#I could hate on the person who sold this product all day but god that would be so nice to torch resin with

[softceleste]

Ginny testing her friend's "definitely not a flamethrower, please do not call this a flamethrower for legal reasons" a while back.

Please do not save, repost, or edit these gifs for any reason, use the reblog button instead. Also please do not interact if you’re a celeb rp blog or if you write taboo content on your blog, thank you!

#virginia gardner #ginny gardner #vgardneredit #virginiagardneredit #ginnygardneredit #userdevon #flashing lights #flashing gifs #flashing lights tw #flashing lights cw #flashing gifs tw #flashing gifs cw #flashing tw #flashing cw #flame cw #flame tw #I could hate on the person who sold this product all day but god that would be so nice to torch resin with #also that in the corner of the 5th gif is a camera reflection it's weird bc of the crop #the video is in her ig story highlights if you want to double check <3 #gifs:mine

[familyabolisher]

why did you hate tell me i’m worthless? ive been planning on reading it but i wasn’t 100% sold so i figured i’d ask

oh god if i hash the whole thing out i'll be here all day so here are some bullet points

rumfitt tries to riff a number of 'haunted house' horror writers, most prominently shirley jackson, only she's less riffing shirley jackson as much as she's riffing a version of shirley jackson that she made up in her head

it is so heavyhanded. on every other page rumfitt tells you what she's doing, and what it all Means, and what the big Statement of the moment is, and it's just---it sucks any interest out of the text for me. it is an incredibly condescending book.

& for a book that's so condescending it is not especially smart lol. it tries very hard to say something about fascism but just kind of sputters & stumbles around some v unwieldy swings at the culture war and anxiety about "complicity," "cancel culture," "oppression olympics." there's a passage which tries in completely seriousness to talk about the "oppression calculator" as though rumfitt is the first person ever to think that such a framework might be reductive and it's just like, at that point you cannot expect me to take your politics seriously!

neither of her protagonists are especially memorable or distinct because they are metonyms for social positions; this could be fine if those metonyms were put to any compelling use. They are not

there's really just ... nothing to it save for stringing together some references to other, better writers and making a statement About Fascism on every other page. the narrative is v pneumatic. and, like, i don't need "eventful" narratives necessarily, but if your book is staking its success on being politically compelling & on being a productive riff on the writers you crib to such an extent that you have a v flimsy narrative and v flimsy characters because those are only needed as vehicles for those components, then those components need to ... succeed. and, like, they don't.

it's, sorry, it's a book for corbynites who think they understand the relationship between british terfism and fascism, and that they're the first people ever to see it.

it's a shame, because there are some glimpses in there of a much stronger book. alison rumfitt does at times have a pretty strong prose voice (at other times ... not so much. but in her more experimental moments she often sticks the landing and it's more compelling work than a less ambitious prose voice would manage.) and, like, she can write legitimately unsettling horror, moreso than a lot that i've read! unfortunately those glimpses are few and far between compared to ... the rest, lol.

#ask #the thing that just really really killed it for me was all the heavyhandedness #on EVERY fucking PAGE she TELLS you what she wants you to THINK #go AWAY step BACK let me BREATHE!!!

[leahsflwer]

Steven Grant imagine - Smut

⚠️ Smut warning, adult content ⚠️

========== ➳༻❀☕❀༺➳==========

Walking into a late night shift was not usually fun, but as soon as I spotted Stephen grabbing things from Donna's hands I felt a sense of ease rush over me. Donna scolded Steven for not being more responsible before spotting me.

"Ah Y/N perfect, make sure you both finish scanning and sorting out all those carts over there and lock it up for the night, alright? Now I'll be off I have a date" she sighed and I nodded

"Enjoy your date Donna" I smiled and she just walked out without speaking making me turn to Steven rolling me eyes

"She needs some manners" I laughed

"She ain't a nice person someday s but you cant really say anything to your boss, without getting fired ayé" he spoke in his strong accent.

I chuckled at his words and nodded before walking over to the counter and spotting all the carts of things to scan and put away. My teeth clenching together in annoyance. Grabbing my phone I put on some music and sat down scanning products in the first out of fifteen carts. Steven sitting beside me and scanning things from the second cart, looking over at me. I noticed the stare ans peaked over at him.

"Have I told you about The Girl With the Rose-Red Slippers?" He spoke up and I shook my head making him hide his face in his hands and then laugh gently

"Ah well shall I tell you it?" He smiled.

My head nodding in return listening as he spoke to me about this Egyptian myth. He loved to tell me all about these stories, facts and myths. But i didn't mind, I enjoyed the talks we had even if it was mostly me listening to him rant on. His hair was more curly today, one piece falling onto his forehead, curly as ever and making me wonder how springy it may be if I touched it. His pink lips catching my eyes as he spoke.

"The Cinderella story came from this, a Greek girl named Rhodopis who was sold into slavery in Egypt." He continued

His lips looking soft ans plump making me wonder how good they would feel pressed against mine. His eyes going from my eyes to around the room as he used his hands to gesture each thing as he spoke.

"A very kind man bought her and, in turn, provided her with a home and showered her with beautiful gifts. One day, an eagle swooped down and stole one of her rose-red slippers. It was delivered to the pharaoh Amasis." He said and I managed to nod as my eyes took in the details of his dark eyes

Steven's dark eyes made my body feel weak and good all at once. His gaze stared right back at me even when I closed my eyes I could see him. He was on my mind a lot to the point were I have to try and pretend he's a happily taken man, even though I know he's single and my close friend. I just cant fall in love with someone. The last time I fell for a man and told him I had never kissed anyone he laughed and called me 'virgin freak'. It was a putrid name that still echos in my mind.

"Amasis asked to meet the owner of that slipper and the rest, shall we say, is history. The two fell so deeply in love they even died on the same day." He said almost gasping at the end

"Its quite romantic I think, falling in love so deeply that the gods had them never even part for a day, as they died together, cute love story that always makes me smile" he chuckled

"Thats a cute story actually.." I smiled with a sigh making Steven frown

"You alright? Im not boring you am I?" He asked

"No! Not at all. I enjoy all the myths and facts you tell me, I've always had to be the talker, I hated it I much prefer to be the listener" I nodded and he understood with a soft smile

"My talking is a lot innit" he chuckled with his strong accent making me flustered

"I love your talking Steven don't worry so much" I chuckled and continued to beep products and placing them down on the counter.

The rest of the night contained of us doing our job as I listened to Steven talk more and more, me reassuring him to continue and that im interested in what he was saying at all times. Finally we had finished scanning and had to put the things away on shelves. Steven going to the other side of the gift shop and me trying to reach the top shelf but struggling. Steven suddenly coming up behind me and placing a step down.

"Here you are darlin' don't fall aye?" He smiled and continued what he was doing

"T-Thanks Steven" I spoke but he just nodded and continued putting things on display.

I could finally reach the shelf and places all the plushies on it making it look beautiful and appealing to customers. Reaching my hand down in the box to get the last one, standing back up but on a bit of a lean, causing me to fall back and off the step. Hitting my head hard on another box besides Steven who quickly helped me back up, his hand landing on my cheek as he looked for any injuries.

"Im aight Steven" I sighed and got lost in his dark eyes again, it wasn't what my mind wanted but it was exactly what my heart wanted

"You sure? Here sit down and I'll finish this last box yeah?" He spoke and he lifted me onto the desk and left me to put things away.

He was driving me mad, he was so sweet and the perfect definition of a gentleman. It has my heart racing around in my chest, filling my stomach with butterflies ans giving my mind new thoughts and ideas. He had me going insane. I wanted him to be a rude person so I could hate him, but he wasn't. That annoyed me.

He finally finished and took me off the desk gently as he held onto my hips. I gulped at the touch and just smiled in return. Thanking him and following him as we locked the museum up for the night him turning to face me.

"Shall I walk you to the bus then darlin?" He smiled with his strong accent causing me to blush and feel hot in the face

"Actually Steven, can I stay at your place tonight?" I spoke up finally.

So many times has Steven asked me the same question and I wanted to reply with that. Tonight I finally said it. Id rather be rejected then feel the pain of holding in so many ideas and thoughts. Steven staring down at me with wide eyes. His lips slightly parted as if I stole his only words.

"W-Well I suppose if you want to you can, yea' ah let's go then" he chuckled awkwardly.

Which I followed him to his flat. Looking into the elevator mirror noticing Steven was quiet and looking down at me, his breath slightly hitched, telling me he felt nervous, perhaps he had never had someone at his flat before so I laughed to myself and then realised I had never been alone at a guys place before so I gulped.

He pointed out different things in his little place and I just smiled at then found his fish smiling st it, watching the golden creature swim around.

"Does it have a name?" I asked him

"Name? Oh yeah he's called Gus" he replied

"Awe Gus you're so cute and unique, you're lucky to have such a good father, hmm?" I chuckled and could see Steven staring at me from the reflection on the glass fish tank

"Y-yes I take good care of him." He laughed

Wondering over to his bed I spotted the chains and restrains on his bed making me smirk up at Steven who was looking nervous.

"Steven I had no idea you were kinky" I grinned

"Oh no! I use those because I sleep walk.. that why I have so much tape in the bin there.. im bad with it sometimes" he sighed and sat beside me

"Sleepwalker huh? Thats pretty cool" I smiled and he looked like he had seen a cute puppy, a smile plastered on his face, glowing eyes

"You think its cool? Not weird or something?" He questioned me

"No I thinks its hella cool Steven" I chuckled and lifted up the restrains taking in all of it.

Steven looking at me as I fiddle with it.

"Wanna try it out?" Steven asked me and I gulped.

Never in a million worlds did I expect, sweet, nerdy and funny Steven Grant to ask me if I wanted to be restrained to his bed. A shiver running down my spine. Steven just innocently looming over at me as id he said nothing.

"You want to restrain me to your bed..?" I asked

"Ah sorry I meant, like see how I put it on at night!!" He panicked and so did I taking a sigh of both relief and disappointment

"So you don't want to restrain me right now?" I chuckled only playing a joke

"Well.. its a thought in my mind.. but.." he stuttered making me flustered

I stood up and peaked over at his books and picked one out pretending I was interested in it which I usually would be but I was too flustered to think currently. Peaking up I saw Steven running his hand threw his dark hair.

Im body had enough, I made my way over to him again and finally played with his hair, his curls exactly the way I imagined. A smile on my face that couldn't leave. Understanding he was looking up at me with cute, dark eyes had me weak in the knees. His hands landing on my waist and pulling me onto his lap, I gasped at the feeling of my area slamming down onto his lap.

"Ive liked you ever since you first spoke to me on your first day at the museum, you just seem to become more and more what I want, ive wanted to kiss you for so long Y/N, can I kiss you darling?" He grins at me still holding my hips.

Nervously I gulp and nod in agreement.

He leans in close and his lips finally touch mine, the heat crashing between each movement we made. This was a much needed kiss that I had been begging and imagining for everyday.

Steven laying me on the bed his Hand's leaving my hips and moving up slowly sneaking under my shirt, his kisses leaving my lips down to my neck and collarbone. I imagined a side of Steven like this but never thought it was real. He stopped and looked down at me.

"Are you sure you want any of this? I don't want you to regret anything or feel uncomfortable at all" he asked making me feel safe and loved

"Im sure, I trust you Steven" I nodded and he smiled softly.

Continuing his kisses as he pulled my shirt up and over my head exposing my white bra. He smirked at it and kissed my stomach softly. Holding onto the waist line of my shorts looking up for permission which I granted with a nod. He pulled them down along with my panties. His cold fingers touching my warm folds.

"Ive never really done this so let me know if I should change anything" he stated.

His two fingers slowly entering me making my hips buck forward, his fingers were much bigger then mine. A soft moan escaping my mouth. Giving him a confidence boost to move in and out, which felt good but something was missing.

"Steven fuck- that feels good, u-use your tongue here- fuck!" I whimpered almost from his fingers curling inside me, his tongue gliding around my clit making me throw my head back in pleasure and hold onto his curly hair in pleasure.

My hips moving up and down to feel more of Steven. The rush causing me to moan out loud and my legs to shake as my orgasm finally came over me. Steven removing his fingers and cleaning them with his tongue making me want him even more now. He removed my bra his hands shaking telling me he had never removed clothing off a women like this before.

Steven throwing it somewhere in the room. Then picking me up and placing me on the other side of the bed, his tight grip on my wrists making me gasp as he grabbed the restraining me to his bed. I thought he was only joking but yet here i'am completely venerable to him with my body exposed and those eyes pinned on my body. His hands running down to my hips with a smile on his face making me nervous.

I moved to remove his clothes but was stopped with a jolt of tightness around my wrists that were tied together above my head. Steven smiled at me and removed his shirt himself. My body wanted to lift my hands up and touch his tanned body but I couldn't.

He removed his pants and boxers making me gulp and feel nerves rush over me. Steven was bigger than I was expecting. He kissed my forehead and the sweet Steven came back to me for a second.

"You ready? We can stop anytime you want" he smiled and I nodded in return feeling looked after.

He realised he didn't have protection but I smiled to tell him it's alright and his cock rubbed on my clit making me grip the cuff around my wrists.

His cock slowly pushing inside of me making me moan and pull tighter on the cuff. He stretched me out perfectly making pleasure flood threw me. Steven kissed my lips passionately as he pushed it all the way in causing me to moan into the kiss.

"Mm Steven you make me feel so good" I moaned out feeling so flustered and shy underneath him.

Steven's pace fastened as he gripped onto my hips definitely leaving a mark.

"Fuck- Steven.." I moaned as I felt myself orgasm once more but Steven didn't slow down, overstimulating me.

He placed my legs on his shoulders and pounded into me moans from me and his grunts was all that could be heard, featuring the sounds of are skin clapping.

Soon we were laying together me on his chest catching our breaths with a smile. He kissed my forehead and I looked up at him kissing his plump lips.

#steven grant #moonkight #marvel imagines #marvel #marc spector #mr knight

[milo-is-rambling]

The picky eater/adhd food hyperfixation/autism rage I feel right now cannot possibly be described oh my god. You know when you’re the only person who gets something at a grocery store near you. Like you KNOW. no one else is buying that product. You can tell. People recognize that YOU are the one buying that. And then your food fixation wears off and you never want to see that food again. So for a month you don’t buy it. And then you are so sick of all the other foods you eat and you think oh you know what sounds good. That thing I haven’t eaten in a month. So you go to order it from the grocery store. It’s not there. Not that it’s sold out. Not that it’s not in stock anymore. It’s just gone. Like it never existed. You bought five of those a week for MONTHS. And you don’t buy it for two months and THEY TAKE IT OFF THE SHELVES. I COULD KILL GOD WITH THE RAGE THAT HARBORS INSIDE OF ME. WALMART GIVE ME MY GOD DAMN GREAT VALUE CHICKEN BROCCOLI ALFREDO FROZEN MEALS THEY ARE THE ONLY GOD DAMN THING I EAT WITH MEAT IN THEM I HAVE TO HAVE THEM IM LOSING MY MIND WHAT THE FUCK WHY WOULD YOU TAKE THEM OFF THE ENTIRE FUCKING SITE IVE BOUGHT THAT MEAL HUNDREDS OF TIMES DO YOU JUST HATE ME SPECIFICALLY WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS TO ME OH MY GOD I WANT TO PEEL MY SKIN OFF MY BODY AND STAND IN A HAIL STORM UNTIL I TURN TO A PUDDLE OF VISCERA. AHHHHHHHHHGG !!!!!!!!! Breathing. Breathing. Okay. This is fine. Everything is great. I’m not mad. This is not a last straw on an already obnoxiously emotional day this is fine everything is fine 👍👍👍👍👍👍 we are great 👍👍👍👍 we love when the only thing we can consistently control is changed without any consulting we love when habits change we love when one of the few comforts you have are taken away from you we love it hahahahahahaga this is all fine WE ARE FINE

#I want to throw myself into the sea

[antiloreolympus]

14 Anti LO Asks

1. The nepotism in LO is so bad, and also gets justified. Minthe is literally getting replaced by Persephone, despite literally being dependent on Hades for living. Hades is repeating the same cycle with Persephone, as well. The only difference is Persephone does zero work and gets everything, but Minthe actually does her job. The entire scene before Minthe turned into a plant just rubs me the wrong way and shows how possessive Hades is over his lover's lives. P is in the same state as M, but rich.

2. I’m curious to see if the later LO books will be honest and at least credit each artist who actually had to do the work for Rachel, because if not that will be really shitty to claim that’s all her work when it’s clearly not. I would also hope they’d get some residuals from the books sales too since that’s their work being sold at a much higher price, but something tells me Rachel isn’t going to do that, just off her history of low pay in working for her in general. 

3. My new fav defense of LO is claiming its actually diverse because “the whole cast is made of people of color”

Yes, they’re unironically claiming being pink and blue is now the same as being BIPOC, and Rachel is now the most diverse creator ever for it. I hate these white kids so much lmao. 

4. I just realized Persephone has told everyone about her trauma EXCEPT her therapist asfgjakdh WHY CAN'T RACHEL JUST FUCKING HAVE HER TALK ABOUT IT IN A SAFE SPACE WITH A TRAINED PRACTICIONER? THAT ONE SESSION WITH THE THERAPIST COULD HAVE SO MUCH MORE POTENTIAL AND INSTEAD IT WAS A ONE TIME THING.

But no, instead she's forced to talk about it with someone who she's known for a month, whose only reason to be attracted to her is his lust (anything aside from that is bullshit, there's no chemistry between them, and their "relationship" had literally no time to progress in any way that's healthy) AND SHE WON'T EVEN TELL HER MOTHER. DEMETER SHOULD BE THE FIRST PERSON SHE OPENS UP TO (if at all) NOT THE PINK GUY WHO DRUGGED HER AND PUT HER IN A STRANGER'S CAR, OR HADES WHO MEANS NOTHING TO HER COMPARED TO THE RELATIONSHIP SHE HAS WITH HER MOTHER.

5. It’s just wild to me that even ancient sources of mythology all made a point the gods loved and cared for humanity and mortals yet LO claims to be “modern” and “progressive” and has the gods not caring about them and even being openly ok with their mass murder and torture because of any little annoyance they may have. Even this trial is more focused on trying (and tbh, failing) to make you feel bad for Persephone over the thousands of innocent people she murdered! Only like three farmers were responsible for the nymphs who died, yet we’re supposed to be on persephone’s side for murdering countless innocent people? How is this “modern” with modern values? 

6. The sexualization in the early part of LO is ... odd, but not too offensive. It's post her being r//ped and she's still being sexualized to an extremes especially by Hades and even when she's alone, is what I take massive issue with. I'm not saying a victim can't be confident in their body, especially if helps them reclaim their autonomy, but Rachel even admitted Persephone has no idea she's being viewed this way, so it's just Rachel using Persephone's body as something to ogle at and that's it.

7. ok but the "rachel has put years in lo" is actually a worse excuse bc that means shes spent so much time on it and its still bad? like thats actually a negative, not a positive.

8. lo must be having slumping numbers or something if theyve kept it on banner for over three days now. they never do this unless LO needs a bump back up. dont they have other series that need the promotion way more than one with millions of subscribers?

9. webtoons is now forcing lo on banner for literal days now while completely ignoring hooky is getting countess award noms for being one of the best graphic novels of the year. go figure they need to appease the white lady's ego on her mediocre product thats still doing fine (are the numbers declining behind the scenes or something? why the promo out of nowhere?) while the mexican woman's comic is actually making huge strides without webtoons' help or them even mentioning it exists 😒

10. i absolutely hate that line of poseidon pointing out an emotional affair is just as bad as a physical one because not only is it immediately undercut as a "joke" by poseidon being dumb, but its literally rachel ADMITTING hades & persephone are cheating with each other but its ok and we're supposed to cheer it on because its against minthe? the woman who was actually trying to make the relationship work and was being exclusive with hades while he cheated on her with his teenage intern? no thanks.

11. at this point i just want to see what other gods rachel tears down for hxp. how much more stupid can she get with it. at this point even dionysus will be made evil to make them look better.

12. Btw I don't really understand what kind of punishment people want for Persephone like yeah she should get one for killing innocent people in the town, but the ones who picked the flowers were guilty? I'm just genuinely curious, bc in my opinion she should get therapy and controlling powers courses.

13. Hera is awful. Not only does she quickly stop worrying about the age gap of HxP, she's an elitist.  She is written like she never cared for Zeus and only about being Queen of Gods. She cheats on him with Hades too, which goes against everything myth Hera was, and is so stupid. It just makes her a hypocrite. She's also racist to nymphs and rude to lower class citizens. Any good she does it outclassed by selfishness and bias towards Persephone. Guilt tripping w/ Hebe is weird but she does it often

-----

From OP: This next ask mentions the Rittenhouse case so I’d recommend skipping if it’s triggering for you /srs

14. TW: //shootings

Nah, this trial makes total sense. Persephone is a spoiled little rich girl who Rachel casts as white, everyone from the media to the jury and even judge Zeus is being super lenient to her and making any excuse on the book to get her off while she cries on the stand she’s “so sowwy” and she gets away with literal mass murder and won’t suffer a day of actual consequence for the pain and suffering she’s caused so many. We just saw this exact circumstance happen with Rittenhouse, the problem is Rachel thinks she’s the progressive and feminist one because it’s a girl getting away with her mass murder over a boy.

From OP: I get where you’re coming from but I will say that the context make this way different especially since LO’s world has different rules and Persephone didn’t mean to kill (most of) the mortals. I do agree that she shouldn’t get away with what she did though.

#anti lo #anti lore olympus #lore olympus critical #lo critical

[angellesword]

YOUR EYES TELL | JJK (03)

Summary: You live in a world where people see in black and white. The solution to finally see the colors? It's simple. You need to meet your soulmate and look at him in the eyes, but what if the person bound to you is already contented with the monochromatic world? What if...Jeongguk, your soulmate, is already in love with someone else?

Alternatively;

"A future without you is a world without color."

Genre: soulmate au, e2l, slow burn, angst, fluff, roommate au

Pairing: Artist!Jungkook x Lawyer!Reader

Word Count: 2.4k

SERIES: CHAPTER 2 | CHAPTER 4

Note: OC is a lawyer but the author knows nothing about law except the three law subjects she took last semester. errors. ah. there will always be errors here bc english isn’t my first language. anyway!!! enjoy!

Jimin wasn't lying when he said you were a mess. This was evident to Jeongguk the second he stepped inside your apartment.

Pile of cardboard boxes and papers were cluttered all over the floor, causing him to feel uneasy. The faint colors visible in his eyes didn't help to calm his nerves. It was as if he suddenly became hypersensitive to his surroundings.

He assumed that your house wasn't really that untidy, but as stated, the colors made it seem like it was untidier.

"Hi there, buddy." Jeongguk forced a smile at the cat glaring at him. He remembered Jimin telling him that your cat was a bitch. The fury pet was making this strange, scary sound. Jeongguk suddenly wished you were here to stop the cat from attacking him.

He wasn't expecting you to lock yourself inside your room the moment you realized that he was your soulmate.

He was so startled by your reaction that his first instinct was to run after you. The thing was, your cat was blocking your bedroom door—stopping him from intruding your personal space. It was obvious that the little animal didn't like the fact that Jeongguk invited himself inside your home.

Jeongguk didn't know why you were hiding from him. In your defense, you were embarrassed. What were you supposed to say to your soulmate? How were you going to explain to him that the reason why you looked like a mess was because of your demanding job?

Being a civil lawyer was exhausting. One second you're negotiating settlement with the other side's attorney, then you would just find yourself filing motions in court and of course, there were many instances where you're standing before the jury and judge to present a case.

Expertise wasn't the only thing necessary in law. You also needed a great amount of empathy so that you could understand your clients. You cared for them a lot; this was why it was such a big deal for you whenever they choose to omit facts.

You hated it when your clients were being dishonest, you didn't need them to be innocent. You only wanted them to tell you the absolute truth so that you could properly defend them. It wasn't like your job was easy. The fact that most people living in your world see in black and white was already a pain in the ass. Earlier this day, you had a client who was suing a businessperson for selling fake whitening products. She claimed that she spent a whopping two thousand dollars to get that fair skin tone. Sadly, it didn't work.

The opposing side asked your client this: how can you say that the products don’t work when you can’t even see colors?

You were shocked to learn this. Your client was subject to a color test for eyes. She said she could see colors when in fact, she couldn't. Actually, the only reason why the vendor sold your client the whitening products was because she also lied to the seller. The latter's rule was that she wouldn't allow people who see in black and white to purchase her products. This was so she could protect her business' image from fraudster like your client.

Things like this often happened in court. The one you encountered were usually easier to resolve, unlike what criminal lawyers face. This, however, didn't mean your job should be taken lightly.

What happened in court today actually took a toll on you. Your boss humiliated you in front of your colleagues, saying that he couldn't believe an experienced lawyer like you would make such rookie mistake. This made you feel like a loser that's why you decided to go home early to rest. You knew you couldn't work when your heart was this heavy.

You ran yourself a bath the moment you reached your apartment. Jimin was bombarding your phone with text messages to remind you that Jeongguk, a friend of his, was going to drop at your place later today since he was interested to be your roommate.

You simply replied 'Yes, I haven't forgotten. Stop pestering me,' to your best friend. Truthfully, Jimin hadn't shut up about this guy named Jeongguk since last week. He kept telling you that he was the perfect replacement for Seulgi, your former roommate.

You just shrugged it off. Honestly, you didn't care if Jeongguk was the perfect roommate or not. At this point, you would take anyone in. You seriously needed someone who could help you with the household chores.

The warm water grazing your skin made you feel sleepy. Before you knew it, you're off to dreamland; however, your little slumber was disrupted by loud knocks coming from your front door.

"Shit!" Your eyes went wide upon realizing that your supposed to be new roommate was already at the door. As if to confirm the horror, your phone rang.

Jimin was calling.

"Where the hell are you? Jeongguk is in front of your door!"

"I know. I'm so sorry! I fell asleep." You got out of the tub, hurriedly putting on your bathrobe.

"Talk to you later!" You ended the voice call, rushing towards the door. Unfortunately, you slipped on the wet floor.

You whined in pain. Luck was truly not on your side today, but instead of getting annoyed, you simply stood up and went your way to the door.

"I'm sorry, I was in the shower. I swear I heard you the first time you knocked, but I was panicking so I slipped down the floor and I..." You were already blabbering right after opening the door. You hadn't seen your future roommate's face because it was easier to lie without looking at someone in the eyes.

You didn't know why you told him you heard his first knock, when in reality, you didn't. You guessed you just hated disappointing people. What happened with your boss today was something you couldn't let to be repeated again. You couldn't bear to irritate another person.

You kept yourself busy as you reasoned out. You ran your hand through your wet hair, eyes widening when you saw your fingers covered in soap suds.

"Oh, my God!" You were panicking again. This time, you finally looked at Jeongguk to see his reaction.

It was like the world stopped.

No. You did not see colors instantly. What you felt was something strange—mystical perhaps. It was just like how they described it in books and movies.

You thought people were exaggerating about what they claimed they felt when they met their soulmates.

Apparently, they were not.

You know the feeling of finally seeing the rainbow after the strong storm? It was like that. Except this was way better. Your young self was probably rejoicing now. Being able to meet and look in your soulmate's eyes was dazzling.

The colors were becoming visible now, it was faint—this was in contrast to the embarrassment you were feeling.

You suddenly became very self-conscious with what you looked like. You were wrong. Your young self wasn't that happy because she wasn't expecting to meet her soulmate like this.

You were aware that you looked awful. The bags under your bloodshot eyes were probably so deep. The soap suds in your hair made you appear ridiculous. The most horrifying of all? You were wearing a bathrobe designed with the face of your favorite cartoon character.

"Uh—"

You ran away, locking yourself in your room before Jeongguk could finish what he was about to say.

Your heart was beating so fast as you stared in the mirror. The disgust you felt intensified. God. You looked horrible. You mentally cursed the brand of the mascara you were wearing. So much for claiming to be smudge proof! Curse yourself too because this wouldn't happen in the first place if you only refrained from crying over your boss' mean words, but it seemed like you never learned. You just scolded yourself from crying easily, but here you were, tears were painting your cheeks once again.

"No..." Your lips quivered. You were stronger than this. You weren't going to ruin your chance with your soulmate.

Determined, you quickly changed into a sage dress. Your hands were trembling because of your new found excitement. You loved colors ever since you were a kid. The fact that you couldn't see them didn't stop you from learning its meaning. You studied good color combination before. You were aware how to aesthetically match the hues. For instance, you knew that you would look ridiculous if you wore a neon green shirt and bright pink jeans. You were always careful in choosing what to wear, so now that you could finally see colors without referring to your color palette generator, you were beyond happy.

When you looked decent enough, you decided to finally face your soulmate. The first thing you saw as you opened your bedroom door was Jeongguk sitting on your couch—this was a very shocking scene. No. You weren't surprised because he was casually plopped down on your sofa, what you didn't expect was to see Miri, your bitch of a cat, to be so comfortable on Jeongguk's lap. Your pet looked at peace; the usual hiss she was making was replaced by a silent purring. Her bambi eyes mirrored your soulmate's same big, doe eyes.

You cleared your throat to get Jeongguk's attention.

"I let myself in, I hope you don't mind." You couldn't decipher what he was feeling. Jeongguk's voice was soft, but there was no hint of emotion there. His expression was also unreadable.

Jeongguk tore his gaze away from you when he realized that you were staring. As if this wasn't already awkward for him, you went on to say something that made him more uncomfortable.

"I've been waiting so long to meet you! Are you going to move in with me now?" You plopped down beside Jeongguk, squeezing your body between him and the arm of your sofa. Miri hissed since she was astounded by your sudden action. Actually, Jeongguk was surprised too. Your couch was pretty spacious; he didn't understand why you had to press yourself beside him.

Jeongguk also didn't know why you sounded so hopeful. The sparks in your eyes caused him to scowl; however, this didn't stop you from speaking your hopeless thoughts.

"We could do a lot of things together! I had planned everything since I was young!" You giggled. You didn't know why you were so comfortable telling him things. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that you two were soulmates.

However Jeongguk was confused with your weird idea of wanting to do all of this romantic stuff with him. The uneasiness he felt couldn't be contained anymore when you abruptly talked about dating—as in dating him.

"Whoa, whoa..." He cut you off, arching his brow and moving away from you. "Slow down, will you? I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Oh." You blushed, immediately realizing that you had gone too far. "I'm sorry I got carried away. I was just excited to meet you." You couldn't help but beam at him.

Jeongguk continued to raise his brow at you.

"Why? Are you really that desperate to find a roommate?"

It was your turn to raise a brow at him.

"N-No, I just..." You breathed in, unsure of what to say. "I'm just happy to finally meet my soulmate."

"Soulmate?"

You flinched because of the bitterness in his voice. His innocent eyes turned dark, he was glaring at you. Miri was startled once more. She jumped on your lap because she was getting scared of Jeongguk.

"I'm sorry to break it to you, but I don't believe in soulmates." The word 'soulmate' sounded so rough coming from him, making you flinch again.

Many people had told you that you were good at gauging the feelings of other people, this was why your heart skipped a beat when you saw pain and anger crossed Jeongguk's feature. It was as if he was betrayed by someone.

"It's the most absurd thing I've heard in my entire life. Only stupid people believe in soulmates. I mean—" Jeongguk sucked in a breath. He was so annoyed that he didn't even know how to express his thoughts without breaking apart. "It's limiting the possibilities for people. Why am I required to fall in love with someone I barely know? Why should I leave the person I truly love just because a person meant to be the love of my life," he paused, quoting the words love of my life in the air. "Helped me see colors? It's like forcing me to do something I don't—no, I can't do. It's such a burden. Love can't be bought. I refuse to be with people just because they helped me."

There was silence after Jeongguk's long speech of the reasons why he didn't—or as what he claimed—couldn't love you.

Jeongguk wetted his bottom lip. The silence was making him hate himself. He hated himself because he saw the tears forming in your eyes, an obvious sign that you were hurt because of what he said. But most importantly, he hated you.

It was unlikely of him to hate someone he just met—or to simply hate anyone at all, but everything about you was making him mad as hell.

He hated your hopeful eyes, he hated your beliefs, he hated that you were the person hindering him from being with Red.

He knew it was unfair to blame you since Red chose to leave on her own, but he still couldn't help himself because the idea of soulmate was what urged her to leave.

You were Jeongguk's soulmate and for him, it meant nothing. So with a furrowed brow, he stared hard at you as he said this:

"I'm making you choose right now. Either accept me as Jeongguk, your tenant or Jeongguk, your soulmate. But just so you know, I will never stay with you if you treat me like a soulmate."

His word stung, though you were aware that the only way to make him stay was to choose the former option. At least this way, you got to be with your soulmate.

The colors you see were starting to fade away and it was okay...

#jungkook #jungkook fanfic #jungkook fluff #jungkook angst #ficswithluv #bangtan angst #bangtan ships #jungkook x y/n #jungkook x reader #jungkook x you #jungkook enemies to lovers #jungkook friends to lovers #jungkook roommate au #jungkook soulmate au #jungkook fic

[nevermindirah]

Dorothy Freeman facts

By facts I of course mean headcanons, because Nile's mom doesn't get a first name in canon (or even confirmation that her last name is Freeman). All we know about her is the picture on Nile's phone lock screen (which is Kiki Layne's real-life mom and brother!) and a few lines that Nile tells Andy about her. I’ve been collecting my Dorothy headcanons for a while now to eventually make a post, and @mprosperossprite​‘s excellent post giving non-Americans context for what it means that Nile is from the South Side of Chicago prompted me to go ahead and share this. Disclaimer that I’m white and I will absolutely make corrections if it’s pointed out that I’ve caused harm with any of this.

So here have some fun facts about the version of Mama Freeman who lives in my head rent-free:

Her family and growing up:

she was born in the mid-'60s and named after Dorothy Dandridge

I can’t decide whether she was born in Chicago or moved there later on (maybe with Nile’s dad?) and when in the waves of the Great Migration her family left the South

she came of age in the "post"-Civil Rights movement and went to college in the mid-80s when a lot of what are now the foundational classics of Black feminism were being written

she was a young adult when Anita Hill risked so much to report that a Supreme Court nominee had sexually harassed her, and as a result she HATES Joe Biden

Marriage and babies:

she met Nile's father — I can’t decide how they met and I have two competing headcanons for his name, either Gideon for the hefty Biblical masculinity vibes (Giddy for short among family, that man loved to laugh) or Carl, which started out as a shitty Carl’s Jr burger chain joke that turns out to be perfect (it means free man!), and @knoepfchen​ used it in the sequel to if you do take a thief where Carl is alive!! — and Dorothy was a little skeptical of his near-religious devotion to the military but he was really hot and really devoted to her and they made it work

she's a little pissed that she was right but it's unbearable if she thinks about it too often

it's going to be a long, long time before she can look back on pictures of Baby Nile stomping around the house in her dad's combat boots (this is a Gina Prince Bythewood headcanon, whyyyyyyyy can I not find a link to where she said this)

she named their second baby Indus, Indy for short (this is nearly as established fanon in Book of Nile circles as how much Booker loves eating pussy, and Indy Freeman as a young adult is portrayed by either Aldis Hodge or John Boyega I don’t make the rules)

Work:

Dorothy did some office jobs but nothing really grabbed her, and she was probably gonna have to move for her husband's career, so she decided on teaching — high school humanities

she’s been active in CTU (one of the strongest teacher’s unions in the US) her whole career and one year she was on the bargaining committee and her babies know damn well never to trust a boss, not even one who says all the right things — if she ever finds out the way Nile said "like Quynh?" when Andy promised to protect her, she will lose her mind with pride

(Nile was 18 and freshly graduated from high school in 2012 when CTU went on strike for the first time in a generation and she brought her mom snacks on the picket line)

one of her very favorite things is getting her students to laugh despite themselves at her "oh my GOD you're so EMBARRASSING" old-people jokes

she's one of those teachers who can get 30+ teenagers to go dead silent with judicious application of body language

she's known to occasionally go easy on grading subjective things like essays when she knows students are having a particularly rough time at home, but the second she gets the feeling they're taking advantage and not trying their best that shit is over and they better mind their Ps & Qs

she's the kind of person who says old-people shit like that

she gives her students assignments like "help 5 neighbors register to vote" and "write a compare/contrast table about the candidates in this local election" and "research 5 different ways you could get grant money to do X" and other practical civic-minded shit

standardized testing is her supervillain origin story, just kidding it’s Rahm Emanuel, why the fuck did Obama trust that asshole

After her husband died:

she would have lost her goddamn mind if it weren't for her church friends after her husband died, people from the church raised money so they could make ends meet while his pension paperwork was taking forever, church friends watched Indy so Nile could go out for the soccer team, etc etc

she sold her and her late husband's house and moved to a 3-bedroom co-op unit when Nile started high school, it's more affordable and it meant she didn't have to worry about household repairs in the same way, she can use a wrench if she needs to but she doesn't have time and it just makes her grief flare up (co-op housing has a long history in Chicago and other US cities (like Washington DC where I live) as a way for Black people to access decent, affordable housing in the face of entrenched discrimination)

the move meant putting a longer commute between her and church, but she didn't even bother looking for a church closer to their new home, she loaded the kids into the car on the weekends, parking is hell in their new neighborhood but it's worth giving up a hard-won parking spot to not have to wait so long for the L on Sunday mornings

Indy lived with her through college and he was gearing up to get his own place when Nile died, Dorothy was planning to move into a one-bedroom in the co-op building because she doesn't need so much space anymore, Indy took a day off from his new job (not so new anymore, her baby's so grown!) to help her sort things to donate when those dress-uniform Marines came to their door

part of her wishes she could've been home more and not had to rely on Nile so much for help with Indy, but he's turned out such a kind young man, and he's a much better cook than his sister is (was, oh God — no wait, is! she’s alive! what do you mean you’ve been alive all this time??)

some of the girls from church are encouraging her to check out this social dancing thing, nobody's pressuring her to date but there's definitely been some ribbing, and with Indy out of the house... maybe? probably not, but maybe

Her feelings and beliefs and likes and dislikes:

she's an absolute badass and also she's a soft human woman with lots of feelings

she's very, very traditional in some ways, and part of her mixed feelings about Nile following in her dad's footsteps is gender stuff, she's proud of her daughter and would never stand in the way of what Nile wants to do with her life, and if Nile came home and told her she's a lesbian she would never reject her, but if Nile came home and told her she's bisexual maybe she can just try focusing on men? “I love you sweetheart and I want you to be happy I just know how hard it is already for us in this world” type shit

she has been on team natural hair basically her entire life and one of the worst fights she and Nile ever had was over Nile wanting to straighten her hair as a pre-teen

Indy takes more after her and Nile takes more after their dad, she's so proud of both of them, but Dorothy's activism was mostly wearing her natural hair to work and daring bosses to give her shit, Indy's out there marching in the streets like her parents had and she WORRIES

she teases Indy for going to so many protests like he's using it as an excuse to meet girls, but she WORRIES

when she turns 60, she gets box braids with streaks of dark purple, subtle enough that it's still work-appropriate but it makes her smile, she may be old now but damnit she’s still pretty!

she loves Grey's Anatomy and Star Trek and she watched Bridgerton all in one day

she has a dirty-old-lady celebrity crush on Chris Hemsworth

if she's ever masturbated thinking about Donna Summer, well, that's nobody's business but her own (do non-Americans know about the queen of disco??)

If you want to read fic featuring Dorothy:

I won't have to leave alone, 1000 words, Nile has a nightmare and decides to go tell her family she's immortal

I See Your Eyes Seek a Distant Shore, 65k, Nile adjusts to immortality and does a lot of soul searching about what it means to "do what we think is right", Booker goes to grad school for trauma studies, the working title of this fic was Booker Reads Edward Said and Gloria Anzaldúa and Goes Down on Nile and the final product has an annotated bibliography in the author's notes if you’re into that kind of thing, a lot of my Dorothy Freeman headcanons were born of my process writing this

Gather round the table, we'll give you a treat, 2279 words, college AU, Nile brings her Jewish boyfriend home for Christmas

a contribution I made to Shitty Old Guard Deaths: (Booker, USA, 2025, cause of death: a mother’s righteous wrath)

#nile freeman #nile's family #dorothy freeman #tog headcanons #tog meta #mine #long post

[wrenhyperfixates]

Opening Night

Pairing: Loki x reader Summary: When Loki scores the lead in a production of West Side Story, the two of you become fast friends. You help convince him to face his fears and invite the Avengers to see the show. Warnings: a bit of innuendo, fluffy, and extremely self-indulgent A/N: It isn’t necessary to know the plot of West Side Story to read this, but I still recommend you guys check it out. They made it into a movie that’s pretty much the same as the stage version. And if you’re interested in the songs I used in this, they’re here and here. Also, idk if this is common knowledge, but a stage manager is the person in charge of tech, set changes, and all that jazz. Theater has always been a huge part of my life, so I definitely wrote this with myself in mind but I hope you can all enjoy too!

Permanent Tag List: @lucywrites02​​ @frostedgiant​​ @lunarmoon8​​ @twhiddlestonsstuff​​ @lokistan​​ @lowkeyorlokificrecs​​ @gaitwae​​ @whatafuckingdumbass​​ @castiels-majestic-wings​​ @kozkaboi​​ @cozy-the-overlord​​ @birdgirl90​​ @myraiswack​​​ @mythicalgarlicknot​​ @what-a-flammable-heart​ @mlqcikemenmc​

Disclaimer: Picture not mine.

He looked so beautiful up there on that stage, you thought. He almost didn’t get the part either; Auggie, the director, had been worried that putting the God of Mischief in the lead role would be bad for business. You’d fought for him, though, and you’d been right; tickets were nearly sold out once people found out an Avenger was performing. Besides that, Loki was extremely talented, and you were certain no one else could have carried the role quite so well as he had been. It was a definite plus that he had become a very close friend, too. And you maybe, just maybe, had a tiny crush on him.

“It’s getting late,” you said once he finished singing, applauding as you walked out of the wings. Everyone else had already gone home, so it was just you and Loki. He’d wanted to stay and practice a bit more, and as stage manager, you had to stay to lock the place up. “Are you ready to head out?”

He looked out at the empty seats in the audience of the community theater. You wondered why he hadn’t tried out for off-Broadway, or even Broadway itself; he was certainly talented enough. Somehow, he didn’t see it. You could still remember the look of excitement on his face when you officially met him for the first time. How he’d told you he hadn’t been expecting the lead role. It hadn’t been what he’d tried out for, after all. You assured him that in this production of West Side Story, it was a clear choice who should play Tony. Him. Your friendship moved rapidly after that.

“I do not know, darling,” he replied. “Opening night is this week, and I want to make sure I am as good as I can be. If you would like to lock up and leave, I can just teleport home.”

“No. If you’re staying, I’m staying.” He smiled as you put your bag down and sat on one of the wooden blocks you’d painted weeks before. “Don’t you think you should give your voice a break, though?”

“Ah you forget darling, I have the stamina of a god,” he replied with a wink. You averted your eyes, hating where your mind went after that statement. “Besides, I have been resting it at home.”  

“Fine, but I swear if you lose your voice, I’m not helping you break the news to Auggie,” you giggled.

He chuckled, “Fair enough, darling.”

Convinced that he could handle it, you let him play the track and start singing. As he practiced his part from the Quintet, he walked over and knelt before you. You were certain the expression of complete adoration on his face was just good acting, but it still made your heart flutter. As the music crescendoed, he stood up and offered you his hand, taking you to center stage. He kept singing to you the whole time, his hand coming to caress your cheek as was dictated by his choreography. Again, you knew that’s all it was, but the butterflies in your stomach didn’t care.

As the song ended, he didn’t immediately move to turn off the music like he usually did. Instead, he stood where he was a minute more, one hand cupping your cheek, the other on your waist. A kiss most certainly wasn’t supposed to happen here, but you swore he started to lean in towards you. Afraid to break the spell, you didn’t say anything. When the next song started playing, he came out of whatever trance he was in and moved back, clearing his throat.

“Sorry,” he apologized, the faintest of blushes coloring his cheeks. “I just got lost in the song, I suppose.”

“Oh, uh, yeah,” you replied, rocking back and forth on your heels, disappointed. “It’s fine, I totally get it.”

After turning off all the lights, the two of you finally left, stopping for a coffee on the way home, as had become tradition. You laughed as he told you a story of his childhood on Asgard, animatedly waving his hand about. Waiting for a light at a crosswalk, your phone chimed, and you checked it.

“Shoot. I got to go, Loki,” you informed him. “The copy place finished with the playbills, and I should run to pick them up before it closes. I don’t wan’t to hold you up, though.”

“Nonsense,” he said, changing direction to walk back the way you’d came. “It would be my honor to accompany you.”

You made it just in time to pick up the box, which was heavy enough that you swallowed your pride and let Loki carry it. Since it was cheaper to just fold and staple the pages yourself, you had quite a bit of work ahead of you. Sure, you’d get the rest of the crew to help you tomorrow, but you wanted to get a jump start tonight. You told Loki as much when you’d started the trek back in the direction of your apartment, and his answer surprised you.

“Why not come to the Tower? I can help you put them together,” he offered.

“Oh,” you replied, the butterflies in your stomach returning. “I wouldn’t want to impose.”

“It would be no trouble to have you, darling. Really.” It was already dark out, making it hard to see, but you were pretty sure he was blushing again. “It is much closer than your home. Of course, there is no pressure to say yes.”

You shyly smiled at him. “Thank you, Loki. That’s very generous. I would love to come.”

The smile he gave you could have lit up the whole city, it was so bright. It was probably silly to be so happy that you could make his face light up like that, but you couldn’t help it. That was when you realized that your little crush had turned into something much, much more. You were falling in love with him. You were convinced it was unrequited though, so you wouldn’t say anything. You just hoped that you’d stay in touch once the show was done and rehearsals stopped.

Everyone knew of Avenger Tower, of course, but few had ever been inside. You marveled at the massive lobby as he led you to a private elevator that said “Avengers Only”. It made sense, you thought, that they should have their own if they lived here. And of course it was so high tech that it had to scan his eye to start working. He chuckled a little at the amazement on your face, thinking you looked absolutely adorable.

“Ok,” he whispered as you stepped out of the lift. “I am sure most of the team is asleep by now, so if we just slip past and-”

“Brother!” Thor boomed, cutting off Loki. “There you are! You’ve been gone all day- Oh. And who is this?” he asked, noticing you.

You introduced yourself, and Thor shook your hand with a firm grip. Even though you’d already known Loki for months now, you were still freaking out a little at meeting another Avenger. Really, how many civilians could say they knew not one, but two superheroes? You nearly lost it when Iron Man and Black Widow rounded the corner.

“Hey, Reindeer Games. You made a friend,” Mr. Stark said. Then he wiggled his eyebrows and added, “Or maybe something more.”

“Oh, shove off, Tony,” Nat said, flicking the side of his head. “You’re ridiculous.”

You introduced yourself to the newcomers, and they asked you to call them by their first names. The only other time you’d been this star struck was, unsurprisingly, when Loki had shown up at the audition. You looked over at Loki, who seemed rather uncomfortable. Though you wanted to chalk it up to him just being nervous his two worlds were colliding, you could tell there was something more to it. You worried for a second that he was embarrassed of you, but you didn’t really think it was that either, certain that notion was just your insecurity getting the better of you.

“Well, we should be going then,” Loki said, ready to retreat to his room.

“Oh, come on,” Tony replied. “That’s no fun. Why don’t you guys join us for a drink in the kitchen?”

You were tempted to say yes, but Loki shifted the box in his hands, reminding you of why you were there in the first place. Besides, if Loki wasn’t feeling up to it, you didn’t want to subject him to socializing. Not to mention an evening alone with him sounded absolutely magical.

“No, it’s fine,” you answered, and Loki sent you an appreciative smile. “We’ve got work to do, anyway.”

“Oh?” Thor questioned. “Does it happen to have something to do with the mystery box my brother is carrying?”

“Actually, yes,” you told him with a smile. “See, they’re playbills for-”

“For the show that they are a stage manager for,” Loki interjected, looking absolutely panicked. “That is all. No more questions needed.”

“Oh, that’s so exciting!” Nat smiled. “Are the tickets available yet? Can we come see it?”

“No, sorry, it is sold out,” Loki replied before you could, an expression of utter befuddlement on your face. “Maybe next time. Now, as we said, we have work to do. Alone.”

“Hey, it’s alright, Reindeer Games,” Tony said, winking, and ushered the others away. “I get what you’re saying. You two kids have fun now.”

Loki’s face was burning from embarrassment as he led you to his quarters. Your mouth dropped open at the sheer size of it. You guessed that after the lobby it shouldn’t have surprised you. Besides how vast it was, it somehow screamed Loki. The green furniture with black and gold accents. The numerous floor to ceiling bookshelves that didn’t have a single inch unoccupied. The carefully crafted decor, often featuring snakes subtly carved into it. And you were completely surrounded by his scent that you could never exactly figure out, but was very distinctly his.

You were brought back to reality by the light thud of the box on a table. As you walked toward him, Loki kept his eyes averted, focusing on taking the stacks of paper out. Standing beside him, you worked in silence for a few minutes until you couldn’t take it anymore, and finally had to ask what was on your mind.

“So, uh, what exactly was all that about?” you inquired.

“Oh, they are just very animated people,” he replied with a shrug. “And Stark is, well, Stark, so he has basically no filter. I am very sorry if they bothered you, darling.”

“That’s very sweet, Loki, but I didn’t mind it at all, actually,” you replied, folding the first playbill together. He snapped his fingers and a couple of staplers appeared on the table. “That’s not really what I was talking about, though.”

“Oh? Whatever did you mean then?”

“Please don’t play dumb,” you begged. The light clicks from the stapler filled the silence of the room as you waited for him to reply. When he didn’t say anything, you sighed. “I mean, why didn’t you say you had the lead in the show that these are for? In fact, why haven’t you told them about it already?”

He shrugged and made a noncommittal mumble, focusing on the repetitive task in hopes of distracting himself. You stopped working in favor of resting your hand atop his. It made Loki stop, too, and he finally looked you in the eye.

“Look,” you began. “You obviously don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to; I understand, and I’d never want to pressure you into something that would make you uncomfortable. But I know you bottle a lot of things up, and that’s not really healthy. So if you do want or need to talk... I don’t know, I guess I just want you to know that I’m here for you.”

Then you hugged him. The simple action seemed to startle him so much that you feared it was unwanted and you’d been too forward. But when he hugged you back, you could feel the gratitude in his embrace, easing your worries. It was like he was holding onto you for dear life. As if you you were a lifesaver, and he was adrift at sea. It was a tense sort of desperation leaving his body, you realized, as he sank against your touch. You gently rubbed his back as his head nuzzled into the crook of your neck. You’d always thought he might be touch starved, but now you could feel it in the way he practically molded his body against yours, obviously trying to make the most of the contact. You wondered if that may have something to do with why he kept West Side Story a secret. Maybe he’d been neglected too many times in his life, now thinking the things he does don’t matter to anyone.

“I suppose I am just scared, darling. Scared that they would not want to come, that they would make fun of me, that I would fail in front of them,” he sighed. “Perhaps it is silly. I am sorry.”

“Oh, Loki, there’s no need to apologize. I meant what I said, I’m here for you.” You didn’t think it was possible, but he held you even closer. “Everyone gets stage fright from time to time. And you’ve never even performed before. Whatever the reason, it’s still perfectly valid and understandable.”

“Thank you, darling,” he sniffled, and you realized he was crying.

Leading him over to the couch, you sat and continued to hold him. You whispered and cooed calming things in his ear. He tried to apologize for the tear stains marking your shirt, but you were having none of that. Everyone deserved a good crying session every once in a while, and you told him as much, encouraging him to let it out.

“Better?” you asked, wiping away the last few tears from his cheeks when he did finally calm down. There were some stray locks of hair sticking to his wet face, and you brushed them away, too.

“Mhm,” he nodded. He looked so fragile in this moment that you wished there was something more you could do to help him. “Thank you so much, darling. I think I needed that.”

You were worried that kissing the tip of his nose would be too intimate an action, but you couldn’t help yourself. You were very happy when he preened under the attention. “You’re very welcome, Loki.”

“I must ask, you are not going to tell them, are you? That I have the lead, I mean.”

“Well, no.” You ran your fingers through his hair as he sighed in relief. “But you should.”

“Do I have to?” he asked, giving you puppy dog eyes that made you chuckle a bit.

“I mean, it’s not required. I think you’d feel better if you did, though.”

“I suppose.”

“From what I can see, they love you, Loki,” you comforted him. “They’re your family, don’t you think?”

“How is it that you always know what to say?” he smiled up at you.

“I guess I’m just magic,” you laughed. He made to get up, but it seemed like it was a chore to tear himself away from you. You gently pulled him back down to you. “You don’t have to get up. You know, if you don’t want to.”

“I do not, but we hardly put any of the playbills together.” Even as he said that, he cuddled into your side. “I feel guilty taking up all our time.”

“Believe it or not, I’m perfectly happy to spend our time like this,” you reassured him, reaching for a blanket and covering your bodies with it. You’d been so concerned about Loki’s well-being that you hadn’t really contemplated the situation you were in. Now you couldn’t help but wonder if this snuggling was a normal thing for friends to do, or if it were a sign of something more. “I’d much rather help you through whatever’s on your mind than put together some playbills. There’s still plenty of time for that.”

“Thank you again, darling,” he hummed as both of you began to doze off, tired from a long day of run-throughs. As sleep claimed you, though you felt it must have been a dream, you swore you heard him whisper, “I love you.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The rest of the week leading up to opening night was so hectic, you barely even had a second to dwell on that night with Loki. It was probably better that way, for if you had thought too hard about that morning, waking up in each other's arms, you were certain your heart would burst from happiness. So, no, it was better that you were focusing on the show.

“Guess who, darling,” Loki whispered in your ear as you reviewed the script in the wings, making sure everything was set for top of show.

“Loki,” you smiled, spinning to face him and throwing your arm around his shoulders. One of his arms encircled your waste. When you stepped back, his other came around from behind his back to present you with a bouquet of flowers. “Thank you so much! I actually have something for you, too.”

You grabbed the arrangement that you’d bought and gave it to him. You nearly melted under his soft gaze as he expressed his thanks. His makeup was already done, accentuating his already striking beauty. A large part of you wanted to lean forward and kiss his plump, pink lips.

“I have some news,” he declared. “I have told my fellow Avengers about the show. Sort of.”

“Sort of?” you asked, cocking your head.

“Well, I left tickets and a note for them to come tonight.” He nervously shifted his weight. “They do not yet know that they will be watching me perform, though. It was too hard to tell them, so I figured why not show them?”

You beamed at him. “That’s wonderful! I’m so proud of you. You’re going to do amazing.”

There was a slight hesitation behind his eyes, as if he was contemplating something very carefully. “Darling, there is something I have to tell you.”

“Yes?”

Just as he opened his mouth to speak again, the director burst into the wings. “There you are, Loki. I’ve been looking all over for you. Mic checks in five,” he said.

“My apologies, Auggie,” he replied before turning to you and resting a hand on your arm. “We’ll talk later, ok? Have a good show.”

“Thanks. Break a leg,” you nodded as he left, agonized by not knowing what he was going to tell you. You noticed Auggie giving you a look. “What?”

“I swear, you two better kiss before this week is over,” he muttered, leaving the wings shaking his head.

The remainder of the day passed in a blur, and you could hardly believe that it was already time for the show. You’d peeked out before it started and noticed the Avengers sitting in the front row. Those tickets had been sold out for weeks, and you smiled, realizing that Loki had wanted to invite them all along. He just needed a little push to actually do it.

Before Loki walked out onto the stage, you gave his hand a little squeeze. Despite how nervous you knew he was, he gave his best performance yet. After his first song was done, you glanced out at the audience to see the Avengers already giving him a standing ovation. You could see in his eyes how taken aback he was. He waited around in the wings until your set change was done so you could share in his joy. He gave you a quick, tight hug, absolutely radiant.

The rest of the show went perfectly, and Loki stunned the audience every time he stepped on stage. You were beyond happy for him, especially when he received thundering applause during bows. He came and hugged you again as soon as you finished closing the curtain.

“Loki, you were amazing,” you told him.

“Thank you, darling. And your set changes were flawless,” he complimented you in return. “I cannot believe the first show is done already.”

The two of you talked for a minute more before he had to go change out of his costume. You looked out from the stage a little bit later to see the Avengers hugging him and giving him more flowers than you could count. Even from a distance, you could see happy tears welling in his eyes. It made you grin uncontrollably to see him happy like that.

Later that night, you’d told the rest of the cast and crew to go ahead to the diner to celebrate without you, that you’d catch up later. You wanted to stay behind and touch-up a set piece that some paint had slightly chipped off of. Suffice it to say, you were a little startled when a voice cut through what you had presumed to be an empty theater.

“Always you. Every thought I’ll ever know,” Loki began singing his part from Tonight, walking down the aisle towards the stage. “Everywhere I go, you’ll be. All the world is only you and me.”

You chuckled as he ascended the stairs and took your paintbrush from your hand, setting it down on the tarp. He skipped to his next part in the song and began twirling you around the stage. After hearing so many rehearsals, you knew the words by heart and joined in, singing the duet with him. When you reached the dialogue breaking up the song, you stopped dancing, both panting a little.

“Loki,” you laughed. “What are you still doing here? I thought you went to the diner with everyone else.”

“Yes, well, you were not going to be there yet, and I have not had the chance to tell you what I have wanted to all day.”

“Oh my goodness,” you gasped. “I nearly forgot about that in all the excitement of the day. But you have my full attention now. What’s up?”

“I love you,” he said plainly.

You weren’t convinced that this wasn’t a dream or a hallucination of some sorts. But no, he’d said it, clear as day. He loves you. Loki loves you. It was shocking, to say the least. Of course, it was completely welcome, though. In your surprise, you took long enough to formulate a response that his smile faltered a little. His worries were erased when you kissed him, however. The god responded immediately, kissing you back with just as much passion as you did him.

“I love you, too,” you told him just as simply as when he’d said it to you.

After finishing up in the theater, you exited the building. Once outside, Loki couldn’t resist kissing you again before meeting up with the rest of the company. And, being the fluffy sap he was, he absolutely had to tell you he loved you again, this time referencing the show.

“Te adoro,” he said.

You beamed at him again. “Te adoro, Loki.”

#loki x reader #loki x you #loki laufeyson #loki odinson #loki #mcu loki #loki fluff #fluff #mcu fluff #marvel fluff #reader insert #gender netural reader #marvel #mcu #marvel reader insert #marvel fanfiction #loki fanfic #mcu reader insert #loki friggason #loki friggason x reader #loki laufeyson x reader #loki odinson x reader #loki oneshot #marvel oneshot #loki x y/n

[hypo-critic-al]

Korean Frankenstein musical is quite good!

(MY SUBJECTIVE REVIEW)

After two musical adaptations, which are Frankenstein: a new musical and Frankenstein metal opera, I have discovered, not a secret of life as Victor did, but another very nice adaptation of Frankenstein! It’s name is "프랑켄슈타인 뮤지컬" or simply "Frankenstein musical".

I was watching Frankenstein a new musical stuff on YouTube when I stumbled across a Korean Frankenstein video with English subtitles. Maybe I can give it a watch, I thought...

And oh dear, I wanted more!

I don’t understand a single word of Korean but thanks to a few subtitled songs and Google Translate on my side I got to understand some parts of a plot.

Before I explain the plot I have to say that this is a very interesting and fresh take on the book. If you want to know my thoughts on it and what it is about, then you can read further.

(SPOILERS)

(warning! This story talks about murder, abuse of all kind, suicide intention, incest marriage, and other topics that may be triggering and unpleasant for you. You are free to scroll past this post if you want to avoid reading about these. Thank you.)

(The photos used in this post are from various sources, productions, actors etc. They are used to illustrate and show how the musical looks like. I don’t profit from using them.)

THE SCRIPT: Overture plays and we see a man in a lab leaning over a body on a table. Voice of a man and woman try to stop the said man from doing anything further but then a lightning struck outside of a lab and a body on a table sits up.

The whole story begins here:

It’s 1815, Napoleonic Wars are coming to their end, we meet one Henry Dupré: soldier surgeon and body grafter. He values the life of the others, it’s so precious to him that he doesn’t heal only soldiers from his side, but also his enemies. For this, a crime of espionage, he is to be executed and shot.

However, at the last minute, a soldier from higher ranks stops this. It is no one else than Victor Frankenstein. Victor takes Henry to his lab where he presents him his research and a reason he saved Henry: to create a strong, perfect, possibly immortal human soldiers from dead bodies.

Henry is sceptical at first, he doesn’t want to play God, but later agrees and joins this experiment.

The war has ended, the lab is closed before they could finish their project, so both of them are coming to Victor’s hometown: Geneva. People are celebrating the end of the war at the castle of their Mayor Stephen, Victor’s uncle. People are dancing and chatting and soon they start to spread rumours about Victor. Victor’s older sister Ellen and her cousin who also is Victor’s fiancee Julia are trying to prove rumours wrong but it’s too late. Victor leaves the event and goes to Frankenstein’s mansion.

Meanwhile, Julia is sad at the fact that Victor is cold and ignores her, but she still has hope that he will love her like he did before the war.

Henry and Victor continue their experiment in the old Frankenstein’s mansion, but Henry sees that people of Geneva don’t like Victor and hate the name of Frankenstein, so he asks Victor’s sister Ellen about it.

She then tells him a story of their family:

When they were children there was an epidemic. Their mother got ill and their father, a doctor, was unable to cure this sickness. He was so desperate that he started to believe in alchemy and the medical practise of the Middle Ages. Their mother died and young Victor, full of grief and denial, dug up his mother’s body and secretly tried to bring her back to life. Superstitious people, seeing that Frankenstein’s father used strange medieval remedies and seeing the grave of his wife empty, start to think that Frankensteins are witches. They burned down their castle and while escaping, Victor’s father sacrifices his life to save Victor.

Ellen and Victor go to live with their uncle Stephen and their cousin Julia and since then Victor is obsessed with life-creating. Once, he tried his theories and reanimated dead Julia’s dog, who became savage and feral afterwards.

Uncle Stephen doesn’t like Victor and decides to send him to study abroad. He then became a soldier and we know the rest of the story.

Victor is unable to reanimate a body, it seems that the brain cannot withstand the electric current and he needs to find a fresh brain. While drinking at a bar with Henry, Victor’s butler Runge, who was helping them with their experiment, tells them, that he has promised money to a mortician if he provides them recently dead body. However, it seems that a money-blinded mortician killed a young boy whom Victor knew and now wants more money in exchange for the boy’s brain. Victor lost his temper, killed the man and escaped. Henry takes the blame and is soon to be executed.

Runge, Julia and Ellen know the truth about his experiment and Victor’s crime but they doesn’t want to lose him. He tries to tell the court that he is a killer, but Stephen denies it, saying Victor is insane and ill after the war, so the court dismisses his testimony and Henry is sentenced to die under a guillotine.

Victor asks Henry in jail why he sacrificed himself and Henry says that Victor must live to fulfil his dream and that he must finish his experiment in a memory of him.

After his death, Victor takes Henry’s head and uses it as a last part of the Creature whom he brings to life. Runge and Ellen are amazed to see the reanimated Creature but Victor is crazy, he believes that he resurrected Henry.

However, they see the Creature move around weirdly, trying to come closer to his creator. This freaks Runge out and he attacks him, thinking the Creature wants to strangle Victor. Monster tried to defend himself, bit the butler’s neck and Runge died.

Frustrated Victor, seeing that this isn’t his Henry but feral Creature, wants to shot him but the Creature escapes the lab.

Three years later, Victor and Julia are celebrating their wedding. He is still anxious and thinks about Creature. Mayor’s servants then rush to him, announce him that his uncle, Mayor Stephen, has disappeared.

Victor distances himself from guests and that’s when the Creature appears before him.

Monster, who read Victor’s diary, which was in coat which Creature have grabbed before his escape, blames Victor for Henry’s death, he argues that he didn’t want to be created, left alone and later almost killed. Then he tells his story to scared Victor:

The Creature was running from Victor and after some time he found a village. He couldn’t overcome his hunger and decided to eat a dog. Turns out that the dog was of Eva, the wealthy owner of a fighting field and she sends her arena warriors to capture the Creature.

(This is where Google Translator began to fail, so I had to deduce things. When there is something I couldn’t understand, I put a question mark after it.)

The Creature sees Catherine, a servant in said fighting field, being attacked by a bear(?). He kills it and Eva, seeing Creature’s amazing strength, doesn’t punish him, instead she enlists him to her fighting arena as one of the gladiators.

Creature’s whole purpose is to fight with other fighters. Eva and Jacques, Eva’s husband, are constantly punishing and verbally abusing him.

The only person that shows sympathy for Creature is Catherine, who is also abused by her masters, fighters and other people from the arena, to which she was sold at a young age. She cleanses his wounds and she dreams of escaping away, to the North Pole, where there are no people to abuse her. Creature is fascinated by her story and wants to run away, too.

One day Fernando, creditor of the arena, promises that he will free them out of debt if the Creature wins against his fighter. He then approaches Catherine, promising her freedom if she adds strange medicine to Creature’s water. She is blinded by a promised freedom and does so.

The Creature is defeated in a fight, but Fernando’s plan is revealed and Jacques announces that the next day Catherine will die in the arena.

Monster is left alone, miserable, angry, longing for love and thirsty for vengeance and revenge upon his creator, he sets the arena on fire and finds Victor in Geneva.

Creature here ends his story and announces that this is the beginning of his revenge and escapes. Victor learns soon after that his uncle was killed and the court blamed his sister Ellen for murder. He arrives too late, Ellen is already hanged.

He then takes her body with intention of reanimating it, his lab is however destroyed by a Creature. Victor pleads Creature to kill him, but the Creature laughs, telling him that revenge is not over yet.

Day, when Victor feels the Creature would come he gathers people with guns in front of his house to kill Monster as soon as he appears. Suddenly, they hear Julia’s scream inside the house. Victor knows who to blame, and cries, asking why the Creature killed her and not him. Creature, who is standing near Victor tells that if he wants to avenge his dearest ones, he can find him in the North Pole.

While running there, Creature is regretthing his sins and while looking back at his life he finds a young boy lost in the woods. He calms the crying boy by telling him a story of a man who fought against God by creating life. The boy is curious and says that the Monster in the story is the Creature telling him this tale. The creature is annoyed by further questions, pushes the child into the water and continues his path to the Arctic.

Victor, from the last strength, reaches the Creature and fights with him. Creature stabs Victor’s leg with a knife and Victor shoots the Creature. Creature then says that because of a leg injury Victor won’t leave the Arctic and by following him to the Arctic he basically just punished himself.

The Creature dies, saying that justice was done and calls his creator "my friend". Victor sees that he is the one responsible for his tragedy, he was successful in revenge but at the expense of losing everything, and calls his creation, the last thing that somehow cared for Victor Frankenstein, his friend. He then slowly dies with his Creature in his arms.

—————————

Whew! This took me longer than I wanted to. First my draft got deleted, then again...

This musical wasn‘t directly sticking to the source material, but it is referencing it pretty often. For example, character of Henry Dupré was inspired by Henry Clerval, Julia=Elizabeth, Ellen is falsely acussed of murder as Justine was, instead of burning down a cottage of DeLacys, Creature burns down a fighting field etc. And is Runge a parallel for an Igor? I think he is.

Victor and Creature stay pretty similar to the book. Victor’s actions are affected by his pride, he doesn’t care about morality, God, etc. His actions may come from love of those he lost (his mother, Henry...) but he is careless and revenge blinds him that he slowly destroys himself. He may fight against God, but he faills to take responsibility.

Also, how could he think he would revive Henry by stitching his head to a creature’s neck? That’s dumb! Victor, I know you want your boyfriend back, but that is awful.

The Creature wants to be loved but instead he is hated everywhere he goes. He reads Victor’s diary and is mad at him, he doesn’t see that although Victor tries to make strong corpse soldier but he doesn’t know the thought process behind it and a fact that Victor tried to revive Henry by making the Creature.

So the Creature shows him a simple revenge plan: Runge attempted to kill me – I killed him. You are resposible for Henry’s death – I kill your uncle. You are responsible for my creation – Ellen dies. You tried to kill me and abadoned me – I kill Julia. Now if you wanna take this further and destroy yourself even more, come to Arctic.

And Victor does. And monster uses the same logic later, too. They both thought of stopping this chase to Arctic stuff but they were blindly following their rage for one another which resulted in their death.

I can’t judge things further because I didn’t watched full show.

But the music is pretty much fantastic! Just epic. I don’t care very much for flaws If a musical has great music.

Also if you look at actors, singing, dancing, costumes... I feel like a lot of money went into this musical. And a lot of money have returned from tickets. I think I read somewhere that this is considered the best original Korean musical in Korea. Because other musicals that are this popular are Broadway musical productions.

This may be a clichè for someone but I truly enjoy smart double acting roles. Not the ones like: okay, we don’t have enough actors, let’s make this one play another role. No, not like that. I like those meaningful ones. Kinda what Hamilton did. Here it is too. You see, it is obvious that the actor playing Henry plays later the Creature. A person whom once Victor adored is now a person whom he hated the most. And actor of Victor plays role of Jacques in second act. Isn‘t this cool? A person who rejected him is now a person abusing him. Every named character plays another role similar to the one in first act. I think Eva is played by actress of Ellen, Ellen stands by Victor’s side and agrees with everything he says. That’s also Eve’s relationship with her husband Jacques, played by actor of Victor. Soft, loving Julia is Catherine here. Actor of Runge plays the role of Jacques’ servant. Etc., etc.

One thing I didn’t like much was a difficult story. I know that Korean audience may have different taste, but to me, a Western listener, it was a bit confusing plot. They added unnecessary stuff to it, changed some things and sometimes it’s really confusing. (Hey! That’s what Jekyll & Hyde did! They left only key things from the book and changed everything. And this musical is comparable to J&H then. It’s not Frankenstein: a new musical that is similar to J&H, it’s this! This is a Frankenstein adaptation that follows the story path of J&H. That’s interesting.)

And I didn‘t mind this, but couldn’t they left the names unchanged? Why couldn’t Victor’s fianceé have a name Elizabeth? And why you have Jacques and Eva? You could have one character, only Eva for example. Jacques is just here, slapping the Creature (the only reason for having them both is their double acting roles, which I understand). And there is Ernest erasure as always. And no Robert Walton, too! They cut this character. The more I look into it, the more I feel that this musical was made by someone who liked Jekyll & Hyde.

(END OF SPOILERS)

To sum up, this musical appears to me as a nice, original take on the original book. It has interesting parallels to the book, references it throughout this show, and takes inspiration from Frankenstein movies. It feels like a blow of fresh air.

The music is very likeable. If you like Wildhorn-ish kind of stuff like I do, then this is, I don’t know, it feels more complex and confident than what I am used to. Maybe you won’t like it, maybe it becomes your favourite musical, this is just my opinion.

And don’t get me started on singing, acting, costume design, sets, choreography... it’s beyond perfect and I think that the West musicals should take notes.

I have talked about some stuff a bit more in a spoiler section but I have to say it here too, this musical has a very interesting take on Victor/Henry relationship that later affects Victor’s actions and his relationship with the Creature. It’s very heartwarming and creepy at the same time.

I think my sole obsession for countless days (I haven’t listened to anything else than these since last March) that are Frankenstein: a new musical, and Jekyll & Hyde musical have a new opponent. New March, new me (It’s still just Frankenstein tho).

So, pros and cons:

PROS:

-good music

-good acting

-good singing

-referencing the source material

-nice take on Victor/Henry relationship

-I like reasonable double acting roles

-simply it’s good

CONS:

-name change of main characters

-no Robert and Ernest (I know, but not even Walton is here!)

-tiring and long story

-unnecessary/bland female characters

-foreign language

I rate this musical 8,25/10. I still haven‘t seen it whole, so I can’t really judge it objectively.

I assume there is no full recording and I can’t find a script either. If anyone has an English or Korean script/bootleg, please, let me know : )

Here is a recording of a few songs performed at a musical press conference, you can set an English subtitles if you want to know the words:

Here is a link to the full Korean album, not all songs were recorded on the album:

And here is an animatic that makes me cry ;-;:

I apologise for bad grammar, stupid reasoning and other things.

I hope you didn’t mind me sharing this musical with you, I like this show and I haven’t seen any people talk about it in Frankenstein (book/musical/etc.) fandom, so I made this post to share it with you.

Have a nice day : D

#frankenstein #victor frankenstein #theatre #musical #mary shelley #mary shelly's frankenstein #gothic theatre #frankenstein or the modern prometheus #the modern prometheus #frankenstein creature #frankenstein’s creature #frankenstein’s monster #gothic lit #musical theatre #adam frankenstein #elizabeth lavenza #frankenstein musical #this was definitely made by someone who liked J&H but wanted to make story more complex #review #musical review

[tundrainafrica]

Title: Lovebug (12/14)

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

Notes: Feedback is very much appreciated :D

It was one of those days where Levi could barely focus.

But it wasn’t anything new. A few days a year, his eyes would be heavy, his back would slump naturally and codes would blur together in some strange way even the most experienced engineers wouldn’t understand. Those days, he had attributed it to exhaustion, to sheer workload or the tension that accompanied impending releases.

It feels a little different. It was terribly unfamiliar and Levi could have almost sworn that it was worse than ever.

Still, he attempted to get back some inkling of control. He opened his workflow tracker, saw green then decided he could consider his priorities later. He opened his checklists and saw meaningless black ink on white spaces then he decided he could start elsewhere.

He opened up a few pull requests, only to end up approving a whole lot of them before even making sense of what fix the developers had been working on. Then, he then assured himself that maybe he could fix errors on the code once they were in production.

It isn’t good practice. A part of him warned. Really, how many times had he heard that from everyone else? How many times had he held those words like a badge and repeated them countless times to his fellow engineers?

But really, how did anyone particularly Erwin, the upper management, the executives, expect him to work after the meeting just that morning. They had dropped a bomb, a very painful truth that he had somehow managed to keep snug, almost invisible at the back of his mind for so many years.

The company ran on too much red tape and officialism. Hell, every fucking comapny ran on red tape, officialism and some tacky version of bureaucracy, all intricately engineered to please the richest stakeholders. Yet, Levi had been working corporate for decades, long enough to learn and just blindly accept them as inevitable parts of work.

Then and there, it was biting him in the ass. So painfully. Levi never expected something as grey and monotonous as office work and corporate politics to bite so painfully.

Ninety five percent chance. Erwin never told him the details of the contract termination but he had some consideration to at least inform Levi that Zeke was very much considering it. In that same meeting, he had casually mentioned the amount of time it would take to finalize it. If Erwin did tell him some specifics, Levi probably didn’t hear it, especially when he had been busy only barely keeping himself together.

Levi soon figured out, although he had been accepting them the whole time, a huge part of him would have gladly rebelled.

By god, he hated bureaucracy, he hated corporate synergy, he hated the concept of investor satisfaction. Most importantly, he hated the whole prospect of everything the past few months ending with some signed contract termination.

And the silent rage continued well inside him, as he mindlessly switched from one tab to the other, unable to make sense of much.

Maybe he had been too busy reflecting, entertaining those very unwelcome emotions.

Was he too soft hearted. Was he taking his job too personally demanding some personal closure? Was he too immature having been so emotionally affected by that memorandum? And maybe that inability to let out anything more than some professional query at his manager had him barely coping.

‘Coping’ came in many forms. It involved the slow realization he was merely an employee, albeit a head of an engineering team. Then another realization soon after that he was in no position to question the upper management’s decision.

It involved a very cruel realization that although he was the head of the emotions alarm project, the one who had developed it from the beginning and the only one who knew the application end to end, the emotions alarm was still corporate property.

By extension, by some fruit of corporate processes and the constant exchange of assets, it was Zeke’s property. All the assets, the codes Levi had created, the pull requests he had reviewed and merged, every long night he spent looking over bugs, had all been because he was paid to do it.

Zeke’s property. He acknowledged those two words and they echoed incessantly in his head as his eyes ran over the codes of the emotions alarm.

The emotions alarm wasn’t his. It was the companies. And when the contract is finalized, it would be all Zeke’s and Zeke would be the one to decide for himself how to work with that application.

Hire another head engineer to work with Hange… Hire other coders… That’s what business is.

He and Erwin had talked for a while after the meeting. Erwin had been careful with his words and maybe he had softened his tone just a bit, as if he had sensed Levi’s discomfort.

In his own state though, Levi could only stumble upon one conclusion. He was just as replaceable as every other employee. And the pain of having been too attached to a project, the impending loss of his own brain child had him catatonic.

Any comfort or attempt at alleviation seemed far off.

He wouldn’t be invited to the rest of the meetings. The fate of that project would be up in the air, mulled over by the top brass of the company, a few lawyers and accountants, then approved by Zeke. Levi on the other hand, would be ordered back to his office to focus on other tasks, expected to function like it hadn’t felt like some slow and painful end of the world, since the incident at the school a few weeks ago.

Any silver lining as he worked was shot down by his cynical side. The next few minutes, he continued to work, just for the bare minimum to get paid. He approved leaves here and there, He mindlessly looked through some code, ran a debugger he didn’t completely understand. He mindlessly scanned through the logs before he accepted, his brain was in no state to work.

Then he opted not to think beyond that. He closed all the windows on his desktop. He opened another folder towards the corner.

His own personal folder. Inside it were the same codes for the emotions alarm he had worked on for Hange’s birthday. But it felt like more of a personal project.

In its own little way, it pulled it out of that catatonic state. By some miracle, the gears of his head were turning again, slowly at first. Then they turned more quickly by the second, sending a rush of motivation through him. Maybe because the upper management still didn’t know about that side of the emotions alarm. Maybe it was because it still felt like a secret between him and Hange. And somehow, his mind was able to twist it. Levi had managed to convince himself, it was still his and Hange’s.

Hange is still here. She’ll come back.

"You know, I'm pretty sure conference rooms are for conferences.”

Levi bit back the surprise at Petra’s sudden visit. "Well we have five empty ones," he said. He had been working in empty conference rooms for weeks already and had silently rehearsed his own explanation already.

"You have your own office," Petra said.

"I know," Levi answered nonchalantly. Maybe most other days, he would have attempted something more engaging.

How engaging could he be though when his own brain child was close to being sold to an investor, its fate completely out of his control?

By some stupid corporate rule, he couldn't tell Petra that just yet. He looked up at her, willing himself to make some meager excuse of eye contact. "You need anything?"

Petra shook her head. "It’s not really work related… Or actually it kinda is... If that's okay… If you're busy I can bring this up another time." She was holding her work laptop closer to her, a subtle move that had been enough to catch Levi’s eye.

For just a second.

Levi looked back at the code. A wave of guilt washed through him when he remembered, it wasn’t necessarily productive work— a very temporary wave of guilt that he easily washed off just recalling the overly reverent attitude the executives had towards corporate processes.

He wasn't busy. The code he had been staring at the past few minutes wasn't company business anyway. "This can be finished later," Levi said as he lowered his laptop screen.

Petra cocked her head to the side. "Boss, are you okay? I noticed you haven’t been working in the office in a while and I know you---”

“The office is a mess,” Levi said. “And I just haven’t had time to clean up.”

“You need help?”

“No.”

“If you’re busy, I could--”

“Petra, it’s my mess to clean up.” He probably had said that last part too abrasively. After all, that mess referred to multiple messes at once and he was more than a little salty about that.

There was a flash of surprise, or maybe hurt in Petra’s face. Levi only had his peripherals to hint for himself how she might have felt. He sighed. “I don’t wanna clean it up but I don’t wanna stay there either. Besides, as long as no one is using the conference rooms, I think it’ll be fine.”

“Well, it is our right as employees…” Petra started.

“It is,” Levi said. He looked back up at Petra expectantly then lowered his laptop screen much lower, he could have easily just shut it down. “So what did you come here for?”

“I wanted to ask about Hange.” Surprisingly, Petra had brought out that conversation topic with a lot more certainty than every line before that.

Hange. And it had brought about an unwelcome twinge of pain inside him. He took a deep breath, letting it spread over his already enervated body. He noticed then, her name had started to seem strangely unfamiliar to his tongue. In truth, he hadn’t said her name in a while.

Levi took a deep breath and repeated her name, just a little experiment for himself. “What about Hange?”

“Your alarm and her alarm. They were ringing back in the gym.”

“That was weeks ago. Why bring it up now?” Levi asked.

Petra gave a slight shake of her head. “I was just wondering. Do you think it’s a bug?”

“It’s not,” Levi said, one eyebrow raised. He wondered if Erwin had ever discussed it with the others. Or wait, that might have been his job.

Petra grinned yet she seemed more hurt than actually happy. “I suspected it was a bug at first. But you know, when Hange stopped showing up in the office, you started acting different.”

“Have I?” Levi asked

“Yeah, you stopped working in your office. The few times I visited, it was a little cluttered but you never liked your office messy right? It only started getting messier when Hange started working closely with you…”

Levi was only becoming more self aware. Suddenly looking at how quickly, he had opened up his laptop, hunched over, just to hide his face behind the screen. He couldn’t even control his own reaction anymore. “And?”

“And when Hange was working… you seemed happier… You started going out for lunch more, talking to us more. You even invited me out…” Around that time, Petra started to stumble at her words, her ears turned a little pink. With time, she started to stumble with her words, to points beyond comprehension. “I know, I might look creepy pointing all this out but there were two points I wanted to make with this.”

“Two...points?” Then why didn’t you just start with it? Levi would have wanted to ask. But he was grateful that the speech was long enough for him to edit two lines of code, even in his own compromised state.

Petra took some time to compose herself. She put one finger up. “First, Hange changed you for the better, there were obvious signs that you were happier, so maybe those can be considered signs of love. Second, that means there might not be a bug and you’re just a really talented developer.”

“That’s reassuring,” Levi said. With his lack of energy, it could have come out toneless. “I mean it,” Levi added.

“If you wanna call it love or not, that will be up to you. But I think it aligns with our expectations for the application,” Petra straightened her back after that, adopting a more professional demeanor. “If possible, I’d love to have a chat with Hange about it. Maybe get her take on my theory…”

Petra wouldn’t have known. The talks had been between the upper management, it would only make its way to lower rung employees as a memo.

A fucking memo. Fuck red tape. Levi thought to himself. When it wasn’t official, could he even tell her?

Fuck that. “Hange might not come back,” Levi said.

Petra’s eyes widened almost immediately, her jaw dropped.

Before she could even speak, Levi continued. “They might terminate the contract. I know they’re discussing the legalities of it. Zeke is going to take the unfinished and have another team work on it. Or at least that’s what I’m understanding.”

“But there might---”

“There’s no chance,” Levi said firmly.

“Levi just---”

“None. There’s none.” Levi shook his head for emphasis. He allowed his voice to rise just a little bit louder than usual. He wanted to shoot down whatever glimmer of hope, before it got out of control.

Annoyingly, Petra had a way of just trying to find hope, the brighter side in most situations. But he didn’t need it. He didn’t want it. In his already vulnerable state, it seemed almost mocking.

And she was still trying. “But Hange----”

Levi banged one hand on the table in warning. “Petra,” he said. “Just stop.”

An abrupt slam on the table had always been enough to quiet people and Petra shouldn’t have been an exception.

In a surprising turn of events, she slammed harder on the table. “No, listen to me Levi.” Her voice was much firmer and at that moment, it didn’t seem like she had regard for differences in positions.

In shock, Levi fell silent and he was compelled to listen to that voice of authority.

“I came here for a reason.” She dropped her laptop on the table, almost louder than the slam she made just a second ago. “We got a support email which you might want to see. This is the reason I went here in the first place.” Petra quickly booted up her laptop. “It’s a support ticket, and the email...it looks like Hange’s.”

[email protected]

A quick look at the date only confirmed it, it had been there for a week. There was a flyer attached which only sealed its fate as spam mail. Of course, it would have taken weeks to identify it.

But why would Hange use that email? At first glance, Levi couldn’t help but be suspicious.

“It looks like it’s related to Mr. Jaeger’s convention. He’s having one and I thought, you might wanna check it out… If you have unfinished business with Hange, use that opportunity to talk to her.”

It could be spam mail. It wasn’t that hard to create a fake email using Hange Zoe’s name but it was still worth some looking into. A quick google search only confirmed it. Zeke was having an event in one of the most expensive cities in the world, a coastal city a twelve hour flight away.

Still, Levi couldn’t brush off the doubt. Would Hange have used an email with her name? After taking so much of her precious time creating fake emails?

“If this is really her, then that means she wanted to contact us right?” Petra continued. “I think it’s worth a look.”

Maybe all he needed was someone to tell him, a good push in the right direction. Before Levi even realized it, his mind was working harder than ever since the incident three weeks ago, working overtime to justify something as ridiculous as a last minute week-long vacation.

If Hange did send the email, it might be worth it. And if by some chance, it really was spam, then he will have just wasted a good week-long vacation in ‘one of the most dazzling cities in the world.’

Levi could count with the number of fingers in one hand, the amount of times he had been in a long haul flight. The prices for a hotel, a last minute flight and of course, the leaves needed to make the trip were all daunting issues to consider.

He had expected himself to be at least a little more hesitant. A part of him was moving almost automatically. He stood up and slammed his laptop shut. “I think I’m gonna take a week long leave.”

“Since I joined, you haven’t even taken a sick leave. I think you deserve this,” Petra responded. And that peaceful response from her of all people had been reassuring.

“Thanks for that.”

Petra shook her head. “It’s only natural to wish the best for someone right?” She paused, and a weak blush climbed up her cheeks as she bit her lip. “Well, I meant the best for you and Hange. Just see what you can do for her.”

Levi let out a sigh. “But it helps you know.”

And somehow, those kind words had only left Petra more flustered. In thanks, he offered to take her back to her work station, but not much farther than that. He made a quick stop to his still cluttered office, did some quick cleaning up, leaving the white board and Hange’s own work station still untouched, like it has been everyday since three weeks ago.

He went home early that day and as expected, his brain continued to nag.

Was it a useless move? A stupid move? A rash move? Maybe it was. But he wasn't going to tell anyone else, just in case someone managed to convince him out of it.

Levi had taken some precautions. He emailed back, only to get no response. He did some research on the flyer. The event came with different names, trade shows, networking events.

With the objective of bringing together the largest names in neighboring countries… We aim to optimize production, bring about the best quality… Seminars, business dinners, product demonstrations etc.

The words blurred together slowly and before Levi knew it, he couldn’t make sense of it at all. It wasn’t important anyway. What seemed more urgent was the schedule of events right under the spiel.

It was a five day conference and it had already started the night before. Levi opened up his leave credits, still completely full. Most years, it had remained untouched until the end of the year.

He opened up his own bank account. He didn’t have much but he still had more than enough to take that particular risk. And when he contacted Erwin about it, the latter seemed almost excited he was taking a leave.

By some sorcery, he got the one week leave, tagged as emergency leaves. The next afternoon, less than 24 hours after that meeting with Petra, Levi was already in the airport, overnight bag over one shoulder.

He was going on an adventure, some stupid, impulsive and potentially pointless adventure.

***

The guilt never abated. There was something almost surreal, yet seemingly audacious about taking a last minute long leave, after spending years working non stop.

Would anyone understand it? The more Levi thought about it, the more he realized, he didn’t understand it himself. So by some twists and turns of logic, Levi guessed nobody would understand.

He had books he could have read on the plane. There was an inflight entertainment system.

Still shaken by that one week long life, Levi ended up booting up his laptop and spending a huge chunk of the time reviewing pull requests on the flight. Time started to pass like how it used to in the office.

As expected, he got tired four hours in. Losing energy reserves  midday in the office was a very unwelcome experience but something Levi never seemed to completely avoid. It was a very familiar experience that the next few steps had been much easier.

He pulled out the codes, his own personal project folder on his desktop, he stared at the files of codes yet to be merged to the original plan.

Then he started to organize his thoughts. Before he knew it, his fingers were flying over the keyboard.

It could have been some reminder, or just some attempt at shoehorning reason to his impulsive decision to cross the ocean on a last minute vacation. But the more Levi let his brain nag, the more he started to justify. The longer he justified, the sooner he just accepted.

Who cared if anyone else found it sappy. He needed closure.

Then and there, it seemed like closure meant articulating the plans of his own personal project, ideas that had been exchanged that fateful night in some empty playground, ideas that only built and built themselves until they were rows of codes yet to be tested or executed.

Maybe closure was getting the plans for the emotions alarm to Hange.

And as Levi continued to type, he realized, he had a clear idea on how he wanted it to work. Articulating it, planning it into something Hange would have understood was not too much of a tall order.

Connect the emotion alarm to a dashboard… plans on how to quantify emotions, moods… Colors, emotions, suggestions.

Newfound energy had Levi tirelessly working over that plan the whole long haul flight, creating diagrams, appending it with his own notes and suggestions. They were still empty spaces, questions and question marks, space which Hange would have been more qualified to fill herself.

After looking at it once then twice, reading out loud softly too himself the parts that hadn’t made too much sense, Levi scrolled back up and typed four words on the upper left.

Working Title: Mood Alarm.

Hange would probably argue semantics, how moods were a lot more temporary than emotions. And Levi was imagining some outrageous argument in his head and his own responses which would never see the light of day. He stayed staunch with his decision. Unless, Hange could come up with anything more catchy, it would stay.

And that fake argument, had been enough for him to relax. He lowered his laptop screen then reclined his seat and stared out the window. It was still a light blue but there were already hints of purple and pink just straight ahead.

The sun would set soon but only for a few hours. One quick calculation told him, it wouldn’t ever be late at night. Once he arrived at his destination, it would still be day and he would have to adjust quickly.

Tucking his laptop away, he allowed himself a few hours of sleep and he had been lucky to have slept long enough to wake up to a pilot’s message about flying over the city then a good view of unfamiliar landscapes just outside the window.

Levi spent those last few minutes before landing, tracing the skyline, counting the number of tiny boxes that dotted the greens, just inches away from clusters of green, white, silver, then flashes of other colors, too many colors to count.

It was an expensive city. He didn’t need Google to tell him that. Everyone knew it as a city only for the filthy rich. He could imagine Zeke having a house or an apartment there, maybe even two. And he made some guesses of which one Zeke could have owned among the larger ones by the beach. Then he made a much longer reflection of just one Yes or No question.

Would Hange been there? He was still too high up to distinguish humans on the outdoor balconies from tricks of light. Still he pretended that she was on one of the balconies over looking the ocean.

The plane got lower and lower, the houses were starting to look more like houses than little tiny boxes. Close enough, Levi was starting to see the glamour of the city, he was starting to see the glowing characteristics which made it a first choice for the ultra rich.

Sparkling blue ocean, only peppered by speed boats and yachts moored at the docks. From inland, mountain ranges formed crescents and worked with the coast to outline the borders of the cities from miles around.

By some type of magic, the landscapes surrounding it had managed to make the dazzling city its own world. Levi begrudgingly gave some credit to the rich for seeing potential in such a breathtaking view.

Just before the coast were tall buildings among shorter buildings and they were lined up on the flat lands, touching one end of the mountain range then the other. Some were hotels, others were casinos, a few of them were malls. Parks were clustered among the buildings, yet they seemed out of place. They were like some shoddily formed assurance that the city wasn’t out to get any tourist’s money.

Levi was seeing differently. The struggle he went into booking a hotel was already a prelude to whatever he would be dealing with. He silently patted his wallet at his back pocket as the pilot’s final instructions sounded over the whole plane.

"Cabin crew prepare for landing."

And all the passengers had been excited to leave. The plane soon slowed to a stop. Even before the seatbelt sign went off, Levi was already hearing the click of seatbelts. Then everyone filed out of their seats, pulling out luggages from the overhead compartment.

Levi was one of the last few out of the plane. Yet with his lack of check-in luggage, he was still one of the first out of the airport.

Nothing could have completely prepared him for the abrupt shift from dry autumn to a wet perpetual summer. He was greeted by some faint smell of the ocean, almost stifling warmth in the middle of October, and very very humid air that stuck to his skin. Unfamiliar sensations on skin, unfamiliar scents and an unfamiliar language that only blurred into nonsense when they made their way into his ears.

It was a new world, a new adventure, Levi would have never taken under any other circumstances. And maybe that had been the reason why the rush of guilt came back when he allowed himself to marvel over the views, the first hand experience of standing close proximity, breathing the same air of that city he had only ever read about books, or seen in the news.

Levi took a deep breath, pulled off his autumn jacket almost violently.

Then he reminded himself again. If he didn’t find her, he’d still be okay. If he didn’t find her, then that trip will just have been a break.

A well-deserved break.

***

According to reception, his hotel was conveniently located just a five minute distance from the convention center. According to his maps application, it was ten minutes away. Levi though, had taken one hour to make his way there

There were hidden paths that weaved through allies and the occasional mall entrances and exits and maybe that had been what reception had been referring to when they mentioned shortcuts.

Levi walked quickly through them at first before he opened up to a larger road. When his surroundings were more open, when his vision stretched far beyond the narrow walls of the alleys, he thought one of the most beautiful cities in the world to be worth a few detours.

Anyway, he had found the signs were all pointing towards the hybrid building that doubled as a hotel and convention center. It might have been the grandest building all around.

He scanned his surroundings, trying to connect his own view from the plane to his own surroundings. Unable to conjure a very clear and accurate picture of what had come above, he couldn’t confirm whether it had been the grandest building around.

It wasn’t too important anyway.

It seemed like the city was on some journey to prove itself to him. Every path, road, alleyway, shopping street and even the interiors of the mall were all different levels of grand. And they all didn’t disappoint, especially to someone who barely even left his home city.

Clean finishings, newly paved roads, cobble stoned streets and red brick roads all seemed to come straight out of the sappiest rags to riches movies.

One cruel truth though Levi soon found out—and had been expecting anyway—was that everything came with a price.

Of course, it would. But Levi hadn’t embedded that truth deep enough inside him to be able to completely stifle his surprise at the price of bottled water, then the price of a late breakfast. They were all prices Levi would have never considered paying for one meal’s worth of food. So he settled for fast food. And he was sure, he would be eating fast food for every single meal until he flew back home.

Eating burger meals worth twice or thrice what he would have gotten at home was still a harrowing experience. He was on that constant in between state, naturally bitter at the ridiculous cost of living yet still forcing himself to savor those few bites of a sandwich.

And he found some inkling of a distraction just staring out the window, watching the crowds go by as he consumed his brunch slowly.

Then, he noticed, he never stopped thinking about her. She had always been somewhere in his mind, still close enough to the front that a flash of brown hair, a messy pony tail or even a pair of glasses among the crowds were enough to have him eyes wide, chewing slower than usual.

In one quick impulsive move, Levi dropped the burger, pulled out his phone and activated the love alarm.

Just in case.

He put on his earphones, then his baseball cap over it. He finished his food much faster then exited the store.

The love alarm didn't ring as he weaved through the crowds. He put his cap lower on over his face, keeping himself unrecognizable.

So, it shouldn't ring for anyone if anyone can't see me right.

That was expected behavior at least. And Levi was just laying trust on some belief that if Hange was nearby, two things might happen. If Hange hadn’t cleared her alarm history and her alarm would recognize his. Or, even if she used a new account, she would recognize him with a baseball cap covering half his face, and it would still ring.

That was assuming she still used her love alarm.

It was a very small chance and Levi was completely aware of it. So he made his way to the convention center, taking note of the signs with the names plastered on them, with arrows guiding him through shopping streets.

Levi didn't mind the detours, more crowds to attempt to look through. When he finally arrived at the hotel entrance though, he found he was tired and a little grumpy.

With the words at the front mentioning Zeke Jaegers name as a keynote speaker though, he had gained some newfound hope, Hange might just be nearby.

He had done the research at least. There was a visitor's price. There was a guest book.

There would be people selling him medical equipment, the latest medical technology and the drugs, supply chains, just the latest lingo, Levi never bothered to learn.

And he got those business vernacular in slow, stilted opportunities, so separated from one another that he never made sense of them.

He was there for one reason. Hange. So it wasn't too difficult to feign purpose, maybe even pretend that he had a few million dollars resting in his bank account for an investment.

There was a map, the names of some of the companies were in languages he was only familiar with by appearance. It was name recall that saved him then, he saw a few of Zeke's hospitals show up in the convention map. Forming a path in his head, he dove into his crowds, clutching his phone harder, readjusting his earphones.

No ringing. And he couldn’t help but feel a strange emotion, a mix between disappointment and relief. It was quiet and somehow he liked it that way. Yet, that only meant that Hange wasn’t nearby.

But leads to Hange were a good second best option. “Levi--- Mr. Ackerman?”

“Ms. Finger,” Levi greeted.

If Pieck knew anything about the incident at the school, she didn’t make it obvious. She was all business at that convention, decked up in business attire, fliers and a product handbook on the desk right in front of her,

She made her way closer to him, letting out a hand to raise and before Levi could even mirror that same movement, someone cut in between them.

“May I help you?”

Levi could have sworn he had never met that man in front of him. Yet the man was looking at him suspiciously, out of character for someone in a suit and flyers.

Pieck pushed past him."Porco, I'll handle this. So, what brings you here?"

Levi had to play his cards well. "I wanted to talk…" to Zeke? Or to Hange? Which was the better name to bring up?

Pieck nodded at him, an inquisitive look on her face. "To talk…"

"Business…"

"What kind of business? You could relay it through your manager right?"

"it's about the app we're developing." He had his laptop with him then, and only the motion of his laptop to his front albeit had Pieck lighting up.

Of course it would, Pieck had been one of his fans when he had first demo-ed the emotions alarm in the hospital just a few months back.

"You've been planning improvements."

Levi gave a light nod. "I've created plans to further improve the efficacy of the application. I was hoping to talk to Zeke about it, or if he's too busy, Hange." He hoped he had used the right jargon.

Pieck had seemed uncertain there. Yet her eyes had darted to his laptop enough times for Levi to see that she was interested, that somehow she had held a stake in those final products.

"If you want me to show it…" Levi was about to drop his bag and pull it out.

That is, if Peke hadn't stopped him then. "Don't trouble yourself," she said. "But, you wouldn't find Zeke here for most of the day. He only shows up for the business dinners but they're on an invitation basis. I can try asking around, we have a few employees who could ask Zeke."

"If you could tell me where Hange is…"

And that was where things got slightly complicated and somehow Levi suspected from the way Pieck had avoided his gaze yet at the same time, Porco had flashed him with a glare, there was something they knew that he didn't.

Pieck spoke up. "Hange huh? Haven't seen her since the convention started. Even during the days leading up to the convention, she was in and out, more than we could even remember."

"She's unpredictable. Don't think you're going to find her here," Porco added.

"But if you could contact her yourself?" Pieck looked at him pointedly.

"Unpredictable huh?" Levi wasn't all too surprised that they would call her unpredictable. And they had said it with a hint of animosity on both their voices, a tone which very much said 'dont bother', or maybe, ‘contacting Zeke might be the better option."

Levi, though, saw a challenge in that unpredictability. If he played his cards right, he might even find predictability in it.

At the least, he managed to let out a light greeting of thanks before he pulled out of the crowds then past the entrance of the stifling convention.

Levi still kept a copy of a program, taking note of keynote speakers among them. Hange wasn't in any of them so his thoughts flew quickly out of the convention, only rooted there somehow by that offer from Pieck to get him in touch with Zeke's executive team.

No help at all with finding Hange. But Levi couldn't help but just think that their actions may have been calculated. Once again, Levi was groveling about the stiffness of the world of politics and artificial corporate pleasantries.

When that became too stressful, his thoughts went back to Hange.

Hange was unpredictable, in a predictable way. And Levi was sure as long as he strode through the town with some purpose, he could make sense of that 'chaos' she always seemed to exude.

That night, he approached it with some careful premeditation, while considering as well that he was still suffering from jet lag.

He scanned through maps, aerial photos, then pictures from taken from high points in the city. He let his eyes trace over the coasts, then the beaches, the affluent areas close proximity to the beach that strategically overlooked the bluest parts of the ocean. Then he noted a less affluent area that brushed the other side of the mountain.

Focusing on the smaller houses, almost hidden by the iconic skyline, he asked himself, would Hange be there? He didn't have a straight answer but he wouldn't put it past her. Besides, any sense of adventure had started to become a little more welcome.

There was truth to it, Hange was unpredictable. But the predictability to it was, Hange was so unpredictable, she was memorable. He was sure if he would ask about the brunette, someone would know.

If Hange acted like the Hange, he knew, someone might recognize her. Someone in a simple community in a country thousands of miles away from his own, wouldn't know Hange Zoe as anything more than some eccentric brunette.

And maybe that was where he was supposed to start.

The next morning, he bought a bus ticket and he had been lucky enough to even get an opportunity to sit. After all, no one actually visited that city for the locals.

It was almost a half an hour bus away form the city center, and houses by the coastline were getting further apart until Levi reached a point where cabanas were made of simple wood, paths were etched lightly on the ground.

Levi disembarked at one of the more simpler bus stops for miles around, and it didn't look like the bus passed there often.

But maybe it was better that way.

Untouched Nature, free nature is a beautiful thing. Nature once again at its rawest form, at its most candid, not flaunting its best parts for the rich to admire.

And Levi was seeing beauty in the candid.

There were a few local kids, wading by, speaking a language Levi didn't understand and for a second, Levi just stood, breathing in the sour air of some untouched beach. It differed a lot from the beach thirty minutes away. There was no music playing in the background, no strobe lights and Levi concluded one thing.

Hange would have enjoyed this.

Levi would bet money that if Hange did have the freedom to run around, she might have been there. The houses around the area were of a simple kind, so far apart, that Levi had to walk thousands of steps just to get from one to the other. He traced the coastline as he walked, far enough from the shores to keep his feet dry but still close enough that he felt the moist sand squish from underneath him. He was following some path back the way he came, towards the skyline, he noted there were bars among them, seemingly affordable bars, maybe catering to locals.

Levi entered to find chaos. Men in a group playing some possible version of mahjong with rocks, others playing chess and others playing cards with rocks as currencies.

And he was more convinced Hange would have joined them if she had the freedom to move around.

So he took the risk. "Do you get foreigners here often?"

And maybe the word ‘foreigner’ or the word ‘often’ had been unfamiliar to the bartender.

He looked questioningly at Levi but it didn't look like he was completely lost. He turned the younger bartender who looked back at Levi. "May I help you sir?" he asked with a thick yet still very intelligible accent.. Levi suspected he had worked in the city center before.

"Foreigners...do you get a lot here?" Levi was slow at first.

"A few. May I ask why?" And he was starting to suspect the man worked in service.

It looked like the man didn't need the quick adjustments though, so Levi continued. "I'm looking for someone…"

The local gestured for him to go on.

And just like that, Levi found out Hange's predictability. All he needed was some subtle gesture, some consideration, that maybe it would have been best to approach the men hustling chess players by the side, or the other men playing some version of mahjong.

It was just a quick flick of his head towards the gamblers as he tried to find the right words to say.

And the man in front of him figured it out. "Glasses? Brown wavy hair?"

"She likes playing games. She plays here?" Levi asked, just for some confirmation, some proof that he wasn't socially engineering anyone.

The younger man looked at the bartender. The latter broke out into a smile. "Hange?" he said with a thick accent. He let out a laugh then turned to Levi almost suspiciously.

Levi nodded quickly. "Yes, Hange." Hänge Zoe. Should he say her last name?

The bartenders said something to the English speaking local. There was a brief exchange between them and the bartender pointed at Levi.

"Her hair is always messy," Levi said, he put his hands at the back of his head, mimicking the messy way she tied her hair up. "She always wins games. She's very smart. And sometimes, she'd just go out to the beach and she'd get lost in the view."

The two locals look towards each other, their faces suddenly unreadable.

They knew something Levi didn't and Levi knew he was punching blindly just making quick guesses of what Hange would have done. The specificities could also mean they escorted him out with new information.

Yet, somehow, it seemed those descriptions worked. They both smiled, exchange a few words.

"She plays. She wins---"

Levi smiled. "And let me guess, she doesn't keep the money?" And when he saw the grins of the two men widen, he made another guess. "And she gives the money away?"

The man dropped his shoulders and put one hand out in greeting. "What do you need?"

"I wanna see her--- No, I wanna talk to her. Do you know where I can find her?"

"She doesn't tell us where she's going too."

The bartender said something just behind the younger man and the latter's expression changed. They were both pointing at something, seemingly hypothetical, then drawing something with their fingers.

The younger man then continued in English. "I'll take you out."

"Wha--" Levi never had time to finish.

The man guided him out.

At first Levi wondered what he did wrong. The man didn't seem to carry any animosity. He seemed almost excited. "She likes going there," he said with some level of certainty.

There. Initially, it had been difficult to figure out where 'there' was. Following the direction of his finger with his gaze was almost a tall order. But there was only one place from that angle which boasted any level of significance.

He was pointing high up to mountain ranges and from his place by the coast, on the other side of the city, maybe he could make out a small tower that peeked out over the green.

"She likes high places," the man said.

"She told you that?" Levi shifted his grin to something certain then he nodded. "Thank you, I'll check it out."

And that tower peeking out of the mountains was identifiable with just an easy google search, expected from one of the most tourist friendly places in the world.

A tower observatory huh? Was it be open to the public? Sources said yes. What did Hange enjoy there? Levi had an inkling of an answer but he might have to see to it to be sure.

While waiting for the bus back to the city center, he consolidated his clues. Pieck had told him to wait for a message from someone named Yelena. If he couldn't talk to Hange, he could talk to Zeke.

Still, he was covering his bases with Hange but he was a little messy with it. It was all a matter of fate, some inkling of what kind of person Hange would be.

But what would he know about Hänge?

Even on the empty bus on the way back, he left his love alarm on, earphones propped comfortably in his ears.

In the bus it didn't ring but when Levi was weaving through the busiest streets, changing from the city bus to the bus leading up the mountain, it may have rung a few times. And Levi only started to become aware, a few incidents in, that every single time he had stopped, then he would scan the crowds.

One flash of brown hair, sometimes it would show up red under direct streams of light. A bird's nest tied up in a half pony tail or just a very messy one. Or maybe that low voice, which seemed to shift to something shrill almost immediately when excited.

There was only one person he would have wanted his Love Alarm to ring for. So Levi, lowered his cap over his face, boarded a bus and made the journey to the mountain.

***

He didn't go back to the convention center anymore. A long list of programs and keynote speakers only confirmed it, it was a roadshow on business ventures more than research.

But Hange likes business right? Hange likes medicine? Or she might even be wedges among the crowds of tourists among the snazzier casinos, just playing. He then considered playing just to check it out and maybe ask around.

And when Levi was weighing options, he realized Hange was somewhat unpredictable. He was at the mercy of fate, luck and a few well thought out guesses.

So he treated it like some challenge, a challenge he could very much fail. But he would get a better chance of running into her, if he kept to one place.

He picked the summit of the mountain and he parked there for the next few days, laptop bag in hand, sweatshirt over his boardshorts. There was a cafe only a few blocks from the tower with a good view of the main street leading up to the observatory.

And Levi only had to be there a few days to realize, it was off-season and it was off-season for a reason. It was the time of the year, when the weather by the road was a fickle bitch.

That day, the rain was on and off. The northern winds blew strong and Levi almost wished he had brought his autumn jacket. Yet it never was cold or windy enough to be certain it was worth lugging around.

The sweatshirt had been a golden alternative and he found the hood had a dual purpose. Enough, to hide his face so he could keep his love alarm on without receiving too many alarms. And enough to keep him safe from the blinding wind that came with climbing high elevations.

Levi abandoned the baseball cap, instead keeping the hood low over his face. He made himself at home in that cafe that overlooked the main road towards the visitor's center and a platform with a good view of the city. He picked a spot right next to the window. He only had to turn left, to get a peek, yet he was in a good enough position that if anyone looked back, he only had to lean back to be concealed by the opaque wall.

Levi was taking stupid risks. Did she clear her cache? Did she even still use the app? Any of those miniscule decisions would have been enough for Levi to come home empty ended. Yet, they were highly probable decisions. After all, why would Hange want to keep the application after the fiasco months ago. He started to even entertain the possibility that maybe Hange wasn’t even using her phone as often anymore. She hadn’t replied to texts, responded to calls and her number was also out of service.

Everything was against him, every single probability. Everything had been against him since the start anyway so it was much easier to stomach such circumstances.

Levi made for himself an ultimatum. He only had until his flight back, three days after, to talk to Hange.

If he is not able to find her, he goes home empty handed. He cooperates with the transferring of assets, the finalization of the contract. He scraps his own personal project, the colors, the attempt to quantify emotions and the dashboard.

At the least, he tried. He responded to that ticket. He tried to contact her, he tried to look for her. Hell, he was even contacting Zeke, personal pride and corporate processes be damned.

Surprisingly, instead of leaving him more desolate, the high stakes, all against him, had only sent a surge of motivation through him.

Maybe helplessness could do that to people. Or maybe he just couldn’t believe for himself that losing could be such a probable outcome.

Levi turned up the volume of his phone, scanned the crowds just outside the shop. It was off season, the weather was dark and gloomy so it wasn’t too difficult to even count the number of tall lanky brunettes who could have remotely been Hange. And he probably wasted more than enough time looking closely at each one, before accepting that twinge of disappointment every time they looked back revealing an unfamiliar face.

He never failed to remind himself how stupid of a plan it was. In the end, his best option really was to wait for a message from Yelena. Even if he would have preferred to discuss the plans with Hange himself, without that monkey as an intermediary.

When the disappointment accumulated, becoming too much to bear, Levi opened his laptop again, checked his work trackers, then his own project but he always made sure to look out, in between lines of code, or in between tickets or pull requests.

Just in case. Just in case, one of the brunettes was Hange.

When his love alarm finally rang, Levi had been reviewing a pull request. The surprise lasted for a second, the horror at realizing if that person hadn’t opened their love alarm, he wouldn’t have noticed her, lasted a little longer.

But he couldn’t be too sure it was her. She had on a cap, her hair tied up on a high ponytail. It was wavy and untamed, yet bunched up in such a way that maybe even her hair felt stifled. The ponytail swung wildly with even the slightest movement of her head.

And she was moving a lot, head bent down at first, looking at her phone, then at two kids next to her.

She was part of a tour group and those kids didn’t seem like hers. The alarm stopped for a while, and Levi used that short rest to check the schedule of the convention he had downloaded just yesterday. There was a tour that day. So it could be her.

Still, he couldn’t be too sure. His alarm rang again. Then when he was watching closely, he saw her jaw drop, he saw her explain something to the kids. Then she started to scan her surroundings and when Levi used that flash when their eyes met for just a second, he suspected.

But maybe their eyes haven’t met. She was wearing sunglasses.

And there was still a good chance it wasn’t Hange. But from her reaction, from the reaction of the kids, then the way she poked at her phone and the way the heart just suddenly disappeared then appeared then disappeared from his phone within few second lags, Levi decided it was a risk worth taking.

He continued to stare. And the brunette continued to scan her surroundings. She bent over, said something to both kids, then patted one on the head. And she turned around, looking through the cafe window.

And Levi turned off his own alarm, leaning back on the chair, just far back enough to hide.

What was he scared of? It looked like she could have been scared too. She didn’t bother to come nearer, or to even crane her neck to see just behind the wall right next to the window. She shook her head, a half smile played at her lips. And she walked away from the cafe, back to the tour group.

A disappointing turn of events. And Levi was scolding himself. It almost seemed surreal to even find Hange there, after losing contact with her for months. But he couldn’t be too sure that it was her. And how many times had he repeated it to himself.

Heart beating wildly, Levi let out a wretched sigh and slammed his laptop close, loud and hard enough to jarr him and even his closest neighbors. Who cared anyway? He continued to stare at Hange, and just for some level of security, just in case his emotions took more control than he allowed, he put the hood of his sweat shirt over his head, zipped it up a little higher over his neck and stared out.

She was talking to the tour guide. The tour guide shook his head, then pointed just above him.

Grey skies. Levi understood gesticulations enough to get that part.

The tour guide then pointed at the cafe then at the shopping streets but maybe she wasn’t listening anymore. She turned to the sky and Levi followed her gaze to see that she was probably looking at the tower, the base was visible from his view but even when he bent his head to the side, he couldn't make out the top. He made it a game for himself, he craned his neck, just to see how far up he could make out from his comfortable seat in the cafe.

Then eventually, he gave up, yet the brunette was still looking up, her head hung back, almost freely. Her mouth a thin line. And it was only when Levi heard the loud murmurs, took note of the sudden shift of the cafe atmosphere from peaceful to bustling, did he realize she had been left all alone.

The whole tour group was inside the shop.

Except her. She walked ahead. And if Levi were right, and that was her, he might as well follow. For the first time in a while, he wasn’t coiling the charger of his laptop before stuffing it into his bag. He wasn’t placing it hinge first into his bag. He stuffed everything, leaving chaos in his wake.

But he didn’t have much time anyway. Besides, cafe was starting to get too crowded for comfort. He exited the shop, and she was still in view, for just long enough for Levi to make out, that she had turned a corner.

If a part of him wanted to hesitate, if a part of him was holding him back, he didn’t let it take over. He didn’t have much time to consider the situation either. After all, she was moving fast and the winds were enough of an adversary already. So he ran, holding his laptop bag close to his side. He was grateful, he had at least tightened the hood of his sweatshirt.

The corner she turned on, opened up to a smaller cobblestone road, and at the end of it was the entrance of the tower. She opened the door with the sign ’authorized personnel only’, and she didn’t come back out.

Many feet behind her, but still unperturbed, Levi followed behind. The first floor was wide, and it acted as shelter, an ante room to a visitor’s center maybe, and there was a small open room to the side. A rope acted as some weak barricade to the entrance with a sign hanging in front.

Closed due to weather conditions

Uncertainty was another adversary. He turned to the glass door of the visitor’s center. He could look for her there. After a small peak through the glass, he realized if he went through there, he might just get a little self conscious, he might just hesitate to even climb over the rope.

In the slow few seconds that followed, Levi considered several things.

If she wanted to go to the visitor’s center, she would have gone through the main door. If she were Hange, it wouldn’t be too outrageous to imagine her climbing over a rope or even opening an ‘authorized personnel only’ door. And the more he thought about it, the more he realized, the bartender was right, his own instinct could be right.

Hange loved adventure. Hange loved freedom.

And as he stepped over the rope, then entered the hollow area where the spiral staircase climbed endlessly, he realized, his instincts, his decision might have just been right.

The footsteps echoed loudly, bouncing one end to the other over the hollow walls. Even when he couldn’t make out movements, just staring above him, towards the dizzying top, he made out the echoes.

And that could be Hange.

Or it could be an illusion. Levi added a second later, as he started the journey up the spiral staircases, the laptop bag dangling precariously on his side. He was dealing with too many sounds at once, and they all echoed in the narrow room, that Levi couldn’t be too sure if her footsteps had been his own imagination.

Still, he climbed.

Hundreds or maybe even thousands of steps in, it became an issue of sunk costs. The rubber soles of his shoes on the metal, the slap of his laptop bag on his side. And the few times he looked back, the few times he allowed himself to slow down, he heard an echo, unfamiliar footsteps, the shoes not his own.

A few times, he tried to go faster, just to beat the sound. When he sprinted up steps, losing count along the way, he remembered he had to conserve energy. The sounds were blurring against each other anyway.

So he settled for a quick jog. The monotony that came with jogging had him thinking, the spiral case really was endless. He wondered how many feet he had climbed.

A few times, it was tempting to run. A few other times, it was tempting to walk. A few times, he wondered how nice it would be to be able to fly, just float all the way down like a bird. Soon enough, he was high enough that just looking down made him dizzy, left his stomach turning.

He started to focus on what was ahead anyway, even when it was all just some predictable pattern of stairs and stone walls. Along the way, maybe he had started to lose feeling in his legs, just like he lost track of the echoes, or maybe she had just stopped climbing altogether.

Close to the top, there was a platform that led to a doorway. And Levi only had to push open, to be greeted again by winds. Suddenly they were coming in all directions at once, enough for Levi to put both his hands over his eyes. Enough to have him bending his knees, trudgling forward, one step at a time.

He was at the top of the tower, the highest point for miles around. When he got his bearings, started to accept the wind as an inevitable companion, he had managed to sprint forward, lean his elbows on the arm railings and look forward, at the magnificent view that stretched past the hotels, the shopping malls and the casinos.

The mountains beyond that and just next to them, the empty beaches, the local communities.

A few times, he closed his eyes, allowing them some reprieve from the harsh winds. And around the time, when he started to notice the grey sky, the streams of light that seemed to let bright colors glimmer, the few parts of the land they touched, he easily remembered why he had been there in the first place.

Of course, Hange enjoys this.

He looked around him once. Then twice, just in case the first time had been a trick from his tired eyes. She wasn’t around. Then he started to question himself.

Is she really here? Or were the echoes of footsteps just an illusion?

Was he going crazy?

It could have been from the strong winds, or the crushing disappointment, but around that time, he found it difficult to breathe. He felt tears prickle in his eyes. He swallowed once, and that had been enough to keep his face unmoving.

He looked back at the view, then at the grey sky above, the streams of light that were only getting smaller as dark clouds hovered over the city, then at the neon lights that only started to glow brighter with each stream of light that disappeared.

The wind started to blow harder, the trees down below rustled, creating their own glimmer of green, all dancing at once. Then he looked up at the ocean, the waves only getting larger, as the direction of the winds started to become unpredictable.

Sometimes, his hood was pressing harder towards the back of his head. Sometimes, it pushed from the front, blowing his bangs out of his face. It was chilling his cheeks, forcing the salty yet very sour scent of the ocean through his nose, then his half open mouth.

The wind brought with it many things at once, utter chaos, in separated parts. Most Levi couldn’t even understand.

I love you. At first, he thought it to be the whistle of the wind. Then a second later, he decided that he was just going crazy.

Then the wind stopped for just a second, the whistle, the blowing deadened into nothing for just a few seconds.

A few seconds enough.

“I love you!”

A few seconds long enough for Levi to trace the voice to a strange location, above him, yet behind him. He traced it to the brunette, cap still propped snugly on her head, her ponytail swinging from left to right.

Her sunglasses were off, she stood balanced on one of the lower rungs of the rail. There were still a few streams of sunlight left, yet they shone on Hange, bright enough for Levi to see red, in her ponytail, to see those roundish hazel eyes, those cheekbones and hint of pink in them.

Red. For a while it looked like a fire, the smell of the sea tickled his nose, then a wave of horror. Then loss?

See you later, Hange.

She stood there, meters above him, far enough for Levi to still doubt yet still close enough that with a longer look, Levi accepted, he was obliged to believe it.

It was Hange. The longer he looked at her, the more certain he became, the more money he would have put into such a wild conjecture.

But what the hell are you doing here?

Comprehension was a slow process, muddled by surprise, disbelief and confusion at his own reaction. Impatient, Levi had exited the spiral staircase to a platform a few meters below the top, while she had climbed all the way up. That left them in two completely different floors, two completely different platforms, a good distance away from each other.

And it didn’t look like she noticed him.

Then who are you talking to?

She continued to look straight ahead. She took a deep breath then screamed again.

I love you.

The wind caressed his face again and the words came again as a whisper.

The few times Levi opened his mouth, he noticed. When the wind was strong enough, the clearing of his throat, the grumbles didn’t come out as expected. As if the wind stole his words, and carried them away with it.

And the wind wouldn’t tell its secrets right?

Exhausted, terrified, confused then frustrated. Unwelcome tears threatening to force themselves out, Levi decided he was desperate for someone who’d listen but he he didn’t want anyone capable of judgement.

He took a deep breath. “I love you!” With the wind blowing in all the directions at once, his ears snug under his hood, it came out as a whisper. It was as if his body saw an opportunity for a cathartic release in the potential listener in the wind. Even as his throat burned, he screamed it again. “I love you!”

I love you. Hange’s voice seemed to ride with the wind, once again, he heard it as a whisper. Looking back up, Hange had dropped back on the platform, her two hands cupped her mouth. She dropped them and took a deep breath. She dropped her shoulders, then stared up at the sky, her head hung back. And she looked like she was about to collapse.

And maybe he looked the same way. He wanted to collapse too, with the weight over his shoulders, another, more deeply embedded exhaustion reared its ugly head.

But he wanted to hear the rest of it. He couldn’t be too sure who she had been talking too. Either way, he was sure it didn't change anything. Whether she felt the same way or not, love was love.

He took another deep breath. “I love you!” The wind was only getting stronger and once again, it snatched the words out of his mouth, his throat raw, almost burning. He didn't even know wind could burn until that moment, until he noticed the ache in his tongue.

Hange didn’t seem to notice. She still continued to stare straight ahead, then up at the sky. She put one hand over her eyes, wiping sweat. Or tears?

And maybe his mind suspected tears. And maybe tears were contagious. They came out unwillingly, as something that just welled at the rims.

And maybe if he just screamed again, they’ll force themselves back. “Hange Zoe.” He took a deep breath. “I love you!” He had been more strategic, letting it out a split second later, when the wind was whistling, almost screaming.

The wind might never take those words to her. But he didn’t seem to mind, the words had been for him more than anything.

Levi…. I love you...

The wind was strong enough, rain started to patter over the stone platform. And it became difficult to distinguish screams from the whistling of the wind. So Levi couldn’t be too sure. Still, he listened closely.

...In another life… Okay?

The rain was cold. The dampness pressed the hood closer to the back of his head, then the edge of his hood hung low over him, obscuring his view.

Yet the wind still found a way in, it first caressed his cheeks again, then tickled his lips as if forcing something out of him.

It goaded. It teased. And Levi had always been a sore loser, even if he never told anyone.

Alone, with no one there to hear him, but the wind, and Hange beyond ears reach, Hange who had barely noticed him, the words were forcing themselves out.

He looked back to see her standing, leaning closely over the railing. The strong rains, the ferocious winds had reduced her to a shadow.

And he was sure, she probably hadn't seen him.

Another surge of confidence. Then one deep breath. By some unexpected rush, Levi was starting to feel some strange anger. And Hange’s own staunch acceptance, the way she just gripped the railings and stared ahead, was only aggravating it.

“I don't wanna wait for any more next lives!” He let out a painful cough after that but even that didn’t penetrate the rumble, the pattern of the rain and the gusts of wind that surrounded him.

I want you. It was a weak whisper at first. Recovering from that last bout, Levi attempted once again. “I want you now.” Even when he couldn’t hear it himself, he felt it, the rawness in his throat, the anger that laced every single word. “Love is a choice right? Then I made my fucking choice! I want you! I want you now!” He wasn’t talking to anyone in particular, the figure hidden by a thin veil of rain.

The figure that eventually disappeared into the tower.

He eventually got tired of looking up. His neck ached, his vision started to blur and the hood hung damp over his face.

Levi only realized then, how much he had been holding in. In fact, it never felt all his to begin with. Cathartic releases weren’t all they were cracked up to be. Hell, Levi didn’t even notice how much had actually been released until he leaned back on the wall, until he realized, he didn’t mind at all being covered head to toe in water and dirt.

Humans were unpredictable. They were incomprehensible. And the moment that everything fell into place, Levi let it sink in.

He loved Hange. He wanted her. He wanted to be selfish about it.

“That’s what a choice is right? Doing what I want?” Levi whispered, making some sense of Hange’s own words, he mimicked her voice, her mannerisms as he said those first words. He then lowered his tone, into something more natural. “We’re not fucking robots Hange. We want things. We feel things.”

He didn’t need to tell her that. High up on the tower Hange had been screaming. He was certain of that. Hange had been leaning forward, she had been breathing hard.

She was feeling. She was human. She was free.

And Levi wondered why she had seemed so desperate, so eager to let something out, as if every other moment outside the tower had been stifling.

“That’s life married to a billionaire huh?”

He couldn’t blame her for screaming. HIs only little game of copycat had him exhausted too but somehow, by some sleight of hand, some magic, it had him calm, peaceful even under the strong patter of rain.

Articulating only made emotions all the more real. The signs that he hadn’t been the only one chasing blindly was reassuring.

And maybe that was all Levi wanted anyway, that was the final closure to that long game of cat and mouse. Levi turned to his soaked laptop bag, he maneuvered his way back inside the shelter. He zipped his bag open, let out a sigh of relief to see that the case had done its job to keep the laptop dry.

Then alone on the stairwell, he leaned on the wall, noted the sound of footsteps many feet below. He opened the laptop, then before even booting it, he closed it again and took a deep breath as one realization dawned on him in those slow steady movements.

In truth, he didn’t mind never showing the plans to Hange. Maybe he had just been looking for some excuse to see her, some attempt at closure.

“You got it,” he whispered to himself, hands cold and shaking even under the humid tropical air. “You can stop now…” But something inside him continued to lightly boil. “So what? Do we wait until the next life?”

Nobody answered.

He opened his phone, then his mood alarm. He already predicted the color on the screen.

Green. Happy sad? Or sad happy?

At that moment, Levi concluded, desire and acceptance could begrudgingly coexist.

***

Levi had no plans of going back to the convention. Yet, after that night, he had one more day left, one more day to check the city.

He did a quick google search, reading through long reviews on beaches, on the mountains, the hiking trails, the tower and the shopping street. None of them seemed interesting and Levi almost considered just curling up in bed on the last day and allowing himself to recover from the ordeal the night before.

And even if his mind had been willing him to find some other purpose. Levi found, as soon as the adrenaline rush ended, all he wanted to do was lie in bed. Only standing on two feet long enough to get him through a shower and curled into bed.

His mind was racing with other questions. Could Hange move? Was Hange moving? Was she walking? Was she talking? As if nothing happened? And the more he thought about it, the harder it became to move.

He slept through the night. By morning, he had enough strength, enough need for stimulation to pull his laptop closer. He ran his hand over the keyboard. It was fully dry. He realized he would rather wait a few more hours before opening it again.

He turned back to the ceiling. Rest. He whispered to himself. You don’t need to go out. You went on enough adventures to last a lifetime.

A fucking lifetime. It felt like sour graping. And Levi soon found himself admitting to sour graping. He would have wanted more adventures if it meant more time with Hange.

But real life didn’t work that way. Life expected people to decide on circumstances, never on emotions or actual thought.

So what’s the point of being fucking human then?  Rejecting the world as a whole, made it easier to just roll over and nap again despite the light streaming through the window.

And Levi was in and out of sleep, the only view was the plain white walls of his hotel room, and whatever light reflected on it. Some natural need for stimulation had him jumping at the sound of the phone ringing.

Instinctively, he pulled his hand behind him, dragging the phone roughly from the side table.

An unknown number. Hange. The unwelcome part of him tried to rear its ugly head again. He put the phone to his ear. “Hello?” He kept his voice cold, just in case it was her, or wasn’t her.

“Mr. Ackerman?” An unfamiliar voice on the other end and Levi couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman speaking.

“Speaking.”

“Ms. Finger told me about your request, about your plans for the Mood Alarm. I ran through it with Mr. Jaeger and he would be happy to host you for dinner, then for a private meeting in his suite."

“No need,” Levi said.

“No, he insists.”

“It’s not worth your time.”

“Mr. Ackerman, listen.” And the voice on the other end was firm. “Mr. Jaeger has invited you to dine with him. He took the time out of his busy schedule to do this. This is a formal invitation, if he is interested in your plans he will tell you himself.”

Levi didn't respond immediately. He couldn't think of much else to say yet.

“Will you dine with him?”

Levi put the phone in front of him, put it on speaker and just stared at the unknown number. Could this be a scam?

As if to answer his question, the person on the other line only continued. “We have added you to the guest list for the dinner tonight, just give your name to the reception at the hotel. Mr. Jaeger will see you there.”

And the person on the other end, did not give him time to protest. Levi thought it almost rude to call back, to even bother anyone over a decision that was just his to make.

Hours of contemplation later, Levi decided to just show up and lay low. Besides, what was the worst that could happen? He had already reached the point of acceptance the day before.

#levihan #levihan fanfiction

[fanfiction-funtime]

Genshin OC: Louis

Based on Interactions with @genshin-obsessed

And Pocket, in the original it was Signora who traumatized him sexually(I'm sorry if it offends you but I feel uncomfortable saying the r word), but I don't think she's that evil so in this fic it will be slightly different, but still as messed up.

_____________________

Louis is an inventor from Fontaine, perhaps the brightest in all Teyvat. After unknown circumstances he was forced to flee Fontaine to Liyue, where unfortunate circumstances lead to him to meet Kazuha. Kazuha rescued him in his moment ot need, and inside of taking the life debt Louis offered the samurai merely took his friendship. Now he works as the fleets greatest engineer, repairing and upgrading the ships of the fleet with never before seen technology.

But one has to wonder, what ever caused him to leave Fontaine? And under what city did he meet Kazuha?

__________________

Physical description: a fifty year old man in the following outfit

In this hat

Both his arms are burnt all the way to his shoulder, so he hides them with finned gloves

(Also: I consider Kazuha to be an adult, so if you know about the shipping plan with the Interaction thing with Pocket it's not weird)

He has teal eyes, long silver hair, and a twirling pencil thin mustache.

_____________________

The rise

Louis created his first groundbreaking invention at the mere age of six: a torch that ran on gas!

When he presented his invention it was met with grand....disdain.

People called it a scam, that what he said was impossible. He was laughed and ridiculed, to the point he disappeared from the public eye for many years.

Until fifteen years later.

At nineteen he skyrocketed into the market of invention, using something noone could dispute nor deny the grandeur of: he created a gun!

_____________________

To forge an empire

It was not easy to make it in the invention markets of Fontaine, even with patents one could not stop competitors from making their own form of their products.

So Louis had to be the best damn inventor of all of them! It was why he got his vision, his ambition, his soul demanded it!

And so he did. He hit every corner of the market with high quality inventions every week, from gas ovens to full plate armor, from fans that spun themselves to moving walls! It was once said in Fontaine that if someone wanted the very mountains to move at the push if a button, all they needed to do was pay Louis to make it.

Hundreds took their children to him to for apprenticeship, master craftsmen begged to work for the genius half their sons' age and twice their own skill. It wasn't long before his inventions were being sold by merchants all across Teyvat.

_____________________

A defiled heart of glass

As happy and successful as Louis was, there was something he longed for, something no amount of ambition, success, nor money could ever get him: someone who truly cared for him.

He had believed this to be true for years, until one evening ball,

He met a woman.

She approached him as he sat surrounded, yet completley alone. She walked up to him and said, "you look lonely, would you like to go somewhere else?"

She said it without any ulterior motive, no sucking up, just a genuine want to hang out with HIM. No as Louis the inventor, but as Louis the man who enjoyed inventing.

They walked away from the party, saying to abyss with any who found it rude! And went around the town as two friends, absolutely enamored by eachother's hopes and dreams.

They were friends for five years when Louis finally confessed his love for her, how she would listen to him, and care about him, something he gave to her in equal share.

But a mere year into their relationships he found out his lover's secret: she was Fatui.

One night he found her coming home through the window, in her complete uniform no less. She was afraid, afraid he would leave her for what she was. But instead, all Louis did was wipe her tears and day, "how can I help?"

Do began his secret dealings with the Fatui. He used his bright mind to create countless machines of war for them to use, guns that did not need loading, gas powered suits of armor that gave strength well beyond that of a human, anything thr Tsarista wanted she would get. Because whatever the Tsarista wanted, his love wanted.

His darling love, Signora.

Or so he believed.

Ten years into the deal he was discovered by the Fontaine government and quickly proclaimed a terrorist. He had to flee Fontaine, so he went to where Signora was at the time, Liyue.

When he met her in Liyue he fully intended to propose to her, but when he got on one knee to do so, all he recieved was a sharp freeze through his chest.

And his glass heart shattered, on the stone cold ruins of an empire.

_____________________

Meeting the samurai(tw: this is where the bulk of the messed up happens)

A quick death, however, was not to be his end.

Signora hated him, despised him, for the time she "wasted on this useless, lovesick freak" as she put it.

So she let her mages do to him as they pleased, and left.

And they took full advantage.

They tortured him, violated him, broke him in every way they pleased.

They even convinced him that it was his fault, that he should enjoy what their doing, that he should thank them.

Then left him for dead.

For days he sat slumped on a stone pillar, riddled with holes, barely holding on to life.

'But why?' He had wondered. For he had believed their lies, that he deserved this fate, 'this is a fitting end.' He believed, a fallen emperor, dying on the long dead corpse of an equally grand empire to his own.

'So why?' he wondered, 'why do I keep fighting?'

Then one day a wandering samurai found him and took him in. Louis begged the man to let him die, "I deserve this. She said so...I deserve this....why else would she have done it?"

But the samurai did not falter, he carried the man to the nearest settlement to be healed.

When asked why, the samurai responded, "if you weren't so hurt, I would throw you on the wall and shout you down! WHAT IN THE ABYSS MAKES YOU THINK YOU CAN JUST GIVE UP!? BECAUSE SOMEONE SAID SO? BECAUSE SOMEONE GOT UPSET WITH YOU? SO WHAT!?" The samurai grabbed Louis' vision and held it to his face, "YOU HAVE A VISION, A GIFT FROM THE GODS, GIVEN BECAUSE YOU HAVE A DREAM! THERE IS SOMETHING YOU WANT ISN'T THERE? DO YOU KNOW HOW MANY PEOPLE WANT THIS? WHO WOULD BEG TO HAVE THE ABILITY TO FULFILL THEIR DREAMS?!" the samurai began crying, "do you know how many have had that stripped away? All because someone said they should? Well they still fought. They all fought. And so many died." He placed Louis' vision back on its holder, "so don't you dare give up, and don't you dare die just because someone said you should!"

It wasn't the help Louis needed to fix himself, but it was enough. Enough to help him go on.

_____________________

Vision: shards of a broken dream

Despite what he told the public, Louis did not spend those fifteen missing years because he was discouraged, but because he was betrayed.

Louis was approached by a well known inventor, who said he would help Louis' invention get the recognition it deserved!

Louis should have listened more carefully, because the man never said anything about helping HIM get the recognition he deserved.

The man stole his patent for the gas lamp and rebranded it as his own invention, and threw Louis to the curb.

Were Louis any other person he would have curled up in the warmest alleyway he could find and die, but Louis was not any other person.

Instead he began to create, he spent years and years trying to perfect gas power, then the gods saw his ambition and granted him a vision, a vision of flame.

The vision ignited at an inopportune moment however, and caused a massive explosion that nearly killed the then twelve year old boy.

Inopportune to anyone else, that is.

For in the flames of pain he saw the truth, the overwhelming power that is explosive force.

Then with his still burning hot hands he got to work, forged casing after casing to try and capture the gas that had shown him the light. He spent weeks forging a small metal pellet that could not only survive the blast, but also remain strong enough to pierce through nearly any armor. Then he created the keystone of his work, his masterpiece, the first gun.

And he used the first bullet to take revenge.

_____________________

Abilities:

Main- power of gas: throws a glass container with flammable gas, applying a swirl like effect to a large area that effects all enemies.

After using it, the player can use the ability again to strike a piece of flint that will create a giant explosion that only effects enemies.

Ultimate- culmination of ambition: Louis creates a large explosion blasting enemies away, the camera then zooms in on him holding up two pistols. After the animation ends Louis replaces his Catalyst with dual guns that deal 5X damage and attack twice as fast for ten seconds

Weapon type: Catalyst

Vision: pyro

Passive: glass heart- party members gain 5% extra friendship experience when Louis is in the party.

Special dish: ice cold jelly- a simple spin on the classic mint jelly, Louis adds a special cooling agent to it that increases the cold of the mint exponentially.

(Tagging: @storytravelled, @golden-wingseos, @genshin-obsessed)

#genshin #genshin impact #genshin oc #tw: manipulation #tw: rape

[thatfunkyopossum]

sure do love seeing a series i love being forced into the mcu’s husk. Like okay this is a personal rant but im mad and none of my friends are awake i think to listen to me be angry: I fucking hate the MCU, and I have for the better part of a decade. My opinion of it has never gone above “Pretty alright movie!”. Every last one of the movies i saw was a soulless demand for money with nothing driving it beyond capital. There is no one creative team on this. There is nothing making it cohesive. Disney is commissioning writers to make products they can sell.

The problem is all of this shit is just too fucking big. Disney is too big. Even beyond how Disney is genuinely destroying the culture of the common man from copyright fuckery: Disney is simply too big. Disney has too much money to make good shit anymore, especially not in this current environment. It’s a company that’s now generations removed from any creative lead at the helm, and even if Walt Disney was a piece of shit (i dont know a lot about the man) he was at least still keeping the studio more or less cohesive. I do not believe with any fiber of my being that its possible for an art studio to be run as a business with integrity for even the first studio lead, god forbid several later.

Disney is too fucking big to make good content because it’s at the point where it only cares about hoarding that money. It’s been at and past that point since before the acquisition of marvel.

Everything we’re seeing is a commission meant to be designed to be sold to you. No one making this shit who has any power over how it turns out gives a fuck. Sure, there are writers in star wars products who care about star wars and want to make it good, but everything they want to do is completely beholden to executives and shareholders who want to bleed the series dry until there isn’t a drop of good will left in the damn thing. No amount of good writers and actors who care at all are able to change anything, because no matter how many there are we live in a universe where power over one of the most influential modern pieces of fiction was given to Rian Fucking Johnson, who cut out a genuinely emotional scene because he couldn’t be assed to write a payoff and figured it was better to just cut the whole thing.

Star Wars is in the hands of people who don’t care about you. It’s in the hands of people who have never cared about you, or any of the people who made this series worth anything to them in the first place. Every last bit of heart and soul ever given to this franchise is going to get clawed out of it and burned.

We have more people of color and more women in front of the camera, but hardly any behind them because its all for show. There were three frames of a gay kiss in one of the movies because it was for show. No one gives a fuck about any of us, and its not being done for us. Its being done for our wallets, and i’m fucking pissed about it.

People of color deserve better than how they’re being treated by Star Wars. John Boyega deserved so much fucking better than he got. Queer people deserve better than we’re getting from this.

It’s lip service, every fuckin bit of it. The Bad Batch is shaping up to possibly be one of the most repulsive examples of modern day white washing. Can’t say, I’m not an authority on it, but thats how it looks to me. What’s truly fucking heinous about all of this is that if ANY corporation could take a risk, it would be Disney. Disney is a repulsively wealthy company with more than enough money to make a show or even a short film with a minority cast, and minority characters. Even if they pumped a shitload of money into it and it flopped hard, it would be FINE. No one at the top would lose an actual cent, because Disney is untouchable at this point. They just don’t fucking care!

I hate this ride.

#jaymes personal

[melisa-may-taylor72]

Accolades such as “greatest single long-playing achieve­ment since Sgt. Pepper” and “the most important record album ever made” fall over Queen’s latest album as easily as butter melt­ing on a hot potato—but few realize what a hot potato the album actually was in its pre-release days. It took a bevy of high-powered attorneys, some low-life finagling, and more than the usual amount of wheeler­dealing just to get the album out without its being hacked to death by defamation-of-character suits.

Guitarist Brian May explains: “I’m in real difficulty here because I’ve been threatened with libel because our old management had a good go at stop­ping the album coming out. They thought “Death on Two Legs’’ was about them. They wanted us to take the track off and we nearly had to, and in fact they got a load of money out of our publishing company be­cause it supposedly was libelous, but it’s never been proven. It’s all very stupid—they wanted to sue Freddie, the band, the publishing company, and the record company.”

All very dramatic stuff, but a band like Queen survives not on operatic finesse alone, but on gut-level melo- dramatics in the business department as well. When you produce your rec­ords, write the songs, play all the in­struments, and do everything your­self, chances are you’re going to have to pay some legal dues, too. But ah! the rewards—such as the single, “Bo­hemian Rhapsody,” hanging into the #1 spot in the British charts for seven weeks in a row!

“We’re a bit more in the public eye now, we’re starting to get recognized a lot more,” says Brian May. “We’re carrying on working just as we did before, but obviously we’re very pleas­ed with how the record’s doing. It’s sold more than a million copies in England— can’t believe it.” But it’s true: Queen’s stature in England has risen from that of The #1 teenage hard rock band to that of the-group- that-made-the-single-that-every-house- wife-knows-by-heart”.

What propelled Queen in that di­rection is their Night at the Opera album, a slight departure from what Queen fans know to be the Queen sound. The hard rock screams have temporarily subsided, replaced by ex­perimentation with different voicings of instruments and production tricks. Those who found Queen’s approach overdecibelled can relax to the quiet “ ‘39” or “Good Company” and tap their feet to “Lazing on a Sunday Af­ternoon” without fear of being gui- tarred to death. “It’s just what came out,” says Brian. “They’re offshoots of our main direction. There’s plenty of time for the rock.”

“The album wasn’t really supposed to go in the direction that it did, it was just the songs we had. While we were making it we were thinking, ‘Yeah, it is getting a bit light,’ but rather than fight against it we de­cided to do it properly and then think again afterwards. So instead of try­ing to heavy up the lighter things, we pressed on. We had a few things we didn’t use, but we’re getting more demanding of ourselves. There are a few heavy things kicking around, but we may use them on the next record.”

The two strongest forces in Queen have always been Brian and Freddie. With A Night at the Opera, where experimentation and branching out in new directions are the most obvious characteristics, the personalities of the band are often obscured by the newly emerging elements. “Some­times I feel that Freddie and I are going in different directions, but then he’ll come up with something and I’ll think, ‘My God—we do think alike.’ When I’m working on one of his things I can tune in very easily to what guitar part he wants, and vice-versa. In terms of what we’re trying to do in songs, we are moving in different directions, but I think that could be a good thing.”

QUEEN II: Critical response to the band is now almost unanimous­ly favorable in both Great Britain and the United States, which is quite phe­nomenal when you stop and think of how anxious many critics were to pan them two years ago.“I’m not going to take it too seriously,” Brian says, “because I remember what the critics said about Queen II. It would seem that everybody is beginning to like us. … very much. I can take it at that level, but there’s no doubt in my mind that sometime in the future there’ll come a time when we get slagged for everything. Queen II is still my favorite of the Queen albums, certainly the most daring. Especially for the time. I think we’re still finding our feet now, and the way I feel about the new album is that we’re searching for new directions and most of them are sort of half-formed. We’ve got the Queen II feel in some places, and in others we’ve got the Sheer Heart Attack polish. I don’t think we’re quite sure where we’re going”.

“This album, at the very least, ne­gates all the comparisons to Led Zep­pelin that we’ve been living with for the past three years. I think Physical Graffiti is amazing, by the way. I saw Zeppelin at Earls Court, and I met Pagey afterward, for the first time. It was great, he was very nice and gentle. I respect him a tremendous amount for “Kashmir” and “The Light,” for being able to put his brain on record—- it wouldn’t matter if he couldn’t play a note.”

Economic criticism has been less favorable, however. A Night at the Opera was wide­ly rumored to be “the most expensive album ever made” when it was released, a point which Queen’s management denies. Nevertheless, Queen has been taken to task by quite a few English journalists for spending so much money estimated at £30-40,000—making one record. Brian has a retort: “We wouldn’t have spent so much money if the studios weren’t so bloody expensive!

The album was recorded in seven of them, sometimes three at once.” We weren’t mucking about for any of it, it was four months of solid work. It came down to having the equipment available for four months, and we didn’t begrudge the amount of time spent in the studios, but it comes to a fair amount of money. There’s a lot of things that seem light, like “Good Company,” which actually took a great deal of time and care. All those trumpets and clarinets being fashioned from guitar sounds—I took it quite seriously because I wanted to do it right, even though it was a light­hearted thing. We worked too hard for our own health, we got a bit down and depressed.”

While Queen was laying about England between record and tour, a few of them got going on some independent projects. Brian and Roger produced an R&B group’s single, but there were some record company hassles and it may be some time before the record gets released. And on the eve of the Amer­ican tour, Freddie Mercury went into the studios with a singer/songwriter managed by the Rocket Organization (which manages Queen as well) to try his hand at production. “Eddie How­ells is the guy’s name, and he’s man­aged by David Mead, and they’re do­ing a single for Warners. I’m play­ing some guitar on it.” Brian re­strained himself from going out on any limbs before the American tour in order to get himself physically fit. His health had been a crucial prob­lem on an earlier American tour, and he’s not particularly anxious to spend time in hospitals when he could be on­stage instead. “I actually get more tired offtour than ontour,”he admits. But I am in good health.”

HAIRY LEGS: Once the English leg of the tour did get started, word started to flow very quickly back to the States about Queen’s dramatic stage show—a stage show to end all stage shows, with Mercury donning short-shorts to add a bit of the hairy leg to Queen’s otherwise pristeen pre­sentation. “The show is the same, but different,” Brian says confusedly. “We’ve merely developed what we did before with some new material from the new album. It’s a bit of re­shuffling. Plus we do “Doing All- right” from the first album, which we’ve never done onstage before. And “Seven Seas of Rhye,” which we’d do in England but never in America be­fore. It’s quite a lot different, ac­tually.”

American audiences got their first chance to sample the new presenta­tion on January 27 in Waterbury, Conn., when the first concert of Queen’s scheduled 32-date, 21-city American tour got underway in the Palace Theatre. After arriving in the States at Kennedy International on January 20 and spending a couple of days in New York for interviews, Queen began five days of rehearsals at the Palace to ready their show for American fans across the country.

After Waterbury they dove headfirst into the intensive six-week tour, which featured extended runs in New York, Philadelphia, and Los Angeles before its scheduled end March 12 at the San Diego Sports Arena.

Despite the novel direction of the new album, onstage Queen proved to be the same rocking outfit they’ve always been, letting loose with the same kind of guitar-bass-drums-piano barrage they’ve delivered in the past. “We don’t do “39” or “Lazing on aSunday Afternoon” in our show,“ Brian explains. He seems a bit defensive of Queen’s rock spirit, which is kept intact in the live set by “BohemianRhapsody,” “Sweet Lady,” “Prophet Song” and the deletion of the “experimental tunes” from A Night At the Opera.

By the by, those who missed Queenon earlier tours but want to see how they’ve changed now have the means. Queen bave joined the prestigious ranks of the Zeppelins, the Beatles, and the Rolling Stones whereby sorne illegal entrepreneur has issued a boot­ leg album of one of their American concerts. “I hate those things-they rarely give an accurate picture of the group,” Brian states unequivocally, and in this case he’s right. The Queen bootleg has transistor radio fidelity, and the only truly audible members of the band are Brian and Freddie. Yet the fact that a bootleg exists confirms the fact that Queen is now well on their way to the top.

CIRCUS MAGAZINE, APRIL 1975

@natromanxoff, @mephisto92, @moviestorian, @x5vale, @39-brian, @onegoldenglance, @crosmopolitan, @an-abyss-called-life, @his-majesty-king-mercury, @i-live-for-queen, @brian-39-may, @toomuchlove-willkillyou, @brimaymay, @sail-away-sweet-sister, @drummerqueenrmt, @old-fashioned-roger-boy-deactiv, @briianmaay, @l-over-bo-y, @inui-mycroft, @deacytits, @iminlovewithrogscar, @drowseoftaylor, @brianmayislongaway, @balticlover, @astrophysicist-guitar-god​, @miez-lakatz, @brianmayoucease, @jesus-in-a-life-boat, @roger-taylors-car, @silapril, @sherrifanciesfriskyfreddie, @tenderbri, @brianmydear, @thosequeenboys, @millionairewaltz-carpediem, @painandpleasure86, @bribrifrenchfry, @xlucylennonx, @a-night-at-the-abbey-road, @inthedayswhenlandswerefew, @madformeddowstaylor, @queenrogertaylorfan, @let-roger-get-a-lunch, @queen-for-life, @rethought, @darlinginnuendo, @mymakeupmaybeflaking, @old-but-still-a-child, @let-roger-get-a-lunch, @warriorteam1924, @funnydressesweirdhairanddance, @painkiller80, @thefanhuman13, @yourtieddownmother, @hgmercury39, @brimi-stardust, @thefairyfellermercury, @retroromantics, @foxmonkey, @sophiaintheskywithdiamonds, @holybrianmaywritingbear, @lydiannode, @39-yellow-daffodils , @ure-gonna-loveme-when-u-seeme, @kaykaybeachgirl, @rhysjoejoshtomfarisblog @redspecialandclogsandcurls, @briansrainbowsocks, @delilahmay39, @ohmybribri, @bless-the-queen, @infunitehearbeat, @sketchiesscketches, @everythingaboutfreddie, @doitforthevine67, @recordsoftheseventies, @tenementfunsterwithpurpleshoes, @drummah-in-a-rocknroll-band, @beatlegirl1968, @maylorsqueen, @shearrehartatacc, @gralto, @alittlepeoplemagic, @rainbowsockbrian, @sailawaysweetbrimi

#Circus Magazine #Queen article

[slugtranslation-hypmic]

Ik this maybe sounds kinda random but I have a feeling you're latinoamerican Idk why.

Also what are your thoughts on the anime? I really liked the CGI I think it looked very cool and clean!! A-1 pictures did a good job 👏👏 I know it just started but I really hope its successful in japan, so maybe one day we could see Osaka and Nagoya animated :')

That’s probably because I am and am fairly vocal about it.

I live in the US and am racially pretty damn white, but my mother’s family is from Mexico. (Sorta. They’ve been in the US for a while now, and we’re not exactly sure who came across the border when because most old Mexican men can give Gentarou a run for his money when it comes to telling mentiras.) I was raised speaking both English and baby Spanish, but I lost the opportunity to practice it all that often when I was pretty little and as such forgot almost all of it, hahaha. Still, I can understand most written Spanish and a fair bit of common spoken Spanish, and I speak Spanglish with my mom. Growing up mostly white is pretty weird, since I don’t feel Latino enough to fit in with my own family (but they ARE my family) but also not white enough to fit in completely with my white peers. They don’t get how enchiladas are comfort food or how the words “mijo” and “mija” are love incarnate. They don’t get it why my parents have three bags of tortillas in their fridge at all times (it’s because I keep stealing them whenever I run out at my house) or the importance of owning a big-ass olla. It’s like... I don’t want to intrude in spaces where I don’t necessarily feel I have the right to belong, but I also want to acknowledge the struggle of my grandparents who worked as migrant farmers instead of going to school and gave up everything they had to give their kids a better life. I wonder how well I can do that, having forgotten their language and living as so much as a product of “American melting pot” culture. It’s... tricky. Identity is tricky.

Point is, I want to see Dice casually calling Otome “vieja”.

ANYWAY. Anime thoughts. I’ll put them under a cut for anyone concerned about spoilers.

The little kick the Buster Bros did in the opening on “buttobasu” (send ‘em flying) made me involuntarily laugh out loud. So dorky. Love them for that.

I was not sold on the opening back when I saw it in the previews, but I actually liked the full version quite a lot. The rap bits are a lot more impressive than the sort of generic chorus.

Love how it opened on TDD. I hope other episodes will follow suit and give more TDD backstory, because I think it delivers the best emotional impact when you know the reasons the anime boys are duking it out with one another.

TDD Samatoki has giant eyelashes even in the anime. Jesus christ.

TDD Ramuda appeared for about three seconds, and I was appeased.

The Buster Bros bit didn’t interest me too much, personally, but I thought it set the tone for the series really nicely. I also thought that a bunch of random dudes ganging up on these children and being like, “Heh heh, bitch, whatcha gonna do? We have microphones!” is hilarious.

BB rap was fantastic. I appreciated how much of a mix this was between the ARB and manga styles in terms of the way the raps appeared. Having the lyrics on screen was a GREAT thing for me as well. I also really enjoyed the moment where Saburou pushed Jirou out of the way and Ichirou stopped Jirou before he could retaliate. It wasn’t a distraction from the song at all but also characterized the familial interactions so clearly in just a few seconds. Kudos.

My VPN connection died during Ichijiku’s first talk with Otome, so idk what went on there.

I know Samatoki is supposed to be taken seriously, but for the life of me, I really can’t. I kept on snickering the whole time he was talking to the yakuza NPCs and acting tough. All his posturing is ridiculous to me.

Loved that MTC rap, although I kept laughing at that too. MTC is overkill.

I have a love/hate relationship with Samatoki’s speaker ever since I had to redraw part of that motherfucker sometime last year, but it is really damn cool looking. The animation for it blew me away. LOVED THAT.

Riou was there :)

I finally understood the significance of the cigarette kiss between Samatoki and Juuto. It’s to symbolize the whole “I scratch your back, you scratch mine” professional relationship they have, but I did think Juuto was leaning in for a kiss for a really bizarre moment.

Riou showing up to offer food :)

Eat Riou’s fucking food, Samatoki :)

I think Ramuda is a bit smaller than he should be as compared to the other cast members, but I will let it slide

Ramuda’s office is absolutely awful in color, but I will also let that slide

The Fling Posse interactions were a huge hit with me. I love seeing them hang out with one another and horse around the way that they do. Like the BBs’ scene, this was a great establishing shot for them.

I love how Dice rolls with Ramuda’s gratuitous English without missing a beat.

FP song wasn’t as hardcore as some of the other ones, but it was executed very well. Love the wordplay with the end of Ramuda’s and the beginning of Gentarou’s verse.

THE HIGH FIVE AT THE END OF THE SONG... HOO HOO!! NOW THAT’S WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT, BABY! NOW THAT’S FRIENDSHIP RIGHT THERE!

Hypmic NPCs lowkey piss me off, especially all the “Kyaaa~!!!!” female NPC types. I get that they’re not supposed to be thought about all that much, but seriously...? Why is running from fangirls a plot point that keeps on being revisited?

They left Dice’s money behind... Bruh.......

Love how Doppo and Hifumi barge into Jakurai’s office nonchalantly.

The bit with the nurse establishes Hifumi’s character very well, although I still think Doppo’s being kind of an ass when he pulls Hifumi’s jacket off.

The whole fucking “terrorists on the roof” bit made me laugh again. Some of the Hypmic plot points are so contrived that I find them funny. It’s all silly good fun.

Love that rappers show up to push past the bumbling security guards/police. Excuse me, please, let me through... I’m a rapper.

Jakurai’s speaker was very well animated, but the way it appeared made me think of the Lionsgate logo. The mic animation was pretty cool too.

JAKURAI’S RAP ACTUALLY BLEW ME AWAY. I’m normally not a fan of Jakurai raps, but god DAMN was that cool.

Hifumi and Doppo didn’t drop the ball either. Fuck it UP, Matenrou.

I can’t believe they dropped lightning bolts on two people... especially when one was holding someone else hostage. Is that woman okay? Did she get fucking vaporized? I’ll never know.

Otome’s character model moves pretty stiffly, which I think actually helps her character because of how stoic she tries to act overall.

Ending song was dope. I wonder if they’ll feature other divisions in the endings of other episodes.

Ramuda leaping a good 3 meters in the air in the final shot is funny as fuck.

#not a translation #asks

[seijch]

ANNOUNCEMENT: NOT A HELLO, BUT NOT A GOODBYE EITHER

omg hi ... im like . ashamed to come back after saying brief hiatus in october and then disappearing off the face of the earth til FEBRUARY but under the cut i will be explaining myself and the following, if youre interested (and a tl;dr at the very bottom if you don’t wanna scroll thru this obnoxiously long post):

the reason(s) i was gone for so long

what i was doing during that time (its just a personal account yall can scroll past this idrc)

the status of those um . halloween requests

the future of this account

i. so . Hiatus .

i know. i know . i probably mentioned it when i made the announcement post, but my mental health likes to go on one of those rides. yknow the ones where you go like up rlly fast then down maybe and then up then DOWN .... its like that. i needed a break and every time i wanted to come back or thought about it, something would happen and i would get stuck in my own head.

a big reason for getting stuck in my head was (and i hate to admit this ... i hate to admit that i have Insecurities On The Internet) my feelings of inadequacy regarding my writing. i love to plot fics, i love concepts and characters and making little headcanons but i dont ... know if i love writing rn. and i thought for the longest time that like . whatever ill just push thru it its fine ill be fine but it kinda wasnt lmao you can kinda see it in my halloween reqs and what become of them when i get to that but i began to feel like nothing i had put out or would put out would hold up prose wise (and normally i dont feel like this im much more “idc its my life im living it” but thats not a rant for tumblr LMAO). i still feel like that -- like im better as a reader than a writer. but . You Know :-)

tl;dr: mental state go brrrrr

ii. anywhere here’s wonderwall

when i left, i was in a steadily decreasing mental and emotional state, made worse by a situation at work that really was a case of petty jealousy on my end and rlly isnt very consequential now despite how much pain and resentment it gave me when it Was a problem so i wont get into it. the tl;dr of november and december was me using work as an crutch and distraction -- i know my job, i do it well, it helped me not think about my responsibilities and obligations and inadequacies. of course, as the holiday season grew busier n busier i was scheduled so often that i moved 88 or so miles (according to my apple watch, which i ONLY wear at work since im never anywhere else outside my house) and fell into a cycle of showering n sleeping at my house before going back the next day. (theres definitely something to be said abt capitalism and “grind culture” here but once again its not the time or place snsjkdfds)

at the turn of the new year, i happened to remember a birthday card i hadnt filed away for safekeeping from a friend of mine that id been horribly out of touch with til that point. i started crying because i realized how out of touch id been in general up until that point. the month of january was great for me: i was focused, happy, and in a much better place than i had been before. the end of it brought me down focus wise and im hoping that enough time away from my distractions will refocus me bc i ... need it LMAO and though ive burned out from that level of productivity and gotten distracted again im ... trying to stay positive which i think is the most i can do 😁👍🏼

media wise, i got real into stardew valley (but burned out bc i played it extensively as a way to wind down after work), the pokemon platinum romhack renegade platinum (still havent finished it bc of school n i played it w the intent to see if i could nuzlocke it ... bitch its so hard but its so fun bc of it), briefly assassins creed: odyssey (im one of those ppl who completes an entire region before i move to the next so you can tell i burned out of that one + wouldnt have the time to properly devote to it even if i didnt), got back into genshin impact after pulling for xiao (after not touching it for like . months), and danganronpa. yes . danganronpa 😐 i Know. i stopped playing it after the second trial of the first game bc i was so hurt by the outcome and picked it up in late january only to get sucked in (thank god i had the foresight to buy the second and third games during the steam winter sale). rn im at the start of chapter 4 if anyone wants to come in my asks and um . talk to me abt danganronpa

tl;dr: I’m Into Danganronpa Now

iii. you realize halloween was three months ago right

i mentioned this in the first section, but i love to plot things. every request is plotted or at least has a solid foundation. i had fun detailing what concept i wanted to go with considering what i was given, and there were some bangers i might touch up in the future. but heres whats going to happen to the requests themselves:

there are two finished requests. one will be posted tomorrow and the other will be touched up (just bc i finished it doesnt mean its good 🧍‍♂️) and scheduled for next saturday. as for the ones i never got around to ...

i will not be finishing those requests. i hate to be That Person, but i feel like we all expected this 🧍‍♂️ what i will do is post all of my notes for each request in batches -- requests that have an @ to go with them will be mentioned in the post proper, but anon asks will be pictured. (there are some asks that came from blogs who are now deactivated but i wrote down all the prompts and remember most of those askers so ill cross that bridge when i get there) there will most likely be an excerpt or two simply bc i think i mightve written a few plot points or interactions in the form of bullet points. i rlly am sorry about doing this but i remember looking at my notion doc with all the prompts and feeling ... like i wasnt measuring up n it wasnt just to myself or to some intangible concept of “other” id constructed but it was instead to those who requested n actually WANTED to see and hear and read my writing and i ...... im gonna admit thats another big reason i avoided this site.

regardless, youll definitely get what i have (and likely more than just my bullet points and illegible handwriting).

tl;dr: im sorry. what i have in terms of plot, concept, and interaction for every request will be posted, but i cant say ill ever complete them and mean it.

iv. so what now?

well i mean . im not entirely sure how sold i am on haikyuu in the content creation department (as a creator n to a lesser extent, as a consumer). as mentioned previously, its no longer my primary focus. it doesnt mean im not into haikyuu anymore; i have a lot of love for those boys but i cant rlly say im even caught up w recent fandom activity and also havent even finished s4 pt2 LMAO thats on my to do list

and despite all that, i still want to share my plots n concepts and snippets and maybe even fics. it wont happen anytime soon. it might not even happen. but i mean . its better than me saying i wont write ever again shjdkfs but either way ill probably use this blog as a personal blog w the occasional ask game for dialogue prompts (those are always so fun i love making up aus to fit like . the most mundane prompts)

as for my works (past and any potential future), ive opened an ao3 acc here n ill be editing n possibly expanding on my old works to post there. tumblr, to me, is The x reader hub, but i figure more x reader fics on ao3 is never a bad thing.

ill be deleting/posting drafted posts to the queue since they were all meant to be queued anyway as well as (sorry again 🧍‍♂️) deleting or answering asks in the inbox. (moots if you get a notif from me saying i rbed your post from months ago ... mind your business) im very hard to get ahold of and its ... a problem. expect an overhaul of the nav n shit to reflect my new direction n also because i feel like i cant tell if my passion for carrd is shared by the majority HSDKLFS maybe its better to read my info in a normal post ykwim .......

and of course . if youve read all this n decided im no longer worth the follow, i sure as hell cant stop you. thank you for wanting to, at some point, hear what i have to say -- it means more than you think.

tl;dr: writing will be edited and reposted to ao3, this blog will be a personal blog with a hint of writing (sometimes)

the tl;dr to end all tl;drs:

im back! i wont be as active as i used to due to a lessened interest in haikyuu in general, but i have an ao3 acc now where all my past work will be edited, possibly expanded, and reposted. any future work will also find itself there. my halloween requests will be posted in batches as incomplete concepts, plots, and snippets of scenes; i wont be promising to finish any of them.

there are still fic concepts im attached to and want to finish, but i cant promise any more writing on my end. this blog will be a personal blog with maybe writing, not a writing blog with my personal thoughts all over it.

regardless if you stick around or not, its been crazy sexy cool (equal emphasis) being on haikyuu tumblr even tho i wasnt around for long ... even tho its not my main focus anymore, im still excited to see what the future might hold 🤝

love, ari 💌

#did i have an announcement tag #announcement #also regarding work hsjkdfsd the company i work for didnt give my location the opening for the full time position i wanted #my managers all agree id be promoted if we had it but we dont so i . hee . #anyway um i hope everyones doing well #some of my moots changed urls while i was away and now i have no idea who anyone is #its like when you see your familys friends and theyre like omg youre so big now! i remember when you were a baby and youre like 🧍‍♂️ #and you have to play along bc apparently they remember you hskdfsd #im not very funny in this post but i figured id rather be honest considering my lengthy absence #consider this my comeback stage

[hozier-mp3]

destiel au fic recs?

Oh yes.

Once upon a time I made a post of every single one of my Fic Recs, and I’m especially fond of AUs, so I give you a list of just, solely, AU fics.

Let me start with my shameless self promotions. (They’re actually full of shame I’m sorry but those are my three AU fics I’ve written.

Alright, time for the real ones. *cracks knuckles*     A Million Ways To Go by ChasingRabbits on AO3 - Castiel Novak is a preacher's son living in a world of black and white. Pragmatic and dutiful, he doesn't understand why anybody would want to make waves.Then the Winchesters move in down the street. Soon many of the skeletons in the Novak family's closet are exposed, and as the family faces them, Castiel begins to understand that there are many ways to see the world and so many more ways to live than what he's been told. - This is one of the few fics I’ve reread. The summary pretty much covers it, though, so I’ll let that one speak for itself.

Word Count: 91,079

https://archiveofourown.org/works/1086183/chapters/2185029

Smiling Out Of Fear by thepinupchemist on AO3- Castiel Novak is a product of the system, having gone through too many foster homes since the age of seven. At fourteen, he lands himself in Sugar Lane Mobile Home Community under the care of Missouri Moseley. There, he meets one Dean Winchester. A story about teenage hooligans, growing up, and finding a home. - Okay, I’m not going to say anything other than the fact that thinking about this fic literally makes me almost start crying happy tears. I adore it. (I pretty much recommend everything thepinupchemist has written, but I haven’t gotten through it all yet.)

Word Count: 117,494

https://archiveofourown.org/works/1007755/chapters/1998660 25¢ Pocket Guardian Angels by hopelessheathen on AO3- Dean walks into his local bank one day and notices that someone has filled the old gumball machine with these tiny, wiggling, sentient angels in individual plastic packaging. Deeply concerned about their air supply and the fact that they're trapped there in the sun, he starts pumping in quarters to rescue them. This is worse than leaving a dog in an overheating car. Now he's got forty of the little guys running all over his house, and god knows how many others might be trapped and dying all over the city. - I love this. I could read it three times a day and still get a smile on my face. It’s just a little one shot, but it’s worth the time it takes. Word Count: 13,325

https://archiveofourown.org/works/6359713 

Burden by riseofthefallenone on AO3 - Mutants are considered second class citizens, or worse. Discriminated against at every turn, mutants are marked and monitored by The Registry and any deemed too dangerous are taken away to The Facility. It’s no surprise that many try to hide or choose a more permanent way out if a mutation develops. Castiel’s parents hid his mutation and hid him away from the world. He’s grown up with the knowledge that the world will hate him, no matter what he does. If he leaves the house, he can only do it with a long, heavy coat that covers the most beautiful part of him. It takes a pair of brothers to help him really spread his wings and live. - Yet another I adore. If you’ll keep a secret for me, I’m actually not caught up, but I oh so desperately want to be. I’m kind of a sucker for wings in general, though, so that helps.

Word Count: 317,582

https://archiveofourown.org/works/20613731/chapters/48945302

Out Of The Deep by riseofthefallenone on AO3 - Stay away from the light-beds. Stay in the deep. It is the first thing hatchlings are taught the moment their fans unfurl and they can swim without their parents to buoy them along. It is the first rule, the first law. It is the beginning of every boogey-monster bedtime story told when they settle against the cliffs to sleep. Castiel should have listened better. - Okay, but holy shit. This was one of the first Destiel fics I read, and it heightened my standards to unbelievable places. I adore it. I could write essays.

Word Count: 488,608

https://archiveofourown.org/works/548878/chapters/977676 True As It Can Be by whelvenwings - Growing up in a small town in Kansas, Dean learned from a young age that there was only one rule that couldn’t be broken, one place he couldn’t go - through the forest, to the long-abandoned Angel’s Hollow. But when Sam disappears, Dean’s left with no choice but to follow his brother's tracks through the dangers of the wood; little does he know that the most dangerous creature of all lurks not among the trees, but in the Hollow itself. Dean sets Sam free, at the cost of his own liberty - and, bound by magic, resigns himself to living out the rest of his days in the Hollow, at the mercy of the being within. The angel of Angel’s Hollow, however, has a story - is a prisoner, too, as much as Dean is. Only one thing can free them both - but it is impossible. For, after all: who could ever learn to love a beast? - This was the first, and last, Beauty and the Beast AU I ever read, but for good reason. I’m scared if I read another, that this one will absolutely shit on it and I won’t be able to enjoy it. I loved this fic very much.

Word Count: 71,952 

https://archiveofourown.org/works/11048568/chapters/24631101

Okay, before I even mention the next one, please read the tags. There are quite a few possible triggers and the tags, luckily, have accurate trigger warnings. And, of course, archive warnings. (And, of course, be sure to read tags on the others.) If you have issues with that, just scroll past this one, because the others are fine. (I think/hope so. At least. If you have any issues, please, let me know. I’ll put warnings above those too)

Defiant by thestorygirl on AO3 - Dean Winchester has devoted his career as a police officer to helping angel slaves in any way that he can. He even formed and heads the "Angel Welfare Task Force," which involved him being called to consult on any case involving slaves. This passion stemmed from an incident that happened twenty years previously, when a thirteen year old Dean failed to help his friend Castiel escape being sold to a sadistic owner. Dean had never really harbored any hope of finding his friend. He saw his work as something he did in memory of Castiel, to prevent others from suffering the same fate. But, when called out on a routine case one day, Dean was startled to find that he recognized the victim. - So, usually I avoid the Non-Con archive warning at all. But with this one, honestly, I’m lucky I didn’t. I could seriously write essays on this fic. I’m gonna shut up about it, just because I don’t want to talk too much about it. It’s seriously perfect.

Word Count: 133,352

https://archiveofourown.org/works/2180202/chapters/4771569

Alright back to the ones that don’t quite need trigger warnings.

Have Love, Will Travel by squeemonster - Castiel Novak is a reclusive writer with a childhood so tragic it's left him terrified to leave his home—until his overbearing brother, Gabriel, drags him out for a night on the town full of booze and strip clubs, and he encounters Dean Winchester, a mesmerizing and mysterious stripper with secrets of his own. Both men find themselves inexplicably drawn to each other, and soon Dean's private dances for Castiel become much more, as both men confess their troubles and find solace in each other's company. But neither can seem to find the courage to take their relationship further than the intimacy of the club's VIP Room—and just when Dean's own brother gives him the excuse he needs to finally admit his feelings, Dean discovers something that brings it all crumbling down. Will they find a way past their demons and their trust issues, and back to each other?- I love Cas in this fic, his agoraphobia fits his usual outsider-ness and it’s just all beautifully characterized. I very much enjoy “the only exception” tropes as well, so....

Word Count: 94,054

https://archiveofourown.org/works/565455/chapters/1011747?view_adult=true Four Letter Word For Intercourse by Bendingsignpost on AO3 - As a grease monkey turned college freshman, Dean's constantly three seconds away from being stressed out of his mind. It hardly helps that he's finally figuring out his sexuality in his thirties. What might help with that stress is a little phone number (and a big credit card bill). If he can't figure out how to be bisexual in person, he can at least give it a go over the phone, right? (It's probably a bad idea, but he really can't help himself.) - Holy shit. That’s... that’s really all I can say. Holy shit. Easily made my top five.

Word Count: 194,739

https://archiveofourown.org/works/16086839/chapters/37568591 Now, onto the one I haven’t finished, but like... so far.

Beck and Call by Soupernabturel on AO3 - 1922: Dean Winchester, eldest heir to the Winchester Estate, has a less than orthodox relationship with his servant, Castiel Novak. - Like I said, I haven’t finished it yet, but I’m vastly enjoying it at the moment.

Wow, it was really hard not to include canon ones lol. Anyways, I hope this helps Anon, and I hope you enjoy! I love all these authors, and you should give them all the love!