#and thinks the only thing that's gonna make me happy is doing a phd and staying in academia

[look-at-the-stars-tonight]

Called my aunt to wish her a happy birthday and we spent an hour discussing what I was doing with my life 😭

[kuiinncedes]

bro

[louhearted]

love being humbled and being reminded that doing a PhD is really not for me. i am struggling so hard with my MA thesis, lordy. independent research with a deadline set far enough in the future that my brain can't feel any urgency but close enough that i have a constant anxiety tummy ache anyway while not doing anything because my brain is only static white noise? hell.

[ugh-yoongi]

ex-conomics | csc

you supported seungcheol through years of being an aspiring athlete, and all you got to show for it was your undergraduate degree and an awkward, stuttered apology when he dumped you to go semi-pro. now he’s back after an injury derailed his career, and there’s only one problem: you’re the only one available to tutor him. you - 0; the universe - 1. talk about no return on investment.

⚽ pairing: choi seungcheol x f. reader ⚽ genre: exes to (lite) enemies to lovers; university au; angst, fluff ⚽ rating: while there is nothing explicit in this fic, there are two brief references to smut. while i can't stop anyone from reading this, i would prefer minors do not interact with this or any of my work. ⚽ warnings: cheol is some degree of famous, reader is a grad student/TA, mentions of an injury and coping with the aftermath of it, lots of economics talk that even i do not understand, swearing, one mention of alcohol, some misplaced jealousy, rom-com tropes, dino is kind of a loser but we love him anyway. probably a lot of other things i missed, but this is actually pretty tame for a fic of this length. ⚽ word count: 13.4k ⚽ thank you: a lot of people looked this over for me in the process and i'm sure i will forget some of them so if i do i'm sorry: @the-boy-meets-evil, @hot-soop, @highvern, and @haologram, who also gave me some wonderful ideas for the vlogs. thank you to MIT for opencourseware existing. i took microeconomics and dropped it, so i couldn't have done this without you. everyone in the discord server for helping me along the way and keeping me motivated. ⚽ author's note: i haven't posted a fic in nearly seven months, so i think it goes without saying that there are parts of this i like and a lot more i'm not 100% happy with. i'd love if this was more fleshed out and 10k longer, but i was able to write anything at all so it's good enough. this was written for the back to school with seventeen collab, hosted by @camandemstudios. thank you both for letting me participate! please make sure to check out the rest of the stories! everyone worked so hard and this collab was a ton of fun to participate in. <3

You look down at the paper. Back up at who handed it to you. Down at the paper again.

“You’ve got to be joking.”

The poor freshman kid laughs, all nerves, and even though the sound is grating, you remember what it’s like to be forced into work study. How far away graduate school seemed; how large your professors loomed over you with all their power and knowledge and credentials; how you constantly felt like the dumbest person in nearly every room you walked into for four straight years.

“Um—”

You sigh, just barely resisting the urge to slam your head onto your desk. “I—it’s fine, don’t worry about it.” Your words do little to ease Freshman’s nerves. He’s still hunched over in the doorway of your office, wringing his hands as he shifts his weight back and forth, in for a lifetime of body pain with the way he’s squaring his shoulders. “You’re sure about this, though? Like, I’m really not being set up?”

“I don’t think so?” he offers, slowly starting to turn green right before your eyes. “Dr. Lee ga-gave me the paperwork himself, I don’t think he would’ve messed it up? Oh no, did I mess it up? Should I go back to Student Services and conf—”

Good god, this kid’s anxiety is gonna stink up your office for weeks. “No need!” you interject. “I’ll just…” Sign it, you want to say, but the longer you stare at the sheet of paper the quicker you’re losing your resolve.

TUTORING REQUEST FORM Student Name: Choi Seungcheol Degree: Undergraduate Major: Business Course: ECON04101 Introduction to Microeconomics Instructor: Lee Yeonseok, PhD. Recommended Tutoring: High (3-4 hours per week)

You curse under your breath. Of the two names on the paper, Dr. Lee’s does not come as a surprise. He’s a notorious hard-ass with an infamous attrition rate—most students don’t last more than a week in any of his classes—but he’s also the sole reason you were able to pay for someof your grad school tuition out of pocket with all the tutoring money you made.

That, however, was two years ago.

“Does he know I don’t tutor anymore?” Stupid question. The kid stares blankly back at you, as if to say I don’t know any more than the people in Student Services, let alone Dr. Lee. It is literally my first year here. “I’m Dr. Ahn’s TA this year. I’ve got my hands full with her bullsh… stuff—”

Immediately, you know you’ve said something wrong, because the kid’s eyes light up, all that previous anxiety disappearing like smoke. “Wait, the same Dr. Ahn that teaches the crypto course?”

“No, that one died,” you say quickly. Kid deflates. “Anyway, I don’t really tutor anymore, especially for econ. As you can see”—you gesture vaguely around the cramped four walls of your office—“they’ve upgraded me. They even put my name on a little placard by the door! Go look! They spelled it wrong! If that doesn’t sum up this university I don’t know what does.”

You heave another sigh. Try to school your face and tone into something that exudes professionalism and finality. “Look, I’m sorry I can’t help you. I tutored Dr. Lee’s students for, like, three years in undergrad so I’m sure they just… forgot that wasn’t my actual job here. Who’s in charge of tutoring these days? I’ll shoot them an email and explain all this.”

Freshman gives you a name, and it takes less than a second to find them in the employee directory. You expect that to be the end of it, but he’s still taking up space in your doorway. You quirk an eyebrow. “Yes?”

The hand-wringing returns, along with an embarrassed flush that disappears beneath the neckline of his school-branded sweatshirt. “I just—um. Maybe you could, uh. Send that now? Before I get back there?”

You blink. “Don’t you have to go all the way back across campus? How slow do you think I type?” He shrugs, and you give up on the idea of getting rid of him. “Fine. What’s your name, anyway?”

“Lee Chan. I’m a sophomore. Do you know that guy?”

“Oh. I thought for sure you were a freshman, but you’re gonna need to be more specific, Lee Chan, Sophomore.”

“The guy they want you to tutor.” You freeze. The guy they want you to tutor is—“Choi Seungcheol,” Chan tacks on, and, yeah, you know—knew, you correct yourself—someone with that name, once upon a time.

But there are a lot of Chois and a lot of Seungcheols. It’s been years since you’ve spoken to the Seungcheol you knew, and that was when he’d broken up with you to—“I heard he’s a football player? Well, used to be, I guess. The girls in the office were freaking out so I guess he’s pretty famous, but I don’t know anything about sports, do you? They said they have photocards of him. I thought they only did that for idols.”

You think about being kids together in Daegu. Think about the exasperated looks you’d share when your parents would drag the two of you to festivals: Palgongsan in the autumn, Biseulsan in the spring; transformation and rebirth. Think about being eight years old and watching your father cram into the small space of the Chois’ living room, standing around the TV with Seungcheol’s dad, shouting at Park Jonghwan. Daegu FC made the FA Cup quarterfinals that year, and you think, of everything, that’s what you’ll remember for the rest of your life.

You think about falling in love slowly. Sixteen and clueless, the pair of you were. Didn’t really know any different, just that you’d look at him and feel butterflies. That you’d hold hands in secret. Text beneath the dinner table. That you’d watch him on the football pitch and be consumed by pride. That the future felt impossibly far away, that life would never catch up to the two of you.

You think about all the football jargon you didn’t understand—the academies, the teams, the implications. You think about, I’m thinking about trying out for the FC Seoul U-18, I just don’t think there’s much more I can do here in Daegu. You think about replying, Oh, I applied to university there.

You remember thinking it must’ve been fate, how easy that had worked out. How easy that first hurdle had been overcome.

You think about how fast everything happened. The try-out, the acceptance, the explosion. Remember being unable to go anywhere those first few months without seeing Seungcheol’s face, touted as the next big thing. Think about applying for scholarships when he was applying for international visas. Think about studying for midterms when Seungcheol was studying English for interviews.

You think about the last few weeks of your relationship, when it felt like you were desperately trying to cling to ghosts. Think about how Seoul had once felt endlessly big, both in opportunity and size, and how it now felt suffocating. You think about, So you’re just giving up? Is that what you’re saying? Think about, I don’t know what else to do. It doesn’t feel fair to you.

You think about all the places you’ve watched him. On countless football pitches; shy glances in school hallways; in the passenger seat, wracked with nerves on the drive to Seoul; poised above you in bed, hairline dotted with sweat as he rolled his hips, telling you how much he loved you.

You think about watching him walk out the door, and how you never watched him again.

So you fire off your email, concise and to the point about why you can’t tutor Choi Seungcheol in Introduction to Microeconomics, and turn to Lee Chan, Sophomore.

“No,” you finally answer. “Never heard of him.”

For all intents and purposes, your rejection should’ve been the end of it.

A few days go by. You hold office hours, attend lectures, work on your thesis when you have both the time and the energy. Try to ignore the feeling of bees beneath your skin, anxiety needling each time you check your email. You were well within your right to decline the tutoring request, but you can’t help but feel like you’ve done something wrong. That someone somehow knows who Seungcheol was to you and will pull you up on it. That those girls who’d gushed about him to Chan are somewhere laughing at your expense.

But you don’t hear anything at all about it… until you do.

Sunday evening. You haven’t moved from your couch in hours, some variety show playing in the background, barely audible over your keyboard clacking. Much to your detriment, you don’t write many papers these days, so you’re out of practice. Feels like you haven’t done anything besides formulas in years, all of your academic knowledge reduced to fucking math, so you’re about ready to toss your laptop out the window long before the email even comes through.

You see, From: Lee Yeonseok. You see, Subject: Choi Seungcheol - Tutoring.

Your stomach plummets to the floor.

You scan the body quickly. You see the words personal favor… friend of his father… urgent matter… and your hands start shaking. Whether it’s from the sheer audacity of this man or anxiety, you aren’t sure, but it’s not like it matters. There aren’t a whole lot of people on campus brave or dumb enough to go up against him twice.

“Motherfucker,” you spit, bitter the only taste in your mouth.

Where did you go wrong to wind up here? You’d followed the script: got the grades, passed the exams, received half of the required education for the Respectable Career, helped a few others along the way chase dreams that may or may not have been their own. You’d fallen in love. Only had a broken heart to show for it, but that’d been in the script, too: The First Love, followed by The First Heartbreak.

The split from Seungcheol was supposed to have been the end of that chapter. You’d planned on never seeing him again, and you never would have, had it been up to you. Apparently the universe has other plans, participation required.

“Did you spill onion dip on the rug again?” You startle, sending your laptop flying. Kaori, your roommate, is perched halfway in between the living room and the kitchen like a cryptid, clearly not expecting your reaction. “Oh. Were you watching porn?”

Face burning, you fetch your laptop from the floor. “In a common area? Kaori, please, I have far more decorum than that.”

She snorts, resuming her trek to the fridge. “See, that’s what I thought, but then I walked out here and you threw your laptop so fast it was like watching my ex get caught watching furry porn all over again.” She pries the lid off a large container of yogurt. “You think this is still good?”

“Dunno. What’s it smell like?”

She sniffs it and pulls it back to check the label. “Vanilla, I think, which is concerning because it’s supposed to be strawberry.”

You shrug. “What’s the worst that can happen, you get extra”—you pause, trying to remember the correct order of things, before giving up entirely—“...biotics?”

“Mm, so close. Care if I just eat this with a spoon?”

Nose scrunched, you wave her off. “Couldn’t pay me to eat yogurt on a good day, let alone if it’s expired. All yours, babe.”

Spoon in hand and a pleased smile on her face, Kaori collapses onto the couch beside you. You try to return your attention to your paper, try to find your momentum again, and it works for all of ten minutes before you’re groaning and slamming the top closed.

You don’t even need to look over to know Kaori’s staring. “What’s up with you?” she asks. Before she can answer: “Wait, is this serious? Because I can’t have a serious conversation in this t-shirt.” You steal a glance sideways. Ask Me About My Hemorrhoid! it says, and you exhale loudly. “Don’t breathe at me, I lost a bet.”

“And continued wearing it?”

She jokingly rolls her eyes. “God forbid a girl has hobbies.” Nudges you with her foot. “C’mon, spill.”

Kaori doesn’t know about you and Seungcheol. Most people don’t, aside from a few old classmates from Daegu who found you on social media and tried befriending you once he started making a name for himself in Seoul. After that, it was just easier to keep things private while you were together. New friends knew you were seeing someone but not their name or how long you’d been together. Any curiosity surrounding why the Choi Seungcheol was following you on Insta had been waved away easily. Our parents are friends, we grew up together. Then you broke up, and there wasn’t any evidence to delete, and he wasn’t following you on Instagram anymore, and it was easier that way.

So, yeah—even though you hadn’t met her until years later, Kaori knows you have an ex. She knows you’ve had a few flings and situationships in the time since, too, and it’s why she’s none the wiser when you ask, “It’s nothing, really. Just—do you follow football at all?”

“Nah, not really. The new guy’s pretty into it and keeps trying to get me to watch the games with him, but it’s so fucking boring? I dunno, I can’t get into it. Not in real life, anyway—I binged all of Captain Tsubasa in an embarrassingly short amount of time, though. Why?”

“Student Services asked me to tutor someone the other day and I had to turn it down. I just don’t have the time, you know? This semester’s already killer, and Dr. Ahn’s been riding my ass nonstop about grades. Turns out it’s some football player, so Dr. Lee emailed me asking me to do it as a personal favor, which means, on top of all the other shit I have to do, I’m now tutoring some football player four hours a week in Microeconomics.”

Her face distorts. “God, that guy’s such a prick. Like wow, you’re good at the economy! Good for you! Who cares! Why don’t you go balance the national debt or something instead of torturing university freshmen!”

You also wrongly assume that’s the last you’ll hear of it from Kaori.

Two days later, after Student Services replies to your email with the days and times you’ll be tutoring Seungcheol, she materializes in the living room to harass you.

“You didn’t tell me your football player was Choi Seungcheol.”

The panic is instant. You know how she means it, but it’s not how your body interprets it. All of a sudden it feels like an interrogation, an accusation, and a whopping serving of guilt takes up residence in the middle of your chest for not being entirely honest.

“Explains this weird text Ken sent me.”

She slides her phone over to you, open to her text thread with her current flavor of the week. Beneath an article about Seungcheol enrolling in classes at your school:

doesn’t ur roomie TA there Why are you calling her “ur roomie” like you don’t know her name?? Rude. Also yes. ask her to get me an autograph No babe pls he was my fav player before he got injured No 🙄 fine. can i come over later? Starting to think you’re using me for my roommate. Get your own job 🙄

You hand her phone back. “I didn’t think you’d know who Choi Seungcheol even is.” It’s the best you can do, even though it just digs you a deeper grave. “You said you’re not into football.”

“I’m not, but unfortunately I am into that stupid man.” She sighs, wistful and longing. “Babe, you have to understand. His dick is so big.”

You hadn’t wanted to stay in Seoul for your graduate degree, let alone the same university you’d gone to for undergrad.

You’d applied to schools all over—Japan, Europe, even a few in the States. Romanticized the hell out of NYU, went window shopping for an overpriced apartment, picked a favorite pizzeria based on nothing but vibes and online reviews. In those few months after graduation, there wasn’t a whole lot tying you to Seoul. Your and Seungcheol’s relationship had been old history by then, your parents split. Your dad stayed in your childhood home and your mother moved a few hours closer to her sister. They’d waited until your brother was old enough to be out of the house.

And it’d just been… a lot. Overwhelming. Some days you could barely shower or feed yourself, let alone move halfway across the world, so you’d stayed in the familiar and tried not to let it feel like failure.

But the good thing about familiarity is you learn its tricks, figure out the hiding spots. Early on, your first or second week of grad school, you laid claim to a study room on a floor of the library everyone else ignored. You write notes on the whiteboard with faded blue markers that are still there days later. The chair on the opposite side of the table is always exactly where you left it, the space between it and the table enough to only accommodate you. Sometimes you leave books—old paperbacks littered with notes in your writing—or papers, just to see if they move.

They never do.

And all of this is why it feels like a punch to the gut when that sanctity is tainted. When you’re halfway through a stack of Dr. Ahn’s exams and the doorknob rattles behind you. When you don’t even need to turn around to know who it is, because he still sounds the same, still has that overwhelming presence. You’ve always sensed him before you felt him.

“There you are,” Dr. Lee says, ambling into the room before you can protest. He, too, is overwhelming, just in different ways. Immaculate posture that anchors his slight frame that’s always dressed impeccably and expensively. Wears a watch that’s triple your tuition. Shoes polished so bright they’re nearly blinding. “I’ve been looking all over for you.”

This time it is an accusation.

Well, you found me, you want to say, but just knowing Seungcheol is behind him, lingering in that half-study room, half-hallway space, is enough to keep you quiet. Like if you speak you’ll summon him closer and you’ll no longer be able to pretend this is nothing more than a nightmare.

You plaster on a polite smile. Say, “Ah, here I am, kyosu-nim,” and put all your energy into trying to glue Seungcheol to the floor with your mind.

Which is fruitless, because Dr. Lee moves further into the room. Gestures for Seungcheol to follow him with an impatient huff, and the study room is small, sure, and with three people it feels cramped, but that’s not the reason it feels like all the air’s been sucked out of the room.

Seungcheol looks… different. He looks as anxious as you feel, and he sticks close to the wall like he’s trying to disappear. Dr. Lee introduces him with grave importance, unaware of your history, and the forced smile he offers you almost looks embarrassed.

You know Dr. Lee is still hammering away, probably giving you a stern talking-to for rejecting his request the first time, but you can’t tear your eyes away from Seungcheol. Feels like the world around you has reduced to a pinhead, all hyperfocus; feels like your lungs are sucking in stale air one at a time.

“...his father is a very good friend of mine, so I expect…”

You expected to feel nothing. Seungcheol had left to chase his dream—one you’d always been so supportive of that it sometimes felt like your dream, too—and, perhaps naively, you thought the distance and the years would’ve been enough. You expected your heart to have hardened. You expected all those nights you spent crying to hit you at full force. You expected anger, hurt—indifference, at the very least.

“...as many hours per week as you both can manage…”

But you should’ve known better. Should’ve expected the butterflies, the way your palms grow clammy, the way your heart rate spikes. Should’ve expected everything to feel upside-down. You should’ve expected to look at Seungcheol and feel sixteen and in love all over again.

“...you are responsible for his academic progress…”

And that simply will not do. You’ve spent the last few years pulling yourself out of that hole, clawing your way back to something resembling normal. You’ve purged the thought of him from your mind—let his scent fade from your sheets, an old sweatshirt he’d left behind; forgot the way his lips felt against every inch of your skin; forgot the way his entire being lit up when he laughed; forgot the safety he encompassed, the way he whispered all those sweet nothings.

You cannot go there again.

So you roll your shoulders back, smile politely. Say, “Ah, kyosu-nim, Choi Seungcheol-ssi seems very intelligent, I’m sure he is capable of being responsible for his own academic standing, don’t you think?”

Dr. Lee cannot disagree without all but calling Seungcheol an idiot, so he hovers before you in shocked silence. Makes a show of huffing and checking his watch, like he’s all of a sudden remembered he’s late for something and being inconvenienced by this conversation he started, and then he’s halfway out of the library with a terse, “Discuss and figure this out amongst yourselves,” thrown over his shoulder.

You have an entire dramatic exit planned in your head. Gather your things, fake a phone call that makes you sound authoritative and important, and brush past Seungcheol wearing your nicest perfume as if all of this is so far beneath you you can’t even bring yourself to care about it.

Of course, you actually have to brush by him for any of that to happen, and since you’ve already decided you will not go there again, you quickly scribble your email address onto a piece of paper and slide it across the table at Seungcheol, who has steadfastly remained planted just outside the door. “Here’s my email. I don’t have time to discuss this right now.” Seungcheol cocks an eyebrow. You start throwing things into your bag haphazardly. You know you look frantic and affected, but there’s not much you can do about that. “What? Send me a copy of your syllabus and what you want to prioritize. It’ll be easier to get through this if we have a plan instead of winging it.”

He seems to catch on to your distaste because he mirrors it. Scoffs as he rolls his eyes and says, “Yeah, no use spending more time together than we have to,” and if you hadn’t gone years without speaking, you would’ve seen right through it.

But you did, so it stings all the same.

As it typically does, the planet keeps spinning after your run-in with Seungcheol.

You grade Dr. Ahn’s coursework. Try running off your anxiety at the gym, even though it’s pretty good at keeping pace with you these days. You meet Kaori’s maybe-boyfriend sneaking out of your apartment early in the morning and he has the good sense not to mention your ex, but you chalk that up to the mess of hickeys covering his neck and not any sense of social decorum.

Other people’s embarrassment saves you a ton of your own, you��ve come to learn.

Throughout all of this, Seungcheol only emails you once to send you his course syllabus. Doesn’t mention tutoring or provide you with his schedule or ask for yours, so when you’re sitting in a bar with your friends, three or four drinks deep and feeling a little petty, you forward him the original tutoring request and make sure to bold, underline, and highlight the “Recommended Tutoring: High” part for good measure.

He doesn’t take your bait—electronically, at least—but he does show up to your office hours the following Tuesday.

Bag tossed onto the floor, he flops unceremoniously into the chair across from you and says, in lieu of a greeting, “They spelled your name wrong. On the door thing.”

“I know,” you reply, your smile polite and terse. Incredible how he has the ability to raise your blood pressure in milliseconds. “What can I help you with?”

“Depends. How long do you have?”

“Well, considering you’ve shown up to my office hours on time, I’m assuming you already know I’m here every Tuesday and Thursday from four to six. So”—you glance at the clock above the door—“assuming no one comes by who needs my help more than you do, you have approximately one hour and fifty-eight minutes.”

Seungcheol is quiet for a moment as he takes you in. His stare is weighted; it makes you feel a little green around the edges. Clinical and sharp, so far removed from the way he used to look at you. You clear your throat. “I looked over your syllabus. The good news is there’s only a midterm and a final and the rest is problem sets. The bad news is there’s only a midterm and a final so they’re weighted quite heavily. You really need to know this stuff inside-out to have any hope of passing.”

“That’s why you’re here, right? Dr. Lee specifically requested you.”

You huff a breath through your nose. “I’m here as supplemental help. I can’t take your exams or do your readings for you. What else are you taking this semester?”

He sighs, sinking further into the chair, very much playing the part of the heir who has no interest in any of this. Which… is unlike him, you think, if you’re even allowed to. The Seungcheol you knew years ago took everything so seriously. Never clipped corners or took shortcuts. Anyone else would think him a spoiled, petulant child. “Business Accounting and International Trade.”

“Could be worse,” you note. “At least those three courses are tangentially related.”

Seungcheol rolls his eyes. “Easy for you to say. I haven’t taken a fucking math class in years.”

You return it. “You remember how to add and subtract, don’t you?”

“I ruptured my ACL, not my…” He trails off, looking a little embarrassed that he can’t name a part of the—“Brain.”

Whatever you were going to quip back with dies on your tongue. It's the first time Seungcheol has broached the topic of his injury—the first you’re hearing of it at all, actually—and he says it like it’s a joke, like it’s not a thing at all, but the pain is all over his face. The bitterness of the situation he’s found himself in. The unfairness of it all.

And there are so many questions you want to ask that aren’t your place: if it’s fixable, if he’ll ever play again, how he’s coping. But you don’t really need to—you can’t imagine how you’d feel if someone suddenly pulled the rug out from under you. If everything contained within the four walls of your office suddenly disappeared.

Not that the man sitting across from you hadn’t already done that, but.

“Right,” you continue, as if he hadn’t said anything at all. You know Seungcheol—know he wouldn’t want you prodding, sticking your fingers in that particular wound. “I want you to take a look at this,” you say, handing over a printout you have saved from your undergrad tutoring days. “Tell me what looks familiar, what doesn’t; what does and doesn’t make sense.”

He looks down at the paper. Back up at you. Down at the paper again. “What the fuck is this?”

“I—what? Cheol, it’s my old notes on recitation. Surely you’ve already covered this—the syllabus says this is week one stuff.” He looks down at the paper again, and it’s so familiar, watching the life drain entirely from someone’s eyes.

You barely resist the urge to slam your face onto your desk a second time.

You meet Seungcheol at the sports center for your next tutoring session.

He likes the humidity and the smell of the chlorine by the pool. He also likes that it’s not the football pitch, so the two of you sit in the bleachers there and go over his lecture notes. Much to your surprise, Seungcheol talks a mile a minute. Has stars in his eyes when he says he finally understands elastic demand curves, supply shock; tells you he spent a whole hour making flashcards.

It’s the first time you’ve seen him so excited since your tutoring began—the first glimmer of hope you’ve felt since Dr. Lee cornered you in your library hideaway. None of this surprises you. Seungcheol has always been smart, even when football was his primary (and sometimes only) focus. He has more determination and grit than anyone you’ve ever met, so you’re not surprised he’s doing well, excelling, but you are surprised—

“Can I ask you something?” Seungcheol shrugs, shoves half a protein bar in his mouth and swallows without chewing. “Why are you… uh. Here?”

“At this university?”

“Not exactly. I mean, I am wondering about that, but I guess… why business?”

Seungcheol hums. Tucks his good knee to his chest and stares down at the pool. No one’s using it, and truthfully the two of you probably aren’t even allowed to be here, but you understand why he likes it. It’s nowhere near as secluded as the library and definitely not as air conditioned, but it is peaceful. Calm. The water laps against the coping in quiet, small waves.

“Ah, I don’t know. You know how it goes.”

You quirk an eyebrow. Never, in all the years you’ve known him, has Seungcheol done anything he didn’t want to do. All that grit and determination. “What about your father, then? Dr. Lee mentioned this was a favor to him. He’s a pretty important person to have in your Rolodex of favors.”

Doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see what this is: Seungcheol’s father has new money; worked from the bottom up, made some smart investment decisions that finally panned out after Seungcheol left for Seoul. Started doing his own thing, made a name for himself. Last you’d heard from your mother, Seungcheol’s brother was second-in-command. Hell, even your own brother did an internship there.

So you know what this is: a father helping his son after his dream was shattered, life turned upside-down. You can’t blame him, even if you’ve heard the whispers from all the way across campus. That Seungcheol is washed up now, trying to nepo his way into his father’s company because of it; that all he knows is sports and he should’ve stuck to that, what does he know about business, why is he the one Dr. Lee went out of his way to help.

Doesn’t stop any of them from smiling at him, though; doesn’t stop them from asking for autographs or selfies.

But you also know this isn’t something Seungcheol seems willing to discuss, so you crack a joke—“I mean, business. God, who’d wanna go into that?”—and go back to what he was willing to talk about.

You’ve never hated elastic demand curves so much in your life.

Deep in the throes of tutoring—when you can’t tell if it’s week two or week twelve—you make it back to your apartment just before ten, head pounding.

The door flies open just as you’re about to punch in the code, and there stands Ken, looking far more put-off than you’ve ever seen him. Looks defeated, if you’re being honest, like someone mopped up all his emotions and wrung them out like dirty dishwater.

“Oh, hi,” you say hesitantly. The man in front of you seems too much like a caged animal to let your guard down. “Everything okay?”

He aborts a nod halfway. Mutters an apology as he brushes by you and stalks down the hall, disappearing around the corner to the elevators. Usually he’s a talker—you haven’t been able to avoid a Seungcheol-related conversation in weeks—so you’re a little stunned. Stand there stupidly for a while, and that’s where Kaori finds you a moment later.

“You gonna stand out here all night, or…?”

“Oh—yeah, right.”

You follow her inside. Toe off your shoes and put them in the rack. Focus on the sound of the kettle whistling instead of the overbearing tension in the room. Drop your bag off in your room, throw on a sweatshirt three sizes too big and a comfy pair of socks. Rummage through the fridge for leftovers, contemplate what mindless show you’ll watch as you eat, and you do not, under any circumstances, ask Kaori what happened.

You don’t have to. You knew what this was going to be the first time Ken spent the night—the way he looked mortified to be meeting you in the shared kitchen at seven a.m., wearing a look that begged you not to tell your roommate he was sneaking out.

I, uh, have an early class, he’d said. You know how it is.

Maybe you should’ve called him on it then. Issued a warning-but-not-really. She’ll get attached if you don’t tell her. She should know it’s different for you, if it is.

But you’d convinced yourself it wasn’t your place. Kaori wouldn’t want you in her business like that, so you stayed quiet, just nodded before watching him slip his shoes on and close the door behind him so quietly you wouldn’t have known he left at all if you hadn’t been looking. Gone, just like a ghost.

So, yeah, you know exactly why your roommate looks haunted.

“I’m a few episodes behind on this if you want to watch with me,” you offer, pointing at the television with the remote. It’s a lie—you’ve never watched this show a day in your life, which Kaori seems to know—but she contemplates it nonetheless. “Also, my mom mailed us some cookies. I think they’re in the fridge.”

“Why are there cookies in the fridge?”

You huff a laugh. “They were outside the door this morning before I left for campus. I don’t know—just saw who the package was from and was like, oh, this must go in the fridge.”

She nods. Grabs the container and joins you on the couch. Sticks her feet beneath your butt and doesn’t mention a thing.

The closest she comes is a few days later. Catches you right before you head out to campus and asks how tutoring is going.

“Not bad, actually.”

Her smile doesn’t reach her eyes when she says, “That’s good. I’m glad things are going well for you two.”

Lee Chan, Sophomore makes his unexpected return at your office hours on an unsuspecting Tuesday.

“Can I help you?”

He doesn’t answer right away, just helps himself to the seat across from you. “Maybe,” comes his cryptic retort. “I was thinking about signing up for that crypto course next semester.”

You narrow your eyes. “No, you weren’t.”

He sighs. Looks a little panicked, like he can’t believe that didn’t work. “You’re right, you’re right. I, um—I wanted to come say thank you.” He pauses. “You know, for that… email you sent.”

You blink. “No, you didn’t.”

Lee Chan, Sophomore cracks immediately. Thunks his head on your desk and lets loose a pained sound. It nearly sounds like he’s wailing when he says, “I’m sorry! They put me up to it!”

What you’re able to piece together is this: Lee Chan, Sophomore has become a bit of a celebrity in the Student Services department ever since he met you, Choi Seungcheol’s tutor. And, like any smart, previously unpopular university student would do, he took advantage of it. Might’ve stretched the truth a little to make it sound like he knew more than he did, so now here he is, angling for information the girls with the photocards may or may not have paid him to get.

“They want to know about his girlfriend.”

“His what?”

What you’re able to piece together is also this: the Photocard Girls are certain Seungcheol is dating someone, based on little more than vibes. You suspect these vibes are their three degrees of separation, considering there was an abnormal amount of Change of Major files formed after his enrollment, but you tell Lee Chan that you don’t know anything and, even if you did, you wouldn’t put his business out there like that.

But some part of you still has this inexplicable urge to protect Seungcheol, so you match their offer with interest and tell him to say there’s nothing to report—not that you didn’t know, not that he couldn’t get anything out of you. Seungcheol isn’t dating anyone.

You don’t know if it’s true, but you figure that if it isn’t, he still deserves privacy.

Which is a notion you have trouble explaining a few hours later, when Seungcheol strolls into your office with a grease-stained paper bag full of cheese coin bread, offering one to you with a proud smile that drops slowly when you just stare in return.

“What’s wrong?”

Your mouth opens, closes, opens again. Nothing comes out, even though it should be simple. Some sophomore kid was just in here angling for information or the Student Services department is taking bets on whether or not you have a girlfriend would both suffice, but you cannot bring yourself to say the words.

What you settle on is, “Sorry, I just… had an interesting meeting before you got here.”

“Oh. Are you okay?”

You sigh. Tilt your head back to stare up at the ceiling. “It was about you, actually.”

Seungcheol chokes, starts stuttering over words you can’t make sense of. Says, “Me? Why? I passed my last exam—I mean, barely, but I still passed. And that wasn’t your fault! I didn’t study enough! I’ve been losing my mind over my International Trade class, that shit sucks—”

“It wasn’t about your grades, Cheol.”

“Oh.” Then, slowly, a lopsided, pleased smile overtakes his face. “Haven’t heard you call me Cheol in a while.”

“Seungcheol,” you correct.

He seems to forget all about the meeting. Tries again to offer you a coin bread before he threatens to eat them all himself, so you acquiesce mostly to shut him up, say you’ll bring the extras to Kaori. For some reason, you tell him about how much she’d loved the cookies your mom sent, and the nostalgia sets him off, gets him talking again, asking if they were the yakgwa she used to make when you two were kids.

They were, but you can’t seem to tell him that, either.

Seungcheol: sorry it’s last minute - running late. can you meet me at my place instead?

Seungcheol shared a location with you

You’re halfway to replying—I don’t think that’s appropriate—before you sigh and delete it. Midterms are only a few days away and you don’t have time to argue over where your tutoring sessions will be, so if Seungcheol wants to meet at his apartment that’s where you’ll meet him.

You read over the midterm notes on the train. Once, twice, and then a hundred more times until they’re nearly memorized, all so you can ignore the voice in the back of your head saying what a bad idea this is. That you have no business being on your way to your ex’s swanky part of town or integrating yourself into his life beyond tutoring at all. You shouldn’t know where he lives. Maybe you shouldn’t even have his phone number or answer his texts.

Not that there’s much you can do about it now, two stops away.

Seungcheol greets you warmly, if not a little rushed. Apologizes for the mess once you step inside, although it’s less “mess” and more “haven’t finished unpacking,” but there’s enough clear space to study at the dining table, so that’s where you set up, determined to keep things professional.

“Sorry again about this,” Seungcheol says, placing a can of cola in front of you as he takes the seat across. “I had to meet with my father and lost track of time, I guess.”

“Oh. How’s he doing?”

Seungcheol sighs, leans further back in the chair as runs a hand through his hair. A light brown, now. “Same as he always was, I guess. Talked about the business, about my brother. Can’t get him to shut up about that stuff most of the time.”

“The business is doing good, though.” You cough, clear your throat. “My, uh. My brother interned there during undergrad. I don’t know if your father told you that.”

You don’t know why you say it, because it’s clear from the brief flicker of pain on Seungcheol’s face that he hadn’t known, that no one had told him. And it hurts you too that they felt the need to keep it a secret, to protect Seungcheol from you even in tangential ways.

“He didn’t,” he admits, “but I’m sure he was happy to see him. He was, uh—he was glad to hear you’re my tutor. Said you were always smarter than all of us boys combined.”

You laugh. Hope it sounds casual instead of strained. “Well, no need to prove him right. Come on,” you say, tossing a study guide in his direction, “let’s get to work.”

Everything is alright for a while—nearly an hour at least. He has the formulas memorized and attributed to the correct equations. He can explain supply and demand, preference and utility, but things start to fall apart around budget constraints and constrained choice.

The formulas get mixed up. He grows frustrated when he doesn’t know the answers to your questions right away. Rolls his eyes and gets a little snappy when you correct him, try to explain things differently in a way he understands. At first he’s able to temper it, collect himself before things truly start spiraling out of control, but the longer the two of you sit there the more it all unravels.

He snaps, you snap back, and you can’t figure out why. You’ve survived this long in Seungcheol’s orbit even though you never thought you’d be around him again, and perhaps it was bound to explode eventually, but…

It’s the familiarity, you realize.

You and Seungcheol aren’t friends, though you’ve been playing at it for weeks now: meeting outside of the library or your office, the personal conversations bordering on reminiscing, being in his personal space. You don’t belong here. You don’t want to be his friend—you can’t be, not for real or pretend.

“That’s not what I’m say—”

“Then explain it better,” Seungcheol fires at you, eyebrows creasing. “You’re the tutor here.”

You roll your eyes. “I’m trying, okay? All I meant was—your answer isn’t wrong, but I know Dr. Lee and he’s going to want more than that in a response.”

“Right—not good enough, like I said.”

“I’m just asking you to expand on your answer—”

“And I’m telling you that’s all I’ve got. I’m not like you, all right? I don’t have all this shit just floating around in my head all the time. I’m not smart, I barely have any idea what’s going on half the time, and you sitting here being condescending about it is doing fuck-all to help.”

You inhale sharply, taken aback at the hostility in his voice. Suggest calling it for the night, say neither of you will be productive if you keep going like this, and neither of you bother to apologize.

So much of your relationship with Seungcheol was marred by clichés.

The two of you passing notes back and forth during class. You in the bleachers of all his games, screaming along to the team chants, waving a sign around with his name on it. Not realizing you had a crush on him at all until he liked someone else and it made your stomach hurt. Childhood friends turned lovers.

Another cliché: that it’s starting to feel like that all over again.

Seungcheol sits across from you in the library, econ textbook cracked in half in front of him as he pays no attention. Keeps grabbing his phone each time it vibrates across the table. Can’t fight the smile that forces its way onto his face when he reads whatever’s there.

Stupid, you think—both to do this and to think it’d play out any other way. Seungcheol left years ago. Probably lived ten lifetimes while he was away while you were here in this exact spot doing this exact thing. Barely lived half a life, just stuck your nose in textbooks and forced your way through.

“Cheol,” you say, trying to drag his attention back to the study guide. No use. He’s typing away, presses his tongue into the fat of his cheek as he responds. “Seungcheol,” you try again.

Also fruitless.

You have no claim here, you remind yourself—not to his time, not to him. He’s only here because someone else mandated it. You’re only here because someone else mandated it, but it stings all the same. Another reminder of what used to be, of what ended regardless of what you wanted. Another reminder that the role you used to play in his life is not the role you play now. That the space you used to take up created a vacancy, and eventually it was going to be filled.

And if this was anyone other than Seungcheol, if you were more emotionally evolved when it came to him, it wouldn’t gnaw at you as much. All of this would roll off your shoulders.

But it isn’t, and you’re not.

“If you’re not going to listen, then—”

“I am listening,” he interjects, but he’s not looking at you. Not looking at his textbook or his study guide. Keeps laughing and smiling at his phone, and it’s sick how bothered you are by it. That it feels like your stomach’s been turned inside-out with jealousy; with annoyance, because you don’t want to be here anyway, don’t want to do this anymore, and you’re wasting your time on someone who doesn’t appreciate it.

Perhaps he never did.

“What are we discussing, then?”

Still not looking up: “Consumer theory.”

You laugh—more a huff of air than anything, grin sardonically out of one corner of your mouth. Seungcheol sees none of it. “Wrong,” you answer, already expecting the way he shrugs it off. “I’m gonna skip ahead a few chapters, though. Consider it a freebie for your business class.”

It must be your tone that finally grabs his attention. Cutting, precise, purposeful. Seungcheol lowers his phone, quirks an eyebrow, wonders where this is going to go. It’s clear he’s pissed you off, that you’re itching for a fight. It’s clear the years of silence are finally coming to a head.

“Let’s talk about ROI. You know what that is?” You barely give him a second. “Return on investment. A performance measure used to evaluate the efficiency of an investment or compare the efficiency of several investments. So, let’s say I make one-hundred-thousand won on a ten-thousand won investment: my ROI is 90%. Are you following?”

He nods.

“Great, now let’s try something a bit more hypothetical.” You suck in a breath. “Let’s say I invest years of my adolescence into someone. A friend at first and then something more. Let’s say I played cheerleader, supported every hope and dream he had—went to every game, cheered him on, helped him practice his English. Held his hand and talked him down when the pressure felt overwhelming, when the only thing that felt inevitable was failure. Now, let’s say all I got in return was a stuttered, awkward apology as he dumped me and walked out the door. Let’s say that guy showed up again after years of silence just to once again waste my fucking time.”

The thing about pain is it’s not linear. What hurt five, ten years ago might not hurt today, but it might tomorrow; what hurt yesterday may never hurt again. The thing about pain is it lets you stick your head in the sand until it can’t anymore, and that’s where you are now: that window of time between Seungcheol walking out the door on the assumption you’d never see him again before he bulldozed his way back into your life has been slammed closed, locked up tight.

So you don’t even notice you’re crying until the room goes deathly silent and you can hear the drip drip drip of tears on paper. Until you watch Seungcheol’s hands flex and unflex in mid-air, stuck in that liminal space, wanting to reach out but knowing he has no right to. Until your chest aches so bad you’re sure you’re either about to break into stardust or cease to exist.

Until you say, “What, Choi Seungcheol, would you say my fucking return on investment was?” and he has nothing to say at all.

Kaori invites you to a party.

Just something small to celebrate the end of midterms and a classmate’s birthday. Nothing out of control or raucous, not even the kind of thing that’d earn a second glance from campus security. I won’t even make fun of you if you leave before eleven, is how she sold it to you, in addition to a small amount of begging and bargaining and a powerful set of puppy-dog eyes.

After everything the two of you have been through, you find it hard to say no.

So here you are, nearly eleven o’clock on a Friday, a cup of cheap beer in hand. A friend of a friend of a friend is wailing into a karaoke machine and although your ears are bleeding, it does feel nice for that to be your greatest worry. You aren’t thinking about your classes or how you’ve been prioritizing everyone else’s academic success. You aren’t thinking about whatever’s going on between Kaori and Ken. You aren’t thinking about Seungcheol.

At least you aren’t, until he walks through the door.

You’re going to continue not thinking about him at all—not about the fact he’s alone or how good he looks in a simple black T-shirt that’s a little taut in the shoulders. You’re not going to think about the way the air shifts, like the universe knows he’s important and is willing to accommodate. You’re not going to think about how Kaori catches your eye across the room, recognizes him from all her internet searches, and the way she mouths oh my god he’s so beefy at you.

You’re not going to think about how guilty you feel that she doesn’t know, because if you do you’re certain it’ll take over.

You watch Seungcheol work the room; watch as he floats between conversations, as strangers fall over themselves at the sight of him. How eager everyone is to give him something and how reluctant he is to take them. You watch as he winds up in the same circle as Kaori and how she must mention you, oh, your tutor is my roommate, because there’s a question in return before he turns and meets your gaze.

You wonder why the distance between you feels more insurmountable now than ever before.

Seungcheol finds you in your office.

It’s not a Tuesday or a Thursday, far later than four to six in the evening, but he doesn’t even bother knocking before he’s barreling in, stifling your space with his bad energy.

You haven’t seen him in nearly two weeks. Not since the party, if that even counts. Hasn’t bothered to reply to any of your texts or emails, and that was just fine by you, if that’s how he wanted to act, but it isn’t until he’s brooding on the other side of your desk that you realize you’re still aggrieved, too. Feels a little too familiar, him leaving you behind and in the dark.

So you don’t mean to—typically have much more professionalism than this—but when he tosses a stapled stack of papers with a barely-passing grade on your desk and says, “This is your fault,” the words come automatically and without forethought.

“Fuck off, Seungcheol.” It’s not your words that take him by surprise; more so the roll of your eyes, the accompanying huff. The impression that all of this is beneath you and nothing more than a mere annoyance. That however affected you were two weeks ago is not how affected you are anymore. “That’s what happens when you blow off your tutoring for two weeks because you’re a coward.”

He laughs, incredulous; unable to help the sound the tumbles out of his mouth. “I’m a—I’m a coward?”

“Yes,” you reply, tone giving away nothing. All he sees is feigned nonchalance despite the hurricane you feel brewing beneath the surface. “This,” you continue, pinching the corner of the paper between your fingertips and disposing of it in the trashcan beneath your desk, “is all on you, but do please let me know if there’s anything else you’d like to blame me for. I’m all ears.”

You don’t miss it: the way Seungcheol’s eyes grow wide at your ‘I’m all.’ The way he thinks you’re going to punctuate that sentence with yours, and it nearly has bile rising in your throat. Makes you want to scream, rip at your hair. If the last few months have taught you anything, it’s that you are still hopelessly in love with the man across from you—the man that continues to leave before he’s left, always at your expense.

So, yeah—Seungcheol is a coward, but only when it comes to you.

But he doesn’t look much like one now, gripping so hard at the edge of your desk that his knuckles have gone white, baseball cap pulled down low enough his eyes are barely visible. He’s always been overwhelming, always carried himself with an exaggerated arrogance even when it wasn’t warranted, always took everything so seriously, and maybe that’s why you’d thought he’d treat you the same way. Take you seriously. Wouldn’t just throw it all away on a maybe thing, and that’s why it's been years and you still aren’t over it.

Maybe Seungcheol is a coward, and maybe so are you.

Because not once since he’s been back have you been able to say what you mean. Can’t seem to tell him about the anger, the hurt, the heartbreak. Played it all off as petty nonchalance because you foolishly thought that would hurt him, that you’ve been reduced to simmering ash, no hope left for a fire.

“I could never blame you for a goddamn thing,” he says, voice so deep you could drown in it.

You so desperately want to know. You don’t want to know anything at all. You want Seungcheol to explain everything to you in detail and spoil the ending, but only if it’s guaranteed to be happy. Enduring another loss like the first time—you’re not sure you can take it. Not after you two have crossed paths like this, because you’ve never quite believed in fate but you think that has to mean something. That so much time and life had transpired and you two came back together.

Today, though, it doesn’t look like you’re going to get any answers.

Seungcheol straightens, looms at full height. Digs into the pocket of his sweatpants and pulls out a thumb drive. Wordlessly, he hands it over, and then he’s gone just as abruptly as he’d arrived.

Again.

Kaori wants to spend the weekend moping, and you can’t come up with a good reason not to join her.

She doesn’t mention Ken once. Not when she’s sobbing over A Silent Voice and Toradora! after that. Not when she keeps glancing at her phone every couple minutes to see if she has any texts. Not when you—only halfway paying attention between grading and your own assignments—suggest ordering something for delivery, maybe that new burger place down the street you heard was good, and Kaori shuts it down so vehemently you can only assume it was Ken’s favorite place.

Kaori just cries over the man with the big dick she never expected to take so seriously, and not even your stonewalling makes her feel ashamed of it.

And there’s respectability in that kind of openness and vulnerability. At least whatever she’s feeling is honest; at least she can admit she’s sad. You think watching Kaori process her breakup might help you process yours too, years too late, so you suck in a breath and ask, “Can I tell you something or is now not a good time?”

Kaori looks over at you. Dabs a soggy tissue at her eyes. “Well, I guess it depends,” is her answer, and she doesn’t shy away from how waterlogged her voice sounds. “If you’re going to tell me you’re a Takasu and Kawashima shipper, maybe, but if it’s anything worse I’m not sure I could take it.”

“I—what? Who even are they?” She gives you a half-hearted thumbs up. You sigh in response, sink further into the couch. “It’s, uh.” Clear your throat. “Do you remember when we met sophomore year? At that party? And I told you I wasn’t looking for anything and you said, and I quote, why not, I have a sixth sense for this kind of thing and I know that guy will have a huge—”

She hides her face behind her hands. “Ew, god, yes I remember that. My dick whisperer era. How embarrassing.”

“Right. And I told you I wasn’t looking for anything because I’d just gotten out of something.”

“Not really by choice, if I remember correctly. I told you if it was quiet it should’ve been loud, and then you never talked about it again.”

You nod. “I—yeah, that sounds like something I would’ve said.” You suck in a deep breath. “Listen, this is probably gonna sound bad considering I did never talk about it again, but—”

“Hey,” Kaori says, nudging you with her foot. Meant to be comforting, somehow. “It’s okay. There’s a lot you don’t know about me, too… most of which I’m not sure you should, actually.”

A laugh forces its way out, gives you a nice reprieve from the anxiety of the conversation you’re about to have. The need to explain it all, the need for advice. Maybe it’s not her—or anyone else’s—business, but you think you’ve kept this to yourself long enough. You and Seungcheol loved each other, once, and it seems foolish that no one knows.

Maybe Kaori had been right. Maybe love should be shouted from the rooftops; exist out in the open. Maybe something hidden in the shadows can never thrive in the light, and you knew it back then, deep down, but now it seems so obvious.

You think back to a few days before the library. Think about how things didn’t feel good but they felt okay. Think about the frustrated crease between Seungcheol’s eyebrows as he stared down at his textbook and how all you’d wanted to do was smooth it. Think about how you’d rolled your lips and tried not to laugh; how you thought it’d take a miracle to help Seungcheol pass this class.

Think about: What is the difference between the short-run and the long-run from the perspective of production theory?

Think about the short-run of your and Seungcheol’s relationship—that you’d burned bright and fast, even though it’d felt like a million years. Hadn’t dared to consider the long-run because anything beyond that bubble felt impossible.

Think about: Which of the following is not a property of isoquants?

Think about the way Seungcheol’s eyes lit up when he knew the answer. That they’re always linear, he said, and you smiled at his enthusiasm, raised your hand to high-five him and dropped it when he hadn’t noticed.

You think about the explanation—isoquants can be linear when inputs are perfectly substitutable—and what those graphs look like. Downward sloping, left to right. Think about how the graphs change when the isoquants are perfect complements.

L-shaped. Less straight as the inputs become poorer substitutes.

You know what your and Seungcheol’s graph would’ve looked like back then.

So it’s easy, almost, to tell Kaori everything. You tell her about growing up in Daegu, about the smell of the azaleas at Biseulsan in the spring. You tell her about how your parents had befriended the neighbors, how they had a kid your age, that that kid was Seungcheol—yes, that Seungcheol.

She’s able to anticipate the rest from there, but you fill in the blanks of what she can’t: being sixteen and falling in love, holding hands, the clandestine notes. All those football matches and how your throat would be hoarse from cheering. How nauseous you’d felt applying to university in Seoul, how excited you were when Seungcheol said he was coming with you. That, after you arrived, it felt like you were living in fast-forward. Barely any time to breathe or adjust; no time to just be you and Seungcheol. You had to be a student, someone responsible; Seungcheol had to be a phenom.

“Could you feel it was going to happen?” Kaori asks, now sat ramrod straight, all her attention on you. “Like, did you know?”

“I don’t know,” you admit. “Maybe I did? It’s hard to say now, all this time later. I know things definitely felt different, like life was pulling us in opposite directions.” You laugh, bitterness coloring the edges. “You couldn’t go two blocks without seeing him on some billboard, and I was just… normal, you know? I wasn’t some rising star athlete like he was, I just went to my classes. How was I supposed to compete with something like that?”

Your roommate hums, leans back into the pillows as she stares up at the ceiling. “I don’t think you were. Maybe that’s why Seungcheol was worried—maybe he felt like you were losing your own identity feeling like you had to keep up.”

You want to push back, argue that you weren’t, that you didn’t, but the truth is that it’s possible. That the shadows created by Seungcheol’s dreams were so massive you wouldn’t be surprised if they unintentionally swallowed you up. “It still wasn’t his choice to make,” you say, voice barely above a whisper.

And Kaori already knows all about your hurt, listened as you explained it all and laid everything bare. So when she says, “Sometimes that’s just how it goes, though, babe,” it doesn’t feel condescending. “We do the best we can with what we’ve got at the time. You can say now it wasn’t Seungcheol’s choice to make, because it’s been almost five years and you’ve made a life for yourself separate from him. But the—god, this is gonna sound so patronizing, I am so sorry—but you guys were so young. No one has it all figured out at that age.”

She snorts, runs a hand through her messy hair. “Shit, I’m nearly halfway to thirty and I still don’t know anything.” Adopts a frown. “What do you want now? Do you want closure? Want to try to fix things and become friends?”

“I don’t know,” you admit, biting at a hangnail. “He actually, um. The other day when he stopped by my office, he left me a USB drive? And before you ask, no I did not already look at it.”

“A USB drive? Who does this guy think he is, James Bond?” A pause. “Are you gonna look at it, though?”

You do.

Not until the silver, midnight light creeps in through your bedroom curtains and you’ve stared at the ceiling long enough; waited long enough for texts that never came, for divine intervention to, well, intervene. It never did—fair enough—so you decide to take fate by the reins. Grab your laptop, instant headache from the screen, stick the drive into the port.

It takes a second for it to load, but when it does: dozens of videos, organized by date. Vlogs, by the look of them—some from before your breakup but the majority of them from after.

You’re not sure what you expected, but it wasn’t this.

You click on the first one: a month and a half before both of you moved to Seoul. A fresh-faced Seungcheol appears on your screen, cheeks still round with adolescence. He’s in his room back in Daegu, can’t get the camera angle right. Nostalgia hits you like a ton of bricks as it pans to the side, to the wall behind his bed, and you see all his old posters. Mostly football players you couldn’t name, some girl group he used to love, a few movies. Just below them are some of the notes you’d written him in school, and they’re all you can focus on as he talks about how excited he is for the move.

The next: a few weeks after you’d started classes. By then, Seungcheol was well into the swing of things with Seoul FC. Already a big fish in a small pond, tryout offers from European teams starting to roll in. You can hear yourself in the background stressing over your first exam, wishing a generational curse upon your calculus professor. In the video, Seungcheol laughs, whispers like he’s telling the camera a secret as he talks about how nervous he is for his future. I don’t know why, he says, but it just feels like everything is about to change.

There’s a long pause between that one and the next. You understand why when you look at the date: three months after your breakup. Your hands hover uselessly above your keyboard. Whatever answers you’ve been looking for the last few years are probably in this video, but you can’t bring yourself to open it. Not right away, at least.

You click on a different one at random. Seungcheol’s somewhere in Europe, judging from the language on the signs behind him. Snow falls quietly—whenever he filmed this, it must’ve been early. No one else is around, and he cracks a joke that it’s a good thing, people would probably think he was crazy if they saw him. He doesn’t tell you where he’s going but he narrates the entire walk: points out a cafe he’s grown to love. The way to get to his practice stadium from where he’s standing. Pauses near a restaurant and laughs ruefully, shakes his head, says, I don’t know why I’m telling you this, but one of my teammates set me up on a blind date here and I got stood up. You’d probably think that was funny.

(You do. It also makes your chest ache.)

One from two years ago: Seungcheol in a hotel room, clearly nervous. He raises his hand to wave at the camera and you can see the corners of his nails bitten raw. Dark circles beneath his eyes; cheekbones more pronounced than you’ve ever seen them. On the screen, Seungcheol sighs, rakes a hand through freshly-bleached hair. Sucks in a deep breath as he says, I’m so nervous. I’m so—so fucking nervous and I don’t. Fuck, I don’t know what to do. I want to call you because you always knew what to say but that’s so fucking selfish. God, we haven’t spoken in years, and it’s my—that’s my fault, I know, so I brought this all on myself. I just want to hear your voice.

Another from a week after that: the color’s returned to his face, and he’s recording from what looks like a penthouse apartment. Sleek, modern; a small white dog napping on the bed beside him. He smiles, looks like he got his teeth fixed, looks like he’s no longer carrying around the weight of the world. Talks endlessly and excitedly about some tournament. Talks so fast you can barely keep up. Talks around words tinged with languages you don’t understand.

Seungcheol wins a championship. Records a drunk vlog from the same night, hair soaked through with god-knows-what—water, champagne, you don’t know. But he looks radiant. Looks like the culmination of two decades of dreaming. He looks happy, free, at peace. He looks like the reason he let you go, why he had to go away.

You scroll to the bottom of the files. Pause at the last video, dated seven months before the term started.

“Hi,” he says, and you can immediately tell everything is all wrong. Seungcheol’s in the dark, face only visible enough to see the tears tracking on his cheeks. “This is going to be the last one of these I make. I don’t know if you, uh—I’m sure you aren’t paying attention to me—my career—anymore, but. I, um. I got hurt. Ruptured my ACL. They’re not sure I’ll…” A sob escapes him. Has you wanting to climb through the screen to hold him, thumb away his tears, tell him everything is going to be okay. “They don’t know if I’ll ever play again.”

Seungcheol no longer looks happy, free, at peace. “Maybe you’ll be happy to hear that,” he continues. “Maybe it’ll help you to know I threw away our relationship for nothing.”

Cut to black.

The sudden silence is deafening. Has you desperately clicking back to the video you’d skipped, the one from just after your breakup. Seungcheol looks the same in that one, too, like the life has been drained out of him.

I don’t know why I’m doing this. It’s not like I’ll ever show these to you now, since I…

I’m sure I owe you an explanation. To be honest, I don’t know what I’m doing, I just—things have been so hard, and I’m still trying to make sense of it all. I feel like my life went from zero to a hundred before I could even blink and now I’m scrambling. I didn’t think it was fair to—to drag you through that. Me being away, moving to an entirely different continent. I have faith we could do it, I just. I don’t know, baby, I don’t…

You deserve to have your own life. Be your own person. I’m so scared that the world will never see you for who you are—so beautiful and intelligent and kind. You don’t deserve to be reduced to my partner. And if you ever see this, I know you’re gonna roll your eyes. Probably call me a mean name because I took the choice away from you, because you think I’m trying to be selfless and heroic, and you’d be right. It’s not fair, and I wish I could tell you I’m sorry.

I wish I could just… pluck out my brain and give it to you, because even if it killed me to do it, at least it makes sense to me. And I don’t—I don’t want you to think I’m not hurting. I’ve been sick to my stomach since I left. I know I’m making a mistake, I know I am, I just—how do I do what I think is right in the long-run when it’s not what I want right now, or ever?

I don’t want to get over you. I don’t want you to get over me, and that’s how you know I’m not acting selflessly, because you should. I want you to always be happy, I just… wish it was with me.

So, I’m going to keep making these. I’m going to take you along for the ride, wherever it takes us, because you should be here but I can only hope you can one day understand why you’re not. I’m so—I’m so sorry, I don’t…

I’m sorry.

I love you.

You fall asleep and dream that you were the one meant to meet him at that restaurant.

The first thing you do is make a call to your mother.

“Could you send another container of yakgwa?”

On the other end of the line, your mother tuts, motherly intuition audibly kicking into overdrive. Is probably wearing that all-knowing, sly grin she always does when you try to be coy and evasive. “What happened to the last container I sent?”

“Ah, you know Kaori loves those. They barely lasted an hour after I told her what was in there.”

She hums an acknowledgement. Sounds like she takes a sip of tea. “I remember someone else being quite fond of those cookies, too.”

“Well, they are the most popular cookies in the country, so.”

After haranguing you into admitting they’re for Seungcheol and not your roommate, your mother promises to send them quickly. A few days at most, which buys you enough time to figure out how you’re going to approach the man in question.

The vlogs have turned your entire world upside-down. Answered questions you hadn’t even known you had. Took all that anger and resentment you’d been holding onto and set it free, and now you’re just left with… a void. Want to mend things, and it makes you wonder if such a thing is even possible, if it’s too late, but you don’t let those thoughts get very far.

Instead, you let them spur you into action. Have you sitting in front of your laptop at your desk, office hours long since over, silence creeping in the more the department empties. The thrum of the airconditioning and the tick-tick-tick of the clock are all the only company you have.

You worry if it’ll show on camera, how out of sorts you feel: sweating from the nerves, dabbing at your hairline; cheeks warm to the touch. But you suck in a breath anyway, steel yourself. Look at your webcam and the daunting red circle…

And start recording.

He hadn’t gotten it at first. Not really.

There’d been a container of yakgwa outside his door with his USB drive taped to the top of it. No note—not that he needed one to know who it was from, but he wasn’t sure what it was. A goodbye? A please fuck off forever and never contact me again?

He’d just taken them inside. Ate too many of the cookies while feeling sorry for himself. Maybe had a glass or two of wine to compound the issue, and never, ever considered contacting you. Didn’t think he could bear it if you never wanted to see him again, but he just…

Well, he was drunk and alone and he missed you, and he’d rewatched all those videos he recorded a million times before when he was like this, so what was a million and one?

It’d been the same as every time before: he smiled at the happy parts, cried at all his old wounds. Wanted to reach through the screen and strangle his past self for including that part about the blind date, because he never wanted to date anyone who wasn’t you, why would he say that, felt mortified at the thought of you watching that—

And then there it was.

All the way at the bottom. A new video. One that hadn’t been recorded by him—

Hi, Cheol, you say, and that’s all it takes to reduce him to a sobbing, yearning mess. I’m not sure what to say here. I don’t really record much—sometimes for lectures when the professors are too busy, but never anything personal like this, but I watched every single one you made for me and I thought I should return the favor.

I wanted to tell you everything I’ve been up to since you left, but it hasn’t been much. I got my degree. Tutored a lot in undergrad—the same thing I’m tutoring you in now, actually. I was good at it and it felt good to have something that was mine, you know? I almost moved for grad school. Thought for a while I was going to wind up in New York, but then my parents divorced and it felt like too much, too scary, so I stayed. Kaori also stayed, so we got an apartment together. It’s not much, definitely not as nice as your place, but it’s good enough.

I don’t think I ever told you, but she was seeing a guy for a bit and he was… obsessed with you, to say the least. Thought you were the coolest person in the world. They aren’t seeing each other anymore. Ended pretty badly, but—speaking of which, maybe steer clear of Student Services for a while, too.

Sometimes it felt like failure that I wound up staying here. That I had scholarships from all these far-away, prestigious places and didn’t take advantage of them. That I gave into my fear. And now… I don’t know. Maybe there’s a reason I stayed behind. Maybe there’s a reason you ended up back here, too.

Whatever happens—I don’t want you to think I still blame you. Kaori says we do the best we can with what we’ve got at the time, and I understand now that’s what you did. Even though it hurt me, you were trying to protect me. I get it now. And I’m sorry you had to go through all of that alone. I can’t imagine how hard it must’ve been to go to all these places you didn’t know. To have to deal with your injury, the loss of a dream.

You said in one of your videos that you just want me to be happy, and that’s all I want for you, too, whatever that looks like.

Here’s my address if you ever want to come by to talk.

I love you, too.

—and then he’d been up and out the door, feeling stone cold sober, running to the front of his building to wait for his ride.

Felt like the drive took hours. Must’ve hit every red light between his apartment and yours. Took the steps two at a time just to get to your door faster.

There’s a man already standing outside your door when he gets there. One that looks shocked to see him, stars in his eyes, and when Seungcheol says, “Oh, you must be Kaori’s ex,” he looks more like he wants the earth to swallow him whole. Embarrassed in front of his idol.

He knocks on your door and gets no response. Knocks again, harder this time, and he has to try really hard to stifle his laughter when your voice yells from the inside, “Fuck off, Kenji, I already told you she’s not here!”

“It’s me,” Seungcheol yells back.

There’s quiet again. Just enough time for it to feel like his heart is going to beat right out of his chest and follow Kaori’s ex down the hall.

Then you’re yanking the door open—slowly, so slowly, like you’re scared it’s not actually him. Your eyes are brimming with tears when they meet his own, and he doesn’t let himself think, just goes on instinct, when he grabs for you, hands on your cheeks, and presses his lips to yours.

Somehow you taste the same.

Somehow you taste like redemption.

You taste like home.

Seungcheol kisses you until the tears slow. Kisses you until the universe realigns, until he could map your mouth in the dark. Kisses you until all you’re all he knows again.

When he pulls away, you’re gripping at his sweatshirt, don’t want to let him go. He presses his forehead to yours, offers up a million more apologies, starts talking nonsense. Says he’s going to drop microeconomics, what the hell does he know, he barely has a passing grade anyway, what does it matter, he’s such an idiot—

And then you say, “You came back,” and nothing else matters.

“I always will.”

(Later on, as you’re trying to steady your breathing, slick with sweat, your thigh thrown over Seungcheol’s hip as he stares down at you, dopey smile on his face, you say, “Choi Seungcheol, don’t you dare drop that class. I have worked my ass off to get you to barely-passing.”)

if you’ve made it this far thank you so much for reading! i am still very new at writing for seventeen, so i hope this was acceptable. i'm now going to throw myself into the warped tour vernon fic and will hopefully not go another 7+ months without posting anything. 😭

i would love to hear your thoughts! <3

[r-is-typing]

peter | s.r

summary: in which love didn't outlast the challenges of time

requested?: no!

pairing: spencer reid x fem!reader

category: angst

content warnings: honestly just hardcore angst (sorry)

word count: 1k

based on 'peter' by taylor swift

The year was 1994. The sweltering heat in Las Vegas beat down on the quiet neighborhood. Two children stood in front of a white picket fence.

"Do you really have to go?" The young girl looked at her best friend with a frown. The pair was twelve, having to say goodbye. "I'll come back." The boy said, voice full of promises. The girl's breath hitched, looking towards their mother's who watched the childrens exchange.

"You'll keep in touch." Another promise. Y/N nods, the naivety of it all not dawning on her. She knew Spencer had to go. Caltech wanted him. He'd be stupid to turn down such an amazing opportunity and Spencer Reid was anything but stupid.

I thought it was just goodbye for now.

Y/N sighed, hugging her best friend tightly as they whispered promises to eachother. "This isn't goodbye. I'll be back. We'll write each other. It only takes 6 days approximately for letters to go from here in Las Vegas to Caltech." Her friend was too smart for his own good. No wonder he was starting college at the ripe age of thirteen.

You said you were gonna grow up, then you were gonna come find me.

Y/N stood with her mother, tears swimming in her eyes. "I'll come back, okay?" Spencer comforted the girl one last time. "Okay." The girl nods, hugging him tightly, memorizing everything about him she can before it's too late.

Words from the mouths of babes; promises, oceans deep.

Before his mother and father pack his entire life into a car and drive to Caltech. Before he starts a new life. Before Spencer Reid forgot about her. Before promises were broken.

But never to keep. Oh, never to keep.

"Happy birthday to you!" The voices of her friends droned on like background noise as Y/N stared at her cake. The '22' candle staring at her. Here she was, working two jobs to pay for community college all while her childhood best friend had just joied the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit.

The next few years go by quick, but somehow slow at the same time. She thinks often of him and what he's doing as the time goes on. Did he think of her like she thinks of him? Does he even remember her?

Are you still a mind reader? A natural scene stealer.

Now, Y/N turns 25. Spencer is now a well-known agent in the FBI, numerous PhD's. Again, she isn't surprised. She knew from the moment she met him at seven that he'd be brilliant.

I've heard great things, Peter.

One day, while working a shift at the diner she worked nights at, the bell rings. Her eyes dart up, ready to welcome the customers. She freezes. She hasn't seen him in years, but *she knew.*

"Hi."

You said you were gonna grow up

Spencer stood in front of her, of course looking older than she had seen him last at thirteen. Her eyes studied him, unable to move from her position. She studied the outfit he wore. The button up, the watch turned inwards, the gun in the holster at his hip. It was her Spencer, but grown.

Then, you were gonna come find me.

"I, uh, got this address from your mom." He says. She looks up at him, snapping out of the trance she was in. "I promised I'd come back, didn't I? I know it's been a long-"

"Twelve years."

Her abruptness makes Spencer cringe. He knew exactly how long it had been, but hearing her say it was a huge slap to the face. "I'm sorry." He pleads, but it's no use.

"I love you."

Twelve years ago, those words coming out of his mouth would've made the girl giddy inside, but now? She sets the coffee pot down and looks back at him.

And I won't confess that I've waited.

She scoffs softly. "You can't be serious." Y/N shakes her head, averting her eyes. "It's true." Spencer swears. Y/N steps closer to him. "You seriously think after twelve years I'm just going to let you swoop in like nothing ever happened?"

But I let the lamp burn.

"I waited for you. Days, weeks, months, years." Y/N says. She shakes her head, thinking about what to say to him next. She thinks about her past relationships, how they weren't him. Every person, Y/N pictured him, compared them to him. Y/N wished Spencer would come back, taking her away from it all like he promised all those years ago.

As the men masqueraded, I'd hope you'd return.

"And, finally, I got it through my head you weren't coming back." She spoke, her voice on the verge of breaking down at any moment. Y/N looked at him. "I stopped planning that fairytale reunion a long time ago, Spencer. I gave up hope that you'd ever come back."

And the shelf life of those fantasies has expired.

"I'm sorry that you came all this way, Spencer." Y/N says, standing in front of him now, her hands resting in the pockets of her sweater. "And I'm sorry that I couldn't wait thirteen years for you to realize you loved me like I loved you."

Forgive me, Peter. Please know that I tried to hold on to the days where you were mine.

"I'm not a naive little girl anymore, Spencer." Y/N says. She lifts her hands out of her pockets to grab a cup from the counter and that's when he sees it. The glimmering rock shines in his eyes as it hits the light. How could someone so smart miss something so obvious?

But the woman who sits by the window has turned out the light.

Spencer stares at the ring on her finger. "You're..." His head nods down in front of him and her eyes follow. She nods. "I am." She mutters. "I couldn't keep waiting. I had to move on sometime."

Spencer nods, understanding but upset. "I'm sorry." was all he could say. She looked at him with a tight-lipped smile. "I know." If only Spencer didn't make her a bunch of empty promises when they were younger, maybe it would've ended differently.

Promises, oceans deep; but never to keep.

r is typing...

so, yeah! i haven't written in months so hopefully this is my redemption! i hope you all enjoyed. sorry about my hiatus! i nearly cried writing this haha. i've been obsessed with this song for ages so it oly seemed necessary to make my first post back something based off of this song!

as always, check my masterlist here, leave me a request or say hello here, and join the taglist here!

all the love!

r is signing off...

taglist: @liltimmyst @elsiebishh @psychosociogentleman @louderfortheback @conniesanchor @cynbx

[wheredostarsgowhenyoudie]

Once upon a holiday...

Bruce (enters the lab to see Tony and Rhodey tinkering): Hey guys. Happy holidays! So, is it true that Spider-Man will joining us at the party? I wanted to know what he likes. Any ideas? What's your gift for Peter?

Rhodey (groans and points a screw driver at the man who skateboard rolls out from under the car): Ugh, don't ask, man. He's been pestering me for weeks. He has a spreadsheet.

Tony (perks up): I'm glad you asked! Here, I'll show you. Then you can give me ideas if I missed anything. Friday, be a dear and show Bruce the latest list. Also, my kid's a nerd. So just be there and greet him like the scientist with too many Phds you are, and I tell you, kid's gonna combust. But if you really wanna make his day, invite him to work on something with you.

Friday (displaying the list in hologram): Here you go, boss. We now have a total of a five hundred and seventy eight items in the list.

Bruce (blinks): A total of- Man, that's a lot. What is even in that list?

Tony (waves them off): Please. I'm just being thorough. They're all necessities.

Rhodey: The iron-spider upgrade, I get. But a satellite? Men in black ninja body guards? A star? A Spider-Man museum? Man, if it's Star Wars, sure. Pete is a fanboy. But the other things? Mcdonalds franchise company? IKEA? Netflix? A condominium building? Shares of SI to be received when he's legal? How are those necessities?

Bruce (laughs loudly): You know all this can be simplified if you just convince him to sign adoption papers, right?

Tony: (freezes)

Rhodey (beams and turns expectantly at Tony): Now, why didn't I think of that?! Bruce, you are a genius!! Tony, buddy, you breathing?

Tony (stares dumbly for a couple of minutes, mind reeling): Hah. Right. You're right. Hah.

Tony: Friday, call my lawyers and ask May when she's available. I need to adopt my kid.

Meanwhile in Queens...

Spider-Man (pauses mid-swing to sneeze): Achoooo!

Spider-Man (wipes nose): Karen, is someone talking about me?

Karen (who is very much in cahoots with Friday): I don't know what you're talking about, boss junior, but boss set me to remind you that you now only have seventeen minutes before curfew.

Spider-Man (sighs): Yeah, yeah I know. But why do you call me that, Karen? I'm not your boss.

Karen: Mini boss?

Spider-Man: No!

Karen: Boss baby?

Spider-Man: No! I'm fourteen, and not a baby.

Karen: Searching for better nicknames.

Spider-Man (sighs and lands on a rooftop): Ugh, just, just stop please. Just call me Peter. Peter is a perfectly good name, Karen.

[catboybiologist]

Hello, I've heard from a few trans women that their transition made higher education impossible I wasn't sure if they were talking about college or grad school, but since you're a woman in a PhD program I was wondering if you think transitioning would make getting a higher education harder.

Thanks

Someone who might be trans that wants to pursue a master's

Hm. This is weird to answer. Unfortunately I can't offer TOO much insight here. I'm very much a baby trans (~1.5 months HRT) and I present as a man day to day without issue (seriously, y'all have NO idea how masculine I look outside of my pictures). When I do finally socially transition, I'll probably have more thoughts.

With that out of the way, here's my personal experience so far:

I don't think I would have transitioned if I was NOT in academia/pursuing my PhD. I think most of the issues people run into can be divided into three categories:

1. Financial difficulty with acquiring HRT or other gender affirming care

2. Closer ties (financially and emotionally) to family and being seen less as an independent adult means greater pressure to not transition, and consequences if you do

3. Academic stress and pressure while you're undergoing emotional changes that may make things difficult short term.

Personally I was able to dodge most of those issues.

A huge part of this is because I spent a lot of time meticulously ensuring a lot of aspects of my life are in place before I started HRT. I waited until I was out of undergrad, which has weirder finances, I scoped out options at my student health center vs in the community, established queer community, waited a year to start in a good lab and establish there, scoped that lab out for queer acceptance before I joined, and in general became more financially and emotionally secure. Also, while I'm still in good terms with my parents, I'm not financially or emotionally reliant on them anymore- so if that changes when I come out, it won't affect me as much.

Looking back, it's hard to say whether I would recommend doing things this way. During the time that I was "figuring things out", I was dying. I was depressed and aimless, and I couldn't make happiness or contentment my baseline emotion. Starting an online femboy account was my only outlet for a while. Also, my results are going to be less drastic now that I've waited until I'm 25 to start.

Obviously, I still have the stress of a PhD to worry about while my emotions and body are changing. But to be honest.... My PhD has been kinder to me academically than my undergrad. All of my goals center around two or three long term, overarching projects instead of a million tiny assignment and study snippets from a million directions. I personally think this is easier to manage even if it's more work overall.

In return, the academia environment has been good to me about my queerness. There's a gender care specialist on campus via student health where I can get HRT, queer organizations and events are much easier to come by in a university environment, and people on average are far more educated and open minded towards LGBT issues than the general public. I have a role in the main queer graduate student group here, and it would have been hard for me to find explicitly supportive friends without that.

I'm gonna throw an additional paranoid note your way: a master's degree is hell for everyone. While the exact ways in which this is true vary from program to program, but in general, they feel like the worst of both worlds from undergrad and a PhD. You're locked out of or have less of a chance for the financial stability and employment positions of a PhD position, but you're also locked out of the financial aid and support of undergrads. I'm very biased from a miserable MS experience, though.

So yeah. I think my experience has been different than a lot of people, but I hope there was some small insight there!

[spookylightwhispers]

Today I had a class on career in which we talk about career planning and the like. The topic for today was about our work view, and life view. Every group had to come up with a tagline to represent our work and life views. And unsurprisingly, it was all about money, money, money.

Every group was just talking about how we work to earn money, and with money we'll be happy in life. And everyone was just laughing and joking about it but I just sat there thinking, "what a depressing bunch of people you all are."

And while we were supposed to discuss as a group, one, and then two people, said "work to earn money" because "why work if there's no money" and suddenly I felt weird because what I had wrote on my copy was "contributing meaningfully to society while doing something that I enjoy or am passionate about." Believe it or not, the thought of money hadn't even occurred to me and suddenly I was just like "oh. right, money." (I felt a little more sane after another guy in my group steered our tagline towards something more humanistic and not money-based. And we turned out to be the only group in the class whose tagline didn't have the word "money".)

And, just, is this what society has come to? Is life really just all about working, and working, and earning money till you drop dead? Is there no meaning to anything anymore? And it's not just about working. Even studying. In the previous lesson, people were just like "get a degree so I can get a job". But I'm not here to get a degree so I can get a job. I'm not here to "get an education". I'm here to gain knowledge. To take part in the inter-generational transfer of knowledge. I'm not here so that at the end of the day, I get to earn money. I'm here because I want to learn things. I want to marvel at the world. I want to be more appreciative of human society. I want to contribute. I want to make the world a better place. I'm not here to get a certificate so I can get a job and work until I die.

I know I can't, and I won't deny that money is a very important factor in living life. And for some people, money can buy happiness. And I acknowledge that I come from a very privileged background. I've never had to worry about money and I've always lived a comfortable life. Even when my parents were supposedly "broke", we didn't have all the extras but we never lacked anything either. My life has been very smooth-sailing.

But is there nothing more to life than just earning money? I mean, I'll be honest, I'm not gonna sit here and pretend I'm immune to the whole money predicament either. Lately I've been really interested in research and I've really been considering the idea of furthering my studies and becoming a researcher. But at the back of my head, I have this nagging thought of how am I going to get money to survive? Is that going to give me a stable income? Who's going to be funding this research? Especially if I were to do it for a PhD thesis? Who's going to pay for all that? How am I going to live? Should I just follow the conventional pathway and get a proper job that's going to bring in a stable income?

Money is important to live, and this may be true for pretty much every place on earth but in this part of the world especially, the culture just feels extra crazy. Especially with the mindset that is very prevalent among the majority race. In fact just earlier in the day, I had another class and in trying to come up with a topic for research I shared with my professor a possible topic my group was considering doing. And it revolved around education. About how our universities have very limited choices in terms of courses and how it seems like the only kinds of courses you get here are the ones that "bring in money" and other kinds of courses which would get you not-very-profitable jobs are practically non-existent in this country. (Even if those particular set of skills are very much needed in this country! To meet the government's own goals! (and they might probably then use this as an excuse to import in more foreign workers because we don't have enough 'skilled local talents'?)). And the only way to get qualifications in those specific fields is to go overseas...which obviously costs even more money, something not everyone can afford.

I did not mention it to my group and my professor earlier, but even for me, personally, while I did apply to three different universities, when I applied to my current university now, I only applied for one course, which is the course I am in now. And this is despite the fact that my university is one of the two biggest ones, and thus one of the two which offers the most courses. I felt kinda badass, not gonna lie, about "confidently" (I wasn't really confident about getting in to be honest) applying to only one course in this university but honestly, it's not really something to gloat about. It's a sad predicament, that none of the courses the university offered interested me...except one. Everything else I could possibly be interested in is not even offered at a university level in this country. Sad, sad, sad.

People are unable to pursue their interests, and do what they are good at, simply because the government thinks these things are not worth investing in, because they're "not profitable". It is true, the government runs this country like a business, not a country. At the end of the day, it's all about money. And this mentality seeps through to the people. (Or, I guess, you could argue that the very people with this mentality are the ones who control the government, and have thus forced everyone else to live that way). It's no wonder people here have no life. All we ever think about is ace-ing the academics to get a good job to earn good money.

What is your purpose in life?

[sga-owns-my-soul]

For the ask game A, C, F, H, U

ooh good ones! this one got a little long lmao whoops 😂

A - Ships that you currently like a lot. (They don’t have to be OTPs because not everyone has OTPs.) Friendships, pairings, threesomes, etc. are allowed.

i'm obsessed with a mcshep queer platonic relationship (aroace!john and bisexual!rodney for the win tbh) and a ship i've been thinking about a LOT lately is ronon and woolsey idk why i just. idk that scene in the prodigal at the end where ronon is like 'i know it's not a mission but i made a report' and woolsey laughs at 'michael tried to invade the city. we stopped him. end report' BABES THEYRE SO CUTE

C - A ship you have never liked and probably never will.

john/teyla. i just. i can't. the ONLY time i like it is ot4

F - What’s the longest you’ve ever been in a fandom?

19 years and counting babey!!!! i've been watching stargate since it came out (i was 6 years old!) and i've been a fan of it since i saw the first episode. fun fact i had a little "club house" in a small storage room in our basement when i was a kid and i PLASTERED the walls with art and posters that said "I LOVE _______" with all of the sga characters when i was like 7? 8? something like that?

H - What is your favorite source text for fandom stuff (e.g., TV shows, movies, books, anime, Western animation, etc.)?

i've been in fandoms for lots of different things but i think my favourite is probably tv shows/movies. i just love me some good cinema

U - Three favorite characters from three different fandoms, and why they’re your favorites.

absolute all time fav blorbo of forever is Doctor Rodney McKay PhD PhD he always has been he always will be forever and always he owns my heart. i love everything about him- he's smart, he's canadian, he's arrogant, he's hot, he's funny, he's competent, he's an asshole, he's selfless and heroic, he's literally everything. i'm actually genuinely in love with him i would give up my entire life if he asked me to zero hesitation no questions asked

i know it says three different fandoms but i'm also going with john sheppard even tho it's the same fandom bc those two are just so far above the rest in terms of being my fav characters that i can't not include him. john is a disaster human and i love him. i'm like, 95% sure my obsession with putting my friends first and making sure they're happy and comfortable (even at the detriment to my own happiness and comfort) above all else is because of john sheppard. he's selfless, he's reckless, he's charming, he's funny, he's smart, he's hot, he's perfect he's everything i'm obsessed.

and then last i'm gonna go with nick miller from new girl bc (no surprise) i have a Thing for grabage broken men. i fell in LOVE with nick when i was watching new girl for the first time he's such a fucking disaster he's a middle aged drunk who doesn't know what he's doing with his life for half the show and he's so FUCKING HOT IM OBSESSED god i just hnnnnng ugh he's everything honestly i love me a scruffy middle aged garbage man so good always

[femmesandhoney]

Lol no im asking beacuse i wanna end up in academia as well (although a different field than sociology) and like idk what to do if it doesnt work or how im gonna financially support myself for 8 years. No one in my immediate circle knows how it works. So that's why i asked im sorry if i seemed hostile

oh i understand. i understand the bare minimum as well, since each grad program i look at has vastly different ways it finances you. which btw im really only looking into paid or heavily aided programs that are worth their salt. theres no reason for me to try and waste money in a worse grad program that im shilling a lot of money for. many of these programs will cover or aid you in many ways bc theyre more selective, but worth it if your long term career plan is to be a prof. most of these programs really only wanna see candidates that are PhD focused, at least in the social sciences. i cant speak much about other fields.

what i mean by this is you do have to have some level of commitment to the idea of academia and professorship because those years will be tiring and you will probably experience burnout eventually. so you need to be prepared to really look inside yourself if academia and teaching will be an endgoal that makes you very happy, enough to deal w the slog of academic battlegrounds and stuffy professors you might hate and dealing w the short end of the stick more than half the time bc professors aren't paid well in general. if you can still see the sun at the end of that shit storm of work and slogging, then i would encourage you to continue to focus on academia. if not, don't let it bother you. there are many other forms of masters programs, even some online, if you're just looking for that extra bit of credentials but don't necessarily want a Ph.D.

obviously you can try and get loans, i'll probably still need to take some more out for grad school even with a paid program if its one that isn't fully covered. theres really no way around having to work thru grad school or while getting ur PhD unless you're coming from a well off background. im planning to work as much as i can. obviously apply for scholarships and similar things, those can help. and if you're really finding it hard, speak to the schools financial aid center and see upfront how they can help you more. most schools are apt to discuss and find ways to help.

but yeah like i don't have specific jobs in mind, im not there in grad school yet nor know what my financials will be like if im accepted or not, but ofc there will be loans and there will be work and there will be many years of school to get towards my goal of being a professor because talking about sociology is what makes me happy and i get a good feeling when i think about driving conversation amongst students in my own classroom. and i hold that feeling and its not as daunting.

[mrtmdpro]

Love, and money

It’s the day of Valentine. And I am with a lovely girl. Yet, my mind cannot be at peace.

I just turned down a business opportunity. I hope I don’t regret it. The employer was acting very suspicious and gave minimum amount of information. I have his full name and was ready to come to his office but then he texted me to say that there was a change of plan, and that the meeting should be rescheduled 2 hours late. Not my type of guy, cannot deal with that. 

I want to buy my girl stuffs. Not just random things, meaningful things that she can use, or lift her mood in times of need. And yet here I am, 23 years old and broke as ever before. I’m living the life of a college student - programmer now, working all day, study the rest. No time for resting, and whenever the moment arises, I go straight to the gym. No excuses. I have to be stronger and better for my girl. 

I have been training and listening to podcasts these days. They are more interesting than plain old music. I have heard of a PhD talking about why smart people are so miserable these days, why the common goal of our society is unhealthy. It’s hard to live a happy life, but I have to try. I have to be better than myself yesterday, all in the name of for my girl.

I am ashamed that I could not get her better gifts. Best I can do is sending random postcards that I find interesting with a few notes for her. I dunno when will it arrives, but I hope that it will come tomorrow. Girl is having massive health issue and her college couldn’t be worse, encouraging a girl like that to do blood donations. Worst case scenario they gonna have to transfuse the blood back to her body. But, I have to believe in her, that she will be fine. My girl is a strong woman when the time calls for it, she is smart enough not to do harm to her own body. (probably)

Can’t even think of a few loving words... my head is so stressed out right now. Sorry love for letting you into this situation. People are making love and I am making excuses. 

Open your window

Let in the wind flows

Look up to the sky

Can you see my love tonight?

Up there high in the clouds

Find it and it will be found

A love forever lasting

For the one who is deserving

No rush and so slow

Straight up with no sugarcoats

This here is my love

My only love for you.

Have a nice day baby. I love you.

[wench-and-jezebel]

Dark Angel Reaction: Out

Jezebel (@typicalopposite) reacts [with occasional asides by Wench (@scripted-downfall)], as excerpts of a transcript from a video call

Tony looks like Logan in season 1 only, and then age hits and his whole look changes.  Like, he’s still handsome, but he’s so different

Oop, now Logan’s getting moody

KENDRA.  [KENDRA!]  Speak of the devil (aff)!

So, like, is this episode, like, them but flopped?  Is this just, “okay, I got an idea for this episode: let’s have Max act like Logan and Logan act like Max?:  [I think I might have an idea for why this is happening…] ‘Cause he’s got some of her blood?  [YES]. She’s got less of her blood, so she’s less bitchy; he’s got more of her blood, and he’s more bitchy?  [EXACTLY]

This scene makes me think of the whole Ten-Donna “Oi, watch it Space Man” “Oi, watch it, Earth Girl” thing [Yes!!  And that’s remarkably pertinent given the context of the Doctor Who scenes, actually, though you haven't seen them, so I can't say why]

Buddy, you weren’t even close to catching sight of her on time.  I swear, these break-ins aren’t due to her skill; the security just… sucks.

[This went so badly, and for why?  Because she wanted to chew gum and blow the bubble until it popped]

She gonna jump on the plane?

She gonna jump on the plane.

I feel like, genetically engineered or not, this is a bad idea

Well, at least she got off before it took off

[Why tf are they breaking up without having been together in the first place?]

“Well, at least I care about other people.”  That’s true

[“I’m swearing off the whole gender” Come on, Max, go check out OC then???  I’m sure she’d be happy to oblige]

Well, this is a parallel with the other one

Max has a lot to do with it, actually

Well, now, that is… That is abuse on a disabled person, sir.  He won’t be able to feel it, but it is

Which is another funny thing; if he can’t feel his legs, why are they hurting?

[Normal looks so adorably enthusiastic]  Right?

Well, aww

[NORMAL WENT TO HARVARD??? AND GOT A phD???]  Show-off

Well, aww x2

[IS HE WEARING EYELINER] Is he???  I THINK HE IS (picture to be included)

Normal’s too excited by this, and the filming is too weird.  This isn’t gonna work out; watch her not have been afab

Is he calling her Mack?

[Logan’s beard is getting haggard]

Not a “thug”

Original Cindy’s like, say what?

[Yeah, Max doesn’t care.  at.  all.]

MEN

[I don’t think anyone in this show actually knows how to ride a bike.  And I’m not sure if it’s intentional; Alec has a bike incident that was clearly played-for-laughs, but idk for sure about the others]

That poor guy; just give it to them!

Poor Sketchy’s just like, please just get me out of here!

I wonder who Logan thinks that is  [Not Max, of course, because he doesn’t care.  At.  All.]

Oh, no, cop’s gonna get killed.  Or trainer’s gonna get killed.  This is like a “someone’s gonna get killed” scene, I know it

I thought that was Lintlicker [Me too!]

Y’all really gonna pull the crippled kid out of his wheelchair?  That’s dirty

Oh, no, guess we gotta call Max; your boyfriend’s been kidnapped

They’re taking children  [Now, who’s gonna be obsessed!?]

Is this supposed to be sex trafficking or something?  [I guess so… I confess I didn’t quite follow the second flashback because I was typing our convo]

He’s been Logan-napped!  Again!  

– – –

Midpoint reaction: 

Jezebel: This one’s actually had stuff happen!  But it’s frustrating, because I hate it when shows do this.  Last episode had them reveal their feelings for each other and have this really sweet moment, and then I was wondering that was gonna be the whole episode: her being sweet and him being moody.  But then that changed, real quick.  It’s like Mickey and Ian in Shameless.  Mickey was like Cas in that he kept coming back because they kept trying to write him off and the fans didn’t like it.  They tried to get rid of him permanently by putting him in prison; they get together and are happy, but then Ian’s sister calls the cops.  And then the fans throw a fit and bring him back, but only so that he runs to Mexico.  They get married eventually, and it’s one of my few ships that are endgame, but they had this will-they-won’t-they thing in a good way, but not a bitchy way.  Whereas Dark Angel is doing this whole let’s erase last episode and go back to the first episode thing.  Adding tension like they think it keeps it good.  “They’re almost together but they’re not together but maybe they’ll get together”, ish.  They went 50 steps forward last episode, but now it’s too far, so they have to walk it back from the blood dream.  But… Yeah, I figured something was going to happen to force them together, so I should’ve called that he’d get kidnapped.

Wench: At least no one died! Yet!

Jezebel: And I love how she was all “don’t call me, I won’t call you,” right up until the kids get taken and he gets kidnapped, and then she’s all, I’ll be right there.  Lydecker doesn’t seem to be this one. Seems to just be a Logan and Normal episode and SPEAKING OF.

Wench: This was indeed inevitable.

Jezebel: Poor Normal.  However this shakes out, just… poor Normal.  I hope he’ll be okay with it, though I confess that I don’t know for sure whether he will be.  I guess we’ll find out.

Wench: I’m rewatching this time knowing what was gonna happen, and I was picking up on how… surreal?  The filming was?  Like, it was just… handled differently.  And, obviously, I know how it shakes out, so I won’t say more.  Ready?

Jezebel: Ready!

— — — 

“We’re gonna beat you up really good so your girlfriend will be upset when she gets here.”  [Not that she cares.]

[I feel like I know this guy.] He favors Rhys. [He does!]

Just say it’s you!!!  “I’ll tell you, but I’m gonna wait a bit first; go ahead and torture him ‘til then.”

Well, shit.  [Poor Normal.]  Time to become Normal-a

[Not that she (Max) cares, of course]

Man, they paid Apple a lot of money 

He needs to be like, “sir, I can’t say anything if you keep slapping me”

That was racist.  That was… really racist.

Couldn’t you just tell that Logan is Eyes Only from him talking?  [Like, you recognized him within two seconds in the pilot]

He looked so confused; like, I don’t understand

“Shut these guys up”  One guy hasn’t been speaking, what do you mean?

How’d she figure this techie stuff?  If she’s this good, why does she need Logan?  [I DON’T KNOW]

Techie guy looked so happy: “I got an address!  I did it, boss!”

She goes, “I’ve just been pushing buttons and it’s been working, idk?!” 

Logan looks like, I’m as pissed off as you.

I thought that was Zach at first [It really does look like him!]. I was like, he’s back!  He’s coming to rescue his boyfriend too, I guess

She reacted very well to having a gun in her face

See, I could never be a detective or a profiler because I’d never notice that kinda thing

[She keeps Tarzan-swinging every episode???  And WHY ARE THEY ALL JUST STANDING AROUND?]  Such a man thing to do.  “Oh, she’s just a girl, she’ll never beat u- oh, wait, she’s beating us; we were wrong!”

Well, damn

[Maybe you’ll get your “she rides a plane up into the atmosphere” after all]

You know what?  Respect.  Because usually, she’d give a whole “any last words” big speech and give him time to not fall out of the plane, but this time she just kicked him out of the plane!

That one was just like, can I go home now?

Well, damn [Nooooo]  Poor Normalllll

But, you know what, OC is cool and Normal might be an ass but I feel like she’d not do that to him. [Oof, so much for that… she’s not doing it, but not because she’s got moral issues for Normal’s sake, simply because she can’t accept Louise as anything but Louis… which is kinda saying she’s less accepting than Normal but anyway]

[Whoa, actual communication????]  Next episode’s gonna be crazy then!

That interaction was so cute  [I KNOW]

Awwww [PROGRESS]

[Not that she cares, though]

– – – 

Jezebel: I do feel like I can give Normal a fair character bingo now, for Normal Anon.  And, to address the Normal storyline first, since that was smaller/more background, is so sad!  He was so accepting, and you don’t find people who can get a bombshell like that dropped on them and is gonna say “oh, that’s okay, we’ll make it work”, and then she was just like “nah, I want a woman.”  It’s like, you couldn’t figure it out before this date?

Wench: We also get to see Normal’s… nobility, for lack of a better word?  Like, he has a sense of right and wrong.  And he strongly believes in those halves.  He doesn’t always have the information to make that decision well — and he makes some very bad decisions predicated on bad information, especially in season 2 — but he still has this code of honor he abides by, and he definitely puts his money where his mouth is.  (e.g. as I told you, he buys into the fearmongering/sensationalism/propaganda Manticore spreads in s2 and thinks the transgenics are bad and veryyyy dangerous… and yet, when it looks like Alec has been taken hostage by some, he nonetheless risks himself to try and help.  It goes badly because, obviously, the transgenics aren’t bad, but he still tries to do what he thinks is right, regardless of his personal wellbeing.)  And, of course, the example in this episode is bringing Louise’s number to OC after she dumped him, even though it sucks that she put him in the position of having to pass it to Cindy.

Jezebel: True!  And, like, even once she broke up with him, he could have lashed out, but he didn’t.

Wench: Right.

Jezebel: And, on to Max and Logan…

Wench: The opposite end of the relationship spectrum: no longer could-have-been-healthy-but-isn’t-happening and now not-that-healthy-usually-but-is-kinda-happening

Jezebel: Right!  She comes running whenever he’s in danger, but why can’t she be there for him normally???  Though the beginning was kinda Logan’s fault, because he was all moody, to be fair.  But, again, he started communicating at the end.

Wench: This is true.  And that is, in itself, weird.  Like, 90% of the couples we’ve  talked about have not been communicative at all.  Destiel, definitely not.  Deckerstar, not really.  I guess Our Flag Means Death is the closest we come?  With the bathtub scene for Gentlebeard?

Jezebel: Oh, by the way, just to say this before I forget; it’s not directly connected to the reaction, so I’ll keep it short, but I saw this idea that their problems like in the fact that Ed talks about his feelings, and is like, this is what I feel and what I need and what’s bothering me, while Stede doesn’t talk… He doesn’t say, “Hey, Jack is bothering me the way everyone has acted all my life, and it’s hurting me”; he just says “Jack’s awful and you’re acting like him.”

Wench: Oh, that does make sense!

Jezebel: Yeah 😂 Anyway, back to Max and Logan… That last interaction was really good/cute.

Wench: Yeah, I do agree!  You know I don’t like Max much, or their relationship, but this is in good territory for once.  They had really good… I don’t wanna say chemistry, actually, given the events of season 2, but it was a good exchange.  Their banter is actually cute and wholesome instead of problematic.  s2 is different, of course, but this was a good two-line exchange.

Jezebel: How many episodes to Ben now?

Wench: “Pollo Loco” is in about… 8 eps, at this point.

Jezebel: Okay

Wench: I honestly can’t tell if you’re looking forward to it or dreading it alksdjf

Jezebel: Yes?  😂  I’m more than ready to see Ackles, but he dies.  And I’ve already seen that happen once, so I’m not really sure I’m ready to see it happen again.

Wench: For what it’s worth… I’ve said this before, I think, but at least it’s quick.  He gets his neck snapped, so it’s not prolonged at all.  The tragedy is in what he says beforehand.  He and Alec are both very Dean-coded — though, again, they’re clearly very different characters — but you know how tragic that kind of character can be.  And then he dies.  But the death itself really isn’t that bad.

Jezebel: Mmmhmmm.  We’ll see.

Wench: Aye, that we will :)  But we’ve got eight episodes to go, so… ‘til the next one!

[khodorkovskaya]

07.06.23

so okay, i feel like a terrible friend. and i know it's not that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things and i have lots of other things i should be worried about. but like...

first of all i can't make it to my bestie's birthday this year bc im going to skating camp and instead of feeling bad about it, i feel... relieved..? bc i really hated her birthday last year, i spent over 500 pounds on it and we were in this house in the middle of nowhere next to durham and i was bored out of my mind. and this year she said that she wants to go either to crete or west of england. and going to crete is hella expensive. and going to england is hella expensive too honestly with all the trains i'll have to take to get there. and i know that im not gonna have fun.... and i feel terrible about it...

i thought about that a lot and now ive finally calmed down. but! my manchester bestie came to visit this week and i feel even worse...

so she got married in april and i was one of the first people she told about it like she called me and everything. and i promised to buy her a wedding present. and i didn't... and to be fair i don't really approve of the wedding cos it was for papers for her bf. and they've been together 5 years and they love each other and they would've got married in a couple of years anyway. but like... she's so youngggg and going thru with so much commitment for a man??? idk

and all of this leaves me feeling like im super judgmental. cos it's not my place to judge, right? and technically speaking my manchester bestie is much further ahead of me in life, right? like she moved out straight out of high school, so now she's like super independent and she's doing a phd now and she plans out her own life. and she looks really good too and she has lots of hobbies. like she seems to be doing really well. and whenever i judge people's decisions, i feel like i project too much. like if i were getting married now at the state that im at, that would be a bad decision. but now for her it's not ?????

and at the same time, i have to admit that i find it frustrating that some people have it so easy. she could choose whichever university in the world to go to after high school! like imagine having that priviledge! just like "yeah, manchester would be a good fit for me" BAM *moves to manchester*. "i really like animals :)" BAM *studies zoology in manchester*

like idk how to describe it. it's not just the money that's the issue, it's the bliss. the bliss of being like "my career? yeah, i like animals, im gonna go study them". like i could never... i love dinosaurs for sure, but i would never be able to do a phd about them bc as fascinating as it sounds, i just... can't take that seriously...? idk if im being elitist but like. especially when her degree and her living in a different country costs so much like.. idk how to explain it guys. do you get what im saying?

like out of high school i felt like the only choice i had was economics or management cos that's a serious subject that could get me a serious job. that's what us mortals do. and when i decided to do maths i was already reaching it. like now my parents are like "you wasted 4 of your years doing something that gave you no skills and was essentially useless. how about you do an accounting course now in order to catch up on everything you've missed out on? time to get back to the real world!" (plus my uni education was free but like imagine if my parents were paying thousands for me to study some obscure degree?)

and now again, it's her bliss that drives me insane. "oh my bf needs a visa? let's get married, i love him anyway" likeeee can you imagine that? like not ever thinking about the consequences?

idk, i feel like im in the wrong. bc some people just do whatever without thinking twice and it works out for them and they're happy. and im overcomplicating things. or maybe my life is just overall more complicated bc we're poor. like i can't just go to another country and marry the first guy who comes my way, you know?

and we were talking about kids and stuff and my bestie was like "yeah, i only want my kids to do the IB bc a-levels are shit and i wouldn't want them to get an obscure degree like the maturité either bc they'll have to explain it once they get to uni". and like... first of all, she's already counting on being able to send her future kids to private school which is like okay. and secondly like... how is the maturité an obscure diploma? judging by whose standards? if you do the IB and you want to go to a swiss uni that's gonna be a hassle. despite the IB being supposedly international, the only schools that really actually accept it with no problem are those elite british schools. so imagine being preprogramed in a way that like you know you're gonna be able to afford elite universities for your kids.

and she says all of that without even thinking twice. like everything is a given to her. and her boyfriend now husband is a heir to this rich hongkongese family, so yeah, they'll probably be able to send their kids to private school and then to an english university. and she'll probably never understand it. she'll continue living her life thinking that everything is a given, never struggle and find that normal. meanwhile i can't even grasp the fact that her dad's managed to support his stay at home wife and his two children and like wow the privilege.

anyway, we all live in such different worlds. and some people will never see some other people's worlds. and that's just how things are. and im drifting apart from my friends because we have different problems and a different view on the world.

[thepalmofyourfreezinghand]

I don't necessarily agree every relationship has problems. I have problems with my parents too doesn't mean I hate them. We work through our disagreements and problems. If in a relationship you don't have hard times it means you aren't as serious. Like life things are good,bad,tough,fun, happening etc relationships have those certain patches too. Using those songs are wrong because life is never a bag of sunshine. We learn to work through conflicts and problems in a mature way so we are better equipped to handle them in future. Idk if I make sense. Whatever happened we don't know but it is wrong to say they were not in love or struggling most of the times imo.

I didn’t say that they weren’t in love or struggling most of the time hahah. I also specifically “called out” some anons for rewriting history: I think they were SO in love and from Taylor’s own words we know she’d never loved anyone else as much.

Unfortunately I don’t agree with the first part, though. We just have different perspectives and that’s okay! I think most people would agree with you anyway hahah. I just think that I prefer to date someone who has a “similar” soul to mine, and who “gets” me on a deeper level.

For example, in over a year of dating my boyfriend we’ve never fought (literally, not even once). And it’s not like we wouldn’t find reasons to fight or we don’t face hardships. For example, our families are very different and raised us in wildly different ways (his family is very conservative and “traditional”, while mine isn’t, although thankfully he votes left, contrary to his family, or I wouldn’t date him). We have a long distance relationship and we only see each other once every three/four weeks for a couple of days, although we talk on the phone every day. Our interests don’t match, not even in the slightest (besides traveling). We grew up in VERY different social circles (I’ll just say that while my best friends are currently pursuing PhDs, his best friends dropped out of high school, but there are tons of other examples). I would like to have an open relationship and he prefers monogamy, so we’re being monogamous for the time being, because it’s fine with me right now, but it’s an added layer of difficulty. Add to all of that I’m recovering from depression hahah. We honestly could have fights every single day, but we almost never do.

There are some bad moments, of course! Sometimes it’s hard to have a LDR, sometimes we discuss over feminism or what it means to be a good parent of whatever. But we’ve never had a proper fight. And I absolutely don’t think it’s because we’re not that serious, or because we don’t talk about “real” stuff. Just a couple of weeks ago I told him that I was gonna hang out with my (recently single again) ex ALONE, and he said “that’s great! I think he’ll probably try to hit on you, but it’s okay, I trust you”. He knows every little thing about me, every single bad secret! It’s just that we get so spontaneously well along, that there’s never a reason to fight.

And I’ve had other relationships where it wasn’t this good. This time around it is. It’s just my idea, I’m not claiming to know the truth: personally, when it comes to friends and relationships, I wanna be with people I don’t have to fight with. If it becomes too hard, I give up. I just wanna be happy.

Oh my god this was so long and so personal hahahah. Sorry. I agree with you in theory, though! And I think most people would! This is just the way I personally see the world (and it has nothing to do with Taylor! But if my relationship with my boyfriend was like False God, as much as that’s my favorite song from Lover, I’d break up with him - even if we just had ONE fight like that).

[rockinlibrarian]

Author Interview

@littlerit has tagged me to complete this whole Author Interview question list in its entirety! So I'm gonna! Writing the answers right after the questions because otherwise I get too confused!

How many works do you have on AO3? 34 I think if you count anonymous ones

What's your total AO3 word count? 176,382

What are your top 5 fics by kudos? "The Invitation: an epilogue" at 126; "In Which Jason and Chidi Rob a Bank" at 113 after a month and a half!; "Chapter 19.5: Hidden. Safe. Somewhere." at 103 which I KNOW is wrong, most of those have to be bots or a glitch or something, not that it's bad, there's just no way; "Not Just Stupid Kids" at 101; and "The Puppy-Fly Effect" at 82. Those are all different fandoms, I'm kind of proud of that.

Do you respond to comments? Why or why not? I answered this one here, and also still haven't caught up on all those Yuletide comments!

What fic has the angstiest ending? "Exploration of the Astral Plane: An Immersive, Multidimensional Study, by Cary Loudermilk, PhD, and Oliver Anthony Bird," on account of it canonically has to. I'm such a happy ending person. But I didn't shy away on this one. I fully made myself cry writing it.

What fic has the happiest ending? Having just said I'm a Happy Ending person, I wasn't sure how to choose (and to be fair, a lot of my endings aren't so much "happy" as "hopeful"), but scrolling down the list "Syd's (Third) Childhood Begins" sticks out, maybe because it's the alternate timeline ending of my ANGSTIEST ending choice, but maybe also because it's Oliver Bird psychically bonding with a baby and it's the cutest thing and I'm getting teary-eyed thinking about it.

Do you write crossovers? I LOVE CROSSOVERS! I've only posted two, the aptly named "Introduction to Infernal Crossover" and "A Captain With Seven Children...What's So Fearsome About That?" OH SHOOT, and also "Tesseract," I can't believe I almost forgot that one. So, three. And "The Magic Man of Oz" which isn't a true crossover, but an AU using another story. But I feel like crossovers are, like, the pinnacle of fanfiction. You can't DO that in any other kind of writing! So I actually haven't written a LOT of crossovers, but I really appreciate that they exist.

Have you received hate on AO3? No. I can barely handle indifference on AO3.

Do you write smut? No, but sometimes even just acknowledging that smut is happening off-screen makes me blush and I'm like do I need to up the rating on this? Does this count as needing to warn for Underage because he's a sixteen-year-old slut who won't shut up about his conquests? (actual question I have asked myself). Look, I have one fic posted "anonymously" just because it LINKS to someone else's smut fic!

Have you had a fic get stolen? Not that I'm aware of.

Have you had a fic get translated? No, pretty sure not. Unless of course, it was STOLEN then translated.

Have you co-written a fic? This was also answered over here.

What's your fave ship? *Sigh* Yes, still can't get over Fiktor. Reading or writing. I just started writing another one, too. Looks like it might be multichapter. Also looks like I've started weaving in mysteries I don't even know the answers to and I don't even know if I feel like getting into it, but that's just where the premise is going, darn following the premise to its logical conclusion.

What's a WIP you want to finish but never will? Never say never. Though I have got some hanging out that I haven't looked at in ages. I keep teasing that old Firefly fic-- that's probably the oldest with no further development on it-- but I SWEAR SOMEDAY especially if someone else has any interest in me doing so?

What are your writing strengths? Dialogue. I tend to draft in dialogue actually.

What are your writing weaknesses? Adding the stuff that comes in between the dialogue. Also finishing. Also plotting.

What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages on AO3? Little bits and phrases here and there, hey, go for it. Longer than that makes for a hard read.

What's the first fandom you wrote for? This is answered very enjoyably over here, and by "very enjoyably" I mean "There's a link to X-Files Crack, you should follow it."

What fandom/ship have you not written but want to? I think until "Jason and Chidi Rob a Bank" the answer was The Good Place, although technically I wrote a little of that (but no MAIN characters!) in "Intro to Infernal Crossover." Now I'm not sure. Nothing's sticking out. Also ever since I saw that Yuletide nomination I've been obsessed with the concept of Sal and Gabi fic, but I can't do it, I need someone who actually knows Cuban-American Spanglish to do it for me. Speaking of other Yuletide nominations, Lemony Snicket would be fun. Haven't tried that yet.

What's your fave fic you've written? Honestly I don't know. It depends which one I haven't reread in awhile and am not sick of yet. I like to go with "Two (or Three) Mutant Freaks Against the Fourth Grade" because the number of hits it's gotten is WAY out of proportion with the amount I love it. But now it's actually got more hits than "The Magic Man of Oz" which is my newest favorite, so maybe I have to start hyping that one up, too.

So @uniasus, I will tag you to answer all the other questions I didn't ask you before then! Who else hasn't gotten tagged? Everyone else who writes and hasn't gotten tagged!

[virgoviolets]

crying very hard for hours at length in this chilis tonight