#for like two years I was using the Internet exclusively by pressing a button in my weather app that would bring me to Yahoo

[curmudgeons-to-be]

I think I would be funnier now if when I was a little kid I had watched the things my best friend was recommending to me (Ed's World, Invader Zim, etc.) and I always liked them whenever we watched them together but I never got around to watching them on my own partially because I did not have unmonitored Internet access until much later and I did not know where to watch any of these things.

[thebluesunflower44]

Hello please tell me literally everything about leaves on the vine thank you good day

hi! thank you for the ask! you're going to regret saying 'literally everything' as soon as you click Keep Reading (: but first, a snippet

Toph😎 added Azula ⚡

[Sokka] Toph why

[Toph] Oops pressed the wrong button

[Suki] ...your phone is controlled entirely by your voice

[Katara] NOT AZULA!! She tried to kill all of us at some point!

[Aang] She nearly did kill me 😢

[Azula] Well, I DIDN'T, did I?

I should've tried harder.

[Zuko] AZULA

[Azula] Fine, that's not what I meant to say.

Honestly, I don't remember that. I was probably fucked up.

I was crazy back then heh huh hehehe

WIP ask game

I have a VERY MESSY, general outline for this, but it could change at any time. mostly just going where the gaang takes me!

the story is set 7 years post-war. yes, this is done so that toph can say "what up I'm toph, 19, and I never fuckin learned how to read." that's the only reason.

Sokka, Teo, and the Mechanist have invented phones, electricity, the Internet, search engines, and social media apps in those seven years. (if you like keeping your brain intact, you should definitely not think about the logicality of this story.) Iroh often helped generate electricity until the factories could sustain themselves and Toph was the one to create gadgets suitable for people who are blind.

on the seventh anniversary of the war's end, they unveil the phones to the public. the devices are available to everyone and there's no social inequity because this is my fic and what I say goes

they have Tumblr, but Toph insisted that they name it Rumblr. there is also Kohbook (haha get it like Facebook) that is used exclusively by the White Lotus, Kanna, Aunt Wu, and, for some reason, Bosco. cue ALL the facebook memes. we have them typing in capslock randomly, using all the wrong emojis at the worst time, shit-talking Pakku publicly because they forgot how to open HawkMessenger, praising their children/grandchildren/students to the skies and then ending with a really embarrassing anecdote...it's a fun time

idk a good name for the ATLA Twitter app (if you guys have ideas, help) BUT do you guys know that one account that pretended to be other people? I think the handle was jaboukie? they pretended to be other people by changing their username and profile picture, and then tweeted embarrassing things?? hopefully that rings a bell,, anyway - toph is going to do that. she likes the chaos.

uhh okay as for the actual plot, we start with an oblivious zuko and deep in denial katara. we also have suki and sokka who have to be separated for now, and there's a lot they're realizing they don't know about each other, so they have a bumpy road ahead. and then there's aang and toph who aren't even thinking of each other that way, but they will. they will

zuko is actually dating mai at the start of the story. that goes as well as can be expected from a zk story. as their relationship deteriorates, suki and toph are busy pulling katara out of denial, which culminates in the last snippet from this link

aang and toph development fhjkdsahf i still have to figure this out. never written them before so this will be a challenge

suki and sokka talk about how war has affected them. maybe they decide to take a break? look i really cannot write angst-less stories

iroh decides, after a few months of seeing zuko be mopey and face 107 assassination attempts, that he needs a wife. he arranges a whole partner selection thing without zuko's knowledge, and zuko, for all his Fire Lordy powers, doesn't know how to get out of this or refuse his uncle anything

katara is not included in the pool of possible wives, because everyone knows putting her name in a hat like that would piss her off. interestingly enough, she's pissed off anyway! it's anyone's guess why...

development shown through vine references yay

the whole shebang where zuko realizes he's looking for katara in every woman and confesses to katara

some more dramatic lines and growth blah blah blah

ofc, we also have sukka and taang developing in the meantime. sukka has probably gotten back together, and taang's nearing the point of getting together

insert melodramatic, tearjerking zk reunion here

kiss and be happy. maybe another assassination attempt if i'm in the mood for it

the end. maybe? probably

if you read all of this, I'm sorry. my brain is jumbled. here's another teaser :D

[Zuko] KATARA I NEED YOUR HELP

[Katara] On my way. What did you do now

[Z] Hey! I didn't do anything

I need help picking a wife. These ladies are terrifying

---chat switch---

[Katara] I hate Zuko. I'm going to bash him so hard the next time I see him

[Suki] 👀👀

[Toph] 😏😏😏😏😏

[Katara] That's not even an innuendo what is wrong with you two

[Suki] 😏😏😏😏

[Toph] 👀👀👀

[Katara] 🤬🤬🤬

[realthinker]

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[demivampirew]

Kalentine’s Day

Henry x Plus-Size Reader

You can find more of my writings in the Masterlist

This was a request from @born2stronger : “what about if Henry meets reader through Instagram (we all know sometimes he checks on the comments) so reader gets his attention and he messages her.”   I hope you like it. 😊

Triggers: Fat- shaming; talking about the lost of a pet; feeling of nostalgia.

Tag list: @lunedelorient​​ @henrythickcavill​ @wolvesandhoundshowltogether​ @mary-ann84​ @desperate-and-broken​ @peakygroupie​ @summersong69​ @ivvitm1109​ @madbaddic7ed​ @iloveyouyen​ @the-soot-sprite @hell1129-blog​

"Happy Valentine's day everyone! For all of my fellow single pringles out there, you don't have to be in a relationship to enjoy today, it's about Love. Enjoy seeing others in Love, love your friends, your family, and especially yourself. #Kal #ValentinesDay #BestDogEver #KalentinesDay"

Henry wrote and posted the picture of Kal laying on the bed with a rose on his Instagram account.

Nostalgia hit him hard later that day. He wasn't in a rush to get back on the dating game, especially not after a recent disappointment with a lady, but he missed celebrating that day with a woman he would care about. He starting to imaging how that day would've been if there was someone special in his life: he'd had made breakfast for her to eat on the bed; he'd taken a stroll down the park after that, to enjoy the beautiful morning. They'd have had lunch in someplace fancy, then watch a movie and he'd prepare her favourite dish for dinner and he'd finish the day by making her feel unique. Every woman in his life was unique on his eyes, for best or for worst. That thought made him sigh deeply for what he decided to check some comments on his post. Cheeking comments on his photos was his guilty pleasure. He loved the nice comments and would laugh out loud whenever there were thirsty comments; some were a bit distasteful, others were cute and there were others that were so odd that made him chuckled.

As he was scrolling through comments, one caught up his attention. "@(your username) "KalentinesDay" you cracked me up, Mr Cavill! But I'd like to differ with the BestDogEver one; I love Kal, he's awesome, but my dog is...was the best. I lost him two days ago and I felt like my world crushed for I've had him since I was a kid. Being there holding his paw as the doctor put him down due to disease was the worst thing I've ever experienced. Sorry for ruining the mood, but thank you for the post, it lighted up my day! Have a nice KalentinesDay, Sir." He felt so bad for that person, so he entered her profile and hit the message option. "Hi Y/N. I saw your comment and I just wanted to say how sorry I'm that you lost your beloved companion. I've had Kal for a few years and I cannot even bear the thought of losing him, so I cannot imagine how must feel to lose your pal who's been there most of your life. Be strong. I'm sending you virtual hugs and lots of love. I hope you get better soon." After sending her the message, he checked her account for he saw a recent post with a picture of a lovely dog. It wasn't a mixed breed. It was a rescued dog. She talked so fondly of him, remembering the first day she met him and a few adventures they lived together. The stories warmed Henry's heart yet saddened him, knowing that his light had extinguished. There were a lot of pictures of her dog on her account and pictures of books and movies. Funny enough, most of the books she talked about were some of his favourites and the ones that he hadn't read, he took screen captures so he wouldn't forget to check them out. One of the movies she posted about was Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and he had to see her thoughts on it. She agreed that the whole Martha plot was absurd, but the thing that bothered her the most, and in her opinion ruined the movie a little bit, was the fact that Doomsday was on the final trailer, for the movie would have been higher rated from her if she'd already known that he was going to show up. Yet, she disagreed with all the hate and the thought that the movie was bad: "It could've been better? Sure, Was it horrible? Absolutely not," "If it is too dark for you, don't watch it, period. Mr Snyder understands the soul of DC Comics. Dc is not lighthearted, accept that and move on" she wrote. Henry was too tempted to like the post and reply, but he decided that it was best not to do it. She didn't have many pictures of her, but he found one from two years ago. In the picture, she was standing to a bride and she hugging her. She had a pink dress on. Henry looked at her cute smile and was stunned by her beauty. In the caption of the photo, she wrote " Ignore my ugly fat ass... focus on my beautiful sister who just got married to her Charming Prince! Congrats, babe! Love you a lot and wish you a lifetime of nothing but happiness! ♥" Henry liked the picture and went straight to the comment section and wrote "You look gorgeous. I hope their love story is a good one and lives on." and press send. He was so caught by her, that without even noticing it, he went through every single post on her account, like all the photos she was in and same with pictures of books, movies and albums he liked.

He was having dinner with Kal when he noticed that he had a reply on IG. When he opened, he saw it was from the girl with the mesmerizing smile. "I think I should call the police, I have a stalker, 👀 😂" she wrote. "Thank you so much for the mood busting. It means a lot. He brought a lot of light to my life and it's hard to have to say goodbye." she confessed, "but instead of lying in bed crying, I'm going to use that energy to give love to another animal in need, that's what my baby would have wanted, I know it in my heart." she finished. Henry didn't wait for a second to answer her, even if that meant that his food would get cold. "Absolutely! Any animal would be lucky to have you as their momma." he assured, "Sorry for that, I didn't mean to be a creep. I swear I'm nice. I'm Superman" he joked. After a few moments, the girl messaged him again "Superman killed Zod, so...👀😜 ". "Low shot. Also, Zod was a villain" he went on with the conversation. " How do you know that I'm not a villain?" she joked, "Because villains don't love puppies" he grinned like an idiot in love as he pressed send. "Cruella did, though, 👀 😂" she said; "Touché. But I'm sure you're not a villain, you are too cute for that" he explained. "That'd be the perfect cover for a conquer the world masterplan, don't you think? To have everyone trust me and love me for me to be easier to control them?🤔" "Alright, you convinced me. You're the evilest villain in history. So, I should fly to wherever you are and get you." he playfully told her. "And I didn't want to sound creepy 😂. My apologies if my humour seems creepy," he apologized. "I think your humour is genius and I find it cute, no creepy," she pointed out. "Cute enough to meet me in person? 👀" he asked. "Absolutely," she accepted his invitation. "When are you free?" she questioned. Henry looked at the clock, it was 7:30 pm. "I'm free right now if you can." Henry offered, "Do you live in London?". "From the last couple of years, yes. I moved with my mom after my parents got divorced. She's was born here... I mean, yes, I live in London, sorry for the unnecessary information," she requested his forgiveness. "There's no need to apologize. I like getting to know more about you." he explained " Do you want to go to Mark's Club restaurant? It's a nice and quiet place where we can have a nice conversation" he proposed "I think I can get a last-minute reservation since I'm a member of the club." he informed her.  "Sure, I'm going to get ready. Tell me if you get the reservations or we can go anywhere else, I'm sure there are plenty of nice places to eat where there are tables available 😊" she said. "Great, I'm calling them right now!" Henry exclaimed excitedly and went into his phone contact list and press the dial button. He was lucky enough that the manager was a Superman fan and was quite fond of him, so he agreed to reserve a table for him in the busiest night of the year for restaurants. He shared the information to her and went to change as well. He put a white sweater and a nice pair of black pants on and black shoes. A grey blazer was his coat of choice.

He asked for her address to pick her up, but she opted for meeting at the club and he accepted because he understood that maybe she felt unsafe by giving her living information to a stranger. He couldn't lie that this gave him enough time to leave Kal with his friend Ben.

He waited for her inside the restaurant for there were paparazzi outside the place. Mark's Club was an exclusive place where many celebrities choose to eat in, especially in such occasions like Valentine's day - Guy Ritchie and his wife choose that place to spend the night and so did David and Victoria Beckham. Both couples came to greet him as soon as they saw him. His table was about to be ready and she wasn't there yet. He checked for messages on his IG but there were none. Has she stood him up? That'd have broken his heart; no because someone rejected him, but because she did it. He thought that he was losing his mind: being afraid that a girl he met that day on the internet might have played a prank on him and make him believe that she was interested in him.

When he saw that it was 10 pm, he decided that it was better to inform the host of the club that he wouldn't need a table after all. He was about to get up when behind him a female voice called his name. He turned around and stood, speechless. A beautiful woman on a red dress was standing in front of him, showing that glorious smile that captivated him ours ago on his phone.

- I'm so sorry I'm so late.- you apologized profusely - It took me ages to find a cab and then I've spent literally thirty minutes outside trying to get in because paparazzi were being annoying and would get in the way for me to get in.-she explained. - No worries!- he assured her- Honestly, I was a bit afraid that I've had been stood up.-he confessed, styling his hair backwards with his hand. - Absolutely not! I don't particularly enjoy pranks. Especially not in niece people like you.- she smiled and his legs were shaking.

At that moment the waiter approached you to let you know your table was ready. Henry said "Ladies first" indicating you to go first into the table area. The place was elegant. Henry waited behind your chair and as you sat in, he pulled it close to the table. He sat in front of you, grinning like the devil. That charming smile took your breath away.

Every word that came out of your mouth amazed him for your charisma and intelligence. You were not only funny, smart, confident but also beyond beautiful. He knew that wasn't love at first sight, but he could see himself falling deeply in love with you.

Halfway through the dinner, Henry finally noticed that lots of costumers were watching them. He found that odd since he was a regular there and there were plenty of celebrities on that place that night -some way more famous than him.

- I apologized if you feel uncomfortable with people watching us. Usually, they barely look at me. They know I'm an actor, but these fancy folks don't care much for Superheroes.- he explained. You looked at him with a smirk. - They're not looking at you, they are looking at me.- you pointed out. - Are you famous?- he asked confused and you chuckled because he meant it and it wasn't sarcasm. - Yes, I'm Ashley Graham.- you joked and his expression showed ignorance; he didn't know who she was.- She's a model.- you explained and he laughed apologizing for his lack of knowledge on current pop culture. He was beyond cute.- No, I'm not famous. They're looking at me because I'm "fat"; I'm a plus-size woman and they probably can't understand why are you having dinner with me.- you said and smiled- In another point of my life this would have hurt. It did for a long time. Whenever I'd be in a date with a thin man, people would look at us as if they were thinking out loud that he was too good for me, that he could do so much better than a fat girl. Thankfully I'm no longer in a place in which I'd blame myself for their judgement. I'm who I am and I'm ok with that. They can look all they want, they don't mean anything to me.-you shrugged- But, I need to know if that bothers you. I won't judge you if you are not into me. Maybe I'm confusing things, but the fact that you made a last-minute appointment for dinner on this day is because you have some kind of interest on me and I do for you too. I'm in for getting to know each other and maybe be something if we feel it later on. But if that's the case, if I got things wrong and you are not interested in my, just tell me. It's ok and we can be just friends if you want. All I ask from you is not to waste my time. Don't get me to grow feelings for you if you have no intention in returned them.- you requested. Henry went silent for a moment. Then he put his hand on top of yours, grabbed it and kissed it. He grinned and replied, "You got it right, gorgeous."

The dinner continued with you two laughing, drinking fine wine and having delicious desserts. You tried to grab the check but he took it so fast that you barely saw it. "I'll pay next time. That's the condition for me going out again with you" you indicated firmly and he agreed.

As you were about to leave, he noticed you didn't have a coat. "I was so hurried that I forgot to grab one" you explained and he immediately took off his and gave it to you, despite you telling him that you were ok, and helped you to put it on. He held your hand to walk outside, not caring if paparazzi took photos of you and he called a cab for you. It was easier for famous people to get a ride, you noticed. He drove you to your place and walk you to the door. He was much taller than you, so he leaned in to kiss your cheek and kissed your hand as well. Henry promised to call you the next day and walked towards the car. You reminded him of his coat and he asked you to keep it safe for him until next time you saw him. With a big smile, he got in the car and after you entered your place, you heard the cab left.

[themilky-way]

learning to love {loki odinson}

gif credit: hcney-gcld on tumblr

pairing: loki odinson x female! reader

summary: being a high-tech scientist, you spend years of your life studying the norse god who wreaked havoc in new york a while back. what happens when you’re offered an opportunity to interview him?

warnings: minor violence, hints of ptsd, and a little bit of angst

author’s note: i am in no way, shape, or form trying to romanticize violence OR ptsd! this is just something i thought of while rewatching the mcu so i hope u guys like it :)

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everything that you had believed to be a myth, or simply a way for teenagers to get a thrill from while watching a film, was apparently real. aliens did in fact exist, and they entered your planet through a giant wormhole right above your apartment building. you, much like the rest of new york, went into a panic and tried to secure your windows and doors as much as you could. in one instance, you were rushing to secure the locks on your windows and pull the curtains down to avoid detection, but a tall figure caught your attention. he wasn’t an alien, features and overall structure proving so, but he wasn’t exactly afraid of his surroundings. he walked around the edge of the tower he was on with a proud expression, and you could’ve sworn he formed the tiniest evil smirk. the staff he held began to glow a bright blue, and then he shot at a nearby building, causing it to crumble and fall to the ground. you quickly reached the conclusion that this man was also an alien, and that he was probably the one controlling the terrifying army of creatures. 

and at last, he saw you. your hands were shakily still holding both sides of the curtains and you were too scared to move a muscle. you felt something deep in your stomach, fear, inch its way throughout your body as he gave you that same heinous smile before raising his staff towards your window. you saw his free hand raise to give you a little wave as if motioning goodbye, and you felt your eyes sting with tears, realizing you were quite clearly about to die. you let go of the curtains and started walking backwards slowly, hands reaching to cover your mouth as you let out a choked sob. you kept moving until you were about to hit the edge of your coffee table when you saw a red and gold suit fly to where the man was. he pointed his palm towards his adversary and before you were able to blink, he shot the man with what seemed like some sort of energy. your hands reached up to hold your head in both relief and confusion and let out the breath you were holding in. you witnessed the man in the armor get into an intense battle with the enemy, but you didn’t stay long enough to find out who’d win. gathering your essentials, you quickly made your way to your car and hope that you could get out of new york undetected. 

and you did. you managed to travel to your mom’s house a couple hours from the city, and she helped you settle in and provide for you until you were back on your feet again. you thanked the universe for her support, and you paid her back in every way possible. nonetheless, you returned back to the city with a goal in mind: to find out who the hell tried to kill you. you enrolled in self-defense classes, found a well-paying job at a laboratory to keep you stable, and used your knowledge of science to investigate other possible worlds and dimensions. eventually, your research consumed you. in simpler words, it was all you could do. your relationship with science became unhealthy, and the data you acquired on the species that terrorized you and your home always reached a dead end, forcing you to start all over again.

however, the cycle ended when you came across a blog on an ancient religions and mythical beings. it was almost silly to you; a profound scientist who studies cells and relies on the evidence of evolution reading everything about norse mythology on the internet. one deity in particular caught your attention, though. you skimmed through the written traits and aspects of the ancient god, learning that he was highly recognized for causing chaos and tricking others. you kept scrolling, and when you reached the visual representation of the being, you froze. displayed on your screen was a dark haired man, locks reaching down to his shoulders and slicked back. his skin was pale and had the most piercing green eyes; the same ones that had made your skin crawl when they had met yours. his armor shaded a dark emerald green with small portions of it colored a deep gold, and to top it off, a horned helmet. what made everything much more unnerving was the staff he carried. it was identical to the one he’d pointed at you, the same sapphire blue radiating from the angled tip of it. 

this was him. this was the man who tried to kill you, and the one who actually did kill hundreds more. your mind couldn’t comprehend it in the slightest. no matter how hard you pinched your arm to wake up from this dream you didn’t move because it wasn’t a dream. it was real. every horrifying and cruel bit of it. 

after your discovery, your focus shifted from humanoid species to old norse anecdotes. you read and watched everything that had to do with the trickster, now known to you as loki, and expanded your knowledge about him. you sought out experts on the religion and inquired about ways to communicate with the celestials, but your investigations were once again leading you nowhere. the smallest of leads that you found made your hopes rise, but they would always come crashing down when you couldn’t any probe deeper. your endless cycle started up once more, giving you two additional years of stress and hardships. 

all of this, though, ended when you received a phone call from tony stark. how he managed to get your phone number was a mystery of its own, but you weren’t going to allow the opportunity he was offering you to slip from your hands. they managed to capture loki when he came back down to earth undercover. stark, hearing about a scientist centered on finding out the intentions of the god, had performed his own background check on you and identified you. so, being the sweet multi-billionaire that he was, offered you an exclusive interview with loki. it was perfect; all of your sweat and tears that had gone into this project was finally paying off. 

grabbing your notepad, pen, and car keys, you headed down to your car in the parking garage below your building. you didn’t really know what you should’ve been feeling. you were about to interview, more or less confront, the god who had almost killed you. so yes, you were scared, angry, and prepared to blow this guy’s teeth out if you could get the chance. but another part of you was relieved and prepared to do this. if things did go south, you were ready to defend yourself, and it eased you a little more when you remembered the avengers would be protecting you as well. 

tony introduced you to the rest of the team and they all gave a firm handshake on their part while thanking you for your collaboration. bruce banner quickly took a liking to you and promised you to take you around his own laboratory to discuss challenging scientific topics, to which you eagerly agreed. 

and then the moment finally came. tony had led you to the front of a large metal door that was electronically secured by a keypad to the side. he raised his hand to input the correct numerical sequence, but before he did so he turned to you. 

“look kid, it might get intense in there. he might try to get under your skin, but don’t let it get to you. if you need us, just press the button under your chair,” he spoke low and his tone was serious, which made the severity of this interview far more critical. you took a deep breath, exhaling slowly and nodded. 

clutching your notebook tightly to your chest, you replied, “i won’t. thank you again, sir.” he offered you a smile and turned to key in the password. the door opened slowly with a swoosh, and he extended his hand you so you could pass him. as soon as you saw the man seated in front of you, your breath hitched. 

his eyes, those same damn eyes, looked up at you and took you in. he raked them up and down your form but his face was cold and expressionless. it became apparent to him that he already knew who you were before you even stuttered out a word. his eyes leveled to yours before he turned away. weird, you thought. 

unlike his own, you sat down in cushioned chair in front of him and opened your notebook, clicking the pen down to begin writing. the sound brought his eyes to your hands, widening a bit as though he were scared of it. his hands were tied behind him in what you imagined to be high tech restraints instead of regular handcuffs, so you cleared your throat. 

“relax, it’s just a pen. so i can write with.”

he didn’t say anything, just turned his head down to stare at the tip of his shoes. his chest became composed again, though, and it brought him some sort of ease knowing that you didn’t plan on attacking him (but you did think about it). 

“i would normally introduce myself, but it appears that you already know who i am,” you voiced loud and clear, a sudden urge of confidence washing through you. “may i begin?”

he scoffed lightly at your question, before he looked back up to look at you dead in the eye. “please do, darling.”

the annoyance in his words sent chills down your spine, knowing that if it weren’t for the restraints around his wrists, he’d be killing you in an instant, again. 

you initiated the interview, and inquired all sorts of subjects. how did you find our dimension? what type of species were those that you sent down? does your genetic code differ from the mortals here on earth?

all in all, loki had done a pretty neat job at answering everything. sure, a few snickers here and there, but he was straightforward, allowing you to scribble in as many details as you could in between his pauses. seven pages later, front and back, there was only one point left in your questionnaire. you hesitated for a moment, unsure if it was appropriate for you to even ask him such a personal question. still, you knew this was the only time you were ever going to be face to face with the man who ordered your murder, so you continued. 

“the last question, it’s not really science related or anything like that, it’s kind of more...personal, if you get me.” you faltered slightly on the last part, unsure of what his reaction would be. your hands began to feel clammy, and your fingers found the ring on the opposite hand to toy with. he noticed, and he looked back up to meet your eyes. this time, though, it was different. it wasn’t cold-blooded and frigid like it had been before. it was almost...empathic? it was as if he knew the damage-the pain- he caused you had been eating at you for all these years. it stung him, in the very depths of his heart, it stung him to know that he hurt you so much you couldn’t even look him in the eye without remembering everything. 

“go ahead,” he muttered quietly. he shifted his gaze so it could only focus on the movement of your hands, and it hit him that you weren’t planning on writing his response down. letting a small breath out, you waited until you were certain your voice wouldn’t quiver to speak. 

“why were you going to kill me?” it failed you anyway, no matter how hard you fought for your voice to stay steady. he didn’t move his eyes from your hands, concentrating on the small movement of your ring. he took a few seconds to answer, wanting it to be as honest as possible. 

“i don’t know,” was all he managed. short and quick. 

“what?” you sneered.

“i’m telling you the truth. i don’t have an answer for you because there wasn’t any motive for my actions. i just...” he paused and closed his eyes for a moment. “...i just wanted to feel important.” he opened his eyes again to look at you and found you dumbfounded. 

“and you thought you could achieve that by killing hundreds of innocent people? yeah, loki, you did a really great job. we love you,” you taunted. 

suddenly, loki jerked forward, as far as his binds allowed him to, and made the gap between both of you closer. “i have to live with my actions and its consequences every day, you idiot. i’ve had the entire universe practically spit in my face ever since that day, so if you think for a split second that i don’t regret any of it, you’re wrong.” 

you were taken aback. your brain suddenly couldn’t form a coherent sentence, and you felt your eyes begin to sting. it had been a mixture of everything; his diction, the intensity in which his spoke his words, and the jumble of emotions behind them. it was evident to you now that he was capable of feeling remorse, and in his own twisted way, he was apologizing. he reclined back into his seat and watched you keenly, yet it wasn’t anger he held in his vision but confusion. were you going to leave? punch him? call in backup and have bucky barnes tear him into tiny pieces? 

no, you didn’t do any of that. instead you just closed your notepad, clippled the pen gently into the front cover, and rose from your seat. he followed each of your movements accordingly until you were looking down at him. softly, and ever so gently, you spoke. 

“i’ll notify mr. stark about arranging more interviews with you. i’d like to study you further in depth.” 

loki, in the entirety of his millennia alive, had never been more confused. how was it, that a survivor of his own malice, wanted to keep talking to him? to him, you’d gotten what you wanted, and should’ve been on your merry way and cope, but you were different, weren’t you? 

“you what?”

“i’ll negotiate a comforting room for you to reside in- i don’t want the heart of my investigation in such low conditions.”

loki let out a whole hearted chuckle at this, which you furrowed your brows to considering the seriousness of your tone. “darling, as much as that fills me with warmth, i don’t believe the avengers are going to allow me such comfort.”

you turned your back to him and walked over to the door and pressed the button for release. as the door opened and a security guard appeared to escort you out safely, you faced him once more. “i’ll make sure that they do.” and with that, loki was left alone with his thoughts again, and he couldn’t help but feel thankful for your appearance. it was suspicious, yes, but he had seen something within you that attested that feeling. you didn’t seem to carry any malignant emotions towards him despite his prior behavior. if anything, he felt relieved it wasn’t a s.h.i.e.l.d. agent interrogating him or else he’d be six feet underground by now. 

you kept your word. for the following six months, loki had been fitted into a lifestyle that closely matched his commodity back in asgard. and as promised, you came back to conduct more interviews, but the both of you soon began to realize that it was more than now. the pen and paper was quickly discarded and you both communicated freely, questions and answers flying from one side of the room to the other. without recognizing it, you and loki were forming an unlikely friendship, a bond of some sort. you learned about his life, his childhood on asgard and how he came to gain the mentality of a tyrant. in turn, loki acquired knowledge of your life here on earth and how you used science to uncover future revolutionary breakthroughs. it was weird, the way allegiances were created. one day you want to destroy each other while the next you’re offering affirmations and sympathetic glances. 

loki hated pity. the idea of a mortal, a stupid, useless mortal feeling sorry for him made his blood boil. but with you it felt different. you didn’t feel for him in a hypocritical way; you meant your pardon. and if he were anything like his brother, thor, he could almost feel himself falling for you. the same applied to you.

in one instance, you were on his bed, provided for by tony stark, and you were both sitting criss cross in front of the other. you had said some kind of joke, and he had laughed. a low, natural sound that even he hadn’t heard in years. you met his eyes once the humor in the room dissipated, and you felt your heart swell at the image of the god in front of you. unbeknownst to you, his heart did the same. 

you noticed he looked to the side of the room as if he was questioning some sort of procedure until he gathered the courage to finally do it. he held up a finger to you as if to say “one moment” and walked off the bed over to a nearby shelf. he picked out a book of some sort, and he held it tightly. giving it you, he smiled genuinly before you accepted it.

“what is it?” you asked. he sat back down to his original position and started playing with his own ring, a nervous habit he picked up from you since he met you. 

“it’s a book-well, a blank one- for you to write in. you know, for your investigations and such.” 

the book itself was thick and leatherbound, and the color was green, a sharp green that matched his eyes. you weren’t afraid of it-of him- anymore, and you noticed that it had the first letter of your name displayed in the middle of it in black. you didn’t realize you were so entranced with the book until he spoke again. 

“do you like it?”

“loki, i love it. thank you so much for this, truly.” you clutched the book to your chest and gave him a gratitude-filled smile. he returned it with his own, and you don’t remember how long you took each other in with something more than just a platonic gaze. 

you could learn to love him, you thought. you could learn to fall asleep to the strong embrace his arms offered and wake up to his gentle grip on your waist. you could learn to feel safe around him because he was safe, and because maybe, just maybe, the possibility that he loved you back existed. 

[clumsyclifford]

you’re the photographer who’s been camped in front of my penthouse apartment for two weeks and i finally got lonely enough to come downstairs and share my leftovers with you” au or the child star one please i am begging you -it’s me rye rye rye your boat

ok im working on the child star thing but its gonna end up being much longer so heres this which honestly also ran away from me let’s see if tumblr will even let it all post it’s almost 2k ENJOY thank u for the prompt ily

-

The first day, Calum glances out the window and sees a whole host of paps on his front step and thinks, good thing I did the shopping yesterday.

The third day, most of them have gone except a few stragglers. Calum is determined to wait them out.

The sixth day, Calum is starting to run low on milk, and there's only one person left out there. He’s properly set up camp, actually, in a beat-up Volkswagen that makes Calum chuckle, then catch himself for chuckling because this man is for all intents and purposes his mortal enemy. Calum finds it strange that someone with such brightly colored hair and (squinting, he thinks he can make out) tattoos would be a paparazzi. He looks more like a punk groupie than a photographer, but to each their own, Calum supposes. He's tempted to make a break for it, or maybe sneak out in a cap and sunglasses, but leaving the apartment at all will get him photographed, and sue him, he’d like to be left alone. This is, like, the only month he gets to himself before training starts up again. He intends to take full advantage of it. Total invisibility.

Which would be a lot easier if this fucking pap wasn’t dead set on snapping his photo. Calum sees him turn the lens of the camera towards Calum’s front window, and he hastily moves out of sight.

The tenth day, Calum calls Luke.

“What?” Luke asks.

“‘Hey, Cal, nice to hear from you,’” Calum says. “Thanks, Lukey, right back at you.”

“I thought you were doing radio silence for a month,” Luke says. “Like, keeping your head down.”

“I am,” Calum says, exasperated. “There’s just one guy who’s been camped out in front of my building for, like, almost two weeks.”

“So what? Just go past him. He’s just one guy,” Luke says. Calum envies Luke. It must be nice to not care what the press thinks. Not that Calum cares, exactly; he just hates that they’re so insistent on being invasive. Calum’s not supposed to be a public figure, he’s supposed to be a symbol of Aussie pride. He plays soccer, that’s all. Nothing to be excited about.

“No,” Calum says. He’s not sure where this dogged determination is coming from, but he knows he would rather die than acknowledge the paparazzi out in front of his building. He’s got a right to his privacy, damn it. “Look, it’s a whole thing, I don’t want to get into it. But, uh, I’m sort of short on a few groceries. D’you mind…”

Luke heaves an exhausted sigh that Calum recognizes well. He calls it the fucking hell Calum the things I do for you sigh. Sounds similar to the fucking hell Ashton the things I do for you sigh, but less horny.

“Fine,” he says. “Send me a list.”

Luke gets photographed on his way both up and down the building. Calum watches the one stubborn pap take his picture, look at it on the camera screen, and slump over as if thoroughly drained.

Well. That’s his problem. 

After two weeks, Calum caves.

He’s been subtly watching the pap out the window, and every day he looks a little worse for wear. Not that Calum can see him very well, but he can tell in the set of his shoulders, the way he leans against the steering wheel of his car or slouches against the driver’s window. Calum hasn’t been consistently staring, but he’s pretty sure this guy hasn’t even left. How is he eating? Is he eating? UberEats, maybe? Calum shudders to imagine living off of delivery Maccas. Here he is, eating home-cooked food, and this poor pap has been sitting out there, probably wishing he could go home and make some pasta.

For the first time in his recorded life, Calum takes pity on the paparazzi.

He cobbles together some leftovers from the past few nights — homemade pizza, a bean dish he’d got off the internet that hadn’t been half bad, and some spaghetti bolognese. He heats it all up and then takes the elevator down to the lobby.

Calum has genuinely not left his apartment in two entire weeks, so the greying evening takes him aback, but not nearly as much as when he makes eye contact with the blue-haired pap and the guy doesn’t instantly take his picture. Also, Calum thinks, despite his best efforts not to acknowledge it, he has to admit this is the most attractive paparazzi he’s ever met, and easily the most laid-back. Is that an eyebrow piercing? Fucking hell.

The pap rolls down his window. “Uh, hi?”

Calum starts to feel a bit silly, but whatever, he’s already here. “Hi,” he says. “Uh, you’ve just — you’ve been camped out here awhile, and I thought…maybe you’d want some real food? Not just, like, UberEats?”

The blue-haired pap looks suspicious. “Is this a bribe?”

“No, I wish,” Calum says, laughing a little. “If anything, this feels like feeding a kitten to encourage it to stay. I’d love for you to leave, but if you’re not going to, the least I can do is make sure you’re eating well.”

“I’ll leave,” the blue-haired guy says, surprising Calum. “I — I’ve wanted to leave since I got here. I’m sorry. You don’t have to feed me —”

“I insist,” Calum says, because he’s already gone through the trouble of heating it up, and he has a fork and everything. God, he’s going to regret this, he thinks, before adding: “Unlock the door? I’ll sit with you.”

The blue-haired guy looks positively dumbstruck. “Um,” he says. “You don’t have to.”

“Believe me, I know,” Calum says. “You just look like you could use the company. And, to be honest, so could I. What’s your name?”

“Michael,” blue-haired guy says, smiling gratefully with just a touch of apprehension. “Alright, if you say so.”

He hits a button, and Calum comes around to the passenger side and climbs into the car. It occurs to him that Michael could easily kidnap him right now. Calum’s entirely defenceless, and has just willingly gotten into a car with him.

(But Michael doesn’t look that strong, and Calum’s an athlete, for god’s sake. He could take him.)

“Here,” Calum says when he’s settled, offering up the food. “It’s all warm and everything.” He hesitates as Michael takes the tupperwares and cracks one open. “You — you said you wanted to leave? Why haven’t you?”

Michael already has a mouthful of spaghetti, so he covers his mouth with his hand and swallows before speaking. Calum tracks the way his Adam's apple moves, then mentally slaps himself for doing that.

“‘S my job,” Michael says. “Not because I like it. It just, it pays well enough, and…it’s not like I have anything better to do with my time. I’m usually not invasive like this, I swear. I try to keep at the back, I just get some blurry photos and people pay me for them, nobody usually cares. But my boss was, like, crazy about this. He kept pushing to get exclusive photos, and then when he heard you had a month off, he told me to stake you out like my life depended on it.” Michael looks incredibly sheepish, hanging his head. “Sorry, mate. I thought I could just get a few pictures on the first day and be done with it, and then when you didn’t come out, I tried to tell my boss you’d holed up. But he wasn’t having it. Told me to stick it out.”

“Christ,” Calum says, aghast. “Your boss sounds like a real dick.”

“He is,” Michael says agreeably. “But, you know. I need the money, so.”

Calum likes how honest Michael is. It’s refreshing. People tend to lie to him a lot, especially in regards to his job, which he’s usually very good at, but gets told he’s good at even when he’s not. Michael’s forthright, though. Calum appreciates it about him.

“Well,” he says obligingly, “take a few photos now and take them back to your boss. Can even say you got an exclusive interview if that wins you any points.”

Michael raises his eyebrows. “I didn’t.”

“Fine,” Calum says. “Ask me a question. Wait.” He pulls his phone out and opens up the voice memo app. Hits record. “Alright, ask me a question.”

Michael looks amused. “Okay, but you’re not going to like this question very much.” Calum gestures for him to go on. “Okay. Um, what exactly are you famous for?”

Calum stares at him and then bursts out laughing.

Once he’s calmed down, he manages, “I never thought I’d say this, but I am absolutely delighted to have met you, Michael. I’m the center forward for Socceroos.”

“Oh,” Michael says, grinning. “Explains why I don’t know you, then. I’m not really a sports guy.”

“Yeah? What kind of guy are you?”

Michael shrugs. “Music, really. Part of why I ended up in this line of work.”

So Calum’s initial instinct had been correct. He’s weirdly proud to know that.

“Well, Calum Hood,” Michael says, and Calum likes how his name sounds in an unfamiliar voice, saying it because it’s what he’s called, not because it’s some big name to throw around, “what’s your favorite color?”

“Blue,” Calum says.

“How many years have you played soccer?”

“Most of them. Boring question, been asked that a million times,” Calum answers. “Come on, be creative.”

Michael arches his eyebrow, like he’s ready for the challenge. “Alright then. Worst drink you ever had?”

“Any time I have to drink beer in America, it’s a dark day,” Calum says. American beer is awful, and he will die on that hill.

“Favorite song at the moment?”

“‘Monsters’ by All Time Low.” Michael hums appreciatively.

“Good taste. Favorite article of clothing you own?”

Calum glances down at himself. “Probably this sweatshirt,” he admits, because he’s pretty sure at this point the sweatshirt is legally part of his body. Has he even taken it off in two weeks? Hard to say.

“Uh, worst way you’ve ever tried to pick someone up?”

Calum really only thinks for a moment before diving headfirst. “Well, once there was this pap who sat outside my building for two weeks, so I brought him my leftovers because I felt badly, but then he turned out to be fairly interesting and very attractive, so.”

Michael turns pink. He grabs Calum’s phone and turns off the recording.

“You’re not picking me up,” Michael says. “You can’t. This is my car.”

Calum laughs. He likes Michael. “Humor me,” he says. “You can say no. I’ll still let you have the pictures and everything, I’m not a total dickhead.”

“I didn’t say no,” Michael says. He lifts up his camera. “Smile.”

Calum makes his most serious face at the camera and listens for the click. He makes another face, and the camera clicks again. Then again, and once more.

“Alright,” Michael says. “That’s my job done. I’m officially off the clock. You were asking me something, I think?”

“You’re a shit,” Calum says. “I might take it back.”

Michael grins. “You will not.”

No, he won’t. “Fine,” he says. “Dinner? Or, uh, ice cream? You’ve sort of just eaten.”

“Won’t say no to ice cream,” Michael says. He looks over at Calum and smirks. “Imagine if this is the ‘how I met your father’ story.”

It’s an extremely forward thing to say, Calum’s too busy laughing to call him out on it.

[ansgar-martinsson]

The Best Intentions - Part 2

The Best Intentions

Part 2

Ansgar crossed his legs beneath him and leaned back in the chair, the leather creaking in protest. Considering, he folded his hands in his lap, tented his thumbs and rubbed them slowly together. In spite of his seemingly calm exterior, within his mind was churning… burning, a combination of annoyance and anger and what… fear? Yes, of course, fear.

His reputation was one of perfection. Not a single client unsatisfied. Not a single claim on a single contractor’s bond. If there’s a problem… he fixes it. Yet, here was a woman who, as she put it, was pleading for someone to do something about the condition of the building that he… that his company built.

Resolved, he bent forward, elbows on knees, and stared hard at the girl. With every ounce of sincerity he could muster, he said, “You won’t have to wait any longer, Froken Lindberg. I am…,” he paused, “mortified, to say the least that you had to go to the lengths you did just to get an audience with someone at my company who could remedy the situation.”

“Well,” she countered, her voice wavering, “you should be.”

Ansgar let forth with a bark of laughter. Not condescending laughter, mind you, but true and honest surprise. He smiled, that time the grin reaching his eyes. “Yes, I should be,” he affirmed. And with that, he stood, removed his suit jacket and crossed to the closet. He shrugged into his blue logoed Carhartt coat, flung his tool belt over his shoulder, and fished out an aluminum clipboard case.

“What are you….?”

He whirled. “We’re leaving, Froken Lindberg,” he clipped. “Now.”

“Yes,” she stood, clutching her papers to her chest, “but… where are we going?”

Ansgar brightened. “To the Opera House, where else? I need to see this sprinkler system for myself, I think. I am an engineer, you know. I have some experience with fire protection design. Maybe I can sort this today for you… and,” he shrugged, “you know, perhaps get the Prima Donna off your back.”  

“To avoid the riff-raff,” Ansgar nodded with his eyes glued to the door that led to the lobby, “out there, we’ll go out this way.” A tilt of his head signaled behind him.

That was the moment she saw it, the same moment that he lifted his hand to the wall behind his desk. He palmed with a swipe to reveal an invisible door. The seam blended in so nicely with the built-in bookcase that Joline missed it. A reader lit up in recognition of his touch or fingerprints or body temperature, Jo couldn’t know, and the door popped open with a click.

Jo raised her eyebrows at him and the hidden gadget. “Such technology, such toys.”

Ansgar huffed a deep sound of proud amusement. “Correction. All the technology. All the toys.” And with another dip of his head, he directed her through.

“Mischief managed.”

“Pardon?”

Jo grinned inwardly. “Something my nephews told me. From their favorite book. This—“ She pushed her hands out in front of her into a long marble corridor, gesturing before her. Uniform doors led off to other offices or conference rooms, she guessed, but the hallway seemed part of a typical office building. “This feels very, ‘I solemnly swear I am up to no good.’ Making a secluded break from… well, whatever you got going on back there.”

“Ah, the riff-raff, the circus… The press can be a blessing and a curse,” he took the lead down the bland corridor. “I use them when absolutely necessary and avoid them at all cost at all other times.”

“And you needed them today? Why?”

His shoulders adjusted under his jacket in a wave of… disgust? Stress? “The vultures smell blood. They’re chasing a story, an exclusive.” As soon as the press release published online of his return as acting CEO in an internet blast, the swarm came flocking in.

“And what’s that? The story? The exclusive?”

Ansgar effectively ducked and avoided her question by pointing with two very straight and very long fingers to his right through another door. “To the carpark, and my car. You’ll show me the improvements that need doing at the theatre, and we’ll come back here to schedule the work.”

Where he led with a steady assured gait, Joline followed. Out of necessity, more than anything else. She met him stride for stride, nearly, thanks to the three inch Louboutins. “Your lobby and lounge, so much like the opera house,” she commented to draw attention away from her unintentional pry. “Patrons and tourists parade through to gawk at the structure. Is that your stamp then?”

As they entered the covered garage, Ansgar fished his key fob from his pocket and clicked the button for his car. His brand new red Tesla Roadster chirped in response, and he nearly purred at the familiar sound. “I’ll assume responsibility for that, Froken Lindberg,” he replied proudly.

One of her eyebrow arched skyward. “Well,” she countered, “despite all the technical issues,” she intoned to knock him down a peg or two, “ticket sales are up. Season subscriptions increased six, close to seven, percent over last year. Audiences are responding to the slated new season, the season I put together.”

“I’ve been away. Missed most of the current series, I’m afraid,” Ansgar closed the door with a quiet ‘click’ after ensuring his guest comfortably in her seat. He strode quickly around the back, opened his own door and folded himself within. Continuing, he said, “I didn’t give up my series ticket, though. Seat A10 is still mine.”

“Hm,” the woman huffed. She crossed her legs, and Ansgar wondered if she was purposefully or subconsciously showing him the crimson underside of her shoes. “I hate empty seats.”

Ansgar shrugged. “It’s paid for, what do you care?” He hand-over-handed the wheel, expertly winding the roadster between the cement abutments and into the daylight of the open garage door.

“It’s not all about the money, Herr Martinsson,” she retorted. “You of all people should know – for everyone involved, it’s more about the audience, and their response.”

Ansgar held in a chuckle. He knew perfectly well.

***

Ansgar tipped his head back, following the line of the woman’s pointed finger. “There?” Ansgar, standing atop a folding aluminum scaffold, pointed as well.

“That’s where it went off the first time.” She called up to him.

“Got it.” Ansgar nodded sagely, glancing down at her. He pulled his hard hat off and looked up again as he pushed his hand through his hair. “I actually think I see the problem, Froken Lindberg; and you would not believe how simple it - and the solution - actually is.”

Her eyes went wide. “You do?”

He nodded again, looking down at her. “I do. And when I find out who erred here, heads are going to roll, I assure you. However,” he paused, “I think you, too, may be putting some folks on the chopping block here.”

“What… what’s the problem?”

“Kick off your shoes and come up here.” He reached down. “Take my hand.”

He was somewhat surprised that she did, actually… toe out of the Louboutins, take his hand. Her hand felt warm and smoothly calloused in his. The hands of a woman who, literally, had her fingers in every aspect of an operation. She gripped him tightly, pleasantly, as he heaved her up - moving his hand to her shoulder as he steadied her on the scaffold. “Good, yeah?”

“Yeah,” she replied, quickly, gripping one of the iron supports. “What’s the problem?”

“There,” he shone the beam of his torch at one of the pendent heads. See the colour of that glass bulb in there?”

She nodded. “It’s green.”

“It should be purple or better yet, black,” he explained. “That head you have there is only rated for temperatures of up to about ninety three degrees. A purple bulb is rated for about 182 degrees, black about 227. These heads are the wrong rating for this type of environment, you see?. All these hot stage lights… the ambient air around the heads gets too hot, bursts the bulbs and….”

“Sploosh,” she demonstrated, her fingers flaring out.

“Sploosh. Precisely.”

“Okay, okay,” she said, “but… why would I be upset at my own employees? Where’s our fault if your sprinkler guy put in the wrong heads?”

Ansgar pointed. “There,” he pointed with the beam of his flashlight, that time on the finished underside of the house right loge. “You’ve a set of properly rated heads sticking down there, all right and good for the designed use, but – it also looks as if there have been some modifications of the original design.”

She squinted. “I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Ask your lighting designer what I’m talking about. She’s bracketed in a brand new lighting pipe there, clamped some eight-inch non-LED fresnels upon it, and did so in a space not originally meant for lighting to be in the first place.” He looked down at her, his lips twisted, a shrug in his shoulders. “First of all, one should never ever hang incandescent lights directly beneath a sprinkler head no matter what the rating – and second of all… isn’t it against fire code to hang lights of a certain temperature so close to a seating area?”

Jo peered up into the face of her inspector, reading between the words he spoke, between the lines of his narrative. “These modifications…,” she pointed over her shoulder to the new problem, “they’re dangerous?”

Ansgar nodded, “Without the proper clearance. There’s code for safety.”

“And if I’m to understand you correctly,” she led, feeling the unease sink into her stomach, “this was deliberate?”

“It appears that way.” He landed the statement as delicately as he could, but it appeared that someone tread the path of sabotage.

The woman popped down off the scaffolding to step downstage where she’d left her file. “The first incident report came after last season.” She shifted through her pages, trying to locate the very report she referred. She’d studied them many times over in the months since the trouble began. Checklist after checklist signed off by a designer and two techs invalidated by one engineer review.

If only someone from Martinsson Construction had come sooner…

Despite the skirt she wore, she plopped down to spread the papers out in front of her. “Work orders, they came through but stated that there was nothing wrong.” She slid the signed sheet along the stage floor towards Ansgar. “’These things happen…’ they said. ‘Accidents’ this one contractor told me. That’s why I came to you… well, Weissing.”

It wasn’t panic she felt. It wasn’t fear or hysteria. It was annoyance. Disbelief. Perhaps a little anger thrown in, but she’d never let anyone see that. Instead she put her head into solving this plague on her tenure as house manager. Fix it. Fix it for good and move forward. “How long to sort all this?”

The engineer still had his head stuck up in the mess of lighting, sorting out just how to fix it, what safety measures he could employ to see this didn’t happen again. He called down, his voice raised for the distance. “Not long. An afternoon, at best.”

“Herr Martinsson, who would have the most to gain for doing this?” She stopped shuffling to look upstage where he stood when hee’d climbed down from the scaffolding some minutes later. The very image of aristocratic bad boy. Starched white shirt beneath a work jacket, topped with a hard hat. The leather and metal work belt slung around his slim waist appealed to her for reasons far beyond her understanding. The contrast between the expensively tailored, highly groomed man and the hands-on worker made for a gorgeous picture.

“I can’t answer that, Froken, not without knowing the key players.” He picked up some of her pages to look at some of the names, to see if he recognized the names of contractors that missed the obvious. The sodding theifs.

She sat in silence rolling the problem over in her head. Could it be a lack of education or knowledge in her trusted employees? Or was it a case of foul intentions? She didn’t want to believe it of her people. When she reigned her thoughts in from solving the problem, she glanced up again.

A furrowed brow knitted over his long nose, he chewed the corner of his lip as he concentrated on the work orders and the checklists. His hand worked at the base of his neck, tracing a v shape below is Adam’s apple. A strangely attractive self-soothing gesture as his focus zeroed in.

“May I—“ she intruded on his reading. She laughed at herself and her predicament of being trapped on the floor. “May I please borrow a hand? I…uh…got myself into a spot of trouble.” She gestured at her seated position on the floor and reached up for him. “I’m in danger of showing my talent for very unladylike positions.” She continued laughing at herself and the challenges she put herself in.

“Oh, yes, of course,” he offered his hand to heave her up off the floor.

“Thank you. I forget… I’m always back here for with the tech guys, building, moving, lifting. This,” she ran her hands along her skirt, “this doesn’t do me any favors.” She tipped her head back looking up into the fly loft. “How long can I impose on you, Herr Martinsson? May I ask you to survey some other problem areas?”

[bltngames]

So I guess I’ve started getting press releases from game companies, now. I’ve never posted news to this blog before, but I got pinged about this, so I might as well post it.

Today, Amazon announced their own game streaming service called “Luna.” For $6 a month, you get access to the entire Luna library, streaming at 1080p 60fps. Just like with Stadia, they’re really pushing the “no download, no install” pretty hard.

One of those games will be Sonic Mania Plus, which is where the press release I received comes in. Speaking of which:

Sonic Mania Plus™ Spin-Dashes to Amazon Luna

Fans of the Blue Blur rejoice! Sonic Mania Plus™, SEGA’s 2018 definitive version of the critically acclaimed platformer game, Sonic Mania™ is heading to Luna — Amazon’s cloud gaming service designed for the love of play: removing the frustrations of gaming today, and inviting everyone to an experience that makes it easier and more fun to play — anywhere, anytime they like.

Developed by Hyperkinetic Studios in collaboration with Sonic Team, Sonic Mania Plus™ builds off the momentum of the critically-acclaimed platformer, Sonic Mania. Players can jump back into one of the best platform games of 2017, with two new playable characters from past Sonic games, Mighty the Armadillo and Ray the Flying Squirrel, and a new Encore mode that provides a fresh look to familiar zones with new challenges and layouts for new and veteran players alike.

Luna subscribers can stream high-quality, immersive games to their Fire TV, PC, Mac, web browsers, iOS phones and tablets straight from Amazon’s game servers, powered by AWS. For a seamless and low-latency gameplay experience, players can grab the Amazon Luna controller, the service’s native game controller, which connects players directly to Luna servers.

To stay current on Amazon Luna news, follow @amazonluna on Twitter, and subscribe to Amazon Luna on YouTube.

For more information, please visit amazon.com/luna.

Further information at the Luna website makes it seem that, just like with Google Stadia, you can go from watching a livestream to playing the game yourself -- but whereas Stadia promised to do that with Youtube, Luna will use Twitch. As of yet, I don’t think that feature works on Stadia right now. (Luna hasn’t launched yet, so I guess it doesn’t work there yet, either).

There’s also a Luna controller. Whereas the Stadia controller adopts the Playstation symmetrical design, Luna replicates the Xbox button and stick layout. In truth, it’s vaguely similar to that Amazon Fire Controller they used to sell, but with purple accents now.

My experience with these streaming services hasn’t been too negative -- I was a beta tester for Microsoft’s Project xCloud and it actually seemed to work pretty well with minimal delay. But I also basically live across the street from my ISP’s maintenance office, which means my internet is probably better than most. (We pay for 80mbps, but since we live so close, we usually get closer to 110mbps with some pretty low ping latency to boot).

My time with xCloud wasn’t all sunshine and roses, though. For as well as it worked, I couldn’t use the internet for anything else while I was streaming a game, or else the stream would begin to stutter and the controls would feel noticeably sluggish. It brought back memories of early broadband internet, or even dial-up, where you just didn’t have enough bandwidth to do more than one thing at a time. Even a simple Youtube video would completely destroy the gameplay stream. I had to focus exclusively on the game and nothing else, which wasn’t something I always wanted to do.

Luna’s pricing structure does seem a bit more friendly than Google Stadia’s at the very least, but there’s no changing the fact that these game streaming services feel like they’re made for rich people who can afford to have nice enough internet for this to make sense. Those same people could also afford to just have the hardware on site to play these games with the settings maxed out, too, without dealing with video compression artifacts, control latency, service outages, or anything else. Sort of defeats the purpose, if you ask me.

You can sign up to be a beta tester for Amazon Luna, but if it’s anything like Microsoft’s Project xCloud, you won’t be compensated for your services. After the lengthy beta period, Microsoft emailed me a PNG and said I could use it to “print out my own badge.” Labor sure is cool when it’s free, huh?

If any of this sounds like I’m bitter, you’ll have to forgive me for feeling morose over a future where you have even fewer ownership rights than you do right now. $5.99 a month sounds like a really good deal when you’re only considering the raw value of the money itself, but what else are you giving away in exchange for that? Does "no install time" really sound so good when you're signing away the freedom of user-made customizations and mod support? What if some day you go to play Sonic Mania Plus on Amazon Luna and it isn’t available, because Sega struck an exclusivity deal with some other streaming platform? Some very rich people are very excited about forcing you to make choices about that kind of stuff over the next ten years, and it all starts here. Are you okay with that?

Personally, I’m not. But that’s just me. Anyway, it sounds like Luna will launch with Sonic Mania Plus, so stay tuned for that, I guess.

[6919mmallaby-blog]

Why SMS Marketing isn’t Dead – and How to Generate More Revenue through Intelligent Growth

Why SMS Marketing isn’t Dead – and How to Generate More Revenue through Intelligent Growth – 2m-pmc : Management Consultants

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CASE STUDIES

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Optimism Bias and Strategic Misrepresentation -

by Michael Mallaby

August 18, 2020

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Let’s start with killing the myths that SMS messaging is finished…

SMS is the most widely used data application in the entire world

Approximately 3.7 billion users around the world send and receive SMS

Response rates via SMS are 8 times that of email

Texting is more popular than voice calling, especially among youths aged 16 to 24

96% of UK smartphone owners use SMS

Texting is now the second most common use for a mobile phone. The first is for checking the time and the internet usage is quickly growing

Sending patients text reminders about doctors’ and dentists’ appointments could save the NHS up to £150 million a year.

Text messages are usually read within 15 minutes of being received and responded to within one hour

Texting is more popular than voice calling, especially among youths aged 16 to 24

Some pretty impressive numbers .... 

80% of the Millennial generation say their phone is the first thing they check when they wake up.

The point here is that people keep their phones handy and are always ready to use them to find information or check the latest social media updates.

Open rates for texts vastly surpass email (which dwindles at 24%).

It’s clear that we’ve become dependent on our phones, which then opens the door for testing new mediums to reach consumers. Mobile advertising works, but only if your message makes it to the consumer’s inbox, and only if your ad is mobile-optimised.

SMS Messaging is the only way to steer clear of the noise and get a positive Return on Investment.

Most online marketers laugh at the idea of SMS marketing because they think it’s more regulated than email marketing. But that’s a misplaced assumption. If you don't have a system that is focused on mobile-targeting tactics, then this is costing you conversions, clients, and revenue.

Meanwhile, SMS marketing is almost happening underground - ready in the background, waiting for you to capitalise on it.

Here’s how and why you should revisit SMS marketing to generate revenue.

The many advantages of SMS Messaging

If you think Facebook and Instagram has good engagement numbers?

Wait until you see what SMS text messages get.

Benefit No 1

Texting has by far the best engagement rates of any marketing medium.

Emails may be left unread for days. Phone calls can go unanswered, but text messages are almost always read immediately after they’re sent.

We have already shown the dismal open rates for email. The average CTR for PPC ads is even worse at 2%. The fact is that SMS Marketing is under-rated, under-appreciated and in many cases under-used....

The likelihood of getting your message to the intended target is substantially higher than with email, PPC, organic, or social media.

But nothing great comes without its catch. It’s neither ethical nor legal to send unsolicited messages with text-message marketing, so you need to have a simple opt-in system. That’s where the power of the opt-in offer and discount coupon comes in…..

Fortunately, customers then have an easy, friction-less, way to opt themselves in — or out — straight from their mobile phones with most text-marketing services.

Here are some of the advantages of mobile text messaging.

Benefit No 2.

Trackable platform: You can easily track the performance of each SMS Message and each campaign.

There are countless texting platforms that allow you to manage your campaign all from your desktop.

With the 2m-pmc Intelligent Growth SMS Marketing System, we provided a detailed report on the SMS messages sent, the scale of the businesses subscriber list and the number of messages that are successfully delivered.

As the Business Owner – you then see how each promotion or message sequence has performed - focus on the successful campaigns – ditch the ones that don’t perform so well, and continue to grow your followers and subscribers, - growing your business all the time.

Benefit No 3.

Interactive content: Mobile messaging makes it possible to get feedback from your recipients quickly via a quick tap on the ‘reply’ button or a click on your link.

You can deliver quick, simple messages that direct subscribers back to your site.

A short sweet message – built around providing value to your prospects and clients means that your open rates and the customer side engagement with your business will help rocket your client base and your sales.

You can send customers to a web site, to a sign-up form, to a specific campaign or offer – and through their proactive decision to engage with your business, you in return get them on your list of subscribers as a new customers – so you can market to them directly, with up-sell, new offers and new products.

It’s a short and sweet message – getting straight to the point with a free offer or incentive so they get value and you gain a new customer…. The typical and proven Win-Win approach….

And, of course, the whole system and point of delivery was built for the mobile phone – so there are no configuration issues, no sizing, no scaling, … - it just works !!!!! – And it is all perfectly optimised for the mobile.

Benefit No 4.

Immediate delivery: Once you press “send,” your message goes out instantly.

You can set up a campaign and have hundreds of messages sent to your tribe and to your customer base almost immediately.

You have a quiet day in the restaurant, so you need to offer incentives to fill up your restaurant on a Tuesday evening… You need to fill your calendar and appointments on a Wednesday afternoon.

The Solution to these dead spots in your business - Simple, - just send out the SMS message telling all your customers of the offer, the discount coupon or the reducing availability – and fill up those gaps fast…

Benefit No 5.

Personal touch: Sending a text message via your mobile device gives you an informal opportunity to personalise the message.

Personalising the message also makes the campaign more engaging. Use words like “You” and “I” is a great approach and technique for driving engagement.

If you know your customer base, if you know what they like, and then you send them all SMS messages offering them more of what they like - how cool is that ! What could possibly go wrong ?

So - The opportunities with SMS Messaging are endless.

You can personalise your message, direct users to web pages, videos, where they can win coupons, and track every step of the conversion process.

So Here's How It Works...

The basic components of SMS marketing

The two basic components of a typical SMS-marketing campaign are the keyword and the phone number. Here’s an example:

Text “PIZZA” to 555 5555 for our SUPER DISCOUNT CODE!

“PIZZA” is the keyword that gets placed in the body of the SMS message.

“555 5555” is the specific phone number set up at the SMS exchange that then manages the process. This logs your tribe and subscribers, and then from your own mobile phone, as the business owner, you can then text all in your subscriber list with an SMS message offering the next GREAT DISCOUNT, the next BIG EVENT, - or the recent NEW PRODUCT or SERVICE.

Your best customers are your existing customers – and marketing directly to them – to get them to engagement more often with your business – and spend more when they are there – is the most cost effect route to increasing Your Revenues, Your Sales and Your Profits……

All of this for the cost of a text message ! – Not a bad ROI – in anyone’s language….

The Opt In ...

When a customer sends that initial message, they’re “opting in” to your campaign. It’s as simple as that. From there you can do a few different things.

Go ahead and send them a single, automated response to follow up and let them know what to expect next. Or you can just add them to a list that will send additional texts over time.

For example, you could send. “Text ‘YES’ to receive weekly coupons.”

Once they’ve opted in, customers can also respond to your messages with sub-keywords.

For example, sending the phrase “Hours” could trigger an automated text to send business hours and “Stop” could remove the subscriber from the list.

Allowing customers to use sub-keywords gives them a way to interact with your business. It also enables them to opt out of your campaign if they wish to stop receiving messages.

Once you’ve got the basics in place, there are a number of added value elements that bring even more power to the process.

The best SMS Marketing tactics...

Mobile texting tactics can be diverse, but they should be pretty familiar if you are already running social media promotions and running marketing strategies.

The SMS Message is a great compliment to these platforms and marketing approaches – as you can drive the message to their phone – you are not waiting, or hoping, that they visit your web site, see your Facebook advert or latest catch up with your current marketing campaign.

For example, you can send coupons, drive traffic, or engage people through fun, simple games.

Here are some of the best potential uses for SMS marketing.

Top Tip #1

Coupons: Send customers exclusive deals.

Start by creating uniquely-generated coupon codes to prevent non-subscribers from taking advantage of your deal.

That way, people have to subscribe to save.

Check out this example, where a coupon code will be sent to the customer, offering a discount.

Plus, the subscriber gets an extra incentive for taking this additional step. Customers don’t have to take an extra step to pay when they want to rent movies.

Top Tip #2

Drip campaigns: Send automated messages based on how long customers have been subscribed.

Think of this as just another form of marketing automation.

You can create triggers or tailored responses depending on each individual’s status.

In the context of coupons, for example, you could send a 5% off coupon right after a subscriber signs up, a 10% coupon after three weeks, and a 20% off coupon after two months.

The longer they stick around, the bigger the potential bonus. So you provide incentives for the actions that you want, - and best of all, you can schedule these to run automatically.

One will be sent as soon as a customer signs up or opts in. That way, you don’t need to keep sending individual messages.

Top Tip #3

Poll your customers: Let your customers text different keywords to cast a vote.

With most services, you can run polls to collect responses over a period of time and graph the responses from your online dashboard.

These are relatively simple when you think about it but they offer an interesting content piece. You can add in links to quizzes or other content on your business web site, links to videos. – the options are only restricted by the imagination and the range of marketing strategies that the business wants to deploy.

You can use the results internally to improve your operations, using the data form the SMS exchange, the various promo campaigns and the resulting increasing in revenues…. The numbers will prove what works – what doesn’t, - and there is no guess work…. Meaning you can target your next campaign based on the successes and you can ditch the failures….

Or you can reuse the results in both blog and social content to leverage your unique, proprietary information.

The people who left an answer will also be more eager to find out what the eventual results were and even help you share them.

Top Tip #4

Run a contest: You can have customers sign themselves up for contest by texting a particular keyword.

Once again, this is a standard marketing tactic. You can select winners from everyone who opts in, or you can also give away a smaller prize to every person who sends in a text with your keyword.

You can even use it as an opportunity for cross-promotions.

Top Tip #5

Send photos and videos: In addition to general SMS texting, you can send images.

Let’s say you wanted to send an eBook preview or another image-style CTA.

This can be done a number of ways - with hyperlinks, tying together different elements of a coordinated marketing campaign.

Use Facebook to grow your SMS list

Instead of putting all of your eggs in one basket, use multiple channels to segment subscribers.

SMS and Facebook Ads are excellent on their own, but they can be even more powerful when you use them together.

I recommend checking out Facebook’s Lead Ads and Posts to integrate with your SMS Message campaigns.

Lead ads are great for collecting data and information to build up a large subscriber base.

Once we’ve got the basics in place, then we have a platform on which to build a host of smarter, automated systems, from Zapier integration to working with Chat-Bots… increasing your business presence and building greater customer engagement – All of which supports business growth, increased sales and increased profits…

Conclusions

So, let’s be honest, SMS marketing can be seen as old tech, and somewhat outdated, - but it has evolved a lot over the last few years.

Recognising how the use of the mobile phone has exploded, how the number of SMS Messages has increased globally, how social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram are an everyday part of the current "Normal" – then SMS Messaging has a big role to play for any business that works in the B2C or B2B sectors.

People carry their phones with them all day – some even keep them with them through the night. We get up in the morning and check the mobile before we make the first cup of coffee.

If we don’t have the mobile to hand – panic sets in, … with the fear in case we miss out on something.

So, by getting your current customers and all new customers to opt in, chances are they are there for life – to ensure that they are never going to miss an update or offer from your company ever again.

Start with exclusive offers to generate a huge list of subscribers quickly and with mobile messages, you can be sure they won’t sit unopened or unread for days like emails, - especially if they’re personalised for the recipient and sent from one of their great suppliers – their favourite restaurant, their favourite bar, their club, their gym…. The list is pretty much endless!

Use SMS to send coupons, poll your customers, run competitions, send photos, and drive sales. So, get creative with your text offers and watch your ROI grow fast.

Best of all, you can get started within around one week.

Sign-up, we take care of all the techie stuff, - we’ll get you a dedicated phone number that you manage from your existing mobile and then the scale of the benefit is really up to you…. So how far do you want to take your SMS Message Marketing ???

Use the 2m-pmc Intelligent Growth System – you know it makes sense….

2mpmc.com

2mpmc.com/intelligent-growth

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About the author 

Michael Mallaby

I’m Michael Mallaby and I’ve worked in FTSE 250 companies, set-up a number of businesses, currently work with specialist Mergers and Acquisitions networks and Investor groups and have supported businesses, successfully securing +£millions in either working capital or equity backed support. Formal certification as a Risk Management Professional, an Association of Chartered Certified Accountants – ACCA Business Valuations practitioner and completed the Effective Angel Investor programme. Recognised as a subject matter expert in the field of Project Management, supported by MSc in the subject, with published articles in the global APM Project Journal magazine.

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192.168.1.1

Did you know you have far more than one particular IP address? In this report, we are going to show you how to find router IP address on Windows Pc, Mac OS X , iOS devices and Android. Just follow the measures for the device you are making use of, and you will find the address in no time. I hope now you know what the 192.168.1.1 IP address is and how to access it to configure your modem or wireless router. 192.168.0.1 is one of many private IP addresses, which are used by routers to recognize themselves on a network. If you have a router that makes use of this IP address and you know its login and password, you can kind the address into the URL field of your internet browser, log in, and alter any router settings you want.

Step five: If you are login into for the very first time then click on Setup and then go to wireless settings. You can setup it manually or automatically. Your property network is only as secure as your router, and this post will teach you how to access router settings and adjust your router's default admin password to make it more safe. Step two: Enter the Router's default username and password. If you never know default username-password then verify our above table. Go to Wireless Settings and customize settings.

192.168.1.1 is an IP address in a private IP address range that starts with 192.168.. and ends at 192.168.255.255. There are many other options you will find in your Routers like Change Mac Address, Alter Router Login IP and Password, and Block websites. 192.168.1.x to 192.168.1.54 is a private IP address list allocated to networking devices. For far more router passwords, we advocate you visit Default Router Password List , the internet's biggest and most updated default router passwords database.

The Net Assigned Numbers Authority ( IANA ) is a international organization that manages IP addresses. It initially defined a kind of IP address called IP version 4 (IPv4). This type is a 32-bit quantity generally expressed as four numbers separated by a decimal point — for example, 192.168.1.1. Each decimal must have a value amongst  and 255, which implies that the IPv4 program can accommodate about 4 billion unique addresses.

Locate the pinhole reset button. Usually times this on the back or underside of the router. With the router plugged in, press and hold the reset button for 30 seconds. Right after releasing the button, wait for the router to energy on, and try to login to the router again. IANA has reserved some IP addresses for private networks. We mentioned earlier that a private IP address is exclusive inside the network it's connected to but the very same IP address can be assigned to a technique on a distinct private network.

These private IPs total about 17.9 million diverse addresses, all reserved for use on private networks. This is why a router's private IP does not require to be exclusive. The router then assigns a private IP address to every device in its network, whether or not it's a tiny house network or an enterprise-level organization. Every device inside the network can connect to an additional device in the network employing this private IP.

As we've just mentioned, it's not attainable to enter the 192.168.1. IP address unless you're connected to the very same local network as the router to which the IP address is assigned. That should not be a dilemma if you are trying to connect to your own home router. In some situations, it is needed to connect straight through an Ethernet cable for safety factors. I did the original setup, changed the admin admin password, designed a wifi network, it worked fine for a year (changins passwords as soon as in a while).

Try to reconnect to Wi-Fi on a computer or mobile device. If the connection is profitable, your property network has been reset. Preserve in mind that resetting your router to its factory settings will erase all prior configuration, like your Wi-Fi network and its password. Netgear Router has a default IP address with 192.168.0.1. All you need to do is connect Router and Computer with a cable. A popup box will seem, where you have to kind the username and password provided to you.

Unplug your modem and router from the Internet and power sources. Your modem ought to be connected to a cable that in turn connects to your home's Cable outlet you are going to need to disconnect each this cable and the normal energy cable. To find your public IP address, Google "What is my IP" and it will show you. To uncover your private IP address, go to CMD (on windows), kind "ipconfig" and look at the IPv4 address.

House networks use this address variety. A router can assign 192.168.1.11 to any device (Ipad, laptop, House laptop, Mobile telephone, etc.) of the local network automatically. You uncover a lot more detailed lookup information of the IP address 192.168.1.11 below. If you connect to this network with your tablet, phone or laptop you get an IP address like 192.168.1.11 in this case. Router IP addresses such as 192.168.0.1.1 nevertheless result in far much more confusion than they ought to. To help you take control over your own router, we've place with each other this report, which describes in detail the purpose of the 192.168.0.1.1 IP address and explains how similar IP addresses can be utilized to manage routers.

[in-madhouses]

i dont mean to bother you but can you link me to the epilogue of your fic ‘they’ll hang us in the louvre” i absolutely have adored reading and im happy i stumbled across your blogs and fics and i cant wait to read more!

HELLO! NO BOTHER AT ALL. Life has just gotten in the way a little and I’ve been absolutely trash about updating. But here’s the epilogue for louvre for those who are actually still out there reading things I post  😭😭😭

.

“So what can you tell us about the Marauders film coming out in a couple of weeks?” The excited host asks with a little glint in his eye, as though he’s asking something he already knows the answer to.

“I.. I can tell you what I don’t know, which is everything,” Aahna deflects instead with a bit of a blush staining her cheeks.

Niall forces to keep a straight face at the sight of her on the screen, slightly squirmish but totally acing it.

Despite being high key in the interview spotlight (on and off) for well over two years by now, he can never get over the fact that Aahna confident to the point of arrogance Deakins doesn’t do very well with interviews.

For all intents and purposes, she does just fine. She carries her confidence like a shield and her charm simply radiates onto the screen. But after being intimately acquainted with her and her idiosyncrasies for a better part of a year, her slight awkwardness is evident. Especially when it’s on red couches and with interviewers that she binge watches on a regular.

“You have to know something!” Graham presses on.

“They didn’t exactly… I mean, at this point I know more about how nuclear reactors work than I do about the Marauders movie,” Aahna says casually.

“Are you saying you haven’t watched it or that you’re surprisingly well educated about nuclear reactors?”

“Both?” She laughs.

And Niall knows she’s not lying, she’d looked it up the week before and spent her night explaining to him it how it worked in detail.

The flamboyant host presses on, “Do you even know if you’re in it at all?”

“I don’t… I… I’m not sure,” she stutters a little before chuckling.

The petite host all but practically screeches at that, “You’re not sure?”

“Is it because they don’t trust you to keep things off social media?”

“Pretty much,” Aahna nods, her grin wide and bashful at the same time, “I wasn’t exactly given a script. Everyone on the principal cast knew what was going on, they literally jumped straight into filming after the last season but I was only given the scenes that I was in, and mid-way through production, so I could be a ghost, a memory, a spell-induced hallucination, I’m possibly not even in the movie at all.”

Niall smiles to no one in particular, somewhat proud how well she’s fending despite the multitude of complicated factors surrounding the interview;

a) the possibility of letting too much about the movie slip and therefore violating her NDA, his NDA, and everyone’s NDA basically because she only knows as much as she knows because they’d told her,

b) the possibility of not talking about the movie enough which would cause the audience to be less excited about the boys being on the show in the following week,

c) the fact that she’s not actually on The Graham Norton Show to promote the Marauders movie but the new season of her own show, and of course,

d) the possibility of deflecting everything far too much and then having to maneuver questions about their relationship status which was a newly hot topic of much speculation.

Despite them not even trying to be sneaky about things after the completion of Marauders: The Final Chapter, the internet stayed unsuspectingly calm.

Apart from that one grainy low quality images of them having dinner surfacing on a fan blog, they’ve actually managed to evade the full force of rumours and speculation with Aahna busy with season two of her show and Niall preoccupied piecing together the parts for his own expansion of title from just ‘actor’ to ‘actor slash screenwriter slash director.’

It only unexpectedly comes to a head when Aahna tweets one of the March Madness bracket charts comparing the fictional men on television by replacing every name with Remus Lupin.

Twitter, as it does, promptly loses its shit over it.

@itsAahna

Fixed the chart for you 🙃 @BBCOne

@BBCOne

Wow what were even doing before you came along? @itsAahna

@itsAahna

Sleeping on Remus Lupin, clearly @BBCOne

@drowningg-in-deniall

can @itsAahna and @NiallOfficial just get together already i want peace 😭

@mishchiefnmayhem

OTPOTPOTPOTPOTP #drowningindeniall

@moooony

I WILL REVOLT #wandsattheready #drowningindeniall @MaraudersMovie

@padsnprongs

I mean we all know #jily is endgame in the movie but i want to see @itsAahna and @NiallOfficial IRL #drowningindeniall

@NikkiSwiftCeleb

If this doesn’t change your opinion on the “friendship” between @itsAahna and @NiallOfficial nothing will.

@PerezHilton

Can we say we called it first? @itsAahna and @NiallOfficial

@EW

@MaraudersMovie exclusive. The cast weigh in on the new fave will they won’t they couple and THAT tweet >> bit.ly/Jh8e3rd4

Niall was back in Ireland when it happens, but his Twitter blows up with fans asking if they really are dating. Oddly, none of the guys or any of the Marauders’ cast members pester him about it. Probably because they think that Aahna’s contractually obligated to keep the conversation on the upcoming Marauders movie, but keeping their sexual relationship turned actual relationship a secret for months on end is surprisingly easy when your friends aren’t being complete nosy fucks.

The only person who truly suspected anything had Caroline, and even then, she’d only thought they were having hate sex to fix all their problems. (Not like she was wrong.) But when they decided to come clean when they wrapped filming with a round of drinks, they find out that there’d been a betting pool going on in regards to their relationship instead.

“I had a tenner riding on this,” Louis says, swaying a little after his umpteenth shot, “I still can’t believe the two of you didn’t get together before the movie wrapped!”

Niall and Aahna share a look at that, but before either of them can let the cat out of the bag, Louis then goes off on how no one but Harry expected them all to become friends and how this lead to them all losing money to Harry and they telepathically decide against telling their friends. (Seems only fair, since their friends were all proving to be complete pricks.)

Which only brings things to their current conundrum of having to promote a movie whilst making use of their fan favourite characters’ practically non-existent romance while some fans were emotionally invested in the actors’ very secret but very real romance.

He smiles at the thought. Because he likes to tell people that he was in love once, back in Ireland. But he didn’t really fall in love, fall in love. Not really. It was more of a familiarity. Like one day something that was there all along that just… became love. And it’s entirely the opposite of what happened with Aahna. Before he was even fully aware of what was happening, she was just… all over his life. Everywhere. Like someone poured her over every inch of him and she just seeped into the very fabric of his life and he can’t wash her out no matter how much bleach he used.

The on screen conversation shifts to the other guests for a bit focusing on the projects they qere involved in, but when the host with the big red couch says he has some tweets to pull out circling back to her, Niall could see the subtle signs of panic creep in on her face.

“Lips were obviously sealed quite tightly when you got cast for the backdoor pilot on Marauders, but an incident got leaked to the press didn’t it?”

“Wait, is this the video?” Aahna asks realisation dawned upon her.

“These were the tweets following that video that most people seem to have forgotten about.”

“Something that you won’t let happen, obviously,” Aahna comments good humouredly, mentally bracing herself for whatever the Graham Norton team has managed to dig up on the interwebs.

“Obviously,” the host announces as they move their attention to the screen on set, “Now these tweets are, I believe, the immediate aftermath of the video hitting the internet.”

@NiallOfficial

4 yrs on a top rated tv show only to end up sharing scentime with someone who got famous lookng gd in thr underwear

@NiallOfficial

that’s not me throwing shade at modesl that’s me throwing shade at @itsAahna

@NiallOfficial

it’s really not my fault that @itsAahna finds memorising lines harder than slupring tequila off her girlfriend’s belly button

@itsAahna

are YOU slurping tequila off of your girlfriend’s belly button right now? @NiallOfficial

@itsAahna

lol kidding (what girlfriend) 😂 @NiallOfficial

@NiallOfficial

at least i’m not about to send in a sex tape to @DailyMirror to distract people from how i cant act atall

@itsAahna

if you wanted to make a sex tape all you had to do was ask @NiallOfficial

“And this went on for like a whole hour at 3 in the morning,” Graham titters excitedly as he continues scrolling through the seemingly endless barrage of tweets.

“They do say that the best relationships start from heated online arguments,” Aahna shrugs, a smile dangling coyly on the edge of her lips.

Niall’s heart skips a whole beat at that.

But luckily, no one on the red couch seemed to have given it as much thought and they glide by the whole topic unsuspectingly.

“I mean, at one point you weren’t even typing words!” The host exclaims, still scrolling through tweets.

“No, you have to say it really fast, it’s… it’s a joke on the Irish accent, I was making fun of his accent,” Aahna admits, looking a little pink in the cheeks in embarrassment and nerves.

She then does an (in his opinion, piss poor) impression of his Irish accent.

Niall can’t help it though, his smile is still so wide, he’s at risk of his face splitting in half.

“You might as well have insulted potatoes,” Graham responds, rather aghast at her impersonation.

“Or Guinness, the Irishman is rather fond of his Guinness,” Ines chimes in.

The rest of the interview goes on with attention bouncing back and forth between the guests and before he notices it, the musical guest comes on and the credits are rolling. He does his best to pretend to be upset when she breezes into his apartment like it’s hers the next day (although to be honest, it’s all hers really; his apartment, his mind, his soul, his heart).

“That’s your best impersonation of me?” He tuts, faking being insulted so hard he wonders how he was ever employed as an actor.

She, in turn, does a very poor job of not smiling as she sets down boxes of takeaway in his kitchen, “Seeing as that was the dumbest I’ve ever looked on telly, I think it was pretty on.”

He grins, “You were great.”

“I can see why you need glasses,” she raises a brow at his direction.

Niall merely shakes his head at that. It’s a quarter past four and the gang should be at his place in about an hour because everyone unanimously decided that he needed to host a party to celebrate his script selling and the studio wanting him to direct and she’s doing the dishes because ‘only losers eat out of takeaway boxes at a party’ and he can’t stop staring.

She looks up and finds him sort of looking at her weird.

“What?”

You, he thinks, I’m looking at you. I’m always looking at you.

“You know this is probably what Sierra meant,” he points out, a little breathless over absolutely nothing, “About distractions.”

She links her hands behind his neck, feigning ignorance, “No idea what you mean.”

And then he’s kissing her against the overflowing sink and she’s laughing, and he thinks it tastes better than anything in his whole atmosphere.

And honestly, Niall is pretty sure he could live off of that feeling for the rest of his life.

@Harry_Styles

I don’t mean to alarm anyone but I think @itsAahna and @NiallOfficial are legitimately dating.

@AinsWills

BETRAYAL!! DECEPTION!! OUTRAGE!! @itsAahna @NiallOfficial

@LeeyumPain

Pics or it didn’t happen @Harry_Styles

@itsAahna

DELETE. NOW. @Harry_Styles

@Louis_Tomlinson

SSSADFGDSASDFGDSADFSF

@Louis_Tomlinson

#DROWNINGINDENIALL @itsAahna @NiallOfficial

@Louis_Tomlinson

#AAHNAANDNIALLERSITTINGONATREE @itsAahna @NiallOfficial

@itsAahna

Stop yelling or I s2g I’m coming over there and choking you @Louis_Tomlinson

@Louis_Tomlinson

Kinky. I take it @NiallOfficial likes it rough?

@NiallOfficial

@Louis_Tomlinson keep your kinks to yourself. yes this is me kinkshaming you

@itsAahna

There are children on the interwebs!! @Louis_Tomlinson @NiallOfficial

@Louis_Tomlinson

Kinkshaming is my kink @NiallOfficial 😉

@Louis_Tomlinson

Kids, kinkshaming is bad

@NiallOfficial

jokes on you kinkshaming kinkshames is my kink @Louis_Tomlinson

@AinsWills

Caaaaan we bring it back to the betrayal bit @NiallOfficial

@C_Davies

Yes. In case you’re all wondering, the @MaraudersMovie cast has a betting pool on @itsAahna and @NiallOfficial

@C_Davies

And I want my money back @Harry_Styles

@itsAahna

Et tu @C_Davies? Et tu??

@Harry_Styles

None of that 👆 was a ‘yes, we’re dating’ @C_Davies

@itsAahna  

I’m blocking all of yous. @Harry_Styles @Louis_Tomlinson @LeeyumPain @C_Davies @AinsWills

@NiallOfficial

Yes, we’re dating 🙃

@itsAahna

BLOCKEDDDD @NiallOfficial 😡😡😡

@zaynmalik retweeted @AinsWils

BETRAYAL!! DECEPTION!! OUTRAGE!! @itsAahna @NiallOfficial

@itsAahna  

Okay internet (and former friends) You win this one.

@Louis_Tomlinson

I want my tenner back @Harry_Styles

[t-eyla]

fanfic asks: 25, 6, 33

Thank you @orchidbreezefc!

If you also want to ask me fic writing things, here’s the list.

25) Have you ever cried whilst writing a story?

I have not. Writing is a very, hm. Detached process, for me? That's a bad word for it, because writing does affect my mood, and getting into a character's head affects me profoundly. I'll pick up their quirks, their music taste, their outlook on the world. Not exclusively, of course (I don't have multiple personalities), but I end up with a character-colored tint over my personal experiences for a while.

But when I write, I have to turn these vague "character experiences" into tangible words on a screen, which means I step back and become a character archaeologist, if you will. Anything I dig up holds a primarily "scientific" interest to me. If I uncover a tangled mess of, say, abandonment issues, the prevailing feeling will be keen excitement at having found another piece of the puzzle that may provide further context for why a character does what they do. Writing's a bit like making a big character yarn wall to me, and it won't make me cry while I'm doing it.

So yeah. Yay for compartmentalizing, I guess?

6) If you had to delete one of your stories and never speak of it again, which would it be and why?

See, I don't believe in deleting/ denying stories. Anything I've written I wrote for a reason, and whether or not I think that reason was good or bad, I can still learn about my past self and my development since by acknowledging it and the fic.

That said, back in the dark ages of the internet, I posted a deathfic that was also a songfic to Evanescence's My Immortal to the Star Trek Enterprise archive I used to frequent. A few years ago, the Open Doors initiative imported that fic to my AO3 account. I will say that it's a daily struggle not to hit that "delete" button.

33) What’s the biggest compliment you’ve gotten?

Settle in, this is kind of a long story.

My last fandom was The Thick of It, which is a British political satire show. It's one of the funniest shows I've ever seen, while at the same time being a super intricate commentary on the social peculiarities of the UK--the North/South divide, the class war, Scotland specifically vs. the South, the British yellow press, British mob mentality, the shift in politics to the right in the 90s, general political absurdity, etc.

It's daunting to get into as a non-Brit, but I did, and got possessed with the need to write a backstory for the main slash fic in the fandom: two emotionally unavailable, extremely sweary Scots who do press work for a New Labour-type government. I did more research for this fic than I've ever done for anything in my life. It ended up covering British political and social history from, like, 1980 to 2012 while also telling an imo quite satisfying slow burn romance plot.

When I put it up on the AO3, I got a lot of very lovely comments, but one comment thread (which is not on the actual fic, but is a mention of the described fic in the comments of another fic) was the most delicious validation I've ever received in my life. It's this one here.

[topweeklyupdate]

TØP Weekly Update #62: They’re *Really* Back (9/14/18)

We knew going into this week that there was a real storm coming, and that was an understatement. Though the complete Trench album is still waiting to be released, it really feels like the band is back more than ever. 

This update is a novel-sized doozy. Grab your new merch, and let’s dive into it.

This Week’s TØPics:

A Complete Diversion in London Brings Trench (and a Flaming Car) to the Stage

The Boys Speak to the Press: Rock Sound and Alt Press Announce Special TØP Issues, and the Boys Hop Back Onto Radio

First Details Emerge About “Neon Gravestones”, “Pet Cheetah”, Clancy, Nico, and More As the Press Hear the Album for the First Time

Major News and Announcements:

The big one finally hit: after over a year, Twenty One Pilots returned to their home on the stage. They started making flex moves before the show even started. They arrived in London two days in advance, rehearsing and playing soundchecks into the night that die-hard campers could hear from outside the venue. They arranged for folks in Bandito uniforms to dispense 150 tickets to those that showed up at the box office.  The venue delivered food to the queue, and the Clique in turn donated their blankets and duvets to a local soup kitchen. Pretty darn sweet.

The real event was even sweeter. 

Twenty One Pilots did not quite pull out all of the stops for their first performance in over a year. The set was just over an hour, did not debut any never-before-heard songs, did not include any special guests, and mainly stuck to the skeleton of the Blurryface Era setlist. And you know what? There was absolutely nothing wrong with that. If anything, Tyler and Josh keeping things focused on dusting off the old gears and introducing a few new elements for the Trench era resulted in a tight and emotional return for today’s greatest band. (Shout out to Ohio Clique for editing fifteen different Periscope and Instagram Live streams together to make a cohesive concert movie.)

Highlights of the show include:

There were no screens present in the smaller venue, but the production crew did make sure to bust out a ton of other great production elements, including tons of lights and, most notably, the car from the  “Heavydirtysoul” video that bursts into flames at key points during certain songs- including, at one point, when Tyler was standing on it.

The Clique brought the production value in the crowd, too: beyond all the folks dressed up as Banditos and Bishops, you also had plenty of people bring in yellow screens for their flashlights and yellow flowers and petals to offer Tyler.

The setlist was pretty sensible, with the four new Trench singles plus all of the songs that you would have expected them to play at an old festival show (minus “Guns for Hands” and “Tear In My Heart”, no I’m not sweating, why?). It is interesting that “WDBWOTV” and “The Judge” were played, but I suspect that it was mainly to justify bringing out the ukulele for “Nico”; if there are more uke tracks on Trench, I would not be surprised to see one or both of these songs dip out of the regular rotation.

Tyler had to stop the show twice to help people out of the pit- it was that kind of show.

The show opened with Josh coming out on stage in full Bandito regalia, torch in hand, looking like a badass. After sitting down at the drums and playing a few simple sequences, a masked man with a bass guitar walked out on the stage, started playing “Jumpsuit”’s gnarly riff, and yelled for the crowd to “GET UP!” Awesome. Twenty One Pilots is back, mate.

Tyler stumbled over a few lyrics in “Jumpsuit” and “Levitate”, but he successfully played it off- only the most diehard fans would have caught that he wasn’t just pausing for breath or to hear the crowd.

Tyler actually yelled “Why’d you come, you know you should have stayed?” at the end of “Heathens”, and it sounded damn good. Hope it sticks for future shows.

Tyler’s “WDBWOTV” pre-speech was a pretty good inaugural address for the Trench Era. He let the rabid audience know that he had been watching them since before the concert (both literally and metaphorically), joked about needing to get back in “show shape”, and thanked London for being a home away from home for them. In gratitude for hosting them, Tyler even announced that they were adding a third arena show at Wembley and joked that Mark should tweet it or something (he did).

Prior to playing “Nico”, Tyler adorned a bright yellow jacket over his usual uke kimono; Josh helpfully banged the drums dramatically for every successful button.

Tyler and Josh did the handshake during “Nico”, because of course they did.

For “My Blood”, Tyler drew from the old playbook and attempted to direct the two halves of the audience to sing harmonies. It worked even better than it used to with “Doubt”, much to Tyler’s evident glee- his smile and little dance to everyone singing his new song back at him was probably the best moment of the whole show.

The Trees Speech was short and sweet, with Tyler promising that he’s written “pages and pages” of things he wants to say, but for now all he can say is that they’ll be coming back on the new tour with “things we’ve never seen before” and that the fans look so good.

#YellowConfettiConfirmed

In the last bit of major news: new merch (that Josh stitched himself, be nice) and a new yellow Trench vinyl that I’m sure won’t immediately sell out. Have fun spending your life savings, kids!

Other Shenanigans:

The band was active in other spaces this week, of course. After Zane Lowe broke open the floodgates last week, both Rock Sound and Alternative Press announced that they would release some exclusive Trench Era Content (tm). Rock Sound’s came in the form of a thirty-page mag featuring a lengthy 22-page feature comprised of the first interview the two bands gave together since before the hiatus, Tyler and Josh’s first full photoshoot in over a year, and tons of awesome posters and Clique art. It definitely is not available in any form on the Internet that I’m afraid to link to lest I get pegged for copyright and sent to jail. Highlights of this interview that I certainly haven’t read include:

Lots of typical Rock Sound purple prose, in which the writer goes off on more tangential metaphors than even Tyler Robert Joseph.

The reporter describes Tyler’s house as “quite stunning” (yeah, with that Blurryface money combined with Columbus real estate values, I should hope so).

Josh laughs at the memory of some of their old costumes. “Those suits were so hot,” he says, as if those heavy coats aren’t a billion degrees inside.

Tyler: “There’s something healthy about realizing that the world keeps turning. Sometimes it can feel like the whole world is revolving around you- I think we all selfishly get to that point. When you have those moments, when you stop and realize that even if you weren’t there those other people would be, it lifts a weight that can feel very heavy. It motivates you to want to come up with a reason why you’re here.”

Tyler says they cut out social media during the hiatus in part because “removing the ability to run straight to it was important. For me, writing music is the thing I want to run to when I feel compelled or inspired. Whether it’s frustration or anger or compassion, whatever it is that I wanted to express, I wanted it to live somewhere new. I didn’t want one drop of meaningful expression to live anywhere else.” Additionally, they did want to test whether the Clique would stick around, and even kinda hint that they wanted to shrink how crowded some of the rooms they entered were becoming.

We are assured, however, that the next “hiatus” will not be the exact same as this. Tyler: “Going away broke my heart. It hurt that we weren’t able to tell people why we had gone, but I’m an advocate of showing people what I’ve been working on rather than telling them how hard I’m working. [...] That said, though we don’t know what the timeframe will be or if we’ll take another break, the manner in which we left... we’ll never do that again.”

I’m just gonna leave this here: “He tells us also of the beautiful relationship he has with his wife, Jenna, and the role that she played in helping him unlock the words and the sounds that would form the basis of this new chapter; of the times he would hand her the phone while behind the wheel of his car to allow her to record anything from melodies to simple poems.” Yeah, will someone sweep up all the pieces of my heart that are just lying on the floor, that’d be great.

Tyler has long had the idea to tell a geographic story, much longer than since the end of the last cycle, and he didn’t always intend to tell it through music. “I feel like in our mind there are places we learn we shouldn’t go.”

Tyler says that there are lots of songs that he writes that never see the light of day because he has moved past the season he wrote them in by the time it comes to record them.

Rock Sound is positively glowing in its brief advance review of the album, saying it is undoubtedly the best project of 2018, “a labor of love”, “a varied, often spectacular collection” with some of the band’s all-time greatest moments. It will be even more sonically diverse than we’ve come to expect: “Morph” is described as “old-school R&B”, “The Hype” “anthemic indie-rock”, “Pet Cheetah” has “stomping beats and a fiery rap verse.” The highlight, though, is apparently “Neon Gravestones”, “a piano-laden spoken word masterpiece” with lyrical content that “will save at least one person’s life”. Damn.

Alt Press will also be releasing a 24-page cover feature on the band and were even nice enough to include a fun video ad from the boys. They’re so cute, and I’ve missed them so much. (Also, Tyler’s checkered pants are a quality meme.)

After the Complete Diversion, Tyler and Josh performed a mini-press tour. First, they gave five-minute interview with Annie Mac on BBC Radio 1 and an Instagram Stories AMA on the station’s account. Highlights of this quickie include:

Josh and Tyler joke that specifying the exact number of months they’ve been away sounds like a mother saying their kid is “14 months” instead of a year old.

Tyler notes that this was the first performance in a long time that they’ve felt truly nervous, as they could no longer rely on muscle memory to carry them through after the long break, particularly with the new songs.

Annie references her last interview with Josh, where he confessed to be nervous about whether the fans would return. When asked if the first show helped them overcome those nerves, Tyler replied honestly, “To an extent, yes.” They chuckle about it, but the implication remains thick: the dedicated fanbase certainly turned up, but there is no assurance that they’ll have long-term mainstream success in the future. They seem cool with that.

Tyler states that they chose London specifically to make their return because, besides Columbus, it’s the only city where they have played in every size of venue, from the Barfly club to the Ally Pally and everything in-between over the course of fifteen shows. That type of home atmosphere made it feel right to start the new era there.

Josh says they played a bowling alley in London once. He did not wear bowling shoes in the set nor when he bowled afterward, which, as Tyler points out, is very punk rock.

Tyler reflects on how this show represents years of preparation and practice teaching them how to “trim the fat” and master the tempo and flow of the concert to appear as confident as possible and bring the audience along for a well-planned journey.

“My Blood” is one of the most challenging songs for both artists to play, particularly Tyler, as he has to balance the difficult falsetto with keeping that bassline groovy and consistent.

The IG answers were mostly just the dudes trying and failing to answer basic questions like “Are you happy to be back?” and “What’s it like to be famous?” in as few words as possible without giggling, hugging, and tickling each other. Best Q/A: Why did they watch the Grammys in their underwear? “We didn’t have air-conditioning.”

South African DJ Rob Forbes from Radio 5FM also conducted a truly fascinating interview with the band, the first that dives into the lore and one that gives us even more of a glimpse into some of the future songs. Additionally, Mr. Forbes briefly posted the tracklist w/ time-codes, revealing that both “Chlorine” and “Bandito” go over five minutes- get hyped, kids. Highlights from this interview include:

When asked about Clancy, Tyler responds with a pregnant silence before asking how the the interviewer knew about him. DJ Forbes stutters an answer about having listened to the record, but Tyler replies that Clancy’s not on the record. All he does say about Clancy is “I’ve heard about him, and I know we’re from the same place.” What is up with your cryptic nonsense, Tyler Robert Joseph?

The band intentionally left the Trench Trilogy open-ended to be able to continue it in the future. Tyler did not mean to make the timeline confusing, but did note that its cyclical nature left it open for the Clique to pursue that interpretation.

Tyler is careful with choosing his words to describe Nico. He admits the whole thing is pretty confusing (his grandma asked him once, “What’s a Nico?”), but that was his intention: he wanted to give the Clique a lot to think about and discuss as a reward for waiting so long. He does seem to confirm that Nico is Blurryface, or at least an aspect of him that represents how much more familiar Tyler has become with the nature of his own insecurities as he writes about it.

Tyler denies that the final verse of “Neon Gravestones” has a specifically political bend and actually sounds a little offended that something so important to him could be cast in that light. No idea what that means, I need to hear this song.

The interviewer says that Tyler calls his “Pet Cheetah” “Jason Statham” within the song itself in a fun rap verse. Tyler laughs and says that came from an inside joke between him and Josh that he was excited to bring to life. I am SO confused, you have no idea.

Tyler says that they had plans at one point to come to South Africa for a show that fell through at the last second, but that they’re still interested in going at some point in the future.

Additionally, the music production interest site Mix did a small spotlight on the producers behind Trench. We already knew that Paul Meany was handling main production duty; Darrell Thorpe, whose credits include Radiohead, OutKast, Paul McCartney, and Foster the People, joined him as an engineer while the band captured the album’s drum tracks at United Recording Studios in LA, the only studio they used outside of the one in Tyler’s home. It’s always cool to see the dudes who bring the band’s music to life, but, to be honest, the best part of this short little article is Tyler’s dad socks in the photo.

Oh, and music video director Andrew Donoho told Billboard that he can’t spoil the album or Tyler will burn down his house. So... yeah, okay, moving on.

Chart Performance:

After its first full week of sales and streaming, “My Blood” secured a debut at #16 on the Billboard Bubbling Under chart ranking the songs that have yet to reach the Hot 100. The song gains at all metrics, and according to some industry sources like Headline Planet, it is receiving a concentrated marketing push to pop and adult contemporary markets that its predecessors have not. “Jumpsuit” continues to fade, but its run was respectable, and I remain optimistic about Trench’s commercial prospects going forward, especially in the midst of this hype wave.

Whew. That was a long run. Congrats to everyone who made it all the way to the end. We’re so close to Trench, you guys. Keep powering through. Stay alive. And power to the local dreamer.

|-/

[praneethgannoji]

Blog #15 Accessibility in Video games

While I was writing a blog on Last of us 2 and how accessible it is for people with disabilities, I wanted to research more on that topic. how are game developers considering disabled people in mind, while I was researching I found an interesting internet article named ‘Accessibility finally matters to the game industry — but it needs to do better’ by Chris Mut. He starts off by saying there are 2.6 million people in the world who take part in gaming, 92% of people with impairments play video games, and 33 million people from the USA suffer from diabetes.

Usually, when designing a controller they take full hand functionality in mind, but that is not the case for most people with disabilities, simple things like pressing and holding a button instead of tapping it repeatedly or having one stick instead of two for controlling the player character can make the game cerebral palsy or arthritis-friendly. People like me who are visually imperative struggle with reading subtitles which has small font size, games like Pokemon go are very exclusive because it is a game based on motion-based controls.

There can be few solutions to these problems. For example, Nintendo a company known for its exclusiveness and had many complaints of it not being inclusive, players made their own solutions like a soft keyboard and controller so that players can use the controller using their feet. There is also a Rock Band accessibility kit for wheelchair users, and an organization called Controller Project which specializes in making custom made controllers tailor-made for individual needs.

Last three or four years the situation has changed, e are seeing gaming companies being more inclusive, like Microsoft launching its own Xbox Adaptive Controller, Tobi eye which has a tracking peripheral, in which the players can control the character using their eye moments so that people with all sorts of disabilities can play video games and also Sony with its new ps4 update which has full text to speech functionality, button remapping, etc.,

Reference:

VentureBeat. (2019). Accessibility finally matters to the game industry — but it needs to do better. [online] Available at: https://venturebeat.com/2019/10/08/accessibility-finally-matters-to-the-game-industry-but-it-needs-to-do-better/.

The Last of Us Part II (standard edition). 2020. Ps4 [Game]. Naughty Dog: California.

[classybanananacho]

Wpa For Mac

OK lets all take stock and use some logic here and I respectfully disagree with a few of the comments generally being banded about ! And i overall am unhappy about the general forum bashing as well as people may find a hint useful even though 'you' have not. WPA-PSK / WPA2-PSK does not require an 'authentication server' per se as @leamanc has suggested. Pre-Shared Key (PSK) Mode The PSK mode is designed for home or small network use where an 802.1x authentication server isn't required. WPA-PSK works by regularly changing the automatic encryption keys authenticated between computers, your server or router and other devices that connect to it. PSK dramatically improves protection over WEP, as the encryption keys change very quickly, thus preventing intruders from gathering data to break encryption and into your network. Now lets get to Encryption..... WPA tends to use TKIP and WPA2 uses AES encryption. Both these methods Apple call WPA Personal or WPA2 Personal. AES is preferred as it is more secure and recent exploits of TKIP have led to it being slowly phased out just like WEP which should not be used at all. However WPA works with most older hardware where as WPA2 will require more modern hardware (6 year old ish) Overall with modern Wi-FI hardware using 'n' protocol you need to ONLY use WPA2 with AES encryption to get the best speeds/throughput. But that is another story. I do not really want to go into WPA2 Enterprise, RADIUS, 802.1X etc as this is just going to make it even more complex for people to understand and irrelevant for Home users as this used when connecting to Business/Enterprise networks.

Wpa Format

Wpa Foreman

Wpa For Macbook Pro

WPA Personal = WPA-PSK (and WPA2-PSK). Apple prefers to use the term WPA Personal, which is probably what you saw in the Airport documentation. From Wikipedia: 'WPA-Personal: Also referred to. To view the network password on a Mac, choose a method to open the Keychain Access application, and then access Passwords. Step 1: Open Keychain Access.

Do you want to know if your access point is vulnerable to the WPS protocol? Wifi Wps Wpa Tester is the application you need!

Wps Wpa Tester is an application that helps you check if the WPS protocol of your access point has any vulnerability. With this application, you can perform this check on any network, but it is recommended to use it exclusively on your own.

With this web extension we will guide you how to download and install WIFI WPS WPA TESTER App on your PC (Windows 7, 8, 10, Mac) using an Android Emulator. Nox App Player is one of the most popular. In addition to authentication, wpa also provides for an encrypted channel over the wireless link. Mac filtering is just an acl; if you pass the filter you're in, but there's no encryption. I don't think these two are interchangeable as an either/or solution. Sent from Cisco Technical Support iPad App. Configuring RADIUS MAC Authentication. Navigate to Settings Wireless Networks. Select the wireless network that will have RADIUS MAC Authentication enabled. Choose a RADIUS profile for the SSID to use for MAC authentication. Select the format to be passed as a username and password from the UAP to the.

Wps Wpa Tester is an application with some exciting features. In addition to helping you check the security of your access point, it also allows you to see all the passwords of all the wifi networks you have connected to from your Android device.

Wps Wpa Tester Premium APK

Now hack android device without root with WPS WPS Tester Premium APK. Premium version included: Download it from here.

�� WITHOUT ADS.

– COPY PASSWORD OPTION

– REVOLVED THE MENU $ 0027 ″ SHOW PASSWORD »

Test if your wireless network is secure or not!

Thanks to this application and thanks to the default WPS algorithm (zaochensung) SOME of the routers, you can receive the WPA WPA WPA2 WEP adjusted to the router.

The application needs superuser permission (root); otherwise it only shows the WPS by default.

Algorithms used:

– … Zhao.

– … Vodafone Arcadyan.

-Link

-TrendNet

– Added the default pin of many routers

How to get access to wifi networks

Security is essential, and today our digital world is in many ways a shelter, a kind of space in which we develop daily, showing a significant facet of our lives. For this reason, keeping our privacy and our data protected is a primary issue.

The truth is that just like the digital world has many advantages that we take advantage of on a day-to-day basis, there is also a darker face and that those who want to access our data are always on the lookout, taking advantage of the multiple failures and vulnerabilities that could be in our systems, as is the case with wifi.

The security of our wifi networks

Wifi networks are today the most common connection point that people have with the internet; through them, a great deal of information of all kinds is moved, and among so many data that we mobilize daily, many of these are private. Indeed, no one wants their personal information to enter the hands of malicious strangers.

Understanding the importance of the security of our wireless networks, multiple tools designed for monitoring and security management have emerged so that we are aware of the vulnerabilities of our wireless and wifi networks. Each of these tools ensures the protection of data on our computers and passwords.

Wifi WPS WPA TESTER

The tool that we present today is a necessity for those who have at their disposal a wifi network, being unique for our homes and work environments. WIFI WPS WPA Tester seeks to improve the security of our systems. However, it can also be used to determine if a third-party network has vulnerabilities that allow our access.

WPS WPA Tester to protect us

We can use this application for Android to assess the vulnerabilities present in our network. For this, the application analyzes the WPS protocols denoting if any security flaw allows access; in this way, we can take the necessary measures to strengthen our security.

Wifi WPS WPA Tester to get access to wifi networks

On the other hand, WPS WPA Tester is useful for accessing wireless networks with security flaws, which makes it easier for users to access nearby wifi. The tool takes advantage of failures in old encryption systems so that it manages to access some networks; in any case, it is fair to indicate that this does not work with all networks. You can download the app in the following link.

How does it work?

To use the application, follow these steps:

Run the App

Select that network in which the symbol is green or yellow, press Yes.

Click on connect automatically, trying with all pins.

Wait for it to complete and verify if network access was obtained.

As you will see, the wifi WPS WPA Tester tool is quite useful both to verify our privacy and to access wifi networks with security problems. In any case, we recommend all users to use the tool ethically.

How to use WPS WPA TESTER

To use the application correctly, you will need to have a rooted device, and the ‘busy box’ application installed. If not, some of the features will not work.

With this application, you can test the connection to AP with the WPS PIN.

PINs are calculated with many algorithms:

Zhao

TrendNet

Link

Wpa Format

Arris

And other default PIN of MANY Access Points. Then NOT ALL AP ARE COMPATIBLE WITH THIS APP.

The application needs root permissions for devices with Android version <5.0 (LOLLIPOP). For devices with Android = 5.0, you can try the PINs with this application and connect, BUT YOU CANNOT SEE THE WPA PASSWORD (“WEP”) WITHOUT ROOT PERMITS.

Test the security of your wifi (WPS)

If you can connect to your wifi network using WPS (wifi Protected Setup), it is possible that your router or your box is vulnerable because of a default PIN code that an attacker could easily find.

To find out if this is the case, there are 2 Android applications that are capable of testing the fragility of your wifi network if WPS is active. However, I would remind you that it is perfectly illegal to “test” the security of your neighbors’ wifi network. These applications should only be used with your hardware, otherwise, Bernard will put you in jail.

The first is called wifi WPS WPA Tester and integrates a list of default pin codes and different algorithms capable of finding these PIN codes.

The second application is called WPS Connect and does much the same thing except that you will need a rooted phone to run it.

If your wifi router is vulnerable to this, I therefore strongly recommend that you disable its WPS functionality so that you no longer have to worry.

HACK A WIFI NETWORK WIFI WPS / WPA IN 1 MINUTE

Does your neighbor have a very good but protected wireless connection? Can’t give you a wifi password? So let me tell you that you can hack the word from its wifi network in less than a minute with your Android Smartphone. WPA (wifi Protected Access) is a mechanism for securing wifi type wireless networks. It was created in the early 2000s in response to the many weaknesses of WEP.

WPS (wifi Protected Setup) is a mechanism that allows you to connect to a secure wireless network in WPA / WPA2 without entering the password, just by pressing a button (with an icon that looks like the Refresh button browser) on the router.

The WPS is vulnerable, it will allow us to find the passwords of WPA wifi networks very easily with its Smartphone. So here’s how to do it.

How to hack a WPA / WPS wifi network with Android

Requirements:

Android with version> 4.0

Android with ROOT Access (Otherwise see How to root your Android)

Download Busybox

Download Terminal Emulator (To find out what Terminal is here.)

Wpa Foreman

Steps to hack a wifi network with WPS WPA Tester

NOTE: Tutorial for informational purposes.

Step 1: Download and install WPS WPA Tester.apk

Step 2: Open the application, click on the wifi icon (above) to update the available wifi networks.

WPS WPA Test Good wifi signal

Step 3. All available networks which will have a small green padlock (WPS / WPA) are vulnerable.

Step 4. Before hacking it, the signal from this network must be at most -75 (the lower it is, the better it is, for example, –50 is a very good signal compared to -80), you as much as possible from the router.

Step 5. Click on the vulnerable network

Step 6. Click on “Try to Connect (root)”

WPS WPA Tester Try To connect

Step 7. Choose the first PIN first then click on “Try to connect (root)”

WPS WPA Tester Choose PIN

Step 8. In less than 10 seconds, you should see the password displayed on the screen and you will be automatically connected to the network.

WPS WPA Tester wifi Network Password

Step 9. If this does not work, therefore the signal is weak, move closer to the router. And try again with all 3 PIN codes in step 7.

You have finally learned how to hack a WPS / WPA wireless network with your Android. If you liked the tutorial, share it on social networks by clicking on the buttons below.

Apps Are Similar to WPA WPS Tester

AndroDumpper

It has a user-friendly interface that you would love while cracking wifi passwords. You just have to select the network and then press No custom PIN.

WPSApp

It is another application that works with networks that have WPS encryption. The interface is very simple where a green ticket means that you can decrypt the password and with a red ticket and in the form of X it means that you do not decipher the key of that wifi Network.

Router keygen

Router Keygen is a popular application that has evolved, but basically This app helps you to obtain wifi keys from networks that have not changed their password, this is with a default password. When you start the app, it will tell us which networks it supports and which not after doing a scan around us. Download Keygen Router

WPS connect – Decrypt Wifi Keys

WPS Connect is extraordinary compared to other Android applications to unscramble wifi keys from your versatile. This application works with numerous switches, simply download this application on your telephone and quest for the wifi arrange. You can likewise see the wifi secret word spared from this Android application.

Note: This application just works with the WPS security of the Wireless Network Card.

Wpa For Macbook Pro

Wifi WPS Wpa Tester – WPA Keys

On the off chance that you are a client with an Android Root portable and need the best applications to discover the wifi organize key, download this application on your telephone. With the assistance of this application, you can hack the wifi coordinate with a protected secret word.

Be that as it may, this application doesn’t work with all switches. You can unscramble remote systems with WPS and WPA keys.

Wifi Kill – Disconnect Intruders

One of my favorite applications for wifi network hack. You can disconnect other devices from the wifi network connected with the help of this application. You can also see what other users are browsing to find intruders in their wifi network.

Wifi Inspect – Audit Network

Root consent is required to run this application on your versatile. WiFinspect is a multi-instrument for PC security experts and other propelled clients who wish to control the systems they claim or have consent, that is, the application is a security review apparatus and not a hacking device.

ZAnti Penetration Testing Android Hacking Toolkit

Zanti is a set of mobile penetration testing tools for Android. You can check the vulnerabilities in your wifi network with this application on your phone. If you are an ethical hacker or IT professional, then this is an indispensable tool for your Android mobile. You can hack any wifi network with the help of this application.

The application comes with no guarantee.

Fing Networks Tools – Android Network Audit

Fing is an expert application for arranging investigation. It has a basic and natural interface that encourages you to assess security levels, interloper identification and take care of system issues.

You can likewise check every MAC address of the gadget and the name of the supplier.

Arpspoof – Analyze Packages

Arpspoof is an open-source device for arranging to evaluate. Use bundles from the neighborhood organize by communicating counterfeit messages. Arpspoof shows the bundles that exploited people are sending to the gadget however doesn’t spare them. On the off chance that you mean to investigate the bundles, at that point, you should spare them by running TCP dump.

Kali Linux on Android – Ethical hackers and IT professionals

But only a few Android mobile users know that you can install this operating system on your Android mobile. From the installation of Kali Linux on your Android, you get dozens of wifi hacking tools on your Android mobile.