#I also got in trouble once for writing my answers to a math assignment in Matoran script when I was 7 I think

[zeeamoe]

The Boy That Sits Alone In The Front Row Always Wears A Black Sweater - Part 13

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It was maybe about six… seven years ago.

The girl who stood out in the crowd always got in trouble somehow.

Long hair, taller than average, her uniform sleeves and skirt were folded, and she wears a little bit of makeup that you wouldn’t notice unless you take a good look at her face. It was against the school rules, you see.

She had a pretty face, and was surrounded by people all the time.

At least once a week, she would get in detention.

I had seen her around every now and then, but we were never in the same class, and we hung out in different circles, so we had never interacted.

Until that one time I walked into the detention room.

Clack!

The girl was sitting nicely on the seat right in front of the teacher’s desk, which was empty. Both her arms were on the table, holding a phone, playing some kind of game.

She looked up, then pointed towards me with her thumb.

“Detention, too?”

I was holding a book and a bunch of blank papers.

Holding everything in one hand, I used the other to close the door behind me.

“No, I’m here for a make-up penalty for math class. I failed the test. And then I took the make-up test, but I failed that, too. So, the teacher gave me this penalty to pass the class. I basically just have to copy all the questions and answers in handwriting.”

“Oh, cool. How many questions?”

I inhaled through my teeth.

“120.”

I walked in and took a seat right next to her, and started to set the papers ready.

“Wow, goodluck.”

“Yeah, I’ll be here for a while. He said I can’t leave until I’m done. And if he can’t read my handwriting, I have to do it all over again. Oh, well. So, what are you here for?”

“...Guess.”

As I started on my work, I took a quick glance at her.

The first thing that came to mind was that she probably got dress coded. Because she was known to fold her uniform skirt until it reached her thighs, or sometimes she would wear excessive accessories, or wear a regular t-shirt underneath her uniform only to take off the uniform sometime during the day. 

But right now, she was wearing her uniform properly, with only her sleeves folded once. And there were no other accessories other than her earrings.

“Disrupting class?”

Her group was always the loudest in the cafeteria. And I’ve heard teachers who complain about her asking irrelevant questions or joke around without paying attention, distracting other students.

“Nope.”

Hmm… I often pass her by in the hallways when I go to the bathroom a few times. Not that she was back from the bathroom or anything. Sometimes she would just be sitting on the floor, playing with her phone, or talking with other people.

Without looking her way, I tried my next guess.

“Skipping class?”

“Nope.”

“Being late?”

“Also nope.”

“Playing with your phone during class?”

“Nah.”

Hmm, what else could you get in detention for?

Then, I remembered the one time I got sent to detention. 

“Missing assignments?”

Usually, the teacher would just scold you, but since I did it too many times in that one class, I got sent to detention. 

I heard her go, “Huh?” and I turned my head.

She thought for a bit before continuing.

“I don’t think I’ve ever been sent to detention for that. I didn’t know you could get in detention for that.”

“I did.”

“Ah,” She snickered, “Despite how I look, I’d say I’m pretty much a model student. Did all my assignments and got decent grades.”

“Hoho, lucky you!”

I sarcastically rolled my eyes and continued writing.

I didn’t really pay attention to the guide book or whatever they talked about at the beginning of the school year, and I already forgot most of the rules. Also, I didn’t want to rack my brain to think of what else you could get in trouble for.

So, I started to spew out nonsense.

“Then, cheating?”

“Haha, no.”

“Plagiarism.”

“Nope.”

“Bullying.”

“I don’t bully, alright.”

“I give up then.”

“Hmm.”

Still focusing on my work, I didn’t look at her to see her reaction. I could only hear her nails tapping on the desk. 

“I got sent to detention for using inappropriate language.”

“What?”

“Cursing.”

Holy sh*t. You can get in detention for that? I curse all the time!

I guess I never did it in front of teachers.

“At lunch break, I was walking into class and I dropped my ice cream. I went, ‘Motherfucker’. It wasn’t even loud, but the teacher was right behind me. He was like, ‘Hey, watch your words young lady, that’s detention for you’, so here I am.”

“That’s kind of funny.”

She laughed.

“It is funny. Why would you get sent to detention just for saying one bad word, though. It doesn’t make sense.”

“Yeah! I think you could’ve just argued your way out of it.”

“Nah, I kinda like it here. They’re supposed to watch the students in detention, but I’ve never pulled anything weird whenever I’m here, so after a few times, they just leave for some reason.”

“Is that why you’re playing a game right now? Are you even allowed to do that?”

She was sitting right in front of the teacher’s desk, with her phone right in front of her. She wasn’t even trying to hide it. 

Whoever sent her to detention could walk in any minute and add another hour or something.

But, she just shrugged and calmly answered.

“I don’t think so. But I’m sure they won’t come back to check.”

They won’t? Why not?

That time I was in detention, the teacher was in the room with me the whole time, only going to the bathroom occasionally. Why was no one keeping an eye on this troublemaker?

I asked her.

“Doesn’t that mean you can just leave, then?”

“Haha, yeah actually, I can just leave whenever I want.”

What kind of detention was this?

“So, why aren’t you?”

“Like I said, I like it here.”

“Oh, why? Does it suck at home?”

“Yeah, it sucks.”

I guess she was one of those kids who purposefully avoided going home early. But couldn’t she have done other things like going with her friends somewhere?

Why detention?

I ignored my thoughts and randomly responded.

“I kinda get it. I hate coming home after frying my brain and having to do all these chores and errands-”

“Ugh, yes! I hate doing errands! I just got home, and for some reason I had to go out again? At least let me lay down for a bit!”

I didn’t expect her to cut me off and went on a rant. Anyway, I matched her energy for some reason.

“Right?! I feel the same way! Alright, great then. Stick with me here until I’m done. I just got to question number 8 and I’m bored already. If you’re not here to talk to me, I might go crazy.”

She plopped her phone down on the desk and stretched out her arms and legs.

And after yawning widely, she replied.

“Sure. You wanna get corn dogs after this?”

“Ooh! Yes.”

And from then on, I would find myself going to the detention room after classes to hang out with her. 

At the time, she talked as any normal teenage girl would about her family situation. So when she said her house sucked, I didn’t think much about it.

I didn’t know how bad it actually was for her.

One time, she didn’t come to school because she was sick, and I got the idea to visit her.

I came over to her house bringing warm porridge and herbal tea that my mom made.

When I got there, the one who greeted me was her mother, who looked just like her. They were both pretty. And she had this same fierce look on her face that made her seem like… a b*tch.

She didn’t smile once as I talked to her. 

“Are you her friend?” she asked.

It was a friendly tone, but the stern face threw me off.

If there was anything I learned about socializing with someone’s parents was that they’re very nosy about what their kids do in school, who they hung out with, what they were like. So, I blabbed about anything.

“Yes, ma’am. I brought some porridge and tea if that’s okay. My mom made them. Oh, I also got some notes from school that she might have missed today. I got it from her classmate.”

Yet, she seemed to be the type that wasn’t curious and minded her own business.

She opened the door and led me into the house as I talked.

“Oh, how nice of you. She’s in her room. It’s upstairs, the furthest door to the left.”

“Thank you! Excuse me,” I said as I walked in.

Once I was inside, there was a smell of smoke and I caught a glance of an ashtray on the table. It was filled with a bunch of cigarettes.

There was no one else in the house, so it was obvious that she was the one who had just been smoking.

I had nothing against people who smoke at that time. I thought they were cool, as were the thoughts of a middle-schooler. But even then, It was a bit odd for me.

Why would you smoke in the house when your daughter is sick?

I could still smell them even after climbing up the stairs. It was so strong that I had to hold back a cough, because I thought I might offend her. Thinking back, I should have just coughed.

She didn’t say anything else, so I just helped myself to get to my friend’s room.

There was a hoarse, but a rather enthusiastic voice saying, “Come in!” after I knocked.

I opened the door to see her sitting up on the bed in a purple pajama with yellow stars, grinning.

“You shouldn’t have come. It’s really nothing serious. I’ll probably go back to school tomorrow.”

She said that in the scratchiest voice I’ve heard her talk.

I closed the door and rolled my eyes.

“What are you talking about? You texted me that you had the worst f*cking headache and that you could barely walk. Why are you acting all fine right now?”

“Ehem. I was obviously exaggerating.”

She dropped back in bed.

“My mom made you porridge and tea.”

“Oh, send thanks to your mom!”

“Yeah,”

I sat down on a chair and started to unpack the food, all while looking around her room.

It was filled with band posters and merch, her shelves had magazines and books. Not academic ones, but novels and comics. On her desk, aside from the messy notebooks in the middle, shoved to the corner were a bunch of cosmetics and nail polish.

I served the porridge to her as she got up from her bed again.

“How the hell can you have all this stuff? I mean, look- what’s this… comic? Do you even read all this? Where’d you get all these posters? My mom would nag all day even if I asked to buy just one of these things. ‘What do you even need it for? Do you know how much it costs? What's the point? Why not buy something useful, focus on your studies first! Don’t go around buying useless stuff!’ yada yada yada.”

Taking a spoonful of porridge into her mouth, she just shrugged.

“My mom lets me buy whatever… Well, she actually gives me money for errands and stuff, and if there were some money left, she said I could take it for myself.”

Isn’t this what they call embezzlement?

“All of these just from leftover errands money? Either you lie and steal from your mom, or your mom is very generous. What kind of errands she made you do to make you afford all this? My leftover errands money would just be enough for a can of soda and some snacks.”

I picked up a fashion magazine.

The cover was of a tall, blonde model wearing a bright red bikini.

I showed her the magazine and gave her the most unimpressed face.

“Does she know you buy this kind of thing with the money? Does your dad know?”

“Wha ar yu, ma der mam?”

“Finish chewing first.”

She gulped down what she was chewing.

“I said, ‘what are you? My other mom?’ Shut up.”

“No, I’m just jealous that you get to buy all of this, while my mom would yell, ‘What for?!’ for just asking. So, she does nag you about it?”

“Nah, she doesn’t care. By the way, you see that poster over there? Over the right shelf? Yeah, do you know that band? They’re going on tour soon, come with me to their concert!”

“Oh really, how much are the tickets?”

At that time, I didn’t realize that she was trying to change the subject. 

It was almost always the case whenever I mentioned her mom. It wasn’t that much different when I asked about her dad, but it felt like she was more willing to talk about him.

I never really visited her place that much. Because she would always suggest going somewhere else to avoid hanging out at her house.

‘My place sucks. Why do you even want to go there?’

‘Ugh, there’s nothing at home, let’s just go to this cafe…’

‘We literally can only hang out in my room, it’s too cramped. Let’s just go to your place!’

I was starting to interpret that by saying, ‘my house sucks’, she actually meant, ‘I can’t stand being at home’.

She had a younger sister, but they weren’t that close, both in age and in general. It seemed that her sister was more tolerant of their house. I also noticed that her sister didn’t have a variation of things like she did. Was she assigned different kinds of errands? Or maybe she was just better with money.

In any case, I learned from our friendship that she didn’t like to talk about her family, or going home. So, I tried my best not to bring up those topics.

We became close as time went by, and we started to share a circle of friends. We would hang out after school or go out on the weekends.

And there was this weird thing that happened every once in a while.

We would always go together when we went out, but more often than not, she would go home separately or earlier than the rest of us.

One time, about five of us went to a cafe afterschool. We ordered drinks and did our homework for a few hours. The plan was to go to karaoke once we were done.

But, then.

TRRRRRRINGGGGGG!!!

“What the hell.”

“A fire alarm?”

“An emergency?”

She silently reached her hand out and flipped her phone over to turn it off.

I gave her a look.

“Why do you have an alarm at… 5:42?”

She was typing something on her phone and replied to me nonchalantly.

“It’s not an alarm. It’s my ringtone.”

“Why the f*ck do you have an alarm sound as your ringtone?”

“I gotta go, guys!”

She grabbed her notebook and her bag, and was about to leave.

“What? We haven’t even had dinner yet.”

“What about karaoke?”

“Did something happen?”

She only waved her hand and explained shortly.

“I got some errands to do. I’ll see you guys tomorrow!”

And she left.

I thought maybe something urgent came up, like someone in her family got sick and she was asked to buy medicine. Or something essential ran out in her house and they asked her to get it while she was out.

But, I noticed that she never seemed to answer her phone calls around us. It could have been out of politeness, but it was more like she was avoiding answering it when we’re around.

There was a time when we were in a car going somewhere, and her phone rang in the middle of the ride.

TRRRRRRINGGGGGG!!!

“God, that scared me.”

“Are you ever going to change that ringtone?”

She didn’t even take a second to look at her phone screen before turning off the call. Then, she started texting as she spoke.

“What? It’s helpful when I lose my phone, I can just ask someone to call it and I’ll know where it is.”

“Yeah, but it’s not like you lose it all the time. Isn’t it annoying to hear that every time you get a call?”

And not long after, her phone rang again.

TRRRRRRINGGGGGG-

“Geez!”

“Ugh!”

“Tch,” she frowned and clicked something, and the ringing turned into buzzing.

She had set her phone on vibrate and started texting again after turning off the call.

Then, the sound of buzzing came on, followed by a tired sigh.

“Aren’t you going to answer that?”

“Yeah, seems important if they call you that many times.”

I was sitting on the front seat, while she sat in the back with two others. I couldn’t really see her expression back there, but I could tell from the way she sighed that she was reluctant to answer the call.

It wasn’t like she could step out for some privacy since we were still driving, and there was no place to stop by.

Either she answered the phone right then, or waited until we got off.

But whoever was calling seemed impatient.

“Yeah.”

She picked up the call.

For a split second, I could hear a woman’s voice yelling from the phone call. I couldn’t make out what she was saying, but the fact that I could hear from where I was showed how loud she was.

“Mm. Yeah.”

She only gave short replies.

You know the kind of replies you give to your parents when they nag you and repeat the same thing over and over again? The one where you’d get annoyed and answer them like, ‘Yeah, I know. Yes, mom.’ That kind.

That wasn’t what she sounded like.

It was more than just being annoyed. There was some kind of hatred in her tone.

Also, I expected the call to last for a little longer if her mom was scolding her for something. Yet, it lasted less than ten seconds. 

After the call ended, she sounded as if her energy had been sucked dry.

“Hey, I gotta go back once we get off.”

All of us assumed she was scolded for something and was asked to come home.

“Awww, why?”

“Should we cancel our plans today?”

“That’s okay. We’ll hang out next time.”

I felt that something was off, so I asked to be sure. 

“Everything’s alright?”

“Yeah, it’s fine.”

She waved her hand and laughed it off.

The next day, I met her in the hallway after she got sent out by a teacher.

She was just standing, playing with her phone, with a bored expression on her face… Actually, it looked a bit like she was pissed off as well.

Before I could call out to her, she looked my way first.

“Oh, hey!”

“Ay, I was about to call you. What’s up? Why are you here? You got sent out?”

“Yup. Which is great. Class was boring anyway.”

“What for?”

She pointed at her face and rolled her eyes.

“Got caught wearing makeup. She sent me out to wash it off. Of course, I will not do so and stay here until class ends.”

At that point, I had already walked closer to her, and I could see her face up close. Sure enough, her makeup was a lot more noticeable than what she usually put on.

“Ahaha! Wouldn’t you just get sent out in the next class anyway?”

“Then, I guess I’ll skip that, too.”

Weird. It wasn’t like she enjoyed purposely getting out of class. She only aimed to get in detention. Other than that, she was surprisingly quite diligent.

I unintentionally paid attention to her face since she pointed out her makeup. There was a tiny bit of puffiness around her eyes.

Had she been crying? Is that why she wore more makeup than usual?

I wanted to ask, but she obviously didn’t want anyone to notice. Hence, the makeup.

Something must have happened the day before.

“Hey, um. What happened yesterday?”

“Hm? Oh, that? Ha, it’s nothing, just some more errands.”

I guess she hadn’t come up with a lie yet.

“It seemed to be more urgent than just errands.”

“That’s… because I was supposed to get some things the day before, but I forgot. So, my mom got mad. She also has a temper.”

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, this happens from time to time.”

“Hmm, alright. You know, if you need any help with your errands, just tell me. I can come with you, or remind you.”

“Sure, thanks.”

I nodded before leaving her in the hallway to continue my journey to the bathroom.

I only noticed a few things off after I left.

Because I was too focused on feeling bad. How bad was her mother’s temper to get mad over forgotten errands? To the point that she was crying.

And what is it that she had to do that was so urgent that she had to leave immediately everytime she got a call?

In fact, didn’t she just tell another lie?

From what I know, she’d do her errands immediately the moment she got a call. And there was no way she could miss it, considering how f*cking loud her ringtone was. If that was the case, then it was a lie that she forgot.

Did she really get scolded? What did she even do?

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[mechafizz]

Adding onto the the above, I remember the bio/kio/mio units of distance from the 2001 Mata Nui island map legends and how confounded I was by their otherwise irrelevance in all subsequent materials and lore. One thing I can’t find source for is if the system is native to the MU or was the system used by the Great Beings and other peoples of Spherus Magna.

We apparently know the Great Sundial was a product of the Great Beings and reflects the 36 hour day/night cycle of Spherus Magna (which was apparently also built into the MU?). We can also observe that the Great Sundial’s markings are enumerated in base 10 in the Matoran script, for what that’s worth. But if I recall correctly, the canonicity of the 36 hour day was a late addition, and the design of the sundial itself---like the Great Telescope---is likely a product of Templar Studios. Not to mention the sundial’s only appearance before 2008 was in the MNOG, where its only function was as a gate to access a room containing the code word for entry to a sweepstakes. This room was unlocked when its gnomon’s shadow was cast on 4 o’clock, so an argument could be made that the enumerations were again “translated” for an audience that used base 10.

Beyond the graphemes themselves at face value, this leaves the bio/kio/mio units as the only explicit instance of evidence supporting Matoran use of base 10. However, if we knew these units originated from Spherus Magnan society or the Great Beings, we could, in conjunction with the sundial and telescope, be able to assert a precedent for “things originated by the Great Beings use base 10″.

Otherwise, I agree that the more nuanced characteristics of the numeric graphemes alongside the frequency with which 6 occurs in Matoran society and culture all suggest a heximal system. The MNOG II gives us the 6 Principles the Mata Nui Matoran derived from the Three Virtues, and the 6 Kohlii skills they subsequently derived from those Principles. The tendency for MU beings, not just Matoran and Toa, to organize themselves into groups of 6 also seems in some way significant.

Honestly, the Matoran numeral system has been something I’ve been lowkey obsessed with since first encountering it as a child in 2001. Even then, before I had any knowledge of numeric bases, I recognized the pattern and felt the Matoran numerals looked “incomplete”. I recall I even played sorts of number games with myself in which I’d render 10 and 11 as the “missing” graphemes in the Matoran system. I even experimented with expanding the system by adding another inner ring or an outer ring for 12-17, realized it quickly became illegible and decided they were better written with two digits, accidentally “discovering” duodecimal without knowing that was what I had done.

It’s a shame that enough time has now passed that it would probably be an improbable challenge to track down the human who originally designed the Matoran alphabet and numerals to ask them what their design intent was---if they had intended for a heximal or duodecimal system, or if they just thought it important that 6 “look” significant for thematic reasons---provided they even remember at all.

Question.

Would Matoran use base 6 number systems?

[gukyi]

the love project | jjk

summary: from running to mcdonald’s at 3am after a halloween party where the two of you dressed up as the teletubbies to timing how long it takes for him to drink a cup of monster mixed with mountain dew and iced coffee and then do fifty push-ups, you’re used to your best friend jungkook asking you to do all sorts of crazy things. but, of all the shit the two of you do, letting him follow you around for a week with a camera and take candid photos of you for a photography assignment might just be the craziest of them all.

{college!au, friends to lovers!au}

pairing: jeon jungkook x female reader genre: fluff, comedy word count: 12k warnings: college antics, hopeless pining, slow burn a/n: me: this fic will be 10k max! also me: actually nevermind on par for the course of this blog, i hope you enjoy this fic! it was so much fun to write and it definitely got me back into the ~writing mood~. more fics coming soon!

These days, the weeks pass you by like trains on a platform. They whiz past you, the only discernible features being the beginning and the end of them, with the middle nothing but a blur. 

At least, that’s how it feels when you’re in college, and the days bleed into weeks bleed into months, and suddenly you’re one year closer to graduating, one year closer to figuring out what next to do with your life, even if you’re still missing that one general education requirement you forgot to take in your first year so now you’re trying to cram it into your schedule at the last minute.

Okay, you’ll admit it. Introduction to Astronomy is kicking your ass. That’s what you get for putting it off until junior year, when you’re supposed to have reached the point in your History major career where you don’t have to look at numbers anymore and the idea of doing basic math is absolutely unfathomable. History majors don’t do math. They just don’t. It vanished from your academic arsenal long before now, alongside your ability to interpret word problems and understand science textbooks. 

Perhaps in another universe, you would have actually retained those skills past high school, but that universe is not this one, and so your problem sets can solve themselves or not be solved at all. 

Your best friend would have to disagree.

“It’s not even calculus!” Jungkook exclaims over a mouthful of a Starbucks tomato and pesto panini, pointing to your laptop in exasperation, as if the answer has been staring you in the face for the past fifteen minutes. “It’s just algebra! All you’re doing is plugging the numbers into the formula and finding the missing variable!”

“Easy for you to say,” you huff, furiously erasing at the notebook in front of you as you get yet another incorrect answer. Who knew math could be so difficult? Oh, that’s right. You did. “You took that advanced differential equations class for fun last year. It’s not even required for your major. You’re just a masochist.”

“Says the person who convinced their advisor to let them take seven classes because they, and I quote, ‘all seemed so interesting’ and you ‘didn’t want to miss out.’” Jungkook rebukes pointedly. “Because your life would be so terrible if you didn’t take Economic History of Pre-Industrialized Europe.”

He’s got you there. Seven classes is a lot. In your defense, Economic History of Pre-Industrialized Europe was very interesting and you got a 4.0 that semester. So who is he to judge? Jungkook’s favorite pastime is pretending that taking three different computer science classes in a single semester isn’t going to single-handedly kill him.

Jungkook watches you struggle for a few moments more before he sighs, like he can’t take looking at someone so mathematically incompetent any longer. He stuffs the remaining third of his Starbucks panini into his mouth all at once like the ravenous beast he is before he reaches over the tiny table you’re sat at to look at your problem set himself. He turns your laptop towards him and grabs hold of your notebook, furrowing his eyebrows as he enters Work Jungkook Mode. 

Work Jungkook Mode is the mode of him you see most often during finals week or the rare occasions where you meet up to actually try and get work done. Work Jungkook has tunnel vision for whatever assignment is currently in front of him, which he will do either in one sitting or die trying. Work Jungkook lets his coffee get cold and forgets to answer your text messages, even when you’re sat right across from him and you know that he can see the notification on his laptop. Work Jungkook refuses to turn in anything that he hasn’t devoted his entire being to, even if it’s something as simple as a discussion board post. Some of his other friends say that when Jungkook is in Work Jungkook Mode, they won’t even try to contact him, lest their messages get lost in the flurry of his coding assignments. 

But you are not “some of his other friends.” You are his best friend. So rules do not apply to you. And Jungkook has long accepted that fact.

“Hey, don’t mess up my work—” You exclaim defensively, grabby hands reaching over the table to retrieve your notebook. “Wait, how did you do that?”

Jungkook scribbles something down in nearly-illegible font, determined to solve the problem in front of him. He thinks for a few more seconds before eventually jotting down an answer, circling it with his pencil. Holding the notebook out so both of you can see, he scoots his chair over to your side of the table, your shoulders pressed together in this tiny corner of the Starbucks, right by the bathroom, and explains, step by step, what he did. 

He does that for the following two problems in your set, walking you through the kind of math he was doing in freshman year of high school like it’s nothing, answering all of your stupid questions and giving you tips on how to finesse the system by taking as many shortcuts as possible. Teaching you things you never learned, or possibly had just forgotten. Things that a professor would think is idiotic to re-teach to a junior in university. Things that Jungkook wants you to know because he just wants you to have a little more faith in yourself. 

“Does that help?” He asks when he’s finished, still doubting his fantastic teaching abilities despite the fact that he just taught you more in the last thirty minutes than your professor has managed in a month and a half. 

“It actually does,” you tell him, pleasantly surprised. Looking back down at your notebook, what was once a shapeless blur of numbers, letters, and formulas is suddenly a clear and organized outline of each and every step to follow. “I didn’t know it was that easy.”

“Anything can be easy if you just commit yourself to learning how to do it,” Jungkook says, one of those random sentences that are too wise for a college student surviving off of RedBull and Starbucks food, the ones that always make you think Jungkook is secretly an immortal sage with life experiences far beyond your own. “Except coding. Which is hard no matter how good you are at it.”

“Aw, you can do it,” you rally, reaching up to pinch his chin in between your fingers and squeeze it tight. “It’s also too late to change your major now, so you’re stuck.”

“Wow, thanks for the encouragement,” Jungkook chides, hand coming up to rub at where you held his jaw, rolling his eyes. “You should let me help you with your Astronomy work more often. Gives me a break from Python.”

“I would have made you help me whether you liked it or not,” you tell him pointedly, because he is your best friend and he doesn’t get out of things as easily as he thinks he can. “But thanks. I’ll definitely take you up on that.”

“Of course,” Jungkook says with a good-natured grin, always so selfless and kind and giving. He practically signed himself up for a semester’s worth of TA-ing for Introduction to Astronomy despite the constant mountain of work he has himself. Just because it’s you. 

“My very own personal genius,” you muse, wrapping your hands around his arm and snuggling into his body, a whisper of a language only the two of you share. It’s something the two of you have long gotten used to, pressing your fingers all over each other’s bodies like it’s second nature. One of the things that makes you feel so certain about having Jungkook in your life. About wanting him to stay with you for the rest of time. “I’m never letting you go.”

Jungkook smiles, a warm hand coming to rest atop of your own. He breathes, in and out, chest rising beneath your touch. “Like I’d ever let you,” he says.

There is no question about it. Jungkook is one hundred percent, absolutely, undoubtedly, positively, indisputably smarter than you are. It’s something that the two of you used to jokingly fight about (because Jungkook claims that he’s a bad essay writer, even though he’s not), but at this point it’s cemented in stone—he’s a damn genius. A genius who is inexplicably good at everything. A double threat. Triple, if you count the fact that he’s built beyond belief and could probably chuck you into next week if you really, really ticked him off. 

The truth is that, ninety percent of the time it is you who is going to Jungkook for help. Whether it be an assignment you need assistance on (namely Astronomy, because Jungkook probably couldn’t help you on your Mesopotamian artifact and primary source analyses despite his best intentions), a date that was a lot worse than you were hoping it would be, or even just the right coffee to order from that expensive place on the corner. Jungkook knows how to fix everything. 

So when Jungkook slides into the seat across from you in the food court after his Mastering Photography class with that I’m in trouble look on his face, you know something is horribly wrong. 

“Are you alright?” You ask, concerned as you watch him devour the sushi takeout in front of him, stuffing the spicy tuna rolls into his mouth like they’re Skittles. His camera hangs haphazardly out of his open backpack, like he barely had enough time to stuff it into the pocket while he was making his way here. There’s a worried expression written all over his face as he fumbles with the chopsticks in his hand, losing his grip on them every ten seconds. 

It’s not until Jungkook has finished the container of spicy tuna rolls in front of them that he finally seems to work up the courage to answer you. 

“My Photography class is gonna be the death of me,” Jungkook exclaims, exasperated. 

“I thought you liked it,” you comment unhelpfully. Jungkook had been so excited to be enrolled in it, because you needed a recommendation from a different professor and you had to submit a portfolio in order to join the class, making it one of those exclusive (and thus, much better) courses. Not to mention the fact that Jungkook is basically already a professional photographer if his Instagram is anything to go by. He’s going to walk out of university with a Photography minor whether he realizes it or not.

“I do,” Jungkook insists, even if right now it sounds like the two of you both need convincing of that fact. “But this project is ridiculous. I don’t even know how my professor expects us to have the time to finish it.”

“What do you have to do?”

Jungkook sighs. Just thinking about it seems to stress him out. “I mean, it’s only really a week long. So I guess it’s not too bad. But we’re supposed to compile a portfolio of the same subject, taken over the course of the week, with them in all sorts of different poses and lighting and locations, to express a personal theme.”

You scrunch your nose up in confusion. “I might be wrong, but isn’t that what photography… is?” You ask cluelessly. 

“Yes,” Jungkook argues, “but also no. Photography is taking pictures of things just for the hell of it. Not because they necessarily speak to a part of your soul. You just like the look of it. You want to capture the scene. That’s it.”

“Oh,” You say dumbly. 

“And our subject can be whoever or whatever we want, but he recommended choosing a person because taking pictures of our water bottles in different places is boring,” Jungkook huffs, though his professor does have a point there. Modern history wasn’t made out of photographs of store windows and miscellaneous items. It was made out of people, out of events in their lives that shaped the rest of the world, out of personal experiences that changed their point of view. “But I don’t even know anybody who would be willing to let me photograph them for a whole week! I’d basically have to follow them around like paparazzi!”

“I’ll do it,” you suggest casually, because it seems like the most obvious choice to you. There’s no one Jungkook spends as much time with as you. 

Jungkook’s eyes pop out of his head. “What?”

“I’m serious,” you insist. “Think about it. You need a subject for your project that you can photograph in a wide variety of places and over the course of a week. Who else do you spend that much time with, other than me?”

“Well..” Jungkook begins, trying to fight your reasons with his own. “Would you even be comfortable with something like that? I mean, I’m literally going to constantly be taking photos of you.”

“Like we don’t already do that on our phones,” you tease, having amassed quite the album of terrible Jungkook pictures over the years. 

“A camera is different from a phone,” Jungkook protests weakly. 

“Yeah, yeah, I know. But I’m just saying. It won’t bother me,” you say with a shrug. Why is Jungkook being so… weird about your suggestion? You thought he would be jumping at the offer, especially considering it means he won’t have to go out of his way to find and photograph someone else for this assignment. But he’s being rather hesitant. You watch as he glares down at his empty sushi takeout box, eyebrows furrowed in that thick, nervous way. “But you don’t have to,” you backtrack. “It was just a suggestion.”

He breathes in and breathes out, expression solid. Even from here you can see the cogs whirring in his brain, placing each and every potential result into a pro and con list inside his mind, trying to work out whether the benefits will be greater than the cost. 

Quite frankly, you don’t know what all the holdup is about. 

“You’re… sure about this?” He asks, looking up at you, determined to ensure your comfort. As if that’s even an issue. “You’re cool with being photographed and everything?”

“Only because it’s you,” you tease lightheartedly, expecting some sort of equally cheesy response. Instead, it makes Jungkook do something weird. He freezes in place, darting his eyes away from your gaze for a split second, collecting thoughts you can’t see. “Yeah,” you say loudly, trying to bring him back. “I’m fine with it.”

He inhales, exhales, closes his eyes, and opens them. “Okay then. I guess it’s settled. You’ll be my subject,” he declares, an almost unnoticeable wobble to his voice. It’s probably nothing, so you don’t think too hard about it.

“Can you at least pretend to be a little more excited about this?” You ask, jabbing him in the chest with a wooden chopstick. “It’s the first time we’ve ever gotten to be part of a project together!”

“Yay,” Jungkook says, lifeless. 

“How about a photo to commemorate it?” You suggest, reaching over to pull the camera out of his backpack, pushing it into his hands. “This can be the start of your portfolio.”

“Fine,” he eventually caves, bringing it up to his eye as he turns it on, twisting the lens to perfect the focus. Even caught off guard like this, he looks like a professional, like someone who was born to be behind the camera. He’s a computer science major but you know that photography will always be something special to him.

You strike a dramatic pose, holding your chopsticks out, one in each hand, with a wide, excited smile on your face. “How do I look?” You ask, scrunching your eyes together. 

Jungkook’s finger hovers over the silver button. “Perfect,” he tells you, voice soft and honest. 

Click.

“So, how many photos are you supposed to take for this portfolio?” You ask as you flop around on Jungkook’s bed, pretending that the open tab on your laptop with your fifty-page reading doesn’t exist. You don’t even know why professors assign readings that long. Do they really expect you to read all of it?

From across his room, you can make out the top of Jungkook’s fluffy brown hair over his sleek gaming chair, one of the ones that look like high-tech airplane seats. “I don’t know,” he says. “He said at least twenty. And no more than fifty. Which really makes me wonder if someone once submitted like, one hundred photos for this project that he had to grade them on. But yeah.”

“That doesn’t sound too bad,” you say. When you’re around a cute animal, you can easily take twenty photographs. Granted, they aren’t exactly award-worthy photographs, but it’s not a physically demanding task. 

“Yeah,” Jungkook says. “Hypothetically you could finish it in a day. But it looks really obvious.”

“Well, how many do you have now?”

It’s been a day and a half since Jungkook agreed to let you be his so-called muse, but already you’ve lost track of how many photos he’s taken of you. He loves his camera, you know that, but you didn’t realize exactly how much he loves his camera. And with you as the sole subject for his project, he’s practically letting it hang from his neck all day long, just waiting for the right time to snap a photo of you standing in line at the food court, frowning at your textbook, or waiting to meet up with him. Every time he sees you he snaps a picture, even if the lighting’s bad, even if you haven’t had your morning coffee yet, even if it’s midnight and you look like a zombie. In his mind, there are no bad pictures. Just memories.

You wonder what the hell he sees in you. 

“A lot,” Jungkook answers unhelpfully, making no effort to elaborate on that statement. 

“Have you counted?” You ask, getting off of his bed to join him at his desk. 

Jungkook doesn’t seem to realize what you’re doing until you’re standing right next to him, placing a hand over his shoulders as you lean down next to him. He fumbles around for a second, the mouse slipping through his grip, and you catch a glimpse of one of the photos he’s taken of you, a sliver of your pursed lips, the wrinkles between your eyebrows. 

It’s from the library yesterday. You didn’t even know Jungkook had taken a picture of you there. You had a stupid reading to complete last night, one that made no sense and was terribly-written, and you spent an hour just trying to figure out what the damn argument was, and Jungkook captured it. You were there for an hour and Jungkook was there too, watching you like it was nothing, waiting for the perfect moment. He was there, sitting across from you, camera at the ready. You didn’t even hear it click. 

He closes it before you get a closer look at the photo, frantically hitting the little red dot at the top corner of the window before you have a chance to ask why. 

“What, I’m not allowed to see?” You chide, a little bit hurt but more confused than anything else. Why is Jungkook being so secretive?

“No,” Jungkook spits quickly. making you raise an eyebrow in alarm. “I mean, it’s a surprise. You get to see when it’s finished. I still have to… uh, edit. And stuff.”

“Edit? You think I’m that ugly?” You tease, knowing that he probably means color correction but enjoying the way that he gets all flustered when he hears your voice.

Jungkook’s eyes widen at that, like he just realized he made a wrong turn and is desperately backtracking. “What, no! I don’t—I don’t think you’re ugly.”

You laugh, letting the sound of your voice ease the tension in his shoulders, reveling in the way his big doe eyes seem to soften when he realizes you were just teasing. He looks like a kid caught stealing a candy bar from a gas station, looks like one of those boyfriends in the viral videos where the girl reveals that she got him a present or something instead, all nervous and full of explanations. 

“I’m kidding, I’m kidding,” you assure him, rubbing up and down his arm to soothe him, calm his heart down. “You don’t have to show me. I’m just excited. No one’s ever taken photos of me like this before.”

“I would,” Jungkook speaks up softly. “If you asked. I would.”

“I know,” You say. You’re not sure if there’s a thing in this world Jungkook wouldn’t do for you, and you, him. If he asked, you would pluck the stars from the sky for him. Bring him back a piece of the moon. Stop time. Anything. Everything. Just for him. “I know.”

 “What are you doing?” Jungkook asks, changing the topic as he whirls around in his gaming chair. 

“Just another reading, like always,” you dismiss, because you’re positive the last thing Jungkook wants to hear about right now is your primary source reading on irrigation techniques in agrarian Europe. You don’t even want to hear about it. “But I could use some help on Astronomy.”

Without another word, Jungkook gets up from his desk and the two of you head over to his bed, where an untouched problem set waits on your computer. He grabs a notebook from his backpack along the way before sitting down next to you on the edge of his bed, bodies pressed together. Slowly, he begins to coach you through each problem, step by step, drawing pictures and diagrams if he has to, until you finish all ten problems. 

The truth is, you didn’t really need help with this unit. Astronomy’s gotten a lot easier now that Jungkook has taught you the strategies to tackle it. But Jungkook sometimes feels like a ghost when he works, especially when he’s sitting at his desk, quiet and focused and almost invisible. And call you clingy, but you like it when you can look up and see his face instead of the back of a chair, a little tuft of wavy brown hair. You like it when he’s right beside you, in a place where you know you won’t lose him, where you can hold on if things get rough. Where you can see his stupid brown eyes and his goofy smile and know that he’ll always be there for you. 

When he’s finished, Jungkook doesn’t get back up to sit at his desk. He flops down on his back, staring up at the white ceiling of his room, eyes tracing the cracks. You join him, side by side, pretending that there’s something there. Looking up at the sky would be nicer, but it doesn’t really matter, so long as you’re with him.

“I didn’t know you took so many photos,” you say.

“I never want to miss anything.”

“You should give me more warnings, next time. I feel like I look so ugly in some of them.”

“No, you don’t. Don’t say stuff like that.”

“You don’t think I’m ugly?” You ask him, for real this time. It’s not that you think he’s going to say that he does, it’s that you want to know what he really thinks. How he really sees you. You turn your head to him, back pressed against his comforter, barely a foot apart. And he turns back to you, and he’s right there, right there in front of you, big brown eyes wide and blinking. He’s right there, how could you miss him?

“No,” Jungkook says, honest and true. He looks at you, looks right at you, right into you, and he muses to himself, chuckling. “Why would I ever think that?”

At the end of the day, you can’t really be bothered to put on real pants in anticipation of Jungkook’s trigger-happy camera-taking tendencies. He’s seen you spill a boiling hot bowl of tomato soup all over yourself in the dining hall. He’s seen you at four in the morning in the library the night before finals begin, eyebags down to your knees and mismatched shoes on your feet. He’s seen you in the middle of a frat house, sweat dripping down your forehead and smelling of nothing but straight alcohol. Getting dressed up just for him would be antithetical to the very foundation of your friendship. 

You have, however, become keenly more cognizant in the last few days of when Jungkook is about to take a photo of you. Mostly because you glance up at your surroundings every three seconds to make sure you aren’t getting sniped from across the food court. Nobody else needs to see a picture of you picking up three pieces of sushi with your chopsticks and stuffing them all into your mouth at once. And, from what you can tell, you’ve been pretty successful, which either means you’ve gotten better at telling when Jungkook might be taking a photo of you, or Jungkook’s gotten better at hiding it. 

Either way, he’s got a lot more pictures of you reflexively flashing a peace-sign in his direction when you hear the telltale sound of his camera lens focusing, so you’re not really sure what that means for the fate of his portfolio. 

Besides your newfound hyper-awareness of the sound of a camera lens adjusting, the strangest part of you and Jungkook’s little project is how quickly the rest of your friends adjusted to this brand new dynamic. 

This is not to say this assignment is the weirdest thing you and Jungkook have done together, because there was once one week where you and Jungkook challenged each other to only eat bananas for every meal to see if anything would happen to either of you. Nothing did, but after that week you swore off bananas for the rest of your life and have had little appetite for them since. 

It’s more that your other friends have just accepted the fact that ridiculous, extravagant shenanigans are a necessary part of you and Jungkook’s relationship and have simply chosen not to question them anymore. At least, most of them have. 

“So, how’s you and Jungkook’s little photography fling going?” Maisie asks, and even through the phone you can hear the way she’s wiggling her eyebrows. 

“It’s not a fling, and it’s fine,” you hiss back, trying to keep your voice down as you pack up your belongings, phone pressed between your ear and your shoulder. “Stop speaking so loudly, everyone else in the library can probably hear you.”

“Good, because they’ve all probably noticed the way Jungkook’s been following you around like an unrestrained fanboy for the past four days taking pictures of you,” Maisie says pointedly, voice so sharp it causes you to look around at the other tables to make sure no one’s listening in. 

You frown, hoping your deadpan expression is audible through the phone. “It’s not like that and you know it.”

“Don’t you think it’s even a little strange that you’ve given Jungkook full permission to take photos of you like you’re a model and he’s some sort of weird, professional paparazzi?” You can practically see Maisie’s face in front of you, all wide eyes and raised eyebrows as she makes her point.

“No, it’s what we agreed on,” you remind her for the umpteenth time. There’s nothing weird about this. You’re helping him with a project, what more could it be? “Jungkook needed someone to take pictures of for his photography project and I thought it would be a good idea if I was that someone.”

“Hmm… wonder why…” Maisie trails off, deliberately vague and suggestive all at once. 

“You’ve been going on about this ever since Jungkook and I met, Maise,” you say with a roll of your eyes, tossing your backpack over your shoulder. “You know that Jungkook and I are just friends. Like we have always been.”

“Friends that take candid photos of each other under the guise of a project,” Maisie adds, and you can see the air quotes around the word “project” right in front of you.

“Friends that help each other out because that’s what friends do,” you correct. “You’re just going to have to accept the fact that Jungkook and I are always going to be just friends and nothing more. No matter how much money you’ve bet on us getting together.”

Maisie gasps. “I have not bet money on such a thing! This is slander!”

“Don’t think I don’t see you and Jimin’s damn Venmo history.” You pull up to the front desk of the library to check out a primary source book needed for one of your classes. It’s the first edition, and it’s battered beyond belief, but it’s better than paying for it. “Just this, thanks.”

“The only way you could convince me that you and Jungkook are just friends is if you go on a date or something,” Maisie comments snidely. “I don’t think I’ve seen either of you romantically interested in someone else the entire time you’ve known each other. Isn’t that proof enough?”

“You want me to go on a date with someone?” You demand, determined to get Maisie to hop off your ass about this. 

You and Jungkook are just friends. If swiping right with someone on Tinder and getting dinner and a movie with them is what will convince Maisie of that, then that is what you will do. It’s not as if being friends with Jungkook is mutually exclusive with you going out with other people. Should be easy, right? 

The boy behind the counter tells you your book is due back at the end of the semester, and you nod your thanks before heading out of the library.

“Fine, I’ll go on a date with someone. If it’ll get you to stop trying to convince me that Jungkook and I are gonna get married and have babies,” you declare, pushing your body against the door handles as you leave, five minutes to spare before your next class begins. 

“You guys would have really cute babies, I’m just saying,” Maisie points out like it’s nothing. 

You roll your eyes, taking the phone away from your ear as your finger hovers over the red button. “See you, Maise.”

You’re barely three steps out of the library, still rolling your eyes at the Call Ended screen on your phone when a voice catches your attention. 

“Y/N!”

You turn your head just in time to see Jungkook’s devilish grin disappear behind his camera, and you don’t even have time to blink before he begins snapping away, finger mashing the silver button at the top as your expression morphs from surprise to defeat, unable to counter his sniping abilities with a signature peace sign. Even from twenty feet away, you can hear Jungkook laughing as you take the opportunity to pose for a few moments, like you really are a model and he really is your personal photographer. The sound of his giggles fills the air, music to your ears, lingering between you like dandelion wisps, blown by the wind. 

Another voice breaks you from your trance. 

“And here we have our resident celebrity and her paparazzi,” Jimin says, motioning to the two of you as he speaks to an enormous tour group of potential applicants and their parents. Caught in front of them, the heat suddenly rushes to your cheeks as you instinctively cover your face, embarrassed to have been pointed out by Jimin, whose amicable, lovable personality is both a blessing and a curse when it comes to his part-time job as a tour guide. 

The worst part is how some of the parents and students seem to believe him for a second, that you really are famous and that Jungkook really is your photographer, looking at the two of you inquisitively as you shrink beneath their gazes. 

“I’m kidding,” Jimin quickly continues as Jungkook joins you where you stand, laughing at the way you look like a deer caught in headlights. “They’re just some friends of mine who we happened to catch outside the library, which is our next stop. But don’t they look so cute together?”

“Are you guys dating?” One of the students pipes up, asking what no one else dared to. 

Your eyes widen at the notion, wondering if you and Jungkook really are cursed to always be mistaken for a couple when you two have never been, and most likely will never be one. Shaking your head, you force out a laugh, “No, we’re just friends.” Beside you, Jungkook is noticeably silent. You suppose he’s gotten just as sick of explaining as you. 

“Bummer, right?” Jimin asks his group, earning a couple of disappointed nods from innocent high-schoolers that still believe in love. “But I’m working on that, so don’t worry. Anyway, this library will be your main destination for studying, book-reading, and everything in between, and is conveniently located two minutes away from the freshman dorms…”

The conversation finally drawn away from you and Jungkook, you let out a breath you hadn’t even realized you had been holding in. “Weird, right? Even high-schoolers think we’re together.”

Jungkook doesn’t meet your eyes, fiddling with the settings on his camera just to keep his hands busy. The quiet makes you wonder what is going on up inside his head, makes you wonder what it is he’s thinking about, what it is you’re not seeing. Lately, it’s felt like there’s something on Jungkook’s mind you wish he felt comfortable telling you. 

“Hey, you alright?” You ask, giving him a little nudge with your side. “Did I say something wrong?”

“No,” Jungkook says, voice soft, barely audible. It doesn’t make you feel any better. “No, it’s fine. Don’t worry about it. Don’t you have class soon?”

“Oh, shit, you’re right, fuck,” you say, checking your phone only to find you have barely a minute to get to your next class. Guess you’ll be using one of your allotted absences today. “Thanks for reminding me. Dinner tonight?”

“I’ll text you,” Jungkook promises, and you nod your agreement as you dash off, determined to turn a five-minute walk into a one-minute one with the power of exercise. As you leave, you watch as Jungkook flounders outside the library, staring down at his camera and scrolling through his photos, and you still find yourself feeling like you’re missing something. What is Jungkook not telling you? 

What do you not know?

By the time you reach your class, two minutes late and completely out of breath, tardiness is the last thing on your mind.

This project was just meant to be a friend helping out a friend. So why does it feel like you and Jungkook are losing each other?

Using Tinder is easy. Dangerously so.

You’re no expert in app design, but its simplified “yes or no” mechanic has you swiping through people like it’s an extreme sport, barely giving some of them a second glance if their Tinder profile description doesn’t make you laugh within the first sentence. 

Tinder was, admittedly, not your first choice of potential date-finding methods. Call you old-fashioned, but whatever happened to asking someone in person if they wanted to get a meal with you? To showing up at their doorstep with a rose bouquet and a toothy white grin? Perhaps all of those old-timey movies you and Jungkook always watched have given you unrealistic expectations. But can you blame them? 

Even if Tinder wasn’t your first choice, it was certainly the fastest. It takes a second to look at someone’s designated Tinder thumbnail, two to read their description, and three to decide if they’re worth a swipe right. Compare that to actively meeting up with someone, getting their contact information, and then continuing to dance around each other until you finally decide to get dinner together. That’s the sort of thing that could take weeks. Maybe months. And in some cases, years.

Besides, it’s not like you had very many options at your disposal. You don’t trust Maisie to set you up with someone because she’ll probably just choose one of the many boys from her management class and call it a day. Asking someone yourself is absolutely out of the question. And, for some strange, unknown reason, the idea of getting Jungkook to hook you up with one of his friends just doesn’t sit right with you.

So, Tinder it is. And as it turns out, chivalry isn’t dead. It’s just archaic.

An hour into your mindless swiping, you get a message notification. Two hours after that, you’ve got plans with a nice senior boy whom you’ve never met. 

And for the first time in a very long time, there’s something to mark on your calendar for Saturday night.

The little blue block on your Google Calendar tab stares back at you from where your open laptop sits on your desk, the red line that signifies your current time slowly inching towards it as you fumble around in front of your mirror, more dressed up than you have been in weeks. Maisie was right. It’s been so long since you’ve gone out with someone that you’ve completely forgotten what the dress code is for something like this. A dress? Heels? Makeup?

You don’t want to overshoot it, but part of you thinks you will anyway. What if he’s wearing a hoodie and sweats while you look like you’re about to attend the goddamn Academy Awards? Maybe the eyeshadow was a little too much.

You don’t want to overshoot it, but part of you thinks it’s inevitable that you do. The door to your apartment swings open, and you can hear heavy footsteps making their way to your bedroom, that easy gait of his familiar as always.

“Hey, do you think we can just get some take-out and watch a stupid old noir movie, or something? I’ve had a day,” he shouts out, the sigh audible in his voice.

You don’t want to overshoot it, but part of you thinks you definitely have when you turn around to see Jungkook standing right outside your bedroom in the floppiest sweater you’ve ever seen and jeans with holes in the knees, mouth agape as he stares straight at you. It’s impossible not to notice the way his eyes are blown wide at the sight of you, at the way they rake up and down your figure, like he can’t even believe what he’s seeing. It’s impossible not to notice how he seems to flounder at the sight of you.

The only thing that breaks the both of you out of your stupors, frozen in place like two criminals caught red-handed, is the sound of his hulking black backpack thudding to the floor. 

“Whoa.”

“Do you think it’s too much?” You ask, voice wobbly. God, why are you so nervous? It’s just Jungkook. 

“Too much for what?” Jungkook blinks, deliberate and slow, as if he’s determined to make sure his eyes aren’t deceiving him. “Where are you going?”

“I think we’ll have to do a raincheck for the noir movie and takeout,” you say sheepishly, pursing your lips together in fright as you force out a small, tense smile. “I’m… going out. With someone.”

“Like,” Jungkook begins, and even from here you can hear the way he stops himself, hear him breathe out every word, thick on his tongue. “On a date?”

“Yeah.”

It’s a one-syllable word and yet it takes nearly all of your willpower just to say it. Just to confirm what Jungkook’s already thinking. Just to tell him, your best friend, your ride or die, your number one, that you’re going out on a date. 

“Oh.” Jungkook’s voice is lifeless. “Do I know them?”

“No, uh, it’s just some guy I met on Tinder. I don’t know, I just wanted to see what all the hype was about, I guess. And I haven’t really been on a date in a while, so I figured I might just take up the opportunity, so we’re probably just going to go out to a restaurant and maybe go to a club afterwards if we’re still in the mood, and—” You cut yourself off, so nervous that you’ve resorted to your terrible habit of rambling to try and ease the tension. “Why? Do you think it’s too much?”

“You use Tinder?” Jungkook asks instead. It sounds like he’s shocked to hear this. 

“Yeah…” you trail off. “Why?”

Jungkook freezes at the question, but it’s not because it seems like he doesn’t have an answer. It’s because it seems like he does. Only it’s an answer he doesn’t want to share. 

“Nothing, it’s nothing,” he eventually settles on, shaking his head. “You, uh, you look good.”

“You think? I feel like it’s a lot. I don’t know how to dress appropriately for stuff like this anymore,” you ask, palms sweaty as you furiously straighten out the skirt of your dress. “Should I change into pants, or anything?”

“No, no, I think that’s fine,” Jungkook says with an honest smile. “You look nice like this.”

“It’s probably been like, a year since you last saw me in a dress,” you comment mindlessly, turning back to face the mirror as you fiddle with your makeup, finger wiping away a bit of smudged lipstick or a stray bit of mascara. “I miss my sweats. Hey, whoa, wait, what are you doing—?”

You whip around to find Jungkook slowly fishing out the camera from his backpack, hand gripping it tightly as he brandishes it in front of you. 

“I, um, I just wanted to see if I could maybe take a photo of you,” Jungkook says, a small, little grin decorating his features. “Since you’re all dressed up.”

“Seriously?” You ask in disbelief. 

Jungkook nods, holding the camera out in front of him. “Just one.”

He looks so small, standing across your bedroom. He looks so small and delicate and intimate, body curled in on itself ever so slightly as he looks at you, the yellow glow of your ceiling light reflected in his hazelnut eyes, drowning beneath his clothes. He looks like he has never seen a moment more perfect, never seen an opportunity as clear, looks like he thinks that if he blinks he’ll miss it. 

Looks as if a photo will be the only way to remember it. 

And you nod. Because he is your best friend, and who are you to deny him of something so simple? Of a press of a button? It doesn’t feel like a project anymore. It just feels like a memory. 

Jungkook brings the camera to his eye, and you smile at him, soft and gentle and warm. He grins back, focusing the camera lens before snapping away. 

You wonder what he sees. 

(You wonder if it’s as beautiful as what you see.)

“Have fun tonight, okay?” Jungkook asks of you as your Google Calendar notification sounds, letting you know you have approximately two minutes before he’s supposed to pick you up outside your apartment.

You nod. “I will. And if I don’t, then I’ll come over afterwards. And we can watch that stupid noir film.”

“You don’t have to do that,” Jungkook says with a roll of his eyes, a shrug of his shoulders. 

“But I want to. So I will. Okay? I’ll text you,” you promise. “Don’t think I’ll forget about you.”

Jungkook smiles at your little tease, at the way you cup the side of his jaw with your hand as you head towards your front door. 

“Wait, Y/N,” Jungkook sputters out, running after you. He reaches you right as you get to the door, hand grasping the doorknob. You turn to look at him, blinking. “I hope tonight is everything you dreamed of.”

There is something so distinctly sad in his voice. It makes you wonder who has broken his heart. Makes you wonder what you can do to fix it.

“Even if it’s not,” you say to him, taking his hand in your own and squeezing it tight, reminding him that, no matter what, you’re still here. “I know you’ll always be there to take care of me afterwards.”

Your phone buzzes with a message from your date, and you scurry out the door. 

For some reason, there’s a part of you that wishes you never even left. 

The date is okay. Not bad, but nothing to write home about. By the time you finished eating, it was obvious neither of you had any interest in continuing the night elsewhere, whether it be a club or a karaoke bar. He pays for your meal despite your insistence that you can handle the check perfectly fine on your own, thanks you for a nice night, and drops you right back at your apartment. And so goes your one and only Tinder experience, blowing away like a leaf in the wind. 

You look down at your phone. It isn’t even nine o’clock yet. 

[November 7th, 8:48PM]

You: you still game for that movie?

[November 7th, 8:50PM]

Jungkook: you finished your date already?

You: is that a yes or a no

Jungkook: my door is always open, you know that

You: you’re gonna get robbed one day and it’s gonna be by me You: i’m coming over

The walk from your apartment to Jungkook’s is six minutes and thirty seconds on a good day, and seven minutes and fifteen seconds on a bad day, which is usually dependent on if the traffic light over the main road has decided to be extra slow or not. You could walk the damn route in your sleep if you really wanted, having done it so many times in the last year and a half, ever since he moved out of on-campus housing and into his own place.

Tonight, it takes you nearly eight minutes to get to his apartment, but you mostly chalk that up to the heels you’re wearing. If you cared any less about your dignity, you’d probably take them off and walk barefoot like a defeated heroine in a romance movie, shoes dangling from your fingers as they hang low by your side. 

But you aren’t defeated. You didn’t have the world’s most spectacular date, but the night isn’t over just yet. 

Jungkook’s waiting at his front door by the time you arrive. 

“Eight minutes, huh? You’re getting old,” he asks snidely, looking down at the invisible watch on his wrist. 

“Your counting is just off,” you retort easily, falling into that same friendly rhythm, that familiar little beat that the two of you share. You push past him and into his apartment, instantly feeling more at home, shoulders sinking and heartbeat soothing as you soak in the scent of his room, of his home, of him. 

“How’d it go?” Jungkook asks, eyes hopeful as they watch you tug off your heels. They were hardly three inches tall and yet you still want nothing to do with them. 

You shrug. “Eh. It was okay.”

“Just okay?” Jungkook asks, sounding seriously upset for you. Upset that you didn’t have a good night even after you promised him that you would. Upset that it didn’t turn out to be everything you wanted. 

“I don’t know,” you admit, looking over at him, dejected. “It just—I just had this feeling that it wasn’t going to work out.”

Jungkook scowls to himself, eyebrows furrowing like he’s trying to figure out what exactly you mean by that. And the truth is, you’re not sure either. The date was fine, and he was nice, but even when you first met it felt like you weren’t going to get what you wanted from him. Like you were just going on the date to go on the date. Like you already knew that it would mean nothing. 

Jungkook was going to be waiting for you at the end of the night whether it went amazingly well or terribly bad. And knowing that, strangely enough, almost made you want the date to be horrible. Like it would make seeing Jungkook afterwards that much sweeter. 

“Oh,” Jungkook says lamely. “Well, I’m sorry. It seemed like you were really looking forward to it.”

“It’s alright,” you assure him. “Can we just watch this movie now and make fun of how sexist it is? Please?”

To that, Jungkook easily agrees. As he’s queueing up the movie, you raid his closet for a hoodie and sweatpants, desperate to strip yourself of your dress and tights and cozy up in clothes that are much more appropriate for your comfort level. At this point in your friendship, Jungkook doesn’t even question it when he sees you march into his room, fishing through his closet and drawers for your favorite matching set of his, this grey pair that he’s worn so much it still smells like him even after it’s come right out of the wash. 

He only stares back in awe when he sees you emerge from his bedroom wearing them. 

“Ready?” You ask, breaking him from his resolve.

Jungkook blinks wildly from where he’s seated on his dinky old couch, as if to clear his vision. “What? Oh, yeah, I’ve been waiting for you.”

“Then hurry it up, Mister,” you demand, sitting down next to him and curling into his body. It’s instinctual, at this point, wanting to be close to him. To feel the warmth of his body radiate upon your own. To feel his chest beneath the palm of your hands, his arm wrapped around your side. “All good?” You ask, looking up at him. 

Jungkook looks down at you, and you swear, you’ve never seen him more at home. “Always, when I’m with you.”

The movie is predictably good and predictably sexist, but your favorite part by far is when Jungkook reaches around on the coffee table in front of you for his camera, holding it up to his eye and snatching a picture of the television, the film grainy like an old polaroid, faded like an antique photograph. He clicks away at the scene in front of him before turning on you, the lens so close to your face you’re almost certain all he’ll manage to capture is your nose. You laugh, pushing yourself away from him as he snaps, and snaps, and snaps, image after image after image, until his camera battery has died and there’s no more room left on his card. 

“Guess I’ll have to charge this thing, then,” Jungkook sighs as he declares his camera dead, screen black. 

“You aren’t going to include any of those, are you?” You ask, an eyebrow raised. 

Jungkook shrugs. “Why wouldn’t I?”

“Don’t you have enough?” You deadpan, thinking back to the hundreds of photos Jungkook must have taken of you over the past week, and even more that you don’t know about. There’s certainly no shortage of them in his current camera inventory. That’s for sure. 

“Never,” Jungkook says wickedly. He stretches out an open arm, and you don’t have to think twice about falling into it, letting him wrap you up in his hold, curling into his body. 

The black television screen crackles before you, DVD player waiting for Jungkook to turn it off. There’s no need for either of you to look up at each other. Not when you’re strung together like this. Not when you already know exactly where he is. 

“It’s due on Monday, right?” You inquire softly, fatigue slowly overtaking you. 

“Yeah. I’m almost finished, just have to do some curating and editing.”

“I want to see it.”

“What? My project?”

“What else?”

“It’s just a project, it’s not that exciting.”

You pull away from him at that, looking up at him with furrowed brows and scrunched-up nose. “What do you mean ‘it’s not that exciting’? It’s your photography project. You’ve spent a whole week working on it.”

“Yeah, but it’s just you, you know?” Jungkook objects. “Like, you know what you look like. It’s just going to be a bunch of photos of you, like I said it’d be.”

“That’s exactly why I want to see it,” you say like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “You took pictures of me for a whole week. Don’t you want to share them with me?”

“If you really want some of the photos, I’ll send you some, but you don’t need to see the whole portfolio, you know? It’s just for my professor,” Jungkook says stiffly, surprisingly resistant. What’s the big deal? It’s not like there will suddenly be new information about you that you didn’t know before. You want to see what Jungkook has been working tirelessly on this entire week. Where’s the harm in that?

“Why are you getting so hung up on this? It’s just photos,” you say with a frown. 

“Why are you getting so hung up on this?” Jungkook challenges back. 

You sigh, sinking back into him, defeated. Even a little disagreement like that is enough to knock the wind out of the both of you, so you decide not to push it much further. 

“Do you promise to show me eventually?” You ask, hopeful.

Jungkook pauses for a moment, and you almost expect him to say no, considering how protective of his work he’s being. “One day,” he declares. “One day, I will.”

And that’s good enough for you. 

You lose track of how much time passes after that, feeling your eyelids getting heavy as the warmth of his body envelopes you, drowsiness settling in. There’s just something about this moment, right here, right now, that makes you want to fall asleep.

You’re on the verge of slumber when Jungkook’s voice breaks through.

“Why didn’t you think your date would work out?”

“I don’t know,” you respond sleepily, barely even opening your eyes. “It just felt wrong.”

“How do you know what feels right?”

Good question. Perhaps if you had the energy, you’d answer it. But right now, all you can think about is how cozy you feel in Jungkook’s hoodie and sweatpants, how the scent of him surrounds you, that indescribable, boyish aroma that can’t be replicated. Right now, all you can think about is how easily your body molds into his, like two pieces of a puzzle meant to fit together. Right now, all you can think about is him. 

The worst part about each and every week is when it ends. Because the end of one week signifies the beginning of the next, and when you’re in university, the beginning of the next week means a whole new batch of assignments that you have to complete and a whole new batch of due dates to meet. 

So, yeah. The weeks have been blurring together for you lately. But what else could you expect?

Sunday evening, as per usual, finds you right back where you always are: Jungkook’s apartment. 

The two of you have been regularly getting together on Sundays to study, ever since you both realized you work significantly harder when motivated by the other, determined to finish all of your work on time so you can spend the rest of the night fooling around by mixing Monster with as many unhealthy drinks that you can possibly think of. And it’s been working out well for the both of you so far. Jungkook powers through his coding assignments and you whiz through your readings, intent on keeping up to date with your tasks so they don’t all come crashing down on you at the end of the semester. 

Studying with Jungkook has always been easy, largely due to the fact that it’s the one allotted time during your friendship where the both of you deem it best to not speak to each other for the sake of your work. The moment one of you opens your mouth it’s over, so you sit on opposite ends of the room and pretend that the other person isn’t even there. 

Jungkook told you earlier today that he had already finished his photography portfolio, so there would unfortunately be no sneaky glances over his shoulder to see if you can catch a glimpse of one of the pictures. Which is fine by you, you’re just a little embarrassed that Jungkook had told you this outright. Not that you were planning to do exactly that, but you were planning to do exactly that. 

Part of you. more than anything, wants to know why Jungkook won’t just show you himself. Why he’s being so secretive, so protective of his photography project when you both know already exactly what’s in it. For God’s sake, he just spent the entire week taking photos of you non-stop. It’s like not as if any part of this is a mystery to either of you. What more could he have done?

Whatever. You aren’t going to force it if he doesn’t want you to. You suppose that maybe one day, far into the future, he’ll finally decide that the time is right. 

“I’m so fucking tired,” Jungkook declares lifelessly as he gets up from where he’s sitting on your bed, dead inside. “I need a break.”

“Are you going to the kitchen? Can you make me some tea, please?” You ask him, looking up from the laptop on your desk. 

Jungkook nods wordlessly before disappearing out of the room. 

You and Jungkook’s best study practice to maximize productivity is the taking of each other’s cell phones so that the other cannot be tempted to look at it. It’s worked plenty of times before and will probably work plenty of times again, because as they say, out of sight, out of mind. 

Unfortunately, it’s hard to pretend that your phone is out of sight when it’s been buzzing on your bedside table for the past five minutes, and your fingers have been itching to get over there and answer your damn notifications. So, while Jungkook is out of the room, you decide to cheat a little by dashing over there just to see what the heck is going on in the rest of the world. 

As it turns out, nothing much. Just Maisie texting you as she binges yet another television show, giving spoiler-free updates anytime anything remotely dramatic happens. You have a couple of new emails as well. 

The thing that actually catches your attention the most, is Jungkook’s laptop screen. 

There’s just a Word document open on it, but a Word document is a far cry from his usual coding program or Photoshop. Because you can’t help yourself, you peer over to see what he’s written. 

What did you learn about yourself through this assignment? How do you think you’ve changed?

Hard to say that I have. I don’t think I learned something about myself so much as I confirmed what I already knew, cementing it as a real thought in my brain, rather than just a daydream. Nothing changed in the way that my best friend and I interacted, and I can almost confirm that nothing changed in the way that she feels about me, just as nothing changed in the way I feel about her. I guess you could say I learned that I don’t think anything could ever change the way I feel about her. 

What?

Do you think you’ll ever look back on this project, whether it be as a reference or a memory?

Yes. Not as a reference but to remind myself of this very moment in my life—a single week over the course of my life that I felt was worth saving. I imagine that there will come a time, far in the future, where my best friend and I have separated a little bit, found our own lives and created our own families with our own people. And when that happens, I will look back on this project to remind myself of who we used to be. How we used to feel about each other. Maybe, by that point in time, it won’t hurt as much as it does now. 

This feels personal. Maybe you should stop reading. But there’s just one more question left on the page… 

This assignment forced you to create an entire portfolio, from scratch, using a subject you would have to regularly schedule time with. It was demanding. But, that said, would you ever do this again?

Yes. If it meant getting to spend more time with her, take more photos of her, see her smile once more, I would do it a thousand times over. 

“Y/N?”

You hadn’t even heard the kettle whistling. 

“Jungkook,” you say, breathless, caught red-handed. 

“What are you doing?” He asks, placing your steaming cup of tea down on the desk as he stares back at you in horror, in surprise, in worry, in something. Something that gives you this imminent sense of impending doom. 

“Uh—”

“Were you reading my computer screen?”

It’s not like you could say you were doing anything else. 

“I couldn’t help myself, I came over here to check my phone since it’s been buzzing like crazy and your computer was right there and I just…” you sputter out, thoughts swirling inside your head. 

(I will look back on this project to remind myself of who we used to be. How we used to feel about each other. Maybe, by that point in time, it won’t hurt as much as it does now. 

If it meant getting to see her smile once more, I would do it a thousand times over. 

I guess you could say I learned that I don’t think anything could ever change the way I feel about her.)

“What do you mean, how you feel about me?” You ask, because you can’t help yourself. Because the sound of his voices echoes in your head like the beat of a drum, over and over and over. Because you’re staring back at him and even if he just caught you snooping through his computer you can never be worried when it comes to him. Because everything he has ever done puts you at ease. 

“Y/N, that is private, why would you read something like that?” He asks, each word a sucker punch into your heart. 

“Because I just had to know, okay?” You shout back. “I had to know what you were hiding from me.”

“So you decided to snoop through my computer to see if you could figure it out yourself?” He demands, storming over to you. 

“So you are hiding something?”

“That’s not the point, the point is that—”

“What are you not telling me, Jungkook?” You cry out, watching as he approaches you, dark eyes piercing your gaze. “Why won’t you show me your goddamn portfolio? If there’s really nothing to be afraid of, why are you keeping it from me? I’m your best friend, I’m the fucking subject of your project? Don’t I deserve to see it? Why won’t you show me?”

“Because then you’d know!” Jungkook shouts back, leaving deafening silence in his wake. You look up at him, blinking. In front of you, Jungkook is out of breath, chest heaving. 

He looks so strained. So tired. Like he’s been carrying around this secret for months now, maybe even years, and this is the final straw. This is what has sent the both of you crashing down upon each other. This stupid fucking project. You’ve known Jungkook ever since the beginning of your freshman year, and never before have you seen him so hopeless. 

“Jungkook—?”

“You’d know, goddamnit,” Jungkook says, hand coming up to rub at his forehead, dragging down his cheek. “And I wasn’t sure if I was ready for that.”

“Know what? What would I know?” 

Jungkook closes his eyes. Takes a deep breath. Opens them again. “That I’m in love with you.”

The words drift in between the two of you, hovering in the air like feathers. You see them, clear as day, in front of you, hear them echoing in your head, over and over and over again. Feel the way your blood is pumping, the way your heart is beating. 

“You’re in love with me?” You ask him. 

“I didn’t want you to find out this way,” Jungkook admits. “Or at all, really. But I have been, for a while now.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I was afraid that I’d lose you.”

You chuckle, a small, little thing from the back of your throat. “You must have known I’d never let that happen, hmm?”

Jungkook smiles softly. “I was scared. Can you blame me? You’re my best friend.”

“And you are mine,” you remind him. 

“It’s just—” Jungkook begins, like the gates of a dam are opening up. “We’d known each other for so long, and we have such a good thing going as is, always texting and calling and hanging out together, studying together on Sunday nights and seeing each other during the week, and I didn’t want to ruin anything. And then my professor assigned this project, and the only person I could think of to take photos was you, but I didn’t want to ask that of you in case you thought it was weird, but you suggested it anyway so I said yes, but I knew. I knew then that the moment I took one goddamn photo of you it would be obvious, and that if you ever saw you would just know. Stuff like that is easy to pick up in pictures, because a camera is like, tunnel vision for whatever it is you want to focus on most, and that’s you, that’s always been you, so I—”

“Jungkook,” you interrupt, reaching out to him, pressing a soft hand to his cheek. “Just, shut up, okay?”

And then you cup his head in both of your hands, and press a kiss to his lips. A small one, if nothing else, but a kiss nonetheless. You press your lips against his own and immediately you feel the sparks rush through you, this flash of heat that settles into something softer, something sweeter. It ignites and soothes you all at once, like a stray lightning bolt out on the open ocean. Like a single clap of thunder and the pitter patter of rain. 

You press a kiss to his lips and when you pull away, Jungkook’s eyes are closed, lips parted ever so slightly. And for a moment there, you almost think you did the wrong thing. 

But barely a second more passes before he’s scooping you up in his arms and pulling you in close to him, his lips finding yours like it’s the last thing he’ll ever do. He holds you tight, hands pressed against the small of your back as he kisses you, warm and fiery and full, as if he can’t get enough, as if this is his only chance. You gasp into it before relaxing in his hold, cold hands on his warm cheeks, body melting at the feeling of him, of him all over you, of his hands and his mouth and his chest, this perfect, solid figure. 

He kisses you and it sends heat shooting through your body, filling you up from the inside out, like your heart has burst and filled your bloodstream with fire, with sparks of warmth that tingle all over. He kisses you, and everywhere his hands press is another sizzle to your skin, an electric shock that makes you giggle into his mouth. 

He kisses you and it feels like a storm has settled, feels like gentle rain after a hurricane, feels like waves crashing against the shore. He kisses you and it is the only thing you can think about. 

By the time you part once more, you don’t think you’ve ever seen Jungkook so blissed out. 

“See?” You point out softly. “Nothing to be afraid of.”

Jungkook looks positively dazed. “I think I need to lie down.”

“Ooh, was I that good?” You tease.

“I’m dreaming.” He shakes his head. “I’m definitely fucking dreaming.”

Jungkook sinks onto your bed, hitting the mattress with a thud. He stares mindlessly in front of him, like his brain needs time to process. 

You smile to yourself. He can have all the time in the world. 

“Is this real?” He mumbles when you sit down next to him, press another kiss to the corner of his mouth. “Are you real?”

“Just like you,” you promise him. “I didn’t know this is what we had been missing, all this time.”

“It wasn’t missing,” Jungkook assures you. “It was just hidden.”

“I love you,” you whisper, watching him swallow the words like a glass of wine. “I think I always have. You just needed to say it first.”

“Oblivious as always.” Jungkook grins, smiling against your lips. “But I’m glad. If this is what it would take, then I’m glad.”

“You wouldn’t change anything?” You ask him, eyes wide and curious. 

It’s hard to know how long you and Jungkook have been secretly pining over each other. Hard to know how long Jungkook has known that he’s loved you, how long it’s been since you started to feel the same, even if subconsciously. It’s hard to know how long you would have kept going if not for this project. It might have been months. Years. Years that Jungkook was willing to spend holding back, if only it meant keeping you by his side. 

“No,” Jungkook says like it’s the easiest answer in the world. “I have you now. Why would I?”

What did you learn about yourself through this assignment? How do you think you’ve changed?

Previously, I had responded to this question by saying that I hadn’t learned anything, and felt that nothing changed in my life. Then, some things happened. And after those things, I learned that I am the luckiest man alive. To know my best friend is one thing. To love her is a privilege. To have her love me back is nothing less than a miracle.

Do you think you’ll ever look back on this project, whether it be as a reference or a memory?

Yes. Every day for the rest of my life. I don’t think I’ve ever been as thankful to receive a homework assignment as I am, right now. I owe everything to this project. It is the reason I have her. 

This assignment forced you to create an entire portfolio, from scratch, using a subject you would have to regularly schedule time with. It was demanding. But, that said, would you ever do this again?

Yes. I want to take photos of her for the rest of my life. I want to save every memory we ever share together. So that far into the future, we can look back on them together and say, “Remember that?”

↳ links are broken, but don’t forget to message me with any thoughts or feedback!

[worminstuff]

dreamsmp mcmh

dreamsmp members as teachers au: blrub edition!

mcmh = Minecraft middle and high school

no warnings:)

wordcount: 3.9k

I will also definitely take requests from now on with this teacher au! Weather it be reader x teacher bla bla or whichever teacher and whatever prompt you think of! Just plop em in my inbox and I’ll check em out! I may not get to all of them or even see them all but I’ll try!

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Mr.Wastaken - math

“The quadratic equation isn't useless, you just don't understand it. Here,” the students glared at the diss from their teacher. Dream turned his back to them as he attempted to draw another diagram on the board.

He took a quick glance behind him at all the kids, he was only met with empty stares.

“Oh come on- guys! Really?” he laughed slightly, a wheeze crawling up his throat. They looked angry at him. “You all look like kicked puppies.”

One of the boys in the back kicked his friend. “Jared!” said friend threw his pencil at him.

“Okay well obviously we seem to be done with math today..” Dream sighed and shook his head slightly as everyone watched the fiasco in the back. He’ll step in. In a minute.

“If you throw the pencil by holding it by one end not in the middle, it'll spin more.” he called to the boys in the back. 

Mr.Blade - english

“Did anyone have any trouble or anything with the paired text writing last night?” his arms were folded on his chest, not in an angry or off putting way, his hands were just cold.

“Yeah actually I-” one student started,

“The rubric is the link under the one for the document template.” he  prematurely answered, a soft grin gracing his features.

“How did you?..” the student tilted their head in confusion. 

“You ask the same question every time.” Mr.Blade shrugged and everyone laughed softly.

Techno loved the little community that was his class, he's had them for about 3 months now so he's gotten to know them really well. This little bunch was incredibly creative and he really enjoys reading their assignments. 

Mr.Blade sat down on the edge of his desk and slid his still cold hands into his pocket, scanning the small group of kids in front of him.

“Is anyone having any trouble?” He tried to seem nice as he asked because he didn't want to come off as pushy. There was a chorus of yes’ and techno grinned.

“Well as you all know, as Sun Tzu once said-”

Before he could finish his sentence he was cut off by a series of groans and sighs as everyone rolled their eyes.

Techno smiled to himself. He really did love his job.

Mr.Jacobs - history

“Amy!” Karl excitedly grinned and dapped up a small girl walking into his class, “Was that extra credit assignment i sent pretty easy or was it too hard? I can switch it up if you don't like it.”

Amy told him it was fairly easy and she would be done with it very soon.

“No rush ames!” he said as he craned his neck a bit to look at her as she sat in her chair.

He was just about to step into his classroom as the bell rang, but a certain hand tugged on his forearm.

“Hey!- oh hi nick.” Karl's smile grew. Sapnap smiled but shook his head softly, “I've got a class this period but I wanted to come say hi first.”

Karl giggled, “simp!” he whispered before turning to quickly walk into his class.

Everyone was excitedly sitting in their chairs, talking about due assignments and anything else they could think of.

“Good morning everyone! Hello, hello, hello i hope your other teachers have treated you well this morning and if they haven't then that's okay cause you're here now.” he pointed finger guns at the bunch of them and then grabbed the remote to turn on the smart board.

Mr.Quack/Mr.Q - Spanish 

“Hola mi niños!” Quackity smiled widely at the bunch of  kids sitting in front of him, there was a chorus of answers from the excited kids. Many of them were in the “wrong seats” as to sit with friends because today, today was kahoot day.

Every Friday was kahoot day where they always do some type of kahoot whether it be related to the lesson or not and everyone was always excited.

Especially kids who have PE before this class, the coach's competitiveness really sticks.

No one hypes these kids up more than Mr.Quack, which causes for the occasional noise complaint.

“Aye! Mr español! Keep it down here you spanish gremlins.” Mr.Dude pressed his head through the doorway scolding the class, the students erupted into a large fit of laughter only causing their volume to rise.

“You can’t put a volume warning on learning Sam! We're popping off!” Quackity yelled over the laughter of his students.

Mrs.Nihachu - art

“Oh my goodness! This is beautiful!” Mrs.Nihachu flashed a sweet smile to the student in front of her. She was handed a small doodle of a flower and she was already pinning it on the board beside her desk.

Her class was currently working on their test grade assignments, some making sculptures with cardboard or paper mache, some making clay creations, others painting. It was a big jumble of chaotic creativeness and nikki was enjoying it thoroughly.

Her class was often chaotic in this way, but during lunch time it was much calmer. There was a small group of students that would eat in her room to escape the crazy chaos of the lunchroom, and she enjoyed it as much as them.

She loved to listen in on the current drama and give advice where she could, they were her little buddies and she adored them.

Coach Sapnap & Coach Punz - PE

The sound of a whistle was no stranger to this classroom, or rather, this gymnasium. There was only one whistle, and two teachers. Both coaches made it ritual that whoever got there first would get it for the day.

Today, Coach Sapnap happened to get the whistle first.

“Okay kiddos-” coach Punz was cut off by the blaring sound of the whistle beside him.

“Airtight Kiddos!” Coach Sapnap clapped happily as all the students turned their attention towards the two Coaches. “It's kickball day,” he grinned deviously as the students cheered.

Both of them directed the class to one end of the gym to split them into teams.

“Okay so we’ll pick two team captains, and then they'll go back and forth picking their team and then once everyone's picked, the team captains can rock paper scissors to pick which one of us you want on your team.” Punz explained and everyone nodded.

sapnap picked one of the smaller girls in the class as one captain, and another kid standing near her as the other. Both of the kids picked through the class until it was separated into two groups.

“Okay! Ready?” they both nodded. “Rock, paper, scissors, shoot!” the girl had picked rock, and the other kid picked scissors. Immediately the victor pointed to Punz with a small smile.

Punz’s arms shot up in the air “Aye! That's right! Gimme five!” he high fived her small hand.

sapnap smiled and shook his head, “no this works out perfect because i know you guys were hoping for me on your team, right?” sapnap joked to his team, one boy jokingly piped up,

“well..Coach punz is ideal but, you're okay too.” the whole class erupted into laughter until Sapnap blew his whistle ushering them to start the game already.

Mr.Notfound - engineering 

“Mr.Notfound where are the extension cords for the soddering table?” George currently had his freshman period and they were working on a lightboard project. Today's task was soldering the leds to the correct wires and such on the back of the projects.

“Em..they should be there..are they just not? Or are they on top of it and you just didn't look?” he quirked a brow at the freshman.

“No, it's just not there..” they shrugged. 

George nodded, “alright, do you want to go ask Mr.Wastaken if he's got a spare or would you rather me go instead?” George asked with a small smile. He was quite stonic before so he was afraid the kid thought he was mad at them. The freshman said they would and scurried off.

George decided he wanted to walk around the class and see how everyone was faring with their projects and if there was anything else they couldn't find. 

He walked around all the desks and lab tables and stopped at a small group of friends all working separately but sitting together.

“How's it going over here?” He held a very small smile. The group replied positively and each showed their projects to which he praised. They were all really really cool already, and he couldn't wait to show Dream some of his favorites after they were turned in to be graded.

Mr.Fundy - biology

“Mr.Fundy, your coat is very...bright.” A student named Owen, was referring to his very colorful lab coat. He sounded as if he was trying to compliment him, but he really couldn’t just LIE to his teacher.

Fundy narrowed his eyes at Owen. Owens desk was directly in front of the lab table that was his desk, in the front of the room. Fundy was stood behind it.

Fundy placed his hands on the table and leaned forward, “are you making fun of me?”

“He SO is.” The girl next to Owen said with a grin.

“Hey! I wasn’t! It’s just very...different.” Owen defended.

Fundy pointed an accusing finger, “there’s that backhanded tone again!” He ended it with a giddy laugh.

The rest of the class joined in until, “alright alright! I get it! It’s not super pretty but! It’s a great Segway into today’s lab,”

The rest of the class groaned loudly, smiles showing through.

Fundy snorted a laugh and shook his head, pulling some beakers from the drawers in the table.

Electives:

Teacher Eret - sociology

“So she told you you weren’t invited? After all that?!” Eret was currently chit chatting with his very small third period clas that consisted of a small group of kids that happened to be friends.

“Right teacher eret! I was like, woah, that’s so honked up! So we all decided we’re not going.” A girl named Jane said.

“Well that’s very sweet of you, I would’ve done the same.” Eret patted the first girls head endearingly as he walked back to his desk to sit in his desk chair. The girls continued their small conversation, including teacher eret when they wanted input.

Eret was heavily fond of classes like this where they were all very close already and he found it easy to bond with them. It just happened that these girls did there work on time so they had plenty of time to chat with him and eachother. 

His favorite thing was when they’d give him fashion advice, because he always took them up on it. It paid off too, he’s a very dashing dude because of it!

Mr. Dude - comp science

Sam was sat at his desk typing away as the class was doing a quiet activity. They were playing around with coding websites that are essentially games. The class was fairly small, so he’d grown quite a bond with his little dudes over the past couple months.

“How are all you guys other classes going?” He asked, turning his chair to face them.

“Mr.Notfound is honestly about to give me a headache.” One of the girls sat towards the window said, her friend beside her laughed and nodded.

Sam laughed softly, “how come?”

“His room is always a mess! I can never find the correct pieces for anything. You have to look where you wouldn’t think it would ever be and then that’s where it always is!”

A few other kids laughed and agreed as they had him aswell.

“Not to mention he gets grouchy sometimes when we ask him to much.” One boy poked in.

“He does? That’s not to nice. I’ll poke him about it.” Sam said to his kiddos with a soft smile, “how we feeling about a snack break?”

All the kids quickly agreed and he pulled a box out from under his desk with various snacks and drinks and placed it on the floor in the front of the room.

“Have at it!” He made his way back to his desk as there were various wrapper sounds and “thanks Mr.Dude”’s

Mr.Soot - drama

“Okay let me get this straight- you did the script assignment but you didn’t study the lines?” Mr.Soots eyes were narrowed.

“Well no i used the script to help but I didn’t memorize it.” The girl in front of him said, her name is gene.

“Hm. Alright, you can just read off it then I suppose, it better not render your performance though, geney!” He smiled as he nudged her towards the stage. 

The students were doing this group project where they made their own story’s and scrips and they got to perform them for fun, not for a grade. They had a free day so they decided it would be fun to do it today, and Wilbur was the most exciting out of all of them.

He watched each one, giving copious amounts of praise and encouragement and he really enjoyed it. The bell rang faster than they’d all expected since they were having so much fun, and he waved them off as they went on to their next class.

Wilbur sighed to himself, a content smile on his face as he sat in the front row of the auditorium. 

“What’s with the sigh?” A voice started him slightly as it broke the silence of the large room.

“Jesus phil, a bit of a warning, yeah?” He pressed a hand to his chest.

“Sorry, should’ve announced myself. My bad, mate.” Phil walked up the small steps of the stage and sat on the top few, facing wilbur.

“You looked awfully content, a good class?” Phil asked.

“Oh definitely. Love that bunch to bits. They’re so smart and they’ve got so much passion for theater but they’re so carefree and they have so much fun. I just love to be a part of it. Makes my job a whole lot more fun.” Wilbur spoke with a proud grin. It was true, he really did adore his students and he was beyond proud of them.

“I’m glad!” Phil stood, “keep up the good work, kid.” He clapped him on the shoulder as Wilbur nodded.

Mr.Schlatt - political science

“No you said it was before the time you had it, therefore your argument is invalid cause how can you claim you had it during that time if the entire argument is based around you not having it?”

Schlatt stared at the student in front of him. He was a tad speechless, which was impressive in itself.

They were talking about a stupid debate thing shlatt had made up, but he made it with a loophole, wondering if they’d actually catch it. He was very surprised one of the students actually did.

“You’re correct actually. Good job, ren.” His brows were raised as he tried to hide his proud grin. He didn’t want them to know how genuinely excited he was that they figured it out.

“That’s stupid.” Ren said, with a blank stare.

“Aye!-“ Schlatt was about to go off a tad when the door opened and Mr.Q stood in the doorway.

“Am I interrupting a yelling session?” He asked

“Yes.” Both Ren and Schlatt answered at the same time.

Mr.Halo - self defense

Mr.Halos class was one of the chilliest, like Erets and Sams, there wasn’t a whole lot of work getting done during class since they would just talk about various things and have snacks.

Today Bad taught them about various hotlines they may need to know about for different situations they’d find themselves in.

“Do they just make hotlines for everything these days Mr.Halo?” One kid asked.

“Well sometimes. Not for everything though, but definitely for a lot of things.” He responded.

He was currently sat cris cross on the rug in the front of his room, munching on a orange as the rest of the class was also having snacks. 

He loved classes like this because these were times when his job didn’t feel like work, he loved that he was helping make sure these kids could be educated enough to protect themselves when he couldn’t. He worried about them, but he felt happy when he could see them safe and sound, and not hungry, like they were at the moment. He cherished these simple moments the most.

Even more than the times he’s watched them scrimmage some defense tactics and evidently fall on their butts in some instances. 

Mr.Skeppy - money management

“Mr Skeppy, I'm bored.” 

“Okay.” Skeppy replied as he stared at his computer screen, his head rested in his hand.

The student scowled slightly, others giggled to themselves.

“Mr.Skeppyyyy” the kid groaned, the kids around him laughing. 

“Fine, if i put up a kahoot will you all leave me alone?” He smiled softly, sending the kid a side eye.

The class agreed loudly and he pulled up a kahoot about vines.

“Whoever gets first place gets 6 bucks.” Skeppy said with a grin as he leaned back in his chair.

“Isn’t that counter productive to the lesson we’re learning about waisting money on stupid things?” One girl said.

“Why six?!” Another student suddenly said, the rest of the class flowing into laughter.

Mr.H - hospitality

“Wait so your other teachers didn’t give you guys valentines?” Mr.H asked, his eyes wide as he stared at the kids in front of him.

They all shook their heads, “Mr.Jacobs and Mrs.Nihachu did. But that’s it.” One boy said as he shrugged.

“Mr.Wastaken didn’t even know it was valentines until we mentioned it, poor Mr.Notfound.” One girl said back, her eyes trailing of to the floor as she raised her brows. 

Mr.H laughed loudly, he loved how his kiddos were so comfortable in his class to diss their own teachers.

“Well not here! Today you all have a valentine and that valentine is me.” He said as he placed little bags full of different candies on each of their desks. He put them together all by himself with little hand written letters. It was adorable.

They all excitedly opened the little presents and read the notes together, all of them giving Mr.H a hug. 

It was a very adorable day in the H classroom.

Mr.Frost - horticulture

“Mr.Frost! Can we go outside for class today?” The students were filing in for class since the bell just rang.

“Sure! How about..how about we go bug hunting?” He replied.

The students all agreed very excitedly. Once the bell rang for the start of the period they began doing their begging of class rituals which included watering a bunch of different plants and taking care of the compost bin. Then once that was all done everyone got some jars and set out to go outside and see what they could find.

Everyone ran around trying to find different things and yelling out when they did find things.

“Mr.Frost! I found a caterpillar!” A boy named Lennon ran up to Ant.

“Really?! Show!” Ant watched happily as the boy showed his new caterpillar friend.

They discussed what type of caterpillar it may be before Lennon ran back off to his friends. 

Ant loved classes like this where he got to be outside in the sun and watch all his students learn hands on in a super fun (and adorable) way. It was one of his all time favorite things.

Staff:

Mr.Minecraft - principal

“but it’s so annoying! Why can’t I just leave when I gotta go, why should I ask to take a piss!” 

Phil stared at the boy in front of him, a blond one by the name of Tommy. This kid frequented his office way to often.

“I don’t know Mr.Innit but you’ve got to listen to your teachers, it'll get you out of my office and I think that’s something we both want.” Mr.Minecraft glared slightly.

“Oh come on! You don’t like hanging with me Mr.Minecraft?!” Tommy said with a grin.

“No, Tommy we’re not ‘hanging out’ you’re in trouble.”

“Well when you put it that way it seems bad-“ Phil cut tommy off,

“It is bad Tommy!” He scoffed, holding in a laugh.

Mrs.Puffy - councilor 

Mrs.Puffy was a hugger, a very big hugger. So whenever kids came in crying over just anything, hugs were a must. Often students would visit when they only needed a hug! Sometimes that was her favorite thing.

“He said there was no-“ the small girl heaved for air a tad before continuing, “l-late credit, but but I didn’t have time and I- I need to get the grade and I just-“

“Hey, hey, it’s alright! Mr.Blade seems scary but I bet if he knew you were this stressed he would be very happy to help you out! He’s a very nice man.” Mrs puffy wad currently trying to calm this girl out of a the panic attack she was seemingly having.  

“R-really?” She asked Mrs.Puffy

“Of course! I actually think he’s got a free period right now, would you like to talk to him now? I can have him come here so I’ll be here to and it’ll be easy peasey lemon squeezey!” Puffy said with a big smile.

The girls nodded softly with a sniffle and puffy brought her in for a hug.

She would always have the kids backs, no matter what. Even if that meant talking to the big scary Mr.Blade, who was more likely afraid of her really.

Teacher Callahan - substitute

“Callahan!” Mr.Wastaken yelled, he was laughing but he was getting slightly frustrated.

Callahan apparently didn’t have a class this period, so he went to Mr.Wastakens class as he usually does to annoy him.

Callahan has been taking the pens for the whiteboard dream was trying to use and passing it around to students to pass to each other . It was very funny.

Callahan didn’t always pick this class because of Dream, he also picked it because there was a fellow mute in this period. Her name was alise, and she used ASL alot, which made Callahan actually learn a bit so he could talk to her! 

Dream actually thought it was really cute, so he tried to get Callahan to teach him some as well, so he could talk to alise the way she communicated. This backfired terribly after dream learned that thank you, and fuck you, we’re actually very similar signs. Callahan had taught him the latter. Alise never corrected him, she only made a silly face and huffed out a small laugh. Dream apologized a lot once he learned. Callahan thought it was hilarious though, so often him and alise sign said sign to dream just to tease him.

Another thing Callahan did often was stand behind dream, and mock him. Dream would walk farther from the board as he would go on and on talking with his hands and such. Callahan would make his way behind him and pretend to sit on the edge of his desk.

So every time dream would turn around wondering why all the kids were laughing at him, he would see a normal looking Callahan who would only shrug. This always made the kids laugh even more. No one would rat him out though, it was teacher Callahan!

[fallenrepublick]

Hi ! Back again with some ridiculous questions... First , what kind of students would Thrawn, Thrass, Maul, Savage, Vader, Eli, Tarkin, Krennic and Grand Inqui be ?

And then, what kind of teachers would they be ?

And btw, thank you so much for taking the time to answer my dumb questions and for brightening my days. You're such a talented writer, I absolutely love your works ❤❤❤

Ahhh back to the good 'ol school days...

As a student, Thrawn was Mister Perfect. He showed up, sat silently in class, took notes with the most illegible handwriting you've ever seen in your life, and maintained perfect scores. However, what many never saw coming was his tendency to be argumentative with teachers. He finds their strategies boring and obsolete, and is not afraid to tell them as much. He's been threatened with disciplinary action more than once, but only ever replied, "The truth is not equivalent to disrespect."

As a teacher, he's thorough. The goal is not good scores, but rather students who know not only what is happening, but why, whether it be military or art history. People in his class are never afraid to ask questions, as he openly encourages it, and is willing to explain the same concept a million different ways if it means it's helping them.

Student life for Thrass was about as skewed as you'd expect. He excelled at debate, writing, and government, and those teachers loved him. But he's stubborn, and he will not do something that he doesn't want to do. This means that his math classes saw him maybe once a week, and he only barely passed. Perfect he was not, but that didn't stop people from falling at his feet left and right. Which... he never enjoyed either.

As a teacher, he seems like a strict hardass from the outside looking in. People would tell stories about him and how much he expects and how he grades. But really, it isn't nearly that bad. He discusses a lot about how he wants good, honest efforts, but he also isn't uptight about it either. Every so often, he'll look at his lesson plan, say, "I don't feel like doing this, do you?" Which means that they spend the rest of the time playing games.

Maul was the competitive student, the one that had to be the best at everything. He would have silent bouts of anger each time he wasn't at the top of the class for grades. Although... rumour had it that it wasn't exactly by choice. Still, he excelled at languages and anything relating to physical activity. An odd pair, but it worked well for him.

But as a teacher, he's quite casual about it all. At the beginning of the year, the students always dread it, as he makes everything seem like the worst experience they'll ever have. He's got a specific title you have to refer him to or he'll End You, there's no excuse for anything below a 95%, no freebies, etc. etc... He forgets about all of that literally the next day. People began realising it when they mentioned they didn't have time to finish assignments or homework. He'd just shrug and tell them to bring it the following week. Multiple people began calling him Maul, and he would answer as if it were a normal occurrence. The class average on an exam was a 70 once, and he only said, "Well, you passed, at least."

Savage was the student who looked like he could kill you, and could, but also most likely wouldn't. He was the one that followed Maul around everywhere, and was also himself followed by an even smaller sibling. He wasn't competitive, only here for the sake of getting through it at all, and never had much interest in the subjects outside of... geology. Random, yes, but he found it fun.

When he teaches, he's the gentler one, the type that listens to the students' troubles, whether class related or not, and is always there to help when he can. He stays late to give help, comes early for even more extra help, and knows the value of a good sticker on your paper when you scored well.

You know what Vader was like as a student. He was horrendous. Bad. The rules are his rules, and if he doesn't like them, they don't exist. No teacher wanted to deal with him, and when they did have to, they didn't dare try to call him out for the times he was late or ignored simple instructions that he didn't like.

His teaching style is... interesting. It isn't overly suffocating, but it isn't fun, and it definitely isn't cushy. He needs everything in on time Or Else, and yet he takes for heckin' ever to grade. A hypocrite, just as he always has been, but are you really going to try to argue with him? Yeah, I thought not.

Eli's experience as a student was fairly standard. He was a bit in the higher range when it came to grades, he participated enough that he was known but not favoured, he always seemed to have a promising future. He's the master of Hindsight 20/20, though, so much of the issues that he has with scheduling could be fixed if he payed more attention. And yet he always found himself running across the halls to his next class.

As a teacher, he's... the boring one. Well, by the student's standards, anyways. It certainly can be worse, but his students know next to nothing about him, and his tendency to keep to himself means that the students don't feel all that comfortable around him either. But he's good, great even, at teaching his content, his averages always high, his performance admirable amongst his colleagues.

Tarkin's student experience was filled with rich-kid nonsense, extra extra after school study sessions, cram school, high level courses, an unreasonable amount of clubs. Everyone from teachers to other students worried that he worked himself too much. He did, of course, but no one needed to know that.

Now this. This is the ice teacher. This is the teacher everyone warns you about, the one no one wants to be stuck with. He's the teacher that Maul pretends he is. The one with no leeway, the one that runs everything like a damn prison. I shudder at the mere thought.

Ah Krennic, the classic case of believing talent can get you anywhere. His days as a student were filled with one-sided competition with Tarkin, trying to get better grades, one-up him, prove himself superior. Nevermind that their classes were completely different, and that Krennic was actually at the low end of the class rank. He was always so convinced he could do it. When he talks about his old school days to people who weren't there, he will often claim that he did do it.

His teaching is about as good as his engineering... there are a few holes. His descriptions lack sometimes, he tends to leave out info. And after exams, when students cry out that he never talked about something, he will insist that he did, and they were not paying attention. He answers question by repeating the same things he just said.

The Grand Inquisitor was the quiet student, the one that sat in the back, the one that never volunteered to answer, did all the projects by himself, and to many, never existed at all. Students used to say that he was a ghost, and he was actually just haunting the school until he could move on. He never bothered to correct them. Instead, he continued to listen, allowing himself to be both a skilled student and a gold mine for the latest scandals. Truly an inspiration of our time.

As a teacher, he's the type that prefers to show, not tell. Instead of lectures there are videos, examples, real life discussions about where the subject would appear, and how it would be used. He wants his students to hunt for the answer rather than be given it immediately, which he is certain will give them a benefit later on in life, as it's a useful skill. Surprisingly, the students like him, despite how quiet and odd he is.

[historic-old-guard-lover]

How many languages and which of them would the cast speak if we’re going to be completely historically accurate ?

This a great question that I can’t quite answer, but I spent six hours researching to give it a shot. I think that there’s a broad range of plausible languages and you’ve got leeway to choose how many. The first part is that different people have different affinities for languages. Some people can speak ten different languages fluently (or near-fluency), while others will struggle juggling three different ones in their brains. The range in the languages can affect this, too: it’s easy to mess up between similar languages. I personally have trouble speaking Spanish because in the middle of the sentence, I’ll drop a French word without even realizing it. The same thing doesn’t happen to me in other languages like German, though. By the same token as I’ve discussed before, similar languages are easier to learn. Going from English to Russian with the Cyrillic alphabet? More difficult than English to French, which makes up about a third of modern English. These are languages that are still in the same family (Proto-Indo-European, PIE), though, so it holds nothing to the difficulty of going from English to a language like Mandarin.

I’m breaking this answer into two parts: 1) how many?; 2) which ones? and I’m going to get carried away because I’m me so it’s below the break to spare you if this comes across your dash and you’re not a nerd...

PART 1: What’s a realistic number for them to speak?

I think that each member of the old guard probably has a certain number of languages which they’re comfortable with, a few more that they can understand/get by in, and a few that they may only know phrases from. The number of each isn’t the same for everyone. The average human being is able to speak ~1.5 languages. The most talented polyglots can speak upwards of 50 languages, maybe one guy even spoke 65 (mostly I want to mention he loved translating the phrase “kiss my ass”). This hyperpolyglot, Kreb aka “Kiss My Ass” Stan, had his brain dissected after his death and it showed a lot of “abnormalities”. That leads neuroscientists and me to believe that being able to study and learn 65 languages is either 1) a major skill that rewired his brain because he was flexing it so much; or 2) very abnormal and facilitated by his brain differences. Since their powers don’t make them stop being limited by the human brain (they can forget), I would say that it is unlikely that one of them is fluent/near fluent/comfortable in more than ~65 languages.

Getting past twelve languages is considered a feat, so I think only Andy, Quynh, Nicky, and Joe could be anywhere near the upper-bounds of languages. Remember, these hyperpolyglots spend their entire lives studying languages and often need refreshers. The members of the Old Guard don’t have the luxury of reading grammar books all day, and they also have to remember a bunch of combat training. You can argue that a lot of fighting is “muscle memory” aka located in the cerebellum and nowhere near language processing areas, but there’s still things like math, navigation, etc. that they need to remember. I doubt they have a list of their safe houses just lying around. The older members can speak more languages by virtue of being around longer and having that time to learn, but if we’re being realistic they should probably speak no more than ~45-55 languages comfortably. This doesn’t mean that they only *know* that many, but the other languages would be more like bad high school Spanish in America than able to wax poetic. Aside: that Joe is able to be poetic in what is AT LEAST his fourth or so language is very impressive and we should talk about that more.

How Many Each Member is Maximally Proficient In/Knowledgeable Of at the end of the film/Opening Fire comics run:

Lykon (comics): proficient in ~15, knowledgeable of ~30*

Lykon (movies): proficient in ~45, knowledgeable of ~80*

Andy: proficient in ~50, knowledgeable of ~100**

Quynh | Noriko: proficient in ~51, knowledgeable of ~90**

Joe: proficient in ~30, knowledgeable of ~80

Nicky: proficient in ~30, knowledgeable of ~80

Booker: proficient in ~10, knowledgeable of ~30

Nile: proficient in ~2 (maybe 3), knowledgeable of ~5

*In the comics, he is younger than Andy and Quynh and I assume he dies young. In the movie, it is strongly implied that he was the oldest. The reason why his numbers are not larger, however, is because at some point there were fewer languages as humanity had not dispersed as much as it eventually did. He’s also long before written language which facilitates learning for most people. RIP Lykon.

**I’m not saying that Quynh is smarter than Andy, just that she comes after written language and it should be slightly easier for her to pick things up. I’m giving Andy access to more languages, however, because PIE alone covers Europe, Central Asia, and South Asia. More on this later.

PART 2: Which languages would each of them speak?

I’ve covered this question a little in a previous post that was broadly about proto-indo-european/Andy-centric (check it out if you want), but I’ll give a broader survey of each character here.

A Quick Aside on Lykon: We don’t know enough about this character, and the fact that the comics and movie diverge so sharply does not help at all. I’m going to headcannon that he was from Eastern Africa, where most archaeologists agree that modern humans first appeared in the Horn of Africa aka modern Ethiopia and Somolia and neighbors, and predates Andy by ~3,000 years. For future purposes below and assuming a birth date for Andy in the range ~5,000BCE - 4,000BCE, this puts his birth at around ~8,000BCE - 7,000BCE. This is wild speculation, however. Maybe the early immortals should be spaced by warfare types (Stone Age, Bronze, Iron, Steel?) or maybe they pop up once a cultural region reaches a certain historic point or maybe they just sorta pop up and then live for six or seven thousands years. I’m working off the last assumption because it’s the simplest. The only thing I’m certain of is that Greg Rucka probably didn’t sit down and think this pattern through. If I’m wrong, oh well. I’m mad at him for all his historical inaccuracies. With dating from ~8,000BCE - 7,000BCE, I’m having trouble finding a name for the cultures that scientists/historians know were living there at the time. It’s probably because the region has been continually occupied since the first humans, which one can safely assume makes abandoned and undisturbed sites hard to fine.

A Quick Aside on Quynh | Noriko: I like the film better, so I’ll be working with Quynh. If there’s enough interest, I can add on Japanese for Noriko. I’m going to date Quynh to be ~1,500 years after Andy (maybe this should be the new date system, before Andy “BA” and after Andy “AA”). This puts her in the time range of ~3,500BCE - 2,500BCE which could place her in either the Đa Bút neolithic culture of modern-day Vietnam or the Phùng Nguyên bronze age culture of modern-day Vietnam. Those names are archaeological in nature, based on the location where sites have been found and dated to those ranges.

Other Origins: Because we have diverging cannons, I’m going to just state the backgrounds that I’ve assigned. Joe is from 1066CE with a background in the Arab-controlled Maghreb (more specifically, modern-day Tunisia and Northern Algeria). Nicky is from 1069CE with a background from the Italian maritime republic and city-state of Genoa. Booker is from 1770 southern France. Nile is from 1994 Chicago in the United States. Andy is from ~5,000BCE - 4,000BCE in the Caucasus (modern-day Georgia and Azerbaijan) or the South Western Eurasian Steppes, probably the Shulaveri-Shomu culture assuming that location.

The first language everyone learned, their “mother tongue” or “native language” is one that they definitely speak. It’s the language that they think in and would be hard-pressed to lose. This even includes now-dead languages, because, again, it’s the one that they learned to think with. Of course, it is possible to lose a language when you have no one to speak it with if you wanted to do something tragic, but I think that these things are too deeply ingrained for it it to happen by accident.

What Each One’s First Language Would Be:

Nile: American English, possibly African-American Vernacular English (AAVE) at home

Booker: Provençal/Occitan, possibly “standard French” (school and other places outside the home)

Nicky: Genoese Ligurian/Zeneize

Joe: Tunisian Derja/Tunisian Arabic/Tunisian, and possibly one of the dialects of the native Zenati language group based on where more precisely you place him

Quynh: Proto-Viet–Muong (which isn’t well documented because it’s so old)

Andy: Proto-Indo-European (PIE), but if you’re curious the Classical Scythian Language for which she is probably named is only off by a factor of 10 (4000 vs 400 BCE) *cue distressed sighing*

Lykon: Proto-Cushitic (also suffering a lack of documentation from being old as heck)

Other than their first languages, what else they learn depends on where they go. People learned languages back then for the same reasons that they do today: to communicate (and to read, after the invention of writing). 

Additional Confirmed or Likely Cannon Languages:

Nile: Spanish because of the American school system for sure. French is listed on the IG account, but she probably speaks only Spanish or French to a degree of fluency, definitely one better than the other. Very Basic Pashto, which we see her use some obviously-memorized phrases with in the film.

Booker: The IG promo things asserts that he knows (modern, standard) Italian and Greek. Why not? He also probably knows Spanish depending on where more specifically in southern France he is from. He’s probably also picked up on at least Very Basic Arabic from Joe and Nicky, but actually learning the language would take commitment from him. He also clearly speaks English.

Nicky: Other Italian dialects, and it would be fairly easy for him to have picked up modern Italian. He definitely reads Latin. If he was from a wealthy family, he probably also speaks Greek. If he was from a trading family, he probably speaks the trading pidgin of Sabir. The IG account confirms Arabic (vague, but okay I’ll be generous and say modern standard Arabic) and Romanche (they meant to write Romansh). I think Romansh is poorly chosen to characterize him in Northern Italy, but I’m feeling generous. He also clearly speaks English.

Joe: He definitely speaks standard Arabic to have been able to communicate with other Arabic-speakers in Jerusalem.  Genoese Ligurian/Zeneize because of the love of his life, which also means he probably picked up modern Italian at some point. The IG account confirms Farsi (they call it “Persian” *cue screaming*), which works if he was a merchant who traveled far to eastward on the Silk Road...and if you go with the comic cannon makes more sense. I’m going to say that he speaks the Mediterranean trading pidgin Sabir because of his location in Tunisia. If he was from a wealthy merchant family and could afford schooling, he probably learned Greek and maybe also Latin. There’s a good chance that he knows conversational-levels of other native Zenati languages thanks to colonialism discouraging their usage. He also clearly speaks English.

Quynh: We don’t actually know if she speaks English, but it’s safe to assume she does speak at least some of it. She’s probably learned Vietnamese and Mường because of her mastery of their proto-language. Because I see her returning to modern-day Vietnam to fight the Chinese colonization, I think that she might know Cantonese or Mandarin. Based on her travels with Andy, I’d like to propose Greek, Latin, and Mongolian. I’m sure that Andy and her share a language, but who knows which one they were each speaking when they met!

Andy: The IG account says “all,” but I’ve discussed this elsewhere (*major eye rolling*). She almost certainly picked up Scythian and Greek based on her chosen name. Latin isn’t as likely as you’d think, but is possible. I’d like to think that she’s also partial to learning Russian (or some earlier form of the language), Mongolian, and Armenian. Based on her travels with Quynh, I imagine that she speaks Cantonese or Mandarin and Vietnamese or Mu’o’ng. There is some mystery language shared with Quynh, too. She also clearly speaks English.

Lykon: I really don’t know enough about him to hazard any guesses. He should share at least one language in common with Andy and Quynh. If his date of death is ~2,000- 1,000 BCE like I’m supposing, there’s a good chance that he only speaks one or two currently-named languages. Sorry, OP.

[classicaltrashical]

Okay I'm not pro-bakugou, but I'm not an asshole that's going to sh*t on you for liking him, but here are some reasons on why I really dont understand people shipping BakuDeku or liking Bakugou Katsuki in general. Not hating on you just stating some canon facts. By the way I tried to censor myself but I just stopped because I got so frustrated with the amount of abuse that Bakugou got away with in just the first few chapters of the manga.

1. Bakugou is abusive towards Izuku both physically and emotionally.

1. The first freaking page of the manga starts out with Bakugou punching Izuku (while probably using his quirk).

2. Page 12 of the first chapter Bakugou slams his hands onto Izuku's desk and uses his explosion to the point it blasts Izuku out of his desk.

- Also note Izuku's body language he is trying to be as small as possible because he already is acclimated to this treatment. He is also seen trying to be as small as possible.

3. Page 15 Bakugou destroys Izuku's notebook (destruction of property).

4. Page 16 Bakugou burns Izuku's shoulder. From the looks of this and Bakugou's attitude towards Izuku this appears to in some way be a common occurrence. Because obviously this is NOT the first time he burned Izuku.

5. Page 17 Bakugou tells Izuku and I quote from the VIZ My Hero Academia Volume 1 10th Printing September 2019 "You wanna be a hero so bad? I've got a timesaving idea for you. If you think you'll have a quirk in your next life... go take a swan dive off the roof!!" After this Bakugou makes small explosions on his palm in a threatening way and Izuku left in the classroom shaking in fear. Even his friends tell him that he went too far.

6. Of course you have the name Deku. Which when used in the context that Bakugou does in the anime means Defenseless Izuku and also uses it as the abbreviation of Dekunobou which roughly translates to "good for nothing."

7. In the flashback of Izuku and Bakugou after getting praised by their principal(?) Bakugou basically grabs Izuku by the collar of his uniform and shoved up against the wall all because Bakugou was jealous and mad that he was not the first and only student to go to U.A. from their middle school and mad because he thought Izuku was hiding his quirk all this time.

2. Izuku is still traumatized.

1. I've hinted at this above, but I don't think I would allow someone with a quirk that makes them sweat a nitroglycerin-like substance to put their smoldering hand on me. Seriously just that scene makes it clear that Bakugou has used his quirk to either frighten Izuku or to injure Izuku.

2. When going in for the entrance exam on page 2 of the third chapter Izuku is shown to turn away from Bakugou and appears to be even more nervous then before.

3. Izuku also thinks to himself about how he has to "stop flinching instinctively." Guys he flinches away from just hearing and/or seeing Bakugou. If you think this can become a healthy and stable relationship......??? Also a few pages after when everyone is gathering around their assigned testing locations someone says "he flinches at the slightest touch" after Iida grabs his shoulder.

- If you think that is freaking natural someone watching that unfold already freaking knows it's not f u c k i n g natural for some to be terrified of another person grabbing their shoulder when they even see the person performing the act. Startled perhaps, but not the way Izuku flinched. Once again in this scene (and like most throughout the first volume) Izuku tries to make himself smaller than he already is by tucking his chin towards his chest and looking away from Iida (who by the way is trying to meet Izuku's eye.) Izuku is so used to being physically abused by his peers that he flinches on contact.

4. Before entering the 1-A classroom for the first time Izuku prays that neither Bakugou or Iida would be in the same class and depicts Bakugou in a pretty demonic way.

5. After the meeting with the principal(?) Izuku instinctively raises his arms to try and block any explosions near his face.

6. After Izuku uses OFA through one finger in Aizawa's assessment test Bakugou is furious and when Izuku sees his barreling towards him he screams in fear. And guys this must be the first time someone has actually STOPPED Bakugou from tormenting Izuku because the look on Bakugou's face is pure shock. Meaning in the years (probably near a fucking decade) nobody has stopped anyone from bullying Izuku. Like that says it all, doesn't matter if you're pro-Bakugou or not Bakugou traumatized Izuku because his abuse and torment went from when they were just little kids after finding out Izuku was quirkless to right after the Sludge Monster.

Do I need to continue into Volume 2 with the whole Bakugou versus Izuku fight? But I will say this...

Izuku has started to heal.

As the manga and anime continue Izuku stops flinching everytime someone calls his name or touches him. He stops raising his arms to block a blow that won't come. He stops trying to sink in on himself. I think the best comparison of this is when Izuku first "raises" his hand in the first chapter to the one during Ectoplasm's math lesson where he stands up confidently and gives an answer.

But healing doesn't erase the past. Healing mentally doesn't erase physical scars (once again it is pretty obvious that Bakugou used his quirk on Izuku.)

Not to mention Bakugou has yet to confront what he did to Izuku. Hell he hasn't even changed much. The only change he did was not always call people somewhat derogatory names instead of their actual name. Don't give me that shit of "well he was kidnapped and felt guilty over All Might's retirement." That's just making a fucking excuse about why he should be forgiven. Was he held against his will for almost a fucking decade? No it was a handful of days and who got him out? Shockingly, but sadly not shockingly the one he decided to torment for years. Don't give me that shit about how apparently being a kid gets you out of trouble. Sure some of it was when he was a kid, but want to know something people age. Hell by the time he told Izuku to kill himself he would have been 14 and most likely almost 15. Which means he should have fucking known better! The only actual excuse I will allow to somewhat slide is the fact that as mentioned AIZAWA SHOTA WAS PROBABLY THE FIRST ADULT TO STOP BAKUGOU FROM HARMING IZUKU! Meaning every fucking adult that saw the way Bakugou acted didn't do jack shit which meant he was raised in a toxic system for years being told what he was doing wasn't something worth being punished for. But still Bakugou should have known better.

The fact that Izuku idolizes Bakugou shows how toxic even this "friendship" is. He is literally idolizing his abuser. And yeah Bakugou is an abuser sure he can be called a bully and a tormentor but he is an abuser. "A person who treats another person or animal with cruelty or violence, especially regularly or repeatedly"- the fucking Oxford definition of abuser. I mean repeatedly throughout the series Izuku talks about how he has come to view Bakugou as an image of victory.

You want a character to be dating his past abuser? You really want that? I don't give a shit if you write a "they have a talk about their past" before they start dating in your story.

The fact that Bakugou's abuse and the trauma it did to Izuku hasn't been talked about yet in canon is also something that angers me a bit (hopefully Horikoshi has something planned for this). Because it's obvious from their fight during finals and their fight after the provisional license exam that they need to at least talk about it. And then get them both into fucking therapy because yikes they both need it.

And I do not fully agree with Bakugou being forced out of the Hero Course (as some people do), but at least some temporary removal. Mainly put him on probation for a while. Because I believe there are rules in Hero Society that prohibit even middle schoolers from using their quirks against someone(? Right these exist?)

Also if you think for one fucking second that Bakugou did not abuse Izuku and having them in a relationship is not toxic go read the manga and watch the anime both from the beginning because you are missing some cues.

I know that this is was supposed to be about why I don't see how people can ship this and it turned into a rant. I never really care about what other people ship but just think about this. I wrote this mainly because I have seen some people around saying that anti-bakugous overexaggerate and say that Bakugou want not an abuser when ah clearly he is. Like I could go onnnnnnnnn about how much damage Bakugou did to Izuku. We aren't exaggerating you just need to go back to the beginning and see how shitty Bakugou treated Izuku.

If you want to make an argument about how Bakugou is a good guy and how he has learned and changed and it's all good now come @ me I have volumes 1-23 and the other manga chapters on stand by and my Hulu is up and ready.

Not actually looking for an argument but I could have made this post longer but it's now almost 8am I haven't slept a wink and I'm tired.

[lo-55]

Playing With Fire Ch. 2

What Do You Know?

@emrysaf

When dawn breaks through the window and assaults your eyes you take a few long minutes to relish the feeling of obliviousness. 

If you lay here for long enough and pretend hard enough that yesterday never happened maybe you can open your eyes to your own living room, or even a hospital room where they’ll tell you you took too many Benadryl and hallucinated everything. 

Eventually you have to open your eyes and look to the ceiling. 

You really don’t wanna do this, but here you are. Doing this. 

You really, really wanna open your eyes and find yourself home, with the storm blown over and your life back to normal. You wanna call your parents, who you never knew you could miss quite this bad. 

You can’t do any of these things. 

All you can do is open your eyes and look at the unfamiliar ceiling.

There’s a few cracks in it that you count while you remind yourself how to breathe. Eventually you have to get up and change into the school uniform instead of the blinding orange jumpsuit. If you remember right you were all supposed to meet in a classroom to get your final assignments, and then jump on a train and go to your new company with a resume in hand. 

You ended up following a pair of girls to the classroom, where you plopped yourself next to Shinra. You didn’t see Arthur or Ogun anywhere, which was weird. If you recalled right Ogun stayed in the fourth after graduation, and he and Arthur were close friends of Shinra, even if Arthus disagreed with that fact for the most part. 

You shoot Shinra a quick grin, and turn to face the front again. 

If you remember right, this was where your were assigned the fourth in the game, along with Ogun. You (or the MAIN character) got in trouble snooping around and Ogun, after hearing your reasoning, turned himself into your own personal body guard. 

Now that you were thinking about it, it might be a good idea to start writing everything you know down. 

God knows you’re gonna forget something important when you need to remember it. 

Er, Sol knows? 

This is stupid. 

You look up at some nameless teacher who paces the front, holding a stack of assignments for you and copies of the applications that had been sent to each of the companies. 

This is it. 

You sit a bit straighter. 

The teacher hands out each person a form. When you look to the side you see Shinra grinning that huge, nervous smile of his and it’s all you can do not to pinch his cheeks and tell him how cute he is. 

The teacher finally hands you your assignment. 

Company 8. 

You do a fist pump. 

“Hell yeah! First choice!” 

A few of your classmates shoot you startled looks. Was your character really so quiet before? 

“Hey, I got the same one,” Shinra poked his head over to see. The list was pretty simple. All it said was the company number, their captain, leuitenant, and address. A glance around revealed that everyone else had a whole packet of information on their new companies. But 8 was so small, and so new, apparently they didn’t warrant it. 

That was fine. You already knew enough it hardly mattered. 

“We’ll be together then,” you say cheerfully. “Wanna take the train together?” 

Please say yes. I don’t know where the train station is. Or how to ride one. 

Shinra nodded, “Yeah. Sounds like fun.” 

“Wanna meet at my room and we’ll go? It says we’re supposed to meet them at their station this afternoon.” 

“Are you sure?” Shinra looked startled. You poked his cheek. 

“I wouldn’t have said it if I wasn’t, babe.” 

Shinra suddenly looked unsettled. “You’re not just doing this to mess with me, right?” 

“Mess with you?” You cocked your head. “What would I do that for?” 

He didn’t have an answer for that, but it made you sad. You knew he got teased a lot, but was it really so bad he thought you being friendly was a trick? 

You were so gonna get in a fight here someday. 

You flipped your company eight paper around so you could take a look at the copy of your resume that they’d be getting there. It was pretty bare bones. It had your name, age, weight, height, blood type, and listed you as a Second Class Fire Soldier, as well as your grades. They were all pretty average, but apparently you were good at math. 

You didn’t have a home address, but it did say you were Ueno, but that part you knew already. In the game you’d gone to Asakusa on an errand, done a bunch of side quests, and found out that Ueno was your home town and it was nearby. It was mostly made of museums and old buildings. 

Still nothing about your pyrokinesis. Damn it. 

This was starting to get annoying. 

“So I’ll see you in a few hours, right?” You clarify quickly, looking up at Shinra. 

Shinra still looks surprised, but he nods quickly, with another small smile. “Yeah. I’ll see you then.” 

You bump fists with him again before you retreat to your room. 

You take to your desk and grab a pencil and paper to try to write down everything you remember, in english for good measure. You don’t know how you know japanese now, but then again you don’t know a lot of things lately. 

What I know for sure: 

MAIN CHARACTER’s family is from Ueno. They died in an infernal fire. They had a sister they’re looking for. They have their sisters ring, a scar on their wrist, and lighter that’s connected to the Tragic Back Story. After the fire SISTER enrolled in the Fire Force Special Academy, leaving MAIN on their own for a few years. She disappeared not long after graduating, and MAIN joined to try to find her in turn. 

In the original game MAIN joins fourth company, which their sister was a part of before her disappearance. In their first night there they dream of a man in a red suit who smiles and pats their head. He’s probably important. Maybe dad??? Likely dead. They snoop around and get in trouble a couple of times, but the captain is on their side and let’s it slide with a slap on the wrist? And no mention of wanting to be lit on fire. He’s a cool, if weird old dude. 

Ogun takes it upon himself to look after MAIN after they nearly get arrested looking into 5th company. 

    Note, avoid the Princess until after Shinra works his magic. 

A choice is made: agree to let Ogun help or ditch him. 

MAIN chose help and together THEY snuck into the Holy Sol Temple. While Ogun looks above, MAIN manages to find a door leading down to old training grounds.

    Note. MAIN didn’t know they were for the shadow sun whatever they were called training. 

MAIN gets lost and pops out at the end of a tunnel, where Joker happens to be setting some cards up. 

    Note . Why???? 

A choice is made ; Tell Joker the truth or lie. 

MAIN admits to Joker that they’re looking into a disappearance, and suspect the church of having something to do with it. They admit that they think the entire situation is a little hazy, and the history is a fragile thing. After that Joker is considered a Friend.  

MAIN returns to Ogun, but only hints at what they found underground. That night they dream of the Man in Red, who tries to speak to them and pats them again. They notice he has a ring with the same design as their own. 

MAIN also spent time in Asakusa with Benimaru Shinmon and Konro. MAIN was little more than an over glorified messenger at the time, but took advantage of the opportunity to see their old home. (UENO) 

    Note. Benimaru is hot

A choice is maid ; leave at once or help out. 

Did a buncha side quests in Asakusa when MAIN stumbled on an old subway entrance in the basement of a restaurant they were working in. The owner says it’s dangerous to go down, but there are a few other holes around the city. Most have been boarded up long ago. 

MAIN, not knowing what they are, leaves them be. 

    Note. Were the subways part of the underground church forbidden place??? Asakusa doesn’t follow the church? So they don’t think they’d curses just dark and flooded? 

MAIN goes home. Rumors of the White Clad begin to circulate, and MAIN goes to company eight to ask Shinra about them directly, thinking that their sister might have been taken by them. 

. . . 

You look at your paper and realize something vital. 

You’ve misspelled maid. 

Fuck it. 

You also write the three powers you could have picked down in blue ink, taking the last pen in your drawer out.

The fire wings, Phoenix in the game. They were support type, with heavy defense properties and minor healing powers, but you couldn't fly which was lame. 

The fire spear, the Sun Lance, was a damage type power. It took fire from around you and made a blade at the end of a long stick. Technically it was a spear, but if you flipped it upside down you could ride it like a witches broom. That one you could fly with, but not the wings. 

The magnet sand, Dark Desert, was a tank type. They made a lot of long range weapons and smashed through fire pretty easily and made strong walls, but it couldn't get too close to you or you yourself will take damage, and you can’t move while you use it. 

They’re all really cool, but you still don’t know which you have and you have no idea how to find out. And you can’t ask anyone or you’ll look crazy! 

...Maybe you should arrange an ‘accidental’ fall down the stairs and claim anmesia. 

Just when you’re seriously considering that option a harsh knock sounds on the door. 

You jump and smash your arm so hard into the drawer you actually break the bottom out of it. 

“Shit! Just a second!” You yell at the door. You scramble to try to hide the evidence when you realize ; the drawer isn’t broken. The bottom is fake. 

You carefully extract, from within, a thin, red, leatherbound book. A look at the inside cover shows you a note. 

To keep your thoughts in order, you scatter brain. 

<3 Fuyuki

Another knock sounds. 

“Hey! Are you ready to go?” Calls Shinra from the other side. 

“Y-yeah! Just a second!” You stuff the book into the front pocket of your bag and throw yourself to the door. You swing it open and throw Shinra back with your blinding grin. 

“Let’s go!” 

~

When the two of you board the train, each clutching your bag close, you’re forced to stand shoulder to shoulder with Shinra, who ends up keeping up his grin the whole time even though you can see him visibly straining to stop it. 

It probably doesn’t help that you keep looking at him, but oh well. 

The second you step out on the platform the screaming starts. A burning train is on its way. An infernal. You and Shinra scramble towards the sound, with Shinra in the lead, and come to a halt just in time to see the train stop. Fire streams out the windows and a creature from a nightmare crawls out of door. 

You swallow thickly. You can smell burning flesh. You can feel heat on your skin. 

This is real. 

You tear your eyes away from the walking corpse in time to see Company 8’s bad ass entrance. They’re all so cool! Maki is such a badass, and Obi is way too strong, and Iris is sweet faced and determined- 

You’re barely able to focus on the infernal itself, and you actually forget that the big metal sign is going to fall up until it happens. 

Shinra shoots off like a bullet. 

You’re left behind, your hair whipping behind you and your arm raised to protect your face while Shinra saves Iris for not-the-last-time. 

You watch him introduce himself, for a moment feeling like you’re just an observer. Its not really intruding, but the familiarity of it all doesn’t help anything. 

It’s not until Shinra points at you and says your name that you snap to attention. Your body knows to salute even if you don’t. 

“Sir!” You echo. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. That was totally awesome, sir.” 

Obi gives you a brief once over before he nods, seriously. 

“Yes. Yes it was. It’s good to have the two of you. Come on. We should get going, back to the cathedral.” 

You and Shinra hurry to grab your things and follow after the four of them. 

When they’re not looking you elbow Shinra. 

“That was so cool!” You hiss. “I didn’t even have time to react and you totally saved the sister!” 

“A-ah, you really think so?” Shinra looked away, his cheeks pink and his grin huge. He scratched his cheek in embarrassment. “ I just did what any hero would!” 

You laugh and swing your arm around his shoulder. “True! Still, it was really awesome. I know I can count on you to help me in the future, right?” 

Shinra nods quickly, however embarrassed he might be.

“Yeah! Or I’m not-” 

You don’t get to hear his new, weird nickname. You’re cut off by the fact that instead of loading into a matchbox the captain has called you a cab. 

That’s weird. 

You know that’s weird. 

“...I don’t get it, but I’m not fighting it,” you say after a minute, and crawl inside. Shinra follows suit and the two of you finally make your way to the run down cathedral. 

Home suite home. 

 ~  ~

A/N So which power do you guys wanna see?

Dark Desert, Phoenix, or Sun Lance? Please let me know!

[eury-dice3]

Real life Marauders

There are 4 boys who are in my grade who are best friends who remind me of the marauders. Each of their personalities match up almost perfectly, and since I haven’t seen them in a while I thought I’d write down some stories about them. Here’s a little introduction to each of the un official marauders:

James Potter: the one I’m probably closest to. He is so unbelievably dumb, but also kind of smart?? He’s so funny and he doesn’t even realize it, and sometimes he just goes on and on and you just can tell that the others just aren’t listening because “oh, it’s James.” He’s in my English and Math class

Sirius Black: extremely good looking, with long dark hair. Don’t know much about him, other than the fact that he’s best friends with James, Remus, and Peter. He has more common sense than James but still is immature. Flirts with me and [Marlene] in math.

Remus Lupin: The one I know the least, but have the most classes with. We have English, History, Science, and Math together, and seeing him with different members of the marauders is very funny. He’s rather quiet and super smart, but once he’s sitting with his friends his filter comes off. Overall very sweet.

Peter Pettigrew: In my LA class. Super sweet and really funny, and very close to the other boys. He’s pretty clever and fun to sit with, but mostly follows James’ lead. Very nice.

And now here are some stories that I have:

Math:

- The first encounter I had with James and Sirius was when they sat at a table with my good friend who I recognize as Marlene. I was talking to her, when all of a sudden James asked me “do you have a spare binder? I messed mine up” and showed me his completely destroyed binder. Conveniently I did so I gave it to him. The first thing he did was put his hand behind the plastic cover and poke holes through it with his pencil.

- Whenever we had group work time in math, Remus and I would pull up extra desks and sit with James, Sirius, and Marlene. We wouldn’t do any work.

- before a math test, James made up some stupid analogy about alligators to help him remember something??

- during the same test, the teacher walked out of the room, and the events were as followed: Marlene didn’t know what she was doing so Sirius took her test and was looking at it. James and I were trying to figure out wtf was going on and we were equally as lost, so I began to cheat off of him. When the teacher walked back in, Sirius threw Marlene’s paper back at her and it was so hard not to laugh. We didn’t get caught. When we got the tests back, I got a 97%, and James got a 63%. He almost got us caught when he said to me, “but you cheated off of me??!!”

- James was copying my math notes because he had missed a day. Sirius, who often messed with James paper (ex: ripping holes in his paper with his pencil, scribbling on it, etc), squirted chocolate milk all over my notes. When he realized it was mine, he wouldn’t stop apologizing.

- I let James and Sirius copy my stuff just so long as they let me explain it to them so they can do it on their own.

- James and I were arguing about what colors each subject was (English is RED!!! And math is BLUE). Sirius was genuinely confused that subjects had colors??? And the argument got really heated until Remus pointed out James was colorblind so obviously he was wrong >:(

- Sirius tries to coach James with his math work, but gets frustrated super fast with him, so I have to be the one to do it.

- Since no one else was doing their work other than Remus and I, I turned to him and asked whag he got for one of them to see if I did it right, and he ignored me. He later apologized because he thought I was just trying to copy him like James and Sirius always do.

- James did something loud and disruptive in the middle of a lesson, then blamed it on Remus. Remus mouthed “ill kill you” over and over to James. It took everything we had to stop Marlene and I from bursting out laughing.

- James likes to show me Bigfoot videos

- when our desks are put in rows for tests, when they all walk in, they all sprint to get any seat other than the front. James usually ends up sitting front row, which means that whoever’s behind him will tickle him.

- James got a text from a random number who was claiming to be some woman. We were joking and said it was sex trafficking, and Sirius said “who’d want James??” And Remus said “Id sex traffic James.”

- our teacher lets us sit together but we have to sit right in front of his desk :(

- whenever Marlene and I get in trouble for talking, we always get fake disappointed looks from Sirius and ESPECIALLY James.

English:

- I sat at a table for a while with James, Remus, and Peter. And what. A. Time.

- we were pretty rowdy all the time and never got our work done, but since I was the teachers favorite I never got in trouble.

- our teacher would get angry at our whole group and yell at us, then just apologize to me later, which drove James absolutely crazy.

- I catch James staring at me and giving me funny looks often in class, so when I ask what he wants he just waves his hands and looks away like he did nothing wrong.

- Peter is very sweet on the outside but that boy can talk some SH!T!!! Our English teacher is insane so whenever she isn’t looking he would make fun of her

- they spent an entire class period trying to touch their thumbs to their wrists (none of them could) and when I showed them I could, they all lost it. I didn’t think it was that strange??

- we have to write down what we’re greatful for at the beginning of every class, and I always ask James what to write. He gets this far off look in his eyes and always gives me something dumb like “tin foil” or “white crayons.” I always take his suggestion.

-one time James wrote down “substitute teachers” and shared it to the class one day, and got in trouble for it. He got a detention for “insulting a teacher.”

- Remus and I tell James and Peter all of the answers to questions because they never read the assigned books.

- I’m pretty sure James doesn’t know how to read??

- I’m kidding (maybe?)

-Remus and I get into arguments with our English teacher because she doesn’t know anything??? Any time she says anything factually incorrect (which is a lot) we both immediately give eachother a look and raise our hands.

- The three of them were blasting some music out of their earbuds during work time. Our teacher asked what was happening, and James said “Rap music. It helps with learning Shakespeare, did you know? It’s like Mozart and classical music, but there’s actually really cool studies about it you should look up.” Thats bs.

- we had a timed writing and Remus and I took turns getting eachother extra pages. James and Peter were horrified when we were on our 4th and 5th pages and they were still outlining.

- James snaps his fingers when he’s trying to remember something

- we had to perform Shakespeare scenes in groups, and I can not remember why they did this?? But Remus ended up spitting water all over Peter in front of the class.

- we were reading life of pi, and I overheard James say “You know at the end of naked and afraid how they give the survival ratings? Pi would be an 8.4 at LEAST” and the other two completely ignored him. I thought it was funny.

- Marlene was doing Valengrams, and she came outside of our classroom and tried to wave to me. I didn’t see, but James did, and overly enthusiastically waved back, which caused the teacher to yell at him.

- overheard peter say “You ever seen penguins of Madagascar? how did that make sense?” And James enthusiastically agreed.

- Remus gives them snacks

Extra:

- James pushes me in the hallway just because he’s taller than me >:(

- James also likes to show off. We were walking to the library when he started bragging about how he could touch the ceiling (since they’re super high up), so I told him to prove it. He could, but he ended up breaking one of the ceiling tiles. We ran.

- While Remus’ legs are the longest, Sirius and James get insecure about it and spread their legs as far as they can. Sitting across from them is a nightmare because their legs are always in ur personal space.

- where there are marauders, there’s a Snape. Marlene and I have a group chat with him in it and other people, but we also have one without him. One day, while we’re all standing there, Marlene texts the wrong group chat (with him in it) “[SEVERUS] JUST FARTED. IT WAS WET. I HEARD IT.”

- she felt bad for a moment, but when I told her she should probably apologize, she said “why? he did.”

- I have to ask Remus for help in science sometimes and he’s always eager to help.

- we had an online discussion in English, and Peter spoke once, Remus asked a few good questions, and James didn’t even show up.

- I miss them all dearly bc school is cancelled because of COVID :(

[punkiesocialonline]

WWE College AU Chapter 1

Summary: Annalise Ruiz (My Oc) is a college sophomore with a group project due soon. The only problem is who her group partners are. The Mayhem they cause and the trouble they get her into is maddening, but Annalise is down for whatever as long as her crew is with her.

Oh, great. A group project. On top of all the homework.

Ignoring for the moment the “juicy” gossip her tablemate was telling the girl behind them, Annalise looked up to the board.The list of both familiar and unfamiliar names continued on and on until she found hers. Her group consisted of herself, obviously, and three male students, only two of which she had known. One being her long time friend and class clown Samuel Zayn, who refuses to answer to anything other than Sami. The other was his trouble maker best friend Kevin Owens. Kevin caught Annalise’s eye from his seat in the corner of the room and waved, his smirk letting her know he had no intention of helping on this project. With an annoyed eye roll, Annalise looked back at the board. The last name assigned to her group was Roman Reigns. Annalise had no idea who Roman was, but her tablemate, a petite blonde with pink highlights named Alexa, certainly did. 

“Oh my goodness, Anna! You got Roman “Hot As Sugarballs” Reigns in your group!”

Annalise’s confused look gave away her lack of knowledge of Mr.”Hot As Sugarballs”. Alexa gasped in surprise and turned back to her gossip buddy behind her.

“Sasha! She doesn’t know who Roman Reigns is!”

Sasha, the darling girl with beautiful, brown skin and dark eyes looked unamused. She tossed her blue dyed hair behind her shoulder and shook her head at Alexa. 

“Not everyone is as obsessed with Reigns like you are, Bliss.”

“I’m not obsessed!” Alexa protested. “He’s just, so hot.”

Before the conversation could go any further, the bell rang and Annalise sighed in relief.

“Saved by the bell,” she thought as she grabbed her books and started to walk to the door. 

“Hey! Annalise, wait up!” 

“Spoke too soon,” she told herself as she turned around and was met with two of her partners. 

Both Canadians smiled down on their shorter classmate. Kevin leaned against the desk he stood next to while his red-headed counterpart jumped with excitement. Both had a piece of paper in their hands.

“We were thinking of some ideas for the project,” Kevin said bordly. 

“We made lists!” Sami said, happily shoving his piece of paper into her hand.

“List of Jericho?” Annalise joked, referring to Kevin’s former friend Chris Jericho.

Chris was an upperclassman who used to write lists of people who annoyed him. Annalise got herself on a list by telling him how truely annoying he was.

“There’s a big difference,” Kevin explained. “These lists were written by two actually intelligent people.”

Annalise chuckled and skimmed through Sami’s list, taking note of a few really good ideas she liked. She nodded and gave the list back then outstretched her hand for Kevin’s. With the same sly smile as before, Kevin handed her his list.

Annalise noticed almost instantly that the paper was mostly blank. Only one bullet point was written at the top of the page;

Let Sami come up with all the ideas 

“Wow,” she said sarcastically as she handed the paper back. “These are great and all but apparently we have one more person in our group.”

Both boy’s eyes lit up. Kevin’s smirk grew and Sami’s jumping intensified. Annalise furrowed her brows at their reactions. 

“Yeah, the big dog,” Kevin said, standing up straight and leading Annalise out of the classroom with Sami following them. 

Her confused look returned to her face. She quickly tried to go through her memory and put a face to the name. She allowed herself to be led throughout the halls as she did so. 

“You really don’t know who he is? He’s pretty hard to miss,” Sami remarked after she had visibly given up.

She threw him a wild glance and raised an eyebrow. 

“Don’t we have the same math class Sami? I tend to miss a lot,” the girl responded as she continued to walk. 

She really didn’t care where they were going. She knew most of the school like the back of her hand and their last class was her final class of the day, so rather than going back to her dorm alone, an adventure with the two reasons their last science teacher quit was more than welcomed. Annalise also wanted to know more about this mystery man everyone else seemed to know. 

“Well, you know Seth, right?” Kevin asked as he made the latina turn a corner. 

Her two toned friend came to her mind instantly. She went to highschool with him and witnessed his glow up first hand. She loved the guy, but what did he have to do with Roman Reigns?

“Rollins? Yeah, I know him.”

Kevin had her turn another corner into a hall she had no idea even existed. She didn’t have time to ask where they were going before he responded.

“Roman is his older brother.”

Annalise’s mouth dropped open. She tried to think back to highschool, certain that Seth had introduced her to an older brother, but the name that came to mind was not Roman.

“I thought his older brother was Ambrose. You know, Dean Ambrose?” 

The mention of the upperclassman made Sami shudder. Dean was an even bigger trouble maker than Kevin, and Sami knew all too well what it is like to get into a confrontation with him. Dean was the king of detention back in highschool and Annalise was pretty sure she'd seen the lunatic hanging out by the dorms more times than she could count, but she had no classes with him and never saw him in the halls. And surely no one was dumb enough to get the name  “Dean Ambrose” confused with “Roman Reigns”. 

“Yeah, that’s ONE of his older brothers, but he got another, Roman,” Sami explained as he fixed his hat.

“Everyone calls him the big dog,” KEvin added, coming to a stop at an opened locker.

With a nod, Annalise stopped with him. She looked around and noticed a few upperclassmen she recognized. Randall Orton, Natalya Hart, Drew Mcintyre, Lacey Evans, even Alan Jones Styles. Some waved at Annalise and glared at her companions, others did the opposite. And while she did enjoy seeing them all and exploring this new hallway, Annalise saw no reason for her friends and herself to be there. 

“Why did you take me here?” She asked, leaning against the lockers.

Kevin smirked once again and glanced at the locker. 

“To see our other porr assignment sucker,” he said as he slammed the opened locker shut.

Before even a breath could be taken, Kevin was pushed into the locker. Sami and Annalise jumped back and looked up at the mountain of a man that was responsible. He was much taller than the three sophomores, with long, black hair tied into a bun and grey eyes. Part of Annalise wondered if he was wearing contacts, another part was wondering how high she would have to jumped to slap him for pushing her associate into the locker. 

“Hey, ride or die. Even for these fools,” she thought. 

As she took a step towards the male, Kevin spoke.

“Woah, woah, woah, big dog, chill” 

With wide eyes, Annalise realized that THIS was Roman Reigns. For once she could agree with Alexa, he was hot.

And she did recognize him. She remembered seeing him picking up Seth and Dean back in highschool. She also remembered seeing him sitting in his car, watching carefully as Dean pushed her into a bush while she was walking with Seth. She even remembered seeing him standing off to the side as Dean tried to awkwardly apologize the next day. How come she never noticed him here? 

“Because you’ve been too focused on school,” She thought. “And….other stuff.”

She was pulled back into reality when a deep, deep voice rattled her chest. It took her about five seconds to realize it was Roman talking. 

“What do you want, Owens?”

Annalise’s dazzlement soon turned back into anger as he pushed Kevin once again before he could answer.

“You’re our partner in a project,” Annalise nearly growled. “You would’ve known that if you had the common sense to show to class.”

The samoan’s cold gaze went from Kevin down to the small latina and the hint of amusement in them filled Annalise with more rage. 

“I know you,”he stated, studying her.

She felt his eyes look over her green dyed hair. She felt his eyes bounce from her pierced eyebrow to her pierced nose. His gray eyes stared into her brown ones, then those very eyes skimmed over her appearance. Annalise felt her face heat up as she got angrier. 

“Oh?” She said, trying to keep her composure. “Well, considering that I just found out who you are two seconds ago, I can officially say where you stand on the popularity chart.”

The tall man’s eyes lost all amusement in them. Kevin noticed and stood up straight, ready for a fight. Behind Annalise, Sami glared at Roman, trying, and failing, to intimidate the bigger man. 

Then Roman started to laugh. If Annalise thought his voice rattled her, she was not prepared for his laugh. 

“You’re gonna be fun,” Roman said between breaths. “A project, huh? Alright then, you three can come by my dorm around, let's say five?” 

The Canadians looked between themselves and their female partner. Satisfied, all three nodded.

“Alright, your dorm at five,” Annalise mumbled, keeping a wary eye on him.

His demeter changed in a blink of an eye. He no longer looked so big and bad. His smile lit up the hall as he playfully punched Kevin in the arm. A playful punch Kevin returned.

“Wait,” Sami interrupted after a moment of deep thinking. “Are your brothers going to be there?”

Roman shrugged. “Seth is my roommate, so he’ll probably be there. “ He glanced at Annalise as he said that. 

Annalise knew he saw her smile at the mention of his puppy-like brother, but she hoped he thought nothing of it. Don’t need that rumor going around.

“And the other one?” Sami tried to ask casually. 

Almost everyone knew about Sami’s confrontation with Dean. During an argument out in the courtyard, Dean brought Sami’s sexuality confusion into the mix. Now there was a rumor going around that Dean felt sorry and didn’t actually mean to bring up such a touchy subject, but Sami didn’t believe it. He told anyone that believed otherwise that Dean could never keep the truth from his eyes. When he started calling Sami out, in front of multiple classmates no less, his crazy eyes told Sami that he meant and believed every word. Dean’s crazy eyes turned into black eyes by the time their confrontation was over. Sami, on the other hand, had a broken nose, a busted lip, and a bruised pride.

Roman’s gaze softened at Sami’s nervous-like behavior. He was there when the argument went down, he was the one who pulled Dean off of him. Roman had felt guilty for not telling Dean to stop once he got to dangerous waters, but Dean was his little brother. He was taught to stand behind his family, no matter the choices they make. Even if they are really dumb ones. 

“Dean is….unpredictable. He may be there, he may not. If he is, I swear he’ll be on his best behavior,” Roman assured him. “And Samuel, Dean really didn’t mean to offend you, he was losing an argument and took a low blow.”

Annalise and Kevin looked at each other at Sami. The ginger was staring off down the hallway, trying to stay calm and act cool. He finally looked up at Roman after a moment of silence.

“It’s Sami.”

Roman seemed to understand that the smaller man was not trying to hear him defend his brother’s actions. The samoan simply just nodded and checked his watch.

“I have to go, see you three at five,” he stated, glancing up from his watch.

“Yeah, see ya,” Sami mumbled, already walking off. 

Annalise and Kevin followed silently, leaving Roman Reigns behind them.

“Well that was...interesting,” Annalise said, falling into step with Sami on his left side.

“Yeah,” Kevin agreed, walking on Sami’s right. “You okay, Sami?”

Sami took a deep breath and nodded. The further they walked, the clearer his eyes became.

“Yeah,yeah, I’m fine.” He said. “I think I’m going to skip my next class though.”

Kevin wrapped his arm around Sami’s shoulder. Annalise intertwined her fingers with Sami’s. Sami glanced at both of them and smiled.

“Well,” Kevin said, flicking Sami’s ear. “If you’re skipping class, so am I.”

With a chuckle, Annalise nodded. 

“I’m already finished with my classes for the day, wanna head to my dorm and get beat in some video games?” 

Both boy’s smiles grew. Ignoring the look some classmates like Bobby Lashely and Daniel Bryan threw their way, the three of them walked to the doors.

“You’re on, grasshead!” Kevin exclaimed, making Sami laugh. 

And while they walked out, Kevin discreetly flicked off the students who dared to look at him and his friends funny.

Bobby and Daniel certainly got the message.

[savysavannah]

Challenge 1

Special thanks to @damian-schreave and @hadleyjaneharper for the rps.

Also the last section is not in fic format because its 2am, im lazy, and you get the gyst from the RP. Apperantly this is too long so part 2 soon.

    The Prince was off in Paloma for a bit so we were of little use in the Palace, no idea why they had us move in so early. Therefore, I’d spent most of the day with some books I’d grabbed from the library. Primarily they were legal books since it never hurts to brush up. But every once in a while, such as now I’d need to go and grab some food. 

I brought my notepad and a book on contract law with me and walked into the kitchen. There was another girl also in the kitchen. We haven't spoken to each other, she didn’t seem unfriendly or particularly awful company, just hadn’t really had the moment to. I grabbed a plate of fruit and wondered if she would say anything. After a moment I sat down and resumed reading. 

Then a small sad sigh came from the young woman who was looking down at her phone with a sad face. It wouldn’t be too bad if I took a break for some conversation. However, the young woman looked troubled, she may not be in the mood. I yawned and stretched then mumbled, but loud enough for her to hear, “God, I could use a drink.” and wondered if the other would take the bait. 

There was a beat before the other spoke, “Long day?”

“More or less. Lots of reading, missing work. How about yourself?”

She shrugged “Its...different than what I’m used to. Lots of sitting still when I’m used to spending my days moving around.” SHe grimaces then sighed, “The adjustment period is always the toughest, though.”

I thought for a moment trying to remember the occupations of the selected, “The dancer?” I asked. 

She grinned “Yeah. Hadley.” She raised an eyebrow, “And you?”

“Lawyer.” I said and stood from the table, walked over to Hadley and held her hand out, “Savannah Mars, Labrador, three.”

She shook my hand, “Nice to meet you.” then thought for a moment, “You said you were missing work? Do you work at a law firm?”

“Kinda. I work for the Illean Civil Liberties Union in their legal division. It's a non-profit which focuses on civil rights and for me civil legal cases. Lgbt+ rights defense, domestic defense, that sort of thing.”

“Oh, that’s really cool.” She said, seeming actually interested in my work. “Are you missing the casework, or something else?”

“It's pretty hard for me to step back from my work. Since I'm kind of left worrying about my clients. A new guy took over my cases but I'm trying to still work in my own way by studying up on some legal sections I work in less frequently but still may come up. Such as contract law.” I explained not fully hearing her other question. 

She nodded, “I understand, sort of. I’m left worrying about how my ballet company is going to perform, with somebody else taking over the role in the Nutcracker that I’ve had the past few years.”

“Yeah the transition really is nerve wracking. Have you seen them perform though?” I asked hoping that could at least provide some solace. 

“I’ve seen pictures on Instagram, but no videos yet. We were just finishing up our performance of Cinderella when I left. Nutcracker rehearsal started a few days after, but it’s a show we do each year, so... “ She sighed “ It /should/ be fine.”

I nodded, “well if they assigned them the role try and have faith in their qualifications. That's what I'm keeping in mind for mine. They did go to law school so it's fine. They got the role so it’s fine.” I said partially for her and partially for me. 

She sighed a little hesitant, “Yeah, you’re probably right. Competition is just gonna be a bitch and a half when I’m sent back.” She chuckled wryly.  

“Well maybe you'll win and then you won't have too. Who’s gonna take a role away from the future queen of Illea.”

“That’s extremely unlikely to happen.” She then almost smirked “What about you? If you win, nobody’s going to tell you no in a courtroom.”

I laughed, “If I win I'll kill myself.” Then I realized how dark that sounded, though it didn’t seem to phase her.

“I hate to say that I feel the same way, but…” She shrugged and nodded, “I feel the same way” For a moment I was confused, why would she join if she felt the same way? Then it clicked, a dancer would be a five, lower class, need the money.

“You're a five right? Did you apply for the money? If you don't mind my asking that is. It would just make sense why you'd dislike to win.” 

“It…” She bit her lip, “Kind of? It’s a long story involving a deadbeat mom, a shitty health care system, two starving artists, and a kid with leukemia.” She said with an apologetic smile. Whatever she’d be apologizing for I can’t say. 

“Well shit man, I'm glad you got in then. Both for the money and for a break from that. I know this society fucking sucks and we've got a likely shit for brains hier, but if you ever need a lawyer I'm here to help. Hopefully, being a three now will provide some help for you too.” I said then caught myself making a mental note to not be so vulgar with my language. 

She gave me a small smile, “Thanks. Now I just have to figure out what I’m doing with the rest of my life, after throwing my career into dance, only to become a Three.” She laughed, “What about you? Why did you enter? It sounds like you had a pretty cushy gig going on.”

It wouldn’t be smart to tell the truth, but lying when Hadley had been so open felt wrong, I sighed and said, “My brother. Basically he forged my entry and I didn't want him to get into legal troubles for that. He's a fucking idiot.” I sighed and let that last cuss word slide as he is a fucking idiot. 

She snorted, “Men really do only have two brain cells.” She gave a small smile, “I’m sorry that you ended up in that situation, though. That’s rough.”

“Yeah. I tried to beat him up but my other brothers stopped me. It was really a mess. Had to find out from a waitress asking for a photo with me.” 

She shook her head, “My best friend told me that he was so upset to see me, “throwing my life away,” as if I hadn’t entered to help him and his brother.” Sounds like an ungrateful ass. She sighed and looked down at her fruit, “When did life get this messed up?”

A question with too big of an answer. A bit panicked and not knowing what to say I took a strawberry off my plate and held it out to her, “Fruit?” 

She chuckled and took the strawberry, “Thanks.” She takes a bit, chews, and then pauses, looking at Savannah, “You know what I could really go for right now, though? A good gin and tonic.”

“God that'd be great. You know what, let's make some. One glass can't hurt.”

She shrugged, “Sure, sounds fun. I’m down.” She looks around, “I know they keep the wine in that cabinet, but I haven’t found the liquor yet.”

After gathering our ingredients we get to work making the glasses, “so, what's your plan in all this?”

“In the selection?” She raises an eyebrow and then shrugs, she starts pouring things into the mixer bottle, “Stay here for as long as I can so I keep making stimulus checks, and then get sent home before I’m stuck spending the rest of my life here.” She finishes pouring and looks at Savannah, “You?”

I sighed, “about the same. Give the money to the non-profit I work for. I was hoping I could root for you to win, you seem like you have a good head on your shoulders to influence him, but the more I think about it the more I realize that's like damning to hell.

She snorts, “Well, I still appreciate the compliment, and I would’ve said the same about you.” Then she sighs, “I’ve always known that it’s been like this, though. He gets to squander every penny he has on luxury shit, whereas my paychecks…” another sigh, “But life isn’t fair.”

“Yeah. And then waste the money on useless shit and trying to pass dumb laws like making 'cats' illegal instead of actually fixing the problems in this country.” I said and poured myself a glass of the drink.

She poured some for herself and then shook her head with an eye roll, “Don’t even get me started on that debacle. Why even joke about things like that?”

“Because he doesn't comprehend how the people of his own country are suffering. He's just so blind with privilege. Not that I have much to speak on but at least I freaking try to think about others in the country and their situations.”

She gave me a small smile, “You didn’t seem like the type to blow your money on worthless things to me, at all. I don’t even know what I’m going to say to him when we have that interview in a few days.”

“Yeah I think im just gonna be polite for the sake of not causing a scene that'll haunt me my whole life” I said and took a sip, then clarified, “polite though, not kind.”

She nodded then drank too, “I really went from putting on one type of show for Twos to another.” 

“Any idea what you're gonna do as a three?” I asked.

She pursed her lips and shook her head, “I haven’t taken a science or maths class since I was eleven, and I don’t have the money for university. I guess I could work as a translator, or if that doesn’t work out, marry a five and go back to dancing.” She took another sip of her drink, “Hopefully I’ll be here long enough to figure it out.”

“Do they not have like threes who are dance teachers? I haven't really looked much into the area myself but it may make sense.”

She shook her head, “For me, at least, it was mostly Russian immigrants who were former dancers themselves, so Fives.”

I thought for a moment, “Well if you ever need history lessons, english, or legal aid I'm around. I dug into my pocket and pulled out a business card, since it’s not like either of us plan to be here long,  “Just all the way up in Labrador. Where are you from again?”

“Allens. So, not too far. Thanks.” She replied and looked at the card.

“Welcome.” I replied, finished off my drink then wrote down another idea. 

Hadley narrowed her eyes curiously, “What are you writing?”

“Just an idea for a proposition with the ICLU. There are probably other girls in a similar situation as you being lower caste now upper be it through marriage or selection, it may be helpful to talk about implementing a caste readjustment program.”

She lifted her head, smiling just a little, “That sounds like a great idea.” Then a little quieter she added,  “I'd appreciate it.” 

“Hopefully my boss will agree and pass it onto the innovation department. I'll write a quick memo about it to her later.” I smiled happy to have something to do.

“You really love your job, don't you?” She asked. 

I nodded, “It makes me feel like I have some kinda purpose. As cheesy as that is to say.” Making actual change in Illea instead of just prancing around doing whatever else I could have grown up to do. 

“No, I get that.” She looked down, “As a kid, I never really felt like I belonged, but on the stage, dancing?” She looked a little distant, “Standing out was a good thing.”

I nodded,  “Mhm. Have you thought of ways you could continue working while at the palace?”

She smiled, “Actually, I had a conversation with Prince Eaton about that, and I’ve been able to work out a schedule that allows me to still practice, even though I have to do a little more work to catch up on lessons.”

“That'll be good. If you wanted too you could put on a performance and donate the profits. That way you could be working towards a goal too instead of general practice.”

She tilted her head, “That's an interesting idea. I’ll keep that in mind.”

I nodded, “Well it was nice meeting you, Lady Hadley. But it is probably time for me to get back to work.” Then held out my hand to shake goodbye.

She took it, giving it a shake. “Nice to meet you too.”

It was pretty late in the afternoon by the time I was escorted to the interview room. Damian was in a navy blue suit jacket, dress pants, and a white button up shirt. He smiled at me as I got closer.  His eyes flicker to my nametag for a second before he speaks, “Hello, Lady Savannah. It’s a pleasure to meet you in person.”

I smiled trying to stay polite, then gave a small curtsy, “The same to you, your highness.”

He smiled back, taking a few steps back and gestured for me to go into the interview room. In the room is a sofa, surrounded by stage lights and a few cameras, what a romantic first meeting. There is one camera on a swivel stand, that is currently focused on Damian and I. He starts walking into the room, looking at me as he talks, "How have you found your first few days here, so far?"

I debated giving him a short one word answer of 'fine' but Danny's words of 'don't ruin your own happiness" slipped into my head. "They've been fine. I've enjoyed your library. It's helped me feel like I can in some ways continue working by catching up on legal matters normally outside of my areas of expertise."

He nodded while smiling then took a seat on the sofa, "So you're a lawyer, then? What kind of law do you practice?"

Reluctantly I sat next to him, hopefully I wouldn't catch an STD from proximity alone, "Yes, I practice primarily civil and criminal law with the Illean Civil Librities Union. So primarily defending people who are in bad situations due to outdated laws which need amending." My tone came out more passive aggressive than intended, but it was slightly justified as he should have been working to amend said laws and help people instead of partying.

"That's a great thing, to be doing. What got you into law?"

"Well I was at the University of Labrador. My best friend I'm the sorority I was in decided to go to a protest over women's rights in illea. We went, someone man came and antagonized some women, she defended herself verbally, got arrested, felt up by the officer, then was unable to do anything legally about it. I felt that was unfair so I decided to look into being a lawyer, liked the process, graduated in 2 years, went to Yale and here I am." 

He lets out a low whistle, looking down for a second. I couldn't help but be a but prideful at my accomplishment, then looks back up at me, more serious than before, his jaw tense, "I'm really sorry that happened to your friend." He said and fell silent. What a conversation killer. 

"It's fine." I said trying not to dwell on it, "How was your time in undergrad? Partied a lot, I saw." I said the passive agressiveness coming out again. 

He smiled, a little more relaxed than before, but not as relaxed as he was when he first entered the room, "I enjoyed my last few years of freedom before entering the real world, yes." He then raised his eyebrows, grinning a little wider, kind of teasing, "And what about you? Being in a sorority and all, I doubt you were much of a homebody yourself." 

I couldn't help but completely flush and bit down my urge to absolutely smack him upside the head. "It was a brief phase. It was fun. But also a waste of time." I chuckled a bit remembering my airheaded behavior in that year, "had I already been working harder I may have been able to finish faster and help more people."

He grinned a little at how flustered I was, which just made me want to punch him more, then smiled a little more genuinely towards the end, "We're still young. We have our whole lives to keep fixing things."

i frowned, "That isn't true. We never know when we're going to die. Something could always happen so we should be trying to help as much as we can. Not to mention while we" I paused after my slip of the tongue, but didn't correct it "partied in undergrad people were suffering who could have been helped."

There's a flicker of a frown on his face when I mentioned how short life is, but he lets it go, tilting his head when he looks at me, "We can't save everyone. That's impossible. We can try to do as much as we can, but there will always be more people in need of help.

"Partying isn't trying."

He raised his eyebrows, "You didn't even know you wanted to be a lawyer, back when you were partying in college."

I got kinda flustered again, he's right, there's no logically sound way to win. Yeah but I should have, I wish I had. Would have made the time a lot less regrettable." I said then cleared my throat, "Though, this is a bit of a heavy topic for our first meeting, don't you agree? Your- Damian." I barely corrected myself from saying Your Highness.

He chuckled, "A bit, but it's different from the surface level talk about work and provinces." He inclined his head, "Though, if you think about it, you never would have discovered your passion for law if you hadn't joined your sorority." He shrugged and gave a stupid grin which made me blush even more. 

Finally I snapped and turned to point a finger at him, "You won okay. I can't regret something if I didn't know to do something better, but that doesn't make topless jello shots any less of an embarrassing memory." I exclaimed then heard what I said and wished to curl into a ball and die. 

He chuckled a little, "We all have our moments. It's okay."

Suddenly, there was a knock at the door then, and a guard pokes his head in. Damian nods at him, then turns and looks at me, "Unfortunately, we'll have to exchange stories another time. It appears our time today is up."

I sighed in relief at my rescue, then mumbled under my breath, "Thank God." I stood to curtsy, "Your-" I cringed a bit at the error, "Damian."

He chuckled again, "It was a pleasure to meet you Savannah. Until next time." He smiled at me when we got to the door, and stopped in the doorway.

I smiled back politely, "Thank you for the conversation. Till next time." 

*savy was taking a break from her work and decided to out for a walk in the gardens. She had always been a fan of taking runs when stressed snd the gardens were providing a peaceful alternative. She was walking around when she thought she saw a bunny in the bushes. Being the gal she is she wanted to see it closer so she stepped off the path and walked into the gravel. Immediately her heel sank in the gravel. She lost her balance for a moment but didnt fall. Instead she panicked. She debated stepping out of her shoes to get it out but she didnt wanna hurt her skin on the gravel. Instead she tried to wiggle it loose and hopped no one was near*

*rip savannah, but Damian is out distressing by playing basketball at that point in time, and from where he's standing as he shoots this basket, he can see someone clearly struggling with something in the gardens. he can't see who it is, or what the problem is, but he figures he should go check it out. he tucks the basketball under one arm, jogging towards the person he can see, calling out* Hey, everything okay?

*savannah hears him call out an knows immediately it's the last person in the world she'd want to find her like this* Absolutely peachy! *calls back and debates ditching the shoes*

*he slows to a stop when he gets closer, his eyes going from savannah's face to her foot* Mmm, looks like you've got yourself in a bit of a sticky situation, there.

*is extremely flustered* no situation at all. I said I'm fine. *aggressively wiggles the heel and almost trips so she squeaks but manages to catch herself*

*when he sees her almost trip, he lunges forwards to catch her before she hits the ground, but then she catches herself, so he's like "oh was that for nothing?" he looks down at the shoe, furrowing his brows, thinking* Here, let me help with that, before you actually fall.

I'm not going to fall and I don't need your help. I'm perfectly capable of defeating some gravel on my own

*he takes a step back* Alright... if you insist... *hes not going anywhere, just watching her, waiting to see what she'll do*

*huffs when she doesnt hear him walk away and continues to wiggle then huffs when shes not getting anywhere* Fine. If you're just going to stand there anyways you may as well help.

*he chuckles, setting the basketball down on the ground, kneeling down to look at the gravel and the heel, before beginning to dig the heel out with his fingers* Not the best shoes to walk off the path in.

*rolls her eyes* I didn't think about that. I thought I saw a bunny and got distracted

*he can't help but raise his eyebrows at that, grinning, twisting the heel a little to unscrew it from the gravel* Was it at least a cute bunny?

*his tone is a little teasing*

It was cute, be careful with your tone though when your face is near my foot. *once its free she steps back on the path so she doesn't sink again*

*he chuckles, joking* What, are you planning on giving me a royal nose job with your shoe?

You could probably use one. *offers a hand to help him stand back up*

*he picks up his basketball, taking her hand, still grinning at her, teasing* Maybe it's just the angle you've been looking at it from.

*stands on her tiptoes looking at his nose* Nope. It's a little off. Nose job it is.

*she pinches his nose* its a big flaw. Doubt you'll be able to get a wife like that

*he chuckles* I don’t know, my nose has never gotten in my way before

*considers* You're right, I'm sure that was just your sense of responsibility that got in the way.

*he raises his eyebrows* You know, I’ve never turned in an assignment late, or anything for work late. Never asked for an extension.

I somehow find that doubtful. Your reputation of being a loose partier precedds that of a responsible duitiful person.

Well, it’s the truth. *he shrugs* If you’re really curious, you could email my professors. It’s all about finding a balance. *he smiles*

*grumbles because he seems to be honest about it* What did you even study?

I dual majored in political science and marketing. You?

*sighs in relief* at least you werent a buisness major. Political Science and History for me on a prelaw track.

*he nods, smiling, genuinely curious* Did you prefer one over the other?

Probably political science. I mean I love history it's why I added it. For fun since it's just like learning stories and seeing the modern day impact of said stories. But political science felt more efficient. Like it helped me have a better understanding of the philosophy of political thinking which has helped me a lot in law. Plus I just liked the professors more.

*he smiles* Understandable. Good professors make it so much easier to learn the content

*smiles* yeah and lots and lots of highlighters. Did you have a favorite topic in political science?

*grinning* I took a really cool course on comparative political economies - I really like the economic side of things. That, and the classes I had to take on international politics. *he looks over at savannah* What about you?

Probably civil politics. I've always been a fan of civil work. I honestly thought about working for the AFEI instead of the ICLU but decided I wanted to do more personal legal work than policy legal work. But it's always been the work that has interested me more since it's important to bring up civil conflicts within the country and try to help as much as possible. But learning about where we came from in terms of The United States vs the civil policies of Illea was an interesting course for me, especially because of the overlap of History and Political Science.

*he nods as she talks, thinking that all over* I think work guided what classes I liked as well. Because beyond national politics, I also have to think about international politics, trade agreements, and maintaining Illéa’s position in the world.

*seems slightly surprised* so you actually liked your major? I assumed you just were kinda forced to pick it

I was kind of forced to, but I could still pick the classes that interested me more. *He shrugs* Plus I really enjoyed my marketing major.

*thinks for a moment* Can I ask you something and have an honest answer? No bullshit PR answer. I'm just trying to figure out if we can trust you to be our future king through this, at the very least.

Sure *he nods, pursing his lips a little* Ask away.

Do you actually want to be the king of this country? Like aside from the perks you have from it, do you care about the work?

I do care. *he pauses, swallowing* I really do. It’s just...it’s a lot of pressure to accept from a young age.

*she thinks for a moment* Noted. Thank you for your honesty. *Looks at the basketball* Do you play much?

*he smiles kind of sadly* Not as much as I used to. I’ve gotten a little busy helping to run the country, and such.

*gets an idea* Do you wanna make a bet with me?

*he grins* Depends on what it is

Basketball. I'm working on a program right now with the ICLU, a coworker wants to come visit me and discuss about it but appreantly work visits aren't allowed during this. If I can get more hoops in you'll arrange that?

*he furrows his brows* Better yet, I could just organize for your coworker to visit under the guise of another event going on. Just give me a few weeks to work out the details.

*kinda chuckles because shes competitive* oh? Youre scared you'll lose? But if that's what you prefer

*he laughs* No, I just know I’d win, and I’d hate to deny you the ability to see your coworker

Fine. You'll set up the meeting, then I'll just prove to you that I would win had their beem stakes.

*he narrows his eyes at her, extending a hand to shake, still grinning* Deal

*shakes it firmly then kicks off her heels planning to walk to the court barefoot.* Would be an unfair advantage for me to still be in them

*he raises his eyebrows* Why, they helped square up the height difference between us, at the very least *he chuckles*

*almost elbows him over that but barely stops herself* I don't need that help. I'm perfectly capable of crushing you independent of my shoes

*he laughs* I played basketball in uni, you know?

As did I. Well- not in a club. A guy who I was *ponders for a moment* acquainted with, played it therefore I played with him and his friends fairly often

*he raises his eyebrows* And how tall was your acquaintance? Because I’m used to playing with people my height, but also my mom and sister, who are - *he puts his hand somewhere around his shoulder because they’re 5’4” and 5’5”* - about this tall

He was around 6'3. His friends the same or more. Don't worry I'm well aware of the disadvantage of my height and very prepared to utilize it

*he chuckles* Oh, I’ve got to see this. *when they get to the court he starts dribbling the ball casually, walking towards the middle of the court* Do you want to start with the ball, or should I?

*thinks for a moment and puts her shoes down on the edge of the court and rolls up the bottoms of her dress pants a bit* You can start with it.

*he raises his eyebrows at her rolling up her dress pants, but he nods* Okay, if you insist. *he waits until he’s ready before starting the play*

*she walks up prepared to steal since she cant block*

*he starts dribbling more seriously, quickly maneuvering around her, taking three large steps with the ball, and then shoots a basket, and it goes in*

*she kinda huffs about that dislikes. But once he has the ball again she tries again, this time getting it and doing her UNDER THE LEGS MOVE AND SHOOTS*

*he turns around, a little in shock* That is not a legal move!

Hmmm *puts her finger to her chin very smug* I dont think it explicitly says in the rules that you're not allowed too. You use your height I'll use mine *VERY SMUG*

*he narrows his eyes* Fine, best 2 out of 3? Whoever gets this next shot wins, then

*SHES BEING COCKY NOW* Aw is the wittle princey calling it quits so soon? His fragile ego damaged? *bats her eyes teasingly*

*he narrows his eyes* Fine, best three out of five, then. *he starts dribbling the ball right from here he is, and it’s a long shot to his basket from there, but he’s pretty confident, so he goes for it, and somehow it actually goes in. he raises his eyebrows at her* Still think you’re gonna win?

*crosses her arms* That was luck. *goes to get the ball since shes closer*

Or just sheer skill. *he smirks a little*

*turns to face him just to roll her eyes and gets the ball. She then dribbles it back to the middle or something idk how basketball works*

*he follows her to the middle, standing in front of her, knees bent in that “ready” position idk wtf it’s called lmao*

*that position makes knees wide so she dribbles and goes to do her fast under the leg move again*

*he sees it coming this time, and takes a few steps back, keeps his arm in front of him to reach for the ball, which he gets, and then dribbles across to the the hoop he has to score in, taking the shot, and watching it go in again. he grabs the ball as it bounces back up, raising his brows at savannah* One more, or are you good? *he grins a little*

*huffs again and crosses her arm* Fine we'll call it at 3 to 1. But in my defense it's been awhile.

*he grins* Well, you’re always welcome to practice out here with me, if you want.

I can't tell if you're being taunting or not *rolls her eyes and walks up to him then holds out her hand to shake for the end of the game*

*he takes her hand and shakes, then gives her a genuine smile* No taunting. I mean it. I’d love to have someone new to play with.

I'll consider it then. I am getting slightly bored of your homes running path for exercise.

*smiles back even tho she doesnt wanna because it was a nice offer*

*he tilts his head from side to side* Yeah, the running trail through the gardens is kind of short. There are better ones /in/ Angeles, if you ever want to check them out

Not sure I'm allowed to just waltz on out of here, but I'd love the names of any you know. My grandmother lives near her so I'm sure I'll be visiting soon enough after this if not immediately so.

*he shrugs* I could also drive you sometime, if you want. I /do/ have a car.

*seems a bit surprised* You know how to drive?

*he furrows his brows* Of course! I got my license as soon as I was legally allowed to.

But its not like you need too? Don't you have like drivers?

*he looks a little confused and taken aback* I’m sure some exist, but why would I want someone else to drive me when I could be free and drive myself?

I'm not sure. I just know rich people, like for example my cousin *mumbles for a moment to find the phrasing* So my grandmother is in charge of the Mars Candy Corporation. My mom's older brother Nathaniel will be taking over it, his kids also my cousins all have drivers. They're like twenty something now but Jackson is always bragging about how he doesn't have to take the effort to drive himself places. I just assumed other people who could afford them would have them, especially busy people who could work instead of drive.

*he blinks* Wow, I never even would have considered that. *he shakes his head* No, I like driving. Being able to roll the windows down and blast the music...it’s like a few moments of freedom. *he shrugs, smiling a little sadly*

*she noticed the smile then something clicks* so freedom is your vice. You act out to feel free, thus the partying. You mentioned earlier the responsibility of being a prince being am influence on the partying. A lack of freedom makes sense. *she knows shes getting too personal but her curiosity and worry for the future gets the best of her* But what does that mean you're going to do when you're king? You'll have even less. How do you plan to maintain that restriction without bursting and needing freedom?

*he stiffens a little at her analysis because damn it’s spot on, but sighs towards the end* Getting as much out of life as I can now. I always knew what my future held for me. So I can plan accordingly. *he forces a small grin, trying to joke* Besides, with any luck, I’ll be old and almost out of energy by the time I’m king.

*furrows her eyebrows concerned* That doesn't work. *sighs* Believe me I'd know. But we aren't wired to run off memories. Instead we develop habits and coping mechanisms. Everyone snaps from time to time, you'll go back to what made you happy last. For you I assume that'll be partying. Which is something you can't do as king, and assuming it wont be till your old isn't right either, regardless of if that was a joke it's not something that you can lean on since millions of people could be relying on you and you'd be unprepared. You are going to be king, You are not going to have freedom, you are going to be under immense pressure and responsibility, honest answer, what are you going to do when you need to snap?

*he narrows his eyes at her, this time more out of irritation than anything else, and he’s a little sarcastic* Gee, thanks for the reminder. Though, for the record, I /haven’t/ partied since uni, and I have no plans to in the near future. So perhaps I’ll rely on my other coping mechanism, such as basketball, or taking a drive.

Yeah well it's the truth and uni wasn't that long ago. It's hard to break habits. I mean I partied like 4 times a month in undergrad and I still use it. That was forever ago but that's not how humans work. You're gonna lean on what you've leaned on. You're going to get shitfaced, you're going to want what you used to have, you're gonna idolize those times in uni and want them back. But you're not going to have it and it's going to be hard and shitty but you have to tough it out because of the country that relies on you and this is proving to me that you're not going to be a reliable King for the people who need you.  

[huilian]

Hello people! Since my grades for this semester have been released, I’m here to give some tips (and to remind myself what works) on studying! Since I’m a glutton for punishment, I took bio and chem classes that life sci kids take, and also math and physics classes and physics kids take. (Why? Ask me again in three years, please.) Also, I took an elective in Women Studies, which was the absolute highlight of my week (I want to minor in it, but I don’t have enough credits for that… more’s the pity). 

So! This year I got A+ in every sciency class, and an A in the women studies one, and I want to make this post to share some tips! 

Make your own notes

This is the absolute holy grail of studying tips, for me. I’ve been making summaries of things for years and it works extremely well for me. This is a way of interacting with the material, while also organizing all the bits and bobs of information that you have. I combined my class notes, powerpoints, and readings (when I have them) into a single word doc or handwritten note. It really helps to make connections between lectures, and it helps in understanding the material, since you’re actually writing it down. This also helps in determining which materials are important, and which ones are just not worth your time. Put diagrams and pictures in this document too, because you are going to need those when you study. 

If you do this, voila! You just have a study guide to study from when midterms/finals come. You don’t have to go searching for things when you’re studying, just focus on memorizing/understanding/connecting those things together. 

The only downside is this take TONS of time. For chem and physics I did them by hand, and it took me hours to do that, but since handwriting things help with memorizing, you will spend less time when you’re reviewing! For bio i basically just gave up in handwriting things (too many shits to write down) and type them, but compiling things from all my notes and readings do still take a lot of time. It works like a charm though, so as much time as it takes, I’ve been doing this religiously for years and I kept my A+ (or its equivalent). 

Cheat your brain

Find a place (or several) to study! You’ll then associate that place with studying and consequently feel weird when you’re there but not studying. When I don’t have the motivation to study I normally just force myself to be there, faf around for several minutes, and then suddenly the motivation to study comes. (Might not work for everyone though)

My mom drilled into my head that I SHALL NEVER SIT/LAY DOWN ON BEDS WHEN I HAVE OUTSIDE CLOTHES ON, so when I want to force myself up, I change to my outside clothes. Then I can’t laze around on my bed anymore (or fear the wrath of my mother. I’m literally halfway across the world, but she will know. SHE WILL KNOW.) and so I have to get up and do some work.

Use your damn resources!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

OFFICE HOURS ARE MY SAVIOUR. Very few people actually go to office hours, and yeah, it sucks to be inside your classroom building for more than you actually have to, but this time is your one-to-one time with your prof, people. A lot of my friends are afraid to go to office hours because they think you have to have like, high-end questions to ask them. Spoiler alert, you don’t. I like to just go there and do my homework/assignment on office hours, in front of them, so when I have trouble doing it I literally just raise my head and call them over. It’s heaven. Really. Did I say that very few people actually go to office hours? Your prof will be bored there, and you coming would be the highlight of their day. Bonus points are that they will know you and then you can ask dumb questions to them and they will answer (I have asked so many dumb questions to my profs. Like, really really dumb. They still answered them.) 

Ps. they will also want to give you letters of recommendation. I scored a lab volunteer (that is currently on hold because of covid) as a first-year because of those letters of recommendation.

Pps. If you’re still scared of your prof’s office hours, go to your TA’s! Sometimes they have them, and those are also my saviour. Please please just go to office hours. 

If you have writing centers or writing advisors, schedule an appointment with them a few days before your essay is due. You will then have a deadline that’s a few days before the actual deadline, saving you from the panic of not having anything written the day before the deadline, and you will get so much help. They will tear your writing apart and piece them together to be something better than you could ever imagine. Please just go to them. 

For you math kids (or those who need a math class), desmos, wolfram aplha, symbolab, and all those websites/apps are amazing. But, don’t fall into the trap of using them mindlessly. I normally use them for tedious computations and/or to check my work. At the very least, try doing it first before putting it in those websites. Remember, you don’t have those websites when you’re taking midterms/finals. 

Still use them though. Especially for computations that you know you can do. It saves so much time. 

If your prof/TA offer extra lectures or office hours, grab it with both hands and run with it. Seriously, just do it. 

Use spell/grammar checker on your laptop. Please just do it. It saves so much time and effort. 

DO YOUR WORK!

Yeah, yeah, this is on every single tip you will ever see, but this is true. Do your work now, and you will save time when studying for midterms/finals. For things like math and physics and chem, doing your work now guarantees you understand what’s going on now, so that you don’t go half the semester barely understanding what’s going on and have to cram everything before the midterm. Doing the work is really really important because that’s how you learn, so please just do them regularly. You will be lost and confused if you don’t. 

Do your readings! Even if you don’t understand a single word being said in your readings, skim them before class. You’ll then recognize things in lectures, and that will jog your memory. One of my prof once said that if you read the material before lecture, even if you don’t understand it, your first exposure to that material won’t be on the lectures, so you actually learn/understand something from the lectures, instead of just seeing them for the very first time. 

Do the assignments! My prof once told the class about a student that did great on midterms and finals, but never submit any of their assignment, and that student barely pass the class. DO YOUR ASSIGNMENTS

Do the extra credit, if you have them. My women studies class have participation grades, my bio class have participation, my friend’s physics class have extra quizzes. If you can, do them. My friend barely passed his midterms, but got a solid B+ in his final grade because he did all the extra credits. It helps you by adding the opportunities in which you can interact with the material too! 

Go to lectures. Please. Your prof knows what they want you to know, and so those things ARE GOING TO BE ON TESTS. Just go to lectures. I know it sucked, but please just go. 

Miscellaneous

Take breaks! This is also on every study tips you can ever find, but this is very important. One piece of advice I once got was that your brain is a muscle, so exercise it the way you would every other muscle. You don’t go bench-pressing 100kg of weights for hours on end. You go to the gym for a few hours, then you rest. Treat your brain like that. 

Don’t schedule one-hour breaks between classes. It’s not long enough to do anything of actual worth, unless you want that one-hour to be a full-on break. Then go ahead. But don’t think you can do any work of actualy worth in an one-hour break. (It’s because a one-hour break between classes are not actually one hour. You have the time cut off from leaving the previous class, and I usually dither because I know I don’t have anything afterwards. Then you have the time cut off from going to the next class, where I also usually take my time. So a one-hour break between classes are actually more like a half-hour.) 

Schedule in buffer time! You know how sometimes shit happens? This is your fail-safe. Your buffer, to help maintain a pH of sanity. A half-hour here or there. This time can be used if your bus is late, or if you suddenly misjudge how long it will take you to do your assignment, or if you suddenly find yourself needing to curl up in a ball because of cramps. Don’t schedule anything here. You can use it as a break if you don’t need it, but normally you will need it anyways, so don’t keep a few slots open in your schedule to be a buffer. 

Make friends in your lectures! Then you will have at least one reason to go to your lectures. As a bonus you will have someone to study with too! 

Find something nice for you to do, just for yourself. I take ballet classes every week and forget about everything I have to do when I’m in ballet class. It keeps you sane. 

So there you are folks! Stay sane and stay healthy! 

[izzy-b-hands]

Rock/Queentober 2020, Oct. 7th: Candle

Randomly assigned lad for this day: Freddie

Thus far, this is the only one I ended up having to completely rewrite. I didn’t dislike the first or second version I had, but those plot ideas were far too ambitious for this challenge lol. I might yet finish and post the first and second versions of this prompt at a later date though!

Also, am I still pissy about the power outage that took out some of my work equipment a few days back, hence why I keep writing about power outages? ....yeah I am lol. 

Synopsis: Poly!Queen with a personal dash of my fave poly!Queen headcanon, that in some version of it John is bi and splits his time between the lads and Veronica and his kids. Set in the early days of Queen. Their shared flat once again has no power, but they’ll manage just fine.

And hopefully also manage not to set anything on fire. 

TW for all the dick jokes. Why did this turn into that...

I don’t have a good explanation, aside from me being very tired and silly as I write this prompt for the third time now. 

My love to all who read/like/reblog!

“Here you go,” Freddie said as Brian walked into the front door of their shared flat. “Everyone gets one, until the lights come back.” 

“Not again,” Brian sighed, taking the lit candle carefully from Freddie. “How long has it been out?” 

“You know how you left for your teaching job at about half past seven?” Freddie asked.

Brian nodded. 

“Five minutes after that, give or take a few,” Freddie said. “You lucky sod. Getting ready with something other than candlelight to light your bath, your wardrobe...” 

“Not nearly lighting the wardrobe on fire...” Roger added with a teasing grin.

“Hush,” Freddie said. “It was fine, only a bit of wax on a shirt. Nothing actually got lit up.” 

“Someone’s looking over us, obviously,” John said. “Because otherwise it’s pure luck we haven’t burnt anything, wandering around with these.” 

“I keep saying we need a candelabra,” Freddie sighed. “But it’s always, ‘no Freddie, what would we even do with it? When would we use it?’ Well, don’t you see those answers now!” 

“Do we have anything to set them in?” Brian asked, moving the candle as wax dripped down, nearly hitting his hand. 

“We have one candle holder,” Roger said, and plunked it from out of the end table drawer onto the coffee table. 

“That looks like a...” Brian cleared his throat. 

“Big fat dick?” Roger, Freddie, and John completed his thought in one voice. 

“I made it as a kid,” Roger said. “Mum insisted I take it with me wherever I go.” 

“I can’t possibly guess why,” Brian remarked dryly. 

“I was an inspired young artiste,” Roger sniffed.

“Inspired by something,” Freddie giggled, and set his candle on it, wincing as a bit of wax hit his hand before he could fully set it down. “Is there a set of clay milk jugs with nipples you made as well?” 

“Laugh it up,” Roger said, and stuck his tongue out at Freddie, then blushed. “Well...Mum did mention some that she couldn’t put out...oh...” 

“Aww,” John teased. “Picture of a young artist, hand down his pants-” 

“And with a strong memory of being breastfed, apparently,” Freddie interjected, as Roger blushed harder and dropped his head to the coffee table. “Oh, don’t be like that. It’s cute, you were only little.” 

“God I don’t want to know what else I made,” Roger muttered. “Why didn’t anyone stop me?” 

“I mean...it is a good dick,” Brian admitted as he carefully set down his things, moving the candle from hand to hand as he did. “Anatomically correct, for a little kid.” 

“That’s not a good thing!” Roger cried as he lifted his head from the table.

“I’m sure you probably saw a picture in a textbook or something,” Freddie said. “Or maybe...I mean, children are curious about those things, right? That’s what my mum says, or bemoans, rather.” 

Roger snickered. “Somewhere there’s a set of phallus obsessed drawings from Baby Fred?” 

“I could draw you that now, if you truly wanted,” Freddie replied with a wink. “But no, nothing like that. I think I just...asked a lot of questions.” 

“Every kid does,” John said. “All perfectly normal.” 

“And if you have kids that ask all about that?” Brian asked. “What’ll you tell them?” 

John blushed. “Christ, I don’t know. I’ll need some prep time. All the time before they can talk, to prepare for that.” 

Brian stepped into the kitchen to grab some small plates to use as extra candle holders, and called out to John. “What if their first word is dick?” 

“Oh, there’s a pickle,” Roger said. “Literally.” 

“How did we end up here?” John groaned with a laugh. 

“All thanks to me,” Roger grinned, and held up the candle holder. 

“I don’t know, I guess,” John said. “I...would maybe record their second word in the baby book instead?” 

“Got it,” Freddie said. “Make sure any kids you have learn the word dick first, then tits second. We can do that.” 

“Thank you,” John replied sarcastically, taking a plate from Brian as he handed them out and joined them on the floor of the sitting room. “You’ll all be wonderful uncles to any kids I have.” 

“Yes, we will,” Brian said. “Does it help if I’ll teach them maths?” 

“They can’t learn maths from you,” John scoffed. “They need to learn that from me.” 

“Think school usually handles maths,” Freddie added. “In my experience. Don’t think either of you have to worry about it too much.” 

“Supplemental maths learning,” Brian said. “And it’s the principle of the thing.” 

John nodded.

Freddie shook his head. “Supplemental maths...what fun Saturdays those will be.” 

“I’ll make up for it,” Roger said. “They spend the mornings teaching these poor kids maths, and then I’ll bring clay over and they can sculpt all the weirdly cock-like things they want!” 

“I was going to ask if this was the best use of our time,” John sighed. “But with the lights out...could be worse. And I’m invested now, for the sake of any future children.” 

“Ah, we’re all kidding,” Roger said. “Mostly, at least. You’ll have well-behaved kids anyways.” 

“We don’t know that,” John said. “Might be troublemakers like you. Sneaking sci-fi books into their anatomy classes...” 

Roger blushed. He’d been caught doing that exactly once, but they simply couldn’t let him live down how his lecturer had fully scolded him like a naughty child sneaking biscuits before dinner. 

“That’s good trouble,” Freddie said, to cover for Roger. “I think if I was the type for kids, I’d be happy with kids like that. There’s so much worse they could do, you know?” 

“Like nearly light their own hair on fire?” Brian asked, and moved around the table to jump behind Freddie and pull his hair away from one of the candles. 

It was Freddie’s turn to blush. “Yes, like that, I suppose. I didn’t notice...” 

“I know,” Brian said, and snagged the hair tie he kept on his own wrist for the rare occasions he wanted his curls pulled out of the way, and pulled Freddie’s hair gently into a low ponytail. “There. Now at least we can keep you from going up.” 

“Thank you,” Freddie said, a hand lingering over his hair as Brian moved back to his original seat on the other side of the coffee table. “What now?” 

“We could make dinner, if we could see better,” Roger sighed. “But that seems dangerous, and frankly, I’m not hungry enough to attempt it right now.” 

Nods all around. 

“Place bets on if we’ll run out of candles?” John asked. 

“You say that like these are the only ones we have left,” Brian giggled, then frowned. “Oh no.” 

Freddie nodded with a wince. “We’ve had a lot of outages lately...” 

“And after these are gone, what’s our plan?” Brian asked.

“I have about fifteen lighters, not all used up,” Roger grinned. 

“That helps,” Brian smiled. “But, a very serious question about them...” 

Roger nodded. 

“...How many look like cocks?” 

They all broke into laughter, and though the lights weren’t any more likely to come back on, the flat seemed lighter for it all the same. 

[your-tires-are-too-cold]

every book i had to read for english and why i didn't like any of them

i woke up thinking about this and decided to make this post. for context, i went to public school and was on the honors/ap track for english. i am a firm believer that english teachers ruin books for their students inadvertently. this is my experience:

6th grade language arts

we read three books during 6th grade, bridge to terabithia, the cay, and where the red fern grows. and i had to read a wrinkle in time over the summer which i didn't understand like at all so I'm just gonna skip that one honors english was not a thing until 8th grade where i went to middle school so this was a regular english class and i hated it. it was also a double period class for some reason, so i had an hour and a half of language arts every day. 

it took us half the year to read bridge to terabithia. i am not kidding. that book is like maybe 100 pages and it took us a good 4-5 months. this is because our teacher stopped us every time we got to a pice of figurative language and made us analyze it. every. single. piece. i got so bored that i read ahead and then got in trouble for reading ahead. needless to say, i absolutely detested bridge to terabithia and would not touch it to this day if my life depended on it. 

after bridge to terabithia we read the cay. this took us the rest of the year. the cay is a relatively short book as well so i got bored with this one quickly as well. i really dont remember much about the discussions, but i remember a long one about how the cover was “inaccurate,” which, yes, it was but i dont know if a bunch of 11 and 12 year olds need to spend a week debating that. i think i hated it mostly because, again, we read it for 5 months. 

the last three weeks of the school year, our teacher gave us a book and said “here read this before school ends because we have to read three books a year and we only read 2″ (for context, the other language arts class had read about 5-7 books that year and found it insane that we were “still reading bridge to terabithia”) so i read where the red fern grows. all in all it wasn't a bad book, i did kind of enjoy it, but since i was rushed reading it on top of all my other homework and because it was definitely ahead of my reading comprehension level, it wasn't my favorite.

7th grade language arts

now, a bit of a disclaimer here, this was the year that i was in language arts with the guy i had a crush on and one of my close friends at the time. so, i didn't really pay that much attention to begin with. we read quite a few books in this class, but I'm not sure if i remember all of them. again, this was a double period. 

i think the first book we read was freak the mighty. i remember not liking this book because i felt like i was missing something. there was definitely some kind of metaphor or something in there that i was supposed to get but because i was literally twelve i didn't get it and i didn't find the meaning in it. theres nothing more frustrating than reading a book that you dont understand.

after that I'm pretty sure we read the wave. it was explained to us that the wave is supposed to symbolize how the n*zis came to power and all that stuff, and while we all knew this, i dont think we really Understood it. (probably because we were 12). we all kinda saw it as a joke and thought it was funny. i think that if i read it now i would be like. “well shit this is really interesting” but 12 year old me wanted to make fun of it with the rest of my class. 

i think we read seed folks next. this was another book that just went over all of our heads. its about how a garden changes a whole bunch of peoples lives which is like, super interesting. but none of us got it and were like “lol this is stupid” so much so that we actually stopped reading it. like my teacher stopped having us read it.

I'm fairly certain the last book we read was the miracle worker. a lot of us had had to read parts of it before that class so we were all kinda familiar with it already. i vaguely remember some kind of obnoxious class joke about the book that was probably rude. i remember finding it interesting, but there were so many activities we did about the book that i lost interest. 

8th grade honors reading

this class was A Trip. i liked the teacher, but she was a little out there. its unclear whether she got fired or just didn't come back after that year. i had a lot of fun in her class but it was usually because we all bonded over hating the assigned reading.

i dont remember what order we read the books in and i dont remember if this was all of them, but to the best of my recollection this is what we read

we definitely read romeo and juliet. by the time you're in 8th grade, everyone knows the story of romeo and juliet, so it wasn't like that suspenseful or a surprise or anything. but we had to act the reading out. yes we had to act out romeo and juliet. with burger king crowns. and wrapping paper swords. clearly the teacher was trying to have fun with us, and it was fun fun for awhile but it got old. especially when you got participation points taken off your grade if you didn't read for once of the characters (which is massively unfair because not everyone wants to get up in front of a class in a paper crown holding a wrapping paper tube and read in old english when you're 13 but whatever). 

we also definitely read animal farm. it was another book that went right over our heads (or, mine at least). i didn't actually really understand it until i had to read the communist manifesto for ap euro senior year. and our teacher talked in a bad russain accent the entire time? i could barely keep the characters straight, let alone analyze the underlying message and all that. now i might actually like it since I'm a history major and have a decent background on the russian revolution, but at 13? no thanks.

the one book that everyone hated (including the teacher herself) was farewell to manzanar. it was a memoir about a young girl growing up in the japanese internment camps and looking back on her life and stuff like that. the story itself was very interesting and we all learned a lot from it. but the person who wrote it did not know how to write. it was confusing, some chapters made no sense, and none of us generally knew what was going on. we had to finish the book because we were the honors class, but the regular class got to stop after chapter 6. 

i think we only read 4 books that year and the fourth one was the outsiders. this was one of two books that i actually liked the entirely of my public school education. i kinda vibed with it when we were reading it and then i vibes with it more once i got to high school and rediscovered it. it was just a good book, pretty solid, good themes, fantastic. 

9th grade honors english

i absolutely hated this class. hands down the worst teacher i ever had. she was one of those that should have retired 20 years ago but was still teaching for some reason. and she hated kids. legitimately. that was the first time i got a c and it took my parents a long time to realize that it wasn't because of me, it was because the teacher was absolute shit. the only thing that made that class bearable was the fact that my friend was in there and so was this guy that totally like her so he would flirt with her pretty incessantly and it was Hilarious. 

we read so many books that year and i hated all of them. a lot of them were like greek dramas and plays? like we read oedipus rex and julius caesar and antigone. and i hated all of them because the teacher made me hate reading and made it seem like a chore. 

by far the worst was the old man and the sea. i hated that book, hemingway was terrible. i struggled to find any kind of meaning in it and connected all of my responses to the bible because my teacher loved it when people did that.

we read inherit the wind and to kill a mockingbird and all quiet on the western front which were the only books i found remotely interesting. but i still hated them because i knew that we would have to do her reading quizzes which were impossible so it was pointless to read the book anyway. 

and we also read a raisin in the sun. i dont remember what this was even about except that there was some kind of insurance money involved. but by this point we were all really done with our teachers shit and my one friend legitimately said during class “but, ms. [name] if you put a raisin in the sun, doesn't it just get more raisiny?”

10th grade ap english language and composition (american lit)

i loved this class and the teacher but i hated all the assigned reading because we read it for the ap test. everything you read was in the context of having to find themes and shit to write about on the ap. so i didn't really get any of the books for that reason. i think we only read three and they were the scarlet letter, the crucible, and the great gatsby. i kind wish i paid more attention to gatsby and i think i would like it more now but at the time i detested it. we also had to read grapes of wrath over the summer and i hated that. i wanna read books to read them, not to come into school and write essays on them. also the ending was weird and i hated it.

11th grade honors (british lit)

another bad year of english, not quite as bad as freshman year, but still bad. still hated it. i outlined many fics in that class. the teacher did not like me and i did not like her. she also talked in this weird fake almost british but not quite accent that sometimes still haunts my nightmares. she was also one of those backwards feminists who claims they're a feminist but still was sexist in her favorites and the way that she treated people in the class?? after english i had math and my friend (the same girl who said the thing about raisins freshman year) and some others would complain to our math teacher about our english teacher. math was essentially a support group for english where we would discuss answers to reading checks. 

over the summer we read 1984, which, cool concept (esp right now) but i hated knowing that i had to find some kind of deep meaning in it because i was going to have to write an essay on it as soon as i came back to school.

from there i think we read beowulf which was interesting. i dont know if we actually read the whole thing or just excerpts but again, i hated looking for meaning.

we read a tale of two cities which was like the one book i actually wanted to read because i am a huge fan of the shadow hunters book serieses and will and tessa quote that book all the time. i think if i had read it to read it it would have been better but first, dickens is wordy and weird and second i dont really wanna have to search out symbolism while I'm reading because its required.

we read macbeth, which i just didn't like. idk why. i just kinda thought it was stupid. i dont really have an explanation for this one. i think it was because we read it in the old english and that confused me a lot of the time.

and we read jane eyre. the only thing i remember from jane eyre was “pathetic fallacy” which is where the mood of the scene is reflected in the weather. i dont wanna dissect a book like that. and also my teacher referred to the book as “jane” but she said it “jAAYYneeE” which was annoying. 

12th grade ap lit

dear god. this class. i had issues with this class. our teacher was something. everyone was afraid of him. e v e r y o n e. he ran detention and didn't know how to match his clothes and wore skinny ties. he had three swell bottles the he would bring with him to school every day. people claimed he used to be in a rock band and that was why his voice was so high pitched and weird. some said his wife left him, others said he had a kid. we were genuinely confused by him. he didn't teach, he yelled at you for doing things wrong without giving any instructions on how he actually wanted it done. he made college out to be some big scary thing where we would all be trampled. but mostly, he was an existentialist. 

we had to read song of solomon over the summer. i hated it. i didn't hate it because of the messages and all that stuff, no the book itself was good and toni morrison is a great author. i just hated the fact that there was graphic description of incest, necrophilia, or sex at least once every 5-10 pages. i didn't wanna read that. and it turned me off the book. so when he asked us if we liked the book when the year started i said no and i argued with him about it. and he hated me for the entire year. 

next i think we read waiting for godot. which was absolutely terrible. its literally a play where nothing happens. it would have been funny except that i knew i was gonna have to write an essay on it. how do you write an essay on a play where nothing happens? literally all of our discussions about it were about existentialism and it was terrible. 

we read the metamorphosis, which everyone hated cause it could have been written in like 4 sentences. and our teacher thought he was So Clever for assigning it to us. he thought it was the biggest joke. and he went on and on about how its about existentialism and blah blah. the book would have been funny had he not only discussed it in regards to existentialism. 

i think next was hamlet. i would have like hamlet had we not discussed it only through the lens of existentialism. its a good play, but i hated it because of the way he talked about it. even now, i only like it to make fun of the way he liked it. my friend and i send hamlet memes to each other all the time but only cause they remind us of our teacher.

one flew over the cuckoos nest. the second and final book that i actually liked my entirety of school. i dont know why i liked it, but it was just a good book. our teacher also had some kind of weird cowboy trope thing that he thought mcmurphy fell under which i thought was hilarious. the essay i wrote on that book was the only one he wrote “nice job” on and i still have it somewhere

my friend claims that we also read the stranger. i dont really remember what that book was about except some guy shot some people. there was definitely something in it that i didnt get. 

anyway in conclusion required reading ruins books. when i told my creative writing advisor that i out of all the books i read for school i only like the outsiders and one flew over the cuckoos nest she was like “yeah, english teachers really ruin books for students”

[curly-cal]

L.H | Playing Innocent

Premise: greaser!luke au where he gets a special surprise from the Golden Girl

Word Count: 3105

Warnings: swearing, oral (18+)

A/N: hiya, this has been requested, hope ya’ll like! i know its suppose to be greaser!universe type thing and that its technically suppose to be set in the 60′s but i wrote it in the time frame of maybe 1980′s? i felt like it was easier that way for me as its not a series i wanted to do an immense amount of research on.  This is also my first publish on this blog of any of my writing so i hope you like and pleeease give me feedback. Critique. anything. Its sooo helpful to know what ya’ll like and don’t. Also thank u for requesting bc this was fun to write and now im craving greaser!luke to take me for a spin on his bike. enjoy! xx

Masterlist

It wasn’t as if maths was something he struggled with, in fact, Luke considered himself quite clever when it came to the subject. However, when he found out that y/n was offering her spare time to anyone in the class who needed help, he thought it to be the perfect opportunity to get her to speak to him.

To Luke she was the prettiest girl in the school, maybe even the prettiest on the North side of Riverwood. He was enchanted by the way her hair fell in her face, the way her eyes crinkled in concentration, and how she had an answer to every question Mr. Dundell asked in class.

But Luke had a reputation that he was very well aware of, so he found it difficult to get someone like her to give him even the slightest of her time. She was a typical Good Girl in his eyes. She always got straight A’s, her attire was always perfect, she went home to a happy family, performed in the school plays and volunteered at the diner on weekends.

It wasn’t as if he was afraid to talk to her, not at all, Luke just found it much easier to go after the girls that were throwing themselves at him, rather than chase after some preppy little spoilt girl that would be too frigid to do anything with him anyway, so instead, he admired her from afar. He definitely thought about all the things he would do to her, though, all the ways he could put that chatty little smart-ass mouth to use, and when he did think of those candy pink lips wrapped around his cock, he found himself making excuses so he could go rub one off over her in the boys bathrooms.

_

 He was sitting up in the bleachers when he was caught, she was running laps around the oval for gym and for a split second she let her eyes stray from the path in front of her. They locked with his for only a short moment, but to Luke it felt like a lifetime. When she looked away, however, Luke found himself a little disappointed. A small sigh left his lips, one which didn’t go unnoticed by the hazel eyed greaser to his right.

“You jonesing for that preppy still Hemmings?” Ashton smirked, a tone in his voice that only portrayed mockery.

Luke rolled his eyes at his friend, diverting his attention to him nethertheless. “Shut up.”

Ashton let out a chuckle, but continued on with his teasing. “Isn’t she tutoring? Why don’t you ask dollface to help you out, then you can feel her up, get rejected and move on from this ridiculous crush you can’t seem to piss off.”

And that was how the plan became.

_

Later on that afternoon, Luke found himself transfixed on the girl who sat 3 seats in front and one across from where he had been sitting. She had a piece of hair curled around her finger as she listened to Mr. Dundell explain the notions of algebra. The school day was coming to an end, and not yet had Luke had the opportunity to speak to her since gym. He had a plan to catch her after class when everyone was cleared out, knowing full well that she’d stick around to speak to the teacher about extra notes, that was when he was going to make his move. He planned on playing the fool. To go over to Mr. Dundell and express how difficult he found the assignment and hoped she’d offer, or at-least the teacher would recommend her assistance, and that would be where the plan would begin.

30 minutes went by before the bell rung, then a sea of students jumped up and headed for the door in a rush, leaving only a few left behind. Luke watched as she packed away her things and headed straight to the teacher, where she did infact stand and ask for extra notes.

He quickly jumped up, grabbing his things and headed over to where they stood, but before he could reach her, she was off. Damn it. He thought to himself. He quickly ran after her, calling out her name in hopes she’d hear him in the pit of noise that filled the halls.

He finally caught up to her once she stopped at her locker, his hand flew flat against the locker beside hers, catching her attention as she looked up at the smirking boy standing before her.

“You’re a difficult girl to catch, darlin’” he grinned and wiped a stray strand of curl out of his face.

 Her frown was deep, but sat alongside confusion. She opened her mouth to speak, but stopped to rethink her words for a second. “What do you want?” She eventually spoke, but turned to continue putting her things away.

“Want your help, darlin’ my maths isn’t too good. Heard ya willin’ to help out”

Her ears perked at this, she turned and gave him and amused expression. “You want my help? No way.” She laughed as she closed her locker. Y/n began to walk away but frowned as Luke moved in front of her, stopping her in her tracks.

“And why not?” He was a little confused, but refused to show her anything but arrogance as he smirked down at her. “Where ya going, Darlin’?”

“Firstly, my names y/n, and secondly, I know you’re not struggling, Luke, you have one of the highest grades in the class. Besides, do you know how it’ll look if I’m seen with you? Already there’s a million eyes watching us.” She spoke as she scanned the hall.

Luke couldn’t help but let out a laugh at this. “You scared to be seen with me, Darlin’? You didn’t strike me as someone who cared about her reputation.”

“I don’t.” She huffed, her back straightening as she tried to stand tall, as if it would help her deceive him.

“Then help me.” He smirked, stepping closer, letting his face inch closer to hers in an attempt to seduce her. “I’ll come by the diner tomorrow, you can help me after you finish.” He winked at her and before she had an opportunity to interject, he was gone, leaving y/n standing in front of her locker in a state of confusion.

“What the heck”

_

It was Saturday afternoon and y/n was just finishing up the last of her duties at work. Luke hadn’t come by yet, much to her relief. She was hoping he’d just forget and she could go straight home and work on her assignment, not that she had much left, considering she had already finished most of the work yesterday after her class. Y/n wasn’t sure how the hell she had even managed to get as much done as she did, considering most of what she could think about was the blonde, curly-haired boy who was forcing her to help him.

It wasn’t as if she didn’t know of Luke, because she did. She knew of his reputation, and how he was considered trouble, he and the rest of his pals. The town called them the misfortunates of Riverwood. Notorious for getting into fights, graffiting the back of public toilets and getting caught and arrested by the police for public indecency, which was usually because they were screwing girls in their cars at the drive-in movies.

Being seen with him would definitely make her the talk of the town, and that’s what she was afraid of. Not because she cared of what the people thought, but because her parents had dressed her up as the towns ‘Golden Girl’. She loved her parents and wouldn’t ever want to do anything to displease them, which was why she was nervous. She knew that the reputation her parents tried so hard to maintain, for her benefit and theirs, would be demolished within seconds if people started to think she was in cahoots with the town's biggest trouble maker.

Her thoughts were abrupted by the sound of the diner doorbell, her eyes flicking to the man that had just been taking up her thoughtspace.

She wasn’t going to deny the fact that he was attractive, especially with him standing there in his leather jacket, his curls styled perfectly atop his head, jeans clinging tightly to his legs with what seemed to be a match stick rested between his lips. He gave her a wink as he began to stride over to her. “Darlin’” he nodded in an attempt to greet her. “Ya finished?”

She let out a small sigh, her hands going to the back of her body to untie the apron that adorned her. “Find a booth, I’ll be out in a second.” She turned on her heel and walked out the back, Luke doing as she said and finding a seat somewhere in the back of the diner.

When she came back out, she noticed his books out on the table, but caught a glimpse of him at the dukebox instead. She walked over to where he stood and cleared her throat. “We need to start so I’m home before 6 o’clock.” She sat down and began to flick through her notes.

“Early.” He hummed. “Ya parents strict, Darlin’?” He questioned as he chose a song and then returned to the booth, finally accompanying her.

She rolled her eyes, wishing she could lie without him knowing, but she knew he’d see right through it so she decided to not answer.

Luke let out a small chuckle, removing the stick between his teeth and let it slip between his fingers before speaking again. “Ya do everything they tell ya, Darlin’? They got ya on a leash or something?” He questioned.

“We’re here because you can’t do simple math, Luke, so how about we focus on that.” She bit back, clearly becoming agitated with his questioning.

His hands flew up, but he didn’t bother to hide the smirk that couldn’t help but permanently stick to his face. “Don’t get ya panties in a twist, just tryna see if you’re really as innocent as ya perceive, Darlin’.. clearly ya are.”

The book in her hands thudded against the table, causing a loud bang to fill the diner. Her eyes narrowed at him, a small huff leaving her lips. “Am not.”

“Pretty girls got anger. Don’t let daddy see.” He winked. “Cmon, you’re not fooling anyone, sweets. Everyone knows ya wouldn’t do anything a respected lady wouldn’t do. Would ya, darlin’?”

At this she rolled her eyes. She knew what he was doing. He was testing her, trying to get her to do something that would convince him she wasn’t who she pretended to be. He wanted to see how the real y/n behaved. Which was exactly what he was about to get.

“Fine. You want to see me be naughty? Because I can be naughty.” She hummed. When Luke only laughed at her words, a small ‘yeah right darlin’ left his lips she grinned back at him, a devilishly grin that he wasn’t ready for.

Her eyes grew bright, but filled with a strange colour. “I’ll prove it.” She stood, grabbing her things and quickly packing them away. She began to walk off, and when he didn’t follow, she turned on her heel and looked at him. “Are you coming or what?”

Luke jumped out of his seat and quickly ran after her, tossing everything he had brought into his own bag in the midst of motion. They walked out the front of the store and she turned to him. “Where’s your bike?” She smirked.

Luke’s brows raised but he didn’t speak a word, mainly because he was slightly in shock and confused about what was happening. He wasn’t sure how she was going to show him, but a thrill of excitement washed over him as they both walked to his bike. He helped her on and climbed on afterwards. He didn’t have a helmet to give, but she didn’t seem to mind.

As they drove off, her arms wrapped tightly around his stomach. Luke was sure he even felt her hand slip a few times against his member, but he wasn’t convinced it was on purpose, so he stayed quiet, and instead focused on the feeling of her breath on the back of his neck. “Where are we going?” He yelled out.

She grinned and pointed south. “Parklands, Hemmings.”

_

Luke pulled up at the reserve along the water. Trees surrounded them both as he put down the bike stand and waited for her to climb off before following suits. “What’re we doin’ her, darlin’?”

She smirked, her eyes glued to the boy before her as he leaned against his bike. “You wanted to know how innocent I was. I want to show you.” She spoke, seductive-like as she let her pointer finger run down his chest.

Luke’s eyes widened as he finally realised what she meant, but smirked as he began to play along. “Ya gonna show me how naughty you are, darlin’? Nah ya ain’t got it in ya.”

Her lips turned into a slight pout at his teasing. “You don’t know the half of it, Hemmings.” She hummed as she moved closer. She let her eyes stay glued to his as she began to slowly peel off his jacket. “You don’t know how good my mouth feels, how sweet my lips taste. How hot your body would feel up against mine.” She smirked, watching as Luke swallowed a lump in his throat. “You don’t know how well I can make you cum inside my innocent little mouth.”  

He let out a small moan, his eyes filling with lust as he watched the girl before him inch closer to him. All of the things he could only imagine doing with her was about to happen and he couldn’t wait to see how good that dirty mouth of hers felt. His dick grew harder and harder at her words, and all he needed was some sense of touch, so when she refused to give him what he wanted, and continued to tease him with her words, he began to grow agitated. “Darlin’, ya gonna prove ya ain’t all talk or am I gonna have to bend you over and get it out of ya?” He growled.

She smirked at this, her tongue clicking in disapproval. Her hands moved back against his chest, her nails scratching down the material against his chest, eliciting small moans from his lips. Once she had reached the bottom of his shirt, her fingers gently wrapped around the material and began to tug the white t-shirt that clung heavenly to his chest, up over his head and let it fall over his bike where his jacket hung.

Y/n moved quickly, pressing her lips to the exposed skin above his collarbone as she then began to let her lips make their way down his body, stopping a few times to nip and suck on his skin, making sure to leave love bites. Heck, she thought, if I’m going do this, might as well make it memorable. As she slowly reached the bottom of his torso, she found herself falling to her knees. Luke’s hands instantly tangled in her hair as she began to undo his jeans and slide them down his legs. She could see his hard on showing through his briefs, the sight of his large cock making her stomach turn in excitement. She slowly pressed her lips to Luke’s v-line while her fingers began the work of pulling off his boxers.

Once his cock was free, she let her kisses trail to the underside of his shaft, then slowly began to let her tongue trail over his prominent vein.

Even just her breath fanning him had Luke seeing stars, he tried so hard to watch her, but with every small, teasing action, Luke found his eyes drifting shut and his head rolling back in euphoria.

Once her tongue reached the tip of his cock, she hummed slightly, waiting for his eyes to reconnect with hers, and when they did, she gave him a cheeky grin before wrapping her lips around his head completely. A small moan left her lips as she tasted the pre-cum against her tastebuds. Y/n made sure her eyes never once left Luke’s as she began to the bob her head up and down against his cock, small moans escaping her lips and filling the quiet void that surrounded them, her tongue made work on running along his shaft as she continued to blow him.

Luke’s eyes were squinted, his lips in the shape of an ‘o’ as he let loud moans dance with hers. His hands worked her hair, fingers tangling and then releasing as he forced her down on his dick further. The moans and occasional gags began to feel all too much, the familiar feeling in his stomach forming as he looked down at the beautiful sight before him. “Darlin’ ya so good. Darlin’ ‘m gonna cum, ya gotta stop.”

When she refused to stop, Luke’s hands attempted to pull her off, but were met with her own, swatting them away. She continued to run her tongue as she bobbed her head, purposely moaning against his cock until she could feel liquid fill her mouth.

A loud grunt left his lips alongside a loud “fuck Darlin’ ‘m cumin’” as he released his load inside her. She continued to work him through his high, both of them now releasing quiet, short moans as she milked him of his orgasm.

After he had finished, he carefully helped her off his cock, a loud ‘pop’ noise leaving her lips as she smirked and looked up at him.

His chest was heavy and breathing uneven, but all he could pay attention to was the girl before him, down on her knees, looking up at him with a devilish smirk on her face, alongside a whole heap of saliva, mixed with his cum. “Not so innocent now, hm?” She smirked.

Luke let out a low chucked, his finger moving to wipe at the mess on her face before forcing his finger in her mouth for her to suck clean. “Not so much, darlin’ not so much.” He smirked as he removed his finger. “Should’ve asked for ya help earlier, who knew what I was missin’ out on.”

She grinned at that then stood up. “You never needed my help, did you hemmings?”

“Nah, but now Darlin’, now I might just.”

[tjkiahgb]

Alright, let’s talk about that TJ scene in the last episode

I’ve tried to figure out the Buffy/TJ scene from “A Walker to Remember” numerous times now. I’ve flipped and flopped on what truly happened, what’s a lie, and what the character motivations are.

The only thing I’ve truly settled on is this: it’s not working for me. I think the problem is that the show maybe tried to have its cake and eat it, too.

Let’s look at this from a writing standpoint. What are the goals for the scene? What pertinent information are we’re supposed to get from it?

There’s a lot.

TJ is back on the team after telling the math teacher (Coleman) about his dyscalculia

Coleman knows Buffy did TJ’s homework and she might be punished for it

Buffy figures out TJ has used “You’re right” to trick her in the past and likely got the information from Cyrus

TJ is trying to change for the better

First problem: almost all the information we get from this scene comes from TJ himself. And about halfway through the scene, Buffy claims that everything he’s said is a lie, which he sort of admits to. I say sort of because he doesn’t say what’s a lie or come clean about some plan. He just says, “Old habits die hard,” which is... vague. For our purposes at least.

Back to the list of information. We can mostly leave #1 aside. Let’s assume it’s true. It’s fairly straightforward. Even when Buffy accuses TJ of lying about everything, I don’t think she means this. He wants back on the team, this is his way back.

Let’s also leave aside #3 -- that information mostly comes from Buffy’s detective work -- and hone in on #2.

What’s likely true here: Coleman knows Buffy did TJ’s homework. I don’t think there’s any grand bluff there. TJ told Coleman that.

Did TJ volunteer that information or did Coleman figure that out on his own? It’s not a wild leap to guess that after Coleman learned about TJ’s disability, his next question would be about how he then aced his homework assignment. It’s possible TJ could’ve thrown that info out there unprompted, but that’s a risk on his part, no? There’s no way of knowing that Coleman wouldn’t also punish him for going along with a plan to cheat instead of coming to him in the first place.

I guess it really depends on how much malice you want to attribute to TJ here, and that’s probably affected by whatever your thoughts were about TJ coming into the episode.

What we also need to figure out is whether or not TJ told Coleman that he asked Buffy to do his homework.

Here’s where I start to have some real trouble with the scene, because I think I’ve finally settled on the answer being no, he didn’t. I think this is the lie Buffy is calling TJ out on. I think we’re supposed to get from all this that TJ told Coleman that Buffy did his homework on her own, in one last attempt to get her off the team.

And it’s real tough to work out the logic behind how that plan would work or why TJ would even attempt it in the first place.

First, like the idea of him throwing this information out there unprompted, why would TJ assume he wouldn’t also be punished (or that Buffy would be over-punished) for this whole homework cheating thing? At the very least, he went along with it for this long. There’s culpability there. He’d have to assume Coleman would think something like, “Well, he’s got a learning disability and didn’t know what else to do while Buffy should’ve known better.” I mean, I guess that’s what Coleman did, but that’s such a weird sense of justice for a teacher to have. Incredibly lucky on TJ’s part.

But once you dig into the actual story he would have to tell Coleman to get to this place, it really falls apart.

First off, it just weird – Buffy, against my wishes, just did all my math homework. For fun?

You could argue, I guess, that she might do it just to say she tutored him and fixed him, but that would blow up in her face the next homework assignment or test, and every subsequent one after that. She’s smart enough to know that. And Coleman should know that she’s smart enough to know that.

And really, how would that benefit Buffy anyway? Why would she even bother trying to pull the wool over Coleman’s eyes when she could just say TJ’s untutorable and leave like every other tutor he’s had. No harm, no foul. It’s not like she’s got some big cash prize waiting at the end of this or anything.

Furthermore, this entire plan is predicated on Buffy never explaining her side. She could very easily tell Coleman that TJ asked her to do it and she could point to any of these aforementioned logical gaps as to why she wouldn’t have just done his homework on a whim. It gets into a he-said, she-said situation, but it’s not like TJ’s reputation is sterling, while Buffy’s one of the best students in school.

And this whole thing, by the way, doesn’t even gain TJ that much: Buffy’s gone in a few days anyway. He gets his team back. If it all falls apart -- if at any step along the way Coleman stops and says, “Wait a second, this doesn’t make any sense.” -- then TJ would be in even more trouble with the basketball team than he’s already been in. You can’t explain away lying to throw your tutor under the bus with a learning disability.

The whole plan is both brazen and pointless.

So, why bother with this bit of storytelling? Well, it creates immediate drama, obviously. It leads to a big blow to our hero Buffy’s hopes and creates a deep conflict with Cyrus that needs to be dealt with.

Ok. So TJ’s a bad guy then. He wants nothing more than to beat Buffy and be the top dog.

I mean, look, if that’s the case, fine. The logic of the plan still bugs me, but the storytelling works for the most part.

But here’s where I say that the show is trying to have its cake and eat it.

I don’t actually believe it’s the case that TJ is meant to be some moustache-twirling villain here. I’m pretty sure the show truly wants us to believe point #4: that TJ is trying to change for the better.

Why? Because of how he acts throughout the scene. You have to remember: TJ’s behavior in this scene is a conscious choice by the director and the producers. The actor, Luke, didn’t just try to play TJ as sincere for most of this scene on a whim. If he was making character choices that the people behind the scenes weren’t gelling with, it would’ve never made it to air.

So let’s look at how TJ behaves throughout this scene.

He stops Buffy outside the gym and approaches real easy, even mentioning that he’s coming in peace. They have the whole exchange about telling Coleman about the learning disability, and Buffy needing to talk to Coleman. TJ talks about how he’s changed, and how he’s an open book, and even says some nice things about hoping Buffy doesn’t get kicked off the team and about how he heard she had a good game.

Then he heads for the gym and Buffy stops him by saying everything he’s said is a lie.

And here’s where the whole thing throws me for a loop.

If this whole scene had happened the same way up until this point, and Buffy called him out, and TJ turned around with an evil grin and said, “You’re right.” and then something like, “Boom baby, you just got Kippen’d!” and ran off into the gym, I’d have gotten it.

Oh, ok. Moustache-twirling villain. Playing evil chess and scheming. Got it.

It’s not like we haven’t seen that before. It would be very similar to the scene on the basketball court in “We Were Never.” Let’s remember that scene real quick.

Buffy calls timeout because TJ won’t pass her the ball. They bicker about passing for a second. TJ says he’ll do it next time and Buffy calls him out for lying. She says, “You just say what you need to say to get what you want, but you don’t mean any of it.”

And TJ says, “You’re right,” in a super smug way, and drops this look on her.

Which is just a cold, cold stare. Basically: Yeah, you caught me. I lied, I don’t care, I’m in charge, what are you going to do about it, etc. etc. (Or in other words, “You got Kippen’d.”)

Again, if this is how TJ turned around after Buffy called him out for lying in “A Walker to Remember,” I’d instantly understand where we’re at with him.

But he doesn’t. Let’s look at the body language.

It’s shame.

Regret.

Admission.

Let’s listen to the way he says “Old habits die hard,” and the seemingly genuine tone he uses when he says that he’s really trying.

I mean, think about him saying that now. He contends that he’s really trying after Buffy’s busted him for lying. Why would he do that? If that’s untrue, what incentive does he have for trying to convince Buffy of it? Unless... Unless he’s telling the truth.

And then he tells her she’s right. And for a second, you maybe think he is making fun of her. She even calls him out on it.

And once again, he could drop everything and reveal himself as a villain here (You got Kippen’d and all that) but he doesn’t.

He seems actually surprised that she’s mad. Like, he was either trying to lighten the mood with a joke or he was honestly trying to make her feel better by saying the words he knows she loves hearing, but he wasn’t doubling down on evil. (I mean, let’s be honest here, it’s not the most natural thing to say either way, and the only reason he really said it was to advance the Buffy/Cyrus storyline by giving Buffy a clue to sniff out. But, you know, I’m analyzing it as a line of dialogue and not a plot-pushing device.)

And then, after all that, when Buffy’s figured it out and TJ realizes he’s given up Cyrus.

And that he’s gotten him in a lot of trouble with Buffy.

That is not the same TJ from earlier in this season.

This is someone who actually cares about a person other than himself.

That’s my issue with the scene. It presents us two wildly different things. What we saw from TJ in the episode was character growth. Especially in the scene with Cyrus earlier, but in this one, too, if we believe him to be sincere for at least a chunk of it.

And yet, he makes a sneaky, irrational move to try and oust Buffy from the team? And the only explanation we get is “Old habits die hard.” Like, as much as he was trying to be a hashtag good boi, a little devil inside of him jumped up and made him blame Buffy for the homework thing? I couldn’t help myself, I just had to frame you! It’s really very disjunctive.

(Here’s a quick alternate explanation for everything that, in my opinion, makes more sense and is more consistent with the character arcs, but doesn’t actually seem to me to be where they’re heading with this.

Assume TJ was honest about being an open book with Coleman. Say he laid all his cards out on the table: I have a disability, I asked Buffy to do my homework. Coleman, because of his still warped sense of justice, chooses to punish Buffy anyway. This sort of leads us to the same point, but TJ’s actions are less malicious and more in line with his recent character growth. He doesn’t make some risky, near pointless attempt to ruin Buffy. It just kind of happened through carelessness.

When Buffy says he’s lying, it’s possible she’s referring to the last things he said to her before that line: that he hopes she doesn’t get kicked off the team and that he heard she had a great game against the Raptors - implied there that he’s happy she had a good game, even without him.

Then TJ’s line about old habits dying hard, coupled with the line about really trying is saying, “Yeah, I honestly would still rather you not be on the team. I’m not happy you’re a good team leader. Though I am trying to be better about that.”

This whole way of viewing the interaction requires more nuance and explanation though, and I don’t know if we’ll get that. It’s easier to just accept TJ=bad for now until he shows up next time and they inch him closer toward redemption.)

Last thing.

I think this scene has been a big source of the conflict this week in the fandom. (Well, some of the conflict. We got conflict for days out here.)

But I think this scene is a problem in that sense because its vagueness has served as a sort of Rorschach test for anyone who has thoughts about TJ one way or the other.

If you came into this scene hating TJ, it’s likely you mostly just took from it the TJ=bad parts. He’s a snake. He’s out to get Buffy again. He’s a villain. (It’s honestly not an unfair reading of it, especially if want to believe it was a targeted attack and you also want to believe everything he said about growth was part of the lie.)

And if you came into this scene rooting for TJ, you see the person trying to make a change and the Buffy stuff leads more to disappointment than rage, like someone you know can do better, but keeps sabotaging themselves. (Again, assuming it’s based in rancor and not carelessness. You might also be more willing to believe the alternate explanation of what happened.)

Anyway. I don’t know how to wrap this up. I’m exhausted. I’ve been writing and thinking about this for too long now. Still, if you want to hit up the comments and discuss it more, that’s cool. I’ll jump back in. In the meantime, though, I’m going to go have myself a little lie down.