#I have read that with more focus than on any academic paper in my whole life honestly I need to install it in my brain somehow

[sherryholmes]

Oh fuck, so - sorry, this was my first reaction after reading this beast of an essay. Firstly, an enormous THANK YOU goes to @grimaldiapologist, who blessed us (and continues to bless us) with such analysis and insight. Secondly, I am sorry for reading it late, but I swear I am here for the whole ride, friend.

I felt like my entrails had been replaced and mixed up together, then again put back together as I read the essay realizing that Caracalla knew what he was doing in his kind of reality.

I suppose you can also consider this the tragedy of becoming someone you hated all your life, in their instance, their father, which both mirrored at some point in the situations.

Geta lost his sense of invincibility after they killed Acacius, the whole of Rome against them. Now, that Geta has lost all his delusions, he knows he needs to stay strong, to actually become The Emperor - who else he learn that from? Who was a role model for being an Emperor? After all, it was their father.

When he splashed Caracalla with the wine, he mirrored his father, hurting Caracalla. Makes me wonder if he saw himself in Caracalla when they were young. After all, taking (not all) of their father's rage.

The fact that Macrinus fed Caracalla's delusion makes my stomach turn, it just breaks my heart. I hate this so much that I can't even process it in my mind.

Caracalla really gets off seeing blood, and I also think in that scene it's the realization that he actually can protect himself from the hand that strikes him. Believing that Geta is someone who doesn't love him - again, from who Caracalla never received love? Their father.

Well, now he finally can take revenge, to protect himself.

Is it it twisted to think that he wanted to kill their father to make Geta happy, to show how capable he is too?

Ok, I already forgot the point I wanted to make, but I really, really thrive reading these essays, it adds another level to the whole story and it becomes something even more.

THANK YOU, again, for actually luring me out of the tags.

Sending all the love <3  

#(other thought: do you think Cara really realized whats happening?) via @sherryholmes

Lads, we're about to find out what the text post limit for Tumblr is, because this is the longest post I've ever made here. Unfortunately it's also a post I've been procrastinating on for days, and turns out, for a good reason. Every part of this was awful. Trigger warning for literally everything but mostly for child abuse and exploration of chronic trauma.

In regards to Caracalla's mental state in this scene and forwards, there's at least three different perspectives that come into play at once, and of the main two (trauma/dissociation and the complications from his syphilis) neither is inherently more important than the next. Both of his issues affect each other as well as the way he perceives his reality, and to get to how much he's really keeping up with things at the end here evidently required half a day's worth of analysis into the whole of the timeline for this scene, but also Caracalla's past from - and I wish I was kidding - birth onwards. But to start someplace that makes sense, we'll go back just a bit from this scene: specifically, to the night before any of this takes place.

While it's obvious that Caracalla's mental state is taking a turn for the worse throughout the film, it's after the discovery of Acacius's plot that he starts looking really rough. The same can be said for Geta, who, dealing with his own issues in the aftermath, has rather suddenly stopped being a singular, solid, reliable foundation for Caracalla to ground upon. In general, Geta's attention (trust, affection) has been steadily turning for Macrinus, who is offering him everything that Caracalla can't: guidance, someone to lean on, a sort of a fatherly affection that he's been missing his whole life.

In the aftermath of Acacius's execution, each of the twins is looking for something from the other that isn't available: Caracalla for Geta's usual ability to reason them out of any trouble and come up with solutions for their safety, Geta for Caracalla to show one inkling of responsibility to help him or at the very least stop attacking him when he already knows he fucked up and it scares him, and with some of Macrinus's gentle guidance, their stressed-out bickering turns to... a very modest, but still significant, physical assault when Geta - aiming to silence Dondus with a splash of water - spills it over his brother instead. As I wrote earlier, this breaks things between them. And this right here is significantly destabilising for Caracalla in specific.

As others have already pointed out, Caracalla's reaction to his brother's outburst (it was you, Geta, not him) is primarily dissociative. He freezes first: the freeze reaction is part of the fight/flight/freeze/fawn quad of primitive reactions to a perceived threat, where when faced with danger to one's immediate physical safety, a person "freezes" in place to minimise the attention they draw to themselves. This reaction is most commonly portrayed and observed in animals, as in people, depictions tend to focus on fight/flight the most. "Deer in the headlights" is a typical metaphor used to refer to a freeze state: that shocked stillness in a person who doesn't know what to do. But a freeze response doesn't inherently express fear: it can be very quiet, and very empty.

The freeze response is inherently a dissociative state. Because the mind perceives the situation inescapable, the person becomes still and silent in the hopes of becoming invisible. On the surface this doesn't make sense in a survival state, because doing this in a situation where you're very much not going to blend into your environment will likely only expose you to more harm than in any way protect you from it - but to understand it, it's important to note that this is the primary response to immediate physical danger found in children.

In comparison to an adult, who has other means of defending themselves, a child will in most cases be incapable of direct self-defense (fight) and they will be too slow to escape danger (flight), so their best bet is to stay very still and hope somebody else intervenes (freeze). A child who is not saved but is then attacked may enter a further dissociative state, where, if they cannot save their physical self, then they can at least save their mental self - they will lock up, and "go somewhere else" in their heads. This is relevant for context, for understanding what the hell this boy is thinking in general, but for now,

what Caracalla does in this situation is just to the left of that. He leaves the room at Macrinus's suggestion, who's read his state quite accurately: he suggests, in a very paternal way, that maybe Caracalla should take Dondus and go look after him someplace else. Go calm each other down. Re-establish safety. This would be great advice coming from literally anybody but Macrinus, because the appropriate response to a freeze/dissociative state is grounding, but, alas, it is Macrinus who says that.

Macrinus, who instead of being a nice person and telling Geta next to do the same and then go fix what he broke, uses this opportunity to go fan the flames. I hate this man, have I mentioned this anywhere before? I hate him so much for what he does to these two.

(I'm keeping myself grounded by looking for illustrations here, and I need you all to know that my screenshot folders have over 4 000 pictures in them. 98% of these pictures are just of Geta and Caracalla with some left Marcus Acacius on the side for spice. I'm normal. Anyway,)

Upon leaving the room, Macrinus easily locates Caracalla again: in a logical continuum in terms of tracking his mental state, he's found here hiding under a table. In essence, after a brief burst of the flight response, he's just moved elsewhere to freeze again.

At this point, and every single point from this moment forwards at the very least, Caracalla's clearly exhibiting another trauma response: regression. While not exclusive to trauma per se, regression involves a person's mental state returning to an approximation of a younger state, a state where that person has previously experienced a similar lack of control in their circumstances, but where they may also have experienced safety and care from their caretakers.

Going by what script!Geta says to him not too long after this scene, it seems reasonable to assume that what Caracalla is doing here is what he's done before to escape his father's explosive rages and violence:

He's... a very small guy. He's likely been a very small child, too. He says to Macrinus that Geta has always had it out for him - even in the womb, Geta tried to cut/grip his umbilicus so that he couldn't breathe, presumably to be the only surviving twin. Now, there's a lot that Caracalla's saying in this scene that needs to be taken with a grain of salt, but he's almost certainly relating here a "memory" that he has about what someone else has told him, or what he's otherwise heard. He probably did have a difficult birth, he probably did experience asphyxiation, and this may have been Geta's "fault" somehow - twin births are significantly more dangerous than solo births. We won't know what exactly happened, but umbilical cords and babies throughout history have not mixed well; hell, I was born significantly after the year 180 AD surrounded by much better medical care, and still the most likely singular cause for my learning disability is that I thought hanging myself by that thing in the womb was a great concept.

Asphyxiation injury in babies can cause poor growth, along with - as indicated above - lifelong disability and difficulty with development that results from brain damage, and I think this seemingly throwaway line is here specifically to tell us why Caracalla is so small and sickly, why he is so vulnerable, and, to a degree, also why Geta is so protective of him. He's never thrived, he's always been smaller and weaker, and

their father hated that. Their father, in general, seems to have despised his sons, but by Geta's description, he went for Caracalla first. Geta got in the way, took the beatings, protected his weaker brother from the violence. The only thing a small child in that situation can do is hide, and Caracalla here, under the table, is doing that again. He remembers that danger, and he remembers that hiding under the table meant a semblance of security and shelter against the danger. He remembers that, when he was hiding, there was someone there to protect him.

There was an excellent post on this by someone in the tags that I will link here pronto if anybody can find it for me, where the poster theorises that Geta's outburst, which is so reminiscent of their father's, has essentially put Caracalla in a PTSD flashback. With the regression, this seems more than plausible: he seems to have recognised his father in his brother's actions just as much as Geta himself must have recognised them, and they are both, in this moment, dealing with what that means - or not dealing, because they're both hiding, one in a curtain and the other under a table. It's interesting to me that this mixing of their past, their father's violence, never leaves Caracalla's mind after this time. He feels haunted by the man and his own actions to some degree in his mind become determined by his father's will, his father's hatred of his brother, which he's had to witness so many times in his childhood.

Now, diverting for a second from the trauma reactions and returning to Caracalla's stories to Macrinus, we can also see the effects of his neurosyphilis here. Which is a condition that's been fun to research because any information on it now is so clouded by mandatory patient direction telling me to go to the doctor and take antibiotics, which, honey, I'm sure Caracalla would have loved to do that, sincerely, but it wasn't an option, so what we get is this:

When Caracalla tells Macrinus about his memories from the womb, Macrinus asks him, "you remember that, do you?" and Caracalla says to him, "certainly; one cannot forget."

This confirms to Macrinus as much as the audience that Caracalla's experiencing delusional thinking, and, being the utter turdbag that he is, Macrinus knows exactly the kind of an opportunity this gives him. When a person is experiencing delusions, it's recommended to neither a) play into them nor b) try to directly contest them, as both ways of confrontation tend to root the delusion deeper into a person's thinking. Macrinus takes route a) like that diverting car meme, and starts telling Caracalla more absolute nonsense that he thinks will hit up nicely with whatever he's already experiencing, and based on all of this evidence, with how he's playing Geta like a father and treating Caracalla like a mother, he knows where his vulnerabilities are. He knows how to turn him against Geta - or at least he thinks that he does, because it doesn't quite work, not all of the way, anyway. But he gives it a good old fucking attempt and I despise him for that. Alas,

now we get to the ugly climax of his manipulation of these two traumatised young men whose lives, safety and futures are breaking down all around them, and who both desperately needed guidance and reassurance from someone who cared about them. He's told Caracalla that Geta intends to betray him, so go ahead and do what you must - you've always wanted to be something on your own, but he's always stood in the way, and by the way, he hates you, too. He says that he loves you, but he doesn't, he lies. You know what to do.

Fortunately however Geta knows his brother, and unlike Macrinus would like Caracalla to think, Geta does love him. No matter how annoying he is, no matter how much he gets in the way, no matter how difficult it is to be an emperor and a carer to a sick brother - Geta loves him. And that's enough, though, before we get to that point,

... mandatory reminder that Caracalla really gets off on blood? Like really gets off on it? This is also another excellent example of his regressed state: he cuts Geta, and this excites him. So much. He's probably never felt this powerful in his life: he did that. He did that. After basking in that feeling for a moment, still smiling like a little gremlin, Caracalla goes for Geta wholesale. He seems to be treating this is as some kind of a game, shifting between two states, one of whom is deeply hurt and driven by Macrinus's lies, and the other is just... being a boy, playwrestling with his brother because for the first time ever, he feels like he's got a winning edge.

In terms of Geta's ongoing Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day however, having his hand slashed gods know how deep shows us that something like this doesn't even make him flinch. After receiving the injury he just stands there, looking at his hand, looking at Caracalla, showing the exact degree of the beatings he's been taking his whole life. This, too, is dissociative, and stems from their childhood dynamics: Caracalla knows how to hide both in his head and as a first response to overwhelming danger, and Geta knows how to block out his emotions as well as physical pain, even significant, major pain, like a deep gash in his hand. He ignores the whole thing, the injury and his own personal hurt and fear, like these factors don't exist, because he has to protect Caracalla first.

Nothing Geta does in this scene is for himself. He's afraid, yes, but he's afraid for Caracalla more. And if that doesn't break your heart then I don't know. Good for you. I can't watch this scene again. And he literally dies holding Caracalla's face with his injured hand, looking him in the eye, because he loves him, and that's it for Geta.

In this godforsaken fucking piece of cinematic history, when Macrinus takes Caracalla's hand and butchers Geta with it, Caracalla is - understandably and visibly enough - back to freeze/dissociation again.

And I think some of that might be Geta's doing, in a sense: in order to break Caracalla out of their shared PTSD flashback which he started, unintentionally, by momentarily being the worst of himself to the one person who relied on him the most, Geta's now recounted the exact abuse, the exact circumstances, of Caracalla's memories back to him. He's done this to fix the narrative: I protected you. I love you. Our father hurt us. Doing so, he's put the pieces back together for Caracalla: Geta is not their father, Geta's his brother, and he protects him and loves him. He has always protected him.

So, now that Caracalla can recognise Geta for who and what he is: who takes his hand, then, and directs the blade? Is it not Macrinus, the man who has in all senses become a father to them? Does Caracalla's father then not hold his hand to punish Geta for getting in the way, again, like he always does?

The question was, do you think Cara really realized whats happening?

And after this essay of utter pain and suffering, I hate to say it, but yes, he does absolutely realise what's happening, but he is just as incapable of incorporating any of this into his reality, into any reasonable narrative that isn't controlled by the ghosts of his past. For Geta's death specifically, though, yes. He does realise it. Very much. He looks Geta directly in the eye while he dies, and every bit of his expression screams "I'm losing you and there's nothing I can do to stop it from happening."

His body might be in a freeze state again - limp, controlled first by Geta himself, then taken over by Macrinus - but he sees what's happening. He knows what's happening. The way he goes from this:

to this:

tells you that he knows. He knows.

And to wrap this horrific fucking thing up all nice and good before I print it out just to chuck it in a fire, I'm including the bit of the scene at the Senate that evidently we didn't need to see in the film:

This is Caracalla, trying desperately to make sense of his reality, the things that were done with his body against his will, his unspeakable and indescribable loss, and the lies that Macrinus has told him all over it.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go have a nice day in some other place where none of this happened and Macrinus never existed at all. As a fellow survivor of childhood abuse at the hands of a parent, fuck you, Macrinus. Fuck you for what you did to them. You're the single worst kind of a person on earth and if you were real I would eat your entrails for lunch.

This has been a post, good timezone.

[blue-jisungs]

silent hug

author's note. this is veeeery self indulgent bc my exams r killing me so yeah 👍

genre. hurt to comfort (i think?), classmates to friends ??? idk man just whipped n cute sunoo

summary. in which your classmate comforts you when you tear up in class :(

warnings. cursing, reader is in a bad place mentally,, kinda hinting to academic burnout? ,, crying :( + not proofread, sorry!!

word count. 1286

with a heavy sigh you plopped down on the chair, putting your bag on the desk. the walk from the bus stop to the university tired you out but at least you got four or five minutes before the classes started. so you rested your head against the bag and closed your eyes, taking in a little more sleep than you could get this morning.

the final season is coming to an end, finally. but weirdly enough, you don’t feel relieved. sure, there’s only three or four exams left – and you haven’t really studied for them but that’s a thing to do the day before, isn’t it? – but you can’t help but feel the exhaustion. your friends chat about how there’s less things to take then it was at the beginning, sure. but the closer you get to the midterm break, the less motivation you have. and the tiredness that accumulated throughout the whole month is seeking its way out.

which is why you’re a mess nowadays. promising yourself to study but ending up doing everything but studying, falling asleep at ungodly hours (and regretting it later)… or shutting yourself down from the world. your friends got used to it, everyone has their lives after classes after all. but you carry on with do not disturb on most of the time, missing out their conversations on chats and tiktoks they’ve sent you. sure, you could’ve read them later – but there’s a sinking feeling of guilt (and a dazzle of overthinking) that you’re such a shitty friend.

all of this causes your negative emotions to bottle up. and you know it’s not a good thing, especially when you feel like you’re about to cry when a minor inconvenience occurs. but you’re stronger than that, no? the thought of locking yourself in your room during the break keeps you alive, pushing the sadness – seemingly – away.

a sudden tap on your shoulder caused you to open your eyes and lazily shift your focus to your classmate, sunoo. you looked around and didn’t see your friends… well, they probably skipped the classes since some of them are careless just like that.

"it’s about to start" sunoo smiled gently and you noticed the way his ebony gaze lingered on you for a while longer. great, you should’ve put at least some foundation.

"thanks" you nodded and took out your ipad, the other hand rubbing your eye. here we go…

"i feel like… some people in this class don’t take my lessons seriously" the professor started and you froze, heart skipping a beat. he couldn’t possibly mean you, right? “the final exam is around the corner and some of you… did not too well on the quiz"

oh, well. it’s definitely aimed at you.

"i’ll hand them out at the end of the class and then run over your mistakes. now we’ll do a revision. and you better listen" the man says and you could swear his piercing gaze is drilling into your soul.

an unpleasant feeling of warmth creeped into your face and once again you curse yourself for not putting any makeup. sunoo glanced at you, a sad smile on his lips.

the professor approached you at the end, when all of the students already left. putting the paper sheet with a nasty P– on it, you frowned. hey, you passed!

"y/n, i’m really disappointed. i don’t know what’s going on but that’s the worst work of yours so far. pull yourself together. there’s so many major mistakes… spellings… it’s not an academic level. you were one point away from not passing this one" his words hit a cord in your heart, your palms beginning to sweat. he patted the paper and returned to his desk, grabbing his stuff.

and you didn’t even know when that happened – your sweaty palms shaking, breath getting stuck in your throat, vision blurry because of tears.

you packed your things and wanted to leave but your legs felt too weak. your professor left, causing you to end up all alone in the room.

you sniffed, trying to wipe out the tears but they seemed to have other plans.

"don’t cry, idiot. it’s fucking embarrassing" you breathed out to yourself, voice barely above a whisper.

"y/n, if you want… oh. are you okay?"

you would normally look up to see who that was but the realization of someone even seeing you in such state caused your face to redden even more. pulling your t-shirt up to hide your face in it, you felt like there was no way out: you couldn’t possibly stop crying. it was like your professor’s words triggered something.

"i’m… hey, it’s okay. did he say anything bad to you? or do?" someone approached you and you shook your head as a no. "can i stay here?"

you hesitantly peeled from your shirt and noticed sunoo. his gaze softened upon seeing your teary eyes, lashes wet and flushed face.

"just… don’t mind me" you mumbled and hid your face in your shirt again. you just couldn’t stand someone seeing you in such state, whether it was someone close or a stranger.

"i… i don’t know what he said but i’ve noticed that there’s something going on with you. and may have heard what your friends said... do you want to talk about it?" sunoo asked gently and all he could hear were the harsh sobs leaving your lips.

"they talk about me behind my back?" you whined, your shoulders shaking even more. his eyes widened. that was not the best thing to say…

"no, no! i mean they said you look really tired lately…" he explained hastily and suddenly you looked up. your shirt was soaked with tears and your face was a mess, your pupils blown and wet stains on your cheeks.

"i’m so tired, sunoo. i don’t think i can handle this anymore… and everyone seems to be doing great… just not me…" you mumbled, sending him a sad smile. the pearly tears balanced at the edge of your waterline, ready to spill. he shook his head.

"you’ve got this, i know you do. you got here somehow in the first place, no? if you want, i can help you. with anything. i’m not the smartest but i do understand some things so…" he stopped talking upon seeing your curious gaze.

"why are you doing this?” you asked, sniffling.

"i just… you’re my classmate in a need of help. i couldn’t stand there and not do anything when i heard you cry. and now there’s no way out, isn’t it?" sunoo joked and his face lit up. oh, this boy was a literal sunshine.

"you said everything?" you mumbled, unsurely. he nodded, a caring smile tugging on his lips "can… hmpfh… can i hug you…?"

the words were so quiet, sunoo barely heard them. but he noticed the begging look in your eyes and who was he to deny? it’s not like he would mind, either.

sunoo just opened your arms and you hugged him tightly, wrapping your arms around his waist. he patted your back soothingly, letting you let out all of your pent up stress.

a part of sunoo’s heart raced because he wouldn’t have ever imagined that he would hug his hallway crush. the other part which caused his heart to race was the embrace itself, your smell and you in general – and he was happy he could help you.

neither of you didn’t have to talk right now. a silent hug that expressed more than a sentences could ever. and both of you knew, sitting here glued to each other and in comfortable silence, that it was a beginning of a beautiful friendship.

masterlist <3

taglist. @primoppang ,, @laylasbunbunny ,, @slytherinshua ,, @kazmura ,, @nicholasluvbot ,, @weird-bookworm ,, @dazzlingligth ,, @w3bqrl ,, @ocean-minho ,, @s-e-s-a-l-e-n-e ,, @eternalgyu ,, @haecien

[ihatecoconut]

*asks about your research*

loudly panicking bc that post got way more response than i was expecting

so! in preparation for my dissertation next year (in theory. i may end up changing my mind completely before then) I have been looking at how child labor has been written about by historians, with a focus on newsboys as the most 'visible' form of this labor.

It's actually a really interesting shift, because the starting historiography, from the early to mid 1900s, is highly focused on the reform efforts of groups like the Children's Aid Society. these take very moralistic tones, focusing on 'saving' the children from their conditions, placing emphasis on harsh working and living conditions, and (notably) do not include first-hand account from any newsies or adults who used to be newsies.

now. this changes in the 1960s (ish) with the rise of social history in academic circles, which encourages research from the 'bottom up' rather than 'top down' narratives, which were common previously and tended to prioritise documents from governments/politicians/reform groups. so we see a shift in scholarship from victim-focused narratives to exploring children as active participants in labor, and a recognition of child labor as a subculture with its own norms and practices.

this is the point at which we start to see accounts from adults who used to be newsies starting to appear - these, however, are not unproblematic. they tend to be autobiographies from adults who have since 'made it' in the world and risen to a certain level of fame - obviously enough to be writing autobiographies, although the sections addressing their lives as newsies can be very small parts of the whole. And they are all written retrospectively, as well as being written for an audience, so their reliability is not necessarily perfect.

more recently, scholarship has begun to address this in more detail, starting to look at how we can tease out the stories of the newsies who did not leave a paper trail. in many cases this is through photographs (jacob riis' in particular) and through records like lodging houses in which we may not be able to see their opinions of their lives, but we can see their movements and how they lived their lives.

as a whole, it's a very underrepresented area of history that is not often studied, however that is beginning to change. The continuing rise of social and cultural histories has introduced intersectional analyses of child labor, emphasizing how gender, race, and ethnicity shaped labor experiences. newsgirls in particular are starting to be studied in more detail, with some scholars finding the differences in their lives to their male counterparts.

but. there is still so much to be studied, so many stones unturned, we could look at the racial and religious dynamics within the newsie workforce and how social anxieties about race and immigration effected them. we could look at a longitudinal study - finding a few case studies and tracing them (as far as is possible) through time, investigating their long-term social and economic trajectories to understand the impact working as children had on their lives.

personally, i think that we also need historians to look at newsies the musical as a legitimate form of public history and how it introduces people to this under-explored area of history. and also why the musical was made in the first place when you consider how neglected this area is. there also needs to be an intersection with media history - after all, up until radio became a thing, there was a very long stretch of time where the only way to receive news was through the newspaper or through hearing other people read the headlines, and where were you likely to get both of these things? from the kids on the streets selling the papers.

in conclusion. newsies are an incredibly important area of history that has not been studied, partially because it is difficult to study the history of people who do not leave paper trails, but also because child labor has only recently started to be seen as a legitimate area for study. thank you for your time.

📰📰📰📰📰

v quick tag of everyone else who asked!! @i-got-poisenality @lalarose216 @blue5rose @make-friends-with-the-rats

thank you all for asking!!!!

[milkoomi]

coming out of academic burn out. ᥫ᭡

burn out is so real, and unfortunately it affects too many of us. burn out feels like every fiber of your being just gave up on you; it feels like you’ve lost every single ounce of motivation and inspiration. it’s draining. you feel exhausted, bored, frustrated, and lost. but let’s take a deep dive into getting out of academic burn out and work on bringing back that spark you once had for your education.

୨ৎ — give yourself a break

this is, in my opinion, the most important thing to do when you start experiencing some kind of academic burn out.

while we’re in school, we feel so much overwhelming stress from the workload, the hours upon hours of studying we have to put in for big exams, the overthinking we do on a regular basis because we worry about maintaining our grades— just so much stress, and it feels suffocating.

let yourself breathe. take a moment to just focus your mind on something else that isn’t academic related. step away from your notes, papers, and textbooks and take a breather. go do something else and let your mind rest. even if it’s just for 10-20 minutes, just take a break! you need it more than you realize. you don’t have to over exert yourself, and honestly? you shouldn’t over exert yourself.

things to do during a break:

breathing exercises/meditation

watch an episode of your favorite show

watch an entertaining youtube video

read a chapter of your favorite book

go for a walk

grab yourself a snack/make yourself a meal

stretch/do a small workout/get your body moving

take a shower

take a nap (no longer than 30 minutes)

chat with a friend/loved one

journal

you can set a timer for yourself when you decide to take a break so that you can keep yourself on track, but i highly encourage you to just take a moment for yourself. do something that makes you happy, do something that relaxes your mind, just do something else. redirect your mind onto something else that isn’t related to studying or finishing an assignment.

you might also be a newly grad from high school or an undergrad program or whatever it may be, and you might feel like you need a semester off from school. or even a gap year. if you feel that way, then listen to yourself and listen to what your mind and body needs and take that semester off or go on a gap year.

i, personally, took two and a half years off from school. when i tell you that it was one of the best decisions i ever made for myself, i genuinely mean that. don’t get me wrong, i did have those thoughts of worrying that i’d fall behind my peers and friends, and it did really stress me out. but my mental health needed that break. i needed that break. i learned that school will always be an open opportunity for me and that this is my academic career and my own journey, not anyone else’s.

don’t focus on what everyone else is doing with their own lives, focus on your own. what other people are doing shouldn’t matter to you because your own journey and your own life should be your main focus.

take a break.

୨ৎ — ask for help

burn out might be coming from lack of support, and sometimes we forget to ask for support because we might feel like we have to do this whole thing on our own. let me reassure you that you don’t have to do everything on your own.

your teachers/professors/mentors are there to help you, so don’t hesitate to ask questions or reach out for guidance. if you feel like you can’t go to your professors for help, then search for a tutor! tutors are great to have because most times they might be fellow students who have had similar experiences as you in similar, or the same, classes/courses! it’s also nice to have someone who understands your frustrations and stress to help guide you or answer your questions.

reach out to your loved ones. your family, friends, or partner(s) are there to love, care, and support you in any way that you need. don’t be afraid to reach out to them if you need an extra boost. you might just need a shoulder to cry on or a listening ear, and that’s okay! your loved ones are there to support you, and even if they might not be able to help you with your studies, they can still offer you help and support mentally and emotionally.

you aren’t a burden or an annoyance to those who are there to help you, i promise. you are allowed to ask for help! don’t try and take on hard challenges on your own.

୨ৎ — work in portions

i mentioned this in a post on stopping procrastination, but it’s really important to work in sections rather than trying to finish everything all in one sitting.

the more you try to take on, the quicker you’ll feel that burn out. take it day by day, or even hour by hour. set a goal of completing one class’ assignments before you set another goal of completing another class’ assignments.

example:

let’s say it’s a wednesday night and you have two assignments that need to be completed for the next day in your biology class, an essay due next week on friday night at 11:59pm for your english class, an exam for your chemistry class this coming friday, and one packet of homework for your math class due monday morning next week.

start with your biology class! the assignments are due much sooner than the rest of your classes. focus on those two assignments first as they take priority.

after biology, take a 15-20 minute break and then work on that math homework packet and implement the pomodoro method and work on it for 25 minutes and take 5 minute breaks.

great! you finished those tasks, but dang, it’s already 7pm and you haven’t had dinner yet. take a break and go eat dinner. after dinner, for maybe another 25 minutes, work on that math packet. after those 25 minutes, stop working. go shower, do your skincare, and get ready for bed.

now that your wednesday night is coming to an end, focus your mind on relaxing. you’ve completed enough for today and your hard work has paid off! wait until the next day to continue more work.

୨ৎ — final notes

if there’s one thing to take away from this, it’s prioritize yourself. i say this all the time, but you are your top priority. always. you need to remember to take care of yourself before you go and take care of other tasks like schoolwork. you can’t do your best when you aren’t at your best.

if you are currently experiencing burn out, i promise you that you’ll get out of it. just be patient with yourself! i know burn out sucks. when i was experiencing it, i really struggled to find my love for learning again, but i can assure you that you’ll find it again. you’ll know when you’re ready!

don’t let burn out stop you from achieving your dreams. burn out is just your body telling you that you need a break, and it’s 100% okay to take a break. you’ll still succeed even if you take breaks. we all need one from time to time!

with lots of love, faustina 🌷

[caltropspress]

RAPS + CRAFTS #23: Sunmundi

1. Introduce yourself. Past projects? Current projects?

Peace. I’m Sunmundi. I started rapping a few years ago. Last year I released my debut album, Midnight Oil, produced by Āthmaan, through Damn That Noise, and my second album, Lived and Born, produced by klwn cat, just came out. I’m currently working on a project with my man Sasco for '25.

2. Where do you write? Do you have a routine time you write? Do you discipline yourself, or just let the words come when they will? Do you typically write on a daily basis?

I try to write every day. But I go through long bouts of writer’s block, in which case I have to force myself to take a step back and wait till I get inspired again. And I pretty much only write raps while driving. For the past few years I’ve had a really long commute to work, so I end up just listening to beats and jotting down lines in my car. Pretty fucking dangerous, but it is what it is.

3. What’s your medium—pen and paper, laptop, on your phone? Or do you compose a verse in your head and keep it there until it’s time to record?

I just use my phone.

4. Do you write in bars, or is it more disorganized than that?

Initially I tend to just focus on writing down as many thoughts and lines as possible when listening to a beat, then eventually separate them into stanzas where it feels right. I don’t count bars or anything—when a verse feels done, it’s done. 

5. How long into writing a verse or a song do you know it’s not working out the way you had in mind? Do you trash the material forever, or do you keep the discarded material to be reworked later?

When I feel like I’m forcing lines, I stop writing. But once I have a set of good/memorable lines and can figure out how I’m gonna rhyme, I know pretty immediately after that I’ll finish the song. I used to try and repurpose all my leftover lines, and a lot of them do end up in songs, but lately I’ve been finding that shit turns out better when I write the whole thing to a beat from scratch.

6. Have you engaged with any other type of writing, whether presently or in the past? Fiction? Poetry? Playwriting? If so, how has that mode influenced your songwriting?

When I was studying English in college, I enjoyed academic writing, so I got used to a certain command of language. I presented one of my papers at a literary conference (the paper was about Griselda and Machiavellian ethics, so I read Benny and Westside Gunn lyrics to a room full of academics and peers, which was funny). But I was never very interested in any creative writing before rap. I feel like my voice/songwriting comes down to my musical influences more than anything.

7. How much editing do you do after initially writing a verse/song? Do you labor over verses, working on them over a long period of time, or do you start and finish a piece in a quick burst?

I definitely labor over verses. I might take anywhere from a week to a month to get a verse done. I try to edit as I go, working line by line, but on the whole, I’m spending most of my time editing after I have a foundation set. I used to take way longer to write a single verse/song, but I’m learning that sometimes quick flashes of writing can yield good shit. 

8. Do you write to a beat, or do you adjust and tweak lyrics to fit a beat?

I usually let the beat dictate the direction of a verse. I’ll occasionally write down lines that pop up in my head and put them in a song later on, but generally, I write to beats. 

9. What dictates the direction of your lyrics? Are you led by an idea or topic you have in mind beforehand? Is it stream-of-consciousness? Is what you come up with determined by the constraint of the rhymes?

It depends. When I was releasing one-off songs before Midnight Oil, they were mostly inspired by the beats producers would send me. Now my albums are becoming gradually more conceptual, so I generally have a pool of ideas to pull from in order to write a song. I don’t really make songs “about” specific things though—not that I have anything against that, but I like trying to capture moods and atmospheres in more general ways. That’s just more satisfying to me. And I won’t say rhymes are an afterthought, because I spend so much time thinking about them, but I think the content of what I’m writing is moreso at the forefront of my mind. And I believe there’s always some element of stream-of-consciousness going on as well. 

10. Do you like to experiment with different forms and rhyme schemes, or do you keep your bars free and flexible?

I feel like I’m still trying to solidify what makes my shit work, so I don’t experiment too much with form. Occasionally I like to try and keep one rhyme scheme for a whole song/verse, but otherwise I’m sticking to the basics and going where each line takes me. 

11. What’s a verse you’re particularly proud of, one where you met the vision for what you desire to do with your lyrics?

The verse on “Harbingers” off Lived and Born. It’s the last song on the album, but it feels like it’s opening a door for the listener as I’m closing one for myself—“It’s goodbye for now, hello forever.�� Also the whole verse feels like a major catharsis, which is becoming a habit of my outros.

12. Can you pick a favorite bar of yours and describe the genesis of it?

I don’t think I can pick a favorite, but one couplet I love is, “From now until my voice drown, I vow to hold it down / Say Holden, don’t you wait around, say, Scout, take me out.” I just dig the wordplay on the first line, and the second line references Holden Caulfield from Catcher in the Rye and Scout from To Kill a Mockingbird, two books my dad and I share a love for. I feel like by contextualizing myself with those two characters, both of whom are kids, I’m crediting my dad for teaching me to appreciate reading while also reflecting on my own nostalgia. So it feels like a nice shoutout to him.

13. Do you feel strongly one way or another about punch-ins? Will you whittle a bar down in order to account for breath control, or are you comfortable punching-in so you don’t have to sacrifice any words?

I try not to punch in. I think I’ve only done it on two or three songs before. It’s common for me to write myself into a hole, where I don’t have the breath control to rap what I wrote, but I think I’m getting better at knowing my limits and writing around that by condensing lines. Plus the challenge of writing more concisely makes you a better writer, in my opinion. 

14. What non-hiphop material do you turn to for inspiration? What non-music has influenced your work recently?

I’m not as big a reader as I used to be, but when I get writer’s block, which is common, I try to get back into it. Some writers who have inspired me are James Baldwin, Dostoyevsky, David Foster Wallace. But I dig movies too. I find David Lynch, Bong Joon-ho, and Robert Eggers to be inspirational. And lately I’ve been trying to give my albums more of a thesis of some kind, so I’m trying to do more reading and studying topics to put into the music. For the project I’m working on right now I’m thinking about media overconsumption, the perils of technology and its impact on communication, etc. 

15. Writers are often saddled with self-doubt. Do you struggle to like your own shit, or does it all sound dope to you?

I’m full of self-doubt as an artist, but I think that mindset leads me to only release music I can be content with. I listen to my stuff pretty frequently before releasing it, then when it’s out, I tend to move on to the next project. I feel like I need to live with the music before I can really claim it as my own and be proud of it, you know? 

16. Who’s a rapper you listen to with such a distinguishable style that you need to resist the urge to imitate them?

Definitely woods. Obviously his style can’t be copied (he takes care of his words—Munchausen by proxy), but when Aethiopes dropped, I had to stop listening to it after a few weeks because I didn’t wanna start biting. His tone, humor, and flow are infectious. I’ll put Starker in that category too—I think he has one of the best flows I’ve ever heard.

17. Do you have an agenda as an artist? Are there overarching concerns you want to communicate to the listener?

I don’t have an agenda that extends to the listener. I try not to be didactic, or preachy, or purport to know more than anyone else. My writing is mostly very internal, personal, emotional. It’s common for me to speak in the second person in rhymes, but that’s just a device I use to tell or ask myself something. I’m my own target audience. That being said, I do feel like I tend to write from a very zoomed out perspective, and if that happens to be relatable or evocative to a listener, that’s tight.

RAPS + CRAFTS is a series of questions posed to rappers about their craft and process. It is designed to give respect and credit to their engagement with the art of songwriting. The format is inspired, in part, by Rob McLennan’s 12 or 20 interview series.

Photo credit: Andi June

[wewontdieunbloomed]

this is part two of unlearning the bad things i unconsciously learnt from last year.

part one was the negative default pessimism i fall in to, which i keep calling it me being emo which means i dwell in my “misery” for far too long, instead of trying to think of something positive to get myself moving out of the bad zone i am in. as we are often told, sadness and negativity gets comforting, it feels like you are protecting yourself. but one cannot see beauty in life and find joy for oneself if one does not make oneself vulnerable.

and so making myself vulnerable is what ive been doing. trying to romanticise this state that im in, a liminal space, at crossroads. its not the most ideal, too many things are unknown and for the first time in my life im dealing with having barely any structure to my days, with nothing to do yet so much i should do.

it took me quite a while to stop lamenting this unknown and start returning to the foundations i built this blog and my entire philosophy off, the whole concept of “lest we die unbloomed” of making sure i dont realise one day ive wasted my time. and in small parts i like to think ive made progress on that

the focus now is the second part. i lost a lot of my attention span and impulse control, and today i reached a horrible point where i am sitting on the kitchen floor at 9 with no dinner, having ruined my microwave dinner out of a lack of common sense. i am not sure if all this recent muddling is because of covid brain fog or the horrifying amount of screen time i have had recently, but i was so sick of it. i have done a lot of things on impulse recently, and though today i had a really fulfilling day spending time with people i havent in a long time, when i got home and im back to reality of the things i havent done and been procrastinating for too long on, i felt horrible. this need to change, i realised.

so this is part two. it calls back to one of the values i set as something important to myself, being honest with myself. i know what im doing now is not working. i know that even though i use my planner im not sticking to it. i know my todo lists are not helping me. then why do i stubbornly stick to methods i know dont work? i told myself a year ago i would not change my system if it doesnt need to be changed. i have forgotten that i need to change it when it does. how silly! so im changing.

so in the last 2 hours in order to get myself up ive written todo lists on paper instead of in my journal. used a timer for every single step from shower to sweeping the floor to brushing my teeth. enough lazing around and letting simple things occupy too much time. its a parkinsons law thing.

enough doomscrolling and opening instagram when i have nothing to do. im setting a limit for a block of time in the day where i am not allowed to use social media, pwrhaps not any internet at all. i need to make drastic change, even if it seems inconsequential. it might not be academic but its personal. and my personal life and what i want to do with my time is worth taking big measures for, because it should be more important than all that revision for exams i used to do.

so the point f this ramble is to clear things out with myself. make some sense of whats goijg on. have a direction. tomorrow i have an interview. ill come home and do the chores i have to. prepare for my afternoon activity. go for lunch and my afternoon appointment. go for a run. buy dinner. write my applications. research on uni stuff. read a book. and all the other tint things i need to give more importance to even though they seem inconsequential. it sa new mantra ive gotten into ever since part one of this. that “this is the way” this is the new way. enough lazing. its time to go hard and be rurhless. take things up a notch because when else can i do it? go big from experiences to measures i have to take to discipline myself. this is the way.

04.04.2023

[sqbr]

Not sure if I'm disagreeing so much as giving another angle:

Being able to read this way is a specific skill, separate to your starting understanding of the material. I used to not have it at all, which made the decision to do a Phd VERY UNWISE, despite the fact that I had always been good at understanding similar ideas when taught to me in a classroom. Undergraduate maths taught me some very complex maths concepts and jargon! It did not teach me to read maths papers. I spent the whole four and a half years of my Phd painfully learning to do so. And now that I have learned how to (kinda) do it, I am better at reading academic papers on subjects I have no training in than I was at reading maths papers at the start.

I was not expecting to be able to read maths papers like a fun short story. But any time I tried to read a bit, look up a definition/think about it, then read some more, I would COMPLETELY lose my momentum. The initial idea would fall out of my head and it was like I was starting again when I went back. I could understand individual sentences but these did not coalesce into an overall understanding of the paper, and I could only read so much before I became overwhelmed and burned out.

For me, the only way to combat this has been to write notes as a go, creating a glossary and summary to look back on as I move forward. For example, here are the notes I took reading a queer studies paper which still took me A While and was enough work that I haven't tried reading any others.

I've also gotten a lot more practiced at reading the introduction and conclusion to get a broad grasp of the general themes and then skim through the main paper to find whatever part I'm most interested in and focus on that, because I can still usually only read so much before my brain starts overheating.

And I don't know how I would have learned to do this much if I hadn't been in academia. It is definitely a learnable skill, but I am someone with a Phd and a lifelong interest in reading widely who still struggles with it, and it's going to be even more difficult to learn for some other people.

I don't know how to teach/learn it asides from spending years being berated by my supervisor for not having done the reading yet, followed by nearly 20 years of having a misunderstood illness that required me to read a lot of medical papers (do not rec) But it is at least important not to dismiss how difficult this sort of thing is for some people and make it clear it is a learnable skill, and they're not lazy for not being able to do it right away, or for still struggling even after they put a lot of effort in.

(Which is also exactly how I feel about maths, but I'm also not going to expect everyone to jump feet first into learning and enjoying that either)

i genuinely have no animosity towards ppl who get upset abt not being able to read academic texts + i do think we need to expand the pathways/methods of being exposed to critical concepts so that "sit + read for 2 hours" is not the only option.

however, as someone dx with adhd + incapable of sitting still for even a minute (actually right at this moment i am writing this instead of reading the book sitting open in front of me), i do feel like a lot of ppl do not realize that not all readings are designed to be read like a novel.

as in, it's ok + normal + good to need to reread a paragraph several times, to only read part of a book, to have to research or reference words or concepts in order to grasp the reading, to skip over large chunks of text which are not relevant to your expertise, to continue reading despite not understanding a concept. this is something 'neurotypical' academics do frequently + many of these texts, especially contemporary ones, were designed with this in mind.

there are many ppl with accessibility needs that are not being met by academic texts at this time! many texts (in my humble opinion) are unnecessarily complex in order to show off or hide the fact that they have no idea what they're talking about.

i still feel like many of the kneejerk reactions on this site are based on the assumption that their experience reading academic texts should be similar to their experiences reading a nyt bestseller, rather than a process of thinking, analyzing, researching, processing, returning. some of u are telling yourself that any challenges u face while reading are a result of some internal fault u have + not an expected + precious part of the experience.

[windwheeler-aster]

i’m not a monster

summary: although your university has given students two weeks off for the holidays, you’re still stuck in the library studying for the upcoming exam season. although, you seem to have lost focus and fell asleep on top of your textbooks... luckily for you, your long-term rival dottore is here to help

masterlist | advent calendar

pairing: dottore x reader

reader info: uses gender neutral pronouns (they/them), reader is a student and rival of dottore’s, and reader is not traveler

word count: 491 words (2 mins~)

genre: romance, enemies to more, modern AU

format: one shot

warnings: not proofread thoroughly 

a/n: ghghghg, i’m going to need to revisit this idea/concept with dottore (and other characters?!?!) in the future... but i hope y’all enjoy this💖

The holiday break was for students and staff to take a break from studies and spend time with their loved ones. Although, many students didn’t spend the break exactly like that. Some hosted huge parties in their parents’ house while they were on holiday. Others— like yourself— spent the whole two weeks panicking and studying for the upcoming exam season. And, for those like yourself who bit more than they could chew, they had rarely any time to relax.

Which is exactly why you had holed yourself up in your university’s library for a few days. You were strict with yourself while studying, too. Coffee and your textbooks were the only thing you could rely on, it seemed. Though, it was only inevitable that you would come down from your coffee-fueled ambitious high. You just wish you hadn’t crashed so hard while you were reviewing your textbooks for the nth teen time that day.

But, luckily, Dottore had just turned the corner in search of a book to satiate his own curiosity when he saw you, slumped over your textbooks.

Admittedly, he did chuckle at your pathetic state. Half of your face was squished down, adorably so, while you slept on the pages. He did cringe as he saw a small amount of drool leave your parted mouth. And the academic in him stiffened when Dottore noticed how you were wrinkling the paper in this position. So, really, he had no choice but to put you in a more comfortable position. For both you and the book.

Just like he had no choice but to make you lay down, head in his lap. And he certainly had no choice but to put his coat over you once he saw you shiver. Though, Dottore can’t really explain the soft smile that spread across his features when he caught a glimpse at the peaceful look on your face. They’re too cute to resist smiling, he reassured himself, anyone who doesn’t smile at that is ridiculous. Obviously.

Dottore looked over at your notes and sighed wistfully. He examined your handwriting, and smiled at the small details in it that made it uniquely yours. Some of the notes you wrote on the margins of your work earned a chuckle out of Dottore, too. 

“Oh, if only you didn’t have such a bad impression of me,” Dottore murmured, slightly wincing as he recalled your first meeting.

Rumors of his questionable ethics and dubious morals had spread around the university, and you joined everyone else in their superstitions. However, the only thing that separated you from the rest of the sheep was your brilliant mind.

“We could have been friends,” he mumbled. Dottore sucked in a harsh brush as he took in your face fully. “Or maybe something more…?”

Dottore looked at the time on his watch and concluded that maybe— just maybe— he’d need a nap too. 

Even if it is next to his so-called “enemy”.

taglist:

@x-zho @cxlrosii @i23kazu @tiredsleep @ireallylikehamsters​

(send an ask to be added or removed)

thank you for reading 💖 all forms of interaction to my posts are appreciated 💖

[mbti-notes]

Anon wrote: I'm afraid of choosing the wrong major (I'm a 20F INFJ). After discovering you blog, I've never felt so whole in my life, and I'm deeply grateful to you for it.

While reading the asks and some of your personal things, you inspired me to take initiative in choosing philosophy as my major. Wholeheartedly, I never thought I could be able to choose that one bc I always felt incapable of choosing a career of that caliber, although deep and unconsciously inside me I strongly dreamed of focusing my lifetime on that field, but feared of completely losing myself in philosophy and not paying attention to the real world at all.

My parents were skeptical about it because they don't want me to grow a bad root of snobbery (specially my father, but due not letting me choose something that didn't feel right to him). I honestly wasn't the real me my whole life, I always imagined myself as a creative, playful, inwarded artistic person (in my experience, an INFP), and holded that facade in front of everyone (specially my father) to not feel that I was expecting more of the world than the normal person, and to not feel that I was a "fake" one (which is a big Fe misconception, I know…).

Now I know it all started when I joined art communities in the internet a decade ago… I'm aware that I did escapism when doing paintings and drawings and diving in fiction, they made me focus more on Fi-Ne subconsciously, which let to me always being on Se grips, and feeling righteous when anyone tried to deny me that facade.

Now I understand I can be wholly myself, even if my father or anyone (including myself) doesn't really agree with me, but just because they don't like my style of doing things (he's an ENFJ). I'm so happy I can feel I can be independent now and take interest in other people regardless of ANY difference. I'm more compassionate and more integrated in doing fun things with people than before :) and it's such a great sensation.

I'm a VERY ignorant person in the field but it doesn't bother me at all, I'm so excited to get into it and dive in philosophical thinking (now all the routines I've developed are made to maintain myself healthy and resilient in my career instance, and overall my life instance), I truly feel a life purpose now but I don't know how to start properly.

I've searched for guides, videos, podcasts but they all made me more anxious because the themes are so broad, I even start feeling the rumination pull for not finding an idea that I resonate with in a sea of so much other ideas, and that makes me fear if I can truly manage the themes (perhaps I get blocked at some point when I don't understand something for not having enough resources and then start to do escapism through art again or in anything else because I can't find a proper closure to my problems. I developed my artistic skills through the years but I can't really grab a pencil and a paper for drawing anymore because now It's a clear sign to me that I'm gonna use it to escape from my own life again). I fear quitting the career and waste my parents' money on it cause I wasn't sure of my decision.

I'm sure my functions are undeveloped at the moment because I just started to truly know myself this year and started to have an academic routine again after a whole year of academic stagnation and isolation (also my main language isn't english), so I'm sorry if this message is messy or sounds weird, repetitive, or something else.

-----------------

What is your question exactly? You're speaking out of both sides of your mouth, saying that you've never felt more whole and happy with your choice yet also saying that you're not sure and worry about it. What is the truth here?

Do you think just because you know what you want to do that life should be easy for you from now on? That's not realistic, is it? Do you believe you should already know a lot before you begin your studies? Then you wouldn't need to pay big bucks to learn and earn a degree, would you?

You fear failure because you don't have enough faith in yourself, you don't have enough trust in the world, and you don't extend yourself the **compassion** to live life for yourself, at your own pace. If you are truly a mature and independent adult, then you fully own every success and failure, without hesitation, and learn from both. But, like a child, you still hope to take credit for the successes and disown the failures, because you fear being judged as a failure and living with yourself as a failure. Your perspective on failure is still too tied to your ego identity. When you get hijacked by fear of failure, it leads you into nonsense thinking and overthinking. Perhaps you should get some therapy to learn how to handle your fear and anxiety better.

The future is never guaranteed no matter what you do. Instead of wasting your time and energy trying to "get on top" of the future, be fully present and perform your tasks well. How you choose to direct your focus is what determines the quality of your future. If you choose to focus on all the things that could go wrong, you'll spiral into anxiety and despair and have no energy left for doing real work. If you choose to focus on developing your potential properly, you will keep opening up new vistas for growth, thereby leaving you with no reason whatsoever to fear the future. Even if things don't work out, it's not the end of the world. You will have learned something, grown a bit, and you can springboard from there into something else, can't you? Is there a law stating that you can only do one thing in life?

[samuel-de-champagne-problems]

Fools in Love

Summary: He can explain how String Theory works. He can figure out Riemann Hypothesis. He can recite all the numbers of pi until he’s blue in the face. Yet somehow, Spencer Reid can’t figure out what to do for his first first anniversary. 

Pairing: Spencer Reid x Female Reader 

Warnings: Spencer Reid is a self-deprecating mf, Jane Austen quotes? But there’s a happy ending 

Word Count: 3128

Fools in Love

He scratches the back of neck, a nervous habit that he’s sure makes him look weak. He wants to find the perfect recipe to make a wonderful meal for Y/N. It’s his first first anniversary so Spencer’s completely lost as to what to do. Y/N deserves the most romantic dinner, especially considering how much chaos he causes. It must be a lot to put up with him, Spencer thinks. He’s even more useless when it comes to love than when it comes to cooking. While he might not be a fan of technology, given he has the Thai place down the street from his apartment on speed dial. She doesn’t deserve some take out Thai with paper plates. But he’s a scientist, a well-known and well-educated scientist who is completely failing at planning his first anniversary.

It was useless. Completely and utterly useless, Spencer thought to himself as he ran his fingers across the various titles of cookbooks. Some featured complex dishes from Korea and others were 30 minute meals of the vaguely Midwest variety. Spencer never in his entire 33 years of living felt so out of place in a library. He’s so at home in between the stacks of books, he finds the comforting words of long dead authors and intricate mathematical theories a second home. However, it seems that Spencer Reid has found the most intimidating section of the library: cooking.

And what do academics do when they are at a crossroad? Well, they call in the experts. The love expert came in the shape of Agent Derek Morgan himself. This idea just might be the most brilliant thought Spencer’s had or the dumbest, but Y/N is worth it. 

Okay, maybe it was a mistake to come to Derek, Spencer thinks as he sits in front of his friend, a coffee in his hand and an expression of pure fear on his face. 

“You want me to, what?” Spencer asks, shocked at Derek’s suggestive advice.  

“Lie in bed naked, call Y/N on the phone and make something up. You’ll be waiting in bed and then BAM! Anniversary sex,” Derek says, his eyebrows wagging as he sips his coffee. 

“Are you messing with me, Morgan?” Spencer says, his face pale from the very thought of lounging in bed naked, waiting for Y/N to come over to his apartment.

“Why not, I’m sure it would get you laid,” Derek reasons. Get me laid? Spencer and Y/N don’t get laid, he thinks. They do have sex, but it’s not getting laid. It’s more romantic and loving than just whatever Derek suggests. 

God, he can’t tell Derek that, he’d never live it down. 

“You have slept with Y/N, right?” Derek asks, suddenly nervous that he touched a nerve with his friend. As much as he likes to tease, Spencer knows that Derek doesn’t mean any harm, hence why he’s the first person he thought to come to. 

“We prefer to call it making love,” Spencer says, pretending to be very interested in his chocolate donut and trying to fight off the blush that rises to his cheeks. Even a year into their relationship, Spencer still gets butterflies at thinking about Y/N like that. 

“So you want this to be more romantic than just fucking, because you’ve done it for a year?” Derek proposes as simply as if he’s talking about a case. Not that talking about serial victims is anymore normal or weirder than the current conversation. 

“Morgan and you please stop talking about Y/N and sex in the same sentence?” Spencer says through gritted teeth. 

“Reid, kid. I’m just busting your chops, I know who you feel about Y/N. When you two are in the same room, it’s like there’s no one else in the world. And it’s kinda hard to get your mind to focus on one thing, but Y/N does that,” 

“I know,” Spencer says. “I can’t mess this up Derek. I can’t give another person a reason to leave me,” 

“Y/N won’t leave because you can’t plan a terrible anniversary dinner,” Derek says comfortingly. 

“I checked out 7 cookbooks, Morgan. 7, and I read them on the metro home. It’s useless, I’m useless,” Spencer laments.

He looks up to try to read Derek’s expression. The last thing he’d want to see on his face is pity or worse laughter. No, Spencer. Derek is your best friend. He’s the closest thing you have to a brother. Spencer feels almost guilty for thinking that Derek would laugh at him, while he might like to tease him, especially about his lovelife, they trust each other inexplicably. What’s written on Derek’s face is not pity or ridicule, it’s a smile. A smile not for Spencer, but for the colorful woman walking towards their table. 

“You told Garcia?” Spencer groans, but scooting over so Penelope would have a spot to sit with them. 

“Of course I told Garcia, kid. You know better than anyone that we can’t keep anything secret,” Derek explains, leaning in to kiss Garcia’s hand. 

“Spencer Reid! I can’t believe you,” Garcia says, smacking Spencer’s arm lightly. 

“Garcia!” Spencer shouts, clutching his coffee and hunching down in his seat to avoid being hit by the tech goddess with her hard rings on her surprisingly strong hands. 

“Don’t Garcia me, Reid. You need me, whether or not you realize it or not. I’m irreplaceable,” she tells him, grabbing a pink notebook and a fluffy green pen from her bag. 

Spencer nods in understanding, as much as he hates it, he knows that he needs help. It’s just a hard pill to swallow when help comes in the form of Derek Morgan and Penelope Garcia, perhaps the two people on Earth who are the most in love. 

“I know I need you guys,” Spencer says, looking from Garcia to Derek, half expecting them to tell him to order some terrifying sex toy from a scretchy store on the edge of town or something equally horrifying. 

“What’s something that she likes? You know like a special thing that Y/N would never think about getting herself” Garcia asks, making notes with the fluffy when that bounces as she writes. 

“She likes to read,” Spencer suggests, thinking about the first date that they had. They talked for hours about their favorite books and ended up getting booted from the library for overstaying their welcome. Y/N found it quite endearing that The Little Prince is Spencer’s while her is anything and everything by Jane Austen. He thinks back to her eyes gleamed when talking about the book, or how passionate she got when she argued that Mr Knightley and Emma were soulmates. 

“Okay, that’s a start Spencer. Really good,” Garcia says, trying to boost her friend’s confidence. 

“What else?” Derek asks, thinking about the times when he and Y/N hang out with Spencer and Penelope. 

“Fret not, Boy Wonder,” Garcia says, softly patting Spencer’s shoulder, “I’ll take care of this,” she finishes as she reaches into her bag, that seems to have a never ending bottom, and pulls out a laptop. 

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“So Garcia and Morgan took over your anniversary plans and basically just made it how they’d want to spend their anniversary?” JJ offers, as she hands Spencer a beer from her refrigerator and sits back down at her kitchen table. 

Spencer takes a swig of his beer and shrugs his shoulders, thinking about how wrong this whole anniversary dinner has gone. 

“I just wanted this to be special, JJ. I know it’s only been a year, but Y/N is it for me. God, she was it for me on the third date,” Spencer confesses. 

“I know, Spence. I’ve never seen you this happy. Happiness looks good on you,” JJ tells him. 

“Y/N makes me happy, she puts up with me, so the least I can do is make this perfect for her,” 

“Spence, don’t sell yourself short,” JJ says, “You’re a kind man and a wonderful boyfriend, you’re both lucky to have each other,” 

“Thank you, JJ, but Y/N is the better person in this relationship. That’s why this needs to be perfect,” Spencer explains, his self doubt still littering his mind. 

“What about a baseball game? You can pay for a message to pop up on the Jumbotron. Like Happy Anniversary, Y/N,” JJ suggests, and Spencer really can’t tell if JJ is joking. She can’t possibly think that Y/N and he would have a romantic anniversary with the threat of getting pelted in the face with a baseball. 

“Sports games are not our forte, JJ. I honestly can’t tell who’d hate sitting in the sun for hours with angry sports fans,” Spencer adds. 

“Okay so no sports, I should have figured, Spence,” JJ winks knowingly. “How about this, think about somewhere that’s special to you two. Somewhere that makes you think of her,” 

“The thing is JJ, everyplace we’ve been together makes me think of her. The elevator when she first kissed me, the movie theater we always go to on Saturday nights, even the sidewalk outside my apartment building. Everything makes me think of her because she’s my everything,” Spencer says, hiding his discomfort at the conversation. 

“Spence, I think that anything you plan, will be wonderful. Have a little trust in yourself for once, Y/N is already head over heels in love with you, so I doubt that she’d really care where you go or what you do,” JJ advises, clearing up the dirty dishes from their Friday night pizza dinner with the boys. 

“I’m going to go JJ, thanks for talking me out of my head. If I took Morgan’s advice, I’d probably end up with a restraining order,” Spencer jokes, putting his jacket on and saying goodbye to his friend. 

“You think you need an Uber?” JJ asks, but immediately finds amusement from Spencer’s disgust at the idea of getting into an Uber. 

“Germs and technology sound like a nightmare, JJ. And I’m not going to remind you of the statistics regarding missing persons and those rideshare apps-” Spencer offers, but is cut off by JJ’s pretend annoyance. 

“Remind me to send Y/N combat pay, you know maybe she is a saint for putting up with you,” JJ teases. 

He walks out into the chill of the night, recounting the advice his friends gave him. Derek and Penelope’s plan was a little outlandish, a little too much for Spencer and Y/N. JJ, who Spencer knows means well, only served to remind him of how hard it must be with him. His steps are slow and languid, but his mind anything but. 

One step, you’re probably just a charity case that Y/N decided to save. 

Two steps, why on Earth would a woman like her even look at a man like you.

Three steps, you’re so pathetic that you can’t even plan a dinner for her. She’s too good for Spencer, you’ll ruin her. 

Everyone who you love leaves you or dies, anyway.

It’s that thought, not the thought of being alone, but the thought that he deserves to be alone that sends the tears down his cheeks. 

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Somehow, someway, Spencer made it back to his apartment. It never felt so dark, so unlike home. Maybe he just didn’t never realized that these walls aren’t home without Y/N. He really should try to get to sleep, but he’d rather fend off sleep with the endless supply of coffee than have to face a night alone in the cold bed. 

Just as Spencer makes his way to prepare a cup of coffee, he hears a distant jiggle of keys and the door knob rattle. And in comes Y/N, as fresh as the cup of coffee brewing and as beautiful as ever. 

“Happy Anniversary, my love,” Y/N tells him, dropping the bags on the floor. She moves over to him like a light breeze. All he wants is to welcome her embrace. He wants to scoop her up and carry her far away from the monsters that lie in wake. He feels an urge to be her protector, but how can be her protector when what he really wants is to be protected. 

“Y/N, what are you doing here, it’s so late,” Spencer says, praying that his voice doesn’t let go. He knows it’s futile, one look from Y/N, her palm to his cheek or even worse a chaste kiss on his forehead, Spencer would not be able to think. What is a genius without his mind? 

“I couldn’t wait for tomorrow, Spence, I just missed you too much,” Y/N says, her voice a prayer that spins around in Spencer’s brain, searching for refuge in his heart. 

“You really missed me?” Spencer asks, desperately wanting to believe her beyond belief. Y/N’s frown searches for an answer in Spencer’s distant expression. Even though they stand there with the kitchen light casting shadows touching as much skin as they can reach, Spencer is a million miles away.

“Of course I missed you, baby. And I just had to give you one of your gifts tonight. I just couldn’t wait to see your face,” Y/N says, practically bouncing as she bounds off to get the package for Spencer. 

“So this is only the first part, and stay with me, I know how much you hate technology, but I think you’ll make an excuse for this,” She tells him, handing him a heavy cube shaped package. It’s decorated in Y/N’s handwritten flowers and hearts, and a cute doodle of who Spencer can only assume is them. His girlfriend may not be artistic. But she’s the artist who paints the stars in Spencer’s night sky. She’s the tailor who sewed him back up when he was broken. She’s the architect who has the key and blueprint to his heart. 

Spencer opens the gift, his hands shaky and unsure. He’s terrified that Y/N can see right though him. He reveals the present. It’s a small wooden box with a red wooden heart that looks like it’s supposed to be pixelated. There’s a blank space on the top, that Spencer supposes is a screen.

“You gotta plug it in, Spence. So the messages can pop up. When you're far away from me saving the world, I can type a message from my phone and it’ll appear on your box,” she explains. Spencer looks up at her trying to search for what he did to get this lucky. 

“Thank you, this is the sweetest thing anyone has ever done for me,” Spencer tells her, placing a kiss against her forehead. It’s the kind of kisses that tell you so much more. It’s the kind of kiss you give when you know there’s more where that one came from. It’s safe and warm and everything good about this world. 

“I gotta make sure you won’t forget me when you go traipsing all over the country. A hot genius like you only comes around so often. I’m sure you got loads of attractive people throwing themselves at you, Spence,” she says with a wink. 

“Hot genius?” Spencer repeats half dumbfounded and half joking. 

“Yup, I gotta make sure they know that you’re spoken for,” 

“I couldn’t forget you even if I tried, Y/N. You’re the best thing that’s happened to me. I still don’t know what I did to ever deserve you,” Spencer says, as the tears and the fears of not being good enough bubble to the surface. 

“Spencer, baby. You’re shaking. What’s the matter? Huh,” she says softly, brushing her hand over Spencer’s head in a comforting and loving gesture. 

Spencer leans into her, his head pressed into her neck. He can hear her heartbeat and he can smell her perfume. He wants to get lost in her. Get lost in the feeling of total and complete love. 

“I just wanted this to be perfect, Y/N. For you- you deserve so much more than I can give. It must be so hard dating me. I know that I’m difficult to love sometimes,” Spencer murmurs, his tears pouring down his cheeks and spilling like his darkest thoughts onto Y/N’s shirt. 

“Spencer, you make my life so much brighter. So much fuller. I know that you got a lot going on up in that mind of yours and it must be kinda scary. It must be hard always being the guy people expect answers from. But I got you, sweetheart. And I’m not letting go,” Y/N tells him the words falling from lips like a psalm and taking on a new life in Spencer’s heart. 

“Thank you, Y/N. I really wanted this to be the best anniversary. I’m sorry I’m such a mess,” Spencer apologizes as he peppers light, feathery kisses along her collarbone and up to her eyes. 

“Well you’re my mess, Spencer. Let’s be honest, I’d be completely happy to spend our anniversary anywhere with you. Except maybe sports games, that sounds like torture for both of us,” Y/N laughs and Spencer can’t get over how she practically glows in the kitchen light. It could be that his mind is foggy with love, but Spencer hopes that he never grows out of this blissful feeling. 

“Well it’s a good thing we’ll have many more to make up for this one,” Spencer says, letting himself get dragged to the large fluffy sofa. 

“Oh no, Mister. The next 50 anniversaries have to try to top this one,” Y/N tells him and Spencer’s heart skips and flutters at the thought of having another 49 anniversaries with Y/N by his side. 

“I doubt that 50 will be enough, Y/N” 

“As long as you’ll allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you,” Y/N says, cuddling so close to Spencer that she can’t see where her limbs start and Spencer’s end. 

“If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more,” Spencer says running his spidery fingers down Y/N’s side much to her delight. 

“Ooh are you trying out some Jane Austen foreplay? Because that’s the way to make my panties drop,” Y/N says suggestively as she rubs her hand over Spencer’s chest and rests it on his neck. 

“Maybe tomorrow, I just really want to hold you close right now, Y/N.” Spencer says, sweetly kissing along her temple exciting a bout of giggles from the two of them. 

Spencer very well might be useless when it comes to love, but he was eager to learn that he’s worthy of love from his love expert. 

[jaeminzie]

ignorance is bliss | h.rj

↳ huang renjun x gender neutral!reader

synopsis: staying true to the courageous gryffindor persona, you secretly admire renjun using unusual tactics, forgetting that the fellow ravenclaw is fairly quick witted.

genre: fluff

word count: 2,339

part of ‘the dreamies in hogwarts’ series

huang renjun, the ravenclaw wallflower who you’ve been stalking according to your best friends. indeed, it is odd to stay in the library until ungodly hours solely for the breathtaking view from a few tables in front of the prettiest boy you’ve ever seen. though every view and every angle of huang renjun is breathtaking, it doesn’t take much work when you look like that. being as stubborn as ever, you would never admit to stalking the poor boy. you believed that that was an exaggeration, that your friends don’t understand how it feels to be so blinded by him and you are utterly confused on how they aren’t blinded by him. instead, you claim it as a way to get an understanding of the boy’s, who you do plan to interact with sometime in the future, mannerism — which you mentally admit sounds just as creepy as stalking, not helping your case at all.

so there you are, sitting alone in a table a bit further than usual from renjun using a book to cover your lower face to avoid any suspicion. not only are you stubborn, you are also unbelievably oblivious. so oblivious, in fact, that you aren’t aware that the boy who you’ve been “observing” has already noticed you staring at him the second week of your trips to the library. in your defense, you visit the library no more than four times a week as you loathed the smell of rotting book paper and dusty wooden furniture. unknowing of the boy’s acknowledgment of you, you continued to admire from a far. loving the way his plump lips pouted naturally while reading, his circular silver glasses sat perfectly on the bridge of his god-shaped nose, how careful his eyes scanned through the pages and the way his fingers absentmindedly tapped on the table as a way to keep himself sane from the amount of studying he chooses to do willingly which appalled you. but once in a while, he’d give himself a break by sketching on his notebook causing all the lines on his forehead and the pout on his lips to disappear. this is your favorite part. seeing him find his peace in drawing made you feel the same sense of warmth and tranquility that you suppose he feels when creating art, completely unaware of a gryffindor staring him down — or so you thought. ignorance really is bliss, or else, you wouldn’t be so shameless right now.

renjun means to speak to you one day as his confusion progresses each time he sees you walk through the ginormous library doors and choose a spot where you both have clear views of one another. when you look away, pretending to read the book in your hands, renjun looks your way with furrowed eyebrows trying to figure out what exactly do you want from him. why you still manage to fail your classes despite spending many hours “studying.” yes, you can say that he observes you as well since your houses share a couple classes with each other. from his observations, he’s learned that you’re quite the helper. renjun wonders how you weren’t sorted in hufflepuff. perhaps, a hufflepuff isn’t bold enough to stare at a stranger in a nearly empty library for many consecutive weeks. though, a gryffindor should have the courage to at least speak a single word to that person, a simple ‘hello’ would be a nice place to start.

it took him some time to admit it, but he found pleasure in staring at you as well. his slytherin friends practically had to force it out of him once they kept noticing that his gaze was almost always set on you since his group sat in the back of your classes, it was easy to admire without being caught unlike your questionable tactics. renjun admires how you keep trying and trying to answer a question correctly even when your raised hand is being blatantly ignored by the professor after getting a handful of questions incorrect. and don’t even get him started when he catches a glimpse of you laughing with your peers, then he can’t keep his eyes of off you. there’s been countless nights of him unintentionally going on about you and your character to his peers relaxing in their ravenclaw common room. at this point, the whole house of ravenclaw has heard your name come out of his mouth at least once.

from your clear view, you notice how focused renjun is with his hands seeming to move themselves while his mind continued to run on you. renjun straightened his back after finishing the last few strokes on his sketch. a sketch of you sitting on top of a table identical to the one you seated at right now with your legs swinging and your red robe nearly hitting the floor, eyes crinkled as your smile that he loves to look at reached up to your ears. his first drawing of you, he was proud of it and was sure it wouldn’t be the last drawing of you he’ll make.

you were taken back when you had noticed renjun was already gathering his belongings. he usually goes back to reading after finishing a drawing, you recalled back to the mental schedule you created in your mind. wow you really are a creep. you thought. too caught up with being offended by your inner self insulting your actions, you were completely unaware of the boy dressed in blue standing next to you.

renjun gaped as he thought you were ignoring him. having enough, he finally spoke, “can i help you?”

freezing in your seat when you heard his smooth voice laced with confusion, refusing to face the boy since you are definitely not prepared for this moment. fixing your posture and clearing your throat, you mustered your left over confidence as you chose to not further embarrass yourself in front huang renjun.

completely changing your body language to a more laid back manner and facing the boy, trying not to evidently show your breath being taken away from seeing him up close. his left eyebrow raised with his lips pursed slightly, fingers fiddling with the books by his side. he looked even better close in front of you, you had previously thought that was impossible. but you were so wrong, making you slightly mad at how perfect he seemed to be.

“nope” popping your ‘p.’ “do you?”

renjun’s facial expressions relaxed slightly. “no, i don’t.”

“why’d you come here then?” you mentally cursed and slapped and pinched and kicked yourself for accidentally not sounding the friendliest, your nervousness acting for you. “you sure you don’t need my help?”

renjun was taken back from your tone, oblivious to your feelings. there’s the gryffindor. they always have to be boasting. renjun huffed at his thoughts. he had not expected your first talk to be like this. your tone lightly hit his pride, so he automatically had to retaliate, “you’re the one to talk. you have an explanation for not being able to keep your eyes off me?” renjun laughed mockingly but not at you, at himself for being such a hypocrite.

defeated, you couldn’t keep up your relaxed attitude, “i. . . i just. . .” the eye contact you both shared was so intense you couldn’t even think straight, and neither could he. “s-sorry for bothering you. i’ll. . . leave you alone.”

before you could stand up from the chair, renjun pulled out the one beside you and sat facing your body. he sighed, “i’m sorry too. that didn’t come out as intended. but i need to know if i’m being too hopeful or not?”

hopeful? you remind yourself to pinch yourself later in case this a dream or some sort of spell. you hoped that your friends didn’t do anything without telling you since they’ve been suggesting that you use a love potion to “make everything easier,” but you profusely refused their incredibly stupid proposition each time they had brought it up to discuss.

“do you need tutoring, is that why?” he continued. his arms sat on his knees.

each and every one of his words entered one ear and went out the other as you wondered on what he was feeling hopeful for. “hopeful?”

his lifted his elbows off his knees and placed them on the table slowly, looking as if he was thinking. “i just thought that maybe you had reasons other than academic ones for coming here when i do.” he spoke very, very slowly that it was torturing. “am i right?”

you hated every second of this for the awful awkward tension, but this is the moment that you’ve been daydreaming of for weeks. though, you were shocked at how renjun noticed you despite trying to be as sneaky as possible — but your friends and renjun would say otherwise. “if i say yes. . .” your eyes wondered around his figure seated in front of you.

“i would be correct then.” he finished the sentence for you, not baring to wait longer. he moved his head towards your gaze on the floor behind him to try and get your eyes to focus on him.

and when you did, you saw the sparkle and hint of joy in his eyes making you feel truly confident. “then yes.”

—

it’s been nearly a month since your first interaction with one another, and renjun never misses a day of making fun of your past actions that you now admit were creepy. though after his friend, lee donghyuck, informed you in his own sneaky actions that you weren’t able to notice before, you have not let him live peacefully. renjun’s friend group was ecstatic when he told them about finally speaking to you and being with you. but renjun’s fully aware that they were more excited over the fact he can finally stop moping over not knowing how to approach you, achieving their peace since he can finally stop talking. though, he has a new topic to gush over — your relationship.

being together side by side and actually conversing with one another allowed renjun to see you in a deeper level, giving him more reasons to appreciate the special being that you are. he loved every second he spent with you. hearing you laugh at something that he had said or done makes renjun feel like he had reached the top of the highest mountain. holding your delicate hands while walking through the hallways made him feel like the most successful man on earth, and he proudly bragged over it. renjun loved how he felt so at ease and encouraged whenever he felt your presence around him. you don’t even need to be right by him to make him feel reassured. your presence alone was enough.

and you especially loved how he still chooses to love all those things despite your questionable actions in the past.

you loved being with him so much that you tolerate being in the library and actually reading beside him, or at least try to read. though, he has to hold your hand in order for you to fully commit yourself into studying with him. but both of you don’t complain.

you sat in a vacant table in the library, but this time, you sat next to the boy who you used to admire from a far. bouncing your leg out of boredom, “can we take a break?” you whispered in his ear.

renjun let out a small breathy laugh. “we just got here.” he whispered back, his gaze not leaving the thick book in front of you both.

your mouth slightly hanged open and you tightened your grip on his hand, “lies.” renjun squeezed your hand back playfully, still not looking at you. “please, jun, we’ve been here for an hour and you need to give yourself a break.”

silence.

you let go of his hand and puffed when he still didn’t spare a glance at you. defeated once again, you slid his notebook toward you and flipped through the pages, trying to entertain yourself by reading his notes. how fun.

widening your eyes in awe when you came across a page that showed a sketch of a person who looked exactly like you, with small hearts and tiny sparkles surrounding the figure sat on a table. your fingers lightly brushed the page, admiring how talented your boyfriend is.

“i drew that the day i came up to you.”

still strucked, you faced him and you were finally met with his beautiful eyes. “i think you need to update it. i look a bit different now.” you suggested with a smile that he cannot let down.

he hummed, “yeah, a tad bit huh?” you nodded eagerly which he laughed at. “i suppose i should work on it right now.” he reached for his notebook and flipped to an empty page, fixing his position so he can get a proper view of your face.

renjun did not hesitate to start drawing. he knew every detail of yours by heart, he honestly could draw a portrait of you relying solely on his memory. renjun has got every line, dot, and scar on your divine profile engraved in his mind since he thinks about you every second, literally. though, he still chooses to look up from his notebook to get a view of your face. not because he had forgotten a detail, but because he can’t refuse an opportunity to admire that face of yours. returning back to sketching with the most genuine smile you’ve ever seen on a person, with his pupils dilated. you definitely didn’t mind going to the library more often if you get to see renjun like this each time. you speak for both of you as renjun seems to be enjoying this moment just as much as you are. renjun’s hand that isn’t occupied reached for yours, with a grip that made it seemed like he’d never let go.

[tiredbiostudent]

i love seeing your posts it's very motivating. if you dont mind me asking, do you have any advice for studying (or tricks you use for urself) ((it's v vague sorry))!!!

hi, thank you! honestly I am absolutely awful at studying but I will try to provide some helpful tips:

1. watching university vloggers always makes me feel more motivated to do work! my favourites atm are nayna florence, moya mawhinney, paigeyy (her old cambridge vlogs bc I think she’s graduated now), linh truong, and may gao 2. I have a really hard time getting started so sometimes you just need to be like alright I can at LEAST open up this pdf or assignment. and I can at LEAST create a new word document and write out what I have to do. and occasionally this tricks your brain into actually starting ;) 3. when you plan a study schedule, give yourself at least one free day where you have nothing planned bc at least for me I will absolutely need it. don’t cram your days full of unrealistic things to do! 4. take advantage of your productive moods, but also don’t be too hard on yourself when you’re feeling super tired or burnt out or unproductive. you can also try and flip your productivity switch on (tho this is hit or miss) by doing less taxing stuff like going on a walk, making your bed, watering your plants- any task that makes you feel like you’re accomplishing something 5. have a hobby and life outside of school. easier said than done, but this will really help alleviate the stress and anxiety you feel when something goes wrong academically and that’s the only “important” thing you feel like you have in life. take time for yourself to learn new things, relax, spend time with friends, be in nature, exercise. all about balance baby! 6. study based on what your exam will test you on. if it’s short answer, study the material but also practice writing out example answers. if it’s matching labels to diagrams, practice that! go beyond just writing out your notes, try and fit your studying method to the format of your test. it helps s o much. 7. similarly, ALWAYS DO THE REVIEW QUESTIONS. if you have no time to do anything else, DO THESE!!! I’ve been burned so many times because I feel obligated to retype out all my notes (bc I have to have everything altogether) and run out of time to do the practice questions my prof gives, and those are always the most relevant to what you’ll be tested on. hell, do these before anything else. cannot stress this enough lol!!!! 8. don’t do the readings unless you NEED to or it helps you learn. otherwise it’s a waste of time (and money for a textbook!) imo 9. switch up where you study. unfortunately this isn’t really feasible right now but I find I’m most productive at the library- at your university (if you go) try to find your favourite study spots, and have a few you can cycle through! for me it’s the lifesci commons, law library and the comp sci building because they’re chill, productive atmospheres (as opposed to the SUB or the health sci building, which are too loud and too intense respectively) 10. keep your phone out of sight lol. and get one of those browser locks like forest to dissuade you from getting distracted. for me it’s more of a split second compulsion to check and once there’s a barrier in my way I’m like oh. nvm. 11. my personal note-taking method is taking written notes in lecture of anything important that’s not on the slides. usually your prof will emphasize the important of a topic too! but if they don’t, pay attention to what they’re spending a lot of time going over. after class I’ll add my written notes to the lecture to supplement it and better explain everything we covered. (for virtual lectures, I basically have the slides open in one half of my screen and the lecture in the other and type notes onto the slides as it plays) 12. practice explaining concepts to yourself out loud- this is a great way to see if you’ve actually understood the material! if you can do this once solidly, you’re good to go and it’ll stick in your brain for a while. 13. also try and make connections between topics you’ve covered because often this is what profs like to ask about on exams (cough ~synthesis~). for instance, recognizing that keratin composes tissues in birds, mammals, reptiles, etc. 14. if you’ve been working hard or having a stressful time buy yourself a nice warm drink because you deserve it! :) 15. this one’s a little weird but if you need to remember something like what the foundational traits of vertebrates are, focus on memorizing how many you need to know! if I know there’s 6 of something I need to remember, it makes recalling them SO much easier 16. if you’ve been sitting down studying for a while take a break to just jump tf around your room. you could also go on a walk I guess but jumping is more fun. 17. it’s good to get a reminder of why you’re in school and what makes you passionate about what you’re studying to drive you to keep going. for me I love to watch nature documentaries or go on hikes or look through field guidebooks or read really neat academic papers :) 18. for the love of god please get enough sleep.

I also have a whole tag of #study tips that is 1000% more helpful than what I can provide so definitely take a look through there! good luck, you got this :) ps sorry this got so long winded lol I hope it helps!

[queen-swagzilla]

So Much Worse Than A Phantom Limb, Chapter 4 [PREVEIW]

"You been doing your homework, nerd?" he barked as he barged into the room. Izuku was propped up by pillows and elbows deep in their quirk theory textbook. His head snapped up and he looked at Katsuki with wide, slightly red eyes. "And have you been sleeping?"

"Do the homework or get sleep, Kacchan. Can't be both." Izuku replied, a little bleary.

"They are never gonna let you out of the hospital if you don't take care of yourself, fucker," Katsuki snapped. "You know that."

"I'm trying to catch up!" he cried, frustrated.

Katsuki glared at him fiercely. "If you focus on your physical health now, it'll be easier to do the catch up. It'll go faster because your body will be able to handle it. Do this shit the right way, nerd. You know I'm right."

Izuku pouted. It was not cute. It wasn't. "I just feel pathetic," he mumbled.

Katsuki took a deep, calming breath. Yelling in the hospital was bad form. "You nearly got  fucking deleted by a villain, Deku. Two weeks isn't enough time to fully recover from two months of internally dissolving. What if it were me in the bed? What would you tell me?"

Izuku flushed and looked at Katsuki sheepishly. "Oh."

"Yeah, oh," Katsuki mocked him. "I get being restless, but you gotta be smart, dumbass. Take it easy in the beginning and work your way up to doing more every day."

"Fine." Izuku flopped back into his pillows.

"Take a nap while I check over your work," Katsuki instructed. "I'll wake you up when its time to review."

"Don't you have your own homework?"

"Yeah, but I'm basically studying by checking your work," he shrugged.  "Don't sweat it. I got some of it done during lunch, and I'll get to the rest after they kick me out."

Izuku seemed to know better than to argue with him (for once), and settled in to take his mandated nap while Katsuki picked up his binder of makeup work and began to flip through it.

Katsuki, Momo, and Aizawa had come up with a makeup plan for Izuku almost as soon as he'd woken up. It included a lesson plan, the notes and study guides that they had compiled, and a binder of assignments that he'd have to complete in order for Aizawa to deem him caught up enough to take the semester's final exams.

It meant that Izuku would likely be working to catch up for the duration of their two- spring vacation, and he wouldn't be entirely caught up for a while. He was months behind his classmates after he'd been doing so well and it frustrated him to degree he'd never experienced before. It made him angry.

Fuck Hiroki Takeda. Izuku wanted to Detroit Smash him in the face for stealing two whole months from him. For terrifying his friends and family, too. He kinda wanted to slap the villain's head off. But he wouldn't because he was a hero. Dammit.

Katsuki let Izuku sleep for two hours before waking him up to go over corrections. He could feel Deku's bubbling frustration, even as he tried to absorb what he was being taught with a positive attitude.

"Oh good, you're still here." Deku's doctor let himself into the room and addressed Katsuki. They were reviewing the math assignment that Izuku had done almost perfectly. There were a couple slip ups, but they were minor. Better safe than sorry, though. Both boys looked up at the intruder, blinking owlishly.

"Uh...yeah," Katsuki uttered intelligently.

"Hope you're not overworking yourself, Midoriya," the doctor warned, eying them suspiciously. "Or else I might rethink my decision to discharge you and allow you to complete your rehab in Recovery Girl's care."

Izuku's eyes widened. Damn, Recovery Girl worked fast. Katsuki was impressed. "What?" Izuku yelped, jolting forward.

"I understand that you've agreed to be his primary caregiver in the dorm, Bakugou? You're planning on managing his recovery and academic plans?" the doctor continued as though Izuku hadn't interrupted. "That had a fairly large bearing on my decision, so I'd like to confirm some details with you before I officially sign off on it."

Katsuki nodded, even as Izuku turned those wide eyes on him. "What?" Izuku demanded.

Katsuki ignored him. "Yeah, that's the plan. Our classmates will be helping, but I agreed to be the main contact. Aizawa will be monitoring his progress, too, so that'll be an extra set of responsible adult eyes on the nerd."

"That's good to know," the doctor agreed, both of them ignoring Izuku's incredulous sputtering. "If we do this, Recovery Girl will be taking over as the primary physician. You'll need to go to her for weekly checkups and report any problems to her as soon as possible. I've already sent her the care plan we've following, but I'd like to go over it with you. There are a lot of physical therapy exercises that he'll need to do daily, and a fairly strict diet plan. He'll also need to take medications, and there are signs of fatigue you'll need to watch for."

"Kacchan, you don't need to—"

Katsuki cut him off with a ferocious glare. "Do I ever—ever—do anything that I don't want to do?"

Izuku opened and closed his mouth a few times, looking like an odd green fish out of water. "N-no?"

"Then shut up and let me talk to your doctor, nerd."

"O-okay. Alright," Izuku complied, sitting back but not taking his huge, amazed eyes off of Katsuki. He tried very hard not to flush under the scrutiny.

"Hit me, doc."

The doctor (who was thoroughly amused by the two flustered boys) outlined Izuku's care thoroughly, handing Katsuki sheets of paper and explaining them in detail. Pointing out particulars of Izuku's injuries and weak spots on the boy's body and explaining how each exercise was done and how it helped. Katsuki's focus was laser-sharp, and he asked questions attentively—turning over every detail until he was sure he'd be able to take care of the nerd flawlessly.

"I think I feel comfortable releasing you into UA's care, Midoriya. You're lucky to have friends like Bakugou, here," the doctor smiled. But then his face darkened slightly, and he cut his eyes to Katsuki. "Not many people would take such good care of their friends' families in situations like yours."

Katsuki remembered then, that this was the doctor that had banned the 'Dekusquad' from the hospital. Katsuki shook his head ever so slightly. This was not the forum for that conversation. The doctor pursed his lips, but moved on, even as Izuku eyed them both suspiciously. "I'd like to keep you one more night so that we do one more round of regen therapy before you leave. Bakugou, you can pick him up in the morning. He'll need a wheelchair any time he's walking more than fifteen feet—do not argue with me—it is non-negotiable."

Izuku grumbled but agreed because honestly, he was way more excited about getting to leave the hospital than he was bummed about his lack of mobility. "When did you agree to be my caretaker?" he asked once the doctor had left.

"Today, after class," Katsuki replied, turning back to the homework. "Went to Recovery Girl. Noticed you were getting antsy." He looked up when Izuku didn't say anything because a silent Deku was nearly unheard of (unless the asshole was in a fucking coma), and found Izuku staring at him with a look so soft and warm that it made him want to tuck tail and flee. "What?" he demanded, self conscious.

"Nothing! Just...thank you, Kacchan. You're amazing."

Katsuki squirmed. "You've been saying that since we were four. Careful or it'll lose meaning."

"You're also a complete dick," Izuku replied, a little wry.

"Watch it, or I'll push your wheelchair down the stairs, Freckles," Katsuki barked. "Let's finish this chapter, and then I'm gonna go baby-proof the dorm for you."

"I'm not a baby!"

Read the rest on Ao3!

Like it? Buy me a coffee!

[writing-with-olive]

Extending or lowering your essay’s page count

So this really only works with page count. I've you have a wordcount you're trying to hit, this isn't going to help. Sorry.

The big thing is that you don't want your writing to read as bloated. If you can get your paper sounding good and clean and make it fit inside the assigned parameters, that's ideal. This also means you want to avoid changing margins, font/font size, making the title super big, etc. These are all parameters that you can lose points for if you mess them up. Also, if your teacher reverts them back to what they're supposed to be, it can push your essay out of the required page length. Not good.

Elements of your paper

The thing to remember is that page count is, in effect, a vertical measure. That is, the more writing you have, the more it's going to stretch vertically. This means if you're going to change the page count, you want to target the stuff that's going to extend it vertically. In this case, that is line breaks, and in some cases, paragraph breaks. 

Paragraph breaks are something you want to be careful with - many essays have a set structure you're supposed to follow, and screwing that up is not going to look good. The nice thing (if you're trying to make your paper longer) is that with most word processors, if you only have one line of a paragraph on one page, and the bulk of it on the next, it will all get shifted down so as not to oddly break up your writing. This can be used to your advantage.

Line breaks are going to be your best friends. regardless of whether you're trying to extend or compress your paper. Basically, if a word doesn't fit, it'll get pushed to the next line. If the last words of the last line of a paragraph don't fit, you get a new line. 

This got pretty long - tips for both extending and compressing your essay under the cut

Headers are also particularly vertical. That is, they consist of a bunch of lines that push your writing down. How you format them (staying within the guidelines of course) can make a pretty big difference.

Extending your paper

If you're trying to extend your paper (making it appear longer than it would normally be) you're going to want to increase your content. Is there anything else that you can think to add that isn't just repeating yourself over and over? Sometimes there isn't. If this is the case, move onto line breaks. In this case, you're going to want to first target paragraphs who have both

a last line that takes up most of the page horizontally

several lines that reach almost to the margin

Of course, this can work in paragraphs that aren't like this, but it'll take more effort. Start by looking at the sentences on the "full" lines. 

Are there any places where you're unclear or glossed over something? If making it clearer would be longer, replace it. 

Are there places where you can replace a weaker verb, noun, adjective, etc with something stronger (and longer)? Do it. 

Would adding a simile or metaphor help add more texture to your writing? Add it. 

Also keep in mind the space individual letters take up. For example, the letter i takes up almost no space compared to the letter m. In some cases, words with the same number of letters can be different lengths based on how they're spelled. Use this to your advantage. 

The idea is that you're making your essay longer, but you're also strengthening your writing - this will help with your grade. 

The next thing to do is to expand any contractions into their full form - this is a good practice anyway, and will help expand your paper without adding new content, or worse, making it bloated. Also, expand any dates. Your subject matter died on Dec. 12 1987? Now he died December 12, 1987. ESPECIALLY do this if you've listed any dates like 12/12/87. Also, spell out any numbers: your subject matter wrote twelve books, not 12. This is not a math textbook. If applicable, expand titles when people are first introduced. These changes may be small, but either they will create new lines, or they will help disguise some of your whitespace, making it appear that there's more content. Both are good.

The last thing to do is fiddle with your headers. Ideally, you've already hit your page count. This is just to make it look like you weren't struggling to put content on the page. Basically, if there's any optional lines to your header (teacher's name, or class name are common ones for me), add them. You're following the guidelines as they're intended (sort of) so you're not going to get called out on it. Best of all, it will push your paper down a little farther on the page, filling it out. In the same vein, make sure you've got any block quotes properly formatted - they're going to have narrower margins than the rest of your paper.

Compressing your paper

You've got all this great content but not enough space? Don't worry. You probably won't have to cut as much as you think. 

The first step is a little different than with expanding your paper. Go through the whole thing and see what information isn't pulling its weight. Redundant? Convoluted? Irrelevant? Cut or simplify accordingly. Depending on how you've written your paper, this could range from minor edits to something that changes the length by several lines.

Next thing is to identify paragraphs that fit almost the opposite criteria as I described above. Here, the ideal paragraph is one that has

Lots of shorter lines

a last line that doesn't take up much of the page.

Now you're going to clean up your writing on a smaller scale. To start, find words at the start of lines that are longer, and see what shorter words convey the same or more specific meaning. Replace it. Also see if there are ways to take longer and meandering sentences and cut the parts that are more extraneous. This will have the added benifit of making your work clean and well-crafted. 

Now, find filler words. Two common ones are "very," "that," and "just." If your sentence means the same thing without them and is gramatically accurate, cut them. They're not doing you any favors. Also, except for when you're introducing someone, you often only need their last name. Cut useless instances of their given name. 

Finally, focus on headers. Some teachers don't care much about what info you include. If there are any optional details, leave them off. At a bare minimum, you need your name, and often your date, but some teachers may not care if you put their name, for example. 

Good luck with your papers!

++++++++

Academic Stuff taglist: @candlemouse 

--find my taglist options pinned to the top of my blog. Please let me know if you want to be added/removed from any list

[everybodyscupoftea]

chemistry

isaac lahey x reader

isaac needs help in chemistry and you need help in english - the beginning

this is for isaac anon and the few people that wanted this. i’m just dabbling here, so let me know if you guys want more! (i did quite a bit of Research for this and i have ideas)

also let me know, i left it vague, but if i expand i’m probably going to add in scott, stiles, allison, and lydia. would you guys like to keep it supernatural or do full au where they’re just normal college students?

You noticed the boy in your Intro to Academic Writing course, but you didn’t really focus on him, mostly due to freshman year stress, until he sat down next to you in General Chemistry. Stepping into the classroom you’d felt at ease, science was your jam, but the really cute boy put you back on edge. You felt hyperaware of him, his scent, kind of cinnamon-y, fall-esque.

He tapped his fingers on his notebook, and you couldn’t help but notice he wrote in green pen. You glanced every so often to see him doodling in the corner of the page instead of taking notes on the intro lesson on the scientific method that your professor was doing.

The boy rested his chin on his hand and his fingers went from tapping on the notebook to his jaw and you shook your head, trying to focus back on the professor who was talking about your lab groups.

“The people at your table are in your group. Lab is on Wednesday nights, I won’t be the instructor, you’ll have a TA, but you can email me or come to my office hours if you have any questions about what’s going on. I’ll see you all on Thursday.”

You started to pack your stuff and the boy turned to you with a crooked grin, “I’m Isaac.”

Shaking his hand, you introduced yourself and he stood, waiting for you to finish packing your stuff. You zipped your booksack, “You’re in my English class, right?” you asked, faking as if you didn’t notice him as soon as you stepped into the door.

He nodded, “Yeah, with Dr. Terranova.”

“He seems,” you trailed off, looking for the right word, “interesting.”

Isaac grinned, “You mean overwhelmingly picky for an English 101 professor?”

“That’s a great way to put it,” you told him, laughing.

The two of you walked out the door and down the hall together. Isaac shifted his booksack on his shoulders a little and asked, “Do you have any more classes today?”

“Calculus,” you told him and he grimaced.

“Fuck that.”

“You?”

He nodded, “Spanish.”

Unfortunately for you, the buildings were on opposite ends of campus, so you paused just outside the door to the chemistry building. Isaac paused too and smiled, “See you tomorrow night?”

“See you tomorrow, Isaac.”

-

Your lab group was made up of two boys and two girls. Isaac, Andrew, Abigail, and you. Out of the group, you were the only STEM major, and the only one who actually liked chemistry. Isaac patted your shoulder, “Well, that officially makes you team captain then.”

“Thank god,” Abigail added, “I’m an advertising major, my brain noped out of the sciences years ago.”

The other guy, Andrew, said, “I took Chem 2 in high school and didn’t pass the AP exam, chemistry and I have beef.”

You snorted and said, “Cool, well, I’ll try and lead us to the promised land.” They seemed to like that.

-

Your group was really smart, everyone was picking up the labs really easily and you were thrilled, especially when the teacher stood in front of the class after the first test review. She clapped her hands once, “Okay, the lab group with the highest combined test average gets five bonus points added to their test scores. This is me trying to get you guys familiar with study groups, especially if you’re going to be in STEM, which I know some of you are. Study groups got me through school.”

Unfortunately, everyone in your lab group already had stuff going on, so you couldn’t study with them. Fortunately, the test was on intro stuff like the scientific method, conversions, and balancing equations, and your group hadn’t had any issues in any of the lab work, so you weren’t worried.

But when you got the test back, you realized, maybe you should’ve been. Isaac got his handed back first and actually laughed when he looked at the grade. Before you could ask, the professor set yours down on the desk and you started flipping through it, frowning at the little points you’d had taken off for careless mistakes.

“Fuck,” you muttered, “should’ve gotten at least a 97.”

“Wow, can’t believe you fucked it up for the whole group,” Isaac sarcastically responded, nudging you with his elbow, before sliding his test on top of yours. He nudged you again, “As you can see, I’m carrying the team,” and he motioned toward the D written in bright red at the top of his paper.

Your mouth dropped open and you picked the test up, flipping through to see what he’d missed. Eyebrows furrowed, you looked over at him, “You should tell her you accidentally skipped the back page.”

“Oh, it wasn’t an accident, I just didn’t know how to do it.”

“Well,” you stuttered, “it was the same stuff we did in the last lab activity.”

Isaac nodded, “Yes it is, and I didn’t understand it then either.”

“I thought,” you paused, mind racing, “I thought we all did?”

He grinned at you, “Some of us aren’t science brains, my friend.”

“What are you?” you asked as the class started to pack up.

With a soft smile, he threw his booksack over his shoulder, “I’m a literature major.”

-

You didn’t mean to think about it as much as you did, but when 2 a.m. rolled around and you were at your most impulsive you couldn’t stop yourself from sending out a text.

Hey, do you maybe want to meet up and study sometime?

After hitting send you could’ve slammed your head into a wall. You locked your phone and put your head in your hands, “God damnit.” And then your phone dinged.

I’d love that, love to have a STEM genius in my corner.

Your cheeks heated as you read it and your mind raced with your heart. It was beating harder and part of you couldn’t even believe he’d said yes. Taking a breath to steady yourself, you responded.

Idk about genius but I’m not half bad at chem

He responded, even faster than the first time and you grinned, unable to stop it from overtaking your face.

I may not know much about the scientific method or whatever, but all evidence suggests otherwise, genius

-

The next test wasn’t for a few weeks, but Isaac wanted to start studying earlier. He suggested meeting at a coffee shop called The Beanery. Coffee shops weren’t really your jam, you liked the silence of the fourth floor of the library. Go early, get a table, put in head phones, and go to work. But, you were open to try Isaac’s suggestion.

It was brightly lit when you walked in, and he was already there, at a table in the corner, laptop out. Books were spread across the tabletop, and he already had two empty mugs on the table in front of him, leg bouncing as he aimlessly chewed on a pen.

Shaking yourself out of staring, you walked to the counter to order. Isaac smiled up at you when you made it to the table with your coffee.

“Welcome,” he told you, moving some of his books out of the way. Sitting up straighter, Isaac glanced around, “What do you think about this place?”

“It’s nice, definitely a change of pace from my norm.”

“Where’s that then?”

“Library, fourth floor.”

“Quiet up there, huh?”

“Yeah, but I listen to some music for background.”

“I like coffee shops,” Isaac said, closing his laptop, “the vibes are nice and my clothes always smell like coffee afterward which is a fun bonus.”

At his comment, you looked down at his clothes. You were a little surprised to see that he was dressed just like during the week: jeans, a nicer t-shirt, and a cardigan. You’d wondered, deep down, if he dressed nicer for class, but it didn’t seem the case. Isaac cleared his throat and your eyes snapped to his face, ears burning when you saw him staring at you in amusement.

Coughing quietly, you reached for your booksack, “So, chemistry. Do you understand what we’ve been going over?”

“I know they’re called Bohr models but I don’t know anything else about them.”

“Right, so,” you paused a minute, trying to figure out where to start, “it’s a way to draw an atom and it’s kind of like a planet.”

Isaac leaned forward through your explanation, resting most of his weight on his elbows, and tapped the green pen against his lower lip. Every so often he’d ask a question, shift a little and write something down in his notebook by whatever he’d scribbled in class. His questions were shockingly insightful, and you eagerly answered them all.

By the time you’d gotten through the basics of thermodynamics, he’d added a whole page of notes, and you could tell he was starting to lose interest. Shutting your notebook, you told him, earnestly, “I hope this helped a little.”

“I promise,” he looked you straight in the eye, “it makes sense. This all looked like a foreign language before we met up.”

“Good,” you nodded, “this is my jam.”

“Keep on spreading it,” he joked and you couldn’t help but laugh.

“Well,” you admitted, “you may not be good at chem but you’d kick my ass into next week in English.”

“How’s your paper going?” Isaac asked, leaning back and crossing his arms, looking genuinely interested.

“It’s…going.”

He snorted, “That doesn’t sound promising.”

“Yeah neither does my thesis.”

“Do you have your laptop?”

“Yeah.”

“Let me have a look,” he suggested.

Pulling up the word doc, you passed your laptop over, staring down at your hands, twiddling your thumbs, a little nervously, as he read through your rough draft.

“What did Dr. Terranova have to say in your conference?” he asked, pushing your laptop away.

You sighed, “He was less than complimentary.”

Isaac laughed, “It’s not that bad, but it could use some polishing. I can help of course.”

Relief washed over you and you felt a weight off your shoulders, “That would be incredible actually.”

“There, now we’re even. You tutor me in chemistry and I’ll make sure you pass English, starting with this rough, and emphasis on rough, draft.”

Reaching across the table, you shoved at his hand, “Be gentle.”

“I’m going to get another chai,” he said, standing to stretch a bit, “and you pick out what sentence exactly you think is your thesis. We’ll start there.”

Biting your lip to conceal a grin, you nodded, waking your laptop back up.

[babygirlkiki1016]

Masterlist

Chapter 4: Between Two Races

Chapter 5: The Ugly Truth

The moon was almost out as the sun slowly lowered itself behind the mountains. I sighed, might as well enjoy it, this might be the only time I'll ever get to see it like this. With no enemies chasing us, just me and myself, and the maids who were trying to get me to wear a dress.

"What about this one milady? It's certainly beautiful, any man would love to see you in this kind of dress." It was a long black gown, not as fluffy as the others they had shown me. It was slim, and just my size, I ran my hand over the cloth feeling the soft texture.

"I'll try this one." Trying on the dress was the best decision, it fits me in all the right places. It hung off my shoulders slightly, showing my family's crest. My eyes traveled to the v-line that showed my breast. Well, it complimented my figure, even though I don't like showing my body that much, it made me feel beautiful. "Thank you, you are dismissed." I bowed and left my chambers, I could hear them giggling as I walked away. I wonder what they were so excited about, maybe they're eager to see the dwarves?

"Y/n! It's wonderful for you to join us for dinner." Elrond greeted as he walked up the steps with Gandalf. "You look extravagant."

"Thank you, as do you." He wasn't the only one who thought so, cause every dwarf at the table stopped and stared. Their jaws dropping in surprise, and each of them blushed as I smiled. The moment I sat down at the dining table, Thorin couldn't keep his eyes off of me. His gaze traveled to my chest, I couldn't tell if he was looking at my markings or my breast. "Thorin, eyes up here." He snaps out of his trance, but he did not smile or grin, he scowled at me.

"Don't you think that's a little too much skin your showing?" He growled I didn't think it would be a problem, but now I was doubting myself.

"Even if it is, what does it matter?"

"It matters cause you look like a whore." He took a sip of his wine, Elrond could sense my discomfort. I looked down in shame, all I wanted was to feel pretty, and here I thought this man could change. No, I wouldn't let him get to me, he's just another dwarf his words shouldn't matter to me. I held my head high, making his eyes widen at my new profound courage.

"A whore would be wearing much fewer clothes than I, all that matters is that I feel beautiful the way I am. And if you don't like it, then you can shove it you ignorant pig." The other two people at our table let out a small chuckle, for the look on Thorin's face was unexpected. He was speechless now but turned his focus to Elrond who examined one of the swords that he had taken from the trolls’ cave.

"This is Orcrist, the Goblin-cleaver. A famous blade, forged by the High Elves of the West. My kin." He hands it back to Thorin with a small nod. "May it serve you well." Elrond grabs Gandalf's sword. "And this is Glamdring. The Foe-hammer, sword of the King of Gondolin. These swords were made for the Goblin wars of the First. I believe you will find it to be useful."

"What about this?" I hand him the blue stone I had found in the troll's hoard, he tilted his head to the side and put down Gandalf's weapon.

"It has your family's crest, I highly doubt you need me to tell you what it means."

"I know what the translation is, but why would it say to go back to the Kingdom of Larthas? There's nothing there but corpses and vines that have grown over time." He takes it from me and analyzes the markings, his brows furrowed as he racked his brain for what it could mean.

"I do not know, perhaps there is a secret there that remains hidden. Something only you can find out, you are the Queen after all. Only the royal blood can open the gates of Larithian."

"The gates of Larithian?" Thorin glanced between the two of us in confusion.

"The gates of Larithian is where our treasure remains, anything important goes in there. Yet it hasn't been open for so long." Were there more of my people out there? Maybe they made this gem, so one day when someone found it they would bring it to me. Why? What could be so important?

"How did you come by these?" Elrond still stared at the stone in his hand, I had a feeling he knew something about the stone. He just wasn't telling me what it was, he tried to look at it like he'd never seen it before but was failing.

"We found them in a troll hoard on the Great East Road, shortly before we were ambushed by orcs," Gandalf explained, which caught his attention.

"And what were you doing on the Great East road?"

~♪♠♪~

"Our business is no concern of Elves. It's already bad enough that she knows of our journey." Thorin glared at me, that fire in his eyes returning once more. I could feel a few looks of pity thrown my way, but I could care less. I was a Queen, no matter how much he hurts me I have to stay strong for my people.

"For goodness sake. Thorin, show him the map!" Gandalf ordered, his grip tightening on his staff.

"It is the legacy of my people. It’s mine to protect! As are its secrets."

"Save me from the stubbornness of dwarves. Your pride will be your downfall. You stand here in the presence of one of the few in Middle-earth who can read that map. Show it to Lord Elrond!" Thorin grimaced at the thought, but he knew that the old wizard was right. Though he looked at me with a hopeful look, I returned it with a glimpse of confusion.

"Can you read the map?" His request surprised me, he would rather have me, a digonisk read the map than an elf? "You do know everything about dwarves out there do you not?" Thorin takes out the map and hands it to me reluctantly. I open it, and read what I already knew, it was mostly about the quest. Elrond took this as a signal to leave, for he knew the dwarves wouldn't want him to listen in on their secrets. So now all that remained was me, Gandalf, Thorin, Bilbo, and Balin.

"What am I looking for?"

"It’s mainly academic. As you know, this sort of artifact sometimes contains hidden text." Gandalf explains, walking with me to the pedestal. "You still read ancient dwarvish, do you not?"

"Of course, it was one of the first languages that I learned during my lessons." I studied the symbols and spoke aloud. "‘Cirth ithil’."

"Moon runes, of course. An easy thing to miss."

"Moon runes can only be read by the light of the moon of the same shape and season as the day on which they were written. Luckily for you, I do not need the same moon as I can create my own." I lifted my hand over the map as the two dwarves watched, with my magic I created a crescent moon making the paper glow with blue letters. "‘Stand by the grey stone when the thrush knocks, and the setting sun with the last light of Durin’s Day will shine upon the keyhole.’"

"Durin’s Day?" Bilbo asked curiously.

"It is the start of the dwarves' new year, when the last moon of Autumn and the first sun of Winter appear in the sky together. We still have time to make it to the mountain, as long as we move swiftly and take the fastest route. We have to be standing at exactly the right spot, at exactly the right time. Then, and only then, can the door be opened?" That's when everyone realized this journey was about to get a whole lot harder. Not only would we have to move fast, but that means barely any resting time for the rest of the company. After reading the map, I returned to my balcony, watching as the moon shined upon us. Lighting the town, making it glow with white light.

"You've been coming here a lot since you've arrived. Something on your mind?" Elrond joined me by the edge, his hands folded behind his back.

"Just wanting some peace."

"I do not believe that's the right answer." I looked up at him, he gave me a knowing look. Was I supposed to know what he was speaking of? "Thorin Oakenshield, Gandalf told me about how he's been treating you this entire trip. And I can see it in your eyes, it hurts you when he speaks ill of you." He was right, I didn't like it when Thorin was rude, it was as if he wants to break my heart.

"I just don't understand why it hurts so much." He places a hand on my head, caressing my hair gently to calm me.

"Perhaps it hurts because you are in love with him?" In love with him?! That can't be, I haven't thought of him that way at all. Though I did appreciate his time with me, and I liked it when he was around. His voice soothed me, those ruff vocals were music to my ears. "You know I never lie, your hurt because you love him, and when someone that you love is rude to you it pains you more."

"Even if that was true, he wouldn't love me back."

"That's not what I see, earlier when he commented on your dress I could see the jealousy flaring in his eyes." Could Thorin be jealous of what other men thought? Is that why he's always so rude to me? Because he wants me to be safe, or he doesn't want me to do a certain thing? "You should talk to him, tell him how you feel. If you don't it will only get worse for the both of you." I turned away slightly, looking towards the exit of the garden. Maybe telling Thorin wouldn't be so bad, let's hope he feels the same. I thanked Elrond for the advice and made my way around the castle. Eventually, I spotted Thorin with Dwalin speaking on the bridge over the waterfall. My heart was pounding as I made my way over to them, but before I turned the corner I heard something I hadn't expected. I hid behind the pillar, listening to them speaking about someone, uttering my name.

"You laid a hand to her?" Thorin growled.

"It was an accident Thorin, I was just angry-" Dwalin went to go apologize but Thorin interrupted him.

"She is the Queen of the Digonisks, the one who is going to slay Smaug. You will be nice to her, for she is the only one who can kill that beast." My heart fluttered, he was defending me, maybe he did love me.

"So that's it, you want us to be nice? What about the pain you've caused her?! And for what, so she'll do your dirty work?"

"If we hurt her more, she might turn her back on us. We need her to kill Smaug." So that's all he wanted, he just wanted me to kill that dragon. I was nothing but a pawn to him, he didn't love me after all. I was stupid to ever think such an ass like him could ever have feelings like that. Besides, he did say he'd rather be dead than ever be with me.

"And what about after that? What happens after she kills him?" Thorin sighed in disappointment, it seemed like he was upset about something.

"Then she can take her scrolls and leave." I let my guard down again, I shouldn't have listened to Elrond, he didn't lie but he was mistaken. A moment later I heard shuffling, Thorin was coming my way. Quickly I pretended to be just arriving, which startled 'The King Under The Mountain'. "Y/n." He bowed and smiled at me, but I knew it was just an act. "What brings you here?" My heart wrenched, I couldn't do it, I couldn't tell him. I didn't want to face rejection, nor humiliation.

"I was coming to tell you something." My eyes met Dwalins, and that's when he knew I had heard their conversation. "Though it's not important, not anymore." Quickly I rushed away to my chambers as Thorin called after me, and the moment the hard wooden door closed I slid down to the floor with a soft sob coming from my lips.

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