?”

Angel Dust chugs his bottle at your answer.

Mimzy avoids direct eye contact, choosing to study her empty glass.

Even Sir Pentious keeps his gaze locked to the floor. You bite on your cheek, letting out a soft huff.

If they didn’t want to know, they should not have asked.

“Out of all the misery he’s caused and will be causing,” Angel Dust says, “you think that Freaky ly’in to you about his reason for walking you home was the best possible example.”

“Yes?”

Angel Dust takes a deep breath. “Let’s be clear, okay? I’ll rephrase what I said, so listen closely,” he says. “Alastor lied about – and let me get this right—he lied to you about why he was in the area, and that’s why – hold on, bear with me – and that is why you were angry.”

You cross your arms, huffing a bit. “You make it sound stupid.”

Mimzy sighs, shaking her head with amusement. “That’s because it is, darling.”

“It is not!” you say, pouting. “It’s a very valid reason to be cross.”

Angel Dust takes another swig of his bottle. “It’s the fact that you weren’t angry that he was going to murder you in cold blood for me.”

You throw your arms into the air. “Okay, so it might not have been the best example,” you say, tapping your legs. “But that isn’t exactly my fault. Alastor is strangely honest.”

Angel Dust gapes at you. “No, he is not!”

“I don’t know, hun,” Mimzy says, leaning against the bar table. “Alastor kina is.”

“You won’t get the truth if you don’t ask,” you say, nodding your head. “And when you do ask, Alastor will either say the full horrifying truth, say it in a way that’s vague but still considered to be true, or dodge and not answer your question.”

Sir Pentious tilts his head, and he keeps a hand on his hat to keep it from falling. “And that is why we should not trust him?”

“There is no we , my dear,” you say. “That’s why you shouldn’t trust him.”

The hotel trembles.

You startle in your seat, gripping the table for stability. Mimzy clutches your arm, and you grab hers. It’s a small reassuring gesture that would make you smile at any other moment.

Someone pounds on the door.

You snap your head towards the entrance, nearly giving yourself whiplash. The hinges creak with every bang, and you watch with horror as the wooden frame begins to crack. Whatever wants to go in is determined to do so.

“ MIMZY! We know you’re in there, you lousy bitch!”

You lock eyes with Mimzy, glaring at her with bristled feathers. “Really?”

“Whooops . . . ?” she says with the most innocent smile. You grab your glass and throw it at her head. Mimzy snarls at you, searching for a stray bottle. She never finds it.

Glass rains down to the floor. Dust fills the space, and you cough when it irritates your throat. The whole hotel is in disarray. With a yelp, you jump away from the bar when one of the bone heads detaches and crushes your seat.

Mimzy scurries behind the bar.

A portal rips open in the middle of the room . . . Huh , that’s pretty cool. Vaggie steps out, Lucifer and Charlie behind her. “What is going on?”

Mimzy explains what she did. You roll your eyes when she does.

Fireballs shoot out the broken windows.

Motherfucker! You are going to kill Mimzy. You press against the wall to avoid Sir Pentious’ long tail from smacking into you as he slithers about. Angel Dust scurried away at the first sign of trouble. Of-fucking-course this happens today. Niffty scurries about, cleaning every debris in sight, You grab her by the collar, pulling her away from a stray fire. Niffty squirms out of your hold, and hops away. Another fireball keeps you from pursuing her.

“We’re under siege!” Sir Pentious exclaims, slithering about. “Take cover!”

Alastor pops out of your shadow, jerking your arm to pull you away.

You flap your arms to regain your balance.

Alastor keeps a steady hand on your shoulder, his hold on you firm. His touch keeps you grounded. Your eyes flutter to where you pressed against the wall, but Alastor pokes your cheek with the tips of your fingers, nudging your face to keep your eyes on him. The hotel burns in chaos, and you dig your fingers into the fabric of his coat.

Alastor holds your gaze. He smiles at you softly, but you see the hardness in his eyes and the tension is his jaw.

You try to give him your best smile. “Much better?”

“No, not in the slightest” he says, eyes squinting into a harsh glare. Alastor doesn’t frown, but his teeth bare into a snarl. “Are you hurt?”

The hotel trembles, and more fire crashes through the windows.

You try to turn to the chaos around you, but Alastor leans to the side, blocking the surroundings with his face. “I’d like an answer.”

He smoothes the feathers on your hair, and you lean into his hold, shaking your head. “Not a single feather out of place,” you say. “Thank you, my deerest.”

The hotel trembles once more, but you keep your gaze locked into Alastor’s.

“All of you get a safe distance,” Vaggie says, spear raised.” I’ll take care of this.”

Satisfied, Alastor drops his hand from your head and turns to the door. “No, my dear. Leave it to me.” Radio static warps the air around you. His eyes morph into radio dials. “It’s time I remind everyone why I am here.” He has the smile on his face—that same smile that tell you he’s on the hunt. It makes you buzz.

Mimzy pops her head out. “Ugh, finally!” she says, rolling her eyes. “Took you long enough.”

Tendrils shoot out of Alastor’s back and it waves around the air as if owning a mind of its own. His bones break with audible cracks to adjust to his expanding size. “A reminder to all, not to mess with the radio demon!” His teeth stick out when he smiles, and the little ‘x’ on his forehead appears.

Alastor laughs and begins his kill.

You rush out when your husband crawls out the broken doors, bolting from the bar and out the entrance. You watch Alastor. He grabs a shark with the tips of his fingers and uses the others to pull him apart, slowly, painfully , with a grin.

“Mimzy . . . ” you say, slowly.

Mimzy shrinks next to you. “ . . . Yeah?”

Alastor’s nails elongate and he pierces the shark, letting his blood trail down, reveling in his screams. “I really appreciate everything you do for me.”

A leg sails across the air, it’s bone sticking out. You smile to yourself as Alastor hunts down his prey. Blood paints the flowers red when his tendrils wag like a happy tail.

You’re faintly aware of Lucifer and Charlie arguing behind you.

The show is over too soon.

Alastor shrinks, twirls his microphone and stretches.

Mimzy runs, the first to approach Alastor. You don’t hear a word they’re saying, but Mimzy jabs her fingers into his coat. She leaves with a frown and a middle finger pointed at him.

You walk closer to your husband, a smile on your face. Alastor inches to you, bending close enough for you to reach his bowtie. The fabric is smooth against your fingers as your straighten it for him. “Much better?” you ask.

“Indeed.”

“You put up quite the show,” you tell him. “You looked absolutely riveting, my deer.”

Alastor’s smile widens, and he offers his arm, guiding you back into the hotel. “Did I?”

“You always do, my love.”

And oh . . .

Another song.

Lucifer leaves, taking his singing with him.

ﮩ٨ـﮩﮩ٨ـ♡ﮩ٨ـﮩﮩ٨ـ ﮩ٨ـﮩﮩ٨ـ♡ﮩ٨ـﮩﮩ٨ـ

As quietly as possible, you grab your belongings and check that nothing is missing: wallet, flip-phone, bus card, pieces of mint, various essential items, and lastly, your umbrella. You step out of what is left of the Hazbin Hotel’s front doors and stifle a yawn. Today’s excitement has gone on for too long. It was time to go home.

Drops of acid fall from the sky, a light drizzle forming. It was a good idea to stash that umbrella in your bag.

Alastor slithers out of your shadow, and covers your heads with an umbrella. “Did you happen to forget your umbrella?”

You force a sheepish smile on your lips. “I did, actually,” you lie to him. “But a walk seems rather lovely today.”

Alastor twirls the umbrella, his smile widening. “May I join you for your walk?”

“Are you not still working?” You glance behind you, observing the hotel.

Angel Dust sweeps glass off the carpet. He steals glances from time to time, trying his hardest to avoid looking in your direction—it doesn’t try hard enough. Your eyes meet, and you brush your stray feathers from your hair. A not so subtle way of showing off your ring. You stick out your tongue.

Angel Dust laughs, shaking his head with amusement.

Alastor adjusts the umbrella, angling it to block the prying eyes from inside the hotel. He raises his eyebrows, looking at you with a questionable glance.

You offer your most innocent smile. “I think they’re going to need a new door.”

“I think it’s time I clocked out,” he says, inching the umbrella closer. “I shouldn’t have them getting too dependent on me.”

“Are those not grounds for prime picking?”

“I wouldn’t exactly be a doting husband if I left my wife to walk alone in the rain,” Alastor tells you.

“ Doting husband ?”

He nods, leaning closer to you. “Yes. Was that not your condition for our marriage?”

Your eyebrows furrow. “Did I say that?”

“You did.”

“Are you sure?” you ask, humming a bit. “I do not remember saying that at all.”

“Well, it wasn’t for you to remember,” he says. “And in any case, I did not call you to the hotel to prepare for some party.”

“Then why did you call me here?”

Alastor meets your eyes and his smile widens. “Allow me to join you, and you shall find out.”

“You’ve piqued my interest, deerest,” you say. “The best walks are usually the ones that are shared. It doesn’t hurt that you have an umbrella.”

“What would you do without me?”

You roll your eyes, and take a step closer. “You always seem to remember for me.”

Alastor fiddles with the umbrella. “What did you do for several years—get pelted by acid?”

“You would know the answer to that had you been present for those years,” you say and you don’t fight the coy smile that forms on your lips.

Alastor hums in displeasure. “Well, in any case, I only have this one umbrella.”

“I guess we’ll have to share.”

“Yes, it seems we will.”

Alastor offers his arm, and you loop your own around his. He doesn’t need to take precautions to ensure your clothes stay dry nor do you have to for his own attire, not when you press closely against each other. The umbrella covers the both of you just right.

You rest your head on his arm. It’s nice. Warm. Even if it was as thick as a stick. His bones press into your cheek. Your eyes flutter into a close . . . just . . . one . . . second . . .

Your knees buckle causing you to trip.

A frim grab of your waist keeps you from the ground. Your nose crinkles when you collide with Alastor’s chest. Finding strength in your legs, you dig your foot into the ground and stand.

Alastor keeps his hold on your waist steady, and you don’t move from his hold.

“Before you say anything—you are not fine,” he says. “I don’t want to hear anything else but an agreement.”

You peel your face from his chest, meeting his eyes to give him the brightest smile you can muster. It doesn’t come out as you hope. “It seems . . . It seems it will be my turn to postpone our outing today,” you say. “The excitement of the day seems to be catching up to me.”

You fell asleep while walking,” he says. “If it was not for me, you would be on the pavement.”

“Then it is a good thing I am no longer alone.”

A single tendril emerges from his back. It wraps around the umbrella’s handle, keeping it secured over your heads.

Alastor’s hand shifts from your waist to your back. You feel his other arm snaking down your legs, trailing your skin until he reaches the back of your knees.

Alastor lifts you like a bride.

Well, you actually are a bride . . . his bride, specifically.

Alastor continues the walk, holding you in his arms. You lean into him, and he places a chin on your head. “Your pointy chin is poking me, my deerest,” you say but you don’t move to push him off. “It’s digging into my scalp.

His chest rise and fall as he laughs, and you feel every bit of it against your cheek. “I could always drop you right over this puddle.”

“That wouldn’t really be part of the doting husband image, would it?” you say chuckling into his suit.

“No, I guess it would not.”

Smiling to yourself, you nuzzle deeper into the crook of his neck. “Hey, Al,” you mumble softly, “tell me a story.”

At the corner of your eyes, you see Alastor glance at you. His gaze lasts a second before he turns back ahead. “It was 1929,” he says. “The beginning of the glorious Great Depression.”

You roll your eyes even if he doesn’t see it. “You are the only one I know who calls the Great Depression ‘ glorious’ . People were starving, and we almost got fired from our jobs.”

“That’s because it was a great year.”

“Because you got to see the sufferings of the masses?” You laugh softly. “That’s definitely something you would do. I can practically hear you laughing at the way they try to claw their way out of misery, only to fail spectacularly.”

“Because we got married that year,” he says. Even if you’re wearing a coat, and Alastor wears his gloves. Even with layers of cloth between your skin, you still feel the way Alastor caress your with his thumb. “Can I continue my story now or would you like to bicker about your failing memory?”

“Continue.”

“So, the start of the glorious Great Depression,” he says. “That day, I saw an ad for the local zoo. I wasn’t doing anything important, so I decided to support my local animals.”

“How kind of you,” you say, stifling a yawn.

“Indeed it was,” he says. “I stalk through the animals. Looking at every malnourished species they kept locked up—”

“You get to the alligator enclosure and to this day, swear that you saw it do a backflip,” you mumble softly, eyes dropping. “That’s pretty good for someone you claim to possess failing memories.”

“Alright then. I shall find another.” Alastor hums as he thinks, and his chest vibrates as he does. “Summer of 1916–long before I met you.”

“You don’t need to tell me that,” you say, huffing. “I’m well aware of the year we met, my deer. So, Summer of 1916?”

“It was a dark and stormy night. Weird for the summer seasons. Usually, the house becomes a furnace, but it was terribly cold,” Alastor tells you. “During that second night of the hurricane, a knock sounds from the door.”

“Oh . . . I’ve heard this as well.” You pick on the lapels of Alastor’s coat, tracing the white lines.

“You have?” Alastor raises his eyebrows

“Yes, it was your neighbor. His tree fell into the window and you and your mother ended up sheltering him for the night,” you say. “Then, you’ll tell me that he gifted you three pounts of cheese the next week.”

“I guess there’s nothing left to tell.”

You lean back to meet his eyes. They’re no longer brown. Once, a long time ago, you thought it was your favorite color. Now, you don’t think you’ve ever had a favorite color. You just liked his color. “Nonsense,” you says. “We are definitely not that old. I’m sure there should be be at least a few.”

“Alright, this one began fifteen years ago,” he says, tightening his grip on you. “I was waiting outside St. An’s, and a Sinner came out. It was my first time seeing a cow. It was quite a conundrum because — Oh, I think you’ve heard this already. Have you?”

Your eyelids are heavy. “I have.”

“And you choose not to inform me?”

“Can you tell it to me again?” You sink deeper into his hold.

“Of course, my love.”

Alastor’s steps lag until he comes to a full stop. He holds you in his gaze as the acid rain splatters grow stronger. It’s just you and him in this tiny bubble of an umbrella.

His eyes flicker, touching every inch of this scene. You do not know what he is thinking.

“Are you alright, my love?” you find yourself asking.

“Yes,” he says. “I’m just . . . trying not to waste, that’s all.”

“Come on,” you say in a voice that is oh so soft.

Alastor continues his story. You don’t hear the end of it.

ﮩ٨ـﮩﮩ٨ـ♡ﮩ٨ـﮩﮩ٨ـ ﮩ٨ـﮩﮩ٨ـ♡ﮩ٨ـﮩﮩ٨ـ

Next Part: | Part 4: The Radio Stars' Co-host Just Wants To Do The Dishes| I am excited to know what you guys think about this chapter. My replies and inbox are always open for any questions. I always get so happy to see my notifications. It's a bit addicting actually. Thank you to everyone who has interacted with this story. Every like, reblog, and reply means so much to me. Part 4 will be poasted as soon as possible

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keelywolfe · 5 years ago

Text

Drabble: Cheap Thrills (baon)

Summary: Stretch can get a lot of entertainment out of a thrift store find.

Tags: Spicyhoney, Established Relationship, Domestic Fluff

Part of the ‘by any other name’ series.

~~*~~

Read it on AO3

Read it here!

~~*~~

Stretch loved to pick up old books at the thrift shop. There were so many gems that might get lost at a traditional bookstore, like his trusty copy of ‘How to Teach Spanish to Dogs.’

Romance novels were cheap and plentiful, and he got them by bagful for Blue, who never much seemed interested in finding his own romance but loved reading about others. Old reference books filled with outdated information that was still interesting to read about, seeing what people used to believe, until science or society proved them wrong.

Then there were specialty finds.

Stretch wasn’t even two steps through the front door before he held up his prize, announcing happily, “look what i found!”

Edge barely looked up from his laptop, “If it has even one clown on it—"

“No clowns.” That was a prize he’d be sure to stash behind the shower curtain for maximum effect.

For once Stretch didn’t mind Edge working a little overtime at home. Kept him off his feet, gave all those healing juices a chance to settle in.

But a little distraction never hurt. Stretch flopped on the sofa and settled his head right into Edge’s lap, ignoring his exasperated sigh as he held out the book he’d found.

The cover was old and stained, but the title was still readable, ‘The Congregational Cook Book’ and in small letters beneath that, ‘edited by the ladies’ aid society of the First Congregational Church of Ebott, 1915.’

He knew his baby well. As soon as Edge stopped glaring an actually looked at the book, a flicker of interest made an appearance. He set his laptop on the coffee table, ignoring Stretch’s exaggerated sputters of suffocation as his forward lean threatened to smother him with Edge’s shirt, then took the book.

“A cookbook?”

“a really old cookbook!” Stretch enthused, “like, a century old. i thought maybe you’d like to try one it out. See how it compares to the youtube generation of cooking.”

“That does sound interesting,” Edge flipped through the book, reading aloud, “Salmon omelet, no, thank you, green tomato pickles, hot water gingerbread, hm, apple tarts. I do have apples, how does that sound?”

“baby, anything you make sounds like mana from heaven.” And at Edge’s raised brow bone, Stretch admitted, “except risotto, okay, but that’s less you than a general dislike of the genre.”

Edge nudged Stretch off his lap and stood, heading into the kitchen with book in hand. Normally, Stretch would’ve tossed him a fair thee well and let him get to it, but this time, he followed Edge through the swinging door. He was sort of curious if there were any differences in a recipe from a hundred years ago to now, and hey, science, right?

Not that he planned on helping with the cooking process, he was here strictly as an observer, and he plopped down into one of the chairs that surrounded their ‘dining room table’, “so, how much longer are we eating at the card table?”

“Not long,” Edge retrieved a large bowl from under the counter and a set of measuring cups from the cupboard before tying on an apron. “I’m working on a plan for our new kitchen layout. As soon as it’s done, I’ll have the builders get started on it.”

“uh huh, no rush, i was only curious,” Stretch propped his chin on one hand. “you do have a lot on your plate right now, babe. and there’s your whole mental health assessment you still need done.”

Really, it was sort of impressive how much Stretch could glean from slightest change in his husband’s expression. A normal person would think there was no change, but Stretch was good with languages, spent years learning Edge-ese. He knew a twist of distaste when it saw it, “Yes. There is that.”

Any other comment about it was effectively blocked by Edge’s renewed focus on the cookbook, reading the recipe aloud beneath his breath. His brow bone slowly furrowed, concentration replaced with dismay. Which…it was a cookbook, not a grimoire of early twentieth century curses. Wasn’t it?

“babe?” Stretch asked cautiously, “what is it?”

“What kind of recipe is this!” Edge exclaimed. He picked up the book and read aloud, “Eggs, oil, fresh butter or lard, sugar, baking powder, as much flour as it needs. Must be soft as an earlobe, thicker than cake.”

“uh…” Stretch scratched at the back of his skull. “and?”

“That's it. That's the entire recipe. There’s no measurements, no directions, no temperature for baking!” He slapped the book back down on the counter-top. “There are no apples listed! How can this be a recipe for apple tarts without apples? How in the name of the unknown am I supposed to gauge the softness of an earlobe when I don’t have ears?”

All great questions, except Stretch was in possession of exactly zero answers. “does seem a little speciest against those of us without earlobes.”

Edge glared at the cookbook as if by his will alone answers to his questions would come, which was why Stretch was a little surprised when Edge said abruptly, "Let me see your phone."

"yeah, sure," Stretch said, slowly handing it over. Not like he had any secrets or anything and while Edge might change his own passwords at least once a month for security reasons, he’d been using the first 6 digits of Pi since he got the phone. “why?”

“Because I left mine in the living room.” Edge tapped the screen impatiently holding it out as it began dialing out over speakerphone.

A sleepy voice answered, "'lo? Wassup, Boney Marony. "

"Jeff,” Edge said, “I’m afraid you’ll have to engage in wordplay with my husband later. Right now, I need you to come over so I can feel your ears."

A long moment of silence. "That’s very specific. Okay, I'll bite, give me five."

It was more like ten minutes, with Edge sitting impatiently across from Stretch, who was engaged in a furious game of Words With Friends on his newly retrieved phone. Until the light knock came on the front door followed by Jeff shambling into the kitchen. He looked like they’d woken him from a nap, his hair was smashed flat on one side and sticking up on the other. He scratched at his t-shirt covered belly and yawned out, "You know, before I met you guys, I never got calls like this."

“sounds to me like you needed a little more excitement in your life,” Stretch said cheerily.

Edge didn’t bother with a greeting. He limped determinedly over, stripping off his gloves as he went, and without warning began to vigorously fondle Jeff’s earlobes. Jeff squeaked out a mousy sound, his eyes wide as golf balls as he stared up at Edge.

Well. Wasn’t like Andy didn’t know why he was here.

“easy, babe,” Stretch winced, “he might need a little foreplay before you go right for the lobes.”

“I’m checking his ears, not his testicles,” Edge said curtly, even as he leaned down to peer closely at the ears in question.

That remark made Stretch and Jeff speak in unison,

“holy shit, wow, just tossing that out there, huh.”

“Okay, I’m good to help a friend out, but I am drawing the line at ball grabbing.”

Edge ignored them both. He let Jeff go and limped back to his gathered ingredients, already starting to measure them into the bowl, “Thank you, Jeff, that will be all.”

Welp, that sounded like a dismissal. Stretch climbed to his feet, jerking his head towards the door. “c’mon, andy, we can take in a flick while you’re here, if you want.”

Jeff was still a little wobbly, gingerly reaching up to touch one of his well-inspected ears as he followed Stretch out, “Do I want to know what that was all about?”

Stretch shrugged, “cooking.”

“Cooking,” Jeff repeated. He mouthed it again, soundlessly, then shook his head. “I don’t even think I want to know, plausible deniability is probably better. So, he asked for me to help, why?”

“well, how many other humans does edge know that he can call up and ask?” Stretch asked reasonably. He picked up the remote and turned on Netflix. “and don’t say your honey because we both know he’d just hang up, especially without having the proper forms filled out first.”

“Glad to be the go-to guy for illicit cooking-related bodily inspections.” Jeff joined Stretch on the sofa, settling in. “Classic Twilight Zone, huh? Good choice.”

The first episode was mostly over by the time Edge came out with a tray with a half-dozen golden-brown treats that brimmed with appley goodness. Stretch and Jeff dug in, mumbling thank you’s around their mouthfuls and Stretch was already on his second one when he noticed Edge was scribbling notes. He chewed and swallowed his current bite and asked, “what are you doing?”

“Gauging your reactions,” Edge said, still writing, “I kept a close track of the ingredient measurements that I used so that I can make changes for the second batch. Are they too dry? Is the pastry tough?”

“Tastes fine to me,” Jeff said around his mouthful.

“Crisp? Chewy? Is there enough spice?” Edge persisted. The two of them did their best to answer him around bites and finally, Edge made a satisfied sound and disappeared back into the kitchen.

“Huh,” Jeff snagged another tart. “How many batches you think he’s gonna make?”

Stretch shrugged, “i do my experiments and he does his.”

“His taste better.”

“my science isn’t the kind you lick.”

“So far it hasn’t involved you groping my ears, either,” Jeff took a bite and groaned around it, “Worth it, man, but the balls are still off-limits.”

“sounds reasonable.” Stretch snagged the last tart and sank back to watch the pig-faced doctor demanding a needle to sedate his patient, happily waiting to review batch number two.

Hey, he got a snack and a show, all for the price of a thrift store book. Now all he needed to do was sneak that clown statue into the bathroom, but eh, he might wait a while on that. This was enough entertainment for one day.

-finis-

Notes:

So, the recipe in question has been slightly modified from one in a reddit post and the poster had a couple of similar questions as Edge, although their solution wasn't the same. 😂 I couldn't resist writing how Edge would react to finding such a recipe.

The ‘The Congregational Cook Book, edited by the ladies’ aid society of the First Congregational Church, 1915.’ is real enough and I own it. Some of recipes and their measurements are very interesting in comparison to what we see now!

#spicyhoney #papcest #keelywolfe #underfell #underswap #underfell papyrus #underswap papyrus #by any other name

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xzacloudx · 3 years ago

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(Tone: Sad, tired, frustrated at the subject itself, not angry at anyone). This is such a pure example of why, instead, I really wish people would stop putting their main comments in the tags. 😔 We shouldn't HAVE to take screenshots of tags, edit the screenshots to trim off all the extra stuff, then add them to the post, just to share or reply to them.

This example ironically participates in the problem itself (putting a good portion of their actual post in the Tags), rightfully points out how one of the means of coping with that problem (saying "prev tags") is unreasonable... but then it advocates for the other means of coping (taking screenshots), which is also unreasonable.

(Tone: Pleading). Please folx, just use the actual text field in the Post or Reblog interface to say what you want to say. That's what it's there for.

PROS: You won't get cut off mid-sentence by character limits per tag. You can use commas for more legible grammar. You can go back & fix typos without having to either redo the whole tag or awkwardly add the corrected word in an additional tag.

It's much more readable for eyes (especially impaired eyes who have a hard time parsing past all the hashtags & [usually] all-lowercase letters/no punctuation), minds (many of us have reading issues, brain fog, sleep problems, disabilities, etc) & screen-readers (which are often set to ignore tags & only read the main text body, or with manual ones the users willingly pass tags up because normally they're a waste of time).

It's easier to type in the text field than the tags field, easier to read it, & easier to share, save, reblog, & reply to. And because of all that, using it shows that you care about others' experience on this platform.

CONS: ...LITERALLY NONE.

(Tone: Still pleading). People resorting to "prev tags" rightfully do NOT want to needlessly stress themselves out jumping through multiple hoops to share an insightful post that, for some reason, was put in the Tags field. They're practicing self-care. Though sadly, it then leaves the next reader to jump through the hoops instead, or otherwise miss out on what could be a funny, deep, or otherwise interesting read, because of all the trouble it demands.

(Tone: sorrowful). It's not the "prev tags" users who make these exchanges needlessly difficult... It's the ones who set up all those hoops for everyone to jump through in the first place. Expecting us to basically edit their posts into a compatible format for them, instead of just doing it themselves, which takes zero effort. 😑 How is that fair? 🥺

And if we care enough to put in effort for the sake of people who need screen-readers/TTS (already something so time-consuming I rarely get to do that, though I try to whenever I can)... then in addition to (or in lieu of) posting a screenshot of your tags, we ALSO have to re-type all the relevant parts of your tags to add as ALT TEXT or Image Description (ID), which I have done above.

So, this "comments as tags" trend is just plain ableist. No means of coping with it are fair for rebloggers, or for readers with disabilities. 🙁

(Tone: Informative). Tags are for helping people find posts via tag searching, & so visitors to your blog can find posts about specific subjects. They're organization tools, & that's it.

(Tone: Wistful). If the rest of us want to comment on, reply to, or reblog someone's post... clicking the Reblog button (and typing our comments or reply) should be all we're expected to do. So many people keep lamenting the fact that tumblr users are not reblogging as much lately? Well, the growing "tags as comments" trend a big part of why. All the interesting fandom theories or important contextual image commentary keeps, more & more often, ending up in the Tags.

And lots of us who normally WOULD have reblogged these posts are short on time & energy, or have disabilities that make repeatedly messing around with screenshots & art programs difficult, or even painful (myself included). So it's just not worth the trouble that so many people are deciding to needlessly add to the process.

(Tone: Pleading). Please folx, don't willingly make your posts a big unreadable mess of pale hashtag footnotes we can't just share or reply to with the push of a button as originally intended. And if you still decide to, don't then blame us for deciding NOT to clean up after you. Please? 🥺

idk how this “prev tags” nonsense got started but i promise you i am not following a breadcrumb trail to find out what those tags were. if they’re that funny then share them with the class in a reblog like a normal clown this isn’t twitter

#xzacloudx #zc original #comments as tags #tumblr problems #ableism #disabilities #image description #image description in alt #long post #be considerate #be kind #harmful trends

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nonpuppet-sanderssides-ep · 7 years ago

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Calling on Fander Artists & Transcribers & other Helpers!!

Not tagging this as spoilers because....there’s no actual spoilers reallllyyyy.

This is a project for making the latest Sanders Sides episode “Learning New Things About Ourselves” in a puppet-free series of comics by re-drawing them with the normal appearance of the sides. (which you can learn more about the reasoning behind in this post)

Because this is a HUGE task, and this lone artist can’t do it all by their self, I’d appreciate help with transcribing the episode and making a series of comics for most of the scenes with the puppets in them.

The plan is this:

All content will be uploaded on this blog, which will link back to the artist and transcriber. Once a comic is finished, artists will send it through the ‘submissions’ inbox for easy updating & regulation.

As a Transcriber: your job is to listen to the episode and transcribe their words. You might also have to figure out where to make the cuts in scenes and decide where a comic will start and stop. This is VERY important and the artists depend on your ability to pick out words and transcribe them correctly.

As an Artist: You are going to draw your scene replacing the puppet-sides as the normal side’s appearance. You need to listen and watch the scene, know how to use the voice acting and read the puppet-motions and know what facial expressions to give them, and what motions to chose for which set of dialogue. Your level of ‘skill’ or ‘style’ doesn’t matter as much as that ability.

If you can’t do either of those things, you can help in other ways! You can proof-read transcribers, help pick which scenes to include, find scene cuts, check artist’s comic layout and works for readability, and just reblogging and supporting!!

If you’re interested in helping, please, check out the process below, send a PM to this blog, and which task you’d like to do.

People who mentioned they might be interested in helping:

@overshadowed-nerd @sanderschronicles @lazyscouts @roanoaks

Specifications on the (very idealized) process below:

We will work on it in sections,

Section 1 being from aprox. 13:24 to 19:00(ish) (I haven’t gone through it and actually looked for actual stops. Just timestamps that make these semi-even in length.)

Section 2: 19:00-27:00 (again, ish)

Section 3: 27:00-35:25

(the end card 37:33-38:14, being optional.)

2-4 transcribers/helpers will work on each section and discuss the best places to start and stop each comic (please make sure these comics are small and manageable for artists. Look at the number of frames/dramatic position changes that happen. Talk to your section’s artists about how many frames they can manage.)

After the transcribers finish that, each artist will be assigned a timestamp and given the transcript for that timestamp. The number of artists will depend on how many comics the transcribers think is needed, and if people wish to collaborate with each other for one comic.

I’m not sure if we’ll have it colored or not, and I believe it depends on the number of artists, if there are artists who would prefer to do line art, and artists who would prefer to do coloring, etc.

We will start as soon as I have enough transcribers to at least start section 1, and I will make an update once the transcribers get back to me when they complete that. Sooner rather than later is the goal!!

If you are hoping to be an artist/transcriber, I’d heavily appreciate if you also sent a small comic/transcription that you have done recently. Priority will be given to individuals who do so. Otherwise, transcribers and artists are chosen on a first come, first serve basis.

I WILL NOT JUDGE ART STYLE OR LEVEL, I just want to know you know how to work through it. If you are an artist who hasn’t done anything like a comic but really want to try your hand at it, please talk to me and I can see what I can do to help.

Comic layout examples ((Artists: look at how dialogue is split up, how motions and expressions correlate to the words, and how the panels are placed... there are more possibilities than this too)) ((Transcribers: look at the length of one page. Look at how much dialogue can be put into a short page -most of these took me about 2-3 hours for the line art, and I am a fast artist-, notice times of pause/silence, & remember how important it is to indicate the speaker)):

Thank you!! & Have a Wonderful day/week/year/life!! :)

#Fanders #Sanders Sides #lets do this!!#Puppet episode #learning new things about ourselves #thomas sanders #roman sanders #logan sanders #patton sanders #virgil sanders #fanart #idk what else to tag this to make it spread.

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taeyohonic · 7 years ago

Text

Seat Stealer

(I know Taeyong has red hair in this fic, but not in the picture. However this is the closesed I’ve come finding a gif with the vibe from this story. So please, forgive)

This is my entry for @nctwriters summer prompt challenge! I hope you guys like it.

Prompt: It’s summer break and you love it because that means the library will be totally empty for you to enjoy all to yourself. Except for the fact that when you walk in one day some really cute guy is sitting at your table.

Member: Lee Taeyong

Genre: summer romance / mostly fluff, a bit smut @ the end, so i’ll classify this as m (I guess?)

Words: 7.3k

“This isn't funny.” “Excuse me?”, cute boy sitting in your seat is looking genuinely confused by your sharp tone.

“That’s my seat.”, you say, pointing unnecessarily at the stool he's wrongfully occupying. Cute boy’s brown eyes change from confusion to mischief in a flash. His mouth forms a sinister grin when he responds.

"You really think you have a right to a specific seat in a public library?" You don't think you do, you know you do.

Nobody else spends as much time here as you. Not even the two librarians. And especially not during summer break.

What is someone like him even doing here? His fiery red hair is tousled in a stylish mess, the kind where you can’t really tell if the guy put in a lot of work or none at all. His sun kissed skin makes you think that being indoors isn’t his preferred choice. And his cloths – swim trunks and a plain white shirt – scream beach day, not making Y/N’s life harder-day.

This boy is so far out of your – and this library’s – league, maybe your best friend Seugil is playing a prank on you.

But even she wouldn’t get a guy like that into a place like this just to mess with a slightly deranged and desperately awkward outsider like you.

Seugil is a solid seven, but this person in front of you is scratching on the ten. And the look he gives you indicates he’s fully aware of that.

You try to stay calm – interactions always bring out the worst in you.

“I always sit here.”, you say trying not to sound as snappy as before.

“Well, you're not sitting here now. So-... this sentence is grammatically incorrect.”, he responds and smirks at you. Oh no, not good. You feel your face getting hot. Even though you try to be rational, this guy is getting to you – both physically and mentally.

You could just walk away, find another place where you can continue your limbo of reading trashy romance novels and writing smutty fanfictions in peace. But this seat is perfect: right under the AC, with a nice view of the indoor court and a shelf full of inorganic – and untouched – chemistry books at the back, that nobody bothers to check out. This is heaven for introverts in the summer.

And this seat stealer is not taking it away from you. Deep breaths Y/N. Deep breaths.

“Would you mind sitting somewhere else?”, you ask in a sweeter voice.

Seat stealer is now looking you over, measuring you up. He won’t be impressed. You didn’t put too much effort in today’s appearance: A white summer dress, floor length so you didn’t have to shave, and a messy bun full of black hair, being hold together by dry shampoo.

You are not ugly. But you sure do not try to put your average features in the best light. Who do you have to impress? The answer is sitting right in front of you, clearly unimpressed.

Self-consciously you try to avert your gaze. Maybe another seat isn’t that bad. But to your surprise seat stealer contradicts his nickname by standing up. The loud scratching of the stool against the linoleum is the only sound in the library.

“I don’t mind. Please.”, he responds standing.

Flabbergasted you switch into autopilot and move around the table to take your rightful seat. But cute guy isn't exactly retreating. He just waits next to your seat and watches you sit down, still with this ridiculously handsome grin on his lips. He definitely is in your personal space. You can smell the sun screen mixed with an herb nuance of freshly cut grass on his skin.

Now sitting, you look up into his dancing eyes.

“Thank you.”, your mom raised a semi polite kid.

“No problem”, former seat stealer says and sits down right next to you. And sits down right next to you? What the hell? You openly stare at him. What. the. hell? There are roughly 40 empty seats in this building. This isn’t a polite distance. This is an invasion. This guy is giving you an amorism just by existing.

You are one move away from just standing up and aborting this whole mission, leaving in defeat. But there is still your pride. And the fact that seat stealer is now no longer watching you but looking at his phone. If you weren’t so sure he is trying to fuck with you... But what alternative is there? At home there is no AC, which would slowly kill you. Finding another seat after the whole stand you just took would undermine your fragile credibility.

And even though you don’t know this guy, loosing this charade with him is not an option. So, you do what any introvert does – detach from the social situation.

Opening your laptop, a dozen new notifications pop up and you are pleasantly surprised that even tough real life is surreal right now, your online community is reliable. You take your time responding to the asks about your next updates and the few chat messages you received since last night. Then you post a text on your tumblr:

gonna finish new chapter as soon as seat stealer lets me exist in peace

Not even a minute later your phone vibrates. You feel curious eyes on you while reading Seugil’s message.

[seugil 10:04 am] somebody dared to sit on your seat? [y/n 10:04 am] somebody has reception while camping? [seugil 10:04 am] somebody tries to change the subject? [y/n 10:05 am] there is not much of a subj. guy was on my seat, guy moved to the seat next to mine, guy is annoying. [seugil 10:05 am] guy is cute? [y/n 10:06 am] guy is cute.

You try to breathe normal. This you can manage. Even if his presence is unwanted and quite frankly rude, you’ll just do what you always do.

“You’re sitting in a library full of books.” Cute boy is definitely not low-maintenance.

“Yes”, you curtly nod, not even looking up from the screen.

“Yet, you read on your computer?” You can feel his eyes on you and turn around. Sure enough there he is – facing you, leaned back, right arm causal swung over the armrest, the whole body angled towards you.

“Rich coming from you, seat stealer.”, you bark and point accusingly at his mobile device resting in plain sight.

“Well, I am here against my will, so…”, he answers and causes you to pause. So, you were right – the boy doesn’t fit in here, and he doesn’t want to. Curiosity wells up, so you try to suppress it, but it’s no use. Who are you kidding? You are interested.

“Who forces you to spend your time in a well-tempered room, surrounded by written knowledge and people who understand the concept of giving you space?” The end sounds like an accusation emphasized by your widened eyes mapping out the sheer nonexistent distance between you two. Cute boy, who just chuckles in response, leans forward to answer your original question, simply skipping your critique.

“Failed my finals, so I have to take them again during break.” So cute boy is dumb, what a waste of perfect appearance. You don’t judge people on things they can’t change. But sitting in a library to study for a test you failed and then only being on your phone? Self-fulfilling prophecy of getting fucked. Seat stealer seems to read your facial expression like an open book – hard to believe given his aversion to print.

“I tried to help my neighbor, got caught, teacher thought it was me cheating, took my test away –“

“-and your summer.”, you finish for him, nodding and believing him. Maybe you want to think of him as a smart person, or maybe his eyes tell you that he wouldn’t lie to a stranger about such a thing.

“No, my mother stole my summer, when she personally drove me here this morning to quote work my ass off unquote”, he corrects me and uses air quotes as well as an unbelievable high-pitched voice to mimic his mother. You really like that he uses “unquote” as well, not many people do.

“So, you didn’t tell her that you actually don’t need to study?”

“I tried”, a huff emphasizes his frustration, “but she won’t believe me.”

Parents who don’t listen suck. But you think that it’s a good preparation for adult life. No adult trusts another adult.

“Sooo-“, you motion towards his cell, “you’ll just bid your time?”

“I wouldn’t call being on level 54 of Candy Crush bidding my time.”

“That, my friend, is the definition of bidding one’s time.”, you chuckle, and he joins you.

“Huh, friend? You don’t even know my name, Y/N.”, he says, mocking you and-… using your name? What the hell? Your confusion must again be readable, because seat stealer answers your unspoken question.

“Your hard case.” The explanation is accompanied by a demonstrative tap on your laptop. Ah, your name tag Y/N’s property – touch and die, a birthday present from Seugil.

Now you don’t know what to say. Should you ask for his name? What added value has this information? There isn’t a single scenario, where his name would be important to you in the future – well no plausible scenario. He could have just offered you his name, but he teases you with it. That’s why Seugil wants you to go out more. Your social skills are underdeveloped at best. So, you just stare at him and blush a bit, because he does the same. After a minute, what feels like eternity, you have enough and just break the contact, focusing once again on your laptop. You feel foolish for even engaging in this banter in the first place.

“Taeyong” It is spoken minutes after your failed attempt to get back to reading and his soft voice holds a hint of an apology. You don’t turn your head again, not ready to face cute boy again so soon after your defeat.

Taeyong – it fits. You can’t wait till you can call him by his name.

Your opportunity arrives two hours later. You have really tried to finish this chapter, but his presence is distracting at best, sabotaging at worst. Although he does go back to his phone after waiting some time to get a reaction out of you from revealing his name.

Again, what the fudge were you suppose to say? Thanking him for telling you? Agreeing with him? What is the protocol when someone whispers his name to you? This is so bizarre, there isn’t even a Wikipedia article for that type of situation – you know, you checked!

But now your battery is running low and the adapter is in your locker with your lunch, which you could use right now. The clock is just shy away from one and your stomach demands food. Normally you would eat in here. At one the receptionist takes her break and smokes behind the garbage cans, which you can see from your seat. So, you can do the forbidden, eat in the reading room.

But now he is here, making everything so much more difficult. Reluctantly you turn in your seat to face him.

“Uhm- Taeyong?”, you start and test out his name. It sounds nice, a bit soft at the end, but with a strong start. You approve.

“Yes, Y/N?”, he answers emphasizing your name as well. He locks his screen, giving you his full attention.

“I’d like to eat lunch now so-“

“Thank god! I really tried being patient, giving you space, yada, yada, yada, but I am starving!”, he groans in relief and stands up from his seat. What is happening? He couldn’t possibly think?

“You coming, Y/N?” Taeyong is steps ahead of you, around your table and you just stare, dumbfounded.

“But..but my laptop?”, you stutter and look at him helplessly and totally overwhelmed. You just wanted him to look after your laptop while you eat outdoors in peace.

“Just put it in your locker.”, he answers nonchalantly and motions for you to get up. What is seat stealer doing with your perfectly planned day? Destroying it, that he does! You stand up, defeated and hungry, and follow him.

“So, you are telling me you’ve never watched Star Wars?” Taayong speaks with his mouth half full, which should be a deal breaker, weirdly enough isn’t. You both are sitting on the grass, even though your white dress is crying its fabric soul out. He is munching on a sandwich, that you are 99,9% sure is a work of his mum. Your own cuscus salad is delicious, and you are glad you spend the extra hour in the kitchen yesterday.

“No, I said quote I’ve never watched the newer ones unquote. Luke, Leia and Han?” a dramatic pause follows, “That, Taeyong, is Star Wars.”

He just shakes his head, looking at you like you’re some foreign entity, ready to fight the humans to death.

“I don’t disagree with you,” Oh it sure feels like it, “But what about Anakin, Padme and Jar Jar Binks? That’s Star Wars as well!” He is getting more animated as he continues, “You can’t just exclude parts of history, just because they aren’t up to your standards!!”, his arms are flailing comically, making his biceps far too present for your liking. This boy sure is beautiful, and wrong.

“I’m the consumer, I make the decisions!”, you proclaim and put a big spoon of your salad in your mouth, chewing contently.

Taeyong’s personality is like a warm winter day – surprising and welcoming. He isn’t as teasing and forceful as you’d predict from your first meeting. His smile is easy, and his mind is fascinating. Even though his appearance, and his confidence of it, makes you sometimes swallow in silence. But the last hour the both of you ate and talked, an easy banter surrounding you. You’d never imagined being comfortable enough to eat next to a strange guy.

Taeyong, however, is such a force without trying, making every sheer obscure decision seem like a no-brainer. Letting your laptop in your locker? Sure. Eating on the grass while wearing white? What are washing machines there for? Watching a prequel that is objectively bad? How else would Georg Lucas financially survive?

“What do you like to do, when you’re not demolishing cinematic classics, Y/N?”, Taeyong asks after a while to end the silence.

You shrug. “Nothing much.”

“You like to read, right?”, he probes, trying to get a more sufficient answer. Well, wrong counterpart, seat stealer.

“It’s effortless and fun.”, you answer packing up your lunch box, signaling the end of this break. Sure, talking to Taeyong is exciting and refreshing. Talking about you makes you feel uneasy, like you are not enough of a subject to talk about.

“I like to swim.”, he says switching gear, not even contemplating packing up his sad remains of a sandwich. You look at his body, which is perfectly build for this sport. His shoulders are broad, his biceps defined. Taeyong is tall in general, his hands being extremly big.

“Isn’t the chlorine bad for your dye?”, you ask slightly judgmental about the red fire on his head. He groans flipping onto his back stretching his whole body on the lawn. His shirt rides up with the motion, revealing a tiny trail of hair, peaking out of his swim trunks. Oh my, you quickly look away, but the thoughts of where this trail leads stay with you and color your cheeks in a rosé blush.

“Don’t remind me.” His hands are in his hair, gripping it tightly. It seems like he is trying to rip it out. “I cannot believe I lost this bet.”, Taeyong adds and looks up at you. Ok, now you are judging hard.

“You dyed your hair because of a bet?”

“I was so sure I’d beat this guy at our last competition before summer break.”, he explains and continues telling you about his perfect swim record, slightly bragging, that it was a no-brainer to win the swim meet. That he absolutely would have, if it weren’t for his googles shifted in an awkward position, leaving him disoriented and his eyes irritated.

“So, the guy who won doesn’t like you very much.”, you conclude.

“Why would you say that?”, Taeyong asks and raises himself up, propping on his elbows.

“Because he chose that color.” The explanation is met with a lopsided grin.

“Nah, Tail is my best friend.” Who needs enemies when you have best friends like that?

“You don’t like it?”, Taeyong asks as he stands up, holding a hand out for you to take. Like so many other things you did today, this again feels easy. You put your hand in his warm palm and he pulls you up in one swift move. Taeyong doesn’t release your hand. He just puts yours into his hair. Who does that?

“Isn’t it soft?” This guy knows no boundaries.

[y/n 03:41 pm] this guy knows no boundaries [seugil 03:45 pm] cute guy is still there? lmfao [y/n 03:45 pm] he put my hand in his hair!! [seugil 03:50 pm] …seat stealer has guts [seugil 03:51 pm] how did it feel? [y/n 03:51 pm] burned like fire [seugil 03:54 pm] ? [seugil 03:54 pm] ? [seugil 03:54 pm] ? [seugil 03:55 pm] ? [seugil 03:55 pm] Y/N!! [y/n 03:55 pm] chill – his hair is flaming red, it’s a metaphor [seugil 03:58 pm] know only 1 boi with flames, snap a pic y/n [y/n 03:58 pm] after u lower me in my grave [seugil 03:58 pm] Y/N [seugil 03:58 pm] Y/N [seugil 03:59 pm] Y/N [seugil 03:59 pm] Y/N [y/n has sent a picture 04:20 pm]

“Did… did you just snap a picture of me?” He sounds incredulous and your blush automatically appears. Damn, damn, damn. With shyness you face him. His eyes are slightly narrowed, and you can’t make out if he’s mad or just impressed.

“No?” More a question than an answer, because you did exactly that. He leans over coming dangerously close.

After lunch you grabbed your adapter and the both of you sat at your prior seats. For the next hour both of you presented millennials at their best, you on your computer, him on his phone. But then Seugil had to be a pain. So, you awkwardly tried your luck. However your paparazzi skills are mediocre at best. Of course he’d noticed. In which universe does such a thing actually work?

“No?”, Taeyong repeats. Now he just sounds impressed by your blunt lie. You shake your head, too deep in this mess to come out unembarrassed.

His face is close, and you can again smell the fresh grass on his skin. The lunch break gave him a slight simmer, making this boy look seriously delicious.

“Let’s make a deal.”, he starts and points to your phone.

“Send me the picture,” over your dead body, “and I’ll never ask why you took it.”

Never? “You’ll never mention it?”, you ask with suspicion in your voice. Taeyong nods. “What it?”

“What’s your number?” He patiently dictates it and you save his contact, sending him the picture without a comment. Seugil’s reply pops up and you feel strangely defeated.

[seugil 04:24 pm] TY-TRACK TAEYONG!! omg omg call me asap when home!!

So, she knows your seat stealer. Taeyong told you that he lives in the city right next to yours. Therefore, the chances of your best friend knowing him were big – Seugil had dated Mark, presumably from the same school – last year. But you had somehow hoped that this seat stealer was yours. Now you are at a disadvantage again.

[Taeyong 04:25 pm] I look like the hottest man in the library

That day will end with an aneurism.

It didn’t. It ended with you leaving soon after the phone debacle with one contact more on your SD card, cute-boy-exposure for more than six hours, enough blushing to permanently damage your skin and a phone call with Seugil. So, Taeyong was not lying – he is wildly known for his swim talent. His gift to effortlessly flirt is legendary, especially given the fact that he never has a steady girlfriend. Not even a parade of flings. Either he silences them with an enchantment or this boy is all talks, no play. But just imagining it, you don’t think the second option is very possible. And it irks you how much that fact sours your mood when you try to go to sleep that night. There is no way in hell you’ll see this guy again. But even when you think that, somehow you know this is a lie. And you’re glad.

“You are really testing me, seat stealer.”, your stern voice is contradicted by your small smile.

But Taeyong moves over in one swift move, taking with him the almost empty cup of iced coffee.

“Just saving you your seat.”

You just shake your head and take your place right next to him. Today he wears a pastel green button-down shirt and jean shorts, hiding his red hair under a black cap. He looks like sin and it irks you how impressed you are and how your heart flutters uncomfortably.

“Yeah, because there are so many seat stealers waiting to make my summer miserable.”, you respond under your breath while firing up your laptop.

The next half hour is spent in silence. Taeyong is on his phone, while you are catching up on the last fanfiction updates. After years of reading and writing smut, you kind of got used to not reacting to fandom fluff in public. But still it feels exciting to read about cockwarming so dangerously close to him.

Just his presence makes your summer much more exciting, even though you would never admit it out loud. For the first time ever, you feel uncomfortable in a good way. Like you could actually manage to sit next to a ten and occasionally talk to it. You hear Taeyong’s moan before you feel his head drop on your shoulder. Your body reacts before your brain does and you title your head towards his. A few inches are separating your lips and you can't breathe.

"Look Y/N! Look at my friends enjoying themselves while I’m a slave of my own misery!", he proclaims and shoves his screen in your face.

There are five guys cramped together into one selfie. All of them with bare chests and shit eating grins. Two of them are holding suspicious bottles in their hands, while one of the guys is concentrating hard on the watermelon slice in his hand. The beach in the background is very familiar and you just continue to stare at the picture. The other option would be Taeyong’s lips. And your body isn't ready for that.

It’s the fifth day in a row this boy has graced your normal, slightly boring, day with his presents. You can officially say, that there is a crush building. And by official you mean that you are sure your intense blushing, the awkward silences after his flirty remarks and your hard to repress heart-eyes whenever he talks about something passionately, are a clear indicator for outsiders. And Taeyong. But he doesn’t tease you much. He talks to you, sometimes brushing his hand against yours, or like now, resting his head on you. This guy sure has some boundary issues and somehow, it’s not driving you away from him. No, you feel yourself moving forward.

Taeyong is a fixpoint for the next weeks, filling in for your best friend, who is still camping in the wilderness. You get to know the cute boy with an ego like Zeus, making it harder to disregard your crush on him. Now you’re again taking a break in the little garden of the library. The sun is hitting your skin hard today. Taeyong’s head is rested in your lap, his phone covering his face, while you lean against an old tree to block the sunshine. Like him, your cell is in front of you, as you see the invite.

[Mark Lee invited you to bonfire party this Friday] accept or decline?

Huh, you aren’t really that tight with Seugil’s ex, but you try not to scare people away that really try to make an effort. And they both parted on good terms, Seugil still sometimes going out to his parties, him sporadically joining our movie nights. This invitation though surprises you. He knows Seugil isn’t here, why asking you to come?

[seugil 02:32 pm] GO! [y/n 02:32 pm] are you stalking me on fb?? [seugil 02:33 pm] stalking, raising, loving – all the same! [y/n 02:33 pm] how boring is camp with fam? [seugil 02:33 pm] unbelievable [seugil 02:33 pm] go to the party [y/n 02:33 pm] why? [seugil 02:34 pm] u deserve to have fun [y/n 02:34 pm] and being alone @ a party is fun? [seugil 02:34 pm] sure seat stealer will be there [y/n 02:35 pm] not good enough

But then you look down and see Taeyong’s eyes. His phone is thrown away and his smile is directed at you. Warmth spreads around your body. Maybe good enough?

“I can just see your inner crisis not being able to claim a seat.”, a very familiar voice chips in your ear and there is an instant blush covering your hot cheeks.

So Taeyong is here. You slowly turn around and there he stands shirtlessly trying to kill your fragile heart. This crush is getting ridiculous. And this guy is just too damn attractive for his and your own good. Taeyong is wearing the same black swim trunks you first saw him in and nothing else. You can see his defined abs. It's no bodybuilder level, but just enough muscle to get your muscle clenched.

His sun kissed skin has a light glister and makes him shine. Taeyong looks like he stepped out of a beachwear ad. You are now just blankly starring at him, but not in the eyes like a normal person. No, your stare is directed at his stomach, then his arms, the lanky bicep and then his fully displayed collarbones. His long neck looks so bitable, you start to chew on your lower lip out of reflex. Then your view moves to his face, where you're met with a teasing smile.

“I'll-... manage.”, you chough out and shield your arms around your midriff. The black strappy summer dress you chose is hugging your figure a bit more than you'd normally tolerate, but summer is ending and you were 80% sure that you’d meet seat stealer here and you wanted to impress him.

“Let's get you a drink and me a refill, shall we?”, he answers and wows his index finger into the right shoulder strap of your dress tugging you lightly into the direction of the keg. Drinking with seat stealer isn’t exactly playing it safe. Not when you have this immense crush on him. And not when he so knows this.

Taeyong sees the hesitation on your face and cocks his head to the side.

“Or... we could discuss why you were just now shamelessly ogling me?”

“Lead the way.”

You see the victory in his smile as he moves his hand away from your shoulder and places it on your back. After all those weeks of physical contact with him, you're still surprised how much his touch does to you. Your heart is pounding fast as he leads you to the table, accompanied by bystanders curiously following the pair of you with their hushed gossip. Self-consciousness creeps up your bones. Do they think we are a couple? Are they judging you for even trying with someone like him? You avert your gaze and focus on the sand at your feet. It's less harmful to your insecurity. Sand doesn't judge you.

“You drink beer, right?” You just nod your head and he gives you a funny look.

“Why so quiet, library girl?”, he asks and fills your cups, placing one of them in your clammy hands. Before you can think of a snarky remark, that won't give away your fragile feelings while still getting him to shut up, you hear his name being called.

“Yo Tae, come back here!”

You turn around and spot a small group of guys sitting in a circle. The bonfire is not far away from them, but just far enough to give the boys an exclusive air around them. All the other guests, that are not swimming or dancing to the summer hits being jammed out of some boxes, are huddled around the big fire, lazily talking in soft voices.

“Thanks for getting me a drink, I'll just go and find my frie-”

“And bring Y/N with you!”, a familiar voice adds, and your eyes widen in shock. Mark? Just your luck, that the only other person you know is evidently a friend of Taeyong. Of course. More people stare at you and follow this exchange curiously. How embarrassing. Taeyong’s friends have the situation reading skills of a seagull.

“Come on, meet my friends, Y/N. Don't make me beg.”, he says and because you don't want to be the center of attention any longer, you crave.

“The guy with the silver hair is Ten, he's sitting next to Mark, who you seem to already know.”, Taeyong starts to murmur in your ear. His skin smells like grass again and it makes your mouth water.

“Lucas is the one closest to the chips – a deliberate choice. I have never seen a human eat so much. WinWin is leaning against him. He can't hold is liquor very well and we've been here since seven.”, he continues as you arrive at the circle.

There is an empty spot, presumably Taeyong's space. It's between WinWin and Ten and it's small. Before you can start your mental breakdown over this, seat stealer intervenes.

“Make room jackasses and let the lady have a seat. She sure likes her seats.” The last part is whispered just for your ears and you feel a shiver running down your spine.

You sit down as gracefully as possible with a drink in hand, wearing a dress and standing on sand. Taeyong follows swiftly, positioning himself dangerously close to you. His shoulder is touching yours and you can feel the warmth of his skin. Trying to control yourself, you take a big swing out of your red cup, wincing at the bitter taste of warm beer.

“I’m so glad you could make it, Y/N.”, Mark begins and winks in your direction.

Mark has always been easygoing, a jock without the teasing layer of bullying unpopular kids. When Seugil dated him last year, it was truly a miracle how well you fitted into their couple activities. They wanted to ride rollercoasters till they had to vomit? You were waiting for them, eating pinkish cotton floss, until you had to vomit. A boat trip? Count your single ass in with a thick book and enough sunscreen to give you a ghostish aura. Maybe your compatibility with the pair was the first sign, that although Mark and Seugil liked each other, they didn’t have the spark making your presence disruptive.

“I haven’t seen you all summer.”, he continues while stealing a chip out of Lucas’ hand, earning a slap in return. All the other boys are looking at you curiously, making you realize that you haven’t said a single word since joining them. You cough shily and respond with caution in your eyes.

“You know me, outdoors isn’t my preferred setting.” “So you’re saying Y/N”, Taeyong starts a lopsided smile dangling close to your face, “your preferred setting is indoors with me?”

“Let’s say indoors, and you are an acceptable disadvantage.”, you answer, bringing the beer to your lips to get some much-needed distance from this boy. You hear a few oh burn from the guys and stare at Taeyong. To hold eye contact with him makes you tingle, the brown of his eyes so deep, you never want to stop staring. The air hums between your bodies, leaving you excited and your heart feeling alive.

“So, you’re library girl?”, WinWin asks and breaks the tension, takes a sip of his own drink while looking curiously at you.

Taeyong talks about you? To his friends? And he uses your nickname? Why? And more importantly, what does he talk to them about? Your crude – antisocial – behavior? Or the way your shoulders keep brushing against each other every time you show him a meme on your computer? Or your tendency to fall silent every time you feel too uncomfortable? Or how he shares his headphones with you, when you just have to listen to the new album of his favorite artist? Or the fact that you have a giant crush on him, which is basically written on your forehead with waterproof sharpie?

“I am?” The answer sounds more like a question, doubt clouding your voice as you look around the circle of his friends. WinWin seems to love your response, clapping his hands together. Clearly excited and clearly just as drunk as Taeyong said, because this boy forgot he holds the cup of beer in his hands, accidentally showering you in warm alcohol. You shrike, closing the distance to your seat stealer to avoid getting more liquid on your dress. Taeyong’s arm comes around you and he tries to twist you into his body, shielding you from the unwanted alcoholic shower. The smell of grass is insane this close to him, your nose stroking his collarbone, breathing in deeply as his upper body shakes with silent chuckle.

“What the hell man?”, he accuses his friend, his voice sounds muffled through your human cocoon.

“Sorr-… sorry. Damn.”, you hear WinWin trying to get up, “I’m just excited to meet the girl keeping you from us this whole summer.”

His words are slurred and laced heavily with alcohol, but you can understand the sentence clear as day. It just doesn’t make sense. You keeping him away? He has to be at the library, because of his failed finals. His mum, not you, forces him to be there every day. Is WinWin that drunk? But as the words leave his lips, your self-proclaimed shield, one second chuckling, goes stiff. You can hear the faint sound of the bonfire crackle behind you, but Taeyong is silent, suspiciously so. Your cheeks heat up, because there is obviously some inside knowledge you’re not prior to.

You peek at Taeyong, just seeing his pointy chin, so you squirm yourself out from under this boy to look him in the eyes. But his arms are stonily holding you in position, direct at his chest, his biceps more like steel bars than flesh.

“We’ll go clean up.”, he says curtly, standing with you in his arms, effortlessly lifting you up in one swift move.

“You’re not even dirty.”, Ten laughs while Taeyong takes long strikes away from his friends, putting growing distance between you and their drunken laughter. You sneak a last glance at them, seeing Mark’s grin, WinWin’s hand on your abandoned beer, Lucas’ face in the chips bag. They don’t care a bit that Taeyong basically manhandled you, half carrying you, half letting you hobble along with his long legs.

You try to scramble your thoughts into an order, which doesn’t sound insane. What the hell just happened? You are heading to the dark water in front of you, totally deserted from the few swimmers earlier. The waves crash against your bare feet and you shrike at the cold water touching your skin. He wouldn’t. No. He wouldn’t dare.

“Take your dress of, Y/N.”, he says, some laughter coming back into his voice while he snaps one of your shoulder straps away with his finger. This was a beach party. Of course you have a swimsuit under your dress. But this was an alibi choice, a deliberate decision to not look too out of place, while still never even considering to actually go for a swim. But you never imagined going to a party without your best friend, or sitting next to seat stealer and his friends, or how good his body felt pressed against you, and how alive you feel with his hand on your shoulder.

So, you take a leap as the both of you continue going into the water. The cold wet is already up to your knee, as you try to stop your feet from moving. You plant them into the sand and Taeyong does magically halt, looking at you, searching your face.

“You don’t have to.”, he breathes gloomily, taking his hand from your shoulder. You must be insane, but that he actually gives you the option to back out of whatever this is, makes you adventurous, as your fingers grab the hem of your black dress, pulling it over you head in one single motion.

Now you are standing in front of your crush in a dark red one-piece suit, which modestly covers most of your body. With shaking hands, because the water is freaking cold, not because you’re just the bravest you’d ever been, you wad the piece of clothing into a ball, giving it to a stunned Taeyong.

“Let’s not even pretend I can throw that far.”, you joke, your voice abnormal high due to the anxiety cursing through your veins. The only answer from your crush is a single toss, sending the item safely onto dry sand. So, at least something is safe in this scenario.

Taeyong’s eyes burn into your skin as the both of you slowly begin your ascend through the deep water. The ocean soon closes in around your bodies, making you less self-conscious about your appearance. Taeyong leads, his back against the open sea, with his front never leaving your sight. Cold fingers dance hesitantly around your clothed waist as he stops, water just covering your hard nipples.

Before he can speak or do anything to silence you, you try to make sense of WinWin’s comment, the remark still fresh in your memory.

“When is your make-up exam?”, you ask with a heavy layer of accusation. Somehow knowing the answer, before Taeyong confirms your suspicion.

“Two weeks ago.”

“Why?”, you whisper, while his hands now rest confidently on your waist.

“Because I like you, library girl.”, he confesses and closes the distance between your bodies.

“How much?”, you whisper and let your fingers hold onto his biceps for support.

“That much that I spend the last two weeks in a library.”, he chuckles confidently and leans down, letting his nose bump into yours.

His breath is visible due to the cold evening air and you stare at his lips, now in plain view. How many times had you dreamt about this? Him? Like that? Before the moment vanishes, Taeyongs lips drive onto yours.

They are warm and soft and fit perfectly on yours. Your mouth matches his intensity, as you feel his tongue tracing your bottom lip. With a soft whimper you let him in. His arms are around moving from your waist to your cheeks. Taeyong’s wet hands frame your face and title your head back.

Your bodies are pressed together, and your tongues explore each other in a heated banter. He tastes like beer and honey and you try to get closer to him. He moans, feeling your breast flushed against his bare chest.

No more distance, you think and touch every inch of skin. Your fingers brush against his abs, mapping out the muscles and earning a deep growl from him. In a flash his hands are no longer on your face. Now they are firmly on your butt cheeks. You yelp in surprise as he lifts you up, guiding your legs around his waist.

The air is leaving you as you get drunk on this kiss, warmth arising in your core. Tayeong lets go of your mouth and moves his lips downwards to your neck, lightly sucking on your wet skin.

“How?”, you whimper, your brain no longer capable of the syntax.

“How what?”, Taeyong murmurs into your neck, never letting his lips leave your body.

“H- how can this feel so good?”, your voice is strained from a tension you have never felt before. Automatically you start to roll your hips and hope it will relieve this strain in your lower body.

“How can it no-… Y/N,” Taeyong’s groans, “you trying to unman me?”

His hands try to still your motions, but then he snaps, buckling into you.

“Ah”, breathlessly you encourage him. This is fast. This is not playing it safe. Your lips are on his and you try to consume him. Taeyong’s hands move from your butt to your hips, assisting your hips and fastening their speed. It feels like the water is boiling as one hand reaches between you two. He uses two fingers and lays them directly against your clit.

“Ahh” Too much pressure, just enough, never enough.

“P-pplease.”, you beg. “Shit”, he starts to move them in sloppy circles. You continue to grind against him, now feeling a hard length press against your slit. The moan out of your seat stealer’s lips sounds desperate as you rub against him. It feels so good, even through his trunks can you feel his cock twitch and it makes you so hot, you’re certain the water around you is boiling.

“Never stop”, you whisper and find a rhythm. The tension continues to build. “You feel so good wrapped around me” His words are spoken against your mouth, trailing wet kisses across your jaw, finding their purpose on your collarbone. Taeyong’s fingers move the fabric of your swimsuit away to touch your clit without any barrier. You flex your legs instantly, overwhelmed by the electric current running through your body, making your skin tingle.

Then his teeth sink in your neck at the same time his index finger moves between your folds. All thought is lost as you scream silently buckling franticly against him. You see light flash behind your eyelids as an orgasm rips through you. Never had your own fingers managed to give you this high. Your hips draw lazy circle around his length as you are trying to regain control.

“Wow”, you breathe, and your hands roam around Taeyong’s upper body, who still lightly nibbles on your collarbone. He chuckles against your wet skin.

“How you feeling, Y/N?”, he asks and moves his hand away from your heat, up to cradle your cheek. You look into Taeyong’s eyes and see a fondness in them, that shines through the darkness of this night. He looks as smitten as you feel. But at the same time there is a hunger in his stare that reminds you of his hard erection still pressed into your lower body. Now your shyness comes out in full force. What to do? What to say? Everything up to this point felt as natural as breathing, now you’re again overwhelmed, and your mushed, orgasm-high brain is no help either.

“You want me to..?”, you question and try to sound seductive, your hand vaguely motioning to his crotch underwater. Taeyong just shakes his head, letting small waterdrops rain from his wet red hair. Before you can feel rejected, he kisses you openmouthed, making you forget the slight pain of the mark on your neck.

“Please, if I don’t get my first handjob from you in the reading room of our library, my dirty fantasies would never forgive me.”, he answers warming your heart more than his gifted orgasm beforehand.

[seugil 11:38 pm] Y/N WHY ARE YOU WET ON EVERY SINGLY TAGGED PIC OF THIS PARTY?? [seugil 11:38 pm] AND WHAT IS THAT ON YOUR NECK? [y/n 11:42 pm] anD WhAt iS tHaT oN yOuR nEcK?

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hbwidfimoufq-blog · 6 years ago

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outhereontheprairie · 6 years ago

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Streeter SDA Church

I’ve waited a very long time to write this post. Mainly because the first time I wrote it, when I was almost finished, tumblr malfunctioned and I lost all the writing. So today I’m going to try and recreate everything I wrote. This place is precious to me, and I want to do it justice. This place is the Streeter SDA church in North Dakota. And it’s empty now. But when I was a child it was home to one of my favorite summer activities - Vacation Bible School. The old fashioned way.

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In my wanderings, I’ve often wondered what it would be like to come upon an abandoned place that I once knew when it was not abandoned. And when I saw the Streeter church for the first time in many, many years back in May of 2018 I suddenly knew that feeling. It’s not a joyful feeling. It’s melancholy and nostalgia and sadness. But I’m so glad I got to capture it before it fell apart.

When I was a child in the 90s, this church had a big VBS program. Even though it was way out in the country, kids who didn’t even belong to the church attended. And my mom drove brother and me all the way from Garrison ND each summer to take part. We stayed with our old family friends on their farm which was near to the church, and our moms both helped with the program.

I got to explore the old church, now closed for years, with my friend Bethany who also attended VBS with me when we were kids. Her dad helped us get in, and my dad came along too. I can’t thank them all enough for giving me this opportunity to photograph and remember.

It was startling to see the amount of decay on the building right off the bat. This little country church was always kept immaculate when I attended. There was so much pride in this little house of worship.

How many times did I skip through this door? Coming from playing red rover or the craft tent or going to the sanctuary or one of the classrooms...countless. But that day in 2018 I saw the toll time takes on empty buildings. It was sad.

First thing each morning we would arrive early to VBS because our moms were part of the program, lunch pails in hand. We took our lunches in old ice cream buckets. And we waited for VBS to start.

Our lunch pails went on the shelving below, and if it was a chilly prairie morning our jackets were hung on hangers on the bar below. The classrooms were to the right, tiny half bath straight ahead. Sanctuary to the left.

Through the door below was the sanctuary - which we will get to.

Here is one of the classrooms. Nice high ceilings. There were tables here and we worked on Bible workbooks and such.

Looking into the other classroom - there used to be a partition that could be pulled to separate the two rooms. Generally the younger kids went in one room and older kids in another.

I can’t believe the piano and nice large cupboards are still here. The nice old piano sits silent now, but I remember when it was used.

Looking back into the first classroom. you can see some of the ceiling has fallen onto the carpet. There’s a hole in the wall. Nature is making its way in.

Below is the tiny bathroom where we would line up to wash our hands before eating lunch out of our little ice cream lunch buckets. It was always very clean, kept so by ladies from the congregation. None that I knew were too proud for this job. And as VBS students we were taught to be respectful of everything and not dirty any room up too much.

Out this door we would go for lunch and sit on the front steps or in the grass to eat our lunches, carefully packed by our moms. There were always good sandwiches and veggies and if we were really lucky an oreo or two, or a small baggie of cheetos. For some reason eating out of those old ice cream buckets out in the fresh summer grass and sun made everything taste better. Lunch was hard won after a long morning doing VBS activities.

On a brief side note: our moms knew each other for ages and were room mates back in high school. So, while my dad always had to stay back in Garrison to work, my friend’s dad of course had to run the farm we stayed on so he was around. He also had known both of my parents and his wife since high school. They were all old friends. And his wife and my mom loved to play pranks on him. One day, they packed him a lunch because he would be out in the fields while we were at VBS. Instead of cheetos, they packed him packing peanuts that they colored with an orange marker. Which he ate. And then told them they must have expired! One of many pranks I remember the adults playing on each other. It was a fun environment to be in as a kid. And it made for some of the sweetest memories I have of childhood. Anyway, back to the church we go...

After lunch we would line up and go into the sanctuary. Older kids sat with older kids and younger with younger. I was startled to see, exploring it after it was empty, that the sanctuary had no more pews.

The pastor or another church volunteer would lead us in all kinds of fun kids songs. A favorite was “I just wanna be a sheep, ba ba ba ba...” until the older kids got carried away with the “I don’t wanna be a hypocrite” where you were supposed to lightly bump hips...they full on hip checked! Which of course I found hilarious but the adults, not so much.

Of course what I remember most is the music, and virtually none of the speaking. It’s just how my brain works. Other notable favorite songs (that I can remember) are “Do Lord”, “Deep and Wide”, “Zacchaeus”, “Give Me Oil in My Lamp”, “Father Abraham”, “This Little Light of Mine”, “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands”, “I’ve Got the Joy”, “The Wise Man Built His House Upon the Rock”, “My God is So Big”, “I’m in the Lord’s Army” - and many more my brain has long ago archived. I just remember we loved the upbeat songs and didn’t like the slower more reverent songs. Actually, it’s not that I didn’t like them but I more appreciated them in a formal, normal, church service instead of VBS which was for kids.

At the end of the week of VBS we would always have a big final program for everyone’s parents to attend and usually my dad drove down from Garrison to attend so it felt like a big deal. It was the same feeling I would later get being in a play and arriving at the first performance or practicing in a choir and the time for the concert being eminent. A great feeling, to me. Our craft projects would be displayed in the craft tent. Our workbooks and such would be displayed in the classrooms, and we would put on a final program in the sanctuary with all the songs, lessons, and verses we learned.

We would line up on this stage (and there were so many some of us would be off the stage) by age/class and sing our songs and recite our Bible verses. It was a thrilling feeling. Somewhere I’m sure our friends that live on the farm have a VHS tape of it. Maybe I can get my hands on it someday.

All of this came flooding back into my brain when I stepped in that quiet, empty sanctuary. Bittersweet. So bittersweet. Because if I ever have children, they will never know the joy of an old fashioned VBS. There is just nothing like it.

I also recall racing out of the sanctuary and out the front doors for recess time! That was a big deal, especially for a kid like me that had ADD. I loved to get out of the classroom and into the sunshine!

And most always it was a beautiful prairie summer outside! (I can only remember a few instances of cold and rain.)

This empty space in front of the church always had rows and rows of cars parked. Now it’s so quiet.

Around this side of the church is where we played our games! And the most memorable was Red Rover! We loved Red Rover. “Red rover, red rover send *NAME HERE* right over!” But the adults weren’t thrilled at how forcefully the older kids were playing the game when some of the little ones were involved so we couldn’t play Red Rover anymore. Which was a bummer. But we had all kinds of other fun games, some as simple as tag which was always a good time.

I could almost hear the children’s voices calling and laughing on that quiet spring day. I wondered if Bethany could feel it too. The memories were so close yet so far in the past at the same time.

Below, in the distance, was the church graveyard. When I had extra time at recess or lunch I would wander over there and look at the graves and names and wonder about the people. It’s something I still do - I’m drawn to graveyards and always wonder about the people buried there.

Below: this side of the church shows which way the weather comes from. The siding is slowly losing the white paint. You can see the roof isn’t in great shape either, anymore.

The fields were always close at hand to this little country church. They surrounded it on its little plot of prairie.

Below we have the space where the big old sturdy craft tent would go. Back then it felt like a big space. It’s where our moms worked most of the years, thinking up and executing crafts for the kids to do. And you know what? They were never the typical “let’s throw this away later” kid crafts either! They were always pretty or useful. We hot glued dried flowers to little colored glass vases and once we made a gingerbread man cork board with little tacks. All the crafts were always good and fun. I enjoyed craft time.

The craft tent is also where I remember huddling in front of a very old and questionable heater on the few occasions it was cold and rainy.

When we walked around this side of the church in 2018 we found pieces of the heavy old carpet they put down on the bottom of the craft tent. It was moldering away in the grass.

Below was a door we weren’t really allowed near because it lead to rooms behind the pulpit/stage that the pastor used. It’s funny what you remember.

I was surprised to find that the old church sign was still up, and readable, out in the prairie grass.

Perhaps someone should note that it’s closed now...

Thanks to Bethany’s mom, I have this old photo of what the church looked like back in its heyday, which was before even my time. It was such a modern little church, and clearly the partitioners were very proud of it. And look at those old cars and the fashions!

It was a bit painful to leave the old church. I do wonder if I’ll ever see it again. But I’m so thankful I got one last tour and one last chance to photograph it. I know it doesn’t look like some of the older little country churches with steeples and such, but it is beautiful to me and dear to my heart.

Long after the building is gone I’ll still have the memories of an old fashioned, country church VBS. They’re getting a little fuzzier as I get older, but these pictures and the old songs I can recall help me remember it all, at least a bit.

Thank you so much to Bethany and family for taking me through the church, to dad for coming along, and to our dear old friends the Millers for hosting us each summer when I was little and helping make the VBS program what it was just so one last generation of kids could experience VBS as it should be.

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#North Dakota #Streeter #Streeter Church #church #abandoned #abandoned church #country #country church #VBS

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ofcounseltech · 4 years ago

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The Endgame: Your Contact Page

Essential Web Pages: Part 2 of an Ongoing Series

We have already discussed the most "interesting" page on your site, the disclaimer (well, maybe just for those who enjoy legalese...but it really is important). But first, let's start with a pop quiz: What is the most important page on your site? The one with your beautiful face? Nope (even if your mother disagrees). Your Homepage? Well, first impressions are extremely important, but it's actually the last impression that I'm talking about. Think about this: What do you want to happen right after someone looks at your website? Update their Facebook status? Share a photo of them browsing your site? Get distracted with adorable cat videos? Or even spent a half hour following the links from your page to other sites that describe the history of the minutiae of the US Legal System? No, you want them to contact you! Right now! That's why the most important page on your site is the Contact Us page. It links the information on the site to the action of potential clients reaching out to you. It is the sole reason you are paying for your website. That is why it's today's topic.

Finding It

Before we even get to the elements of a well-constructed Contact Us page we should discuss the ease in which potential clients can find and access the Contact Us page. Simply put, links to your Contact page should be prominently visible in your website’s header and footer, which will then appear on every page as the user navigates through the site. We recently visited a legal website that contained a Contact Us link that was, literally, in an eight-point font, buried somewhere at the bottom of the Homepage and nowhere else. This is the exact opposite of what should be done. The Contact Us link should easily be found by using a different color text, a bold readable font, or a high visibility ‘button’.

Now that I’ve described how to link to the Contact Us page, let’s talk about the essential elements that should be in the page itself. And in case you haven’t guessed, it’s not just your phone number and email address, and in fact it’s not your personal cell phone number or your @gmail.com address.

Street Address or Mailing Address

If your firm has a physical address for its office space, it is important to give the full address: street number, street name, city, state, and zip code. Why so much detail? Simply put, we have become so reliant on our computers and our GPS tools that having a full complete physical address saves a huge amount of time and figuring out where we are going. There is a very high likelihood that any potential client coming to visit your office will be entering the address into a vehicle’s GPS and as we all know, the more detail, the better.

If you are working from a virtual office and are only there part time, or have chosen to have a physical mailing address, make sure you label these locations accordingly. You would hate to have a potential (or current) client show up at your ‘office’ address only to find themselves at a local UPS mailbox.

Include a Map

Along with the physical address, a map showing where the office is can be very helpful. Today with Google Maps, it is very easy to embed a specific address map image onto your Contact Us page and show where your office is located. This is especially important in any kind of large metropolitan area that has many different suburbs and towns surrounding a major city. A perfect example is the difference between an office located in Chicago, IL and in West Chicago, IL. Ask most people living in the Chicago area, and certainly people living outside of Chicago, and most people would assume that West Chicago borders on the west side of the City of Chicago. In fact, West Chicago is about a one hour drive on a good day, 40 miles west of The Loop and there are literally ten towns in between the two. Simply listing “West Chicago” with no map could be very misleading.

Phone

Having your phone number on your Contact Us page seems pretty obvious, but you might want to give some thought to specifically what phone number is being published. If your office is large enough that it has a general number answered by a receptionist or answering service, this is the obvious choice. Potential new clients can call this number and be directed to the specific attorney that might handle the specific legal issue. Just make sure that the receptionist or answering service has an idea of what the general fields of practice are in the firm and who normally handles each of those matters.

Some law firms will post the direct phone numbers for each individual attorney on the Bio or About Us page. This practice is workable, but sometimes may not be in the best interest of the attorneys themselves. Without any kind of buffer (a general ‘front desk’ number) between the outside world and the individual attorneys, these attorneys may find themselves fielding oddball questions, random salespeople, and other outside contacts that, to be honest, can become a massive waste of time.

As a sole practitioner, it may be tempting to post your cell number to allow potential clients to contact you directly. This is just an open invitation for spam callers, crazy inquiries, and unwanted access at odd hours. Services such as Google Voice can inexpensively create a valid secondary phone number which can serve as a buffer. Calls to this buffer number can be identified through caller ID, restricted to only ring between certain hours, and be forwarded immediately to voicemail to be reviewed later. Calls that are not filters are seamlessly forwarded to a number of your choice (smartphone or landline), with a caller ID tag indicating this is a call on the business line. This allows you to answer the call with your business name, rather than, “Yo, what up, dog?”

Text

Along the lines of the pitfalls of publishing a personal cell number, is the ability for outsiders to text to that number. In our experience, attorneys should keep their cell number and their text contact very close to the vest. Publishing this online, or sending it along with an email ‘signature’ becomes a dangerous proposition. As we all know, when anybody outside of your contact list sends you a text from an unknown number, there is typically no identifying information for that number (‘new phone - who dis?’). If you give someone your number and they are in your phonebook, then their texts will be identified, giving you some context. Having opposing counsel, potential new clients, or sales people just send random texts with no real contact context, or specific return content information, can become onerous at best and dangerous at worst.

Submission Form

It is very common to see a submission form on Contact Us pages. These are the fill in the blanks form that ask for things like Name, Email, Phone, and Comment or Question. This is a simple way for potential clients, or anybody on the outside, to make an online inquiry to your firm. These forms are typically ‘connected’ to a firm email and can then be assessed and the proper response can be formulated.

With a submission box, the potential new client will fill out the form and then hit the ‘Submit’ button. After they submit their information they will usually get some kind of message such as ‘Thank you for your submission’ or ‘Your inquiry has been received’. Rarely, but sometimes, a potential client or visitor to your site may be hesitant to use the form because they may feel like they really don't know who their inquiry went to, if it went at all, should they expect a reply, and who would that reply come from. Or they might want a record of what exactly they wrote to you in their own Sent Mail folder. If the user is uncomfortable with this type of submission, or wants to feel that they have a little more control over where and when that message was sent, Email may work better.

Your Contact Us page should include an all-purpose email address such as [email protected] or [email protected]. This email should be checked daily for any kind of incoming potential new client inquiry. It is easy to set up an all purpose email address that can be sent to one particular person or multiple people in your firm. Having multiple people see the email may speed up the reply time, but just make sure that some kind of ‘response protocol’ is in place to let everyone on the chain know the response has been sent. This will assure that there are not multiple responses being sent. This not only avoids conflicting responses, but avoids wasting time.

Social Media

If the firm has established a social media presence through Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or YouTube, the Contact Us page is a perfect place to prominently display links to those specific social media outlets. If you are spending the time and effort to create content for your social media, you should certainly be pushing your web visitors to those sites so they can become followers.

Live Chat

More and more we are seeing firms that are using the ‘live chat’ services to encourage clients to contact them directly for some kind of real-time conversation. This works well only if the person on the chat side is reliable and you are willing to have that person hand out legal advice or legal guidance. If the live chat is just a glorified message taker, you might as well save the money and use a submission box or direct email and let the client directly contact the firm with these methods. More than likely if a person signs into a live chat, they are looking for an answer to a specific legal question at that moment. Unless the attorneys in your firm are fielding these inquiries 24/7, having some kind of non-lawyer operator handing out advice, or telling the client what ‘they would do’ is a huge mistake. It looks impressive to have this service tied to your site, but for solo and small practices, upsides rarely outweigh the downsides.

Hours

And finally, it's probably a pretty good idea to post your hours. If anything, just give potential clients a realistic expectation of when they hear me hear back from you and understand that if they are leaving a message at 10 p.m., don't expect to hear back until 8:30 the next morning or more likely the next business day.

While it may seem like little more than an afterthought for obvious information that a potential client could just look up themselves, the Contact Us page plays a key role in your website. Its elements all serve to encourage and enable potential clients to reach out, using whatever is best for them, and take the next step towards becoming your next, new client.

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riserr1 · 5 years ago

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Stay Relevant: 14 Proven Ways to Boost Your Local SEO Marketing

If you’re lazy with your local SEO, you’ll drift behind your competition, and you won’t even notice it. Today’s business climate is nothing but cut-throat competition, regardless of the niche. To make a name for your brand, you’ll need to have both general and local SEO on lock.

Local SEO is especially crucial for local brick and mortar businesses functioning at a regional level. This describes most of the small and medium enterprises and startups. However, businesses, both large and small, could do with a robust local SEO campaign.

Unfortunately, for startups and small businesses, improving their local SEO is easier said than done. However, with the right tips and enough commitment, you’ll have local SEO down pat in no time. Regardless of your business type or size, local SEO is something you can hack.

This post will highlight a few techniques you should adopt to boost your local SEO. That way, you can leverage the correct local SEO technique to take your SEO for business to the next level.

1. Increase Your Local Coverage

Enhancing your local coverage is a breeze if you live in a close-knit company. All you have to do is liaise with a few local journalists or radio stations to give you some airtime. This coverage will help get the word out about your brand, but it comes at a price.

In most cases, you’ll have to pay for this coverage, but it’s worth every penny. Most of these journalists or news sites will backlink to your site. Backlinks to your site are great for your SERP ranking.

2. “Localize” Your Content

Make sure your content focuses on the local community and events around the region. There’s no better way to build rapport with local customers than showing you’re one of them. However, make sure your content also revolves around your business or at least your niche.

If you want to “localize” your content, here’s how you do so:-

Have your content promote local causes like charities or fundraisers

Have your blog posts speak about local events, news, or people of interest

Consider location-specific pages if you’re handling customers from a broad region

These are just a few ways you can localize your content to attract the local audience. As long as your content has a local feel to it, you’re good to go.

3. Don’t Overlook Local Keywords

You probably know how important keywords are for your general SEO. The same applies to local SEO; only this time, the focus is on local keywords. How do I know these local keywords?

Glad you asked; you don’t have to start guessing local keywords and hoping they convert. You can use Google keyword planner to get the right keywords for your local audience.Use the local keywords strategically for the greatest effect.

These keywords should appear on your meta content, URLs, and copy. To kick it up a notch, you can also include in-post references for landmarks or visitor hotspots. Doing so gives your local SEO a considerable boost.

4. Make Sure You Have Your Title and Description on Lock

Unfortunately, you don’t have too much space on the search engine results page. With that in mind, you need to make the most of the tiny space to get your marketing message across.

To use that space wisely makes sure you:-

The title and description promotes your brand

Steer clear from generic terms that aren’t related to your business

It captures what your business entails

The title and description are where you get your potential customer interested. It’s the first impression any visitor or potential customer gets about your business. If you want to make a good first impression, make sure you have the title and description down pat.

5. Create a Google My Business Profile

Google My Business or GMB is a tool by Google for businesses to manage their online presence. It’s free to use and is a great way to tell your customers about your location and more information about your business. Yes, you can think of GMB as an online directory.

You have to go through a strict verification process before you get on GMB. That’s the only way Google can tell it’s registering a legitimate business. After that, you’ll add more information about your company, including location, description, and the likes.

Only the official business owner can register a particular business on GMB. This is a job you can’t delegate to your staff unless you’re willing to give up crucial personal details. Registering on GMB can do wonders for your local SEO.

6. Optimize for Voice Search

It’s the 21sy century, and people no longer have to key in words for their internet searches. Nowadays, all you have to do is speak into the mic what you’re looking for, and voila, you get your results. You’ll need to optimize for voice search to get a fighting chance with voice search results.

To do so, you’ll have to clamp down on how customers ask questions and how they make their requests. With voice search, customers normally use long keywords because they don’t have to type everything. That’s why you need to change your SEO content to match the conversational tone most people use.

Keep in mind that voice searches are based on intent. Most users use voice search when they want quick responses to their queries. That means you should be ready with the answers when your customers pose their questions.

Optimizing for voice search can be a tad challenging, especially for newer companies. It’s a great idea to get some professional help for your voice search optimization. That way, you can get the most out of voice searches.

7. Don’t Overlook Your Mobile Site

Often, we’re too busy with our PC sites that we forget all about the mobile one. Unfortunately, doing so could hurt your local SEO and your search engine results page ranking, by extension. What’s more, you’ll be missing out on a vast demographic of smartphone users.

The average person spends about three hours and fifteen minutes on the phone each day. According to Techcrunch, more than 6.1 billion people around the world are proud smartphone owners. These statistics should be enough to make you keener about your mobile site.

When it comes to your mobile site, your primary concern should be the site’s responsiveness. Later, you can worry about the design and the interface. Here are a couple of ways you can make the site more responsive.

Make sure your interface is bug-free

Make sure your site takes no more than four seconds to load

Only use relevant pictures for your site

Make sure your fonts are large enough to be readable

If you don’t have a mobile site, you should get one as soon as possible or ask the pros for help. There’s a lot you’re missing on. Once you get your mobile site up and running, don’t forget to do the above to make it responsive.

8. Get Customer and Client Reviews

Reviews are a great way to show potential customers what you offer and the quality of your products and services. Reviews also boost your local SEO, especially if you have a GMB profile.

It’s a bummer that not many customers are willing to leave reviews. However, there are ways you can persuade them to do precisely that. If you want to get reviews from your customers, you can:-

Send emails or texts requesting them for their reviews or personal opinions

React to all the current reviews and act on any negative ones to address the issue

Demand a summary after you complete every transaction

These are just a few ways you can get your customers or clients to review your business. Reviews not only boost your local SEO, but they also attract potential clients to your business.

9. Use Schema Markup

Schema markup is a special code that helps search engines get more informative results from your website. It’s the perfect way to get an edge over your competitors because not a lot of people know about schema markup.

However, using schema markup isn’t a DIY job; Unless you’re a web developer, you’ll need some help using schema markup on your site. However, it’s a one-time process, and you’ll be good to go for as long as your type of website is on the internet.

10. Have Citations From Different Non-Competing Sites

You have to establish your name on cyberspace to rise in SERP rankings. One of the best ways is by getting citations from as many aggregate business sites as you can. Yext and Factual are great examples of such sites, but many more can do your bidding.

Citations are listings of your business name, phone number, and additional contact information on other sites. If you get citations from local business sites and other sites, your online presence boosts your SEO.

However, make sure you get citations from reputable sites for the citations to actually impact your SERP ranking. For some authority sites, you might have to pay for citation, but with most business sites, it’s free.

11. Add a Virtual Tour

If you really want to up the ante, then add a virtual tour to your site. As the name suggests, a virtual tour is just like a normal tour, but you don’t have to leave your desk or couch. Virtual tours are a great way to show your visitors what you have to offer.

What’s more, with the roll-out of 5G coming soon, these virtual tours should be seamless. Plus, virtual tours are straightforward to set up with our smartphone cameras becoming more powerful as time goes by. Add a virtual tour to your site and make sure you post the link to it on your social media.

Add your virtual tour to your GMB to boost your local SEO even more. Add a virtual tour today and give your visitors a peek under the curtain.

12. Make Sure You Get the Tags Too

Tags are a great way to boost your SEO and increase your SERP ranking. However, to make the most out of tags, make sure you take your time with them. Hold meetings with your staff and teams and find out the best tags you can use for your site.

On your Google My Business account, look for the “about me” section. You’ll find a place for tags there. You can list all the relevant keywords and tags you want in that section. Make sure you get all of them, because a single tag may make a significant difference.

Creating tags is easy, but make sure you don’t do it in a hurry. Make sure you get as many relevant tags as you can for the best result.

13. Embrace Content Marketing

The ill-conceived notion that content marketing is only for large sites is, well, ill-conceived. Content marketing is still as effective for local businesses and maybe even more effective. If you want to get more local traffic, then content marketing is the way to go.

To capture the right audience, make sure your content centers on your niches. Also, make sure your content adds value to your target audience. “How to” articles are great or have content that aims to answer questions our customers frequently ask.

14. Get Backlinks From Other Local Businesses

Backlinks are a great way to promote your brand and also boost your local SEO. Backlinks are links on other business sites that lead straight to your products. There are plenty of businesses you can approach for backlinks.

For a classic win-win scenario, offer to backlink any business that backlinks yours. Proper backlinking is crucial for your brand’s marketing and local SEO too.

Boosting Your Local SEO Is a Breeze

With the above SEO tips, boosting your local SEO should be a walk in the park. However, it takes a lot of commitment and sacrifice to rank high on SERPs. Remember, you’re never too good for a bit of professional help.

Help with your local SEO is just a click away. Contact us today, and we’ll sort you out.

from Riserr Marketing https://riserr.com/stay-relevant-14-proven-ways-to-boost-your-local-seo-marketing/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=stay-relevant-14-proven-ways-to-boost-your-local-seo-marketing

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blueheartedmayor · 5 years ago

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I have big big troubles finding new rp partners which causes me to be nearly inactive because I don't have anyone to roleplay with. Searching through tumblr is impossible for active blogs. And if I find someone, they're mutuals only, and I don't know how to interact with those. And many I find also don't want new partners. It always feels like its my fault for not finding new partners

OOC: Sorry about the sorta late reply. I’ve been making icons since yesterday.

I agree. Searching any of the tags is absolutely pointless. I can only speak for this fandom but... Boy are things quieter than they used to be. It’s gotten to the point where some people (myself included) actually stop sharing their own promos because there’s barely anyone to find from that (If anything, I think my last reblog of my promo got more attention from non-roleplaying blogs). On top of that, activity on blogs that are around vary immensely. Because there are fewer options than there were when I started, it’s easy to feel like you’re doing something wrong. I assure you, it’s not the case at all.

You are right about a lot of blogs being more closed off than they used to be, and I do get the reasoning for that. But like you said, it makes it hard for people trying to find their place. I can’t give you guaranteed advice that will bring about success, but I can try and share some ideas.

I know I’ve mentioned before about checking rules pages. Some people might have it that they’re mutuals only by default, but their asks are open for anyone. If that’s the case, I definitely recommend giving it a try. While it can work as an ice-breaker, it’s also a good way to show the blog you exist, especially if, like me, you run side-blogs.

With that in mind, check your own blog and make sure things are accessible and readable. If someone I don’t recognise follows a blog of mine, I’ll usually click through and check theirs out. Now, before you start stressing, I absolutely don’t mean to go build a custom theme with unique photoshopped whatevers. You’re talking to the mun who literally uses the same theme on three different sideblogs but in different colours. Going by personal experience of checking blogs on app and on a laptop, you should instead focus on the following:

Content: Is your information accessible? Do you have a page or post giving information about your muse, and if so, can they be found easily? Common sense things, really, but I’ve seen blogs over the years that either omit this entirely, or make it very difficult to find.

Sample of writing: Not in terms of how active you are. A few months ago, I was checking out a blog on my phone. I had to scroll for nearly ten minutes on a blog before I could find an actual writing sample from a thread. It’s perfectly okay to have memes and related images on your blog (again, I do it regularly), but be sure they’re not hiding your writing. Use the queue to play it safe.

Silly things, I know, but if you make the first move to follow a mutuals only blog, you wanna give yourself the best chance so they will follow back. I wanna compare it to an artist in a convention’s artist alley setting up their stall. You have to have everything looking just right to draw people in, right?

On the topic of writing, I noticed you mention how you’re not active because of this problem. Perhaps you could channel your creative frustration into short drabbles or monologues? It would be a good way to vent and to make sure you don’t get too rusty.

Another option is to consider crossovers with other fandoms. For example, I have a side-step verse where Damien is Mayor of Ha.llowe’en Town from the Nig.htmare Before Chris.tmas due to a mix-up. It’s also a fun challenge to see how your character might adapt to a different world, whether due to being thrown there, or having lived there instead of their normal world.

Admittedly, the fandom as a whole needs a little kick and some positive encouragement to open up a little more. Myself and some others had hoped Heist would bring some new people in, but it didn’t really work in the way we had expected. It’s a problem I’m not entirely sure how to fix, and I’m sure it’s not even something I myself can ‘fix’ since I’m not any sort of important voice. But I will say this. If you currently do have partners, appreciate and cherish them. They are the ones that will stick by you no matter what.

I am sorry you’ve been hit with that awful feeling, despite trying your hardest. That’s the part you should make sure to remind yourself of: you are trying. It would be a different case if you were waiting for everyone to find you while you make no effort. Things might seem bleak, but time can do some good things. When I started, there were some blogs I was terrified of interacting with. Like you, I had no idea how I was supposed to approach and interact (especially with me harbouring a fear of being blocked if I made a wrong move). It took time, but the right little connections happened, circles meshed together so I appeared on their dash, and I was eventually noticed by them. That’s why I suggested to make sure you have the necessary information accessible. Any decent person won’t mind whether you have a fancy theme, use icons of any sort, or format your writing. At the end of the day, we’re writing together, and that ought to be what matters when looking at your blog.

...

I realise this is probably me blathering on about nothing, but I hope something in this helped. Like I said, I’m not really a big voice or a popular blog, so I don’t really have solid advice. Keep your chin up and take it one day at a time. I believe in you!!

PS. Just as I was proof-reading this, I remembered that some of the people I got to know over time were through Di.scord groups. While a server can be a great way to break the ice.... I’m not sure I’d recommend setting one up in the hopes of inviting people in. The one that springs to mind first descended into drama that I’m still not sure of and was ultimately deleted when I was asleep. Now I think about it, most of those people either hopped fandoms or went on hiatus... I hope they’re doing okay.

PPS. Another idea. Would checking out people your partners write with be an idea? I always imagine a rp blog to be like a circle, and by interacting with others, you can link to their circle and see their connections. That way, the third person might have experience of you from seeing you on their dash!

#why Ash doesn't run a r.ph blog #and why Ash shouldn't be a rolemodel as a whole #I also recommend not doing what I do and make sure not to lose track of people #there are people I wrote with that I still love to see on my dash but I've lost track of stuff we wrote and I never get around to actually #Anonymous

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amandasmith03 · 5 years ago

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Out Shine The Competition With These Lynchburg SEO Agencies Strategies

If you do careful research, you can use this powerful set of tools to increase your site’s traffic and improve your business.

Pay-per-click approaches can be a lucrative strategy in affiliate marketing tactic. This is the simplest affiliate program to implement, so the pay is modest, but it can rapidly build up.

Search Engine

To help to keep your website visitors interest, you need to make sure that your website’s content does that. A big part of SEO is actually getting people to not only come back to your site time and again, but also spend extended amounts of time on your pages. These kinds of things are what it takes to get success.

You need to put some thought into the anchor your text you use for internal website links. Using generic anchor text like “click here” is not going to help your search engine rankings because it is too generic.Using the right keywords as anchor text is another way to earn brownie points with search engine spiders.

When designing your website, keep in mind that search engine spiders cannot decipher dynamic language and session id names such as /page_id=59. This makes it harder for search engines to find your website, so be mindful and establish relevant names for all your URLs.

Use descriptive title tags to ensure that the search engines can easily find and read your website’s content. Your title tag should be 60 characters or less, as this is the limit of the majority of search engines. They also give less importance to terms at that point.

When you link your site you need a viable anchor tag. Not using proper keywords in your anchor text will harm your ratings in search rankings. It is vital you use the correct keywords, since anchor text allows crawling spiders to notice you.

Try to include a transcript for videos or audio you post to your site.

Many believe that simply including keywords in their comment tags will make a more visible site.

Proofreading is something that is often forgotten, but it usually is neglected. Make certain that your website is readable by both human visitors and machine.

Use header tags on your website. They can be a bit too big sometimes, but use CSS and change their size. It’s important to use headers because search engines use them in website rankings. Use different tags – like H1 or H2 – to emphasize your products and services.

You will help your Search Engine Optimization a boost by using off-site linking to reputable sites. This is a very important part to linking. Search engines value more heavily off-site linking to valid information than to internal links to a site’s own pages. Look for available link exchange options also, so your ranking and your traffic can increase.

Don’t make a wall of links on a page. Blend them in with the content.Pages filled with only links tend to be ranked poorly by search engines don’t rank them highly.

Make sure that your search engine optimization.While you will need to include important keywords that the bots are looking for, they are not the ones making the purchases, so you can optimize the content afterwards. The site should be simple to read. You will fail if it’s not.

Product feeds are an excellent tool for boosting traffic, increasing your online presence, and expanding your customer base. Such feeds provide detailed information about your offerings, such as pictures, descriptions and prices. The best places to submit are shopper comparison sites and the major search engines. Let customers have the option of using a feed reader to follow your feed as well.

Use specific commands that result in relevant results.

Search engine optimization requires patience and you might be slow to see results. It is normal for you to expect to see quick results right away for your Lynchburg SEO Marketing strategy. You must understand that creating a presence online takes dedication and dedication.

Use one of the many online tools available that will analyze your information. The only information you want to view are “301 Moved Permanently and 200 OK when checking the status.

Once you decide on your keyword or key phrase, include it in the title of your webpage. The first impression of your site is generated by the title, so choose it with care. This ensures that you get hits based on keywords and search results.

Search engine optimization — or SEO Marketing — is simply a core online marketing concept. You use keywords or phrases somewhere in your content in a specific way that will generate higher search engine rankings. This will result in more people going to your site when they want.

Email marketing will give you an edge on your Local SEO journey. Use your keywords in the emails and include any social websites or bookmarks. Make sure visitors can easily forward for the reader.

Gateway Pages

Keep your focus to just one subject per page. You should only promote one product per page. This practice confuses customers, and as a result, they won’t return. Crafting a page that is concentrated on one topic is sure to generate more success.

Create various gateway pages which include your site and business. Gateway pages are a great way for you accomplish this.

If you have a company name, make sure the name of the corporation appears in the title tag of each page. People are not likely to search for your company by name unless it is truly well-known.

This will be helpful with search engine optimization.

Honest and accurate description tags are essential to draw visitors from search engines to your website. This will help improve your SEO. Don’t overdo it – 30 words at the most. The entire page should not be more than one hundred KB.

Include many keyword phrases throughout your site.This means you need to place them in image ALT tags and in the name of your visibility.Your site should always trace back to whatever keyword you are focused on.

If your site is mostly videos, it will be tough for you to rank as high in search results, even though they could have new and relevant content. To practice better SEO Agencies for videos, use a site map page that lists the videos.

There are tons of internet marketing businesses out there who charge high prices for sloppy work. Research former clients of these companies and read testimonials about what other people have to say about their testimonials; then evaluate these companies based on these reviews.You will be much more likely to be satisfied with your results.

Whenever your site is complete, your first step should always be to register it with all the major engines. Some folks think this is automatically done for them. However, it is not. Once registered, check back every once in a while to ensure your site is being ranked properly. It is important to know that the search engines do find your site, even though you might be showing up several pages back from the front page.

You should elect to have network analytics in place before you start optimizing your website. This allows you to identify which methods are effective and failure of your strategies.

For example, you could include a list of tips on how to select the particular product you are selling, or post a useful article about how to use it or how it has changed the lives of certain people.

Use search engine optimization to drive traffic to your website. Most folks have a goal of securing high ranks in free search engines to direct visitors to their page; this will keep traffic coming to your site.You can use a pay per click” engines to submit your listings quicker. This will cost you have to keep paying for. You will have to regulate bids and keep an eye on the finances if needed.

Adding captions to your page is a great optimization tool to add to your box. For example, if you have pictures on your website, insert captions that have keywords to draw people in.

The tips provided here should be used as a checklist for things you may have to fix on your own website. Apply the advice that has been given to improve the look of your website.

People don’t know how to find information about When it comes to SEO companies, you really should not be convinced your business’ Google ranking to someone who is not a Lynchburg SEO Expert. If you are reading this, you most likely are looking for someone who can aid you raise your organization’s online visibility, website traffic, and leads. online. Luckily, you have found an article that has good information to get you started. Now, all you have to do is use this article’s tips.

from https://mrphiltucker.com/out-shine-the-competition-with-these-lynchburg-seo-agencies-strategies/

from Mr Phil Tucker - Blog https://mrphiltucker1.weebly.com/blog/out-shine-the-competition-with-these-lynchburg-seo-agencies-strategies

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hbirauorrzfm-blog · 6 years ago

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Free Followers On Instagram Secrets

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psychic-refugee · 6 years ago

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Fanfiction Pet Peeves

These are just my opinions. I don’t name any specific author or story.

It seems like for the most part it is considered rude to post criticisms on fanfiction. I think as a community we’re trying to be more inclusive of all writing “styles.” I am a big believer in writing the story I want to tell, so I have to recognize that my style won’t be for everyone. I do think this is a positive direction, but I think it also cuts down on the responses/reviews people would get. I’m not opposed to it, but if this is what is considered the proper etiquette then we have to accept that we will not get as much feedback.

Now I know there is a difference between a criticism and a flame. I’m not saying we should allow flames.

I keep seeing all these posts about leaving a review, but I feel like we’re not giving them leeway to review. And sometimes, not leaving a review is a review. I always assume that if my hit count is higher than my review counts, then the difference are the people who didn’t like the story enough to review. Whether or not because they found it boring or hated it, that’s left a mystery.

I think with the advent of the “not beta read, all typos are my own” tag or warning, it’s basically telling the reader that they did some proof reading but for various reasons, they don’t have an editor basically. I think because fanfiction is a hobby for most of us, then it’s fair not to go that extra effort. Probably because I do it. lol. I try to get everything I can, but a few things always manage to slip by. So, most don’t take note or bother to mention typos unless it’s particularly egregious. The only exception I would make would be to writers whose first language isn’t English. I have come across stories where it’s clear there is something lost in translation and having a beta would be necessary.

E.g. a GOT fic where they called Gregor Clegane the “Enormity that Rides.” His nickname is the Mountain that Rides. I get that they maybe thought they were using a synonym, but in this instance, it doesn’t fit because Mountain that Rides is what he is known as, not necessarily a description.

I think it’s a fine line between something that is written well or poorly and personal taste.

There is just so much fanfiction out there, it’s hard to review them all. There have been many cases where I don’t even make it past the first chapter, the story just doesn’t interest me or there is something about it that is off putting.

Here are a few things that make me not want to read the story at all.

“I suck at summaries” and variations thereof: basically the author is bashing their own writing and they still want you to read. I don’t have time for that. If the author doesn’t have the confidence in writing a few sentences, I can’t imagine their actual writing being worthwhile. This is especially true for AO3 with its tagging system that can actually help give us an idea of what the story is about. There are thousands of fics written daily, I can’t read them all and this is part of the triage of me deciding to read something. The only time I may ignore this is if the OTP is exceptionally rare or the fandom is small. In those instances, I’m not as picky because I don’t have much to pick from.

I also wonder if it’s not some form of compliment fishing. Like they want you to feel bad for them for being insecure, and they want you to say “no, it’s great!” I have no patience for those type of people.

Overtagging: If a fic has a million tags, my eyes just skip over it. This usually isn’t a problem for normal stories, this usually happens because it’s part of an anthology. It just looks super obnoxious to me. I would rather they just start a new fic each time and tag accordingly. There are some who overtag, listing literally every character that may show up despite their actual contribution to the story. If a character is just kind of mentioned or seen in passing or is talked about as part of exposition, then I don’t think they need to be tagged. Character tagging is really for the main characters. If I’m looking for X and your story shows up, but X is just seen in one chapter and it’s not about them, then I’d be irritated. The same goes for any “Warning” tags. Over tagging just clutters everything up, and I personally can’t stand it.

I’m also not a fan of doing whole sentences as tags. “I wrote this when I should have been…” and variations of things that would do better in notes rather than tags. Like I’m never going to filter for whatever your inane excuse is for the writing the story in the first place. It’s just dumb, obnoxious, and unnecessary to me.

No proof reading: This is different than not beta read. There are some that outright admit that they haven’t proof read. Sometimes, they’ll say “I’ll get to it later,” which I don’t understand at all. It’s fanfiction, we do it for free. There are no actual deadlines, I don’t understand why they don’t proof read before they publish. Then there are those that say “not proof read” and leave it at that. I’d like to think I’m a decent writer, and my first couple of drafts are always pretty rough. Even with several rounds of proof reading, I still manage to miss things. Not even trying seems so lazy and arrogant. I feel like they’re giving me advanced warning to not bother.

What makes me stop reading after the first couple of chapters.

Format: If the format is off or makes it hard to read, I just can’t bother. There are writers who somehow are able to write on their mobile device. I don’t know if they just don’t have access to a computer, or perhaps don’t want to leave evidence of writing fanfiction. Either way, I respect that they have limited means, but I don’t want to read it. The worst is when they don’t put in hard returns, either for separate paragraphs or when writing dialog. Basically, they don’t include enough white space. Trying to keep track of where you are reading with a never-ending paragraph creates eye fatigue, and it takes away from enjoying the story.

Then there are writers who don’t use punctuation. There was one author that refused to use capital letters, ever. They cited E.E. Cummings as justification. Not only did I have a problem with this readability wise, the justification didn’t make sense to me. Like nothing about the story really spoke to me about using this particular syntax as a way of any meaningful expression. But that’s just my personal opinion.

Wiki Storytelling/Choppy writing: This happens when there are too many simple sentences, or the narrative feels like it’s just a summary. Like there’s little to no description of what the character was feeling or where they are. I’m not saying we all need to be G.R.R.M. or Tolkien, but I want more “meat” in my story than:

Mal was told to get the wand. Her three best friends went with her. They got into the limo, it was scary. They tried to steal the wand but set off the alarm.

This type of story telling is boring to me. I think we find this mostly with very young writers.

AUs of movies with no unique features: where the fandom characters replace the characters in movies and the writers basically rewrite more or less line by line what happened in the movie (e.g. Descendant’s characters in Legally Blonde). I feel like I could save time if they just told me “X movie but with Y actors.” Not only do I feel it’s a waste of time to read it, I would think it was a waste of time to write it. Like assuming we’ve seen the movie, we know what happens. If the replacement characters do nothing to add or alter the movie, then I don’t see a point of the story.

Anyone have any fanfiction pet peeves?

#fanfiction #pet peeves #opinion

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craftsguide · 6 years ago

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Creating Quality Content in 2019 (For Search Engines and People)

New Post has been published on https://craftsguideto.com/awesome/creating-quality-content-in-2019-for-search-engines-and-people/

Creating Quality Content in 2019 (For Search Engines and People)

Posted by jchamp8 6

Think back to the last question you typed into Google. Did you find a blog post on the search engine result page that attracted your attention? Did you find the content on the page helpful? Did the page offer a relevant next step to continue learning and engaging with your brand?

If you answered “yes” to all of these questions, then the writer who wrote this piece of content did their job very well: They created a piece of content that fulfilled your intent. In 2019, that’s what search engines like Google care about — solving for their searcher’s intent.

Read on to learn how to solve for searcher intent to create successful, quality content that makes people( and Google) happy.

Effective content comes with a blueprint

Before we dive in, you may be asking yourself: “How do I solve for searcher intent? ”

You can start by creating an experience for website visitors that tells a practical tale. That story should educate and inspire them to make a transformation and set the best interests and needs above your bottom line. Yes, you want to inform your visitors, but doing that alone is not enough. To really help them transform, you required to make their experience a meaningful one, and that means you need to help them apply what they’re learning. When done correctly this constructs trust, and if someone trusts you they’re most likely to do business with you when they’re ready to make a purchasing decision. This is effective content.

Luckily, all effective content like this has a blueprint. You may not easily see it, but it’s there, and it’s meant to help you, the reader, through your journey to making a well-informed, confident decision– whatever that decision may be.

When getting started with creating blog content, you want readers to easily comprehend what it is you’re trying to tell them. If your content is too complicated and unengaging, then chances are readers will abandon it and run elsewhere. There are thousands of blog posts being published every minute, so it’s safe to say you’re not the only resource out there competing for attention.

Let’s review 10 tips that will help you start drafting a successful blueprint for your next blog post.

1. Choose a topic to write about

At a high level, write educational content.

I’m not saying you can’t write about your business when it attain sense, but in order to attract someone to your blog, you need to answer the questions and problems that they’re searching for answers to. Put yourself in the shoes of your audience( aka buyer personas ):

What will they be searching for? What do they want to know about? What will resonate with them?

Consider what you know about your buyer personas and their interests while you’re coming up with a topic for your blog post.

And when it comes to a topic, make sure to write about your industry, not yourself. Remember, you’re trying to attract strangers to your blog who have never heard of your company before — so they’re not knows where to find you through search engines if you’re just blogging about yourself. You have the rest of your website to provide that information.

If you’re looking for a place to start with creating content that’ll positively impact your audience, then ask your co-workers from other squads like sales and services for some notions. Here are a few questions that you were able to ask and they could answer :P TAGEND

What are the most frequently asked questions you hear? What do our prospects and customers need help with? What do you wish people knew about our industry? What are industry bloggers, social media, and even our competitors talking about?

Before you write anything, you need to pick a topic to write about. The topic is also available pretty general to start with. For example, if you provide running shoes, then it might be a good idea to write about the topic of running. Expand off of this topic — in other words, iterations or different ways of approaching that topic to assist you in focus your write. For example, you might decide to constrict your topic to “best running shoes for marathons” or “lifetime of running shoes.”

2. Do keyword research

Keywords are the words and phrases typed into search engines. They’re the topics that people are trying to learn more about. Which keywords do your purchaser personas use? Which are associated with your industry?

If you’re looking for a place to get started when doing keyword research, then check out Moz’s Keyword Explorer. Keyword Explorer is a time-saving keyword research tool that enables you determine profitable keywords and coordinate work.

Optimizing your blog posts for keywords is not about incorporating as many keywords into your posts as possible. Nowadays, this actually hurts your search engine optimization because search engines consider this keyword stuffing.

Mention your keyword at a normal cadence throughout the body of your post and in the headers when it stimulates sense. That entails including your keywords in your copy but merely in a natural, reader-friendly style. Don’t go overboard, though, at the risk of being penalise for keyword stuffing.

Whenever you create content, your priority should be to educate and inspire your audience , not how many times you can include a specific keyword on the page. Instead of writing the same terms over and over, write synonyms of it to keep it fresh and readable. For example, digital nomad is a topic I write about often, but instead of repeating that keyword, I change it up with synonyms like “remote worker.”

3. Form a long-tail keyword

A good rule of thumb is to focus on one long-tail keyword per blog post. A long-tail keyword is a very targeted search phrase that contains three or more terms. It often contains a head word, which is a more generic search term, one or two terms in duration. The head words you choose should align with the topics that you want your business and website to be known for and build authority around. For example, if you want your business to be known for SEO terminology like “featured snippets, ” then a blog post on “How to Optimize for Google’s Featured Snippets” is a great example of a long-tail keyword in support of this topic.

And why should you focus on long-tail keywords for blog post titles? These longer, often question-based keywords keep your post focused on the specific goals of your audience. Website visitors searching long-tail words are more likely to read the whole post, and then seek more information from you. In other words, you’ll attract the right type of traffic to your website.

If you’re brainstorming ideas to write about, there’s a good opportunity you’ll create a long list of ideas for topics you can cover and posts you can create. This will help create a longer-term blogging strategy, making a listing of topics that support a specific conversion. For example, if you have an ebook or guide that you want to create and promote, then consider making a list of blog notion that support this guide’s content. This way, if someone finds your blog post and detects the content helpful, that increases the chances of them wanting to click a call-to-action, aka CTA, to access a relevant offer.

If you’re looking for assistance with blog ideas, then check out HubSpot’s blog notions generator. This free tool will help jump-start your creative process.

4. Expand long-tail keyword into a working title

Think about how you read things online. You read the title first before you commit. It needs to catch your interest, especially since it’s the first thing that will catch a reader’s attention.

Start by creating a working title for your blog post.

A working title is something to “work” off of as you begin to write your post. Start here to constrict your topic down and focus on one slant. A broad term, like “social media, ” could breed multiple blog post ideas. A working title, like “top social media channels for live video in 2019 ” is now long-tail and specific.

Once you finish the piece, you’ll come back to this title and refine it to be more aligned with the direction you ended up taking in the post.

For almost every piece of content, come up with at least 5-10 different titles. Make it a rule that you spend a minimum of five minutes of brainstorming titles. And once you make a list, send to a co-worker to get their opinion.

Also, attain the value of the post clear in the title. Your title should help readers and search engines understand what your post is about. Set the right expectations — what is the reader going to get out of your blog post? What datum is covered? What format is the blog post going to take?

In this example, the blog post title explicitly tells you that you’ll be reading about how to create an infographic. Not only that, but it defines the expectations that it only takes an hour to do, and there’s also free templates included. You know exactly what you’re going to get from this blog post — how it’s valuable to you and how much information it contains.

When it comes to the art of the perfect blog post title, HubSpot did some research and looked at how our own titles have performed. Here are the consistent principles that were found :P TAGEND

The ideal blog post title duration is 60 characters. Headlines between 8 and 12 terms are shared most often on Twitter. Headlines between 12 and 14 words are liked most often on Facebook.

HubSpot also found that headlines objective with a bracketed clarification — like the earlier instance with “1 5 free infographic templates” in brackets at the end of the post — performed 38% better than titles without that clarification.

If you’re having trouble trimming down the length of a title, run it through Moz’s Title Tag Preview Tool to see how the title will appear on a search engine results page. Google typically displays the first 50-60 characters of a title tag. If you keep your titles under 60 characters, you can expect about 90 percent of your titles to display properly.

Title too long? That’s okay! Make sure to create a title for your reader first. When you have a lengthy headline, it’s a good idea to put your primary keyword( aka the head word) at the beginning of the title since it might get cut off toward the end on a search engine results page. In this example, the title got caught off, but the focus keyword, “data visualization, ” is at the front.

5. Shorten your URL

The URL doesn’t have to match the title of the blog precisely. Instead, make it a best practice to abbreviate the URL without losing context to what the page is about. For example , notice how the URL of this blog post is shorter than the title. This way, Moz can update the content over time without updating the URL.

Here’s a pro tip: Don’t include numbers in your URL, like year or steps. This style, if you update the content in the future, you won’t have to update the URL. Updating the URL creates a 301 redirect. A 301 redirect is a permanent redirect from one URL to another. Making updates to URLs hurts your SEO, and you don’t want that.

6. Optimize image alt-text

Search engines don’t simply look for images. Instead, they look for images with alt-text. Because search engines can’t “see” images the same way humans can, an image’s alt-text tells them what an image is about- which ultimately helps those images rank in the image section of search engine results. Consider optimizing your images with different descriptive differences of your long-tail keyword.

7. Create a compelling meta description

Your meta description is meant to give search engines and readers information about your blog post’s content. The maximum suggested length of a meta description is 150-160 characters. Anything longer than that will most likely be cut off.

While meta descriptions might not directly impact your SEO, maintain in intellect that transcript matters a great deal for clickthrough rates because it fulfills certain readers’ intent. The more engaging, and the more context you include that backs up your title tag, the better. In addition to being reader-friendly( compelling and relevant), your meta description should include a variation of your long-tail keyword for which you’re optimizing the post around. But keep in mind that a search engine may not choose to use your meta description as the descriptive text in search results. Search engines are funny that way.

8. Insert connects strategically throughout your blog post

As you attract more and more visitors to your blog, that increased traffic entails an increased opportunity to build a relationship, gain trust, and make more results and eventually customers.

Let’s review some best practises when it comes to using connections effectively in your blog posts.

First, link to external content when it’s helpful or supports a stat or claim you’re making.

It takes a lot of work to attract someone to your site and gain their trust. The last thing you want to do is send them off your site unless it’s something that supports your content. I’m not saying you shouldn’t link to content that’s not your own, but just do so thoughtfully and make sure it offer value.

Here’s a pro tip: When linking to external websites, consider having that content open in a new window. This style, you’re being helpful without redirecting people off of your site.

Next, link to other helpful blog posts on your site.

If you find yourself typing a sentence or paragraph that can be explained in more detail on another blog post, then link to it. This helps in two ways: It solves for the reader, letting and encouraging them to continue bingeing your content; and it solves for the search engine as it communicates to them that there’s a cluster of related content on your site. And if search engines deem your cluster of web content around a specific topic as a believable source, then that can help boost your visibility on the search engines.

Which brings me to my last point: Link to important content on your site that supports conversions.

When it comes to deciding on where to insert CTAs on your blog posts, there is four places to consider. Let’s review each.

First, consider inserting a CTA after the first few paragraphs. To avoided looking too pushy too soon, try including a passive CTA through hyperlinked text as opposed to using an image. It’s important to include these passive CTAs near the top, as you can’t always count on your visitor reading your entire post to take the next step. Think about it: Do you read to the end of every blog post that you click on? Probably not.

HubSpot performs CTA exams all the time. From image and text CTAs to placement of the CTAs, we’re always looking forward to ways to improve clickthrough rate. Interestingly enough, we found that text CTAs near the top of blogs posts make the highest clickthrough rates– something you might want to keep in mind and test on your blog posts.

I recommend relate to pillar pages with CTAs at the opening of the page as the content is not gated, meaning you’re not forcing someone to give you their email address just yet in exchange for something. Instead, you can lead with educational content, which solves for your reader first. Plus, your educational site pages should support one, if not multiple, conversions so that you can help the reader through their journey accordingly while gaining their trust along the way.

Next, include an image or text CTA near its most important content in the main body of the post. The best time to support a conversion is just after educating someone. For example, Townsend Security, a full-service data security provider, included an image CTA to a relevant podcast download in this blog post. Notice how the CTA content is similar to the content it’s paired with.

Next, include an image CTA at the end of each post. If someone read your post to the end, then you want to offer them a helpful next step. This is a CTA at the end of a post titled “Data Visualization 101: How to Choose the Right Chart or Graph for Your Data,” and at the bottom, there’s a CTA for an ebook on how to present data people can’t ignore. When it comes to image CTAs at the end of blog posts, I recommend connecting these to a relevant landing page with a form.

Another option, which brings me to the last CTA placement, is a pop-up kind that the reader sees as they scroll down the page. This is a great way to have your offer stick around so that the reader can’t simply scroll past it.

If you really want to engage your users and have a helpful conversation, then consider offering live chat or a chatbot. A chatbot is a computer program that automates certain tasks, typically by chatting with a user through a conversational interface.

Most bots follow a set of rules programmed by a human via a bot-building platform. It’s as simple as ordering a listing of if-then statements and write canned responses, often without needing to know a line of code. The benefit? A bot will guide you, the visitor, through the various options available and help you get from point A to point B quickly. Behind the drapery, the bot is leading you through a series of dependent questions to collect the necessary information to understand your intent, and then deliver the right content to satisfy your needs.

9. Include another form of media to keep your guests engaged

I always save very good for last. If you want to keep people engaged, then offer other forms of media like a quiz or video.

Adding a video to your website can increase the opportunity of a front-page Google result by 53 days. This is especially helpful if you include a video near the top of the page. Why? Because if people take the time to watch your video, then it’ll reduce ricochet rate. Your website’s bouncing rate is the percentage of people who land on one of your website pages, then leave. They don’t click on anything else. They simply get at one of your pages, then leave promptly. Having a low bouncing rate is a strong indicator to Google that people find value in your content. And if Google thinks your content offer value, then that can lead to first page rankings for the topics you want to show up for. For example, this page ranks# 1 on Google for a list of high-volume terms related to a truck camper.

When you click through to the page, you’ll notice there’s a YouTube video embedded at the top that’s 4 minutes and 13 seconds long. In most cases, the majority of people who visit your site — 79% to be exact — would rather watch a video to learn, than read text on a page. That’s exactly why I included a video at the top of this page to engage the visitor with video content first. In instance you’re curious, the average time a guest expends on this page is five minutes.

Moz has been optimizing their content with video effectively since 2007 with their Whiteboard Friday segment. What I love most about Moz’s Whiteboard Friday series is how they transcribe the content underneath each video — very smart and efficient. For example, the below Whiteboard Friday segment video is eight minutes and two seconds long, which equates to 1,477 words.

This might be something to keep in mind if your business creates video content, and wants to find a way to maximize your content output.

10. Work with industry thought leaders to create a obliging tale

Even if you’re not a subject matter expert on a specific topic, that doesn’t mean you can’t make something memorable… And I don’t mean just regurgitating what’s already being said online. If you did that, then you’d simply be creating noise, and not adding anything new to the conversation.