#All I have is chem and math I for sure have to keep

[astral-catastrophe]

I am going to make poor decisions in regards to my class schedule

[marionluth]

What if Peter learned about Harley's existence through a phone call Tony answered in front of him? Excerpt from my Irondad longfic that serves as an adorable stand-alone of Harley-Tony goodness!

Wordcount: 887

* Peter and Tony were discussing something, when Tony's phone rang and he asked Peter if he minded answering. Peter said it was fine. He didn't regret it. *

“After a whole week of dodging my calls, sending me texts with barely-readable Gen Z slang and abbreviations, I'm borderline worried—nevertheless, happy to finally hear your voice, terrorist,” Tony sent into the phone, causing Peter to look up at him with surprised and confused eyes.

“You know what? I’m just gonna say this, and you make what you want out of it… Black bears simply aren’t eating enough people.”

Closing his eyes and letting out a breath through his nose, Tony prayed for strength and sanity, while Peter couldn’t help but snicker at the words his super hearing easily caught. He watched his mentor waiting for his answer, curiosity peaked.

“What did you do, Harley?”

“I mean… I know Rosehill is a town and all, but, dude! Climate change! Shouldn’t they, like, come down from the mountains and look for food and stuff in towns? Desperately rummaging through trash, finding nothing but our civilization's gloriously gross junk food - that even a hungry black bear wouldn’t touch - and then randomly eating a passerby?”

Peter snorted, trying to keep his amused vocalizations at the random tirade quiet, causing Tony to shake his head in terrified resignation at the inevitability of these two eventually meeting each other.

“And when I say randomly, I may or may not mean my English teacher,” Harley continued.

“What have I told you about applying yourself, Harley?” Tony asked, his resigned tone gaining an edge.

“Something that directly contradicts what you've told me about wasting my potential on frivolous things that won't matter in my future.”

“You see, Harley... The English language we're all jabbering away in, especially in those fancy colleges you're drooling over, doesn't fall into the category of frivolous things that won't matter for your future,” Tony stated.

“It's freaking Shakespeare, mech’!” Harley's voice was a whine now. “The man was crazy! A donkey-headed guy getting it on with fairy queens… I mean, come on!”

Biting his lower lip in an effort to keep himself from laughing, Tony took a deep breath, avoiding eye contact entirely with Peter, who was chuckling and shamelessly listening in to the conversation.

"Harley, we've had this chat before. You can't just bail on everything you don't like. You can’t expect you'll just breeze through school without breaking a sweat. You think MIT or Columbia will roll out the red carpet for you if you flunk everything except math, chem, and science?"

“I already got the lecture from Ava, man. Give me a break, here.”

“I'll give you a break when you give me one, terrorist. But until then, park yourself and hit the books. It's not rocket science; we're talking about fairy tales and donkey-faced characters here. If you can crack quadratic equations without even bothering with homework, I'm pretty sure you can handle Shakespeare.”

“That's torture!”

“No, Hamlet is torture. And you know what else will be torture? Whatever your mom and I come up with if you don’t start putting in some serious effort! You got a week to start straightening things out, Harl, or Ava and I will straighten you out instead. Capiche?”

“But wouldn’t it be a lot more cost-effective if you called school -all Tony Stark and shit - and demanded that I be excused from Shakespeare altogether? Oh, I know! We can make it a religious thing… Like studying Shakespeare goes against my religious dogma! That’s dope! They won’t be able to fight that if it comes from you…”

"Alright, kid, first things first: lay off the Red Bull. Second, if you put half as much effort into hitting the books as you do trying to wriggle out of this, we wouldn't even be having this chat. There's no shortcut around it. Buckle down and get to work."

“So that’s a no to my against-my-religion master plan?”

“That’s a no!”

“I hate you more than Shakespeare hated sanity,” came the resigned answer from the other line.

“Study, donkey-head,” Tony emphasized with a roll of his eyes before hanging up.

“I knew you had a kid hidden somewhere,” Peter said with a smirk.

Letting out a snort, Tony shook his head. "Harley isn't my kid, Pete. We bumped into each other a few years ago, and we've stayed in touch since then."

“That sounded like more than just staying in touch,” Peter commented, eyeing the man. “That’s how you roast me, too."

"Smooth talk, as always, Pete," Tony smirked. "I do lend a hand with Harley, but it's a bit of a different ball game. He's down in Tennessee, so it's more of a long-distance gig. The universe is not done testing me, though, and you two will get to meet. He spends some of his school breaks and a couple of weeks in summer here.”

“So you just habitually collect kids to part-time parent?” Peter asked with a small smile and a raised eyebrow.

Tony gaped at Peter as the kid’s deadpan statement registered. “I… don't have a retort to that.

[sugarikiz]

Moonlight Sunrise; the series!

003. dumb stupid chem failing idiot

synopsis: for some reason, you keep bumping into Niki at school, and it’s getting frustrating. it’s also tutoring session number two today, and well, the hate you have for Niki has not decreased at all. But, when the session ends and he tries to apologise about everything that has happened before, how do you take it: well, and become friends again, not take it into consideration at all, or say you’ll think about it?

pairing: bball player!niki x fem. tutor!reader

chapter warnings: lovesick niki, half failed apology, niki jumpscaring and teasing you

wc: 1.7k

mickie’s p.s. — it’s back again guys! Also, I changed it from college to high school, for my own convenience. It makes it so much easier for me to write.

Heavy drops of water fell from the sky in a frenzy, wetting Niki’s freshly styled hair because he lost his umbrella the week before, making him consider how he should have not spent so long on his hair and focused on Mr. Im’s biology assignment instead.

Meanwhile, you, being smarter, checked the weather forecast for the day and carried an umbrella over your head, protecting your body and back pack with Mr. Im’s assignment from the thundering rain, unlike the forgetful boy.

As you continued your walk, you heard a sudden voice behind you say “morning, y/n”, which lead to you stopping in your spot. You could tell who it was just from his voice.

Nishimura Riki.

“what do you want, Nishimura?” You scoff, voice laced with annoyance. You saw him next to you, but out of your umbrella's cover, uniform getting wet. So, out of kindness, you put it over his head, handing him the umbrella to keep it higher due to him being literally as tall as the Eiffel Tower.

He looks back at you, with a cocky smirk on his face, as if to say ‘I thought you were annoyed at me, huh’, but was only met with a dismissive shake of your head.

He turned back forward, looking down with a small chuckle, and a little smile forming on his face as he continued walking alongside you, shoulders gently brushing against yours as you walked to school.

Later, you had one last class left, and you decided to run back to your locker to get your books and laptop. As you shut your locker, there was a person who was behind the door. You let out a small yelp, thinking it was someone playing a prank on you, and then you saw the smug face of Nishimura Riki, smirk growing on his face.

"What is wrong with you?! Why did you suddenly spawn behind my locker door, huh? What do you want?" you ask, slightly annoyed at him. “Woah, who made you this mad?” He asks innocently, as if he didn’t just scare the life out of your body.

”Nothing, just did it for fun” he chuckled as a smirk made its way onto his face. Wow, did he have some nerve talking to you that way when you literally had control over him staying on the basketball team because of your tutoring.

You shake your head as you roll your eyes. "When are we having our next tutoring session then?" you sigh out, clearly tired with his constant teasing and remarks. "I have practice today after school today till half past three, so maybe around four thirty if that's alright with you?" he replies, clearly getting the hint that you were getting annoyed at him, and stopping himself from giving out a teasing remark.

"Sure, come to the café again. Four thirty, sharp. Now bye, I have to get to Math class now." Alone with you in a cafe again? Sounds like a great deal, one to stare at your pretty face the whole ti-. He's snapped out of his thoughts by you waving your hands in front of his face, a slight blush creeping up his cheeks at how you moved slightly closer to him as you tried to get his attention.

"Yeah, I'll be there. Oh, and I have math too." he says, nonchalant as he tries to maintain a cool demeanour, while his heart raced inside his chest, hammering against his ribcage nonstop. You inwardly groan at the thought of having a class with him now too, but keep it in, not wanting to seem too rude.

You check the time on your watch. Oh shoot, it's one twenty, five minutes after your next class was about to start, and the two of you were late. You broke into a slightly panicked run, Niki following close behind.

You two walk into the class, panting slightly as you opened up the door, only to see that the teacher, Ms. Lee wasn't even there yet. So you ran around for nothing?

"Ugh, whatever." you think to yourself as you go to your usual seat next to Hanni. "Hey Nini! I ran over here only to realise Ms. Kim wasn't even here yet, how silly" You chuckle, settling yourself down and opening your laptop to start working for class.

Time flew by as now, Riki was sprinting walking to the café again for the next session. It was four twenty nine, and he didn’t want to be late again, so as not to make you mad at him once more. He rushed into the café, only to find you… not there? You walked into the cafe a minute later, to find him sitting down at the table you sat at yesterday.

“Well well well, Miss punctual is late today” He gasps dramatically, placing a hand to his chest in fake shock. “Oh shut up” you grumble. “Take out your chemistry test that you got back today, now”

He obliged, not asking a single question as he pulled the test out of his backpack. A pang of embarrassment flooded through him as he looked at the grade on the paper: an ‘F’ written in thick red marker and looked up at you with guilt in his dark eyes.

“What happened?!” You ask in shock as you look at the paper. “I mean, I knew you weren’t the smartest of the lot, but-” You say, looking through the paper that was covered in red all over. “We went through all of this yesterday, and you even said you understood it all. Be honest, were you just lying to finish it off and go home?”

“No, of course not!” He retorts back defensively. If anything, all he wanted to do was to stay for longer yesterday to be with you, and the fact that you were tutoring him just made it extra hard to focus on the schoolwork in front of him that you were trying so hard to explain, and maybe that’s what made him do so bad in the test. But he can’t be telling you that, now can he?

So instead, he decides to go for a safer option. “I was focusing, it’s- it’s just that I have a hard time grasping concepts…” he sighs, running a hand through his hair. He should have focused yesterday and that wouldn’t have lead to him getting scolded by you right now, but it’s not his fault that your face is such a distraction!

An hour passed as you explained all of the base topics in the test that he was struggling with, and then you pulled out a practice test for him to work on that covered all of these topics you just taught him. Before he started his practice questions, the two of you made a bet; if he got all of the questions correct, he can get ask any one thing of you.

You don't even know why you agreed, but your competitive insides were burning to win, even if you wanted him to grasp all the topics you spent ages teaching him and it would be a waste of your time if he didn't do well in the practice test.

Niki put his pen down, stretching his long arms after a lot of hard work. "Done" he sighs. You take a look at his practice questions, to see that all of them were correct. You felt slightly proud, to say the least, at seeing that since you just took time and energy explaining the many topics to him and he finally understood it enough to get even basic questions correct.

"Wow, you did them all correct. I guess you won the bet." you sigh in defeat. "I was not expecting that" you add. "I wasn't either" he chuckles. "So, about that bet..." he says, a small smirk playing on his lips.

"Will you join me at the park to unwind after all of this hard work?" he asks, slightly nervous about asking you to hang out after so long.

Oh. you were not expecting that. It was odd, especially after so long, but you knew you had to say yes since he won the bet fair and square. "Uh, I..." you hesitate slightly, a million thoughts running around your head as you nod, not able to exactly formulate a sentence in the shock of his sudden request.

Here you are, sat on a swing set at a playground in a park, with someone who you never thought you would do this with ever again. There was a silence; a kind of tension between the two of you, and it was almost malleable. The silence was broken buy Niki's slightly nervous voice. "Can-Can I tell you something?" he tentatively asks you, turning towards you.

"Yeah?" you raise an eyebrow in curiosity. He takes a deep breath, readying himself for what he's about to say. "I'm sorry. About everything that happened last year."

Flashback:

The rain poured heavily as you opened your phone to text Niki if he wanted to chat. You sent a text, waiting for him to reply withing a minute like usual, but he... never did? You waited and waited, thinking that it was just a fluke and he would reply sooner or later, but hours turned into a day as your message was left on read.

The next day at school, he ignored you, and the next week, which turned into a month which lasted years up till now.

Back to now:

Well, that was unexpected; to say the least. You never thought that he would say sorry for how he ghosted you and acted like you were a ghost and didn't exist for two whole years, and it was going to take a lot more than a simple sorry from niki to make you forgive him for this, and you had to make that clear.

"Look; I know you may be sorry and all that, but it's gonna take more than a simple apology to make it up to me, and you should remember that. got it?" He looks at you as you spoke, eyes flashing with a determination to make it right again.

“I’ll do whatever it takes to make it right”

series taglist! —> @tzuyusluv @ririsreverie @rikisgeef @yawn-zi

perm taglist! —> @won-k1ss @liya07v

prev. mlist next

[hammerbonk]

Spiritual successor to this post

Here’s what I think Reverse: 1999 characters would be like in a normal British secondary school

I’ll add extra stuff if I think of anything else to say about them

Vertin

Year 11

NOTORIOUS skipper. Actual miracle if she shows up in class

Usually gets grades 6-8. Actually really smart she just cba to put effort into work/assessments most of the time

Besties with Sonetto since year 7

Usually really quiet and keeps to herself

But she can be an absolute menace to students/teachers alike if necessary

Sonetto

Year 11

Gets grades 7-9. Cries if she gets a 7

Reminds the teacher about the homework

Absolutely would snitch on people without question

Student council, form representative etc.

One of the few people that put their hand up

Matilda

Year 11 (technically Year 10 but she moved up a year)

Also gets grades 7-9 and cries if she gets a 7

I feel like she’d be mistaken for a Year 7 (projecting here sorry Matilda)

Constantly trying to one-up Sonetto in class

I dont think she’d be very popular 😬 sorry girlie

THIS MAKES ME LOOK LIKE SUCH A HATER LMAO I SWEAR I LOVE MATILDA

Medicine Pocket

Sixth form

DO NOT‼️ LET THIS BITCH HAVE ACCESS TO A LAB‼️‼️

Seriously who let them do bio/chem a level

I think they’d do maths/further maths asw

Literally a miracle they aren’t expelled yet

Would try and fuck with the people in the lower years

X

Year 11

Gets grades 7-9 (damn so many nerds)

Honestly kind of a wildcard. Idk whether he’d be one of those smart and relatively popular guys or if he’d be seen as a weirdo

Either way teachers WEEP at the start of the year when they realise he’s in their class

DO NOT‼️ LET THIS BITCH HAVE ACCESS TO THE DT DEPARTMENT‼️‼️

Sotheby

Year 9

Decent grades in everything but really likes chemistry specifically

That one girl who nobody hates. Actual sweetheart

Suuuper loud though

(Not so secretly) loaded

Regulus

Year 11

Gets grade 7 max. Yeah the school system really isn’t for her

Deceptively lonely. Is well-liked and hangs out with loads of people but only has 1-2 real friends

Really loud in class and talks back to teachers without meaning to

Schneider

Sixth form

Not sure what she’d do for her a levels ngl

Would politics be one of them?

There are like. 10 billion wild stories about her and all of them are true

Would be called leng 💀

Despite joining the sixth form from Sicily, she somehow already knows loads of people both inside and outside the school

Vapes. Im so sorry

[sugar-soda]

Kids Shouldn't be Here: Piper Wright

Fallout 4 Platonic Companions x Child! Sole

Warnings: Canon Typical Violence, Child in dangerous situations

A/N: This is NOT romantic at all! This is all platonic relationships that explore how the Fallout 4 companions and game would change if the Sole Survivor was a young child. Any romantic suggestions or reblogs will be blocked.

Masterlist

______________________________________________________________

Diamond City wasn't always the perfect place to raise a kid.

Sure, there were a lot of pros to the place. Big sturdy wall to keep the rest of the Commonwealth out, plenty of food and shelter, and plenty of services that you couldn't get anywhere else, like haircuts and a year round doctor. Hell, they even had a school. So many in the Commonwealth couldn't even read and the children of Diamond City got to learn that along with science, math, and history. So yes, there were some good reasons to have a kid there. 

If anyone were to ask about this to the Mayor, he would puff up like a peacock and proudly state that “children were the Commonwealth's future,” and “it takes a city to raise a child,” and other nonsense like he was still campaigning for office. 

If you were to ask someone who was not the Mayor, they would tell you that the city was nice, but it still had problems.

For one thing, with 2 bars and a chems dealer right in the market, there were plenty of chances for any kid looking for mischief to swipe a Mentat or a bottle of beer when no one is looking. Dr. Sun had taken to meticulous combing through his inventory everyday to make sure he didn't become a target of little, sticky fingers as well.

While they didn't have to worry about their kid being killed, the concerns were replaced e with others that were almost pre-war in nature. After all, they couldn't attach their child to the hip like in small settlements, so the children were left to run amuck with no supervision between school letting out and their parents coming home. Between those times the adults would worry.

 Did their kid do their assigned reading? Would they eat their tatos for dinner later or would they insist on surviving off of sugar bombs and snack cakes? What if they fell and hurt themselves on the rusty, dirty metal that made up most of the city and get an infection? Were they leaving poor Sheffield in peace? Were the other kids playing nice?

Those ran through their minds until they could go home.

The suspension was also something everyone dealt with. The Institute had rooted itself into everyone's mind as the Commonwealth's boogeyman, and no one could sleep at night anymore. Anyone could be kidnapped and replaced by an identical synth, so anyone could be a threat. Trust was in short supply, so there would never be that sense of community other settlements had. Every man was for himself. But no good man could go without his children.

____________________________________________________________

If you were to ask Piper Wright, she would say she is great with kids. After all, she raised her sister Nat, and she's great in Piper's biased opinion. Nat was smart, sassy, and incredibly self-sufficient. Piper liked to think she made Dad proud with how she raised Nat.

As self-sufficient as her sister is, that doesn't mean Piper thought she could live entirely on her own. Which is exactly why Danny needed to stop screwing around and open the gate!

“Danny, I swear to God, if you don't open this gate and let me in you will be sorry. I’m standing out here in the open for God’s sake!”

“I got orders to not let you in, Ms. Piper. I’m sorry. I’m just doing my job. The mayor’s pretty steamed about your last article. Said it was nothing but lies”

Ah. Right. In hindsight, accusing McDonough of being a synth was probably going to get her in trouble. But not like this! She thought she'd get another lecture she wouldn't listen to or a fine she'd never pay.

She left the city this morning to interview a few guards on duty. The barracks nowadays were too small and the guards too many. So her next article was a push to expand their barracks up into the stands. The rich folk already living up there will complain about “ruffians” being in the stands, even if they would be on the opposite side of the city, so she had to get everyone else on the same page to get the expansion approved. Which she couldn't do if she couldn't go home!

“God damn it, Danny! You can't just lock me out! I live here!” Piper slammed her hand against the speaker.

As Danny told her to lie low for a few days and let the Mayor cool down, she caught the tiniest movement to her left.  She squinted against the harsh afternoon sun and saw a rather…odd group was making way toward the entrance. 

The most notable was the Mr. Handy, or Miss Nanny, she never could really tell the difference. While Diamond City had its own share of non-humanoid robots and she herself had gotten a few drinks from Whitechapel Charlie when visiting Goodneighbor for a story, all of them were in cities, places where there was supplies and space to do maintenance to keep them running smoothly. Seeing them out of the city normally meant to turn tail and run as it shot lasers and tried to make you into minced meat with its saw blade. This one, luckily, didn't seem like it was crazy. It floated gently alongside its companions, keeping its three eyes on a swivel.

The second was a man. Judging by his militia hat, he was a Minuteman. Huh. She thought they were all gone after Quincy. That tragedy had destroyed a lot of people's faith in the cause. Piper was the first in Diamond City to hear about it, having heard about it from Mayor Hancock himself while visiting Goodneighbor. She cried her way through a whole pack of cigarettes before typing up the article. Like hell she was gonna let McDonough tell the city first and try to spin all those deaths into some Diamond-City-Superiority propaganda bullshit.

He tried when he made a speech about two days after she made Nat hand deliver a copy to everyone in Diamond City. By then everyone knew what happened. It was the least she could do. 

Her eyes narrowed in suspension. If he was alive now, there was a high chance he was one of the ones who didn't respond when the emergency call happened. Coward. She would have to keep an eye on him.

The last person had her back to her, with a duffle bag slung across her shoulders and a pale purple ribbon holding any hairs that escaped her messy twin braids out of her face. A sharp looking sniper rifle accompanied the duffle bag. Looks like she was just a kid, judging by the height difference. Strange. She didn't share any physical traits with the Minuteman, so Piper wouldn't guess they were related. Unless they were distantly related, or the kid was adopted, or maybe they were related through marriage?

 The Minuteman stopped to talk to a guard, likely asking about the city. The girl shifted on her feet, obviously impatient to go. The duffle bag moved and revealed a tiny shoulder wrapped in blue and gold numbers across her back.

So the kid was a vault dweller then. That kinda made sense. She probably was sent out to do trading for supplies and the Minuteman was likely her guard and the Mr. Handy was probably from the vault too.

Piper wrinkles her nose in distaste. Why would they send someone so young? Someone older wouldn't get scammed to hell and back at least.

Piper hadn't realized she was staring until the kid started staring back. Those big eyes seemed to stare into her soul, full of curiosity and questions. Just what Piper needed. While Danny always tried to follow orders, he could be a bit of a soft touch for kids. She's seen him sneaking books he bought from traders into the school. His bleeding heart was her ticket in.

“Psst. Hey, kid.” Piper tried to keep her voice at a volume where the speaker wouldn't pick her up. The girl looked around to see who she was addressing before pointing at herself quizzically.

“Yes, you. Come here.”

The girl peaked over at her guard, who was still talking. At some point, the Mr. Handy had joined the conversation, leaving her in the clear. She silently shuffled over and leaned closer.

“You wanna get into Diamond City, right?” The Vault Dweller nodded quickly, large eyes still unblinking.  “Play along. I'll get us both in.” Piper leaned back toward the speaker, raising her voice exaggeratedly. “What's that, kid? You're here all on your own? What about your parents?” 

Luckily, the kid picked up on Piper's plan. “ Oh, my parents are…they're gone,” 

“ You hear that, Danny? You really going to leave a little kid out here, all alone, surrounded by raiders, and super mutants, and ferals and-”

“Okay, okay! Geez Piper, way to lay on the guilt trip. I'll open the gate up but McDonough better not be on my ass about this.”

A loud beep resounded out and Piper couldn't help but feel smug. That feeling didn’t last long as Mayor McDonough was already there, sour expression making even a radroach look pleasant.

“Piper! Who let you back inside? I told Sullivan to keep that gate shut! You devious, rabble-rousing slanderer! The-the level of dishonesty in that paper of yours! I'll have that printer scrapped for parts.”

God, this man made her blood boil. It was like his voice was nails on a chalkboard every time he opened his mouth. “ Oooh, that's a statement, Mr. McDonough? ‘Tyrant mayor shuts down the press?’ Why don’t we ask the newcomer, huh? Do you support the news? Cause the Mayor is threatening to throw free speech in the dumpster.”

McDonough seemed to just register the kid, who had stopped her trek inside to wait for the Minuteman and Mr. Handy, who had finished talking to the guard. She clearly wasn’t expecting someone to drag her into the argument, startling at being addressed.

“Piper! You can’t expect a child to understand the delicate situati-”

“My dad always said that politicians who try to control the press are the ones who know that they are doing something wrong.”

Piper barely held back the sputtering laugh. She wasn’t expecting such a harsh reply to the Mayor but it was sure funny.

McDonough quickly tried to pivot back to his ‘for the people’ persona as the Minuteman and Mr. Handy joined them.

“Oh, I didn’t mean for you to get involved with our argument, young miss. No, no, no, why you and your father look like Diamond City material,” McDonough said. His eyes were glued to the Mr. Handy, knowing that if they could afford to keep a Mr. Handy while on the road, they likely could afford to stay a while.

The Vaultie squinted at him confused. “Father?” she asked, before realizing, “Oh, you mean Mr. Preston? He’s not my dad, he’s just a friend.” The Minuteman stepped forward and held his hand out to shake the Mayor’s hand, but his expression could best be described as thinly veiled annoyance. “Preston Garvey, Commonwealth Minutemen. I escorted Miss Sunny here from a new settlement up North.”

Ha. Called it. Piper knew they couldn’t be related, though now she wonders how recently the Vault opened, if it had started a new settlement and she hadn’t heard about it. Vault dwellers typically didn't like to leave their underground homes, even if they did open for trade. At least that's what the folks in Vault 81 did, from what she heard.

The mayor at least had the decency to look embarrassed by his assumption, a faint blush dusting across his face before he tried to cover it with a cough.

“Ahem, well, I can assure you that the trip will be more than worth it. Diamond City has all the finest comforts: a safe, comfortable place to rest your head, great food, and anything you could dream of can be found in our fine market stalls. Was there anything in particular that you were looking for, young miss?”

Garvey’s face shifted slightly from annoyance to sympathy, focusing on the girl (he said her name was Sunny, right?) who’s expression dropped from a polite, neutral face to fragile, fearful hope. Even the Mr. Handy seemed sad, which was almost impressive given its lack of face. Whatever they were here for, Piper guessed it wasn’t a shopping spree in the market. 

“We were informed this would be the best place to look for help in finding a missing person,” the Mr. Handy said, posh British accent clear as the day he came off the assembly line. Damn. Another missing person? That would make 4 in as many months. And that would only count the ones Piper knew about. Who knew if anyone else had been taken and replaced by a perfect look alike. The ones not replaced just added to the fear of who had been, and if they could trust them should they ever return. A city filled with suspicion but no help. Diamond City Security wouldn’t hear anything about missing people and any complaints to the Mayor were tossed in the trash. Piper would know, she dug through it. “An infant boy was taken from Vault 111 and we are most fearful of what could have happened to him.”

“He’s my baby brother,” Sunny said, her voice cracking like she was about to cry “His name is Shaun. He’s only a few months old and I need to find him but I don’t know where else to look.” Piper’s heart broke for the girl. She was so young, she couldn’t be older than Nat. She didn’t want to imagine her sister out by herself out here in the wastes. And she was looking for her brother? A baby? The whole situation was heartbreaking.

Crap. That line she said about her parents being gone wasn't just a fib was it? Now Piper just felt like an ass.

McDonough's attempt at looking sympathetic was unsuccessful, so he just looked uncomfortable. “I'm sorry, Miss. But Diamond City Security simply doesn't have the time to look into every missing person's case. I'm afraid they're too busy to look for your brother.”

Sunny crumbled and tears started flowing. “You mean we came all this way for nothing?”  Garvey looked pissed, opening his mouth to start spitting fire at the useless Mayor, but Piper, in her rage and experience yelling at the spineless bastard, beat him to the proverbial punch.

“Seriously, McDonough? A kid crosses the Commonwealth looking for an infant and you tell her you can't spare one guard to help! What the fuck!”

Sensing the danger he was in from the reporter and Minuteman, McDonough tried to cover himself, “However, there is a private citizen who might be willing to help. Nick Valentine. A…detective of sorts. He specializes in tracking people down. I'm sure he'll be happy to take your case.” That did little to comfort the kid as she kept crying and hiccuping.

“Hey,” Piper said, stepping in front of the girl and leaning down to be closer to eye level with her. “ I know ol’ Nicky myself. He's the best in the business. He'll find your brother, I know he will. Come on now, dry those tears. You can't see your way to his office with blurry eyes.”

Sunny nodded, as she tried to wipe her eyes and nose, even as more tears gathered in her eyes. The Mr. Handy placed a gentle claw on her head. “Come now, Miss Sunny. You can't go into a new city with the sniffles. You need to make a good impression.”

As he fussed over her appearance, Preston said, “Thank you for the help with the Mayor. I don't think he would have given us any information if you didn't put pressure on him.”

“Aww, it's nothing. Giving McDonough a hard time is part of my job. I'm Piper Wright. I write Publik Occurrences articles.” She offered her hand. From the corner of her eye, she caught Mayor McDonough just as he fled up the stairs. The Mayor of Diamond City, folks! Makes kids cry and leaves you to clean up the mess.

 Preston smiled, “Oh, so that's what that yelling was about,” 

“Well, not everyone wants to know the truth. But don't let me bore you with my job. You’re here to see Valentine, right?” She took a quick glance over him, trying to see if there were numbers on his coat or any significant markers of which Minuteman company he was part of. She didn't know exactly how Minuteman identified each other, but she knew only one company responded to Concord's call for help. Colonel Holis was their leader, she thinks. If Piper could figure out which company he was in, she could know if she could trust him to not tuck tail and run at the first sign of trouble.

“That will be our first stop after we get supplies, though we could use some directions. This is my first time in the city.”

“Sure thing,” Piper agreed, “follow me. Won't get anything done standing in the entrance.”

“Sunny,” Preston said “come on, I want you to stay in my sights the entire time we are here,”

“Ok, Mr. Preston,” She said, drying the last of her tears. Her face was still red and puffy and downtrodden but she was calmer now. Holding on to one of the Mr. Handy's arms, she was gently led to join them toward the steps.

As they walked, Sunny looked at Piper, “Thank you for helping us get in, Miss Piper. Sorry we got you in trouble.”

Piper smiled gently at the girl, “Don't worry about it, I was already in trouble with him. You guys didn't do anything.” 

Sunny and the Mr. Handy crossed the threshold first and stopped to stare. “Wooow,” Sunny drawed out, “it looks really different from before, Codsworth.”

“Quite different,” the Mr. Handy, who Piper now knew was Codsworth, replied, “but I do believe that the change is not all that bad. It has quite a lot of character if I do say so myself!”

“Welcome to Diamond City,” Piper grinned and pointed down to Nat yelling out the headlines, “ See that girl down there? That's my sister, Nat. She can give you a good run-down of the place if you ask.”

Sunny looked over at Preston, silently asking for permission before taking off once he gave it. Nat immediately jumped into her sales pitch, but Piper knew she would be excited about a new kid when she got out of “work mode”. Even if she did have a robot following her around.

“So, Preston,” Piper started, her eyes not leaving the pair as they talked, “I'm surprised you've never been here before. I thought being a Minuteman meant you got to travel all over.”

Preston started going down the steps at a slow pace as he answered. “Typically, you are right. I've been everywhere from Bunker Hill to the edge of the Glowing Sea. I guess Diamond City is just so well protected, it never needed to call for help.”

She continued pressing. “Anyplace interesting? I've only been as far as Goodneighbor and that only takes half a day.” She needed to know if this guy had really ignored Quincy's need for help or had just not been told by his superiors. If he really did turn his back on the settlement, Piper was sure he'd do the same to the kid.

“In recent memory? Sanctuary has been the best. It's this old Pre-war subdivision that Sunny showed us after we met in Concord. It's peaceful, with plenty of space to grow food, a small river, and isolated enough that raiders aren't too big of a worry.” 

Damn it. Nothing. Piper decided for a more direct approach. “Anywhere else? Like…I don't know…Quincy?”

Preston stopped so abruptly that Piper nearly ran into him. He turned around and his face had changed from a kind, strong Minuteman to a stern, angry soldier.

“If that is your way of asking if I was at the Quincy Massacre, yes, I was. I was there as my entire company died one by one waiting for backup. I was there when I realized I was the only one left and Colonel Holis was dead and no one was coming. I had to make the decision to retreat with what few survivors left in hopes their sacrifices wouldn't be in vain. And I was there as we wandered through the Commonwealth looking for somewhere that we can be safe. So yes, I have been to Quincy.” He turned back around sharply and continued down in a march.

Shit. So he did go to Quincy's aid. And paid heavily for it, if he was the last one left. Today was just the day Piper insulted everyone, huh?

“Wait, Preston!” Piper quickly moved in front to stop him from storming off. “I'm sorry. I didn't mean to accuse you of anything.”

He scoffed.

“It's just that… When Quincy happened, everyone was devastated. The Minutemen were supposed to help people! Now, we don't know if we can trust the few left. I didn't know if you were gonna run and leave that girl behind when things get dangerous. But I am sorry. I can only imagine how terrifying it was going through all of that.”

Piper hoped he would accept the apology. She already made enough enemies by exposing scumbags with the paper. She had no desire to add a genuinely good person to that group.

Preston exhaled deeply through his nose before all the rage seemed to drain out of him. Leaving behind only a man who looked really, really tired.  

“I understand,” he said. “ Just don’t bring it up again.”

Piper agreed quickly, just as Sunny came running back up to them. The bright, cobalt blue of her vault-suit stood out like a beacon against the faded reds, browns, and grays of the city. Even when partially hidden by the brown of her leather armor, the only thing that rivaled that suit's color was the jewel green wall that gave the city its nickname.

“Do you charge for your paper, Miss Piper? Cause your sister completely forgot about that if you do.” Even as she spoke, Sunny’s eyes roamed around the scenery. It was probably super different from the vault she grew up in. Piper had never been in one before, but she was pretty sure she would react the same way Sunny is if she went inside one.

“It's on the house for first timers, kid. Next time you're gonna have to cough up some caps.” She quipped, even as the wheels in her head started turning. Sunny couldn't have been out of the vault for too long. What did someone who was raised on pre-war values, with pre-war history, surrounded by pre-war technology think of this post-war society? What did she learn in her classroom that's been lost to time for them? What stayed the same no matter where she was?

“Thank you very much for the assistance, Miss Piper.” Codsworth said, “ You said that you did know the way to Detective Valentine's place of work, correct?” 

Snapping out of her thoughts and coming back to the present, Piper nodded her head. “Right. Sorry about that,” She pointed toward the space past Moe Cronin and his swatters. “Go past all the stores and take a hard right into the alleyway. Valentine Detective Agency is the only thing down that way and it has a neon sign to boot, so you won't miss it.” 

Sunny nodded her head along to Piper's instructions then looked at Preston, expecting him to say something. He was silent for a moment, leaving an awkward tension in the air as Sunny’s gaze flicked between them confused. Piper wondered which would win? His lingering anger and offense or the exhaustion that now seemed to settle deep into his bones.

The exhaustion won as he simply said. “ You take care, Miss Wright. We won't keep you any longer.” He gently placed a hand on Sunny’s back and started leading her away. Codsworth gave his own polite wave and farewell before following, but Piper had her focus back on that blue suit. 

Sunny looked back at her and waved over her shoulder, giving a toothy grin. The dark screen of her pip-boy caught the light of the sun and gleamed slightly. The thing looked so big and bulky on such a small arm.

Piper decided to go with her half-baked idea and quickly caught up with the group, placing a hand on Sunny’s shoulder opposite of Preston. “Hold on a minute, Blue. I got one more thing to ask ya.” The new nickname slipped out easily past her lips. It seemed to fit the girl as well as her actual name.

Sunny didn't seem to notice what Piper had called her, or at least didn't acknowledge it. She turned back around and cocked her head, slightly confused on what the woman could need from her. Preston looked somewhat annoyed at being stopped yet again, but he didn't look as mad as Piper thought he would. Codsworth even seemed curious, continually zooming and un-zooming on her.

“What do you need, Miss Piper?”

“How do you feel about doing an interview for Publik Occurrences?”

“Huh?” Sunny’s brows furrowed in further confusion. “Interview? What do I need to do an interview for?”

“I want to put your story in print,” Piper told her. “I think it's time Diamond City and the Commonwealth to have some outside perspective. You haven't been outside the vault for very long right? So, you could provide a fresh pair of eyes to what everyone thinks is normal.”

Sunny stayed quiet for a moment, thinking. 

“Okay, but I’ll have to do it later. We need supplies and I need Detective Valentine’s help.”

____________________________________________________________

It was late into the evening when Piper heard a polite knock on her door. All the shops had closed down and a dinner of cram and salisbury steak had long been eaten. Piper had finished up her last touches on her article and was writing down questions to ask the young vault dweller up in the loft and Nat was patching up a tiny tear in her coat. Having been grounded for getting detention while she was away, she was banned from playing with her toys, comics, and magazines until the end of the week. As her guardian, Piper had to be responsible and teach Nat that she should have talked to the teacher instead of punching a boy in the nose when he wouldn’t leave her alone. As her sister, Piper was damn proud. 

“I got it,” Nat piped up, setting her sewing down easily. Piper was glad she actually enjoyed the activity cause she never had, nor did she have the patience for it. It was a necessary chore that needed to be done if you wanted to have decent clothes in the Commonwealth. Unless you were a yuppie in the Stands who could shell out the caps for new clothes when your old ones were ruined, someone in the house had to pick up a needle and thread.

Piper kept her focus on her notepad, wondering if asking a Vault Dweller if they were technically inbred was inappropriate before scratching the idea away completely.

“Hey, Piper? That vault dweller and her bodyguard are here to see you.” Piper finally looked away from her work and down toward the door. Sure enough, Sunny, Preston, and Codsworth were in her home. Sunny trying to diligently kick the dirt off her boots and Preston realizing it wouldn’t matter anyway. 

“Hey! Glad you guys remembered!” Piper shoved her notepad in her pocket and descended the stairs. Now on the ground floor, she got a side by side comparison of Nat and Sunny.

Okay. Maybe she was older than Nat. While the girl still held baby fat on her face like her sister, Sunny was several inches taller. She seemed…smoother, too. She didn’t have all the small scars across her hands Nat did have from handling paper and the printing press everyday. Her face didn’t have a random cut or bruise that kids normally sported around here due to falling and eating dirt. Nat and other young girls kept their hair chin length, so as to not have to spend a ton of time taking care of it. Even Piper made sure her hair never got past her shoulders. Sunny’s went past that, probably longer if they were out of the braids.

It was like she was missing parts that Piper was used to seeing in kids, and had them swapped with completely foreign ones. Vault kids really were an entire different breed from Commonwealth kids it seems.

“Hello, Miss Piper. Sorry for coming by so late but we are just stopping to tell you that we are going to have to delay that interview until later.”

Piper raised her eyebrow. Why stop and tell her if they decided not to do the interview? Did she anger Preston enough for him to forbid the interview? No, he would have shot down the idea when it was brought up and wouldn't show up to delay it. Did someone bad-mouth her enough in the market for them to change their minds? She wasn't exactly friends with most of them, but she didn't think any of them hated her enough to actively discourage an interview. Did they…

“Did Valentine forget to show some of that Diamond City hospitality? Normally, he’s better about that,” Piper tried to joke. Nick was always willing to help anyone who needed it, but a lot of people were put off by the bolts and exposed wires. If they were rude about the whole “prototype synth with memories from a pre-war cop” thing, she wouldn’t be surprised if he kicked them out. 

“Unfortunately, Detective Valentine was not there to receive us, only his assistant.” Codsworth answered.

“Miss Woods says he left to investigate a kidnapping by a gang led by a man named Skinny Malone and hasn’t returned. Does the name ring any bells?” Preston continued.

Piper’s mind went right back into work mode. Going over to one of her filing cabinets, she opened a random drawer and started flitting through the unorganized papers. “Nat, where’s my files on Skinny Malone and his gang?,” 

Nat shot over another cabinet, “His personal file is here,” a quick shuffle and Nat pulled out a folder.

Another cabinet and quick shuffle, “His gang's criminal history is here.”

Tucking under Piper, she closed the first drawer and opened the one below it, “And every article about their crimes are here.” She closed the drawer with her elbow and handed her sister the now decent stack of paper.

“Why do you know my system better than I do?”

“‘Cause you don’t have a system at all.”

Piper pulled out his personal file and the crime list. Handing the personal file over to Preston, she gave a quick rundown, “Skinny Malone is a small-time gang leader who wants to make it big. He grew up here in Diamond City. His family was well-off in the Stands, and spoiled him to be more rotten than brahmin shit. His dad cut him off 20 years ago after an altercation that ended with Skinny in the city jail, and told him that his bail would be the last time he spent caps on him. Skinny couldn’t handle an actual job, so he shot his parents in the head, took all the caps they had, and started his own gang .”

Preston followed her explanation on the paper, a serious look on his face. “And one of this gang’s crimes is kidnapping?”

Piper started skimming the list of crimes, cursing herself for not at least alphabetizing the stupid thing. Robbery, Assault, Murder- the whole thing was copied down as his crime list grew but kidnapping wasn’t one of them. She chewed on a nail.

“Nothing on kidnapping, but I do know he’s got a thing for pretty ladies way too young for him, and doesn’t like to be told no. If one got his interest enough and rejected him, I wouldn’t be surprised if he decided to just take the poor girl.”

“Miss Woods said that he was investigating Penn Street Station. We are going there to see if Detective Valentine needs help.” Sunny stated. “If he is as good as everyone says, I bet the girl will be there too.”

Piper flicked her eyes back over to the group before handing the paper back to Nat and heading past the couch. “Penn Street Station is past all the guard stations and is a good walk away. When are we leaving?”

Sunny immediately caught the addition in the question. “I’m sorry, we?” Piper had picked up her 10mm pistol and was now counting her bullets. 

“Yes, we. Valentine has been a part of Diamond City for as long as I can remember and he’s my friend. If you guys are staging his rescue, I’m coming.” Satisfied with the amount of ammo she had, she put her pistol in the pocket opposite of her notepad and pencil. She’ll need that too.

“Besides,” she added, “I still want that interview.”

____________________________________________________________

They had to leave Codsworth behind. Sunny had pitched a massive fit over it, but it was sadly the most practical. Penn Street Station would be crawling with Skinny’s gang, so a stealth approach would be needed. Codsworth was just too loud, his engine, singular thruster, and multiple arms always making an audible noise. His shiny metal finish and inability to crouch made him a giant silver beacon. It was only after she was told that he would stay at Publik Occurances and Piper lied that Nat needed someone to watch her for the night did Sunny agree to him being left behind. (Nat never needed anyone to watch her and had glared at Piper for saying that.)

By the time they had left the city and passed all the guards, the moon was high in the sky and the streets were quiet. Piper fished her notepad and pencil out of her pocket and flipped to the questions she prepared earlier. Not as many as she would have usually liked to have, but she could improvise a few if needed.

“So Blue, you up to answering a few questions for me?,” Piper asked the girl in front of her. A Stealth-boy had been attached to the girl’s armor and her rifle now held steadily in her hands. It looked so big in her hands, Piper couldn’t believe she used it. 

Sunny turned slightly to glance at the reporter. “Why do you keep calling me that? Blue?” she asked.

'Cause of the blue jumpsuit you're wearing?,” Piper answered, “You're a Vault dweller. That and the Pip-boy are dead giveaways.”

Sunny pulled at her collar and looked down to inspect her outfit. “Nothing else that fits me is any good. Everything else is either too big, in shreds, or a dress. I even have to tighten up the armor that I’m wearing with it as tight as it can go.”

Piper smiled and continued, “ I'm going to ask you a few basic questions first, just some simple information until I get to the bigger questions.”

“Okay.”

“Name?”

“ Sunny Evangeline Roberts.”

“Birthday?”

“April 4th.”

“Vault?”

“111. It's on my suit.”

“Age?” 

“12, technically.”

Piper frowned at that answer. “What do you mean by ‘technically’?”

“I mean, I'm only technically 12. If we actually counted the years between now and when I was born, it would be about 212 years.” 

If Piper had a drink, she would have choked on it. Instead, she just choked on her spit. Sunny’s tone didn’t sound like she was joking but Piper couldn’t imagine her being serious. The only ones who lived that long were ghouls and Sunny had the very strong distinction of having a nose. As she was trying to regain her breath, Preston lightly scolded the girl.

“Sunny, you can’t just tell people like that.”

“But you told Paladin Danse, why can’t I tell Miss Piper? If she is gonna write about me, she’s got to know.”

Piper couldn’t believe they were so casual about this. “Wait, wait, wait! What do you mean you’re over 200 years old?” she asked, voice jumping higher and louder than she meant it to.

“All Vault-Tec Vaults had an experiment built in,” Preston answered seriously, “none of them were good, which is why most are either abandoned or destroyed from the inside. Vault 111 put all of the original residents in cryogenic suspension.”

“They didn’t tell us,” Sunny’s voice had a hard and shaky tone to it, like she was trying to be tough but couldn’t. “No one would have agreed to it otherwise. It was too risky. So, they lied and told us the pods were for decontamination. ”

“Oh god, Blue.” Piper’s brain was having a bit of trouble catching up. This kid was old enough to be her great-great-something-grandmother. She had seen the bombs fall. She didn’t know anything about Vault-life, but knew everything about before the war like it was yesterday, because to her, it was yesterday. Most of her questions no longer applied, but a million more took their place in her head, and over half of them would be twice as insensitive as the inbreeding question.

“How…how did…how did you get out? When did this happen? ” Piper’s mouth finally settled on.

Sunny kept walking, but her steps slowed down and her hold on her rifle became looser. “ About two weeks ago. There was a malfunction in my pod. The fact that it was able to still open after not being maintained is nothing short of a miracle.”

Preston now slowed his pace to match Sunny’s, and Piper had to slow now too so as to not topple over the girl. Their brisk walking pace was now a shuffle. Piper’s pencil seemed to move on its own as it wrote down Sunny’s answer.

“Did anyone else make it?” Piper asked softly.

“No. Mom and Dad were killed when Shaun was taken and life support failed for everyone else.” Sunny’s nails dug into grip, scratching at the faux leather. “The scientists and guards that were supposed to watch us had some sort of…fight? Rebellion? Whatever happened between them, when I got out, all that was left was bones. Codsworth was the first person I found when I got out.”

Piper bit her tongue to avoid adding any commentary to the girl’s tale and just asked her question, “Why was your family allowed in the vault? I know only specific people were allowed in each one, or else we wouldn’t have so many ghouls.”

“Vault 111 was advertised as a military vault. They said it was to honor and thank our great American heroes, both past and present. Dad was retired military. His squad were the first to test out new Power Armor on the field, so they were really important. He injured his leg when I was nine, so he was honorably and medically discharged.”

Piper couldn’t contain her curiosity. “Was he the one who showed you how to use this giant thing?” She reached over Sunny and tapped her pencil against the stock of the gun gently.

She couldn’t see it, but a small smile was now on Sunny’s face. “Yeah, he did,” she reminisced, “After he retired, he stayed home while Mom went to work, taking care of the house and me. He was a bit paranoid afterward. He saw things while deployed, but they never told me what it was. He wanted to make sure I would be safe, so he taught me and Mom how to shoot, how to hunt and gather food, how to get clean water, stuff like that. I complained at the time, but now? I don’t think I’d be alive without them.”

Sunny looked up at the crumbling towers and shining stars. “Even with how worried about the future he was, I don’t think he could have imagined it being like this. Otherwise, I don’t think they would have had Shaun.” She looked straight ahead at Preston’s back again.

Piper was going to need to sharpen her pencil, trying to keep up with the girl’s words. She knew what the girl ment. If her brother was just an infant, there was a big age gap between the two, just like her and Nat. If their Dad had survived and their Mom stuck around, Piper wouldn’t have to play the stressful balancing act between sister and parent. She loved her sister with all of her heart, but Piper sometimes resented the responsibility on her shoulders. Sunny’s parents were now gone, and she was putting herself in the role of a mother on a mission to find her baby. After a beat of writing, she spoke again.

“What do you think of this?”

Sunny turned her head to look back at her. “Huh?” “All of this. What do you think of it? It's obviously different from before the war. I think everyone needs to hear how we are doing in comparison to before.” Sunny was silent for a short while, tumbling the answer around in her head. “ Things are different, that’s true. We didn’t have raiders and our toilets worked and the cows had only one head. My parents were here and my brother was safe. The buildings were safer and there was a lot more of everything.”

She paused as they had to climb over a large amount of debris. The rubble was loose and unsafe to walk on, so crawling uncomfortably on their hands and knees over it was the best way to get around the rocks and concrete. 

“There is good though,” she started again, “I have Codsworth, and I met Mr. Preston, and Dogmeat, and Paladin Danse, and everyone back at Sanctuary. Some things are different, but still nice. Diamond City was beautiful in a way I have never seen and when there aren't gunshots, everything is so quiet. And so many people are trying. They are trying to survive, and build homes, and have families. They have hope, so I have hope I can find my brother and have a good life.”

Piper smiled and scribbled down the last words of Sunny’s little speech. This was a lot to work with, and Piper didn’t want to cut anything. She hoped her old printer would survive all the extra work and not kick the bucket like Nat keeps saying. Once she finished her notes, she looked back through quickly, and found something that brought up another question.

“What’s a cow?”

[lunebits]

ap class tips

for those in ap classes who are struggling. also for those who aren't really. whatever.

just as an intro to my qualifications:

i go to a stem high school (will be graduating next sem!) where all the classes are already advanced as is (our ap classes are also taught differently!) i've taken a total of 10 ap classes during my time, and while that isn't as much as others, i'd say i have a pretty good spread of ap classes i took!

general ap class tips

remember that the ultimate goal for you taking this course is to take the exam and get a 4/5 (reach for that 5!). yes, the grade is important, but that score at the end after that exam might save anywhere from $600-$1200+ in college. so focus your energy on that exam once the exams are encroaching!

make friends in your ap classes. trauma bonding is real (/j) so making friends that will help you study or might save you when you accidentally forgot is key.

and while they all say "study a bit every night!" that's hard to do. the rule of thumb here for every class will be in the categorized sections, so don't worry (i gotchu!!)

ap math (calc ab/bc, stat, physics, chem, etc.)

i personally didn't take physics or chem bc i didn't want to, but i did take bc and got a 5 (yes, i'm so proud)!

rule of thumb for studying at home: do your homework everyday and actually take the time to understand what the hell you're doing. understand what the process is behind solving the problem. be able to pull out the variables. practice, practice, practice. also, this is one of those subjects where it's actually worth it to study it at home everyday.

ANOTHER RULE: practice tests. these math exams are about stamina and speed. if you can solve a problem, great! but now here comes 20 more screaming your name. but, if you can get the timing down before your exam, that's even better. so go waste your saturday afternoon at that mock exam if you need to. another saturday will come in time anyway. ask your teacher for mock exams. get that practice workbook. whatever it takes. get the timing in your hand.

just as a quote from my teacher, "life is about choices, and we are all busy people." don't waste your time doing something that'll waste your time. even if you can't remember it, that's okay. just keep moving and score more points somewhere else. and also, do the easy route. only memorize the easy route.

math is about patterns. patterns rule math. extract that pattern out of that problem, memorize it, and you'll be just fine.

FRQS WILL HURT YOUR BRAIN AND THAT'S OKAY! collegeboard has a very specific way it wants you to answer these questions. the best way to learn the format is to do so many frqs your hands hurt. because in any exam that involves math, you genuinely need to do better on the frqs. they'll land you more points. yes, the mcq might get you that 5, but the frqs become the basic 3 or 4 that you need. your teacher will hopefully teach you the format, but if they don't, the collegeboard ap website has all the past frqs they've ever made.

YOU WILL BE OKAY. I PROMISE. make sure that if you cry, you understand your disappointment then move on to a larger action plan.

ap histories/humanities (art history, u.s history, euro, world, etc.)

i've taken all the histories that my school offers (apush, euro, apwh, apah, etc.)

rule of thumb: don't study at home unless there's a test coming up or you're bad at putting stuff in order.

GET YOUR WRITING SKILLS DOWN PAT. this is the thing that'll get you the most points. that mcq section is a killer, but doing 3-6 (looking at you apah exam) right after might just kill you. so please, get your stamina up. just write. just keep writing.

timeline shit for history. because when it comes down to it, knowing the sequence of events and knowing the events themselves are more important than dates or whatever.

if you're worried about coherency in your writing, jot down a small pre-writing list.

memorize every single rubric. luckily, the dbq/leq rubric is the same across apush, apwh, and euro. you'll get away with just memorizing the two. the apah rubric is a little different, and the ap lit rubric is a little different. just memorize them as best you can.

when writing, cater to your reader. make things easy to spot and easy to grade. they'll give you a higher score if they can clearly see where things are.

just practice mcqs. all the stimulus will have something you can pull out of it (unless it's like apah where you're meant to memorize the works). but every question will have an answer that's in the passage. practice finding that answer. (this one is still really hard)

all these tests are tests of stamina. and sometimes, they're on the same goddamn day because collegeboard hates love us. just keep going. grab a snack. rest your eyes, go.

essays are the bane of everyone’s existence in ap courses because you’re on this strict rubric and have this mythical complexity/sophistication point that you need to give your hopes and dreams of achieving. BUT. but. you’ll be okay. especially for exams like the ap lit/apah exam, you get to come in knowing at least a bit of the exam (for ap lit, a good part of the frq weight. for apah, 90% of the test). TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THAT!! know a novel inside and out. know the works inside and out. you’ll be okay. stretch your hands, breathe, write.

ap sciences (bio, physics, chem, psych, econ)

i've personally taken bio and both econs, but these are all concept based, so the same general tips apply.

rule of thumb: if you don't understand it in class, you need to study it at home asap. seriously. because you sure as hell won’t be able to put it together during class the next day. whats good though is that there’s so many resources online (esp videos!!) for all the ap sciences that it’s actually crazy.

read your textbook. science is great with a textbook in your hand. you don't even need to read the whole thing. just skim through it to add information to your class notes. most times that works.

because the questions are concept based, the mcq/frqs are a little hard to get used to. SO YOU KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS: don’t ignore your responsibilities and learn what these questions look like.

flashcards. USE FLASHCARDS. so much of science is not only understanding concepts but applying them. to apply them, you need to know them by heart. and to know them by heart means flashcards to drill yourself.

and speaking of applying your knowledge, you need to take things slowly. approach questions with this framework: 1) read the problem + understand what concept it’s asking about. 2) pull out that information from your sexy brain. 3) solve the problem based on what you can remember. to truly understand, include a lot of examples in your notes. AND MAKE SURE YOU UNDERSTAND WHY AND HOW THEY WORK. the why and the how are more important than the what.

misc tips 🌷

burnout is inevitable if you don’t manage your time correctly. there’s people online that can explain how to manage your energy more than me so please go watch them instead lmfao

try your best to stay on your schedule. the more you push your tasks to this arbitrary tomorrow, the more you absolutely won’t do them.

honey, you need to bring a snack and a water bottle to those exams, you get like a 10 minute break that isn’t enough for the mental taxation (without representation) that happens on those exams. they’re brutal.

the classes themselves are not as bad you think. i promise. most of the time, you’ll actually have fun. and it’s really cool to be learning at a college level. so keep at it! the moment you hate something, the moment you begin to stop trying as hard and your grades start slipping. keep finding the next thing to delude yourself into enjoying (/hj).

[ahedderick]

Counting down to finals

My son's chemistry teacher seemed to falter after the Thanksgiving break. She told the students that no more lab assignments would be due; they would simply receive 100% for all the rest of the work. F-i-n-e, but suspicious. This sounds to me like a teacher who has belatedly realized that a ridiculously high number of her students are failing, and is trying to cover her ass. She also stopped regularly posting due dates for the lecture assignments (which were all given out in a packet at the beginning of the year), and quizzes for those assignments. I've been uneasy about that.

Sure enough, when Son checked his dashboard yesterday evening, he found NINE assignments, quizzes, lab assignments, and a pre-test are due on MONDAY. Now he generally keeps an eye on his dashboard several days in advance, so nothing 'sneaks up' on him. However, he told me that this MASS of material wasn't posted when he last checked. And, honestly, no matter how far in advance it was posted, it is bonkers to have nine lengthy assignments due in one day for one class.

The university is having major financial troubles, and has responded by cutting classes - because apparently educating the students is their last concern. The wildlife/fisheries department may not be scheduling several of the 300 and 400 level classes required for his major because of "low enrollment."

Ok. FIRST of all. If there weren't so MANY teachers in the bio, chem, and math dept that have completely abandoned their jobs and flunked over half the class in the past couple of years, so students aren't able to get the earlier prerequisites for their major completed, you might not have "low enrollment" in the higher level courses. AND I feel like if a uni offers a degree in Fisheries biology, and then decides at some point to stop offering that major, they have an ethical responsibility to continue offering the classes for those who have gotten to a junior or senior level in the program no matter what.

I am verklempt. I graduated from the uni in 1991. My mother in 1963, and my grandmother in 1921. HER father was one of the coal miners who saved up to create a college (in 1898) that would be available to the rural students in this area. This is . . . personal.

[someinstant]

Things Teaching Public High School in the US for More Than a Decade Has Taught Me:

Everyone thinks teachers spend all their money on, like, markers and shit. And maybe that's true in elementary school, but do you know what I spend an absurd amount of money on? Plug-in air fresheners, because thirty sophomores crammed in a room with the heat blasting after half of them have PE is rough. Endless bottles of hand sanitizer. Tissues. SO MANY TISSUES. And at least one electric pencil sharpener a year because they keep breaking mine. And also those black metal binder clips. Those are fucking gold.

The $300 federal tax deduction for classroom supplies is hilarious and infuriating, and I will never not take it because fuck you why am I the one buying the pencil sharpener?!

You will have the wake-up-late-for-a-math-exam nightmare for your whole life. But also, if you're a teacher, you get anxiety dreams where your department head tells you you're teaching AP Chem and Spanish IV next semester in addition to your normal courses, and Dream!You will be absolutely terrified-- not because you have to teach courses outside of your area of certification, but because you're going to have a minimum of three preps with one planning period.

To-do lists will save your life and (some part of) your sanity when you are trying to keep track of IEPs and 504s and HHB meetings and also figuring out when the three clubs you sponsor can meet and also AP study sessions and test make ups and also you're in charge of your subject area's collab group and also somehow two faculty committees that you're pretty sure you never volunteered for, they just happened, and there's the faculty meeting next Tuesday and also Open House and you need to call three parents about student grades, and also it will take you about five years to realize this because you're dumb and young and think you will just magically be able to remember what needs to happen when. No you won't, you dipshit. Get a planner, get a calendar, get a Post-It note or seven, and write that shit down.

Teenagers are hilarious. They're amazing. They're terrible, but also going through this insane transformative experience and you have a fucking front row seat to cheer them on as they steadily become less and less terrible and finally find out they're just-- fantastic. On bad days, they're the best part of the gig.

Everyone cries in their car in October at least once. It's normal teacher behavior, especially in the first few years. It's not good, but it's what happens when you have a month with no days off and everything starts to come due in terms of IEPs and grades and also it's ALWAYS Homecoming, which means there's the pep rally bullshit and Spirit Week and also the dance-- which you might have to chaperone god help you-- and for some reason the College Board also has dictated that this is PSAT season? So we all lose an instructional day to that, and-- yes. Everyone cries in their car in October. You're not weird. You're just very, very tired.

Amazingly, if you explain to students what you're doing and why you're doing it, they will generally be more engaged and focused and get more out of what you're doing. This goes for an activity, a full lesson, a unit of study, and the course as a whole. Show them what you're trying to build up front. Show them how you're putting things together. And if the thing you are doing doesn't directly connect to the long- and short-term goals of the course, redesign what you're doing. Students know when work is bullshit, and so do you.

Some of your students won't like you, sometimes. It's okay. Doesn't mean you've got to be a dick about it. Do your job and teach them anyway.

You will absolutely have some colleagues whose possession of a teaching license will befuddle you. If you have your shit together, they're likely to tug at your sleeve and constantly ask for material or help or whatnot, and it is going to be ENORMOUSLY annoying, because jesus, Susan, you're twenty years older than I am, how do you not know how to teach the Scientific Revolution by now? You might become the Tech Help Desk. You might have to show your colleagues how to use the digital testing program EVERY DAMN UNIT for THREE FUCKING YEARS because somehow they always forget and come running to your classroom while you're in the middle of teaching second period because they forgot how to publish to the assessment platform yet again. (Obviously not a personal example from this week or anything.) Here is the thing to remember about this: these annoying colleagues teach kids. And those kids do not deserve to get a shitty education because their teacher is Professor How Do I Use PowerPoint. Help your colleagues. It's okay--and good-- to draw boundaries so you don't murder them, but share your shit. Forward that fucking email to them for the seventeenth time, because it won't be you or they who ultimately suffer-- it'll be the kid in the back corner of the classroom who doesn't ever effectively learn about chattel slavery and exploitative labor and colonialism.

Let your students see you love what you're doing. Let them see you geek out over Olmec subtractive sculpture or physics or economic systems or that creepy Faulkner story about the lady who murdered her lover and then slept next to his corpse for the rest of her life. Let your students see that you love them. Tell them you're proud of them, and mean it. Some of them don't hear that enough. Care enough to be disappointed when your kiddos make bad choices (because some will and it will break your heart), care enough to be angry as hell about the puritanical debates over what books are allowed in your school library, care enough to let that kid talk your ear off about League of Legends or some anime thing you don't watch-- and care enough to look at your endless to-do list and say, "I can address the rest of this tomorrow. I'm going home to rest, now," because you can't do anything else if you've not done that.

[boston-diaries]

How I study for Chemistry

Pre-Lecture:

Pre-lecture notebook = a formal, organized, and clean way of presenting information so you can reference it efficiently when you’re studying.

Read and annotate the textbook

Check each chapter’s learning goals—if there aren’t any, check the subheadings and predict; “Oh I should know how to do this, know characteristics about this, etc. etc”

Includes skimming first, then deeper reading of the chapter body

No need to do practice problems that require long calculations/better understanding right now

Gather all important info, notes, caveats, solving processes in a “readings textbook”

Make it colorful and organized. This will automatically make it pretty—no need for fancy fonts, though you can if you have the time.

In lecture:

Have your pre-lecture notes out next to you

Rephrase what the professor teaches and connect the dots between your pre-lecture notes and what they say

Keep it messy, use symbols, abbreviations, large circles, messy asf handwriting that you can read. I stick to 2 colors, a base color of what I’m writing with (black pen/pencil) and 1 other color for marking important things.

Note down things that the professor says will be on the rest, AND things you think are reasonable to put on the test, based on the pre-lecture readings.

The objective during lecture is to understand HOW the professor is prepping info that you should ALREADY know, so you can understand how the test will be structured.

Post Lecture:

Make more connections with your pre-lecture notes and lecture notes. Write down things covered in the lecture that weren’t in the textbook into the pre-lecture notebook.

Do your HW, correct it properly, then redo your mistakes until you get it right and UNDERSTAND why you got it both right and wrong.

Practice as many textbook problems as you can

Make practice conceptual and analytical questions based on your pre-lecture notes, which should be like a handbook on how to do the topic at this point. If it isn’t, add the info until it is.

Repeat the cycle before the next lecture.

NOTES:

This process can be tweaked and used for a lot of STEM based subjects.

If you’re not ahead, you’re behind. There is no debate about that. There is no excuse–your education is in YOUR hands. MAKE time for it if you don’t have time.

You should understand everything said during the lecture, because you should have already read it in the textbook. If you don’t understand something that is said, FLAG IT. Check in the textbook if it’s there, it should be. Then go learn it again. If it’s not in the textbook, then scour the internet until it’s in your blood.

Chem is comprehensive—there is the other LAB component as well that is tested on. Make sure you understand that as well before the next lab so you don’t need to cram for it during the test study period.

You CANNOT cram chemistry. It is the perfect combination of concepts and math. You need to know BOTH aspects to get a question correct—and there is no cutting corners in that process.

xoxo ~ Aashi

[o2studies]

༻`` 31 Jan 24 — Wednesday

100 days of productivity 31/100

Such an amazing day today!!! Today was the welcome event at QUB and i was nervous to sit away from my friend at a table of strangers but there were only 5 others and they were really friendly and despite not talking to them all that much, we got along well! The day was very informative and the tours I spent talking to a girl from another table. At the end of that we exchanged snaps (with the table and me with the girl) so that we could keep in contact and help each other with the coursework. Oh was it so interesting!!! I can't wait to start it!!!! I'm on the maths and physical sciences pathway and chemistry is something I absolutely want to do. I've finally decided! I'm just not sure whether medicinal chem or pure chem 😅. Before getting to the campus my friend and I found a small bookshop and they had an amazing selection, so ofc we got a book each and afterwards came back to buy more ^^ (I got Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie and The Perks Of Being A Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky). Got a drink then headed on the train back. I can't wait to be in uni.

At home I was glad to hear that most classes were interrupted today so I don't have any work to catch up on. I also exercised and my legs still feel a bit funny but it felt great afterwards! I did a bit of studying for chemistry but I won't push myself any further because I've got to write this, pack my bag, brush my teeth and I want to wake up early enough tomorrow.

Hope youse had a good day too xx

[bywons]

hii can i know your daily routine from morning to night. i also want to know how you manage writing and how you manage your tumblr. i want to know what major you study. i want to know because i am new to tumblr and managing time is hard for me. if you feel this ask uncomfy, you can ignore me.

afraid you asked the wrong person for this cuz my daily ( mostly evening & night ) routine is VERY different from each other throughout the whole week because of my tuition classes/study schedule TT but no probs, i'll try to give u my routine in the best way possible ^^

𖹭 MY DAILY ROUTINE

MORNING & AFTERNOON （≧∇≦）

6:00 — 6:30 am : wake up time boooo. although this time varies during exam season or when i pull an all nighter/ sleep late cuz i was watching a series, this is the usual time i wake up, or at least try to every single day ><

6:30 — 7:30 am : brushing teeth/skincare etc + morning workout & pilates. i usually try to do the first part is lesser time so that i have more time to workout & stretch ^^

7:30 — 8:05 am : break/creativity period. here i give myself a 35 minute break for relaxation or checking social media / practicing my italian lessons ( im vv beginner >< ) or draw or write short essays/poems or plan out my day which is the MAIN task i usually do

8:05 — 9:05 am ( 30 min gap 4 chai + breakfast break ) , 9:35 — 10:35 am, 10:35 — 11:45 am, 12:05 — 1:05 pm : with breaks, these timing are for my studying, and i follow my study routine for the day >< [ WHEN I DON'T ATTEND SCHOOL ]

1:05 — 3:15 pm : shower + lunch >< [ WHEN I DON'T ATTEND SCHOOL, i return at 3pm from skl ]

EVENING （≧∇≦）

3:15 — 5:00 pm : relaxing & writing for blr/watching shows ( or i sleep TT ) >< ONLY IF i don't have tuitions, when i do, i head out for them around 4:30 — 5:00 pm according to the timing of my classes.

(after break 4 evening snacks/chai) 5:30 — 6:30 pm, 6:30 — 8:30 pm, 9:00 — 10:00 pm, with breaks again, i follow my study schedule ><

NIGHTTIME （≧∇≦）

10:00 — 10:30 pm : have dinner

10:30 — 11:00 pm : ghost around my home / free time TT

within 11:30ishpm : finish skincare,brushing, and take my meds

after that o clock : 😴 but if i pull an all nighter or watch a series with my mum that's another story lol

𖹭 MY MAJOR/STREAM

well i'm still in school so i don't have any major, but we indian students are given to choose between 3 streams — science, commerce & humanities. as for me i am a science student ^^ i have bio, chem, phy, maths, psych, eng !!!

𖹭 TIME MANAGEMENT

again, a hard question to the wrong person cuz my schedule is not constant TT but as u can see there are breaks between my study sessions! i tend to manage my time and do stuff between those breaks, and when life gets too hectic, i take hour long breaks and write for blr! keep in mind, that you NEED TO BALANCE life & social media. find the right time for each of your important sectors like studies, work, hobbies & schedule them out equally! that also doesn't mean you have to follow them blindly, make sure to take breaks, do things that you enjoy & love life & most importantly, your precious self ^^ MWAH. hope i helped ya <333

[mujhekyamaitosojaaungi]

hey, so.

congrats on getting 92% in ur 12th boards!

u're a topper!!!

..u have any tips?

for math, chem, cs, physics students?

can u give advice for like individual subjects if u can?

congratulations and thanks!

@mayamohini

THANKYOUUU😭💗🌷🥹

Idk if am one to ask for tips but well I’ll tell you what helped me.

My subjects were PCBE psychology and PE

For physics Id say just keep practicing numericals everyday. And if you got time do the deleted topics as well they’ll help you catch the concept better. Get a help book and practice mcqs regularly. You may not do as well as you thought in the start but dont loose hope you’ll definitely see the results with time.

And as for chem, I, personally dont like this subject, I did a lot of procrastination when it came to chemistry..I mean organic chemistry..I just dont get it and in the exam it had really high weightage so do written practice for all the reactions. Follow ncert only..it’s vast enough.

And Good luck to you buddy💗 I am sure you’ll do great!

[gojonanami]

Also, I'm not sure if I'm qualified to help you with physics prof gojo because I'm a B.Tech kid. My major is chemical engineering, but I do have friends from physics (engineering physics to be precise 😭 but it's physics too so :"D) major and they are chill like an iceberg to say the least. 😂 But that's just the general population in our college anyways so 🤷🏻‍♀️. The thing with us engineering kids that I've seen is we have a thing with hacking exams i.e studying just one day prior and still acing it :> and that stands for science kids in general too.

Another thing is we'd be cracking the darkest jokes (using science at times) with the most chill face.

Another thing can be that we're sneaking science into stuff without realising,

"dude I don't like ____, they/he/she be like a black body fr"

"*sees a cat* *names it Schrodinger*"

"may the mass times acceleration be with you 😌🤝🏻"

"MECHANICS IS EASY YOU SAY? *bombastic side eye* *blocks the person on every social media*"

"*sees crush* *panics because doesn't remember any pickup line* *goes with the same old - "can you feel this thing between us? Gm1m2/r²."*

*casually talks about end of time and universe*

"maybe if I run at the speed of light-"

"brooooooooo I just read modern physicsssss watch me build an hydrogen bomb and blast our labs now" (this was back when I was still in 12th grade 😭 and used to make a guitar out of meter bridge lmfaoo)

And these are just the beginner ones so I hope you still can understand it 😭👍🏻 other than that, half of us are just traumatised and don't know why we're here.

OH and I hope you don't miss on the jealousy sabbb 😏😏 because being a physics major would make her a women in stem and you know the gender ratio don't you? 😏 (In our college its like 1:4 fr 😭👍🏻)

Oh and never EVER ask them if they hate Newton more of Schrodinger more <3

They love maths, and hate chemistry somehow (I mean come on 😭 organic is fun okay?!). ( "My hypothesis failed, but atleast i didn't blow up the lab by accident." Said the physics major.)

🤩anon

omg I gotta keep these for reference because it’s perfect hahaha — I’m definitely gonna be using one / more of these haha

ooh yeah I def see reader as a dark horse kinda student where she’s very unsuspecting but ends up doing the best in class without talking much and that’s when her professor takes an interest 👀

oooh good point — I definitely will have to use the jealousy trope because we all know I love it 😭 I hate chem so I’m on their side (but I hate physics too so)

[arixwrites]

Marcus Baker x OFC Pt. 4

Pt 1  Pt 2  Pt 3

Marcus Baker x Allison Littman

words: 1.2k

Marcus and Allison were in art, their last period of the day. The seating arrangement was very flexible in the class, you could sit anywhere you like. Ever since Marcus and Allison did shrooms together (and kissed), they sat together every class period. Their “spot” was the table all the way at the back of the class. They were both finished with their assignment early, so they were planning what they would do after school. It wasn’t explicitly said but they were keeping the fact that they hang out away from their twin sisters. They liked staying inside their own bubble. They didn’t want any attention on this weird situationship that they had because then that would lead to questions and labels. They were both happy with just hanging out. However, they had not communicated this to one another. And that’s why this is on Allison’s agenda for today’s hangout. Allison will finally ask the question: “What are we?”  

Marcus was immersed in a sketch on the margin of his notebook. Allison rested her head on her hand and quietly admired the way his hair fell into his eyes, ‘You want to come over after school?’ 

Marcus looked up and flicked the hair from his face, ‘Yeah. I can pick up Blue Farm and meet you there’, Allison agreed, ‘What do you want?’

Allison smiled sweetly, ‘Turkey club with sweet potato fries, please. And ranch! Do not forget the ranch. Joe’s is the best.’ 

‘Yes, ma’am’

_______________ 

Allison rode home with Abby after school. Abby peeked her head into Allison’s room, ‘Are you sure you don’t want to come hang out at Norah’s? I know you’re just going to be sitting in your room alone.’

Allison shook her head, ‘No, I’m fine. I have a load of math homework to catch up on anyway. Believe me, I wish I could go.’ 

Abby knocked on the door frame, ‘Have fun!’ 

‘Oh, I will!’ Allison yelled back. Her sister had no idea.

_________________

Marcus had called in their order right when they got out of class, so by the time he made it over to Blue Farm it would be ready. Unfortunately, it was not. It was unusually busy today, so Marcus still had to wait for his order. He texted Allison, ‘blue farm’s busy. be there in a bit’

Allison liked the message and responded, ‘k. don’t forget the ranch!’. Marcus laughed and rolled his eyes. ‘i wonttt’ His order number was called at the counter. He grabbed the to-go bag when the shrill voice of his twin sister piped up behind him, ‘Hey Marcus! Whatcha doing here?’ Maxine stood behind him with Norah and Abby flanking her. 

‘Getting food, Maxine. What else?’  He replied in a purposefully condescending voice. 

She dug through his bag, ‘Hmm.. that’s a lot of food.’

‘Yeah, I’m erm,’ he cleared his throat, ‘hanging out with my chem partner, so I got us some food.’ No one knew about these meet-ups that he and Allison were having and he wanted to keep it that way. He also didn’t want his sister knowing all of his business.

‘At home?’ Max asked.

‘No, at their house. Can I go now?’ 

‘Yeah, whatever. Have fun, ' Maxine responded. Marcus walked out of Blue Farm and started skating to Allison’s. ‘Geez, what’s up with him?’ Max looked over at Norah and Abby for reassurance. They both shrugged. 

When he was halfway to Allison’s he realized he forgot the stupid ranch. 

____________________

Allison answered the knock at the front door and let Marcus inside, ‘Hey.’

‘Hey,’ Marcus responded and shut the door behind himself. He set the bag of food on the table by the door and grabbed Allison by the waist. He gave her a long and hard kiss. Allison moaned in delight as Marcus pushed her against the wall. Allison wrapped her arms around Marcus’s neck and ran her hands up into his hair. 

After a bit longer, Allison pulled back but they still kept their arms around each other, ‘What was that for?’ 

Marcus gave Allison a quick peck and a smile, ‘I forgot the ranch.’  Allison couldn’t help but laugh.      

Her jaw dropped and she lightly pushed Marcus away, ‘Oh my… you said you wouldn’t! I even reminded you!’

Marcus picked up the Blue Farm bag and they both walked into the kitchen. He sat down at the island, ‘I know, I know, but I have a good reason.’ Allison went to the fridge and grabbed them both drinks. Marcus started pulling their take out boxes out of the bag, ‘I ran into Max and your sister at Blue Farm. Max wouldn’t let me leave without asking a bunch of questions first.’ 

Allison gasped, ‘What kind of questions? What did you say?’ She rounded the island to sit in the stool next to Marcus.

Marcus placed Allison’s box of food in front of her and grabbed one of the drinks Allison placed on the table. He shook his head, ‘Just Max being her usual pushy self. She started asking me questions about what I was getting, who I was getting it for, and where we were going to be. I didn’t know what to say, so I just told her that I was hanging out with my chem partner.’ 

‘Oh,’ Allison munched on a fry. Allison guessed this was as good a time as any to bring up their “relationship”, ‘Yeah, I’ve been wanting to ask you: What are we exactly? What’s the plan here?’ 

Marcus swallowed his food, ‘I mean, I like spending time with you. I like kissing you,’ Allison blushed, ‘I just don’t want a relationship right now.’ Marcus feels like an asshole for saying it, but it’s true. After losing his friend, he just doesn’t think he has it in him to get so attached to someone like that for a while. He has a lot of fun with Allison, but he doesn’t want to deal with the inevitable hurt that comes with a relationship. He knows he’ll fuck it up somehow. 

Allison is quiet. She takes a bite of her sandwich to gather her thoughts. ‘I guess we’re on the same page then because I really like kissing you too and I’m not looking for a boyfriend right now either. My last boyfriend was a bit of dick,’ Allison shrugs, ‘So, I am OK with continuing whatever it is that we’re doing, this “no strings thing”, but I do have one condition,’ Marcus nods for her to continue, ‘No one can know. We need to keep this under wraps just like we’ve been doing. If people find out we’re doing this you’ll probably get a high five, but me? I’ll get labeled a slut by everyone at school. So, do you agree? We keep this secret.’

Marcus nods, ‘Yeah, if you’re okay with it then I am too. To everyone else we’re acquaintances. We barely even know each other. We just also do this from time to time,’ Marcus put his hand on the back of her chair and leaned in close. Allison met him half way and their lips touched. Allison ran her hands through his hair and tugged. Damn she loved his hair. Marcus groaned and Allison snuck her tongue in. Allison leaned back and gave Marcus a soft peck on the side of his mouth. ‘Mm, those sweet potato fries taste really good,’ Allison laughed. Marcus smirked and grabbed a fry out of her box.         

[lesorus]

petrochemical and chemical engineering student here. in my university, it is a woman dominated major. All professors teaching chemistry or field specific classes are women except one. most students in my class are women, compared to electrical, civil or mecanical engineering that are heavily male dominated, and computer and communications engineering which is split 50/50. And each semester without fault, there will be a male professor that will say something along the lines off "You're all studying petrochemical and chemical engineering majors, right? that's where the slackers go." (typically an engineer professor say this, not the math or physics PhDs) . And plenty of male students have this outlook too:

In line to get my inscription in order yesterday, a mecanical engineering student a year younger who had failed a couple classes had asked me for advice on how to plan his next year because he couldn't finish all his prerequisites for next year said "Ah, that's the easy major" when i told him I was in Chem E so I wasn't sure about all the classes he has to take.

"What kind of job are you supposed to get with that, some makeup firm?" a guy in CCE had told me when i told him what i was majoring in, as if his girlfriend in the same field as I wasn't sitting right next to him. As if pharmacological and oil industries didn't need us to function.

But simultaneously, if ask anyone outside my major how they feel about chemistry. Majority says they hate it, its complicated, not fun, too hard, and the one chemistry class they took the first common course semester was apparently hell. A lot of friends regularly comment "I could never do this." or "Why would anybody choose this major of their own free will?".

And don't get me wrong, i feel similarly about computer and electrical engineering. I cursed every programming class i had to take and electrical systems frustrate the hell out of me. this isnt a "who has it the worst" debate. All engineering fields are hard. All require hard work and sleepless nights. The issue is, when men feel disadvantaged in a field, they ridicule it. Just when it ever so happens that women dominate a room, it becomes unworthy to be in. Petrochemical and chemical engineering is easy, despite the hundreds of formulas, details and nuances we have to keep in mind. Despite it being one of the highest paid engineering fields. Because women are intrested in it. Right?

Same goes for teaching, once a highly respected field. Along with nursing, that is necessary for the function of hospitals. And here goes clinical psychology too.

Other female dominated fields in my country are pharmacy, a lot of people including my dad father I'll end up a store clerk when i considered that major, when his sister in law, a pharmicist, is working with Pfizer. Architecture, one of the most time demanding majors became "so you like drawing huh?".

Female ambition is belittled. Fourty years ago, men were congratulated for wanting to be in these fields until people realised the classrooms were filling up with women.

[kyaruun]

JLFJALKFKADS THE WAY I SPENT FOREVER SEARCHING FOR THE CODE ITSELF... dunno this language ??? clownface. will just Give Up For Now... i will keep though thamku

and yea that's what makes sense to me too randomNumber map gaaaaaaaah i'll put that on the back table for a bit

also about the college apps.............

in importance/weight

gpa (grades)

course rigor (how hard are your classes)

sat/act (exam)

extracurriculars (clubs/volunteer/projects)

college essay

the first 3 kinda determine your rank and if they are not sure whether to admit you or some other kid whos similar in the first 3 you have to stand out in 4 and 5 so 🤡 usa moment

i think it's all javascript! github is a pain the ass to navigate if you've never used it before or aren't used to repo organization. i despise it with a passion but i'm forced to use it a lot ahaha

dang you guys at the us really have it so hard ;; in here there's just this thing called something like uni entrance exam where they test you of every compulsory subject you're taking (most of the time that's spanish&lit, maths, history and english) and then you're free to take as many extra exams as you want (physics, bio, chem, etc.) all within 2-3 days, 2-4h long exams. with your results on that exam + your average on the last two years of highschool you get a score up to 14. you check whatever degree you wanna apply to, pray that the entrance score will be similar to last year's and apply 🙏

but wow. the more i read about it the more insane i find the american school system. the only thing i like it's that you guys have clubs and extracurriculars?? i would have killed to have that in school