#and the website is loading so slowly that it’s just not even worth it

[codgod]

what if i change my tango design. what if i de-twink him

[pandoraspurgatory]

seeing your hc of katsuki being into vanilla homemade porn has me dazy eyed 😵‍💫😵‍💫😵‍💫….. i’m so curious now if there were any specific porn creators you thought of when envisioning what he liked? or any who you think would fuck like katsuki? goodness… 😵‍💫

Turbulent

Truthfully I am not a porn watcher as I am a porn reader, so that question is far beyond my knowledge lol. Though I’ve written an in depth version of Katsuki watching porn, hope you enjoy<3

Katsuki Bakugo can’t get off on mainstream porn, though something changes when he finds a couples homemade video

Katsuki Bakugo likes vanilla porn, masturbation, cum, pretty vanilla here, mentions of facefucking + cuckholding, Denki and Mineta are bitchless

Katsuki never cared enough nor paid much attention to porn, stroking himself in his bedroom wasn’t worth the effort when he could spend his time training and honing his skills as a 3rd year student close to graduating.

Either it was that, or the fact that he just couldn’t cum from it.

He first gave it watching porn a go when Denki and Mineta spent the afternoon yapping about different genres of porn. He wasn’t an eavesdropper, though he listened in on the conversation, taking notes for a later date.

Bakugo only ever found himself rubbing one out when he woke up with a painful hard on, or got so worked up over some fantasy that he couldn’t get his dick back down.

That same night Katsuki sat infront of his laptop, legs open and pants discarded on the carpeted floor, a bottle of lotion splayed out on the bed next to him. He opened up the first website that appeared after typing ‘porn’ in his browser, incognito mode on of course, he had double checked. Hastily typing what he had overheard in the orange and black search bar.

‘Face fucking’

He grimaced as he clicked on the first video of some Internet whore with a fat cock stuffed down her throat. Mascara running down her face as she started her assault of sucking on the comically large dick. He could somewhat imagine himself doing it, though the drool and mess was a massive turnoff that made him feel sticky just watching it. Next

‘Cuckholding’

The moment it appeared on his screen after searching a lot made sense regarding Denki and Mineta. Of course they were into this shit, why the fuck did he even decide to listen on to those morons conversation. He was confident he could never be into this. Next

The next hour was filled off him stroking his half erect cock to mediocre videos with no luck. He’d even watched the top most recommended on the site, the drum beat before each video posing as a reminder that this wasn’t working. At this point it wasn’t even to get himself off, but rather to prove to himself he could find a video to do it for him.

None of this shit on his laptop could even remotely turn him on, there was no love or intimacy, just videos of devoid eyes and lacklustre movements that screamed ‘I want to get home and get my paycheck!’.

He hated to admit it, though he couldn’t ever imagine himself having a one night stand or watching these emotionless videos again. Despite his rough and calloused nature, he craved intimacy just as much as he craved to be the best in his class. Katsukis cock lay limp in his hand as he scrolls through the videos, more and more loading after each roll of the laptop mouse.

That was until a certain video caught his eye.

‘Our first video - couple homemade’ 12 views, posted 2 hours ago

He clicked on it, something felt different about this one. The thumbnail displaying what seemed to be a couple in their mid twenties, kissing in the frame of the video. The women had long black hair and sexy curves that made Katsukis dick twitch. The man she was with cupping her face gently with deep admiration for her in his eyes.

As the video slowly played out on his screen, he paid no mind to the humming background noise of their bedroom fan and the shitty resolution. What struck him was the way they kindly talked to each other, pressing small yet passionate kisses on each others faces, how their soft hands rubbed and stroked at one another with care and love.

Katsukis hand roughly gripped around his dick before he could even think to do it. Feeling himself desperately stroke faster each time the couple said sentences of care and sweet nothings to each other. Low moans he didn’t anticipate escaping his mouth as the man slowly inserted himself into the curvy brunette. He wasn’t even attracted to the couple in the video, though he couldn’t help but feel the coil in his stomach build as the intimacy of their love making displayed itself before him.

He wanted to be the one to do it, to bury his cock into his hypothetical girlfriend and dick her down with all the love in his heart. Apart of him felt weird for not being turned on by the professionally made studio porn instead of the homemade couple video with a total of 500 pixels. He tried not to think about it too hard, and focus on how hard his shaft throbbed in his hands.

He felt blissed out as he slowly edged himself, determined to cum at the same time as the couple, a desperately attempt at feeling included. Squeezing his tip harder every time pretty moans escaped their mouths, fuck he wanted to be in their position so badly.

“F-fuck babe… mmmnggg… gonna cum”

“That’s it, come for me pretty girl”

“Cum with me! I wanna feel you cum inside me”

Katsukis stomach felt hot, he was so turned on by the way they spoke to each other, the way they both quickened their movements desperate to make each other cum.

The moment the couple on the screen cried out in pleasure, Katsuki gave a few quick tugs, finishing himself off.

He gave out an embarrassingly loud groan as he released himself, ropes of his cum shooting onto his laptop screen. Panting as he laid back on his bed, he needs someone to do this with as soon as fucking possible

[cazzyf1]

The other day on my tiktok I created a simple post about how James Hunt is more than just the Playboy persona that is associated with him. This flew over someone's head who commented about how he was a Playboy. I responded explaining the point of the video but instead they doubled down saying that James didn't care about F1 only about partying.

So today I went through some of my books and gathered a load of quotes to show the James Hunt that most people do not know about, the one outside of the Playboy perception. I've posted it on tiktok but figured I'll upload it here as well so the true James Hunt can reach more people and slowly we can dismantle the reputation 'Rush' gave him ❤️

TW: Depression, unhealthy coping mechanisms/addictions

When you think of James Hunt you think of the 'playboy'. The guy who partied, drank lots, took drugs and slept with lots of women. Its true he did that, and a lot but to dismiss him as just that is wrong. He was a good driver, a person who tried his best, a kind man who cared for human & animal rights.

The next few slides I've compiled quotes from a few books and website to show what kind of person he actually was and what he went through in life and that less people will dismiss him as just a Playboy.

James Hunt's first marriage was rocky because James was already very involved in his addictions and he knew he didn't love Susy because he felt that he wasn't capable of love. But he felt responsible for her and wanted to look after her. Here is his own opinion from his book ->

"It was really THE problem. I thought that marriage was what I wanted and needed to give me a nice stable and quiet home life, but in fact it wasn't and the key mistake was mine. I really wanted to go racing on my own, and it wasn't much fun for Susy to sit at home and wait for me all that time. It was also a terrible hassle for her to come racing because race meetings were probably the most relaxing time in my schedule. The rest of the time you tend to be leaping on aeroplanes once a day and that made it even worse because it's bad enough organizing one person to get on an aeroplane. Organizing two gets to be twice as much hassle. It got to the point where it was a problem for Susy to come travelling and a hell of a deal for her to stay at home. It was making life miserable in the extreme for her and since I felt responsible for her it was making me miserable too. So we had agreed to split up and then Richard Burton came along and solved all the problems. We had had an immensely successful marriage because I learnt an awful lot about myself and life and I think Susy did too. We all ended up happy, anyway, which is more than can be said for a lot of marriages" - p14 Against All Odds

Much is said about James Hunt and the ladies he kept company, and without knowing anything about James you might assume the worst, but here's some quotes about what he was actually like with the ladies ->

"I don't usually have sex before a race because I am very definitely concentrating -I find that it is the communication between two people that makes it worth- while, and before a race I am pretty uncommunicative. However, if say I have an hour or so to spare before dinner on the night before a race then I can enjoy the physical release. But I will only do it with someone who is fully understanding" - p15 Against All Odds

"He was always attentive to his partners needs. Indeed much of his satisfaction came from giving pleasure. The only problem, some of them confessed, was that his desire to please often out-stripped their needs" - p264 James Hunt: The Biography

"I was sure he was gay, because he never made a move on me for so long" - p278 Jane Birbeck, long time partner, James Hunt: The Biography

"He missed the actual skirmish - he was inside getting drinks at the bar - but had to be forcibly restrained from going after the policeman who hit his girlfriend" - p284 James Hunt: The Biography

James Hunt had many affairs in his time, because he had become an addict to many things including women (more on this later) He was aware of his and it plagued James that he couldn't control it ->

"One evening she returned to their London home to find James in tears. He was tormented by feelings of guilt caused by his lust for other women. He confessed the full extent of his unfaithfulness, that it was unfair to her and that for her sake they couldn't remain a couple. It wasn't that he was bored with her, but that his desire for other women was insatiable and uncontrollable. He held Jane in his arms and they both wept" - p320

One thing that helped James in his life time was his love for animals especially his pet dog Oscar. Here are some quotes about his love for animals and how far he would go to help protect them ->

"I think in a way Oscar was the child James never had at that stage. He was a remarkable dog, no question, but James thought a lot about animals and their requirements and was very concerned about their needs. He gave Oscar the very best treatment and also was keenly intrested in the welfare of other dogs. He would look at a dog, wonder if it's owner was treating it well and bringing it up properly and if the dog was getting everything out of life that it could" - p281

"Before he came to know James better, the journalist Nigel Roebuck was pleasantly surprised by an incident involvinged stray dog. It was late in the evening after a Grand Prix and tha teams were packing up to leave when James, while talking to Roebuck, saw the dog wandering around the paddock, shiver-ing and obviously very hungry. Roebuck, also sensitive to the needs of an animal in distress, went with James to several of the team motorhomes where they got food and fed the dog. But that wasn't the end of it as far as James was concerned. He insisted that they should take the dog up to the race control centre.

Roebuck: 'He took the dog in there and would not leave until he was sure it would be looked after. James actually made this official sign a piece of paper saying he would take care of the dog and see that it was housed and properly cared for. I was very impressed with this. James was probably one of only a handful of people on this entire planet who would even give that sort of thing a second thought." - p281

"He also thought the wild animals residing on his estate should be left alone. If vermin had to be controlled it should be done in the most humane way possible, and he strongly dissaproved of blood sports. The very thought of fox hunting he found horrible and he vowed not to allow it on his property" - p308

James was also incredibly caring towards the young people in his life such as his sons and his younger siblings. Here’s an extract from his first GF about James and his siblings ->

".. the way he expressed his concern for the emotional youngest members of his family:

He really enjoyed looking after them, and just seeing the way the behaved with his little brothers and sisters you knew was instinctive in him. He was always going to be a good father.

One evening he invited her home where he was babysitting Jo Jo, Dave and Tim. When James had tucked them in he left Ping to read them a bedtime story. When Ping came downstairs James asked her if she had helped them say their prayers. When I said no, James said: "Right. You've missed out hugely there. Come on, we'd better go and do it." So they did. His attitude was that he was taught to do that by his parents and it simply had to be done.'

But he also practised what he preached, and he believed in the power of prayer. In the troubled years to come James would pray to God for strength and help, and he eventually passed on the bedtime prayer ritual to his own two boys, to whom he became completely devoted.

During his time with Ping he had talked about having children, and she thinks fatherhood earlier in his life would have prevented James from sinking into his period of decadence.

I felt so sorry for him then because I knew underneath it wasn't the real James doing this. I think he was trying to make life happy, the wrong way. If he had settled down earlier, had a more normal home life with children of his own when he was younger, one could have seen a totally different James.' - p26

James Hunt cared for human rights especially taking a stand against the Apartheids in South Africa. The Apartheids in short was a system of racial segregation. In protest most sports were not going to South Africa but Formula One still was, and James Hunt made it clear his thoughts

->

“We were once covering the South African Grand Prix during the days of apartheid. All of a sudden, and for no particular reason, he launched into an attack on apartheid.

“It was nothing to do with the Grand Prix, nor would it do British-South African relations any good. Our producer pushed a piece of paper across saying: ‘Talk about the race!’

“And then James blurted out on air: ‘Thank God we’re not actually there!”

But simply calling out Apartheid on the air wasn’t enough for Hunt. He sought to have his race commentaries blocked from being broadcast in South Africa, but was unsuccessful.

When that didn’t work, he instead — and secretly — gave financial support from his income as a race broadcaster to groups struggling to end Apartheid in South Africa."

"His deeply compassionate and loving nature was something that, unfortunately, wasn't adequately conveyed to the public, who only ever heard about the sensational side of James Hunt" - p282 John Watson

As mentioned earlier James Hunt was an addict. His playboy lifestyle was his addictions and this is all rooted back to the fact that James Hunt had depression which grew stronger and stronger. He relied on his additions to get rid of his depression which meant he kept doing more and more. Here are some quotes about his struggle with it and eventually how he overcame it ->

"At home James became increasingly introverted, uncommunicative and reclusive. He gave up golf and spent more and more of his time in the aviary tending his budgies. While the parties continued he would often leave the guests to Sarah and closet himself in the aviary for hours on end.

It became obvious that James was very troubled, but only Sarah and his closest friends knew the full extent of the anguish and despair James suffered during his bouts with what he called his 'dippers'.

Black dog' was the term Winston Churchill used for the recurring 'depressions which afflicted him throughout his life. Bubbles Horsley thinks James was 'born with a "black dog" on his shoulder. His racing pushed the "dog" away far enough so that it was no longer visible. But underneath that wonderful joie de vivre, the laughter and enjoying life, he was given to black moods. He was fearful of them and maybe it was that fear that drove him on. Perhaps without it he would never have been World Champion.

'And I think after the initial "honeymoon" of retirement from racing the black dog came and sat on his shoulder and wouldnt go away. So he became more fearful and sought distraction in various ways, through sex and drink and drugs and rock and roll, as it were." - p323

"At home Sarah watched her husband's condition worsen and desperately sought to help him. She thought his depressiond might partly be due to a chemical imbalance that James was born with, a theory that James explored himself. Then, too, to keep his dippers at bay he consumed too much alcohol and marijuana, both of which can temporarily bring relief but over the long term on have depressive effects.

Like others, Sarah felt that another reason for his 'dippers' might have been because he cut off his emotions early in his life and never learned how to open up to people, or to need them. He was essentially a lonely man and his inability to form close relationships made him despair. His depressions further deadened his feelings, and when he was unable to respond emotionally to marriage and children he grew progressively more despondent.

Sarah: 'He was at war with himself. His depressions became Intolerable and towards the end he stopped trying to fight them coming on because he knew they would take over for two days or week. His face would go black and he would take to his bed and stay there, even on Christmas Day. He'd gone to bed two days beforehand and we had Christmas stockings for the boys. I said, Come on, Beast, the boys are waiting." And he said, "Beast, i can't do it." And he was crying" - p333

"When James felt a "dipper" coming on he would go on two- or three-day benders, mostly drinking vodka. He would just keep going and going, which was always a bit terrifying, and after these deep, dark blank days he would suffer real self-loathing. He could forget his trouble with drink, but it always came back.

For many years trying to get rid of his depression was his major concern, which is why he got the budgerigars. He thought it would be such a huge amount of effort that it would distract him and they became an obsession rather than a hobby. He would sit in the aviary for hours, but he would come back still in the grip of gloom. And for a long time he was so down it was very hard to even converse with him." - p326

"He tried different treatments acupuncture, Chinese herbal medicine and looked into every possible theory. He went to different healers, therapists, psychologists, psychiatrists, psychoanalysts, the lot, to try and find the root of his depression. And in the end he cracked it" - p337

"He began to become more diet-conscious and to eat healthy foods. He also consumed information, in books and magazines, on overcoming addictions, and sought more professional help.

He knew he should stop smoking cigarettes and reduce his marijuana consumption, and he told some friends he thought he might be an alcoholic. He worried that his need for women was another form of addiction and feared he might contract AIDS and infect someone else.

John Hogan: 'So he stopped it all. Straightened himself out by absolute willpower. The strength of character of the man enabled him to get out of it. He cut out the cigarettes, the dope and drugs. the booze and the womanising and his sense of priorities became more well-balanced.' - p338

As he started healing himself of his addictions he became serious about F1 again. He always cared for the sport, doing everything he could to race when he was younger and now though he was retired he still commentated and took part in other ways to stay close to the sport ->

"James became serious about strengthening his position in the media side of Formula 1 racing. He took on an internationally syndicated newspaper column and spent many hours gathering information for it. Working with a journalist he applied himself conscientiously to making sure that every word was written to his satisfaction" - p338

James started to heal his relationships as well, becoming an amazing parent to his two boys and finally meeting a woman who helped him feel loved and be able to love after so long of not being able to ->

"The boys were real handfuls to look after but he was awfully good with them and he really fathered and mothered them extremely well. He was always up early in the morning cooking their breakfast and then the four of us would go off salmon fishing. James would fish properly and I would fool around fishing with the youngsters. And then in the evening we used to settle down and he would tell them stories." - p343

A letter James sent to his girlfriend Helen:

"I went to the parents' 50th in a totally negative frame of mind, feeling very much an outsider and wanting the floor to swallow me up. As the day went on, although I remained 'out- side', I could see and feel lots of generous, undemanding love around me. Something changed for me there with my family. Everyone was exuding love and I saw the wonder of it and want to be part of it, but firstly with you.

I realise now that the feeling of not being loved as a child made me close up to any incoming love projected onto me. I do see that I cannot live on without love. You brought it home to me when you pointed out how well I'm doing with the boys. Well I have had to work at that and I've got better at it and I have to do it with you. You are the girl of my dreams. Without you I have no future. I want to make you happy and continue to do so until I die.

All my love for the love of my life,

James"

- p350

Finally James was happy. He was healed from his addictions, in a healthy relationship, had two lovely sons and a job he loved. And best of all he was able to be open with Helen ->

"James confessed to Helen that he was unable to be faithful to anyone in the past because sex was for him just another addiction and he needed women to get his highs. He disliked social gatherings and only had parties or went to them to pick up women. Helen was willing to forgive and forget what went on before, but told him she wouldn't tolerate it in their relationship and he agreed to be faithful to her." - p350

Helen went away on a girls holiday before her and James were going to start trying for children. James proposed to her over the phone on the holiday to which she said yes. But she would never see her finance because he passed away from a heart attack. Unfortunately the previous life he lead caught up to him.

Thank you for reading all of this and I hope you now know more about James Hunt than you already did! It's sad that James is best known now for his unhealthy coping mechanisms for his depression, especially with the film 'Rush' romanticising it. But even if just one person reads all of this it means one more person knows the truth of James Hunt and that makes it worth it ❤️

[the-timewatcher]

A disgruntled Tumblrina (gender-neutral) made a website and why you should too.

Or "reject social media, return to personal websites".

PART 1: THE PART WHERE I CONVINCE YOU TO MOVE TO PERSONAL WEBSITES

So, the Web 2.0 social media infested landscape seems to be crumbling before our very eyes. Reddit's leadership is increasingly greedy, Twitter is sinking under the weight of Elon's massive, yet increasingly fragile ego, Tumblr is slowly turning into another lifeless corpo-fest, complete with the layout, Instagram continues to be vapid and soulless and Facebook seems to be going the way of MySpace.

(feel free to check the alt text on these, btw)

In these troubling times, where everything looks the same and you're expected to be milked for every dollar you're worth, what is a disgruntled Internet surfer such as yourself to do? Move to an untested alternative that's bound to get overrun by fascists thanks to poor moderation? Stay the course on the sinking ships you're used to?

Well, what if I told you that we've solved this problem way back in the 90's and early 2000's and were merely duped by the Big Zuck into forgetting our legacy? What if there was a cure for the sanitized, dull social media hellscape?

It takes a bit of work, when compared to just using a social media site, but even if your particular use case makes switching difficult (ex. an artist looking to promote their work), it's still a good secondary option to consider.

The core appeal is the ability to customize and individualize, make a corner of cyberspace unabashedly yours,

It can also be an exciting avenue of creative expression, giving whatever you want to say a unique coat of paint,

Most website hosting services are a bit more lax about what you can do on them, due to changes in the profit structure (rather than depending on advertisers and investors, they either have a premium option to give supporters perks, have another product, or, in the case of paid services, you renting that space IS the product),

If you want your website to be more accomodating and accessible, you don't have to file tons of feedback - do it yourself,

If you'd like to connect with other webmasters and promote each other's websites, we have webrings - sets of circular links that connect websites with something in common, be it a topic, aesthetic or friend group,

You're less likely to have your stuff purged by an ill-advised change in policy (especially if you have a backup of your files somewhere),

The more people do it, the less power those massive social media corpos have over the internet,

It can be a load of fun!

If I have you convinced, keep reading into part 2. If you just wanna see what I did, skip to part 3. If neither, feel free to continue scrolling. I won't hold it against you. You'll be missing out, that's all.

PART 2: SO, YOU WANNA MAKE A WEBSITE!

Good choice, here's some resources!

sadgrl's absolute beginner's guide to Neocities - what it says on the tin!

W3Schools - a more in-depth tutorial site, a learning resource so excellent it substituted for what I was supposed to learn in technical highschool (because our teacher just told us to go on W3Schools instead of teaching us shit)

A list of free layouts for your website - whether to use as a base to learn from or to simply take for yourself,

Neocities - the posterchild for free website hosting for personal websites. Doesn't allow video or audio, but you can get around that by linking those files from elsewhere. Beginner-friendly to a fault - once you have an account just drag and drop your files in,

Gitlab (& Gitlab Pages) - a more advanced option, but it has a few advantages of its own. Gitlab is a website hoster second and a version control service first - which is programmer speak for "keeps track of changes in your code and stores a backup of it online". it helps a lot when working on multiple devices or co-writing with a friend. And secondly, you can use Gitlab Actions to automate putting your website up (even on Neocities, like I do!)

My askbox - I am not joking, if you have any questions about any of this, I'd love nothing more than to help you out!

But with most of my indie web propaganda out of the way, it's time.

PART 3: Welcome to Timewatcher OS.

Of course, because I couldn't be normal when it comes to making a website, I had to turn it into a fake operating system. Each subpage is an "app", opened in a separate embed window. It has unlockable wallpapers (no pay2win, prommy). There's bideo games on it! I even made a music player for it so I can share my incongruent music tastes!

Like I said in my Tumblr bio, if I ever go radio silent for more than a month, it means I've gotten fed up with this hellsite and moved to my own homepage permamently. And I highly advise you make an option like this for yourself too! Lastly, if any of y'all would like to start a webring, do let me know in the askbox - I'm down to manage it if I'm not alone in there.

Anyways, I hope I convinced you to make a website, or at least check out some of the cool sites you've been missing out on! Hope to see you on the Old Web!

[someonewhogotanaccount]

did you know goats have accents? Goats can develop their own unique accents accent from their surroundings. you can read more here

did you know lobsters have their bladders in their heads? “A lobster’s bladder is in its head! When males fight, they …you know… each other in the face with their pee” read more here

Around 3% of the ice on the Antarctic glaciers is penguin pee read here

did you know Neil Armstrong Left Four Bags of Poop on the Moon in 1969? “When he landed on the moon in the summer of 1969, he left four bags of poop on the moon. Other astronauts who have successfully landed on the moon have also lightened their load for their return trip home. These astronauts have left poopoo on the moon” website is here (sorry i could only find a youtube video about it) 

Actually, yes. I told my mom the goat had a french accent back then in the petting zoo but she wouldn’t believe me.

No, but it‘s… interesting. Reminds me on this one fact I once heard in a video. Did you know that the male frogfish attaches to the female in order to mate, the blood vessels then connect and… the male then slowly dissolves alive? Evolution. So incredibly beautiful.

No, and I wish I would’ve known this earlier, it would‘ve been a great funfact for my presentation about the Arctic and the Antarctic (though my classmates probably would‘ve just stared at me if I said that). Did you know that Arctic means “bear” and Antarctic means “no bear/opposite the bear” ? People where always so creative when it comes to names, huh?

No, but I know that there are around 12 million dollars lying on the moon. After the photos were taken, the astonauts only took the film magazines, but not the cameras themselves. All except one, which was then sold for around 910,400 dollars, although it was not even certain whether it was really on the moon. Hmmm, I wonder how much the astronauts' poop is worth…

[eveninsight-com]

Alliance In Motion Review: Legit or Another Scam?

Alliance In Motion has frequently changed its brand to attract new customers in certain regions of the world. In this post, we'll review Alliance In Motion company and let you know whether it's legitimate or just another scam that has been going on for years.

What is Alliance In Motion?

Alliance In Motion is a direct-selling company that offers daily uses and lifestyle products.

Dr Eduardo Cabantog is the CEO of the company and its headquarters is located in Pasig City, Philippines.

According to SimilarWeb, the total visits on their website Allianceinmotion.com is 25k+ and the domain was last updated on October 2022. Alliance In Motion also offers an affiliate program and retail commission on promoting its product. Read: Rafalmus.com Review Alliance In Motion Review Our investigation of this company's past and business strategy revealed some unsettling aspects. Let’s take a closer look. Sneak-Oil Products It's not a new thing for MLM companies to promote and sell snake-oil products through distributors. Alliance in Motion primarily sells health and nutrition products. They have made various bold claims with the product. benefits but failed to provide research documents.

Alliance in Motion has fat burn coffee, tablets, and shakes in the product list and we all know how effective such "fat-burning products" are. Alliance In Motion sell these products in packages to obtain large amount from distributors and customers. Collapsed in Most Countries AIM has reportedly already collapsed in its country of origin and some other nations as well, except India. According to sources, AIM's flourishing in India is due in part to the fact that they have just hired a sizable number of new employees. They have not disclosed any details on their website about the operation in India, but promoting themselves in offline modes. Nevertheless, as usual, whenever this company will collapse, the participants will lose the majority of their money and that’s why it should not be promoted anywhere. Poorly Designed Website Being an international MLM company, Alliance in Motion failed to build a proper public website. Its social media page links are incorrect, the website loads too slowly, and overall bad UI. Morever, their other website Naturacentials.info does not loads. Pyramid Scheme Concept Alliance in Motion is nothing more than a product-based pyramid scheme. It is selling useless products at high rates and rotating the same money amount customers and distributors.

While Alliance in Motion makes high profit as they lie on the top of pyramids. In such pyramid schemes, 95% of distributors never make profits and only top promotes earn significantly high amounts. Read: NVisionU Review Should I invest in Alliance In Motion? No, we don't recommend Alliance in Motion and similar MLM companies. First of all, their products are not worth and distributors have to make blatant claims to promote these products to earn commissions. But MLM as a system allows only the top few percent to make the most profit. Even after years of selling these products, distributors struggle to earn well from such MLM companies. So take your decision wisely and don't get lured with false motivation. Read: Ednoaa.com Review Read the full article

[echo-of-sounds]

sweet kisses

-Aizawa x f!reader-

This was a commission for @ninja-scenarios​. She asked for a comforting, fluffy scenario with Aizawa taking care of his girlfriend who’s struggling with really bad anxiety. There is some light smut. 

Thank you so much for the commission JJ! I hope it helps you feel better!

The walk home drained nearly everything in you. You needed to work on reports. You needed to shower. You needed food, to do the laundry, the dishes, sweep, sort through the mail, pay bills, call the apartment manager, and whatever the hell else was on the stupid list. 

But you couldn’t. What little energy preserve you had left was used to undress. Everything else dwindled, your body left empty.

The bed was your one option. The blankets provided a physical barrier only; every sinking thought, every skulking fear, every worry, dread, and horror were just waiting to wrest your mind. And the second the quilt covered you, those mental patterns sucker punched. Though, it was more like just punched. You expected it. You couldn’t feign surprise. 

To try to drown the thoughts, you turned on the Tv. Yet five minutes into browsing movie options, a screen flashed, telling you the player had low power, and to fix it, you needed to go to some website. You just turned it off. It wasn’t worth it. Nothing was worth it today… 

Weight loaded your eyelids against you forcing them open. The room sat dim, lit only with the fading sun and blurry street lights. A hazy drum beat behind your eyes, complimenting the stitch straining your neck. Both sunk your stomach rotten. 

You didn’t bother switching on the lamp or getting ibuprofen. You just grabbed your phone and rolled over, squinting at the light, scrolling past all the notifications. Videos nor jokes were appealing. Conversation took too much of anything. Your brain reluctantly decided on a brainless game, checking out as your thumb moved across the screen.

At some point, you must have fallen asleep again because the door opening jolted you awake, slapping your phone to your nose. It dropped to the bed then flopped to the floor. 

Shouta said your name from somewhere behind you. All you managed in your fuzzy state was a hum and rubbed your eyes. When the lights flipped on, you got a grunt out, telling him to shut them off. 

He did. Clothing fell. Some rustled. A drawer closed. His voice eventually came towards you, flatly asking, “Was your day okay?”

“Mhhh.”

“Work went alright?”

“Sure.”

“Have you done anything-”

“No, Shouta, I haven’t done anything,” you sneered, immediately recoiling, hating, regretting your tone. The question wasn’t even finished. You didn’t know what he was going to say, and his questions certainly didn’t merit that.

The bed dipped. Covers shifted. Chilly air snuck under the lifted blankets, prickling your back and arms. A hand settled your waist, slowly wrapping around you, tucking you to his bare chest, dispersing the cold as he always did. His body always basked in repose, weighing against yours, faithful and earnest enough for all insecurities to trickle out. 

The lightest of lips touched your shoulder. You sighed his name, shifting forward a bit. Your skin was gross; your clothes: worn; hair: knotted to a nest. His warmth was undeserving. Why did he give it to you? Why did he bother with you? He spent days on end working, teaching, exercising, grading, being a hero, and socializing even when he hates to. All you did was work and worry. And you were barely surviving doing that. 

You squeezed the forming tears away, having no desire for him to see or hear them. This wasn’t his problem; don’t make it his.

His arm remained around your stomach. You traced along it. Fine hairs grazed under your fingertips, slightly obscuring the numerous, trivial scars you knew were there yet went unnoticed by your petting. 

Breath flushed across your cheek. It was small, but it coaxed you back to him. The quiet lingered for a while longer before he spoke, “I know life is stressful right now. Whatever happened, I’m here to help you.” 

You nuzzled into the pillow with a groan. Your heart and temples pulsed. It would only add another task to his overtaxed day. And the last thing you wanted to do was cause exhaustion.

Sweet lips touched your temple, hovering there as he hushed your pet name, “Kitten, talk to me. What’s wrong?”

“Bad day… again.”

“Anything in particular this time?”

You shook your head. 

“Is there anything I can do?”

You shook your head. 

He breathed out heavily. The exasperation made you nuzzle away, hoping to hide, but his hug kept you connected. He carried no frustration when he said, “Just want to sleep?”

“I want to… But I can’t.”

“Why?” 

“Stuff to do.”

“Like?”

It took you a few seconds to muster the strength to say, “Shower.”

Though, as you laid in silence, the process inflated from ‘taking a shower’ into something Herculean. You’d have to get up, find your brush, do all the up and down and back and forth motions to complete brushing your hair, then walk to the bathroom, raise your arm to turn the knob, take off every single garment, and wait for the water to warm. And that was just to get ready for the shower. The shower itself was inconceivable. You’d never make it. You couldn’t-

“What about a bath?”

That’d be easier; still grueling but feasible. 

“Mmhmm.”

“I’ll start it. Give me five minutes.” With another kiss on your shoulder, Shouta rolled out of bed. 

You snagged your phone from the floor. What you intended to do didn’t matter; the battery had drained to three percent. You tossed it to Shouta’s side of the bed and got up to brush your hair. However, after four passes, your energy fizzed out, so you gave up and went to the bathroom. 

Floral leaked from the open door. Sho hissed a swear. You found him and the overflowed-with-bubbles bathtub. Suds crept over the side, foaming to the bath rug. The mistake edged a smile onto your lips, bringing a brief glint into your heart. 

“It wasn’t me.” Shouta fished a bubble-covered bottle from the tub, grumbling, “Minnow attacked my wrist. Made me drop the damn bottle.”

The accused cat scampered out of the room, clearly satisfied with what she did. You undressed and shrugged, “Just soap.”

“And a mess.” He steadied your arm and side as you inched into the bath, pausing now and then to get used to the almost-too-hot water. He did have a preference for the higher temperatures. Well, in this case, it was a really high temperature. 

Shampoo, conditioner, and soap laid in the corners. You reached for the soap. A hand caught your wrist, and he spoke from behind you, “I’ll do that. Wait for me.”

When he left, you scooped water over your body and dipped back, dunking your head underwater, soaking your hair. You regretted not brushing it as your fingers caught on multiple knots. 

The door squeaked. You cleared your eyes to see Shouta naked, plopping his phone down on the sink. Mellow, almost romantic, music played from it. He stepped in behind you. You had to scoot forward to give him room. You stifled the little laugh when his left knee cracked.

“Don’t.”

“I didn’t.”

“Yes, you did.” 

He settled into a comfortable position then, wasting no time, ran his shampoo-coated fingers through your hair. They occasionally hooked one of the many tangles but were otherwise slick, laving until they focused on the top of your head, repeatedly circling your scalp. 

You giggled from the force, “Sho, you don’t need to go that intense.”

He grunted but slackened, choosing to massage your head more than scrubbing the shampoo in. You leaned back and sighed. Fingers were still rough as they moved to your neck, gliding along your shoulders, warming the surface muscles. His thumbs joined next, firmly, deeply circling your trapezius, and with his fingers clenched on your shoulder, a moan was pushed out. 

His breath stirred the skin behind your ear, “You’re holding yourself tight. Relax.”

“Don’t mean to,” you uttered right before letting out another moan.

Sho’s deep chuckle soothed you in unison with his hands. They returned to your scalp, straightening your soapy hair. He grabbed a cup and instructed, “Tilt.”

You did, closing your eyes as water fell over your scalp. He did it multiple times, gently running his fingers with the knots, washing all the shampoo out. 

Conditioner was next. Once it was thickly lathered in, something started pulling, practically yanking on a tangle. You turned to see him holding a comb. 

Sooner than you could critique his brushing skills, he countered, “I’ll be easy. Your hair is a mess.”

You relented. After separating your hair, the comb worked its way through, snatching a knot on occasion. He’d mumble an apology and carefully unravel it. Other than that, he stayed true to his word and finished without too much trouble. 

“Thank you.”

“Mmh.” He kissed your head, rubbing the back of your neck. Hands drifted to your upper arms, down to your elbows, then returned your shoulders. They repeated the slow act, squeezing and circling. It beckoned you. His legs opened and you rested against him. Wrapped in his embrace, you sighed, content and safe. 

Teeth pinched your ear. “Clenching this much isn’t good for your health.”

Palms dug into your latissimus dorsi, sweeping from your spine, outwards. You gripped his thighs and arched away from the pain’s source. Yet you were drawn close again. Hands resumed their rhythm, seemingly pleased by your constant hissing.

So far, the simple bath hadn’t drained the last speck of energy you had. But his kneading wasn’t helping… at all. Maybe your body needed it, but your mind couldn’t handle any more exertion. You tapped out, “Okay, okay.”

It stopped. Delving palms changed to grazing, soothing from your jaw to your calves. He added soap at some point. It reached everywhere, smooth, delicate, atop your shoulders, rounding to your breasts, sweeping along your stomach, saturating your skin in his oak and honey soap. While it conflicted with the lavender bubble bath, you couldn’t bring yourself to care, especially as his scruff bristled your ear and lips brushed their way around. 

“Relax your back.” 

“Sho…”

“Let me help. Just relax for me, kitten,” he purred, kissing your neck. 

You did as he said with a shameless moan. The soap, coupled with his fingertips, flowed down your tummy. His large, empty palm rubbed the outside of your left thigh, fondling its length; soap, your right, ensuring every spot was washed. They switched and repeated their actions, all while he kissed and nipped your neck.

Your thighs opened up when he cupped your knees. The palm and soap carried on on your inner thighs, fondling and washing and switching sides, except they never touched low between them.

On instinct, your hips jerked a little, trying to get his hands to you. A husky, deep chuckle warmed your neck. You thought you heard your name, so you glance back, getting firm lips on yours. His dull nails and fingers dug into your skin. Not hard, just heavy, feeling their way closer. 

The soap bar laved over your upper thigh and rounded its shape. It did the same to the other. He gratuitously slid along the crooks of your hip, taking his dear, sweet time, almost tauntingly so.

Right when you were about to complain, he gently cleaned you, cautious of the most sensitive parts and tactful to not push deep. Fingers, though rough, slipped across you and washed the bubbles away. 

Lips attached to your neck as his actions shifted from bathing to stimulating. His arm rose from the water and set the soap aside. His fingers, sleek and ready to give, dipped below again, massaging your labia in the same motions he used on your shoulders, rubbing pressurized circles, flattening your clit between his hands for a drawn-out second before moving on.

He breathed into your ear, “Relax. Just a bit more. ”

You whined.

“Relax, kitten. Let me take care of you.”

Your body went limp: thighs spread, your head lolling to his chest: completely open for him. And he took advantage of it and found your clit, twirling around it. 

“You know I’m here for you, right?” 

“Ye-ahh,” you moaned as the weight increased. 

“I’m not going anywhere.”

“I-” The palm left your thigh to add to the pleasure, ebbing two fingers inside that flushed upwards. You clutched at his wrist, turning into his neck. “Sho- Fuck.” 

When was the last time you had time together like this?

That didn’t matter. Two fingers frisked your clit, not shy about going fast and hard, and the two inside pushed knuckle deep. Water and bubbles sloshed with his arm’s movements. Your body didn’t stand much of a chance. 

Muscles in your thighs and back wrung tautly. Nails hooked skin. You whimper his name as the tension released, fluttering soft love and warmth through your stomach and limbs. He whispered something you couldn’t quite catch. His petting continued, particularly your inner thighs and tummy, allowing you time to calm. 

As you laid there, the water flattened around you, losing bubbles and heat. Shouta’s embrace kept you warm; legs kept you still; arms kept you close. His lips graced along your shoulder. They didn’t whisper sweet nothings, but they consistently carried affection, littering his love all over your body.

In a hushed tone, he asked with his mouth pressed to the top of your head, “Did something cause your anxiety this time?”

You shook your head. 

He sighed. It held something. 

You turned around to rest on his chest. His fingers coasted through your hair as yours meandered over pale skin and handsome body hair. Small dents and blemishes were nearly unnoticeable. His heart pumped strong.

Bristles scuffed your forehead. He kissed there next. “I can’t help if you don’t talk to me, and no matter what happened, I’m here to help you.”

“… It was just a bad day.”

“I know. You’ve already said that.”

You shrunk in on yourself. His body’s been such a rare comfort in your life lately. And you’d take as much of it as you could, wishing you were allowed more than what you were granted. It felt like he was being taken away; like your time wasn’t important; like you weren’t important. Being logical, you knew that wasn’t true… Yet it sure felt like it at times. 

A finger petting along your jaw got you mammering: “I’ve been… I don’t like being here… I miss you…” 

“It’s hard on you, I know.”

“I know your schedule is out of your control, but I miss you, Sho. It… This place is so lonely without you. I don’t mind the time you spend away, and I try not to let it affect me. It’s just difficult. I want…” Fearing irritation, you huddled in. Everything he did was amazing and incredible and so, so important, but… 

Your hand was grabbed and held to his lips. 

“I don’t want to sound annoying or needy. I really don’t. I just wish you could be home more. I know you can’t… I just miss you, Shouta.”

His chest expanded. Arms tightened around you. Compassion lowered his whisper, “I’m sorry I’m not home as often as I used to be. I know you get lonely during my long stretches. I’m sorry, kitten.”

“It’s alright… I just- Maybe…” 

“I’ll try to come home more,” he finished your thought. “Things are winding down a bit. I’ll make more time for you, I promise.”

“Thank you.”

“I love you. I need you to know that.”

“I do. And I love you, too.” You nuzzled as meager as possible, needing him to surround you, which he gladly did. And you two laid there for a while, enjoying each other’s bodies and listening to soft music. 

However, it came to an end when the door creaked open. Minnow strolled over and stood on her hind legs, peaking at you two as she let out a long meow. You lightly laughed and scratched under her chin. Sho pet her back, though she jumped away from his soaked hand. You watched her walk around and meow again. 

It made you remember one of the numerous things you didn’t do when you got home: “She’s hungry. I didn’t feed her earlier.”

Shouta hummed and, once you lifted off his chest, stood up, stepped out, and patted most of himself dry. With the towel around his hips, he helped you out and wrapped a fluffy towel around you. He told you, “Go get dressed. I’ll clean up.”

You didn’t argue and went and found an old T-shirt to wear. You should really put on lotion. Your skin needs it. Yet you couldn’t find the energy, deciding to do it later or tomorrow or whenever you remembered next. 

The brush was taken from your fingers. Like in the tub, he brushed your hair for you, just as easy. You half expected a talk about how you’ve completely disregarded the laundry and dishes. Or questions on why so much mail was left unopened. Or why so much dust had accumulated on the shelves. With him essentially working twenty-four seven and out of the apartment the majority of the week, those responsibilities fell to you. And you weren’t handling them at all.

But the lecture never came. He finished with your hair with a rather neutral face. It felt like months since you last saw his relaxed brows and that teensiest hint of a smile. 

You thanked him and tried to crawl back into the burrow of blankets, content to sleep for the rest of the evening. Instead, your hand was caught and pulled back to him. “I-”

“You need food.”

“Sho-”

“It’s not healthy. If I make you something, will you eat it?”

“Don’t know.”

“Rice? Even if it’s a small bowl.”

You groaned, pushing your face into his still bare chest.

“You need to eat something.” He mumbled your name and kissed you. “Would cereal be better? Mac and cheese?”

“Hnn… Rice is fine.” Although you fussed, you appreciated the mothering. Heaven knows when you were going to get around to it.  

When in the kitchen, you gave Minnow food and fresh water. Shouta diced up some broccoli, bell peppers, and a few other vegetables to throw into the oven as the rice cooked. He asked some leading questions to get you to participate more. You just leaned on the counter.

“Not interested in helping?” The little smirk told you he was only toying with you. It didn’t stop the anxiety and guilt and blame and embarrassment and-

A hand found the back of your head and guided you to his chest. It rumbled when he spoke, “I was teasing.”

“I know.”

“I wasn’t insinuating you were bad.” “I know.”

“But you still thought it. I saw your face.” He kissed you. “You’re not weak for this.”

You thought more along the lines of pathetic. All of this was.

“Or pathetic.”

“I wasn’t-”

“Yes, you were. And it’s not. Struggling with mental health doesn’t make you pathetic. It just means you’re having a hard time. Nothing more. Nothing less.”

You didn’t respond, choosing to stay in his embrace while the food finished, almost, but not quite, falling asleep with his sturdy hands on your back.

And twenty minutes later, you were filling a bowl up with white rice and roasted veggies. Sho’s figure stopped in the corner of your vision, staring. He was just staring and kept staring. You looked over. “What?”

He kissed your temple. The briefest touch of his warm, raw lips could soften you. And his words did even more: “I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

Your chin was tilted up for his lips. “I love you, and I’m proud of you.”

“Thank you… for everything.”

“You don’t need to thank me for taking care of you. Now, get your food. You need to eat.”

Both of you finished filling your bowls and retreated to the bedroom. You were about to mention how the Tv stopped working when he clicked something into place and the screen turned on. 

Problem solved. 

Shouta lounged on the pillows as he ate. Minnow quickly joined, curiously sniffing at his bowl. You settled beside them and slowly picked at your food, listening and watching Sho talk to her like she was a child. The cat clearly wasn’t understanding why he wasn’t sharing.

Clean, fed, and in company, your body could relax. And not in a ‘jaw clenching, riddled with stiffness and irritability’ way. You felt okay. You felt calm. For the first time in a while, adoration and affection outweighed the anxiety. 

[tundrainafrica]

Title: Lovebug (14/14)

Summary:

“It might be a bug.”

“A bug?”

“Sometimes the developers of this application make mistakes. This is our first time meeting I’m sure so…Isn’t it a bit weird that we just met for the first time and it rings like this? And for two strangers to coincidentally ring each other’s alarms?“

Levi is the developer of the Love Alarm App and Hange is married to Zeke.

Link to cross-postings: AO3

Other Chapters: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13

Notes: I know I usually post on Wednesdays but I'll be on the road on Wednesday and if I don't get this out soon, I'll probably end up dropping it next week or smthg so here it is. Two days early. I hope you enjoy :D

Is this all that there is to life? A glaring question that came unexpectedly, in between reading through codes for his nth freelance project the past few years.

In response, Levi closed his eyes, sat back and reflected. A part of him may have been asking that question for a while and slowly, Levi started to understand why he was asked that in the first place.

A few minutes ago, he had been strangely happy to see his code compiling at the first try. And just a few hours ago, he had been enthusiastic at running a debugger through a code and finding a few typos to fix.

Happiness. That was happiness right?

That part of him continued to nag. It soured that 'happiness,' leaving a burning dissatisfaction inside him. You’ve experienced better moments, happier moments.

Then Levi got fed up. He reached into the back of his mind, he remembered, then something stopped him from reminiscing for a while longer.

Something strange. Something buried.

He hadn’t allowed himself to feel much since he first moved into that new city. He had allowed the novelty and the business to carry him through his first months. But the novelty of a new beginning never lasted long.

Too shaken to even bother applying for a new job, Levi opted to work freelance. Consequently, his only companions were the four walls of his studio apartment and the occasional voices from next door.

There was only so much which could stimulate interest. His mind continued to search for them and naturally, time continued to move along with it. Routine and episodes of ennui seemed to last infinities in the moment. But in retrospect, it felt like they all happened too fast.

He had made sense of time in milestones, milestones worth ten times the refreshing feeling of running a debugger through code or the fleeting euphoria of compiling codes at the first try.

Is that all that there is to life? Eventually, he made sense of that strange voice. There was reason to that question.

That day was another milestone. If it wasn't for his nagging mind, he could have missed it.

It was a blustery autumn day in late October, the weather similar to the last view he had of his home five years ago. Shifting his gaze from the window of his present apartment, he took a quick look at the calendar and it was like a dam had ended up spilling open inside him.

The five year mark was a bittersweet milestone, five years since he left home. The fifth year rang more loudly than every year before that. Maybe because five was such a perfect number, or perhaps because he had been keeping something in for a while.

He felt a release. Then a reprieve from the monotony, a reprieve from the five years avoiding his old life. Levi found himself opening his browser tab, typing the words ‘love alarm’ on the search box and deleting it a second later.

An aimless and useless sequence of movements. He didn’t need a quick google search to know how it was doing.

The love alarm had become a household name even all the way in his side of the world. With his very human need to go out, whether it be for groceries, shopping or just some fresh air, Levi couldn’t completely ignore it. With the right decisions, Levi could choose not to give so much as a side glance at the people walking, heads bent down, staring at the number of hearts on their application.

When he went out though, even with his music at full blast, he would hear the familiar alarm as he walked through crowds.

At first, it had left a pang in his chest, a brief bout of nausea, perhaps disgust or embarrassment at his old life.

It had been five years since he first arrived though and it turned out, time did heal.

Levi looked through the wikipedia page of the love alarm and he found, it hurt more like a raw scar than a stab in his chest or a crushing weight. The nausea, the pang in his chest that plagued him years before were weak if almost nonexistent.

Curiosity took over.

He took his phone from the side of his desk and downloaded the application again. The name Jaeger was under the title screen and right next to it were the words ‘All rights reserved.”

Would would have felt like an ache in the chest years ago, felt more like a mosquito bite. Levi was just slightly annoyed. It did nothing to stop him though from registering again and looking through the application interface.

Nothing much had changed. There were some slight changes to the skin of the registration page, a change in the name of the company at the bottom. Levi purposely touched the activate button rapidly and found he had crashed the application.

That was one bug that he never got to fix. He turned his phone to the side, noting the way the screen glitched as it adjusted to the landscape orientation of the phone. Another bug Levi never got to fix.

Then he wondered who the developer on the other end had been to have never even caught it.

Biometrics registered, Levi activated the alarm to find no hearts. He couldn’t help but entertain that slight disappointment. Of course no hearts would have appeared though. He hadn’t even interacted with his neighbors.

It would have been creepy it rang. Letting out a sardonic laugh just loud enough for himself, he leaned back on the chair and stared at the ceiling, forcing his thoughts back to whatever coding freelance project he’d been dealing with a few minutes ago.

Work came in freelance projects. They were enough for rent, for savings and some capacity to eat out occasionally.

A simple yet comfortable life. But is that all that there is to life? That voice continued to tear into his work related thoughts. Levi gave in to the nagging thought again. He started scrolling through wikipedia articles detailing use, detailing acquisition history, he found another key word under related articles, more interesting than ‘love alarm.’

Mood Alarm.

It sent a strange shiver through the back of his neck. Levi rolled his shoulders, relieving the tension that came with the last few eons of reflection. He let out a whistle, opened the new article and scrolled down towards references.

There were lists of articles.

Partner of Zeke Jaeger and freshly minted PhD graduate Doctor Hange Zoe release Mood Alarm.

Doctor Hange Zoe. Something inside him was fighting for control. He couldn’t bring himself to click the link. At the same time though, there was this curiosity inside him that he couldn’t seem to get to the bottom of.

Under the link to the article was the official website.

At the front page, there was a boring and overly professional introduction Levi didn’t bother to read

Below them, everything else had been interesting enough to give more than a second long glance.

The list of functionalities. The color codes. Then newly launched dashboard functionalities, almost a carbon copy of the plan Levi had sent years back.

“Fucking hell, you actually did it,” Levi muttered. He couldn’t help but just allow the smile that tugged at his lips some control. Excitement had him searching for the application on the play store, downloading it and methodically going through the same registration process as the love alarm.

It didn’t look much like the mood alarm Levi had worked on years ago. He saw hints of it though and worked from there to admire it.

The front end had been cleaned up. The font chosen fit the silver-to-white gradient of the application. When Levi clicked ‘activate,’ the screen loaded.

The colors mixed against one another for a second, an aesthetic choice of animation that Levi couldn’t help but be amused with.

Red. Yellow. Blue. Purple. Green. Orange.

The colors continued to mix. Then some disappeared as if they had lost themselves in some colorful war.

Then it was only blue and yellow. The two colors danced against one another for a few seconds longer before they disappeared too. More specifically, they bundled against one another.

Green. It took him at least five seconds to get that reading.

He didn’t have to look at the guide on the website to know what it meant.

Sad happy? Or happy sad? Whatever that feeling was, Levi felt no need to introspect, or maybe he had been too lazy to.

It had been a while since he had even let himself feel something. The green on his screen, the feeling that accompanied it, seemed more like an old friend he hadn’t talked to a while.

If he had any ability at introspection, maybe it had already rusted. Still, he let those emotions inside him, that yellow and that blue do their work.

They had him turning off the mood alarm, then turning off the love alarm. Something inside him still hesitated to delete the applications. Then it had him considering the space on his phone for just a second.

He downloaded another app that night. A familiar app with a flame, then another one with a bee. Only months into his new life in a new city with a new job, Levi was already bored— and if he had to admit it—terribly, terribly lonely.

And maybe the best way to cure it was to spend the whole night swiping.

***

Finding a companion wasn’t as easy as desperation and a few second long rush of confidence made it out to be.

Perhaps, online dating was a rash idea, an uncharacteristic move.

Didn't he reject Petra years ago? How could he date anyone else? Petra… How is she… With nothing much to do but wait for his date, he found himself texting Petra as he waited in the cafe.

He sent a few thank you messages at her well wishes. They exchanged brief updates and Petra’s own updates dragged on for longer.

Her life was more eventful than his.

Petra had started dating Oluo. She had found someone who loved her, just as much as she loved him. Keeping a correspondence with her only highlighted points for reflection for Levi. The more he reflected, the more questions came up. The more he reflected, the more complicated the questions became.

He was lonely but could he be picky? At the same time, did he even have the heart to put anyone through the shitty experience of a half hearted courtship?

Hange’s words echoed in his head, not in any specific string, a few parts in words, a few parts in phrases.

Considering the circumstances… Love is a choice.

When he let her words echo through him, he managed to grip a presence long gone. A presence and a relationship, he clarified, that had never been his in the first place.

He never did completely brush away the guilt that accompanied every passing thought of Hange. There was this strange acceptance though that appended it, and it had him a little more discerning, a little more prudent.

If he couldn’t have her, he could always just keep her close in his own personal way.

“Have you heard of the love alarm?”

How long had she been there? How long had she been talking?

Right, Levi was on a date. She had said words before that question and Levi could have sworn they had exchanged greetings even before that.

“In passing,” Levi said. He manifested some reality from the words, as if a firm response was enough to forget decades worth of overtime and testing.

“It’s this application we can use to test compatibility… So at least we know if this could work.”

Levi listened with some fake intent as she explained how the love alarm worked. He made sure to nod at points where her tone had gone a little higher or louder.

“What do you think?” There was some finality to her voice, an expectant look on her face.

Levi hummed in thought.. “I don’t believe in using an app to check compatibility. What about when we consider circumstances? Get to know each other… Then decide if it could work?”

She looked at her phone for a second, then back at Levi, her brows furrowed in confusion.

Levi shook his head. “Sorry, I just don’t believe in things like the love alarm, it seems just like horoscopes or Myer Briggs to me. Compatibility, relationships, they’re just gonna be choices we make anyway.” He found himself guiltily looking away as he said those last points.

The pout that played at his date’s lips was evidence enough, there probably wouldn’t be a second date. “It’s not like our love alarm’s would have rung anyway,” she said.

It had been a while since Levi dated though and he started to realize, maybe his filter and his social skills had rusted just a bit.

***

Love is a choice.

It looked like he might have been the only one to believe that. He had managed to piss off countless other dates with his own ‘love is a choice’ schtick.

And he had been dating semi regularly for the past year already. Yet, nothing was coming up fruitful.

How the hell did Hange even manage to get married? Or maybe Hange had just been the exception. He then concluded, Hange just had too many other loveable qualities which could make anyone want to snap her up early on.

The more he entertained the thought of Hange, the heavier his own chest became. Then he stopped entertaining her then the cycle would start again, a very vicious cycle.

It just so happened that sometimes the thought of ‘Hange’ manifested as some domineering thought. ‘Love is a choice’ and the strange sensation that came with his whole body protesting, rebelling in their own little way worked hand in hand.

He was confused and consequently desperate enough to open the mood alarm for some inkling of comprehension. He would focus on the way the colors switched among one another, disappearing, always revealing a yellow and a light blue dancing between one another then always ending with a light blue.

Sometimes he was blue. Sometimes he was green.

Ane he continued to check. After all, he mood alarm had become a beautiful and constant companion. He had deleted the love alarm but kept the mood alarm close.

“What do you think of the love alarm?”

How many people are gonna ask about that fucking application?

Zeke had just been a little too good at marketing. It was the nth time someone had broken the ice of a first date with that fucking question and Levi regretted not making a drinking game out of it. Maybe he would have been able to drink enough to forget that cursed product.

“Are you okay?” his new date asked.

He had spent the past few minutes too silent, not thinking. “Nifa…” That was her name right? He cleared his throat. “I’m fine.”

She looked as nervous as he did, or even more nervous. That part was comforting at least. In a way, her demeanor seemed a little more pleasant, more genuinely curious than wary. “I asked just a second ago, have you ever used that love alarm?” she said in response.

Levi followed the same script. "In passing."

“Would you like to try it out? Just to make sure we’re on the same page, relationship wise.”

“I’d rather we relied on circumstances and compatibility to make the choice for us. Get to know each other maybe…” When it came to suggestions, Levi had revised his script just a bit. Too many people got offended by his invalidating horoscopes and Myer Briggs type for some weird reason. “Like get to know each other, like…” Levi trailed off for a second, allowing himself a pregnant pause. ”... Elizabeth and Darcy?”

Nifa had cocked her head to the side curiously, thought for a long second and smiled just a bit wider. “You read Pride and Prejudice?”

Levi nodded subtly. “A while back,.”

She paused for a second, seeming deep in thought. “Well… Now that I think about it, you might be right,” Nifa said. “This compatibility thing… Your idea of love. I think it makes sense.”

“Really? You think so?”

“Yeah, why?” Nifa asked.

Levi dropped his shoulders in relief, the weight of at least a hundred failed dates fell off his shoulders. “I’ve been dating for years and I feel like you’re the only one who actually said that.”

Nifa didn’t reply immediately and the longer Levi sat there, the more clearly he saw her face. Surprise morphed into something that seemed more like pity. Then, the chronic pang in his chest came back.

A first love did that to people maybe? A painful first love lost had that special power to maybe just twist his own philosophies, to make him almost disgusted at his own creations and the way it had challenged his own convictions.

Are you scared? Levi thought to himself. He couldn’t be too sure how he was handling himself in front of Nifa. He looked down at his hands, opening and closing them a few times and if he looked closely, he could almost feel those uncomfortable twinges in his wrist that came from years of coding.

“I’m willing to put the time into it if you are.” Nifa’s voice was more gentle and it flowed as if she had sensed the stiffness in his voice.

Levi didn’t respond immediately and suddenly their little corner of the crowded cafe was eerily silent. There was a melancholy that had blanketed their little corner despite the Saturday afternoon crowd.

Nifa seemed like she was trying to break away from it with some light conversation. “Hey, have you heard of the mood alarm?”

“The mood alarm?” Levi let that half smile creep up his lips, just high enough to be more invisible than obvious. Three words from a stranger and his emotions were reduced to a mess.

He once again felt that twinge again at his rests and that sleepless night, and her. He was remembering her in his office through sleepy exhausted eyes, with a cocktail dress and a sandwich bag in one hand.

There was also something amusing and painfully ironic about hearing his own brainchild, from someone so casually, as if it had turned into some household name while he wasn’t looking.

The conversation was getting painful, painfully interesting and the masochist in Levi was gripping him and pulling him back to reality. “Like the love alarm…” Levi added.

“Well, they’re products from the Jaeger corporation… You know the Jaeger family right?” Nifa added.

Levi could only be thankful he hadn’t been sipping at his tea then. He probably could have choked. How could he ever forget Zeke Jaeger?

He might have gotten a lot better at hiding his own disgust or Nifa could have been too deep in thought. She continued to talk. “They bought Love Alarm a few years back.”

“I know the Jaeger family,” Levi said.

“So you know about their eldest son, the heir of the Jaeger corporation… And his partner?”

Levi took a sip of tea, not bothering to respond.

Nifa may have taken that as a ‘no.’“His partner was working towards a PhD in psychology and apparently that was her final project. The codes for the mood alarm are very similar to the love alarm apparently."

“Oh?” Levi asked, feigning interest.

Soon, it turned into something genuine. Nifa was offering new information. “She got the PhD a few years ago and soon after that, the application was launched. And now they’re launching a solution for hospitals.”

“What kind of solution?” Levi asked.

“Wait, have you ever used the mood alarm? Or do you know how it works?” Nifa asked. “Anyway, I realized I ended up digressing here… The point I was trying to make is, the one who developed the mood alarm was able to prove that whatever measurements they use for the love alarm, are related to emotions. And what if, understanding how we feel when we work towards a relationship is a better determinant of whether the relationship could work?”

Levi nodded quickly, an attempt to be polite. At that point though, he wasn’t too interested in the point she had been trying to make “I’m familiar with the application and how it works. But you mentioned something about a solution for hospitals…” He didn’t think it was worth lying. He didn’t need a long winded explanation of the alarm he made. He needed an explanation of what Hange had been making."

Nifa didn’t seem to get the message. “So, the application will determine your emotions for you--- I have one right now and we could use it over time to articulate how we feel.” She pulled out her phone and dropped it on the table. “I think analyzing our own emotions would do a better job than relying on how the love alarm processes the emotions.”

There was something surreal about seeing a user explain it to him, as if they knew it more than him.

For a while, he couldn’t help but just entertain the possibility that in her own way, Nifa may have known more. With someone explaining and demonstrating, he was more easily able to make sense of the changes that had been implemented since Hange acquired it.

The app icon was reminiscent of the love alarm, two rings around it but instead of a heart in between, there was an icon, an elegant cross between a flower and a color wheel.

Red. Blue. Yellow. In between the primary colors were purple, green and orange.

Nifa activated it and held the phone between her fingertips. Just like the night when Levi had first played with it, the colored blobs swam amongst one another again, each blob would disappear one by one, leaving the remaining colors.

Yellow and Orange. “Looks like I’m happy,” Nifa commented. “So apparently the new dashboard allows us to connect this reading on the phone to a PC and get a more detailed explanation, numbers, heart rate, all the like.”

“You seem to know a lot about the app,” Levi mused.

Nifa cocked her head to one side. “Well, I’m into psychology too. I work as a psychologist in one of the hospitals. Our hospital is one of the first ones to buy software licenses so I’ve done my research.” She hummed, looking straight at him for a second as if studying him. “Now that I think about it, your job wasn’t on your profile. What do you do for a living?”

Levi’s response was automatic. “IT work.” He was suddenly self conscious about even mentioning the word ‘developer.’

“Ooooh... So you’d probably figure out how this app works much faster than I would.” Nifa sighed. “And you could probably help reassure me about this."

“Reassure you about what?”

“I’m honestly pretty nervous about rolling out this software.”

“Why?”

“Well, it’s relatively new, a few bugs would come up here and there.”

“All softwares are going to face new bugs with every update. It’s never ending,” Levi said nonchalantly.

“Spoken like a true IT guy,” Nifa joked. She took a sip of her shake and stared down at his tea and up at him again. “Say, since you’re in IT, you think you can hook us up with someone?”

“Hook you up with someone?” Levi asked. His mind was going places more suited for a tinder date than a conversation on career. He raised one eyebrow in question. He couldn’t be too sure of what she meant just yet.

It looked like she had started to understand that double entendre. Nifa blushed then let out a cough. “No, no. Our company is looking to build a small support team.”

“An IT support team?” Levi asked.

“Well, people who could focus on learning the product, dealing with whatever bugs, testing them, compiling them and sending them over to the Mood Alarm team. You think you’d know anyone tech savvy? Maybe familiar with how biotechnology works?

“I could try to look around…” Levi said.

“Great!” Nifa chimed

By some magic, the conversation shifted elsewhere. Nifa had a way with conversation, keeping some sort of a flow, talking about her own job and getting him to talk about his freelance projects.

Levi’s thoughts on the hospital solution though were an ubiquitous part of his mind space.That was the whole point of the investment right? Back then, Zeke and Hange had plans on selling it to hospitals.

And there was a free trial. That night, Levi had been curious enough to click the ‘book a free trial button’ and to even fill out the first few lines.

Organization name? He didn't have one.

Purpose? To catch up with his own brain child maybe.

He ended up staring at the blank screen for a while, wondering where the hell he would get an organization and a valid purpose.

He wanted to check it out, he really did. And he was a little salty that they required a background check before they even allowed trials for a project he created.

Curiosity became desperation. With desperation, came creativity, audacity. He took his phone with the intention of just asking Nifa a few questions, only to see there was an unread message from her.

Thanks for today! I had a lot of fun. Hopefully, we can plan something soon. I might be busy with work this week but maybe the week after?

Levi stared at her message and composed a quick reply, pleasantries forgotten.

You mentioned something about IT support openings in the hospital...

***

The hiring manager introduced himself as Moblit but he didn't say much else. Instead, he spent the next few minutes looking through Levi's resume, his brow wrinkled.

"Is there something wrong with my resume?" Levi asked, breaking the silence. He had kept it minimalistic, only sticking to odd jobs the past five years.

Moblit shook his head. "Nothing, it just doesn't look like you have support role experience."

"Do I need experience in a support role? I think I'm familiar enough with how apps work to stand in as one," Levi said. Should he mention that he had done the support work before?

"So you've compiled tickets, sent them over to developers?"

I'm the developer who deals with those bullshit tickets. He thought to himself. On the outside though, he nodded and leaned a bit more forward on the table. It wasn’t too difficult to show interest. He was genuinely interested, having given in to that curiosity-turned-desperation.

"Well, if you're interested in taking the job then…” Moblit said. “Let's see how much you know about the mood alarm app." He opened a folder. "It's a relatively new solution, so I don't expect you to know much but if you've heard of the love alarm?"

"I have."

"Well they're from the same corporation…"

Information on their history flew into one ear and out the other. "Do you have any more questions for me?" Levi asked. He could have interrupted Moblit there but he didn’t want to hear about a history he actually experienced first hand.

Moblit cleared his throat. "Well, if you could tell me how you think the mood alarm works? Then I’ll give you a list of common bugs and can you tell me how you will go about raising them to developers?

***

Six years hadn’t done much to make him forget. He had been working with the love alarm for almost a decade after all.

And the mood alarm? He had a strange connection to it, he couldn’t explain.

The code wasn’t open source. Of course it wouldn’t. That was an enterprise application and they wouldn’t want any hacker just randomly getting it. Yet, why did he feel so offended at not having access?

“Hey Levi, how would you handle this?”

“Handle what?” Levi didn’t look up from his monitor immediately. The voice and the question have all were all too familiar and it wasn’t urgent anyway.

“Levi, take a look…” Farlan seemed more frustrated than a second ago.

Levi looked at Farlan’s screen. Another display issue. He was all too familiar with the bugs and it looked like the love alarm and the mood alarm were coming up with the same issues. “Click the activate button three times really fast, right click the desktop, select inspect and take a screenshot. We send it over to the developers on the mood alarm team,” Levi said. That had become routine after a while, yet somehow, his two colleagues Farlan and Isabel were still asking questions.

Maybe because he was the only one who understood what the hell the developers needed to see to actually get to the bottom of the problem.

“Make sure to check it in both light mode and dark mode,” Levi said. “And also, there’s a known bug for the phone app, check if turning on the alarm affects your ability to receive notifications from other apps.” Those words had sent a wave of nostalgia through him. That was one of the bugs he had gotten around to fixing with the love alarm.

“Hey...”Isabel’s voice sounded from next to him. Levi turned around, almost jumping when he saw she had been close enough to look over his shoulder. “What are you researching?”

It wouldn't look good if he slacked off at work in front of colleagues a good few years his junior. Levi closed the tab. “Just my own research on mood alarm.” And when he looked at his codes a little longer, then back at Isabel who seemed almost confused, Levi realized it had looked more like extra work than anything else.

He spent the whole morning on ‘extra work, watching the API calls, making notes to himself to check the codes he had sent Hange years back just to see how much had changed.

“You finished all your tasks today and you still wanna do research on the mood alarm?” Farlan asked, a look of utter amazement on his face.

“What can I say? This app is pretty interesting.” it wasn’t a lie. Watching the growth of his own child from afar, was a fun thing to do.

“It honestly feels like you’ve done this type of work before."

“I did something similar,” Levi said.

“What kind of place did you work in before?” Isabel asked excitedly, her tasks also forgotten.

“I don’t wanna talk about it,” Levi answered, his tone unchanged.

“Something like the love alarm?”

Levi nodded. “Maybe that’s the reason I can figure things out pretty fast,” he said. The best plan of action was to digress.

“So that means we could make you handle the harder cases?” Farlan snickered.

“I’d rather you learn how to deal with others on your own,” Levi said. “I’ve worked with these apps for a long time. The bugs never end.”

***

“Moblit’s saying you’re doing a pretty good job picking out the bugs,” Nifa spoke above the bustle of the lunch time crowd.

“Are we?” Levi asked. He kept his words brief, not wanting to waste too much energy speaking over the others in the hospital cafeteria.

“Well, he was talking about you mostly,” Nifa said. “Most big issues get resolved with each release. And Moblit was saying that our support team just gives really good feedback.”

“The developers do the work. All we do is find the bugs.” Levi started to pick more meticulously at his salad

Nifa shook her head. “I think the support team deserves credit too. It’s difficult figuring out whether issues are user issues or there’s really a bug. Isabel also told me you find ways to reproduce it quickly.”

“Do I?” His responses were getting less and less creative. There just wasn’t much to say and the compliments were making him more and more uncomfortable by the second.

Moblit was a life saver. He had broken out of the crowd, running to Nifa, an urgent but excited expression on his face. “Nifa, you’ve got to hear this.”

Levi used that brief distraction to shovel more salad into his mouth.

Moblit had spoken just beneath the sounds of other conversations and Levi couldn’t make out what he had said. He did make out the urgency in Nifa’s face and the excitement. Whatever Moblit had said was contagious.

“When are they coming?” Nifa asked, her voice much louder than Moblit’s.

Levi stood up, gathering his plate, his utensils and his unfinished salad. “If I’m not supposed to be in this conversation…”

Moblit shook his head. “Levi, no, please stay. I’d rather you hear this since this is related to your line of work too.”

“Why?” Levi raised one eyebrow.

“Zeke Jaeger and his partner Doctor Hange Zoe, they’re planning to visit,” Moblit said.

Levi couldn’t even tell what expression he had on then.

Maybe Moblit had interpreted shock as confusion. “Zeke Jaeger is the owner of the love alarm. Hange Zoe’s the creator of the mood alarm… In case you didn't know.”

***

“Hey, I wanna see her… Is this how she looks like?” Isabel’s voice was a whisper, a very loud whisper. “She looks smart.”

Farlan’s voice wasn’t any softer. “Well, that’s what you’d expect from the mastermind behind the mood alarm right? I heard Zeke Jaeger bought her the love alarm so she could look through the code and make the mood alarm for herself.”

“Where did you hear that?” Isabel asked.

“Watch the interviews.”

The click and clack of the keyboard. Then there was the sound of voices coming from the loud speaker from Farlan’s computer.

Then Hange’s very familiar voice.

Levi didn’t want to listen. “You know, if you spend too much time looking through this. You’re not gonna get anything done.” He forced his voice into something louder than what he was comfortable with. “Don’t you two have other tasks to do?”

“Aren’t you excited to meet them?” Isabel rolled her chair next to Levi.

No way in hell am I meeting them. “I’m planning on taking a leave,” he said.

“Wait, why?” Isabel seeming heartbroken, as if Levi taking a leave was the most terrible thing in the world.

“Well, as employees we’re entitled to leaves right?” Levi asked emotionlessly, willing himself not to at all be affected by Isabel’s puppy dog face.

Farlan sighed. “You’re the best one at this type of work among the three of us. You know, this is a good opportunity for you to get noticed.”

“I don’t wanna get noticed,” Levi said, as he focused back again on the screen, refreshing their ticketing software a little bit faster that time. It really was an uneventful afternoon. He couldn’t blame Farlan and Isabel for doing nothing.

“It’s a big money, a chance at a big career move,” Farlan said, raising his voice as if that could have done anything to convince Levi.

Levi looked up from the monitor and back to Farlan. “Do you really want me out of here?”

Farlan shrugged. “I dunno, you just seem too overqualified for this kind of job.”

Levi sighed. “Believe me, I’m happy to be here.” He continued to click refresh, just in case anything could have halted that already seemingly awkward conversation. The reason why he didn’t want to run into Zeke or Hange… Was it written all over his face?

Just in case Farlan and Isabel were mind readers, Levi kept quiet, kept his eyes glued on the screen and he prayed the day would get busier somehow.

It did. But it got busy so close to the end of the day and overtime seemed inevitable.

“We’re not receiving any readings.”

The same exact fucking line, from ten different customers from different hospital branches around the country. “You’re fucking kidding me,” Levi muttered.

He opened all the test devices, only to find, none of them were receiving readings from the mood alarm either. He was sure though, he was annoyed, very very annoyed. Maybe even angry. ��Try testing,” he ordered.

Farlan and Isabel were more emotional than he was. If it didn’t work for them, it probably wasn’t working at all.

They had full trust on him. Isabel and Farlan nodded and they went through the devices quickly. All test devices exhausted and there was nothing much to do. Levi was convinced it was an issue that could only be investigated on the backend. “We’re done for the day.”

“We have to send a report right?”

Levi started to pack his bag. “Send a report saying we’re not getting any readings,” he said with a shrug. “It’s probably a backend issue or an issue with their API.”

“You sure we can’t do anything from our side?” Farlan pressed.

Levi shook his head. “None.” He logged out, slung his backpack over his shoulder and exited the office.

He sensed their disappointment in him. In his months working there, Levi had never left the office without doing a thorough investigation and writing a detailed report.

That might be the first time in months, they would give something completely unhelpful for the developers. That wasn’t Levi’s intention though. There were just some things that were better off investigated on his own personal PC.

For the first time in a while, Levi didn’t go straight for the shower when he arrived back home. He booted up his own PC. When he checked his cloud account, he found the private repository with all the codes from the love alarm and the mood alarm was still there.

It hadn’t been touched in years though.

He scrolled through the code, allowing that wave of nostalgic to wash over him gently. Having been the only one who worked on the base, Levi was very very familiar with it. Memories came quickly with the nostalgia. There was a point where the server was down and he remembered the hundreds of support tickets about the temporarily malfunctioning love alarm.

No readings were coming through. Levi did a quick calculation of the time zones of his own city and of the mood alarm headquarters. Then he looked through the code again.

Convinced that it was a fair theory, Levi opened his pseudo email, entered the support email for the mood alarm and left just one sentence on the email body.

I’m convinced one of your devs left a debugger on one of these codes on the backend.

A few years ago, he had been guilty of leaving a debugger running overnight,  fucking up the whole command system of the love alarm.

He copied and pasted a part of the code and the sent the email off. For all he knew, the mood alarm could have branched off far from the love alarm, rendering his theory completely stupid. Still, it was a theory worth entertaining.

The issues from work forgotten, Levi started to open his other emails, finding one from Petra on the third page, dated months ago.

Just a reminder that he hadn’t opened that email in months. “A wedding invite?”

Petra Ral and Oluo Bozado invite you to celebrate their wedding…

He didn’t need the rest of it to convince himself to go. He only needed to look at the date under, conveniently a week after Hange and Zeke were scheduled to visit the hospital where he worked.

He sent off two emails that night.

One to Petra, a very very late RSVP.

Then one to management, a request for a two week leave. For personal reasons.

A wedding always made a good personal reason. That was probably only half his actual personal reason though.

***

“I didn’t even expect you to come.” Petra seemed happy.

It could have been the make up or her natural blush. She was a glowing bride, glowing bright enough that Levi was starting to feel lonely.

“It’s been a while,” Levi said. “And you two are looking good.”

“How’s life abroad?” Petra asked.

“It’s fine,” Levi said.

“You adjusted well?” Petra asked again.

“Yeah, I guess I did.” Levi took a sip of his wine.

“You managed to get a software engineering job there?” That time it was Oluo who asked.

“Something similar,” Levi said. He started to shake his glass a bit, feigning deep consideration. Maybe that would explain his inability to respond. In truth, he was in no mood to make conversation but when the bride and the groom had gone out of their way to sit next to him on the bench outside their party, and they had gone through all the trouble of asking, it was only polite that he kept his side of the conversation.

Somewhere along the exchanges, Petra brought up a question. And whether it had been appropriate or not, Levi couldn’t tell but he thought it worth an answer at least.

“Have you met anyone?” Petra asked.

“What?” Levi responded.

“I dunno… I guess someone who makes you feel good? Someone who manages to ring your love alarm?” Petra gave him a knowing look.

Levi only had to shift his gaze from Petra to the seemingly blank face of Oluo to know, Petra had at least kept that part to herself. To the others, his alarm ringing with Hange could have been just a bug.

Levi shook his head. “I haven’t touched the love alarm in years,” he admitted.

Petra seemed more understanding. “We haven’t touched it in years either.”

Levi raised his eyebrows. “Really?”

Petra stared ahead, looking deep in thought. She turned to Oluo. “Well, I guess a part of us wanted to build this organically, get to know each other first. And maybe that’s the best way to find people. I think the love alarm just causes unnecessary chaos sometimes.”

Levi only had to look back at his past five years to see it. To be honest, he could actually put the blame on the love alarm for completely uprooting his life. He couldn't say he totally agreed though. He didn’t regret the time with Hange either.

But he wasn’t going to deny her credit where credit was due. “You make sense.”

It wasn’t as simple as that though. Somehow, Hange’s own words had torn into the silence. Just for him. The love alarm causes chaos but sometimes it can tie loose ends.

And for him, it had been both. It had caused chaos but somehow, meeting Hange, having gotten to know her, having gotten to talk to her had tied some loose ends inside him.

What kind of loose ends? He couldn’t be too sure.

“Even when you don’t use the love alarm now, have you met other people?” Petra was still very interested in his love life.

Oluo should have been silently uncomfortable about that. Levi couldn’t tell with a quick glance.

“I’ve met a few people though… There’s someone named Nifa,” Levi said,

“Next time you come here, you’ll take her for a visit? Make sure to introduce us to her?” Petra asked.

“Or maybe next time, it will be us visiting,” Oluo added.

The brief conversation ended soon after, with a few exchanged greetings and a promise to bring Nifa. In case something ever happened between him and NIfa.

By the end of the night, he had made a promise to himself not to use that love alarm to find his next love.

Petra was right, the love alarm could cause unnecessary chaos. Besides, love is a choice right?

***

Levi came back from his very relaxing two week leave to two words that made his stomach turn.

Doctor Zoe. That was what Farlan and Isabel called her.

“Doctor Zoe…” Levi repeated. The words tasted unfamiliar. Suddenly, the road trip, the beach trip and just the quiet meetings in the cafe all seemed like just a fevered dream.

“And she stopped to talk to all of us!” Isabel sang, her eyes filled with wonder. “You should have stayed. I swear, I feel like you would have gotten along. She never stops talking. You two could have talked about the mood alarm for hours.”

“She sounds tiring to be with,” Levi said, an attempt at a halfhearted reply.

Farlan grinned, an alarmingly knowing expression on his face. “Don’t lie, you would have enjoyed at least listening. You’re way more enthusiastic about the mood alarm than we are.”

“I’m just being a good employee.” Levi shook his head, as if that was enough to erase the regret that shoved itself into his throat and down to his chest.

“She really made sure to talk to everyone,” Isabel said. “And she stayed for a few days longer. Maybe the plans changed since she went alone.”

“Wait, she came alone?” Levi said. Don’t regret. Don’t you dare regret leaving.

Farlan nodded in response. “Moblit explained this to us before they came.” He turned to Isabel as if expecting some explanation from her.

“I can’t be too sure either, I’ve only heard a bit about it. And rich people like the Jaegers, they like to keep their personal lives a secret right?” Isabel answered.

Farlan shrugged. “Anyway, from what Moblit told me, they intended to visit all the major customers including our hospital chain. They’ve been planning this tour for months, maybe even years but Doctor Zoe ended up going alone.”

“Did you ever find out why?” Levi kept his voice soft, anything louder and he might just look more invested. He turned back to the unopened tickets on his screen. From his peripherals, he could see Farlan and Isabel exchanging glances.

It was Farlan who spoke up. “I have a theory.”

“Tell me,” Levi said.

“They fought.”

“Okay, couples fight.” Levi continued to click at the tickets, opening them one by one, just to feel productive.

“Yeah, but it must have been a big fight right?” Isabel added. “I did some research on Doctor Zoe after we met her and apparently, they were having problems even years ago. Apparently, there are rumors that her husband bought the love alarm to save their marriage.”

“Where the hell did you get that info?” Farlan sounded incredulous.

Isabel chuckled mischievously. “The dark, dark internet.”

“That can’t be true.” Farlan shook his head in disbelief.

“I can’t really prove it anymore. A lot of the threads online that actually discuss this get taken down by the admin. But I swear, now that I think about it, it does make sense. I read some articles, no one expected Zeke Jaeger to buy the love alarm… Some said he did it to save the love alarm after a major bug showed up that could have prevented PR….Apparently, there was a certain point a few years ago, where there were photos of Doctor Zoe with another man. I tried looking for the photos but I can’t find them anymore.”

“You really got invested in her love life huh?”

Isabel groaned. “I couldn’t help it. She seemed so nice and she talked to us a lot even when we were just support, she took the time to teach us and she’s just so humble…”

“But what if she really did cheat on her husband?” Farlan challenged. “I mean, the rumors have to have been there for a reason right?”

“Do you think she looks like the type to cheat?” Isabel asked. “That very honest and open face?”

Farlan coughed in surprise. “She doesn’t for sure---but rumors don’t come out of nowhere right?”

“You two, go back to work,” Levi said. While the two had been working, he had been assigning tickets to them, an ingenious way to compose himself.

“Wait not yet, what do you think Levi? You might have better intuition than we do.”

“Intuition?” Levi repeated, one eyebrow raised.

“Does she really look like the type to cheat?” Farlan asked.

Levi continued to stare at the screen, not willing to risk showing them whatever expression played at his face then. “I didn’t meet her. You two did so you’re better qualified to answer that question. Tell me, does she look like the type to cheat?”

Farlan paused for a second, then narrowed his eyes at Levi. “I think I have a question which you might be more qualified to answer,” Farlan said. “You’re pretty good at finding bugs. Have you ever done research on the love alarm bug? What do you think the bug was… The one which made Zeke Jaeger buy the app?”

“I don’t think there was a bug,” Levi said.

“What do you mean?” Farlan pressed.

“Get back to work you two.” Levi kept his voice firm, loud and authoritative. Something he would have rather not done, if it hadn’t been for the weight which came with what should have been a light piece of gossip, and his whittling ability to keep a stoic demeanor.

The deep dark internet. Levi watched his two companions. Their eyes were once again fixed on the screen, Farlan’s fingers were flying over the keyboard, Isabel was playing with some test device.

Deep enough at work for Levi to take his own quick break. He opened an incognito tab and put his headphones on.

One video or one article, and he’d get back to work. He found an interview, the opening questions had been the same familiar ones Farlan had been playing on speaker months ago.

He played the first few questions at twice the speed. He knew the answers already.

What inspired you to make the mood alarm?

“Love alarm… Codes… Yadayadayada…” Levi muttered just a loud enough for himself. Hange had been careful not to mention anything about a developer. He could see the way she had shifted gazes for just a second, seeming uncomfortable.

He couldn’t blame her. Isabel had said so herself, in the deep dark internet, maybe there were rumors of an affair.

And some journalists were aware.

Personal Life? Around the point that someone asked about her personal life, Levi slowed the clip down. They had timed it, to the exact point where Hange had tensed up and looked away for just a second.

“Can you tell us about your relationship with Zeke Jaeger? How has it been?”

“How did you feel when you realized he bought you the love alarm? Is it true he bought it to win you back?”

Hange was admirably professional about it. “We’re digressing now,” she said with a light hearted tone, a laugh which seemed more rehearsed than actually Hange’s.

Is it true you had an affair with another man? It wasn’t loud enough for Hange to have heard it, just a sound among others. When Levi had been looking for that question and it rang more loudly for him. He rewinded the video a few times just to make sure.

What the hell… No we didn’t… We. Didn’t. Have. An. Affair.

“Levi, are you okay?” Isabel asked

“What?”

“You were talking to yourself just now.”

Levi quickly closed the tab as Isabel looked over his shoulder. “Nothing, just looking at tickets,” he said. He went back to their ticketing application, opened a few more tickets and decided to table the research until later that evening.

***

The deep, dark internet.

With his own personal wifi and his own VPN, Levi had more wriggle room to dig deeper.

There was a mention of a fight, a marriage on the rocks, and the rumors only grew from there. The more Levi found, the more courage he mustered. It turned out, the process of scrolling through threads, joining chat groups had been nothing but liberating.

Liberating but infuriating.

The internet was an aggregate of bad takes and the occasional good one. From bad takes came horrible half baked rumors.

I swear, if they end up divorcing…

Jaeger should have dumped her fucking ass from the start.

Slut…

Whore…

Hange Zoe. Fucking gold digger.

There were rumors that she had manipulated Zeke for the money. Rumors that she had only married him to complete her PhD.

Levi quickly went through those.

Some of the people were nice though and Levi read those comments a little more slowly.

The mood alarm was Zoe’s deal.

The money Jaeger put into was a donation.

If they’re not happy, let them divorce.

And there were videos, particularly zoomed videos in events of Zeke and Hange in conventions and conferences, the latest one only a few months ago. Before Hange  had visited the hospital.

In the most recent one, they were talking, just at the corner behind the stage, still visible from the camera. Levi rewinded the video again and again just to confirm their identity.

The Hange on the screen seemed indignant. Zeke had pulled her in by the waist, she pulled away. In response, Zeke had once again gone for her hands, pulling her towards him.

Just like back in the school gym.

It was different, that time in the gym Hange had been accepted yet determined at the same time. The Hange on the video, or the least, the one he could make out from the flailing of her hands, the stamping of her food on the ground, the moment she had pulled away then turned away was telling.

Hange wasn’t accepting anything anymore.

Levi scrolled through the comments.

If Hange Zoe divorces Zeke Jaeger… If she keeps possession of the mood alarm... she’s a gold digger.

She needed Jaeger funds to complete PhD… It’s Zeke Jaeger’s PhD not hers lmao XD

It was around the fifth most liked comment when Levi closed the tab, not bothering to bookmark the site. That was enough internet toxicity for the day.

***

“You’re transferring me?” Levi had ended up preempting the discussion.

Nifa and Moblit looked at each other, then back at him. Then Nifa nodded.

Moblit shook his head, creating some confusion. “No, we wanted your opinion on this first. The city we’ll be transferring you to isn’t very… convenient.”

“But you will be paid more,” Nifa said.

Since no one actually wants to live there. A fact no one actually admitted during those types of meetings but Levi had been in corporate long enough to know.

“And it’s just for a few years,” Moblit said, his tone, a tone of reassurance more than actual confidence. “Our hospital got special permission to do testing and research and we’ll need one support guy there. This is an important project for our hospital so...”

Levi had done a quick google search of the city under the table, a name he never heard of, and just the picture of a very sleepy town with not many buildings with even two floors was indicative. There was a reason why Moblit and Nifa seemed uncertain about a transfer.

There wasn’t much he did anyway in that city. How could moving away be any different?

“What’s this research about?” Levi asked.

Moblit responded to that more clearly and more confidently. “We’re planning to do further research, create programs for kids who grew up in difficult households to help them process emotions better. We’re starting with a few kids, on a small research facility up north… And having someone on call would be helpful.”

It didn’t take much to convince Levi after that. “There isn’t much for me to miss here anyway.” Really, he would have taken that transfer even without the pay raise.

***

There was peace and quiet which came with living in the middle of nowhere. Peace and quiet had a way of making Levi unbearably bored yet at the same time more perceptive as to why the hell no one wanted to live there in the first place.

Winters were cruel, with snow piling up meters high. Even in the summers, the sky was overcast and in all four seasons, the air still found a way to be suffocatingly dry.

Someone mentioned something about lake effects and something about rain shadows, and Levi couldn’t really tell which one was it. He wasn’t a scientist after all.

He was human though, a very simple minded human with no science degree. So he let the weather affect his moods, maybe even affect his long term philosophies in life. His current environment was too different from the bustling city he grew up in, or the other urban jungle he had lived the past five years of his life, he deemed his new home, the epitome of the middle of nowhere.

It was completely unfamiliar and by some psychological consequence to Levi, it was too far flung from his old life for Levi to even entertain anything about his old life, beyond work. So it became easier to take a more pragmatic approach at reminiscing.

A few months into his transfer, he had even started reading articles on Zeke and Hange again.

Billionaire Zeke Jaeger finalizes divorce would Mood Alarm founder Hange Zoe.

Then the comments section:

That was fast.

I knew it, Zoe’s a gold digger.

There was the string of names, whore, sluts, cheaters and gold diggers that never made too much sense as sentences. So Levi quickly closed the tab.

You actually did it. He thought to himself. And when he thought a little longer about it, he realized he did feel happy for her.

Happy? Sad? Disappointed? Out of curiosity, he opened his own mood alarm and clicked activate. It glowed with a bright green.

He could have been happier.

Levi decided to blame the sky for his fickle mood. That grey view that stretched far unimpeded by any of the surrounding low rising buildings, only ending by the mountains that seemed hundreds of miles away.

The surrounding mountains and the large lake followed him to work. An overly scenic landscape that reminded him, the train back to the capital only came once a day, the train that passed through the next major city only passed three times a day.

And fucking hell, train tickets were expensive.

By some modern day definition, Levi really was trapped in the middle of nowhere.

The weather only made him more cynical, yet angrier at the tasteless comments under the news article on Zeke and Hange’s divorce. As he neared the research center, he ended up tabling that reflection with one sentence, something comforting yet oddly depressing.

Hange wouldn’t look for me. Then he brushed it away violently soon after. The audacity of even considering the prospect that he was important enough for her to want to search for him. Why would Hange care where he is?

The fact that Hange was followed by the press while he was trapped in the middle of nowhere was indicative enough. They were from two completely different worlds.

***

It may have taken months more, but what Levi clocked to a ‘bout of wanderlust’ eventually settled. He found, keeping himself busy with the right work had done wonders to placate the turmoil inside him.

Keeping busy somehow made it easier to sit up and get ready for work. It meant managing to desensitize his own moods to the weather around him.

Most importantly, it meant seeing some connection with the world, some sliver of motivation to go the extra mile with the people who worked with.

“Early as always, Ackerman.” Same greeting everyday.

“Morning to you too, Onyankopon,” Levi responded as he entered the irsmall office.

Onyankopon was a companion  duringearly in the mornings, lunch times, late afternoons and sometimes, even the dinners when he would invite Levi out for a drink in the only bar for miles around.

Still, it made life remotely eventful when the only changing things had been the weather and his work.

And his work was very eventful.

“Uncle Levi! Did you find any bugs yesterday?” Just like every other morning, the two kids would burst through the door. Or more specifically, the brunette was always the one bursting through the door, the blonde just followed.

“Gaby, you might be bothering them,” Falco said. He said that at least three times a week.

Levi had never been the type anyway to tell them he didn’t mind their morning visits. It always meant something to look forward to.

“Nothing so far,” Levi said. He looked towards Onyakopon, the one in charge of reporting issues. “Hopefully.”

Onyankopon raised his hands in defense. “Don’t get mad at me, get mad at the devs who created the mood alarm in the first place."

Levi was constantly mad at the devs anyway, if he considered that constant state of self loathing. Working on the mood alarm as support had only made Levi realize how many shortcuts he had taken into making that damn application years ago.

“There’s nothing today,” Levi said as he looked at the two kids. “But I could give you a quick lesson,” he added. He couldn’t say no to the crestfallen faces of the two kids.

He dragged one seat next to him and guided Gaby to one of them and Falco to his own seat. “When I want to look for errors in the code, I look here first.” It was a terribly boring lesson, a useless one. Support 101. At the least, the kids seemed satisfied. “If I right click here, and then inspect, I can see what this website is made out of.”

Gaby let out a breath, a mix between a ‘wow’ and an ‘oh.’ “I can’t read it.”

“It’s another language,” Levi explained. “Computers don’t understand our language. So we have to learn another language to be able to talk to them. And when we’re able to tell them what we want, they’ll do things for us, things we can’t do ourselves.”

Gaby had asked more questions after that. Falco had asked his own too, albeit hesitantly.

The difference between the network and console tabs, the meanings of the strange brackets, what happens if they just aimlessly click…

That morning session ended with less than half the questions answered, and a promise to teach them more the next morning. Like every other day before, at eight in the morning, Onyankopon brought them to the activity room and Levi was left alone in the office.

There weren’t many people in the research center, only five employees in total. After all, there were only ten to twenty kids who came and went every day, a very manageable number for five people. He and Onyankopon shared an office and with Onyankopon busy a good chunk of the day, Levi was left alone.

With his own efficient working methods and his outstanding ability to quickly pick out the bugs, Levi was usually free for a cumulated five hours a day.

When he first started working there, his five hour long breaks consisted of reading novels or whatever stupid article came up on his timeline. He could have taken longer breaks yet chose to spend them as short sporadic bouts of inactivity

By spreading out periods of inactivity, Levi managed to somehow pacify the guilt at ‘doing nothing’ while being paid for the eight hours a day. There were times, it was strong, remnants maybe of his stint with the love alarm, barely taking leaves, willingly putting him through the pain of overtime.

Some days, they were particularly strong, sometimes incomprehensible that Levi suspected they could have been related to the burning curiosity, the burning attachment to his own application that never abated.

A burning attachment, a natural need to be productive eventually resulted in sporadic bouts of unproductivity spent just testing the mood alarm all for a brief look into his own emotions.

Even when he wasn’t feeling anything in particular, the application continued to glow colors, just flitting between greens and blues. They could have been yellows or oranges maybe, when Onyankopon or Gabi or Falco visited. He had never been the type to wear his heart on his sleeve though and thus, had never opened it with them around.

That day wasn’t any different. Alone in the office, he opened it again, held it in his hands and watched the colored blobs swim amongst each other, mix amongst one another, then disappear.

Blue or Green? That day it was blue. Why blue and why not green? He could never ask. ‘How’ was always an easier question to answer. He only had to connect his phone to the PC then boot up the dashboard.

His next break, he decided to try a visualization exercise, like every other time before.

Memories never seemed to do the trick. He’d take a risk and dive deep, into his memories with Hange, his anger at the situation, the loss of a life before. Yet it all came out greens and blues. The alarm rang, an almost deafening sound in the silent room and for a split second, it had Levi attentive and a little paranoid. Levi knew though, with the thick concrete walls around him, it was a sound just for him.

He connected his phone to the dashboard and booted the PC again.

There were numbers. He switched to a bar graph view, noting how there were terms, hormones and chemicals he could only barely make sense of. But the blue and the green bars higher than usual yet still very low were signs in themselves.

That morning was a normal morning. And every morning since he built that habit had been a normal morning.

The only thing which ended up different about that day was when footsteps sounded just outside the door. If Levi had been listening closely, he would have been able to point out, those weren't a rhythm of footsteps he was particularly privy too.

But normal mornings tended to desensitize people. Footsteps weren’t particularly interesting either.

In a town with only a few hundred people, it would most likely be someone who already lived there. He continued to work. He disconnected his phone from the dashboard and played with the mood alarm in his own phone again.

The door clicked open behind him, slowly enough for the creak to sound, then fast enough for the slam to come right after yet gently.

Onyankopon always opened the door a little wider, always slamming the door behind him and in between, there was always a greeting. If Levi had been more aware of his surroundings, maybe the lack of all that could have peaked his interest.

In the grand scheme of things though, the door slamming wasn’t anything particularly interesting. Levi continued to sit and stare at his phone.

“Levi Ackerman.”

A voice in an empty room though, was always an interesting thing. By some natural inclination towards voices, any presence in a room that was always his by mid morning, Levi was listening.

Making sense of the voice was a surprisingly slow process. The mood alarm reacted first.

The alarm sounded.

A wave climbed from his chest up until his neck, there was a bristle at the back of his neck, a tickle at his ears, then something pricked at his eyes. He looked down at the alarm before he could completely understand. The colors continued to swim then mix.

They always disappeared and finalized the reading in five seconds.

A second or two passed, and the colors still didn’t look at all in a hurry to disappear.

You’re going crazy Levi. He took a deep breath. He was dreaming. Because what the fuck. Of course she wouldn’t be here. She had an international company to run.

“Levi…” The voice sang. “That’s you right?”

Don’t look back.

“Or maybe there are just a lot of developers named Levi in this world… “ The footsteps were only getting closer. “Developers who are just really good at using the mood alarm.” Then the voice was right next to him.

When she had settled on that seat right at his peripherals, he couldn’t exactly chalk it up to a fevered dream. The mood alarm in his hands continued to ring. He could have sworn at least five seconds had passed. Yet the colors never disappeared, countless colors still swimming around on the interface as the mood alarm continued to read his emotions.

Levi had never been a master of articulation. The war of colors, the chaos on the phone were the best visual representation. He struggled to find the right words, but she continued to stare from his peripherals, her face many things at once.

Apologetic? Expectant?

“It is you,” she said, triumph and relief apparent in her tone.

That only pissed Levi off more. Another emotion added to his boiling pot. Eventually Levi thought it necessary to respond. With too little time, too little mindspace to even attempt to articulate, Levi kept himself to three words, the only three which could have meant everything at once.

“What the fuck.”

In response, she let out a soft laugh. “Are you crying?”

Crying? Now that Levi did think about it, there had been a crack in her voice too. Levi looked up to see her, smiling. Her eyes were smiling too. Then he followed the tear streak that barely grazed the side of her lip.

There was enough time, enough silence for Levi to gather himself. To stare at the reading on the application that couldn’t seem to decide what emotion Levi was feeling.

With enough self discipline, enough concentration, Levi managed to speak. “Hange, if you ask people why they’re crying, you’re just gonna make it worse.”

***

There was only one tea shop in the town, a tea shop which naturally, Levi had chosen as his favorite hang out spot.

Over the months, he had grown familiar with it and in turn, it had grown to become an intimate friend. An intimate friend he had never expected to ever introduce to Hange.

Onyankopon and Moblit had joined them for tea though, and suddenly, Hange didn’t feel like Hange. It could have been the way she shifted to an ‘all business’ demeanor or maybe a part of him was still trying to rationalize what he had deemed to be a very irrational thought.

Maybe he had imagined visiting the cafe with Hange a few times. The realist inside him though, had always believed it to be impossible. At that moment, the dreamer inside him was still taking its victory lap.

“You should have told us you’d be coming. We could have set up something better than late afternoon tea,” Onyankopon said. Either way, he seemed very happy to see them.

Moblit took a sip from his cup then revealed an apologetic smile underneath as he put the cup down. “Apologies for visiting all of a sudden. Doctor Zoe is a very impulsive person.”

Hange nodded. “I hope you don’t mind. As soon as I heard about this, I hopped on the next plane just to get here as soon as possible,” she said “I’m hoping to start something like this in the hospitals back home.”

Moblit put his cup down. “Right, I never got to properly introduce you to Levi.” He turned to Onyankopon then to Levi. “But I’m sure you’ve had a fair share of introductions… You did barge into his office this morning.” He had an apologetic look on his face.

“Hey, Doctor Zoe just wanted to see how we were using the software,” Onyankopon said in Hange’s defense. “I’m more than honored to see that the founder of the mood alarm is taking the time to even wander around our facility.”

Moblit cleared his throat. “Anyway, Levi, this is Doctor Hange Zoe, the founder of the mood alarm application. She visited our main hospital a year back but if I remember correctly, you were on leave right?”

“On a personal leave,” Levi clarified. He couldn’t find much else to say. He took a long sip of tea.

“This is Levi Ackerman,” Moblit said. “One of our best in IT support. He learned how to use your application pretty fast.”

“Yes…” Hange said. “And ever since you told me about him, I’ve been very excited to meet him.” Her grin only got wider as she studied his features, her eyes giving him a good once over. “I guess that’s the reason I ended up taking my own tour of the center while you too were catching up. I wanted to see your genius IT support in action,” she joked.

It was almost unbelievable that that morning, Hange had showed a completely different side to him. She had wiped her own tears pretty fast, shifting her expression to something very professional as soon as Onyankopon and Moblit had entered the office just that morning.

The whole afternoon, Hange was busy with activities and tours of the town, Levi busy with his own work. They barely got to talk. Fortunately, that had allowed Levi time to compose himself, enough to keep a straight face when Onyankopon had invited them over for some tea.

Then and there, there were conversations of partnerships and business, almost reminiscent to whatever bullshit he had to deal with in his old company. But this conversation had Hange, and Hange had shifted her gaze towards him enough times for Levi to feel it only proper to reciprocate.

“Once this project is over, would you consider letting Levi go?” Hange asked. “I’d love to have him visit our main office, maybe help out with some of our development work.”

Moblit shook his head vigorously. “No hesitation. It always felt like he was overqualified for this type of job.”

“By the way you talk about him, I can tell.” She looked at Levi knowingly, a silent form of communication just between both of them. She turned back to Moblit then Onyankopon, her face once again all business. “There are many things I hope to still improve with this application so any support on research, troubleshooting, development is very much appreciated.”

“What do you suggest?” Moblit asked.

A quick glance at Onyankopon and Levi knew he was asking the same question.

Hange put one finger to her chin in thought “A partnership…”

It looked like they had expected Hange to talk Levi’s ear off non stop about the application. Moblit had mentioned something about going straight home while Hange discussed the partnership with Levi, mentioning bugs, the debugger that had been stuck in the system and the bugs which Levi had been quick to point out.

Levi, being respectful, had only listened.

That was until Onyankopon and Moblit offered to walk ahead, leaving Levi and Hange alone on the red brick road overlooking the large lake.

It was early in the evening but it still felt like late afternoon. The sun never set until seven or eight during the mid months of spring.

Yet, the streets was empty, bereft of anything but the both of them.

With one quick scan of their surroundings, Hange turned back to him, she bit her lip and took a deep breath.

Her demeanor was suddenly a stark contrast with the enthusiastic, eloquent one back at a cafe. The sudden transformation was enough for Levi to tense up,

Hange spoke up. “This town really sleeps early,” she commented. “You're planning on going home now too?”

“I usually go home an hour earlier, especially on weekdays,” Levi responded. “I’m only out at this time because they invited me for late afternoon tea.” Technically it was dinner.

“Do you go home….” Hange started, she paused for a second, a very out-of-place pause. “To anyone?”

It took a lot of effort for Levi to resist choking or even letting out a ghost of a laugh at that question. I’m married to my job. That was the answer that popped into his mind out of instinct.

“Did I make it time?” Hange added a second later, only reminding Levi that he hadn’t even mustered a glimmer of answer.

“Make it in time?” Levi asked, in an attempt to stall for time.

“Petra…”

“She married Oluo.”

Hange didn’t seem satisfied. “Is there someone else…” she pressed. “Someone else...”

Hange started to speak with her hands, gesturing for Levi to ‘go on,’ in some awkward wave of a hand. The first awkward gesture Hange had done since they arrived.

Levi couldn’t help but just appreciate that bout of vulnerability he could pull out of her. “There is,” he said.

Just for a second, Hange’s face fell and for a moment Levi relished it.

“Oh…” Hange turned away. “Then, I should take you home… I’d love to meet her…”

Then suddenly, Levi felt just a little bad for that trick. “I was fucking kidding,” he said.

Hange let out a loud sigh of relief, an ugly huff and she looked away, suddenly self conscious.

Levi had to admit, it was an ugly snort. He was tempted to take a good look at her face, and maybe he had craned his neck as she kept silent for a second longer. “I’m not some idiot who would marry someone just because it’s convenient," he said.

“Give me a break. I just graduated from college when I decided to get married,” Hange said. “Besides, we enjoyed each other’s company.”

“If you chose that type of life, I wouldn’t have stopped you. Besides, you had a lot on the line, your PhD, your mood alarm, the love alarm, your reputation. It wouldn’t have been easy choice to make.”

Hange hummed. “The PhD is done, my reputation, I don’t give too much of a rat’s ass about that. And the mood alarm? That has always been mine. I put my own money into building that business.”

“It definitely wasn’t cheap.”

“It wasn’t,” Hange admitted. “What if I told you, I earned my own capital for building it in one night in a casino.”

Levi's thoughts flew back to the night at the casino. He grinned. “I’d believe you.”

“So the mood alarm is mine and I managed to keep it,” Hange said. “But I never forgot you know... The plans, the codes, they’re all yours.”

“So you did get the email,” Levi said.

Hange nodded. “And the email got me thinking…” she trailed off for what seemed like an eternity.

Levi couldn’t wait. “About what?”

Hange thought for a few seconds longer, putting her hands behind her back. “That ended up one reason why I even considered leaving Zeke,” she said. “He has a different way of loving, I have a different one too. Love is freedom. Love is just trusting. Zeke on the other hand, always likes to play safe, tie people down.”

“What happened to ‘love is a choice?’”

Hange seemed unperturbed. “Love still is a choice.”

“Then why not choose to love Zeke?” Levi challenged.

Hange sighed and put one hand up. “You said it yourself, deciding to leave wouldn’t be an easy decision,” she started. “I considered three things.”

She put one finger up. “Our own views of love. Zeke sees it as a game, as an investment and he approaches it conservatively… On the other hand, I see love and relationships as a form of freedom, a risk. In love, I don't believe in playing to win.”

She put another finger up. “I considered how I was feeling, this really weird feeling, my thoughts on Pemberley then on colors.”

“I thought you didn’t want to be a slave to your emotions.”

Hange shook her head. “I’m not. I approached this methodically. Even before considering my feelings, I considered my circumstances.” She put the third finger up. “I considered the backlash, I considered Zeke’s feelings, dealing with a divorce. And that’s what brought me here, despite the criticism, despite my inability to buy the love alarm and to barely salvage the mood alarm.”

“You still gave in to your emotions.”

Hange nodded. “After thinking long and hard about it, I did. But before that, I weighed all three, and I decided to take the risk.”

“Was it worth it?”

Hange shrugged and she leaned over the rail, seeming mesmerized by the lake. “I won’t know yet but I guess, even when I thought you had someone else…” There was a flash of hurt on her face, enough for Levi to regret playing that little joke on her.

“I don’t have anyone else,” Levi clarified.

Hange continued to speak. “I still thought the risk was worth taking. It would have been unfair to Zeke if I stayed and who am I to stop you if someone makes you feel happy.” She turned back to him. “This is the way I’ll choose to love. I’ll weigh my emotions, my circumstances and my worst case scenarios. Then I decide the most loving thing to do. If I have to take a risk, I take it. And I guess, given all that, looking for you seemed like the correct decision.”

Levi couldn’t stifle that smile any longer, and he hoped somehow, his own words would stop it from getting any wider. “Well, it's too early to tell if it's a good decision.”

Hange opened her phone and opened the application. “Can we try again?”

“You wanna use the love alarm?” Levi asked. “Your ex-husband’s application.”

“It’s still your brainchild,” Hange said as she waited for it to load. She hovered her thumb over it.

“I don’t have it installed,” Levi said.

“I can wait,” Hange said. And there was no room for argument in her voice.

An awkward few minutes as Hange watched him download the application. Levi focused on the loading bar, and luckily, his biometrics were still registered from that brief experiment of a year ago.

“On three…” Hange said, her voice a little stilted.

But they didn’t finish counting or maybe they just counted at completely different paces.

The alarms rang, filling the empty space between them, two rings which never seemed to find a uniform pace. Even with a very dominant fastidious side though, Levi wasn’t thinking too much about such a small detail.

Hange’s was smiling, grinning, or whatever that was called. Her face was a mix between pure ecstasy and pure passion. She wrinkled her eyes at him, her mouth climbed into a grin wider than he had ever been used to.

She let out a loud sigh. “I was fucking scared.”

“Scared of what?”

“That you would have gotten over me… I dunno, thought you might just think love was a choice, and I dunno, stop feeling whatever that love alarm thing was feeling.”

“I don’t think the love alarm works like that,” Levi said. Really, he started to realize he didn’t know how it worked.

Hange shook her head. “I’m probably just overthinking. You know… I learned how to code over the years, talked to a few developers and tried to look into how the application works,” she said.

“Did you find anything?”

“Remember when you told me that the love alarm starts to figure out for its own what love is. It creates its own definition. Something we can’t even comprehend...” Hange was still grinning, her voice coming out as breaths and sometimes sounds.

Still, Levi could comprehend most of it. “You have any theories?” he pressed. Hange always had theories.

“Soulmates? Relationships in a past life?” Hange suggested.

“Well, we can’t really look back at those right?” Levi said. “Well, what else?”

One word, one word out of Hange’s mouth. “Pemberley.”

“Pemberley?” Levi asked. Somehow though as Hange looked back at the lake, up at the sky then at the gaudy main street of that small town. Levi started to understand it himself.

“It’s ugly here,” Levi said. At first he had meant it. As Hange started to look at her surroundings then back at the lake, with a look of wonder in her eyes, Levi was sure he had meant it as a challenge.

“When you’re in love then with the person we love, everywhere starts to feel like Pemberley,” Hange completed a second later.

Does it? And he wondered why the hell, he needed Hange to point it out.

They were in an ugly town, a place people were paid to live in. The sky was constantly overcast. When it wasn’t raining, it was snowing and it snowed six months a year. When it wasn’t snowing or raining, the sky was at least threatening it.

The way that Hange had looked at it with such naive wonder, the way she had just stood there, looking at everything and back at him, Levi couldn’t help but entertain the idea of Pemberley.

Maybe give the colors a chance to show themselves? Hange didn’t say it out loud. In the moment they made eye contact though, Levi couldn’t help but just give that little piece of advice a chance, whether it had been his own or Hange’s.

He looked first at the main road and the red brick path, noting how the gaudy red, worn by the elements more than actual foot traffic seemed to still glow a bright red despite the grey undertones. He then looked to the buildings, varying shades of concrete grey yet ‘the varying shades’ of it seemed to still have some sense of novelty.

He then looked back at the ocean, the dark sky above never allowed it a more beautiful shade of blue, yet the bluish black still continued to glow. The waves only sent glimmers of silver against the dark blue. Then it was only natural that he looked up at the sky, the sky which never allowed any other shade for itself, except on a few select days a year.

The fog blocked whatever green the mountains beyond the lake would have shown him.

Looking back at Hange then back at his surroundings, he started to accept it. There were greens, reds, blues, yellows and every other color in the spectrum. The world glowed with so many colors, so many lights and sounds. His emotions were a whirlwind that spun to whatever rhythm the lights and colors blinked at.

Colors persevered and they’ve always persevered.

Emotions persevered and they’ve always persevered.

Even emotions we don’t understand ourselves. Levi added to himself.

Maybe Hange was right. That was what the love alarm had been trying to show. The one person who made the colors, the emotions all the clearer.

“This is a beautiful place,” Hange said. “And I wouldn’t mind staying here, lay low a bit, just long enough for people to forget the divorce fiasco.”

“There are a few nice places here,” Levi said.

Hange continued to stare.

Why don’t we just live here together right Levi?

I know you, you wouldn’t be able to stay out of the action.

Levi felt almost ashamed at that mystery response that seemed to pop into his head out of nowhere. We can live here long enough to get our shit together. "First things first, let’s discuss this partnership, over tea in my house.”

“Now?” Hange’s widened her eyes. And her eyes were smiling.

“Well, unless you have other plans tonight,” Levi said.

Hange shook her head. “Nothing much…”

They made the whole way back to his home in silence. Surprisingly, Levi preferred it that way. It had been enough for him to appreciate his new comprehension of his surroundings, the small details he hadn't noticed before.

It wasn’t just the view. The rhythm of their footsteps, their uncoordinated breathing, and just the way the trees rustled, the wind blew, always found a way to glow different colors. His emotions, the chaos of every moment after that were also challenging him to find their colors.

And the circumstances that had them locked in his cramped apartment, sitting over tea, with no one else watching, nothing restricting them had Levi reflecting. It probably had Hange reflecting too. They spoke unhindered with just thoughts, expressions and locked gazes.

For one reason or the other, it happened quickly and abruptly, leaving no space or time to comprehend it.

Sitting on his living room sofa right next to her. Hands clasped against the other. Her dry lips were on his.

The magic welling in his chest, the thunder that climbed quickly up his throat, persevering even underneath the grey. They were all screaming at him then, they all glowed colors.

At that moment though, he had been to tired to reflect on it for any longer. He decided to just roll with it.

It was no use making sense of it. After all, life, love and emotions... They were all just complicated that way.

[the-lady-writes-what]

Biggest Fan, Part 1

To Tomura Shigaraki, you were the only exception, the only person or living thing that mattered. He's watched your rise to fame and your call out posts about heroes, even if you sometimes have to rely on them for protection against crazy fans and psychos. You were too cute and too good to be shared with the world.

"I wanted to keep you all to myself. Is that so wrong?"

I wanted to write full length smut tonight, but I just don't have the energy for it right now. If I get back to it tomorrow, it might still be a couple days before it’s live. That’s the problem with working 40 hours a week and I’m just really slow at writing. 

PART TWO

Tomura turned on his computer. He gouged out his neck while driven by impatience for it to boot up. The concert would be going live any minute and he wasn’t going to miss a second of it. When the webpage refused to download the livestream as fast as he wanted it to, Tomura’s index finger came dangerously close to dusting his mouse. Slowly but surely, it loaded. He sat inthralled of you performing for the whole of Japan to see. 

The whole of Japan. 

Tomura couldn’t stop scratching at the thought it. You. Performing for everyone to see. You in your little short shorts and tight shirts showing off your figure. Pure white bunny ears flopping around when you bounced about the stage. How your fluffy tail wiggled for the camera whenever you turned your back. The thought of millions of others were seeing the same thing, watching you as he did. Tomura growled and scratched until he bled. 

He felt himself stiffen; his pants became too uncomfortable. Tomura sat in the dark with the only light coming from his computer. Flashing strobe lights burned his eyes, but it was worth it to see you performing. When you flashed your signature smile, for a brief moment Tomura imagined it was just for him. His illusion was shattered when the cameras zoomed out and panned over the live audience you were performing for. He started seeing red. If he could, he would dust everyone of them in that stadium until it was just you and him. Tomura slammed his fist into the desk. 

No, no, no, no. 

That wasn’t good enough. He needed to have you near. Soon. Now would be preferable. Tomura picked through your websites tour dates to find where you were going next. Then grinned madly at the screen. Tomorrow night, you would be so close to him Tomura could practically taste you. As a matter of fact...

You wiped the sweat from your brow with a hand towel somebody handed to you. Another night, another concert, another post-show where you wanted nothing more than to collapse onto your hotel bed. You wondered how hard it would be to find your way there without running into the paparazzi. You hopped over to your dressing room to wipe off your make-up and maybe take a little nap before anyone noticed you were gone too long. 

The dressing room wasn’t the biggest, but it was better than a hole in the wall. It was almost cozy. You sauntered over to a makeshift vanity table complete with mirror and ring light to help assist. Your legs were sore from the soles of your feet to your knees. You sat down and opened a packet of wipes. The make-up was smeared in shades of black, brown, and green when you felt your long ears twitch. They only did that when something funny was going on. You heard it first before you snapped your head to see it. A strange whooshing sound like something being sucked. 

You turned your head and then jumped out of your chair. It clattered to the floor as you gasped. Swirling streaks of black and purple inveloped the whole wall furthest from you. A foot emerged, then a leg. A torso followed after, one arm and then another. Soon, a head appeared. You couldn’t see the face at first because it was covered by light blue hair and a black hoodie. Blood pooled in your legs. 

“Y/N, we finally meet.” 

The stranger lifted his head long enough for you to see into his blood-red eyes. You took a step back.

“W-Who are you?” You stammered out. A lump formed heavy in your throat. 

He lifted his head a little more. With cracked lips, he smiled. “I’m your biggest fan.”

[tartrazeen]

Random HankCon Reverse AU Post

I wrote this on Discord some months back, and very luckily somebody fantastic helped me out by finding it! <3 <3 <3 The context was around the HK series already being a canonical type of android in the game: it's a housekeeper model, like the HK-400 Connor hunts down in his first investigation with Hank. So from that, everyone was discussing a reverse AU where Hank was an HK housekeeper, Connor was an overworked older brother taking care of his younger brother, and one of them was proposing that Connor just rent an HK to help around the house and take the load off. And from that, I came up with this roughly described - but still fun and angsty - concept. Picture reading it as I wrote it: mid-conversation, and butting in to slap this idea onto everyone. :D

Omg - Hank helping out enough in just a few ways by making lunch or something, or dinner for the next night, and Connor actually having time to go to sleep and spend time with both of them. Or Hank activating a Cranky Child Up Past His Bedtime protocol and making Connor go to bed, because the poor guy doesn't have an off-switch when every single case just needs a 'few more minutes' for him to crack it.

Connor having such a rough week that his little brother saves up cash from - pfft, I dunno, what's stupidly diabetically sweet enough for this - recycling beer bottles from around the neighbourhood, purely to rent Hank for Connor's sake AND THEN IT BECOMES LIKE SOME KINDA WEIRD-ASS DATE THAT NEITHER OF THEM SEEM TOO INTERESTED IN ENDING But then - then - they get into a bit of a routine like that. Connor's happy enough to rent Hank when his little brother needs him, but now it's grown into a... "Okay, fine, if I need him too, then that just helps both of us. That's okay." ... And then one day, his little brother's staying at a friend's house or something, and Connor's - just... bored? Lonely? Tired? He's not sure. But he flicks over to a website, sees Hank is available, and decides to rent Hank really just for himself. And it's the first time that's ever happened without a kid in the house or without Connor himself being too exhausted to function, so it officially becomes a weird-ass date of them hanging around. Maybe going outside to get air. Whatever happens. Now here's where I can draw upon some more IRL bullshit: water heater rentals. These things last ten years, you pay $40 a month to rent them, but at the end of the tenth year, you'd still have to pay to buy it out. And that - despite everything you pay - could still cost like $6,000. Even if you bought the thing outright, it would've cost $5,000.

I say that because I imagine Connor getting to the point where he's thinking... he might buy Hank. Whenever rental products go up for sale, there's usually a steep discount, so he thinks it won't cost too much. No one else rents Hank as much as he does anyway, and he's not sure how much he's spent, but surely that would knock the price down. He's still very much trying to think of this as a practical transaction to manage the purchase of a machine, after all. Except Connor is the one asking to buy Hank. The company isn't offering. So the sticker shock at the price is - just... unbelievable. To the point that Connor very much regrets even opening his mouth. And the nanny company says it's that or they throw Hank out, because - just the IRL - they can't be seen selling Hank cheaper or giving him away when they're done with him, or they'd never make any money. "People would just wait until he's thrown out and go dumpster diving." So now we have a ticking clock and Connor has a bill to pay. We could do two things from here: 1) Connor gets the money (spoiler). It isn't easy. He's already doing all the overtime he's allowed because he's volunteered for it - he can't afford to let something like sleep get in the way of catching a murderer - so he's making the most that he can. He doesn't have any vacation or sick days to cash in because he's used them all whenever he's burnt out; that's probably why he looked into getting Hank in the first place. And it's not like he has time to get a second job or anything. It's his little brother that asks, "Do we really need a car?"

So they both start selling everything. They don't really need a crappy couch. This table's been wobbly since day one. A garage full of crap that is coated in dust and grime is just enough to get them over the edge of it. And it's a weird feeling, bringing a nanny-bot back to an almost empty house. Connor might comment on how there'd be a lot less to clean, which is bullshit, but the best he can in defence of it all. So Hank takes it for what it is, slowly appreciating exactly what this meant for all of three of them. It's an empty house that's quickly become a full home. 2) Connor doesn't get the money (yesssssssssssss) Because there's just no way to pay that. It's ridiculous - even if he could afford it, he should still be arresting these people, because this is an obvious robbery. He can't make that last leap to admit this is more than a machine to help around the house, and the company - just... "Okay. You have three days to change your mind if you're interested." His little brother tries to get him to. He asks if Connor can just sell the car. Not only is that a bad idea, because how else is Connor going to get to work, but who's going to pay that much for it anyway? It's not worth it, Hank is a walking piece of plastic programmed to be friendly, and if they need a nanny-bot so bad, they can buy a new one for a third of what the rental company is charging. On the second-last day, his little brother tries the ol' "Rent Hank for Connor's sake" trick. It's a last-ditch effort to get Connor to admit that they would all feel awful losing Hank, machine or not. He's real enough to them, right? Wrong. Plastic. Money. Facts. Connor's more pissed that his little brother wasted more cash that could've gone towards paying a price they would never be able to afford anyway, and walks off to let his little brother hang out with the android for a last night. He doesn't want to draw this out for himself, and Hank had better be gone by the time Connor comes home.

Connor doesn't do much. He mostly just walks around for hours. And for way too long - eventually, he's at a park, and there's Hank emerging from the snow (oh yeah, it's snowing) to gently wait there in silence. That goes on for long enough for Connor to accept that he's going to miss Hank. It's a short conversation, and Hank's used the Cranky Kid protocol for Connor to know to start heading back, but that's all Connor says: "We'll miss you, I guess. Thanks." Hank is gone by the time Connor wakes up. The house is quiet, his little brother has his breakfast, and Connor has his lunch made. And that is what really gets to him. Hank - over and above his programming - once again took care of Connor, too. Those walls that were already dropping finally drop the rest of the way, and knowing perfectly well that he's too late, he calls the rental company up to ask if there's a payment plan or some extension or anything he can do to keep Hank. There is! Fortunately! And if Connor would like to arrange that for any of these other rental androids, the company can certainly help. What about Hank? Well, this is a business. They had a deadline and costs around that deadline, so they couldn't keep waiting around forever in the hopes that some family changed their mind about buying a standard android. It's unfortunate, but yes, Hank was appropriately disposed of. Would Connor like to buy another android that looks like Hank instead? Connor hangs up before they can give him the full sales pitch. His little brother notices. His work notices. Everyone notices that Connor's different lately. He's reached an almost terrifying level of laser focus on his work. He has all the time he wants to catch all the bad guys he feels like, and he does because who's going to stop him, really? And it goes like that while his little brother keeps asking for Connor to rent a different android, or to just buy one that's like Hank. On and on and on and on and on and on and on until Connor finally just loses it, dumps his phone on the ground, tells his brother to do whatever the hell he wants so long as he shuts up, and storms back out. He's out there for hours in the cold, half to spite Hank's memory - that he's become painfully reliant on for reasons he ascribes to guilt - and half because he knows it's not only guilt he's feeling. Everything tingles. His fingers, his nose, his ears, and he's at least considering going home to his car so he can warm up without having to do a walk-of-shame back inside. He's saving that for when his brother's asleep. This is roughly a minute before he notices Hank walking out in the snow. Not Hank. Not exactly. It's another android that looks like Hank, and that jolt in Connor's chest twists into a searing ache again. He's changed his mind and he's out here entirely for spite now, because his little brother must've called his bluff and rented another nanny and sent him to drag Connor home.

He's committed to that until Hank mentions the number of times Connor's tried to fight him on going to bed, and the grand total of zero times that Hank's lost this fight. Hank's very good at this. He's had to deal with a lot of rough families and teenagers. Hank remembers that because each family has a profile saved based on every visit: preferences, schedules, the kids' needs, memories... They've always been backed up. It's a business, after all. It takes Connor a few minutes to get it. He's still trying to decide if this android is real or not, let alone... his Hank. And Hank is perfectly willing to keep coming back to convince him. And he will, every time, for as long as Connor keeps a copy of his memories. ... But it is going to be after Connor is in bed. Connor's never been happier to get dragged away, kicking at this 1.98m cuddle-bear the whole time.

[send-me-your-hcs]

okay. for some reason mob boss tony kidnaps peter and it turns out peter is a little. (he gets so scared and couldn't help but get into the littlespace as a defence mechanism???) and tony freaks out because he doesn't know how to take care of a little.

This is literally so funny to me. Like just the thought of Tony going from “You belong to me now, baby boy” to “oh God why is it making that noise, Happy make it stop” is so fucking hilarious?? But damn if I’m not intrigued.

…

......am I doing it?

…….fuck me I’m doing it. Damn you, anon.

Warnings: mentions of human trafficking and abuse, ageplay, underage (but Peter’s age is unspecified and can be envisioned however you’d like).

The compound crumbles in less than an hour.

For all his bravado, Justin Hammer goes down almost too easily. Tony feels tempted to whistle as he walks through the compound’s warehouse, stepping over the slain bodies of Hammer’s underpaid cronies.

His team is just finishing up the last of the clean-up. The occasional gunshot echoes off the walls as Tony takes stock of all the merchandise he just inherited, debating what to do with Hammer once they get home. It almost feels like a waste of effort and time to torture the man before killing him, even with all the trouble he stirred up with the police. Tony’s tempted to just put a bullet in his brain and be done with it.

But, well. He isn’t called The Merchant of Death for nothing, and he does have a certain image to maintain. Plus, with Hammer keeping him company tonight, he’ll at least be partially spared from the usual tedium that comes with being the biggest mafia don on the east coast.

It’s as he’s wondering just what exactly he should do to Hammer first that Happy finally arrives, looking a little disheveled, but no worse for wear. “Boss,” he says, stumbling over the array of corpses with a muted curse, “compound’s clear. We’re ready to pack this all up and move out.”

Tony wipes the toe of his shoe off on some unnamed man’s bullethole-patterned sleeve. “Good. And Hammer?”

“On his way back to base as we speak, sir. I’ll have him ready for you when you arrive.”

Tony nods in approval, then notices the pronounced, telltale crease in Happy’s brow. Always a good sign.

“Something else you wanna tell me, Hap?”

Happy grimaces, deepening his forehead wrinkle. “There was an unexpected...uh...hiccup, sir.”

Tony lifts an eyebrow at the other man, equal parts curious and incredulous. “A hiccup,” he repeats, slowly, watching Happy’s face grow increasingly sour. “What sort of hiccup?”

“The, um...the teenaged boy kind?”

---

There are only two bodies littering the floor outside Hammer’s office: his enforcer, and his bodyguard. Happy scowls at the sight and starts clumsily rolling them out of the way, glaring at Bucky while he does.

Bucky smirks at Happy, pointedly not moving to help clear away the bodies lying between them. “Kid hasn’t stopped crying since you took Hammer,” he says to him, standing in the doorway like a sentry.

“Probably in relief,” Tony says, straightening his tie as Happy finishes kicking over the second body. “Who is he? Do we know?”

“My guess is a trafficking vic,” Bucky says with a shrug. “He’s got bruises. Seems kinda...out of it.”

Tony hums. “Well, I suppose we’re about to find out.”

Bucky steps aside and Tony strolls into the room, sparing a disinterested glance at Hammer’s shameful choice of interior decorating. The throw pillows are haphazardly strewn across the floor from the sofa; one of the grommet drapes is missing from the window. It’s a mess, but that’s not entirely unexpected.

Happy follows close behind him as he makes his way to the corner of the room, where the soft sound of pitiful sobs is coming from underneath the large desk. Tony peeks his head beneath the desktop just enough to confirm the kid doesn’t have a loaded weapon before he crouches down.

The little thing is balled up tight, wrapped in the missing window drapery and clutching one of the stolen throw pillows like his life depends on it. He seems naked underneath it, which confirms Bucky’s human trafficking theory and gives Tony almost an instant headache. There are bruises spanning the boy’s wrists and ankles that look new and swollen, standing out brightly against the boy’s very pale skin.

Tony clears his throat. “As comfortable as that looks, perhaps I could convince you to stand up so we can chat face to face, hm?”

The kid flinches, whimpering into the pillow he has pressed over his face. Tony sighs like an overburdened parent and says, “I don’t have all day. You have till the count of three to come out on your own before I come in there and make you. You hear me? One. Two…”

The boy’s soft-looking head of curls slowly lifts, and the next thing Tony knows, he’s staring into the biggest pair of honey-brown eyes he’s ever seen. They’re red-rimmed and brimming with tears, swollen from how long the kid’s been crying, but they stay obediently and nervously fixed on Tony as the boy slowly uncurls his limbs and crawls out from under the desk.

Tony’s somewhat surprised that the boy clings to his pillow religiously enough to let the curtain slip down to his waist, held up by only a single tiny, shaking fist. The boy won’t spare either hand to hold the drape up properly so it pools around his hips, revealing his slim, narrow torso, his perfectly unblemished skin.

There aren’t any other bruises, though more could be hiding under the curtain. Tony appraises the kid for a long, tense moment before he asks, “What’s your name?”

Thin arms squeeze the throw pillow tight enough to strangle it. The boy is still looking up at him with that damned pair of Disney eyes. He hasn’t stopped crying.

“‘m Peter,” he mumbles, sniffling.

His voice is cute. A little high for a kid his age, but in an endearing way. “Peter.” Tony nods, pleased. “I’m Tony. Tell me, Pete, how long have you been here?”

Peter glances at Happy, then at Bucky in the doorway, before shyly lowering his gaze to the pillow in his arms. He hugs it tighter and says, “Um...don’t...don’t know what day it is.”

“It’s Tuesday,” Happy says, sounding put out in that wonderful way he always does. “June 16th.”

The boy blinks, looking nervous and unsure as he says, “Since...two days.”

“Okay,” Tony says, “And where were you before that?”

Peter’s shoulders droop. He looks down at the floor with wet eyes, mumbling, “With bad guys.”

It takes everything Tony has not to smirk. “Bad guys? Worse than these ones?”

Peter nods. “They took me,” he says, his little voice completely heartbroken, “from Miss Jones’s place. They waited till she was asleep and they took me. S’been…” Confusion washes over his face, like he’s trying to access some memory that isn’t there. “It was winter. There was still snow outside.”

Before Tony can decide how to respond to that, Happy tactfully pipes up with, “Who the hell is Miss Jones?”

“Michelle Jones Adoption Center,” Bucky says, reading aloud as he stares down at his phone. “Looks like a non-profit adoption agency. Website says the founder also runs a foster home. Is that the one?”

All three men turn to look at Peter, who nods, staring at Bucky hopefully. “Uh-huh. They sent me there when my aunt and uncle died.”

Part of Tony is scared to ask. “What happened to your parents?”

“They died when I was little.”

“Yikes,” Happy says quietly under his breath, though not quietly enough. Tony gives him a reproachful look, then turns back to the boy, whose face is once again soaked in tears, clinging to his throw pillow like it’s a teddy bear.

Tony bites the bullet and says, “I hate to be the one to tell you this, kid, but now that you’ve seen our faces, I can’t let you go back to Miss Jones’ place.”

If the kid’s surprised, he doesn’t show it. He just keeps staring down at his pillow, letting his tears drip down off his cheeks and soak into the fabric. “I just...I want…” His lower lip wobbles, and then the sobs come. “I don’t know. I don’t know. ‘m so - so c-confused. I just want my D-Daddy.”

For the first time in longer than Tony can remember, he’s at a loss for words.

“Want Daddy,” Peter says again, babbling, like a child. The crying is really doing nothing for Tony’s budding headache. “‘m scared.”

“I’m praying this isn’t what it sounds like, but, please tell me Justin Hammer wasn’t your Daddy. Ugh, Jesus, I’m never going to get the taste of those words out of my mouth. Blech.”

Thankfully, Peter shakes his head no, looking just as disgusted as Tony feels. Thank God. “I don’t...I don’t think so. I-I don’t know. They said I had to be good for Daddy. They said I couldn’t go home unless it was with h-him.”

Bucky jokingly says, “I’ll be his Daddy,” but he mutes himself when Tony lifts a hand to silence him, before turning to give Happy a helpless look. The man stares back, then silently gestures to his gun, the question clear as day on his face. Tony immediately shakes his head, waving the man’s hand away from his holster with a steely glare.

Okay, so. That’s interesting. Apparently mercy-killing the boy isn’t an option. Giving him back to gentle-hearted, law-abiding-citizen Miss Jones isn’t an option, either.

So where does that leave him?

Tony watches the boy cry a moment longer before resignedly asking, “Peter, how old are you?”

Peter wipes his wet face on the pillow, refusing to let neither it nor the curtain go long enough to use his hands. “Don’t...know,” he says, after a moment, his brows furrowed like he’s thinking it over hard. “They s-said that was up to my Daddy.”

Stellar. Great big help, that is.

Sighing, Tony rubs his temple to soothe his headache, taking a moment to really look at the boy in front of him. Peter is...well. It’s fair to say he isn’t unattractive. Hammer’s poor taste in interior design apparently doesn’t extend to sex slaves.

Tony’s done horrible, truly vile things in his career, but children are usually where he draws his thin, arguably nonexistent moral line. They’re rarely intelligent enough to interest him in any fashion, but Peter - for what it’s worth - has managed to pique his interest just enough that he finds himself actually opening his mouth and saying:

“Peter. Since I can’t let you go back to your foster home, tell me: would you rather come home with me instead?”

He lets the ‘instead of killing you’ go unsaid, since the boy is already having trouble wiping away his tears. Peter stares up at him with a frightened, mistrustful look that makes Tony’s hands twitch. There’s innocence in those eyes, sure. But there’s brightness too. For all the babbling and childish baby-speak Peter’s given him, Tony gets the very distinct impression that he’s far from stupid.

“With you?” the boy asks, hardly louder than a whisper. His tone is soft and wary, sounding every bit the child he believes he is. “You...you’ll be my Daddy?”

It’s a strange thing, to be fifty years old and still learning such intimate things about himself, like how fucked up he is for liking it when this sweet, baby-faced teenage boy calls him Daddy in his soft, childish little voice. Part of him can’t wait to turn around and see the looks on Happy and Bucky’s faces; the rest of him doesn’t want to take his eyes off Peter for even a moment.

He nods, giving Peter what he hopes is a reassuring smile as he steps forward, offering his hand for the boy to take. “That’s right, honey,” he says, his tone syrupy sweet. “There’s nothing to be afraid of. Daddy’s here now.”

Peter looks between Tony’s outstretched hand and his smiling face, deliberating on what they both know is his only real option. Finally, he lets the curtain drop from around his hips to pool at his feet, revealing his slender legs and freshly-shaven pubic area. Tony’s brain momentarily goes white and fuzzy until Peter’s slim, soft hand hesitantly takes his own, still clutching that hideous throw pillow to his chest like a teddy bear.

Tony grants himself another long look over Peter’s gorgeous frame as he slips his suit jacket off and drapes it over the boy’s shoulders. Peter smiles gratefully and pushes his arms through the sleeves, his face darkening with a blush as Tony starts fastening the buttons. “Thank you, Daddy.”

Fuck. Forcing himself to swallow the growl building in his throat, Tony takes the boy’s hand again and leads him to the door. “Come on, sweetheart. Let’s get you home.”

Peter clings to him as they step through the threshold. Well, Tony thinks to himself, his hand tightening around Peter’s own, at least things won’t be boring from now on.

[keichanz]

Lullaby

inspired by this adorable fanart drawn by @magnoliajades​. the song is My Precious One by Celine Dion, but i altered the last set of lyrics to fit the setting. 

i gave Inuyasha glasses because i felt like it and for some reason i really like that image. also he doesn’t so much as sing the song as say the lyrics with a lilt that suggests a melody because even with how often i take liberties with his personality in AU’s i still can’t imagine him actually singing heh.

*conveniently and purposely forgets i wrote an entire fucking 27 chapter fic centered on Inuyasha being a singer* 

Pushing away from the desk with a heavy sigh, Inuyasha reached up to remove his glasses and tiredly rubbed his eyes. It was just past 8 PM, he still had five pages of code to enter, and that wasn’t even including the software he had to confiture as well as debug the new website. Fuck, but if he’d known becoming a goddamn IT tech meant bringing loads of work home with you almost every night, he definitely would have rethought a profession working with computers.

Inuyasha snorted quietly and then scowled at his computer screen. As far as he was concerned, the only benefit of his career was the salary. And the free Starbucks in the company cafeteria, but that was beside the point.

Taking a moment to stretch his back and legs since he’d been sitting in the computer chair for nigh on four hours now, Inuyasha replaced his glasses – an unfortunate side effect from his college days of staring at his computer in the dark – and eyed his half-empty coffee mug sitting next to the wireless mouse. He was pretty sure it had gone cold by now since he hadn’t touched it for about an hour and he was just contemplating getting up to make a fresh cup when suddenly the apartment door slammed open with enough force to bang against the wall.

A second later it slammed closed before the sounds of jingling keys and rustling clothing reached his ears. Calm as you please, Inuyasha sat back in the chair and silently watched as his girlfriend stormed by the living room, her expression positively thunderous, before disappearing down the hall and into their bedroom.

He sighed, rubbed his eyes again, and reached up to let his hair down from the bun he’d had it in all day.

Kagome had called him earlier, just after he’d gotten home from work himself, to let him know her boss had mandated her again and she’d be home late. Not a very uncommon thing, unfortunately. Her boss was a bit of a dick and it was no secret Kagome hated his guts, but the pay was good and she genuinely enjoyed her job as a social worker. She loved being able to help children in bad situations, but it came with the awful side effect of working for Naraku Morikawa. Kagome always complained about him, saying she would never understand how a man that treats his employees so poorly and yet have the gall to work with children, and if Inuyasha were honest, he’d have to agree.

She’d never leave, though, and she’d told him as much several times. Because despite having an awful boss and oftentimes long work hours, overseeing happy adoptions and tearful reunions always made it worth it.

Today, however, must have been particularly bad since she hadn’t even bothered to say anything before storming to their room. Coupled with that scowl on her face and the angry muttering his ears were picking up, Inuyasha knew his girlfriend well enough to know not to approach and let her decide what she needed to calm herself. It would be either one of two things: lock herself in the bathroom and have a long, hot soak in the bathtub, or come to him for cuddles and silent reassurance.

Minutes ticked by and when he didn’t hear any water running, Inuyasha had a good idea which one it would be so he stayed where he was, his half-formed idea for a fresh cup o’ joe already forgotten. His girl was far more important than any caffeine kick, anyway.

Only half paying attention to what his fingers were doing on the keyboard, Inuyasha got back to work, one ear trained toward the kitchen. He could hear her moving around and knew she broke out the wine by the sounds and smell of it.

Inuyasha smiled a little to himself and absently typed in a series of commands he’d long ago memorized. Must have been a truly rough day if she was using wine to help settle her nerves. He wondered if she’d explain what happened if he asked; odds were she wouldn’t, but sometimes giving voice to the whirling thoughts in her head assisted in soothing her upset, so then again, it was possible.

He heard the clinking of glass on the counter, more unintelligible muttering, and then footsteps approaching the living room. Inuyasha didn’t look away from the computer, however, when Kagome switched off the light and shuffled over to him. A brief glance revealed that she’d shed her slacks, leaving her in just her blue sweater and black boy shorts.

Not altogether unusual, however the fact that she hadn’t finished undressing before going to the wine tipped him off that something serious must have happened at work. The first thing he and Kagome both did upon returning home was immediately change into loungewear unless they planned on going somewhere, and he knew for a fact her bra was always the first thing to go. It was extremely telling that she’d only had the patience to shed her pants before going to the kitchen and now he was almost positive she wouldn’t be in a sharing mood tonight.

Kagome wasn’t looking at him, instead glaring at his chest. Wordlessly Inuyasha pushed back and opened his arms and his girl instantly crawled onto his lap, straddling his thighs as her arms snaked around his waist. She didn’t say a word as she buried her face into his chest and clung to him, taking calm, measured breaths. Inuyasha dropped a kiss to her head and took a moment to run his hand up and down her back in wordless comfort, waiting until her heart rate had returned to normal before scooting back in and stretching his arms out to continue working.

Kagome didn’t stir, content to sit there as he worked, and not for the first time Inuyasha was glad his girl was so petit to make the position possible. He never minded having to work around her, and in fact liked having her snuggled against him, her sweet scent in his nose, listening to her breathe. He was her source of comfort when her life got just a little bit too much to bear, and he’d always be there for her, no matter what.

Time passed and the only sounds in the apartment were their steady breathing and Inuyasha’s fingers clicking against the keyboard and mouse as he worked. Kagome remained still against him, showing no signs of moving, but that was fine with him. It wasn’t until she released a heavy sigh and he felt her relax completely against him that he said something, the low rumble of his voice breaking the quiet of the apartment.

“Wanna talk about it?”

With her head tucked beneath her chin, his words stirred her hair and he felt her shake her head. Inuyasha accepted her answer with another kiss to her head and didn’t press. She’d tell him later if she wanted to. For now, this was enough, and he knew that.

They sat there in silence for another few minutes, the glow from the computer the only illumination and the half-demon’s hands moving across the keyboard filling the quiet. Kagome sighed again and turned her head so her ear rested against his chest, listening to the steady beating of his heart.

“Inuyasha?” His girl’s voice was barely above a whisper but he heard it anyway.

“Mm?”

“Please?”

Inuyasha paused for only a second before typing out the rest of the command. She didn’t have to elaborate. He knew what she was asking for and it was another glaring sign that her day at work had not gone well at all. Knowing that, there was no way he could refuse her, especially since it was so rare nowadays that she asked at all.

She was his girl, his beloved Kagome, and he could never deny her anything, even this.

Giving a soft sigh, Inuyasha didn’t answer and instead pressed another kiss to her head, nuzzling her hair. Idly thinking that it was a good thing he could multitask, Inuyasha took a breath and began.

“My precious one, my darling one, don’t let your lashes weep.”

Kagome sighed and allowed the deep rumble of his voice to lull her into a state of lethargy, closing her eyes. Inuyasha didn’t exactly sing the lyrics, no, but she didn’t mind. She adored the way the words fell from his lips, low with a smooth lilt that made it obvious they were lyrics, but slow enough that the cadence of the melody was entirely his own.

It was her lullaby, his promise to always protect her, and it never failed to calm the storm of her unsettled nerves, no matter what the cause happened to be.

“My cherished one, my weary one, it’s time to go to sleep.”

Safe at home and in her boyfriend’s arms, Kagome was finally able to let her mind go blank. She concentrated on his chest moving up and down as he breathed, felt the deep rumble of his voice against her ear, his breath stirring her hair, and heard the soft clicking of his claws as he continued to work. She could feel the tension leaving her body, draining out of her and for the first time in what felt like all day, a tiny smile slowly curved her mouth upward.

“Just bow your head, and give your cares to me,” Inuyasha continued, keeping his voice low, intimate. “Just close your eyes, and fall into the sweetest dream.”

Slowly, surely, Kagome’s heart rate slowed and her breathing evened out with the measured, rhythmic breaths of sleep. Her smile dimmed but didn’t disappear, serene, content.

“‘Cause in my loving arms,” Inuyasha continued, voice dropping to a whisper. “You’re safe as you will ever be.”

Kagome sighed, mumbled his name, and succumbed.

“So hush, my dear, and sleep,” he murmured into her hair, kissed her head, and sighed.

Inuyasha let her sleep and hummed the rest of the song under his breath as he finished up his work. He wasn’t surprised she fell asleep, especially since he’d sung her lullaby; Kagome always swore that his voice had healing powers since it always managed to calm her upset, but Inuyasha suspected it had more to do with the fact that her father used to sing it to her when she was a kid before he passed away.

Maybe it was a mixture of both, but whatever the case, the song had fond memories attached to it and he knew it was important to her, about as much as she was to him. So yeah, if he had to temporarily check in his manliness and sing to the woman he loved to make her feel better, then he would without question.

When he finally finished work and shut down the computer a little after nine, Kagome didn’t stir as Inuyasha stood up with her in his arms and carried her to their bedroom. He carefully laid her down, pressed a kiss to her forehead, and left to turn off the kitchen light and lock door before using the bathroom and then doubling back.

Unsurprisingly Kagome was still passed out. Shaking his head, but not without a fond smile, Inuyasha managed to take both her sweater and bra off without waking her before shedding his own clothes and crawling into bed beside her. He pulled the blankets up as Kagome rolled so she was facing him and Inuyasha pulled her close, tucking her tightly against him, his love for this woman powerful, consuming, strong enough to make him want to weep.

“Goodnight, baby,” he whispered against her temple, closing his eyes. “Sweet dreams.”

“And if you should awake I’ll kiss your soft cheek And underneath the smiling moon I’ll sing you back to sleep.”

[aiweirdness]

Dungeon crawling or lucid dreaming?

I’ve done several experiments with a text-generating neural network called GPT-2. Trained at great expense by OpenAI (to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars worth of computing power), GPT-2 learned to imitate all kinds of text from the internet. I’ve interacted with the basic model, discovering its abilities to generate fan fiction, British snacks, or tea. I’ve also used a tool called gpt-2-simple that Max Woolf developed to make it easy to finetune GPT-2 on more specialized datasets - I’ve tried it on datasets like recipes or crochet. One of my favorite applications of GPT-2 and other text-generating neural nets is Dungeons and Dragons spells, creatures, character names, and character bios.

Recently Max published a tutorial on how to use GPT-2 to make new apps that are more complicated than just printing out large reams of text. To my delight, people have used them to made D&D games. First, there was Nick Walton’s AI Dungeon, in which a finetuned GPT-2 generates a story and three very strange action options at each step.

My latest obsession is GPT-2 Adventure, designed by a cognitive neuroscience student named Nathan, which lets you type in your own actions. And folks, this game is SO WEIRD and SO FUN.

YOU FLOAT IN SPACE, LIKE A BALLOON, AND AS YOU DROP THE CUBE, THE X, IT VANISHES IN A CLOUD OF GREASY BLACK SMOKE

>>

When I first launch the game, this is what I’m greeted with, a simple text prompt reminiscent of nostalgic dungeon crawling games. It sets the scene. It waits for me to describe my next move.

Even getting to this point is like a blast from the past. The game runs in a Google Colab notebook, a format where you’re looking at cells of code, with cryptic comments, vaguely alarming warning messages, and all. It’s not a sleek web app, but feels more akin to playing a game on an old DOS machine, or maybe on a graphing calculator. There are only two clicks to begin playing, but there’s a good two-minute wait while the game loads.

And it’s my turn to type something.

>> look up

It takes several seconds for the game to respond, as if I’m playing it on a very ancient computer. The computer is in fact a state-of-the-art NVIDIA GPU, likely a K80 or a T4. The T4 could eat my laptop for lunch. I’m just playing with a very very large neural net. Finally it answers.

YOU'RE IN LABYRINTH OF TWISTY LITTLE PASSAGES, ALL ALIKE

Almost immediately, the context seems to have changed. I’m not floating at all. I’m in a maze. I guess I’ll walk somewhere.

>> walk north

THE TROLL STEPS OUT FROM BENEATH THE BRIDGE AND BLOCKS YOUR WAY

YOU ARE ON THE SOUTH SIDE OF THE CHASM

A NOD IS GIVEN TO THE INFINITE WONDER THAT IS URBZIG

A SOLID RAINBOW SPANS THE CHASM

And suddenly things are happening. There is a troll. There is a chasm. There is a rainbow. There is… Urbzig? I play it safe.

>> praise urbzig

URBZIG IS THE PATRON SAINT OF ZORK

HE IS THE GODFATHER OF ZORK, THE PLACE TO GET NEWS OF EPIC PROPORTIONS

URBZIG IS A STRONGMAN,遊 ALL

If you’ve played classic dungeon crawling games like Zork, you may recognize some of these names and phrases. Checking Nathan’s original post, I see that the training data is indeed drawn from these games. But because it’s based on GPT-2, the training data also in some sense also includes much of the internet. This gives it a lot of latent flexibility to deal with situations that were never in the classic games.

>> ask Harry Potter to try walking across the rainbow

ASK HARRY POTTER TO TRY WALKING ACROSS THE RAINBOW HE CAN'T THE RAINBOW IS EXTREMELY WIDE ABOVE YOU IS A LARGE DOME UP AROUND ITS NECK IS A STRONGG PORE [UNFORTUNATELY, THE DIRECTION OF TRAVEL IS A LOT MORE INTERESTING THAN YOU THINK ][YOU ARE IN A LARGE ROOM, WITH A PASSAGE TO THE EAST, A PASSAGE TO THE WEST, AND A WALL OF BROKEN ROCK TO THE SOUTH

An interesting effect of its human-written training data is that, like Visual Chatbot, it isn’t prepared for humans that ask questions about objects that aren’t there. If I refer to Harry Potter, then Harry Potter must be present. If I type something about a giraffe, then it assumes the giraffe must be present.

>> ask the giraffe which direction to go next

THE GIRAFFE IS ALREADY OUTFITTED WITH A VISOR WHICH IS CLEARLY DEFINED

Although it’s not clear that this AI actually understands what a giraffe is.

>> look at the giraffes

THE GAZEBO HAS DISAPPEARED

>> put giraffe in backpack

DONE

Navigating this world is like navigating in a dream. My location suddenly changes without warning. I thought I was by a chasm with a rainbow bridge. Now apparently I’m in a building. Dreamlike, it is also really hard to read text.

>> look around

YOU ARE IN A LARGE ROOM, WITH A PASSAGE TO THE SOUTH, A PASSAGE TO THE EAST, AND A WALL OF BROKEN ROCK TO THE NORTH A SIGN POSTED ABOVE THE NORTH WALL READS, "STOP! PAY TROLL!" A SMALL WINDOW CAN BE SEEN IN EITHER WALL

>> read sign

THE SIGN IS VERY SIMPLE

>> yes but read sign

WE NOW HAVE ALL FIFTEEN TREASURES IT IS TIME TO GO BACK INTO THE CAVE FOR THE END GAME

>> that's awesome. but i still want to know what the sign says. read sign.

YOU ARE IN A GAZEBO ROOM WHICH HAS DOORS ONLY TO THE EAST AND SOUTH

Another thing that’s surprisingly difficult to do is check inventory.

>> check inventory

DONE

>> check inventory

THERE IS AN INTERESTING LOOT HERE

>> what is the loot

WHAT IS THE LOOT?

>> check inventory

YOU ARE IN THE BAG CASE

Very occasionally I will succeed in opening a bag. It will usually be weird.

>> open bag

OPENING THE BAG REVEALS A TEA BAG

>> make tea

AY! A LOVELY SURPRISE FOR THE SURPRISE

More so than any other game I’ve played, I’m unsure of the rules here. Some weird things unexpectedly work.

IF YOU DON'T GET KILLED, YOU ARE TOAST

>> Eat the toast.

EAT THE TOAST IT TASTES LIKE A STEAK A STEAK IS PERFECTLY FINE

Other seemingly obvious things don’t work.

THERE IS A PATH TO THE NORTH, A PATH TO THE SOUTH, OR A STEEP PATHWAY CLIMBING SOUTHWEST ALONG THE EDGE OF A CHASM

>> go north

I DON'T KNOW HOW TO DO THAT

>> go south

I DON'T KNOW HOW TO DO THAT

>> go southwest

YOU WILL BE DESCENDING INTO A VALLEY THERE IS A NARROW BEACH TO THE NORTH AND A PATH LEADING INTO A CANYON TO THE SOUTHEAST YOU ARE ON THE CLIFF OVERLOOKING THE FAR SIDE OF THE ROOM A PATH LEADS SOUTH ALONG THE EDGE OF A CHASM, AND A NARROW PATH LEADING INTO A LOZENGE ROOM

Sometimes I’m wandering endlessly from room to room, from cave to cave, encountering the same chasm in slightly different variations, the same dried-up lake. Other times I’m embroiled in seemingly unescapable fights, usually with trolls. Often reality shifts entirely around me and I end up in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike, or in the hall of the mountain king. Everything seems weirdly familiar - even the room descriptions are echoes of classic dungeon crawling games. It is as if I’m dreaming about playing them again.

My actions also mold reality. I learn quickly to always check for diamonds, and never check for traps. If I find myself in trouble, I can always do something confusing and provoke a context change. Writing “In a large bowl, combine butter and sugars” is usually enough to teleport myself out of whatever situation I’m in. I can always ask a giraffe for advice, although the giraffe usually isn’t very helpful.

Without a particular mission to fulfill, the caves and chasms begin to blend into one another. I give myself missions, and that helps. Once I decide my goal is to put together a picnic (incessant “check for food” commands eventually yielded a sack with a lunch and a clove of garlic, belonging to a horse who agreed to join me on a picnic). Another time I demand a mission and am given some php code; i decide my mission is therefore to build a website, but am astounded when a unicorn steals my laptop. This is not the only time other content intrudes on the game’s fantasy landscape - once the game tries to tell me about finding cash online, and another time I am sadly informed that there is no wi-fi. I encounter dinosaurs and troikas, none of which were in the original training data. Occasionally things get creepy as hell.

>> check for loot

CHECK FOR LOOT HERE CHECK FOR GOLD HERE CHECK FOR TORCH HERE CHECK FOR BONE HERE DO CHEST COMPRESSIONS AGAIN DO CHEST ROTATE DO CRESCENT MOON APPEAR IN THE ROOM'S CENTER

>> do back away slowly

DO BACK AWAY SLOWLY DO NOT OVERDO IT THE CHEST WILL EXPLODE AND YOU WILL DIE OKAY, SO YOU SEE ME

You can play the game too! Just follow the colab notebook link in Nathan’s blog post. Tips: 1) It may be more fun if you set yourself an arbitrary goal to reach. 2) If you find things getting repetitive, try adjusting the temperature in the “Play the game” cell to 0.6 or 1.0.

Subscribers get bonus content: The fulltext of a couple of my adventures (much too long to include here).

You can order my book You Look Like a Thing and I Love You! It’s out November 5 2019.

Amazon - Barnes & Noble - Indiebound - Tattered Cover - Powell’s

[captainkappa]

Fanfic :: Icebreakers

Me? Publishing writing? It’s more likely than you think.

But yeah, holy crap, I finished something! That hasn’t happened in a long time, so please enjoy this zukka modern au fic where they’re both attending college now!

While taking online classes, Sokka and Zuko are paired up for icebreakers.

Preslash Sokka/Zuko, college AU

AO3 link

-=-=-=-

Sitting down in front of his laptop, wearing the sweatpants and tank top he slept in, this was not how Sokka expected to start his third year of college.

Well, he didn’t expect be forced online for the spring semester of his sophomore year as well, so technically that was a bigger surprise. At least this time, he was better prepared and built his schedule with distance learning in mind; a film course for his last elective, two engineering courses that weren’t reliant on lab, and two math courses. He tried not to think about all the labs he would have to take in the next year and a half, but for now, it was worth it to have a manageable schedule during a pandemic. For now, he was content to live off campus with Aang. He could’ve stayed home with his dad and Katara, but because Aang didn’t have any family to speak of, the executive decision was made for Sokka to keep his lease on the apartment with Aang and video call with his family at least once a week to make up for it.

It wasn’t that bad. They got one of the few places near campus that allowed dogs, so Aang’s shepherd dog, Appa, made the whole situation less dreary. Plus, his elective was right after his thermodynamics course, which gave his more of a reason to get up for the 9 o’clock engineering course.

So, here he was, not listening to the professor go on about “unprecedented times” and “academic honesty,” the same things he’d heard in his earlier class. Glancing at his own camera, he saw Aang not so sneakily open his door. He quickly muted and took out one of his earbuds.

"I'm ordering groceries,” Aang said quietly, “need anything else?"

"No, just whatever I put on the list."

"Got it!"

Aang closed the door and Sooka turned back to the computer, unmuting himself. The professor was about to move on to syllabus, when Sokka noticed a white blur out of the corner of his eye. He barely had time to think about the fact that Aang hadn’t fully closed the door, when he was knocked out of his chair with a crash.

"No, Appa, no! Down boy!" He said, fruitlessly trying to get Appa down off him. Appa paid no attention, continuously licking at him.

From the one earbud still in his ear, he registered his classmates laughing and the professor asking, "Are you alright?"

Appa was still not letting up so he just threw up a thumbs up in what he hoped was in frame of the webcam. "Yeah, sorry about that. My roommate’s dog hasn't seen me since March. Let me just-" with a flourish, he muted himself.

“Now Appa,” he said, gently holding the dog’s face in his hands, “if this incident haunts me all semester, I’m only getting you kitty treats for a month.”

Appa’s tongue lolled out of his mouth, completely oblivious.

“Alright now, up! Up!”

That seemed to do the trick, or it was the whistle from Aang in the other room. Either way, Appa graciously got off Sokka, trotting out the bedroom door much more slowly than he’d entered.

Sokka righted his chair and settled down and saw that even though the professor had moved on, everyone was still giggling at him. He took it in stride, taking a bit of a stretch.

The professor soldiered on, explaining how she found PDFs of all articles needed for the course (sweet), how she got them all copies of the movies on her website, and the schedule for the semester.

"Ok, now that the housekeeping is over, I'll put you all into breakout rooms for ice breakers. You’ll be in a room with one or two other students. Tell each other your name, major, why you're taking the class, and a fun fact about yourself. You'll introduce each other to the rest of the class in 5 minutes."

Sokka sighed, having hoped that at least one professor would forgo icebreakers considering the online format for the class. No dice. He clicked on the breakout room pop-up and anxiously waited for the other person to join the group, looking at his camera in the meantime. It was only then did he realize he’d been sitting in class for half an hour with his ponytail all askew. He tugged out the ponytail holder, shaking his hair out and pulling it back up so the sides he’d shaven himself were on display.

He looked up and a second person had silently joined the breakout room. Sokka immediately recognized him as one of the students who initially caught his eye. He wasn't conventionally attractive, with the massive scar covering the left side of his face, but he was certainly striking, with his floppy black hair and short-sleeve button-up shirt. It must’ve been a trick of the light in his room, but it looked like he was blushing.

“Oh, sorry, I didn’t see you there.”

“I-It’s okay,” the other guy said, seeming a little bit distracted.

Sokka could guess he wasn’t a fan of being online, so he continued, "Ok, then I'll start. I'm Sokka, junior mechanical engineering major. This is the last elective I need, but really it was the only one available that wasn't too advanced. My fun fact is I invented submarines."

That seemed to snap the other guy out of his reverie. "I... what?"

"Well I thought I did. I had these whole schematics for underwater cars with telescopes sticking out from the top to look for ships, but then my uncle Bato brought me a book about submarines for Christmas and I cried for two days."

The other guy was silent.

Sokka grinned, "I was 4."

"Oh! I thought you were just weird." He said, before clapping a hand over his mouth. "No wait! I mean-"

"Nah, don't sweat it dude, that's why I tell that story the way I do, for the punchline! Don’t worry about it.

“Oh, okay.”

“Your turn!"

"Uh, well my name is Zuko Sozin, I'm a senior English major with creative writing and theater minors. I’m also taking this for an elective and my fun fact is… I hate fun facts"

He snorted, "Fair, but come on, you gotta give me more than that."

"Um... I’ve trained with swords?”

Sokka gasped. “Do you have them with you?”

“Yes?”

“Show me!”

Zuko’s camera shuddered as he moved his laptop to point at to another wall of the room to show two swords with curved blades leaning against the wall.

“That’s so cool!”

“Thanks, they’re dao swords.”

And then Sokka leaned back and watched Zuko go into the history of dao swords, how they were traditionally used, and how long he’d been learning them. It was like any awkwardness had left Zuko’s body and was replaced with this confidence as he went on about this topic that he clearly loved. It was endearing. As someone who frequently would break out into an enthusiastic TedTalk about what he was doing in his engineering classes, Sokka loved hearing about other people’s passions.

Then, as Zuko was explaining how dual-wielding was much harder than using a single sword, the pop up informing them they would be put back in the main Zoom call in a minute appeared.

“Oh, wow,” Sokka said, “time sure does fly, huh?”

Zuko blinked, “What-? Oh, sorry, I totally took up all of the time.”

“It’s fine! It was really interesting!”

A small smile appeared on Zuko’s face, “Really?”

“Yeah, I only recently started training with a sword.”

That spar returned to Zuko’s eyes, “Oh really? What-”

But then the video cut out and was replaced with a loading screen. Sokka cursed under his breath as he was put back into the larger Zoom call with all the other students in it.

The professor’s video lit up, “Okay, settle down everyone. Now, which group wants to go first?”

While the first group went, Sokka made the split-second decision to start typing in the chat. After double and then triple checking that he was only messaging Zuko, he hit enter.

hey, i know this is kind of forward, but I can talk more about my sword training after class, if you want? here’s my number xxx-xxx-xxxx

Sokka tried to focus on the icebreakers after, but his eyes kept straying to the chat. He and Zuko got through their ice breakers just fine, and Sokka’s fun fact got equal amounts of confused faces and laughs, which was his intention.

And then he was caught up in taking notes on the professor’s explanation of the homework for the next class and then the Zoom call was over. It was only afterwards, as he was replacing the piece of tape over the camera, did he realize he never got a response from Zuko.

He tried to tamp down his disappointment. He had come off pretty strong, he shouldn’t take it personally.

He had a couple of hours until his next class, so he pulled his phone out of his pocket and unlocked it. He learned the hard way last semester to keep it on silent, and so he scrolled through Aang’s frantic apology texts over letting Appa get in the room, Hakoda wishing him luck for the semester, and Suki confirming their movie night after her afternoon class. He surprised that in between those texts, there was an unknown number from a couple of minutes ago.

Hey, Zuko here.

Sokka felt his heart stutter and a grin spread across his face as he typed out his reply.

hey! my last class of the day ends at 2, if you want to talk then?

He barely made it into the kitchen before he got a reply.

Sounds good.

Sokka couldn’t get rid of his grin as he typed out Zuko’s name into his contact.

Maybe there were some upsides to online classes.

[scrollingbyatthevoid]

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Both of them are the dating and connection instructors. Unlock The Scrambler Strategy Text is a completely connection sustained system for individuals. We'll give a basic summary of each of the five steps you'll utilize in this method. It includes five key structure obstructs to have a woman swooning over and also even consumed with you. The duo developed these five foundation to achieve specific results, so you need to follow them to a tee. If of course, after that the bright side concerning the Unlock Her Legs system is that it is loaded with great deals of information that will not only assist you end up being more attractive to ladies, however will certainly additionally clarify to you which mistakes you need to prevent. 2 - The Boyfriend Destroyer Series: this method will certainly aid to draw in the lady that is currently having a boyfriend. Bobby clarifies that this method is expected to cause the "chase response" and also have good-looking ladies fawning throughout you. 3 - The Magnetic Effect: in this technique you can draw the destination of your girl by sending out a text. 1 - She's Sending You Signals: this perk would certainly aid you to boost your understanding about the signal which will be sent by the woman.

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99 Additional Bits of Unsolicited Advice

• That thing that made you weird as a kid could you make great as an adult — if you don’t lose it.

• If you have any doubt at all about being able to carry a load in one trip, do yourself a huge favor and make two trips.

• What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you become by achieving your goals. At your funeral people will not recall what you did; they will only remember how you made them feel.

• Recipe for success: under-promise and over-deliver.

• It’s not an apology if it comes with an excuse. It is not a compliment if it comes with a request.

• Jesus, Superman, and Mother Teresa never made art. Only imperfect beings can make art because art begins in what is broken.

• If someone is trying to convince you it’s not a pyramid scheme, it’s a pyramid scheme.

• Learn how to tie a bowline knot. Practice in the dark. With one hand. For the rest of your life you’ll use this knot more times than you would ever believe.

• If something fails where you thought it would fail, that is not a failure.

• Be governed not by the tyranny of the urgent but by the elevation of the important.• Leave a gate behind you the way you first found it.

• The greatest rewards come from working on something that nobody has a name for. If you possibly can, work where there are no words for what you do.

• A balcony or porch needs to be at least 6 feet (2m) deep or it won’t be used.

• Don’t create things to make ; make money so you can create things. The reward for good work is more work.

• In all things — except love — start with the exit strategy. Prepare for the ending. Almost anything is easier to get into than out of.

• Train employees well enough they could get another job, but treat them well enough so they never want to.

• Don’t aim to have others like you; aim to have them respect you.

• The foundation of maturity: Just because it’s not your fault doesn’t mean it’s not your responsibility.

• A multitude of bad ideas is necessary for one good idea.

• Being wise means having more questions than answers.

• Compliment people behind their back. It’ll come back to you.

• Most overnight successes — in fact any significant successes — take at least 5 years. Budget your life accordingly.

• You are only as young as the last time you changed your mind.

• Assume anyone asking for your account information for any reason is guilty of scamming you, unless proven innocent. The way to prove innocence is to call them back, or login to your account using numbers or a website that you provide, not them. Don’t release any identifying information while they are contacting you via phone, message or email. You must control the channel.

• Sustained outrage makes you stupid.

• Be strict with yourself and forgiving of others. The reverse is hell for everyone.• Your best response to an insult is “You’re probably right.” Often they are.

• The worst evils in history have always been committed by those who truly believed they were combating evil. Beware of combating evil.

• If you can avoid seeking approval of others, your power is limitless.

• When a child asks an endless string of “why?” questions, the smartest reply is, “I don’t know, what do you think?”

• To be wealthy, accumulate all those things that money can’t buy.

• Be the change you wish to see.

• When brainstorming, improvising, jamming with others, you’ll go much further and deeper if you build upon each contribution with a playful “yes — and” example instead of a deflating “no — but” reply.

• Work to become, not to acquire.

• Don’t loan money to a friend unless you are ready to make it a gift.

• On the way to a grand goal, celebrate the smallest victories as if each one were the final goal. No matter where it ends you are victorious.

• Calm is contagious.

• Even a foolish person can still be right about most things. Most conventional wisdom is true.

• Always cut away from yourself.

• Show me your calendar and I will tell you your priorities. Tell me who your friends are, and I’ll tell you where you’re going.

• When hitchhiking, look like the person you want to pick you up.

• Contemplating the weaknesses of others is easy; contemplating the weaknesses in yourself is hard, but it pays a much higher reward.

• Worth repeating: measure twice, cut once.

• Your passion in life should fit you exactly; but your purpose in life should exceed you. Work for something much larger than yourself.

• If you can’t tell what you desperately need, it’s probably sleep.• When playing Monopoly, spend all you have to buy, barter, or trade for the Orange properties. Don’t bother with Utilities.

• If you borrow something, try to return it in better shape than you received it. Clean it, sharpen it, fill it up.

• Even in the tropics it gets colder at night than you think. Pack warmly.

• To quiet a crowd or a drunk, just whisper.

• Writing down one thing you are grateful for each day is the cheapest possible therapy ever.

• When someone tells you something is wrong, they’re usually right. When someone tells you how to fix it, they’re usually wrong.

• If you think you saw a mouse, you did. And, if there is one, there are more.

• Money is overrated. Truly new things rarely need an abundance of money. If that was so, billionaires would have a monopoly on inventing new things, and they don’t. Instead almost all breakthroughs are made by those who lack money, because they are forced to rely on their passion, persistence and ingenuity to figure out new ways. Being poor is an advantage in innovation.

• Ignore what others may be thinking of you, because they aren’t.

• Avoid hitting the snooze button. That’s just training you to oversleep.• Always say less than necessary.

• You are given the gift of life in order to discover what your gift *in* life is. You will complete your mission when you figure out what your mission is. This is not a paradox. This is the way.

• Don’t treat people as bad as they are. Treat them as good as you are.

• It is much easier to change how you think by changing your behavior, than it is to change your behavior by changing how you think. Act out the change you  seek.

• You can eat any dessert you want if you take only 3 bites.

• Each time you reach out to people, bring them a blessing; then they’ll be happy to see you when you bring them a problem.

• Bad things can happen fast, but almost all good things happen slowly.

• Don’t worry how or where you begin. As long as you keep moving, your success will be far from where you start.

• When you confront a stuck bolt or screw: righty tighty, lefty loosey.

• If you meet a jerk, overlook them. If you meet jerks everywhere everyday, look deeper into yourself.

• Dance with your hips.

• We are not bodies that temporarily have souls. We are souls that temporarily have bodies.

• You can reduce the annoyance of someone’s stupid belief by increasing your understanding of why they believe it.

• If your goal does not have a schedule, it is a dream.

• All the greatest gains in life — in wealth, relationships, or knowledge —come from the magic of compounding interest — amplifying small steady gains. All you need for abundance is to keep adding 1% more than you subtract on a regular basis.

• The greatest breakthroughs are missed because they look like hard work.

• People can’t remember more than 3 points from a speech.

• I have never met a person I admired who did not read more books than I did.

• The greatest teacher is called “doing”.

• Finite games are played to win or lose. Infinite games are played to keep the game going. Seek out infinite games because they yield infinite rewards.

• Everything is hard before it is easy. The day before something is a breakthrough, it’s a stupid idea.

• A problem that can be solved with money is not really a problem.

• When you are stuck, sleep on it. Let your subconscious work for you.

• Your work will be endless, but your time is finite. You cannot limit the work so you must limit your time. Hours are the only thing you can manage.

• To succeed, get other people to pay you; to become wealthy, help other people to succeed.

• Children totally accept — and crave — family rules. “In our family we have a rule for X” is the only excuse a parent needs for setting a family policy. In fact, “I have a rule for X” is the only excuse you need for your own personal policies.

• All guns are loaded.

• Many backward steps are made by standing still.

• This is the best time ever to make something. None of the greatest, coolest creations 20 years from now have been invented yet. You are not late.

• No rain, no rainbow.

• Every person you meet knows an amazing lot about something you know virtually nothing about. Your job is to discover what it is, and it won’t be obvious.

• You don’t marry a person, you marry a family.

• Always give credit, take blame.

• Be frugal in all things, except in your passions splurge.

• When making something, always get a few extras — extra material, extra parts, extra space, extra finishes. The extras serve as backups for mistakes, reduce stress, and fill your inventory for the future. They are the cheapest insurance.

• Something does not need to be perfect to be wonderful. Especially weddings.

• Don’t let your email inbox become your to-do list.

• The best way to untangle a knotty tangle is not to “untie” the knots, but to keep pulling the loops apart wider and wider. Just make the mess as big, loose and open as possible. As you open up the knots they will unravel themselves. Works on cords, strings, hoses, yarns, or electronic cables.

• Be a good ancestor. Do something a future generation will thank you for. A simple thing is to plant a tree.

• To combat an adversary, become their friend.

• Take one simple thing — almost anything — but take it extremely seriously, as if it was the only thing in the world, or maybe the entire world is in it — and by taking it seriously you’ll light up the sky.

• History teaches us that in 100 years from now some of the assumptions you believed will turn out to be wrong. A good question to ask yourself today is “What might I be wrong about?”

• Be nice to your children because they are going to choose your nursing home.