#creation juice has been running low but this has been on my mind for two days now

[lavenoon]

He's been waiting for a chance to use that line himself

@naffeclipse everything in my brain is bounty hunter, even the self care

*self insert Aster is not a girl (he/she) *og detective au by sunnys-aesthetic

[bktaro]

seven-three (part 3)

pairing: nanami x f!reader

themes/rating: explicit, 18+, clubs, bars, masquerade parties, rough sex

tw: daddy kink, spitting, sex toys, dirty talk, creampie, cockwarming, anal, voyerism(ish), squirting

wc: 9.5k

ao3 | part 1 | part 2​ | part 3

Nanami Kento had a hardened shell surrounding his personal life. Clocking out at five ‘o’clock on the dot every day, he left little to no room for others to get to know him better— leaving him as an unsolvable mystery amongst the office.

Likewise, you too aimed to clock out at five ‘o’ clock. You preferred routine during the workday, finding comfort in maintaining equilibrium and peace and wanting to do nothing more or nothing less than what was required of you.

Little did you know the two of you shared an interesting weekend hobby.

a/n : hi all! thank you for waiting so patiently. this chapter is a personal favourite of mine (of all time), and i'm so excited to finally share it with you all. i originally wanted to make this a one shot smut, but i’ve been wanting to expand it into a mini fic. not sure if tumblr is the place for uploading that type of content, but please let me know if it’s something you would be interested in reading!!

anyways, enjoy this nastyyy chapter!! 

An absolute masterpiece— that’s what Nanami thinks you are. A magnificent work of art, somehow misplaced and laid out on the bed in front of him instead of an exhibit in some renowned museum.

Every inch of you is enticing to him. From the strands of hair sprayed across the pillow case caressing the back of your head, your chest that rises up and down in anticipation, the glistening sheen of sweat of your body illuminated under the peaking moonlight from the windows, and his favourite, your legs that are propped open just enough for him to see droplets of your juice threatening to leak on to the bedsheets below— he’s mesmerized by it all . By no means was he an intensely religious man, but in the moment he couldn’t be more thankful for God’s utmost greatest and most beautiful creation— women .

He considers himself to be a good and honest man, yet nowhere close to a saint to be deserving of what God had offered and placed right in front of him. Nanami thinks it has to be a dream— and just maybe the best damn dream he’s ever had. You just look too good to be real, splayed across the bed naked with nothing but desire in your eyes, waiting only for him.

But when his hands roam to explore the soft flesh of your bare skin, feeling you shudder slightly under his touch alongside the tiny whimpers leaving your lips, Nanami knows— and silently thanks God— it’s real. You were real.

His gaze on your body is intense with hunger, so much so you could practically feel his eyes digging into the depths of your skin, and you begin to think it’s deep enough to reach even into the surface of your soul. Mixed with the grazes of his fingers, it’s an alluring sensation despite the minimal touch on the areas most needy, causing you to let out a louder whine and roll your hips just the slightest into the mattress in the search of any sort of physical relief.

“Please…” Your voice comes out shaky, pupils directly looking into his above yours. “...I need you.”

Unable to hold back, a low, nearly inaudible grumble vibrates in his throat at your actions and words. Perhaps he’s the one who saved a nation in his past life, something remarkable of that sort to be lucky enough to be alive and present in this very moment. Or he truly really was just one lucky ass bastard, somehow having a Goddess of a woman practically begging him to fuck her right underneath him.

True, you were the one granting him a wish, but by no means did that mean he couldn’t help grant a few of your own wishes at the same time. Alongside the original, he now had an additional goal that was simple: give you the experience like none other so no other partner could ever compare to him. And of course, Nanami is nothing but confident he’ll be able to achieve just that. Failure was never an option in his books— especially not now.

“Patience, pretty girl.” Nanami whispers, fingers softly caressing the side of your jawline. “First, open your mouth again for me.”

You oblige without hesitation, mind still partially woozy from your second orgasm minutes ago. Nanami grins at the view of your semi dazed expression, tongue hanging out before his instructions to even do so. Gently, he allows a string of saliva to fall from his mouth and into yours, watching the glob of foreign liquid pool onto the pad of your tongue.

“Stay just like that, and don’t move an inch until I say so.”

You do just as he commands, remaining still the best you can for the few seconds you can feel him shuffling on the bed to reach into the bedside drawers. Despite being clouded in the aftermath of your orgasmic high, when you hear the cluttering of his hands rummaging through the contents of the drawer your mind wanders to the possibilities of what Nanami was searching for. Lube? Condoms?

It then instantly dawns on you what else it could be. The rustling of a cardboard box being opened is enough of a signal to confirm your thoughts even seconds before Nanami returns with the suspected item in hand. A sex toy, replicating the shape of a generous sized penis and colored in a translucent purple hue dangles above your eyes, causing them to widen once more.

“It’s nowhere as good as my cock, of course...” Nanami begins, leaving another soft, comforting kiss in the crook of your neck. “...but we need to get that sweet little hole of yours ready for me, don’t we?”

He doesn’t wait for your reply, a trend of his throughout the night thus far, placing the tip of the dildo on the surface of your tongue. A satisfied hum vibrates in his throat when he watches your lips wrap around the rest of the toy, taking it deeper into your mouth while keeping your eyes locked onto his.

You work your tongue up and down the rubber surface, tracing the ridges and coating the surface with as much saliva as you could. Nanami can’t help but to silently watch in awe your head bob up and down the toy, a part of him almost becoming jealous that it isn’t his dick back in your mouth instead.

After a few more rounds of making sure the toy was properly lubed and ready, Nanami pulls the toy away from your puckered lips. He smirks at your disappointed whine at the sudden retraction, bringing a hand to caress the top of your head in reassurance.

“No more, you’re making me start to get jealous of a fucking piece of rubber.” Nanami whispers, continuing to stroke your hair and soon after leaving a gentle kiss on the edge of your forehead. His hands halt their movements moments later, moving to tilt your chin up towards him forcing you to see the coy grin now spread across his lips.

“Tell me, are you ready to get fucked stupid, doll? To have that pretty little mind of yours be filled with nothing but my cock?”

Watching the string of saliva connecting your bottom lip to the tip of the now glistening rubber tip of the toy break off, you nod your head frantically. You were more than ready, desperate in desire for more. Even without saying a single word, it was written all over you— in that moment there was nothing more you wanted in the world than him .

Lucky for you, Nanami was fluent in reading the writing of the unwritten plea of a girl searching for the remedy for her lustful trance. He was an intelligent man, after all. Yet, no matter how incredibly alluring you were to him, somehow at the same time you were just as cute, eyes wide blinking up towards him just like an actual doll. He thinks only an insane, evil man would be crazy enough to leave someone as cute as you in the distress you were in.

Thankfully, Nanami considered himself a good man— once again, not a saint of any sorts, but simply a good man. And as a good man, he wouldn’t let you suffer any longer.

Nanami shifts his body, moving to crouch in between your spread legs. You’re so wet, pussy glistening with a layer of the sweet sheen he just couldn’t get enough of, holding himself back from licking it all up then and there. Perhaps he didn’t even need you to prep the toy with your joint saliva— you had more than enough lube naturally already, and you could feel it too.

So you’re shocked when you feel him spit on your cunt— and you're even more surprised when you feel his fingers spread the mixture of liquids from your cunt down to your ass, and slip a finger teasingly into your hole. You can’t help but let out a loud moan at the sudden unexpected intrusion, feeling a bit shy at the position yet already immensely satisfied with the bare minimum of a touch.

“Oh, darling,” Nanami grins, watching your sudden jerk in movements at his actions, pussy clenching at nothing in front of his eyes. “You like that, don’t you?”

You did, you really did— and there was no reason to lie and say you didn’t.

“Yes… please give me more.”

“Where do you want it, doll? In here?” Nanami asks, removing his finger and hovering the tip of the dildo by the entrance of your cunt, before slowly bringing it down to graze over your ass instead. “Or maybe here?”

It’s almost like a game to him, perhaps his new favourite game, seeing just how far he could tease you and watch you whine and wriggle in desire.

“Anywhere…”

Yet, it’s a game Nanami was running out of will for him to continue to play.

His body adjusts once more to hover above yours again, cupping the side of your cheek to bring your lips upwards into a kiss. It’s another gentle kiss, calming and reassuring in nature, feeling the warmth of his body on yours that makes you wonder if time could be kind enough to stop right then and there forever.

But your wonder shifts back into reality, reverting to what you really were desiring at the moment when you feel the tip of the dildo finally sink inside you, breaking the kiss and replacing it with a moan into his mouth. Your hands come up to grip the blades of his broad shoulders, head tilting back in pure relief.

“Oh god …”

“Feels good, doesn’t it?”

All you can do is whimper out a wordless response, nodding your head instead. It’s good— so fucking good, to finally get your aching hole tended too, yet you still feel as though something is missing. You know all too well what it is, and Nanami chuckles because of course, even though your face twinges in pleasure and soft moans escape your lips the deeper he pushes the dildo in, he too already knows.

He thinks maybe in a previous life he had already explored you, well aware of every single area you were most sensitive in and how to make you feel good because it’s almost scary how he knows you all too well already. Despite never having laid a single finger on you before tonight, he’s already fluent in reading the language of your body and what you’re truly wanting long before you even muster the strength to say it.

So he could give you what you want right then and there. But he also could keep his favourite game going— just a little bit longer than he planned too.

“Yes… so fucking good… but… I-I want… you.”

“You want me?” Nanami asks, almost too nonchalantly compared to the twitching of his hard cock at your plea. “The toy in your ass isn’t enough for my slutty girl?”

“No…I want your cock… inside me.”

A dildo now deep in your ass was more than pleasurable and nice, but the both of you knew feeling his pulsating cock in your aching cunt is what you desired even more . To feel him, all eleven inches throbbing inside of you, fucking your tight hole senseless.

And he’ll give up his favourite game and give you just that. Nanami is a good man, after all.

“I’ll share your mouth and ass with this toy— but from here on out your pussy is mine and only mine.”

Nanami moves in an instant, roughly spreading your legs just a bit further with his own, pushing your knees apart in order to fixate himself properly in between. A shudder travels up your spine once more feeling the hot flesh of his cock against your bare skin, the length caressed and rubbing in between your cunt up and down while the tip grazes just teasingly against your swollen clit.

“You’ve been so good for me, sweet girl.” Nanami leans forward on his forearms beside each side of your head and murmurs into your ear, breath hot against your skin. “Now it’s my turn to make you feel so fucking good.”

It’s the last bit of words you could properly understand and digest before your mind melts into mush, turning into nothing but putty right into the palm of his hands. The room fills with nothing but the sound of two harmonious moans when the head of his cock finally dips inside your cunt, the nails of your fingers digging deeper into his shoulders in desperate search of something to grab onto.

“Breathe baby.” Nanami whispers. “You can take it all.”

He’s big — so big it’s a mystery to both you and him on how he’s able to continue to push into you inch by inch, your cunt squeezing him tighter the deeper and deeper he goes. Alongside the dildo deep inside your hole, it’s already too intense— and when the last inch of his cock finds its way inside you it breaks the last sheer remainder of strength you have left. Your mind becomes woozy once more, back arching off the bed while your hands roam to grip the back of his hair as your body twitches on his cock, releasing a loud moan that overpowers his simultaneous one and echoes throughout the room.

Nanami’s eyes widen in realization in the aftermath, watching your body loosen and relax onto the bed, fingers loosely locked behind his neck.

“Already?”

You feel your face turn warm, and once again you're thankful for the mask that partially covers the redness of your embarrassed cheeks. Yet, you think it’s still not enough to hide behind, releasing your fingers from behind him and raising up both your hands to conceal your face instead.

“Shut up…”

“No, don’t be embarrassed.” Nanami chuckles, reaching for one of your hands to pry them away from your face and bringing it to his lips to leave a kiss on the inside of your wrist instead. “I’m glad I can make you feel that good… not to mention it’s was also extremely fucking sexy watching you cum on my cock.”

You begin to think it’s truly a hidden talent of his you were lucky to see. He seemed to just have the right words everytime to put you in such a lust filled trance again and again— and you just couldn’t get enough.

“You have to make me do that again at least five more times, daddy .”

A cheeky grin creeps up on Nanami’s face. You wonder if it’s because of the flirtatious manner of your words, or if it's the soft moan you let out instantly when you feel his cock twitch inside of you that serves as a silent response to your words itself.

“It’ll be my pleasure to watch you cum, darling.” Nanami pins your wrist in his hand down above your head and into the mattress, kissing your lips with his in between his words. “Over and over , again and again until you can’t take it anymore.”

There’s a part of you that wonders if his lips had some sort of transparent chemicals difficult for the human eye to see. You were beginning to find yourself already addicted to the feeling of them, especially against your own. Soft like previously or hot and passionate like now, his kisses were nothing but hypnotic, drawing you effortlessly faster and deeper into the abyss of Nanami Kento.

You’re only snapped out of the trance of his kiss when it’s broken once again with a moan escaping your lips, feeling the length of his cock slowly slip out of you. The sudden emptiness leaves you aching for something more, clenching against nothing in the hopes of hugging even just an inch of him from escaping you.

“No…” You whisper, your free hand coming up to grip the back of his shoulder in an effort to push his body closer to you. “Put it back in…”

Your efforts show no successful action, his frame much too broad and built to be waived by the strength of just one of your arms. But your plea yields different results, a low, rumbling groan vibrating in his throat and the head of his cock sinking back inside your pulsating walls.

His movements are slow and gentle at first, allowing you to feel and grip every inch of his cock enter and leave your cunt. Rhythmic in pattern, Nanami’s hips work in what feels like matches the beat of your heart, filling you up and emptying you again and again, his soft grunts of pleasure quiet and low, but loud enough to sound like a subtle melody to your ears.

Gradually, the pace of his hips thrusting into you increases the more he feels your cunt adjust and mould into the shape of him, alongside the sound of your moans filling the room increasing in volume. The tips of your fingers can’t help but curl against his back with the rising pleasure, digging into his skin and scratching the surface, surely bound to leave marks to serve as a momento for the night later on.

You think maybe Nanami is angry momentarily at your markings on his skin, his hand that pinned yours down into the mattress above your head releasing for only a second to roughly grab yours behind his shoulder. Bringing that hand to join your other, Nanami now held both your hands down by the wrist, restricting you from freely moving.

“Bad girl. That’s gonna hurt later.”

The now familiar smirk reappearing on his face hovered over yours was more than enough to tell you he wasn’t angry at all. It was the opposite in actuality— the stinging pain would just remind him later on how he fucked you just that good, and his cock throbs just merely at the thought already.

“Punish me then.” You spit out. “Don’t be gentle like you do with good girls— fuck me like bad girls deserve.”

Nanami lets out another groan, and you can feel his cock twitch mid thrust inside of you. Somehow, he was more turned on than he already was— his vision shifting you from the complying, good girl you were in his eyes to the slutty, needy fuck doll you wanted to be.

He readjusts to sit partially upright, releasing his weight holding him up by his forearm and instead using that arm to grip onto the meat of the back of your thigh. Pushing your leg upwards his arm wraps around your thigh, spreading you open more and tossing your leg above his shoulder.

“I’ll fuck you just like a bad girl then.” Nanami mumbles, the grip on your wrists becoming stronger. “I’ll fuck you like you’re a little slut that knows nothing but getting stuffed with cock.”

You can’t help but clench your cunt at his words, feeling yourself get wetter in response. Nanami feels it too, your excitement squeezing his cock even tighter, and he flashes you a quick tiny, knowing grin that lasts only for a few seconds, before roughly snapping his hips back into you.

His pace is fast, still rhythmic but now much faster— pounding your cunt at a speed that makes it difficult for you to even catch your breath. Your leg held up and on his shoulder spread your cunt even further than before, allowing him to reach deeper inside of your cunt and just barely hitting your most sensitive area, causing you to cry out every time his cock mercilessly pounded deep into you.

Seeing your eyes roll back, Nanami moans at the feeling of your pussy clench around his cock even tighter. It’s a sign he’s familiar with— you were close, and he thinks it's the perfect moment to release his grip from your wrists. Your hands instantly curl into fists, gripping at nothing in pleasure while with his now free hand, he brings it to tend to your swollen clit, rubbing the bud with the pads of his fingers.

“Fuck… if you do that I’ll… I’m…”

“You’re what?” Nanami groans, his fingers pressing harder circles onto your clit. “Say it clearly.”

“I’m gonna cum.” You whine, arching your back off the mattress and grinding on his cock the best you could. “I’m gonna fucking cum…”

It’s overwhelming. You’re sensitive to the touch, already overstimulated with his cock pounding your pussy, fingers rubbing your clit, and dildo still shoved in your ass. But it feels so damn good that the familiar knot in your stomach releases once more, curling your toes and sending you into bliss.

Nanami curses under his breath, slowing the movements of his hips before pulling completely out to watch your body relax on the bed once more. Your breaths come out in haggered pants, struggling to catch your breath, and you feel the Nanami’s weight sink into the bed beside you, the callousness of his hands soon after rubbing up and down the skin of your legs in an attempt to soothe the shaking of them down.

“You’re so gorgeous when you cum.” Nanami murmurs, breath warm against the shell of your ear with his body now laying beside you on his side. “So. Fucking. Gorgeous.”

His hands find their way to inch upwards from your legs to your hips, gently turning you around to face your body towards his. Fingers instantly find themselves in their habitual spot, just underneath the surface of your chin, lifting up your lips and trapping them into another fiery kiss with him.

The kiss breaks when Nanami pulls away with a smirk, releasing his hands from your body to lean backwards onto the mattress on his backside. A hand holds the back of his head propped upon a pillow behind him that leans against the headboard of the bed, legs spread and open in a way that almost serves to proudly display his fully erected cock, his other hand pumping the shaft covered with a sheen of your liquid.

A lump forms in your throat at the sight, a reaction formed as a result of a mix of nervousness, embarrassment and excitement. You still had no idea just how he was able to pound into you with something of that caliber, and how now he was suggesting now you were supposed to fuck yourself on it. Yet, the glistening liquid belonging to you coating his cock— a tad embarrassing in retrospect—  was a clear indication that he was in fact able to fit it all inside you, and the pleasure was that you’ve never experienced before.

Despite growing increasingly exhausted and tired, you still wanted him again. Again and again, you wanted nothing more than him .

You feel your cunt throb at the thought, biting your bottom lip down in the hopes of holding back the drool you might just let escape, hungry for more of him. And you would be a complete fool to think Nanami doesn’t notice your entranced expression, the tiny smirk on his face transforming into a larger, smug grin instead.

“Doll.” Nanami calls, a single finger rising into the air gesturing to you to come closer towards him. “Why don’t you come here and ride my cock?”

It’s a request you're more than willing to fulfill, finding your body moving on its own accord onto your hands and knees, slowly crawling forward towards him. Your palms rest flat on top of his chiseled abdomen when you finally reach close enough to touch him, utilizing the surface to balance yourself on to your knees to straddle both sides of his body.

Nanami’s hand pumping his cock retracts, joining his other supporting his head against the headboard when your hands travel to wrap around his length. Gathering another pool of saliva in your mouth, you let the trail spit drop down to the head, using your hands to twist and jerk his cock, coating the surface with the liquid.

“Oh fuck .” Nanami hisses, face suddenly wincing when one of your hands roam just a touch lower, squeezing on his balls. “You’re a little minx.”

A staggered groan escapes his lips watching you drop your body lower, beginning to grind your wet cunt onto the shaft of his cock. You feel one particular vein, perhaps the same protruding one from earlier throb at the warmth of your cunt rubbing back and forth on his, causing the corner of your lip to hitch upwards.

“What are you going to do after tonight?” You ask with a small grin, continuing to grind yourself on him. “You won’t be able to stop thinking about me.”

Nanami chuckles, instantly shooting you a confident smile back.

“Darling, what a ridiculous question. I thought you knew your pussy was going to be mine and only mine after tonight.”

In an instant, his body swiftly sits upright, giving you little time to react and forcing you to abruptly halt your movement. Your eyes widen, letting out a startled gasp when you feel an arm snake around your waist from behind, pulling your body close enough towards him so his chest was now pressed up against yours.

“I’m greedy, you know. I want to keep you to myself, and I don’t like sharing what’s mine.” He begins, voice low and fingers coming to grip your chin to lock your gaze onto him. “And I also know you won’t be able to stop thinking about me either, so this works for us well, doesn’t it?”

Nanami leans forward, trapping your lips with his into a sensual kiss, serving as almost a metaphorical action in sealing the deal to his words that were nothing but truthful in nature.

A part of you completely agreed that in hindsight it was a rather ridiculous claim to be so hooked onto the other so quickly. You could more than understand the foolishness in agreeing to only reserve your bodies for one another after merely a single sexual encounter.

Yet you already could imagine how lackluster any other partner would be in comparison to the sex you experienced with Nanami thus far, only becoming better and better with each passing second. And as much as part of you screams internally of how uncharacteristically weak you were to him, falling right into the palm of his hand exactly how he wanted you, you just couldn’t help it. If it wasn’t already so painfully crystal clear before, Nanami Kento was definitely not your ordinary hook up at all— he was much more enticing, luring you every bit through whatever spell he had casted onto you.

Gojo would have to wait for his threesome longer than anticipated— you had signed the dotted lines on the metaphoric contract, returning the kiss with just as much passion and lust.

“There’s some truth to that, I suppose.” You give him a tiny grin against his lips and a wink when you pull away, and Nanami answers in a hearty chuckle.

“That’s a good enough response for me.”

“Is it really? Somehow I don’t buy that.”

“Words don’t hold the entire amount of truth— I’m a firm believer that actions speak louder instead.”

You let out a startled gasp, feeling Nanami’s large hands suddenly snake down your body, roughly grasping onto the curves of your ass.

“And what I’m saying is I’d rather see you start bouncing on my cock— only if you really agree, gorgeous.”

Nanami releases his hands from your body, falling back onto the mattress with his hands returning against the headboard. Holding the back of his head, he’s arguably waiting almost too calmly for your next move. He had given all the power in your court, allowing you to choose the next course of action.

And when he watches your body readjust, steadily gripping onto his cock and angling it to sit yourself on top of it, he can’t help but let out a wide grin, silently celebrating his victory.

“Hold on baby. I want you to turn around and ride it— show me how you can bounce that ass.”

You do just that with no hesitation, turning yourself swiftly around, straddling him with your backside faced towards him. The new position itself makes your cheeks grow warm in both excitement and embarrassment, all your most intimate places now on full display for him to see.

It takes every ounce of strength in Nanami’s entire body to hold back from letting his cock bust right then and there as soon as he watches you slowly lower yourself and take him in, your soft moans once more breaking the silence in the room. The sight is so lewd and erotic to him, focused on nothing but how his cock continues to disappear inch by inch inside you, tightly gripping him as if you were holding on to dear life and the purple dildo still sticking out of your ass.

“Oh my god, baby .” You moan when the final inch slides in, now balls deep on top of him. “You’re so fucking big, baby… filling me up so good.”

Nanami’s mind begins to teeter violently at the combination of it all, your words, the lewd sight and sounds, and he’s no longer confident in how much longer he can hold back from reaching his peak. And when you begin to move, allowing yourself to bounce up and down his cock, he knows he's a goner sooner than later.

His hands reach forward to grip onto either side of your hips, simultaneously grinding his upwards in sync with yours helping you reach the deepest parts of your cunt with every bounce increasing in both intensity and speed. The head of his cock brushes past your most sensitive area, feeling him just right in the pit of your stomach that makes you cry out a moan that echoes the entire room and clench onto him even tighter.

The purple toy glides teasing in and out of your ass with every assisted bounce on his cock, and the view is almost taunting to Nanami, becoming embarrassingly jealous once more at the inanimate object. But it also leaves him curious just how much more you could take, so much so his hands move quicker than his brain, wrapping his fingers around the toy and beginning to pump it in and out inside of you.

Curses drop from underneath your tongue, falling partially forward on the palms of your hands, fingers gripping onto Nanami’s legs in overwhelming pleasure coming from both your holes now getting fucked. Yet you find it impossible to stop yourself from moving your hips up and down, not wanting the pleasure to end even for a second, continuing to take now both his cock and dildo inside of you.

“Fuck… I can’t…it’s so much… filling me up.”

“Yes you can, baby. You’re doing so good, taking it all in... I can feel you getting so much wetter and tighter just for me.”

You’ve grown even wetter now, becoming even more drunk on lust the moment your second hole became another slutty little hole, with the temporary only purpose to be used for pleasure purposes. Nanami also grows more and more drunk on lust seeing your body react, watching the way you squeeze on both his cock and the dildo, your own slick now dripping out of your cunt and down your thighs. The movement of his hips become increasingly sporadic and less rhythmic, mind clouded with nothing but the need to continue to fuck you senseless.

“Say it, you like getting both of your holes fucked by me, don’t you?”

“I love getting both my holes fucked by your big cock.”

“You want to be filled with my cum, don’t you, dirty girl?”

“Yes...please fill my slutty hole with your cum...”

You’re a moaning mess, the air around you filled with nothing but the lewd squelching noises, Nanami’s grunts pounding into you, and your cries of pleasure. With one final thrust of his throbbing cock, you feel the hot load of Nanami’s cum shoot inside your cunt, a shiver traveling up your spine as you simultaneously reach your own orgasm at the sensation.

A moment of serenity envelops the room; you have collapsed fully now onto his legs, Nanami unmoving, cock still deep buried inside you with his cum now trickling out of your cunt and onto his cock. Only the sounds of panting can be heard from the both of you, blissfully recovering from your post orgasm high.

But of course, it lasts for just a moment. Nanami wasn’t one to let things last longer than necessary, after all.

“I didn’t get to see you cum.” Nanami states, shattering the silence in the air. “Do it again.”

You can’t help but blink a few times, turning your head slightly back to look at the man behind you.

“ What ?” Surely you heard wrong, right?

You didn’t. It was exactly as you heard, confirmed when Nanami flashes you another half grin, just a peek of the whites of his teeth showing through.

“You heard me. I missed seeing you cum, so sit on my cock facing me and do it again.”

“You’re crazy.” You let out a small scoff in disbelief, only to transition into the corner of your lips tugged upwards in an excited smirk you fail to hold yourself back from hiding.

“Am I?” Nanami questions, reaching forward to teasingly squeeze the meaty flesh of your ass that triggers you to release a whimper at the touch. “Your little pussy that just throbbed on my cock is telling me differently— you like this idea too.”

His hands move once more, slowly pulling the dildo out of your ass that in return brings about another soft groan to rumble from your throat. Nanami is already a sucker to the sound, growing incredibly weak to it mixed with the sight in front of him of both your cunt and asshole clenching at the sudden loss, instinctively gripping whatever you could to remain filled up. His dick hardens once more at the sensation and sight, twitching against your walls again.

“Guess actions really do speak louder than words, huh?” You grin, your words come out in between breathy moans, eyeing him from just over your shoulder.

“Exactly, you’re one to catch on quickly.”

Nanami’s hands roam again, tossing the purple dildo to the side of the bed and placing his hands to grip either side of your hips. When you feel them gently squeeze your skin, you take it as a sign to readjust your position, briefly lifting yourself off of him, only to sit back down on his cock when you turn back around to now face him.

You lean forward, both your hands softly grasping either side of his neck to pull him in for another kiss, both sloppy and needy in nature. It only breaks when Nanami lets out a low moan, feeling you teasingly clench your cunt around his cock.

“Fuck, stop doing that.”

“Why should I?” You ask, grinning once more. “Maybe I want to see you cum too.”

“If you keep doing that, you definitely will.”

You let out a gentle laugh against his lips, bringing your lips back onto his. Nanami’s hands find refuge on the sides of your hip once more, sitting back upright to deepen the kiss, further exploring your mouth with his tongue.

One hand slowly begins to dip from the side of your hip, on to your thighs, his fingertips trickling skillfully back and forth in the inner part of your upper legs. It’s only when his fingers suddenly move upwards to caress the swollen bud of your clit in steady circles you interrupt the kiss once more, tilting your head back and letting a breathy moan escape.

“Feels good…”

Nanami catches sight of the skin of your neck, the smooth and soft surface now fully inviting him the more you tilt your head back. Similar to a magnetic pull, his body is drawn instantly, lips finding themselves attacking the sensitive skin.

“It does, doesn’t it?” His words come out muffled, in between the kisses against your neck. “Especially when your clit is extra sensitive from getting fucked so hard.”

Your fingers curl once more against the blades of his shoulders, feeling the hand remaining on your hip beginning to guide you in moving back and forth.

“You make me feel so good too darling, knowing you’re just filled with my cum, and warming my cock so good just like this.”

You’re immensely spoiled. At least, that’s the thought that races throughout your mind feeling Nanami work carefully on all the most sensitive areas of your body. As rough as he could be, Nanami concurrently treated your body as if it was a sacred possession tending attentively to all the areas that could give you the most pleasure, in return making you feel as if you were on cloud nine with every kiss, nip and touch. And when the pressure of his fingers against your clit grows harder, and the large, firm hand on your hip directs your hips to grind on his cock faster, the all too familiar pressure in your stomach builds once more.

It arrives faster than Nanami thinks— he too is already fully aware of your little whimpers and increased movements that indicate your upcoming release.  But he really isn’t surprised, you were only growing more and more sensitive and overstimulated with every second passing that now perhaps even the tiniest bits of effort from him were enough to make you clench your cunt around him just the way he liked it.

This time, Nanami makes sure to watch your face thoroughly, drinking in every twinge in your face, bite to your lower lip, and moan that drops from your mouth. It’s a shame to him the mask of yours, as pretty as it is, covers him from seeing the entirety of your face just on the edge of cumming, but Nanami prefers to think you make it up in other ways. The shaking of your legs growing weaker despite hips moving faster, the bouncing of your breasts with every movement, and his personal favourite in contrary to his slight teasing for it earlier— your nails that scratch up and down his back, desperately clawing away in the hopes of reaching for something— he’s enthralled by it all, how the gorgeous, well put together woman he saw hours before at the bar was the same as the one in his arms on the verge of her sixth orgasam of the night.

So when you finally do cum once again, letting the more than familiar build up knot in your stomach loose once more, Nanami is of course, mesmerized by it all, filling the air with his own moans at the feeling of your cunt clenching around him tighter than ever before. Yet, not a single ounce of how turned on you made him dwindle, somehow only intensifying— especially amplified at the hint of the sunrise beginning to seep into the room past the sheer curtains of the window beside the bed, reminding him of a little promise he had made to you earlier in the night.

He doesn’t give you much time to think about it, a few mere seconds at most if you were truly to keep record. Although a fan of foreplay and buildup, he was already far too lost in lust and desire to wait any longer. Your body slumped against his chest, head on his shoulder, breaths heavy and arms wrapped around his neck is the perfect position for him to lift you from the back of your thighs up almost too effortlessly, a startled yelp leaving your mouth at the sudden movement.

“Hush, it’s okay baby.” Nanami soothes, a tiny chuckle following, feeling your arms strength and your legs wrap instictintly around him. “You did so good, and now I just wanted to show you what I promised you earlier.”

A sudden jolt of coldness attacks your backside, sending a shiver to run down your spine. You let out another gasp at the abruptness of it all, only to be responded with the tiny grin on Nanami’s lips, ushering you to turn around and look behind you.

“It’s a beautiful view, isn’t it?”

His grip behind your legs loosening and steady hands resting on yours hips once more gently assisting your weak legs in standing up. There were zero lies in his words, confirmed when you turn around and see the view for yourself peeking through the partially opened curtains of the floor to ceiling windows.

The familiar city before you was now blanketed with an orange hue matching the color of the sun rising from a distance away. The current time remains a mystery to you, but what you could gather was that it was the hour of the day where the city just began to stir awake, the sounds of traffic and humans minimal, and only the true early birds of the world awake and roaming the streets. It was tranquility at its finest, rare to see in the normally bustling city you called home, and a spectacular view that makes you stop and stare in awe.

“It is.” You whisper. “I forgot this city can look this gorg—”

You’re unable to finish the sentence, abruptly cut off midway through. A loud moan replaces it instead, your body falling forward and both your hands flat against the glass in front of you for support when you suddenly feel the head of Nanami’s cock slide back in from behind you unexpectedly, cursing under your breath at the sensation.

“I wasn’t talking about the city.” Nanami smirks, fully aware you’re eyeing his every move through the subtle reflection of the glass. “I was talking about you . This sexy body, this pretty face, this ass, and this pussy… this fucking pussy … words couldn’t describe how it makes me go crazy… my god .”

You let out a louder moan, fingers curling against the window feeling Nanami’s thick and long cock quickly filling you up balls deep. Contrary to before, this time he spent little time teasing you, going slow and making sure you felt every single inch. You had already become accustomed to his body, and Nanami had been accustomed to yours— Nanami no longer had the patience to wait to fuck you senseless once more.

His hands briefly leave your sides, reaching up towards the curtains instead. Grabbing each one on either side of your bodies, Nanami pulls the fabric away, allowing more light to enter the room, and more of the window exposed from the protection of the curtains to the outside. Your eyes widen at the realization, but when Nanami’s hands grip at your waist once more, pulling his cock out and then slamming back in, words of argument become difficult to formulate.  

“Wait… there could be people outside…” You manage to mumble in between the mewls releasing at the sensation of his cock slowly sliding in and out of you. “What if they see… that’s embarrassing…”

“I said I’d fuck you so everyone could see, didn’t I?” Nanami hisses, thrusts beginning to increase in speed. “And even though you say that your pussy throbbing on me is telling me you like the idea of people seeing you get fucked up against this window, don’t you?”

He knows you too well. And as scary as it should be for someone whom you practically just met to know you this well, to you the rush of it all is more overpowering— all you can do is let out a tiny grin because he was right. Something about him railing you against the window of a penthouse hotel room, in full view during the sunrise of a beautiful morning for anyone at the right place and time to see was enthralling.  

“You’re right, baby, it turns me on so much that someone might be able to watch me get fucked hard by your big cock.” You moan, feeling the tip of his cock brushing against your womb. “Everyone watching me get used as your little slutty fuck doll makes me so wet.”

Nanami does nothing but groan loudly at your words, serving more than enough as a response. His hands ghosts upwards to reach to tangle into the back of your hair, fingers gripping the strands and pulling them back rough enough your entire body follows suit. With your back against his chest, Nanami takes a step forward, pushing your breasts and the side of your face against the window, and all your hands can do is still support his rough movements by clawing away at the window.

“Whose pussy is this? Tell me if you want me to fuck you harder.”

“Yours, It belongs to you!”

“That’s my girl.” Nanami coos, grip on your hair becoming stronger. “My slutty girl.”

The sound of skin slapping and moans echoes throughout the room, Nanami’s hips snapping into you harder with every passing second, pushing you back and forth against the window. Your knees buckle instantly when Nanami’s cock brushes past your most sensitive spot, releasing a moan that comes straight from the depths of your lungs.

“Right there,” You gasp, eyes fluttering shut, too overwhelmed with pleasure. “Oh my god, right fucking there—!”

Nanami grins, knowing he’s found the spot that makes your toes curl in pleasure, eyes roll to the back of your head, and legs shake, threatening to give out at any moment. And when his thrusts pinpoint that specific spot, rhythmically hitting on beat to a silent song that makes your head spin once more, both you and him know all too well what’s to come next.

“It feels so fucking good,” You cry out, endless strings of moans and curses dropping from your lips. “I can’t… I’m gonna—”

“Don’t hold back. Cum baby, cum all over my cock.”

You don’t— not even in the slightest bit. You let your mind grow numb, the high of the orgasm riding your entire body, allowing Nanami to give his last few thrusts, only an unworldly noise leaving your throat. Your body jolts in a way you’ve never experienced before, so much so Nanami has to snake an arm around your waist, holding you steady upright from collapsing from your now completely weakened knees.

“Baby, look at me.” Nanami calls, voice soft with a twinge of startled concern. “Are you tired? We can stop now if you want.”

His movements cease, slowly pulling his length from you emitting a groan from both of you. You muster up the strength you have remaining once more to stand upright, looking behind your shoulder and give him a small, reassuring smile, shaking your head side to side.

“No… I’m still okay, thank you for asking.” A hand reaches backwards, latching on to the side of his neck to bring him down for a brief and comforting kiss. “You’re actually such a sweetie, you know?”

Nanami shrugs his shoulders when you let him go, clearing his throat and reaching to scratch at the back of his neck. His actions were uncharacteristically bashful compared to what he had shown you throughout the night thus far, and it was both intimate and refreshing to you to see another side of him you haven’t seen before.

You wanted to know more about him, effortlessly encapsulated by the growing enigma that was him — Nanami Kento. The more you learnt about him, the more you wondered what other side of him he could possibly surprise you further with.

However, for now, there was another issue present to solve in the current moment. The feeling of Nanami’s rock hard cock, long and stiff looming over your backside, reminded you that he had pleased you so well up until now, and it was now his turn to be absolutely spoiled by you.

You lean forward once more, bending fully over to display your ass towards him. Looking over your shoulder once more, a small grin forms upon your face watching Nanami’s stunned expression, eyes fixated right on your assets showcased in front of him.

“I can’t let you just stay this hard, baby.” You whisper, your hands reaching behind you to spread both of your cheeks open.  “I want you to let it all out inside here.”

“Fuck,” Nanami curses, watching you wriggle your ass back and forth against his cock. “How did I get so fucking lucky with you?”

“Because you’re a good man… with a blessed cock to follow. Now hurry up and fuck my ass.”

The once cold glass of the window had now turned warm, condensation coating the surface of the glass with droplets of water— except for where the silhouette of your body that was pressed up against the window was not too long ago. The sight is erotic and incredibly lewd, and a part of Nanami wonders if he even had the strength to make it inside you.

But he does nonetheless, moving slowly to allow the tighter hole to adjust to his impressive length and girth. You weren’t a stranger to anal at all, but you definitely weren’t accustomed to someone of Nanami’s size, slightly wincing in the initial discomfort. Nanami takes notice of this, gently soothing the sides of your body in encouragement.

“Baby… you’re taking me so good. Let me know when you’re ready for me to move.”

A few more moments is all it takes, the discomfort quickly dwindling and pleasure replacing its spot. When a breathless moan parts from your lips, fingers scratching the surface of the window in front of you once more in search of more pleasure, you start to move your hips slightly, taking in the rest of his length.

Nanami’s hands grip the sides of your waist once more, beginning to guide your hips up and down his cock. You squeeze him tighter than ever before, Nanami watching the inches of his cock disappear, stretching the tiny hole more than you could take.

“ Fuck. You’re squeezing me so fucking tight, darling.”

A new pool of wetness forms from your cunt, and mixed with creaminess of Nanami’s cum inside from earlier you feel the liquids begin to drip in between your legs, running down the insides of your thighs. Removing one hand from the window, you dip your hand in between your legs, examining the slick in between the folds of your cunt. Bringing the fingers back up to your mouth, you make sure to look at Nanami over your shoulder before sticking your tongue out, humming in satisfaction while licking the liquids off your fingers.

“You and I taste so good together.” You grin as best as you can, eyes partially closed and brain fucked out to the core, bringing your hand out behind you towards him in offering. “Don’t we?”

Nanami groans loudly, rejecting your offering. Instead, you feel the palm of his hand pushing the small of your back down once more, forcing you to look forward once more and to hold back onto the window. His hips pick up, increasing its speed entering in and out of you, but this time you feel his chest against your back, a hand snaking forward and fingers rubbing your clit back and forth.

“You’re gonna fucking be the death of me princess.” Nanami whispers, breath heavy against your ear. “But I can play against you and your little minx ways.”

His body moves faster, an outburst of the last bit of his remaining stamina bursting in both his hips thrusting into you, and his fingers moving against your clit frantically back and forth. Numbness clouds your mind once more, eyes shutting close and rolling to the back of your head.

“That’s fucking right baby doll, you tease me like that and I’ll make that pretty little brain of yours turn stupid with nothing but cock on your mind.”

It was too much. In your overstimulated, over sensitive current state, the combination of everything was just too much. The tension in the pit of your stomach grows, this time differently than previous— more intense, striking you in a way you’ve only felt just a few times in your life.

“Oh my god—” You cry out, eyes shut closed so tight you can feel the formation of a few tears in the corners of your eyes. “No— I’m gonna—”

The synchronization is almost artistic. The way your body convulses underneath his, liquid squirting from your cunt across the lower part of the window and onto the floor below, joined merely seconds later by the drips of Nanami’s cum painting your insides that overflow outwards onto the floor below. Your knees finally give in, falling onto the ground in exhaustion and Nanami finds himself accompanying you in an instance, the last of his stamina escaping him and fatigue overwhelming him.

It’s arguably messy. Definitely to most not the most desired situation, laying on the cold, marble floor surrounded by the physical fragments of both your orgasms. But when you turn around to face Nanami, softly panting in an attempt to recollect his breath from his high, the back of his hand resting on his forehead in exhaustion, you can’t help but let out a small, weak laugh. And when Nanami’s eyes flicker towards you at the sound of your laughter, he can’t help but join in as well, fully understanding the beauty of the moment.

Something about it was almost ironic. You were in the most luxurious penthouse suite, experiencing the most sexy, alluring nearly dream-like night with a man almost too good to be true. This part now was most likely the most realistic portion of the dream-like night, yet, it was your favourite.

It was perfect. Imperfectly perfect. You wouldn’t have had it any other way.

“I’m going to wash up. Care to join me?”

“You know that’s not gonna work.” You reply, pointing up at your mask. “We can’t keep these on in the shower.”

“I don’t care anymore, you’re more than just a quick fuck to me now.” Nanami smiles, a hand reaching forward to tangle with yours.“I already know you’re gorgeous, but I want to see your entire face for myself.”

You wanted to. You really did. But the reality looming over you was too strong to ignore. Despite being your prince for the night, in reality, he still remained your colleague in the office. You knew mixing pleasure with work was never a good idea, and you knew the responsible choice was to remain keeping the two separate.

“Not yet.” Your hand squeezes his back. “Let’s keep up the mystery a little longer.”

—

“Marlboro’s? These are impossible to find here, how’d you get your hands on this?”

You climb back onto the bed, shaking a towel into your damp hair with one hand in an attempt to dry your hair, nudging at the red cardboard box that laid on top of Nanami’s lap. Nanami shrugs, taking two cigarettes out of the box, placing one in his mouth and offering the other in your direction.

“Connections.”

Taking the cigarette, you toss the damp towel onto the armrest of the nearby chair. You join Nanami under the covers of the duvet, and when you situate yourself to mimic him in leaning against the headboard, he reaches over his bedside table for the metallic lighter.

“What, did I just fuck some wanted gangster or something?”

“Not at all,” Nanami chuckles, finding humour in your accusation. “I’m just a regular salaryman… with an interesting part time job.”

He lights the tip of your cigarette first, lighting his own shortly after. A short silence fills the air when the both of you simultaneously take the first drag, seeping in the bitter flavor.

“I won’t ask.” You wink at him, and Nanami rolls his eyes in response. “Keeps you more sexy, like a mystery, you know?”

“What do you smoke then?”

“Blackstones.”

“Awful.” Nanami scrunches his nose in a cringe, instantly tossing the red cardboard box onto your lap covered with the duvet. “Take this pack on me, and treat yourself to something not garbage once in a while.”

“Cigarettes are garbage in general. Literally poison killing you slowly— but for some reason I can’t stop.

Nanami nods in agreement, taking another drag.

“I could never give up — especially cigarettes after sex. Something about ending the night with a good cigarette is the cherry on top.”

“Blackstones taste like cherry, so that could be literal if you wanted it to be.”

“Huh, makes sense.” Nanami pauses, turning to you with a cheeky smile. “You kind of tasted like cherries and tobacco when I first kissed you.”

“Really?” Your eyebrows raise, reciprocating his coy smile back “What about now?”

Nanami leans forward, his free hand reaching to cup the side of your neck, lifting your face upwards towards him. Your eyes flutter closed when your lips meet his, gently caressing with yours and delicately exploring you, drinking in every single flavour he could.

“A mix of tobacco,” Nanami grins against your lips. “And a little bit of me.”

[watchmegetobsessed]

Our song - Harry Styles

this one was inspired by the jingleball performance bc it was pure perfection and UGHH im obsessed.

dedicated to my dear friend @dontworrysunflower

disclaimer: the song Homesick by Dua Lipa is featured in this fic as an original work of Harry and the reader, but it’s obviously an existing song, I just thought that it would be the song they write

pairing: Harry x vocalist!reader

word count: 5.3k

masterlist

You’ve felt the adrenaline rush take over your body many times in your life and they were all different in some kind of way. The one you felt when you were about to write an important test in school, the one that bubbled through your veins when you got your first kiss. The one that rolled through your limbs and chest when you first performed in front of people that weren’t your parents and the one you felt when you got the news that you were chosen to tour with none other than Harry Styles as his vocalist, singing on his stage every other night in a different city and different country.

But none of those were anything like the feeling that takes over every time you stand on that stage, your microphone that’s labelled with your name right in front of you as thousands of people are screaming in the jam-packed arena. Though it’s not you they come to see and listen to, but you are part of the magic and it’s quite enough for you.

You could never be the one standing at the front with all the lights shining down on your frame, having every gaze in the place glued to you, listening to your voice. That brings the kind of anxiety you’re quite sure you wouldn’t be able to handle. You are perfectly fine standing in the back, being the support system while staying on the down-low as someone else shines at the front, in your case, it’s Harry.

You applied for the job with a reason, already having a huge appreciation for him as an artist, adoring his work so far, especially Fine Line. Upon hearing about the opportunity to be part of his tour, you didn’t hesitate to send your application in and following three auditions, you got the phone call that they wanted you on board.

He swept you right off your feet the first time you met him, but you didn’t expect less from him. Everything you heard about him being the most wonderful person to every walk the planet were proven to be nothing but the truth. You hit it off so easily and become close through the process of rehearsals. His odd little jokes, that funny laugh of his and the way he always peeks over his shoulder to meet his eyes with yours made you fall for him faster than you’d have ever thought you could.

Just as fast as your feeling for Harry developed, tour caught up on you and before you could blink twice, you were living on the road, always dressing from your suitcase, waking up in a different city every other morning.

The foreign studio feels a little odd, but still somehow familiar as you walk in with your water and notebook under your arm. Random studio sessions with Harry became a regular not long after tour kicked off. Harry’s creative juices were overflowing and he was aching to record his creations, constantly renting random studios near the hotel you lot were staying currently and one night, when some of you all were hanging out in his suit, he asked if you’d be down helping him record vocals for a song he’s been working on.

“I want to hear it with your voice instead of mine,” he told you leaning against the wall, a glass of whatever Mitch mixed him in his hands.

“Getting bored of your own voice?” you teased him, bringing his dimples out with the smile that plastered across his lips.

“Could say that. Are you up for it?”

There was no way you would have said no. So the next morning you found yourself in a studio somewhere in Sacramento, singing the vocals to a song no one else has heard other than you and Harry.

The tour has now reached Denver, you can’t wait to be on the stage tonight, but before that, you are having another quick session with Harry in the studio.

When you walk in, his head perks up from his leather notebook he always keeps on himself, filled with his scribbled lyrics. A smile stretches across his lips when his green eyes fall on your frame.

“Hey! Hope it’s not too early for you,” he softly says standing up from the chair as you put your stuff down to the small table in the corner.

“No, managed to get a good night sleep still,” you smile at him, taking a quick look around, though this recording room is just like the others you’ve been in.

“I think I figured out that part we struggled with last time. Changed up the ending a bit, would you mind giving it another go?”

You nod looking down at his notes, seeing the changes he has made in the vocals.

“Changed anything else?” you ask as you watch him get ready for the recording.

“Yeah, rewrote a few lines, think they are fitting better now.”

“Have you recorded them yet?”

“Will do now,” he tells you shaking his head.

Soon enough you find yourself standing behind the mic, headset covering your ears as you are waiting for Harry to start recording and the music to play in your ears. Once he shows up his thumb you do the same and a moment later the song you’ve heard last time you two were working starts flowing from the headset and you stare down at the notes in front of you, waiting for the moment when you have to start singing.

It takes you a few runs to nail it down, but when you finally do, you can see the satisfied grin on Harry’s face and you think to yourself that there’s nothing you wouldn’t do to make him like this anytime.

“That was fantastic,” he beams once you join him at the screens where you see your voice appear as a pattern over a straight line. Harry does his usual magic before leaving it be. “Mind assisting recording my part?” he asks turning to you with an excited smile.

Nodding you let him tell you what to do and once he is all set behind the mic, you start the recording and the song. You listen to him in awe. There hasn’t been a moment when you didn’t feel the shiver running down your spine when he started singing. You are convinced a choir of angels is hidden in his throat, because it’s hard to believe he is just as human as everyone else.

He sings the whole song three times before he joins you again, listening back to what you have so far. The song is coming along pretty well and you can tell by the time he finishes it, it’s gonna be perfect. Everything he does is just pure perfection, whether he likes to admit it or not.

“You know how it would be absolutely perfect?” he asks you on your way back to the hotel. The two of you grabbed a coffee as well, so now you’re sipping on the hot drink, enjoying the somewhat sunny weather.

“Hm?”

“I think it would be best if a female voice sang the whole thing and the male was just the vocal.”

“Who do you think would fit best for it then?” you ask, immediately thinking of singers that could be perfect for the song. It wouldn’t be the first time Harry would sell a song to someone else, so you’re not surprised he is thinking about this kind of change.

“Y/N, I found the voice already,” he chuckles and you give him a puzzled look. “You. You are singing the song, I don’t need anyone else.”

“I’m not a solo singer,” you protest.

“There’s no such thing as solo or not solo. You’re a singer and a bloody good one. I want you to sing it.”

“But it would go to waste, because I would never actually perform it.”

“How are you so sure about that?” he smirks slyly at you, immediately making you nervous.

“Harry, I don’t sing solo,” you shake your head stubbornly, but he rolls his eyes at you.

“You could just try it. Let’s just record the song next time with you in the lead and then we can talk about the rest.”

“I’m fine recording, but I will never perform it,” you tell him, but his look makes you think he has other plans.

When tour reaches Dallas, the song gets a version with you singing solo and Harry doing the vocals in it. And though you had doubts about the switch, listening back to it you can tell how much it helped. It really is better with a female voice, though you are still convinced it shouldn’t be you.

“Are you sure you don’t want to sell it to someone? I’m fine with that,” you ask him before the show in Dallas. You’re sitting on the table in his dressing room while he is painting his nails, his tongue poking out in concentration.

“I told you, I like it with your voice. Why is that so hard to believe?”

“Because I’m not a—“

“Fuck’s sake if you dare to tell me one more time that you’re not a solo singer, I’m firing you, Y/N!” he snaps, giving you a hard look, but you just laugh at his temper.

“It’s the truth.”

“Have you ever tried to go solo?”

“Not for years,” you admit and watch him screw the nail polish closed, pushing it aside, his hands lying flat on the table as he is carefully waiting for them to dry.

“So then how do you know you are no good at it?”

“Because I hated it back then, so I most likely would hate it now as well,” you state matter-of-factly, but Harry doesn’t seem amused by your answer.

“So you think you haven’t changed a bit in years? I hope you know that’s absolute bollocks.”

“Why are you so keen on making me sing solo?” you sigh, giving him a tired look. It feels like the two of you have been running the same circles since forever. It’s not his first attempt to get you sing more than just the vocals, he once wanted to do a cover and needed a partner because it was a duet and begged you for weeks to sing with him, but you didn’t give in. You just couldn’t.

“Because I think that you are a talented singer and I want you to feel the adrenaline rush performing gives you.”

“I do get that rush every time I sing behind you. That’s enough for me.”

Harry shakes his head pressing his lips tight together.

“That’s not the same as being in the lead. It’s a whole different world.”

“Yeah, one that makes me shit my pants,” you chuckle and he can’t push a smile back.

“Maybe we should just work on it. Your anxiety. I think we could actually make you feel better if we tried.”

“I still don’t know where this obsession with me being solo comes for you.”

Harry stands up, takes one last look at his nails before he steps closer smiling down at you softly and you bite into your bottom lip, realizing how close he is standing to you. His fingers tap in your cheek gently, running them down to your chin as he tilts your head up a bit.

“Just accept it, Love,” he smiles softly before stepping away and carrying on with his routine.

That evening, you stand at the back with the other two vocalists, eyes glued to Harry’s figure at the front of the stage, you watch him pour his soul out to the audience, interact with them and reach that state of mind you have never been able to get into. You know what he told you about performing is true, yet you are still terrified to do it yourself. It’s too nerve wrecking to have everyone look at and listen to you, so many chances to mess it up and make a fool out of yourself.

But when Harry’s eyes meet yours and he shoots you a warm smile, something shifts in you. The urge to have this connection with not just the audience and the song, but with him takes over your whole body and you make up your mind to at least give it a try.

Harry is ecstatic when you tell him later that night that you changed your mind. You see that sparkle in his eyes and it was already worth for you, just seeing him react like that.

“Though I have a few suggestions to change the lyrics.”

“You do?” he asks, seemingly surprised, but mostly amused that you had the balls to come out with it.

“Yeah. Just some tiny details.”

“Why haven’t you told me about these before?”

“Because it was your song. But if you want me to sing it, it has to be mine as well.” Harry stares back at you with a smile that’s filled with pride and joy, making your heart flutter in your aching chest as you think about performing solo.

“Our song,” he softly says nodding his head.

Arriving to Houston the two of you are quick to book a studio and work on the song. Harry lets you make any changes you desire on the lyrics, even says you did justice to it and that you should have spoken up earlier about your ideas. And then you record it.

It’s not that you have to sing the whole song and not just the vocals this time. You are completely fine with Harry hearing you sing, it’s the thought of performing it in front of anyone that’s not him, that’s what makes you turn into a wreck.

You record Harry’s vocals and once it’s all put together, you are blown by the outcome. You wouldn’t have thought Harry’s voice as the vocal would compliment you in the lead, but it’s just absolutely perfect and even you can’t find anything wrong with it.

“Love, this is what Heaven sounds like, I’m telling you,” he smirks at you from the chair beside you, playing the song for the tenth time, not able to get enough of the final product.

“You are so cheesy,” you shake your head, but feel the blush heating up your cheeks. His eyes linger on you a little longer before he turns back to the screen.

When the song is over he finally stops is so silence comes over the studio. Harry turns back to face you, his green eyes basically burning a hole into your head.

“So, when are we going to perform it?”

“I really don’t think it’s a good idea,” you sigh looking down at your hands fumbling with your shirt.

“And I do think it is. So I’m not stopping until you at least try it.”

Harry Styles gets what he wants. Always. And this time, no matter how hard you try to resist him, you just can’t deny this from him. Though it takes him time to talk you up, in Washington he finally gets you to give it a try in an empty stadium.

Most of the crew is out, since the building has been finished about half an hour before, so everything is perfectly set for tonight’s show when you walk out to the stage, following Harry in his heels. He asked the piano to be brought to the front along with a mic on it and another one on a stand next to it. The two of you quietly put on your earpieces, doing everything as if it was a usual occasion before a concert, only that this time the roles will be entirely switched.

“It’s fine, alright? No one is around,” he tells you when he sees how nervous you are to sing the song for the first time outside a studio.

“There are some backstage,” you mumble under your breath, not expecting him to do anything about it.

But he does. You watch him walk backstage, completely dumbfounded about what he is doing. He disappears from your sight and a few moments later you hear him shouting at the back.

“No one comes to the stage until I say so! Yea? Thanks!” he orders and then walks back as if he didn’t just boss around the whole crew.

“They will think you’re some kind of crazy celebrity,” you chuckle when he returns, a small smirk playing on his pink lips.

“Don’t care, Darling. Now sing you heart out for me.”

Harry sits on the piano bench, his fingers getting settled on the keys before he looks up to meet your anxious eyes.

“It’s alright. Just you and me, yea?”

Nodding you gulp hard and jump a little when he starts playing the melody the two of you have been working on for so long. You hear all the notes and you know you have to start singing, but you miss the opening. Harry stops and looks at you, as you move your eyes down to the ground, ashamed you messed up immediately.

“S-Sorry, I just—“

“How can I help?” he asks right away, not even caring about the fact that you messed up, focused on figuring out a way that would help you.

“I don’t know. I really don’t,” you sigh, feeling your nerves getting worse with each passing moment.

“Come sit next to me,” he then tells you motioning for you to join him on the bench.

“What?”

“Take your mic and sit next to me,” he repeats, scooting over to make you space. Hesitantly, you pull the mic out of the stand and walking over you sit next to him. “Now you are not in the center. Just listen to the music, watch my hands on the keys, okay?”

You nod, running your tongue over your dry lips as you hold the mic to your mouth before Harry starts playing again.

After the first few notes you close your eyes and when it’s time for you to start singing, Harry leans a little against you, giving you a kind of push to just do it. And it works.

It feels a little as if it’s not even you who starts singing, but it is. Your voice fills the empty arena along with the piano’s melody and keeping your eyes closed a little longer you let your mind settle. When the first verse ends you open them and watch his hands work on the keys, right as he starts singing the vocals, leaning a little forward so his voice reaches his mic.

It’s different. It’s electric and freeing, hear your voice through the massive speakers, to be in the lead and have Harry be just the support in the song. But it feels so right, better than anything you’ve ever felt.

Line after line, you hit all the notes and by the end of the song you are able to strip all your fears down and give yourself over to the music completely. As you sing the last few notes you feel Harry’s eyes on you and turning to face him, you are met with his warm, pride-filled smile and bright eyes, glued to you while his fingers press down the last notes.

The music dies down, the voice of the piano vibrates in the air a little longer until it completely disappears and the silence returns into the stadium.

“Love,” Harry quietly calls out for you and you turn completely towards him. “That was absolutely perfect.”

“You think so?” you ask, voice barely more than just a whisper, your eyes never leaving his gaze.

“I know so,” he huffs, smile widening. He brings an arm around your shoulders and pulls you into a hug, pressing a lingering kiss to your forehead as you let out a breath you’ve been holding in for way too long.

He doesn’t try to make you perform that evening, knowing well it was enough for one day, but he does make you sing it with him in each city in the upcoming weeks. Before every concert, he empties out the area around the stage and the two of you sit down at the piano, singing your song until you feel comfortable enough to stand next to the instrument instead of sitting next to him.

The tour reaches New York and Madison Square Garden is getting ready to host Harry Styles for two evenings. The place is massive and you find yourself sitting at the edge of the stage when Harry emerges from backstage.

“Looks wild, right?” he asks sitting next to you, his thigh brushing against yours as he gets seated.

“Yeah. Pretty amazing.”

“This place has the most magical vibe.” “Yeah?” Turning to him you watch him take the arena in, his eyes glistening at the sight in front of him. You know it’s not his first time performing here, but it’s nice to see the excitement in his eyes regardless.

That feeling returns to your chest, the one you felt when Harry told you he wanted you to sing the song. The urge to be part of this amazing something that’s so much bigger than you.

“H?”

“Yea?” he turns to you smiling.

“Can I… Do you think we could sing our song tonight?”

You watch the pure surprise and excitement wash over his face, his smile stretching across his face as he stares back at you in awe.

“You want to sing it?”

Shyly, you nod your head and in a heartbeat his arms lock around you, pulling you into the tightest hug. The two of you almost fall off the stage, laughing together at his dramatic reaction.

“Of course we can sing it, Love. Would be an honor!”

Harry is quick to let the band know about the addition for tonight’s set and though everyone seems surprised, they are all supportive about your solo. As the time goes and the concert gets closer, you can feel the nerves building up and soon enough, you start to doubt your choice to sing the song tonight.

Right before it’s time to go on stage Harry takes your hand and pulls you aside, taking your face in his hands gently, making you look into his eyes.

“I know you are doubting yourself, but just know that I’m very proud of you, even if you decide to not sing the last minute.”

“I could do that?” you whisper, your hands finding his sides and you let them rest on him, a way to ground yourself in the windwhirl of your thoughts.

“Of course. I wouldn’t want to make you do something you don’t really want. Though I know you will be amazing if you choose to sing.”

Nodding you let a weak smile appear on your lips and you notice as his eyes flicker down to them before he moves his gaze up to your eyes. He then pulls you into a proper hug before walking back to the rest of the band and vocalists.

Everything goes as usual and once again, you can’t take your eyes off Harry on the stage. Just watching him perform fills you up with life, enough to keep you from running away. About halfway into the set, as the crowd is still cheering after the previous song, Harry jogs over to you.

“You ready?” he asks over the noise and before you could think about it, you nod your head.

Two guys from the crew pushes the piano further to the front and they help to set everything up as you awkwardly stand at the side. Once your mic is in the stand you walk over there, heart hammering in your chest, hands shaking like crazy.

“I have a special song for you tonight,” Harry announces into the microphone as he makes his way over to the piano. “Please welcome the lovely Y/N here, who is gonna enchant you with a song we’ve been working on lately.”

The crowd screams and you allow yourself to look around with a weak smile. So many people, you think to yourself, everyone watching you.

“It’s called Homesick, and it means so much to us, so we hope you’ll like it Justas much as we do,” Harry adds before settling on the bench and his eyes find yours. “I’m proud of you,” you see him say, only able to read his lips since the crowd is screaming so loud. “Ready?” he asks and you nod, taking a shaky breath.

He sends you a warm comforting smile before glancing down at the keys and then he starts playing. 

Just like the first time, you close your eyes, forcing yourself to focus on the melody and nothing else. The lump in your throat is quite uncomfortable, but you open your eyes and see that Harry is looking straight at you, nodding in encouragement, as his fingers push down the keys to the notes right before you have to start.

“Here, where the sky’s falling, I’m covered in blue, I’m running and I’m crawling, fighting for you…”

Harry smiles wide when your voice flows through the speakers, filling the whole place, making everyone go quiet in a heartbeat as the song carries on. You feel your chest slowly deflating, the nerves cooling down with each sung note.

“You give me a reason, something to believe in, I know, I know, I know. You give me a meaning, something I can breathe in, I know, I know, I know…”

The chorus comes out perfect, your voice melting together with the piano and you finally feel your muscles relax as you slowly let go of every toxic thought that’s been tainting your mind. Harry leans closer to his microphone and his voice gently joins yours in the next verse.

“There’s a crack in my window, a bird in my room, angels all over that watch over you…”

Chills run down your spine hearing his voice, your eyes never leaving his gaze that’s fixated on your standing figure. You get lost in him and the song, something that came from the both of you, a piece of you and him. Standing there, singing this piece makes you feel closer to him than ever and you desperately want this feeling to last forever, hoping the song never ends though you know it’s gonna happen.

“When I’m walking on water all my dreams have come true. Still nothing means nothing without you…”

Homesick is exactly the feeling that bubbles inside you when you think of Harry. Because there’s this man you love so much, who is a home away from home to you, yet you still feel like you can’t be home entirely. Not in the way you’d want to. But standing on the stage in the spotlight, singing together with him as thousands of people are watching the two of you, yet you still manage to forget about them, for a moment, you feel like you finally arrived home. You are there, with him.

“Tell my heart to lie, but I know deep inside it’s true. That I wish I was there with you. That I wish I was there with you, oh I wish I was there with you.”

He plays the end of the song without tearing his eyes away from you, and there’s just a heartbeat of silence before the crowd starts screaming deafeningly, but that short moment… is yours and his.

Tugging your hair behind your ears with your shaky hands, your eardrums on the verge of breaking as you let out a laugh that was kind of a sob as well, relief washing over your body. Harry is quick to jump to his feet and rushing over he envelopes you in a tight hug.

“I’m so so so proud of you, Love. You were everything!” he mumbles, arms holding you so tight you almost lose your breath, but you want him this close, or even closer. You need to feel him, because it doesn’t feel real. His hold brings you a sense of existence only he can give you.

“Thank you, Harry,” you breathe out when he pulls back to look into your eyes, the screaming hasn’t died down even a tad little.

“No, thank you, Darling. You shined like the star that you are,” he grins, playing a sloppy kiss to your cheek before his arms fall off you.

You’d die to stay in this moment a little longer, but the show must go on. The crew pushes the piano back and soon enough, the next song starts. You stay in your spot for the rest, but you keep catching Harry smiling in your way, always making you blush.

The end of a concert is always a little hectic, everyone is all over the place. Still coming off the high you just experienced, you head to the dressing room you share with the other vocalists. They are going on and on about how amazing Homesick was, and you somehow still can’t believe tonight happened. Packing your stuff you barely notice that the door flies open, but you see Harry appear from the corner of your eye.

“Ladies, would you please give me a moment with Y/N?” he asks and the girls are quick to leave the two of you alone. You stand there, kind of dumbfounded, not sure why he is acting so dramatic. Once the door closes and it’s just you and him, he stares at you, chest heaving, his hair wet from his sweat, but he still looks breathtaking.

“Harry—“

“I’m gonna kiss you now,” he cuts you off, your breath gets caught in your throat as you stare back at him, completely frozen. Opposite to what he just said, he remains standing in the same spot and you’re not sure what’s happening. “Can I? Please say yes, I can’t hold myself back for any longer,” he then adds.

“Yes,” you breathe out without even thinking about it. In a heartbeat, Harry crosses the room, chest smashing against yours as he wraps his arms around you, lips crashing onto yours in a kiss that almost makes you moan into his mouth.

It’s all a hot mess, teeth clashing, hands all over each other before his palms run down to the back of your thighs, urging you to jump. When you do, you wrap your legs around his waist and let him walk over to the table nearby, so he can place you on top, standing between your thighs as he keeps kissing you hungrily, his tongue melting together with yours in this sweet chaos. It keeps going on and on, neither of you wanting to let go of the other, but you are eventually forced to stop, coming short of air. Panting wildly, lips swollen from his kisses, you look at him to meet his gaze.

“You have no idea how hard it was to stop myself from kissing you on stage.”

“What?” you breathe out.

“Y/N, I’m fucking crazy about you and seeing you come over your stage fright, sing that song… our song, fuck, that did some unbelievable things to me. Please tell me you felt the same thing!” He is begging, not just with his words, but with his eyes as well and it crushes your soul entirely.

“I did. Harry, I always do when I’m with you.”

“Fucking Hell,” he breathes out before kissing you again. “You are… everything, Love,” he mumbles against your lips and you can’t push down the smile stretching across your face, hearing him say the same words he said right after the song.

“You’ve told me that,” you tease him, his gaze meeting yours as he flashes you his famous half-smirk, heart fluttering at the sight of him.

[indiavolojones]

Diavolo eats a pomegranate while Lucifer works. Lucifer doesn’t realize that the plate of pomegranate seeds that’s just been steadily growing is, in fact, for him. 

alternate summary: serving/sharing fruit with another is one of the most tender shows of love in the world and i am a soft, gentle soul that just wants canon-compliant-ish domesticity somewhere in the 1800s?? idk, they’ve known each other a damn long time. u_u 

2.2kish words, G, dia/luci, #no warnings apply except for like, idk, a sizzle of diavolo thirst on lu’s part. we can angst later, y’all

Special thanks 2 @canonlucidia for being 1) my rock and 2) my resident lucifer expert that wrote the report line and lastly 3) just being so, so good with lore and patient with me when cv brain go wuh??? 

-

A memory, a snapshot in their thousands of years spent at each other’s sides, the scene burned into his mind. 

Not all their moments are stretched to the extremes, interactions eternally caught in fire and brimstone. Some of them rest here, in a gentle domesticity that Lucifer is hesitant – and rightly so – to acknowledge. 

Here, with the two of them alone in Lucifer’s office, is a tentative, trembling contentment that Lucifer has yet to fully take apart in his mind. 

Lucifer sits at the desk with almost painfully perfect posture, as lamented by Diavolo, several sheets of parchment paper drying in front of him. A small white plate with intricate gold designs burned into the glaze rests nearby. Diavolo pulls out a blade from thin air, cutting it into a ripe pomegranate with the practiced efficiency of someone who grew up with the trees keeping him company.

“I will not be re-writing these reports if you make a mess,” Lucifer says apropos of anything Diavolo might do, on purpose or otherwise. 

The admonishment in his voice half-hearted at best, even as he warily eyes Diavolo slicing the fruit open. 

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Diavolo quips, returning a cheeky grin, slouched over the empty side of Lucifer’s spacious desk as he cracks open the pomegranate into fours. 

Diavolo opted for his human form today, which is a laughable concept to Lucifer in itself. Diavolo’s aura can barely be contained by him in his demon form, but to see his essence stifled into a mortal’s appearance… Diavolo’s human teeth are always a little too sharp at first glance or in one’s peripherals. His gold eyes are too molten to match any human shade. 

Pair it with Diavolo’s inability to sit on anything without it becoming a throne – sprawling with languid, regal grace as natural as breathing, much to Lucifer’s annoyance – and discretion is a difficult request. 

Lucifer has called him out on his slipping control of the glamours before, especially in the instances where they find themselves working in the Human Realm, the risk of detection a very real threat. Not that many princes are discrete, but Lucifer supposes that if he expected someone to spill out past the seams, it would be Diavolo, who has always been larger than life in both personality and power. 

Despite a grandiose description, Diavolo’s attire does not reflect his status. His outfit is more fitting for a common human rather than the next ruler of Hell. 

The other is dressed in indecently tight trousers and a loose, finely-woven off-white tunic that dips low on his sculpted chest. Cording at the hem of the shirt drapes over his exposed skin, and Lucifer offhandedly wonders why they even bother getting Diavolo fitted for garments if he’s just going to wear things too loose, too tight, or forego most clothes altogether. 

In the past, Lucifer might have asked why are you here? or don’t you have your own work to do? All such inquiries have been shut down with a colorful multitude of responses, displaying the future king’s creativity. 

Some honorable mentions being:

Diavolo’s wild claim that Barbatos was staging a coup, and clearly, Lucifer was the only one who can fight off someone with control over time. Lucifer had asked when Barbatos was hosting the next recruitment session, which led to a troublesome, if not amusing, outburst from Diavolo.

A somehow unionized group of suitors threatened to storm down the palace gates for his hand in marriage. Diavolo was merely hiding in the safest place, for once they believed he was not home, they would give up and leave! 

"A curse, Lucifer. It was a curse!" If more than two pairs of eyes were to witness Diavolo, he would surely burst into flames. That's why he tried to hide behind the door when Barbatos came to collect him!

Nowadays, when Lucifer can’t kick Diavolo out of his study/Barbatos is off running the household and can’t drag him away, he allows himself to lean into giving Diavolo a hard time – nothing unbecoming of their stations, nothing disrespectful – but enough to give Lucifer quiet vindication. 

It serves him right, for all the grievances he causes Lucifer on a daily basis. 

(Levi calls it teasing, but Levi has not left his quarters since the last major war killed one of his favorite authors before a series was finished, so what does Levi know of social interaction?) 

“If you’re in need of something to do, Barbatos and I found a few errors in your last few missives…” Lucifer begins. 

Diavolo, surprisingly, doesn’t jump to the bait.  

There are no witty remarks that come from the future king’s lips, only the lazy upward curl of a smile and a contented hum in return. 

Unused to the lack of a response from the other, Lucifer glances down at the small plate, Diavolo's cultivated pile of seeds gathered in the shallow puddle of juice.

Another pomegranate seed plinks onto the plate, and Lucifer watches through his peripherals as it topples the delicate balance of the seeds already there. 

He narrows his eyes at it briefly, as if it holds the answers to his obvious questions, but says nothing. Diavolo works at a steady pace, humming quietly under his breath as his nimble fingers pluck seeds from the fruit. 

For a while, they go on like that. 

Diavolo alternates between quietly munching on seeds and adding to his growing plate. Lucifer scribbles away at the parchment, his clean script much more legible than Diavolo’s own. 

Diavolo deserves an award, Lucifer thinks, for the longest amount of time spent not getting into trouble in Lucifer’s recent memory. Perhaps he should be more suspicious of the other’s uncharacteristically quiet nature, but Diavolo looks at ease with his menial task.

Diavolo’s tune continues, a soothing, low cadence to his voice offsetting the relative quiet of Lucifer’s quill scratching at the parchment. It’s a waltz, syrupy sweet and with a dreamlike quality as Diavolo’s humming carries the notes into creation. 

It casts a spell with charisma alone, and Lucifer doesn’t notice when his hand stills, quill hovering over the page as he tries to recognize the tune. A smile twists the prince’s lips, his lips stained darker with the sweet purple nectar.

Diavolo doesn’t hesitate in his motions, only glancing up at Lucifer through his lashes. Lucifer’s breath involuntarily catches in his throat.

Lucifer does not think about how Diavolo’s fingertips are stained as well, stained deeper than the curve of his lush lower lip. Does not think about the juice dripping down his tanned skin, drying sticky on his wrists. It is in the middle of these not-thoughts, their gazes catching in passing, that Diavolo speaks.

“20%.” 

“What?” Lucifer startles, despite himself, brows cinching with narrowed eyes. Diavolo reaches down with one long, purple-dyed finger to point at the line where Lucifer’s quill has stopped. The smile only grows, Diavolo tilting his head to the side as he reads the line off of Lucifer’s report.

“‘The sixth circle has under reported their amaranth yield again this quarter, their numbers being off by roughly,” He pauses for dramatic effect, which Lucifer finds wholly unnecessary considering this is a report, not a performance, ”20%.’”

Diavolo purses his lips, before it turns into a huffed laugh, “It’s probably because they pay tithe to Beelzebub. You should talk to him about that.” 

His eyes and hands go back to the fruit in front of him. Lucifer does not admit that the next part of his report was about to mention that it is likely due to his hungriest brother.

Saved from having to formulate a response, there’s a knock at the door, and Barbatos’ muffled voice on the other side calls, “Lucifer? Have you seen Prince Diavolo?” 

Diavolo’s posture immediately jerks up, and then his shoulders curl in on himself, like a child that knows he’s been caught. Barbatos is, most definitely, here for Diavolo. 

Lucifer is absolutely not relieved at the distraction. He levels Diavolo with a singular stare that somehow says I’m not covering for you, and nearly rolls his eyes when Diavolo returns a pained look that begs please?

A strange, out of place idea has Lucifer wanting to concede to Diavolo’s whims, to pretend that no one is there. Ridiculous. As they sit in the silence, there’s a moment where Diavolo’s eyes light up, as if thinking that Lucifer might actually help him out –

“He’s in here,” Lucifer says, because of course he is. All three of them know there’s no way that he wouldn’t be, and Diavolo deflates. 

It’s clear from the slight, upwards quirk of Barbatos’ lips that he knows Lucifer’s hesitation. Lucifer bristles at the thought, at Barbatos’ ability to always see more than is shown. 

Barbatos does not startle easily – in fact, Lucifer believes he can recall maybe a handful of times that the other has reacted with little more than resigned acceptance or rueful amusement. 

It wounds his pride, in a sense, to have Barbatos walk in on a scene like this (like what? Diavolo slowly working at Lucifer’s carefully constructed walls, trying to carve a contented little spot in Lucifer’s life? Yes. Lucifer is aware.) and have his reaction be anything less than shocked. Appalled? 

Perhaps aghast, that Lucifer too has fallen to the whims of his lord. 

Unless Barbatos thought that Lucifer would cave from the beginning, Lucifer realizes, and it sours his expression in the slightest. 

“Barbatos!” Diavolo grins, still slouched over the edge of the desk like it pains him to have good posture. 

“I have been looking for you, my lord,” Barbatos says, his voice as even and polite as ever. 

“I’ve been taking a break!” 

“It’s been four hours since you said you would be right back, sir. I thought I would help you find your way, since you seem to be having some trouble.”  

Diavolo, a devil of almost immeasurable power and status, has the gall to look sheepish in front of his butler and aide. He glances big, pleading eyes at Lucifer as if asking for help again, and Lucifer cocks one brow, saying nothing. 

A beat of silence passes, before Diavolo suddenly exhales loudly, tossing his hands (one of which is holding a knife, and the other a pomegranate, and juice splashes on the desk alarmingly close to his nearly-finished report) into the air. 

“Okay, okay! I’m coming,” Diavolo concedes, still brimming with amusement as he easily disposes of the empty pomegranate husk with his magic. Pulling a handkerchief from his pocket, he wipes the remnants of sticky juice off the blade and his fingers, staining the pristine white purple. 

“Let’s stop by the kitchens on the way there, Barbatos. Fruit has only made me realize how famished I truly am!” Diavolo says, placing the handkerchief down and stretching his arms up as he stands. 

“I can bring something to your office, my lord.” Barbatos shoots down the attempt at escape, and Diavolo tsks under his breath. 

“You’re too smart, Barbatos,” Diavolo says, walking towards his butler and patting one hand on the other’s shoulders, “You know all my tricks by now.” He nods sagely as they walk to the exit of the room. Barbatos gives a soft sigh. 

“We both know that’s not true, my lord.” 

Lucifer watches, unafraid to admit to himself that he finds some amusement in Diavolo’s plight, before he realizes the mess that Diavolo has left behind. 

“Your – ” Mess? Pile of fruit seeds? Penchant for completely derailing Lucifer’s productivity? Whatever Lucifer had intended to say is cut off by a dismissive wave of Diavolo’s hand and a cheerful slant of a smile on the other’s face. 

“Those are for you!” Diavolo laughs, and Lucifer doesn’t have the opportunity to get a response in before Diavolo whirls into the hallway, Barbatos shutting the door after him with a soft click. 

Lucifer sits in silence, listening to the muffled, familiar chatter between the two, fading as they travel further from the door. He tells himself that this is to make sure that Diavolo has truly left, not for any other frivolous, flowery reasons that his brothers might claim, were they to know of his lingering gaze on the plate, the stained handkerchief Diavolo left behind. 

The plate of pomegranate seeds rests in the corner of his desk, still untouched.

Lucifer ignores it until the candles in the room burn dangerously low, the only indication of time passing thanks to the endless twilight of the Devildom. When he finally decides to stop, he rolls his neck to alleviate the stiffness, eyes fluttering shut at the tension. 

When they open again, his gaze lands once more on the plate. 

This time, it stays. 

Alone in the privacy of his office, Lucifer props an elbow unceremoniously on the table. He brings his hand to his chin, gloved fingers tapping at his lips. More silence passes, a decision is made. Lucifer tugs off the glove of his right hand.

For him, Diavolo had said. 

Lucifer isn’t particularly fond of pomegranates. 

The flavor isn’t anything amazing to him, and they’re much too messy, but there’s a strange, perverse pleasure beginning to blossom inside him at the fresh memory of Diavolo devoting his time to a task solely for Lucifer, understanding coloring where there was once muted shades of gray.  

Kings are servants to their kingdoms, but there’s an undeniable intimacy in the act of servitude for one. 

It makes the initial burst of flavor on his tongue all the more sweet. 

[shantalangel]

Stories written on the wall of one of the rooms in the game Armikrog.

It’s about everything happened before the game, P’s parents life, how they met and how she appeared.

Reading sequence:

The Blank Miner. Part 1

The Blank Miner. Part 2

Tools, Weapons, Food, Plants, Medicine, Magic and Pets

A Meeting in the Woods

Punishment and Crime. Part 1

Punishment and Crime. Part 2

Punishment and Crime. Part 3

Desperation

Punishment and Crime. Part 2

Meva lead us to a narrow canyon, where walls stood adorned with strange carvings I could not decipher. Every angle was perfect and the walls were smooth as glass. I realized that the canyon had not been formed naturally. The canyon walls had been carved by the Dronk.

We came to a circle of polished white stones inlaid into the floor. Meva said that in order for us to see the Dronk, the stones must be stepped on in a precise pattern. Once this was done, the Dronk would come. Her grandfather had studied these stones and eventually discovered the pattern. The pattern had been taught to her when she was a child, as a sort of dance. She thought she was learning a kata or a family ritual. Not until much later did she realize it was the key to unlocking the Dronk's stones.

She completed the dance, and the final stone she stepped on sank into the ground two inches. I could hear the clinking of underground mechanisms as stone slid against stone. Spires of minerals covered in crystals sprouted from the ground in neat rows. Black, tangled orchards of petrified trees rose against the canyon walls. All was silent. We stood waiting for three hours. At one point, Meva pointed behind me, and I spun around to see three stone beings. They had a simple form, like a children's drawing. Their heads were huge rectangles with coarse holes cut clear through the head, allowing the light of the sky to shine through. Their bodies were rectangular stone. Their legs and arms were slabs.

Two Dronk pulled a third from a white stone monolith. They pulled out the body, setting it aside. Then they pulled out an arm and hung it on the body. This process continued until the third Dronk was completed.

"Do you see that, Tzurk? They're giving birth!" Meva whispered to me.

The newly formed Dronk was the same size as the other two, but he walked awkwardly, staggering as they guided his first steps. One of the Dronks used his finger to carve a symbol onto the new Dronk's forehead.

"You will hunt for us." He said. "Your name shall be Hunt."

When this was done, the Dronk turned to us. He welcomed Meva. He said he knew her, from long ago, when she had come to the valley with her grandfather. Meva bowed. The Dronk said he'd seen her as a baby, and he never forgot a bloodline. His name was Grel, he was the one who used the creation table and gave names.

Meva asked him if he could build a device for us to contain the heart of the mountain, and motioned for me to show him. Grel looked long and hard at the purple fuzz-ball, when I held it up to him.

Then he said, "We have no use for this, because we cannot die, but this has been hunted for by mortals for as long as time has spun. Everyone who found it before you, was either killed or vanished."

"Does this mean I will die also, or was I meant to have it?" I asked.

"Neither or both." Grel replied.

He motioned for us to follow him to the monolith, which he called, the Skeev Table.

Grel stirred the shiny white surface of the monolith like it was liquid. It didn’t move at all like solid rock. After a moment, he drew out a device that had an open hatch and two hinged arms on either side. Taking the purple fuzz-ball from me, he placed it in the top compartment and snapped the lid shut. Drel handed the device back to me, "These mechanical arms can pull the soul from one thing and hold it temporarily in the machine or transfer it into another object or body."

Grel put the corner of his stone head on Meva’s hand as if to kiss it. "Visit us again, Meva. Now go in peace."

Leaving Dronk

We left the Valley of the Dronk, and continued our trek to the cottage Quace had shown us on the map.

It was well off the main path, surrounded by thick woods; A much more inviting place to stay than the safe-house, and with no threat of turning into baby goats. The roof was tiled with bark shingles and the walls were of split logs. The front door was flanked by small windows.

Inside, the cottage was dry and warm. There was a rocking chair, a rug made of angora elephant, a framed bed, and a painting over the fireplace.

After dumping our packs on the bed, we went outside and explored the area around the cabin. Not far off, there was a grove of wild Mink-Mer trees. Their branches hung low from the weight of the fruit on them. I plucked one and we shared it, the sugary juice running down our chins.

To the south, a stream trickled down from nearby mountain peaks, run off from the thawing snows many miles above us.

I've looked back on our time in that cabin, and longed to return to those memories. It was the best time of our life. We were free from worry and concern, and our love continued to deepen. I can only think of one moment when it all went stink-bad.

The Baby Gardens

Meva went outside in the cool of the morning and paced off a large square field, then a second field in the shape of a giant circle. The square field was for boys, and the circular was for girls. By our custom it was mandatory to build both fields, and to decide which field would house the seed only after both were complete. Some couples demanded only males. Some demanded only females. Some demanded the exact same amount of each sex. Some decided to plant all of the offspring in one season. Still others chose not to plant any seed at all.

We had long walks around the two fields, Meva gleaning every weed from the area so that it looked pristine. All rocks and pebbles were moved to the outskirts of the fields, making an accidental sweeping rock path around them. She set up boarder markers of stick then drew a string taught between them. We gathered smaller sticks and placed them along the string to mark the border. She sang a song about the family inside the border, and how one day they would meet the family outside the border. The land was rich for reproduction.

It came time to plant. I exhaled, and a small sack lowered from the bottom of my torso. Where I am from, the sacks have three black marks on them; two of them look like circles for eyes and one mark below looks like a smile. Inside of the sack contains any number of seeds from one to ninety-nine. We are forbidden from checking the count of seeds in the sack, so the day of planting is always a surprise.

The next part of the planting ritual is up to Meva. She pokes her finger into the "right eye" mark of the sack, and the line that looks like a mouth opens up and says, "YAAAARRR!" then the number of seeds we are to plant that day come out of the mouth. In our case, one seed came out and landed in Meva’s open hand. Next she was to choose which field would receive the seed. Would it be the square field or the circular field? But before she could make her choice, something terrible happened. The seed withered in her hand and blew apart in a puff of smoke.

Shock came over Meva’s face as she considered the seed obliteration in her hand. She looked up at me to see how I would respond. I was not sure how to act. The first thing that came to mind was what people would call her from now on, "Obliterator." I pushed that word out of my mind because-- OBLITERATOR. No! Not Meva! She would not be known as an obliterator! It is true that other obliterators who did not want to be known by that name often claimed that they never tried to have children in the first place. But that was hard to do for the couples who more publicly built their square and circle fields in thickly populated areas. Sometimes the husband took the blame, claiming that no seed was ever produced from the sack in the first place. He would be known as "Seedless." That is a name so shameful that we would shout that curse to our enemies on the other side of the battlefield, "Seedless! Seedless! Seedless!"

Meva wept in my arms, and said I could leave and find another female. I told her that I would rather be married to even an obliterator than any non-Meva female!

She had the desperate idea to use the soul transfer device to put her into the body of a viable female, but the idea was wrought with difficulties. The first would be to find a female who wanted to be pulled from her body into Meva’s. Why would a female want to be removed from her own body? Perhaps if she had an incurable disease! If she was going to die anyway, she would want to switch bodies with Meva, then Meva could bring us a baby, and we could figure out something else to do with her incurable disease. Perhaps I could build her a mechanical body in which to house her soul in case of an emergency.

Meva was willing to do this, but I did not like the idea of using the soul transfer machine lightly. It was for emergencies, and it needed much more experimentation before we knew the limits of its power. I was not sure how trustworthy the housing device we got from the rock people would be. What would happen if the device failed? What would happen if the device killed the purple fuzz-ball in the middle of a soul transfer? I assumed the body would be obliterated, and the soul could be cast into the air, a homeless ghost in search of a body! No! Experimenting on Meva would not do! She was already sad enough by not being able to bring us children.

We did not turn the two fields under, but we did not keep nature from claiming the ground for the forest again. Trees grew in those fields, male trees where the square was and female trees where the circle field used to be. Rocks tumbled back over the ground, male rocks where the square field used to be and female rocks where the circle used to be. The weeds came.

Meva and I never brought up what happened in those two fields again.

Artism

Five years passed, and we had thoroughly researched the soul transfer device. I took most of the notes, and Meva formally put everything in her secret journal. We concluded our experiments, having grown weary of research, and put the soul transfer device in storage under the bed.

With the diversion of research over, I noticed Meva spent long hours staring out the window. She was looking at the baby gardens, now barely visible under a thick patch of weeds.

One day, Meva went outside to draw shapes in the soil using sticks. She told me it was a new art theory she was working on called Drawshapism. Then she pushed sticks into the ground and call it Stickism.

Not to be outdone, I piled rocks up in front of our cabin and called it Rockism.

Soon her stick artworks began to fill the yard, leaving little room for my rock expressions. With no place left on our property to properly display my art, I decided to pioneer a new undiscovered genre of fine art. I plucked pinecones from the surrounding trees and re-hung them from the branches. I called it Pineconeism.

Meva thought I was mocking her art. I asked her why she didn't think I was just mocking Rockism. She claimed intuition. She said that Pineconeism was redundant and derivative, which infuriated me.

Out of spite, I tied the pinecones onto the exact place from where I plucked them, inciting more criticism from Meva. She said she couldn't tell if the pinecones were growing naturally from the tree, or if I had plucked and tied them back onto the branch. I feigned offense and yelled, "You do not have an eye for art or you would recognize Pineconism when you saw it!"

She declared a new form of Pineconism, where the artist did not pluck the pinecone from the branch and retie it before declaring it a work of art. I thought this was obviously silly, and said as much. She yelled, "You are just jealous of my superior form of expression, Tzurk! You know that I have discovered an authentic movement known as Pineconism!"

"You are not even making art, Meva!" I yelled. "What you are doing is called NATURE, not art!"

She glared at me, "That is what all stupid people said about great art when it was first discovered! They did not have the mind to understand such things. I am shocked to know that you are one of those people!"

I pointed to the ground, "Fine! I just discovered Groundism! It is when the ground is just the ground. In fact, the whole world is already my work of art because it is all covered with the ground. I will sign my name to the world."

I snapped a stick from the ground, and signed my name to the ground.

Meva’s face turned red with anger, "You just broke off one of my stickist artworks!"

"Well, there weren’t any other sticks I could use to sign my name!" I shouted back, "Someone picked them all and stuck them into the ground!"

That night, Meva moved out of our bed and set up a pile of clothes to sleep on in the corner. I saw the stupidity of our fight and said so. But she would not talk to me, and would not return to our bed.

That night I did not sleep. When we slept together, I rested my hand on her hip. The empty space she left in the bed was haunting. I kept looking over at Meva in the corner, and could not believe I acted so stupid to her. I realized that she was really trying to be an artist. She needed to create. She hadn't started Stickism to spite me. She was expressing herself. I was the fraud. I was the one acting in spite.

That lonely bed was a warning that if I continued to disrespect my treasured wife, I may just end up alone… forever.

The next morning, I saw her stirring, so I went and lay down beside her. I apologized to her and admitted my spite.

She held up her hand to quiet me. "I curse my love of art. I put it before you. I forgive you, but I don’t want to pursue Stickism or my fraudulent form of Pineconism anymore."

She took my hand and placed it on her hip. She said, "I have a new form of art. I call it Tzurkism, and I will only ever be a Tzurkist!"

"And I am a Mevaist. I will only be obsessed with Mevaism forever!"

Research

I threw myself into the study of the soul transfer machine. Meva documented everything in a secret journal (Undisclosed location. Trust me, don’t even bother trying). When I first turned the machine on, we could feel it drawing power from the surrounding environment. If we used it too often, the surrounding trees would droop from exhaustion and the grass would lose its color. Though we didn't feel anything, it was my suspicion that the soul transfer machine could even be drawing its power from Meva and I.

With the use of some handmade baskets and some string, I was able to trap small spirds on which to experiment. We always had a few in cages along the back wall of our cabin, and took them outside when weather permitted. The first specimen I caught was an adult spird that looked healthy. We called him "Specimen A". I put him in one of the transfer machine’s claws, and had the other claw touching a rock. This was to emulate my first experience in the blank mines when I touched the purple fuzz-ball and went into the mountain.

I pushed the button to power the device, and it began to hum. Then, with a flip of a switch, Specimen A went suddenly limp, and the soul transfer machine cut its own power. Meva pushed her fingers through Specimen A’s feathers, feeling for a pulse. But there was none to be found.

We inspected the rock. I picked it up and held it up to my face. It was cooler than room temperature, but there were no visible signs that anything was different.

"If you are in there, little spird, hold on tight and we will bring you back to your body!" I said.

The claw of the machine was, once again, attached to the rock. The claw on Specimen A remained and we turned the machine on. With a flip of the switch, the spird sprang back to life. It's head snapped up, and it's feet clenched. We kept Speciman A in a cage just long enough to make sure there were no lasting side effects. Later that spring, we set Specimen A loose, and he built a nest in a tree that grew from what used to be our circular field.

It was not clear exactly what happened in the event of soul transfer. We were not sure if the soul got extracted from the body, and that caused the heart to stop, or if the soul transfer stopped the body’s heart, which released the soul to be transferred.

[thesaltyoceanwaves]

Synthesis of Feelings Ch. 1 - A New Friends for Marinette AU Story

On Ao3

Tearing off another request from her corkboard, Annie sighs as she reads over the contents. Another set of bombs were being asked by Kenner for the Theme Park, but now he wanted them to be gold. Normally, Annie doesn’t mind such since making the supplements for traits is easy and quick, but she just synthesized a batch the other day and just happened to be missing materials for gold.

She sighs again. “Ugh, I guess I have to-”

She’s interrupted by a sudden knock at the door. Without second thought, she says, “Come in!” Just as quickly, the door flies open, and Marinette rushes inside, panting as if she just ran a marathon. “W-Woah! Are you okay?”

“Ugh, Annie,” she cries in between breaths, “It’s just the worst! I could just die!”

“Hey, hey, it’s gonna be okay!” Annie says, practically flailing her arms, “Is it a monster? I can just get Gillian and-”

“I wish,” Marinette gasps, “No, it’s nothing like that. I just…” she groans, “I embarrassed myself in front of my crush!”

Oh. That. Not that Annie doesn’t feel for the girl, but she doesn’t exactly have the greatest insight into romance. Still, judging from the panic on Marinette’s face, she really needs someone to hear her out and calm her down.

“Are you okay?” she offers weakly. When Marinette quickly shakes her head no, Annie knows that she’s off to a rough start.

Well, maybe she doesn’t know much about romance or dealing with feelings, but she does know how to brew a mean cup of tea. She pulls out a chair that’s been designated as the “Guest Chair” and prepares some water to be boiled. Marinette settles down in the chair, but is gripping the sides and almost shaking.

“You don’t understand, Annie,” Marinette groans, “Every time I try to talk to him, my words never come out right! It’s like ‘Low. I-I mean hello! How are you today? The weather is great- er I mean, it would be great if it weren’t raining! Not that train isn’t great! I mean rain!” she sighs, clutching her head in between her hands, “He probably thinks I’m weird.”

“I doubt that,” Annie says gently, “I mean, he can probably sense that you feel weird around him, but that’s different from actually thinking that you’re weird. You just need to not feel as weird around him.”

“But how do I do that?”

Before Annie can answer her question, the door swings open yet again, and a foul odor protrudes the room. It’s a good thing that Marinette is sitting, because if she weren’t, she’d have collapsed to the floor from the wretched smell, just as Annie does.

“Heyyy, guys!”

Completely oblivious to the atmosphere of the room, Gillian strides into the room, her bottle of herbal juice visibly open. Not that smelling her creations is ever a delight, but today’s combination is even more noticeably horrifying than ever. She can’t even really tell what’s supposed to be in this batch - maybe burnt Beeswax? Hot Chocolate?

That shouldn’t ever be a combination anyone contemplates mixing together, no matter how desperate they are to eat healthy.

Pinching her nose, Annie responds, “Gillian, I already told you, Pepe banned you from bringing that in here.”

“What, this?” she asks innocently enough, holding up the bottle. When Annie nods her head rapidly, Gillian merely laughs, “I don’t really get what he has against herbal juice. It’s soooo good for you!” Nonetheless, she manages to gulp down what must be half a container, and the smell quickly dissipates from the room. “So refreshing!”

Releasing her nose, Annie sighs. “What are you doing here anyway? Don’t you have work?”

“What, me? Nah, I’m on my break!” Her smile is the widest Annie has ever seen it. Stretching out her arms, Gillian takes the time to crack both her shoulders and back. “Ugh, I’ve been working soooo hard lately!”

“You mean working hard at slacking off?”

“Haha, you know me so well Annie!”

From the corner of her eye, Annie sees Marinette nodding her head awkwardly. She isn’t sure if she’s ever introduced the two, or if they ever met on their own, so she decides now is the time to take control of the conversation.

“Hey, Gillian, have you met Marinette?”

“Hmm… Oh, you’re Tom and Sabine’s daughter, right? You live near Fitz?”

Laughing awkwardly, she gives a little wave from the corner. “Yup, that’s me.”

“Oh, man, they have the best baked stuff on the entire island!” Gillian sighs, no doubt dreaming about what was baking over there now.

To be fair, the thought also haunts Annie.

But then she sees the look on Marinette’s face, and remembers the reason she’s there.

“Say, Gillian, would you happen to have any experience with, um, dealing with… boys?”

“Sure,” she says with a slight shrug. “I fight them all the time.”

“No… I meant like… having crushes on them?”

“Oh, that? Not really.”

Annie completely deflates in defeat. Ugh, so much for that. But actually though… When she thought about it, it didn’t make any sense. Sure, Gillian has a rather… strong personality to put it bluntly, but she’s hardly unattractive. The purple haired knight takes surprisingly good care of her hair, and her job requires her to stay in top shape. Hours of having to wear her armor and train in the early morning keeps her well-toned, while still managing to remain slender. Her height, while a bit more than the average woman on Sera Island, wasn’t enough to intimidate anyone.

And even with her lackadaisical personality and penchant for disgusting herbal drinks, Gillian is boatloads of fun to be around. Anyone who can’t acknowledge that, Annie decides, is not worth having around.

“Annie, you look like your brain is about to explode,” Gillian points out, breaking her from her train of thought, “Are boys confusing you that much?”

Looking over to a confused Marinette in the corner, Annie sighs yet again. “Not me, actually,” Marinette rapidly shakes her head no, so Annie bites her lip before she can give away any more. “Er, I mean a friend. A friend and not me.”

“Oh, you mean Marinette?”

The poor designer jumps out of her seat, holding her face in her hands in complete mortification. Annie also can’t stop her panic, slamming her hand against Gillian’s mouth.

“ You can’t say a word to anyone else !” she forces into a hushed whisper.

The knight merely laughs, patting Annie on the back. “Come on, Annie. I know it’s not my secret to tell, so I won’t say a word. Now, Marinette,” Gillian says, walking over to her and patting her shoulder, “I may not know much about dating boys, but I certainly know how to talk to them.”

Letting out a defeated sigh, Marinette stops jumping about, though she still looks concerned. Her eyes flit about from the window to the door leading into the shop, as if someone else might overhear their conversation and take it all the way to… whoever it is Marinette has a crush on. Annie frowns when she realizes she’s missing this vital information, but decides not to press her on the matter for the time being.

“How about talking to them and you completely stammer like an idiot,” Marinette finally says, “Like, every time I try to talk to him, word mush just comes out of my mouth, or I’ll say the wrong word at the wrong time and ughhh, it’s so embarrassing!”

“So when you’re around him, you get easily flustered and embarrassed?”

“Basically.”

Gillian nods her head a couple of times, wrapping her fingers around her chin. Annie recognizes the gesture. She started copying it from Kilbert to make herself seem like she was deeper in thought than it seemed. Of course, knowing the two of them, the solution they had in mind wasn’t going to turn out too great.

“Maybe you’re just not eating properly. You get nervous because you don’t have enough energy. But if you eat and drink properly, you’ll have the right fuel, you know?”

An awkward pause hangs over the room, as Marinette and Annie exchange a look. Marinette can only laugh in confusion as Annie sighs, preparing for the inevitable follow-up to that piece of advice.

“I eat plenty though,” Marinette points out, “My parents are always packing me enough food for lunch, and my breakfast and dinner portions are fitting of a baker’s daughter. Not to mention all the snacks they are willing to make.”

“Well, then it’s gotta be what you’re eating!”

“Gillian, if this is going to be a plug for your medical juice, I’m going to have to stop you right there,” Annie interrupts, “We want Marinette to be able to talk to a boy, not move on toward the light before she’s even 15.”

“ What ?” Gillian chuckles, patting Annie on the back, “Come on, you’re being silly! You drank the medical juice, and you’re perfectly fine! Healthy as can be!”

“I wouldn’t exactly call those drinks healthy…” She grumbles underneath her breath, “But I guess you do have a point. Marinette, you do tend to run yourself thin with all of the work you do. You should join me and Fitz at the restaurant from time to time.”

“Heheh, see, I knew I had good advice!”

Casting Gillian a hard glance, Annie continues, “But for the sake of your well-being, I’m going to advise you not to drink anything Gillian makes.”

The knight deflates and pouts in defeat.

“Maybe we should ask a guy about this?” Annie ponders to herself, “Oh, wait, there’s someone that might actually have some insight on this matter. Come on guys, let’s go to the Committee HQ.”

Still upset by the medical juice comments, Gillian’s face blanches. “Heheh. Um, maybe you guys should go without me? I mean, I’m feeling sooo tired from all the work I did today-”

“You’re slacking off again.”

Smiling, Gillian doesn’t nod or shake her head in disagreement.

“I mean, I’ll cover for you, but you’re really not good at lying.”

“Oh, thank you Annie!” She says, throwing her arms over her, “I’ll wish you lots of luck on your mission to get Mari a boyfriend!”

Squeaking, Annie looks up to see Marinette blushing in the corner. Quickly, she races over to the door and moves outside, probably to calm herself down.

“Yeah, yeah. Just don’t do anything….at all while I’m gone. I guess you can watch the shop.”

Ah, who am I kidding?   Annie thinks to herself. She’s probably just gonna nap the entire time I’m gone. Well, can’t say I blame her. I just hope she doesn’t break Pepe’s hammock, hoping to be like Kilbert…

--

A quick trip down the road and through the Central Plaza brings the two girls to the Committee HQ. Unfortunately, everyone is coming back from their lunch, so the inside of the building is packed with other members pacing back to their office or handling complaints at the desk.

“Man, we really picked a time to come,” Marinette points out, “I don’t think I’ve ever been in here before.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t worry too much. My adviser works here, and he’s pretty good about answering questions. Although I don’t see him anywhere…”

Normally, Hans is patrolling the area, speaking to other advisers or taking complaints from visitors. If he’s not, then Annie can expect to find him in his office. But when she knocks on the door, she hears no response and frowns.

“Maybe he’s still on break?” Marinette offers weakly, “He could have gotten out later than normal too, judging by the crowd.”

“Ugh, we might have been better off checking the restaurant,” Annie grumbles. Of course, the restaurant would have been just as busy too. And then there was always the off chance that Hans actually went home for lunch. No matter the case, it was clear that she wasn’t going to be running into him until later that day. Retreating from the door, she racks her mind trying to think of the next candidate to speak to to help with Marinette’s problem.

Unfortunately, she’s so lost in thought, she can’t stop herself from bumping into someone. At first, she’s confused because she doesn’t see anyone. Even from hearing Marinette’s wince, she wasn’t entirely sure if she even ran into someone. However, when she looks down, everything clicks into place. The petite man with white hair mumbles to himself, readjusting his swirly glasses.

“Oh! Daniel!” Annie squeaks, offering her hand to help him up, “Sorry about that! I got lost in thought and wasn’t paying attention to what I was doing.”

“It’s okay,” he responds weakly, “I know I don’t have a lot of presence.”

“That’s not true,” Annie laughs nervously in response. Truthfully, it was at least partially true, but she already felt bad about how everything unfolded. Before he could press her further on the issue, she turns to Marinette, “A-Anyway! Daniel, have you met Marinette?”

Still adjusting his glasses, he takes a moment to study her companion. “Oh, you’re the baker’s daughter, right? Tom and Sabine’s child?”

“That’s me,” Marinette says, raising her hand, “Um, it’s nice to meet you, Daniel.”

“A pleasure to meet you two. Um, is there something I can help you with?”

A light pink tinges her cheeks, and she looks to Annie, eyes hopeful for a way out of this.

It must be worse than I thought .

“Well, Daniel, if you don’t mind a personal question… do you ever have problems talking to girls?”

“Talking to girls?” he repeats. When Annie only replies with a simple nod, he frowns. “Oh, um, not really. I-I mean, most girls are actually pretty nice to me even when I stumble over my words,” he sighs, “It only seems to be around Mr. Hans that I ever seem to really mess up and get nervous. Oh, I wish I could be as cool as him!”

Somehow, that answer isn’t totally unexpected . Still, I guess it was worth a shot .

“Why do you ask?”

“We were looking to get some advice,” she explains carefully. Not that she doesn’t trust Daniel, but she figures it’s best not to be spilling all of the details, especially to people she’s not nearly as close with. She knows for a fact that Daniel isn’t the vicious type and wouldn’t use the info to blackmail either of them, but it’s for the best this way. Not to mention, she doesn't know if anyone could be listening on their conversation and decide to gossip about it.

“Oh, I hope you can get the advice you’re looking for,” he says, “I don’t know if I can be of much further help.”

“It’s okay. We appreciate it anyway.”

The two leave the hallway and settle near the entrance of the HQ. Frowning, Marinette leans against the door frame, looking up. “I wish I could have talked to him a bit more. I wonder if he has the same sort of problems I do.”

“From what you’re telling me, it sure does sound like it,” Annie points out, “But he’s working now anyway, so it’s probably not the best to deter him from his work.”

“But… weren’t we coming to meet with your other friend for the same reason?”

“Haha, anyway,” Annie exclaims, pointing toward the exit, “Let’s see if we can find anyone else to help us, Marinette!”

--

The Main Plaza is pretty quiet after the post-lunch rush, though in the distance, Annie can hear a rather angry argument going on. Still, she decides not to pay it much mind, instead pondering who the next person the two of them should talk to is.

“You sure do know a lot of lively people, Annie,” Marinette comments, breaking the silence, “I think it’s kind of helping my nervousness a bit.”

“Oh? How so?”

“Um, well…” she bites her lip, “I’m used to stammering and not getting my words out right. I say some of the weirdest stuff when under pressure. I’ve kind of accepted after a while that I was probably just some big weirdo. But seeing everyone so at ease around you and having fun is kind of relaxing.”

Annie raises an eyebrow at this. “Oh, I don’t know about relaxing…”

“Why do you say-”

As if the universe had been listening in on their conversation, Marinette is interrupted by the loud arguing in the distance, as the two parties move closer to the girls. As they get closer, Annie recognizes both the large man in black armor and a giant sword, and the more petite boy in a red adventuring suit and she sighs.

“Um, I totally won that last contest! I’m the best!”

“No, you’re not! You’re way too slow!”

“Eat turtle soup!”

“What does that even have to do with this conversation?”

“Um, it’s obvious! Turtles are slow! Therefore, if you eat them, you’ll totally be slow, which is what I want!”

“That’s not how it works!”

The two continue to argue back and forth, not even pausing to acknowledge the two girls. It’s pretty likely in this scenario that during said argument, they managed to wander halfway across town without even realizing it.

She curls her lips in at the thought of that being the solution to Beaux’s missing sense of direction. But there are more pressing matters right now.

“What are you two doing?” Annie interrupts, “You’re annoying everyone here.”

Kilbert gasps, “Annie! Girl I’ve never met before! Tell Beaux that he totally lost that bet against me!”

“Hey, you can’t tell people what to say!” Beaux snarls. “Hey, Marinette, you totally saw me win, right?”

“She doesn’t know what you’re talking about,” Annie retorts, “What bet?” She groans, “You know what, forget that. Maybe you two can help us settle something.”

“Fine,” Kilbert grunts, “I bet I can do it better than Beaux though.”

“Can not !” Beaux argues. The two of them look like they’re about to go back into their argument, but Annie is quick to cut in.

“Just listen . Marinette here is looking for some advice concerning boys, and I know you two have plenty to say on that matter.”

“That I do!” Kilbert says triumphantly. He also has the audacity to stick his chest out and pound a fist against it. Marinette doesn’t seem the least bit impressed, but whether he realizes that or not, it doesn’t deter him. “I’m glad you could finally come to your best friend, Kilbert the Wise and Powerful, for advice, my old friend!”

There’s a burning desire in her to point out that she isn’t his “old” friend - he literally just met Marinette - nor would she consider him wise. But Beaux beats her to the punch.

“I’ve yet to see anything wise come out of your mouth.”

“What did you say you imbecilic cockroach?”

“Enough!” Annie sighs, “Marinette?”

She clears her throat, looking to the two men awkwardly. “Um, it isn’t really about boys in general. Just… one specific boy.”

“Oh, you mean Adrien?”

A pause falls among the group, before quickly dissolving into a variety of reactions. Marinette’s face erupts into a burning red mess, hiding herself away with her hands. Kilbert and Annie look to each other in confusion - Annie certainly doesn’t know any Adrien, and Kilbert doesn’t appear to know him any more than she does. That leaves Beaux, who nods at everyone around him. Apparently, he’s cracked the code.

Finally peeking out from her fingers, Marinette barely manages to ask, “H-How did you-”

“I just watched the two of you interact,” Beaux answers, “Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone. Well,” he pauses to regard Annie and Kilbert, “Anyone else.”

“Damn you, Beaux!” Kilbert scowls, “You may have won the advantage over me this time, but you won’t win this war!”

“To be fair, Adrien isn’t someone you would know off-hand,” Beaux points out, “His dad rarely ever lets him leave his house. I think me knowing him is a twist of fate.”

“I never thought I’d hear those words from you,” Annie comments, “But who is Adrien anyway?”

This is when Marinette interrupts, clasping both of her hands. “Only the greatest angel gifted to all of humanity! His blonde hair is sunshine and his eyes are the lushest shade of green you’ll ever see,” she sighs, “And he’s so nice too! He gave me his umbrella one day when it was raining after apologizing for a misunderstanding…” she sighs yet again, but it’s heavier and her gaze falls to the ground, “But ever since then, I’ve had problems talking to him without either sounding like an idiot or stammering over every syllable.”

Kilbert nods understandingly, his fist over his mouth as he considers every word Marinette has to say. Beaux, on the other hand, frowns and looks up at the sky as he considers the situation. Another silence falls upon them all, and Annie decides to take a seat in front of the fountain. Judging by their expressions, it seems like their conversation is going to go on for a little bit longer.

After what seems like forever, Kilbert makes a sound that makes everyone in the peripheral jump up. “Aha! I know what you have to do, Marinette!”

“O-Oh?” she asks, slightly annoyed by his movements, “Does it involve not getting a heart attack?”

“What? Of course, you won’t be getting any heart attacks,” he clicks his tongue, “After all, you have to live long enough to get a boyfriend. Heart attacks are going to be a pesky obstacle to recover from.”

“No, duh,” Annie retorts.

“Yes, you don’t need a heart attack,” Kilbert continues, “What you need to conquer your fears is to challenge both yourself and your one true love!”

Annie bites her lip. This could be an interesting take. Or it could be Kilbert being himself as per usual. Judging by Beaux’s expression, he’s not too impressed by the direction the conversation is headed, and she can hardly blame him.

Of course, Marinette doesn’t know any better, so she studies the adventurer with curiosity. “What do you mean by challenge?”

“Exactly what you think it means.”

He offers no further explanation, so the three of them sit in contemplation, all staring at each other. More and more, Beaux starts to look less impressed with the adventurer, and Marinette begins to look concerned.

Annie isn’t sure she can raise her eyebrow any higher.

Realizing they have no idea what he was talking about, Kilbert groans and continues, “The best way to a man’s heart is to demand his attention! Challenge him to take you on a date!”

Wow, I certainly wasn’t expecting this today.

Beaux frowns. “That's ridiculous. You can’t just go around challenging random people and expect them to like you.”

“Is that a challenge, Beaux?” Kilbert exclaims, “I’ll show you!!”

Before anyone can stop him, the adventurer dashes around the plaza, demanding everyone he encounters into some sort of contest. Eating, running, holding a handstand, it doesn’t matter. Only one person entertains the motion of a staring contest. The entire time it plays out, Beaux whistles with his hands behind his head, while Marinette takes a seat next to Annie. About two minutes go by, and Kilbert finally makes his way back to them.

“Did you see that?” he announces proudly, “ I just made a new friend! And so you see, Marinette, challenges are definitely the way to get Adrien to like you!”

“Um, okay,” Annie says, “What do you have to counter that, Beaux?”

“Well, definitely don’t challenge guys to weird contests, unless you know he’s into that sort of thing,” he retorts, “And I don’t think that Adrien is.”

“Think? Or know ?” Kilbert interrupts.

“ Hey , this is my turn,” Beaux argues, “Stop getting in my way!”

“Stop making my advice look pointless!”

“This isn’t about you!”

Once again, the two begin to bicker, and Annie is looking to tear her hair out. Marinette merely laughs beside her.

“I’m sorry about this,” Annie sighs, “I was hoping we could find at least one person to give you decent advice.”

Swinging her legs back and forth, Marinette looks up toward the sky, a small smile apparent on her face. “Well, this isn’t exactly ideal, but I can tell all your friends mean well. I’ve at least gotten over that incident from earlier on.” Closing her eyes, she leans her head back and sighs. “Still, I wish there was someone that had a better idea of what to do.”

Oh, how Annie wished for the same. She wished she had some sort of advice for Marinette’s situation, and not just wallow in naive obliviousness yet again. Maybe there is someone she knows, though, that can ease Marinette’s anxiety and simultaneously school her in this area. There’s a name at the tip of her tongue, someone that Annie definitely knows would be able to help…

Just as she contemplates the matter, Annie spots a familiar red-haired alchemist walking out of one of the shops and through the Square. The argument between Kilbert and Beaux, as well as Marinette and Annie’s exasperation catches her attention, and she approaches the group, studying the interaction the entire time.

“Hey Liese.”

“Hey girls.” She gestures to the arguing duo behind them. “You want to tell me the backstory behind that?”

Looking to Marinette once again, Annie sighs. “We were hoping to get advice for Marinette about talking to a boy she likes. And as you can guess, well, Kilbert and Beaux don’t exactly see eye to eye.”

“That’s to be expected. But what made you go to them in the first place?”

“Well, we were kinda hoping for a guy’s perspective on the matter, but Hans wasn’t around. And as for Kyle… ugh, I didn’t want to subject Marinette to that.”

At the mention of his name, Liese’s eyes narrow. “Good call. Thankfully, I haven’t seen him around as of late,” she sighs, taking a moment to watch the fight between Kilbert and Beaux play out. Satisfied, she returns her attention to Marinette. “So tell me, Marinette, right? What sort of boy problems are you having?”

“Oh, um,” she nearly jumps out of her seat when asked the question, “Talking to him, I guess. I-I mean talking to him, for sure .”

Liese nods, crossing her arms over her chest. “You don’t know what to say and your mind starts racing a million miles per minute, right? And you’re the type to overthink scenarios, aren’t you?”

“Woah, you can tell all that just by looking at her?” Annie asks, just as Marinette turns her face away.

“It was more of a deduction, but it seems like I was right. I figured from the way you got all jumpy about being asked, but your reactions are confirming it for me,” Liese says gently, “Well, thankfully, you don’t need to do anything extreme to get yourself to feel more comfortable around him.”

Marinette blinks. “I don’t?”

“Nope. See, back when I lived in the capital, I also had problems talking with people, mostly when it came to negotiations or appearing less… abrasive, let’s just say. So, my friend at the time had me do several roleplay scenarios to learn how to be more charming and flirt better.” A smile sweeps across her face, and she leans forward, her hands framing her face. “Those were good times, I have to admit. Some of the mess ups were pretty embarrassing, but after a while, you start to realize that you know how to have a proper conversation.”

“You know, that makes a lot of sense,” Annie says, “Thanks, Liese. That’s the most helpful idea we’ve gotten all day. Of course, I still wouldn’t know how to conduct the roleplay…”

“You can leave that to me,” she says with a wink, “Oh, and Annie?”

“Hm?”

“I’ll be sending the bill to you.”

“Wait, what?”

Standing up, she laughs, “I’m just joking! I’ll see you girls around!”

Still regarding the older alchemist with a hard glare as she walks off, Annie slumps in her seat. “Somehow, I don’t think she was kidding about that…”

However, upon seeing Marinette’s relieved expression, Annie can’t help but smile. There’s at least some hope for the two of them going into the situation, and Annie would be willing to pay any price to help out a friend.

[fanders-fic-awards]

The Road Trip (SFC Submission)

Summary: A group of four friends travel across the country to see the Grand Canyon

Warnings: A car accident, self-deprecating speech, death mentions

WC: 3185

Vote

The old Honda Civic quietly drove down the rural highway, making its way through rural America. At the wheel sat Virgil, his hands carefully gripped in the correct position, his breathing focused and calm, his eyes attentive to the road ahead, despite no one else around. Next to him, in the passenger seat, sat the bookish Logan, his eyes darting between road maps, guidebooks, and hand-scribbled calculations, determined to pack as much fun and enjoyment into the road trip as he could. The back seats were occupied by Roman, a princely sports type who was enjoying the late morning sun as he daydreamed into another dimension, and Patton, the dad-friend who was more than content playing 'I Spy' by himself.

" I think I have it this time," announced Logan, finally tearing himself away from the papers.

"Well don't keep me in suspense, Specs," replied Virgil, teasing him with a nickname only they could get away with. "What do you have this time?"

Pushing his glasses up his nose, a sign he was about to go full nerd mode, he began "Taking into account Patton's habit of running off, and Roman's partially weak bladder-"

"Hey!" cried Roman from the back. "It is not weak, it's just..."

"Pissy?" offered Virgil.

"Shut it, Joke Colburn."

"Driving Miss Daisy reference? Good job."

"Thanks, I've been thinking of that one for a month now."

"Delicate?" asked Patton.

"Pardon, my young friend?"

"Would you describe your bladder as 'delicate?"

"Not entirely. More-"

"Temperamental."

"Yes, Logan. Temperamental."

"Back on track, because of those things mentioned, if we allow 7 minutes at the following rest stops, we should still be able to hit every tourist point along the way, collecting the necessary souvenirs and photographs, and still make it to the Grand Canyon at a reasonable time."

"Alright," agreed Virgil. "And when is the next rest stop?"

"In 26.7 miles."

"But the sign up ahead says half a mile?"

"We can't stop at that one. We have a schedule that i literally just finished creating."

"Well, I just finished 'creating' something of my own, and I need to use a bathroom."

"Is it a poem?" asked Patton.

"You are just to adorable for words, you know that right?"

"I get that a lot."

"We can't stop, Virgil. I just made a schedule. It took me 17 minutes to do so."

"And think of all the fun you're going to have creating a new one," Virgil said, pulling in to the rest stop.

"Just because you're correct doesn't make you right, you know?"

The stop did not take as long as Logan had predicted, mostly due to his mission to follow Patton around everywhere he wandered whilst Virgil gathered supplies and used the facilities. Soon enough, they were ready to get back on the road again.

"Are you sure you don't want someone else to drive, Virge?" asked Logan.

"I'm good. I think I need to do this myself... to help, ya know?"

"Understandable. Please let us know if you want to swap."

"Oooo, I call shotgun this time!" cried Patton, running full force at the car.

"Wha-Shotgun?!" Roman retorted dramatically.

"I believe it is," Logan began, rifling through his little black notebook of idioms, "'the act of reserving the front seat of a car. An action that can only be taken when the vehicle is in sight.'"

"I know what it means, I just thought that I could possibly sit up front this time."

"Maybe next time, Knight Watch," chuckled Virgil. "C'mon, we better get a move on before Logan blows a fuse."

With that, they all piled into the car and pulled back on to the road.

The sun rose high into the sky as the group continued across the country, commenting and making jokes about the places and monuments they passed along the way. Even Virgil was cracking half a smile as they drove, his anxiety slowly fading into the back of his mind. It wasn't until around two in the afternoon that Patton finally cried out in delight "WAFFLES!!"

"What?!" yelled Logan, jolted from a nap he was enjoying in the warm sunlight.

"Waffles! Dead ahead! They have a Waffle Hut out here!"

He pointed to the large brown and yellow building approaching them, with a large sign outside reading "Waffle Hut, Come get some Breakfast 24/7"

"Well, I am famished at this point," admitted Roman, stretching his neck. "The snacks are delicious but nothing quite fills you like a good hearty meal."

"What do you decree, oh Lord of the Time Schedule?" Virgil jested.

"I guess... It would be a good opportunity to stretch the legs, as well as eat a proper meal."

"Yaaaay~!" squealed Patton, who was bouncing up and down in his seat.

"Hey, Patton. What did the Pancake say to the Waffle?" asked Virgil, pulling into the parking lot.

"Ooo, this sounds like a good one. What?"

"Nice abs."

"Oh my god... That was so adorable, I love it kiddo!"

"Knew you would."

Parking the car, they made their way inside, choosing a booth by the window and made their orders. Virgil went to use the bathroom, feeling the need to clean himself up a little. He looked at himself in the mirror after splashing his face with water. The bags under his eyes from the lack of sleep, the mess he called a hairstyle, not to mention the small, almost invisible scars, littering his face where the auto glass had sprayed him. He felt his heart begin to race, his palms becoming clammy, and his chest tightened.

"In... Hold... Out," he whispered to himself, trying to breathe that all too familiar pattern.

"Are you doing okay?" asked Logan, who was now standing behind him. Virgil didn't even hear him come in he was so distracted.

"Yeah... I guess..." he sighed. "Just another attack, nothing to fear."

"You're doing fine. Are you remembering to breathe?"

"Until I need to die," he said with a dry chuckle.

"Come on, the food is ready."

They walked out of the bathroom, joining their friends at the booth. In front of each of them sat their respective meals. Patton had a plate of waffles drenched in three kinds of syrup ,and a coffee mug filled with what was most likely orange juice. Roman was enjoying a couple of Sunny Side-up eggs with bacon, hash browns, and a waffle, in between sips of his Very Berry smoothie. Logan chose to eat a simple fruit salad, with an added waffle at Patton's insistence, and carefully sipped his green tea whilst studying the maps ahead of them. Virgil smirked as he drank his black coffee, and took uneven bites of his single plain pancake, knowing it was making Patton all the more upset he wasn't eating a waffle like the rest of them.

Bites of food, bits of time, slowly they finished their plates, making very minimal small talk between then, and soon enough they were on the road again. The sun was hanging low in the sky as they crossed the state border into Arizona, meaning they were only a few hours away from their final destination.

" We should probably stop soon," stated Logan, carefully tracing the roads on the map with his fingertip.

"I'm fine for a couple of hours," replied Virgil, keeping his eyes on the road ahead of them. "I want to get us as close as we can, so we don't have to wake up too early."

"I have to agree with Dark Luigi over here," affirmed Roman from the passenger seat. "I'm not really up for waking up too early."

"Luigi?"

"You're not the main character, but you are very important nonetheless, and you have a very mean stare."

"Who am I, in this equation?" asked Logan, finally lifting his head from his works.

"Iggy Kooper, of course."

"I'm a Kooper?!"

"You're the smartest Kooper," Virgil tried to reason. "I mean, who can create such fantastic creations than the most intellectual character in the game?"

"And let me guess, Roman. You're Mario?"

"Of course not! I'm Bowser." The car fell silent. "What? What is it?!"

"No, you're right..." Virgil muttered. "I mean, he has a castle, an army."

"A love for princesses?" added Patton.

"But isn't he... a bad guy?" questioned Logan.

"Preposterous and nonsense, that's just the media portraying him as such." Roman turned to Virgil, with pleading eyes. "Right...?"

"Well... I mean..."

"Why would you invite someone to drive go karts if they weren't a good guy and a friend?" interrupted Patton with a smile. "Bowser has to be a great guy, and it suits you, kiddo!"

"Thanks Patton."

"But, then who is Mario?" asked Virgil.

"I am not quite sure, I haven't had much time to think about it."

"Can I be Toad?!" squealed Patton, excitedly.

"Of course you can," Virgil said, turning his head to smile. "I'd think no one else could be a more perfect-

"Watch out!!" screamed Logan, pointing to the front.

In an instant, Virgil spun forwards to see the blinding headlights of the oncoming semi trailer. In the brief time he stopped paying attention, the car had drifted to the left into traffic. His heart sped faster as his mind flashed back to that fateful night.

HNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNK

The truck blasted its horn, trying to swerve out of the way. In an instant, he jerked his hands to the right, pulling the car back to their side of the road, and all the way into the gravel off-bank. Virgil's breathing was short, rapid. He could feel his heart race in his chest, almost begging to smash through his ribs and run away. All he could feel was the phantom pain of that night... of the car accident. He almost jumped when he felt Roman softly touch his hand on the steering wheel, and he realised how tightly he was gripping it.

"Virgil... It's okay." Roman tried to remain calm, to be a pillar of support. "It's all okay now. Can you do the breathing exercise that Logan showed you?"

"I... don't...know..." he replied between quick shots of air.

"Just in your own time, friend..."

Virgil lifted his hand from the wheel, parking the car properly, before turning off the key. Closing his eyes, he began to focus on his breathing. Long breaths, returning oxygen to his lungs, to his body. When his heart rate felt normal again, he opened his eyes.

"Are you okay?" Roman asked.

"I think so."

"There's a gas station up ahead," Logan added quietly. "We can stop in there and ask for directions to a motel."

" 'Kay."

"You going to be okay to drive?" asked Roman again. "Do you want someone else to take over?"

"I should be... I'm okay. I just need to get there."

Pulling in to the gas station, Virgil quickly ran for the restrooms, making it just in time to lose his lunch into the sink. Wiping away the residue from his mouth, his eyes met in the mirror, and tears began to form.

"I hate you so much," he whispered to himself. "Why are you like this? Why are you so useless?"

"It's probably not a good idea to talk to mirrors like that," chimed Patton, who had somehow snuck up behind him, causing him to jump. "It reflects badly on you."

"Patton, I..." Virgil tried to yell, but the tears kept flowing. "I'm scared..."

"Hey... Hey, kiddo..." Patton wrapped his arms around him, holding him close. "It's going to be okay, we're here for you. You're strong, but it's okay to be afraid sometimes."

"Thanks..." he mumbled in reply.

"C'mon, we better not keep them waiting," Patton said, giving him one final squeeze.

Walking out of the bathroom, Virgil turned to Patton, and said "I'm just going to grab a drink. I'll be in the car soon."

"All good. Can you ask for directions for the motel as well? I was meant to do that, but I kinda got sidetracked."

"Yeah, sure..."

After a few minutes, Virgil climbed back into the driver's seat of the car, switching it back on.

"You right to do this?" asked Roman, still in the passenger seat.

"Yeah, I'm feeling better now. The guy says there is a motel a few miles up, not too far off the highway."

"A good night's rest will make us feel better," Logan  said with a smile.

At the motel, they all booked in to one room to save on costs. Roman and Logan took the queen sized bed, Patton chose the smaller bed next to it, and Virgil said he was happy on the couch.

"Are you sure, Virge?" asked Logan, preparing his nightly routines.

"Yeah, I'll be fine. I can sleep anywhere. You have a bad back, and Princey doesn't... do less than a queen."

"I heard that, Valentino Gothy!" called Roman from the bathroom.

"I'm not even a speedy driver!"

"Don't care, it's funny!"

"Anyways," Virgil said, turning back to Logan. "I'll set an alarm for us. What time is sunrise?"

"A little after 6, I think."

"So if I set it for about 4, we should have time to get there and do the hike."

"More than likely."

"Great... Well, goodnight guys."

"Night Virge," smiled Logan.

"Night kiddo," whispered Patton from his pillow fort.

"Goodnight my favourite black knight," sung Roman as he exited the bathroom.

Virgil didn't feel tired, but as soon as his head hit the pillow, he was out like a light. His dreams were filled with car accidents and fire, of broken glass and gasoline. He could feel the stabbing pain, smell the metal, taste blood... but for the life of him, he couldn't remember where he was. He could hear yelling, but the smoke was too thick. Waking with a startle, he could feel the cold sweat drip down his forehead. Reaching for his phone, he saw it was a little after midnight. He looked over to his friends, to see they were all still fast asleep, Patton having moved from his bed to lay across the other two. Virgil chuckled softly, laying his head back down and trying to sleep again.

Virgil's alarm woke him on time, and he was pleasantly surprised that the others were ready and waiting for him. Soon enough they had the car packed again and were on the road to their final destination.  The car was silent, the group preferring the sounds of the road than the early morning radio, and each were distracted with their own things. In no time, they found themselves in the parking lot outside of Grand Canyon National Park. Virgil carefully parked the car, and smiled at his companions.

"We made it, guys," he said in a tired voice.

"Not entirely," Logan disagreed. "We still have a hike up the trail."

"And we should make haste if we wish to beat the sunrise," Roman added, checking his watch.

"Are you gonna make it, kiddo?" asked Patton as they piled out of the car.

"What, the leg?" Virgil patted his right leg reassuringly. "Patton, I've been fine for months. I barely limp. And I refuse to be left behind by you guys."

"We're here to help. You just need to ask."

"I'm sure I can do this."

Up the path they marched, Roman taking the lead as their gallant protector, and Virgil bringing up the rear to protect them from spiders, or as Patton called them, "Creepy Crawly Death Dealers". When they reached the halfway marker, Virgil could feel his leg ache, but his determination powered him forward.

"This trip isn't for me..." he whispered to himself. "It's for them..."

Cresting the top of the path, they were elated to find themselves in the open area overlooking the Grand Canyon. At long last, they had finally reached their goal. Virgil, in a spurt of uncharacteristic overwhelming joy, ran forwards to marvel at how far they had come together. It was glorious, a marvel, and he had made it there.

"Guys, this is... this is spectacular. We made it here... after long last, we did it," he said, tears of joy in his eyes.

"Yeah... we did, kiddo," Patton said from behind him, unusually sad sounding.

"But now it's time for you to let it go..." Roman added in a sombre tone.

"What? What are you guys..." Virgil turned to his friends, and he could feel a knot growing in his stomach. He could see them standing there, in the early morning light of the sunrise, but their bodies were translucent and glowing. Virgil forced a smile, and asked "What is this? How are you  doing that?"

"Virgil... You need to accept what happened," Logan whispered, taking a step forward. "You need to forgive yourself and let us go."

"No... No!" Tears rolled down his face as he screamed at them. "No! This isn't real! It didn't happen!"

But in his mind, he knew it did. He knew that that faithful road trip they took two years ago had happened, that he had fallen asleep at the wheel because he was too stubborn to accept help. The car drifted across the lanes and into an oncoming semi trailer, collecting them all. Virgil was the only one to make it out alive.

"Please... Please don't make me do this..." he begged, tears streaming down his face.

"We can't make you do anything, Virge," Logan said. "We can only try to guide you. It was you who wanted to make this trip, to finally lay us to rest."

"And we appreciate that to no end, my..." Roman began to choke up. "My beautiful dark prince. We appreciate you honouring us in this way."

"But... how can I go on without you?" He reached into his pocket, fishing out the last physical memories he had of them. "How can I do this without them?"

In his hand lay three hand sewn patches, a gift to the group by Roman himself; the heart, the brain, the coat of arms. Each one representing a fallen friend, each one a dear memory.

"You can do it, because you're stronger than you realise," Patton said in a comforting tone. "We believed in you. Now you need to believe in yourself."

"I'm trying. I’m trying all the time, but it’s just too hard."

"No one ever said this was an easy task," Logan reasoned. "But in time, it will become less painful."

Virgil turned and walked towards the safety railing, placing a single hand on it, before turning back to the ghosts of his friends. "Please... let me come with you. I don't want to be alone."

"We... don't wish that for you, Virgil." Roman took a step forward next to Logan. "Please, you are our friend. Live on in the most extravagant way possible."

"But..."

"No 'buts', kiddo." Patton said, joining them. "Deep breath, hold, and then... release."

Virgil turned towards the canyon, the sun halfway up the horizon now. Closing his eyes, he filled his lungs with the fresh air of early morning, savouring the feeling, before letting it all go.

@wandering-scarecrow

[marypsue]

Imbalance, 4 / ?

Part One / Part Two / Part Three / Part Four / Part Five / Part Six / Part Seven / Part Eight / Part Nine / ?

I'm also on AO3 as MaryPSue!

...

Angus McDonald adjusts his spectacles on his nose, and gives the circle of clear, cracked crystal a cautious tap with the glowy star stuck to the end of his wand.

There’s a short, sharp shower of sparks, a sizzle, and Angus jumps backwards, his eyebrows smoking. He reaches up and cautiously pats out one ember that’s still smouldering in his dark curls.

“Well, that’s - that’s not good, sir,” he says.

“Yeah, I kind of figured that one out,” Magnus says. “Do you know what it is?”

Angus peers at the compact.

"Looks like smoky quartz, sir," he says. "You said you found this in Lucas Miller's lab?"

"Yeah, but it was an emerald when I found it." Magnus watches as Angus' eyebrows shoot up, that spark of interest that means he's found a mystery and won't stop until he's solved it creeping into his curious expression. "Does smoky quartz usually, like, literally smoke? Smoke that's full of creepy whispers?"

Angus takes the compact from Magnus' hand, gingerly, like he's afraid it might bite, and adjusts his spectacles again. "No, that's not a known property of smoky quartz. This is - it's very interesting, sir! Taako said Lucas was transmuting circles of other materials into these gemstone mirrors, but it's been more than a year since you guys destroyed the Grand Relics and reunited the Light of Creation, if it was going to revert you'd think it would have already done it by now -"

"Speaking of Taako," a familiar voice drawls from the doorway.

"Taako!" Magnus shouts, bounding over to scoop his old friend, who’s leaning against the doorway in a carefully casual pose, up into an enormous bear hug. Taako makes a strangled noise as he's hoisted into the air.

"No, put me down! Put me down, you oversized - you...giant gorilla man.”

Taako tolerates the hug for a few moments more, before struggling his way out of Magnus’ grip. He lands on his feet, like a cat, fussing with his multiple enormous scarves indignantly and deliberately not looking at Magnus. 

“So,” he says, holding out one arm, facing away from Magnus, and examining his glittery nail polish. “The student becomes the master, huh? Ango McDango, protégé mine. Mind telling me when you and the Hammer here got so tight?”

“I don’t know what you mean, sir!” Angus chirps. “Would you take a look at this, sir? It’s a kind of magic I’ve never seen before, sir!”

“Yeah, yeah, your ass-kissing is noted,” Taako says, spinning to glare Magnus down. “But that doesn’t change the fact that one of my oldest friends decided that he’d rather ask you about a cool magic thing than me. Taako. The wizard?”

“Yeah, we replaced you with a younger, more adorable model,” Magnus says. He reaches out and steals Angus’ cap off his head, giving Angus’ curls a ruffle. “Thanks, little man.”

“Okay, well, first off, good luck finding anybody more adorable than me,” Taako says, flipping one scarf back over his shoulder. “Second, good luck replacing all this, uh, uh, this raw magical talent, knowledge, and experience.” He darts a hand out, palm up, gesturing towards Angus without looking. “Hand it over, Ango m’boy, let’s see what we’re dealing with.”

...

Some therapists have framed Rorschach blots on their walls. Some therapists have soothing watercolours. Delia Shelley has a John Tenniel illustration framed and hanging beside her license to practice and her diploma. It’s in colour, a pink-dress-clad Alice taking tea with the Mad Hatter and March Hare. A plaque in the mat surrounding the illustration says, in discreet, elegant gold calligraphy, “We’re All Mad Here”.

The first time Storm saw it, he thought it was in vaguely poor taste. 

Now that he’d gotten to know Delia and her sense of humour, he can see why she keeps it there, but there’s still something about it that makes him just a little uneasy. He’s sure there are people who’ve had one initial appointment with her and never come back due to that illustration. He was almost one of them. 

It’s just that Delia’s such a good therapist. She’s really good at finding the sore spots, picking his insecurities apart, getting to the root of the issue. Storm’s learned a whole lot about himself since he started coming to see her, and - he wouldn’t exactly say he’s better, but he’s definitely less worse.

And, of course, there’s Delia herself. She can take a little getting used to. Starting with the 80s shoulderpads and enormous hair. Today, her blazer is lime green, with hot pink piping along the lapels, and she’s wearing a lipstick-pink skirt and lightning-bolt earrings with it. Storm hasn’t been able to figure out yet whether she dresses up to try to look bright and fun and ‘hip’ for an audience of students, or if she genuinely just likes to look like an eighties workout video threw up all over a clown. 

“So, how’ve you been since our last visit?” Delia asks, tapping her pen gently against the notepad resting on her knee. Since he’s been coming here, Storm’s seen her make notes in it exactly once. He’s pretty sure it’s a sort of security blanket.

He shrugs one shoulder. “Fine.”

Delia tilts her head to one side, her smile turning knowing. “Does that stand for Fucked Up, Insecure, Neurotic, and -”

“No, I mean...” Storm takes a breath, considering his words. “I’ve been better, but at least I’m stable.” He grips his knees, blows out the breath. “It’s hard to tell lately what’s my brain chemistry and what’s just my news feed.”

Delia nods, and throws in an eye roll. “Wonderful old world we live in, ain’t it.” 

Storm huffs out half a laugh.

“Is that why you asked to see me again so soon?” Delia asks, uncrossing and crossing her legs. The notebook gets set down beside her, within easy reach but out of sight. “Your news feed?”

Storm shakes his head. “No, no, I’m dealing with it. No, there was...something strange happened yesterday, and I just wanted to...” 

He stops. Delia leans towards him a little. “Storm?”

“It’s all right, it’s just a little difficult to think how to -” Storm leans back against the chair’s low back, runs a hand through his hair. “I saw a man die yesterday.”

Delia’s perfectly-arched eyebrows shoot towards her hairline.

“Go on,” she says.

...

Now, for just a second here, we go back to that hill in that park. The wind is up, really tossing those treetops around, and that circle of dead grass is really obvious now. In fact, just looking at it, it seems to be bigger than the last time we saw it. And it's getting bigger still.

The outside edge of the circle creeps forward, inching towards this little purple plastic gem that's lying in the grass. As soon as it hits the gem, there's a flash, like a whole bunch of sparklers going off at once, and then -

...

"So just - just let me get this straight - that was one of those patented Griffin McElroy's Beautiful Ass Monologues, huh? That's what -"

"Now, Justin, in fairness, I think it's pronounced 'beautiful-ass' -"

"- that's what everybody's horny for?"

"All right, Juice, let's hear all the different, original ways you would describe the top of a grassy hill. It's gotta be at least three."

"I'm just saying -"

"No, Justin, now I want to hear it."

"- it's not your best work, Ditto. Not your finest craftsmanship."

"Three exciting, beautiful, original descriptions of the top of a fuckin' hill, Justin. I wanna hear them, Justin. Right now, Justin. Right off the top of your -"

"Okay. Okay, Griffin, you know what?"

"No I don't know, Juice, what?"

"I'll take your fuckin' challenge."

"All right, then let's hear it."

"..."

"..."

"You know, I really thought you boys would do more with 'Griffin McElroy's Beautiful Ass Monologues'."

"Shut up, Dad, I'm trying to be creative."

...

And then, we see the inside of a roller derby arena.

The rink is deafening with the clatter of wheels against wood. It's almost drowning out the yelling, although as people notice what's going on and stop to look, the clatter's dying down. A small crowd's gathering at one end of the rink, all staring up at the ceiling.

And at the girl suspended in midair just below it.

"Just hang on, Jill, we'll get you down!" a much smaller girl almost directly under her shouts, hopping up and down like that will get her all the way up to the ceiling of the arena.

"How!?" the girl suspended in the air yells back down, flailing her arms and legs with no apparent results. "I don't even know how I got up here!"

Another girl crosses her arms over the logo on her jersey. "Have you tried thinking happy thoughts?"

...

"Well, that's weird," Taako says, sitting back and eyeing the compact distrustfully. 

"Yeah. The whole situation's weird," Magnus agrees. "Especially since I'm pretty sure you had the compact last? I don't know how it managed to get into my storage room."

Taako waves a hand dismissively. "No, that's not what I meant. I'm talking about - well, Ango, since you're apparently the go-to wizarding expert now, what'm I talking about?"

Angus adjusts his spectacles again, surveying the compact from several angles, raising his hands to form a square to frame it. Magnus is pretty sure he's just using detect magic, but it sure looks impressive.

"That's very odd, sir!" he says, finally, lowering his hands. "You'd expect to find transmutation magic around an artifact like this, but that's not - it's there, sirs, but it's very old and faint! I don't think this was done with transmutation magic, sirs!"

"Yeah, yeah, you made a basic deduction, whoop dee do," Taako yawns. "Enough about what isn't there. What is there, Angus?"

Angus McDonald frowns. It isn't a frown of confusion, or upset about Taako's teasing. It's a frown that says that something is off its axis and Angus isn't sure he can make it right, and it makes him look, very suddenly, a whole lot older.

"Necrotic energy, sirs," he says.

Taako shoots Magnus a pointed glance. It blunts itself on Magnus.

"Wait, isn't that necromancy stuff?" he says. "What's it got to do with that asshole Lucas - well, okay, when I put it like that..."

"Got it in one, bubbeleh," Taako says. "And that smoke. Weird smoke, necromancy...remind you of anything?"

It's Magnus' turn to frown. Angus looks from Taako to Magnus, obviously trying to interpret the tense silence.

"Is this about Wonderland?" he asks, quietly, and Magnus doesn't miss the way Taako flinches. He's sure he flinches too.

"World's greatest smartass detective," Taako mutters under his breath, reaching out and turning one of the coasters on the table into an oversized chocolate chip cookie, which he immediately takes a large, angry bite out of. The face he makes says, loud and clear, that it doesn't taste anywhere near as good as a chocolate chip cookie baked the conventional way, but that that's not going to stop him from finishing it.

"We should tell your sister. And Barry," Magnus says. "They should know about this."

"Oh, yeah," Taako says, spewing crumbs, and swallows hard. "Can't wait to see their faces when you tell 'em that your, uh, that you found a rock that's a lich."

"There's a lich hiding on the Plane of Thought," Angus breathes, looking at the compact with his eyes alight. "Oh wow, that's very clever! I bet the Raven Queen's emissaries would never think to look there, it's not supposed to have magic! I wonder if they got the idea from you, sirs!" He beams up at Magnus and Taako. Even though he's not the one eating a cookie made out of a cardboard coaster, Magnus still feels a little sick to his stomach.

"Chyup," Taako says, stuffing the last of the cookie into his mouth and dusting off his hands. "Looks like it's time to call in the big guns."

...

We see a forest, thick, dark pine trees rising like columns holding up the distant arch of the sky. There’s a dirt road cutting through the trees, winding around and switching back in on itself, slowly coiling its way up the mountain. And on that road, there’s an old, wood-panelled hatchback sedan with a snowboard and a pair of skis strapped to the roof rack.

We see, through the windshield, two young human men, one with hair cropped close to his scalp and one with hair hanging limply in his eyes, both singing along to the radio. The young man with the short hair drums, badly, on the steering wheel, while his companion rolls the passenger-side window down and pulls out a lighter and a hand-rolled blunt. He clicks the lighter once, twice, but it doesn’t catch.

Squinting through his hair, he gives it one more click.

The fireball lifts the roof off the car, spraying sparks and bits of charred snowboard flying into the trees. Along either side of the ribbon of dirt road, the forest kindles.

...

"Now that's a Beautiful Ass Monologue."

"Well, that's funny. I don't remember there being any asses in it."

"Daaaaad."

"Low-hanging fruit."

"And you call yourself our father!"

...

The goddess turns her attention back to her knitting, gesturing to one of the pews in front of her. Lucretia remains standing, back rigid, staff clutched white-knuckled in both hands until she fears the oak might splinter under her fingers. She’s not here to worship.

Istus glances up, and half-smiles when she sees Lucretia still standing.

“You want to know if it was all worth it,” she says, kindly, and Lucretia interrupts.

“No. Not worth it. We saved the world. We saved every world.” She states it as simple fact, because it is. They did save the world. Her voice only wavers on the last question. “Was it all necessary?”

“Necessary,” Istus repeats thoughtfully, her knitting needles clik-cliking against each other as her hands fly. An intricate pattern of stitches takes shape under her fingers. Lucretia has to wrench her eyes away, force herself to focus on the goddess’ face. It’s a friendly, lovely face, beautiful in a warm, inviting way. Even while looking directly at her, Lucretia can’t seem to make out Istus’ eyes.

“All the suffering, the worlds destroyed, the lives lost, the wars -” She stops herself. But still, the image of Taako’s face over the business end of the Umbra Staff, counting down; the horror in Davenport’s voice as he’d asked her what she’d done - “Was that fate?”

Istus just holds her gaze. Clik clik clik go her needles, a steady rhythm, almost comforting.

Lucretia gives herself a mental shake. 

“Magnus told me about meeting you here. About how you -” She almost says interfered. “Intervened when the Hunger arrived. Was this your plan all along?” she asks, a little more sharply than she’d intended. It’s not that she resents Istus’ attempts - or ability - to put her at ease, so much as she doesn’t trust it. There have been many, many times in Lucretia’s unnaturally long life when it would have been easy for her to let go, to do what seemed natural, to give in.

And if she had, everything would have been lost. 

“Is this how it had to be, to stop the Hunger? All this pain? Was it necessary?”

For a moment, Istus doesn’t speak, turning her focus back to her knitting. The clatter of her needles, the quick movement of her fingers, is almost hypnotic. Lucretia shuts her eyes.

“You each made choices,” Istus says, at last. 

“Did they matter?” Lucretia spits. Istus looks up again, catching her gaze and holding it. Even as she looks directly into those eyes, Lucretia can’t recall what they look like.

“They meant the world,” Istus says, softly.

Lucretia exhales, slow and shaky. Her deathgrip on her staff doesn’t shift, but she leans forward, slightly, letting six feet of heavy oak take some of her weight.

It’s been so long. She’s borne it all herself for such a long time.

“Then I could have chosen better,” she says, under her breath, almost without realising the words have left her thoughts. She’s not certain if it’s a relief or another weight slung around her neck.

There’s a huff of air, and Lucretia looks up to see Istus obviously trying to bite back another laugh. 

“Look, if you ask me, at this point you can just take the win,” Istus says. She holds up her knitting, so that Lucretia can see the subtle shift in the pattern, from tight, tiny cabling to large, loose, soft-looking scallops. “Every decision you made, every step you took, has brought you to -”

It’s probably rude to interrupt a goddess, but Lucretia points with the tip of her staff towards the elaborate scarf Istus is holding up, right at the hard line where the black stops and the scarf turns into a riot of colour.

“Is that supposed to be smoking?”

Istus looks down, just as the scarf erupts into flame.

“Oh, ___________,” Istus says. The word dissolves into static in Lucretia’s ears - not like voidfish static, more like the sound of something that can’t quite be comprehended with mortal ears. She’s still very sure, somehow, that it’s a dirty word. 

It’s not a very large flame, but it is rapidly eating a hole in the scarf, and filling the bright, airy temple with thick, choking, bitter grey smoke. 

Istus rises from her seat with inhuman grace, and then throws the scarf on the floor and stamps on it, hiking up her skirts to keep them from catching on fire as she stomps one foot up and down. It doesn't seem to be having any effect. Lucretia debates with herself for a moment, but the smoke is growing so thick that she can no longer see the ceiling overhead. She points her staff, and as Istus raises her foot for another stamp, casts a bubble of protection around the little flame, cutting off its air.

Finally, the flames die out with a hiss that almost sounds like a human voice, leaving the scarf hanging together by two or three stitches and an enormous hole lined with grey ash in its middle.

Istus raises it to eye level, looking through the hole so that it frames her face, and says, “Well, that wasn’t supposed to happen.”

Lucretia presses her lips together, but she can’t keep her shoulders from shaking, just once, with a burst of laughter.

...

We see a drivethrough lineup, packed solid, car horns blaring. None of the cars are moving, though, all of them backed up from the pickup window.

The reason for the bottleneck is instantly obvious when we look through the pickup window and see several people in what we recognise as Taco Bell uniforms, running around the restaurant kitchen chasing a sheep. Which is also wearing a Taco Bell uniform. And a headset.

...

Marial’s newsfeed is suddenly full of stupid National Enquirer stories. In between all the unfortunately, depressingly real bad news, she scrolls past people turning into potted plants, aging or de-aging years in an instant, suddenly emitting a light so bright that it blinds everyone in a five-foot radius. Every once in a while one or two of these will slip past her filters, she knows, but this is...a lot. And when she checks the sources - yeah, that one really looks like it’s from the Washington Post. And that one could easily be mistaken for the New York Times. If these are spoof sites, they're good spoof sites. And if it's some kind of prank or protest about fake news, then it's hilarious.

Sighing, Marial puts down her phone, reaching for the textbook beside her. Just as her hand lands on the cover, a hand reaches out and covers hers. It’s ice cold, and she can see the bones through it. Not like the hand is skinny or has poor circulation. Like someone’s dipped Marial’s hand in a freezer. Like the skin is translucent, nearly completely transparent, each yellow-white bone clearly visible through it. 

Marial looks up.

The dead guy flashes a crooked smile at her.

“Hi,” he says, in a voice that’s half-solid, half-whisper. “Can we talk?”

[cake-resipe]

Basics of Food Management

Food is a fundamental part of our existence. Our life revolves around it from the moment we wake up. Food and feast are focused on celebratory food around the world and even in all cultures. Our ancient Indian scriptures divide food into three categories, such as-

Satvik or Pure Foods: These are foods that heal, relax, juicy, smooth and increase longevity, intelligence and strength and are well digested by our system.

Rajasic or tasteful foods: These are salty, spicy, bitter, salty and can lead to ill health, grief or discomfort.

Tamasic or impure foods: Stale, cold, leftover foods, impure and half-cooked food causes great harm to mind and body.

Food is an aspect of our life that we accept. We focus less on the food we consume. We leave our bodies to deal with constant abuse from our day-to-day lives and lifestyles. We, humans, need to build a health creation system and create a holiness with food, productive exercise, yoga, corrective breathing and meditation, rest and sleep and remain spiritually aware and conscious, without giving up our bodies. These stages translate into improved stamina, strength, tone and energy, with an emphasis on the entire body as one unit, one that pronounces well-being and goodness.

The food we eat lays the foundation for every cell and tissue in our body. The purpose of food is to nourish us, build strength and give us vital energy. Digestive harmony is important to release this vital energy necessary for a healthy life. The science of Ayurveda - the creative and creative life sciences - states that every part of our mind and body is governed by DOSHAS - the bio-energetic forces or elements that sustain life. Refined, processed and preserved foods are completely devoid of this nutrition and vitality. Whole, raw and natural foods, which absorb cosmic energy, and are super charged with super rain and sunshine, should be fully utilized for health and well-being.

The father of medicine, Hippocrates, said "Your food is your medicine. You are what you eat and you become what you eat".

For most of us eating good food is just another task and a trivial thing. How many of us are really wary of the fact that good food works wonders inside our cells and tissues and is responsible for 80 percent of our changes. Food also has a subtle effect on our brain. Food plays an important role in our brain behavior, our mood and thought processes, and in dealing with stress. It is these nutritious, natural foods that liberate health and vigor and protect us from diseases. Studies have shown that the human body has two dietary processes — nutrition and cleanliness — that need to be regulated with good and sensible dietary habits. If neglected, it can lead to the formation of toxins that are the basis of most mental and physical degeneration.

Health is not just a great body or zero-size figure, but incorporates physical fitness, brain science and spiritual development and our efforts should be an integrated approach to well-being. To achieve this, take proper diet that does not destroy our digestive system. Yes, I mean go easy on all those junk foods, soft drinks, stale, cold foods and excessive meat eating and alcohol. Instead, start loving fruits, vegetables, nuts and foods in their natural form. It is important to 'satisfy your hunger and not calm your hunger.' I am urging you to follow it and not call it 'diet'. This alone is not intended for weight loss. On the contrary, it is an important part of a healthy lifestyle.

So let us celebrate good health.

How many times have you come across the words 'healthy' and 'food' in the same sentence, but have chosen to ignore it? Despite being aware of the many benefits of healthy eating, I see so many people around me for their health. Our body is what we make it. So why fill it with unhealthy food and suffer its brunt.

There are innumerable benefits of healthy eating, some of them are:

1. Helps prevent and control health problems like heart diseases, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes.

2. Good nutrition makes your body better equipped to deal with stress.

3. Good food stimulates the body so that more killer cells can be formed to reduce infection thereby boosting immunity.

4. Food provides us with antioxidant fighting disease and can slow down the natural process of aging.

Indian diets are natural and unprocessed, including grains, pulses and pulses, fruits and vegetables, nuts and oilseeds, with mindfulness and planning; All to maintain adequate amounts of health. Diet and nutrition are responsible for 70 to 80% of your total change. Food also affects your thought process, attitude and behavior. There are foods that can make you feel high, there are foods that can make you irritable and temperamental, there are foods that can excite you and there are foods that can relax you.

The Indian diet is preferred by the Indian population based on our culture, climatic conditions, environment, pollution etc. Once it is great to enjoy other dishes, but do you ever want to depend on pasta and burgers only and face the risks associated with consumption. Such unhealthy, non-fibrous foods?

The health risks mentioned above are many! Our diet includes complex carbohydrates from sorghum, millet, ragi, whole wheat etc. as opposed to refined carbohydrates. Our diets are designed to protect our hearts from low levels of oils, fats, sugars. In fact, our diets strike this perfect balance of all food groups, too much and too little. High sugar intake is proportional to diabetes, high fat levels can cause hypercholesterolemia, high blood pressure, heart disease, stroke, etc.

My golden rules for better health:

Remember, our body is determined to consume what we have been doing since childhood and what our father, fore father has been eating. On a daily basis, the diet of our rotis, pulses / pulses, vegetables, sprouts, salads etc. will ensure complete health as a continuous intake of junk foods / burgers / pizzas / more cheese, cream etc. Relieved. Love, but remember, anything or very little is equally harmful ...

Guidelines for healthy eating and weight management

Follow these golden rules / steps of healthy eating for healthy weight loss and maximizing your health and longevity:

1. Frequent little help of food is recommended. Eat slowly. Frequent eating causes loss of appetite, providing constant energy and maintaining metabolism efficiently.

2. Select foods based on your choice and do not worry about the number of calories you consume but focus on the combination of the right foods and portion sizes. Do not deprive yourself. This makes you more likely to eat the next day.

3. Include different types of foods in your daily diet. Include nutritious foods such as vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds, sprouts, and whole grains. These foods provide all the essential nutrients and fiber which are essential for growth, good health and immunity.

4. Drink 8 to 10 glasses of liquids such as water, and herbal tea daily. These drinks are fillers are hungry managers.

5. Include fresh fruits, fresh unheard vegetable juices, vegetables, sprouts, whole grains, nuts and low fat milk / yogurt.

6. Drink a glass of ginger / green tea after a heavy meal. It accelerates digestion and improves metabolism.

7. Eat healthy snacks such as salads, crackers, fruits, unsweetened and low-fat yogurt, whole biscuits and muffins.

8. Read the label thoroughly and choose foods that do not contain chemicals such as preservatives and additives. Systematically grown foods are a healthy option.

9. Avoid bad fats such as butter, cream full-cream milk and rich salad dressings and sauces. Keep in mind that do not eliminate the sources of good fats such as nuts, seeds and olive oils that contain unsaturated fatty acids. Use these foods in moderation.

10. Eliminate white flour products such as bread and biscuits, pasta, white rice, processed foods and sugar-containing breakfast cereals. They lack fiber. They cause our insulin levels to increase for fat storage.

11. Exercise regularly. Stretching, yoga, calisthenics, walking and other mild forms of aerobic activities are recommended. These exercises can be done at home or in the gym with guidance. Stress can be reduced through yoga, meditation, good rest and sound sleep.

12. Avoid soft drinks, and juices. Also avoid sweets, sweets and fried snacks. Instead, eat a variety of nutrient dense foods. Limit consumption of processed foods, fried foods and fast food. If you must have them, remember to do moderation exercises. Moderation is the key to what you eat without feeling deprived.

13. Use cooking methods such as stew, steaming, grilling, and roasting instead of frying.

Good health is the result of conscious commitment that includes many factors such as the food we eat, exercise, mental well-being, rest, and sleep. Consistency is the most important factor when it comes to good nutrition. When you are often on the run, you need a plan that you can easily adopt and that lays the foundation for healthy eating. Eating consistently well-balanced meals is essential for those who want to lose or maintain weight, increase energy and endurance throughout the day, to improve focus and concentration and above all and well their well-being quotient. Micmizing for! 

[wineanddinosaur]

The 10 Best Drinks Movies of All Time (and What to Sip While Watching)

Relaxing with a great drink in your hand and an excellent movie cued up on your screen is one of life’s great, simple pleasures. It’s also something many of us have more time to do now than ever before.

Perhaps it’s no coincidence that many of the best movies of all time include a heavy focus on imbibing, from ongoing thematic references to entire booze-soaked plots: The night of excess and its regrettable decisions; the plot hatched in the bar’s back booth; the frat house party; the alcohol-fortified hero.

If discovering the perfect match between a glass of wine and a bite of cheese amplifies the pleasure of both, then why not do the same by finding the just-right drinks to pair with the best drinks movies?

Of course, even if you’re stuck Netflix-and-chilling by yourself, there are now ways to get friends in on the fun virtually. For instance, with Netflix Party, you can synchronize playback through Google Chrome while participating in a group chat through the same interface.

From iconic films to debauched comedies, here’s what to watch — and what to drink while you do.

10. The 007 James Bond Franchise

Few movie characters are as inclined to imbibe as James Bond. Author Ian Fleming both giveth and taketh away, though. While he’s responsible for the creation of the Vesper, his words haven’t always been to the betterment of booze: Some say that “shaken not stirred” stunted the advancement of cocktails for decades. (Hate-mail disclaimer: Martinis are a personal matter, so make them as you please).

As you’re working your way through the anthology and arrive at “GoldenEye,” switch up your drink to the cocktail of the same name. It’s the house cocktail at the GoldenEye Resort in Jamaica, and was concocted by Chris Blackwell, Rock & Roll Hall of Famer, creator of Blackwell Rum, and owner of the estate since the mid- 1970s.

According to Blackwell, the drink, which fittingly is a visual match for its name, was a creation of convenience. “I simply put equal amounts of pineapple juice and rum in the cocktail shaker and took a sip,” he says. “It was too sweet, so I added some fresh-squeezed lime to taste. And there it was.”

It’s a welcome drink for his guests, and a new drink for you to sip on while watching Brosnan-era Bond. Blackwell is even collaborating on a 007 Limited Edition of his rum, which will be released this fall in conjunction with the franchise’s 25th effort, “No Time To Die.”

9. Wine Country

The newest edition to the list of best drinks movies is 2019’s “Wine Country.” Directed by Amy Poehler, and starring a six-strong cast of female comedic heavyweights, the movie is centered on a 50th birthday weekend getaway in Napa Valley.

When you can’t head out for a weekend of in-person wine tasting, bring the wine into your living room. A number of Napa Valley wineries are currently offering virtual tastings. The list includes AXR Winery, B Cellars, Clos du Val, Round Pond Estate, and St. Supéry Estate Vineyards & Winery.

Sign up for one, do the tasting, then start the movie and polish off all those bottles you just opened. Or pair with any Napa Valley wine to feel the “Wine Country” vibe.

8. Cocktail

“Cocktail” stands tall 32 years later as the zenith of bad 1980s cocktail culture. Neon lights, flair bartending, and cringeworthy shot names — it’s all there, now with some measure of nostalgic appeal (who doesn’t want to sidle up to a beachfront bar these days?).

Of course, there’s no shortage of options for what you should be imbibing while watching. One needs only to pull up the “The Last Barman Poet” scene, in which Tom Cruise mentions a dozen different concoctions: “The Sex on the Beach, the Schnapps made from peach, the Velvet Hammer, the Alabama Slammer. I make things with juice and froth. The Pink Squirrel, the 3-Toed Sloth. I make drinks so sweet and snazzy. The Iced Tea, the Kamikaze, the Orgasm, the Death Spasm, the Singapore Sling, the Ding-a-ling.”

Thankfully, if you can’t quite settle on any of the above, Cruise’s character has mercy on us at the end of his recital: “America you’re just devoted to every flavor I got. But if you want to get loaded, why don’t you just order a shot?”

7. The Frat Party: Animal House and Old School

“Old School” and “Animal House” together represent the classic new and, well, old school takes on the frat movie. You’re probably never going to agree with your dad on which is better, either. It’s a generational preference whether you lean into the John Belushi-powered 1978 film, or the 2003 flick with Will Ferrell, Vince Vaughn, and Luke Wilson.

What everyone can agree on is that you’re drinking beer for this movie-drinks pairing; there’s no way around that. And not a 4-pack of your favorite triple dry-hopped, semi-naturally fermented, seasonal farmhouse hazy IPA, either. This calls for a case of your cheap, collegiate, macro beer standby. Maybe it’s Schlitz, maybe it’s PBR. You do you.

6. The Hangover (Three-Part Series)

We’ve all been there. A night gets a little out of hand. Memories are foggy. Everything hurts. Of course, this doesn’t usually involve tigers, Mike Tyson, potential kidnappings, and hastily arranged marriages. The antics only continue in later films, from Tyson-style face tattoos in Thailand to hasty trips to Tijuana. That’s what makes “The Hangover” great: It’s hilarious and relatable while still letting you off the hook, in an “at least my friends and I aren’t that bad” kind of way.

The truth is, you’re most likely watching this while nursing your own hangover. So mix up a Bloody Mary or something low-ABV with fresh juice to bring yourself back up to speed.

5. Swingers

“Swingers” sports the classic scene of Jon Favreau ordering a Scotch, “A Scotch on the rocks, please. Any Scotch will do, as long as it’s not a blend, of course. A single malt. Glenlivet, Glenfiddich perhaps. Maybe a Glengow… any Glen.”

The movie is also a favorite of the drinks industry today. “I love the movie ‘Swingers,'” says Elayne Duff, a consultant and strategist with Duff On The Rocks. For her, the 1996 movie brings back memories of the era. “We had a very cool version of this secret bar with a swing band [in the Lower East Side of New York]. I went there almost every Saturday night and drank Cosmopolitans; it was the ’90s, after all. This movie was money, as they like to say, so many great lines and Vince Vaughn was at his best.”

“Maybe I’ve been incepted by all the movie posters I’ve seen with Vince Vaughn, Martini in hand, or maybe it’s the way I can relate to both Mike and Trent at different times in my life, but I don’t think I’ve ever watched that movie without some form of drink in hand,” says Trevor Frye, the president of Wash Line LLC, who has also been running the B.A.R.E. SolidariT-shirt fundraising project, selling shirts and stickers to provide donations to hospitality professionals.

So drink a Cosmo, a Martini, any Glen you can find, or, in Frye’s case, just the whiskey of your choice. “I’d sip on a whiskey with some bite to it. E.H. Taylor Barrel Proof and Noah’s Mill are currently open on my desk, and either would do just fine,” Frye says. “And water; like a deli quart’s worth of water.”

4. Casablanca

If you asked any film buff to name the most famous movies, “Casablanca” would likely be on the list. This Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman vehicle happened to be set, predominantly, in a nightclub and casino, Rick’s Café Américain. (Word to wise: Don’t bother if you and when you find yourself in Morocco; the actual establishment may fall short of what you’ve envisioned).

There’s plenty of drinking in the movie, as you’d expect, and much of it is centered around Champagne. You’ll want to drink some bubbles yourself while watching, ideally out of a coupe glass to match the stylish, classic vibes. Intersperse that with the occasional French 75 or Champagne Cocktail, both of which are mentioned, to keep the mood going all night long.

3. Lost in Translation

What does Bill Murray whisper to Scarlett Johansson in the final scene of “Lost in Translation”? We may never know. What we do know is the line he says over and over again while filming his character’s television commercial, “For relaxing times, make it Suntory time.”

Unless you’re sitting on a secret cache of Yamazaki 18 year-old or Hakushu 18 year-old — in which case, we’ll be right over — a Highball is the way to go here, deploying a blended whisky like Suntory Toki and your favorite high-carbonation soda water.

2. Sideways

We all remember Paul Giamatti’s infamous quote: “I am NOT drinking any f*cking Merlot!” So devastating was the impact, that a decade and a half after the release of “Sideways,” California Merlot is only recently rebounding in the mind of consumers.

When you watch, consider doing the opposite of Giamatti and finding an excellent bottle of Merlot to accompany the film. There’s no shortage of serious, truly delicious Merlots coming out of California right now.

1. The Big Lebowski

The Dude and a White Russian. Name a more iconic duo; we’ll wait. The comedy classic from the Coen brothers is the perfect excuse to wear your pajamas all day long while steadfastly maintaining a drink in one hand.

The cocktail is easy to make, too: Just pour two ounces vodka and one ounce coffee liqueur over ice in a rocks glass. Top with an ounce of heavy cream. A flick of your wrist is the only stirring you really need. Up for an epic drinking-game challenge? Drink not only when The Dude drinks, but when the word “dude,” is spoken, which is apparently 160 times. Good luck!

The article The 10 Best Drinks Movies of All Time (and What to Sip While Watching) appeared first on VinePair.

source https://vinepair.com/articles/10-best-drinks-movies/

[isaiahrippinus]

The 10 Best Drinks Movies of All Time (and What to Sip While Watching)

Relaxing with a great drink in your hand and an excellent movie cued up on your screen is one of life’s great, simple pleasures. It’s also something many of us have more time to do now than ever before.

Perhaps it’s no coincidence that many of the best movies of all time include a heavy focus on imbibing, from ongoing thematic references to entire booze-soaked plots: The night of excess and its regrettable decisions; the plot hatched in the bar’s back booth; the frat house party; the alcohol-fortified hero.

If discovering the perfect match between a glass of wine and a bite of cheese amplifies the pleasure of both, then why not do the same by finding the just-right drinks to pair with the best drinks movies?

Of course, even if you’re stuck Netflix-and-chilling by yourself, there are now ways to get friends in on the fun virtually. For instance, with Netflix Party, you can synchronize playback through Google Chrome while participating in a group chat through the same interface.

From iconic films to debauched comedies, here’s what to watch — and what to drink while you do.

10. The 007 James Bond Franchise

Few movie characters are as inclined to imbibe as James Bond. Author Ian Fleming both giveth and taketh away, though. While he’s responsible for the creation of the Vesper, his words haven’t always been to the betterment of booze: Some say that “shaken not stirred” stunted the advancement of cocktails for decades. (Hate-mail disclaimer: Martinis are a personal matter, so make them as you please).

As you’re working your way through the anthology and arrive at “GoldenEye,” switch up your drink to the cocktail of the same name. It’s the house cocktail at the GoldenEye Resort in Jamaica, and was concocted by Chris Blackwell, Rock & Roll Hall of Famer, creator of Blackwell Rum, and owner of the estate since the mid- 1970s.

According to Blackwell, the drink, which fittingly is a visual match for its name, was a creation of convenience. “I simply put equal amounts of pineapple juice and rum in the cocktail shaker and took a sip,” he says. “It was too sweet, so I added some fresh-squeezed lime to taste. And there it was.”

It’s a welcome drink for his guests, and a new drink for you to sip on while watching Brosnan-era Bond. Blackwell is even collaborating on a 007 Limited Edition of his rum, which will be released this fall in conjunction with the franchise’s 25th effort, “No Time To Die.”

9. Wine Country

The newest edition to the list of best drinks movies is 2019’s “Wine Country.” Directed by Amy Poehler, and starring a six-strong cast of female comedic heavyweights, the movie is centered on a 50th birthday weekend getaway in Napa Valley.

When you can’t head out for a weekend of in-person wine tasting, bring the wine into your living room. A number of Napa Valley wineries are currently offering virtual tastings. The list includes AXR Winery, B Cellars, Clos du Val, Round Pond Estate, and St. Supéry Estate Vineyards & Winery.

Sign up for one, do the tasting, then start the movie and polish off all those bottles you just opened. Or pair with any Napa Valley wine to feel the “Wine Country” vibe.

8. Cocktail

“Cocktail” stands tall 32 years later as the zenith of bad 1980s cocktail culture. Neon lights, flair bartending, and cringeworthy shot names — it’s all there, now with some measure of nostalgic appeal (who doesn’t want to sidle up to a beachfront bar these days?).

Of course, there’s no shortage of options for what you should be imbibing while watching. One needs only to pull up the “The Last Barman Poet” scene, in which Tom Cruise mentions a dozen different concoctions: “The Sex on the Beach, the Schnapps made from peach, the Velvet Hammer, the Alabama Slammer. I make things with juice and froth. The Pink Squirrel, the 3-Toed Sloth. I make drinks so sweet and snazzy. The Iced Tea, the Kamikaze, the Orgasm, the Death Spasm, the Singapore Sling, the Ding-a-ling.”

Thankfully, if you can’t quite settle on any of the above, Cruise’s character has mercy on us at the end of his recital: “America you’re just devoted to every flavor I got. But if you want to get loaded, why don’t you just order a shot?”

7. The Frat Party: Animal House and Old School

“Old School” and “Animal House” together represent the classic new and, well, old school takes on the frat movie. You’re probably never going to agree with your dad on which is better, either. It’s a generational preference whether you lean into the John Belushi-powered 1978 film, or the 2003 flick with Will Ferrell, Vince Vaughn, and Luke Wilson.

What everyone can agree on is that you’re drinking beer for this movie-drinks pairing; there’s no way around that. And not a 4-pack of your favorite triple dry-hopped, semi-naturally fermented, seasonal farmhouse hazy IPA, either. This calls for a case of your cheap, collegiate, macro beer standby. Maybe it’s Schlitz, maybe it’s PBR. You do you.

6. The Hangover (Three-Part Series)

We’ve all been there. A night gets a little out of hand. Memories are foggy. Everything hurts. Of course, this doesn’t usually involve tigers, Mike Tyson, potential kidnappings, and hastily arranged marriages. The antics only continue in later films, from Tyson-style face tattoos in Thailand to hasty trips to Tijuana. That’s what makes “The Hangover” great: It’s hilarious and relatable while still letting you off the hook, in an “at least my friends and I aren’t that bad” kind of way.

The truth is, you’re most likely watching this while nursing your own hangover. So mix up a Bloody Mary or something low-ABV with fresh juice to bring yourself back up to speed.

5. Swingers

“Swingers” sports the classic scene of Jon Favreau ordering a Scotch, “A Scotch on the rocks, please. Any Scotch will do, as long as it’s not a blend, of course. A single malt. Glenlivet, Glenfiddich perhaps. Maybe a Glengow… any Glen.”

The movie is also a favorite of the drinks industry today. “I love the movie ‘Swingers,‘” says Elayne Duff, a consultant and strategist with Duff On The Rocks. For her, the 1996 movie brings back memories of the era. “We had a very cool version of this secret bar with a swing band [in the Lower East Side of New York]. I went there almost every Saturday night and drank Cosmopolitans; it was the ’90s, after all. This movie was money, as they like to say, so many great lines and Vince Vaughn was at his best.”

“Maybe I’ve been incepted by all the movie posters I’ve seen with Vince Vaughn, Martini in hand, or maybe it’s the way I can relate to both Mike and Trent at different times in my life, but I don’t think I’ve ever watched that movie without some form of drink in hand,” says Trevor Frye, the president of Wash Line LLC, who has also been running the B.A.R.E. SolidariT-shirt fundraising project, selling shirts and stickers to provide donations to hospitality professionals.

So drink a Cosmo, a Martini, any Glen you can find, or, in Frye’s case, just the whiskey of your choice. “I’d sip on a whiskey with some bite to it. E.H. Taylor Barrel Proof and Noah’s Mill are currently open on my desk, and either would do just fine,” Frye says. “And water; like a deli quart’s worth of water.”

4. Casablanca

If you asked any film buff to name the most famous movies, “Casablanca” would likely be on the list. This Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman vehicle happened to be set, predominantly, in a nightclub and casino, Rick’s Café Américain. (Word to wise: Don’t bother if you and when you find yourself in Morocco; the actual establishment may fall short of what you’ve envisioned).

There’s plenty of drinking in the movie, as you’d expect, and much of it is centered around Champagne. You’ll want to drink some bubbles yourself while watching, ideally out of a coupe glass to match the stylish, classic vibes. Intersperse that with the occasional French 75 or Champagne Cocktail, both of which are mentioned, to keep the mood going all night long.

3. Lost in Translation

What does Bill Murray whisper to Scarlett Johansson in the final scene of “Lost in Translation”? We may never know. What we do know is the line he says over and over again while filming his character’s television commercial, “For relaxing times, make it Suntory time.”

Unless you’re sitting on a secret cache of Yamazaki 18 year-old or Hakushu 18 year-old — in which case, we’ll be right over — a Highball is the way to go here, deploying a blended whisky like Suntory Toki and your favorite high-carbonation soda water.

2. Sideways

We all remember Paul Giamatti’s infamous quote: “I am NOT drinking any f*cking Merlot!” So devastating was the impact, that a decade and a half after the release of “Sideways,” California Merlot is only recently rebounding in the mind of consumers.

When you watch, consider doing the opposite of Giamatti and finding an excellent bottle of Merlot to accompany the film. There’s no shortage of serious, truly delicious Merlots coming out of California right now.

1. The Big Lebowski

The Dude and a White Russian. Name a more iconic duo; we’ll wait. The comedy classic from the Coen brothers is the perfect excuse to wear your pajamas all day long while steadfastly maintaining a drink in one hand.

The cocktail is easy to make, too: Just pour two ounces vodka and one ounce coffee liqueur over ice in a rocks glass. Top with an ounce of heavy cream. A flick of your wrist is the only stirring you really need. Up for an epic drinking-game challenge? Drink not only when The Dude drinks, but when the word “dude,” is spoken, which is apparently 160 times. Good luck!

The article The 10 Best Drinks Movies of All Time (and What to Sip While Watching) appeared first on VinePair.

source https://vinepair.com/articles/10-best-drinks-movies/ source https://vinology1.tumblr.com/post/618095375287517184

[d00dt00nz]

Your songs are going to grow up with or without you, and there’s nothing you can do.

Black Friday was two days ago. For the first time in my life, I found myself wandering around a huge rich shopping mall trying to match everybody elses' frantic pace. I felt like a dog trying to rollerblade. These people had a plan. I had a vague notion of “I think I'd like some nice headphones”. In the end, I got my headphones and immediately abandoned my audiophile pretensions about bluetooth headphones. Maybe it sounds a little squashed, but I can just plug them in with an aux cord. It's fine.

Right now I'm sitting across from my girlfriend's bed. She's been asleep for five hours, which is about as long as I've been listening to the Burt Bacharach Google Music station. Google Music's main draw is that its algorithm creates an infinite playlist based around a single band. The songs may or may not be from that band, though I'd say about a third of them are. The great thing about Burt Bacharach is that even without an algorithm, his music is nearly infinite. Bacharach is not my favourite songwriter There's a reason that I could listen to this playlist for five hours. Bacharach's music is the kind of music that can be constantly played in the background at a very low volume. You can listen to it as much or as little as you want. I don't even mean that as a dig, I think that's fantastic. It's a great compromise between thoughtful brooding and sentimental reminiscing – it's about as comfortable as music gets. Unfortunately as a result, listening to it makes me question if the guy's ever had sex... or if he even knows about sex.

Bacharach pretty much invented the genre known as “adult contemporary”, which has never not held negative connotations. The hallmarks of a great adult contemporary song are thoughtfulness, complexity, emotion, professionalism, and a small but consistent drive for experimentation, with everything being stuck together through the glue of a strong dedication to the craft of songwriting. Nobody wants to be adult contemporary. The Replacement's Let it Be is an angry, nihilistic, depressive, coming of age collage that oozes both sexual frustration and sexual confusion. On that album, Paul Westerberg is drunkenly lashing out at basically everything he can in response to being completely alienated from a world where he lacks an identity and nothing makes any sense. It's messy and ugly, but in a very pretty and resonant way. When you compare it to Close to You by the Carpenters, it really shows the distinction of art and craftsmanship. The former has both but the later is jam packed with craftsmanship while devoid of much artistic merit.

I adore Close to You. I also adore Let it Be. At the end of the day, both are fantastic albums. That raises the question – who cares? I think that basically every single discussion about art in the context of such a juiced up medium as popular music is worthless. I'm not saying art itself is worthless. An artistic vision usually is what makes a great and memorable album. I just don't think you need the art. I love Carly Rae Jepson's Emotion, and I love Taylor Swift's 1989. I'd hardly call those albums daring or visionary, but they're fun, so who cares? And this is where things start getting dangerous.

“Who cares” is the code for mediocrity. Nobody who made anything worth anything has ever dropped those two words about their craft, or their art, or whatever you want to call it. Who cares is a lie anyway. The moment you say “who cares” the flags have gone up and the sincerity police are called. You care. “Who cares” is an attempt not to care. It's an attempt to escape. You can't escape. You're going to artist jail for even thinking about escaping. Nice try running from your neuroticism buddy, but nothing will ever get these stupid minute obsessions out from the back of your mind. You're going to be thinking about cadences and midrange frequencies for the rest of your life – and that's a good thing! If you keep things balanced, you can still have a nice life and also make cool art stuff to show people.

I finished my third album almost a half a year ago at this point. I've been meaning to start work on a fourth. I've had a lot of false starts, and it's becoming harder and harder to throw a “who cares” at my own songwriting identity crisis. I'm happy to have finally gotten to a point in my songwriting where  I consider myself to have a grasp on songwriting as a craft. I can point myself at a guitar, or a piano, or a computer, and I can make it happen. I have a trajectory as a songwriter. Unfortunately, in the context of the music I try to make, that sucks. My own songwriting developments have been refinement, but not enrichment. My favourite songs that I've ever written were in a period of miserable depression. It was a period where I basically disappeared to my friends, had no job, wasn't in school, and (to surprise nobody) spent all day indulging in my Brian Wilson-esque fantasies. Brian Wilson comes up among a lot of sad-dudes-writing-music types. It's a resonant myth – the obsessive nerd who pushed himself way too hard, had a breakdown, and isolated himself. At the end of the day though, Brian Wilson's life is a real and complicated story that shouldn't be reduced to a simple archetype. All it does is inspire sad dudes to sit around and feel bad – not that there's anything wrong with that.

The music that I put out during that time in my life wasn't very refined, nor was it particularly honest. I mostly just ripped off the Beach Boys and Phil Spector (even moreso than I do now). At the same time, there must have been some kind of emotional release I was getting there because it was the only thing worthwhile I was doing. All of that music still has some kind of purity to it for me. It makes me sad. I've said it's not very honest, but it's also maybe the most honest stuff I've ever recorded. I think being a shell of a person at that point helped reduce the person that I was into a cartoon, and in turn, write music for that cartoon. There was no labour to the music. The compositions sound easy, even when they're not. It's because they were easy to write.

I think when music, or any art, I made with that lack of self consciousness, it becomes easy. Of course for people who take this stuff seriously, that's the hardest thing. Craftsmanship is the key cornerstone of making something good, and nobody's driven to make something bad. We cling to our craft because we've earned it. We draw maps of the world and then we navigate it. Unfortunately, as those maps become more and more complex, we become more and more obsessed with the treasures hiding in them. It becomes impossible to ignore the lure of our own ambition, and we do a lot of neat things that we're very proud of.

Unfortunately, in our drive to build the biggest, baddest, Bacharachiest battleship to sail the seas, we miss out on being the drunk raving idiot who manages to drive so fast that he flies off earth and discovers the moon. Of course, people constantly launch themselves like that. Most of them fail, and many of them had no chance of succeeding.

It is easy and satisfying to create for the sake of creation, but nobody tunes in to watch Usain Bolt do exercises. At some point I became obsessed with thinking about songwriting, and it wasn't because it was simply satisfying. It felt awesome. It felt like the coolest thing in the world to make something out of nothing, and have it sound like something. I made really lousy music at that time, but the good stuff felt really natural, and it's because it was. I was less creating and more discovering. Now I'm afraid. I'm afraid that I'm no longer discovering. I'm afraid that I'm labouring and obsessing. Even if I were to wipe the slate clean and try something else, it'd still be a calculated and laboured attempt. Nobody can ever be who they were. You can't go home again. All we can do is take a step back and try not to worry so much about these things – who cares?

[mariaaklnthony]

Widen Out: Using Your Blog to Attract New Clients

Attracting future clients on autopilot—that’s the whole point of your website, right? Most freelancers accept the story that great work attracts leads, but I’m going to be straight with you: clients have no clue you exist. What usually tips the balance isn’t your portfolio—they see plenty of those.

Not many people talk about failures they had promoting their products and services. We struggle and we hide it. It’s one of the reasons I hate to read marketing “success stories” and “How to drive traffic and make money!” posts—they seem hollow and vaguely manipulative. They also invariably circle around an answer we already know: The key to attracting non-referral clients is making it easy for them to discover you.

Simple as that is, we fail for two reasons:

Most freelancer websites are only concerned with showing portfolio work.

We haven’t figured out who we want as clients, what makes them tick, or how they solve problems.

We’re focused on showing, not serving.

Serving hits the ground running—it answers a question, solves a problem, satisfies a curiosity. There’s a difference between saying you will and proving it with a real takeaway during the first impression. Portfolio-focused sites also don’t give Google much content to index and rank, lessening your chances of ever getting high in organic search results, much less on their radar.

Designers are “supposed” to do certain things to find clients. Well, I did all that, for years. And I had a pretty depressing success rate, considering how much time I put into it. Then I tried one thing that single-handedly turned around my freelance career. I started blogging with clients in mind.

Do it your way

Let me tell you about Brian Dean.

Brian Dean of Backlinko gets 130,000 monthly uniques. Want know how many articles he has on his blog—in total?

30. That’s right, 30.

Readers aren’t coming because he publishes frequently—they’re coming because he writes about what they want to know and because every piece he’s got is the best on that given subject, hands down! He keeps visitors coming back to the same posts because he’s constantly improving the material little by little to ensure it’s always the best that’s out there.

As people come across it—web professionals, curious readers, and potential clients—it’s building up his reputation and making it easier for people to find him via search and re-shared content links.

You don’t have to write regularly. Or much. And you don’t need an industry-rocking idea. With your expertise, you have what it takes to say something that other people consider valuable.

The key to success is making a target, then sticking it out for a few rounds of research + content creation + promotion to start. The more posts/articles you create, the more properties you have on the Monopoly board called Google. Having a few widely shared articles also kicks off a virtuous loop where all your subsequent articles get a jump start from your existing traffic. This approach is repeatable and scaleable.

(One quick heads-up: you can also expect your content to attract the “wrong type” of visitors, such as recruiters and people looking to hire someone for low-end, piecemeal work. It’s possible to turn these inquiries into opportunities by politely refusing their offer and asking if they know anyone who is seeking the type of work you do provide.)

Pre-planning your content

As you know, Google determines how high your page ranks for certain search terms based on factors like:

Whether your page content is relevant to the search term

How many other quality, relevant sites link to your page

How well-made readers think your content is (i.e. how long do people spend reading your content).

Translating that, your goals are to:

Create content that is relevant to search terms visitors use

Create high quality content that invites re-links and social shares

Ensure that time-on-site for the specific piece of content is high.

It may feel a bit unnatural to create content around ranking well on Google, but you’re actually just creating a really valuable article that answers all possible questions a reader is most likely to have about that topic.

Know what matters to clients

Instead of randomly choosing a topic, it helps to be a bit strategic. After all, it’s a way to get discovered by the right people.

First, know—and learn how to write for—your intended audience. Almost any topic about your field would interest fellow professionals. But let’s recall, who is it you want to attract, first and foremost? Clients. So how do you find out what they’re searching for? When I started doing this, I began by listing questions a new client typically asks, such as:

How much do your services cost?

How does your [service] process work?

To see the types of questions business owners and entrepreneurs ask most often, take a look at community sites where they hang out (Fig. 1). Good ones include:

http://ift.tt/1tRrBVi

http://ift.tt/1tRrBV8

https://www.quora.com/

http://ift.tt/2oye2gw

Fig. 1: People frequently questions about web services, such as these found on the community site Quora.

Based on the questions you find, you could brainstorm three topic ideas that relate to each one, or even split larger topics into separate articles. For example, instead of writing one giant piece on how much web design services cost, write about one service in each post, such as:

How much does a landing page cost?

How much does custom website cost?

They should be written in the style of a comprehensive educational guide that teaches the visitor everything they need to know about the topic.

Example:

How much does logo design cost?

This article could cover:

The reason rates vary so much among designers

The different types of designers they can hire (freelancer, agency, etc.)

A description of the creative process for designing a logo.

Write a better article

Now that you’ve settled on a topic, it’s time to create a comprehensive leave-no-stone-unturned piece of content about it.

What’s “comprehensive”? It’s helpful to set a benchmark for yourself by researching other popular articles that have already been written about it. Use them as inspiration, then go and create an even better version. This both demonstrates your command of the topic and attracts links from relevant, high authority sites (which signals to Google that your site contains high quality content, triggering it to bump your page higher in the search results for those keywords).

A popular tool for doing this research is Ahrefs.

After you create an account, enter a topic you’re considering, then select “Traffic” in the Sorted by dropdown. (Fig. 2)

Fig. 2: The filter screen on Ahrefs helps when narrowing down search results.

Here are some of the highest trafficked articles on “web development cost.” (Fig. 3)

Fig. 3: Ahrefs search results after filters are set.

Analyze each article and write down every single point that’s covered. Your goal is to be just as good when it’s your time to address each one. You’ll then brainstorm at least five original or interesting angles they didn’t mention or tackle extensively. This “value add” is your selling point when the time comes to start promoting the piece.

Another way to dig deep is to learn more about the authors. For instance, how does their expertise differ from yours? This can help you catch things they didn’t cover. You can also pull up every article a specific author has written on a subject, such as this topic search for journalists and bloggers writing about “web development cost.” (Fig. 4)

Fig. 4: Doing research on what other writers have published can help to determine subjects to pursue. Other effective ways to juice up your content Use compelling (and/or controversial) examples

Buttress each major point in your article with compelling (and if possible, controversial) case studies and examples.

For example, here’s an excellent analysis of the controversial logo design for the London 2012 Olympics (Fig. 5). It explains why (despite the negative public reaction) the versatility and instant recognizability of the logo actually make it an example of great identity work.

Fig. 5: Analysis of the London 2012 Olympics logo design. Use visual assets with your article

Visual assets make your article easier to read by breaking up chunks of text. For images, choose ones that instantly convey the emotion or message of a major point you make (Fig. 6). For infographics, choose ones that visually illustrate and compare data or statistics you mention in the article. A good visual asset also attracts social shares.

Fig. 6: Selecting images that instantly convey the emotion behind the message supports the point you want to make. Interview someone interesting (and influential)

Seek out people who can contribute an interesting insight or experience related to your topic. Not only does this add perspective to your article, you can ask this person to share the article with their audience (which may give you a nice traffic boost).

Capture every question

Before you start writing, make a list of every single possible question someone could have about this topic. Based on your research of existing articles, also include details and angles they don’t.

For example, if you’re writing an article about logo cost, details and angles that many other articles miss are:

Reasons why corporate logo designs cost so much

The psychology behind how logos affect brand perception

Conversion stats before and after logo redesigns

Why negative public reactions don’t necessarily mean the logo design is bad.

Add a call to action

Avoid losing potential clients who would have contacted you later—if they hadn’t forgotten. Add something encouraging them to act right away by making it a simple click, such as a call to action (CTA) banner in every article. (Fig. 7)

Fig. 7: Use prompts that encourage users to take action or engage with additional content. Promoting your article the right way

Promoting your content may feel uncomfortable, but it’s important to reframe that in your mind. Instead of “Marketing your content,” you’re “Helping people by educating and inspiring them with your well-researched, well-written information.”

Clients who don’t know about your site won’t magically enter your URL into their address bar—they have to discover you through some other source (other websites, search engines, social media). That’s why promotion and outreach are so important, and why it pays off to ask other sites to link to your content.

To kick off the first wave of traffic, it helps to win a few links and social shares. From there, the new people who discover your post may also link to or share it (which in turn boosts your article’s ranking on Google).

Let’s look at a few effective ways you can promote your content.

Offer your actual article as a service

This is an old timer technique that still works amazingly well—one my very good friend and coach Brian Harris wrote about on his blog. I like to alter the technique just slightly, but here’s what to do:

Take the URL of one of the articles you found in the previous section (when you were choosing a topic to write about). Try to pick the one with the most shares.

Go to Buzzsumo and enter the URL to the article (use the 14-day free trial they offer to do this step).

In my case, I chose this SEO techniques article because I’m looking for clients who might be interested in my SEO consulting. (Fig. 8)

Fig. 8: Research a URL on Buzzsumo to help generate article ideas.

Next, click the “View Shares” button to see a list of everyone who shared the post on Twitter. You can then click on the “Followers” filter at the top left to sort by users who have a sizable audience (i.e. enough money to pay you for a service). (Fig. 9)

Fig. 9: Buzzsumo brings visibility to social sharing.

Now you have a list of people who have already shown an interest in the topic, you could reach out to them individually and see if they’d be interested in sharing yours, as well. The following example highlights a number of points.

Subject: Re: Brian’s article you shared Body Text:

Hey AJ,

I’ve been following you since last January when I saw you share Brian Dean’s article on SEO techniques. Great article, I truly enjoyed it!

I couldn’t help but notice that it did not include how to convert the traffic you get from these techniques into actual leads. I’ve done SEO and lead nurturing work for 9+ years .

I just recently published a more comprehensive post on how to do everything Brian talks about as well as lead nurture and convert the traffic into actual leads, so I wanted to run this by you since you’re interested in the topic.

I took a look at Wordtastic <insert their company name here>—love the app. I checked and it looks like you get a decent amount of traffic.

I came up with three ways you can improve your calls to action to get more conversions every single day (based on Brian’s advice compiled with my article above)

Here is the link to the recommendations, a potential campaign, and some projected results once you implement this: [link to Google doc you put together that will blow their socks off]

Would love to help you guys implement some of these strategies.

-Dmitry

(I’ve collected examples that seem to work really well for people; you can check out those posts here: cold email templates and business email templates.)

Join some groups where your potential clients hang out

I listed these community groups earlier, but it’s worth mentioning them twice:

http://ift.tt/1tRrBVi

http://ift.tt/1tRrBV8

http://ift.tt/2oye2gw

http://ift.tt/1G1W8q6

Don’t just join—leave meaningful comments. If you do that, most groups will start to see you as a valued contributor and won’t bat an eye if you to post something that mentions your own content once in a while, like this example from a private entrepreneur group (Fig. 10)

Fig. 10: Be courteous and tactful when contributing to groups.

When you do share, be sure to mention a few points you’ve covered that would be highly relevant and valuable to that community.

For example, if you write an article about web design, a business community may be most interested in how to evaluate web designers in order to find one that’s reliable. Conversely, a marketing community may be most interested in how to design funnels that convert more visitors into subscribers and customers.

You can also ask a question related to your article topic to kickstart a discussion, then offer to answer any questions a group member may have.

Share your links with family and friends

The easiest, non-intrusive way to do this is by posting it on your Facebook feed. Add a description highlighting a few points a general audience would find interesting and worth the effort of clicks and likes.

Add interesting visuals to illustrate your points

Add relevant illustrations and pictures throughout your article to break up the text and keep your visitors engaged. Bonus points: use relevant visuals from your own portfolio so it does double duty prettifying your article and showcasing your skills.

Improve your search ranking with some SEO basics

Focus on one search keyword or phrase you want your article to rank for, then use different variations of it throughout your article, especially in your article headline and section headings.

Make sure your pages and articles load fast; you might consider caching your pages with something like CloudFlare (they offer a free plan) to speed up load time. (CloudFlare shows cached versions of your files and images so visitors don’t have to wait for them to load real-time from your servers.)

Compile a list of relevant sites to ask for links

Remember how you looked up the most popular articles on Topic X? If you find out which sites link to those articles, why not ask them to link to your (much improved) version, too?!

Use a backlink checker tool such as Open Site Explorer or Ahrefs. (Fig. 11)

Fig. 11: Use a backlink checker tool to find out who links to articles related to your topic.

Go to each site and find the names of either the site owner or, if it’s a company, the person in charge of marketing.

To find their email address, enter their site domain into AnyMailFinder or . These sites will tell you the most likely email format (for example: firstname@company.com). Based on the most common email format the site or company uses, you can “smart guess” the likely email of the person you wish to contact.

You can send them a personalized version of this template1 to ask if they may be interested in linking to your article:

Hey [Name],

I was searching for some articles about [Your topic] today and I came across yours: [URL]

I noticed that you link to [Article Title] - I just published something similar that [2 major points why it’s better]: [url of your article]

May be worth a mention on your page.

Either way, keep up the awesome work!

Remember that infographic I mentioned earlier, the one you could create to accompany your article? You can also ask some of the other sites you found in the Backlinks tab to include it in one of their existing or future articles and credit you (earning you a link this way).

Here’s the template link Luke from Pest Pro App used:

Hey [First Name],

I really liked your article on [relevant topic to your article]. Great stuff!

You actually inspired me to take this a step farther and create something even deeper.

I thought I’d reach out to you because I just published an infographic on [topic] and I thought it might interest you. It covers [list of major points, stats or facts.] It’s all based on research, and I have the sources to back it up.

Love to see if you may find it a good addition to your article.

Promote it in relevant Facebook groups

If you develop websites (for example), find Facebook groups that discuss web development, have 500+ members, and show signs of recent activity. For a few weeks, post meaningful comments every once in a while and start interesting discussions to provide value to the community. If the group guidelines allow it—and if the timing is right—share your own article now and then, but make sure you ask a question in your post to spark a discussion. This will help the post stay on top of the group feed and members’ newsfeeds to bring you more traffic.

Content creates visibility outside your network

It’s becoming tougher and tougher to stand out these days—there’s a lot of noise online. For a lot of freelancers and part time contractors, DIY service platforms and online hiring marketplaces have become the status quo for finding gigs. The quality of clients drawn to these hubs is very mixed, unfortunately, and most come because they want to pay as little as possible for the work. It is also very challenging for freelancers who don’t already have a presence there to start gaining leads right away.

Freelancers relying on word of mouth referrals also run into pitfalls. Nurturing those opportunities can be just as time intensive, not to mention leave you with limited control over when they actually convert into meaningful business.

These conditions should prompt every freelancer to try something outside the box, to find uncrowded spaces for meeting and gaining clients. Strategically creating content can consistently attract the right kind of client. When a prospective client reads your article, she’ll learn something immediately useful from you and see you as a knowledgeable pro, which creates a solid start for a client-freelancer relationship.

It’s a way for you to have something in common, something to prompt a conversation. Imagine yourself at a conference talking to a person you just met—would you rather discuss an article you wrote or dive straight into discussing your hourly rate? Of course you’ll want to show off your know-how before you talk about prices!

Writing content to attract customers is a perfect strategy for this—it engages people and generates higher visibility for your work, both within and outside your network.

Ok, I’ll hand this off to you now; it’s your turn to do the research and write one article in the next three weeks. That’s my challenge to you. One article in the next three weeks on your site...

http://ift.tt/2nFEeSQ

[pattersondonaldblk5]

Widen Out: Using Your Blog to Attract New Clients

Attracting future clients on autopilot—that’s the whole point of your website, right? Most freelancers accept the story that great work attracts leads, but I’m going to be straight with you: clients have no clue you exist. What usually tips the balance isn’t your portfolio—they see plenty of those.

Not many people talk about failures they had promoting their products and services. We struggle and we hide it. It’s one of the reasons I hate to read marketing “success stories” and “How to drive traffic and make money!” posts—they seem hollow and vaguely manipulative. They also invariably circle around an answer we already know: The key to attracting non-referral clients is making it easy for them to discover you.

Simple as that is, we fail for two reasons:

Most freelancer websites are only concerned with showing portfolio work.

We haven’t figured out who we want as clients, what makes them tick, or how they solve problems.

We’re focused on showing, not serving.

Serving hits the ground running—it answers a question, solves a problem, satisfies a curiosity. There’s a difference between saying you will and proving it with a real takeaway during the first impression. Portfolio-focused sites also don’t give Google much content to index and rank, lessening your chances of ever getting high in organic search results, much less on their radar.

Designers are “supposed” to do certain things to find clients. Well, I did all that, for years. And I had a pretty depressing success rate, considering how much time I put into it. Then I tried one thing that single-handedly turned around my freelance career. I started blogging with clients in mind.

Do it your way

Let me tell you about Brian Dean.

Brian Dean of Backlinko gets 130,000 monthly uniques. Want know how many articles he has on his blog—in total?

30. That’s right, 30.

Readers aren’t coming because he publishes frequently—they’re coming because he writes about what they want to know and because every piece he’s got is the best on that given subject, hands down! He keeps visitors coming back to the same posts because he’s constantly improving the material little by little to ensure it’s always the best that’s out there.

As people come across it—web professionals, curious readers, and potential clients—it’s building up his reputation and making it easier for people to find him via search and re-shared content links.

You don’t have to write regularly. Or much. And you don’t need an industry-rocking idea. With your expertise, you have what it takes to say something that other people consider valuable.

The key to success is making a target, then sticking it out for a few rounds of research + content creation + promotion to start. The more posts/articles you create, the more properties you have on the Monopoly board called Google. Having a few widely shared articles also kicks off a virtuous loop where all your subsequent articles get a jump start from your existing traffic. This approach is repeatable and scaleable.

(One quick heads-up: you can also expect your content to attract the “wrong type” of visitors, such as recruiters and people looking to hire someone for low-end, piecemeal work. It’s possible to turn these inquiries into opportunities by politely refusing their offer and asking if they know anyone who is seeking the type of work you do provide.)

Pre-planning your content

As you know, Google determines how high your page ranks for certain search terms based on factors like:

Whether your page content is relevant to the search term

How many other quality, relevant sites link to your page

How well-made readers think your content is (i.e. how long do people spend reading your content).

Translating that, your goals are to:

Create content that is relevant to search terms visitors use

Create high quality content that invites re-links and social shares

Ensure that time-on-site for the specific piece of content is high.

It may feel a bit unnatural to create content around ranking well on Google, but you’re actually just creating a really valuable article that answers all possible questions a reader is most likely to have about that topic.

Know what matters to clients

Instead of randomly choosing a topic, it helps to be a bit strategic. After all, it’s a way to get discovered by the right people.

First, know—and learn how to write for—your intended audience. Almost any topic about your field would interest fellow professionals. But let’s recall, who is it you want to attract, first and foremost? Clients. So how do you find out what they’re searching for? When I started doing this, I began by listing questions a new client typically asks, such as:

How much do your services cost?

How does your [service] process work?

To see the types of questions business owners and entrepreneurs ask most often, take a look at community sites where they hang out (Fig. 1). Good ones include:

http://ift.tt/1tRrBVi

http://ift.tt/1tRrBV8

https://www.quora.com/

http://ift.tt/2oye2gw

Fig. 1: People frequently questions about web services, such as these found on the community site Quora.

Based on the questions you find, you could brainstorm three topic ideas that relate to each one, or even split larger topics into separate articles. For example, instead of writing one giant piece on how much web design services cost, write about one service in each post, such as:

How much does a landing page cost?

How much does custom website cost?

They should be written in the style of a comprehensive educational guide that teaches the visitor everything they need to know about the topic.

Example:

How much does logo design cost?

This article could cover:

The reason rates vary so much among designers

The different types of designers they can hire (freelancer, agency, etc.)

A description of the creative process for designing a logo.

Write a better article

Now that you’ve settled on a topic, it’s time to create a comprehensive leave-no-stone-unturned piece of content about it.

What’s “comprehensive”? It’s helpful to set a benchmark for yourself by researching other popular articles that have already been written about it. Use them as inspiration, then go and create an even better version. This both demonstrates your command of the topic and attracts links from relevant, high authority sites (which signals to Google that your site contains high quality content, triggering it to bump your page higher in the search results for those keywords).

A popular tool for doing this research is Ahrefs.

After you create an account, enter a topic you’re considering, then select “Traffic” in the Sorted by dropdown. (Fig. 2)

Fig. 2: The filter screen on Ahrefs helps when narrowing down search results.

Here are some of the highest trafficked articles on “web development cost.” (Fig. 3)

Fig. 3: Ahrefs search results after filters are set.

Analyze each article and write down every single point that’s covered. Your goal is to be just as good when it’s your time to address each one. You’ll then brainstorm at least five original or interesting angles they didn’t mention or tackle extensively. This “value add” is your selling point when the time comes to start promoting the piece.

Another way to dig deep is to learn more about the authors. For instance, how does their expertise differ from yours? This can help you catch things they didn’t cover. You can also pull up every article a specific author has written on a subject, such as this topic search for journalists and bloggers writing about “web development cost.” (Fig. 4)

Fig. 4: Doing research on what other writers have published can help to determine subjects to pursue. Other effective ways to juice up your content Use compelling (and/or controversial) examples

Buttress each major point in your article with compelling (and if possible, controversial) case studies and examples.

For example, here’s an excellent analysis of the controversial logo design for the London 2012 Olympics (Fig. 5). It explains why (despite the negative public reaction) the versatility and instant recognizability of the logo actually make it an example of great identity work.

Fig. 5: Analysis of the London 2012 Olympics logo design. Use visual assets with your article

Visual assets make your article easier to read by breaking up chunks of text. For images, choose ones that instantly convey the emotion or message of a major point you make (Fig. 6). For infographics, choose ones that visually illustrate and compare data or statistics you mention in the article. A good visual asset also attracts social shares.

Fig. 6: Selecting images that instantly convey the emotion behind the message supports the point you want to make. Interview someone interesting (and influential)

Seek out people who can contribute an interesting insight or experience related to your topic. Not only does this add perspective to your article, you can ask this person to share the article with their audience (which may give you a nice traffic boost).

Capture every question

Before you start writing, make a list of every single possible question someone could have about this topic. Based on your research of existing articles, also include details and angles they don’t.

For example, if you’re writing an article about logo cost, details and angles that many other articles miss are:

Reasons why corporate logo designs cost so much

The psychology behind how logos affect brand perception

Conversion stats before and after logo redesigns

Why negative public reactions don’t necessarily mean the logo design is bad.

Add a call to action

Avoid losing potential clients who would have contacted you later—if they hadn’t forgotten. Add something encouraging them to act right away by making it a simple click, such as a call to action (CTA) banner in every article. (Fig. 7)

Fig. 7: Use prompts that encourage users to take action or engage with additional content. Promoting your article the right way

Promoting your content may feel uncomfortable, but it’s important to reframe that in your mind. Instead of “Marketing your content,” you’re “Helping people by educating and inspiring them with your well-researched, well-written information.”

Clients who don’t know about your site won’t magically enter your URL into their address bar—they have to discover you through some other source (other websites, search engines, social media). That’s why promotion and outreach are so important, and why it pays off to ask other sites to link to your content.

To kick off the first wave of traffic, it helps to win a few links and social shares. From there, the new people who discover your post may also link to or share it (which in turn boosts your article’s ranking on Google).

Let’s look at a few effective ways you can promote your content.

Offer your actual article as a service

This is an old timer technique that still works amazingly well—one my very good friend and coach Brian Harris wrote about on his blog. I like to alter the technique just slightly, but here’s what to do:

Take the URL of one of the articles you found in the previous section (when you were choosing a topic to write about). Try to pick the one with the most shares.

Go to Buzzsumo and enter the URL to the article (use the 14-day free trial they offer to do this step).

In my case, I chose this SEO techniques article because I’m looking for clients who might be interested in my SEO consulting. (Fig. 8)

Fig. 8: Research a URL on Buzzsumo to help generate article ideas.

Next, click the “View Shares” button to see a list of everyone who shared the post on Twitter. You can then click on the “Followers” filter at the top left to sort by users who have a sizable audience (i.e. enough money to pay you for a service). (Fig. 9)

Fig. 9: Buzzsumo brings visibility to social sharing.

Now you have a list of people who have already shown an interest in the topic, you could reach out to them individually and see if they’d be interested in sharing yours, as well. The following example highlights a number of points.

Subject: Re: Brian’s article you shared Body Text:

Hey AJ,

I’ve been following you since last January when I saw you share Brian Dean’s article on SEO techniques. Great article, I truly enjoyed it!

I couldn’t help but notice that it did not include how to convert the traffic you get from these techniques into actual leads. I’ve done SEO and lead nurturing work for 9+ years .

I just recently published a more comprehensive post on how to do everything Brian talks about as well as lead nurture and convert the traffic into actual leads, so I wanted to run this by you since you’re interested in the topic.

I took a look at Wordtastic <insert their company name here>—love the app. I checked and it looks like you get a decent amount of traffic.

I came up with three ways you can improve your calls to action to get more conversions every single day (based on Brian’s advice compiled with my article above)

Here is the link to the recommendations, a potential campaign, and some projected results once you implement this: [link to Google doc you put together that will blow their socks off]

Would love to help you guys implement some of these strategies.

-Dmitry

(I’ve collected examples that seem to work really well for people; you can check out those posts here: cold email templates and business email templates.)

Join some groups where your potential clients hang out

I listed these community groups earlier, but it’s worth mentioning them twice:

http://ift.tt/1tRrBVi

http://ift.tt/1tRrBV8

http://ift.tt/2oye2gw

http://ift.tt/1G1W8q6

Don’t just join—leave meaningful comments. If you do that, most groups will start to see you as a valued contributor and won’t bat an eye if you to post something that mentions your own content once in a while, like this example from a private entrepreneur group (Fig. 10)

Fig. 10: Be courteous and tactful when contributing to groups.

When you do share, be sure to mention a few points you’ve covered that would be highly relevant and valuable to that community.

For example, if you write an article about web design, a business community may be most interested in how to evaluate web designers in order to find one that’s reliable. Conversely, a marketing community may be most interested in how to design funnels that convert more visitors into subscribers and customers.

You can also ask a question related to your article topic to kickstart a discussion, then offer to answer any questions a group member may have.

Share your links with family and friends

The easiest, non-intrusive way to do this is by posting it on your Facebook feed. Add a description highlighting a few points a general audience would find interesting and worth the effort of clicks and likes.

Add interesting visuals to illustrate your points

Add relevant illustrations and pictures throughout your article to break up the text and keep your visitors engaged. Bonus points: use relevant visuals from your own portfolio so it does double duty prettifying your article and showcasing your skills.

Improve your search ranking with some SEO basics

Focus on one search keyword or phrase you want your article to rank for, then use different variations of it throughout your article, especially in your article headline and section headings.

Make sure your pages and articles load fast; you might consider caching your pages with something like CloudFlare (they offer a free plan) to speed up load time. (CloudFlare shows cached versions of your files and images so visitors don’t have to wait for them to load real-time from your servers.)

Compile a list of relevant sites to ask for links

Remember how you looked up the most popular articles on Topic X? If you find out which sites link to those articles, why not ask them to link to your (much improved) version, too?!

Use a backlink checker tool such as Open Site Explorer or Ahrefs. (Fig. 11)

Fig. 11: Use a backlink checker tool to find out who links to articles related to your topic.

Go to each site and find the names of either the site owner or, if it’s a company, the person in charge of marketing.

To find their email address, enter their site domain into AnyMailFinder or . These sites will tell you the most likely email format (for example: firstname@company.com). Based on the most common email format the site or company uses, you can “smart guess” the likely email of the person you wish to contact.

You can send them a personalized version of this template1 to ask if they may be interested in linking to your article:

Hey [Name],

I was searching for some articles about [Your topic] today and I came across yours: [URL]

I noticed that you link to [Article Title] - I just published something similar that [2 major points why it’s better]: [url of your article]

May be worth a mention on your page.

Either way, keep up the awesome work!

Remember that infographic I mentioned earlier, the one you could create to accompany your article? You can also ask some of the other sites you found in the Backlinks tab to include it in one of their existing or future articles and credit you (earning you a link this way).

Here’s the template link Luke from Pest Pro App used:

Hey [First Name],

I really liked your article on [relevant topic to your article]. Great stuff!

You actually inspired me to take this a step farther and create something even deeper.

I thought I’d reach out to you because I just published an infographic on [topic] and I thought it might interest you. It covers [list of major points, stats or facts.] It’s all based on research, and I have the sources to back it up.

Love to see if you may find it a good addition to your article.

Promote it in relevant Facebook groups

If you develop websites (for example), find Facebook groups that discuss web development, have 500+ members, and show signs of recent activity. For a few weeks, post meaningful comments every once in a while and start interesting discussions to provide value to the community. If the group guidelines allow it—and if the timing is right—share your own article now and then, but make sure you ask a question in your post to spark a discussion. This will help the post stay on top of the group feed and members’ newsfeeds to bring you more traffic.

Content creates visibility outside your network

It’s becoming tougher and tougher to stand out these days—there’s a lot of noise online. For a lot of freelancers and part time contractors, DIY service platforms and online hiring marketplaces have become the status quo for finding gigs. The quality of clients drawn to these hubs is very mixed, unfortunately, and most come because they want to pay as little as possible for the work. It is also very challenging for freelancers who don’t already have a presence there to start gaining leads right away.

Freelancers relying on word of mouth referrals also run into pitfalls. Nurturing those opportunities can be just as time intensive, not to mention leave you with limited control over when they actually convert into meaningful business.

These conditions should prompt every freelancer to try something outside the box, to find uncrowded spaces for meeting and gaining clients. Strategically creating content can consistently attract the right kind of client. When a prospective client reads your article, she’ll learn something immediately useful from you and see you as a knowledgeable pro, which creates a solid start for a client-freelancer relationship.

It’s a way for you to have something in common, something to prompt a conversation. Imagine yourself at a conference talking to a person you just met—would you rather discuss an article you wrote or dive straight into discussing your hourly rate? Of course you’ll want to show off your know-how before you talk about prices!

Writing content to attract customers is a perfect strategy for this—it engages people and generates higher visibility for your work, both within and outside your network.

Ok, I’ll hand this off to you now; it’s your turn to do the research and write one article in the next three weeks. That’s my challenge to you. One article in the next three weeks on your site...

http://ift.tt/2nFEeSQ

[joannlyfgnch]

Widen Out: Using Your Blog to Attract New Clients

Attracting future clients on autopilot—that’s the whole point of your website, right? Most freelancers accept the story that great work attracts leads, but I’m going to be straight with you: clients have no clue you exist. What usually tips the balance isn’t your portfolio—they see plenty of those.

Not many people talk about failures they had promoting their products and services. We struggle and we hide it. It’s one of the reasons I hate to read marketing “success stories” and “How to drive traffic and make money!” posts—they seem hollow and vaguely manipulative. They also invariably circle around an answer we already know: The key to attracting non-referral clients is making it easy for them to discover you.

Simple as that is, we fail for two reasons:

Most freelancer websites are only concerned with showing portfolio work.

We haven’t figured out who we want as clients, what makes them tick, or how they solve problems.

We’re focused on showing, not serving.

Serving hits the ground running—it answers a question, solves a problem, satisfies a curiosity. There’s a difference between saying you will and proving it with a real takeaway during the first impression. Portfolio-focused sites also don’t give Google much content to index and rank, lessening your chances of ever getting high in organic search results, much less on their radar.

Designers are “supposed” to do certain things to find clients. Well, I did all that, for years. And I had a pretty depressing success rate, considering how much time I put into it. Then I tried one thing that single-handedly turned around my freelance career. I started blogging with clients in mind.

Do it your way

Let me tell you about Brian Dean.

Brian Dean of Backlinko gets 130,000 monthly uniques. Want know how many articles he has on his blog—in total?

30. That’s right, 30.

Readers aren’t coming because he publishes frequently—they’re coming because he writes about what they want to know and because every piece he’s got is the best on that given subject, hands down! He keeps visitors coming back to the same posts because he’s constantly improving the material little by little to ensure it’s always the best that’s out there.

As people come across it—web professionals, curious readers, and potential clients—it’s building up his reputation and making it easier for people to find him via search and re-shared content links.

You don’t have to write regularly. Or much. And you don’t need an industry-rocking idea. With your expertise, you have what it takes to say something that other people consider valuable.

The key to success is making a target, then sticking it out for a few rounds of research + content creation + promotion to start. The more posts/articles you create, the more properties you have on the Monopoly board called Google. Having a few widely shared articles also kicks off a virtuous loop where all your subsequent articles get a jump start from your existing traffic. This approach is repeatable and scaleable.

(One quick heads-up: you can also expect your content to attract the “wrong type” of visitors, such as recruiters and people looking to hire someone for low-end, piecemeal work. It’s possible to turn these inquiries into opportunities by politely refusing their offer and asking if they know anyone who is seeking the type of work you do provide.)

Pre-planning your content

As you know, Google determines how high your page ranks for certain search terms based on factors like:

Whether your page content is relevant to the search term

How many other quality, relevant sites link to your page

How well-made readers think your content is (i.e. how long do people spend reading your content).

Translating that, your goals are to:

Create content that is relevant to search terms visitors use

Create high quality content that invites re-links and social shares

Ensure that time-on-site for the specific piece of content is high.

It may feel a bit unnatural to create content around ranking well on Google, but you’re actually just creating a really valuable article that answers all possible questions a reader is most likely to have about that topic.

Know what matters to clients

Instead of randomly choosing a topic, it helps to be a bit strategic. After all, it’s a way to get discovered by the right people.

First, know—and learn how to write for—your intended audience. Almost any topic about your field would interest fellow professionals. But let’s recall, who is it you want to attract, first and foremost? Clients. So how do you find out what they’re searching for? When I started doing this, I began by listing questions a new client typically asks, such as:

How much do your services cost?

How does your [service] process work?

To see the types of questions business owners and entrepreneurs ask most often, take a look at community sites where they hang out (Fig. 1). Good ones include:

http://ift.tt/1tRrBVi

http://ift.tt/1tRrBV8

https://www.quora.com/

http://ift.tt/2oye2gw

Fig. 1: People frequently questions about web services, such as these found on the community site Quora.

Based on the questions you find, you could brainstorm three topic ideas that relate to each one, or even split larger topics into separate articles. For example, instead of writing one giant piece on how much web design services cost, write about one service in each post, such as:

How much does a landing page cost?

How much does custom website cost?

They should be written in the style of a comprehensive educational guide that teaches the visitor everything they need to know about the topic.

Example:

How much does logo design cost?

This article could cover:

The reason rates vary so much among designers

The different types of designers they can hire (freelancer, agency, etc.)

A description of the creative process for designing a logo.

Write a better article

Now that you’ve settled on a topic, it’s time to create a comprehensive leave-no-stone-unturned piece of content about it.

What’s “comprehensive”? It’s helpful to set a benchmark for yourself by researching other popular articles that have already been written about it. Use them as inspiration, then go and create an even better version. This both demonstrates your command of the topic and attracts links from relevant, high authority sites (which signals to Google that your site contains high quality content, triggering it to bump your page higher in the search results for those keywords).

A popular tool for doing this research is Ahrefs.

After you create an account, enter a topic you’re considering, then select “Traffic” in the Sorted by dropdown. (Fig. 2)

Fig. 2: The filter screen on Ahrefs helps when narrowing down search results.

Here are some of the highest trafficked articles on “web development cost.” (Fig. 3)

Fig. 3: Ahrefs search results after filters are set.

Analyze each article and write down every single point that’s covered. Your goal is to be just as good when it’s your time to address each one. You’ll then brainstorm at least five original or interesting angles they didn’t mention or tackle extensively. This “value add” is your selling point when the time comes to start promoting the piece.

Another way to dig deep is to learn more about the authors. For instance, how does their expertise differ from yours? This can help you catch things they didn’t cover. You can also pull up every article a specific author has written on a subject, such as this topic search for journalists and bloggers writing about “web development cost.” (Fig. 4)

Fig. 4: Doing research on what other writers have published can help to determine subjects to pursue. Other effective ways to juice up your content Use compelling (and/or controversial) examples

Buttress each major point in your article with compelling (and if possible, controversial) case studies and examples.

For example, here’s an excellent analysis of the controversial logo design for the London 2012 Olympics (Fig. 5). It explains why (despite the negative public reaction) the versatility and instant recognizability of the logo actually make it an example of great identity work.

Fig. 5: Analysis of the London 2012 Olympics logo design. Use visual assets with your article

Visual assets make your article easier to read by breaking up chunks of text. For images, choose ones that instantly convey the emotion or message of a major point you make (Fig. 6). For infographics, choose ones that visually illustrate and compare data or statistics you mention in the article. A good visual asset also attracts social shares.

Fig. 6: Selecting images that instantly convey the emotion behind the message supports the point you want to make. Interview someone interesting (and influential)

Seek out people who can contribute an interesting insight or experience related to your topic. Not only does this add perspective to your article, you can ask this person to share the article with their audience (which may give you a nice traffic boost).

Capture every question

Before you start writing, make a list of every single possible question someone could have about this topic. Based on your research of existing articles, also include details and angles they don’t.

For example, if you’re writing an article about logo cost, details and angles that many other articles miss are:

Reasons why corporate logo designs cost so much

The psychology behind how logos affect brand perception

Conversion stats before and after logo redesigns

Why negative public reactions don’t necessarily mean the logo design is bad.

Add a call to action

Avoid losing potential clients who would have contacted you later—if they hadn’t forgotten. Add something encouraging them to act right away by making it a simple click, such as a call to action (CTA) banner in every article. (Fig. 7)

Fig. 7: Use prompts that encourage users to take action or engage with additional content. Promoting your article the right way

Promoting your content may feel uncomfortable, but it’s important to reframe that in your mind. Instead of “Marketing your content,” you’re “Helping people by educating and inspiring them with your well-researched, well-written information.”

Clients who don’t know about your site won’t magically enter your URL into their address bar—they have to discover you through some other source (other websites, search engines, social media). That’s why promotion and outreach are so important, and why it pays off to ask other sites to link to your content.

To kick off the first wave of traffic, it helps to win a few links and social shares. From there, the new people who discover your post may also link to or share it (which in turn boosts your article’s ranking on Google).

Let’s look at a few effective ways you can promote your content.

Offer your actual article as a service

This is an old timer technique that still works amazingly well—one my very good friend and coach Brian Harris wrote about on his blog. I like to alter the technique just slightly, but here’s what to do:

Take the URL of one of the articles you found in the previous section (when you were choosing a topic to write about). Try to pick the one with the most shares.

Go to Buzzsumo and enter the URL to the article (use the 14-day free trial they offer to do this step).

In my case, I chose this SEO techniques article because I’m looking for clients who might be interested in my SEO consulting. (Fig. 8)

Fig. 8: Research a URL on Buzzsumo to help generate article ideas.

Next, click the “View Shares” button to see a list of everyone who shared the post on Twitter. You can then click on the “Followers” filter at the top left to sort by users who have a sizable audience (i.e. enough money to pay you for a service). (Fig. 9)

Fig. 9: Buzzsumo brings visibility to social sharing.

Now you have a list of people who have already shown an interest in the topic, you could reach out to them individually and see if they’d be interested in sharing yours, as well. The following example highlights a number of points.

Subject: Re: Brian’s article you shared Body Text:

Hey AJ,

I’ve been following you since last January when I saw you share Brian Dean’s article on SEO techniques. Great article, I truly enjoyed it!

I couldn’t help but notice that it did not include how to convert the traffic you get from these techniques into actual leads. I’ve done SEO and lead nurturing work for 9+ years .

I just recently published a more comprehensive post on how to do everything Brian talks about as well as lead nurture and convert the traffic into actual leads, so I wanted to run this by you since you’re interested in the topic.

I took a look at Wordtastic <insert their company name here>—love the app. I checked and it looks like you get a decent amount of traffic.

I came up with three ways you can improve your calls to action to get more conversions every single day (based on Brian’s advice compiled with my article above)

Here is the link to the recommendations, a potential campaign, and some projected results once you implement this: [link to Google doc you put together that will blow their socks off]

Would love to help you guys implement some of these strategies.

-Dmitry

(I’ve collected examples that seem to work really well for people; you can check out those posts here: cold email templates and business email templates.)

Join some groups where your potential clients hang out

I listed these community groups earlier, but it’s worth mentioning them twice:

http://ift.tt/1tRrBVi

http://ift.tt/1tRrBV8

http://ift.tt/2oye2gw

http://ift.tt/1G1W8q6

Don’t just join—leave meaningful comments. If you do that, most groups will start to see you as a valued contributor and won’t bat an eye if you to post something that mentions your own content once in a while, like this example from a private entrepreneur group (Fig. 10)

Fig. 10: Be courteous and tactful when contributing to groups.

When you do share, be sure to mention a few points you’ve covered that would be highly relevant and valuable to that community.

For example, if you write an article about web design, a business community may be most interested in how to evaluate web designers in order to find one that’s reliable. Conversely, a marketing community may be most interested in how to design funnels that convert more visitors into subscribers and customers.

You can also ask a question related to your article topic to kickstart a discussion, then offer to answer any questions a group member may have.

Share your links with family and friends

The easiest, non-intrusive way to do this is by posting it on your Facebook feed. Add a description highlighting a few points a general audience would find interesting and worth the effort of clicks and likes.

Add interesting visuals to illustrate your points

Add relevant illustrations and pictures throughout your article to break up the text and keep your visitors engaged. Bonus points: use relevant visuals from your own portfolio so it does double duty prettifying your article and showcasing your skills.

Improve your search ranking with some SEO basics

Focus on one search keyword or phrase you want your article to rank for, then use different variations of it throughout your article, especially in your article headline and section headings.

Make sure your pages and articles load fast; you might consider caching your pages with something like CloudFlare (they offer a free plan) to speed up load time. (CloudFlare shows cached versions of your files and images so visitors don’t have to wait for them to load real-time from your servers.)

Compile a list of relevant sites to ask for links

Remember how you looked up the most popular articles on Topic X? If you find out which sites link to those articles, why not ask them to link to your (much improved) version, too?!

Use a backlink checker tool such as Open Site Explorer or Ahrefs. (Fig. 11)

Fig. 11: Use a backlink checker tool to find out who links to articles related to your topic.

Go to each site and find the names of either the site owner or, if it’s a company, the person in charge of marketing.

To find their email address, enter their site domain into AnyMailFinder or . These sites will tell you the most likely email format (for example: firstname@company.com). Based on the most common email format the site or company uses, you can “smart guess” the likely email of the person you wish to contact.

You can send them a personalized version of this template1 to ask if they may be interested in linking to your article:

Hey [Name],

I was searching for some articles about [Your topic] today and I came across yours: [URL]

I noticed that you link to [Article Title] - I just published something similar that [2 major points why it’s better]: [url of your article]

May be worth a mention on your page.

Either way, keep up the awesome work!

Remember that infographic I mentioned earlier, the one you could create to accompany your article? You can also ask some of the other sites you found in the Backlinks tab to include it in one of their existing or future articles and credit you (earning you a link this way).

Here’s the template link Luke from Pest Pro App used:

Hey [First Name],

I really liked your article on [relevant topic to your article]. Great stuff!

You actually inspired me to take this a step farther and create something even deeper.

I thought I’d reach out to you because I just published an infographic on [topic] and I thought it might interest you. It covers [list of major points, stats or facts.] It’s all based on research, and I have the sources to back it up.

Love to see if you may find it a good addition to your article.

Promote it in relevant Facebook groups

If you develop websites (for example), find Facebook groups that discuss web development, have 500+ members, and show signs of recent activity. For a few weeks, post meaningful comments every once in a while and start interesting discussions to provide value to the community. If the group guidelines allow it—and if the timing is right—share your own article now and then, but make sure you ask a question in your post to spark a discussion. This will help the post stay on top of the group feed and members’ newsfeeds to bring you more traffic.

Content creates visibility outside your network

It’s becoming tougher and tougher to stand out these days—there’s a lot of noise online. For a lot of freelancers and part time contractors, DIY service platforms and online hiring marketplaces have become the status quo for finding gigs. The quality of clients drawn to these hubs is very mixed, unfortunately, and most come because they want to pay as little as possible for the work. It is also very challenging for freelancers who don’t already have a presence there to start gaining leads right away.

Freelancers relying on word of mouth referrals also run into pitfalls. Nurturing those opportunities can be just as time intensive, not to mention leave you with limited control over when they actually convert into meaningful business.

These conditions should prompt every freelancer to try something outside the box, to find uncrowded spaces for meeting and gaining clients. Strategically creating content can consistently attract the right kind of client. When a prospective client reads your article, she’ll learn something immediately useful from you and see you as a knowledgeable pro, which creates a solid start for a client-freelancer relationship.

It’s a way for you to have something in common, something to prompt a conversation. Imagine yourself at a conference talking to a person you just met—would you rather discuss an article you wrote or dive straight into discussing your hourly rate? Of course you’ll want to show off your know-how before you talk about prices!

Writing content to attract customers is a perfect strategy for this—it engages people and generates higher visibility for your work, both within and outside your network.

Ok, I’ll hand this off to you now; it’s your turn to do the research and write one article in the next three weeks. That’s my challenge to you. One article in the next three weeks on your site...

http://ift.tt/2nFEeSQ

[jeanshesallenberger]

Widen Out: Using Your Blog to Attract New Clients

Attracting future clients on autopilot—that’s the whole point of your website, right? Most freelancers accept the story that great work attracts leads, but I’m going to be straight with you: clients have no clue you exist. What usually tips the balance isn’t your portfolio—they see plenty of those.

Not many people talk about failures they had promoting their products and services. We struggle and we hide it. It’s one of the reasons I hate to read marketing “success stories” and “How to drive traffic and make money!” posts—they seem hollow and vaguely manipulative. They also invariably circle around an answer we already know: The key to attracting non-referral clients is making it easy for them to discover you.

Simple as that is, we fail for two reasons:

Most freelancer websites are only concerned with showing portfolio work.

We haven’t figured out who we want as clients, what makes them tick, or how they solve problems.

We’re focused on showing, not serving.

Serving hits the ground running—it answers a question, solves a problem, satisfies a curiosity. There’s a difference between saying you will and proving it with a real takeaway during the first impression. Portfolio-focused sites also don’t give Google much content to index and rank, lessening your chances of ever getting high in organic search results, much less on their radar.

Designers are “supposed” to do certain things to find clients. Well, I did all that, for years. And I had a pretty depressing success rate, considering how much time I put into it. Then I tried one thing that single-handedly turned around my freelance career. I started blogging with clients in mind.

Do it your way

Let me tell you about Brian Dean.

Brian Dean of Backlinko gets 130,000 monthly uniques. Want know how many articles he has on his blog—in total?

30. That’s right, 30.

Readers aren’t coming because he publishes frequently—they’re coming because he writes about what they want to know and because every piece he’s got is the best on that given subject, hands down! He keeps visitors coming back to the same posts because he’s constantly improving the material little by little to ensure it’s always the best that’s out there.

As people come across it—web professionals, curious readers, and potential clients—it’s building up his reputation and making it easier for people to find him via search and re-shared content links.

You don’t have to write regularly. Or much. And you don’t need an industry-rocking idea. With your expertise, you have what it takes to say something that other people consider valuable.

The key to success is making a target, then sticking it out for a few rounds of research + content creation + promotion to start. The more posts/articles you create, the more properties you have on the Monopoly board called Google. Having a few widely shared articles also kicks off a virtuous loop where all your subsequent articles get a jump start from your existing traffic. This approach is repeatable and scaleable.

(One quick heads-up: you can also expect your content to attract the “wrong type” of visitors, such as recruiters and people looking to hire someone for low-end, piecemeal work. It’s possible to turn these inquiries into opportunities by politely refusing their offer and asking if they know anyone who is seeking the type of work you do provide.)

Pre-planning your content

As you know, Google determines how high your page ranks for certain search terms based on factors like:

Whether your page content is relevant to the search term

How many other quality, relevant sites link to your page

How well-made readers think your content is (i.e. how long do people spend reading your content).

Translating that, your goals are to:

Create content that is relevant to search terms visitors use

Create high quality content that invites re-links and social shares

Ensure that time-on-site for the specific piece of content is high.

It may feel a bit unnatural to create content around ranking well on Google, but you’re actually just creating a really valuable article that answers all possible questions a reader is most likely to have about that topic.

Know what matters to clients

Instead of randomly choosing a topic, it helps to be a bit strategic. After all, it’s a way to get discovered by the right people.

First, know—and learn how to write for—your intended audience. Almost any topic about your field would interest fellow professionals. But let’s recall, who is it you want to attract, first and foremost? Clients. So how do you find out what they’re searching for? When I started doing this, I began by listing questions a new client typically asks, such as:

How much do your services cost?

How does your [service] process work?

To see the types of questions business owners and entrepreneurs ask most often, take a look at community sites where they hang out (Fig. 1). Good ones include:

http://ift.tt/1tRrBVi

http://ift.tt/1tRrBV8

https://www.quora.com/

http://ift.tt/2oye2gw

Fig. 1: People frequently questions about web services, such as these found on the community site Quora.

Based on the questions you find, you could brainstorm three topic ideas that relate to each one, or even split larger topics into separate articles. For example, instead of writing one giant piece on how much web design services cost, write about one service in each post, such as:

How much does a landing page cost?

How much does custom website cost?

They should be written in the style of a comprehensive educational guide that teaches the visitor everything they need to know about the topic.

Example:

How much does logo design cost?

This article could cover:

The reason rates vary so much among designers

The different types of designers they can hire (freelancer, agency, etc.)

A description of the creative process for designing a logo.

Write a better article

Now that you’ve settled on a topic, it’s time to create a comprehensive leave-no-stone-unturned piece of content about it.

What’s “comprehensive”? It’s helpful to set a benchmark for yourself by researching other popular articles that have already been written about it. Use them as inspiration, then go and create an even better version. This both demonstrates your command of the topic and attracts links from relevant, high authority sites (which signals to Google that your site contains high quality content, triggering it to bump your page higher in the search results for those keywords).

A popular tool for doing this research is Ahrefs.

After you create an account, enter a topic you’re considering, then select “Traffic” in the Sorted by dropdown. (Fig. 2)

Fig. 2: The filter screen on Ahrefs helps when narrowing down search results.

Here are some of the highest trafficked articles on “web development cost.” (Fig. 3)

Fig. 3: Ahrefs search results after filters are set.

Analyze each article and write down every single point that’s covered. Your goal is to be just as good when it’s your time to address each one. You’ll then brainstorm at least five original or interesting angles they didn’t mention or tackle extensively. This “value add” is your selling point when the time comes to start promoting the piece.

Another way to dig deep is to learn more about the authors. For instance, how does their expertise differ from yours? This can help you catch things they didn’t cover. You can also pull up every article a specific author has written on a subject, such as this topic search for journalists and bloggers writing about “web development cost.” (Fig. 4)

Fig. 4: Doing research on what other writers have published can help to determine subjects to pursue. Other effective ways to juice up your content Use compelling (and/or controversial) examples

Buttress each major point in your article with compelling (and if possible, controversial) case studies and examples.

For example, here’s an excellent analysis of the controversial logo design for the London 2012 Olympics (Fig. 5). It explains why (despite the negative public reaction) the versatility and instant recognizability of the logo actually make it an example of great identity work.

Fig. 5: Analysis of the London 2012 Olympics logo design. Use visual assets with your article

Visual assets make your article easier to read by breaking up chunks of text. For images, choose ones that instantly convey the emotion or message of a major point you make (Fig. 6). For infographics, choose ones that visually illustrate and compare data or statistics you mention in the article. A good visual asset also attracts social shares.

Fig. 6: Selecting images that instantly convey the emotion behind the message supports the point you want to make. Interview someone interesting (and influential)

Seek out people who can contribute an interesting insight or experience related to your topic. Not only does this add perspective to your article, you can ask this person to share the article with their audience (which may give you a nice traffic boost).

Capture every question

Before you start writing, make a list of every single possible question someone could have about this topic. Based on your research of existing articles, also include details and angles they don’t.

For example, if you’re writing an article about logo cost, details and angles that many other articles miss are:

Reasons why corporate logo designs cost so much

The psychology behind how logos affect brand perception

Conversion stats before and after logo redesigns

Why negative public reactions don’t necessarily mean the logo design is bad.

Add a call to action

Avoid losing potential clients who would have contacted you later—if they hadn’t forgotten. Add something encouraging them to act right away by making it a simple click, such as a call to action (CTA) banner in every article. (Fig. 7)

Fig. 7: Use prompts that encourage users to take action or engage with additional content. Promoting your article the right way

Promoting your content may feel uncomfortable, but it’s important to reframe that in your mind. Instead of “Marketing your content,” you’re “Helping people by educating and inspiring them with your well-researched, well-written information.”

Clients who don’t know about your site won’t magically enter your URL into their address bar—they have to discover you through some other source (other websites, search engines, social media). That’s why promotion and outreach are so important, and why it pays off to ask other sites to link to your content.

To kick off the first wave of traffic, it helps to win a few links and social shares. From there, the new people who discover your post may also link to or share it (which in turn boosts your article’s ranking on Google).

Let’s look at a few effective ways you can promote your content.

Offer your actual article as a service

This is an old timer technique that still works amazingly well—one my very good friend and coach Brian Harris wrote about on his blog. I like to alter the technique just slightly, but here’s what to do:

Take the URL of one of the articles you found in the previous section (when you were choosing a topic to write about). Try to pick the one with the most shares.

Go to Buzzsumo and enter the URL to the article (use the 14-day free trial they offer to do this step).

In my case, I chose this SEO techniques article because I’m looking for clients who might be interested in my SEO consulting. (Fig. 8)

Fig. 8: Research a URL on Buzzsumo to help generate article ideas.

Next, click the “View Shares” button to see a list of everyone who shared the post on Twitter. You can then click on the “Followers” filter at the top left to sort by users who have a sizable audience (i.e. enough money to pay you for a service). (Fig. 9)

Fig. 9: Buzzsumo brings visibility to social sharing.

Now you have a list of people who have already shown an interest in the topic, you could reach out to them individually and see if they’d be interested in sharing yours, as well. The following example highlights a number of points.

Subject: Re: Brian’s article you shared Body Text:

Hey AJ,

I’ve been following you since last January when I saw you share Brian Dean’s article on SEO techniques. Great article, I truly enjoyed it!

I couldn’t help but notice that it did not include how to convert the traffic you get from these techniques into actual leads. I’ve done SEO and lead nurturing work for 9+ years .

I just recently published a more comprehensive post on how to do everything Brian talks about as well as lead nurture and convert the traffic into actual leads, so I wanted to run this by you since you’re interested in the topic.

I took a look at Wordtastic <insert their company name here>—love the app. I checked and it looks like you get a decent amount of traffic.

I came up with three ways you can improve your calls to action to get more conversions every single day (based on Brian’s advice compiled with my article above)

Here is the link to the recommendations, a potential campaign, and some projected results once you implement this: [link to Google doc you put together that will blow their socks off]

Would love to help you guys implement some of these strategies.

-Dmitry

(I’ve collected examples that seem to work really well for people; you can check out those posts here: cold email templates and business email templates.)

Join some groups where your potential clients hang out

I listed these community groups earlier, but it’s worth mentioning them twice:

http://ift.tt/1tRrBVi

http://ift.tt/1tRrBV8

http://ift.tt/2oye2gw

http://ift.tt/1G1W8q6

Don’t just join—leave meaningful comments. If you do that, most groups will start to see you as a valued contributor and won’t bat an eye if you to post something that mentions your own content once in a while, like this example from a private entrepreneur group (Fig. 10)

Fig. 10: Be courteous and tactful when contributing to groups.

When you do share, be sure to mention a few points you’ve covered that would be highly relevant and valuable to that community.

For example, if you write an article about web design, a business community may be most interested in how to evaluate web designers in order to find one that’s reliable. Conversely, a marketing community may be most interested in how to design funnels that convert more visitors into subscribers and customers.

You can also ask a question related to your article topic to kickstart a discussion, then offer to answer any questions a group member may have.

Share your links with family and friends

The easiest, non-intrusive way to do this is by posting it on your Facebook feed. Add a description highlighting a few points a general audience would find interesting and worth the effort of clicks and likes.

Add interesting visuals to illustrate your points

Add relevant illustrations and pictures throughout your article to break up the text and keep your visitors engaged. Bonus points: use relevant visuals from your own portfolio so it does double duty prettifying your article and showcasing your skills.

Improve your search ranking with some SEO basics

Focus on one search keyword or phrase you want your article to rank for, then use different variations of it throughout your article, especially in your article headline and section headings.

Make sure your pages and articles load fast; you might consider caching your pages with something like CloudFlare (they offer a free plan) to speed up load time. (CloudFlare shows cached versions of your files and images so visitors don’t have to wait for them to load real-time from your servers.)

Compile a list of relevant sites to ask for links

Remember how you looked up the most popular articles on Topic X? If you find out which sites link to those articles, why not ask them to link to your (much improved) version, too?!

Use a backlink checker tool such as Open Site Explorer or Ahrefs. (Fig. 11)

Fig. 11: Use a backlink checker tool to find out who links to articles related to your topic.

Go to each site and find the names of either the site owner or, if it’s a company, the person in charge of marketing.

To find their email address, enter their site domain into AnyMailFinder or . These sites will tell you the most likely email format (for example: firstname@company.com). Based on the most common email format the site or company uses, you can “smart guess” the likely email of the person you wish to contact.

You can send them a personalized version of this template1 to ask if they may be interested in linking to your article:

Hey [Name],

I was searching for some articles about [Your topic] today and I came across yours: [URL]

I noticed that you link to [Article Title] - I just published something similar that [2 major points why it’s better]: [url of your article]

May be worth a mention on your page.

Either way, keep up the awesome work!

Remember that infographic I mentioned earlier, the one you could create to accompany your article? You can also ask some of the other sites you found in the Backlinks tab to include it in one of their existing or future articles and credit you (earning you a link this way).

Here’s the template link Luke from Pest Pro App used:

Hey [First Name],

I really liked your article on [relevant topic to your article]. Great stuff!

You actually inspired me to take this a step farther and create something even deeper.

I thought I’d reach out to you because I just published an infographic on [topic] and I thought it might interest you. It covers [list of major points, stats or facts.] It’s all based on research, and I have the sources to back it up.

Love to see if you may find it a good addition to your article.

Promote it in relevant Facebook groups

If you develop websites (for example), find Facebook groups that discuss web development, have 500+ members, and show signs of recent activity. For a few weeks, post meaningful comments every once in a while and start interesting discussions to provide value to the community. If the group guidelines allow it—and if the timing is right—share your own article now and then, but make sure you ask a question in your post to spark a discussion. This will help the post stay on top of the group feed and members’ newsfeeds to bring you more traffic.

Content creates visibility outside your network

It’s becoming tougher and tougher to stand out these days—there’s a lot of noise online. For a lot of freelancers and part time contractors, DIY service platforms and online hiring marketplaces have become the status quo for finding gigs. The quality of clients drawn to these hubs is very mixed, unfortunately, and most come because they want to pay as little as possible for the work. It is also very challenging for freelancers who don’t already have a presence there to start gaining leads right away.

Freelancers relying on word of mouth referrals also run into pitfalls. Nurturing those opportunities can be just as time intensive, not to mention leave you with limited control over when they actually convert into meaningful business.

These conditions should prompt every freelancer to try something outside the box, to find uncrowded spaces for meeting and gaining clients. Strategically creating content can consistently attract the right kind of client. When a prospective client reads your article, she’ll learn something immediately useful from you and see you as a knowledgeable pro, which creates a solid start for a client-freelancer relationship.

It’s a way for you to have something in common, something to prompt a conversation. Imagine yourself at a conference talking to a person you just met—would you rather discuss an article you wrote or dive straight into discussing your hourly rate? Of course you’ll want to show off your know-how before you talk about prices!

Writing content to attract customers is a perfect strategy for this—it engages people and generates higher visibility for your work, both within and outside your network.

Ok, I’ll hand this off to you now; it’s your turn to do the research and write one article in the next three weeks. That’s my challenge to you. One article in the next three weeks on your site...

http://ift.tt/2nFEeSQ