#AND I'D GET TO SEE SOME OF MY TEACHERS FROM PRIMARY. i'd like to know if they'd recognise me

[twelfth-dykector]

i might go to church on sunday. for The Bit

[versairic]

Special guest | MV1

In which Max pays a visit to a primary school class to answer a few questions before the Dutch gp

or

In which Max only has eyes for the young class teacher

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Today is a very special day. Your six-year-old pupils were particularly looking forward to this day.

The Zandvoort Grand Prix, which was not too far from the school, would take place at the weekend.

In a few minutes, a very special guest would be coming to your class - the lion class.

Over the last few days, you and your class have organised and prepared a lot to make your guest's time in class as pleasant as possible.

A satisfied smile sits firmly on your face as you walk through the rows of tables and put up the children's name tags you have made so that your guest can call them by name.

You then unfold the blackboard to reveal the colourfully painted greeting.

Written in orange chalk in the centre is the words Welcome Max Verstappen.

Your pupils have painted a few trophies around it, as well as chequered flags and racing cars.

A glance at the clock hanging above the classroom door tells you that it is about time for the first pupils to arrive.

Shortly afterwards, the first pupils enter your classroom with big smiles on their faces. Some of the children are already wearing fan merchandise.

After you have greeted each child with a quick hug, the rows of tables slowly start to fill up and an excited murmur goes round the room.

"Good morning my lions", you greet your class with a smile on your lips and a little chant of welcome comes back.

"As you know, we have a visitor coming in a few minutes. But before we get there, I'd like to go through a few things with you about how we're going to behave during this," you begin as you sit down on the edge of your desk and look around the room.

Yesterday you went through the rules for today with your protégés. It is important to you that everything runs smoothly and well today.

It's not a given that someone famous would take the time to answer questions in a class full of six-year-olds.

" Who can tell me the most important things to consider for today? "

Within a few seconds, countless hands shoot into the air.

Your gaze wanders briefly through the rows before you take a boy from your class, who lists all the rules to be observed for the next two lessons.

With a satisfied smile on your lips, you thank the boy and add a sentence or two, telling your charges that it's important that they don't talk out of turn and to please come forward if they want to ask Mr Verstappen a question.

You know that the class is pretty excited and probably not everything will go one hundred per cent, but despite all that, you're really confident that it will go well.

Some time passes, during which your class spends painting Max Boliden in bright colours, until there is a knock at the door of your classroom.

Countless heads go up and look over to the door with wide eyes, while one or two squeak out.

You can clearly see the nervousness slowly rising in each of them, even in you.

You wipe your slightly sweaty hands on your black jeans before a smile creeps back onto your lips and a "Come in" leaves your lips.

Shortly afterwards, the door opens and a smiling Max Verstappen steps into your classroom.

As he does every time there's a race weekend, he's wearing one of his team shirts and dark trousers.

"Good morning! "He beams as he enters the classroom and lets his gaze wander round the room.

"Good morning Mr Verstappen! "The class literally shouts in chorus, causing a proud smile to spread across your lips.

Point one has already been successful.

"Welcome to the lion class. I am Mrs y/l/n. I'm really pleased to welcome you here today," you greet the Dutchman and hold out your hand to him, which he shakes with a smile.

" I'm delighted to be here today. "

You notice how his eyes linger on you a little longer, so you clear your throat quietly and look back at your protégés, who are scrutinising Max curiously and whispering quietly.

"Look what we've painted for you! " shouts Leona, one of your students, pointing to the blackboard and presenting the colourful picture to Max.

"You drew this especially for me? That's really great! " Max steps a little closer to the board to take a closer look at the artwork.

"And we drew cars too! " shouts the next child and gets Max's attention.

"Did you design new liveries for special Grand Prix races? " Max begins to walk through the rows to take a closer look at the coloured-in cars.

He repeatedly takes time for each of the children to exchange a few sentences with them about their coloured pictures.

Smiling, you watch him and sit back on the edge of your desk.

A glance at the map next to you shows that Max will start by introducing himself and talking about his motorsport career. Afterwards, the children will ask a few questions and get autographs. Finally, there will be a little bobby car race in the schoolyard, where each child will compete against Max himself.

"You're all really great artists. I'll show my team your paintwork and I'm sure something can be done! " Max grins as he walks back to the blackboard with the pile of leaves.

Enthusiastic murmurs go through the class as Max begins to prepare for his little talk.

And shortly afterwards, he begins to tell your class, who are literally glued to his lips, about his motorsport career.

During Max's lecture, you sat in the back row to give Max enough space at the front of the blackboard.

His lecture was quite interesting, so now you know a lot more about the Dutchman.

The children had been so quiet throughout the lecture that you are really proud and shower the children with a little praise.

"And now we come to your questions. Now you can ask me anything you've always wanted to know. But think about your question carefully, because everyone is only allowed to ask me one. "

Max holds up his index finger to make it clear to the children that they are really only allowed to ask one question.

"Just one? How am I supposed to decide which question to ask? " Liana's sad voice sounded from the front, causing Max to start smiling.

" You'll manage that, Liana. Take some time to think of a good question," you reassure the little blonde-haired girl, whereupon Max gives you a grateful look.

" Who wants to start asking me a question? " As Max's gaze begins to wander around the class, countless little fingers are raised in the air.

One or two of them even start to kneel on the chair so that they can stick their finger higher in the air and be seen better by Max.

" Finn ", Max takes the first boy.

" Would you like to drive for Red Bull forever or for Mercedes or Ferrari? "

The Red Bull driver leans against your desk and rests his hands slightly to the right and left of him as he begins to think for a moment.

Your protégés look eagerly at their star and wait for an answer.

"I actually feel incredibly comfortable in my team and so far there's no reason for me to leave. I get on well with everyone in the team and we have a good working relationship so that everything runs as smoothly as it should. I'll never rule out a change, because you never know what's to come, but so far I can reassure you and tell you that I'm not considering a change. "

A sigh of relief goes through the class, which makes you grin.

In fact, most of your class are Max and Red Bull fans.

" Who is your favourite team colleague? " Joleen asks Max after he has taken her on.

"So far I've got on really well with all my team mates and we've all got on really well, but if I had to choose a team mate who I've got on best with, I'd say Daniel. The two of us not only get on particularly well in Formula 1, but also in our private lives. "

In fact, you've already guessed this answer, as you could always clearly see how well Max and Daniel got on and harmonised with each other.

You still mourn the time when Max and Daniel were team-mates. That time really was by far one of the funniest content times at Red Bull Racing.

A few more interesting questions were asked, which Max answered in detail, such as his favourite colour, which is blue, his favourite food, which was tomato soup and the question about his pets, Jimmy and Sassy two Bengals cats.

"Is there anyone else who hasn't asked me a question yet? " Max's gaze travelled around the class.

Even after answering countless questions, he still seemed pretty relaxed and happy.

"Mrs y/l/n hasn't asked a question yet," Johann takes the floor as all the children turn to look at you.

Max also leans a little more on the desk now as he leans forward to see you in the back row.

" Do you have a question for me? " he grins.

So you start going through all the possible questions that are floating around in your head.

There are a lot of things that would interest you, but they don't belong here right now, so you decide on the simplest question that any teacher would have asked.

" What was your favourite subject at school? "

" Oh, that's really easy! " Max grins and almost claps his hands. " Your teacher will probably rip my head off for this, but I never liked going to school. The only subject I liked was geography. What's your favourite subject? "

Countless voices start shouting their favourite subjects in confusion, which Max takes in his stride with a smile and somehow tries to catch every subject.

To restore some calm, you walk back to the front and start clapping a rhythm, which the children immediately follow and the class becomes quiet again.

A quiet " Wow " leaves Max's lips, who looks at you with fascination and makes the blush rise slightly in your cheeks.

"That's the best way to keep things quiet," you almost babble as you start to clear your desk to give Max a little more space for the upcoming autographs.

You had already cleared out your desk, so there were hardly any things on it. However, you now have to keep your hands busy to avoid blushing even more or doing something stupid.

" Please line up to get an autograph. If you have an autograph, please go and put on your jacket so that we can go out into the school playground straight away. Please keep your voices down," you remind the children, who shortly afterwards line up in front of your desk waiting to sign an autograph.

You take the seat next to the door to keep an eye on the children who are putting on their jackets.

The autograph session goes faster than expected, so that within twenty minutes all the children are standing in the corridor whispering in their jackets and then follow Max and you out into the schoolyard in a duck march.

Yesterday afternoon you had already set up a small parkour, which you will have to drive through today with the two Bobby Cars.

The red and blue Bobby Car are already ready and waiting to be used.

You had even made a small podium out of cardboard boxes and bought small mini trophies to give your offspring the full programme of a racing experience.

While the children would race against Max, you would time them and the three fastest times would end up on the podium.

Max grabs the blue Bobby Car, which just fits half his knee, while Aaron can sit perfectly on the red Bobby Car.

While the two race against each other, the children cheer on Max and Aaron in different groups.

The latter narrowly wins, as Max has a few problems with the only Bobby Car.

Despite all this, the Dutchman doesn't lose the fun of the game, so he competes against every single child with joy and fun, even if it's not enough for one of the three podium places in the end.

Standing proudly on the podium with their trophies, the three winners literally raise their plastic trophies in the air until a couple of water pistols are used to replace the champagne shower and all the children run across the schoolyard screaming and chasing each other.

Smiling, you look after your class as Max stands next to you.

"That was a really nice day. Thank you for preparing so many nice things. I really don't know the last time I really enjoyed a day like this," said Max, smiling and thanking you.

"I also have to thank you. You really put a lot of effort into my class. You were really looking forward to the day, which was a real success. "

You can't stop a smile from forming on your lips as Max gives you a smile and then pulls something out of his trouser pocket.

" I forgot to give you your autograph. "

The Dutchman smiles and hands you the autograph card before also grabbing a water pistol and running over to your class.

Confused, you lower your eyes to the autograph card, which shows a grinning Max in his dark racing suit.

You really have a great class.

Your lions are really lucky to have such a great teacher like you.

You've learnt a lot about me today and I hope I get the opportunity to get to know you a little better.

Why don't you write to me

01*******

[touteslespetiteschosess]

Love To Hate Me || Kylian Mbappé

Chapter 6 : Liar, Liar

Plot: A surprise return makes y/n question her relationship with Kylian.

Word Count: 1902

A/N: In celebration of Kyky's birthday, here's an update xxx

Chapter 5 Masterlist

Y/n's phone began to buzz loudly on her desk; she sighed and rose from her desk, a small smile gracing her face at the sight of her brother's name. Taking the phone, she headed out of her office, deciding she was in need of some fresh air anyway.

"Hey, James." she smiled, answering the call.

"Hey, y/n. You busy?"

"I'm at work but I'm owed a break anyway. Speaking of, shouldn't you be working?"

"The kids are on lunch, so I thought I'd see my little sis' is doing."

Her brother, James, was a primary school teacher back in the UK. He was two years older than her and growing up, the pair had been incredibly close. Nowadays, they didn't get the chance to talk as much, between their two busy jobs and their entirely separate lives in different countries.

"I'm good."

"Still having a hard time at work?"

As she strolled down the corridor, she sighed, "Well, the lack of headlines says not. It's calmed down a little."

"Good, you deserve a rest."

"Well, I'll have time for a rest when the transfer window closes. Until then I'll just have to suck it up."

As she strolled past Luis' office, the coach's door swung open. James continued to chat, "With the wage you're on, they're not paying you to relax." he chuckled but y/n had stopped listening to a word he was saying. From Enrique's office, not only did the coach emerge but so did Kylian. Her heart stopped.

It had been two weeks since their evening togehter as well as two weeks since she'd seen him at all. By the time her alarm had gone off- 5am- he'd slipped out, every trace of him gone, save a large, white hoodie he'd left on her bathroom floor.

Sure, she'd enjoyed the night with him; he was handsome, and good in bed, and he'd held her in his arms as they fell asleep, and it'd made her feel safe and loved and... She didn't care that he'd left in the night or that he hadn't called after that. It had been a one night thing, they'd both known that. He was leaving PSG, so what was the harm?

It was just a goodbye fuck, knowing they'd probably never see each other again. An acceptance of their attractions and their urges, admitting them to one another before he faded into TV screens and perfume adverts. So why was he here now?

"James, I've gotta go, I'll call you later though, alright?"

She didn't wait for a response before she hung up.

"Y/n, just the woman I was looking for!" Enrique grinned.

She turned around, her eyes fixed on Luis, stringently avoiding acknowledging Kylian's presence. She forced a smile, "Hey, are you okay?"

"Yes, Kylian and I finalised his contract yesterday. Elizabeth is bringing a file containing the details over to you. I need you to draft a press release about his return ASAP."

She faltered, "Kylian's coming back?"

The footballer cleared, his throat, "Yes, I am."

She shot him a glare before looking back at Luis, "Why didn't you tell me?"

"I am doing."

"Okay, but some advance notice would have been nice, given that it involves my department."

"Well, this is your advance notice, so I'd appreciate it if you'd have the statement drafted and sent over to me within the hour."

With that, Luis nodded firmly and marched off; Kylian's feet were glued to the ground beneath him and he gawped at her like a goldfish. Her scowl deepened and she hesitated momentarily, as though she was going to say something. Then she spun around, her hair whipping after her, and stormed off.

Two or three days had passed since Kylian had appeared at the training centre and y/n hadn't seen the man since. Much to her dismay, she'd had to schedule in and would have to attend a press conference regarding Kylian's reintegration, which she'd announced on social media earlier that day. Now, her chances of avoiding the man in question were significantly decreased.

Sporting black suit trousers and a long-sleeved bodysuit, she walked into the press conference room. She lingered at the back for a few seconds, arms folded over her chest, holding a stack of files tightly as she surveyed the room. Tens if not hundreds of journalists sat on the rows of chairs in front of her. There was a loud hum of chatter as expectant glances were cast at the panel in front of them.

She slipped back outside and headed for the room Luis waited in. As she stepped in, she was met by the sight of not only Luis but Kylian and his father.

She smiled tightly, "Good morning."

"Miss y/l/n, good to see you."

"Sorry, I'm late. I was just running a little behind schedule, but here are some cards for you to read from." she rushed over to Luis and handed him a stack of prewritten cards. She spun around to the player who watched her carefully, "Kylian." she spat, placing the cards in his hand.

Her skin brushed his, he was close enough that she could smell his unforgettable scent. His warm, soft skin on hers took her back to that night. All of a sudden, it was like his hands were all over her again, squeezing, exploring, rubbing. She could hear his voice, calling out her name, singing her praises. She could feel his hands on her tits as he pressed kisses up her neck, on her lips, her cheeks, anywhere he could. They were tangled in his soft sheets, her legs wrapped like a vice around his waist as he held her so easily, like she weighed nothing more than a feather.

"Y/n."

He'd cried out, chanting her name like a prayer. But no, he really was speaking now. He said her name, his thumb grazing her palm as she handed over the cards. He spoke quietly, almost whispering her name.

She cast him a fleeting, strange glance before turning back to Luis, "Are you ready to go?"

He nodded and she headed out into the wilderness, where the pack of reporters were gathered. At the sight of the doors opening, they all began to clamour before seeing it was only y/n.

She stepped up to the panel and spoke into one of the microphones, "Bonjour à tous et merci d'être venus. Il y aura une section pour les questions à la fin. Et maintenant, Luis et Kylian."

Cameras began to flash as everyone turned to the door she'd emerged from. She stepped down from the raised panel and stood to the side of the room. As the footballer and his coach took their place before all of the cameras, Kylian's father came up beside her.

She glanced up at him and offered him a small, polite smile, before turning her gaze back to the press conference which was starting. Luis began speaking, though she didn't understand a word of his Spanish.

"So, you're the one who's been sabotaging my son's career?"

He was so nonchalant she wasn't even sure he'd spoken or if it was just a creation of her imagination. She glanced up at him but he just stared straight ahead.

Hesitantly, she replied, "Sorry?"

"You're the one who has been dragging my son's name through the mud?"

"Usually I go by y/n."

"Oh, I know. I've heard all about you, y/n."

"Right." she pursed her lips, "Well, it's all worked out just fine, hasn't it?" she shrugged, nodding her head in the direction of the press conference.

“Hmm, for you.”

She drew back, looking up at the much taller man, “What’s that supposed to mean? I gave him every chance to leave, you are aware that PR doesn’t encompass transfers or contracts. I just broadcast what I’m told.”

“Y/n, I know what is best for my sons and I won’t have anyone getting in the middle of that.”

She frowned, what the hell did that mean? Before she could question his ambiguous statement, there was a flurry of excited voices and her head snapped back to the conference at hand.

Kylian nodded to a journalist, who stood up, "Kylian, pourquoi avez-vous pris la décision de rester à Paris?" Kylian, why have you made the decision to stay in Paris?

"Paris est l'endroit où j'ai grandi. Je tiens à cette équipe, c'est ma famille et je veux le meilleur pour eux." Paris is where I grew up. I care about this team, they are my family and I want the very best for them.

"Mais vous allez devoir quitter cette équipe à un moment donné. Pourquoi pas maintenant?" But you are going to have to leave this team at some point. Why not now?

Maybe y/n was going insane but she swore Kylian glanced at her before he spoke. Surely not. He hadn't called her. He didn't care about her more than her body. Of course, he was probably just looking at his father. But she just felt his gaze deep within her, like the ground beneath her was shaking.

"Je n'ai pas l'impression d'avoir terminé mon travail ici et j'espère encore accomplir davantage" he paused before adding, "avec mon équipe." I don't feel like I have finished my work here and there is still more I hope to achieve... with my team.

A few more questions were asked before the conference ended and they returned to the room next door. Y/n began to regather her files, "That was good, guys." she declared, offering a half-hearted smile, "I hope this puts it all to bed once and for all."

She nodded firmly before starting for the door; she headed out into the quiet corridor and let out a breath she wasn't even aware she'd been holding. It was like stepping out into fresh air, just being out of a room with him. His presence made her sweat and forget how to breath or think or speak.

"Y/n!"

And she couldn't breath again, and the temperature was rising, and she almost tripped over her own feet at the sound of his voice.

She snapped around, "What?"

"Wait."

She blinked at him and when he said nothing more, frowned, "Well?"

"Are you upset with me?"

"Of course not." she spat, sarcasm thick on her tongue.

"What did I do?"

She rolled her eyes and turned to leave again, "Just forget it."

"Y/n!" he yelled. When her pace didn't falter, he chased after her, catching up easily. He caught her arm and a flush immediately raced across her cheeks at the contact, "Y/n! Stop! Is this because I didn't call you after that night?"

"Forget it." she annunciated, still marching on.

"No, not if you're just gonna ignore me!"

She laughed bitterly, "That's rich."

"So it is because I didn't call?"

She spun around so abruptly that he almost crashed into her. "No, it's because you told me you were leaving! I wouldn't have fucked you had I known we were still going to have to work together! I'm mad at you because you lied to me!"

He didn't have time to reply as a door behind them opened and they both swiftly fell silent. Luis and Wilifried both walked out into the corridor, too deep in friendly conversation to notice the heated moment between y/n and Kylian.

She raked her eyes up and down him then quickly disappeared.

Masterlist

[bomberqueen17]

WWII museum

So, New Orleans-ing proceeds apace. Tried to go to the Southern Food museum, the website said it was open, the door said it was closed. This was a rather crushing blow as I'd walked about as far as I could walk to get there, and then had to turn around and come back. Don't think I'll be able to try again.

My sciatic nerve has had it with me, and I'm able to get around during the days but it's just hurting so badly at night I sleep in five-minute increments, then have to wake and roll over, and if I'm lucky I can fall back asleep before it hurts too much for me to sleep through it, and if I'm unlucky I lie there until i can't stand it and get up and stretch and try a new position. So that's not great. Stretching stops it from hurting while I am actively stretching, but does not particularly help if i assume literally any other position. No, I cannot sleep in the stretching position. I've tried. I can't even sit in that position, so it's not a very useful method of relief.

Ibuprofen doesn't touch it and neither does Aleve. Those are the only options I have with me, so.

Anyway. I'm getting around fine but really not getting a lot of rest.

Last night we went to a show at Preservation Hall, and they charge literally double for your ticket if you want to sit on the hard wooden benches, and I weighed the odds and the bench was likely to give me sciatica anyway, so I stood and saved myself $25, but it was agony and I paid the price. So today we went to the National WWII Museum, and I asked at the admission desk if they had loaner wheelchairs, and they do.

I have learned that nobody cares why you're in the wheelchair. They have many, you are not snatching it away from someone who needs it more.

It is its own punishment, however. The pathways are marked at the stairs; if you go find the elevator, you then have to wander around trying to find where you're meant to go next. People don't get out of your way and you spend a lot of time staring at the asses of people who don't care that you're there and can't get through and can't see anything. One woman, we asked politely if we could get through, and she made no attempt to move, so we squeezed by, and clipped her foot with our wheel, and she got very angry with us. There was no one close to her, she easily could have shifted her foot, she could both see and hear us. We could not have gone any other route, she just didn't think we had a right to pass.

And some sections of the museum have artfully-designed floors that are rough, with chunks of fake-broken concrete. These are really punishing to try and roll over, and are wildly uncomfortable to bounce along over. Especially in a crowd of people. I understand the aesthetic choice but with the number of visitors with mobility impairments for whom that provides a tripping hazard, I super super wonder what the fuck they were thinking. I saw several elderly folks with rollators and I don't know how they got through those rooms. It was several of them.

One whole section, we could not get to unless we went back through the crowded exhibit to the halfway point to find the elevator again.

As far as the content.... I studied that era extensively in my youth, Dad was obsessed with military history and had a lot of books in the house, and I read several of them cover to cover and back and forwards. One in particular-- my sixth grade social studies teacher was obsessed with the Pacific war in specific, and during the year I was there, he was engaged in hand-painting a huge mural of the Pacific battles on a map on the classroom wall. I was allowed to help stencil on some of the letters. So I found that I knew most of the general conduct of that war, and the book I had obsessed over in specific was a compilation of primary sources, news articles, contemporary firsthand accounts, of many of the major actions of that war. I was astonished at how much I remembered. I also had read a very detailed account of D-Day, similarly, so I was able to rattle off an overview of the thing to Dude while we were staring at a line of people's asses who wouldn't let us through.

As we went through the Pacific wing, in the background there was this weird repeating bit of ambient music that I actually recognized as Brian Eno's An Ending (Ascent), and I was like fuck, I bet I know what that is, and I was horrifyingly correct: that's the room where there's a huge wall-sized enlargement of the devastation at ground zero of Nagasaki, a couple of little things along one wall explaining what happened, and nothing else, it's just this big huge space and the music.

I guess it's tasteful, I guess going into more detail wouldn't help, I guess that's not the place for it; leaving it a big bleak horror serves the purpose and tone. The museum was generally pretty good-- very, very American-centric, but acknowledging various issues of racism and misconduct and propaganda and such in sort of minimal but very present ways. There were repeated mentions of the segregated US armed forces, repeated discussions of what the Black soldiers still managed to achieve, and it especially hit because the group that was the most polite and considerate of my wheelchair was a school group of almost entirely Black high school kids from, clearly, a local-ish school, who were impeccably-behaved despite being kids and horsing around and such-- I timidly said "excuse me" to one and she leapt out of my way and tapped her friend's shoulder, who instantly stopped horsing around and said "oh excuse me!" and also got out of my way and told her friend and the children just all melted out of my path and reformed after me, unbothered, resuming their horseplay, poking at the interactive exhibits, paying surprisingly good attention and also roasting one another, as young teens do. And I thought, as I went on to read about Executive Order 8802, of these kids reading that placard, looking at that exhibit, thinking about what has changed and what, horribly, has not.

(Link is to the museum's website. There are a lot of resources there. There was meant to be a cool feature where you follow a specific veteran's story, but i was assigned Bob Hope and don't care about him so I didn't use that feature. Dude got Robert Capa, though, and I immediately was like "i know all about him" and from across the room was like "that photo on that wall is from your dude" and he was like "what" LOL. I know photographers ok.)

We lasted about five hours. We did not see as much of the museum as I would have on foot. But I also know even just the line to get in would have utterly destroyed me on foot. So we made it through to V-E day and then to V-J day and I sat in that room with the Brian Eno loop and was like You know what, I'm good. I'm good. I can't do any more.

So we went and got frozen margaritas at a fast food joint down the street and now I am recuperating. My sciatic nerve is not great, it won't let me nap either, but I will be able to walk and get dinner, which I wouldn't be if I'd done that museum on foot.

I highly recommend, even if you're mostly in good shape, if you have trouble making it through a museum and get footsore, just borrow a wheelchair, and then switch who's pushing halfway thru the museum. If it's that or cut the visit short.... We did not switch pushers, but Dude found a great deal of relief by leaning on the back of it, and I was able to carry the water bottles without much trouble.

Most museums don't have decoratively-uneven concrete floors.

I did realize, despite my obsessive reading on the topic as a kid, while I know the names of most of the German high command, i could not tell you the names of really any of the Japanese officers of similar rank. I recognized a few, from the placards, but generally I don't have the same level of knowledge there. On the one hand, I feel i should read more Japanese history of the war. On the other hand.... I think my days of being able to absorb that sort of thing might be over. Fourteen-year-old me would have loved this museum and read every placard, and would have been on foot to do it. Forty-whatever I am year old me was interested but horrified, even though I generally knew most of it already. But hearing about the estimated 100,000 Filipino civilians massacred in Manila during the battle for that city meant one thing when I was 14, and now means... well, rather a lot more, I have more context and I can really understand, now, what that means. It wasn't that i didn't understand as a kid. But I had no context.

Well, we'll see if I manage to scrape together enough brainpower to look into it any further. At any rate, the museum is worth a visit but is A Lot. Very American-Centric, but not as Patriotic as I was worrying. Not as obsessed with Big Machine Phallic Symbol as I was worried, either; it's not that there's none of that but it's largely in the context of discussing how US industrial capacity rapidly switched over to manufacturing war materiel. (Frank admissions in several cases that our stuff was inferior quality/design to both German and Japanese items, but was infinitely more numerous and in several cases it was simply that intelligent users worked out ways to use the items' defects to advantage, or to minimize their disadvantages anyway.)

And the website, linked to above, is pretty informative, with a wealth of images and citations. So there's that.

IDK, I have no like overarching message here, the bit of my sciatic nerve just inside my knee is fucking killing me and i can't think clearly about anything else for a bit, so. There's that, lol.

[nuoyipeach]

Off-Cam

Kang Seulgi X Lee Taeyong

requested warnings: none? tags: : @gerardeveryway @gomseulgiii @innssanityyy @seulyongggi

"Welcome to Speed Date Life! I am the director for the show, and I'll explain to you the process with my assistant here."

Seulgi rolled her eyes as she stood amongst the crowd of five other women, sitting opposite the five male participants. Why her mother signed her up for a dating show was an impossible question to her.

"You're so focused on earning money, I had no choice. I'd like to see my only daughter have a family please."

Her thoughts were snapped back when the director continued. "So we've gone through all your profiles as well as what your preferences are, and will be pairing you all as closely as possible. To avoid any mishaps we also had an actual matchmaker help us with the pairing."

She watched as the man pulled out 5 folders and opened one by one. "I'll call out the couples right now, but you will be introduced to each other when we start filming tomorrow. This is just so you know beforehand."

Seulgi watched as he opened a folder and passed it to his assistant. "Please raise your hand so your partner knows you. Jung Jaehyun and Kim Yerim." Two people raised their hands, smiling at each other as they bowed their heads slightly. "Johnny Seo and Bae Joohyun." Another pair raised their hands.

"Lee Taeyong and Kang Seulgi." Seulgi raised her hand, then looked at her male counterpart. The man smiled and bowed his head slightly at her, which she returned before looking back to the front, listening to the final two pairings.

Mark Lee and Ko Eun

Nakamoto Yuta and Park Sooyoung

"So the idea is for the first week you will meet daily, warm up and get to know each other. On week two we will put a couple together in one house, rooms will be separate. From there onwards you can progress as you like, hopefully we'll get some actual results out of you all." The director teased before continuing. "Also remember you all have signed and consented to this idea beforehand as well, but we won't be pushing you or preventing you from doing anything after the first week. And if you do decide to drop out, we will take your issue into consideration. Any questions?"

Seulgi raised her hand almost immediately, and the director signalled her to ask. "Even if we're not sharing rooms, will we have our privacy from cameras? Because if not, I don't see the point of separate rooms." she raised an eyebrow asking.

The assistant was quick to wave her hand. "Oh no no, don't worry. The houses will have cameras, except for your bedrooms and bathrooms. It's only the common spaces that will be televised, like the living room, kitchen, dining, etcetera. Your mics will be on you all times, but during bedtime or in the bathroom you can switch off or remove when sleeping."

After a few more chats, the meeting ended, and Seulgi was quick to dash home. She crashed onto her bed and stared up at the ceiling, sighing at the thought of two things.

Tomorrow she'll start dating someone.

Tomorrow she'll become a TV personality.

>>>

The day came for Seulgi's first date with her paired up man, Lee Taeyong. During the introduction recording, the most she could see he had in common with her was that they both loved music and dancing. While she worked as a nurse at a private hospital, he was a primary school teacher as he claimed he loved kids, while also volunteering weekends at an orphanage to teach art.

It's almost like they had completely opposite lives, and Seulgi wondered how would this ever work out. Sure they had the two common interests, but was that really enough?

She checked herself one last time as the car came to a stop in front of the cafe they were to meet in, making sure her outfit dusted and hair wasn't messy. She stepped out, startled a little as she realised a camera was focused on her outside, and smiled with a quick bow before going inside. She followed where she assumed he'd be, noticing another two cameramen near a table by the window.

Taeyong sat fumbling his hands on the table, as if to show he was nervous, she wondered if that was his real actions or simply for the cameras. As she came closer he stood up and they greeted each other, when he suddenly moved to her side and pulled out the chair for her. She stood startled again and smiled, though she still wondered if that was real.

"So..." he spoke up as he sat, chuckling nervously. "How do we go about this? I'm not exactly good with dating."

Seulgi raised her eyebrows, letting out a laugh before responding. "I'm not exactly experienced myself to be honest. This would be my first time dating officially."

The two shared a short laugh, a moment the director signalled the camera men to get clearer shots of. Soon enough the barrier was lifted as Taeyong started talking more about himself first, always making sure to get her involved in between. She noted this action of his, and it made her smile that he wasn't simply going on and on about himself.

So he's not narcissistic, good...

In turn she spoke about her life, and tried to keep it as interactive as he did. However at one point she noticed he simply kept quiet and let her babble on about something she didn't like, though his eyes were on her with a small smile so she knew he was paying attention. Once she finished he nodded and empathised with her, another thing that really caught her attention.

"Do you wanna maybe go for a walk, continue the date?" Taeyong asked once she was finished talking, and she noticed they had finished their coffees. "I know a nice spot we can sit and have a picnic. There's food there too." his eyes glimmered, then suddenly switched to nervous. "Oh, unless you prefer indoors, then there's a nice restaurant nearby too."

Seulgi chuckled, finding his ramble too cute. Unconsciously she reached to hold his hand in comfort. "The picnic sounds nice."

>>>

The first week went well, to Seulgi at least. She didn't feel awkward around Taeyong or get any weird vibes from him. He was nice, soft spoken, funny, polite, a gentleman overall. He also seemed very put together in his life, albeit a little clumsy like when his canned soda exploded and got on both of them, but Seulgi was more amused than angry at the way didn't realise he had been shaking it.

The time came for the couples to move in together. Seulgi was nervous despite being comfortable around Taeyong, because if there's one thing she knew is that one's true self always appears when living together. She sat in the car readying herself one last time before stepping out, greeting the camera as usual, before getting her bags out and going into the airbnb the show had rented out for her and Taeyong.

Just as she reached the front door, it opened showing a smiley Taeyong, who immediately grabbed her luggage from her and leading her inside. "Welcome home." he greeted as if they were already living together, it made her smile at his fun manner. But she wasn't gonna let her guard down this easily. "There's three rooms here, two are our bedrooms. They're pretty much the same but I figured you'd come and pick one first? I'm kinda indecisive."

She stared at him scratching his head, then peeked at the two bedrooms. They were pretty similar, just a matter of front and backyard view difference. After a little thinking, she nodded and went in to the room looking over the backyard, Taeyong following behind with her luggage.

"I'll take this one."

"Great, I'll move in across then." he smiled before leaving the room, closing the door behind him. Seulgi sighed, plopping her body onto the bed and staring up at the ceiling feeling overwhelmed. She suddenly wondered if all of this is a good idea. She's just signed up to live in a house alone with a man she only just met for another what, three weeks? And while they're on camera most of the time, what if he does something to her?

That night, as the cameras were shut off and their mics taken back, Seulgi shut her door and sat in her room in silence. She was considering going to bed early, when a knock came on the door.

"Hey, sorry to disturb you... uhm, I noticed you didn't eat dinner properly because of the cameras, so I saved you some food for later."

He noticed? Seulgi had felt a little insecure to eat in a home-like setting with cameras surrounding her, so much that she only took small portions and ate unnaturally. She didn't think it was that unnatural that she'd be obvious.

She rushed to the door and opened it. "Oh my God, do you think people will notice that?" her immediate words to him as Taeyong stood puzzled.

"Notice what?"

"That I was eating for the camera? It's not like I'm trying to show off I'm healthy or anything, I just felt weird with the cameras there..."

Taeyong smiled and held her shoulder to stop her rambling on. "It didn't look that bad, and I doubt they'll use our first dinner footage considering we barely spoke." he chuckled, albeit a little awkwardly. "But I noticed you didn't eat properly, and they're all gone now, so come down and finish it off. I was craving a little dessert too, heard there's ice cream in the fridge." he left with a smile, leaving Seulgi's heart to flutter.

Stop it, you barely know him...

Sighing she followed behind, and saw how he had plated a new plate of food for her, and two empty dessert cups next to it for the said later ice cream. Seulgi had never felt this touched by a man before. One of the reasons she never dated was because of the things she saw her friends go through, although some did end up with their supposed forever lovers now, there was a lot of trial and error they had gone through.

Stop it, stop it...

She sat opposite to him on the small dining table and started to eat while watching him in the kitchen preparing them drinks. He got some lemonade out for them and gave her a glass. "I hope this is OK, I noticed you don't drink alcohol much, so I got this instead." he poured some out and placed it next to her plate.

Stop it... her heart paced faster, while her mind tried keeping her smart. But she could tell which was winning. She smiled back, nodding at him in gratitude before taking a sip of her drink and start eating.

Taeyong watched her silently, smiling every time she hummed in pleasure at the food. Seeing her able to be in her own self without the pressure of cameras around her. He felt it too, but he could tell the insecurity was higher for her.

"Should we get to know each other better?" he spoke up, getting her attention as she stared perplexed. "I know we kinda did that in the first meeting, but I feel like we didn't really get to talk as much as we should have as a potential couple..."

Seulgi stared a little longer, feeling an odd sense of worry in her chest. "You... you're really taking this whole thing seriously huh?" she asked, her voice filled with doubt.

The smile disappeared from his face so fast, Seulgi realised her mistake in asking in such a tone. He bit his lip, looked down at the table, then back up with a much sadder smile.

"I'm sorry, I kinda assumed you were in it seriously too... but I guess it's better to know now than in the end."

"What do you mean seriously?" she asked, trying to be sympathetic, although she felt bad for ruining his expectations.

Taeyong sighed. "Well, I joined this in hopes to find someone for real. Considering my time as a teacher, I haven't had the best of luck in finding a long term relationship. My friend works in production and told me about this, and I had a lot of paid leaves left, so I figured it's the perfect chance for me to find someone." he stopped and watched her expressions, noticing a look of guilt. "What about you? What made you join if you're not really into it?"

Seulgi silently thought for a while, debating how honest she should be with him. Her answer, completely. "My mum signed me up for this because I wasn't, as she said, taking the initiative myself of finding someone. Truthfully I like to keep busy at the hospital, and... I don't mean to sound rude but I've just seen dating go wrong for a lot of my friends so it never came across me to go for it. When I came into this though, I honestly didn't have expectations, I was just gonna see how everything goes.."

She felt a weight off her chest having finally have been honest bout this with someone. But she still felt bad, feeling as though she wasted his chance at a proper relationship. She warrily watched his expression, noticing he seemed very deep in thought all of a sudden.

"So, you're not entirely closed off to the idea of a relationship coming out of all this right?"

"I guess not?" she answered more like a question.

He smiled again, a little reluctantly though. "Well, we have another three weeks. How about you give us a chance? I am hopeful that after this show we might actually be something. I mean, I think you're a great person, I'd love to get to know you more."

>>>

Seulgi couldn't believe herself as she put her arms through the dress she decided to wear for their date night. Two weeks in and suddenly she found herself excited and putting in effort to look her best, something she never would have done even three months back.

Not that she went out looking sloppy, but the way she was stressed now about looking good, she never would have imagined.

As it turned out, Taeyong was great to her. Besides music and dancing, she found out their shared love of art and photography, and how he was just as career focused as she was, except he had realised sooner he felt empty from loneliness while Seulgi assumed she was simply unproductive.

Another thing she realised, and so did Taeyong, was that she did better off camera, and she couldn't have been more relieved when he didn't bother her with it and instead matched her energy. On camera, they kept things civil and formal, while when they turn off the two get comfortable with each other, talking and laughing to no end sometimes.

Their current date was on camera, and that was another thing she worried about. It would be their final week together in the house, and she was nervous as to what would the end result be. As she finally stepped out of the room, she looked around before going to the living room, seeing that Taeyong had already gotten ready and sat waiting for her.

"Hey." she called softly, smiling when he looked up, eyeing her up and down as if in awe of her looks. "Let's go?"

"Oh yea, yes." he stumbled his words a bit before getting up in a haste, heading to the front door and opening it for her. She chuckled at his sudden clumsiness, but it was something she had learned to appreciate. After closing the door behind then, Taeyong went ahead and helped her into his car as well, and like before giving her the option to pick their music for the drive.

It wasn't any longer than half an hour when they arrived at a rooftop restaurant, where they sat and immediately indulged in the food. Seulgi noticed the director signalling them to interact more, and though nervous she tried her best, relieved again as Taeyong didn't mind it too much himself.

Before long they were done, and the cameras stopped filming as the crew began to pack away to move back to the house, when the director suddenly came up to the two at their table looking strict.

"Ms Kang, I'm not sure how the two of you will end your relationship, but for once could you show something on camera? Your segments are so far the most boring, you're not captivating the audience, I get you might not enjoy this but for as long as you signed up for it give us something to work with."

Seulgi felt her throat close up, as if she lost all ability to speak completely. The man wasn't yelling, but the stern voice was enough to scare her, and all she could do was whisper a soft apology bowing her head slightly. A sudden hand grabbing hers caught her off guard further, and she looked up to see Taeyong standing right by her, squeezing her hand in reassurance.

"We apologise sir, Seulgi just doesn't do well in front of cameras, so please there is no need to cause a commotion. I mean, it's our last week anyways."

"Mr Lee I'm sorry but this doesn't concern you. It is the last week, but we've never intervened before considering her comfort of getting along with you, but as it is the last week our writers and producers have had complaints all around. Like I said, her cuts have been boring, so please just for these last few days give us something to end on a good note."

The crew decided to stop filming for the rest of the night, figuring everyone needed some rest after that slight conflict of interest. Taeyong drove Seulgi back in silence, despite there being no cameras or mics on them, as he noticed her upset. He felt bad, knowing how she was here reluctantly yet she attempted her best yet it wasn't enough, and although he knew where she went wrong, he didn't think she deserved that intervention.

As they reached the house and he parked the car, he quickly reached over and held her hand before she could leave. Seulgi stopped undoing the seat belt and looked at him confused, sitting back comfortable when seeing his sad smile at her.

"Let's sit for a bit." she sighed at his suggestion, looking out the window as he took her hand in both his, rubbing his thumb over the back of hers. "Don't get disheartened, they mean well, but it's not your fault."

"It is..." she suddenly pulled her hand away, her voice filled with sudden bitterness. "It's always been my fault. That's why I'm here, my mother is sick of me being this way, I don't know why I am but I hate it too..."

"What do you mean?" Taeyong asked confused by the sudden outburst, further shocked when noticing her teary eyes.

"I've never been good at... socialising, and communication... whenever someone had asked me out I'd shut them out almost immediately because I wouldn't know how to react. Like as long as we're aquintances or friends I'm good, but then moment anyone tries to go further, I get all closed off..."

By now she had wiped her eyes few times trying to stop the tears running down her cheeks, but it was a failed attempt when she noticed Taeyong handing her a tissue. She took it reluctantly and wiped her face, before rushing to get inside the house and into her bedroom.

>

Seulgi felt bad. Taeyong had genuinely been concerned for her, even stood up for her, and all she did was have an outburst before shutting herself away. Again. She wanted to get back to him, but she didn't know how. She had already washed up and changed into some shorts and a lounge shirt, and she figured by now Taeyong would have done the same.

She wanted to go out to him badly, but again she didn't know how. Not until knocks came on her door and she scurried up to open it, her heart shaking at the sight of the said man holding two ice cream cups and spoons smiling at her.

"I figured you'd wanna have something for dessert, to feel better."

For some reason, Seulgi felt unable to control herself. Before she knew it she had thrown herself towards Taeyong, hand around his neck while her face hid in his shoulder, body tight to his as she hugged him and all of a sudden let out a sigular loud sob. With his hands full, Taeyong wasn't sure what to do but wrap his arms around her as well, slowly walking her into her room to place the ice cream and spoons onto the vanity table and then hug her back properly.

Though he wasn't entirely sure, he felt she needed nothing but an embrace at this very moment. And that's exactly what he gave her as they stood in the middle of the room in silence, still hugging, his one hand around her waist while the other rubbed her back up and down.

After a few minutes Seulgi finally lifted her head up, turning to him slowly as she felt embarrassed from what had just happened. But she also felt calm, comforted, peaceful, unlike ever before as their eyes slowly met. Taeyong gave her a quick smiled, but the longer they stared his smile suddenly disappeared, but not from negativity.

She figured she was still at no control of herself, not when Seulgi realised her face had moved closer to his, noses almost touching as his eyes trailed down to her lips, and before Taeyong himself could think any longer she had sealed their lips together, kissing him softly but with need.

As realisation hit of what she had done, she pulled away just as quickly. "Shit..." she tried to push away from Taeyong's hold, but this time he held her closer and they kissed again. Her hands threaded through his hair, tugging on his locks as their kiss deepened, body's pressing together closer. As they pulled away to breath, Seulgi quickly hid head face into his chest, causing him to chuckle which she felt as his chest vibrated.

"The ice-cream will melt." he whispered, making her look up to his shy smile. "Let's enjoy it, together." he let go of her and grabbed the tubs again, sitting on her bed and signalling her over. Seulgi was confused more than ever, but went along with it.

>>>

The crew were delighted, noticing something was different from the night before, and although it was the final three days of filming the couple, the slight change in Seulgi's on camera demeanor was enough for them to be satisfied. She had been smiling more, especially when the two spoke, and showing more expressions. On the second last day, she even laughed out at the moment Taeyong tripped and dropped his water bottle over himself.

"That's a wrap." the director called out later in the evening. "Good job everyone, and great progress Ms Kang. As tomorrow is the last day, it has been planned by the writers in advance so you will receive instructions later tonight."

They had been in the backyard of the house, having a quick dinner while talking about whatever they could think of. The moment the staff had left, Seulgi started clearing away their cutlery when a sudden splash took her attention, and she turned to see Taeyong, in nothing but his shorts, wading around the pool.

"What are you doing?" she called out to him, putting the plates down again a little further away.

"Come on, it's relaxing. Jump in."

Hesitant, Seulgi thought for a minute before deciding to just go for it. She went inside, changed into a swimsuit she found, and quickly came back out jumping in, laughing as the water splashed into Taeyong's face. She quickly tried waddling away, but he was faster as he chased behind and splashed her back, and they soon started a water fight.

With the sun almost setting and the wind gentle, Taeyong couldn't help stare at the woman in front of him who looked beautiful as always, and a sudden sadness filled in him that it was their last day together, unofficially at least. Unable to help himself, he went closer to her slowly as Seulgi wiped her eyes, her attention taken away when feeling arms around her waist. She looked up at him a little surprised, but his warm smile was enough to put her at ease as she smiled back, her hands now placed on his shoulders.

As their bodies slowly got closer, Seulgi realised he was top naked, and started biting her lower lip with her eyes off to a corner in shyness, causing Taeyong to laugh.

"Are you nervous?" his sudden question got her to look back at him, and she noticed the slight worry in his eyes.

"About what?"

"Tomorrow." his one hand moved to push some of her wet hair off her face. "It's our last night together, and tomorrow... well, I'm nervous." Her hands wrapped around his neck as she suddenly pulled herself closer to him.

"Why?"

"Well... what's your verdict?" Seulgi realised what he was talking about, and knew she shared the same worry. "Do you wanna continue this afterwards?" his questions left her speechless. She came into this program with no motivation on being involved with whoever she would be with. But now she was confused.

Did she like Taeyong enough to have a relationship? Sure they kissed that one time, but they never spoke about it after.

"What's yours?" that was all she managed to let out, afraid she might say the wrong thing otherwise. She watched as he bit his lip, looking down at the water then back up at her.

"I don't want to force you into something you don't want." oddly, his answer frustrated Seulgi, and it was evident as a frown appeared on her face. "I mean, my answer depends on yours, if you don't want to then neither will I."

"You're such a coward." Seulgi let out before she could think or realise what she said, catching herself and him off guard. She quickly pulled away from his hold, backing away slightly before he caught her hand, preventing her from getting any further.

"Why am I a coward?"

"I'm sorry..." she sighed, but figured it's best to be honest with him at this point. "I didn't mean it like that. I just don't like that you're leaving the final decision on me. Why is it my responsibility only for our relationship to work?"

Taeyong was further confused, pulling her closer by her arm then holding both her hands. "That's not how I mean it to be. I just don't want to put you in an uncomfortable situation. I mean, you said it yourself, you're just here because your mother sent you. I wasn't gonna make you be our reason to not work out, I just thought it's best to figure out our position now so that there's no awkward tension tomorrow in front of everybody else." he sighed as he finished speaking, noticing the slight worry on her face.

That's when he realised what she was doing, closing herself off again. Only this time, Taeyong was determined to break her out of her shell. If their relationship was going to fail, he wanted it to be on proper reasons, and shying away out of fear or hesitation was not going to cut it for him.

He slowly pulled her even closer, encasing her within his arms again as his forehead rested on hers, sending her into shock again as her body froze up.

"Let go how you really feel Seulgi." he whispered. "It's now or never, and I'd regret myself if you hide away again." this time, his lips were first on hers, nothing more than a soft peck. That was until her hands circled around his neck and kissed him back. Taeyong smiled through their kiss, tightening his hold around her as their kiss deepened, happier when he felt her pulling them closer to the point their legs entangled underwater.

Once they pulled away, Seulgi for the first time didn't shy away. Maybe it was what he said that really got to her, or maybe she finally felt open and comfortable with him enough, but instead she looked at him directly and smiled, eyes glimmering with hope.

>

"Let's move on to our next couple, Taeyong and Seulgi." the interviewer spoke as the couple were next to walk onto the patio where she had been speaking to the coupled before them.

It was the final day of filming, and as mentioned the crew had already pre-planned the itinerary, with every couple coming in separately to get interviewed about their experience and outcome. So far three other couples had positive results, and Seulgi and Taeyong were the second last to be called on. She wiped her hands on her skirt, feeling how sweaty they were from sudden rush of nerves, but one look at Taeyong and she suddenly felt better as he smiled at her before they got to the table.

"So, Seulgi, apparently you were quite closed off at the beginning of the show, is that right?" embarassed, Seulgi nodded with a nervous chuckle. "How was that for you Taeyong?"

Taeyong hummed as if in thought, even though he already had an answer. "Honestly, I didn't mind it. Obviously no one would be completely comfortable with somebody they just met, let alone living under one roof, so yea it took her some time but we had a lot of nice conversations. I think that's something I really appreciate about Seulgi, being able to have good conversations with her." his eyes drifted towards Seulgi, who looked back at him in awe at his unexpected answer.

"Oh my, that's quite touchy." the interviewer cheered. "How about you Seulgi? How did you feel about Taeyong after your initial meeting?"

Seulgi was still taken aback by his answer, but she had one ready to go as well. "I think my favourite moments were our conversations as well, especially when it was just two of us. Like you said I was a bit closed off, but on our own time he was still patient with getting to know me, and I really love that about him." the words left her mouth before she could finish, causing her to hand to clasp over her mouth while the interviewer gasped, and Taeyong stared in happy shock.

"Did you say love?" he teased her.

"I meant, your personality wise, like... being patient... uhm-"

"Well, I love your insightfulness, and your laugh." he suddenly replied, and although Seulgi knew it was to defuse her awkward position, which itself melted her heart, she could also tell he was being genuine.

"Oh my God you two must have gotten really close. Can I conclude this as a success story?"

The couple instinctively looked at each other with knowing eyes, before Taeyong smiled and turned to the interviewer.

"We still have a long way to go, but I guess you could say it was destiny."

>>>

"God, you were so cliche back then." Taeyong scowled at the words coming out of his wife, who laid next to him on her phone watching the three year old clip on youtube.

"Yea well, this cliche man was the one who you married, so needless to say my charms worked."

Seulgi chuckled, putting her phone away and turning towards her husband, throwing her arm around his torso as she cuddled closer. He laid his arm out for her to rest on, fingers playing with her hair as they got comfortable enough to fall asleep.

"I wouldn't have had it any other way." they shared a quick kiss, before laying back down and closing their eyes, both knowing he was right back then.

>>>

omg I forgot if this ask is a year or more, so sorry for the delay anon!🙏🏼 like I said, this exam season got my nerves so high I'm binge writing a few things together again lmao so I hope you enjoyed this still! took me a little extra thought for it bcuz ngl I've NEVER watched dating shows😅 so not sure if the format is what you expected (or if it made any sense😬)

[nectardaddy]

hello dodger and a very happy self ship friday to you here are my self ship questions!! i am asking a lot of them bc these prompts are so good also im curious abt suga

pre: 1,6

general: 1, 9

love: 2, 8

domestic: 2, 13

self ship asks !

get ready for a novel molly ily <333

How did they first meet?

we met in a teacher prep program in college! most education majors have all the same classes together (especially at smaller schools) so we never really had a moment away from each other. he was either the only, or one of like two, men in the entire program. he was wanted by everyone who likes men in that gd major let's be real. we got assigned to do a project together to make a unit plan :))))

What was their "flirting stage" like?

our flirting was roasting the shit out of each other. HOWEVER he would do small things like get me coffee "just because he passed it" when it was most definitely out of the way. he would always compliment me in some way and it sent me to the stratosphere every single time. his flirting was more subtle unlike mine because I would full on short circuit and stumble out a compliment or ask about his day because I was down horrendously.

Who initiated the relationship, and how did they go about it?

he did (THANK GOD). sort of forward about it too? like not full on "do you want to go on a date?' but like asking if I wanted to do something and then tagging on "like a date" at the end. I also definitely see us going on a few dates and in his head we are already together so when he calls me his partner I'm so confused and he hits me with the "omfg did I not ask you??" y e a h

Who gets jealous easier?

I answered this from honee here! god I want to EAT HIM

What are their primary love languages?

suga likes giving words of affirmation and receiving physical touch while I like giving gifts (I am a trinket connoisseur like a fucking crow) and receiving physical touch as well. while it clashes sometimes, especially with words of affirmation (I am NOT good with words) we make it work by genuinely not leaving each other tf alone and constantly touching one another. he also has a whole little shelf dedicated to all of the bullshit trinkets I give him, probably has some at school too. I eventually conjoined both my love for giving gifts and his need for words of affirmation. he probably has about 20 rocks that came with the stupid ass note of "you rock" or some euphemism "you make me rock hard" I would totally do this and that makes me want to die

Do they prefer verbal or physical affection?

now this may go against what I said in the last one, it makes sense in my head though hear me out. we are both teachers. during the school week about 2 hours after we get home we REFUSE to touch each other. we are both so ungodly overstimulated and the thought of being touched and cuddled makes us both want to crawl in our own skin. those times are for verbal affection. anytime after those 2 hours it is most definitely physical affection (ig this counts as verbal affection as well) but I have moments where I self deprecate and I most definitely see him just yelling at the top of his lungs "STOP IT STOP IT STOP IT IM GOING TO THROW SOMETHING AT YOU YOU'RE PERFECT SHUT YOUR MOUTH" also the man to hold my hand and physically move me so he's on the side of the sidewalk that's closest to the street

If they get married, who proposes, and how do they do it? Would they change their surnames?

suga better fucking propose bc I sure as hell am NOT doing it lmao. that would make me throw up from anxiety, I think I would genuinely have a stroke if I even for a second thought I had to propose we definitly have a conversation about it before hand though, so he 10000000% knows if he proposes to me in public I'm punching him right in his fucking nose. bc THAT would make me so gd anxious I'd probably throw up before I said yes. but him, being himself, he would make it the cutest fucking thing I've ever seen and wouldn't be able to keep his mouth shut about it. he is also a gentleman and tells my stubborn ass to get my nails done before (I am terrible at this I let them grow out for so long) and I would hyphen my name (like it is now yayyyy) bc I'll be damned if I take a MANS name just to change my own. no shade to those that want to do that or have done that, it just doesn't sit right with me. so it would be (my last name) - sugawara. it would be long as hell and a hassle to anyone at the dmv but we ball

Do they have any "couple traditions", or family traditions?

THIS ONE IS MY FAVORITE!!! RAHHHHH IM YAPPING (also includes sexual themes** OOPS SORRY LMAO) so I celebrate pagan holidays (samhain, yule, solstices, etc...) he is wholeheartedly HERE FOR IT! the one that pops to my head immediately (and all practices are different this is just how I do mine) the 12 days leading up to yule (dec 21) you make wishes and burn them randomly each day, the wish you didn't burn on the 21 is the wish that YOU work on (all the rest will happen organically). he does this with me <3333 he makes his own wishes and everything!!! he gets really into it and tries to guess the wish I didn't burn before I tell him <33 **I also had the thought about celebrating ostara (spring equinox) and this may just be too foul for main BUT it's basically celebrating new growth, the start of spring, and....fertility. this man will wholeheartedly ask, EVERY YEAR, "should we fuck on ostara to really LOCK IN the vibes?" yeah...y e a h but a tradition that isn't apart of a holiday is just going on a date every weekend. we force ourselves to do SOMETHING on the weekend to combat stress from school. whether that's staying in and doing something or physically going on, we have to do something and it's written in stone at this point

[lesbian-cal-kestis]

It's my 18th birthday in approximately three weeks, so I'd like to share a little extra about myself. Nothing vital, per se, just some sweet father-child relationship stuff.

My dad is the one that originally got me into Star Wars at the ripe age of 9, if my memory serves me correctly. I was home from school due to a power surge caused by a thunder storm at my primary school, and he suggested we watch some movies to pass the time.

The movies he suggested?

All six of the Star Wars movies that were out at that point in time.

Although he made the mistake of starting with The Phantom Menace (child me and my limited focusing capabilities was bored to the high heavens), they were easily ranked as the best movies I had seen in my life. I doubt it would mean a lot, coming from a kid, but at seventeen? I still think they're the best movies I've seen in my life.

Not because of the theatrics or the CGI, or anything else like that.

Because I got to watch them with my dad. My dad, who barely had enough time to do things like this with me. My dad, who worked in the mines as a FIFO (fly-in-fly-out) worker, solely to provide me with a good start in life.

I got to watch them with him. And it was the most significant part of my life. I even wore a Padawan braid all throughout year six, which had me on the receiving end of odd stares from my private school teachers, but it made me happy.

Not long after we watched the movies, he told me about how when A New Hope first came out, he begged my grandfather to see it in the cinemas with him as he was a nine-year-old at the time (A New Hope was released in 1975, keep in mind).

He's seen every star wars movie since.

He's watched every show.

And it brings warmth to my heart, knowing that my old man shares an interest that's the same as one of mine. Knowing that long after he's gone, he'll be there with me whenever I rewatch Revenge Of The Sith for the nth time. Watching with me and smiling.

Anyways that being said I'm planning on getting a cal kestis lightsaber tattoo done along my spine next year or the year after that, providing I have enough money after my paramedic courses. And I'm getting my dad a replica of Qui-Gon Jinn's lightsaber, because Qui-Gon is his favourite Jedi

TL;DR my dad got me into star wars

[gffa]

choose violence 🥰✨: 3 (altho to avoid the Drama™ it should be more related to something silly I don't want u to die to answer this lmao), 7, 9, 10, 20, 21 (v curious about the last two actually)

3. screenshot or description of the worst take you’ve seen on tumblr NO NO I AM HAPPY TO DO THIS ONE because it is my favorite worst take I've ever seen: "Did you know that Darth Vader and the Empire must have freed all the slaves because we never see any slaves in the original trilogy!" THEY WERE SERIOUS. (Pssst, nobody tell them about Oola.) My other favorite worst take I've ever seen: "We are allowing people to express themselves too much because I just saw people shipping Obi-Wan and Anakin, they're writing all these fics about love, and they shouldn't do that! I also saw people shipping Gojou and Geto from Jujutsu Kaisen and they are FRIENDS, they shouldn't LOVE each other!" Absolutely stellar, no notes, phenomenal, 10/10. 7. what character did you begin to hate not because of canon but because how how the fandom acts about them? It is an absolute struggle not to get sucked into the whirlwind around Qui-Gon Jinn's character. He's so often used as a weapon against the other Jedi, when the reality of his character is that he's both a lovely person and kind of an actual asshole in the movie, he's a dick to Jar Jar! He only cares about Anakin because of the prophecy! But he also is genuine about his affections and he was a good teacher to help Obi-Wan come into himself! He's absolutely HILARIOUS when he's not giving a shit throughout all the batshit stuff that happens in the first 20 minutes of the movie! But so much of fandom wants to flatten him out into either lionizing him or demonizing him and, if that made it more fun for people, I'd be more onboard! Hell, yeah, lionize the hell out of your faves because you love them!! But so few people seem to actually care about the character for himself and, when he gets used to bash the other Jedi, sometimes it's hard to get out of the instinctive urge to dislike the character. (QUI-GON DESERVES BETTER THAN THIS. LET HIM BE AN ASSHOLE CAT THAT WE LOVE.) 9. worst part of canon Honestly, I like pretty much all of Lucas' canon, which is the primary stuff I care about. And most of the boring stuff I can just ignore. But, man, I have trouble with TBB. 20. part of canon you found tedious or boring To be honest, pretty much any of the Star Wars books from the last couple of years that don't focus on established characters. (And some of the established characters, too, I could not finish the Padme trilogy.) I am just so full up on half-sketched characters that never seem to have any real arc to their character or bite to them that I've almost entirely stopped reading SW books, I'm just so bored with them, none of them have Lucas' ability to create a character I want to spend time with or they don't have the page time (like 3+ books worth) to develop them. 21. part of canon you think is overhyped I wouldn't have said this three years ago, but I'll say it today: The Mandalorian. That first season was phenomenal and deserved to be as hyped as it was, just for what it did for breathing enthusiasm back into the fandom. Those early days were amazing, we all got along in fandom, there was genuine affection and zeal for having fun with the characters! But by the time the third season came around, despite that I had a blast during it, it didn't deserve the hype anymore, Favroni had lost their focus or something, and it was all over the place and I don't think it deserves to be "the GOOD Star Wars" live action anymore. (You know what I mean with that.)

[gillianthecat]

I have got to get over my grudge against face filters or face-tuning or whatever it's called when they blur the actor's face so their skin is completely smooth and texture free and very pale and has no dimensionality.

I'm watching Light On Me, and I'm charmed by all the characters, but I keep getting distracted by the fact that none of them look like human beings. grrr. Like, it kind of fits the comic book tropey-ness of the story, but I still would prefer to see their god danged faces.

(Fun fact: Shin Woo's actor's face is the reason I started watching Light On Me in the first place. Kang Yoo Soek has a small part in Beyond Evil, and within a minute of his appearance on screen I was like, who is THAT???👀, and immediately went to MDL to see what else he was in. Turns out he was in a BL! so I decided it was finally time to check this one out. Maybe I'm just resentful about them hiding his face from me. On the other hand, Beyond Evil and Light On Me are from the same year, and he looks a decade younger in the latter, so I guess the filtering helps with that? idk, I'd prefer everyone's real faces. But I realize that with this, as in many things, I am not the target audience.)

My thoughts on Light On Me so far (im on episode 3 oops, actually it was 4): It feels like a high school romance comic book aimed at 12 year olds come to life. Which is not at all a criticism! But the aesthetic—bright, flat lighting, wide open spaces, saturated pastels and primary colors, the aforementioned face filtering—along with the trope filled, bare bones nature of the story give it this artificial feel. I don't read comic books, manga or manwha of any genre, so I could be wrong in this comparison, but it does tell like it exists outside of the real world in the same way that Disney Channel kids shows do (though not in the same world.) The characters, so far, don't feel like they exist outside of the story, not shallow, exactly, just that the rest of their lives and relationships are a vague blur, and the initial conflict—Shin Woo doesn't want Tae Kyung to join the student council!—feels like the sort of artificially induced high stakes of a kid's show. The—gasp—pratfall with a dildo.

I probably sound judgmental, but that's partly because super fluffy shows aren't my thing in general, and partly because I'm in a weird mood right now where even the real world doesn't feel all that real to me, but I reiterate, this is not a criticism. The show is creating a certain feel to tell a certain story, and (so far at least) it's doing it effectively.

And I am intrigued by the story, and the characters! Tae Kyung who has been convinced by the wise teacher to try making friends. Da On, the student president who is so kind and can't say no to anyone. Shiwoon, the class clown who can see what's happening but won't get involved. So Hee, the girl from the sister school, persistent in her three year (!) crush. And of course tsundere Shin Woo, possibly with some internalized homophobia, and who we know, based on Shiwoon's hints and the laws of Romance Tropes, must have a crush on the new boy and can't handle it.

The taundere seme is a trope I love when it works well, and loathe when it's bad, and I think it's working here for me because Tae Kyung is such a weirdo. He's no blushing maiden uke, he's blunt and doesn't care that's he's awkward, and still not sure if he wants to even bother with other human beings. It makes Shin Woo's attraction to him more specific and real, and makes me curious to see how their dynamic develops.

So even though the character don't feel anchored to any reality outside of what we see on screen, in the small slice of a tv world they do exist in they seem complex and worth getting to know.

(They also intrigue me enough that part of me wants to see these same characters and conflicts, but framed in more gritty realism style, like that of Weak Hero Class One. I think there's enough there to make it work! But that's more about my personal taste than anything else.)

edit: not that Weak Hero Class One is exactly realistic. But it's a different kind of fairy tale atmosphere. One that sometimes gets called "gritty realism."

[positivelyadhd]

ik its not ur usual positivity but THANK YOU so much for that post!!! I feel like "gifted kid burnout" really dominates the conversation and thats only one experience of many.

I was diagnosed with adhd in elementary school and was basically like. "the kid with problems" "lost cause" my entire life. one of my teachers even directly told my mom she should be ashamed of me lol. any successes were like-- "see what you just did? imagine how much more you would be capable of if you didn't have adhd." to the point where I don't even feel any sense of accomplishment for graduating college. it's just one more "failure" i avoided in other peoples eyes. (i dont personally think not graduating college is a failure at all btw, that is just Society's Message™)

this part is kinda tangential but from what i've seen a lot (ofc not all) of gifted kid burnout posts are like, if only i would have been diagnosed earlier all of this could be avoided. and maybe that's true - I understand where it's coming from at least, the frustration of feeling that something is wrong but not knowing what or having that "proof" that you're not just "lazy" etc. im not saying this isn't a valid wish or frustration but in my experience... hoooo boy.

personally being diagnosed with ADHD in the early 2000s, didn't meant you got support, it meant you were written off from the start, adults thought you had no future, you were seen as a "problem child" like it wasn't "oh you're not lazy you just have adhd!" it was "you have ADHD so you are built to be lazy and theres nothing you can do about it lol" so it didn't solve much. just created a different type of problem. im very happy to see things look to be changing though!!

I'm curious if other people had a similar experience and thank you so much for adding the 'diagnosed but not supported' part bc that is so real!!!

Absolutely this!!

My experience with diagnosis and lack of support was strange, but basically my primary (ages 4-11) school (I believe) suspected I had adhd/dyslexia and did offer some (very limited) support. But they also always told my parents they didn't think I had a learning difficulty when they asked because I was in extra programmes. I don't really think the support they did give me really helped all that much, and honestly, when I did get my diagnosis (around 12/13?) I'd spent so long thinking there was just something "wrong" with me that I feel like the lack of diagnosis was a lot more negatively impactful than not receiving support would've been.

My secondary school then managed to flip this and despite me getting my diagnosis part way through, nothing really changed either. Being told I had ADHD/Dyslexia changed me and my understanding of myself. I finally felt like things made sense and there was a reason i found things so difficult, it wasn't that there was something "wrong" with me but the system was not built for me. Although my diagnosis was early compared to some people, it felt late to me, and everything that can happen when you're undiagnosed had already set in.

I wished I'd been diagnosed earlier but honestly, I had a similar experience to you, and I don't think it would've done much. And even when I was finally diagnosed, my school also never really acknowledged my diagnosis and wouldn't put any of the accommodations that I needed in place (despite my diagnosis coming with a report which explained everything they should've been doing to support me and how they could've done it) I didn't get any accommodations for my neurodiversity until I was in uni, and I got my diagnosis in 2015 so at least for me, my experience wasn't that different to yours in the early 2000s.

When I tried to fight for the accommodations I should've been given, I was told that I would pass my exams, and so it didn't really matter, they didn't believe going through the hassle of giving me accommodations would help me (although the diagnosis report itself said otherwise.) I always felt similarly to you, I could scrape by but "imagine how much better you'd do without dyslexia/adhd" but I also had this weird "well because you're "gifted" you can get average grades, you don't need support!" message as well?

And yeah, just like you, I didn't really feel as accomplished as I should've done when I finished uni. I'm proud of myself for doing it but I do feel this weird pressure of knowing that if I didn't have adhd/dyslexia or managed it better, I would've done much better.

I apologise for rambling about myself but yeah thank you for this ask! I feel the same way, and I'm glad to hear I'm not alone in it as well.

I wish you the best dear anon <3

[womanofwords]

Primary Objective: Friendship (Chapter 5)

Chapter 5: Mom v Robot

Unfortunately, Uncle James was more correct than I'd given him credit for.

It all started when Nikola and I were standing outside of school waiting for Upton to arrive. "How long will we have to wait, Alexis?" Nikola asked.

"Not much longer," I said.

"You have said that three times now."

"I know. Upton doesn't always get to school on time. But we'll know when it's him."

"How?" Nikola asked.

I sniggered. "Upton's mother is not a very good driver when she's running late."

Seconds later, the squeal of tires rang in my ears. First, people turned around to look for the source of the sound, before quickly scattering and seeking refuge on pavement.

Upton Perrycroft and his mother had arrived.

With skill that formula 1 racers would admire (and police officers would balk at) she drifted the car right in front of the school entrance.

"Thank you, Mom," Upton said, looking green around the gills.

"Have a good day, sweetie," she said, getting out as if she had driven up to school normally to give her son the same sloppy kiss on the face she always gave him. However, this time the kiss didn't happen. She stopped inches away from his face, spotted Nikola, and screamed. "AAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEE! WHAT IS THAT?!"

The eyes were on us again. I hated it when that happened. Nikola stood in front of me. "Please do not scream, madam. I am Nikola. How do you know Upton?"

"I am his mother, you mindless machine!" Mrs Perrycroft yelled. "Who is responsible for you? Why are you here?"

Nikola's smile widened on his screen face. "I am a student here! I love it so much!"

Mrs Perrycroft looked like she was going to faint. Or erupt. But then a cold calmness washed over her, and she smiled. "A . . . robot . . . is in my baby's school? What if he gets hurt?"

"I will not get hurt," Nikola said.

"Not you!" Mrs Perrycroft yelled. "Stay away from my boy!"

"No, Mom!" Upton got between Nikola and his mother. "Nikola's a nice robot!"

"There's no such thing as a nice robot, Upton." She looked at Nikola with pure rage. "But don't worry. I'll make some calls. Stay safe, sweetie."

Her car squealed away and people walked into class, muttering about the scene. Upton crumpled into himself, head down. He mumbled something along the lines of "I'm so sorry."

"It's not your fault, Upton," I said.

Nikola looked sad. "Why does your mother not like me?"

Upton temporarily decompressed enough to explain. "She thinks technology is going to rise against us and take over humanity. It's embarrassing."

Nikola paused to think. "This has happened before. A woman screamed when she saw me in the store. I worry that this will happen a lot. Maybe this will happen all the time."

And I couldn't say anything to reassure him.

(PAUSE)

At the end of the day, half an hour before the last bell rang, Upton's mother came to get him. "Upton, go home," she said. "You shouldn't be here. It's not safe for you with that thing in here."

Upton shrank into himself. "Mom, I'm fine!"

"Excuse me, but I am not a thing," Nikola interrupted.

"Don't talk to me! And keep far away from my son! Things are going to be done about you!"

I had to say something. "Mrs Perrycroft, Nikola hasn't done anything. Leave him alone!"

"I'm going to correct you on that one, missy - it hasn't done anything yet. But it will soon. Robots are taking over everything, and I'm the the only one that sees it! Upton, let's go!"

Upton's typically pale skin was redder than I'd ever seen it. "Bye," he muttered to me, as his mother dragged him away.

"I'm not an it," Nikola said, sadly. "Why does she call me it?"

"I know. I'm sorry, Nikola," I said. The rest of the class burst into conversation and whispers.

"Who is that lady?"

"That's Upton's mom. She's crazy."

"No wonder Upton's such a loser."

"This isn't Upton's fault!" I yelled. "Leave him alone!"

"All of you, back to work!" the teacher yelled.

(PAUSE)

"Something happened, didn't it?" Uncle James asked, as we got into the car. "Don't lie to me. I can tell."

"The thing you were worried about happened. Upton's mom came to school and demanded that Nikola stay away from Upton."

"Oh, goodness. Nikola, Alexis, I'm so sorry." Uncle James was the picture of sadness until a confused expression came across his face. "Wait . . . Upton's mom? Mrs Perrycroft?"

"Yes, why?"

"Not that I didn't expect this from her, but . . . what set this off?"

"She saw Nikola standing next to Upton and freaked out."

"Right." Uncle James was gripping the steering wheel tightly. "Now, Nikola and Alexis, I'm going to take you home and then make some calls."

"To make Upton's mom leave Nikola alone, right?"

"That's the plan. While I do that, you two can play video games."

"I have never played a video game before."

"Well, this should be a pretty good time to learn. Alexis, my gaming setup is in the same place it always is. Teach Nikola a thing or two."

"OK. Nikola, wanna play Stray?"

"OK."

As we played and I explained the lore of the game, I saw Nikola smile again. A smile appeared and then slowly grew, like a time lapse of a flower.

I wanted that flower to bloom.

The other parts can be found in my Masterlist.

[here-have-some-stories]

The Slide

TW: Mentions of murder and blood

As I looked back at the tiny slide at my primary school's playground, I realized something about myself. I didn't care. So much bad happened at this one slide in such a short amount of time and I didn't care about any of it. 

It had been twenty years since the so called "tragedy", and people were still hung up about it. They were still acting as if it happened yesterday. Apparently twenty years wasn't enough time to get over some things. 

There had been an annual memorial right here at the school, to mourn the loss of the children who had lost their lives in such interesting ways on this very slide, but I hadn't gone. There would have been too many tears, too much grief for something that was now just an insignificant part on the town's history. The news people had stopped talking about the incident so why couldn't they? I had come to the school after everyone left and it got dark so I could look at the slide, and I now stood in front of it, replaying the scene over and over again in my head and questioning my own mind. Why didn't I care? 

Three kids, my mind pictured, three kids playing on the tiny unstable slide. A teacher on playground patrol had approached them, nothing out of the ordinary at the time. Something appeared gleaming in the teacher's hand, but from my position on the other side of the playground I couldn't fully see what it was. I gathered context from what happened next. One of the kids screaming was cut off pretty quickly. The teacher was holding them tightly by the hair, their right hand behind the child's back. Their arm then moved to reveal what they were holding. A gleaming sharp knife, dripping a beautiful crimson sort of liquid all the way right down to the handle. The teachers hand moved with rapid speed, making a precise fine slit across the child's neck, releasing a waterfall of that pretty substance.  

In the same movement, the teacher pushed the child down the slide and grabbed the next kid, repeating the artistic sequence.  

By the time the teacher had finished, the third child had managed to run away screaming, and some of the other teachers had ran over, wrestling the knife out of the teachers hand and quickly dialing the police. 

All the students on the playground had run as soon as the first child had fallen. Why? They weren't in danger at the moment as the teacher was preoccupied with the kids on the slide. Surely it wasn't the blood. That was fascinating. It wasn't everyday you got to see what was inside of your body, although I wish it was. The entire sight was so interesting, I could have watched it for hours. But a teacher, a non-psychotic one, had picked me up and taken me away from the playground, putting me in a classroom filled with annoying crying kids as the school went under a lockdown. I don't know why they did it, it wouldn't keep anyone out, the teacher was already in. It would have just locked us in the school with them.  

The news covered the story for a couple weeks before they got bored of it and found something more interesting: A robbery. It was confirmed that the teacher suffered from ASPD, also known as antisocial personality disorder, highly common in sociopaths and psychopaths.  

I don't like that they used the term "suffering". I have ASPD and I'm doing fine. 

Maybe that's why I didn't care. My disorder prevented me. That was probably it, sociopaths are known to not feel much, if anything at all. 

I did feel a little bit of something towards the story. Annoyance. It was annoying seeing the story everywhere. For three whole weeks the news wouldn't stop talking about them! It felt good to see something else, even if it was another violent crime, albeit a less interesting one. 

Satisfied that I knew why I didn't care, I walked away from the slide, out the school gates and towards my pickup truck. I'd visit again next year to ponder, as was my tradition. 

I am so sorry if I got any traits of ASPD wrong or if it is seen as offensive, I'm not a proffesional, just a sleep deprived writer and if I got anything wrong please tell me so I can try and change it so it is better. This was a writing prompt I got from my English teacher and I finished it and felt like posting it so here it is. I've got some other stories from English class that I'm planning on posting when I finish them which will probably be a while. One of them is about an assasin and one is about a cannibal circus. When my teacher was reviewing my work the only thing she told me was to fix the places where I forgot apostrophes and that I needed more action in it instead of just relflecting, but like, that's the point of the fucking story. The charcater is reflecting on something that happened. She didn't even comment on the topic of it she was just like "APOSTROPHES' Anyways, hope you liked it. It was fun to write. -Kenickie

[not-poignant]

Looking forward to the new chapter of UtB! Also I learn a lot hearing your thoughts on fandom culture, and I was wondering why you think puritanism is getting stronger? Lately I’ve experienced it a lot both online and irl.

Hi anon,

I could write like a 10,000 word essay on why I think moral puritanism is getting stronger in the world, and how that intersects with increased moral panic, and 'anti' or fancop behaviour among fandom.

But I think there's more than one reason, and that at the centre of it, is the radicalisation of political extremes alongside the disdain for human life and education in the USA specifically. In non English-speaking cultures, antis are often considered a uniquely American phenomenon, for example. (They're not, but I do think some of the problems start there).

And from there it's necessary to look at:

The high presence of evangelist religion and their millions in USA politics in particular, and the influence this has on the news and government systems from the top down, affecting legislation, what we see on the media, what gets censored, who gets impacted (SESTA/FOSTA etc.) and so on. When companies like Paypal or similar say they won't support certain sites because they don't support sex workers or explicit artwork, we see extremist perspectives being normalised into the mainstream. Puritanism becomes baked into the system, and accepted as normal. And it has a domino effect, taking one thing away usually means to another thing being taken away, and by 'one thing' I usually mean like... equality, access to basic human rights, and more.

The presence of certain billionaire TERFs in UK politics actively working to destroy legislation over there gives a platform to hateful, bigoted extremists of all kinds, including Nazis (as seen in Australia recently, during a TERF event where Nazis turned up in open support). Also, I'd like to add that a lot of anti/fancop thinking is generally SWERF, anti-kink and eventually TERF in nature, and often homophobic and transphobic even when it's perpetuated by queer folk.

A long-term attack (we're talking over several decades now) on education (especially the humanities and any area that teaches critical thinking) including gutting the funding to libraries, colleges, high schools, primary schools and not increasing the pay of teachers, decreasing the general intelligence of US citizens in IQ tests across multiple metrics (except spatial reasoning). This, combined with the lack of emphasis on teaching nuance and critical thinking, means you get people primed to make didactic, black-or-white decisions and often are prone to radicalisation and black-or-white thinking. There's an increasing lack of ability to understand complex or even reasonably moderately complex thinking tasks. A great example of this was re: anti-vaxxers who said 'if masking works so well, why do you need vaccines' because there was a complete inability to understand that just because something works well, doesn't mean it works 100% of the time. There was a consistent inability too, to grok things like the swiss cheese model. That's not the only reason people are anti-vaxxers and there are some extremely smart people who are anti-vaxxers, but among broader populations, a lack of basic appreciation of nuance and risk mitigation in health was a huge issue. (And it's fairly easy to see this happening in many fandom discussions when we discuss how racism in fiction is generally not great, but that rape in fiction does not cause rape in reality.)

I know the above paragraph is long and unwieldy but it doesn't actually come close to capturing a lot of my thoughts on this so slafkjdsa it'll have to do though. The tl;dr is 'the government said philosophy and critical thinking isn't worth money, so a lot of people don't know how to do it, and anyone who can do it is often attacked or viewed with suspicion' (see also: The increasing suspicion and hostility towards experts in their field x.x). (Oh see also: A lot of people thinking YouTube videos count as 'valid research' for their viewpoints, and a lot of folks just...not ever learning how to research in general).

Something something social media privileging inflammatory and provocative takes as well as clickbait etc. encouraging people to often say things in the worst or least nuanced way possible.

The systemic attacks on democratic processes in the USA (and the UK and Australia and many other places).

The loudest and most obnoxious voices are often the people saying the stupidest shit. As in: It will feel like puritans are everywhere (and there's definitely more of them), but they're also just louder and getting more attention than they used to. It's misleading. Anti-vaxxers are actually a tiny minority for example, and antis are a minority in fandom, they're just...the loudest and the most willing to try and murder real people to defend the rights of fictional characters.

Er so. That's some of it anyway. There's more, absolutely, because I could talk about the presence of puritanism in a lot of levels of our experience/s, whether you're religious or not.

It's frustrating writing about this because I fall into the same trap of knowing that I can't talk about this in as nuanced a way as I want to, even if I get to do it in 1000 words instead of like, a miserable amount of characters on Twitter. Anyone thinking 'but it's not always like that!' or 'but not in every situation!' like trust me, I know. But if I sat here caveating everything that deserves a good caveat this post would blow out even more.

Basically if you try to stop educating your people as much, don't teach them how to research, debate or learn (yes, you have to learn how to learn), and don't give them access to basic needs, and gut your democracy/s, and the people at the top believe a fictional being cares if they're virgins or not or have abortions or not, and you don't care if people commit genocide against the children of your nation because that's not as important as the right to kill them in a moment of anger..., and you create a world where the children of your nation are primed to develop PTSD due to the fear of being gunned down while learning, you create a really great environment for radicalisation, extremism, the safety and comfort of puritanism (i.e. following very strict rules in the hope of fixing what's wrong with the world) while people look for a solution to why they feel so empty and hopeless in their lives.

[astriiformes]

54, but I'm especially interested in your point of view on 96!

54 - What’s a common writing tip that you almost always follow?

I actually don't know if it's a common tip or not, but one piece of writing advice I got as a kid that has lived in my head ever since and absolutely contributes to my writing being better was from my 6th grade teacher. He had us do a lot of creative writing in his class, which was not only fun, but really foundational for me.

He also encouraged us to do some more experimental things, including writing a story where we started as few sentences with pronouns or proper nouns (aka names, mostly) as possible. So you know, instead of writing:

"She looked at him. He seemed sad. She wondered why"

....writing something like:

"Setting her own cup down, she looked at him. Oddly, he seemed sad. Considering she'd just delivered what she thought was good news, she wondered why."

Doing it with literally every sentence is obviously overkill (even my own example above gets a little clunky in the middle) but it absolutely blew my mind as an 11 year-old and I think about it every time I write. Thanks Mr. Poland, you rocked for so many reasons, but this is maybe the most enduring one for me.

96 - Romantic/social sideplots: interesting or irritating?

Man I feel like romantic and social are pretty different in my head, for deeply aromantic reasons. On the whole I think social sideplots are absolutely critical -- you want there to be dimension to your character's relationships to each other, and for there to be more than just one or two relationships that get some attention, even if there are just one or two primary ones. Plus, they're often fun, funny, or deeply emotionally resonant in ways that add a lot to the story.

That can of course include romantic plots, and sometimes even absolutely should, but I guess I just wish more people asked themselves why they felt like making a relationship a romantic one specifically. It's okay to leave certain relationships ambiguously important to each other, and I'd love to see it more in media. And it's critical for there to be important relationships that aren't romantic in fiction as well. It's really the proportion that gets to me. I feel like people think it's the best way to show two characters have grown close, and sometimes, they just make it romantic because the societal "ranking" of relationships under amatonormativity suggests it's the only option. If people interrogated that more often, I think we'd have a lot of better and more inclusive fiction. That's all.

[danishprince]

What other film versions of Hedda Gabler are worth watching?

GOD i'm trying to remember lmao....this truly would have been a better question for Me Age 17. it has literally been eight/nine years since i saw most of these but uhhhh:

-janet suzman, which i mentioned earlier—my favorite filmed version of hedda the character, iirc. she's smarter than everyone but also it's one of few performances where you buy that she's literally two seconds away from blowing her brains out at any given moment. considering those are hedda's two primary character traits, you'd think more actors could pull off this juxtaposition, but it's shockingly rare! not perfect—she is a little old for the role imo, and the costuming choices are weird as hell. but what can you do

-ingrid bergman—i remember liking her fine but remember liking this production's torturous (in the best way) hedda/tesman dynamic even more. unrelated but also i went years between seeing this and casablanca so whenever people would mention ingrid bergman i'd mentally be like "oh yeah. from hedda gabler" which in retrospect is so funny

-fiona shaw—what one might call an, uh, Inspired take! most heddas imo opt for "condescending" (at risk of forgetting suicidality) and fiona shaw opted for "suicidal" at risk of forgetting that hedda's actually also super condescending and awful. watching her is like watching a protracted nervous breakdown. it's probably worth a watch because it does get to the heart of the emotions in a way one rarely sees with ibsen but i would not call it, like, super faithful to the intent of the text

-diana rigg—i think this was the one we watched in high school on the days when my teacher was like "fuck it movie time". did not leave much of an impression on me tbh. all very mannered

there's some version from 2016 i never watched, idk if it's good. re: stage productions, there are clips of cate blanchett hedda floating around, and i'm sure it was great, but who knows if it was ever actually filmed in full. i have also heard good things about the ntlive hedda directed by ya boy ivo van hove/starring ruth wilson but still haven't watched it yet due to being a fake fan

[wisteria-lodge]

lion primary (badger morality) + badger secondary (un-Burning) (bird model)

I really liked your sort me submission wish list so if it's okay I'm going to submit my answers! When I was a kid I resolved a bullying incident by pretending to not notice I was being teased. I would be silly/make jokes to cheer up friends who were sad. If teachers picked on my friends, I'd be the mouthy rude one (and they'd kick me out of class). I knew all the material so they'd make me tutor other kids, I'd come up with jokes/mnemonics to help them remember the material. 

Okay, I've definitely got some hints here. First thing is we've got some loyalist-sounding motivations, and a lot of collective nouns "friends" "my friends" "other kids." We've got you protecting the community - from bully teachers, from bad grades, from being sad. It's more Badger primary (Snake primary would be more laser-focused on a couple of people, although it's still possible that you have a really *expansive* Snake primary.)

As for problem solving strategies... you like that multi-player for sure. You're probably a prep-work secondary (or model one) constructing mnemonics like that. I could see Courtier Badger, I could see Actor Bird. Need more data.

One time I ended up causing two people to get into a nasty fight. So I went to each of them separately and engaged them in conversation with stuff they were concerned about, and then once their mood had softened I said you know I think the other person feels bad about what happened but is embarrassed to apologize. And then they made up!

Now that sounds super Courtier Badger.

When I played D&D (something I don't do that much) my weakness is that I have a strong tendency to munchkin, I will look up optimal skill point allocation

*Definitely* prep-work secondary.

and then have to zipper my lips about teammates allocating skill points blindly and ending up being less combat effective.

Because you do in fact want to *help the group.* That's a fairly consistent though-line, and heck - we know that Badger primaries often run the risk of going authoritarian (which you seem to know... enough to actively combat.)

I enjoy coming up with somewhat more silly improv stuff, in D&D it feels more fun to solve things sideways than straight on.

Because you know the *real* way to help the group at a D&D table is contribute too and boost the overall mood.

I tried doing some interview prep for job interviews, but it was boring/too much/I ran out of time. I just went in being confident that I know my stuff, that they'd be lucky to have me, that as long as I can explain my thinking process it would be fine. And indeed it was fine and I got several offers.

This also feels Badger secondary in that 'build-yourself-into-the-correct-tool-for-the-job' + 'let go' sort of way.'

At work I generally speaking struggle with pre-planning. It's much, much easier for me to do rough draft working concept followed by many refinements in later stages -

The way you've phrased this sounds Badger secondary. I can't really picture a Bird saying "I struggle with pre-planning" - Birds LOVE pre planning, they love understanding every piece of the puzzle individually, and then just snapping everything in place. It's very Badger to say 'I'm doing to start with something, and then improve it in tiny increments, over time."

I'm very good at seeing how to make things refined later, once I've actually gotten my hands dirty and have a good overall vision of the problem (very hard for me to do in advance). (People also used to ask me to edit their papers - line edits are boring but I'm very good at structural edits).

Structural edits are *fun*

(this ask was originally structured in an ask/answer format, as per my wish list. And I reformatted it into what I thought would be the best order. It was great.)

I don't know exactly why I attribute "Loving Structural Edits" to Badger secondary. But I do know that the Bird secondaries I know are brilliant at line edits, better than me, but don't enjoy turning a whole work around in their heads the way I do.

When I have a difficult decision to make I do too much research, talk to too many people, agonize endlessly. Finally snap and choose something. Leaving things up in the air exacerbates my anxiety so I'll reach for a conclusion just to make that tension go away. I've also found it helpful to reduce the scope of the question as much as possible - I don't need to decide a ten year plan, I can focus on deciding a one year plan. 

Good problem solving solutions. I would normally attribute "do too much research" - especially with an adjective like "agonize" to a Bird secondary model that you're a little conflicted about, and "talk to too many people" as a Badger secondary model that you're kind of conflicted about. Unless that's angst that's coming more from your primary? Like "talking to too many people" = "trying to please all my different communities [when that isn't actually possible.]"

To whatever extent I can keep my options open, I'll do that also. This is how I ended up doing essentially four degrees at once - to avoid having to commit to any of them in advance. And then I was able to choose based on which one had work I enjoyed best.

That is a... very Badger secondary solution. "I know! I'll just do a TON of work, and then decide which KIND of work I like doing best."

And I had you pegged for a Badger primary... but I'm starting to get more Internal primary energy. There's a conflict between what the community wants and what you want, and the way you choose is really going inward, and seeing how you feel about things. Feeling good about making a snap decision - any decision - is a Lion primary thing, *feeling* out your ideal major is Lion primary, and getting stressed out by talking to too many people is also Lion Primary.

But often it's a lot of vacillating until I'm sort of pushed into it. The decision to quit my job, I tentatively mentioned being open to job offers, immediately got several, realized I was excited about the newness of it all, and had to basically bite the bullet and tell my boss (quickly, because having it hanging over my head as this unspoken thing between us was killing me). The decision to move in with my partner was basically me agonizing about it (including in therapy) up until and including moving day and then once I'd actually moved just being totally fine with it. 

I'm actually going more Lion primary for you. Like, a Lion primary that *feels* Badger and *has* Badger morality a lot of the time. But when it really comes down to it, you make decisions based on what feels right, and all the other considerations come in second and third.

My fantasy would be to have the money and free time and lack of obligations to travel the world. Not just one day tourist blitzes, I want to do month-long stays and volunteer locally. I want to get to know people in depth, do interviews, and just experience new places and sensations and experiences, and the common underlying themes of humanity. I have done one or two travels abroad but I want so much more, and ideally, again, paired with a human element-- a personal relationship with a tour guide, hearing history from someone affected by it... And also seeing a fuckton of beautiful nature and eating so many types of fruit that aren't sold globally and you can only eat locally. That and setting up a giant seven story library for people to borrow physical copies of books.

I'm absolutely fascinated by this fantasy, because on one hand, it is ABSOLUTELY group focused. You like groups, you're interested in groups, you want to be in and around groups. But... you're talking about lots of different groups. Travel to new places, meet new people. Have people come to your library wizard-tower, but then leave. You love being part of communities, but in your fantasy *you* remain solo, free, independent. And that is absolutely a Lion primary fantasy.

It makes me fell powerful when someone comes to me with a problem and walks away with a solution.

The "wizard in their tower" fantasy.

Occasionally, I will take inspiration from a character in a "what would X do", if X deals with problems with dignity, poise, compassion, self-respect, and confidence.

Usually this is an Actor Bird thing. Maybe you model it? (especially with that qualifier "occasionally.")

The most difficult time in my life was a period of clinical depression, so I had to just force myself through every single day. Exercise, good for depression, so I'd have to fucking drag myself off to do some. Therapy, thing you're supposed to do, so I'd drag myself to that also. Just trying to get through the motions of being a functional human being day after day after day after day and looking into a future where every single day was just going to be that endlessly exhausting grey grind, forever. And I knew the whole thing was in my head, that my life was actually fine except for the part where everything *felt* miserable and I couldn't remember what happiness felt like, and that part drove me nuts.

Brutal. Just Burnt secondary (everything is a chore, a grind.) I'm glad you made it out.

My therapist kept telling me I had to accept my feelings and I kept arguing with her that the entire problem was that my feelings were, demonstrably, bullshit. Just totally disconnected from reality. Anyway I spent years avoiding medication because I was too scared and also thought my problems weren't real enough and that I wasn't trying hard enough with all the exercise and the therapy,

That Badger secondary curse "I could just work harder." Yeah. Also, if you're a Lion primary... obviously you were clinically depressed, but in the terms of this system, this is a description of burning. Burning though a chemical imbalance, but - you need your feeling, but you don't have your feelings. Very possibly you did the Burnt Lion thing and tried your best to model something else (likely Badger primary.)

but eventually things got bad enough I tried it, and I was very lucky and it was a magical pill that literally made all my problems go away (unless I forget to take it) which made me feel very vindicated that I was right and the therapist was wrong, the problem WAS that my feelings were broken and once they were fixed everything was better again.

I am so, so, so happy for you. And I am doubling down on Lion primary, because I don't think another primary would have described this process in quite this way: 'my feelings got fixed.'

I'm very different from my mother, but I adore and respect her. She's very patient, very compassionate, very wise, very logical and very grounded. As i got older I realized how much my value system was just absorbed from her.

Ah, that makes sense why you read as so Badger primary. Your mom sounds like either a Double Badger, or a Badger Bird.

My dad is more similar to me (more creative, more emotional, more sentimental) and our relationship is more tumultuous - sometimes close, sometimes it's too much, I don't have patience for him always.

... and I'd bet that your dad is a Lion primary, like you. That's a pretty good description of the type of relationship two intense Lions tend to have.

I adore my partner. I feel lucky every day for them. They are a significantly better person than me, so I just try to keep up as best I can and remember to not be too selfish and make space for them to have their needs and wants addressed, because for me that's a conscious effort whereas for them, addressing my needs and wants is kind of automatic. Also they're the kind of person to have a savior complex where if someone needs help they can't say no,

Your partner is a REALLY loud Badger primary.

and I'm the kind of person to say "no, fuck that", and I sort of have to balance giving them free reign to follow their nice impulses vs setting boundaries over what we can reasonably handle.

I hope you know how important that is, and how important you are to your partner's well being. Expansive Badger primaries really, really struggle with "fuck that" and "sounds like a Them Problem." Healthy Lion primaries bring that energy.

Thank you very much! Super curious to hear the conclusion.

You're a Lion primary who *loves* Badgers, and is surrounded by some very loud ones. So most of the time, you probably look Badger yourself. But when it really comes down to a big decision, it really is all about how you feel about it - and that's not selfish, that's necessary and strong. You're a Badger secondary, who occasionally models Bird, and who had a period when they burnt their secondary pretty badly, which made the Badger problem solving that you usually like feel anxious and agonizing. But luckily, you're doing well now.