#I just have a hard time accepting the whole city could be *that* class-integrated and enlightened

[hauntedfalcon]

*slides game designers any Jane Jacobs book* please read this before you make urban maps

[smallnico]

when you made the comic about wyll saying that thing about orin i liked that the him inside his thought bubble didnt have the post-transformation horns and eye. a thoughtful little touch, it made me contemplate the ghost of his character arc (sorry if this is rude to the developers its just how i feel.) i also thought the comic was good overall. thanks ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

AUH NO THANK YOU <333

yeah i'm so glad people noticed and enjoyed that detail!! i love wyll so dearly and i also (with love to larian for everything they Did do) think he suffered a bit from the last-ish minute changes they made to his character. they were necessary changes, and they made him who he is today, but he didn't get as much thorough and layered development as some of the other companions did. he and karlach are both in this camp lmao, and i believe for the same reason. they didn't become who they are until pretty late in the development process, unlike someone like astarion, who's been himself since very early on.

all this to say, i love wyll and i am determined to explore what is there as best as i can, and i fucking love taking little details and pulling them out. wyll is a confident person who outwardly states that 'self-doubt' is one of the most dangerous monsters a person could fight, and he tends to double down on his confident persona every time something happens to rattle that confidence. moments like the tiefling party illustrate this for me very clearly -- if you wander around with him in the emerald grove post-devilification, a lot of key npcs will say to the effect of "wyll, what in the fuck happened to you", or react with fear and uncertainty. they're willing to accept it given any amount of time and thought, but there's not nothing to his worry that people see him as a monster, and of course, he's already been through the trauma of that same snap judgement by his father, so. he puts on a brave face and keeps his distance from the people he fears he makes uncomfortable, because what else are you going to do? enforce your own uncertain presence in front of regular, good people who are just... trying to live their lives? having a good time at a party? they don't want to be scared. you've been working your whole life to try and keep people like them safe so they don't have to feel scared or unsafe. you are getting in the way. this isn't for you. you aren't welcome here. it does no good to argue that point when you could just keep your chin up and leave.

of course, that's sad as hell, are you fucking kidding me? wyll deserves better than that, but he won't accept better because he's not the type to ask for grace or patience from others, and he's from a background where he's not confident he will receive it -- his father's grace is one thing, but think for a second about how he talks about ulder ravengard's personal history as well: ravengard sr. is the son of a tradesman serving a role meant for patriars. i don't doubt that all that comes with its own baggage and passed-down high standards. as soon as ravengard sr. let his guard down, you know a flock of upper-class baldurians was just waiting to tear him apart for it, because you see them do the same thing to gortash even though he's literally mind-controlling several of them. i don't doubt that ulder ravengard instilled in wyll a driving need to not only be better than other men, surer than other men, more dependable, reliable, with more sterling integrity than other men at all costs, remember the words of balduran, memorize the values of the city, love baldur's gate more than other men, be ready to face them and prove these things to them at all times because they are always testing you. it's hard to have the most demanded of you at all times, and it can create the kind of man wyll is: a man who sees self-doubt and hesitation as a monster, worse than a mind flayer or a devil. and he knows from experience (again, from ulder ravengard himself) that flagging for a second, not being able to explain yourself sufficiently to the people around you, is enough to get you cast out and shunned forever.

but it's not possible for a human being to live like that. they're impossible standards for a reason. wyll has a flawless facade of confidence, but he's not immune to self-doubt and angst under the surface, and this comes out when you play as him or investigate some of the details he drops in a regular tav/durge playthrough, and his devil transformation really does shake his confidence. look:

all of a sudden he's using 'i guess' and 'maybe' and 'could' and 'i might', more uncertain language, to say nothing of what he's actually saying. he's been put in a position where he thinks people will never see the wyll underneath again unless he asks it of them, something he has been conditioned to never expect people to do -- if you have to ask, you're not projecting a solid enough image of confidence and skill and good leadership. then there's the sheer body horror and dysmorphia of minding your own business and one day your boss physically transforms you into a monster forever. wyll is trying so hard at any given moment to not let it bother him, but it so clearly does, and it would bother anyone -- but wyll ravengard is supposed to be better than anyone, better than a normal man. he lives inside stories of heroes and hyperbolic idioms, Things One Says about Heroes, because he's never been allowed to be a normal man. he had to sneak out of the house to play hopscotch with lower city kids. to me that says everything. he has been taught to lead an idealized existence free of doubt, but that just means he's gotten very good at hiding his doubts and anxieties, his inconsistencies, his human error. he has so much trouble facing the fact that he also experiences internal conflict, just like anyone.

he spares karlach because she's an innocent, because it's the right thing to do, but he struggles with making that decision because he knows it's going to hurt him, and he refuses for a long time to admit that to himself, much less anyone else, because it makes him feel lesser. it makes him feel like the worst person on the planet to admit that he was afraid for his own life, essentially staring down the barrel of a gun to say no to mizora when faced with an innocent in need of protection, even though he wouldn't dream of even making a good person mildly uncomfortable for two minutes while they get used to the way he looks.

part of my vision for wyll's development is just, him getting a little bolder with the things he says, because we all know he says some out of pocket shit for no reason, and part of why that is so funny to me is because he says those things with all the confidence of a train barrelling forward, because of course he does, he's wyll ravengard, he has to be everything to everyone, he can't do something as human as cringe or twitch an eye and go 'ah. nope, that's not what i meant' when he blurts out something thoughtless, or something that sounded better in his head. i like the idea of turning into a monster being the thing that eventually makes him more comfortable with being human. part of letting your guard down around your friends is saying stuff you think they'd get a kick out of even if it doesn't fit the perfect image of the hero you're trying to be, or saying something that comes out wrong and letting yourself cringe when it wasn't received the way you wanted it to be. letting yourself let go of the idealized version of yourself and trusting your friends enough to know that they won't think less of you for it, because they still know you would rather die than let an innocent person get hurt, even if you do feel scared for yourself in the process.

tl;dr yeah i like to depict wyll slightly awkward and nervous. let the man be a human being and vulnerable for god's sakes he's been through enough. i love him

[bloodbenderz]

Can I ask what your season 1 Lok reboot looks like?

this is about 3k words i checked lmfao dont say i didnt warn u

a key part of the whole thing is that korra gets way more perspectives and more experiences representative of like, normal people in republic city bc i think something that really defined what a good avatar aang was was how many people he met and got to know and how he didnt exclusively or even mostly associate w cops and bureaucrats and leaders. so mako and bolin. well first of all their backstories are a little more fleshed out and we get a less black and white view of the “triads” (lol) and mako and bolin’s experiences w them. cuz the show very much does the whole thing of like Criminals Bad but dont worry even tho mako and bolin did commit crimes theyre not Criminals!! so just a little more nuance on the alleged gang problem and the poverty in the city

korra does start out very naive w very black and white ideas (ex. “you guys are CRIMINALS?”) i think a really good way of developing her away from her sheltered naive worldview is putting her in whats clearly an incredibly complicated city w an absolute cesspool of political conflicts, ethnic tensions, the lasting effects of colonization, etc and having her try and understand the needs of “the people” in a more complicated way than “i have to save the good guys from the bad guys” ykwim? and i think the absolute WORST way to do that is what they did. bc we get mako and bolin who could contribute genuinely compelling thematic elements to the story: one parent who was indigenous and one who was from a colonizer background in the decades directly following the end of the war, kids who grew up in poverty apparently without any familial support, and who now are trying to be “respectable” members of society (especially mako). and then most of that is pretty much tossed aside bc asami swoops in w her capitalist dad and her piles of money and the class issue is just never talked about again.

so the way i’d fix all that is like. introducing more, like, normal people. some nonbenders, more workers, more immigrants, etc, to show what daily life is actually like for people. because. we dont know! we dont have any context about whether the nonbender oppression thing is actually an issue bc we dont KNOW any nonbenders with normal lives! and spoiler: the nonbender oppression thing is not an issue. bc it doesnt make historical sense. lok is set 7 decades after the end of the war. that is not by ANY stretch of the imagination long enough to heal from the scars of imperialism, ESPECIALLY not when lok is also set in a settler colonial state. like that fact should have featured PROMINENTLY in the political and social setting! realistically, nonbenders arent an oppressed class, earth and water nation people are, regardless of bending status! as in all settler colonial states, the colonizers and their descendants (in this case fire nation people) retain most of the financial and political capital, leaving the colonized and racialized immigrants (in this case earth kingdom and water tribe people respectively) generally impoverished and politically suppressed. like aside from the fact that theres no way toph would have become a cop, it’s so ridiculous to think that an established privileged class of fire nation colonizers would EVER accept being policed by earthbenders!

imagine how much more nuanced and interesting it would be to set republic city as a remnant of a colonial past still fraught w the violence and tension that colonialism and the associated ideology imposed?? instead of some vague ideas of criminal who wear 1920s outfits and harass shopkeepers think about why extralegal and violent groups like that might form! earth kingdom people trying to push for the reclamation of their land? ethnic groups protecting themselves against corrupt cops? ESPECIALLY w the history that the fire nation has of SPECIFICALLY jailing and killing earthbenders and waterbenders BECAUSE of the potential they have to resist against fire nation imperialism like it just makes no sense at all that earthbenders would be privileged on land that, 70 years ago, they would have been imprisoned on! like these various paramilitary groups falling along these different ideological or ethnic lines, fire nation or earth kingdom or water tribe, pro colonization or anti colonization, pro cop or anti cop, pro immigrant or anti immigrant, and then you juxtapose that w depictions of a govt thats failing to keep this all under control w tenzin trying desperately to keep it together despite the fact that it’s becoming increasingly obvious that the state has no interest in taking the conflicts seriously and would rather just point vague fingers at criminals and gangs? and THEN you bring in korra, who has no idea about any of this and thinks that all its gonna take is kicking some ass every couple days, meeting normal people who offer all kinds of different opinions abt the efficacy of the state and the different violent or nonviolent groups and ideologies clashing in the city and the way all this shit is affecting people’s lives and livelihoods and relationships w other citizens??

theres so much good shit there so many incredible things u could do w that like Where do we go after colonial atrocities? is it possible for a settler colonial state to take revolutionary or indigenous ideas seriously? is liberal reform enough in a state like this? and then all the growth that korra could do going from a simple black and white life about mastering the elements to this messy complicated sociopolitical knot of a city? and all the different kinds of characters u could introduce in this city? like why would u EVER think that the most interesting characters that this story has to offer is a police chief a congressman and a billionaire????

but anyways. that’s what the Setting of my idealized version of lok is. as for the actual plot, it is as follows

it starts out similarly as the show. republic city is MUCH more fraught w political tension and violence and korra knows this but assumes that it’s just a matter of throwing a few gang leaders and corrupt officials in jail. tenzin manages to come see them in the south pole and intends give korra real lessons while he’s there but they receive news of a terrorist attack in republic city only a few days after he gets there so his family has to pack up and leave again.

korra stows away to republic city (katara catches her leaving and gives her blessing im a SUCKER for that moment). she does have a hard time adjusting but she doesn’t do what she did in the show lol the first person she meets in the city is this older woman who works on the docks, directs her to a place where she can eat and gives her a roof to sleep under for the first night. so korra’s first exposure to republic city is just about forming connections w ordinary people like ship workers and a family owned restaurant and people practicing their bending in the park. and by the time she reaches air temple island a day or so later her head is spinning w all this new information and the way that nothing is really what she expected it to be. tenzin gives her his own perspective on everything and pema gives her her own perspective on everything and even those two seem wildly different from all the people she’s already met. and so korra starts to get a kind of outline of the conflicts plaguing the city as extremely complex and a lot more influenced by older ideas of fire nation imperialism and earth kingdom land reclamation than she had any idea about.

mako and bolin are still pro benders but not like. super famous like they are in the show. korra’s picked up a couple friends by now and one of them takes her to a gym where a lot of amateur pro bending (is that an oxymoron? lol) matches happen and thats how she meets mako and bolin and joins their pro bending team. Unfortunately for korra, this gym is run by lin beifong, and also has the distinction of being one of the most notoriously anti settler state organizations in the country. lin beifong is NOT a cop but she runs this gym (and the pro bending league) as a way to offer support to local earth kingdom/water tribe youth, teach self defense skills, a center of community organizing, and sometimes to act as a front to hide revolutionary/combat organizing against the pro fire nation paramilitaries/police force. tenzin is DISTRAUGHT that korra does this and this is where the friction btwn them comes from bc (from tenzin’s perspective) she does things like this without thinking or even fully understanding the context behind them and tenzin will have to deal w the political fallout of the avatar openly aligning herself w a very divisive figure in the community and (from korra’s perspective) tenzin is too unwilling to take sides in a conflict that’s claiming lives and when the state is clearly not taking sufficient steps to protect people well then why the hell shouldnt she align herself w lin beifong, who IS taking steps to protect and support people?

as korra more fully integrates herself into the city and learns more abt how different people think abt everything going on this is where the real exposition abt the equalists begins. they’re a paramilitary group w an ideology thats gaining increasing support among middle/upper class fire nation people, esp nonbenders. on the face theyre abt putting checks on “bender oppression” but really it’s an excuse to persecute and surveil earthbenders waterbenders and airbenders, bc fire nation people have all this leftover fear about benders who arent fire nation Rising Up Against them and these people who r using their Savage Excuse for Bending to terrorize good innocent (fire nation) people. theres all too frequent terrorist attacks that the equalists claim credit for mostly against monuments to earth/water/air nation people and earth/water nation community centers (one like it was the event that forced tenzin back to republic city) but also like the govt doesnt take a lot of these seriously or if they do only a couple people are charged without doing damage to the entire organization

this is also around the time that they meet asami and she becomes part of their friend group. asami likes pro bending but her dad HATES it so she sneaks out to watch matches at lin beifong’s gym (korra says ironically like don’t u know how ~divisive~ that is and asami answers that the only reason its Not divisive is that gyms like beifongs are the only place where nobody recognizes her). and asami alongside korra is also kind of developing a more nuanced perspective on the city that she lives in cuz obviously the only worldview she’s ever been exposed to is her father’s right? and she keeps pushing it off making excuses not to bring mako and bolin and korra around to her house or even not to be seen w them in certain neighborhoods until they call her on it and she’s like Well honestly my dad might do something awful to u! and i dont wanna risk it!

and as time goes on we see more abt asami’s home life like her father’s hyper conservative politics and asami keeps these secrets abt her hobbies and her friends from him but she’s still clearly under his influence and mako bolin and korra r getting increasingly worried abt it cuz like...asami seems to tend to make excuses for him so that she wont have to be drawn into conflict and originally they think its just her being privileged and thats def part of it but the more they find out abt it the more they realize what a tight fucking grip he has on her and the way that like. asami sneaking out once or twice a week is the Only thing she does for herself. and it really starts freaking them out how influential this billionaire is and all the information theyre getting from asami abt what a piece of shit he clearly is. and so that whole plot thing comes about and shows us how deeply embedded these “equalist” ideas are in conservative republic city politics and how much influence theyre actually having in policy making and law enforcement.

asami suffers in the aftermath of this like being forced to truly confront the harm her father is doing both to the city and to herself. and she ends up leaving home when this discovery really breaks. but bc of the deep corruption in govt and police sato isn’t really....dealt with? like this big story breaks and everyones like Oh, My God! Hiroshi Sato Is Funding An Illegal Paramilitary Group! and theres all kinds of inane political discourse about it and he’s arrested but he bails himself out immediately and his finances are examined but he maintains control over them and after a few weeks the gang (bc they Have become close among all this w much less interpersonal drama lol) has to admit that this news story hasnt done what they thought it was going to it hasn’t dealt the equalists a real hit its just given them a very high profile ally

and this is when things really start to ramp up in terms of action like up until now korra’s daily activities are mostly like hanging around in the city w her friends  (which in part entails doing little avatar stuff that people dont feel comfortable going to police with, like Can you help me my ex husband wont pay child support or Please help i got robbed and i really needed that money for rent next month or Help my son keeps skipping school can you talk to him cuz im worried abt him being safe and doing well in school) and pro bending and airbending lessons (which i know ive neglected this part of the story in terms of her whole spiritual/physical conflict but it’s more of a subtle thing like it’s one of tenzin and korra’s more frequent arguments like tenzin says she needs to focus on spirituality and korra asks why she even needs to bc republic city is a sociopolitical problem not a spiritual one) but now the equalist threat seems to really be looming on every level of society like the storyline of equalists preventing pro bending matches happens here and everyones just at a total loss of what to do next. plus increasing and scary rhetoric about tenzin and his family that destroying the last airbenders is necessary to preserving the integrity of the united republic

and so theres the equalist takeover of the city. the people who are mostly resisting this are lin and ragtag group of people who have been resisting colonial rule for a long time (including suyin, who is part of a communist anti colonial community outside the city, because i said so and i think it would be fun), people who have been visiting her gym for years, members of her amateur pro bending league, plus asami and korra and tenzin. korra and tenzin have a sweet moment (bc they do genuinely care abt each other a lot even if their relationship has been marked w a lot of tension and arguing) where tenzin says like you know i think that ive lost focus on the kind of spirituality that might actually help you. korra says what do you mean? and tenzin kind of gestures to where theyre sitting with people buzzing around organizing to take care of innocents and civilians and to fight the equalists and he says this is a kind of spiritual too, isnt it?

and something something plot plot blah blah i havent decided on the details of the plot climax yet but that’s the climax of korra’s character development and what helps her connect w her spiritual side in order to protect the city: the realization that community is its own kind of spirituality. and it kind of represents the real development that i want her to have going from somebody who thinks that the world is divided into criminals and victims and she has to save the victims Into the kind of avatar who understands the people that she’s bound to serve. she becomes an avatar of the people!

and then happy ending lol korra and asami get together lin and tenzin reconcile after years of being at odds the show ends on a hopeful note that the inhabitants of republic city and the united republic as a whole Can move on from the scars of colonialism by reckoning w the remnants of fire nation colonial ideology and reparations to the earth kingdom people whose land this is and destruction of colonial systems that have maintained and enforced colonial violence all these years

[wexhappyxfew]

The Nightingales of Fortune Favors the Brave

A Band of Brothers Fanfic Coming Fall 2021 (or presumably whenever Landslide finishes up!) 

HELLO!! If you’re reading this, then as you can see, I’ve finally created a master post with all my Nightingales (well, not really mine THE PUBLIC’S but you’ve all gifted them to me ever so graciously, and it honestly, it means the world to me). Just to see the excitement and reception I’ve gotten from so many people in the fandom involving a female group of Pathfinders - an area of war, I have wanted to cover ever since nearly over 2 years ago I got involved in the fandom. All OC’s will have their creators name listed beside them - I did not create any of these OC’s, all credit goes to the lovely people who crafted and gifted them to me for FFTB!

Viewing where I currently am in my life, I’m going to going to college this year! I got accepted into the school I wanted, the program I wanted, even a scholarship! And I’m beyond excited. I really wanted to have something there for me when college does finally, you know, HAPPEN, and so Fortune Favors the Brave was the only way to go! To have a wonderful group of Nightingales, of female Pathfinders in the Band of Brothers fandom, seemed to be the way to go. Updates and such will definitely be different - I’m picking up more work hours this year, probably even summer classes, night classes, weekend classes - whatever I can do to benefit my degree and myself, I’m taking the opportunity. 

And so, updates will presumably be quite different, depending on a variety of things, but...this will be my college story! No matter how many years it takes to complete and update and write, this will be the thing I have with me through it all for when I need a mental break from school! And I am beyond excited for when I do finally get to share this story more than anything! 

We have such a great group of OCs here - different backgrounds, different reasons for joining, different creators who gifted them to me, different friendships, relationships and abundances of sisterhood and brotherhood moments. I’m truly beyond excited to showcase the Pathfinders side of the war in the light of 16 female OCs, whose stories will be told through their viewpoints based on different episodes whether whole or split! 

So thank you ALL!! These past 2 years have been a joy in the fandom and let’s hope for another few more! I’ve managed 3 fics and 4 books total and I’m excited to bring, presumably, my FINAL Band of Brothers fic in the fandom to you all in the near future. Thank you!! <3

THE NIGHTINGALES 

Team C DZ C for 506th PIR, 501st PIR 

-> 2/506 PIR (Stick 2/Plane #4) 

-- TOCCOA VETERANS --

Team Leader 

Captain Eleanor Graham - @basilone

Eleanor Graham had never met a challenge she couldn’t conquer - the eldest of four and a farmer’s daughter, teamwork and diligence were drilled into her mind like clockwork, along with being as much of a leader in the eyes of her family as she could. There was more to life than a farmer’s wife for her future though, no matter how much she adored the farm her family had grown to craft from the ground up. Iowa brought no opportunity except the farm life deemed fit for her, so upon seeing the advertisement “ It’s Your Fight Too “, OCS had never seemed like a better choice in her eyes. Because it was all their fights - man, woman, child, anyone - it was a World War, a fight for all their lives, for human lives. And with the capability to obtain Captain just before leaving for Camp Toccoa, it solidified her position for not only leading in Easy Company, but leading the Nightinagles - the first stick of female Pathfinders.

Assistant Team Leader

Lieutenant Florence Godfrey - @pxpeyewynn

A British lady and an artist at heart, from the little town of Avebury, set inside Wiltshire of Great Britain, her father made it big in New York just as the war that swarmed throughout Europe, erupted into spitfire. And suddenly thrust into the world of an America before war, was unsettling. Her country fought while America remained neutral. Yet, when the advertisement flooded throughout New York City - she couldn’t help but take it as her only way to get into war. OCS was beyond enough challenges, but walking in as a Lieutenant for Easy and for the Pathfinders, she was no longer the little girl who prayed at night to whomever was above to end the people’s suffering, or avoided interaction to instead draw in her notebook. She was a Lieutenant, and she was a woman at war - yet what was she even fighting for? 

Eureka Operators (each equipped with a Eureka Transponder each)

Sergeant (NCO) Marie Reynal - @thoughpoppiesblow

Grandmère Reynal always held her at night, under the dark night sky and sang in her soulful Cajun French, the words flowing from her lips and remaining an ever-present comfort in times where food was hardly ever on the table, or when she had to watch the other girls at school get the latest Mary-Janes and she was stuck with her old ones. Her grandmère taught her to appreciate the small things in life. But when the “It’s Your Fight Too” poster came out in the papers, Marie Reynal knew there were larger things in life than the newest Mary-Janes at school. Packing up what she could, Marie headed out to Camp Toccoa, equipped with nothing but some clothes and her fiddle. 

Corporal Edith Lockner - @mercurygray

Remember to look up - her mother would always tell her that. Especially when things on their little farm got hard in Stanford, Illinois where the only thing that occurred there was the wagering price of corn that fluctuated with the ever-changing times. So...she figured that’s why she always tended to look to the stars when her mother would tell her that before bed each night, looking out the wooden window under her quilt as a cold draft blew in. She always imagined herself up there, amongst the stars and for once seeing what the stars saw. But to be up with those stars and to get to study them, she’d need a lot more money than what ever amount the corn tended to bring in. And the Airborne with a fantastic pay grade, along with the Pathfinders and their earnings -- it seemed her ticket out. Maybe there won’t be stars - but anything’s got to be better than here. 

Wireman 

Corporal Chiyoko ‘Luna’ Omori - @papersergeant-pencilsoldier

Know your place. Eyes down, mouth shut. And most importantly, honor your family. Chiyoko Omori has never been one to step out of line, nor has she been one to speak when otherwise not spoken too. Trained in the art of kendo, the Japanese martial arts that her ancestors trained in, she leads with discipline and integrity amongst the group of Nightingales training as Pathfinders, as the solo wireman of the group. Her intelligence, more than once, has saved her and in war might just save her again and again. Her father’s garage had always been home to a multitude of repairs and many she had learned to do herself. But there she had been Chiyoko. But for war, she must forget who Chiyoko is and embody the only other name besides her family name that she will ever know - Luna. 

Lightmen (each equipped with 2 Halophane Lamps each) 

Staff-Sergeant (Senior NonCom) Sarah Prowse - @junojelli

For once in her life Sarah Prowse would not have her twin brother by her side. He hadn’t been by her side for years after he went back home to fight with the English and lost his life at Dunkirk. But this was real, this was happening - and the Pathfinders withheld the opportunity to prove to herself that Edmund had died with valor and courage. And he would not have died in vain. The nannies had always said they were inseparable but they weren’t those kids anymore. This was real life. And in real life, there was love and loss and pain. And sometimes the only way to get through it all was to do the thing to distract you most from it all. Some days she wished her family could’ve just stayed in England - maybe Mum would still be here. With her sharp mind, and the ability to read people like an open book, rising to the rank Staff-Sergeant had come easily - reading the field and reading people were pretty similar...right? 

Corporal Jean Dawson - @tvserie-s-world

Life in Louisville, Kentucky had always been a sort of cozy-comfort that Jean Doxon had always enjoyed. The weekend fairgrounds filled to the brim with people enjoying the night life it offered, early summers filled with watching her father race horses around the tracks sprinkled throughout the town and nights by her boyfriend, Glenn Hartley, where the sky seemed to stretch forever into the night. That is before the war sent him away to the Pacific. And their only form of communication was reduced to letters, with pressed flowers and the hint of rose perfume. Jean refused to mope about, when she knew this war was hardly far from over. Quick-thinking on her feet, and a town champion for knot-tying in her days in elementary, she packed what she could and left for Georgia the second she was able to take the first train out. The Airborne had much to offer, but more importantly so did the Pathfinders. 

Corporal Mercy Codonoa - @whoahersheybars

Mercy Codona always been a traveler, never staying in one place and always on the move to somewhere new that she might've never quite been before. This meant new neighbors, new friends and a new way of life. Something the United States readily offered. Each new town in a new state had a different way of life than the next. She figured that's why she was so quick to adapt to her surroundings - nothing was ever permanent, nor set in stone. Neither was family. Orphaned by 17 and left to fend for herself, left in the care of her mother's estranged sister, Mercy took the liberty by herself to do what she could to support herself. Taking up odd jobs in each town she traveled to and managing what she could to feed herself. But she was proud of her Romani-Croat heritage and what her ancestors had done in their past lives. She intended on continuing what their stories had not finished. If only she could continue to support herself. It was only when the "It's Your Fight Too" showed up newly on the Fort Wayne clipboard by the post office in April 1942 and then and there in that moment did she decided - with the extra money the Airborne offered, along with that of the Pathfinders, she'd be able to support herself in the future as well as possibly find people with the same dreams as herself for their futures, and for once finally belong.

Private Kennedy Rutlidge - MINE

Kennedy Docherty had always had quite a wild and exciting mind, always having a new idea, or a new method on selling the most recent paper that got her a few cents an hour. All through her schooling years and even up to her senior year, she took to the busiest corner on Lake Ave and Lyell Ave, calling out to sell her papers, before heading home for the night and running her normal routine the very next day. She spent summers at Lake Ontario, in her grandmother's home on the lake, where some of her fondest memories of her youth had been born. She always believed that's why she was always fascinated with flying, like one of the birds or hawks that flew out across the lake in the early morning. What she'd give to get that feeling just once in her life, away from school and away from the constant need to make as much money as she could to help with the family. The words "It's Your Fight Too" scrawled across the paper in early April had caught her eye within a second and left her running home just that night to break the news that she was signing up. And almost a week later, she found herself packed on a train towards Camp Toccoa, Georgia, bright eyes and the last bit of innocence fading from sight.

Security Personnel  

Sergeant (NCO) Alexandra Calypso - @iilovemusic12us

A Boston girl who grew up with her proud Jewish faith, with a Greek mother, knew hard work and sometimes it was pushing yourself to the very limit beyond what the human body could handle sometimes. So that meant falling, scrapping your knee a few times, sucking up the tears, sending a quick prayer to God and moving on with your life. Life had always been like that - they weren’t the richest, nor the poorest, but there wasn’t ever enough food on the table or enough money to fix the roof, or even to keep the mortgage paid. But her parents never stopped working. And she supposed what drove her to the Airborne and to the Pathfinders was seeing how hard they worked. And they paid well she had heard. She could work with it. And if anything, the Pathfinders were more accepting than any school in Boston she’d been to. 

Sergeant Nellie Shaw - @hellitwasyoufirstsergeant

Hailing from a small, coastal town in Maine, the proud Scot wanted more than anything to stay out of war when it finally came knocking on America’s doorstep. But Nellie Shaw, loyal as saint, knew that there was one thing she could do for this country and that was fight. Give her a pack of cigarettes or a bottle of gin, and she’d go in swinging for the war effort, even with her grumpy morning attitude that slowly became infamous in her elementary school days among the school children. She had no purpose on a farm on a mountain side anymore, rather destined to do what part of the fight she could. Taking Greer Riddell under her wing, the fellow Scot befriended the least likely person to enjoy her company and yet Nellie’s easy-going companionship slowly became integral to the entirety of Easy Company and the Nightingales. 

Private Greer Riddell - @leighinthesky

Schruz, Nevada was home for 21 years and by the looks of it, home for the rest of her life. A bee farm in a tiny town wasn’t idle for the rest of her life, but if she never got the money for college to get out of the small town, she feared she wouldn’t ever leave. And knowing the military had offered 16 women a stick of a plane to get their shot at becoming Pathfinders for the Army was her ticket straight to Toccoa, Georgia for training. The pay could send her not only to college, but could get her out of that tiny town which had confined her to nothing but her family and a cute little bee farm where hard work always paid off. Don’t be fooled by her subdue and withdrawn nature, the second her hands touched the rifle - the field was hers and yet so was the valley.

Codebreaker [Betchley Park Member]

Sergeant Laverne Robinson - @vintagelavenderskies

For her 23 years of life, Laverne Robinson had known just about every spot in London where you could catch a smoke break and not get caught by one of the older women and get scolded for doing so. She blamed her older brother, he blamed her. It was a mutual thing. But that had been the only thing to fear in London - until war struck, which sent every eligible man off to fight for the effort. Her brother included, leaving her staring out the rain speckled window all alone as the smell of her mother's soup wafted past her nose. Yet, like many women of the time, she wanted to fight too. Fluent in French and German and skilled in mathematics and code-work, Bletchley Park seemed the best fit. Working on codes, both sculpting and breaking them inside the building, keeping her lips shut and going on about her normal day when not inside the institution, life didn't seem as dreary as she had anticipated. Because she knew she was apart of the effort to end this war. That was until, she was called upon in late March 1944 to join up with the 101st Airborne with the first female stick of 12 pathfinders to make the jump into Normandy and assist them in anyway possible. Laverne knew it was a once in a lifetime opportunity and if her brother were there, he would've told her to run with it. Becoming a professor of mathematics would have to wait.

REPLACEMENTS

Corporal Alessandra Lisi - @tvserie-s-world

Alessandra Lisi had never known her parents. She was always told that sickness had taken them when she was just a child. Her brothers had been older than her and had tried to protect her from the sight of her parents dying. And so when their Nonna had taken them into her home without hesitation, Alessandra grew to look to her Nonna as the other parental figure she’d ever had. Of course, her brothers were always there for her, protective as they were, they never let her get into any sort of trouble without hearing about it first. Alessandra grew to adore her Italian heritage, cooking with Nonna on Sunday’s, inviting family over to enjoy the meals and even getting to stir the sauce as Nonna dropped in fresh, cut tomatoes. That was life and it had always been life as such. But when war sent her 3 brothers away, she knew she would not go down without a fight either. Upon receiving the paper in November 1943, she noticed the cover page withheld the picture of 12 women, adorned in jump wings as well as military grade goggles and scarves standing with wide smiles and bright eyes in front of a C-47, the title 'The Nightingales', lying just underneath. Female Pathfinders. If her parents were here, they would've been telling her what Nonna would've been telling her now. Fight for what you believe in, because while there's life, there's hope.

Private First Class Bettie Smith - @sgtxliptons86

Brooklyn, New York had it all - the kids in the streets, the shops on the corners where you could get a piece of candy for as little as 5 cents, even the corner stores in the summer where you could get ice cream for a dime. And as Bettie Smith grew older, running the streets of Brooklyn became like a weekend job - checking in on the younger kids of friends, riding bikes past the floral shops and picking up flowers for her sister, getting a bag of charcoal for her father. Even throwing some curses towards the boys who would heckle her for the way she wore her hair or the old shoes laced on her feet. Her older sister wasn’t too pleased with it all, but ever since Ma had passed, she seemed to let it slide - it was an escape for Bettie. So when war came knocking on the Smith’s door, anger, yet pride for their country filled the home, as well as the streets of New York, as more men and women began signing up for the cause. More friends left to join the effort, leaving Bettie there on the concrete doorstep. So when Bettie received the daily paper in November 1943, showcasing the 12 female pathfinders of the 101st Airborne, front and center for all to see, Bettie took it in quite large strides and took the first train of December 1943 to Fort Benning, Georgia.

Private Annie Laine - @wereinadell

Annie Laine, the daughter of Finnish immigrants, had always dreamed of leaving the quiet countryside her parents had always preferred for their family for the big cities of the Midwest - maybe she’d go to Chicago and study theater, or maybe she’d go and finally attend college in Milwaukee. Anything to get out of the small town she currently resided in. But the countryside had brought alone its perks - orienteering and hunting were big in the Laine family and every child, her 3 brothers, her and her sister, had all been taught the noble art. Swimming the streams, fishing in the lakes, taking hikes through the forests and coming back with a deer for dinner - life had always been quite peaceful Annie felt. But she could always hope that one day it changed. And it seemed war rung those bells quite early on. Annie was tired of structured life and if anything, she knew that the start of structured life in the military would fall quite nearly to shambles once they hit war. The November 1943 issue of the daily newspaper brought upon not only sudden interest in the military, but in that of the female pathfinders who were paving their way in all of military history to be the first stick to jump into continental occupied-Europe. All it took was what cash she had saved for college and a small suitcase to get her on the way to Fort Benning, Georgia.

Private Marla Hughes - @hellitwasyoufirstsergeant

Lafayette, Louisiana had been home all her life - Baton Rouge just to the East and New Orleans just a little further. It had always been home for as long as she could remember. With the fancy parties her father always allotted for the family to attend, talking with the men in pristine suits, or the women with the big hats, some days Marla Hughes just wished to be able to go outside and enjoy nature instead of suffocating amongst the people who seemed to live in a world that didn’t even seem like real life. She supposed that was when she had hit her breaking point and joined the Airborne in Fort Benning, Georgia. She was tired of the life that did absolutely nothing for her. There was more to this world, so much more and yet she was confined to a party dress and an expensive glass of wine that tasted bitter when it rushed down the throat. There were small bars, where the music played, and you could dance until your feet grew tired, there were beer bottles awaiting to be clinked together with friends and there were people beside the stuck-up society she was forced into. The Airborne accepted anyone far and wide - and maybe she could strip of the posh life given to her and finally be set free.

THESE ARE THE NIGHTINGALES!!!

> if you have any questions, feel free to send them in! if not, it’s all good! these are our 16 nightingales! :) thank you to all of you who sent them in back in early December! It’s been an honor to craft these wonderful OC’s!

[ampleappleamble]

—

Axa could feel them watching her as they settled into their room at the Goose and Fox that night, could feel them wanting to know her. Not only so they could understand why she had done what she had with Purnisc and Kaenra, but also so they could (no doubt) uncover and examine all the painful, humiliating life experiences behind her every decision, all her successes and failures, and then judge her accordingly. Like kith will, she thought, of course. That’s normal and healthy to think.

Genuine concern mingled with morbid curiosity, hung palpably over the group like a scythe posed to reap as everyone sat in awkward silence and waited for Axa to break the silence. So she drained her goblet, got out her pipe and her whiteleaf, and with a grim sense of determination, she told them about it.

About the career she'd built back in Ixamitl, where she had lucked into a scholarship to one of her hometown's more prestigious lore colleges, bestowed on her by a generous politician acquainted with her father. Because she'd always loved to learn and hear stories about kith from around the world, she had chosen to put her good fortune to good use and study to become a naturalist, concerning herself with the cultures and languages and histories that constituted the kith population of Eora.

While most of her colleagues had decided to specialize in Vailian– a popular choice for the political or business-oriented crowd– Axa fancied herself an intellectual, and so she had challenged herself with mastering Ordhjóma: the exotic, mysterious language of the Glamfellen, separated for 10,000 years from their tropical Sceltrfolc cousins in the far-flung, frozen south, in The White that Wends. She had thrown herself into her studies, blowing through massive tomes and ancient scrolls like a hurricane, outperforming her peers with ease. Within four years, Axa had risen like a Dawnstar to the top of her class.

And then the field work had begun.

"It's one thing to read about a people, learn their language from books and study up on their culture," Axa explained, stuffing her pipe slowly, taking her time. "It's quite another to visit their homeland, speak with them, live among them. I was barely seventeen, I'd never even been out of the city..."

Kana winced, painful recognition in his black eyes. "Culture shock can be particularly difficult for younger scholars. We have certain expectations after all our years of academic study, and to find out that the genuine article doesn't quite measure up after all that work can feel disorienting and disappointing. There's not only the shock, there's anger at the natives, and then the guilt over said anger..."

Axa accepted Aloth's proffered light while Kana trailed off– it always delighted her, using arcane flame for something so trivial as a smoke– and sighed. "That's what was really odd about it. I did experience some culture shock, but ultimately the problem wasn't me. It was them. I know it sounds like I'm just being bitter, but... honestly, for whatever reason, the whole village really was actively freezing me out."

"Nice," Edér chuckled, grinning at the unintentional pun until Aloth's glare chastised him back into solemnity.

"No one wanted to talk to me," Axa continued. "Oh, I tried, incessantly, but they just... kept turning away, or answering with nonsense or... or riddles. My colleagues had little difficulty integrating, but I felt like I was just barely tolerated by the villagers. I tried asking the other students about it, but they either feigned ignorance really well or they honestly couldn't tell what these Glamfellen had against me."

"Some sort of... racial prejudice, perhaps?" Aloth looked as uncomfortable as he sounded, but at least the topic was finally broached. Axa shrugged.

"I don't think so, but I honestly have no idea. The other three scholars with me weren't orlans, but they weren't Glamfellen either. And no one ever specifically said anything about my being an orlan."

Sagani nodded. "In my experience, while most Glamfellen tend to be as standoffish as any elf– no offense, Aloth– they don't usually have specific prejudices like that."

"Right? Ordinarily, unity and hospitality are taken very seriously in the frozen south; to support one another is indispensable to survival. Nevertheless, I couldn't figure out what I was doing wrong by them, and it was driving me out of my gods damned mind. I was supposed to be studying local accents, dialects, and colloquialisms, but that's somewhat difficult when nobody will actually speak with you. So I ended up spending a lot of time eavesdropping on people, mostly outside, by myself."

Sagani shook her head, drawing her whetstone across her hunting knife. "Bad idea to go it alone out there in the White. All kinds of dangers hiding in the snow."

The orlan barked a sharp, sardonic laugh. "You're telling me. That's how I met Vaargys."

As soon as his name was out of her mouth, Axa could feel her entire demeanor transform, and the atmosphere in the room with her. It was the first time she'd said his name since she'd left home, and even though she knew they'd already been listening, her little audience really seemed to be listening now. She felt her face get warm and her eyes sting from the impending tears, so she turned to the window, trying hard to focus on the streets outside and not at her own reflection in the glass.

Come on, girl. You’ve run far enough. It's time you faced this.

"I spotted him from afar one day at dusk: a dark, distant, shaggy figure out there among the rocks, shambling around just beyond the village's borders. It took me a few minutes to even realize he was kith. My colleagues noticed me watching him eventually, warned me away from him: the 'wild man' the locals called the 'Cursed Vagabond,' the 'Exiled Priest.' And he was out there all alone, struggling to survive because nobody wanted him around, and no one could say why..."

"You had a lot in common," Aloth murmured gravely. It wasn't difficult to see where this story was going. And he couldn't help but think it sounded similar, thematically, to one he knew quite well.

"And kith will paint a face on a rock with their own blood if it means they can have someone to talk to," Sagani sighed sadly, sympathy heavy in her chest. She could see where this was going too, and she dug her fingers into the thick fur on the back of Itumaak's neck for comfort. He grunted in appreciation.

"So I introduced myself, like you do. He was... cautious, but receptive. It helped that I'd brought gifts." Axa exhaled, and blue smoke curled up before her, walling her off. "We got to know one another, and over time we became fond of each other. We started sharing meals and stories about ourselves, our lives. He told me he was a priest of Wael, self-taught, and exiled from his clan for venerating the Eyeless Face instead of the Beast of Winter... He let me get close to him, cut his hair, tend to his wounds..." The tears spilled over at last, and she paused for a moment, hid her face.

"And you fell in love," Sagani finished for her. Classic. Tale as old as time.

Axa smiled again even as she brushed her tears away, dragging her little fist across her golden brown cheeks. "And I fell hard. I was his first real friend, gave him his first kiss. And very soon, I became his first lover." This made the men blush and look away. Axa and Sagani paid them no heed.

"I was fascinated by him, and he adored me. We made our own little world together there in the caves, in the snow. And we lived there, separate from everyone and everything else. Until I had to return to Ixamitl, of course. But I had a plan: Before I could talk myself out of it, I asked him to marry me– the very night before I was to return to the Eastern Reach. ...Gods, I had known him for only five months."

"And... wait, how old were you?" Edér spoke up for the first time since Axa had started her story, confusion clear on his face.

"I– Seventeen, almost eighteen by the time I went back home," she clarified, miffed at the interruption. "I'm twenty-two, now."

The blond man held his hands out in front of him, squinting at his fingers, baffled. "And... and how old were you when you left home? Hey, how old was he?"

Kana sighed and leaned over, patting him on the shoulder with one huge hand and confiscating the man's pipe with the other. "Erh– Never mind that now, my friend. Please, Axa, continue." He smiled that big, toothy smile at the little woman, and she blinked very slowly.

"...I brought him home to meet my family and colleagues, to assist me in my studies since all I'd really brought back from the Land was him, and ultimately, hopefully, to become my husband. In the interest of brevity– albeit somewhat belated– here’s how all that turned out: my family and colleagues hated and distrusted him, and after I had defended him so fiercely I'd alienated myself from most of my peers, I found out that about three-quarters of everything he'd ever told me about his home and his language was complete horseshit and all of our work together was complete bunkum. So! I burned it all in a big bonfire behind our house before telling him to leave and never come back." She ticked her misfortunes off on her fingers as she described them, her hands trembling, and then gesticulated fiercely before letting her fists fall to the small tabletop before her. "And then... I left, too. And now, here I am."

...Gods, that was easy. Much easier than I thought it'd be. Why was it so–

She rambled on before she could lose her nerve. "So. That's why I... wanted to do that for Kaenra. My fiancé lied to me and fucked up my life, too, and I can't just ignore that kind of shit when I see it anymore." She sighed, turning to the window again with her pipe still burning away in her hand. "Vaargys is the reason I had to leave my home and everything I've ever known, because his lies ruined my career and my academic standing and my reputation. How could I just stand by and watch as it happened to someone else?"

"Yet, you advised Kaenra to forgive Purnisc?" Aloth twisted his fingers together in his lap, staring at them rather than looking at Axa as he spoke. "After... all he'd done?"

Sagani glanced at him, narrowing her eyes as he reached up to smooth his hair– and wipe away a stray bead of sweat in the process. Is it my imagination, or is he...?

Axa kept her gaze fixed on the street below. "Yeah, that sort of surprised me too, to be honest." She spotted a stray soul, its violet wisps of essence drifting slowly amongst the city goers, and she squeezed her eyes shut, felt them burn behind her eyelids. "I suppose... I just got the feeling that it wasn't too late for them, that what they had for each other wasn't so broken it couldn't be repaired. Vaargys and me... not so. There was no coming back from what he'd done, and we both knew it."

"Whatever became of him? Of Vaargys?" Kana leaned forward eagerly, his eyes shining with compassion. For once, he actually wasn't taking notes on the conversation, and Sagani noticed that, too.

Axa opened her eyes, and saw the lost soul on the street no more. She shuddered. "After I confronted him, Vaargys simply... left. Vanished into the horizon, just as abruptly as he'd first appeared to me. And then, I got to clean up after him– after us– all alone. I wasn't up to the task; wasn't really up to the task of anything but hiding in bed and regretting my entire life. I could really only scrape together the wherewithal every now and then to go out and sell off or give away all the ridiculous trinkets and baubles we'd accumulated together. A few of the things I tried to get rid of turned out to be stolen, of course– big surprise, Axa, he's a thief and a liar– which did my already brutalized image no favors. Nor my purse, when I was obliged to pay out of my pocket for his chicanery."

"Villain," Kana spat, shaking his head slowly. "Scoundrel! ...Oh, how dastardly, to sow discord between the woman he loves and her neighbors and colleagues, then to abscond, completely free of reproach!" His sorrowful frown was as huge and expressive as his smiles always were, almost theatrically so.

Sagani just barely looked over in time to spot Aloth surreptitiously roll his eyes, and she couldn't suppress her grin. I thought so. Ondra's Lure, they're pretty obvious now that I think of it...

The elf cleared his throat and took the reins. "Shall we assume, then, that your family and friends were unable or unwilling to aid you in your time of need?"

Axa scoffed. "My little brother was sympathetic, but ultimately powerless to help me. He's stuck too far under our mother's thumb. He's a Godlike, and it's made things... difficult, for both of them. He feels obligated to her. As for our mother, she blamed me for my own misfortunes, for 'shacking up' with a man like Vaargys in the first place. So... that sort of says it all about our relationship. My father hasn't been in the picture since I was 13, and any non-academic friends I hadn't already traded for school, I ended up trading for Vaargys. I'd made him my whole world, and he–" She stopped herself, puffed on her pipe. "I don't... really make new friends easily. Never have."

Kana laughed good-naturedly. "With all due respect, present company seems to indicate quite the contrary."

"Ha! Since becoming a Watcher with her own castle who offers to help everyone she meets solve all their problems, I do seem to be quite popular, yes," the orlan agreed with a wry smirk. "...I jest, of course. In any case, the friends I do make, I tend to keep. And cherish." She smiled at Kana earnestly, and now he averted his eyes and went ruddy in the face.

Sagani and Aloth surprised one another, simultaneously faking coughing fits to cover their derisive snorts. Kana went even redder, but still managed a sheepish smile as Axa quickly redirected back to the topic at hand.

"In any case, it was my mother who gave me the idea to relocate to the Dyrwood. She brought back the notice advertising the caravan from the marketplace, threw it at me as I lay in my little nest of quilts and despair, and told me I had better either try and do something to rebuild my life or I may as well just return my soul to the Wheel to start a new one, save it some time and trouble."

"So... in response to your fiancé sabotaging your career and your reputation in your own home community, your own mother told you to... choose between self-exile and suicide?" Aloth spoke very quietly, very carefully. When Axa nodded and shrugged, puffing nonchalantly on her pipe, he couldn't quite come up with anything to say to that.

"As harsh as it sounds," she pressed on as she rose and crossed the room to stand before the hearth, "I agreed with her. I still do. Mama grew up a slave and only finally earned her freedom by running away, so maybe she's biased, but... I was never going to be able to move on like that, lying around like I was dead already, surrounded by bad memories. I had to do something, get up and get out. And wouldn’t it be my luck, she dropped a nice, pre-packaged escape plan in my lap, just like that. Nicest thing she'd done for me in a good long while. ...So. That's what lead me to the Dyrwood."

"And then it lead you to the bîaŵac, the Engwithan ruins, the machine," Kana murmured, rubbing his chin and studying the little woman. "Perchance, did you ever pray to Wael that you might live an interesting life? Because if so, you've had your wish granted many times over!"

"It's funny," Axa sighed as she bent and tapped her pipe against the bricks of the fireplace, "you'd think I'd hold a grudge against Wael, allowing Their priest to make a fool of me like that. But in the end, I had to admit that although he betrayed my trust and wrecked my life, Vaargys hadn't actually ever violated any of Wael's tenets. ...Made me rethink the gods, a bit. Maybe he was a true servant of Wael after all, sent to guide me here for some reason. And I do still pray to Wael for guidance, on occasion."

The aumaua sat up in his chair, beaming. "Ah! Shall we go to the Hall of Revealed Mysteries tomorrow after all, then? We can ask the scriveners' opinion!"

"Gods! I spill my guts to you, and you're still thinking about going to the library?" Axa shook her head and chuckled. "You're a mystery, Kana."

"Wait, so... you were gonna marry a pale elf?" Edér mumbled into his pillow, half asleep and trying to kick his boots off. "But you're an orlan. Would that... how would that work?"

The little woman threw the sheets back on her bed, using a little more force than she'd meant to. "Another mystery, Edér," she snapped, rolling her eyes. "Mysteries abound."

The other two men winced as Sagani laid a gentle, steady hand on the orlan's shoulder. "Hey. ...Hel of a day for all of us. Let's call it a night, yeah?"

So they did.

—

[averycanadianfilm]

READING GUIDE TO : Bourdieu, P. and Passeron, J.C. (1979) The Inheritors: French students and their relation to culture, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. - Dave Harris

Chapter one

Class chance data is presented for France, covering access to university and also choice of subjects.  Generally, Arts and Sciences are preferred for lower class applicants, while the other professions attract upper class students.  Gender is magnified by class in terms of access, especially for lower class students, and a strong influence on subject choice throughout.  However, some Arts students are also relegated from the upper class: for them, arts subjects are a refuge.

There are therefore economic and cultural obstacles to success at the university.  These include religion and age [in France, the older students are often those who have had to repeat grades].

Social origins produce different rates of financial provision, affect where people live, and affect the sort of work they do.  For example, they influence the amount of parental subsidy.

As a result, students do not really have a common situation or experience.  They come from very different cultural backgrounds, and quite different experiences from being at home or feeling out of place (13).  They experience differential success according to their 'previously acquired intellectual tools, cultural habits' (14).  Particularly important is their ability to manipulate 'the abstract language of ideas', which is much easier if you have done Greek or Latin.  Cultural heritage is also amplified by various scholastic streams and channels, which produce 'sanctions which consecrate social inequalities' (14).  For some, their educational past is a definite handicap, including the absence of classical languages or adequate advice on careers.

These inequalities are concealed by their belief that some students possess 'gifts', producing a disdain for practical techniques of study noted below.  University life tends to be eclectic and dilettante, mostly because bourgeois students are 'more assured of their vocations or their abilities' (15).  Those from other origins are far more dependent on the university.  For the bourgeois, a liking for 'intellectual exoticism and formalistic purity' helps 'liquidate a bourgeois experience while expressing it' (15).  Detachment and a willingness to take risks 'presupposes a greater security’ (15).  Self assurance pays off in exams, especially in orals [presentations?].  This stance is helped by universities themselves who value 'remaining aloof from "academic" values and disciplines' (17).

Bourgeois students inherit 'habits, skills and attitudes…  knowledge and know how, tastes and a "good taste"'(17), which do pay off even if indirectly.  A suitable extracurricular culture is the 'implicit condition for academic success in certain disciplines'(17), for example coming from a family with experiences in the theatre, art galleries, concerts, knowledge of modern works even jazz or the cinema.  These experiences display a combination of cultural and economic factors here [and strongly prefigures the work in Distinction, even with some initial survey data].  The absence of explicit instruction in universities makes this cultural influence more important.  Influences are often subtle, for example in the displaying of knowledge of the past in the effortless reproduction of academic argument.  Interests are often combined, enabling those from suitable backgrounds to distinguish themselves from those possessing purely scholastic knowledge.  There is a  whole constellation of knowledge to draw upon.  There also important personal qualities such as 'ironic casualness, mannered elegance, or…  assurance which lends ease or the affectation of ease' (20).  [So common among the English upper classes as well].

This sort of cultural background works indirectly, casually and informally, it seems effortless, acquired by osmosis [some nice examples on page 20—like the casual disclosure of cultural interests, 'acquired without intention or effort'].  Those from lower and middle class backgrounds try to catch up at university, for examples by going to film clubs.  Schools could compensate, but they also tend to ignore social inequalities and devalue 'the vulgar mark of effort' (21). Thus universities offer only a misleading formal equality, and ignore marked social differences, whole areas which are clearly related to success.  Teaching presupposes a level of knowledge, skills and culture which are the 'heritage of the cultivated classes' (21).  

Secondary school uses a number of secondary significations which take for granted 'the whole treasury of first degree experiences’—books, entertainment, holidays as 'cultural pilgrimages', and 'allusive conversations' (22).  The universal nature of education simply means all must enter.  Working-class children can only imitate, and the whole experience for them is unreal.

Access needs to be not just a matter of economic background.  'Ability' should not be seen as a matter of a gift but the result of 'affinities between class cultural habits and the demands of the education system' (22).  Knowledge and techniques are inseparable from social values.  Some working-class students are willing to undertake university experience because they see academic knowledge as high status, and it 'symbolises entry into the elite' (22).  However, social mobility via education is 'a fantasy, and abstraction for [most] manual workers' (23).  Their ambitions are lower: they make an objective adjustment.  The petty bourgeoisie are the most keen on education, and they openly support elite culture even though they find it just as difficult to acquire: they think they can make up the deficit with hard work.

Teacher judgments are ultimately based on the closeness to elite culture.  Teachers classically devalue other approaches such as seriousness and hard work.  Social advantages and disadvantages are cumulative as a result.  Even geographical location is important because living in a city means greater access to cultural facilities.

There is no mechanical determinism here, though, since inheritance is not always successful.  Upper class culture can merely lead to the  'superficial pastime of elegant parlor games' (25), but usually it is exploited to find a comfortable way through an education system.  It is true that working-class entrants to university can gain in ambition and determination.  However, those who succeed nearly always have some kind of unusual family background like a successful relative, who will raise their ambitions and reject fatalism. [In conventional research as well as in policy and common sense] isolated factors are seen as important [instead of seeing qualifying factors as well].

It is more common to persuade the underprivileged to drop out rather than to exert a direct influence on them, or to reveal open determinism.  It would be wrong to attribute all the blame to economic or political factors, but social mechanisms work well despite minor adjustments such as scholarships.  Indeed, these minor reforms can help to justify the system by locating 'giftedness’ as the issue.  The same goes for moves to equalise the economic circumstances of students  [grants?]—they would only legitimise a system which itself legitimises privilege.

Chapter two

There is no unified student world or culture, but a constant flux with only periodic routine.  There are cycles of study leading to exams, but it is a unique time of life where normal oppositions do not apply,  including the opposition between work and leisure [lots of quotes on page 30 from students saying that they regard their work as a form of leisure:

'It's the only time in life when you can put off what you've got to do, work when it suits you, be unemployed if you feel like it…  (Senior executive' son, Paris, aged 26)…  There's no such thing as leisure: I refuse to draw a line between work and leisure, I don't accept that dichotomy…  (Junior executive son, Paris)…  My work isn't unpleasant; it's not something I'm forced to do.  I could almost say all my work is in leisure…  (A junior executive son, Paris)…  I don't separate work and leisure.  If there's a decent movie on I go and see it, whether it's a weekday or a Sunday.  The question really doesn't arise.  There is no particular pattern to my leisure activities; I choose what I'm going to do but I don't organise it…  There's nothing fixed (senior executives daughter, Paris)' (30).

However…

'Yes I waste a terrible amount of time; I don't know how to organize my work properly, and, since workhouse to come by for leisure…  I have no time left for leisure (senior executives some, Paris).  The fact is I don't seem able to discipline myself, it's always the same story (senior executive's son, Paris)'.  NB Bourdieu and Passeron see this as an aristocratic form of lifestyle.

There is a characteristic student lifestyle with a lack of discipline and a ‘libertarian use of “free time”’ (31).  Students are individualised, despite occasional ‘islands of integration’ (32).  Integration has no institutional basis.  It is therefore not easy to organise collective work, or cooperation, or small workgroups.  Individualistic competition persists instead.  The old traditions like student festivals and songs are in decline, and there are not even initiation rituals, except possibly in Law and Medicine.  There are no real social divisions or any bases for solidarity—for example the rivalry between different disciplines or other signs of the persistence of sub cultures, including argot. Students are not even well connected through friendship groups, except where these depend on earlier shared schooling or regional identity.  Upper class students are the most integrated socially.  Friends’ advice is not sought in the choice of a subject or career, rumours spread but not information.  

The student milieu is therefore not autonomised, but consists of a ‘fluid aggregate [rather] than an occupational group’ (36).There is a nostalgia for integration, but actual organisation fails. Girls are the keenest to initiate collective activity, following the ‘characteristics of the woman’s traditional role’ (36).  Staff participation helps.  The most common result of this lack of organisation is resignation or utopianism, especially in Paris students’ activism, which includes ‘conceptual terrorism of verbal demands’ (37).  A belief in cooperative work, small groups and so on persists, but as the projection of an ideal.

Yet such projections reveal an underlying objective reality [by contrast].  Students want to identify individually with this mythical unity.  Characteristic student behaviours are ‘symbolic’ indicators of this project.  'Student' is therefore a chosen identity, the rejection of past identities, including those associated with the occupation of one’s parents, part of a general denial of class determinism [but not gender?].  It is important to not conform, to distinguish oneself while labelling others.  This is another example of the transformation of necessity into freedom (39) [so it is not just the working classes who have to do this?] Student identity means the rejection of any actual bonding.  For example cafes are frequented because there, one encounters the ‘archetypal student’ [rather as students went to the library in Lille to conform to the archetypal student, in Academic Discourse].

Students live out their relations to their class of origin according to ‘the models of the intellectual class reinterpreted’ (40).  They display a reaction to the discipline of the secondary school.  By comparison, student identity is a sign of ‘cultural free will’ (40).  Guidance from older students is important here, and prestigious examples can include university teachers.  Everyone knows a high prestige professor who is far from being a mere pedagogue.  This only disguises power relations.

The university is still a very important influence, though.  Students still do well if they are ‘adapted to the university and can transpose its scholastic techniques and interests’ (41).  So called alternative cultural worlds,  based around jazz or cinema actually complement the university world [is this still the same with contemporary universities and contemporary commercial popular culture?].  [There is a hint of the cultural omnivore thesis here, 41].  Students’ public denial of the importance of university culture and teaching disguises the real influence at work through the ‘cultural goods market’ (42).  

An important role in actually orienting the tastes of students is played by ‘Professorial charisma…  The display of virtuosity, the play of laudatory allusions or depreciatory silences’ (42).  Students are passive and willing to be taught, or to let teachers guide them.  So close is the connection that ‘the study of consumption can be collapsed into a study of production’ (42).  University culture includes ‘the scholastic consecration of novelties’ (43).  As a result, university culture is more homogenous than it looks [in support, student prize winners are given as examples, revealing their conformist tastes, even if those cover the avant garde].  The ideal student is still a homo academicus, often the son and grandson of teachers, often wanting to be a philosophy lecturer, often showing some precocious talents.  The university therefore ‘always preaches to the converted’ (43).

However, some students are only playing at having intellectual tastes, displaying  ‘collective bad faith’, or deploying the  ‘ruse of reason’ (44).  An illusory intellectual life is possible.  It usually involves ignoring social origins and destinations, and ‘autonomising the present of studenthood’ (44).  It involves games and tricks, and is assisted by the ‘unreality of university practice’ (44), where there are no real sanctions, and even examinations are playful rather than work-like.  Students do feel insecure, and lecturers do judge their work, but there is a constant ambivalence—for example students and lecturers commonly joke about examinations and yet still see them as a matter of ‘personal salvation’ (45) especially the dissertation.  It is a very involving game.  Even the student challenges are within the rules of the intellectual game of contestation: thus ‘Revolts against the system…  achieve…  the ultimate ends pursued by the university’ (45) [reads pretty much like Willis on working class lads rebelling but then ending up in manual work].  Even student rebels worship culture if not the university.  Bohemian behaviour still equates to obedience to traditional models.  Any escape into popular culture is still characterised as a form of literary discussion.

This is especially marked in the Paris Arts Faculty.  Students are mostly bourgeois, but commonly deny their background and espouse left wing causes, but without adopting any particular orthodoxy or party membership.  Instead, they adopt new labels.  They have a mostly aesthetic commitment to an avant garde, which leads to a ‘conformism of anti conformism’ (46).  Rebellion is little more than the ‘symbolic breaks of adolescence’ seen as an ‘intellectual self realisation’ (46).  Any sexual liberation pursued by women can be seen simply as a formal reversal of the value of virginity.  Extreme political views are best read as a symbolic break with the family.  Symbolic differences are more important than the real differences provided by social origin.  Student radical life features endless argument to establish differentiations within the general consensus of the avant garde.  Concrete commitments tend to be applauded.  Political debate is seen as a kind of play, and is work.  Politics becomes a pastime.  In reality, it is wealth and privilege that enables intellectual detachment, intellectual mastery, and political audacity.  Privileged students are also better able to accumulate a ‘capital of information’, based on their membership of literary and philosophical political coteries, and the ability to attend lots of outside lectures and assemblies [in Paris] (49).  Any diversity in the academic world produces the relativisation of professorial privilege [not enough to lead to serious criticism?] , and the opportunity for more intellectual adventure.

University life becomes an excellent preparation for the later literary games played among the Parisian bourgeoisie, and wider philosophical discussion, for example of the crisis in education, shows the ‘beginners’ illusion [masquerading as a] basis for a universal reflection’ (15).  There is still a lot of studentanxiety however, and here, ideological debates offer assurance.  A liking for student [revolutionary?] festivity is really a form of symbolic integration.

The ideal type Parisian Arts student draws from a literary education and from the cultural opportunities offered by Paris, and the ‘risk free freedom that a well to do social origin makes possible’ (51).  Bourgeois students see university life as intellectual adventure, not as ‘an apprenticeship subject to the test of occupational success’ (51).

There are more working-class students now, but bourgeois values persist: those values ‘will not cease to be regarded as inseparable from the [student] milieu’ (51).  Nevertheless, modern students can perceive university teaching as somehow unreal, possibly because they have experience of real occupations. Thus actual students will vary according to their commitment to the ideal type, and this will vary according to their social origins.  ‘Serious’ students can be both critics of this unreality, and still prepared to consider only university problems as serious.

[What a condemnation of student activists!  I do recognise the posturing bourgeois type from my own experiences during the student revolt at LSE, and, later at Essex, and I know exactly what they mean by the insistence on preserving literary forms of argument while discussing radical overhauls.  During one sit in at LSE, friends made it their business to guard the library!  Proles werestill mocked for their vulgarity. Several dreadful poseurs made fiery speeches proposing solidarity with the north Vietnamese army, and then fled at the prospect of being arrested by the metropolitan police!  However, I think they do underestimate the impact on some working class lads such as myself, who did gain an insight into professorial incompetence that led to a lifetime’s scepticism.  Nevertheless, I think they are broadly right.  Interestingly, the ideal type bourgeois radical manifests itself best in education departments of respectable UK universities, where students are still harangued with idealist and utopian visions, and words like ‘oppression’ or ‘struggle’ are used both to describe third world radical movements and the need to cope with an inconvenient timetable].

Chapter three

[This chapter starts with an astonishing criticism of child centred and play-centred education—by Hegel!  Such an education preserves immaturity, it is indifferent to the intellectual world, and it shows contempt for elders!  (54)]

It is possible to construct an ideal type of rational conduct for student,  based on the claims that characterise university life.  However, the real issue is self-creation, and to be a participant in academic culture.  The rational type will argue that university culture is to be mastered, yet this is denied in practice, and instead there is a goal of independence, the abolition of the distinction between the student and the teacher.  However, this distinction is abolished only in the imagination, without going through the painful process of subjection first [very familiar terminology here!].  Indeed, there is often a straightforward denial of student passivity. This imaginary resolution is satisfactory to students and professors, although denied by both conservatives and revolutionary utopians.  Rational conduct, however would involve seeing passivity as a means to an occupational end.  The denials involve a view that the present should dominate the future, and that the status of student should become more autonomous.

Students occupy pre- constructed roles, like the 'exam hound' or the dilettante.  Life goes on in a magical mode [compare with the notion of magical resolution in gramscian work].  Options can coexist in that world.  The magical world is supported by professors, 'the students'opponents and accomplices' (57).  Professors do not want to appear as having a rational role, as a mere 'teaching auxiliary' (58). The whole experience is therefore mystified or enchanted, and this mystical relation rather than the technical function of education affects the teaching experience.  Professors claim they have some gift in transmitting culture, and this notion of gift is reciprocated by students [very similar arguments are made in Academic Discourse].

Students do vary, however.  The awareness of an occupational destinations seems particularly vague for Arts students, and uncertain for sociologists: these views actually mimic the real possibilities!  There is no occupational point to study for the students, so it is justified instead as an intellectual adventure.  Their values ‘depend on mystified experience' (59).  [There is a hint here that the enchantment of rationalised study is deliberate].  

Women students have more reason to mystify, although for them reality dawns earlier.  They often describe the substantial freedoms involved in using academic work to escape [rather like the stuff I have been quoting from Quinn!].  However, intellectual escape is still associated with the traditional female values, including their desired destinations as teachers, and their lower confidence in their intellectual capacities.  They're still more likely to be instrumental, and to use their 'scholastic zeal and docility as a way of avoiding the question of the future' (61).  Another option is female student apathy.  [Or] female students report high levels of commitment to university life, again echoing traditional female values such as exalting sacrifice, and using words like relationship or enrichment, or talking about the development of personality [lots of examples PP. 61,62].  This can be an alternative to the magical concealment preferred by men.  Female options echo the sexism of the university.

Social origin has effects as well.  There are parallels between working class origins and being female.  Neither are likely to get an intellectual occupation and so they are less likely to invest in the intellectual game approach.  They need to bow to necessity and acknowledge the importance of an occupation.  Upper class students are happier with vague projects, but working-class students are more focused, because they are more aware that they need not have been students at university at all.  Upper class students are more distant, more prone to mystification, more contemptuous of pedagogy and methods, and of scholarly discipline.  They, and many professors, would find any kind of practical instruction about coping with university life—like using a card index for drawing up a bibliography—as demeaning, the act of a 'vulgar schoolmaster' (63).  The same goes for any kind of intellectual training—instead, upper class students and professors prefer the romantic image of free. inspired creation.

Magical perceptions are common.  Professors collude  by denying clear information, such as their criteria, and the techniques necessary to succeed.  Students deny the importance of hard work and routine, and see success arising from a gift or by magic.  This explains their following examination rituals, whether it be feverish last minute revision, or obsessive note taking—'a technique for spiritual consolation' (64) [modern students attend lectures and seminars obsessively, and even complain if they are cancelled—but never take notes!].  There are superstitions, guessing rituals, amulets and fetishes, and the repetition of successful conduct.  Success is seen as a reward for having a gift, including the gift of successful guessing (65).  There is 'overt contempt’ for any rational approach (65).  Professors collude in this too: it is reciprocal—for example the lecture style means that students can enjoy anonymity [and ritual attendance]—and both professors and students oppose rational approaches.

These findings show the ultimate goal of the university system [social reproduction].  The rational approach contradicts these ultimate goals.  Cultural transmission could be rationalised, and it would benefit the most disadvantaged students [more on rational teaching later].

Conclusion

Because real educational inequalities are never discussed, differences are seen as a result of ‘giftedness’ (67).  Differences are tolerated only if they are seen as differences in gifts, or as the occasional social handicap faced by a gifted student.  The lack of talent or enthusiasm in students is never explained.  Formal examinations express a purely formal equality: as they are anonymous it is impossible to see how they reflect cultural inequalities.  The formal policy of equal opportunity only ‘transforms privilege into merit’ (68).  It is impossible to have any other outcome unless serious weight is given to the social origins of students [or value added?].  However, we would then expect unequal terminal performances.  This could lead to a hierarchy of institutions, and the degree overall could be devalued.  Experience in some communist countries might be cited, but even there there is often a tension [between rewarding 'redness' and expertise].  Overall, the roles of the game have to remain unquestioned.  The lack of questioning is shown in the continuing attraction of the grandest institutions and most prestigious disciplines in French universities to all recruits.  The credibility of the system requires that inequalities affecting students from outside the university are ignored.  Insisting on the role of social differences is therefore a challenge to the whole system.

Giftedness is like charisma.  It benefits the privileged and legitimates their contempt for the less privileged.  Working-class students accept this as a kind of essentialism (70), and personalise their disadvantage.  Indeed, working-class students are among those who believe most strongly in the idea of a charismatic gift.  The tendency to reduce to essentialism is common among students because they are already prone to see who they are as what they do.

Teachers also assume their success arises from some personal gift, another essentialism.  Often, the education system has been their only route to success, confirming this essentialism.  It is often linked with the denigration of vulgar effort.

Students are only too willing to accept their status as victims rather than blame ‘clumsy teachers’ (71).  Often their parents are over impressed by teachers' opinions or by the simple scores in educational tests, and are liable to say things like ‘He’s no good at French’, which naturalises inequality.  Student objections to the system are often still couched in [victim vocabulary], and they expect solutions to be provided only by the generosity of teachers.  Populist demands [such as that working-class culture has to be valued alongside elite culture] are also limited, since the dominant system is not just a simple class culture.  Furthermore, academic skills and aptitudes can be learned.

The first requirement is to aim to affect the home environment.  Teachers need to be fully explicit about what is required.  The usual formulae are not enough [superstitions, but also  including routine study skills advice?].  Teachers need to avoid any claims to have professorial charisma, and to develop a rational pedagogy, although this is ‘still to be invented’ (73).  Scientific pedagogy is no good because it ignores social conditions [so a real difference between Bourdieu and the educational technologists here].  We need to evaluate different methods of teaching, modes and actual procedures—for example, should we give general technical advice or close direction of student work?  Efficiency should be seen as related to students' social origins.  We might need constant exercises to build up the skills needed.  At the moment, this is denied by the myth of student autonomy and independent learning (74) which only help legitimates the charismatic teacher myth and see alternatives as pedantry.

Students vacillate between the perceived need for discipline and the myth of the aristocratic stance.  Teachers also vacillate, taking an aristocratic stance until they have to do assessment (75).  Professional judgments in reality are 'based on personal criteria, variable from teacher to teacher and…  tied to the particular case' (75).  Students need to decipher these criteria and try to rationalise them.

Students from upper class origins can adapt to these diffuse requirements, because of a 'clear affinity between school culture and the culture of the cultivated class' (75).  When asked to undertake oral exams, upper class students just demonstrate the skills which are already unconsciously valued [in presentations too?]. Any open recognition of the effects of social origin 'would be regarded as scandalous' (75).

In a rational approach, there would be clarity about the 'reciprocal requirements of teachers and taught…  the organisation of study…  to enable students from the disadvantaged classes to overcome their disadvantages' (75).  [Then a strangely utilitarian remark]: we should permit the 'greatest possible number of individuals to appropriate in the shortest possible time, as completely and perfectly as possible, the greatest number of the abilities which constitute school culture at a given moment' (76).  This approach will be neither traditional nor technical/specialist.  Until we develop it, education cannot overcome inequality.  At the same time, a rational pedagogy is in its turn impossible unless recruitment of teachers and students is democratised.

Epilogue

The middle class demand for university expansion arises from the need to secure their social places [credentialist closure].  The response to the development of a modern economy has been to demand more kinds of education.  Diplomas themselves have probably been devalued in terms of their role in regulating access to jobs.  The rapid growth of more functional [vocational?] education and more functional jobs have devalued traditional diplomas, and excluded non holders of diplomas altogether.  Academic qualifications have also helped to unify the whole system of qualifications [compare with the British government's model of 8 different levels].

As well as obtaining a diploma, it is important to exploit its value, and this requires further investments of educational and social capital. Those stopping at the lower levels, and new arrivals at the higher ones, are likely to suffer most from devaluation.  They can fight back, for themselves and for their children, by demanding even more better qualifications [as in the credentialist spiral].

Educational qualifications can be converted to economic capital in several ways.  Graduates might be able to demand higher wages: those holding diplomas have overtaken small independent businessmen in terms of income [almost a counterbalance argument here, based on some statistical evidence, the authors claim].  Alternatively, graduates might be able to shift into new businesses.  This can be seen in the changes around craft work, for example, which now feature luxury and leisure goods.  These require a more cultural capital (80).  For such goods, value lies in the 'casual distinction of the vendor [as much] as on the nature and quality of the wares' (81), and it is important to demonstrate a mastery of taste rather than technical skills.  These sorts of new cultural industries seem ideal for those with cultural capital rather than high levels of educational capital [as an example, the denser members of the UK royal family seem to be able to make a good living making very posh furniture].

Holders of devalued qualifications can try to retain their value [an interesting possibility relating to the recent work on knowledge economy in the UK, which also predicts falling returns to university degrees].  For example, the diploma can become a licence to gain privilege rather than an actual job, and to increase self esteem.  Again more objective mechanisms are required, including a need to invest in valuable educational capital, perhaps by pulling out of unfashionable subjects [or unis].  It is possible to cling on to the old values to some extent, if you can persuade colleagues and the family of the value of your diploma, this can sometimes mask a real devaluation.  In some circumstances, it might lead to actual revaluation [if particular degree subjects become fashionable, or if you can persuade employers that the prestige of the qualification is the most important thing].  Those who supply jobs however are likely to reward their real value of diplomas, especially if they are pursuing deskilling strategies as well.  [I can still see a place for well educated but non technical people as decorative members of boards of directors].  In the worst case, diploma holders can be unemployed, and can see themselves as refusing to play the game [hence the moral drop out, who gains an engineering degree, finds it overtaken by technical developments, and gives it all up to run a smallholding in Devon].

[acc3ssdenied]

BRUISED | 04

SUMMARY: You don’t know what you expect when your best friend and her boyfriend invite you to one of his friend’s parties. But, it certainly wasn’t for you to be at an underground boxing venue the next day and for you to be thrown into a world that you had no idea existed.

PAIRING: boxer!jungkook x reader

GENRE: non idol au, boxer!jungkook, badboy!jungkook, tattoo!jungkook, angst, fluff, smut

WARNING: alcohol consumption, strong language, jungkook being big and intimidating, bit of angst? chaotic inner monologues

WORD COUNT: 2.7k

A/N: i really love the whole jungkook with tattoos and him being a boxer/ badboy so I have decided to write my own! this will have updates alternating with mélomanie most likely but, i also have to keep up with my wattpad schedule. please tell me what you think and ask if you would like to be added to the tag list <3

TAG LIST:  @singulari-taes @lil-bai-of-sunshine @diab1a @bts-trash24 @rubydotexe @ryulite @dammit-jjk @bbyboihongjoong  @bunnyboyjjk @taehyungiev13 @scvkjinrecs @milkandminie @screamingshoes @mygscafe @kimvantaee @pleasantpeachstudent @fivesecondsofsarang @frenchki @gukksluv @loserjeonjk @uugghhheveythingistaken @batakookie @itiswhatitisnt88 @srslyuwish​ @bubbletae7​ @hhhhwww7​ @unrewardingrhinestone 

CHAPTER FOUR

You knew what everyone must think: Why does she keep going to parties? The answer is, you’re in your early twenties and a lot of the time you can spend with your friends happens to be at these parties. You also liked to get really drunk. It had been a part of your life since you’d dropped out of college and moved to the city. Chaeyoung had quickly noticed when you became friends that you loved to go out and let you slowly integrate her into your far wilder lifestyle. This time, she was going with Hoseok and you were arriving of your own accord — shockingly, it was a rare occurrence. The group chat had announced there would be a party a week ago, just after you had all gone out for lunch. Jimin was insistent that his friend, Taemin, would not mind you coming as his plus one — it required further persuasion in the form of a promised drink. That was what had led to you standing outside of the abnormally large house for a college student — all of the parties seemed to be at those kinds of houses but, you didn’t really question it.

Tucking your hands into the pockets of your red coat, you shouldered past the highly intoxicated teenagers, who were enthusiastically exchanging saliva directly in front of the stairs, and pushed yourself through the doorway. The house was packed. The people might as well have been stacked on top of each other there were that many of them. Thankfully, the alcohol you had poured down your throat made you immune to the sickening sensation of them touching you. A frown curved across your lips as you managed to escape the overwhelming crowds and into the kitchen.

A sigh of relief escaped your mouth as you spotted Yoongi staring lovingly at a half-empty bottle of whiskey. “Oh, thank god you’re here,” you exclaimed, groaning in relief before pulling yourself up onto the counter beside him, “I thought I would be surrounded by strangers the whole time.”

Yoongi wrapped an arm around you affectionately, holding out the bottle of whiskey — which you gladly accepted — as he gave you a gummy smile, “We’re all scattered about somewhere, I’ll take you to Chae and Jimin in a bit.” He glanced back to the area you had just escaped with a hint of disgust on his face, “That right there, is where you don’t want to be.”

You chuckle softly, taking a long drink of the sweet-tasting drink, “Tell me about it, I was tempted to kick a few of them for stepping on me.” He snorted out a laugh, tilting his head back slightly and squeezing his eyes shut. “Who is Taemin, why does he know this many people?”

“This is his fraternity house,” Yoongi explained, gesturing lazily to the interior of the house, “He’s a senior in college and Jimin’s a Sophomore, they know each other through dance classes.”

A noise of realisation came from your mouth, “Oh,” you dragged out dramatically, “You know, I just thought that you all had really nice houses,” you giggled at your own lack of common sense. He shook his head in mock disappointment before pushing away from the counter, his hand reaching for another bottle of whiskey.

“Come on, the others are this way,” he said, holding his hand out for you to take so you could jump from the counter. You happily did so, the half-full bottle still dangling idly from your fingertips as he led you back through the hellscape that had appeared in the living area. Once you had finally escaped the throngs of people, he guided you down a corridor and into a smaller living room with almost all of your group in.

Jimin immediately spotted you from where he had been sat cross-legged on the floor. Instantly, he had jumped to his feet and dashed towards you clumsily, wrapping you into a warm hug. “You made it!” He cried out, drawing the others’ attention towards where he was fussing over you.

Managing to wiggle out of his grip, you replied, “I saw you, last week idiot.” He only grinned at you widely, dragging you by the hand over to where he had been sat on the floor. “Eh!” A noise escaped your mouth as he pulled you to the floor, not realising the force he was using to do so.

He mumbled a soft apology which was overshadowed by Taehyung’s greeting, “Y/N! Hi, have you got a drink?” He smiled at you brightly — it was quite obvious that he was not as drunk as Jimin, you put it down to the fact that he generally wasn’t a big fan of the taste. Honestly, sometimes you wish you could say the same.

“I’m all set for now,” you said, raising your bottle to him dramatically. Your antics caused a laugh to come from Seokjin, who was sat on one of the sofas on your left side. “What?” you asked, an amused (defensive) tone to your voice as you looked at him with widened eyes.

He shook his head in mock disappointment, “Oh, nothing.” He paused, glancing around the room for a moment, before continuing to speak, “Jungkook isn’t here yet—“

This time you really were defensive, you’re eyebrows furrowed slightly and you crossed your arms of your chest protectively, “Why are you telling me that?” Your voice was much tighter than it had been before.

Seokjin only raised his eyebrows at you in mild confusion and amusement, “If you’d have let me finish, you would have heard me say that neither is Namjoon,” he tilted his head at you quizzically, “Why were you so defensive?”

A red flush spread across your cheeks, “I-I-uh-I don't— I wasn’t,” you huffed at him, “Fuck off.” He let out a loud laugh, his head falling back against the sofa as you pouted in your spot beside Jimin. Speaking of whom, he had been watching you with an equally amused look the whole time.

Remembering something, you turned back to where Yoongi had slid off to, curled up in a corner of the sofa, and asked, “Where did you say Chae and Hoseok were?” You hadn’t spoken to your best friends much since you’d last seen them and you had promised to find her at the best time — this meant when you weren’t blackout drunk.

His mouth hung open for a second as his eyes flickered to the right in thought, “I—“ his voice trailed off, mouth curving into a confused pout and he reached back to scratch the back of his head, “I don’t remember?” Yoongi gave you a sheepish smile, immediately shrinking further into his corner of the sofa so he could avoid your gaze.

A small, slightly exasperated, sigh left your mouth and you gave a tiny shake of your head, “That’s okay, I’ll just go and find them now.”

That was what you had thought was a smart, sensible thing to do. You were wrong. Nobody in that house gave a shit that you wanted to find your best friend, they only cared about two things: alcohol and sex. On any other occasion, that would have been you! But, it was really annoying when it wasn’t you.

If one more stiletto tried to pierce through your shoe, you were going to lose your mind. No one in this party wanted to see you go feral, no one. You had counted three beers that had been spilt on your bodysuit — THREE. It was a good coincidence that you had recently taken up meditating otherwise, someone would be losing a limb.

Just as you had managed to escape the crowd, you bumped into a hard chest and closed your eyes, preparing yourself for the inevitable collision with the ground. However, instead of smacking your face on the ground, you felt two strong hands wrap gently around your waist and hold you still. A relieved gasp escapee your mouth and you looked up to try and identify the owner of the hands.

The first thing that struck you was how bright the orange of their hair was. They looked down at you with an amused glint in their eyes, “Hey,” he said, steadying you carefully, “Everything okay?”

You chuckled in embarrassment, your eyes flickering to the side to try and avoid eye contact. Sighing dejectedly, you answered, “Yeah, sorry. I was going to go insane if one more person spilt their drink on my.” Your hand rubbed against your other forearm soothingly, trying to cool down the shame you felt from almost clothes lining a complete stranger.

To his credit, he only laughed lightly at you, guiding you to a quieter corner of the living room where you were less likely to take an elbow to the spinal cord. “I don’t blame you,” he said. It was then that you noticed the two eyebrow slits that criss crossed above his right eye.

“I feel like I recognise you,” you blurted out, head tilted to the side slightly as you tried to place where you knew him from. He most likely just had one of those faces.

There was a strange look in his eyes as he answered, “No, I think I’d recognise someone as beautiful as you.” Unfortunately enough for him, you weren’t easily flattered and even less so distracted. Just as you were about to insist that you did know him, a familiar voice came from your right.

“What’s going on here?” Jungkook looked taller than usual, as though he was making an effort to make himself as large as possible. It wasn’t difficult considering he had almost four inches on the orange haired man and he was considerably more muscular.

The orange-haired man’s face hardened and he stifled an irritated groan. He turned to Jungkook with a sly smirk on his face, “Jeon, is there a problem?” As soon as he had smirked, you knew where you had recognised him from. He was the man you had made eye contact with in the crowd at Jungkook’s match. It was a strange coincidence for you to run into him at Taemin’s part.

Jungkook’s expression didn’t shift at all, he only said, “I don’t know, Hongjoong, is there?” You had finally found out his name and you were still none the fucking wiser. At that point, neither of them were blinking and tension between them was tangible. Honestly, you wouldn’t have been surprised if they had started making out right in front of you.

“No, no problem,” Hongjoong said in a light voice as he allowed his gaze to run over you, “Just having a conversation.” There was a strange glint in his eyes that hadn’t been there before and instantly, an unpleasant chill ran down your spine. Unconsciously, you inched slightly closer towards Jungkook.

The taller man hummed thoughtfully, crossing his arms over his chest, “Really.” His voice was monotonous and far lower than you had heard it before. You really weren’t sure why he was so irritated you had been speaking to Hongjoong.

“Really,” Hongjoong answered firmly, raising an eyebrow, “She’s not yours is she?” Your mouth hung open in shock. This stranger was referring to you like you were Jungkook’s purse. Just as you were about to remove his limbs, the dark haired man grunted in affirmation as though he was a cave man. A small, outraged gasp left your mouth and your head spun round to give him an incredulous look. Fortunately enough for him, he was too busy staring longingly into his eyes to feel the wrath of your fiery gaze.

The orange haired man raised his hands in mock surrender and back away from both of you slightly, “My bad.” You scoffed disbelievingly. How dare they refer to you as though you were a belonging. You did not belong to Jeon Jungkook. Sadly, you did not get a chance to express this particular thought as the man in question had grabbed a hold of your wrist and began quickly pulling you back through the crowd.

He ignored your many curses and kept you pressed tightly to his side so he could be sure you wouldn’t get lost in the crowds. You lost count of how many times you had called him a ‘slippery little bastard’ but, you were sure that it had been enough to take effect. He only released you from his grip once you had reached the small living room where your friends were.

You knew that your cheeks must have been a flushed red colour and your eyes were wide with irritation. Immediately you wrenched your arm out of his grip and whirled round to face him, “Who—“

“Kook!” Jimin exclaimed happily, jumping on top of his best friend and dangling from his shoulders. Slowly, he slipped to the ground once he had noticed the tense atmosphere in the room. “Everything okay?” He asked, glancing between Jungkook’s stony expression and your furious one.

A grim smile spread across your lips as your turned to Jimin, “Oh yes!” The anger was apparent in your voice as you gestured back violently to Jungkook. “Everything was great until this troglodyte made an appearance and decided to take his cock out and have a pissing contest.” Jimin’s eyebrows rose in apprehension, his drunk mind unable to differentiate between whether you were being serious. “I was just talking to him. You didn’t need to drag me away, dickhead!”

Your shouting had garnered a larger amount of attention, most of the people in the room looking between you and Jungkook as though they were witnessing a very intense game of tennis. Jimin turned to Jungkook as though he was going to scold him however, he didn’t get the chance to as the latter only had to say three words: “It was Hongjoong.”

There was a collective gasp from almost everyone in the room. You heard someone shout, “Y/N, no!” The confusion on your face was obvious as you looked at the varying aghast expressions on people’s faces. What, had you been having a conversation with a serial killer?

Jimin tsked, turning back you to with a scolding expression, “He was looking out for you, Y/N.” A very small part of you knew that, it also knew that Hongjoong had made you feel slimy from the moment you first saw him at the boxing match. Unfortunately, a much bigger part of you resented the fact that you were being reprimanded by a child.

“He was treating me like an object!” You whined, pointing at him accusingly. His face was now watching you with a hint of a slightly amused smile on his face.

Jungkook groaned exasperatedly, “If he thinks you’re ‘mine’ he’ll stay away from you!” There were mumbles of agreement from the room and you pouted slightly, not liking the feeling of being ganged up on.

“God! Why are you even bothered if he stays away from me?” You exclaim, throwing your hands up wildly.

His reply came quickly after, “Because I care about you!”

You paused for a second, conscious of the room going almost silent at his words, “I care about you too, idiot! You don’t see me scaring off any girl that comes near you!” The whiskey Yoongi had given you earlier seemed to make you more prone to confessing feelings, you made a note to fight him over that earlier.

A quiet sigh came from his mouth as he looked at you fondly, arms dropping to his sides in defeat, “Look, I’m not telling you to stay away from him. If it matters that much to you, date Hoonjoong all you want. I just wanted you to be careful — I don’t want you to get hurt.” The angry expression on your face faded away instantly and you wanted to take back whatever it was that you had said to make him look like that. But before you could, he had disappeared from the living room as quickly as he had come.

“Wait, why does he think I want to date Hongjoong?”

✰✰✰✰✰✰✰

A/N: so, this is awkward... Okay, to start with I am so sorry for how long it has been since I’ve updated. Honestly, I’ve been extremely busy starting Year 12 which is the first year of my A-Levels and I’ve kind of been struggling to juggle everything. Also, my mental health has kind of been all over the place since about June so I’m kind of lacking in motivation anyway which doesn’t make writing any easier. But hopefully, this update helps me to get going again!

Anyway little disclaimer, I adore ATEEZ so I want to make it clear this is not me hating on them or Hongjoong. I just kind of used his face when I was making the character and it just kind of happened ://

I hope you enjoyed this chapter and thank you so much for being so supportive in my inactivity! <3

[unpack-my-heart]

Acute-y

A Reddie High School Math Teachers AU

Written as a gift for the insanely lovely @constantreaderfool <3

@xandertheundead @tinyarmedtrex @eds-trashmouth @mrs-vh @violetreddie

Read on AO3 HERE

“I dunno, Sir. I’m supposed to be putting in my college applications in a few days, and I still can’t decide what to pick as my major”

“What are you choosing between?”

“Math and biology. I’m better at math, and I don’t enjoy biology that much, but I can’t think of a decent reason to put down as to why I want to study math. What did you put when you applied to college?”

Eddie sat back in his chair, face scrunched in thought.

“You know when you’re in the middle of a really hard proof, and you don’t know where you’re going, you have no idea where to start and the whole thing just feels like a waste of time?”

“Uh, yeah?”

“That’s like being in a kayak in the middle of the ocean. You’re there, you’ve got all the tools you need to get you to shore, you’ve got your oars and everything, but you don’t have a map. You don’t know which way to go. But, when you figure out which way you are supposed to go, that feeling when you haul yourself onto shore with aching arms, that feeling when you know you’ve done it, that’s why math is amazing”

“Aching arms?”

“It’s a metaphor, Jasper. Just – look. I’m not naturally good at math. I always had to work a bit harder than my peers, who just seemed to … get it instantly. I definitely cried over integration more often than I’d admit to anyone else but you. But I think that’s why I love it so much. My childhood wasn’t … let’s say, my childhood wasn’t very rational. I craved structure, order, precision, any other synonyms that mean the same thing. I craved rationality and math gave that to me. To be able to break everything down, to get absorbed into the minutia of the universe, it’s addictive. It’s breath-taking, and it eases my soul”

Jasper is staring at Eddie with wide eyes, mouth hanging open slightly, and Eddie internally facepalms, cursing himself for spooking the teenager sat opposite him, but then Jasper smiles.

“Thanks, Sir. That – that’s really helpful. Thank you”

“Anytime,” Eddie says, sending Jasper off with a wave and a smile.

Standing up, Eddie stretches his arms towards the ceiling, prompting his back to crunch loudly in three places. His classroom is a mess. Pieces of paper lie strewn all over the floor, rogue pencils and forgotten textbooks littering the desks. Eddie’s school is small, and tragically underfunded, and despite only being a permanent member of staff for a year, Eddie already feels fiercely protective over it. The school is a downtown public school, and his kids mostly come from the impoverished neighbourhoods on the outskirts of the city. Almost all of them have long, boring commutes into school, and almost always slouch into his morning classes tired and starving from never having eaten breakfast, so Eddie has become the teacher that arrives to his  classes with  pep in his step and a box of granola bars lodged firmly under his arm.

Eddie got the job at Southview High School six days after he’d graduated from his teaching qualification. He’d applied to thirty schools, mostly disadvantaged public schools, and three private schools at the insistence of his mother. He’d been offered interviews for all of them, but he’d only attended one. As soon as he’d walked into the interview room, and shook hands with the head of department, a fiery woman called Dr. Marsh, he knew he was home. Dr. Marsh was firm, and the interview had lasted nearly two hours, and by the time she’d put him through his paces, Eddie felt like his brain was on fire.

He was sure that he’d failed the interview, but after thirty seconds of silence, Dr. Marsh stood up, stuck out her hand, and said, “Can you be here tomorrow at half seven? You’ll be taking the AP students, I’m taking their classes at the moment but I can’t commit as much time to them as they need. God knows they need someone like you”

Eddie had jumped up and down on the spot, before composing himself and accepting the position.

“Oh, and Eddie?”

“Yes?”

“Call me Bev��

The first few weeks had been pretty rough. The kids, predictably, had put Eddie through the ringer, testing boundaries and acting out as teenagers are wont to do. It took a while, but eventually Eddie, to use Bev’s phrase, ‘grew some bollocks’, and started commanding more respect in the classroom. He achieved this, not through sending kids out of the classroom or handing out detentions like candy, but by just through the simple act of listening. The kids, Eddie was quick to realise, just wanted someone to validate, not dismiss, their teenage angst, and Eddie was more than happy to be their crutch.

Fast forward a year, and Eddie’s classroom has become more of a home to him than his actual home. It’s pretty large, and Eddie begged Bev to let him implement flexible seating, so his kids are sat on large tables that look more like picnic benches than desks, in order to encourage collaborative work. One thing that Eddie has come to realise, however, is that his class is full of genuinely talented mathematicians. When he hands back test results, it’s always the same ten students getting in the high nineties, which, gives him an idea.

He attaches a note to the most recent test paper of these ten students,

Can you stay behind after class? I need to ask you something!

[you’re not in trouble please don’t panic]

Needless to say, the kids panic.

“Sir? Am I in trouble? I swear I’ve handed in all the homework this term!”

“Mr Kaspbrak I’m really sorry, I didn’t realise I’d accidentally stolen the protector until I got home, I brought it back, though, honest!”

“Sir, what’s this about?”

“Guys! No, you’re not in trouble, but thanks for bringing the protractor back, Kim. No, I have a proposition for you. Have you ever heard of mathletics?”

The kids all shake their heads.

“Well, lemme explain …”

– X –

It takes several weeks for Eddie to recruit all of the students he cherrypicked as his dream mathletes team, but he manages it, with the promise of extra credit and no homework on heat weeks. Whilst he was a mathlete himself during his college years, Eddie hasn’t ever actually coached a team before, so he spends hours every evening reading every internet article and borrowing every book from the library he can possibly find on how to coach a mathletics team. Eventually, when he thinks his students are ready, and he manages to get them all to agree, Eddie registers them for a practice heat against a local school in their city.

Eddie and his motley crew of baby mathletes meet every Thursday and Friday after school to practice, and before they knew it, the morning of the heat was upon them. The heat was being held in the auditorium of the opposing school, so Eddie had to borrow the rusty old school bus to schlep his kids across the city. Bev, who had given Eddie an ecstatic “YES!” when he had asked for her permission to take the kids to a mathletics heat in school time, had announced the night before that she wanted to go with him. He had said yes, sort of hoping that she’d offer to drive the death-trap bus, but she’d climbed into the front passenger seat. Eddie prayed to the driving gods that they’d keep the roads clear and keep the wheels attached to the bus before he climbed in, and they set off to Faraday Technical School.

Thankfully, the journey goes smoothly. The kids chatter quietly in the back, and Bev manages to distract Eddie’s nervous stomach by discussing budget plans, and whether he thought that Iron Man would be better than her at differentiation. Eddie answered honestly that he didn’t think he would be. Soon enough, they pull into the gates of Faraday Technical School, and Bev hops out of the bus to speak to the guard on the gate. Eddie gulps. Their school doesn’t have a guard. Their school doesn’t even have gates. They just have an old caretaker called Jim who loves the kids and polishes the floor with his radio on full blast. The guard nods at Bev, and then nods over at Eddie, and then the gates swing open as if by magic, and Eddie drives through. The school looms ahead of them, and Eddie’s students all go silent. By the time Eddie has parked up, Bev has walked over to them, and she hauls the door of the bus open.

The kids don’t move.

“Dr. Marsh, I don’t think I can do this”

“Yeah I’ve … I’ve got a headache”

“Sir, we’re going to lose”

Bev claps her hands, “Hey! You can do anything these kids can do. Yeah, they go to a fancy school, but you’ve got Mr K and me on your side. You’ve worked so hard for this, don’t let the fact that this school has a pool spook you”

“They have a POOL?!”

“Why don’t we have a pool!”

“Because I want to be able to afford the latest textbooks for you, that’s why” Bev says, grinning.

After several minutes of animated encouragement from both Bev and Eddie, the kids finally filter out of the bus. They stand around looking ever the lost lambs, and Eddie’s heart bleeds for them. He knows exactly what it feels like. Imposter syndrome, feeling like you’re a fraud, like you don’t belong. Like you don’t deserve success.

Eddie and Bev herd the kids into the school, and they find the auditorium. The opponents are already on the stage, closely huddled together, with an older looking teacher with a shock of white hair and a pinched face standing in the centre of the huddle. The teacher was waving his hands wildly and speaking so loudly that Eddie could hear him at the other end of the hall.

“WHO ARE WE?”

“FARADAY TECHNICAL SCHOOL!”

“WHAT DO WE DO?”

“WIN!”

“WHEN DO WE WIN?”

“ALWAYS!”

“That’s a rubbish chant” Bev stage whispers, and their kids laugh nervously.

Eddie takes a deep breath in, squared his shoulder, sets his jaw, and strides purposefully over. He taps the teacher on the shoulder and clears his throat.

“Um, excuse me?”

“Ah, you must be Mr Kaspbrak, we spoke on the phone”

Eddie takes and shakes the extended hand.

“Yes! That’s me. You must be Mr Tozier?”

“Oh, no, no. I’m Mr Powell, the principal of Faraday Technical. Mr Tozier is sorting out the IT, you should liaise with him”

“Oh, okay. Where can I find him?”

A hand lands on Eddie’s shoulder and squeezes, and Eddie turns around. Stood behind him, and smiling at Eddie with a wolfish grin, is a man who can’t be any older than Eddie, perhaps a year at most. He’s wearing a very loud pink Hawaiian shirt, grey dickies and scuffed suede Chelsea boots, with round red glasses balanced on his nose. By all rights, he should look ridiculous. But he doesn’t. Not even close.

“Howzzit, fellow teach?” Mr Tozier says, voice crackly like autumn leaves.

“Uh…” Eddie replies, dumbly.

“I stalked your Linkedin, you know. MIT grad? Top of your class?” Mr Tozier whistles, impressed. “How’d you end up teaching sprogs if you’re some kind of hypergenius?”

“My Linkedin?”

“Yup! Wanted to check you out before you got here, see what I’d be up against. Gotta be honest, Eddie Spaghetti, you got me shaking in my boots”

Ridiculously, he starts shaking his legs, a pretence at fear that makes Eddie snort, despite his attempts not to encourage Mr Tozier’s ridiculousness.

“Eddie Spaghetti? Seriously?”

“Too informal? Would you prefer Mr Spaghetti?”

“I’d prefer Mr Kaspbrak, thank you,” Eddie says, somewhat prissily, but Mr Tozier doesn’t seem to mind, a lopsided grin still plastered on his face.

“So, Mr Tozier, how does this work?”

“Mathletics virgin, are we?” Mr Tozier says, and Eddie rolls his eyes.

“Not entirely. I was a mathlete myself when I was at MIT but I’ve never coached a team through a competition before”

“Aw, no shit? I was a mathlete at CalTech. What year were you on the circuit?”

“2006, you?”

“…2006. I fuckin’ KNEW you looked familiar!” Mr Tozier practically shouts, pointing a finger in Eddie’s face accusatorily.

“Do you think we competed against each other?”

Mr Tozier shrugs his shoulders, “’Prolly, your face … well, it looked familiar as soon as I stalked your LinkedIn. I’m like an elephant, I never forget cute faces”

Eddie splutters a bit, before raising an eyebrow challengingly, “well, if we did compete against each other, I wiped the floor with you. I never lost a heat. Eddie the dominator, they called me”

“Dominator, eh? We’ll see about that,” Mr Tozier says with a wink, before striding off towards his team.

“Wait!”

Richie turns around,  “what’s up, Mr Spaghetti?”

“Enough with the spaghetti! I don’t think it’s fair that you know my first name and I don’t know yours”

“Richie, Richard if you’re angry with me”

“Got it, see you later, Richard”

Richie laughs, high, bright and scratchy.

“May the best team win, Mr Spaghetti”

Eddie rolls his eyes dramatically, but he can no longer suppress the smile that’s been tugging at his lips.

– X –

Eddie’s team wins the heat. As soon as the winners are announced, he bursts into tears. Happy tears, of course. His kids laugh at him mercilessly, calling him soppy and ridiculous, but they all have megawatt beams plastered on their faces. They only win by three points, 103 to 106, but the other team were smart, and there were various points in the heat that Eddie was trying to work out how to console his team when they inevitably lost. Bev picks Eddie up by the waist, and squeezes him so hard he makes this involuntary squeaky ‘oof’ noise, causing the kids to laugh at him even more.

When they’re piling the students back into the bus, with the promise of candy at the next mathletics meeting, one of the kids from Faraday Technical School runs up to Eddie clutching a folded piece of paper.

“Mr Tozier asked me to give this to you,” the kid says, out of breath and puffing.

Eddie tilts his head, “Uh, thank-you?”

The kid thrusts the piece of paper into Eddie’s hand, before running off again. Eddie opens the paper,

I’ve decided I don’t really like math. The only number I care about now is yours

Eddie looks up from the paper, face burning, and immediately locks eyes with Richie, who was standing in the window of the auditorium. Eddie waves at him, a weird jerky little motion. Richie grins, and winks at him. Eddie laughs, before shaking his head and climbing back into the bus.

Later, when Eddie’s at home grading problem sheets, he absent-mindedly checks his email, and sees that he has a notification from Linkedin.

Richard Tozier would like to add you as a connection!

Eddie accepts without  much thought, and goes back to grading. Several minutes later, though, his computer pings again, this time with a message

Richard Tozier has sent you a message!

Richard: Fancy seeing you here

Edward: This … is an online message? You can’t see me?

Richard: You pedant

Edward: :-)

Richard: oh my god even your emojis are cute

Edward: :-(

Richard: Why are you sad!

Edward: did you want something or are you just trying to distract me from marking?

Richard: Both?

Edward: Not acceptable. I have to mark 34 more problem sheets and then plan a lesson tomorrow on trig identities

Richard: :-(

Edward: Now you’re just mocking me

Richard: I meant what I said, you know

Edward: … About?

Richard: Not liking math anymore

Edward: Get some better pick-up lines

Richard: You were charmed by it, don’t lie to me. I saw your face when you read that note.

Edward: No comment

Richard: :-)

It took more strength than Eddie would ever admit under oath to pull himself away from his computer, but he managed. Shutting his laptop lid with a click, he managed to lose himself in the problem sheets for several hours, before his eyes start getting heavy and he calls it a night. Before he goes to sleep, he impulsively checks his LinkedIn messages,

Richard: Are you the square root of 2? Because I feel irrational when I’m around you

Edward: You’re a nerd

Richard: ;-)

– X –

After their triumphant win at the practice mathletics heat, Eddie starts entering his kids for more and more practice heats, and even organises a few himself that they hold at their school. The confidence of his students blooms like blossom trees, and Eddie couldn’t be more proud if one of them had won the Fields medal. He’s still messaging Richie on LinkedIn. Like clockwork, Richie sends him a pick-up line at night, and Eddie always responds by calling him a nerd. It’s their thing now, and Eddie is punched in the stomach by the realisation that, if Richie stopped messaging him, he’d be devastated.

The thing that was frustrating Eddie the most, however, was the fact that their conversations had not moved off of LinkedIn. They hadn’t even added each other on Facebook, or followed each other on twitter, even though Eddie had managed to find Richie’s accounts on both sites. His mouse had hovered over the ‘add as friend’ and ‘follow’ buttons more times than he’d care to admit, but he could never quite bring himself to click. Eventually, the frustration builds up to a crescendo, and so, with his heart hammering in his chest, Eddie sends Richie a message.

Edward: Hey Rich, was wondering if you’d want a mathletics re-match? I wanna show off how good my kids have got

Edward: No pressure, of course

Richard: Name a time and a place, Mr Spaghetti

Eddie decides to throw the heat at his school, and he spends several days co-ordinating with Bev about where they should hold the heat, and then sweet talking the music teacher into agreeing to do the PA. Try as he might, Eddie can’t ignore the nerves gnawing at his stomach. he doesn’t really understand why he’s nervous because it’s not like Richie returns this pathetic school-yard crush Eddie has been harbouring since the first practice heat. Eddie rationalises it by assuming that Richie is just a naturally flirtatious person. It doesn’t work, though, and the nerves transform into butterflies.

The morning of the heat arrives. Eddie’s classroom overlooks the small parking lot, and he catches himself periodically staring out of the room,  waiting for Richie’s bus to arrive. When the Faraday Technical School bus does arrive, Eddie is in the middle of explaining a particularly tricky vector problem. Eddie stares at Richie who is holding the bus door open, saluting each kid that hops out. By chance, Richie looks up, and sees Eddie staring at him from his classroom, and Richie winks at him again, causing Eddie to splutter. The student who is currently working out a problem on the board sends him an odd look.

“… so once you’ve found the dot product, you can find the angle between the two vectors,” Eddie continues, trying to regain composure.

“Uhhh Sir, the angle is acute”

“Yes, I know. You just worked that out on the board for us”

“Your answer is 116 degrees”

“…Shit”

“Sir! You swore!”

“Oh, Faraday are here, is that why you’re nervous?”

“… Yes. That is exactly why. The competition. Yes. Of course!”

The bell rings soon after, and Eddie scrambles down the hall to the cafeteria, that they’ve repurposed as a makeshift auditorium. His kids are already there, bickering between themselves about who will go first for the mental arithmetic round.

“Siiiiiiir! Jenny lost my calculator! I don’t have another one for the calculator round!”

“for fucks sake – Okay Kim! That’s fine. I’ll go and fetch you one,” Eddie says, and he sprints to the math supply cupboard at the other end of the school to get a spare one.

He darts into the cupboard, grabs a calculator, opens the door again and promptly screams because directly outside the door, leaning on the opposite wall, is Richie.  Richie laughs at him, a proper belly-laugh, and clutches his stomach as he doubles over.  Eddie huffs at him, and starts walking back towards the school hall, comically slow, allowing Richie to catch up with him

“Hey, Mr Spaghetti,” Richie says, breezily, walking sideways like a crab so he’s facing Eddie.

“Hello, you pest”

“You ready to get your ass handed to you?”

“I wouldn’t be so cocky, dude. My kids have been working super hard since the last meet, plus … we thrashed you last time so … it’s you that’s gotta be scared,” Eddie counters, poking his tongue out at Richie, childishly.

“You won by three points”

“We still won”

Richie leaps in front of Eddie, blocking his way, before standing up on his tip-toes and clasping his hands together, “care to make this interesting?”

“What d’ya mean?”

“Are you a betting man, Mr Spaghetti?”

“Is it ethical to bet on our students?”

“Ethical Schmethical. We won’t be exchanging money if that’s what you’re worried about,” Richie says, waggling his eyebrows suggestively.

He’s wearing different glasses frames this time. They’re blue, and they match his eyes.

Eddie shakes his head, distracted.

“… Go on”

“If my kids win, you gotta let me take you out”

“Hmm…,” Eddie muses, in mock consideration, “what if my kids win?”

“You gotta take ME out!” Richie says, eyes sparkling.

“But… that works out the same”

“Oh, so it does! What a clever little spaghetti you are”

“You gotta quit it with the spaghetti stuff!” Eddie scolds, but Richie just laughs at him.

“You gonna put me in detention?”

Eddie rolls his eyes, “obviously not”

“What a shame. So, Eds, do you agree to our little wager?”

They’re nearly back at the hall now, and Eddie can hear Bev’s voice filtering through the PA system, instructing everyone to take their seats.

Eddie holds his hand out for Richie to shake, “deal”.  

Richie takes his hand, but instead of shaking it, he presses a sloppy kiss to the back of Eddie’s hand.

“You must be an asymptote, because I just find myself getting closer and closer to you,” Richie whispers into Eddie’s ear, and before Eddie can call him a nerd, he’s gone.

– X –

Eddie’s kids lose the heat. They lose quite badly, actually, as Richie’s kids function like a well-oiled machine, and Eddie’s kids freeze when a particularly tricky integration stumps them.  Eddie feels awful, especially because this was the first time they’d lost by a significant margin. His kids surprise him though, and they all shake the winners hands, looking upset but not angry. Eddie’s heart threatens to leap out of his chest, each beat a cacophony of proud, proud, proud.

Eddie also shakes the hands of all the kids, congratulating them on their speedy mental arithmetic and their teamwork. Bev yells something to him about the PA system not turning off properly, and Eddie turns his head to tell her that he’ll be there in a minute, but then another hand is in his. It’s larger and rougher than the others, and Eddie turns his head and, of course, it’s Richie.

“Well done, Mr Kaspbrak. You guys put up a good fight,” Richie says, no longer shaking Eddie’s hand, just holding it.

“Thanks, Mr Tozier. Your kids are quite impressive”

“Heh. They’re good eggs, all right. I’m proud of ‘em”

One of Richie’s kids screeched loudly for Mr To-zi-eeeeerrrhhh!!, and Richie’s head snapped backwards, before he turned back to look at Eddie, rolling his eyes, “they may be smart, but my God they’re demanding little sprogs”

Richie gives Eddie’s hand one last squeeze, before striding off towards the back of the hall, collecting his kids, and disappearing through the door.

Eddie looks down at his hand, and sees a tiny piece of paper folded up nestled in the center of his palm. It had a phone number scrawled on it in teeny tiny chicken-scratch scrawl, along with the words your new favourite number.

Eddie saves the number in his phone under ‘you nerd’, with a rolling-eyes emoji next to it.

– X –

To: You Nerd:

Very sneaky.

From: You Nerd:

Whatever do you mean?

To: You Nerd:

You know exactly what I mean.

Richie doesn’t respond immediately, and Eddie’s hands begin to itch.

To: You Nerd:

So where are you taking me?

From: You Nerd:

Ah-hah! A certain Mr Spaghetti hasn’t forgotten our wager

To: You Nerd:

Of course I haven’t

From: You Nerd:

Well, I’ve got a very exciting evening planned, but it’s a surprise so I can’t tell you. Are you free on Friday? Say, 6pm?

To: You Nerd:

Yeah, I can do Friday. Can you at least tell me what the dress code is, though?

From: You Nerd:

It doesn’t matter what you wear, you won’t be wearing it for long

To: You Nerd:

I’m not gonna put out you know

From: You Nerd:

:O

From: You Nerd:

I never insinuated such a thing

To: You Nerd:

… but you said I wouldn’t be wearing my clothes for long?

From: You Nerd:

just wait and see, Eds, just wait and see

Eddie doesn’t text back after that, getting lost in marking test papers. When he’s lying on his couch later that evening, knocking back a large glass of red wine, a thought suddenly pops into his booze-hazy brain … that fact that he just might have a picture of college-age Richie Tozier lurking in his scrapbook from his mathlete’s days. Eddie balances a chair in front of his wardrobe, and manages to pull the scrapbook off of the top using the pad of his index finger, sending it clattering to the floor. He flips through his college scrapbook, looking for the pictures of the mathletics heats he’d competed in, and he finds the one he’s looking for almost instantly. He’s standing there, holding the trophy, a stupidly big grin on his face (and those damn braces!) but in the corner, Eddie spots him. Richie. Richie’s standing in the corner of the shot, staring at Eddie with what look like, if Eddie didn’t know better, a sort of lovestruck expression on his face. Eddie grabs his phone and takes a picture of the photo, and sends it to Richie with the caption, you’re such a nerd.

Richie texts back almost instantly.

From: You Nerd:

I can’t wait to take you out Eds

Eddie’s sort of stunned by Richie’s reply. He’d expected Richie to make a joke about his braces, or the ridiculous sweater he was wearing, or even some corny pick up line. Not … this.  After twenty minutes of fighting with himself, Eddie eventually sends, I’m excited, too.

– X –

The rest of the week flies by in a blur of standardised testing, broken protractors and departmental meetings. By the time Friday rolled around, Eddie was exhausted. He’d woken up and spilt his coffee all over his crisp, white suit trousers, and then his car wouldn’t start so he’d popped the hood, and oil had spurted all over his sweater. One quick change later, and he’d finally made it to school. Only then, much to his chagrin, and after bumping into several tiny Dracula’s in the hallway, he remembered. It was Halloween. The worst teaching day of the year. By the end of the school day, the oppressive smell of fake blood had turned Eddie’s stomach, and if he never had to look at someone wearing Frankenstein’s monster bolts in their neck again, it’d be too soon.

Richie had text him earlier in the day with a house address, and when Eddie had sent back pensive looking emojis Richie had reassured him that, whilst that was his home address, he did actually have plans to take Eddie out, and it certainly wasn’t a Netflix and chill kind of situation.

Eddie drives to Richie’s house, parks up outside. Eddie is surprised to find that Richie lives in a very nice suburban neighbourhood, like something from a storybook. White picket fences, jack-o-lanterns, ghosts hanging from trees, the whole deal. Just when Eddie had worked up the courage to get out of the car and knock on Richie’s door, it swung open and Richie marched out. He was dressed as a ghost, draped in a huge sheet, which had two comically small, wonky eyeholes cut out of it.

“We’re going trick or treating!” Richie yells, and whilst his face is obscured by the sheet, and the eye holes are far too small for Eddie to see his face, he can just tell that Richie is looking very pleased with himself.  

“Aren’t we a bit old for trick or treating?” Eddie asks, sceptical. He walks up to Richie, who bounds back inside his house. Eddie follows him.

“This isn’t all my house, it’s two apartments. I live on the first floor,” Richie explains as he walks up the stairs, beckoning Eddie to follow him.

“I thought you said we were going out?”

“We are! I just need to check on the child”

“… The child? You have a kid?”

“Me? Naw. She’s not mine. I borrowed her”

“… You borrowed a child?”

“Yup”

“… is that legal?”

“I mean, I’m pretty sure an uncle can take his niece trick or treating without informing the authorities, you silly spaghetti,” Richie laughs, pushing the door open.

Richie’s apartment is small, but cosy. It’s fairly messy, books scattered on every available surface, posters littering the walls, five mugs of half-forgotten coffee on the coffee table. Eddie is surprised by how similar Richie’s apartment looked to his own house.

Whilst Eddie is browsing Richie’s expansive book collection, a small child bursts through into the living space. She can’t be more than six or seven years old, but Eddie still screams.

“Jesus Christ!”

“Uncle Rich! That man said a bad word!”

“Oh hush, you demon. Your father says worse when he sings you lullabies at night. But… Jessica you look … really quite horrifying”

“Thanks!” Jessica beams. She’s dressed in a grubby clown costume, complete with Jacobean ruff and breeches. Her face is painted white, with red lines that look like deep welts running from her eyes down to her mouth, and her hair is obscured with a violently orange wig. In short, she looked uncannily like the sort of clown that appears to Eddie in his sleep paralysis nightmares.

“Did – did you choose her costume?” Eddie asks, looking at Richie with wide, terrified eyes.

“No… she chose it herself, I would have dressed her up as a bee or something not,” Richie gestures helplessly to his niece, who is making scary faces at herself in the reflection of the coffee table, “this”

The oven dings, and Richie pulls out a plate of roasted vegetables and sausages that look suspiciously like the morning star ones Eddie eats on a Saturday morning.

“Is she veggie?”

“Naw, but I am. I refuse to cook her dead carcasses as much as the little carnivore might beg me,” Richie says, ruffling Jessica’s hair, who is sat on the kitchen counter, shovelling food into her face at lightning speeds. “I told her she couldn’t have any candy unless she ate some real food first. Plus, while she’s distracted, I can show you your costume!”

“My … my costume?” Eddie asks faintly.

Richie nods vigorously, and skips into his bedroom, before emerging clutching a small package wrapped in paper decorated with pumpkins and cats wearing witches hats.

“It’s not my birthday, Rich”

“Yeah, but I don’t know when your birthday is, so I wanted to have all bases covered in case it happened to be today”

“… you’re cute,” Eddie says, before ripping the paper off the package, and revealing a Jack Skellington costume.

“Are you serious?!”

“As a heart attack,” Richie says, solemnly.

“Why aren’t you dressed as Sally then?!”

“I don’t have the legs for it”

Eddie scoffs, “uh, yeah you fuckin’ do,” before he can catch himself. He slaps a hand across his mouth when he realises what he just implied.

“Been checkin’ out my pins have we, Mr Kaspbrak?” Richie lisps, stretching out his leg in a hilarious display of faux-coquettishness.

Eddie throws the wrapping paper at his head.

Eddie disappears into the bathroom, and tries the costume on. Staring at himself in the mirror, adjusting his bowtie, he has to admit to himself, he makes for a good pumpkin king. He sweeps his hair off his face, and secures it under the bald cap, and emerges from the bathroom with a flourish.

Riche clutches at his heart, “Oh sugar, ain’t you the sexiest skeleton I ever did see”

“I don’t really look like a skeleton yet. Did you get facepaints?”

“sure did, c’mere, lemme …” Richie sweeps Eddie under his arm, and guides him to the couch.

Richie crouches between Eddie’s open legs, and starts covering his face in white paint. Eddie holds his breath. Their faces are close enough that Eddie can feel the rhythmic puffs of breath coming out of Richie’s mouth, and he can see the flecks of green in Richie’s aquamarine eyes. Richie smells like smoky sandalwood and a little bit like mint. Toothpaste. Eddie tries to breathe it in without Richie noticing.

All too soon, Richie sits back on his heels, eyes scanning Eddie’s face, admiring his handiwork, “There!”

Eddie stands up, and walks over to the mirror hanging over the mantlepiece of the filled-in fireplace. He looks .. incredible. His entire face is sheet-white, with black rings around his eyes and lips.

“Holy shit, Rich…”

“He said another bad word!” Jessica yelled from her place on the counter, where she was now pushing a lonely piece of broccoli around on her otherwise empty plate.

Richie looks at the plate, and shrugs his shoulders, “good enough!”

After several minutes of highly concentrated pestering from Jessica, all three of them are out of the door into the quickly darkening night. They hop from house to house, Jessica scaring more than her fair share of other kids and even other adults. Eddie surprises himself by how much he enjoys wandering around the streets, admiring all of the costumes and sharing swigs of a bottle of hard cider Richie has hidden under his sheet.

Richie soon realises that the holes he cut in his sheet were far too small to walk normally, so he latches onto Eddie’s hand, threading his fingers through Eddie’s.

“You gotta be my eyes, spooky spaghetti. I can’t see a fuckin’ thing. Keep an eye on the clown, would ya”

Eddie squeezes Richie’s hand in reply, not trusting himself to speak.

Half way through the night, though, Richie takes off his sheet.

“The damn thing is too hot and I probably shouldn’t leave you in sole charge of the clown,” he reasons, shoving the crumpled up sheet into his bag.  

“Put the damn thing back on!”

“Nope! You’re in costume enough for us both,” Richie laughs but he takes Eddie’s hand again.

After a few steps, Richie starts singing.

“And does he notice, my feelings for him? And will he see? How much he means to me”

“That’s a sad song, Rich,” Eddie whispers in response, watching Jessica roar at, and terrify, yet another small child. The kids mother glares at them, and Richie just shrugs at her, whatcha gonna do?

“Maybe. The movie does have a happy ending though,” Richie says, and Eddie just nods.

They drop Jessica back at Richie’s brothers house just before nine, and she’s so hyped up on candy and sugar that Eddie is sure that she’ll never sleep again. Richie’s brother looks almost exactly like him, and Eddie is about to ask if they’re twins, but Richie interrupts him.

“The night is young, spooky spaghetti! Follow me for the next step of the surprise”

Eddie is sceptical, mainly because the last surprise resulted in him being dressed as Jack Skellington and paraded around the neighbourhood by a plain-clothed Richie, but he figures it can’t get any worse, so he follows.

– X –

“I’ll have the mushroom bourguignon please, waiter!” Richie announces, shit-eating grin plastered on his face.

Eddie, mortified and wishing he could fall straight through the floor and be devoured by the jaws of Satan himself just mumbles, “I’ll have the same.”

As soon as Richie had stopped outside the door of the fancy French restaurant, Eddie had wanted to cry. Richie hadn’t let him go home to change, assuring him that his costume would be perfectly fine attire for wherever they were going.

Richie was a liar.

Eddie had gone into the bathroom of the restaurant and fiercely scrubbed the make-up off his face, but it hadn’t quite worked, and his face now just looked sort of grey, where all the white and black face paint had blended into each other. He comes out of the bathroom, and stalks over to the table where Richie is sat, looking entirely normal in skinny black jeans and a deep purple button-up.

“I look like a dollar store Beetlejuice,” Eddie groans as he sits back down, trying to hide as much of the costume under the table as he can.

“You look ravishing, my darling,” Richie says, fluttering his eyelashes. Eddie is sure that it was supposed to be a joke, but the way Richie said it, all deep and sincere and … it certainly didn’t sound like a joke.

“Why the fuck did you buy me this costume?

“Well, I wanted you to be a pi pie, y’know, write the all of the digits of pi around the crust, but I thought you’d take it off”

“How many digits of pi do you even know?”

“Like 300”

Eddie raises his eyebrow, and Richie rolls his eyes.

“Fine, I know … 4”

“… You went to CalTech, and you’re a high school math teacher, and you only know four digits of pi!”

“There’s a pi button on the calculator, I don’t need to know it!”

“You’re a fucking nightmare,” Eddie says through his laughter, and Richie grins at him.

The food arrives promptly and it’s good, the best food Eddie had eaten in a long time, and he wolfs it down embarrassingly quickly.  As is expected when two teachers spend more than four minutes together, the conversation turns to why they decided to become math teachers.

“I went to MIT on a scholarship, and I graduated top of my class as you know, and when I graduated I was pressured into taking a doctoral programme in fluid mechanics, but I lasted only two months before I dropped out because I hated the bureaucracy of it all, y’know, and I wanted to make a difference in kid’s lives, as cheesy as that sounds,” Eddie says between slurps of his soup.

Richie nods, “Yeah, my reason is pretty similar. I had ADHD, or, I guess I still do, but I take meds now so it’s easier to cope with, but yeah, all my teachers fucking hated me and didn’t have any patience with me. They didn’t bother spending more than two seconds trying to work out the best way to teach me, so I was sort of on my own all through my education, and I couldn’t bear the thought of that happening to anyone else, so I put myself through the torturous teaching degree and here I am!”

Eddie looks at Richie, really looks at him for the first time. Richie’s sat opposite him, shovelling mushrooms into his mouth and there’s sauce on his chin and he’s got red paint on his arm and he looks beautiful.

– x –

They both get far drunker than they meant to. They’re not catatonic, and they can still walk in a straight line, but Eddie knows there’s no way in hell that he’ll be able to drive home safely. He tries to get a cab from the restaurant, but Richie insists that Eddie stays with him. Eddie uhms and ahhs about it, stranger danger stranger danger! echoing in his drunk brain, but he throws caution to the wind and agrees to stay. He does, however,  insist that he’s sleeping on the couch before Richie can even mention alternative sleeping arrangements.

Richie tries anyway, “we can top and tail, or you can have my bed, honest, I’ll sleep on the floor I don’t mind,” but Eddie’s having none of it. They hail a cab, and both clamber into the back seat. They sit in comfortable silence for the duration of the journey, but at one point Richie’s hand finds its way to Eddie’s knee, sending Eddie’s heart into overdrive.

When they get back to Richie’s, Richie rushes into his bedroom to grab Eddie some stuff to sleep in, sweatpants and a t-shirt with Da Vinci’s Vitruvian man on it. After calling Richie a nerd, and then asking if he could have a shower, and then having to ask Richie to show him how the shower works, Eddie stands under the boiling torrent of water and sighs, but before too long he can hear this odd scraping noise, accompanied by the occasional BANG. He puts it down to him being drunk, and finishes up in the shower. He towel dries his hair, running his fingers through it a few times to get rid of any knots, and puts on the clothes Richie leant to him which are, predictably, far too big. When he emerges from the bathroom, he’s greeted with the sight of a vaguely sweaty looking Richie leaning on the couch, which is now on its side, lodged in the doorway of Richie’s bedroom.

“It’s stuck”

“I can see that”

“Gimme a hand, Eds?”

Eddie leans on the sofa and gives it an almighty shove, and after a fair bit of effort from both of them, the sofa slides through the door and into Richie’s bedroom.

“Care to tell me why the couch is now in your bedroom and no longer in the living room?”

“Halloween magic!”

“… I literally helped you shove it in here two seconds ago”

“Like I said, Halloween magic!” Richie says, already flitting around his room, picking up rogue shoes and pairs of jeans and throwing them into the already overflowing laundry basket.

Richie ends up shoving his bed right over into the corner of the room so he can position the couch next to it, so when Eddie lies on it he’ll be facing Richie. Eddie finds all of this unbearably cute, but he’s exhausted so he falls onto the couch and makes grabby hands for the blanket Richie’s holding. Richie drapes it over Eddie with this dopy expression on his face that Eddie would have ribbed him for if he hadn’t been so sleepy.

“Thanks for taking me out, Rich. I had a really great day”

“It was my pleasure, Mr Spaghetti”

“Rich?”

“Hmm?”

“You were a cute ghost”

“Aw shucks, sugar, you’re making me blush”

Eddie smacks his lips sleepily, before stretching out his legs, “ghosts can’t blush, they don’t have any blood”

Richie laughs, and says “so fuckin’ cute” under his breath, and Eddie guesses he didn’t mean for him to hear, but he does hear, and it makes his heart skip in his chest.

Several minutes pass, and Eddie guesses Richie has fallen asleep, and he’s on the very brink of sleep himself when Richie breaks the silence.

“Eds? You asleep?”

“Yes”

“Sorry, sorry, go back to sleep”

“You gotta tell me what you wanted now, that’s the rule”

“The rule?”

“The rule that goes, ‘when you wake someone up to tell them something, you can’t then not tell them’. It’s a sacred, ancient rule,” Eddie replies, knowing he’s not making much sense, but finding it hard to care.

“Ah okay,” Richie says, solemnly, “I won’t break your ancient rule. I just wanted to ask if you were free next weekend?”

“Nope,” Eddie responds, immediately.

Silence.

“…Oh”

“Are you free next weekend?”

“What?”

“It’s my turn to ask you out. So, are you free next weekend?”

“… What just happened?”

“Just go with it! Are you free?”

“…Yes?”

“Good! I’m taking you out”

“You’re a strange little spaghetti, aren’t you”

“I’m tired leave me alone,” Eddie yawns.

Richie leans out of his bed, and presses a chaste kiss to Eddie’s forehead.

“Sleep well, Eds”

– X –

Eddie wakes up the next morning with a pounding head and a dry mouth. He panics initially, not recognising the room but he soon remembers that he’s lying on a couch in Richie Tozier’s bedroom and then he’s … still panicking a bit. Richie isn’t in his bed, and Eddie can hear singing coming from the kitchen, so he pads out into the kitchen, Richie’s too-long sweatpant legs covering his feet.

“Well aren’t you a sight for sore eyes in the morning, Mr Spaghetti,” Richie sing-songs, scraping something burnt and bad-smelling into the bin.

“Hullo, Rich. What’s cooking?”

“It was an omelette but now … sad, burnt eggs,” Richie says, staring sadly at the black mess coating the bottom of the pan.

“Cereal?” Eddie suggests, and Richie beams at him.

“Cereal!”

Richie pours them bowls of cereal, and they sit in comfortable silence.

“Thanks for letting me stay last night,” Eddie says, droplets of milk spilling out of his mouth.

“Oh, no problem. You might have to help me move the couch back out here though”

Eddie snorts into his bowl, “you’re such an idiot, Rich”

“It’s endearing though, right?” Richie asks, sending a pantomime wink over to Eddie

“Eh, you say endearing, I say ridiculous”

“Tomayto, tomahto”

They finish up their cereal and Eddie helps Richie haul the couch back into the living room.  Eventually, Eddie remembers that he has to go home to grade papers and make arrangements for the next practice mathletics heat, so he gets changed back into his own clothes, and leaves the clothes he borrowed from Richie in a neat pile on the bathroom counter.

They both stand awkwardly at the front door, Eddie’s hand on the door-knob, neither moving, neither saying anything. Eddie breaks the awkwardness with a hug, and they stand there for a while, Eddie’s hands wrapped around Richie’s neck, before Eddie reaches up on his tippytoes and presses a kiss to Richie’s cheek. It makes him feel like an idiot schoolgirl, but the way Richie’s face flushes scarlet makes him feel a bit better.

– X –

Eddie takes a big risk, and enters his kids into the qualifying heat of the Mathletics Olympiad, a state-wide mathletics competition. They win their first qualifying heat by a significant margin, and Eddie cries again. Richie phones him in the evening;

“I hear that Southview won their qualifier!”

“We did!”

“Did you cry again?”

“…”

“…”

“… No”

“You did, didn’t you?”

“… maybe”

“You’re so cute”

“Shut up”

“Never. I’m proud of you, y’know”

“Eh? I didn’t do anything, it was all their hard work”

“Yeah, well, I don’t think a lot of teachers woulda’ taken a chance on kids from a school like yours”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You know what I meant, Eds, I just meant that I can’t imagine many math teachers from struggling schools would have bothered running a math club, let alone pushing their kids to mathletes”

“Well … they’re bright kids”

“I know they are, and they’ve got you cheering them on from the side lines. I hope they know how lucky they are”

“I didn’t realise you were such a sap”

“I’m getting mushy in my old age”

They talk on the phone for hours, and Eddie ends up falling asleep with the call still connected. When he wakes up, he sees that he has a text from Richie;

From: You Nerd <3:

Are you a 45 degree angle? Because you're acute-y.

To: You Nerd <3:

I was wondering when you’d break out the acute jokes

To: You Nerd <3:

Running out of material?

From: You Nerd:

NEVER!

Eddie’s school keeps winning the mathletics heats, and soon enough, they win the semi-finals by a ten point lead and Eddie cries down the phone to Richie, who immediately demands that they go out to celebrate. Eddie gets the subway in because he knows he’ll probably get drunk again, and they go to a cocktail bar that has a lively atmosphere, with Lo-Fi beats wafting through the air like smoke.

Eddie sits down at a booth at Richie’s insistence, who then disappears off to the bar to order their first drinks. Richie comes back carrying two glasses, having bought himself an old fashioned, and he orders Eddie a Tequila Sunrise. Richie manages to get half way through it, but as he drinks more, he starts looking visibly sickened by it, making involuntary faces of disgust.

“Are you okay?” Eddie asks, knowing exactly what’s wrong.

“This is disgusting”

Eddie laughs, an ugly honking sound that makes Richie double-take, “why did you order it?”

“… I thought it’d be cool and I wanted you to think I was sophisticated”

Eddie, who had been toying with his sickly sweet drink, wordlessly swapped the glasses in front of them, and sipped at the old fashioned with a quirked eyebrow.

“How emasculating,” Richie said, voice cracking in the middle, a wry smile appearing on his face.

“So, I heard on the grapevine that we’ll be going toe to toe in the mathletics final?” Eddie asks, downing the last of the bitter cocktail.

“Talking shop on a date? Very disappointing, Spaghetti”

“Is that what this is?” Eddie challenges, locking eyes with Richie, who shuffles closer on the sofa.

“… Was it not obvious?”

“It was, I just wanted to make you squirm”

Richie gasps, scandalised. “You’re a scoundrel, Mr Spaghetti”

“Do you wanna make another wager?” Eddie asks, Dutch courage flowing through his veins.

“Mayhaps, what do you have in mind?”

Eddie gathers up their empty glasses, and stands up to head to the bar. As he walks past Richie’s chair, he leans in to whisper in his ear, “If you win, I’ll let you go on top”

He walks off to the bar, cackling to himself, and orders two more of the same drinks. When he returns to the table, Richie looks whiplashed, and stares at him with wide, owlish eyes

“Were you serious?” Richie asks, voice low and gravelly, like Eddie had punched him in the throat.

“… No, maybe, no, I don’t think I was, I’m very drunk”

“You’ve had one drink”

“I am very drunk”

– X –

Eddie goes back to Richie’s again that evening. He justifies it to himself with the fact that it’s too cold to walk all the way back to his apartment. It’s a shitty excuse, because really he isn’t ready to say goodnight to Richie yet. When they get into his apartment, Richie nudges the couch with his foot coyly.

“I guess we have to move the couch again?”

“Naw, c’mon, we’ll top and tail it,” Eddie responds, nodding at the door to Richie’s bedroom.

Eddie borrows the same clothes as before, which Richie admits that he washed and stored in hope that Eddie would come and stay again.

Suddenly, they’re hugging. Eddie isn’t sure who initiated it, but they’re standing in the middle of Richie’s bedroom, the lights are off, and Eddie’s face is nestled in the crook of Richie’s neck. Richie is humming, a soft sort of melody that Eddie vaguely recognises, and he’s swaying them back and forth slightly. When Eddie feels like he’s falling asleep standing up, Richie guides him over to the bed, and guides him down so his head is on the pillow.

Richie pulls the duvet up around Eddie’s chin, and when he moves away, Eddie murmurs “fuck it” and surges up and kisses Richie. Richie doesn’t kiss back at first, and Eddie feels the oh fuck deep in his gut, but just as he’s about to pull away, Richie’s hands come up to cradle Eddie’s face, and he starts kissing back.

There was no pretence to the kiss, no pretending to take it slow or act reserved, as Richie pushed Eddie backwards against the pillow until he was supine with Richie bracketing his head with his arms. Eventually the kisses organically grow less heated, and they roll over onto their sides, and Eddie falls asleep with Richie pressing small clandestine kisses to his nose, cheeks, forehead.

– x –

When Eddie wakes up, Richie is still in bed with him, perhaps because Eddie has trapped Richie underneath his body sometime in the night. After Eddie stares at his face for a while, watching his nostrils flare with each inhale and exhale of breath, Richie wakes up.

“G’morning, sleepy,” Richie mumbles, grabbing Eddie’s hand and pressing a dry kiss to it with chapped lips.

“Pretty sure you’re the sleepy one, I’ve been awake for ages”

“And who is the one who fell asleep in the middle of the smooch session last night?”

“What?” Eddie questions, playing at confused.

“… um... y’know, when we were kissing last night and you fell asleep in the middle of it?”

“We kissed?”

“Do you – do you not remember?”

“No!”

“Uh… I don’t know what to tell you, Eddie” Richie says, panicked, and Eddie starts feeling cruel.

“I’m fucking with you, of course I remember”

Richie growls and flips Eddie over, and cages Eddie’s head with his arms, “you’re such a little shit”

Before Eddie can answer, Richie kisses him. Eddie buries his fingers in Richie’s hair and gives an experimental tug, smiling around the moan that Richie sends rocketing into this throat.  

“You’re so fuckin’ hot, Eds, Jesus,” Richie moans, before clamping his teeth down on the junction between Eddie’s neck and shoulders.

Eddie’s cock jerks in his sweatpants, and his hands fly to Richie’s shoulders, knuckles white.

“Ahhh – fuck Rich – don’t – make sure it’ll – ahhhh – be covered by my shirt”

“When I saw you on that first day, in your loafers and your dress pants and that fucking sweater looking all prim and proper I just wanted to mess you up”

Richie bites at Eddie again, but he pulls off, and stares down at Eddie. Eddie knows he looks wrecked, his hair is probably a mess, and his eyes keep rolling back when Richie shifts against him, but the way Richie is looking at him, an oxymoronic predatory yet soft look, suggests that Richie doesn’t mind too much.

They kiss like touch-starved teenagers for a while longer, until Eddie’s school alarm blares from the bedside table.

“Cock-block” Richie growls, batting at the phone with the hand that wasn’t wrapped loosely around Eddie’s neck.

Eventually, they manage to haul themselves out of bed.  Eddie asks to use the shower again and wildly thinks about asking Richie to join him, the promise of Richie’s body, warm, wet and soapy against his overwhelmingly tempting, but he chickens out at the last minute. Eddie puts on the clothes he wore last night, and prays that Bev won’t mention it, even though he knows that she will.

“I can pick you up later, if you like … since you don’t have your car and all,” Richie offers, hopping on one foot as he tried to lace up his boot.

“I can ask Bev to drop me back, it’s all good”

“Naw, I – I wanna do it. I don’t think I wanna wait that long to see you again,” Richie says, putting his booted foot down and crowding Eddie against the wall.

“You big sap”

Richie wraps Eddie in his arms, and presses a kiss to the top of his head, “I told ya, mushy.”

Richie drives Eddie to his school, and Eddie hops out of the car. He walks around to Richie’s side and taps on the window, Richie rolls it down, Eddie shoves his head in through the window and presses a hard kiss to Richie’s mouth, but skips off before Richie can respond.

Richie hollers after him, “HAVE A GOOD DAY AT SCHOOL, MY LOVE!” and Eddie flips him off over his shoulder.

School passes quickly, it’s the week before the finals of the Mathletics Olympiad so basically all of Eddie’s time is taken up with that.

Richie picks him up from school as promised, but Eddie is disappointed to hear that he can’t come into Eddie’s apartment.  

“I actually have to go back  to school, I snuck out of a meeting to drive you home but I have to go back to my mathletics group”

“Rich! You should have let me ask Bev!” Eddie scolds, but his heart sings like a sparrow in his chest.

“But then I couldn’t have done this,” Richie says, and he surges over the gearbox and presses his mouth to Eddie’s.

They kiss until Richie starts shifting uncomfortably, gear stick poking into his ribs.

– X –

The next week is unadulterated chaos. Both Eddie and Richie are really busy, and can’t see each other before the competition. Eddie can’t help but feel really weird about the fact his school will be going up against Richie’s for such an important competition, and he wants to talk to Richie about it but Richie has been so hard to reach the past few days bc he’s been so busy so Eddie leaves it. He occupies himself with booking transport to the venue, reassuring his kids that they do deserve to be there, and trying not to neglect the rest of his AP classes.

The day of the final comes not a moment too soon, as Eddie is sure that his heart would give out if he put it under any more stress. The final is being held in the auditorium of a local university, so Eddie drives the shitty little school bus over there with his kids who are terrified. Bev works hard to keep their spirits up, as she’s taken over the role of chief motivator as Eddie is stupidly nervous, and he can barely concentrate on driving, let alone motivating 10 terrified kids.

They get to the university, and Eddie immediately notices that Richie’s school bus is already in the parking lot. They go in, they register, they go backstage and sit in the room designated to their school to prepare in. Eddie works hard to calm down his very panicked kids, whilst Bev simultaneously tries to calm down a very panicked Eddie.

Suddenly, Richie’s head appears around the door.

“Mr Kaspbrak, can I talk to you for a second?”

Eddie follows Richie out, “Rich, it really is so lovely to see you, but I’m also terrified to see you, so I think it’s best if you–”

Richie cuts Eddie off with a kiss, and Eddie can’t help but melt into it, tension draining out of his bones like water. Sadly, as soon as the kiss begins, Richie is pulling off again.

“Sorry, babe. See you ringside, coach!”

Richie darts off, and Eddie just has to lean against the wall and breathe.

– X –

Eddie’s kids win.

Eddie immediately bursts into tears.

Jasper, the team gives a rousing acceptance speech when he accepts the trophy, “we’re really proud of ourselves, the other team were amazing and we feel so honoured to be here today, it’s a privilege.”

To Eddie’s horror, they bring the mic over to the coach, announcing that “we will now a word hear a word from the coach of the championship team.”

Eddie has to stumble on stage, puffy and red faced, and he’s tries his best to speak through his tears, but all he manages to do is sob something incomprehensible, loud and sort of proud sounding into the microphone. The audience looks bemused and vaguely concerned, but Richie, who was standing on the other side of the stage with his team, is crying with laughter.

Soon after the presenting ceremony, there is the refreshment reception for the winning team. The kids all mill about, hyper on candy, sugary drinks and triumphant victory. Eddie manages to drag Richie into a secluded corner, where they can talk without risk of being overheard. Richie grasps Eddie’s hand and squeezes it.

“I’m so proud of you, short-stack”

“Short-stack?!” Eddie replies, incredulously, “I’m five-foot-nine thank you very much!”, but then he sees Bev waving to him frantically, so he sends a quick “see you later” to Richie over his shoulder as he runs off towards her.

– X –

Eddie sleeps like the dead that night, and he finds himself recruited into a celebration pep rally for the mathletics team the next day so doesn’t have time to think, breathe or eat or even text Richie.

Finally, when he gets home, he’s half way through texting Richie --

To: Short Stack:

Hey Rich, sorry I had to run last night,

-- but he doesn’t manage to get any further than that before he can hear shouting coming from outside of his window.

“I fear that I will always be a lonely number like root 3, a three is all that’s good an right, why must my 3 stay out of sight, beneath this vicious square root sign”

Richie is standing on the grass beneath Eddie’s window, swaying slightly, with a megaphone clasped between both hands, and he’s screaming into it.

“I wish instead I were a nine, for nine could thwart this evil trick, with just some quick arithmetic,”

“Are you really doing this? The Harold and Kumar thing?” Eddie yells out of his window, in disbelief.

“I know I’ll never see the sun as 1.7321, such is my reality, a sad irrationality, when hark, what is this I see?”

“So you are doing the Harold and Kumar thing”

Richie, undeterred, carries on yelling, “another square of a three, has quietly come waltzing by, together now we multiply, to form a number we prefer, rejoicing as an integer”

“I never thought I’d be serenaded with a maths poem, oh, you’re shouting over me, okay, please do continue”

“We break free from our mortal bonds, and with a wave of magic wands, our square root signs become unglued, and love, for me, has been renewed”

“Are you done? You’re done. Richie, are you okay?” Eddie asks, openly laughing now.

“I’m sorry if I said something bad!” Richie yells, still talking into the megaphone. Eddie can see the lights of his neighbours houses begin to flick on.

“For fucks sake, you lunatic! I have neighbours! Neighbours who probably hate me now!”

Eddie runs downstairs and opens the door, and Richie practically launches himself at Eddie.

“I’m sorry I upset you,” Richie whines, and Eddie is shocked to realise that he’s practically on the verge of tears.

“You do know I was crying about my kids, right? Not anything you said?” Eddie responds, voice serious.

“But I called you short!” Richie wails, looking so devastated that Eddie finds it so hard not to bark out a laugh.

“… I know I’m short?”

“But you ran awaaaaaay”

“One of the kids had eaten too much and had thrown up, Bev needed me to clean up the vom!”

Richie’s face shifts from sorrow to confusion to realisation to embarrassment at the speed of sound.

“so you don’t hate me?” Richie asks, tentatively.

Eddie pulls himself out of Richie’s arms and strokes his chin thoughtfully, “I mean … I don’t hate you but my neighbours might”

“Neighbours schmaybors, so you really aren’t offended that I called you short?”

Eddie lets himself laugh at that, “how drunk are you?”

Richie shrugs.  “I had some wines. I was drowning my sorrows! I honestly thought I’d offended you and I was ready to scream apologies into this thing for hours,” he says, waving the megaphone for emphasis

“You’re such a nerd,” Eddie teases, prodding at Richie’s chest with an extended finger, and Richie sweeps him up in his arms.

“Yeah, but I’m your nerd”

“I guess you are”

Richie ducks his head, and Eddie closes his eyes in anticipation but their lips never connect.

“Hey! I have a great line for this situation”

“Oh Jesus Christ”

“I wish I was your derivative so I could lie tangent to your curves”

“You NERD”

[tptruepolitics]

LGBT Thoughts

Netflix has recently decided to push transgender ideologies in their Babysitters Club series – a show directed at adolescent girls. While Netflix – an independent company that should only have to answer to itself and its shareholders – is perfectly within their rights to air such shows, the fact remains that this is a deeply damaging topic to be showcasing to the most vulnerable and malleable among us. I think it’s time we finally address the enormous elephant in the room: the LGBT community. Here I will break down my thoughts on their rights, their roles, and their realities in our society.

For much of history, there have been documented incidences of same-sex encounters. Even the Bible makes reference to same-sex relations numerous times. The word sodomy is actually originated from one such text from Genesis in reference to the city of Sodom. Shakespeare is even rumored to have been gay by some scholars. However, for most of human existence, these individuals were forced to live in secret – outcasts of society, ostracized by their own people. To be perfectly fair, religious extremism has only contributed to the past 2-4 thousand years of ridicule. Before that, it was still frowned upon (at best) by most cultures simply because it went against the laws of nature. Male and female animals and even plant parts reproduce in union with one another. There are no same-sex reproductive organisms to my knowledge (correct me if I’m wrong). There are asexual organisms that reproduce by themselves, but certainly no major animal species that reproduce in any extraordinary way. There is a certain species of bird, I believe, that lives in Hawaii (once again, correct me if I’m wrong) that sometimes chooses a same-sex partner for life in the absence of a proper mate, but this is certainly an exception, not a rule. To add, they do not reproduce together.

But what does all this mean for humans? How should the “laws of nature” or even God’s laws apply to humans in this age of constant progressivism and an increasing detachment from religiosity that we call secularism? Well, thankfully, in our country and many around the world we are allowed the freedoms to live our lives as we see fit as long as they don’t infringe on the rights and liberties of others. So, if someone chooses to live outside the bounds of religious or natural laws, they certainly should be allowed to, as long as they are minding their own business. This concept of allowing homosexuality was highly contested up until the late 20th century, and is still somewhat contested today in 2020. The original founders felt that upholding moral and ethical truths in our school systems were an integral part of maintaining our precious union. As a matter of fact, the often-misrepresented “separation of church and state” clause did not mean that religion could not be learned about in schools, but that the federal government had no right to establish a State religion (capital S). Most of the founders actually encouraged religious teachings and values in schools. The more modern interpretations of the separation of church and state are due to an influx of not only secular ideologies, but also religious beliefs that were not prevalent during the time of our founding. While I am a firm believer that no harm can come from learning about religious values in schools, in this age of progressivism it is reasonable to note that certain contentious religious principles need not be forced upon others. This would be a clear infringement of the separation of church and state.

So, to get specific, let’s talk homosexuality. A common misconception in the eyes of secularists is that the Church (I’ll speak specifically about Catholicism here) preaches that homosexuality is a sin – that simply being gay is a sin against God. Well, this isn’t true. The Church expressly teaches that acting out homosexual fantasies is a sin. Let’s say, you are a man who is attracted to other men, but in your devotion to your religion, you find a woman whom you love, marry her, and live your life without having sex with another man. Is this man sinful, because he finds men attractive? Of course he is not! When you feel like strangling someone, but then you calm down and don’t, are you guilty of murder? No. So, simply being gay is not a sentence to Hell. As a matter of fact, even in the eyes of the Church, acting on your homosexual impulses isn’t a death sentence. There is reconciliation and forgiveness in the eyes of the Lord. If you confess your sin and repent for it, you are seen as forgiven. Not to mention, there are people who sin in every aspect of life: liars, swindlers, thieves, murderers – and I’m not even just talking about big sins. Small sins add up, and if you are not repentant of them, you are not any more likely to get to Heaven. However, I will paraphrase this, but I believe there is a Scripture saying that says you will be judged by your worst qualities. So, if you work hard your whole life to be a good Christian, and your only flaw is that you are a wonton whore, a light will be shown on this most vulnerable area.

You might be thinking to yourself, “but it’s a genetic mutation that causes some people to like members of the same sex. God would not have built natural urges in us if he didn’t want us to act on them.” Well, that’s just ridiculous. We have natural urges and desires that are built into us that we are meant to fight off all the time: anger, greed, and jealousy to name a few. Lust is just one more urge that is built into our nature, and it happens to come in all shapes and sizes. Our animalistic desire is not only to have as much sex as possible, but to have it with as many things as possible. Evidence of this is your dog, if you have one. Dogs will regularly hump humans due to a natural urge they have. Should the dog be doing this? Should humans all of a sudden be accepting of bestiality? Maybe don’t answer that one. Now that I’ve gotten a bit off topic, I’ll try to bring this all back. Yes, acting on your homosexual desires is a sin in many Christian churches. However, your homosexuality does nothing to harm me or my church, and as such, I believe firmly that if you wish you act on those temptations, you should be legally allowed to.

Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual peoples should not be deprived of their right to happiness, which can include uniting themselves in lawful union. That being said, I would like to advocate for an alteration in the name of the union. With the full rights, advantages and privileges of a married male and female couple, I would like to revoke the name “gay marriage” and return to the previously used “civil union” terminology. Marriage is a religious term that has been secularized over decades to include all unions whether inside or outside of a church between a man and a woman. I propose that all unions made outside of the boundaries of a religious ceremony be labeled civil unions, reserving the term marriage to those unions made within the boundaries of a religious ceremony. Civil unions will differ from Marriages in name only as to lay to rest the disagreements of many over this divisive issue. Thus, men and women, women and women, and men and men united solely by a judge will no longer be “married” but “united”. Those churches that allow gay marriages in their communities are by no means precluded from including them or precluded from calling them whatever they wish. However, legally, in the eyes of the state, a same-sex couple “married” in their churches will be viewed as “united” under the law. This is a semantic issue, as opposed to a legal issue. The semantics are clearly important on this issue and have been increasingly becoming more important as time goes on. I may not feel it is right to legally prevent people from enjoying their lives in whatever manners they please, but I do feel it is within my purview to define terms in order to ease tensions.

With regards to the transgender community, I have immense sympathy and respect for your feelings. Feeling like you don’t fit into the gender roles that your biology dictates can be frustrating, confusing and upsetting. I know. During my high school years, I often noted to myself that I had feminine characteristics that I didn’t understand. In some ways, I felt that I didn’t share many of the masculine interests of my friends. However, because I was surrounded by many fine men who were very accepting of my differences, I never felt that I didn’t belong with them. Here is the reality of the situation. Many people are not surrounded by these positive influences, and thereby feel that they need to re-identify themselves in order to fit into their social environments. This is not the case. Acceptance, toleration and understanding are the keys to solving this problem. Our attention with regard to the gender debate should be redirected towards Gender Stereotypes. At one point, I was under the impression that we were heading in the right direction. In a very enlightening high school class, I was challenged to think about what it means to be a man and what it means to be a woman. When I did this, I came up with many gender stereotypes that not only did not describe many of my peers, but also did not describe myself. Instead of concluding that I did not belong to my gender, however, I concluded that the stereotypes were the crux of the inconsistencies. At one point in history, gender roles were necessary for survival – the strong (men) went on the hunt, and the tender (women) cared for the children. They were important distinctions. This is not the case anymore! Over time, as technology and society developed to the point where strict gender roles were no longer necessary, women’s rights and roles in society began to change. This was a good thing and is a testament to how incredible our society has been for the less advantaged. These roles still play a part in our daily lives and still affect who we are, but they do not define us exclusively. Take Apples for example. The stereotype of an Apple is a red, juicy, sweet fruit. However, there are apples that are yellow, juicy and sweet. There are also apples that are green, juicy and tart. Is the yellow apple a mango now? Is the green apple a lime? No, their genetics limit them to the fruitful existence that they are. Nevertheless, biology dictates what type of fruit they are and not their characteristics; their characteristics don’t change the underlying biology.

To solve the issue of gender, some people on the progressive aisle have attempted to remove gender. I instead propose to remove the stereotypes/roles! This of course leads to inconsistencies in the Pride movement as a whole. For example, an exclusively lesbian woman might marry another woman who decides later that she is a man. Is this first woman heterosexual now, or should she be upset and betrayed and break off the marriage? Are you confused yet? This removal of gender is not only confusing to adults, but it’s confusing to children, and for them, it is dangerous. When you pose a child with the option to choose his/her gender identity, they will ask you what the differences are. Your response will undoubtedly be gender stereotypes. You are doing no one any favors by perpetuating these gender roles. The child will treat this as something fun, like a game. However, once you begin to treat it as something serious, the child will begin to treat it seriously. This is what major networks and schools and parents are beginning to do. Once you begin to treat your child as if they are not their biological sex, they will begin to accept that reality, more so to please you than anything else. This could have unimaginable consequences on their sense of self later in life, which could lead to self-esteem issues, learning disabilities, depression or worse. And making life-altering changes to your children i.e. long-term gender therapy, hormone treatments, or surgeries could permanently hurt them mentally and physically.

Conversely, if your little boy tells you one day that he is a girl, tell him, “No, you’re not a girl, you’re a boy. As a boy, you can be whoever you want to be, like whatever you want to like, and all of those characteristics will make you who you are.” If you tell your little boy that, there is an increased likelihood that he will have a more accepting view of others who are different from him, and will have a more positive outlook of himself. You can be a man who loves to sew, wear frilly clothing, and fixes his own car. You can be a woman who lifts weights, works on a construction site, and watches soap operas. They are not mutually exclusive. This also includes those members of our communities that wish to fully engage in their historical gendered roles. Women, who want nothing but to read, write, sew, be homemakers, and do the multitude of other activities that are considered feminine, should not be shamed into thinking that their choices are not valuable, are backwards, or are in anyway damaging to womanhood. Women who have no interest in science should not be shamed into believing that their lives are a waste and that they are giving in to the patriarchal oppression of women. This is not productive. Similarly, this standard applies to men, who should not be shamed into thinking that jobs that only use their hands are not worthy of respect because they do not require a college education. They should not be shamed into the common misconception that men are brutes, only caring about power and control. Men who are not interested in fashion design or cleaning are not uncreative or lazy. All humans have different interests and strengths.

The characteristics we have as human beings are largely taught to us. Generosity is taught, openness is taught. Negative things, as well: greed, sloth – they are learned. Selfishness is a learned characteristic. As a society, we have failed our younger generations. Parents, teachers, the government, and the media have all failed. To teach a child that they are so important that they have the ability to defy nature and choose their gender breeds self-centeredness and pride beyond compare. How selfish of us, how pompous! We are not that important. We are not able to create our own meaning. Our meaning is a gift bestowed upon us by a higher power. Who or what that higher power is, is for each and every man and woman to decide on their own, but a society based on the premise that they determine their own worth is doomed to fail because it is founded on the ideal that the self is the most important entity. This is not to contradict our founding principles concerning the individual. Those principles concern how government should act in relation to its people. The concept of self-importance, to which I’m referring, concerns how individuals view themselves and act in spite of the government.

 So, no, I don’t think that Netflix or schools should be teaching students, especially against the wills of their parents, that being a boy when you’re a girl or vice versa is acceptable. We should not be teaching children that biology can just be ignored. If we allowed this aspect of biology to be ignored, other aspects of biology may be ignored in the future (like age!). Nor do I think that sexual preference should be celebrated in public schools. This goes against the separation of church and state in a different manner, because teaching children that their religious observances of sin are incorrect is a direct interference with the practice of a religion. This would be a world where secularism becomes the state religion and that would be no more acceptable than some form of theism. Have no shame for who you are, but don’t put down other peoples’ views to make yourself feel better. Respect should be taught of all our children before they leave the home for school.

Here is my final message. Acceptance of self, love of one another, and understanding of our differences, should reign supreme.

[evalinkatrineberg]

Practice Prompt 1

I knew something was up the moment Lydia walked through the door with a giddy look on her face. That look was normally reserved only for the moment right before she opened her birthday presents, or when a prank she was attempting to pull on one of our brothers went off as perfectly as she had planned it to. This warm May evening was certainly not her birthday, and I was fairly certain she hadn’t orchestrated another prank since the gnome debacle the day before. Yet, the look didn’t vanish from her face as she placed the mail down on the small wooden shoe rack by the front door, making quick work of her shoelaces.

She must be excited about something in the mail, I decided. I was undeniably curious about what it could be, but I had bigger things to worry about at the moment. My final paper for my Integrative Biology of Fishes class was due at midnight, just six short hours from now, and I wanted to make sure it was perfect. Sure, I was already on my fifth round of edits, but if I could pull off a high grade in this class, it would do wonders for my GPA.

Within seconds of me turning back to my work, Lydia was practically dancing around the dining room table, humming to herself. As much as I wanted to focus on my work, I couldn’t help but look up and smile at her. Lydia might be twenty-four years old now, but she had never lost her youthful exuberance. Her energy was infectious, and before long, I decided to submit the essay as it was, and finally looked up from my work at my older sister, who was staring back at me expectantly. I raised an eyebrow at her.

“Do you want to call everyone down here, or should I?”

I bit my lip, totally unsure of how to respond. Why did she want our entire family present for a piece of mail? Sure, she had a flair for dramatics, but she had to know how annoyed our brothers would be if she dragged them downstairs for something unimportant to them, like a letter from one of her friends. The last time she had called all of us together to open a letter was when she was receiving her admissions decisions from grad schools. She had just about finished her masters degree now, though. Unless she was planning on pursuing a doctorate? I frowned. Surely she would have told me about that, if that was the case. We’d shared a bedroom for most of our lives, and whispered our hopes and dreams to each other in the dark almost every night while we were growing up. We knew all of each other’s secrets. Or at least, I thought we did.

“How about I call everyone down?” Our mother emerged from the kitchen at that moment, a basket full of bread rolls in her hands.

Lydia had definitely gotten her never-fading youth from our mother. Despite now being the mother of five children, she didn’t appear to have a single gray hair, or a single line on her face. Our father had always joked that he had thought our mother was fifteen years old when they had first met, until she had corrected him, and told him that she was actually twenty-two.

“That works, too,” Lydia replied, her grin slowly growing wider.

Our mother simply nodded, walking to the foot of the staircase before yelling, “Boys! Come down for dinner! It’s almost ready!”

The thundering of my brothers’ footsteps overhead was the only response. Now that it was May, all of us were back from college for the summer. The only one of us who even had to leave the house for school still was Randall, who was sixteen and still in high school, but even his school year was about to come to a close. Gabriel, who was twenty-two, had just finished up his undergrad education, and was home until he went back to his alma mater in the fall to pursue a masters degree in chemistry. Sam, who was twenty, had finished his finals just a few days before I had finished my own, and was home for a few weeks before he began his summer internship.

I had opted to go to college closer to home, and as a result, still lived at home year round. It wasn’t because I didn’t want to travel - in fact, I yearned to see the rest of Illea, and the world as a whole. Rather, it was more of a practical decision. The city we lived in, Knoxville, was home to a great university. As an added bonus, my father was the head of a research team in one of labs there, so he was able to drive me to and from campus everyday. Plus, with Lydia being away at college, I had had my own bedroom for the past few years, and I was a little hesitant to go back to sharing a room. Sure, sharing a dorm room would have likely been fine, but I did like having my own space to retreat back to at the end of the day, especially after organic chemistry lab sessions.

Knoxville also had its charms outside of school. It was a city with many parks, perfect for running early in the morning before class. I was also quite fond of the downtown areas of the city as well, with their bright lights and stone streets.

Within moments, my brothers had taken their seats around me. My father followed behind them, fluffing my hair as he passed by to take the seat at the had of the table. Lydia, however, remained standing, an envelope clutched in her hand as she looked at all of us. The envelope itself appeared to be rather thick, though it was hard to be certain with Lydia holding it so tightly to her chest. It definitely wasn’t as big as her college acceptance letters had been, so at the very least, I was fairly certain she wasn’t keeping any secrets pertaining to her education from me. That was a start, I supposed.

“Well?” Our mother’s voice cut through my thoughts. She had taken up a spot standing behind my father, rubbing his shoulders with her hands.

Lydia just smiled before opening the envelope and clearing her throat. “‘Dear women of Illea,’” she read. I felt time come to a screeching halt around me the moment the words exited her mouth. “‘A recent census has confirmed that a single woman between the ages of nineteen and twenty-three currently resides in your home. We would like to make you aware of an upcoming opportunity to honor the great nation of Illea. As our beloved prince ventures into the next part of his life, he hopes to move forward with a partner, to marry a true daughter of Illea. Please fill out the enclosed form and return it to your local Province Services Office no later than May 10th. One woman from each province will be drawn at random to meet the prince.’”

All of us were silent for a moment, the only sounds in our small house the droning of the cicadas outside and the light buzz of the oven in the kitchen. A Selection! It didn’t feel real. The Selection was something Lydia and I had always talked about when we were on the brink of sleep as children. She had teased me mercilessly about my crush on Prince Arin, and I had been content to let my fantasies of being one of the Selected lull me to sleep. They were never more than that - fantasies - though. Until now.

Randall was the first to break the silence. “Upset that you’re too old to partake, Lydia?” His tone was teasing as he leaned back in his chair.

It began to sink in that Lydia was, in fact, too old to be the intended recipient of the letter. It was for me. I was nineteen, turning twenty in the autumn, putting me snugly within the age range announced in the letter.

“Are you going to do it, Ev?” My mother’s voice was soft,  her words almost a whisper as she, along with all the other members of my family, looked at me.

I exhaled through my mouth, smiling slightly. “I mean, how could I say no?” It’s been a dream of mine since I was a child, I added, not daring to speak the words out loud.

It had been almost ten years since I had admitted my crush on Prince Arin to my sister, and she had never let me live it down. While it could certainly be written off as the fantasy of a young girl, it was hard to deny now, based purely on photographic evidence, of course, that the prince had grown into a handsome man. I couldn’t help but wonder what he’d be like in person. Would he live up to how he was portrayed by the media? Was this my chance at having the sweep-you-off-your-feet kind of romance that I had dreamed about as a child?

Perhaps my expectations for romance were a tad too high, but I could blame that on my parents. The story of how they met and fell in love was one of the most romantic, albeit cheesy, stories that I knew, and they told it to all of us kids often while we were growing up. My father had been completing a study on how different types of music affected brain activity in humans. To help him with his experiment, he had hired a few musicians, all Fives, to play different styles of music for each of his test subjects. It was then that a certain young violinist caught his eye, and by the time most of his trials were done, and he realized he might never see her again, he asked her on date. Six months later, after his trials had ended, they were engaged. Twenty-five years after that, they were still happily married, my mother having taken her new position as a Three in stride.

I looked over to my parents, trying to gauge their reactions. My mother was smiling, a hint of something I couldn’t quite place sparkling in her eyes. My father, on the other hand, was silent and expressionless, his hands folded under his chin, elbows brace on the table, as he looked down at nothing in particular.

As if he sensed that I was looking at him, he turned to face me, barely smiling as he said, “If it’s truly what you want to do, then I support your decision.”

His statement shattered the tension holding us all in place. Almost immediately, Lydia squealed, running around the table to hug me, the letter still in her hands. “You’ve got to start filling it out now,” she demanded, her smile wide as she smacked the form down on the table in front of me.

“After dinner,” my mother argued, making her way to the kitchen. “The Selection can wait an hour or so.”

I could hardly eat the food my mother had cooked as it was dished out around the table. All I could think about was the Selection, and what role I might play in it. Was I getting my hopes up too soon? What were the odds that I would even be Selected? What would I even do if I was Selected? The questions swirled in my head like a tornado, and the few bites of food I did eat were practically tasteless.

Time seemed to drag on until my mother and Lydia began clearing away the plates, Lydia moving the form back in front of me as she took away my plate. My brothers and father wandered over to the living room, turning on the TV to the news and chatting intermittently about how their days had been.

I stayed put at the table, Lydia eventually coming to take the seat on my left, and my mother the seat on my right. One of them must have handed me a pen, because there was one in my hand, though I made no move to use it.

I knew without looking that Lydia was rolling her eyes at me. “Come on, Evalin! You can’t fill out that form by staring at it!”

She was right. I let out a shuddering sigh, and put pen to paper, slowly filling out the form. The first few questions were easy enough. Name? Evalin Katrine Berg. Age? 19. Caste? Three. Height? 5 feet, 9 inches. Weight?

My mind blanked there for a moment. I had never been the kind of person to weigh myself daily, and neither were my mother nor sister, that I knew of. I looked at my mother, who, luckily, had already been looking over my shoulder.

“One hundred and twenty-one pounds, at your last doctors visit,” she supplied.

I shook my head as I scrawled her answer down on the paper. “I don’t know how you remember that.”

“It’s my job, as a mother,” she answered as she placed her arm over the back of my chair.

“Do you have all of our medical information memorized?” Lydia leaned back in her chair to get a clearer view of our mother as she talked.

I tuned out their continuing conversation as I forged onwards in filling out the form. Hair color? Blonde. Eye color? Blue. How many languages can you speak? Two, English and Swendish. My father’s parents were from Swendenway, and while my father had never been there himself, he made sure that all of his children knew how to speak the language.

What is the highest grade level you have completed? Some college.

“Oh, we have to field this one to everyone,” Lydia, who was back to looking over my shoulder, declared when she saw the next question. In a louder voice, she asked, “What are some special skills that Evalin possesses?”

“Being a nerd!” Randall’s answer was instant, and clearly didn’t require much effort.

“Being able to get up at the crack of dawn to run!” Though he had meant it as a joke, Gabriel might have just given me a marketable skill. I tapped my pen against my cheek as I pondered how to rephrase it to make it sound more impressive.

“She’s good at building things with her organic chemistry lab kit!” At least Sam was trying to be helpful.

My mother let out a loud sigh. “Don’t listen to them. You have great organizational skills, you’re a fast learner, and you’ve got a good memory. You’re also not a quitter, and you’re good at approaching a problem from many angles in order to find a solution.”

“And you know how to use a microscope,” Lydia tagged on, as I began rephrasing my mother’s statement into my own words on the paper.

Not long after that, I was placing the form into an envelope and sealing it, my mother assuring me that we could go to the Province Services Office early the next day to drop it off. I nodded, making my way to the stairs, exhaustion weighing my steps down. Why had filling out a form taken so much out of me? It should’ve been far easier than a lot of the work I did for school, and yet, somehow that form made me more nervous than any exam or paper ever could.

At the top of the staircase, the door to my father’s office was ajar. He sat behind his desk, his glasses firmly planted on the bridge of his nose as he squinted at something on one of the papers that littered his desk. The image of him in this exact position was a staple throughout my entire life. Days were very routine in our household, and they always ended with us all bidding my father goodnight as we passed his office on our way to our bedrooms.

I knocked twice on the open wooden door before stepping into his office, stopping to stand across his desk from him. “I hope I’m not interrupting! I just wanted to talk to you before I call it a night.”

He looked up at me then, offering me a small smile as he took the stack of papers he was looking at and tapped them against his desk twice, so that they were all lined up in a neater, more orderly pile. “You’re not interrupting anything important.”

It was my father’s way of saying to continue. Many people outside of our family had complained to my mother and I about my father’s supposedly odd mannerisms, but to me, they were as easy to read as any book. Then again, my father and I had always been very close, united by our common interest in biology, which I had been fascinated by at a young age.

“I just,” I began, searching for the right words. “I wanted to say that I understand if you’re disappointed in my decision, but I don’t see entering in the Selection as something that will set me back in any way.”

“Evalin,” he stated, stopping the speech I had mentally been preparing in its tracks. “I’m not disappointed in you. I couldn’t be prouder of you.”

I furrowed my brows. This certainly had not been the response I was expecting from him.

“You have your entire life ahead of you, and there will be plenty of time for you to complete your education. There hasn’t been a Selection in half a century, so it’s arguably a once in a lifetime opportunity. Therefore, if you truly want to do it, you should do it.”

I was practically beaming as I walked around the desk to hug my father, who had stood up as I walked towards him. Though he wasn’t a particularly emotional man, he was a great hugger, in my opinion, and the scents of home - coffee and hazelnut - always filled my nose when he held me.

I pulled away first, inclining my head towards the door as I said, “I’m dead tired. It’s definitely time for bed.”

He nodded. “You should get some sleep. I have a feeling you’ve got some long days ahead of you.”

“And just when I thought I was finished with a stressful semester,” I replied with a laugh, shaking my head.

“Life goes on,” he stated, following me out of his office and shutting the door behind him. I was about to head towards my bedroom when he place his hand on my shoulder. “And Evalin? No matter what happens, you’re going to do great things. Don’t forget that.”

I nodded, looking over my shoulder and offering him a small smile. “Thanks.”

With that, he nodded once and turned on his heel, heading off to the master bedroom at the other end of the hallway. His words echoed in my head as I made my way towards my own room, which was still aglow with the light of Lydia’s desk lamp. I hope I am able to do great things, I thought, pausing at the doorway of my bedroom. Being a part of the Selection would be a great thing, for sure.

All I could do after submitting my form tomorrow, until the Selected girls were announced, was hope that by some miracle, I was chosen. Maybe dreams would come true, after all. Maybe it was my turn to have a love story to tell my children one day. Maybe, just maybe, this unforeseen opportunity was the greatest gift I had ever been given.

[nevergiveupneverrun]

Bodyguard - Chapter Forthy-Seven “Nightmare”

Hello everybody, how are you? Here is chapter Forty-Seven of my Story Bodyguard. I hope you will like this chapter. I want to say that I’m going back to College on Monday and after that, I don’t know when I will be able to post a chapter. But I’ll do my best to post one chapter per week.

I’m sorry in advance for the mistakes… English isn’t my first language and I do my best. Here is the link to the previous chapter: Click Here.

I hope you will enjoy this chapter :) 💛

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Electro music floods my ears.

My eyes are almost dazzled by the people around me: they all sport tailor-made costumes, haute couture pieces and more massive and showy jewelry than the others.

Welcome to Mark for an evening of subtlety… in honor of his own success… and the perfect person he is.

My inner sarcasm makes me smile as I watch the places and the scenes unfolding before my eyes. I was more than reluctant when Amelia announced that she wished to come to this evening, but it was above all for her safety that I expressed reservations, I didn’t know that the evening in itself was going to be a real ordeal. Presenting all that I hate in the world of show biz, what I had miraculously escaped by working for Amelia, but I had known too much during my missions in Europe. Mark’s evening was indeed one of those which aims to prove success by displaying luxury and opulence: the place first with a loft where he had apparently moved in, built by a fashionable architect and decorated with the latest design trends and the very tone of the evening with a DJ, an open bar offering the most varied spirits and most popular in the city and buffet from the country’s greatest chef.

Enough to proclaim: “I have money and I’m showing it…!”.

Not surprisingly, this atmosphere made me quite uncomfortable. I hated these artists who take pleasure in displaying their success and organizing parties to their own glory… experience had taught me that this type of attitude revealed a desire to be loved by all means… because these people were often much more unhappy and alone than you might suspect at first.

.

I was posted since my arrival in a corner of the main room which offered a panoramic view of the entire loft. The apartment was organized in duplex, but the floor seemed prohibited to the guests because I had not seen anyone enter it, probably the more private rooms of the owner. My gaze crosses the vast room in front of me, where a crowd comes to life dancing, chatting, drinking to lose their senses… my eyes quickly find Amelia, a few steps near me. Her bareback is facing me as she watches Mark’s guests just like me. Since our discussion, the atmosphere had been more than heavy between us. She only spoke to me sporadically, for simple indications or requests related to the evening. In particular, she had expressed to me a very specific and completely unexpected which… that I should be discreet and not spoil her evening… It was the first time she spoke to me like that as if she wanted to completely ignore my presence. I had acquiesced without a word, accepting the silent reproaches that she sent me back as well… reproaches that I fully deserved.

The drive to Mark’s loft only took a few minutes because he was also in Belltown, near the Space Needle: but these few minutes, in heavy silence, without a single glance or smile from Amelia seemed to be the longest of my life. And I would have done everything at that time to go back…

I draw her with my eyes unconsciously, taking advantage of being able to observe her without being discovered: she indeed decided to wear the famous dress that Mark had sent her… a dress much more daring and sexy than usual, and I had noticed that a few men had spotted her in the room… more than one but not Mark who had not yet appeared. The evening star seemed to be waiting… until we noticed a silhouette appear upstairs. A man stands out from the half-light, dressed in a designer suit all in black, with a simple red pocket as a color note. He walks towards the stairs and the music stops immediately as well as the hubbub of discussions.

.

- Good evening everyone, he exclaims with a big smile, reaching out. Wow… I didn’t think that you would be as many to come forward, it’s really heart-warming! This little evening is unpretentious, I wanted to organize it just to please you… and mark this success which was only a mirage a few months ago!

His hand reaches out before him and a black curtain stands out against the white wall facing him, revealing the famous disc…a perfect staging greeted by the applause of the whole room.

- Thank you, it’s a real joy for me to see that my music is finally appreciated at its fair value and I hope it’s the beginning of a long series. The public shouldn’t stop loving me, right? He announces with a laugh, not seeming to doubt for a second the adoration he is a target. Do me honor, you have one of the best DJs in town for the evening, alcohol to spare and a buffet to die for… and maybe a couple of extra things, if you’re good, he says in a wink. So have fun! I don’t want each of you to have as much fun as possible… no moderation with me long lives the excesses!

Applauses resumes on his last exclamation and Mark walks down the stairs, a satisfied look on his lips. Arrived at the end of the steps, two bimbos are quick to approach him and he immediately kisses them, keeping them close to him by the waist, one on each side, advancing towards the bar, where we immediately hand him a glass of champagne.

I sigh, placing my hands in my pockets. This man was even more full of himself than I thought and I feared that the evening would be long, too long… unless Amelia got tired quickly.

She always turns her back on me, a coupe barely started carelessly held in her hand: I notice that her right foot mechanically tramples the ground.

I smile despite myself at this gesture.

I recognize this movement of the foot. It was an unequivocal mark of impatience at Amelia. My torture might not last that long… and my smile grew a little more.

.

My eyes open wide when I notice Amelia take a turn on herself and face me for the first time ever since we entered Mark’s loft. 

Her gaze captures mine directly and I detect a glimmer of hesitation and disbelief.

I observe her without a word, captivated by perceiving her mouth half-open… and I only anticipate and desire one thing: ask me to leave this place as soon as possible…

I hang on her lips, waiting for the first word, the first sound to escape… but it’s another voice rising.

- Amelia… the best surprise of my evening… 

I immediately recognize this voice: a honeyed and hoarse voice in the register “great seducer”. 

Mark, in all his splendor. Rid of his two bimbos, but still showing that young first smile, too sure of himself. 

Amelia stares at me for a few seconds, before turning almost in slow motion.

- Good evening, Mark.

- Good evening, he whispers, slipping a kiss on the neck. One of my hands tightens mechanically in my pocket in front of this scene… let me watch you… he continues.

He takes her hand and turns her around, then looks her intently in the eyes again.

- You are to die for in this dress. You don’t know how much you can make me happy by wearing it… I’m in heaven… he adds, sliding his fingers over Amelia’s open arm. 

I feel my body stiffen immediately and a bubbling rise in the depths of me.

My brain freezes, my hypnotized sight on these fingers that caress Amelia’s skin.

An uncontrolled reaction takes hold of me when my left hand loosens Mark’s fingers and gently takes hold of the singer’s wrist to pull her towards me.

- We were about to leave… I said firmly.

Amelia looks at me in surprise, scanning after a few seconds my hand on her wrist.

- I think it’s up to Amelia to decide, right? Resumes Mark.

I stare at him, almost defying him but a sensation detaches my attention: Amelia removes my fingers from her wrist while glaring at me. As if touching her was a monumental error on my part, unforgivable.

- You said, Mark? She continues, completely ignoring my presence and turning to Mark.

He smiles slightly, and responds to Amelia’s invitation, with his famous satisfied air that I already hated.

- I said that we could go upstairs to be, let’s say… quieter…

I watch Amelia turning her back on me. I am waiting feverishly for the answer she will give him, before distinguishing that she nods weakly with my head while a huge smile takes place on Mark’s face.

I find it hard to integrate what has just happened: she openly contradicted me and ignored me in front of this second-class playboy.

She turns around for a few seconds towards me and hands me her glass of champagne.

I grab it and she takes the opportunity to whisper a few words: “Don’t forget what I asked you. Don’t spoil my evening.”

One last remark as a knockout to put me bluntly in my place.

She follows immediately after Mark, who leads her to the stairs.

I stare at them, helpless.

The slight bubbling that I felt a few moments earlier intensifies when I see them disappear in the room at the end of the upstairs alley.

.

I empty Amelia’s glass of champagne.

My nervousness grows and doesn’t fade under the alcohol vapors I just swallowed.

I thought that this evening and this ordeal was about to end… it had just taken an unexpected proportion.

For the first time: Amelia had given me no consideration, treating me like an assistant, an accessory for her evening.

For the first time: I couldn’t observe her, monitor her, protect her while she is out of my field of vision.

For the first time: she left me alone… to slip away with another man.

A nightmare…

.

Images invade my mind.

Long minutes follow.

Minutes of torment under the effect of this film which takes place in my head.

Images that only stir up my confusion, when I imagine in spite of myself what can happen behind this door where Mark led Amelia.

I breathe deeply to relieve the tension and reason myself: my reaction was completely irrational. I had no rights over Amelia. I’m just her bodyguard.

The man who protects her and not the man who shares her life.

I have no reason to react like… a deceived man, wounded in his pride. 

No reason.

If it’s a nightmare, it’s a bodyguard nightmare, no longer able to watch over her client.

- Do you mind?

A soft voice comes out of my thoughts and I discover before me, a young brunette woman, dressed in a long green dress, tight. A luminous dial captures my attention behind her and I realize that an hour has just passed since Amelia escaped me… an hour that I have not seen pass obnubilated by my internal reflections.

- Sorry?

- Excuse me for bothering you but I have been watching you since you got here… and you are undoubtedly the most attractive man of this evening… I’ve been staring at you for an hour… my apartment is only a few streets from here…

I look at her but it’s like I don’t see her or hear her.

It’s another face that I would have liked to admire.

A burst of lucidity strikes me and my body reacts like on autopilot.

.

I go ahead, passing the young woman who had just approached me, who looks at me taken aback and shocked when I don’t react at all to her advances.

I go up the stairs and climb them one by one, almost surprised that nobody comes to stops me… while I enter this section which seems private and forbidden to guests.

Arrived at the door which occupied my questions for an hour, I knock without hesitation and I wait only a few seconds, before hearing a voice resound behind the door.

- Joe… you were quick!

I perceive steps getting closer, then the door opens with these words “perfect timing, buddy!”.

Mark’s face appears to me and his face immediately changes expression as he recognizes me.

I quickly take his eyes off his face because it’s his outfit that calls me out.

His suit jacket and tie have disappeared.

His shirt came out of his pants and half unbuttoned.

As for her pants belt, she is undone;

The detail that makes me react too quickly.

- Where’s Amelia? I ask pushing him into the room and closing the door behind me.

He looks t me without understanding and I notice that his eyes are glassy and have trouble staying fixed.

- Where is Amelia? I repeat in a firmer tone.

- She doesn’t need you… we’re having fun…

He clumsily tries to block my way but I shift him with the back of my hand and enter the room a little more.

I step forward and quickly notice a sofa and a red cloud stretching against the black fabric.

I approach immediately: Amelia is lying on her side, one hand in the void, her head turned against the sofa cushion.

Her vision immediately alerts me: her dress is up to her pelvis revealing a red shorty and the draped scoop neck has been pulled and shifted so that one of her breasts is exposed. The completely bareback of the dress obviously led her not to wear a bra, which Mark clearly benefited from or prematurity since he had chosen this dress himself.

I feel my anger growing by thinking of the way he had to touch her to put her in this state. 

I kneel near her, noticing with concern that she has half-closed eyes as if she was in a daze.

Helpless, unconscious, as if delivered to the hands of this…

I arrange her dress to cover her as best as I can while whispering her name, but she doesn’t react.

- What did you do to her?

I turn for a moment towards Mark who watches us, vacillating and who doesn’t answer me.

I redirect my attention to Amelia and my gaze then captures the elements present on the coffee table: glasses, bottles of champagne, vodka and whiskey… and cachet of different colors, powdered sachets as well that two lighters.

- Amelia, can you hear me? I ask a little more alarmed, leaning over her.

She mumbles something I don’t understand.

I take off my jacket and put it on to cover her a little more, then get up to stand in front of Mark.

- What did you give her?

- Almost nothing…

- Tell me… I asked again grabbing him by the two sides of his shirt.

- Just a little ecstasy…

- Are you sure? Nothing else? No heroin?

- No, that’s for me… don’t worry, she will just get high for a few hours… 

I release him violently and he staggers a few steps, then clings to a piece of furniture behind him.

- Relax man, she just wanted to have a little fun, I didn’t do anything wrong. Can I give you want some if you want? Use it, I expect others…

- I don’t want your shit…

- As you want…

I take a look at Amelia then speak to Mark again, my nervousness finally expressing itself.

- Did you touch her? I ask, advancing a little more, to invade his personal space.

Puffs of alcohol fill my nostrils. His glassy, bloodshot eyes now disgust me violently.

- If you touched her… I said gently, pointing at him.

- Hey, okay, I haven’t done anything yet, he stammers finally. It’s a shame that she passed out, it’s less fun for me to sleep with her, but since the time I want to do her…

I jostle him violently after his words, making him fall to the ground while leaning towards him.

- I don’t want to see you anymore, you hear me? Don’t you dare approach her again, otherwise I’ll rearrange your face and you won’t be able to make a disc cover for a long time, understood?

He laughs while staring at me and his reaction makes me come out of me, I grab his throat, cutting his breath for almost a minute, before releasing him, his head falling to the ground.

- Little dickhead… I finish by turning away from him while he lies down while coughing to catch his breath

I join Amelia and reveal her face, hidden by her locks of hair but she is still in a daze between sleep and trance.

- What did you do babe? I half questioned to myself, in a whisper.

.

I take my phone after a few seconds, stuck in my pants pocket, to put an end to this nightmare as quickly as possible. 

- Jackson, I need you, wait for us in five minutes at the entrance of the building…

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Thank you for reading. Have a great week 💛

[softjeon]

Love Bite | Pt. 1

• Pairing: Vampire!Namjoon x Jimin • Genre: Angst / Smut | Vampire!AU ( → Gifset Trailer) • Words: 8,8k | Co-Writer: Cat @cassiavioletblue • Disclaimer: blood, abuse, (sexual) violence, mindcontrol, mentioning of death

↳   “You’re right. I was lying. I didn’t want to scare you. But I guess there’s not much to do now, right? I’ll tell you the truth,” Namjoon spoke softly, the grip around Jimin’s wrists loosened a little but not enough to free himself, “…because you deserve it, because I pull you into a lot of shit right now just by being here. I am a vampire, Jimin.”

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Jimin had thought that moving back into the city would be turning out a little different. A little quieter maybe. Not this turbulent or chaotic. Transferring from one office to another wasn’t the hard part and he had made a new friend here easily. Even finding a little apartment didn’t turn out to be too much of a hassle. His new colleagues were nice to him and had accepted him quite fast. All in all, Jimin could say he had settled in pretty fast, only one thing bothered him right now and the reason was his boss. The one, who was staring right back at him in this very moment - completely naked. Jimin shivered, shaking himself out of his stupor, as he saw the curtains moving in the cold breeze that crept through the open window. Hadn’t he closed it before? His eyes flickered back to his boss once more, his mouth agape and Jimin slowly raised a hand as he was trying to think of the right words to say. 

There was no way this was possible. This was his boss. The head of his department. And still, he was standing right in front of him. Naked. Absolutely no clothes. Nothing. Jimin cocked his head to the side, his eyes wandering down to a certain area for a second, before he quickly looked up again. He gulped heavily. Jimin was living on the fifth floor and his main door was definitely locked. Jimin could see the little chain hanging from here, that would make sure the door would only open a peak if there was someone in front of it. But there had been no ringing. No knocks. This made absolutely no sense at all and the younger was hoping that his boss would have a great excuse for trespassing this late at night...with absolutely no clothes on. Shaking his head once more, Jimin finally spoke up, “How... did you get into my living room….and why, excuse my language Mr. Kim, the fuck are you naked?” “Uhm...,” Namjoon blinked at him owlishly. This didn’t go as planned. And his time was running out. There was no way he could let Jimin throw him out or else he was very certainly very dead. Deader than dead. Non-existently dead. So he said the first thing that came to his mind, to give Jimin something to work with and maybe buy himself some time to figure out what the hell he should do right now. 

“I’m sleepwalking. Often. Naked.” 

He made a step forward and Jimin moved backwards, hands raised up in defense and eyes wide, face somewhere in between annoyance, amusement and fear. They both knew that he was the stronger one and that if he was some kind of crazy serial killer then Jimin wouldn’t stand a chance. Jimin had seen him with the shelves, he knew that he was either bench pressing weight like crazy or did something else to make him strong as a bull. If only he knew… “Sleepwalking….all the way over from your high class apartment to shitty downtown and all the way up to the fifth floor without opening the door?” Jimin said warily, his eyes flickering over to his phone which was lying a bit too far away right now, and back to his boss. “Mr. Kim, I really appreciate your concern to make sure I come home safely from time to time, but this…is a little bit too much,” Jimin pointed up and down Namjoon’s naked body, not really sure what he was trying to refer to. Either way he would need an answer. Preferably now and one that wouldn’t end up with him being killed by his boss who would turn out to be a killer or something alike. Jimin sighed inwardly. How could his perception of a person have been so wrong?

He slowly moved over, trying not to make it too obvious but of course Namjoon noticed. He noticed everything. So, Namjoon quickly came up with a new excuse, stammering something about how he had opened the door and unlocked it again then and when Jimin looked at him even more confused and scared now, Namjoon wasn’t even sure anymore if anything he said made sense anymore. 

He didn’t have time for this right now. 

Jimin was staring at Namjoon, his hands shaking when he slowly reached for his phone. His heart was beating wildly against his chest, as he gulped heavily against the lump in his throat. With one quick movement, Jimin took his phone - but he didn’t even make it far when suddenly something strong wrapped around his arms and Namjoon was standing right in front of him. Naked. Both of his hands holding his wrists tight. “What...the hell,” Jimin stared at his boss with big, disbelieving eyes. There was no way he could have been so fast. Jimin had made sure to keep as far as possible so he could be faster than the other. 

It was way too easy for Namjoon to pluck the phone right of Jimin's hand. With a targeted throw it smashed right on Jimin’s wall into a million pieces and the younger one whined, being scared that Namjoon would kill him now or do worse. Jimin closed his eyes, trying to get away, but his grip was strong and keeping him close to his body. His naked body. Jimin could feel...everything. He took in a sharp breath. And only Namjoon’s voice, which stood in contrast to the whole scenario, made the younger open his eyes again. 

“You’re right. I was lying. I didn’t want to scare you. But I guess there’s not much to do now right? I’ll tell you the truth,” Namjoon spoke softly, the grip around his wrists loosened a little but not enough to free himself, “...because you deserve it, because I pull you into a lot of shit right now just by being here. I am a vampire, Jimin.”

….

“Mr. Kim will be there to greet you in a second,” The secretary said, flashing him a bright smile and Jimin nodded, thanking her kindly. Jimin had gotten transferred into a new department. He always liked working for the Jung Company. They paid him well and he had great chances for promotion. Just like he had gotten one now. It was a good way to finally leave the past behind and move back into the city. Jimin wanted to start over. And this right here was the perfect beginning of his perfect story...or so he thought. 

He had heard good and bad things about his new boss. Some said he was a bit on the aggressive side, but most praised his kind and generous side, who made sure that his workers felt welcomed and appreciated at all times. Jimin turned a little on his seat, as he let his gaze wander over the minimalistic interior of the office. It almost felt a little cold. Jimin couldn’t spot one personal picture. No family. No kids. He was wondering what life his boss must be living. A lonely wolf? A player? Heartbreaker? Or was he happy with someone and just didn’t like to show it off? Jimin bit his lip, leaning back against the chair. Wasn’t he a bit too nosy already? His heart was beating a little faster, as he tried to keep himself from looking too suspicious, his eyes focused on the bag in his hands. Namjoon opened the door in a rush and saw the boy who was sitting already inside of his office flinching hard. Right, he needed to tone down his speed a little. He tended to forget that when he was deep in thoughts. But honestly, he had other things on his mind right now than office work. Things that involved a lot more blood and danger than decided where his newest employee should be seated. However, business was business and he needed all of his employees to be well integrated into the company structure or else it could mean trouble. Happy people who were working in an environment they enjoyed got better results and were better for the company than those who just came here for the payment. 

He sat down, flipping through the folder once more. Ah, right, this one wasn’t even new per se, he just had been sent from the countryside to the city. Good records, flawless reputation. Namjoon ditched the papers and gave the boy a once over. He was cute, he had to give him that. Though lots of humans were. Cute looks didn’t mean anything. Though in the case of Park Jimin there was a lot more beauty hiding under the superficial. He had a soft expression and kind eyes. A little sad maybe but Namjoon had heard that his parents had recently died - which was probably why he had asked for a transfer - and so the sadness was understandable. After all even for him who had lost countless souls in his long life it still hurt whenever he lost someone he cared for. One would think you’d get used to it after a while. But you didn’t. 

Anyway, he was pretty good at weighing up people and Mr. Park seemed like he would be great addition to his team of employees. He wouldn’t make any problems. “So, as you already know all the company’s rules and guidelines including the corporate identity I guess we can cut this short. Welcome in our team, Mr. Park. Let’s always do our best and keep our goals in mind. From what I saw in your record I’m sure you won’t disappoint me and if you continue to be as good as you were before you will be a valuable addition to our team. I’ll send for Mr. Kim Taehyung to show you around and explain everything that might be different from your former working place. If there are any questions that Mr. Kim can’t answer or that apply to me directly you can always make an appointment with my secretary in the front room.” He looked at Jimin again who had kept his back straight and his lips sealed while he had been talking. “If there isn’t anything else you’d like to know you can wait outside for Mr. Kim to pick you up.” Jimin just wanted to open his mouth to ask something, when he already got pushed ahead lightly, so that he stumbled outside the office. Right in front of him was a young man, with the biggest smile on his face and a name tag that read ‘Kim Taehyung - Intern’ on it. His boss had already closed the door behind him, leaving Jimin a little confused. 

“Is he always….I don’t know...this fast?” Jimin asked a little shy, earning himself a chuckle from the guy in front of him. He quickly straightened his shoulders and put on his professional demeanor, “I’m Jimin by the way. I guess, you’re supposed to show me around.” Taehyung gave him a pat on the shoulder as if they were old friends and hadn’t just met for the very first time and then started walking without any further introductions, certain that Jimin would follow him - which he did in loss of another option. 

“Don’t worry, you’ll get used to him. All in all he’s a nice guy and he’s never gonna be mean to your face. Distracted maybe and a little accident prone. And before you hear the rumors from someone else, yeah, he is kinda violent. But only towards furniture. No one knows why he does it but there are crashes in his office from time to time and then the next day he has a new desk or lamp so - apparently he likes to destroy stuff. He’s not screaming or anything but you must be kinda angry to break a desk. Multiple times. But he never hurt one of his employees so you don’t really have to worry about your safety. It could be worse right? And the people around here are nice. Also the coffee’s not that bad and if you like smoking there’s a nice corner with a great view on top of the roof! I’m not a smoker but even I like to come up there when I’m really early cause from up there you can actually see a magnificent sunrise! And that’s something isn’t it?” Taehyung kept lightheartedly chatting him up, feeding him with so much information while they were walking down the corridors that Jimin was busy trying to keep up. During his monologue the younger motioned a hand towards the offices or signs on the wall or made sure that they briefly passed the toilet. 

Jimin tried to remember all the important places but in between listening to Taehyung and filing away all the new information he got, he was starting to get a little bit overwhelmed. When they stopped in front of the cafeteria Jimin’s head was spinning. Taehyung didn’t seem to notice any of this he smiled at him again with that blindingly bright smile that looked a bit odd because of its rectangular shape before asking, “Any questions left?” 

Jimin shook his head because he didn’t know what else to do. So apparently he was working in a great office now with way more space (and way more possibilities to get lost until he really knew where everything was) and he also better tried to not be the first employee Kim Namjoon would break instead of his furniture. He definitely didn’t plan on walking in on his boss when he had another temper tantrum but if there was no screaming involved then how should one know when it would be dangerous to go in and when it was safe?

... Eyes closed, Jimin stirred the sugar in his coffee, then took a sip. It was good. He was slowly getting used to the new coffee machine in the new office. He had forgotten to bring lunch, so he used full cream milk. Screw the calories, Jimin thought, the improvement in taste would vast and it was better than nothing. He took another sip and felt his brain awaken again, as he stood there, leaning against the kitchenette, sipping and thinking. He had gotten used to his new office pretty quickly, his work wasn’t much different from what he did before. The only difference being that he had more responsibilities - and therefore more work, and a team under him that he had to lead and make sure that everyone was doing their job right so Mr. Kim would be satisfied with his work. And so far, he had only gotten lost once or twice in the building. His colleagues were nice and everyone took a liking in Jimin. He was smart, kind and courteous and people respected him for his work ethics. Right now, Jimin was preparing meetings for the next day, files and schedules and though it seemed like he was working non-stop the amount wasn’t getting any less. Jimin had stumbled into one of the busiest times in the company. “Why are you still here? I thought you would clock out at six,” Taehyung asked, making Jimin jump in his seat, as he sat himself on the edge of his table.

Everyone else had already left. 

“I did clock out at six, but I decided to stay late to finish up the work and we have a group meeting in a few days and I’m still not really sure about it all,” Jimin sighed looking at the files that piled up in front of him, “I don’t like for work to pile up. I want to make sure I know what happened before I came and how we can increase our joint-stock.” Tae only nodded, patting Jimin’s head in a reassuring manner. 

“I think you’re doing good in your job, don’t overwork yourself already,” He said and got up, “Make sure not to stay for too long.” A wave of his hand and Taehyung was out of the door, leaving Jimin behind.

It seemed only a short time later, while he was working through file after file, his head deep in the documents, when he noticed that he was missing an important document. Leaning back, Jimin groaned, wiping his hands over his face to keep himself awake. He looked around at all the empty desks suddenly realizing that he was completely alone. As he turned his head back to the paper in front of him, Jimin found himself thinking of his family for the first time in a while. The stillness in the office suddenly seemed to accentuate the emptiness he felt inside. With a sigh, he got up and got the key for the archive to find the missing file.

Namjoon stretched his neck and sighed miserably. He always tried to make his office as dark as possible when no one was around because direct sunlight just gave him a headache. However with being the boss there were so many people that knocked on his door that he felt like a wind-up toy: jumping up to open the blinds then get back into his seat to let them in, waiting till the little ‘audience’ was over, then shutting the blinds again - and then sitting still for approximately one minute before it all started again. Not now though. Everyone was long gone, he had checked the system and everyone had clocked out. Only then did he dare to pull out a carton of tomato juice - which wasn’t juice at all but it was the best camouflage Namjoon could think of. He always kept the carton in one of his drawers so no one would see it anyway but Namjoon was rather safe than sorry so he never took anything suspicious with him that could have given away that he was different.

He briefly considered heating up the blood a little so that it at least felt as if it came from a warm body but then he enjoyed it too much to just sit without having to get up at all. Besides, the taste gave it away anyways. Namjoon sipped a little, trying not to frown at the taste. Male, somewhere in his thirties, should cut a little back on his cholesterol. At least all the blood bags he got were high quality stuff. Hoseok made sure of that. During all those years there had been only one single incident where one of the hospitals that Hoseok had made deals with had sent them faulty blood. And it had been an accident. It wasn’t like back in the old times where they had to go into hiding because vampire hunters where after them 24/7. Starvation was nothing a decent vampire needed to be afraid of any longer. Namjoon finished his glass and then cleaned it with water right away to get rid of any traces. He never left traces. Just when he turned off the faucet he heard something that wasn’t supposed to be there. He froze, listening more closely, focusing in on it. 

There! It actually sounded like footsteps. Inside the office! Or rather.. inside the archives! A quiet growl came from his chest while the anger welled up inside of him. He never had to face industrial spying before and it made him impossibly angry - especially because it must be someone from his own people because he would have definitely heard it if someone had broken in which meant whoever was walking around here must have used a key to get in. As quietly as he could Namjoon put the glass down on the sink and opened the door, sneaking up on whoever was searching through the archives without making the smallest sound.

In the archive Jimin’s eyes scanned file after file, his finger brushing over a few dates, before he put it aside again with a sigh. Onto the next one. Jimin couldn’t find the light switch, so instead he was using the flashlight of the phone to read what was in front of him. It took him way too long to find the right file and he wondered, when the archive was last to be organized. If Taehyung wasn’t such a kind person, Jimin would have told an intern to sort it all the next day – but he wouldn’t have wanted Tae to have this much work. He already did way too much as an intern. Within a second Namjoon was at the door of the archives. It had been left open but whoever was inside hadn’t switched on the lights. Namjoon smirked. Light or no light he would be able to see just fine. Quietly he got closer and then stopped suddenly dead in his tracks when he saw that it was Jimin. His eyebrows went up in surprise. Normally he was pretty good at seeing through people but he would have never suspected Jimin to spy on his own company. Now curious he waited and watched, trying to find out what exactly Jimin was looking for. Apparently it was a particular file because he started rummaging in the box without any care. For a spy he was pretty reckless. Biting his lip, Jimin mumbled a few words written on the file’s cover. A smile lit up his face. “Yes,” He whispered and opened it to read through the first passages. Being so immersed in the stocks of the last few years, Jimin didn’t notice when someone stood in front of him. Only when the sudden smell of cologne hit him, he looked up, staring right back into the eyes of Kim Namjoon. Namjoon could see the exact moment when realization hit Jimin that he wasn’t alone because his heart rate picked up and soon enough the younger turned. His eyes turned wide, mouth opening in shock but there was no sound coming out of him. Namjoon had to try his hardest not to smile at how cute he looked. 

This would be interesting. 

“Care to explain to me what exactly you are doing at the archives at night - without any lights on and past working time? Maybe I can help you finding whatever it is you are looking for.” His voice sounded as cold and intimidating as he intended to sound. It was almost like everything went in slow-motion, at least for Jimin. His reaction to his boss sneaking up on him came way too late, as he flinched violently, file flying right out of his hand. The cold voice of Namjoon startling him so much, that Jimin had jumped a little. Jimin flinched violently and stumbled against the shelf, pushing his shoulder against it so hard that it tilted backwards. Out of reflex Namjoon grabbed the shelf to pull it back but with concentrating so hard on Jimin he didn’t quite concentrate on his strength, tipping the whole shelf way too much in the other’s direction. His heart skipped a beat when the boxes and books started sliding towards Jimin and he had to use his whole weight to hold the shelf back. The younger squealed helplessly, books falling onto him, as he tried to get away, but he was locked in-between the shelves. Closing his eyes, Jimin tried to get his hands over his head as soon as possible to protect himself from the impact – but nothing happened Namjoon stood there awkwardly, holding the shelf up with one hand so that he could shield Jimin’s head with the other. Internally he was yelling at himself for being so clumsy to tip the shelf back too far and making such a mess. Not mentioning the fact that people normally didn’t held up shelves like this. Hopefully the more pressing matter of ‘what the hell are you doing here?’ would have Jimin more occupied than the question why his boss was moving heavy stuff around like it was nothing. And if he really got questioned he could say that he worked out a lot. He was lucky that it was still dark or else Jimin would have seen him blushing. 

Jimin blinked his eyes open slowly, when the impact didn’t happen. His eyes immediately locked with Namjoon’s again and he gawked at the way his boss was holding the shelf back and protecting him at the same time. His eyes wandered over Namjoon’s arms for a second and the younger wondered how strong he really was – because he didn’t look like a person that was going in and out of gyms a lot. But maybe Jimin’s perception was wrong.

Namjoon carefully put the shelf back into balance and then coughed a little to clear his throat and get Jimin’s attention back on him. “Why don’t we continue this in my office.” His boss’ voice got him out of his stupor though and Jimin shivered involuntarily. He quickly gathered the file that had fallen onto the floor, as well as everything else and shoved it into the shelf, hurrying after Namjoon. As soon as they stood inside the dark office, Jimin blurted the words out quickly in fear that he would get fired now. He had never gotten fired from a job. Especially not for doing over-hours. “I’m sorry, Mr. Kim. I wanted to finish my work and I know I already clocked out, but I hate it when something isn’t finished. And then there’s this meeting in a few days and I want to make sure…. that I do my absolute best job...” Namjoon blinked in surprise. Before he had even managed to tell Jimin to take a seat and then stare at him disapprovingly as he had planned to make him nervous and eventually get him to talk the younger was talking already, so quickly that he was almost stumbling over his own words. “Hmm...,” He folded his hands in front of him and placed his chin onto them, looking directly into Jimin’s eyes. The younger seemed properly scared - but not in a way Namjoon would have expected of someone who was playing a foul game. Jimin seemed too open, too obviously nervous and on the verge of a breakdown that Namjoon would think him capable of playing games with him. He shook his head disapprovingly. 

“Jimin I am very disappointed in you.” Jimin instantly averted his gaze, bowing slightly to show his own disappointment in himself. He should have stuck to the rules. Do his work just like everyone else. But he so desperately wanted this job, wanted to show that the choice of giving him this new position in this company was the right one. He couldn’t go back. He needed this job. “I am sorry, Mr. Kim,” Jimin bit his lip, his heart beating fast, “It won’t happen again.” Of course he sensed how close to tears the younger was so he let his voice grow a little softer as he continued. “Do you know why I am disappointed?” He wasn’t sure if Jimin had gotten the point of what he was saying so he was trying to make it more clear. “It is because you need to rest. You are are valuable employee and part of this company. And you are responsible to take care of everything that is important to this company. Which means you are also supposed to take care of yourself.” He waited until it had sunk in before adding, “Also if you feel like you have to work over hours then I want to know about this. And I want to pay for those hours. If you act as if those hours aren’t worth paying then I have to think that you aren’t doing work there. And if you don’t work then you shouldn’t be in the office after work time at all. Do you understand this?” Jimin looked at Namjoon in disbelief, nodding hastily to everything he said. “Of course, Mr. Kim,” He said, sounding a little bit out of breath – but he was just relieved. Who would have thought that his boss would turn out so kind? “Thank you, Mr. Kim,” Jimin said with a smile and bowed again to show his gratitude. The younger one wasn’t sure if he was supposed to go now or should keep working or if Namjoon had still something to say. “I’ll won’t disappoint you,” Jimin smiled at him, before he quickly explained that he would only get the file he had needed from the archive again and would head home right away to rest. Turning on his heel, Jimin raked his hands through his hair and finally let out the breath that he was holding. When he opened the door of the office again, he was looking down at his watch. Jimin sighed when he saw how late it already was. There definitely would be no bus driving at this hour, so he would have to walk all the way. Shrugging his shoulders, Jimin walked ahead. 

He had it worse before Namjoon got out of his chair, grabbing his jacket and got ready to leave the office. Jimin kept his promise and quickly got the file, placing it onto top of the pile of papers on his office. When the younger turned Namjoon could see him hesitate when he noticed Namjoon standing in front of the elevator that would bring them down towards the mail exit.

“Come on, it’s late. Let’s get you home them.” He waved a hand at Jimin who was still a little confused and definitely not moving. “Don’t even start to argue. I’m sure you have heard about the attacks that are happening at night in the city? I’m not letting you put yourself into any more risk. Now get going before we will have to spend the night here. Believe me you don’t want that. The chairs are awful to sleep in,” He joked dryly, holding the door open for Jimin. Once more Jimin stared at his boss in disbelief. Was he joking? Jimin turned to look over his shoulders to see if Namjoon really meant him and pointed one finger at himself.Of course, Jimin had heard about the attacks around town, but if you believed what the media said it was only a wild animal on the loose. Unfortunately, some people got hurt, especially drunk one’s that were wandering off the darker streets at night. But Jimin hadn’t planned on doing so, but rather walking straight back home, somewhere illuminated by the street lights around. “You…you want to bring me home?” Jimin asked a little hesitant, before he quickly added, “It’s really not necessary, Mr. Kim. I am capable of going home alone. I appreciate your concern but it’s fine. I can walk.” “I am very much aware of that,” Namjoon answered amusedly and just as polite, “You have excuse me though because as long as you are not taking care of yourself regarding secretly working overtime without payment I’d rather like to make sure that you actually get home safe. Don’t worry, it’s going to be a one time thing.” Although he smiled sweetly at Jimin it was pretty clear that he wasn’t going to give in here. Jimin gulped heavily. Was this really just happening? This was awfully cliché. He and his boss alone in a dark office, where he offered him a ride home. Jimin laughed inwardly, thinking that if this was a movie, he would be the main character that would fall in love with his handsome boss and the other way around. A cough coming from Namjoon made him quickly regain his posture. He should definitely stop daydreaming. 

“No, really Mr. Kim!” Jimin spoke up again and came closer, pushing the button of the elevator, “I really appreciate it, but I rather just walk.” Gazing up at him, Jimin could feel his own heart skipping a beat with the way Namjoon was looking right back at him. His warm but intense stare made Jimin shiver but at the same time, he couldn’t tear his eyes off of him. Namjoon wasn’t having it but Jimin was surprisingly stubborn for someone so soft looking and gentle. He knew for a fact that he wasn’t someone to put up a fight and that he backed down if he felt like it was better for the group (he always paid close attention to new employees) but apparently when it wasn’t work related Jimin would stand his ground no matter what. Namjoon sighed but tried not to show his uneasiness. There was no way he would let Jimin go alone when outside in the night there was way more waiting to attack than just some ‘random rogue animal’ that the police and press had created in lack of a better explanation. But if Jimin wouldn’t let him walk him home and Namjoon didn’t want to secretly stalk him - then he had to persuade him. Or rather... hypnotize him. Although he really really didn’t like it. So he took a deep breath and then faced Jimin fully, making sure the other was looking right into his eyes. 

“Jimin, listen to me.” He could feel his power flow through his veins like pure warmth, filling his eyes and lingering on the tip of his tongue. “It is dangerous out there. You know that. And you don’t really want to face that alone, do you? So you want me to come with you, and you will feel more comfortable with me around. So you’ll let me accompany you to your place. Isn’t that right, Jimin?” Jimin blinked once, his mouth stood slightly open, while his whole body felt blissfully numb. He nodded slowly and as soon as the little sound of the elevator announced its arrival he turned around, walking ahead, waiting for Namjoon to stand right beside him. The doors closed, and the elevator started moving, while Jimin was just simply staring ahead. Feeling absolutely nothing Namjoon sighed with relief when Jimin went with it. He actually hated to use this kind of power because it felt like a violation of that person’s will and the thought alone made Namjoon immensely uncomfortable. But explaining why he couldn’t let Jimin go on his own wasn’t an option so this was the lesser evil. And it wouldn’t hurt Jimin or leave any kind of damage. He would just let him go with him and that was it. Mission clear. As soon as they arrived at the car park of the office, Jimin got out of the elevator and kept walking towards Namjoon’s car. Wait…how did he know what Namjoon’s car look like? Jimin stopped abruptly, shaking his head as he turned around facing his boss. Rubbing his temples, he looked at Namjoon a little confused. He could feel a bad headache settling in, making him feel a little dizzy. Or...maybe Namjoon had crowed too soon. Of course Jimin had to snap out of it now before he even went in the car. He wasn’t even sure if he had been particularly bad at it today or if Jimin was just one of those strong willed people who couldn’t easily be hypnotized. Either way he should probably act fast before Jimin would change his mind. So he quickly, but gently took Jimin by the arm and dragged him along, talking to him all the way so Jimin didn’t have time to think. 

“So, there it is. It’s not the first car I had but I like the color a lot. It’s called midnight blue doesn’t that sound beautiful? And the seats are very comfortable. there’s even some built in heating. Not that I regularly use it but it’s handy for cold nights and you can try it if you want. There you see, almost there...” He opened the door and got Jimin in, using the child safety lock to make sure he wouldn’t get out right away. Then he allowed himself to take a deep breath before getting into the driver's seat. Humans were such a hassle!

Jimin gulped heavily when Namjoon sat down right beside him. He still couldn’t wrap his mind around the fact that he must have been so sleep deprived that he simply forgotten that he had agreed and followed his boss down to the garage. Either way, Namjoon was already pulling up to the exit – so Jimin would better get used to it now. “It’s really kind of you to drive me home, Sir,” Jimin said after a while and looked at Namjoon. Of course, Jimin had noticed before how good-looking his boss was, but now being so close to him, Namjoon looked even more handsome in a white button down shirt that highlighted his tan. He let his eyes wander over Namjoon’s chest, down his arms and hands that wrapped around the steering wheel tightly. Involuntarily, Jimin licked his lips slowly, before he quickly snapped his head back around, focusing on the road ahead. Namjoon had to hold back a laugh at Jimin calling him ‘Sir’. The funny thing was he couldn’t even tell Jimin that they weren’t that much apart age wise because it would have been a blatant lie. But still, being called ‘Sir’ felt like it belonged to another life in another century, so he softly answered, “There’s no need to call me ‘Sir’, Jimin. And it’s not a problem. I just want you to get home safe.” He didn’t need Jimin to tell him in which direction to drive as he knew all of his employees addresses from their files so the drive was mostly silent. Still Jimin seemed nervous, at least his heart rate was a bit up and tend to quicken whenever Jimin was looking at him for a bit longer. He wasn’t as subtle as he thought he was, even without hearing his heartbeat Namjoon would have noticed, but he didn’t know what to make of it. Hopefully Jimin wasn’t scared of him. When they had pulled up at Jimin’s apartment complex, the younger bit his lip, feeling a blush settling hot on his cheeks. This wasn’t the nice part of town and it all looked a little run-down. But as shady as it looked from the outside, the more beautiful it did from the inside. At least in Jimin’s apartment - who had poured his soul into decorating it and making it as comfortable as possible. Nonetheless he was a little embarrassed in front of his boss, that he was living here and not somewhere more…nice. Namjoon couldn’t care less where exactly the people who worked for him chose to live - unless it got them in danger of attacks. Which it did. But so far they had only happened at night so as long as Jimin stuck to regular working hours he would be fine. The Vampire disabled the child safety lock and let Jimin out, wishing him a good night. “Thank you,” Jimin mumbled and opened the car door, “For not firing me… and stuff.” He flashed Namjoon a sweet smile, before turning on his heel. His expression changed immediately, and he hit himself on the forehead. “And stuff?” He mumbled to himself, turning his key in the lock, “Really, Jimin?” Namjoon could hear Jimin talking to himself and now that the younger was gone he could chuckle to himself without having to hold back. He was pretty cute actually. Incredibly young for Namjoon’s way of living but also incredibly cute. Maybe he should try to get to know Jimin better. Not with any intentions, just for fun to see what kind of person he was.

... During the night, Namjoon could drive the streets for as long as he pleased and as fast as he wanted. Sometimes he went out and drove for hours without a destination or map. He just went where the road took him. The nighttime was the only time Namjoon had fully to himself. During the day he was covered by work, not just office related ones. Sometimes he even dropped by the old vampire bar, a little outside of town. The only one left around here. Others were scattered around the world. For the most part, he liked being a vampire. The extra sensitive receptors - sight, hearing, touch, taste, hypnotizing, speed of movement. Yeah, those were cool but of course it all had its downsides as well. Turning the steering wheel, Namjoon drove onto a driveway, his eyes focused. 

Tonight he had a destination. Hoseok’s mansion was up on a little hill, surrounded by a huge garden and far enough from the human’s. Not as if they would care. Hoseok wasn’t just any vampire. He was their leader. The oldest one and therefore most powerful one. 

The king, as he liked to call himself. Namjoon parked the car and made extra sure that he had applied the parking brake (last time, he had been distracted, so he hadn’t done it properly resulting in the car rolling downhill. Luckily some of the others had seen it and helped him stop the car before it could crash. He was still embarrassed about it.). Then he walked in, a collapsible box in hand. He needed to refresh his stock and Hoseok trusted him enough to give him always some ahead. He had earned this privilege. Even though he and Hoseok knew each other now for a long long time he was still reminded every now and then that their status was entirely different. Like right now for example. As soon as he went into the foyer there were two other vampires on him, baring their fangs. Typically, the young ones were so hot headed. Namjoon stayed calm. He knew they wouldn’t do anything without command and soon enough he could hear Hoseok’s voice from the upper rooms. 

“Calm down, boys. It’s just Namjoon. Let him through - he wouldn’t harm a fly let alone one of his kind.” Namjoon smirked as the others stepped back. One of them actually had the audacity to scent him openly, something that was considered pretty rude, but Namjoon let it slide. They were children. And despite Hoseok’s words he knew that he was way more dangerous to them, then they were to him. Hoseok actually liked leading new vampires on, testing their character, giving them opportunities to attack someone apparently weaker than them. Hoseok was always one for games. He courtly nodded towards them and then went up the wooden stairs. They were flawless despite their age, the dark wood shiny from being regularly polished. No vampire would dare to pick up a fight in Hoseok’s mansion so there were no marks or signs on the furniture; no one could have guessed that the inhabitants were anything but human. “I see you came to get something tasty?” Hoseok raised an eyebrow at him as he welcomed his ‘old’ friend, leading him back into his main room. It wasn’t really considered an office, but more like an open living-room space with an office desk at one side of the room, while the other side was wildly decorated in things from all spans of time. Patting Namjoon’s shoulder, Hoseok pushed the younger vampire down onto the couch, raking his bejeweled hand through his hair, before he licked his tongue over his fangs, watching Namjoon closely. 

“Why don’t you finally get yourself a human, Namjoon?” He said with a low, dark voice and sat down in front of the other, “Fresh blood is so much better for you! My offer still stands. Live here and I’ll get you a fresh, willing human each night. Maybe you’ll even find a lovely companion.” Hoseok’s eyes flickered over to the other side of the room, where his own human sat, patiently waiting. His eyes fixated only on Hoseok. The collar around his neck showing that he had an owner. Hoseok’s personal blood donor. His lover. “Hoseok!” Namjoon tried to not let his frustration show too strongly. Hoseok was his superior after all. But they’ve discussed this over and over again. Of course Hoseok was right, fresh blood tasted so much better. But he just couldn’t take it from someone who wasn’t willingly giving it. And most of the humans inside these four walls were hypnotized, offering themselves up for any vampire without even knowing what they were doing. He hated it! “Seokjin, come here!” The king ordered and the human followed immediately, sitting himself on Hoseok’s lap. Hoseok trailed his fingers along Seokjin’s neck, making him show off the bite marks there, before he ripped open the shirt a little more to reveal his marked up chest to Namjoon. Hoseok licked his lips, his gaze back on Namjoon’s. He knew the other was desperate. There hadn’t been a companion in his life for too long. 

“I can’t promise to find you someone as good as this one,” The vampire leader murmured, “But I’ll make sure it’s good. You like them petite, right? With soft, delicate features?” Hoseok hummed in delight, before he let Jin off his lap (but not before giving his bottom a little slap) and returned his attention to Namjoon. The other swallowed harshly, licking his dry lips. Unfortunately his hunger didn’t give a damn about his morals and so he was practically salivating with the way Seokjin bared his neck. It was such a pity that he was wearing a collar as it hid part of his throat. Seokjin was beautiful on his own but together with the bite marks and the thin white shirt that accentuated his slim figure… Namjoon could almost see his chest in every detail through the fabric...spillt crimson would be such an amazing look on him.. he smelled so sweetly.. his blood must taste so good….

The vampire flinched a little at the slapping sound when Hoseok’s hand met Seokjin’s firm bottom, hurriedly making room for the human. Although Seokjin didn’t seem to mind that he was here. And it wasn’t because he was hypnotized. Strangely Hoseok hadn’t hypnotized him, never had too because Seokjin was here because he wanted to be. It wasn’t that uncommon that people enjoyed the thrill of being bitten because it induced some kind of highly euphoric rush that let their victim forget the pain and loose their minds in hazy bliss. Normally after a while the fear kept them from coming back, maybe it was the natural human survival instinct that kicked in, maybe when the novelty had worn off the thrill to them wasn’t worth it any longer. So relationships like Hoseok and Seokjin were pretty rare. 

But it was everything that Namjoon ever wanted. And Hoseok knew that and loved playing with it. Having Namjoon at his mercy, was the most fun, because the other was hard to get. Namjoon was one of the older vampires, with abilities that only a few vampire were blessed…or cursed with. “So, then tell me Namjoon,” Hoseok leaned back, sitting with his legs spread wide and a knowing-smirk on his face, “What are you here for then? Just blood, or what gives me the honor to see you so early at night?” Namjoon bit his lip, hesitating a little. Vampires weren’t exactly the most social creatures and there were always rogue ones, outsiders or little groups that followed their own plans and directions. Normally as long as they didn’t get themselves outed or got the vampire community as a whole at risk no one gave a damn. And until now there wasn’t really a risk. Newspaper articles about a wild animal had happened before and would certainly happen again. As long as they didn’t leave more proof or started hunting a specific type no one would realize that there was no animal. Still it bothered him a lot. But he knew coming Hoseok with morals and responsibility for the weaker would only make the older laugh. therefore he tried a different approach. He owed his head a little to show his respect before starting to speak up. 

“Actually there’s something else I’d like to ask of you. I know it’s not my place to do so but I beg you to show your greatness of heart and listen to me nonetheless. I am sure the attacks have come to your attention as well. Under normal circumstances I wouldn’t mind them-,” He lied easily, trying to subtly watch Hoseok’s reactions, “-but they get closer and closer to the company. I have many ambitious employees who stay past their time and offer up their evenings for the sake of the company. I can’t bear the thought of them being at risk because of their selflessness. I wouldn’t want my office to lose its most valuable members. So it would calm my heart to know that you, the most powerful of all of us, would keep an eye on those rogue ones so that they won’t get closer to the building.” He held his breath for a second and then added as humble as he could. “Maybe - for the sake of our community - it would even best to stop their attacks in general. Don’t you agree?” Hoseok sighed, as he leaned a little further into Namjoon. His voice sudden low and quiet. “Hiding is the number one priority, Namjoon and I see what’s happening,” Hoseok almost hissed the words, “I see it all! Don’t you think I’m already doing whatever I can? Hypnotizing shitty, stinky old politicians and infiltrating the police with my men? But these aren’t the usual rouge ones.” Hoseok raked his hands through his hair, before he regained his posture, “They are different. Very much so.” Getting up, Hoseok looked down at Namjoon before he ordered, “It’s probably better if they come closer, that you let your people go home before the sun goes down.” That wasn’t the answer he had hoped for but pushing Hoseok when he was irritated was dangerous. And right now the older was very obviously infuriated. At that a shiver ran down Namjoon’s spine because it meant that there was way more to those attacks than he had thought and it meant he needed to be very, very careful. Of course he could tell his employees to not work over hours - but he couldn’t tell them to not go out in their free time or the weekends which meant that they were still in danger. So he just couldn’t let it go that easily. “Do you maybe.. want me to investigate a bit? I could keep my eyes open in those areas, look around a bit, maybe ask some questions, you know, the usual...” “NO!” Hoseok growled, showing off his fangs to Namjoon. A clear warning sign for him to not get involved. His expression turned emotionless quickly again before he added, “Do your job. Keep the people and yourself out of danger! I can’t risk them knowing about too much and if they know your position, your abilities…keep your head low and yourself safe! Namjoon immediately lowered his head as a sign that he accepted the order. Of course he would, even though he didn't like it. Going against Hoseok’s order would be pretty much like walking around with a death wish tattooed on his forehead. It should probably flatter him that Hoseok deemed him too valuable to risk his cover as a human but still he disliked the thought of being damned to just watch it happen. Hoseok smiled faintly, when he felt Jin’s arms caressing over his shoulders as he leaned his head on them. He always brought him comfort and calmed him down. “Just do as I say, Namjoon!” Hoseok repeated, before he gripped Jin’s chin and pushed his lips onto the other, showing once more what Namjoon was missing and aching for. For a second Namjoon watched the heated kiss, listening to Jin’s heartbeat quickening when Hoseok pushed his tongue between the humans soft lips, his fangs gracing the plush bottom lip. Namjoon would have loved to switch places with Hoseok and kiss Seokjin in his place, hold him close and feel the warmth of his living, breathing body before pushing his head aside to bare all of the beauty that was his carotid artery, so delicious, so full of life, pulsing with the blood that run through his system and whispered to Namjoon, luring him in and drawing him closer to… Namjoon drew in a shaky breath and shook his head to clear it, then he gave them a court nod and turned on his heel. He really needed to get a full meal inside of him or else he would jump the very next person who didn’t wear a turtleneck.

A/N: NEW YEAR - NEW STORY! Get ready for...a lot! Cat and I can’t wait to share this new story for you. We worked hard on it! So...what do you think so far? You got to know the first characters of our story a bit ;) Do you like Hoseok...oh, pardon, the king? And how did Namjoon get naked into Jimin’s apartment? Well...we will find out in the next chapter! I am not sure, yet if I should post this twice a week, or if you rather want us to post the other story we have planned simultaneously. So each, once a week. Hm. What do you think? Update twice a week?

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[thefloatingstone]

overlordraax replied to your post: Not feeling much better after waking up. Somebody...

List your top fave fanfics. List your top fave tropes in fanfic.

Oh noooooo this is a really good one too sdjkjdhfsh

I was actually thinking of doing a fanfic Rec list tbh!! I hope you don’t mind that they’re all Undertale fics! I think I’ve read more fanfiction for this fandom than I’ve read for any other fandom I’ve ever been in. (Including MLP which is a friggen miracle if you stop to think about it)

BUT ANYWAY! Please check out these fics by some incredibly talented individuals (some of these I’ve put in lists before but w/e here it is again!)

(in literally no particular order at all)

Postcards from Waterfall

Rating: Explicit (Fic as a whole is T but occasionally has specific smut scenes which are marked for easy skipping)

Ship?: Sansby

Setting: Classic timeline

Word Count: 353 763

Ongoing

After an unremembered Genocide timeline, Sans is struggling with lingering feelings of dread. On top of this, coming to terms with his own childhood, and dealing with a lifelong recovery from a massive accident in his youth. However, things seem to slowly improve as he unexpectedly grows closer to Grillby, and feelings turn towards the romantic. But there are still things lurking in the Underground that would do them harm.

(the fic mostly focuses on Sans’ childhood trauma dealing with a apathetic Gaster, an mysterious “Accident” he can barely remember in his near-childhood, his developing feeling for Grillby, and their awkward relationship developing and reacting to situations around them. the plot is paced slowly, but I wouldn’t call it a slice-of-life story as there are larger things at play and get slowly revealed as things move forward)

Thunderstruck

Rating: T

Ship?: Reader / Underfell Papyrus

Setting: Classic Timeline with Underfell Sans and Papyrus

Word Count: 263 284

Ongoing

It’s the classic timeline, and monsters have been on the surface for almost 2 years already. In the Skeleton household though, Sans and Papyrus have acquired two tag-alongs in the form of Underfell Sans (Red) and Underfell Papyrus (Edge) who have come from a much more violent and desperate timeline with no way of going back. This wouldn’t be so bad, but a lifetime of being on constant alert and being intimidating and scary to everyone, where it once had Edge be the most respected of monsters as Captain of the Royal Guard, now sees him severely emotionally and socially crippled. Unable to make friends due to his learned behaviour of being scary and permanently angry, unable to find work because most monsters AND humans find him too hard to handle, and struggling to find his place in his own family unit, with his relationship with his own brother awkward after so many years of pretending to be “boss and henchman”, a strained relationship with Sans who does not trust him (for admittedly good reason) and with the only person he seems on good terms with being Papyrus (who also represents everything Edge could have been but have no hope of achieving).

Things change when caught in a pretty bad thunderstorm, Reader (you) finds him hiding in an alley outside your apartment. And lucky for him, you’re crazy enough to let a terrified stranger into your home until the weather improves, and even crazier, as you decide once he starts yelling, that you’d like to stay in contact with him.

The story is a slowburn Reader-insert romance, but it’s almost much more than that. Told from Edge’s perspective, it’s a recovery fic more than anything. Recovering from a lifetime of trauma, violence, learned survival behaviours, mending relationships with family, learning to fit into a world that at first seems completely incompatible with you, and finding a place in life. Lots of self reflection, sometimes self loathing, pining, confusion, frustration, brief arguments over stupid petty things, arguments over really IMPORTANT things, and a lot of tenderness, even if you’re not someone to go for Reader-insert stories, I highly recommend this one if only for the characterisation and emotional and psychological exploration, especially for Edge and his relationship to to his brother and the world at large. It definitely sold me on his character in a way I’ve never really considered.

Panic Room

Rating: M (note cw on fic)

Ship?: Nothing yet but working towards Reader/Papyrus Reader/Sans (no f//ntcest)

Setting: Swapfell

Word Count: 150 548

Ongoing

It’s been years since monsters broke the barrier, stormed into Ebott, and forcefully took over, place Toriel as the monarch and cutting the city off from the outside world. Ebott has become a dystopian dictatorship, where humans are second class citizens who can have incredible luxury depending on how useful and accommodating they are to their new monster rules, or simply be exterminated if stepping out of line. Reader (you) have been imprisoned for almost a year, living in torturous conditions, scarred from beatings and with no hope or future to even think of. But due to your spirit of Perseverance, you continue to live, to not give in to despair. One day, Swapfell Papyrus (Rus) wanders into the prison, looking to “buy” himself a human (for reasons unknown to you) and, for whatever reason, picks you.

He brings you home, has you cleaned up, healed up to the best of his ability, and then has the hurdle of trying to present you to Swapfell Sans; the Lieutenant of the Royal Guard and Alphys’ right hand man. On the verge of throwing you out, Sans allows you to stay and work as the maid in his meticulous home. A hard job, but you accept, unwilling to try your luck on the streets of Ebott. And so your new life begins with the brothers, and the longer you work there, the more you learn. You learn more about the very touchy but at his core good-hearted Rus, you learn more about the terrifying and ruthless Sans, and the sadness and desire to show kindness behind his mask, and you learn more about Ebott. About the constant servailence, the propaganda machine, the injustice, the violence, the broken system ruled by the blind and terrible queen.

You don’t know what sort of life or future is in store for you now, but it’s better than the prison (ANYTHING is better than the prison) and just at the edges of reality, where you can’t even see or notice them yet, a change is coming. Invisible and far in the distance, but slowly approaching.

Dirty Laundry

Rating: T

Ship?: Reader/Papyrus Reader/Sans (poly relationship, no f//ntcest)

Setting: Swapfell

Word Count: 49 369

Ongoing

Reader (you) have recently moved to Ebott for a change in life (it being monster central may or may not have something to do with that). It’s been a few months since monsters were freed, and many are integrating with society slowly but surely. One day, while at the laundromat, you find yourself watched by a scary but ultimately nervous and “I don’t know how to laundry!” Swapfell Papyrus.

In time, a friendship forms. He’s a really sweet guy, anxious but eager to please. It would all be very cute if not for the fact that his asshole brother doesn’t seem very pleased with you (or anybody?) “worming their way” into his baby brother’s life. Nevermind that their therapist said they needed time apart! Nevermind that Papyrus has asked him for some space! He’s going to make sure his little brother is safe! Just as he always had.

Besides... if he doesn’t, what else is there for him to do? Leave Papyrus alone? Leave both of you alone? Accept that Papyrus doesn’t need him any more? May not even want him any more?

...would that make him happier?

Fired Up and Bone Weary (Series)

Rating: G - T

Ship?: Sansby

Setting: Classic Timeline

Word Count: various

Complete

A collection of short stories and oneshots, documenting the everyday life and events in Sans, Grillby and Papyrus’ lives, starting underground and early dating, and working its way to surface life and marriage. Mostly just fluffy, slice of life settings, only now and then undercut by misfortune or drama. Dealing with Grillby’s complicated family, trying to manage Sans’ fluctuating depression, and Papyrus’ role and desire for a family. Most of it is just small, everyday happiness though. And the fear that at any moment all of it could disappear with a reset is (most of the time) not thought about.

(I haven’t finished the series myself just yet. I got stuck on the third last story in the series, the one with the most chapters, due to personal reasons. I do plan to finish it at a later date, but at this point in time it hit a little too close to home. I still recommend all of it whole-heartedly, as I doubt other people will react to it the way I did.)

There are also a few oneshots as well as fics I’ve mentioned before (like SSLL for instance which I STILL love and you guys should STILL read!!) but these are the main ones I’m reading/have read at the moment!

If you guys want I can make a list of oneshots too. Just let me know 8′D I also didn’t include people’s tumblr names just in case they didn’t want it spread around for any particular reason, and I didn’t include more than one fanfic per author, I may add some of their other work in another post at some point. But I wanted to give each author equal exposure in this post.

Anyway! Hopefully you guys consider any (although you really should read ALL) of these fics! And give the authors comments and kudos!

[c0rpseductor]

1-10 for your inquisitor >:3c

>:3!!!! THANK YOU FOR ASK....

1. name/race: my quiz is basically me but thedas, so he has my name, lestat! he’s an elf! originally he was a city elf, but lived with a dalish clan for a time. then he did his own thing.

2. orientation: he is gay!

3. looks: AAH i just did that tarot of him recently so

he’s on the chubby/curvy side and absurdly short, like, 5 foot even, so in my mind only a few inches taller than varric. his eyes are closed here, but they’re red.

4. feelings on being called herald of andraste: he HATED that shit, even moreso when he’d point out he hated it and get ignored or told he should accept being called the herald. he was steamed about it almost every time someone mentioned it.

5. religious beliefs: he was raised andrastian and believes in the maker. he did used to live with the dalish and so has some weird crossover with elvhen religious stuff, but mostly his paradigm is andrastian. he’s not very religious, and has a pretty strained relationship with both his faith and the maker.

6. opinion on mage/templar war: “fuck the templars,” basically. he’s heard about what happens in circles and he doesn’t have anything against mages, so he’s pretty much in agreement with mages on the issue. he thinks there being a war is tragic, especially when uninvolved people get hurt, but he sees that as the fault of the templars for forcing mages to strike back for their rights.

7. best friend: if i can only pick one companion, cole for sure. he ALWAYS wants to be in cole’s good graces and thinks the world of him since he’s so genuine and kind. he really worries about cole, too. he sort of takes on a big brother attitude, because he relates to cole a lot, and doesn’t want anything bad to happen to him. he gets along well with dorian, bull, josephine and varric, too.

8. rival: not sure if he counts as a rival, but solas. there’s not really any competition between them, though; he just kind of hates solas’ guts because of how pedantic he is. lestat tries pretty hard to NOT be a complete dick to solas because he feels guilty being mean to people, but solas always makes him regret it. solas doesn’t quite seem to understand that lestat is a man, either, so he treats him a lot like he treats female lavellan. (there’s a bit of a crush on his end purely because solas reminds me SO MUCH of every nerdy guy in high school who thought i would be his manic pixie dream girl.) they tend to argue a lot.

9. love interest: I HAD TO CART MY BOY IN....i am desperately in love with märchen soundhorizon, and so i made a dragon age AU version of him, and ship my quiz with him. basically märchen is an abomination elf mage, kind of like anders but undead (edit: probably more easily compared to wynne). he mostly integrated with the demon “possessing” him (vengeance). he has a whole backstory and stuff but i could go on for 100 years. here’s the tarot i did for him!

10. class: Warrior!!! he uses two-handed weapons and has the reaper specialization. in my headcanon, he is also a mage, but didn’t know until the anchor woke up his magic (bit of a late bloomer, magically speaking). he’s no good at using magic with any consistency, so it’s more of an unreliable supplement to his skill at smashing shit with a sword as big as him.

[beingallelite]

Not only is she one of the leading figures in All Elite Wrestling's developing women's division just four years after first stepping foot in the ring, but she's also done it while completing dental school and starting a full-time practice.

Bleacher Report's Jonathan Snowden had the chance to sit down with Dr. Baker to discuss life, the impact of the Wednesday Night Wars on her relationship and the glorious art of professional wrestling.

He also reviewed the best match and promo of the week, took a look at the latest offering from DK Books, tracked the latest battle in the war between AEW and NXT and consolidated a week's worth of wrestling events to catch you up on anything you might have missed.

Join us every week for Off the Top Rope and Bleacher Report's exclusive access to the biggest stars in the sport.

Dr. Britt Baker, DMD, on AEW's Women's Division and Her Crazy Double Life

The trip to Pittsburgh was about two-and-a-half hours each way—and Britt Baker drove it once a week in the summer of 2014, her conscience heavy with guilt. In the fall, she would start dental school at the University of Pittsburgh. Her life seemed settled.

But professional wrestling had a hold on her heart and wouldn't let go. So she got into the car anyway, driving to class at the International Wrestling Cartel to begin her tutelage in the esoteric art of wrestling, a secret hidden from family and friends in her gossipy home town.

"I was so terrified that my parents were going to hate this that I didn't tell them for five months," she tells Bleacher Report. "I was correct. They were less than thrilled. It's not that they were especially discouraging. It's just what every parent would say. 'Britt, you have a guaranteed successful career ahead of you. You've been accepted into one of the best dental schools in the world. You could get hurt in the wrestling ring and your dental career could be done. Do you understand what you're doing?'"

Stubborn as only a highly capable person in their early 20s can be, Baker was convinced she could learn both crafts simultaneously. She took on what might be a truly unique double major: learning to fix teeth by day and pretending to knock them out by night.

"Wrestling kept me sane during dental school," Baker says. "That was the hardest time of my life, and I don't know how I would have made it without the distractions of wrestling to keep me afloat.

"I would be sitting in the back of my dental implants class, secretly watching Raw from the night before while trying to pay attention in class. And when I was on the road doing wrestling shows, the guys that I would train with would help me. Andrew Palace and Darren Genaro would be flashing me notecards to help me study for an exam.

"I'm setting up the ring and we take a break to study. There aren't many friends like that in the world, people who would use their breaktime to help you study instead of going to get a cheeseburger up the road or just taking a minute to themselves. I was so fortunate early on with the people I surrounded myself with in wrestling."

When she's introduced now as "Dr. Britt Baker, DMD," there is a sense of pride. Unlike most wrestling gimmicks built around a trade, Baker comes by hers honestly. And while most wrestling dentists are bad guys, she hopes fans might make an exception in her case.

"It's my favorite part of every match, the moment I hear that," she says. "It's an affirmation. Yes, that is who I am. I am Dr. Britt Baker, DMD, and I'm a professional wrestler.  I don't mean to brag or boast, but I love the recognition for it.

"It was hard. I went to school for eight years to be a dentist. Sorry if the person in the fifth row doesn't like it and thinks I should be a bag guy because people hate the dentist. People might not like the dentist, but they do like people who chase their dreams."

Baker was brave enough to chase two. And now, living in Orlando, Florida, with her boyfriend, NXT champion Adam Cole, she maintains what would be a back-breaking schedule for most, somehow maintaining her career in the ring and a burgeoning dental practice without seemingly missing a beat.

"Both of my worlds are very understanding of the other," she says. "I have an agreement with the dental office I work for that we'll be closed on Wednesdays. Because I'll be in whatever city AEW Dynamite is in. And AEW is OK with me flying in super-late Tuesday night after work or even early Wednesday morning. They are also really good at getting me on the first flight back to Orlando Thursday morning. I get right off the plane and go to work. I am still able to work four days a week as a dentist."

Right now, she is careful to keep her two worlds apart. While she'll talk to patients about wrestling if they bring it up, she's aware that many people might find her dual roles off putting. Sometimes, however, what happens in the wrestling ring isn't easily contained in the ring. Take, for example, a black eye suffered recently at the hands of her burgeoning rival, Bea Priestley.

"The black eye was very interesting," Baker says. "I was getting pretty creative just hiding it. I had my mask on most of the day and we use dental loupes, which are magnifying and have a little light on them. I made sure I had those on all day. Because, it's a whole thing. 'Oh my gosh, what happened to your eye?' and 'What do you mean you're a professional wrestler? I didn't know this!' So, I tried to make it an easier day."

While a black eye can be manageable, more serious injuries pose potential problems in both fields. Earlier this year, her parents' worst fears came true when Baker suffered a major head injury at an AEW pay-per-view in Jacksonville, Florida.

"For five days, I could not see out of the outer corner of my eye," she says. "I had no peripheral vision. It was just black. That terrified me. Doc Sampson, our head doctor for AEW, would call me every day. He's an excellent physician. And, every day, I was so frustrated.

"I was starting to wonder if I was going to be OK, but he was very reassuring, explaining that this is a concussion symptom and I would eventually get my vision back. He told me, 'You got hit really bad, really hard, but it's going to be OK.' But people can tell you that all they want—until it actually comes back, it's scary.

"You can't see and you need your eyes for everything. Especially being a dentist, working in someone's mouth and even drilling on their teeth. I was terrified. Obviously, I couldn't work in the dental office when I couldn't see. That's a lawsuit waiting to happen and not safe. So, it was tough.

"But that's the nature of the game in professional wrestling. People get hurt. It's not ideal, but it happens. Accidents happen. It was a reality check reminding me, 'Hey, be careful.' But, at the same time, I love it. And, when you love what you do, you can accept the risk."

On Wednesday, Baker fought Riho for the AEW Women's Championship, an enormous accomplishment for a woman just four years into her professional career with a mere three weeks on television.  

"It's very stressful and exciting," Baker says. "It's baptism by fire. You're wrestling in front of 100 people one week and suddenly you're in front of 10,000. I have so much to learn, but I'm in good hands. I feel like I have the best coaches, the best production crew, the EVPs, Tony, everyone who has a hand in this is one of the best people to be working with in wrestling.

"(AEW owner) Tony Khan is super-hands on. He is everywhere and will be texting creative ideas all the time. He's absolutely fantastic. I can't say enough good things about Tony Khan. He makes every person on the roster feel appreciated. He is happy you are part of his company."

There is a lot of experience to lean on backstage at an AEW event, including agents Dean Malenko, Jerry Lynn and Dustin Rhodes. Perhaps the most integral figures for women looking to live up to bold promises about equality and opportunity are Kenny Omega and Michael Nakazawa, dual-lingual wrestlers who help the contingent of Japanese competitors like Riho communicate with their American counterparts.

"Kenny Omega has a huge role in the women's division," Baker says. "He agents a lot of the matches and he's brought his passion for the Japanese joshi wrestling to our world and it's amazing. I don't have a ton of experience with joshi wrestling, but I love it.

"I'm learning from Kenny by watching how he puts matches together. How lucky can I be? That was one of the selling points for AEW to me when Brandi and Cody (Rhodes) told me he'd have a major role with the women's division. I was a huge fan.

"I was the girl staying up all night to watch Wrestle Kingdom even though I had class the next day. Now I work with Kenny Omega, one of the best wrestlers in the world and a creative genius. Some of his ideas just amaze me. There seems to be no end to his creative insanity."

Baker's rise in the sport comes as Cole reaches new heights of his own in NXT. The two are equally wrestling-obsessed and watch the rival company's competing shows together the day after the events. But Baker admits the dueling Wednesday night broadcasts aren't ideal.

"We are texting and calling each other for encouragement right up until the moment we go out the curtain," she says. "It can be a little heartbreaking when it's the biggest night of his career or the biggest night of my career and we can't be there. Because we're each other's biggest fans and, as a fan, you want to be there and feel the energy. You want to experience it. So, it's a little discouraging.

"But we sit at home and watch each other's matches. We actually watch each other's whole show. We support each other's company. My boyfriend is basically best friends with The Young Bucks, so he's very supportive of All Elite Wrestling."

Baker, like most in AEW, keeps a watchful eye on fan reactions. She's noticed some grumbling among hardcore fans, upset that the promotion hasn't featured women as frequently as they have men. But she urges patience.

"You have to take it with a grain of salt when people, for lack of a better term, bitch and moan about what is and isn't on the show," she says. "Fans are always going to find a reason to grumble. They want one thing week one, you give it to them week two, and then they don't want that anymore. Some fans are very hard to please.

"AEW, we're still so new, so I encourage people to sit back, relax and kind of breathe with us. We're going to give everybody what they want. Sure, there's only one women's match on the show. But maybe there is only one tag team match, too. Enjoy it, let us establish what our brand is, then form your opinion.

"Right now, it's fresh and new. Try to enjoy the ride."

Britt Baker returns home next week on AEW Dynamite as Pittsburgh temporarily transforms into Brittsburgh.

Match of the Week: Kenny Omega vs. Joey Janela (AEW Dark)

In AEW storylines, Kenny Omega is struggling to find his way. After losing to Chris Jericho in a grueling bout at Double or Nothing in May, he was unceremoniously destroyed by a debuting Jon Moxley.

It was enough to send Omega into a tailspin, breaking the former IWGP champion mentally and spiritually.

In the ring, though, he is finding his way. Against an opponent with plenty to prove in Joey Janela, Omega raised his game to heights only he can reach. The result was one of the most remarkable matches of the entire year.

It was an unsanctioned bout that didn't count on their AEW records, but the two men wrestled it like it was a pay-per-view main event and not a match on AEW Dark, a YouTube show available for free to anyone.

The bout was a modern twist on ECW, a match filled with high spots, plunder and plenty of both guts and glory. Imagine the very best technical wrestler in the world wrestling Tommy Dreamer in a match where basically anything goes. That was this match in a nutshell—a must-see for anyone who loves wrestling.

Runner Up: Kota Ibushi vs. Evil (New Japan: King of Pro-Wrestling)

Hard Times Promo of the Week: Darby Allin

The first time I saw Darby Allin wrestle, I knew he was a star. Admittedly, I was late to the party. He'd already spent years wowing crowds at super-indies like Evolve, waiting for the opportunity to take his unique energy to a bigger stage.

My first visit to Planet Darby was on a stage so small there wasn't even room for a ring. He and his wife, the wrestler Priscilla Kelly, were taking on another couple in an intergender bar fight. There were maybe 100 people there, and none of them could take their eyes off of Allin and Kelly.

When they closed the match with Priscilla spitting directly into Darby's open mouth, I knew I had to meet him.

His personal magnetism was evident, his weird energy was of the time. He wasn't cosplaying a skateboard kid with a barely disguised death wish. He was that kid on stage and off. Sans makeup and in a sharp black suit the next day, he was every bit as interesting as I'd anticipated.

His energy was even more powerful in conversation, his passion for performing so strong that he couldn't even hope to hide it in a post-modern haze of ennui or irony. Why, he asked, did wrestlers limit their influences to previous wrestling matches and angles? He intended to look all around him to inform his art with the present and not the past.

Although not immediately identifiable, it's this perspective that makes him feel different. Fans are getting a taste of it right now on AEW television.

AEW provided the platform, and Darby used it to make himself the first breakout performer in the promotion's short history. He may not have beaten Chris Jericho for the championship but check back here in six months and we'll count coup then.

Because Darby Allin is a star.

Wednesday Night Wars: Week 3 Showdown Between AEW and NXT

It's Week 3 in the Wednesday Night Wars, as AEW went head-to-head with NXT on national television once more.

The wrestling world has turned its attention to this midweek battle for supremacy and both brands have brought their best.

The result has been a spectacular win for fans. Among the promotions, though, there can be only one winner.

Let's run down each show in the two major categories that combine to create great wrestling television.

Wrestling

As Arn Anderson once said, "it's on the marque." Everything else is built around the action in the ring, and both brands specialize in modern, exciting action.

As is becoming the norm, AEW promised an incredible card and somehow delivered excellence even beyond our expectations.

The best technical match was the barnburner between Kenny Omega/Adam Page and Pac/Moxley. One day after announcing he was still the top performer in the world at AEW Dark, birthday boy Omega teamed with Page to again steal the show.

The Elite beat Pac and Moxley in a slobberknocker that saw all four at the top of their games, a combination of high-flying action and enough storytelling elements to build future matches between the quartet.

But the match we'll all remember was the main event, a star-making performance from Darby Allin, the 22-year-old prodigy who literally wrestled much of the event with his hands behind his back. He gave champion Chris Jericho all that he could handle, even without the use of his hands, forcing The Inner Circle's Jake Hager to interfere and preserve Jericho's reign.

Allin is a star.

NXT has a different approach. Most of the matches don't feel like a big deal, bordering on being simple, competitive squash bouts with obvious winners. They are well-executed, with the winners looking like stars, but it's hard to compare positively with AEW using this approach.

Two bouts stood out: the rubber match between Keith Lee and Dominic Dijakovic and the main event battle of attrition featuring Damian Priest's upset win over Pete Dunne. Lee and Dijakovic have good chemistry, but their clash was marred by a sports-entertainment finish setting up a three-way dance with Roderick Strong next week.

The main event had some mild shenanigans at the end, but it was an excellent back-and-forth contest worth seeking out.

Advantage: AEW

Presentation and Storytelling

This was the best night yet for AEW's commentary team of Jim Ross, Tony Schiavone and Excalibur. The three men are starting to figure out where they fit in and when it's time to hit their spots.

Ross seemed engaged throughout and Schiavone, in particular, always seems to chime in just when he's needed.

There was an excellent vignette that told much of the story I shared in my Cody Rhodes feature piece earlier in the month and set up his title challenge against Chris Jericho nicely. AEW shines here with these videos. Their shoulder programming generally is top notch.

The co-main event set up a match next week between Pac and Jon Moxley and generally made everyone involved look amazing. The main event further cemented Allin as a star of the future while establishing Jericho and The Inner Circle as bad actors willing to cheat to win. Solid, basic storytelling.

NXT did a much better job of building its characters this week and further defining who the key players are and what they're about. Johnny Gargano felt like a big deal for the first time and Shayna Baszler cut one of the best promos I've seen from her, telling a returning Tegan Nox, "Let's be honest, you're running out of limbs to rehab."

When Mauro Ranallo is on, he's one of the best announcers in the sport. An enthusiastic Mauro is a lot of fun to listen to. A Mauro who is trying to namedrop the Brazilian stink bug makes me think about reaching for the mute button. He walks a continuous fine line between excellence and utter disaster.

This show did an excellent job building for next week and teased future bouts such as Io Shirai and Rhea Ripley that have fans salivating. NXT's best effort yet as an overall show.

Advantage: Even

Overall

As good as NXT was, AEW is going to be hard to beat when they are loaded for bear the way they were Wednesday night. No one on NXT can match Jericho, Omega or Cody Rhodes as overall performers, and the undercard wrestlers on TNT are given the time and freedom to make something special of their segments.

Given the opportunity to shine, great talent is always going to deliver something worth watching. So far, AEW has done this every single week.

Winner: AEW

Three-Count: A Look Ahead

AEW Dynamite (October 23, TNT)

Pac vs. Jon Moxley: These two couldn't get along during their tag team match Wednesday against Kenny Omega and Adam Page, and they will settle their differences next week in Pittsburgh. Wins and losses matter in AEW, making this match of particular importance to Pac, who is seemingly close to earning a title shot. Prediction: Moxley emerges victorious after outside interference by a member of the Elite.

Private Party vs. Lucha Bros: Wondering if the Lucha Bros were babyface or heels? Wonder no more. They announced their presence on the villainous side of the ledger with a brutal attack on SCU. They will likely do something equally dastardly to the up-and-coming tag team that upset The Young Bucks in the first round. Prediction: Private Party comes to an end and the Lucha Bros advance to the AEW Tag Team Tournament finals.

SCU vs. Dark Order: We don't know a lot about Dark Order, the one notable failure on the part of AEW's creative team. They've had such a golden touch that the one bust really stands out. Prediction: SCU gets the upset and earns the opportunity at revenge against the Lucha Bros.

[7r0773r]

The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson

I was leaving the South To fling myself into the unknown. . . . I was taking a part of the South  To transplant in alien soil, To see if it could grow differently, If it could drink of new and cool rains, Bend in strange winds, Respond to the warmth of other suns And, perhaps, to bloom.                            —RICHARD WRIGHT

***

Across the South, someone was hanged or burned alive every four days from 1889 to 1929, according to the 1933 book The Tragedy of Lynching, for such alleged crimes as “stealing hogs, horse-stealing, poisoning mules, jumping labor contract, suspected of killing cattle, boastful remarks” or “trying to act like a white person.” Sixty-six were killed after being accused of “insult to a white person.” One was killed for stealing seventy-five cents. (p.39)

***

Throughout the South, the conventional rules of the road did not apply when a colored motorist was behind the wheel. If he reached an intersection first, he had to let the white motorist go ahead of him. He could not pass a white motorist on the road no matter how slowly the white motorist was going and had to take extreme caution to avoid an accident because he would likely be blamed no matter who was at fault. In everyday interactions, a black person could not contradict a white person or speak unless spoken to first. A black person could not be the first to offer to shake a white person’s hand. A handshake could occur only if a white person so gestured, leaving many people having never shaken hands with a person of the other race. The consequences for the slightest misstep were swift and brutal. Two whites beat a black tenant farmer in Louise, Mississippi, in 1948, wrote the historian James C. Cobb, because the man “asked for a receipt after paying his water bill.”

It was against the law for a colored person and a white person to play checkers together in Birmingham. White and colored gamblers had to place their bets at separate windows and sit in separate aisles at racetracks in Arkansas. At saloons in Atlanta, the bars were segregated; Whites drank on stools at one end of the bar and blacks on stools at the other end, until the city outlawed even that, resulting in white-only and colored-only saloons. There were white parking spaces and colored parking spaces in the town square in Calhoun City, Mississippi. In one North Carolina courthouse, there was a white Bible and a black Bible to swear to tell the truth on. (pp. 44-45)

***

[In 1861] Florida heartily joined a new country whose cornerstone, according to the Confederacy’s vice president, Alexander Hamilton Stephens, was “the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery—subordination to the superior race—is his natural and normal condition.” This new government, Stephens declared, “is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth.” (pp. 58-59)

***

But the masses did not pour out of the South until they had something to go to. They got their chance when the North began courting them, hard and in secret, in the face of southern hostility, during the labor crisis of World War I. Word had spread like wildfire that the North was finally “opening up.” (p. 161)

***

When the people kept leaving, the South resorted to coercion and interception worthy of the Soviet Union, which was forming at the same time across the Atlantic. Those trying to leave were  rendered fugitives by definition and could not be certain they would be able to make it out. In Brookhaven, Mississippi, authorities stopped a train with fifty colored migrants on it and sidetracked it for three days. In Albany, Georgia, the police tore up the tickets of colored passengers as they stood waiting to board, dashing their hopes of escape. A minister in South Carolina, having seen his parishioners off, was arrested at the station on the charge of helping colored people get out. In Savannah, Georgia, the police arrested every colored person at the station regardless of where he or she was going. In Summit, Mississippi, authorities simply closed the ticket office and did not let northbound trains stop for the colored people waiting to get on. (p. 163)

***

Fewer than one out of five sharecroppers ever saw a profit at the end of the year. Of the few who got anything, their pay came to between $30 and $150 in the 1930s for a year of hard toil in the field, according to a leading Yale anthropologist of the era, or between nine and forty-eight cents a day. The remaining eighty percent either broke even, meaning they got nothing, or stayed in debt, which meant they were as bound to the planter as a slave was to his master. (p. 167)

***

Yet the hardened and peculiar institution of Jim Crow made the Great Migration different from ordinary human migrations. In their desperation to escape what might be considered a man-made pestilence, southern blacks challenged some scholarly assumptions about human migration. One theory had it that, due to human pragmatism and inertia, migrating people tend to “go no further from their homes in search of work than is absolutely necessary,” [British historian E. G.] Ravenstein observed.

“The bulk of migrants prefers a short journey to a long one,” he wrote. “The more enterprising long-journey migrants are the exceptions and not the rule.” Southern blacks were the exception. They traveled deep into far-flung regions of their own country and in some cases clear across the continent. Thus the Great Migration had more in common with the vast movements of refugees from famine, war, and genocide in other parts of the world, where oppressed people, whether fleeing twenty-first-century Darfur or nineteenth-century Ireland, go great distances, journey across rivers, deserts, and oceans or as far as it takes to reach safety with the hope that life will be better wherever they land. (p. 179)

***

Against nearly every assumption about the Migration, the 1965 census study found that the migrants of the 1950s—particularly those who came from towns and cities, as had George Starling and Robert Foster—had more education than even the northern white population they joined. (p. 262)

***

Overall, however, what was becoming clear was that, north or south, wherever colored labor was introduced, a rivalrous sense of unease and insecurity washed over the working-class people who were already there, an unease that was economically not without merit but rose to near hysteria when race and xenophobia were added to preexisting fears. The reality was that Jim Crow filtered through the economy, north and south, and pressed down on poor and working-class people of all races. The southern caste system that held down the wages of colored people also undercut the earning power of the whites around them, who could not command higher pay as long as colored people were forced to accept subsistence wages. (p. 317)

***

[George Starling] and his co-worker barely noticed that everyone else at the bar happened to be white as they regaled each other with stories from riding the rails. When it was time to go, they paid their tab and put their glasses down.

The bartender had said very little to them the whole time they were there. Now the bartender calmly picked up their glasses, and instead of loading them into a tray to be washed, he took them and smashed them under the counter. The sound of glass breaking on concrete startled George and his co-worker, even though this wasn’t the first time this had happened to them, just not at this bar, and it attracted the attention of other patrons. 

“They do it right in front of us,” George said. “That’s the way they let us know they didn’t want us in there. As fast as you drink out of a glass and set it down, they break it.”

There were not colored or white signs in New York. That was the unnerving and tricky part of making your way through a place that looked free. You never knew when perfect strangers would remind you that, as far as they were concerned, you weren’t equal and might never be. (pp. 340-41)

***

“Even in the North, refugees were not always safe,” wrote Arna Bontemps and Jack Conroy in the 1945 book Anyplace but Here. “One hard-working migrant was astonished when a detective from Atlanta approached him and informed him that he was wanted back home for ‘spitting on the sidewalk.’”(p. 367)

***

Contrary to conventional wisdom, the decline in property values and neighborhood prestige was a by-product of the fear and tension itself, sociologists found. The decline often began, they noted, in barely perceptible ways, before the first colored buyer moved in.

The instability of a white neighborhood under pressure from the very possibility of integration put the neighborhood into a kind of real estate purgatory. It set off a downward cycle of anticipation, in which worried whites no longer bought homes in white neighborhoods that might one day attract colored residents even if none lived there at the time. Rents and purchase prices were dropped “in a futile attempt to attract white residents,” as Hirsch put it. With prices falling and the neighborhood’s future uncertain, lenders refused to grant mortgages or made them more difficult to obtain. Panicked whites sold at low prices to salvage what equity they had left, giving the homeowners who remained little incentive to invest any further to keep up or improve their properties.

Thus many white neighborhoods began declining before colored residents even arrived, Hirsch noted. There emerged a perfect storm of nervous owners, falling prices, vacancies unfillable with white tenants or buyers, and a market of colored buyers who may not have been able to afford the neighborhood at first but now could with prices within their reach. The arrival of colored home buyers was often the final verdict on a neighborhood’s falling property value rather than the cause of it. (pp. 376-77)

***

[Martin Luther] King was running headlong into what the sociologist Gunnar Myrdal called the Northern Paradox. In the North, Myrdal wrote, “almost everybody is against discrimination in general, but, at the same time, almost everybody practices discrimination in his own personal affairs”—that is, by not allowing blacks into unions or clubhouses, certain jobs, and white neighborhoods, indeed, avoiding social interaction overall.

“It is the culmination of all these personal discriminations,” he continued, “which creates the color bar in the North, and, for the Negro, causes unusually severe unemployment, crowded housing conditions, crime and vice. About this social process, the ordinary white Northerner keeps sublimely ignorant and unconcerned.” (p. 387)