#and it was even worse bc everyone in the class got a different book so i was the only one doing it!!!

[stevethehairington]

just saw MULTIPLE reviews of hyperion that said it is the canterbury tales of space and GOOD GOD NO WONDER I HATED IT SO MUCH FUCK THE CANTERBURY TALES FUCK CHAUCER IM STILL TRAUMATIZED BY THAT SHIT

[pumpkinsy0]

I’m not sure if America does this much, but from where I am, a grade is able to travel to a different country for around a week or two for educational purposes (e.g Italy, France, Etc.) So,,, any Papercut Hcs for that? (Taken that they were able to make up the money for that, maybe Pony took up extra jobs to earn the money.)

ik what ur talking about!!! i dont think its common for a WHOLE GRADE to do it, but ik wym!!!!

OK SO

•lets say they’re traveling to france (ewwww🙄🙄 but trust me, makes sense later), their language class was french and they were like “man y dont we all travel to france to test out skills n have fun”

•gonna b frank w u, pony, curly, and their families were hesitant on it, MOSTLY bc of money restraints but when it comes to pony, its bc he just never traveled out the country before, let alone all by himself

• curly rlly has no aspirations to travel anywhere but then he realized that if pony left, he would b bored out his mind cayse who else can he annoy as well as he does w pony??? so he was on board!!

•look, getting that money was a hard time for all, tim and curly did more jobs, darry and soda worked their asses off and so did pony, but at the end of the day, they did it (also some of it was covered for everyone bc of some soc’s rich ass dad)🙏🏽🙏🏽

•when the packed, they damn near packed everything they had bc they just dont have much, it was like they were going away forever😭

•look, curly (and angela, shes here too!!! :3) r haitian immigrants, they knowwwww french bc they HAD to learn it in haiti to get through the education system, hell theyre probably one of the few ppl who even know it fluently out this whole grade, everyone else was lowkey bullshittin

•curlys basically ponys translator for everything, and curly WILL use it to his advantage, ponys always smarter than him but HERE??? HEEEE has the upper hand, plus, this means pony being clingy

•but his french was a lil rusty bc he wouldnt rlly speak it a lot, even in class he wouldnt rlly speak

•pony had this “introduction to french” book darry gave him bc darry can actually speak french bc of the class!!!

•curly and angela CANNOOTTT see the eiffel tower as being romantic btw, that shit was built w haitian money they hate france man (YES, im airing out some of my grievances i hate france dude🙄🙄), if pony mentioned the tower near curly he’d roll his eyes, ALSO BC HE FOUND IT TO B CORNY

•curly and pony keep getting lost dude, its like hell on earth, YES, france is walkable, but that probably just makes it worse for them bc theyre walking far in the wrong way😭

•u can def tell theyre american tourist, but i dont think curly would care, ponys trying to keep a low profile tho

•i dont think they rlly, like french food that much, not even that it taste bad or anything just not their cup of tea, honestly

•if i remember right, france has a problem w pick pocketers and i PROMISE u that wouldnt slide w either of em, they WILL fight u over it😭

•angela was excited to try the macarons!!! honestly like top thing she liked there probably, maybe she also flirted w some guys in french, got some perfume, she treated it like a vacation more than like something educational, she knew french already this was USELESS to her

•pony loved the museums, and wouldve liked it MORE if curly didnt RUSH him all the time bc he was bored, curlys the kind of guy to only go to museums for the gift shop and tbh??? so real

•they were able ti get a room together at a hotel thankfully, and half the time in it was NOT spent sleeping, it was spent w curly making stupid jokes and pony laughing so they were tired in the morning

•let them have some souvenirs, they deserve it!!!pony tried to get something each for the gang, curly got something STUPID for tim, angela got a cute gift for herself

•pony promised to take pics while he was there and he did, but some of the pics had curly being a dumbass in it🙄🙄

anyways i went through this whole post without making a kanye west joke, im truly growing to b more mature

[loregoddess]

Ok I'm curious, could you elaborate on art school education when you have the time?

Mainly because my friend went to art high school and feels she wasted all the years there while I've been self-teaching myself for a few months by just messing around, so I was wondering just how different the two approaches are :0

Oh, I have lots and lots of thoughts on art education. I do feel that I need to preface this with the whole "my experience is not universal", bc all my feelings about art and art education stem from my own experiences of being self-taught and then getting actual formal college degrees in art.

The shortest version of my long rant, under the cut, is that there isn't a superior way to learn art. With art education, you run the risk of getting bad teachers who don't teach the subject well, and you can also run into teachers who aren't open-minded about approaches to art that differ too much from their own--the flipside, of course, is that there are sometimes amazing teachers who can challenge you to try new things you'd never had thought of on your own, or who have already made a lot of mistakes that they can tell you about so you don't have to make them yourself. With being self-taught, you have to figure out everything on your own, and sifting through online tutorials or reading books can be difficult to find "actually useful and well-explained" advice, but you do also get the freedom of doing literally whatever you want and really focusing what you learn based on what you're actually interested in. Each has it's pros and cons, but neither is technically better or worse, per se, although education of any sort comes down a lot to each person's situation in life, as not everyone has access to education or even the tools for making art.

For the long, long expansion of my thoughts and some of my personal experiences with art education specifically...

In short, I'm technically entirely self-taught, despite holding two different art degrees. Aside from some feedback I got from my 8th grade art teacher (who had agreed to look at my hobby art in her own spare time outside of class), I basically taught myself to draw entirely on my own, using various "how to draw" books, online tutorials, and just a lot of general experimentation and continued drawing on my own. Which meant I made a lot of mistakes, or didn't try out certain things, or got frustrated bc I couldn't figure out how to do something, but overall I had a lot of fun. The actual art classes I took in middle and high school? Well, I took a life drawing class in high school that taught me how to draw from life, a skill I never would have acquired on my own bc the process for learning that skill requires a lot of patience, and personally, I find life drawing to be extremely boring. My high school art teacher was also allowing blatant copyright infringements to occur in her class, which was something I learned years later when taking a media law class in college to learn about copyright law specifically, so I guess I learned what to not do as a teacher if I manage to become one, but I didn't learn a whole lot of actual art skills or even really improve my art in any significant way. I never actually learned anything like the elements of art and how to use them, or color theory, or any of that, in class or even on my own, but because I was constantly looking at lots of art online, and making art on my own and experimenting with new things, I ended up learning all of the "essentials of art" intuitively, sort of like how children learn the grammar of whichever language(s) they grow up speaking without learning the actual formal grammar of the language. Which I think a lot of artists actually do as they continue to make art, even if they don't realize it.

Anyhow, moving on. I personally really enjoyed my undergrad illustration degree. Now, to be fair, if someone was willing to pay me to attend college for the rest of my life as my actual career, that is what I would do bc I love learning, and I love the challenge presented by college courses. But do I feel like I learned anything new about art in those classes? Yes and no. I took a lot of art history classes bc I had never had any art history before college, and found I loved the topic a lot. The life drawing classes I was required to take felt like a waste of time bc I already had that skill from the one high school class, and I spent most of those classes fighting the teachers about why we should have less nude models (bc nudes are super easy to draw from life, but clothing is very, very difficult, and I wanted to learn how to draw clothing as a challenge bc I was bored in those classes). I spent one class teaching the entire class how to use Photoshop bc the teacher's method was absolute BS and I could do everything faster and easier than what we were being taught bc I had been using the program for years (the teacher even joked about how I had hijacked the class, to which I'm still not sure was meant to be friendly or malicious). The "Anatomy for the Artist" class I took was one of the most useful classes I've ever taken, and really helped me with drawing not only humans, but anything with a skeleton and muscles, since the teacher's approach made it so I learned the skill of using actual real-life anatomy as a means of creating art from the knowledge of anatomy (and I lucked out for this class bc I had an adjunct who was there to cover the actual teacher who was on sabbatical, and from what I heard from classmates I would have learned nothing from the usual teacher's approach to the class; I hope the teacher I did have found a good stable job bc she was amazing). Most of the actual core illustration classes helped me improve my art a great deal, but not bc they taught me anything--more so, it was that I had to create a lot of art for them, and find creative solutions to the challenges the projects would present (there were lots of "illustrate this abstract concept without using x, y, or z imagery" or "create an illustration within these specific parameters" which really required me to think about how to plan and go about completing the final project). Somehow, the actual "foundations classes" that I took--where I was supposed to learn things like design theory, the elements and principles of art, color theory, etc.--well, let's just say the teacher was on his way to retirement, and didn't teach any of that really well, so I still ended up going through my undergrad more or less on intuition and the art skills I had cultivated on my own. Mostly, college art classes were useful in helping me to improve my art, not because I learned new things (although I did learn some new things), but rather because I needed to make lots and lots of art in a relatively short time, and making art constantly is the fastest way to improve.

That all said, I still never really got the point of things that I kept seeing or hearing as common art advice. For example: "Use references." Okay? What does that mean? What does that look like? How do I do that? I was never taught that once, and it was only partway through college that I figured out that people meant "look at a photo of a real person to figure out a pose or something" and not "learn about the subject you're trying to draw so you have an understanding of that subject that allows you to draw it from your imagination how you want". And honestly the former advice is useful but...only useful to a point, so I'm kinda glad I never learned it bc it would have stunted my development and presented a roadblock. In either case, I was never taught how to use a ref or what "use a ref" meant in my formal art education, and by the time I figured it out on my own, my repertoire of art skills made the advice moot.

So what's all the long and short of this? Is art education a sham and useless? Well, not entirely, but maybe sort of. It really comes down to which teachers are teaching the subject, and how they do it. I only had a handful of art teachers who were really able to get me to think about art differently and push me to learn more and improve. But I also had a friend in my undergrad class who had never drawn in his life and he found most of the classes super useful bc he wasn't coming in being self-taught and already drawing. We were at different places in our art journeys, and so we got different things out of the college classes.

I do feel overall that the focus of my college classes was more productive than the lack of focus from my high school classes. Would I tell everyone who wants to get better at art to go to art school? Hell no. I got a degree in art because I love it, and because I had hoped to work as a video game concept artist (for which one does need at least a BFA to get hired by most companies). Of course, by the end of my degree I had figured out the video game industry in America was absolutely not a place I wanted to be working for my own health, but my frustrations with how my art education had been structured, paired with the fact that I spent a few classes actually teaching my classmates things, made me think I might make an okay art teacher. But even my wanting to be an art teacher still comes from a place of deep love for art. For those who just want to take up art as a hobby, self-taught is fine, and sometimes it will be better than getting stuck with a bad teacher who'll crush the enjoyment of art. Yes, I think a well-structured art course could help someone learn art and become confident in their art, which is part of the reason I want to try teaching it (esp. bc it took me years to learn some things that a good teacher would have just like, covered in a core class), but like...self-taught or school-taught, there isn't a superior way to learn art. They're both just very different approaches.

[aliwritesss]

~ Labyrinth

Pairings: Eric x reader

Genre: fuckboy au!

Warnings: angst, slightly suggestive, slow burn, swearing

Based on this AU! Highly recommended to read it before you start the series, but can be read alone.

1/? Masterlist

-“… And remember! The deadline for the essay is in three weeks.”- You hear your History teacher’s voice but no one listens to him. The bell just ringed and that meant freedom.

-“ It’s Friday!!! Let’s do something fun.” You hear Kevin’s voice next to you. You thank the heavens and stars to have him in your life, you don’t know what you would have done without him all this time.

-“ What are you thinking?”

-“ Well… You know, everyone’s been on the edge these past months with the exams and all. So Juyeon thought I’d be fun to do a small gathering, only close friends.” He says with the smallest voice and you feel all your body tense up. If you knew one thing is that you couldn’t go to parties, not yet. Not when it’s been so long since you’ve seen him and you’re actually starting to move on. To wake up and not think of him.

-“ It sounds fun! But I think I’m gonna pass this time, I better start working on this assignment.”

-“ Cmon (Y/N), it’s been a month. You gotta go to your old self, I miss you. I miss us having fun.” It pains your heart to hear Kevin, you’d love to have the balls to go to their dorms and be yourself, to dance again till you can’t stand up, to laugh freely but you feel that the spark inside of you has died and you’re afraid that if you go, it won’t light up anymore.

-“ I promise you I’ll go back to my old self. You’ll get back your partner in crime, my little moon.” You say hugging him and exiting the class. -“ Just give me a little bit and you’ll get back your star.”

-“ The world better get ready once the moon and star duo comes back.” He says giving you one of his best smiles and you feel a little bit better. You’ve known him for so long and clicked since then. One day you two were in class and someone said you looked like the team rocket from Pokémon, always together being mischievous. And since then you baptized your friendship as the moon and star duo.

As you walk outside you feel his comment nag you in the back of your head. “Why do I have to feel so bad when he’s doing fine? Was everything a lie? Did he truly love me?” These thoughts have been bugging you lately and you’re starting to get annoyed. You thought you were doing fine but sometimes these dark clouds will come and shake you down. And it seems like today was one of these days.

“ So… Juyeon is doing a gathering huh? Do you realize that it means half of the campus is going, right?”

-“ Yeah… We told him only close people and Changmin said that meant around 50 friends.” He says, rolling his eyes. -“ Thank god we have Sangyeon and Jacob to keep him in check or else It’d be a nightmare.” And that makes you laugh because it’s true, you remember one night you were staying the night in their dorms and suddenly Sunwoo and Chanhee started arguing about the smallest thing. Sangyeon only needed to look at them to make them stop. It was so funny, you don’t want to mess with an angry Sangyeon to be honest.

-“ And… Here we go. I knew it.” You hear Kevin’s annoyed voice. -“ They’re asking me to buy drinks, it seems like more people are coming tonight. I have to go now bubs, but we should do something fun this weekend okay? Just the two of us.” He says while hugging you and you nod. Maybe that’s what you need, to start slowly coming out of your cave.

You start making your way to your dorm thinking about the million things you have to get done in these two weeks and you can feel your anxiety already coming. The pressure you’ve been feeling these past few days it’s getting worse everyday. And the worst of it, it’s that you don’t have anyone to talk about it. Unconsciously, you touch your necklace, feeling a little bit better. You look down to the tiny shiny star and remember the night he gave it to you.

-“ I’ll be your star, ready to guide you even in the darkest times, even when there’s no moon shining.” He said softly in your neck. You smiled at him and looked at the charm. It was a little star filled with crystals. Stunning.

-“ When you feel like giving up, remember that I’ll be here with you. Faintly.” Eric said, touching your necklace.

“Where are you now? Where are you now when I need you the most?” You think for yourself, It’s not like you weren’t starting to move on from him, which you are doing. But you were not forgetting him, and you wish you could.

You wish you could erase all these sweet moments, act like nothing happened. Act like him, cold and unbothered. Why did him have to play you? Was everything a lie? Everything he said, was just a trap to only have fun with you? You couldn’t trust your memories, it seems like you only could remember the good ones.

But what about that night you two had a fight on a party because he was with this girl, laughing and talking the whole night while you were alone? You still remember his words: “ Stop being a pain in the ass, if I wanted to hook up with her dont you think I would have already done it?”. And you being a silly naive girl in love, acted like it didn’t hurt you. Like he didnt had the power to destroy you in matter of seconds if he wanted.

And that was the reason you broke up with him.

Everyone knew you were his girl and god forbid anyone who dared to touch you. But that’s it, you were only that, his girl. He didn’t bother to put a label, you were there for him and that was enough.

-“ Eric what are we doing?”- You asked him the night you two broke up.

-“ What do you mean?”-

-“ What are we doing together? What is this? Are we exclusive? Are we truly in a relationship?”- You asked trembling, you weren’t ready to hear his answer.

-“ Not this again (Y/N). I told you I don’t want to talk about it and you keep bringing this up. I said you are my girl and that should be enough.”-

-“ But it isn’t. It isn’t when there’s a queue of girls waiting for you to get tired of me and drop me like a toy. And I had enough, I need to know what I am to you.” You said sitting in his bed.

-“ You are making me tired with all these questions. I said drop it, (Y/N). You know how I am and still chose to be here with me.”-

-“ I chose you bc you said that you couldn’t do this without me, Eric! You told me that I was special and-.”

-“ So? That gives you the right to be called my girlfriend?”- And that was the last straw. You couldn’t believe what you were hearing, it’s like someone snapped you back to reality. Like you just woke up from a beautiful dream and got hit with the true world.

He loved you, but not in the right way.

He cared about you, but not enough.

You got dressed and started to pick yoiur things while crying. You needed to get out as soon as possible, even if it was 3 in the morning.

-“Cmon (Y/N) don’t be like this. I got mad and you know I say things I regret later. Please let’s talk in the morning when we are calm, okay? Babe please-“

-“ Don’t touch me, Eric. I’ve had enough. I can’t keep doing this. I can’t keep falling in love with you more and more when we are not in the same page. Not even in the same book.”- You said putting on your sweatshirt, well, his sweatshirt now yours.

-“ Are you serious? Are you going to be like this? After all we’ve been through?”-

-“ Exactly, after all we’ve been through you still think I don’t deserve to be your girlfriend. And let me correct you, you’re the one who doesn’t deserve to be my boyfriend. I’m tired of your shit.”

-“ I know you’re angry (Y/N) but I swear if you leave this room that’s it.”- He said staring at you. You gave him one last smile and closed the door. It was so late at night and you decided to bring this topic up… That was a stupid move of you to be honest, but it needed to be done.

You can feel your vision getting blurry with all the tears falling but you don’t care anymore.

-“ Star? Is everything ok?”- you feel Kevin’s sleepy voice coming from the other side of the hallway and you let out a sob. -“ Hey, Hey. What happened bubs? Why are you crying? Where’s Eric?”-

-“ I… I- I think we just broke up.” You said hugging him and starting to sob even harder.

- “ Oh gosh…” He said quietly while stroking your hair.

And after that everything was a blur, you only remember him and Haknyeon taking you to your dorm and sleeping there. Everyone knew what happened because they heard you two arguing but no one could bring the topic up. It was typical of you two to argue, but in a matter of hours everything was cleared. But this time was different and both of you knew it.

This time the damage was done and there was no going back now.

A/N: So it’s finally here!! The first chapter of this little series. Thanks to all of you for liking so much the AU and for telling me what you preferred to see on this series. It’ll be after the break up, but I thought it’d be nice to have a little context of why did the discussion happen and to see the dynamic of the relationship. Honestly speaking, I love Eric’s fuckboy vibes so much.. But still it pains me to see him acting this way :( I apologise for any typo or mistake! And remember you can ask in the comments or dms to be tagged and that requests are open!!

TAGLIST: @asherbl @fairycob @givememunjang

[sp00kyjellybeans]

Constant Pining [Mickey Altieri x reader]

A/N: part two because i think the last one deserves a follow up :> For this one, I decided to play with the fact that Mickey is a film student, so I kind of figured he would use it to his advantage. btw tho this feels super choppy and cheesy in the bad way so idk how to feel ab it:’) pls lmk what you guys think bc i might rewrite it and cut half of this out

Word Count: 3,425

Warnings: None, this is like... super fluffy

---

It had been two weeks since the party and it was driving Mickey insane. He wasn’t sure what was worse. The fact that life carried on as usual or the fact that you were completely unfazed. He would have preferred if you were all over him or, hell, if you were avoiding him.

Because then he would know how you feel.

But he didn’t. The poor guy hadn’t the slightest clue. Life went on nonetheless. Some days he was able to sit next to you in Psychology (if Halley didn’t try kicking him out of her seat) and the two of you were normal during friend settings. But you never showed up to another party.

Mickey gnawed at his pencil. It was whittled down to practically nothing. He was supposed to be focused on a project that he and Randy were assigned in Film Theory but instead... You were on his mind.

“Can you stop eating that pencil and quit thinking about (Y/n)!” Randy threw a small notebook at Mickey’s head. Mickey snapped out of his daze and easily dodged it. “We need to work on this shit together. I don’t need (Y/n) clouding my camera man’s mind.”

“I’m not even-”

“Save it. You’ve been making the same face for two weeks straight now. It’s the (Y/n)-face. Sid and I coined it.”

Mickey muttered a curse word under his breath and reached for the notebook that was thrown at him. It was Randy’s film book. He flipped through some pages. It was filled with notes for class and film-analysis. Half of the analyses weren’t even assigned for class.

“What are we doing for this again?” Mickey rolled his eyes and threw the notebook onto a table. He propped up his feet and leaned back in his chair. 

The two boys were in a conference room of the film school. A chalkboard had been dirtied with Randy’s ideas for their film project while Mickey was mentally vacant for the time being. The project was to make a movie, each group was assigned a different genre. They were content with being partners, seeing as Randy had the ideas and Mickey had a knack for cinematography. 

“We were assigned to do a documentary.”

“Fucking lame... Everyone else got cool shit. I heard Terry Pusher was assigned fantasy... Fucking fantasy.”

“I know, hell I’d take a love story over this shit,” Randy threw the piece of chalk at the board. 

Mickey paused and sat up. His expression was twisted as if he were onto something. 

“Wait... say that again...”

“I’d take a love story over this shit?” Randy tilted his head.

Mickey stood to his feet and pointed at his geeky friend, an excited expression was evident.

“Exactly.”

The sea of students stormed past you. Your final class of the day ended early so you were more than eager to get back to your dorm. Your roommate was gone for the weekend so hopefully some quiet would get your mind off of Mickey.

The events of the party had been bouncing around the walls of your mind ever since it happened. A part of you thanked Halley for stepping in when she did and a part of you cursed her for it.

You couldn’t fathom dating Mickey. It was unheard of. New. Exhilarating. He was probably one of the hottest guys on campus and he had his hands on your waist.

Sure, he was a total nerd when it came to movies, especially for Tarantino films, and you could listen to his rants for hours, but the thought of him wanting you made your heart skip a beat. If he reciprocated any sort of feelings you’d be sent into cardiac arrest. Did he like you? Was that even possible?

He could have anyone at this school. He knew it, too. But it was possible he could choose you.

Before you were able to expand on that thought, a camera was shoved into your face. 

“And here we have the wonderful, the amazing, the magnificently stunning (Y/n)!” Mickey’s voice imitated a sports announcer. 

His sudden appearance was enough to make your cheeks go ablaze. 

“What are you doing?” You winced and shielded your face.

Randy appeared behind Mickey, “Film project, you’re a part of it!”

“Puh-lease, if anything, they are the star of the film, Meeks!”

You continued to walk to your dorm in hopes of avoiding the nerds but in all honesty, you were smiling like an idiot. 

“What’s it about?” You asked.

Mickey put the camera down for a second and eyed Randy. Luckily, he knew exactly what to say, or rather, what not to say.

“We’re making a documentary. We’re following around a few students, and you’re one of them. Will you watch it when it comes out?”

“Of course,” You grinned. “Just... don’t follow me everywhere with that thing.”

And follow you, they did. 

The very next morning you opened your door to Mickey holding up the blocky piece of tech. He was grinning behind the lens, which forced you to do the same. But you made it a point to shove the camera away. 

This went on for weeks. Mickey would ambush you with his camera everywhere. Meaning that you two were spending more time together. It didn’t matter if you were in the cafeteria or spending the night with your friends. He always managed to film little tidbits of you. 

At first, you would push the camera away or hide your face behind a nearby pillow. 

Then you and Mickey started to hang alone together more often. You found yourself seeking out time with him. Mickey walked you to classes (still filming you with the camera but you didn’t push it away anymore; you just ignored it), he visited you at work and stopped by your dorm frequently. 

Eventually, he had the courage to trap you into a date. 

“Why are you covering my face, Mickey? I know where the cafeteria is...” You groaned, aimlessly walking forward.

“That’s not where we’re eating today.”

“You had no reason to make that sound threatening, Micks... You suck at surprises.”

“Yeah, yeah, you can open your eyes now.”

You opened your eyes to a sprawled out assortment of food on a picnic blanket. 

It was a typical picnic blanket sat under one of the largest trees on campus. It was wide and comfortable. Mickey thought to bring plenty of drinks too. The look on your face filled him with glee as you studied the setting in front of you.

Just last week both of you were talking about your favorite underrated scenes in a romance movie. His answer was the kissing scene in Titanic, but you argued that wasn’t underrated. Your answer was the picnic scene in Armageddon.

Mickey managed to make it come true. If it were sunset, it would have hit the nail on the head.

“Oh my...”

“Do you like it?” Mickey jumped into your line of vision, he looked hopeful. “You said you’ve never been to a picnic before when you mentioned Armageddon and... well that’s just a part of the American dream so I figured- ‘Hey, they shouldn’t miss out on something so fun and peaceful’ so... I made it happen.”

Mickey’s rambling had you smiling wide. Underneath that smooth exterior, he was a nervous wreck around you. 

“Thanks, Micks...”

The food was delicious. You guys talked amongst the meal and the conversation never stopped. Hours passed but you guys continued to laugh and talk. You were having the time of your life. Mickey brought your favorite fruits and snacks, but best of all, animal crackers. You held up the bag excitedly.

“Like from the movie!” You cheered. 

Mickey leaned forward to grab a cracker but you leaned back, smiling mischievously. You loved teasing him.

He furrowed his eyebrows and went to grab again but you leaned back even further. Mickey paused, chuckling, and you thought you won. You reached your hand in to grab a cracker yourself and instead, you felt his body collide into yours. 

You yelped in surprise and fell on your back. The Animal Crackers flew across the blanket and Mickey groaned in defeat. 

“Now look at what you did...” You laughed.

You guys were side-by-side laying on your backs, staring at each other. The blanket was soft. If you weren’t so giddy, you could have fallen asleep right there. Mickey’s body heat enhanced your comfort, the need to lean into him was excessive. 

You giggled at the man, biting the nail on your index finger. Mickey stared back at you, he looked pleased.

“What?”

He shrugged and continued to stare. You faced your head forward to look up at the branches of a tree above you. 

The shade kept you both cool from the sun. Rays of sunshine illuminated your skin, the eccentric shadow of leaves were printed on your face. A breeze flew by, causing your baby hairs to wave in the wind. Mickey couldn’t pull his eyes away.

“Baby-” You said, snapping him out of his trance- “Do you think it’s possible that anyone else in the world is doing this very same thing at this very same moment?”

You slowly turned your eyes back to Mickey, hoping he’d catch on. His toothy grin spread across his cheeks. He thought back to the movie line, hoping to get it right.

“I hope so...” He mumbled but you heard it perfectly. “Otherwise... What the hell are we trying to save?”

His face was an inch away from yours. You could feel his breath hitting your face. It was sweet. It smelled of the strawberries you shared moments before. 

A few strands of his hair hung in front of his eyes, separate from the rest of his slicked-back locks. His large brown eyes were looking at you sincerely. They were inviting you in. Mickey’s lips twitched upward as if he were tempted to make a move. 

But he didn’t.

You wanted to reach toward his face and pull him closer. You wanted to feel his lips meld into yours, allow the moment to overtake you. You wanted to feel his unshaven face press against yours and tickle your cheeks. You wanted to feel his hand wrap around your own. You wanted to feel him, to touch him.

But you didn’t.

Two weeks later Randy and Mickey announced their documentary was done. The finished product was ready to be viewed. You were invited to come to see it.

During those two weeks, you spent time wondering how you could finally make a move. You were sick of this. You wanted this to end and to have a new beginning. You were sure that Mickey had feelings for you. It had to be true. You needed a leap of faith. 

On the other hand, Mickey spent the same amount of time wondering where he was going wrong. Why couldn’t he pluck up the courage to kiss you? Making the first move always worked well for him. Why couldn’t he do it now? More than anything, he hoped that perhaps this documentary will give you an idea of his feelings. It had to. 

So here you were, nervously fiddling with a blocky device in your jacket pocket, avoiding the eyes of Mickey, who sat on a stool in front of Sidney’s TV. She opted that they show their documentary in her and Halley’s room of their sorority house. Surprisingly, they were the only ones with a good enough TV.

Mickey couldn’t pull his eyes off of you. It became a nervous habit. He wanted to know what you were thinking almost 24/7, he was beyond pissed that he wasn’t a telepath.

“Alright alright alright...” Randy strolled up to the screen. “Is everyone here? Does everyone have their snacks and their drinks? You all need to enjoy this to the fullest extent so snacks are a must.”

Everyone glanced at one another, drink and popcorn in hand. You glanced back to see Sidney all over her boyfriend Derek on the couch. You gave a half-grin, wishing that could be you and Mickey. Halley sat on the opposite end of the couch, happily munching on popcorn. 

“Well... without further ado-” Mickey began.

“Wait isn’t this a documentary? This better not be boring as hell...” Halley lifted her hand and we all nodded in agreement.

“Trust me, guys, this is good stuff. Probably our best yet,” Randy reassured us. “I’m going to play it now...”

We fell silent as Randy placed a tape inside of the VHS. He then turned out the lights as the intro began. Randy’s voice came through the TV.

“Love...” Tidbits of students on campus flashed across the screen. “What is love? ...And no, I don’t mean The Haddaway song.”

A few chuckles sounded around the room. Mickey held his glance on you still. 

“Falling in love is one of the most complex things a human can do... The psychology is even more complex. Certain chemicals are released that explain those butterflies in your stomach or why you get sweaty palms around your crush. Well, many scientists believe that humans are wired to fall in love...” Randy’s voice faded along with the screen. 

The sound of talking college students came through and the camera was poised onto Derek in the cafeteria. 

“What do you love about Sid, Derek?” Mickey said through the TV. 

The camera was far too close to Derek’s face, who looked insanely annoyed. 

“Bug off-”

“Just answer the question.”

Derek thought for a moment, then smiled, “Her smile and eyes. I can’t choose one. They just... go hand in hand. They’re gentle, kind, sweet... Like her.”

A chorus of ooh’s and aw’s rang throughout the room and we threw popcorn kernels at Derek. Both he and Sidney were blushing profusely.

The next clip was of Halley walking on the sidewalk. You could hear Mickey again. 

“Ms. Halley, please explain to us what you are doing right now.”

“I am going on a date, which I do not need you two dorks coming with me-” Halley shoved the camera away and the camera didn’t see her again. 

There were a few more scenes like this, the guys asking random couples on campus what they love about one another. 

You were never asked anything while you were filmed, so you were confused, to say that the least. What was your role during this? 

At times, you would lock eyes with Mickey. He looked frazzled but stared at you all the same. 

Randy posed another question to each of the couples, “How long does it take for someone to fall in love?” The screen was black as you heard the answers,

“Weeks-”

“Months, maybe six?”

“Years,” Someone said. 

And you appeared on the TV. 

It was when Mickey first filmed you. There was more than one clip of you, too, each a few seconds long. The first five contained you shying away from the camera but after that, you could see yourself growing more comfortable around him. You were never looking at the lens but always at the cameraman. 

The screen went black once more and another question was asked, “What’s your ideal love story?”

“Something like a Nicholas Sparks book. Tragic... yet romantic.”

“If we hated each other at first, but then we learned to love. The buildup is fantastic.”

“Childhood friends turned to lovers. Something about that constant pining has me reeling...”

You snapped your eyes towards Mickey. You couldn’t read the expression on his face. You looked back at the screen to see yourself once more.

“Micks... come on and watch this movie-” You were sat on a couch with a bowl of popcorn. You shoved a handful into your mouth when suddenly you noticed the camera sitting in front of you, “You left your camera in here! ...Hey- are you filming me?” You lifted the device to your face and stuck out your tongue. 

You could hear Mickey chuckle in the background. 

Another clip played of Mickey and you sitting on the floor. It was a different day, you guys were laughing hysterically over something. You’ve never seen Mickey so happy.

More and more clips of questions and answers paired with you played. It was matched together perfectly. Realization dawned on you. Was this a confession from Mickey? 

Mickey’s sweet voice played once more. But this wasn’t for any of the couples. He was sat on the couch, asking you.

“Think about a cheesy but underrated romance, okay? What is your favorite romantic scene from that movie?” 

You were only a few inches away from him, head rested on your hand on the backboard of his bed. 

“I’ll go first, I think the kiss during Titanic is spectacular.”

“It’s good but it’s not underrated Micks.”

“Alright, then what’s your choice?”

“...Armageddon. The picnic scene. I’ve never been on a picnic so something like that just seems so... tranquil.”

“You’ve never been to a picnic?”

“Yep... is that weird?”

“Completely and utterly, (Y/n).”

You laughed loudly in the documentary. The next scene was of Mickey setting the camera up someplace. He looked nervous. When he stepped away from the camera, it was a perfect angle to film the picnic he set up for you. 

You knew the rest. The next couple of minutes showed your guys’ picnic together. Including the movie quote. 

The end of the film was nearing, and Mickey’s anxiety was through the roof. It was far from romantic but once his project stopped playing he was going to confess to you. He was going to confess in front of all of his friends, for you. Just a few minutes left and he was going to do it. 

And then you left. 

Mickey finished the quote from the movie and you left instantly. Mickey’s jaw dropped as he stared at his friends. They looked equally confused. 

“Go after them, dude!” Randy yelled. 

It took a while but eventually, Mickey found you. You were on the porch of the sorority house, leaning against the railing and staring at the sunset. There was a cool breeze and parts of your hair waved in the wind. You had your arms wrapped around your body, pulling your jacket close. Mickey could see the orange glow illuminating your face when he joined your side. 

“Are you okay?”

You didn’t look at him. His heart dropped. He messed up.

“Listen, I didn’t mean to-” 

You shushed him. He fell silent.

“Come here... close your eyes... Step up... No peeking”

“I’m not...”

You pulled on his arm and forced him to stand behind you. You guided him to stand on the lower bar of the railing with you, his body nearly wrapped around yours. He stumbled a bit but he followed your movement blindly. The lack of distance between you two had him trembling. 

“Just a sec...” You whispered and pulled a walkman out of your pocket. “I wanted to get this right...” You said and pressed play.

The instrumental of My Heart Will Go On began to play and Mickey barked out a laugh. 

“What in the world-”

“Put your hands on my waist, Micks,”  You grabbed his hands. “You can open your eyes now.”

Just like the movie, Mickey thought. 

“I realize we can just see more of the campus... not the ocean,” Your words were gentle. They came out like honey. “But I wanted you to see... how you make me feel like I can fly.”

Mickey stared at your adoringly. Your scent filled his nostrils and he wanted nothing more than to stay like this forever. His hands ventured from your waist to lift them, like in the movie. Mickey leaned forward and whispered, “Come Josephine my flying machine going up she goes...” His hot breath tickled your ear and you could feel as he intertwined his hand with yours. “Going up...”

You turned to stare at him just as the music of your cassette player swelled. You hesitantly reached his face, and Mickey leaned in instinctively. Your hand comfortably rested on the back of his neck as his lips gently pressed against yours. 

They were hesitant, hot, gentle, almost hungry. His skin was a burning touch. Your hand melded against his skin, touching the curve of his jaw. Mickey’s fingers danced around your body, wanting to explore every crevice for the first time. Mickey had been unknowingly craving the touch of your skin and lips for so long, it felt like euphoria took control of his body.

He poured himself into you. You were willing to drown in his touch.

[adorerdraco]

Distractions and O.W.L.S ✧ Draco x Reader

Summary: You start neglecting yourself and Draco when you begin stressing for O.W.L.S. The studying finally took its toll on you that landed you in the hospital wing but Draco helps you end the night on a good note. 

Warnings and Perks: being stressed, over studying, fainting ! and corniness

Words: 2K (sorry for any mistakes its 3 AM !!!!!)

A/N: omg i am currently working on some requests and on Healing Heart 4, but i’ve had this scenario stuck in my head all night bc i was listening to a slowed down version of stuff we did from UP and so i thought id share it with everyone since i havent posted in like 2 days <3 do not own gif but pretend that you and Dracoooo <3

It was the beginning of June, weeks away from O.W.L.S, which meant weeks away from another ending of a school year at Hogwarts. What bothered you the most wasn’t the fact that you had homework piled up to the ceilings, or that Snape has been snapping at you all week and took away 5 house points from you, or that you were drowning in a sea of textbooks and notes that you kept studying for your upcoming exams; it was the fact that you had barely seen Draco in nearly two weeks. You were so busy with schoolwork and focused on getting outstanding marks, you hadn’t even realized you were neglecting your own boyfriend. 

Of course, the two of you would find each other in the Great Hall during breakfast and you’d give him a quick hello and goodbye kiss faster than he could even register what was happening and by the time he did, you were already out the door and rushing towards your first class. At this point, you were acting like the white rabbit from Alice in Wonderland, always frantic and in a rush. Your hair was wild and untamed, you had dark bags under your eyes from the all-nighters you were pulling, your robes and clothes underneath were in disarray and wrinkled.

To make it worse, you never let Draco study with you. He constantly asked and you always gave him the same answer.

“If I study with you, I’ll never get anything done.”

Which was true. He was very distracting with his quiet jokes in the library, or when he would look up at you with his sparkling gray eyes when you would try to ask him a question that just flew from your mind at the sight, or smile at you with a wide toothy grin that lit up the room when you got sidetracked and talked to him, or the way he rested his hand on your thigh when he would sit beside you while you quietly read or wrote but the only thing you could focus on was his fiery touch. Really, it wasn’t him who would distract you; it was you who distracted yourself with him. And that was evident when you tried to remember everything you’ve learned in the past school term and came up blank because for some reason your brain only retained information and memories that contained Draco throughout the past year. 

So you figured a little time away from him wouldn’t hurt. Because if you didn’t pass these O.W.L.S, you felt like everyone would be disappointed in you, especially yourself. So you locked yourself away in your dorm and crammed and jam-packed your brain with information until you eventually passed out hunched over a book with drool blurring the ink on your pages. You avoided the library for studying, knowing Draco would go looking for you or Madam Pince would distract you halfway through your note taking to kick you out for the night.

Mornings always came the same, you waking up randomly over your desk a few minutes before breakfast and changing into a new pair of robes as quickly as you could while trying your best to smooth your hair down with your hands. This morning was different, however. You woke up to one of your roommates shaking you violently while she spoke your name loudly above you, but it sounded distant. You shot up in a hot flash, wiping your mouth of any saliva and groaning when you started to feel the pounding in your head that seemed to shake up your whole brain. “Thank Merlin, you’re awake!” Your roommate exclaimed in relief. “You looked dead, honestly. But class is starting in twenty and you’ve missed breakfast.”

“Twenty?” you frown, letting your swelling head fall into your hands. “I don’t want to deal with Snape right now, I feel awful.”

“I’m going to try to say this as nice as possible,” she sighs, placing a hand on your shoulder, “but it shows.”

“Thanks,” you scowl. You try to get up from your chair but gasp in pain as your muscles cramp at the movement like a rickety old man. 

“Maybe you should go to Madam Pomfrey,” she suggests, trying to help you up but you shoo her. 

“No, I’m fine,” you rush to interject. “I will not be missing Potions, no.”

She gave you a shrug, backing away in defeat as she let you rush to change into new robes and attempt to brush down the matted mess that’s supposed to be your hair but gave up halfway through and threw it into an updo. The headache was not a good combination with the scalp pain from combing out knots. Your roommate waited for you with pitied eyes, following closely behind you as you hurried out of the room and towards the exit. 

You sped walked out with her but didn’t see the mop of platinum blond that was waiting for you outside the entrance of the common room. You had zero awareness of his presence until his hand had reached out to hold onto your wrist, stopping your near sprint towards the class. Your roommate stopped too, eyeing the two of you and the look on the Slytherin’s face before she continued walking. 

“What? Draco, let go,” you move away from him and he quickly drops your arm. “I’m going to be late.”

You began to walk away from him, but he stepped in front of you, stopping you again.

“Why weren’t you at breakfast?”

“I overslept,” you answered gruffly. “Now, move! If I’m late, Snape will have my head on a stick.”

“Y/N, you need to slow down,” he frowns, “all this studying and rushing around everywhere is going to land you in the hospital wing. You look sick already, I’m worried.”

“I’m not sick!” You huff, throwing your head back in irritation. “If you really cared about me, you’d let me go to class instead of insulting me.”

“I’m not insulting you. Am I so terrible to tell you that you look like you’re about to pass out any second?”

“Yes, you are terrible,” you sneer, the pounding in your head was getting stronger each passing second. “Instead of-”

Your train of thought was violently stopped in its angry tracks, you stumble back and begin blinking hard at the spots that quickly started to dot your vision. Your hand instinctively reached out towards Draco, which he grabbed and hurriedly darted forward towards you, gripping onto you before you could meet the ground, your vision going black and your consciousness out the door.

Draco felt himself begin to panic. He promptly began to feel guilty, feeling like it was his fault that you even fainted in the first place because of the argument he had accidentally started.

He gathered you up in his arms, one arm sliding under your knees and the other under your neck as he swiftly picked you up and began his frantic journey towards the hospital wing.

When he got you to Madam Pomfrey, she instructed him to set you down on one of the beds and kicked him out of the room while she started her treatment. His heart was beating so fast, he wanted nothing more than to stay by your side so he halfheartedly threatened her with his father and she ended up letting him stay with a deep sigh while he stood idly by your bed. When Madam Pomfrey was done, she left the two of you alone. Draco wasted no time in sitting at the foot of your bed, his hand finding its way into your cold one that laid limply beside you. He watched your sleeping figure with a relief as he noticed that whatever Pomfrey gave you had speedily began to affect you. Your skin no longer looked ghastly and dull, but healthy again and tinged with pink. The dark circles underneath your eyes had faded just a little bit, leaving only slight bags as you finally slept. 

He waited maybe 12 hours for you to wake up. After missing his first class, he had decided to go to the rest of his classes as Madam Pomfrey swore to him up and down that you would not wake up any earlier. He begrudgingly obliged and skipped all his meals instead to spend his short free time with you. When his final class ended, he almost ran back to the hospital wing. He occupied the rest of his time with a book he had found thrown somewhere around the room. The book was long forgotten the second he felt your hand twitch and your body begin to stir, your tired e/c’s looking around the room in confusion before landing on him. He scooted himself closer to you, brushing a loose strand of hair out of your face as he looked at you with pure concern. It was the same look he had when he confronted you earlier and with that one look, you were able to recall everything that had happened before your collapse.

“I’m sorry I said you’re terrible,” you croak out sadly, your hand wrapping around his wrist and squeezing it gently.

“I’m sorry I made you faint,” he says. “How are you feeling?”

“That was my own fault,” you chortle, “but I feel really good. I know I fainted and all, but I feel much better with whatever Madam Pomfrey gave me.”

“I can tell,” he smiles, moving himself a little back as you sat up with a newfound strength. “She said you can leave when you wake up.”

“Good, now help me out of this bed.”

Draco took your hand and you hopped out of bed excitedly, turning towards him and giving him a tight hug that he returned twice as hard.

“If you’re not too tired, can I show you something?” He asks from above you, his arms still wrapped strongly around you.

“Yes, please,” you answer with a nod against his chest.

Draco steps away from you before taking your hand and walking the two of you out of the hospital wing and towards the stairs that led to the astronomy tower. When you reached the top, huffing, and puffing, he asked you again if you were okay to which you answered with an eager nod.

"Tonight is a blood moon,” he smiles, pointing up towards the very large orange and reddish moon in the starry night sky. It shone brightly but still gave off little light in its wake, the astronomy tower was almost dark, but you still managed to see the blond perfectly, he was watching you with a happy and loving glint in his eyes that you were able to notice. “I was planning on asking you to see it with me tonight, but we kind of ended up elsewhere.”

You threw yourself into his arms, your face buried deep in his robes and the heat radiating off his chest warmed you up in the comfiest way.

“You’re the best, Dray,” you mumble into the cloth of his robes, the clothing vibrating underneath you as he chuckled. You pulled away and gazed up at him, smiling when he placed a kiss on your forehead.

The two of you unknowingly began to sway back in forth in each other’s arms, his hands resting on your lower back while yours were looped loosely around the back of his neck.

“You scared me today,” he begins quietly, “and every day since you’ve started your studying.”

“I know,” you frown, “I’m sorry.”

“Promise me you’ll stop overworking yourself,” he says softly. “I know you’re scared you’ll fail, but I promise you won’t. You’re one of the smartest people I know and I know you’ll get outstanding marks on everything.”

“You think so?” you ask hopefully, your eyes trained on the burnt orange moon as you took in his words.

“I know so.”

A few more minutes of silence pass by, your head now leaning against his chest as the two of you still danced silently. And as if he read your mind, Draco began humming a soft and off-pitch rendition of Claire de Lune. You would laugh every time he forgot a note and would go silent for a moment before backtracking and humming it correctly.

You don’t know how long the two of you stayed up there dancing slowly in each other’s arms with Draco trying his best to hum the top classics of the classical’s, his lips finding yours every now and then to kiss you longingly and tenderly, but one thing was for sure; it was bliss. 

Maybe distracting yourself with Draco wasn’t such a bad thing.

[pinkjeanist]

“cooking by the book!” || katsuki bakugou

     ⇥ When Bakugou teaches 1-A how to bake a cake for an upcoming festival, you can’t help but notice how he treats you a little nicer than the others. But that’s just your crush on him talking...right? [1.6k words]

a/n: this is named after that remix of “cooking by the book” from lazy town bc no other song captures the pure essence of bakugou and reader’s relationship. this was also largely inspired by the difference in how gordon ramsay treats kid chefs vs. adult ones.[navigation]

You should have known that taking cooking lessons from Bakugou wasn’t going to be easy. However, with the way he taught you differently from everyone else, you had to admit: it could have been a lot harder.

“You’re gonna bake a cake, today.” You looked down at the empty mixing bowl before you, biting the inside of your cheek. You’d heard that baking was somewhat difficult to begin with, including (but not limited to) cake, and for Bakugou to choose that as your first proper baking session ever made you a bit intimidated (though whether you were intimidated by him or the cake was unclear).

Another school festival was coming up, and your class was expected to bake for the guests, which would have been okay if both halves of your class were competent enough to use an oven. So here you were, standing behind one of the many kitchen counters, trying not to stare too much ahead at Bakugou. You caught yourself doing that a lot on the daily, and even if you sometimes caught him doing the same, it was rude on your part. So, long before you’d even stepped foot in the kitchen, you decided that you would put your feelings aside and focus on the task at hand (which was already proving difficult).

After preheating the ovens, you all went back to your stations. You reached for the apron on the counter and slipped it over your head. Next to you, Kirishima asked his friend, “Are we supposed to do that?”

“Are you kidding me? Is that a question?” You paused in tying the apron behind your back as Bakugou raised his voice. “Yes, you dumbass! Who the hell doesn’t bake without an apron?!” 

You nodded even as his shouting wasn’t directed towards you, and again attempted to tie the apron behind your back until you realized it just wouldn’t stay tied. You almost asked Kirishima or Mina to help you before Bakugou came over to grab the strings and do it himself. You went still, and didn’t quite hear him the first time when he mumbled, “Is that too tight?” 

You swallowed. “It’s fine, thank you…” 

He moved back in front of the counters again and tied his own apron. “You each have a recipe in front of you. Don’t use it unless you need it. If you listen to me, you won’t need it at all.” 

You nodded and put your hands behind your back, not sure what else to do with them until he instructed the ten or so of you to find the flour. The others scrambled to the part of the kitchen you knew had flour somewhere around it, but you distinctly remembered there being another, smaller bag of it in a different pantry, so you went there instead. You retrieved it and presented it to Bakugou.

“Is this flour?”

He blinked. “No. That’s sugar.”

“Oh…”

“You’ll need it. Take it back to your station.”

“Oh, okay!” You smiled. Turning on your heel, you did as he instructed, and waited patiently until you were told to find the sugar (which you already had), baking soda, baking powder, cocoa, salt, and espresso powder. You tried to keep the list of the items in your mind as you turned to search for them, but found yourself at a loss. 

It was your fault for only partially-listening when Bakugou had given the instructions, but were you really to blame? He was wearing a sleeveless shirt under an apron that hugged him tight enough to show off his tiny waist. How were you supposed to have paid attention with that in front of you? 

But you wouldn’t say any of that to him- never in a million lifetimes- so you were as quiet and unassuming as possible as you took the recipe from the countertop and went over it. You knew where the flour was, and you had the sugar, but looking around the kitchen, you couldn’t spot anyone with espresso powder, which you didn’t even know was a thing that was supposed to go in cakes, but that wasn’t the point. You stood, biting your lip, until Bakugou came over again.

“What are you confused about?” His voice was a lot softer than you expected it to be, seeing as how he’d done nothing but yell at everyone else (you couldn’t blame him. Cooking was just that big of a passion for some people), but you couldn’t complain. You looked down at the recipe to avoid his eye.

“I’m not confused, I just- I don’t know who has the espresso powder.” 

Bakugou put a hand on your arm, and you tried not to melt under it as he shouted over your shoulder: “Who has the espresso powder?!”

“Is this it?” Kaminari lifted a large jar of brown powder over a sea of other bakers-in-training, which drew another rant from Bakugou about kitchen safety and do you want someone to get a concussion when you drop that?!, but you were still too focused on the weight of his hand. When he got done yelling, he squeezed your arm gently before looking down at you, and you swore you felt your heart stop before beating out of control. 

“Go and get a teaspoon of espresso powder. I’ll announce everything else, but if you forget the measurements, just look at the damn recipe.” 

You nodded and said, “Okay. Thank you, Bakugou.” 

Walking away, he muttered a quiet “you’re welcome,” and you could only smile to yourself as you looked back down at the recipe. 

Bakugou called out the measurements, and eventually, you had everything in the mixing bowl, and whisked through the powders until combined as instructed. You were then told to add milk (Bakugou measured that out for you without you needing to ask) and add two eggs (he did that for you, too) with vegetable oil and vanilla. Once you had everything in, you began to stir it, but apparently, whatever you were doing was wrong, because he moved behind you to take your hands in his on the side of the bowl and on the paddle. 

“You have to be more rough with it,” He muttered, moving your hands at a faster pace. “Or you’re gonna be standing here for three hours until it finally mixes.” 

You couldn’t even find the words, anymore. The voice that constantly nagged you in the voice told you that you were doing everything wrong, and that you were helpless for needing his assistance with each and every step, but you really couldn’t complain. Another voice told you that you were actually doing well and that he was helping you because he wanted to, not because he felt obligated, but you pushed that thought back. You knew that wasn’t true. It couldn’t be. (Could it, though? (No. No it couldn’t.))

After he decided it was mixed to his satisfaction, he stepped away and went to observe Kirishima’s bowl.

“Is it supposed to be this kinda poop brown?”

“Never fucking say that again about food. And what the fuck is this? Stir it!” Bakugou grabbed the bowl and stirred it with vigor while Kirishima stood by and laughed. He didn’t hold Kirishima like he’d held you. And as he went around to stir the bowls of others, he didn’t even lay his hands on those faring worse than you. You furrowed your brow, but elected to continue stirring to keep yourself busy. 

You were then told to put the batter in the two prepared pans in front of you, with the word “evenly” stressed after the fact. Bakugou again walked over to you as you got done. “Is this okay?” 

He huffed. “This one has more batter, but it’ll do. Go put them in the oven.” 

You nodded and put the pans in the oven, nearly dropping and spilling one on the way before catching it- but other than that, they went in smoothly. Over the next half hour, you took Bakugou’s advice and used a toothpick to check the center of the cakes, and sat on the flour-covered counters in the meantime while they baked. Bakugou came to sit by you while you twiddled your thumbs.

“You did a good job today.” 

You looked at him, then immediately back to the oven with wide eyes. “Oh. I-I feel like I messed everything up, to be honest…” 

“You did fine. You didn’t mess anything up.” He didn’t look at you, so you both kept staring at the oven, afraid of eye contact.

You hesitated before saying, “Thank you for helping me.” After a moment, you added, “You’re a really good teacher.” 

“I know.” His head whipped over to where Kaminari was about to eat a spoonful of cinnamon, and chucked a wooden spoon at his back. “Not in my kitchen, asshat!” 

You actually giggled at that, which was even more embarrassing with him looking at you afterwards. You quieted yourself soon after and shoved your hands into your lap. 

“Why do you do that?”

You blinked. “Do what?”

“You always stop laughing. You laugh enough with your friends but never with me. Stop doing that.”

“Who says you’re not my friend?” You asked before you could stop your tongue, then meeting his eye. You desperately wanted to look away, but the need for a connection with him was too strong. “You are. My friend, I mean. Uhm.”

“So laugh if I do something funny. It pisses me off when you don’t.” He hung his head to mess with his hands, and you grinned shyly to yourself as you turned away.

“Okay.”

When the cakes were pulled from the oven, Bakugou was by your side the most, helping stack the layers and frosting it with chocolate buttercream. In which, when your hand brushed against his as you frosted the cake, you didn’t shy away from him. You each stole little glances, meeting one another’s eye every now and again (which was starting to become less uncomfortable each time). 

You thought your cake was a little dry. He said it was the “best fucking thing” he’d ever eaten.

-

taglist: @keigos-dove​ @knifeewifee​ @wesparklebitch​ @bvnnyclouds​ @hanniejji​ @katsukis-sad-angel​

other tag/s: @pixxiesdust​

- dm/inbox to be added or removed from a taglist. 

[neverdoingmuch]

Wait cql lawyer/law school AU

i got you my pal dont worry!!

law school, im gonna be honest and say i know like nothing about law or law school so pls ignore any inconsistencies or inaccuracies

lwj goes to law school and he is definitely the top student in his class. they’ve been there for like a month and everyone already knows he’s gonna be the best

his one and only competition is this dude called wei wuxian but lwj isn’t particularly worried about him

so far they’re still in the stage of the course where they do the fun things to sucker people into doing the class for the semester so there’s been some practise debates and arguments and stuff in their tutorial classes

wei wuxian has that Charisma and like yeah all of his arguments are perfect but also he has an amazing smile and people are like yes i can trust him 

(he’s definitely the sort to be like hm, the easy way to argue this case would be to quote some laws and use precedence to justify this but that’s boring)

lwj is also good at that sort of stuff because his arguments are perfect and everything is so perfectly researched that there should be no ground at all for someone to lodge a counterargument

(wei wuxian manages somehow and it makes lwj so mad)

but that’s whatever lwj thinks,, a lot of people join law thinking it’s gonna be like the tv shows and books and then get completely blindsided when it comes to the rote learning part or like the actual laws 

and for all of wwx’s confidence, lwj hasn’t actually seen wwx so much as touch the textbook/s and he always studies in the law library so he knows that wwx has probably never even been there bc he hasn’t seen him even once (why’s he looking? bc he needs to see which books wwx uses to study,, bc there has to be something going on there,, obviously)

then they do their first like proper written assignment and lwj and wwx tie for the highest scores and now lwj has a Rival and he refuses to lose to someone who thinks that putting a ‘-us’ sound at the end of a word makes it latin (did wwx say habeas corpus and then point at a soft drink and go  sprite-us can-us,,, maybe,,,,)

anyway! lwj and wwx are kinda rivals for the top spot and it’s one of those situations where one test lwj wins by a point but then the next test wwx gets full marks and they just keep exchanging the top spot in class

and this whole time wwx is like The Worst to have in class. he’s always interrupting to ask questions or just straight up not listening and spends the class doodling pictures of rabbits (they’re cute but wwx is terrible and he’s not allowed to make cute drawings)

so after a few months the most horrible thing happens.... they get put together in a project and lwj is like ugh. internally of course but his face is also saying ugh

the first time wwx and lwj get together to work on the project, lwj is prepared with a proper list of tasks to do all nicely split up between the two of them and a schedule for when they should get certain parts done by. 

needless to say, lwj does not expect wwx to be ready, but wwx is definitely on top of things

he rocks up and is like yeah let’s do this, this and this and have them done by this time - basically proposing to do everything that lwj has already written down

and lwj is pleasantly surprised and is like hm maybe i misjudged wwx and decides to like re-evaluate his opinion on him

in doing so he realises that when he’d never seen wwx studying, it wasn’t an exaggeration at all. he’s never seen wwx so much as touch a textbook or spend more than a minute on a laptop doing something that wasn’t minesweeper or solitaire

but wwx is also making all of their deadlines and even adds extra information and resources to their document that could be useful elsewhere and sometimes he shows up to their study sessions and he looks absolutely exhausted

eventually lwj manages to get the truth out and wwx is just like yeah it’s easier to get worse grades than a genius but if you both study and you still get lower grades, it’s not easy,, for jc or for me

so wwx usually studies at night when his brother is asleep and lwj is like that’s bad, you can’t keep that up and just when wwx is about to go off at him lwj is like you can come study at my place

and thus begins the wonderful time where everything is alright and lwj falls in love with wwx

they work really well together and wwx is strangely considerate and nice? when he finds out lwj likes rabbits, he goes out and buys bunny post-it notes for lwj and starts to always bring him a doodle of bunnies every time he comes over. he always gets his work done on time, early even, and his work is always so brilliant and every time wwx smiles at him, lwj feels warm inside etc etc

for a long while lwj is like yes (: this is friendship (: bc he’s never had a crush before but then on the day they submit their project wwx is like hey,, the two of us make a great team,, we should always work together,, now and next year and even when we graduate,, i want to help the innocent people who need our help and i think i’d like it a lot if you joined me and lwj has his oh moment

they get a perfect score on the project of course and even after it finishes, wwx keeps coming over to lwj’s place to study or just hang out and lwj is just falling more and more for wwx each day

they’re best friends now and everyone gets used to seeing them work together on projects and then turn around to try and decimate each other when they’re working one on one and lwj thinks that he might just be the happiest he’s ever been

but then one day wwx doesn’t show up to class. it shouldn’t be strange but wwx has never missed class even once and he ends up hearing from lxc who heard from jgy that wwx was caught sabotaging some other student’s work (the other student was jzxun, who had a fondness for playing devil’s advocate and other than wwx once telling him that his argument was shit, wwx never spoke to him or seemed to know who he was but lwj is a bit too angry to remember that)

he manages to find wwx outside of his dorms as he’s moving out and he’s just like why did you do that? and wwx is like oh y’know,, bc he’s not really sure what’s happening himself,, one second he was at the top of his class and the next he was being brought before a board and being told that he was being expelled but he’s not going to tell lwj that bc lwj would definitely try and stand up for him and then they’d both get expelled

but lwj is furious and just spits out well if our dreams meant so little to you then maybe it’s a good thing you failed now,, bc his mother was a lawyer who took all these little jobs that helped people who actually needed the help and lwj was looking forward to doing that with wwx and he doesn’t even seem to care that now they can’t do that 

wwx flinches and then smiles at him and just cheerily says, that’s me and leaves. he doesn’t look back and lwj doesn’t chase after him.

lwj doesn’t see him again for years (you can do 13 or 5 or however long you feel like)

lwj is a fully licensed lawyer and he’s working for the family company and he spends half of his time working on cases and uses the rest of his time to do like outreach programs where he goes and visits schools and runs sessions on what it’s like to be a lawyer, how to apply, and to provide assistance to any students who decide to study law at uni

and then at one of these programs he meets this kid, wen yuan, who is ridiculously bright and enthusiastic and has a smile that seems oddly familiar

at the end of the second session he comes up to lwj and is like mr. lan, is your name lan wangji? and lwj just says yes, expecting the kid to be a fan of one of his cases or something but then wen yuan is like oh wow! i thought i recognised you from my dad’s photo!

and lwj isn’t expecting much but he asks what the photo looks like and wen yuan pulls out this photo from his pocket and lwj immediately recognises it,, it’s the only photo he has of him and wwx

your father is wei ying? lwj asks him and wen yuan is like yes, hesitates, and then asks, would you like to see him?

and that’s how lwj finds himself following wen yuan to some dinky little office that has a plaque outside that reads wen and wei

(wen ning is the nicest and sweetest person ever and lots of people underestimate him but then he’s an absolute monster on court. he gets up and completely decimates the opponent and then at the end is like (: it was so nice to meet you!! i am baby!! and all that,, you know our boy)

anyway they walk in and wwx turns to greet wen yuan but then he sees lwj and is like woah! you! and he’s not sure whether to hide or go and hug lwj so he just gives him a fist bump,, like a bro,, and immediately wants to shrivel up and die

anyway they get the reunion stuff out of the way, swelling music, tender wrist holding, lots of staring, lwj silently declaring his wholehearted love for wwx and refusing to believe rumours about him again even though he doesn’t actually know what happened, you know how it goes

from wwx’s side of things,, after he got kicked out he went to some small uni. good in its own right but not known for their law program and ended up specialising in family law

the first case he ever won was for the wens to have the right to keep custody of a-yuan and the first case wen ning ever won was to let wwx adopt a-yuan bc i’m soft like that

so wwx has just been kinda vibing,, being a single dad, living with the wens and helping to make that difference he always promised he would

now this isn’t gonna be some au where lwj goes oh my! i must give up my high salary job and work with wwx! bc lwj has been doing good stuff at his current job and for all of his family’s stuffiness, they run a fair and just company 

but! he does end up helping wwx when wwx gets a letter with a bunch of information about the jins and how they’re actually super corrupt and evil (big surprise,,) and how wwx was maybe definitely framed bc he was doing some casual work on the side and stumbled across some bad shit on the jins back in uni

lwj ends up being the one to take the case officially but wwx is definitely the guy leading it and so lwj ends up spending most of his time at the wen-wei office

lwj definitely bonds with wen yuan, who also wants to go into law, and writes him recommendation letters and helps him edit his applications and stuff

(and one day wen yuan is like leaving you was the hardest thing dad ever did and i dont think you appreciated how much he cared about you. he really did think that he annoyed you ‘til the end and lwj is like no! he didn’t! and wen yuan is like yeah i know but you gotta tell him and lwj really does mean to but the time is never right or something like that but also wen yuan is all but calling lwj dad at this point)

anyway they end up going to court, side by side, working as a team just as they promised to do and just as they finish their final day on the case, ended with the jury ruling jgy guilty and wwx’s reputation all but saved, wwx turns around and flings himself at lwj

is he crying? is he laughing? a bit of both tbh but wwx ends up confessing right then and there, still on record and everything (is that how that works??? idk! let’s say it does)

and what can lwj do but make out with him?

did a news crew come in to film the results of this massive court case just to end up with five minutes of wangxian kissing?? maybe! but when it played on tv it meant wwx and lwj didnt have to actually tell anyone they got together

(and does lwj eventually pop the question using wwx’s bad latinification? yes and wwx is too busy laughing to accept at first but he does and they end up being the worst possible tutors for wen yuan as he goes through law school bc they keep being all gross and lovey-dovey and acting like law school is the most romantic place in the world)

[dawnsociety]

best friend!rowoon

hello everyone, I decided to start my writing work for sf9 with a bullet scenario for rowoon. the tall man has been bothering me a lot recently, idk why but I felt the urge to write something about him being y/n’s bff. I think he’d be an amazing friend, always there to support you :(((((((( okaY ANYWAYS, HERE IT IS.

lemme know if you like it, my ask box is always open!!

best friend!rowoon

okay SO

i think he’s be the most supportive friend you could ever have in your life

no matter what you’re doing, what goal you’re trying to achieve, HE’LL BE THERE FOR YOU

studying hard for an exam? he’ll bring you coffee, trying not to interrupt your study session. working on a very difficult project at work? he’ll send you a text in the morning cheering you up for the day that has just started, or at night, telling you how hard you worked that day.

honestly, you have no idea how he always finds the right words to make you feel bettere but hE DOES!!!! 

you’ve been friends for years yet sometimes you’re amazed by him

he’s the friend you’ve known the longest, and you’re pretty sure you two will get old together

“my friend, it’s time to look for a lovely nursing home where we’ll spend the rest of our lonely lives together”

“who told you I am not going to get married and that i’ll die alone?”

“you won’t, you’re too tall and don’t understand memes”

dsjklfjdlkfd you love teasing him for his height, bc he sulks when you do so and it makes you laugh (evil)

(he’s not the type to sulk easily, but when you call him a hag for not knowing the latest memes his lips turn into a lovely pout)

you’re glad to have this gentle toll man by your side tho!!!!

after all, your friendship started off thanks to his unexpected grow (when you were in 3rd grade and went to his place after school once, you’d ask his mom to cook you what she would usually make for rowoon so you’d grow as tall as him)

(his mom got all flustered and promised you to cook the both of you a delicious meal for dinner)

ANYWAYS, you were in kindergarten, coloring the drawing that you teacher had asked you to make for Mom’s day

you were really proud of it, and were coloring all happily when suddenly this little kid came to you and took the yellow colored pencil from you

you asked him to give it back to you and when he said no, you started crying (ofc, you were a little kid)

before your teacher could intervene, rowoon came to you

the kid who stole your pencil got scared as soon as he saw rowoon, due to his height (he was taller than all the other kids in class)

rowoon told him kindly to give the pencil back to you, and he quietly did so before running away

in the meantime, you had stopped crying. to thank him, you gave him half of you snack

from that point onward, you became besties!!!

always by each other’s side

you basically grew up together, always being at each other’s house

your parents became friends as well, thanks to you

what you love the most about your friendship is how you’ve always given each other space to grow: even when you opted for a different major at uni (which meant moving to a new city) he did not budge, and gave you his unconditional support

(even tho he was dying a little inside, the thought of not having his best friend by his side made him sad but didn’t want to show it so to not upset you)

time passed quickly tho, and you two soon reunited when you found a job near him

he spends most of his time at your place, stealing your food helping you taking care of the house (since you often get back home late from your new job)

as an acting major, he doesn’t have a typical 9 to 5 job so his schedule allows him to adjust his life accordingly

(which means that yes, he’s always at your place)

when you moved, he rented a pick up and came to your old place to help you move

you complained abt it, telling him he didn’t have to but NO!!!! everything for his bestie

when you started showing interest in boys and got into dating, you’d often ask him for advice

and he would tease you, telling you how clueless you are when it comes to love and romance lololol

you’d defend yourself saying how it’s men who aren’t used to communicating (unlike him tho, he was an open book and viceversa)

sometimes you think you don’t reciprocate his affection for you as much as you wish/he deserves, so you get all silent

once you were watching a movie at your place and this thought occured to you

so you got all silent, and rowoon could sense the tension immediately

“hey, is something wrong?”

“uh? uhm no, why?”

he knew you so well he could almost read your mind. “c’mon, tell me. is something going on at work?”

“oh, no no. it’s just... you do so much for me...”

he was looking at you with his big, doe eyes, waiting for you to continue

“...and i don’t do much for you. you helped me move, you’re always there for me when i need to rant, the other day your friends from uni asked you to hang out together but you said no bc of me”

“you were sick, how could i leave you alon-”

“it was just a headache, i took a painkiller and it went away”

“yeah but what if it got worse?”

you paused the movie and turned to him, his gaze fixed on your face

“i don’t want you to get overly worried, or put your life on pause bc of me”

“but i don’t”, he laughed. “to be honest i wasn’t in the mood to hang out that night, but this doesn’t mean i’ll never do that. besides, you do a lot for me, don’t be silly. remember when i injured my back and you halted your schedule to help me? this is not something anyone would do”

you two then hugged (HIS HUGS ARE THE BEST!!!!) and he promised to take you with him the next time he’d hang out with his uni friends

he introduced you to all of them, especially this guy, youngbin, who was older than both of you (he was really cute)

did i mention how he makes the best gifts?

like, you mention something once and he’s like “here!!!! :D for your bday!!!!!”

all in all, rowoon is the bestest of friends you could ever have 

please love him a lot, he deserves nothing but the best :(((

[moral-turpitudes]

College Headcanons: Modern!Peaky Blinders Edition

Part 1 | Part 2

A/N: This came to me in a dream. Enjoy. 

Thomas Shelby:

Double Major: Political Science and Business Management (bc he likes to work himself to death) Minor: Military Sciences/ROTC

Likes debating and trying to outsmart the professor.

Often seen on campus with bloody knuckles from rocking someone’s jaw.

Would 100% punch a motherfucker for being mean to someone he cares about.

Doesn’t need to be in a fraternity to be known around campus, just don’t mess with him and you’ll be fine.

All the girls whisper as he walks by but he don’t give a fuck cuz he has to go to his lectures.

He’s on time for every class and pulls out his pocket watch if the professor is more than 5 minutes late. If the professor can’t bother showing up then he dips out.

Almost got suspended for one too many fist fights.

Has a “thing” for the barista at the campus Starbucks. He learned after frequent visits, that her name was Grace and that she liked black coffee just like him.

Mysterious and moody af. No one knows if they’ve ever seen him smile, except when chatting up Grace.

Tries his best to study, but ends up getting dragged into his siblings shenanigans or into his head about the family business.

Keeps to himself for the most part, except for having a few close friends.

Hates technology so he uses a typewriter and prefers receiving letters/mail over emails.

Can’t figure out how to use Grace the baristas phone when typing in his number and tells her to write it down instead.

Often tells her to meet him after her shift. 😏

Professors hate him because of his reliance on paper. Totes not eco-friendly but he doesn’t care. Tommy always gets his way.

Grace always gives him a cookie for free cuz she knows he forgets to eat.

Always seen smoking or sneaking drinks of whiskey in a flask, even at 7am lectures.

Binge drinks on weekends with his bros, and drunk calls barista Grace when he has maybe 3 working brain cells left for the night. On other weekends when he’s coherent, he meets with Polly and tries to discuss business plans since their dad dipped out like a bitch.

To make matters worse, after dating for a while, Grace just leaves him. He thinks his aunt Polly may have been too hard on her, but he didn’t know until later that she lied when she said she didn’t know about the business. But barista bitch knew everything, and was gonna expose them to her higher-ups in the criminal justice department before long.

Arthur Shelby:

Major: Agriculture Minor: Military Science/ROTC

Graduated just barely.

Ended up in some trouble with his peeps in the military science department, probs for cussing someone out.

Angry, loud, and emotional af.

Loved drinking with John and his frat boy friends.

No one messed with him if they valued their life.

Started one too many fights and got suspended for reals. Almost beat a man to death but we don’t talk about that.

He gets stressed really easily so in his free time he draws horses.

When he gets real mad he takes it to the campus boxing ring and punches to his hearts content.

On his way back to his dorm one night he saw a girl who was in his agriculture class. She was cute and also in a “Christian” ministry group on campus. He decided to chat her up when she was preaching, just to see what it was about.

They later dated but then she cheated around with a fellow churchy man and just went off the rails. When he found out it wasn’t pretty.

Her friends and pastor most likely shamed her cuz she be ✨sinning✨. Therefore not helping her mental state.

Her name was Linda. Never trust a Linda.

Everyone tried to console Arthur but only boxing and drinking at Johns frat house did the trick.

Tommy often had to run to his dorm in the middle of the night to talk him out his mental breakdowns. College is hard.

In the end, he was glad he did agriculture even if his crazy ex would constantly stare at him during lectures, probably plotting his demise.

Some days he’d take out his frustrations by chopping wood and helping out on the farm where he worked and studied most days.

But you bet your ass fuckin’ Linda showed up to his dorm one time though with a gun and tried to shoot him, but she didn’t know his brothers and aunt were there too. Polly may have shot her in the arm tho. But when the campus PD showed up shit really went down.

We don’t know where Linda is now, but that’s probs for the best.

John Shelby:

Major: Music (idk I felt like he’s a musical boi) Minor: Military Science/ROTC

He’s a frat boy through and through. He drops it low on the dance floor and is known to dive onto beer pong tables.

Constantly going to parties and hooking up with sorority girls, that is until he meets a girl named Esme who’d been dragged to the party by her friends.

Suddenly he ain’t no hoe no more, he’s head over boots in love with her and she loves him too.

They be sneaking around in various buildings, often having to make a run for it to escape security.

He’d play her songs after hard training days with his military buds cuz it helps him calm down.

He’s not as violent as his older brothers, but he’ll fuck a person up if needed.

His fraternity is the second most important thing to him besides his girl. He loves the energy of the fraternity, the partying, and acting a whole fool with his friends, but Esme has him whipped.

His studies are struggling though cuz he loves to get turnt. He hates the studying aspect of college.

Always getting his brothers into trouble.

Snorts coke off Esme’s tits on occasion at the frat parties. It’s a wild time.

Has the mouth of a sailor but a heart of gold.

Talks of kids with Esme after dating for a year. Can’t afford a ring yet tho, but their bud Jeremiah marries them anyway on a whim.

After Arthur and the Grace fiasco ensues, he drops out of college because Esme falls pregnant. In the end, she ends up getting the chickens and wild cottage!core house she’d always wanted. They both decide to raise their kids there, living their best lives until Tommy drags them into more family matters later on.

Ada Shelby:

Major: English Minor: Gender & Women’s Studies

Always seen in the most stylish clothes.

She’s quiet most times but can be very knowledgeable on various subjects.

She’s constantly going off on her older brothers and trying to smack some sense into them.

Feels like something is off with the barista Tommy’s been seeing, but it’s not her problem.

Can 100% find her chilling in the back of Starbucks reading old novels or writing literature reviews.

When she’s not there, she’s holed up in the library where she works part time, studying and practicing for debates.

10/10 would fuck in the library cuz she knows all the best secret places to go to. 😏

Organizes meetings with different campus associations and demands equality for students.

Spends her free time surfing the net for clothes or keeping an eye out for a potential new bae.

Is probably the best at studying. She earns the best grades let’s be honest.

Will not hesitate to call a bitch out. She may not throw hands but she’ll throw words that can cut you like a knife.

Works for the campus paper, spilling all the tea on campus life. Her brothers often reluctantly agree to be her mock interview subjects for a range of assignments.

She breaks necks when walking around campus, everyone moves out of their way for her.

She’s a bad bitch.

Finn Shelby:

Major: Photography Minor: English

He hates how violent his brothers are but would 10/10 back them up if needed.

Often asks Ada for advice on studying and girls.

Doesn’t like the frat boy scene like John, but goes to the parties anyways with his best friends Isiah and Bonnie.

He’s a freshman and you can tell. He still has a glimmer of life in his eyes and a pep in his step as he walks around campus.

When he’s not taking pictures for class, he’s taking pictures of his girlfriend.

She’s his muse even when doing the simplest of things like sitting in a chair or reading one of his English books.

Each week he’d surprise her with a picture he took when she wasn’t looking, telling her how beautiful she is.

He may not look strong, but after many nights at the boxing ring with Arthur, he knew how to throw a punch.

He almost flunked his studies a couple times, getting too caught up in partying or being with his girl, but Ada and his Aunt Polly set him straight.

Voted by his family as most likely to not get arrested or suspended from college.

He’d have deep conversations with his friends, often confusing them because it was just that deep.

In his spare time he’d go boxing with Arthur or would try to help Tommy with his essays, but Tommy would get frustrated and tell him to fuck off within the first 10 minutes.

Polly Gray:

Profession: Business Management Professor Side Job: Managing the blinder business with Tommy

When she’s not teaching class, she’s managing the blinder business that was left to her and Tommy to tackle. This also means covering up any suspicions that arise on campus. She has her hands full.

She’s Tommy’s only shred of common sense some days when he gets too stressed out from his 10,000 majors and minors, or wants to plan to overthrow the university.

Will not hesitate to slap someone, preferably her unruly nephews.

Anyone can lie to her but the truth always falls through the cracks, and when she finds out, you’d pray you faced the devil instead.

In her spare time she reads tea leaves and prays for the corrupt souls of her son and his cousins. She really just begs to god that they can come together for once to get the business in line, but even that may be asking too much.

Knows a snake when she sees one. *cough* *cough* Grace the barista.

She’s the first one to tell someone I told ya so, especially her students when they flunk her tests because they decided to get drunk the night before.

When she’s not yelling at her nephews or grading papers, she can be seen at the local bar chatting up coworkers and old flames, hoping to find “the one” eventually. She ends up having a “thing” for the quirky Philosophy professor though. He’s kind of shady cuz she finds out he’s in a similar business on the side, but it only makes her like him more. She craves the danger.

They later end up in a whirlwind romance similar to John and Esme, and everyone loves that for them.

She can also be seen with her head in her hands when trying to persuade Tommy to use technology.

“What is copy and paste Pol? Can’t I just write it down? What’s up with all these gadgets aye?”

“If you want your hand to fall off and to make me lose my mind, then yes, write it down. Grading is bloody hard enough as it is, let alone grading your papers. You’re just like your father ya know, always doing things the hard way.”

Tells Gina off when she gets the chance just like she did Grace. She didn’t shoot her like Linda though, she just hurt some feelings.

May have aided in Grace’s “sudden” departure…maybe…just a little bit.

Secretly ships Tommy with a woman named Lizzie who had been her assistant at her office. She knew she could trust her more, at least.

Despite her harshness, she’s just trying to keep her family from completely fucking up their lives.

Michael Gray:

Major: Accounting Minor: Business Management

Like Tommy, he doesn’t get the hype of fraternities so he just hangs out with his cousins or his small circle of friends, they aren’t saints though.

His mom, Polly is his business management professor. She always calls on him and gives him a hard time when he spaces out in class.

Is often seen around campus with a few friends or his girlfriend Gina who he met in business class. They’re sickening and it was like a whirlwind romance tbh.

He usually finds himself cleaning up his cousin’s messes when it comes to fighting, but if he has to throw some punches he will.

He’s not as impulsive when it comes to matters of business, but where matters of the heart are concerned that’s another story.

When the blinders and Polly were all at her house for dinner one night he announced he was going to marry Gina. Arthur and John laughed and Tommy smirked slightly, still butt-hurt after his Grace left him for little-to-no reason. Ada grinned and bared the news whilst Polly nearly smacked him on the head.

People didn’t dare mess with him, and that went for all his cousins as well.

He spent a majority of his days in class crunching numbers, and most his nights out with the boys getting drunk or fuckin’ with Gina.

Because his mom held him accountable, his grades rivaled Ada’s causing them to get into some friendly competition at times.

He’s cunning like Tommy though. He got into many a screaming match with the older blinder after trying to take over his position in the family business. It ended in some black eyes and Polly smacking both of them with her newspaper. He knew better than to mess with the devil himself.

Despite the tensions between the cousins at times, he’s always the one they go to when they can’t figure out their math homework, and he’d always have to meet one of them in the library at 3 am to smuggle in some cocaine and a drink to keep them studying.

[trans-cuchulainn]

What are the major details that confused you about the Hound blurb? The major one that stood put to me was the "way of the farmer opposed to the sword" thing which felt very...un-Cú Chulainn. Also, if you don't mind expanding further, which details didn't you question/be confused by?

and also for anon:

okay so it is like. 2am so there are not going to be any sources here but i can't sleep so here goes!! i will go through this blurb line by line and give youse my thoughts

In 50 BCE,

reasonable. this is roughly the right time period for when the ulster cycle is set. maybe marginally earlier than i'd place cú chulainn, but i'm talking a few years, nothing to get worked up about.

Morrigan, the goddess of war,

fine. normally i'm wary of pantheonising impulses with regard to irish characters (almost none of them can be identified as a god of anything in particular, it doesn't work like that) but tbh the morrigan is like, the most plausible exception to that, so whatever. normally her name has the definite article attached to it because it's kind of a species term as well but whatevs.

has become restless as a long-lasting peace settles over Ireland.

dubious. closest i can think of to peace being reference in any texts is togail bruidne da derga talking about conaire mor's reign being like, prosperous and peaceful and whatever, and even there you've got díberg (plundering/reaving) which is what eventually fucks him over and starts the otherworldly hell spiral situation. that's roughly the right period here but conaire's doom proves you don't have to do much to nudge peace into war, and connacht and ulster are at each other's throats for years before cú chulainn comes on the scene anyway

Deciding the time of peace must end, she chooses Setanta, the nephew of the king of the north, to become her ward.

hmm. i mean. like, this isn't the WEIRDEST choice they could have made. it's still completely made-up, don't get me wrong -- cú chulainn has a lot of different foster parents in different texts and they don't agree with each other but none of them ever mentions the morrígan. but like, they do have a connection of some sort, as evidenced by their conversations. and there's that one moment in the r1 boyhood deeds where little cú chulainn is out on the battlefield and hears her (not sure which name is used here) calling out to him and it like. motivates him to do some deeds or whatever, and i guess you could extrapolate that into some kind of teaching capacity.

so like. could be weirder. if you're gonna pick anyone, you could do worse. still seems weird to me! but not on its own a major issue, i could get past this and consider it a Fun But Unorthodox Creative Decision

(the fact that she tries to seduce him in the táin probably wouldn't get in the way of this considering sleeping with his teachers/foster-mothers is far from unheard of where cú chulainn is concerned)

After a young Setanta slays the demon-hound of Cullan, he becomes known as Cú Cullan—The Hound of Cullan.

weird spelling choices, they could have at least bothered to use the genitive properly. also the hound isn't a demon, it's a ferocious watchdog -- making it sound all Otherworldly and Hellish like this kinda confuses the issue of why he would need to take its place. he needs to take its place because the cattle and people still need protecting because it is a watchdog!! but whatevs, again, it's a brief summary so they can't exactly give us all the details and this is not actively objectionable

As Cú Cullan grows older, it is apparent that an extraordinary power lies within him … and a great darkness.

ugh boring. this makes it sound like he's going to be ~tortured~ and angsty about it. give me an unapologetic murder teen please. is the ríastrad dark? sure i guess, if you're going to be boring about it. it's more like, grotesque neon in my head

When he chooses the quiet life of a farmer over the sword,

this would fucking never happen on like five different levels. obviously like anyone who has ever read anything about cú chulainn can see that this is not in his nature. he is never going to choose a quiet life. this is the kid who tricked his way into taking arms before everyone thought he was ready. also juxtaposed with the "darkness" comment makes it sound like he would Angst his way into this quiet life which. again. have you seen this kid. he is an unapologetic murder teen

the only thing i can think of that might make him temporarily want to walk away is connla's death which... depends where you position that in the timeline really, he does seem a bit fucked up by it and maybe he'd want a holiday although i can see that lasting precisely 5 minutes before someone pissed him off enough for him to murder them. but if he's being raised by the morrígan i can't see him going to train with scáthach so then he'd never meet aífe and therefore connla would never be born so that wouldn't happen. so like. whatever.

but also like. he would not become a farmer. he just wouldn't! it doesn't work! the ireland of the stories is super hierarchical, right? and this blurb has already fucking told us that he's the king's nephew (canon) so we can tell that being a farmer is Not His Place. when we see upper class figures becoming menial labourers in texts, like in cath maige tuired, it's because Things Are Fucked, Shit's Gone Wrong. people don't just decide to change their entire social class on a whim lmfao

if cú chulainn really wanted to turn his back on being a warrior he could probably make recourse to certain other Suitable Professions ... his grandad's a druid so he might have a route into that, though his dad's not so that might fuck things up a bit bc it's one of those things that's usually inherited. he does give "wisdom" in at least one text though and we also know he can write (he carves riddles in ogham in the táin) and he composes verses on various occasions so idk, maybe something in a poetic direction, though again, usually requires two generations of inheritance to be a real poet and not just a lower-class bard. warrior's kinda the main thing he's got open to him tbh. but farming? i'm not a legal expert but as far as i'm aware based on what i have read, that would fuck shit up

more likely an upset cú chulainn would just go off in search of an adventure somewhere conveniently far away until he'd calmed down (alba, or the tyrrhenian sea, or -- if we're going to get early modern about it -- somewhere like india, which frequently gets thrown into the texts with absolutely no cultural context and it's always hilarious)

Morrigan, angry at the betrayal,

of the entire social order, yes,

instigates an invasion of his homeland

i mean. if they intend this to be the táin then.... táin bó regamna does kinda make the morrígan responsible for it? not in the sense of triggering the pillow talk argument that it's in the book of leinster -- it's her getting up to her usual cow-nicking behaviours for shits and giggles. [note to readers: it is probably for more than shits and giggles but did i mention it's 2am]

but all in all, not particularly out of character that she would be at least some way responsible for this so i can vibe with this. echtra nerai also supports the TBR explanation with her fucking around with otherworldly cows and pissing people off so, yeah, whatever. the morrígan engineered this. sure.

and Cú Cullan must challenge fate itself

this is probably a controversial stance but fate feels like a difficult concept to apply to medieval irish texts. like are people sometimes Doomed? yes. there are prophecies, there are gessi, there's all manner of otherworldly fuckery that can trip you up. is that the same thing as fate? no idea. considering cú chulainn comes out alive from the táin though and his doom prophecies don't catch up to him for like, at least another decade, maybe 16 years depending on who you listen to, hard to see how that would apply here

to keep the goddess at bay.

again like she IS causing fuckery in the táin but also it's like... one time. really not the main character. but she or maybe just some crows, hard to say, do get implicated in the death tale so maybe they're doing what people often do and conflating the two? even though there's like 10-16 years in between them?

anyway as you can see i don’t think it’s wholly terrible / i’m not completely thinkshaming it. like, having cú chulainn raised by the morrígan is unorthodox but it could be a fun and creative direction so i don't object to it. making cú chulainn get sad about murder and choose to be a farmer is just fucking laughable tho, and makes me doubt their characterisations in general. so that's offputting and would probably make me think twice about buying it, if that had ever been on the cards.*

and of course sure, their cú chulainn can be a Sad Boy Who Likes Sheep, but that means he's not the cú chulainn of medieval irish lit / irish myth, because that cú chulainn is a feral murder teen who keeps killing his friends and also is way too high social status to ever be a farmer, and whose only relationship to livestock is as the watchdog who kills anyone trying to harm them (which is an important role on a farm! but like. not the same thing as Being A Farmer. mostly because it involves more murder and is essentially just an extension of his role as a warrior. or rather the other way around. he promises to protect mag muirthemne as a watchdog and this like. gets extended into him becoming its sole defender)

this has been my analysis of this blurb i hope you enjoyed it

it's now 2.30am i should try and sleep now that i've exorcised a few thoughts from my head

*as i mentioned in the tags of my other post, i don't tend to read graphic novels due to disability stuff. they're much harder for me to understand and follow than prose, to the point where some are incomprehensible, so i don't really enjoy them. there are a few i've read, but they tend to be short ones, and i'm usually not reading them in order, just admiring the art separately from the text. so it's unlikely i would read a graphic novel of this size anyway.

[zettaiunmeis]

HI THANKS TO @raventrigonsdaughter LETTING ME KNOW THAT OG GAME CARMEN AND JULIA USED TO BE PARTNERS BEFORE CARMEN WENT ROGUE, LET ME PROPOSE: VILE!JULIA.

details under the cut because this got Long

jules is part of the either the same class the ~infamous~ black sheep

and they don’t? really like each other? like julia is still kinda Serious and she doesnt really appreciate the vile squad goofing around and tossing water balloons or whatever and black sheep finds julia a little too uptight even if she’s interested in a lot of the same things (history, etc.)

black sheep’s speciality is Being SLick, as we know, but julia’s is patterns (and also historical artifacts)

ok but the important part of this is that bc julia’s is patterns, she ends up being like a scout or smth along those lines bc she can analyse patterns and report back to help plan the caper

and that basically means that when she graduates, she ends up in far more long cons than any of the others

anyway, after black sheep gets in trouble for the water balloon thing, the faculty decide she’s far too mischievous, and so, they assign her a partner — julia

(side note: its kind of the same thing that ends up happening to jean-luc and antonio a bit later on, but thats more because they work well together, and less bc either one of them needed a grounding influence)

anyway black sheep and jules again. do not like each other. but that doesnt mean they dont work well together — julia’s got an eye for patterns, and black sheep has every thieving trick in the book ready and waiting up her sleeves (alongside an instinct for thievery)

slowly, as they are forced to work together more and more, they kind of reach a less tense partnership and then one day black sheep makes a history joke and thats how they become friends

like julia is still very pointedly Not friends with the rest of the vile squad bc they’re still very reckless and immature, etc

but shes sort of seen black sheep when she’s been more grounded and less hyper/feral and she?? kind of doesnt mind??

bc grounded black sheep isnt constantly trying to prove that she’s The Best and grounded black sheep isnt trying to prove that she’s more than just the teacher’s pet — she’s kind of just having fun with julia and julia’s been so serious about her training that she hasnt really made any other friends and…. its nice

its nice to have black sheep loudly slip into the seat next to her and and tease julia about whatever recent historical discovery she’s researching and pull her out of her own head once in a while

and its nice to have black sheep glance over in the middle of class when sheena — sorry tigress — whines about something or the other and roll her eyes in the same way julia feels like doing, even if something strange sticks in her throat when carmen does the same with gray

she can’t pinpoint the exact moment, but at some point, she starts thinking of black sheep as her friend and it’s an exciting enough thought that she’s got a little smile on her face next time black sheep slips into the seat next to her in professor maelstrom’s class

and at some point julia stops being just julia to black sheep, and starts being jules because we’re in a school for thieves, but we’ve already got plenty of ~jules~ right here and thats sincerely the worst joke i’ve ever heard and oh really ~jules~? bet i could find an even worse one

and like all the usual stuff is still happening in the background — shadowsan-black sheep rivalry, gray and the Squad being black sheep’s friends, the phone and player, etc.

its just that now, black sheep has a bit of a calming influence and that does help!

and they work well enough that most people assume that julia and black sheep will be partners after graduation 

even crackle acknowledges it — despite the jealousy he feels at the knowledge

so things continue and all this happens, but then comes finals.

things go the same. black sheep gets perfect scores in all of her exams, except stealth 101

julia — now the historian — can’t help but check for whether black sheep graduated too and just as she does, she hears crackle say it: she didn’t pass

and she wants to go to black sheep and ask if she’s okay because everyone knows how much black sheep’s wanted this, how much she’s been working for it, but by the time gray’s been dragged off by tigress, black sheep has disappeared and julia has no idea where she’s gone

so she waits for a bit in the cafeteria and in the dorms and anywhere else she thinks that black sheep would be and she sees… nothing

and about twelve hours after the results, the faculty pulls her for her first mission (for context, this is before the whole,,, hear the true name of vile thing) which is basically being a plant for the morocco mission, by pretending to be an archaeology phd student from oxford who’s come to study the findings in the excavation

and she’s busy enough with that that she barely gets to think about black sheep or graduation or anything other than the near-overwhelming anxiety that comes with the horrifying ordeal of potentially being Known but she just manages to figure out like,,, guard rotations, as well as the exact objects that are at the site for the vile squad to steal

and then she’s out before they even get there — julia’s pattern recognition and historical knowledge made her pretty useful when it comes to planning capers so it meant that she’s always travelling around the world ahead of each caper, but would also make her a pretty invaluable asset to vile, so they can’t afford to get her caught

julia doesnt hear about black sheep nearly messing up morocco until much later, and even then, she doesn’t have all the info

all she can do is wonder why the hell the faculty would fail someone who somehow managed to sneak out of vile island without anyone realising until much later

and yes, maybe a part of her misses her old partner, but she knows that it wouldn’t matter anyway — she was the mole, and she’d barely get to work directly with carmen so.

but then cut to a year later, when a vile counterfeit operation in boston is suddenly sabotaged

cut to the moment when, julia, despite not having seen her in a year, is still able to somehow recognise black sheep’s work

its Slick. its the Slickness that tips her off, and part of her is reluctant to tell the faculty who it is, but her allegiance demands it and she tells the faculty and she hates herself for it when she sees the murderous rage on each of their faces

and somehow, that — her ability to recognise this carmen sandiego — gets her in a new position, as a mole in interpol, passing on the information they get as they try to track the scarlet super thief as well

and then one day, in poitiers, julia sees her

its black sheep. it’s undeniably black sheep under that red trench coat and julia wants to go and talk to her capture her and bring her in to vile but her new partner ~chase devineaux~ is everything that once made her turn away from her interest in law enforcement and he orders her to call for backup while he tries to stroke his own ego

she does, of course, but maybe she delays it a bit, if only because she’d rather let carmen sandiego get away than have devineaux’s ego get any bigger

and the rest of the season goes much the same except after julia ends up in acme, she reports to vile about everything that’s going on, and they no longer suspect devineaux of helping carmen etc etc

and she can’t help but somewhat sympathise with what carmen’s doing — she’s returning invaluable historical artefacts and julia’s always loved history and- it’s just… altruistic. and that’s admirable. and that’s the only reason i feel so torn about helping vile. that’s it, that’s the only reason.

and then comes the chasing paper caper

what was originally the first real conversation between julia and carmen goes completely differently

(note that most vile operative outside of jules’ graduating class do not know of her existence bc she barely interacts with most of them since she’s more a spy/mole who’s out of the picture by the time anyone else gets on the scene)

carmen still needs to be able to spy on paper star without anyone noticing, so she still goes for the seat right in front of the cute short-haired girl sitting alo- and oh my god jules?

and its the first time julia has heard that nickname in over a year and oh God they were just friends this should Not hit this hard what the Heck

and carmen still sits down and just quietly grills her as to what the hell is going on bc she Knows that jules is a always a mole and never an active part of a caper and she doesn’t?? understand??

and jules is kind of in a daze, but she’s been Trained so she feeds carmen her cover story:

she defected from vile when she saw how they were treating historical artefacts — melting down gold, selling priceless works of art to the highest bidder, etc. etc. — and that since then she’s been silently helping interpol with taking down vile ops, etc.

and it takes a bit but carmen kind of starts to believe it — she knows julia loves history with all her heart, and she’s… well, she’s never been the kind of recruit that carmen’s expected to see in vile anyway, so. it’s not out of the realm of possibility, is it, for julia to be a defector working against vile? after all, isn’t she the same?

so she starts looking around, while waiting for paper star to make a move, and she ends up noticing the briefcase in the seat next to her, and for some reason, those initials — clearly chase devineaux — make her want to scowl

“new partner?” “oh… its… well, work. work... partner” “oh.”

uhhh anyway i might actually. write this? idk don’t count on anything lmaooo.

[pregnant-piggy]

The Hidden Name

Remus Lupin x reader

Request:  can i request a soulmate au with remus crushing on a slytherin reader? everyone (especially james + sirius bc her and regulus are best friends) thinks y/n has the dark mark bc she keeps hiding her arm but its a soulmate mark and the boys eventually corner her until she cries but only for them to recognize the mark on their friend. AH IM SORRY IF IT'S TOO SPECIFIC! THANK U 💖 (anon)

Words: 2900

Warnings: none

A/N: this is my first ever request! I hope it did justice to your ask!

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

Everyone got their mark on their seventeenth birthday and you were not excluded, no matter how much you feared the name that would appear on your wrist. It had happened to some of your friends already, but the names they had gotten were strange to them. It were the names of people who they had yet to meet. They had no fear of embarrassing themselves at school because no one knew the person belonging to the name.

For you, the case was different. You had stayed up all night for your birthday and had watched as the name appeared on your wrist. It was carved slowly into your skin and your eyes had teared up from the pain. But the pain that the name had made had been nothing to the pain that had been filling you ever since the moment you had read the name.

Remus

There was no way that Remus Lupin could be your soulmate. Not a chance. Something must have gone wrong. Maybe there was another Remus somewhere.

The first days after your birthday you had tried to convince yourself that the Remus that was walking around in the same school as you, was not the person that belonged to the name on your wrist. But you knew that it wasn’t true. Though you tried to ignore Remus as much as you could, you often found yourself in the same room as him. You were drawn to him like a bee to a flower.

There was no way of getting close to him though. It was obvious that he and his friends didn’t like you. Despite being in the same year as him, you had never really talked to him. Maybe you had exchanged a few words if you were in the same class, but you had never had a full conversation with him.

Maybe that was why you liked him, why you were drawn to him; he was mysterious. There was so little you knew about him and so much to explore.

However, not a single part of you believed that you would ever get to chance to explore. Remus was a Gryffindor, friends with Sirius and James, who had no problem showing that they didn’t like you. Even if it was just because you were friends with Regulus. You were a Slytherin, their destined enemy.

So, the morning the name had appeared on your you had hidden your wrists in your sleeves and even now a few weeks later your wrists had not seen anything but the inside of your shirts and sweaters.

The only person who knew about the name was Regulus. There was no way to hide something this big from your best friend. He would have found out anyway.

Regulus was your best friend, despite being a year younger than you. You had gotten to know him better during a detention in his second week. You were not exactly best friends with the Slytherins from your own year and Regulus had been different from them. You knew about his past, about his parents and his family, but you had gotten to know Regulus, not a Black. He had become your best friend and you could have not wished for a better one.

‘No, you go ahead,’ you said to Regulus waving with your book. ‘I’ll get my books. Meet you at the library in ten?’

Regulus nodded and walked away to the library, while you made your way to the dungeons. You had promised to help him with his Transfiguration essay, that he had been struggling on the entire week. You had wanted to help him sooner, but your week had been busy and you had barely had any time. So that was why you were hurrying to the common room on a Saturday morning, hoping that the essay wouldn’t be so difficult and you wouldn’t have to spend the whole day in the cramped, stuffy library.

You spun around the corner, but quickly stepped back as you saw who were standing in the corridor. There was no need to take a second look to be sure. James and Sirius were talking to each other, way too loud if they didn’t want anyone to hear.

‘I’m telling you, she has been hiding her left forearm!’ Sirius whisper-yelled.

‘She has been acting weird,’ James said. ‘She didn’t even respond to our comments last Potions class.’

That was true; James and Sirius always made comments to or about you and during the Potions classes was the only time that you were close enough to them to respond. It was now almost like a game to James and Sirius. Who could make you the most upset?  

But lately both Sirius and James had noticed you barely even reacted at their insults. And the last class you had not even turned around to them when they had whispered your name. However, neither of the two Gryffindors had found a problem with that. They wanted you as far away from them as possible, especially after what had happened on Remus’ seventeenth birthday.

Remus hadn’t even noticed the name until his friends had pointed it out. James had laughed, saying that there was no way you could be his soulmate, Sirius had sneered something mean about you and Peter had only stared at Remus’ wrist. Remus had brushed it off, saying that he didn’t believe in soulmates. But none of his friends knew the excitement he had felt the moment he had read your name. The butterflies in his stomach were not unusual for him to get if he thought about you. He knew that you probably found him boring and dull or even worse, that you hated him. He had never talked to you, but there was something about you that intrigued him.

He never spoke to his friends about you and whenever your name was mentioned in their conversation Remus would pretend he was busy with something else. He hated how his friends didn’t like you. Maybe he could accept it if they had a good reason for it, but they only hated you because you were friends with Regulus and because you were in Slytherin.

James and Sirius walked on, still talking about how weird you had been acting and left the corridor, unaware that you had heard most of their conversation. They only stopped talking to say the password to the Fat Lady and when they stepped into the red common room and plopped down on the sofa next to Remus, their conversation was already continuing.

‘I think she has the dark mark,’ Sirius blurted out.

‘Who?’ Remus asked, squeezing his eyes at Sirius and closing his book.

‘Your soulmate,’ James answered and he pointed at Remus’ wrist where your name stood proudly in black ink.

‘She has been hiding her left arm for weeks now. I noticed at Transfiguration last week,’ Sirius said and he sat up a little more straight. ‘Her sleeve slid down her arm and I saw something black before she quickly put her sleeve back. She’s a death eater, for sure.’

James nodded to Sirius’ words. ‘What else you’d expect from a Slytherin?’

‘Just because someone has something on their arm, doesn’t mean they’re a death eater, Pads,’ Remus pointed out, feeling real uncomfortable about the conversation. You couldn’t be a death eater. You just couldn’t. ‘I have something on my left arm and I am not a death eater. Maybe she has a soulmate-mark there too…’

Remus’ heart started to beat faster at the thought of you having the same place for your mark. Everyone knew that soulmates would get each other’s name inked on the same place. Girls often tried to undress boys to see if they might have any names on their chest. There were even some sad cases, where the name of the soulmate had appeared on people’s forehead.

‘Come on!’ James said. ‘How big is the chance that she has your name on the same place?’

‘I don’t even think you are her soulmate, Moony,’ Sirius said, trying to be comforting but only hurting his friend. ‘You’ve never even talked, y’know?’

‘Yeah!’ Peter chimed in from his place on the floor. ‘Maybe she fits with you, but you not with her! Wouldn’t that be a relieve?’

Remus stared at his closed book and nodded. Maybe that was better.

- -- -

Another week went by and you started to get tired from hiding your wrist all the time. The conversation of James and Sirius was still in your mind. Had they really noticed you had been hiding your forearms?  What would they do if they would find out that you had their friend’s name there? What if they had already found out?

It was getting hotter and you would rather wear a T-shirt, but the thought of anyone seeing the name scared you enough to wear a long-sleeve. You had classes outside anyway and it was a bit breezy outside, maybe the shirt wouldn’t be so bad.

You sat down next to Regulus in the Great Hall. He looked at your shirt and then shook his head.

‘They’re at the other side of the hall. There is no way they can see you now,’ he pointed out and you looked at the four Gryffindors you had learned to avoid in the last month. Remus looked up and he caught your gaze. His hand reached up but halfway through the movement he apparently changed his mind, because his hand stopped. You quickly averted your eyes and turned to Regulus, who was chuckling at your blushing face.

‘You know he is seventeen too?’ he asked and poured you a cup of coffee. ‘Why don’t you just ask for his mark?’

You snorted and two third-years next to you looked up scared. You ignored them and rolled your eyes at Regulus. ‘Just ask him? Have you lost your mind?! I can’t just go up to someone I have never talked to and ask him to see his soulmate-mark!’

‘Alright, alright! Don’t stress! I just think you should at least talk to him. He deserves to know he is your soulmate,’ Regulus said and he shrugged.

You finished your breakfast in silence as you thought of your friend’s words. Maybe he was right and you should talk to Remus. Maybe, a little sparkle of hope in your chest said, there was a chance he had your name on his wrist.

That was the thought that was in your mind as you got up from the table, said goodbye to Regulus and walked to your first class. For the first time since your birthday, you let the thought of actually being soulmates with Remus enter your mind. There was a strange, bubbly feeling in your stomach as you thought of it.

The thought was quickly interrupted, however, by the appearance of four boys. The four boys you had avoided the whole month. You hadn’t even responded to the mean comments James and Sirius had thrown to you during your shared classes. Usually you said something back, but now you just couldn’t bring it to yourself to even come up with something. You had completely distanced yourself from them, but now there was no escaping.

‘Well, look who it is,’ Sirius said as he approached you.

‘Our beloved Slytherin friend,’ James said. ‘You know, you have been awfully quiet for the past weeks.’

Your eyes left James’ face for a second and slid over Remus’. There was no expression in his eyes and nothing on his face. You scolded yourself for even thinking of him as your soulmate and your right hand subconsciously grabbed your left wrist, where you could almost feel the letters of his name burning on your skin.

‘We don’t even have to bring up the subject ourselves, James,’ Sirius said to his friend as an evil smirk formed on his face.

In his hand you saw his wand and you were scared. You couldn’t think of anything you had done, but you knew that that was no excuse for Sirius and James.

‘You’re making it really easy for us,’ James said with a nefarious glint in his eyes.

You took a step back and felt your back against the cold stones of the wall. You could not escape, not even if you tried. The time it would take you to get your wand would be enough for them to hurt you. You tried to stay calm, but the tears were threatening to fall.

‘What do you have to say for yourself?’ James spat at you as he stepped closer to you, playing with his wand in his fingers.

‘What do you mean?’ you asked, unable to keep your voice steady.

‘Don’t hide it, it’s obvious,’ Sirius said. ‘Are you trying to get my brother into it as well? Haven’t you ruined him enough?’

‘I don’t know what you are talking about,’ you said with a trembling voice and a tear slid down your cheek as Sirius stepped closer to you and grabbed your arm.

You tried to pull your arm back, but Sirius was stronger than you. Your hand was stuck in his and there was nothing you could do. You dared not to look at Remus. Though you still didn’t know what Sirius and James were talking about, you did know that it would just take a second to lift up your sleeve and reveal what you had tried to hide for the past month.

‘James, the honour is yours,’ Sirius said, while he smirked at you.

The tears were streaming down your face and you didn’t even try to stop them. You had lost. They would see Remus’ name and laugh at you. Laugh at the name of someone who hated you on your skin.

James’ fingers brushed your skin as he reached for your sleeve. With one rough pull, your sleeve was up to your elbow and the name was exposed to the bright light in the corridor and the eyes of the four Gryffindors.

You had expected laughter and pestering, but instead the eyes of the boys turned into saucers. Sirius’ grip on you weakened and you managed to snatch yourself loose. Without even looking at them you ran away.

You didn’t know where you were going and you didn’t know how you ended up in the forest, but that was where your feet stopped. You dropped on your knees and hid your face in your hands. The tears still fell, but it was not because you were scared anymore. You were embarrassed; embarrassed that this had to happen to you. It could have been anyone else, why did it have to be you?

The sounds that surrounded you didn’t reach you. To you, it felt like there was no wind, like there were no other creatures in the forest, like there was absolute silence that was only interrupted by your sobs and unsteady breaths.

It wasn’t until you felt a hand on your shoulder that you were reminded that there were other people around you. You were not alone on the world, no matter how much you would like to be now.

‘I’m sorry for that,’ the person belonging to the hand said and they sat down next to you.

You looked to your side and saw the person who you most and least wanted to see right now.

Remus was watching you with his golden eyes, his hand still on your shoulder. You wanted to say something, do something. But you could not think of anything. Everything felt lost.

‘I know this is probably not how you wanted that to come out,’ Remus said with a light chuckle.

‘I wanted to tell you, I really did,’ you started with a hoarse voice. ‘But I was afraid. I’m sorry.’

‘You have nothing to be sorry about. I should be sorry, I am sorry.’

You looked at Remus and watched him struggle for his words. Now you were so close to him, you noticed things you had never seen before, like the light freckles on his nose and the scars that walked over his cheek. You saw how his hair was just long enough to hide his ears and you saw that he had very long eyelashes. How was it that you had never noticed how beautiful he was?

‘Maybe I should have showed you this the day I got it, but I was afraid too. We never really talked and I know my friends don’t like you. I feel awful for not stopping them this morning, but if I am being honest, I was curious. I was convinced that they were wrong, but I wanted to see what you were hiding instead.’

‘What do you need to show me?’ you asked.

‘This,’ Remus said and he put out his left arm.

Your eyes walked over his skin and stopped at your name. That was your name, on the same place where his name was on your arm. You were Remus’ soulmate. And he was yours.

From your name you looked at Remus. He was watching you with a nervous smile, that only widened when you smiled back at him. He dropped his arm and leaned closer to you, until your lips were almost touching.

‘Never thought that I would find my soulmate,’ he whispered as he brought his hand closer to your face.

‘Tell me about it,’ you chuckled back softly and leaned in to kiss him.

You found your soulmate.

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

taglist: @secretsthathauntus @ronniethelost @kitkatkl @girllety @yuptha-tsme @sleep-i-ness @iamak20

let me know if you want to be added (general or marauders)

MASTERLIST

[writing-wrxngs]

Winter Day

(I got the idea for something with wintery vibes very suddenly as I was walking to my math class the other night. It’s only mid November but we got our first little snowstorm cause I live right on Lake Ontario. It was shit to actually walk through bc I was underdressed and not about to take the elevator back up 8 floors and change. Still, I got super excited to see snow! I love winter, or at least the romanticized version of winter. Also this is hella long, enjoy!)

It was the Saturday after a snow day, which meant an extra free weekend for Techno, Wilbur and Tommy. For the older boys, it meant a break from all the work being loaded on their adolescent backs. Tommy was only in his first year of school so he was just excited for a long weekend away from boring teachers.

Phil let the boys sleep in even more than usual. It wasn’t often school closed on a Friday, they deserved a treat. They had spent most of the snow day messing about and had tired themselves out. Instead, he sipped his coffee in the kitchen and waited to see which boy would roll out of bed first. To his surprise, it was Wilbur.

“Mornin’” the boy mumbled, rubbing sleep out of his eyes. He walked over to one of the cabinets and pulled out a bowl. Setting it down on the table, he went to the pantry and grabbed a random box of cereal from the top shelf. The ease with which he was able to do that still surprised Phil. Wilbur was growing like a weed, and even at his age, was taller than his father already.

Phil watched this ritual silently. Tired teenagers were like wild animals, and agitated easily. Of the two older boys, Wilbur was the one with the worse sleeping habits. Neither of them slept well, as was expected of teenage boys, but Wilbur was definitely the stereotypical tired out insomniac. Phil had no clue what kept him up, and let him for the most part, as it seemed like any attempts to help the boy change his sleep schedule failed.

Once he was done making the cereal, Wilbur sat down to eat. He scowled as he took the first bite. He might not have paid attention to what cereal he got, but he still wanted a particular one. Whatever. He had already poured this bowl. It wasn’t bad, either, just not what he had hoped for. The disappointment already wavering, he continued on eating.

It wasn’t long after that Techno came down the stairs. “Wow,” he said as he entered the kitchen. “Wilbur’s awake before me?”

Wilbur looked up from his cereal. “Don’t,” he replied morosely.

Techno couldn’t help but chuckle at the response. “What, didn’t sleep or something?”

Groaning, Wilbur turned to his brother. “I slept. I slept quite well, thank you very much,” he snapped.

“Doesn’t sound like it,” mumbled Techno.

“Like you would know. You somehow act just fine no matter how much sleep you get. I’m just not a morning person.”

“Alright, alright, I’ll back off,” said Techno. He did indeed back off, leaving to find himself some breakfast.

Phil shook his head at the two of them. Not in any disapproving way, more so a playful acknowledgement of their behavior. Their petty little fights were unstoppable, so he let them happen, waiting in case the fight escalated.

Wilbur finished his cereal as Techno sat down to eat his breakfast. After that, he left to go back to his room.

In his room, he flopped haphazardly onto his bed and relaxed. He wasn’t tired or anything, he just wasn’t awake yet. From his bedside table he picked up the book he was reading last night and continued where he left off. From over the top of his book he saw Tommy leave his room and head downstairs. He was finally alone for a while. Tommy would be a while downstairs, occupying Phil, and knowing Techno, he’d stay down there the whole time, talking about something Wilbur couldn’t care less about.

It was whatever. Wilbur was quite adept at slipping out of familial situations. Tommy and Techno seemed to fill his father’s time plenty anyways.

To his surprise, and perhaps even his chagrin, Techno came in earlier than anticipated. “So like, why’d you lie about not sleeping at breakfast?” He asked as he sat down on his own bed. “You know I know when you’re up.”

Wilbur slapped his book closed. “I lied ‘cause it’s nobody’s business.”

“We literally share a room. Your business is my business. It’s my right as the eldest to bother you about it.”

“Don’t you have things to do besides be a dickhead? A recital to practice for? Strategy books to read?” Asked Wilbur.

Shaking his head, Techno said, “I’m not in the mood for that today. Spent all of yesterday doing things like that ‘cause of the storm.”

Wilbur nodded in agreement. “More than I did. When did snow days become boring?”

“Well, Wilbur,” said Techno, “they got boring for you when you started spending all day waiting for a girl who definitely isn’t gonna call you to call you.”

Wilbur shot a glare at Techno. “At least girls have my number.”

Rolling his eyes, Techno shrugged off the comeback. “Seriously though, Wil. You should do something.”

“I was doing something,” said Wilbur, gesturing to his book.

“I mean actually doing something. Get out of bed. I know, come downstairs and we can do a little sparring.”

“If you just wanted some sword practice, you could’ve just asked me,” said Wilbur dryly. In all honesty, it didn’t sound like a bad idea. “Gimme a sec to get dressed and I’ll meet you down there.”

Techno nodded and left Wilbur alone to change out of pajamas and into something more fitting for a fight.

He walked downstairs and into the practice room. Well, half of it was a practice room. It was still technically a playroom, with half of it still having Tommy’s toys strewn about. In the half dedicated to the older boys, part of it had all their musical instruments in a corner, with sheet music and guitar tabs haphazardly splayed about on stands. The part that mattered was the fighting corner. It had practice weapons, and fighting dummies. Phil had this part put in a year ago, at the boys schools suggestion, after Techno’s third suspension for fighting.

“You ready to lose?” Asked Techno, who was waiting for him in the corner.

“Losing won’t sting too badly, there’s no audience,” replied Wilbur. “Can’t bruise my ego if no one sees it.”

“You’re still gonna lose.”

Smirking, Wilbur said, “I know, but what’s a win if there’s no witnesses?”

Techno tossed a practice sword to Wilbur. “You’re really taking all the satisfaction out of this, you know.”

Catching the sword, Wilbur nodded. “I know. It’s called mind games, Technoblade. I thought you’d know all that, with all the war books you read.”

“I think it’s called ‘delaying the inevitable’. Get over here and fight me.”

And that’s exactly what Wilbur did. Techno was correct. Wilbur did lose, but then again, Wilbur always lost. They weren’t kids anymore, and Techno had long stopped giving his little brother pity wins.

Wilbur got himself up, and turned to leave. As he did that, the good mood he had fell. Tommy was standing in the doorway.

He didn’t even say hello. “How come you always lose?” He asked.

“How come you never let people know you’re watching them?” Retorted Wilbur.

“I just got here,” said Tommy. “I’ve been watching cartoons, but they’re over now. Dad said I could play outside if you and Techno watched me.”

Techno, who had been putting away the swords turned to the other two. “And who says we want to watch you?”

The question made Tommy think. “Me,” he said, stretching his arms out to fill the doorway. “I won’t leave until you say you’ll go.”

“Kid, I can literally pick you up with one hand,” said Techno.

“Didn’t he try to bite you last time you did that?” Asked Wilbur.

Yes. Yes he did. Techno grimaced at the memory. “I think we’ve just been cornered by a five year old.”

Wilbur silently agreed. “Fine. We’ll take you.”

“Yes!” Cheered Tommy, who immediately ran out to get dressed.

The two followed behind, knowing he’d take longer than the two of them, seeing as he was younger and getting dressed more than they were. Still, it was decently cold out, so they threw on some heavy jackets and your usual winter accoutrements. After slipping on some boots, the two older boys followed Tommy out.

With intent, Tommy marched out to the back yard, which was piled high with snow from the storm. “You know, it kinda looks like a fort,” Tommy said, looking at the snowbanks. “Oooo,” he mused. “We could have a snowball fight!”

“We’d pummel you if we did a snowball fight,” said Techno.

“Well, maybe we could do teams?” Tommy suggested.

Wilbur shrugged. “I mean, me and Tommy would be pretty equal to one of you, Techno,” he added.

“Not really but it that’s what you wanna do, go ahead,” Techno said.

“Yes! That’s what I wanna do!” Said Tommy, already dragging Wilbur to one of the snowbanks.

Once there, Wilbur hunkered behind it, not easily hidden the way Tommy was. “Start making snowballs, go!” He whispered, then standing up. He turned to Techno, who was behind his own snowbank. “Now,” he said, putting on an extra dramatic voice for Tommy. “These are the official rules of duelling with snowballs! Number one: you cannot start throwing until the end of the count! Number two! You must announce when you’ve been hit! And number three: first one to hit their opponent ten times is the winner! Understood?” He called out.

“Understood!” Called back Techno.

Melodramatic? Yes. Did it keep most of the other neighborhood children from playing with them? Probably. But was it fun and made Tommy look at Wilbur like he was a god? Absolutely. “Oh-Kay! Three! Two! One! Go!” He shouted, immediately dipping behind the snowbank. A snowball whizzed above his head.

Tommy chucked one, and to everyone’s surprise, landed the first hit of the fight.

“Hit!” Called Techno, who went down to collect more snow.

“Nice one, Tommy!” Said Wilbur, throwing a snowball and missing. As he shook off the loss, was hit square in the chest with a snowball. He made a noise as the impact was made, then called the hit. He left Tommy and moved to another part of the snowbank for a different angle. As he did so, Tommy tried to hit Techno again.

Techno, being Techno, dodged it. He instantly retaliated.

The hit almost knocked Tommy backwards. “Ow!” He cried, before shaking it off. “Hit!” He called out, heading back down and rubbing the shoulder that was hit.

Tommy’s reaction made Techno pause. He wasn’t sure if he actually hurt Tommy or if he was just being a baby. It could be hard to tell. This pause was just long enough for Wilbur to pelt him, hitting him on his cheek.

“Get your head in the game, Techno!” Teased Wilbur.

“It’s not my fault! I was only standing there cause Tommy acted like he got shot!”

“Just call the hit, dude,” Wilbur said.

“Fine,” Techno said, rolling his eyes. “Hit.”

This went on for some time, them calling hits until they were almost tied. Seven to nine, Techno’s favor. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Tommy, so he turned went to throw a snowball at him, but Tommy jumped out of the way just in time.

While Tommy distracted Techno, Wilbur ambushed him, and got a hit off, as called by Techno.

And then, Tommy pelted another snowball at Techno.

“What the hell?” He asked, dumbfounded by the ambush. “Hit,” he added realizing he hadn’t called it. Both of his younger brothers were on him, and very close. Closer than he knew they were. He was stuck. They would obviously the final blow as soon as he went to make a snowball. They already had snowballs.

“And you said it wouldn’t be an even matchup,” said Wilbur. He tossed the snowball in his hand once, then whipped it.

It hit Techno right in the face. Frowning, he wiped the snow off of his face and called the hit. “You guys won. I hope you’re proud of yourselves.”

“We are,” said Tommy.

Before Wilbur could get in a snarky comment, the back door opened. It was Phil, who had popped his head out now that he saw his sons were done with their game. “You guys have been out for too long!” He called. “Get inside before one of you gets sick!”

“Fine!” Wilbur called back, already heading to the front door.

Techno and Tommy followed behind, and they took off their winter gear together in the foyer. Both Wilbur and Techno wiped their glasses on their shirts to defog them as they walked into the living room, taking in the heat of the house.

“I was gonna call you boys in earlier, but you were having too much fun,” said Phil from the kitchen. “I figured I’d use that time for something else.”

Tommy was the first to notice, and broke out into a run. “Hot chocolate?!” He asked in surprise.

The older two followed behind, the suspicion correct. Wilbur eagerly grabbed a mug and sat down. “Thanks,” he said, taking a sip. The warmth spread through his chest and into his stomach.

“Did you three have a good time out there?” Asked Phil.

Wilbur nodded.

“Me and Wil beat Techno!” Added Tommy.

“I saw,” said Phil. “You wanna tell me about it?”

Tommy’s eyes lit up. The chocolate already giving him a rush, he began to tell Phil the story of how he and Wilbur conquered their older brother.

Watching this, Wilbur couldn’t help but smile into his mug. Today was a good day. He hated to admit it, but Techno was right. Getting out and actually doing something did make him feel better. Now, even though it was still midday, he felt good. As much as he sometimes felt out of place in his family, he still loved good times like these. Yeah, today was a good day.

[drabbles-of-writing]

Now I’m wondering what Luz’s old principal in the human realm thinks of all this. Principal Hal must get just the world’s biggest headache from dealing with The effects of Luz’s antics in the human realm. He thought it was all over when she went missing, but no, now she’s a local cryptid, and furthermore she’s a cryptid who’s taking some of his students.

Beware the witch who steals ya children and turns them gay or very confident in their abilities

Honestly, this may be worse. Because after Luz came back there were a bunch of teenagers just....running off into the forest where they could’ve gotten hurt n making a whole ass club about the conspiracy theories. Principal Hal is So Tired. Course he never really believed them. It was never publicly announced that Luz was found, so legally she was still missing, and in a few years, pronounced dead. And then he hears even more rumors.

Kids slipping out of classes, concerned parents calling and saying their kid said they were at an after-school club or detention, but learned they actually weren’t in the school. And plenty of kids who are spouting more about witches and demons and convincing others to sneak off into the woods in the middle of the night. Hal calls it the ‘Luz Curse.’ bc no other kids were into this stuff until a few years after she left, and now suddenly she’s an icon. And some of his students just straight up...don’t come back. Some managed to convince their parents to switch completely to Hexside or they fled their shitty homes to live in the Boiling Isles. So basically, for a few years, kids keep going missing, and everyone says it must be the same person who took that Luz kid all those years ago, and they must live by that old house in the woods where they kidnap kids.

It gets to the point where Principal Hal and the police have a steak-out at the shack to wait and catch this person, using some teachers pet as bait. The kid waited till after dark, as instructed, and was instantly met with Snowy. Kid was confused and a lot of officers showed themselves, finding it odd a snowy owl showed up. Then they see the figure in the house. Luz, not wanting to accidentally reveal the portal, BOOKS IT out the nearest window and into the woods. There is a MASSIVE foot chase through the forest as Luz evades them. She easily manages to double-back but finds that Hal and like 2 other officers stayed waiting at the shack in case she came back. So she’s just trying to make it home and not get arrested for child kidnapping but now she’s got herself and Snowy to worry about, plus King who’s waiting for her. While trying to sneak around, Luz comes face-to-face with her old Principal.

Luz sure as hell looks different, but she’s still someone hard to miss. Principal Hal knows damn well who he’s looking at after only after only a few moments n he’s ready to have a Break bc whatthefuckwhatthefuckwhatthefuck-

Luz: Okay, before you scream, please know that I am not kidnapping kids, they are just...running away from home because of situations. No kidnapping. I have zero involvement with this. The worst I’ve done is prank kids with this thing I have set up. Hal: Hal: You could still be charged-- Luz: Please for the love of god just make it known I’m not a kidnapper

[chrishoughton]

How do you deal with depression?

First off, I’m assuming you’re asking bc you’re dealing with depression. If that’s the case, I’m sorry you’re struggling. Depression is horrible because it robs you of desire. And if you have no desire to keep going in life, you can quickly end up in a dangerous situation.

Depression’s different for everyone but I needed to get serious about my mental health about 2 years ago after I had hit a new personal low. I’ve dealt with anxiety, obsessive thinking, and depression since I was a kid so I thought I knew what was going on, but I didn’t. Depression is serious stuff so good on you for reaching out. Of course, I am no mental health expert so take what I say with a grain of salt.

Here are some of the first steps I took when I was at my lowest:

•Learn about depression. For me, learning about what was going on in my head helped me feel less crazy, less alone, AND gave me an education in what actions I can take in order to feel better. Here is a great resource: https://www.youtube.com/user/healingdepression and I also HIGHLY recommend the book, “The Upward Spiral.” The book is a crash course into learning about the very first small steps you can do to start a positive spiral upwards. Most of us knows what a downward spiral looks like. With a little effort, can’t the spiral work in reverse? The book is great, even if you only read half of it like I think I did. Also, it talks a lot about the importance of deep breathing and your nervous system.

•Walk. Seriously, go for a walk. Today. Even if it’s only 15 minutes a day. It’s so important for your brain. You might not feel the effects right away but do it for a few days in a row and I PROMISE it will make you feel better and calm your mind a bit. Once you get the hang of it, increase your physical activity. It can be anything! Just MOVE. Your body needs to physically process all that cortisol and bad mojo. Also, you’ll spend time outside (hopefully getting a little sun?) looking at trees, people walking dogs, birds chirping, squirrels running around fighting over nuts, etc. It’s good stuff.

•Journal. Not like the instagram models who bullet journal and all that. Just grab a cheap notebook and write down how you’re feeling. That’s all. How do you FEEL? Numb? Write about how numbness feels. Angry? Hopeless? Exhausted? Write it down. You need to get those thoughts OUT of your head and journaling is one of the easiest, fastest, and cheapest ways to do that.

•Find a good therapist so that you can learn about YOUR depression. This is easier said than done but somehow I worked up the strength to make ONE appointment with 2 different therapists. I told them how I felt and I listened to what they said. One guy gave me weird vibes so he was out. The other woman was thoughtful and smart and two years later, we still speak every week for an hour. Therapy has felt like a college course in my personal psychology. I’m learning more about how my brain works. My thought patterns, what sets me off, etc. One of my doctor’s told me in our first visit, “Most people know what kind of car they drive, but they have no idea what kind of brain they have!”

•Meds. I’m on meds (and have been for decades) but I don’t really want to comment on them too much since it’s such a hot topic. I don’t think they’re anything to be ashamed of, but I also don’t think they’re something to be promoted because it’s so individual. My dose was increased when I was at my lowest and it helped but it’s never been a cure-all. However, I do think for some people in some situations, meds can be a lifesaver. It’s complicated. Do your research and meet with a psychiatrist (not a GP) and meet with them at least 2-3 times before they write you a prescription. Find someone you trust that listens to you and isn’t too quick to throw a bunch of pills at you.

For me, the things above were the most helpful tips I can give to anyone who doesn’t know where to start treating their depression. 

Here’s a bunch of other things that have helped me. However, don’t try to introduce a bunch of stuff into your life all at once. You probably won’t even have the energy and it’s just too overwhelming. Start small. But in case you’re wondering, here are some helpful things that I’ve slowly introduced to my life:

•Avoiding alcohol and/or added sugars makes me feel better. I don’t cut it out of my life but my awareness can increased. And awareness of this stuff is crucial! ( “Oh, when I do ____, I feel worse! I will now try to avoid that thing, especially when I’m already feeling bad.”)

•Got a dog! Our pets are a HUGE stress reducer and mood elevator. It’s scientifically proven that caring for something other than yourself gets you out of your head and makes you feel better. Even a plant can help.

•Coffee helps lift my mood in the morning (it’s a stimulant after all) but it can increase anxiety/racing thoughts so I stick to one cup in the morning and that’s it.

•Cannabis is something that I never used to use but it’s been very helpful (way better than benzos!!) It’s another controversial and complicated subject but I want to be honest.

•Meditation. I often can’t just sit and wait for my mind to quiet down. It’s hard and I get distracted. But certain kundalini and hindu meditation practices have been incredibly helpful. They’re active and effective. I’ve been taking classes on zoom throughout quarantine and it’s been really mind-blowing. Lots of breathing exercises and intense practices.

•Gardening. During quarantine, I’ve fallen into gardening HARD and love it. Haven’t done it since I was a kid (never had a yard as an adult until now!). It’s meditative, I sweat out in the sun, and I like digging around in the dirt like a dog. Gets me out of the house and getting out of the house when you’re depressed is super important.

•Yoga. It’s true. All that hippie dippy stuff really works! Yoga helps “reconnect” your body and mind. It’s physical exercise but it’s gentle and calming. Mainly, I find it fun and that’s really important. Find something physical that’s FUN. You don’t have to go for long runs or whatever. I hate running but I LOVE getting on my bike.

•Don’t read the news. If a bomb is gonna drop on your head, your neighbor will tell you. In a depressed state, you don’t need other people’s problems. You’ve got plenty of your own. The news is there to freak you out and you don’t need it. Avoid social media if you can as well. Too many loud people shouting! The social media companies and news organizations want you to stay glued to their platforms freaking out and believing that we’re all doomed. Don’t fall for it!

My diet could be better and my sleep is still not great. But I’m doing much better these days and you can too. Depression is a liar so don’t believe its lies. You can and will feel better. It’s going to take some effort but take it one step at a time and then pat yourself on the back for each step you take! No step is too small. Hell, pat yourself on the back if you read all of my ramblings! It’s all about moving towards a better place. Best of luck. You can do it.