#because otherwise so many things are technically *possible*

[bookofmirth]

I’m not an elriel, but I strongly disagree w your post suggesting that Elain isn’t tied to any ACOTAR and CC connections (and thus won’t be featured in HOFAS). I’m also a lil confused as to how being a Valkyrie, or having connections to Ramiel, indicates that a character will have a part to play in HOFAS.

But as for Elain, there is substantial evidence to suggest that she is a mystic. In SJM’s old Pinterest board, there was a plethora of imagery that tied Elain to Sleeping Beauty - the mystics ‘travel’ to different worlds via sleep and dreaming. There was even an image in SJM’s Pinterest board of a girl with her eyes closed, but you could see a galaxy with different planets whirling underneath her eyelids - an image that SJM labelled as Elain.

Additionally, there are three sister peaks in Prythian; the mountain that Amrantha ruled from (UTM), Ramiel, and the Prison Island mountain. Feyre’s story featured UTM, Nesta’s story featured Ramiel… which leaves the third sister mountain - the Prison Island mountain - to Elain. As I assume you’re already aware, the Prison Island is the Dusk Court - an area that hosts the most pivotal connection between ACOTAR and CC (and the broader multiverse). It’s also the area that most strongly connects to Bryce, considering that she is the heir to the Starborn fae, and Queen Theia’s direct descendant (Bryce’s scent is even of dusk!)

Elain is also Cauldron-made. She too is connected to the Dread Trove (and ACOSF hinted that Elain is more than willing to be involved in this narrative). This is significant, as the Horn on Bryce’s back is heavily theorised to be the fourth Dread Trove item.

Although nothing is a guarantee (especially knowing SJM!), I wouldn’t be so quick to dismiss Elain’s importance to the story. Given that SJM has said multiple times that she has plans for Elain’s book… I’d assume that SJM intends on tying Elain to the upcoming multiverse in some way - perhaps more than any other Archeron sister! :)

I've said in a few posts that I don't think Elain will feature, so I'm not sure which one you are referring to. I suspect it is this one, since it's been going around? It was written over a year ago and there is some context for it - namely the post that was linked within it. That might answer some of your questions. Either way, I'm definitely not quick to dismiss Elain's role. I've put way more thought into it than I should have, considering I'm not even a CC stan haha.

Sorry my response got quite long, it's just that I don't think I've articulated a lot of this before!

Your third paragraph answers your question about Carynthian/Valkyries/Ramiel! Because that mountain is probably going to be important at some point; this post that I had linked within the other also talked specifically about why the Illyrians are important, as well as Ramiel. The Blood Rite is a Rite to get to the top of Ramiel and touch the stone. There seems to be some connection between Illyrians, Ramiel, the daglan/Asteri, and the Blood Rite, perhaps Enalius? I don't think I have a full post about Ramiel and the Illyrians post-hosab. I did write this one before hosab came out, and I should probably update it. I might have somewhere, but I can't remember. But basically I absolutely agree with that third paragraph, and that's why I think it's important that certain characters have made it to the top and touched the stone. There is something there, and the characters who already have a connection to Ramiel seem the most likely to continue being connected. The Blood Rite/being Carynthian is just one way that some of them are connected.

Also, fwiw, I think that it's important that Bryce learned this information just before going to Prythian. There is a difference between what we, the readers, know, and what the individual characters know. That's going to bring me to a point about Elain being a seer in a minute. But before I get there, Byrce learned a lot of this information about the land of dusk, about the Asteri experiments, about them creating what we presume are the Illyrians before the Illyrians rebelled, she learned about the Starborn fae coming from Prythian. All of that was basically dumped in her lap before she ended up in the land in question, which to me, makes all of that information incredibly important in what's to come.

I don't think we know that the prison is where the land of dusk was? (Not to be picky, but it's not the Dusk Court - the land of dusk existed before the courts were established.) People have theories, but we don't know yet. All we know is that it's an island off Prythian. I asked bookclub to be sure and @yazthebookish thinks that it could be the island that is to the west of Prythian, in between the Night and Day Courts - because dusk.

Okay so back to the Elain issue - of course it's possible that she will play some role in hofas. I just don't think it's likely. A lot of things are possible, but that doesn't mean they will happen, and based on what facts we know - not speculation - other characters have a much clearer, solid connection to what is going to happen in hofas.

The thing with her being a seer could be a potential link, but I have a few counterpoints:

What Bryce knows about the mystics is not positive, and she may not connect that practice with Elain's seer powers. When I mentioned before that Bryce's knowledge going into Prythian is important, this is part of it. The way that Elain is living and using her powers is a far cry from what is happening with the mystics as they create their map and wander through the worlds all drugged up and having given up their autonomy in exchange for financial security. Plus, we don't know for sure that seer powers and mystics are a one-to-one correlation. Which leads me to my next point:

Elain hasn't been using her powers. Not only that, but the IC has been very reticent to letting her help them in any way. IMO her story is going to require breaking away from the way that they coddle her, and that's not going to happen in another series.

We don't know that seer powers in Prythian would have anything to do with traveling between worlds, and that's the main goal right now - Bryce needs to get out of Prythian and to Hel, or back to Midgard. Is it possible that Elain's seer powers could help? Yeah, it is. But just because things work one way in Midgard doesn't mean they are going to work the same way in Prythian. And let's be honest, sjm does the absolute bare minimum explaining the magic in acotar. It seems much more likely that the people who have already been researching other worlds, explicitly, in Prythian, would hold those keys to answering Bryce's main challenge right now, which is getting the eff out of Prythian.

Regarding Elain being Made, there is the second point I made above about people not allowing her to help, but there is no reason that Elain would be required to use her Made status to find the fourth trove object when, as you mentioned, it likely doesn't really need to be found. It fell into their laps. Plus, Nesta and Feyre are still Made. Nesta is in a bonus. Nesta also has the tattoo. Nesta is still a more likely candidate to work with any trove-related things.

My thinking that Elain won't be very present in hofas is based on the things we know for sure: she wasn't present at the end of hosab, she isn't present in a bonus (that we know of yet), she hasn't been using her powers, she hasn't been allowed to help, and there are other characters who already have a much clearer connection to what is happening in CC.

If we were to do this in a mathy way, I think that we could give each character a point for how many things they have that potentially connect them to the hofas plot, but I would give more points to facts we are already sure about, over speculation. And while Elain wouldn't have zero points, other characters would have far, far more.

I am aware that sjm has said she's working on Elain's book. I think most of us are, and it would be pretty poor planning if sjm hadn't been thinking about how Elain will fit into all of this, but I just don't think that we have reason to believe it has anything to do with other worlds, not when the visions we know she's had thus far are related to the current acotar conflict. Is it possible? Yes!

But sjm has also said that she came up with the crossover where the characters would interact with each other to this extent while she was writing hosab, not before! Which means that if she does connect Elain to other worlds in the ways you are suggesting, it's a retcon. It wasn't planned ahead of time. She literally changed acosf to make space for the crossover in hosab (e.g., Rhys worrying about someone else coming through à la Aelin in the feysand chapter), and yet nothing happened with Elain in acosf to make her connection to CC seem more likely. It would have been the perfect opportunity to have done so, and yet if you remove Elain from the acosf plot, nothing would be different.

fwiw, I don't really care who you ship! As long as you aren't rude, and you weren't!

[scientia-rex]

I made that post about how smoking is bad—actually, no, I’ve made two relatively popular posts about how smoking is bad for you. Raises your chances of dying from multiple factors including heart disease and stroke in addition to lung (and mouth, throat, and bladder) cancer.

I am always so baffled by the responses going “well I could die from something else!” Yes. You could. Statistically speaking, you will most likely die of heart disease, stroke, or cancer, if you live in the US. Your average life expectancy is somewhere around 78 for women, 76 for men. Many people die younger than that, for a lot of reasons. Many of my patients have illnesses that will shorten their lives. I hate to split it into “fault,” as if there’s some kind of perfect way to live a blameless life. (There isn’t.) The numbers, however, are both clear and pitiless. People who smoke are more likely to die younger than they otherwise might have.

Medicine is a numbers game. My job is not to psychically predict exactly what will punch your ticket and when. It is to improve your odds. I want you to both live as long a life as possible but also as high-quality a life as possible. I want for you to live a life you enjoy.

It’s that simple; it’s not sinister. I’m not out here going “I’ll tell them not to smoke so they can have LESS FUN before getting hit by a bus at 30!”

Because smoking isn’t actually fun. What it is, is a very quick (and faster = more addictive) reduction in physical feedback systems that heighten anxiety. Withdrawal of an unpleasant stimulus is rewarding. (Technically, it’s a negative reward; the negative doesn’t refer to a moral judgment, but the addition or subtraction of a stimulus.) Something that is very rewarding very fast will be very addictive. It’s why crack cocaine is also so addictive—it is also a very fast and very potent reward. It’s also why benzodiazepines like Xanax are so addictive to so many people; it’s a slower peak blood level but the removal of severe anxiety is profoundly rewarding.

So smoking can make you feel better when you do it. But your body will try to fix any broken signals. It doesn’t just want to be able to signal to you when you need to feel stressed: it has to be able to signal you, or your long-ago ancestors would have been eaten by predators. So it ramps up the signaling. Now you’re not smoking because you feel better than baseline; you’re smoking to get back to baseline.

That’s why quitting sucks. When you quit smoking, all of the sudden your body’s signals of stress that got dialed up to 11 to overcome the nicotine are just out there at full blast, making you feel scared and jittery and irritable. It’s why when you quit benzos (or daily alcohol) cold turkey you can get life-threatening seizures. It’s why when you stop alcohol you’re likely to have sleep disruptions that can persist for weeks to months.

That’s why things that help reduce the suckage can help. Nicotine patches, lozenges, or gum. Chantix. Wellbutrin. Slowly stepping down the nicotine level on your vape. Eating more, eating things you like. (I would 1000% rather have a patient be fat than be smoking. I know other people will be shittier to you if you gain weight. Living is worth it.) Being kind to yourself helps you quit smoking. You need to recognize that “quitting smoking you” is not your baseline you. It is you with an invisible illness that will take weeks to months to get over.

And sometimes you can’t face that hump right now. But if you want to maximize your odds of the longest and healthiest possible life, knowing that any number of terrible things can happen to you at any time, making the effort—over and over again, if you need to—is the best shot you have.

There are a couple of conditions where smoking does markedly reduce symptoms. The well-known ones are schizophrenia and Crohn’s disease. If you feel not just better, but better like this is a medication for you, like you poop blood or hear things without it, talk to your primary care provider, because there are other medicines that might be safer and/or more effective for you. The landscape around pharmaceutical research has shifted dramatically over the last 30 years. We have more options than we’ve ever had before. Maybe this doesn’t have to be the expensive, dangerous medication that half-works for you. And if what you’re self-medicating is your anxiety, nicotine is a pretty crappy medication for that, because it doesn’t fix you; it changes your baseline to an even shittier place.

You have bodily autonomy. You can make your own choices. I will never go to a patient’s house and slap the cigarette out of their hand. But if what you want is the longest and healthiest possible life, smoking makes your odds worse.

The number of people who think that I, as a doctor, would be unaware of how profoundly unfair bodily health can be amazes me. It’s like the first Father Brown story, where Father Brown is explaining to the villain that someone whose main job is to hear about all of the terrible sins people have to confess cannot remain naive. My job is watching people age, or filling out their death certificates. One or the other. I prefer watching them age, but everyone will die. Someday my doctor will be filling out my death certificate. I’ve removed one potential contributing factor from that line—maybe I’ll get diabetes, maybe I’ll get cancer, maybe I’ll have a workplace accident, but “smoking” isn’t going to be on that line anymore. That’s the best I can do. I can’t psychically predict my own death, either; just play the numbers, try to do my best, and hope.

[howtofightwrite]

I'm writing a scene where character A gets ambushed by an assassin. A gets injured and starts bleeding out. B swoops in to save them in the nick of time, but A starts fading in and out of consciousness. B transports A using a horse-drawn carriage (setting is 1890's London, so no cars) to a safe place for medical attention. Would the carriage be safe enough for transportation or make things worse? Also, any ideas where the wound could plausibly be located on A? (Stab/cut, no guns.)

Okay, so this is a good news/bad news situation.

The good news is that blood loss is really easy to understand. If someone pokes a hole in you, and you start leaking, you'll generally keep leaking at a pretty consistent rate until you manage to stop the leak, or until you start getting additional holes poked in you.

Now, joking aside, moving around, and staying active can accelerate bleed out. Especially if you're engaging in activity that keeps your heart rate up. For example: Running, or fighting. But, normally, you're going to keep losing blood at a fairly consistent rate. (Now, it's worth noting, as you lose blood, your body will actually increase your heart rate to keep oxygen going to your brain. This means that the rate of loss isn't completely consistent. You'll also start hyperventilating.)

The fun part about blood loss is it can actually turn into a math problem. If you know the volume lost per interval, you can calculate roughly how long it will take to die. Just take 2,000, then divide that by the blood lost in milliliters per interval (so, for example, minutes), and then you will know how many minutes your character has before they bleed to death. (Technically you can go over that two liters lost a little bit. (In sloppy napkin math, this means that you'll slightly overestimate how long the character will last.)

Here's the problem.

Hypovolemic shock has four recognized stages. These stages are bracketed by how much blood you've lost. Stage one is up to 15%, Stage two is 15-30%, Stage 3 is 30-40%, and Stage 4 is 40% or more. You might know that the human body has roughly five liters of blood in it, and if you were paying attention you'll notice that two liters is 40% of five liters.

As a quick aside, Stage 1's only symptom is that you'll be a little paler than usual. Otherwise you're basically fine (even if you don't feel particularly great.) To put this in context, you can (almost) lose a liquor bottle's worth of blood without serious side effects.

Once you hit stage 2 and 3, you'll see some mental issues. Anxiety and restlessness at Stage 2, confusion and impaired reasoning at stage 3.

Loss of consciousness (and comas) are symptoms of stage 4 blood loss.

This is the bad news. If you are losing consciousness from loss of blood, you have already lost so much blood that your body (and possibly your brain) are already dying. Humans can lose a frightening amount of blood before it incapacitates them. And, that fun little math problem earlier, the time to death that you're calculating, is also the time to loss of consciousness, because there's a tiny margin between, you bled to the point that you're drifting in and out of consciousness, and, you have bled to death.

There's still some hope here, but it's not great. First aid for hypovolemic shock is to stop the bleeding. It kinda makes sense, because if you don't, they'll bleed to death and after that, it won't really matter. That means, if you're swooping in to the rescue, the first thing you need to do is stop the bleeding, as best you can. When you're already looking at someone in stage 3 or 4, you're not going to stop it in the field, and the best you can do is buy time. But that is a critical step.

This leads to a really important question. How long did it take your character to lose two liters of blood?

Because, if they lost that much blood duringthe fight (which is, actually possible with some arterial hits), there is no medical science that would keep them alive long enough to get them to a surgeon. Not in 1890, and even in 2024 it'd be touch and go with modern emergency trauma packs.

This is a mortal wound.

Now, if you slow it down, and they're bleeding out over the course of the ride, that's entirely feasible. You'll probably want to read up on the exact stages of hypovolemic shock, keep in mind that the stages do transition from one into the next. And, keep in mind that, “slipping in and out of consciousness,” is basically the end. At that point they're about to die. Immediate surgical attention could still save their life, but they need a hospital. This is beyond the scope of what a back alley clinic could reasonably deal with.

I know I didn't address it earlier, but, “where,” could be pretty much wherever. So long as it didn't sever an artery, because at that point they would be dead. Arterial nicks could result in serious bleeding over time. Really, any serious, persistent blood loss that refuses to clot could create a situation like this. Deep tissue penetration, particularly when it damages internal organs, can be pretty nasty, and surprisingly hard to stop a bleed. If someone is hemorrhaging internally, that's going to require surgical attention to keep them alive, and any effort to stop the bleed will really be wasted effort (because they'll continue bleeding into the chest cavity), though, unless your characters have a pretty solid grasp of anatomy, they're unlikely to know that.

The real issue here, from a practical application, is just the, “swooping in at the last minute.” If you're really coming in at the last minute, you've got a minute to make peace with their death, and move on. If you get there sooner, you have more of a scene. You have more options to spool out the drama, and subvert expectations.

Consider, alternately: Your character comes in to disrupt the assassin, and the pair make their escape. While escaping, the character who's been injured discovers they're bleeding. Leading their rescuer to realize that the situation is much worse than they initially thought, and having to change route to a hospital, while the injured character starts to become less coherent.

In this alternative, you can carefully track how quickly the character is bleeding out, so that they're getting into the hospital right around the time it's starting to become touch and go. With a real possibility that they'll die, either before or during surgery. (Also, with added stress that now your character needs to keep them safe in a public space, while that assassin is still on the loose, and they can't move the injured character to someplace more secure.)

So, you've got options, and now you've got a math problem you can play with to figure out how quickly your characters will expire after you poke new holes in them.

-Starke

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[maespri]

let's talk about the many crimes of the phantom thieves

hello and welcome to me detailing the many crimes of the persona 5 royal teenagers... my dearest friend and i got bored and decided to make a list of every crime they could potentially be charged with, and i thought i'd post it to get other people's thoughts (in case i missed any) + laugh about the insane shit they've pulled off.

lets go!!!

before we get into this: we did not count crimes that were committed within the metaverse, as it wouldn't be possible to really charge the phantom thieves. the only exception to this is goro. we counted his metaverse crimes because it made his laundry list of crimes funnier. that's all.

p.s.: i love studying criminology, but i know i'm not an expert by any means. if i mess something up, miss a crime, etc.- let me know!

now, let's get into it, in order from least to most crimes!

sumi yoshizawa commits zero crimes.

good for her... good for her...

ann takamaki commits one crime: battery.

aside from ryuji (who also only commits one crime), ann has the shortest list of crimes with just one: battery. it's a stretch for sure, but technically, she does slap ryuji after shido's palace, and that does qualify as battery. good on her otherwise.

ryuji sakamoto commits one crime: assault.

side note for anyone who doesn't know: assault and battery are two different things. assault is the threat, battery is the action. for example: if i tell someone i'm going to punch them, that is assault. if i actually do punch them, that is battery. that's often why the two go hand-in-hand.

ryuji threatens people quite a bit, but we actually couldn't think of any instances where he goes through with said threats, excluding him punching kamoshida. because that happened pre-canon, however, and because kamoshida clearly didn't charge ryuji, we didn't count it.

haru okumura commits one crime: perjury.

haru lies to sae when being questioned about her father's death. and yes, lying to a prosecutor during a criminal investigation does count as lying to law enforcement in general.

makoto niijima commits three crimes: blackmail, hacking, and theft.

blackmail: makoto approaches the phantom thieves and blackmails them with a video of them stating their identities, threatening to leak it if they do not meet her demands.

hacking: makoto intentionally manipulates sae's laptop in order to steal documents from it.

theft: makoto steals confidential documents from sae's laptop.

ren amamiya/akira kurusu/the protagonist/joker commits three crimes: improperly bringing an animal onto public transportation, resisting arrest, and breaking and entering.

improperly bringing an animal onto public transportation: animals are allowed on most subways in japan if they are documented, in a proper carrier, and, at times, have been paid for with a proper fee. joker brings morgana onto the train every day without doing anything of the sort.

resisting arrest: joker runs from the police and attempts to escape when surrounded outside of sae's palace.

breaking and entering: in one of yusuke's later confidant events, joker picks the lock to madarame's house and enters.

yusuke kitagawa commits four crimes: plagiarism (charges would likely be dropped, however!), stalking, solicitation, and trespassing.

plagiarism: this one was really interesting to discuss with my buddy. yusuke does commit plagiarism by willingly handing over his artwork to madarame and allowing him to claim it as his own. however, it can be argued that he did so because he was being manipulated, abused, and was under duress* (madarame essentially claimed he would end up on the streets if he did not hand over his art). it can also be argued that because yusuke did not place any copyright infringement on his paintings, it wasn't really plagiarism. therefore, this charge would likely be dropped, either on the basis of insufficient evidence and/or his being under duress.

stalking: yusuke does stalk ann for a few days before speaking to her. because this action causes distress to ann (shown by her mentioning yusuke following her around a few days prior, as well as her initial reaction to meeting him), it falls under the category of stalking.

solicitation: yusuke solicits joker to commit the crime of breaking into madarame's house in one of his confidant events.

trespassing: when joker does break into madarame's house for him, yusuke enters.

*under duress: constraint illegally exercised to force someone to perform an act (AKA, forcing somebody to do something illegal via threats, blackmail, manipulation, guilt-tripping, etc.)

futaba sakura commits eight crimes: wiretapping, non-consensual surveillance, espionage, truancy, hacking, tampering, theft, and blackmail.

wiretapping: futaba hacks into phone lines (most notably, ren and akechi's) and listens in on conversations.

non-consensual surveillance: futaba tracks the GPS on a few people's phones.

espionage: futaba spies on people.

truancy: we don't know the full extent, but it is implied that futaba has missed a lot of school, which is a crime.

hacking: i hope i don't have to explain this one HAHA.

tampering: to send shido's calling card, futaba tampers with all the big screens around japan, which is tampering with property.

theft: futaba has stolen plenty of information, classified or not classified, from a loooot of different people.

blackmail: when she first asks the phantom thieves to change her heart, she does so through blackmailing them, threatening to reveal their identities if they don't do it.

goro akechi commits twelve crimes: attempted first-degree murder, mass first-degree murder, unlawful possession of a firearm, conspiracy, fraud, aiding and abetting, terrorism, assault, battery, perjury, blackmail, and obstruction of justice.

attempted first-degree murder: whilst akechi technically doesn't kill joker, he does try to, which means he can be charged with this.

mass first-degree murder: akechi murders. a LOT of people. which falls under this category.

unlawful possession of a firearm: in order to kill joker, akechi steals a gun from a police officer.

conspiracy: akechi states his plans to murder joker and plots it out in advance for a long, long, time.

fraud: faking joker's death certificate is a form of fraud.

aiding and abetting: helping shido kill people is aiding and abetting.

terrorism: terrorism is defined as "the unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims." akechi's actions fall under this category.

assault: akechi throws plenty of threats people's ways!

battery: and follows through on many of them.

perjury: akechi lies to all sorts of law enforcement around him, most notably sae and the guard outside of joker's interrogation room.

blackmail: akechi threatens to leak the identities of the phantom thieves if they don't infiltrate sae's palace.

obstruction of justice: by lying about what he knew about the phantom thieves, withholding information from law enforcement, and overall just completely messing with the case, akechi commits obstruction of justice.

that's it!

thank you for reading thank you for joining us joy to the world... shoutout again to my wonderful friend for being these guys' defense attorney's

BYE!!

[svnoohe4rts]

MY DEAR ANNOYING SEATMATE ― lee heeseung

↳ PAIRING: lee heeseung x fembodied!reader

↳ SYNOPSIS: there was only a few things you hated in life, but your dear seatmate lee heeseung was most definitely one of the few things you absolutely despised. with the two of you being paired up for an upcoming project, it seemed like life possibly couldn’t get any worse; so why did he suddenly almost look cute?

↳ GENRE: enemies to lovers (kind of but not really, reader hates heeseung for no valid reason while heeseung is just clueless)

↳ WORD COUNT: 17.1k

↳ WARNINGS: slight angst, SMUT ! MDNI . | oral (m recieving), cum eating, heeseung is extremely inexperienced while reader is experienced (let me know if there’s anything i should add !)

↳ A/N: i got too carried away writing this, making this my longest fic ever ... i blame it on nerd!hee :’) proof read but there’s probably a few mistakes i’ve missed, don’t be afraid to point them out !!! all feedback is appreciated ! <3 

YOU HATED LEE HEESEUNG.

The boy assigned to the seat next to you had never necessarily done anything for you to hate him. Thinking about it, there was nothing he possibly could’ve done, considering that he usually kept to himself most of the time and had probably only uttered about two or three words to you during your time as seatmates.

But one thing was for sure, you absolutely despised him.

You hated the way he’d slide his hideous glasses up the bridge of his nose, you hated the way he’d repeatedly tap the end of his pencil against his desk, especially during math, when he’d concentrate a little too hard, but most of all, you hated how he’d interrupt the teacher whenever he felt the need to add something to whatever the teacher was talking about; usually something completely irrelevant.

If there was one thing you wished for, it was for Lee Heeseung to keep to himself during class the same way he kept to himself outside of class.

But your wishes were never fulfilled, and they most likely would never be; Heeseung being the prime example of why the fairy godmother from Cinderella didn’t actually exist like you thought when you were younger, otherwise Heeseung probably would’ve lost his ability to speak by now. What Heeseung also failed to comprehend was that whenever he embarrassed himself by raising in hand in the middle of class just to boast about his knowledge, he also embarrassed you.

When all eyes landed on him, they also landed on you. So whenever the entire class would roll their eyes at Heeseung when he once again went completely going off topic, they were technically rolling their eyes at you, too. 

Like a pending doom, you wanted to sink through the ground every time he opened his mouth. You knew the second he cleared his throat and his hand went up in the air that it was your cue to press your forehead against the wooden desk, a desperate attempt to avoid the stares and sigh’s coming from your fellow classmates as Heeseung’s aggravating voice echoed through your ears.

For that very reason, you grew to hate Lee Heeseung more and more with each day that passed.

Over time, the annoyance of him always having something to say grew into you finding everything he did annoying. What started off as you two being innocently placed as seatmates, developed into you dreading going to class because of him.

Today, however, you swore you hated Heeseung more than ever.

If the universe had been on your side, Heeseung never would’ve ended up in the seat next to you for an entire year. You wouldn’t have to listen to his pencil hitting the table over and over again every single day, you wouldn’t have to listen to his annoying voice, no, this wasn’t the life you were supposed to live. You weren’t supposed to be seated next to the most annoying human being the world had ever seen, life had so much to offer you, you had so many things left to do before your life came to an end; yet the universe seemed to want you dead sooner than you had expected by making Lee Heeseung your assigned seatmate.

Your cause of death wouldn’t be of old age like you had hoped, nor would some cold-hearted illness take your life away, no, Lee Heeseung would be your cause of death; you were sure of it.

And just when you thought the universe might’ve toyed enough with you, the words trailing off your teacher's lips proved you wrong. ‘’Y/N, I think you and Heeseung would make a great pair for this project,’’

You had stopped listening to what the older woman was telling you the second your name accompanied by your dear seatmates name trailed off her lips. Almost like your whole world came crumbling down around you, you shut your eyes; nibbling on your bottom lip as you looked back on your entire life - trying to figure out what you possibly had done to deserve this type of punishment. 

Maybe this was the universe’s way of getting back at you for forgetting to hand in that one group project on time, causing the whole group to get in trouble; or maybe it was the universe getting back at you for not helping that one crying kid that one time while running to the bus after school, but what were you supposed to do? Stay with the clearly upset kid and miss your only bus? 

No, you obviously did what anyone else would’ve done in that situation and got on the bus.

Well, maybe it wasn’t the only bus and you probably would’ve made it on that bus even if you checked on the crying kid; but was this type of punishment really necessary? Wasn’t placing Lee Heeseung in the seat next to you enough? You already suffered thanks to the boy seated next to you every day, you had already begged the universe for forgiveness for that one time - so why were you being paired up with Heeseung for one of the most important projects of the year?

‘’Heeseung clearly shows great knowledge surrounding this subject, and your essay about it last year was astonishing Y/N,’’ The older woman's voice brought you out of your daze, hoping that the universe would’ve heard the prayers that ran through your mind by the time you opened your eyes; but with Heeseung still sitting across from you, his big eyes piercing into your soul, you realized that the universe wasn’t going to forgive you anytime soon.

You should’ve known what was about to come when your teacher told both you and Heeseung to stay behind after class, asking both of you to sit down in front of her desk. At first, you thought she was going to scold you for sending death glares Heeseung’s way every time he opened his mouth, or even better - maybe she was going to scold Heeseung, you never would’ve sent him death glares if he never opened his mouth in the first place after all.

You were mentally preparing yourself to blame everything on Heeseung the second your teacher sat down in her chair, your fingers nervously playing with the strap of your bag as your teacher cleared her throat. I’m sorry for my behavior, teacher, but he’s making it hard for me to focus when he’s constantly talking and I’m sure everyone else feels the same way hence why I feel like it’s my responsibility as his seatmate to make sure he’s not disturbing any-

‘’I’m sure you’re both aware of the upcoming project.’’

Oh. 

She wasn’t going to scold you, no, this was about something completely different. Something so much more terrifying.

With your teacher still explaining to you why you and Heeseung would make such an incredible pair for this particular project, you inhaled through your nose before clearing your throat, your gaze shifting over to the older woman sitting in front of you; flashing her a forced smile. 

‘’I’m sorry, miss, but is working in pairs really necessary? I mean, just like you said, Heeseung clearly shows great knowledge about this particular subject,’’ You began speaking, almost gagging as you unwillingly complimented Heeseung. ‘’And I don’t mean to flatter myself, but I have some decent knowledge about it as well, so I don’t really see why it would be necessary for us to work together.’’

You stared at your teacher in anticipation as you finished speaking, holding your breath as you waited for her to speak. 

It was true, you truly didn’t understand why you would have to work with him. You knew you’d be able to do this project on your own and you knew Heeseung was perfectly capable of doing it on his own as well, so you two working together just didn’t make any sense to you.

‘’I understand where you’re coming from and I’m not doubting your knowledge, Y/N,’’ Your teacher let out, offering you a small smile in return. ‘’But I truly believe both of you could benefit from working together.’’

It felt like someone had punched you in the stomach as soon as the words left her lips. You, benifiting from working with Heeseung? No, there was no such thing. Your forced smile slowly faded away, leaning back in your chair as a frown replaced the smile that had previously sat on your lips.

‘’It sounds like a great idea to me.’’ 

Heeseung's irksome voice caused you to look over at him once again, having to hold back a curse from leaving your throat in annoyance as your eyes landed on the lanky boy. With his eyes glued to the teacher sitting next to him, a big smile formed on his lips; like he found the situation delightful - when in reality, there was nothing delightful about the situation, not even a little bit. 

Your teacher offered Heeseung a warm smile, nodding her head. ‘’Then it’s decided, you’ll do it together.’’

You just hoped that the unpleasant expression plastered on your face didn’t go unnoticed by Heeseung.

”I’ll do the whole project.”

You had followed Heeseung out of the classroom after saying bye to your teacher, the smile you had worn in an attempt to conceal how unsatisfied you were with her decision fading away as soon as you turned around to walk after the lanky boy; a sigh of annoyance leaving your lips as you sped up to catch up with your seatmate.

Your words clearly took Heeseung by surprise, his eyes wide and his eyebrows slightly furrowed together as he turned around to look at you. You just stared at him, leaning your upper body against the lockers beside you; the shocked expression on his face remaining.

“What?” His words came out shaky, not expecting you to follow him and he did most definitely not expect you to place your body against his locker, preventing him from accessing his own locker. You sighed, “Are you deaf? I said I’ll do the project, don’t worry, I’ll hand it in on time.”

Heeseung just continued to stare at you, his lips now slightly parted. “On your own? No, absolutely not! Did you not listen to a single word that the teacher told us? It’s a group project,” He let out, shaking his head as he spoke. Yet another sigh left your lips, this one much more dramatic, followed by you rolling your eyes.

Not even two minutes into your first ever official conversation with the boy and he was already annoying you.

“I’m not stupid, okay? I can handle it, just leave it to me.” You defended yourself, emphasizing the ‘stupid’. 

“I never said you were,” He looked down at the books you were holding in your hands, “But judging by the way you brought your biology book to history class, I think you might need some he-“ 

Heeseung stopped himself from speaking as his eyes landed on your stern, clearly unamused face. 

Maybe he said a little too much.

You just stared at him as he pressed his lips into a thin line, awkwardly scratching the back of his neck as his eyes darted away from your figure in an attempt to ease the sudden tense atmosphere. “If you’re done being an asshole, I need to go get started on this project since I’m so stupid.”  You had already turned around, already a few feet away from the boy when you heard him sigh from behind you.

“No, Y/N, wait!” Your eyes went wide for a second when you felt his cold hand come into contact with your wrist, your steps coming to a halt as his firm grip prevented you from taking another step. You quickly turned around, coming face to face with Heeseung, who was still holding onto your wrist, once again. 

If looks could kill, Heeseung was sure he’d be dead by now. 

With your eyes narrowed as you stared at him, a sigh left his lips as he ran his hand through his hair; the grip he had on your wrist slowly loosening before ultimately letting your wrist go completely - your arm falling down your side.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that, it’s just, it’s a group project,” He let out, his hand resting at the nape of his neck. You just stared at him for a moment, not believing the audacity of the boy standing before you. 

”Well, I don’t think we can work together. Go ask the teacher to assign you a new partner or something.” You let out after a moment of silence, a moment of Heeseung staring at you in anticipation; nervously waiting for you to respond. You were about to turn around once more, feeling done with the conversation; hoping that he’d actually listen to you and talk to the teacher about switching partners when a groan suddenly emerged from the taller boy's throat.

”No,” He shook his head, “I want to work with you Y/N.”

A dry chuckle trailed off your lips as you shook your head in response. “It didn’t sound like it a minute ago when you called me stupid.”

Another groan left Heeseung’s throat, the sarcastic tone lingering behind your words almost causing him to roll his eyes. Judging by the way you were already clearly annoyed with him, he decided it would be for the best if he didn’t; if he wanted to live another day, that being said.

“I said I’m sorry!” He exclaimed in defense, throwing his hands up in the air. You almost scrunched your nose in disgust at the scene in front of you, only finding him more and more annoying the more he spoke. “Whatever, are we done here or is there another insult you’ve been wanting to tell me?” You muttered, your eyes still narrowed as you stared at the dark-haired boy.

Heeseung just stared back at you for a moment. He wondered if you had just woken up on the wrong side of the bed this morning or if his words actually pissed you off that much, fighting the urge to ask you which of the two options had you in such a foul mood.

‘’Look Y/N,’’ He began speaking, pushing his glasses further up his nose using his pointer finger, “I insist. I’m sorry we got off to a bad start, but I can’t let you do this whole project on your own.”

Got off to a bad start? You almost let out a chuckle as the words left his lips, was he really that oblivious? ‘’Plus, think about it, I think we both could benefit from working together, no?’’

You pressed your lips into a thin line, your gaze darting over to look at something other than him while thinking about what he had just said. 

There was absolutely nothing in it for you, besides possibly growing to hate Lee Heeseung even more than you already did. There was nothing Heeseung could possibly help you with, you knew you would be able to do the project, if not even better, on your own; history was one of the few subjects you were really good in, after all.

‘’How?’’ You asked after a while, your eyes darting back to the boy standing in front of you once again. He raised one of his eyebrows, tilting his head as he gave you a questioning look. ‘’How what, exactly?’’ He questioned, repeating your words. You let out a sigh, inhaling air through your nose in an attempt to stay calm. ‘’Yeah, like how would we possibly benefit anything from working together?’’

His lips formed into an ‘o’ shape as he realized what you meant, causing you to frown as you watched his facial expression go from a puzzled to an understanding one. 

He might’ve looked smart and his grades definitely proved that he was, but when it came to interacting with another human being; God, was he awful. 

A hum left Heeseungs lips as he thought about your question - now that he understood what you meant by your simple ‘how’. 

‘’It’s the most important project of the year, almost our whole grade literally depends on this project,’’ He began speaking, almost like he was educating you; earning yet another stare from you, patiently waiting for him to continue his sentence.

Heeseung just stared back at you for a moment, wondering if you understood the importance of this project. Your blank stare made it hard for him to tell if you understood or not, but considering how your teacher had brought up the importance of this project multiple times during the year he just assumed you knew; clearing his throat before you could accuse him of calling you stupid, again. 

‘’So I just think that if we put both our knowledge together, we’d do a better job compared to how we’d do if we did it separately,’’ He continued, ‘’She wouldn’t put us in the same group if she didn’t think it was for the best, right?’’

You kept your eyes on him as the last words trailed off his lips, a low chuckle escaping your lips as you scanned his facial expression; his bottom lip placed in between his teeth by the time he finished speaking.

Still believing this was the universe’s way of punishing you for all your sins, you refused to believe that your teacher paired you and Heeseung up for the sake of your grade. If anything, your seatmate was going to be the downfall of your grades; considering how you wouldn’t last a minute working with him. ‘’If you needed my help that bad you should’ve just said so.’’

Your words almost caused Heeseung’s jaw to hit the floor, his eyes widening in disbelief. Did you just disrespect his knowledge, the knowledge he so proudly bragged about every time he received yet another perfect grade? 

‘’What? I don’t need your help!’’ He let out, stumbling over his own words as he tried to defend himself and most importantly - his pride.

A small smile formed on your lips as you watched the flustered boy in front of you. Of course Heeseung, the top student, didn’t need your help to get this project done; you knew that. But you couldn’t help but let the words leave your lips as you watched how nervously he chewed on his bottom lip, looking like he was getting ready to start begging you to work with him.

You also eventually figured out the reason behind his stubbornness. He didn’t necessarily want to work with you, but he wanted the grade that would come with him working with you. He knew that by working with you and doing the project together, you’d put the things he already knew into a new perspective and it would definitely get him a higher grade; especially since your teacher was the one who wanted you two to work together in the first place.

‘’I could totally do this whole project on my own! But it’s a group project and it’s not fair if only one of us does the whole project, not that I wouldn’t be able to do it on my own, but I just t-’’

‘’What’s in it for me?’’ His lips remained parted for a second, not a single word leaving his lips as you abruptly interrupted his rambling. He then pressed his lips back into a thin line, confusion once again taking over the flustered expression he had just worn on his face. You just stared at him, shaking your head as he remained quiet. ‘’You clearly want me to work with you so you can get a better grade,’’ You continued.

Heeseung’s lip once again parted, bringing both his hands up in the air; about to defend himself - about to deny the obvious. He, however, never got the chance to utter as much as a single noise as your voice once again filled his ears. ‘’But what’s in it for me?’’

He just started at you, making you wonder if that’s what he always did whenever he spoke to someone considering he had only taken his eyes off you for a split second during your conversation; his doe eyes staring right at you starting to make you feel slightly uncomfortable. ‘’Well,’’ He hummed, realizing there was no point in denying the truth, ‘’A better grade, I suppose?’’

You clicked your tongue against the roof of your mouth, shaking your head. ‘’That won’t do.’’ You replied, causing Heeseung to frown. ‘’What do you mean?’’ He asked, his head now slightly tilted. ‘’I know that I could achieve the very same grade, if not better, by working on my own. So working with you is technically only a hassle for me,’’ Your words caused Heeseung to mutter out a low ‘ouch’ under his breath as you continued speaking.

‘’So, what’s in it for me if we do work together?’’ The frown remained plastered on Heeseung’s face as you finished speaking, now slightly tilting your head as you waited for him to speak.

Heeseung, however, remained silent. He kept his eyes on you as he tried to think of something, anything, that you could get out of working with him; besides a better grade, that being said. With his bottom lip once again placed in between his teeth, a low groan escaped his throat as he realized there was absolutely nothing in it for you besides a better grade. Tearing his eyes off of you, a sigh escaped his lips as he shut his eyes.

He couldn’t believe he had to bargain with you in order for you to do the project with him.

‘’I’ll do anything you want.’’ Your lips parted in surprise, your eyes slightly widening as the sudden words left his mouth. 

Any normal person would just simply ask their teacher to switch partners if the other person showed clear dissatisfaction with the thought of being paired up together. Heeseung, however? No, not when his whole grade was on the line.

You knew Heeseung would do anything for a good grade, even though he didn’t even have to try most of the time. But considering the fact that this project was important and as he had previously told you, your whole grade depended on this project; you knew the opportunity of you two working together was his best bet on getting the highest grade possible. Even though you were aware of how important he found his grades, you couldn’t help but wonder - was he really that desperate?

‘’Anything?’’

‘’Absolutely anything.’’

Heeseung regretted his decision the second the words left his lips and his eyes fluttered open, once again landing on your face. The smug grin you wore on your lips made him want to sink through the ground; realizing what he had just agreed to. ‘’Like, absolutely anything?’’ You repeated, your smile only growing bigger as you realized you could practically make the poor boy do anything judging by how desperate he looked with his big doe eyes staring into your own.

‘’Yes! Like, absolutely anything!’’ He groaned, pinching the bridge of his nose as he placed the other hand on his hip; something that almost made you cringe, and it probably would’ve - if you weren’t too caught up in the fact that your annoying seatmate, Lee Heeseung, just told you he’d do anything in order for you to work on the group project with him.

‘’Deal.’’ You let out, extending your right hand for him to shake. Heeseung just stared at your hand for a moment, the hand that had been pinching the bridge of his nose falling down his side as his gaze met yours once again. ‘’What? You haven’t even told me what I’m supposed to do yet, how can we make a deal if I don’t even k-’’

Heeseung fell silent the second he felt you grab his hand, rolling your eyes as you shook his hand; his lips parting in utter surprise at your unexpected action, the feeling of your smaller hand wrapping around his own causing his heart to skip a beat - from the shock of you so carelessly grabbing his hand, of course, nothing else. 

‘’Let’s get this over with as soon as possible, yeah? Let’s meet up tomorrow and figure out what we should write about,’’ You spoke, interrupting the now clearly appalled boy standing in front of you as you continued shaking his hand. ‘’But,’’ Heeseung managed to stutter out, eyes wide as he watched you shake his hand. ‘’Great! I’ll meet you in the library tomorrow after class,’’ 

By the time Heeseung had managed to tear his gaze off your hands, you had already let his hand go and were now making your way down the hallway with your back turned towards him. Heeseung, however, kept his hand extended as his lips parted; watching you make your way down the hallway, feeling dumbfounded by what had just happened. 

What did he just agree to?

The clock that decorated Heeseungs wrist hit 2:30 PM, and you were still nowhere to be seen.

Your class ended at 2 PM sharp the following day, and by 2:03 PM Heeseung found himself sitting in the library; his eyes scanning the room from the table he was sitting at as he waited for you to arrive.

Heeseung was an understanding man. He considered himself to be a very compassionate and generous person, which is why he understood why you weren’t in the library by the time he arrived. He had seen you talking to your friends right before class ended after all, or maybe the hallways were packed and stopped you from getting to the library as soon as possible, or maybe the teacher wanted to share a word with you. Whatever it was that was making you late, Heeseung understood and it wasn’t like he actually expected you to be there the second you got out of class; unlike himself.

Well, maybe a part of him did expect you to be there when he walked in. Another thing you had yet to find out about Heeseung was that while he was definitely an understanding person, he was also a time pessimist. 

And with you now being almost thirty minutes late to your scheduled meeting, the meeting that you had scheduled, Heeseung began to grow anxious as his eyes landed on the watch he wore around his wrist for the nth time that day. Heeseung valued his time, especially his study time, and you being this late caused the boy to almost grow aggravated as his foot repeatedly tapped against the floor; his eyes now glued to the clock as he counted each second that passed.

Heeseung tried being an understanding person, and he was willing to wait until the clock hit the thirty-minute mark for you to show up. But with the clock now being exactly 5 seconds away from hitting 2:31 PM, he could no longer force himself to be the bigger person; a low sigh escaping his lips as he watched the clock tick. You had wasted his precious time, and he was not willing to waste any more of it by waiting for you to show up.

‘’Why did you have to pick this table? I had to walk around the entire library looking for you,’’

Your sudden voice followed by your bag landing on top of the table in front of him almost caused Heeseung to jump out of his seat, missing as his watch hit 2:31 PM when his eyes landed on you instead. Heeseung kept his eyes glued on you, his lips parting in surprise as a sigh left your lips, watching you sit down in the chair in front of him.

The boy, however, never replied to your question. Raising one of your brows, your gaze landed on the lanky boy; immediately spotting the sour look on his face. You didn’t know whether or not to laugh at the displeased look plastered on his face, his lips pressed into a thin line as stared right back at you; or if you should be concerned, considering that you had never seen him look so disappointed before.

‘’What’s with the long face? Have you suddenly gone mute or why aren’t you saying anything?’’

Maybe your wishes of Heeseung losing his ability to speak somehow finally got fulfilled.

‘’You’re late.’’

Or maybe not. A groan left your lips before you ran your hand through your hair, rolling your eyes at the boy sitting with his arms crossed in front of you before leaning back in your chair; mimicking his actions by crossing your own arms over your chest.

‘’By like, 30 minutes,’’

‘’Exactly! 30 whole minutes, that’s a lot of time! I could’ve finished my biology homework by now if you showed up on time!’’ With his arms now waving in the air as he tried explaining to you why thirty minutes was a lot of time, you couldn’t help but roll your eyes at the boy once again. ‘’I just had to stop by the cafeteria to buy myself something to drink, I’m sorry! It’s not my fault that the line was so long!’’

Now it was Heeseungs turn to roll his eyes, ‘’Why didn’t you just skip getting a drink when seeing that the line would take a while? You knew you’d be late!’’

His argument earned him yet another eye roll from you, ‘’Would you rather me be 30 minutes late to our study date or die of dehydration?’’

‘’You wouldn’t even die of dehydration, unless you haven’t had a drink in about a week which I strongly doubt you haven’t because if you hadn’t you wouldn’t even be functioning right n-’’

A loud groan coming from you interrupted Heeseung’s lecture, his lips still parted with his hands still in the air as he stared at you. ‘’God, Heeseung! You’re so annoying, you know that, right?’’ You spat at him, shaking your head as you spoke. Heeseung just stared at you, letting out a huff before leaning back in his chair; crossing his arms over his chest once again before looking over at the bookshelf placed behind you. ‘’Says the girl who wasted 30 minutes of my precious time.’’

You stared at the boy seated in front of you in disbelief. Just when you didn’t think your dear seatmate could get any more annoying, he proved you wrong by showing you the most disturbing sulking face you had ever seen, his stern face accompanied by a small pout on his plump lips almost making you shudder in repulsion; like your whole body was rejecting just the sight of Lee Heeseung sulking.

‘’You’re only wasting more of your so-called precious time by sulking.’’ You muttered after taking in the sight in front of you, the shock of seeing Heeseung sulking leaving you dumbfounded for a moment; tearing your eyes off the boy in front of you to open up your backpack to retrieve your laptop.

Heeseung’s gaze landed on you, watching as you opened up your laptop; not a single word leaving his lips, a frown taking over his face as he realized he had actually been sulking. Oh god, he had actually sulked in front of you.

The two of you remained quiet after Heeseung cleared his throat in an attempt to somewhat ease the atmosphere, his cheeks heating up in embarrassment, hiding his face by fiddling with the backpack he had placed next to his chair; praying that his hair actually covered the crimson color that had begun to spread across his cheeks.

‘’So,’’ You were the first one to speak, tearing your eyes away from your laptop; your eyes landing on the boy in front of you once more. As your eyes met his, Heeseung just hoped that his flushed cheeks had gone back to normal, not wanting to embarrass himself even further by letting you see him flustered. ‘’Any ideas of what we could write about?’’

Heeseung parted his lips, a feeling of relief washing over him as you just stared at him; not saying anything about his flushed cheeks. Maybe it wasn’t as noticeable as he thought. ‘’Oh,’’ He let out after a few seconds of just blankly staring at you, only speaking when you raised one of your eyebrows as you waited for him to respond. ‘’I was thinking we could write about the economic impact of the Titanic sinking?’’

Oh my god.

Was he actually serious right now?

You just stared at him, scanning his face as you tried to figure out if he was actually serious or not. But by the way his big, deer-like eyes were only staring innocently right back at you, you realized he was in fact serious. Oh god, he was actually serious. ‘’Don’t tell me you’re being serious?’’

Heeseung raised both his eyebrows at your question, his big eyes glistering under the extremely bad lighting of the library. ‘’What? Why wouldn’t I be? It’s a very interesting topic! You know, it impacted the economy pretty badly,’’ He began explaining, your eyes fluttering shut as soon as the words left his mouth; pressing your lips into a thin line before taking a deep breath through your nose. If you didn’t stop him right there and then, he would probably go on an hour-long rant about why and how the Titanic sinking impacted the economy.

‘’Heeseung.’’ 

‘’Almost all of the survivors and the families of the people who lost their lives sued the company, I can’t remember the exact number but we’re talking about millions and millions of dollars,’’

‘’Heeseung,’’

‘’I should know the exact amount of money though, what was it? Wait, let me look it up,’’

‘’Heeseung, I swear to God, if you say as much as another word about the Titanic I will personally sue you for emotional damage.’’ Heeseung had already begun typing on the keyboard of his laptop as the words left your mouth, his fingers stopped typing as he looked away from the screen of his laptop and up at you; his eyes widening.

This was the second time Heeseung felt like if looks could kill, he’d be buried 6 feet under the ground right now. It had only been approximately 24 hours since the two of you shared your first proper conversation despite being seatmates for months, yet he felt like you had wanted to kill him twice during those 24 hours. 

Heeseung just gulped in response, his eyes darting back to the screen of his computer; anything to avoid the death glare you were sending him, moving the cursor to close the google tab he had opened up. He’d have to google that when he got home.

‘’How about something simple instead? Like the great depression or something?’’

‘’Isn’t that too easy?’’

You just stared at the boy in front of you, causing him to throw both hands up into the air. ‘’Alright, the great depression it is!’’ He let out, keeping his hands in the air; scared that if he complained one more time you’d actually kill him. ‘’Thank you for finally cooperating, I almost thought you weren't capable of cooperating for a while.’’ You muttered, your eyes landing on the screen of your laptop once more as your fingers ghosted over the keyboard, creating a new document for you and your annoying seatmate.

Heeseung was about to say something in protest, something about how you were the one who had arrived late and picking the most basic topics, when he realized it was probably for the best for him to keep quiet; unless he wanted you to lash out on him again.

What had he possibly done for you to be so annoyed with him?

‘’Great, now we have a topic,’’ You mumbled under your breath, Heeseung watching as your brows slightly furrowed together as you focused on something on your laptop. ‘’And for time and place?’’ Your eyes met his once again, his head slightly tilted to the side; something you had noticed he did quite a lot whenever he got confused.

He remained silent, causing you to hold back a sigh. ‘’So we can work on the project, what time and what days should we meet up?’’ You clarified, not that your original question needed clarifying; but considering how the boy seated in front of you had no idea how to have a basic conversation, you realized you would have to clarify a lot of things the next couple of weeks. 

‘’Right,’’ Heeseung let out as he realized what you meant, ‘’I’m free after school on Mondays and Thursdays, if that works for you?’’

Free from doing what exactly? Researching the economic impact the Titanic had from sinking?

‘’That works for me,’’ You nodded, ‘’Let’s meet by your locker, and then head to the library to study, yeah? That way you don’t have to look like an idiot while waiting for me if I end up running late again.’’

Heeseung almost let out a whine at the mention of you running late again. He had hoped that you had learned your lesson by making him sulk in front of you, but your words proved him wrong; the thought of you making him waste another thirty minutes of his life waiting for you almost caused a groan to leave his throat in frustration. But he didn’t, only muttering out a low ‘right’, not wanting to annoy you even further.

You nodded your head, before shutting your computer; the sound of your laptop shutting close causing Heeseungs gaze to land on you again, confusion washing over him as he watched you out your laptop back into your backpack. ‘’Wait,’’ He let out, ‘’What are you doing? Aren’t we going to study?’’

You let out a chuckle as you closed your backpack, swinging it over your shoulder before standing up. ‘’It’s almost 3 o’clock, I have to get home,’’ You responded, putting the chair you had just been sitting in closer to the table. Heeseung watched your every movement, his lips parted as he watched you get ready to leave. ‘’But we haven’t even gotten anything done!’’

You just shrugged, ‘’I’m sorry, but I only had an hour to spare.’’

Heeseung just stared at you in disbelief. ‘’But you’ve only been here for, what, fifteen minutes?’’ He stuttered, the chuckle emerging from your throat taking him by surprise. ‘’Sorry, the amount of time it took for me to get a drink is also calculated into that time,’’

Frowning, Heeseung wanted to press his forehead against the table in front of him. It wasn’t his fault that you ended up being late, so why were you punishing him for it by not even studying like you had originally planned to do? The least you could do was at least stay for a while longer, just to make sure you got at least something done, not just deciding the topic. But it seemed like you weren’t going to do that, leaving Heeseung in despair.

‘’But I promise I’ll be on time next time! I’ll see you Thursday!’’

And just like that, you left Heeseung sitting in the same chair he had been sitting in for almost an hour now; waving as you walked further away. Heeseung just stared at you, watching as you spun around; a frown still plastered on his face. His forehead hit the table the second you walked out of the library, his eyes tightly shut as he let out a low groan, hoping that the rest of the people in the library didn’t hear him groaning in annoyance. 

Not only had you wasted his valued time, but he also never got the chance to ask you about what you wanted him to do for you to work with him.

To Heeseung’s surprise, you actually kept your promise.

When Thursday rolled around and your last class of the day was coming to its end, Heeseung was fully prepared for you to just leave him hanging again. This time, however, he had promised himself that he’d only wait for you for a maximum of fifteen minutes, no more; especially not thirty minutes like last time. He wasn’t going to let you waste his time like that again, not when he had more important things to do rather than standing around, waiting for his seatmate.

So when you actually showed up at his locker only two minutes after he got there, he was taken aback. He had prepared himself for you being late, he even come up with the bright idea of cleaning his locker while waiting for you, which was much needed considering the amount of paper taking up all the space in his already small locker; making it hard for him to fit his books in there the more papers he gathered, only to dump them in his locker.

But it seemed like cleaning his locker would have to wait as you actually showed up on time, holding your laptop in one of your hands and a history book in the other; ready to start working.

Not only had you surprised Heeseung, but Heeseung had surprised you as well. You had mentally prepared yourself for an hour consisting of listening to Heeseung ramble about things that were completely irrelevant, things that would make you want to rip your hair out in annoyance; things that would make it incredibly hard for you to get anything done.

But you didn’t even have to set any rules, you didn’t tell him to be quiet and only talk to you if he had something to ask or say about the project, that him talking would only prevent you from getting any work done which you knew would annoy him as well; because twenty minutes into your study session, he had yet to utter a single word.

No, he kept his eyes glued to the screen the second he opened his laptop; his brows slightly furrowed together as the screen of his laptop reflected in his glasses. Like the computer had sucked him into a completely different world, his lips remained sealed as you discreetly watched him read something in the reflection of his glasses. Not that he would have noticed that you were staring at him, whatever he was reading had clearly captivated him.

No rambling, no unnecessary remarks, no nothing; he was just simply quiet. Almost too quiet.

And you started to believe that maybe, just maybe, the universe had finally heard your prayers and decided to forgive you for your sins; showing you its gratitude by letting you have one day where you wouldn’t have to lose your mind over Lee Heeseung talking.

He wasn’t so bad when he kept his mouth shut.

You would think that the quietness would make it easier for you to focus on the project, but twenty minutes in and the document still remained blank; besides a few names and random dates that Heeseung had written down at the bottom of the page for him to remember for later, watching as he switched in between tabs, the sound of him typing on his keyboard filling the room before he went back to reading once again.

There was something else clouding your mind, making it hard for you to focus on the project as the only thing you could seem to think about was what you were supposed to tell Heeseung to do for you working with him.

You found yourself lost in your own thoughts as you thought about it. You had been delighted when Heeseung first proposed the idea of him doing anything you want in order for you to work with him, ideas running through your mind; maybe this was your chance to get him to stop both embarrassing you and getting on your nerves during class. Maybe this was your chance of turning Lee Heeseung into an actual endurable seatmate.

You could forbid him from talking in class ever again, you thought, or maybe you could force him to do something so bizarre the teacher would have to change the seats around. Or maybe he didn’t have to do anything bizarre, maybe he could just ask the teacher to change the seats around; but what would be the fun in that, especially after the hell he’s unknowingly put you through day in and day out?

But the more you thought about it, the more idiotic did your options seem. You knew you couldn’t forbid him from talking in class, you knew he had to speak in class; you might be praying for Lee Heeseungs downfall, but you knew better than to play with his grades like that. The teacher had also made it very clear that she wouldn’t be changing the seats anytime soon and that we would just have to live with it after multiple groans and complaints had left the student's lips after her decision was announced.

So with your options being ripped apart one by one, you were left with nothing. Which meant you had no idea what to tell Heeseung.

You weren’t sure for how long you had been in your thoughts, but the sound of Heeseung suddenly humming snapped you out of your daze; blinking as you realized you had been zoning out for a little too long.

At first, you thought he was humming to get your attention; maybe he noticed that you still hadn’t written anything as the page was still blank and was going to ask you about it, or possibly make some smart remark about how he already knew everything the page he was on was telling him - something typical coming from Heeseung. 

But he wasn’t trying to get your attention, no, he was humming a song.

You slightly furrowed your brows as you realized he was in fact humming the tune of a song, your eyes now fully fixed on him. His eyes remained glued to the screen of his laptop, the reflection in his glasses letting you know that he was still reading. You parted your lips like you were getting ready to say something, but remained silent as you continued to listen to him quietly humming.

‘’What song are you humming?’’ You spoke, the first time you spoke since you first sat down; the first time any of you spoke, as a matter of fact. Heeseung quickly looked up at you, his eyes big as his lips parted; his humming coming to an abrupt end. ‘’What?’’ He let out, causing a small chuckle to trail off your lips. ‘’The song you were humming just now, what song was it?’’

Heeseung just stared at you, his lips still parted. ‘’Oh,’’ He mumbled, a small smile spreading across his lips and you think it’s the first time you’ve ever actually seen him smile. You couldn’t help but let your eyes dart down to his pink lips, his teeth slightly showing as the corner of his lips curled into a small smile; one of his hands awkwardly rubbing the nape of his neck.

His smile almost caused you to frown, because why was his smile so pretty? 

You never thought that Lee Heeseung would have a pretty smile, but with his pearly white teeth showing you couldn’t help but think just that - that Lee Heeseung did in fact have a pretty smile. ‘’I didn’t mean to, I’m sorry if I disturbed you,’’ He stuttered, looking down at his lap in another attempt to hide the crimson color spreading across his cheeks. This time, however, you noticed his flushed cheeks. 

‘’No,’’ You let out, almost too quickly, ‘’You didn’t. It sounded like a good song, I mean, you sounded good.’’

Oh, God. 

There was no way you actually just complimented him.

Your sudden compliment caused Heeseung to look back up at you, the shy smile he had flashed you slowly fading away and you suddenly felt like hiding your face in the palms of your hands. You weren’t sure if you somehow offended him, judging by the way his smile had now faded away completely; not that a compliment like that usually offended anyone, but you had established the fact that Heeseung didn’t work like other people a long time ago.

‘’Thank you,’’ He managed to get out after a moment of suspenseful silence, his cheeks now feeling hotter than ever as he tried biting back another smile from spreading across his lips. ‘’I can show you the song later, if you want me to of course!’’ He stammered.

You nodded in response, flashing him a small smile before returning your gaze to the screen of your computer in an attempt to ease the now stiff atmosphere; feeling awkward from the situation that had just played out. No, awkward wasn’t even the right word to describe how you felt, you felt like you wanted to sink through the ground.

Why would you ever compliment him like that?

Heeseung, however, kept his eyes on you; biting down on his bottom lip as he watched you uncomfortably shifting around in your seat while clearing your throat. Had he made you feel awkward? Was he not supposed to tell you the song? Should he just go back to reading the article he was reading? Questions flooded his mind as he desperately tried figuring out a way to ease the awkwardness that had suddenly arisen, almost slightly panicking as the thought of him making you uncomfortable crossed his mind.

‘’Oh, wait,’’ 

Against your own will, your eyes darted back to the boy sitting in front of you, raising one of your eyebrows as you watched him bend over; the sound of him unzipping his bag causing you to feel slightly puzzled. ‘’I forgot,’’ He mumbled as he sat back upright, your eyes darting down to his hands; watching as he placed a drink on top of the table. ‘’I brought this for you this morning, so you wouldn’t have to die out of dehydration this time.’’

Your gaze softened as he mumbled out his words, almost making it impossible for you to hear what he was saying; but you did, and a part of you wished you hadn’t - because now it was your cheeks burning. 

You kept your eyes on the drink placed in front of the boy, his hand still loosely wrapped around the can; his eyes now focused on you, his bottom lip placed in between his teeth once more as he waited for you to respond. But your response never came, and Heeseung couldn’t tell if you were staring at the drink because you didn’t like it or because you found his gesture weird. 

‘’I’m sorry if you don’t like it, I wasn’t sure which one to get,’’ He stuttered, letting go of the drink as he spoke, ‘’I-if you don’t want it that’s completely fine, I can just drink, I’m sorry if it was weird of me t-’’

‘’Thank you, Heeseung.’’

Your soft words caused Heeseungs body to freeze in place. He was expecting you to snap at him, or groan, or maybe even roll your eyes, his already big eyes slightly widening in shock as your eyes met his. He stared into your eyes for a moment, searching for any type of sarcasm or maybe even annoyance; but he couldn’t find any, no, the soft look in your eyes telling him that you were actually being genuine. ‘’I really like that drink.’’

Heeseung felt his cheeks heat up once again, a small smile forming on his plump lips as his fingers wrapped around the drink again; sliding the drink over the wooden table. ‘’Good.’’ He managed to get out, speaking so quietly that he was sure you hadn’t even heard him. He watched as you wrapped your own fingers around the drink, a small smile forming on your own lips.

He had made you smile.

He was quick to return his gaze to the screen of his computer, his heart feeling like it was about to burst out of his chest if he looked at you for as much as another second.

With your fingers ghosting over the keyboard of your laptop, you realized that you most definitely weren’t going to get anything done today; not while Heeseung was sitting across the table.

Heeseung made sure to buy one can of that drink every time the two of you were supposed to meet up by his locker after that. 

The first couple of times he had pulled the canned drink out of his bag, you had insisted that he shouldn’t, that he didn’t have to buy you a can every Monday and Thursday, and that you could just buy one yourself; but Heeseung refused.

He wanted to, because then he got to see your smile.

You had also became less hostile towards him. You hadn’t calling him annoying or rolled your eyes at him for almost two weeks now, a new record according to Heeseung, considering how often you did those two things the first couple of times you met with him. He had also made you laugh at one point, and Heeseung swore he had never blushed so hard in his entire life.

So he was going to keep on buying you that one canned drink, because you were friends now, and that’s what friends do for each other; right?

A sigh escaped your lips as you leaned against the lockers next to you, letting your upper body rest against the hard metal as you mindlessly scrolled through your phone. Heeseung had never in his entire life been late for anything, not even once; especially not your study sessions. He was always the first one to be there, you would always spot his tall, lanky figure standing by his locker whenever you turned the corner to go met him. 

This time, however, Heeseung hadn’t been standing there as you turned the corner.

You just assumed he was using the restrooms when you first arrived, knowing that he would never be late; looking back to the first time you went to meet him in the library, remembering his sulking face after he told you you had wasted his precious time - a chuckle threatening to leave your lips at the memory. You were running a few minutes late to your now weekly meet-up anyways, so you just figured that he went to do something else while he waited for you, like using the restroom for example.

But when you had been standing there for ten minutes and Heeseung was still nowhere to be seen, you realized that wasn’t the case.

You had looked around, wondering if maybe he was just lurking somewhere nearby. You checked the end of the hallway, the empty classrooms thinking maybe he got held up after class, peaking into the boy's restroom - only to find it empty. With Heeseung still nowhere to be seen, you returned to his locker with a frown plastered on your face; deciding that you’d just stay by the lockers to see if he showed up.

Now, thirty minutes later, Heeseung was still nowhere to be seen. You had already scrolled through your entire Instagram feed, checked all your friend's stories and Heeseung still hadn’t shown up. A part of you began to grow worried, because since when was Heeseung ever late? He was never late, and the thought of something happening to him caused a weird feeling to spread across your chest.

The weird feeling caused you to stop scrolling on your phone, your thumb now lingering above the screen of your phone as you frowned. 

You couldn’t exactly pinpoint the exact moment you began tolerating, not to mention caring about the boy you swore you hated so much. Maybe it was that one day in the library when you had heard him humming, his warm voice almost causing goosebumps to form on the skin of your arms - or maybe it was when he had bought you a drink, you weren’t sure.

But you did know for a fact that you weren’t particularly fond of the sudden, new feelings you felt towards the boy. 

It confused you, how fast everything had changed. Just four weeks ago, you had felt like your whole world came crashing down around you when your teacher had asked you to work with Heeseung. Now, four weeks later, you found yourself laughing at something he said; something you four weeks ago could never see yourself doing. But most importantly, you found yourself enjoying his company.

Something that you thought wasn’t humanly possible.

‘’I am so, so sorry,’’

Heeseungs now familiar voice brought you out of your thoughts, the feeling that had spread across your chest slowly fading away as his voice echoed behind you; feeling like a weight had been lifted off your shoulders. A small sigh of relief left your lips as you heard him walking towards you, your eyes still fixated on the screen of your phone as you turned around. 

‘’Is this your payback for that one time I made you wait for me?’’ You chuckled, feeling both relieved and slightly annoyed at him for making you wait for so long without giving you a heads up; you had given him your phone number after all so he could text you if anything came up, to avoid the library incident happening again. Your eyes left the screen of your phone, darting towards the figure walking towards you in the corner of your eye.

Nothing, however, could’ve prepared you for the sight you were about to see.

The smile that had formed on your lips when you first heard his voice slowly turned into your lips slightly parting, the grip you were holding on your phone tightening in an attempt for you not to drop it onto the floor; scared that you’d potentially crack the screen. If it wasn’t because you were leaning against the locker, you probably would’ve lost your balance.

With his dark hair dripping wet from just showering, covering his forehead and half of his eyes; he placed his hands on top of his thighs as soon as he reached you, desperately panting as he tried to catch his breath. ‘’I’m sorry,’’ He panted once again, his eyes meeting the floor. ‘’My gym teacher wanted to talk to me about my grades so I had to stay behind,’’

You, however, couldn’t make out a single word that was leaving his lips. With your lips still parted your now wide eyes scanned the boy standing in front of you, still trying his best to catch his breath; your eyes landing on his very, very veiny hands - a result of him sprinting through the school just to get to you.

With your heart now racing, your eyes landed on his face again.

What the fuck?

Without his glasses, he looked like a completely different person. The person standing in front of you didn’t resemble the annoying boy you had been sitting next to every day for months now one bit, no, he didn’t look like him at all. The boy standing in front of you now looked completely different, with the glasses you had once called hideous nowhere to be seen and his biceps exposed thanks to the t-shirt he was wearing, he looked so fucking attractive.

Heeseung must’ve noticed the way you stayed silent, looking up at you through his eyelashes; his eyebrows slightly furrowing together as he noticed the pale look on your face. ‘’Are you okay?’’ He asked, concern lingering in his voice.

No, fuck, you were the furthest thing away from being okay right now.

Standing up straight, he tilted his head, slightly narrowing his eyes so he could see you better. He wasn’t wearing his glasses after all. ‘’Are you upset with me? I’m sorry I’m so late, I promise I didn’t mean to keep you waiting for so long, do you still have time to study? It’s completely okay if you don’t, we can just reschedule it or just meet up on Monday instead,’’

He was rambling, and you couldn’t bring yourself to listen to him. Not right now, not when he was looking like this. ‘’No!’’ You managed to get out, almost stuttering as you spoke. Heeseung looked at you, his eyes slightly widening at your sudden exclaim; now scared that he had really upset you. You tore your eyes off of him, sucking air through your teeth, trying to calm your racing heart down.

Why were you suddenly feeling like this? Why was your heart racing?

‘’I can’t study today, at all,’’ You stuttered, your eyes still not meeting his as you cringed at yourself for sounding so pathetic by stumbling over your own words. ‘’I just came here to tell you that, I’m busy today, so I won’t be able to make it today,’’

Heeseung remained quiet, his eyes darting down to your now clenched fists, nervousness and confusion washing over him. You had lashed out at him before, sure, but never like this; making the boy feel slightly anxious. The last thing he wanted was to upset you. 

He bit down on his lower lip as you continued to avoid his gaze by staring at the lockers on the other side of the hallway, Heeseung fighting the urge to take your hands in his to check if maybe you had hurt yourself and that’s why you were clenching your fists so hard. ‘’But, you could’ve just texted me, you didn’t have to wait for me, wasn’t standing here waiting for me only taking up more of your time?’’ He let out, confusion and slight hurt lingering behind hs words.

You had always hated how smart Heeseung was, but right now, you swore you hated it more than you had ever done before.

‘’It slipped my mind,’’ You mumbled, still refusing to look back at him; scared that your heart would burst if you looked at him one more time. Heeseung just nodded in response, his eyes darting around the empty hallway as he thought of what to say. ‘’Well, are you going anywhere? Let me give you a ride, it’s the least I can do since I kept you waiting for so lo-’’

‘’It’s fine, Heeseung, I’ll take the bus, I’ll see you on Monday, okay?’’

Before Heeseung could even reply, you had already stormed past him without even looking at him. Turning around, his lips parted as he thought of calling out to you; hesitating to do so as he watched you walk further down the hallway. His lips closed once again as he watched you turn the corner, disappearing out of his sight. 

With a heavy feeling in his chest and droplets of water dropping onto his shirt from not drying his hair properly, he wondered if he had hurt you by being late.

Mondays had always been your favorite day, at least since Heeseung became your seatmate; purely because the two of you didn’t share any of the same classes on that particular day. It was no different today, you were beyond happy that you wouldn’t have to face Heeseung during any of your classes - but not for the reason you usually had.

No, this time it wasn’t because you wouldn’t have to listen to his pen hitting his desk over and over again, nor was it because you wouldn’t have to endure him embarrassing you by talking over the teacher like he always did.

You were scared, and you were scared shitless to face him.

You had rushed home after you had lashed out at him in the hallway, your heart still pounding when you laid down in the comfort of your own bed. You had refused to go to school the following day, making up some lie about not feeling too well - which in reality, wasn’t a lie. You didn’t feel too well, you didn’t feel well at all, truth to be told.

The thought of you and Heeseung actually getting along had already scared you, and the fact that your heart skipped a beat when you saw him only made things worse. You had never even considered Lee Heeseung remotely attractive before, you had always hated the way he styled his hair, the way it’d neatly cover his forehead; and most of all, you had always hated the horrid, round glasses he wore every day.

But seeing him like that, with his hair messily covering his forehead and without his glasses, and not to mention his smile, oh God, his smile; you realized that he was in fact attractive. No, he was more than just that - he was breathtaking.

Something you never thought you’d admit, nor was it something you ever wanted to admit. But whether you liked it or not, it was something you could no longer deny, even though you had spent the entire weekend trying to prove yourself wrong, to no avail: Lee Heeseung had made your heart skip a beat.

With your last class of the day coming to an end, you found yourself anxiously tapping your pencil against the wooden desk in front of you, a habit you swore you hated and most definitely picked up from Heeseung. The only difference was that Heeseung had told you that he always tapped to the beat of whatever song was stuck in his head when you had asked him about his annoying habit, while you very much just repeatedly tapped it against the table with no beat whatsoever.

You had considered texting him, letting him know that you wouldn’t be able to make it to today's study session either. But with the deadline coming up, you knew you couldn’t be that selfish; you had to get the project done sooner or later. And the faster the better, you thought, so you could go back to hating Lee Heeseung and never think about what the confusing feelings you currently felt towards the boy meant ever again.

Even though you had accepted your faith by the time your last class came to an end, it didn’t make it any easier for you to make your way down the hallway leading to Heeseungs locker. The anxiety you had felt the entire weekend only doubled when you were about to turn the corner, knowing that the second you turned that very corner, you’d be able to see the lanky boy standing further down the hallway.

You weren’t sure what to expect. You prayed that he was back to wearing his hair neatly and that he was wearing his glasses this time, that he’d look like he normally did; so you could be reminded of why you hated Lee Heeseung in the first place. Maybe you just needed a reminder for your confusing feelings to go away, maybe you were just confused because he had looked so different; you didn’t actually find him that attractive, right?

Wrong.

You were wrong.

With one step, you turned the corner you were so afraid of turning, and you swore your heart stopped beating the second your eyes landed on the spot where he usually stood when he waited for you.

His hair was indeed back to being neatly styled and his round glasses were perfectly placed on the bridge of his nose again just like you had hoped, so why the fuck did he still look so breathtaking?

This was the moment you were supposed to feel the heavy weight you had felt the entire weekend being lifted off your shoulders as you realized that you didn’t actually find Heeseung as attractive as you thought you did, you were supposed to feel all the anxiety slip away; so why did it feel like someone only added more weight onto your shoulders the second your eyes landed on him? 

Maybe you just needed to take a closer look.

Yeah, you definitely just needed to take a closer look.

‘’Hi,’’

Your voice definitely took Heeseung by surprise, his whole body slightly flinching as your voice came from beside him. Turning his whole body around, he looked at you; his eyes wide. ‘’Y/N? I didn’t think you’d show up today,’’ He managed to get out, his eyes still glued to you. You awkwardly smiled, shaking your head as you looked down at your shoes in an attempt to hide your now flushed face.

No, you definitely found him just as attractive, if not even more, up close.

‘’Yeah, me neither,’’ You chuckled, hoping that Heeseung would chuckle too. Only he didn’t. Instead, he remained quiet; only staring at you, not knowing what to say. 

Heeseung had spent the entire weekend thinking, just like you had done. He had left school shortly after you stormed off, his mind clouded as he drove home; wondering why you were so upset when you left. He couldn’t help but curse himself out, telling himself that if he only had texted you that he’d be late you wouldn’t have been so upset with him; or if he just would’ve told his teacher that he simply didn’t have the time to discuss his grade because he had other plans - he did find meeting you more important, after all.

There were many ways Heeseung could’ve avoided you being upset with him, and he hated himself for not thinking about all those things before actually upsetting you. But Heeseung knew there was no way he’d be able to change what had already happened, so he spent the weekend trying to figure out how to apologize to you instead of sulking about you potentially being disappointed in him.

But now that you were actually standing in front of him, it seemed like all of the ways he had thought of how to apologize suddenly never existed in the first place; his mind going completely blank.

‘’Do you still want to study today?’’ Your voice snapped Heeseung out of his thoughts, blinking as he realized he had been staring at you. Clearing his throat, he tore his eyes off of you; rubbing the nape of his neck as he tried his best not to become flustered by your eyes being on him. ‘’Y-yeah, but,’’ He stammered out, something he hadn’t done in a long time; he almost never stuttered around you anymore, he had become so comfortable around you to the point where he felt comfortable talking to you without having to think about what he said - something he never felt with anyone else.

‘’I was thinking, maybe we could go to my house instead of the library?’’

Heeseung regretted saying it the second the words trailed off his lips and his eyes landed on your face, the shocked expression on your face making him regret every life choice that led him to this very moment. ‘’To your house?’’

‘’Yeah, I just, have this thing coming up later tonight a-and it’d be a lot easier for me if I was already at my house when we’re done studying,’’ He let out, the unsure look on your face making him want to sink through the ground.

He was supposed to apologize to you for letting you down before inviting you to his house, not the opposite - his plan already failing miserably.

You just stared at him for a minute, causing Heeseung to grow even more anxious. He had gotten used to the look on your face whenever you were annoyed with him, but this one didn’t look anything like that look; no, it looked like something completely different and Heeseung couldn’t tell what you were feeling, making him even more nervous.

He was just about to tell you to just forget about it and that he could probably find a way to work around it, that you could just work on your project in the library like you always did; when your voice interrupted him.

‘’Sure,’’ You softly let out, so softly that Heeseung almost didn’t catch it. ‘’Sure?’’ He repeated, making sure that he heard you correctly. You nodded in response, a small smile spreading on your lips. ‘’We can do that.’’

The car ride to his house was quiet, too quiet for your liking. But with Heeseung being focused on the road and with you staring at the window, you just couldn’t force yourself to say anything.

And neither could Heeseung. He thought that maybe this was his chance to apologize to you, maybe he wouldn’t get another opportunity today; considering how he knew you liked for him to be quiet whenever you were working. But with his fingers tapping against the steering wheel, the atmosphere felt far too awkward for him to utter a ‘sorry’. 

So he just decided he’d do it as soon as you reached his house, before the two of you started working on the project; letting you continue to observe the nature outside through the window, looking at you through the corner of his eye every now and then - a small smile forming on his lips each time.

Well, you had also planned on apologizing to him for storming off like that the previous week when you reached his house. But the atmosphere was just as tense when you placed yourself on top of his bed, your eyes scanning his room; taking in the space your dear seatmate lived in.

Just like you had expected, his room was neat. A little too neat. But then again, it looked just like you had pictured it; neat, just like Heeseung himself.

‘’I hope you’re okay with working on my bed, I don't have another chair,’’ He mumbled as he used his thumb to point to the desk placed in the corner of the room, your eyes landing on the one chair before nodding. ‘’Are you not working on the bed?’’ You asked, your eyes landing on the tall boy standing a few feet away. 

Heeseung looked over at you, gulping before opening his mouth to speak, ‘’I was planning on sitting by the desk, if that’s okay with you?’’ He asked, his eyes still glued to you. You bit down on your lower lip before nodding once more, your fingers nervously playing with the hem of your shirt. ‘’I mean, yeah, I just thought it'd be easier if we sat next to each other, if I need to get your opinion on something or anything,’’ You mumbled in response.

That was a lie. You could easily just send him whatever you needed to get his opinion on, but how were you supposed to comfortably apologize if he was sitting from across the room?

Luckily for you, Heeseung seemed to agree with your idea. ‘’No, yeah, you’re right, I’ll just sit on the bed with you.’’ He mumbled back, his eyes darting away from you as he used one of his hands to rub the back of his neck.

So he did, placed with his back resting against the headboard of his bed and with his laptop placed on top of his thighs, he began working on the project; just like the two of you had planned.

You, on the other hand, just couldn’t focus; just like all the other times you had worked with Heeseung.

You had been too preoccupied stealing glances at him from above the screen of your laptop from the second he sat down in front of you to even open the shared document, the sight of him being too intriguing to even consider looking away.

While not so discreetly staring at the boy sitting in front of you, you realized two things. 

The first one being that you had no idea how to even bring up the subject, not knowing how to just suddenly apologize for something you didn’t even know if he cared about. 

The second thing being that you accepted the fact that you indeed found Lee Heeseung attractive. Too attractive for your own good - especially when he focused on something.

With his lip nudged in between his teeth and his brows furrowed together as he focused on whatever stood written on the screen of his laptop, you couldn’t help but scan his features. You wondered for a split second how you had never noticed how sharp his jawline was before, maybe because you never really looked his way as the mere sight of him used to be more than enough to make your blood boil; you weren’t sure. 

You also wondered why you had never paid more attention to his big, doe eyes before. His eyes were more than enough to make your heart skip a beat, not to mention whenever his pink lips would curl into a smile and the laugh you had learned to love would emerge from his throat.

No, you couldn’t do this anymore.

‘’Heeseung?’’

His name trailing fo your lips caused him to look up from his laptop, surprised to see your eyes already staring at him. He hummed in response, slightly tilting his head. You had to bite down on your bottom lip in order to control your breathing as his eyes met yours, inhaling through your nose before speaking, ‘’Can you take a look at this for me?’’

Heeseung offered you a soft smile, nodding his head as he sat up straight; getting ready for you to pass him your laptop so he could look at whatever you were referring to. But you had other plans it seemed, Heeseungs body freezing as he watched you crawl towards him - just to place your body in the tight space between his body and the wall.

His eyes widened as he felt your body press up against the side of his own, his breath hitching in his throat as he suddenly became aware of just how close you were to him. You had never been this close before, the closest you had ever been to him was the one time his hand accidentally brushed against yours while handing you a drink; that alone was enough to turn him into a stuttering mess.

But this? This was enough for him to lose his ability to speak for all eternity.

You, however, seemed completely unphased to Heeseung by the sudden closeness as you placed your laptop in your lap. Heeseung had to clear his throat as his eyes darted toward the screen of your computer, deciding not to say anything about how close you were to him. It made more sense for you to show him yourself, he thought, you probably didn’t mean anything by getting this close to him, right?

He watched as you moved the cursor across the screen, clicking on one of the tabs; an article now taking up the whole screen. Heeseung glanced over at you, sucking air through his teeth as he realized he would have to lean over you in order to actually make out what the text said. So he did, slowly leaning closer to the screen as he held his breath, wanting to get it over with as quickly as possible; before you had the chance to hear how his heart was racing.

‘’Oh, and Heeseung?’’ You let out after a moment, Heeseung only humming in response as he tried his best to focus on the text that stood written on the screen of your laptop, his eyes skimming through the text he couldn’t seem to make any sense of - maybe because he wasn’t actually concentrating. ‘’You remember how you told me you’d do anything for me to work with you on this project?’’

Heeseung gulped as he felt your breath fan across his neck as you spoke, ‘’Yeah?’’ 

‘’I want you to kiss me.’’

Almost choking on his own saliva, your words causing him to freeze; his eyes no longer skimming through the text.

He stayed still, feeling your eyes burning into his side profile as he remained in the same position, trying his best to comprehend the words that had just left your lips. You wanted him to kiss you?

Your warm hand coming into contact with the skin covering his cheek almost caused him to flinch, your hand gently cupping his cheek as you forced him to look at you. You swore that your heart almost stopped beating as soon as his big eyes met your own, his eyes wide and staring at you in pure shock. 

Your eyes darted between his eyes and his lips, your own bottom lip placed in between your teeth as your eyes landed on his plump, pink lips. The lips you had caught yourself staring at one too many times during these past few weeks.

Heeseung didn’t even get to fully comprehend the position he currently found himself in before he suddenly felt your soft lips press against his own.

The kiss was soft, Heeseung staring at you with wide eyes as he watched your eyes fluttering shut, your hand still placed on the side of his cheek as you gently pulled yourself towards him. Heeseung wanted to close his eyes, he wanted to kiss you back; but he just couldn’t. Instead, the shock of feeling your lips press against his own took over all his senses as he felt your thumb gently stroke his cheek, your lips still pressed against his own.

You quickly sensed that Heeseung wasn’t kissing you back, causing you to pull away; guilt overtaking you, had he not wanted you to kiss him?

Heeseung, however, almost let out a whine at the loss of contact. So he did what he deemed appropriate, bringing his own shaky hand towards your face; cupping your cheek before pulling you in for another kiss.

This time, his eyes fluttered shut as soon as he felt your lips press against his own again. He could tell that you wanted to kiss him just as bad by the way your other hand suddenly found its way to his other cheek, pulling him even closer to you; letting your lips mesh together.

Heeseung had never kissed anyone in his entire life. He had no idea how to kiss, he had no idea what to do with his hands nor did he know what to do with his mouth. So he let you press yourself against him, almost letting out a whine when your front teeth collided with your own, feeling embarrassed. The embarrassment, however, left the second he heard a giggle trail fo your lips before once again placing your lips on top of his.

He wanted to touch you, he wanted to bring you even closer to him, he wanted to feel more of you; his hand gripping onto the hair behind your ear as he forced you closer to him, your lips still leaving small pecks on top of his own. The whimper that left your lips when his fingers brushed through your hair, however, wasn’t something he had anticipated - causing the hair on his arms to stand upright.

Not once had he thought a whimper would make his heart melt, yet it did.

It also seemed like his fingers brushing through your hair caused you to want more as he suddenly felt you swiping your tongue across the bottom of his lip. Uncertain of what to do and slightly panicking, he pulled away; staring at you with wide eyes. You seemed to pick up on his uncertainty almost immediately, brushing your own fingers through his hair in an attempt to ease his nerves before pulling him back into a kiss.

Your attempt at easing his nerves definitely worked as he let your tongue enter his mouth, your wet muscle coming into contact with his own. Heeseung swore he could’ve let out a whine at the feeling of your tongue nudging his own while your lips moving in sync, gripping onto your hair even harder in an attempt to somewhat ground himself.

Him gripping onto your hair only seemed to fuel you on even further as he suddenly felt you move the laptop that he had placed in his lap before quickly moving his own as well, placing it in front of him before climbing onto his lap. You kept your lips attached to his own, both your hands now finding their way to his hair as you further deepened the kiss.

Heeseung still had no idea what to do, especially now that you were sitting on top of him, his heart only beating faster as he felt your hands leave his hair - only to grab onto his own. ‘’It’s okay, you can touch me,’’ You mumbled, guiding his hands towards your waist before placing them there, causing Heeseung to gulp as he grabbed onto the fabric of your shirt covering your waist.

You pressed your forehead against his own, his lips more plump than usual and his breathing heavier than usual from your shared kiss, his eyes meeting yours. ‘’Do you want me to take off my glasses?’’ He stuttered, scared that they were in the way of you kissing him.

You quickly shook your head as your hands found their way up the sides of his neck, cupping both his cheeks again. ‘’No, I want you to keep them on.’’

Heeseung was about to protest, but had no time to do so as you stole his next breath away by pressing your lips against his own once more. Not that he complained, the only thing he wanted right now was to kiss you, with glasses on or not - it didn’t matter to him as long as he got to feel your lips.

The kiss was quick to turn rough, Heeseung trying his best to copy what you were doing, moving his lips the same way you were moving yours. Heeseung couldn’t help but feel blood rush to the apples of his cheeks as he felt your breasts press against his chest, scrunching up even more fabric in his fists as he pulled you even closer.

It almost felt euphoric to him, having your tongue slip into his mouth and your lips meshing together. It felt unreal, almost like he was dreaming; until you grinding yourself against his crotch brought him back to reality.

Almost like a thunderbolt hit him, his whole body tensed up as his fingers let go if the fabric of your shirt - quickly placing his hands on top of your thighs. His hand landing on your thighs caused your slow movements to come to an abrupt end, pulling away from the kiss to look at him. 

With his big, doe eyes staring right back at you, the fingertips of his hands pressing into your clothed thighs, he shook his head.

Not because he didn’t want to feel your clothed core grinding on his own clothed crotch, God, no, there was nothing he’d rather feel right now. But he also knew that his euphoria would be short-lived if he let this go on any further, knowing that he most definitely wouldn’t be able to please you if it did end up going that far.

‘’I’m so sorry, I got carried away,’’ You mumbled, your hands slowly slipping away from his face and slightly using your knees to hover just above his crotch; Heeseungs eyes widening as the words left your lips. Why were you apologizing?

‘’No,’’ He let out as he grabbed onto your wrist before they left his face completely, ‘’I want to, Y/N,’’ His breathing was still uneven and he almost stumbled over his own words as he spoke, his eyes still staring into yours to show you that he was being genuine, wanting you to know that you hadn’t done anything wrong. Guiding your hands back onto his cheeks, he frowned.

You just stared at him, puzzled. ‘’So why are you saying no?’’ You whimpered, pressing your forehead against his. With a frown still plastered on his face, he felt his cheeks heat up once more as he realized how stupid he was about to sound.

‘’Because, I haven’t done this before, and I just, I want to be able to please you? I’m not saying that we’ll have sex, oh god, I mean, unless you want us to? I just want you to feel good too a-and I don’t think I’d be able to do th-’’

Heeseung didn’t even get the chance to continue his rambling before a small whine emerged from the back of his throat, suddenly feeling you press your lips right below his ear. 

The feeling of your wet lips pressing a soft kiss against his sensitive skin caused his eyes to flutter shut, the new sensation taking over his body.

‘’You’re thinking too much, Heeseung,’’ You whispered against this skin, leaving yet another wet kiss right below his jawline, ‘’Just let me make you feel good, okay?’’

Thinking was what Heeseung did best, especially in moments where he felt stressed out - like right now, for example. But with your lips pressing soft, wet kisses against his neck he suddenly felt like he couldn’t think straight for the first time in his entire life; especially when he felt you press your lower body against his own once more.

Through gritted teeth, a small hiss left Heeseung’s lips, his hands now placed on top your thighs again; his eyes fluttered shut as he let you slowly grind yourself against him, only nodding in encouragement when Heeseung slightly tilted his head to the side - making it hard for the boy not to dig his nails into your clothed thighs in an attempt to tell you he was enjoying it.

Was it too early for him to get hard?

He couldn’t help but gulp as he felt his cock beginning to grow in his pants, how could it not, when he had you grinding yourself against him so carelessly? Scared that you’d feel the tent beginning to form in the crotch of his pants, he uncomfortably shifted around; which caused you to shake your head. ‘’It’s okay Heeseung.’’ Your soft voice echoed right beside his ear, his heart beginning to race as he felt you push yourself down even more, and if you hadn’t felt his now semi hard cock before - you most definitely did now.

Your hands trailed down his stomach, Heeseung’s breath hitching in his throat as he felt your hands playing with the waistband of his pants; your lips still pressing innocent kisses against his throat by the time your fingers began playing with the zipper of his jeans. His eyes fluttered open, he wanted to see what you were doing, he wanted to see what you were doing to him; see what you were doing that could possibly have this effect on him.

Maybe he should’ve kept his eyes shut, because the sight in front of him was definitely too much to take in all at once. With your head still dipped in between the crook of his neck and one of your hands resting on his chest as the other one continued playing with the zipper of his jeans, he couldn’t help but let the whimper that had been threatening to leave his throat escape.

His whimper, however, was quickly replaced by a low groan as he felt your palm press against his now almost fully hard cock. A small hum of satisfaction left your lips, the vibrations of you humming against his skin sending shivers through his body. With you now slowly palming him on top of his pants, he couldn’t help the whimpers now continuously trailing off his lips, slightly buckling his hips so he could feel more of you.

He had been too lost in the bliss of your hand slowly stroking his clothed hard-on to notice the way you had separated your lips from the skin of his neck. It wasn’t until he felt your hand leave his crotch that he realized you had stopped kissing his neck and were now looking right at him, his eyes meeting yours.

You had to hold back a whine yourself as your eye met his, his big doe eyes bigger than usual as he questionably looked at you, almost like he was begging for you to continue. ‘’Do you trust me?’’ Heeseung nodded a little too eagerly to your question, causing you to press a soft kiss against his lips. ‘’Then let me make you feel good.’’

Heeseung swore that his whole body went into shock when you separated his thighs, placing yourself in between them before moving further down the bed; his eyes widening as you looked up at him through your eyelashes, your face now on the same level as his crotch.

This was a sight Heeseung never thought he’d see in his entire life, not with anyone and especially not with you.

‘’Is this okay?’’ Your voice brought him out of his daze, his lips still parted as he realized he had only been staring at you. Gulping, he slowly nodded.

Heeseung had already felt his cheeks heat up the second you got in between his thighs, but now that you were unbuckling his belt and unzipping his pants before sliding them down his legs; he had never felt more embarrassed and vulnerable in his entire life.

And the fact that you were now staring right at the outline of his hard-on, his underwear being the only thing separating you from actually seeing his cock, made him feel even more embarrassed. He placed his hands over his face as he felt his face heat up even more. Maybe this was a bad idea, a terrible idea even, forcing his eyes shut; not wanting to see the disappointment lingering in your gaze.

You, however, were anything but disappointed. You couldn’t help your jaw going slack the second your eyes landed on his very prominent outline, a small gasp almost leaving your lips as your fingertips slowly grabbed onto his still clothed cock; giving it a gentle squeeze, earning a low groan from Heeseung. 

You must’ve noticed the way he was still hiding behind his hands, causing you to lightly tap his now exposed thighs. He slowly opened his eyes, separating his fingers so he could look at you, his eyes immediately meeting yours. ‘’Is it okay if I take them off?’’ Not finding the strength to speak, he only nodded in response. He took a deep breath as he felt you hook your fingers under the waistband of his boxers, slowly pulling them down his legs.

As he felt his hard cock spring up, hitting his lower stomach; another hiss of both embarrassment and desperation trailed off his lips, followed by him covering his eyes using his hands once again. He simply just could not look at you, scared that he’d faint from the amount of awkwardness he felt by you staring at his now fully exposed cock.

‘’Heeseung, baby,’’ The nickname leaving your lips accompanied by a chuckle caused the now red boy to look at you from behind his hands once more, ‘’Don’t hide, there’s nothing to feel embarrassed about, okay?’’

Another groan emerged from the back of his throat as he slowly let his hand slip away from his face, hesitant to look at you; scared that you’d laugh at him or make fun of him for blushing so hard. But you never did, no, instead he suddenly felt you grab onto his girth, causing his eyes to immediately land on you.

Using one of your hands to experimentally stroke his cock, your lips parted in awe. You never would’ve thought that Lee Heeseung, the boy you once swore you hated, would have such a nice cock; his tip red for the lack of attention and throbbing in your hand. You leaned forwards, looking back up at him through your lashes before pressing a soft kiss against the tip.

The new feeling was almost enough for Heeseung to cum right there and then. His lips parted as he tried holding back a groan, failing miserably to do so as he watched you kiss yet another kiss to the tip of his cock; a small smile forming on your lips as you watch the boy laying in front of you melt into your touch.

Still slowly stroking it using one of your hands, you continued peppering kisses all over his tip, enjoying the way he squirmed around at the sensation. You then stuck your tongue out, leaving a wet trail from the base of his cock all the way to the tip, pushing Heeseung over the edge. He was about to tell you to please make him feel good and stop teasing him, you, however; seemed to already be on it as you wrapped your lips around his cock.

A loud groan left his lips in surprise as he felt your wet mouth wrap around his tip, followed by a hiss; his hands gripping onto the sheets as he tried his best not to buckle his hips forwards, wanting to feel your mouth on his entire cock. You pulled your lips off his cock with a pop, causing Heeseung to almost whine as he grew even more desperate.

But with you being quick to take his cock into your mouth once again, this time more of his cock filling your mouth; he never got the chance to even whine, not before you started slowly bobbing your head up and down.

With your lips now fully wrapped around his cock, all the nights he had spent in the darkness of his room tugging at his own cock, whimpering out your name as his own cum coated his stomach didn’t feel as perverted anymore.

Not that your tongue swirling around the tip of his cock felt anything like his right hand tugging at his own cock, no, his right hand couldn’t even remotely compare to your mouth now that he had experienced the bliss of your plump lips almost touching the base of his cock.

Heeseung felt like he was dreaming. Even though he had thought about your lips one too many times in the darkness of his room during the past few weeks, something he felt ashamed of admitting, he never thought he would actually get to experience it. In a way, it almost felt unreal - but the moan you let out around his cock, the vibrations causing a grunt to leave his lips reminding him that it was, in fact, real.

He wasn’t sure of just how loud he was being, not being able to stop the small whimpers and groans spilling past his lips; but one of his hands had somehow shakily made its way into your hair, pulling your head down in an attempt to relieve the throbbing of his cock. Every time your tongue swirled around his tip, he tensed up, the knot forming in his stomach telling him that he wouldn’t be able to hold back much longer.

He hoped that you understood that this was his first time and that the new feeling overwhelmed him, hence why he was gripping onto your hair and slightly lifting his hips off the mattress underneath him - desperately trying to mutter something about being close.

With him stuttering something under his breath, your eyes darted up to look at him. The sight in front of you almost caused you to let out a moan, his hair sticking to his forehead as he pressed his head into the pillow placed underneath his head; giving you a clear sight of his adam’s apple moving up and down as a result of him gulping, his lips slightly parted as another whimper left his lips.

He looked even prettier like that.

‘’Y/N,’’ He managed to stutter out, gathering even more hair in his fist as you hummed against the tip of his cock, your eyes still glued to him. ‘’I think I’m going to cum,’’

He didn’t even get to finish his sentence before the knot in his stomach snapped, a loud groan leaving his lips as he thrusted his hip forwards, not being able to control his own body as his orgasm washed over him. He was too busy trying to stay conscious as his overwhelming orgasm caused his whole body to tense up to even realize that he had unknowingly pushed your head down, your throat closing around his cock as his white seed shot down your throat only heightening his high.

With small whimpers trialing of his lips and his eyes tightly shut, he felt you pull your mouth away from his now twitching cock, droplets of his own release dropping onto his abdomen as his hand slowly let go of your hair he had bunched up in his fists.

It took a while for the boy to catch his breath, seeing stars as his eyes finally fluttered open, seeing the outline of you through his blurry vision.

Wait, did he just cum in your mouth? Without your permission?

Embarrassment shot through the boy's body, his eyes widening as he blinked; his eyes meeting yours, panic now slightly starting to set in as watched you stared at him with your lips slightly parted. ‘’I-I’m so sorry,’’ He managed to stutter out, placing his hands on both sides of his body before propping himself up so he was sitting upright.

You, on the other hand, just stared at the boy - appalled.

He had indeed just spilled his own release down your throat without any warning, and maybe you should’ve been angry with him; but how could you, when you could feel your own wetness seeping out of your hole? 

‘’I couldn’t stop myself, I promise I didn’t mean to, I’m so sorry,’’ He continued rambling, the panic now being clear as day as he spoke, ‘’I’ve just never, felt so g-good before and it happened before I could sto-’’

Feeling you place yourself on top of his lap once more and smashing your lips against his own, he stopped speaking. The kiss was messy, your lips harshly moving against his own as his spit mixed with yours, combined with the taste of his own cum. The sudden kiss took him by surprise, your clothed core coming into contact with his already sensitive cock causing him to hiss against your lips. You, however, didn’t stop; a low whine leaving his throat as he felt you bite down on his lip.

‘’What are you doing?’’ He managed to whimper out as you pulled away for a second, taking in the sight in front of you. His lips were now slightly bruised, a result of your lips meshing together with his and you nibbling on his bottom lip; his doe eyes were big as he stared right back at you. Fuck, why did he have to look so pretty?

‘’You don’t think I’m done with you, do you?’’

Heeseung gulped, ‘’Y-you’re not mad at me?’’

A small chuckle left your throat, using your thumb to stroke his cheek. ‘’You’re so fucking stupid sometimes, you know that right?’’

Heeseung knew he wasn’t stupid. Heeseung was a lot of things, but stupid most certainly wasn’t one of those things; well, at least for now - knowing he’d probably be beyond dumb by the time you were done with him.

[ghostflowerhotpotch]

Spider-Woman, NOT Ghost-Spider

This is a tip for people who want to go as canon as possible WITH THE MOVIES, since I feel a lot of people do this mistake because they look into the comics and mix things up.

If you want to call Gwen, Ghost-Spider in your fanfic/fanart/etc because you think is cool, go ahead! Go nuts! I'm not the canon police.

BUT-

In the movies, Gwen still calls herself Spider-Woman.

An explanation as to why this is important in the read more.

(Spoilers about the Spider-Gwen comics, I guess because I am not spoiling anything that came after 2019.)

When I say "important," I mean it in the stick-it-to-the-details type of deal; if you care about technicalities you care about this, but I know that's not the majority.

However, I do want to bring it up because the reason why Gwen switched in the comics, or rather, why chose Ghost-Spider of all things- is really neat and interesting story line that I feel a lot of people skip over when they 'chose' to call her that without knowing why she chose that name.

If you think Gwen has it rough in the movies, don't read the comics because they put this girl through the wringer.

Let's go a little bit before she chose that name.

As you can see, Gwen feels that she has always been marked by death, some way or another.

First her mother, then Peter, and is now hitting pretty hard after losing Spider-UK (is not Hobie, or Malala, I don't think he has appeared in the movies,) Noir and Karn, though arguably Billy was the one who hit her the hardest.

She went to other dimensions to tell their love ones that Billy and Noir passed away; it is implied how this is her way to try to make amends to what happened, make peace with herself.

But is not really enough, the topic doesn't leave her mind,

Death and pain certainly follow her often; she almost lost her dad for good, and she was definitely shaken after Harry got gravely injured precisely because he was always there for her.

That last panel never stops hitting hard for me.

There is just some quietness to it, about how no matter what she does, how hard she tried, Death continues to follow, one way or another. Even when she tries to be a hero, to do the right thing, death follows her.

In the comics, Gwen switches her name because she is studying in Earth-616 rather than her own dimension, so she switches names in order to avoid stepping in any toes.

So, in the movies, is kind of hard to think the switch would happen. Sure, Gwen is interacting with Jessica and other spiders, but believe me, the multiple spider-man haven't changed their names, so having Jessica in the spider society doesn't change much.

However, I do bring all of this because I think implementing this story line in the movies not only is feasible, it would be *amazing.*

The phrase "Death loves Gwen Stacy," not only hits hard for the Spider-Gwen in the comics, but for the movie counterpart too.

Think about it for a second; in the movies, Gwen feels she can't have friends because otherwise, they may lose them like Peter, she has convinced herself it can't work. And then. she goes to the Spider-Society.

And now she feels Gwen Stacy and Death always go hand in hand.

She learns how in so many universes, Peter is the one bitten, he is the one who lives, while Gwen Stacy dies, over, and over again. It almost seems like she is the outlier out of spite, how because she gets to live, everyone else pays the price.

Because Death loves Gwen Stacy, powers or not, that's not changing.

But at the end of the day-

And that's why, no matter what, she will continue fighting to protect her people.

[wasyago]

I'm so curious, but it's okay if you do not have an answer for me; did something happen to Etho in your recks au for him to need all of those robotic prosthetics, like an accident of sorts? Or did he, I guess, experiment on himself or something like that?

Wonderful design, by the way! I can't stop looking at it, I love it so much.

haha yeah something did happen :)c

so, as you may or may not know, the world of recks suffered from a catastrophe caused by the moon going off its orbit and almost crushing into earth; which caused the creation of many gravitational anomalies all over the planet; which caused most of the big cities to evolve downwards and move under the sea level; which created this odd phenomenon of many skyscrapers in the middle of the city being abandoned and staying vacant, even if the buildings are technically fully operational.

and so teen etho, our smart little boy, thought "Hey, i don't wanna live so low underground where the sun doesn't reach when there's perfectly good houses on the surface!" so he just kinda... left his home and moved to one of the abandoned buildings. which, i mean, good for him and all that. BUT.

see, the thing about run down buildings is that they don't have a good water supply. and the thing about water in recks au is that it has a ton of bad chemicals, moon debris, leftovers of destroyed infrastructure, etc, in it when unfiltered or filtered poorly.

and etho, although smart, wasn't smart enough to give proper attention to the metallic taste of the water in the building he moved in to. like, sure it tastes a little weird but otherwise it's fine, it's something you would expect from an abandoned skyscraper right?

well, little did he know that the water he drank for god knows how many years of his life, was actually slowly dissolving his insides and poisoning him! and yknow, sharp pain in your guts every so often is one thing, but actively coughing up blood is another. and thank god he met cleo by then, because they forced him to actually do a check up to see what was wrong.

everything was wrong how you might've already guessed, to the point where the damage wasn't reversible anymore and there was no way to heal naturally. sooo etho had to get the prosthetic and say goodbye to his organs. the other option was to say goodbye to his life tho so he got pretty lucky there i think. thankfully cleo is a prosthetics doctor neurologist person, and she was able to get everything sorted fairly quickly for him and get that man on the operating table as soon as possible.

so at the end, all of etho's vitals had to be changed, including his throat and lower jaw because it also god badly damaged by being in contact with the water. (turns out etho had the raspy voice not because he was cool but actually because he was dying 😬) and! let me tell you, removing someone's entire set of vitals and changing them for the artificial ones in one surgery without killing the person in the process is actually very hard!! who would've thought huh...

well uhmm, yeah so this is what happened to etho o3o

(the eye prosthetic is another story tho, this post is already pretty long so maybe next time)

[sgiandubh]

The door faces North

This has been, by far, one of the most complex investigations I have ever done in this fandom, and I am truly sorry for the long wait I had to inflict on many of you & for the uncharacteristic radio silence in DMs and comments. During this peculiar journey, I checked, double-checked and cross-checked as many details as I could and I carefully considered at least two different theories, of which I still think they do not exclude each other. I am now confident enough to make not only an educated guess, but also a daring bet on SRH's next whisky move.

Also, sorry for the length of this post. Truly sorry - think of the completely pulverized night sleep I had to give up, in order to bring this to you.

But first, a word on Marple's obvious PR tip on the Hopetoun Estate refurbishment and distillery old/new project. I am fair game enough to tell you the obvious: her overall recounting of the principals is roughly correct, spare perhaps one or two minor details. Correct, but dry - she limits herself to the technical documentation submitted by Golden Decanters and The Hopetoun Estates Trust to the West Lothian Council for approval. She correctly points out that S is not a visible part of the deal, at this point in time and she does a decent summing up of a very, very, VERY plethoric amount of bureaucratic information. She concludes, and I think she is partially right, that he might be interested in becoming an investor (I am taking things a bit further, though). But in doing so, she focuses on the development phase of the project only: the possible connections with SRH and his own spirits business are less, if at all, obvious.

I am going to give you my view of all this charade and, if I am going to mention (and probably repeat) some things already found by her, I am going to focus on the people: this is where the whole story starts to become remarkably interesting, at least to me. After all, I remember promising you some more clarity. Here's an honest, fair play take.

Little did I know, when I started to write about that (now defunct) company, Midhope Castle Distillery, Ltd (https://www.tumblr.com/sgiandubh/748597198794670080/the-info-provided-above-is-correct-but-outdated?source=share), that my investigation would turn to this:

... for it was to be just an almost random layer of a juggernaut matryoshka of defunct or still active companies, featuring roughly the same people and no less than 6 different name combinations centered around Midhope, Hopetoun, etc.

The following pics will give you an idea - feel free to open them in a separate tab, for clarity . I preferred this synthetic approach, because otherwise you will curse the shite out of me. But it had to be done, with or without Depon, Advil's Greek cousin (and before you ask a graphologist, this is my handwriting, and nobody else's 🙃):

The only explanation for the whole almost frantic Midhope/Hopetoun crisscross/hopscotch (LOL) combos I can think of is two people trying to secure one (several?) credit lines or to attract significant investors for their project and ultimately failing to do so. But I might be wrong (although I doubt that, thank you). Out of this entire maze ( I swear I now have a migraine), there are only two active companies remaining: Golden Decanters Ltd (renamed GD Spirits Ltd, in April 2022) and Midhope Ltd (renamed Skosk Ltd, in July 2023). It is on them I am going to focus my gaze.

GD Spirits Ltd was incorporated in Berwick-upon-Tweed, England (just across the Scottish border), probably for tax reasons, on March 11, 2015, the nature of its business being listed as 'wholesale of wine, beer, spirits, etc.'. It started with a team of two women: Julia Mackenzie-Gillanders and Ann Medlock, whose names we are going to see over and over again in all the eight corporate avatars. Later down the timeline (LOL for three decades and a half), on January 30, 2018, they were briefly (until July 19, 2018) joined by two very interesting professionals: Mrs. Margaret Boswell, an attorney at the very prestigious international law firm Gide Loyrette Nouel (Paris and London offices)...

...and Ken Robertson, former Corporate Affairs Director at Diageo Whisky, a subsidiary of the international Diageo group, one of the major players on the world spirits' market:

The second company, Skosk Ltd, was incorporated in August 2021, in Perth, Scotland, its nature of business being listed as 'distilling, rectifying and blending of spirits', with the clear intention to align with the exacting criteria prescribed by the 2009 Scotch Whisky Regulations:

[ Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scotch_whisky - sorry, I don't have time to wax lyrical on this, and neither do you]

This time, we only meet again the two distillerettes, Gillanders and Medwick. Up until now, at least, nobody else (attorney, former sales executive, whisky expert) has joined the platoon - TBC? I would not speculate and leave all options open.

There is little to 0 transparency on Skosk's financial situation, at the moment and to be honest, it looks very much like S's co-star (hehe)'s Irish business venture...

... but I was a bit more lucky, and the numbers more chatty, as far as GD Spirits was concerned:

Paging all shipper chartered accountants out there, but to me, it doesn't look great, at the moment. Cash is ridiculous, the net worth is hemorrhaging and the current assets are negligible, compared to 2020, when I think they managed to secure one or two credit lines, but not nearly enough for what they needed. Just enough to pay themselves and their external consultants and cover the operating costs, if you ask me.

The revised Planning Statement, of 8 February 2024, posted first by Marple, echoes my initial guess (COVID blew it up, see link to the first post) and the above assessment:

Mark this: 'Discussions are now proceeding with investors and there is a realistic prospect that work will begin in the near future (2024/2025) to implement the permission.' Given that they will start with the road and parking rehabilitation and upgrading, probably overlapping with the distillery building, it would make sense to begin this autumn at the earliest, with the most urgent: access to the site itself.

The initial Planning Statement, dated 9 July 2020 and re-posted on March 21st, 2024, tells a more detailed story. This is part and parcel of the current project as well, since the revision is just pointing out the changes operated, not the entire rest, which remains unchanged. You be the judge:

Also keep in mind this tiny, tiny thing: the Business Plan is 'submitted (...) under Private and Confidential Cover'. See where I am looking?

The initial plan was (and still is) for GD Spirits to produce their own booze, using Midhope's own barley (this is very important for the rest of my theory!). They even offer an overview of the real impact of their project on the local economy:

20 to 38 initial new job creations for a £ 15 to 30 million investment is not 'huge', madam Marple. Cumbernauld is huge. This? This is rather modest, if you ask me. But hey, what do I know about the labor market, right?

That initial Statement tells also the story they want to tell about the genesis of their idea, the scouting for the right location and a couple of other interesting details:

So they are telling us they started to look for the perfect location in 2018 and oh, hello, they found the Hopetoun Estate rather quickly, already starting the pre-planning application consultations as early as July 2019 (don't get me started, please):

If so, then why did they incorporate not one, but two different companies clearly linking them to the Estate (Hopetoun Estate Distillery Ltd and Hopetoun Estate Whiskies Ltd) the same day and as early as May 23rd 2017 (and both dissolved in December 2022), as my above penciled timeline (LOOOOOL) shows? Who is really behind this project and why this entire ballet? It's like me pre-emptively looking for rental properties in (let's randomly guess) Lisbon, when it's just wishful thinking, heavily projecting and with 0 guarantees I will be posted there, right? I mean, I adore and deeply know Lisbon and I would be thrilled to go there. But I am not currently looking for any rental property, just like that, because that would be a #silly, rookie mistake. In their case, I think there's a different situation - again, you be the judge.

A first answer, as to who is really behind that project, was given by the UK media, back in 2020:

How odd, when we know that both Mrs. Boswell, the well-traveled attorney and Mr. Robertson resigned from GD Spirits in July 2018. Do they still say hi to the two distillerettes? Do they quietly keep an eye on the project? Are they silent partners? Business angels? Shareholders? Time to remind you that under UK law, there is 0 visibility on the shareholder's structure of a company. You just see the officers (Director, Secretary, etc), on the Company House website. On an umpteenth, last- second cross-check, it became apparent that Mr. Robertson remained involved in another company of the distillerettes, Hopetoun Estate Whiskies Ltd (yes, the one mentioned above), until its voluntary strike-off, in December 2022.

Their best laid plans do mention OL, and how could it be otherwise? But all this £ 15 to 30 million hullaballoo for 20.000 people only (who counted them and how?), on a seasonal basis?

High-end restaurant, luxury B&B, event spaces, you name it. Interesting, to say the least.

And, for the people in the back, who still think SRH has a 100 years lease at Midhope (Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ, the stupidity!):

This is why he commented as a 'member of the public'. At face value, there is no public involvement into that project. Yet. But it is my belief there is a vested interest in all this, justifying the comment, the visit, those papers rolled in his fist, etc. At first, I thought that was a visit to Lallybroch by the Exec Producer of OL's Season 8, to discuss technicalities - and shared that privately with a wonderful friend only. I mean, why not and still perfectly possible. But then, as I could not sleep tonight and felt guilty to have you all waiting, I started to connect some tiny dots.

Like this one, for a start:

Yes, I know, Marple told you that FIRST, I would not dare say otherwise, because if I did there would be a transcontinental screech. That trademark application was filed at the US Patent and Trade Office in September 2023 and I thought (and still partially do) it was a potential rebranding solution to The Sassenach's EUIPO nightmare (much exaggerated by the fandom's toothbrush experts):

But you also know I am an idiot and I always check people's CVs, when I follow a thread. This morning, the one Distillerette I am particularly interested in is Mrs. Julia Hall-Mackenzie-Gillanders (née Scales) and not like *urv would be.

Her LinkedIn profile is exceptionally talkative, too:

... and a BA (with Honors) in Fashion Design, class of 2005, at the Northumbria University.

The Financial Times article 'From packing boxes to wine deals worth millions', you can read on her LinkedIn page, tells a very interesting story. It is the story of a shy underdog (lots of temple bells clinging, at the moment), who made it by sheer persistence. It starts like this:

'When a painfully shy young woman contacted a fine wine merchant and said ' I have no qualifications- can I help?', she got the job and today is signing deals worth millions of pounds.'

It obviously did ring a bell and if SRH knows she exists (she is married, *urv!), and I dare to speculate he does, it must have struck a deep chord. Would I do business with her? I wouldn't speculate, although I am not very sure. Would he? He'd probably listen very carefully to what she has to pitch, for a start.

And what she has to pitch is also very interesting, in his world. A brief look at the Golden Decanters' website shows a first high-end single malt sourced collection of 4 exceptional expressions already sold out:

And when they mean high-end, they mean gold leaf labelling and all the tralala:

And, some last minute news, too:

Remind me, because I am an old woman, after this white night: wasn't The Sassenach (no comment, we agree to disagree and I am very skeptical), a blend?

We have these dots, then:

Bold Underdog ->spirits business->high-end collection of single malts sold out->business partnership with owners of Midhope Castle, fictional Lallybroch in OL, including a distillery and whisky production with Midhope/Lallybroch barley -> visit by the male lead and spirits entrepreneur (also the fictional Lallybroch laird) to Midhope/Lallybroch and vested interest in the estate's most recent business project....

What if The Sassenach would be included, for a start, in that new Blended Collection? And could it really be fanfic to imagine a future high-end, limited edition, Lallybroch whisky produced at Midhope, with Midhope/Lallybroch barley? It wouldn't be the first time, would it: after all, they did it with that limited tequila batch.

As I said, because I am (remember Someone? LOL) a 'silly cow', I was hoping he wouldn't do it. But my guess is he might very well do exactly that, with those people and under that label.

It's half past eight AM, local time and I need a strong, black coffee.

I rest my case (and I am bracing myself for the screeching). I will answer Anons later, after I come back from the hairdresser's. Appointments must be kept at all costs. Thank you all for your patience.

[damnfandomproblems]

Fandom Problem #5396:

I'm only 28 but I'm already starting to miss forums horribly and hate discord servers. Forums were such amazing spaces for fandoms! Yeah, most fandoms had their own forum you had to sign up for, which was sometimes annoying, whereas for discord servers you only really need to sign up once, for one discord handle, and you can go to pretty much any server. But servers suck.

For starters, there's no real search indexing. Forums had a wealth of information usually readily available for lurkers and anyone who just happened to stumble upon the forum during searches and things, it was all public. But with discord servers, unless you meet the requirements to join and in some cases are pre-vetted, and unless you even know the server exists in the first place, accessing any of the information it provides is really hard. It is not very convenient having to join several channels and servers just to find one guide, if you're a gamer, or get the answer to a quick question. Forums used to index all this information to be easily searched by the web. This is what they were built for. Servers don't show any of their contents during web searches.

Secondly: there's the whole matter of asynchronous communication. Discord is very fast-paced, and it does not necessarily reward quality posts and comments. Instead, you become well-known and liked by posting as much as possible, saturating feeds with your comments. You cannot communicate on your own time like on a forum, and still expect those conversations to be there in a few days or even weeks. You have to lurk all day and hope you get to the discussion within time. You could technically bring up an older conversation, but since discord servers work like real-time conversations, it's often frowned upon and awkward. Furthermore, very useful, important, or otherwise helpful information usually just gets lost among all the one-line comments, and there's no easy way to view past messages to find this useful stuff without getting totally overwhelmed. And since the window for jumping into a certain topic or sub-topic is usually very narrow, someone who would otherwise have very exceptional information suddenly can't share it if they miss that window.

Thirdly, forums could sometimes be cliquey, but discord servers are even more so. There is always an "it" person, or group, who controls the flow and nuance of the conversations. Diversion from these popular groups, just like real life, can lead to alienation, whereas forums had more of an egalitarian vibe. Anyone could contribute pretty equally because everything was slowed down, and there was equal visibility for all posts. Moderators may or may not enable these cliques, which is even more likely if those moderators and the cliques were the first people who arrived at the server. It is awkward to jump into many servers.

Fourth, there's the online dishibition and anonymity. On forums, your content was archived forever, and your presence on the forum was marked more concretely by each post you made due to that visibility. The more "permanent" function of forums and their content encouraged longform and high quality content. Shitposters were generally shunned. On discord, however, people are more willing to bully others because it is much easier to do so, and it's much easier to avoid scrutiny. They simply need to wait a few minutes or hours before knowing their comments will no longer be in plain sight, because a bunch more people will have commented and pushed the comment(s) up, out of sight. Why not call someone a rude name or bully them? No one will see it three hours later, and even if they do, the person can change their name and tag, and repeat again.

I'm not happy.

[dropthedemiurge]

Boys Be Brave [EP.3] // Translation notes

Alright, I got prompted by @turndon100-blog @okiedokie2216 @lurkingshan and the ending of Ep.3 gave me hype boost so I'll try to write some clarification and translation for the scenes from my phone while I still remember everything xD Sorry if this is not going to be as well formatted as my other language posts tho...

Kiseob wants to prove to Jinwoo that he perfectly fits his entire "My ideal type" checklist and he lists all the things he nails. This might've been confusing to many in subs, but the thing is - 첫눈 (chot nun) in Korean can both mean "first sight" and "first snow". So Jinwoo immediately argues that Kiseob failed to achieve being perfect in all to-do points because Jinwoo hasn't fallen in love with him at first sight (as he mentions it in the beginning of the episode). But Kiseob confidently argues that no, there was no first snow this winter yet and shows the December article that says first snow is late this year and might only fall in January.

So technically Jinwoo can still fall in love with Kiseob at first snow and achieve perfect 10/10, therefore no failure yet! Poor Jinwoo can't argue with that logic... (That frustrated little jiggly stomping lmao)

This message also said that he better pay that credit back until Friday, otherwise there will be extra fee.

He said "Choi BalgEum. Look at me" (or focus on me) 🥺

눈치 없어 (nunchi opseo) is a phrase that literally means "have no sense" (it also was formed from 눈 - eyes, as I can guess), but it's used in the context of being perceptive (눈치 있어/nunchi isseo, having sense), feeling the subtext or nonverbal clues - and, well, the lack of it on the opposite, like being clueless.

So Balgeum actually means "Can't you see? Don't you understand the implications?"(of him holding Kiseob's hand) "I asked, don't you realize?" Stop following me around like a clueless fool" (he said that "having no sense" phrase 3 times in a row, who are you trying to fool here yourself, my guy lol)

Balgeum also curses twice at his piano not-friend-situationship. Here he says after asking to stop following him: "It's fucking embarrassing". Probably, the fact that he keeps showing up and asking to talk to him, but can also mean doing this while he obviously "has a boyfriend".

When they meet in evening, he also curses again "why the fuck do you keep appearing?" Balgeum is just definitely trying to hurt him as much as possible :(

This translation works but just to clarify - Kiseob says "Why do you often hide?". So he doesn't just ask why Jinwoo were still hiding under bed while he was talking to him, he was asking why Jinwoo was running away and hiding from him all the time (while he likes him).

"I hated you back then and I hate you now, that's why I run away."

And I just love the phrase 아니잖아... (anijanha) that he gets in response. Because it means "That's not true... (and you know it too)". There's literally a grammar point in Korean that lets you insist on something you know that the other person also should be aware of. So Balgeum angrily claims he ran away in the past and he runs away now because he hates Inho (I hope that's his name, forgive me if anything), and Inho counter argues that no, he doesn't hate him. And implies they both know it. That's why Balgeum resorts to less angry "Think whatever you want".

And the fact that even after this, Balgeum kept playing up his masquarade and saying he wants to vomit even thinking about that they had something, that he regrets it every day - no wonder Inho finally snaps and calls him an asshole/scum when he didn't use cursing before, unlike Balgeum, and so the i-dont-wanna-hurt-you-but-i-am-emotional "fight" begins.

But here we have a silver lining!

"- Meet me only three times... - I got it (what you want), so... (let go of me)"

알겠다 (al'getta) literally means "I know/I understand" but (going with my intuition) it's used naturally in cases that you understood the information you were given, received instructions and will follow them.

I'm not sure what Ep.4 will bring, but I won't be surprised if Balgeum and Inho actually will go to 3 dates because Balgeum sounded like he was giving in, after letting out his anger/fear/frustration/etc through wrestling with Inho. His final verdict for Inho pleading him to go on 3 dates with him is: "Let me go. I told you, I understand (your request and I will consider it most likely in a positive way)"

Here you go! These guys grow on me more and more with every episode. I am fascinated to see Jinwoo ditching his perfectly planned schedule, Kiseob finally refusing to follow where other people drag him, Inho fighting to make his love exist despite brutal rejections and punches, and Balgeum's carefully crafted defense walls breaking as he lets a glimmer of hope and love return to his life.

This show isn't deep at all, it's foolish and yet I'm starting to see layers and development and I'm intrigued where they all will go.

If you've got any other questions about this or previous episodes, let me know! (With timecodes preferrable)

[achaotichuman]

Okay you guys know what time it is.

Acotar Rant Time.

Okay, I know, I know, the idea that Tamlin will step down or otherwise hand the Spring Court over to Lucien and Elain and go to live his life as a travelling musician is one of the most popular theories (it most of the time involves Tam dying but I don't like that at all so we're going with him stepping down)

And whilst I see it as a possibility for canon, I cannot get on board with it, specifically because of the way the High lord's power chooses the next High lord.

Tamlin knew he was most likely the next heir since he was young, he was experiencing the power when he was a child and knew his brothers would kill him if they ever found out. He hoped that one of them could take the throne and he would serve in their armies and simply keep his head down low.

But what he wanted didn't change the fact that he was in fact the Heir.

The magic had already chosen him as its next High lord, despite him being the youngest and on the surface, the least worthy of the role.

This happens again within the books. Tarquin was chosen as the High lord of Summer, despite being Norstrus' cousin, and Varian technically being the next viable Heir. Tarquin would have hardly been trained for the position but would have been trained to be some kind of advisor or courtier for whoever the next High lord may be, assuming it would be Varian.

He even admits to Feyre that is young and considered inexperienced yet he tries his best and look, he ends up doing the same sort of thing Tamlin wanted to achieve. Which was taking in refugees, fighting for people's freedom, and trying to establish equality. I love Varian but he fell in love with a monster that wants Rhysand to take over Prythian, so I do not believe he would have tried to implement these changes. Possibly would not have even thought of them.

I say this to show that the magic chooses who will benefit the Court best, even skipping to other bloodlines if need be.

I believe this is the same for Tamlin.

When you read book 1, he is incredibly similar to Tarquin. He was not trained for the position but was trained to act as a kind of second, in assuming the form of a General. Same kind of thing as Tarquin.

He admits he is considered inexperienced but is trying his best. He fought for people's freedom, he took in refugees and post acomaf had a pretty equal Court.

My personal theory with what happened during Acomaf was a combination of many factors.

1- Amarantha most likely raped Tamlin under the mountain. Considering how she was lusting after him, she finally got him for weeks and he could do nothing but let her do what she wanted.

2- Being under the mountain brought up suppressed trauma from his childhood, most of which would have revolved around Amarantha, but also not being able to protect Feyre would have brought up not being able to protect his mother. Being tormented by his brothers. Being abused by his father. Then when they came out from Under the mountain, he wasn't able to suppress his trauma so well anymore, and become erratic and unpredictable.

3- Having the High lord's powers shoved back into him so suddenly caused him to lose control, and because he, unlike literally everyone else. Had no one to help him manage his magic, or help him control it properly. As Rhysand and Morrigan have stated multiple times throughout the series, especially in Silver Flames, uncontrolled magic will lead to madness. It can drive a person to literal insanity, which is what I think happened in the case of Tamlin (It was retconning but I am looking at the ways of which to bring back book-1 Tam within canon rules)

All of this to say, these are all outside factors things that could not be predicted. By looking at the factors of who would be best fit for Spring, Tamlin is the obvious choice.

He is empathetic. Connects well with the people. Fights for what is right and for freedom. He is kind and caring.

Post-Under the Mountain, and presumably post-curse Tamlin was one of the best High lords, his Court was thriving, his people were happy and even gladly went to their deaths for him and his Court.

The magic didn't chose wrong. It chose Tamlin for a reason. He was the best choice to bring about good change within the Spring Court.

I believe all of the outside factors are what led to Tamlin relying on his father's way of ruling, because he was unable to dig out a whole new path in the state he was in. Tamlin was living in fight or flight mode from Acomaf and onward and it shows.

I think Lucien would be a great High lord, but we also underestimate how the power is connected to the land itself and like it or not Lucien is not of Spring.

He is of Day and Autumn. It shows in his mannerisms, his personality, his way of thinking. And it will show in his power.

He will not be able to connect to the people the way Tamlin will, because Tamlin's magic comes the heart of Spring itself. He was literally forged for it. The Spring magic will be alien to Lucien, and Lucien will be alien to it.

We see how uncontrolled magic can affect the person it was built for. Now imagine that magic also not being built for the person using it. Lucien has no reason to even be able to control it, it would drive him insane as well.

If Tamlin was given someone to help train his magic, like Rhysand had Amren, Tarquin had Varian and Cressedia, Eris will have his mother and brothers, and Lucien will have Helion. He would be in full control.

Like a quote from an SJM interview stated, the characters find who they need, not what they want. Tamlin may have started out not wanting the throne, but he may very well find what he needs to control his magic and bring back his Court.

Tamlin was forged for Spring. Like Lucien was forged for Day.

Unless Sjm kills Tamlin, I highly doubt he will cease being High lord any day.

And if she does kill him, I am disappearing from this fandom because Tamlin is the only one keeping me here.

[storiesbyjes2g]

Hey Jess! I had a question that I figured other people might want to know as well. I'm always amused at how your game matches sims up to marry or have children. I was wondering, what are your MCCC settings that make it happen so well? I have sims sitting in my 'manage households' and none of them have married or moved out with the 'in game' story progression. What's the secret sauce? 🤣

Howdy, partner! 🤭 It's funny you should ask me this because on my seven mile long list of video ideas I have is a short series about MCCC settings, and this is one subject I wanted to cover. But who knows when I'll get it together and actually record those videos lol. As you could imagine, the secret sauce has many ingredients, so I'll put the rest of this under the cut because it's a lot. Here we go!

Even though I said this is a multipart answer--and it is--I'm gonna split this up into two sections because marriages and pregnancies are two separate entities. Many of the settings are the same, and they both fall under the MC Pregnancy module, but they're still separate, and I think of them differently.

Marriages

Marriage Sim Selection

The first thing you should consider is who you want marrying and if your sims should be included in the process. As you've seen, I like seeing the other sims' lives progress, even if it's messy AF LOL. I especially love this happening in the aDOLTing save because I'm technically not allowed to play with anyone else but Luca right now. BUT, I don't want every single sim there is to get married, leaving no single sims for my sims to date. That's what happened in Emmy's generation and why I added Ali into the world because there were exactly TWO eligible males in the entire world, and I knew one of them would definitely not work out. In the Marriage Sim Selection part of MC Pregnancy, you can specify who can and cannot get married. I'm not gonna through each setting, but here are a few that are important enough to note.

Allow homeless marriage: Unless you regularly add your own sims to the world, I would enable this. Otherwise you probably won't have any marriages happening. This is disabled by default. Yes, you run the risk of your unplayable sims marrying someone hideous, but it's better than them dying alone, right? Plus you can always make them over. Your sim doesn't know the difference anyway lol.

Bypass dorm residents: If you don't enable this, your university students will be eligible for marriages!

Bypass played households: IF you want to be the matchmaker for your sims (the playable ones), turn this on! If you're flexible and don't mind surprises, turn it off.

Bypass active sim romances: This one needs to be in red lol. TURN THIS ON! If your sim is dating an NPC, and you don't want that sim to suddenly turn up married (I'm giggling...you know why), you need this on. I think it's on by default though. The only "gotcha" with this setting is that the relationship has to be significant. Lovebirds status isn't strong enough to prevent a marriage. I usually get my sims into an official relationship as soon as possible to prevent this.

Other Marriage

In the Other Marriage section (MC Pregnancy), there are settings for renaming, moving, etc. after marriage. You should definitely check out the settings to tailor it to how you want your world to be, but I want to call out Use Traits for Marriage. This is a newer setting that I enabled as soon as it launched. It doesn't make sense for Don Lothario to get married in every single save. He has the noncommittal trait! Turning this on will take a sim's traits into consideration before determining if they are eligible for random marriages.

Spouse Sim Selection

In this section, you can do things like allow polygamy and inter-family marrying, specify what % of marriages should be same sex, allow teen marriages, etc. Here are just a few settings I want to call out.

Occupancy Preference: It took me some years to figure this out, but this is honestly the key to my entire setup. This determines which group of NPCs are candidates for marriages and pregnancies by where they live. The choices are homeless only, prefer home sims, living in homes only, and none. I have prefer home sims on. I like neighbors dropping by and seeing them walking around, so I tend to put my sims' friends and sims I like into homes. This setting says when it's time for random marriages and pregnancies to occur, sims living in homes get first dibs. If none of them are eligible, then everyone else will have a chance. I used to have this on none, and I was experiencing waaaaaay too many random marriages. Like, good on the homeless sims for having lives lol, but they were snatching up every single eligible sim and I was like this has to stop lol.

Use Same Age-Group: I've gone back and forth about enabling or disabling this one and finally decided to enable it. This will keep your fresh from high school babies from getting married to someone with one foot in the grave! Sims will only marry other sims in the same age group as them. Back in the day I felt sorry for the elders because they're always single when they die. But I also felt sorry for the baby they married lol. True, when they croak, the kid can find new love, but they've wasted so much time being married to the old sim. So with this on, elders aren't completely out of luck. They can just only marry each other.

Pregnancies

Okay! Now that we know how to let sims get married, let's learn how to knock some up! 😂

I would check out the Offspring section of MC Pregnancy on your own just to get familiar with how you can shape your sims' families and even the children to a certain extent, but let's get to the important stuff.

Other Pregnancy

There's really good stuff in here like allow pregnancy aging, pregnancy duration, and random moods, but the only thing I want to call out is Use Traits for Pregnancy. This will take into account sims traits before they are marked as candidates. It won't prevent sims with the hates children trait from getting knocked up, but it will lower the percentage (which you can specify in another section, I think).

Partner Sim Selection

This is similar to marriage sim selection, and in here I also prefer home sims in the occupancy preferences. I also allow a veeeery tiny percentage for allow affairs. I like tea, what can I say? LOL Not everyone is faithful!

Pregnant Sim Selection

This is similar to spouse selection, and I do not allow homeless pregnancies for the same reasons I don't allow homeless marriages. I have all the same settings enabled from spouse selection, so revisit the above. Additionally, I use days until max age. This prevents a sim from getting pregnant X number of days from the end of whatever lifespan you specify is the oldest to be pregnant. I don't allow elder pregnancies, so this stops my adult sims from getting pregnancy X days from their elder birthday. My number is 10, but you pick whatever makes sense for your lifespans. I do this because I've had waaaaaaay too many sims get pregnant and have babies like the day before their elder birthday, and then they die before the kid is a teenager. I don't want orphans in my game! They make me sad. Besides, in real life, at a certain point women can't have children anymore, so I want my game to be the same.

Days to Run Checks: By default, MCCC will go through this process of marrying and knocking up sims 3 nights a week at midnight, but you can change that to whatever you like here. I thought 3 nights a week was WAY too often, so I only have it run once a week on Fridays.

Pregnancy Percentage: Just because the check runs every week doesn't mean I want someone getting pregnant every week. I'm not trying to create a baby boom. I cut the pregnancy percentage for young adults by half and adults by 75% (since IRL it's harder to get pregnant the older you get). I'm not afraid of a teen pregnancy story, so I do have teen pregnancies on and reduced their percentage by 85%. Even though I wouldn't mind telling that story, I don't want a teen pregnancy epidemic lol. I've had this enabled, but I've yet to have MCCC knock up a teen.

I think I skipped over Marriage Percentage but I use the same logic and similar percentages there too.

Valid Target Ages: HA! I see why I've never had a teen pregnancy lol. Even though I have it on, I never marked it as a valid target age. For whatever reason I only have YA selected. Not sure why. Probably for the best. If a teen pregnancy happens, I'd prefer it be my own sims.

Bonus

I love a little risk and challenge and surprise in my game. This is why I love using lumpinou's mods. I not a micromanager and prefer some things be left to chance. I like being able to try for a baby and it maybe not work that time. I don't like how predictable the game is. So, if you're feeling froggy, here are a few more settings for ya!

MC Woohoo - Woohoo Pregnancy

Risky Woohoo Percent: I used to have YA on 3%, but lumpinou has intergrated her mod with MCCC more, so I don't have this enabled anymore here. (it's controlled by her mod now and I think it's at 5% now). 3% might sound low, but MAN I've had so many oopsie babies on that little 3% lol.

Try for Baby Percent: I lowered mine to 65% just to add some variety and give my sims something to work toward. (No, this is not what caused Luca and Sophia's problem LOL).

MCCC Settings - Relationship Settings

I'm highlighting this because, even though I placed it in the bonus section, I highly recommend you check this out. These are the settings that control if/when sims move in together or break up!

Auto-Relationship Settings

Breakup Settings: You can specify which sim will move out and who the children will live with. Couple relationship change percentage applies a modifier that will make a couple's relationship (dating, not married) increase or decrease over time. I increased mine to 20%. Same thing with spouse relationship change except I only did 10% there.

Move-in Settings: I allow homeless romance move in and kept the romance level to the default. (sweethearts) I also increased the romance move-in percent to 25%.

Bypass Played Household: It should go without saying, but just in case it's not clear, I always want my playable households bypassed because I want to maintain control over what happens to them. About this, I have other households that I don't actually play (in the Pierson save) that I have as playable just to preserve them and prevent anything from happening. So to be clear, unless a household is marked as played, they will be subjected to the random marriages, pregnancies, and relationships.

A few months ago, I FINALLY decided to mark Emmy and Ali as unplayed, hoping that Ali would find love again and that Emmy and Dwayne would move in together. Instead, Alessia got knocked up, and Dwayne put his foot down LOL. Sorry dude. Wish I could help! Well, I could just move her in, but it actually doesn't feel right for the story...but that's an entirely different conversation lol.

Anyhoo...I hope you found something in this novel that helps to spice up your game! Thanks for asking!

[yyenky]

In October 1993, shortly after signing with Williams, Ayrton gave the following interview to Grid magazine while taking the interviewer for a ride in his Mercedes-Benz 300:

After all, who outwitted who in the Prost/Williams/Senna affair?

– There is no one who got the wrong foot or who took the fall.

Long silence. The driver accelerates, the man thinks. Next to him, many ordinary drivers, if they turned their faces, would see the idol up close. They don't. Everyone seems to have the same goal: to move forward, at any cost. Ayrton breaks the silence:

– There’s nothing like that. My move to Williams was just a matter of time.

Prost said that, if he wanted, he would bar you from joining the team – I tease.

– Why didn't he do it, then?

Tell me how it happened.

– No! (nervous) I won't go into details. I think it's nonsense, it's beside the point. There is only one truth: I am a Williams driver and… (long pause)

And?

– …And that’s it. That's the truth. I'm going to race for Williams and he won't be there. If he said he could stop me, I'm surprised, because wasn't he the one who declared so many times that he didn't have the right to stop anyone, that this was a team decision? So Prost, as always, talks a lot. He would gain much more if he talked less. That's what happens to him: he talks too much!

The car advances, now more quickly. The cars in front seem to give way. Senna accelerates, brushes past a car, cuts off another, all with the utmost safety. And he continues talking about life:

– I'm very well, I'm fine. I'm doing what I like, I race, I have a prominent position, credibility not only in driving a race car, for having demonstrated that I am technically competent, but also for honoring, on the professional side, the commitments I make. This is all a great achievement in the life of a professional.

He now speaks freely, without restraint:

– When you sign a one-year contract, you offer the service and the other party assumes their responsibility. Then, throughout the year, it will depend on the ability of both to live together and fulfill the commitment, not only on paper but in the spirit of the thing. The spirit of the agreement is what really matters. And only those who are truly capable of fulfilling it, due to personal desire, competence, seriousness and professionalism, are the ones that last, that have a long lifespan, otherwise it lasts a year, two years and ends. This year, for example, I signed the contract with the Nacional Bank in March, after having already raced in South Africa. We know that we can count on each other in good times and in difficult times. This is credibility, it's something that very few people have in my profession. In fact, I don't think anyone does, if you want me to be honest. I'm not bragging, no, but I honestly don't think there is any Formula 1 driver today, or in the last five years, who has credibility like that.

If he heard this, Prost would say that, in addition to believing in God, Senna thinks he is God. Let them understand each other, or disagree… In fact, the Brazilian barely hides a taste of revenge, because a year ago, when he thought he could choose the team he wanted, he found himself in the closed door of Williams.

– I could race for any team except Williams. I couldn't race because Prost had a specific veto against me. For that reason alone: he refused to compete with me on the same team.

Wouldn’t you do the same if you were in his place?

– This is cowardice! You can make certain demands within a team to have a strong position. There are small teams that cannot have two number 1 drivers. But in a Ferrari, a McLaren, a Williams and a Benetton, this does not apply, because they have the technical and economic possibilities to have two top drivers. If I hadn't raced this year, Williams would have won all the Grand Prix, with the exception of Portugal. What happened last year was a shame. But everyone competes the way they want. There are some who are happy to compete like this, to lay down their cards before dealing the deck. I would never compete like that.

Ok, but rumor has it that Ayrton would have blocked Derek Warwick when he was racing for Lotus. He swears not. And, as he is Williams' number 1 by contract, poor Damon Hill would be destined to lose every race…

– No, no! I could have a clause in the contract saying: “If Damon is in first and I am in second, you have to take your foot off and let me pass because I am number 1”. But I don't have that in the contract. This is absurd, it is not competition. If the guy in front of you is driving better, it's your problem to find a way to drive better than him and win the race. Now… it has happened that a number 2 driver reached number 1 and the team said: “No way”. Yes, that exists.

While Ayrton speaks, the cars around him provide the usual scenes of Brazilian traffic. Some drivers ignore red lights, others brake at pedestrian crossings, some make the craziest overtakes. Just like Eddie Irvine in Suzuka…

What's worth more behind the wheel? The boldness or the experience?

– In Formula 1, it is more difficult to race against experience – comments Senna, somewhat unmotivated at no longer having a Prost or a Mansell to face him on the tracks. – An experienced driver doesn’t risk as much in certain situations, but on the other hand, he leaves the door open for you to overtake, he takes the laps at the same pace…

But, after all, what will become of Senna? Are you going to pull a Prost and stop racing after winning four or five championships?

– I have no limit. I'm 33 years old and I think I still have a lot ahead of me. In fact, when I get older, I think I'm going to relax in Indy! (laughs)

(x)

[wen-kexing-apologist]

Moonlight Chicken is For the Queers

Ok I started my rewatch of episode 8 and figured out what I want to talk about for this series' finale: intentions and resolutions. This post will be about intention, and how I truly feel that Moonlight Chicken is a gift for queer people. Why? Well, there are many reasons, but for the purposes of this post, I will simply present the following title card.

Moonlight Chicken, Chapter 8: The Self-made House and Home

(if you are expecting this post to be anything other than a jumbled mess of my personal experiences with no clear through-lines or relevant transitions between sentences, thoughts, etc. then turn back now)

Whatever we want to say boy loves started as, fetish or otherwise, queer people are still able to see themselves or get comfort and representation. But coming from watching literally 25 boy loves in the last four months, this show feels different from most (not all) of them, to me, because of how strongly this show centers around built community, rather than romance, as it's central theme.

And yeah while any standard friend group in BL could be considered community in the abstract, the idea that they are a community is never quite presented. It's Team taking food from Pharm and all three of the gang teasing each other, it's Kuea and Diao spending most of their time talking about their relationships, it's Porsche forgetting Pete exists because he's so caught up in Kinn. More often than not we are building towards and hoping for declarations of love between two characters. And do not get me wrong, that is all well and good, and always what I'm rooting for in those shows. And we get something akin to that in Moonlight Chicken too, which is when you finally have Li Ming and Jim calling Heart and Wen (respectively) their boyfriends.

But the "I love you" we get in Moonlight Chicken? That isn't between the couples, it's between Li Ming and Jim.

Because the thing that makes Moonlight Chicken different from other BLs is the emphasis it puts on queer elders raising queer youth. It's about queer youth learning from queer elders and queer elders learning from queer youth. It's about how home and birth families don't always fit quite right, and how you build families and homes despite. And it's applicable to many people, children in abusive homes, disabled people, etc. too. Which is why P'Aof adds strained parental relationships and deafness in to this piece. But because this is fundamentally a BL show, I'm viewing this more through a queer lens.

So naturally, this also means I am informing my analysis of this show through my feelings as the only (known/out/visible) queer person on either side of my family. When I was little, a decade or more before I realized I was queer, I asked my mother one night if I was adopted. I'm not, and I know that, but why did I ask? Because I never really felt like I fit. Not the way I was supposed to fit, not the way family was supposed to fit together. My house never felt like a home.

And it's why I love this exchange between Wen and Jim at the end of episode 2

"I want home," "Don't you already have one?" "I don't." "A person like me doesn't fit to be anyone's home,"

And technically we know this isn't true. Wen does have a home, he has a condo, he has a place to sleep. But emotionally is where the problem lies. Wen is living with his ex, the apartment is cold, he has work colleagues and a friend that he and his ex both know and that's it. And as he tells Jim in episode 7, all his friends are straight. And then he meets Jim, and there is a spark, and maybe it's possible for home to grow there.

Literally, physically, I have a home. I have a family. But the more I embrace my queerness, the more I understand and am comfortable with myself, the more isolating and cold that house and family feel. I'm such a different person now than I was, and there are homophobes and transphobes on both sides of my family, and that makes it hard for me to feel like I am loved. Even when logically I know I am. But it's hard, when your mother says she accepts you and has yet to use my pronouns properly despite me being out to her for over a year and having three separate conversations about it. When your uncle spends twenty minutes or more complaining about trans people, when your cousins don't think trans people should exist. That's my family...technically. That's my home...technically. But it hasn't felt like that in years. So I understand what Wen means here, Wen's definition of home is not a place it is a feeling.

And Jim? We know Jim is already everyone's home. He is home for Li Ming, he is the closest thing to a parent that Leng has in his life, he makes sure the community not only has food, but has as much as food as they could possibly eat. He is first and foremost a community caretaker. But he is so wrapped up in his grief about Beam, his self-hatred, his stubbornness, his exhaustion that he is not able to believe that about himself. Home is a place and not a feeling for Jim, because he can't allow it to be.

The key to Wen and Jim's relationship is finding and building that home.

Home, Family, Community. These are incredibly important themes to Moonlight Chicken and those themes are incredibly important aspects of being queer.

I don't know how Thailand is re: homophobia and transphobia, if kids risk the same chance of getting kicked out of their homes for being queer, etc. But that is a very real possibility for many queer people in the States. But I'm thinking of homelessness in queer youth, how 28% of queer youth have reported experiencing homelessness in their lives. I'm thinking of ballroom and ball culture and how participants in the Ballroom scene were parts of Houses with mothers and fathers at the head of them who acted as mentors to their queer children. When I think about queerness and what it means, I think about ballroom. I think about connection, I think about community.

But that community is often forged from necessity borne out of isolation. What do I mean by isolation? I mean the isolation that Li Ming feels in school, around his school friends. I mean the faces Li Ming makes when his friends are talking about girls:

I mean the physical barriers the show places between Li Ming and his school friends.

It is the isolation that comes with queerness, with poverty, with everything about Li Ming. Beyond the fact Wen is a little younger than Jim and thus better able to understand and see Li Ming's desires to be seen as an adult. I think it is this state of listlessness in Li Ming is also something Wen recognizes. I think at this point Li Ming is so desperate to get away, to go to America, to be listened to and respected by Jim.

Jim who is too caught up in constant stress to see the home he has built for himself, Li Ming who is too caught up in wanting to be understood to appreciate that he has a home to run from. Wen who is working as a go between for Li Ming and Jim because he wants them to be his home. Heart who has been trapped at home and found his freedom because Li Ming understands the frustration of misunderstanding, and the importance of community.

I'm thinking about how so much of the final episodes are dedicated to showing community, showing family, showing the audience that home lies in the collective.

We see it in how many people rush to help Mrs. Hong:

We see it in the people who help you carry your grief:

We see it in how deeply and broadly the pain is felt when community pillars are lost:

We see it in the end of and era:

We see it in the olive branches:

And in new beginnings:

Very few people in these shots are connected through blood, but they are a family. And when I look at these shots the only thing I can think about is how I felt the night I threw a party for all my trans friends. All I can think about when I see these shots of everyone sitting and eating together is how many times I would look over to my friends and see them beaming. How many times someone came up to me to excitedly say this is the first time they felt like they could fully be themselves. How everyone kept asking to do an event like this again. How everyone kept asking to be added to a group chat at the end of the night so they could keep in contact.

And I remember how it felt for me to realize that I had built a community for myself in a place that I have really been struggling to feel was home. Because I had spent so much time in school and work, barley able to scrape together enough money to cover expenses, exhausted and stressed and unable to see what I had sitting right in front of me.

And I think about other queer people I have met, who light up when they see someone else who is gay, who talk about how lonely they feel because they only have one other queer friend. How immediately the need to invite them out, to introduce them to people, to make sure they have community strikes.

I think about how I worked at a summer camp out of state, and got to try out my pronouns, and figure out who I was, and then a few months later, I had to return home. Where I wasn't out yet, where I was going to get misgendered, and how quickly I came out to all of my close friends about my gender identity to try to mitigate how much my mental health tanked when I had to be someone my parents thought I still was. How at the same camp, the queer kids flocked to all the queer staff, how desperate they were to bond. How much lighter they got to be when they were away from their parents and allowed to be themselves around people who also understood not only them as people with the identities they held, but also their struggles existing in a household that didn't see who they were.

I think about how, in the States at least, "are you family?" is/was used as code for "are you gay?"

It's why it is so important to me that Moonlight Chicken ends with the line: "I just built a home. I don't want to move anywhere."

Because Wen has finally built his home. Because he has found his family, his queer community, his home. And yeah, we get the romance, yeah we get Li Ming and Heart holding hands, and Jim and Wen making out, but the emphasis of the final episode is moving forward, being brave, allowing yourself to love, and allowing yourself to stop, look around, and realize that you've made a home for yourself that is built of the people you love who love you in return.

Community building is a huge part of life for literally everyone, but it vital to the survival of marginalized communities. And when I think about my own relationship to queerness, one of the most sacred and important aspects of being queer is building the family you need.

[lady-raziel]

So if the sniper hadn’t missed Trump and Biden dies from Covid, what would happen to the election? Would they postpone it or cancel it all together?

That's the thing...both technically and in practice, not really. Like a US presidential election has NEVER been cancelled or postponed. It's literally never happened--not during the Civil War, not during either of the World Wars, not after 9/11.

To change the existing election process, it is very, very difficult, because many of the stipulations come from the Constitution itself and long-standing election laws. Here's a good article about some of those requirements. Only new legislation passed by Congress could alter the existing dates when the election occurs, when the votes are certified, and when the terms switch over.

And yes, in the case that both major parties' candidates died, Congress could decide to attempt legislation that would change the election-- but it might be one of the most impossible legislative battles of all time considering the extremely divided House and Senate and the magnitude of the undertaking. When such legislation wasn't even considered during an active civil war or otherwise, it would be difficult to argue that the current situation, as unprecedented as it might have been, warranted such changes.

In practice, it would be more likely and more advantageous for both major parties to just choose new nominees as fast as possible and try to use the tragedies to their advantages. Which sounds so callous to say, but that just displays the truth of the political party structure-- these organizations, by nature, exist to gain power. Thus they will do anything that furthers that power and use any advantage that they can. Certain political figures might actually care about the common people, but the parties, both of them-- that is not why they exist.

So if both Trump and Biden were gone, both parties would just circumvent any democratic nominee selection process and pick whichever elite they thought would have the best chance of winning. And it would be ugly-- since in either party, no natural successor exists with the full support of all factions. There would be extensive infighting and dealmaking among elites, and in the chaos it would be a prime opportunity for international forces to strike.

(And I guess if any outside destabilization was extreme enough, the Constitution could be suspended, so the rules about the election happening would be as well...but like when total martial law is in effect how likely is it that there's gonna be a free and fair election anytime soon...)

[books]

Writing Workshop Week 1: Show & Tell

Hello, writers of tumblr! It’s @bettsfic again with this week’s generative workshop. 

Today we’re doing what might be my favorite class activity: Show & Tell. 

You might be thinking, do you teach kindergarten or something? No, I teach college. But my students are often weary, downtrodden 20 year olds who are more than happy to go back to basics. Tumblr—being a website of people who care deeply about things and share that passion with others—seems like a great place to host Show & Tell.

Speaking of basics, let’s first talk a bit about…

The Writing Identity

The goal of many writers is to become better at writing. While I think this is an admirable goal it’s also a complicated one, because good writing is entirely subjective. Everyone has their own definition of what good writing looks like based on their knowledge base, history, and personal tastes. And so I often encourage my students, before they begin their journey of becoming a better writer, to step back and ask themselves, “What does good writing look like to me?”

And that’s the thing: you can’t really become a better writer. You can become a more patient writer, with the ability to write and revise multiple drafts of a work. You can become a more ambitious writer, with the ability to write longer stories and deeper themes. You can become a more detailed writer, with the ability to render images and the small details of living that maybe other people don’t notice. Writing is a skill that requires practice, but it also requires joy. You have to enjoy the work more than you fear the potential for failure. And to enjoy the work, you need to honor yourself, your interests, and your ideals. In other words, to become a better writer, you have to become more you.

I remember when I first started writing, I frantically sought out writing advice. I clung to simple adages and rules: active verbs are stronger than passive verbs; remove words like “think” and “realize” and other indicators of your characters’ interior experiences; take out adjectives and adverbs. If you were to adhere to all this advice, your writing wouldn’t become stronger, it would become colder. You would write like Hemingway. There’s nothing wrong with Hemingway, but Hemingway already did Hemingway, and that means you’re free not to be Hemingway. 

Don’t we read to feel closer to people, to experience that which we couldn’t otherwise experience? The beautiful thing about prose is that it’s the only medium that conveys consciousness, because language is the way we contain our thoughts, and writing them down offers others the chance to understand them. E.M. Forster in his book Aspects of the Novel says that the only difference between a character and a person is that a character’s secret inner life can be known, but a person’s can only be understood in observed behavior. Novels are stories of consciousness; biographies are stories of deeds. 

In my early days as a writer, those inane adages of “good writing” began to weigh on me, and I found myself frequently opening a blank document and telling myself, “I’m just going to write something for fun, for me, and so I don’t have to follow any rules.” Every time, that lawless thing I wrote would become better than anything I’d written when I followed the rules. And in this case, “better” means I was proud of it; in writing as close to myself as I could, I was able to help my technical skill reach the level of my personal taste. 

Good writing advice doesn’t spout shallow adages of what should be, it tells you all the things that could be; it opens your mind to possibilities and techniques. “Should” restrains creativity; the entire point of writing is to be creative. To be creative means to make something that has never existed before. And so one of the first things I tell my students is: You already know everything you need to know about your own writing. You already have good and important stories in you. You just have to sit down and write them.

“Show, Don’t Tell”

One such adage that still really gets to me is “show, don’t tell,” which a lot of writers believe. Many people take it to mean that you should describe the exterior circumstances of your narrator in order to allow the reader to interpret meaning. Instead of describing how your narrator feels, these people would rather have you describe their facial expression. But if you’re so interested in rendering the exterior rather than the interior, you’re better off becoming a director. 

Others take it less literally: you show your story instead of tell your story, which, sure, is a valid personal belief for your own work but it’s ambiguous and impractical, and also denies the nature of people to tell stories. Fairy tales and fables are stories that are told. Telling stories came long before showing them.  

In some ways, “show, don’t tell,” can be useful. If you spend a thousand words of character A lovingly and carefully describing every detail of character B, you don’t then need to say something like, “She was pining for him,” because you’ve allowed your description to do that work for you. So no, you don’t need to say it, but maybe you want to. Maybe you want to make it inarguable that character A is pining for character B; you don’t want a reader to say, “I think she’s paying that much attention because she wants to kill him and she’s looking for his weak points.”

And so that’s what it comes down to—choice. Ultimately, writing is about making decisions, and those decisions are stronger when you understand all your options.

Behind the adage is a more difficult truth to swallow: prose is both infinite in its potential and also frustratingly limited, because you have no control over your audience. You can lovingly describe every snowflake that falls in a blizzard, and your reader will be taking their own meaning from it—for people who can mentally visualize things, it’s the images their mind conjures; for those who can’t, it’s a mass of facts. And there are also those who are sleepy and missing details, or who are skimming to get to the bits they’re most interested in, or who accidentally dropped their book in the bath and now the bottom half of every page is warped and unreadable.

Or you can say, “It snowed.”

No matter what your beliefs are on “show, don’t tell,” the truth is that it’s a false dichotomy. The very nature of prose is to navigate this divide. Some stories call for more showing, for example when your narrator is at a distance, when we don’t have much access to their thoughts or feelings. Other stories will ask you to tell, especially if we’re deep in your narrator’s head and they’re giving us everything. Showing lends itself to setting, imagery, and plot. Telling lends itself to character, voice, and style. One is not inherently better than the other, in the same way that a screwdriver isn’t better than a hammer—the tool you use depends on the task at hand.

Any time you encounter a trite rule in writing, it’s usually pointing to something much greater and more fun to think about. In this case, showing and telling are two integral tools in meaning-making. For this week’s activity, we’re going to use both show and tell to make meaning.

Prompt time!

In Donald Barthelme's essay “Not-Knowing,” he calls objects magical. “What is magical about the object is that it at once invites and resists interpretation. Its artistic worth is measurable by the degree to which it remains, after interpretation, vital.” 

So what does that mean? Although this essay is a hot mess (lovingly), part of its intended work is to be a mess. In fact Barthelme describes the mess of his desk and allows it to define him. It’s covered in coffee cups, cigarette ash, unpaid bills, and unwritten novels. In reality, those objects are just objects, but when rendered in prose, they give us an impression of this particular world and the character within it. The writer renders; the reader interprets. The things we own, that mean something to us, are also things that can define us. Who is the person who carries a leather wallet embossed with their initials, with the inside holding credit cards and a stack of neat bills? Who is the person who carries a canvas wallet with a faded Punisher logo on it, attached to a chain, and the only thing inside it is a Subway rewards card?

Objects are important. Especially in this world we live in where so many things have become virtual, tangibility will always be integral to us. We are a species that reaches out and touches. We like to hold things in our hands. We love things which cannot love us back. 

For this week’s prompt fill, I want you to find a magical object for Show & Tell. Ideally, it’s something with a long personal history that’s important to you. Maybe it’s the object you would save in the event of a fire, or maybe it’s something you lost long ago. 

First, I’d like you to show us the object by describing it. Then, tell us the story of it.

You can write about how you acquired it and the memories it conjures. Allow yourself to link and associate memories and feelings. Don’t box yourself in too much—just see where it takes you. 

But you can also put a spin on it. Here are some ways you can do that:

If you want to try fiction, you can write the same story about your favorite character’s beloved object, or you could completely make up an object and its history. 

If you want to try something experimental, you can write a story from the perspective of the object, and maybe its beloved thing is you. 

If you want to try poetry, write a poem of your object. This is a separate lesson, but T.S. Eliot’s concept of an objective correlative may be illuminating to consider. 

The purpose of this activity is to dig through your memories and/or observations, connect them, and use something external to conjure meaning from them. You begin with what your object is and it will eventually lead you to what it means.

Questions? Ask ‘em here before EOD Tuesday so @bettsfic can answer them on Wednesday. And remember to tag your work #tumblr writing workshop with betts if you want her to read your work and possibly feature it on Friday!

And, for those just joining us: @bettsfic is running a writing workshop on @books this month. Want to know more? Start here.