#and yet she's still teaching his work and the less critical of my classmates are just going to take that with them..........

[dampfoxes]

not to be dramatic but

[bastardtetsu]

critical thinking | ch①

pairing: kuroo tetsuro x gn!reader

genre: college au, enemies to lovers, tsundere!reader, slow burn

wc: 1.9k

warnings: swearing, being a theatre major 

※ mlist | ● ② ③ ④

you knew it was a dumb bitch move to procrastinate on your science requirement.

trying to schedule gen-eds around the demanding requirements of your theatre degree was already a nightmare, and your aversion to maths and sciences makes it even more difficult to find classes that both fit in your schedule AND don’t make you want to actively drop out of school. you weren’t sure why you thought putting off your one and only science credit until your final semester was going to solve any of that. so, you couldn’t be shocked when your only option to graduate on time ended up being 9am chemistry 1. on a monday, no less.

the first class is just as bad as you expect. the lecture drags on for ages, and as much as you will your sleepy morning brain to wrap your head around the concepts being thrown at you, no amount of caffeine, color-coded notes, or mental gymnastics can ford the river of brain-muddling frustration standing between you and a passing grade - the one you need to graduate.

panic begins to set in as you visualize all the hard work you put into your degree rendered useless, all because of a class that doesn’t even have to do with your field of study. who decided there had to be a science requirement anyway? i don’t need fucking chemistry to get a theatre degree??

“if you’re having trouble with anything,” your professor announces, bringing your attention back to the lecture that's finally wrapping up, “the tutoring center on campus is a great resource. i also hold office hours at the times listed on the syllabus. that’s our time for today folks, have a good week.”

you check the syllabus - all of the professor’s office hours conflict with your other classes, of course. asking your classmates is out of the question, seeing as you’re the lone arts major in a sea of STEM and pre-med. as annoying as it is to have to add another item to your schedule, tutoring seems like the only option if you want any hope of graduating. luckily you have some time before your next class, so you pack up your things and head for the tutoring center.

you pray that a decent chem tutor is available during any of your limited free time as you approach the lady at the desk of the tutoring office. she informs you of several with hours later in the week, none of which align with your schedule, and one who is available for the next hour. you figure tutoring right after class isn’t a bad deal - especially considering it’s your only option. the woman gives you a classroom number and a name - kuroo tetsuro - and you set out.

it doesn’t take you long to find the right classroom, but you aren’t prepared for the sight that is waiting for you there. a strong jawline and a mess of black hair that appears to stick up on its own catch your eye first as he taps away at his phone screen, his bored slouch doing nothing to hide his imposing height.

“um... hi, kuroo?” you say tentatively. his eyes glance up from his phone, slightly startled.

“oh, hey,” he responds, sitting up a bit, “you here for tutoring?”

“i am,” you reply with a half smile, “y/n.”

“kuroo. nice to meet you, y/n,” he pulls out the chair next to him as an invitation, “what year are you?”

“i’m a senior,” you say as you make your way over and sit down, “i’m in chem 1.” he definitely seems taller up close, even sitting down.

“chem 1? as a senior?” he asks derisively, his lips curling into a smirk. embarrassment and annoyance shoot through your chest.

“i’m a theatre major, alright,” you respond dryly, “i’m just trying to get my science credit and go.”

“left it ‘til the last minute, huh?” that smirk is still on his face.

“yeah, not my best decision,” you reply, trying not to let your annoyance seep through, “but i’m just trying to pass this class so i can graduate.”

“well, hopefully i can help with that,” he says smugly, “i may be a lowly business major, but i’m pretty good with chem if i do say so myself.”

a business major. of course. you’re familiar with the future capitalist machinery of the business school from your limited experience with the frat parties they so densely populated. needless to say, the impression was not good.

“so what do you need help with?”

“um...” you pondered, “all of it?” he snickered.

“you’re gonna have to be more specific if you wanna get anywhere.” his tone is dripping with amusement. is he trying to piss you off?

“ugh,” you let out an exasperated grunt, suddenly averse to showing any kind of weakness to this jerk. you pull out your notebook and flip to the page where you had attempted to take notes earlier. “this stuff.”

he leans over to take a look at your notes, and as his eyes scan the page you suddenly notice his smell - some fancy-smelling cologne with like, sandalwood or some shit - and his strong but elegant bone structure. i could cut myself on those cheekbones, you think.

“these notes are terrible.”

annnndddd he ruined it.

“well i can’t exactly take good notes if i have no clue what’s going on,” you counter, “isn’t that what you’re supposed to help me with?”

“i can try,” he says with an amused grin, “but I’ve never seen someone struggle this much with the basics on day one.”

now, you could put up with a lot of shit, but the one thing you cannot stand is being condescended to. especially not by some egotistical capitalist fucker who barely knows you.

“look,” you say pointedly, holding back the urge to throat punch him right then and there, “i’m really busy, and i just wanna pass this class, so if you could help me without being a dick about it i’d really appreciate it.”

“aw, but where’s the fun in that?”

his lips twist back into that patronizing smirk - he’s definitely trying to get a rise out of you.

“fuck off,” you say with a roll of your eyes, refusing to take his bait, “are you gonna teach me chemistry or not?”

he chuckles quietly again, thoroughly entertained. “sure. only because I’m so kind, and i could use the challenge.”

you scoff, but hold yourself back from retorting. you don’t want to give him the satisfaction.

at first, it’s excruciating. you loathe this douchey business bro getting off on being condescending while explaining chemistry to you like you don’t understand anything - which, to be fair, you don’t. but that somehow makes you resent him more.

granted, once you actually get down to business, kuroo is actually a pretty good tutor. he’s not actively annoying when he’s actually trying to teach you something, and he’s surprisingly patient and good at breaking things down. dude is smart, there’s no denying that.

nevertheless, even when he’s not being snarky, every correction he makes seems to fluster you more. you hate looking stupid in front of others, and something about kuroo seems to amplify that feeling by a thousand. you blame his attitude.

as you fumble trying to wrap your head around the unfamiliar numbers, symbols, & formulas, you’re simultaneously attempting to maintain a shred of dignity in front of this man who clearly thinks of you as the dumbest bitch on the planet. and the more you struggle, the more you worry he’s right.

“seeeee? i told you it wasn’t that hard!” he hums as you finish off another homework question you’d been struggling with. he can’t seem to praise you without being patronizing as fuck, either. you look up from your page momentarily to shoot him a glare.

frustration and embarrassment simmer inside of you with each of his snide remarks, but you hold yourself together and divert the attention back to studying each time. the restraint it takes not to deck him right in his pretty face is honestly deserving of a nobel peace prize.

“not bad,” he muses as you finally finish off the last of your homework, “and it only took you two and a half hours!”

“i’m floored,” you deadpan. your brain is too exhausted to formulate a more clever comeback. then you suddenly realize - “hang on... has it actually been two and a half hours? i thought you were only available for one??”

“technically,” he shrugs, “that’s when my tutoring hours end. but I wasn’t doing anything after, and you seemed like you needed the extra help.” that shitty smile is back. you can feel your blood boiling, but at the same time that... is actually pretty nice of him?

“ah... th-thanks,” you mumble, still resistant to showing any signs of weakness - much less gratitude - to the messy-haired prick.

“so, should i expect you back next week?” his stare reminds you of a cat sizing up its prey.

“uh... maybe,” you say. you honestly don’t have an answer yet. “i have to run though, i’ve got another class to get to.”

“don’t be a stranger,” he grins, “you’re gonna need a lot of help if you wanna graduate.”

you shoot him another glare as you swing your bag over your shoulder.

“i’ll think about it.”

he's still smirking at you as you walk out the door.

—

as much as you’d like to deny it, there’s not much to think about. none of the other chem tutors are available when you are, and there’s no way you’re passing the class without the extra help. and, as insufferable as he is, kuroo did help you get through your entire first week of homework successfully.

of course, you still resent having to rely on some nasty ass, pompous business major to mansplain chemistry to you every week so you can graduate. well, technically it’s not mansplaining since you don’t actually know anything about chemistry. and you technically also asked him to do it. but god, does he have to be such a dick about it??

it’s just an hour or two once a week, you reassure yourself, you can put up with it.

this is easier said than done, of course. the following monday, you begrudgingly approach the same classroom, empty except for one (1) chickenhead douchebag, who promptly stares you down with the most shiteating smile you’ve ever seen.

“oya oya~ look who decided to come back!” he croons.

“don’t flatter yourself, it’s not like I had much of a choice,” you respond flatly. why is he still looking at me with that dumb expression?

“true, there’s no way you’re passing on your own.”

“listen,” you reply pointedly, “some people have better things to do than worry about how many neutrons are on hydrogen or whatever”

“hydrogen doesn’t have any neutrons.”

“COOL!!!! i just want to graduate!!”

“well then you’re gonna need to know that hydrogen doesn’t have any neutr-”

“ALRIGHT, i got it,” you huff, “can you just… help me figure out this balancing equations shit? WITHOUT being an asshole about it?”

“hmm… sorry, i can only accept one request at a time.”

this is gonna be a long fucking semester.

a/n: eeeeee this is the first time i’ve actually wholeheartedly attempted to write a fic in lord knows how long (possibly ever?? idk them memories repressed) and my first time posting my own writing so i hope y’all like it !! everybody who’s ready to see me trash talk k*roo t*tsuro say way ho

[rapeculturerealities]

Long before she decided to help others eat better by becoming a dietitian, Jessica Wilson learned that the profession was unlikely to offer much to people like her.

Growing up as a Black girl in a mostly white area of Sacramento, Calif., she was bullied for her size and subjected to unpleasant visits with dietitians, who taught portion control with the aid of unappetizing plastic models of green beans and chicken breasts.

In her dietetics program at the University of California, Davis, Ms. Wilson was the only Black student. A single day was devoted to what the curriculum called “ethnic diets.” “It was not, ‘These are interesting and awesome,’” she recalled. “It is, ‘These are why these diets are bad. Next class.’”

Mexican food was dismissed as greasy. Indian food was heavy. Ms. Wilson was taught to prescribe a bland “kale-and-quinoa” diet. When she started treating patients — including many who, like her, are people of color or identify as queer — she learned how much those identities informed their perspectives on health, and how little she’d been taught about that.

“It makes people feel so guilty for not being able to eat what Goop would recommend,” said Ms. Wilson, 38. “I was no longer able to use the tools that had been given to me in school with good conscience.”

As the coronavirus pandemic has made Americans more aware of their health and eating habits, many have turned to registered dietitians like Ms. Wilson (or to nutritionists, who are not always required to obtain a specific education or certification). Yet the advice they get can sometimes seem more tailored to some past era than to the motley, multicultural nation the United States is in 2020.

In recent years — and particularly in the last several months, amid the national discussion about race — many dietitians have begun speaking out and reimagining the practice in a more inclusive way, often without institutional support.

Today, Ms. Wilson counsels many people of color on eating a healthy diet based on the foods they grew up with and love. Hazel Ng, 48, who runs a private practice in Alhambra, Calif., has created handouts for her Chinese clients that showcase produce found in Asian grocery stores, like bitter melon and lychees

In June, Sherene Chou, 36, a dietitian with a private practice in Los Angeles, organized a group letter to the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics — the largest and most powerful organization for food and nutrition professionals — outlining steps it should take to address systemic racism in the field, including antiracism training and more support for people of color. Leaders of numerous dietetics groups lent their support, signing the letter on behalf of 70,000 practitioners and students.

Many of these dietitians say the academy’s research, programs and articles ignore non-Western cuisines, or imply that they are unhealthy. They feel the profession places too much emphasis on consuming less and not enough on understanding individual eating habits. And, they add, it perpetuates an ideal of thinness and gender normativity that can exclude different body types and identities.

“It is a good-old-girls’ club where, as a person of color, you have to do so much to be invited,” said Jessica Jones, a dietitian in Richmond, Calif., and a founder of the inclusive dietetics website Food Heaven.

In response to these criticisms, the academy said it is working hard to broaden its ranks and resources to better reflect different cultures.

“Like other professions in health care and countless other fields, nutrition and dietetics has for many years experienced underrepresentation by persons of color in its membership and leadership ranks,” it said in a statement last week. “The academy knows change will not happen overnight. Still, we are making real progress that will create permanent change in our organization, our profession and our communities.”

The group is influential in setting the United States Department of Agriculture dietary guidelines that Americans are urged to follow; its members make up half of the 20-member committee that oversees those recommendations. In a July report, the committee acknowledged that the dietary approaches it studies don’t “qualitatively address cultural variations in intake patterns,” yet said the resulting guidelines allow a “tremendous amount of flexibility” that allows them to be tailored to an individual’s cultural and taste preferences.

The recipe database on MyPlate, the agriculture department’s healthy-eating website, includes 98 dishes classified as “American,” but just 28 “Asian” recipes and nine “Middle Eastern” ones. Though it lists 122 “Latin American/Hispanic” recipes, they include dishes like a “skinny pizza” made with tortillas. The Asian recipes include “Oriental Rice” and “Oriental Sweet and Sour Vegetables.”(A spokesman for the department said that “expanding the recipe database and other MyPlate consumer resources to reflect more diversity is one of our top priorities.”)

If the options seem narrow, they may begin with the narrowness of the profession. More than 71 percent of the nation’s roughly 106,000 registered dietitians are non-Hispanic white, according to the academy’s Commission on Dietetic Registration. Nearly 84 percent are women.

Entry requirements are steep: Practitioners must earn a degree from an accredited program, complete an internship (sometimes unpaid) or a supervised learning program, and pass a registration exam with a $200 entrance fee. Starting in 2024, a graduate degree will be required to take the exam.

“This is an expensive profession, with no guarantee that you are going to have a high salary,” said Lisa Sasson, a professor in the department of nutrition and food studies at New York University. She called the new graduate-degree mandate “unconscionable” and “an even greater barrier to people of color in our profession.”

The academy said that its charitable foundation provided more than $500,000 in scholarships and grants from 2017 to 2019 “for diverse individuals within the field,” and that those funds continue to grow.

Internships are highly competitive, and some even require the intern to pay. Alice Figueroa, 33, who runs a private practice in the East Village of Manhattan, said she struggled to afford food during her internship, even as she was advising others how to eat. Evelyn Crayton, 74, who was the academy’s first Black president, said many of the people in charge of matching students with internships are white, and may be more likely to select applicants who look like them.

Funding for dietetics programs at many historically Black colleges and universities, including Fort Valley State University and Grambling State University, has been cut since the 1970s. The number of Black dietitians fell by 18 percent, to 1,107, from 1998 to 2019, according to the academy’s Accreditation Council for Education in Nutrition and Dietetics.

Even when Dr. Crayton was president of the academy, in 2015 and 2016, she felt out of step with its other leaders. “I have heard that behind my back they called me an angry Black woman, because I raised questions,” she said. Her nominations of Black dietitians for leadership roles, she added, were frequently snubbed.

Told of her comments, the academy responded, “We were not aware of this until now, and we are very saddened to hear that Evelyn was subjected to these inexcusable statements. They do not reflect the academy’s core values and we are moving swiftly to investigate this matter.”

The profession’s exclusivity goes beyond race. Kai Iguchi, 28, a dietitian working at Rogers Behavioral Health in Oconomowoc, Wis., didn’t feel comfortable coming out as nonbinary to graduate-school classmates. “When the program itself as a culture is very cisgender, thin, white and female,” they said, “it is hard to be different and succeed.”

Mx. Iguchi said what they learned at school did little to address the unique problems that transgender and nonbinary clients face — being misgendered by their dietitians and family members, or feeling discomfort with overtly feminine imagery on health materials. Adult transgender people are also at high risk of developing eating disorders, according to a 2019 study by the Stanford University School of Medicine.

Even some dietitians who teach the standard curriculum find it wanting. “I have reached my limit with my textbook,” said Maya Feller, an adjunct professor in nutrition at New York University, adding that it doesn’t take into account social factors that often explain why people of color are disproportionally affected by health issues.

She said she was also unhappy with educational resources like MyPlate, which recommends meals like salmon, brown rice and broccoli, but not the curried chana and doubles served by her mother, who grew up in Trinidad. (After her interview for this article, Ms. Feller was hired as a consultant to help make MyPlate more inclusive.)

“If I saw that plate and then looked at my doubles, I would be like, ‘Well, my food is no good.’”

Ms. Feller, 43, tries instead to promote an “ongoing and consistent education around cultural humility” — not telling patients what they can’t eat, but considering the foods they have access to, and embracing, not stigmatizing, their cultural preferences.

It rankles Ryan Bad Heart Bull, 36, a Native American dietitian who works with the Oglala Sioux Tribe in Pine Ridge, S.D., that many of his peers praise the nutritional value of traditional Indigenous ingredients like salmon and bison, without understanding how federal government policies have made it harder for Native Americans to hunt and forage on their own land. To be ignorant of this cultural and historical context, “and then to turn around and say bison meat is one of the best meats you can eat and here are the ways you can incorporate it into your diet,” he said, “it is insulting and saddening.”

In 2019, he published a guide for the American Indian Cancer Foundation to educate Native cancer survivors about the nutritional value of their traditional foods.

Diksha Gautham, 27, a nutritionist in San Francisco, tells her mostly South Asian-American clientele that a healthy diet can include palak paneer and aloo tikki. As a child, she said, she harbored a blind perception that anything that wasn’t dry chicken and broccoli, including the dal and rice her mother cooked, “was bad for me.” No nutritional database she has encountered includes Indian ingredients, so she created her own guides to healthful Indian food.

A Toronto dietitian, Nazima Qureshi, 29, has self-published “The Healthy Ramadan Guide” with her husband, Belal Hafeez, a personal trainer. It includes meal plans that adhere to fasting guidelines, with recipes like stuffed dates and za’atar roasted chicken, and exercises to give people energy going into daily prayers.

Some of Dalina Soto’s Hispanic and Asian clients in the Philadelphia area have been told by other dietitians that they can’t eat white rice. “They shut down,” she said. “Either they go way to the extreme, where they are no longer eating any of their cultural foods, or the other side is, ‘I am just not going to manage my disease.’”

“My goal is to bring them in the middle,” said Ms. Soto, 32. She’ll suggest a salad alongside their rice and beans.

Still, many of these practitioners feel frustrated as they try to nudge the dietetic establishment toward change.

The profession is governed by the academy’s board. One subsidiary organization, the Commission on Dietetic Registration, sets professional requirements and fees; another, the Accreditation Council, certifies programs. Together, these entities and their majority-white leadership act as gatekeepers, their critics argue, limiting deep-rooted change.

The academy, which has about 100,000 members, funds research and hosts the largest annual conference for dietitians, the Food & Nutrition Conference & Expo. In 2016, it announced the Second Century Initiative, an effort to expand its reach and teachings around the globe.

The academy has had a diversity and inclusion committee since 1987. But, like all the academy’s committees, it is filled by volunteers. Teresa Turner, 37, a member from 2015 until May, said the academy offers the panel few “resources or benchmarks.” “Its only purpose,” Ms. Turner said, “is to make the academy look like they are doing something.”

The academy denied those assertions, saying the committee plays an active role, recommending strategies to recruit people from underrepresented groups to join the profession, and the academy, and promote their advancement.

A group that calls itself Audit the Academy (whose members include Ms. Turner, Ms. Figueroa and Ms. Chou) said the academy research it has seen is largely conducted by white dietitians studying nondiverse populations; if they study communities of color, they often do so from a white perspective. Members also see little representation of transgender and nonbinary people.

“If we are invisible in the research,” said Sand Chang, 42, an Oakland, Calif., psychologist who specializes in the transgender health and eating disorders, “we are going to be invisible in assessment and treatment.”

The academy, however, said it “offers materials, programs and educational opportunities to help its members provide care to a diverse array of clients,” including articles about treating transgender individuals.

In June, the organization responded to pressure from disaffected members by committing to developing action plans to address inequities in the profession. It has created a new Diversity and Inclusion Advisory Group, and conducted virtual forums to hear the concerns of 126 randomly selected members.

Shannon Curtis, 30, a Houston dietitian who helped found a group called Dietitians for Change, attended one of the sessions. “Although it was empowering to know that we are not the only ones screaming about this,” she said, “it was kind of a waste of time, in my opinion, because I am not exactly confident that they will take this information and put it into an action plan they will actually act on.”

Other organizations have emerged to address the inequities in the profession, like Diversify Dietetics, founded in 2018 by Tamara Melton and Deanna Belleny. It offers resources like mentors and educational materials to help students of color pass the registration exam.

In response to criticisms that it is harder for nonwhite dietitians to succeed in the profession, the academy offered an interview with Kristen Gradney, a senior director at Our Lady of the Lake Children’s Hospital in Baton Rouge, La, and one of several registered dietitian nutritionists who speak on behalf of the academy.

Ms. Gradney, 40, said that while the academy “has really missed the mark” in preparing dietitians to deal with diverse populations, it is starting to make progress. Still, she said “true change” would probably not come from the academy, but from grass-roots initiatives like Diversify Dietetics, where she serves on the advisory board.

In 2018, Dr. Crayton, the academy’s past president, hosted a conference in Montgomery, Ala., where she lives, for World Critical Dietetics, an organization that champions a more inclusive approach to dietetics. Panels discussed the role that unconscious bias plays in education, and whether the registration exam was fair to all students.

Dr. Crayton took participants to the Edmund Pettus Bridge, in Selma, where in 1965, peaceful protesters marched for civil rights. “I could never have done that with the academy,” she said with a laugh. She said events like that could help pave a path toward sweeping change.

“I don’t know how to get to people’s hearts, but it is a heart thing,” she said. In a discipline that deals with such a deeply personal matter — one’s eating habits — “there has to be a change of heart, where people really feel empathy for groups who they are trying to include.”

[cockasinthebird]

okay!!!! so!!! i guess it’s kind of a prompt, but like steve goes to an art college thing. and he’s suuuper talented, one of the best in his class. and the prof. says that they have a guest to come in for some modelling. and steve is super excite ‘cause he loves doing projects like this. and then the model comes in, covered in a bathrobe, it’s billy. he goes to sit on the stool at the front. drops the robe, he’s completely nude. looks steve directly in the eye and winks! just an idea i had! -🎨

Dear anon, !!!!!!! This took SO LONG, but then again I was flagged and unavailable for like two weeks, and I did not write at all in that time, but as I woke up today to find myself back to normal, I quickly finished what was left, and now 11 pages long, I will post some of it here, then link the rest on my AO3!

My mind went off on this, and I hope it’s as good as I believe, especially what with all the teasing I’ve been doing!

Now, enjoy~

-

An arts scholarship is not something everyone can brag about, well, almost everyone, or so Steve thought when he got approved for one after his high school teacher encouraged him to apply.

He’s not dumb, or unintelligent, as most people around him will say - the words on the pages just don’t connect right, as if he can’t see what any other person might perceive, and it is reflected on his grades. Math is… fine, the only issue there is a general unwillingness to learn, because rather than doing algebra and figuring out trigonometry, Steve’s talents lie in the stroke of a brush, in the graphite of a pencil, in the black of charcoal.

His mother always encouraged him with a loving hand and a wondrous appreciation for every single little drawing Steve came up with as a child, fueling this intense fire inside of him that only felt relief against paper or canvas. She showered him in materials; endless chalk, a rainbow of watercolors, acrylics, oil pastels, pencils in all shapes and hues, stacks of papers, piles of canvas, even let him paint the walls of his bedroom as far as he could reach.

His father… simply stood and scowled in the doorway. He’s old fashioned, wanted an heir to the Harrington Construction Empire his own father built, not some… artistic little fairy. Steve stopped counting how many of his parents' fights were about him years ago.

And now he’s here, in California, attending college of all things, surrounded by students who, just like him, have devoted their entire lives to the arts. He feels less special, less talented, amongst his peers, where it seems that a third of them have arrived on scholarships, too.

But his teacher, Mr Reynolds, an old man with a long goatee and suspenders, always assures Steve that he is, without a doubt, the star of the class. That he will go far in his life, become world renowned, famous for his works, that in the future art classes will teach about his techniques and colors and soul.

Steve likes to believe it; spends his spare time thinking about what painting of his would be displayed in museums, what the critics will say, what he will wear to the reveal party, what his speech will sound like.

All those thoughts course through his overactive mind whenever he looks at a blank surface, just waiting, begging to be filled with his inspired soul. Perhaps he’s a bit too immodest and vain and arrogant, but he doesn’t really put up a fight against those ideals; never bothered trying to be humble about what is so obvious to any eye, and when every teacher has never offered up anything besides praise, is he to believe they’re all liars?

He looks around at his classmates as they set up in the arranged circle surrounding a single stool in the middle. They all smile at him, greetings exchanged as always, the friendliness of people who you’ve had a few beers with, attended some parties and gatherings together, but never really gotten to know past the surface.

Steve’s just not as social as he used to be, and moving halfway across the country didn’t really help that either. Something changed in him during the last year of high school, but honestly he can’t complain. He goes whenever invited, otherwise he keeps to himself, focuses on his studies, does his homework, a scholarship can only get you so far, and if his grades dip too low, it’s bye bye future.

“All on time for once! Impressive!” Reynolds says with a cheery tone, clasping his hands together with a wide smile as he moves to the center of the classroom. “For today’s live figure drawing practice, we’ll continue working with models and volunteers from all parts of life, and today I’ve managed to convince a hard working, blue collar of a man! William Hargrove, you may take the stage!”

Everyone turns to the stained room divider over in a solitude corner, the usual spot where their models change in and out of clothes and robes, and from behind steps a man dressed in a dark gray bathrobe, adorned with the most gorgeous crown of golden curls, his stubble is scruffy with a more accentuated mustache, and his eyes are of the clearest blue waters Steve has ever seen before.

His breathing pauses for just a moment as he stares at the broad shouldered stranger, caught in a trance - a willing subject to be ensnared by this man’s confidence, walking like he owns the room. Steve doesn’t even realise that he’s staring till he’s met with those heavenly eyes.

Who then winks at him, grin mischievous and aware of what thoughts surge forth in his presence.

Steve’s heart beats like a drum, ramming against his ribs, a heated flush rushing up to tint his ears red, spilling into his cheeks. He can’t help but whip his head back towards his easel with a stare that could burn a hole in the pages before him, restraining himself from gawking further, trying to calm down some.

It’s not that he hasn’t paid attention to other guys in the past, it’s just that he hasn’t cared for that kind of stuff before. Even when he was dating Nancy back in high school he didn’t care enough. But now? This guy? This man? 

Nothing more than one simple, flirty look, and Steve’s interest tiptoes over the line of professional into personal, dipping in, testing the waters there.

And when he reaches the middle of the circle, everyone here far too interested in seeing what he’s hiding beneath the robe, he slowly slips it off, clearly revelling in all the attention if the smile he carries is any indication.

Unfortunately, much to Steve’s inconvenience, this William Hargrove is ripped. Jaw strong like a cliffside, biceps akin to perfectly carved marble, formidable pecs covered in chest hair lush like a forest that spreads down abs like rolling hills, Steve’s eyes travels smooth like a stream across the landscape of William’s body, down to his-

He refocuses on the easel in front of him, invitingly barren and pleading for him to ruin the stillness with his own inappropriate curiosity.

“Thank you once again for agreeing to this, Mister Hargrove. You may use this stool here to pose with, or without, it is entirely up to whatever you’re most comfortable with,” Reynolds explains, unhooking a thumb from where he fiddles with his suspenders to accept the robe that William has removed.

“Yes sir,” sounds the response, his voice husky and charming, throaty from years of use.

It tugs further at Steve’s intrigue, oh to hear him laugh, read a book aloud, sing along to whatever reckless music he listens to, probably rock or something abrasive. Steve’s wild imagination goes through it all in the matter of seconds, just to be pulled back when his teacher speaks again,

“We’ll be taking things a bit slow today, six poses with 10 minutes each, let you all get a good feel for Mr Hargrove’s body, really focus and pay attention to how the shadows fall.”

Steve’s convinced the way he swallows hard must be audible, the lump in his throat making a loud splash in the pool of boiling nerves gathered in his stomach, breaking surface tension and stirring up thoughts he hasn’t really bothered with for months, if not a year by now.

Yet here’s this stranger with such undeniable magnetism, taking a seat, naked on a stool, aiming straight at Steve, staring at Steve, smirking at Steve.

Who nervously rakes fingers through his hair, pushing it back and away as to more clearly see his model, noticing how the muscles flex and tense as Hargrove decides on his first pose. The human body is phenomenal to look at, nothing in the world deserves grander appreciation than it, and it’s easy for Steve to convince himself that that’s what this is, an accentuated form of gratitude for the very same shape that Michelangelo used for his David.

Finally William gets settled, on the edge of his seat, one foot on the ground, the other up on the bar between the legs of the stool, elbow raised and bent to bring a hand behind his head, the other relaxed on his thigh. Exposed and raw and muscular and brilliant.

Steve could truly go on and on and on about this Adonis posed all nude before him, face turned slightly to the side, but it is unquestionably clear that the rest of him is aimed directly at where Steve sits, and he doesn’t realise he’s staring again till Reynolds says,

“Ten minutes, everyone! You may begin!”

Keep reading on AO3

[failing-to-write-again]

Sakamaki Character Analysis: Cuntdelia's Children

continuing on to Cordelia's kids now. Again, they all need help in some form. Although full warning they aren't my favourites so I may not be as on point as I feel I was with Reiji and Shu.

Ayato:

So Ayato has a god complex and a narcissistic streak, why is that any why does that mean he needs the special care? Well his mum was abuisve, that's a fact. In the games we hear mentions of physical punishments as well as emotional manipulation, gas lighting, and all that other horrid stuff. Ayato is a ball of insecurities stuck in the way his mother forced on him. He has to be the best because she said she has to, and as a defense mechanism due to her constant criticism he developed his "I'm the best call me Ore-Sama" thing.

Now a lot of fanfics just see you the reader make fun of the ore-sama thing or be too depressed to even care about it, and lemme tell you why I don't think they'd actually the best thing for him. So let's say your mother, a primary care giver, puts you down all the time and makes fun of you. You grow up isolated and constantly feeling you aren't good enough but don't have anyone to talk to so internalize it all and put on an act. Then you get a person trying to date you or befriend you that does exactly what your mother did. Now when I put it like that do you see why the whole "pfft whatever oreo-sama" thing won't actually help. You'll end up dead when he snaps I'll bet money on it.

I think Ayato needs a partner who won't pander to him but won't put him down either. So when you don't want to make him takoyaki say "Not right now, I'll do it when I'm finished this level in Mario. Wanna play with me Ore-Sama?" don't say "Go do it yourself oreo-sama. Wait do you seriously not know how to make it? lol."

Furthermore push him safely. Ask for help making the takoyaki, start small with a "hey I can't reach this pan and you're super tall can you help?" as to slowly built up to "hey will you mix this sauce for me as I prepare the meat? I'll tell you what to add the ingredients are all there." I feel Ayato would benefit from this as he'll slowly realise he's learning how to do things. I think a big part of why Ayato struggles is that he was told he needed to be perfect first try and so he gets disheartened easily. Home boy needs compliments and you to not bring attention to his mistakes. Just be like "oh that's fine you can add more salt if it'd too sweet or sugar if it's too salty."

This goes for everything too he's gonna need someone who slowly teaches him, and trust me the day he realised he's learning he'll be greatfull, he won't show it much at the start but over time he'll get better. Like remember when Ayato slept with Yui in the anime? Sorta like that happens and he whispers a thank you when he thinks you're asleep. Then it slowly becomes a thing of if he knows it's just you and him in the room he won't be against putting his head on your shoulder when he needs some love.

When his grades improve you better make him takoyaki and suffocate him with hugs and compliments because he needs that to be a more open and better person.

Laito:

Laito is a hard one, because I see many s/o for him written as anti-sex who won't give into him, or those who give in whenever and I don't think either would fully work.

If you meet through a one night stand obviously you're never going to get in. I think his best chance would be a classmate he sits beside often, potentially a sacrificial bride but I'm kinda meh on that. He needs reliable no touch love before moving on to anything. So let's say he noticed you doing a crossword before class one day (it's canon he loves em) and he helps on a word or something. Now response here is everything, no swooning and "omg Laito-senpai sleep with me" crap but also don't ice queen it. Hearing "I don't want to sleep with you leave" will shut him out from you forever. I think something akin to "Oh thanks Laito, I didn't know you liked crosswords you seem pretty good at them." Now let's break this down as to why this works best in my opinion. First off you thanked him for something that had nothing to do with physical touch in anyway, second you complimented him but not on his body or skills with said body. Instead you showed appreciation for his brain. And finally the "I didn't know you liked crosswords" gives him an opening to start discussing interests other then sex.

Laito was sexually abused and I think as a result it'd need to be slow and steady with things. So holding his hand and not letting him touch the boob just yet shows you don't want sex you want him. Talking to him about things like fashion means he can do his perv on the girls for a bit before slowly toning down and starting to talk more on the outfits. He will definitely be sleeping with other people at this point, you're not dating at all. I think he'll slowly begin to appreciate the routine of having one person in his life he doesn't need to give his body to, and he may just open up about the abuse. I think being supportive and gently saying something like "well I'm not a professional so I'm not going to be much help, but if you decide to talk to a therapist I'll be there every step of the way for you." BE HIS CRUTCH.

I think he's the most likely to consider and maybe even go to therapy before dating you (I think eventually all the boys would be convinced to start going). I think it would be in therapy where he realises the fact he wants to be near you all the time isn't lust like with other girls but it's love. I imagine he'd be like "It's weird because I want to be with them all the time but fully clothed and eating macaroons or watching movies, not [the following is censored for a good reason]

I think Laito has the ability to be a great partner if he can deal with his abuse and PTSD from said abuse.

Kanato:

Kanato is a tricky case. He definitely has bipolar disorder or manic depression or some serious mental health condition past just PTSD or depression brought on by abuse. So I think he'll need medication and an actual therapist although getting him there is the hard part.

Firsts off toss the "Yeah I have a Teddy too and love sweets as well let's be 5 together" fantasy out the window, especially if the file up sentence to that is "I also like killing people, we're both crazy". Also you can't be a sacrificial bride, you'd be dead or he'd ignore your opinion.

I think maybe if you went to a therapist for a less severe issue (anxiety or something that doesn't make you STAB PEOPLE WITH FORKS) then maybe if he was following you or picking you up and had a meltdown the therapist would actually help him through it which will be like a "omg I don't have to scream to feel better" moment for him I think.

So from there he goes to therapy. He's still childish in his likes and stuff but he doesn't kill people or keep his weird ass dolls. You need to set some ground rules. "No I'm not going to make you cake unless my homework is finished and that's something I have to stick with. Remember your breathing, the longer you shout or be angry the longer you'll end up waiting for cake." Wear his pretty dresses and be nice to teddy and all that good stuff. But set limits. I see Kanato is pretty asexual, like I don't see him as the kinda guy to want sex, I don't think he's against romantic feelings for someone but I don't think he'd have sex with a s/o.

[enna-of-the-stars]

This is Home: Chapter 2

If you missed the first chapter, click here

Fandom: Natsume Yuujinchou Word Count: 5.1k Rating: General Audiences Summary: Natsume Takashi has never really had a place where he could settle down and call home, but that was before the Fujiwaras came along and bundled him away to a little town called Yatsuhara.

A ficlet about Natsume first moving in with the Fujiwaras and learning to break the habits that he's built over the years from constantly terrible relatives. Also, the Natsume Protection Squad develops instantly the moment Natsume walks into class. It just happens. That's it, there's no going back, the class just adopts him and Nishimura will fight anyone and everyone that will hurt Natsume.

CHAPTER TWO: Take Me Home

“Alright, alright, everyone settle down, settle down,” The teacher said. “We have a new transfer student today, so I hope everyone will welcome him.” And with that, the teacher nods at the twig-like figure hovering indiscriminately by the blackboard. Natsume’s hands are wrapped around his midsection, as he releases one to pick up a piece of chalk. His hands are weak and they shake slightly as Natsume slowly and carefully scratches out his name somewhere in the corner of the blackboard, taking up as little space as possible, while still making it readable just in case the teacher gets mad, because previous teachers have. The room is silent, and he can feel the piercing stares of the class honing in on every move he makes. Their stares bore deep holes within him and Natsume can sense the rising anticipation for his name to be released to the throngs of interested and curious students. When he finishes writing, there’s a collective breath as the whole class seems to relax suddenly. The constant frenzy of stares almost, almost disappear and Natsume can breath again.

“Alright, Natsume-kun, why don’t you introduce yourself?” The teacher’s voice cuts into the thick silence without much resistance. Natsume’s voice is just the opposite, slow, both methodical and heavy so that the silence fills where he pushes in every moment he pauses. The broken padlock and the stray fragments of rope have begun to creak. The lock clicks and clicks, it’s close to closing. The rope slithers up and around, reforming as it goes. But neither fully finish resettling.

“My name is Natsume Takashi, nice to meet you.” He deliberately ends it there. No use in continuing if everyone’s already dead set on believing the rumours that always hurry into a room before him. And it’s painfully obvious Natsume’s prediction is right; the moment he ends, the classroom erupts into a buzz and people are eyeing him just like they have always done. They whisper and collude, shifty gazes turning from stares into death threatening glares at the equally shifting Natsume. No matter how many times he goes through this, it still hurts. It hurts to see people like this, people that should have at least tried to welcome him, instantly throwing him aside and believing the rumors instead. It’s dark and full of shadows and the classroom seems dim. They don’t know him and they never will, he’s just that kid that no one wants.

“Well then,” The teacher’s voice once again cuts through the room, slicing the tension in two. “Natsume-kun, why don’t you sit over there, in the empty seat in front of Nishimura-kun.”

“E-eh?!” Nishimura sort of starts, snapping out of his daydreaming; everyone knew he had been napping, not daydreaming. But it’s too late, Nishimura has already over tipped the balance of his chair and yes, it seems gravity had a bone to pick with Nishimura as he flails, arms shooting up and out and waving all around before he falls, hard. The next thing he knows, the room is erupting in laughter at Nishimura, who in turn turns beet red and sputters as he sits up and meekly shuffles back into his seat. Even the teacher snorts, holding back chuckles as the entire class hysterically laughs. Natsume blinks, all the tension in the room is gone and no one seems to be staring anymore, instead they’re all laughing at, no, with Nishimura, who can’t help but sheepishly laugh along with them, mouth apologies, to which the teacher acknowledges whilst in the midst of laughing.

“Alright, alright, everyone back in your seats,” The teacher eventually cuts in, a kind smile already adorning his face. “Natsume-kun, why don’t you head to your desk now that we all know Nishimura-kun is back with us in the realm of the living.”

Hesitantly, Natsume nods and makes his way through the desks; people are still poking fun at Nishimura, so most of the class pays Natsume no mind. In fact, Nishimura’s little fall seems to have dusted away any tension that room had previously, and with the sun peaking through the windows just right, Natsume’s hunched shoulders relaxed ever so slightly. People may not have been the most welcoming, but that was to be expected; it’s obvious that they aren’t exactly cruel, not like before, so Natsume isn’t as afraid this time, less wary, to let a minuscule smile ever so slightly slip out as he makes his way to his new desk.

It’s nice honestly, the day is soft, wisps of air blow gently across the courtyard of the school. The sky is mostly a brilliant sapphire, clouds of pearl providing sporadic shade. The sun is gold, as it always is, shimmering and glittering and filtering its way into the classroom so that every desk is illuminated a golden yellow. The class seems small, but it’s better this way, better than anything the cities had ever been able to offer. The tension that had drifted away didn’t melt back in, and almost every classmate was chattering quietly, just under their breaths. But it wasn’t criticism, it wasn’t gossip, just simple curiosity and it suddenly hits him like a sack of bricks. I was wrong, Natsume thinks. The class hadn’t been like the others, the buzz that Natsume had originally perceived as gossip and scorn was actually just been that same curiosity that echoes now. They had heard the rumors, everyone knows them, but these people weren’t judging him. They were simply analyzing him, what his like were, where he’s been, what he’s actually like. And this, Nishimura kid, the one that sits behind Natsume, he’s no different either. Natsume would later know that Nishimura was not an analytical person in the slightest, at least not when it came to school. But looking down now, just before he sits down, Natsume sees a kind smile from Nishimura, who lifts a hand to wave hello.

“Sorry ‘bout that, I’m Nishimura Satoru by the way.” Nishimura smiles wider at Natsume’s slight nod. Soft spoken, and ever gentle, Natsume replies, forgetting the rope and realizing with surprise that it’s gone far, far away.

“Hello, Nishimura.”

The class is quiet after that, and when the break comes, Natsume silently falls asleep, too tired from the anxiety and fear that comes with moving to a new school, but for some reason feeling safe enough to rest, even if for just a few moments. Everyone notably quiets down when they see Natsume put his head in his arms and onto the desk.

“I-is he sleeping?” Someone whispers.

“I think so?”

“Should we wake him up?”

“Yeah, maybe? Break’s almost over soon.”

“Wait! Wait, wait!” A voice suddenly breaks in. Sasada hastily grabs Nishimura by the

crook of his arm. “You idiot! Natsume-kun is obviously tired! Let’s give him a few more minutes, the bell isn’t going to ring until ten after all.”

By the time the teacher comes strolling back in, everyone is in their respective seats. Natsume is still asleep at his desk, no one wanting to truly awaken him even as the bell signaling the end of break rings. They tried, but to their surprise, Natsume merely stirred slightly, face coming into view of the soon to be noon sun. When Nishimura saw the dark circles under Natsume’s eyes, he refused to let anyone else try to wake Natsume up.

“No, I understand what you’re trying to say, Nishimura, but have to wake him up! Class is about to start soon.” Sasada said.

“Your the one that said to give him some time, and besides, look at him! He’s exhausted. Come on, Sasada, you’re the class rep if you just explain things to the teach, it’ll be fine.” Nishimura retorted.

Sasada huffed and crossed her arms. Truthfully, she didn’t want to wake up the new transfer student either, he did look really tired after all. But at the same time, as class representative, it was her duty to help ensure a good working environment in the room, and with Natsume sleeping like this, it wouldn’t do any good for the work ethic she wanted to instill in her class. Yet, something inside her said screw that. She turned around and stalked out of the classroom to the teacher’s lounge, but not before glaring down Nishimura and sticking her tongue out at him.

“Geez, don’t hafta be so mean.” Nishimura said as he turns back around to sit in his seat. The rest of the class does the same as the late bell starts ringing and Sasada comes back with the teacher. The lecture starts with no discourse, and Natsume is allowed to sleep on as student after student slowly quiets down; something about Natsume makes all of them want to indulge him just a little, even if they have only just met. As the periods come and go, Natsume doesn’t wake up until lunch comes around. He slowly shifts and sits up, rubbing his right eye lightly and squinting at the sudden adjustment to sunlight. Ethereal, his pupils glitter gold and widen briefly before turning to cat like slits, giving rise to such a bright hazel that they look exactly like liquid amber. Students’ conversations sort of drop off, as they watched Natsume blearily rub his eye. Some other student, who Natsume would soon know as his friend Kitamoto, also stopped in his conversation with Nishimura. The two couldn’t help but stare; Natsume was lighting up the whole room with his gentle glow.

Natsume looks around, once again aware of the stares, which hastenly fall away when he looks at them. Self-consciously, Natsume grabs his bag and heads out the door, quickly shutting it behind him and fast walking away from the classroom. He shifts around, unsure of the school layout as other students that had filtered out from their own classrooms for lunch curiously looked at the new transfer.

There were too many eyes, too many people, not enough space. Natsume’s chest tightened as the reeling stares closed in on him and the air sizzled as he felt the burn of a flush threatening and licking fire onto his ears. The quiet voices grew louder and louder, echoing further and higher. There’s a buzz in the air just like before. Natsume can feel the world disappear as the air burns cold then hot then everything is gone and he runs. And he runs, and runs, and runs and runs and runs runs runs runs—

Gasping for breath, Natsume drops to his knees and falls to the wall standing tall to his right. The world is spinning in dizzy, maddeningly warping drifts. Spot are in his vision as they flicker in and out and the rush fills his head, roaring and screaming for him to find safety and there’s nothing but the roar, the gush, the sound and it won’t stop, doesn’t want to stop, can’t stop. Natsume clutches at his chest and desperately heaves a moment too soon as he drops to the ground, hoping somehow, that his lungs would work and the air would work and god why won’t anything work ? And it doesn’t and everything burns brilliant and painful as the world shimmers in and out of existence. The bubbles have come back. It’s foamy and watery and there’s nothing but a waterfall overflowing and drowning. Moments pass, who knows how long; eventually the torrent of water stops and the world comes into focus again, but it’s still incomprehensibly shaky. Everything wobbles and wavers as Natsume struggles to stand, leaning heavily onto the wall, using it as a support.

Slowly, but surely, Natsume shuffles along, one hand maintaining its steadying position against the wall. The sun is still high in the air and the sound of other students laughing and talking still comes around from the corners and falls down from above. At least it’s still lunch... I think… Natsume shakes head in an attempt to force the world to focus, and thankfully, it does—the walls straighten, the ground flattens, and the rustling of the tree leaves finally comes into the forefront—and Natsume plods along. Other students have begun to round the corner and their voices drop at the sight of the transfer student. And god is the silence louder than anything Natsume has ever heard before. It screams and screams. He turns around and gives them a quick once over, before  bolting, hoping, praying, that nothing would tilt and give way when he needed it the most. One corner after the other, gravel after concrete, and eventually Natsume finds the perfect corner. It’s secluded, impossibly drowning in the concrete walls that loom up above. A few trees surround it, providing shade, but most importantly, safety. No one can see Natsume from above. The concrete practically encloses everything in a shell, a protective cocoon that even if someone comes near the corner they would have to really look in order to see anything. It’s a small pothole really, but it’s more than enough for Natsume, he’s hidden in smaller before. This could be considered one of the roomier corners.

Natsume slips off his bag and sets it ever so gently down onto the cold ground. He leans against the wall, closing his eyes, relishing in not silence, but peaceful quiet. There’s no one around, no one to judge, no one to hurt him. He’s safe, protected, gone. Unconsciously, Natsume slides downwards, landing on the ground in a pile of twig limbs. A clink forces him to open his eyes.

Looking down, next to his foot, is the same school bag Natsume’s been using for the past few years. It’s worn, it’s old and most certainly out of style, but it’s stayed with him through all this time. He can’t remember where he got the bag, whether it was a gift or not, but either way it was the only thing he could call anywhere close to home. It was his constant throughout life; this bag was the only thing that he could count on, with its heavy strap digging into his shoulder reassuringly, reminding him it was there even after all the families that had thrown him away, all the people that had called him a liar, a thief, a problem child. This bag, with small embroidery on the tag inside with his name, “Natsume Takashi,'' was the only thing that reassured Natsume. Perhaps it was his mother that had made it all those years, before Natsume had even been born, preparing for him to enter middle school, or perhaps it was his father maybe? He can’t remember, not after everything. The rising panic settles in, can he even remember his father’s face? His mother… who was his mother again? She died before Natsume was old enough to learn her face, her voice. But his father… that voice was the only thing Natsume could remember, and even then it was hazy, barely there. The only thing that remained were the voices of those things that followed Natsume, those people that hurt him, that had him then tossed him away, passed him along to another to suffer with.

The tides return and the waterfall gushes and flows. Natsume gasps for air and clamps both hands over his ears and curls up into a ball; the roar comes back and fills his head drowning out all noise. It’s loud, it’s painful, but it’s everything Natsume’s ever known, and eventually it stops, just like it always had. The world flickers back. Wary, Natsume breathes heavily for a bit, letting the mostly warm summer air filter in and out, warming up his freezing fingers and allowing a warmth to blossom his chest. With shaky hands, he weakly pulls at the strap of the bag lying next to him and opens it. Inside, unbelievably, is a bento Touko had pushed into his hands that morning. It’s wrapped in a colourful cloth decorated in simple white dots on a baby blue background. A bow is neatly tied at the top, holding it all together.

Natsume  unwraps the bento with unsteady hands and is immediately surrounded by a heavenly smell. When he opens it with a soft snap of plastic, the fluffy aromas cascade and envelope Natsume in a gentle hug. Tamagoyaki, rice, leafy greens, and perfectly grilled salmon fill the bento, giving color and vibrancy that reminded Natsume of the welcoming lunch that he, Shigeru, and Touko shared together. Carefully, Natsume uses his chopsticks to separate a small piece off of the salmon and lifts it to his mouth. The moment he bites down, the crisp outer shell of the salmon gives way with a soft crunch, revealing the warm insides of tender meat. The tamagoyaki is soft, sweet and unlike anything that Natsume’s had before. None of his relatives had ever done this, making him breakfast where, Natsume wonders, Is this what love tastes like? Every bite is a treasure trove, perfect in every which way, golden and tender and full of the time and love that Natsume wonders if he was dreaming. What if all of this was just some cruel joke? The Fuijwaras were too nice, nicer than anyone had ever been to Natsume, too much like the dreams of family that he desperately wanted. What if they were just yokai, playing around with a stupid human child naive enough to truly believe what was happening around him. What if the Fujiwaras weren’t huma—

“Stop it.” Natsume growls out to himself. “Stop it. They’re real. Touko-san and Shigeru-san are real! They have to be real.”

A breath, and Natsume closes the bento. Even if the Fujiwara weren’t real, the food at least is and he has to save it. The Fujiwaras are nice now, but… so was Satanoka-san too, in the beginning. He can’t risk it. If there wasn’t any food anymore, the rest of the bento would at least tide him over just long enough so that Natsume could survive. Bits and pieces here and there would be enough. It was enough in the past, it will be now. So carefully, Natsume wraps up the bento, tucking it away safely into his bag. He swings the bag over his head and onto his shoulder, readjusting it like he had always done before, a habit, he realizes. Natsume looks up at the clear sapphire sky, the soft clouds rolling evenly, regularly over the wind’s waves and grabs at the strap of his bag once more as he methodically returns to the classroom, a few wrong turns here and there because the school was too new..

The bell rings as Natsume sits back down at his desk. The class settles as the teacher walks in, a different one this time, one Natsume doesn’t recognize. The lesson starts and Natsume swallows, he’s missed too many days in the past; the black board is full of incomprehensible math and everyone else seems to understand what’s going on. Natsume sets to copying what’s on the board. It’s okay, he thinks, I can figure it out. I have to. That’s when he realizes, all the periods before lunch had disappeared in a flash, and he had been sleeping the whole time, which could only mean one thing, the teacher was mad. They always get mad when he falls asleep in class. Always. So Natsume waits, hunching over, trying to make himself seem as small as possible. The earth could open up beneath him right now, and Natsume would gladly let it. Anything was better than getting yelled at.

But the cruel words never come, instead, the lecture merely continues. Natsume hunches further down, tension released from his shoulders, exhaustion overwhelming him all of a sudden. And it's as if he was Atlas, carrying the world on his shoulders, because Natsume can’t keep his eyes open, let alone sit up in his chair. The world is looming, it’s heavy, overpowering him until there’s nothing but darkness and silence.

“Wait, Kitamoto, lemme wake up Natsume first, before we go.” Nishimura said.

“Who?” Kitamoto replies from just outside the classroom door. He had just peeked into the room to find Nishimura.

“Oh, right, the new transfer student.” Nishimura said, pointing at Natsume’s sleeping figure leaning over the desk top. Kitamoto merely raises an eyebrow. “Just give me a sec, Kitamoto.”

Gently, Nishimura taps Natsume’s shoulder. And like a whirlwind destroying all that’s in its path, Natsume snaps awake in a flurry of motion, instinctively shying away from the hand that woke him up and consequently falling out of his chair. Nishimura falls back too, shocked at the sudden movement. Kitamoto surges forward to catch Nishimura and the two fall against each other, back to chest. Natsume scrambles up, a crazed look in his eyes as he stares first at Nishimura, then Kitamoto. His eyes dart back and forth between the two, chest heaving, gasping for air. A certain urgency flashes through Kitamoto and he wraps an arm around Nishimura’s middle and hauls him out of the classroom, almost carrying the severely protesting boy.

“Wait! Kitamoto what are you doing?!” Nishimura exclaims, kicking all the while being quite literally man handled into leaving the room. “Wait, Acchan! You can’t just—ack!”

With a lurch, Kitamoto practically throws the two of them down the stairs and away; he continues hauling the flailing Nishimura until they’re out of the school and far, far away from Natsume.

Natsume blinks rapidly before sliding down onto the floor, chest stuttering and breath disappearing, some spirit had ripped it from him, Natsume reasoned. Why else would he be so scared? But then again... I can’t believe I thought that Nishimura was a yokai… Natsume thought, before bringing both hands up to rub his eyes. The next time he opens them, the light is dimming and fire burns in the twilight. It’s golden hour, clouds vibrant and molten, sky burning away into black. Something about it sets Natsume off edge, something’s wrong. Hesitantly, Natsume stands back up and grabs his bag, leaving through the front of the school. Something’s wrong, it’s the familiar feeling of stares again and every hair on the back of Natsume’s neck is standing up, and yet the school is empty, too empty. Natsume hurries back to the Fujiwara house, the road stretching far in front of him. The bend in the road is thankfully familiar and it almost settles the uneasy feeling burning in Natsume with the sunset. Until he sees a shadow looming over him. A warm breath breathes down his neck, chilling a terrifyingly close.

“Natsume Reiko! Return my name!”

Natsume whips around and falls to the ground; above him is a horned yokai with no eyes and a mouth from one side of its face to the other. It opens its mouth again.

“Return it!” The yokai screams, a void opening where the mouth is, large and gaping. It lunges forward, hands clawing at Natsume’s arms and legs. Adrenaline snapping, Natsume scrambles backwards before flipping around and bolted as fast as he can away from yokai. He trips and falls, landing on his hand and slamming on to his right knee. The gravel digs into his skin, cutting it open and forcing his blood to flow onto the sturdy fabric covering his knee. The world tilts in confusing ways and Natsume runs, faster and faster until everything is just a blur, invisible to the eye. I can’t! I have to—I have to find a shrine, Natsume’s thoughts run. Shrines had always protected him before, so this time, maybe this time it would work too. So Natsume runs and runs and runs, until the world darkens and there’s nothing but him and the warm breath breathing down his neck every time he turns around.

Into the forest, over the roots and through the leaves, Natsume sees a glimpse of a staircase and staggers towards it. His lungs are burning and eating away at the precious oxygen supply that he has. Each step sends fire up his leg and into his chest, each grab of a tree trunk or root sends lava to his heart. Nothing matters except those stairs, The stairs, have to… stairs. Natsume breaks sharply to the right, the yokai following him. Up and up and up Natsume pounds along the stone stairs until with no breath left in him, he reaches a torii gate. And the moment he passes through, the yokai screams again, but proceeds no further, because it can’t. So Natsume falls to the floor on his back, his own lungs screaming for air, and the world tilting and swirling above him as he watches, strange for the season, perfect pink blossoms dancing on the air as waves crash and break about him. He closes his eyes.

A gentle touch awakens him. Natsume sits up, wincing at the sharp jabs of pain racing from his hand and knee, but then freezes at the sight before him. Lights, golden and shimmering float up and down, dipping with each lull of an invisible wave. The touch that had awoken Natsume was one of those gentle drops of yellow landing on his nose. It flew away the moment he sat up, but it lingered, drifting around Natsume before joining the sea of lights. They surround him, seemingly trying to lead him somewhere, so Natsume follows, mesmerized by the glowing faint warmth of all the lights sailing beside, above, and around him; feeling safer than he’s been before, Natsume understands no urgency. The lights bob up and down, fluttering faster and further every time he gets close enough, leading him on until just at the crest of the hill, an abandoned shrine, long lost to the echoes of time, stands firm despite its age.

The sun is long gone, settling down for the night and the sky is still that dusty black right at the end of twilight. Ink drenched shadows curl over the steps and Natsume takes a seat at the back of the shrine. The little lights flicker and bloom and settle. One moment they glisten and glow along the treetops, lighting up the flower blossoms, casting yellow rim lights; the next moment they twirl and dance downside up from staircase to tree and finally to Natsume, landing peacefully into his palm. Breathtaking and beautiful, the sky darkens into a velvet black and the world refocuses. There’s only the light of the fireflies and the smell of the blossoms. Natsume breathes in, letting his lungs finally, peacefully, take in the air that was robbed from it so long ago. By the time he’s breathed his fill and looks up, the stars have awoken, winking back at Natsume from the far off distance engulfed in space.

And it’s only now, does Natsume finally recognize the meaning of the dark. It’s too late, far too late. He should’ve been back at the Fujiwara house by now, but he’s not and suddenly, the panic settles back into his chest. It grabs at his arms, his chest, clutching tight and forcing the air out of him as it snakes its way around his neck and tightens impossibly. A noose. The world falls again and flickers. In and out. In and out. It’s too cold, too cold. The buzz is back and rings in his ears infinitely loud and obnoxiously drowning drowning drowning—

“Takashi!”

The flood stops and Natsume finds his footing, coming to the surface for the first gulp of air in who knows how long. He gasps and sputters as a figure comes rounding the corner. Natsume whips around and stares at the dark figure, overshadowed by the looming trees. But the lights around him start swirling and suddenly, Shigeru’s face comes into focus, illuminated under the glow of a thousand fireflies. A hand reaches for Natsume, patient and kind, waiting for him.

“There you are, Takashi. You gave us quite a fright you know?” Shigeru said, jokingly, a smile tugging at his lips. “Why don’t we go home before Touko-san cooks a feast for twelve.” He winks.

The water returns, but it’s no longer a waterfall of gushing drowning liquid, instead its softened. The small droplets simply dip low and fall with a quiet pit patter. Shigeru’s eyebrows knit together as he moves forward, gently sitting down next to Takashi. He opens his mouth to speak, but closes it in silence when ever so slightly, Takashi moves closer. Shigeru’s eyes soften and he wraps his arm around the crying boy’s shoulders. They sit in not silence, but quiet. Takashi doesn’t let any tears fall with sound, but the warmth of an arm around his shoulders is enough to let the waterfall flow. And the lights continue to glow; small flickers flash and float.

“Takashi-kun!” Touko exclaims as both Shigeru and Takashi enter the house. Touko still has that apron on when she comes practically running into the genkan to greet the two. “You had me so worried! Thank you, Shigeru-san, for finding Takashi-kun and—Oh my! Takashi-kun, your hand!”

Shigeru frowns and carefully takes a look at Takashi’s hand, and only then does he see the true extent of the injuries. Bruised and battered, both hand and knee were scraped raw only just scabbing over. The cuts weren’t too deep, superficial at most, but the bruising would only get worse before it got better and even then, the open wounds still needed to be properly cleaned and patched up.

“O-oh, I’m sorry, Touko-san. It’s nothing, really!” Takashi answers, clenching his fist and turning it away from Touko in an effort to hide them away from her.

“Natsume Takashi!” Touko raises her voice a slight pitch and suddenly both Shigeru and Takashi are ramrod straight. “We’re going to patch you up,” She gives a pointed look to Shigeru before continuing. “And then all of us are going to enjoy a wonderful dinner!”

And with that, Touko whisks Takashi away, pulling him into the kitchen and sitting him down in his chair. She grabs a clean napkin, lightly wetting it before returning to Takashi and rolling his pants up past his knee, dabbing at the still bleeding cut. Shigeru on the other hand enters the room a moment later, a small innocuous white box in his hand. He sets it down on the dining table and starts pulling out antiseptic, gauze, and band aids. When Touko finishes, Shigeru sweeps in, patching Takashi up. The two work in easy unison and Takashi can feel the physical burn of love coming from the two of them. And like the fire bursting with sparks, the sting of newly cleaned wounds lights another spark in his heart.

He’s home.

click here for chapter one

[filmmakersvision]

Why Arjun Reddy And Kabir Singh Are Misogynistic Characters But The Films Do Not Promote Misogyny

Disclaimer: This article contains spoilers. Both films are very similar so if you have seen only one you can read this article.

by Inakshi Chandra-Mohanty

Within three days of release, Kabir Singh has created a storm throughout the nation. Never has a film been so debated, and caused this many ugly fights between people who are on two different extremes in their opinions on the film, neither willing to listen and try to understand the other’s point of view. Kabir Singh has functioned like religion, dividing the nation in half through controversy. There is no right or wrong. There are personal opinions that should be expressed and discussed in a civilized manner without the people against the film categorizing the ones who liked the film as sexists and the people who liked the film making fun of those criticizing the film and labeling them as pseudo feminists. Here I will list a few of my opinions on the film and the debate around the misogyny in the film, as well as explore its differences with its predecessor, Arjun Reddy.

I think it will be effective to first analyze why Arjun Reddy was a huge success and did not receive as much criticism from critics and public at the time of its release. The Telegu film industry is one of the larger film industries in the country and countless people watched this film, even people like me, who do not speak Telegu, yet were curious to see  the film due to the praise it was receiving all around. A few negative comments that highlighted the misogyny existed but were limited, not because it wasn’t as big a film as Kabir Singh, but purely because there were less people that saw it as problematic. The reason for this is that Arjun Reddy broke all the clichés of commercial Telegu cinema in terms of storytelling, style, and character arcs. It was a path-breaking film in Telegu cinema. Most commercial films in the Telegu film industry have a heroic man as the lead protagonist, who has the strength to fight off evil villains, and the style to woo the awestruck heroines. Though not always, there are many cases where this hero also propagates misogyny, touching the heroine without her consent, or speaking to her in a rude manner as if she is his property. And these scenes are often seen as a form of comedy akin to the behavior of heroes in 90s Hindi films. Arjun Reddy, however, broke this convention. The protagonist was no longer a perfect hero, who gets the girl after a few successful tries. Now, he’s a deeply flawed man, who loses the girl because of his own problematic actions, and only reunites with her after going through a partially redemptive phase. He is a man who is not afraid to show his vulnerabilities, to cry and show his emotions in front of people, and that is why people were able to empathize with him, as he had human qualities, which most Telegu film protagonists do not have. The audience that was so conditioned to seeing perfect men using their style to get their way with women without any complications, was now seeing an imperfect man, with rebellious but non-heroic tendencies, lose the girl due to his very flaws, and then go further down a dark path, fighting his own demons and finally reuniting with her.

Arjun Reddy/Kabir Singh is a flawed man. He does have misogynistic tendencies, and his relationship with Preethi is definitely a toxic relationship, in which he maintains most of the control, while her submissive nature relegates her to the backseat, succumbing to his whims. The two instances in the film that stood out to me in terms of misogyny, are how he decides that she is his after only seeing her once, before even knowing her consent, and when he says during one of his anger fits that people only know her as his girl, as if she has no identity of her own. Due to his anger issues and his feeling of his entitlement, he behaves in a misogynistic manner at times. But it is not “toxic masculinity.” His behavior towards Preethi is not of a man who feels that he should have control over the woman in the relationship, purely because of his gender. His nature to control comes from his feeling of entitlement. He comes from an upper class/upper caste family and he has always been given what he wanted. There is a scene in the film where his grandmother narrates a story in which he badly wanted a toy but was not able to get it so he sulked for many days. His behavior with Preethi is similar. He desparately wants her and when he loses her due to his own ego, he spirals onto a self-destructive path, taking up alcohol, drugs, and eventually ruining the one thing that he has created himself, his career. His behavior towards Preethi is not due to gender dynamics, as he behaves similarly with everyone, his friends, his family, his classmates, his superiors at work, and even the dean of his college. He has a physical fight with his brother when his brother attempts to get him away from alcohol and drugs. He yells at his friends for the smallest of issues. When he finds out Preethi got married, he behaves rudely with his grandmother because she had said that they would end up together. There are even times when he snaps at his patients and colleagues. Numerous instances like these exist throughout the film, which show how his controlling and rude behavior is not limited to Preethi, or to women for that matter. His need to control Preethi comes out of his need to control everything happening around him, and the moment he loses control over her, he loses control over himself as well, and becomes a self-destructive alcoholic.

Preethi’s character is a little difficult to analyze because she doesn’t speak much throughout the film, and she is not present on screen for about an hour of the film in the second half. Yet, even in her silence, we can discern some of her reactions towards his advances. Her not resisting when he took her out of the classroom to teach her was not a sign of consent as she could have been intimidated and there was no point at which she clearly said yes. And Arjun/Kabir’s decision to kiss her on the cheek was also inappropriate as it was done without consent. However, we also know that she is not completely disgusted by him. When he draws on her hands to teach her, instead of going back and rubbing it off in disgust, she shows it to her friends as if it is something she is proud of. Similarly, when he puts his head on her lap (another rude and controlling move by him), she calls her friend to bring a blanket showing she has some concern for him. So, yes, many things happened without her consent and Arjun/Kabir’s behavior was definitely misogynistic and controlling, but even her feelings began to develop early in the film. However, we are not given enough information to discern why she is attracted to him. As Baradwaj Rangan said in his analysis of the film, both of them are nutcases and they both deserve each other. Arjun/Kabir continues to behave in a controlling manner but even Preethi has some agency in the relationship going forward in the film. The first move, before they kiss and have sex for the first time, is made by Preethi. She holds his hand, giving him a signal that she wants to move forward in the relationship. Even when they are in a long-distance relationship, she is the first to go and visit him. Even though he is clearly the dominating power in the relationship, and she speaks very little throughout the film, she definitely has some agency in the relationship. However, we have to remember that her character is written in a one-dimensional manner, so despite these small signs of her effort in the relationship, we cannot fully discern her thoughts towards him. It is not clear whether she is just attracted to him, or she feels truly connected with him, or if it is a case of Stockholm Syndrome.

The ending is a bit too neat, starting with him noticing Preethi in the park, to her still visiting the same park even after his vacation’s end, to her accepting him, and even the fact that the child is his. But despite these “too good to be true” situations, I loved the structure of the last scene. For the first time in the film, Arjun/Kabir wasn’t in control. Yes, his nature still remained the same as he insisted that Preethi come with him despite her refusal to initially speak with him. His tone of speaking to her was still full of attitude. But the whole conversation was controlled by her. Arjun/Kabir just stood there calmly, pleading without losing his cool, while she disparaged him for causing her so much pain. This shows the evolution of his character. For the first time, he didn’t get angry when someone said “no” to him. He kept his ego in check and listened to her as she expressed her sorrows. And then he let her slap him, multiple times, because somewhere inside, he was aware that her suffering was his fault. He didn’t completely change. He didn’t become the perfect man for Preethi. His attitude and controlling nature remained the same, but his ability to control his anger and his ability to actually listen to what someone else had to say, is what made him a slightly better person than what he was before.

Films have the power to influence people but only to the extent that they allow it. The highly problematic nature of this film is due to the fact that there are many people in India who will view this film with a patriarchal mindset, and will see the film as validation for behavior that they already practice. The fact that Arjun/Kabir succeeded in his love, will allow these people to use this film as an excuse for behaving in a rude, controlling manner with women. However, the film cannot be held responsible for the behavior of a select few that already have it in their mind that it is alright to behave in this manner with women. The film never glorifies his horrible behavior, and in fact, punishes him by taking away his love, his family, and then eventually his career. He only reunites with Preethi after he sets off on a path towards redemption. Arjun/Kabir is a very very flawed man, but even flawed men deserve stories.

[tacitoru]

Dance to This (m)

pairing: fuqboi!jhs x reader

genre: smut, dance majors!au

warnings: light bondage (?), thigh riding, self-gratification lmao

wc: 3k

notes: an old draft i found collecting dust in my wips from a year ago. i think it meant to have more plot and detail but I’m not entirely sure lol editing this was more as a mental break from my current stuff than anything else and i can't remember what my original idea for this was but enjoy lmao

synopsis: in lieu of your injured partner, you’re forced to work with one of the biggest mistakes you’ve made in your college career.

Some of the most important things came in pairs; shoes, lungs, chopsticks, dance partners.  Yet much to your inconvenience, you had managed to become the mismatched sock in an otherwise perfectly organized dresser drawer of neatly rolled - and paired - socks. Four weeks before one of the largest showcases in your college career, your dance partner Jimin, a sophomore prodigy, had badly twisted his ankle slipping on black ice that had frozen along the steps outside his dormitory in the aftermath of a winter storm. While the boy would still be able to dance in a few months' time, your instructor was quick to find someone to fill in the blank. Rather than your more preferable idea of turning your duet into a solo, you were haphazardly thrown to the whims of one irksome Jung Hoseok.

It wasn't that he was terrible. It was far from that - he was too good, and he knew it.

Flawless transitions, a body that moved with all the expression, ease, grace and passion you could only hope you portrayed. His performance pushed the limits of perfection and inspired awe to those who spectated, upper and underclassmen alike. And it just so happened he would be performing in the same show with you at the end of the semester, in an effort to attract the attention of big-name dance companies. To secure a future in the industry.

Yet the unbalanced dynamic caused by a long and awkward history between the two of you seemed to threaten all of that.

"Does it hurt?"

The question sounds silly the moment it leaves your mouth, and the odd look on Jimin's face most likely mirrors yours. Obviously, it hurt. But Jimin, the angel that he was, only smiles brightly and wiggles his toes in the cast. "Only a little."

Jimin, practically a contemporary dance prodigy, still had a year to go, hence, he avoided many repercussions of not being able to participate in the show. You, on the other hand, were grinding down to the last semester at your performing arts school. While it wouldn't be impossible to get a job teaching at a studio or even at another school, it wasn't what you were looking for - wasn't what you had dreamed of.

And now, with Jimin's eyes drowning you in that well-known look of pity, that dream felt very, extremely out of reach.

You shot up out of your seat, feeling your skin crawl and your ears burn under that familiar feeling of irritation. A hot feeling filled your head with all the pent-up frustration from the situation that had long gone out of your hands. You need to get out.  For a fleeting moment, you're tempted to step on Jimin's other ankle out of pure (unwarranted) pettiness. Damn you for leaving me in a position like this.

"I just wanted to stop by and make sure you were doing alright…" You hope your smile looks more amiable than it feels.

The boy nods, extending his arms as if going for a hug, and then quickly retracting into a half wave as though he's thought better about it. Over the grueling hours and months you had spent practicing hard together, you and Jimin worked together like a well-oiled machine across the floor. You were good partners, even nearly friends, but close was something you were not. At the end of each day, you both went your separate ways. Still, it felt wrong for this to have happened and to not stop by the hospital, no matter little of value the relationship was to you.

As you reach the door Jimin calls out to you, "Are you heading to the studio?" He eyes your attire and the gym bag you shoulder as if that if not an obvious enough answer.

"Yeah."

"Is everything going okay with Hoseok?"

The fingers that rest of the doorknob curl around it in an iron grip. You glare hard at the scuffed tile floors, biting your tongue at the slight idolization you hear in Jimin's tone just at speaking the man's name. He had always been a bit of a fan.

"It's great," you lament, pushing through the doorway. "Fucking fantastic."

There is only one studio ever open past ten o'clock at night, and you are one of a handful that ever wanders in there so late at night after an already taxing day spent on these very floors. So when you arrive to find a sliver of light from the doorway and heavy bass of an R&B song trembling the walls of the corridor, the sense of frustration from earlier that evening only seems to balloon. Kicking the door open and fully intending on forcing the person out of the studio, you're stopped short by the sight before you.

Two closely intertwined half-dressed bodies, moving erratically and jammed up against a foggy wall length mirror jump apart at the sound of the door slamming into the wall behind it. You mentally wince, knowing that someone's instructor will spaz when they discover a door handle sized dent in the drywall.

Jung Hoseok stands in a sweat-sticky tee, hair tousled, slowly tucking himself back into the draws and basketball shorts that had fallen to his shins, looking a hell of a lot less perturbed than the girl he was just dick-deep inside. This - this was exactly why you refused to be partnered with him.

The girl (one you vaguely recognize from an Intro to Tap class you took on a whim) looks frazzled, struggling to simultaneously reach for her leggings and pull up her bra. She opens her mouth to exclaim in anger, but you beat her to the punch.

"What the fuck is this."

You stretch in silence. It's always like this now, as opposed to the pop music blasting over the stereo Jimin would play during warmups, the mild hellos and good mornings, the partner stretches or the comfortable small talk made between switching positions. Now, with Hoseok, the closest thing to a greeting is a nod or a grunt. Warming up is done in radio silence, save for the days like today when you remember to bring your earbuds and turn the volume too low for your new partner to hear, but loud enough to block out your thoughts and the awkward tension that's more deafening than the silence.

Today is more uncomfortable than others, for a multitude of reasons. You can hardly turn your head in Hoseok's direction, the image of him pinning your old classmate to the mirror by the arms and the flash of his bare ass forever printed to the backs of your eyelids. You say nothing to him though, having shared more than enough words when all he had replied to your outrage was with a shrugged off, "Practice."

You had cursed him and his accomplice out, reprimanding them for misuse of school facilities. A reprimanding that had, apparently, gone right over their heads, because while the girl had at first a little decency to appear sheepish, she had shoulder her way past you to the door hissing, "killjoy."

Despite the fact that the previous night's events had only amplified your cold attitude toward him, you could feel Hoseok's gaze burn hole between your shoulder blades. You had a three-hour practice together before a break for lunch, and although it had only just started, you were counting down the minutes.

Little was said for the first half, aside from "Let's try that again," and "One more time from the top,". Despite being thrown into it at a moment's notice, Hoseok is a fast learner and picks up the routine quickly. However, when it gets to the point where the instructor allows you to practice without him for the last hour and a half, Hoseok feels unnecessarily entitled to fill the void. Most days you don't mind a little constructive criticism. Yet today, when his hands unexpectedly go for your hips in the middle of a turn, you practically leap three feet in the air before stumbling out of his reach.

You whip around to face him, hands planted on your hips. "Can I help you?!"

Hoseok has known you've been on edge all day, yet the look on his face is one of genuine surprise at your outburst. He blinks. "You're moving your hips all wrong."

"Wha-?"

"Your hips," He falters when you move further away from him when he reaches for you again, sighing exasperatedly. "You look super stiff like you're trying to twist your way out of a tight pair of jeans. There's no fluidity."

Chin tilted in his direction, you keep your defensive stance, still mentally gathering your bearings. The image of bare thighs flash across your thoughts, and it takes everything in you not to screw your face up at the memory. "Excuse me? Instructor Lee said that I was doing this perfectly fine-,"

Hoseok snorts, "Instructor Lee doesn't want to hurt your fragile little feelings."

"My feelings?!" Is he not the damn professor?

"Y/N, I know what happened yesterday was a little…unprecedented. But if you want to be taken seriously at this showcase, you have to focus and be able to handle constructive criticism."

"Taken seriously?!" At this point you're just parroting what he says, his condescending tone rendering you shocked into disbelief. You've quickly gone from defensive to full offense, advancing on Hoseok. "You, of all people, are the very last person to talk to me about being serious! Especially after that stint the other night. Can't you take your private business somewhere a little more, I dunno…private? How do you expect me to just unsee whatever the hell that was? I can't sleep, Hoseok. I have nightmares. Don't you know how much this sucks? How much more stress you've caused me?!" At this point you've got a single pointer finger digging into his pectoral with so much force he bats your hand away with a hiss.

"Look, I think you're exaggerating a little too much-,"

"And I don't think you're taking this seriously enough. This isn't a game, Jung. Don't you know how much I want this?!"

"You don't think I want this either?!" Hoseok barks back, appearing more than a little miffed.

"You certainly don't act like it."

He huffs again, shaking his head dismissively. "Look, I'm not ecstatic that we got paired together so last minute either, but we could work so well together if you would just stop being so tightly wound-,"

"-You're the reason I'm so wound up-!"

"Then let me undo it!"

The words hang in the distance between you, which Hoseok tries to close in a quick succession of steps that bring him far too close for comfort.

"Excuse me?" You lean away,  tilting your chin to glaring up at him incredulously over the bridge of your nose. Is he offering what you think he's offering?

"Let me help you relax," he reiterates. "If it means you'll be more compliant."

"You say that as if this whole mess is my fault.  And as if I'd ever get comfortable enough to let you put your hands on me again," you scoff.

"Y/N… You know I can do it. You know I can get you there. It's a matter of morals, really. Stop being so stiff." Your name rolls from the depth of throat in a low growl. His hands hover by your sides as though he's fighting the urge to initiate physical contact, fidgeting fingers curling into fists. Suddenly, you're reminded of every other hapless run in you've had with Jung Hoseok for the past four years, how they all started like this and ended the same. A long progression of tension, sly looks, flirting, wandering hands and an offer that you had never taken upon until your junior year because you never thought he really meant it. You had thought were better than that and had more self-respect than all of the other girls before you who had succumbed to such encouragement on his part. But that night, when you had caved in because he was so damn earnest and you had managed to convince yourself he really did care, was the night that had solidified the true nature of your relationship and revealed the real character behind one determined, dazzling Jung Hoseok. When he had left you alone, in a stranger's bed in the heated aftermath of a house party held by the friend of a friend, only to reappear into your life the next day with another girl on his arm. You had felt played. Hence began the year-long tirade against anything and everything Hoseok related - until now.

"Having a sense of self-respect and morality makes me stiff? What, so you wanna bang me against the mirror like you did to your other little friend?" you sneer. 'I didn't think you'd take me for someone so easily. "

His eyes flash, more than likely reliving that night too, the last time you had ever really talked to him outside of the studio. You grip the hoodie that's tied lowly around his hips and yank him an inch forward so that you can nose up to his ear.

"Fine. I'll let you help me, but we'll do it my way this time."

And then you're shoving him backward, towards the balancing bar, quickly untying the knot of his sweater sleeves as you go. Hoseok trips over his own feet, all of his usual elegance and grace lost as he struggles to comprehend your intentions. He grimaces when his back hits the wall. "What are you doing?"

Blatantly ignoring him, you place your free hand on his shoulder pressing down, the other still holding the sleeves of his hoodie together. "Kneel." His brow furrows at the command, but he complies none the less, slowly sinking to the floor.

A feeling of satisfaction thrums through your veins at the sight of him like this, knocked off his pedestal and quite literally a few feet beneath you. In a single motion, you ruck the hoodie up from his waist, pulling his arms up from under his biceps in the process. Stepping closer so that you stand over his knees, Hoseok awkwardly attempts to reach for your waist, yet you slip the hoodie around his wrists and tie them to the bar in a haphazard yet decently secured knot.

"I said you're not going to lay a hand on me." You hiss, wedging a foot between his knees, you direct him to slide his feet from under himself and prop his legs up. Much to your surprise, your toes brush up on his crotch, finding him already half hard.

You flash him a mocking smile. "Already?"

Hoseok only looks down at the floor in response, cheeks flushing red with shame.

"It's alright. You've always been one to take what you want." He watches you with wide eyes as you undo the strings of your sweatpants, gaze quickly flitting to the mirror, and then the door.  "Now it's my turn."

"What about the door?"

A bolt of panic runs down your spine. It's daytime, and despite it being so close to lunch hours, it is more than likely that anyone could walk right in and catch you in the act. However, you remember the light in the hall, the unlocked door, the unworried look, and nonchalant air that which Hoseok had carried himself when you had found him and that girl, and you realized that he didn't really care. He couldn't have. It makes you all the more determined, and a little bold.

You step out of your sweatpants and gradually lower yourself into his lap, pinching his chin to divert his attention back to you in a show of bravado. "Let them see, then."

Straddling his left leg, Hoseok's eyes become impossibly wide as you begin a steady gyration over his thigh. "You've always had such nice thighs Hobi. How about you put them to some good use."

Slowly but surely you move your hips along the ridge of muscle in his leg, one hand on the balancing bar and the other on his shoulder for support. The pressure on your core brings a thrill of pleasure down your spine, heat filling low in your abdomen. A breathless sigh escapes you, and Hoseok groans at the sight before him. You nearly laugh at the sight of his petulance.

"Didn't think it would turn out like this, would it?" Knees braced on either side of his legs, you grind down harder. When your kneecap brushes the bulge between his legs, Hoseok gasps, responding with an erratic buck of his hips. He tosses his head back, hiding his face in the crook of his right arm. The answer to that question would be yes, but he senses that you're not looking for an answer; you already have one. "Leaving the door open, not even the slightest bit surprised when I came through the door. You knew what you were doing last night." You seethe in his ear. "Think of how unfair you're being; fucking her while you're thinking of me."

Hoseok growls. "Who said I was thinking of you."

"Nobody had to." You roll your hips into his thigh faster, seeking that self-satisfaction, and Hoseok hates it. He wants you pinned to the floor, beneath him, his mouth on the alluring juncture between your neck and shoulder, and his hands on any bare skin he can possess. Instead, here you are, rendering him subdued while you use his body to get you off like some kind of toy.

"I-I didn't even know that girl was coming last night. I-I was waiting for you," Hoseok confesses, albeit reluctant. "Wanted to get your attention again."

"Well, now you've definitely got it." One particular motion results in the material of your panties to chafe directly at your clit, causing you to stutter. "Oh, f-fuck!"

You're ridiculously wet, evident in the dark streaks left in the fabric of his red shorts. Hoseok gathers the strength to look at you again, moaning at the sight of you working yourself on him. He flexes his leg and you falter again, whimpering. You're close, he can tell. For a moment Hoseok fidgets against his makeshift restraints.

"I could make you feel so much better if you would just let my hands go."

"Not happening," You admonish gripping his jaw with the hand not on the bar when Hoseok tries to toss his head back again in frustration. "Look at me - no, look at me."

Your partner's replacement is forced to watch as you whine and wriggle yourself to completion on his leg. The pressure of your knee on his crotch leaves little to no relief, and yet he bucks up in a last ditch effort anyways. When you finally hoist yourself up, shiny streaks stick to some places where the edge of his shorts meets his bare skin. Hoseok nearly gawks at the site. Meanwhile, you pull yourself together, hiking on your sweatpants and turning to gather your things.

"Hey!" He realizes your intentions and begins to panic.  You throw him a bored look over your shoulder, halfway out the door. In his stupor, he recognizes it to be one far too identical to his demeanor the other night. Except for this time, it's no bluff. "Untie me?"

You raise an eyebrow.

"Please?"

Instead of granting his wish, you slowly stride over to him, pulling out your phone to snap a quick photo of him. The fantastic, Jung Hoseok, God's gift to the world of performance arts, looking disheveled, distraught and tied up to a balancing bar. It was too good to pass up.

"Okay. I've had my fun." With one good yank, you release the man from his confines and stalk out of the practice room. "But don't think it'll be happening again."

[vkelleyart]

Regarding “Impostor Syndrome” and other deadly maladies.

In the mid 2000s, I took an anatomical drawing class with the Art League in Alexandria, VA. It was my first (and only) art class, and while my fellow students represented a wide range of artistic experience and ages - the youngest was a candy-haired college student and the eldest looked like Gandalf if he’d gone vacationing in Boca Raton - I seemed to be the only one there without some kind of legitimate background in art. These folks were art majors, art teachers, or art enthusiasts. My artistic experience? I drew Harry Potter fanart for fun.

On the first day of class, everyone showed up with their well-worn pencils and sketchbooks and decal-decorated toolboxes full of charcoals and crayons. They knew what to do with the massive easels with the clippy thingies I was too short to reach. I was there with a large sketch pad and a ziploc bag containing only the basic set of tools mandated by the class, both of which I had picked up at the Art League store earlier that day. 

I have no idea what I was expecting. This wasn’t the same as posting my sketches to LiveJournal. Online, it was easy to hide that I was an illegitimate artist. There, sitting in a circle of easels while a real artist talked about shapes and contours as a woman sat on a stool in her bathrobe waiting to undress, I was painfully aware of how exposed I was. 

But there was no backing out now. I’d saved up nickels and dimes (literally) to pay for this instruction and I clearly needed it, given how frustrated I was every time I tried to draw the human figure. So I told myself to lay low and just do my best. But every time the teacher walked around to observe us, he would stop behind my shoulder and make recommendations for adjustments. I could feel my classmates’ eyes burn into me as they glanced at me from behind their easels. No one else was getting their hand held this way. 

I was devastated. I didn’t realize I was so behind.

The third or fourth week into the course, the instructor of the class (whose name I wish I remembered, but who’d contributed illustrations to the Washington Post and the New Yorker when he wasn’t straight up producing fine art to be sold for thousands of dollars) told me to stay behind after class. 

Here it comes, I thought: my invitation to leave and transfer to “Drawing for Beginners.”

He asked me if I’d had prior instruction. I told him I didn’t. 

“You clearly have an instinct for this,” he said. “Your classmates have yet to demonstrate what I’m seeing in you, and we’re only a third of the way through the course. This is something you should really pursue and develop. I’d like to teach you privately.”

My jaw dropped. I didn’t know what to say, so I’m pretty sure I started stammering, because that’s what I do when I’m gobsmacked. I couldn’t give him an answer on the spot, so he made me promise him a decision after the course was over.

At the end of the summer, once the class had finished, we exchanged emails but, ultimately, even after he lowered his fee several times, there was no way I could pay for his tutelage on the salary I was making. 

I remember the night I sent him the last email, in which I thanked him for his generosity and for his faith in my abilities but had to decline his offer. I simply couldn’t afford private instruction. 

I hit ‘send,’ and then I cried myself to sleep.

Fast forward to today, and I’m still haunted by that summer. Every so often, I wonder what kind of artist I’d be if only I’d had the money to go further with my teacher the way he wanted me to. Every time I reach for the eraser or I find myself leaning too hard on shortcuts, it kicks up that feeling I had when I was sitting in that class on the first day of instruction. That I’m not a true artist because I don’t have the degree or the experience or the validation of critics. 

That I’m an impostor.

While I’m getting better at bearing witness to that critical voice when it arises (as opposed to identifying with and integrating it), it occasionally worms its way back into my consciousness to dismantle my courage and subvert my creative energies. And when it does, it’s like coming down with the flu. I’m fuzzy. Derailed. Diminished.

If I’m not careful, that line of thinking becomes a legitimate adversary that  steers me away from anything that feeds my soul. It tells me lies about being useless, being unoriginal, and having nothing to say through my art. That I’m not worth a higher price tag on the art I do produce, and that a life beyond cobbling together standard-looking vector art for yet another government training module belongs to artists who have the fine arts diploma on their wall.

This is precisely where I was at last August. And then I picked up a book that inspired me to pick up my pencil, and it was astonishing when inspiration began to crowd out the ways I was immersing myself in self-doubt. Astonishing because that negativity had built up so slowly over the course of 8 years that I didn’t realize I was drowning in it until I’d pulled myself back out with my sketchbook.

It’s like this:

A friend of mine through the activism group I belong to said she was once asked to describe herself the way her friends and loved ones would describe her.

“They would all call me a leader,” she said. “But for some reason, I couldn’t call myself that.” It didn’t feel honest for her, even though her actions, her convictions, and her ability to galvanize others proved that she was, indeed, leadership material. She was suffering from the same impostor syndrome I was.

She and I both decided we were going to go to the mattresses against that inner “censor” this year. And, lemme tell you, it’s hard because every day, it adjusts its strategy against me, attacking from different angles and finding new weaknesses. Today, it’s scrolling through the work of an artist I admire and feeling inadequate compared to them. Tomorrow, it’ll be something else. But whatever strategy it employs to take me down, I’m fortifying my defenses every time I pick up the pencil and draw in spite of the voice that tries to convince me there is no worthwhile end game to my efforts.

I share this here, not only because writing this out is part of my personal fight, but also because I know there are many other creative people on Tumblr who feel this way and grapple with not feeling “enough.” 

It doesn’t matter what your path was before today, if today is the day you decide you are a creator. And if, after living your truth, your inner critic makes you doubt who/what you are, find someone who knows and loves you to put you right again.

When I feel like less than what I should be, like I’m Pinocchio waiting to be a real boy, I’m going to think about my son. I’ve never told him my job title for the government, and while he sees me drawing all the time, my professional activities go largely undisclosed. But this past December, when his Kindergarten teacher asked him what his mommy does for a living, his answer was, “She’s an artist.” 

And I believe him.

[cynicalwonders]

Meanwhile we step back to when Akuma happen. Where was chat Noir? It might be the fact that it was becoming increasingly common to see LB fight crime outside Akuma attacks, w/o her partner and this left many speculations. Only the thing being if there was any drama going on Chat would keep appearing to fight besides LB and preferably going solo. There were theories and rumors but it didn't stop the duo. Yet, it goes without saying there was tension between them.

Adrien was – no, is – a coward. That's the only way he candescribe himself.

A coward for refusing to stand up for to his father. Acoward for letting Chloe use him and bully others without consequences. Forletting Lila lie and manipulate his classmates. For telling Marinette to stayquiet and not do anything.

And most importantly: he's a coward for failing to be therefor Ladybug when she needed him the most.

Although it was always Ladybug AND Chat Noir, the ‘and ChatNoir' part has slowly but surely been disappearing from the public's mind.Ladybug became more serious with her duties as protector of Paris in the pastfew weeks. More and more sightings have been popping up on social media ascitizens saw their heroine at every hour of the day, not just when akumasattacks. Questions, speculations, and theories flooded the Ladyblog on whyLadybug was so active. Was she close to finding Hawk Moth? Was she doing anafternoon patrol and a night patrol? Was she branching out to stop other crimesthat weren't akuma-related?

Yet no one questioned where her feline partner was.

When is first started, Adrien waved it off. Of course,everyone was going crazy about Ladybug. Who wouldn't? He'd just wave it off assomething she was doing during the day or maybe she wanted some escape from hernormal life. Adrien did that plenty of times. Plus that was more time he couldspend with his Lady without the threat of some crazy villain trying to taketheir Miraculous. And for a while, it was great! They hung out more and he feltlike they were getting closer, not romantically but he was fine with that forthe moment.

Then – like most good things – it took a dark twist.

People started to question where Chat Noir was. ‘Finally!'he thought. ‘They were finally noticing!' But then commenters startedtheorizing that maybe he and Ladybug had a fight. Okay, that wasn't too bad.Not true, but nothing to worry about. Until people started questioning hisloyalty to Ladybug and his skills as her partner. Some even went as far asbashing him online, noting that he was a useless hero as he always got hurt,hypnotized or used by an akuma while Ladybug was forced to do more work.

That stung.

Chat Noir told Ladybug about the comments but she just toldhim to ignore them, that there were always going to be criticism and hatefulpeople trying to bring them down. He himself should know as Adrien Agrestealways got criticism for everything he did – from modeling to his lessons,anything less than perfect was subject to scolding and harsher teachings. Thisshouldn't have been different and yet…

Chat Noir represented freedom to Adrien. Freedom from hisfather and his cold gaze, from the judging eye of the camera, from theever-increasing drama that was unfolding in his school. Without Plagg and his Miraculous,he wasn't sure if he could even remain happy in his current situation. And itwasn't like anything bad was happening. So what if Ladybug was showing up morepublically? That wasn't a bad thing, right?

Wrong. Because despite the mask and her usual upbeat charm,he could spot the underlining bag under her lovely blue eyes, the slight gaspshe had when they met up, the slump on her back when he ended a patrol. Atfirst, he said nothing. She was Ladybug, she could handle herself. But itstarted getting more noticeable, especially when akumas showed up and the fighttook more out of her than it did him. Chat Noir tried to gently dissuade her,get her to cut back on her patrol as there was clearly no need for such anincrease. But she was stubborn, fought back, snapped at him every time hebrought it up. Once screeching at him after a battle to leave her alone.

Soon they were fighting each other as well as the akumas. Itdidn't help when passersby started taping their fights and putting them online,allowing everyone and their grandmother to put in their two cents. Adrienwasn't even going to attempt to sugarcoat it, their partnership becamestrained. Rarely talking if it didn't involve a plan to take down an akuma, hisjokes were ignored and every little thing seemed to piss off his Lady.

What was a cat to do in such a situation?

Ignore it. That was he thought was the best course ofaction. Ignore it, give her space and maybe she'll calm down and see how sillyshe was being. Besides, he couldn't handle any more drama in his life. Not withthe whole Lila VS Marinette going on at his school. Adrien stilled tried to getMarinette to ignored Lila but she, like his Lady, refused to give in and whenout of her way to expose Lila. Honestly, he was ashamed that Marinette didn'ttake his advice. Exposing people never did anything good and Lila was going tobecome another akuma that he was going to have to take down.

So Adrien ignored it.

Ignored the drama in the class and ignored his Lady.

Ignored the growing concern for both girls

Ignored the vile rumors swirling around them both.

Rumors didn't mean anything, they'd died down eventually.

They'd both come to their senses.

All it took was some time.

And with that, Adrien was content to wait out the storm andhave everything go back to normal. Marinette would finally give up and seeLila's lies were harmless. Ladybug would stop being so uptight and relax. Theonline rumors and criticism then follow suit and disappear and things will goback to the way they were. Adrien was confident in that.

Then Juno happened.

Marinette hadn't come back from the break when the alarmsounded. Alya, being the sneaky reporter she was, managed to escape before theteacher closed the door, sealing the rest of the class in. Adrien started panicking,instinctually trying to find a way out. But then a part of him – the cynical,petty part of him – told him to give up, that there was no way he could get outwith raising suspicion. Plus, did Ladybug really need him? After their fight,did she really want to see him? Did he want to see her?

Without thinking, he sat back down in his seat.

A few minutes later and the Ladyblog began live streamingthe battle. Lila started crying on how Juno was her mother and how Ladybug musthave caused her akumatization due to her bullying her. People started rallyingaround her, bashing Ladybug on the comment section and getting into fights withloyal fans. Adrien paid no mind to that and was solely focused on the fight.

Ladybug looked overwhelmed. Tired. Desperate. Part of himfelt smug like Ladybug was getting her comeuppance for her arrogance. Or maybeit the endless rejections she gave that made him feel that way. Another yearnedto escape and help her. Despite the bitter note, she left him, he still lovedher. Plagg was scratching him under the collar, hissing at him to get a moveon.

"Something bad is going to happen, kid," hewarned. "I can feel it in my whiskers. We got to get out of…"

Rose's screaming cut him off.

Glaring back at him was a scene of Juno plunging her swordinto Ladybug's chest. Adrien was never a fan of gore or anything that remotelyhorrific. But seeing his Ladybug stabbed, her face frozen in abject shock andhorror, it didn't seem real. Then Ladybug opened her mouth and blood spilled outand suddenly time started going fast forward.

People – namely his classmates – started screeching.Garbled, unintelligible shrieks echoed throughout the room, deafening theteacher's unsuccessful attempts to calm the hysterics. Soon the entire buildingwas filling with similar screams and cries along with all of Paris. Adrien feltlike he couldn't breathe, his knuckle whiten as the screen on his phone focusin on Ladybug's bloody and terrified face.

Then the familiar beeping cut through the screams.

Everyone's eyes turned back to their phones.

Ladybug was gone.

Instead, Marinette was the one impaled on Juno's sword.

Whatever happened next was shrouded in Adrien's mind. All hecould remember was blacking out, then finding himself atop a building as ChatNoir, looking over the chaotic scene that was taking place. Marinette wasalready gone, no doubt taken by the ambulance that had just speed out of thestreet, leaving only a sizable red spot in the center.

Why he didn't chase after the ambulance was anyone's guess.Maybe he was still in shock? Maybe he was afraid to see how dire her situationwas? Maybe he felt like he had no right to see her after this? He had abandonedhis Lady, his partner, his classmate, his friend…

Did he even deserve to call her that?

Clawing at his chest, he felt the organ beat heavily insidehim. Marinette. Ladybug. The two people who he had respected, cared for, whocared for him, were one and the same. Marinette with her endless kindness, hercourage, her talent, and inspiration. Ladybug, Paris's heroine, their savior,their martyr, someone who would willingly give her life if it meant that Pariswas safe for another day. Two different characters were one and the same,giving her life to protect everyone around them

And he abandoned her in her time of need.

Plagg released the transformation after some time on theroof. Adrien stared on, absolute nothingness reflected in his eyes. "Comeon, kid," the kwami begged. "We need to get out of here! Weneed…"

"To come with me."

Adrien turned his head sharply. Standing behind him, hisentrance went unnoticed by him, an elderly withered Asian man in a Hawaiianshirt. Before he could say anything, Plagg beat him to the punch. "MasterFu! Ladybug was…"

"I know," Master Fu looked gravely. "We donot have much time to lose. Come with me, Chat Noir. I have something thatcould save Ladybug."

"Save? What do you mean?" Adrien looked at the manin confusion. "Wouldn't the hospital…"

"Hospital cannot save her from the real dangerinside." Master Fu turned and headed towards the exit. "Come, ChatNoir. Or do you wish to fail Ladybug a second time?"

Adrien needed no other words after that.

The vial he gave the feline hero glowed ominously as heraced towards the hospital. Master Fu didn't go into much detail about theillness Marinette would be suffering, or how this potion would help her. Butthe instruction was clear: put the potion into Marinette's IV bag and she wouldbe fine. He prayed to any and all deities that exist for this to be true. Newsof Marinette's successful surgery but the inability to wake up spread throughthe internet like wildfire. Crowds of fans and grateful citizens were huddledaround the medical building waiting for more news.

He took a deep breath, steady his nerves and prepared tomake a leap towards the hospital's roof before he nearly tripped himself asscreams from the crowd startled him. Glancing down, he scanned the area lookingany sign of danger and origin of the screams. He found none yet the screamscontinued to grow until their screams become one and the message was sent out.

Marinette – Ladybug – had gone missing.

Again, Adrien had failed his partner.

Paris went into a full-blown panic. How could this havehappened?! Fans and police officials surrounded the hospital both day andnight. At first, they believed it was a hoax – some fame-hungry journaliststarted a crisis to drum up news – but it soon became real when the nurses anddoctors calling in nearby officers and putting the entire building on lockdown.

Chat Noir tried getting into the building but Officer Rogersforbid him to. Stating they couldn't have kids running around while a missingperson's case was emerging. The blonde looked at him in shock; did he notrealize that he was Chat Noir?! Ladybug's partner?! But the older man stayedfirm and told him to go home and that kids shouldn't dealing with adultmatters.

"We already failed in one regard," Chat heard theman muttering under his breath, glancing at the hospital room #7.

Journalist and reporters jumped him as he was escorted outthe building, bombarding him with questions on where Ladybug was, was helooking for her, and – the cruelest of all – why wasn't he there when Junoattacked. Too much. Everything was too much. And like the coward he was, heran. Launching himself away from the crowd onto a nearby rooftop and fleeing.He didn't care what the public thought of him anymore, not when the only personwhoever cared about him was gone.

As if his luck couldn't get any worse, once he got home, hisfather put him under lockdown. "Your hero got fatally stabbed and is nowmissing. Not to mention the psychopathic akuma is still running around doinggod knows what," Gabriel reasoned. "Paris is in a panic and thestreets are running mad with the masses. I refuse to see you get hurt in thischaos. Until the matter is resolved, you are under no circumstances leavingthis house."

He opened his mouth to argue but one look from his fatherquickly shut him down. Plagg encouraged him to sneak out, to Cataclysm the barson the window but the blonde couldn't bring himself to do it. Not with hisfather, Nathalie, and Gorilla all making rounds around the manor. Even now,with someone so dear to him gone, Adrien still couldn't' bring himself todisobey his father and fight for his own freedom.

Days went by with no word. News reports kept circlingbetween regular news and the search for Marinette Dupain-Cheng AKA Ladybug. Sofar, there were no leads, no suspects, nothing. Online was a clusterfuck oftheories, speculations, and rants on who or what could have happened toMarinette. Theories ranging from she ran away, memory loss, kidnapping by somesecret society or some religious cult and one group that fully believed thatHawk Moth stole her after her identity was revealed on the Ladyblog.

Speaking of the Ladyblog, nothing had been posted since theinfamous live stream, only the forum had become overrun with rabid fans.According to Nino, who had been his only link to the outside world, Alya had gonethrough a bit of breakdown since the incident. Going from a sobbing mess to araging inferno about the entire situation. At first, the reporter tried to getinto the hospital during Marinette's surgery; doing everything she can to be byher friend's side to apologize, to beg for forgiveness, to repair theirfragmented friendship. When that went nowhere, Alya's grief turned to rage asshe set off to find the person that caused all this damage.

But surprise, surprise – Lila suddenly went missing too.

As did Juno. Police were split between searching for themissing comatose teenage superhero to finding the rogue akuma – if she wasstill an akuma and Hawk Moth didn't release it – and her daughter. The newsthrew Alya into a frenzy, tearing her room apart and smashing any tapes orphotos that had even a trace of the Italian girl in them. Thankfully Ninocalmed her down before her parents thought of sending her to a psychiatric wardfor her breakdown.

Things weren't much better with the other students. Guilt, sadness,and grief suffocated them like a viper. Some of the more stable, stronger oneslike Ivan and Alix kept their composer but you could still see the weight oftheir mourning on their faces. The more sensitive ones like Rose and Mylenecouldn't hide their feelings as well, tear tracks with red eyes were a constantfeature. M. Bustier didn't fare much better as the school forced her to have amental leave for obvious reasons.

Strangely enough, the only levelheaded person in the classwas Chloe! After the incident and the shock had worn off, the blonde girlstormed off into the direction of the bakery, went straight into Marinette'sroom and started going through her things. Alya and the rest of the class werefurious, screaming at her and asking what possessed her to do something soinsensitive. Chloe wasted no time explaining.

"Marinette is Ladybug! And she chose who got to beQueen Bee, Rena Rouge, and Carapace," she answered. "That means shehas access to the Miraculous. I'm not going to lie, I was horrible toMarinette, a straight up bitch. But I'll be damned if I let something happen tothe one person who actually saw something good in me! And to do that, I need myMiraculous! I need Pollen!"

Adrien and the rest of the students were shocked to hearsuch a statement coming from Chloe. What was even stranger to Adrien was thatNino and Alya were helping Chloe find her Miraculous! And just like that, Ninoleft Adrien hanging. No more text, no more updates. The only thing he got was amessage saying ‘helping Alya + Chloefind the miraculous' and that was it.

Plagg tried desperately to move his butt and get out thereand search for Marinette, but he couldn't. He wanted to, but his wallowing inself-pity, doubt and guilt kept sucking him back in.  This was all his fault. If he had just beenbraver. If he had actually stood up for himself. If he just, for once in hislife, fought for what was right instead of listening to his fault and kept hismouth shut then none of this would have happened.

It was only when he spotted Chloe as Queen Bee running therooftops with Rena Rouge and Carapace that Adrien finally snapped out of it.That and Plagg biting down on his fingers. After suiting up and destroying thebars, the feline hero escaped his room and ran after the trio. He had failedMarinette too many times with his selfishness and pacifism. Even if she neverforgave him and hated him for the rest of her life, the least he could do wasbring her back home.

He owed her that much.

[sunnysynthsunshine]

3rd Comedy Monologue

“Do any of you remember Rugrats?”

“The 90s cartoon about talking babies that went on adventures”

“Yeah well you know Angelica the whiny,spoiled character?”

“I actually kind of liked her maybe it’s because I related to her when I was little or maybe it’s because I liked how cool she was she was able to tell the babies about stuff they didn’t know about, playing a part in their imagination.”

Anyways speaking of children,they’re alright and they are usually one of the following

“Mummy Daddy why do they get to pick a sweet not me what did I do?”

“Waaaa I want that I want that”

“Hi there, do you want to play?

“Your good at art,I couldn’t draw like that”

“Thank you young soul you are too pure for this world”

Me on the other hand,was a whinging cowardly little sod

Now I’m not a child anymore but I am still mistaken as one

Yeah,that happens

17/18 years old,old enough to vote,old enough to drive,old enough to move house & old enough to realise my phases of being a tory “skeptic” were pointless

Yet sometimes people still think I’m someone who likes ice-cream,toys and video games

Well I mean I do like those things I’m sure some of you like those things too

We are children at heart but physically and mentally we evolve and learn with time

I’ll be an young adult,and I love it I might not have a place of my own yet but I love being able to learn new things and see new places I couldn’t see when I was a kid.

Then again my teenhood wasn’t that good either because I had a developmental condition that made me different than others mentally,my interests were very intense and I got panic feelings when around crowds or in difficult situations

My primary school classmates liked JLS,Partying and other things that I didn’t like or couldn’t do

While now I’m warming up to certain things I’m still happy I didn’t like JLS.

I on the other hand, liked the sims 3,dolls,the 1980s,old cartoons and films.

So...a game where you become God,plastic models,the age of neon graphic design, and innovative video games and...yeah that hasn’t changed has it?

Well I don’t play the sims anymore,my laptop has no cd rom drive,I used up the data on my old one, from downloads I’d buy from the exchange store

Sims also was one of the few things that got me into my “emo” phase

I’d be looking at sims videos on youtube they’d usually be very sad and in the background there’d be evanescence,my chemical romance or avril lavigne

I’d be sitting at the back of the living room at a gathering and I’d be listening to Sims 2 sad story part 1 because it had good music. I later learned the names and that I was a bit of a goth,a emo,a metalhead because I liked gothic and j-metal any of that.

Dolls…..

now this was embarrassing I’m sure we all have those songs where as soon as you hear them you feel a film reel of negative memories return. For me that was

Barbie Girl by Aqua, weird because aqua are a good band,but that song oh that song it was so annoying

Picture this

Someone in their final primary school years, who still collects dolls,

Now!  Would you ignore that or would you use that outdated song as a way to mock them because they were still enjoying a thing, meant for children.

I received the latter,because of that when I’d hear people sing that song simply just because they liked it I’d get confused and offended a similar thing happened with my little pony

I used to sing and perform for people in the playgrounds other times I’d keep to myself

I loved my little pony before the new wave I loved rewatching episodes of the old 80s mlp series of goblins,witches and giants...oops that was a different show I was describing there

And one of the songs I’d perform was the original theme song

My Little Pony~ My Little Pony~

What will today’s adventure be?

My Little Pony…My Little Pony

Will there be exciting sights to see?

Nope to some of my primary school audience the lyrics were

“My little pony skinny and boney”

*sarcastic deadpan laugh*

Ha ha ha,  

Then again I wasn’t much better

I used to make youtube videos with those “dolls”

They weren’t very good

They had bad editing and barely any plot beyond badly structured fourth wall jokes

Yet I wanted the whole internet to know about them even if they weren’t interested

I was a easy target and while I did get tired of that,change interests and go into a different fandom direction

Some things were still the same

I was still cowardly,weak and timid and that was a problem

I was always following others,I didn’t make my decisions often,because of the condition and my own loneliness I couldn’t do things other teenagers could.

I never had a sleepover,I never had a crush that wasn’t one-sided and I didn’t have much independence

Even when I did have “friends” those friends I would later learn were not nice making me believe I had wasted years that I couldn’t get back.

On...the topic of regrets, dance  something I sometimes enjoy but when I studied performing Arts it was what I dreaded…

Note I’m ok with  anyone who does like to dance,party or do any of those things

I would just try to take part like everyone else but many times I was put aside or embarrassed in front of the others because of either me having a meltdown or because “my timing was off”

Yes,he did teach me some cool moves and I am more supple now but that was the content and even if I was crap I knew it and tried to practice

Everyday I’d practice each technical exercise and routine but it was still not good enough.in fact it was because of that and other reasons that I couldn’t do that course anymore

All because of,of….Craig Revel Hor not him but he was like him.

Because of that I had to take saturday dance classes...those weren’t fun

The most fun I had was from the songs we danced to and the few positive examples of small talk I attempted with the people there.

Otherwise it was not good...me and little kids specifically loud hyper kids don’t always go well when in the same place..again my timing was off it wasn’t told but I could tell

One of the moments I hated the most was the headshot day

Now we were supposed to just be getting photos taken but the photographer noticed I was shorter than she thought.I laughed it off because I know I’m short but then what did she say in response…

“Your a wee bit vertically challenged”

EXCUSE ME

Now,I may be short but in a class of kids and teens of different ages and heights I was far from the shortest person there.

When I was a teenager I wasn’t a proper teenager the only things that made me a teenager was my age,my angsty attitude and the drama I got into involving political meme posters and anime roleplayers.

The less I say about that the better

So while all the “adults” were telling me to beware of the adult years because of

Oooh responsibilities...ooooh independence ooooh….education

Honestly  it’s ok for me so far I’m a fairly organized person so studying is good,I did a assistant stage managing gig for a west side story production which was class by the way and I think i’ll feel a lot happier as a adult.

I have not much to mock about today my political jabs are sometimes good other times they’re like a bad Ben Elton joke on Saturday Live.

“Ha teresa may is like the wicked queen from snow white when she’s in disguise”

yeah? …..and  You look like you could front the band Wings mate

(pause)

Speaking of a bad Ben Elton joke

“Oh I never really understood the whole “comedy” business I always prefered being a bit of a writer and I think now with Bohemian Rhapsody being out that those critics will think

We Will Rock You wasn’t that bad.”

Wouldn’t it be nice if there was a show that layered it’s satire of the mainstream establishment under a sitcom narrative about alternative young adult characters where the comedy was good

for once

Once in every life time

Comes a moment like this

Oh I need you, you need me,

Oh my darling can't you see.

Young Ones.

Darling we're The Young Ones.

The Young Ones.

That show,oh I only watched last year but I have so many words

The jokes,the satire,the characters,the setting,the fact it still holds up

I found that show at the right time

It was august 2017

I had finished my GCSE’s,I had left a manipulative friendship and I felt horrible

When I’d go to the cinema people were making noise and I would remember the panic more than the film itself *coughs* Spiderman homecoming

I felt like I didn’t know how to laugh anymore

Summertime sadness

When edgy me came across ben elton’s ronnie barker memorial lecture

Being a fan of Porridge and Open All hours I listened and after hearing about a certain sitcom  I started watching...The Young Ones...and it was out of this world

I roared with laughter with each episode,I related to the characters and I felt a connection of some sort

Researching more about the “alternative comedy” genre and I saw a familiar name

I learned I had seen some of his work before,he was the andrex puppy,he was in that king Arthur cartoon and he was in that drop dead fred movie I didn’t watch just because internet critics said it was one of the biggest cinematic flops ever….

Yet I never knew his name until then and I’m still not over that

I looked up his other work,where he was richie,richie rich,lord flashheart and a b’stard of a conservative

(which I would later try to do an impression of, on my final girls brigade show.)

So many thoughts,so many emotions he changed my life

Many things and people have. He is one of them  

his work was incredible and iconic  and his mantras are very inspirational and useful. He made me realise a lot of things about life,my love of his work also resulted in me meeting most of the friends I have now.

It’s 2019 and I’m now the anarchist I always wanted to be,I’m out of my shell, a bat out of hell,I followed others for too long but I’m my own person now that’s who I will always be

Now say it with me   Young Ones..

You shouldn't be afraid.

To live, love, there's a song to be sung.

Cause we may not

Be The Young Ones

very long.

Oh,Doctor Rik.Mayall we miss you,you bastard

The world wasn’t as much of a crap place when you were there to cheer us up

But your still here spiritually in her hearts

As you said yourself we still have your shows  and poems

Now!  all you punks,skins,rastas,emos,hipsters,creators,viewers,performers,entertainers,observers and fellow peoples poets

let’s gather round and hold our hands in sorrow for our fallen leader

Love is the answer!  Goodnight

[theconservativebrief]

Several stories showing racial profiling of black Americans by police and white Americans continue to go viral — in one video, a white woman calls the cops on a black man babysitting two white children in Georgia. In another, a white student calls 911 when she sees a black classmate sleeping in a dormitory common room. In this essay, a former police dispatcher remembers the racist calls she used to take every day and law enforcement’s rules that forced her to respond to every caller, regardless of the incident.

It was the end of an 18-hour shift. My butt hurt from sitting in one place with only a couple of five-minute bathroom breaks. My brain hurt from staying awake that long, and my stomach ached from all the coffee I’d drunk to keep myself alert.

But the phones rarely stopped.

“911, what’s the address of your emergency?” I said into the headset.

The man gave me his address and then said, “There’s a woman pushing a shopping cart in front of my house.”

This one stumped me. I worked in a large metropolitan area. Yes, the city where I worked was affluent, and most people used their cars to get groceries. But surely he’d seen a person using a personal grocery cart before.

“I’m sorry, I’m not getting it. What’s the problem?” I waited for more clarification as I racked my brain for the correct penal code under which this infraction might fall.

“You need to get out here now.”

“Um.” A dispatcher has to be cautious about how she phrases things. Of all the jobs in emergency services — firefighters, police officers, nurses, doctors — dispatchers are the only ones who are recorded during every single thing they do. Everything they say — and their whole job is speaking — is part of public record. “I’m sorry, I don’t understand what you’re reporting.”

“She’s black.”

My heart sped up as it did every day when I heard this kind of thing. This Northern California city was affluent and very white, bordering Oakland, much of which was neither. “Sir, I’m still not seeing the problem. Is she being loud? Is the noise of the cart disturbing your peace?”

His tone got harsher. “Where do you live?”

I was so startled by the question that I answered it. “Oakland,” I said.

“You wouldn’t understand, then. This isn’t Oakland. We don’t have people like her in this neighborhood. Just send someone out to get rid of her. I’m not talking to you anymore.” The click in my ear was his goodbye.

The worst thing about it? I had to send someone out. Dispatchers usually don’t get to choose which calls lead to the dispatching of emergency personnel and which don’t.

If a person wants to make a report, they get to make a report. You can think of police reports as being like lawsuits. Anyone can make one about anything, no matter how stupid. Shortly after 9/11, I had to send an officer to take a report from a citizen because she’d had a dream about a knife-wielding man from Afghanistan.

Of course, dispatchers do have a tiny bit of control. I sent our one Afghan officer to take the report from her. He was amused; she, not so much.

By now, you’ve probably heard about the white Oakland woman who called the cops because black men were using a charcoal grill at Lake Merritt. She’s been memed and mocked, and the department has been criticized for sending officers out. But it all started with a dispatcher, answering that first phone call.

According to the computer logs, which have been made public, the call came in 11:22 am. A woman reported a 40-year-old heavyset black man using a charcoal grill. The dispatcher spent less than a minute asking her for more information. He typed NFD at the end, which stands for No Further Details.

Here’s where I start guessing things, based on 17 years of dispatching in the Bay Area. I’m guessing that the dispatcher rolled his eyes at this call so hard they almost fell out of his head. Yet another white lady upset over what black people were doing. Every single day of my career, I took that call. Every single day, I wanted to slam down the phone.

Instead, the dispatcher typed NFD. That’s subtle dispatch code for “this caller was a pain in the butt and couldn’t give more information about this lame-ass complaint.” It was entered as a Priority 3 call, which essentially means “not important” — the police officers on duty at that moment had much better things to do in a city like Oakland.

Two hours passed, and police had not responded. But then someone called to report the original caller was still on scene and now fighting with the people barbecuing, which prompted an immediate dispatch. “Life before property” is the code by which emergency services run. Potential property damage reports will hold for hours, if not days, if officers are busy intervening in situations where people are in physical danger. Once it was reported that people were fighting, an officer arrived at the scene of the barbecue eight minutes later.

Am I saying police officers aren’t racist — that they question black citizens more aggressively than white citizens because responding to most complaints is obligatory? Heck no. Many are. We live in a country still mired in institutional racism, including its policing. I’m not in the business anymore, and the relationship between police departments and communities of color was one of the reasons I left to write full time.

But I am pointing out that those cops on the video didn’t look happy to be forced to take the complaint seriously. They had way better things to do that afternoon than investigate some guys cooking out in a park.

In every city in America, 911 rings around the clock. Dispatchers are usually too short-staffed to take real breaks, and they can’t shut the center for weekends and holidays. They are the ones who suck it up and keep hitting the answer button, no matter what.

My co-worker once got a call from a man who said, “My neighbors keep parking in front of my house. And they’re black.”

Dispatchers all have moments when they reach the end of their patience, and that was Bonnie’s moment.

She said, “It’s a city street. Unfortunately, anyone can legally park wherever they like. I’m sure it’s very frustrating for you. Why would you bring race into this?”

“Are you black?”

“I am,” she said.

“Put your supervisor on the phone.”

He filed a police report against her instead of his neighbors.

She went through an internal affairs investigation because, of course, any report against a member of the police department has to be investigated. She was cleared of breaking any technical rules — she had stated clearly that no laws were being broken; she hadn’t had an attitude in her voice.

But she was sternly advised to be more circumspect in the future or her job would be at stake. She told me later, “That was the moment I decided to leave the industry. Every time I answered the phone, I felt like I got punched in the face. And I had to shut up and take it.” A few years later, she became a therapist on San Quentin’s death row. She said her new job was easier than dispatching.

The phone rings again. You mime stabbing yourself in the eyeball as the next caller says that she thinks three kids outside the 7-Eleven are getting ready to rob it.

“Why do you think that?”

“They’re wearing hoodies. You never know what those kinds of kids are carrying in their pockets. Every one of them could have a gun, you know. They probably do.”

“Did you see a gun?”

“Just check.” Click.

You swallow your cold oatmeal, you roll your eyes at your cubicle mate, and you enter the call for eventual dispatch even though you wish you could pretend you never got it. (If you don’t enter the call and something happens, you could lose your job for negligence.) Then you grab the next call.

Of course people should call 911 if it’s an actual emergency. But think before you call the cops to handle your feelings about a barbecue, or where someone is parked, or if they’re playing music on a Saturday afternoon. If you get it wrong (and all of us, living in the privileged bubbles of our own creation, often get it wrong), you could be the reason someone gets hurt or even killed.

With some rudimentary math, I’ve worked out that I’ve answered at least a quarter of a million 911 calls in my career. Amid the meaningless, racially charged calls, I’ve gotten so many by concerned citizens who genuinely want to help someone who is hurt or in danger. Good typically wins over evil. But it’s awfully damn close sometimes. And we all have to pick a side.

Rachael Herron is the best–selling author of the novel The Ones Who Matter Most, named an editor’s pick by Library Journal, as well as more than 20 other novels and memoirs. She received her MFA in writing from Mills College, Oakland, and she teaches creative writing in the extension programs at both UC Berkeley and Stanford.

First Person is Vox’s home for compelling, provocative narrative essays. Do you have a story to share? Read our submission guidelines, and pitch us at firstperson@vox.com.

Original Source -> I used to be a 911 dispatcher. I had to respond to racist calls every day.

via The Conservative Brief

[insomniac-arrest]

Dear Tuesdays

pairing: Blue Zircon x Yellow Zircon (Courtship?)

words: 7k

summary: Blue Zircon x Yellow Zircon law school human AU set in 1973. Slightly NSFW in some parts

Ao3

Warning: slightly NSFW but nothing explicit, briefly deals with homophobia, race, and sexism in the 1970s

Reference:

Blue Zircon- Zarah Khan

Yellow Zircon- Zadya Gold

Dear Journal,

The councilor said that journaling could help with stress. I said that I figure I’m about as stressed everyone else, she says most her patients don’t look like me this early in the semester. I think I should be offended.

On the other hand, I have begun tearing out my hair. I’ve increased grinding my teeth. I have a twitch in my left eye and that’s the one I can barely see out of anyway.

It’s only the second month.

Go to Harvard Law they said, graduate Summa Cum laude, get hired at your mom’s law firm. Easy? Of course it’s easy, it’s perfectly easy.

I wish my hair would stop falling out.

10/15/1973

Dear Tuesdays,

I was once more sent down to the counselor for concerning noises coming from my dorm room. The noises would be far less concerning if people learned to mind their own businesses, surely they have to have classes on that somewhere on this godforsaken campus.

A useful class, something that isn’t torts.

I was sent here and she told me to try journaling again, so trying again I am- and investing in new neighbors hopefully soon. Or classes that aren’t on torts.

They won’t even teach us heresy until year two, so here I am, watching my eyes fall out of my skull over civil legal liability (let no man on earth, specifically Professor Woods, see I wrote this. I’m stressed out enough as it is).

And of course, she is also in that class.

I am going to buy thicker pillows. Or get my neighbors earphones.

10/18/1973

Dear Tuesdays,

If you are wondering, you non-sentient piece of barely passable paper (my proper notebook paper is taking down the ink, blood, and tears of my notes for Professor Woods lecture), the counselor said that I should write to something I hate. She gave several reasons of compassion, forgiveness, and sending a postcard to my vacationing emotional state or some other questionable transcendentalist bohemian sentiment.

I told her I would write to the day of Tuesday, ever since my brain has had a critical capacity I discerned Tuesday is objectively the worst day. Sure, people en masse hate Monday, but that’s because it’s a red herring for the abysmal time period that is Tuesdays.

You have some reserve of energy from the weekend for Monday’s, some feeling of being resigned to Wednesday and the hope of the weekend from Thursday, Friday. Tuesday is the energy sapping in between scourge of this mere existence.

And she would know that if she listened to my entire case instead of dismissing the first lines and making our classmates side with her ‘Monday’ arguments. I wasn’t done! She didn’t deserve that round, or the next.

I’m never participating in ‘Drinking Court’ ever again, that’s my ‘Smiley Goal’ or however the counselor put it.

No more, drinking, no more teeth grinding.

10/19/1973

Dear Tuesday,

I had to go to the dentist.

10/22/1973

Dear Not Tuesday,

I have another name I would like to put as the recipient to my stress letters, but she is currently the Unnamable Problem. Her name just leaves a bad taste in my mouth every time.

There are exactly eleven (used to be thirteen) women in my law school graduating class, much more than last year but not enough for me to ever feel comfortable in any room. She is, of course, one of the few other female students in any of my classes.

Which would be fine, good really. If she wasn’t the worst.

She’s good, I’ll grant her that- but almost too good. Smug grin, smug laugh, wants to only work for corporations who will pay her six figures like the men.

Admirable, attractive even, but that does not detract from her incessant ‘teasing,’ and insatiable need to win. She challenges and laughs and points and grins with that feline look that I would give a good right hook to if I was still in Kentucky. But we are no longer in Kentucky.

I should simply stop accepting her challenges.

Or stop going to class. There are many dilemmas.

10/25/1973

Dear Tuesdays,

I cut my hair short. I’m already tearing it out from the stress as is and I am that much closer to looking like a professional, that’s what she must want right? Hopefully. Maybe.

Mother sent me a blue handkerchief with the firm insignia on it. Diamond Corp, where the best and brightest work for the best and brightest and the family will hang our name in the ledgers of its services.

I’m going to have to grow my hair out if mom is going to visit in December, Lord, maybe stop biting my nails too (The Unnamable said the hair was attractive but I have serious doubts she’s ever meant anything she’s ever said. I also don’t like that look she gave me afterwards- mocking).

10/26/1973

Dear Tuesdays,

I accepted another Drinking Court, future lawyers shouldn’t drink this much, but the man next to me said ladies shouldn’t drink like this either. I downed that entire whiskey in one go.

Note to self: do not down entire whiskeys.

Our topic today was on which was the least savory condiment. I defender Worchester sauce and she prosecuted.

Honestly, what is there to defend on Worchester sauce.

She was faster, made more eye contact and started louder. But my points were better! More thought out.

Damn her, damn her, one day I’m going to beat her at these fake games- or the real games.

That is of course, after I down more aspirin and I drink the largest cup of coffee I can find (perhaps a bowl?)

I have a theory she’s trying to ruin me.

Even if she complimented my hair again by the third round of drinks.

10/27/1973

Dear Tuesdays,

There are negative ‘Smiley Points’ today. In fact, frowny points are had all around.

 I have to wear a night guard now for the teeth grinding and that rash is back. And she made me an offer- what choice did I have?

 I was sitting in Professor Woods class, my 9am with the least amount of frills and most amount of reading- which is saying a lot.

 I was re-skimming the section on Civil Liability for prisons, nursing a second headache in a week (not from a hangover this time thank you). When she came in.

 She always sits in the front. I sit behind that, not too close but close enough to show the professor I am not cowed and trying to hide. That will be important one day.

 She didn’t sit in front of me. She sits by me.

 The unnamable, Zayda Gold (I might as well say it) approached. She slid over like she invented sitting, invented sliding, and invented grinning at me like I was the first person on her ‘swallow whole list,’ right after ‘the entire world.’ Ugh.

 “Zarah Khan.” I don’t like the way she says my name. I mean, granted, most everyone in this school just turns it into ‘Sarah’ and forgets the Z. They say it’s easier, there’s a lot of things they would like to make easier about me.

 I try to turn slowly, lawyers are never eager. They are collected, patient.

 I nod at her, she leans forward, “You are the smartest person in this entire class,” my thoughts freeze in place for a moment, an ice cold punch, “And they aren’t even teaching us hearsay yet.” “I know.” I say mechanically.

 “That is not going to help me be the best prosecutor in the the next 50 states and the District of Columbia.”

“Um.”

“I plan to make six figures.” “I know,” I wrinkled my nose.

“I need someone to practice against that isn’t a complete fool and where we aren’t at a bar.” One of the boys behind us scoffs, covering it up with a cough.

I frowned, “It’s the middle of the semester,” she raised an eyebrow, I took a deep breath. “I’m a little busy.” “I can make it worth your time.” “Oh?” I hate to admit it, she had my attention.

 “You’re struggling in this class.” I scowl, “I’m doing just fine.” I sniff and scratch my arm, “you just said I’m the smartest one in this class.” She rolled her eyes, I could kick her, “You don’t know how to relax. They’ll eat you alive as a defender if you don’t practice now.” I look down at my lap, “I’m working for my mom after this. I’m not going to be a defender.” I wish I hadn’t mumbled.

 “Oh please,” she says airily, waving her hand in the air. “I’ll help you with torts if you hurry up and help me practice for being an attorney.” I scowl at her further.

 “Don’t try to force your hyper-aggressive BS on her Gold,” we both turn around as the boy behind us spoke, Aaron something. “If you think you’ll actually be hired for court cases...Well, just don’t make her into another little hopeless cocky would-be-attorney.” Zayda looked like a viper coiling to strike and for once in my life I was less nervous and instead waiting for the entire force of thunder to brought down on this boys head. I’m a little giddy too.

 She simply turns away. She doesn’t spare him another look and I’ve never wanted to have something like that before, whatever it was she did. I watched him as he shook his head, “Especially for Khan.” He said my name in a much worse way than Zayda ever could. There were some things in this world they would never to let me forget.

 I set my mouth into a hard line and turn back to Zayda, “I’d love to help you prepare for trials.” She makes the look of someone who planned to win and the professor walks in before O’Connor makes comments on things he feels obligated to comment on.

 Journal, I’m not sure if any of this is a good idea- I don’t plan to be ruined by such girls that plan to ruin me. But something like this, it is a little tempting.

 10/30/1973

Dear Tuesdays, I HATE HER.

11/1/1973

Dear Tuesdays,

I. hate. her.

11/1/1973

Dear Tuesdays,

People are the worst. And by that I mean mostly Zayda Gold, I’m moving to the middle of the desert. Maybe my counselor will say I’ll reach Nirvana through the great outdoors and baking myself alive (she is always talking about Nirvana and ‘the magical east,’ double ugh).

Nevertheless, Zayda. Girls like Zayda are the worst kind of...mocking? Mocking.

I helped her with her dumb ‘fake’ cases where she goes through archives of trials and has us re-argue them. Until two in the morning.

Truly, I am a charitable person.

I told her, I told her, we had a test in one of my intro classes the day after and I should study for that (I always try to study four or five days in advance). But I had been busy- with a treason case for some Russian spy in the 60s. Like I’ll ever will defend a case like that.

 She had us run through it anyway, openings, pretend-cross examinations, closings. It was exhausting, why is she like this.

 Perhaps that would be all, nothing wrong, nothing amiss. Just practice.

 And perhaps it was my own fault.

 I insisted she fulfill her end of the bargain: help me with torts and whatever magic flashcards she had that let her ace more tests than not.

 She just shook her head with a little humph. I told her to help or we would never practice the next case and whatever it was we were preparing for.

 She took out a bottle of rum ‘two shots’ she said ‘and then we’ll play a game.’

 I was not happy, she said being stress while memorizing anything was the only way to do it- nerves were going to ruin me if I didn’t practice getting a handle on them. Like I didn’t already know that.

 I take the shots, she took out her damn flashcards, she said stress now made oral exam stress later manageable, ‘practicing like you play’- Zayda Gold.

 I roll my eyes and accept whatever it is.

 She tells me if I get a flashcard wrong I’ll have to take off some article of clothing. I balk, maybe my face was a little hotter than it should be, I tell her that’s juvenile.

 She just does That Smirk and asks me what my problem was- “we’re both girls here.”

 I don’t know how to answer that, maybe I was a little rocked because my mind goes blank. She was a good lawyer.

 “Fine,” I gritted my teeth, it’s not like I’m bad at flashcards.

 We start, her flashcards for one are very detailed, and for two, I’m a little tired. I get the first fifteen right, rapid fire. But I stumble on a question about false imprisonment- of course I did.

 I take off a sock.

 But I had lost my momentum, incorporeal chattels- I don’t answer with enough detail. Another sock. Law of Obligations- my brain is very tired. I take off my jacket.

 I’m sweating now, I get the next ten right out of desperation.

 Then of course, neighbor principle, a tort of negligence. My face goes pale, I can feel my mind racing, reaching. This wasn’t that hard.

 “Um,” I pressed my finger tips together and then jam my glass farther up on my face, “omission… omission rules of evidence.” She raises an eyebrow, “and?”

 My mouth opens and closes like a fish, I flounder. “That’s it?” She shakes her head and reads the full definition, I sink down lower into my chair. She turns back to me, “Go on.” I almost refuse, I had pride, standards, a reputation. A lawyer is nothing without a reputation. But she is nothing without a backbone either.

 Zayda was looking at me expectantly, smoothly. I grit my teeth, everything about her was a challenge.

 I start to unbutton my shirt, I could have gone for my pants but someone was going to learn if nothing else I had backbone.

 I unbutton it slowly, one by one, forcing my heart to slow down and forcing my eyes to meet hers. She wasn’t the only one here that was a force onto herself.

 My shirt falls away and I sit calmly in my brazier, I hadn’t put on an undershirt in weeks- there wasn’t enough time between classes, food, and not sleeping.

 She looks coolly down at me and I wonder if it’s judgement or disinterest. Though I wouldn’t call it disinterest.

 I spent a good deal of time always looking for jackets with large shoulder pads so people couldn’t tell I was just a slim gangly girl who was too tall for her age. Nevertheless, I had a feeling Zayda wasn’t accessing me like that.

 She holds up another flashcard.

 Something else hung in the air like an electric buzz that would sizzle eggs on the sidewalk.

 I answer the next one wrong too, a simple mistake this time. But she doesn’t let it pass.

 I don’t hesitate when I take off my pants, I’m not going to show any weakness here. Besides, it was just beige long underwear underneath anyway, for the cold night. And I wasn’t going to get any more of the questions wrong I promised myself, she watches me closely now as she flips the cards.

 The next half-hour is a blur, I get the next handful right, there was nothing else to do but get them right. My nerves were a dull drone in the back of my mind and I ignore them.

 She had something liquid and venomous in her green eyes, shining.

 Journal, I can’t believe myself, I honestly can’t believe myself.

 I draw a blank on the very last card, honestly I couldn’t tell you what the the subject was on since the panic set in.

 “Go on,” she flapped it in the air, “It’s the last one.” My eyes go wide, a dryness in my mouth. I give a rapid-fire series of answers, her eyes narrow.

“None of those are right.” I clench my jaw, I knew that. “Forfeit.” I put my hands in the air, “I’ll study that one later.” Too bad I forget what it was.

 Zayda had been leaning on my raised bed, accessing me. She gradually stalks across the room as if she is the slowest tidal wave in the world.

 She was looking down at me, she was looking down at my long underwear and brazier, my heart does something unhealthy in my chest.

 She leans over me, “What are we without rules?” The words honestly haunt me.

 I shake my head, “I already gave in.” “We are a society of rules.” She was toying with me.

 I wrinkled my nose. I wouldn’t be toyed with.

 I snort, “Whatever.” I reach behind me and undo the clasp on the back, I meet her eye as one of the last pieces of my clothing falls away. I am laid bare.

 I blow air out my nose, this was normal, it was just rivals, female rivals.

 The air sizzled, she was just teasing me.

 She looks down and I look up, I slowly raise myself to my feet, she is still looking down and we are in something that I can never tell my mom. Something I really shouldn’t be telling you.

 Her hands dance at her side, I am standing now, we are around the same height. Almost six feet and perhaps finally not too tall for girls.

 I watch her, I am the steady one for once.

 “What is it Gold?” I finally ask in a low tone.

She takes a sharp inhale of breath, I half-lid my eyes as if in amusement (I do foolish things sometimes journal).

 She glances down at my exposed skin and her hands reach forward.

 Her hands ghost over my back, lightly touching the curve of my waist. She looks up slowly and her acid green eyes are helpless.

 I don’t do anything, I won’t give her the pleasure of anything.

 She is a shaking twig at the moment and I can feel her breath on my cheek, it is a little fast. We aren’t anything.

 She arches forward as if by accident and our lips meet like phantoms. It’s not like a real kiss, real kisses are not accidents and this touch is as light and unreal as a dream. But our lips still meet.

 She stumbles backward immediately and pants. She quickly straightens her shirt.

 “You got six wrong.” She croaks and stumbles further backward, “and you’re still sweating when talking. Juries smell ineptitude in a courtroom.”

 I blink a couple times, I start to hate her a little bit again, “six out of a hundred and twenty.” She shakes her head and turns away. She jams her flashcards in her bag and hefts over her shoulder.

 I clear my throat and she turns around, her eyes cover me like glue again, “get them all right next time.” She covers her mouth, I seethe, “And be a little more decent.” She sniffs, her cheeks are flushed, “it’s lewd.”

 “What?”

 “Naked? Sweating? Honestly.”

My nostrils flare and I see red, “You’re the one that...this is.” I ball up my fists and stand up straight, she is still flushed. I didn’t care I was almost naked, “I have another rule for you.” I say with steel in my tone, she pauses at the door, “I’m never going to lose to you again.”

 She blinks, something unreadable on her face. She leaves.

 I shouldn’t feel this way. Hatred, real hatred, I’ll write it in my head until maybe I believe it.

 11/3/1973

 Dear Tuesdays,

 I passed the torts exam and my Intro to Procedure oral midterm. My name is boosted into the top three student rankings posted in the hall (a ‘motivational board’). So that’s at least three ‘Smiley Points’ I can tell my counselor about...woo.

 I’m not sure if I’ve felt any sort of emotion in a week, but I’m sure I can just focus on the number one spot and be out of here. In a year and half. Out of here.

 Please let it pass quickly, I’m having the worst dreams ever, and they aren’t even nightmares.

 I’m going to focus on my classwork.

 11/10/1973

 Dear Tuesdays,

 It’s parents weekend, I don’t know why they have it so late in the year but I really haven’t grown my hair out long enough for this.

 Maybe if I hadn’t been so engrossed in essays, notes, and pouring my blood out for Professor Woods I would have prepared a little more mentally. My parents are sweet, but… a lot.

 My mom knocked on my door five times at 8pm that day, and then she knocked some more until I answered.

 She hugged me so hard I could burst and slicked my bangs back to get a better look at my face.

 “It’s so short.” She says with a discerning look in her eye, “And you are so thin! Have you been eating enough? Or just coffee!” She wags her finger, “my bumblebee, have you been taking care of yourself?” I shrug loosely and she pulls me out the door, “I’m feeding you right now! Breakfast. Your father is still out getting you flowers, oh don’t let him know I told you. But I made sure he didn’t get the ones you are allergic to this time.”

 I was smiling despite myself, rolling with her singing voice that held the air like a microphone. My mom could always talk.

 I nod along and she tells me about the firm and annoying clients that bothered her boss and nonstop paperwork. ‘There were always things to do! Work to be done.’ That’s my mom’s favorite phrase, ‘There is work to be done!’ That’s what I used to chirp when I wore her heels in pre-school and pretended to debate the world, to be her.

 I’m relaxing into my mom's presence, and her hugs and nice hazelnut coffee smell, but she pauses when we make our way down the stairwell.

 Paul Michaelson passes us with a slight nod, he was a quiet boy who was seventh on the ranking list and had fair hair that slid over his eyes.

 My mom nodded back and gave me a mischievous grin as we make it to the bottom, “He’s cute.” She says with a little hop in her step, “Is he in any of your classes?” I groan and look away, “I’m busy mom, I told you, I’m focusing.” My mom shakes her head, “This is the perfect time for romance bumblebee!” She tutts, “Me and your father met in school.” She always reminded me of that.

 My mom had been able to slip into law school during the war when all the men were gone, my father did basic training but got a bum knee during the grueling exercises. He was really more of scholar. He ended up in her tiny law school class, and then her mom told the detailed Epic Romance of their lives as they courted.

 I don’t think I’m going to have one of those, I’m not sure I’m built for it.

 She rushed me down the stairs and into the nearest restaurant, afraid for my health and how much time I spent in the library. She told me I loved sunshine as I kid, the color yellow, and wouldn’t have me grow sickly.

 She continues to point out ‘cute’ boys on the way.

 “Is he in your class?” She asks as we pass the quad, “He’s very handsome, consider the grandkids!” I groan again.

 “No, he looks like a 2A.” I assure her. “How about him?” “No.” “Tell me that one is, he has such a nice face!”

I pause and stare at Aaron O’Connor, I wince, “He’s in my torts class.” “Lovely!”

 “I....I guess.” I don’t have the heart to tell her O’Connor was probably the one scrawling ‘Beware: Genghis Khan in here’ on my door- even after I explained to him my family was from Turkey and no where near Mongolia. I stopped trying after the third attempt.

 My mom wants to go talk to him but luckily my father comes with the bouquet of flowers ‘for my first semester!’ and I can escape to a breakfast bistro. They are daisy’s.

 It’s not a bad meal, it’s actually really good, I get a little misty eyed when my parents let me get the pancakes, the eggs and the fruit. A college budget it not always friendly.

 Plus, I don’t know journal, they keep smiling and telling me how good I am doing, that they’re proud. The feeling of home is a little hard.

 They want me to be happy, very happy. My father tells me my sister says I can wear her wedding dress after this year, she’s done with it. He winks and tells me she thinks it’s going to be a good year for me.

 I sink a little lower in my seat, a year or so to meet a nice boy in a suit that can provide for me, before a wedding they are happy to plan. And they want me to be happy.

 So I get a little misty-eyed.

 “Mom, dad,” I take a deep breath and both of them pause, I edge my eggs around my plate, they look at me, I swallow.

 “What is it honey?” My dad moves my orange juice closer to me.

 I look at my lap, press something down, and then look back up, “Do you think I could make it as a defense attorney?” My mom and dad share a look, a calculating one.

 My mom finally reaches over and squeezes my hand, “If that’s what you want bumblebee, of course. But...The Diamond firm is very good you know. The pay can make a family veeeery comfortable and the paperwork isn’t all bad.” My father is glancing at me, he rubs his mustache, he tried to smile, “Attorney’s can be very stressed. And it can be...unforgiving.” I shake my head, I know I’m worrying them. I know it would be the hardest thing I’ve ever done to make it as an attorney.

 I lift my chin and smile, projecting a kind of confidence I always wanted, “I was just thinking outloud. It could just be...an option.”

“You can be whatever you want!” They are grinning, I am still their law school daughter and still going to marry that nice man and be comfortable.

 “Now,” my father rubs his hands together, “Are there any boys I need to have a talking to?” He winks and holds up his hands, I look down again.

 “No dad.”

 My mom looks between the two of us, “Tell us about school.”

 It’s not a bad visit. I tell them about the workload and pretty campus and the offer to join the debate team (I don’t), a few rivals I’ve made. And try to make up a boy for them, competitive, confident, yellow floppy hair and a stubborn nose.

 I’ll let them be happy.

 11/13/1973

 Dear Tuesdays,

I have a cold. I’m not pleased with said cold and have spent the last three days sniffling, I haven’t been able to answer so much as one question in class and I think my ranking might slip.

 Zayda is still insisting we practice as if nothing has ever happened between us and I wish nothing had ever happened between us. Should I avoid seeing her? Is that defeat?

 Who knows. I don’t. I haven’t been able to smell anything for 72 hours.

 People with clear sinuses should give thanks to some sinus god, this is awful.

 I’m going to go take a hot shower.

 11/16/1973

 Dear Tuesdays,

 I’m feeling a little better. I drank enough tea to potentially sustain a British army and lay in the sun for a couple hours yesterday- maybe my mom was right about the outdoors thing.

 I even got a brief drink with two other female law students, I sip of some tonic and let them play ‘Drinking Court’ without me this time.

 Zayda was looking at me the whole time but one of the boys said she was a bit of a germ-phobe, she doesn’t approach. Good.

 I sniffle and watch her beat the 1A at lightning round cross-examination of whether mosquitoes should be eliminated or not.

 There was a protest against what’s going on in Vietnam outside campus yesterday.

 I really need to double down on my studies.

 11/19/1973

 Dear Tuesdays,

 I feel almost better, I woke up with barely an ache in my throat! Just in time to ace my oral exam in intro to Criminal Law. Things are looking up.

 11/21/1973

 Dear Tuesdays,

 Things are weird. Life is weird. I think I’m feeling sick again. Why is life like this? Why did I even invite her into my room?

 Protect me from the dumb things I do oh beings that protect law students. Or at least give me a guide to pretty girls that say cryptic truly bizarre things in the middle of the day.

I am going to bed.

 11/22/1973

 Dear Tuesdays,

 ??? I am still confused. Very confused. Zadya came by my room yesterday, she made it out like it was the most normal thing in the world.

 She wanted to do that Russian spy trial again and record ourselves on tape, which sounds embarrassing.

 I told her I was sick. She flinched and looked at me carefully. I shrug and tell her we could do it later, anything outside of schoolwork could really wait right now.

 She came up beside my bed anyway.

 “You are too stressed. What have I been telling you?”

 I roll my eyes, “I’m not more stressed than anyone else.”

 She narrowed her eyes, “Yeah. But the rest of us have coping skills for it and are not sick right now.” I set my jaw, “I don’t know what you want from me.”

 She lifted her chin and said the next part very matter-a-factly, dryly, slowly, “Do you masturbate?”

Every muscle in my body tenses and I squawk, “What?!”

 “You heard me.” I sit up completely straight and don’t meet her eye, my gut churns, “That is a ridiculous question.” And I certainly didn’t want her to be the one asking it.

 “See? Bad coping mechanisms. You’ll die if you keep that up.” I snort and push my bangs back, “Not masturbate?” She grins, “No.” She prowls, “but I guess that confirms it.” I don’t answer and frown deeply, she draws nearer, “I’ve never seen you release a day in your life.” I make a face, “Release?”

 “It’s good for you.” I make a face and she holds herself very still.

 I look away and she just hopped down to the floor. I sniffle and she turns away, looking over her shoulder enigmatically.

 “Call if you ever need some help with that stress. I probably don’t need anymore court practice right now anyway.” She had something coy on her lip this time. I am slack jawed and frozen.

 I am still slack jawed and frozen. Help with stress? After...Do you think….

 She has to be messing with me, right? RIGHT?

 11/24/1973

 Finals are coming like an avalanche I have no equipment to evade or stop. I’ve buried myself in books and there is no escape.

 I’ve chewed a hole in my nightguard and haven’t returned half my phone calls, Professor Woods gave me an 83% on a test. An 83. I don’t know what his game is.

 And if I’m being honest, I’ve become more aware of Zadya than I have of anyone else in my life. She hasn’t talked to me since.

 11/27/1973

 Dear Tuesdays or whatever,

 I have two weeks until finals, I need to get it together. I better not lose anymore clumps of hair, I’m too young to have a bald spot.

 12/1/1973

 Dear FINALS,

 I’ve been drinking three-day-old coffee for hours now and don’t why I don’t become an elementary school teacher or sheep herder. There are no sheep at an Ivy League law school. I’m not sure if the professors are going harder on me than everyone else, or if I’m doing that for them.

 I want to sleep. I saw Zadya smoking last night, Cara, one of the other eleven female law students said she only did that near big tests. Maybe even the queen gets stressed.

 12/5/1973

 Dear Lord,

 I think I need to go to the doctors for a developing ulcer.

 11/??/1973

 Dear FUCK,

 Four more days, four more days and it’s 2 in the morning with another stack of torts literature to go through. They call these classes weed out classes but fuck if I’m not going to be that weed (weeds grow in places they aren’t supposed to like insidious fools).

 I am considering doing something I may regret. I’m seriously considering something I might regret. It’s 2am, I know someone else that may be awake.

 I’ll leave you here to watch my books.

 11/11/1973

 Dear….

 Well. Well? Well! Well.

 I have, ahem, done something.

 11/12/1973

 I have very bad decision making skills.

 11/12/1973

 It snowed! It’s very pretty.

 Nothing quite like this in Kentucky, though one of my professors is already suggesting I do something about that accent.

 11/12/1973

 The snow was nice for a moment. I have made another questionable choice.

 11/12/1973

 Dear Goddammit,

 I did it AGAIN. Someone needs to get me a leash, but Zadya would probably just like the look of it.

I need to erase that last sentence. And myself.

 11/13/1973

 Dear WHY DO I KEEP DOING THIS,

 I keep doing this.

 At least she fed me breakfast again this time.

 Or is that bad too? Ugh.

 11/14/1973

 Dear Tuesdays,

 Finals begin tomorrow, I should be more nervous.

 But I am genuinely thinking about other things. My stomach is in knots all the time, I think I’m getting a fever, she sits by me in torts. She puts her hand on my thigh in torts.

 Not that we haven’t done more things than that.

 Someone save me. I didn’t imagine this is how she would ruin me.

 11/16/1973

 Dear Exhaustion,

 I did my first two finals today. I am too tired to say much, they went well, I hope.

 11/17/1973

 Dear Sleep,

One more day. Two more to go.

11/18/1973

Dear ALMOST,

Break is so soon! I am so close!

I did one last final this morning, the second is in the afternoon. She’s coming over in between tests, I should stop it. But I’ve never done better on tests before.

11/19/1973

 Dear Confusion,

 I did the last final. I barely remember it.

 I can only remember the moments before. Should I be this red? I was just a simple exercise between...friends? Rivals? Something.

 My heart, damn my heart. I can’t stop thinking about it, she laid me down on the bed this time, no hoisting me onto her lap and reaching down my pants, fast and dirty with a few dry expletives. Not that I’ve minded that way.

 No pinning me against the wall and heavy petting until I whine and she says she won’t stop until she hears me. It was a long night.

 But it wasn’t today. In the middle of the day before both of our last final in Professor Woods class.

 I can see the bags under her eyes and smell coffee like stain over her whole being and ginger in her hair. But maybe she always smelled like ginger.

 I take the opportunity to get her shirt over her head, she rarely let me get her clothes off. She is pliant in my hands as I wrestle her pants to her ankles, delicately taking my time with her under garments.

 She arches into me, I kiss her neck, maybe the kiss is too light, too tender. She moaned.

 I took her carefully in my hand and rolled her over in bed, she runs her hand down my sides and we kiss. It’s not like before.

 I can’t call it fast and dirty anymore. No, the desperation lingers, as it always had, the secret in our chests. And she touches me.

 We make love this time and the hour passes with the scent of ginger in my mouth and sweat covering my body.

 “You are beautiful,” she whispers and I know she’s saying something like a truth this time. I kiss the end of her nose and we roll into each other like coaxing symphonies out of pelvis’s and skin.

 It’s only after we are both spent and the ticking clock tells us it is almost four that we lie wrapped in one another.

 Her face is pressed into my chest and we are breathing heavily. I look at the wall opposite of us for a long time.

 “I’m sorry,” she mumbled into my skin and traces the muscles on my back lightly.

 I chuckle gently, “I promise, you did good.”

She shakes her head into my skin, kissing it lightly, “For all the nasty things O’Connor writes on your door.” I purse my lips and feel the sunlight play across my skin like a caress, “You get a tough skin.” “I should kick his ass,” Zayda runs her hands down my side and kisses my shoulder, “you’re too good for him to even share the same air.” I roll my eyes, “Boys write those kind of things near you too.” I say slowly, delicately; ‘Jewish American Princess’ was the nicest of them. “We’ll get through.” She kisses me again, my collarbone and chest, as if she wanted to memorize the curves and swallow me whole- like I predicted. She kisses and kisses again.

 I feel a shiver go up my spine and screw my eyes shut, something mournful bubbling up deep within me. I take a deep shuddering breath. She looks up at me with a question in her eyes, I swallow.

 “Are you alright?” She weaves her hand in my hair.

 “Zadya,” I say quietly, a shameful wetness breaking in my eyes as I look at her, “Is this… practice to you? For...others. For,” I gulp. “For after this.” She shakes her head, “I’m not looking for their ‘after.’” I take a rattling breath, almost a sob. I curl into her and she holds me closer, she messages my scalp and tucks my head under her chin.

 “I’ve known what I am for a long time,” my eyes go wide, her hand grips me, “I’m sorry if...I dented any of your plans. It can just be practice for you.” I feel the sob rising in me again, I wipe at my eyes. “No.” I say it outloud like a curse, “No! I don’t...those aren’t my plans either.” A rule book written for somebody else, a love letter from society on the promised dream. I wish I could return to sender.

 She kisses my eyelids and the timer goes off.

 I go to my last final.

 What have I done.

 11/19/1973

 Dear Tuesdays,

I have three days to pack and go home for winter break. Three days before this spell might be broken and I am asked about ‘after’ again.

I took Zadya to the movies tonight, I told her it was the least I could do (see? Backbone). She seemed just as smug and victorious as ever, figures.

We hold hands in the dark and laugh at the silly faces we make at a movie that is not particularly good.

She takes me to ‘the best ice cream shop this side of the Appalachians.’ I accept, for now.

It’s good, almost a little too good. Someone stares at us when she gets ice cream on her nose and I kiss it, but they look away muttering on girl friendships and hippies.

Maybe we could be ‘friends forever’ if no one looked too closely and I could hold her hand and they wouldn’t ask questions. I keep my hand by my side for now.

We walk and she asked where was I going after this.

I shrug, “anywhere I want.” She grinned from ear to ear at that, I lick the end of my orange creamsicle. “You?”

“You know,” she looked off into the distance, “Someone who will pay me enough to never have to worry about anything again.” Her shoulders squared, “Buy my parents a house.” I nodded, we weren’t all here under our lawyer-parents bankroll. I wished I could hold her hand.

I chomp on the ice cream, “Anything in mind?” She gave me a devilish look, “If Yellow Corp will hire me I’ll take them for all their worth.” I shake my head, “Lawyers already have bad name as it is you know.” She slips her arm over my shoulder on the empty street, pulling me close, “Don’t worry babe. I’ll make the CEO’s richer and you’ll put them all in jail.”

I raised my eyebrows and a laugh a little, “You know, I said I would never lose to you again.”

Her eyes go soft, “I don’t doubt it.” We go back to my dorm and kiss until our lips are bruised and blue and I try with all my might to tell myself a different story.

11/20/1973

    Dear Journal,

Wow, I actually thought I lost you. I must have dropped you under the bed when I was going home for winter break freshman year.

It’s move out day and my freshman counselor would be happy to know I managed stress enough to graduate summa cum laude. Soooo, smiley points.

Gee, it’s been a long two years. Better though, it got better.

I can’t believe I wrote all this down, especially the last couple entries, I should burn this- a lawyer is nothing without her reputation. I might want to remember this all one day though.

Zadya’s been avoiding me for the last couple days, but she isn’t very good at goodbyes or sentiment. I’ll see her no doubt before my parents arrive to help finish packing.

I wish we were both going to the same city, I wish she wasn’t quite so stubborn.

But I’m stubborn too, I’ve already promised myself I’m getting that public defender job in DC. Just let them watch.

But I want to see her first.

I wouldn’t even be going out for these jobs without her, God, that crazy confidence and cocky smile, I can’t believe I gave in.

I’m going to have a lot to beat in the future, there is work to be done. First we have to say goodbye, even if it’s the hardest damn kiss of my life.

I’ll see her again, even it’s in the courtroom.

And maybe… some time forever from now, we’ll work this out and the law will recognize us back. Not that either of us would put our pride aside to propose.

But there’s always potential.

5/12/1975

Dear Journal,

She did it on a goddamn Tuesday. Of course, on one knee with a symphony playing because she is that kind of ridiculous. She chose a Tuesday and that is the day I’ll have to celebrate from now on every June.

Curse this woman, curse this woman for the rest of my life I guess.

6/27/2015

[momsongblog]

The Most Important Parenting Tool You May be Overlooking

Part One: Definition

Laura sat on her knees, her legs folded under her, pressed against the hard gymnasium floor.  Her weight shifted side to side to find comfort just as much as her eyes darted across the room to look for disapproving glances. Instead, whispers came from behind: “It’s so disgusting.  Why doesn’t she shave her legs?” one girl snickered to another.

Laura had thought about her gym grade based solely on participation.  Should she risk failure?  She wouldn’t have to get up—which would draw less attention to her—but then she’d ruin the only thing that made her feel good in middle school: getting straight A’s.  So she let the tension out of her shoulders and stood up to join her classmates during team selection.  More academic than athletic in nature, Laura was often the last to be picked by the jocks on the team but knew that her chubbiness, awkwardness, and unseemly hairy legs also made her the most undesirable choice.  She held her breath until her name was finally called.  “…and I guess we’ll take Hairy Legs,” the team captain announced defeated without looking up.  The entire class laughed on cue like a sitcom.  Laura’s stomach tightened like a fist, hard and throbbing. With pursed lips, she forced herself to smile because it prevented the further embarrassment that came with crying.

*

“Please, can I shave my legs?” Laura asked looking at the floor in front of her mom.  She had seen razors in the shower but was nervous about how to use them without cutting herself.

“You don’t need to do that.” her mom said boldly, plainly.  “You have blonde hair, and no one can see it.”

“But the girls at school can see it.  I can see it.”

“No, you can’t.  Not compared to my thick, dark hair.  If you shave it, it will only come in thicker and darker.  You don’t want that.  Trust me.” Her mom stood firmly planted, thick in stature and dark in the illuminated hallway.

Laura knew what she wanted, but her mom did not hear her as usual.  She swallowed hard and walked away.

There was no point in bringing it up again.  She’d have to find another way.

***

There are many lenses through which to view this story.  One lens is objective: This is a typical teenage/parent situation—the girl is belittled at school and her mother doesn’t understand her plight.  Another lens is through the mother’s eyes: The daughter was exaggerating because she doesn’t understand the bigger picture.  Blonde body hair on a woman is more socially acceptable; dark body hair is definitely not acceptable.  If the mother could go back in time, she would have delayed shaving or wouldn’t have shaved at all.  She wouldn’t have allowed peer pressure to push her into shaving early, causing the hair to grow back thicker, darker, causing her to shave more frequently because of the more noticeable hair.  Laura needed, deserved to know these things; the mother’s parents didn’t tell her these things when she was young.  

Yet another lens is through the daughter’s eyes.  The story, of course, is already her point of view, but there’s always more to a story. Laura felt intimidated to ask her mom intimate questions about handling her changing adolescent body.  Compounded with the typical teen feelings of embarrassment, uncertainty, and peer rejection at school, Laura felt rejected by her mother.  She needed her mother to teach her womanly ways without laughing at her concerns, bulldozing her feelings, and reframing her questions.  Every new issue she brought to her mother was met with crossed arms and condescension.  So Laura eventually stopped talking to her mom and tried to figure things out by herself—including other, bigger health questions and problems as she got older.  She lost both her trust and confidence in her mother.

All these lenses both coexist and overlap.  There isn’t a right way or a wrong way of looking at this story; each person (including the objective outsider) has his or her own experience, own point of view. However, consequences can occur when the lens of one—particularly if it includes strong feelings—is not considered by the other—and particularly in a close relationship such as romantic partners, best friends, and parents/children.

In the brain, emotional pain is processed in a similar way to physical pain—specifically, a chemical pain-inhibitor is released—proving that emotional pain does indeed hurt.1 Further, people react stronger to incidences of emotional rejection than incidences of physical pain, leading them to become more sensitive long-term.2 The girl, therefore, was genuinely hurt by the ridicule and rejection from her peers and turned to her mother for solace and a solution, but her mother also disregarded her lens, her words and feelings—and evidently not just in this instance.  This pattern of social rejection at school and emotional disregard at home continued for several years.  It led Laura into anxiety, depression, and body dysmorphia starting in high school and lasting for decades.

For those of you that may not know me, I will introduce myself.  My name is Laura—and this blog is my story of motherhood looking through the lens of my childhood.

The starting line for all parents is the way they were raised, and that path will continue unless an intentional detour is made.  When my son was born I made a swift turn down an uncharted road and haven’t looked back. Informed by parenting books, articles, blogs, and mom groups, I noticed a resounding message, a language, and a tool that not only informed me how to work through the emotional pain of my childhood, but also how to be a better friend and spouse and be the kind of mother my son needs.  It’s something we actually all need.

Empathy.

According to Dr. Brené Brown, LWSW, research professor, “empathy is feeling with people.”3 Empathy leads to connection; connection leads to trust; and trust builds secure relationships.  That is not to say that a relationship is impossible without empathy. Empathy is the language of the highest quality human interaction and relationships. It diffuses tension and simultaneously creates or strengthens the connection between strangers, acquaintances, neighbors, friends, or family.  Simply, it is the language of perfect love, sometimes referred to as agape.

The problem is most people do not understand empathy.  Most people are uncomfortable with negative emotions (whether within themselves or encountered by others), so we associate emotional support with minimizing and toughening, saying things like “This is your life right now” or “Cheer up! Things could be worse.” or “You’ll get over this eventually.” when someone approaches us with his or her troubles. This response most often stems from good intentions as we naturally prefer to live positively and so we remind others to “take the high road” and “seek the silver lining,” yet this technique can be toxic: at the micro level it can perpetuate an unhealthy emotional pattern of shame (I am a bad person for feeling or doing _____); isolation (I don’t feel like sharing); and avoidance (I don’t want to feel _____, so I’ll do _____ instead), and at the macro level it can stigmatize mental illness as an emotional choice perpetuating the belief that happiness is everyone’s personal responsibility.4

In contrast, empathy often uses validation or the communication of acceptance which calms the emotional storm that rages inside us.  It does not eliminate our feelings, yet it turns down their volume and its hold on our logical brain whether we are empathetic with ourselves or with others. The irony is that acknowledging negative emotions and giving it space to exist results in emotional resilience and overall increased psychological health.5

If the quality of life mostly depends on the quality of relationships, imagine the power of empathy in your life.  Imagine an understanding boss who “gets you”—wouldn’t you be motivated to do more? Imagine family and friends who validate your feelings when you confide in them—wouldn’t you feel wholly supported and loved?  Imagine a partner who reflects your emotions more than s/he rejects your emotions—wouldn’t your love, your bond grow stronger?  Now imagine your child[ren] cooperating, listening more and having fewer emotional episodes—that’s because you meet his/her/their emotions with empathy and modeled emotional intelligence.

In past generations, society was expected to follow authority blindly; children were expected to be seen and not heard.  Although we are overall more critical of authority today, the residue of strict obedience is still found in our parenting expectations: whenever we set a boundary—“Don’t do that!”—and are ignored—the child does that anyway—we are offended; our authority feels challenged; and we push back by yelling, punishing the perpetrator, making stricter rules.  In older children, our reaction can lead to a dead-end power struggle, so-called rebellion, and negative emotional patterns.  Paradoxically, the parenting shortcut to child cooperation is crafted connection, not compulsory compliance, and that connection is forged through empathy.

The knowledge of empathy presents a great tool for those who want to apply it to any relationship.  The next article (Part Two) will discuss what empathy in parenting looks like and how to use it.  Stay tuned!

Sources:

1.       https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/108/15/6270.full.pdf

2.       https://www.forbes.com/sites/nicolefisher/2015/12/25/rejection-and-physical-pain-are-the-same-to-your-brain/#5c35ab934f87

3.       https://youtu.be/1Evwgu369Jw

4.       https://themighty.com/2016/04/happiness-as-a-choice-meme-feeds-stigma-around-mental-illness/

5.       https://www.thecut.com/2017/08/youll-be-happier-if-you-let-yourself-feel-bad.html?fbclid=IwAR2R0Ypzq-VCoSFI2zsZWCqzFdq82jmQ18Na9Y19tAU1-fNrSHszIiO9QTo

[dovechim]

the ocean

A/N: since it’s my birthday today, I wanted to give all my readers a gift for all your never ending support and patience!!!! thank you all so much for all your love!!!!

mermaid!Jimin x reader AU ft “what are those wiggly worms at the end of your legs?”

Summary: Sometimes, you have to lose your way before you can find yourself. It’s a tough world out there, especially in the world of ballet, but all it takes is one particularly fishy encounter to change your life forever. 

Word Count: 8.6k

“Honestly, why do you even bother getting a pedicure? You know they’re going to be ruined at the end of dance practice,” Joy tells you with a sniffle of disdain at your perfectly painted toenails as she winds tape around her own bare, unpainted toes.

You wiggle your toes in the air, admiring the glossy wine red of your newly acquired pedicure. It makes your feet look a little less bruised and battered, and even though you know the paint will chip off the second you step into your pointe shoes, it’s worth it nonetheless whenever you get to see your feet in flip flops. Which isn’t much, considering that you eat, sleep and breathe dance. It’s considered the norm here at Busan High School of Arts, and the bare minimum if you want to make the monthly cut where they eliminate the unskilled dancers in order to avoid wasting resources.

From the corner of your eye, you spot your dance teacher Seolhyun making her way into the room, and the other dancers are beginning to take their places for the routine warm up that starts every class. With practiced ease, you tape your toes into place to provide extra support and grab your pointe shoes, sliding into them, then doing up the ribbons securely around your ankles and tucking the ends away neatly. You take your place beside Joy near the front of the class and slip into the warm up that you could do with your eyes closed.

Once warm up is over, Seolhyun lines up the entire class in a single file facing her, running a critical eye over each dancer’s physique and position.

“It’s time for your weekly weigh in. Come up one by one to the scale when I call your name,” Seolhyun says as she reaches for a clipboard from her dance bag, glancing through the past records on it briefly. “Once you’re done with the weigh in, I expect you to start practicing your individual routines for the Divisional competition coming up.” She pauses briefly and smirks. “Unless your weight isn’t up to par, that is.”

The girls beside you suck in a nervous breath, and you feel a fresh wave of panic.

“I thought you told me the weigh-in was tomorrow!” You elbow Joy in the ribs, whispering furtively as the first girl steps up to the scale to be weighed.

Joy only winces apologetically, not daring to speak lest she be called up to be weighed first.

All of a sudden you feel like your leotard has shrunken a good two sizes, and it sticks to you like a second skin. You eye up all the other girls, inwardly cursing your family for insisting on that barbeque buffet just yesterday and trying your best to suck in your tummy and be as light as possible as your name is called. Feeling like you’re approaching your impending doom, you step up to the scale with your heart in your throat, feeling Seolhyun’s assessing gaze on you.

“Looks like you’ve gained weight, ________,” she says even before you step on the scale. After years of teaching thousands of students, Seolhyun’s practiced eye is never wrong. You squeeze your eyes shut and think of the breakfast and lunch you skipped today in order to make up for yesterday’s feasting, and pray for a miracle.

But the scale doesn’t lie, and your cheeks heat up when she calls out your weight to the rest of the class.

“50.3kg.” A chorus of snickers and chuckles follow, and you bite down on your lip hard enough to draw blood as you step off from the scale.

“You know what that means, _______. Pointe shoes off, running shoes on. 5 rounds around the school; loop around the beach before coming back. Don’t even think about practicing your routine until you’re well below 50kg.”

You duck your head and make a beeline for your dance bag near the back of the dance studio, avoiding the pitying gazes of your classmates as your switch shoes as fast as you can, ripping off the tape on your toes and feeling tears spring into your eyes, be it from pain or humiliation. Once out of the dance studio, you feel a little better, breathing comes a little easier as you set out on the all too familiar route.

*

By the time you’re on your last round, you’re absolutely drenched with sweat and every breath is a torture as you fight to keep placing one foot in front of the other. The salty breeze of the sea air provides little relief, and the soothing rhythm of the waves hitting the shore are urging you to slow down, and you give in to the temptation.

You kick off your shoes and dig your toes into the fine grains of pristine alabaster sand that feels like silk around your feet. The deep celestial waves of the ocean are hypnotic as it ebbs and flows, and you take one step after another until you’re almost knee deep. The sensation of the current working its way around you is almost strong enough to knock you off your feet, but the feeling of it against your sore muscles is heavenly and you close your eyes to savour it.

With your eyes closed, you don’t see the monster wave that approaches from a distance away until it crashes over your head and you’re submerged with a burning lungful of saltwater. Your feet struggle to find purchase on the seabed, only to find that the current has swept you further away from the shore. Panic fills your veins as you begin to thrash and flail around, struggling to get your head above water, but your weak limbs feel as heavy as lead and you can feel yourself slowly sinking.

But a pair of arms wraps around your waist securely, and you’re yanked up to the surface within seconds. Spluttering and coughing desperately, you blink the stinging salt water out of your eyes just as you register the feeling of a solid, warm body against yours. A blurry image of a boy with slate grey eyes and hair the colour of dark ashen blonde slowly comes into focus, and the piercing intensity of his concerned gaze steals your breath away. You’re speechless for a few seconds, transfixed by the plump fullness of his ruby red lips and the beads of water that sit upon his luminescent pearly skin that you don’t realise he’s talking to you until he has to repeat his question.

“Can you stand now?” His voice is a low rumble of satoori that sounds unfamiliar to you, having been brought up in Seoul, but you still get the gist and scramble to find purchase on the ground beneath you. You feet land easily on the soft bed of sand, and you realise that in the midst of your zoning out the handsome stranger must have navigated the both of you slightly closer to shore. You realise that your hands are flat on the stranger’s bare chest, and embarrassment heats up your cheeks as you rip your hands away immediately.

“Yes um… thank you so much,” you force your eyes to remain strictly on his damp ashen hair. “Where did you come from? I didn’t see anyone out swimming when I entered the water,” you narrow your eyes suspiciously.

The boy with gunmetal grey eyes smiles shyly, and his hands leave your waist to brush his damp hair away from his forehead. “Ah, I came in just after you did.”

That simple gesture of his is enough to transfix you as fumble around for a reply. The handsome stranger catches you staring at him and shoots you a bashful little smile as one of his hands brushes the back of his neck self consciously. “Will you be okay getting back from here?”

“Yes of course!! Thank you so much…” you let your voice trail off as you realise you’ve been ogling this man for the past five minutes but you don’t even know his name yet.

“Jimin. I’m Park Jimin,” he says with a grin that turns his eyes into little crescent moons.

“Ah, Jimin-ssi. Do you go to Busan Arts too? I’ve never seen you around town before,” you’re struggling to place his handsome face in your memory, but come up short.

He looks a little confused at your question, and the silence stretches for a tad too long. “Oh, um yes, I do go there!”

You’re about to ask what his major is when a shout interrupts, and you whip your head toward the shore only to find Joy waving at you frantically.

“________, are you alright?”

You wave back at her to let her know you’re fine, but when you turn back towards Jimin, your eyes are met with nothing but the sparkling sapphire waters, any single trace of the boy with grey eyes and ashen hair has disappeared.

*

“Did you hear a single word I just said?”

You wrench your eyes back to Joy, who’s sitting on her bed across the room from you. Wincing apologetically, you return to massaging your sore calves and trying to remember where you left off in your daily stretching routine.

Joy only sighs in response. “As I was saying, Yeri got commended by coach today. You’d better watch out, she’s using the same song as you isn’t she? If her routine’s better she’ll definitely one up you during Divisionals.”

“Oh did she?” You can only manage an uninterested sniffle as you reach toward your beside table for your pack of soothing muscle patches. Normally you’d be a lot more concerned about your long time rival earning the rare praises of Seolhyun unnie, but today you have a lot more on your mind than usual. More specifically, a boy with ashen hair and piercing slate grey eyes.

“______, you sure you’re okay? What happened to you today, why were you in the sea? You were gone for so long and I was so worried that I rushed over after training,” Joy pouts even as she shoots you a concerned look.

“Joy, I need to ask you something,” you ignore her questions. “When you saw me in the sea this afternoon, was there anyone else in the water with me?”

She doesn’t even hesitate before answering. “What are you talking about? I saw you standing waist deep in the water alone, that’s why I was so worried. I thought you were committing suicide or something.” She pauses, eyes widening in realisation. “You weren’t trying to kill yourself, were you? After how harsh Seolhyun unnie was today…”

“No! Of course I wasn’t,” you rush to reassure her, but your mind has already started to wander. How could Joy not have seen him in the water with you? Was he entirely a figment of your imagination? Closing your eyes, you can almost feel the lingering touches of his hands on your waist, the warmth emanating from his slim, muscular body and the musical lilt that accompanies the rough satoori of his voice. Your imagination may be rich, but there’s no way you’re capable of dreaming up someone like him. Resolve settles in the pit of your stomach as you glance at your running shoes by the door.

5 rounds around the school doesn’t sound so bad, all of a sudden.

*

To your disappointment, the vast spread of the ocean lies before you, completely bare of any human presence. You struggle to regulate your breathing, hunched over with your hands braced on your knees for support. In an attempt not to arouse suspicion or worry from Joy like the day before, you’d increased your jogging speed to finish your rounds faster so that you’d have a little time to spare at the end before heading back.

You kick off your shoes once more and nearly moan in relief the moment your sweaty, cramped toes hit the cool water. Hiking up your shorts, you venture in a little further until the water hits mid thigh. If you close your eyes for a moment, you can almost feel the lulling crash of the waves wash away the stinging humiliation of the previous day’s events, and the stifling worry of not being able to train. The way the water moves and bends around you even as the current continues to ebb and flow is therapeutic, and you whisper his name under your breath unknowingly.

The constant swirling of water around you is interrupted, causing you to open your eyes, only to be met with Park Jimin’s grey ones. Elation and delight erupts in your chest, and a grin creeps onto your face when you see him greeting you with a shy smile, tousling his soaked ashen locks carelessly. He’s shirtless again, and you only allow your eyes to roam the creamy expanse of his chest for a few seconds before wrangling them back to his face.

“Park Jimin. Is the sea your second home or something? You’re always soaked to the bone,” you refrain from adding a stupid comment about how hot he looks. “Oh, and hi again.”

He chuckles as he blinks the water from his eyes, and the sound shoots a thrill through you, the melodious sound of his laughter riding the salty breeze makes you want to dance more than any musical piece has.

“Hi, ________,” a smile tugs at the corner of his lips. “I guess you could say that, or you could go even further and say that it’s my first home.”

“I didn’t get to ask you what your major is yesterday. You disappeared all of a sudden, where did you go?”

“I’m undeclared,” he says with an air of ease, running a hand through his wet hair, and your eyes are transfixed on that particular droplet of water that navigates its way down his firm chest towards the sharply defined lines of his abs before disappearing below the surface of the water where he stands a little further out to sea. It’s so distracting that you don’t realise that he never answers your second question, but asks one of his own instead. “What’s your major?”

“O-oh, I’m a dance major. Ballet, more specifically.” He flashes you a little smirk when he catches you staring, and your cheeks heat up in response and you have to make a conscious effort not to stutter. “Do you always go swimming in the sea shirtless like this? Are you intending to be a synchronised swimmer or something?”

“Synchronised swimming? Do they have things like that at Busan Arts?” You were only teasing him, but his question is so genuine that you can’t help but smile. “And do you always go swimming in the sea fully clothed like this?”

His lingering gaze makes you feel a little bolder, there’s no mistaking that spark of attraction that lingers in the salty breeze between the two of you. “Only when there are cute shirtless boys around.”

He rewards you with a smile that makes his cheeks round and his eyes crease into crescent moons, and it makes you forget about all the weight that you have to lose before tomorrow’s weigh in, takes your mind off the consequences of not being able to practice when it’s this close to Divisionals.

“Will I still see you again? I mean, you never used to come here until yesterday,” Park Jimin avoids your gaze shyly as he reaches to rub the back of his neck.

“Hopefully not,” you start to say, only to catch a glimpse of his crestfallen expression before you hurry on. “If I lose enough weight before tomorrow, I won’t have to come running anymore, and I get to practice my routine for the upcoming competition. So consider it good news if you don’t see me here tomorrow,” you throw in a nervous laugh for good measure in an attempt to lighten the suddenly sombre atmosphere.

When he doesn’t say anything in response, you attempt to break the awkward silence. “But hey, we could meet up in school or something? Just come by the dance building, you know where it is right?”

Jimin brightens considerably at your suggestion, “oh yeah, that’s right! In school, we could always meet in school! It slipped my mind for a moment.”

His adorable fumbling is endearing, and you sincerely hope that you’ll be able to see him again.

“It’s to the left of the music center,” you tell him as you begin to make your way out of the water, all too aware of the weight of his gaze on your back.

*

If looks could kill, you’d be dead ten times over under the weight of Seolhyun unnie’s glare as she stares down at the class in front of her critically. When she spots you standing in the middle row, she raises a perfectly plucked eyebrow.

“_______ssi, I suppose you think you’re ready to come back and practice now?”

“Yes, Coach-nim,” you barely keep your voice steady, and she gives you an unimpressed smile in return.

“I guess there’s only one way to prove it then. Get the scale.” You hurry to the back of the dance studio and reach for the cupboard where the scale is kept, tiptoeing in an effort to reach the highest shelf where it’s stashed away. Cursing under your breath, your heart rate speeds up as anxiety begins to consume you when you can feel the whole class watching you struggle.

Just then, salvation comes in the form of a knock on the door, and you watch from the corner of your eye as Seolhyun takes her eyes off you and heads toward the door. Relief floods your entire body and Joy takes the opportunity while Seolhyun is distracted to rush over and grab the scale off the shelf for you before taking her original place.

You can barely regulate your breathing enough to thank her as you clutch the scale to your chest for dear life, closing the cupboard doors gingerly before turning around and heading toward the front of the room where Seolhyun stands, but you realise that she’s not alone. A boy with ashen blonde hair dressed in a loose white dress shirt and black pants that mold perfectly to his sculpted thighs stands fidgeting beside her, and the rest of the class is slowly erupting in supressed giggles and barely controlled swooning over how good looking this new stranger is.

Except he’s not a stranger to you.

You frantically try to catch his eye, wondering why he chooses now of all time to show up here. You’d expected him to wait till after class has ended, or look for you outside the dance studio like any normal person, not simply just knock and walk in on a lesson. Seolhyun unnie hates interruptions, and she’ll probably eat him alive for having the guts to walk in while she’s having class, you should probably tell him to run while he can-

“Class, this is Park Jimin, and he’ll be joining our class from now on.”

You almost drop the glass scale in your arms as you try to process what Seolhyun unnie just said, and your eyes immediately shift over to Jimin as he bows politely and introduces himself. He catches a glimpse of you standing slightly apart from the others, with wide eyes and clasping a weighing scale, and gives you his signature shy smile. The rest of the girls start gushing even more at the sight of this, each of them tittering to the other that Park Jimin smiled at them, when Seolhyun quietens everyone by clearing her throat. She glances at Jimin, taking in his form from head to toe, and you recognise that look that she has in her eyes, that penchant she has for humiliating others and putting them in the spotlight, literally and figuratively. A sense of dread creeps into your stomach.

“Park Jimin-ssi, I understand that you have some background of modern dance, is that so? Would it be too much to ask for quick freestyle? Of course, if you’re not ready, that’s completely fine…” Her sentence trails off as she offers a flimsy smile that only thinly disguises her veiled threats.

You watch, frozen, as Jimin bites his plush lower lip in consternation, casting a quick glance at you before seemingly steeling himself, taking in a deep breath and brushing the flaxen hair from his forehead.

“I would be delighted to, Coach-nim,” he says in his heavily accented Busan satoori that has even Seolhyun’s own strict no nonsense expression softening just a tad.

The rest of the class immediately clears out, forming two neat lines of observers and leaving the main centre area of the studio clear for Jimin as he takes his spot. Seolhyun makes her way to the AV station in the corner of a room, taking a moment to select an appropriate soundtrack for him. As strains of a familiar song seep into your consciousness, your eyes are trained on the boy with gunmetal grey eyes and ashen blonde hair, who has a look of concentration fixed upon his features as he listens to the opening notes of the song.

He almost seems to melt into the music, his body bending and flowing in a way that reminds you of the ocean waves and his movements are so fluid and effortless, yet the controlled strength and power behind them are easily apparent. Any trace of the shy boy from the ocean is gone, and he seems like a different person entirely, his intense sultry gaze capturing and holding you hostage. When he closes his eyes, the depth of his passion is painted in the way he throws his head back, exposing the creamy column of his throat, in the preciseness of every single turn and that final graceful leap that showcases his lithe strength and raw power.

Park Jimin breaks position, panting and avoiding eye contact with the girls in the front row who are admiring every single line of his body with open-mouthed stares. For a moment, no one in the studio speaks, and the only sound is of his harsh breathing. You take a moment to sneak a glance at Seolhyun, who looks pretty shell-shocked. Jimin’s eyes find yours in the back row, and he bites his lip uncertainly before offering you a timid little smile.

The spell of silence is finally broken by Seolhyun’s clapping, and the rest of the class turns to stare at her for a few seconds before belatedly joining in. Seolhyun has never praised a student so outrightly like this before. Jimin’s smile widens, and he ruffles his hair before bowing in thanks.

“The rest of you, get back to your routines. Park Jimin-ssi, may I speak with you for a moment?” Her strict, no nonsense tone cuts through the mayhem of high pitched giggling and swooning, but the rest of the class follows along obediently as she takes Jimin to the far end of the studio.

You hurry and stash the scale back in its original place, hoping that Seolhyun doesn’t remember about it before joining Joy in the opposite corner.

“So. The new guy’s kinda hot huh?” Joy says as she sneaks a glance at him with Seolhyun.

“Mhm, I guess,” you say, feigning disinterest as you begin to warm up at the barre. Even as you start to practice your routine, you can see Seolhyun finally dismissing Jimin from the corner of your eye, and when you register that he’s walking in your direction, you bend over a little more than necessary mid split. Your efforts at avoiding the handsome boy who dances better than half of this class are aided when Yeri stops him with a hand on his arm, praises about his freestyle gushing from her glib little tongue and trailing appreciative eyes all over his lithe frame. Jimin is slightly uncomfortable as he fidgets under her touch, but becomes slightly more at ease when Yeri asks him to demonstrate a particular movement again. It seems like his shyness melts away when he’s dancing, but not that you’re secretly watching him from the mirror.

*

Sweat is pouring down your face, and your bun is coming loose, but you don’t take your eyes off your form in the mirror as you spin once, twice, thrice, and then one final time. You lose your focus near the end of the last spin, causing your turns to end up messy and amateurish.

“_________-ah, maybe four turns is too much. Reducing it to three should be better,” Joy says as she sees your distress in the mirror from where she’s working on her routine.

“Yeri has four turns,” you manage through gritted teeth, positioning your feet and bracing yourself to try again.

You push off with one foot and keep your gaze locked in the mirror, fighting to keep your balance. But this time, you falter in the middle of your second turn and end up in a heap of limbs on the shiny floor of the dance studio, attracting mocking giggles and pitying looks. Trying not to groan, you fight to untangle your legs and get back on your feet, when Seolhyun claps to gather attention.

“Class, that’s all for today, good work everyone! For those who are still lacking,” here she pauses and looks directly at you, “please work harder! Divisionals are a week away!”

Majority of the class packs up and gets ready to leave once she exits the studio, and you hear Yeri offering to buy Jimin a meal under the pretense of welcoming him to the dance family. Rolling your eyes, you strengthen your resolve and walk toward the AV corner to set up your soundtrack.

“__________, you coming?” Joy hesitates at the door when everyone else has already left.

You massage your neck wearily, “You should go ahead. I have two days of practice to make up for.”

When the door closes behind her, you press play and walk to the centre of the dim studio, rotating your neck in an attempt to get rid of the stiffness. Closing your eyes, you let the music seep into your bones as you fall into your familiar routine with a sense of practiced ease until you reach the pirouettes. Gritting your teeth, you put every ounce of energy and focus into perfecting the continuous turns, but there’s a sharp twinge in the arch of your foot and you lose balance again, landing harshly on your shins. Tears are welling up and overflowing before you realise it, and you can’t distinguish tears from sweat anymore as you furiously undo the laces of your shoes and throw them across the room in frustration as the last notes of the song fades and the sound of your sobs fill the studio.

The floorboards creak behind you and you whip your head around immediately, wiping at your face and trying to pretend you’re just dabbing the sweat off your face in case it’s Seolhyun unnie, or even worse, Yeri. But the silhouette that stands in the doorway only reaches to ruffle his hair nervously with his sweater paws, and it sends a smile tugging at the corner of your lips despite yourself.

“Um, hey. How long have you been standing there?” You greet him with a raw voice, and you immediately clear your throat to try and hide the evidence of your breakdown.

“Not very long,” he says as he approaches, tossing you a paper bag and a sports drink.

You just manage to catch them in midair, setting the blue sports drink aside to take a peek in the paper bag. “Doughnuts? Jimin, thank you for this but I need to watch my weight or Seolhyun unnie will-”

“I know a way to mess with the weighing scale so you’ll always be half a kg lighter,” he says, deadpan.

“Wait what? How do you do that?”

He gives you a secretive smirk. “Eat it, then I’ll tell you.”

“You don’t really know, do you?” You narrow your eyes at him, but open the paper bag and reach for the sugar covered confectionery anyway, taking a bite out of it. Almost immediately you close your eyes and moan at the sweet bliss hitting your deprived taste buds. “This is so good, I can’t even remember the last time I had sugar that wasn’t fruit.”

“Oh. So that’s what the girl at the pastry shop meant when she told me her melons were just as sweet.”

You sputter in response, a cloud of powdered sugar spraying from your mouth. “Wait what?”

“Although why would she be selling fruit at a pastry shop though?” He scrunches his nose in thought, looking genuinely puzzled and all you want to do is squish his little button nose fondly.

“You got me, Park Jimin,” you say in the midst of giggles. “Although when you said meet in school, I had no idea we’d be meeting like this. You’re lucky Seolhyun unnie didn’t bite your head off for interrupting her class.” You rip a piece off the sweet pastry to demonstrate.

Jimin winces in response. “Well, I saved you from that weigh-in, didn’t I? Is she that bad? She told me it was too late to enter me into Divisionals, but she seemed pretty nice when she told me I was good.”

“She’s nice only to those who are talented, aka not me.”

“Oh.”

There’s a period of silence where he just watches as you lick powdered sugar from your fingers, and when you’re done, you stretch out your legs, wincing at the tension in your muscles.

“Um, thank you for this. But I have to get back to practicing, or else I won’t be able to make it to Divisionals.”

“You’re welcome, __________. But um… I saw that you were having some trouble with your turns.  If you don’t mind, I could give you some pointers?” He avoids your gaze by studying the wine red of your painted toenails intently, and his shyness is beyond adorable.

“Oh, uh okay, I could use all the help I can get,” you say as you flex your feet and wiggle your taped toes, loosening up your ankles in preparation.

“I just have one question,” Jimin is still staring at your toes. “What are those wiggly worms at the ends of your legs?”

*

You collapse onto your bed in a sweaty mess, too achy and tired to even change into sweats for bed.

“How’s your routine coming along?” Joy asks from her place on her bed across you, although her words are a little muffled by the facial mask she has on.

“Fine I guess,” you don’t tell her about Park Jimin staying back to help you even though it’s nothing much to be secretive of, but for some reason you like how it’s something that only the two of you are aware of and you’d like to keep it that way. If Joy were to somehow gain knowledge of this, the whole class is likely to know about it within the hour.

Just the thought of Park Jimin has your stomach fluttering with butterflies in the most cliché way ever, but in your defense, he’s truly one of a kind. When you nervously asked him for his phone number after today’s practice, he shot you a puzzled look and asked you what a phone was. He’s mostly shy and a little awkward at times around you, but when he dances, he transforms into an entirely different person altogether. It’s that Park Jimin you’re transfixed by, the way he creates living and breathing art with every sweep of his arms or twist of his body that inspires you and rekindles your love for dance despite the many hardships it comes with.

Over the next week or so, he continues to help you with your routine tirelessly, ignoring Yeri’s whines and pestering (to your secret satisfaction). Time passes in a blur of practice, muscle aches and the almost forbidden thrill of his hands on your waist every time he guides you into your turns during class and his soothing massages that he insists on giving you when everyone else has already left the studio.

But the day before Divisionals, you notice that Park Jimin isn’t his usual chipper self. He’s more withdrawn than usual, and his luminous, pearlescent skin is looking a little grey. The once intense gunmetal grey of his eyes now resembles a dull rain cloud on a stormy day.

“Jimin, are you sure you’re okay? You missed a turn or two in class today, and you’re never less than perfect.”

His answering smile doesn’t quite reach his eyes as he squeezes your calf in reassurance. “I’m fine, maybe a little tired that’s all.”

“You should go back to the dorms, you’ve done enough for me,” you say as you scoot closer to him, reaching to brush a stray piece of hair out of his eyes.

“No, it’s okay, I-“

“Besides, I think I need some time alone to mentally prepare myself for tomorrow,” you’d rather not lie to him if you can, but this is the only way to get his stubborn self out the door and into bed for some much needed rest. Jimin gives you a hesitant look, his teeth buried into his lower lip before nodding reluctantly.

He shifts from his position on the floor onto his knees, and leans over to press a kiss to your forehead. You freeze in response, feeling your breath catch in your throat. He’s never made a move like this before, all your previous interactions were limited to flirty touches and lingering glances, but this is a whole new level.

“This is what a guy does when he likes a girl, isn’t it? I’ve seen it in dramas.”

You can feel his plush lips smiling as he rests them against your forehead before he pulls away, heading for the door without a second glance backwards.

*

The waiting room is absolute chaos, but you’re thankful for the invention of earpieces as you sit in a corner, trying to calm yourself down. The classical piece that you’re listening to is the exact same one that you’ll dance to in a few minutes. Picturing each and every single move in your head, by the time the song repeats itself for the third time, you’ve convinced yourself that you couldn’t be any more prepared for this.

Not until Yeri plops down in the chair next to you.

“Nervous?” She holds up a handheld mirror, smoothing the flyaways of her bun back into place.

“Nope.” You give her a short reply on purpose to irk her, but she doesn’t fall for it.

“Pity. True professionals work well under stress.”

Gritting your teeth, you up the volume on your music, hoping to drown her out. But Seolhyun approaches the both of you at that instant, and you’re forced to take your earpieces out.

She addresses you first. “___________, remember to keep your balance during the turns. If you feel like you’re going to lose control, just stop at three, it’s better to risk a lower difficulty score rather than have points taken off for a fall.”

“Yes, unnie.”

“My turns are perfect, aren’t they Coach-nim?” Yeri puckers her lips at her reflection in her mirror, and you fight the urge to roll your eyes. Instead, you excuse yourself politely and head towards Joy who’s still trying to perfect her makeup.

“Hey, I saw Park Jimin out there,” she says by way of greeting, with her eyes still focused on her reflection as she applies a second coat of mascara.

“Really?”

“I wonder who he’s here to see,” she shoots you a sly look, and you turn away to hide the smile that sneaks its way onto your lips. “You’ve been spending a lot of time together hmmm? Don’t think I don’t notice the way he touches you when he “helps” you with your turns. And even if you don’t talk about it, I recognise that look on your face.”

“What look?’

“Lovesickness.”

You spin around and swat at her arm. “I am not lovesick! And he is actually helping with my turns, thank you very much.”

“Whatever helps you sleep at night,” Joy smirks at herself in the mirror before closing the tube and turning to look at you directly. “Speaking of which, how are you feeling? I know you kept tossing and turning last night, did you get enough sleep?”

“I got maybe 4 hours max. But I’ll be fine,” you hurriedly reassure her when she frowns.

“___________, please get ready, you’re on standby! Onstage in 2 minutes!” The official reads off from a clipboard before craning her neck to search the sea of dancers crowding the waiting room for you.

Your heart nearly leaps out of your throat when you hear your name being called, and you smooth down the front of your costume before giving Joy’s shoulder a nervous squeeze.

“I’ll see you later.” Shooting her a weak smile, you head towards the stage entrance and wait with bated breath.

The minutes tick down into seconds before the doors are thrown open and you allow yourself one more moment of anxiety. The moment you take a step out into the harsh glow of the spotlight, your best show stopping smile is on display, and you take a few precious seconds to search the crowd before coming to rest on a head of ashen blonde hair. The way he smiles back at you sets your heart at ease, and all of a sudden, the deafening sound of the audience’s cheers and claps are gone, the four judges who stare you down with their intimidating glares disappear, until all that’s left is you and Park Jimin.

Your body automatically lowers in the mandatory curtsy before the streams of an all too familiar song starts, and in that moment you forget everything else except that pair of gunmetal grey eyes fixed on you. By now you move more out of muscle memory than anything else, but infused into every movement is a passionate remembrance of the boy from the ocean. You glide through your routine effortlessly, your presence filling up every inch of the stage and when it comes to your pirouettes, all you have to do is think about Park Jimin guiding you into every turn with his hands on your waist to nail them perfectly, and the audience erupts into an applause that does not stop even after you give your final bow and walk off the stage.

“Oh my god you were great!!! Your turns were perfect!” Joy bombards you with a hug the moment you enter the backstage waiting room, and you laugh in relief with her. “We’ll see what that bitch Yeri has to say now!!”

“Joy! What if she hears you?” You chide her but you can’t stay angry for long when she’s bouncing around in happiness like this.

“Who cares? That little bitch deserves this, she thinks she’s so good and all-“

“Joy I think they just called your name!”

“Shit did they?? Ok love you see you later bye!!”

“Break a leg!” You call after her as she sprints off.

You’re filled with the rush of endorphins from your performance, and it feels impossible to be able to sit still in the waiting room to wait for the release of results. You know that you should stay here to congratulate Joy after she finishes her performance, but the thought of remaining in the stifling little waiting room for a second longer is unbearable. So you grab your bag from the chair in the corner, stuffing all your belongings in before sneaking out of the waiting room and into the performance hall. Craning your neck to see over the numerous heads, you try to spot Park Jimin where you last saw him when you were on stage, but your estimation must be lacking since you don’t see his bright blonde head anywhere in the hall.

A sense of worry begins to fill your chest when you remember his ashen complexion from the day before. You automatically reach for your phone to call him, only to stuff it back into your pocket in frustration when you remember that he told you he doesn’t own one. Letting yourself out of the hall as quietly as you can, you make your way back to the entrance of the waiting room, hoping that he’s there.

You peek your head into the waiting room and scan for any sign of an ashen blonde head, but the room is only filled with nervous girls pacing up and down, warming up and having silent meltdowns. Closing the door, you groan in frustration, spinning around on your heel before deciding to try the performance hall again. But you run smack into a slightly taller figure as soon as you try and take a few steps, and you’re about to give this person hell for blocking your way when you realise that the stranger’s chest feels familiar.

“You did so well out there!” His voice is a little rough, but no doubt it’s Park Jimin.

“Yah pabo! I was looking for you everywhere, where did you go? And you don’t have a phone either-“ You look up into his face, and he looks worse off from the day before. There are dark circles around his weary eyes, his normally shiny hair looks dull and unkempt. Cupping his cheeks with both hands, you’re startled at how warm he feels, to the extent of burning up.

“I’m okay, but you were so amazing-“

“Jimin, why do you feel feverish? When did this start? You should have stayed in your room, why did you come here?”

“I had to support you of course,” he smiles at you weakly, taking one of his hands from your waist to brush your cheek, and you nearly flinch at how hot his palm is.

“Jimin-ah, let me help you back to your room so you can rest okay? You shouldn’t have come,” you chide him gently even as you slide your arm around his waist and start to walk in the direction of the dorms.

“I’m really okay,” he continues to insist even as he’s too weak to resist. But you only manage to take a few steps before he stumbles, and his weight sends the both of you tumbling to the floor.

“Fuck, are you okay?” Panicked tears fill your eyes as you struggle to right the both of you, but Jimin doesn’t respond.

“Jimin? Park Jimin? Answer me!!” You shift him into a sitting position before abandoning your grip on his waist to cradle his head instead. He is deathly pale, and his lips are almost bloodless, his eyelashes dusting the very tops of his cheeks. Panic wells up in your chest as you fight to remain calm, tapping his cheek in an attempt to get a response from him as you sob his name.

His eyes flutter open.

“Jimin, you’ll be alright, I’m calling the nurse right now ok?” You fumble in your bag for your phone before belatedly remembering that you’d stuffed it in your pocket.

“No, no nurse,” he manages a weak plea as he reaches to stop you.

“C’mon, don’t be stubborn-“

“Sea.” “What?” You stop in the midst of scrolling through your contacts list for the nurse’s number.

“I need to go to the sea.”

*

“Ahjussi, please go faster if you can,” you fight to keep your calm, running your fingers through Jimin’s hair as your cradle his head in your lap.

The taxi driver only grunts in response, but he speeds up considerably. The pounding of your heart slows down slightly when you see the familiar shore of the sea.

“Jimin, we’re nearly there. How are you feeling? Talk to me ok?”

He shifts to bury his nose in your stomach, and his voice comes out in a murmur. “You smell good.”

If the situation were different, you would have laughed, but for now you settle for stroking his hair in an attempt to soothe not only him, but yourself as well.

The taxi screeches to a stop just beyond the where the sandy beach starts, and you hastily shove a wad of cash into his hands, telling him to keep the change before throwing open the door and helping Jimin out.

“Jimin, what now? We’re here, like you asked.” He takes a deep breath, scenting the salty ocean breeze, and there seems to be a little bit more colour in his cheeks now. But he’s still too weak to walk on his own.

“I need to go into the sea,” he says softly.

“Ok, let’s go,” you don’t question him and immediately start making your way toward the water, kicking off your slippers in the process.

You wince when you feel the cold water hit your toes, but it doesn’t have quite the same effect on Jimin. His entire body relaxes as soon as it comes into contact with the water, and he moans in relief.

“___________, I need to submerge my legs in the seawater. Let me go, I can manage from here.” He attempts to escape from your grasp, but you hold on to his waist tightly.

“What? No, I’m not letting you drown after I dragged your ass all the way here, Park Jimin.” Taking several steps forward, you don’t stop until you’re waist deep.

You turn to look at Jimin again, but he has his eyes closed once more. Worry threatens to consume you, until you realise that his complexion looks so much better, his cheeks are beginning to look rosy again, and his lips are as plush and ruby red as when you first saw him right here in the ocean. Pressing a hand to his forehead, his temperature has also gone down significantly, and he feels normal to the touch now.

“Jimin-“ your eyes stray to the lower half of his body to assess his condition, but the rest of your words are stuck in your throat.

Instead of a pair of legs encased in black denim jeans, under the surface of the crystal clear water lies a tail that resembles a dolphin’s, except this one is completely covered in glimmering holographic scales, so that his tail is a combination of emerald and turquoise under the glare of the sun. The scales are tessellated in neat rows that end just below his navel, and they look smooth to the touch. His tail tapers gracefully into a delicate fan of black tipped fins where each foot should be, and the intense jet-black makes the main periwinkle and viridian body of his tail stand out even more.

You open and close your mouth like a fish, speechless for once in your life.

“You look like a fish that I ate for dinner once,” Park Jimin comments drily, scrutinising your expression carefully.

“Wh-where are your legs? Oh my god. This is not happening right now. You’re a mermaid??”

“I believe the more accurate term is merman,” he scrunches his nose at you, and if you just keep your eyes above the surface of the water, you can almost pretend that it’s still Park Jimin you’re talking to, human Park Jimin.

“So they exist,” you’re breathless and mesmerised by the motion of his tail as it cuts through the water effortlessly, creating a gentle current that swirls around the both of you like an embrace. And it all falls into place. His strange comments, literal fish out of water behaviour, and your initial meeting right at this spot weeks ago.

“But… why did you come to Busan Arts? And you look like you’ve been dancing for years, not like someone who walked out of the ocean and entered a dance studio.”

He shrugs. “When your friend interrupted us on the first day, I couldn’t let her see me because it was just too dangerous for our community to be exposed to humans. But I hated myself so much for letting you slip away. So when you showed up again the next day, I was so thankful and I had to find some way of seeing you again.

As for dance, it’s similar to swimming in the ocean, just on land I guess. It comes naturally to me, but of course I had to get used to legs first,” Jimin laughs. “But I’m a fast learner.”

“No, wait. I don’t understand. Just a few moments ago you were so feverish, I was so scared, Jimin!” It’s too much information to process at once, so you decide to focus on the present issue.

“Merfolk are able to leave the sea and walk on land for short periods of time, we’ve adapted after centuries of evolution. But we start to get sick if we aren’t in contact with sea water after a few days.” His gunmetal grey eyes are fixed on yours, and just like that a sense of calm settles within you.

“Why did you do something so stupid? Living at Busan Arts to help me with my routine? You could have been killed!” You reach to slap him on the chest, but he grabs your hand with his own deftly and pulls you into his arms.

“Humans can be really stupid sometimes,” he sighs against your ear, and the rush of his breath makes electricity spark through you. You open your mouth to retort, but he silences you with a soft hush. “When we fall in love, it’s in our destiny to walk to the ends of the earth searching for that person until we find them. The equivalent of failing is a slow and painful death, so I figured I’d take my chances.”

Resting your chin on the sculpted ridge of his collarbone, you allow yourself to relax into his embrace, feeling the warmth of his body comforting you.

“I think your chances are pretty good.”

*

Outtake

You watch from the door of your bathroom as Jimin runs a towel through his damp hair, and you’re jealous of the way his shiny ashen blonde hair falls in perfect beachy waves over his forehead. It must be a mermaid- no wait, merfolk thing, you decide. No mortal human has hair that perfect, or a smile that pearlescent, or abs that defined, or-

“Like what you see?”

“Pfft. Don’t get ahead of yourself or your head might not fit through that door.”

Jimin is genuinely confused. “What? Why would my head not be able to fit through this door? I fit easily just five minutes ago.

It still slips your mind that he takes things way too literally sometimes, and you give a playful roll of your eyes.

“Hey, don’t you need to go back to the competition to wait for the results?”

“What for? I already know I’ve won first place.” You wait until a grin spreads across his face and he looks like he’s about to implode from excitement.

“First place in your heart, that is.” You erupt into giggles when you see the peeved expression on his face, doubling over in laughter.

“Wow, eomma was right. Humans are a cheesy bunch,” he grumbles as he turns back to the mirror.

“Jiminnie, I just have one question for you,” you manage to stop laughing and take a few deep breaths.

“How do merfolk have sex?”

A/N: i honestly did not expect it to turn out this long, but oh well :’) thank you all for reading, i hope you enjoyed it! i was partially inspired by legend of the blue sea and also weightlifting fairy! omg i love weightlifting fairy i can’t believe it ended already :’( please let me know what you think!

addie

[humorepoch9-blog]

Tips from students to help improve your teaching (opinion)

The first recommendation of the American Academy’s recent report "The Future of Undergraduate Education" is simple: we should work to improve undergraduate instruction.

But how? In many disciplines, we don’t have rigorous measures of learning, so we cannot easily identify the best practitioners and simply copy what they do. Undergraduate students, however, experience numerous teachers and a lot of instruction, some good and some bad. They are a source of valuable information about what constitutes good practice.

So, at a recent event co-sponsored by the Center for Ethics and Education, the University of Wisconsin at Madison College of Letters and Science, and the American Academy, we asked five undergraduate students at the university to describe instructional practices that they’ve encountered rarely but were especially effective -- and that they think should be more widely shared. Of course, some strategies work in some disciplines better than others, in some kinds of classes better than others and for some instructors better than others. Here’s what the students at the event told us.

Christian Cuevas, a senior majoring in computer science: One strategy that more professors should use, especially in STEM classes but also anytime a complex solution or process needs to be explained, is to explain all the details. While that can result in professors covering information that may seem painfully obvious to them, it saves students confusion. When professors skip over steps of a problem and only focus on those they feel are the most crucial or important, it puts the burden on students to connect the dots in their heads, while still trying to pay attention to the stream of information in the lecture.

Few steps in a solution are obvious to students who have never encountered a similar problem before. Even if some steps are easy to figure out upon reflection, students lack the bandwidth to reflect while also taking notes and ingesting the lecture. Skipping steps risks students leaving the classroom with little understanding and having to put the scattered pieces together on their own.

By covering solutions in their entirety, professors allow their students to focus on absorbing the complex new information in front of them. That frees students to ask questions and leaves them with complete examples in their notes, which can be crucial when they are trying to solve similar problems in their homework or when studying for exams.

Imagine you were trying to bake a cake and you had never done it before. Suppose that the recipe skipped directly from beating the eggs to putting the finished batter in the oven, ignoring all the steps in between. You would fail! The missing steps might be intellectually uninteresting to the master baker, but the novice baker has to learn them. Just as we need to be guided through every detail when baking a cake for the first time, we also need thorough guidance when approaching a difficult calculus or physics problem for the first time.

Alexis Argall (B.A. 2018), a political science and communication and life sciences major: At a large research institution like UW Madison, it is easy to feel like “just another number.” Many professors would like to know their students personally but don’t know how to do it; others seem to share information with students and then forget about them until next class period. Yet a professor in one of my classes used a strategy that others should try.

Participation was worth 30 percent of our grade, and it included a requirement to email the professor weekly with a connection that we had made between something that we’d discussed in class and something outside of it. That connection could come from another course or from our personal lives -- anything that made us stop and remember what we had learned that week. It forced me to think about the material outside of class and helped me find practical applications for what I was learning.

We were not graded rigidly on the content of our emails but rather just that we had made some sort of meaningful connection. Grading them on a submission basis rather than a content basis saved a lot of time for my professor, while still pressing us to process the information.

For my professor, the benefit was learning more about us as “whole people” rather than just students in her class. It gave her a more holistic view of us students, as well as forced us to actively process what we were learning. The requirement made us learn more, and the sense that the professor knew who we were made us want to learn more.

Joe Venuta (B.A. 2018), a philosophy major: One valuable lesson I’ve learned has been how to approach negative feedback. Specifically, I have come to realize the value in engaging with criticism and improving the work on which it is given. And I would not have discovered this without professors whose classes required me to do so.

In many classes, faculty members give comments on assignments in writing along with the final grade. While that kind of feedback can be a tool for improvement, it is too easy for students to brush comments off and simply keep those things in mind for next time rather than consider how they might be addressed. Furthermore, students often see such comments as the instructor’s justification for giving a less than perfect score rather than what it really is: an opportunity to improve that particular assignment.

My professors have used two main strategies for inducing students to process negative feedback. One was to require the submission of a draft in advance. While successful students often work through multiple drafts anyway, submitting a draft for review forces them to consider major weaknesses in their assignment that they may otherwise overlook. In addition, submitting an improved final draft after responding to any criticism can help show students the value and achievability of addressing shortcomings.

Another strategy is through in-person conferences. A back-and-forth discussion requires students to face specific criticisms head-on. It also allows them to become more comfortable with defending their work while staying composed -- a valuable skill in any field. While in-person conferences do require more time from both the student and professor, a conversation lasting even 15 minutes can help.

Personalized criticism from professors is a valuable resource, one that is too rarely used. Whether through multiple drafts or in-person discussions, engaging with negative feedback can benefit students in any area of study.

Kailey Mullane, a sophomore majoring in communication arts and economics: My first thought when I was invited to speak was, “I am not qualified to be giving world-renowned professors technical teaching strategies that will solve all their classroom problems.” But then I thought about what makes classes valuable to me. Numerous factors come into play: material, class size, other students and so on. However, I realized that one simple thing consistently makes classes better: when teachers make the students introduce themselves at the start of each class period in the first few weeks.

Students introducing and saying a little bit about themselves (like majors and hometowns) really changes the dynamic. Knowing a classmate’s name instantly creates a more inviting environment and is the first step in developing a relationship. In those classes, I notice that instead of sitting silently staring at screens, students actually talk to one another before class starts. They talk during class: students are more willing to offer comments, ask questions and disagree with one another. And they talk to each other outside of class, often about the material -- which means there is more outside learning.

Time is precious. But in small classes, introductions take just three to five minutes. Large lectures are more difficult, but TAs can effectively administer that process in discussion sections. Just taking time at the start of each class to have students introduce themselves can have invaluable effects in and beyond the classroom.

Chlodagh Walsh, (B.B.A. 2018), a finance, investment and banking major: My first semesters of college were filled with mostly large lecture classes, the "weed out" type that could ruin your GPA or force you to change your major. On the first day of class, professors would outline the predetermined curves and tell us exactly how many students would receive A's, regardless how much we learned. One professor told us that, while we should be able to complete 80 percent of the exams using his lectures, we could not prepare for the more nuanced application of the material that constituted the remaining 20 percent.

The first class in my major was accompanied by a 19-page syllabus that we were tested on. The professor graded us based on our class rank; if you did better than half of the 300-person class, you received a grade of 50 percent. He set the grading practices to mimic the business world that we were set to enter: cutthroat and ultracompetitive. The syllabus stated that if you aced an exam, the professor would take you out to dinner -- as far as I know, he has never had to follow through. Most class participation was involuntary; the professor cold-called students unsystematically, so we shied away from wearing clothing that might draw his attention. I found a good hiding place, just outside his usual line of sight.

I had a different class in the same room a year later. It was another large, entry-level class that was subject to the GPA restrictions of the business school, which sets a maximum average class GPA of 3.0. So I was pretty surprised when the professor said she had hoped to see high test averages. She explained that our test scores were an indication of her teaching; if she were doing her job right, we should score well.

She made me view my GPA as a reflection of not only my effort but also the quality of the instruction I was receiving. The way she framed the class from the beginning emphasized our learning ahead of grades, which I came to understand are not synonymous.

Since many people performed well, the letter grade differentials at the high end reflected the GPA regulations more than student competencies. I can understand the business school may have reasons to regulate govern grading, so I was not frustrated by that. Instead, with the help of the professor, I learned to value the knowledge and skills -- the learning -- that I gained more than whatever direction my GPA moved after finals.

Students admired this professor and volunteered topics to discuss at the onset of each class. She invited us to her office hours and made us welcome when we came. The TAs spoke highly of her in discussion sections. The atmosphere was remarkably different than the lecture style I was used to and reduced the interstudent competition that other large classes encouraged. I wasn’t afraid of being caught off guard and embarrassed by answering a question wrong, so I didn’t need to hide in class or avoid eye contact. The environment made us less afraid of failing and more intellectually ambitious.

I applied this perspective to other classes, regardless of each professor's structure. I was less stressed about exam scores and more concerned about my actual understanding. As a self-identified really good crammer, I had perfected scoring high and learning little for years, but that seemed less attractive now.

Knowing my class standing was less interesting, too: my own learning was what mattered. I have found most students succeed when professors don’t intend to intimidate, reduce the reliance on grades as a measure of success, and identify student learning as the measure of their own success.

*******

One point of publicizing these students’ comments is just to provide good additions to the instructors’ toolbox. Of course, for any suggestion, the instructor has to reflect on whether it will work for them, in their discipline and in their situation. The second point is to encourage administrators and instructors to seek out and disseminate considered student suggestions. Thoughtful students are invaluable resources when we are looking to improve, and their insights are solicited too rarely.

Source: https://www.insidehighered.com/advice/2018/09/04/tips-students-help-improve-your-teaching-opinion