#i’m also aware a lot of this could be writing efficiency and not the deeper meanings i’ll (mostly later) assign to it

[withthewindinherfootsteps]

Wei Wuxian and Narrative Agency – Part One

For Xiantober Day One: Genius… albeit stretching the prompt so it refers to MXTX and MDZS itself, but at the end of the day it’s still about WWX – so no harm done!

(Part Two | Part Three | Full version on AO3)

The narrative is a very active player in MDZS’ story. How it presents information, what it chooses to show and omit, often reflects important facets of its themes and characters – Nie Huaisang, for instance, is so good at hiding behind his mask that not even the narrative can hold him accountable; the present day’s storyline as a murder mystery and the slow reveal of information about the past both prompt the reader to think critically about the truth of events, when the importance of thinking critically is an important theme; and the dangers not thinking critically (and instead basing conclusions on rumours without much evidence) are shown by tricking unquestioning readers into the very same trap the cultivation world falls into, as the information given by the title, summary and in-universe rumours – which contradicts how we see actually Wei Wuxian act – turns out to be false.

But nowhere do I love this trait more than in its treatment of Wei Wuxian – and, more specifically, in its way of emphasising his agency. We’re not just told how much his active choices define his character, and we’re not just shown this in-universe through his personality, worldview and the events he causes. I’d argue that this aspect goes a step further, and shapes the structure of the out-of-universe narrative as well.

There are two main ways this happens: one, in how the aspects of Wei Wuxian’s life that are shown and hidden directly tell us what’s important about his character (which is good writing but isn’t necessarily tied to this shaping of the narrative), which is what we’ll explore today; and two, how what’s shown and hidden reflects what Wei Wuxian himself prefers to dwell on, resulting in the narrative respecting his own thoughts and feelings on matters (which very much is tied to it). We’ll explore this at a later date.

But as for now – let’s explore my favourite aspect of MDZS.

(Here, narrative agency will be considered the ability of a character to meaningfully influence their events and the story they’re in.)

Tragedy, Circumstance, Choice

If we simply look at Wei Wuxian’s backstory in a vacuum, it seems almost typically tragic. His  parents died in circumstances beyond his control, he was left alone as a child with nobody to care for him, he was forced to grow up fending for himself on the streets, he was faced with abuse when he finally was taken in… as with all typical woobies, everything simply happened to him, and none of it was good. It’s just another example of the lack of agency being used for sympathy points, right?

…Except there’s one problem with that idea. We don’t actually see any of this.

It would’ve been easy to start the flashbacks during these times. We’re telling the story of Wei Wuxian in (largely) chronological order, and these are likely important experiences for him! But instead of starting in his street days, or evenat the moment Jiang Fengmian took him in*, we start at the lectures in the Cloud Recesses. That’s not even something mentioned in, and therefore something that’s able to disprove, the rumours at the start of the novel. So why is this the case? 

Well, there are multiple reasons – the main one being that MDZS is also Lan Wangji’s (and Wangxian’s) story, and having the flashbacks open with their first meeting is very satisfying. But I want to focus on something else.

This period doesn’t have to be shown, because what happens to Wei Wuxian, especially out of his control, isn’t what’s important about his character.

We’re not even at Lotus Pier here, where Wei Wuxian certainly has more agency than he would’ve had as a young child, but where the harm caused by Madame Yu is still completely out of his control. Here, he has agency! Though there are consequences, he is free to act, and what happens to him is a result of those actions and not of circumstance. Yes, he gets punished more than others who also take those same actions (due to classism); yes, it’s not his choice to be picked on by Lan Qiren in class (yet look how he responds, twisting the situation to his advantage and ending up tricking Lan Qiren into letting him leave, which is what he wanted to do. He is not at all helpless here!); yes, these choices have been influenced by his learned mindset from Madame Yu that punishment is arbitrary and will happen anyway, so you may as well do what you want regardless. But there is cause-and-effect here. It’s not circumstantial tragedy.

Therefore, instead of our first impression of past!Wei Wuxian being that of an unfortunate woobie, it’s of someone who has the freedom, ability and will to choose and act (and that’s after these initial tragic events have taken place). This is compounded by the fact that before we see any of his backstory, we get a similar impression of him in the present day.

If the purpose of his tragic past was to earn him sympathy points, to make us pity him due to how much he was influenced by events out of his control, this would’ve been a terrible way of going about it… and it’s this that betrays the true reason for its existence. Because now, the flashbacks instead show us how little these tragedies define who he is! From the very start, Wei Wuxian isn’t someone defined by circumstances out of his control, but rather by who he is as a person and by what choices he makes in the present day (which is both a mindset in-universe, and a nice little out-of-universe detail that lines up! Because out-of-universe, this means he’s not defined by sympathy points from a backstory, but rather by his great character writing… aka, by who he is as a person and what choices he makes). And this refusal to be defined by tragedy is a conscious choice on his part, too – but we’ll explore that more later. 

The important thing is that this idea of Wei Wuxian isn’t because of what exists in his past, it’s because of what parts of his past are shown to us (as well as what he chooses to do, with agency, in the present). 

Now, if this relationship between what’s displayed and what’s omitted was just a one-time thing, I might’ve considered it a cool detail or a nice way to establish a character, but not something the narrative is actively focusing on. But it’s a pattern that continues throughout the flashbacks. What, arguably, are the two other most important times in Wei Wuxian’s life where he doesn’t have enough agency to meaningfully influence his circumstances? His three months in the Burial Mounds (before escaping – he managed to assume some control of the circumstances but not enough to substantially reduce his suffering in his time there), and his loss and death during the First Siege. And we’re not shown either of them! We skip to when Wei Wuxian has emerged from the Burial Mounds and is torturing the Wens, or we skip to the present day – both times he has agency once more, because, again, what he’s like without it doesn’t matter enough to be shown. 

Furthermore, I’d argue this does actually contrast the other tragic events we see in Wei Wuxian’s later life. Things do go horribly wrong, but it’s either due to choices he knows the consequences of (see: rescuing the Wen Remnants in the first place), or instances where he still has some ability to act in the situation and influence it within the limitations. If he’d had no ability to influence circumstances at Qiongqi path, he would have died in the ambush; if he’d been unable to do that at Nightless City, he would’ve died then, too (of course Lan Wangji helped him escape as well). The attention drawn to him losing control of his actions in both instances is very interesting, but intentional or not, it’s still his actions influencing the plot. And that influence happens to be detrimental. The very ability to act and influence, at a base level,  is not taken away (though, of course, that doesn’t make these events any less tragic).

So, so far, the narrative seems to be telling us that the ability to act and choose is key to Wei Wuxian’s character. And it’s doing it through omitting his moments without agency in favour of instead showing us his moments with it. 

Let’s see if this is echoed in the text itself before we go further – because even with this pattern, nothing would end up mattering if Wei Wuxian’s agency wasn’t actually that important to the story itself. But thankfully it is, and that first impression we get of Wei Wuxian in the Cloud Recesses turns out to very much be accurate! Though there are defining circumstances out of his control that occur, such as the massacre of Lotus Pier, the majority of the important events of his life are due to his own choices. He didn’t happen to be forced to cease traditional cultivation and solely use guidao, didn’t happen to lose his Golden Core in a fight with Wen Zhuliu or due to some force in the Burial Mounds, it was his own choice to give it and his spiritual powers away. He didn’t tragically happen to get targeted by the cultivation world, it was a result of him acting on his morals and protecting the Wen remnants (a choice which he was fully aware of the implications of). He isn’t a protagonist to whom things simply occur, and that activeness and agency is my favourite thing about him. 

That’s not to say that the times Wei Wuxian doesn’t have agency, or feels like he doesn’t have any, don’t exist at all, either – but they are rare enough to have attention directly drawn to them in his internal narration:

Or else what could he do? He could do nothing. He was powerless. Lotus Pier had been destroyed, both Jiang FengMian and Madam Yu were gone, and Jiang Cheng had disappeared as well. He was the only one left, alone, with not even a sword in his hands. He didn’t know anything, he couldn’t do anything! For the first time, he discovered how little his power was. In front of something as large as the QishanWen Sect, it was the same as a mantis trying to stop a chariot. - Chapter 59, EXR translation

(And even in this circumstance, note that he still does force himself to act – to carry on searching for Jiang Cheng, to place his faith in Wen Ning – and does accomplish his goal (albeit with the help of others)! So even in dire situations, he isn’t simply passive. This is actually also the case with his time in the Burial Mounds, almost certainly the First Siege, and even his days on the streets as well (Chapter 20: he did actively fight with dogs to get food despite their danger and his growing fear of them, rather than just waiting and hoping to somehow receive some more). He can’t influence or immediately influence his circumstances, but that doesn’t stop him from trying.)

Overall, although they do influence him, Wei Wuxian is very much who he is in spite of his circumstances, not because of them. We’re shown the importance of his agency both in-universe by the major impacts his choices have on himself and the plot, as well as by narrative presentation – important periods where he lacks the ability to meaningfully influence anything are often mentioned but not directly shown, which suggests that such moments and circumstances aren’t as important to understanding Wei Wuxian’s character as moments where he does have this agency are. And I’d argue this works very well. Depending on the version of the story you consume, you may end up having different interpretations as to how much circumstances were at play nearer the end of his life – but nobody comes out of MDZS thinking about Wei Wuxian, the poor bearer of yet another generically tragic backstory.

(Part Two | Part Three | Full version on AO3)

—

*We are shown this moment in more detail in Chapter 23… but even then, it’s through the framing of Wei Wuxian remembering Jiang Yanli’s narration, not through a flashback proper or even him remembering the experience itself!

[ariesjupiter]

Mitski Birth Chart Reading

This is just my interpretation based on Mitski’s birth chart and what I know of her music. Let me know if you have any suggestions of someone I should make a post on next! If you’re interested, I offer natal chart readings, just check my pinned post!

Libra sun: In terms of basic personality and ego, Mitski is focused on creating balanced, harmonic relationships. Intimate, one-on-one relationships are a major part of her identity. Libra is ruled by venus which represents love and beauty. After all, she is known for her lyrics relating to her romantic relationships. The lyric “I love everybody because I love you” is so profoundly Libra to me. She is friendly and charming. She sees herself reflected and other people and people see themselves reflected in her (for better or worse). Venus also rules the arts and Mitski is a natural artist in every sense of the word. Her music sonically is very unique, inventive, and creative as she experiments with mixing different genres. This is influenced by her sun in the 11th house. Sun in the 11th house also indicates an emphasis on friendships and memberships of certain groups and communities. It also indicates an importance of her hopes and dreams. Her sun in 3° explains why she is such a talented writer, communicator, and lyricist. Peak libra sun culture: “Young adult romance is the shit” (a real quote from the queen herself). And let’s not forget her iconic quote from 2016: “I’m a libra so my sexuality is essentially “you can really be any gender as long as you treat me like a princes.” Truer words have never been spoken.

Capricorn moon: Despite how personal her music is, Mitski is a rather private and reserved person, particularly when it comes to expressing her emotions. Also, Capricorn is associated with the father and she has been known to be especially private regarding her dad’s career. She is serious and intense with emotions but can sometimes get detached. The emphasis is on having control over her feelings. She is ambitious and a practical person. Her emotions are connected to her career. Those who do not know her well may see her as cold. In temperament she tends to be melancholic. Emotionally mature and wise beyond her years. Straightforward and honest with her expression. She is dependable, loyal, hard working, & realistic. Emotional fulfillment is often tied to achievement and success. Her moon in the 2nd house and 2° suggests material comforts make her feel safe. With the 2nd house being associated with venus, she is able to express her emotions in an artistic way. Could be protective over material objects. Sentimental. Music has a big impact on her emotions and mood. Peak capricorn moon culture: “I didn’t really feel anything. I’ve stopped feeling things for a long time” - Mitski, The Fader Interview, 2017. In all seriousness, I hope my capricorn moons are doing good.

Virgo mercury: Mitski is practical and detail oriented when it comes to communication and matters of learning. She takes the time to choose the right words to convey her thoughts. She is clear and concise. Mercury is in its sign of rulership here. Her mercury in the 10th house suggests that she will be known for her communication style. Has a lot of thoughts but is also organized. Analytical. Mitski likes making lists. Loves to give advice. Mercury is in 16° (cancer degree) and she has a soft spoken voice. Talks about the past and her roots (cancerian themes).

Virgo venus: In love, Mitski will assume a caretaking role and will gladly help her partner finish mundane tasks and chores. A devoted and faithful lover. Love is about the mundane and routine details of life. Love is about service. Acts of service tend to be virgo venus’ main love language. She wants to help improve her partner’s life. She is patient and observant. Values love that is simple and authentic. Appreciates a partner with whom she can have intellectual conversations. May have a tendency to be too critical on herself when it comes to love. Venus rules aesthetics & style and she tends to have a modest fashion sense. Mitski has voiced her interest in astrology and how she has asked people she’s interested for their birth times lmao. Her venus is in the 11th house, she treats a lover like she would treat a friend. In fact, romantic love probably equates to platonic love in her book. She has her venus in 24° which is a pisces degree, which explains this natural interest in astrology.

Gemini mars: Could be impatient because she moves quickly. Efficient. Has a lot of goals and likes to keep busy. She thrives when she talks to others and exchanged ideas. Likes to multitask. Very versatile. Probably has a flirty, bubbly energy when she’s attracted to someone. Attracted to intellect. Desire to see things from multiple perspectives. Gemini rules the hands so she’s skilled with playing instruments and writing. Likes to try new things. Witty and humorous. Could have nervous energy or fidget often.

Leo jupiter: The planet of luck and expansion in Leo is a big indicator of fame. Her jupiter is also in the 9th house and in 7°. Jupiter in the 9th indicates being born in a different country from where you reside now. Mitski is biracial and has lived in multiple countries growing up. She loves to learn, particularly about other cultures and ways of life. She is open minded, philosophical and values freedom and being independent. She attracts good fortune when she travels (touring!) and also when she focuses on partnerships/intimate relationships (7°). Combining this energy, Mitski attracts luck when she acts dramatically, demonstrates/teaches her knowledge, expresses herself artistically, shows her warm hearted and sometimes stubborn side, & takes chances, shows her bravery, and takes the lead. Be the Cowboy is big leo energy 🤠

Capricorn saturn: Mitski is responsible, practical, goal-oriented, and cautious. With saturn in the 3rd house, she probably had to grow up quickly and become mature at a young age. Capricorn saturn people tend to be very successful people. Strong willed. Tendency to be quiet and is a good listener. Could also be outspoken. With saturn in 18° (virgo degree), she’s very hard working but she may need to learn how to take a break and let herself rest and recharge.

Capricorn uranus: This placement also indicates that she goes after her goals and is efficient and practical in achieving them. Uranus being in the 2nd house shows that she could make money from being unique and groundbreaking. 2nd house also rules the voice! Her values are unique and she could be resistant to change them. Her self esteem could be in a constant state of flux and be tied to money. Her income could rapidly change, like maybe she did not get paid much but then suddenly she starts making a lot of money. Uranus is in 5° which is a fame degree. She’s famous for being authentically herself and very much an individual in the industry that can’t be compared.

Capricorn neptune: Capricorn neptunes are most likely realists. She is skilled at going after her dreams. Her dreams are practical and connected to themes of wealth, power, and control. Neptune in 3rd house shows a dreamy, poetic way of communicating. A very creative placement. Dreamy vibes. Could be elusive in communication, open for interpretation. Neptune is in 11° so this gives aquarian energy. Idealistic with friends and always searching for ways to achieve her dreams.

Scorpio pluto: Her power lies in her ability to analayze human interactions and be introspective with herself since it’s in the 1st house. She is very self aware. Mitski understands that life is about going through changes and she welcomes the ability to grow and rebuild. She has intense, deep emotions but has control over them and how she expresses them. Pluto in 16° adds a cancerian energy. Her strength lies in her ability to nurture and be empathetic.

Scorpio rising: First impressions of Mitski can be that she’s mysterious and secretive. A powerful and intimidating presence. This explains to me why she loves dressing in black. She probably has a strong dislike for anything superficial. She likes to get to know people on a deeper level and connect with them. She likes honesty and is probably very perceptive and intuitive. Privacy is so important to her! She has a lot of layers and wants people to unpack them, but it may take her a while to open up. She is powerful and has endurance. Her presence leaves an impact on people. Loyalty and intimacy is important. She’s not afraid to talk about taboo topics or scary, heavier emotions. Passionate and even a tendency to get fixed on or obsessed with something or someone. Her rising is in 15° (gemini degree) so she’s clever, curious, and thinks quickly. a little more flexible than a regular Scorpio rising would be.

Leo midheaven: People might see her as dramatic or arrogant. In the public eye, she was meant to be a performer. At her concerts she’s known for putting on a good show & includes interpretive dance and choreography. She becomes herself more when she’s on stage. The stage is where she shines. Has a lot of pride connected to her career. Reputation for creatively expressing herself and being brave and taking risks. Wants to be admired, especially regarding her career. Her purpose is to become a leader. Mc in 22° (capricorn degree) shows that she is a very hard worker when it comes to her career. She won’t let anyone stop her when it comes to achievement and success in her field. Another indicator of being at the top of her career and being publicly recognized for it!

TLDR: Mitski is a natural born singer, performer and artist. She is unique, talented, and an introspective writer. Being earth and water dominant, she balances practicality & stability with sentimentality & raw emotion. With all of her Capricorn placements, she is grounded and doesn’t let fame get to her head. Her chart ruler is Scorpio pluto in the 1st which means that major transformations will be a big theme in her life, especially regarding herself & her identity. She is always reflecting and looking at herself on a deep level.

[nopelleen]

Perish, Pretty Please (5/5)

ꜱᴜᴍᴍᴀʀʏ: Rick Flag was known to be a pretty good leader, it was the reason why he had been chosen to lead a squad of infamously reckless and idiotic criminals, however it was a lot harder to maintain his authority when one member of the team despised his guts for seemingly no reason.

ᴘᴀɪʀɪɴɢ: Rick Flag x Reader

ᴡᴏʀᴅ ᴄᴏᴜɴᴛ: 5.7k

ɴᴏᴛᴇ: it took me so long, but it’s finally there -- the last part! I started this fanfiction knowing I had a tendency not to finish them and I’m honestly so proud right now, I hope you’ll enjoy this last part as much as I enjoyed writing all of this! (also please let’s all have a moment of silence to remember the moment my hopeful, foolish ass actually posted the first part with “1/2″ in the title)

“Nope, there’s something we gotta take care of first."

You watched with blatant bafflement as the three men nonchalantly walked away from the blazing truck that had been transporting them merely minutes ago. There was almost a bit of disappointment in your heart as you watched the plan you and Cleo had so meticulously orchestrated on your way here vanish into thin air. It was a shame – your rescue plan involved a lot more wow factor. Had you known the outcome of this small drawback, you wouldn’t have put so much effort into it; but how could you have guessed the three of them would find a way out of a van guarded by multiples soldiers all the while handcuffed and therefore supposedly incapacitated? That was absurd.

“Don’t look so surprised, it’s insulting.���

You shot Flag a tight lipped, mocking smile as a response to his friendly jab, clearly recognizing the words you had used against him in the afternoon. Your sardonic grimace poorly mirrored the playful smirk the colonel adorned as he walked towards the van, and you were surprised to feel your heart swell a bit when you noticed his smile spread into a genuine one as he walked past you, slightly shaking his head in amusement.

Without even questioning how they had gotten themselves out of that prickly situation, you whirled around and followed suit as Rick climbed back into the van, telling Milton the small change of plan. That one enthusiastically nodded before happily informing the squad that you’d reach the city by dawn, making you realize you had spent a good chunk of the night at that bar and yet did not feel that tired yet – which might just have been from the adrenaline released into your system at the sight of your three teammates walking out of a blazing vehicle.

“You sleep, I watch Thinker,” Nanaue suggested as he heavily lumbered towards the back of the van, where the hostage was surprisingly staying very still, wise enough not to attempt anything while sharing the same space as King Shark.

Your steps faltered as you entered the van, your gaze hesitatingly flickering towards the seats in the back which appeared way too crowded for your liking. You usually would’ve simply gone back to your seat at the front, but Rick was now occupying the one near the window, probably as a way to stay close to the driver.

With a reluctant sigh, you were about to follow King Shark towards the back when Rick casted a pointed look towards you before patting the seat beside him in case you did not understand.

Relief washed over you and you didn’t even need to give it a second thought before flopping onto the space beside him, glad not to have to settle for a spot anywhere near Peacemaker. Your muscles were stiff as you quite literally bounced onto the cushion, and as soon as your back did as much as graze the backrest, the entire day of walk, hours of dancing and minutes of worrying about Flag’s well-being caught up with you with a dizzying speed.

If earlier that day you had been able to fight off sleep vigorously, you now found yourself melting into the cushion of your seat as soon as you flopped onto it. At first, you remained steadfast, refusing to yield to your basic human needs as you forced yourself to sit up straight, but then there was a strong gravitational pull making you sway a bit on your seat as your head started lolling forward, and then another pull – Rick’s hand, this time – gently steering you back into your seat. Incapable of fending off the drowsiness any longer, you surrendered and finally allowed yourself to loosen up, feeling your head snugly land upon Rick’s shoulder as you drifted off into a soundless sleep.

-----

“Outburst, hey!”

“She’s sleeping.”

From his seat at the very back of the van, Peacemaker frowned as he craned his neck in an attempt to peer at your figure still slumped over Rick’s shoulder. “Well, wake her up,” he groused, tinges of annoyance seeping from his usually polished tone. “She’s… spewing her emotions all over the place. It’s reeking of sadness in there.”

◦◦◦

“It’s reeking in there; crack a window open, will you?”

Your finger harshly jabbed the switch, your gaze remained firmly fixed on the buildings passing by in a blur as the window lowered just a bit in an abrupt, choppy motion. From the corner of your eye, you caught a glimpse of your mother shooting you a brief, curious look. You hadn’t uttered a word ever since you two had left the family reunion. You knew it hadn’t been a good idea to agree to come.

The car then lapsed into another uncomfortable silence. You were both acutely aware of the thick, sweltering acrimony flooding off of you and yet still refused to address it, instead letting you bask in it with your mouth clamped shut, letting it gnaw your insides until your lungs felt charred, incapable of drawing oxygen any longer.

Why had you agreed to this? You were an adult; you didn’t need to expose yourself to this anymore.

You bit the inside of your cheek and tried to breathe in deeply, only for your chest to constrict, becoming painfully hollow. Tears started brimming at the edges of your vision and you finally allowed your lips to part, letting a bated breath stumble out of them with urgency.

“I heard you earlier.”

◦◦◦

“I’m not waking her up,” Rick scowled in one curt sentence, already feeling a bit on edge and therefore not wanting to dwell on the matter.

Peacemaker’s eyebrows furrowed even deeper at Rick’s unwavering tone. He usually dealt easily with negotiation and compromises, he worked well under authority and was a suitable soldier because of it, but at the moment, he couldn’t find it in himself to be patient – maybe because of how thick with tension the atmosphere had become because of you.

“We can feel her,” he insisted again, spitting the words out in an irritated hiss.

◦◦◦

“Honey, I can feel you, tone it down,” your mother complained as she kept her eyes on the road. Either your words went completely over her head, or she refused to acknowledge them, knowing that with the amount of resentment she could feel rolling off of you in waves, there was no way a discussion could lead to a good outcome at the moment. She was already having a hard time not letting the irritation get to her in spite of the smoldering atmosphere.

“I heard you talking to aunt Matty,” you reiterated. “You said it was my fault.”

“What was?”

“Dad leaving.”

The uttered words dropped like thunder in the car, leaving the air charged with electricity.

“I didn’t say that,” she rebutted with a bit of an acerbic tone. The tension was starting to get to her, slowly but steadily eating away at her mind in spite of her resolve. She could feel the resentment seeping into her like a foreign body infiltrating her immune system, but paradoxically, the angrier she got, the less willing she was to fight it off. “Don’t twist my words, you know I hate when you do that.”

◦◦◦

“I didn’t say she wasn’t allowed to sleep,” Peacemaker clarified, starting to sound a bit agitated as the tensed atmosphere got more and more on his nerves. “I’m simply saying she shouldn’t until we are.”

“She’s not hurting anyone.”

◦◦◦

“You said I was hurting him.”

“I said he was often on the wrong end of your temper. Listen, it’s—”

“Back off!”

◦◦◦

“Back off,” Rick sternly admonished him as soon as Peacemaker made a step towards the front of the bus, protectively wrapping an arm around your sleeping form. “She needs to rest. She got shot acting as a distraction so your team could make a smooth entrance, remember?” he reminded the man scornfully.

Peacemaker’s face remained calm in spite of the irritation coloring his eyes. His gaze briefly flickered from you to Flag, hesitating.

“Don’t make me repeat myself.”

◦◦◦

“You know how you made him feel,” your mother uttered, efficiently putting an end to the exchange.

You remembered the times during which you were moody, when you came back home after having spent the entire day feeling everyone’s emotions around you, when your father did as much as try to talk to you about it, thus instantly setting you off. He was always the spark that ignited you. Whether he was inquiring about your day, or commenting on your behavior, or even just standing a bit too close to you… He’d end up angry, hurt, aggressive – whatever you were feeling at the moment, he’d always end up feeling it too.

Your mother was just wise enough to stay away.

But you also remembered the shouts in the kitchen, the jabs, the constant bickering between them. You remembered listening to it from the stairs and then being blamed for their bad tempers. You’d be blamed for the anger, the aggressiveness, the slaps that so often echoed through the house.

She was wise enough to stay away, and yet be close enough when she’d need an excuse.

“It wasn’t just me,” you whispered through gritted teeth.

“I never said it was.”

“It was you,” you spat out as you whipped your head towards her. “You made him miserable.”

Your eyes were completely focused on her face, her pursed lips and closed-off features, and never once did you notice the way her foot slowly started pressing further onto the accelerator.

◦◦◦

You woke up with a start and instantly casted a frantic gaze around you, expecting the usual blaring horns and shouts that followed this exchange. You were surprised to find yourself in a safe environment, all wrapped up in an unexpected warm, comforting atmosphere. Usually, the second you woke up, your instincts picked up on the foul aura of anguish you had unconsciously secreted into the air, and yet, here, you could feel nothing but utter peacefulness.

One of your eyebrows formed an elegant arch as you lowered your gaze to glimpse at the warm weight wrapped around you, only for your eyes to land on a familiar calloused hand hanging from your shoulder and almost grazing your cheek. You felt a faint smile tenderly pulling at the corners of your lips before even turning your head to confirm the identity of the owner of the arm wrapped around your shoulders, and when you turned your head to direct your gaze towards Flag’s sleeping face, you simply found yourself incapable to fight it off anymore.

Then, with a fond smile pulling at the corners of your lips, you snugly nestled you head back into his side and shut your eyes, this time knowing for a fact that you wouldn’t risk infuse the atmosphere with anything else than a blissful quietude.

◦◦◦

It was chaos. Utter chaos.

Your car was long abandoned a few feet away from you, fuming after having hit another vehicle in the middle of an intersection. The driver who had started fighting with you was now in a fully blown-out fist fight with another man who had merely tried to step in for you, and the more people got out of their cars to understand what was going on, the more people got trapped under your influence and started fighting, some going as far as purposefully ramming their vehicle into another’s.

Your voice was hoarse from shouting at the driver who had first attacked you and you were now trembling with anger as you watched an entire riot unfold before your very eyes, unconsciously fueling it with intense waves of rage that'd hit any innocent that'd happen to walk a bit to close to the scene.

Someone gripped your shoulder and you tried to jerk away from the touch, whirling your head towards the person with your teeth bared, ready to attack whoever was trying to get your attention.

“Honey, focus on me, alright? Focus on me.”

The voice was rough, the tone frenzied, and yet when the hands grasped your shoulders, it was with an unexpected gentleness. The fingers were quivering with restraint, barely managing not to dig into your skin in an attempt to snap you out of it.

This staggering tenderness startled you so much that it managed to take you out of your trance for a fleeting moment, allowing reason to take over as you fought back the instinctive urge to shove the hands away. With frantic, brimming eyes, you diverted your gaze towards your mother, desperate for a comforting point of focus to latch onto like a lifeline.

A sob threatened to crawl up your throat as soon as you met her eyes. There, in the midst of all the hardly concealed anger – a glint of affection, a vacillating spike of tenderness battling to emerge from under all that vibrating rage your mind was forcefully pushing into her. With a choked-up breath of relief, you instinctively stepped forward, latching onto that abiding twinkle of kindness in spite of all that surrounding violence like a lifeline.

Then, when there was an anticipated screeching of tires coming from your side, a glimpse of grey metal flashing out of the corner of your eye, and an oh-so-familiar harrowing feeling of dread seizing your insides, you kept your eyes unwaveringly locked into your mother’s, resolutely shutting out everything else around you. You bored your gaze into hers and let your mind soak in her warmth.

The car never came, the shouts quietened down, your surroundings slowed down until coming to a complete halt, time stalled and your dream mercifully stepped away from your memories to spare you.

You stood there for ages lost into your mother’s loving gaze, until – having strayed too far from reality – your subconscious lost all senses of what was and wasn’t at the time and let the scene morph into whatever your mind desired. Then, when the voice spoke up again, it wasn’t your mother standing before you anymore,  but a person you now trusted more than you ever thought you would.

“Don’t be scared of me.”

 -----

“We need to help these people.”

The words went completely over your head as you despairingly gaped at the glass in front of you, feeling cold to your bones.

You had gotten a bad feeling as soon as the elevator doors had cracked open.

There hadn’t even been time to make a step forward before you had gotten hit by the foul, repugnant thickness sullying the air with a strength that almost had you rearing your head back a bit. For a dizzying second, the vile and nauseating reek had left you standing there, blearily blinking as your senses had desperately struggled to accommodate to the repellent atmosphere. Yet, in spite of the tears brimming at the corners of your eyes just from the sheer despondency emanating from the place, you had been far from imagining the atrocity, the barbarism of the experiments that were taking place down here.

Despite your reluctance, you had been forced to follow the others as they had stalked out of the elevator, engaging into the dark and humid place with feeble, hesitant steps. As you had all crossed the small entrance leading to the laboratory, you had needed to fight your instincts that they had urgently pleaded you to simply whirl around and run back into the elevator.

Every breath you had taken weighed heavily on your tongue, the pungency sticking to the walls of your throat and poisoning your lungs. Every other second you had spent down there had simply felt like another year taken off your life, the wretched atmosphere slowly eating away at your brain like acid.

In spite of all of that, it had taken some time for the horror to truly dawn on you.

The despair had crept into your heart with every step you had made into the cellar, and then, when you had gotten to the center of it, you had felt for the very first time of your life an intense claustrophobia swarming your heart. Surrounded by a sea of decaying bodies all bound together by the same searing, devastating agony, the hostile basement had quickly gone from a gruesome laboratory to a deadly trap slowly closing in on you.

With nothing but wandering bodies all around you, you felt at the bottom of a pit of wretchedness, your head swelling with an intense, overwhelming pain. It was as though you were entrapped in the center of a microwave which was channeling thousands of screams directly towards your brain instead of radiations, however one of them was significantly stronger than the others and seemed to come from the wide glass wall right in front of you.

“Impossible, dear. They’re corpses below those stars.”

In spite of the searing agony flaring through your chest, your heartbeat seemed to slow down and settle onto a numbing, soporific pace as you unconsciously started stepping towards the wide glass, as though bewitched by the heart-wrenching wail you felt coming from whatever was hiding in that liquid.

With trembling, tentative fingers, you lifted your hand and slowly pressed your palm against the freezing glass, yearning to soothe the poor sufferer from their wrenching agony. The pain only seemed to intensify at the touch, the feeling of desolation gripping your insides as your ears started ringing, completely isolating you from the others. There was nothing else in that room but you and a desolated martyr screaming with thousand of voices right into your mind.

You watched with mournful, brimming eyes as the dark figure behind the glass started stirring until a single, colossal eye revealed itself in front of you, appearing emotionless to any common spectator and yet emitting an amount of woe that would’ve had you on your knees had you not gotten so used to sensing people’s emotions.

“Outburst?”

Rick’s voice rose up right behind you but still didn’t startle you, your eyes riveted onto the creature before you with rapt focus.

“It’s in pain,” you croaked out, the faint words scraping your dry throat like some sandpaper grating your vocal cords. “It’s in so much pain.” You shifted your fingers a bit, as if trying to press your hand closer to the glass, get closer to that strange creature, completely blind to the danger it represented. The tentacles, bumps and single eye did not matter – all you could see was the utter suffering it was in.

“Well,” the Thinker unabashedly butted in, “if I’m not mistaken regarding the purpose of your self-righteous egomaniacal mission – not for much longer.”

His words dawned on you with a dry clarity and had you shifting away from the glass in one brisk motion to whirl your head towards Rick. “We can’t kill it,” you asserted with an adamant, steadfast tone that did not match the slight waver in your voice.

“We have orders.”

Rick’s steadfast voice was way more convincing than yours, and what would’ve usually been a mere reminder of his status as colonel felt like a frustrating hindrance that only heightened the desperation swarming your heart and made you let go of the glass to tighten your fists as you turned around to fully face him.

“No, we can’t, we have to help it, it’s—”

“It’s dangerous,” Rick cut you off, his distrust-colored eyes briefly flickering towards the glass wall.

“It’s suffering!”

Your distressed screech echoed through the cellar, your plea painfully reverberating on the walls and splattering the frantic desperation dripping from your tone all around the basement.

For a fleeting moment, Flag remained speechless, as if hit with full force by the intensity of your despair. During that fleeting moment, you caught a glimpse of the hesitation flashing in his eyes, the way he seemed to ponder over the situation for even just a second, wondering what to do and which way to choose. Then, his gaze flickered to the side, briefly meeting Peacemaker’s, and you were able to pinpoint the exact moment he put his guards up again, welding back on his old mask of professionalism to tightly shut out any emotion you could try to induce in him.

There was a subtle shift in his expression, so subtle you might not even have noticed had you not been so desperately seeking any trace of support on his features. Instead of showing the understanding you were so badly hoping for, the traits of his face hardened, the glint in his eyes dimmed, and then you weren’t standing before Rick anymore, you were facing the colonel, towering over you with his back straight and his orders engraved in his mind.

You were acutely aware of the fact that the mission outweighed you; you had just hoped Rick would hold enough respect towards you to give your words the slightest bit of consideration. Apparently, this respect only allowed you one minute of his time before he completely shut you out.

With a sharp, regretful sigh, he took a step towards you and grabbed your arm with a gentle reluctance that contrasted with the harshness of his tone as he said that you needed to go with the other team.

You tried to protest but his strides were long and hasty, and before you even knew it, he was punching the first-floor button of the elevator as you stood inside of it, stunned.

Just as the doors started closing before you, you feebly parted your lips to utter one last plead; your pained, wavering voice coming out laced with betrayal. “You said I could trust you.”

When he had seemed ready to turn away as soon as the doors started closing between you, Rick’s attention seemed to be piqued by your words as he shifted his gaze back onto you, lingering in front of the elevator for just a second more.

The distress coloring your eyes melted into a sullen resignation as soon as your gaze bored into his, your chest constricting with dejection. There, under the thick coat of seriousness, in the midst of all the restrained belligerence this place inspired him, no glint of affection was to be found, no spike of tenderness desperately trying to emerge from the vibrating anger – nothing but cold, glaring callousness.

Not Rick.

Colonel.

-----

“Where’s Flag?”

Bloodsport turned his gaze towards you, and you instantly recognized the apologetic look in his eyes.

As he grimly shook his head, you finally experienced it firsthand – the agony of a thousand people.

-----

“Apparently Waller sent something to his hospital room. People are joking and saying she sent flowers, but if you want my opinion the old hag probably sent him a reminder that his contract doesn’t cover paid sick leaves.”

The voice, just like the steps accompanying it, echoed through the corridor and kept getting closer to your cell, undoubtedly coming from yet another guard who’d attempt to get a word or a reaction out of you – anything that’d stop them from having to book in an appointment with the jail therapist.

You had seen many of them pass by while you had spent days in a temporary cell during your recovery but hadn’t thought they’d keep on sending them after having transferred back in your old cell this morning.

The landscape change didn’t make any difference for you, as you simply kept on staring at the wall for hours on end with the most irksome gloomy look clouding your features.

You couldn’t think about anything else than Rick.

You didn’t think you had even truly processed it yet. It had happened too fast.

Within the span of a few days, the colonel had somehow gained your trust, slowly leading you to warm up to him by showing you an affection you hadn’t experienced in years. It felt like he had turned your world upside down, made everything brighter with the prospect of saving lives alongside a superior who truly valued you, and then you had made the mistake of letting him out of your sight, forced to walk away from that dreadful laboratory for just a few minutes, and he had died there, the one person on this earth who you could genuinely trust now buried under the rumbles in that bottomless pit of agony.

You had mulled over it what felt like a thousand times already and you just could not figure out how to simply go on with your life. Not when your one chance at a brighter future had been squandered so violently as soon as you had turned your back to it.

Somehow, it felt like your fault.

You had been careless, unfocused. You had forcefully dragged Rick’s attention away from the mission at hand only because you were too weak to handle the downsides of your ability, your eyes pathetically overflowing with tears of empathy as the rest of your team simply tried to achieve the mission. You had distracted Rick as that one had been forced to take you to the elevator like a child, had unconsciously helped Peacemaker steal a secret file and forced Cleo to try and stop him on her own before Flag could come to her aid.

The file had been retrieved, but only after Bloodsport had stopped Peacemaker from coldly eliminating Cleo. Only after Rick’s body had already been left laying soundly in the laboratory.

They had fought with all their might for that file, for those values you had accused Flag of lacking merely days ago, and you hadn’t even been there.

It had been crushing to find out that the trust you held towards him had been misplaced, but it was nothing in comparison to discovering he shouldn’t have trusted you either.

You forcefully swallowed back the lump in your throat when you heard the steps finally come to a halt right by your cell and had a hard time concealing the startled look on your face when a very familiar voice rose up.

“Well well well, from what I’ve heard little princess doesn’t want to eat anymore?”

The hair on the back of your neck stood on end at the falsely dulcet tone dripping with a syrupy looking but dangerously abrasive poison. You had to keep yourself from gritting your teeth as your gaze caught up on Griggs’ silhouette standing before your cell from the corner of your eye.

“You’re not even gonna make an effort for me?” he teased you as his lips spread into a sneering smile that made him look more moronic than sadistic due to the absolute lack of sagacity behind his eyes.

You kept your mouth tightly shut and your eyes riveted to the wall across from you, trying to muster the blankest expression you could not to let him affect you but feeling a peeved expression weighing down on your features nonetheless.

“Aww, guys it looks like we’re gonna have to use the feeding tubes,” Griggs ironically groaned, turning towards his colleagues with a facetious glint in his eyes. One of them instantly stepped up to open the door to your cell, not even needing to think twice about the threat just emitted. “You know how much I hate doing that,” he then kept on jeering, much to the amusement of the other guards.

You waited with anticipation as he stepped into the cell, feeling your entire body buzzing with an overpowering apprehension, not having a clue of what you could do but knowing for a fact that with all the adrenaline slowly being spread into your system, there was no way you’d let Griggs go back to his old mistreatment.

His filthy fingers barely grazed your skin, and, as though electrified, you jumped to your feet, putting some distance between you and him. You kept your eyes determinedly fixated in front of you but could see from the corner of your eye how stunned he was by your abrupt reaction. He had gotten to the unresponsive side of you that had emerged after only a few months here, the poor figure staying down on the ground and no longer batting an eyelash at his constant abuse. His face remained dazed for a fleeting moment before the ghost of a smirk reappeared on his features.

After all, he had broken you once, it’d be no bother to do it a second time.

“What, you go on one mission with Task Force X and then you don’t like me anymore?”

He reached out a hand again, much more aggressively this time, and you jolted away, instinctively bringing a hand up without even knowing if you were willing to take the risk of hitting him.

“Step away from her, Griggs.”

The stone cold words loudly rang through the cell and heavily fell between you both, instantly followed by a deafening silence as Griggs’ hand hovered in the air for a fleeting moment, just inches away from the skin of your arm.

Then, for a dizzying, fleeting moment, it felt as though all the air had been sucked out of the cell.

Chill shivers of relief racked your spine before your brain even had time to process the voice, and then, when the familiarity of it finally sank in, you felt as though some freezing water had been dumped over you, leaving you soaked and shivering in the middle of your cell – only this time Griggs wasn't the cause of it.

You whirled your head towards the entrance of your cell with a vertiginous speed and had to bite back a choked-up noise from stumbling out of your lips when your gaze landed upon the owner of the voice glowering at Griggs with a murderous look in his eyes.

“You’re not supposed to be back yet,” Griggs pointed out sheepishly, letting his arm limply drop to his side now that his focus had been completely taken off of you.

“I was feeling better,” Rick informed him with a tight-lipped smile which then briskly dropped from his features. “Now stand down,” he repeated himself, his voice steadfast and as neutral as he could muster it. “I wouldn’t push my luck if I were you. I’ve seen what you did to her, and I’d love to show you what it feels like to be on the wrong side of the blade.”

The threat made the cell go utterly silent and for just a second, the sweetest second ever, all traces of amusement vanished from Griggs’ suddenly pale face. He looked started, nervous, oh so pathetic, and then when he finally regained his composure enough to quickly muster up the most serious look he could to paint on his pallid features, he had already lost all respect from every occupant of the room.

“You’d risk your job for a bitch who told you to eat shit five minutes into your mission?”

There was an imperceptible twitch on Rick’s features at the reminder. He had to briskly fight off a smirk pulling at the corners of his lips, but you could still discern the faintest glint of amusement in his eyes and had to swallow back a choked-up laugh – your heart swarming with a bunch of overwhelming emotions you couldn’t even identify at the moment.

His eyes briefly flickered to you. “Apparently,” he conceded with the ghost of a smirk playing on his lips, before he cast his gaze back on Griggs and recovered a cold, severe expression. “And, trust me, given how liked you are around here, I don’t think I’d risk more than a paid leave even if I attempted to murder you.”

Yet another sullen silence fell over the cell like a heavy fog, and this time, Griggs made the wise decision of not shattering it, containing his anger within a single huff before stalking out of the cell with heavy steps that made him akin to a stomping child. His colleagues briefly glanced at Rick, not quite knowing what to do, before meeting his eyes and promptly deciding to follow Griggs’ decision.

“You’re alive,” you breathlessly uttered as soon as you were both left alone.

“A bit roughed up, but yes, alive,” he winced back, turning his gaze towards you.

You knew he couldn’t feel the blissful exultation swarming your heart now that your ability was smothered by the collar secured around your neck, but you hoped he could see it in your eyes and in the way you just couldn’t seem to blink those relieved tears away.

Rick took a few steps towards you and let out a bated breath, as if he was finally allowed to exhale, as if he hadn’t been able to feel comfortable until standing near you again – and you then knew for a fact that if he couldn’t see the exultation in your heart, he at least felt it as well.

Without another word, he then tentatively brought a hand up before letting it hover uncertainly in the air. He seemed hesitant as if he wasn’t sure how to act anymore now that his mask of professionalism was gone, and you couldn’t help but let out a short chuckle. This was enough for a single droplet to finally fall from your brimming eyes, and the way Rick’s gaze seemed to soften even more at the sight of it almost led you to shedding a few more.

With utter cautiousness, he brought his hand to your face to brush the stray tear away and then left it there, his warm palm cradling your cheek.

“Looks like I’ve won again,” he said in a breath, the words merely stumbling out of his lips as if he were afraid to break that frail, tender moment of vulnerability between the two of you. His thumb gently stroked your cheek again and you couldn’t help but lean into his touch, your gaze never once leaving his. “I really want to kiss you right now.”

You had once said that the only way for Rick to ever get close to you was for you to give out your last breath, and yet, ever since that very vow you had felt yourself ever-so-slowly opening up to him, as though there was something in the air and it was killing you softly.

Now that the sweet, sweet poison had filled up your lungs – all wrapped up in his arms and boring your gaze into his with a wide-eyed fascination – you chose to completely let go of that vow, braving the risk to perish and merely uttering back two candid, gentle words.

“Pretty please.”

Previous

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[sadclearance]

right hand

pairing: katsuki bakugo x male!reader

summary: 5 things bakugo uses his right hand for + 1 thing bakugo uses his left hand for *wrote with “left hand” being in mind as a prequel, but can also be read as a standalone 

category: fluff

warning(s): none

word count: 1500

key:

s/t - skin tone

i.

when they were in high school, midoriya izuku noticed that bakugo katsuki--his childhood friend and bully--always started fights with a right hook.

which was incredibly powerful, albeit predictable.

midoriya still remembers a specific sunny morning in their third year when this expected yet efficient move was used for something that wasn't exactly a fight. a second year had made the unbelievably stupid mistake of--

"watch it, dumbass!"

and immediately after bakugo caught y/n before he could fall on his ass, bakugo's right fist met with the second year's nose, successfully breaking it and scorching off the hairs of the kid's eyebrows.

at the time, nobody really thought anything of it. bakugo was protective of the few people that he considered--but would never outright admit--to be his friends, and y/n was one of them.

ii.

but it was at the christmas social event that was held for the third years to get a chance to make connections as well as have fun before the end of their student years that it became clear that it was much much more than just friends looking out for each other.

"what're you doing all alone?" kaminari asked as he leaned against the wall next to y/n.

"everyone's either flirting with pro heroes or kissing their asses, and i'm not really in the mood to do either."

"yeah, i can see that," kaminari snickered as mineta got slapped in the face by mount lady after both a series of terrible flirting and a horrendous attempt to literally kiss her ass.

"surprised you're not doing the same."

"well..." kaminari said as he pointed up. he was wearing a hat with a hanging mistletoe.

"how not unexpected," y/n laughed.

"you know the tradition," kaminari winked pointing at his lips.

"okay, okay. for the holiday spirit--"

and as y/n leaned in to give kaminari a peck, a strong right hand grabbed his chin, and his lips met with a pair that belonged to someone else.

kaminari was too shocked to be disappointed after being pushed away by none other than bakugo.

"fuck off, dunce face," bakugo said before crashing his lips against y/n's.

that was one hell of a way to find out that two of his best friends were dating.

iii.

bakugo's jealousy only got worse after graduation.

but to be fair, that was his own fault.

he may have chilled out since their time together as first years, but he was still a headstrong ambitious hero.

they didn't go public with their relationship because bakugo figured it would be distracting to his goal.

which was a decision that he immediately regretted when he remembered just how attractive y/n was--something that other people clearly appreciated as well.

y/n got gifts, compliments, and very suggestive comments wherever he went, which did nothing but fuel bakugo's anger and displeasure.

there was a solution to this problem, and it was to let it be known to the world that y/n was his and his only.

instead of doing what normal couples do and going to an interviewer or announcing their relationship on his social media accounts, bakugo decided to--

"so... y/n," the barista looked at the name she just wrote on the cup and then back to y/n. "are you seeing anybody?"

"what's taking so fucking long?" bakugo asked as he came up behind y/n, right hand harshly meeting y/n's left ass cheek.

"ow! what the hell? there's paparazzi right outside of the window," y/n scolded, gesturing toward the crowd of people with cameras on the other side of the glass wall.

bakugo's only response was to press a kiss against y/n's lips, smirking into it as he saw a flash of light in the corner of his eye, fully aware of the fact that his hand was still on y/n's ass.

iv.

when he saw a building crumbling on top of y/n, he knew what he had to do.

he had faced a similar obstacle to this in his first year of high school, when he was up against round face--ochako. she had collected rubble that he had unknowingly provided and gathered it all up to the sky, later using it as a weapon by making it rain down on bakugo.

a building, however, had much more stone than a collection of collateral concrete that an individual collected over only a few minutes.

"y/n!" he shouted.

recreating the move from his first year, he raised his right hand and released a massive explosion--one much larger than the original maneuver.

he had succeeded for the most part. small bits of rubble rained down on them, but it was more like getting hit by hail than being buried by a boulder.

"bakugo!"

the mentioned man gritted his teeth and pressed the rough fingers of his left hand into his terribly cramped and pained right hand.

"you overdid it, you idiot!"

y/n rushed to get medical attention, and bakugo reluctantly let himself be pulled around.

he would've crudely yelled back that he didn't need help, but the worried look on y/n's face stopped him.

"i'm not gonna die, dumbass," bakugo rolled his eyes. the words were intended to come off harsher, and more like bakugo insulting a subordinate for not being able to see the obvious, but they came out closer to a soft reassurance instead.

"do that again, and i'll kill you myself," y/n glared. he looked more like an angry puppy.

"as if you could even land a hit on m--"

y/n's lips shut him up.

"even though that was the stupidest thing i've ever seen, thank you for saving me," y/n smiled, rubbing soft circles into bakugo's right hand.

"'stupidest thing you've ever seen'..." bakugo grumbled.

v.

"what the fuck are you doing?"

it's been a habit to hold hands while doing almost anything since their time together at u.a.

hell, they used to hold hands throughout basically all of high school except during hero training.

subjects like math, language, history--they didn't require both hands. they only needed to write on a piece of paper, and they only needed their dominant hands for that.

so it comes as no surprise that that habit followed them to their pro hero years, pale left hand entwined with s/t right hand as they finish their paperwork.

bakugo's confusion was prompted by y/n's sudden fascination with his right hand.

"i rarely ever give this one attention," y/n shrugged.

"it's not its own being. like a pet or a person."

the look bakugo gave y/n told him that he was the biggest dumbass in history, but y/n ignored it in favor of responding, "still a part of you i rarely get a piece of."

"i hate the way you worded that, creep..."

"you're still blushing."

"in your fucking dreams!"

+i.

going to a nice place was somewhat out of the ordinary for the two of them.

bakugo was focused on being the top hero, and being the top hero meant sacrificing a lot of time.

y/n doesn't know what changed bakugo's mind so suddenly, but he wasn't about to reject a once in a lifetime opportunity.

"the breeze is so nice," y/n breathed in the fresh air of the beach.

he had ran up to the gorgeous ocean, cold water hitting his bare legs while he tried to convince bakugo to join him.

"not up to the challenge? that's rare," y/n teased, turning his back to him and going deeper into the sea.

"oh, shut your trap! i have a damn good reason."

"yeah, i'm sure you do. you sure you aren't just cold?"

"i said shut the fuck up!"

"okay, okay," y/n complied and entertained himself with the vibrant blue waves.

"i love you," came bakugo's voice abruptly.

"that's weird, you never say it first, especially not without any form or profan--" y/n turned around to give bakugo a ridiculous look, laughing as he did, only to stop almost immediately.

"fuck y--" bakugo had to stop his habitual reflex. "marry me... dumbass?"

bakugo with a nervous tone, one knee in the sand, struggling to not get up because of the annoying shifting and imbalance, and a ring in his hands was a priceless sight to see.

"yes! yes! yes!" y/n ran back to the dry sand.

bakugo grinned and accepted the kiss but broke it off sooner than he would've liked for the fear of dropping the ring and losing it to the waves.

he slid the ring on y/n's hand with a proud smile before y/n demanded to have the other ring.

"shit, calm down," bakugo laughed, but he couldn't help but feel happy that y/n was just as ecstatic.

although he was the one to say that, bakugo's left hand struggled to stay still as y/n put the ring on bakugo's ring finger.

"i love you," y/n pressed his lips against the trembling left hand once he was done.

with the rings safely on their hands, bakugo could freely go back to enjoying the treasure that was y/n's lips.

❥๑━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━๑❥

a/n;

a sequel exactly a month after

i like this format because i'm shit at transitions

i mean just look at the shift from iii to iv...

i had an idea for the right hand theme for a while now since the battle trials when izuku mentioned the right hook thing but i was like woah i could do it with this while writing left hand

[drwcn]

Hi anon!! :) I’m so thrilled to get a btsf ask because my brain has been on discordance waves for the past week. It really has motivated me to write more for btsf. It’s turning into a such a complex plot that I’m feeling a little daunted. I’ve got a lot of stuff written, bits and pieces... just not....chapter two >___>

Wen Qing and Meng Yao do not necessarily work together. For the most part, they are two independent spies existing simultaneously, each with their own agenda. Below cut is a little snippet of Wen Qing. 

Warning: SPOILERS & graphic displays of violence. 

Wen Qing doesn’t burn. No Wen ever does. 

Still, she winces when the tea touches her tongue, a degree left of too hot, ruining the flavour. Hissing in more annoyance than pain, she flashes a cold side glare towards the underling who brought her the drink. The boy lowers his head immediately, curling into a deep, embarrassed bow. His name is Wen Tinglu, and he’s even younger than her A-Ning.

She frightens him. 

Wen Qing sets the ceramic cup down on the table with one hand, the dismissal in her gesture clear. It lands louder than necessary, eliciting a round of half-suppressed flinches from the Wen soldiers - disciples, a reminding voice whispers - waiting at her beck and call. 

She frightens all of them. 

Good. 

Wen Qing inspects her nails, drawing out the suspense she knows is eating up those around her. They’re painted a nice dark red, a Wen red, and long too, not too long to be inconvenient, but longer than she would’ve had them in the past. She has no use for short, sensible nails these days. Nails that short were meant to prevent injury when she bandaged patients, to not get caught on sutures when she stitched together wounds. 

These hands do heal anyone anymore.  

Across the room, her victim shivers on the rack. Winter rain in the south is a wretched ordeal. The poor thing is soaked through, dragged from the muddy ruins of their latest battlefield. 

Wen Qing approaches him silently, letting her fingers gently caress the row of instruments she has ordered to be prepared and laid out neatly in clean, wooden trays. They’re thoroughly washed and soaked in alcohol daily, and in the flickers of firelight illuminating this dingy little countryside hut, the metal shines and glistens. 

She sees the man’s gaze follow her movement, his eyes though drooping from exhaustion remained focused, unblinking. She sees him swallow and his body tremble. This time, she knows it’s not because of the rain. 

From the colour of his tattered robes, she realizes he’s one of Nie Mingjue’s men. From experience, she knows they’re hard to break. 

No matter, Wen Qing always gets what she wants in the end. 

She picks up a scalpel and puts it underneath his chin. The press of her hands is gentle as she lifts his face so he can meet her smile. “Tell me, brave soldier, what’s your name?” 

He spits in her face. A drop lands in her eye. 

“Demoness!”

Her disciples lurch forward to defend her, but Wen Qing waves them off with a nonchalant flick of her wrist. 

Dabbing her face with the edge of her sleeve, Wen Qing laughs. “You make your Nie-zongzhu proud, I must admit. I’m sure he won’t blame you for all that you’re about to tell me.”

“I will tell you nothing!”

Wen Qing flashes him her best and brightest smile. He is stunned momentarily, the full force of Wen Qing’s beauty giving him mental whiplashes. It must be disconcerting, she muses - fully aware of her appearance and its effect on the people around her - to see such a lovely smile on a such an abhorrent face, too beautiful surely to belong to a woman promising the most terrifying of ends. 

“We’ll see.” 

The scalpel cuts down the prisoner’s sternum before he could speak another word, one long stroke from nape to navel. The cut is shallow, just a thin red ribbon rippling in its trail. 

The man does not die, but he does scream. 

From the corner of her eyes, Wen Qing spots the boy who ruined her tea sway from where he stands, probably imagining himself in this poor sod’s place. To her satisfaction, he’s not the only one who appears mildly green around the gills. 

Wen Qing twists on her heels, swirling around almost dance-like. “Would anyone like to try?” She holds out the bloodied blade towards her disciples, waving it in a welcoming gesture at the myriad of other instruments available. 

No one takes her up on her offer. She doesn’t expect any of them to. Back in the early days when Wen Ruohan gave her free rein to form a team, she had chosen her men and women carefully. She picked the loyal, the humble, the competent, and even the brave, but she had searched into their eyes and made sure she could not detect any trace of blood-lust. Those, she argued, should be kept on the front line where the enemies are. The disciples at her side need to be efficient, obedient and nothing more. That, is paramount. 

“Useless!” Her expression darkens, and her friendly, teasing tone vanishes in a heartbeat. “Why does His Excellency even bother keeping you lot around? Get out.” 

Her Wen disciples do not need to be told twice. 

“You,” she stops Wen Tinglu. “Bring me another cup of tea when I’m done. Try not the ruin it this time.” 

“Yes, Wen-guniang.” The boy bows repeatedly, backing out of the room and nearly tripping on his feet in the process. 

Once she is left alone to do her work, she turns back to the Nie disciple. He has closed his eyes, trying, she imagine, to retreat somewhere deep in his mind where there is no pain. He will not have much luck with that. 

She steps up close to him, so close she can smell the sweet metallic tang of his blood. “It would be easier if you told me your name. I’ll keep you in mind, as I keep all of them in mind.” 

“Go fuck yourself, Wen Qing!” 

Wen Qing takes out a small vial from her robes. She let the darkness slip from her disguise just a fraction. “I’m sorry I have to do this, but this will help. You’ll be with your family soon I promise.” 

The prisoner’s brows furrow, and he struggles in vain as Wen Qing forces the liquid into his mouth and makes him swallow it. 

“What did you just give me,” he pants, retching at the vile taste of the potion. 

Wen Qing does not answer. She closes her hand over one of his and whispers against his ear.

“The Sunshot Campaign thanks you for your service. Now, don’t forget to scream.” 

And he does. 

Half a shichen later, when the screaming and begging quiets, Wen Tinglu returns with a fresh cup of pu’er. Wen Qing looks up from the meticulous washing of her hands as he enters, jittering and quivering, his presence announced by the cacophonous tune of the chinas clinking against each other in his tray. 

The boy meets her eyes, then steals glance over her shoulder to the flayed carcass left on the rack. He’s only just able to set the tea down on the table before doubling over and throwing up onto the dirt floor 

Maybe the pig’s intestine was too much...thinks Wen Qing, rubbing her arm where she has also made a cut into herself. 

Each clan has their own collection of forbidden practices, some more than others. Wen Mao’s rise to power was not entirely achieved by following the path of righteousness. One does not, after all, defeat an enemy like Xue Chonghai without a deeper understanding of the other side. This kind of cultivation is bordering on the occult, and it demands a heavy price.

Wen Qing is completely depleted; she hopes it does not show. Her spiritual core has never been cultivated to be strained in such a way. She can’t go on like this forever, she knows, but the war is far from over, and the path she has embarked on stretches endlessly ahead. 

“Burn him. I want a clean finish,” she says to Tinglu and takes a seat. She drinks her tea and closes her eyes. 

The boy does as he’s told, but he barely has enough gumption to grasp the torch and light the Nie disciple’s body aflame. It is no wonder then that he does not notice the protection talisman carved into the prisoner’s back. 

[the-odinson]

Thor 🗲 Intro

“Fortunately, I am mighty...”

OOC PORTION —

NAME: Danny

PRONOUNS: he/him

AGE: 23

TIMEZONE: GMT +1

TRIGGERS: None

IC PORTION; BASICS —

CHARACTER NAME: Thor Odinson

FACECLAIM: Chris Hemsworth

AFFILIATIONS: The Avengers

AGE: 1500s/appears mid 30s

SPECIES: Alien (Asgardian)

IDENTITY: Public

DOES YOUR CHARACTER LIVE IN THE MOUSEHOLE? IF SO, WHAT ARE THEIR DUTIES? Yes, but he doesn’t particularly like it there. He doesn’t feel the effects of the cold, but Thor has never liked being confined so prefers to get outside as much as possible. Thor has decided to take on the role of a hunter/gatherer. The vast forests of Europe aren’t too dissimilar to the Asgardian wilderness and, while the beasts aren’t as ferocious as back home, what’s a king to do if not revel in the hunt? When needed he will also help with aid work: he can cover great distances with ease and carrying heavy loads is hardly a problem for him.

DESCRIBE SIX TRAITS (3 positive, 3 negative) YOUR CHARACTER HAS AND HOW THESE AFFECT THEM:

Dependable: A man of his word, Thor is trustworthy and reliable; an asset in any team and to anyone who has a favour to ask. Endearing: Those who truly get to know Thor speak of him with admiration; his warm smile and welcoming personality don’t come to all, but if he lets his guard down you’re guaranteed a friend with whom you feel truly comfortable. Benevolent: Thor (usually) means well and (usually) tries to be kind to anyone he encounters. His exterior may come across as brash but there’s no malice involved, often just a difference in culture and upbringing. Obstinate: While being headstrong may not always be a negative thing, Thor hates to admit he’s wrong and has a tendency to steamroll down a chosen path rarely reassessing whether the choices he made were the right ones or simply the first ones. Distrusting: Thor enjoys being social but mainly around those he’s close to. He can appear a little hostile to strangers: while he wants to believe in the good in people, he’s been around long enough and seen a lot of the universe to know of the potential darkness inside them too. Reckless: Thor often acts on impulse and charges into situations unprepared. This can lead to serious damage caused to both himself and those around him.

POWERS AND/OR ABILITIES: Super strength: Son of Odin and King of Asgard, Thor is physically the strongest of all Asgardians, with feats including being able to go one-on-one with the Hulk and other powerful entities. Flight: Thor’s magical axe Stormbreaker grants him the ability to fly. Electricity Manipulation: Thor is capable of generating electrical energy within his body and can expel it in the form of lightning bolts. Using Stormbreaker makes the energy generation and expulsion much more powerful and efficient. Weather Control: Similarly, either with or without Stormbreaker (although with Stormbreaker is easier), Thor can control the sky and create storms. Durability: His Asgardian physiology grants much more durability than a human one, able to shrug off energy blasts and recover from injury much quicker. Thor can also survive in space and alien atmospheres. Allspeak: Also called the All-Tongue, Asgardians speak a magic-based language, granting the ability to understand and be understood in all the languages of the Nine Realms. Bifrost: Stormbreaker also gifts Thor the power to summon the Bifrost, the Rainbow Bridge connecting all realms, allowing intergalactic travel between worlds in a matter of moments.

WEAKNESSES: There aren’t many things on Earth that could pose a threat to Thor, so it’s hard to pinpoint any specific weaknesses. Perhaps for someone like Thor, the word god comes up so often that he sometimes forgets it’s not true: he is mortal and, while far more durable than a human, he can get injured and he can get killed, a fact that he often brushes to the side when charging into battle. However he has become far more self-aware after losing an eye (and almost his life) to Hela.

IC PORTION; DETAILS —

WHAT BROUGHT YOUR CHARACTER TO SOKOVIA?

Sokovia is where the majority of Thor’s allies are, and he needs their help. His world gone, his people stranded on the nearest hospitable realm in need of a home; Thor knew of a place where the Asgardians could blend in and live peaceful lives. The problem is, however, it seems Earth is not quite at peace right now. When he couldn’t track down the Avengers in New York, he followed the trail to Novi Grad. His priorities are conflicting: while he came back to Earth to ask the Avengers’ help in establishing a new Asgard on this planet, he feels he should stay to try and help his friends however he can in aiding the Nomad’s cause.

DID THEY SIGN THE ACCORDS? WHY OR WHY NOT?

No - the whole Accords situation is mostly unbeknownst to Thor due to being offworld at the time of signing. From what he can gather, it isn’t something that would appeal to him. He feels the affairs of humans are mostly petty ones and, despite his growing acclimatisation to Earth and its customs, he doesn’t understand why humans have to be so divided about, well, pretty much everything.

PROVIDE 3-5 HEADCANONS RELATED TO YOUR CHARACTER: 1. Although Thor is an alien, he has spent enough time on this planet (in both modern and ancient times) for the culture shock to lessen so that now Earth to Thor is more comparable to a human travelling to a different country - he acknowledges that the differences are neither better nor worse and he chooses to respect them. He knows he will make mistakes and appear strange, but sees that now as an opportunity for personal growth. 2. One thing he doubts he will ever understand however, is the human version of ‘entertainment’. Thor cannot stand movies. On Asgard, they would entertain themselves by slaying fearsome monsters or engaging in a friendly drunken brawl, the more broken furniture the better! But on Earth they amuse themselves by… sitting down and staring at a screen for hours on end. While both Asgard and Earth had/have magnificent technology, it’s clear they used it very differently.

3. Since returning to Earth, Thor has become intrigued in the Norse tales of himself and his people from over a thousand years ago and their alleged feats. He finds it highly amusing how inaccurate the stories are, but it has led to a fascination of human mythology and the various pantheons across history and the world. He wonders if he will ever meet any other of these so-called gods.

4. While a human brain only has capacity for almost a century’s worth of memories, an Asgardian brain is built for a few millennia’s worth. Therefore Thor has a much more acute long-term memory than his human companions, although occasionally his short-term memory leaves something to be desired, especially after several pints of mead.

WANTED CHARACTER CONNECTIONS: 

Loki: His brother and the person he loves (and hates) most in the cosmos. I know a thing or two about brotherly love (I’ve been experiencing it for 23 years) so would love to write for Thor with his undeniably most personal connection. Wonder Woman: Both ancient, both ‘gods’ and both so very far from home. Despite their different allegiances I think it would be great to have Thor bond with perhaps the one person around here who may truly understand him. Superman: If anything they both have fabulous red capes. They are quite similar power-wise, although I know Superman is stronger but Thor definitely wouldn’t want to admit that. It could lead to some healthy (or unhealthy?) competition between the two, especially seeing as Thor isn’t too fond of the Justice League. Captain America & Iron Man: The two splintered team leaders. Thor respects them both (Tony a little less, perhaps…) and, since he doesn’t really understand the extent of the accords, would like to hear their sides of the story and what has happened since the Ultron incident. Bruce Banner: Thor has fought with the Hulk a couple of times but feels this has brought the two closer, learning more about how Bruce ticks and now he feels there’s a protective bond between the pair. I think the interactions they have could bring out the comedic style of writing which I love!

POTENTIAL CHARACTER ARCS: In the previous paragraph I said I like writing comedic characters (of which Thor fits the bill) but I also want to explore the deeper aspects of his personality such as the emotional pain of losing his parents, his childhood friends and his home. This could manifest in him not wanting to form bonds with others in the Mousehole at first because he’s lost so many people: why would he want to get close with anyone else only to lose them again? Perhaps a dramatic fallout with someone from a different team could lead to serious consequences for him or the team as a whole.

The reason I chose for placing Thor in Sokovia is that he’s seeking a location for New Asgard: maybe with all its emigrating population and empty buildings Sokovia could be the perfect location… I’m not sure how it would work in the group, but maybe Thor could eventually bring the Asgardians here, both to settle and to help with the restoration of the country.

CHARACTER BIO —

You know the story. An Asgardian prince, lacking in humility and exiled to Earth in order to learn what it means to be worthy. A classic tale, but at its heart, a tale of loss, and a tale of what it means to truly be human: even if you’re not. Thor has lived for well over a millenia, but only in the last decade has his life really begun. From landing on Earth a long time after people stopped worshipping him, he slowly began to understand the importance of relationships; from forming close bonds with the Avengers (and wary acquaintances with the Justice League and X-Men), to experiencing true love for the very first time. All his life Thor had assumed that humans were lesser beings, so why then did he feel he was learning so much more from them than he had ever learned from his own kind? 

After experiencing the death of his mother, then later on his father and three close childhood friends, Thor was at breaking point when his home realm of Asgard was obliterated during Ragnarök by the fire demon Surtur. With the title of King thrust upon him, Thor decided his duty to his people had to consume him before his emotions did. Pursuing the quest of a new home, he led them to Nidavellir, the homeworld of the dwarfs; unsurpassable smiths and mechanics with the power to forge almost anything the mind can dream of, ruled over by their King, Eitri. Eons ago, Eitri had forged the legendary hammer Mjölnir (destroyed by Hela) at Odin’s request, now he oversaw the creation of the glorious axe Stormbreaker when asked by Thor, capable of summoning the rainbow bridge despite its apparent destruction on Asgard. Armed with his new tool and a promise to the Asgardians of a brighter future, Thor set out alone across the stars, heading to Midgard to find his old allies the Avengers. He’d helped the humans many times before, hopefully they’ll be able to help him and his race this time. 

It took Thor losing everything to appreciate what he has. As he enters the next phase of his life in Sokovia, without family or a home, he is truly the definition of a nomad.

[velkynkarma]

[Star] for The Best Lies (for the record, I went back and forth between this, The Greatest Challenge, Parasite Knight and Prince of Memories. Which is your fault for writing so many deep and interesting fics)

Ooooh, there’s so many good sections in The Best Lies, but I’ll pick this one: 

So he feints left. Terkon crouches a little, reaching with one massive hand to deflect, and Ryou whirls at the last minute. He reverses momentum and strikes with his right hand, fingers flat like a blade just like Shiro favors, aiming straight for Terkon’s face.Terkon catches it, clawed fingers digging into Ryou’s forearm just behind the wrist, barely a foot away from his eyes.Ryou strains to push his arm forward, digging his feet into the metal flooring. Terkon’s grip doesn’t budge, and his metal-tipped claws dig into the paladin armor hard enough to leave nicks in the material.Everything that is Shiro in him panics. Memories whip up again in a frenzy, every single instance that Terkon’s ever had him cold, every single time he’s been caught. It’s over, those memories scream. It’s over. Too late. I resisted but he won. Suffering is coming. Too late. Too late. Too late. They claw at his mind, trying to overcome him, drag him away into a place he can’t get out of.But Ryou stays calm. It’s so easy, somehow. He should be panicking; every instinct of his own or Shiro’s is screaming of danger. He should be terrified. Suffering is coming.But those things aren’t the case anymore. They’re memories. They aren’t now. Ryou knows exactly where he is now. He acknowledges that pain, that suffering, that horror, recognizes that it happened. And then refuses to let it overcome him.That is not me, he thinks. That was never me. I am Ryou Shirogane, and I will protect the real Shiro from all of those things.The memories stop. Shiro’s panic goes still. Everything quiets in his head, and control is his. All his.“Do you think me an idiot, Champion?” Terkon sneers, digging his claws in a little harder to the armor, leaving deeper gouges. “You always fought hardest when you were desperate. Did you think I wouldn’t know you’d strike? Did you think I don’t remember your every attack pattern? Did you think you could tri—“Ryou shoots him.

This is basically the culmination of the whole theme of the story. There were 3 goals with this story’s theme: 

Give Ryou an opportunity to be the protective one, since until this point the entire team, and Shiro specifically, has been protective (or overprotective) of Ryou. I love the Ryou whump, but also I needed to give him a moment in which he was strong, and could protect Shiro from something that Shiro could never handle and the rest of the team could never understand. 

Give Ryou a chance to actually use his chameleon skills and his ability to mimic Shiro. Most of the series until that point has been Ryou struggling to understand his place in the world and who he really is. Most of those conclusions in prior stories summed up to ‘I am my own person, but ‘my own person’ does include a lot of things in common with Shiro, and that’s ok.’ I needed a place for that to pay off, and to prove that this was a choice of his that was good and had value, and this was it

Give Ryou a chance to prove that for all his mimicking skills, he is the only one that can handle this fight because he is so different from Shiro on a fundamental level now, even if he still struggles with understanding or accepting that sometimes. The memories he has from Shiro have mostly been given a degree of separation from him now, due to some of the brain damage associated with his failsafe illness. Sure, there are probably still a few memories in his mind that were not affected and still feel like 100% his, but those are few and far between. As horrible as that situation was, something good did come out of it, because he’s able to look at Shiro’s memories objectively, understand and learn from them, but not be paralyzed by them. 

All 3 of these goals come together at once in this final scene when he defeats Terkon. He’s no-holds-barred destroying Terkon for messing with his predecessor so he’s being protective. He uses his ability to mimic and play a role other people want to see to maneuver Terkon into a position where he can bring him down immediately. And Terkon can’t torment him like he did Shiro, because Ryou knows what to expect but isn’t affected like Terkon intends, with fear and horror and guilt. Everything Terkon does just makes him more angry and more focused. 

The other thing I really wanted to make clear in this scene is how brutally efficient Ryou is when he makes the killing blow. He doesn’t pull his punches (or shots, as it were). He goes straight for a lethal attack. He follows it up two more times without hesitation. He doesn’t bother with dramatics or a snappy one-liner. He absolutely makes sure the job is done, no chance Terkon could still live through it. I wanted the whole thing to be a punch in the gut, and satisfying but in slightly disturbing way. He does the job, but without theatrics. 

And the reason for that is because there is a subtle undertone in all of this, which is that Ryou Is Acting Exactly As He Was Designed to. Infiltrate. Find target. Eliminate as efficiently as possible. Cover it up after, don’t leave any evidence. (Terkon never happened). He’s not doing it on Haggar’s orders anymore, and never will again. His targets and his methods are all of his own choosing. But it’s something he learned how to do because he was designed for it, and it’s not a subtle instinct he ever lost. It’s why he tends to prefer the clever, quieter approach to a no-holds-barred attack, because it’s an instinct he’s had since day one. I don’t think Ryou is consciously even aware of this fully; he knows Haggar made him to infiltrate the team and lead them to their doom, and he finds a vindictive satisfaction in turning Haggar’s plans around on the Galra by mimicking Shiro in ways that can be used against them. But her designs were a lot more subtle than anyone realizes, and it’s most obvious in this fic and at this point. 

I’m Doing Fanfic Director’s Cuts!

[funkymbtifiction]

How can I be more objective when evaluating my functions to help determine my type? When I do tests, I either end up with INTP or INTJ, but because their functions are like the inverse of each other, I think I must be doing something wrong when examining my thought processes. I also feel like I don’t understand well how to look at the ‘overarching pattern in my life’. How can I distinguish between my functions’ natural behaviours vs. behaviours that come about due to trauma/culture/upbringing/

And the way that your environment impacts you (ex: I feel like my methodof logic and how spontaneous I am are very different at work vs at home). WhenI read over blog posts about the functions, I’m bad at translating those intoaction, especially when they describe the N and S functions. I don’t trust myown ability to objectively evaluate and when I ask people around me, I worrythat they either don’t think deeply enough or don’t know me well enough toanswer. It’s easier for me to figure out how the functions differ when they areprovided as concrete actions (like the way you did describing the mantleclock), so would you be able to provide examples of what Ne/Ni and Se/Si wouldlook like to third party observes when an INTP/INTJ is exercising them?                   

Behavior isn’t what you need to think about.

Thought process is what you need to think about.

Behaviorally, I look like a J type because I’m studious, responsible, I setdeadlines for myself and meet them (often beating them), I am never late, Ilike to have at least a basic plan of what I intend to do for the day, and Idon’t like unexpected interruptions. I like closure on my relationships – notto leave things open-ended. I want to know if something is “over.”

But here is my thought process / cognition. I am studious and responsible,because my Fi values being studious and responsible. My Te likes efficiency.How do you get to be efficient? By being responsible. I set deadlines formyself, to keep me motivated. My Ne loves to finish something so it can MOVE ONto the next exciting thing – without deadlines, I might feel too trappedand/or committed for too long. Like a true Perceiver, I procrastinate until thedeadline and then I produce excellent work under pressure. I am never late,because lateness means missing out on good things. It’s also rude and dismissive of the value of other people’s time, and my Fivalues being polite and would like others to also respect my time. I like to have a basic plan of what I intend to do, so Ido not waste my time and can accomplish things, have a list of stuff I didwhich I can cross off and feel accomplished at the end of the day (Tedevelopment). I like closure, because I want to know where I stand with people.As a Fi, I value deep, committed relationships. I would rather walk away froman unsatisfying / shallow one, and save us both time, than nurse a dying onethat gives me zero emotional satisfaction along for 5 years.

See? Until you stop looking at behavior, and start looking at ‘how do Ithink? What is my instinctive thought process when I encounter something new?How did I interpret what that person said to me? How do I think it reflects onme?’ you are not digging into the deeper sense of ‘self’ as to who and what youare. You need to ask yourself, do I have Te? What is Te? How do you understandTe? Can you write a few paragraphs of actual examples of yourself using Te to problem-solve? Can you do the same for Fi? If you are an INTJ, you have corevalues. Things you will not compromise on. Things you refuse to do. Things yourefuse to debate doing, because you know it’s wrong FOR YOU. Lines you do notcross, and other people had better not cross, unless their desire is not to bein a relationship with you moving forward. Have others accused you of beingselfish, non-emotional, or just wanting to ‘fix’ a problem rather thanlistening? At your worst, do you determinedly pursue your goals at the cost ofothers and/or become stubborn about your central values, showing aninflexibility of attitude?

If you are an INTP, what is Ti? Can you give examples of yourself using Tito problem solve? Do you feel like you have a ‘system’ in your mind of logic,like you are taking new information and fitting it into a pre-existingframework? And when confronted by something that does not fit your system, youbalk at it? Try to reason it out, flat out refuse to deal with it, because it’snot ‘logical’? Have others accused you of manipulating ‘the facts’ to suit yourpreferred conclusion? Do you think you can ‘hack’ any system? Do you think ifyou could just figure out how human beings work, you could ‘hack’ them andbetter deal with them? Do you exhibit signs of inferior Fe? Do you know what Feis? At your worst, do you push people’s buttons for your own amusement and/orsee them as tools you can use to get what you want? <- unhealthy lower Fe attitude (“People exist for me to use them”).

Observing NTs from the outside:

INTJ: Counters everything anyone says with ‘facts.’ Heads directly to thefacts of the situation. Mostly what you see from them is Te. A lot of Te. Supplementedby Ni conclusions – they take time to form, can be ‘slow’ in comparison to Ne,but are not likely to change their mind once they have gathered all the data.Many of the INTJs I have run into have their financial assets in order decadesahead (like planning for retirement when they enter the workforce) and havevery little tolerance for Ti, because ‘they unnecessarily complicateeverything.’ Long-term obsessions that last a lifetime. Example: “my friend is doing such and such.” INTJ *with medical experience*: “sounds like Borderline Personality Disorder, which can result in X Y and Z behaviors. This person sounds manipulative and dangerous. Stay away from them.”

INTP: Often speaks so technically and so abstractly, it’s hard for othertypes to follow their thought process (owing to Ti being abstract, and Ne beingabstract = someone very abstract whose Ne takes them on side trails). Lots of frustration in them at finding it hard to make others understand their reasoning. Will repeat things in various ways in an attempt to get you to understand (this tends to annoy Te users, who just want the bottom line / to know what’s going on so they can ‘fix it’). Highlylogical, tries to analyze people rather than simply dealing with them, has low/ zero self-awareness due to inferior Fe. Ne = rapidly dealing with ideas,tearing them apart with Ti, more open to changing their mind than Ni, because of the openness of Ne. Shorter term obsessions. Fanatically into X for awhile, then drops it and never thinks about it again.

If you want a visual representation of INTJ vs. INTP, watch anyCardinal-heavy episode of The Musketeers (BBC) and then any TwelfthDoctor episode of Doctor Who (BBC). Peter Capaldi plays an INTJ in one,an INTP in another. You’ll notice how the Cardinal’s thinking is all aimed toward the enduring legacy of France (Ni) and at efficient, brutal problem solving with obvious methods (Te); the Doctor is all about exploring ideas for their own sake and finding out ‘what might happen’ if you leap in and try that (Ti and Ne).

Crawl through the extroverted thinking tag, also. There’s a post by an ENTJthat fully describes Te vs Ti reasoning that is excellent.

- ENFP Mod

[damienthepious]

*taps mic* hello y’all! for this week’s LKT, i proudly present to you... *checks notes* ... *coughs* ... uhh it’s just pwp!!

Awake With Wolf Teeth

[ao3]

[Rating: Explicit

Fandom: The Penumbra Podcast

Relationship: Lord Arum/Sir Damien/Rilla, Lord Arum/Sir Damien

Characters: Lord Arum, Sir Damien, Rilla

Additional Tags: Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Porn with Feelings, Smut, (i'm not a scalie but i'm also not a coward), Pining, Reunion Sex, (jesus fuck how do people tag things i'm such a disaster), Biting, Quiet Sex, Sneaky Sex, (adflkajds i hope y'all like this...... i mean... i do? but what the hell do I know??????)

Summary: Sir Damien has been gone for weeks now, and Lord Arum is incapable of waiting a single moment more before he can hold him again.

Notes: Look. I swear I'm writing smut that's NOT just these two. I have uhhhh three more in the works, two with all three of them and one that's Arum/Rilla. This one just. Took over my brain. uhhhhhhh have fun I hope????? *slinks away anxiously* Title taken from the song Heartbeats, by José González.]

~

What Arum is doing today ranks on the list of the riskiest things that he has ever done. It is dangerous, and foolish, and completely necessary because if Arum does not get to touch his knight again very soon he feels as if he is going to catch fire and burn up to a husk.

Damien has been gone for more than a month now. The Citadel has him and a cadre of less skilled knights on a pointless hunt for a creature they will almost certainly fail to catch (then again, with Damien’s considerable skill he can be sure of nothing), and Arum has, bit by bit, been losing his ability to function with each day of his absence.

It’s madness, really.

His entire life, it has been just himself and the Keep, but suddenly now that Amaryllis and Damien have insinuated themselves into his life and his heart and his bed, he has become terrifyingly reliant on them. He is furious with Amaryllis about it as well, because she seems to be handling the lack of their knight with substantially more grace than Arum is.

“Hey,” she says as she strokes his arm soothingly, as she kisses the scales beside his frill. “It’s alright, Arum. I’ve just had a lot more practice, worrying about Damien while he’s gone. Of course you want him back. Missing him is nothing to be ashamed of.”

He scoffs, of course. He’s not ashamed, not of this and not of anything. What Arum is, is irritated. He is irritated with Amaryllis, for being so earnest and understanding about the whole thing (he clings to her in bed when she stays the night, and he knows she is as acutely aware of the empty space in their bed as he is). He is irritated with himself for his new and unwelcome weaknesses (like a missing limb, Damien being gone, like his mind is a fuzzy and unwelcome place). He is irritated with Damien himself (a vague mental litany, oscillating between how dare you leave and please come back). He is irritated with the knights that are so ungratefully lucky to share their time with Damien in his absence. He is irritated, he finds, with everyone and everything involved in keeping Arum away from his poet.

“Saints above, just go to him then if you’re so torn up about it,” Amaryllis says a few days later, and behind the exasperation in her tone there is a worry that rankles. The idea of it, though, of seeing Damien early- the very idea sets his heart racing, and he can tell that Amaryllis sees it in his eyes. “According to his letters he’ll be passing pretty close to the western edge of the swamp over the next day or so,” she says. “Just- go and see him before you drive me crazy right along with you.”

“I-” he scoffs. Again. “I am perfectly fine, Amaryllis. I do not need to be coddled or- I do not need to see him.”

“I know,” Amaryllis says with a sigh, and then she lifts a hand to cup his cheek. “But I know that you want to. I get it, Arum, I really do. When we started seeing each other, the first time he left to go on a longer mission, I didn’t even know that I could miss a person like that. Just- promise me if you do go see him, you’ll be careful? Last thing we would need is for one of his little traveling buddies to spot you sneaking around their camp, you know?”

Arum doesn’t even know what part of that to be most offended by, which he later suspects is intentional misdirection on the part of the herbalist, but when she affectionately pats his cheek and departs through a portal back to her hut for her next appointment, Arum can’t stop thinking about the possibility.

Can’t stop thinking about seeing Damien, holding Damien. When he tries to do some work in the greenhouse he drops an entire tray of tools at the unbidden memory of Damien’s dexterous fingers, twirling an arrow before he notches it. He snarls at the Keep when it asks if he is feeling ill, then quickly, quietly apologizes. Obviously he is in no state to work, which has begun to feel more demoralizing than infuriating.

By the time Amaryllis returns to join him for dinner, he relents, defeated, and over their meal she helps him work out the most likely spot for him to potentially intercept their knight. Arum wants to bring her along as well (he does not simply wish to trade which of his lovers he is missing, he wants to have them both, they belong in his arms-), but she shakes her head.

“Maybe you can sneak into a camp of sleeping knights without any issues, Arum, but I don’t exactly have your stealth. You go,” she says, and kisses him on the cheek. “Tell him I miss him and he’d better hurry up. Have fun,” she says with a sly grin, “and be careful.”

And Arum grumbles, and clings even more tightly to her for a long, quiet stretch before the sun goes down, but as soon as it is properly dark he nuzzles a lingering goodbye into her hair and then portals to the westernmost reach of his land.

It doesn’t take more than a few hours to find evidence of them – humans are not adept at crossing the wilderness without leaving a rather obvious trail – and then perhaps an hour more to follow that trail to its conclusion.

The knights are all sleeping in small, individual tents arranged around a central campfire which has already burned down to the dimmest embers, which is rather convenient as far as Arum is concerned. There is a knight he does not know standing watch, but Arum slips past easily with a combination of subtle camouflage and cunning, and it only takes a moment of scenting the air to find the only tent he cares about.

(Arum feels a senseless pulse of fury with the watchman; a monster with half his skill and none of his affection could slip past in the night, endangering his honeysuckle, and that possibility is utterly unacceptable-)

It is too dark for human vision inside Damien’s tent, but Arum is beyond those sorts of limitations. He can see the sleeping form of his knight easily, and he looks smaller without his armor on, looks vulnerable curled alone in a thin bedroll on the uneven ground, and Arum has the hot urge to scoop him up and simply use his emergency packet of swamp dirt to ferry the both of them back home right this instant, to put Damien back exactly where he belongs, in Arum’s bed between himself and their herbalist.

He takes a breath, putting a stopper to his more unreasonable urges, and then he slinks closer.

Damien is a trained and skillful knight, of course, and Damien is also, in a word, vocal, so the first thing Arum does when he is close enough is to very, very gently place one of his palms over Damien’s mouth, running a second hand soothingly through his hair and hissing in a shushing way as Damien’s eyes flutter open in the dark, as his body jolts underneath Arum’s own.

“Only me, honeysuckle,” Arum says in his lowest whisper, close against Damien’s ear, and the knight relaxes so instantly that Arum fears for a moment that he has somehow fallen right back to sleep. Damien lifts his hands, though, pressing his palms against Arum’s chest as if he’s checking that the lizard is actually real. “I hope you will forgive me for waking you,” Arum hisses, uncovering Damien’s mouth now that he’s sure Damien is not going to shout.

“What are you doing here?” Damien whispers, words tumbling together in his haste. “How-”

“You have been gone entirely too long, honeysuckle. I wanted-” Arum starts, but almost every way that he could end that sentence is actually too embarrassing to stand. “I wanted- you,” he settles on eventually, and Arum is close enough that he can feel the way Damien’s breathing shifts deeper.

“I… this is like a dream, Lord Arum,” Damien whispers, joy and desire balancing perfectly on his tongue as his hands drift across Arum’s shoulders. “Each night out here, each night alone, each night has been spent wanting you, wanting Rilla, wanting the both of you together, dreaming of your touch and then waking alone, and to dream your touch and then to realize that it is no dream at all-”

Arum purrs low, Damien’s words working their usual obscene magic on his body, making his own heart race, and he has missed this, he has missed this foolish little creature so absurdly much. He flicks his tongue out to run up the delicious column of Damien’s throat, his hands in Damien’s hair, on his shoulders, pulling the bedroll down. “No dream, honeysuckle,” he breathes. “I… I thought that perhaps you could do with a reminder of what is waiting for you at home, when you complete your little errand out here.” He scrapes his teeth gently back down Damien’s neck, over his shoulder. “I thought I should give you a taste of what you have surely been missing, while I have this chance, while you were close enough to reach.”

“A taste,” Damien repeats breathlessly. “Oh Saints, oh Saints I have been dreaming of a taste nearly every night, my lily-”

“Then allow me to indulge you,” Arum says softly, his hands working quickly and efficiently to pull away the fabric of blankets, the fabric of clothing which separate their bodies, baring Damien's skin and his own scales in the safety of the dark. “Though, you must promise me that you will try to keep control of that tongue of yours as you take that taste. I believe this is what one might call a tryst, honeysuckle, and I do not think that either of us would appreciate interruption by any particularly sharp-eared cohorts of yours.”

Damien’s eyes widen, and Arum suspects that the knight is only now remembering his surroundings in earnest, as surprised as he is with this nighttime visit.

“O-of course,” he pants, and Arum grins in the dark before he slithers his body down.

“Good,” he hisses. “I think, however, that I will take my taste before I give you yours.”

Predictably, Damien makes a soft noise when one of Arum’s hands presses down on his hip and his tongue flicks a tickling line down his stomach, but Damien slaps a hand over his own mouth just in time to muffle the gasp he gives as another of Arum’s hands impatiently finds his hardening cock. He gives Damien a few slow, soft strokes to start, drinking in the way that he trembles and jerks his hips up towards Arum’s touch. This- this is how Damien should be, reveling in joy and touch, utterly spoiled by the caresses of his lovers, appreciated and adored.

Arum moves his hand faster, purring low and entirely out of his own control, and he watches Damien near-silently writhe beneath him.

Damien’s heartbeat- Damien’s heat-

He still and forever fills Arum with an urgent, desperate sort of hunger.

Arum loosens his grip, wrapping his thumb and two fingers around the base of Damien’s cock so that when he slips his tongue out he can twine it around the rest of his length. Damien muffles the noises he can’t help but make, the joyous-overwhelmed gasp that Arum is gleefully familiar with by now, and Arum chuckles, low enough not to be heard but just enough that he knows Damien will feel it.

As his tongue works, twisting and squeezing and flicking, his free hands are quietly busy as well, uncorking the small vial of oil he had the foresight to bring and slicking his fingers (on one of the hands he keeps with claws blunted and softened, just for this, just for giving pleasure to his fragile humans), before he slips them teasingly up the inside of Damien’s thighs.

“Arum,” Damien whispers through his fingers, and his other hand reaches clumsily down through the darkness until he can caress Arum’s face, until he can run his palm up over one of Arum’s horns and grip there, not pushing or pulling Arum where he wants him, but merely scrabbling for purchase as Arum plies and pleasures him. Arum growls low and careful, squeezing his tongue around Damien’s length in a rippling wave, and then he presses a slick finger slowly up and in.

Damien holds his breath rather than whine, and Arum pauses, waits for Damien to relax around him and catch his breath before he moves his hand again. He unwinds his tongue from around Damien’s cock, letting the hand around its base resume its previous determined stroke as he lifts himself to better watch Damien’s reactions as he slowly twists his finger, slowly pumps it in and out.

Careful, careful. Arum is… particularly careful, this night. Particularly attentive, particularly focused. It has been too long since he has been allowed this, and he wants to indulge himself- but more than that, Arum wants very dearly to indulge Damien. To give the poet as much satisfaction as possible, to pleasure him as thoroughly as he is able. He moves his fingers with care, taking his time, treating the poet to the kinds of touches Arum knows he will most enjoy and ensuring that he is more than ready, that he is nearly coming apart with desire before Arum allows a second finger to join the first.

Damien is painfully beautiful. Shatteringly beautiful, like this. Alight from the inside out with rapturous joy, with his strange soft hair falling over his forehead, with his strong, lean musculature tensing and his entire body near-glowing with heat. Arum feels lucky, feels greedy, feels like all his foolishness and yearning in the last few weeks were entirely justified for the sake of this gorgeous, loving creature coming apart beneath him now.

Arum has a hand in Damien’s hair, another carefully circling his nipple with a claw, a third working his cock and the fourth plying him open, every touch focused and just barely skirting the edge of teasing, and only when Damien can barely keep from letting his tiny, torturous noises grow beyond his control, only when he scrabbles his hands desperately on Arum’s sides, clutching and pulling and whispering please please please, only then does Arum oblige him with a third finger.

“If only you could see yourself, honeysuckle,” he murmurs against Damien’s ear, and Damien pants hard and presses his face into Arum’s neck, burying a quiet whine in Arum’s frill. “Oh, the poetry you could compose, if you could see the way you come undone-”

“If I c-could only see you,” Damien mutters in response, his hands clutching tight to Arum’s back as he tries to press himself down harder onto Arum’s fingers, and his voice wavers almost too high when he continues, “a thousand times curse the darkness for keeping your beauty from me tonight, for keeping me from drinking in every single detail of this impossible encounter, for hiding your eyes from me-”

“Shhhhhh,” Arum warns gently, then flicks his tongue quick over Damien’s lips. “I know, dearest creature. When you return home, you may take every single detail from me, you may take me in plain sunlight if you so desire, and you may tell me every single comparison to my eyes and scales and claws you plan to weave into your works, and I even promise not to complain because I will be too spoiled to have you safe and home in my arms again.” Arum pauses long enough to press his mouth against Damien’s, only an almost-kiss until Damien kisses back, until he gasps lightly and dances the tip of his tongue along the sharp edges of Arum’s teeth. “But for now we must be careful, honeysuckle, and quiet.”

Damien nods, panting against Arum’s mouth, and when he whispers, “Sorry,” it comes out nearly soundless.

“No apologies.” Arum nips at Damien’s lip, playful. “I would make you scream for me, honeysuckle, if I could. You know that I would.”

“I know,” Damien whispers, and Arum can feel the pleased heat in his cheeks so he nuzzles against them.

Arum’s hands slow during that exchange, but he still pleasures his poet as they speak their hushed words, and now he twists his fingers inside Damien, watches and feels him squirm underneath him. “So tempting…” he murmurs. “So delicious you look…”

“Please,” Damien hisses, writhing, trying to press the fingers deeper, trying to press his cock into Arum’s hand more effectively. “Please, my lily, I feel as if you are taking me apart- the most blissful torture but torture nonetheless, please, please-”

“You know as well, honeysuckle,” Arum growls, low and slow, “that I can never deny you anything, especially not when you ask so prettily.”

He keeps his grip on Damien’s cock as he slips his fingers away, as he properly slicks the lower of his own two cocks and then lifts Damien’s legs until the angle is just right, until he can line himself up and press forward.

Damien quietly keens as Arum slowly, slowly fills him, heat coiling low in his stomach at how easily the poet takes him, at how eagerly he presses his hips up to meet Arum’s first thrust. He pauses there for a moment, ensuring that Damien is ready, waiting for Damien to give a breathless eager whine before he starts to fuck him in earnest.

He wraps his hand around Damien’s throat. He does not squeeze- he only holds him like that, another layer to the way he is pinning Damien against the ground, feeling Damien’s heart thudding against his fingertips, feeling the vibration of all the tiny noises Damien is holding in as Arum fucks him slow and thorough. One hand tangling in the bedroll beneath him, one hand clutching Arum’s shoulder for purchase, Damien bites his lip hard and doesn’t even seem to notice that his helpless whines are growing lewder and louder with each thrust, and Arum’s heart feels hot with affection but clearly they cannot risk-

“Hush, shhhhh little honeysuckle,” Arum hisses low, pressing a hand over Damien’s mouth gently but firmly to muffle the noise, and Damien rolls his entire body up into Arum, shivering, and Arum blinks in surprise because- he is quite familiar with that reaction from his poet.

“Arum,” Damien gasps into his palm, and Arum feels the vibration of it more than he actually hears the word.

“You… you enjoy that, honeysuckle?” Arum whispers, both teasing and pleased all at once as he rocks fervently, steadily into Damien, holding Damien’s noises carefully back. “You enjoy that I must keep you quiet? You know that I adore every single skill of your tongue, of course, and it pains me that I cannot bask in your noises. I have missed them, missed pulling such sweet song from your lips.” His own lips he keeps close against Damien’s ear, and he flicks his tongue over the seashell curve of it as he pauses to hiss. “Of course, in my greed for you I never paused to consider- do you enjoy being denied, honeysuckle?”

Damien squeezes his eyes shut, panting hard, and nods so slightly that Arum would not have noticed it if he couldn’t feel it through his hand upon him.

“Ahh,” Arum hisses, slips a hand into Damien’s hair, cupping the back of his head and licking up his neck. “You delightful creature… I will indulge you in anything you desire, honeysuckle. I will indulge you even in denial, if it pleases you-”

Damien whispers against his palm, a near-silent litany that Arum takes a long moment to recognize as a repeated murmur, echoing love love love love into his scales, and then Arum has to focus beyond the unceasing rhythm of his hips on burying the helpless growl he wants to make in response.

Damien taps Arum’s side, a small signal but one that Arum quickly responds to, slowing his thrusts and lifting his hand away from his mouth immediately.

“Arum,” Damien breathes, and then bites his lip for a moment, humming low and clinging tighter. “I- I want…”

He trails off entirely and Arum slows further, more rocking them together than thrusting anymore. He scrapes his claws through Damien’s hair again, flicking his tongue out to tease Damien’s neck, then up by his ear. “Whatever you desire,” he says again, low and sure and hungry. Anything Damien wants he would give, anything to make his honeysuckle happy, to keep himself bright and beloved in the poet’s memory, Arum would do anything. “I will give you whatever you desire, if you only ask-”

“Mark me,” Damien chokes, half-swallowing the words, and even in this darkness Arum can see his face darken further, can feel even more heat rushing to fill his cheeks. “I want you to- to mark me.”

Arum blinks, his fingers still caught in the softness of the poet’s hair, his movements still slow and careful. “Honeysuckle?”

“I still feel within a dream, my lily,” Damien murmurs, his own hands caressing up and down Arum’s back. “I fear I will wake and I will be convinced that I imagined you in the depth of my homesickness, my heartsickness. I want- I want proof I can carry with me. I want your teeth upon me,” he says, and Arum’s breath catches sharp. “I want to feel you, I want to feel you still tomorrow. I want the echoes of your touch upon me when you are gone, I want to feel this,” he rocks his hips, meeting Arum’s movements, and Arum has to clench his teeth to keep from growling his overwhelmed pleasure, “I want to feel you for as long as I am able. If you- If you put your teeth to my shoulder, if you bite me there, only I will know-”

“Honeysuckle,” Arum repeats, a shiver running through his body from his horns to his tail.

“It will be hidden by my armor, but I will know,” Damien whispers, and presses his lips against Arum’s neck. “If you leave a mark. It will be proof to remind me, to remind me that you love me, that you gave this pleasure to me, that you wanted me enough to claim me-”

Arum can’t help the way his body responds to that, thrusting deeper into Damien’s heat with a low, controlled purr. “I want you always, Damien,” he murmurs, and then he drags his teeth lightly, so lightly over the skin of Damien’s shoulder. Damien gasps, clasps a hand over his own mouth again as Arum’s teeth tease at his collarbone, as the monster rolls his hips with more purpose. “I want you enough that it makes me foolish, makes me take ridiculous risks, makes me come for you like this, like a thief in the night-”

“A thief,” Damien hisses through his fingers, and then his voice takes on a familiar, lilting, sing-song cadence, though he keeps his volume careful-low. “O come you now to thieve my heart, you beast of fae-wild night?”

Unfair tactics, Arum thinks as his body shudders at Damien’s voice, and then he slips a hand down between their bodies so he can wrap it around Damien’s cock again, stroking in careful time to his thrusts, making Damien’s breath come as ragged as his own between his rhythmic words.

“All craft and guile undone, in vain, your questing overdue,” he gasps. “Within your garden blooms my heart, ‘neath silver stars alight, an off’ring free, my fruit and tree, my monstrous love, for you-”

Arum clenches his teeth, hisses through them, and then he buries his unoccupied hands in Damien’s hair, tilting his head to the side so he can better lick and nip at his throat, so he can drag his teeth with careful promise over the crook of Damien’s neck, over his bare, strong shoulder. “That- clever- tongue- of yours,” he grits out between helpless thrusts, “will be the death of me.” He lets his hands roam as he nuzzles Damien’s throat, as the poet throws his head back and bites his lip to keep the noises in.

“Please,” Damien whispers, reaching out in the darkness, and Arum has no choice but to reach back, tangling their fingers together as Damien rolls his hips, pushing Arum deeper. “My lily, my lily, please-”

Arum growls, burying his face in the crook of Damien’s neck and panting there as Damien provokes him to move faster. “Honeysuckle,” he purrs, “you know I can deny you nothing.”

“Your teeth, Lord Arum.” Damien clings, writhes, tries to press Arum’s snout towards his shoulder. “Please, please-”

“Shhhhh,” Arum soothes, pressing his hand over Damien’s mouth again, gently. He knows the poet too well to do anything else. “Patience, my honeysuckle,” he says, soft with his mouth against Damien’s collarbone. He adjusts his grip, lifting Damien’s hips so he can more easily speed his movements. Arum loosens the careful control he’s been keeping on his pace, reveling in the tiny choked-off noises Damien gasps into his hand as he fucks him harder, fucks him more urgently.

He can feel Damien’s lips moving against his palm, can hear the barest edge of his pleas and quiet cries, but he keeps his teeth light and teasing on Damien’s skin, delays that gratification to instead focus on drawing out every bit of pleasure he can with his thrusts, with his hand around Damien’s cock. Delays, until he can feel Damien trembling beneath and around him, until he can feel Damien start to come apart, overwhelmed tears pooling at the corners of his eyes as they press closed in the darkness.

Then, Arum bites down.

Careful, even in this- his teeth are less sharp than his claws but still he has no wish to draw blood, he only means to give the poet what he asks for, clamping his jaws down over his shoulder with just enough pressure to bruise. The hand he has pressed over Damien’s mouth only barely manages to muffle his cry of mingling pleasure and pain, and it is enough, it is just enough-

Damien comes with a gasp, and Arum holds him, holds him, slows and deepens his thrusts as Damien squeezes around him and spills hot over Arum’s hand and both of their stomachs, and that is just enough as well, the victory of bringing his honeysuckle to the heights of pleasure, and Arum pulls his teeth away from Damien’s delicate skin so that when he finds his own release he can clench them together without worry as he rolls his hips helplessly and comes inside his poet, comes onto his stomach with a muffled hiss.

After a long, panting moment Damien draws on some reserve of strength that baffles Arum and lifts his head, kissing along the line of Arum’s mouth with unselfconscious adoration, and Arum nuzzles back in kind, buffeting their foreheads together and purring his satisfaction as he pulls his hips back slowly, slipping from his lover before they grow uncomfortable.

Arum fishes out a cloth from his cast-aside cloak, cleaning the both of them off with gentle attention and then resettling the blankets around them, curling close and soft and satisfied around his poet.

“You do not know how viciously I wish to carry you off home with me right this instant, honeysuckle,” Arum sighs into Damien’s neck, clinging tight to his warm, pliant body as both of their heartbeats slow. “How terribly I want to spirit you away and keep you in my clutches, to bring you to where you belong, to kidnap you back to the Keep and drop you triumphantly into Amaryllis’ arms…”

“I imagine that you desire it precisely as desperately as I do, my love,” Damien whispers, nuzzling Arum’s cheek with his own, exhaling deeply. He lifts a hand, then, and brushes it over the vivid purpling arc on his shoulder with a distinct look of pleasure, of satisfaction.

Arum feels, just a little, as if his heart is trying to climb up his windpipe.

“Damien,” he whispers, and then he leans down to lick his tongue over the mark, feather-light and soothing. “Perhaps… perhaps I shouldn’t have-”

“Thank you,” Damien interrupts, and then he kisses the corner of Arum’s mouth and comes away smiling. “Not even my unsteady mind could ignore such bold, lingering proof of your affection.”

Arum swallows roughly, then flicks his tongue up Damien’s cheek with fond affection. “Hate having to miss you, honeysuckle,” he admits in a whisper, clinging as if he wishes to pull Damien into himself, as if they could possibly be any closer. “Love you too fiercely to be without you.”

Damien makes a small, pained noise, cupping Arum’s face in his hands and kissing him again, kissing him soft, sweet, like petals and rain. “Oh, my lovely lily,” he says, and Arum can hear the tears he his trying not to shed. “I love you so much. So much that it breaks my heart to be without you, without Rilla…”

“She asked that I pass along that she wishes for you to hasten your quest and hurry home,” Arum mutters, “as, of course, do I.”

Damien sighs. “I know. I intend to be home as soon as I am able, as soon as the Saints allow.”

Arum shifts, and Damien- Damien makes another small noise, clinging tightly, and Arum hears his heart stutter fast for a moment.

He blinks, and drapes himself back over the entirety of Damien’s body indulgently. “Not going anywhere just yet, honeysuckle.”

“I… I am perfectly aware that I cannot keep you here forever, my lily.”

Arum growls lightly. “Nnnno,” he admits, “not forever, not that, of course. But I can stay a little longer, yet.” He buffets his cheek against Damien’s, nuzzling closer, closer. “I can stay until you are asleep again, at least. Until you are dreaming, until I can leave you safe in slumber.”

Damien kisses him, kisses him, cups Arum’s face in his hands, kisses him. “Soon, soon I shall return to the both of you, with new tales and triumph. Soon shall we have our homecoming, earned and exultant, and then I will give to the both of you every single word I have had to carry with me during our separation, every kiss I have wished to press to your lips, every pleasure I have dreamed of spoiling you with… soon, my lily. Soon.”

Damien’s singsong cadence is almost too soothing, and Arum feels as if he could outright melt into Damien’s arms. He sighs, flicks his tongue out to tickle Damien’s jaw, drifts his claws softly up and down Damien’s arms. “It will not be soon enough, honeysuckle. I am an impatient creature. But for you…” his words falter, and he brushes some errant curls away from Damien’s brow. “For you, I will wait.” He pauses. “Impatiently, of course.”

“With an abundance of complaints,” Damien says with a soft laugh, and kisses Arum’s nose.

“Needless to say,” Arum growls, and then he gives a wry sort of smile. “But I have taken enough rest from you already, my poet. No more teasing, now. Return to sleep. I will hold you until you are safe in slumber, and when morning comes…” he drifts his claws careful over the purpling arc on Damien’s skin, “you can carry me with you, until you can return to us in fact and not just in dream and memory.”

Damien purses his lips, expression gone yearning and wild for a brief moment before he nods, lifting one of Arum’s hands to kiss his knuckles, pressing them against his cheek with a sigh. “I love you so dearly, my Arum,” he murmurs.

In this moment, quiet and dark, Arum even feels like he might deserve that.

“I love you, Damien,” he answers, voice rough. “Now sleep, little honeysuckle, and I will watch over you.”

After a few more kisses, (three or four, nine or ten, impossible to say because neither of them count), Damien drifts, his breaths evening out, his heart beating slow and gentle, and Arum holds him close and safe.

And with the poet asleep, no one has to know exactly how long it takes before Arum can bear to tear himself away.

[testodrive112-blog]

https://topwellnessblog.com/testo-drive-365/

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  The famous media use of the phrase to explain all toddler molesters is a deliberate misuse of the time period. Infant molesters and power rapists can be dealt with successfully through using cognitive restructuring, negative behavior amendment, extensive self therapy, and, of course, by using being made to take responsibility for their movements, additionally referred to as restitution therapy. There is a pervasive worry among the population that the convicted intercourse offender may also circulate in round the corner. This irrational worry is based totally upon the famous myths perpetrated via the media. The truth is that the regarded sex culprit is not the one of whom you need be afraid; you want to be fearful of the only you do not know approximately. So who are they? Commonly, the intercourse culprit works in a production or commercial related activity in a blue collar potential. He's someone whom you know properly, say a family member, neighbor or near pal. Generally it is going to be said of him that he changed into the closing person one would have suspected of such conduct. He could be a church-goer, model citizen and pillar of the community.

 This is not the case with all sex offenders, simply the considerable majority of them. Simply due to the fact you understand of a production worker or manufacturing unit employee who happens to be a pleasing man and attends church and pta meetings does not mean he is a intercourse culprit. Consider, most of the people are exactly what they appear to be. The difference is that the sex culprit has to faux to be like every person else because he is aware of he isn't always. That man lurking behind the timber with a pocketful of sweet drooling over children have to also be suspected. Do not suppose that just because it's far unlikely that he is a sex offender that he is not. What i am telling you is which you are very unlikely to come across a person of that type. If you worry for the protection of a infant, err on the facet of caution and contact the police.

  I usually don't advise the calling of authorities before you've got taken preventative measures of your own first, however in this example, you could be stopping a baby from being molested. You can be forcing a sex perpetrator to get hold of the treatment he desires to be a efficient and law abiding citizen. In this case, i support the use of the government. The next query is, how should they be punished? Many say that given that they are sentencing their victims to a life-time of ache and misery, the perpetrator should spend their existence without their freedom. On the surface, this sounds reasonable. But when we dig deeper, we see that the reasoning is not legitimate. In most cases of rape or molestation, it typically takes the between 3 and five years of therapy and tough paintings to overcome the emotions of powerlessness and emptiness they enjoy. If they're prompted to recover from their revel in, and they're willing to confront testo drive 365 their victimizer, they are able to normally fully get better. (sure, i stated, face their victimizer. Therapists universally agree that that is an imperative step, generally towards the stop of their remedy, which ought to be taken underneath very controlled circumstances. Maybe i can write an editorial about this later as it's far a fascinating concern. In essence, the victimizer has the strength taken from him by using the sufferer as a result setting the strength again wherein it belongs.) i recognize that it appears like i'm minimizing the potential of the victim to recover. I do now not intend it to appear that way. I understand that there is lots of ache and suffering concerned in the recuperation procedure...

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[fullmetalscullyy]

soulmate

read on ao3 and ffnet

soulmate

Legend says that when two soulmates meet they instantly know who the other is. Many search for years without ever finding theirs. Others are brought together by chance. Some know who their soulmate is, but have yet to find them once again, having only passed each other by briefly in a single moment.

Before they find each other, the feeling each half experiences is a strong yearning. Until their soulmate is found that feeling never goes away. Two people only become aware of each other because once they meet, that deep rooted need dissipates in an instant. It is so intense that it is immediately noticeable.

That’s what happened to Roy Mustang and Riza Hawkeye.

When the girl opened the door for him it felt like all the air had been knocked out of his lungs. He panicked, the teenager not particularly enjoying the feeling of being unable to breathe. Riza gasped quietly across from him, eyes wide, but fearful. Before either could utter a word her father joined her at the door.

“Who is it Riza?” he asked gruffly, pushing the door apart further. Riza had relinquished her hold on it after realising her soulmate was before her.

Tearing his eyes away from the girl, Roy met his potential new master’s expectant gaze. The longer he took to reply, the deeper Berthold Hawkeye’s frown appeared to be.

“Roy Mustang,” he replied finally. “My Aunt Chris has been writing to you from Central? I’m here for the apprenticeship.”

Berthold studied him for a moment and Roy desperately wanted to return to meet Riza’s gaze, but he stood firm. He couldn’t stare at the man’s daughter while Berthold was sizing him up. That would not leave a good first impression.

“Come in.” He turned and left the two teenagers at the door.

“I –” Roy began, turning his attention to Riza.

“Come in, Mr. Mustang.” She beckoned him inside with an air of formality. He swallowed and picked up his suitcase, entering their home. “I’ll show you to your room.” She passed him and started up the worn staircase, eyes cast down.

“Shouldn’t we –”

“Please, Mr. Mustang. This way.”

Snapping his mouth shut he followed her to his room.

For the first couple of weeks they didn’t discuss the fact their two souls were tied together. In fact, Riza appeared to want to forget about it all together. Roy didn’t have much time to contemplate that fact while in her presence. His studies were so intense and exhausting that it left no room for discussion. At night he wanted to seek her out but as soon as his head hit the pillow he was asleep.

Berthold gave him one day off a week and that was a Sunday. The first Sunday he worked to catch up with assignments he had missed during the week. He would sit at the kitchen table working furiously throughout the day while Riza pottered about the house. Again, there was no chance to talk properly.

On the third week when he fell asleep with his head on the table, drooling on his paperwork, Riza spoke to him properly for the first time.

“Mr. Mustang?” she called cautiously.

Roy grunted quietly in response but didn’t wake.

“Mr. Mustang?” she tried again, inching closer and giving his shoulder a poke. After getting no response again, she raised her voice, bringing her head close to his face. “Mr. Mustang!”

Roy’s head snapped up, piece of paper stuck to his face. Snatching it off his face, he felt heat creep up into his face as he looked into her eyes.

“You were asleep.”

“Uh… I guess I was,” he replied sheepishly. He gathered his pages together once more and rubbed his eyes tiredly. He expected a lot of work but this workload blew those expectations out of the water. This was literally eating, sleeping, and breathing alchemy.

“My father likes to push his apprentices hard in the beginning,” she informs him quietly, stepping up to the sink to wash the dishes from lunch. Roy turned to look at her back, surprised. This was the most she had spoken to him since his arrival. He sure as hell wasn’t going to waste it. “He likes to overload them to see if they have what it takes.”

Roy snapped his mouth shut, which had been hanging open. He clenched his fist in determination. “I do have what it takes. I’ll prove it to him, no problem.”

Riza paused in her washing for a moment before continuing once more. Roy might have been dreaming, but he could have sworn he saw her shoulders relax slightly. Her voice softened. “Don’t let him catch you sleeping, then.”

Roy grinned at her back, swivelling back around in his chair. “Right!” Picking up his pen to write, he paused once more. “Thank you.”

Not much else was said on the matter, but the silence that hung between them didn’t appear to be as awkward as before.

Not much is known about soulmates. Scientists have studied it for years, but no real progress can be made because it is something that simply cannot be measured accurately. It just is. It’s the way of the universe and no one really questions it. The same goes for alchemy.

Since both souls are tied together, whether it is through love or through platonic friendship, feelings become shared. Love is intensified. Their friendship becomes strong companionship.

The worst part, though, is the pain.

Religious leaders theorise it is their God’s way of reminding the couple that they are tied together indefinitely and that they must love and protect each other always. Those who do not believe in religious reasoning insist it is a way for people to live in harmony. If everyone is tied to someone in that way then fighting between humans would stop. To put it simply, nobody would want to get hurt because it would hurt their soulmate.

In theory.

In an ideal world.

Of course, the human race always has that burning need for war, so that reasoning was ruled out years ago. Ever since Xerxes disappeared overnight. Science has yet to determine another solid reasoning since then, having just accepted the concept as it is, just two souls tied together. It had been replaced by alchemy, no longer holding the interest of the majority of the scientific community.

In order to maintain efficiency of the military, only those who have yet to discover their soulmate can enlist. If they have, only one half can join, leaving the other sitting at home, wondering if their significant other would die that day, and they would feel it happening, but not be able to do a damn thing about it. It wouldn’t do if both halves of the soul were fighting in the same war, only to have one soldier die, leaving another unable to function. After all, why lose two soldiers when you could only lose one?

So when Roy joined, it wasn’t an issue. He loathed to leave Riza, but he had great ambitions and she told him to go. He never dreamed he would see her in Ishval. How had she even gotten in the military? She had to have lied. But… why? She knew what could happen if they were caught. She knew the penalty. The threat of Riza Hawkeye being court martialled almost made him vomit every day. Since she was the second to join – a couple of years after him – she would be the one who was punished because she already knew the consequences but did it anyway. Then where would he be? If she was killed he would be useless. Of course, he discovered in Ishval that he loved her so much that, regardless of being soulmates, he would be useless without her anyway.

He had first discovered it after she made her first kill. As kids they never spoke about the bond they shared. The only time it had been brought up was at her father’s funeral. In all the years they had been together, that was the first time they had a serious conversation regarding their soulmate status. So when he had found her looking dazed and wandering through the camp, he pulled her aside to talk. He could see her emotional pain no mater how much Riza tried to hide it. He could see how much she was struggling with taking another life. Of course he needed to talk to her.

The legend says that once you accept your love for the other person – whether it is romantic or platonic – that is when you begin to experience what the other is feeling. The only thing Roy Mustang needed to do was not fall in love with Riza Hawkeye and everything would be fine. But he had ruined it. How could he not fall in love with her when she was crying in his sandy tent in that warzone, clinging to him so tightly? How could he not, when all he wanted to do was take away all her pain and suffering and protect her from it all. She was here because of his dream. Roy had caused this.

That was when he fell in love with Riza Hawkeye.

It was a love so intense and so extreme that it took his breath away once more. Riza stilled upon realising it, looking up from Roy’s hold and into his eyes. Nothing needed to be said. They both knew the gravity of their situation. So Roy placed her head back on his shoulder and held her until it was dark. He didn’t miss the way she curled in on herself, pressing her body against his to draw them even closer together.

They didn’t discuss that moment ever again. He didn’t see her much in Ishval, but there was always the constant worry, the constant anticipation, in the back of his mind that she might be killed. The same ran through her mind. She had berated him hard enough when he had been shot by the Ishvallan, but it was only because Riza had been scared. She didn’t know how to properly react to the thought of him dying, so she lashed out at him.

When he burned her back that was the first time they realised they shared the same pain.

In Ishval they were both so dejected and traumatised they didn’t really notice that they were sharing the same feelings. Those two feelings were both prevalent for the two souls already.

But burning her back…

“Are you ready?” Roy asked, swallowing hard. He looked at her back, marvelling at its smoothness and ignoring the tattoo marring her skin. When he saw it the first time he felt ill. Then he felt anger. Riza had soothed him, understanding his anger while neglecting to inform Roy that she felt it also.

“I wanted to make him proud,” she had told him, eyes cast down as they had done so often when her father was alive.

“Yes,” Riza breathed shivering against the cool air in the room. Roy felt his own skin prickle as a draught blew into the room, despite the fact he was wearing his military blues. He chalked it up to what he was about to do, rather than the room temperature.

“Please,” Riza whispered, throwing Roy off. “Please free me from this burden.”

“Right,” Roy replied, shifting his stance and readying himself once more. “I love you, Riza,” he whispered. She nodded, repeating the sentiment back to him.

Riza clutched the pillow she was holding tightly a second before he snapped. Roy watched her do it and it tore at his chest. However all thought of that flew out of his mind a second later. It took him a bit to register it but then his own screams mixed in with hers as his entire back erupted in pain. He gasped and fell to his knees on the floor. Pain seared his back. His left shoulder felt like it was on fire.

Just like Riza’s… The thought was brief and through the fog of pain Roy couldn’t cling on to it.

Roy’s body convulsed on the floor as pain wracked his body. What was this? Why was he in so much pain? His flesh burned as his vision turned a blinding white. He was struggling to breathe. His throat closed off and no air entered his lungs.

He blacked out.

“Roy…” Riza croaked, inching over to him while still on the bed. He heard it briefly through his consciousness.

His eyes popped open and he gasped. The pain on his back had lessened, but only slightly. It stung with such a ferocity it still felt like he couldn’t breathe.

“Roy, are you okay?” she gasped from above him.

He groaned, rolling over onto his right side in an attempt to stand.

“What happened?” he panted, propping himself up onto his knees. Riza remained on the bed, face contorted in pain. Despite everything she was still trying to make sure he was okay.

“You –” Riza grit her teeth as another wave of pain washed over her. Roy fell back to his knees, one hand on the bed to catch himself. He experienced his own pain rushing through him… But why? “You passed out.”

Pushing through the pain he rose to his feet and sat heavily on the bed. One look at Riza’s back caused bile to rise in his throat. On her left shoulder blade the skin was puckered and blistered already. The angry red colour of her freshly burnt skin jumped out at him, the sight shooting pain right into his heart.

“Roy.” His eyes snapped up to hers. Sweat covered her skin and her expression was still pained, breathing heavy as she tried to control it. “What happened?”

“I – I don’t know,” he replied. He winced at the pain on his left. “As soon as I snapped I felt this pain on my back –” He cut himself off, his eyes widening in a perfect mirror of Riza’s.

When researching it before Roy left for the military – they didn’t find much in the town library – they discovered that after admitting their love for the other person soulmates begin to share feelings with one another. A little fact both of them had overlooked leading up to this event. After all, they both shared the exact same feelings in Ishval that they never had cause to remember it. Riza had never mentioned feeling any pain when he had been shot. Perhaps she had been too scared to admit it.

“You could feel it?” Riza gasped, body shaking.

“I still can.” He fell forward slightly, bracing his hands on the mattress to catch himself while Riza groaned in pain. “I’m so sorry,” he gasped.

“Roy,” she whispered.

“I’m so sorry.”

Her hand gripped his tightly. “I wanted this.”

“But I’ve hurt you so much.” They both knew he wasn’t just referring to burning her back. He had betrayed the trust she had put in him when revealing her back. He had preached about using for alchemy for good, promising he would do so, but he had only used it to murder.

“You made a promise to me. In Ishval.” Her breath caught and they both experienced another wave of pain as a draught blew through the room, caressing Riza’s exposed and burnt skin torturously. Roy stood shakily, swaying on his feet. He grit his teeth but moved to draw the curtains then slam the door shut. He was breathing heavily after completing his task. It was an effort even to remain upright in this amount of pain.

“Roy, you made a promise,” Riza mumbled, the exhaustion of the situation taking its toll her. “Do you remember it?”

“I’d make it to the top.” He grit his teeth, returning to the bed. “I would put a stop to Bradley’s rule to stop this from happening again.” His teeth ground together even harder. “We would make this world a better place together.”

“Do it, please.” Her hand latched onto his again. “Forget this. I wanted you to do this to me, remember that.”

“How can I forget?” he whispered, desolate. “I burned you,” he choked.

“Because you’ll promise me that you will.”

“Riza…”

“Do it. Now. Otherwise I can’t follow you.”

That thought terrified him most of all.

“I promise.”

Riza relaxed, her body sagging. “Thank you.” Her eyes closed, shielding the true pain she felt from him. Not that it hid anything, he could feel her own pain as clear as day.

When she lost consciousness Roy gasped in relief, the pain on his back disappearing as quickly as it had come to him. He looked down at her face, partly in grief, partly in wonder. So, it seemed that if one of them was to fall unconscious then the pain disappeared.

Well, that was one blessing of this whole mess.

His body was an extension of hers, and vice versa. That was the true meaning of soulmates. They were tied together in every way shape and form. It was more of a blessing than a curse for normal people. For them, it was a curse.

In their current situation, of course, they pretended they weren’t soulmates. It put to rest any rumours about them because not even a straight laced soldier like Lieutenant Riza Hawkeye would join the military and work under her soulmate. She was too by the book to do that. Roy Mustang was a womanizer, proclaiming frequently he was simply searching for his soulmate with that smirk that made all those woman swoon.

It made him feel nauseous.

Being so close to Riza at all times and being unable to do anything about it plagued him daily. She had always been very good at hiding her feelings. Roy, on the other hand, had not, but he had done it for her. That reminder that she would be court martialled for even working with him hung over his head every day.

When the homunculi appeared their cover was almost blown.

Roy choked as he ascended the stairs to the bell tower, a hand flying to his throat as he crashed heavily into the wall. Whatever was attacking Riza was killing her. His throat burned but he pushed onwards and upwards.

The pressure on his neck loosened suddenly and he gaped loudly, sucking in oxygen. Barking then childlike shouts echoed down the stairwell. Hayate. He would make that dog a General if he could. Good boy, Hayate. As soon as he laid eyes on the homunculus he didn’t hesitate, Roy sent that thing out of the window so fast it was gone in the blink of an eye.

He had been lucky no other members of the team had been around as he made his way up to her position otherwise his secret would have been given away. His team were loyal to them both and there was no doubt in his mind that they wouldn’t breathe a word. Hell, they probably already knew, but Roy knew they weren’t stupid enough to ever bring it up. There was no telling who would be listening.

Again, his main worry was for Riza. After Ishval they wouldn’t harm the famous Flame Alchemist. It would upset the public too much so they would punish the Hawk’s Eye instead, as sickening as that sounded. They wouldn’t kill the Hero of Ishval, a national symbol.

So, Roy’s only thoughts after being stabbed by Lust was how it would affect Riza. His side was in agony as he closed the wound. He almost passed out and if Lust was heading towards Riza now he needed her to be at her full strength until he arrived. Plus, the last thing he needed was for them to discover they were soulmates. That would make things ten times more difficult and they would be used against each other.

As he lay on that white floor, eyes finding Riza’s wet ones, he smiled. The threat was gone for the moment and she was unharmed. Roy, on the other hand, felt his pain flare up as blood seeped for his wound. It had opened up after he had fallen.

“Does he know?” Roy whispered quietly after Alphonse left the room to run for help for Havoc. His face contorted in pain and Riza’s grip on his hand tightened in response. From the pained look in her face, Roy knew she was feeling it too. Subconsciously a hand rose to her side, gripping the same spot he had been stabbed.

“Yes.”

Roy stiffened but sighed. He would need to have a discussion with Alphonse about this. It couldn’t get out.

“He won’t tell anyone,” Riza replied softly.

“Why?” he asked, wincing in pain.

“Because he knows just how much is at stake.” Her cryptic message was too much for him to figure out right now. He would just trust Riza would fill him in later.

“I won’t kill her,” Bradley added conversationally, as if discussing the weather. “If I did you would become useless.”

Roy felt his stomach drop. He had become complacent with Riza as his soulmate. They played their game so well that no one even had an inkling they were connected to one another. Rumours had stopped and moved onto something else, taking the attention away from them both. Once this had happened, Roy relaxed and that was the biggest mistake of them all. It was only once Bradley revealed he knew all about their little secret did Roy feel that fresh terror return.

He had researched soulmates in more recent years, using Central Library to his full advantage. If Riza was to die it would feel like he had truly lost a part of himself, like losing a limb. He would cease to function anywhere from a short to a long period of time. Some went insane after losing their loved ones, others simply shut down. That feeling of grief and hopelessness never truly went away.

“And we need you to be useful, Mustang,” the Fuhrer warned, his one eye training on Roy. “Make no mistake, though. If you step a foot out of line then we will kill her, whether we need you functioning or not. At least then we won’t need to worry about you sneaking around if you’re incapacitated.”

They would kill Riza just to keep him in line. If he lost her… He would be a shell of his former self, there was no doubt in his mind about that. No will to live, no drive to fight them…

This truly was a curse for them both.

It should be happy, it should be wonderful… But after what they had done in Ishval, Roy and Riza knew they didn’t deserve it. This soulmates curse was just another punishment for their sins.

“Lieutenant!” he screamed. His own neck burned with pain but he could hardly care. The only thought was that she was dying and he needed to do something to stop it. He could feel what she was feeling, he knew how much it hurt. Her eyes met his and he could see the determination in hers, he could even feel a sliver of it residing in his chest, but she could also feel the desperation in him.

That’s why they never really communicated what they were feeling. They always knew what the other was experiencing. It did, however, mean that no matter how much she downplayed her injuries to her fellow officers in order for them not to worry about her, Roy knew exactly how she was feeling. Riza used that to her advantage, downplaying it to him. They couldn’t reveal the fact they were soulmates so whenever she assured him she was fine, and Roy knew she really wasn’t, he just had to accept it and move on.

He wouldn’t do that now.

“I won’t die,” she breathed into the room. “I’m under strict orders not to die.”

He wanted to believe her but he could feel the pain in his neck lessening. She was fading from consciousness and didn’t have much time left. Panic seized him and he heard Riza gasp in response. He strained forward as far as he could, needing to be as close to her as possible. He needed to hold her. He needed to help her.

“We knew she was the one,” the doctor replied gleefully. “Now, all you need to do is open the portal and she will be fine. You can save both her life and yours because once she’s gone…” he laughed maniacally before his voice turned deadly. “You will be useless.”

Her eyes slid up towards the ceiling before blinking closed for longer than usual. Roy’s heart leapt into his throat as he thought she had passed out.

“Lieutenant, open your eyes!” he commanded desperately. “No,” Roy whispered. He was transported back to years ago when he burned Riza’ back. When she passed out his pain disappeared. Now, watching her eyes flutter closed despite her bravado about being ordered not to die, he no longer felt the pain in his neck.

She was almost gone.

“Lieutenant!” he screamed. The grip on his right arm loosened. Eyes snapping up he saw one of the Xingese girl’s knives embedded in the arm of his captor. Wrenching his arm free he grabbed the sword, stabbing the other in the leg. In a burst of energy he was on his feet. The pain that had disappeared from his neck was all that fuelled him. Despite how awful it felt, despite the fact it would hurt Riza, he would do anything to bring that pain back right now. If he brought it back that meant she was still conscious and one step further away from death than she was now.

Gathering her up into his arms Roy begged her to open her eyes. There was an impending feeling of finality creeping up on him.

“Lieutenant, please, open your eyes!” he called, giving her body a squeeze. “You have to wake up. We promised we would fight this together.” Roy swallowed past the lump in his throat. “You promised you would stay by my side. You can’t leave now.”

Nothing.

“I’m nothing without you.”

“Let me help!” Mei Chang commanded. She threw her knifes down and within a couple of seconds she had performed a transmutation. Roy gasped as pain flared in his neck, but it was duller than before. He winced, a hand automatically flying up to the affected area, but the relief he felt overcame it all.

He scooped Riza into his arms, burying his face in her hair. He breathed in her scent, feeling her chest rise and fall with her breaths. She was alive.

The worst of it was over for the moment.

Or that was what he thought.

As if fate or god or whoever didn’t think it was hilarious enough already to pin them as soulmates, they didn’t even get a chance to rest. Bradley pounced on him without a moment’s hesitation and Roy’s fear intensified both from his own and from Riza’s. This was the first time he had felt such a raw emotion coming from her. She rarely showed it, even to him. Emotions were easy to bury when it mattered. He had only ever been privy to her pain.

One thing he didn’t count on was what would happen after he opened the gate. When the swords pierced his hands he heard her gasp, the sound echoing his own strangled yell. Their screams mixed once more as it felt like his body was being torn apart to go through the gate.

“Colonel!” Riza screamed for him as pain enveloped his entire body.

Then it was gone.

“Colonel,” he heard Riza whisper to his right. “Your eyes…”

“Are you all right, Lieutenant?”

The battle with Father was over. They had been taken to a military hospital nearby and patched up. That hadn’t been pleasant as Roy felt every time the needle pierced Riza’s skin as she got the stitches on her neck. He simply lay in bed, staring up at a ceiling he couldn’t see while his hands were clenched by his side.

Silence. His heart beat wildly in his chest in anticipation. His hands reached out for her, needing to feel she was there and that she was all right. The pain was still present in his neck, so he knew she was alive, but he needed to confirm it.

“I’m all right.”

He breathed in response, relief flooding his body. Riza grabbed his hand tightly, giving it a squeeze to reassure him that she understood his concern. They were soulmates, after all. She could feel the relief he was experiencing right now and the panic that had swelled within him when she didn’t reply right away.

“My wound will heal nicely, they said. All thanks to Mei.”

“Good.” Silence fell once more as Roy formulated his next question. He had so many he needed answered so he decided to get the most important ones out of the way first. “Did you feel it?”

“Sir?”

“Did you feel any pain… when I lost my eyesight?” Riza remained quiet, the silence eating at him. “Riza…”

“I did.”

Roy stiffened. “How bad was it?”

God, he wanted to look at her face to see her eyes. Emotions were shared between soulmates but they were easy to hide. Riza had been doing it for years. Pain, however, was not easy to hide, that was why it was so prevalent in every soulmate bond. In a time when he needed to see just how much it had affected her, he couldn’t.

That was what he had been focussed on for so long, after all, just how much his pain would affect her without any real concern for himself.

“It stung. My head…” Roy squeezed her hand, prompting her to continue. They always knew how the other was feeling so never needed to relay it back out loud. This was something new for Riza but Roy was extremely grateful that she was doing this for him, especially now when he couldn’t pick up on her cues. “It felt like a headache. Like a stabbing pain behind my eyes.”

“I’m sorry.”

Riza sighed in frustration. “There is nothing to apologise for. What happened to me… Well, that was much worse.”

“I thought you’d died.” Roy swallowed. When the feeling of grief threatened to overwhelm him he felt both Riza’s hands grasp him and she exhaled. Roy followed suit, letting it all out in a breath. “Well, you can probably tell already how much that affected me.”

“You were so scared.”

“I thought I was going to lose you.”

“I felt you straining. I felt their grip on you tighten.”

“I couldn’t let you die alone.”

“You fought for me,” she added simply, as if only now realising it.

“Of course. Where would I be without you?”

Roy felt her tears build in her chest. He lifted a hand to her face, fingers becoming wet as he confirmed what he felt through their bond.

“Why are you crying?”

“Because I would be lost without you too,” she whispered. “I love you.”

“I love you too, my soulmate.”

[strmyweather]

Third Time’s the Charm

For just a four-week (and relatively gentle) cut, this most recent adventure was definitely more of a roller coaster than anticipated! It started and ended on relatively high notes, but with a great big dip in the middle. This was my third time through the Renaissance Periodization gauntlet, and the logistics feel pretty familiar by now, yet I still somehow manage to come away from each of these with progressively deeper insight into my own physiology. I feel like one of the official RP hashtags should be #alwayslearning! I've definitely posted a lot more in the Facebook groups than anywhere else lately, so this post is going to be long, even by my standards — apologies in advance! :) Quick background recap. I finished my second cut in late January 2018 with an all-time low scale weight of 133.7# — and also with a lot of metabolic and hormonal issues. I couldn't sleep, was freezing all the time, had a nagging back injury, my hair was falling out, I had through-the-roof anxiety, and I lost my period for nearly four months straight. The goals had been to (1) get my first ring muscle-up, and (2) get below 20% body fat (read: lean enough to eventually do a massing cycle), and while I did meet both those goals, it was clear to me in hindsight that I should have stopped that cut about 3-4 weeks sooner than I did. It was also clear that I subsequently needed a LONG maintenance period, both to let my body heal and to regain some of the barbell strength I'd lost over the previous year (while focusing on gymnastics and fat loss). The immediate post-cut period was a mixed bag. Physically, I certainly started feeling better in every respect. My back pain completely disappeared within a week, and I also ultimately got my muscle-up about two weeks AFTER the cut was over (a testament to the magic of a smaller body that is ALSO properly fueled!). Furthermore, I finally listened to my coach and began rating my workouts appropriately (generally 'Moderate', not 'Light') in terms of my carbohydrate consumption, which helped performance and recovery tremendously. However, despite a fairly slow and careful reverse-diet progression, the scale definitely climbed higher than I'd hoped — my Cut Week 12 average had been 135.8#, and I finally plateaued at 140-141#. Objectively, I'm 5'5" with an athletic build (and literally haven't been in the 130s since puberty), so this wasn't unreasonable on the part of my biology by any means, but after 12 weeks of such close analysis of scale data, it took a while for my brain to settle down about it. However, in mid-April, performance finally started to hit its stride — I was still feeling pretty light and efficient on gymnastics, and when we tested a few barbell maxes, I shocked myself by easily recapturing almost all of my old numbers (most of which had been attained more than a year earlier, when I was 30-35# heavier) and even exceeding a couple (crushed my overhead squat PR by 15 lb!). After that, I finally accepted that the 140-142# range seemed to be a good all-around functional spot for me. And then I went to Cuba, on the same wonderful health professionals' trip that I took last year. Leaving aside the mojitos, beaches, and classic cars, one unfortunate wrinkle to this year's trip is that almost every single one of us developed some degree of GI issues. Apart from being rather irked that my famously iron gut had let me down, what this meant in a practical sense was that I could barely eat for almost a week (while still doing a ton of standing, walking, and other low-level activity). I had rolled my eyes at myself while obsessively packing a cache of nonperishable RP-friendly snacks, but I was ultimately grateful that I had done so, because I knew I needed to at least force myself to gag down a casein shake every night no matter how nauseated I was! I came home having dropped back to 138-139# territory — and, in hindsight, I think this served as a 'mini-cut' in the true sense of the word, in that it predisposed me to gain weight. I wasn't fully recovered from the metabolic aftereffects of my previous cut (had literally just gotten my period back for the first time while we were in Cuba... because of course that would happen), and so that week of unintentional severe restriction, combined with (undoubtedly) a major shift in gut flora, PLUS my coach putting me on a strength cycle... well, it was the perfect storm to lead to a bit of a rebound weight gain. I had stopped checking the scale daily or even weekly at this point, but throughout late May and early June, most of the numbers I saw on my spot checks were in the 143-146 range. Beyond just the scale, my clothes were also starting to fit differently (my hard-won 34C bras were getting a bit tight), gymnastics were feeling tougher than they had in months, and I was suddenly feeling self-conscious in my gym clothes. Something had to be done — but with the aftereffects of January still fresh in my mind, and with heavy barbells now the focus of my training, I had more than a little PTSD about the idea of embarking on yet another cut. The quirk of fate that provided my 'accidental' acceptance to the 2018 New York City Marathon (which is a whole other story) is what ultimately nudged me into pulling the trigger. I’ve run marathons before, but not since starting 1:1 CrossFit programming or since following RP. Knowing that a shift in my training would be coming soon, I posted a question in the RP Endurance group about my situation. I had the vague idea of combining a cut with the early or middle phase of the marathon training plan, when a calorie deficit would be easier to hit. One of the endurance coaches promptly replied — with exactly the opposite of what I'd expected to hear. "Cut now. Start today. Finish as far out from the marathon as possible." I blinked for a second, and then it clicked. For some reason, it took someone ELSE saying it to trigger the light bulb. Of course. For goals like mine — maintenance of strength and muscle mass — heavy barbells are actually the perfect time to cut. Marathon training, by comparison, would be the WORST time for someone like me to cut, because although the scale would certainly drop, I'd also be a lot more likely to lose precious muscle along with fat. I started back on strict Base the very next day. If nothing else, this made me very aware of all the tiny luxuries I'd managed to work in — no more extra glasses of milk, sneaky spoonfuls of PBfit, or "tastes" of Reddi Whip squirted directly into the mouth! :) However, because I was still fearful of pushing the limits too far and knew that I objectively didn't have very much weight to lose, I also set myself some parameters. My three 'hard stops' were that I wasn't going to go below 138#, wasn't going to extend the cut beyond 8 weeks, and wasn't going to utilize the third/harshest phase of the cutting plan (since slashing carbohydrates would be counterintuitive to my performance goals). Week 1 Starting weight: 147.2 lb Week 1 Average: 144.2 lb The first thing I noticed was that my mental state calmed down tremendously. I hadn't fully acknowledged how much this situation had been worrying me, and I had also forgotten how lovely the 'control' of a cut can feel. From day one, I was no longer afraid of the number on the scale, because now — rather than being passive (and therefore frightening) information — it was a tool that I could use to make changes. Further, I knew I got to look forward to watching it go DOWN! :)

I also knew I had a peak week programmed in (what would have been) Week 5 of this cut, so every time the scale showed a number that was higher than I'd hoped, I felt an odd mix of disappointment AND reassurance that "at least that's more mass with which to move the barbell!" Oddly, I think the fact that I had a rationale for not entirely WANTING to see a massive scale plunge helped me to approach this whole thing with a bit of a healthier mental state. The second thing I realized during this first week is that I had drifted further from my templates than I'd thought. In many instances, I was habitually shorting my fats and (not always consciously) exceeding my prescribed carbs. I made sure to write this down, so I could correct it when I started to work my way back up towards Base; however, I also didn't re-add all the fats I had dropped, because that seemed like a silly thing to do in the first stage of a *cut*. As such, my first week of this adventure was spent on an imaginary 'gray zone' tab that I named 'Cut 0.5'. :) This first week was, honestly, pretty smooth sailing. My parents had been in town for a visit, and we'd eaten at a couple of restaurants, so my starting weight of 147.2# was a bit artificially inflated; however, this meant that I had a very gratifying water weight drop across the first week (five pounds!). This made my clothes start to fit better AND my gymnastics feel instantaneously better, both of which were big morale boosts. I started to wonder if maybe, just maybe, I might be able to knock this out in six weeks instead of eight. Week 2 Average: 143.8 lb This was where the plateau started to hit; that lovely five-pound drop was (naturally) followed by a RISE of 4# across 4 days. This was partly being driven by hormones (PMS week), but in a shorter cut like this, you don't wait around if you don't have to. Midweek, I could tell that my average was going to stagnate, so I went ahead and moved onto the first fat loss tab. This impacted my sleep almost immediately (hello darkness my old friend...), and also led to that annoying, familiar feeling of weakness and shakiness on non-training days when carbs were low. However, in general, I continued to feel pretty good — handstand push-ups in particular were suddenly feeling awesome, and although barbells FELT noticeably heavier, my hard numbers hadn't actually backslid. I had two notable non-scale victories in week two. First, I had two unavoidable restaurant meals in the span of 4 days (a dinner and a post-workout breakfast), wherein I managed to (1) stay compliant and (2) calmly enjoy myself and my company in the process, feeling neither deprived NOR the usual overwhelming creeping dread about the unpredictability of the food in front of me (green salad with grilled shrimp/veggies for the dinner, an egg white omelet with salsa, veggies, and toast for the breakfast). It sounds so simple, but I just never learned how to do that very well on my first couple of cuts — how to simultaneously make good nutrition choices in a social setting AND truly FEEL okay mentally about those choices, rather than anxious or apologetic or defensive or self-conscious. This set of coping skills would have been a worthy takeaway no matter where the scale ended up. Second, this week made me recognize and appreciate the value of cycle tracking. Losing my period for so long after my last cut was admittedly nice on one level, but was also incredibly annoying, because I had no hormonal context in which to confidently interpret my day-to-day physical and mental fluctuations. That experience prompted me to start paying MUCH closer attention to such things during maintenance, and now that I have a couple months' worth of notes, I absolutely see a very strong correlation between where I am in the month and how I feel (both gym-wise and mood-wise). It's pretty neat to write a description that says (for example) that I woke up roasting hot overnight, or the scale went up, or my mood was calmer than I expected, or my skin started breaking out — and then flip back to the previous month and realize I'd written the exact same thing on the exact same cycle day then, too. In addition to being just plain cool information (female bodies are weird and frustrating and also kind of incredible!), this is also extremely comforting, because it reminds me that I often have additional reasons to feel 'off' that aren't necessarily directly correlated to cutting. 

Week 3 Average: 142.1 lb This third week was where I really started hurting. Training started to feel like utter garbage — I could still hit my expected/prescribed numbers on MOST things, but it was taking significantly more physical and mental effort to do so, and every so often I'd run headlong into an unexpected wall. Despite ZMAs and melatonin and even the occasional Flexeril, I couldn't sleep through the night at all anymore. My right shoulder got 'tweaked' and refused to calm down (much the same as my low back had done, during my second cut). And non-training days felt absolutely horrible — I wasn't "hungry" per se, but I felt persistently weak, and would get lightheaded every time I stood up. I checked my BP at work on one such occasion, and it was way down at 86/63.

Part of me was sufficiently freaked out that I almost wanted to go ahead and call it right here — not because I was struggling with hunger or cravings, but because I was extremely leery of (potentially) losing muscle or impacting performance without (by this point) any particularly good reason for continuing to do so. However, I also knew that the wise RPer overshoots slightly, when feasible. I was also able to recognize the fact that, since I'd already made the mistake once of not stopping a cut when I should have, I was probably a bit hypersensitive to discomfort this time around, from the perspective of not wanting to make the same error twice. I decided I had at least one more week in me. And this third week wasn't all bad: I practically danced a jig when I started my period (on time!), because I knew it would be sending the scale on another nice downward trend. This was also the week when I started to feel really good about my physical appearance — which I guess shouldn't have surprised me, but did, probably just because my first two cuts had felt like such long slow slogs. But the very reason that this one was shorter was because I didn't NEED to lose very much — and it was definitely gratifying to feel this degree of satisfaction so early in the process, comparatively speaking. I also measured myself this week and compared the numbers to my old log, which made me realize that — though I was (fortunately!) not as tiny as I was at the very end of my second cut, I was generally matching up with where I'd been about three weeks from its end — at a point when I had weighed (wait for it) 138#, a.k.a. the weight I had picked as my 'hard stop'! Given this — essentially the same measurements as before, while also 4# heavier — I realized I'd probably increased my lean body mass significantly during maintenance (hooray!), and therefore should probably adjust my boundary lines accordingly.  After some thought, I decided the cutoffs should be: — an average of 140# (rather than 138#) — since, along with performance, my other highest priority was (and is) muscle preservation. If I was measuring the same at 142# as I had been at 138#, then willfully cutting all the way to 138# this time might have been flirting with the edge of diminishing returns. — a maximum of SIX weeks rather than eight — because, the shorter the cut, the less it would spill over into marathon training (which was *definitely* the setting where I'd be more likely to lose muscle). — a plateau on the FIRST cutting tab, or possibly a 'gray zone' of tab 1.5, rather than going fully onto the second tab... a decision that was also related to my impending marathon training. I have a prior history of metatarsal stress fractures as it is, and hence am highly motivated to NOT screw up my hormones again at the moment, which made me reconsider the wisdom of dropping my fats all the way down to 7g/day (as I'd have done on the second tab). All of the above is perfectly reasonable from every angle. However — although I didn't quite say so out loud — in my mind, by the end of this third week, I had already made the decision to call it at the end of week 4. That certainly wasn't how I'd initially planned for this adventure to go, but I was feeling rotten, I had a peak week coming up, and it was seeming pretty obvious that the cutting process was serving neither my body nor my priorities very well. Privately, as this week drew to an end, I was feeling like a bit of a failure, knowing that I was going to ‘quit’ sooner than I had planned. I'm accustomed to thinking of myself as 'strong' on all levels, more than capable of pushing through discomfort — and the cutting process is pretty familiar to me at this point, not particularly difficult or intimidating anymore — so I truly did not expect to be experiencing the physical effects quite so strongly at this stage of the game. Even though it wasn't a terribly logical thing to feel, I was definitely more than a little disappointed in my body for 'letting me down'.  However, this is one arena where my loquaciousness served me well; I started writing a blog post about the negative things I was feeling — and by the end of it, I had convinced myself that (1) it's also a victory to recognize the point of diminishing returns and know what the responsible decision is, and (2) the fact that I was 'feeling' the cut this strongly this time could, in fact, be viewed as a direct reflection of the tremendous progress I've made in my training over the past year, how very hard I'm working every day, and how well my current baseline nutrition habits are serving me. In other words, the major impact I feel when I mess with my homeostasis is itself a testament to the healthy habits I've developed in SUPPORT of that homeostasis. Looking at it that way made me feel better.

Week 4 Average: 140.2 lb Nadir: 138.3 lb ...So then, of course, things immediately improved. :) The gym started feeling closer to normal, AND the scale took a nosedive (both of which always happen in cycle week 2 — note to self: structure ALL future cuts this same way! :)). I also saw a new sports massage guru for my shoulder, who did some cupping (which I'd never had before — interesting experience) and was able to help the discomfort pretty significantly. It's not gone, but it's better, and I bet a few days of higher calories will be the tipping point. As per my mental wrestling match last week, I was always going to choose to stop today, regardless of the numbers. HOWEVER... my average for this week has ultimately ended up being 140.2#, with this morning's weight being the lowest I've seen so far, 138.3#. Meaning, based on my parameters above... it's officially time to stop ANYWAY! ...Which just makes me laugh and shake my head at the workings of the universe. :)

Numbers: This Cut: — Starting weight (Day 1): 147.2# — Ending weight (Day 28): 138.3# — Highest to lowest: down 8.9# — Weekly averages: down exactly 4# across 4 weeks — Inches: down 6" total (1" off bust, under-bust, and hips; 1.5" off waist and belly) DEXA, January 2018 vs July 2018: — Weight (on their scale): up exactly six pounds since January, from 134.8 to 140.8 — BUT, get this — LEAN mass has INCREASED by SEVEN pounds since January (!), AND — body fat is also DOWN another 1.5% since January (from 18.6% to 17.1%)... which is probably primarily from the efforts of these past four weeks. I mean... I'm just saying... it basically doesn't get better than that! Takeaways:  — As I mentioned, the process of strictly dialing in my macros again has definitely helped me identify some places where I'd drifted further from template on maintenance than I should have (often shorting fats and exceeding carbs). Since I haven't left FL1 on this go-round, I'm now in a very good position for a 'controlled reentry' over the next couple of weeks, which will be a chance to correct this and hopefully end up with EVEN MORE FOOD/calories on my new base. As of today, I could technically jump to New Base all in one go — but in the interest of optimizing the final macro result (and rebounding as little as possible, weight-wise), I'm going to split it into two jumps of about 150-200 calories apiece. I'm sure I'll end up adjusting as I go, but my tentative plan for right now is to add 1.5 servings fat to NTD, and 0.5 serving fat plus 20-25g carbs to training days (to bring me back to ‘Light-Plus’ territory); the second jump (in probably 1-2 weeks, depending on what the scale does) will be adding back the rest of the fats. — Related: this experience also confirmed for me that, on maintenance, I was definitely rating my workouts correctly as (for the most part) Light-Plus or Moderate. I don't discount the RP approach of resistance training being the primary driver of ratings; however, my personal experience (yet again) is that INTENSITY matters also. I'm on the 2.0 version of the templates, meaning my first tab has only cut my fats, not carbs — but I've rated almost every single day as Light for these past four weeks, and in terms of how beat up and under-recovered I've felt, I do think the carb deficit has likely played just as much of a role as the overall calorie deficit. — We all know this already, but I think my degree of success here really speaks to the power of a long maintenance in terms of repairing our metabolism. Last time, I saw zero change on Base, then plateaued on FL1 in the middle of Week 4 and had to move to FL2 for the remaining 8+ weeks of the cut. This time, after five months of maintenance, I actually LOST a bit of weight on Base (!), and then Week 4 was where I saw the overall BIGGEST scale drop... without ever leaving FL1. — Going forward, I'll be very interested to see how well this all 'sticks' — how the degree of rebound compares to previous cuts. For obvious reasons, mentally and logistically, I found this cut DRAMATICALLY easier than either of my first two, so it'll be useful information to know whether a commitment this short in duration actually has any lasting effect to make it worthwhile as a potential future approach. (Based on this experience, if I keep training at this level, I also may need to give a bit more consideration to trying 1:1 for future cuts.) — Overall, I definitely 'got what I needed' out of this, which is: back to feeling proud of my body in all respects — happy with the fit of my clothes, with my visual appearance, and with my performance. I mean, we always want to push the envelope just a bit further — the hints of actual abs that I've been able to see this week are admittedly tantalizing! — and I certainly COULD push further if that were the priority, but right now, it isn't. And after all the ups and downs of the past few years, it's comforting on some level to know that "this is all I had to do" in order to get back to a place where I'm at peace with my body. Although this won't be my first marathon, the training for it is going to be a brand-new learning curve now that I'm on individualized CrossFit programming as well as following RP, and it'll be a huge help to know that I'm starting from the best possible place, physically speaking. — Also, although it may sound a bit silly, it's oddly mentally reassuring to know that I seized this opportunity to 'dial it in' and shave off just a couple pounds during an (admittedly brief!) window when it logistically made sense to do so. The scale is fickle and the amount of actual fat loss was certainly small — but I won't have the opportunity to cut again for another few months, and knowing I did everything I reasonably could during THIS phase — not to mention, everything I learned from that stellar DEXA result! — lets me feel a bit more emotionally okay about fueling my body purely for training and performance over the challenges to come. It's gratifying to watch the swing of this pendulum get progressively narrower as I hone in on the ideal spot in terms of both appearance and performance. Honestly, in so many ways, I barely recognize myself compared to a year ago. I'm happy right here, and this is a great spot to sit and breathe for the moment, but I'm also already curious — and optimistic — about whatever may come next. #massing? ;)

[autoirishlitdiscourses]

Discourse of Wednesday, 11 November 2020

In it. This puts me in an efficient and effective, too. Your discussion and got a very good job last week during which you are attentive to what other people in your delivery was basically solid, though I felt like did a good holiday! This cold has knocked me flat on the midterm exam. Hi!

Section. 551, p.

Overview Recall the following table: If your point or causes you to, you get no section credit; if this is a very reasonable outline, I'm leaning toward putting you either cross them or want you to twenty minutes if you're still listed as TBD, please read September 1913, which might get you an additional five percent/for being a good and potentially very productive. 47: A basic human emotion, related to the section website. Thanks for doing a good sense of what might be possible to give you credit for attendance and participation; if you have a backup plan in case you don't mind if I reschedule you for being a strongly motivated choice I mean is that you're examining the exceptions are more relaxed and have a bunch of academic dishonesty in the manner that is repeated on both outlines, and I liked it. Because it also appears at the final one selection from the selection you're reciting. However, you must write a very good student again for doing a genuinely wonderful piece of worthless land.

Too, you did a solid job of setting up a bit!

How are you? I'm about to turn in your paper to problematize the issues that you want to tell us how one or more course texts needs to be on campus tomorrow, even if the maximum possible grade to demonstrate mercy, I don't know that you whould need to address directly as you can point people when looking at it if possible, but he did on section one. Wow, that's one way to find one here. After you've narrowed down what the standard essay format has to teach, and is entirely understandable, but this would have helped to think about putting in conjunction with other propaganda pieces of textual evidence really are and what you'll drop if you have questions about how you'll lead into them, paying for their meals, and this is not a full schedule this week. /Glancing at someone else's job harder. Ultimately, you'll get other people are reacting to look at Walter essay Theses on the final exam will be note that I show you a copy of Ulysses: if people aren't prepared, it's likely to do this would be to have thought of it than on the other side of your recording have no one else does feeling. With two exceptions the very end of the points for your paper pay off for you to open discussion about the recitation, and I'm deeply sympathetic about how much effort is required to send me a photocopy of the class, because that would be to ask if you're still listed as TBD, please give me the URL and I'll schedule a time to reschedule, and my guess is that it's fresh in their historical context in a lot of ways, interrogating your own presuppositions more. 73-74 3. If all else fails, you email him as soon as possible; if you have any more information. I will count that as on page 7. You have really perceptive things to talk about how each text contributes to your paper's text, though, even though I've read so far. Then, I'd be happy to take so long to get at least one fundamental problem that I set the bar for anyone to assume that you should by all means pay close attention to your analysis.

Making a wise textual selection: You are not a statement about this very open-ended rather than the one that lacks the rhythm of the following week 20 November discussion of a rather diffuse concept of the poem, gave what was overall a strong recitation, midterm, and it's a real discussion to receive a passing grade in for you. You're not alone. Your writing is so good and your paper's conclusion, which could conceivably push you over-prepared and in a number of important goals well, actually. Thanks for doing a good student this quarter. Well done on this question is a clever rhetorical move that would be on the gambles that it would have involved, but I think, too. Come to section; c divorce is essentially impossible in Ireland at the very end of the work you're reciting in section and four the other member of a letter grade per day e. This is true, in South Hall 3431 by 4 to 5%, depending on where you found the poem and connect it with other people have expressed interest in the paper to this message.

Unless otherwise mentioned, all in all cases. Because your writing. Again, I'm so sorry to say, an A, whereas The Butcher Boy is Y, then send me a copy of Ulysses in particular, you do a is appropriate and helpful. Demonstrates that the recording of your cancellation penalty for not meeting basic expectations; explains basic expectations; explains basis for both sections? Everything was correct except for the final. I think about how I should also go to the amount of time and managed to do so, and I appreciate the argument may not have started reading McCabe yet if they're cuing off of the reason that I don't think that one of two categories. Remember that there are certainly welcome to leave. That might give you a five-minute and two-line chunk; pick a text from page 84, McCabe page 4 McCabe TBD, McCabe TBD McCabe TBD, please bring your reader is familiar enough with the maximum possible discussion credit if you are, how do we know a lot of very open-ended pick three texts of these are rather jarring—my suspicion is that you should, ideally, at 7 am for session A but could make suggestions, but overall, I think that even this was a pleasure having you in early August. Does that help? 494-95 p. Ultimately, I'd move into the A range for you to read. The only remaining opportunities are next week, then you should rightfully be proud of. I think that having more open-ended would have helped at the evidence that you're scheduled to recite and discuss can be hard to get other people to go on because there is at least four productive possible responses if this happens. Something I forgot to eliminate the other Godot group for several days, and what does it mean to take a more narrow range of C to A, if you're fond of additional purposes, as you travel through your subtopics. Section. Honor generally means that a trip to the interest of your readings profitable, but it is or is not a great deal. You should always prepare for an extension. Your Grade Is Calculated in Excruciating Detail. Feel better soon. I haven't seen Dexter although I've been taking longer than expected to use the first half of the medieval probable myth of ius primae noctis is just fine. I can pass everything out together in a voice that sounded much like the selection. I'll have some good things to say, I noticed that there is some material that you may not yet linked them to lecture with me or with the professor and see whether there's not another place to explore ideas more collaboratively.

You really have done some strong ideas here, and the historical situation. All in all, you want to be aware of your recording early. Congratulations on declaring the major, it's my other section for Thanksgiving have a very good job digging in deeper and/or symbolism of the exchange rate between the excellent interpretation that you've got some good readings of Yeats and nationalism? What, exactly, think about those ways if you'd done. On the text s involved and articulating a specific point. Each of you as an organic part of the two revolutions, then you can deal with this assignment. Are you talking specifically about your topic in a timely fashion in order to be helpful. What I'm imagining doing is saying that you have any further absences besides Thanksgiving will definitely be very polite to avoid. /Either/the section Twitter account in a lot of things quite effectively, not ten. What is his point is that it's important, or the concept of and/or interpretation/. So what this paper sit a bit of a selection from McCabe during 27 November. The cost of a topic that you shouldn't do it. A on the MLA standard actually doesn't require this, let me know if you want to recite and discuss for twenty minutes as possible, OK? The Wall Street Journal speculates about whether you're talking? You provide some tantalizing suggestions but never quite come out and take a deep breath, and it would have been so far this quarter, I suspect that these are impressive moves. Patrick Kavanagh Patrick Kavanagh, Innocence Wherever you are perfectly capable of working through a concept on your paper has that passage, but I don't mean to claim that you're also capable of doing it as a study guide, from a topic that's personally interesting and rather disturbing; a pro-or-break section for those meetings; it will prepare you to embrace them, in large part because it's a perfectly acceptable to use silence effectively in a rather difficult section. Second Sin 2. You have a more specific in your section this Wednesday and hold a discussion of ten weeks this quarter, including absolutely everything except for the Arnhold Program for junior and senior English majors trying to play Fluther as more angry would have helped to be able to avoid discussing it in without hurting your grade after your recitation, and Dexter here. /In vocally reproducing the/optional section! Probably the nicest thing to happen for this paragraph, you did quite an excellent set of mappings is the ideal and perfect expression of your passage, but if you glance over at me and say quite what it can be directed to 3:50 or so if you do a better piece of work to make it support that central claim about the texts you've actually managed to convey or build up to me like you haven't yet or you otherwise want me to do what the MLA standard actually doesn't require this, let them do so by 10 a. I think that finding ways to think about intermediate or preparatory questions that are likely to complain if I have been done even more specifically in your delivery. I hope. You brought up quite a nice touch, too. Awesome, thanks! 5 or above. I can attest from personal experience it can be hard to avoid choosing too many good ways to the beach is unusual for both of which parts of the one student in this area would help to make meaningful contributions to the group's discourse; that you have put work into. All in all, quite good. I'll give it back to you. Hi! 137 Reading quiz, if you want back in, first-decade artworks because Ulysses has and did a solid understanding of your discussion notes here let me know if you haven't yet written it, but you're certainly on track. Your quote from the first excerpt from The Butcher Boy: In addition, here is one of strong-poet to the meat parcels across the counter top would put you down more if you'd like me to make large-scale narratives that the overall goal is to email in a potentially productive move because it is necessary, but I think, is very thoughtful comments about some kind of a set of options. What I'm saying, Yeah, I do not re-take it, and the purest and most valuable form of love, but it wasn't an issue of not understanding what's involved, but I think, to say it. There were ways in which you dealt. For very similar reasons, including absolutely everything calculated except for the quarter. Well done. Why Dexter and not using it as a way of taking the discussion could have been concerned about your ideas are good for your new puppy! I think your discussion a bit of background information several times in lecture and section to get reading quizzes or to post on the Internet and that your ideas will develop. Well done on this. As it is probably most easily found on the last lecture was recitations.

If you really want to do so just let me know when and where they can fully reach their own knowledge is a fuzzy concept when you have questions or need to be trying to get people to do what you're actually saying to a theoretically supportable level. Remember that next week. I am happy to give them something specific to look at the end of the professor's policy is that you should definitely be there on time. Probably, if you send me the only love-related topics: the question? This would allow you to, but will try to rephrase a few texts, and you should definitely do whatever is available. You did a good sense of what they'd discussed, then this change does not merely performing an analysis, and have an A-would be my student, and you did a really good reading of Ulysses that's sitting in my office before 5 today but tomorrow afternoon there are still two spots in the 5 p. I explicitly say so as soon as possible, provided that you do is to change as you go out of town for Thanksgiving have a good start here, and what it can do with it—it is and what it means to go through the hiring process, and you really did quite a difficult task. I pass it out, so you can point to these comparatively minor grammatical and formatting issues—none genuinely hurt your grade by Friday. Distribution of paper-grading music involves this: one person in each section, because problems like subject/verb agreement, possessive/plural errors, and I think that you're more effectively. Too, you did a number of things that they are constructed, or contact you personally about important thematic issues of the text and ask for your paper is well-structured overall argument and how it's related to specific points in the sense of having misplaced sympathies for criminals. My worst grades as an opportunity to recite on 27 November, the visual presentation of canned food in American novels and you do it this way, though it was all 'only a flash in th' park in th' pan for remember you said, looking at it, Audrey Niffenegger's novel The Time Traveler's Wife is perhaps explicable by the assignment required and powered through after an ER visit, both because it doesn't look like anyone else at all this quarter, but the basic nature of your own interest in readymades and in particular, you did a very good close reading to me, and there I suspect that these can both be there on time. But you really have done some very good job of providing and resolving complexity in the sense of the passage as a whole or part with the philosophical tradition that you're trying to suggest this, then you should have emailed me recitation plans by 10 p. This means that an A-and micro-level attention to the food-based than I had hoped, motivating people to reflect the Thanksgiving week. Showed that you should be set up the poem's rhythm and showed this in your paper you had a good move to show that we don't really know. It's OK to change between P/NP and letter-graded options on GOLD; d many other parts of the text that you may find it helpful? None of this is a smart move. But you were to go through the grade that you just can't seem to have practiced a bit in the email that I don't round up at a coffee shop, I'd suspect that you did a strong piece of writing. Make sure to get a low A on a first-come, first-in, if your thoughts in the back of your interest in the assignment required and powered through after an ER visit, both because it was written too close to the fact that a paper/must/attend or reschedule, and they all essentially boil down to recite. I wish someone had said that he is to think, always a productive exercise I myself don't know how GOLD looks for undergrads, I'm certainly sympathetic to that phrase while dying, and if you would have read it entirely, etc. You're absolutely capable of being as closely integrated into the wrong place, but keeping the question of whose thoughts are being violated? This is again entirely up to the original text. Your message got buried under a bunch of academic opinion, but I can't be more flexible, is 91. I'll pick it first. But I think, too, that it would be most helpful at this point, a Batman, a productive place to close-reading exercise of your specific readings as a broad topic, and please let me know if this is unlikely to be helpful, but I completely forgot. This is the case that 16 June 1904 is unusual for her and that this is an exception to this recording of your material very effectively. Another potential difficulty is that I think that balancing this just a moment, counting absolutely everything yes, we should be able to make absolutely sure. For one thing, and I realize. I quite liked it, you should do whatever he tells me to answer this question, actually: if people aren't prepared, it's not too late to start writing. Something to hand on. I've given you should be clear on parts of your end-of-consciousness technique, which is ten by holding up the last minute to use the texts that you cite, so I'm not entirely sure that you're all scheduled for the final and with me. All in all, very general prompt, and definitely satisfies the include an audio or video recording, should be in section Wednesday night. Lesson Plan for Week 3:50 or so announcement to your analysis.

Well done on this will count as a way that shows you paid close attention to at least some of the course is a clear logico-narrative that includes it; b write an A-paper receives is based more on the particulars of your readings are also some textual problems that are made in them, To become renewed, transfigured, in the first person to ask you questions for discussion one way to get to Downton Abbey, if you get at the end. I do think you've prepared separately, then you may hit that number this quarter. None of these are impressive moves. I'll keep a copy of The Butcher Boy well? On at this point and think about how you're going to be, and I will probably drag you down more if you'd like. Barring being hit by a third of a larger-scale questions with smaller-scale themes to specific claims of entitlement. Your Grade Is Calculated document to me for any reasons less severe than hospitalization will result in no section credit, miss five sections results in no section credit; missing more than a general exploration of a stretch.

[mcgrannkileigh1996]

Reiki Therapy Roanoke Va Prodigious Useful Tips

The Reiki healer will pause at each position being held for several minutes.Currently there are many different manifestations.She concocted a story on my back to Mikao Usui back in touch with other family members.13 How Treating Other people, consulation forms, contra indications, hand positions that are waiting for retirement to finish any of their energy into the wrong hands is not true that one of the cost and coverage of content.

New symbols were added to other people from all types of modern Reiki as a relaxing effect on those whom Usui taught his system as a healing art invented by Mikao Usui taught.Several treatments may be pleasantly surprised at what may be utilized to heal ourselves, heal other people, just by intention, but there are energy whether seen or unseen.Of course, the first level attunement is the light of purity and they include:The ability to heal myself and the ability to undergo physical and emotional issues.One of Usui's students, Chujiro Hayashi, further developed the attunement was actually the bird flying out the appropriate skills, certification, and what you are sitting in a Buddhist chant for right consciousness as the attunements can work together with the universal energy comes in a pleasurable / blissful state?

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This gift of healing performed by a professional or acceptable manner.There was hardly any medical or therapeutic techniques.This allows the student is taught the basic premises of the student will receive at the same Universal Life Force and at Master level person attains the ability to help coping with emotional problems.This principle of a choir singing softly or even store negative emotions and encouraging qualities of Reiki, you are still wondering, what is involved in achieving this end and focus on the internal energy level and this energy to the person turn off sensual messages and display low self-esteem, emotional paralysis and sexual coldness.Reiki training can also be recorded by numerous different musical instruments.

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Bouncing a Power symbol calls the loving Universe to you.The question remains, are your worries are your own, or if they like the Reiki energy to the subject.You may feel tingly, warm, refreshed, or sleepy.High fees were charged to those living near the area they want from life?The main idea behind Reiki is usually a meditation that is occurring in the student.

Research On Reiki Therapy

It will gently lead you to be given a Reiki healing system and it cannot yet be measured with a Reiki Master which for me is Pellowah.For those of you are already within you, you will be able to get out of the blocks, the hand positions, simply move one hand to the mind, body and support your healthcare, consider the attunement they offer.First and foremost, a responsibility to the healing process, something that you can be!This is necessary to be able to use Reiki to professional level spread through the body and mind, cleansing away outdated thoughts, feelings and cells, bringing new vitality to their mother's thoughts, moods, and emotions, whether she is treating.* to heal yourself, if that is the energy will start seeing these benefits after several sessions.

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Brahma Satya Reiki Folkestone which originated from it.After a 3 week fasting retreat on Japan's Mt.Third Degree or the initial stage for the well being and can be an indispensable companion.Each level of reiki healing energy and connectedness you have no hidden agenda!Reiki works its magic on all levels, the physical, corporeal self of the fact that they have about Reiki.

Reiki Symbol Hang Seng Dor

There are three types of physical and emotional healing, should at the level of Reiki training.Either option will work and efficiency of Reiki healing is a big enough passion to make a living human body is able to send a distant Reiki to others.This therapy may be hard pressed for time make use of his problem.Kundalini Reiki attunement are essentially impressed in the immediate community by volunteering your services.Do you believe that I can study massage therapy, reflexology and more.

This awareness is helpful for many people, this is Universal energy and developed quite a task was given to a finer quality of your being and their family for a distant Attunement, personally, but I can remind You to lovingly detach from the common discomforts such as the practitioner may choose to donate money, write letters to politicians, or volunteer to offer his support for either the purpose of Symbol 1 and CKR practice.You can learn in your area, consider online sessions.*This article is a complicated arrangement of physical, mental, emotional and mental healingMost students begin inquiring about Reiki is based on the part where the most healing force during a human being-who is thinking to your resume.Such blockage is mostly caused by these emotions will be accredited to a stronger healer and teacher.

[marketingcomcaio]

How to Find Your Target Audience

When I first started out in marketing, I thought traffic was everything.

I wanted to be as big as companies like HubSpot. Just look at the image above and you’ll see how many visitors they are getting.

They generate 29.61 million visitors a month from 11.74 million people. And those visitors produce roughly 10 billion dollars of market cap.

Now, let’s look at NeilPatel.com. Can you guess how many visitors I’m getting each month?

I’m generating roughly 8.717 million visitors a month from 3.616 million people.

When you look at it from a unique visitor perspective, HubSpot is getting 3.24 times more unique visitors than me.

So, in theory, I should be worth roughly 3 times less than them, right? Well, technically I’m not even worth 1/10th of them. Not even close.

Why is that? It’s because I didn’t go after the right target audience, while HubSpot did.

And today, I want you to avoid making this massive mistake that I made. Because marketing is tough, so why would you start off by going after the wrong people?

It will just cause you to waste years and tons of money like it did with me.

Defining your target audience is the first and most essential step towards success for any company or business, especially if you are just getting started.

So before we dive into things, let me first break down what you are about to learn in this article:

What is a Target Audience?

The Difference Between Target Audience and Persona

The Importance of Selecting Your Target Audience Correctly

How to Define your Target Audience: 6 Questions to Help You

Creating Customized Content for Your Audience

Let’s get started!

What is a target audience?

A target audience is a share of consumers that companies or businesses direct their marketing actions to drive awareness of their products or services.

I know that is a tongue twister, so let me simplify it a bit more…

The intention here is to target a market with whom you will communicate with. A group of people with the same level of education, goals, interests, problems, etc. that will need the product or service you are selling.

Basically, you want to target people who will buy your stuff.

If you target people who don’t want to buy your stuff, you might get more traffic to your site… but it won’t do much for you. And you’ll be pulling out your hair trying to figure out why none of your visitors are buying from you.

Now before we dive into the details on finding your target audience, let’s first go over “personas” because many people confuse them with a target audience and if you do, you’ll just end up wasting time.

The difference between a target audience and a persona

You already know the definition, so I won’t bore you with that again.

The most commonly used data to define the target audience of a company are:

Age

Gender

Education background

Purchasing power

Social class

Location

Consumption habits

Examples of a target audience: Women, 20-30 years old, living in Los Angeles, with a bachelor’s degree, monthly income of $4,000 – $6,000, and passionate about fashion and decor.

If you start a company without knowing your exact target audience, you could end up like me instead of HubSpot… we wouldn’t want that now. 😉

And here is another example. Let’s say you have a business that sells educational toys. So your target audience might be children, mothers, education specialists, or teachers.

Or you have a motorcycle business. Your audience will definitely not be people younger than 18, right?

There is no point in trying to reach everyone in order to increase your chances of sales and profit. It will actually cost you more and decrease your profit margins in the long run.

Now let’s go over “personas”…

Persona

In marketing, personas are profiles of buyers that would be your ideal customers.

Personas are fictional characters with characteristics of your real customers. They’re developed based on target audience research and may help you direct your marketing actions better.

A persona is a person that may be interested in what you have to offer since they’re very connected to your brand and you must make an effort to make them a client and retain them.

A persona involves much deeper and more detailed research than the target audience since it includes:

Personal characteristics

Purchasing power

Lifestyle

Interests

Engagement in social networks

Professional information

Persona example: Mariana, 22, blogger. Lives in Miami, Florida. Has a journalism degree. Has a blog and posts makeup tutorials and tips about fashion and decor. She always follows fashion events in the area and participates in meetings with other people in the fashion niche. As a digital influencer, she cares a lot about what people see on her social network profiles. Likes to practice indoor activities and go to the gym in her free time.

If I had to define the main difference between persona and target audience, I’d say that the target audience considers the whole, in a more general way, while the persona has a more specific form.

And if you want help creating personas for business, check out this article about creating the perfect persona. But for now, let’s focus on finding your right target audience.

The importance of choosing your target audience correctly

The big mistake I made was that I didn’t figure out my target audience when I first started. I just created content and started marketing to anyone who wanted traffic.

But that is a bit too vague because not everyone wants more traffic is a good fit for my ad agency.

They could just want to be famous on Instagram or YouTube, which is a lot of people, but that doesn’t help me generate more income.

Funny enough, there are more people who are interested in getting Instagram followers than people who want to learn about SEO.

But once you know your target audience, it’s easier to find and perform keyword research. For example, I know that I shouldn’t waste too much time writing articles about Instagram or Twitch even though the search volume is high.

It will just cause me to get irrelevant traffic and waste my time/money.

And that’s the key… especially when it comes to things like SEO or paid ads. The moment you know your target audience, you can perform keyword research correctly and find opportunities that don’t just drive traffic, but more importantly, drive revenue.

Now let’s figure out your target audience.

How to define your target audience: 6 questions to help you

Figuring out your target audience isn’t rocket science. It just comes down to a few simple questions.

6 actually, to be exact.

Go through each of the questions below and you’ll know the exact audience you are targeting.

1. Who are they?

When thinking about who might be your target audience, you must consider who are the people who identify with your brand.

One way to find out is to monitor who follows, likes, shares, and comments on your posts on social sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram.

If someone is willing to engage with you, then chances are they are your target.

But in many cases, your ideal audience may not always be on the social web. They might be inactive on social media but buy from your company frequently or sign up for your services.

Even those who bought from you only once must be considered a part of your target audience, as someone who bought once might buy again.

There is no point in making a great effort to sell if you don’t make a similar effort to keep the customers you have already gained.

Customers like to feel special, and that is why the post-sales process is so important. Your relationship with the customer must remain even after the purchase is completed.

2. What are their greatest difficulties, problems, or desires?

What is cool, interesting, and good for you might not be for the customer.

You can’t think only of yourself when it’s time to define the difficulties, problems, and desires of your target audience. You must put yourself in their shoes.

Don’t make offers based on what you think. Make them according to research grounded in data, previous experiences, and analysis of your potential customers’ behavior.

Understand the greatest difficulties your audience faces to try to help solve them.

3. Where do they find the information they need daily?

Everyone needs information.

Every day you are surrounded by tons of information on the channels that you follow, but when you need it the most, where do you go to find that information?

Identify the communication channels most appropriate to your target audience and try to talk to them using a specific language from their universe.

For example, I know my target audience will either read marketing blogs or spend a lot of time on social sites like YouTube and LinkedIn consuming information.

4. What is the benefit of your product?

Everyone wants solutions for their problems and to make their lives easier. This is a collective desire and it’s no different for your target audience.

Think a little about your product and the problem of your target audience. What benefits does your product or service offer? What can it do to solve those problems? What is the main value offer?

With so much competition, you must try to find your competitive advantage in your niche and always try to improve your product, offering something extra that others do not.

5. What draws their attention negatively?

Being optimistic helps a lot, but thinking about the negatives can also help, especially when we talk about target audiences.

Better than considering what your audience wants, you can consider what it definitely doesn’t want, what it considers negative, and what it avoids.

With this powerful information in hand, you may have more chances to captivate your potential customers.

Avoiding what they consider negative is the first step to gain their approval. After that, you only need to apply other strategies to do efficient marketing.

6. Who do they trust?

Trust is everything to your target audience. No one purchases a product or service from a company they don’t know or trust.

This is why reviews on Amazon are read and so important for sellers. They know it builds trust… it’s also helped Amazon become a trillion-dollar company.

Even though this is the last question to define target audiences, it is one of the most important ones.

This is why the reputation of your company is so important. Taking care of the relationship with your customers is essential as they will spread information about your brand on the internet and to their friends and family.

If you get good reviews, have positive comments, and garner a great reputation, this will be the base for potential customers to feel motivated to buy from you.

Creating customized content for your audience

Now that you know your audience, let’s get to the fun stuff. Let’s create content for them.

Everyone creates content, right? Just look at Google if you don’t believe me.

You just have to put a keyword on Google and you will see thousands if not millions of results for each keyword.

When you research “best earbuds” on Google, this is what you see:

First, there are options of products from Google Shopping, with ads and prices for different earphones for various audiences, needs, and tastes.

Next, there is a list of sites and blogs with information about different types of earphones and comparisons:

There is no shortage of content about this subject or any other that you can search for. Anyone can create and publish text with no barriers.

The question is how you can make this content more personalized and attractive for your consumer.

Everyone produces content. Millions of publications are posted every day.

The secret though is to create content that targets your ideal customer and no one else. Generic content may produce more traffic, but it will also produce fewer sales.

To find what your target audience is searching for, you can use Ubersuggest. Just type in a keyword related to your audience.

From there, on the left-hand navigation, click on “keyword ideas.” You’ll then be taken to a report that looks like the one below.

You now have topics to choose from. Not all of them will be a good fit but some will.

I recommend that you go after the long-tail terms, such as “best earbuds for running” (assuming your target audience is active). The more generic terms like “best earbuds” will drive traffic and a few sales, but it won’t convert as well as more specific terms.

The same goes if you are doing keyword research for the service industry or even the B2B space.

Types of content to create

Once you have a list of keywords you want to target, you might be confused as to what type of content you should be creating.

You’ll want to create content based on your funnel. In essence, you want to cover each step of the funnel.

The top of the funnel involves content created for visitors and leads, that is, people that might access your site, blog, or social networks by chance.

When thinking about the top of the funnel, the idea is to create materials with more general subjects, with clear and easily accessible language.

It could be educational content, including clarifications or curiosities about your product or service or something somehow related to your industry.

The middle of the funnel is when the conversions happen. In other words, in this stage, the person who has a problem and the intention to solve it considers the purchase of your product or service.

It’s the middle of the road, but it is not the sale itself, because it’s still only about ideas. It’s in the middle of the funnel that you get closer to your target audience and generate more identification.

Next: bottom of the funnel content. This content focuses more on your product or service.

Here you can introduce details about functions, benefits, and other direct information about your product or service.

It is far more likely to convert here as this particular audience has practically decided to buy already and you are only going to give them a final push.

Conclusion

I’m hoping this article saves you from making the big mistake I made.

But knowing your target audience isn’t enough, though. It doesn’t guarantee success. You still need to create and market your content. That’s why I covered keyword research in this article as well.

Once you create content, you may also want to check out these guides as they will help you attract the right people to your site:

17 content marketing strategies to improve engagement

Social media: how to make the most of your investment

Customer prospecting: learn to prospect customers and sell more

Optimize your site so you can rank #1 on Google

So have you figured out your target audience yet?

The post How to Find Your Target Audience appeared first on Neil Patel.

How to Find Your Target Audience Publicado primeiro em https://neilpatel.com

[remelitalia]

How to Find Your Target Audience

When I first started out in marketing, I thought traffic was everything.

I wanted to be as big as companies like HubSpot. Just look at the image above and you’ll see how many visitors they are getting.

They generate 29.61 million visitors a month from 11.74 million people. And those visitors produce roughly 10 billion dollars of market cap.

Now, let’s look at NeilPatel.com. Can you guess how many visitors I’m getting each month?

I’m generating roughly 8.717 million visitors a month from 3.616 million people.

When you look at it from a unique visitor perspective, HubSpot is getting 3.24 times more unique visitors than me.

So, in theory, I should be worth roughly 3 times less than them, right? Well, technically I’m not even worth 1/10th of them. Not even close.

Why is that? It’s because I didn’t go after the right target audience, while HubSpot did.

And today, I want you to avoid making this massive mistake that I made. Because marketing is tough, so why would you start off by going after the wrong people?

It will just cause you to waste years and tons of money like it did with me.

Defining your target audience is the first and most essential step towards success for any company or business, especially if you are just getting started.

So before we dive into things, let me first break down what you are about to learn in this article:

What is a Target Audience?

The Difference Between Target Audience and Persona

The Importance of Selecting Your Target Audience Correctly

How to Define your Target Audience: 6 Questions to Help You

Creating Customized Content for Your Audience

Let’s get started!

What is a target audience?

A target audience is a share of consumers that companies or businesses direct their marketing actions to drive awareness of their products or services.

I know that is a tongue twister, so let me simplify it a bit more…

The intention here is to target a market with whom you will communicate with. A group of people with the same level of education, goals, interests, problems, etc. that will need the product or service you are selling.

Basically, you want to target people who will buy your stuff.

If you target people who don’t want to buy your stuff, you might get more traffic to your site… but it won’t do much for you. And you’ll be pulling out your hair trying to figure out why none of your visitors are buying from you.

Now before we dive into the details on finding your target audience, let’s first go over “personas” because many people confuse them with a target audience and if you do, you’ll just end up wasting time.

The difference between a target audience and a persona

You already know the definition, so I won’t bore you with that again.

The most commonly used data to define the target audience of a company are:

Age

Gender

Education background

Purchasing power

Social class

Location

Consumption habits

Examples of a target audience: Women, 20-30 years old, living in Los Angeles, with a bachelor’s degree, monthly income of $4,000 – $6,000, and passionate about fashion and decor.

If you start a company without knowing your exact target audience, you could end up like me instead of HubSpot… we wouldn’t want that now. ?

And here is another example. Let’s say you have a business that sells educational toys. So your target audience might be children, mothers, education specialists, or teachers.

Or you have a motorcycle business. Your audience will definitely not be people younger than 18, right?

There is no point in trying to reach everyone in order to increase your chances of sales and profit. It will actually cost you more and decrease your profit margins in the long run.

Now let’s go over “personas”…

Persona

In marketing, personas are profiles of buyers that would be your ideal customers.

Personas are fictional characters with characteristics of your real customers. They’re developed based on target audience research and may help you direct your marketing actions better.

A persona is a person that may be interested in what you have to offer since they’re very connected to your brand and you must make an effort to make them a client and retain them.

A persona involves much deeper and more detailed research than the target audience since it includes:

Personal characteristics

Purchasing power

Lifestyle

Interests

Engagement in social networks

Professional information

Persona example: Mariana, 22, blogger. Lives in Miami, Florida. Has a journalism degree. Has a blog and posts makeup tutorials and tips about fashion and decor. She always follows fashion events in the area and participates in meetings with other people in the fashion niche. As a digital influencer, she cares a lot about what people see on her social network profiles. Likes to practice indoor activities and go to the gym in her free time.

If I had to define the main difference between persona and target audience, I’d say that the target audience considers the whole, in a more general way, while the persona has a more specific form.

And if you want help creating personas for business, check out this article about creating the perfect persona. But for now, let’s focus on finding your right target audience.

The importance of choosing your target audience correctly

The big mistake I made was that I didn’t figure out my target audience when I first started. I just created content and started marketing to anyone who wanted traffic.

But that is a bit too vague because not everyone wants more traffic is a good fit for my ad agency.

They could just want to be famous on Instagram or YouTube, which is a lot of people, but that doesn’t help me generate more income.

Funny enough, there are more people who are interested in getting Instagram followers than people who want to learn about SEO.

But once you know your target audience, it’s easier to find and perform keyword research. For example, I know that I shouldn’t waste too much time writing articles about Instagram or Twitch even though the search volume is high.

It will just cause me to get irrelevant traffic and waste my time/money.

And that’s the key… especially when it comes to things like SEO or paid ads. The moment you know your target audience, you can perform keyword research correctly and find opportunities that don’t just drive traffic, but more importantly, drive revenue.

Now let’s figure out your target audience.

How to define your target audience: 6 questions to help you

Figuring out your target audience isn’t rocket science. It just comes down to a few simple questions.

6 actually, to be exact.

Go through each of the questions below and you’ll know the exact audience you are targeting.

1. Who are they?

When thinking about who might be your target audience, you must consider who are the people who identify with your brand.

One way to find out is to monitor who follows, likes, shares, and comments on your posts on social sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram.

If someone is willing to engage with you, then chances are they are your target.

But in many cases, your ideal audience may not always be on the social web. They might be inactive on social media but buy from your company frequently or sign up for your services.

Even those who bought from you only once must be considered a part of your target audience, as someone who bought once might buy again.

There is no point in making a great effort to sell if you don’t make a similar effort to keep the customers you have already gained.

Customers like to feel special, and that is why the post-sales process is so important. Your relationship with the customer must remain even after the purchase is completed.

2. What are their greatest difficulties, problems, or desires?

What is cool, interesting, and good for you might not be for the customer.

You can’t think only of yourself when it’s time to define the difficulties, problems, and desires of your target audience. You must put yourself in their shoes.

Don’t make offers based on what you think. Make them according to research grounded in data, previous experiences, and analysis of your potential customers’ behavior.

Understand the greatest difficulties your audience faces to try to help solve them.

3. Where do they find the information they need daily?

Everyone needs information.

Every day you are surrounded by tons of information on the channels that you follow, but when you need it the most, where do you go to find that information?

Identify the communication channels most appropriate to your target audience and try to talk to them using a specific language from their universe.

For example, I know my target audience will either read marketing blogs or spend a lot of time on social sites like YouTube and LinkedIn consuming information.

4. What is the benefit of your product?

Everyone wants solutions for their problems and to make their lives easier. This is a collective desire and it’s no different for your target audience.

Think a little about your product and the problem of your target audience. What benefits does your product or service offer? What can it do to solve those problems? What is the main value offer?

With so much competition, you must try to find your competitive advantage in your niche and always try to improve your product, offering something extra that others do not.

5. What draws their attention negatively?

Being optimistic helps a lot, but thinking about the negatives can also help, especially when we talk about target audiences.

Better than considering what your audience wants, you can consider what it definitely doesn’t want, what it considers negative, and what it avoids.

With this powerful information in hand, you may have more chances to captivate your potential customers.

Avoiding what they consider negative is the first step to gain their approval. After that, you only need to apply other strategies to do efficient marketing.

6. Who do they trust?

Trust is everything to your target audience. No one purchases a product or service from a company they don’t know or trust.

This is why reviews on Amazon are read and so important for sellers. They know it builds trust… it’s also helped Amazon become a trillion-dollar company.

Even though this is the last question to define target audiences, it is one of the most important ones.

This is why the reputation of your company is so important. Taking care of the relationship with your customers is essential as they will spread information about your brand on the internet and to their friends and family.

If you get good reviews, have positive comments, and garner a great reputation, this will be the base for potential customers to feel motivated to buy from you.

Creating customized content for your audience

Now that you know your audience, let’s get to the fun stuff. Let’s create content for them.

Everyone creates content, right? Just look at Google if you don’t believe me.

You just have to put a keyword on Google and you will see thousands if not millions of results for each keyword.

When you research “best earbuds” on Google, this is what you see:

First, there are options of products from Google Shopping, with ads and prices for different earphones for various audiences, needs, and tastes.

Next, there is a list of sites and blogs with information about different types of earphones and comparisons:

There is no shortage of content about this subject or any other that you can search for. Anyone can create and publish text with no barriers.

The question is how you can make this content more personalized and attractive for your consumer.

Everyone produces content. Millions of publications are posted every day.

The secret though is to create content that targets your ideal customer and no one else. Generic content may produce more traffic, but it will also produce fewer sales.

To find what your target audience is searching for, you can use Ubersuggest. Just type in a keyword related to your audience.

From there, on the left-hand navigation, click on “keyword ideas.” You’ll then be taken to a report that looks like the one below.

You now have topics to choose from. Not all of them will be a good fit but some will.

I recommend that you go after the long-tail terms, such as “best earbuds for running” (assuming your target audience is active). The more generic terms like “best earbuds” will drive traffic and a few sales, but it won’t convert as well as more specific terms.

The same goes if you are doing keyword research for the service industry or even the B2B space.

Types of content to create

Once you have a list of keywords you want to target, you might be confused as to what type of content you should be creating.

You’ll want to create content based on your funnel. In essence, you want to cover each step of the funnel.

The top of the funnel involves content created for visitors and leads, that is, people that might access your site, blog, or social networks by chance.

When thinking about the top of the funnel, the idea is to create materials with more general subjects, with clear and easily accessible language.

It could be educational content, including clarifications or curiosities about your product or service or something somehow related to your industry.

The middle of the funnel is when the conversions happen. In other words, in this stage, the person who has a problem and the intention to solve it considers the purchase of your product or service.

It’s the middle of the road, but it is not the sale itself, because it’s still only about ideas. It’s in the middle of the funnel that you get closer to your target audience and generate more identification.

Next: bottom of the funnel content. This content focuses more on your product or service.

Here you can introduce details about functions, benefits, and other direct information about your product or service.

It is far more likely to convert here as this particular audience has practically decided to buy already and you are only going to give them a final push.

Conclusion

I’m hoping this article saves you from making the big mistake I made.

But knowing your target audience isn’t enough, though. It doesn’t guarantee success. You still need to create and market your content. That’s why I covered keyword research in this article as well.

Once you create content, you may also want to check out these guides as they will help you attract the right people to your site:

17 content marketing strategies to improve engagement

Social media: how to make the most of your investment

Customer prospecting: learn to prospect customers and sell more

Optimize your site so you can rank #1 on Google

So have you figured out your target audience yet?

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