#And it's essentially asking him to do the job of my profs here (have i mentioned that i'm paying for this)

[rosepetals-v]

Never mind, I'm reading rn.

[theshedding]

Lil Nas X: Country Music, Christianity & Reclaiming HELL

I don’t typically bother myself to follow what Lil Nas X is doing from day to day, or even month to month but I do know that his “Old Town Road” hit became one of the biggest selling/streamed records in Country Music Business history (by a Black Country & Queer artist). “Black” is key because for 75+ years Country music has unsuspiciously evolved into a solidly White-identified genre (despite mixed and Indian & Black roots). Regrettably, Country music is also widely known for anti-black, misogynoir, reliably homophobic (Trans isn’t really a conversation yet), Christian and Hard Right sentiments on the political spectrum. Some other day I will venture into more; there is a whole analysis dying to be done on this exclusive practice in the music industry with its implications on ‘access’ to equity and opportunity for both Black/POC’s and Whites artists/songwriters alike. More commentary on this rigid homogeneous field is needed and how it prohibits certain talent(s) for the sake of perpetuating homogeneity (e.g. “social determinants” of diversity & viable artistic careers). I’ll refrain from discussing that fully here, though suffice it to say that for those reasons X’s “Old Town Road” was monumental and vindicating. 

As for Lil Nas X, I’m not particularly a big fan of his music; but I see him, what he’s doing, his impact on music + culture and I celebrate him using these moments to affirm his Black, Queer self, and lifting up others. Believe it or not, even in the 2020′s, being “out” in the music business is still a costly choice. As an artist it remains much easier to just “play straight”. And despite appearances, the business (particularly Country) has been dragged kicking and screaming into developing, promoting and advancing openly-affirming LGBTQ 🏳️‍🌈 artists in the board room or on-stage. Though things are ‘better’ we have not yet arrived at a place of equity or opportunity for queer artists; for the road of music biz history is littered with stunted careers, bodies and limitations on artists who had no option but to follow conventional ways, fail or never be heard of in the first place. With few exceptions, record labels, radio and press/media have successfully used fear, intimidation, innuendo and coercion to dilute, downplay or erase any hint of queer identity from its performers. This was true even for obvious talents like Little Richard.

(Note: I’m particularly speaking of artists in this regard, not so much the hairstylists, make-up artists, PA’s, etc.)

_____

Which is why...in regard to Lil Nas X, whether you like, hate or love his music, the young brother is a trailblazer. His very existence protests (at least) decades of inequity, oppression and erasure. X aptly critiques a Neo-Christian Fascist Heteropatriarchy; not just in American society but throughout the Music Business and with Black people. That is no small deal. His unapologetic outness holds a mirror up to Christianity at-large, as an institution, theology and practice. The problem is they just don’t like what they see in that mirror.

In actuality, “Call Me By Your Name”, Lil Nas X’s new video, is a twist on classic mythology and religious memes that are less reprehensible or vulgar than the Biblical narratives most of us grew up on vís-a-vís indoctrinating smiles of Sunday school teachers and family prior to the “age of reason”. Think about the narratives blithely describing Satan’s friendly wager with God regarding Job (42:1-6); the horrific “prophecies” in St. John’s Book of Revelation (i.e. skies will rain fire, angels will spit swords, mankind will be forced to retreat into caves for shelter, and we will be harassed by at least three terrifying dragons and beasts. Angels will sound seven trumpets of warning, and later on, seven plagues will be dumped on the world), or Jesus’s own clarifying words of violent intent in Matthew (re: “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.” 10:34). Whether literal or metaphor, these age old stories pale in comparison to a three minute allegorical rap video. Conservatives: say what you will, I’m pretty confident X doesn’t take himself as seriously as “The true and living God” from the book of Job.

A little known fact as it is, people have debunked the story and evolution of Satan and already offered compelling research showing [he] is more of a literary device than an actual entity or “spirit” (Spoiler: In the Bible, Satan does not take shape as an actual “bad” person until the New Testament). In fact, modern Christianity’s impression of the “Devil” is shaped by conflating Hellenized mythology with a literary tradition rooted in Dante’s Inferno and accompanying spooks and superstitions going back thousands of years. Whether Catholic, Protestant, Mormon, Scientologist, Atheist or Agnostic, we’ve spent a lifetime with these predominant icons and clichés. (Resource: Prof. Bart D. Erhman, “Heaven & Hell”).

So Here’s THE PROBLEM: The current level of fear and outrage is: 

(1) Unjust, imposing and irrational. 

(2) Disproportionate when taken into account a lifetime of harmful Christian propaganda, anti-gay preaching and political advocacy.

(3) Historically inaccurate concerning the existence of “Hell” and who should be scared of going there. 

Think I’m overreacting? 

Examples: 

Institutionalized Homophobia (rhetoric + policy)

Anti-Gay Ministers In Life And Death: Bishop Eddie Long And Rev. Bernice King

Black, gay and Christian, Marylanders struggle with Conflicts

Harlem pastor: 'Obama has released the homo demons on the black man'

Joel Olsteen: Homosexuality is “Not God’s Best”

Bishop Brandon Porter: Gays “Perverted & Lost...The Church of God in Christ Convocation appears like a ‘coming out party’ for members of the gay community.”

Kim Burrell: “That perverted homosexual spirit is a spirit of delusion & confusion and has deceived many men & women, and it has caused a strain on the body of Christ”

Falwell Suggests Gays to Blame for 9-11 Attacks

Pope Francis Blames The Devil For Sexual Abuse By Catholic Church

Pope Francis: Gay People Not Welcome in Clergy

Pope Francis Blames The Devil For Sexual Abuse By Catholic Church

The Pope and Gay People: Nothing’s Changed

The Catholic church silently lobbied against a suicide prevention hotline in the US because it included LGBT resources

Mormon church prohibits Children of LGBT parents to be baptized

Catholic Charity Ends Adoptions Rather Than Place Kid With Same-Sex Couple

I Was a Religious Zealot That Hurt People-Coming Out as Gay: A Former Conversion Therapy Leader Is Apologizing to the LGBTQ Community

The above short list chronicles a consistent, literal, demonization of LGBTQ people, contempt for their gender presentation, objectification of their bodies/sexuality and a coordinated pollution of media and culture over the last 50+ years by clergy since integration and Civil Rights legislation. Basically terrorism. Popes, Bishops, Pastors, Evangelists, Politicians, Television hosts, US Presidents, Camp Leaders, Teachers, Singers & Entertainers, Coaches, Athletes and Christians of all types all around the world have confused and confounded these issues, suppressed dissent, and confidently lied about LGBT people-including fellow Queer Christians with impunity for generations (i.e. “thou shall not bear false witness against they neighbor” Ex. 23:1-3). Christian majority viewpoints about “laws” and “nature” have run the table in discussions about LGBTQ people in society-so much that we collectively must first consider their religious views in all discussions and the specter of Christian approval -at best or Christian condescension -at worst. That is Christian (and straight) privilege. People are tired of this undue deference to religious opinions. 

That is what is so deliciously bothersome about Lil Nas X being loud, proud and ��in your face” about his sexuality. If for just a moment, he not only disrupts the American hetero-patriarchy but specifically the Black hetero-patriarchy, the so-called “Black Church Industrial Complex”, Neo-Christian Fascism and a mostly uneducated (and/or miseducated) public concerning Ancient Near East and European history, superstitions-and (by extension) White Supremacy. To round up: people are losing their minds because the victim decided to speak out against his victimizer. 

Additionally, on some level I believe people are mad at him being just twenty years old, out and FREE as a self-assured, affirming & affirmed QUEER Black male entertainer with money and fame in the PRIME of his life. We’ve never, or rarely, seen that before in a Black man in the music business and popular culture. But that’s just too bad for them. With my own eyes I’ve watched straight people, friends, Christians, enjoy their sexuality from their elementary youth to adolescence, up and through college and later marriages, often times independently of their spouses (repeatedly). Meanwhile Queer/Gay/SGL/LGBTQ people are expected to put their lives on hold while the ‘blessed’ straight people run around exploring premarital/post-marital/extra-marital sex, love and affection, unbound & un-convicted by their “sin” or God...only to proudly rebrand themselves later in life as a good, moral “wholesome Christian” via the ‘sacred’ institution of marriage with no questions asked. 

Inequality defined.

For Lil Nas X, everything about the society we've created for him in the last 100+ years (re: links above) has explicitly been designed for his life not to be his own. According to these and other Christians (see above), his identity is essentially supposed to be an endless rat fuck of internal confusion, suicide-ideation, depression, long-suffering, faux masculinity, heterosexism, groveling towards heaven, respectability politics, failed prayer and supplication to a heteronormative earthly and celestial hierarchy unbothered in affording LGBT people like him a healthy, sane human development. It’s almost as if the Conservative establishment (Black included) needs Lil Nas X to be like others before him: “private”, mysteriously single, suicidal, suspiciously straight or worse, dead of HIV/AIDS ...anything but driving down the street enjoying his youth as a Black Queer artist and man. So they mad about that?

Well those days are over.  

-Rogiérs is a writer, international recording artist, performer and indie label manager with 25+ years in the music industry. He also directs Black Nonbelievers of DC, a non-profit org affiliated with the AHA supporting Black skeptics, Atheists, Agnostics & Humanists. He holds a B.A. in Music Business & Mgmt and a M.A. in Global Entertainment & Music Business from Berklee College of Music and Berklee Valencia, Spain. www.FibbyMusic.net Twitter/IG: @Rogiers1

[theanimeview]

Hazbin Hotel's Double Plot: Charlie and Angel Dust - Or - Why Charlie and Angel Dust are Both Main Characters (And I love one more than the other)

By: Peggy Sue Wood | @peggyseditorial​

Welcome to Storytelling Class, everyone. Now, who remembered to brush up on their Shakespeare? No one? Not to worry, Prof. Peggy (not official... yet) is going to explain it all anyway with a bunch of unnecessary questions she plans to answer for you. Ready? 

Here's a question: What is a double plot? 

It's a more common occurrence in storytelling than you may think and is sometimes mistaken for subplot though the two are not the same. Shakespeare used double plots in several of his works, though King Lear is the most common example. We generally call a double plot structure that which takes two stories with combined plotlines. The two stories could stand alone but are purposefully combined to depict complex situations mirroring each other, often to comment upon or reinterpret events that transpire in other dramatic situations. "Often this takes the form of relatively minor characters and plotlines doubling events and situations from the 'main' dramatic narrative" (Reinke 1, LINK). The main characters of the "second" plot are often supporting characters in the "main" story and vice-versa, meaning that the main characters in the "main" story may act as supporting characters in the "second" plot. 

Subplots have entirely different focuses that ultimately guide the main plot, such as on a hero's quest, the hero's party must split into groups to find different items for a magical spell. Following the group that went away from the party in different chapters is an example of a subplot, as this is a subordinate "plots" that serve the progression of the main one. A good indicator of a double plot instead of a subplot is figuring out whether or not the two plots could stand alone.

John Lithgow, far left, with Clarke Peters in the Shakespeare in the Park production of "King Lear" at the Delacorte Theater. Credit: Sara Krulwich/The New York Times

Using King Lear as an example, our "main" plot features King Lear as the main character of his tragedy, and the "second" plot features  Lord Gloucester in a tragedy mirroring King Lear's story. In both plots, the main characters suffer from their past choices. A more modern example would be that of Netflix's Russian Doll, in which we follow two distinctive main characters suffering from, and traversing, a similar path. We can define them as double plots because splitting the two stories in each work to create separate works with connected characters would still work. (Essentially, the two stories of each work can stand alone--we don't need to know what is happening to Lord Gloucester to get what is going on in King Lear's story. It helps to know that Lord Gloucester's story, but it is not required to understand Lear's story since what will be important to Lear’s plot will be revealed to Lear’s character later on.) 

Another example of a double plot structure in a modern work would be that of Hazbin Hotel--let's discuss. 

We often define a plot by three things. First, the main character; second, the question that said character needs to answer; and, third, the problem(s) that led them to seek an answer to the asked question. In a double plot, you have to answer the first and third questions twice, which we can easily do with Hazbin Hotel. 

Let's start with Question 1. Who is/are the main character(s)? I've stated that it is Charlie and Angel Dust, but why? Two reasons. The first is how each character is introduced, and the second is that they are both asking the same question, though with different reasons behind it.

In the Prologue/Chapter 1 of the Hazbin Hotel comic, the first character we are introduced to is Angel Dust. He is our introduction into this fictional world, and his story follows the hero's journey narrative making him one of the main characters and defining his story as at least one, if not the main, plot in our double plot structure. Charlie is one of the two main characters for the same reasons. She also appears in that first chapter near the end (just like King Lear, who comes in after Lord Gloucester's introduction), and is beginning a hero's journey of her own. Both their stories ask the same question but have different reasons for seeking the answer.

Beginning with Angel Dust, we see that his story starts in a comfort zone--that zone being a criminal lifestyle shown with him trying to make a deal with some demonic mafioso-looking dudes. We soon find out that he's actually acting out despite appearing comfortable in this kind of situation because he what? Wants something, that's right (I knew you were a smart cookie). 

When the deal with the mafia-demons doesn't go so well, we see him thrown into a familiar though much worse situation with his abuser and pimp, Valentino. This is our introduction to the main problems in Angel's current life, the issues that are making him want something outside of his comfort zone. To get what he wants, Angel must enter an unfamiliar, perhaps dangerous, territory and adapt to it until he achieves the goal or fails trying, and the person that provides the opportunity for entering the unfamiliar world, the Hazbin Hotel, is Charlie.

With Charlie's introduction at the end of chapter one, we begin seeing her hero's journey unfold. At present (her meeting Angel Dust), she is seen in her comfort zone. She's in a chauffeured limo with her bodyguard girlfriend, comfortably giving money to Angel Dust and acting as a somewhat naive and rather hopeful princess you might find in any fairytale story. She wants something but has yet to enter the unfamiliar situation (at least until episode 1, where Alistar steps in but that's not important right now). This closes the comic, but perfectly sets up the double plot narrative moving forward, thus helping to identify our two main characters.

What fully defines them as the main characters, my second reason for claiming both Angel Dust and Charlie to be one, is that second question we have for defining plot (the question that the main character needs to answer).

Charlie says that the goal, or question she seeks to answer, is whether or not a sinner can be redeemed once they find themselves in Hell; however, I would argue that the real question is whether or not salvation (preservation or deliverance from harm, ruin, or loss) is possible for Hell's population. Charlie's "redemption" is instead a method to seek the answer to the question rather than the question itself. 

I argue this because that seems to be the end-goal Charlie is seeking for the citizens of Hell--salvation from being slaughtered on an annual basis. It is also the goal of Angel Dust, who seeks to be saved from his current life through his own hands or by someone else (though he doesn't seem to believe that someone else would help him without costing him something in return). For those of you wondering, Angel seems to be seeking an escape from many things, such as needing to trade sexual favors to his landlord because Valentino doesn't pay him well, an escape from hunger, and potentially other physical dangers. 

The two are both seeking answers to this question but going about it in somewhat different ways. 

In a recent video by Diregentleman, Why Angel Dust Should Be The Protagonist In Hazbin Hotel (it's brilliant, btw--a highly recommended watch if you have the time because most all his points are great), he argues that because Angel's story is more compelling and interesting, he should be the main character and while I agree that Angel's story is more compelling to myself as a viewer (just as I felt Lord Gloucester's story was far better than King Lear's parts), I still think Charlie's story worth the focus it is given in tandem with Angel Dust's. 

WITH THAT CONCLUDED, I want to talk about my favorite character, Angel Dust! The lesson is over--let's nerd out. 

I have been thinking about this A LOT since Episode 1 came out, and when "Addict" dropped, I was pumped. In October of last year, I uploaded the first draft for the review into the Google file our team shares but had been writing said draft for a long while already, and watching Diregentleman's video pushed me over the edge to scrap the planned post that should have gone up at 7 AM this morning and instead re-write and post this. Because as much as I loath spiders--I LOVE Angel Dust. 

Gosh, where do I begin….

Angel has been beaten down to the point that his character is a tad bit all over the place. Is he the villain? Sort of? At least, he comes off as one since he's not working very hard to fulfill his end of the bargain with Charlie and since he is a demon--but he also has qualities that are very much fitting the "redemption" Charlie is aiming for without any prompting. In fact, it's what made him so likable to me before the music video release of "Addict"--which just made me love him more. What do I mean?

Well, in the first episode, we see him just coming back from prostituting himself--a job he appears to be forced to do by Valentino (one of the big-bads of Viziepop's Hell):

Valentino: Did you get my money, Angie Baby?

Angle: I'm wittha John now [sic]. I don't get why this needed to happen so soon after the extermination tho, Boss

Valentino: Just do it. No sass k sugar.

Angle: yes Val

He then buys drugs, which get stolen only to see a large piece of a building fall onto the would-be thief. Is he worried about the thief? No. Angel is only concerned with the drugs. Immediately after that, he joins a turf war with a friend of his, Cherri Bomb, and participates in wrecking what remains of the city from the previous night's purging (when Angels descend upon Hell and kill off a bunch of Hell's populous).

Cherri is his friend, and it is at this moment, we see his first redeeming quality in the animated pilot--a self-sacrificing protective nature for a friend. How? You may ask, well, Angel is shown saving Cherri. It happens when Angel sees a weapon pointed at them, something that Cherri doesn't notice. He pushes her out of the way, unsure of what may happen, thereby allowing himself to be captured (or potentially injured) instead of her. 

That's self-sacrificing and is generally considered a "righteous" quality. 

It's not like she could be killed--they're already dead and, from what we've learned, the already dead demons of Hell can only be killed by weapons the angels use or that which is made of the material angels use during the culling period that just ended the night before. The egg creature is not using one of these weapons at this moment, meaning that Cherri is not in danger of death, only injury. 

Despite knowing that Cherri would ultimately be fine, Angel pushes her out of the way and takes the injury risk. (If he suspected that the weapon might kill her, then even more kudos to him here as that means he threw his life before his friend's.) This moment shows that Angel does value life outside of himself, which doesn't immediately come across when we meet him given the crushed thief moment we had prior. 

This act of self-sacrificing, which is generally considered a virtue, shows that he has potential to change. 

Expanding from this, we see him empathizing with Charlie and expressing a moment of guilt. The scene happens after Angel, Charlie, and Vaggy return to the hotel. Angel is presented with the opportunity to "change" (offer an apology to Charlie that he actually means), an opportunity he doesn't take, but the fact that he's considering it when he previously felt no guilt for his actions shows that he is capable of it.

Once Alistar comes into play, we see more of Angel's potential to change. For example, Angel is shown holding Vaggy back from attacking Alistar, which could be read in two ways. Either he holds her back because he doesn't want Alistar to leave (unlikely that Alistar would leave over Vaggy's attack), or Angel is preventing Vaggy from running at Alistar and potentially getting hurt, a very strong possibility that we learn through Vaggy's comment about how powerful the Radio Demon is and how he's grappled bigger demons on a larger scale to take over parts of the underworld.

If we're to believe the story elements pictured in the music video of "Addict," then Angel is in a horrible spot. He's being abused and treated like a working slave to Valentino with little hope of escape on his own and few options to reach out to for help (if one can even ask for help openly in Hell given the place and the people).

While Charlie is nice, shown by her giving Angel money and helping him avoid having to sell himself on the street that night for Valentino in the Prologue/Chapter 1 of the comic, she too has expectations for him or does it with an ulterior motive in mind. He's a big name in Hell, and she wants him for her program. While it may not be intentional, Charlie asking him to try the program in exchange for money sends the same message Angel points out during the offer: Nothing is free--even kindness, particularly from the Princess of Hell. No matter how cute and lovable she appears...

Charlie's story is less compelling, and it's not simply because she comes from a place of privilege, as I've heard some say. I mean, I love lots of stories with the rich and powerful, and if the many seasons of Dynasty can stand as an example--so do a lot of over people. Charlie's story is less compelling because we can't relate to her choices given the situation we see her in or the problems she's facing. For example, she has great political power that goes completely unused. She's a princess of hell, obviously not struggling too much since she's chauffeured around and seen atop a tall--safe--tower overlooking the purged city below in Episode 1. She isn't in a bad situation, from what we can tell, not the same way Angel Dust is, at least. Her problems are more like a passion project from what we've seen so far, and we don't know why she is motivated to make this redemption program work outside of wanting to help her people. But if she wants to help people, why the hotel? 

She has power as a princess that she could use to help correct injustices in her kingdom, such as attempting to put an end to the turf-wards since it seems that the demons fighting for territory still follow and respect the royals and nobility to some degree. But, instead, she's created a program to change people into what she thinks is Heaven's ideal--a thing that may stop the culling by allowing demons to transition out into what? Angels? Spirits? Who knows. Regardless, it's a small-scale venture that doesn't attempt to use the influence she's been given to make sincere changes in the kingdom. Instead, she uses it to get publicity on a news station, and even that is a weak attempt. I mean, if she was doing this right, that new-caster shouldn't have been able to make a single nasty comment towards her during the whole process. I mean, I doubt the newscast would have said a thing had her parents been up there, which shows that she's walked all over and that she's let it happen.

My point is that Charlie's story doesn't yet make sense. It's harder for us, the audience, to put ourselves in her shoes than it is with Angel Dust, and that's why I love him more than other characters, and certainly more than his double plot counterpart, Charlie. 

I look forward to seeing more of this series going forward and hope that Episode 2 comes out soon!

[yelenasdog]

il un a visage gentil (prof!gwilym lee x prof! gn reader)

genre: fluff

summary: who knew the attractive english lit professor also happened to speak french? not his new coworker, that’s for sure.

words: 1.7k

warnings: reader embarassing herself a lil bit, that’s it :)

a/n: hi!! first of all, no pronouns are used as this is from readers pov, so anyone can read. second of all, so i typically don’t write for gwil, but i had this idea in french the other day when my french teacher (sweet old french man who deserves better LMAODSJO) was going over some assignment that for some reason had il un a visage gentil in it LOLOL. that being said, i obvi don’t speak fluent french and this is all fictional! love u, hope u enjoy!!

。·☔︎◎❦·。·

“Hello everyone, and welcome to your first day. I’m Dr Gwilym Lee, and I am the head of the English Literature Department here at Oxford University. Feel free to call me Gwil, it’s what all my students do.”

I slanted my eyes from my position at the door, gripping the frame just a tad tighter than I had been before hearing his voice. I continued to listen to the doctor talk as I made my way behind the last row of seats in the lecture room, trying not to make any noise. My heels were thankfully mute against the carpet, not drawing any attention towards me, the professor keeping complete focus on his students.

“One of the first things I wanted to kind of, um, touch on, is that I will be quite flexible. I understand that you have lives, as do I. As long as I can see an honest effort being put into my class, I will hold no repercussions for late work or being physically late to class.”

With that, he looked up to where I had just sat down, quirking a brow. The eye contact was momentary, only lasting what seemed to be a second, if that.

I cleared my throat, looking to my feet.

“We at the english department are quite proud of our status, ranking 4th in english programs overall in the UK. Now I won’t continue to bore you with the statistics, but-“

I made a scan of the room, seeing how only 1 or 2 pupils were actually listening, the rest either slumped over looking at their phones, or pretending to take notes on a laptop while really watching netflix. (More than one student was watching gossip girl, oddly enough.)

Considering it was only 5 minutes into the hour long lecture, I was confused, as he was holding my attention, at least, quite well.

After about 30 minutes, I realized that my own “first day lecture” was in 15 minutes, which assured that I most definitely had to leave. I was saddened by this (even though I had only even planned on staying in Gwil’s room for a small while.

I sighed quietly, picking myself up from the surprisingly comfortable seats and making my way towards the door. Just as I was about to go, I felt eyes boring holes into the back of my head. I turned, realizing Gwilym to be the perp. I opened my mouth to speak and then closed it again, quickly walking out and down the hallway to my own room.

I made it in, hurrying down the many stairs, past where a few students were waiting.

“Hi, everyone, I’ll just be a few moments, just waiting for the rest of your new classmates to arrive.”

I smiled briefly, before slamming my office door audibly, chest heaving with my back against the shaded window. I closed my eyes, unaware of why I had been so panicked by the brief interaction, not to mention the butterflies it hatched in my stomach.

After giving myself some time to decompress, I exhaled, smoothing out the skirt of my dress and rotating. I placed a hand on the handle, preparing myself for the fresh faced freshman.

As I opened the door, I heard half a knock, before whoever was behind the door (poor soul) essentially fell on top of me.

Expecting to see a red faced pupil who had just made a very interesting first impression, I looked up, suddenly becoming the one with a warm and itchy wave of embarrassment making its way up my neck.

“I’m so terribly sorry,” He stood up, reaching out a hand. I hesitated before reaching forward and gripping tightly, allowing him to tug me up.

“It’s alright, Gwil, really.”

He opened his mouth (not that I was paying any mind to his lips), presumably to ask my name. Before he got the chance, I beat him to it, blurting out my full title, unfortunately in a quite awkward way.

The students that had gathered had mostly turned their attention elsewhere by now, only a few of them still watching the live disaster that was my interaction with the incredibly attractive man in front of me.

He spoke up as I tried to maneuver my way around him to the podium positioned in the front of the room where my laptop was waiting.

“Well, I had assumed you were a student who was trying to sneak off early, but I stand corrected, then.” He looked around my slowly filling space, a slight amusement hiding in his gaze.

“Yes, sorry, I had caught you at a bad time, I was hoping to introduce myself, you know, trying to make a good impression. Feels like the first day of school all over again.” I laughed, bringing a hand up to brush away a stray strand that had somehow managed to escape my bun.

“It’s alright, don’t stress about it. And trust me, I get it. New jobs are scary.”

I huffed, looking out at the sea of judgmental young people that I now would have to face after that fiasco. Lovely.

“You could say that again.”

We sat in a comfortable silence for a short amount of time, the clock striking 2:30 being what woke me from my trance.

“That’s my queue.” I gave a small wave as he walked off, a smile spreading across his face at the motion.

I turned to my teaching assistant, fully believing he was out of earshot.

“Il un a visage gentil, eh?”

She only laughed, nodding her head and plugging in my macbook, allowing the screen to come alive with a flurry of colors in my powerpoint.

“Hi guys! Or should I say bonjour!” I paused, receiving a few chuckles in the crowd.

“I’m sorry for getting us started so late, I had a small mishap. I’m Dr Y/n Y/l/n, and I am your professor this year in the French undergraduate course, where you will have the opportunity to study medieval literature, modern day linguistics, and much more, which I will get into later on.

 We here at Oxford have the single largest French department in Britain, which we have come to have extreme pride in. We also have a french cultural center, where you will find a large selection of programmes and literature to choose from. If you haven’t yet checked it out yet,” I briefly looked up, seeing Gwilym still stood at the top of the stairs. He gave me another small smile, crossing his arms.

“Sorry, lost my place. Where was I?”

-

After class, I walked up to where the tall man had now moved to the side, allowing students to flood right by him.

“Gwil, hi!”

“Hi to yourself.”

I blushed, the feeling of fuzzy-ness once again flooding my entire system at just the brief statement. Odd. Extremely odd.

“That was very nice, I have a feeling this class will be quite popular in the coming years.”

I smiled and nodded my head. “Thank you, I appreciate it, truly. Although, I must say that I can tell everyone is racing to get a spot in Professor Gwilym Lee’s class 100% percent.”

He cocked his head, slimming his eyes.

“Really, you think so?”

We continued to walk down the long hallway, neither of us quite aware of where we happened to be going.

“Oh for sure, I can imagine you’re especially popular with a certain demographic, too.”

His confusion seemed to only grow, stormy blue eyes seemingly lost.

“What do you mean by that, exactly?” His voice slightly raised an octave at the end, earning a chuckle from me.

“Look, all I’m saying is that with looks like that, I bet your roster was full in seconds.”

I paused, the flow of conversation stopping as I came to terms with what I had just accidentally said. Out loud. In front of my new coworker, who happens to be incredibly gorgeous. A wonderful first day I’m having.

We resumed walking, a blanket of complete silence falling upon us all the way until we reached the entrance to the facility.

The chilly December air hit my face immediately, as well as droplets of rain that were falling so hard it felt like small bullets were grazing my nose, which I could barely feel after just a few moments outside.

“Here.” Gwil muttered, pulling out a bright red umbrella and using it to shield us both from the angry pellets sent from above.

“Ah, thank you.”

“Of course.”

Then it was quiet again between us both, minus the sounds of chattering students and the rain hitting and then sliding off of our cover, coming in contact with the ground with a final splat.

“You know,” Gwilym began, always the one to break the silence.

I hummed, turning my head in his direction.

“I speak a little bit of French, as well. And I think you also have a nice face.” He nudged my elbow and laughed, while I closed my eyes and sighed, hanging my head.

“So there really isn’t any other way I could possibly embarrass myself right now, is there?”

He only shrugged, scratching the back of his head. “Actually, now that I think of it, there might be one more thing I can think of?”

“What would that be?”

“Saying no to a cup of coffee?”

It was like I froze over completely, my mind suddenly growing blank when I needed it mostt.

“With me?” I asked, the question more aimed towards myself, a miniscule act of reassurance and affirmation.

Gwilym smiled brightly as he shook his head, and I swear, I had never seen anything more amazing.

“Yes, Y/n, with you.”

I stuttered, embarrassed for what seemed like the millionth time that day, specifically at my lack of verbal skills.

“Yes, yes of course, that sounds amazing.”

“Then what are we waiting for?”

He offered me an arm which I gladly took, and we started walking to the quaint campus cafe just across the street from our building.

It was the same cafe where (not that we knew it yet) the both of us would make many late night coffee runs together during midterms week, the stressful time growing to become one of our favorites as it was now filled with giggles and caffeine. 

Usually it would end up with one of us, that one of us usually being me, leaving a ring of coffee on the other’s ungraded assignments. Or even better, spilling an entire drink on the paper, only a “sorry!” written in Gwil’s rushed handwriting at the top of the curiously scented paper as explanation.

But as I said, we didn’t know that yet.

。·☔︎◎❦·。·

kinda gross but whatevs, like and rb if u did indeed enjoy it. mwah, go eat some protein, take an electronics break and drink some water. love u 

xx hj

[lyssismagical]

moments of gold and flashes of light

Parkner Week Day 3: “I am very small and I have no money.” / college au / no-powers au

(This is like a Rhodey/Tony!MIT Parkner AU)

(TW: Implied Child Abuse)

 Working at a café on the outskirts of a college campus meant good business, decent tips, and weird hours. A good job for Harley who needs to work weird hours to keep up with his classes, and he makes enough to afford essentials and to keep his head above water in the debt.

It also means he sees a lot of very tired students at those strange hours.

He gets an elbow in the ribs from his coworker, Cassie, who points across the café at an occupied table.

“An order?” Harley asks, forehead creasing. They don’t normally take orders from tables.

“No, we have a policy about sitting in here without ordering. I need you to ask him to either buy something or leave before our boss notices,” Cassie says. She glances down at her watch, frowning at the time. “There’s only a few hours until we’re done, anyways.”

Harley hates the policy. It makes sense why they have it, they’re going to lose a lot of business if the café is always full but nobody’s buying anything, but it doesn’t make it any easier to kick tired teenagers out in the middle of the night.

He sighs and lets Cassie take over the registers as he makes his way to the boy at the table, straightening his deep purple apron as he goes.

“Excuse me?” he says, wincing when his voice cracks.

The boy at the table’s head jerks up, eyes wide behind a thick pair of glasses. He looks young, younger than most people Harley sees coming into the café, but he’s hunched over a stack of textbooks and papers, what looks like a year three astrophysics textbook on top. There’s no way he’s old enough to be in his third year of university.

“Yeah?” the boy asks. He tips his head to the side in question, the light hitting his face and showing off the deep, dark bags under his eyes.

“We have a policy here, you have to buy something to stay.”

The boy winces, hands patting the pockets of his jeans. He pulls out an old wallet, faded Stark Industries logo on the back barely visible, and pops it open.

He rifles through the things in his wallet, dropping a few on the table including a library card, a Booster Juice loyalty card, and a Stark Industries ID. He finds a dollar bill, but otherwise comes up emptyhanded.

“Shit, sorry, I don’t have any money,” the boy says, eyes wide and glassy. He grabs his backpack from between his feet and starts going through the pockets, but they seem just as empty. “I’m so sorry, I guess I used the rest of my cash on rent, and I don’t- I’ll just pack up and head home, no worries-”

“You like coffee?” Harley blurts before he can stop himself. It’s not like he really has much leeway with his budget, but a couple dollars for an obviously stressed, very cute boy seems like a good investment. “I’ll cover it for you. Give me just a moment.”

As soon as he gets a confirming nod, he heads back to where Cassie’s working, and makes a quick coffee with extra caramel, and digs out his wallet to drop a few dollars in the register.

“You’re buying coffee for him?” she says, amused and shaking her head.

He shrugs, looking over his shoulder at where the boy is still watching him with his wide, doe eyes. “He had a third year astrophysics textbook. I felt bad.”

Cassie laughs, rolling her eyes at him. “The store’s pretty quiet anyways. You should make yourself one too, and take a fifteen.”

Harley’s not about to pass up that opportunity, so he moves quickly to make himself a matching coffee, and then he heads back over to the boy.

“Mind if I sit?” he asks, sliding one of the coffees over to the boy. “I’m in my second year at MIT, so maybe I could lend you a hand? Or at least be a nice distraction?”

The boy smiles, nodding and gesturing to the chair opposite him. “I’m Peter Parker. Third year at MIT.”

“You seem… young.”

Peter laughs, fingers curling around his coffee with a pleased hum. “Yeah, I’m eighteen. Graduated high school at fourteen, started here at fifteen.”

Harley’s jaw drops open in surprise. He’s nineteen, and in the year below Peter. It’s a bit of a shock. “You’re graduating university at nineteen? Isn’t that a bit scary?”

“I’ve got a job lined up at Stark Industries in New York. I’ve been an unpaid intern every summer for four years, so it’s not as scary as you’d think.” He looks down at his homework, textbooks and binders and loose papers, and frowns. “Stressful, for sure. But scary, not so much.”

As much as he wants to comment on a lot of that, especially about how he’s apparently been interning for SI since he was thirteen, he doesn’t want to overstep any boundaries and he doesn’t have a lot of break left.

He sips at his drink, listening intently as Peter starts rambling about how annoying one of his profs had been the other day, the reason he’s up all night studying at the café. Peter’s pretty, especially when he gets passionate about something, eyes lighting up behind his thick frames, blush high on his cheeks, hands gesturing vaguely. Harley hasn’t made many friends since he left Tennessee, only Cassie and Kate from an off-campus extra-curricular. Peter seems like the kind of person Harley would really enjoy being friends with.

“Harley!” Cassie calls out, much too soon for his liking. “Your fifteen’s up.”

Peter frowns noticeably, finishing off his coffee. “I’ll probably stick around for a bit, if that’s alright?”

“Yeah, of course. And come back whenever, yeah?”

“I’m sure I’ll be back in no time, in need of quiet and caffeine.”

* Turns out, Peter’s not lying. He starts showing up every Thursday night and every few Wednesdays like clockwork, always with his old backpack filled with books and binders, and always with enough for a coffee to make sure he can stay.

Whenever Harley takes his fifteen, he spends it at Peter’s table, sitting across from him and chatting about anything and everything. They trade numbers after three weeks, texting every so often whenever they’ve got the chance. It’s nice to have finally made a friend outside of Gwen and Kate. (Especially a friend as kind and pretty and genius as Peter Parker.)

“Everything okay?” Harley can’t help but ask when Peter shows up, nearly two months after meeting.

Peter’s the same as he always is, backpack slung over one shoulder making his posture lopsided, eyes wide behind his pair of thick glasses, hands shoved into the pocket of his oversized MIT sweater, buying a coffee with extra caramel. Except his eyes are red-rimmed and his voice is thick and scratchy like he’d been crying.

Peter shrugs, shoulders hunched up around his ears. “Not really. When do you take your fifteen?”

“He’s taking it right now,” Cassie buts in, elbowing Harley in the ribs. She’s already got Peter’s coffee ready, sitting on the counter, and she’s pouring a second for him. “Take your thirty, I’ll cover for you.”

Harley won’t argue with that, wanting to comfort his new friend. He links their arms together and heads for one of the booths in the far corner instead of their usual table, worry squeezing his chest. It’s only been two months but he cares about Peter a lot. More than he thought possible.

“It’s stupid,” Peter says, but he clutches his drink close to his chest, eyes watery and hands trembling. “My parents want me home for Winter Break.”

“So?”

Harley would kill to be able to afford a flight home to Tennessee for Winter Break. He has to save up all year just to afford making it home for the summer, winter and spring breaks have to be spent on campus or with Gwen who has an apartment in the city. He misses his mom and sister like crazy when he’s away for so long.

Peter scoffs, glassy eyes rolling. “They suck. I’m sure you’ve heard of Richard and Mary Parker before. Yeah, they’re not about to get Parent of the Year awards.”

“Why not?” Harley asks. He certainly knows the two of them, they’re famous scientists, alumni from MIT as well. It’s hard not to know them. “If you don’t mind me asking, of course.”

“They don’t care, they never did. Most of my childhood was spent with nannies or babysitters while they were out for business or other things they wouldn’t tell me about. The only time they ever cared was when they were telling me off for blemishing their reputation, or to tell me I needed to work harder if I was ever going to be allowed to get their company.”

Harley frowns, trying to empathize with his pain. He’s never been in a situation like that. In Rose Hill, you could get away with doing pretty much anything, nobody had reputations at stake, consequences were few and far between. Harley once landed himself in jail for a stupid night with people who weren’t really friends. Nobody cared, Harley even became pretty good friends with one of the officers who arrested him. His mom didn’t even have to pay to get him out.

“That really sucks, I’m sorry,” Harley says.

Peter shrugs again, chewing on his bottom lip. “I got a B on a test in astrophysics a month ago.”

“I remember.”

“They’re going to kill me for that. A B is essentially an F in my house. To them, I failed.”

Harley’s frown deepens and he reaches across the table to grab Peter’s hand. “You studied so hard for that test, you were sleep-deprived and upset because of that argument with your roommate. That wasn’t your fault. And either way, a B’s still a good grade.”

“Not to my parents, it’s not.”

“Why does their opinion matter? You’re an adult, they don’t have to control you anymore.”

Peter lets out a humorless laugh, eyebrows furrowing as he tries not to cry. “I don’t have a choice. I have to go home for the holidays and I have to take over their company and I have to do what they tell me to do. They control my money, they pay for my tuition, they’re all I’ve got. I don’t have anything else.”

“I’m sorry,” Harley says again, he doesn’t know what else he’s supposed to say, doesn’t know how to make this any easier for him. “Well, if you need anything, feel free to call. I’ll be here all Winter, so I’ll be available to talk if you need to.”

“Thank you.” Peter’s voice breaks and he doesn’t catch the tear in time for Harley not to see it. “I honestly don’t know what I’d do without you. It probably looks like it, but I’m not just using you for coffee.”

Harley smiles, squeezing Peter’s hand. “And I promise I’m not using you for answers to future tests. You may be a genius, but I’m not a cheater.”

“Good because I have a proposition. I only leave on Saturday, and I need an extra set of hands to pack up my dorm room? My roommates already gone, so it’ll just be us and we could watch some movies afterwards? If not, don’t worry about it-”

Harley grins, finishing off his coffee. “I’d love to. Tomorrow afternoon? I have the day off work, but I’ve got a class until two, so I’ll come over after that?”

“Sounds perfect.”

* “I’m going to miss you,” Harley says, watching Peter make a little pile of the bags they’d packed the night before from his bed. Peter’s got a mid-afternoon flight, so he needs to be out by noon. “That’s three Thursday nights without you at the café.”

Peter smiles softly, turning from where he’d set down his backpack at the door. “I’m going to miss you too. Three weeks and I’ll be back to bothering you all the time.”

Despite knowing it’s a joke, Harley rolls his eyes. “You’re never a bother.”

“I’ll call you? I live out in California, so I’ll try to remember the time zone differences, but don’t hate me if I accidentally call you in the middle of the night.”

Harley turns his head into the pillow, smiling dopily at Peter. “I told you, call me whenever. I want to hear all the gossip about your stupid parents.”

“Well there will be plenty of gossip, so be careful what you wish for.”

There’s a pause as the reality of everything sets in. Three weeks without each other after only two months together seems unfair. Harley’s going to miss Peter a lot. He’s been ignoring the crush that’s been festering over the past couple weeks especially. He doesn’t want to hurt their very new, budding friendship, especially not when Peter’s under so much stress as is, but last night, watching movies on Peter’s bed together on his laptop, it really solidified the crush.

“I should get going,” Peter says miserably. He slings his backpack over his shoulder again, glasses askew on his nose, dark circles under his red-rimmed eyes, hands shaking.

“You want me to drop you off instead of taking a cab? I wouldn’t mind driving. We probably even have time to stop for a quick coffee.”

Peter smiles brightly, big enough to show off his dimples and light up his eyes. Harley gets off the bed, taking off his red MIT sweater, leaving him in an old t-shirt from the diner his mom works at, and hands the sweater over to Peter.

He wants to say so you’ll remember me or a reminder you’re not alone but he can’t say it. Instead he says, “You look a bit cold.”

“Thanks,” Peter murmurs, flushing softly. Harley reaches out and straightens his glasses before slinging the duffel bag on the floor over his shoulder.

“Let’s get going then.”

Peter picks the music, old Disney movie soundtracks, and Harley drives, paying for coffees on the way to the Boston airport. They don’t say much, humming along to the music to keep from saying too much, but linking their hands together which says just as much.

When they get to the airport, Peter insists on Harley staying in the car.

“Three weeks,” Peter promises, blinking back tears.

Harley offers a smile, squeezing Peter’s hand. “Call me, it’ll feel like no time at all.”

The younger boy opens his car door and looks like he’s about to slip out of the car, but he turns back to Harley, eyes wide and glassy. He leans across the center of the car and kisses Harley hard.

“I’m sorry-”

Harley reaches over, cups Peter’s face and pulls him back in to kiss him again. “I really like you, like a crazy amount, I didn’t want to say anything because I love having you as a friend, but I do really like you.”

“I really like you too. I didn’t tell you but before you talked to me that one day, I was always going into your café just to see you but I didn’t think you noticed me.”

“You’re going to miss your flight,” Harley says, brushing his thumb over Peter’s cheekbone and frowning disappointedly.

Peter huffs out a breath, pushing open his door. “I’ll call you? We’ll talk about this?”

“Of course. Call me whenever,” Harley says, stealing one last kiss. “Go before you miss your flight.”

The younger boy grins so bright, finally slipping out of the car, backpack over one shoulder, leans back to blow a kiss, and then he’s gone.

Harley has to pause for a second, smiling up at the ceiling of his car, before he feels ready to leave the airport, and Peter, behind.

Three weeks.

* It takes a week and a half for Peter to call, and when he does, he’s crying.

“This sucks,” Peter starts, voice trembling and thick with emotion. “Being home sucks and missing you sucks and everything sucks.”

“Hi to you too, and merry belated Christmas.”

“Sorry, yeah, merry Christmas, happy holidays, hi, how are you, and all that. I wish I were in Boston so much.”

Harley lets out a short laugh, sprawling out on his bed, phone pressed against his ear. “I wish you were here too, if that helps. What happened?”

“My parents were totally pissed about my B like I knew they’d be. And when I tried to tell them about you because I was excited, they told me I’d find a nice girl to settle down with soon enough.” Peter chokes out a sob, voice tipping towards angry. “I know I’m bi, so maybe, but it’s not fair.”

“No, it’s not fair. Some people are like that. I remember coming out as gay in a small town in Tennessee, it wasn’t received very well.”

Peter sighs sympathetically. “I just- I don’t even want their company, you know? I want to work at Stark Industries like how I’d been interning, but I don’t have a choice. I’m the heir, the papers were signed, it’s mine as soon as I graduate so they can retire.”

“You’re a genius, and legally an adult, find a way to un-sign them. Or when you get jurisdiction, terminate the company. There’s still options, there’s still ways you can get where you want to be.”

“I know, I just- I don’t know. I wanna go home. I want to see you.”

Harley smiles softly to himself, shaking his head. “I know, I miss you too. But you’re halfway done, you can do it, and I’ll be there at the airport for you when you get back.”

“I know we said we’d talk about it but I really don’t think I can handle-”

“No, no, of course.” Harley doesn’t mind. He’s kind of liking this in-between stage they’re living in. Not dating, no labels, but definitely something more than friends. “In case you needed a confidence boost, you’re a genius. You’re the smartest person I know and I know a lot of people. According to Gwen, you’re the nicest person too, and I agree. You’re very sweet and kind. Plus, have you seen yourself? You’ve got a lot going for you.”

Peter laughs quietly, tears finally fading. “You’re too nice to me. Maybe being around you is going to make my ego too big.”

“I don’t think that’s possible,” Harley says, lightening up. “You’re too humble for that. Oh, I’m not supposed to tell you this, but apparently, Gwen did notice you first, and she purposefully sent me over to your table that first day.”

“Really?”

“Yep. She thought I was getting too lonely, after spending over a year in Boston and only making two friends, and not seeing anybody, so she was hoping something would happen between us, which I guess it did, so I owe her one.”

Peter laughs again, then goes quiet for a moment. “I need to get going soon. Dad’s taking me to meetings all afternoon. I hate going, people only see me as a stupid kid or as competition.”

“Prove them wrong, stand up for yourself, or at least get me on the phone so I can stand up for you.”

Far away from the door there’s a shouted, “Get your ass out of bed! We leave in thirty and if you’re tie’s on wrong and I have to reteach you, I swear to god, it’ll be the last thing you do!”

“Was that your dad? Threatening you?” There’s already a protective edge to his voice like Harley will fly all the way to California just to stand between Peter and his dad.

“They’re normally empty threats,” Peter offers like it’s no big deal. “He prefers yelling more than anything. Mom says he’d probably do worse if it weren’t for the cameras on us all the time.”

Harley’s mouth falls open, anger flooding through his chest like a wildfire. “You should stay with me this Spring Break and Summer. There’s plenty of extra space in Gwen’s apartment and in my childhood home. I don’t want you back there.”

“You’d want me around for that long?”

He nearly chokes in surprise. “Of course I would. I want you always, whenever. I don’t want you home again if I can help it. It’s obvious it’s not good for you.”

Harley doesn’t know how their relationship will fare, how they’ll be in two months, in six, he doesn’t know if he could convince Peter to stay away knowing the anger it would cause, he doesn’t know if it’ll be enough to keep Peter safe. But he knows he’d do anything to try.

“I’ve gotta go before my dad’s head explodes. I’ll call you as soon as I can and we’ll talk more about these plans, ‘kay? I miss you.”

“I miss you too. Only another week and a half left.”

* Harley has to wait at the airport for three hours because of a flight delay and the longer he waits, the more he itches to see Peter. They still haven’t talked, so Harley isn’t even sure if greeting him with a kiss is allowed, but he doesn’t know how much he cares. He’s been thinking about it for three weeks, lord knows Gwen’s losing her mind with his constant rambles about Peter, and he’s pretty positive Peter will be just as desperate.

He sends another text to Peter, letting him know the area he’s waiting in, and waiting to see if it switches to delivered which would mean he’s landed. It does and Harley can barely contain an excited squeal.

If I run, I can be there in 3

Harley sends back a quick, please, which goes unanswered.

He keeps half his attention on his watch, slowly ticking down, and half on the people walking around him, waiting for the mop of brown curls to make their appearance.

At two minutes, thirty seconds, he sees Peter.

“Peter!” he calls out, ignoring some of the dirty looks people shoot him, and lifting a hand into the air.

Almost immediately, the boy starts running faster down the last stretch of hallway, dropping his duffel a few feet away, before launching into Harley’s awaiting arms.

Harley has to take a few steps to rebalance them, arms winding around Peter’s waist and kissing him hard. Peter’s legs are around his waist, hanging onto him like a lifeline, hands in his hair. Eventually, Peter’s smiling too wide to continue kissing, pulling back to let out a giddy laugh.

“I missed you so bad. I know it was only three weeks and I know we’ve only known each other for a few months, but I really like you, and I didn’t think I would miss you as much as I did, but every day without you felt like a marathon. I don’t want to skip the conversation, but I just want to know that this is real,” Peter rambles.

Stealing another kiss, Harley tightens his grip on the younger boy. “Yes, god yes, I couldn’t stop thinking about you, every day for the past three months, and I want this to be real too. I want to be your boyfriend, I don’t care how soon or crazy it is.”

“My boyfriend,” Peter echoes, lighting up in a smile. He kisses Harley again and then hides his face in the crook of Harley’s shoulder, nodding. “Yes please. I would love that.”

They hold each other for a while longer. Long enough for the majority of the baggage pick-up to clear out, long enough for Harley’s knees to start cramping and his cheeks to hurt with how wide he’s smiling.

“I’m not letting you go back there,” Harley says because it feels necessary. “I’ll find a way for you to stay until you graduate.”

Peter smiles pulling back enough to kiss his forehead. “Good, thank you, I didn’t want to go back.”

“Time to go home, boyfriend?” Saying it makes Harley giddy with pure joy.

His mama’s going to freak when she hears about Peter, she’s only ever wanted what’s best for Harley, and Peter’s that. He’s the best for Harley. It doesn’t get better than him. And he’s going to do everything in his power to be the best for Peter too.

Taglist: @littlemissagrafina  @spideygirl2003 @romeoandjulietyouwish @c-artara @shadedrose01 @likeaphoenix13 @pj-hermes-tonystark-obsessed  @you-get-killed-walk-it-off @kitkatwinchester  @emo-girl10 @justme--emily  @hold-our-destiny @imalivebecauseirondad @spiderman-peterman @dykeragee @maryserrao @heeeyitskay {Let me know if you wanna be added or removed}

[lampd-intheface]

vampire LAMP au

okay but like imagine a vampire au with polysanders except virgil is the only human???

roman got bitten by a vampire in italy just for kicks and then he was left to his own devices. he had to suffer through the shift alone with nobody to help him

for a little while, he was ravenous and accidentally killed a lot of people. in the end, tho, he snapped out of it and taught himself how to control his hunger

roman lived through the italian renaissance and moved between italy and spain (which is why he can speak really good spanish/italian) and even settled down a little in england for some time too

when roman settled down in england, he met patton who'd been a vampire for a while now

patton became a vampire becos he was hit with the plague and his mother was desperate to find a cure. this vampire they met ended up helping and then taking patton under his wing

roman and patton eventually find themselves in america (which was still a pretty new country at the time)

logan lived during the industrial era where everyone was just inventing things left and right and it was booming in terms of science and machinery

he was turned becos a vampire thought his genius was too valuable and death shouldn't put a stop to logan who had a lot of potential

the three then settled down in america

roman made some money writing fantasy books under pseudonyms. logan made money through patents or really any kind of intellectual work he could find. patton spent his time at home, just helping out and taking care of roman and logan

they had to move often, of course, becos people would be suspicious if they just stayed in the same place for too long. they couldn't get attached to people either becos getting attached to people meant people who would keep track of them

after all of their years being alive, patton and logan and roman have amassed enough money that they're just chilling and living comfortably

now, it's the modren era and, in this au, all of them either have online classes and/or night classes

virgil takes night classes and online classes because it limits his social interaction with other people and he's much more comfortable interacting with smaller groups of classmates (night classes)/not physically interacting with classmates at all (online classes)

the others because well duh they're vampires

it's not becos they dont like sunlight (they can be exposed to a little but too much gives them rashes). it's just that it's easier to keep a low profile if they interact with less people

logan is really the only one seriously taking classes and not for any other reason than because he loves learning. patton and roman will take classes here and there but only for their hobbies

insert virgil. i haven't thought this one through but logan probably meets him first because they share a class together.

anyway, LAMP have a meet cute or whatever

maybe like virgil is in an art history class and the prof says something wrong abt a certain part of history

logan is about to correct the prof but virgil beats him to it and logan is impressed with how accurate virgil was with his facts because logan lived that era and not a lot of people are so knowledgeable about it

that aside, their friendship takes time

logan has to introduce patton and roman separately and then the three of them have to keep attempting to get closer to virgil slowly and at virgil's pace

eventually, for their own reasons, they fall in love with virgil

logan falls in love with how much he relates to virgil. virgil is so smart and the two of them can talk and have debates and virgil just understands him so well

roman falls in love with how snarky virgil is becos he'll tease virgil and he knows virgil will serve it right back to him. virgil challenges him and its exhilarating and exciting

patton falls in love with how soft virgil is and how much he wants to protect virgil from all the bad things in the world. he loves how virgil has been through so much and yet virgil is still so strong

virgil is unaware of how smitten the three of them are tho and he falls in love with them too. he kind of just... plans to be with whoever asks him out first (if any of them ask him out at all)

because virgil struggles with his anxiety a lot, he can't really work at normal places. there's too many interactions, too many people.

he had thought that he'd eventually get used to it and then he'd be able go get a job but it's taking him a lot of time to get over his anxiety

precious time he can't really afford since he's putting himself through college

which is where his vamp boyfriends friends come in because hello, if they can't pay for their cute human crush's essential college classes, then what's the point of having all that money?

in any case, they find out abt virgil's financial problems and they're like omg... we're the solutions to his problem!!!

roman: i can finally actually slay what ails virgil!!!

logan: you won't be slaying anything--

roman: LET ME HAVE THIS ONE THING

before they establish that sort of relationship though, logan and roman and patton all agree that they want virgil to know the real them first so that virgil can decide whether or not he wants to be associated with them

the last thing they want to do is make virgil feel like he's obligated to stay with them even tho he fears them becos they're paying for his college and housing him and stuff

so, they plan get to know virgil more and then tell virgil they're kind of sort of creatures of the night

definitely easier said than done

when they tell virgil, he's like *phone error sound* ??? before realizing oh my God, they're serious

he then laughs about it a little and the other three are confused but he clarifies that the situation was very ironic

becos like omg, how hilarious is that??? the one goth guy who's super pale and avoids social contact and is practically the stereotypical vampire is actually the only one that's NOT a vampire??? that's irony at its finest

virgil then also assures them that the three of them being vampires doesn't bother him one bit

virgil, the epitome of tumblr humor: bold of you to assume i wouldn't f**k a supernatural being

jokes aside, he does reveal to them that he couldn't care less about what species they were, just that they loved him and he loved them

and damn did virgil love those three idiots

roman: woah there, you might pull a muscle from all the i love you's you're spouting

virgil, sweating up a storm after showing the most emotional vulnerability in his life: sh*t u rite

jokes aside, they do form a sort of weird relationship where the three of them happily provide for virgil because virgil doesnt have the means to do so

it takes virgil a while to really get used to it since he's not used to accepting things from other people without giving back

he struggles for a little while becos he keeps trying to find ways to repay them for what they do for him but there's only so much he can do

eventually they have a conversation abt it and they're like babe honey sweetie no

patton: you give us your love and that's the absolute most important and priceless thing in the world!!!

virgil, known pessimist who cringes away from romantic gestures out of habit: sounds fake but ok

but like eventually they work it out in like a slowly but surely kind of way.

virgil learns to see money the same way the other three do (replaceable and pretty much worthless to vampires who have a large abundance of it) and the other three learn to kind of tone it down on the expensive gifts

virgil: im so glad you guys dont buy me really expensive things now

roman, sweating profusely as he hides the golden apple he had commissioned to be made especially for virgil: oH YEAH OFC HAHAHA

(logan, when roman had suggested getting virgil the golden apple: first of all, no??? in what way is that even romantic--)

omg imagine if virgil does the thing where he coops himself up in his room??? and then someone tries to get him to get out by pulling the blinds open to let in light??? and virgil hisses???

patton, having just let sunlight in, looking absolutely offended: OKAY FIRST OF ALL, you're not a vampire so don't take that tone of hiss with me--

someone is like teasing or bullying virgil abt his aesthetic and virgil is obviously getting uncomfortable, esp when they call him twilight (in reference to the vampire romance novel)

so one of the boys, probably roman, steps up and he's like 'the person you should call twilight is me' and he scares the bullies by flashing his eyes red and showing them his fangs

omg!!! roman doesn't have a reflection so virgil helps him put on make up or smth!!!

maybe virgil in this au is an artist so he paints a picture of all three of them so they know what they look like becos they dont show up on pictures and reflections

patton, gazing down at the picture: this is what true love feels like

logan, also feeling the same way: really? how unpleasant

logan:

logan: give me more

omg also logan having only really kept up with the intellectual side of history so he doesn't know abt memes and like stuff like that so virgil teaches him and he has his Flashcards™

iDK MAN JUST VAMPIRE BOYS BEING SOFT FOR EACH OTHER AND FOR THIS SMALL LITTLE HUMAN THEYVE PULLED UNDER THEIR (bat) WINGS

[eldri-sv]

26 - Aizawa

Kaori Shinsou has always been fascinated by people’s minds. She is one of the best students in her Criminal Psychology course at U.A. and - being the lucky girl she is - her professor is not only one handsome dude, but is also working on the case of the serial killer Stain - a case that has been going on for years. As she is about to become Professor Aizawa’s TA during the next term, a lot of other interesting cases start popping up all over the country…

Deep down we both knew it was trouble by design

(Cage The Elephant - Too Late To Say Goodbye)

Shouta Aizawa gave Tsukauchi a long hard look. He really couldn't believe this man sometimes. Sure, he was doing his job well and all, but he just kept having terrible ideas, like waking him up in the middle of the night with a phone call, just so he could head out to a crime scene and have a look at it, when he could just gather the same information from a well-made report. (Sometimes Aizawa suspected he didn't trust people with writing good reports, but that was a story for another day.) Or that thing he just suggested about Kaori Shinsou.

"Are you being serious right now?" Aizawa asked him, pretty sure that he was trying to play some sort of prank on him.

"Of course! I've seen her work on two different cases now and she has been brilliant. Would be a shame to let her waste away at the Hosu City department. Or have her go back to Tartarus next term." Tsukauchi replied. Aizawa pinched the bridge of his nose and took a deep breath.

"Look, I get it. She's really good at this and by all means, she should get to work in a higher ranking job. But Tsukauchi, have you looked at her? That girl has been doing night shift after night shift in Hosu, then she goes to university and then straight back to work. I've seen her asleep in the damn library, Tsukauchi! She needs a fucking break." he explained. Tsukauchi nodded quickly.

"Of course, of course, I'm not saying she should come here and intern with us right away. I'll have to look at a ton of paperwork for that anyway, and obviously she'd have to agree to it. We'd give her some time off, especially during exams. But she'd be able to work on high profile cases, instead of some teenagers burning stuff in trash cans. Think about it." Tsukauchi said.

Of course he was right. He had a very valid point. It would be a shame to waste Shinsou's talent when it came to criminal psychology with her staying in the Hosu City department. She would have much more room to grow if she was interning with and working for the National Police Department.

But Shinsou already had no idea what a healthy work-life balance meant. Aizawa knew she didn't, because he was the same. And while he loved his job as a teacher and part-time criminal psychologist for the National Police Department, he also knew that it sucked getting that little sleep and being under the kind of high pressure that these kinds of cases brought with them.

"I mean, in the end it will be her decision. But I don't think it's a good idea. She's overworking herself as it is. There were several times during the last few weeks when she just collapsed from exhaustion. This already isn't healthy for her. Now imagine Shinsou getting to work for a much bigger organization - she'd work herself to death because she felt she had to." Aizawa replied.

"Sounds like someone I know." Tsukauchi told him with a smile.

"Exactly. And that's why I know she'd get much more stressed than she already is. I know I am stressing myself more than is good for me."

"Well, have you considered that the two of you would be working together? Which means you would both technically have a smaller workload and that benefits both you and her. Plus, that way you can still have an eye on her and make sure she gets some time off, if that's so important to you." Tsukauchi said.

Aizawa had to admit he hadn't thought about that. It could possibly even convince him. But there was no way he'd admit that to Tsukauchi. Thinking about it, he quite liked the idea of being able to work with Shinsou. After all, he had been itching to show her some of the confidential files on the Stain case, just to be able to get her perspective. Aizawa didn't like working closely with people, but he could imagine working with Kaori Shinsou. He sighed. Tsukauchi had already won.

"Well, go and suggest it to her. I still don't think it's the best idea, but in the end it is her decision. And I agree, it would be nice to get her somewhere higher up than the Hosu Department." Aizawa finally said. Tsukauchi gave him a knowing smile and got up from his chair in the school cafeteria.

"Sounds good to me, then. I'll get the paperwork in order and then I can hopefully see her about it sometime next week. I'd like to get her on for interviewing Stain by any means." Tsukauchi replied.

"That would be a good idea, she's been following that case since forever. She's obsessed with it. Anyway, get your paperwork done and then see if she wants to do it or not." Aizawa mumbled.

He still didn't quite feel alright with that decision, but there was nothing he could do either way. Tsukauchi had come to him to test the waters and see what he had to say about her academic abilities. And those were as good as they could possibly be. He had nothing bad to say about Shinsou.

"Oh yeah, before I leave. The two of you might want to be a little more discreet with... whatever it is that's going on between you." Tsukauchi said and winked at him. Aizawa gave him a confused look.

"What?" he asked, not expecting to hear anything like that. Of course he had heard of the stupid rumours, but he had never paid them much mind. To him they were just that - stupid rumours.

"I don't know if there is anything going on between you and Shinsou, but there are rumours. And it is quite obvious that you are... fond of her." Tsukauchi replied. Aizawa was completely dumbfounded by this. He had never expected anyone to bring this up to his actual face. Yes, he was fond of Shinsou. He liked her, there was no point denying it. And there was also no point denying that she was an attractive young woman. But there was absolutely nothing going on.

"I don't know what you're thinking, but there is really nothing going on..." Aizawa started, but Tsukauchi interrupted him.

"Look, I really don't care. I'm just saying this as a friend. People get certain impressions, that's all I'm saying."

And with that Tsukauchi left. Aizawa had no idea how to react to any of that. He had always thought that all those rumours were somewhat ridiculous. There was absolutely no substance to this. But now Tsukauchi had him second-guessing himself. What if there was anything inappropriate between them?

It wasn't like anything they'd do would be illegal, but it would surely be against school policy if they were having an affair of any sort. Especially as long as Shinsou was in his course. An image got conjured up in his mind of Kaori Shinsou in one of her short skirts and her knee socks on, sitting on the heavy oak desk in his office, leaning back, legs spread wide, looking at him with those lascivious eyes and...

Fuck. Where the hell did that come from? Aizawa was trying to tell himself that it was only because of what Tsukauchi had insinuated that he had just been thinking about that, but somewhere in the back of his mind he knew that he definitely had a thing for Shinsou - he had just been suppressing it, because... well, because he was her professor and she was his student.

This was bad. This was beyond bad. How the hell did he not notice how far he let all this get? Those little mind games where he intentionally wouldn't call on her for ages during class, just to see her essentially fighting for his attention, the way she'd almost grow in her seat every time he gave her any sort of praise - hell, him taking her on as a teacher's assistant.

None of that was helping in any way. Maybe he just had to find a way to at least publicly distance himself from her. Try not asking her to stay after class so many goddamn times. That would be a start. Aizawa sighed and took a sip from his half-empty cup of coffee. It had gotten cold. Of course.

"Morning, prof!" he heard a cheerful voice say behind him. Speaking of the devil. He turned in his chair and saw Kaori Shinsou standing there, a lunch tray in her hands, obviously on the way over to her friends.

"What do you want, Shinsou?" he asked, feeling a headache coming on. He was in no mood to deal with this right now.

"Just happened to pass by on my way. I saw Tsukauchi talk to you and you looked kind of shaken. Is everything okay?" she replied innocently. Good God, this was getting worse and worse. Aizawa gave her a glare.

"It's none of your concern." he said coldly, trying to implement the rules he had just set for himself. Shinsou looked like she was taken aback a little and then she just shrugged and gave him a smile.

"Okay." she replied and continued in her way. That smile literally broke Aizawa's heart. It wasn't easily noticeable, but it was absolutely a fake smile. He kept telling himself that all of this was for the best. He really wanted to keep his job and he didn't want to force Shinsou to transfer courses either.

He had no idea how he was supposed to work with her, if she decided to transfer from the Hosu department to the nationwide department. He tried to remember how he was treating the rest of his students, but somehow it didn't seem to translate in any way to Shinsou. She was smart, dedicated and... really fucking hot.

There. He said it. He thought his student was hot. And really, there was nothing wrong about it. She was 22, there were really only 8 years between them. The only thing that was a problem was U.A.'s policy on that. And that's why he had to cut the bullshit and stop being obvious about it.

Aizawa took a deep breath and took another sip from his coffee. With the shock of his new realization he had completely forgotten that it had become cold and disgusting. He grimaced, as he remembered. Only thirty minutes left until his Criminal Psychology class. With Kaori Shinsou in it. Fuck.

He was so used to talking to her about her assignments after class or to have a small chat in the classroom just before the course started. He was used to watching her write down immaculate notes, her sticking her pencil into her hair and forgetting about it for ages, her sitting up more and more when he wasn't calling on her on purpose. This whole thing would be harder than he thought.

With a sigh he got up to get rid of his coffee and hole himself up in the staff room. He didn't really want to talk to anyone right now, not after he had had this weird epiphany. His mind flashed the image of Shinsou's sad eyes at him reacting so coldly before him. He pinched the bridge of his nose. Fuck, this really would be hard.

[bangtan-bi]

Silver lining

Being a modern nymph, you find yourself in all kinds of situations. This time, however, it’s a particularly fishy one and there doesn’t seem to be any easy way out of it. But you assume fate has thrown you a lifeline when you meet Kim Taehyung, a popular idol with eccentric taste, in a pet shop. Could it be more than a coincidence?

Chapters: [01] [02] [03] [04] [05] [06] [07]

Pets (07)

You had never slept better. Rich people's mattresses were no joke. You definitely had to invest in one when you got money. Of course, assuming you found money on the street, as you were a broke college student. 

Ah...

'But it's so soft...' You rolled on to your back and sighed.

'How much can I sell a kidney for?' You wondered. Was it worth it? Well, you could pend time in the comfy bed after the surgery so there was that.

Usually, waking up in a foreign apartment resulted in a much more panicked attitude. Right now, you would probably be picking up your clothes from the floor, sneakily dressing and tiptoeing out of the door. However, that wasn't the case when the bed was empty except for you, your borrowed clothes were neatly arranged on a chair and the scent of fresh ground up coffee was filling your lungs. Ah! And to think you could have been in a cold cell now, waiting for a trial! Life was truly strange.

As you got up, you winced. The cuts still hurt. Jin had done a good job, but he was no miracle worker. 

Yet, as your toes got immersed in a very fluffy carpet, it seemed like it had been worth it. Seemed. You still had to see about that.

You put on the clothes Yoongi had, surprisingly, lent you last night. He was the closest to your frame so the pants were just a tad long. You were grateful for them being baggy, as the boy was definitely skinnier than you. The shirt was also nice, even though you were dressed way darker than you used to. But you were obviously not complaining. You didn’t have many opportunities to be this fashionable first thing in the morning. 

'I wonder why's that?'

Well, it’s not like you tried that hard. Usually, when you had courses early dressing up was the last thing on your mind.You shrugged it off and left for the kitchen. 

In front of the guest bedroom you had slept in was J-hope's room. Music could be heard from inside, so you assumed they didn't have anything scheduled for this morning. You would have gone and asked him if he was alright after fainting last night, but you assumed that was crossing way too many boundaries. Letting you sleep here had been more than nice from them. Talking to you didn't have to be included. After all, you could have been a killer with great storytelling skills for all they knew. J-hope was probably scared enough of you already, and you didn't want to give him any more reasons for that. Sure, yesterday he might have "dozed off", as he excused himself after Jin slapped him awake, but you didn't buy it. Whatever, meeting a mythological being who’s got killing someone as their goal would sound pretty disconcerting to anyone. 

You groaned loudly as you headed for the living room.

What would you do now?

You had to return to your own life. To your apartment, to your major, to your weekly kdramas. Yet, after everything that had happened yesterday, your daily life sounded awfully boring. This whole experience had passed like a dream... Or a nightmare, at times. But you couldn't deny  meeting your favorite band was neat.  And sleeping in their house. And talking to them. And wearing one's clothes. You hugged your form clothed in Yoongi's silky shirt. Damn! It was so soft! Now you had to invest in a new mattress AND a silky shirt. Not the same as this one, of course. It could probably buy you a whole bed.

 As you entered the living room, you saw Taehyung sitting on the floor playing on some console. His back looked incredibly good in the t-shirt he was wearing. Wow. Could you also invest in one of these? You inhaled deeply. You meant the t-shirt. Of course. Why not.

You really needed a boyfriend.

'And a hot one like him.' Your subconscious added. 

You shut her up. You didn’t have time to be pinning after a pop star right now.

The blonde didn't seem to notice you entering, but right when you wanted to announce your presence... 

"It's definitely not ethically correct, you know, as it's essentially cold blooded revenge. But the premise is that it's committed as a reaction to another unethical act: the kidnapping. Yet, that can't be considered an excuse. Like, it's still murder. Also, we have to take into account the vindictive nature of the nymph species. I read about that last night and-"

"Good morning." You interrupted him, smiling as if you didn't hear anything. 

Namjoon was rambling as he ate whatever Jin was cooking. The elder didn't seem to listen to him, likely being focused on the ingredients he was handling. 

"Good morning!" Namjoon exclaimed abruptly. 

You had surprised him. 

Sure, he wasn't gossiping. He was just analizing the situation... Yet, he still felt embarrassed when caught in the act. 

"Pancakes?" He asked, redeemingly. 

Your morning got a hundred times better with just one word. Sure, hearing the rapper judge your intentions was a step back, but pancakes! 

"I'll have another portion ready in a minute. Those are already cold." Jin complained, stopping you from accepting the other member's offer. 

You had never been this hungry. You gulped as you took a seat and waited for the promised goodies. You hadn't eaten since yesterday morning, before you left for the park.

Damn! 

The park! Your clothes!

You were definitely not getting them back anymore... 

Fuck!

Your keys! 

You really needed those! The landlord was in vacation for another week. And sure, you could stay at your step mother's, but it would turn out hard to explain how you lost your keys. You were usually very careful. And you were so tired of explaining yourself.

You started to panic. Your phone was inside your apartment! What if they called you about the job you had interviewed for 2 days ago?! God, you really needed the money for some renovations. That apartment was a dumpster... And your notebooks! You had courses on Monday! Really early! And the Prof was a prick!

What to do?!...What to do?!

"What's up?" A deep voice could be heard above your internal yelling. In the seat next to you sat Taehyung, with his head resting on his arm. He was eyeing you from below his long eyelashes. V-neck shirt Taehyung.

"Fuck." You muttered, too absorbed by your crisis to think about how good the boy looked. You really couldn't have left a pair of keys under your entrance mat or anything?! How could you have been so stupid?

"You look worried." He continued, furrowing his brows. 

At that, you woke up. There was an idol in front of you, TALKING to you, and you were rather condemning your own stupidity than acknowledging anything he was saying. You really had to get your priorities in order.

"Did you not sleep well?" 

Was he an actual angel?

"Oh, no, no, sorry. I slept really well, thank you! It's just, I left my keys in the park and I really don't know how I'll get in my apartment. And I don't want to bother you guys anymore really, you were very kind anyway." You rumbled. He looked amused. Namjoon also had a soft smile on his lips as Jin sent him an indecipherable look. 

What was that about?

Anyway. You had our own conversation to focus on.

"I'll go look for them, right after this." You pointed at the pancakes Jin was placing with dexterity on a large plate.

You hoped you weren’t salivating.

"It’s not like I have other options...” You continued under your breath.

You really didn't. At least, not any worth considering. 

"I mean, even if someone stole my clothes, maybe they left the keys?"

You finished in a quiet note. Ah. You definitely weren't going into that apartment this week. You had to borrow a phone to call your step mother. At least announce her you were a failure before turning up at her doorstep.

"I'll come with you." What?

"What?" 

You weren't expecting that.

"To look for your keys. It's better in two."

Don't think about something naughty. Don't think about something naughty. Fuck! You thought. Well, the low tone in which he said that definitely didn't help. So, not your fault entirely.

You were clearly staring at him by now. 

You looked up, feigning  unaffectedness.

"Oh, sure. That's nice of you, thanks!"

You managed to get all of that out without your voice cracking. You clearly deserved a prize. Oh! Maybe your prize was going with Taehyung to the park... That sounded about right!

 Jin put a plate of pancakes in front of you and you thanked him. As you devoured the sweet breakfast, you were grateful. You were truly grateful that now, with your mouth full, you didn't have to talk anymore and risk saying something stupid. 

"You should change, though. I will give you a shirt. That one looks good on you, but it's quite transparent."

You choked. 

 Taehyung was amused. He was bored and you amused him. 

Easy. 

However, the logical part of his mind reminded him, at times, that yesterday you said you had to kill a man. 

Also, a you were a fish. Sometimes. 

... 

Oh...well. Nobody's perfect. 

And you were pretty and cute. 

And he had just volunteered to help you search for your keys, yet Namjoon and Jin were very obviously frowning at him. 

He sent them a look that meant "It's fine, I'm just playing."

They did not seem convinced. 

Taehyung sighed and got up from his seat. 'What happened to the "You're all grown men!" Jin resorted to when they didn't wash their dishes?!' he wondered. 

"We're free today, right?" He asked his elders.

They answered "yeah" half heartedly, watching the younger man leave. 

 "Come." Taehyung said, already in the hallway. 

You shoved half a pancake in your mouth, thanked Jin for the food and huried after the blonde.

Oh,  you had eaten way too fast.

As you took a turn, you saw him calmly walking towards his room. You followed and noted that he had a very nice back. And bottom. He was over all, very nice. Indeed. And, for a short moment, you felt awkward in this gorgeous apartment, walking behind this gorgeous man. Yesterday, you were  fan. Last night, you were an intruder. Now, you were walking to a member’s room without having washed your teeth.

But then it passed, and you were back at staring at his ass.

 However, despite how pleasurable this whole experience was turning out to be, you were curious. Curious why Taehyung was doing what he was doing when around 9 hours ago he heard you say you wanted to kill a man. It truly intrigued you. That whole storytelling thing worked out better than expected, as they pretty much pitied your situation. And it was clearly better than calling you crazy.

After J-hope fainted, some shocked faces didn't seem like that bad of a reaction, really. Sure, you weren't paying that much attention to them: You were too busy shaking the passed out boy. So, maybe their expressions were worse than you glimpsed.

"That's a joke, right? It's not very funny." You remembered Jin pointing out. He seemed dead serious, so you did whatever someone in your position would have done.

"Yeah, it's a joke. Hahaha. Can't believe you guys fell for that." You laughed, unconvincingly. It was a stupid thing to do, you weren't denying that. You could have actually tried to pass it off as a joke. Yet, you didn't feel like lying to them. They had been civil with you. Mostly. 

"You sure?" Yoongi asked, as you predicted he'd do. 

"No." A pause. For good luck. You were going to be honest with them. And for that, you needed luck. A shot of vodka would have done the job too, but it was quite inappropriate to ask for one now. 

"I don't really know what I'm going to do." You confessed.

"I don't want to kill someone. Of course I don't, I'm not a psychopath." 

You hoped they believed you.

"But I feel like I should avenge my mother in some way. I don't know if that's what she would want. You see, I didn't know her that well, since I was five when they took me away. Yet, a part of me, that feels kind of foreign, is screaming revenge. And I think he deserves it and I can't stop but feel guilty about actually wanting to hurt him. And there's just me, who cried for 3 hours after accidentally stepping on a cat's tail."

You sighed. 

They stared. 

You felt uncomfortable as fuck. 

They kept staring. 

Maybe you should have just let them think you were a psychopath.

You sighed. 

Still, silence. 

Oh, well, you checked sharing your feelings off this lifetime's bucket list. 'There goes something I won't do ever again.' 

And then, Namjoon got up. He took the wet cup from you and held your hand in his large ones.

"It's alright." He mumbled.

He took a deep breath, looked right at you and continued.

"I don't want to tell you what you should or shouldn't do. It's just... What happened to your mother is not your fault. At all. So by trying to hurt him, try not to hurt yourself more.Don’t force yourself to be someone you aren't." 

And then, he half hugged you and you felt fucking blessed. His words had touched you pretty deeply. Sure, hadn't convinced you. You weren't blaming yourself for anything. Even if he'd been genuine, he was a bit off the mark. You weren't blaming anyone but your father. And fate. And the other factors... 

'At least I think not.' you mused. 

Also, you didn't want to cry and shit. You liked your almost badass vibe.

But, at that moment, Yoongi offered you some clothes to sleep in and to wear the following day and something inside of you cracked. 

Why were these guys so damn pure? 

 And all that brought you to this point, inside of Taehyung's room, leaning awkwardly on the door while he was looking inside his closet. 

"Hmm... Maybe this will fit?" He was thinking out loud, and you would have deemed it cute if he wasn't holding a very lacy shirt.

"I don't think that's meant to be worn in the park, while I'm fumbling in the grass for my keys." You indicated, sarcastically.

He sent you a very sharp look.

You raised your hands defensively.

"No offense, though!"

He raised an eyebrow. 

"Then I'll wear it." He said, as an ultimatum, before he reached to take his t-shirt off. 

'Yes!' Something inside of you screamed. 

"Wait!" You told the blonde before he could undress himself.

He sent you a questioning look. 

You turned around and heard the clothing roll off his body and fall to the ground. What was this? Sure, you didn't mind the show, but yesterday you would have been just another crazed fangirl. Now he was undressing in front of you? This was going from 0 to 100 real quick. It didn't seem natural. 

"At least let me turn around, God... " you mumbled, facing the door. You heard him walk towards his closet, probably shuffling for pants. 

"Does it bother you that much?”

You wouldn’t say bother, but still. Yet, he didn’t let you answer.

“It wouldn't be the first time you see me taking my shirt off though, would it?" 

Huh? What was he-...?

Oh!

Ohhhh....! 

So that's what it was all about. 

"I was a fish! You changed in front of me!" You retorted. 

As you heard him zipping, you guessed, his pants, he stepped closer to your form.

"But you watched." His deep voice vibrated close enough behind for you to feel intimidated. And a bit hot. 

You felt his warm breath prickling at your skin. 

Okay, maybe a bit more.

You couldn't deny Taehyung gave off an awfully sexual vibe. Particularly when he used that tone of voice. And you couldn't deny it did things to you. He seemed like the perfect person for a Naiad with a high libido. But you had to remind yourself who each of you was. He, an idol from one of the biggest k-pop bands of the moment. He held concerts, photoshoots and had people paid to fan him when he got hot. You, one of the people who had him as your phone's wallpaper. The conjuncture never resulted in these two people saying more than some passing words to each other. Yet, here you were. And you knew he was untouchable. 

You didn't know, however, what to say back right now. Or if he wanted you to. 

You heard him move away and, next, the atmosphere was shattered by a shirt landing on your head. You heard a chuckle and instantly turned around to see him sitting on a very comfortable looking bed. He winked, with a smirk on his face. 

"Just kidding. Don't get so worked up." 

... 

'Tease!' 

 Namjoon sneezed. Jin looked at him worryingly. Something bad was happening. 

 The weather was...good. The park was...nice. You felt... really uncomfortable. 

There was something about walking next to an idol of Taehyung's popularity that made you nervous. Maybe it was the eminent vibe he was giving off even with his face covered by a face mask and cap. Or maybe it was his height. Who knew? You looked behind to see he had stopped on the bridge above one of the fish ponds.

Whatever.

Point is, something about him intimidated you.

Yet, that feeling was quickly gone when he leaned over the handrail to look at the fish swimming underneath. How could someone go from cool to cute this quickly? He looked at you, smiling with his eyes and beckoned you to come closer. As you joined him on the bridge, you thanked God he did not actually wear that lacy blouse to the park. People would have been staring. And you liked your diy disguise. It made you feel like an important person, a celebrity even. These days you had to make up a famous persona. 

Truth is, both of you were pretty unrecognizable. You had borrowed a face mask and some sunglasses from Namjoon, who still didn't look entirely happy Taehyung was coming with you the park. And even if the blonde exuded nobles through every pore, you looked like an average couple taking a stroll. A couple that didn't like the sun very much, sure. 

"Aren't they beautiful?" He was attentively following the koi fish’s below fluid movements. 

You had almost forgotten this man was a singer, but you were reminded every time he opened his mouth. His deep voice was weirdly both soothing and erotic at the same time, a combination you never thought you'd be into until you met him.

"You like fish?"

Way to go. He had just told you they were beautiful! 

"Assuming I tried to buy one but ended up with you." He chuckled. You felt mildly offended. 

He must have seen your presence waver, because he continued. He took his face mask off so you could hear him better.

"Just kidding. You don't meet a Naiad everyday, so you're more interesting than a fish. Do you have any pets?" 

Okay. Normal conversation. Don't fuck up.

"I used to. I mean, I grew up around lots of animals. Fish, turtles, so many birds..." You were looking at the people passing by, hoping they wouldn’t recognize Taehyung and interrupt your conversation.

"But once I came to Seoul I was way too rebellious against the people that took me from my mom to be thinking about anything else. After my dad left I wanted a dog, but my step mom is allergic. So I guess I never really had a pet. You?"

He lifted his gaze from the water and his eyes meet yours. Their tenderness surprised him. You hoped he didn't pity you. Sure, pity had saved you the last night, but you weren't a fan of it.

"I have Yeontan. He's a pomeranian and so tiny." He lifted his hand for comparison. 

"He's just a bit bigger than this." 

Taehyung's hands were the size of a small dog. You didt’t know what to make of that piece of information. It was kind of amusing that he could pet the dog in just one stroke, though. 

"I don't see him much these days since we're pretty busy. This weekend our manager let us relax, but usually we aren't home that much. We also have tours or periods with lots of concerts when it's hard to take care of a dog. You can barely take care of yourself." 

He was charming even when he talked about his dog. Good God. 

"Why don't you hire someone to look after him? That way you could see him more often." It seemed only logical, they definitely had enough money. 

"I don't like the thought of leaving him with a stranger, you know? So he's at my parents'. Actually, that's why I wanted a fish. It's easier to take care of. Sure, you can't pet it, but hotel rooms get lonely at night."

He sounded kind of sad and it almost broke your heart.

Now you started to understand what these boys' lives were like. Yeah, they were filthy rich. However, they couldn't commit to anything. Their schedules didn't allow it.

You couldn’t imagine how living with so limited freedom was like. It definitely wasn’t your type of lifestyle. And they were so young when they started this... Did they even realize what they were signing up for? Was all the Gucci worth it? 

Yet, just when you wanted to ask Taehyung that, he smiled and locked his eyes in yours. Then, he whispered. 

“But, you know, fish are very pretty.”

Then, he winked. And you forgot what you wanted to say.

A/N: hey guys! sorry for the wait! i started school and waking up at 6 am is driving me crazy. i just nap all day. anyway, tell me what you think about the chapter! 

also, where are you guys from? have you started school or college?

[quousque]

So Apparently I did Graduate After All

Figured it out on Monday. Had to call the registrar’s office multiple times and hand-hold the person on the other end through the online degree tracker to get it sorted. I’m annoyed, frustrated, and disappointed, and I haven’t felt anything like excitement or happiness yet.

So now I’ma subject all y’all to the Story of How I Didn’t Graduate but Actually Did Graduate but didn’t Find Out until August

So, first things first, I have ADHD, and therefore getting things done is hard. Last semester was my 5th year in college, and I was on track to finish all my requirements to graduate except for one. I needed an upper division writing course. I had taken one the previous semester, but I never fucking turned in the final paper. Literally, I had all the research done, the outline, powerpoint presentation, I even had each individual section written and in need of editing. But the final step of putting it all together? Nope. Didn’t do it. 

I contacted the professor, and she said she’d accept the paper late. That was over winter break. As spring semester rolled around, I kept telling myself to finish it and send it in. Maybe she’ll still accept it, even though the next semester has started. I know professors can change your grade up to a year afterwords. But I somehow couldn’t make it happen. But I still managed to maintain the illusion that I could Totally Do It and Definitely Graduate This Semester all the way until like, May. 

Cue May. I’ve pretty much given up on graduating this semester, and I’m just trying not to fail my other classes so I only have to take the one class next year. It’s finals week. I have three (3) late papers in one class, and five (5) late papers in another. 

The first class is a class that I’ve failed two times before, both times due to not completing papers. The other class is one I’ve taken once before, and failed for the same reason. Sensing a pattern here? This is why my grades look like A, A, B, F, F, F. When I can do the work, I do good work.

Aaaanyway, finals week finishes, and I’ve completed the papers for the first class, but I still have 3 overdue papers for the second one. It’s graduation day. My family is in town, even though I’m not graduating, because they’d already reserved the airbnb and figured we could spend time together anyway. I’m not currently spending time with them, I’m in the library pounding out these papers (FUCK socrates btw). I’m trying not to beat myself up about not graduating. And then I have a little thought, triggered by the fact that the online list of graduating students has my name on it. At first I figured it was because I’d submitted my graduation application, and they just hadn’t actually checked it (turns out, that was the case). But I think, hey, the class I’m writing papers for right now, might count as an upper division writing class. The last time I took it, I remembered the prof saying something like the class should count, but doesn’t because it was offered through the classics department instead of through some other department.

 I decide to check. I look at the course catalog. Useless. Look at the List of Classes that Count for Upper Div Writing Credit. It’s not on there. Ok, so it doesn’t count. But then I find Degreeworks, the online degree tracking tool that my university apparently uses, and it tells me I need an upper div writing class, which it calls “a class with attribute WRUD or WRAD”. I click on “WRUD”. It pops up a little window, listing all the classes that count. Lo and fucking behold, the class I’m writing papers for right now is up there. So, does it count, or not? I try calling the registrar’s office. They’re closed. I send an email, but they obviously won’t answer. There’s still a few hours before the main graduation ceremony, and I have this vague fantasy of maybe if this class DOES count, then I can run home, grab a dress, walk at graduation, and finish these papers tonight.

The only thing I can think of to do hope my advisor is in his office, and ask him. So I dave my work and run over to the Liberal Arts building. I find my advisor in his office, putting on his regalia to go and graduate students more capable than me. I ask him if CLAS 365 fulfills the upper division writing requirement. He asks me if I need to know now. I tell him yes, because that kind of determines whether or not I walk. He checks online, using whatever advising tool setup the university has. He says no, it doesn’t count. Oh well, it was worth it to check. So I go back to the library, and finish my papers.

Fast forward through most of the summer. My mom offers to help me get my ass registered for the class I need to take. I start complaining about all of the above, and she asks me to show her online where degreeworks says the class I took does count. She decides that we should double check and call the registrar again. I don’t want to, because obviously the class doesn’t count, and I already feel like shit about not graduating, and I’d rather just register for a class and get it over with. But mom insists we call. So I call. After a lot of encouraging the lady at the registrar’s office to actually do her job and look at my records, finally she’s like “oh, yeah, that class does count, it just wasn’t cross-listed properly.” She does something with the system to essentially force my degree through, and boom, just like that, I apparently graduated.

I’m just sad and pissed off that I didn’t get to walk at graduation, do the whole cap and gown thing, or any of that, especially when I actually thought to check and, if the class had been listed properly, I would have had enough time to get to the ceremony. So yeah. I graduated college, but it actually just made me sadder. :(

I’ll probably get around to feeling happy about it later, like maybe when I have a job that doesn’t give me homework. I might walk at fall graduation, assuming I stop feeling like shit about it by then. 

If you made it this far, thanks for listening to my Emotions about Things. Bleughhghg.

[dragestil]

Adventures in Playing Host

So yesterday one of my professors caught me in the student centre and asked if I would go to lunch today with a prospective linguistics major to talk about the department and classes and professors and all that good shit. I didn’t have anything better to do after my one class, so I said sure. Today I follow through and meet up with the prospective student, Joe. He happened to sit through my one class as well where I realised he was sort of a know-it-all but he seemed harmless enough. Little did I know...

So here are some real actual things we talked about/he shared with me:

Believes the only way to change people’s minds is through politeness, brings up “The Art of Persuasion” and hostage situations when I say that sometimes you actually have to be aggressive in at least your words to cause change

Believes Africana Studies and other areas of study relating to non-western/white cultures are unnecessary/unimportant because we should “focus on studying our own culture. If you only interact with other cultures 10% of the time, you should only study other cultures 10% of the time”

Does not think you can love cats and dogs equally, you must choose one or the other

Doesn’t understand why students are unhappy that the chancellor is talking about cutting entire departments and closing entire buildings of student housing but also talking about opening a police academy on campus

Thinks he won’t be happy with less than three children

His reasoning for three children? Because he can be holding a child’s hand in each of his and still have another child present - No I do not understand this logic either

Wants to get a job strictly to make lots of money

Said he would “agree to disagree” when I said that the western world shouldn’t have fucked around drawing borders and interfering in the politics of the middle east

Referred to all people in the middle east as “Arabs”

Classifies himself as a “Catholic atheist” - did not explain why or what the fuck that’s supposed to even mean

Oh, and when he needed to wash his hands, wanted me to go with him.

So yeah. That was my day. The one positive was I essentially got paid for it because my prof gave me money to cover our lunches and good ol’ Joe only wanted fries and a drink.

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Summer 2017 Update

Hey guys! Finally, another big update post. If you haven’t read these before, I split it into sections: Academic, Financial/Professional, Social, Mental Health, and anything else I feel like. Feel free to skim! (Give this a like if you’re actually reading it because I feel like most people ignore these update posts, which is fine, I’m just curious haha.)

Academic

I go back to school on September 5. I’m super excited, but I think my underlying anxiety has been affecting me a bit.

Classes I’m taking on campus: Classics of Children’s Literature, Abnormal Psychology, and Ethics & Society (an Honors seminar).

Classes I’m taking online: History of World Civilizations Before 1500 & Child Psychology.

Here are some comments on each class so far (I’m nothing if not thorough, guys):

Children’s Lit: Well, Harry Potter is on the reading list, so I’m already there. I’ve emailed the professor already and she seems super nice, so I’m pretty excited. The syllabus is a bit intimidating; I’m sure it will be fine, though, and having a nice professor makes a huge difference.

Abnormal Psych: I’m going to have the same prof as I did for Intro, and I’m really pumped about that (so is she). I’m nervous because the tests are harder and longer, but she was very reassuring that I’ll be fine. There was a whole issue because I thought that Abnormal had service learning linked to it (service learning is basically where you get experience doing things related to the course, so essentially volunteer/internship work) and was planning to use an internship that has been in the works since the winter for that. However, turns out that it isn’t linked. My prof was super nice and said she would be flexible. I emailed my adviser in a bit of a panic, and she informed me that actually service learning is no longer a requirement of my major. So, I’m going to go ahead and do the internship for my resume, but not have to worry about the assignments and grade aspect.

Ethics & Society: I don’t know anything about this really, but I do know that the professor is well-liked and I’ve seen him a few times.

History: Okay, so I hate history. I’m quite well-rounded as a student and I know that I’m lucky that most classes, I do very well in and enjoy. But history just... I don’t even know. My history teachers in the past have all thought I was really good, and I was grade-wise; I simply didn’t enjoy it. So to make this bearable, I know I need to have a professor I like. I was going to take it on campus, and emailed briefly with the professor I was going to have, but he had bad RateMyProfessors ratings and struck me as not very personable or understanding or nice. I checked about online courses and saw that there is one being taught by the director of the Honors College that I’m in, whom I really like and has a great reputation and ratings. Unfortunately there is a $125 fee associated with online courses that I wasn’t aware of, but cost-benefit wise, I really think I’ll be happiest like this.

Child Psych: Oh GOD. Why am I so extra? I emailed the prof once and she was super nice. Then I replied, and since online courses are different from real-life ones in that you don’t really get that ‘getting-to-know-you’ vibe with professors because it’s so remote, I mentioned that I can be an anxious student. I just said basically that means sometimes I’ll ask a lot of questions or check and double-check things for reassurance. I also asked if she was a professor willing to look at drafts or not. She completely got the wrong impression and sent back an email (that was quite final too; signed it “All the best”) as though I had been a hysterical student coming to her with anxiety that I had no idea how to handle. She told me that there are personal counseling services offered by the college as well as the writing center with writing tutors. I’ve had outside counseling for 7 years, and I’m a writing tutor... so that was ironic and also a little embarrassing. Whoops. Honestly, when I get embarrassed about things like that (which I often do) I kind of remind myself that I’m just there to learn and hopefully earn that A, so what they think of me doesn’t matter that much.

All and all, I’m excited for school to start. I want to learn things and take notes and have stuff to do. I also have waves of anxiety, which I’m working very hard to combat with reality checks and focusing on the positives. Oh, and I got an A somehow on my chem accelerated summer course :)

Financial

I have worked two jobs this summer after a lot of miscommunication and lack of clarity:

A preschool, the same one I worked at during my gap year. It was unfortunate because I thought I was going to work full-time there after my chem course, but they didn’t need me because they had so much help. I ended up working Thursdays and Fridays there and Monday through Wednesday at my dad’s job. Now that all the summer help is leaving, though, they’re back to being in desperate need. Everyone there is pretty stressed (and families have been leaving).

At the place my dad works. They produce food and formula for people with metabolic disorders (primarily PKU). I was extremely appreciated there, which was nice, and I got a $4 raise on my second week! They’re desperately understaffed and having problems with their products, as well as not being able to keep up with general demand. I electronically filed faxes dating back to 2016, stuffed envelopes (my favorite), put in tons of orders (one day I put in 34 out of a total 62 orders that day), and by the end was allowed to check emails and reply to some of them. I LOVED the job. However, there’s the possibility I might be able to work there on Fridays during the school year, which I would love. It’s stressful there because there’s so much shit going on and people are basically running around putting out fires all day, but I enjoy my work so much.

During the year, I’m hoping to work at my dad’s job on Fridays, do my psychology internship (if you don’t recall, I’m going to be working at a VA hospital helping with a study on suicide prevention), and tutor! I’m a math and writing tutor. They’re two completely different trainings and types of tutoring, so it should be interesting. Luckily we get to shadow a writing tutor for awhile before being on our own.

I’m not doing well with money, guys. The entire year of 2017, I’ve only made $300 or so. I’ve spent $1,800 on school, even with scholarships, and $940 on medical things such as medication and copays. I did win a $1,000 scholarship which has been very delayed in arriving and I’m praying it will get here by the end of this week or next week so it can be applied to my account. I didn’t work over winter break, which was really my downfall; I needed the time for a mental health break, though... so I’m trying not to beat myself up over it.

Unfortunately it took awhile too for me to lock down my jobs, meaning I only got to work for like 4 or 5 weeks. That really isn’t very much money even with the raise I got. Right now I’m owing $615 per month for my payment plan, and even with tutoring and potential Fridays at my dad’s job, I’m definitely going to lose money. I’m considering taking one winter class online, so I can still work all winter break. That $125 extra fee from my web class sure didn’t help me.

But I must soldier on! I’m going to make sure that none of my money ever goes to frivolous things and never goes to waste. Money is meant to be spent and not hoarded, as my mom reminds me, and it’s okay to spend some on things like going out every so often as well, so I shouldn’t be beating myself up for that (though I still am). School was always going to suck up money. I’m trying very very hard to stay in the moment now and not stress about next semester or worse, what will happen when I get hit with that $30k bill when I transfer and don’t have even close to that much saved.

Social

I’ve changed several times throughout my life socially. In 9th grade, I was extremely social because I needed to be and I had trouble being by myself. It was a lot like that through high school. When I made online friends in 11th grade, they were my social life while drama and bullying and shit went on in real life. Recently, I had a major burst in socialness online, and eventually reached breaking point when I became embroiled in drama.

Look, I’m 20 years old. I’m turning 21 in November. I had to ask myself, why the fuck am I on vacation with family, working on scholarship essays last-minute, and spending my time in the bathroom on my phone dealing with drama with someone years and years younger who’s slandering me to people whose opinions I shouldn’t give two shits about?

That was a big reality check. Because I wanted vengeance, I did. I wanted so badly to expose someone who was gleaning attention and convincing others and spreading half-truths and ruining people’s lives. But then I realized, you know what? That isn’t my goal in life. My goal in life isn’t to tear people down because they’ve torn others down. It’s so, so difficult. I was angry. I was upset. This person violated all of my principles. And we had the evidence against them, we could have potentially won most people over, and I wanted it not for my sake but for the sake of those they had hurt so much more than they hurt me.

But I couldn’t do it. In the end, I called it off. I backed out. I told people to lay off and let karma do its work. I realized how toxic the situation was, how absurd it was for me to be living on the internet when I’m in one of the most exciting periods of my life. How utterly imbecilic I was acting, getting caught up in so much senseless, meaningless, fruitless drama.

After that, I disengaged further from large social groups. I was already overwhelmed by the amount of people always trying to talk to me, so I had to cut myself off from that. And it feels so. Much. Better.

I’ve become more introverted, really. I work all day, then I write fanfiction and watch Netflix and color in my room by myself and I love it. I have any number of people I could hit up anytime and ask to hang out or video chat. But I don’t feel that push, that obsessive need, to be social all the time. Social media became addicting. I still work on that.

I’ve stayed in touch with real-life friends and done things with them when I had the energy, money, and time. Unfortunately my ex and then long-time guy friend both asked me out, and that was incredibly awkward, and the end of that. The trouble with my school is that there are a lot of dual enrollment students who are like, 16 or 17. Much as I love them, I’ve been thirsting for someone my own age with similar interests who I can hang out with. At the tutoring training I attended, I met someone (a guy, oooh). He’s 21 and we had a really good time together. I’m hoping we can hang out once the semester starts! I also met a girl who’s only 17, but she seems very mature and sweet and I also hope to hang out with her.

Things are good socially. I’m always working on that area of my life (with regards to mental health, mostly) but I’m still going strong. I have moments of loneliness for sure. However, I’m happy with myself and happy with my life. That’s what counts.

Mental health

If 10 is completely flawless and 0 is utter breakdown and 5 is rough, I would say my summer has been a solid 7 or 8. Which is pretty damn good!

Areas I’m working on still:

Body image. My ED voice has been loud this summer. That’s probably the area of most concern to me.

Anxiety. It hasn’t been too bad, but with transitions it usually increases, and I’ve noticed myself being more anxious (free-floating anxiety mostly) and irritable in the past few days.

Worrying way too much about others’ opinions. This pretty much traces to the internet. I mean, before I went on hiatus, I had tens of thousands of people criticizing my every word and move. That takes a toll. Moreover, as a fanfic writer, it’s pretty difficult to post things to the internet without craving comments and kudos and hits. I’ve turned off viewing hits for my own sanity, and taken breathers when I felt like I was getting too hung up on the ‘popularity’ of my fics. I write for myself, because I enjoy it. Not for the attention. I just have to remind myself of that from time to time, and I try not to be competitive. It’s really the numbers that get me - the hits and the kudos. I mean, I compare myself to people in different fandoms, fandoms I don’t even write for. It’s so dumb.

All in all, I’m proud of how I’ve been doing. I do have moments of stress mainly about money, but that’s par for the course. I would say I’ve made a 100% improvement from last summer/year and intend to continue doing so, even in light of the impending stressors.

Other

My new favorite movie is Gifted. Oh my god, I love it so much. I’ve seen it like, 5 times (2 of those were illegally whoops). I’ve been fairly active on Snapchat still - add me there edye327. I don’t really have much else to say, except thank you to people who have bought me things from my wishlist that I couldn’t otherwise afford. I haven’t gotten anything recently, but I just wanted to reiterate my appreciation.

If you’ve read this all the way through, reply with the color of your favorite shirt.

Much love,

Edye

[wristic]

Between Earth and Hades (Part 4)

Pairing: Erik X Reader

Word Count: 1400

Warnings: You know when people make you think about your past and you’re like, “Well that was sad, lets try not do it ever again.”

-Part 1- -Part 2- -Part 3- -Part 4- -Part 5- -Part 6-

Your team show up to console you, offering some advice in your troubled time of not sure what the hell you’re supposed to do with what you’re feeling. During the lull of being taken off of missions you are stuck waiting patiently for the time to end, Erik offering some help to empowering your abilities in the meantime.

Ed eyed you from the couch while Jan and Ivete arm wrestled on the coffee table as you told them not to do many times (there was no way the cheap wood would survive their victories much longer). The team had invited themselves over after hearing the news, deciding they’d opt out of the next few mission. You felt it had a lot more to do with not hurting your ego than them not being able to wing it without you. After they settled around your tiny apartment you offered dinner, but you weren’t exactly pouring your love into it.

Not taking the other two’s notice, Ed snuck around and met you by the oven of sizzling chicken and boiling noodles.

“Hey, how you doing?” You smirked because Ed knew how you were doing. Ed was empathic, a healer at the cost of his own body and mind. While he couldn’t hear your thoughts, he could feel the conflict troubling you. However if you simply said you were fine, he’d drop it entirely, going around to make you feel better like a fretful nanny. Somehow that was more annoying than admitting the truth.

Taking a deep breath you said lowly, glad Jan was too busy being at an epic stalemate with Ivete, always underestimating the will of a military brat. “I uh...it’s…”

“Hard to say?” Ed teased.

You only gave a nervous sigh with a set of eyes that said that was an understatement. “It’s just, Professor Xavier said something odd the other day...about why I’m being forced to sit out.” Ed shifted closer to help block out the battle in the next room. “Apparently Prof-...Erik, got really uncomfortable watching the rerun of the mission. I almost bit the bullet, literally.”

“Yeah!” he laughed, “You were almost human swiss!”

You gawked at his excited face, nudging him with your elbow. “Why didn’t you guys say anything!?”

Ed shrugged. “Would it have really helped you in anyway to say you almost died? I mean, it’s part of the job-”

“That’s what I was saying! But...it...Erik came here afterwards to check on me.”

“Oh~!” Ed now leaned closer for the gossip. “What happened?”

Rolling your eyes, you reassured him. “Nothing. I told you he was just checking on me.”

“...even though the tapes were old and you were obviously fine.”

“Yeah.”

You really couldn’t say more, feeling your face warm from more than just the skillet, that night still haunting you with the touch on your side and the look of worry in his eyes. Being the smart fellow he was, Ed was able to piece together the lovely scandal on his own, a smirk growing the more he thought about it. “Oh~.”

“Xavier said...there was nothing stopping me from admitting how I feel about him.”

“That’s good!”

You hissed under the discomfort of his approval. “Is it?” Ed shrugged. “Age difference isn’t a bother? What about that I used to be his student?”

“You’re an adult and not his student anymore. The Professor sounds pretty down with it.”

You eyed him suspiciously. “I think it’s because you telepath types have a hard time seeing things outside of the brain sometimes. It’s an odd situation Ed. And for me to just come out of nowhere and-”

“Whatever, just get it over with and tell him how you feel.”  

Biting back your frustration you mockingly announced, “You’re right, it’s just so simple!” The light in your face dropped as you motioned to the living room with your cooking fork. “Go tell Jan how you feel.”

Ed got physically stiff, glancing back at the exceptionally furry blonde who was parading around victorious, boasting and flexing his more bare muscles for Ivete to feel inferior by, only to have her jump him into a choke hold. With a steadying breath Ed came back and mumbled. “Alright, Point taken.”

After a good laugh you tried distracting yourself by flipping chicken and stirring cheesy noodles, putting veggies into a bowl with some butter and tossing it into the microwave despite Ed glaring a storm at you for such an atrocity of food taking place. Leaning back on the counter after starting it up, you sighed. “I want to tell him. I want to tell him so bad but, every time I get close I feel the need to fall back that it’s just a crush, that he doesn’t feel the same even though The Professor Himself essentially told me he does.”

“Well, as my beautiful Gran-mama would say, if you’re waiting for the right moment, it is always now.”

Good advice, but the very thought caused your heart to beat right out of your chest. You groaned and slumped to the ground into the fetal position, your mist crawling around your small form to hide you.

Jan and Ivete stomped to the rim of the kitchen, Jan’s German accent heavy, genuinely concerned as he asked, “What’s with her?”

Ivete scoffed through her heavy breathing, “Looks like she’s being dramatic to me.”

You called from the shifting black blob on the ground. “I’m not! I’m just being consumed by the swirling abyss of misery and pain!”

Erik glanced at you sitting at one of the controls of the Danger room while some of the more maturing students battled back droids in a holographic environment. Your head was tipping to your shoulder and your eyes were heavy as you stared into nothing, despite an epic display of super powers being thrown about in front of you. Shaking his head Erik couldn’t help but snicker. “Bored?”

You snapped up not expecting anyone to notice. “Oh, no, of course not. I love...sitting.”

Erik turned with a smile from the safety glass and sat by you. Watching him adjusted comfortably was a quick mesmerizing act that had you steaming under the collar by the end. When he looked to you with that half smile of his you had a hard time not grinning back. “Then perhaps we can practice something Charles has been nagging me about since day one.” You tilted your head in confusion, this was certainly the first you’d heard of any nagging. “You’re abilities shouldn’t come from a place of fear.”

That almost got a chuckle out of you. “Well, they don’t really, not anymore.” You hadn’t been afraid of the dark for years now. Shadows were your ally and your toy, what was there to fear in them but yourself.

A sinking knowing feeling filled Erik. “Then where do they come from?”

Trying to find a nice way to put it had you shifting in your seat. “Anger, I guess. I don’t know, it just seems to conjure the best results in snap decision situations.”

“I understand.” He sighed. “Anger is a powerful, easily obtained emotion. But it shouldn’t come from there either.” A small smirk came to him. “Lest you risk entire days of forcing yourself to stay angry, and that’s a headache believe me.” While you bashfully turned away from his charming smile, he didn’t, unable to tear himself away from the humored bite on your lip. Clearing his throat to gather himself, he asked, his leg starting to bounce out his nerves. “Do you have a favorite memory? A moment you cherish in dark times?”

Your smile faded, eyes losing their edge as you thought of a time before the mansion. There was nothing viable before Erik and Ororo picked you up off the street. Even that day, being picked up by strangers to live in a mansion was so bombarded with so many emotions, you felt weird and scared that day being led into your new dorm room. Finding your mutant ability, while a wonderful thing to find, had also been very frightening to get used to. The day you were accepted into the X-men? It was a good memory, but ‘cherished in dark times’?

Nothing flashed in your mind that invoked that kind of feeling.

Erik watched your long search, feeling more concerned as you gradually became sullen, struggling so hard to find an answer. “Nothing? You can’t think of a single moment in time you hold above all others?” You looked away shamefully, heart feeling heavy. Erik was quick to lean forward toward you. “It’s alright. Sometimes we can forget these things.” You didn’t want to admit maybe they just didn’t exist.

A hand wrapped around yours, bringing you out of the disappointment in yourself when you looked at his calm and inviting face. “I found a way to bring your abilities out in the first place, I’ll find a way to make them grow too.”

You allowed a small grin to let him know you at least appreciated the determination. But if that memory was vital, you feared it wasn’t going to happen.

[braindamxge-blog]

What do you think about them changing David's diagnosis?

|( CURIOUS ANONS )( always accepting )|

by this, i assume you’re asking for my thoughts on david’s show canon diagnosis being schizophrenia while his comic canon diagnosis has always been dissociative identity disorder (DID) and i’d like !!! to thank you for this question. i’ve seen a lot of concern in the legion tag about david’s diagnosis, and some general wariness that noah hawley and the rest of the intrepid crew over at fx legion might erase david’s illness as his powers move more traditionally comic canon based. we’ve already seen notions of a legion of personas: cary actually uses the phrase “split mind” and, apart from the shadow king, we have rational david (who says he was created by david’s powers) and we have potential personality absorptions a la comic canon in lenny busker, walter aka the eye, and maybe even oliver bird. and then we’re facing what happens now that the shadow king is out of david’s head, and what noah hawley means when he says season two will feature “a sane man in an insane world” while also claiming he is NOT looking to eliminate mental illness from the narrative.

let me preface this by saying, i’m not worried. i trust that mental illness will remain a prominent theme in fx legion, and i trust them to represent david haller to the full extent of his character. as for what i think about the disparity between david’s comic canon and show canon diagnoses:

first, i think misdiagnosis is a crucial part of mental health narratives. i think the confusion or conflation of schizophrenia with dissociative identity disorder is immensely prevalent. just yesterday i had to educate someone about it. “split personalities” are still heavily associated with schizophrenia, not DID. i think DID is a less widely known/feared diagnosis than schizophrenia, and i think the symptoms david has exhibited (remember, in the show he’s yet to really present a dissociative identity) would surely bring on a schizophrenia diagnosis rather than a DID diagnosis. the fluidity of the time scheme and the 60s/70s aesthetic/inspiration heavily support a misdiagnosis aspect to the narrative as well.

i also don’t happen to think the comics ever did a very good job representing david’s mental illness as, first and foremost, a mental illness. the comic character of david haller is defined by his omega level mutant abilities, and his relationship to charles xavier. in most narratives, he spends his childhood and young adulthood in a medically/psychically induced coma thanks in part to a horrible trauma, but mostly due to a gross inability to help or even handle him once his ability (see: illness) has manifested. once david is out of his coma, his primary narrative purpose is usually to cause mayhem. the mutant community still doesn’t know how to deal with his existence. charlie x usually dies or fucks off rather than admit he doesn’t know how to deal with his son (that’s not a totally unbiassed statement on prof x’s role in legion’s comic runs, but i’m bitter so it’s what you get here). there’s always some sort of headband or wristwatch designed to help david lock away his personas, and usually (sometimes explicitly) david’s head becomes a prison. in one run in particular, david essentially kills himself when he realizes there’s no way to control what he is, and his run ends there. the representation of the tension between david’s abilities and his illness in the comics is kind of fucked up, and it all tends to result in the flash and bang of visualizing david’s powers erasing or overshadowing any talk of illness. sure, if you sit down and put on your interpretive goggles you can read the allegory for what it is, read david’s abilities as a mental illness, but if you ask me that’s not good enough. i want a mentally ill mutant, not a mutant whose mental illness is erased by or blamed totally on his powers.

and i happen to think that’s what fx legion gives us. i think introducing david’s diagnosis as schizophrenia was a stroke of genius, because it helps us escape the allegory. should david’s powers develop as they do in comic canon, they won’t just present as a physical manifestation of his established illness. had fx legion introduced david with dissociative identity disorder, his powers developing accordingly wouldn’t make us stop and think; we’d accept it, and it’d be a lot easier to tell him he’s not sick. because fx legion diagnosed david schizophrenic, developing his powers more in line with DID symptoms gives the show the opportunity to either visit the possibility of misdiagnosis, or present a mutant who has DID reminiscent abilities, but lives with schizophrenia. he is a mutant and he is mentally ill.

noah hawley’s “sane man in an insane world” comment also stands to engage the idea of a misdiagnosis. it’s important to remember, someone’s mental illness is highly specific to that someone; though we have developed a means for diagnosing mental illnesses, the rules aren’t hard and fast. much like mutant abilities, mental illnesses manifest differently in different people, and new diagnoses always stand to surface. david is schizophrenic, or david has a dissociative identity disorder, because that’s what his therapists decided to call what goes on between his ears. what if his actual illness is something in between, or something else altogether? what’s more, exploring the concept of an external illness (the shadow king existing outside of david’s head) opens up the thematics of the show to exploring not just how david’s mental illness operates internally, but how external forces have affected and will continue to affect it. just how damaging is society’s rhetoric about mental illness to the mentally ill? just how defining is a diagnosis?

fx legion is poised to tackle all of this, and i couldn’t be more excited.

[libertariantaoist]

Professor Don Boudreaux of George Mason University says that Trump’s trade policies are unethical.  Boudreaux, who is one of my favorite free-market economists, should stick with economics instead of veering into ethics.

Boudreaux is correct that free trade is an overall positive for America, that trade restrictions and tariffs are an overall negative, that trade deficits can be both good and bad, that creative destruction is good when driven by comparative advantage and true competition, that mercantilism and other forms of political interference in markets is almost always bad, and that President Trump’s stated trade policies are a mishmash of contradictions that will harm working-class Americans.

Now for a big “However…”

However, Boudreaux is not necessarily correct about the ethics of trade.  In a recent letter, for example, he wrote that individuals have a right to buy goods and services from whomever they want, at whatever price they want.  Therefore, he went on to say, it is unethical for the government or Donald Trump to tell them what they can do with their money.  He uses an analogy of a neighbor pointing a gun to your head and telling you that you have to hire his son to cut your lawn instead of using a lawn service across town.  (The letter is reprinted at the end of this commentary.)

Of course a next-door neighbor isn’t a nation state, or a democratically-elected government, or the rule of law.  And economics is not a moral philosophy.  Economics is just one of the social sciences and no more important in understanding human interactions than sociology, psychology, anthropology, and political science.

For a different view of the ethics of trade, consider the cotton trade under slavery, keeping in mind that cotton was a global industry in the nineteenth century that rivaled the oil industry of today in economic importance.

The English bought American cotton produced by slaves, and in the process put tens of thousands of East Indians cotton workers out of work.  Later, New England cotton mills also bought slave cotton, enriching Brahmin families with fortunes that were subsequently passed onto succeeding generations, including some of the current generation of left-liberals who still live on the tainted wealth yet sanctimoniously preach about social justice and fairness.

Was it ethical to buy slave cotton?  Should the British government have stopped cotton merchants from buying it?

Or how about buying rubber from the Belgian Congo during the reign of King Leopold II of Belgium?  Was that ethical? Consider that Belgian colonists inflicted a genocide on natives in the Congo that was worse in sheer numbers than the Holocaust.

Or how about buying goods today from mercantilist China or oil from mercantilist Saudi Arabia?  Does it matter in terms of ethics that neither of these two states is a liberal democracy that protects civil liberties, but both are autocratic states that punish citizens who depart from the party line and social norms?

Or to go back to Boudreaux’s example, how about the ethics of using a lawn service that has a workforce of children kept in chains and flogged mercilessly?

Boudreaux might respond that these aren’t good examples, because his ethical principle is based on perfect competition and total individual freedom, and not on conditions of slavery and genocide—or any other coercion for that matter.  Of course perfect competition is a theoretical construct and not a reality, and individuals don’t live in Galt’s Gulch or some other anarchist fantasyland without any government.

The point is that the ethics of trade is not as black and white as the professor would have us believe.  That’s why volumes have been written on the subject and on moral philosophy in general.

The question of the ethics of trade is further complicated by two other realities.

The first reality is that much trade is conducted by corporations, not individuals.  Take the steel industry.  Individuals don’t buy slab or sheet steel coming out of steel mills; corporations do.

How have corporations done with respect to steel?  Not well.  First, the American steel industry was coldcocked by the rise of the steel industry in mercantilist Japan after the Second World War, when American steel companies had grown fat, lazy complacent and inefficient.   Decades later, the American steel industry was coldcocked again by mercantilist China, which made massive malinvestments in excess steel capacity.  The result was a drop in worldwide steel prices, a gutting of the U.S. steel industry, and the firing of tens of thousands of American steelworkers, who didn’t have much say in the matter.

Economists correctly state that cheaper steel benefits the corporations that buy steel, such as automobile companies.  Likewise, cheaper steel also benefits consumers who buy final products containing steel, such as cars, which would be more expensive if steel were more expensive.  They also say that if other countries want to beggar their own citizens by underpricing steel and other products, that’s good for American consumers, who can import goods at lower prices and spend or invest the savings in more beneficial ways.   No doubt, the same argument was made by the English when they bought cheap cotton produced by American slaves.

This leads to the second reality:  that all trade is not mutually beneficial.  There are winners and losers from some trade, especially trade with mercantilist countries.  In the case of steel, for example, auto buyers have won and steel workers have lost.  Or stated differently, society as a whole has benefited while a segment of society has lost.

But there is a cost to society that is not part of the standard economic calculation.  Taking the steel example again, formerly thriving steel towns are in decay and have seen a plummeting of incomes and a corresponding skyrocketing increase in drug use, divorces, school dropouts, and welfare dependency—all of which are a cost to society at large.  It’s easy to be cavalier about this when one is securely ensconced in George Mason University, which is located near the Imperial City of Washington, D.C.  But it’s impossible for those experiencing the decline firsthand to be cavalier about it.

Which brings us to a final question:  If society has benefited from workers in the steel industry and other industries losing their jobs, doesn’t society have a moral obligation to help these same workers?

Contrary to what Boudreaux seems to think, this is not a question that can be answered by economics.

* * *

Addendum:  Letter from Boudreaux to a Reader

Mr. Eddie Nunez

Mr. Nunez:

Thanks for your e-mail.

You say that while I might be correct that Donald Trump doesn’t understand the economics of trade, I am “out of bounds to write as though it is unethical for our new President to favor additional trade restrictions.”

I disagree for many reasons.  But I’ll here offer only my chief one. Mr. Trump’s ethics tell him that he (or other state officials) have the right to restrict the ways in which I may peacefully spend my own income.  But my income belongs to me; it does not belong to Trump; it does not belong to the government; it does not belong to the country or to ‘the People’; it does not belong to American corporations or to American workers.  It belongs to me and to me alone.  And of course what’s true for my income is true for the income of every other peaceful person.  Yet Trump bellows as if it is not only appropriate, but downright noble, for him to interfere in my and others’ peaceful commercial affairs, conducted with our own incomes, for the sole reason that some of those affairs are with non-Americans.  Such interference is unethical.

You likely doubt me, so let me ask: If your next-door neighbor, Jones, pokes gun at your head to order you to pay to him a fine if you continue to have your lawn mowed by a company located across town rather than by his teenage son, would you not immediately understand such coercion to be unethical?  Of course you would.  Now I challenge you to explain to me how Donald Trump’s actions on the trade front differ in any essential ways from those of this hypothetical Jones.

I can think of no essential difference.  Sure, Trump was elected to a grandiose political office.  So what?  Suppose that a majority of your neighbors vote to empower Jones to threaten you with violence in order to discourage you from buying your lawn-care services from someone outside of your neighborhood: would you then think that Jones’s actions are ethical?  I wouldn’t.

I understand that government has long interfered, and in many different ways, in the peaceful affairs of private citizens, from telling blacks where they could and couldn’t sit on buses to confiscating large chunks of citizens’ incomes for transfer to corn farmers, airplane manufacturers, and other politically powerful groups. I regard all such interference to be unethical.  But because Trump trumpets so loudly and so proudly his promise to interfere in Americans’ commerce with non-Americans – and for no reason other than to enrich some Americans at the expense of other Americans – I focus much of my attention on this particular instance of vile, inexcusable behavior.

Sincerely, Donald J. Boudreaux Professor of Economics and Martha and Nelson Getchell Chair for the Study of Free Market Capitalism at the Mercatus Center George Mason University Fairfax, VA  22030