#was I just meant to find this out through the Google 12 years later??

[winterlili]

Just found out that the Mike and Ike breakup in 2012 was staged. I’m absolutely, inconsolably devastated.

[possumsinpeoplesuits]

At long last, my Our Lady of the Passion cosplay is ready for cons!

Based on this picture from Pinterest (google is finding fuck all elsewhere, but if someone knows the source I'll add it.)

The tank top is from Lockedtombmemes' Redbubble store.

The jacket is here, though I've painted the back with some fabric paint. I used the non-heat treating kind and just sort of sketched out the letters with a dark pencil to make sure the placement wasn't too awful.

The dog tags I'm not quite satisfied with because I put too little information on them, and an updated one is still waiting in the mail (I wanted to put the Wing and Cell on it, and had to reread some chapters to verify) There's loads of places to get them, but I used these.

The machetes I don't have many pictures of (I don't have a full length mirror to show them properly strapped to the legs.), but I went a little overbudget to the point it would probably have been cheaper to buy real machetes (but not as welcomed at conventions!) Still, they were from here, in case anyone wants some big ol' 27 inch props instead of the dinky ones from Spirit Halloween.

Gloves were these ones, and they fit my big ol' butch hands just fine. Nothing special there.

For my TACTICAL BLOOD OF EDEN FANNY PACK (which I already wear all the time, but changed colors to match the costume anyways) is this.

The boots are fairly ubiquitous and seem to come from various online sellers, sometimes in men's sizes, sometimes in women's, but this store has them up to a women's size 12, which I needed because I'm lorge.

Now, the mask I'm most proud of! I don't have any experience making costume bits, but I found this one meant for airsoft, which has TWO FUCKING FANS?!?! hidden in the filters to cool my face in the sweltering 80 degree Texas winters.

But! You'll notice the goggles aren't tinted, so I had to figure out how to do them myself to hide my glasses, for REASONS, but this little kit was pretty simple. There's a gluey side, so you just spray the goggles with some water, then slap them down and spend like... a fucking hour or two squeezing out the air bubbles, but aside from a single wrinkle, I think they turned out great! The red also provides some good contrast.

Now, the pants were pretty simple. These come with knee pads, and the black camo looks really nice with the gray coat and black shirt. It did take two attempts to get some that fit (One seller had the XL listed as having a 44 inch waist, equivalent to a women's 18, but labeled elsewhere with the true size of 36 inches, the bastards.), but where I got silly was the straps.

I got this tactical belt, which seems to have tipped the number of tactical things I can search for before search engines decide you're a bootlicker, and intended to use a single bike strap on each leg to hold the other end, which, well... two problems.

The blades were now being bent by my massive fucking quads because I've been doing a shitload of exercise to get fit, because apparently all I needed to get into the gym five times a week was wanting to look like my specialist book blorbo.

I couldn't bend my fucking hips.

So! I ended up ordering a total of SIX STRAPS for my legs, pairing two up high to fit the wider part of my leg, and a single one down near the knee. The upper ones I later looped through the belt to hold them up, which also doubles for making the trousers into a fucking cod piece, which, hey, some people like that. The lower ones were led up by the knee pad, so I had a somewhat stable set of six straps and one belt, which is dangerously close to becoming a Nomura-era Final Fantasy character, but hey, I gave myself carpal tunnel marathoning all the Kingdom Hearts games last year, so that's not a problem.

All in all, it probably cost me... well, more money than it should have, but it's all pretty quality stuff that I'm sure will be very toasty if we ever happen to have another winter down south.

Also, last note... boots of any kind are so much more comfortable with insoles. They don't have to be expensive, but your feet and knees will thank you at conventions when they have a good cushion under your heels.

That's about all I've learned putting this together! I'm 5'9 and around 250 pounds, give or take, so most of this is men's garments, which means the pockets are DEEP AS FUCK. Perfect for collecting small rocks.

Just something to keep in mind.

(See y'all at the conventions. I promise my Yorkshire accent will be less goofy by then, but I can't promise I'll be as nasally as the audiobook.)

[yorkshirewerewolf]

Yorkshire Werewolf: My Comedy Heroes

Mike Yarwood RIP

Alas, another British Entertainer has exited stage left.

Comedy impressionist Mike Yarwood has died aged 82.

Mike, in my opinion, was Britain's first legit TV impressionist, working on stage and small screen in a career spanning many decades.

I myself grew up with "light entertainment" TV shows. They had the magic to unite the family, sitting together, watching the Google box and sharing the laughter.

Mike's uncanny ability to capture the mannerisms of the celebs he "took off" plus a generous use of catchphrases gave his early shows a certain gravitas, putting him in the same tier with Morecambe and Wise, Michael Crawford, and Stanley Baxter.

He would later try a more satirical take, targeting British politicians, and his impersonations of Harold Wilson, Ted Heath, and Denis Healy were legendary.

Yarwood was born in Manchester in 1941 and began his career as a stand-up comedian. He made his television debut in 1961 and quickly became a household name. The "Mike Yarwood Show" ran for 12 years, and his impersonations covered a wide range of figures, from politicians to pop stars trying to stay relevant and connect with a younger audience.

Yarwood was always spot-on, and with the help of his writers, he was able to capture the essence of his subjects with just a few well-chosen words and gestures. He was a truly gifted mimic, his ability to perfectly reproduce the facial mannerisms without using make-up was uncanny.

Sadly, Yarwood's popularity started to wane and by the early 1980s, his shows lacked the magic of his mimicry, but his use of split screen technology allowing him to appear as several characters at once was ground breaking. TV work dried up but he continued to perform on stage and in television specials. He was awarded an OBE in 1986 for his services to entertainment.

I had the privilege as a child of seeing him live in a summer show in Blackpool, England, in the early 80s.

He was sharing the bill with " Basil Brush", the TV puppet. My main recollection was my gran slept through most of the show, and at times I think I did. To be truthful, it wasn't his fault.

Comedy was evolving, becoming more edgy. Satirical comedy grew with "Not the Nine O'Clock News" and the puppet show "Spitting Image," which showcased the voice talent of young mimics. Alternative comedy slowly replaced sitcoms and double acts. Shows such as "The Comic Strip Presents," "The Young Ones," and "Black Adder" foreshadowed the end of light entertainment comedy.

Impressionist shows did eventually evolve, with "Dead Ringers," "The Alistair McGowan & Ronnie Ancona Show," and "Rory Bremner, Bird & Fortune" continuing the art.

Yarwood's death has surprised many people who thought erroneously he had already passed away. Which is a sad reflection on how we treat our yesterday heroes.

He retired from public life in the mid-2000s. He had personal demon's, maybe due to the pressure to stay relevant when TV bigwigs decide that you aren't funny or young enough anymore. He was a true original, respected by every decent mimic as "the gov'nor" and as it is traditional in the UK, the TV channels will show repeats of his shows, some classic moments, wheeling out "z list" celebs saying how much he meant to them, making various remarks about " how it was different back in the seventies" rather than repeating his back catalogue when he was around to enjoy it himself and find new fans! (Sigh! But if you haven't seen any of mike's TV output, there are a number of clips on YouTube, some do require trigger warnings due to dubious make up decisions, plus there are some DVD sets but they are very expensive and hard to come by)

My sympathy to his family and close friends. So shall we raise a glass in the memory of a true British comedy legend.

Until next time,

Seethee soon!

[gallifrey1sburning]

Muggle Technology Through the Ages:

A vague and incomplete timeline of what people were using when for writers who want to avoid anachronistic technology use in their canon timeline-compliant Harry Potter fic.

Keeping track of the evolution of technology is hard! Here's a cheat sheet for those of you who either a) like me, have trouble keeping track in your head even though you lived through it, or b) are young enough that you didn't live through a lot of it at all.

Phones:

Land lines were the norm well into the 90s. Not only that, but CORDLESS landlines didn’t even become prevalent until the mid 90s; they still cost hundreds of dollars in 1994, and the frequencies on them were weird, so you would sometimes hear your neighbors’ phone calls by accident. Ours used to turn on my little sister’s remote control Barbie car. We thought it was haunted.

Although cell phones have been around since the 80s, they were uncommon until the 90s, and then they were nothing near as ubiquitous as they are now. In 2000, when I was in high school, I had ONE friend with a cell. I got my first one in 2002, and it was only for emergencies while driving, because when I’d get lost I would have to pull over and use a pay phone otherwise.

Unlimited calling wasn’t a thing until 2002; until then, all plans were pay per minute. A lot of plans stayed that way for many years after. “Roaming” cost more. (Roaming was when you were outside of your own area code, basically.) When you moved, you got a new number.

Texting was expensive and difficult for ages. You used your normal phone numeral keys and a system called T9 tried to figure out what you meant, because every number stood for 3-4 letters. It was a giant pain in the ass.

The first full QWERTY keyboard phones came out in 1997, and most people didn’t have them until the early 2000s. I got my first one in 2007, and no one thought anything of it.

There was NO internet capability of any sort on mass market cell phones until 2000/2001. After that, it was still pretty limited until the iPhone came out.

Texting didn’t really become a big part of how we communicate until 2002/2003 for most people. And, like calls, they charged per text, so you were VERY careful and would get super mad at your friends who pushed you over your limit, because that shit was expensive. I can’t find info on when unlimited texting started being offered, but I didn’t get it until 2007/2008.

The first iPhone also came out in 2007. It was the first phone with full internet access. It was also the second full touchscreen phone ever, and the first one (the LG Prada) was only announced a month before.

Camera phones have existed since 2000ish, but weren’t the main method people used for pictures until much later, mostly because they were super shitty. I still had a separate, physical digital camera in 2008/2009.

Internet:

Consumer access to the internet was virtually nonexistent until 1995. My family got it circa 1997. It was all dial up.

Dial up was slow, sometimes you couldn’t connect, and it USED YOUR PHONE LINE. Remember, from above, the fact that landlines were the predominant phones until the early 2000s? Yeah. If you didn’t have multiple lines, you weren’t likely to be online for very long at a go. My parents limited us to 20 minutes. Also, sometimes, if a call came in while you were online, you’d get kicked off.

Broadband came out in the late 90s, and people were still commonly using dial up until the mid 2000s

WIFI wasn’t common for consumer use until the mid 2000s, either.

We may not have been texting, but we were all VERY into instant messaging. Pretty much everyone had AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) or ICQ starting in the late 90s as well. I did a lot of late night chatting when my family was asleep and I wouldn’t be tying up the phone line.

Social media & popular websites:

Here are some key dates for when various things that seem like they’ve been around forever actually started!

Google: 1998

Livejournal: 1999

MySpace (it was huge before Facebook and not mostly for musicians!): 2003

Facebook: 2004, and you had to have an email address from a college or university that had been formally included until 2006.

YouTube: 2005

Twitter: 2006

Spotify: 2006

Tumblr: 2007

Instagram: 2010

Tinder: 2012 (before that, the biggest online dating services were Match.com (1995), eHarmony (2000) and OkCupid (2004).)

Bonus: Netflix came out in the late 90s, but it was a physical DVD mail order subscription service. They didn’t introduce streaming until 2007!

Music:

CDs came out in the early 90s, but a lot of people kept using cassettes for a long time afterwards. I got my first CD player in the late 90s; portable CD players weren’t popular before that because the CDs would skip if you jostled the player. My first car (a 1991 model I bought in 2001) only had a cassette player, so I had this weird converter thing to hook it up to my CD player. Mostly I just listened to the radio, though.

Digital music wasn’t super big before the late 90s/early 2000s, and even then, we were mostly downloading (read: stealing) it and burning it to CDs. Napster was the main service we used for piracy at first; it came out in 1999. That’s around when mix CDs started overtaking mix tapes for wooing people with pointed song lyrics.

The first MP3 player came out in 1997. iPods (which were JUST for music) were introduced in 2001, and CDs only started to lose popularity around 2003. I got my first iPod in college (an iPod mini) and it was SO COOL. It came in 4 or 6 GB versions.

Some of this info is from research, some from personal (and American) experience, but hopefully it’s helpful! I didn’t bother to go into computers or TV here, but they’ve changed a hell of a lot, too, and I’m happy to do a run down some other time. Suffice to say that the TV I took to college with me in 2003 was a 12” screen tube TV with a built in DVD player, and that before leaving for college, I didn’t have my own computer—I shared it with my entire family. There were six of us. Yeah.

[audreydoeskaren]

History of Chinese standing collars (part 3: post republican era)

Quick recap: I was debating with myself whether “Mandarin collar” should be a thing because standing collars throughout Chinese history looked different. I went through the Ming and Qing dynasties in part 1 and the republican era in part 2, now I’ll look at what comes after that. I numbered the styles in parts 1 and 2 but they’re only guidelines so you don’t have to remember anything.

So in this post we’ve kind of reached the end of the era where fashion consisted of a single silhouette in any given year and all hell ran loose. I’m having a lot of difficulties classifying things as Chinese or Western because the distinction is really blurred, and I also ran into problems explaining why certain historical European things looked so similar to Chinese ones so there will also be a lot of confusion. 

1950s & 60s Chinese application

Summary of 1950s fashion, mainland and others.

Because of the communist victory in the Civil War, fashion in the mainland was different to other (capitalist) areas populated by the Chinese diaspora such as Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan etc.. Let’s look at capitalist area fashion first; I’ll be referring to Hong Kong because Hong Kong was the center of cheongsam making at the time.

Collars on 50s Hong Kong cheongsam grew taller on the basis of collar style 10 but retained the rounded, tapering edge, resulting in a v shape gap down the middle that weirdly recalls collar style 6 from part 1 and part 2. It’s basically completely identical to collar style 6 but stiffened and extremely form fitting. It’s usually closed with one pankou at the base but because of westernization, 50s cheongsam often had no visible pankou----everything is closed with snap buttons, zippers or hooks and eyes/bars. An important aspect of collars of 50s and 60s Hong Kong cheongsam is that they left out the binding around the neck. All cheongsam prior to this point were bound around the exterior edge, the side closure, the slits and the collar seam (on the bodice not the collar), 50s cheongsam collars purposefully neglected the binding at the collar seam for some reasons. This makes the collar look like it’s one continuous piece of fabric with the bodice, which it isn’t. A lot of modern representation of cheongsam or any Chinese inspired clothing (in video games, books and anime etc.) do this, even if the character is from before the 1950s. It REALLY bugs me. If you are an artist or writer and designing costumes for Chinese characters prior to the 50s, please include binding/trimmings on all three seams, it’s an easy way to bump up historical accuracy. With that said, completely plain collars without any binding or trim was actually the most common. Let’s call this collar style 13.

Source here

1954 photograph of Li Lihua and Clark Gable. Collar style 13 with stiffening and no collar seam binding. You can see how firm and neck hugging the collar is, contrary to a lot of modern cheongsam collars which are saggy and loose.

The popularity of collar style 13 continued into the 60s. When the cheongsam fell out of popularity, it ceased to exist as well.

Source here

60s cheongsam with collar style 13. I’m really not a fan of the nude/light lipstick trend of the 60s, like, as a person with no lip color definition it makes me look like a potato.

Now moving on to mainland collars. In the 1950s, cheongsam with the 40s collar style 12 were still occasionally seen, but the fashionable collar shape also became taller and was similar to the Hong Kong collar style 13. Interestingly, some 50s mainland cheongsam retained the binding around the collar seam, making them look more “traditional” in a sense. However, collars both with and without collar seam binding existed and it was just a matter of personal preference.

Source here

1950s photograph of a mainland lady in cheongsam. The collar is taller and closes with one button, much like Hong Kong collars of the era, but the neck binding is present.

Aoku robe collars from the 1940s onward mostly had the 40s style low collar, although in the 50s and 60s they rose in height very slightly.

Source here

1964 poster showing a girl in aoku, the robe has a low, rounded collar.

However, garments with a standing collar became worn a lot less frequently in the 50s and 60s in both mainland and non-mainland areas, since a lot of people adopted Western fashion.

Source here

1950s photograph of a group of mainland people wearing jackets of Western construction. Some of them seem to be wearing informal military jackets, commonly known as “Mao suit” or “Zhongshan suit” nowadays, with folded collars.

Source here

1950s photograph of some women in Malaysia, some in cheongsam and some in Western New Look dresses.

Western application

I think it’s also quite important to discuss how Chinese standing collars were perceived by Western designers, because the Western fashion industry does hold a lot more power globally and also reverse influenced Chinese collar designs in the post 1960s era. So, in the 1950s and 60s Western designers thought cheongsam was really cool and produced a lot of affordable sewing patterns for their versions of cheongsam. I think this is also because pre-1950s cheongsam didn’t use the Western construction method and patterns needed to be individually drafted so it was difficult to make mass produced sewing patterns. From all the sewing patterns I have seen personally, the super tall standing collar popular in Hong Kong was not really appreciated by Western designers at all?? Western cheongsam sewing patterns all had the very low 1940s style collar, combined with an hourglass silhouette New Look bodice and skirt, looking rather anachronistic. These collars also didn’t have binding/trim around the collar seam, in line with fashionable Hong Kong cheongsam of the day. 

Source here

1950s Advance sewing pattern for cheongsam. The collar is low and has rectangular edges, something about a decade out of fashion in Hong Kong and Shanghai. No collar seam binding.

Source here

1950s Simplicity sewing pattern for cheongsam. Likewise with super low 1940s collars. Collarless cheongsam died in China in the mid 1920s, yet it lives on in the imagination of Western designers. By the way, the frog closures with a quatrefoil shape are not Chinese, I’m gonna write another post about this. I love the look in the middle it’s very glam.

1970s and later

The post 1960s era is what ultimately created the confusion around standing collars nowadays. Around this time Western and Chinese fashions started to merge and become one, and garments made completely in the historical Chinese method were more and more difficult to come by; Western construction techniques reigned supreme. 

From the 70s onward, most “Chinese collars” had the 40s rounded edge shape but were either medium low or medium height. The lack of collar seam binding persisted into the current day, which is something I kind of lament because without this binding collars easily read as Renaissance doublet... (more on that later)

I usually avoid calling any standing collars from the 1970s onward Chinese/Mandarin because 1) standing collars were never a uniquely Chinese thing to begin with 2) since cheongsam was no longer fashionable among actual Chinese people, designers who made cheongsam pulled all kinds of shenanigans without any historical precedent whatsoever. Also, since clothes with structured/stiffened standing collars stopped being a staple in the average Western person’s wardrobe, white people started calling everything with the most remote hint of a standing collar Chinese to further stir the pot, emboldened by the cultural appropriation craze of the 60s and 70s. Ok that’s very loaded, but it’s true that in the 60s and 70s there was a lot of Western clothing designs that took inspiration from other cultures without permission. Westerners could totally design and wear Chinese style clothing given that the intention is respectful and they know about the garment in question, but a lot of times the accuracy of the designs leaves much to be desired. There was also a lot of Orientalist inspiration in the 10s and 20s but the borrowing back then wasn’t so... literal. When I look at so called cheongsam sewing patterns from the 70s onward, I sometimes seriously have trouble identifying if something is meant to be Chinese, Vietnamese, Japanese, Polynesian or any other region/culture...

I’ll just find pictures of Chinese inspired clothing from the 70s onward with a “Mandarin collar” label and point out their source of inspiration.

Source here

1972 Simplicity sewing pattern for cheongsam. It’s the same Western collar from the 50s and 60s just slightly taller. Oh and the closures used on the two designs in the middle are again likely not pankou. After the 60s, this neck design with a oval shape keyhole cutout became quite common and that persisted to the current day. Don’t know what the purpose of that was, just because you show 5 square centimeters more skin doesn’t mean your cheongsam is sexier?

Source here

The description of this 70s Simplicity pattern says “Mandarin collar” but the source of inspiration is obviously Japanese military/school uniforms, AGAIN. The collar’s height and rectangular edges, combined with the placement of buttons above the waist on the bodice, everything about this reads as Japanese. The frog closures on the left are once again European and not Chinese pankou (sheesh I really need to make this other post). The original designer probably meant for it to be Japanese but the seller mistakenly labelled it a Mandarin collar design. 

Source here

70s Teresa Teng (rest in power legend) in a theatrical cheongsam with a similar collar, either a stretched version of the 40s collar or a shrunk version of the 50s/60s one.

Source here

Google search result for “Mandarin collar dress”. Same Western low collar from the 70s. A new problem with modern mass produced cheongsam is that the collar oftentimes doesn’t fit the wearer and appears too baggy. Or maybe it’s not mass production, just that people nowadays are very unaccustomed to wearing tight fitting standing collars so they assume there needs to be some extra space? As someone who wears stiff standing collars on a regular basis I have to say it actually isn’t uncomfortable at all and elongates your neck a lot better. This is what most cheongsam collars nowadays look like, even the self proclaimed “traditional” ones, they literally originated from 1950s/60s Western sewing pattern companies’ interpretation of contemporary Chinese cheongsam collars.

Source here

Baidu search result for “Mandarin collar suit”. This, is, literally, almost a replica Japanese uniform. The seller is also using the tag Zhongshan suit lmao (I’ve explained in my 1950s mainland post what a Zhongshan suit is not supposed to look like), delusion is not a fragrance I guess. Why is it so hard to let Japan be Japan and China be China??

Conclusion & afterthought

Another thing I need to mention is that standing collars are by no means unique to Chinese historical dress; they were also widely used in European historical fashion, long before standing collars became worn with uniforms of “Mandarins” or Chinese officials, which further proves my point that “Mandarin collar” is not a valid term. Also, standing collars in Europe have always been stiffened/structured, whereas Chinese collars only started to become stiffened around the 1890s, possibly due to European influence as well. For example, the 1950s collar with rounded edges and no collar seam binding reads as European Renaissance doublet very easily. To be fair though, a lot of the collar shapes seen in early 20th century Chinese womenswear had been done before in European Renaissance fashion and during that time period in China only the OG Ming Dynasty collar mentioned in part 1 was used sooooooo

Source here

1630-40 English doublet. The collar looks mighty similar to 1930s Chinese women’s ones. I know next to nothing about Renaissance fashion so I’m not sure how it’s constructed, but it proves the point that collars like these were not a uniquely Chinese phenomenon.

Source here

Meanwhile the Mandarins in China. He’s wearing a crossover collar robe underneath a round collar robe, no standing collar here.

Source here

1780s French men’s coat with a standing collar.

Standing collars were also commonly used in Victorian and Edwardian women’s everyday fashion without any connection to China whatsoever.

Source here

1860s fashion plate for a gown with a low standing shirt collar peeking underneath. 

Source here

1887 fashion plate from the Journal des Demoiselles. Bustle gowns with standing collars.  

Bonus rant

I have come to the actual point of this series of posts, to answer the question: should “Mandarin collar” be a thing? In which case I’m gonna have to go with no. In the three posts I made on the topic I categorized a total of 13 collar styles, each distinct from each other and some being inspired by Western clothing, and showed that the use of the term “Mandarin collar” nowadays is very vague and ambiguous. I don’t understand why people in the fashion industry give my ancestors all the credits for a design feature as basic and common as a standing collar... Maybe it’s a marketing gimmick like how Sternhalma (a German board game) is advertised in the US as “Chinese checkers”?? Or maybe it shows that a lot of fashion designers lack a basic understanding of historical fashion? Either way it makes no sense. I think the concept is also slightly offensive since it simply ignores the diversity of actual historical Chinese standing collar designs, kind of reinforcing the racist stereotype that non-white fashion histories are static and never changing.

If I do have to pick a most traditional/iconic style of Chinese standing collar, I would go with either the original Ming Dynasty soft collar with metal buttons or the 1940s short collar with collar seam binding used on aoku, cheongsam, changshan and magua. In the mainland Chinese countryside, the 1940s style collar was preserved and actually still made today, but in the post-Mao era it became increasingly seen by the mainland population as 土 (a derogatory term for Chinese folk stuff meaning tacky or cringy) compared to the exciting new Western fashions being imported at the time. As a result, more traditional items of clothing like aoku for women, changshan and magua for men were neglected in favor of more westernized cheongsam designs, leading to some cursed contraptions.

Maybe this is a hot take, I personally really don’t vibe with the concept of 土 because it’s very loaded and usually the gateway drug to massive internalized racism. I’ve heard so many people bash aoku and magua constructed in the historical method and put post-60s Western inspired cheongsam on a pedestal even though the former is grounded in history and the latter is an Orientalist mess. There is nothing wrong with making aoqun, aoku, magua, changshan, cheongsam or any other historical item of clothing in the historically accurate method, they’re charming in their own ways and don’t need to be “modified”. In my opinion, the puckering under the armpits caused by the lack of a shoulder seam and the rounded shoulders are what makes historical Chinese clothing beautiful to begin with :3 I think there’s something inherently modern and authentic in the pedantic, antiquarian pursuit of historical clothing, like you know how whenever a revival happens it actually brings something new to the table? It’s not problematic to wear modern cheongsam designs per se, it’s just important to keep in mind that it doesn’t have much to do with actual Chinese history and represents more of the status quo of Chinese fashion nowadays.

Ok I’m going off the collar track but it’s time to finish this post. Thank you for reading, and as I mentioned, the next post will be about Chinese pankou. I’m almost finished with that one as well and I’m really excited with what I have planned next :D

[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.

[maeve-writes]

Can’t Help Falling in Love

Pairing: Dean Winchester x Reader

Rating: General

Warnings: Mostly fluff, slight angst.

Summary: Request: Could I request a Dean one-shot, where he finally wants to propose to R, but is starting to doubt himself and Sam has to reassure him and encourage him to finally do that step. Set in somewhere between season 12 and 13. R is Dean's best friend.

a/n: Inspired by Pentatonix’s arrangement of Can’t Help Falling in Love.

Previously posted on @plaided-ani

-

When he first met you, you were sitting on a park bench reading a book about Sumerian history and cross referencing with a small text on cuneiform, your nose wrinkled in thought and the tip of your tongue set between your teeth. You were the local expert on mythological lore according to the university and often took your lunches in the park when the weather was right and if Dean was lucky, he’d find you there. And he was.

That was several years ago and you had gotten to know the Winchesters very well. You knew what they did and the evils that they faced, luckily you weren’t caught up in the crossfire. Much. They called you often when Sam was too busy to look up something himself or Dean was too tired and annoyed to listen to Sam drone on about this or that. You always got straight to the point, told them what they needed to know and that was that.

You had your own pocket in Kansas, safe and sound from the big and the bad and the boys would stop in from time to time. They often brought you dinner when you were researching for your job and not for a case which meant you would forget about eating and drinking and sleeping to get your work done. Dean more often than not made you put down the pen or the tablet and ‘just hang out like normal people’. “You’re not normal people,” you always told him.

“I am when I’m with you,” he always replied back.

He’d often texted you when he got downtime. He hated emojis and gifs, but you’d send them to him anyway and he’d find one to send back, always with a short, grumpy text to go with it. You’d Facetime him when you stayed late nights at the office when he was sitting up in his bed at the bunker, relaxed and at peace, if only for the moment. You wouldn’t talk much, but he was happy to watch you work in silence.

They invited you to the bunker when things weren’t crazy and you always accepted. Their books were fascinating and they would let you load up boxes of texts that you’d call ‘light reading’ and that always got a chuckle out of Dean. But they’d make you stay for dinner and movie and eventually you got your own room set up for nights when you were too drunk to drive or it was too late to bother.

He wasn’t sure when it happened, but Dean could feel the change in himself when he was with you. Your smile made his heart flutter, your laughter made his belly coil up like a spring, and the mere thought of you had his skin flushed all over. “That’s love,” Sam told him over grocery store meatloaf. “You’re in love.”

And he was, head over heels and weak in the knees. But in Dean’s life, he couldn’t afford to be in love. He couldn’t have the slow burn of a happy-go-lucky relationship, no courtship or honeymoon phase. He shouldn’t want you like he does. No, he shouldn’t need you like he does, but he can’t help him. In his fucked up world of demons and bloodshed and death, you were the one shining beacon in his life that lit his way home.

“I’m going to ask her to marry me,” he decided one day over bacon and coffee. Sam was still sleep drunk and hummed in agreement. Later, his younger brother would question his sanity, tell him that you two weren’t even dating, why jump straight to marriage? But Dean wasn’t listening, he was Googling the closet jewelry shop.

He bought the best ring credit card fraud could buy and started to go over all the reasons why you would say yes. They’ve known you for at least six years and not once had you dated a single person to Dean’s knowledge. Your touches always lingered with him, your smiles always softer, more private. You had to have a thing for him, right?

But there were more reasons to say no. Being part of the Winchester clan meant that your life would be on the line and with the storm that was brewing, he wasn’t sure he could keep you safe along with Sam and their new charge Jack. And, like Sam said, you weren’t even dating, never kissed, never even held hands, why would you jump straight to the ball and chain?

“I’m not gonna do it,” Dean decided once he got back to the bunker with the ring in its box tucked in his pants and his hands full of food and beer. “You’re right, it’s a stupid idea.”

Sam sighed heavily and helped his brother divvy up the evening meal. “No, what I said was stupid. It’s obvious you two are crazy about each other, I choke on the sexual tension whenever I’m in the room with you.” Dean scowled at that, but Sam ignored it. “Y/N is a good egg. She’s stuck with us this long, maybe she’ll stick around longer with a ring on her finger.”

“Don’t call my future wife an egg,” Dean huffed.

“She’s a metaphorical egg,” Sam reassured. “The best kind, brown and organic from free range chickens.”

Dean held up a hand, “Stop. Just stop.”

But he called you three days later and asked if you were free for dinner. You were knee deep in research, but when weren’t you? If he allowed you access to the library when you finished eating, you’d agree and he had no objections with the idea.

You showed up in your best flowy thin cotton tee and yoga pants, hair up in a messy bun to find Dean waiting at the bottom of the stairs with a nervous smile on his face but in his best dress shirt and slacks and you figured he played a fed earlier. When you asked him what’s wrong, he said nothing and ushered you through the bunker to the kitchen. You casually mention Sam and Jack, but he told you they were off to see a movie and you shrugged sat across from him, noting the flowers and the candle and actual dinner plates. “Is this a date?”

“Yeah,” Dean nodded, opening a bottle of wine, or at least trying to.

“You should’ve told me,” you frowned, looking down at your casual attire, “I look like a bum.”

“I think you look beautiful,” he said with a fond smile, working the screw in the cork with some difficulty. When your cheeks flushed and your shoulders drooped, he set the wine aside and reached out for your hand. You took his in yours and he leaned forward to press a gentle kiss on your knuckles. “Beer okay?”

“Sounds great,” you answered, flustered beyond belief.

Dinner carried on like it normally did, the two of you talking about work and the latest show you binge watched. Nothing changed between you other than your feet entwining underneath the table, your hands reaching out for one another. At some point he joined you on your side and your limbs were all tangled, your lips finding solace in his and his tie became a little looser.

“Marry me,” he whispered against your lips when you parted for the hundredth time that night.

“Okay,” you replied, kiss drunk and in love. “When?”

He fished out a box and popped it open, “Sometime before I die?”

“We can leave now and be in Vegas by the morning,” you laughed, taking the ring out to slide on your finger. It was a size too big, but that could always be fixed.

“I’ll pack, you book the hotel?”

You smiled and pulled out your phone. You were going to give Dean a happy-ever-after one of these days and this is where it would start.

[queen-susans-revenge]

Fic Writer Review (thanks to @gondalsqueen for tagging, this is a fun one!)

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

57

2. What’s your total AO3 wordcount?

176720

3. How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

Six, but the vast majority for Star Wars. I wrote one Batman story that was very dashed off, mostly a quick character sketch for a possible AU. One Sherlock Holmes story that still gets some love on AO3. Two Lord of the Rings stories. A couple of reworked fairy tales. And five for Dragon Age.

4. What are your top five fics by kudos?

Well, the top two are my Star Wars Rebels smut epics, Fade to Black (514) and Fade to Black and Back (396), which are literally just about all the sex Kanan and Hera have in the offscreen moments in every episode. I have zero shame about this.

Then there's Talk About It (335), which is another smutty piece based on a bit of party banter in Dragon Age: Origins.

Wedding Dance (312 kudos, and back to Star Wars Rebels) is my most popular non-smutty fic, but Passion, Serenity (263) is big time smut about cartoon characters again. Listen, it's not all I write; it's just what I write best, apparently!

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

I do, although I'm behind in responding, because I get overwhelmed easily. I have all the comment notifications saved in my email though so I can stroke them over lovingly like a dragon admiring her gemstone hoard. Every now and then while I'm being dragonish over my comments I get a burst of virtuosity and think "I'll reply to some of these!" and then I do, so I am slowly working through my backlog, and I can only apologize to those of you who are getting your responses years and years later.

I always meant to answer. I always treasured your comment.

6. What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

Scenes from Rivendell. By like, a lot. If you've never thought too much about Aragorn's mom Gilraen, please let me invite you to all the feels.

7. Do you write crossovers? If so what’s the craziest one you’ve written?

I don't think I ever have! I should do that, sometime, it sounds fun.

8. Have you ever received hate on a fic?

Yes, I had someone chide me for writing smut on a kid's show. But I try to be really careful about tagging so only the people who WANT to see the smut end up finding it.

9. Do you write smut? If so what kind?

The dirty kind ;o

(Though there generally has to be at least one girl involved for me to be interested. I have written some m/m content, but not a whole lot.)

10. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

No, not that I know of.

11. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yes and it's the BEST thing!! I absolutely love it when anybody does translations, art, podfics or spin-offs of my stuff. It feels amazing to see my work out there in the world, living and traveling.

12. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

None of my AO3 works are co-written. I had an original story that got picked up for a fiction podcast that was co-authored with a friend. Although the story behind that honestly was that I wrote the thing and insisted he accept the co-author credit because it was based on one of his characters in a roleplaying game.

Something similar will probably happen with a different friend and the space pirate novel that I'm working on now, if it ever gets published.

13. What’s your all-time favorite ship?

I don't know! Certainly Kanan and Hera is what I put the vast majority of my fic-writing energy into. But I was a huge X-Files shipper back in the day and Mulder and Scully still hold a special place in my heart.

14. What’s a wip that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

I'm super grateful to @gondalsqueen for doing Fade to Red so I can feel like that project actually got finished properly! I think I no longer have any outstanding wips?

15. What are your writing strengths?

Dialog, and sometimes cadence/rhythm, when I hit a good stride.

16. What are your writing weaknesses?

Self indulgence. In fanfic that's a tendency I don't even try to fight though, because it's what fic is for. In original fic though it's always a struggle to keep it tight and keep it flowing. And not try to show off Everything I Know About Mythology, or How Cool This One Idea I Had Is, or whatever.

17. What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

Tricky! Relying on Google Translate is probably a bad idea.

I'll give an example from my current project. There's a scene set in a laboratory on Mars where Something Has Gone Terribly Wrong and I wanted automated warnings playing on a loop in various languages for maximum spook factor.

The English is "Warning! Please evacuate the building!" so I ran that through Google Translate for Russian... and then asked a Russian-born friend to verify that it was a good translation. He responded that it was not, because in fact that phrase needs some cultural translation before the literal one will make sense. As he put it: "The Russian would be a lot more direct. And they wouldn't say 'please.'" So instead, he gave me "Vnimaniye! Vyhodi zdaniye!" which is something more like "Attention! Exit building." And I absolutely love that.

So, I think before you can really write dialog well in another language you either need some direct knowledge/understanding, or a native speaker who doesn't mind looking it over for you.

18. What was the first fandom you wrote for?

I thiiiiiiink it was X-Files. All those fics were lost in time, like tears in rain (no it's fine they were terrible).

19. What’s your favorite fic you’ve written?

It's hard to pick, but it might be one of the Sabine stories. Heart's Blood, maybe.

I always stress about tagging people and being annoying or leaving someone out, so please consider yourself tagged if you want to be!

[tatertotthethot]

The Doms Next Door 2.0

THIS IS A TEMPORARY REUPLOAD FOR THIS CHAPTER CUZ TUMBLR IS RAN BY A BUNCH OF BOTS. 2.1 HERE

Warnings/AN: frequent, casually cursing; comical, gay Jimin; insecure reader; steamy flirting; tattoo/sexualized Tae 🙃. Enjoy~ (TAEKOOK EDIT ABOVE IS ARTKOOK DONE BY NONCONMAN ON INSTAGRAM)

copyright © 2018 all rights reserved

_________________________________

Your tires came to a stop outside of the tattoo shop you've seen online— a brick building, covered in spray paint and street-style art. A sign buzzed over the awning of the entrance doors, with the built-in UV lights and graffiti-styled font displaying the name of the place in neon-red letters. Kink For Ink! The name alone was what first caught your attention last week, when you Googled "Tattoo shops near me" and it pulled up a list, with "Kink For Ink" being the first option. It just seemed so uncanny and fitting at the time, considering the previous run-in you just had with the sex-crazed neighbors a couple nights before. You couldn't help but to click the link to their Instagram.

A profile came up with 53.4k followers, which immediately blew your mind... but you quickly saw why. Every tattoo and piercing, no matter the body-placement, skin-type, or quirky design, was vividly appealing— certainly done by the articulate hands of certified experts. Even in the comments of the piercings that were posted, people were praising them for the "minimal" amount of pain they experienced, despite the fact that some of piercings were done in places you couldn't even fathom the thought of having a needle jammed through.

It said in the bio that the shop is owned by the two artists that work there— Kim Taehyung and Jeon Jungkook. You couldn't find out much about them, all their pictures showed was their work. You even went back to search for a personal account of their own, but nothing came up. You then went back to the bio and clicked a link to the official website, hoping to find out something, but you were met with a disclaimer rule at the top that automatically deemed your chances of even getting your piece done by them, slim-to-none.

• No walk-ins allowed.

• Every request/idea must be sent in through the DMs of our Instagram page. You will only be accepted only if it spikes our personal interests.

Yikes; You were instantly discouraged by this. The piece you wanted was something so common and cliché, that you actually got the image out of a child's coloring book.... It was the cartoon layout of the glass vase and enchanted rose, from the Beauty and the Beast movie. Cheesy, yes. But it was something of personal, nostalgic value. You remember when you were little— roughly around 3 or 4 years of age— when your parents started fighting and would spend all day screaming and throwing things at each other, putting you in a constant state of anxiety. But then you'd go to bed at night and pop the VHS tape, and the movie never failed to put you in a peaceful state of mind— a hopeful one. It's remained as your all-time favorite love story throughout the years. Which, is ironic, considering that the relationship itself was different, but almost as dysfunctional as your parent's. However, the fact that even the Beast was capable of change, and everything wound up so perfect and happy in the end, makes your heart happy. And even now, at age 19, it still puts you in your feelings. The previous remake of a movie is what actually inspired you to get the enchanted rose as a tattoo, after seeing it in 3D not too long ago. But you're only willing to shell out up to $200 for it, at most. You've just started college, and even though Jimin's parents own the house and let the two of you live there, rent free, you're still responsible for half the utility bills from month to month. Blowing every bit of money you have saved up, right at the start of the semester, would just be irresponsible. But $200 was manageable, and you're looking for anything that'll give you a little extra "oomph" to break you out of this introverted shell you've always known. Pushing it off would just delay it, and you were ready for change. The nose piercing you want is just a small little thing that'll hopefully add a bit of flare to the features of your face. These two guys could probably do the piercing/tattoo with a blindfold on and a hand tied behind their back. So, if it meant that you'd be able to get these things done in confidence, without having to worry about the outcome, you figured it wouldn't hurt for you to at least ask, even if they straight-up ignore you. So, after spending an unnecessary amount of time overthinking the wording of your text, you finally constructed a message in your notes and DM'd it to business page, after sending them a small, simple outline of the cartoony rose, and pressed send.

• You: Hello! I've been wanting to get this tattoo done for a very while now, and was hoping one of you will be willing to do it for me... along with piercing my nose? I know it's a very mediocre and cliché piece, and a nose piercing can be done anywhere. But I'm new to the area and I've never gotten a tattoo/piercing done before and I haven't really checked out any other places either because I found this page first. And from what I can see, you guys are pretty efficient and CRAZY talented. So, I trust it'll get done right.... only if you want to! I'm willing to pay $200 for this, but if it costs that much for just the outline I've sent then that's fine as well. But I understand if neither of you want to do it cuz that is really cheap compared to the ones I've seen lol. But either way, thx for ur time 😁

A few minutes went by and you had just unlocked your phone to check the message again, when the word "seen" popped below the message. You held your breath for a second— but seconds turned to minutes, and time went by with no reply, what-so-ever. You figured maybe you sounded a little too immature to take seriously; kind of like a prepubescent 12-year-old asking someone out for a dance... and you blew it. Which was disappointing, but predictable. So fuck it. Maybe it's a sign; you shouldn't get it after all.

11pm rolled around, many hours later. You were now hiding beneath your covers, beginning your "amateur threesome" exploration on PornHub. You were ready to see what this whole "2 guys, 1 girl" thing was all about. But just when you were about to type it into the search bar, you were interrupted by an Instagram notification dropping down from the top of your screen.

"KinkForInk sent you a message."

You audibly gasped, eyes turning to saucers as you clicked on the notif and switched over to the Instagram app.

• KinkForInk: Hi (Y/N). This is Tae, one of the artists of the shop. The tattoo you sent in is worth roughly $100... but I want to run an offer by you in hopes that you'll be interested.

— Your brows scrunched in oddity, stomach fluttering. An offer? For you?

• You: Okay, sure. What's that?

• KinkForInk: I've been looking for someone willing to showcase the custom design I've come up with, specifically for a much more... exclusive version of the Beauty and the Beast tattoo you sent. And if you'd be down for letting me and my partner put it on you, it'll be free. No charge. BUT you'll also have to sign a contract saying that you'll do a little bit of modeling for us once it's done. You think you'd be in to doing something like that, even if you get it?

— Your head spun for a second, reading the message over and over again until you could fully wrap your mind around what he was saying.

• You: Hold on... YOU wanna put a tattoo on ME so that I model for you? And it's FREE? Are you sure about this? I'm not even model material lol.

• KinkForInk: Yes, yes, and yes, you are. You'd be perfect for this.

• You: How do know that? Is it a face tattoo? Cuz I only have 6 selfies on here and you can't see anything past my shoulders.

—"Seen" came up as soon as you hit send, but a couple of minutes rolled by with no reply to the message, nor was he even typing. Maybe you came off a little rude. But it was already sketchy and it was a logical question.

— An image suddenly popped up: a screenshot of your Facebook profile. Then another— and much to your horror, it was the photo Jimin tagged you in last week, when the two of you were swimming at a local community pool. You were wearing a simple two piece, sitting at the foot of the lawn chair Jimin was also sitting in, as his legs were visible on either side of you and his lap was practically framing your ass. The photo was at an upward angle and looked so scandalous— but really, you had just asked Jimin to put sun screen on your back and he didn't want to stand up because the pavement was too hot against his bare feet. But you actually liked the picture at the time; it was just a silly joke and your ass actually looked quite nice from that angle. Plus, everyone knows nothing sexual actually goes on between the two of you, for obvious reasons. But Taehyung doesn't, so you couldn't help but dreadfully cringe when you saw the caption of the screen shot.

"Babymama 💦🍆"

• KinkForInk: Is this you??

• You: Yes, that's me. The caption is a joke tho... pay no mind to that. But this is like, really happening? You really think it'd look good on me?

— Why that picture though? You couldn't help but wonder.

• KinkForInk: Yes. Like I said, you're perfect for this piece. Are you down to at least see what the tattoo will look like? We don't expect you to be experienced with modeling or anything, but if you listen to us and cooperate, you'll do just fine.

• You: Yes I wanna see, and I'll do the best I can if I decide to get it... I'm just a bit shy, is all.

• KinkForInk: You'll be in good hands. I promise.

• You: Okay... are you going to show me??

• KinkForInk: Can't send it over a message, I don't want it plagiarized or the concept stolen. But the piece itself isn't necessarily crazy or anything, just more creative. I'd be more than happy to show you at my shop some day this week, if you'd be willing to swing by.

• You: Yeah, I can do that. When should I come?

• KinkForInk: Are you available after 5 tomorrow?

• You: I am, I get off at 4:30.

• KinkForInk: Great. Be here by 5:30, and make sure you've eaten in case you like the piece and wanna get started. It's pretty big for a first timer and gonna take a lot of time and patience. It'll have to be done in sessions but I hope you have a fair enough pain tolerance to at least get the outline of it done first.

— It can't be any worse than a bikini wax, you thought, shivering at the memory. That a story for another time. You decided on an alternative scenario.

• You: I give blood from time to time... but that's easy and doesn't really hurt that much. I think I can handle it though... maybe. I honestly don't know lol, I'm sorry 😣. But I can try my best. Can I ask where it's supposed to go?

• KinkForInk: That's okay, I'll work with you. It's supposed to go down the middle of your back. Starts between the center of your shoulder blades, and trails down the length of your spine to your lower lumbar. You'll see how it looks once we transfer a template on your back. But if you don't like it, there will be no hard feelings from my end. I can still do the tattoo you want if that's the case, free of charge just for your time.

• You: Oh no, you don't have to do that! I'd still pay!

• KinkForInk: Not if I don't accept your money. Trust me, I'm not worried about it. The nose piercing is gonna be $30 regardless, though. JK isn't so lenient.

• You: Of course. Will I have to take my shirt and bra off for the tattoo?

• KinkForInk: Yes, and for the pictures once it's done.

— Your mind blanked at that; thumbs froze over the keypad. He was typing again.

• KinkForInk: Don't let that discourage you. Again, you're in good hands. You can bring something to cover your chest. And the pics will be if your back as well.

• You: Okay, I can handle that. So 5:30 tomorrow?

• KinkForInk: Yes, please don't flake on us!

• You: Lol, I won't. I'll be there.

"They're gonna knock us the fuck out and sell our organs to the black market," Jimin declared. He had parked next to you outside of the shop, and was now sitting in the driver seat of his car with his door locked and windows all the way up, refusing to get out. You were standing right outside his door, still having to talk on the phone. "And is this Tae-guy an AllState representative or something?"

Jimin is petty. You wanted him here for moral support— which he's usually reliable for— but this time, he's just plain salty right and doing everything he can to remind you of that. Reason is, he's been begging you to get a matching tattoo with him ever since your 18th birthday, and you've always refused because of what he wanted to get.

Cupcakes. Jimin wanted to get matching cupcake tattoos... in honor of Cupcakke the legend. Sorry, but H E L L no.

You rolled your eyes, growing frustrated. He only has enough time to pop in and confirm that these two aren't gonna kill you, and then he's gotta head home to get ready for work. You were already supposed to be in there. It was 5:33pm, 3 minutes past the time.

"Jimin, you're the one that insisted on coming along! And now you're making me late!" you ranted. "I'm going in without you."

"Hold your horses, hoe! I'm finishing my blueberry slushie," He retorted, sassily bringing the straw to his mouth and loudly slurping it into the phone. He then abruptly flinched away from the straw with a disgusted expression, nostrils flared, body locking up; lips drawing into an air-tight knot that was so extreme and unnatural, it caused an ugly snort to break out of your nose.

He smacked his lips in exaggeration to the taste, face falling back into stone as an eyebrow arched over the top of his aviators; unamused and saltier than before... Like you were at fault for that, too.

"Or... Blueberry-ass, I should say."

That forced another giggle out of you as Jimin stiffly rolled his window down, phone still pressed to his ear and eyes still scowling at you behind the inspector shades. He bit down on the straw and withdrew it with his teeth before dumping the dark-blue contents of the drink out of the window, making it a point to shake the styrofoam cup empty of every drop before tossing it over his shoulder and into back seat. He then spat the straw out of his mouth with an audible "PLUUUUH!" of a French accent, and waited until the window rolled all the way up again, just so he could hang up the phone. You scoffed at this as you shoved your phone back into your pocket, scornfully watching Jimin exit the car and slam the door behind him. He snatched his glasses off his face as his cotton-candy hair swayed in the breeze, revealing his scornful eyes right back at you as he gestured for you to lead the way in exasperated manner— as if you were the one wasting his time now.

"Go on, lead us to the grave," He shooed, a snippy little shit. You sauntered away, walking up the side of the shop, then paused just before reaching the glass entrance door, when you remembered how much of a coward you are. You've never even stepped into a parlor before, and supposedly, this was a famous one. Which makes it more and more surreal when you think about it.

"Are we doing the mannequin challenge now? Is that what we're doing?" Jimin sardonically inquired.

"You go first, I'm nervous!" You whisper-hissed.

"You don't want me to go in there first— I'll show out," he reasoned, simply stating a fact.

"Please don't," you whined.

"Then, again, I'll show out?" He reiterated, as if to say duh. "How else am I supposed to break the ice? I look like Timmy Turner's Fairy-Gay- Parent."

You gave him a wary look... he's right. You sighed, slightly kicking your foot in distracted defeat. Fuck, you hated making an entrance to new places—

"Hold up— is that Drake?" Jimin suddenly blurted, holding his hand up to silence you. You honed in on the muffled track playing from behind the glass door, and Jimin's face soon light up like a Christmas tree before he spun around you, unstoppable.

"Jimin, NO—!"

"KIKI, DO YOU LOVE ME—?!"

It was already too late. The door was flying back behind him as he Milly-Rocked his way into the shop, leaving you no choice but the chase in behind him.

"—ARE YOU RIDING? SAY YOU'LL NEVA-EVA LEAVE FROM BESIDE ME— hello there."

You were panting, coming to a stop right behind Jimin, where you instantly latched on to the back of his shirt as you met the face of the man behind the studio counter. And, as corny as this is gonna sound: the world actually stilled for a solid beat... or maybe you were in the verge of cardiac arrest.

A pair of glossy-Black eyes looked up at the two of you; A series of silver-studded earrings trailed along the outer cartilages, peaking out beneath a head of soft, layer-swept hair. It was a Carmel-tinted blonde in color— thick and shaggy, and neatly spilling in waves around a headband that proudly sported a high-dollar brand-name you've never seen anyone wear in person before. G U C C I, it read— Meaning that the headband alone was probably worth more than some of your college text books, put together. It sat just a few inches above a pair of dark brows, that oddly brought out the shape of his cat-like eyes— irises like polished marbles. His ample lips had a sharp, well-defined Cupid's-bow, and a natural shade of pink that fit the porcelain appearance of his melanin-kissed complexion, to the finest degree.

And here you are, looking like an actual bum. You had just enough time to clock out of work and head straight over here to make it in time. You didn't even have any makeup on, and the only thing hiding your raggedy hair from those captivating eyes is your old baseball cap from high school. It took a second for him to take the bold presence that was Park Jimin— who was also frozen to the spot as he openly checked the guy out. He was hunched over the counter, a v-neck hoodie covering the rest of him with a thin, loose-fitting material. It was Black and allowed a full visual of his tan neck, and prominent collar bones. And it certainly didn't hide the fact that he had a pair of wide-set shoulders, either. A pencil sat in his hand— one that was laced with masculine veins, and lot of decorative ink. There was a silver ring on his thumb.. and a very heavy-looking Rolex watch.

The man cracked a grin at Jimin— a boxy one that dimpled in at the corners.

"Love the hair," he humorously began, twisting a quirky eyebrow at Jimin. You subconsciously snagged the bill of your hat as your eyes went a little wide at how mature the man's voice was.

"Love the watch," Jimin retorted, then reached around and gripped you by the wrist before pulling you into full view beside him. "You wouldn't happen to be Taehyung...?"

"Mhm," the man hummed, absentmindedly moving his wrist at the mention of his watch. His eyes cut over to you, and you swore you could see a minuscule reflection of yourself in his eyes, before they flashed back at Jimin and blinked. "You must be the babydaddy?"

Blood rushes to your ears. It's really him... a guy who looks like a high-dollar model himself, asking you to be his canvas model. Your own conscious didn't even know what to say right now. So you stayed quiet and still as Jimin took charge... which was a mistake.

"She wishes, but no. I'm the best-friend— and a gay one, at that," Jimin replied, and you knew he did that for his benefit. Thot. "I'm just here to make sure you're not gonna sacrifice her to Satan, or anything of that nature. I need her around in case I ever forget the Netflix password."

Taehyung chuckled at that, mouth opening to reveal a row of teeth shinier than Chip Skylark's. But then, you caught something behind his teeth that caused your gut to leap. A silver ball... a tongue ring. Your thoughts clouded over for a second.

"Well, I can assure you, she's safe with me," he said, looking over at you again. You blinked, nothing more. His brow arched at your lack of response, but this time, it was done more handsomely as he was still smirking at you. "Still, you don't look too thrilled to be here... You sure you wanna do this?"

"She's just nervous because you're really fucking hot," Jimin announced, unyielding. "You should feel how sweaty her hand is."

"Don't listen to him— I'm gay too," You lied in panic, trying to defend yourself from the absolute truth Jimin spoke just then. You snatched your hand away from him and jutted a finger at the door, eyes beading and lid twitching as your nerves ran amuck. "Goodbye, Jimin."

"She's a lonesome hetero," Jimin told Taehyung, assuring him with a face that showed no bluff. "One look at her camera roll, and you'd see for yourself—" You were yanking him away by the arm now, in a tug-of-war game that Jimin obviously could've won if he really wanted to. But he figured you suffered enough and eventually let you drag him out of the shop, waving bye to Taehyung before turning to look at you with beading eyes.

"I think he wants to fuck you— text me as soon as you can," Jimin uttered with unmoving lips as before he walked to his car. You stopped for a second, noticing he was actually being serious. How could he possibly think that he wants to fuck you, just from that small encounter? And what is the odd sensation currently coiling in your stomach? Things grew awkward again when you re-entered the shop, coming to a stand at the same spot... only alone now. He was still amused, it seemed. And so calm and cool despite this odd, intense look in his eyes. It gave him a Casanova effect, where all he had to do was give you that look and it'd instantly make you blush.

"He seems like a fun person to be around," he noted, somewhat honestly, but more so making fun of the red-hot appearance of your face.

"He's a pain in the ass," you muttered, trying to conjure up a smirk but hardly even able to speak properly from how dry your mouth was. It felt like there was a white-hot iron expanding in your throat. "I'm really sorry about him."

"Don't be. I'm just glad you're here— thought you'd chicken out." You nervously wiped your clammy palms over the back pockets of your jeans as Taehyung got up from the barstool behind the counter and approached you on the other side of it, a whole head-and-a-half taller than you. He was wearing black cardigan jeans and matching combat boots.. his headband and jewelry the only thing not black on him. And oddly enough, he made it look fucking fantastic.

"Mh-mm," You hummed, not trusting your voice. You've never needed a sip of water so bad in your life— he even smelled expensive.

"Well, It's very nice to meet you," he formerly began, and you mustered up the normality of placing your (dried) hand into his much larger one, as he held his out to you in greeting. And boy, was he close. So close that the heels of your spine itches to lean back from the proximity.

"It's nice to meet you, too. I'm really sorry if I'm acting weird. I'm just nervous." — Your mind struggled to stay focused on your words, arm tensing at the skin-to-skin contact. You were extra-effected by the firmness in his grip. You really wanted to look down at all the bold ink you saw dashing across the veiny surface of his tanned hand, or see if those were images or scripted letters on the knuckles of lengthy fingers... But you were held captive by those God-blessed eyes... And that fucking tongue ring. It was infecting your head in ways that weren't necessarily healthy for your current state of mind, as you saw it peering in and out at certain words.

"And physically shaking," Taehyung pointed out, brows twitching down at your trembling hand in his as if he was concerned for it. But his smirk gave off an odd sense of fascination to the involuntary symptom, like it was cute or something? Hm. He glanced back up at you, causing your dehydrated throat to bob as his other hand came to clasp over the rest of yours, swallowing it completely from the wrist down. "Intimidated?"

"V-Very," you spluttered, a small slither of saliva copulating down your throat as you looked back up at him. He absentmindedly rolled his tongue ring over the button row of his teeth as he watched you with tainted eyes— undoubtably getting cocky with that damn grin of his and proudly teasing you about your reaction to him. It gratified the effortless sex-appeal he had. You were even beginning to imagine that tongue ring elsewhere, and you literally just met him. Then, as you felt the band of a ring move along with the pad of his thumb as gently ran it across your trembly knuckles, chills shot up all the way to your shoulder. Oh... oh wow. You glanced down at his knuckles on reflex this time, and saw a four-letter word scripted in black ink across the bottom row of his knuckles, and another word scripted on the middle section of his fingers. A silver band on his naked thumb. STAY TRUE, it said.

"And why's that?"

"I.. feel like you're a celebrity," you sheepishly admitted, your other hand wedging into your back pocket as you had to stop yourself from reaching for the bill of your hat again. Is he flirting? The words seem too innocent for the way he was making you feel. It was getting so hot in the oven of his massive palms, and he wasn't even squeezing you hard enough to cut off any circulation, but yet your fingers were beginning to tingle.

"Mm, no. Just a little popular, really," he granted, teetering his head a little as he pondered the thought. You could see his vocal chords contract in his sleek neck as they project his smooth, pungent voice. "You still trust me?"

"Mhm," was all you could muster. He'd gotten even closer, to where his hand had gone into a prayer stance around yours. You were aware of how wide your eyes had gone from the awe you... you knew this was just the beginning. He was going to be very handsy throughout this whole process. But in a very twisted way, you were more than okay with that. Even if it meant you were at risk of fainting from actual dehydration. Maybe you were in over your head. But you couldn't will yourself away from this now. And then, just as a wide, heart-stopping smile edged out on that mind-numbingly handsome face, the door at that back of the room swung open, and heavy-metal rock blasted through the quiet vibe of the scenery and caused you to jump a little at the disturbance. Taehyung shot a wicked smile over his shoulder, and his next words nearly knocked you out right then and there as you beheld yet another, breathtaking sight.

"Oh, there you are," Tae eagerly acknowledged, one hand still holding yours as he walked around to grab your with the other, presenting you to the.. hulking presence in the room. "This is (Y/N), our next little experiment."

[im-totally-not-an-alien]

Final Fantasy 7 prompts #46

1. Zack is panicking because the General and Cloud are both missing.

If he had searched a bit more thoroughly he would find both under the desk.

...as very annoyed frogs.

They have to get creative and work together to escape the room and survive the dangers of the Shinra tower. Will they be able to make it to the materia floor in time to cast an ensuna? Or will Zacks broken Frog meteria doom them to a life of water and lillypads?

Frog au is kinda fun. Ngl

2. Genesis keeps trying to baby Cloud, that is, until Cloud pounces on the red head and pins him onto his back with a smug smirk on his face.

3. Sefikura wedding

4. Cloud lands in an alternate universe version of CC were everyone and everything is gender bent.

5. Scientists have captured both Sephiroth and Cloud post DoC and often place them into the same containment chamber together in hopes of fostering a healthier relationship between the two. They always wind up separating them after a while, but it serves as endless amusement to the former general.

6. There were other projects and human expirements that were freed after the DeepGround incident.

These are thier stories

7. When he first saw the man he compared him to a thunderstorm.

Wild and powerful, going wherever he pleased, as though guided by the will of the wind.

But more than anything, the blond was free

It made Sephiroth question his cage for the first time in years. The desire to be with this blond, to leave everything behind and soar through Gaias skies with him was a burning one. It consumed his thoughts, his dreams, and soon, he could only think of him

8. Sephiroth seeing Cloud decend from the sky with his sword posed to cut off his head.

Sephiroth, being the big dumb cat he is, stood there and blocked the attack with his sword while his pupils did the big expanding thing.

Cloud, who is not a cat person, googled what this meant later on...afterwords he was careful to keep a certain distance away from the former General at all times.

9. Sephiroth is the son of an evil goddess that was killed by the a powerful sorcerer king. He swore vengeance against the royal line that slew his dear mother and the country under thier reign.

He had slaughtered the new king and queen, along most of the court. That left only the prince.

He entered the princes chamber, but when he laid eyes upon the blond beauty he was stunned. There he stood, shaking with a short sword held tightly in his grasp, a feeble spell ready to be launched from his free hand.

He decided at that moment, that he would take a trophy.

10. Sephiroth had lost his fiance, Cloud, last year to an assassination plotted by Wutai, and he was still not even remotely okay.

The blond had pushed him out of the way, taking the blade that was meant for him. He died instantly, and Sephiroth never even got to say goodbye.

He gripped the forbidden spellbook in his hand and began the ominous chant.

At first glance, it seemed to have worked, but this Cloud was not his Cloud. He was cold to him and attempted to flee many times, despite being bound to the magic circle he was summoned in. But try as he may, he could not get the spell to function a second time.

The silverette was just so desperate to have any piece of Cloud in his life that he begged the man to stay. He literally fell to his knees and begged.

The blond was too shocked to do anything other than nod and say, "...okay."

They both felt a sudden rush of magic as a deal was sealed.

Cloud could no longer leave Sephiroths side.

Aka a grieving Sephiroth accedently summons AC Cloud and binds him to a contract where he's forced to stay within two meters/ six feet of the silverette at all times.

Edit: I just realized this could work with RM Cloud too!

11. Au where Sephiroth died and was labeled MIA and his lover, Cloud, waited for him every single day. He never lost hope, so when a Sephiroth from another dimention appears Cloud doesn't hesitate to grab his hand and drag him home, proclaiming how worried he was.

Sephiroth is confused, even more so when he sees Genesis and Angeal, alive and not degrading. They tell him about how worried his boyfriend was and to take care not to scare him like that again.

Sephiroth is like: ???? Boyfriend? Both best friends are alive and well? Now this is the life!

And he does his best to fit right in...knowing he's not this worlds Sephiroth

12. Sephiroth admiring how small Clouds hands are and how they fit into his own.

13. Sefikura, forced cuddling and a tickle attack

14. Cloud waking up to Sephiroth big spooning him and then screaming bloody murder is my jam

15. Genesis secretly ships Sefikura/ Zakkura

He also tries really hard to play matchmaker

[something-tofightfor]

Third Time’s the Charm (1)

Pairing: Logan Delos x Mrs. Delos (HCtS)

Word Count: 5256

Rating: M (language, mentions of sex, talk of past drug use)

Author’s Note: I’ve had this one sitting in my Google Docs for a while, and since it went with today’s @benbarnesbirthdayparty​ prompt, I figured I’d post it. Day 2: Interview (Thanks to @padfootagain​ for hosting!) This story takes place in the Here Comes the Sun AU, and is the result of the bet from Hands to Yourself. A lot of you have asked what the bet was... and this is the answer. I need to get back to writing these two. I miss them.  There will be a second part to this - but it’s not written yet. 

Summary: You and Logan are in Hawaii and getting ready to talk to the press... but what’s it all about? 

“You sure you wanna do this?” Glancing up, you met his eyes through the mirror and nodded without pause. “It -”

 “Too late to back out now, Lo.” You shrugged your shoulders, turning in the chair to hook your elbow over the back of it. “Besides, maybe giving them something will …” You trailed off, pushing your lower lip out in thought. “Maybe it’ll get them to back off.” He laughed, stepping fully into the room and shaking his head. “What?” 

 “You know as well as I do we could invite them into our bedroom and they’d find something to pick apart.” Logan settled on the edge of the bed, reaching over to pick his phone up. “We’ve gotta be over there in about fifteen minutes, are you absolutely sure?”  You watched your husband, eyes moving over his frame, and smiled. I am.

 “Lo?” He looked up and you nodded. “I don’t want to share you with anyone, not… not like that, but… there’s nothing I can do about this.” You gestured to the room you were sitting in, to yourself, and then to him. “A bet’s a bet, right?” He smiled at you, his eyes warm. “We’ve never let cameras into our relationship before, not like… not like this, and…” You looked down, taking a deep breath. “It’s for a good cause, and this way, we can control it.” 

 “Alright, then.” He stood, swallowing. “Get dressed, and we’ll go.” He turned away from you and crossed the room again, sticking his phone into his pocket. “And then we’re gettin’ a drink.” 

--- 

 Twenty minutes later you and Logan were seated on the outdoor daybed of the Four Seasons’ Kapiha’a Presidential Suite, the sound of the ocean reaching your ears. Logan’s arm was around your shoulders, his fingers lazily drifting over your skin as you watched a man scramble to set up a camera across from you, adjusting the height. “We should go snorkeling sometime, Logan.” Your eyes were out over the water, and he turned his head to follow your gaze. If that’s what you want. He’d been all for giving you whatever you wanted - basically since the moment he’d met you - but this was something that he wasn’t sure about. No, that’s not true. He had no issue with the trip itself; the reason behind your weeklong excursion to Hawaii had been his idea, but it was what you’d asked of him while you were there that he was having trouble with. 

 You were right when you’d said that the two of you had been careful when it came to letting the general public into your relationship. Sure, people took pictures, you did interviews, you’d gone to events with him. But that was all public, and it came with being a Delos, with working at Delos - with being on the arm of someone like him. But this is ours, this is… He shook his head, leaning down to kiss you on the shoulder, teeth grazing the skin there. “If you want.” Logan straightened up and followed the cameraman with his eyes, attention only pulled away when the man and woman that would be interviewing you stepped out of the hotel room and took their places across from you. Here we go. He leaned back, rolling his neck out and felt as you moved your hand from your lap onto his leg, squeezing his bare knee. Let’s get this over with. 

 “Good morning.” The woman smiled brightly at the two of you and Logan fought to keep from rolling his eyes, knowing that you were being recorded. “I’m Melanie and this is Andrew, and we’ll be handling the interview with the  two of you today, Mr. and Mrs. Delos. First of all, we want to thank both of you for agreeing to this.” You grinned next to him, nudging Logan with your shoulder, and he curled his fingers against your arm. “Are you enjoying Hawaii so far? You’ve been here for a few days, and the weather’s been incredible.” 

 “I am.” You shifted, tilting your head. “I’ve never been here before, and it’s been a lot of fun to see everything. Lo and I have…” You laughed. “We’ve spent a lot of time out of the hotel, and that’s rare for us.” You’d told him that you wanted to be candid with the interview, but being that candid surprised Logan. Maybe it shouldn’t, though. When he’d agreed to your request, he’d told you that he would follow your lead, but you talking about your bedroom habits- even without going into detail - without prompting, wasn’t expected. So I guess that’s not off the t… damn. “Our friends and family just got here today, so it’s been nice to have some time to ourselves.” 

 “Yeah, we’re always busy in LA, since we’re working so much.” Logan shrugged, feeling himself relax slightly. “We actually haven’t gone on a real honeymoon yet, so this is…” He glanced over at you, seeing that you were staring at him. “This is perfect.” 

 “Yeah, I guess we should start there.” She leaned forward, notebook in her hands as the man next to her sat back, watching. “The two of you have had two weddings already, only about a month apart. And you’ve kept them very private.” Logan nodded. “So why… six months after the second are you having a third… and inviting us to document it?” She furrowed her brow, looking between the two of you, and Logan waited, seeing what you would say. 

 “Logan’s life has alway been …” You squeezed his leg. “.. a topic of conversation.” He heard you sigh. “When we met, I didn’t know who he was, and I think that he appreciated that, because it meant he didn’t have to live up to any sort of expectation with me.” That’s true. “So as we got to know each other, it was important to me to keep from… I don’t know, trying to flaunt our relationship? He’s a Delos, and that’s not going to change, and he has a past, but why… why is it anyone’s business where he and I go on a date, or who we have dinner with or when he proposes to me?” 

 “Look.” He leaned forward, pulling his arm away from your shoulders and dropping his hand to cover yours. “I proposed in Vegas, and we got married less than 12 hours later with two people there, because we wanted to and we didn’t want to wait.” She nodded, scribbling in her notebook, but looking back at Logan. “We had the second wedding in LA a month later for our friends and family, because both of us wanted the people we care about to be there.” 

 “And this one… this one is because Logan’s actually…” You turned your head to look at him and Logan couldn’t help doing the same, meeting your eyes and refusing to look away. Tell them. “Logan’s actually a lot different than people think he is.” You finished your sentence in a way that he was almost positive you hadn’t intended to, but as he watched you, the way your lips twitched into a small smile, he couldn’t help himself, leaning in to kiss you. I am. But only because of you. “Lo.” You laughed and pushed him away from you gently, shaking your head. “We made a bet a few weeks ago, which…” You lowered your head and shook it. “Which led to some questions.” It sure did. 

 “Yeah, there was a period of time when it seemed like the two of you were drifting apart, right before James Delos’ birthday party.” The woman was writing again, eyes on her paper, even as she spoke. “Weren’t going to work together, were spending nights apart, were…”

 “We were trying to prove a point,” Logan replied, reaching up to run his left hand through his hair. “And we did exactly that… but everyone got it wrong” 

 “How so?” The man on the couch spoke up for the first time, and Logan’s eyes went to him. “What point?” 

 “The point is that just because people see something, doesn’t mean they know what’s going on.” You crossed your legs at the knee, voice even. “Logan and I shouldn’t have to explain anything to people - ones that we actually know or the ones that think they know us.” And yet that’s what we’ve been doing for years. “Just because we’re newlyweds, just because he’s got… a reputation … it doesn’t mean that we’re going to be all over each other all the time, or just…” Not in public at least.

 “I got that out of my system well before we met.” He spoke again, feeling apprehensive. Why are we doing this? “She was always more to me than that, and even…” Logan shook his head. “We met in the Bahamas, right?” The female interviewer nodded. “During a hurricane, just by accident, and it was the…” He took a breath. “I’m not proud of the way I was, and I understand why people assume things about me, but I’m gonna draw the line when it comes to the way people think about the people I love. Especially the woman… especially my wife.” He squeezed your hand. “The first wedding was for us. The second one was for the people we care about… and this one?” Logan gestured to the island with his free hand. “This one’s for everyone else.” 

 “Can you explain that?” Melanie shook her head, reaching up to scratch her cheek. “Why it’s necessary to -”

 “Yes.” You cleared your throat. “I can.” 

--- 

 The woman’s question hadn’t surprised you, but you felt Logan’s fingers closing around yours more tightly at it, the way his voice had caught when he talked about your meeting. It’s ok, Lo. “It’s no one’s business what we do together, or how we choose to…” You licked your lips. “Look, I’m not an idiot. I know how people look at Logan, and what they think of my relationship with him. It’s what they’ve always thought.” You glanced down, eyes on Logan’s fingers, which were twined with yours, your rings poking through them. “I was engaged before I met Logan, that’s no secret, and neither is the fact that I’m not someone that anyone would have guessed he’d end up with.” Why would he? 

 “There was a lot of talk about that in the beginning.” Andrew nodded and you nodded back, watching the man with interest. “You dealt with a lot of bad press, didn’t you? People saying you were just after Logan’s money, after the status, trying to change your life by elevating yourself?” That hurts to hear, I… “To be clear, I’m not saying that I assumed that, I’m just paraphrasing from the other stories that -” 

 “We’ve dealt with that a lot,” Logan replied, flipping your hand over and swiping his thumb over your palm. “And it’s not that we tried to purposely hide from people, not answering their questions or being really open with what we have, we just…” They want honesty?

 “Logan was recovering from a pretty serious court case.” You supplied the words, cutting your husband off. “He was only a couple years out from taking his position within Delos back, from proving that he belonged on the board, from… getting his life back on track, and he just… I don’t know, we didn’t feel like we needed that added pressure of opening up a new relationship to the same type of…” 

 “You wanted to be with each other without having everyone else in your relationship, too.” Both of you nodded and Melanie’s pen continued to move. “I get that, but it still doesn’t explain…” She glanced up. “Why did that matter?” Why wouldn’t it matter? You opened your mouth to speak, but Logan beat you to it. 

 “It mattered because I didn’t need reporters and photographers and people that weren’t a part of my life to watch me falling in love with her.” Logan scoffed before continuing. “They watched me at my lowest, formed an opinion of me, talked about how long it would take me to get thrown out of Delos for good, to… ruin my life, to kill m…” His lip curled, one angry shake of his head the only movement he made. “I didn’t need or want that, and so we decided that even though we couldn’t stay out of the public eye completely, we wouldn’t …” You heard the pain in his voice and leaned over, putting your head against his shoulder. 

 “We didn’t want to give you everything.” You pressed your lips together. “At the end of the day, our relationship was - is - more than gossip. We’re real people and we wanted as much privacy as possible, the way that… Juliet and William and Juliet and Mark didn’t get.” You’d asked the woman if you could mention her if it came up, and she’d been more than happy to give you permission. “She was so open when she and William were planning the wedding, and then, even when they got divorced, it was the same, people looking for things to talk about, for ammunition.” 

 “Do you think that that negatively impacted -”

 “No.” Logan laughed, shaking his head. “No, that was all Billy.” You looked over at him, worried. Don’t keep talking about him, that’s not what this is about. “But when it doesn’t seem to matter to people that I’m actually happy, or that this is a real relationship, why would I want to open myself up by saying or doing things so that people can document ‘em and then pick ‘em apart?” 

 “That’s a good point,” Andrew leaned back, nodding. “That makes a lot of sense.” 

 You talked for nearly a half hour, you and Logan fielding questions from both interviewers, referring to each other, but you were surprised that neither of them asked again about the reason that you were in Hawaii, the reason that you were doing the interview - or what had led you to that point, instead focusing on your past time together. Logan had relaxed as the interview continued, his arm going back around your shoulders, the two of you joking with each other, but you could tell that Melanie was still skeptical, still doubting the sincerity in the meeting. What are we supposed to do? You thought back to Logan’s words from earlier about inviting them into the bedroom and still finding fault with you and took a deep breath. I guess we’re going to have to... “Lo.” You turned to him, angling your body and putting your elbow on the back of the couch, grinning. “We never really explained…” 

 “Explained what?” You turned your head slightly, watching as the woman leaned forward, more interested. “I -” 

 “My wife and I are very competitive.” You heard the edge to Logan’s voice and bit back a smile. He’s going for it. “But we’re also … very stubborn.” Melanie leaned in further, her eyes moving between you and Logan quickly while Andrew leaned against his seat, holding back a smile. “We both got tired of seeing the headlines that you made up because we weren’t giving you - press and paparazzi - anything to go on… and so we made a bet.” Logan paused, giving you a chance to take over. 

 “We bet that the other person couldn’t keep their hands to themselves for ten days.” Andrew laughed and Melanie did too, her eyebrows rising. “Everyone was so quick to say that our relationship was just about the physical aspects, but we both knew that that wasn’t the case, and we still… we couldn’t help it, we just wanted to prove that…” You bit your lip and looked at Logan, seeing the warmth in his eyes. “It’s not like that, and it never will be.” 

 “Who won the bet?” Andrew tapped his fingers on the couch. “And what was the prize?”  Logan moved before you could stop him, more comfortable than he had been throughout the beginning of the morning’s interview and pulled you onto his lap, arms circling your body. 

 “We both won.” He kissed the side of your head, breath warm on your skin. “But we also both had a very different prize in mind. I wanted to marry her again, prove that I’d do it as often as it took to make people understand that it wasn’t a spur of the moment decision and I didn’t regret it for a second.” There’s more to it than that, Logan. You thought back to the conversation you’d had in Logan’s bedroom after James’ party, the way the two of you had watched the sun rise as you’d talked quietly, sweat drying on your skin. So much more. 

 “And I wanted to release pictures from the Los Angeles wedding and prove to people that it wasn’t just for show, so everyone could see Logan for what he… is and not what they assume he is.” And to show people how he looked at me that day… the way he... Your fingers wrapped around Logan’s forearm, holding him tightly. “So we compromised.” Melanie shook her head and you continued. “Logan gets to marry me for a third time, like he wants, and we’re going to release the pictures from this wedding for everyone to see, since they’re so damn curious.” 

 “Isn’t that a little counterproductive? We paid a lot for the exclusive.” Andrew cocked his head to the side and blinked. “The interview and the pictures and the inside scoop. You don’t need the money, so -”

 “Yeah, but you paid it.” Logan shifted beneath you, chest rising and falling against your back. “We set a price and you paid it fast.” When Logan’s agent had put the word out that you were shopping your third wedding as an exclusive, it had taken less than 24 hours for a deal to be in place, and only another day or so for the money to come through. Everyone wants a story. “So that tells me that you think it’s good for business, and that it’s something your readers will want to see.” Andrew nodded, though he still looked skeptical. “But you’re right, we don’t need the money.” 

 “So why -”

 “It’s going to charity.” You spoke up again, leaning away from Logan’s body slightly before your lips curved into a wide grin. “Two charities, actually. That was the second part of my ‘prize’, because I don’t know how else I can make it clearer that this has never been about money for me, never been about who Logan is or about putting myself in the public eye.” Melanie nodded her head, and you saw that the look in her eyes had changed - as had the look in Andrew’s. Good. Maybe they respect it a little more now. 

 “And.” Logan cleared his throat, sitting up straighter. The biggest thing of all. “I’m matching the price you paid for the story with a donation of my own.” At that, Melanie’s jaw dropped, her eyes snapping away from you and over to Andrew. “That’s what I thought.” Logan was nearly vibrating beneath you and you didn’t think, instead turning your head to kiss him, one hand raising to the side of his face. That’s right, Lo. It was a short kiss, but you could feel Logan’s heart beating against his ribs when you pulled back, nodding almost imperceptibly at him. “This is real.” He swallowed and you looked back at the two reporters, still sitting on the couch across from you, shocked expressions on their faces. “I won’t apologize for the way I acted before, but I’m not that person now, and I won’t ever be again.” No, you won’t. 

 --- 

 They’d asked you more questions after you’ revealed the truth to them, but Melanie and Andrew had almost been too shocked to finish the interview properly, something that had surprised Logan. “I guess,” he said, as he laid on his back on a lounge chair, one arm bent behind his head and an oversized pair of sunglasses covering his eyes. “I guess that it’s not every day that someone matches the price they paid for an interview with a donation of their own, but it’s -” 

 “It’s not the cost of the exclusive, Logan.” You were laying on your stomach next to him, back and shoulders exposed to the sun, your hair twisted into a loose knot on the top of your head. “That doesn’t matter to them, because they’re going to sell a ton of issues, and their site’s gonna be busy as hell.” Then what is it? “It’s the fact that Logan Delos, formerly one of the most eligible men on the planet has married someone like me so many times in such a short amount of time.” You turned your face toward him, squinting into the bright light as he rolled his eyes at your description of yourself. It’s the truth, Logan. “They were hoping for some sort of revelation, not just the fact that they get their exclusive because you and I made a bet that we couldn’t not fuck each other for -”

 “Like what?” He rolled onto his side to face you, taking a deep breath. “That’s not enough for them? The way they paint me in these stories, you’d think ten days would -”

 “I don’t know, like that you cheated on me and you were trying to make up for it, or that those stories were right and we needed to find a way for you to regain my trust, or that I was secretly pregnant and we were going to reveal it in that interview -”

 “None of those things would be anything I would tell thos-”

 “Exactly, Logan.” You grinned at him, pushing yourself up from the chair with both hands and sitting straight up. His eyes moved from your face down to your bikini clad body, and he couldn’t help the way he pulled his lower lip into his mouth, tongue running over the top of it. “But a couple years ago you wouldn’t have done this either, so…” You shrugged your shoulders, hands gripping the edge of the chair as you watched him. “I’m not surprised that this is the response. How many different publishers reached out to try to buy the rights to this?” He thought for a minute, still on his side. Too many. 

 “Four.” He swallowed, reaching up to push his sunglasses atop his head. “And all of  ‘em were really competitive when it came to making a deal, but…” Logan thought back to the conversations he’d had with his agent and the legal team. “We picked this one because they actively went out of their way to shit on me and Jules in the past, and I wanted to make them…” He frowned. “Think twice the next time they wanna do somethin’ like that.” He felt better once he’d said it, but Logan saw that his response hadn’t surprised you. Of course it didn’t. “But I don’t wanna talk about them anymore.” He sat up, eyes scanning the pool and the few other people that were relaxing by it. “What time are -”

 “Juliet’s going to text me once she’s done with her massage, but I think she made a reservation for eight.” You tilted your head to the side. “The restaurant closes at 9, but I guess we’re an exception, and they’re going to stay open for us or -”

 “Get used to it.” Logan cracked his neck, the sunlight feeling good on his shoulders and face, trying to keep from laughing. “Juliet doesn’t throw around the Delos name unless it’s important, but this is…” He leaned closer, reaching out to take your hand in his. “It’s only been six months for you, but you’re a Delos too, and you can… you should get used to the fact that it…” 

 “Logan, I would have been fine with eating dinner in the room with just you.” You ran a hand over his ring finger, eyes locked on the band he wore. “The whole point of this is to prove that I don’t -” 

 “I know you don’t.” He lowered his head and kissed your shoulder, feeling the warmth of your sun-drenched skin against his lips. “And I appreciate that, but I’m just saying that you need to understand that when people hear that you’re Mrs. Logan Delos,” he punctuated the last few words with kisses, moving closer to your neck with each one, his free hand resting on your thigh, “... they’ll make a lot of accommodations for you.” 

 “I’m not gonna use this to…” You hummed as he kissed your jaw, lifting your hand to rest it on his ribs. “Hey, Lo. Stop for a second.” He heard the urgency in your voice and so he listened, halting his movement and repositioning himself so that he could look into your eyes. “When we were talking to Melanie and Andrew earlier, they thought, until you said it wasn’t the case, they thought that I picked Hawaii, that I picked this resort.” He watched your eyes cloud over for a brief second, sadness in them. Stop that. “I just need you to know that I’m not... it’s not that I don’t want to say I’m a Delos, because I do. I am so fucking proud to be your wife, Logan, but it’s not about being a Delos and it never will be, it’s about being yours.” 

 “What?” He blinked slowly, pulling back even further. “Say that again.” You’d said many things that surprised him in the time you’d been together, but the simplicity of your previous words stunned him. “I don’t understand what that means, you-”

 “I would have married you, Logan, no matter what your name was or how we’d met.” You pulled your hand from his, twisting the three rings you wore on your left hand in the thumb and forefinger of your right. “You could have proposed with a… a plastic ring out of one of those quarter machines at the grocery store and I still would have said yes.” You stared at him, and he realized that you’d wanted to say these things to him plainly for months, but had held back. Why? Why now? “You could lose everything tomorrow, Logan, and I wouldn’t care, because all of this - the money and the trips and the company and the status? They’re not why I’m here, with you.” You clasped your hands together in your lap, and when you met Logan’s eyes again, he saw that you were fighting back tears. “That first wedding? In Vegas with Mark and Juliet? That’s the wedding I wish we could show people, because it’s exactly what I wanted with you.”

 “You don’t want to do this?” He was confused, brow furrowed. “You said -” 

 “No, I do. That’s not… not what I mean.” He watched you take a deep breath, tilting your head back to look up at the bright blue sky. “This isn’t us, Logan, it’s what’s expected because of who you are, but it’s not… not what I need, and not what you should expect from me in the future.” Oh. You looked back at him, chewing on your lower lip. “Everyone’s got their opinions, and I know we can’t give them everything, but I don’t want to give them the wrong idea, and I think… I think that’s what this as a venue might do, even though we’re trying to do the right thing.” 

 “I’m not givin’ anyone those pictures from Vegas.” Please understand. Please. Logan stared at you, thinking about what you were saying. “I’d do anything for you, but I won’t give them that. Those are ours, that day was ours.” He leaned in, reaching up to your face, his fingertips resting against your cheek. “They don’t get to see us like that, and I’d rather have them get everything wrong then turn that day into something it wasn’t.” It’s not theirs. “Vegas was perfect. LA was over the top, but in a good way. Tomorrow’s going to be right in the middle.” He ran his hand down your arm, fingers circling your wrist. “Might not be us, but it’s as close as we’re gonna get.” It’s as close as I want to get. “We’re doing this to shut people up, and as much as I wish it could just be us and it could just be simple all the time, that’s not going to work. Not for this.” He stood, holding a hand out to you and waiting for you to take it. “Hey.” You looked up at him, staying quiet. “You told me that you wouldn’t say no to anything I wanted after winning that bet, and if you wanna give everyone something to look at… it’s gotta be good.” 

 You finally smiled again and placed your hand into Logan’s, allowing him to pull you to your feet. “You’re right.” He tugged you against his chest and flattened both palms against your back, feeling your arms go around him. “I’m just… so many people are going to see these pictures, Logan, they’re going to watch the interview, and it’s a lot to think about. What are they going to say about my dress or my hair or my vows or…” 

 “We’ll have to wait and see.” He kissed the top of your head, tightening his arms around you. “But,” he continued, feeling himself smile. “You won’t have to wait to find out what I’m gonna say about any of those things, because you’ll know the minute I see you.” You froze in his arms, but then relaxed almost immediately, letting out a deep sigh. “We’re doing the pictures and all that bullshit for them, sure, but this wedding? Me puttin’ a ring on your finger for the third time? That’s for us.” You pulled away from him, and Logan saw the light back in your eyes. Good. “So.” Logan licked his lips, jerking his chin toward the pool behind you. “Let’s go swim for a while.” You stepped backwards as he spoke, and Logan knew he’d already won as he watched your chest rise and fall quickly. “And then we’ll go back to the room and relax before dinner.” 

 “No, we won’t, Logan, you know as well as I do that we won’t…” You trailed off as Logan ducked his head to kiss you, laughing against your lips. No, we won’t. He pushed gently on your hips and urged you closer to the water, eyes on your face. 

 “You know me too well.” Without warning, you turned away from him, feet carrying you the final few steps. And I know you. He watched as you stepped into the pool, the clear water covering your legs and then your waist, Logan waiting until you were all the way in up to your chest to follow you. As you made your way toward the center, he grinned and submerged himself after taking a deep breath, legs propelling him through the water until he surfaced right behind you, arms winding around your waist as he hugged you. “Gotcha.” His lips landed behind your ear and you laughed loudly, twisting around to face him and using both hands to push his hair up and away from his face, slicking the strands back. Both of you were breathing hard, and even though there were plenty of things that Logan wanted to say to you, he chose the only one that made sense to him - even though he’d said it to you before. “I can’t wait to marry you tomorrow.” 

--- 

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[deadwatcrs]

⟨  tom holland  ,  non-binary demiboy  ,  he/they  ,  22  ⟩   there  goes  ARTHUR ‘ARTIE’ HART  after  the  opposing  team’s  flag  ,  the  child   of  APHRODITE  who  was  claimed  to  CABIN TEN  eleven years  ago  .  wielding  their  SPEAR  ,  and  their  inherited  TELEPORTATION  at  the  ready  ,  they’re  sure  to  lead  their  team  to  victory  .  after  all  ,  it  was  their  demigod  prowess  that  proved  to  be  vital  during  the  arduous  and  decisive  JOURNEY TO FIND DAEDALUS AND THE MAP OF THE LABYRINTH  (  demigod  18  )  they  ventured  on  in  the  past  .  don't  let  their  feat  fool  you  though  ,  it  was  during  this  quest  that  they  were  challenged  by  their  FEAR OF ABANDONMENT AND LONELINESS  .  perhaps  that  is  the  reason  they've  chosen  to  side  with  the  titan  army  .

hello hello !!! so excited to be here with everyone :-) !!! i’m mira, i’m 20, i use she/her pronouns nd i live in the gmt+8 zone, so u can expect me awake when no one else is KJEHHSEJK i’ve been a fan of pjo since like,,,, i was 12 nd was literally convinced i was a demigod so u can imagine !!!! that when i saw this rp i was like !!!! [screams] 

anyways !! this is arthur ‘artie’ hart nd they are New so i’m still working out a lot of their story, but im v excited to see where they’ll go :-) i have a few connections regarding his story nd also just ,, slapped som stuff down from the app into here HEKJHESJK 

PART ONE.    THE BASICS.

name: arthur ‘artie’ hart. prefers to go by artie, as arthur is what his aunt calls him. age: twenty-two. zodiac: born on july 21st, 1999, making him a cancer sun, scorpio moon and leo rising. gender & pronouns: nonbinary demiboy. uses he/him and they/them pronouns. romantic orientation: bisexual.

PART TWO.     THE HIDDEN DEPTHS, THE SCRATCHED LAYER.

positive traits: compassionate / perceptive / mild-mannered. negative traits: pessimistic / evasive / easily jealous. mbti: ENFJ - the protagonist. moral alignment: chaotic good. what is their motivation?: artie is motivated, primarily, by the desire to never find themselves abandoned and alone. growing up with an absent goddess of a mother, a mother deep in her memories of a lover she’ll never see again and an aunt who tried to give them a foundation to grow from meant that their life was more or less marred by the concept of loneliness, of abandonment. 

artie wants, more than anything else, for no future demigods to feel the same way they did — and if that means tearing down olympus and getting rid of the gods, then they were willing to turn the other cheek, to contribute bare bones to take on the least amount of blood and ichor. aphrodite had never made a move to acknowledge him other than the obligatory favor of claiming him as her child, and the knowledge that she too had abandoned him pushed him to the side of the titans.

the choice to do the bare minimum is rooted in the fact that they are still very much attached to camp half-blood and everyone within it, as they had been there for half their life. it is a decision rooted in wanting the best for the camp and its campers even if the decision is a difficult one. after all, what have the gods ever done for the hundreds of children they’ve brought into the world?

what was growing up like?: for starters, artie appreciates that his aunt tried. their mother was far too wrapped up in memories of a lover long gone, and aphrodite had never once made an effort beyond dropping them off at their mother’s doorstep and then claiming them as her child eleven years later. growing up was difficult. like any demigod child, there were instances that could never be explained, like the time artie was in his room one minute and the living room the next without ever having touched his closed door and the time his backpack was torn to shreds while he was still wearing it. still, they had to push through childhood, often seeking comfort in the arms of their aunt when the monsters got too close. at eleven, a satyr brought artie to camp half-blood after discovering their teleportation ability (it was a stupid incident, and one artie is reluctant to tell again, but it ends with falling asleep while their foot was in a toilet bowl while walking to class). 

camp half-blood was a haven for artie as their heritage was unraveled. aphrodite claimed him a week after he arrived at camp, and he was immediately drawn to the change in lifestyle. it was a relief for all the pieces to fall into place, for artie to realize that they weren’t different. at thirteen, they became a year rounder camper after their aunt had encouraged them to stay, knowing their mother couldn’t keep them safe. their time at camp was divided into learning how to fight with a spear (a weapon that quickly became their go-to, the one weapon they were actually proficient with) and learning how to manage their ability. however, worry constantly nagged at them, as they realized they were only putting off a life alone. artie may not have been different, but there were very few people who lived like they did.

PART THREE.     THE EXTRAS, THE CONNECTIONS.

ambrosia tastes like the cranberry-walnut cookies their aunt used to make for them.

they have a little mp3 player because they absolutely cannot live without listening to music. it’s not connected to wifi or data, just a little device that hosts illegally downloaded music.

interchangeably uses he and they pronouns. gender identity was something artie struggled with growing up, as they never felt totally connected to their assigned gender at birth but didn’t feel totally disconnected from it either. it took a lot of google searches, long late night talks with the nymphs and his aunt and encouragement from their fellow siblings before they realized they were non-binary, and furthermore, a demi-boy. they do have a preference for people to refer to them with ‘he/him’ pronouns, while they tend to use ‘they/them’. of course, they don’t really mind what people use as long as it’s either he or them, and ultimately, artie is just happy he’s got this part of himself figured out.

handy with a spear. they tend to spin the weapon around their hand as part of their signature move, and yes, it is just to show off how good he is at spinning it.

pinterest here.

i.    this house burned down and we’ll take the memories with it.

this would be the person who artie is closest to and considers family. they would’ve been there for his every milestone, the person who had his back more often than not and vice versa. however, after artie is revealed to be part of luke’s army, betrayal strains their relationship. i can see this connection (in current times) focusing heavily on the fact that they’re both on directly opposing sides but want the other to be by their side, but being unable to switch sides themselves. this connection is also one heavily steeped in years and years of friendship, as artie has been at camp since he was eleven, and then switched to being a year-rounder at thirteen.

ii.    and where have the gods gone? taken by rainier gang.

artie didn’t want to switch to the titan’s side at first. he was convinced over a long period of time, and this connection focuses on the dynamic between artie and whoever took the time to convince him to switch sides. seeing as one of artie’s deepest fears is ending up alone and abandoned, maybe this dynamic focused on that aspect! honestly, i’m open to however this connection develops since it’s a pretty open-ended one.

iii.     for these are shared wounds. taken by emri kyung, salem poe.

in short, they have been artie’s sparring partner since he was a new camper. as a child of aphrodite, there was always that expectation that he’d be useless in a battlefield and this person took a chance on him, showing him everything he now knows about how to fight. they aren’t close by any means but there is comfort in intimately knowing what they’re like on a battlefield. how this dynamic develops depends on which side (or none, if they’re neutral!) the other person is on.

other wanted connections:

literally anything my brain is tiny LOL

[falseroar]

Dog Days Part 10: Limited Supply

((After finally getting some sleep, Abe learns a little more about the lack of silver bullets in the city and where someone might go to get a Google of their own, or four.

This one is back to being on the long side, but I think the next few are going to level out and not be jumping between long Abe sections and shorter Y/N ones.

Warning: reference to using alcohol as a bad coping mechanism.

Links to Part 9 and to the whole series here.))

Abe didn’t remember the walk back to his car, but he did at least remember that this hospital charged for parking by the hour before he gave in to the impulse to try and get a nap right there in the driver’s seat. It felt like a minor miracle when he managed to reach his office/apartment without causing an accident, and a major one when he was finally, finally able to pull off his shoes and little else before crashing on top of his unmade futon bed.

It was a hard sleep, the kind that left Abe feeling somehow vaguely worse when he woke up than when he fell asleep. Might have had something to do with the puddle of drool he woke up in, or the vague confusion about when and where he was when he opened his crusty eyes to a dark room with the only light coming from the streetlights outside.

He sat up with a groan and a slightly worrying crack from his back. How long had it been since he slept here and not in some random hotel room or in his car or those couple of nights spent out in the woods that probably didn’t actually count as sleeping, now that he thought about it? He checked his watch, realized it had fallen off somewhere in the sheets, and stumbled his way to the bathroom to try and make an effort to clean himself up.

One shower later he felt slightly more human and awake enough to realize that despite feeling like he had barely closed his eyes, he had somehow managed to sleep for over 12 hours there. Which meant he was a bit late on the ball for another night at the doctor’s clinic, again.

Then again, Abe told himself as he checked the coffeemaker and grimaced at what he found there, chances were high that other doctor clued Schneeplestein in on a hunter coming around asking about vampires. Wasn’t like he had been super subtle, and he doubted Dr. Iplier had enough vampire patients to not be able to narrow down who might need to be worried. Keeping some distance for one night couldn’t hurt, not when he had a few other things to look into.

He dug out the envelope that Google guy gave him and leaned against his desk as he checked the contents again. Pictures of the doc, those could have been taken by anyone, and addresses were easy to get, but the copy of the certificate was another question. Abe had seen a couple of these before, battered smaller versions carried by various non humans to prove that they were registered and, theoretically, as harmless as anyone else walking on the street.

This one though, or at least the copy of it, was the larger version kept on file. The seals looked genuine enough, and there was no sign of blurring or any other kind of alteration even when Abe checked with a magnifying glass. If it was a fake, then it was the best one he had ever seen, but the only place to find this version was either in the city’s official records (and even then you had to jump through enough hoops to make you feel like a prized poodle at the dog show) or theoretically in the Bronson Institute’s files, although Abe had never managed to wrangle permission to get to those.

Either way, not an easy piece of paper to get your hands on without the right connections, which could give him a leg up on narrowing down who was so invested in finding out more about this doctor. Abe didn’t believe that bull about not wanting to accidentally accuse an innocent person, not from someone who had to send a magic doohickey made to look like a person instead of showing their own face.

Google. That guy had to be a lead of his own too, even if there was apparently more than one of him walking around. There weren’t too many people who could be capable of making magitek that could pass for human, considering Abe didn’t know of anyone who could pull that off.

But he did know someone who always knew how to pull off the next best thing if there was even a hint of money to be made.

The rest of the night passed quickly, as Abe made a few notes and tried (and failed) to connect a few more dots before heading out just before dawn.

A drive by the clinic proved the doctor had already headed out, and despite driving the way he saw him walk off yesterday Abe failed to see any sign of the vampire before he pulled up to his favorite coffee stop.

“Look at that, he came back,” Carla greeted him as he walked in. “How do you look even worse than yesterday?”

“It’s called getting old,” Abe answered, but she just clucked her tongue and reached for an empty cup. “Your musician not here today?”

“The Host? Guess not, if you didn’t see him. Not like he has a set time to be here,” Carla said. She poured the coffee and paused to look at him. “Feeling brave enough to try something different today?”

“Maybe later,” Abe answered, same as he did every other time she bothered to ask. Black coffee as strong as it came had served him well this long, after all. When she shrugged and slid the cup of coffee toward him, he hesitated and asked, “You still make those sandwiches here?”

Despite the fact that the coffee shop was completely empty except for him and Carla, the hunter took one of the far corner booths by the front windows so that he could keep an eye on the people walking outside while he ate and drank his coffee. Carla would throw him a question or make a comment out into the air every now and then, but otherwise she let him sit there in a silence that was only broken by the occasional other customer.

Even when the number of customers started to pick up and more and more people took empty tables and booths and filled the coffee shop with talking and laughter and general noise, Abe just sat there in his own bubble of silence, watching the street without really seeing it.

The house. Why had Google told him to go there, what was he supposed to see? Someone had performed a ritual there, or at least tried to, and Abe could only hope there was enough of whatever poor fool thought that was a good idea to walk out of there. No body to be found anyways, but sometimes that just made things worse.

He swallowed, hard, and tried to focus.

What was the connection to the Colonel? Celine had been into that stuff, but Abe somehow doubted the Colonel was the type to have a head or the patience for magic. Then again, neither was he, because when he looked at the symbols he had copied into his notebook, they still looked half a step away from scribbles.

And the next page was a copy of the doctor’s list of weapon shop owners.

Abe chewed on his thumbnail as he stared at that page, his thoughts of that used silver bullet in the doctor’s office shifting to the memory of small, twin piles of gleaming silver bullets in his and the Colonel’s palms. One of which ended up in his own chest, and the other…

Next thing he knew, he was shoving the notebook back into the pocket it came from and hurriedly gathering all of his trash together to throw away.

“Heading out?” Carla asked, like she had been keeping an eye on him.

“Yeah, I’ve got—I’ve got some things I need to look into,” Abe said, avoiding her knowing stare. “Thanks for the coffee.”

“Abe,” she said, so sharply that he had to stop and look back. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, just working on a case. You know how it is,” Abe answered. He had maybe camped out here in the coffee shop for an hour or six before, going through cup after cup of coffee while working through a particularly difficult problem.

So it was a little surprising to hear the genuine concern in Carla’s voice when she said, “Don’t let it get to you. You can always turn down a case if it’s not sitting with you, right?”

“Of course I can,” Abe answered, mostly out of reflex.

Because as he stepped outside into the crisp but quickly warming up air, he knew that as true as that was in theory, he really couldn’t. Not when he could feel the edge of a thread, of something connecting all of this that he couldn’t see yet.

The hunter glanced at the bench outside of the shop, but there was still no sign of the Host. Not that Abe was sure he wanted to talk to that guy again anytime soon, but he felt an itch in the back of his mind whenever he spared him a thought, like there was something he was forgetting.

Abe paused at the door of his car and looked back, then all around, but there was no one there out of the ordinary, nothing to explain the fleeting sense of being watched that he quickly put out of his mind.

---

Every weapon shop on the doctor’s list, and a couple more that Abe knew of from his own shopping, had the same response when the hunter asked: no one was buying silver bullets, at least not anytime recently.

“No market for them,” one shop owner explained. “If you want, I can put an order in, but it’ll take a few weeks unless it’s an emergency.”

“Haven’t kept them in stock in three years,” a clerk at another store said after checking their computer. “And that was after not selling them for even longer. Wound up selling our last batch back to the smith who made them.”

Guy at another store outright laughed at Abe when he asked, and he had enough clues to tell he wasn’t the first to ask long before one manager Abe had dealt with before joked, “We had a guy in asking about silver bullets yesterday. You two know something we don’t?”

“That depends. What’d the other guy look like?” Abe asked.

“I don’t know, white guy, brown hair. Wore a red hoodie and didn’t look much like your typical hunter, but that’s about all I noticed,” the manager said with a shrug as she went back to wiping down her glass counter. “Told him I could order him some if he had an ID, but he didn’t care about that. Sounded more like he was interested in telling where a particular bullet came from, and I had to explain to him that you can’t really do that just by looking, you know?”

Abe nodded. If you knew what to look for, you could tell what kind of gun had fired a bullet, but narrowing it down to a particular weapon would require an expert. There were forensics guys with the police and the Institute who could do that, both of which would have a lot of questions for a doctor who showed up with a used silver bullet, starting with just who he pulled that bullet out of.

Werewolves were always the first thing to come to mind whenever silver bullets came into the conversation, although Abe knew they weren’t the only ones to have a weakness for silver. Vampires had a problem with the stuff too, if not as much, but most people were more familiar with the holy symbols and wooden stakes. Really, the only debate among hunters was whether silver crucifixes or wooden ones were better, and even then it usually boiled down to cost and the fact that one version could just as easily become a stake if you were desperate enough. No hunter would bother using a silver bullet on a vampire, since it wasn’t even a guaranteed kill like it was with a werewolf; do it wrong, and you really just ticked off someone who was probably already angling to take a bite out of you.

So, probably only one reason any reasonable person would be packing silver bullets. The problem was, there hadn’t been a werewolf within the bounds of the city in years, as everyone seemed keen to remind Abe today. The District Attorney hadn’t been the last one, with the odd one or two that supposedly ran afoul of the Institute and then were never seen again. From what Abe heard among other hunters and his not quite human contacts, the rumors about what happened to them were enough to keep any sane were from taking that risk.

“You looking to buy some?” the manager asked, in a tone that suggested she already knew the answer before Abe shook his head.

“Still got a few of my own rattling around,” he answered.

Five bullets, to be exact. The five bullets that remained in his gun after that party, the five he had been left with when all was said and done.

Well, that and the bullet the Colonel put in his chest, bit hard to forget about that one.

Abe walked out of the weapons shop and rubbed his face, hand audibly scratching against the stubble on his chin. According to the manager, the guy in the hoodie had come in to that particular shop during the day yesterday, so unless the doctor was topping up on blood and using the hood to keep out of direct sunlight, he had friends to do his day work for him.

Was it one of those friends who had a silver bullet put in them, or one of his patients? Couldn’t be a real werewolf, even a shot that a regular human would be able to survive could kill a were if the bullet was silver. When just the touch of the stuff burned, having it suddenly in your system generally didn’t do a body good. So probably a case of mistaken identity, or just using whatever weapon happened to be at hand, although that second one didn’t sound likely considering the general lack of silver ammunition lying around.

Really, the only ones who would have silver bullets these days would be hunters like him who kept a supply of just about anything that might be useful on hand. Which gave Abe’s mind fuel for his next theory of who might want to send Google to get him to keep an eye on the doctor: a hunter who mistakenly shot someone they believed was a werewolf would have a reason to get rid of the doctor who both treated and possibly saved said victim and possessed the evidence that could track the shooting back to them. Hiring another hunter to dig up dirt on said doctor and discredit him before that could happen would be one way of dealing with the problem.

Or, alternatively, someone really was worried about the doctor and wanted to have someone else on standby and ready to prove his innocence, but for some reason Abe just wasn’t ready to believe his client had the best motives at heart here.

There was also the problem that if someone did survive that bullet, why would they need to risk asking around town about it? Either the victim didn’t know or see their shooter and had another reason not to go to the police without some solid evidence to back them up first, or the victim wasn’t in a position to tell anyone about it afterward.

So, possibly a victim out there, who was just as possibly dead or alive at this point, and a doctor who was possibly trying to solve their attempted and/or actual murder, and then there was the hunter who was possibly being setup to do something possibly very stupid and regrettable. Or, possibly, Abe was barking up the wrong tree entirely, which was also something he considered while he groaned into his steering wheel and questioned all of his life choices for a solid five minutes at least.

No matter how many theories he could come up with, they all came back to the same idea: he needed to figure out just who was so interested in this doctor and why, and at least Abe had an idea on where to start there.

---

The next time he parked his car, it was on the seedier side of town. This had less to do with the people living in this area and more the businesses that thought these few blocks were prime real estate, or at least within the range they were willing to shell out for. The kind of places where the abundance of signs about “genuine” and “high quality” merchandise for prices that were low enough to make any reasonable person tilt their head, but it was the stuff that wasn’t advertised that tended to lead the owners to make “charitable contributions” to the local police and to the campaign funds of certain officials. In exchange, the powers that be were willing to look the other way on the sale of the occasional fake designer handbag or charm of questionable origin.

For example, there was a while where this was the place to go for dragon eggs, back when there was a craze going around that the eggs supposedly had all kinds of miracle properties when properly prepared. The government actually had to step in on that one when it turned out the eggs were really coming from an enchanted goose grown to giant size and hidden away in one of the warehouses around here. And even that was only after the gander got out and surprised no one by causing general mayhem and havoc across the city with the simple vindictiveness of a goose with nothing better to do. Took an entire team of hunters and a bread van to lure the fowl out of the city and to a nearby lake, and that was after they figured out how to return it to normal size.

Today though, Abe went into the bargain bin store whose name changed every time he passed through here, same as the strange array of items on sale in bulk. The owner, however, never changed, and it didn’t take the hunter long to find him slapping a box that according to its label contained one hundred rubber ducks and talking to a customer in an exaggerated southern drawl.

“Tell you what, you take these and I’ll give you a 10% discount on that there drowning charm you were checking out. Guaranteed to keep you afloat, in the bath or out on the open seas, your choice.”

“…Do you mean the ducks or the charm?” the customer asked.

“Both!”

Abe took a walk around the warehouse-like store at that, but he didn’t have long to snort at the rack of labeled potion bottles that claimed to cure everything from rheumatism to bad breath before the bell over the door rang and the customer walked out awkwardly holding the massive box of rubber ducks.

“You’re kidding me,” Abe muttered, but the salesman who was already bearing down on him heard him and grinned.

“I know what people need, and I can see you’re checking out our excellent selection of potions. The one to treat baldness is right there on the—” Ed Edgar stopped short and visibly swallowed when he found the muzzle of a gun pressing up against his jaw. “Top row, next to the other jokes, of course. Good to see you again, Abe.”

“Sure it is,” Abe said, lowering his gun but not putting it away in case Ed started the salesman routine again. “What do you know about magitek?”

“Yeah, that’s what I like about you, never a man to beat around the bush,” Ed said, switching gears once again. It was hard to see his eyes behind those sunglasses that he always wore, even inside, but that grin said he hadn’t given up on finally selling the hunter on something. “What are you in for, I’m sure I’ve got it! We’ve got tablets, we’ve got mice—the kind that’ll clean up your place while you sleep, I mean—and we’ve got word-activated lights that never need a battery, boxes that’ll follow you wherever you go—”

“What about magitek that can pass for human?” Abe interrupted. “You ever hear anything about that?”

“Mm-hmm,” Ed hummed, nodding his head like he was just waiting for Abe to ask. “Should have known you’d be up on what I expect will be the next big thing, soon as we can get the kinks knocked out.”

“Kinks?” Abe repeated, even though he immediately wished he hadn’t.

“There’s that whole ‘uncanny valley’ thing that bothers some people whenever you get something lookin’ a little too human that ain’t,” Ed admitted. “Especially if you maybe make one that forgets which way their limbs are supposed to go, but we’ve mostly worked that out at the warehouse. Got a prototype right here in the back, if you wanna see it. Gotta warn you, you might be tempted to put in an order of your own, and you’ll want to do it fast before everyone else catches on.”

“I’ll try to keep that in mind,” Abe said, but his sarcasm couldn’t hide his interest.

Ed nodded and immediately yelled toward the back of the store, “Get out here, you bucket of bolts! We’ve got a customer!”

Not exactly the most stellar introduction, but it didn’t seem to bother the man who skateboarded out of the back and came to a slightly uneven stop near them. Said man tried, and failed, to kick his skateboard up and catch it, but he quickly picked it up and tucked it under his arm like that didn’t just happen before flashing them a surfer gesture with his free hand.

“Suh, dudes! How’s it hangin’?” asked the man, who like Ed was wearing a pair of sunglasses inside but otherwise couldn’t look anymore different than the salesman. While Ed was dressed like a wannabe cowboy from his boots to the ten gallon hat on top of his unkempt mullet, this guy seemed to be going more for the sanitized LA skater boy look. “Name’s Bing. Whatcha need to know?”

“You’re magitek?” Abe asked, even though after Google he was quicker to notice the obvious signs. No breathing, not exactly blinking behind those sunglasses, and something a bit plasticky about that grin were the big ones.

“That I am, dude! Perfect blending of that dope magic and some seriously sick technology to create the perfect blend of family-friendly information searching and sweet tricks.”

Bing started to put his board down as if to demonstrate, but Ed shot out a hand with a quick clear of his throat.

“Still working on that last bit, but my guys in the shop are sure the young people today will love this guy,” Ed said. “Nothing else like him.”

“Nothing?” Abe asked. “Funny, cause I’ve run into two magitek men that both called themselves ‘Google.’”

“Well, nothing like Bing on the market,” Ed said. He flicked the brim of his cowboy hat and cockily said, “That ship sailed, and me and Bing-a-boy here are going to be the first to pick up the slack, ain’t that right?”

“Yeah, that old fart Google has nothing on me,” Bing said, his grin growing wider and somehow more unsettling. Abe suspected someone may have added a few too many teeth to that mouth.

“Why did Google never make it to market?” Abe asked, even though he could think of many, many reasons why this whole concept bothered him.

Ed shrugged. “Lab that made ‘em was bought out by the Bronson Institute, and apparently, they’re not interested in making any more for some reason. Not into printing that money, I guess! Rumor is they only made four of those Google units before the Institute got involved.”

“I saw one at the hospital yesterday,” Abe said.

“Yeah, that one was a charitable donation, bit of a pilot project to see about how they’d do in a healthcare environment. Can’t get sick of course, so you can see why that’d be tempting,” Ed answered, although considering that Google had been running the receptionist’s desk, Abe suspected his bedside manner hadn’t matched up there. Or maybe it had something to do with the “incidents” that doctor mentioned. “Scientist who made them kept one to help in the lab, and I hear that big studio downtown managed to snatch one up. The institute probably took the last one, if I had to guess, cause I ain’t heard anything else about it.”

“Impressive that you were able to make your own version so soon,” Abe said, fishing.

But it was Bing who took the bait and said, “One of my creators used to work in the lab, until that bogus institute let him go. But I’m not just a copy of that defective Google, I’m an improvement.”

“Yeah you are,” Ed said, slapping him on the shoulder and then wincing. “Remind me to have a talk about that extra padding on your frame.”

A bright tone came from Bing’s chest and he straightened slightly as he said, “I will remind you to have a talk about the extra padding. Is 2 AM an acceptable time for this reminder?”

“No, why would I—” Ed, remembering that there was someone else there, stopped himself and cleared his throat. “Just remind me next time I’m in the warehouse.”

“Understood,” Bing said, a second tone coming before he “relaxed” into his standard posture.

“Could I meet this creator?” Abe asked, and almost immediately Ed tried to change the subject.

It took a bit more questioning, and managing to get Bing on his own while Ed ran to the other side of the store to grab some gadget he had convinced himself the hunter would love to buy, but Abe gradually gathered that when Bing said his creator used to work in the lab, he actually meant said guy used to take out the trash and may have “acquired” a few copies of Google’s design before he was “let go at ultimate speed,” which meant that he knew pretty much nothing that could help Abe.

Disappointing, but at least Abe was walking out with more info than when he walked in, and with the same amount of money in his pockets despite Ed Edgar’s best efforts. He even had an address for the lab the Google quartet came out of, but considering it was technically Institute property now he somehow doubted he could just walk up and start asking questions without getting more attention than he’d want right now.

It was something to consider at least, as Abe once again parked his car just far enough away from the clinic to not draw suspicion while he kept watch on the entrance. By the time he got there, it was already growing darker by the second despite the early hour, and despite the fact that a full moon tonight meant he should have been looking forward to a bright night to work with. Something that Abe should have noticed, but he was too focused on the settings of his camera to pay attention to the clouds gathering overhead until the first raindrops began to patter against his windshield.

The hunter swore under his breath and hastily moved his car a few spots closer to the clinic to make sure he would still have a clear line of sight through the rain that quickly escalated from a drizzle to a downpour. He turned off his headlights just in time, as a car pulled up in front of the clinic and sat there just long enough for him to roll down his window and get a good shot.

His camera clicked multiple times, catching the license plate of the car and the three men who jumped out and huddled around the front door while the doctor hastily fumbled with his keys. The light came on in the clinic and Abe managed to catch one or two more shots before the door shut behind them and blocked his view.

He sighed and rolled up his window, left arm soaked but hoping that the ambient streetlight plus the light from inside the building would be enough to get at least a couple of them to turn out okay despite the lack of flash.

Before he could take a look, a different kind of flash lit the street.

Seven seconds later, the boom of thunder followed and, despite the warning flash of lightning, Abe still flinched, the familiar pain in his chest a dragging weight against his pounding heart.

Maybe the storm would pass soon, if he could just wait it out—

There was a second flash of lightning, and Abe’s car started in the space between it and the following rumble of thunder.

Not like he could hope to get close enough to see anything tonight, Abe lied to himself as he drove back to his office, accelerating just that much faster with each new round of thunder and lightning. There would always be other chances.

Whether that was true or not was something he could care less about in the moment, as he hurried into his office mere minutes later and immediately shut his blinds to the rain hitting his windows. Never one to bother much with music, he still found a familiar album and turned on his record player loud enough to drown out the noise outside. If anyone was trying to get work done in the neighboring offices, they apparently knew better than to come by and complain, or just weren’t loud enough to make themselves heard.

At least he had plenty of practice in drowning out painful memories, Abe thought to himself as he pulled an emergency drink out of one of his desk drawers and poured the first glass of many. Not as much in actually dealing with them, but taking care of the person who caused them in the first place seemed like as good a place to start as any.

If he could just find a way to get to him.

((End of Part 10. Thanks again for reading, and sorry if this one felt all over the place. I may have written that whole “possibly” bit when I realized I had Abe going down way too many rabbit holes on something the reader knows the answer to already, and I seriously can’t wait until everyone’s finally on the same page and confused together. XD

Link to Part 11: First Moon.

Tagging: @silver-owl413 @skyewardlight @withjust-a-bite @blackaquokat @catgirlwarrior @neverisadork @luna1350 @oh-so-creepy @weirdfoxalley @95fangirl @lilalovesinternet-l @thepoolofthedead @a-bit-dapper @randomartdudette @geekymushroom @cactipresident @hotcocoachia @purple-anxiety-blog @shyinspiredartist @avispate @missksketch @autumnrambles @authorracheljoy @liafoxyfox ))

[academiaipromise]

Hello!

This is a series that was inspired by some stressed-filled Zoom calls that I’ve been having with some underclassmen for both my extracurricular organizations and peer mentoring programs. If you’re still reading this, chances are, you’re either going back to college soon or starting college for the first time in the year that is 2020. While we all are probably focusing on the safety of ourselves and our loved ones (as we arguably should), many incoming freshmen I’ve been talking to are also stressed about college things: emailing professors, study tips, how to balance virtual classes. So, in case you feel like reading a series of tips written by a 4th year undergrad who at least pretends to know what she’s doing, click below to read the second entry. Click here for the first. 

Tip #2: Zoomin’, or Keeping a Life/Work Balance During Online or Hybrid Courses

When trying to figure out the order in which to post these tips, I was struck with the realization that I start school in a little over a week. So, if anyone is in this same boat, I figured it would be important to talk about class registration tips when there’s still time for you do something about it. This post is a long one, but here’s hoping you can find some advice in it. 

So something to clarify right off the bat: when everything started moving to a virtual format, everybody and their mother on the Internet starting coming forward with tips on how to work from home. And while that’s kind of what’s happening here, I take issue with two things: working from home is not the same as working from home during a global crisis, and working from home is not the same as virtual college. So I’ll try to get as specific as I can, but also try to throw in some tips that might work better for you than they do for me.  

Part One: Registering for Classes

Okay so this part you might have already done, but it’s good to keep in mind. While the recommended hours at every university is different, in my experience the average recommendation is 15 credits hours per semester. It’s important to note though that this is only an average: if you plan on taking courses in the summer, graduating early/later than 4 years, or taking on multiple majors, all of these things affect the credit hours you should be taking.

The unpleasant reality of registering for courses is there’s really no way to know how a specific class will be. There’s always RateMyProfessor.com or other tools, but who’s to say that professors will be like they normally are if they’re trying to figure out how to teach online/hybrid classes? Also, it’s a good thought to keep in mind that typically only two kinds of people leave public reviews of a professor/course: those who really loved the class, and those who really hated the class. So read and figure out what exactly they’re saying, not just how they feel about the course. And just know yourself - if someone from a humanities background says a statistics class is too hard, but you're great with numbers, that’s not always the best advice to heed. Listen to your gut instinct, both when registering and during drop/add week. 

My advice for registering for classes right now? Whatever your instinct is, go a little less if you’re able. The reason I say this is because studying in 2020 can be...a lot, in the same way doing anything in 2020 is. I was only registered for 12 credit hours last semester, and even that became difficult to manage toward the end (moving back home suddenly, people you know getting sick, trying to protect high risk loved ones/yourself, all of which can and probably will happen again this semester). I would just say to go in overestimating how much time you need for yourself vs classes - there will be other semesters, and it’s better to take less classes now and not burn out or struggle mentally (or even just academically) in your first semester of college. Please just be kind to yourself. 

Part Two: Zoom, or the True Necessary Evil 

Maybe you used Zoom all throughout your last months of high school; maybe your university is using Microsoft Teams or something to that effect. Either way, here is what I’ve found to be helpful during my unforeseen five month foray into Zoom, seemingly with no end in sight.

1. Zoom is a tool. Yes, I kind of hate Zoom, and you may also come to hate Zoom if you don’t already, but there are benefits. You can send in written questions or raise your hand through Zoom if your professor allows that feature, both of which are very helpful in trying to show engagement while also trying to respect any kind of Zoom decorum. This post is going to be long enough, and my next post will have more to do with extracurriculars and virtual opportunities, but if you ever need to host a Zoom and want to just use all of its features, I’m more than happy to answer DMs. I’ve had to sit through so many Zoom tutorials for Student Involvement, and if I can spare anyone from that, I would love to. 

2. Balance what you keep digitally versus what’s on paper. Okay, so this is definitely, definitely up to personal preference, but speaking from experience, I just don’t view online or hybrid classes as the opportunity to go fully digital if you’ve never been fully digital before. For me, I always take handwritten notes, mainly because when it comes to remembering things, I either have more of an auditory memory, or I can remember the way that I wrote something when I was taking notes. Considering online classes usually decrease the auditory memory aspect a lot, when things moved virtual I made a point to keep taking handwritten notes. However, something that I’ve found particularly appealing is using Google Calendar (or iCal, Outlook, whatever it is you prefer) to an excess. When scheduling Zoom calls, I always save the Zoom link in the description of the event on my Google Calendar. Trust me, this is a lot better than trying to go through your email to find the link that professor sent. So I would advice to think about your learning preferences and figure out a way to still play to your strengths, even if it might technically be a little less convenient. 

3. Schedule screen breaks. This is so important for so many reasons. While I’ve invested in some blue light glasses because I am slowly losing my vision after years of reading books by flashlight or AO3 fics on my phone until late at night, I still get fatigued being on a screen for so long. Because it’s not just school that’s on the screen; it’s your clubs, your social interactions, maybe your job. I would recommend scheduling screen breaks that coincide with some sort of physical activity (I don’t necessarily mean an intensive physical activity, although if you want to feel free; I more am referring to getting up out of your chair and walking around your room or apartment. Or going outside. Ride your bike. Do some yoga. Eat some food. Etc.), but if you’re feeling particularly busy or overwhelmed, taking notes from a physical book works just as well. Even if you feel okay at the moment, scheduling breaks and following that schedule can save you from screen fatigue hitting all at once - it will take a lot longer to get over a headache between your eyes/your eye twitching or your neck and/or shoulder locking up than just allowing simple short breaks throughout your day. 

4. Schedule time between Zooms. This may sound like the same thing as taking screen breaks, but what I’ve found is that Zoom is a lot more draining that in person classes. I used to schedule Zoom calls back to back like I would classes (again, personal preference, but I was always the person who would take all of their classes from 9:30-3:30 on Tuesday/Thursday, and no classes on Monday/Wednesday/Friday), but found out pretty quickly that I was wrecked after two or more Zoom calls in a row. Honestly, now I won’t schedule any two Zoom calls within a half an hour of each other - between calls, I like to walk around, grab a snack, stretch, close my eyes and try and suppress the social anxiety that seems to accompany every Zoom class or meeting I’ve ever had. (Tangent: I’m thoroughly convinced southerners were not meant to operate Zoom calls. No one knows how to hang up the dang call without being rude because we were taught to have 30 minute conversations in a doorway on our way out.) Maybe there are people who can go on Zoom calls for three hours or so (and I’ve done that with friends, whether just working on group projects or hanging out), but my personal recommendation would be just to space it out more than normal if you’re able. 

5. Create an ideal weekly schedule. This is not “your most productive week ever,” or “this is the rigid schedule you will follow for eternity with no deviations.” One of my most difficult adjustments in college was the changing schedules; maybe you were planning on finishing an important paper on Thursday night, only for your group project to decide to meet that night instead. And that will happen, even with virtual meetings (maybe especially with virtual meetings, as people definitely tend to overestimate your availability when it’s digital). What I’ve found that helps is to create an ideal weekly schedule, both in general and a more specific one at the start of the week, because that means that when things get shuffled around, you actually reschedule that thing that you wanted to do, whether it’s homework, yoga, or just...being alone for a bit. It allows you to still feel like you’re prioritizing your time and activities, even when your schedule changes with little to no warning. 

Part Three: Some Final Thoughts

If you can invest in a second monitor, now might really be the time to do it. If you’d prefer, I used a laptop riser for most of college before this all happened (yay nerve damage in my neck!) and an external keyboard and mouse. I would just compare models and figure out what works best financially if that’s something you want to do. 

Ultimately, if this doesn’t come across in every tip I post, please just be patient with yourself this semester. This is a weird time, and I know that starting your first semester you might be 100% committed to starting off strong or making a great first impression. And that’s awesome, but sometimes that just might not be realistic. Look at last week’s post on contacting your professor, and reach out early just to introduce yourself. Establishing a relationship early on is always good, but especially considering that this semester really might have moments where you need some extra time or grace from them. Can’t focus? Can’t find motivation? That’s understandable; we’re in a global crisis right now. Just listen to yourself and always put your health and the health of your loved ones before school. I hope that these tips can at least help you navigate your first year with a little less trepidation. 

------------------------------------

So that’s it for this entry! As always, if you have specific questions, please don’t  hesitate to ask. Again, I am a student at an SEC university in the United States, so I’m not claiming to be an expert in all things, but I have TA'ed multiple freshman seminars, and will be making this series for the freshmen that I know starting at my school this year anyways, so putting them on this blog is no big deal. Next post (which will hopefully be up sooner than this one was) will specifically be on extracurriculars and virtual opportunities, so if you have specific questions on that as well, I’m all ears. 

[aggresivelyfriendly]

Day Twelve

Hi darlings, I hope you are all well! Stay safe and LOUD! If you need a little break, here is something to read! Love to you all, and my boo @dirtystyles for being my friend and beta!

Reblogs are love!

Day 12: The One With The Request

"Babe?" Harry called from the door.

Elise barely heard him from the inside of the shower cubicle. Her shower cubicle.

"Sorry, love!" He cooed when he opened the door and she jumped. His voice did little to calm her racing heart. "I didn't mean to scare you."

She turned her head to look at him, keeping her naughty bits pointed at the shower head instead of in his line of sight. "It's alright. Now I don't have to workout today thanks to this adrenaline rush."

"You were gonna work out with me today?" He was pouting.

"Well, no." She laughed despite feeling slightly uncomfortable, him fully clothed and her naked as the day in the shower. "But it sounds better than I knew I was gonna be lazy, doncha think?"

He smiled for her. "I thought I'd missed an opportunity. Any way I can convince you?" He settled his thumb into the waist band of his sweatpants and his large hand covered most of his bulge. Harry was a morning person. He liked getting up early, well early for quarantine. And he -liked- mornings, the last two days had taught her.  While she'd always thought of sex as a night time activity, at least for normal people not sneaking around, she was learning the different flavors to pleasure, the soft glow of morning, playful delights of afternoons, and intense connection of late nights. Of all these, Harry seemed most interested in slow rolling morning fucks.

She'd snuck away this dawn to shower by herself before he roused. He had effectively wiped her nerves, well any and all negative things, from her mind last night after their Friends marathon. All of the thoughts that had invaded after his comments about finishing all ten seasons in three days got to her. Elise was glad he really only turned to look at her face when he asked if she was hungry, before making them sandwiches, on the remaining bread, and smoothies. Afterwards, she'd laid on his chest and he wasn't able to see that her mind was not on the televised shenanigans, but that they had an expiration date. Once the show was over, they were too.

They had always had an expiration date she supposed, from that sneeze, but things had changed for her. Elise had been developing more than a crush on him since the minute they crossed his threshold. She knew it was more when he'd joked about shaving his head, the curls, just to see the online response and her brain had commented, hot. Harry without his curls still totally appealed to her. She was sunk. And then, they'd cuddled, and flirted. And that was before they got to the kissing and the cavorting.

Did cavorting cover what they had been doing? He'd had her on multiple flat surfaces by this point, and the stairs had been too long to make it up them the night before. Her neck was not thanking her. And his bed. The hours they'd whiled away in bed. All the eye contact and sweet nothings meant something to her.

She'd woken up hazy and high. The love he'd made, and she had no other way to describe it, to her last night was different than the slow and precise focus on her pleasure the day before, the bread making shenanigans and the couch fumble and stair fuck.

He'd been patient like the morning one, and silly like in the kitchen, and insatiable like on the sofa, but he'd been all of them simultaneously and worshipful too.

Elise was smiling when she woke up. Their heads were on the same pillow, his bigger body wrapped around her and creating a buffer from everything outside. All the nothing outside. Even emptier after this. He had shut off her worries last night, but doubled her fear of loss doing it.

Elise now had something to lose.

Once she'd truly woken up, she needed some distance. Either she was gonna have to detach and take this for what it was, a 14 day  fever dream, with the last three being particularly fanfic worthy. Or she was going to have to have a conversation with Harry about what came next.

Elise was not sure which was more terrifying. She supposed she had opportunity for the talk now, though she was not sure she could feel more vulnerable.

"Right." Harry suddenly said and shucked his shorts off like a husk of corn.

"What are you doing?" She noted his dick was flaccid. Which made her feel sad and relieved. A brain scrambling or the intimacy his hard cock led to was more than she could cope with while she found her words.

"Well I was going to get in the shower with you. If that's ok?" God, why did he always ask!? It put the ball in her court, and she was horrible at sports, and it made him more wonderful every time.

"Um, I'm kind of sore." She was. If she was honest.

He palmed himself, he'd chubbed up a little by now. "Honestly, I'm assuming from the color of your skin, I'm gonna have some shrinkage from the scalding—"

"You could use it." She grinned.

"You want my dick to be smaller?" God, his damn face.

She shrugged. "Might help with the soreness."

"But not the orgasms." He pointed like a gun.

"I'm confident you would find a way to use it well."

"Ah! I'll take the implied compliment!" He squared his shoulders and bloomed, his dimples filling up with negative space and his jaw getting more geometric. "Now, can I come in?"

"Yeah, why are you standing in the cold, dork?" She couldn't resist him. Did she really want to? Out of fear?

"Dork! Alright, onto the name calling portion of the morning!" He curled up to her back. "Don't hold back, tell me how you feel."

She laughed and stood with the showers spray on her front and Harry's solid warmth on her back.

"Really," he said a moment later, in the vicinity of her neck. "Tell me how you feel."

"What?"

"You get shy in the morning." He kissed her ear. "Talk to me. It's important."

"I'm nervous." She would have jostled her shoulders up and down, but his weight was on them.

"I can tell. Am I that intimidating?"

"No, not anymore." She revolved in his arms and wrapped hers around his middle. The bread pudge offering a handle.

"Don't be nervous. Just relax and tell me what you're thinking." He tilted her chin up to look at him. "When you can."

She came up on her tippy toes and kissed him then. It led to a lovely make up session that proved how water did not cause permanent shrinkage. She raised her eyebrows at the presence between them. Elise was way more open by now, but Harry just said, "it'll go down." And kept kissing her until the water went cold, a pruny feat with such a large water heater. She hadn't talked though. She was working up to it.

"C'mon. Let's go downstairs. I want to cook you breakfast."

"You want to cook ME breakfast?" He said and google eyed at her. "Should I be scared?"

"Terrified!" She laughed and set about making French toast with the shop bought bread they had abandoned for his homemade loaf.

She still was scared, but he made her forget. He always made her forget her fears. She was gonna have to find some time alone to come up with what she was gonna say, how she felt exactly, so she could tell him. That was way scarier than anything else, but she was gonna pull up her big girl panties, cover them in the security of real clothes and then talk. No matter how scary, she had to do some emotional lifting here too. And despite her misgivings, she knew she was safe.

Even if she didn't get the answer she wanted, that this was her new address, and Harry was crazy about her, and they were getting married as soon as she could meet Anne.

Ok, well, that was a little crazy and not what she wanted either.

The relationship, or dating, and maybe meeting Anne someday in the nearish future did sound pretty amazing though. Getting to be with Harry sounded like a life she didn't know she wanted. Couldn't dream up.

But, if he said, "I like you, but we should take this as what it was, the beginning of a beautiful friendship with some delightful fringe benefits," and then eyed her up and loved her goodbye, she would be ok. And she would have been honest with somebody and they hadn't turned her away or ignored her. In fact, this time would be healing. She'd shown all her Dorian Gray style invisible scars and been accepted. Elise would have gained something, a chance at the future. Acceptance, the opportunity to forgive herself.

Just not everything she wanted. But who got everything they wanted? And once you got it, was it a dream or a curse?

Maybe she got to have it right now because this was ephemeral. A half life of some sort where time and decisions didn't stick.

In any case, whatever he said, the point was naming what she wanted and then being open and honest about it despite the outcome. She needed to do that.

Her decision was made once she had clothes on, and through the French toast she whipped the hell out of to get the fluffy edges she liked. Through his smile and extra extra moans of enthusiasm. Their couch make out session and his tongue between her legs, "it'll help the soreness."

It didn't, not necessarily, but it didn't hurt, and it distracted her from the high wire act she was performing. Her need to tell him, and supreme reluctance to at the same time.

All she could compare it to was being in Costa Rica three years ago and standing on the edge of the waterfall. She was the last one to jump. Well, her mother had  entirely sat that day out. Derided them for even wanting to go. Her sister had made a show, but she'd been a swimmer and liked everybody looking at her on the ledge of the rock in her bikini. Her dad faced down guns, this wasn't scary to him. They'd both gone before her.

It was scary to her. It was exhilarating too. What was beneath the water? Would she come out clean? A different person? Braver?

She'd desperately wanted to blithely hop off with a pirouette, a flounce or show on her way to absolution. She hadn't. Of course, but she done it, held her nose and closed her eyes as she jumped. But she got to feel the rush of the air around her and the chill of the water's embrace. Clean.

Her heart pounded in that familiar rhythm while she lay on Harry's couch with him and through the take out.

"Harry?" She asked. Elise had found all of her courage bundled up, thrown it in a kerchief over her shoulder to prepare for this talk. It was time.

He didn't respond. And she wasn't sure she could do the talking looking at him. She stretched up from her chest pillows and planted her face above his birds. "Harry?" She was closer to his neck now. Hopefully he would hear her.

Then she heard him let out a piggie snort.

Oh, he was napping. She should have known, he hadn't moved his hands down over her ass or made a comment about anything, or suggested they do something like make a huge obstacle course or try the Murph challenge in at least 5 minutes. A still Harry was a sleeping Harry.

Well, she supposed that meant the talk was out. Elise retreated to her room to read.

To worry and freak out, and lose her nerve. Who knew she was so good at multitasking? She chuckled at herself as she read her 6th chapter.

"Hey babe." She looked up from where she was sat in the window to see his post nap face, lined from the unsatisfactory pillows on the couch and swollen. His eyes ringed with fluid like an alien baby. "Where'd you go?"

He walked all the way in and sat on the bed, her bed.

"You predictably fell asleep, so I came to read so I wouldn't disturb you." She closed her book, but kept her body away from him.

"You don't disturb me." He casually threw out. He stretched, she watched, of course, and caught sight of the lush planes of his hips. "Why're you in here?" He said after a little shiver.

"Um, well, ya see, my things are in here and it's my room." Elise tried for blithe and bonny.

"Hmmm, we should move your stuff into the master. It's more comfortable—"

"Than the couch?"

"Well, obviously." He rolled his eyes and reached for her hand. She was mirroring his postion without deciding to turn to him. "It would be easier if you just had your things in with me. You'll be sleeping in there anyways."

"Will I?"

He made a weird face at her. "Not if you don't want to, but I really wish you would." He turned her hand over and traced her palm. "We don't have to have sex, if you don't want to. But, I'd like you close." Then he looked back up at her with the full power of his green tractor beam eyes and slow blinked in his hypnotic way.

Wait, why wouldn't she want to have sex. "Why wouldn't I want you?" She let slip.

He grinned shyly. "If you want me, all you have to do is ask."

"And if I'm not brave enough?" She was not brave enough for the rest of this conversation today.

"I think you are brave enough, you just have to let yourself be, but if you aren't," he stood up and pulled her gently to him, "then just kiss me, like this—"

His illustration was thorough, and varied and moved down her neck and under her top.

They hadn't done it on this bed before.

"I've never had sex in here." He commented when he was pulling down her shorts and withdrawing a condom from his pocket as he pushed his down.

"That's convenient." She pointed at the skin in his fingers. She was gonna ignore the other comment.

"Seems like it was good planning on my part." He shrugged.

"You planned this?" She was being brave, and climbing up to straddle him. He was heavy and full in her hand.

"Hoped." He put his hand to her mouth and she wet his fingers like he liked. He spread the saliva over the head of his cock and then dipsticked her, petting her clit until she writhed. "You ready?"

"I don't know, you tell me." She placed him at her entrance, and slid down until the pressure prevented her. She wasn't sure she'd ever be totally ready for him right off the bat. His hands caught her hips and helped her inch off and in until she was resting on his laurels. Her head fell back.

"Yeah, you're ready." He smiled. His hands stayed on her hips, occasionally plucking at her nipples or caressing her back and ass while she set the pace. Rocking up and down on him like a boat making its way to the harbor. The waves got rougher and Elise leaned forward to go with them. His hands offering more help as she surfed her way to shore.  She leaned back when her destination was within reach and his thumb found a rhythm over her wet crux that helped her go the last bit of the distance.

"Harry!" She cried and lost her rhythm, was pulled under the waves and brought to the horizon. He rolled them over and lifted her leg up over his shoulder to maneuver her to his own end. His weather was rougher and had she not already come it might have been too much. As it was, she gripped his shoulder and went with him, shaking and pulsing while he stilled and filled her.

"Oh Elise." He said into her hair. He pulled back and gave her a hazy look. The soft smile that played on his lips was one she'd never seen before. He looked like a warm bun. He kissed her mouth once more and buried his face in her neck. Elise knew his propensity for falling asleep, had seen it in action. She did not want to become glued to him, well, not really. She'd thought about entwining their fingers like when she twisted up paper clips as a child, so they'd never come apart, but that had been a fantasy. You didn't want to be that close to anyone all the time she reckoned. Even if you loved them.

Loved?

Holy shit! HOLY SHIT!  Did she just think she loved Harry. Did she love Harry? Could you love someone so quickly? Her hand was in his hair still. It had stopped moving and she was afraid she might have jerked at it. Woken him. He seemed content though, heavy and sleepy. She ran her fingers through his downy curls, for the pleasure of it, like pressing on a bruise, she redoubled her masHer lips drifted down to kiss the top of his head. Elise was about to wiggle away from him to freak out. She needed to freak out. Fuck! Three days?!? She had three days to get over it. And now the conversation she had been psyching herself up for was much scarier.

Harry's breathing wasn't even and deep, and she was starting to worry about the condom full of spunk inside her. Just as she was about to make her move he startled her. "Arghhhh!" Was what came up when he lifted his head and his body away, wilting away from her.

"Jesus! You scared me!" He gave a nervous chuckle.

"I scared you! You woke from the dead on top of me and I scared you?" She joined in his laughter.

"The dead? I wasn't even asleep! I was listening to your heart rate." He bussed her lips and pulled off the condom, tied it. "It got all crazy. And they aren't serious when they call it a little death. It's more like a little life right? I mean it's the engine of life and such, is sex."

He was on a ramble. "I'm too fucked out for you to be this philosophical." Elise sighed.

"Well, you know what I mean?" He looked at her.

"Nobody ever knows what you mean!" She laughed, but she actualll did get him here. Why a little death when it was the act that made life? Made you feel most alive.

"Anyways," he rolled his eyes. "Your heart got all crazy, so I figured we needed to get moving, or you needed to poo or something."

Her face conveyed her disgust. "Harry!"

He laughed at her response. "Go to the bathroom, then I have a very serious choice for you! Scrabble, or the hot tub."

"I'm not playing Scrabble with you! I know you're a ringer."

"Naked hot tub it is!" He celebrated.

Elise thought of her nethers and reconsidered. "Tell me more about Scrabble."

She shouldn't have even bothered giving herself a choice.  Elise wound up in the same place. She wasn't sure she would be able to walk tomorrow; she winced when he pulled out, but stayed atop her caging her body in.

"Let the record show, I won!" Harry smiled down at her, a bead of sweat rolling down his nose.

"I won at Scrabble." She was offended!

"Yeah, maybe." He put his nose into her neck and took a big inhale. "But I won at life."

She felt like a winner too.

[goldenpinof]

so basically here’s a script of “Basically I’m gay” by Daniel Howell, if someone needs it

link to a google doc

Hello Internet.

«Sex! Secrecy! And a whole lot of internal screaming. Starring Daniel Howell. One of the greatest mysteries of our generation. What is Dan’s sexuality?»

Spoiler alert. I’m not straight. Sex, the foundation of life and the only thing we’re really supposed to do. Everyone’s obsessed with it. You bunch of degenerates. In the list of things that identify a person, one of the most important for other people to know is their sexuality. For, if sex is the primal force propelling all of these humans forward by their hips, they have to know. Are we gonna fuck? Or like could we? Or are you, ‘cause I’m just wondering. Now, we live in a heteronormative world, which is a long scary word that makes people feel attacked for some reason. Shh it’s okay.

What it means is people are presumed to be straight. If you’re not, then at some point, you have to “come out”, which is a whole thing. Or people might just try and guess based on something you do or the way you act, because yay stereotypes. So this is something you have to be clear on, because if you’re not, how are all these other people that aren’t you going to cope? But I’m pretty sure no one that knows me thinks I’m straight. So I don’t really need to come out as much as just clarify what the hell is going on. As here I am at age 27 and my sexual preference is seemingly still a vague, debatable, confusing, impenetrable mystery. But why? And what is it? Well, those are some big questions. Are you sure you wanna know my answers?

[YES]

Okay, well, if you say so 'cause this is a complicated and sensitive issue and when it comes to me, boy, there is a lot to unpack here and it is a total clusterfuck. So strap yourselves in and let me tell you a queer little story about a boy named Dan.

Chapter 1 – The Word

♪ When I was a young boy ♪

♪ My father ♪

Didn’t have much time for me because my conception was clearly an accident and he was a narcissistic proud man suddenly inconvenienced in the prime of his life and this emotional neglect gave me lasting problems.

Sorry that’s not all relevant right now.

I was an only child for seven years and with working parents. This meant I had to make my own fun so I was imaginative  and loud which is something that my teachers used to say quite a lot followed by, “However.” Here I am age five. Look at me. Cute, poised, sassy, turning out this photo shoot like sorry, Grandma, I stunted on this set. Are you seeing this? In almost every way, I literally peaked age five. I loved being the center of attention. People said I had an infectious happiness, that my beaming smile brought them hope and joy. People that know me are laughing right now. But a boy, in the '90s being happy and generally polite acting? Sounds kinda GAY if you ask me. Literally, masculinity was so fragile, people were so proud and scared and society so aggressive that a boy smiling!?.. appearing to be empathetic or in any way emoting was seen as a threat. How dare they laugh and feel comfortable? They must be soft and weak and girly and GAY. So basically thanks, Grandma, for raising me to be a nice child, you dick. Just kidding. That’s a joke and I told you not to watch this video because it would be rude so if you send me a disappointed text telling me you’re offended, I don’t know what to tell you. Although, now I think about it, you did make me go to church for 10 years, which in hindsight probably also didn’t help ♪ Hallelujah ♪ the issue here so. But then it was time for little Dan to go to school and this is when it  

♪ All went wrong ♪

'Cause it turns out most children, evil pieces of shit. Doesn’t matter if you try to raise a happy innocent child, throw that kid into school, aka, a literal Mad Max Battle Royale with the feral offspring of your local community. Yeah, that crap’ll be undone in about two weeks. I was six years old running around the playground pretending to be Sonic the Hedgehog or something when two brothers come up to me aged seven and eight with an unexplained aggressive look in their eye. And the younger one pushes me to the ground, kicks me in the stomach, and just says, “GAY.”

This was the first time I ever heard that word. Well, I don’t know what the heck gay means but apparently it means people kick you on the floor so that ain’t good. I didn’t know this child or give them any cause to have an opinion on me. And, actually, I never directly interacted with them again. What epic clustershit of failed parenting and general culture brought this tiny child to get angry and attack someone, then call them gay for looking like they were having fun outside. Are you okay, 1990s? And so my relationship with sexuality began.

I wasn’t looking to define myself as a child indiscriminately playing doctors and nurses with various friends until once somebody’s mum walked into a room to find three fully naked children sat on a bed sticking sellotape to each other’s butts. Yep, which I don’t recommend. Also, Jesus Christ, the poor woman that saw that. Then you get to the magic age around 10 or 11 where everybody suddenly wants to pretend they’re totally a “cool teenager” who’s doing all the drugs and the sex and the fights, totally. Boy, gay was a really popular word back then.

[[Boy] Uh, homework is gay. [Girl] Uh, my mum’s so gay. [Boy] Uh, you touched a girl, gay.]

This one little shit who I won’t name was one of the school bullies and he loved the word gay. He had it in for me and I have no idea why. You know me, Mr. Winnie the Pooh Meets Slender Man. Well, when I was 10 just Winnie the Pooh. I didn’t do nothin’ to no one ever and yet this guy used my pacifism as a punching bag where any group situation was an excuse to single me out call me gay for some reason and then make everyone else exclude me because they were scared of him. I had a girlfriend. We dated for six whole weeks. We kissed in a game of spin the bottle once by literally sucking on each other’s faces. Then she ended dumping me over speakerphone at a birthday party that everyone in my class but me was invited to but, hey. I don’t know what I was doing wrong, but at this age, I understood one thing. Being gay, whatever that meant, was clearly the worst thing you could be. On a Darwinian level, I was being told, okay bitch, “Survival Code”. Don’t be this apparently. Evolution. Plot twist, this bully I think he was a bit gay because once he asked me to have a sleepover at his house and I thought was me finally getting socially accepted only for him in the middle of the night to come up and ask me, “So who’s going to be the boy and the girl?” I was an innocent smol bean who didn’t really understand what he meant because, to be honest, I didn’t actually understand get how babies were made yet. But needless to say I think he was disappointed. Wow, closeted child turns into homophobic bully. Thanks again society. But this whole primary school journey was really just an amuse-bouche for the full six-course tasting menu of suffering that would be secondary school.

I went to an all-boys school. It was a literal hellscape.  I thought it was hard making it through a school of 200 kids with two or three bullies. Try over a thousand where a clean 800 are fully psychopathic gorillas fueled by testosterone, Red Bull, and Eminem albums. Making sure that the word f- no longer means an innocent bundle of sticks or a cigarette anymore in the British lexicon. Nope, now it was a cool homophobic slur along with gay, gaylord, gayboy, puff, pufter, ponce, batty, batty boy, bum-boy, bender. Shit, this is so long. People have a lot of words for something they don’t wanna think about. Look at me in this stupid blazer. Oh, “you’ll grow into it at some point in the next four years”. Thanks, Mum. Day one, kid in form class, some stupid hedgehog-looking motherfucker side eyes me and says, “What you lookin at, puff?” First interaction at a new school. Great! My entire existence on a daily basis then becomes navigating this school like I’m in the bloody “Maze Runner” trying to avoid aggressive pricks with chode ties. And you know being verbally abused for being a nerd or a Greebo at least felt relevant to me at the time. Greebo, definitely one of my faves there and I’m sure that Korn and Slipknot would have been proud to have 12-year-old me as a fan. I kinda knew who I was in the hierarchy at that point. I was essentially a theater kid who spent all of his free time playing Runescape on the AOL browser on his mum’s PC instead of football. I accepted it. But at least I wasn’t actually this “gay thing” people kept throwing around because by now I understood a gay is a boy who fancies other boys. And to be honest I don’t really feel like I’ve ever fancied anyone before.

Then puberty happened.

Oh yeah, this is fun, tingly feelings, I smell bad. It was quite fun dribbling on this girl’s face playing Truth or Dare, maybe later we’ll go behind that bike sheds and, there I was sat in English class, my friend next to me. I watched as he delicately removes a pencil from its case. We briefly make eye contact as he flutters his long black eyelashes with a blink before staring forward. His eyes are so bright and beautiful yet they seem so sad and deep with emotion. I wish I could just understand. Oh fuck, I think I’m a bit gay. You’re telling me this whole time I actually have been the bad thing that people keep calling me? Shit!

Chapter 2 – Feelings

Oh do you hear it that faint hum, something coming from a deep, dark place too powerful to control? It’s the self-hatred. She is here and she’s only getting started. Short version, I fall hopelessly in love with a friend of mine who doesn’t feel the same way which crushes me into a million tiny pieces and years later actually it turns out he was gay the whole time. He just really specifically didn’t like me. [Double kill.] Here I am, 13, crying to evanescence alone in my bedroom feeling like there’s no point in really being alive as I’m clearly a faulty outcast person that has no place in the world. I stopped going to church with my grandma because I felt like I wasn’t really supposed to be there. Also, by this age, the whole Christianity thing didn’t really make much sense to me. And the adult services were dry AF compared to coloring in a picture of Jesus’s face at Sunday school. So other than the free tea and biscuits they gave away after the sermon, religion didn’t really have much to offer me. Damn, there was some good biscuits though. I miss that. But wait! All is not lost yet. Do you see that? A triumphant, rallying cry of guitars, stripey hoodies, and black hair dye. Emo had arrived! I swear to God, emo is one of the best things that happened to pop culture in the last 20 years. As well as inventing eyeliner and skinny jeans, a new word hit the theater, nerd, goth, band, kid corner that would change my world forever.

Bisexual. You can be normal and gay at the same time and some people think it’s cool? Well, slap a long fingerless glove on my arm and sign me up to Myspace 'cause Mum, I’m bi. It was a good term 'cause it was a catchall for anyone who felt sexually confused or curious that didn’t want to commit to something stronger which is very me. Big commitment issues. Thanks, fam. To be clear, regardless of whatever the 2006 teenagers thoughts and feelings were, being bi is valid and should not be excused away or erased by anyone. Thank you.

From this moment, I was a loud and proud raving bi to my close friends and the strangers on the internet who saw my clearly-labeled sexual preference on my Myspace page. And the emo friends I made at this time were awesome. We just used to hang and make out with each other and listen to music and drink bottles of Smirnoff Ice until we were sick on each other with no judgment. The judgment came several years later looking back at the photos that you can’t delete. So I didn’t need to tell my family or people at school anything. But the thing is with a Myspace page, anyone with an internet connection can read it. And so the rumors started spreading through my neighborhood that Dan Howell was in fact a bisexual. I had a friend in French class who one day, totally unprompted, just turned to me and said, “Hmm, yeah, I thought so. You give off a bi-vibe.” A bi-vi-, what the fuck is a bi-vibe? Great, yeah, nothing to make a 15-year-old feel self-conscious about his behavior like being told he emanates a bisexual aura. What am I supposed to do with that? Sorry that I give off mixed signals. I’m versatile. Turns out it was actually a social upgrade from being called gay all the time 'cause bisexual was a new word that only referred to sexuality so people actually had to decide how they felt about the fact I was attracted to boys. As opposed to gay which as we all understand is synonymous with bad and also implies a general threat, plague, curse/evil force that simply must be destroyed. People at school were actually almost nice to me with curiosity about it and a few of the boys that previously loved to just generically call me gay while throwing a compasses at me or something, now started to low-key flirt with me and some stuff happened. Go figure.

But then I entered the dark ages and no I’m not talking about my hair because I was never actually cool enough to commit to dying it black. As quickly as they arrived into my life, my emo friend group vanished into the night. Like the tip of an eyeliner pencil snapping or the HTML on your intricately-crafted MySpace page falling apart when the host websites of your embedded gifs die, so, too, did my social life. One had to suddenly focus on school, another moved town, two of them just fell out with each other and started hanging out with their old friends again. Well, we don’t all have back up friend groups, Lindsey! I went all in on the emos! You’re telling me I have to go back to sitting in my kitchen playing Runescape now! Thanks a lot. So for a year I literally had no friends. And this is when the bullying at school really stepped its pussy up. The things people used to say offhand to me in a corridor were now said loudly in classrooms where everybody would laugh. People used to sing songs about me being gay on the bus while my fellow nerds sat around me just stared awkwardly out of the window not wanting to get involved. People shouted things out during GCSE exams in front of the whole school and the low key pushing became punches. People used to wait for me after school just to throw things at me. Once a guy put his hand around my throat and pushed my head against a coat peg in the locker room while everyone was watching and just slapped me for five minutes. But I never reacted. I never cried or got angry or fought back 'cause then I’d be giving them what they wanted and I refused to play along. But this way of dealing with things definitely had an impact on my relationship with emotion going into life. I became a total outcast. No one wanted to come near me out of fear that they’d get targeted, too. So no one ever stood up for me. And, you know, I don’t blame them. I just resent them even to this day. No, I’m kidding, I don’t really. I do. No, I don’t. I, hmm. Teachers at the time obviously did nothing. In fact, one of them saw this happening to me and laughed 'cause you know, boys will be boys especially the gay ones that get killed by the other ones, am I right? Ah, classic lad banter. And home. See, keeping this on the topic of sexuality and not economic class, violence, addiction, and health issues, let’s just say some shit was goin’ down. I didn’t think I could ask my family for help or share my feelings about this, mainly due to my dad. Funny guy, kind of a woke hippie who did and said a lot of things I did respect but at the same time used to walk around the house saying how he hoped someone he had a problem with at work would *clears throat* “die of bum cancer.” Yep, so picked the one area to be a bigot that would further traumatize your child. Nice! This experience coming from a childhood hearing the word gay meaninglessly thrown around as an insult at home and school, in music, on TV, to then realizing I am actually kinda gay, to then very specifically being attacked for it was traumatic. The world was clearly telling me if I ever wanted to be accepted by anyone or, in my particular environment, survive, I couldn’t be gay. I was afraid of it, literally homophobic of myself. I am talking Pavlov, sunken place, North Korea-level mind alteration that made me terrified of and repulsed by this part of me. This is called internalized oppression. It’s a real thing and it’s some real shit.

Chapter 3 – Internalized Oppression

From this moment I was no longer advertising myself as bi. No, BRB deleting that Myspace real quick, xD lemme get on that Bebo. “My Chemical Romance”? No, I’m listen to what’s this, N-Dubz? Jesus Christ. I go away for the summer break and come back to school quiet and serious and fully straight. *coughs* I needed me some new friends that were a bit higher up the social ladder, you know what I’m sayin’ for security so I go ahead and join “The Inbetweeners”. Literally this group of friends, the exact middle ground between nerds and desperately wanting to be cool. And oh how desperate we were. The great thing about these friends was they knew loads of girls. So firstly, instant cool points. Secondly, if I date a girl *scoffs* super not gay. The problem with that was it’s not like everyone just forgot everything that’s been said about me and this group of friends, casually homophobic pretty much all the time and also they hung out in places near some even more aggressive and super homophobic peeps. Just full-time Runescape would have been a better in hindsight. I find myself going through the same shit at school but now voluntarily going through it at the weekends from the people that are supposed to be my friends thinking I’m doing the right thing whilst constantly telling myself I’m now totally heterosexual. So I did what many people choose to do at that point and I got a girlfriend. But this is pretty messed up because I really liked this girl. In fact, I loved her as a friend and I was genuinely attracted to her but I was so afraid of sexuality I didn’t even wanna do anything straight in case I had some weird gay panic that I was totally frigid and I led her on. And when she got pissed at me, understandably, for being a terrible boyfriend, I just felt even worse. This was someone who I liked that I was hurting and lying to but I couldn’t leave as then I’d have no armor. Beautiful irony here is having a girlfriend didn’t in any way stop the abuse 'cause remember, gay is a great all-purpose general insult. (Call someone gay today and we’ll throw in a free set of steak knives.) And when these neighborhood teens started heavy drinking and getting into drugs, things suddenly got quite scary as people joked about setting fire to a tent as I slept in it at Reading Festival. Or saying, “You know that notoriously unstable guy? Yeah, he said he’s gonna kill you next Saturday.” Awkward.

This was definitely the lowest point in my life. I just felt totally alone, confused and I deeply hated myself. I used to ask God, in case he was there, to please, just make me straight and everyone stop. But I saw no end, no escape, no way to change the world or who I was. So one evening I thought fuck it and I attempted suicide.

I say attempted, because just before it was too late I thought

“oh shit oh shit oh shit oh shit what have i done what have i done fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck?”

“what will your grandma think don’t do this to her she tried her best and she loves you”

“your family aren’t total dicks and this will fuck them up can’t you just get over it surely”

“you’re gonna get to the last year of school and give up now really what was the point”

“I heard this is one of the most painful ways to die so not a great choice if I’m being blunt”

Felt kinda bad for a few days otherwise I pretended it never happened and I didn’t tell anyone, until now, literally. Hmm, I know pretty dark right, but hey spoiler things kinda worked out. I mean still gotta lot of issues but here I am. I’m so glad I failed for so many reasons, for the people in my life, for the future I would’ve wasted. The most important being that I thought I was trapped in a situation forever when in reality, the entire world I lived in and my life changed completely. I thought it was hopeless when in reality there was so much to hope for and that’s it. Time changes everything. With the lives that we have, we can try anything we’ve dreamed of. I want anyone that’s ever felt like this to realize you are never trapped. There is always hope. You just need to believe in yourself and get to the other side. So yeah school age 6 to 18, I’m gonna give that a bad Google review. The thing is I did stand out. I’ve always been a loudmouth, class clown, annoying shit. Since graduating, it turns out half the people I knew were fuckin’ gay. That group of friends I had, all lovely people now. Five of them were gay, five gays! That is statistically irregular. Oh but they flew under the radar. All I’m saying is I wish people just hated me for being annoying and immature. Leave the gays alone!

My light at the end of the tunnel was university. I was gonna get my A levels move to a new town and ghost these bitches. But I took a gap year first to earn some money which was very boring sitting at home and working at ASDA where I was not happy to help. My shift started at 5 a.m. on a Saturday. Signed up for a Twitter account to run my mouth off and then bam. “So my name is [Dan].” My YouTube story begins, a new chapter of my life to redefine. So you know what I do? Get a Formspring because nothing gives you that attention feeling like one of those anonymous question and answer websites that are inherently toxic and no one should use. And straight out of the bat bisexual Dan returns. 'Cause hey, just like Myspace, I’m only telling a few people on the internet right now. It’s not like one day I’m gonna get so many followers that random strangers and my family might see it. Wow, I had a lot fun with many different kinds of people in 2009. Let’s just say I got a lot out of my system. Got a couple of things in my system, too. Sorry.

And this is when, through the magic of the internet, I met Phil. And obviously we were more than friends but it was more than just romantic. This is someone that genuinely liked me. I trusted them. And for the first time since I was a tiny child, I actually felt safe. And the relationship we formed at that point was something that I needed in my life. We are real best friends, companions through life, like actual soulmates, not that souls are a real thing that exist. It’s so lucky to just find someone you can be that compatible with and especially to anyone that has experienced the kind of self-hatred that I have dealt with, one person accepting you can make all the difference. And I bet so many people wanna know so much more about that which, honestly, I take as a compliment. But here’s the thing. I’m somebody that wants to keep the details of my personal life private. So is Phil. I know lots of people these days, thanks to social media, want to share and monetize every aspect of their life and then as soon as something changes suddenly it’s this huge drama because everybody got invested in the story of your life like it’s a soap opera. I don’t want that. I wanna do certain things without an audience. I wanna be spontaneous. I don’t wanna feel afraid to take risks. I want to enjoy totally fucking something up and not have to post a statement about it. And if anyone thinks people really have to share these things about their life, you need to rethink your position. And look, I understand that sex is a fun and interesting thing to talk about. I get it. I am also a disgusting pervert. But the specific minutiae of who I be fuckin’, when, why, where, how long, how, uhh, I mean? Sexuality is a general fact that it can be very useful to know about a person for several reasons, but we can’t force people to disclose that either. We don’t know this person’s life story, what they’ve been through, if they haven’t told people, if they’ll lose their job, if they’re in danger. There are so many reasons someone might not be open about it. We can preach the message that being out is good, but aggressively speculating or trying to out someone is really bad. They might not be gay, in which case we’re just harassing someone and probably stereotyping. And if they are there’s gonna be a reason why they haven’t talked about it. So I don’t wanna see any responses to me finally talking about this like no one is surprised. “Dan we been knew.” Wow, you huge galaxy brain genius. What’s it like walking around with all those brain cells in there working overtime? What, you got like three in there? Don’t lose your balance, mastermind. I haven’t exactly been subtle have I? I’m an awkward, sexually ambiguous nerd. “What the fuck even is your sexuality?” That’s not the point. I’m already dead inside so it doesn’t matter here, but to me if someone’s reaction to a person coming out is just, “yeah, I knew”, they’re showing no empathy towards the issue or that person. They’re just making it about themselves like it was a fun piece of gossip they already knew. All we have to do is listen and be accepting.

So anyway back to the tale. Whilst things were looking up for Dan aged 18, things quickly got messy again. Wow, that beats the emo streak of temporary self-acceptance by like six months, nice. There was a point around 2011 where the relationship with my audience shifted from what felt like direct communication between me and individuals that just saw me as a comedy creator to communities of people that formed to talk about me when I wasn’t there. Which is fine, but for some people it was about getting generally invested in me and my real life which I thought was a bit strange 'cause inevitably like anyone who puts themself out there, some people started to really dig into my private life to find out information about me that I wasn’t ready to share. And this was around the same time that YouTubers finally started to get mainstream recognition in the British press. We had the BBC knocking at our door trying to offer Dan and Phil a radio show. From that, Dan and Phil became this entertainment duo that we could have a creative career with. And we love working together, so when all these opportunities came for Dan and Phil, we were really excited but I was also scared as people clearly knew I wasn’t straight and I hadn’t told my family that. None of my old friends knew about this, and what me and Phil had was ours and personal and yet some people were trying to get access to it for their own satisfaction. It was no longer a few people on the internet, no big deal. So I just shut down. It felt like I was back at school again, surrounded by threatening people trying to expose me for their entertainment. Most I’m sure just wanted what was best for me and I feel such genuine sadness and am sorry that I couldn’t be closer to and more truthful with the people in my life that were just trying to be nice but I wasn’t ready to deal with it at this time so I had to do something to contain it. I definitely sent some mixed messages. Some were just joking around, others were super defensive that in my panic came across like “I’m now telling everyone I’m totally straight” when all I really meant was “please fuck off and don’t invade my privacy, you creepy stalkers, thank you”. But this experience seriously triggered some PTSD in me and I was back in the dark place. I didn’t want to just disappear from the internet to escape it and throw away this creative hobby that actually started paying rent. Thanks. So I just decided to put anything to do with my sexuality in a box to come back to later as I was still processing my past and I wanted to understand my identity on my own terms and timeline and not just have it hijacked as fuel for people’s sexual fantasies or some headline in an article. And whilst we’re not exactly living in a utopia yet here on YouTube, the general internet culture only five or six years ago was a much less wholesome, progressive place as this little bubble is now. Sure, a lot of people probably would have been supportive, but there was just as much open bigotry and general toxicity 'cause people felt less accountable and it was okay to say certain things 'cause it’s just on the internet and I couldn’t handle that at the time. And, generally, I can handle a lot. I have big hands with a very wide reach for playing piano, you fucking.. get your mind out of the gutter. We can’t ask people to just put their lives on hold to address their sexuality first. If a kid dreams of being a footballer and age 18 gets signed to a club and all their dreams come true but they’re scared to come out because of the insane homophobia in that community, they shouldn’t turn it down. Yes, it’s so important to be truthful about who you are and open and proud in front of the world but it’s our society’s fault that these people are scared to say who they are. So let’s all focus on making it a welcoming place and people will come out when they are ready. So when was I ready? Well, it’s always been on my mind that I need to talk about this at some point. I couldn’t just keep going forward in my life ignoring it, not only just so I can be authentic, which is very important for general existing, but also just letting people know what kind of sexual attention I want from the world. All of it from everyone. God I’m so thirsty. And if anything motivated me, it’s the idea that I can help someone else 'cause that’s basically my whole career, isn’t it, admitting to shit that I’ve been through so you will feel better about yourselves. There we go, you’re welcome. I have a platform and a following of millions of people, many of whom I know have been through exactly what I have. And if I tell my story as painful and flip floppy and flawed as it is, I know it will mean something to someone as every time someone speaks openly about sexuality, it saves lives. I’d never met a single out gay person until I was 18. And if I had, or even just seen better representation in the media, I wouldn’t have felt so totally alone. I wouldn’t even be saying this to you now if it wasn’t for TV shows, musicians, and public figures in the last couple years reinforcing this to me. It doesn’t matter if I was living the life privately as there was still so much confusion about my feelings and fear. But things are better now, on the internet, on TV, in my real life. It’s not perfect but it feels safe enough in this space right now for me to feel confident. So thank you, sincerely, to all the brave people that came before me and to any of you that made this world seem welcoming for me. And instead of procrastinating from this by focusing on work, which was a way for me to insure my own independence and survival in case I was rejected, or just doing things for other people to take my mind off it instead of asserting my own needs, which my therapist keeps telling me is one of my biggest problems. Here I am with a fresh void of time in front of me to fuck up however I want. Now look, we all have different experiences in life. Some of us are lucky, some of us not. It just so happened that the first 18 years of my life were horrendously shit. It failed me. But we get dealt cards from the start, too. If you look at my life, I was born into this world as an able-bodied, white, cis-man in Britain which immediately gives me so much privilege in this current world and I am fully aware of how much harder making it to today could have been for me, which is why we all need to stand up for equality and social justice even if it doesn’t apply to us. No one stood up for me when it mattered the most and that almost cost me everything. So if you see a woman being harassed, a gay being threatened, someone muttering something racist, say something, do something because if you’re still or silent, the victim will just think that you are against them, too. We all have a responsibility.

This tale was just some of the stuff relating to sexuality. We all have a whole sob story if we wanna tell it but I just wanted to explain the journey of how I got to this point and overcame the obstacles that tried to block this path. And now I’ve arrived.

Chapter 4 – Labels

Okay cool story, bro, it’s answer time. What’s your answer. Whaddayalikedafuk? Here’s the thing, you want me to talk candidly about sexuality as if it’s something that I understand? I don’t know what it is, why it is. Turns out no one knows. I’ve been sitting here for years waiting for scientists to just work it out like bleep bloop. [Oh this is why and exactly how it’s different for people. There we go.] Thinking I shouldn’t run off my mouth on the internet in case my theories and opinions on varying gayness get debunked next week. Well, I waited long enough and it didn’t happen. Science, ya fucked up, you let me down. And I fully expect to have to delete this video in two weeks when you find out all the answers suddenly. Thanks a bunch. What makes someone gay or straight or all the things in between? What the ever loving fuck is gender about? This is a mess. Yet people want you to give them a word because that’s how humans communicate with words that have meanings. Which is why our disgusting species is impatient, stupid, and obsessed with labels. And this applies to everything, sexuality, gender, political identity, what obscure genre of synthwave you listen to. People just want a label that represents something they understand so they already know how to feel about you and don’t have to bother thinking. [Oh you’re a feminist well I don’t need to know anything more. Oh you’re a leftist. Oh you’re a K-pop fan but but but but.] If people just want to find a way to disagree with you or dislike you, they can refer to the label and turn off their brains. Hey, what does my label say? Huh. The issue is, especially when we start talking about the writhing mass of confusion and suffering that is sexual and gender identity, the limits of language and specific terminology become a big problem. What does being gay mean? You never thought about a boob once? What does being a man mean? You wanna be an emotionless rock rubbing raw steaks against your biceps? It’s not like humanity is all in agreement right now. I don’t like the stereotypes and drama that come with all this terminology so I’m just not gonna use it. Thing is gender identity isn’t my issue. I feel comfortable with the identity that I’ve had my whole life. Dan, a tol boy from England. But being a man means nothing to me. I wouldn’t feel uncomfortable wearing makeup or a sickening pair of heels, though I can’t even draw in a straight line so that would be a disaster. Also is anyone really comfortable wearing heels? Hmm. Icons of masculinity aren’t really a big part of my life. Might as well call me a fucking formless blob that sounds more relatable. Shout out to all my formless blobs out there, rise up. I don’t have to do anything or be anything and I personally wouldn’t feel offended if I wasn’t referred to as a he. Well, she’s feeling hungry today. Stop fucking judging me, Susan. I’m sad and I’m gonna eat this whole damn cake whether you like it or not. But anyone that has this don’t really care attitude about their gender identity is in a way privileged 'cause some people, especially trans, care a lot about their gender identity and using the correct pronouns which other people should respect. Likewise with sexuality, whilst to me the endlessly increasing list of tribes and flags being flown is a bit daunting and confusing and personally stresses me out 'cause I almost find it constrictive, some people like it. Because if you’re feelings are confusing and then you look at a word that represents something and go, “wow, that me”, it can help you realize you’re valid and find a community and that’s great. There is so much controversy around this issue and others but if we all just calm down, respect each other’s experiences and try to just be nice, reasonable people, which is a lot to ask, let’s be real, it’s quite simple. If you wanna use language to express your honest feelings and identity, that’s great and other people should respect what you say. Likewise, if you hate labels and you just wanna be a formless blob, that’s fine, too. No one should force you. The only thing that isn’t cool is telling other people what they should or should not identify as 'cause that ain’t your problem or your business, bye. This was one of the things that held me back from talking about this for years. Shit’s confusing, man. Let’s just go back to cellular reproduction by mitosis so I don’t really have to be specific. Two people that I really look up to and respect, Harry Styles and Janelle Monae, both famously say that they don’t feel the need to label it which, to be honest, is how I feel and is perfectly okay. But I get it, for me, you want a word. Oh, that’s hard, though. I’m an annoying guy. I feel uncertain specifying my sexuality in the same way I wouldn’t say I am an atheist. Who the fuck am I to say whether God does or doesn’t exist? I don’t know shit 'bout shit and neither does anyone else. I mean I think it’s unlikely in the same way I know I like DICK. But I’m not gonna pretend to have a definite answer here. Looking at my public statements is inconsistent and confusing. Looking at my personal track record through life is super confusing. And looking at the void inside my soul threatening to crush the entire universe with the force of its event horizon of misery and melodrama, well, fuck let’s close that shit up. One thing’s for sure whatever heterosexual is, I ain’t it. Really if you ask me, I don’t think anyone’s totally straight. I think there’s a lot of social and emotional issues getting in the way of yet to be understood feelings of attraction that can be very flexible. And trust me, I’ve known a lot of straight guys until a couple of drinks, some deep conversation, and lingering eye contact, and suddenly they just start leaning in. What does that make them? And am I totally gay? No. Am I slightly more gay or is it just easier for gays to hook up with each other because of societal norms. It’s not like the signs for male and female bathrooms are what I’m attracted to. I don’t care what flesh organ you have between your legs, what your hair’s like, if you’re covered in it or a fuckin’ beluga whale. I’m gonna be honest, I’m not picky. I’m easy. So am I bi or pan or poly? Well, now we’re just in a clusterfuck of defining language and I’m confused and sad and horny. This is why I personally love the word queer. I understand that some people don’t as it is a slur but as someone that’s been the target of it several times throughout my life I’m up for some reclamation. It’s like recycling. The definition makes sense because until society is equal with all sexual and gender identifies, it is literally strange from a conventional viewpoint plus it’s better than a super long acronym, it’s inclusive of everyone and therefore great for formless blobs. There we go, an identity I feel comfortable with. A highly-strung, depressed queer praying for a giant meteor to hurry up and finally eradicate humanity. LMAO, yeet!

But to come full circle, I know that even today, deep in my heart the word gay scares me because that’s how I’ve been conditioned my whole life. So, you know what? Fuck the literal definition and the scientific definition and what everyone thinks. I finally have to just confront and accept this.

I’m gay.

Oh look, didn’t spontaneously fucking combust. Well, there we go, that was a lot of stress about nothing, wasn’t it? Bloody hell. So yup, I’m here, I’m queer, and don’t worry I’m still filled with existential fear.

WE’RE HERE, WE’RE QUEER WE’RE FILLED WITH EXISTENTIAL FEAR.

Chapter 5 – Fear

Even though I’m at this current place, there is still so much I’m afraid of and this has taken months to make because of that. Telling my family was a big fear. I have problems connecting with them emotionally because reasons. So I only came out to them this month and if it didn’t go well, as I’m now the independent adult that I fought so hard to be, I was ready to cut them off like the bottom of a sweater turning into a seasonal crop. But I didn’t have to, love you. I didn’t think they’d reject me these days but coming out is still a surprise. It changes things. And I’m a pretty awkward person generally but the idea of just dropping this in conversation in front of them all terrified me. And I tried several times this year to do it but I just couldn’t. So you know how I finally came out to my family? E-mail. Yep, I literally just sent them an e-mail saying and I quote,

“Hello gang. I’ve been meaning to talk to you all for a while, something quite important that should be disclosed at some point. I thought I would around Christmas, then Mum’s birthday, then last Easter Sunday, etc., but every time I meant to, I either felt like I would ruin the mood of the day or I just felt awkward and didn’t want to. So I decided just to email you all instead which is really inappropriate and just weird but that somehow seems appropriate for me and at least I’ll just finally say it.

Basically I’m gay.”

Yup. It was just getting ridiculous so I thought screw it and hey, it worked. Turns out my remaining family, pretty chill bunch of people. Even my Christian grandma said this,

“We love you for being you. It must be a great relief to finally acknowledge who you are. Popsie and I just want you to be happy. People are born as they are and have no say in it. I hope that now you will feel free to live your life as you want with no pretense.”

Aw.

“Don’t forget the iPad.”

Yes, I said I’d give her my old iPad. She mainly cares about that I thing. Wasn’t so sure when I was 17 but it went well now and I know that makes me lucky but, hey, it shows that times change. As for the other people in my life, obviously all the friends I have now are cool. If anyone in my life I’ve ever known isn’t cool with it then I don’t care. And sure here online there might be a few incredibly lost bigots following me or just some classic trolls who I think should get fucked. No, like literally, I think you should try it. You’ll probably enjoy it and you might learn something about yourself. Inevitably some of you watching this might have a weird reaction if you just feel like it was a shock or you feel hurt that I kept it from you. But I feel like I explained myself reasonably here and going forward I can’t have any space for that, sorry. I’ve come to terms with who I am and now you have to, too, ha. Funnily enough straight up homophobia is probably the one thing I’m not that afraid of, because I just don’t agree so it doesn’t hold much emotional power over me but you bet I’m opening myself up to all new kinds of in real life and international discrimination now which is fun. But one of the other big fears holding me back was, honestly, that I wouldn’t be accepted by the community. I know that it’s a big pride flag covering a lot of ground and even the idea of it and certainly most of it is amazing. But there is a lot of drama within it right now especially on the internet. You’ve got Grindr gays arguing about how manly gays should be, bi’s getting ignored, trans people, especially of color, not being historically appreciated, acephobia, fucking SWERFs and TERFs. No thank you. So even though they are my people, I know some of them will have problems with something. And even then, just seeing such a loud and proud, strong and opinionated group of people celebrating something just intimidates a smol introvert such as myself. And in my mind if these people don’t accept me because I’m not being definitive enough or I took too long then I almost feel like I’ll be alone all over again, and this is a fear that a lot of people have honestly. But I’m a nice guy and I’m trying my best so you better be welcoming, you bunch of fuckin’ queers. And obviously with the topic of sexuality, it doesn’t matter where we are or how far you think we’ve come, by merely mentioning it, I will be opening up a primordial box of bullshit which will include every single stupid argument and question since the dawn of time. [It’s not natural.] There’s gay animals. [Adam and Steve.] That’s based on a story and the protagonist that arrives later probably doesn’t agree with you. [Why can’t we have straight pride?] I could spend 10 hours on all the classic crap and people would still be asking the same things. This being posted on the internet, my hopes are so incredibly low, lower than my self-esteem.  Wow, that is unhealthy. I need to stop doing that. This video is about internalized oppression and the problems of language. I’m not here to pontificate on every topic tangentially related to the entire concept of gayness. *ASMR voice*: Pontificate on every topic tangentially related to the concept of gayness.  

There’s other humans and all the time in the world left for that. The time in the world coincidentally being not much longer. Climate change LMAO. But I had to tell my story so people would understand me and these things. Why coming out is still a big deal because queer people are often invisible and suffering until they have to do it. Some people grow up in supportive environments and it’s a positive experience. But more likely, especially around the world outside of the big cities, it isn’t. This is not a fight that is anywhere near over. Even in Britain today people are debating whether children should be taught to be accepting of sexual and gender identity in school.

Queer people exist. Choosing not to accept them is not an option.

To anyone watching this that isn’t out, it’s okay. You’re okay. You were born this way, it’s right, and anyone that has a problem with it is wrong. Based on your circumstance, you might not feel ready to tell people yet or that it’s safe and that’s fine, too. Just know that living your truth, with pride, is the way to be happy. You are valid. It gets so much better. And the future is clear. It’s pretty queer.

So there we go. Now I can proceed authentically in my life with full disclosure. Cute mutuals know to slide into the DMs. And you can all fuck off and leave me alone.

Bye.