#she gets below average scores in the test and to put it in her own words is ‘in deep shit’ | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

partlystiles · 3 years

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Reward - Remus Lupin

remus lupin x she/they!reader (smut)

summary: after Remus Lupin’s wonderful girlfriend passes their test, Remus makes sure she gets the reward she deserves.

word count: 4423

warnings: NSFW, praise, thigh riding, rough!sex, use of pet names, hair pulling, swearing

not proof-read!

so my favourite person in the world, @bibicyclee , passed summer school and because we’re oceans apart, i’m gifting them with smut for our favourite werewolf. enjoy, nico.

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They’d been staring at the pile of stacked papers on Slughorn’s desk all period, watching and waiting for the man to take the pile in his hands and dispute them out to each student. But he hadn’t, not yet anyway and instead decided to drone on and on about how the class had done so well this year in both practical and theory lessons when in reality, the class probably didn’t care and just wanted him to hand out their final test scores.

Y/N was one of the students most eager for her theory test back, this was the grade that determined her year average. If she gets an Acceptable or below, her overall grade will be a Poor but if they got above an Acceptable, then their overall grade could be an Acceptable or even higher which would be a dream come true. They had studied hard for this and she pitied her boyfriend for having to spend countless nights awake with them helping her go over the things that Slughorn had hinted would be on the test.

And he had been right, somewhat, some topics were ones that she hadn’t revised and took a wild guess at but a lot of them were ones that Remus spent hours drilling into their mind with fun games where he would quiz her with a stupid, goofy smile on his face and if they got it right, he would feed them one piece of their favourite Honeydukes fudge and if they got it wrong, she’d have to watch him eat it.

The bastard made a show out of it, telling them how delicious it was after he had swallowed it as she stared at his fingers whilst he sucked the fudge remnants off of it before quirking his eyebrows at them and speaking the next question.

Endless studying with no games had been put in the night before the test and after it, Y/N had practically collapsed into Remus in the Great Hall with drooping eyes from their tiredness and he had laughed at her, kissing her forehead and letting them know they only had two lessons until they could go and sleep. She had mumbled something that he couldn’t hear but when they brought their head away from him and settled on stealing Sirius’ uneaten sandwich on his plate, Remus reckoned she was okay.

That was last week and now they could perfectly see the graded tests on Slughorn’s desk, waiting to be handed out. She wasn’t really paying attention so when her professors body blocked her view of the papers, they perked up when he picked them up and turned to the class with a beaming smile as he announced he was about to hand them.

It took a while for her own test to be settled on her desk and when it did, they were delighted to see a large O for Outstanding scrawled in the middle of a circle at the top of her paper. She was in some sort of happy, dumbfounded daze for a moment as they stared at the letter. They had passed, she had actually passed Potions and could carry on with it the next school year.

And as though it could hear her inner thoughts about being excited to tell Remus, the bell rung for the final time that day and Slughorn released the class with a kind farewell to them all. Y/N was out of their seat immediately, grabbing their bag in one hand and their essay in the other before she set off out of the classroom, sprinting to find her boyfriend. She knew that he had a free period when she had her Potions lessons so they expected to find him in the Gryffindor Common Room.

Luckily Marlene McKinnon was there to let them in by giving the password to the Fat Lady and waving as she ran through the portrait hole with an excited smile on her face whilst running towards the stairs up the boys dormitories and running until she found herself at the door to the sixth-year dorms and excitedly knocking over and over again.

Sirius was the one to answer the door, swinging it open with a cigarette in between his lips and he quirked up a smile at the sight of them and their excited face. Y/N simply lifted the paper up with a happy squeal and Sirius snatched the cigarette out of his mouth before squealing with her and tackling her in a large hug before picking her up off of the floor and turning so they were both in the room.

He kicked the door shut behind him and placed them down on the floor as the door made a thud. James, Peter and Remus all looked up from their beds at the noise and up at the member of the opposite gender in their room. Remus smiled at the sight of his partner and smiled impossibly more at their flushed cheeks and wide grin.

“What’s up?” He swung his legs over the side of his bed, his feet hitting the floor as he stood and walked over to her, smiling down at their happy face. She lifted her paper up and squealed again, Sirius squealing in delight too as Peter and James laughed at him. “An O? What the...”

Remus took it from her with a smile of his own and ran a hand through his shaggy hair whilst he read it and Y/N stood before him and welcomed his tight embrace with a laugh as he twirled her around slightly with a laugh before setting them down again and connecting their lips in a kiss. Her hand cupped his cheek as they chuckled against his lips and he smiled before pressing their lips together again.

“I’m proud of you.” He mumbled against her lips, his hands that were circled around their waist pulling her tighter against him as she wrapped their arms around his neck and pulled him closer again. “So, so proud of you for passing.”

“I think this is where we make our swift exit.” Peter commented, met with laughs from everyone as he and James began to get up off of their beds.

“You guys don’t have to-”

Remus cut YN off with another kiss, moving his lips against hers softly as she hummed slightly in delight of the affection. His lips slowly moved away to her ear and they shivered as his hot breath hit their skin whilst he spoke the next words. “Let them go, baby.”

“See you later.” She turned their head with a smile to wave bye to the other boys who gave the couple looks before leaving as Remus chuckled lowly into her ear, sending another shiver down their spine

“Use protection.” James said and then made a motion to let them know he was watching them which made the couple raise their eyebrows at him. “James doesn’t want any babies.”

“Is James referring to himself in third person?” Remus asked the boy who stood nonchalant in the doorway, leaning against it with his arms crossed whilst Y/N glanced between her boyfriend and James with an amused smile.

“...No.” James hesitated for a second before he scrunched his nose up at Remus in denial of the claim before disappearing away from the door and letting it swing closed with a thud behind him. “Don’t forget the silencing spell!”

“Muffliato.” Remus cast quickly, getting his wand from his pocket and pointing at the door before locking it with a non-verbal spell too. Y/N raised her eyebrows at him as he tossed his wand onto James’ bed before gripping at his partners hips and pulling them close to kiss them.

“You’re eager.” Y/N said in between kisses, though they didn’t actually mind how tightly Remus had her pressed against him whilst they kissed.

“Just proud of my special girl.” He mumbled, deepening the kisses slowly whilst they stood in the middle of the dorm, lips connecting and parting when someone wanted to say something. “Wanna give her a well-deserved reward.”

“Reward, huh?” She chuckled, kissing back with fervour before parting to murmur again. “Someone's extremely horny today.”

“You’re lecturing me about being horny?” He pulled back, laughing lowly and they bit their lip up at him and his perfect face. His hands moved from around her waist towards her jumper he pulled off of them before starting to undo the tie around their neck. “Who was the one wanting me to take off a piece of clothing every time you got an answer right last week?”

“Can you blame me?” Y/N smirked, running their hands up his clothed chest as he slowly took her tie off and his fingers came to fiddle with the buttons of their shirt after her had dropped the tie to the floor. “I have the hottest and horniest boyfriend.”

“I’m not that horny.” He continued to undo the buttons on their shirt, enjoying how with every one that came loose, the more skin or piece of underwear he got to see. “I could resist.”

“Sure you can...” They looked at his face and how he stared down so lustfully at their unbuttoned shirt that was no longer tucked into their school skirt. His eyes trained to their bra and he glanced up at them every so often as he just stared at them. “You can resist, huh?”

“I just wanna reward you for getting a good score on your test, sweetheart.” He furrowed his eyebrows as he slowly took their shirt off and eyed her breasts hungrily, not even bothered by the way they had her eyebrows raised knowingly. “But yes...I can resist if I wanted.”

“I bet I couldn’t even get off on your thigh without you needing to fuck me.” Y/N shivered as his rough hands stroked up and down her sides, the feeling of his fingertips heavenly on their soft skin.

“I’ll take that action.” Remus grinned, his hands moving from her sides down to her ass which was covered by their skirt and he squeezed the flesh from over the garments. He then grabbed her hand and dragged her over to his bed whilst he sat on the end and put his hands on their hips.

“I was just joking...” Y/N trailed off as Remus smirked and unzipped her skirt from the back before licking his lips as he watched it fall down their legs into a pile on the floor. He leaned forward and began to kiss at their stomach, his open-mouth kisses leaving tingles everywhere he went.

“It was a good joke,” He said as his hands made their way back to her ass and he palmed it slowly. “So good that I reckon we should try it out if you think I’m so horny.”

“Rem-” They were cut off by Remus’ fingers plucking the top of her socks that were pulled up just below the knee. She looked down at him and all he did was raise an eyebrow which told them everything she needed to know.

Slowly in order to tease him, she reached down to her first sock and bent down slightly to pull it off which gave him the perfect view of their breasts in the cups of her bra. He bit his lip as he watched them bounce as she went up before going back down to pull off the other sock; once they were off she moved closer to him again and his hands found home on her hips once more.

His thumbs smoothed over her skin a couple of soothing times as they ran a hand through his hair but he moved back from their hold until he lay against his headboard and with a smirk, he patted his thigh and watched as Y/N climbed onto the bed and crawled over to him to straddle her legs on either side of one of his thighs.

“Take your shirt off.” She said, smiling as they reached for the hem of his shirt. He lifted his arms lazily and let them pull it off before tossing it over her shoulder and across the room and turning her head back to press a soft kiss against his lips whilst their hands travelled up his chest and rested on his shoulders. “I’m gonna win this bet.”

“Sure you will.” Remus smirked, delivering a quick squeeze to their ass before nodding as a signal for them to start moving.

She gave him a small smile and kept their eyes locked with his as she began to move back and forth along his thigh, the material of her knickers rubbing against the perfect spot slowly as they tortured them both with the steady pace she set. Remus’ eyes grew dark with lust at the slow pace as they held eye contact and Y/N dragged herself over his thigh still covered with his trousers.

They continued with the slow pace, sighing in content at the feeling of her knickers sliding over her clit every now and then when they reached the right point of going back and forth. The couple were challenging each other with their eyes, Remus was challenging Y/N to keep teasing him and Y/N was challenging him with the bet. He had underestimated how right she probably was but he didn’t want to give them any satisfaction so he just relaxed and held the eye contact to wait for her to break.

An idea formed in his head and his lips tipped up into a smirk, holding the eye contact as he bounced his leg up and in turn making her gasp at the friction of it against her. He bounced it again and they exhaled softly, dragging herself across his thigh in a slightly faster pace whilst he bounced his leg and watched as her mouth fell open slightly before they closed it at the look of satisfaction on his face.

“Don’t hold back, baby.” He chuckled lowly as they slowed down their ruts against his hip, sighing as his thigh kept bouncing up and rubbing the material against her clit. “Just let go and lose the bet.”

“Yeah, right.” She leaned forward and pressed a bruising kiss against his lips, one that made him groan at the roughness and stop his thigh for just a second whilst his hands gripped at her waist and their hands went to their back, unclipping the bra and letting it fall off of their shoulders so their breasts were exposed and the garment was hung loosely on her body.

When they pulled away from the kiss, Remus paused for a moment at the sight of her boobs suddenly out and right in front of him. To drive him crazy, Y/N began to bounce on his thigh herself, sending their tits bouncing too and Remus let out a fascinated groan at the sight and although the bouncing gave her pleasure too, the look behind Remus’ eyes was highly amusing.

His hands came off her hips to touch them and Y/N stopped their bouncing and just settled on a slow grind as she grasped his wrists before he could touch them and he glanced up at her dangerously as she held them away and even dared to push them up to hold him above his head. Despite the fact they were heavily teasing him now, he was smirking but she knew it was out of pure lust as the chuckle that followed was anything but teasing.

It was a dangerous one. One that told them he found her attempts at taking control cute but it’d be back in his power soon enough.

He allowed them to keep her soft grinding pace for a while as she held his hands above his head but he knew that she was going to let his hands go soon so she could try something else to make him break but as soon as the grip loosened the tightest bit, Remus pulled his wrists away and was met with a surprised gasp from them. But the gasp turned into a small whimper as his hands gripped at their hips and he started to rock her along his thigh himself, making the pace far quicker with the added bouncing thigh.

The friction of her knickers on her clit made them moan as their hand went up to clutch at his hair and the other stabilised her on the bed whilst Remus leant forward and away from the headboard to bury his head in their neck and begin kissing ferociously. His movements didn’t ever cease or slow as he continued to bounce them on him and his kisses travelled from her neck which he decorated with a hickey before he went down to her tits and started kissing at them too.

Y/N moaned as he continued his attack on all of her at once and when she felt her release approaching when he tensed up his thigh and it dragged against her clothed clit perfectly over and over and over. They tried to hold it in, even buried her head in his neck to try and stop the obvious moan coming out but as he moaned right in her ear when he pressed himself against them and their tits pressed against his chest, she couldn’t hold it anymore.

“Shit.” They cursed through a moan, moving faster at the start of their release but then stopping and letting the orgasm flow through them whilst their legs shook on either side of Remus’ thigh and he laughed into her ear as she breathed onto his neck.

“I win.” He whispered in their ear, kissing the skin underneath it as she caught her breath and her chest heaved up and down with heavy breaths. They took their head out of his neck and looked at him and the dangerous look in his eyes as he stared down at her.

“You really think you could restrain me?” He raised an eyebrow at them and she breathed out a laugh and climbed off of his lap; Remus licked his lips at the sight of her adjusting her knickers. “You should know better than to even try.”

Y/N ghosted her hand over his pants that definitely had his dick straining against them and he sighed heavily, tilting his head back for a moment before looking back at them with a straight face. They smiled innocently and began to press their hand on the bulge and Remus’ gaze turned cold as her face lowered down towards it before she brought it back up and fiddled with his belt.

He was holding off on his impatience for now but when they had pulled the restraining on him, he was sure he might’ve flipped them over and fucked her right there and then but he didn’t want to lose the bet. He wanted to put her in her place but apparently they were still deciding to be a bit of brat.

“You gonna suck my dick or not?” He asked and they looked up at him as one pulled the belt out of his trouser loops and her other hand continued to palm the bulge in his pants.

“This is my reward.” Y/N stated and Remus’ eyes narrowed as they unzipped his trousers and pulled them down as much as they could before yanking his boxers down and taking his hard dick in their hand before spitting down on it and using the saliva as lubricant to rub up and down his dick before she let go and began to climb off of the bed. “So no maybe not.”

Remus sat stunned for a moment as she began to climb off of the bed, bra slipping off of their arms finally as his jaw clenched and he quickly scrambled up to grip her hips and pull them back to him harshly and start sucking on their neck again as they laughed. His hands went from her hips to their tits as they lay against him happily, he squeezed at them and sucked on the skin of her neck to quell some of his frustration.

“You think this is funny?” He whispered into her ear and kicked the jeans and boxers off of his feet before rolling them over so he was hovering on top of his girlfriend. Y/N bit her lip at him and he grinded his hip down onto her once in a quick second and he enjoyed how her mouth fell open slightly.

Remus nodded at her with a cocky smirk and sat back on his knees to admire his girlfriend lay out like they were, braless and only in soiled knickers whilst lay out on the bed in front of him all for his view. His fingers plucked at the waistband of her knickers and he took them off of her thighs slowly, holding them up by his finger and smiling at the sight of the glistening wetness inside before he threw them behind him across the room before redirecting his attention towards his naked partner below him.

“You think not sucking my dick is funny?” He asked, going up onto his knees and pumping his dick right in their face as she watched with dilated pupils and their mouth agape. “We’ll see what you find funny.”

And then he lowered himself down and began to push himself into their entrance with no warning; Y/N moaned out loud at the sudden intrusion and their breath hitched with every inch he put inside of her until he bottomed out and he groaned too whilst they started up at him.

“So tight.” He grunted out as she shifted underneath him, crying out slightly as he stretched them but she quieted herself and looked up at him to respond to his last statement.

“That’s because you didn’t finger me first.” They panted and Remus quirked an eyebrow, a dangerous smile quirking up too before he pulled out completely and made her whine.

His hand gripped her face, squishing her cheeks together as he leaned in close and his lover tried to bring their lips closer and kiss him but he avoided it and shook his hand side to side to make them shake their head. “Are you done being a fucking brat?” He asked and they whimpered with a nod of their head. “Good girl. My good girl, aren’t you? Passing your test and now admitting to being bad. You think you deserve this?”

“Yes.” She said, muffled through his grasp on her face and he just smirked and dropped his hold from her cheeks, grabbing her hips and thrusting back into them quickly which made a moan on the border of pornographic fly out of her mouth.

He went in and out in a quick and rough rhythm, speaking through gritted teeth whilst slamming and thrusting into Y/N. Moans were spilling from her lips with no mercy and her tits were bouncing up and down over and over as Remus kept up his pace. His hands grabbed at her legs and he lifted them to link around his waist so he had more access to their vagina and Y/N moaned loudly at the new angle.

Remus was relentless, pulling out all the way and then slamming back in over and over and over again with praise and profanities spilling shamelessly from him. “Take it like my good girl, Y/N. Make me proud, let me hear those noises.”

At his words, they let out moans which were met with groans from Remus as he thrusted in and out relentlessly with his eyes on his girlfriends breasts which were bouncing for his view and Y/N propped herself up on her elbows with a screwed up face from the pleasure whilst she tried to peak down at where Remus was thrusting into them but she reached back and pulled their hair so they were looking up instead and he smirked down at her.

“Remus-” She cut herself off, their eyes rolling back in their head as Remus slammed into them relentlessly and laughed at their fucked out expression and went impossibly faster into her. The moan that ripped from her throat was worth it and he gave his own moan at the sound before she whimpered at Remus’ force and then moaned again.

“What’s wrong?” He asked with a smirk, tugging at their hair again and she moaned as they made eye contact again. “I’m just giving you your reward, princess. You’re taking it like such a good girl, well done baby, taking my dick so well.”

Y/N moaned at that and their eyes rolled back into their head again as Remus’ dick pushed up against her G-Spot and they nodded, rushing out moans and pleads and praise to Remus who sped up on that particular spot and worked his hips faster than ever as his girlfriend fell apart in his hands.

“Here, baby? Right here?” He asked mockingly as he thrusted, knowing full well he was where she wanted him as he could both feel it and her moans of confirmation were sending him close to his release much like she was. “You gonna be a good girl and cum for me, huh? Gonna make me proud again?”

“Yes, yes, yes, yes...” Y/N rushed and Remus smirked, hiking their legs further up him as he hit a new angle and she went speechless from underneath him, her mouth falling open, their eyes rolling back and silent moans coming out as her legs shook around him. “Fuck!”

“Good girl, good girl...” Remus grunted out as he soothed one of their thighs to help them through her second orgasm but also as he thrusted into her still to chase his own release which came with a burst of large pleasure. “Fuck, well done baby, well done.”

Y/N stayed panting, slowly coming back to reality after their mind-blowing orgasm and she looked up at Remus lovingly. “Thank you, Remus. I love you.”

“I love you too, my beautiful girl.” He grinned and slowly pulled out, eyeing his partners wince as he pulled out and he slowly went down to lie next to them. They turned their head to face him and he grinned charmingly at her like he hadn’t just made her see stars. “But you didn’t think that was all you were getting, did you?”

“Well...yeah.”

“No, my good girl gets everything they want today.” Remus smiled and kissed her nose lovingly, enjoying the cute smile they gave back. “I’m very proud.”

“Thank you, my love.”

#remus lupin smut #remus lupin x reader #remus lupin imagine #Remus Lupin #the marauders #marauders smut #the marauders imagine #harry potter imagine #James Potter #peter pettigrew #Sirius Black #Smut

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clearlyshyobservation · 4 years

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Kokichi is dying (V3 chatfic, no particular ship)

TW: Infers abuse, talks about ableism, neglect, panic attack pretty much, depression, self loathing. never being good enough

i am so sorry but vr au's need to be sad, love yall :)

(Background info: This is set in a vr au, they are not with their fake memory parents (Ie; kaito's kind grandparents) but rather why they really have)

(Also i have no fucking clue what ship i was going for???? pretty sure they are all on the table, and kokichi talks like an idiot in this and i love it. Gonta's writing is based off of his Japanese talking style, so no more caveman talking).

USERNAMES:

(Space monkey: Kaito, Detective pikachu: shuichi, Elton john: kaede, Antman: gonta, Mr. Gonstealyoman: korekiyo, Atua's bitch: angie, emoboi: ryoma, be-boop: kiibo, bread roll: Maki, cum dumpster: miu, mommy: kirumi, Gremlin: Kokichi)

TLDR: Chaos ensues, slight angst

Gremlin: omfg im fucking sicK im gonna fucking die i bet this was kaitos bitch ass fault for coughing on me with his tuberculosis headass gROSSSSS I HATE EVERYTHINGGG

Space Monkey: i-

Space monkey: I didn't get you sick dumbass,,,, my tb is fugckin cured bi-

Bread roll: he's dramatic and gross dont believe him

Gremlin: yall mean for what?

Gremlin: i have a life taking disease and yall laughing i-

Gremlin: see you at my funeral bitch

Detective pikachu: What are you sick with then

Gremlin: anythong bitch, im the universe

Antman: He sounds delusional, thats not good

Detective pikachu: He's always delusional, he's Kokichi

Mr. gonstealyoman: I guess this name is better than my old one

Mr. gonstealyoman: thank you kokichi :) I am glad we have come to an understanding

Gremlin: kay sexy

Gremlin: IGNRE WHAT I JUST SENT

Gremlin: IGNORE IT IGNORE IT IGNORE ITTTTT

Antman: who was that for???

Gremlin: NO ONE,,,

Gremlin: Okay,,, maybe sexy tall men in general lowkey

Gremlin: okay,,,, maybe anyone over 6 feet

Detective pikachu: i feel excluded

Detective pikachu: good, i don't like you kokichi, your an ass

Gremlin: u sound jelly shumaiiiiii

be-boop: perhaps he is telling the truth, you know,

be-boop: according to my data, in chapter four Shuichi stated that you will never have friends, and no one will ever like you

Gremlin: SHUT THE FUCK UP STOP MAKING ME FEEL BADBSKVKHDVKDSKJV

Antman: do you need me to come over? I can make you tea?

mommy: Do you know how to do that, Gonta? I can teach you?

Antman: Gonta does know, thank you very much.

Antman: Gonta is not a child, Tojo-chan, please don't regard me as one

Antman: Gonta can cook, can clean, can be gentle, and has his own mind

Space monkey: but we're just making sure man, cuz, you know,,,, chapter 4

Antman: I am capable of things just like you!!!!!

Antman: Gonta doesn't know why you guys treat me like a child :(

Gremlin: yeah, hot stuff over there is basically a prodigy homies

Antman: Gonta is dumb though, don't say that.

Antman: Gonta is no prodigy, in fact, he is below average in everything

Gremlin: Whats ur test scores bitch

Antman: Gonta got a 98 on my english test,, but i wanted a 100, which would make Gonta actually smart :(

Antman: Gonta is not good enough to be friends with you all

Antman: I can do basic stuff like tojo said...

Antman: maybe i do need help?

Antman: im not sure anymore:((((

Gremlin: THEY ARE ABLEIST GONTA,,, THEY FEEL SUPERIOR FOR TREATING UUUUU LIKE A CHILD

Detective pikachu: You sound really delusional Kokichi, maybe you should get sleep

Gremlin: S T F U, IM SPITTING ST8 FACTS BITCH

Detective pikachu: Sure you are. Now get some rest.

Gremlin: GRRRR WHY WONT YOU LISTEN TO ME YOU IDIOTS??

Bread roll: Cause your stupid and aggressive

Gremlin: your personality, basically?

Bread roll: shut up at least i have a boyfriend

Gremlin: Technically, you just stole my frienemy

Gremlin: Yall do be avoiding each other doe

Space Monkey: WE ARE NOT

Gremlin: Yeah yeah

Gremlin: yesterday i saw you to enter the same cafe by accident, duck your heads, then sit across the cafe from each other, all while avoiding eye contact

Gremlin: Soooo,,, things not going well in paradise?

Detective pikachu: you're nosy

Gremlin: says the literal detective

Space monkey: everythings fine your just a dickkkk

Gremlin: "oooo! Im momo-chan, i say bad word and go brrrrr"

Space monkey: im going to fucking stab him

Gremlin: You cant, ive already enslaved you with my chaotic, yet cute hijinks, havent i~

Space monkey: STOP STOP NO NOT THE SQUIGLY

Gremlin: is it the sex? WHY DONT YOU MAKE EYE CNOTACT WITH UR LADY NO MORE

Space monkey: ITS NOT THE SEX I HATE YOU

Gremlin: im free by the way at 8 ;)

Bread roll: STOP trying to steal my boyfriend kokichi, ive told you this before

Bread roll: NO

Bread roll: BODY

Antman: Gonta interrupts to say, Gonta loves you kokichi, and we should get flowers together, than maybe we can prank some people :D

Bread roll: Ive never wanted to stab you more, gonta

Gremlin: I'd enjoy that very much, fine fellow ;)

Gremlin: but idk,,,, can you like take care of me first, cuz IM SICK BECAUSE OF KAITO TUBERCULOSIS ASS

Space monkey: I DONT HAVE TB ANYMORE

Gremlin: SURE YOU DONT

Space monkey: I DONT

Gremlin: BUT GUESS WHAT

Gremlin: YOU STILL SMOKE DUMBASS AND THATS NOT GOOD FOR U OR YOUR TUBERCULOSIS

Detective pikachu: He smokes?

Atua's bitch: he does, i walked in on him in the bathroom lmao

Atua's bitch: he was scared shitless and threw it out the window, needless to say atua does nt approve

Gremlin: DO YOU EVEN HAVE THE VACCINE????

Space monkey: Uh,,, i was taught vaccines were bad, so no i don't have the vaccine

Gremlin: I HATE OLD PEOPLE

Gremlin: ABOLISH OLD PEOPLEEEE

Gremlin: THEY SPREAD MISINFORMATION AND IT PHISCALLY HURTS ME TO SEEEEEE

Space monkey: your dramatic, it cant be that bad

Gremlin: say that when you catch it again

Gremlin: i swear you coughed on me like,,,, 5 weeks ago tho

Antman: OOOO! Fun fact: Tuberculosis can lay dormant from 3 months to a few years!

Space monkey: u guys are just trying to scare me

Bread roll: Just checked the chat after using the br and,,m YOUDONT HAVE YOU VACCINES???

Detective pikachu: Im sorry, but kaito, please,,,,, for the love of god get vaccines

Space monkey: alright alright, ill do it cuz you guys are all on my case and i don't like being the villain :(

Gremlin: Im so happy i have gonta with me rn, he is making me tea while yall rot in your distant ass relationship (THIS IS FOR YOU KAITO)

Space monkey: Im going to destroy your bloodline in about three seconds if you dont stfu right fucking now

Gremlin: Hhehe i have an inaprwopwiate joke uwu

emoboi: STOP PLEASE DEAR GOD

cum dumpster: wHAt Is iT YOU WHORE

Gremlin: i was gonna say wouldn't he need to like,,,, have sex with my family to weed out my bloodline or something??

cum dumpster: i-

cum dumpster: Why am i acting surprised, ive watched porn with more extravagant plots than this

cum dumpster: ie; are you guys FUCKING? RIGHT INFRONT OF MY SALAD??? is one i will cherish with my soul

emoboi: hehe why did she point out the salad

Space monkey: I hate u kokichi, i truly do

Gremlin: I bet if you got the chance u would kiss me space boy :P

Bread roll has left the chat

Space monkey: o god is she ddoing one of those bf loyalty tests or smthing???

Space monkey: now im nervous lmao

Gremlin: why you so nervous stupid~~~~

Gremlin: It not like ur cheating on her homie

Space monkey: It's just a placebo effect

Gremlin: My brain feels fried Momo-chan,, i don't understand big boy words right now

Space monkey: Basically, if you take a pill that doesn't do anything but you don't know that and believe it does, you will scientifically start to feel better

Gremlin: first and only time saying this, but thank you

Space monkey: HEHEHEB YOU SAID THANK YOU YOU SAID THANK YOUYOU SAID THANK YOUYOU SAID THANK YOUYOU SAID THANK YOU

Gremlin: Kaito,,, imma need you to do me a favor and look up on your ceiling

Space monkey: i hate you, idk what it is, but i hte you

Gremlin: good <3

Space monkey: HE REPLACED ALL MY THE STARS ON MY CELING WITH FUCKIBG DICKSSS

Space monkey: THIS IS THE LST FUCKING STRAW IM GONNA LOSE IT

Space monkey: IF MY GRANDPARENTS SEE THIS BULLSHIT THEY ARE GOING TO KILL ME, SLAP ME, MAYBE BREAK MY NECK AND DESTROY MEE

Space monkey: Im GENUINLEY panicing HOW TF am i gona get this off my wal???? They are going to bbat me senselpess help me shUichi

Detective pikachu: o god, i can sense the sheer pain and scaredness in that tet,

Detective pikachu: are you for real gong to get hurt or are you pulling a kokichi?

Space monkey: FUCKING HELP ME IM NOT FUCKING JOKINGKABKCB HELP THEY ARE NOT HOME RN THEY ARE LIKEE,,,, 40 MINUTES AWAY PLEASEE

Gremlin: okay,,, maybe this wasn't the best prank.,,, i guess i'll help clean up cuz im not that much of a sociopath

Gremlin: tbh my parents can go shove it too lowkey terrible 0/10

Space monkey: AHHHH IM SO SCARED PLS PSL GET HERE FAST

be-boop: Of course, i will come, i will survey the outside of the house

Antman: Gonta is coming too! We will get this done in under 40 minutes!

Space monkey: OKAY

Gremlin: Lowkey, if i cough on you ignore it bitch your the one who made me like this

Space monkey: W HA TDONT COUGH ON ME IM NOT SICK ANYMORE

Gremlin: I will give you TB again just cuz your making me suffer

Space monkey: Suffer what??? putting dicks on my FUCKING WALL???

Gremlin: Guilt, idiot, im feeling guilty.

cum dumpster: oof thats new

emoboi: yeah i wasn't expecting it

Mr.gonstealyoman: Me neither. It is rather peculiar seeing it being texted by him because he is always feels not guilty of his bad actions.

be-boop: I do believe he means it, though...

emoboi: impossible.

cum dumpster: i agree, literally impossible.

Gremlin: I HAVE A FUCKIBG SOUL YOU CRazY CONSPIRACISTS

Antman: Quick question, shuichi can i stay with you again? It'll be dark when i get home and gonta can't do that so,,, please help

Detective pikachu: my parents are like blank slates, who eat slowly, watch tv slowly, and never look at me. Im sure they wouldn't mind :P

Antman: ALRIGHT! :D LETS GET MISSION: MR. MOMOTA ROOM REPAIR DONE!

Gremlin: ooo! I like the name! IM INNNN!

Detective pikachu: On it!

be-boop: Ready for look out!

Space monkey: I love you guys :)

AN: Im lowkey sorry i ended this chaotic mess with angst,,,, but like fr i love it i love angst,, i hate reading it but love writing it

#kokichiouma #oumota #Ougoku #chat fic #kaito momota #kiibo #miu iruma #gonta gokuhara #ryoma #angie #shuichi saihara #vr au #kirumi #maki harukawa #korekiyo #danganronpav3 #danganronpa #grossness

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providencepeakrp · 3 years

Photo

DANIELA FRANCO

age: 29.

gender & pronouns: cis female & she/her.

neighborhood: claret park.

occupation: owner of bloom wellness.

fc: adria arjona.

BIOGRAPHY

trigger warnings: learning disability, medication, and gambling.

Born Daniela Franco in Los Angeles, California, life was pleasant and on the verge of cookie cutter. Her parents were good people from good families that had a sense of community and wholesomeness about them that could have been considered boring. At least Daniela did growing up in that household. While boring was far from a bad thing, it was simply uneventful and could lead to destruction for someone that wanted more from life than the normal milestones that way of living offered. Life spans were short; something Daniela learned when her first grandparent passed away when she was just seven years old. It was that event alone that seemed to really draw out her ADD and thus began the complications of keeping her within the means of the family dynamic. As cliché as it was, she was the youngest child with an older sister named Melissa and often went unnoticed unless there was a problem. As a child and into her early teens, it was mostly that she couldn’t sit still and she had far too much energy for her parents to contain and keep after her sister as well. So Daniela was thrown into sports, which worked when it came to expelling some of the restlessness, but the issue was more in the mind and not the body. Too often she would stay up all night because her brain wouldn’t shut down for sleep, it would constantly spin on thoughts and daydreams and thus began her insomnia.

Intelligence was something she very much possessed. Daniela was observant in the sharpest of ways with an eidetic memory and broad interest in varying topics and subjects, but the problem was focus. Unless something strong captured her attention and she was able to force herself into a hyper-focus then her mind would bounce around and it made homework and tests an absolute challenge. No matter how well she knew the material or could figure it out on the fly, Daniela would often blank on tests and couldn’t buckle down to focus on homework. The result was too often subpar grades, scores below her intelligence level but because of a disability and standardized methods of schooling her IQ was never genuinely reflected and it all had an effect on her self esteem. Daniela’s sister, just as smart, did very well in school and was praised rightfully so for it but Daniela was always a disappointment or in trouble because she couldn’t perform the same way.

When the insomnia led to her sleeping at school or passing out from exhaustion, her parents sought out professional help. Daniela was sent from her regular doctor to see a psychiatrist and the journey of various medications began, all just to get her to sleep. Some meds would leave her groggy and feeling like a zombie, others would make her sleep walk, and then there was one or two that would generally work but her ADD would combat it. It took a while for her psychiatrist to recognize and finally diagnose Daniela with Attention Deficit Disorder, but that was a whole other trip of medications that Daniela opted out of quickly in hating how it all made her feel. All the medications for this or that just did more damage to her self esteem, feeling like she was one issue and problem after another. She never really began acting out but her restless nature led Daniela to seek adventure and whatever would get her blood running. Whether that meant racing cars and staying out all night with friends, or going into places she was far too young to really be able to handle like pool halls and card rooms then she seemed game for it. One thing for sure about Daniela was that she was competitive.

Due to a job transfer, the Franco family moved half way across the country and settled in a mountainous city named Providence Peak. It was a tough move mostly for Daniela who had a final year of high school to finish and of course having to reexplain her situation to new teachers and a new school system. Thankfully her file did most of the talking for her and her parents and while Melissa attended the local university she pushed her way through a new high school where she felt completely out of place. It was only a year and Daniela made her family happy by graduating with a GPA that was good enough to get her accepted at the same local university her older sister was attending. During her time at Providence Peak University she met and made friends pretty quickly with a couple of girls, who would soon begin to feel more like the friendships she’d had growing up. Like they had grown up together. The three girls were together all of the time and formed a band they called Black Sheep after an amazing karaoke night, and for a while the band took more of her free time than her cards did. Eventually the band ceased as university became more difficult and their lives pulled them in different directions.

By the time she was nineteen she had made her first six figure income year, and by twenty-one her first six figure income day all by playing poker. It wasn’t that she was some exceptional card shark, it was more so that she had talent but a very sharp mind. Not only could she calculate and make raw decisions on the fly it was something her ADD and hyper-focus could attach to. The amount of brain activity it takes to play poker would often exhausted the average person but Daniela could have ten to twelve online games going on at once and it played perfectly into the rapid fire way her mind worked. She definitely experienced some low points since no one always wins, and she had some hard losses but for the most part Daniela was living a life that was beyond the wildest dreams of someone from a conventional family. She was able to travel the world and follow the live poker tours, sit at the table with some of the greats and legendary players and hold her own — occasionally winning. But most of all, Daniela was able to live a free and independent life, one that wasn’t structured in the typical contemporary fashion. She did make it through university but she didn’t have to run off to a corporate job or punch a clock anywhere. Daniela got to live life however she wanted and she loved it.

At twenty-three, after a night of playing cards in a back room in Dublin, Daniela married an Irishman she’d spent the night before with drinking and just having fun. It wasn’t love, it was just exhilaration. He was wild and adventurous and matched exactly with where she was in life at that point in time and she was careless in not recognizing that he was just in it for the ride and whatever he could get out of the nuptials. And she didn’t recognize that he was milking her for all she was worth until it was too late; nearly a year into the marriage and waking up one morning with divorce papers and an empty bank account. Through the divorce he held his claims that he really did love her, even called her his soulmate, but that he just didn’t want to be married and tied to one woman. Either way, Daniela got screwed and learned more lessons about life. Making her way through the world and through life as a professional poker player certainly made for an incredible way to live.

Broke and then a divorcee, Daniela moved back to Providence Peak to stay with her sister for a while who still lived in the city. It took a little while to build herself back up and fill her accounts again, especially after losing her confidence when it came to the distractions of her personal life. After working mid-level games for a while as a rounder, Daniela eventually moved up and began playing again before the disaster that was her marriage. She continued her mix of both online games and hitting actual tables to have the feel of cards in her hand and just enjoying the rush of high stakes a little more when sitting at a table with people that were likely to kill you over what most everyone considers just a “game”. The time soon came for Daniela to look for her own place and give her sister her space back, especially since Melissa had a serious relationship blooming and they deserved their privacy. She didn’t really like it, the thought of living alone made her sad and contemplate how lonely she was willing to feel. Daniela refused to move back home into her parents house, feeling like a failure if she had to do that so instead she found a house and settled in. It looked like Providence Peak was going to be permanent.

After the move, with her pockets and bank account lined and cushioned, Daniela decided to make a big change. It was time to put her university degree to use and all the certifications she’d earned as an esthetician. She’d been doing the research for years, so why not? Daniela opened up her own shop: Bloom Wellness. Where she sells handmade healing products to soothe and cleanse the mind, body, and soul. Since many of her products are made with CBD, she has a relationship with a local grower and in the last two years bought part of that company. Daniela ended up in a battle with Square over CBD and eventually won after sticking it out and standing by her products. They did almost put her out of business though and she’s feeling rather proud and blessed now. Though, being a solitary business owner hasn’t been without hardships, last year she lost her entire inventory to humidity and was devastated and had to completely rebuild her stock. Since it’s just her and two employees making everything, working the shop, and since it’s her only source of income, Daniela got worried about the bottom falling out on her. During that really difficult time, battling Square and losing her inventory, when she was feeling her lowest, Daniela nearly sold her business for next to nothing. Thankfully, she stuck it out and what she will tell anyone in making their own business: trust the process.

written by: christie.

#adria arjona #daniela franco #claret park #tw gambling #tw learning disability #tw medication

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dammitadolfnomorecake · 4 years

Text

Once Bitten, Twice Stupid prt.16

Keith was sitting on the front steps when Lance pulled into his driveway. Their meeting for a moment, before Pidge was leaning past him

“Get in, loser! We’re going out!”

Rubbing his ear, Lance didn’t appreciate Pidge’s loud voice abusing his eardrum

“I’m fine right here!”

“Don’t be like that. We’re going ghost hunting, get in the back!”

“Lance was going to drop me in town...”

“Why? Everything’s shut now apart from the bars. Stop being antisocial and come look for ghosts with us!”

That was how Keith ended up in the boot of Lance’s bronco. Lance could feel the tension from the driver’s seat, Pidge having climbed over into the back so she and Hunk could talk with Keith, who’d barely gotten two words in thanks to the pair of them trying their best to make him feel involved. Lance had seen it on Keith’s face when he’d pulled up. Keith looking up at him like he’d kicked him to the curb without good reason. If he stopped to think about it, Keith would fill that hole in the group that his eventual leaving with bring. Plus, Keith would be there to help Matt reconnect with his family whenever that eventually happened... A whole lot of roads seemed to be leading back to Keith, and Lance couldn’t put up stop signs fast enough.

Swinging by Pidge’s so she could collect her beloved camera, Lance stared up at the visitors centre before them. He’d had enough trouble last time they were here, and though there wouldn’t be any drunks this time, he was sure his friends would find a way to make trouble all over again

“‘Sup, Losers?! This is the Garrison Trio, coming at ya with a new video. Today we’re talking another look at arguably Garrison’s most haunted address! Yep, that’s right, your favourite visitors centre, and mine, it’s the old Garrison Hospital!”

Stuck in a silent “staring but not staring” battle with Keith watching Lance out the corner of his eye, he’d missed Pidge passing her camera off to Hunk so she could film her introduction

“Tonight we have our usual favourites, Me, Hunk, and Lance, but we also have a guest tagging along to see the work we do! Pan to Keith”

Hunk moved the camera, Keith not even noticing he’d been recorded. Lance had the feeling Keith wasn’t supposed to be being recorded. Anyone who saw his face online wouldn’t be able to forget him

“Yep! Our little trio has become a foursome! The awesome foursome. Now, if you click the link below this video you’ll be able to read up on the chilling history and the role the hospital played during world war three! Let’s just say, a lot of people died in a lot of not so lovely ways. Let’s head in!”

As Pidge took the camera from Hunk, Lance took her by the arm

“You can’t film Keith”

“What?”

“You can’t film him. It’s something to do with Shiro’s work. He works on things for the government, for like big bad multimillion dollar corporations that are up to dodgy things. I totally blanked on it, but Shiro will get in trouble”

Pidge raised an eyebrow

“I didn’t know you and Shiro were that tight”

“I was taking selfies and he caught me”

The lies hurt, but Keith’s face getting out their in there videos could bring trouble on all of them, not just Keith... Any vampires with a grudge would see their faces with his and they already knew where to come...

“Oh shit...”

Lance nodded, hoping his facial features portrayed the right emotions. Hunk was the one stole the role of genius from under Pidge’s nose

“I think you’ve got a dusk mask in the glove box from that colour run we didn’t end up doing... he could wear that?”

“Perfect. You two go ahead and I’ll get it. Don’t bring it up though, he’s super socially stunted”

Pidge fluttered her eyelashes

“Is someone getting protective of their “not boyfriend, boyfriend?””

“No, but you’ll have to get protective of that camera if you don’t stop bringing that up”

Pidge’s look turned to betrayal, then acceptance

“Fiiiiine. Do what you have to do. Hunk and I will go ahead. Come on, Hunk”

Rifling through his glovebox, Lance found the branded face mask. The colour run had two components to it, first you did a 5km walk/run, then in some weird kind of sales seasonal thing, there was a kind of sideshow at the end with live music, games, and seeing it was around Halloween, a corn maze and a haunted house. They’d paid, skipped the run, covertly let themselves into the corn maze, beaten that, then hit up the haunted house. Pidge deciding they all needed souvenirs, the mask being one of them... not that it was overly spooky. It was a simple black face mask with splatters of neon paint across the front, a few “teeth” on the right side and the fun run logo underneath. It was actually kind of “Keith”. Not that he was going there.

Keith had hung back as Pidge and Hunk unlocked the visitor centre and dealt with security. Forced to do the talking thing, Lance held the mask out to Keith who eyed it

“What’s that?”

“Pidge films these things”

“And?”

“And she puts them online. I didn’t think you’d want your face out there. If anyone saw the videos then you’d have your cover blown in further missions, making it harder for you to help the people who need help. I told Pidge that Shiro did covert work for the government so you needed to keep a low profile. I’m not sure she got it, but with Matt and Shiro being tight I think she was willing to let it slide. It hasn’t been worn, and it should cover most of your face. You can use my jacket too if you want, just keep the hood up”

Keith took the mask, staring down at as he tilted his neck. Lance automatically finding his eyes trying to find where he’d bitten the man. He’d never bitten anyone before so he didn’t know the trick of healing a bite to nothing. His own marks from turning were still there for the most part. Keith’s neck was smooth, Lance unable to see any blemishes. God! What was he doing...?! Nope... Fucking Keith

“Why are you doing this?”

“Because you got dragged along by my friends deciding they’re also your friends”

“I thought you said I was a useless hunter”

“No. I said you had anger issues, like right now you’re getting angry at me. Do you want my jacket or not?”

“No. This’ll be fine. She really believes, doesn’t she?”

“Yeah. That’s probably why Matt has kept his distance. She wants to be part of this world, and I’m not about to let that happen”

“So you sabotage her?”

“No. Most of what humans collect isn’t real or it’s reflections. I come along not only to show I support her and Hunk, but so nothing happens to either of them. There’s death in that place and I don’t want something bad to happen. I also don’t plan on telling her about Matt, you, or Shiro. It’s not fun lying, but it does keep them safe. If she ever finds out the truth, I know she’s going to be angry, and I’m prepared for that. You better come along, both my friends seem pretty keen on you, meaning if you hurt them, I will hunt you down myself”

“I’m not going to harm a human”

“Good. Keep it that way”

Pidge was already explaining various exhibits in the visitor centre when Lance and Keith slipped through the front door. A shudder rolled up Lance’s spine, earning him a jab in the side from Keith. What was Keith getting annoyed about? People shuddered all the time for no good reason

“What?”

“You shuddered”

“It happens”

“Don’t fob me off like that. There’s something here, isn’t there? Where is it?”

“Oh great, so vampires and werewolves aren’t enough for you now? You want to hunt ghosts to?”

What was Keith going to do? Stab it? The mental image of Keith stabbing a ghost was too funny, a snort of laughter escaping

“Look... if there’s something...”

“Relax. Yeah, there’s death here but I don’t want to see it. I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t want to acknowledge it’s presence”

“But you can see it?”

Lance shook his head. That’s what he had his trust glasses for

“Nope”

“You’re lying to me”

“I’m not lying. And keep your voice down, do you really want Pidge and Hunk to know about us?

Keith shot him an unimpressed look. Lance could have worded that better

“This isn’t over”

It could be, if Keith dropped the subject and kicked away like a bottle cap under the fridge that you couldn’t be bothered picking up, so it laid there undiscovered for another 6 months, when it and another dozen finally popped up to remind you how lazy you were about cleaning

“Oh, goody”

“Lance, come over here, you’re better at this side of things”

Lance rolled his eyes at Pidge. She was doing a bang up job making the visitors centre sound like the must visit spot as it was. Walking over to her, he eyed the shackles in the display case with disgust. He couldn’t really justify the shackling of mine broken soldiers, though some had to be chained down to prevent them from taking their own lives. He’d gone through a stage like that, not that anyone other than Coran knew. He’d had a mental breakdown with the stress of final exams the first time around. He knew too many answers and didn’t want to score a perfect score, that would have made him stand out too much. He aimed for above average on all his tests and exams, but sometimes he slipped up and got too perfect a score that drew everyone’s attention to him when all he wanted to do was blend in. He’d been beaten by a bunch of jealous classmates for his trouble, then broken down, taking himself to Coran who helped piece him back together again. Yeah, Coran would always be his go to guy

“Shackles...”

Letting the narrative of fear roll of his tongue, he talked about the deteriorated mental condition of the soldiers and how things worked when it came to getting them help and the legal issues faced by their families. Lance was kind of sure no one wanted to sit through this, because he was pretty sure he was the only one who nerded out over the law these days. Keith had moved to stand behind Hunk, who was filming, his arms were crossed, feet shoulder width apart, with an amused look on his face that Lance felt like punching.

“And thank you for that Lance, somehow you made all the legal stuff seem that much more boring than last time. Alrighty then, why don’t we go see if we can find us a ghost?”

Hunk was already skittering, letting out a squeak as Pidge motioned for him to follow her, leaving Lance to fall into step beside Keith. Great. He couldn’t just leave Keith in town once everything was over. Not with Hunk and Pidge on a mission to make the man their friend

“Are you usually like that?”

Lance had no idea what Keith meant. Sure, he might get a little technical, but it wouldn’t be the first time, nor the last

“Like what?”

“All technical? Doesn’t it turn viewers away? I mean, I don’t think they needed to know about the bylaws of Garrison”

“Oh, shut up. We don’t get many views as it is”

“You’ll get even less if you spend the whole time ranting”

“I wasn’t ranting, I was explaining. A soldiers mentality doesn’t end on the battlefield. Most of them never wanted to die. Most of them never wanted to wrapped up in war to begin with. They fought for us and for what they believed in, and as a whole, we failed them. If we don’t educated people on the past then there’s not much hope for the future”

“You, like, really believe in this, don’t you?”

“I believe in the belief people hold. If that’s what you mean?”

“I mean this legal thing... isn’t there anything else you’d rather be doing?”

“Like ripping families apart so I can feast on their children?”

Keith groaned at him, Lance internally smirking. Yeah, he remembered and wasn’t going to forget any time soon

“In my defence, your lot are mostly scum”

“And what about me? You listened in this morning”

“I... don’t want to talk about that”

“Why? Does it make me all that much harder to kill knowing I actually care about my clients?”

“As you rob them in fees”

Keith’s comment rubbed him the wrong way, Lance spitting in an angry whisper

“Yep. I’m so horrible that I charged a family a whole $50 for hours of my time. You on the other hand, if I charged at douche prices, would be paying me something like $10,000 for taking up so much of my damn time. I know I’m a monster, you can lay off with the damn mocking”

Starting to jog to catch up with Hunk and Pidge, Lance wanted to go home to bed. His arm was aching, as was his ankle. He hadn’t had the chance to drink since jumping out the window and his lack of routine was really getting to him. Catching up to him again, Keith decided he still wanted to talk

“Why law?”

“Why law, what?”

“You could have been anything”

“I could have, but I don’t think you’d understand”

“Try me”

“Well, I don’t want kids out there to suffer. I don’t want to see them caught up in fights that should stay between parents. I want to stand up for them. Yeah, go ahead and laugh. I’m lame and I know it”

“So your own childhood trauma pushed you down this path. What would you have done if you’d never made it into law?”

Lance didn’t miss the way his words had thrown been back at him. Shrugging it off, he wasn’t letting Keith under his skin

“I could have been a dancer. I did entertain the idea of being a hairdresser, but a vampire with scissors means risking a cut and an accidental turning. I like my job. Can’t say I don’t like the idea of yours, but it wouldn’t be my first choice of career choice”

“Will you two shut up? You’re scaring the ghosts away”

Lance’s eyes accidentally met Keith’s, both of them snorting and looking away from each other. If only they were, then they could all head home early

“Sorry, Pidge. Keith was telling me how scared he was”

“I did not!”

“Shhhh... didn’t you hear Pidge? Your big mouth is scaring the ghosts away”

“Mine? You won’t shut up”

“Both of you shut up, or you’re being sent outside to wait”

Hunk raised his hand

“Uh, can I go wait outside?”

“You’re the camera man, grow a back bone!”

Hunk gave Pidge a mock salute at her snap, which she flipped him off over. Lance made the motion of zipping of his mouth and throwing away the key. Keith gave a shrug. Apparently he didn’t hold a healthy fear of Pidge... well, that wouldn’t remain for long.

No. Keith barely lasted half an hour before he incurred Pidge’s wrath. Like a misbehaving school child, Keith was sent to sit at the top of the stairs, all because he accidentally tripped over the lip of the door frame. Pidge was sure she’d seen some kind of ghostly orb, sent fleeing by Keith’s stupidity. Making the mistake of snorting over Keith being taken down a peg, Lance was sent to sit beside Keith... both of them not looking at each other, to avoid bursting into laughter because being in a time out was ridiculous. There wasn’t anything there. The orb was a reflection of light from the camera, and that’s all that’d been to it. When Hunk moved, the reflected light disappeared, Keith didn’t deserve being yelled at... but fuck it hadn’t been funny.

#once bitten twice stupid #ashrathe rose #klance #a/b/o #vampire Lance #idiot keith #bottom Lance in future

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pass-the-bechdel · 4 years

Text

Stargate SG1 full series review

How many episodes pass the Bechdel test?

43.6% (ninety-two of two hundred and eleven).

What is the average percentage of female characters with names and lines for the full series?

23.23%

How many episodes have a cast that is at least 40% female?

Thirteen.

How many episodes have a cast that is at least 50% female?

Three.

How many episodes have a cast that is less than 20% female?

Seventy-two.

Positive Content Status:

Well, it’s altogether not impressive - on the plus side, the one (1) original female lead on the show is a legitimately great character and a strong feminist icon who has thus far withstood the test of time, but on the negative side, it’s fucking slim pickings for quality female representation beyond that one character. I’d also like the register my displeasure at all the times when the intense heteronormative male-obsessed writers room churned out content which was so rooted in straight-white-cis-male-Christian-American ideology as to be utterly absurd when applied to alien beings and cultures, but with zero evidence that anyone had reflected in the least on that fact. It’s science fiction, morons. Get a clue (average rating of 2.96).

Which season had the best representation statistics overall?

Season ten has to take it - as the only season with two women in the main cast, it passed the Bechdel 80% of the time (its closest competitor in that regard was season five at 54.54%, the only other season to even make it over 50%). Season ten also scored a 26.93% female cast, which is rubbish compared to most shows, but it’s the second-best score in that category for this show: the season which got the highest female percentage was season two, at just 27.5%. Seasons two and ten also tied for the lowest number of 20%-or-less episodes, and season two had three episodes at 40%+ and one at 50%+ (whereas ten had only the one 40%+, and no fifties), so weird as it seems, we gotta dive back into the nineties to claim season two as the runner-up for best overall statistics.

Which season had the worst representation statistics overall?

It’s a battle between seasons six to nine: season nine had the series-low for Bechdel passes (30%), and for the female cast (an abysmal 19.07%). However, season six barely did better on either score (though it was not second-worst - that was season eight, on both counts), and on the other hand, season six had a below-average positive content score, and the highest number of 20%-or-less episodes for a single season (twelve - though, season nine hardly did better, at eleven - tied with season seven, which also had a below-average positive content score, and only 20.53% for its female cast, which is the ‘best’ score of that latter cluster of seasons, but to such a negligible extent it’s hard to pretend it matters). The only thing in season nine’s favour, really, is that it didn’t tank its positive content score, but coming in at average isn’t exactly a ringing endorsement - it’s gotta take the prize for worst overall statistics, with seasons six, seven, and eight all jumbled in to second-worst, because the numbers are altogether just not that different from each other. It’s a sad showing.

Overall Series Quality:

If you can stomach the absolute overload of white dudes (both onscreen, and making their identities sooo fucking obvious all the way from the writer’s room), it’s...pretty delightful. They really don’t make exciting adventurous shows like this anymore, and more’s the pity, because sometimes the wonder of stepping through the ‘gate and discovering grand, varied, bizarre, and challenging new things on the other side is exactly what we need.

MORE INFO (and potential spoilers) under the cut:

Woof.

I did say, going in, that I did not expect this show to perform well, but that I was interested to see if maybe it’d do better than it appeared at first glance. It didn’t. Boy oh boy, it did NOT. As I have also said, as I’ve gone along, they increasingly surprised me in a bad way with their escalating inability to conceive of female characters, existing. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: they were better at being inclusive of women in the nineties. They weren’t necessarily good at handling those women in respectful or intelligent ways, but they bothered to remember them in a limited capacity, and that was...ok, it wasn’t much of anything. I’m not going to praise the early seasons for having better numbers than the later ones even though ALL of the numbers sucked, any more than I’m gonna praise season ten for pulling the least-crappy scores out when we all know that’s a direct consequence of having two women in the main cast, and nothing more substantive than that, no actual effort or attempt to be better was involved. Early on, I thought that the fact that the Powers That Be had allowed Samantha Carter to move beyond her uncomfortable written-by-men straw-feminist-caricature origins to become a person in her own right was a great positive sign for the future, but that turned out to be a misdiagnosis. Not of Carter - she’s fantastic - but a misdiagnosis of the creative team as men who were willing to learn and develop and expand their intensely narrow perspective. That never happened. These writers did not learn.

To put the numbers in some additional perspective, let’s look at what we got in terms of recurring characters: as established, we had just the one main female character for the entire duration of the series. Vala, our final-season addition (appearing in just shy of thirty episodes out of more than two hundred), was not the second-most prevalent female character on the show: that would be Janet Fraiser, who was killed off in season seven but who appeared in almost half the episodes up to that point (almost half to that point, not for the show in totality, mind). So, we have Carter in over two hundred episodes, Fraiser in less than eighty, and then Vala, in twenty-eight. There are ten male characters who appear in as many episodes as Vala or more - five who appear in over one hundred episodes. After Vala? The next most prominent female character is Carolyn Lam, Fraiser’s eventual replacement, in a measly eleven episodes. Considering the show ran for TWO HUNDRED and eleven (three of those being movie-length episodes, none of which featured any of the female characters mentioned other than Carter)...in at least as many episodes as Lam, we have an additional ten male characters, bringing us to TWENTY recurring males, and four female. Carter, Vala, and the two primary base doctors. That’s IT for recurring female characters who appeared in at least ten episodes of over two hundred. Male characters? Take your pick, we’ve got soldiers, scientists, politicians, aliens, villains and friends and ambiguous third parties on and off Earth, we have a bounty. We’ve got random extras with no story of their own who look exactly the same as all the other random extras (do I mean Reynolds, or Marks? Doesn’t matter, they’re both more prevalent than Lam). Want one more female character, to make it a top five? It’s Adria, who appears in six episodes exclusively in season ten (no wonder that’s the season with the best numbers). You get another thirteen male characters in the process, so we’re at thirty-three to five. You want a top ten for female characters, you gotta get all the way down to the ones who only appeared in three episodes, and it’s a joke to really call that ‘recurring’ on this scale. When I say this show had a male-dominated problem, I am not exaggerating.

Where is the variety? You’re either a female lead (in which case, a primary part of your function is simply to BE female - and traditionally attractive - so that there’s some eye candy for the presumed straight-male audience), or you’re placed in the Compassionate Caregiver role as a doctor, or you...don’t exist. Certainly, you don’t exist in a way that sustains story for multiple episodes. As noted, if you’re a dude you don’t even NEED story, you can be a regular-recurring extra, but a woman? Forget about it. Even the female villains never last more than five episodes, if they manage that (the nameless Priors recurred more often than Adria did). And as the show wore on, episodes in which Carter was the ONLY woman became more and more frequent (until season ten, which just makes a big ol’ last-minute mess of the series-long trends). While this was good news in terms of having less sexy-lamp female guest characters popping in to single episodes to look pretty, be useless, and never appear again, it was bad news for women, existing in the narrative in any way, because evidently, these male writers struggled with the concept of women with actual functions. Even with such a variety of settings, a variety of planets and cultures and walks of life of all the dizzying kinds a person could think of (IT’S SCIENCE FICTION, MORONS), we still somehow get stuck with this itty little version of society that matches the comfortable white-Christian-American illusion of life that has been perpetuated blindly in television since its inception (pro tip: women existing in all different career paths and walks of life have been a thing since before tv shows were a thing). There’s more social variety on this planet in the real world, right now, but these dumb bastards couldn’t muster the effort to be creative with alien cultures. Hell, they failed to even be thoughtful or do basic research into historical social structures in order to reflect those in their transplanted-from-Earth-centuries-ago peoples (who had a lot of different ways of doing things, ya know?). And don’t even get me started on the gendered obsessions of genderless symbiotes...This show could be delightful and weird and wonderful with some of its ideas, but thoughtful, open-minded, PROGRESSIVE? Not at all. When you think about it, it’s actually quite alarming, just how reductive they could be. It’s like they made some minimal effort with Samantha Carter and then decided that’s it for anything or anyone who isn’t a straight-white-cis-Christian-American-man. Our work here is done.

Of course, I’m not inclined to give them credit for Samantha Carter anyway - as I noted back when I reviewed season one, credit goes to Amanda Tapping for sticking up for the integrity of a character who was originally written without any; just like the writers don’t get to take any of the credit for the work Christopher Judge did in making the Jaffa into less racist caricatures (including addressing the misogyny the writers had embedded in Jaffa warrior culture - bless you, Chris Judge), I am not going to pretend that Carter’s success as a feminist icon for the ages belongs to anyone but Amanda Tapping herself. A-Taps saved her character from the trash-heap of history to which she would have been relegated if she had continued in the model that the early episodes laid out, and whatever struggles she had behind the scenes with the kind of content she was handed (in particular I mean He Who Shall Not Be Named, Schmete Schmanahan), she never relaxed her grip on who Samantha Carter is, what she stands for, and what that means for the audience looking up to her. It’s a huge achievement, really, that despite the obvious brainless sexism of the writing staff, and despite the test of time which has claimed so many other nineties feminist icons as ‘good for the era, but actually incredibly problematic’ (we’re talking Dana Scully, Buffy, and their ilk), Carter is still pretty much unblemished; she’s close to a platonic ideal of her archetype. Again, I really don’t think it’s deliberate on behalf of the show-runners, and especially considering the rest of their atrocious track record with female characters it would be a mistake to suggest they actually knew what they were doing with Carter and/or that it mattered to them to make a truly strong female lead. If all they did was occasionally cave to Amanda Tapping when she told them to do better, well. They can have credit for not being too egotistical to listen, even though they failed to extend that ability to being basically receptive to the world outside that one interaction. Excuse me if I still think they’re fucking idiots. Because I do.

The thing about the closed-mindedness of the creative team on this show is that it translates into the storytelling in a very particular way: not just in the obvious sense (where only straight white American (*Canadian*) men are real people), but also in the context of the ethos of the show, the perspective. The characters learn and change as individuals, but the overarching attitude of the series does not develop in self-awareness to encompass the knowledge of the universe achieved by humanity at large, and that’s because, plainly, there is none. For all that the show deals in exploration, discovery, and advancement, these things are framed heavily as being scientific in nature, and just as the writers seem so confident that they know everything about the way the world works to the exclusion of even trying to understand the perspective of anyone different from them within their own culture, so the show itself never goes through self-reflection upon the America(n-military)-knows-best approach to interstellar exploration. While some early episodes - pretty much just in seasons one and two - toy with the idea that Earth knows little about the ways of the galaxy and we’re all ‘very young’, etc, there’s no development or change in approach over time which would be indicative of growth, and as the SGC garners more tech and allies and accelerates into scientific comprehension (largely applied through military enhancement, yay), questions about whether or not the gung-ho charge they lead into other worlds (sometimes with apocalyptic consequences) is really a good idea essentially dry up. There’s an overriding arrogance about this show that seems to be a by-product of that lack of self-reflection, the assumption that the audience will agree with whatever they see because, well, it seemed right to the creators and the fact that there might actually be more nuance to the issue never occurred to them. This can lead to some wild assertions and some truly shocking decision-making that is delivered straight-faced (season ten gave us the good guys committing genocide, in the name of the Ancients whom they uphold as a great species despite THEIR arrogant and terrible coloniser legacy throughout the universe, and somehow no one is troubled by any of that), and it’s a prime example of why an open-minded, considerate and understanding approach (and a diverse creative team to help facilitate that with their naturally different perspectives) is a really important thing in storytelling, even beyond the immediately obvious issue of representation: if everyone in the room has created an echo chamber of the same incredibly limited point of view, you lose the ability to recognise that alternate interpretations exist and that from some angles, what you’re making could be illogical, offensive, propagandistic, or evil.

So, here we are. With me, wrapping this thing up with a reminder that despite just accusing the show of sometimes supporting evil ideologies through the blind ignorance of its self-absorbed show-runners, I actually really enjoy Stargate SG1 and will always hold a special place for it in my heart. On an entertainment level, it is pretty reliable, there are some duds in there for sure (some of them duds for various illogical, offensive, propagandistic, or evil reasons, some of them just fucking boring as Hell), but for the most part it’s solid, and sometimes it digs up a gem and really shines. Every virtue it has is a virtue that could be vastly improved upon (and every flaw is easily solvable with just a little bit of Goddamn thinking), and the full template is there, primed for a remake of the more inclusive sort, something that’ll play the game of alien cultural variance and the intrigue of Earth-based politics and the gravity and wonder of galactic exploration with the seriousness, creativity, and gusto that it all deserves. The heart and soul of SG1, what made it work for ten years and what makes it delightfully re-watchable despite being infuriating upon analysis, that core part of the story is pure. Damned if it doesn’t just need a broader, more considered take on that core, because it ain’t got a bless’d thing to do with being a straight-white-cis-Christian-American dude. That’s not how universality works.

#Stargate SG1 #full series review #Bechdel Test #female representation #SG1

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thecomicsnexus · 5 years

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The Justice Society of America Initiates Johnny Thunder

ALL-STAR COMICS #6 AUGUST 1941 BY GARDNER FOX, EVERETT E. HIBBARD, STAN ASCHEMEIR, CLIFF YOUNG, BERNARD BAILY, BEN FLINTON, IRWIN HASEN AND SHELDON MOLDOFF

SYNOPSIS (FROM DC DATABASE)

Former Chairman of the JSA, and now Honorary Member, the Flash is invited to a special dinner in his honor at JSA HQ. Faced with finding a new member for the group, the members decide to put Johnny Thunder to the test to see if he is an appropriate replacement. They order him to track down Killer McPanzee. Johnny reluctantly agrees and leaves, not knowing that McPanzee is a harmless old codger who thinks he's tough. He even prints horrific crime-ridden newspapers, detailing crimes he supposedly has committed on his own printing press.

After having been shown phony newspapers about Killer McPanzee, Johnny heads out to capture the phony felon at his residence at 222 Park Lane Drive, unaware that the criminal element has also seen the newspapers and decided to take advantage of the situation. Johnny disguises himself when he arrives at McPanzee's home, but the criminals see through that and try to attack him, especially when they find out he's being initiated as a new JSA member. The Thunderbolt gives the crooks good manners, and they politely wrap Johnny up in a blanket and throw him in the river.

The Flash is contacted by Johnny's Thunderbolt and told that his pal is in desperate need of assistance from drowning at the hands of a counterfeiting gang headed by Edwards. Flash uses his speed to aid the counterfeiters in designing the currency and getting the plates to the presses. They run off so much money that it pours out of the house the press is in, alerting passersby. Then Flash rounds up Edwards and gets him jailed, while the duped McPanzee leaves shore in a rowboat for Europe.

Saved from drowning by the Thunderbolt, Johnny is once again pursued by a criminal element, and wishes that a pretty girl would come to comfort him. Inza appears, and Johnny wishes that Dr. Fate was also there because of the crooks attacking him. The Thunderbolt warns Fate of what is happening to Johnny and Inza, and, by the time he arrives, Johnny has disappeared, and Inza has been left behind. Doctor Fate then takes Inza with him to search for Johnny and runs into more crooks, who pose as mechanics in order to enter into and successfully rob banks. He enters their den and makes short work of them, depositing them in the city jail.

Johnny, hidden in the trunk of Inza's car when the crooks stole it, entered a garage where Dr. Fate had tailed the crooks. Johnny accidentally falls down a laundry chute into the midst of walking skeletons and asks for the Sandman to help him. Sandman discovers Johnny in the Playhouse of Horrors and shows Johnny that the skeletons are only actors However, Sandman discovers that crooks having been trying to extort protection money from the Playhouse and fights them, eventually locating and rounding up the entire organization in one fell swoop.

Back at JSA HQ, several members wonder where Johnny is, because the other members have been unable to locate him. Hour-Man heads downtown and notes a movie theater showing a film on Africa titled "Thrills of Africa" and reasons Johnny may be at the movies. What he finds instead is a group of felons disguised as gorillas, trying to heist the day's receipts. Tracking them to a museum, Hour-Man captures the gang and their leader, Wade, a former night watchman fired for drunkenness.

Johnny, meanwhile, is dejectedly walking down the street, not believing himself worthy of JSA membership, when some fellows offer him a chance to gamble and win some big money. Johnny loses, calls the men cheaters, and is kicked out. The Thunderbolt tells Al Pratt what happened to Johnny, so Al heads for the gambling den to search for him. Noting that the gamblers are using marked cards, Al leaves the room and returns as the Atom to wreck the joint and calls the police to arrest the crooks.

The Spectre now heads out to find Johnny and is suddenly attacked by a man with no head After dispatching him to the outer realms, the Spectre decides to track down the evil genius behind these headless creatures. He uses Jean, the fiancee of Bob Randall, as bait. However, Bob is taken prisoner by a mad scientist, as is Jean. The Spectre enters the scene again just in time to overcome the zombies and scientist.

Deciding to look for Johnny Thunder himself (and actually spotting him once), the Green Lantern sets off to seek out crime, running into a team of truck hijackers. Green Lantern rounds up several groups of hijackers and continues his search for Johnny.

After being thrown out of the gambling den, Johnny wishes for an airplane to whisk him away from the scene, and the Thunderbolt complies. Johnny wants to be down on a ship that he sees below him, and, again, the Thunderbolt complies. Johnny is then faced with a group of thugs, and Johnny calls out to Hawkman for help. The Thunderbolt tells Hawkman that Johnny now faces another peril, and he races off to help. Meanwhile, Shiera learns she has inherited a fortune and is kidnapped, forcing Hawkman to locate her and save her, while also locating Johnny, allowing him and the T-Bolt to clean up the ship's evil crew. The Thunderbolt finally rescues Johnny from the kidnappers and returns him, the ship, and McPanzee to JSA HQ where Johnny is finally approved for JSA membership.

REVIEW

As usual with All-Star comics, some pages connect all the features, while other pages are just independent stories made to look like they are part of the same story.

Some of these features were blended very well, and others were so disconnected it was jarring. I am pretty sure for the average kid this wasn’t a problem.

The dilemma of doing all these stories separately, is that in all of them, they face different criminals, sometimes with similar methods (instead of what this type of story would be these days, with one criminal throughout the issue). I think it’s fine, for Johnny Thunder’s case, as his powers seem so random (or that is what he thinks) that every different situation he runs into, has to seem similarly random.

I give this story a score of 7.

#everett e hibbard #dc comics #comics #review #1941 #golden age #justice society of america #jsa #johnny thunder #thunderbolt #the flash #hawkman #the atom #green lantern #sandman #doctor fate #the spectre #world war ii

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jomalley-ferrisbueller-final · 5 years

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A Closer Look at Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (John Hughes, 1986)

The 1980s was the time of the teen film, with a number of iconic teen films coming out during that decade. One that has become a staple of the classic teen film is Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (John Hughes, 1986). Ferris’ legendary day off has become a dream for teens then and now still being quoted today within the halls of high schools around the country.

Bueller didn’t hit the big screen in the summer of 1986 without its fair share of long and tedious production issues. Director John Hughes took a lot of his inspiration from his own life growing up. Raised in Chicago, this city becomes the setting for a majority of his films. In fact, there are even websites that pinpoint exact locations all throughout Illinois where Hughes shot classic movies such as Bueller, The Breakfast Club (John Hughes, 1985), and Home Alone (John Hughes, 1990). Looking at Buller specifically, a lot of aspects of the film reflect John Hughes. Ferris’s bedroom is created to look very similar to how Hughes’ room looked when he was a teenager, scenes for the film were shot in the hallways of his former high school, Glenbrook North and the character Ferris Bueller is actually based one of Hughes’ friends from his childhood with the same name. Edward McNally, a childhood friend of Hughes wrote an article for The Washington Post honoring the late director. As far as being named “the inspiration” for Bueller he is quoted as saying:

“…for years I was relentlessly pursued by a remarkably humorless Glenbrook dean about attendance, pranks and off-campus excursions -- and because my best friend was in fact named Buehler -- I've spent an inordinate amount of my life being unfairly accused of serving among the inspirations for Ferris Bueller.”

Looking at the production of the film, there were many different things that went into its creation. It only took three months to shoot the film between September 9, 1985, and November 22, 1985 which might not seem like a lot compared to how long shows or movies take to shoot today, but since a lot of their filming locations existed within miles of each other it was pretty easy to get everything shot in a short time. During the filming, John Hughes took some inspiration from Ferris on his impressive way to get the impossible done. The parade scene was shot during Chicago’s annual Von Steuben Day Parade. The float that Ferris is on was actually created for the film and was put in the parade route without the parade officials being aware of what was going on. With there being a real parade Hughes was able to get genuine footage of thousands of people enjoying a beautiful day in Chicago. When they needed to shoot more of the parade scene a week later, around 10,000 people showed up for the filming answering the call made on radio stations for extras to appear in a John Hughes film. In this scene, Ferris is featured lip-syncing the famous Beatles song “Twist and Shout” which came with its own set of issues. Paul McCarthy did not like the fact that Hughes had added the brass element to the song to make it seem as though the band was playing it at the parade. When John Hughes insisted on the Beatles song be used in the film, they ended up having to pay EMI $100,000 for the rights and allowance to change the song. While Hughes was adamant about some of the production decisions, they all proved successful in skyrocketing the film to one of the most fondly remembered films today.

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The marketing for the film was very straight forward. There were a couple of articles written about the film in both the Daily News and well as The New York Times talking about the movie, giving an unbiased explanation of the film to promote it. There were also several 30-second commercials giving hints at Ferris’ crazy day off. Appealing to the teen audiences that Hughes is trying to relate to, the announcer narrates over scenes of the film saying, “it’s about life, it’s about liberty, it’s about the pursuit of recreation”. This phrasing attracts teenagers to the film because that is what they are looking for – freedom from the norm.

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Looking at the posters for the film it features many different slogans such as “One man’s struggle to take it easy”, “Because life is too beautiful a thing to waste”, “Leisure rules”, “While the rest of us were just thinking about it…Ferris borrowed a Ferrari and did it…all in a day”. Similar to the commercials, these phrases draw the teenager in because that type of thinking is really appealing to them.

A teenager stuck in the rut of high school wants nothing more than to skip school and live out an amazing day with their best friends. This mentality is what brought teens to the theaters to live through Ferris.

The summer of 1986 saw a lot of hit films. Buller had some tough competition seeing films such as Top Gun (Tony Scott, 1986), Aliens (James Cameron, 1986), Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (Leonard Nimoy, 1986), and The Karate Kid Part II (John Avildsen, 1986) all hitting theaters in 1986. In the United States and Worldwide Box offices, Bueller placed in the top 10 of both lists sitting in the number 10 spot for all 1986 films. The budget for the film was an estimated $6,000,000 and not only broke even but made money-generating $6,275,647 during their opening weekend of June 15, 1986. Bueller, made nearly all of its money from domestic box offices bringing it $70,136,369 and only $1,469 in international box offices. Looking at the reception of the film it is easy to see how it was in the top 10 films of 1986.

Roger Ebert was one of the top movie reviewers of his time up until his death in 2013 after losing an eleven-year battle with cancer. Writing reviews for The Chicago Sun-Times for over 40 years, he became the first film critic to receive a Pulitzer Prize in Criticism. In 1986 he gave a review of Bueller and is quoted as saying “Here is one of the most innocent movies in a long time, a sweet, warm-hearted comedy about a teenager who skips school so he can help his best friend win some self-respect.” He talks about the plot of the film and ends his review by saying “…the film's heart is in the right place, and "Ferris Bueller" is slight, whimsical and sweet.” With Ebert’s review coming out on June 11, 1986, it’s easy to see that Bueller won over the hearts of teens and adults alike wishing that they were able to have a day off like Ferris did.

The non-critical reviews of this film are all pretty similar, it is regarded as a film of the generation that holds against the test of time. On Rotten Tomatoes, of the 728,405 user ratings, the average audience score is a high 92%. One “super reviewer”, Brendan N. is quoted as saying

“Classic cult film and a must-see for all generations. John Hughes created a lot of the teenage angst or coming of age films in the 80s and Ferris was quite possibly his greatest creation. Watching this on the big screen last night was a dream come true but having a film like this remaining so timeless does not hurt. The film is full of heart and the charm of Matthew Broderick is what elevates this from becoming just your average teenage comedy. I wish they would make more fun and creative films like this; no one tackles such a fun concept without falling into clichés and crude jokes. John Hughes created something truly special here. 12/11/2018.”

Since its release in 1986, Bueller, has remained a pivotal teen film for multiple generations. In 2016, Bueller turned 30 years old and Chicago celebrated the only way they knew how to: with a Ferris Fest. People were able to visit his heavily decorated bedroom, recreate the scene where Ferris pretends to be Sloan’s father picking her up from school, and of course a recreation of the famous parade scene featuring Twist and Shout. While this is more of a high scale remembrance of the 1986 film, you can see other companies paying homage to Bueller. During the 2017 Superbowl, Dominos aired a commercial where they recreated the infamous scene of Ferris racing home to get there before his parents find out he skipped school. Stranger Things (Matt Duffer, Ross Duffer, 2016—) actor Joe Keery plays Ferris but this time he is racing home because his Domino’s pizza tracker just sent a notification to his smartwatch informing him that his pizza is about to arrive. When asked about the commercial the executive vice president of creative direction at CP&B said "This being an iconic movie we knew we had to pay homage to it and not deviate, not change it and put our own kind of spin on it outside of using Joe Keery and maybe making it a modern adaptation,".

Below you can see the original scene and then Joe Keery version.

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It can be agreed that this film has been relevant way past its release date. But why is that? Frances Smith looks to understand teen films as a whole and why they become so iconic. In her book Rethinking the Hollywood Teen Movie: Gender, Genre, and Identity, she explores this question and more. In Easy A (Will Gluck, 2010), the main character Olivia (Emma Stone) struggles to identify with the “hook up culture” happening around her within the high school hallways. She looks to the eighties to fantasize about a better life.

Whatever happened to chivalry? Did it only exist in Eighties movies? I want John Cusack holding a boom-box outside my window. I want to ride off on a lawnmower with Patrick Dempsey. I want Jake from Sixteen Candles waiting outside the church for me. I want Judd Nelson thrusting his fist in the air because he knows he got me just once. I want my life to be like an eighties movie.” (138-139)

To this Smith says:

This voiceover and the corresponding images reference Say Anything (Cameron Crowe, 1989), Can’t Buy Me Love (Steve Rash, 1987), Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, which is presented for its musical number. With the exception of Sixteen Candles, all of these films center on male characters who, though cheeky, are portrayed as sexually innocent. The gestures to which Olive refers are particularly telling. Having her life ‘directed by John Hughes’ appears to involve her engaging in ostentatious courtship rituals in which the female partner is the grateful recipient of male affection, however dubious the circumstances in which it is bestowed.

Olivia dreams of having the production that teen heartthrobs would perform for their love interests. This is one reason that Bueller has remained so relevant today. No matter how the culture changes, everyone wants someone who would be willing to show the world how much they love them.

Another reason that this film has remained so relevant today is because of the underlying theme within the film is something that will never go away. The drive to find yourself and get out of your small town to explore is something that will always be a shared feeling among teenagers. In Kimberly M. Miller’s Clueless Times at the Ferris Bueller Club: A Critical Analysis of the Directional Works of Amy Heckerling and John Hughes she says

A fine example can be found in the response to the film Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, which received criticism for being too similar to Risky Business (Paul Brickman, 1983), as well as “lacking in irony,”10 and yet Ferris has become ingrained in the popular culture—even being ranked number ten on Entertainment Weekly’s “Fifty Best High School Movies” list (2012),11 in addition to being quoted by teens who see Ferris as a role model of “cool” despite the nearly thirty years that have passed since he took his day off.

Teens idolize him for doing what they have always wanted to do so they are able to live through him and his amazing day off.

Overall, Hughes has delivered a number of teen films that lasted well past their release date and will continue to be relatable in the future. Bueller is the perfect example of this because its underlying themes will never go out of style. Everyone wants to be a “righteous dude” and live their lives with the carefree regard for the rules that Ferris showed us back in 1986.

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heysawbones · 6 years

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Congratulations, Me; You’re Slow

Surprise, me! You’re literally slow. As in, your processing speed - the rate at which your brain takes in stimuli and makes sense of it - is below average. Quantitatively. The average is 100. Yours is 94.

Three years ago, I was given a cognitive battery. I’ve had an unusually high number of these in my life. Most people will never have even one. I’ve had four; one to assess for the Gifted and Talented program in kindergarten, one to reassess for the same when I changed school districts, one to assess for ADHD, and yet another, the latest, to assess for the same, as the prior records were lost. ADHD runs in my family, but I seem to have been one of those kids who compensated really, really well. Was I organized? Not even a little. Lose things? Constantly. I procrastinated like a motherfucker, too, but it was usually easy to make up the work in class before it was due. I would drive hard to complete the GT project-based assignments at the last minute, and always did fine. Better than fine, even. Sure, I used to obsessively braid yarn or draw in class, but nobody had any reason to suspect I would have issues with things like maintaining attention or executive function later on. If they did, I never heard about it. Even today, it’s not obvious; people associate a certain flightiness with ADHD and that isn’t me. People associate a lot of things with ADHD that aren’t me. This has been so much of an issue, in fact, that despite meeting diagnostic criteria over and over, as admitted by clinicians, people have been hesitant to give me the diagnosis. The argument deployed tends to be: you have all the symptoms, but you also have chronic depression, which has the same symptoms, so we’ll just go with that one. The underlying rationale, the unspoken answer to “why can’t it be both? they often co-occur” seems to be: you are too articulate and self-aware to have ADHD. It boils down to you’re too smart to be slow.

This is unfair to me, and demonstrably untrue, besides. I recognized this long ago. I am the one who has to figure out some way to compensate for the symptoms. Yes, the symptoms of depression and ADHD overlap (especially if you are depressed for a long time), but the treatment of those symptoms is not the same. I have been in treatment for depression for over ten years. Am I better than I was? Unquestionably so.

Do I function at a level sustainable for an adult not on disability? Can I get places on time? Can I catch a plane without showing up 14 hours early, lest I show up 14 hours late, or at the wrong airport entirely, instead? Do I remember things people told me yesterday? Can I go to Target without the possibility of getting caught up in a weird cognitive trap where I want bananas, but am too guilty to buy them unless I do the rest of my grocery shopping, which I don’t have the mental energy for? Do I remember enough of my meds when I go on trips? Can I stop persistently putting things in places that make no sense, and then having no idea that I’ve done it 15 seconds later? Can I manage an adult’s schedule? Can I remember to pay bills on time? Can I remember what I’ve spent money on in the last week? Can I remember what I ate this morning? Can I hold down a job that is, honestly, below my abilities in many ways?

The answer is, of course, sometimes yes. Distressingly frequently, it is no. Where travel is concerned, it is always no, and somehow, I have managed to show up at the wrong airport entirely more than once.

Yes, I recognize that these are problems all people have, to some degree, at some time in their lives. If people are willing to act on the belief that I am too smart to be slow, why is it that when I account for my concerns and attempt to articulate the impact they have on my life, I am suddenly not self-aware anymore, and am only overreacting to what obviously MUST be the same degree of these problems that other reasonable adults experience? Why am I credible in other areas, but not this one? If I am so smart, why is it assumed that I’ve failed to account for my own emotional bias when gauging the difficulty I am experiencing? Why is it more satisfying to assume that I am not trying hard enough, then it is to accept that a smart, self-aware person may, in fact, have some kind of Brain Problem that, really, there is no logical contraindication to, and much evidence, for? When I do the responsible thing and insistently pursue all reasonable options to address my mental and neurological health, with the goal of being a functional contributor to society, why is this so persistently reduced to a fetish specifically for an ADHD diagnosis? I’m smart when it’s convenient for others, but not when it comes to the ability to draw cause and effect relationships from my own behavior, and make comparisons between those and the behavior of others? If I got treatment that worked, I wouldn’t care what the diagnosis was. Come the fuck on. I’m tired of this.

-----

Anyway. I sat down with the results of that three-year-old cognitive battery. I’ve read the summary before; it’s peppered with lines like

“There is also considerable other evidence in this testing consistent with a diagnosis of ADHD”

“In my experience, some individuals who are very bright are able to compensate for some of their disability”

“this distribution of index scores is very typical of individuals with ADHD”

“Many of the behaviors she describes are certainly typical of individuals who suffer from ADHD. Unfortunately, the coexisting history of chronic major depression and PTSD make that differential diagnosis based on history alone difficult”

When I first read that last year, I was shocked because the therapist who requested the cognitive battery, only expressed surprise that I was “very smart” and said that my “scores were fine.” When I later confronted him after having read the summary myself, he merely admitted that some of my scores were “lower than others”. He never entertained the possibility that I had ADHD, which in an of itself, wouldn’t have been a problem if he’d been willing to just try the treatments for it, since clearly the two industrial-strength doses of antidepressants I was already on, were not cutting it. Alas, he was not, and it wasn’t until after he retired that the issue was addressed again.

Surprisingly, I was not the person who addressed it. When my therapist-MD retired, I needed at least a primary care provider to manage my medications. Since the appointment was for psych med management, I had to fill out a bunch of related intake forms - you likely know the kind. While looking them over, my new doctor peered up at me and asked, “Has anybody ever suggested that you might have ADHD?” I was taken aback by the question and wasn’t sure where to start. Them? Asking me? if I have ADHD? She asked me?

I told her that I’d had two full cognitive batteries done, and that both of them concluded roughly the same thing: yes, all the symptoms are there, no, we do not know if it’s ADHD because there’s too much background noise from other psych issues. Without skipping a beat, she said the most amazing thing to me:

Well, whatever it is, you have the symptoms, so let’s treat them.

God. Why didn’t someone say that years ago? Diagnoses are human constructs; we use them to group symptoms that tend to occur together, when they’re thought to have the same causes. Depression and ADHD have many (but not all) of the same symptoms, but the overlap doesn’t qualify as a diagnosis because the causes are assumed to be different. I think we often forget that diagnoses are containers for commonalities that we use to make talking about medicine easier, not necessarily biological phenomena unto themselves. If you remember that they are containers - a sort of conceptual shorthand - then it follows that if one treatment for a set of symptoms isn’t solving the problem, you ought to try a different treatment often used for the same symptoms, even if the minutiae of diagnosis means you aren’t sure you can apply the diagnosis typically associated with that second treatment*.

I am now on Vyvanse. Does it magically solve my problems? No. Does it help? Yes. I am in a much better position to actually address the bad habits and coping mechanisms someone like me builds up over the years. The notable insomnia should wear off over time, and besides, as a person with an existing sleep disorder, having fucked up sleep isn’t new. It’s a price I’m willing to pay.

-----

Anyway. So I sat down with the results of that three-year-old cognitive battery, because I had to dig them up for my new therapist. Instead of reading the summary, I dug into the raw numbers: the related tests are the Weschler Adult Intelligence Scale IV (WAIS-IV), and the Weschler Memory Scale III (WMS-III). I couldn’t find sufficient guidance on interpreting the WMS-III, so I’ll stick with the WAIS-IV scores:

At first inspection, these scores do look “fine”. Anything within 10 points of 100 in either direction qualifies as “average”, even if 100 is “the average”. But on further reading, both in the summary and out:

-Examination of these results reveals considerable significant variability between various functional capacities, with VCI of 141 a full 3 standard deviations above PSI of 94.** Problems with both working memory and processing speed impacted her overall IQ considerably, bringing her Full Scale IQ down to 120 (from 133).

-A significant difference among subtest scores can suggest a problem in the particular skill being tested; this might underlie a learning disability. A significant difference among standard Index Scores might also indicate a learning disability, ADHD

-when I see a difference in IQ scores such that the verbal and nonverbal scores are far superior to the processing speed score, I try to discern what could be causing the discrepancy.

-LD diagnoses are also reliant on score discrepancies. On the WAIS, a gifted individual with ADHD may look like this.

Verbal comprehension - 132

Perceptual Reasoning - 129

Processing Speed - 97

Working memory - 101

Absolute scores aren’t the only diagnostic tool. Relative scores are also important. For example, average scores across the board wouldn’t be indicative of a working memory or processing speed issue, whereas great discrepancies between those parameters and others, is - even if the working memory and processing speed scores themselves are the same in both examples. What I’m saying is, it’s right there. It’s in the numbers. There’s no wiggle room. My old therapist saw these numbers, and not only did he choose not to act on the information, he pointedly refused to do so. If he hadn’t retired, I’d look into suing for malpractice. It’s in the god damn numbers, my dude. I don’t care what you want to call it, the deficit is right. there.

What did I ever do to him? Did he just... not believe ADHD is real? More to the point, did he think I somehow, without knowing the ins and outs of the WAIS-IV, faked the deficits or something? Really, guy, what the hell?

-----

Do I feel bad about being slow? Honestly, no. I might have if I found this out 10 years ago, or in circumstances wherein that reality didn’t perfectly explain aspects of my experience that other people have been prone to downplay, or dismiss entirely. Instead, it’s the closest I can get to scientific verification that I’m not just losing my shit over nothing over here; that something has, in fact, gone awry, and may always have been awry. I couldn’t compensate forever (though the ways I’ve done it are many, and in retrospect, interesting) and now I’m on the other end of it, trying to rebuild. I am, as I like to say, building an exoskeleton - something that will hold me up when my brain insists on faceplanting. I’m just grateful there’s someone out there who isn’t too caught up in the semantic navel-gazing of diagnosis, to help.

*There are obvious exceptions here, such as when the two diagnoses have causes whose treatment is contraindicated in the other diagnosis. This is not the case with depression and ADHD.

** You see that Percentile Rank of 34? That means I performed better than 34 percent of people my age, at least according to the test sample. That’s. Not great.

#blah blah blah #twice exceptional #ADHD #depression #mental health

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btsjeonjazz · 6 years

Text

Van Gogh pt. 1

Taehyung x reader

genre: teasing tension, tutor!Taehyung, badboy!Taehyung

word count: 10.1k

We purple you!

inspired by:

Who would have guessed that Kim Taehyung, honorable student and your tutor, had some dark secrets?

You stepped inside the library with your hands packed with several textbooks you had lent to try to get the last few lessons in your head. Failing miserably. Unable to concentrate you had argued with your friend, Jenny, who was a lazy bitch not helping you at all although the next exams would be in four weeks. It was time you caught up with the pace the other students dealed with without repeating the semester. Your last and final hope was the tutor your professor had spoken from, a guy who was two years above, an honour student everyone adored and looked up to thanks to his kindness and understanding in front of his fellow younger students who needed help with their studies. And today one of the art literature lessons you had missed because of moving into your new apartment was held by the so called top student, Kim Taehyung.

You had heard many rumours about him and you weren't sure if you had ever seen him in person, but as someone held open the heavy doors leading to the library you knew exactly who he was.

“Thanks”, you mumbled, your books suddenly lifted off of your arms.

“No need to say thank you”, a low, melodic and calm voice said and by the time you were finally able to see the guy behind the kind action you knew who he was from a yearbook photo Jenny had shown you. Silky, straight brownish hair. Big, crescent brown almost ebony colored eyes behind black, round glasses. Heartily shaped lips that were as red as your lipstick and a toned, tall body dressed in a squared shirt and casual wide pants, a big bag hanging from his shoulder. And by god, the charming smile curving one side of his red mouth made you freeze as you looked Kim Taehyung in his friendly shining eyes. Jenny was right, Taehyung was a beautiful guy whose handsomeness was topped by his soft smile and his nice treatment towards everyone, even you, a stranger.

Trying to get a few books for yourself to carry he nodded inside, his foot holding the big door open whilst you rushed inside the dusty, like old books smelling library where only a couple of other people sat quietly hung over their textbooks. The atmosphere changed as some of them saw the man beside you, their gloomy faces lighting up with smiles his way.

“You must be Taehyung, aren't you?”, you asked as you followed him inside, his large hands getting rid of the books as he threw them on the counter beside the entrance. Not even the librarian was working this late afternoon.

The tall handsome with the tiny smile painting his lips turned around, his dark eyebrows arched high. “And you are?”

“Y/n”, you chirped, shooting him an apologising smile. “I'm one of the average students who need help from a certain top student. And that must be you.”

You expected him to laugh at you but the dark chuckle escaping his throat accompanied by a gesture to move towards an alcove was all you got. Sitting on the padded chair you waited for the guy to do it alike, but instead he checked the time and left you alone. The hell? Standing up to rush wherever he was going you saw him pushing in a blackboard. You thought he would explain the basics or how the group work functioned, but not that he was gone faster than the wind once you sat down.

“We should wait for the others to come”, Taehyung's low vocals said, the skin around his black orbs crinkling from his wide, encouraging smile. “We're a bit early, so take a seat.”

Surprised you nodded, feeling slightly ashamed about the fact that you would have to learn with other students, feeling dumb and below average.

“No need to be so quiet, y/n”, you were encouraged by your new tutor, his faint smile getting brighter the more you relaxed. “A lot of freshmen come here and join us and ask for help. And the most important issue is passing your exam.”

“Still, I try my best”, you answered him with a lot more power, earning another chuckle that was so dark the hair on your arms stood up. You wondered how someone like him was able to walk around alone on campus. And how you could've never seen him! Kim Taehyung was a man with charisma. His whole being glowing with enthusiasm and intellect. The way he moved through the library as if he owned it, smiling to everyone and still able to turn heads with his amazing looks. Although you didn't want to stare at him so bluntly, you couldn't stop yourself from imaging him opening the buttoned shirt, taking off his round glasses as he tilted his head to read over the backside of a book's cover. There was something irresistible on Taehyung, as if he showed his best self to hide other things you were more than glad to discover all alone for yourself.. Sitting straighter you cleared your throat. Daydreams came later, first you had to prove yourself.

Not even ten minutes passed and your small group of nine people, all girls, sat quietly in the niche, watching Taehyung explaining the parts you had missed the last weeks. Well, they did nothing but to watch him, unlike you who scribbled so many notes down your paper you had to sort them out at home the next day. Of course you glanced up and down his body here and there, but that was not what you came for. Yet. But after an hour you felt as if you had understood more than you ever did in the lessons of your professors, grateful you had participated in this. Taehyung was a great tutor and the way he put simple examples in the lesson made it easier to follow – not talking about the smiles which encouraged you to keep your head down the paper after all.

“Y/n, did you understand?”, Taehyung was taking the blackboard back at it's place after the others said their farewells. But you had a few more questions as to why you helped him cleaning the library until it was back to it's previous state. “You seemed eager to get what I taught.”

“Oh, I was eager and by god, you're such a good tutor. I wanted to give up literature and art, but now I think if I participate a few more times I get on the right path again”, you cheerfully announced. It felt like a wonder that you understood parts Jenny failed to express as your newly found tutor did. “I definitely come back for more lessons the next days! If..if there is anything I could do to help you out, just tell me. It only fair to pay for your time.”

The blackboard in the back of a storage room Taehyung led you to the exit. “That's good to hear. Come whenever you want, that's what I'm here for anyway. No need to say such things, y/n. I'm not in debt and I like what I do. But now excuse me, Professor Min had asked me to do some tasks for his experiment tomorrow. See you around, y/n.”

Nodding again you were astonished by his efforts, your mouth slightly agape to hear your strictest professor's name falling so easily from your tutor's red lips. That meant he was really the honourable student of this university whose responsibilities were huge and heavy, but respected by the strictest teachers around.

“Professor Min?”

“Ah, yeah, he's difficult to deal with, but he's also fun and as it is my last semester before I graduate and start in the same position as him, I have to play nice”, he shrugged his shoulders, holding open the doors for you a second time that evening. “Get home safely, y/n.”

“I will, thank you so much again.”

Waving back you heard the doors closing behind you, your heart freed from the stones of insomnia and fear because of the upcoming exams thanks to non other than Kim Taehyung.

You had visited the library daily now, a week later finally back to where you used to be with your studies, Taehyung a great teacher to you, explaining everything calmly and in details. His point of views were different and it made it so much easier to understand the lessons you learned and by the end of three weeks you had given him back a test exam he handed out to you, ready to be scored. In only a short time you developed the clenching feeling of springs butterflies inside you which whenever you saw Tae bounced up and down, mostly to signal your arousal from his low vocals whispering to you after the lessons to explain details you asked for. He had touched your shoulder, his thighs against yours and you wanted him so bad that you lost track throughout the hours you sat there listening to him teaching your group. Oh, you weren't the only girl thinking that way wherefore you knew that daydreams should stay what they were; made up illusion and fantasies that helped you through the day without having the chance to be real at all. Your attractive tutor was highly coveted and you weren't the prettiest girl of them all who was crazy for him.

“We should hurry”, you pulled Jenny behind you as she was lazing around, slandering with her pumps behind you to throw heart eyes down the hall towards two guys leaning against the lockers. “Taehyung is waiting and I want my test back as long as he's still there!”

Suddenly a laugh was heard behind you, the two thugs glancing your way, foul mouths calling several phrases behind you. “Taehyung is an idiot, girls. No need to rush to that looser.”

“Right?”, the other patted his friend laughingly on his arm. “I bet his mom makes his lunches in the morning. So, wanna grab a drink with us instead, cuties?”

Of course Jenny stopped, looking over her shoulder with a curve on her pink painted lips. But you pulled her back, she was your friend and shouldn't deal with those jerks bad mouthing the one guy who was more intelligent than the both of them combined, a free spirited young man who was kind and saw the things out of different views – not to mention his god like looks. Therefore you forced Jenny further down the hall until you heard another comment out of their mouths that made you contemplating your life choices.

“I heard he secretly fucks professor Min to get his high grades. What a little cock sucker-”

“Say that again”, you demanded, spinning around with a menacing glare down the corridor, seeing that the both of them walked towards you, Jenny tugging on your sleeve.

“Oh come on, y/n. Stop that and just move on”, she whispered, holding you at your place. But it was too late, the thugs already hovering in front of you.

One of them grabbed your arm, his thumb circled around your bare skin and the shudder running down your spine was nothing more than disgust.”I love girls with a loose mouth, sweetie.”

Smacking his hand away you spat in his face, full of anger: “And I love to smack your fucking face, sweetie. Stop bad mouthing him if you don't know him at all.”

“Big words”, the other laughed again, and the sound started to get on your nerves.

The delicate girl on the other side pulled at your shirt's hem, but before you could turn around you were held by the guy's hand again. “Don't be feisty, girl. I'll be a lot nicer than Mr. goody-two-shoes..”

“Not if I'm around. Now fuck off”, a familiar voice sounded through the large corridor, the dark vocals of the man with the black glasses echoing from the many lockers. “I said fuck off or do you want to fail your classes again?”

Your heart pounded at the sound of the low voice of your professor, Min Yoongi, reaching the small group of yours, the guy gripping your arm letting go with an annoyed 'tsk'. He even apologised to Professor Min as he reached your small circle with a cold glare down the two thugs pestering you.

“Don't get yourself in trouble, Miss y/l/n. Your grades are finally getting up again and if you get distracted by such things you better hurry home and learn twice as much”, the young professor reprimanded you, his dark eyebrows arched high as you blankly stared at him, Jenny next to you also drawn by his unbelievable young, attractive features you had never noticed in the sticky class room. His black hair was streaked with lighter spots, his skin of a paleness you had never witnessed on a living person before. But what you found most interesting were his almond shaped eyes which were even darker than Taehyung's chocolate brown pupils.

“The library is closing in two minutes, Miss y/l/n”, Professor Min said with his heart shaped mouth, his gaze lingering on you longer than comfortable.

Wh-what was closing? You were fascinated by the way your teacher tilted his head with an indifferent expression, an unamused, distant grin faintly on his pink lips. You stared. Shit, he was your superior in the university not any other guy you could stare at! And the moment you dared to look away you realized what he just said. Taehyung would be gone for a week without your new papers if you wouldn't hurry up and get to the library to hand them out and get the text back.

Turning on your toes you hastily added a: “Thank you for stepping in, Mr. Min!”, before you rushed down the hallway, hearing your professor's voice calling after the two of you.

“No running in the hallways, Miss y/l/n!”

You expected Taehyung to sit in the front lounge, his bangs hanging over his round glasses reading the next parts of the literature novel he worked on the past week. To see a guy as good looking as him being ambitious about his career and future filled you with strange excitement. Which didn't mean you threw an eye on him more than sexual, did it? But as you stepped through the heavy wooden doors you were surprised not to see him sitting in one of the seats in front of you. Not even the librarian herself was present. With reluctant steps you looked through alley after alley to see if the tall guy was sitting anywhere near lost in some books. And then you witnessed a brown thatch between some shelves, Taehyung's signature watch on his wrist as he pressed his phone against his ear. Luckily Jenny told you to go alone as her shoes gave her the rest, not even talking about the big campus you had to cross and the uncountable stairs you had rushed up to reach Taehyung before he was gone and the university closed for one entire week. At first you contemplated to leave and wait in the hall for him, but as you repressed your panting you were too curious what he was talking about with his furrowed eyebrows, an expression on his angelic face you had never seen in the lessons he taught. Covered in shadows, grinning and superior.

Hiding behind a bigger bookshelf you sneaked your head over the first line of the many dusty textbooks from Shakespeare to Jean Paul Sartre back to classic textbooks professors loved to read with their students. Taehyung's voice usually had a darker bass, but the husky hushes you could hear gave you goosebumps. Normally he was like a cheerful, but quieter young man, funny and a perfect listener, but right now you thought you would see another side of him with the bangs falling over his eyes.

“..the exhibition at the museum? I'm sure they will be there this weekend..”, was all you could hear before your head twitched to the side, the librarian on her way towards you. Her pumps clacked over the parquet whilst you acted as if something fell down, avoiding her suspicious gaze. Why now?

“Miss y/l/n, I'd like you to leave in a few minutes. I want to close down the venue early tonight”, she said, her young face not matching her body's posture and the grey wool pullover she wore over her knitted skirt.

Nodding you prayed that Taehyung didn't notice you, but right then as you turned around you saw his slim, tall statue next to you, his hand on your shoulder. “We will stay behind a while longer, Viola. I don't mind cleaning up and locking the door afterwards”, his melodic vocals sent shivers down your spine, his long bony fingers on your shoulder intensifying it. It was too out of reach to deny it now. You were insanely attracted to him, as any other girl had hearts in their eyes when he walked passed him with his long legs and those round glasses, all nice and charming while giving them his best smiles.

“Don't forget to water my cactus before you go, Taehyung”, the librarian said, her cheeks a shade darker and you swore it was caused by the dark stare of the man beside you. You couldn't see it, but you knew how electrifying and kind of intimating it could be.

Her steps got quieter the further she was away and by the time the door fell in it's lock you glanced up. Just to see Taehyung smile evilly at you.

“You peeped on me, didn't you, y/n?”, he nudged your arm, his smile not vanishing a second. “It was a joke, don't give me that look of pure panic. Better hand over your test exam so I can proof read it before the university closes for a week.”

Nodding you gulped down the nervous knot in your throat that made it difficult to talk to him. It was the first time since you started participating in this learning group that you two were all alone without a single student in the library with you and it made you strangely aware of your tutors specific behaviour. He was quiet, fond of the nature and artistic, which resulted in studying art and literature, but there was more to him than he wanted you to know. But you died to discover it.

“First peeping on me and now staring?”

He shook you out of your thoughts, your eyes glued to his face whilst he pulled up his dark brows. Meanwhile Tae took a seat in the niche you had learned in so far, his brown bag next to him and your essay on his lap. You were a little nervous about his opinion on your sheets you had sat on the whole night again.

“I'm not staring either!”, you finally pressed out of your mouth, your face heating up the longer his brown orbs lay on you, kind of inspecting you from head to toe.

Instead of answering Taehyung grinned to himself while he took your essay and a red pen. Would he read it here? Now? Not sure of what to do you shifted on your feet, your view sliding over the many bookshelves ere they ended up on your tutor again. And again until you gave up and blankly stared at him for a while. There was no one else like him. Tall, perfectly build, brownish hair, glowing skin. And such a voice, oh my. He could read to you all day, the lamest novels and you'd still be fascinated by the way he pronounced some things with his bass like vocals.

As he didn't react you slowly circled the table, sitting straight down on the chair across his own. “So..”

“So?”, came the short response, Taehyung's attention still down the paper. His pupils moved so fast you were sure he couldn't read it all and understand everything you described correctly. But he surprised you more often than you wanted to give him credit for.

How should you start a conversation? You went the simplest way. “So uhm..Do you have any plans for the upcoming week? We're off of uni..uhm..” God, you were such a sheep. Why did you stutter so much? That wasn't like you.

“If I have any plans? I do”, Taehyung spoke into the silence evolving after a while, cutting the awkwardness with his lopsided grin. He changed his position whilst putting the sheets aside, bending forward with his elbows on the table. “Do you?”

His gaze distracted you. The big glasses slid a little down and you were confident that you had never seen anyone as attractive as your fellow mate's uneven eyelids and the tiny mole below his right eye.

“I-I do..I mean I don't. Yet”, you said hastily stumbling over your own voice.

“Nothing fun to do? You're young, y/n, enjoy yourself a bit”, Taehyung tilted his head, the innocence of his usually calm state drifting away to make place for something unidentifiable.

Unintentionally you squirmed on your seat. “Tell me what someone young does then.” It costed you a lot more courage to raise your voice to an audible tone. The expressions on his face changed, the common smile replacing the grin from before as he spoke up again.

“You might know that down the town is a really pretty museum, right? There's a vernissage this week, so this would be my first thought to recommend to you.”

“Really?”, suddenly you sat a little straighter, your face lighting up, the nervousness shaking off. “That's what you-” Shut up, you scolded yourself throwing a fit inside your head. Now it was out that you had listened in on him and tha fact was seen all over Taehyung's perfect face.

“I did what, y/n?”

“N-nothing”, you scratched your scalp in attempt of shyness. Usually you were everything but shy, a little savage at times, but he somehow did magic on you you couldn't escape from. “Okay, I heard something about a museum from you as you talked over the phone. But I didn't mean to peep on you or anything!”, you defended yourself with that lie.

Taehyung on the other side nodded and slid even closer to you over the table, his long, beautiful fingers suddenly stroking over yours. “You shouldn't listen to other's conversations, got that, y/n? You could peep on the wrong people who aren't as nice as I am.”

His skin touched yours a little too firm, his hand enclosed around both of yours. The change in atmosphere was almost touchable, but then Tae put on his signature lopsided grin and showed you his perfect row of teeth. What should you say to that? It sounded like a subliminal threat with his hand on yours, but ended with a chuckle on his side cutting the tension.

“I should go back to correcting”, the tall guy across you said in a your so familiar cheerfulness, the cuteness of his box smile that made you weak in the knees seen for a couple of seconds, his fingers squeezing yours a last time before he narrowed his gaze down the essay again.

You were dumbfounded in a way you couldn't describe. It was like he had a split personality, as if he was angry but teasing you how he teased you some times in his lessons.

Now you had the feeling that you should back off and let your tutor do his work, your cheeks definitely red from embarrassment because he caught you. And here you thought you were sneaky!

“I'm sorry I didn't say anything at all. I won't do..it again.”

His brown thatch bounced up, his chocolate eyes inspecting your face whilst an unpredictable expression laced his beautiful features. “Good girl.”

You ended up thinking about a special someone very, very often this week. Not the way you wanted to, but he dragged himself into your mind too persistently to ignore it anymore. His puppy eyes with the mischief behind them and this amazing box smile didn't do you good, your health suffering from thinking about you tutor. This explained why all girls were head over heels for him. He was intellectual, intelligent, thoughtful and funny, topped by his incredible good looks. That's why you hoped to see him again this week – not in a romantic way, Taehyung was more of the guy everyone wanted to be friends with, you as well – and you just had to go to the museum he recommended, too much curiosity coursing your veins. Everything Taehyung recommended was a success and brought you new insights on the art you admired so much.

It was quite late already as you begged Jenny to accompany you down town where most of the high society had their residences to visit the vernissage, but she denied and so you found yourself alone down the city, the sun slowly vanishing on the horizon. Luckily today was a warmer day, your tight jeans and the small, light pullover perfectly fine for this kind of weather. You just turned a corner as you saw it. The average tall glassy facade of the arts museum, it's high roof where you made out a rooftop garden and those pretty lamps lighting the path up the yard. Several cherry blossom trees lined it whereas you took your time to marvel at their beauty. No wonder the rent costed more than the average apartments around here. The view out of the huge houses surrounding the museum was incredibly fascinating, you bet. The warm light shone all the way to the entrance where you had to receive the unlucky message that the exhibition was postponed to next week. Hence you groaned in disappointment. You wanted to go since Tae said you had to see it, but instead took a photo with your phone to remember the date next week you had to come back.

With slow steps you turned three-sixty mid way on the path back to the street over the pretty lighted pavement. You could spend hours listening to music or reading your textbooks the next time you had a day off in here with the museum in your back and the sun of a warm day in your face. Now you had to find an activity to get over the evening, so you decided to rush back to a small café you had seen a few blocks from here. Yes, you were stupid and had zero orientation skills as you walked passed the alleyway you had to walk into to get to the spot of the museum, but you walked right past it and landed somewhere in a lane with cute and simple looking coffee shops you dreamed to visit. And that's why found yourself in the dimly lit street with the few people in extraordinary clothes who looked as if they could buy the entire building you lived in with the money in their purses.

The bell above the door signalled your entering as you greeted the two mid-fourties behind the counter. Your smile only getting brighter at the way the – married? – couple teased each other like teenagers.

“What can we do for you?”

It was almost twelve as you left the shop that had closed an hour ago, but the owners had so much fun talking to you they forgot that you were a customer and by the time you said your farewells with the promise to come back soon they started to clean the shop. Who would have guessed that simple strangers could be so funny and lovable at such a short period of time? You had learned that they were a married couple for over twenty seven years now, their sons successfully moved out a few years ago and that they had opened their shop to get out of the ordinary, but luxurious life they lived so far. And they enjoyed your company because you lulled them in about art that they started to vent about everything with you. How nice the early night turned out! What a blessing after your miserable try to visit the museum.

Inside your head you planned to go to the café next week with Jenny or Jin, your brother's best friend while you slandered over the pavement, the night becoming chilly. Although it was may it was kinda cold at night and you cursed yourself for forgetting to bring a jacket with you in your excitement. Who would have guessed that you stayed out this late anyway? Wide eyed you saw many girls passing you, dressed in heels and tight dresses as well as one or two guys with fast steps, all down the road.

“Must be a great party going on somewhere”, you said aloud, two girls eyeing you with their drawn eyebrows shooting up. Ignoring you they were gone and you couldn't care less about any of the people passing you.

Slowly you got to the place the museum was located and you contemplated to take a picture of the many lights and the glassy walls to show Jenny tomorrow. Therefore you turned the corner, walking straight to the tall building you recognised right away, the gate to the yard still opened, which was kinda suspicious. You looked left and right before you shrugged your shoulders, a simple photo, nothing more.

Hastily getting out your phone you had to stand still as music reached your ear. Low beats vibrating underneath your feet. Curious you dared to walk closer into the middle of the way to take your picture as you heard how a door was opened a couple of metres away and two girls you had witnessed walking down the road earlier staggered out. It was a metal door in the walls mostly unseen at the huge museum in front of your eyes, the music the evidence for your assumptions. It was a party underneath the fucking museum! Wide eyed you saw how the girls took their drinks and gulped them down before lighting cigarettes and you asked yourself how a party below the ground worked, especially in such an exclusive area. You had always dreamed of a party like this, underneath the surface, loud beats and – you were more than sure – dozens of beautiful, rich people. And you had to get as many information as possible for Jenny, that was for sure! With an idea in your head you opened your hair, rolled up your tight jeans on your ankles and adjusted your pullover.

“Hey there”, you greeted the two girls whose gazes you could assess right away. They judged your outfit and decided you had no chance to get in there. “Is the party for free?”

One of the chicks tilted her head. “It's a club. And only for guests on a list, right Charlene?”

The girl called Charlene nodded, her long black hair stroked aside before both turned away from you. Hence you only smiled, walking passed the two of them to open the door they came out from. It was worth a try. Either you got in or the security escorted you out. Which way you left later didn't matter as long as you got a glimpse of the so called club, your curiosity one of a child. How exciting it was to find such a thing at night! You were an adventurous person ever since you could think and this sort of adventure your first.

It was dark, the music droning from even further down as you walked through a dimly lit floor to the only entrance to the club, a black door with nothing but elegant curved font on it: “Van Gogh”. With a doubled heartbeat you pulled the knob and it opened in one go, stairs, big and spiral reaching to another big foyer where you could see a couple of security and a few girls flirting with them. Now or never.

Casually, as if owning this club you never went into at all, you swung yourself down the stairs, breathing in as you ogled at the expensive furniture, all black and red. If you wouldn't know better you'd think of it as a brothel, but the loud basses and the people you got a glance of as a door on the right opened told you otherwise. With a racing pulse you did as if not seeing the big older man with the full bearded face as you walked straight past him, no luck with you anymore.

“Hey, young lady, where do you think you're going?”

Busted faster than you expected. Your braincells worked non-stop while you shifted your head to the side, looking as relaxed as you could. “I just got some fresh air. Look at the guest list. Charlene.” Please, god, let me get in.

The tall mid-fifty narrowed his gaze, his big fingers holding onto a sheet before he glanced back at you and down at the list again. You almost flinched as he rose his voice, bluffing at a younger man who looked certainly nervous. “You forgot to give a girl the fucking bracelet again, Lucas! One more time and I'll beat ya ass, boy!”

Oh oh, that sounded bad for the guy in the back, his eyes going wide and his skin was suddenly paler than before. You felt as if you had thrown him into cold water, but before you realised your wrist was taken and a white, lacy strap was put around it. The creepy security worker nodded towards the door you had seen dozens of people in, the black wood opening automatically.

Behind it you were met with extremely loud music, the beat of it shaking your body whilst you were astonished by the extent of the club. It was huge, marvellously furnished, tinged into dim lights and a long counter on the right side where you witnessed more than..seven bartenders giving out drinks at once. Your shining eyes roamed the hall, the dancing masses dressed in costly brands, men and women touching each other closely and you were content that this down town underground club was what would give you a thrilling experience. As your feet dragged you further inside you saw silvery, with red glitter sprinkled cages on the walls in which sparsely covered women danced rhythmically to the music. They were beautiful, each one of them having perfect curves, soft skin and an ass beating rhythm you were jealous of. Your heartbeat started to race up even more as your eyes lingered on a black piano on top of a small pedestal further on the left side of 'Van Gogh', the only place the crowd didn't go up to although you saw the astonished expressions on some of the people's faces, like your own.

Biting your inner cheek to refrain from cheering loudly for yourself you marvelled at the club as you witnessed a black wall with many artistic paintings on it, some of them even put into bright light. They must have an unimaginable amount of value behind the glass. Some of them having small signatures you couldn't identify, but you were magically drawn to their beauty and the extraordinary figures painted on them. None the less you had the strange feeling that you shouldn't be here too long, all alone as a young woman in an underground club for the higher society. Hence you mixed within the crowd, moving along the beat while you contemplated to check out the drinks' prices. You didn't believe your eyes as you were shocked about them.

“Are those prices a joke?”, you asked the bartender near you, his grin giving off the feeling as if he didn't take your question seriously. You almost shot him a smile yourself as you saw how the feelings vanished off of his pretty face, a mask of reluctant friendliness and full respect replacing his cheekiness.

“You better have a very good excuse to be here, love.”

You froze. That voice was too familiar to be the one you thought stood behind you, but as you darted around your eyes widened even more than the bartenders. A Taehyung, the strangest version of his own being stood with wide shoulders and crossed arms in front of you, his gaze cold and unpredictable. You had never seen such an arrogant, mighty emotion on his angelic face and it frightened you. That wasn't the picture you had of the cute tutor who did everything to help you and your mates to pass the exams. More of a devious twin brother looking down at you as if he was a lion catching his prey on the wrong move. Even the way he dressed and his pupils moving along with his superior lopsided smirk wasn't like the Tae you were lucky to get to know about throughout the last two months. He wore a claret leather jacket, his brownish hair out of his face and no sight of the round, big glasses he usually wore on his nose, instead a new accessory decorated his neck, a black, lacy choker. The ebony, tight jeans to a dark shirt and shiny shoes completed his outfit and made his golden skin glow even more than the knitted pullover or wide pants could ever do. The headlights danced on his face, his grin deepening the longer it took you to speak up, your voice lost thanks to the sight in front of you.

“Speak, love”, he commanded all of a sudden, his body tensing as he leaned forward to inspect you up close. “Who let you in?”

Taehyung didn't back away, not even as you squirmed under his intense stare. “I heard music and thought I take a look. Nothing more”, you finally said, his eyes shifting from one of your own into the other. “But why the hell are you here? And so..so weird? This is not like you, Tae.”

The stranger scoffed. “Nothing more?” The rest got ignored.

This wasn't the guy you found most intriguing and hot for his intellect and knowledge in art. It was as if a demon possessed the sweet honey boy with the box smile that turned the senior of the university into an evil, charming incubus with an irresistible smirk. You had to admit that he was even more seducing than he usually seemed with the superior gazes and the elegant movements of his body as he looked to the side.

“Come”, was all he added before he turned on his heel, his hand gesturing you to better follow him and so you did, curious and full of questions what a bad joke this was. Who expected Kim Taehyung to be present in this establishment at night? It was odd and off whilst you saw how the masses parted as he walked straight through them. There was so much you didn't know, that was clear, but you wouldn't back off tonight. Whatever Taehyung wanted from you in this kind of club, it seemed as if he was respected by the stuff as well! Furthermore did you stumble a few times, your mind everywhere but here, Tae's back close in front of you. What was going on? It was almost as if he had told you about the vernissage knowing that underneath the museum was this high society down town club. As if it was his intention to get you here, but that was impossible. There were so many questions inside your mind that you felt dizzy as you were led up some stairs in the back of the club, coming to a halt with shaking legs. Taehyung didn't say a word and the tries you dared to talk to him were ignored or fobbed off by a half hearted smile over his shoulder.

You were more than confused as he held open a red curtain up the stairs at the back of the club, a lounge with two men put on your display. This niche must be the VIP lounge as no one was allowed to enter behind the brown haired guy, two bulky security men eyeing you out of small eyes. The view from up here was breathtaking as you shifted to the side to marvel at the masses down the lounge. You could see the crowds, the bars and every door as well as cages with a top view. The girls dancing in them noticing the man on your left stepping inside the area with lascivious smiles, some even licking their lips. It was insane. Everything happening right now out of this world while you felt a hand on your back, escorting you completely in.

“Get out, you two”, Taehyung's deep vocals overtuned the beats as if the music wouldn't drone up like a storm. But to your surprise did the two men on the black couch stand up, turn around and this was the right time to hold your breath a second time this night.

One of the two was a total stranger to you, but the other taught music and literature at your university and was the one protecting you from the thugs in the hallway. Mr. Min's gaze was the opposite of yours as he shrugged his shoulders and left at Tae's command like a puppet. Now it was time to start to panic, so you thought with stiff limbs. This situation bothered you on an end level.

The handsome with the superior stares still touched your back with his large hand, his body getting closer as Mr. Min and the other guy squeezed themselves through the exit.

“M-Mr. Min?”, you asked carefully, but the black haired man didn't even grant you a single glance, his steps taking him out as fast as he could. Which made you panic more and more. And right then as they left you tried to turn around and leave as well, this joke gone too far to be funny anymore. But as you shifted in your position the hand on your back slid down and held you by your waist, Taehyung's long legs taking you both to the couch where he sat down with you next to him, his thigh rubbing against yours. This invaded your personal space massively, your comfortableness washing over your face.

“What is Mr. Min doing here?!”, you asked loudly, but it was silence that answered you again.

Instead his melodic bass echoed through the lounge like lace touching your throat, only to choke you with harshness:“I never thought I would be able to witness one of my cute freshmen to walk into Van Gogh as if they own this fucking club. You know where you are, right, y/n?” Taehyung didn't let you speak as he went on. “This isn't your world, love. And you bluntly stepped into it with your bright smiles and no sign of fear at all.”

The fuck was he talking about? Not your world? Who thought he that he was and why would you be afraid in the first place? “Kim Taehyung, sorry to cut through this illusion, but what are you talking about?! I'm hella confused and you..you scare me.”

“I scare you, love? You're at the safest spot in here right now”, the evil grinning guy you thought you knew a bit leaned forward, his beautiful digits stroking a lose strand behind your ear. You flinched slightly, but let him be, his voice now a lot softer even though you could see the deviousness in the almost black pupils of his. This situation was strange to you, but the bad boyish behaviour set a feeling similar to riding a roller coater free. And it wasn't a bad feeling at all! “To refer to your previously asked question: Look around and tell me what you see. All those people belong to the highest of societies not only around here and guess what those rich little kids were looking for all their lives. Yes, a club no one knows off except the few people who are as influential as they are. No cameras, no paparazzi, no one to invade their privacy in here. It was easy to get a loan and open 'Van Gogh' a few years ago, seeing all these nice men paying the overly high prices every night to impress the girls..hah..” He stared into your eyes, piercing them with sharpness as his mouth opened again. “But you're so different, love. This isn't a place for someone like you, you know?”

Taehyung next to you slid closer, his voice getting deeper whenever his eyes lingered over the mass down the lounge. His words hurt, although they were understandable with your average income, your flabby pullover and no real make up, not talking about the money you had in your purse. Still. You did expect him to be gentle and soft, but he turned out to be the opposite down the museum right now..

The tone in those dark vocals let you guess that there was more to it than a simple club as a shelter from paparazzi and the press, but you didn't speak up about it, your pride scratched and hurt. The thing that Tae wasn't only intelligent and charming, but a witty business partner of someone owning this kind of establishment impressed you although you couldn't shake off the nagging feeling that he had a lot of secrets under his roof.

“That's all? A simple underground club for the rich and famous? Nothing more?”, you blinked, looking up into his face the first time since you got up the VIP area, hiding your suspicion behind a mask.

The brown thatch bounced up as he let out a low chuckle. “That's all you need to know. But now you better answer me what brought you here.”

“Don't play stupid now! You knew I'd come for the vernissage you talked about..”

“Tell me.”

Something inside you requested you to better speak up as Taehyung looked as if he would eat you alive if you wouldn't spill the details as soon as possible, so you told him with shaking limbs what had drawn you down the stairs earlier and he listened well, another stone mask forming on his god like features. As you ended your babbling your cheeks were burning from his intense stares and the way his hand sneaked up and slowly began touching your wrist where the white lace was located. It itched the longer his fingers rolled it between them.

“I can't believe someone let you inside because you heard a girls name..who was it again?”, he asked calmly, but you saw the anger inflaming his eyes. The tall older guy letting you in was deep into shit if you described his appearance to Tae. If.

You smiled a little, his expressions falling from his face as you started to giggle at the ridiculousness of this situation. It was too hilarious. Y/n y/l/n was in a damn club called Van Gogh beneath the surface! Somehow this news started to sink in only now, your hands shooting up to rub over your neck. “But you're not joking, are you? This is all yours or what? It's insane.”

“Is it? Insane? I like to invest in things that are stable and bring money in, like it should be. So don't you dare laugh a second time, alright, love?”

Okay, wow. Now it was you who watched him out of small eyes before you burst into another pit of giggles. “I'm not laughing at you, so chill out. I just never expected..you in those clothes with..this sort of club in your back. So it's your own?”, you tried to explain yourself, your mood gradually rising up again after you slightly panicked because of his strange behaviour. It scared the hell out of you to be pretty honest. Of course you never expected Taehyung to own a location as it was, but it was your own fault for not asking him about his private life outside the university.

“I'm not the kind of bad boy who could own a club, you think? Love, you're so cute”, Tae's tongue rolled against his cheek, his dark orbs meeting your own and you swore he challenged you. A thing he had never done before.

“Don't even think about it, Taehyung”, you said, your courage coming back with every passing second. The longer you sat beside him the more he seemed to relax as well, his former unpredictable view changed into a softer glance out of the corner of his eyes.

Instead of answering, the handsome owner and your tutor shrugged his shoulders, standing up to walk over to the railing, his hands enclosed around the thick metal rod. He looked like a god who watched over his folk eagle-eyed and authority you never gave him credit for. The changing headlights tinging his dark body in colourful light, your gaze drawn by the fascination Kin Taehyung was for you.

“Any solution about our little problem here?”

Problem?, you asked yourself, tilting your head in confusion as the content of the question got through to you. “What kind of problem are you talking about?”

Silence was your response for mere minutes and you were sure he didn't hear you as he spoke up with his back still turned your way. “You are the problem, y/n. A tiny girl like you walking straight down my club not knowing what you would face here. No, don't say a word”, he added as you inhaled to raise your voice. “Either I have to make you forget what you have seen tonight or..”

It was the first time in ages he let you see the brown of his sparkling, round oculars, his golden skin lighted by the dancing lights above his head. Suddenly you felt hot, your body tensing at the glance he threw on you, a lopsided, seducing smile playing on his heart shaped, oh so red lips. “..you'll work as my assistant for as long as you're still in university. I could help you pay off your debts and keep you from spilling a single word to the world above 'Van Gogh'. Of course that would be our little secret, right, love?”

Your throat dried up, your mouth a desert as the last words fell out his own. He joked, didn't he? Working in a club while studying, maintaining good grades while going to his lessons AND working in the bar ever since you joined high school? How was that possible? You told him that, shaking your head and crossing your arms in front of your chest.

“You would quit the other job. I pay a lot more and you're not as dumb as some of the girls before you. I could need a helping hand that manages my boys outside those door and the girls watching you so intensely right now”, he chuckled, pointing down the many cages where the sparsely dressed women still swung their hips to the music, throwing you suspicious glances here and there.

“I decline”, you responded again, this time with more strength behind those words which elicited a smirk on Taehyung's lips. You won, but he won't accept it.

With long steps he came back to the position on the couch, his bottom lip pulled between his white teeth. “So, how will I be sure that you will shut your pretty little mouth?”

Too..close.. It was difficult to think properly while Tae closed the distance between the two of you, his breath hitting your face and you smelled the expensive, intense cologne he always wore; sweet and musky. You admired the tall dark angel he was tonight, knowing exactly what kind of guy he acted to be. Or was this the real act? Anyway, both sides of his had a magical effect on you. The tenebrous side he showed you made you think unnecessary dirty thoughts while the cheeky one let you day dream about amusement park dates while he taught you and your group the requirements for your exams.

Gulping loudly to wet your throat your eyes were drawn by Taehyung's tongue that slowly circled over his bottom lip before you hastily shifted to the side, avoiding any contact with his skin for your own safety. Not only did he somehow deceive your tiny little mind with being here and being exposed as 'Van Gogh's' owner, but he had a lot more secrets underneath his silky brown thatch that you couldn't risk getting touchy or worse; fucking him, either in your mind or in real life. Hence you stood up abruptly, calming your racing heartbeat alongside the tightness in your lower stomach.

“How about you make me?”, you heard yourself saying. Are you stupid, y/n?, you scolded yourself, regret filling your body. You were savage at times, but flirting wasn't your thing. Usually, it wasn't which is why you were so surprised by your question.

Pulling up his dark eyebrows your tutor nodded lazily, laying his arm over the rest in his back. “Come here then, love. I can make you shut up many many times if you want.”

The heat rushing into your cheeks shaded them in a bright red as to why you only scratched your neck. “It was a joke.”

Not believing a single word you said Tae stood up, holding out his hand for you to grab. “I'll show you the backside where the stuff enters the club. You should leave before I make you regret another joke you pull.”

Nodding with a tensed snicker you reluctantly grabbed his large hand, his skin so very warm you wanted to hold onto it for a while longer. But the hallway he led you through was a short one, several doors leading to changing rooms and you also saw a kitchen on the right side. It was definitely lighter than the main entrance you came from, still you couldn't shake off the feeling that those rooms hid a lot darker secrets than the black and red corridor you came from. You never contemplated that someone like him would be here tonight or you finding out about 'Van Gogh' at all, but you were astonished at the same time. And heavily curious what else was going on below the breathtaking museum. The second the museum flashed before your eyes you froze, Taehyung falling back as you didn't move.

“The museum..”, you whispered, your view focused into a distance without seeing anything at all. “D-does that mean..”

“Jup, it's mine.”

That was all he said, a short, simple sentence and he shone in another light for you. Again. There were so many sides to him that you felt dizzy. “Why didn't you tell me? That's amazing!”

Taehyung, with your hand in his, glanced over his shoulder, disbelief lacing his features. “You think owning a museum is amazing, but owning an expensive club under the ground not? God, y/n, what is wrong with that mind of yours?”

The low chuckles escaping him made you grin shyly whilst you shrugged your shoulders. “Can't deny that.”

Shaking his bouncing hair he pulled at your arm, the next thing you knew being led into another corridor, this one a lot friendlier, with a staircase up the exit. You two climbed them before Tae opened the door with his index fingerprint; one of those high tech gadgets implemented at it's frame. To your surprise you landed on the backside of the museum, in the middle of the beautiful garden where dozens of dark blue roses bloomed, the couple lights lining a path through the garden itself. Your mouth shot open as you saw the beauty of it at night and swore you would come back once the sun shone down on the green grass.

“I have to come back!”, you said out loud and with a lot more enthusiasm than necessary.

Taehyung next to you who crossed his arms in front of his broad, in ebony dressed, chest arched his brows again. “I could show you the vernissage before everyone else.”

The lamps in the garden didn't even compete with the shining of your eyes as they widened at the meaning of the handsome's words. He would show you everything before it started? Tonight was the biggest, most unrealistic dream of your life. Too many incidences happening you lost count while you pinched yourself. This wasn't a dream. This was reality.

“Y-you would? When? Oh, this is so exciting!”, you cheered quietly, a bit ashamed by your rose cheeks and the smile you tried desperately to repress by biting your inner cheek.

“I would show you, but only my employees are allowed to”, he added with a wide, mighty smirk.

All cheerfulness wiped off of your face you stared blankly at him. What a mischievous devil! He knew exactly what strings to pull; not only with you, that was more than sure!

Not knowing what drove you, you stepped forward one step before you turned around with inflamed cheeks again. “That was mean.”

It took a couple of seconds until you heard the rustling of his leather jacket ere you saw his tall body right in front of you. To look into his perfectly shaped face you had to lay your head into your neck, the expression on your face changing drastically at the stare Taehyung granted you with. Without any signal you were grabbed by the shoulders and pulled on your tip toes, your eyes shooting wider than ever. His red lips were soft, demanding and controlled as he pressed them onto yours, his eyes closed so you were able to see the long, black lashes of his laying gently on his cheeks. His skin was shining while your lids became heavy as well and you let go, being shook but enjoying the warmth on your mouth. It was too long ago a guy kissed you. No one ever doing it the same as he did right that moment. Feeling Taehyung's firm grip wandering down to your waist, the hot breath of his beginning to mix within your own while you opened your mouth slightly to welcome his tongue. Taking his own sweet time with you melting under his touch, his softness tasting your lips whilst his tongue nipped on yours, faintly, not too much to frighten you. You had never experienced such a controlled, superior kiss, but it was what you craved for since a long, long time ago. That's why your fingers traced over his chest up to his hair that you stroked before holding onto his neck, pressing him tighter on you. You two stayed that way for about a minute before Taehyung untangled your hands and stepped away immediately as if time ran out.

You witnessed the laboured breathing, how his chest rose too fast, but in the same rhythm as yours. What happened just now? It was unbelievable. Everything about this evening and early night an unfathomable dream you didn't want to wake up from. The hair on your arms stood up, your heartbeat stronger than before and the tight pull inside your core urging you to keep going further.

“I accept this as payment for the early excursion through the exhibition in 5 days”, Tae said, back to his calm self whilst he licked his lips, his black pupils focusing on your body.

Hot. You felt too damn hot under his eyes that you started to play with your shirt, the invitation sinking in. He turned you upside down alongside your libido that inflamed the longer you and Taehyung stood so close to each other. With wobbling legs you tried to hold your head high, walking past the man who kissed you a second earlier. You had to get some air or else would do something you would regret in the morning.

“See ya on Tuesday for literature”, your voice was heard in the garden, too high pitched for your own good, the reason standing behind you like a fallen angel.

Instead of answering his low chuckle laced with darkness and seduction echoed through the night and chased you home whilst you constantly gnawed on your bottom lip, tasting the mint sweetness of Taehyung's plump lips on yours for the next hours. God, if you knew that this was the foretaste of an unbearable addiction – and some dark secrets.

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wandlores · 6 years

Text

No Control

Pairing: Antonin Dolohov x Hermione Granger Words: 3,201 You can also read this on AO3. This is dedicated to @vino-amore who requested this pairing, and it is for the @hprarepairnet and @slytherdornet Winter Challenge! This is also a Muggle AU.

Irresponsible was not a word in Hermione's vocabulary; it would not be a word any of her previous employers or her college professors would use to describe her.

Until that one night.

She had gotten a 71.3% on her first exam coming back from winter quarter. It was the lowest score she had ever gotten on an exam, and she was freaking out. So naturally, her roommate Pansy felt she needed to get out and live a little. Forgetting about the "horrible" grade she got for once. Pansy told her that was her average, and that made Hermione hyperventilate even more imagining that anyone would be okay with getting a score that low.

So as Hermione awkwardly pulled the short skirt Pansy lended her down her thighs to look more appropriate and tried to walk in Pansy's heels, Pansy rolled her eyes and tugged her along the sidewalk.

"I can't do this," Hermione hissed, "I need to be back at the dorm studying. It is almost below freezing, and I am wearing a mini-skirt! This is the definition of what I should not be doing."

"You'll be fine," Pansy reassured her, "And besides, it isn't supposed to storm at all tonight. Please live a little for once. You're so wound up."

"For good reason-" Hermione mumbled under her breath, but Pansy ignored her as they reached the usher to the club.

"IDs please," the usher demanded, or who Hermione thought was just one huge bicep. Did he even have any other limbs? He was bulging.

Hermione felt nervous as she pulled out her ID. She was old enough to be in the club, but guilt was washing over her.

The usher scanned their IDs quickly and raised his brows as he watched Hermione nervously look around her. Pansy whispered under her breath to get a grip.

"You sure these are real?" The usher asked.

Hermione's eyes bulged out of her head before she attempted to speak, but Pansy interrupted her.

"Yes," she told him, "These are real IDs. My friend here has just never been clubbing before. Sorry if she seems antsy."

Pansy winked at the usher, who then opened the door for them and moved aside to let them in.

"Get her a drink," the usher said flatly, "She needs it."

That was really the last thing Hermione needed right now, but Pansy pulled her along and soon enough, they were at the bar.

The music was blaring. It was giving Hermione a headache, and she felt the need to pull her skirt down again. Pansy swatted her hand away from her legs instead.

"Stop pulling it down! You look fine."

Hermione glared at her, "This is horrible. I cannot believe you do this for fun."

Three men across the bar were watching them as they spoke. Hermione looked away quickly, but Pansy smiled at them and flipped her hair over her shoulder.

"I'm going to go talk to them. I'll let you do what you want," she told her, "But don't accept drinks from anyone. Just buy them yourself."

"Do you think I'm stupid?"

Pansy rolled her eyes, "Sorry for trying to be a good friend here. If you decide to pull that stick out of your ass, I'll be over there."

She pointed to the three guys that were eyeing them earlier. Hermione gave her a sarcastic wave as she strutted off towards them.

She heard Pansy give them her fake laugh and rolled her own eyes. She couldn't believe they were falling for her crap.

Hermione looked down at the red straw in her drink and started stirring it around. It was then she thought about how she should have brought her own metal straw of her own. She was killing the environment here. Was there anything she could do right now? She groaned to herself and heard a low chuckle on her left.

She turned her head, and she knew her eyes must be blazing. Tonight was not the night to be mocked, but the man didn't back down. He just kept smirking at her with highly amused eyes.

"What do you want?"

The chuckling man's smirk did not falter, and instead, he moved to sit closer to her. Instinctively, she moved away from him. Surprisingly, he didn't push it.

"I can just see you're frustrated," he yelled over the music, "Shouldn't a young woman like yourself be enjoying herself on a Saturday night?"

He had a thick accent. She wasn't sure where he was from. She tried to ignore the fact that it sent chills up her spine.

Hermione knew she shouldn't be opening up to a total stranger at a club, but Pansy was tired of listening to her complain, so she decided to unload.

"Well, first off, I got a 71.3% on my first exam for winter quarter. Who gives a test on the first day? We weren't even guaranteed to get our textbooks yet. Plus, I haven't met my last professor yet and will on Monday, and I heard he is a total asshole. That's just what I need. He probably won't even know how to grade properly and I-"

She took a deep breath in the middle of her rant and noticed the man she was ranting to was still smirking. This made her stop.

"What is so funny?" She pressed, "Do you like to listen to the perpetual suffering of a total stranger? That says a lot about you."

"Have another drink," he told her. He waved over the bartender who started pouring a glass for her, "It's on me."

"Sorry," Hermione scoffed, "I don't take drinks from strangers."

"Then order your own."

The man took the drink he had ordered for Hermione and downed it in one gulp. Hermione raised her brows. It appeared he had some issues, too. From how he looked, she assumed they were deep-rooted ones. He looked rugged, like he had been through a lot of things Hermione had yet to experience. He was at least five years older than her. Hermione's eyes darted down to his hands that were tapping against his thighs. They were not calloused like she expected them to be. They looked soft, and she suddenly wondered how they would feel against her skin.

She gulped and ordered another drink. As the bartender poured her drink and was about to put another plastic straw in, she then asked, "Do you have reusable straws here by chance?" She knew it was a long shot, but it was important.

He raised his brows like he had never heard of such a thing before and answered her slowly, "No, why woul-"

But Hermione waved him away and downed her drink in one sip. She coughed but quickly tried to cover it up so she wouldn't embarrass her in front of this man. He still kept grinning.

"Do you not want to save the environment and the sea turtles?" Hermione asked him seriously, "It is a real issue. Did you know-"

But he interrupted her by leaning forward and pressing his finger against her lip. He waved the bartender over again who looked incredibly done with his job for the night and ordered another drink.

"You don't need to talk about saving the world right now," the stranger told her, "You just need to unwind. I'm assuming that's why your friend brought you here tonight, right?"

He motioned his head towards Pansy. The bartender set down two shot glasses in front of them.

"Take a shot with me," he offered, "It will help you unwind."

Hermione knew she should say no, but Hermione was intrigued by his offer. Why not live a little? It was why Pansy wanted her to be here. She knew it was a bad idea, but she grabbed the shot glass and downed the alcohol in it. She realized quickly it was straight vodka, and she felt her face turn up instantly. But this time, she didn't cough.

"What's your name?" Hermione decided to ask him. She might as well know who she was going to be talking to for the evening.

"My name is Antonin, and you are?"

"Hermione."

She played with the shot glass in her fingers as he studied her face.

"Do you need to rant more?" He asked politely. She could tell he didn't want to hear anymore, but he knew she needed to release her pent up anger.

Hermione decided to surprise him by replying, "No, but I do need another shot."

So they had another shot. And another, and another, and another.

Hermione woke up feeling like her stomach was on fire and a cinderblock was sitting on top of her head. She groaned and rolled over. When she opened her eyes, she realized she was in a strange room. She sat up quickly and pulled the covers up over her body. It was then she realized she was butt-naked, too.

Frantically, Hermione looked around the room. When her eyes glanced down, she jumped back a little and almost fell out of the bed. She must of startled him, because his eyes opened quickly.

It was the man from the bar. She didn't even remember his name.

This could not be happening. Who was Hermione becoming? A mediocre scholar and a college student randomly hooking up with strangers? Oh my god. She was that girl.

Before he could speak, she shot out of his bed and anxiously attempted to find all her garments spread out through his room. What did they even do last night? She grabbed her panties off a lamp-shade on the other side of his room.

Her plan was not to say a word to him as she slipped her clothes on. She wanted to act like this never happened, but when she went back to the nightstand to grab her phone, he reached his arm out and touched his hand to hers.

"Don't even bother calling for a cab," he told her, "The cab companies are all closed."

"Then you can drive me home-" Hermione started, not even thinking about why cap companies were closed, but he just shook his head.

"I don't have a car."

"You don't have a car?"

"I ride a bike to work."

"Why?"

"For the same reason you use re-useable straws."

Hermione sighed and set her phone down loudly and decided to ask, "Now why are the cab companies closed?"

"There was a huge snow storm," he explained, "The roads are packed with snow. No one can get out of their houses. It is going to be at least two days before anyone can go anywhere."

Hermione froze in place.

"What!?" She shrieked, "I have class on Monday!"

"They will be canceled," he told her, "Trust me."

"Trust you? Trust YOU!? I don't even know you!"

She was pacing around the room and ran her hands through her curls. They were sticking up all over the place. She watched from the corner of her eye as he laid back in bed against the headrest and put his arms behind his head.

"How are you so calm about this?" She asked him, "Don't you want a complete stranger out of your house?"

"I feel like I know you quite well already, if I must be honest."

"You know nothing about me!"

"Want to bet?"

She glared at him and sat back down on the edge of his bed. She crossed her arms, showing that she was ready to argue.

"You are the perfectionist who seeks to change the world. You are definitely a freshman in college who has not had their dreams crushed yet by reality, and when one thing goes wrong, you go manic. But on the inside, you are actually easy-going, you just don't want anyone to know that. Especially your parents, because you feel being easy-going means you're a slacker. So you push yourself to the edge and also push others. You probably have mommy issues and are never meeting her expectations and-"

"Enough," Hermione snapped at him, "I don't need to hear anymore from someone I had a one-night stand with."

"So I'm right?"

Hermione didn't answer him. Of course he had to be right. Was she really that easy to read?

Her lack of response made him smirk, "That's what I thought."

He got up and out of bed with no clothes on. Hermione felt heat rush to her cheeks and looked away quickly, but she could still see him in the mirror by his bedroom door. He was smiling at her reaction as he pulled a shirt on over his head.

"Don't be embarrassed," he told her, "It isn't like you haven't seen me already."

Hermione groaned and decided to check her phone. She had many missed calls and unread messages from Pansy. Without reading any of them, she texted back:

I'm fine, don't worry about me. I'll be back after the roads are cleared. I promise. Trust me, I lived a little last night.

Surprisingly, her day went by smoothly. The city was able to clear the roads and the heat went up dramatically for January, so Hermione was able to go home that evening. It was a short and random storm that worked in her favor. Antonin was wrong, thankfully. And yes, she figured out what his name was again an hour after he made her breakfast.

They had a very casual and natural type of bickering. It was the type of bickering that Hermione enjoyed. She always respected a natural devils advocate, and that is what Antonin was. She was not surprised when she learned he was older than her, but she was surprised when she realized he was thirteen years older than her. He looked good for his age. Too good. But this was bad. Hermione did not hook up with strange men, especially older men.

What was he? A cradle-robber to let this happen? Hermione shuddered a lot throughout the day thinking about that, but she knew she was only thinking that to make things complicated for herself. She just didn't want to admit she actually kind of liked him.

As the cab pulled up to his house, she sighed with relief and opened the front door.

"Thanks for your hospitality. This will not happen again," she informed him.

He leaned against his front door frame and gave her a knowing smile, but he didn't say a word.

As the cab pulled away from his home, she looked back. He was still leaning against his doorframe with his arms crossed, but when he saw she was looking back at him, he waved smugly.

Hermione turned around fuming, but not because she was mad he caught her, but because she lied.

She wanted it to happen again, and knowing her and her newfound impulsivity, she would make it happen again.

Hermione had lost all control.

Hermione was exhausted on Monday morning. She had two cups of coffee before she even left for class and was drinking another in her to-go cup as she sat down in front of the lecture hall. She always loved the front row, but today, she was half tempted to sit in the back. She felt like her professor was going to be able to see exactly who she was this last weekend inside her eyes, but she reasoned with herself that she was just being paranoid. She couldn't help but feel ashamed.

Pansy on the other-hand was thrilled about Hermione getting laid. She was even proud of her. Hermione wondered why she even put up with her sometimes, but she was reminded why when Pansy made her the to-go cup of coffee even after Hermione had drunk all of hers. That's what true friends were for.

Her professor was late, and this made Hermione instantly feel agitated. This was not a good start, not at all. She took her last sip of coffee and set her cup down. She picked up her pen and started tapping it rapidly against the table. The boy next to her glared at her after a few minutes, and Hermione gave him an apologetic smile before she stopped.

It was then her professor walked into the lecture hall and down to the front of the room. When she caught sight of his face, all of the color washed out of hers.

It was him. It was Antonin. Her one-night stand was her young and ridiculously late professor. She couldn't breathe.

When he caught sight of her, he raised his right brow, but he made sure not to let his eyes linger in her direction for too long. She swore she saw him smile as he looked away and introduced himself to the whole class.

This was bad, this was real bad.

At the end of class, Hermione made her decision as she quickly packed up her things. She was dropping the class. She could take it next quarter with a different professor. It didn't matter that much. It was just a random history elective.

Everything was going to be fine, she told herself, everything was going to be fine.

She looked anywhere but in his direction as she walked around the table and tried to make it out the door, but she heard his voice call after her.

"Miss Granger, could you please come here for a moment?"

Why was this happening to her?

She took a deep breath and turned around. She didn't step any closer to him though. She wanted to keep as much distance between them as possible. She was at least relieved when she saw that everyone was out of the lecture hall and it was now just them.

"Yes, Professor Dolohov?"

His dark brown eyes stared into hers with such intensity that it made a shiver go down Hermione's spine.

"I was thinking that-"

"I know," she interrupted him, "I need to drop the class. This is just so wron-"

"That you could earn some extra credit," he finished.

Perplexed, Hermione set her books down on the table in front of her.

"We don't even have any assignments yet?"

He grinned, "This is a different kind of extra credit."

Before she could get another word out, he strode towards her and grabbed her face with his hands. He planted his lips on hers. She knew she should push him away, but she melted against his body. If she could remember anything from that night, it was this. It was this feeling of intensity between them. It was a feeling she had never experienced before.

As he pulled away from her, she was breathless, but then reality caught up with her. She jumped back away from him and grabbed her books.

"I-I can't," she faltered, "This isn't ethical."

"But doesn't it feel good to be bad?"

His accent was thicker than it had been two nights before. Hermione gulped and felt goosebumps rise up on her arms.

"Yes," she admitted, "It does."

She knew this was a horrible idea, but maybe it was time to add a new word to her vocabulary.

Irresponsible did have a nice ring to it, and that was all college was about, right? Making bad choices.

#hprarepairnet #slytherdornet #mywriting #antonin x hermione #hermione x antonin #antonin dolohov #death eaters #hermione #hermione granger #hp #usernuwanda #ff-sunset-oasis #userdaisy #merflk #amaliabones #mxrcusflint #provocative-envy #vino-amore

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obertsonpddamarispb86insura-blog · 5 years

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SKETCHY BEHAVIORS | Interview with VALERIE SAVARIE

Denver artist Valerie Savarie creates intricately carved book sculptures that she painstakingly maps out and cuts, forming her own unique narrative creation. Each of her unique sculptures can take her from 40 hours to over 100 hours to complete. Not only one thing, Valerie also runs a collective gallery, Valkarie Gallery in Colorado, where various artists in the community show and share work. We find out more about Valerie’s book sculpture process, what her favorite tome creation is, and the things that inspire her.

Take the leap below!

Photographs courtesy of the artist.

Introduce yourself Howdy! My name is Valerie Savarie and I create carved book sculptures. I live in the Mile High city of Denver, Co, sharing a house with two cats Meelo and Varuka and my ever loving and supportive husband Matt. As cats are insatiable creatures when it comes to food and attention (which can turn into a zero creativity day), I eventually relocated my studio to Lakewood where it is connected to the collective gallery I run (Valkarie). I believe in lots of vitamin C to keep me healthy and creating (coffee, carrots and chips). Random fact: most of my tattoos are beyond the legal drinking age.

What was your introduction to art like? I was fortunate that my parents got myself and my sisters into art as kids. During the summers instead of wasting our time in front of the TV, we were enrolled in art programs. The city where I grew up - Madison, WI – also had this (and still does to this day) awesome thing called the Art Cart that would find its way to various parks over the summer and have free art projects – my favorite was the plaster casting of our faces at the beach. My dad also took us to many galleries and lectures. I can remember being in third or fourth grade and attending a Georgia O’Keeffe exhibition.

How did that eventually lead you to creating your own works and specifically your book sculptures? Honestly, I have an older (not too much older) sister that was always the artist so I shied away from art for years. Sure, I was a professional doodler, yet I wanted to be my own person and struggled with the sibling rivalry a la Jan and Marcia for years. I turned to creative writing in high school and the first go around of college. Finally, I moved away, and moved away again, tried college a second time majoring in interior design and minoring in scenic design (secretly I wanted to be an architect) and ended up having a professor that had an MFA – Robert Work – who I am still friends with (god, it has been over 15 years since graduation). He reignited that artistic spark in me. I even applied to grad school for art and got rejected from every school I applied to yet I still made art.

A few years down the road I met my husband and he really pushed me to get my art out in public, which was frightening. I ended up joining a co-op where I experimented with various mediums and styles. I created some cube sculptures (bartered autocad drawings for them) and I was in love. 3D art took over my heart, unfortunately, I couldn’t afford to buy the cubes out right and my cabinet maker friend didn’t need any more drawings. So I sought out something that I could afford for material, something that was also easy to come by and easy to manipulate. A thrift store junky, I decided to test my hand on carving up books. That was just over 7 years ago.

What is the process for book creations? From start to finish, how long does the entire piece take? My pieces are formed by three different processes of creation: what it is, what I want it to be and it will be what it will be. What it is means that the story in the book inspires me. What I want it to be means that I have an idea that I need to find a book that fits the visual story I want to create, whereas it will be what it will be means I take a book with no idea in mind as to how it will turn out and intuitively start cutting.

I would say about 67% of the books I create fall into the what I want it to be category so that’s what I will describe. I will get an image stuck inside my head and think about it quite a bit before I will put pencil to paper, working out basic concepts in my head and then creating a very rudimentary sketch (mainly so I don’t forget the idea). I then head off to the stacks – a very unorganized collection – in search of a book whose story has some of the same elements as mine. This is a daunting task as I have no idea as to what the content of at least 97% of the books I house is.

Sadly the adage “you can’t judge a book by its cover” is all too accurate. Titles can be misleading, the content seems like a good match but the cover has illustrations that are in conflict with the vision, and heaven forbid I can’t find any information on the book on Google and then have to decide if I have the time to invest in reading a few chapters or should just keep looking elsewhere.

After hours and even days of searching, I find the match – the perfect companion to my vision. I leaf through most of the pages, book marking those passages, illustrations, lack of text or unique text layout for me to revisit as I cut layer by layer, page by page. Then a slightly more detailed sketch is created – and then comes the point of no return …

I draw the shape of the cut out on the cover and with book and blade in hand, the transformation begins. All cuts are done with a craft knife – yes, even the cover. It is cut by scoring multiple times and then stab and drag, stab and drag. Sure, there are easier ways to do this - the not so occasional accidental sacrifice of blood still doesn’t deter me - I prefer to use my hands, to be able to pack up to my art, take it anywhere I chose to create and not worry about access to electricity. With the cover hole cut, I take out my file and smooth the opening, refine the curves and lines. Then another sketch of how the piece will be laid out is drawn on the front leaf of the book. This can be especially handy to have in more complex designs where I use the image as a template or stencil when cutting the many layers.

From then on out, it is just a matter of cutting one to three pages at a time. The number of pages is determined by the quality of the paper and over all design. Admittedly, this can become tedious if the depth of the layer is greater than ¼” but it is also important for me NOT to rush through the cutting of pages stage as phrases and images easily hide from view when I first go through the book in search of the elements I want expose.

Accidents do happen – the occasional over cut of a section or completely cutting out a page I meant to keep. I am very rigid in my creative process – if the section has been completely cut through, I just walk away from it – even though it would be quite easy to simply glue that section to the page below. The story can develop plot twists during this time as the layers start taking on a different life and their shadows start telling a story of their own as I cut deeper and deeper.

This, the lengthiest part of the creation process, I mentally start to flesh out what the painted characters – or inhabitants – of the book sculpture will look like (I can easily spend over 40 hours of just cutting the pages and so have a lot of “free creative brain time”) . How will they interact in the environment, what will their facial expression be? I dare not start painting them until all pages that will be cut, are cut, as I want the character - be in human, animal or other worldly - to look as if they had grown up in the book sculpture and has called it home forever. The characters are painted with acryla gouache on sheets of mixed media paper or directly onto the book page. The latter is more of a spirit creature – a ghost that is still very much part of the life force of the book. These little paintings are then mounted to illustration board for rigidity and cut out (again by hand with a craft knife).

Once the book cutting is complete and the character painted, I move on to the last creative piece which ties the story together (literally) - the stitching. Each altered book piece has some thread or string (occasionally wire is substituted) added to help in the visual story telling. It can be very elaborate such as sewing branches and leaves onto the cover or something as simple as a few blades of grass. The drilling to create the needle holes in the cover is (again) done with a hand tool called a jeweler’s drill. This nifty device has interchangeable bits from the diameter of a hair to 7mm lead. I believe the longest recorder amount of time I have spent drilling/stitching a single piece is 15 hours.

Now it’s time to do all the boring stuff that makes the piece ready to hang. All the pages are bound together, I create a little wire coat hanger in which the piece can be hung and sew it onto the back of the book as well as stitch in the publication and rebirth years. Both covers are glued to the bound pages, clamped and by the next day, what was once an orphaned book, now rid of its shell, is a three dimensional sculpted piece of art!

And that is how my book sculptures are born.

How long? On average 40 hours a piece. A few take less time and I have spent over 100 hours on a piece more than once.

Where do the books come from? Are they from collecting or via donation? How are you inspired when creating these intricate piece? Are they inspired by the book or from an idea you jotted down? My books come fro various sources. Initially I would get them at thrift stores, the rule was that they had to be as old as me. I normally still stick to that rule unless it is a commission or a piece created for a specific themed show. More recently, I have had a lot of books donated to me – some because the thrift stores won’t take them any more and others because the former owners’ had cherished them and hoped that they could find new life in my hands. On rare occasions I do order from Ebay. I prefer the hunt, stalking down the perfect book, taking weeks and even months. Sometimes, I don’t have that luxury due to deadlines.

Normally I have a concept I want to develop, I look through my stacks (which numbers in the 100’s and shelved at random) hoping to find one that has a similar story line. Since I don’t have time to read each one, I go online and do research – reading the synopses – as well as skimming the books. This can be dangerous as sometimes the books I am sorting through pull me in and new inspiration is born from the written word.

I see my pieces as more of a collaboration between myself and the authors and illustrators. I use their art form as an inspiration stream and add my own twist (or chapter) to create the stories anew.

Is there a piece that was directly influenced by a memory or experience you’ve had or story you’ve heard? It is rare that I remember my dreams but a few years ago I awoke and remembered having a very strange dream about tiny cyclops octopuses and tea cups. Shortly there after I stumbled across a Reader’s Digest collection that contained 20,000 leagues Under the Sea and so I had to create the little cyclopes – sans teacups. I really want to revisit that dream in art form again – with the tea cups – as of yet, I haven’t come across any books that would fit.

What’s the perfect day at the studio like for you? What kinds of things would we find in your creative space?

A perfect day would start around 6pm. I prefer to work at night until the early hours of the morning. I would have a nice cup of endless coffee at hand, a bag of baby carrot and raw nuts available for snacking (separate bags) and some left over Indian food for later in the evening/morning. The original Twin Peaks is playing in the back ground (i pretty much have the dialogue memorized) and my shoes are off and slippers on.

Spread around me on the floor (I work sitting on the floor) is a brand new cutting mat that smells of childhood summer beach toys, an assortment of craft knifes with brand new blades (I rarely use new blades as I have learned to sharpen them) and a vintage book begging me to caress its pages, ogle its inner beauty and then skillfully and slowly start to transform its story from the 2D writing into a 3D world it never knew it could be!

Within my studio I have quite a nice collection of small art (besides my own of course). I use it for inspiration and feed off the remnants of creative energy that the artists left with each piece. There are books, LOTS of books that have no rhyme or reason to their shelving locations or book neighbors. I have quite a few orchids which may or may not be in bloom – all of which were gifts. I have a cool vintage love seat which normally is a place for art to lounge on along with the occasional visitor. A nice collection of coffee mugs – with at least half of them needing to be washed- and of course a coffee maker. I also have an old radio from probably the 30’s that I occasionally plug in and turn on – the sound is great but there aren’t that many am radio stations with strong enough signal that are worth listening to.

What’s one of your favorite creations you’ve made and why? I created a piece based on Pan’s Labyrinth. It was the first piece of fan art I had ever created.

I rarely actually watch movies or t.v. - I listen to them but my eyes and hands are busy creating art. I don’t like foreign films that have voice overs, there is just something unnerving about them.

So with Pan’s Labyrinth, it is something that I actually had to watch. It is a visual masterpiece – as is everything that Guillermo del Toro does.

Creating art based off of something that is already a magnificent piece of art is quite challenging. I didn’t want it to be obviously fan art it was important I make it my own. I ended up using a book in Spanish about the Spanish Civil war. I also used some techniques that were new to me – removing the decorative fabric only from the cover to create pattern, adding color and even adding the cover of a larger book as a backdrop. Oh yeah, and a drop of blood – my fingers tips are pretty callused from art making it took a little more effort than I liked to get that blood.

It was exciting to use new techniques and to push myself to be precise and exact – an actual labyrinth with tiny stairs down to the portal – and at the same time use my imagination to explore concepts that I could only see (movie) and not read and translate them into my own design.

What’s your main tool for making art? Is there a medium you’re wanting to try? A craft knife with an Excel blade – the brand REALLY makes a big difference. In a tie would be a good mat – still looking for the perfect one.

I took a class last year on wood block cutting and would really like to do more with that. I think it would work well with the book page scraps I collective (I have many many boxes of them) plus it is another substractive art techniquewhich makes sense in my brain.

Who are some artists that you’re inspired by and have influenced you throughout the years? Edward Gorey is my main influence. Partially because he was both a visual artist and a writer. I love how dark his images are and the same time laced with humor. His black and white color palette obviously works for me as well. There is a simplicity to it and at the same time it is so masterfully done that the work appears much more expansive than it already is.

As far as artists that are alive and kicking today, my local biggest influences are Aria Fawn and Nicole Grosjean. They are completely different in everything they do and at the same time such masters of detail and story telling.

Aria creates surreal and fantastic worlds in watercolor, largely inspired by the beautiful and violent balance of nature and wild things and the cycle of life, death and rebirth. There is such organic and natural beauty in her style, a freeness that I strive to incorporate into my rigid calculated creation process. I probably own more of Aria’s art than anyone else's - I have multiple pieces by her in my studio and home. She is constantly with me, always inspiring, motivating and energizing my creative spirit.

Nicole on the other hand, creates tiny worlds from hand cut, hand painted paper – which she considers three dimensional illustration. Sometimes there are over a thousand individually cut and painted pieces of paper in one work of art. She is so precise, so CLEAN I have no idea how she does it. I have a very tiny praying mantis in a watch piece from her as well as a larger dragon that I got for my husband as a gift to cover all holidays for several years.

My my top three non locals are Jolene Lai, Jason Limon and Kristen Egan. They all are completely different from one another – Kristen creates magical creatures from gourds. I am dying to get my hands on one as 3D art really needs to be experienced in person to feel the texture, see how the light and shadow changes the mood of the piece. She makes it look so seamless – at first glance I thought the were ceramic.

When I first saw Jason’s work I thought it was the most amazing paper cut art I had ever seen, then I realized it was a painting! His playfulness along with social commentary paired with his insane talent to place highlights and shadows it something I strive for. I feel that my painted characters could be so much more influential – a better actor one could say – in the dioramas I create if they appeared more three dimensional. I am lucky to own one small original that lives with me in my studio.

And then there is Jolene. I would consider her one of the greatest artists of all time. There is so much emotion, energy, story telling in her paintings. Her use of color (and again light and shadow) makes her works hyper realistic to me – I feel sucked in and transformed as an active participant in her paintings. I own two beautiful graphite pieces of hers which live at my house.

What’s your experience been like with the art scene in your area? How is the artist community? I LOVE the art scene in Denver. We are a “new” city that still has not lost its small town connectivity in the arts. Artists support other artists, galleries support other galleries. It is not an us vs them mentality here and I really think it will stay that way.

I got my start in a traditional co-op gallery that sadly just closed this year after being open for nearly 30 years.

They rejected me the first time around and told me what to change for the next application round and I got in that second time.

Even at Valkarie we host a drop in creative night every Thursday – going on almost five years. All levels of artists come, from doodlers to professionals, painters to jewelry makers. We openly give feedback on what we re working on and share calls for art and discuss booth set ups for conventions – what works and what doesn’t.

How do you stay inspired on those days when you’re feeling uninspired? To be honest, it has been years since I felt uninspired. I think because of the super supportive art community I always have someone to run ideas off of. Also, the books themselves are full of written and visual inspiration, an unending supply of it. And all that awesome art I collect, for me it’s not a lack of inspiration it’s more a lack of what I want to focus on – too many bees buzzing with ideas in my brain.

When you’re not working in the studio, what are you doing? What do you enjoy? Truth be told, 83% of my waking time revolves around art. Besides spending time with my own art and running Valkarie Gallery, there isn’t much time for anything else.

In that 17%, I enjoy making pies from scratch with my husband, getting out into the mountains to escape all the compartmentalizing of city life and being servant to the cats – if they had their way, I wouldn’t get any art done at all.

If I ever find “free” time again I would love to get back into creative writing, pick up the violin again and go on more bike rides. Nothing sporty, just peddling around town with no destination in mind.

What advice would you give someone who is thinking of becoming an artist? Start young – before you get tied down with a house, spouse or kids. It is much easier to get by on less while you are young.

Don’t feel like you have to get a degree in art (I know I will catch flack for this one). Do take art classes, marketing classes, get involved in with meet up art groups and build community. Some of the most successful artists I know have no formal art degree. Their talent, passion and drive have given them much success without a pile of debt and they tend to be the most active in artist groups.

Know that rejection is 90% of the game and don’t get discouraged. It doesn’t mean you aren’t good at what you do, it can mean that you weren’t what they were looking for. If you are really passionate, you will always create no matter what others say about your art.

Develop a style that is unique to you. This can be the most difficult especially with everything being available to anyone with a smartphone, computer or tablet. I think it is one of the reasons I keep creating the book sculptures and expanding what they are.

What are your FAVORITE Vans? It really depends on the weather and where I am headed. If it is snowy or raining and am headed to the studio, slip-ons are best, so I can easily take them off and on multiple times a day (sitting on wet shoes is a mistake only made once). In good weather, any Vans are comfortable enough to wear evening while squatting on the floor creating art.

Finally, can you tell us about any exciting things you’ve got coming up? This year I have had my art in five different states and at the beginning of December I will be showing in my sixth. I will have a booth at the Recycled Art Market in Santa Fe, NM. This will be the first time showing my art there and think I will come back with some pretty exciting new ideas on how to incorporate other repurposed items into my books and maybe even find some new resources for creating my sculptures.

I also have two commission coming up that I am really excited to get going on. Will be doing A Clockwork Orange piece and The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe(for two different clients). It has been decades since I read either but I think these two both warrant a reread before I start them (I really do my best to avoid watching movies of books for inspiration).

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