#But I do hope they study the stats and realize it’s all a lie

[cruella-devilla]

a moment of silence for the young Christian pro-life girls who genuinely want to fix the world and stop “the genocide of babies”. I just wish they’d actually put that passion and energy into something that can truly improve the situation, like improve the adoption system or promote better sex education or encourage for better medical studies on the women’s body and pregnancy to help women in the future. But no, they are taught that they have to “ban the murder of children” and they put their genuine passion into the wrong direction.

[vergess]

FWD: genuine question because I'm trying to resolve a perceived inconsistency: I believe you when you say losing >10% of your body weight rounds to impossible because usually you say true, researched things. I'm trying to square this with that I personally know multiple people who've done so, and I usually try not to assume my life is statistically exceptional so I'm kind of at a loss. (1/2)

FWD, cont: Hypotheses I've currently got include: actually I've met far more people than I estimate, making the denominator of this percentage higher than I realize, and: maybe some of the people I know might not count by the studies' definitions because they've only been lighter a couple years? You are good at stats and know about this if you have ideas I'd love to hear them. (2/2)

Right, yes! excellent point! I should have mentioned this in the body of that post, and will edit it in if I can find it.

So, first off: until someone has kept the weight off for 3 years it doesn't generally "count." As the number of years increases, the amount of re--gain usually does as well, with many people exceeding their starting weight. However, you'll usually "know" if you're one of the infinitesimally small percentage by year 3.

It's ALSO worth noting that these studies are based on moderate diet and exercise, without medication.

Using starvation dieting, extreme exercise, dehydration, steroids, and other such techniques you may be able to keep the weight off somewhat longer, at the cost of doing massive harm to your Everything (brain, organs, muscles, bones, all of it).

This has been common but widely ignored scientific consensus for decades, BTW.

We're going on 30 years of knowing this at the research level. That's since I was a kid.

And yet, right now, I know people being denied surgery for being overweight. Not even by a huge amount, like BMI 30 (the first step in Obese from Overweight). People are required to catastrophically damage their already sick bodies for the chance to receive massively shocking surgeries in the hopes of not dying, and then doctors "wonder" why fat people die younger.

But they don't wonder, really. They've known for decades. They just ignore it. They pretend at ignorance for the sake of their bigotry. Insurance companies, too, are allowed to basically kill people for being fat.

It's a constant goddamned near-death-experience.

All over the LIE that weight loss is meaningfully possible.

Finally, some personal notes:

Fat people tend to self isolate due to anti-fat bigotry, meaning that we're less "meetable" than skinny people, so sampling bias is inevitable when using your own life as a gauge.

Most people's lives have like... 3 Weird Statistical Anomalies because true, natural randomness clusters for arbitrary large periods, and the human brain evolved to be exceptionally good at identifying patterns, which makes clustering very noticeable.

You're like.... for sure underestimating how many people you've met, because like... unless you live in the smallest imaginable town (under 500 population), you've just met so many people that your brain discards them entirely. After all, how many other kids did you go to school with, and how long ago was that.

[samuel-de-champagne-problems]

37 and 45?? Maybe that could work separate... Or together However you prefer!

Word count- 1025

Pairing- Spencer Reid x Female reader

Sorry this took so long!

—

“It’s not everyday that the unsub leaves handprints,” you say, looking over at Spencer who takes pictures of the crime scene. The camera is strapped around his neck and he looks into the viewfinder to snap the shot. The crime scene, an elderly woman’s home, has twenty-two handprints all of the same size in the garden. It’s odd, you’ve never seen anything like it before.

“It’s interesting,” Spencer agress, “it’s almost like the unsub knowingly left these handprints here, like in a pattern,” he suggests, “no one would be able to leave these prints in such an orderly fashion if all they wanted to do was kill and then leave. It’s part of the profile,”

“So what does it tells us, Spence,” you ask, looking up at him as she squats below in the bed of roses.

“It tells us that this unsub is organized, yet is held back by their deep need to leave a pattern. The local PD mentioned footprints were left at the crime scene three miles from here. It’s likely it’s the same unsub,” Spencer duduces, slinging the camera back over his shoulder in it’s protective pouch.

“I really don’t see why you can’t use an iPad, Spence. It’s much easier for Penny,” you tell him, curiously inspecting the handprints, hoping that something will jump out in the pile of nothing.

“Y/N, I could go on about the superior image quality that the camera lens provides, but I don’t really think Hotch would appreciate us standing here arguing over the merits of digital vs traditional photography,” Spencer says, sitting down next to you in the bed of roses.

“And, if I remember it correctly, you did tell Garcia that you thought my aversion to technology is charming,” Spencer says, smirking and looking awfully proud of himself.

“I told her that in confidence!” you say, pretending to be offended, “but I didn’t lie, Doctor Reid, you are rather charming,” you tell him, hoping that this will be the time that he realizes that you’re constantly trying to flirt with him.

Naturally, the implication flies right over Spencer’s head. He’s too busy staring at the dirt handprint to notice the heavy flirting that you try to convey. His brow is creased and Y/N can see the wheels spinning in his brain. He places his palm into the dirt, trying to see if his hand can fit in the soil handprint. When it doesn’t, Spencer brushes the dirt off on his pants.

“Y/N,” Spencer says, “can I uh, see your hand?” Spencer asks, holding his hand up, with his palm facing Y/N, “put your palm towards mine,” he requests.

“Sure,” you tell him, hoping that you can keep your hands steady. But you already know that having Spencer so close will leave you shaking like a leaf, “I’m curious to see what this is going to do,”

“It’s science,” Spencer tells you, like it’s supposed to explain everything, “I’m trying to see if either of our hands match up into the handprint. This way we could guess an approximate height and even gender of the unsub,” Spencer says, meeting his palm to your’s.

Your hands touch; your calluses graze across his soft, sensitive skin that still feels like a baby’s skin. Even though it’s in the middle of a crime scene, you can feel her breathing hitch at the moment Spencer’s pinky sticks up above yours. His hands are big and his fingers are long. You almost feel guilty for thinking about them in a very not platonic way in the middle of a crime scene.

“You’re hands are really big,” you say, forgetting yourself, “I don’t mean anything by it’s just, uh your hands they’re big—”

Spencer, probably for the first time in his life, doesn’t interrupt or interject with a fact. He just sits there, palm against your palm, studying you with his mouth open wide. You feel like you’re big under a microscope, but it’s not a bad thing when Spencer’s looking at you. It’s somehow the best thing and the most exciting thing.

You can almost feel his pulse through his hands. His cheeks are red and you have a sneaking suspicion that it’s not the murder case making him nervous.

“That’s it!” Spencer says, twisting around looking for his phone, “that’s it! Y/N, you are brilliant!” he shouts leaning in to embrace you in a hug.

“What? Spence, I don’t follow,” you ask, confused about his conclusions.

“You solved it, Y/N! The unsub, she’s a woman. Statistically, women’s hands are around 2-3 inches smaller than men's hands on average. Your hands! Your hands would fit in the handprint!” Spencer shouts, explaining his conclusion energetically.

It takes you a second to fully realize, between Spencer’s adulation and excitement, that his hand hasn’t left your’s. In fact, through his passion for the profile, he’s linked your fingers with his. He tightly grasps your hand in his, to the point where it almost hurts, but you don’t care.

“I mean, I can’t argue with your stats, Spence, but I think you should call Hotch,” you tell him.

“Brilliant,” Spencer says, bringing your hands up to kiss your knuckles and the tips of your fingers. He kisses your hands, holding like you’re something— someone special to him. Maybe you are, and maybe you’ll figure it out.

“What the hell is going on here!” a voice, Emily’s shouts from the other side of the fence, she’s smiling like a Cheshire Cat. It’s like she knows exactly what’s going on, but rather have Spencer explain it to her.

“I-I uh, I, Y/N,” Spencer stammers, “we have an idea for the profile,” he tells Emily, finally getting through his sentence.

“Really,” Emily says, that sarcastic grin still plastered to her face, “and did holding hands in a garden help you come to a profile?” she asks, winking at you when Spencer turns red.

“Nope,” you say, standing and brushing off your pants, “it was Reid’s big brain and even bigger hands,”

[mr-entj]

Hello Mr. ENTJ, fellow 17 year old ENTJ here (Please ignore my username, I was mistyped). First of all, I’d like to say that I owe all my accomplishments to your blog. Your blog has motivated me, made me realize my true potential, helped me build a great work ethic and saved me from failure. I’d like to thank you for that, I will forever be grateful. I have a question. I’m an international student wanting to apply to colleges in the US in 3 months and although I have figured many things out, I still can’t decide whether I should ask for financial aid or not. I don’t want to, due to the fact that my admission chances are much lower when I do (I cannot afford to get rejected from every school I apply to as my country’s academic opportunities are really bad and I’m a queer person whose life will be in danger if I stay in this homophobic country) but my family most definitely cannot afford even one year’s cost. I’m confident in myself finding money through scholarships, grants etc. If I don’t apply for financial aid, however, I will have to take some student loans out which will be somewhat (or more? This is the thing I’m struggling at, deciding if it will be very hard to pay them back) hard to pay for during college. How should I approach this situation? My somewhat solutions are:

1- Apply for full financial aid - but then my admission chance will be much lower

2- Don’t apply for financial aid - but it will be really hard to gather ~75000 dollars as a student every year

3- Lie to my abusive parents and make them believe I got into a great college to make them pay for my travel cost, and then study at a community college there for 2 years while making money - this will be the hardest but I’m ready to give my all

Thank you so much, I hope you and INTJ are having a great time. Hope to be able to say ”I made it“ one day, like you.

Glad the blog has been helpful. To your question:

Option #3 isn't an option because the F-1 visa doesn't allow full-time work in America while studying here. America has strict rules that limit where, when, and how many hours international students can work (double check this but I doubt it's changed since I was in college).

Option #2 isn't an option unless you have a concrete plan of how you'll make the $75,000 per year to pay tuition and even then you'd have to replicate that plan 3 more times because a bachelor's degree takes 4 years (3 years in some cases if you take accelerated courses). Even if you qualified for loans, you'd need to do a serious ROI analysis of what university and degree on this planet is worth $300,000 of debt.

By process of elimination, this leaves option #1 as your only viable option.

However, to increase your chances of success since, you can do the following:

Apply to universities that have a need-blind admission policy. Many of them exist in America although they tend to have higher admission standards-- come with competitive stats (high GPA and high test scores).

Apply to universities that have a high proportion of international students in their student body because they typically have higher admission rates and generous financial aid packages even if they don't practice need-blind admissions.

Research universities in countries with lower tuition (Australia, Canada, and parts of Europe). America is a great place to study but it's definitely not the only place.

Due to your unique and challenging life circumstances, make sure your college essays tell your story in a clear and strong narrative to make you a compelling applicant that stands out from all the other international students who may have similar stats but easier paths.

[ready-to-obeyme]

[OM!] Angel!AU Demon Brother as Your Guardian Angel

Scenario: Residing as angels in the Celestial Realm, the brothers have been assigned to watch over you to guide and protect you. How they do so is up to their discretion. (And if they fall in love with you, well...)

Note: gender neutral headcanons; if i had to choose a timeline, satan exists but belphie doesnt hate humans yet and lilith is alive 🤪, the boys retained their personalities that we all know and love -- it really just be them with guardian angel duties--- bonus angel is Lilith ;)

inspiration from [link] and their other angel!au videos (they’re all adults in this post btw) and [link] (yes just this post; apparently my guardian angel Lucifer is in awe of me... for being dumb as FUCK--)

--

Lucifer

a little affronted he has to take time to look after a human as a seraph but doesn't vocalize it as much since it's direct orders from his father

isn't one to directly intervene in your life much because he doesn't see the need to nor does he want to; a little haughty ngl about being an angel and you being a human

there is no guideline to being a guardian angel and making sure you don’t die before your time is his Main Priority 

he's not going to stop you from eating a whole family sized Dorito bag by yourself or from staying awake till 4am-- those bad decisions are on YOU

finds a little pleasure from seeing the consequences of your actions for a while, but eventually just judges you for everything you do

"why aren't you studying? isn't the midterm tomorrow?"

"when was the last time this human ate?"

"why are you dating that person?"

grumbles over you and your life choices, but is now just actually concerned and hoping you'll be able to make better choices for your own health and happiness; he is now officially Invested as Guardian Angel, don’t you dare laugh at him Michael

if he does utilize his powers to influence you, it comes in subtle hints-- the wind blowing in your hair so you look a certain direction, a sudden bright light to wake you up so you sleep properly in a bed and not a desk... maybe appearing in your room for just a moment to place a blanket over your shoulders

realizes he has… feelings when you perform a good deed or grow as a person and he feels immensely proud and happy for you; has to really keep himself in check to not intervene in your life in more menial, though still helpful, ways

humbled by your growth and change as you become a better person

finally reveals himself to you (by accident) when he has to physically come and save you from danger and then proceeds to yell at you in anger (read: worry) about safety and doesn’t leave your side

Mammon

similarly to Lucifer, grumbles about having to take time to babysit a human but quickly becomes invested in your life at record speed (typical Mammon)

unnecessarily and excessively worried at times even for things that isn't actually putting you in danger

"WHAT THE HELL HUMAN, LOOK BOTH WAYS BEFORE YOU CROSS THE STREET--"

"NO NO NO, BRING YOUR PEPPER SPRAY WITH YOU! I don't care if you’re just walking to the adjacent apartment, BRING IT!"

eventually just ends up storming down to the human realm and """attempts""" to be subtle

if you placed the spray on the table, you turn and it's in your bag again. weird.

pretty sure you could have done a pretty good paranormal activity video with the weird stuff happening in your life when mammon is not-so-secretly intervening in your life

attempts do not last long because mammon's patience grows thin and he suddenly pops into your life and demand you be more careful

probably meets you by slapping your hand away from buying another random but expensive plushie even though you can barely afford it and you just stare at him like he's crazy as he explains that he's your guardian angel

'My Guardian Angel as My Roommate' becomes the title of your life or alternatively 'My Guardian Angel and I are Both Idiots'

the genre of your life is now officially a rom com

his main excuse for being constantly at your side (and it's NOT because he likes you a lot) is "how else am I gonna be prepared to protect you from anything that wants to hurt you?? you would have died 1000x over without me" which is a lie but it's okay he pays rent

hold his hand and tell him it’s so you don’t get lost and he’ll blush but never let go of your hand

Leviathan

life is a simulation

or rather, your life is

once he gets assigned to you, he observes you for a while-- and it looked like he was going to leave you be for the most part, when one Bad Choice has him popping up right in front of you

he slaps away the tub of ice cream you were gonna binge eat

"human, stop eating that crap! your stats are gonna suffer!!!"

super insistent in telling you to do something that good for you and is pretty stubborn when it comes to decisions that benefit your health and career

"noob, hurry up and level up your intelligence or you're gonna fail your exams"

"is life a game to you"

"yes, and you are losing. but have no fear, I am your walkthrough."

joking aside, Levi is pretty supportive of you, in the way Belphie is to his human-- he just words things in gaming terms like stats, energy, leveling up, exp

did not expect to get gratitude from this gig, but when you express your true appreciation for his care, he doesn't know what to do (starts crying maybe?)

his advice starts veering away from just lifestyle and health but to more human aspects; he offers a listening ear and supportive compliments whenever needed

because it turns out he cares for you a whole lot more than if this was really all just a game to him and ends up caring about your general happiness and is more considerate about your feelings

Finds himself being super casual with you and talking about your favorite show and has to catch himself from speaking so quickly-- can’t have the human thinking he… adores you

Satan

has no qualms with coming to the human realm to watch over you, but is fine with not immediately being a part of your life or intervening as much as Mammon or Belphie

ironically, as a man who was originally never born as an angel, he does his duties in a manner most befitting manner of one

subtly inserts himself into small parts of your life, persisting off small interactions

he's the guy at the counter when you needed to find a book, he's the one who picks up your hydroflask and returns it to the lost and found, he's the one telling you your backpack is open before anything spills out

he doesn't know but you jokingly dub him your guardian angel, even if you don't know who he actually is but never have the courage to speak up-- also mainly because he flits in and out of your life so fast you don’t even have the chance to say “oh, by the way, what’s your name?”

Satan is content with how he is more of a passing moment in your life, so this way you can still live your life the way you want it without much interference from an outside source because he respects your choices and the concept of free will that all humans have

truly believes that the best course of action and his duty as your guardian angel is to see you live your life the way you want to-- and if can help out a little or give you a little nudge in the right way, then that’s fine by him

Prefers to be on the sidelines and watch you become your own person and-- well, it’s a bit hard not getting attached to you when he sees you trip over yourself over someone you like or help someone out with their books when they dropped them

eventually does have to step in in a more meaningful way when you accidentally endanger yourself and he wards it off or catches you before you hurt yourself

at that point it was hard to pretend not being a part of your life when he's helped you so often-- and the fact that you're infatuated with him and asked him out

(he probably doesn't even realize how suave and prince charming he looks lmao)

Asmodeus

chooses to watch over you from above more but doesn't mind just popping down to the human realm just to have some fun at the same event you're in

lives through all your moments with you; laughs when you laugh and cries when you cry and  genuinely enjoys seeing you go through life, living and learning

generally leaves you to your own devices unless there's something really pressing

utterly cannot stop himself from intervening if you have doubts about yourself or if you struggle with self-love

loves appearing in dreams to dish out advice and tell you to love yourself, forgive yourself more, and to seek happiness because you deserve it

you don't remember the dreams exactly, but you do remember the sentiment within it and sometimes the fuzzy image of a beautiful angel you aren't sure you've seen irl but you chalk it up to seeing the face of strangers you’ve seen (which is... technically true)

dreams are his main way of communicating with you, and he also just thinks the mystery and anonymity is kinda exciting-- but sometimes he just spends a lot of your dreams just talking to you and getting to know you more intimately and seeing things from your perspective

sometimes enjoys being in your lucid dreams when you’re pretty aware and you go on some really whacky dream-induced adventure

loves you like no other and truly wishes the best for you

accidentally reveals himself to you during a party where you meet face to face

"I've feel like I've seen you before…"

"Haha, well that's because I've been in your dreams! They were pretty pleasant weren't they?"

you think he’s kidding for a long time-- and honestly he’s not even trying to hide the fact that he’s your Guardian Angel, considering he tells you all the time “Honey, I’m you’re Guardian Angel” or “Of course I’m here for you! I’m your Guardian Angel!” 

but the way he says it makes it feel like that’s just a nickname, not an official TITLE

floored when you actually see his WINGS and turns out you’ve been in love with an actually angel this entire time

Beelzebub

similar to Asmo and Satan, he doesn't really feel the need to insert himself into your life

instead, he's wherever you are… but in the background, eating at a table in a far corner or walking casually across the street from where you are

very inconspicuous and surprisingly good at keeping a distance, whether he intends to or not

he just looks very natural doing whatever he is doing at any time, but often accidentally ends up in the background of a photo or selfie without people noticing

as your Guardian Angel, he watches over you by stopping anyone with ill intent from approaching you... like the obvious ones like mugging and stuff; he wishes he could protect you from bad people too but he respectfully keeps his distance and allows you to make mistakes and grow from it

it infuriates him when people take advantage of your kindness

(though if the person that hurt you emotionally meets Beel in an alley...)

is very taken aback when YOU are the one approaching HIM asking for the time or if you could grab something on the high shelf for you

actually pretty flustered when you do interact with him because he was distracted doing other stuff he never expected you to notice him

Beel is the definition of a Guardian Angel-- a sentinel, standing on guard to protect you from danger and physical harm-- and he does exactly that when the time comes

most likely to save you from something dramatic like a car incoming or a fight

doesn't really understand why you trust him so easily or so wholeheartedly even after he saved you because he thought he would look intimidating

(he did, until you asked him for the time and he spoke with his mouth full of burgers or stammered out a 'you're welcome' when you smiled at him at the library)

Beel doesn't know until much later that he's dubbed as your gentle giant

Belphegor

like some of the others, doesn't like to influence your choices as much-- not because of free will or anything like that, but because he likes humans because of who they are and what they do

(and also he’s too lazy to be hovering around you trying to control your every move anyhow)

and man are humans, especially you, interesting

why is that human drinking from that person's navel? no clue but it looks fun

why is that human consuming whipped cheese with waffles? no idea, but he wouldn't get this much free entertainment without it

has no problems integrating himself into your life as your friend or roommate just to watch everything unfold in person and to tease you for your mildly questionable decisions in life

“Belphie, why didn’t you stop me from eating that last bowl of cereal?”

“Eh, I thought it would be kind of funny.”

isn't one to go out of his way to do something to influence you, but he does encourage you to do the things you want to do, whether they be good or mildly questionable ones-- but especially the fun ones like joining a new club or going to town to have fun (which you do drag him along to every time)

does steer you away from making Bad Decisions like murder or whatever, but he thinks most choices are pretty neutral and does help you process the consequences, both good and bad, of what happened

so he's integrated himself as your friend, offers advice and supports your decisions no matter what, and subtly looks out for you… and he's surprised when one day you confess to him that you like him???

this was NOT part of the plan but he would be lying to himself if he said he didn't end up falling for you too after seeing all sides of you and watching you grow as a person

Lilith

watches more from afar, because as much as she loves humans like Belphie, she is a little shy about meeting you

curiosity does triumph over shyness eventually, and she does surveillance distantly like Beel before winding up being directly in your life like Belphie (siblings am i right)

her brothers would keep trying to give her input on how she should interact with you or guide you but she brushes them away with a huff because she thinks she's doing a fine job thank you very much!

or so she's pretty sure, considering you're hanging out with her, seriously listening to her advice, buying her gifts... cuddling in bed with her if you’re attracted to her

if you do like her and want to date her, she has to be ready to somehow defend you from the only danger in your life, which turns out to be her brothers

if not, you two live happy lives as the best of friends, though the brothers can never be too careful with their darling sister

likes updating about your life to her brothers and they're lowkey jealous

doesn’t actually have to reveal herself as an angel unless you somehow find out... or because Mammon and Lucifer come down and threatens bodily harm if you hurt Lilith (wait, who’s watching over who now??)

hold up this is setting up for exactly what happens in the canon storyline

[rootin-tootin-cum-shootin]

Inosuke College AU 

Word count: 1,350

Major: Kinesiology 

Minor: Psychology 

Sports: Judo, Rugby

Clubs: Tanjiro signed him up for a ceramics club, and he goes only to try and one up him (Which is not the point of the club at all smh) but he attends every meeting without fail.

He's that dude that walks into the lecture hall wearing the most outrageous and eye-catching outfits

You just can't help but see him and instantly know what he's like to talk to 

Neon orange athletic shorts with a hawaiian shirt so stereotypical it makes your eyes twitch in displeasure 

Add some burkenstock sandals worn with mismatched socks and you have Inosuke

Just by looking at him you know he is quite the personality to work with

And he is, but he is intelligent and definitely pulls his weight in projects

Will chastise his classmates if they get injured while doing the more active labs 

But he does that while tending to their injuries so you know he cares about their wellbeing

It's quite sweet of him! 

Well it would be if every 3rd word wasn't a swear

That doesn't mean he has terrible grades though.

No he actually does quite well in his courses and there's one simple reason as to why;

he's genuinely hard working 

Which surprises nearly everyone who sees him.

But that only makes him work harder

You see Inosuke decided to actually get an education for the simple reason that everyone assumed he was too stupid to do anything with his life

He originally wanted to do Zoology but then he realized that he has too much energy, which ends up scaring off most animals 

Which defeats the whole "study of animals" part of Zoology 

Of course his Mom was in his corner despite this, really only wanting her son to be happy and find his own success

So he wouldn’t make the same mistakes she did in her youth

Inosuke actually got advice from his mom which helped him settle on Kinesiology as his degree

But once he settled on his degree he was set in stone

His pseudo-step dad offered to pay for his schooling but Inosuke said "I would rather swallow a truck whole than be indebted to you"

And then took out a shit ton of loans to pay for everything 

Which only amused his pseudo-dad and made his mom worry a tad

He manages to work a part time job flipping burgers over the summer which was enough to let him pay for his books and meal plan outright for the first year

And yet despite seeing him bust his ass to be able to go to school people still tried to dissuade him from doing anything further with his life

Which only made him work harder

His whole attitude towards school is "man this sucks but also fuck anyone and anything that tries to make me quit: No You" 

Inosuke even takes pride in the dropped jaws that come from seeing him at the top of his courses

The boy has never once gotten lower than an 80% on an assignment 

He does best in his statistics course simply because both Tanjiro and Zenitsu are also enrolled in that block 

Inosuke is competitive 

In his other courses nobody stirs up that aggressive competitive spirit like Tanjiro and Zenitsu do in their shared Stat course

And with the pair of them around him, Inosuke feels the urge to out do both to the point where he likes to imagine their feelings of inferiority will crush them like a 1 ton block of the densest concrete imaginable 

Inosuke actually made Zenitsu stop breathing from sheer shock and awe when he realized what Inosuke's minor was

Psych is Zenitsu's major (the duo don't share any courses for psychology so they didn't know until then) and it caused Zenitsu to go on a rant to the effect of, " to think that pig headed idiot is doing better than me, that must be a lie! LIAR" 

That rant made Inosuke laugh so hard he fell off the table he was sitting on

He actually bruised a rib because of it

It remains Inosuke's favourite memory of Zenitsu because of this

And he wants to see how else he can make him turn purple with rage 

Hence he often comes up with weird ways to try and express his perceived academic superiority over his friends rivals 

Zenitsu falls for the weird competitive schemes Inosuke comes up with 

Tanjiro decidedly does not, in fact he doesn't really care so long as nobody actually gets hurt

Does that stop Inosuke from trying to outdo him? N o p e

If Tanjiro gets 96% on an assignment Inosuke must get 100% 

What can I say Inosuke is a competitive guy 

And it works for him as motivation 

Maybe a little too well if Inosuke has anything to say about it 

(He was embarrassed bc he got called out publicly at his grad ceremony for not just outstanding academic excellence but by the elderly head of the department for "being the Kinesiology student with the highest grades since the founding of the department" )

The metal he received from the department head totally does not hang on the wall in his mom's house 

Speaking of competitive spirit at school

He trains really hard for both Judo and Rugby

Its a great way for Inosuke to burn off both his aggression towards all the frustrating people he's stuck interacting with and his pent up energy 

Kicking ass just makes his temperament a lot easier to deal with for others and he will use ' sports practice' excuse to leave whatever social situation he doesn't want to be in

He just really likes contact sports okay

And by God is he good at them

Like takes home trophies and metals kinda good

Which also aren't being kept at him mom's house where he definitely doesn't have displayed where she can see them and be proud of him

However due to his tendency to be aggressive with the intensity of interest he has in things

Tanjiro signed Inosuke up for a ceramics class 

He thought that Inosuke would do well with something relaxing to do while still keeping it tactile enough to keep him interested 

It did not go over as well as Tanjiro had hoped

But despite this Inosuke still goes to every single club meet up without fail

Is he good at it? No 

Is Tanjiro? Definitely 

Does that make Inosuke steaming mad? Yep

Inosuke generally sucks at making clay things symmetrical 

So every plate or bowl or vase he makes ends up lopsided 

Inosuke will die before he admits to Tanjiro that he was glad for being signed up after he gave his Mom the successful first mug he made and she smiled brighter than she had in years 

It was bright green with blue and purple childlike butterfly drawings on it and the glaze wasn't spread evenly so it looks a little patchy 

And the handle is proportional too large and thin for the cup itself

But Inosuke's mom loves it more than any other mug in the house

And now every time he goes home to see her and she uses that mug, he finds himself quite happy 

But he will deny it thoroughly. 

All in all he loves getting the chance to go to College 

He may hate the judgy people he's forced to encounter regularly but Inosuke does adore the chance to learn and explore new interests 

Not to mention the people he gets to interact with 

Even if he knows the debt will weigh heavy on his bank account for a long while.

He still thinks it was all worth it.  

[pepperful-qt]

Hi there! Can I request hcs of kuroo, kita and semi with a big brain s/o? It doesn't just apply to s/o academically, but more so about life in general (like having ~streetsmarts~) thank you!

you said street smarts my mind went to jj bittenbinder. ngl i kinda used the wisdom proficiencies from d&d as reference for this hahaha nerd i hope it’s what you want! also i just want to thank you for requesting my not-so-secret fav semi semi

Kuroo, Kita, & Semi with a big brain s/o

* * * * *

Kuroo Tetsuro

oh this man appreciates it. he’s so entertained

you know that drinking game that Tyrion does with Shae where he guesses something about your past and if he’s right you have to drink, if not he does? that’s what you do minus the drinking part obv,, unless

as a person with high charisma himself, you make it a game to see who can bluff out and/or fool the other (you almost always win)

any time there’s a game night and you’re playing a social deception game you always win. no one can get a lie past you

if it’s a teamwork one, you and Kuroo crush everyone else

you find ways to skimp on your hw but still come out fine. he has no idea how, and it both annoys and impresses him

“i thought you stayed up watching buzzfeed unsolved instead of studying last night??”

“yeah so what?”

“but you got a 96%”

he knows that intelligence isn’t just defined by what you’re able to memorize out of a book, and you’re a perfect example of that. he respects you a lot

you’re the type of person that reads random articles and therefore has the most random bits of trivia that you throw in conversation

he can have an intellectual conversation with you, since you always come up with unique perspectives. he loves asking your opinion on things, bc who tf knows what’ll come out of your mouth

you don’t know what a derivative is to save your life but you know the location of every 7/11 in a ten mile radius, and if they carry a specific type of onigiri or cup noodle flavor

but fr you give the best advice and are always there to lend an ear

you watch murder mystery movies together and try to figure out the culprit, sometimes actually arguing over it

other times you’ll watch a drama and make bets on who’s gonna do what or end up with who

rip Kenma in the corner just trying to live his life

it’s hilarious seeing you interact with someone who is not “big brain” or street smart

let’s just use Lev as an example for no particular reason, just bc

you quickly learned that Lev would believe almost anything you said, he was that fascinated by your apparent wisdom

so you and Kuroo will sometimes join forces and see what you can get him to believe. you once convinced him that if you kill an insect you’d become that insect in your next life and die the same way, and for a solid month he would start crying if he ever stepped on an ant

chaos couple™

you have this whole atmosphere about you that is just “do not fuck with me” bamf if i do say so myself

which tbh is one of the things he finds most attractive about you. you knew exactly what he was up to the first time he started flirting with you, but you weren’t intimidated one bit. you became a challenge~

10/10 best looking couple of the three

* * * 

Kita Shinsuke

the two voices of reason, bless you both. you’re very similar, but also very different

he’s the definition of high intelligence & high wisdom with low charisma cleric kita omg, while you have both high wisdom and high charisma with an intelligence stat you barely use (high or low lol)

he’s the kind of guy who always thinks things through with logic, and he’s always sure of his decisions

you on the other hand, have an intuition based logic

freaks him out when you rely on your gut instinct but somehow it always pays off

“why?” 

“just because” 

“but why??”

you’re adaptable in almost every situation, always know what to say, and have an uncanny ability to read people

which actually comes in handy in your relationship

he’s not the best at expressing himself but you always seem to know his emotional state and thought process, something no one else except his granny has really cracked yet and you do it so easily. sometimes he wonders if you’re a mind reader

you knew he liked you before he did & you asked him out first ~

“Shin-kun, you look happy today!” 

“Ah, I was able to clean all the volleyballs after practice and still had time to fold and organize the scrimmige vests by color.”

meanwhile Atsumu: “hE litERALLY?? looks the sAME??!”

speaking of the twins, you’re great at handling them

Atsumu tried to scare you away the first time you showed up at practice before you and Kita announced your relationship, but you were calm and polite

which tbh put him off more than if you’d clammed up or gotten angry. he almost felt bad for being rude. almost.

imagine how bad he felt when Kita found out

the both of you are both feared and respected by the team 

you’ll help Kita out with his self-assigned chores sometimes, figuring out new ways to be efficient and not lose quality

he also loves how he can trust you to take care of yourself, whether it’s walking home alone or losing you in a crowd or just looking after your health. he still worries and dotes on you but it’s out of love, not because he’s concerned you’ll hurt yourself unintentionally 

he loves a person with common sense @ inarizaki

you’re both really good at getting gifts for each other, since you’re both very perceptive

one time you guessed his favorite flavor of ice cream and it made the butterflies a’flutter

there’s this silent competition between you two of who can give the better gifts

wishes you would study more though ngl. he knows you’re smart you just don’t always dedicate that intelligence to your schoolwork

he finds it charming how you’re always looking at things from different angles rather than the straightforward path. he thinks it’s a very good quality

that “yeah but what if...” kind of mentality

we already know he appreciates that attitude if he doesn’t really take it on himself

you’re both able to appreciate the nuances of life and enjoy the moment together

your relationship is one of the most balanced and strong out there tbh,,

* * *

Semi Eita

you’ve got this charm that makes people respect you. a certain type of confidence, if you will, that made him first notice you

lots of students were intimidated by the members of the volleyball team, for their height and reputation etc, but you never showed any reservation, not even with Ushijima

as well as your conviction, you have take no shit attitude that comes in great handy with certain members of the team it’s also hot af

you can banter with Tendou and you provoke Goshiki all day long but never Shirabu bc you know what’s up

you do however irritate him with mind games, bc you know he’s a little shit who stole your bf’s spot and needs to be taken down a peg sometimes

you: *describing the quantum wave trolley problem”

Shirabu: *screams*

all the while Semi is trying and failing to hide the smug little smirk on his face

with Semi though, you’re able to just talk

he enjoys conversation with you bc he’s never bored. you make him think and you make him laugh, both good things

sometimes you’ll point something out that just makes him go “oh” bc it seems so obvious when you point it out

other times it’s something so outlandish that he can’t help but crack a smile or let out a laugh 

sometimes it’s the connect the dots meme “you didn’t connect shit” lmao

again, solid advice giver with no holds barred. anyone who needs to be straight up told what they need to hear comes to you, bc you're usually right

and Semi himself can get lost in his own head so it's nice to have you to ground him

you’re decent in your classes sure, but where you really impress is your strategy in game. any game

once you were invited to play laser tag with the team and you whipped out a battle plan that annihilated the other team

alternatively, you show no mercy in monopoly or uno, damn your relationships

it’s actually very annoying how quickly you pick up the rules and nuances to games and use them to your advantage

if you’re both very competitive, it’s usually better for everyone if you’re both on the same team

but he likes a challenge heh

okay, we know he’s bad at dressing himself when it comes to casual outfits. no common sense. you notice this too

“Eita, sweetie, if you go out like that you will get mugged,, even in Miyagi.”

you’ll walk down the street hand in hand and you make random guesses or stories about the people you see 

“that guy is totally a scammer” or “bet that lady looking at the papaya is trying to start a diet for the third time, look at her face” and he’ll chuckle

he knows there’s always something going on inside your mind and he wants to know

when you’re lost in thought he’ll tap your forehead

“hey what’s going on in there?”

he enjoys listening to your musings and thoughts and opinions. you either have a crazy gut instinct or have some unique thought you’ve internally debated over for months

gets inspiration from you actually, even if he doesn’t realize it

likewise, you realize he has a lot on his mind he doesn’t say, but you have a way of making him say it, even if he is hesitant and abrasive at first

you’ll call him at 3am with a random thought and he’ll grumble a bit but actually will listen to you with the smallest smile on his face

* * * * * 

i hope??? this was good??? also lmk if this is too long without a read more i’m not sure :P

[lunesuga]

To Be Loved

pairing ⟶ min yoongi x reader

summary ⟶  You’ve always thought that your college roommate Min Yoongi hated you. Turns out, he’s madly in love with you.

genre ⟶ fluff and slight (?) angst

rating ⟶ G

warnings ⟶ none

word count ⟶ 1,265

You huff as you carry some boxes up the stairs. Today, you’re starting a new chapter of your life at your dream college. You should be happy since you were able to transfer so easily but if you were going to be honest with yourself: you were scared. What if people were mean to you? What if your classes were really hard???

“Get a grip y/n, it won’t be as scary as you think.” you mutter to yourself. Soon, you reach your dorm room. “207, yep that’s me…”

You put down the boxes and open the door. Unexpectedly, you’re greeted by a frustrated man. Furrowing your eyebrows in confusion, you pick up the heavy boxes and set them on the empty bed. You turn to the man. “Uh...can I help you?” You ask.

The man looks up, a bit startled. You couldn’t lie to yourself - he was really attractive. He has auburn hair that was slightly disheveled and soft brown eyes. He was a bit taller than you and you could tell that he had some muscles. “Excuse me?” He questions, tilting his head to the side. God, even his voice was attractive-

You clear your throat. “Stop thirsting over the stranger.” You tell yourself. “Um...you’re kinda in my room.” He laughs, his shoulders bouncing slightly. “Oh yeah, I think you mean OUR room.”

WHAT?

This has to be a mistake...you can’t share a room with him. Wasn’t your roommate supposed to be a girl?

“Listen...I’m supposed to have a FEMALE roommate and I’m pretty sure you’re a guy.” You explain to him. He rolls his eyes, sitting on the bed across from you. “Nope, I was assigned to this room. Sorry if you were expecting someone different.” He says, his tone clearly laced with annoyance. You shake your head, realizing you might’ve offended him. “Oh no I’m sorry I just … I didn’t mean to upset you.” 

He stares at you blankly, reaching into his pocket. “Whatever. Anyway, here’s my information since you clearly don’t believe me.” He gets up, placing a long piece of paper beside you. Before you can protest that you believe him, he leaves the room. “Well that was weird…” You think. You glance at the paper he placed and pick it up.

Yoongi Min

3rd year student

Greyson Hall, Room 207

Yoongi….

This was gonna be a fascinating year.

The first few weeks go by quickly. You manage to get some words out of your roommate Yoongi, but he seemed like a brick wall. Thankfully you made some new friends, Kim Taehyung and Park Jimin. Both boys have been friends since preschool, which you found absolutely endearing. Although they’ve known each other that long, they never made you feel left out.

Fall term was almost midway through, which meant midterm season was approaching. You, Taehyung and Jimin were at the cafe on campus studying, all three of you needing a great spot where caffeine was near. You groaned in frustration as you tried to figure out a statistics problem. “I don’t get this at all.” You exclaim, resting your head on the table. “Ah c’mon y/n, you’ll get it! It just takes time and practice.” Jimin reassured you. “Dude the midterm is in 3 days, there’s no way I’m gonna be able to do well.” You told him, taking a sip of your cappuccino. Taehyung set his pencil down after drawing furiously for a solid half hour. 

“Why’d you take stats in the first place?” He asks. “Because I need it for my degree unfortunately…” You sigh. “Isn’t Yoongi taking stats too? Ask him for help.” suggests Jimin. You shake your head, not even wanting to talk to your roommate. “No way, honestly I think he hates me.” Jimin laughs, taking a sip from his drink. “Nah, I highly doubt he hates you.” “What makes you so sure? He barely talks to me.” You huff, crossing your arms.

“Is that such a bad thing?” You hear someone behind you say. You jump, turning around. Yoongi is standing there, a coffee in his hand with an unreadable expression on his face. “Oh, uh, hi Yoongi.” You stammer, your cheeks reddening in embarrassment. Taehyung and Jimin exchange a look. “Uh, we’ll catch up with you later y/n. Nice seeing ya Yoongi.” Taehyung says as the two boys collect their things. “You guys don’t have to go-” You start, but they’re already making their way outside. 

Yoongi sits down across from you. “So you were talking about me huh?” You look down, feeling guilty about talking about him behind his back. “Yes...I’m so sorry I didn’t mean t-” He holds up his hand, offering you a small smile. “It’s okay, don’t worry. I should be the one apologizing anyway. I haven’t been really open to you since we met and that’s on me.” He explains, playing with the lid on his coffee cup. “It’s okay, but y’know I was planning on watching a movie tonight, do you wanna join in?” You asked, assuming he’d say no. To your surprise, his lips curled upward into a bright gummy smile. “Yeah, I’d love to.”

That evening, you and Yoongi decide to stay in your dorm and watch a movie. Since you both wanted to save money, it was cheaper to rent a movie over going to the theatre. You picked the movie while Yoongi went to the convenience store to buy snacks. You smiled to yourself as you grabbed some extra pillows from your closet. Maybe you and Yoongi could finally make some progress and become friends. 

As you waited for Yoongi to return, you scrolled through social media. Soon enough, you heard the door open. “Hey, I’m back.” Yoongi announces, placing the few bags of food on his bed. You smiled. “Hey, what took you so long?” “Ah, I went to grab some Chinese food for us as well, I hope you don’t mind.” You gasped, grabbing one of the bags from him. “No way, I LOVE Chinese food.” You exclaimed, opening up one of the containers. He chuckled, shaking his head. “Well, what movie did you pick out?” You grinned. “Oh you’ll love it, it’s a surprise though.” 

You settle next to Yoongi as you click play. The film starts and Yoongi groans. “Seriously?! The Notebook?” He stares at you, raising his eyebrows. “Oh c’mon it’s a classic! Give it a chance.” He sighs. “Fine…”

Halfway through the movie, you start to get sleepy. Yoongi notices and wraps a blanket around you. You smile sleepily at him. “Thanks Yoongs…” You murmur, closing your eyes. “No problem.” He whispers. 

As the movie finishes, you decide to take a small nap. “Hey Yoongi, I’m gonna take a nap, do you need any help?” You ask, not wanting to leave him to clean up by himself. “Nah it’s okay, you get some rest and I’ll clean up.” “Are you sure-” “Y/n, it’s alright. I don’t mind.” He reassures you, smiling. You hesitate but oblige. “Okay then, if you insist…”

You settle into bed, the soft sounds of Yoongi cleaning up giving you some comfort. As you’re about to sleep, you hear Yoongi whisper “By the way y/n, I know you’re sleeping but...I don’t hate you. Actually, I’m in love with you if I’m going to be honest...I was scared to tell you, but God I’m in love with you.”Your heart skips a beat and you smile to yourself, sleep taking over.

I’m in love with you too, Min Yoongi. A whole lot.

A/N: This is from a submission I received a couple of days ago! If anyone wants a part two then feel free to leave a comment or message me. I hope you all enjoyed it. <3

[threeletterslife]

06 | Illegirl

→ previous | next

→ summary: Excelling in every school subject, acing every math test and conquering the academic world is something you do as easily as breathing. As your residential social outcast nerd, you live rather as a recluse, talking to almost no one except for your dear ol’ cousin and that sweet boy in a few of your classes—Jungkook? was that his name? Befriending your ʰᵒᵗ AP stats teacher was the last thing on your high school senior agenda…

→ genre: 90% fluff, 8% crack, 2% angst | teacher!au & f2l!au

→ warnings: profanity, kissing/making out, the yikes of being friendzoned

→ wordcount: 5.7k

You've never really thought about it before but now you realize that teachers do have a life outside of school.

They don't just sleep under their big, teacher desks at night and pop up in the morning right before the first bell rings. You know now that teachers, although with so much authority and intellect, are just humans—they have feelings, they have a life and they can also be your friend.

You beam as you look at your teacher as he lectures. A friend he was...

Your eyes shift up and down Jimin's figure and man, was it too sweet for your eyes. He's so good looking. Actually, even that was an understatement.

Your teacher's tight, white button-up shirt fits his figure just perfectly as his tie sit handsomely on his broad chest. His black jeans look strained on his muscular legs, and your eyes start moving up to settle specifically on his thighs. Goddamn.

Jimin pushes up his glasses (that he only wears in a classroom setting) and that motion draws you in to study his ethereal face. Your breath hitches as you marvel at his wide, almond eyes, adorable nose and those soft, plump lips. So beautiful, so surreal, so...

"Y/N? Y/N. Y/N!"

You jump a foot in the air. "Huh, what?" you shout, startled out of your mind. You know you probably sound like some twelve-year-old caught with porn and you mentally scold yourself for sounding so off-guard.

It gets worse when everyone in your math class laughs at you and you can feel your cheeks turning red with embarrassment.

"I asked you a question," Jimin says as he points to a problem on the board.

You've always noticed that your teacher never ever cuts you slack for being his friend; he doesn't show favoritism, preferring to treat everyone quite equally, no matter how bad someone might take an L on his test. You always thought that was honorable of him, but now, you kind of wished he'd leave you alone to die in your ocean of humiliation.

Palms already sweaty from all the unwanted attention on you, your eyes shake as you squint at the problem. It's hard to focus on the numbers. "Oh shit," you mutter under your breath, but you've always been a loud mutterer.

Everyone laughs again.

Uneasy sparks blaze in your stomach. You hate how everyone is watching you, waiting and listening for anything out of place to ridicule your every move.

But you take a deep breath and the math problem seems to clear up in your vision. It's an easy one, thank god.

"22 pi over 7," you squeak quickly, ducking your head under.

"Hm? Speak a little louder, Y/N," Jimin says as he adjusts his glasses, craning his neck towards you as if he couldn't hear you.

Goddammit, Jimin.

"22 pi over 7!" you yell in the stupidest and shakiest voice ever to be heard by mankind.

Finally, the fire in your stomach burns out when Jimin nods. "Correct," he chuckles slightly, his eyes glinting a bit. " Try not to daydream too much, Y/N. Even geniuses need to pay attention."

The fire is back and hotter than ever, except it's not only in your stomach, it's everywhere in your body. So. Fucking. Humiliating.

Trying to cool yourself, you set your head down on the desk, looking at your shoes as if those dirty, black Watt Star Converse were something actually worth looking at for more than half a millisecond.

Damn. I used to never get distracted... What the fuck is wrong with me?

After school, you trudge to your math teacher's classroom, still embarrassed about the incident earlier. When you walk in, Jimin's erasing the whiteboard, his back facing you.

As quietly and quickly as possible, you set your stuff down at your desk in the front of the classroom and sit. I will not initiate conversation. He's gonna hate me for getting distracted during class.

But when your teacher turns around, he laughs warmly, eyes scrunching up in the way that you love most.

"Y/N, why so quiet today?"

You flinch. "Oh, uh, no reason." You always sound so suspicious when you lie to Jimin.

"C'mon, you look disturbed," your friend says as he sets the whiteboard eraser down, abandoning it to walk towards you. "What's the matter?"

Oh, you know, just simply embarrassed that I think my friend, my teacher is hot and got fucking distracted over his goddamn body during his class.

But you can't say that.

"Oh, um..." you trail off, racking your brain for a good excuse. But as smart as you are academically, you're as stupid as a guppy when it comes to making plausible excuses. "I'm on my period."

You cringe the moment the words leave your mouth. Why, Y/N, why the fuck—

You want to crawl in a hole when Jimin raises his eyebrows in question. "Oh," he says. You swear you see his face flush pink as he turns his back towards you again, walking towards his messy desk. "Did it start today?" he asks.

Okay, what now?

Now it's your turn to flush pink; you didn't think Jimin would ask questions about your fake female problems. "Uh, yeah," you lie. "The cramps distracted me." Feigning pain, you try to convincingly grasp your stomach.

Jimin looks up at you from his desk, his silky black hair falling loosely over his twinkling eyes. To your surprise, he's smiling. "It isn't the first time I heard that excuse, Y/N. I know what you're really like on your period, remember?"

Well, shit. You did remember, you had just hoped he didn't... But it was your darn luck that he did. What did you expect from your intelligent teacher?

Face steaming, you huff. "Oh, whatever!"

Jimin only laughs, his eyes nearly disappearing as his full lips open up to a breathtakingly beautiful smile. You gulp. There's no doubt about it.

You're crushing on your teacher; he's much more of a distraction than your period will ever be.

"Operation help Ji—I mean, Mr. Park starts now!" you announce as the members of your math club cheer loudly.

"I don't know what kind of fucked up nasty humans were mean to our teacher, but we're totally gonna show them!" Nicole declares, Sarah and August agreeing aggressively by her side.

"But the question is... how?" Jungkook asks shyly, scooting closer to you.

Very aware of his movement, you slightly squirm, but pretend nothing happened. "I was thinking of a math tutoring club? For anyone who wants tutoring or is failing the class," you say. "And that way, if asshole parents complain again, we'll be able to say that Mr. Park did everything he could to help them—he has a fucking club dedicated to passing his class!"

"Ingenius as usual," August laughs.

"And when would we start this club?" Sarah asks.

You grin, your eyes sparkling with ambition. "If we can, tomorrow."

"No, no, no!" you practically scream, hitting your favorite pencil against a packet of math problems aggressively. "For the last time, you can't divide x to get an answer! You're gonna lose solutions! Do you want to lose solutions? Do you want to lose that A?"

The teen you're tutoring looks about ready to cry but you honestly feel no remorse. She had been constantly checking her goddamn text messages, giggling over quite inappropriate texts about Jimin. It makes you sick.

If she thinks Jimin's so fucking hot, why doesn't she at least try to be good at math?

"Hey, hey, Y/N, calm down," a familiar, silvery voice calls.

Jungkook.

"I'm trying!" you protest, flinging up your hands.

Jungkook laughs, sliding into the chair next to you and looking at the girl you were tutoring.

"What are you having trouble with?" he asks the girl in such a silky, smooth voice that if someone told you he was an angel, you'd believe them.

"Everything!" the dumb girl wails.

You roll your eyes.

"Hey, hey, then let's start from the very beginning, okay?" Jungkook soothes, smiling softly.

Goddamn, I wish I was that patient.

You just start to zone out as Jungkook literally reteaches this girl how to factor. You honestly wonder how she even passed elementary school. But then again, you have to admit you're a little jealous that this girl has so many friends to text. Yet you'd rather be smart than be popular—that's just how you roll.

You pause. But it's not like you don't have friends. You just don't have that many. And I actually like all the friends I have for once...

You don't remember falling asleep when a large, warm hand gently shakes you awake. Your groggy eyes open to see Jungkook, a goofy smile plastered on his face. "Tired, Y/N?" he chuckles.

The girl he's tutoring rolls her eyes. "Hmph. She yells at me for checking my messages but she does something even more unproductive," she grumbles.

Oh no. You did not just wake up to deal with attitude. You're not gonna have it. "Excuse me, but while I'm out here mastering linear algebra, you don't even know how to factor. Guess you had one too many hours of texting, huh?" you snap.

"Dayum," Jungkook mutters under his breath. He casually holds his hand out for a high-five, which you do, extremely dramatically.

"For your information, I know how to factor now," the girl huffs.

"For your information, that's a required skill for fifth graders," you bite back. "In addition—"

"As hilarious as this is," Jungkook interrupts, placing a hand on your arm, "You should calm down. It's a tutoring session, not a roasting session."

You sigh as the girl practically drools over your friend.

"Sure, Jungkook, sweetie. Thank you so much for your help so far," she giggles, flirtingly twirling her hair with her slender finger.

"Yeah, whatever," you reply as you feel Jungkook's hand slipping off your arm, the warm heat now gone.

Jungkook goes back to teaching the girl, oblivious of her seducing attempts. You roll your eyes as you look around the tutoring club—the turnout was better than you expected, honestly. For the first time in a classroom, however, you feel lost. You're not the best at teaching, (to be exact, you're the worst). Your patience is shorter than your height, (which is saying a lot), but everyone else in the math club seems to be teaching naturals.

Feeling a little guilty you can't do much to help out, you start to play with your pencil, twirling it around and doing cool tricks that you've accumulated over the years. But of course three minutes in, your hand loses grip of your writing utensil and it flings off, hitting the ground and starts rolling away from you.

Sighing irritably because you have to physically move to go get it, you stand up from your chair, crawling on the floor to reach your pencil. "Found you, you idiot," you tell your blue oxi-gel when you hear a light laugh coming from above you.

Facing forward, you come face-to-face with a pair of knees covered with smooth, black material. Looking up, you see your teacher smiling down at you.

"Were you actually talking to your pencil?" he teases, face set with a brilliant grin.

"I... uh..."

"God, what is this?" Jimin asks as he looks around his classroom filled with students. "Y/N, are you organizing a cult?" he whispers with a full grin plastered on his face.

"What no!" you protest as Jimin helps you stand up. "It was kinda supposed to be a surprise but..."

"It's a math tutoring club," Jungkook chimes in. "We're helping students reach that A, you know?"

"You guys made a tutoring club for me?" your teacher says, placing a hand to his heart. "I'm about to burst into tears."

You chuckle at Jimin's dramatized actions. "Well, no one deserves mistreatment. Ahem, especially not body objectification," you say as you glare at the girl Jungkook's tutoring. She rolls her eyes.

"Awww," Jimin coos. "You guys are amazing. You know what? We're ordering pizza, my treat!"

People cheer so loud your ears physically hurt.

You sigh out, clutching your full stomach as you slide into the shotgun seat of Jimin's nice car. "Damn... Since we already ate, does that mean we're not eating dinner at your house tonight?"

Jimin chuckles lowly. "Why? Wanted to go to my house?"

Your cheeks blush red as you shake your head aggressively. "No! I was just saying..."

"Well, I mean, we didn't have dessert yet, didn't we?" Jimin suggests, smiling. His fingers softly brush against yours as he reaches for your seatbelt, buckling it for you. "You always forget to wear your seatbelt, Y/N," he laughs. "You never know when I might fuck up on the road."

"Hmph!" you say, crossing your arms over your rapidly being chest. "Stop babying me! I was gonna put it on this time!"

"That's what you say every time," Jimin chuckles as he starts his car with a press of a button. "Now, cupcakes or brownies?"

"Huh? Um, cupcakes?"

"Great! We'll stop by the market to get some ingredients. We're going to learn how to bake!"

Oh no. Why did that sound like a disaster waiting to happen?

But surprisingly, it was a miracle waiting to happen. You stuff your face with aesthetic, black frosting, occasionally biting at the soft, plush bread. "To think we can bake cupcakes but not cook ramen right the first time," you chuckle.

"To be fair, we actually used directions," Jimin says, neatly slicing up his cupcake to eat piece by piece.

You scrunch your nose. "You look like a prince who's too snooty to eat with his own two hands."

"Or maybe I want to be hygienic? You know, unlike you," Jimin teases as you huff in response. Jimin pokes at you, making you turn to him in exasperation.

"What?" you sigh.

"I dunno... I never really got a chance to thank you..."

You raise your eyebrows, thoroughly confused. "I mean, but it was a team effort..." you try to say modestly. "Besides, I didn't do much of the teaching. I mean can you believe this girl didn't know how to fac—"

Jimin rushes in for a hug, knocking the wind out of you—you lose all train of thought, you lose your voice and all sense of functionality. All you can hear is your heart beating wildly in your chest and Jimin's steady breaths against your ear.

"Y/N... Thank you," he whispers, gripping you tighter. "I know it was you who came up with the idea. And I just—I'm so touched. When I told you my problems, I only expected you to listen, maybe, I don't know, sympathize? But you took my problems and found a solution, putting it into action. No one's ever done that for me before... I don't even know what to say..." your teacher trails off, still hugging you tightly. "I'm emotional, I know... But I almost broke down crying when I saw you and your friends hosting this club... all for me."

Your brain turns into mush at Jimin's heartfelt confession, and you can't help but hug him back, burying your face into his shoulder. Words can't seem to make it past your mouth—you can't afford to ruin the moment by saying something completely stupid.

But that's when you feel it. The rapid thumping of a heart. Except it's not yours—it's beating faster than yours.

It's Jimin's.

You walk into Jimin's class slightly earlier than usual, your phone pressed against your ear as you bob your head up and down, staying silent for a few seconds and then talking away.

"I know, I know, I miss you too, Jin," you say just as you slide into your comfortable seat, slipping your backpack off your aching shoulder.

"Yeah, I know, I love you too. Of course, I'm still alive!" you huff, rolling your eyes. "And no! I didn't burn the house down... yet. No, we don't eat ramen daily—we eat it every other day," you protest.

You're quiet again as Jin gives you a piece of his mind.

"Yes, I know ramen's bad for me," you sigh. "Fine. We'll try to make salad or something today. Mhm. Yeah. Yes, I'm in his class right now. No, Jin! I can't just hand my phone over to him, are you out of your mind? You can call him on his phone at some other time."

You sigh loudly as your cousin rambles on the phone. "Wait. What?!" you suddenly shriek, causing a few early-comers in the class to stare at you in shellshock. Quickly lowering your head in embarrassment, you aggressively grasp your phone with both hands. "What do you mean you're going to be away for another month?" you whisper angrily. "Are you serious? Why does the drama team have to be so good?"

Jin chuckles on the line as you pout. "I know, congrats and all but you've been away for too long. Stop teasing me, I just miss you!" you huff.

Your cousin attempts to explain himself as you sit through it all, nodding your head occasionally. "Okay, then," you say in a sad, defeated tone. "I guess, good luck... Anyways, I've got a test this period, gotta fly." You pause, frowning. "Of course I studied! Who do you think I am?! Yeah, well thanks, I'm pretty confident. Mhm. Yeah. Have fun. Love you too. Yup. Bye." Smiling softly, you end the call with your cousin, slipping your phone into your backpack to replace it with your lucky pencil and eraser. There, now you're completely ready for the math test.

From the corner of your eye, you see Jimin, watching you. When he catches your sight, he gives you a small smile paired with a discreet thumbs-up. Your heart flutters.

Gosh darn diddly dang.

Ever since that night you felt his heart beating wildly in his chest, you can't help but wonder if maybe, possibly, hopefully, you're not in a one-sided crush. It was pretty plausible Jimin had always been so caring because he liked you back—either that or he majorly friendzoned you.

The annoying school bell blares, throwing you out of your thoughts, and as if exactly on cue, your teacher stands up from his desk, taking graceful steps to the front of the class. He clears his throat to gain the attention of still-rowdy students. "I hope everybody's prepared," Jimin says as he shifts from the weight of stacked tests. "If you studied polar curves as I said, you'll be fine for the unit test."

A low murmur fills the class as your peers start to panic.

"What the fuck is a polar curve?"

"Shit, I don't even know what unit this is!"

"Definite integrals, you shithead."

"Well goddamn, I'm gonna fail again."

You cock your head. Yeah, definite integrals might be challenging at first, but they weren't hard—it just required a lot of practice. But something told you most of your classmates didn't even know how to spell 'practice.'

As Jimin passes the tests out, you hear students groan from their first glance of questions.

"No noise, no talking!" your friend reminds his students. "If you need extra scratch paper, pencils or erasers, they're up here in the front; you know the drill. Good luck to you all!"

But you can barely hear your teacher as you're already racing to finish up a problem on the exam. You've figured long ago that Jimin's test questions were always in order from hardest to easiest—which explains why most kids rarely finish. You, on the other hand, learned to immediately flip over your tests and work your way from the back to front.

You don't hear anything, nor do you see anything except for the all too familiar graphs and curves printed out on white paper. Your favorite pencil flies across the exam faster than your mile time, and soon, you're finished.

Wiping your sweaty and cramped hands on your jeans, you look up at the clock in the front of the classroom. You've finished at least twenty minutes early. You sigh softly. I don't feel like checking answers.

Almost instinctively, your eyes glance at your teacher's desk—it was starting to become a habit to look at him. But also, you wanted to see if he was grading the math tests from earlier periods. Except, he most clearly wasn't.

Why? Because he was looking at you. And your eyes meet. Electricity courses through your veins and you swear your heart stops beating for a few seconds. You can't hold the gaze as you quickly turn your head, releasing a breath you didn't know you had held.

Goddamn. Now, this is awkward.

Trying to shake off the awkwardness, you take a small breath and grip your pencil in your hands again. Maybe it's time to check answers.

Except—except, you can see out of the corner of your eye, your teacher still watching you. It wasn't a creepy stare though, no. It was like a handsome prince lovingly admiring his beautiful princess. Well, you were no beautiful princess, and though Jimin might be handsome, he was no prince. But still. His gaze made you feel... secure and even admired. Your heart flutters in your chest.

Why is he watching me?

You're too scared of the answer to even possibly ponder it.

So, sighing quietly, you use all your willpower to pretend like your teacher is not watching you as you cross your legs and tuck a strand of loose hair behind your ear. You give your lucky pencil a nice squeeze. It's time to check answers.

"Did you know you frown when you concentrate?" Jimin asks as he does the dishes, diligently washing a bowl that had been previously filled with a healthy salad.

You sit on the kitchen counter, making some tea as you cock your head. From all that watching, he would know all of my stupid behaviors when it comes to test-taking. But you feign ignorance. "How would you know?"

"Well, not to sound weird but sometimes I watch my students take their tests," Jimin says as he dries his wet hands on a nearby towel, then sauntering over to sit next to you on the kitchen counter.

Your heart falls. So I'm not special. He watches everyone.

"No, not all of my students... I only ever watch you," your teacher admits as he scratches the back of his neck in what seems like slight embarrassment.

Your heart leaps in your chest. You don't know how to pirouette, twirl, turn, but your heart was surely doing it at the moment. Was this it? Was he confessing? Were you not in a one-sided crush?

"It's because I care for you," he starts awkwardly. "I mean, don't you tend to watch things you care for? Just to see if they're alright? I dunno..."

Ohohoho, you have no idea.

You nod enthusiastically. "Mhm, of course." Your lips stretch out into a large smile—you're unable to control it. You feel warmer than the cup of tea in your hands. "So you truly care for me?" you tease slightly, casually nudging Jimin.

He nudges you back, laughing. "Of course, Y/N, you're like a best friend to me."

Your eye twitches slightly, your smiles wavers and vanishes and you don't feel as warm anymore.

Well shit, you were friendzoned.

Smiling in accomplishment, you stretch back from your seat, mentally celebrating the finishing of your homework. Your blasted teachers had given you some extra weekend work, but jokes on them, you finished it all in—you glance at your watch—seven hours.

Wait a minute. Seven hours?! You do a double-take, wiping your eyes with the back of your hand and polishing the glass of your watch. The delicate, silver hands still pointed all signs that it was indeed, 10 pm.

Well fuck. I've literally been at school seven more hours than I should've. I've been at school for practically 15 hours! That's more than half of the hours in a day—I spent approximately 63% of the whole day at school!!! And even worse, I mISSED DINNER!

You take deep breaths to calm yourself, immediately looking up to see—no surprise—Jimin working hard at his desk. His eyebrows were scrunched up cutely, and he was biting his pink lips in concentration. The sight of him instantaneously calms you down.

But then you notice Jimin looks frustrated, stressed even. You always admire him for taking care of his own problems, yet sometimes you wish he'd learn to burden others with his dilemmas.

Slowly and quietly, you creep up behind your teacher, looking over his shoulder. "Need any help, Mr. Park?" you whisper in his ear, a small, teasing smile plastered on your lips.

Jimin jumps slightly, turning around to look at you. His serious look is replaced with a reciprocated bright smile. He flutters his eyelashes and runs his fingers through his silky hair, refusing to break eye contact with you. "Oh c'mon no one's around," he says, chuckling. "Jimin will do."

"Yeah, no shit no one's around," you pout slightly, casually placing your chin on Jimin's shoulder. Ever since he majorly friendzoned you, you have to admit it was easier to have physical contact—though your heart beats wildly in your chest every time the two of you touch.

"Hmm..." your teacher hums, twirling his red correcting pen. "It'll take just a bit more... Is our little Y/N bored?" he asks as he reaches out to mockingly pat your head.

You groan dramatically.

"What time is it?" Jimin asks absentmindedly, letting your head rest on his shoulder.

"10," you mutter lazily, wanting to doze off with your face up against Jimin's warm neck.

"WHAT?!" your teacher shouts, shifting suddenly to grasp your arms and bring your whole body in front of him. He even tugs you forward, closer to him. Your heart is already having its own mini explosions, not being able to comprehend such closeness from your ultimate crush.

"Why didn't you tell me it was this late, Y/N?" Jimin cries. "Shit, I'm so sorry, I made you wait so long! God, I lost track of time!"

You just shrug, although a bit surprised at his outburst. At this moment, you're just worried Jimin'll hear the aggressive thumping of your poor heart—it can't take this anymore. You're definitely not built for unrequited love. "It's all good," you say, trying to smile calmly. "It's no big deal, really."

Apparently, your stomach thinks otherwise as it lets loose a large growl, much to your horrification. "Oops," you whisper.

At that, Jimin runs his fingers through his hair, sighing. "Fuck, we've been here for seven hours, Y/N, it is a big deal!" He grabs both of your hands, taking you by surprise. "We skipped dinner! I swear to god, Jin will kill me if he found out!"

You giggle. It was slightly amusing to watch Jimin fret so much. "What if we don't tell him?" you whisper mischievously, leaning forward. You're trying so, so hard not to scream in the utter joy that your crush is literally holding your hands right now.

Nope, I'm not going to acknowledge that at all, you tell yourself dutifully.

Now you're waiting for Jimin to answer, to say something funny, or witty as usual. Yet, he doesn't. Instead, he's actually quite silent—it doesn't seem normal. You take a peek at his face to make sure he doesn't look sick or anything, or maybe it was just a dumb excuse you made up to check his ethereal features out.

That turned out to be a big mistake.

You peer into Jimin's eyes, only to catch them looking at your lips. His eyes flutter back up to yours, and now the two of you are staring at each other. Your eyes speak a language only the two of you can understand.

His eyes tell you to inch closer to him, to part your lips.

Your eyes tell him to tug you into his lap, an all too familiar action. He doesn't let go of your hands.

You can feel his breath, hear his breath.

Hell, you can hear his heart. And you're not mistaken—you swear on your own life that you hear the quickened pounding.

And still, you're staring right into his soft, but slightly hooded eyes—never breaking contact. You're so close. So, so close to him, the closest you've ever been.

He slowly, tantalizingly slowly leans in, almost to give you a chance to back out. Oh, hell no. You're staying.

His beautiful, breathtaking face is so close that your eyes are almost crossing to meet his. Then, he closes his eyes just as he closes the minuscule gap between the two of you.

Your lips meet.

You don't know how something can go by so quickly and slowly at the same time. Each movement of your connected mouths is so languid, so relaxed, yet quick, but victorious fireworks are exploding behind you.

Straddling Jimin, you feel his body heat, your bare legs chafing against the smooth material of his slacks. It's so close to heaven that it is.

He works his magic, lips pulling and parting at the precise moments, his tongue finding its way into your waiting mouth. You can barely function from the heat of the moment, but you realize that you are glad he doesn't taste like beer this time.

Jimin sweetly squeezes your hands that are encompassed in his, leaning back slightly for both of you to breathe. Immediately, your eyes are open, and they lock onto his. But as if in a time restraint, both of you hurriedly shut your eyes again and lean in to meet each other's lips once more.

It's euphoric, really.

And for the first time in your life, you get to feel what physical affection is like. This one's not a lustful, drunken kiss, it's so much more than that. You put your heart in this, and you hope Jimin did the same. It surely felt like it.

With one last, sweet and soft, lingering kiss, your teacher, crush and friend leisurely pulls away. You almost lean forward to follow his lips—you guess you miss them on yours that much.

Your eyes flutter open, meeting Jimin's hooded ones.

Goddamn. You don't know how to feel, what to say, what to do, what to think. Your hands are still tightly enclosed in his.

"Oh..." you breathe out, hoping Jimin would say something for you, anything. But he doesn't. He remains silent. It's so not like him.

Regret starts to pour into your body, coursing through your veins. It feels like poison. You can feel yourself wilt, as you realize—it was still one-sided, Jimin had merely been caught up in the heat of the moment, again.

"Fuck," you whisper, mostly to yourself. "Fuck," you say louder, tears starting to well up in your eyes. Jimin loosens his grip on your hands, and you slide them away, the warmth all gone. You search for your teacher's face for anything, any sign that he was okay with what both of you had just done. But again, nothing.

"Oh my god. What have we done?" you mutter, looking down and away. You were yet to slide away from Jimin's lap, but you couldn't bear to move away from that sort of comforting warmth.

"Shit, Y/N," Jimin breathes. It's the first phrase he says after the... well, kiss. "I'm so sorry," he mutters, his hand fluttering around your face to cup your cheek, but you flinch away. Goddammit, Y/N, why?

"Fuck, I'm so sorry, Y/N," Jimin whispers, he tugs his hand back to his chest. "It was a mistake! I didn't mean it. Oh god, don't tell Jin." He notices you're still on his lap and jumps up, making you fall down onto the cold, classroom floor—you're too shocked to react much. "God, I'm so sorry!" He tries to help you up, but you shake your head and stand up on your own.

"Y/N. I'm so sorry. It was a mistake," Jimin repeats. "It really was."

Your head is spinning, and you don't know what to say, or do, for that matter. "Then, a mistake it was," you finally manage to say, your voice a bit shaky. "Can we go now?"

I made out with him again. And he wasn't even drunk this time.

You repeatedly have that thought, over and over and over again. You can't seem to get the feeling, the sounds, the sight out of your head. You'd given your all into that little kiss, but Jimin deemed it was merely 'a mistake.'

That didn't hurt at all, nope, not at all.

You're quite good at lying to yourself. Because you know that hurt you a lot. God, I'm so humiliated. You just want to roll up in a small ball and throw yourself into a deep, dark corner. But you can't. Unfortunately, that shit is only figurative.

Sighing, you take a slight peek at Jimin in the driver's seat. His face is completely emotionless, which makes you worry.

We just ruined a perfectly good friendship, goddammit.

You're dropped off at your house; no words are exchanged between you and Jimin, you don't even turn back to give him a parting wave (like you usually do). Unlocking your front door, you quickly walk inside, slumping down to the floor immediately. With your back leaning heavily against the door, you bury your face in your hands.

Things had been going so well. Life had been going so well.

Now it seemed like you lost your best friend—who knows what more you might lose?

—previous | next

—masterlist

[high5nerd]

Vorfreude

Aay, my first (at the time) Pitch x Reader one-shot!

Don’t fook your professors, folks.

“When understanding the root words of our modern day languages, it can be daunting to fully comprehend the detail such a language as English can be intertwined with a multitude of other languages long forgotten,”

Dr. Pitchiner was certainly entrancing when he spoke at the podium, flourishing a hand at the list of most common prefixes and suffixes used in today’s modern English, along with a surprise list of obscure ones you knew you had to take note on. Dr. Pitchiner wasn’t one to give easy exams, the last exam was so gruelling someone almost passed out from a panic attack at the multitude of pages.

Despite enjoying writing yourself, you weren’t as invested in English as he was, which was a given, hence the reason his PhD in English as well as a degree in Latin Translation. Many times he’s journeyed to Italy to help assist scholars in finding new information on the lost civilizations of Rome, Sicily, and Pompeii, and that credit alone was the sole reason he got the job at this state college. He should have been employed at universities like Harvard or Yale, or even Oxford or Princeton, but yet here he was, teaching at your simple state college with an acceptance rate of 93% and the highest transferring stat in all of your state.

   Not a lot of students found him attractive like you did. Certainly there was more than a couple handfuls of girls, pockets of them, who’ve admired his lithe figure, his graceful movements and that firm ass that was way too snug in his black slacks. Most of them admired his physique from afar, some even daring others to get closer to flirt with him shamelessly, and usually that ended up with a bad memory for the attempted action, as well as the girl who tried to drop the class out of utter embarrassment at such a call out after class that could be heard around the hall.

   Dr. Kozmotis Pitchiner took no bullshit from anyone, and that’s the main reason your heart fluttered at the thought and sight of him. This class wasn’t the first time you two had met face to face either, shockingly. Quite hilariously, the first time you two met, you didn’t even like him.

Three years ago, you were an itty bitty freshman just like the ones that recently arrived this semester, and to the best of your luck, you scored almost five hours of total free time on Mondays and Wednesdays before your Intro to Biology class and Intro to Psychology course after lunch.

Why not explore the gorgeous campus during those five hours? It would get you more acquainted with your surroundings and in small cases, make new friends! Grabbing a can of fruit juice and a danish from the dining hall, you munched as you explored the massive quad before discovering where the art gallery was, venturing towards the art and theatre buildings you’d be in the next year for your art perspective requirements. You found yourself meandering in the photograph-covered walled hallway of the English department, unknowingly headed towards the campus’s own local newspaper headquarters when a voice startled you from your entrancement with your journey.

“Hey. Where do you think you’re going?” a voice matching the texture of velvet came.

You turn around, frowning at the sudden startling noise. There just feet away from you, emerged from his office was a man dressed in what you would consider funeral appropriate attire, a smooth black suit with a basic black tie, and shiny black dress shoes that looked like they could reflect sunlight and somehow cause a car accident if he walked outside.

“I’m exploring. Where do you think you’re going?” you shot back, taking a long sip of your fruit juice.

You were mildly surprised to see a smirk cross his devious lips, his silver-gold eyes narrowing at your sass. He almost looked amused at your attitude, even enough so that his tensed shoulders relaxed, but his arms still remained folded over his chest.

“At the moment, I’m going wherever you think you’re headed, which should be in the opposite direction you’re headed.”

Ooh, he likes playing word games. You took another sip and then took a big bite of your danish, not caring about how childish you were coming off to him. You pointed towards the hallway, “Why can’t I go down there?”

He gestured his head in the same direction, “It’s merely copy rooms and computer labs meant for the Daily Mascot Oracle. Nothing worth checking out.”

“Oh. That’s a shit title.” you commented.

He barked out a heartwarming laugh. You grin at him, glad he finally was capable of taking that stick out of his ass and be a decent human being. Almost three times so far in just two days you got two people to really dislike your presence and your sassy attitude, someone named Bunnymund and another elfish looking kid named Jack who’s definition of fun didn’t match yours at all.

“I certainly didn’t agree to it either, but the editor in chief made sure my vote was outnumbered,” he hesitated, thinking quickly before glancing at you, “Are you a freshman?”

You nodded, knowing what he would ask next, “Majoring in psychology with hopefully a minor in alternative medicine and therapy.”

He looked genuinely impressed, “I must say, it’s quite refreshing to have a new student under that field. Not a lot of freshmen choose that whilst entering for their first year. What makes you like that field of study so much?”

You shrugged with a smile, “I like the whole concept of the human mind and how it functions on an emotional state. It’s interesting how certain actions and emotions can create feelings inside us, and I especially love the study of dreams and fears and hopes. I want to do a project on dream therapy for my senior thesis when it comes time to that, but I doubt they’ll let me. Professor Oren didn’t like hearing me say that at orientation.”

Dr. Pitchiner nodded, “Oren doesn’t really believe in the science behind dreams, and certainly not the spirituality behind it if you believe in that sort of thing. I certainly do.”

“You do?” you were genuinely surprised, literally taken aback. You wouldn’t have considered such an eloquent, smooth and finely dressed man to believe in a spirituality. He reeked of realist to you, you certainly weren’t expecting that.

He nodded again, “Of course. It’s only natural for the human psyche to become understandable to a certain degree, and it’s been proven through many other cultures that such things exist, like the sixth sense or empathy or precognition. Why not in dream analyzation? It’s fascinating, I’m glad you’re interested in it. If I wasn’t an English professor I would immediately return to college to take advantage of that.”

That’s when you realized how gold his eyes were, how they sparkled like the richest coins ever discovered in the vastness of the sunken world of ships at the bottom of the ocean. His eyes gave away intense wisdom, feeling and intellect that you felt the need to learn from. You needed to unlock every part of him to see beyond that gaze he gave you with that strange upturn at the corner of his devilish mouth.

Sure enough, you eventually found yourself in his class a couple years later for your required English Analysis course, and the both of you took advantage of that. You found yourself wandering back to his office between classes and office hours, knowing full well no one visited him nor had the courage to due to his harshness in class and strict code he sticks to in not forming attachments to the student body. For you, somehow you were able to break that barrier and see a different kind of man than what people upfront knew him as.

Your friend Katherine is your first and only senior friend at the university, and from her story when you signed up for his course at the beginning of the year, he was known to be callous and strict, such a polar opposite to leniency that even if you were sick with proof of illness, he wouldn’t accept that as an excused absence unless you flourished a medical note from a doctor to him. Everyone feared him, but admired him from afar since he’s the only professor to actually cut down on the bullshitters and slackers in class, and is one of the most respected professors there because of his adventures in Italy as a historian as well as a translator.

You, however, knew him as a sarcastic, good humored intellect with an avid thirst for learning the unknown, and unlocking skills he’s never attempted. From the times you would visit his office or bump into each other in the hallways and have small talk, you learned that at one point in his life he was just as brash, brazen and impulsive as you are now. Before he considered becoming a professor, he was eager to study what you were studying in now, especially the study of phobias and humans’ reactions to certain fear-triggering events or objects. You were the only one that’s ever heard him snort at a god-awful joke you would attempt at, and the only one that’s ever seen him grin at you in such a way it made your stomach flip and flutter.

Perhaps you exposed yourself too much to him, or perhaps he was just so relatable you felt like you sometimes felt like you were talking to a part of yourself you’ve never discovered before. It slightly scared you how much he knew about you and it wasn’t even the end of the fall semester, but you trusted him in ways you’ve never trusted another before. He always promised you absolute confidentiality with your confessions to him, most out of pure merriment and in the goal of a strengthened friendship, like when you told him when you were fourteen you tried blending into the popular clique but still found yourself drawn to the nerds and theater kids once more. He once gave you such a dubious smirk at the notion of you once being the stereotypical geek, with what you claimed to be the unattractive flat hair, braces and awkward gait.

“I can hardly believe that of you.” he chuckled.

“Why? You can kinda tell, don’t lie.” you winked teasingly.

He tilted his head in his hand at you, looking your figure up and down so slowly and languidly that it made your face heat up with a sudden thrill you haven’t felt in a long time.

“Whoever you were before has grew into a fine young woman, that’s most of what I can see.” he looked at you seriously, his eyes hard with truth.

Ever since that you realized that the idea of him being closer than what you two already were was something else you wanted. You thirsted for it, like an obsession. Unhealthy, you weren’t sure, but you were careful not to give yourself away to him, in fear that it would destroy that friendship you two already had. Without anyone’s knowledge but his, you both called each other by your first names. You called him Koz, and he called you by the nickname you wanted him to call you.

Even just watching him write on the board, hearing his voice wrap you lovingly in it’s deep musical tones made your legs tighten in excitement. You furrowed your brows, trying to ignore the incoming thoughts of his voice saying your name like a mantra as you wrote down everything being scribbled on the board.

The guy next to you noticed your discomfort, and nudged his elbow with yours. You looked at him, affronted, “What?”

“You look pissed. You okay?” he looked suspicious.

“Shut up, I’m fine.”

“(y/n).”

Your blood froze, looking up at him in pure fear at being called out in front of class. His hands were folded behind his back, his eyes lingering on you and only you. The class stared at you, nearly a thousand eyes focused on your nervous leg bouncing and the pen in your hand being crushed by the amount of attention drawn onto you.

“I see you have already started to discuss with Stephen,” you could swear to the moon above he smirked ruefully, “Would you like to tell us what the definition of vorfreude is?”

You gulped quickly before looking down at your paper, noticing that the last couple notes were not even notes, they were sinful descriptions of what you wanted him to do to your mouth and in between your thighs. Your face grew incredibly red to the point it prickled your skin as you stood up. You never broke eye contact with him. You can’t be weak now.

“Vorfreude is a German word to define a type of intense anticipation of imagining future pleasures.”

He nodded, his smirk subsiding to something even darker at the moment you uttered the word ‘future’, “Excellent. Glad to see you’re still paying attention despite your distractions.”

Some people snickered at your red face deepening in color as you plopped back down in your seat. By now Koz was shuffling the exams collected last week, freshly graded and corrections that could leave someone in tears if not taken lightly.

As he passed around the graded exams going over the class’s weak points and what to look forward to for the next midterm, you doodled a bit more in your notebook and wrote more lines of absolute sin into a poetic verse, something E. E. Cummings would be absolutely proud of.

You read over your lines, admiring the visual rhymes as well as the absolute clear imagery of being locked into him, his arms like a vice as he would pull your hair and bite at the sensitive parts of your neck, and even now you squirmed at the daydream of such a carnal act going on in his office. More than anything, more than just impressing him with your knowledge and sharp tongue would be for him to pin you to the desk and make you cry out his name in ecstasy as your legs would quiver with release. You bit your lip as you tightened your grip on your sweatshirt, trying your damn hardest not to accidentally make a noise.

That’s when you noticed the shadow lurking over you.

You froze. Your entire body became still with horror and your blood turned cold as Koz read over your carnal poem and observed your lewd doodles with a casual eye as he handed you your exam. You reached out for it with a shaking hand and slowly placed it over the notebook page, knowing it was too late to hide the damage.

“Please see me after class about your note-taking.”

You nodded, trying to fight tears from the utter embarrassment as he finished handing out the exams. You close your notebook in disgust with yourself. Koz continues the class until 5:45, the usual time it ends when everyone wastes no time in dilly dallying and immediately leaving, most if not all heading to the dining hall for dinner. You, planning to indulge in just a minor dinner consisting of cereal or soup out of embarrassment and sadness, packed up slowly.

“(y/n), a word please.” he beckoned from his podium.

You refused to look at him as you stepped down from the lecture hall stairs to the podium, your backpack slung over your shoulder and your confidence crumbling even further as you waited with baited breath as he finished shutting off the projector and computer.

“You have quite a knack for poetry for someone who says English isn’t their forte, as well as for a psychology major.” he calmly noted, hardly glancing at you.

You couldn’t help it, you couldn’t hold it in anymore and let it burst from your chest, all your thoughts jumbled into a single rambling mess, “I swear I didn’t intend for you to see it, I just-I just-I don’t know why I did that and I know I messed up our friendship, it’s all my fault and I’m really really sorry, I seriously wasn’t thinking and I just can’t help but feel these things and it just makes it worse when I think about you, I don’t know what to do about it-”

A hand crept around the back of your neck and forced your head up, and without even a single warning you felt warm, wet lips enveloping yours, biting sweetly as well as fervently. You couldn’t help but make a noise of startlement at the sudden action, but before you could even have time to melt into the kiss, he pulled away, a smirk on his face.

“It’d be inappropriate for me to do such things, but more inappropriate for you to act on it as well. Yet, I know you are wise enough to not pursue it like you want to.” he stated, his eyes resembling molten gold.

Your gaze flattened, “Koz, what the fuck was that if you say you’re not ‘pursuing it’.”

He grinned, “Your confirmation of your feelings, as well as a promise of patience.”

“Patience?”

He smirked again, tilting his head and embracing the feel of superiority again, “You have nearly one more year left. I wonder if you have the patience to stick it out-”

That pissed you off. You grabbed his black tie and pulled him down, startling him as you kissed him hard. You pulled away just as quickly, enjoying the look of surprise on his face as well as slight bewilderment at being cut off from gloating.

You smiled innocently, smoothing down his tie as well as the front of his jacket, “Nice to know I’m not the only one enjoying the feeling of vorfreude from now on. Have a good day, Professor.”

Without a second backwards glance, you confidently strode out of the lecture hall, leaving Koz impressed as well as out of breath at your grand exit. He didn’t realize he’d be aching for you just as much as you ached for him.

It’s only a year, right? Not too long…

Boy were you two wrong.

[wickederis]

hey, hello! i’m kat and this character eris is very close to my heart so i am extremely excited to bring her into this group. below are some stats about her, as well as her bio and personality drawn up more. i am working on making some wanted connections/wanted plots section but don’t hesitate to say hi if you’d like to plot something with her!

tw: drugs, violence, knives, blood 

Full Name: Eris Cristina Moraru Face Claim: Alicia Vikander Date of Birth: 10/28/1988 Sun Sign: Scorpio Gender/Prefered Pronouns: CisFemale, She/Her Sexual Orientation: Pansexual Occupation: Manager at Rendezvous Affiliation: Wicked Wolves (Manager of Drug Dealers) Hometown: San Antonio, Texas Length in Charming: Sixteen years MBTI: istj. detached, logical, reserved, analytical, calm and organized. MORAL ALIGNMENT: neutral evil. a neutral evil villain does whatever she can get away with. she is out for herself, pure and simple. she sheds no tears for those she hurts, whether for profit, sport, or convenience.

 BIOGRAPHY

Eris Cristina Moraru was born in a small town, in the middle of nowhere Texas. Her parents were poor Romanian immigrants just trying to make it in the United States, and her life growing up was nothing short of hardship. Her father worked long hours and brought back very little in revenue. Her mother stayed home to take care of the child and would offer up laundry services in hopes of earning some extra cash. Every day was a constant struggle for the family to provide food for their child and with a small one needing so much, it proved to be more difficult than the parents expected. That and trying to get documented and citizens themselves they realized that their lifestyle was going to be hard on their daughter and made a decision that Eris would come to resent for the rest of her life. Around the age of five she was brought to San Antonio and left alone at the Zoo. One second her parents were there holding her hands and the next they were gone. A couple hours later turned into the rest of the day and an employee finding her and calling the police. She didn’t speak any English so they weren’t quite sure what to do but put her into the state system until able to locate her family. Days turned into months, months into years and eventually they just stopped trying. She was now a ward of state.

Being in the system was not kind to the dark haired girl and she was in and out of different foster homes. No one wanted to deal with a child who spoke a language no one could understand, even if she eventually did learn English. While she went to school and ended up excelling in her studies, her social skills were that of a gnat. While some of her peers picked up semi-useful skills like pick pocketing, Eris preferred more how the streets were ran than petty theft. She picked up on the ins and out on who seemingly ran what type of illegal trade, who could dispose of a nasty situation, and who to talk to when you needed something done. The intricacies of a life on the street was not just random crime but rather more planned than it would seem. On a day nearing her fourteenth birthday she had been delivering product, didn’t know what because she’d learned not to ask questions, when she was cornered. When she had picked up the job from a local meat butcher, he’d shown her some simple self defense moves  and gave her a pocketknife in hopes would help her out if needed. What he hadn’t know was that she’d do much more than take his scarce training to heart, she learned by reading and picked up as many books about self defense as she could from the library. She learned where to use a knife on the human body and which areas could take an injury and which would be fatal.

After that moment she wasn’t so much as scared of the men who wanted to take what she had, but more excited to test out what she’d learned. So excited that when one of the local street walkers went after her with minimal intentions of hurting her, she almost ended his life. She didn’t win that day, the product was still taken, but she learned that she had something in her that wouldn’t lie down and take it, a fight. However that was only the beginning, when she’d gotten home all bloody and hurt her foster mother had called the cops on her, and instead of helping as she’d been attacked, they put her in juvie for a couple of months instead. Some bullshit charge that she doubted was even true, just a means of getting her out of the house. By sixteen she’d spend two more visits inside for smuggling drugs for some dealers in town. After her last stint in juvie and the promise of being tried as an adult the next time something happened, she decided it was time to get out of Texas. Eris couldn’t imagine going anywhere north and instead decided to hitchhike out to California. As a young teen with looks that were decent enough it wasn’t hard to find her way out west and how she decided to stay in the first town she got to was a question she still asked herself. Charming, California was the town she choose and sixteen years later she was still a resident. 

It took her two years to really get on her feet, grab a place that allowed her to pay cash only, and get a job. Sure that job involved selling drugs for the Wolves but over the years her role within the group changed. She grew up, made a name for herself, spent a year in jail for them, and remained loyal. That meant something and is how she wound up managing the current dealers for the Wolves. Since most of their transactions happen at the club the leader owns it was only natural that she’d obtain a job at Rendezvous. Let alone become the manager which went hand in hand with her role within the gang.

 PERSONALITY

Deep down, somewhere in the abyss of her soul, Eris could probably be a nice person. She could enjoy the company of someone else and have normal conversation and be quite charming. Instead she doesn’t let those parts of herself see the light of day. She can’t, because once you let those things take up residence in your head they interfere with rational thinking. Leaders and survivors cannot afford to be deterred from their mission. Being able to detach herself from her own emotions and feelings was something she had to learn early on in life. People who run off their emotions are weak, and she is anything but. Eris rather uses what does rise up in her after an event to learn from and to make sure it doesn’t affect her later on. Most people would say she is cold, brisk, and to the point. Everything she does and says is calculated and for a reason. She is decision orientated and lets that rule her life since she doesn’t have time to let wants or needs come in between her job. That’s how she vies life; a job that will either keep her alive or be her demise. Because of this people generally respect her as they know her decisions do not come from a radical state of thought.

[a-trainers-tale]

Hello there! I'd like to request a paid pokemon team description if you please! I had previously sent in the ask for the free one but changed my mind and decided to pay for one instead. Hopefully that's alright. Lol. So where to start. I'm a 21 year old female Leo. Personality wise, I would basically boil it down to, I’m an amiable introvert. I’ve always been really shy and quiet around strangers, maybe even a bit cautious of friendships as I’ve had too many experiences in the past of (1/?)

toxic friends. However, once I perceive a person to be real and genuine, I can open up to them easily, becoming who I truly am around them: fun-loving, excitable and talkative. I have MBTI personality type INFP also known as The Mediator, which makes sense as I'm definitely the peacekeeping type. In my small group of friends, I'm basically the one who keeps them from getting into fights with each other or other people. I'm also the one who diffuses situations. I myself dislike conflict and (2/?) will do everything in my power to actively ignore it, which may be one of my downfalls. For more positive traits, I have a high level of patience, meaning that I won’t give up on people easily even if everyone else has. I’m also very nurturing towards the people I love. I love raising people up and giving them all the support and affection I can. I’m definitely a hugger. However, more negative traits include my stubbornness and pride. These two go hand in hand really. I pride myself in my (3/?) ability to lead and keep a cool and level head when stuff hits the fan but sometimes even a situation can be too much for me and I’ll quickly begin to crumble. However, in an effort to still appear as the cool, kind leader everyone looks up to, I’ll straight up lie about how I really feel and oftentimes will refuse help. This isn’t just with feelings either. It’s with anything from homework to projects, etc. It’s probably worth mentioning that I can also be incredibly lazy sometimes. My (4/?) bursts of hardworking spirit can often be met with equally long periods of me just going, “Meh…” My hobbies and interests include my top three: Drawing, writing and playing video games. I draw mostly cartoon looking things with maybe a dash of anime sprinkled in there. There’s definitely a lot of video game fan art in there too. When it comes to my writing, I generally like to write a lot of fanfiction (the non-cringy sort. lol.) about different video games and of course, I write my own (5/?) do, so much so that sometimes the story never even gets written. My favorite kinds of video games range from adorable friendly things to horrifying video games. Things like RPGs, strategy, action, horror, etc. I don’t have any consoles so I mostly play PC and mobile games. My top three favorite franchises are Pokemon, Animal Crossing and Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney. I also enjoy Minecraft, Destiny 2 and Tomb Raider. I’ve also been playing Pokemon since Generation 2 with my first game (6/?) Pokemon Silver. Other things I love include baking, reading (especially history), movies (love studio ghibli, anime, horror, action, thriller, comedy, etc.), TV shows about true crime, history and the paranormal. Speaking of, I'm a huge fan of the paranormal and come from a family of people spiritually sensitive to those sorts of things. I also love animes like Jojo's Bizarre Adventure, Hetalia and My Hero Academia. My favorite music includes hardstyle, edm, pop, 80’s/90’s hits, etc. (7/?) My favorite artists consist of Gorillaz, Melanie Martinez, Fleetwood Mac, Journey, etc. I also love going on hikes, swimming and just getting to experience nature. I will admit, I’m a kid who loves to snooze. Sometimes when there’s nothing else left to do, nothing’s better than curling up in bed with the blinds closed and room freezing cold with a warm blanket. I think the reason why is because I’m a vivid dreamer. Most of my inspiration comes from the things I dream up of and my dreams (8/?) always provide me with what may not be obtainable in real life. I’m currently going to school to become a preschool, elementary school or daycare teacher. I’m glad knowing that someday, I could make a difference in a child’s life with my kindness. I love Pokemon because it's given me a sense of joy all these years later after initially discovering it as a child. It's the one thing that had always stuck. This had been a lot of asks but I hope it's enough. Thank you for your time. (9/9)

Trainer class: Nurse

You have a naturally nurturing and caring heart and mind. You like to be able to help people and take care of people, this comes from both a genuine desire to help and also a likely subconscious desire to hold that kind of power in any relationships you have. You have a lot of patience and are willing to wait for things. Nurses do not initiate battle, they will wait for people to come to them directly, and after the battle will heal their opponent's pokemon. This is similar to how you approach your relationships with people, you wait for them to come to you and then dedicate yourself to listening, helping, and diffusing problems. Some people might not really understand you and think that your way of life seems boring or irritating but the way that you view it, helping others is also helping yourself. By not going out of your way to be a rockstar pokemon trainer, you are able to better focus on what you care about, namely helping those who need help and bonding with your pokemon who are safe in your care. Your determination comes and goes, some days you are content to relax with those closest to your and your pokemon, but other days you are out trying to find new methods of helping trainers and pokemon alike. You are creative in how you help pokemon and you pride yourself on your work when you are feeling passionate

Starter: Chikorita

Your starter pokemon is Chikorita. Like you, Chikorita really loves laid back activities and taking naps. Chikorita is often found sunbathing and relaxing in comfortable spots outdoors. Chikorita spends a lot of time looking for the perfect nap conditions and once it finds them it is hardpressed to leave before having its fill of a wonderful afternoon nap. You and Chikorita spend a lot of time relaxing and napping together, and you bond over enjoying simpler activities. Chikorita's lower energy makes it a good fit for you, and it doesn't often pick fights so it will never be a cause for concern for you. 

Partner: Steelix

Steelix is also a very patient pokemon, living for over 100 years sometimes, these pokemon will slowly become harder than diamonds. Steelix is also a very stubborn and very individualistic pokemon, which makes it somewhat of a challenge for you to get it to work with your other pokemon sometimes. You relate to your Steelix's desire to hole itself up in a cave somewhere and ignore any responsibility it may have, but you also relate to how it very often pulls itself out and helps out the rest of your team with you. Steelix is also fiercely protective, you so never have to worry about your other pokemon getting into trouble with Steelix around.

Team: Meganium (starter), Bastiodon, Darmanitan (zen), Dragonair, Hatterene

Hometown: Icirrus City, Unova

Your hometown is Icirrus City in the Unova region. This town is very humid and covered in wetlands, so most of the buildings are on higher ground and there are a lot of inclines. This town is also nearby Dragonspiral Tower, which is the oldest building in Unova and is said to be the home of legendary pokemon Zekrom and Reshiram. Because of your early life consisting of brave trainers venturing here to seek these legendary pokemon, and people fighting over the right to study and unearth these pokemon, you came to realize that you prefer to stay out of the mess most of the time and sometimes help people stuck within it. Your dedication to yourself and your pokemon is very rooted in your decision when you were younger to live a simpler life than a lot of the people who came through your hometown. You also gained some creativity due to growing up in an area that required creative architecture. Your experiences with rather difficult terrain and an interesting social climate made you the kind of person you are, namely that you keep your head when things get weird and you are willing to wait and be patient when others are more inclined to rush in head first.

Battle style: Slow and steady wins the race

You are a very patient and slow battler. You take your time and are very cautious. You tend to come overprepared, with lots of healing items and stat boosting items. Your pokemon are not necessarily hard hitters, but you prioritize their ability to be reliable and predictable for you to use. You prefer pokemon who will consistently do a set amount of damage, for instance, over a pokemon who might or might not do a ton of damage in one hit. You prefer pokemon that work well in groups, you like a team that can work together and help each other over individualistic and self reliant pokemon. You help your pokemon learn to work together and learn to love being a team instead of competing with one another. You enjoy being able to take your time in battles and observe your own pokemon and your opponents for areas they could be more creative or more consistent. Your pokemon all trust you deeply and know that if they take any damage or have any conflict they can't solve themselves, you will be there to help them out of their bind and comfort them after the fact. 

[illstaywithstray]

Coffee| Stray Kids Chan Au

↳  pairing: Stray Kids Chan x Reader| fluff

↳  au: highschool!au, newstudent!chan. badass!reader

↳  warnings: cursing, mentions of violence

↳  word count: 2,337

⁙  summary: Chan is a new student at your school, but after a mishap on the first day and your bad rep at school, how will he feel about you?

⁛  A/N: Thank you for requesting! This was my first fic, so it was a bit short. I hope you like it, and I’ll make the next one longer!

blog masterlist 

“Y/n, I swear to god, I’m about to freeze my balls off.” Walking to school with y/f/n in six inches of snow was practically torture. You laughed at her but passed her the mug of hot chocolate you had been neglecting. She sighed in relief.

“Honestly, if Mr. Bolton gives us another pop quiz today, I’m dropping out and becoming a stripper.” You groaned at the thought of stat class, while y/f/n chugged the rest of her drink. “Relax, you always pass anyway. Besides, we gotta get seats in the front again. I still can’t get over the fact that Namjoon offered to tutor you,” y/f/n shook her head in disbelief. 

“Maybe that’s because we’re friends and he’s nice.” You put an emphasis on the word ‘friends’ and y/f/n rolled her eyes. “He’s the hottest guy at school, but you have zero interest. Lowkey hard to believe.” You rolled your eyes back. “Honestly y/f/n, I know he’s cute, but I literally have no time to date. And my mom would whoop my ass. Annnd tests are coming up soon.” You stepped in front of her and started walking backward. “And there’s a new transfer student. What if he’s the one, and I waste my opportunity to be with him while dating Namjoon?” you voiced dramatically, clutching your hands to your heart with a pained expression. “You’re so dramatic, c’mon, let’s head in.”

You walked into first period with Namjoon, laughing over some guy he’d been tutoring a few days ago. Worldwide handsome or something like that. Heads immediately turned. Heads always turned when Namjoon was in the room. He had the reputation of the “hot aesthetic art student who was totally unattainable,” but in reality, he was a dork who broke everything he touched. Quite literally. You said bye and headed over to your seat where lord behold, a guy was sitting. Dark hair but the palest skin you’d ever seen in your life. And frankly, he was cute. While you were arguing whether or not you were looking at Asian Edward Cullen, he looked up. 

“Yes?” he stared at you, lowkey checking you out. “You’re in my seat,” you explained flatly. “Oh, sorry. I’m new.” He continued staring but didn’t budge. My god, does he not understand? “Yeah, ok, but you can sit over there. No one sits there.” You pointed at an empty desk. He glanced over, and then looked back up at you with the cutest smile in the world. “No thanks.” You looked away and blew air out of your mouth angrily, but walked over to the front to sit with Namjoon. He glanced at you and looked back at the new kid. 

“What happened,” he whispered. “Some dude took my seat.” “Well, at least you can sit with me.” You stared at him blankly, and he held his hands up comedically. Mr. Bolton walked in, holding lovely test packets. You screamed internally and then hit your head against the table a few times. Sitting back up, Mr. Bolton looked at you with concern and then turned to the class. 

“I’m sure you’ve all seen our new student. Chan? Would you like to introduce yourself to the class?” The new guy- Chan- nodded, stood up, and walked over and stood next to the front desk. You looked him up and down. Blue sweatshirt, black jacket, jeans, and a hat. Turned backward. You and Namjoon made eye contact and shook your heads simultaneously. Both of you had the taste of the gods. At least in clothes. “Hey, I’m Chan, I just transferred, and I hope I don’t fail out of stat. Nice to meet you all” The class laughed. You glanced over at NJ and both of you snickered quietly. “Guys, settle down. I was going to give the test for chapter 8 today, but since Chan is new, I figured we could postpone it until after the break. We’ll be studying for the testing week today. I’m sure y/n’s grateful.” You stared at him and shook your head. “Nah, he’s pissed me off in less than a minute. A new record by the way.” The class shuffled in excitement. Chan laughed from behind you, and you glanced at him and felt your face warm up. You lowkey had the reputation of that bitch who got into fights. Behind the school, near the track. And you always won. You’d gotten into trouble so often that your dad just sent his assistant to cover for you. Fortunately, you had the grades, and your dad had the money to bail you out of trouble. Every single time. Not to mention, teachers fell at your feet since you always tried to be nice to them, so school was practically your playground. It was only a matter of time before Chan figured out. 

Which was pretty fast, because guess who was sitting in that exact spot when you dragged Kamini Hersch, by the hair, over there. She had stolen all of one of your friend’s clothes while she was showering in the locker room and thrown them out in the snow. And your friend had walked out into the hallway in a towel, crying. You’d given her extra clothes but searched for her stuff anyway. One of Kamini’s friends had told you what happened, and you’d skipped third period to go find her. 

Actually, neither Chan nor you had seen each other, since there was too much of a crowd for him to see you. After you finished beating some sense into her, you got up, tossed your hair back, and walked away, without a scratch, like nothing happened. You had glanced over him and hesitated for a moment. Did he see me? Someone told him what happened when he asked what the crowd was standing around for, and he glanced at your receding figure, wondering. You shook away your thoughts while walking away, not expecting to see him anytime soon. You were wrong.

You had just bought coffee at lunch, since you had no appetite to eat. In reality, even though Kamini had done something to your friend, you hated laying your hands on anyone. You really weren’t malicious, you just tried to protect your friends. Chan was sitting alone, flipping through a textbook. You felt a pang of sadness for him, and you slid in the seat next to Felix Lee. His table was basically Namjoon’s lunch table but less populated. You glanced over at the table you usually sat at, and Jungkook, Taehyung, Jimin and y/f/n were staring at you until they started pretending that they were having a really deep discussion. Oh god, they think I’m making moves. Ugh, I’m about to get roasted. “Hey guys, so there’s this new kid, and ya know, you guys are super nice and all, so I thought-” Seungmin held up a finger. “Sure, go call him over.” “Nice, thanks.” You walked over to Chan’s table but bumped into some dude and spilled coffee all over his textbook, notes, and clothes. He seemed not to register what had just happened until he felt the coffee burn him.

“Oh my god Chan, I am so sorry, I swear that was an accident, um, I was actually trying to tell you that I found you a lunch table, wait not that I think you look pathetic sitting alone, okay maybe I do, but you’re new, but not gonna lie, you’re kinda cute so I thought you’d have made more friends, but um sorry, I’m so sorry, I was just trying to be nice I swear,” you exhaled, looking at him worriedly. He looked at you and then burst out laughing. “Well, I wasn’t expecting that not gonna lie. You think I’m cute? You really aren’t anything like I heard, are you?” You tilted your head, confused. “People said you were intimidating, but damn, you’re so cute.” He got up, frowning at his textbook. You felt your face heat up at the word ‘cute,’ but pushed it down and sucked in air. 

An hour later, you were drying his notes with your blowdryer while he changed into some of Namjoon’s clothes. You had paid for the damage to his textbook even though he had resisted it for a good thirty minutes. 

He walked out, dressed in a black sweater and jeans. He looked surprisingly good for a dude wearing something so simple. “Well, your notes are dry, but uh, they look a little... bruised.” You winced at the visible stains on the papers.  “Y/n, it’s cool, thanks for the help.” He grinned stupidly, and you felt yourself blushing. “Yeah, don’t mention it. Also, I’ll buy you dinner or something since I wrecked your lunch today.” Now he started turning red. You tossed your phone at him. “Number?” He turned even redder and you felt the corners of your mouth turn up as he typed in digits. He passed it back to you, and you walked out, waving back at him. 

The week ended, and testing week rushed by. It was finally chill at school, and you had more time for yourself. Namjoon and you had studied together almost every day before testing, and everyone assumed you were dating because rumor had it that you had fallen asleep together in the back of the library. Which was true, but it really hadn’t meant anything to either one of you, since he had a girlfriend and you had a massive crush on Chan. When you went to dinner with him, he had been the funniest, most laidback guy you’d ever met. He had called you several times, usually late at night, and the conversation went on so many tangents. You’d told him about what had actually happened at the fight, and he told you how little sleep he got because of dance practices and other work. And then you realized, oh my god, I’m head over heels for this kid. Which, of course, led you to start panicking. Once you had spilled this information to your lunch table, they had bugged you incessantly and kept making obscene noises when he walked by or got to his table at lunch and waved at you. The rest of the guys at his table picked up on your blushing and stuttering whenever Chan talked to you, and began trying to get to you to tell him. 

“Y/N, JUST THE GIRL WE WERE LOOKING FOR,” Changbin and Felix screamed. “Great, the soundcloud boyfriends. Just what I needed.” Seungmin giggled, but shut up when Changbin stared at him. “Seriously though, you should ask him out, he keeps talking about you,” Jeongin said. You sat up straighter. “What’d he say?” Hyunjin snorted, “y/n has a really good smile, but she pretends she’s super aloof.” Woojin continued, “yeah and she always helps me with stat and offers to get me lunch.” Minho was the only one who you could mentally withstand, but even he laughed and said that it was only a matter of time. You decided you were done with these weird kids and walked with Jisung. “Y/n, seriously, he told me he thought you were a really great person. At least talk to him about it. If you like him, that is.” “Okay, yes I like Chan. I like Chris Bang. He’s so fucking funny and cute and smart and I feel something inside me start beating faster whenever he talks to me. There.” You shook your head but felt Jisung snicker and stop. You glanced at him, but he was staring behind you. “I told you, now come out.” Chan poked his head out from behind a locker. “Great. BYE.” And you flew down the hall, taking a corner and slamming into Jungkook. “HIDE ME, THEY EXPOSED ME,” and he grabbed your hand and dove into a supply closet. “Wait, what happened?” “JISUNG SET ME UP, CHAN KNOWS I LIKE HIM. I EXPOSED MYSELF OH LORDY.” “First of all, shut up, the janitor’s threatening to report me if I keep coming in here, and second, how’d he react?” “Well, I ran away, so I’m not sure.” “Girl, go out there and get your man. Don’t be a pussy.” “Fine.” 

And then you stepped out of the closet, walking around the janitor, who cursed quietly upon seeing Jungkook and yet another girl in his supply closet. You saw Chan standing by himself back in the same hallway, and took him behind the school. Snow was falling as he stared down at you, looking slightly confused. 

“Yeah, what I said was true. I like you. Sorry.” You exhaled air and looked away. 

“Phew, I thought you were about to beat me up or something. Since this is your spot. And why are you sorry? I like you too.”

“Dumbass, I like you like I like like you.” 

“Yes, and I like like you too. I’ve been trying to ask you out y/n.” 

You stared at him blankly, and watched the snow fall on his face. He stared back at you, flushing slightly. And then, like in a stereotypical Hallmark movie, he took your face in his hands. You felt your heart speeding up by the close proximity of his face to yours. The cold air swirled and howled around you as he leaned closer and kissed you. You could hear cheering coming from inside, where everyone had their faces pressed up against the windows. “Y/N’S MAKING OUT WITH CHAN AT THE SPOT.”

After the day at the Spot, you and Chan were that couple. The one that made out in the supply closet (which the janitor abandoned since you had traded him your locker like the saint you were and which Jungkook decided to avoid), held hands to stat class and were always running in slow motion to each other. He’d refused to let you beat people up, but bandaged your bloody knuckles when a bitch tested you and you made sure that he was taking care of his health and sleeping on time. Every Friday was study night with Namjoon, his new girlfriend (who, by the way, was y/f/n; she’d finally tried to talk to him, and then he told you that he liked her, so you’d set them up like the amazing friend you were), and Chan, and then you’d go back to his dorm for dinner and a movie. Which was practically always horror, and neither one of you liked horror, so it was only natural that both of you ended up huddled in blankets screaming. And going to amusement parks with him was practically the cutest thing ever. Because he turned into a little kid and pulled you to every ride. And literally every single time he smiled at you, with that smile, you were so, so glad that you had spilled coffee on this boy. 

[huntermjames-blog]

The Fear Never Ends: Football Season has not Yet Begun

I start this attempt at Gonzo journalism shitting my brains out spun out from too much flower and chain-smoking juul pods. This happens to be my normal routine anyhow but I've been in exteme edge these past few days. Robert Mueller testified before Congress two days ago (7/24/19 of this despicable year of our Lord). What he said was nothing that has not been discolsed in his report on the interference of Russian propagandists and hackers, in the US election. Trump admitted he took help from those fascist bastards during his campaign and nothing is done. Mueller outlines time and time again how Trump has interfered with the investigation and yet nothing is done. Not even a word one way or another as to his opinion if whether or not there was obstruction of Justice. My mind is wired and these drugs are not helping as intended. Best to take more and wash them down with plenty of gin. But not now. Now I write and shit. Tomorrow I am going to the Monmouth County Racetrack under the guise of spending time with family I avoid every chance I can get. My main purpose however is somewhat more sinister, I wanted to go out and find the epicenter of the evil that still supports our modern day Nixon. The far right middle America that can not see behind the flags and MAGA banners that flatfoot traitors continue to sell out our country each and everyday for pennies on the dollar. I want to study these people. Observe there habits. Perhaps come to some sort of understanding as to how they could even doublethink there own hypocrisy. Hohoho tomorrow I will be a stranger in a strange land, but today I am hitting the books. Hunter S Thompson is my last remaining stronghold of the American dream. Someone who clearly saw what it was, and how it was slipping away at every grasp. But football season has not yet begun to start and while HST cannot continue to give us hope in the face of fear and loathing, I can try my part. So here I go, finishing up my shit. About to smoke my brains out even further so they come back into place. Maybe then I will be in better standing to analyze the futility of my mission, and what perils to my own sanity lie ahead.

I paruse my record selection. The Lemon Twigs or The Nude Party? Classic rock is making a revival in today's indie scene, taking huge chunks of inspiration from the Beatles, The Doors, The Zombies. Hell Bob Dylan's grandson is making fairly passable folk today following in some huge Troubadour footsteps. And besides him singer-songwriters such as Courtney Barnett and Father John Misty are continuing his tradition as well. Making elegant songs about the hopelessness of it all, and all the while making it easy enough for the Everyman to understand. I however am not, my mind continues to jitter and I apologize for the surely dozens of off beat tangents I am likely to go on. My purpose for bringing up classic rock is a pit in my stomach. Everything is a circle, and at first I misunderstood the relevance of this at first. Everything from the music, to film, to fashion, and undoubtedly politics is tinted with the dead memory of the late 60's early 70's. I embraced this at first because as a man out of time I have come more in tune with the absurdity of the juxtaposition. However I am beginning to realize that this isn't simply a rehashing, set by whatever computer controls the simulation we inhabit, these fuckers want round 2. They fought against social justice, and workers rights for far too long in an unwinnable battle. But now they've figured out the answer, identity politics and political subversion, or as historians will one day call it, propaganda. We approach this race with extreme caution. We have one evil force that must be stopped however possible, but our choices to unseat him don't look too appetizing. Joe, the symbol of democratic ineptitude. Warren and Bernie, neo socialists who oppose our second amendment right to a frightening point. Because if we don't have guns what happens when trump takes his third term??? Or his fourth??? No that fools done have the sight to comprehend the tyrany in front of them. Booker or Beto might be an acceptable candidate, progressive enough, in enough American companies pockets, continue the status quo of incompetence without doing any irreparable damage... Shit. Are these our best choices, how did we get here? How did I get here? Have I always been in this absurd shit show or have I died in some car accident while driving on acid, and this is my final dmt trip with my beyond twisted mind trying to make sense of what could've been. Maybe I'm Dead already and I'm living in continues mediocrity, and pain. Each is just as likely as it is not. But how does that help me? I'm here and I can't change that fact, I guess I'll try to do my part despite the entirely possible futility. Like Sisyphus, but with a sense of self awareness.. What still needs to be done is fight these feelings, detatch completely and absorve myself in what I can see, hear and feel even if it is Evil itself.I digress. I'm currently looking up stats for tomorrow's race, my chance to bet big and achieve the American Dream. I like a horse named noonsight, the jockie is doing extremely well for himself too. Maybe I can make some money, betting on the American dream. Hoping a combination of scrappiness and skill under the right circumstances can propell an underdog into victory. And for a dress bucks I can ride coattails. I can't wait.

#gonzo #huntersthompson #trump #horceracing #pigfucking

[lukin08]

A Matter of Time

Happy Anna Weekend 2017!

A/N-Set in A Major Life Universe here.  This takes place in the off season when Kristoff is still in the Minor Leagues.  Most of the fic is told from Kristoff’s view.  I wanted to give Anna’s POV this time in this little backstory.  

Rating: T (for brief mention of sex)

Words: around 1300

Anna, like most people lived by the ticking of the clock.  She knew down to the second how long it took her to walk to the bus stop. She could already tell if she was going to miss it when she walked out the door of the apartment.  She hit the snooze button on her phone exactly 5 times each weekday morning unless she was extra tired and went for a sixth.  

She gave herself just enough time to hastily get ready and run out the door each morning; hence her missing the bus more than she’d like to admit.  She always planned on walking into class ten minutes early.  It rarely happened, but she usually managed make it just in at the last second, even if it meant jogging all the way from her apartment on those days when she opted for the additional time in bed.  No one would blame her for wanting that extra time when she was curled up so perfectly against Kristoff’s warm and inviting body.     

Work was a slightly different story.  Most days, she slid through the back door more than a few minutes late, throwing on her work shirt before racing out to the front.  She was grateful her boss liked her enough to only shake his head each time she rushed passed him to greet customers.  It didn’t hurt that she was one of the best employees he had.  She didn’t particularly love her job, but it paid enough for them to get by for now and she got to talk to people, so it made the afternoons and evenings at least go by quickly.  That was unless she knew Kristoff was home and then time would practically stand still.  On those nights, her boss would occasionally give her a nod signaling for her to cut out from her shift fifteen minutes early so she could race back to their place.

She had picked up extra shifts in the fall to help pay for a second car that Kristoff was absolutely certain they needed.  Anna tried to convince him she was fine just taking the buses to get around, but there was no changing his mind.  It annoyed her to no end to think Kristoff didn’t feel she was capable of taking care of herself.  But he finally explained that he just wanted her safe and he felt better knowing she at least had the option to drive.  She had to admit he was right and it was just his way of trying to help when he couldn’t be home with her.

Anna always hated those conversations because it reminded her of how short their time left together was.

The passage of longer swaths of time was where Anna differed from most people.  Her life was divided between when Kristoff was a regular fixture in it or not.  Nothing was ever easy, even when he was home.  She always felt the ever present countdown in her head.  

At first it was months. Months were tolerable.  Months gave her time to relax and the ability to push down the ever increasing knot in her stomach as fall turned to winter. There were even days when she almost could forget that next season would be here soon.  Kristoff would come home exhausted from his job he took in the off season.  She’d have been studying all day and they’d order food then lay on the couch wrapped up together watching a movie not worth remembering in their cramped apartment. On those occasions it was just the two of them, struggling to make it all work with the promise of a future that could only get better.  She would enjoy the moment because it was months away before he had to go again. She could operate normally on months. She had time.

Until months turned into weeks.

Weeks were somewhat manageable.  The dread loomed larger behind her now, but Anna still shrugged it off most of the time.  There is lot’s that can be done in weeks and she did not need to be bothered with thinking about what happened when they were over.  She made sure to enjoy what time she had with Kristoff and to make him smile and laugh at her silly antics and to just not worry about her for a bit.  Still there were unchecked times, when worry crept into her bones.

She didn’t catch at first when weeks turned into days.  Until the realization hit her straight in the gut and she was caught trying to hold back a choking sob.  Days. They only had days left.  All too soon it would be hours, then minutes and finally, seconds until she would be forced to watch, with a wave and smile on her face, Kristoff drive away and not come back until fall.

It took every bit of strength in her not to ask him to stay.  They were barely married a year now and they had spent more time apart than together.  She never would have imagined her life would be like this before they started dating. But Kristoff had always been honest with her about the realities of being with him. She accepted it from the beginning, even if it meant more likely than not, the only thing that baseball would give them was Kristoff with an unfinished degree, a few years in the minors and not a penny to show for all their sacrifice.

All she’d have to say was don’t go and Kristoff would give it all up.  There were times she would look at him and swear he was silently begging her to ask him to stop playing.  He’d mention casually how maybe he’d go back to school or get a job doing construction or something with his hands and perhaps see if he could coach at one of the area high schools.  Anna was graduating in May and he’d talk about getting a place close to where she ended up working, saving up for a house and maybe in a few years or so they could think about starting a family.  That’s when Anna knew she had to steel herself when all she wanted to do was to indulge in those small fantasies with him.  That version of their life could wait.  

She would be the strong one when he could not be.  Anna told him no.  He was going back to spring training next season and that was the end of any discussions she’d have with him on the topic.  Kristoff was good and he needed to go and fight for that dream.  Anna had all his stats memorized.  She understood what it all meant when others spoke about how he played.  She listened to his agent when he said to be patient.  Kristoff would get called up.  It was only a matter of time.  She believed it with her whole heart so Kristoff would believe in himself.

Those last days in February blurred into each other.  Anna lost count how many times they made love, their need to be close almost insatiable. She ignored the clock when their last hours ticked by.  “A little longer,” he said between kisses.  “I still have time.”  It was a lie. They both knew it.  Kristoff should have left almost two hours ago.  But neither of them was willing to give up each other’s touch until they had no other choice.

It would be better once they were both back into their routines. Then the countdown would start again. It was only four weeks until she’d be down to visit him during her spring break.  Another nine and she’d graduate.  And despite Kristoff’s protests, Anna already decided that a permanent job could wait until fall.  She’d head down to be with him as soon as graduation was over.  It was where they both needed her to be.

Anna had no idea what the next weeks and months and years would hold.  Sometimes ignorance was best.  It allowed her to hold on to hope.  Whatever life had planned for them, Anna would face it head on.  But the one thing she knew without a doubt is that Kristoff would be there right along with her.   They were always stronger together.

[disrepairhouse]

::Return - Chapter 15

Hours and seconds passed at the same rate as the gem pulled them towards an exit.  Itara was grateful for the end of the whipping about, either way, but she had virtually no time to prepare for a graceful landing and had already accepted her inevitable plummet into rocks or concrete or whichever she was about to land on. The opened portal threw them back out with a powerful kick, sending Itara scrambling to stay on her feet but it was Zero who saved her face – and knees – by keeping a grip on her hand until she regained her balance.  She had no further time to thank him, however, as a familiar voice yelled out.

“Sonic, help me!”

Itara’s brows furrowed as she looked up, noticing first that the world was… not covered in fire.  The sky was blue and the temperature felt normal for a summer afternoon in the northern hemisphere.  But Tails was not twenty feet away, cowering in front of a broken E-123 Omega, with Chaos closing in.

Chaos?

Not the giant, world-destroying Chaos she’d left behind. It was normal, regular-sized Chaos, before he gained control over the emeralds.  Yet he was attacking nonetheless and Itara knew who her enemies were nowadays.  “Zero!” she pointed the water monster out and within seconds, it was cut down.  However, it seemed to fizzle out of existence instead of simply retreating back into the drain it came from.  She was glad to see Tails again, it meant she was back home, but something was clearly off.  How long had she been gone?  Did they power the Gods down before she managed to return with the gem?  Did she… go back in time?  Well, she would get her answers soon.

Tails came out of his curled ball slowly, looking over his shoulder once he put his arms down, his hopeful expression dropping to confusion. Obviously, he’d been expecting Sonic, but his next question concerned Itara even more, “Who are you?”  Tails show know Zero by now and, more importantly, he should have recognized her but he showed no signs of recognition once she walked over.

“Do you… not know us?” she questioned, meeting his confusion.

“Are you with the Resistance?”

She didn’t recall their group having a name before but Knuckles did seem to like naming things unnecessarily, perhaps she simply never noticed.  “That depends on what the ‘Resistance’ is, I suppose.”  She desperately needed a nap.  This day was too long.

Tails’ brow furrowed in further confusion, he debated for a long moment before answering warily, “The Resistance against Eggman? The team put together by Knuckles to fight back against Eggman and his army and take the world back?”

Eggman?  Eggman should be hiding in space.  What army was this?  She looked up to give Zero a look of confusion and concern before turning back to Tails, “I’m… going to need an explanation.”  She glanced around the street.  It was abandoned, she couldn’t even hear distant city noise, despite being dead center in a well-developed cityscape.  It wasn’t Soleanna, she could tell that much, but not much beyond that. The longer she looked, the more details stuck out to her.  The buildings were badly damaged and she could see smoke in the distance.  Weeds were growing up through the cement, with full grass patches where the cement had been completely upturned.  Then there was the inactive Omega right next to them. What was going on here?  When was here?

“What… year is it?” she questioned slowly, turning her gaze back to Tails, who jerked and watched her strangely.

“It’s… 2017.  Are you… alright?  Were you attacked by one of Eggman’s robots?  I can take you to a shelter to get your head checked out.”

That couldn’t be right.  It was only the beginning of 2017 when she and Zero left her world.  Even if this was later in the year, it couldn’t possibly be so different.  She reached out to grab Tails’ shoulders, questioning, “Are you sure?”

“Y-Yes!  I’m sure. Let me take you to one of the shelters, you clearly need to lie down,” Tails insisted, reaching up to pry her hands off, though he looked up at Zero warily, “Who are you?”

Zero’s eyes narrowed, but reluctantly responded, “I suppose I’ve now taken on the role of this one’s keeper.”  If he recalled correctly, it had been this same year when they left.  Why did the fox not recognize at least Itara?  Something didn’t add up.  Perhaps X was right to send him, he would need to keep a close eye on the situation. Yet at the same time, it meant more of this world’s nonsense.

Tails eventually convinced Itara to follow him to a resistance base so she could get looked at and lie down – and apparently caught up on what was going on – and the three headed out of the city mostly in silence. Zero surveyed their surroundings, taking careful note of the differences between the world they left behind and the one they arrived in.  There was still heavy destruction, but if the fox was to be believed, it was caused by the scientist, rather than the Gods.  In fact, other than the initial run-in with Chaos, there was no sign of the Gods and their destruction.  Itara was lost in thought and confusion but Tails found the strength to speak up again soon enough.

“The nearest base is a bit of a run.  Are you going to be alright to make the journey?  You seem really out of it.”

Itara stared out, unable to respond for several moments, but shook her head at length.  “I think I need the walk.”  Then again, she didn’t even have time to rest from her last disaster-laden walk.  Her knees were still scuffed up, everything was sore, her head was swimming, and she was absolutely drained from using so much power.  As soon as they arrived at the base, she wanted a nap.  Then answers.

The rest of the walk was equally silent.  They tread carefully through the destroyed ghost town, Zero running point on their path out of the city to avoid any mishaps or run-ins with the sea of Eggman robots running about.  They could see wide, towering robots several stories high in the distance making a bigger ruckus on the other side of the city but it thinned out considerably on their side.  Itara nearly collapsed into the pasture once they were outside the city, both from exhaustion and the simple desire to lie on green grass again.  She vaguely registered Tails mentioning something about ‘Green Hill’ but all her shock-ridden brain could conjure was the agreement that the hill they were on was, in fact, green and that she hadn’t seen any such thing in far too long.  Tails cast her a worried glance at the comment, but said nothing as his wristlet suddenly beeped.  He stopped to check it and glared once he did.

“What is it?” Zero questioned, knowing Itara wasn’t registering any conversation.

“Eggman,” Tails spat, his fury with the scientist overwhelming in his tone and expression.  “He’s apparently nearby.  We need to see what he’s up to.”

They both glanced over at Itara as she stood, wavering in place, struggling to stay awake.  Zero sighed and reached down to pick her up, startling her back away, “Huh? What?”

“You’re slow and we need to make a side stop.”

She only stared out again, a small, tired smile spreading across her face.  Metal used to call her slow.  She missed him.  Zero gave Tails the go ahead to lead the way and the two took off again at a much quicker pace without the need to wait for the zoned out, half asleep hedgehog dozing off against Zero’s back.  Tails seemed to study the landscape with uncertainty as they passed through, Zero growing concerned that he was already lost.  However, before long, the wristlet went off again and Tails came to a slow stop, suddenly waving Zero down and ducking behind an outcrop of rocks.

The two made themselves scarce and listened in on the nearby conversation.  Zero reached up to shake the hedgehog awake, hushing her when she yelped at the sudden movement.

“And with that, the last of the Phantom Ruby prototypes are destroyed.”  It was a voice neither Zero nor Itara recognized.  It was deep and self-assured and came from a black and white jackal standing several feet in front of them.  His back was to them, facing the all-too-familiar round shape of Dr. Robotnik in one of his many hovercrafts.

“It was a defective model, anyway,” Robotnik grumbled.

“Only a being with my strength of will could ever activate it, anyway.”

“It doesn’t matter now, with the lab in Mystic Jungle locked down. Which reminds me, didn’t you run into Sonic while you were there?”  The question got a wide-eyed stare from Tails.

“Yes, but he was powerless against me.  There is no need for concern.”

“You let the hedgehog live?!  That is a great cause for concern!”

“For you, perhaps.  He’s beaten you for decades.  But I defeated him in our first meeting.”  Itara’s brows furrowed in confusion.  Defeated Sonic?  She’s never seen this jackal before in any of her long lives.

“Phantom Ruby Prototypes?” Tails questioned, grabbing their attention, “And Sonic is… alive?”  What? He suddenly ducked below the rocks and Zero moved further around the cliff to ensure they weren’t seen.  After a moment, the conversation continued and the three went back to listening.

“We move forward with the plan, then.  In three days, the Resistance will be erased.  The world will be ashes, from which a glorious new Eggman Empire will arise!” Robotnik exclaimed.

“And the Resistance will yield to the power of the Phantom Ruby.  All will submit.”

The conversation ended but Tails and Zero waited until they were sure the two had left before moving again.  Tails walked out and went right to pacing, “Sonic is alive!  But what is Eggman planning this time?  I’ve never heard of this Phantom Ruby before, we need to look into this.  I need to get this back to everyone.”  He stopped and looked up at Zero and Itara, “We need to get back to headquarters, stat.”

Zero glanced back at the hedgehog on his back when she gave no response, finding her staring down with a look of perplexed confusion.  Once she realized the others are looking to her for a response, she shook her head and focused in, “I’m inclined to agree but first, I need to know.  Assume, hypothetically, that I have no idea what you’re talking about right now.  What happened to Sonic, exactly?”  Tails’ expression flashed between impatient and confused before finally settling on pained. “Consider it a possible side effect of my apparent head injury,” she added when it seemed to be an odd question.

Eventually, Tails sighed and crossed his arms, looking away from them and frowning, “If you really don’t know… six months back, the city came under attack by Robotnik.  Robots everywhere.  We did our best to fight them off but when Sonic finally showed up to take care of Egghead, himself… that jackal appeared.  With others.” Tails’ ears dropped as he explained, “I couldn’t get a reading on him, no matter what I tried.  It was five-on-one, I didn’t know what to do. Sonic… I thought… I thought we lost him. We haven’t seen him since the fight. It’s how Robotnik’s gotten so far. The entire world has fallen. Knuckles is doing his best, trying to keep up a Resistance, but without Sonic…”

Itara’s expression only grew more confused.  Six months?  Robotnik?  None of this lined up.  Perhaps it was best to keep a low profile, at least until she determined what was going on. Who was that jackal?

“But he’s alive!” Tails suddenly sprung to life again, looking up at them with impatience once more, “We have to get this back to headquarters!  There’s still hope!”

Itara and Zero exchanged a silent conversation through glances that ended when Itara finally nodded and looked to Tails again, “Right. Then we ought to get going again, I should think.  Lead the way.”  She wasn’t sure what any of this meant or why they ended up here, but she had a sneaking suspicion this was not her timeline.  Again.  She would need to be cautious about walking into the Resistance den, just in case. She didn’t know who would be there or what they knew or even her own status in whatever timeline this possibly was.

The run between what Itara finally recognized as Green Hill and the Resistance base outside of Metropolis did little to answer further questions.  She realized why she hadn’t recognized anything right away, being an entire world away from Soleanna, but the destruction wasn’t nearly the same as she was used to.  Unlike the world she left, cities were still mostly intact, forests remained standing, and the oceans were where they belonged.  There was no sign of Solaris or either form of Gaia, and she questioned whether the Chaos they ran into was even the real one.  It didn’t react the way the real Chaos should have.  What was going on?

The gem in her bag, that she was sure was from her world, had all but dragged them to this exit.  It knew where it was going, where it belonged.  So how did this all connect?  Why here?

The Resistance base, hidden in a deep section of forest well out of the city’s sight, came into view rather suddenly as Tails slowed to enter the building.  There was decent tree coverage and Itara hadn’t even realized it was there until they were practically on top of it, unlike Sonic’s base back home, which stuck out like a sore thumb on a flat, burnt landscape.  Tails led the way through the cement-covered hallways and through a massive draw-up sliding door to reveal what she assumed was the main command center.  There was a console set up in the center of the room with a large screen on the back wall and several boxes set up around the edges of the room.

“Sonic!”

“Tails!”

“You’re alive!”

The two embraced as Itara motioned to Zero to put her back on her feet again, though kept to the far edge of the room to observe.  In addition to Sonic and Tails, Knuckles, Amy, Silver, and Team Chaotix were all present.  Wait, Silver?  What was he doing here?  How was he here?!  What was going on in this timeline?!  She saw no sign of Blaze, though.  Or Shadow, for that matter.  At least that was some small relief.  She decided to focus back in on the conversation to try and find out.

“The good news is: you’re safe,” Tails was saying, “The bad news is: Eggman said he has some plan that will destroy us all in three days.”

“Normally I’d laugh at an Eggman plan, but he’s already conquered most of the world at this point,” Knuckles frowned.

“Three days, huh?  A lot can happen in that time!” Sonic grinned with all the optimism Itara had certainly not missed.  He finally seemed to notice the extra eyes at the back the room, though, as he looked over and questioned, “Who are you?”  All eyes fell to the hedgehog and robot as Itara took a deep breath.

“We came to join the fight, of course,” she lied, not wanting to causing any suspicion just yet.  “But it’s been an incredibly long day and I think I’ve bumped my head at some point.  Do you have anywhere I could possibly lie down and rest for a bit?”  She reached up to rub her head, conveniently where she was getting a headache, anyway.  She supposed it helped she was likely covered in scratches and bruises from the last fight she joined, as well.

“Sure thing,” Knuckles stepped up, motioning for her to follow him, though they all watched Zero with a heavy amount of suspicion. Before she could jump to his defense, however, a warning popped up on Vex’s wristlet.

“I hate to interrupt, but we’re apparently under attack. Shadow is tearing through our forces in Sunset Heights, we may need to send in reinforcements,” he explained, causing the room to go silent and Itara to stop in her tracks.  Shadow was an enemy in this timeline?  Should she be working with Sonic, then?  Her head was spinning and the sooner she laid down, the better.  She turned desperately back to Knuckles and asked again about that place to lie down. She would deal with all of this after some rest.  As Knuckles led her and the ever-watchful Zero back through another door, the conversations about Shadow continued behind them.

“Shadow, huh?” Sonic growled, “Last time I saw him, he was working for Eggman.”

“It’s possible he’s being controlled by that strange gem,” Silver suggested.

“Whatever it is, I’ll figure it out.”

Gem?  The Phantom Ruby mentioned earlier?  No. No.  She would figure it out later.  Her head was splitting.  Knuckles led them down the hall a way to a small, empty room and swung the door open for her.  “It’s not much, but its what we’ve got for now.  I’ll come back in a bit to give you a better introduction to everything, but we’ve got a situation at the moment.”

“It’s fine.  Do what you must,” Itara muttered, trudging into the room and nearly collapsing on the bed, Zero following after.  Knuckles tossed them a final glance before closing the door and leaving.  Once he was gone, she groaned loudly and wrapped her head in her hands for a solid minute.  This was too much at once.  None of it made sense.  She was still trying to comprehend everything that happened before Sigma, now there was all this!  Should she follow Sonic?  The Resistance?  Figure out what’s going on with Robotnik?  Look into the changes – wait.

All at once, her thoughts stopped dead in their tracks and she remained perfectly still while Zero watched her silently from the other side of the room.  With a deep breath, she pushed herself up into a sitting position and stared out, muttering, “I’m a time traveler.”

“You are.”

“I’m back in my universe.”

“Yes.”

“Why am I stressing about being anywhere in any specific amount of time?”

“From what I can tell, you -.”

“That was rhetorical!” Itara shouted angrily as she stood back up properly and reached around to pull her backpack off.  “I’m going to time travel to find out what’s going on here.  I’m going to readjust my brain.  And I’m going to take a long nap,” she explained as deadpan and calm as physically possible.  “We’re somehow in the same time as when we left, but obviously something is off here. I’m going to go back to this event six months ago and watch what happened, myself.”  Obviously, the differences ran deeper than this event with Sonic so she would likely need to travel back further, but it was a start to the current situation to at least determine whose side she should be on. “I don’t want to get involved in anything that’s going on until I’m sure of the situation.  Stay here, I’ll be back.”

“Very well.  Don’t get lost.”

“Shut up.”  With that, she reached out to the timelines and sighed in relief when she had access to them again.  They felt different, but she imagined there were a number of good reasons for that.  She found the date she was looking for and stepped through, disappearing from sight. Zero stood, waiting and watching, wondering what she would find and how long it would take her to return.  Should he explore their headquarters more?  Do his own digging?  But as he was pushing off the wall to do just that, the portal opened and she returned, looking distinctly more ragged and confused than when she left.

“I don’t understand anything.”  Her eyes were wide and she stared off at a far corner, though didn’t actually seem to see anything before her.  There were new tears in the clothes she’d worn for – to him – all of a day, but more than anything, that strange doll was back in her arms, whole again. “I don’t understand anything at all,” she repeated, falling back on the bed and continuing to stare off, “Nothing’s right.  Soleanna isn’t right.  RK was destroyed.  Metal was in lockdown.  Our house was empty, like we’d never been there in the first place.”  She looked up at him finally, the dread filling every fiber of her being, “There was no battle of the Gods eight years ago. There was no Mephiles.  No Iblis.  Nothing in my timeline ever happened!  I don’t exist!  Did my travel to your dimension mess mine up entirely somehow?!  Did my existence get erased while I was gone?!”

As she wrapped her arms tighter around the silent, two-tailed fox doll and pulled her legs up onto the bed to rock back and forth, Zero could only watch in confusion.  “Is it possibly we’re in an alternate timeline altogether?”

She went silent for several long moments before looking up at him with wide eyes, “That’s it!  That’s got to be it, we’re in an alternate timeline.  I’m not actually home yet!”  But her eyes narrowed in confusion again as she looked towards her dropped backpack, “But then… why here?  This problem with Eggman isn’t our concern.  Why would we get pulled here?”

“Perhaps it’s that ruby they spoke of.”

“The… ruby.  Right. Right!”  She jumped up off the bed again, though nearly crashed to the floor the second she did, causing Zero to sigh heavily.  He was definitely starting to understand why the other robots watched over her so closely.  She was a mess.  As much as she insisted otherwise.  Once she had herself readjusted and her backpack pulled on, she turned back to him and squared up, “We need to find that jackal.  I’m going to- wait.”  She stopped short and reached back to grab her notebook but stopped short again. None of the pages were blacked-out anymore.  Not the ones from her world, not the ones from Zero’s, and none of the later pages. Her book was entirely back to normal. “So… this is it?  This is what was causing my notebook to act up. Whatever’s going on in this world is what’s affecting the other dimensions.  It’s got to be that ruby!”

“If the Robotnik of this world has something powerful enough to affect not only other timelines in his own dimension but mine as well, what do you intend to do against it?  The reason you sought this power out was because it was stronger than the Gods, right?  So what do you intend to do against it?”

“I…”  All the color immediately faded from her face as her posture crumbled in on itself.  He had a point.  The entire purpose of this long, drawn out expedition was to find a power strong enough to defeat the Gods.  If someone like Robotnik had that kind of power, he wouldn’t give it up without a fight and overpowering her would be all too easy.  However, after a moment, she huffed and shook her head, squaring back up, “I’ll figure it out.  If I don’t exist here, no one should expect my powers.  That was my advantage in the original timeline, no one knowing who or what I was, I can use that advantage again.  Which means, for now, we need to keep our real identities under wraps.  Until I can learn more.”

She stopped again and looked back and forth between the bed and the door, debating for several minutes before sighing.  Her backpack shuffled off her shoulders and thudded to the floor as she crawled back over to the bed, “I need that nap, after all.  We can go chasing after Sonic and Shadow and that jackal later.  Wake me up if anything else happens, alright?”

“Do I look like your alarm clock?” Zero growled, getting a scowl from the hedgehog.

“Fine.  Then I’ll just sleep for hours and you can sit there being bored all day.  I don’t care.  I’m going to sleep.”  And with a final huff, she curled up, closed her eyes, and blocked the outside world out.