#I'm a grad student and it's the end of the semester and I'm doing this instead of grading bc fuck my life

[savrenim]

Hello hello if you want more info about the rusty quill stuff here's the other side

a good breakdown: https://fataldrum.tumblr.com/post/703490177324220416/whos-afraid-of-bad-attempts-at-journalism

from an rq affiliate: https://www.tumblr.com/malevolentcast/703493906802868224/you-probably-already-know-about-this-but-an

more on reactions from others: https://eliias-bouchard.tumblr.com/post/703479494816743424/real-quick-summary-of-all-this-fay-fable

focusing on a misquote: https://dadhuddle.tumblr.com/post/703488191401984000/journalistic-integrity-re-newt-schottelkottes-rq

arc has a lot of solid posts but especially this one: https://callmearcturus.tumblr.com/post/703483865829949440/since-you-and-others-in-your-inbox-have-been

I'm not say rusty quill is 100% squeaky clean but it's more a business with growing pains during a pandemic and living cost crisis than some horrific "no ethical consumption under capitalism" corporation

oooh fascinating, fun to hear the other side of the story, I.... expected that it was probably not quite as one-sided as the medium article would make it appear, mostly because I have a fair number of friends in indie ttrpg design and between designers and writers and artists and editors and people who run gaming communities I have Seen Things Go So Messy So Many Times always in the splashiest ways

funny but not surprising to have nice evidence gathered for me that podcasting is the same, and also that Rusty Quill is not necessarily Pure Evil as the article would imply, I enjoyed tma and had a lot of mutuals who enjoyed their actual play stuff and while at this point I'm jaded enough by internet callout of Problematic Authorship being sensationalist and one-sided enough that it takes, like, JKR levels of The Author Is That Bad for me to decide to Drop A Fandom Over It, nice to know that I should categorize this in my head as 'petty small community infighting' and not 'large organized problematic institution'

[curiiouserandcuriouser]

it's been a while but i am returning to my tried and true hobby of Whining About School On My Tumblr Account (this time with added nostalgia!)

[inkskinned]

so while i was writing the book, i became violently suicidal.

this was mostly due to the fact that i had a very bad reaction to some meds and my brain stopped producing any serotonin. also i was in the last semester of grad school where it's actually illegal to feel anything but dread. so it wasn't going well.

somewhere in the fog of it i became aware i needed help. nobody was taking clients or my insurance. i didn't want to do inpatient care - it wasn't right for my needs. there's not really an "in between" stage between "inpatient" and "no care," but i was trying to do the right thing. i was trying to activate the chain of command that was my emergency plan. i knew i needed help now.

i used betterhelp.

i know, i know. i'm a straight-A student and so smart and so clever, how could i ever use something so blatantly bad. to be honest with you, i didn't feel particularly keen on it from the getgo - things that seem too good to be true usually are. also, if something online is free, the price is usually your privacy.

the thing is that there was kind of a global pandemic happening at the time and i worked 5 jobs alongside of being a fulltime student and also like writing a book on the side. it is a miracle that i even thought about getting help. i would love to tell you i had the mental wherewithal to like, process whether this was the right choice for me. mostly i was desperate. i was so suicidal that i was trying to find a reason to stay inside of fortune cookies. i was the kind of suicidal that looks like splatterpaint. i hadn't been that bad in an entire decade.

they took my data. i gave them it freely. somewhere out there, they have a dossier on me. on everything i survived. my story in little datapoints, scattergraphed beautifully.

the first woman told me that really i should be grateful, because (and this is a direct quote): "at least you're not anne frank." i said that i felt that statement was antisemitic, as anne frank's life and experience shouldn't be compared to like, a nonbinary lesbian in western massachusetts. the therapist said that i should try to use lucid dreaming to try to picture myself in an actually scary situation, like running from nazis.

i applied for another therapist. i was willing to accept the possibility that there was a bad apple in the bunch. the next therapist and i even laughed about how inappropriate that statement was. and then, in our next session: the new therapist said if i was struggling with body image issues, i should just work harder on my appearance. she spent 3 sessions in a row talking about how she was grieving, and made me memorize facts about her grandmother so "she can live on through my clients."

i am a three's-a-charm kind of person. okay, so what if the last person made me uncomfortable. i figured it was just a misunderstanding of priorities - she had felt she was sharing with me, i had felt like i had to take care of her. i applied for another therapist.

the last woman asked me to help her pray. she bowed her head. i stared at her, frozen, while she said: lord, i beg you: cure her. take the pain of being gay away from her.

i spent somewhere between 2.5 and 3 months on betterhelp. in that whole time, i was not getting the professional help i so desperately needed, even though i was fucking trying.

in the end, i survived this because i finally could get off the meds that were literally killing me. a request for a real therapist finally went through. i survived because my friends saved my life. because nick let me sob myself dry in his arms. because maddie took the razors out of my room when i asked them to. because grace slept over in my bed for like 3 weeks in a row since nobody trusted me not to hurt myself when i was alone. i survived because i got fucking lucky. because even when i was desperately suicidal, i was too old and too self-aware to take "you need to be prettier" as good advice.

the thing is that there's a 19 year old me who isn't like that. who would have heard "just think about how grateful you should be" and said - oh, i see. i would have assumed that is what it means to be in therapy: the same thing my abusers used to tell me. that i am just pretending and lazy. that i am ugly and unworthy.

betterhelp positioned itself to take advantage of an incredibly vulnerable community. it preys on desperation. it knows it is serving people who are not doing well mentally. it saw that there is a huge need for real, immediate, compassionate mental health care: and then it fucking takes your money and privacy.

i still get their ads on instagram. last night i watched as a woman in a pool pretends to talk to a different woman. they discuss her anxiety.

there's a 19 year old version of me, and she didn't survive this. she was too tired, and drowning. i almost fucking died. this thing almost fucking killed me.

in the ad, the woman playing the therapist takes a note on a clipboard and then nods once, sagely.

i have to admit it's a pretty scene. the steam and light coming off the pool water lands on the actresses. like this, it almost looks baptismal, holy.

[boyfhee]

FAIR AND SQUARE › lhs

SYNOPSIS › one thing about life— it's unpredictable. for example, you made a note to yourself about not associating too much with heeseung for your own peace of mind, letting him stay as the academic rival slash classmate that he is, instead of allowing him to be something more, except one thing leads to another and you find yourself face to face with the said man with your feelings all over the place. a lowkey confession leading to a mere competition, let the game begin.

WORD COUNT › 20.2k

GENRE › academic rivals / friends to lovers, mutual pinning because they're just competitive and oblivious ft in denial, fem reader, quite the 'he fell first but she fell harder' thing eye guess . . .

WARNINGS › mentions drinking, sheds light on family issues ( mostly on the reader's side ) bruise and injury, slightest of angst, arguments, suggestive ( fourth section, towards the end ) profanities, let me know if you spot more

PLAYLIST › tune in for a better experience

NOTE › i love this fic with all my heart and lungs, even more. anyway, i'm sorry to academic rivals fans, this doesn't have academic blood and gore, as quoted by my dear mai. SPEAKING OF MAI EVERYONE THANK @maiverie FOR BETAREADING THIS FIC!!!!!! im not lying when i say i wouldn't have finished writing this yesterday if it wasn't for her, like thank u for ur super helpful review that got my brain juices flowing :< luv u fr. ALSO both heeseung and reader are taking post grad course so of course, they're aged up ( no ages specified ) have fun reading.

I. BANE OF EXISTENCE

one thing about life— it’s unpredictable. 

for example, you’re in the library writing and reading papers on the topic you love, the one that you’re supposed to enjoy and the one that will become the reason behind your earnings in the near future, but here you are, sitting with a headache and a cup of coffee on the side. who knew the subject you've liked since grade one will betray you and become the potential bane of your existence? not you, surely enough. wednesday noons are for basketball matches, which explains why the library and hallways are quieter and emptier than usual. even the teachers make time for the tournaments off their busy schedules, it’s understandable— your university is known for having one of the best sports teams in the league, and the basketball team being the defending champions does nothing but fuel the pride of students and staffs as if they’re the ones on the court, trying to get the ball in the basket.

you wouldn’t say you don’t like being a part of the crowd because you’ve been to the badminton tournaments and know that watching matches is as interesting as playing, if not more. you just don’t have the time to attend any. with assignments piling up and exams ‘round the corner, you’d rather spend your last two months of the semester studying instead of yelling at the bleachers. you can always get the recordings if you ever feel like watching one, as for the results, the word goes around faster in your department than anywhere else, all because of one of the students being on the team. 

you try focusing, you really do, but your cup is just as empty as your brain and your phone is going up with notifications. you don’t see the point of miyeon spamming the gc with updates on the match when everyone in the group, except you, is with her, watching and cheering alongside. muting is a choice which you choose not to do, and the reason is between you and god, to be honest. long story short, it’s the lack of motivation clogging your thought process and the realisation that your friends are out there enjoying themselves unlike you is blocking any means of logical thinking. a day or two spent not studying wouldn’t make you fail the classes, and even if the guilt is pooling inside, you pack your stuff and walk out of the library, making your way to the indoor basketball court. 

the screams grow louder as you approach, each step reminding you that you still can go back as you choose to ignore it. exams can wait, you tell yourself, a day to myself can’t. your mother would tell you to take breaks and go out instead of studying all day, but being on top is an addiction. it’s no good, you wish other students would believe you, it’s a struggle, on the top, at the bottom, everywhere. you expect to turn a few heads as soon as you walk inside, which doesn’t happen, but you expected it. you don’t watch matches, this could easily be your third or fourth one, and the first basketball match, to be more specific. once you realise that everyone is busy watching the plays instead of noticing who comes and goes from the court, you make your way up to the one friend you manage to spot amidst the crowd— sung hanbin. indoor bleachers feel more compact than the outdoor ones. you've been to the football match last semester, courtesy of miyeon, and everything being outdoors really helps with the crowd and noise. 

“didn’t expect to see you here,” hanbin stands next to you, offering you a sip or two from his drink, which you politely refuse, eyes fixed on the court as if it was the home they’ve been searching for. “i thought you hate heeseung,” it isn’t until he takes his name that your gaze averts to heeseung. you don’t even know why hanbin would outright assume you’re here for heeseung. in fact, that man’s name didn’t even cross your mind until he was mentioned.

“hate is a big word, ‘bin,” your words are more of a whisper laced with hesitation, as if you aren’t sure of what you’re saying. hate, actually, is a very big and heavy word. despite its constant usage with your friends, you realise the weight it holds and the impact it has. hate and dislike— they’re different and yet similar enough to be used synonymously at times. not by you, of course, you have a clear distinction between the two, and as of now, you don’t know if what you feel for heeseung is a mere dislike or pure hatred. “i just don’t like him,” 

when he successfully shoots a three-pointer, you come to the decision that you definitely don’t hate him. heeseung is, more or less, the typical all-rounder straight-A student, the jack of all trades and fortunately enough, the master of all as well. he's the student teachers use as an example, the son parents wish for, the boyfriend people wished they had. lee heeseung is many things, and one of those is being the reason why you have the second highest score in your department instead of the first position, unlike how it used to be two semesters ago. 

heeseung transferred departments about thirty weeks ago, from chemistry to bioinformatics. it had been surprising on your side because not many opted for bioinformatics until they were certain of their goal. the course in itself is vast, like an ocean of several different fields and each and every one of them opens a door to a different outcome. bioinformatics isn’t something students picked overnight just because it had the vacancy and they didn’t like their initially chosen courses. as fun as the subject sounds, it demands consistency and time, something that heeseung lacks. you had seen him attend classes the first few weeks regularly, and then the ghost of him started sitting on the empty seat that belongs to him. skipping classes, arriving late, delayed submission of a couple of projects— you knew he wasn’t here to stay. it was to pass time, or whatever, you couldn’t care, didn’t care, not until he started acing the tests, practically dethroning you from your infamous ‘perfect all kill’ title that you had for getting nothing less than a perfect score, most of the time, give and take a few here and there. 

you still get good scores, amazing even, full score in theory and the same in practicals. it’s going well in lab manuals and project works but heeseung seems to get a perfect score in those too, something you started missing ever since he came into the picture. perhaps, it was something in the way he phrased his essays— you hoped it was. rumour has it that heeseung used to be a literature student, which could explain his outstanding english skills and his eloquent way of speaking. you even looked up his debate videos on youtube only to find more evidence on how skilled he is in public speaking. 

but above all, heeseung is, actually, just a really damn annoying student, quite literally the bane of your existence. he’s always set on stealing people’s spotlight during lessons, with you being the people, obviously, always answering questions with information that’s unrelated and probably even unnecessary. and for the shortest time, you even considered taking him off your ‘things i hate’ list because you were no different in highschool. when you’re the top student, it becomes a habit to talk about things as if you know them in your bones and impress teachers. hell, you even had rivals in highschool, although none of them got on your nerves the way heeseung does. basically, he has no reason to call you by weird names everytime you both pass each other in the hallways, or remind you that he’s the top student. ‘this is the vice-captain of the basketball team and the best student of the biotechnology department, lee heeseung, informing you on the up—’ seriously, no one wants to hear him introduce himself like that when you’re around. you’re pretty sure it’s engraved inside your brain with the amount of times he repeats it everyday. minjeong even says that heeseung is becoming more and more like sunghoon, and you would not know how or why because you didn’t attend highschool with sunghoon, unlike her. 

the court flares up with cheers when heeseung goes for a dunk which ultimately leads to their team winning the match, and you reach the conclusion that maybe you don’t hate heeseung but actually want to bang his head against the walls. your eyes follow him around the court, analysing his conduct during the match, the way he communicates so effortlessly with teammates using hand signs or quick phrases, the way he holds the team together when the ball is with him, despite not being the captain. heeseung might be the most unbearable person you’ve met so far, he’s actually just fine when his target is not you. you’re sure any other player is doing just as good but nothing comes close to how you see heeseung. it’s different, the light he is in, it’s unique, incredible, and inexplicably addictive. heeseung juggles between classes and basketball, you remember sunghoon talking about his part-time job when you passed by their lockers the other day. he doesn’t have it easy, you don’t either, but you had those all perfect kills by spending hours in your study while heeseung does better than you while winning matches, making money. 

it doesn’t take you long to realise that what you have for him could be dislike with a hint of jealousy, and you wonder if all the people would react the same way once they know who heeseung really is— a devil behind an angelic face, one who deliberately likes ruining things for you, as if his life depends on it. you still remember the day he personally texted you the wrong syllabus for a test, claiming that it had been updated and the professor had asked him to notify everyone. ‘and as you know, i have not been added in the group chat yet so i’m texting everyone personally,’ he had lied ever so smoothly as if his words consist of nothing but truth, as if lies are something he hasn’t even heard of. kudos to you for studying the original and correct syllabi beforehand, you still aced the test, if heeseung scoring the first rank is overlooked. 

you’re dragged back from your thoughts to the reality when a boy bumps into you while hurrying down to the players, hoping to get noticed. half of the students act like the team is actually a boy-band, you can see them on the front page of every single edition of university magazine. usually, you prefer waiting for the crowd to disperse before taking your leave from wherever you are, but a sudden reminder about the tests over text from your professor gives you a reason to leave early, all to make sure you could catch up to heeseung. you rush your way out of the bleachers once the teams start leaving the court, eyes fixed on heeseung to take a note of the direction he leaves. hanbin gives you a confused look before the words find their way out of his mouth. “where are you going?” 

“basketball shower room,” and your words could give him, and the other people who might’ve heard you, a wrong idea but you couldn’t care less. the goal was to see heeseung before he leaves the campus, which was highly likely because no one has it in them to attend four hours of classes after an exhausting match, not even heeseung, no matter how amazing he is. 

you make your way through the ocean of people, bumping into a few in the process as you make your way to the club room. a silent profanity leaves your mouth once you realise that the club room entrance might be filled with fangirls and boys, left and right, and the thought of shuffling your way out of the crowd to meet heeseung makes you reconsider your actions. heeseung might be a star student but isn’t amazing enough for you to step out of your comfort zone and do things to see him. 

“well, this is surprising,” your voice manages to turn his head towards the door. “thought you’d be busy with your fangirls, lee,” and it is surprising indeed because the hallways are unexpectedly empty with only a few people around. you would say they learnt to give the players their space after a game but that would be a lie considering the embarrassing history of students when it comes to people on the sports team. 

“they’re probably busy with jake,” heeseung responds with a smile, and even though he turns to his locker just as quickly, you could see the smile dancing on the corner of his lips. 

jake is rather a new player, a junior to be specific, and jay personally spent days waiting outside the physics department to get the guy on the basketball team. explains why he’s popular amidst students, he’s talented, good at studies— seriously, you wouldn’t understand how these people manage academics with sports. you couldn’t, and even if you managed to, you would end up passing out every few days. “does it suck to lose your fan-following to a newbie?” 

“not really. i still have you here,” heeseung wouldn’t call it ‘losing’ his fan-following because he’s using jake as bait to escape the crowd of students as quickly as possible. a junior has to make sacrifices, in this case it’s to save heeseung by sacrificing himself to the public. although, saying that he still has you looking for him even though a hundred others aren’t makes him feel better about himself. “no but seriously, what did you come here for?” 

“oh, it’s for the test on friday,” you pull out your phone, opening the group chat with the professor and the students who took the same course. it’s laughable how the universe put you in the exact same situation twice, although with the tables turned this time, and it takes everything in you to not tell him a made-up, wrong syllabi, and do what is rational. “the syllabi was extended up to chapter fourteen, till page three-ninety-seven. they sent it in the group chat this morning but i’m sure you hardly have time even to think about something else except basketball,” 

you’ve known heeseung for two semesters but that’s for the people to say. the truth is, you don’t know him outside what he shows to everyone else. you see him come and go, spot him around the bar with his friends on weekends you pass by it. you know he skips classes and asks students for notes. it’s not necessarily from you, though you’d prefer if he would ask you since you’re the best student in the whole department, after him, as much as you hate to admit it. on some days, you see him in the library, earphones plugged in. if you manage to sneak a glance or two, you’d catch him watching the match recordings and taking notes, you wouldn’t know what notes someone could take from matches. in short, you don’t know heeseung more than how everyone knows him. coming to the shower rooms and notifying him about the test might just be a discreet attempt at striking up more conversations with him, but also, you’re just fine with him being the academic rival slash classmate that he is. 

“yeah, semi-finals,” heeseung shuts his locker close, a sigh falling off his lips just like the water drops falling on his shoulder from the tips of his hair, after a shower. “doesn’t help that they’re at the same time as the quarterly assessments. thank you for telling me even though it means you’ll end up losing the first position to me once again,” and of course, the heeseung you know wouldn’t waste an opportunity to strike up a competition. it would be a lie if you claim to hate it because despite the sour look on your face, a part of you loves these little academic races with him. heeseung makes you strive to do better, he’s like the driving force you lacked which made college a whole lot better. after all, where’s the fun in getting a perfect score with the bare minimum effort, without some challenges knocking at your door? 

“what can i do, i’m all about fair play,” there’s a subtle shade behind your words, reckoning to the multiple incidents of him ruining things for you. this could take a really nasty turn if you were to resort to his ways, except you won’t because you’re better than him. “good luck, and we’ll see who loses the first position to whom,” 

heeseung wipes his hair before switching to texting on his phone, the smile still adorning his face like a jewel. you assume it’s the delight from winning a match, it’s obvious. his eyes couldn’t help but sparkle at every little achievement, always looking forward to something more, something challenging, that’s lee heeseung for you— someone who knows he has an easier way around things but would deliberately walk down another path and test his limits. shocking how it took you one basketball match to see the passion he has for things he’s interested in, that he’s more than a sport jock or a straight nerd, he’s more than someone who takes courses to pass time, more than someone who is just a show-off.

“heeseung,” the dislike, the hatred, the envy, it might all be a lie. “well played today,” because in the end, there’s a minimal possibility that you’re leaving the room with nothing but the slightest of admiration for the guy who is nothing but an obstacle between you and that first position in upcoming finals in two months. 

and it would be a lie too to claim that your words didn’t catch heeseung by surprise.

II. RIVALRY, FEELINGS, ETCETERA. 

it has been a little over one day since heeseung’s conversation with you outside the shower rooms, twenty-seven hours to be exact. twenty-seven hours of him hearing the same last words over and over again, twenty-seven hours of him failing all and any attempts at straight thinking and twenty-seven hours of him not thinking about anything except you. all of it ends up in three hours of practice and not one good shot from heeseung. the sighs and snickers from teammates fill the court every few seconds— truthfully, they never leave. heeseung is simply too lost to pay attention to them. 

“heeseung, you good?” a pat on shoulder from jake and the words following soon after manage to pull him out of his spiral of thought, even if it’s for a brief second. 

“he’s not, won’t be anytime soon,” sunghoon replies as if the answer was on the tip of his tongue, waiting to be revealed. “yn came to watch the last match, after all,” there’s a smirk on sunghoon’s face, heeseung can tell it in the intonation of his words. 

jay pauses just seconds before going for a layup, joining the conversation. “wait, she did?” 

“yep, saw her standing next to that hanbin guy or something,” 

“mate, you cannot be acting like this over a girl and that too, four days before finals,” this conversation, as a whole, is beyond jake’s comprehension. a part of the reason could be because he joined the team late, thus missing out on a huge chunk of internal jokes and gossip and goes amidst the players. and no amount of reasons can convince him into thinking that it’s fine to act out-of-character before important matches just because your crush showed up at one of your matches. 

“she’s not just some random girl. she never attends matches, but she came to watch my match,” heeseung clarifies as if the reasons behind his antics are valid and acceptable. “you wouldn’t know how i feel right now,” 

“you’re on cloud nine, we know, your crush gave you the attention you’ve been lacking but trust me, she would ignore you just as efficiently if she sees you perform like this,” 

“she’s not a crush,” and despite it being a well known fact amongst the basketball team that heeseung has a thing or two for you, he always refuses to accept it. one can say it’s the pride thing. you barely even talk to him unless it’s about studies, and your conversations are mostly along the lines of who outdoes whom in tests and assessments. moreover, everyone knows heeseung is the reason why you’re the second best student in the department— as much as you hate to admit it, again— because he transferred and flipped your world, probably even dribbled around with it like a basketball. a word goes around every few days about you glaring at him in class, which is not true, you’re instead focusing your eyes on something in an attempt to think. he just happens to sit right in front of you and be the object of focus. heeseung might as well believe that you hate him, even though yesterday’s conversation was far from how people talk when they hate each other, and his assumptions could account for the constant words of denial that fall off his lips. 

jay snickers before landing a hook successfully. “yeah, and i’m a pigeon,” 

“oh, shut it, jay,” heeseung turns to look at the other boy. “she’s just someone i admire. have you read her essays? her papers? god, we’re a year away from graduation but she’s already writing mind-blowing papers, one of them was even published in the monthly issue of some magazine. she’s already on her best performance and still tries to do better, always down to guide juniors with lab work and also is on the research team for the paediatrics department at asan medical centre. all this, and she studies all day. if i were her, i’d pass out. i can’t go a day without entering the court,” 

“and he says he doesn’t have a crush oh her,” sunghoon rolls his eyes, it’s like if he heard another line of excuses from heeseung, he could see the back of his skull and have a look at hs big, fat brain. 

“because i don’t? you guys never had someone you admired so much that they practically became your role model despite being in the same year?” unlike other things that heeseung does, calling you his role model has a reason. first, it can give him a reason to talk to you. heeseung is almost convinced that you hate him, and if this persists, it would get harder and harder for him to approach you, but with the lie— half lie— of you being his role model and so wonderful that he couldn’t help but admire you from afar while trying to overcome his social anxiety gives him a reason to talk to you. plus, it sounds plausible, he doesn’t understand why his brother says it’s bound to fail. 

the second reason and more to do with his friend group. no one in his friend circle is capable of keeping a secret— jay ends up spilling tea unconsciously, jake tells one person who he trust and that person turns out to be the most untrustworthy person ever, beomgyu, well he’s on the team but telling him would be like standing on a stage and announcing to the whole campus, and sunghoon, he’s the mother, he cannot digest food without disclosing secrets. even if it’s common knowledge that heeseung has a tiny crush on you, denying it in front of the whole campus everytime one of them brings it up helps him with his reputation and fortunately, ends up keeping it a secret. besides, he’d rather have people tease him for calling you his role model than having a crush on you. 

“i surely don’t have someone i admire to the point i read all their papers and know each and everything they’ve volunteered for,” jay argues back, set on proving his point. “tell me what am i gonna do knowing that she’s on the paediatrics research team?” 

“i think this is the most i’ve known about yn ever since classes started and that too, because of heeseung,” beomgyu chuckles, earning a side eye from heeseung in the process. 

“enough, let’s get back to practice,” heeseung intervenes in an attempt to change the topic. he does not want his closest friends making fun of him for liking someone— it’s supposed to be human nature to have a crush. 

“you get back to practice because you’re the only one fucking up because of your silly little crush. i’m done, jay, call me when we’re having a practice match because i need to attend theology or my professor would write me up,” taehyun passes the ball to sunghoon, the latter yelping in surprise at the sudden yet successful catch. 

“i don’t have a crush—”

“of course, let’s get you back to practice,” jake cuts heeseung off mid sentence, moving back to take his position as sunghoon passes the ball to heeseung, who, as expected, misses the catch due to lack of concentration.

it’s going to be a long day for the team. 

. 

. 

.

“a little birdie told me you went to see heeseung in the shower rooms?” are the words you hear as soon as your classes are dismissed, miyeon walking up to you and hanbin discussing the set of questions your professor distributed just a few minutes ago. 

“i didn’t go into the shower rooms, i was outside, near the lockers,” and there’s a difference. to be in the shower room implies you were there in the shower, which definitely gives rise to several wrong ideas of different levels. specifically, you didn’t even enter the locker room. you were outside, leaning against the door, watching heeseung as he walked freshly out of the shower, a towel around his neck, you both strike up a small talk. yeah, that was the scene, not with you in the shower and whatever miyeon’s imagination leads to after that. 

“so you did go!” she claps her hands together as if it’s a celebratory occasion, turning her head to look at the boy next to you. “what were you saying about yn not having a crush, habin?”

“it’s not a crush, miyeon,” and it’s true— heeseung is not a crush. he’s a classmate, a rival, an over-qualified and impossibly competitive student, someone you would want to take your time to study. “what, i can’t even go to tell a classmate about the updated syllabus for a test now? i would’ve done that for anyone, not just heeseung,” 

hanbin sighs, packing his bag. “sure, but he’s in the groupchat. he could’ve checked it himself,” 

“um, i doubt that,” you’re preparing a powerpoint in your head, multiple slides on why you needed to do what you did. “he’s busy with basketball and i know how he gets when the matches are around the corner. don’t you remember how he skipped two weeks of classes straight because of matches last semester? and it’s the finals this time, i don’t think he even opens texts about anything that’s not basketball. i mean, he responded to my messages six days later because he was busy with practice,” 

you say it like you’ve known heeseung for a decade and have been through the ups and downs with him. you wouldn’t care about who does what in the classes, if it’s a paper plane flying right over you, landing just second to the first row of seats or if it’s someone being brave enough and playing music during lectures. biology, in your opinion, is a subject for those who are serious about doing something unique while staying in the academic field. you don’t encounter troublemakers often, once a blue moon if the heavens make a mistake. on other days, it’s quieter than a library, emptier than cemeteries at night. 

to think your life as a biotechnology major got interesting after heeseung switched majors is astonishing and equally debatable. 

“i don’t see why i should remember all that about ‘just a classmate’ but thanks for telling,” and before you know it, hanbin and miyeon are out of the class, on their way to wherever their next stop is. seriously, they’re having it easier than you. they go to games, movies, drink on weekends— something you haven’t had a taste on ever since the year started. somewhere, you could be blamed for your hectic schedules. studies, lab work, and thesis, they suffice for all the stress a student in post graduation studies can handle. volunteering and writing papers is on you, things wouldn’t have been arduous if you had decided to move slowly, one step at a time. sometimes, the hunger for more leaves you starving— quite literally. 

you spend an hour or so in the classroom along with a few other students, going through the same old routine of yours— watch videos, take notes, transfer them to your document in your own words and make it sound as innovative and convincing as possible. heeseung would be better at this than you. you’re exhausted to the point that accepting your defeat to him doesn’t even faze you anymore. he used to be a literature student, had english as a side course as an undergrad, he’s bound to be better than making essays sound they came right out of shakespeare's drafts, phrases and metaphors that would put fitzgerald to shame. 

you didn’t care about what went down in your classes until heeseung came along. call it craziness or the weird impression you have of students in your field, heeseung is far from the typical biotechnology student aiming for a postgraduate degree. he skips classes, plays basketball as if studies are a side business, and yet still manages to ace every test like an all-rounder. he shouldn’t even be in classroom, he should be in the labs, being the most important subject of studies. there are days you think of him as a social experiment— how quickly can a robot piss off a straight-A student with its impeccable skills— of course, the subjects wouldn’t know it’s a robot but you do, you’re almost convinced he is one. there’s no way he’s the top student with the amount of effort he puts in. one would claim that he studies after classes, at home slash dorms, but you can bet your life he doesn’t. there have been numerous instances when you’ve spotted him in the background of someone’s picture at a bar. he’s always with people, he has a humongous friend group, god knows how someone can live like that. at first, you were convinced he isn’t real, as worrisome as it sounds, and if he is real then he needs to be studied. 

which leads to what you’re doing right now— making your way to the basketball court. you don’t know how or why you’re doing it. you started with your studies, ended up thinking about heeseung, and now you’re on your way to the basketball court. although, it’s not half a bad idea, now that you think about it once again. 

your mind goes all the way back to when you watched him play for the first time, which was just a day ago actually. you don’t know anything about basketball, you don’t know much about heeseung either, but there’s one thing you’re sure of— heeseung is class and heeseung on the court, they’re different. you’ve noticed the way he clicks his pen relentlessly out of nervousness when he can’t solve a question, the way his back tenses up for a fraction of a second as soon as he’s asked to explain something. you’ve seen the hints of fear in his eyes when he asked you for notes last semester just three days before exams, scared that he would fail. heeseung isn’t sure of a lot of things and basketball isn’t one of those. 

“you’re not practising?” you ask him when you swim out of your thoughts, watching him climb up the bleachers and sit next to you. the court seems much better when it’s empty, free from the loud cheers of spectators, but that could be just you. 

“i was, as you see, but i saw you up here and thought it was time for a break,” you could see his teammates shake heads at him in disappointment, proceeding to continue with their practice. “what’s up?” 

you don’t respond to him and instead, take your time watching the others practise their shots. you watch the way one of them, who you think is taehyun, goes for a dunk, credits to hanbin for telling you names for a few shots. next to you, heeseung shouts out a tip or two for the boy for him to have an easier and effective approach at the said move. heeseung is good at dunks, you’ve heard it from students, you’ve seen it in the last match as well. just one shot was enough to tell you how good he is at it, it’s like basketball flows in his veins, like he can close his eyes and still manage to get a basket. 

your eyes ghost up the court and shift to him— there’s a content smile on his face, a relaxed posture as if there’s nothing for him to worry about. he takes a sip from his energy drink, you wonder if he, or anyone from the team, even gets time to have their meals. the expression on his face, it’s something you’ve never seen on him during lessons. it takes you back to the match, how he looked on court a day before, certain of every move he made, every step, every breath, without doubts, no second thoughts. you’ve done enough lab projects with heeseung to know how his hands shake when he’s preparing a slide or extracting a sample from a centrifuge, afraid that one wrong move and he would mess up the efforts of everyone in the group. that hesitation is nowhere to be seen on the court, gone like it has never existed. as if lee heeseung, the star student and player, has never had an encounter with nervousness and hesitation in his life. there’s a thin line between studies and sport for him, you finally realise it after much consideration. maybe, you’re going beyond your boundaries and making assumptions about a guy you barely know, even if you would never voice all these thoughts to him, you think you know the reason why there’s a different him on the stage when the ball is in hands.  

“how did you realise that you like basketball? you know, like it enough to devote so much of your time and have it alongside studies?” because even if biotech is something he’s studying and wants to make a career in, you guess that it’s just a source of satisfaction. in your eyes, through your perception, basketball is what makes him truly happy. 

you don’t know why someone wouldn’t pick satisfaction over happiness, especially when it’s coming with its hands full of opportunities to grab that bag.

“eh, i don’t have a sob story about it, if that is what you’re hoping for,” he chugs down the contents of the can before crushing it to the slightest, eyes squinting at the opposite wall before they move back to meet yours. “i never had to sit and think about basketball and studies, you know, as in how am i going to manage both of them. it just happened. i started playing basketball in middle school and it has been with me ever since,” 

heeseung’s side of the story is simple— a mediocre guy who was introduced to sports by his older brother and now, it’s one of the most important things in his life. middle school heeseung preferred staying in and playing video games instead of going out. in fact, middle school heeseung resembles you in all the ways that make him different from you right now. he has been good at learning and remembering things, he takes liking to things quicker than others do. basketball was like for him— easy, quick, fun, like a way to release all the stress after a long day at school. in heeseung’s story, there isn’t a main character who helped him choose the path he’s walking right now. instead, all he had was his family who introduced him to the various aspects and opportunities, and he simply ended up joining hands with the ones he liked, deciding to not let it go before the dead end. 

“i want to have that passion for things,” a soft laughter falls off your lips, it’s an attempt to make your sob story look less pitiful. “i used to paint and play piano— but painting, mostly, was really good at it. i learnt how to draw before i learnt how to tie my shoelaces. i couldn’t go a day without painting, but then highschool happened, i had pressure to do well, expectations from friends and family, had a dream outside painting, and now, i haven’t painted in years,” 

unlike heeseung, art started as more than just a side business to you. it’s not something you were introduced to in the middle of your life but rather is something you grew up with. you can blame or credit your mother for making paintings and having them in almost every corner of your house. it’s one of the reasons why at five years old you were beyond fascinated at all the patterns and colours. no one would’ve guessed that science would manage to sweep you off your feet right from the first grade, given the way your hands danced a duet to their own melody along with a paintbrush, as if each stroke has a conscious life of its own. no one would’ve guessed that your mother would tell you to stop painting and focus on studies, neither would they have known that she would become the reason why you no longer feel the same way about art. as stated before, life is unpredictable— because no one would’ve guessed that sitting here on the bleachers with heeseung and sharing a piece of your life would water the seeds of doubts in your heart, the ones that bloom at the sight of him.

he thinks your story is sad— with all due respect, without sarcasm, of course. it’s the best he can say. “i think it’s more of a ‘connection’ thing. you think you’ve lost the connection but you simply need to pickup a canvas and some colours to relink, if you get me,” because heeseung has had somewhat of a same experience, with music, and sitting front of a piano to play one of sibelius’ symphonies after senior year highschool finals was all it took him to find his lost interest in music. even though it’s nothing more than just a hobby, even if it's just something he considers as a way to pass time, heeseung knows how it feels to let go of something that is an integral part of one’s life. 

“it has always been about timing, heeseung,” you shake your head, trying to prove him wrong using your own arguments. “you think i haven’t tried painting again? i still have art supplies stacked up in my cupboard. it’s all about timing. when you like something, you only get a few chances to make sure it stays with you for a lifetime. how many people do you know who have given up on their hobbies because they claim to have lost interest? the thing is, the interest is still there, it’s the inability and fear of not being able to do it again. if you timing is off, no matter how much you try, things won’t work, and what you love will end up becoming a closed chapter of your life,” 

a pause. he sits still, eyes admiring your face while his mind is busy replaying your words in the back of his head. heeseung wonders how valid they are when it comes to people. he likes you, despite the constant denial which is only for show, by the way. it doesn’t take a scientist to read him. reading him isn’t even close to rocket science, he doesn’t understand how you haven’t caught up even after being incredibly smart. he has seen you hang out with hanbin— heeseung hates that guy, by the way. there’s no solid logic, it’s just that hanbin seems to be around you all the time and heeseung thinks of him as a leech sucking blood off its host. heeseung would never admit but it’s just his jealousy playing tricks on him, and even though it doesn’t look like you have any romantic feelings towards that guy, it would be fucking embarrassing for heeseung lose you to a guy who isn’t even half as qualified as him. ( yes, he is judging characters based on academic qualifications, no heeseung wouldn’t explain why )

“i like you,” and so, he lets his feelings win for once, deciding to let his heart take control instead, closing doors to any room for rational thinking like it never existed. “you said it was about timing, about trying hard enough and having only a few chances, perhaps, just one bullet, and i’m shooting my shot right now. i don’t want to remember you as a closed chapter of my life,” 

it would be such a waste of chemistry if you end up becoming just a closed chapter of his life. heeseung has done his research, more like reading tons of books and watching hundreds of movies to understand the potential that two academic rivals have. no one knows this, not even his closest friends, but heeseung’s favourite genre might simply be enemies to lovers and living that trope doesn’t sound as bad when it’s with you. he has spent hours thinking about the number of productive library dates you could have, working on projects together and brainstorming about the next biggest revolution in the RDT world, changing the public’s outlook at genetics forever. it sounds stupid and makes him sound even stupider, even as a lost cause, but heeseung doesn’t care. in his mind, it’s the best date someone could have. to live and become successful together, it sounds like a perfect plan to him.   

truthfully, you have always been a part of heeseung’s future, near or distant. he always always pictures you in his life, standing next to him during graduation, bidding goodbyes at farewell, exchanging shy greetings at reunions ten years later while reminiscing about everything he did to irritate you, that would sound embarrassing a decade later. your presence will always be significant to him, he just hopes to remember you as something more than just a rival, just a classmate he never really got to know, just a person he spent his two years hating upon, just a crush he didn’t get to confess to. 

the catch— heeseung has already started picturing his future and you are not even sure of your present— and while he is looking at you for an answer, you’re lost inside your head, looking for words to articulate. 

heeseung is someone you planned to stay away from for the rest of your university life. him stepping into your life already costs you a lot, namely: dropping in ranks and losing your infamous title. his actions cost you the time you could use to study, which is actually upon you because you can simply ignore him instead of spending hours on thinking about his hows, whens and whats. heeseung was supposed to be the academic rival slash classmate that he is, instead of allowing him to be something more, but beyond rivalry, feelings, etcetera. you knew the way you felt about him, even though you couldn’t be as certain as him, or even to claim you see him the same way he feels about you.

turns out, heeseung has always been sure of certain things in his life. 

“heeseung, i’m—”

“not sure? busy? stressed? i know you have a lot of things going on right now. take your time, study for the finals, finish your papers, sort out your own issues and then come back to me. i’ll be waiting,” it’s like he’s not only good at studying but also at reading minds, because heeseung seems to have guessed a part of exactly what you’ve been thinking. call it timing, jay calls him to get back to practice just a few seconds later— a perfect excuse to leave. “looks like my break is over,” 

you sit speechless, watching him walk away like an opportunity that just walked out of your hand. it feels like a slight defeat, like a test you failed when you could've scored better, if not a full score. it's funny because this wasn't a competition, you weren't rejected, more like you rejected him, but it still feels like he has the upper hand. it's funny and equally annoying because heeseung is supposed to be nothing more than just a nobody, somebody you aren't even supposed to spare two thoughts on, but here you are sitting with the guy with your feelings all over the place. 

“heeseung,” you stand up, your voice making him turn to look at you, both of you ignoring the sight of his teammates standing motionless in their positions, too stunned at your voice reverberating in the almost empty court. “let’s do this: if you manage to stand first in the finals, i’ll date you,”

a lowkey confession leading to a mere competition. his lips morph into a smirk, the ones he'd pass you before tests, an open challenge offered directly to you. “and if i don’t?”

and you mirror the same smirk back at him, you weren't going to back off simply because it's about the person you possibly have a crush on. “i become just a closed chapter of your life,” 

let the game begin. 

III. LIAR AND THE LOVER

despite heeseung’s sudden confession, you’re doing quite well, taking it better than expected. you had your moment of confusion back when the words of proposal fell off his lips— anyone would. after all, it’s lee heeseung we’re talking about. you can only imagine the saddened faces of his fangirls once they hear about him confessing to you.  

“jay told me you made a bet with heeseung?” hanbin’s question catches your attention as soon as he steps into the cafe, managing to turn a few heads towards you in the process. 

“you know jay?” 

he sits next to you, pulling out his laptop in a hurry. you can guess it’s because of his essay that’s due before six in the evening, one he could’ve written last night instead of getting wasted at his friend’s birthday gathering. “we share history, also, that’s not the answer to my question,” 

“it’s not a bet, ‘bin,” your words aren’t half wrong. “just a silly game, y’know? i didn’t even expect him to agree,” frankly, even you don’t know why or how you came up with such a bizarre idea in broad daylight. usually, people get bouts of excitement or embarrassment while confessing or being confessed to, but in your case, you jumped over the fence and made a proposal that you have only seen in fiction. 

“nah, no way you’re setting up your whole love life for failure and calling it a silly game,” the disappointment is evident in hanbin’s voice as his fingers danced over his keyboard, typing with a speed that could leave the trains behind. well, people tend to get like that when you have an assignment due and the deadline is just a few hours to go. you guess that he’s too busy to even listen to your reasoning, which is appreciated considering you have no reasoning as for why you did what you did. 

“you made a bet with heeseung,” you turn your head around, making the boy next to you do the same in the process. it’s miyeon— you should’ve seen it coming, honestly. your actions have consequences, as always, and one of them is dealing with her non-stop interrogation as if you’re the prime suspect for some gruesome crime and every question answered wrong opens gates to capital punishment. sometimes, you wonder why she didn’t go with studying law instead. 

“how do you know?”

“everyone knows, yn. it’s all they’ve been talking about,” she sighs, sitting opposite to you while taking a look at hanbin’s laptop. “even the football fanatics are talking about attending the game, god, hanbin we better hurry that day or we’re not getting a seat,” you should’ve seen it coming, honestly. miyeon might not be the most social person, but she definitely is the most updated. nothing escapes her, every tiny incident reaches her ears one way or another, and if not, then she just finds out about it using her sources, given you don’t know about her sources. it’s one of the reasons why you’re almost convinced that she runs a shady side business alongside her career in bioengineering. 

you take a sharp breath, going through the bunch of papers arranged in your file. “it’s not that serious. he confessed to me and i said i’d date him if he manages to secure the first position in the finals as well,” 

“you did that knowing he hasn’t been studying because of games while you’re studying like your life depends on it? there’s no way he’s going to be first, and everything aside, it was a wrong fucking move to play with his feelings,” play with his feelings— a pause, you don’t like how it sounds. you’re not playing with his feelings, that’s far from what you’re doing. it’s a game, a competition, new to your friends but you and heeseung have always been familiar with it. there’s an unspoken rule to test each other’s limits. the last time you and heeseung did something like this, it resulted with you writing ‘lee heeseung is smarter than ln yn,’ in bold on a sheet of paper and putting it on the notice board for the whole campus to see. in your eyes, it's history repeating itself yet again. sure, there is something else at stake, but the rules are the same, and you don’t know why your friends are acting like you’ve done something terribly unethical. 

“no one’s playing with his feelings, miyeon, and i know for a fact he’s making time to study for finals,” you clarify your side, slight annoyance evident in your voice. “besides, it doesn’t matter. it’s not like this is serious, i only did this to buy time to figure out my feelings while the game gives me a reason to study and not get distracted. you know how i get when i lose focus,” 

that could be the reasoning behind your actions, of course. even while sitting in a cafe with your friends and having a conversation that is about to make your blood boil, you’re thinking of heeseung in the back of your head. his words play over and over again like a broken record player, the image of him on court or studying pops up in your mind every now and then. obsession is a disease and you have it bad. it’s crazy to be thinking about someone so much without being absolutely floored for them. 

“so you’ll date him despite the outcome?” hanbin drags you out of the well of your thoughts, a question that leaves miyeon flabbergasted. 

“if i manage to figure out my feelings then of course,” a chuckle falls off your lips. “i’m telling you guys, it’s not that serious. i’m sure he knows it too,” and you’re really confident about this— it usually never ends on a good note. 

“and if he doesn’t? what if it’s serious for him? yn, you never know how one thing might affect someone, and feelings are not something to gamble on. you should’ve told him you need some time to think instead of giving him a false hope or whatsoever,” it’s now that you start having second thoughts. the next two hours go by amidst silence, a few small talks blooming here and there, but dissolving just as quickly within the ticking clock of deadlines for assignments and exams. 

it doesn’t take a scientist to know when miyeon is upset, for she isn’t the best at masking her emotions. through the sneaky glances at her that you’ve stolen over time, you can tell she’d rather spend the evening in silence than talk to you, which is a challenge with herself because she’s really talkative. it takes two to sing a duet, two to play and game, two people to make a relationship work. heeseung and you— the two of you are enough to make decisions for yourselves, decide what’s right and wrong and, something about miyeon questioning your choices doesn’t sit right with you. 

too many cooks spoil the broth, it’s the principle of your life, the words you’ve been following to this date. it was your decision to have a few friends instead of a fifty— quality over quantity, as one might call it— and there has never been a moment when you regretted having a handful of people to call friends. instead of consulting too many people about your major in university, you simply went with what your parents and homeroom teacher suggested. life has been good so far. the more the better is something that isn’t applicable in your case. instead of telling everyone about your dilemma regarding heeseung, you decided to keep it to yourself, eventually opening up to heeseung when the time comes. you’re doing just fine on your own, it doesn’t make sense to you why a third person’s opinion is making you doubt your decision making abilities that you’ve been so proud of. 

this is not a gamble, you tell yourself, it’s a fair play. you gave him options, he made the choice, it’s consensual. you didn’t force him into this game, he didn’t pressure you to respond, it’s a harmless competition that’s bound to have a positive outcome. you even spend a good fifteen minutes wondering if you should go back to heeseung and take it all back in case he finds it insensitive to put his feelings on the line. doing it in person seemed impossible so you resorted to texts, typing and deleting your message before giving up altogether. in your head, this was an okay decision. a sweet confession, a person with unsure feelings, a harmless competition. 

you hope it doesn’t backfire ten times worse. 

. 

. 

.

three days later, you find yourself on the way to basketball club rooms once again. you checked the court, it was empty, and your only option was to check the club slash locker rooms if you wanted to see heeseung. okay, first things first, you don’t miss him— maybe a little, but it’s because you miss hearing his weird ass answers in class even though they’re right. heeseung just has an unique approach to things, in other words he simply knows how to buy time and go in detail about things he’s an expert at to impress the professors. however, that doesn’t seem to be the case for him because he has approached you six times in the past three days, asking if you’re free to hangout. 

you like to think he misses you or that his requests were because he wanted to make sure you don’t study and lose to him, either could be true. knowing heeseung, he’s capable of going both ways. whatever may be the reason, you turned him down all six times, and it’s not because you have something against him— of course, you don’t. that’s common knowledge by now— your reason for not hanging out with him is studies, as expected of you honestly. the bet aside, you had way too many chapters to learn before exams and all heeseung ever does is take up your headspace everytime you sit down with your books spread open. avoiding him in thoughts wasn’t possible so avoiding him in person was your last straw. 

which leads to the present : you rushing to heeseung, again,  not because you miss him but because you need his help, though one of the reasons could be that you feel bad for turning him down six times. you can hear muffled laughter from a distance as you approach the club rooms, a bang against one of the lockers, a loud profanity that follows afterwards. their humour is beyond your level of understanding. 

“heese— oh, um—” you greet and turn away just as quickly when you realise that one of them is shirtless. it’s obviously heeseung, you can’t mistake his face for someone else. and you’re guessing he’s the last one to come out of shower because everyone else is dressed, maybe he’s someone who likes to take his time showering— you seriously need to stop thinking before your imagination goes bonkers. “sorry, can you come outside for a second when you’re ready?”

another round of laughter follows, more like teasing remarks because you can swear you heard a few of them refer to you as his girlfriend, and it gets you a little flustered, you won’t lie. you even hear one of them yell ‘ooh, get it, heeseung,’ as heeseung walks out, fixing his t-shirt, responding back with his middle finger up at whoever made the comment. 

“hi,” his voice isn’t much louder than a whisper, eyes fluttering between you, the floor, and his teammates who pretend to not look when you peek inside. there’s a soft smile on his face— it’s cute, you think, and then rethink what you just thought. heeseung is, well, not cute— usually. he’s good-looking, handsome, hot, sexy, even, since you’re on the topic of finding adverbs that suit heeseung. cute is rarely one of them, you don’t think you’ve seen him as flustered as he is right now— rubbing his nape, a tint of pink on his cheeks, avoiding eye-contact— that’s far from the heeseung you’ve been seeing for past two semesters. 

“hi, can you send me the pdf of the extra set of questions that prof sent last week? i think i accidentally deleted it while clearing up my storage,” you get straight to the point, trying not to waste much of your precious time. “i could’ve texted you but figured you’d be too busy with practice to check messages,” you remember what happened last time; he took six days to reply to your texts. you’re quite a patient person otherwise but in this case, you’re in dire need of questions to practise for tomorrow’s mock. 

“ah, sure, give me a minute,” and he pulls out his phone, scrolling through an ocean of files and documents to look for the one you need. you do think he’s gorgeous though, it’s a well known fact that he’s stunning, but you think this look of heeseung surpasses the other ones quite easily— hairs wet after shower, partially covering his forehead, a white t-shirt that’s slightly wet near the shoulders because of the water dripping down— you wish he’d at least dry his hair before catching a cold. “actually, i would have replied to your texts if you had— oh, yes, there you go. do you want me to email it to you or…?”

“oh, just texts would be fine, thank you,” 

“done,” a pause, you feel his eyes on you as you go through the pdf to take a brief look at the contents. “do you want to go for a walk? or are you getting back to studies?” at this point, you’re sure that question is a way to tease you about your obsession with studies. heeseung may think you’re overdoing it because you want to win, but it’s no more than the normal amount of hours you spend studying. he never paid you any attention to care about that. 

“no, i’m done for today, actually,” and that’s a big fat lie considering you were planning to solve some questions and revise two chapters before leaving the campus, but it’s fine. you feel bad for rejecting him six times either way. 

never in your life did you imagine that you’d be going on a walk with heeseung. it’s nothing serious, you just didn’t think there would be a day where you two would have normal people conversation while doing normal people activities instead of trying to disparage each other based on grades and academic performances. to think about it now, heeseung isn’t half bad, it was all in your head. it’s not like you had vile assumptions about him, you did find him annoying and way too prideful— anyone like him would be, actually, and heeseung is still quite humble about his achievements because if it was someone else, they sure would have made it everyone’s problem. 

actually, heeseung is insufferable as well. you remember your first encounter with him, first and so far, the worst— in the laboratory. you and heeseung sat next to each other and when the professor asked him to briefly explain his experiment, you realised it’s oddly similar to yours. you had accused him of cheating, like any sane person would, which led to him getting two scores less than a perfect. he only lost one score because of you, actually, and that too because you were professor’s favourite and heeseung was new to the department. the other score, you don’t know where he missed, but that incident led to heeseung deleting your powerpoint thirty minutes before your presentation, which led you stealing his notes and selling it some junior through an undercover twitter account, which led to the professor asking you to help him with notes before exams, and everything ultimately led to the realisation that heeseung is actually quite decent if you behave with decency as well. the give and take is serious for him, because he gave you notes and so, you had to take his offer of going on a walk. even though it seemed like you had a choice, a part of you knew it was a mirage. you would’ve ended up on a walk with heeseung one way or another. 

“i come here whenever i’m tired or just not feeling well,” he says and you wake up from your daydream of memories you shared with heeseung. the way he phrases his words makes it sound like he has brought you to one of his most secret locations, one that no one knows except taehyun, probably, considering they’re close friends, but in reality, it’s the playground you pass by every single day on your way from your apartment to university. 

“oh, are you okay? are you nervous for tomorrow’s match?” you continue, deciding you shouldn’t ruin his favourite place for him. honestly, no one would’ve guessed that lee heeseung would come to a children’s park on bad days. 

“actually, this walk was for you, you looked like you’d pass out if you spent another hour in front of books,” and you’re done, standing speechless with your eyes wide open at his words that he says with a victorious smile on his face. “you should start taking breaks, yn. it’s not a bad thing to go home earlier when you’re tired,” 

he’s right, oh, you know he’s absolutely right about everything he just said, from passing out to going home. a part of him probably even feels glad to have you out on his little walk with him, you’re getting your well deserved rest, thanks to him. heeseung might even ask if he can walk you home considering you’re ‘done for today,’ which is very thoughtful of him— but what does this make you? a liar? miyeon was right, you’re gambling, even though it’s not that serious. so far, you’ve lied about being done with your studies and the bet you made with heeseung because at this point, it’s more like a prank, except it’s not funny and that it might end up with him getting upset with you because tomorrow is basketball tournament’s finals and you’re here wasting his time, all because you lied. 

a liar and a lover, on a date at children’s park— match made in theatre club, you’d say. 

“are you sure this is not your way to manipulate into not studying and losing to you, just so you can date me?” you try to play it cool, knowing very well that it can be one of his tricks or whatsoever. after all, it’s the same heeseung who made you trip in front of your class just three days after being transferred. 

“i was being genuine but it doesn’t sound like a bad idea,” of course, it doesn’t. he gets to win, after all. “can i walk you home?” just as you had guessed. 

“i would love to go home but my bag is still in the library,” you had considered taking it with you, actually, but dismissed the thought once you realised you had to come back to the library and continue with your studies. albeit, you’re not studying, that’s on you for lying into oblivion and giving into his requests.  

once again, you two are back to walking, this time back to the university campus. it’s nice, having a walk with heeseung, it’s sweet, slow, comforting, like slow music flowing around and engulfing you in its arms. the unsaid words are weighing on your shoulders, you can feel the pressure, but it’s not awkward. above the busy hustle of the city and blaring horns, it’s a quiet world with heeseung, it’s nice, like a warm hug after a long day. you didn’t think you had it in yourself to spend a minute next to him without overthinking and possibly starting a banter. you didn’t think heeseung had it in him either, to make a walk feel so close to home.  

“so, how are you coping knowing you’re going to lose once again?” and, it’s back again. everything is a hoax actually— his looks? a trap. his smile? a trap. it’s all a facade because once he opens his mouth, nothing but horseshit comes out of it. 

“very well, in fact, because i know i’m the one getting that first spot this time,” call it overconfidence but you really do think you’ll get your title back this time. you’ve been studying well and hard enough, solving questions and going through every extra set of notes and exercises your professor sent. although, you would claim to beat heeseung had you been prepared or not because it’s fun messing with him. 

“i’d rather have you show some mercy, in that case,” before you know it, you’re already standing in front of the library. “academic defeat and a heartbreak, it already sounds painful. i hope you go easy on me,” it’s sarcastic, of course, all these saccharine words of confessions made you forget how he is under the layers of smiles and winks that adorn his face. a session full of silence follows, the comforting tranquillity morphing into something tensed as he steps closer, your breath getting caught up in your throat as your mind dysfunctions— it’s the effect he has. 

“heeseung,” you put a finger on his lips— the only thing between him and you, the only thing helping you stay sane and composed at the moment, because only you know the struggle of pulling yourself together while standing inches away from heeseung as he grabs your wrist and plants a soft kiss on your finger before removing it from his lips. 

“why, that’s unfair. you get to see me anytime you want while i have to wait because you’re busy studying, you even get to see me shirtless, and i can’t even get a kiss?” and you hate the look in his eyes, you hate how close he is standing and how it makes your heart go crazy. this isn’t even the beginning and you hate how you feel like you’ve already lost, and you hate how confident he is with every breath he breathes against your lips. “just kidding, see you tomorrow,” 

and you hate how this is where you realise that you’ve fallen deep, and you’ve fallen hard. 

IV. PLANET TO A SUN

heeseung has been thinking about the walk for an hour and twenty-seven minutes— actually more, ever since the moment he got home last night, but that is how long he has been practising for, eyes on the ball but mind revolving around you like a planet to a sun. you had texted him about a rule this morning— no kissing before finals. actually no kissing before we start dating, lee— your exact words. they have been holding him back from thinking straight, even made him practise an apology while looking in the mirror if in case his actions offended you in any way. lost in thought, heeseung manages to get another shot in. that’s twenty-third in a row ever since he stepped on the court, which is unbelievable, even for him. 

“is it just me or did heeseung’s performance improve overnight?” jake looks up at jay, fastening his shoelace, a chuckle escaping his lips that goes unnoticed. 

the latter offers a hand to jake, helping him stand as they share a laugh before jay passes him the ball. “well, of course it will. he has to impress his girlfriend today at finals,”

“she’s not my girlfriend,” heeseung grunts almost as if hearing you and the word girlfriend in the same sentences cuts ten years from his lifespan. he knows it doesn’t, he’d kill to call you his’. the reason behind his edgy behaviour is your text and the weird rule you’ve inserted in an already weird bet— it’s not like he minds it, the bet, obviously. heeseung definitely minds not getting to kiss you for the next few weeks. 

“yet,” jay clarifies, emphasising enough for the world to understand that his words are supposed to be in italics. “she will be if you score more than her in finals, which i don’t think is possible because unlike you, she has been studying all day everyday. i don’t know how she’s still alive,” and jay isn’t half bad student himself. juniors in business have his name residing on the tips of their tongues. he simply thinks you’re a freak for being in no clubs and not participating in anything that doesn’t involve studying. 

“she’s the top student for a reason,” jake adds. 

“i am the top student,” and hearing his friends call you the top students hurts heeseung’s ego a little bit. crushes aside, you’re his rival before his girlfriend, and you’re not even his girlfriend. you’re basically just a rival. “also, it’s not hard to study all day if you’re used to it,” 

and jay scoffs in disbelief. “right, you would know something about it, lee i can’t go a day without playing basketball heeseung,” 

“hey, everyone,” your voice reverberating in the court is what stops heeseung from responding to jay with a snarky remark. “just wanted to wish you all goodluck. i really hope you guys win the tournament or else, it’s going to be hard for heeseung to deal with two loses after i beat him in finals as well,” 

heeseung rolls his eyes in disbelief, you hear taehyun exclaim that he has been team yn since the very first day, a claim that few others proceed to back up, especially sunghoon, with his own lore of how he prays everyday for you to win the bet with heeseung. you’re honoured to receive such support, to some extent. a part of you still wishes for the whole thing to be a secret restricted to just heeseung and you but again, it was your fault for placing bets in court, in front of the entirety of the basketball team to witness, even their coach. 

“you’re a little too confident, don’t you think so?” he smirks, taking a few steps towards you with the ball supported between his arms and torso. “let me know where you’d like to go for our first date,” and it turns out heeseung is just as confident about winning the bet as you, perhaps even more. you are not surprised, being defending champions does that to people, or so you believe.

“mhm, let’s have you score a date first, lee,” you would have loved to talk more but decide to bid your goodbyes as soon as hanbin’s message pops up on your phone, the little scowl on heeseung’s face going unnoticed the moment he sees his name on your phone screen. heeseung would never in his wildest dream confess to being jealous— it doesn’t even make sense for him to be jealous of hanbin because he confessed to you, and you seem to like him back. his worries are pointless just like the useless art projects his art teacher used to assign in middle school. 

your fingers dance on the keyboard of your phone as you reply to hanbin, the subtle taps synchronous with your steps with you rushing across the quadrangle, taking the nearest flight of stairs to the library. you wanted to spend the day at your apartment since classes are suspended for the rest of the day on account of the match. however, hanbin managed to convince you into coming to the library to help him with a few assignments here and there. you’re not opposed to studying on days-off, in fact you think it’s better since you get all twenty-four hours to yourself instead of investing any of it in classes. the match gave you an excuse to call in for a break, or an excuse to take your time choosing the outfits as if you’re the main character on such a big day. 

the librarian gestures to you to slow down the moment you almost avoid slipping on the tiled floor, in the process of holding the door frame to stop yourself, an embarrassed apology makes its way from you to her as you spot hanbin in the further corner with his airpods plugged in. your first instinct is to scare him from behind but the thought leaves your mind as soon as you remember that you’re in a library, and getting kicked out on a day that has been treating you well so far doesn’t sound so smart. 

so, you settle with approaching normal, instead of pulling random stunts, pulling out the chair opposite to him quietly to not make any sounds, mumbling a soft ‘hi’ as he takes out one of his airpods. “where’s miyeon?” 

“sick, she’s skipping today’s match as well,” hanbin replies, eyes fixed on the notes he's copying from the laptop to loose sheets of paper, before looking up at you with another question on the tip of his tongue. “are you two still not talking?” 

“we did, none of us brought up what happened that day, though,” you shrug as if it doesn't bother you anymore, as if you don't want it to bother you more than it already does.

miyeon and you have known each other since university, she was a senior in undergrad course who was forced by financial circumstances to skip one academic year, thus rejoining in third year along with you and hanbin. seeing her was less frequent while she was still a senior, although you're not sure if you've spent more than three days away from her ever since postgrad school started. a heavy tension masks all your conversations with her, over texts or in person, and even though you're trying to act like the small talks with her don't hurt you, a part of you is starting to miss the best friend you used to talk to all night, about wasted matters and sharing useless gossip.

silence fills in for the lack of words between you and hanbin and you allow it to do so, deciding not to disturb the decorum of the library anymore. you scroll through your phone mindlessly, there’s nothing to look at except people going crazy about the evening's match. you even manage to stumble upon a thread of arguments featuring students of your university and the one the team is going against. it’s all empty threats, seriously, ‘kys’ and ‘ur mom’s in my bed’ aren’t even insults at this point. they’re funny, sometimes, but you’ll never understand why or how they ended up being insults. ( honestly, you don’t see the potential ) 

“are you serious about heeseung?” a crack in the ice, hanbin's question catches you off guard, with a number of questions running back and forth in your mind before you settle with the one to respond with in return.

you blink in confusion. “i guess so, why?” 

“nothing, it’s just i never expected it to be him, y’know, considering your history,” you think it's unavoidable, questions along these lines, they would've been asked sooner or later. truthfully, even you didn't expect yourself to fall for heeseung.

your history, what even is there to call history except blood and war? both you and heeseung have been up each other's neck from the moment your gazes collided. it sounds like a stupid beef between highschool students, almost embarrassing now that you both are nearing post graduation. with all the days that you’ve spent thinking about ways to get on his nerves, or worse— ruin his projects, it wasn’t just you who resorted to ruining each other’s hard work— no one would have known you and heeseung would ever end up on this note, with him chasing you and you pinning for him, all under the blankets of a silly bet.

“well, as i always say, hanbin, life is unpredictable,” there’s a smile dancing on your lips, a dazzling hint of factuality in your eyes. “besides, he’s a nice guy behind all the annoying things he does. i think he's pretty serious about me, or us, too,”

hanbin has noticed the way you smile at your phone. it doesn’t always happen, only when you’re talking with miyeon or a few friends from highschool, now heeseung ranks up on that list as well. he’d be lying if the uneasiness doesn’t bother him, it’s bound to surface when he remembers all the nights you spent complaining about heeseung. actually, the rant session included hanbin, you and miyeon, but she would rather go to sleep than listen to you complain like a child for hours on roll, leaving you and hanbin driving the conversation. he has lost count of the amount of times you’ve ended up crying in the process, or the amount of times he has hung up on you only to show up at your place late at night to make sure you’re doing okay, and the nights you two have spent watching movies and falling asleep on the couch, followed by the mornings gone by with miyeon being salty over the fact that none of you invited her to your impromptu nightover. 

the thought of heeseung confessing to you still surprises hanbin, it’s one of the things he deemed as impossible since forever. and he can go, warn heeseung about hurting you, dropping all sorts of threats at the boy. hanbin can go on for hours about how he would make heeseung’s life a living hell if he ever broke your heart. he can prove the righteous friend that he is, but at the end of day, he would always be the third person between you and heeseung. hanbin can only assume so much about you two, not even sure if all of it is right. he can only wish so much for you to have eyes for someone else. 

and so, all he does is shoot a smile at you. “i hope he is,” 

. 

. 

.

the only time you step out of the library is exactly three hours and thirty three minutes later, to sprint towards the basketball knowing that you absolutely cannot afford losing seats in the first two rows. fortunately, or unfortunately enough, you’re not the only student going crazy about the game. you can swear at least a dozen came out of the library right after you, even though all of them may not attend the game.

you’re already running late— well, still twenty minutes early but that doesn’t give you much time to meet the team and secure the front row seats. and meeting the team is an excuse, let’s be honest. you want to meet heeseung, have a quick private talk, kiss him good luck, you don’t know; you wouldn’t. your head is in a mess, behind you hanbin is yelling for you to slow down as you run down the stairs. half of you is worrying about seats and the other half is wording her sentences out for you to say when you meet heeseung, and the team. you can wish them all the luck in the world, after all, it’s the university team and you would love to see them win. the whole craze about sports doesn’t feel real and worth the hype but things start coming full circle when you’re the one watching. slowly, as one would expect, but you are starting to understand why everyone goes bonkers during tournament season. 

“damn, slow down,” hanbin huffs, grabbing your arm for you to slow down. “it’s not like they wouldn’t start without you,” 

“that’s the problem. what if they start without me?” but your legs wouldn’t rest before arriving at the court. you know your words sound funny, painting you as if the result of today’s match depends on you. it feels crazy to be this excited about a mere basketball match, nonetheless you know it’s not the match you’re actually looking forward to. “besides, i’m more worried about seats,” 

“i asked hao to save two for us. he’s friends with heeseung, i think he will do that much for his friend’s girlfriend or whatsoever,” you see him roll his eyes at his own words, proceeding to slide his hands into yours before continuing on your way to the venue, this time a little slower. 

you have heard about hao from hanbin and miyeon a few times. he’s pursuing a masters in music, wants to teach violin professionally according to hanbin. miyeon has even attended one of his recitals last autumn, something from sibelius, if you remember correctly. he is popular, and you see the depths of his popularity as soon as you spot him on the bleachers, surrounded by people left and right, one of them trying to grab a seat next to him before he points at you and hanbin, and the crowd goes mild, ultimately dissolves as the players step in. 

“i didn’t know heeseung had a girlfriend,” you don’t know what you were expecting, perhaps a few words of greetings, hi’s and hello’s since you two are meeting for the first time. anything, except that question. 

“believe me, i didn’t either,” and why even is heeseung going around telling everyone that you’re his girlfriend?        

the court breaks into cheers as soon as the game commences and yet, it feels a little quite. perhaps, it’s miyeon’s absence getting to you. had it been her next to you instead of hanbin and hao— who are busy amongst themselves by the way, talking about anything but the match— she would’ve been eating snacks non-stop, giving you a little talk on every player, like a resume. it’s take her fifteen minutes to give you summaries on players from each team, their achievements, girlfriends and probably even mothers, who knows. although, you haven’t attend many games with miyeon to pinpoint every good and bad thing about her impromptu presentation, her unofficial commentary helped you sit throughout the match. it feels incomplete without her, not just the game but days in general. it’s definitely her absence making your surroundings feel quieter. 

so, long story short, you don’t have a clue of what’s happening. well, you do, a little. you know what a dunk and a three pointer is besides the names of players on your university team, but that basically sums up your knowledge about basketball. all sorts of voices are mingling in the air but you’re busy following the ball around the court with your gaze, occasionally cursing and clapping when the team misses a close basket or scores a comparatively difficult basket. the tension between the two teams keeps rising as the game continues. you notice sunghoon groan in disappointment as one of the players from the opposite team gets in a banked shot from the wings, scoring two points for the team. a part of the crowd goes quieter at jay’s failed attempt to save the score for his team, beomgyu patting on jay’s back while muttering something along the lines of ‘good job.’ involuntarily, your eyes travel to heeseung, whose expression stiffens at the sight of the scoreboard displaying a two-point lag.

a time out call follows as the players move back to their respective ends, and it physically hurts you to see the difference in atmosphere between the two teams, or the frowns on the faces of players on your university team. for a second, you even consider walking down to them as they gather around the coach, grabbing water bottles and towels while nodding at the coach’s words between heavy breaths. you catch jake looking in your direction for a brief second, a smile makes its way to your lips before he responds with one as well, proceeding to nudge heeseung’s arm and pointing in your direction. his actions are left with no response— it hurts a little, although you are aware that anything else falls after winning the match on his priority list— and they get back on the court as the game resumes. 

“they need to catch up soon,” hanbin mutters, taking a look at the clock. and even if it’s just a two point difference, you’re starting to understand why it creates a huge gap. it’s almost like scores on a test. going from eighty-three to ninety then hundred is easier than going from ninety-eight to hundred. greater differences are easier to overcome; for you have so many rooms for improvisation and thus, so many chances at closing the gap. the closer you are to a perfect score, the narrower are the chances and it’s almost impossible to pin-point and work on every single weakness of yours within those two points. you’re pretty sure your words would hardly make sense to anyone else, but nonetheless you understand why everyone on the court looks more attentive, probably like meerkats on the lookout for preys and predators. 

much to your disappointment, the play continues with the rivals dominating the court, giving low to zero chances for the opposition to get their hands on the balls. you even see a few of them trying to provoke heeseung, the latter trying his best to not react but you’re afraid he would start throwing punches if another one of the players passed by him with his middle finger up heeseung’s face. one of them, who you assume is the captain judging from the way he has been directing his team, goes in for a hook, immediately getting blocked by taehyun as the court bursts into loud cheers once again. 

“that was a little too far for a hook,” hao comments, and you nod as if you understand his words and know exactly how a hook is supposed to be. you didn’t even know about a hook until now, and you’re still not sure what it is since all the shots look almost the same to you. 

from that second onwards, it felt as if the control transferred to heeseung’s teams as they transition quickly from defence to offence, making quick passes and running the court, practically catching the opposite team off guard. jay passes the ball to jake, who takes a leap from half court, driving towards the unguarded basket. a quick layup using the backboard, as you hear hanbin name the shot, and basically everyone runs to jake for scoring two points for the team as the scoreboards displays a sour tie. it’s a seemingly easy match after that, especially when the players look like they’re back into the game. sunghoon passes the ball to heeseung who goes for another layup and fails, much to his despair, before going in for a dunk and scoring yet another basket for the team, leading it by two points. you see him passing a cocky smirk at the player from before as jake pats him in the back with heeseung almost stumbling in the process. 

heeseung shoots you a wink before focusing on sunghoon’s words as they get back into position, and even amidst the butterflies you got by his recent actions, you don’t miss the way he stretches his fingers, ring-finger specifically, pointing something about the movements to jay before getting his focus back to the game; and you just hope it isn’t what you’re thinking it is. 

it’s a slow game after that, no points scored, four fouls with two of them back to back, one by each team respectively. the frustration increases on the court, evident in each step taken by the players, groans and sighs fill the atmosphere and get louder than the cheers that have gone quieter once again. it isn’t until a few minutes later that all the players run to the front court as soon as they see an opportunity for a fast break with taehyun taking the lead, passing the ball to jay just a few seconds after, who passes it to heeseung— and call it the lack of efficiency or bad timing, heeseung bumps into one of the players from opposite team, an uneven balance, and falls directly on his right knee, as one of the opposite players throws the ball off-bounds to stop the play. 

the medics take him to the benches, bringing ice packs and everything else before escorting him inside. you considered following him inside before hanbin tells you that the officials aren’t letting anyone meet him, probably until they receive updates of his situations. you bite the inside of your cheeks in nervousness, palms sweating as if you’re about to appear for an exam you weren’t informed about until five minutes ago, or maybe it’s even worse. the murmurs from the crowd or the group of girls behind you, to be more specific, do nothing but make you feel more anxious. zhang hao, being a sports medicine student, tries to give you an insight on heeseung’s injury, telling you that even if he fell directly on his knee and it could result in a patella fracture, or perhaps just dislocation— words that compel you to yell at him to shut up before he ensures that heeseung will be fine. hanbin does that for you, noticing your slightly panicked state, telling hao to talk about anything but anatomy of how badly a simple injury can affect a player, and when sunghoon and taehyun return to the officials with an update on heeseung and a pale face, you knew you had to run to your heeseung as if it’s the end of the world. 

“heeseung,” you breathe out, stepping aside to let the nurse from the infirmary leave before you walk closer to him. the awkwardness between you and other players, namely jay, jake and beomgyu, besides the coach, rings all the bells to remind you that coming here was probably a bad idea. well, of course, you like heeseung and are worried for him, but the tension in the air makes you feel like you showed up uninvited. “are you okay?” 

you ask nonetheless, voice close to a whisper, as you stand at a distance, looking at the bruise on his knee. the smell of antiseptic spray fills your lungs, nose scrunching at the way you could almost taste the diclofenac at the back of your mouth. 

“not really,” he inhales sharply, exhaling a reply once everyone left, knowing they had a game to get back to. “look at you, are you worried for me?”

“i’m regretting coming here now,” liar. and then you let the silence carry the conversation with itself for the next few minutes. you don’t know what to say— what can you say? all you do is sit next to him, hands brushing against his as his winces at the slightest touch. heeseung opened his mouth to say something before dismissing his words with a heavy sigh the very next moment. you almost hold his hand— almost, thinking of holding it ever so carefully as if it’s glass with thousands of cracks, and then you’d kiss it ever so delicately, you did it— almost, but then, it’s just you getting upset over the fact that he played even after hurting his hand.

“so, they’re benching you,” you say in an attempt to strike a conversation, a little conflicted with your choice of words, wondering if he even wants to hear about something related to the match at the moment. 

“of course,” he says it like a matter of fact, a fact whose impact doesn’t seem to touch him. “please tell me they have jeno substituting for me. i’ve barely been getting updates in the group chat,” the least he expected was for one of the substitute players to keep him updated about the game through texts, and heeseung planned to get back to the court until you showed up, taking a seat next to him on the benches in the locker room. you don’t understand why they didn’t take him to the infirmary, and decided to think it’s because locker rooms are closer and if there’s anything heeseung should not be doing right now, it’s moving his injured leg. 

you shrug. “i don’t know, i’ll ask hanbin,”

“thanks,” and even though heeseung isn’t really fond of your friend for reasons that are widely known, at least amidst his friend group, he really hopes hanbin is of some use. 

it’s quiet now. you can hear faint cheers buried in the layers of walls and rooms that stand between the court and the locker room, a few muffled footsteps filling up any spaces left in the air, here and there. you assume it’s his fans trying to check up on him, as annoying as it sounds to you for you’d rather have this moment with him all to yourself. you hear him sigh heavily once every few minutes, trying to ball his injured fingers up in a fist to allow the slightest of moments and ensure healthy circulation, a soft hiss leaving his lips at the sensation of striking pain shooting up his nerves. unlike heeseung, your attention shifts to his injured knee with a faint chill running down your spine as you look at his bruise, which now looks more bluish than it was when you had arrived, signifying the possibly alarming amount of blood that has now clotted in the tissues. 

“you can cry,” nudge him with your shoulders and heeseung directs you to the most disgusted face in return. “what? it’s the finals and you’re injured so you won’t be able to play today. any normal person would sob their eyes out,” 

“i’m not a kid, yn,” he nudges back, a chuckle slipping off his lips. 

“trying to act all cool but you’re probably going to cry yourself to sleep for days, or even weeks,” he holds out his hand for you to hold it as you stand up, an action you give into without opposition, intertwining your fingers with his. there’s a smug smile on your face and he sees it as well, although only you know the way your heart is somersaulting at the way your hands fit his’ like pieces of a puzzle. “i know what you are, heeseung,”

he scoffs at your words, hands still entwined, a lovesick glow in his eyes— it’s your first time seeing this side of him, you’re glad to be one of the people to see it. silence has never felt so comfortable to you. the distant noise from court feels like it rushed on its way to you and heeseung, and stopped at the doors, as if you two are beyond its reach. you might never say it to him, but everything seemingly ceases to exist when you’re with him, and the world feels timeless. it’s embarrassing, cringe, and it’s making your heart beat faster with the way he looks at you. “you need to shut up,”

“make me?” a quick response, one that was supposed to be a joke, a joke which was supposed to be accompanied by laughter and brushed off as another baseless comment, but another second passes as you continue to look into his eyes, and you realise you’re actually considering it— leaning in towards him while giving his hand a light tug to pull him towards you the slightest, your other hand cupping his face as your gaze ghosts up his eyes and settles on his lips. when it comes to him, rationality is out of the window and your lips are on his’ planting the softest kiss at the corner of his mouth before pulling away like nothing ever happened.  

a pause; you could hear the silence ringing in your years, eyes fixed over him as if you’re spilling all your secrets to him, waiting for him to take a hint. “what even happened to the ‘no kissing before finals’ rule?’”

and you realise you had actually forgotten about it, for better and never for the worse, because as you said and as he repeated, it’s all about timing. empty locker rooms, quiet hallways with not a soul around, your hand in his, his eyes on you— the timing couldn’t be better, and you know better than messing up and letting heeseung become just a closed chapter of your life. “yeah, i could care less about that,”

there are a lot of things you could care less about, like the cold metal that stings against your back as he pushes you against the lockers, or the fact that anyone could walk in, any minute; you don’t care, don’t know. his lips are on yours and his hands are on your waist, it feels euphoric the way his lips move in synchrony with yours, fitting like puzzle pieces. heeseung tugs you closer by your waist, a faint gasp escaping your mouth that dissolves immediately into your breaths mingling together. it’s intoxicating and is making you go insane, the way he manages to sweep you off your feet with the smallest of actions and simplest of words— from the very first day. 

heeseung was right, and you as well, it’s all about timing. from the day you first looked at him in a seminar, to the day he switched to biotech— you plan on asking him why because so far, all your guesses seem implausible— down to the day he confessed, leading up to this moment with you pressing against the lockers and his lips against against yours. heeseung sighs softly, cupping your cheeks and tilting your head to deepen the kiss, and you could feel the heat of his breath against your lips when you pull away just when it was about to get better, avoiding his lips when he leans in to chase yours barely a millisecond later. your eyes shift down to his hand, one that has been injured during the game, and you proceed to hold it carefully, brushing your lips over the bruise lightly before adorning it with feathery kisses as his other hand travels down to your waist once again, pulling you closer. “you should go easy on yourself,”

you whisper the exact same words he had told you a day ago, traversing your eyes back towards him while your gazes have a conversation so foreign, as if it’s only for the silence to understand. and it’s quite literally just the two of you basking in silence as he rests his head against the crook of your neck, planting a few kisses here and there before pulling you even closer, as if you were going to disappear any second. “i think, i’m in love with you,” 

and timing be damned— because heeseung confesses to you once again, and then he’s kissing you once again, slowly, sweetly, in love, and timing doesn’t even matter because every second feels right with him. with the same air of delighted indifference he comes to know well in the gleam of your touch and the curl of your lips, you simply kiss him back as if to say, hate to admit, but i’m in love with you too. and timing really be damned because you hear loud rounds of cheers as you feel his shoulders stiffen. a slight disconnection between you and heeseung makes you wonder if he’s thinking about the results of the game, which is inevitable, but this is about you and him, and nothing else. you hear the notifications from his phone go off, hinting that the match is probably over, and you pull him into another kiss, another round of selfishness guised as an outlet for him to forget about the game, another round of messy make outs, tasting the freedom of ignorance. 

and then you don’t hear from heeseung again.  

V. OBJECT OF ALL DESIRES

days without heeseung feel like they’re forty-eight hours long.

you think it’s a disease or some sort of withdrawal syndrome. this isn’t your first time without him, in fact, you used to do just fine without him in your life until you let him in. at this point, it isn’t even about not being able to see him— heeseung has been absent for almost seven days. you even asked jay about him to see if he has been in contact with any of his teammates but much to your disappointment, he disappeared off the face of earth like he never existed. taehyun has constantly been reminding you to not fret too much, knowing that heeseung gets a little dramatic after losing matches. you can take his word, obviously, a friend from highschool would know heeseung better than a girl who started talking to him normally barely weeks ago, although you couldn’t help but worry about him as seconds passed like water dripping down the tap, disturbing the silence. 

you know how losses feel— like a part of you has been taken out and you’re left to bleed. it’s worse when it’s about something you’ve loved all your life. you’ve walked next to losses, hand in hand. when you know you’ve lost something while having it in the palms of your hands the whole time, the feeling eats you inside. you wonder if heeseung is feeling the same way you think he is, even if he didn’t show it a week ago when you had met him in the clubroom, the feeling starts to sink in when you’re alone amidst the ghosts of nobodies. even though he was smiling and acting like the little shit he is, you felt anger and regret in the way he kissed you. there was a sense of numbness dripping down his fingertips in the way they brushed against your cheeks, cupping your face. you could’ve been a sweet escape— it hurts to admit that the emotions weren’t possibly real, but you couldn’t blame him. 

losing a match, to put it in your words, meant failing in a test; and losing because of an injury, it’s like skipping a test you prepared for, because of fever. except tests can be rescheduled for students who missed— a luxury heeseung, as a basketball player, cannot enjoy. even you couldn’t believe your eyes when the students on the forum started talking about the lost match, all sorts of comments going around, though none targeted at heeseung, fortunately. yet, your first instinct was to dial his number— out of reach, the first thing you hear on the other side of the line, and all you’ve been hearing for days now. 

you had considered cutting ties with him, not literally, but as in stopping to chase him as if he’s the oxygen you inspire. you could’ve showed up at miyeon’s place with apologies, her favourite snacks and a brief explanation of why you did what you did, and everything that has happened as the consequences of your own actions. with weekends approaching, you could’ve planned a two-day trip with her and hanbin before the winter snow made it hard to commute— just anything to get your mind off heeseung, since apparently, you weren’t on his mind either. albeit, you end up doing nothing, no trips, no plans to see miyeon, it’s just you and your bruised heart with soju on the side. your mind is way too cluttered with thoughts about heeseung to focus on studying and at the same time, it’s way too empty to try doing anything else.  

so, you simply venture down the hallways, drowning in all kinds of thoughts, good and bad. you can use the time to study but concentration has been far out of your reach ever since the match, or ever since he went underground, to be more specific. the impromptu make out session was probably his last straw— it makes sense. you kissed someone who had been walked out of a match because of an injury instead of consoling them. you let your feelings get the best of you, making everything about yourself yet again. you won’t be surprised if heeseung decides to ghost you for the rest of his life after that; or maybe, that’s not possible since you see a familiar figure sitting in the outdoor basketball court, spinning the ball with it’s axis on the ground in a directionless manner. 

“heeseung?” you notice his back tense at the sound of you calling his name, head down low as if he’s responding with an exasperated sigh. “where the hell have you been? i’ve been trying to reach you— heck, even your friends haven’t heard a word from you in days,”

“not now, yn, leave me alone,” and an exasperated sigh is what it was. 

“look, i know—”

“just, what part of leaving me alone do you not understand?” you try to speak but heeseung cuts you off just as efficiently as he does other things, with annoyance heavily evident in his words. had it not been heeseung, you would’ve left already, for you have more important things to tend to, and you’re certainly not interested in matters you’re not supposed to be included in, if only it wasn’t heeseung, and if only you weren’t crazily worried for him. 

“oh, i understand it clearly, every part, actually, and i also understand that you’re upset and leaving you alone would certainly not be the best move considering the way you went MIA for a week,” and you understand his impulses about disappearing into thin air, wishing the ground eats him up or for the walls to cave in till he’s entombed in them, but a person as smart as him should know taking out helps better than thinking about wanting to vanish. “we can sit and have a talk if you stop being such an asshole about it. i’m down to listen to—”

“fine, what do you want to hear about?” he cuts you off in annoyances, the ball rolls down to a distance like your heart when you see the unfamiliar emotion in his eyes. “you were right. i went home and have been crying myself to sleep. i haven’t been eating well either. i skipped five out of nine mocks and barely passed the four i gave, let’s add that too. is that enough?” 

you don’t like the way he puts it, as if it’s supposed to make you feel better. maybe about the bet, maybe, since he’s supposed to rank above you in finals to get around dating you, and maybe watching him lose is supposed to offer you some sort of relief— seriously, what you’re feeling right now is far from that. guilt, anger, shame, you’re not unfamiliar with those emotions. they eat you inside and it’s not because you’ve met with defeat, it’s because of falling off all the expectations people had, giving them another reason to point fingers and laugh. you could be really over-reacting, but if you didn’t have your parents telling you it’s going to be fine every time you didn’t do well on tests, you don’t know where you would’ve been right now. and you think you can play a part of the same for heeseung, if not all. 

you sit next to him, nose scrunching at the sight of dust on the cement laid with cracks. that’s what you get with an outdoor court no longer in use. you can see little plantlets germinating from the soil, emerging through the cracks, the rusted ring catches your eye. heeseung huffs as you settle next to him, wondering exactly how long the court has been unused for, considering its lack of maintenance. “let’s date,” 

and your words are not what you were planning to say or what should be said in this situation, but they still manage to extract a response from him. “don’t play with me,” 

“i’m not, in fact, that is what i’ve been wanting to say to you for days. of course, this isn’t the best timing, but i don’t know what else to say,” you pause in what feels like embarrassment. too bad, his crush is not good at conversations. sometimes you end up nodding and blinking for five minutes straight before saying anything, after a person opens up to you with tears and blood. “and, i’m not going to tell you to stop acting like a child or whatever because the team lost such an important match and somewhere, you’re blaming yourself for it, which you shouldn’t, by the way. all i need to say is that you still have the next year to make up for what you’ve lost now,” 

second chances come with higher expectations from people along with words that end up making one feel worse about their situation. you’ve already heard a few students talk about how heeseung should’ve been more ‘careful’— as if it was his choice to get injured and lose the match. you know it wasn’t going to be easy, especially with his injury that probably requires him out of the court for weeks, but you hope that amidst whatever he’s feeling, between self-loath and regret, heeseung manages to find himself once again. 

“actually, i’m planning to drop out of the team next year and focus on studies. my parents were already against me playing basketball during postgrad, i’m finally starting to notice why,” basketball could’ve been his entire career if heeseung’s grandmother had not wished for him to go into the medical field. seeing the insides of a person makes him want to empty his bowel from the mouth so biotechnology was his next option. heeseung thought having two hands would give him the benefit of managing basketball and academics together, unlike how his parents had wished for, but his recent mock scores and lack of time devoted to studies is making him question his choices. “and what the hell were you on about dating, by the way?” 

you’re half immersed in your own thoughts until heeseung directs the question at you— brows furrowed, confusion shadowing his face— you realise it’s your turn to do the talking. “oh, you know, dating. i think we should start dating already, it’s quite inevitable after that day in the clubroom,” 

it is evitable, really, but you’re down bad— with all due respect. 

you haven’t been okay ever since you realised that you like heeseung, and you’ve been trying to act normal about it, attempting to not lose your cool-hard-to-get-girl composure— miyeon’s words, and they make you cringe— while the thought of him is eating your brain slowly and gradually, making you go insane. if you were to narrate from where you opened and closed the door at, it would be a slippery slope, you don’t know how someone ends up falling for the person they despise. the yn from a month or two ago would be knowing, you can see her shrugging and getting back to her books, saying see saw it coming. ( it’s miyeon’s fault for making you even think about having a mind blowing chemistry with heeseung ) the you from two semesters ago, when he first transferred, would hate you and call you a traitor, might even write whore on a mirror while looking at it because you fold at the sight of hot, smart and sporty men who are perfect at everything, even at ruining someone’s life, like he’s ruining yours; and the yn from highschool, you see her squealing on the floor because oh, what a fan of enemies to lovers she was— heeseung wouldn’t even have been in the current picture if your highschool crush slash rival liked you back. the current you, well, she’s a goner, and in denial that she’s a goner. too much pride does something to a person, especially when you’re an over-scorer and an academic weapon. you’ve lost all your abilities of letting your guard down even once, refusing to give up and accept defeat, no matter how tortuous it is on the inside. 

the current you is more like a victorian man looking at ankles for the very first time. 

“and the bet? what happened to it?” he chuckles, of course, anyone would, considering the way you’ve lost after placing the bet with utmost confidence slash overconfidence. see, it never ends well, anything, with overconfidence, it doesn’t end well, never have and never will. and you, you don’t learn, sitting with the very well known fact that if you were given the chance, you would place the bet with him again.  

“ah, i didn’t mean to do that, honestly. i was confused when you confessed, it was so sudden, i didn’t know how to respond. the bet was the best i could come up with,” miyeon was right, you could’ve used something along the lines of ‘i need some time,’ that day instead of pulling out a bet right out of your ass, and now you don’t know how to save face. at least the fact that heeseung confessed first makes you feel a little better about yourself. “c’mon, i know you love challenges. i was just trying to see if it gets you turned on or something,” 

and heeseung scoffs in disbelief, eyeing you at your choice of words. “yeah, i feel very turned on knowing my crush dragged me into a bet that i’ve been working so hard for and she wasn’t even serious about it,” 

“working hard? from what i saw, the only thing you worked hard for was basketball,” you raise your brows, a taunting intonation in your voice. a part of you regrets the choice of words, knowing that basketball is seemingly quite a sensitive topic to bring up at the moment. albeit, the slight fear evaporates off when he laughs and dismisses your words and nothings. 

he leans a little closer, hands touching yours. “you never know what i’m up to at home,” 

a pause; you look in his eyes and then at his lips, he mirrors your actions with a smirk on his face. you guess that there’s a second meaning to his words, not sure what, but the look in his eyes tells you something about it. “i think we should get back to when you were talking mental and i was talking you down,” 

and you could grab his face and kiss him with no one around, on the unmaintained basketball court for the grey and cloudy skies to see. you could run your hands through his hairs and tell him how crazy he makes you while planting kisses down his neck. you can kiss him till both of your lungs are begging for oxygen, and that's when you'd tell him how he makes you feel— breathless and drowning, a little insane every time you see him flirting with someone that's not you. you can kiss him till the sun goes down and evening takes over, it doesn't matter if you're outside for the world to see. you would've kissed him if heeseung hadn't leaned back, looking at the ball lying stray at a distance.

“by the way, i’d love to date you,” he smiles at the infinite horizon before looking at you, as if waiting for a response already known.

“yeah, i figured that,” you try to play it cool as if you’re all knowing. it’s partially true, he did confess to you first. “let’s make another bet: no kissing before finals, and the one who ends up giving in first has to buy dinner,” you come up with yet another bet, your voice hinting the enthusiasm for no apparent reason.  

heeseung squints at you, a little conflicted, quite unsure of your words. it sounds like a moment of deja vu, hopefully on a better note this time ‘round. “that’s not even valid, we made out not even a week ago,” 

“let bygones be bygones, hee,” he likes the sound of the little nickname you've given him, unlike bygones, the word you use to refer to your very first kiss with him as if it's an unfortunate memory. “it’s decided then, no kissing before finals and the loser has to buy dinner, and i won’t be satisfied with anything less than a five star meal,” 

you squint, index finger pointing at him, a challenging composure. another chuckle from him makes it’s way to you, lips curling into a faint smile. it takes you all the way back to the day you placed your first bet with him, with head empty and no logic, for the entirety of the basketball team to see, hear, and talk about it as if it’s supposed to be on the headlines of the national newspaper. your eyes spark up in anticipation, wondering if the two of you are down for another bet, one that doesn’t proceed towards failure, hopefully.

“the last time you did something like this, you ended up running back to me and asking me to date you,” he scoffs softly, side-eyeing you with a mocking gaze, quite ready to pull out the receipts if you ever deny his words. you hate how correct he is, all the time, actually, and you hate how you don’t have words to argue back.

lee heeseung, a nobody to you till he switched to your department, just some student who was there to pass time until he started ranking above you on tests and flipped your whole world upside down. you tried to not think about him and failed every time— still beats you why. you’ve never let distractions get the best of you, but heeseung, perhaps he’s more than just a distraction, or maybe he isn’t a distraction at all. he’s like a plant in your garden that you could care less about— should care less about, it’s growing without harming your plants, but it’s creeping against a wall with pretty flowers for show, and before you know it, it’s demanding for all your attention that you offer without second thoughts, unwillingly at first. 

he’s the bane of your existence and object of all your desires, to put it simply and make it sound cliché. you’ve had your moments trying to run away from him, get him out of your head, annoy him to the point he’d prefer flying to the other side of the globe, or that could be you too, anywhere, far from him. but life, for the thousandth time, is unpredictable. when was the last time something worked out exactly how you had planned— can’t remember, obviously, just like the way you don’t remember when heeseung started occupying a corner of your brain, popping in and out at random times and disrupting your thought process. the more you tried to ignore him, the further he housed in your head, the deeper in your heart, closer, within your reach, as if for you to grab his hands and let him enter your side of the world. 

and so, you kiss him again, pulling him towards you with the collars of his jacket. you feel him smile, a triumphant smile, as expected from someone who is used to winning. you don't think you can say you've lost, not at the way he cups your cheeks and tilts his head to deepen the kiss just moments before you pull away. “i always run back to you, don’t i?” 

and you're a child infatuated with their favourite sport, a painter falling in love with strokes, a pianist dancing to the melody of rachmaninoff, a student addicted to getting a perfect score, a player addicted to winning. you trace back to things you like, you always run back to heeseung,

and you always would. 

TEN MINUTES LATER :

heeseung plants a soft peck on your lips. “dinner’s on you,” 

“fuck!” 

[bunny-ology]

I started off in college as an education major wanting to be a middle school science teacher, but ended up quitting that because of how ableist the major was.

I switched to an agriculture degree because I grew up on a farm, and during 2020 I was constantly at home and convinced myself I could physically do the work, and I completed that degree despite the professors being ableist and morally questionable.

While I was an Ag major, I was working for the geology museum on campus, and decided to get my Masters degree in museum studies. During my studies, I realized how disabled people are constantly left out of deai discussions in the museum field, only ever seen as potential visitors and never potential workers, and so I finished my degree with independent research into how disabled staff are treated.

During my last semester in grad school, I started working as a substitute teacher and realized that my education major professors were wrong; I as a disabled person can totally be a teacher without a problem. My grad school advisor also told me that a lot of myself professionals go back and forth between the school system and museums. So I'm taking the leap to try to become a teacher

I just took my GACE (the Georgia certification test) and passed at a professional level! Once I am hired by a school, I will start taking the remainder of classes that I need to be considered a full fledged teacher

I've literally just made a circle, but the agriculture and museum studies degrees are still a huge help to me as a science educator. Other than space, agriculture perfectly set me up to understand everything required for students to learn and places me in a good spot to introduce an FFA chapter to the school, while my museum studies degree has allowed me to see education from a different perspective than my coworkers in order to more adequately come up with ideas in joint discussions. Additionally, I included disability and deai research in almost everything I did from work to school, and as a disabled person myself, I feel that my understanding of accessibility and empathy for other disabled people has prepared me more for interacting with disabled students in my classes.

Not a single bit of my journey was for naught, and I no longer feel ashamed or regretful towards my agriculture degree. I'm also excited to continue learning and eventually helping others to learn too

[ryan-nugenthopkins]

"What electives did you take in your undergrad? I know there's some requirements for English in American -" "I took ballet," Jeremy blurts out. "For my art elective." Dr. Ullmark blinks. Rubs his eyes. "Ballet," he repeats. "I played hockey in undergrad," says Jeremy meekly. "Goalie. The - the ankle flexibility -" "Yes, I can see the value of... dance, for netminding," interrupts Dr. Ullmark, but there's the start of a smile dancing on his lips. "I'm not sure how useful ballet will be for Scandinavian poetry, but I'm sure we can make it work together?" Jeremy's fucked. In more ways than one.

Dr. Linus Ullmark is in… a state of a transition. Being a sessional lecturer at a school better known for its biology programs than its literature research is fine for now. He just needs hear back on that professorship in Ottawa. Or the applications for positions back in Sweden. Or even that research fellowship in Norway, of all places. Until then, he’ll grit his teeth and keep teaching introductory comparative literature at Boston University, because something better is bound to come eventually.

It’s only classic for administration to drop a random TA into his lap after he’s specifically said that he doesn’t need one. It’s even better that this Jeremy Swayman is a PhD candidate from the natural sciences faculty, and likely can’t tell expressionism from surrealism. But making ends meet as a grad student is difficult enough, and if the paycheque isn't coming out of his research grants, Linus really wouldn’t mind an extra body during seminars. All the guy has to do is sit in on lectures and answer student emails. How bad could it be?

Two things go wrong at the very start — Jeremy knows less about literature than Linus could even fathom, and he is painfully earnest about trying his best to be a good TA despite this fact. At least he’s cute, even if Linus would prefer maybe 40% of his current energy.

It's fine. Linus just needs to get through this semester like a professional.

Jeremy Swayman is a PhD student studying Environmental Science at Boston University, and he’s damn good at it. It’s a shame that living in Boston is as expensive as it is, but he’s been able to supplement his scholarships with teaching labs around the department for the past two years of his degree. But when his usual positions fall out from under him, the university presents him a TA position in the Literature department, of all things. Jeremy can’t do anything but lie egregiously about his qualifications and accept it. How hard could an introductory comparative literature course be to bullshit, anyway?

Of course, it then goes to shit almost immediately when Dr. Ullmark clocks him as embarrassingly underqualified. But he hires him anyway, and Dr. Ullmark has a quiet but wicked sense of humour, and is ever so patient when walking through the course assignments with him, and doesn’t laugh meanly at his attempts at pronouncing the author names on the reading list, and —

Jeremy may be falling a little too fast. For an Arts prof, of all people.

As the semester begins, will Linus and Jeremy figure out how to run the course together despite their differences? And is something else brewing on the horizon?

Academia AU Swaymark for @ullybug :3

[iam93percentstardust]

On Plagiarism and Academia

Welp, I watched hbomberguy's new video (just like everyone else). And... I loved it! (Go figure) It's a great video, he's genuinely funny and presents the information in an engaging way (I barely even noticed it had been four hours), and we need the information he presented very badly to remind us to independently verify the things we're listening to. But something that he said really struck me because it's something that I'm dealing with in my offline life right now. Disclaimer: this is a hypothesis generated from my own personal observations and experiences and isn't meant to be a sweeping statement of every single academic institution across the entire world.

He seemed really surprised that no one (or very few people) noticed that the Youtubers he was calling out were plagiarizing other people. Like. Really surprised. And at one point, he made the argument that maybe that was because plagiarism was viewed only as a problem in academia, so people assumed it wasn't a problem online and weren't looking for it.

And that hit a chord because the thing is, at least in my small corner of the world, I don't think that plagiarism is a problem in academia. Or, rather, I don't think academia views plagiarism as a problem anymore.

So, if you've been following me for a while, you know I have a whole tag about my struggles in grad school. I've been a grad student for the last six years at [insert major university here], and because my lab doesn't have any funding to pay me, I've been employed as a TA all six years to pay my salary. At this school, in my department, TAs are expected to proctor exams--every single exam for the course and frequently one additional exam from another class.

If we see cheating, we're not supposed to call it out in the middle of the exam. Instead, at the end of the exam, we're supposed to take the student's scantron and hand it over to the professor and give them an estimate on how certain we are the student was cheating so they can pass it on to the university, which, in every syllabus of every class, states they take a hardline stance on cheating and plagiarism. (Yes, I know I'm talking about cheating on exams, which isn't the same thing as plagiarism, but I swear I'll loop back around to it in a minute.)

During the first exam I ever proctored during my first semester of my first year in 2018 (this was three weeks into the semester), I caught a student cheating. Like. Blatantly cheating. Cheating so badly that over a dozen separate people came up to me at the end of the exam to tell me that she was cheating, just in case I hadn't seen it myself. I did exactly what I was supposed to.

I took the student's scantron.

I turned it into the professor and told her that I was 100% certain and had witnesses to back me up.

She gave it to the university.

...And the university came back and said that they weren't going to do an investigation and were just going to let the student take the exam again, this time with a different proctor because they felt I was biased against this student because of the "very serious accusations [she] had leveled against [me] of singling her out for her race." (Newsflash: the student cheated again with that different proctor and got away with it again)

During that first year that I spent as a TA, I reported eight different instances of cheating across six separate exams. Every single one, I was 100% positive that the student had been cheating, and on five of the occasions, I had student witnesses to support my accusation. The university tossed every single accusation out without even a cursory investigation or even filing a report. Oh yeah, really hardline stance there, university.

For the most part (and partially because of distance learning), I stopped reporting cheating, but I tried one more time this past spring to report two cheaters and got back the same result that I did my first year: not even an investigation to see if there was any merit into my claim because they're "busy."

I don't report cheating to the university anymore. They've more than shown me that they don't actually take cheating seriously even when I have more than a dozen people supporting me. Even when I have students half out of their chairs to see what the person in front of them is writing. Even when I have students with their phones out on the desks, looking things up. The university doesn't care, so why should the students?

So how do I loop this back into the discussion on plagiarism? Well, yesterday, while grading my students' final papers, I ran one of them through a plagiarism checker, and it pinged the radar. Two sentences were a direct quote and hadn't been listed in quotations or been cited in the body of the text. If I scrolled through the (long) list of citations at the bottom of the paper, I could find the source, but if it hadn't pinged the checker, I would never have known that those two sentences weren't their own.

The lack of the quotations and the source after the quote is what kicks this over the line into plagiarism, regardless of the source in the later bibliography (the same thing that got Illuminaughtii in trouble on hbomberguy's video). But I was willing to assume it was an honest mistake, and so I emailed the student to ask them to please add the proper citation and resubmit the paper.

This should have taken the student maybe--at most--five minutes to fix. Literally, all it needed was a set of quotation marks and a parenthetical aside with the author's name and year.

Instead, I got a response from the student telling me that they were very busy, it was finals week, and they weren't sure when they could get to it. Oh, and by the way, what grade would they get on the assignment if they didn't fix the source?

It was a stunning lack of regard for the error they'd made on their original submission, and now, because I'd brought it to their attention, if it wasn't fixed, it was willful plagiarism--and we both knew that! They can't claim ignorance or an accidental mistake anymore. We both know that they're passing off someone else's words as their own!

I emailed them back and told them if it wasn't fixed, it would be a 0, and then I messaged the instructor and asked her what happens now? Her response was as disheartening as my previous experience with the university's response to cheating: they'll dismiss it, regardless of their supposed hardline stance, and nothing will happen. Don't even bother reporting it; the most we can do is give the student the 0 I'd already threatened.

So there you have it. This particular university doesn't care if you cheat or plagiarize. Academic dishonesty doesn't mean anything to them--and the students know it. Every year the topic of cheating comes up with my students during my office hours, and every time, the students complain about how their sorority sisters and football team members and fellow classmates get away with cheating over and over and over again because they know the university won't do anything about it, so why should they bother maintaining any kind of integrity? I even asked them if they reported it to their proctors and instructors, and while I got back a few yeses, I got even more why bothers. What's the point of reporting it if nothing is going to happen?

To loop this back into hbomberguy's video, I don't think as few people noticed the plagiarism as he thinks. I think quite a few people noticed (and looking through the comments on the various videos of the James Somerton scandal, not just hbomberguy's, I do see more than a couple comments along those lines). The thing is, I think they kept that to themselves. And though I do think that part of that has to do with the mob mentality of fandoms on the internet and the fear of getting attacked for pointing out something shitty that someone else is doing, I think a lot of it also comes down to this: plagiarism is thought to be an academia problem, therefore the way the academics respond to plagiarism should be what we look to to deal with the same problem elsewhere. But if the way the academics respond to plagiarism is to ignore it and sweep the reports under the rug, then why would we ever think that Youtube, of all places, would deal with it any better?

[heich0e]

tags: smut, f!reader, oral (f!receiving), slight exhibitionism, slight coercion (reader is reluctant but easily swayed), mentions of slightly toxic relationship dynamic, this was inspired by @andypantsx3 and @mydiluc so credit where credit is due!!, word count 2.4k, 18+ MINORS AND AGELESS BLOGS DO NOT INTERACT

the door to the spare bedroom in your apartment (that in the past few years has doubled as a makeshift office, a storage room, and has very seldom actually hosted a guest) creaks open, and out of pure instinct you temporarily turn off the video feed from your end of the zoom call. 

"i'm bored," eren pouts, slumping against the doorframe with his hands shoved into the front pocket of his hoodie.

"eren, i'm in a meeting," you whisper, even though your microphone has been muted for the majority of the video conference (and will likely remain that way until it concludes.)

"you're always in meetings," he complains, slinking a little bit further into the spare room and closer to you.

"eren, that's because i have a job," you sigh, pinching the bridge of your nose, "meetings are part of being employed."

eren makes an indignant little sound. his lips flattening in what you recognize as offence. 

"baby, i didn't mean it like that," you say softly, remorse seeping into your words. 

eren doesn't work. he's supported by his family, old old money, and has been picking away at a master's degree for the past few years that with every passing day you wonder if he'll ever actually finish--not that you'd ever tell him that, and not that it really matters considering he technically never has to work a day in his life and he'll still have more wealth to his name than most people could ever hope to accumulate. 

you didn't grow up in a family like eren's. didn't have the same privileges and safeguards and assurances that he's had all his life. you went to university on a scholarship. worked your ass off to maintain it. fought for competitive internships that would make you more appealing to prospective employers, and graduated with a good GPA that sweetened the deal. 

you met eren in your sophomore year, though his reputation absolutely preceded him–he was well known among the students not only for his family's name (the same name on multiple buildings across campus), but his good looks and his charm made him a bit notorious. you knew he didn't take school particularly seriously, but loved partying. and after a long (relentless) pursuit on his part that spanned the better part of the fall term, you finally agreed to a date after he half-jokingly threatened to enrol in all the same courses as you the following semester (a threat which, to this day, you're uncertain was really much of a joke at all.)

and now it's been years since the two of you got together. to the point that it's hard to remember a time without him at all. 

but those differences in your upbringings, in your work ethics, are still something that the two of you often have to work through. eren would prefer you didn't work at all--or at least didn't work quite so hard, or quite so much--but you enjoy working. sure the job you'd snagged as a new grad wasn't the most lucrative position, but it was entry level at a great company and there was opportunity for advancement which you planned to take full advantaged of. it was a competitive opening in your field and you'd managed to get the job all on your own--even in spite of eren begging you to let him ask his dad to call in a favour on your behalf.

eren sees no issue in using his family name in his (and those closest to him's) best interest. you'd prefer to earn things on your own merit.

the fundamental divide between the two of you.

eren eyes you mistrustfully from the edge of your desk, still sulking from your comment. 

"i really didn't mean it like that," you insist, reaching out towards him. "i just meant that there are parts of having a job you can't change."

eren slinks into your grasp, letting you wind your arms around his waist and burrow your face into his tummy from your seat in your desk chair. the video call in the background hasn't made much progress since you tuned it out, so you're not overly worried about what you might be missing. 

the soft material of eren's hoodie brushes against your cheeks, and his hands cradle the back of your head to hold you against him. 

"i know you didn't mean it like that," eren hums above you, and you tilt your face up so your chin rests just above his navel so you can peek up at him. "i just feel like i never see you anymore."

"eren we see each other every day," you reply, brow furrowing in confusion. you work hybrid in-office/work from home, and with eren picking away leisurely at his masters dissertation his days are mostly spent at home "researching" (playing video games.)

"but you're always so busy," eren pouts, his large hands cupping your cheeks. his thumbs stroke the hollows below your eyes. "you work so hard."

you tilt your face into his touch, your cheek squishing against his palm. he presses a little firmer against either one of your cheeks until your lips pucker, and chuckles softly to himself -- a quiet little 'heh'.

"is your call boring?" eren asks, his eyes sliding to the computer screen in front of you where the call is continuing. 

"ah widd'l," you say, your cheeks still smushed together in his hands. he eases up his grip, brushing some hair back from your face. you sigh, turning in your desk chair and looking back to your computer. "i haven't even really said much. i never do in these meetings since it's mainly advertising and marketing execs, but attendance is mandatory for my team." 

"so you don't have to say anything?"

you hum, reaching forward and clicking on the chat box to see what new messages have popped up since you've been distracted. there are a few links in the conversation and you click to open them in a new window to review after the call concludes. 

eren crouches down beside you, dragging your chair back slightly from the desk. 

"eren, what are you doing?" you ask him, flushing as he pushes your knees apart and squeezes his broad frame in between them. from the waist up you’re dressed in normal work clothes, but you hadn’t bothered to put on proper bottoms that morning so all you have on your lower half is a silky pair of pyjama shorts (one of the perks of working from home.)

“i wanna give you head,” he says, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. he reaches for the waistband of your shorts but you stop him with a hand on either wrist.

“eren!” you hiss, your eyes flickering to your screen again just to double—triple—check that your mic is muted and your camera is really properly off. it is, but it still brings you little comfort with the faces of your company’s executives plastered across your computer screen.

“what?” he asks, pouting. he rests his cheek against the plushness of your thigh. “why can’t i?” 

“i’m working. i’m in a meeting.”

“that you don’t need to talk in, and that your camera is off for,” he counters, his lithe fingers snaking up the leg of your teeny tiny shorts—he grins when he realizes you’re not wearing panties underneath. his breath is hot and humid on your skin, and the look in his eyes makes your stomach feel tight. 

“eren, i can’t—” 

“you don’t have to do anything,” he smoothly interrupts, the tip of his finger stroking softly up your slit underneath your shorts. “just let me take care of you, my professional, hardworking girl.”

eren was blessed with a silver tongue to go along with the silver spoon he’d been raised with in his mouth. you know you shouldn’t. that it would be an egregious act of misconduct to go along with what he’s saying. but before you can even think to refuse him your silky shorts are hanging off your ankle and your legs are looped over his broad shoulders, slumped back in your desk chair as eren licks long, broad stripes through the sopping wet petals of your pussy. 

“eren, eren—!“ you choke on a pealing moan, your fingers tangling in his soft hair and tugging firmly against the strands. he’s always so slow to take you apart, so dilligent in the way he presses his tongue against you, so methodical about the way that he skirts around your clit—brushing it but never giving it quite the stimulation you want—which only makes you more desperate and needy for him.

just the way he likes you.

“you taste so good,” he murmurs against your cunt, wet and sloppy as he drags his tongue up to collect your slick and his spit along it. he swallows animatedly, like he’s making a big show of it. “do you know how good you taste?”

you shake your head in a trembling little show of dissent. 

he hums. “so good. sweetest little pussy on earth.”

he dips his fingertips inside of you, letting you get just a taste of the stretch before he’s pulling them out again. he holds them up to your face so you can see the shine of fluid clinging to his skin, down to the first knuckle. 

“taste it, baby.”

he presses against your lips and you welcome the digits in. you wouldn’t call the taste sweet by any stretch of the imagination. there’s a headiness to it. a tang. something familiar to the taste that’s not unpleasant. 

eren pushes his fingers back so far in your mouth that you almost choke, but there’s something familiar in this too—you’re used to the prodding at the back of your tongue, the sudden intrusion just at the opening of your throat. he likes teasing you like this. dominating you in such a subtle way it feels like more of a game. you moan, and as your head tips back eren finally sucks hard against your neglected clit. 

your toes curl as they hover over the planes of his back, your spine bending and lifting your chest up towards the ceiling as it bows. eren slips his fingers, now soaked in your spit, back out from between your lips—leaving a little trail of saliva down your chin. eren rubs his slick fingertips against the swell of your clit, rubbing quick circles against it. 

the heat in the pit of your stomach kindles, the knot tightening in your core. 

“you gonna cum?” eren asks, pressing a contrastingly chaste kiss to your trembling thigh. “you gonna cum for me—“

“miss reader?” 

your last name shocks you like a splash of ice water across a circuit board.

both you and eren freeze, your eyes snapping to the computer in front of you. 

the call has gone quiet, and the senior ad executive is looking expectantly to the screen. 

“miss reader are you still there?” the executive repeats. 

frantically you push eren away from you, snapping your legs closed and pulling yourself up to the computer in your chair. you unmute your microphone after clearing your throat. 

“hello?” you say, your voice fluttery and flustered. “i’m here!”

the executive relaxes slightly, chuckling. “thought we’d lost you there!” 

“sorry, sorry,” you apologize, your shaking hands pressed over your eyes. “i’m having, um, some issues with my internet connection. keeping my camera off is helping but the call is still a little laggy on my end.”

the executive hums. “no worries, it happens to us all. just wondering if you have any updates on this quarter’s numbers?” 

you swallow, eyes flickering to eren who’s seated on the ground next to you, leaning against your desk with a sly grin on his face, palming at his cock through his sweatpants. 

“yes, of course,”—you nod even though your camera is still off, instinct more than logic—“the data is still raw, and we haven’t had a chance to properly analyze it yet since it’s still early, but i can forward the spreadsheet to everyone after the call?” 

you watch your colleagues all nod or make small noises of agreement from their sides of the screen.

“ok, sounds good. we’ll keep an eye out for it,” the advertising manager nods, and you see the end of his pen swivelling in the corner of the screen as he makes a note out of frame of his webcam. “now, moving onto the issue from last week’s meeting—“

you slam you mute button on once more, slumping back in your chair in relief. you toss your arm over your eyes, a throbbing between your temples the echoes the dull, unsatisfied ache between your legs. 

“good job, baby,” eren laughs, running a comforting hand up your bare thigh, fingertips kneading into the flesh. “you barely sounded like you were just about to cum.”

“eren, that wasn’t funny.”

eren pulls your chair back from your desk again, pressing a kiss to one knee and then the other. 

“i’m sorry,” he says softly, you pull your arm away from your eyes to peek down at him. he’s looking up at you with a wide-eyed, beseeching gaze. he rests his chin in the valley between your knees. “i didn’t mean to upset you.”

you sigh lightly. 

“i’m not upset,” you murmur, touching his cheek gently. he reaches up and places his hand over yours as it cups his face. “it was just stressful.”

eren tilts his face so he can press a kiss to your palm, then pulls your hand a little closer so he can press another to your wrist where your pulse pounds arrhythmically. 

“i know,—” 

eren nods as he peeks up at you through his lashes, the green of his gaze cool and comforting. the hand that’s not holding yours to his lips snakes easily between your knees, easing them ever so slightly apart. 

your breath hitches as the cool air catches on the remnants of spit and arousal that have smeared messily along your upper thighs. your stomach clenches. 

“—so just sit back and let me make it up to you.”

[hispanthicc]

I'm glad to hear you're feeling better now after your break up. I love guys like you whose weight gain has a direct landing in their bellies. Everything else on them is normal size, back, face, legs, feet, arms, hands. But when they turn around, there's this great big belly. Your watermelon belly looks astounding!

Well, I wouldn’t say that I feel better even though it was a few years ago. it was a 5 yr relationship and I was 100% planning to be with him for the rest of my life. Then he just threw me away lol. I’ll never get that time back and I still struggle with a lot of the harsh things he’s said to me and also a lot of his actions afterwards. In fact I got triggered a few days ago cuz I was going through my blocked list on a certain site and I saw him. His pfp pic was changed to a pic that showed his face. 1. I always had to beg him to send me a selfie. 2. He’s always been kinda ashamed of what he’s into and definitely was embarrassed to be seen with me or take pictures with me, especially in the end. So it kinda hurt my feelings I guess, but I’m just sensitive. I also feel terrible for even having any feelings about him at all but it takes a while to fully get over things. But he’s blocked on everything and I wish him the best. Every once in a while the photo cloud will show me a pic of him and I get triggered all over again. But at this point I’ve deleted everything.

I’ve mostly moved on and even my mom said that the best way to get over it and forget is to find someone else and that definitely was good advice. Unfortunately, though that hasn’t completely worked the way I would’ve liked and the past week has been a lot emotionally. I’ve been feeling lonely and horny, I’ve also just felt very left out. Some of it’s my fault cuz anxiety and sometimes just funds lol. I also suck at getting close to people. Abandonment issues or whatever. I also don’t just dive into anything it takes me a long time to just be like I’m okay and ready but I can’t and don’t expect anyone to wait for me to be ready and of course the consequence of that is they move on lol. Which is fine and dandy or whatever but I’m just experiencing a lot of emotions lately that I’ve never felt before and I don’t know how to handle any of it.

Anyways gaining and focusing on my body has definitely helped a little cuz I do feel a little more confident sometimes. I lost a lot after the break up and that definitely made me hate myself but I also thought maybe he’d come back if I did but he said I didn’t match his aesthetic (LOL) but he didn’t come back in fact after he dumped me he went to London lol. Literally within weeks. Didn’t even tell me which I guess he didn’t have to in retrospect but he kinda led me on for months making me think we’d get back together. Idk I was ignoring a lot because I wanted to be with him so bad.

Anyways fast forward I went to a film festival in Canada which got me inspired by life again. Enrolled in grad school the following year. Finished the first year and here we are.

I think I noticed I started to gain again during my first semester back in school. Like one day I just woke up and I was bigger. I noticed it in my face write away. It’s kinda hard gaining on a student budget lol but I did the best I could.

I’m not like super big or anything but I’m more filled out all over. Most importantly though, I feel very cute and pretty.

Sorry for this long ass post I know you probably didn’t want to hear the personal stuff. But it’s the internet. The land of over sharing.

[waterfire1848]

omgomgomg i wanna ask one ship prompt!! okay okay

20. azula (college student) / katara (oceanograpy professor)

heated debate and maybe angry doing-the-nasty?????? 👀

Hello, @ragzonacamrencruise !! Here you go!

Modern AU setting and note that the sex scene isn’t explicit by any means but it is there so…don’t want to see don’t read

Katara set her belongings down on her desk, pushing her hair back which had fallen in her face when she leaned down. Her heart was pounding in her chest while she stood in front of the long table. Before her were four wide rows of seats, all of which had one long desk, in the shape of a half circle, from one end of the room to the other. The only space left on the sides of the room were for the stairs so students could walk up to the front of the classroom or the back.

Katara took a final look down at her phone. 10:20 am. Her class would be starting in about ten minutes. Her very first class on oceanography. Katara brushed her hand through her hair one final time. She really, really had to make a good impression on her students. The school had been nervous to hire someone so young, Katara was 24 having just finished grad school, but agreed while promising to keep an eye on her. There was no misunderstanding their tone: You screw this up and we fire you and blacklist you from teaching at every university.

That's why she was so nervous when the first student walked in and took her seat, choosing to sit in the front row. The woman had long black hair with golden eyes and wore a red jacket, black shirt and jeans. She took her seat then proceeded to pull out everything she needed.

"Excuse me. Should you be back there?" She asked, "The professor will get mad if she finds out you were messing with her things."

"I am the professor." Katara said, "My name is Katara South. You can call me Professor South." She smiled, but the student still looked confused.

"You're teaching this class? Are you like a teaching aid or something?"

"No. I'm 24. I got my degree and decided I wanted to teach what I learned at college so here I am." Katara said, "What's your name?"

"Azula Agni." The student said, "I'm a senior."

"Ah and why are you interesting in oceanography?" Katara asked.

"I'm not." Wow. She didn't need to say it so bluntly, "I'm just taking this class because I need an easy one." Azula explained.

"Easy? This is advanced oceanography." Katara told her, "It'll get pretty challenging." Azula scoffed, rolling her eyes.

"I'm not afraid of a few tests or pop quizzes." Azula grinned, "I'll probably end this class with a perfect A+."

"We'll see." Katara said, a smile growing on her face.

Was it childish to be feuding with a student? Yes. Did Katara care? No. Well, she kind of did because Azula could easily report her and get her fired but there was no way she was letting Azula know that.

Slowly, the other students began to fill the room and take their seats. Katara spent the first day telling the students a little about herself, the tests, paper and final they would be doing.

“I hope you all have a great semester in my class! If you ever have any questions or concerns or problems you can come talk to me at any point in time. I encourage you to come talk to me instead of suffering on your own.” Katara chuckled, “As someone who just graduated grad school I know how importance it is to get those moments to rest. I hope I’ll get to see all of you tomorrow for our next class!” The students all stood up and began to walk out.

Katara heard the students begin to whisper and talk as they walked out of the room. However, Katara couldn’t pull her eyes away from Azula. In all fairness, Azula was looking at Katara as well. Her golden eyes never left Katara’s blue ones the entire time she packed up.

“See you tomorrow, Professor.” Azula said, standing up and leaving the room

———————————

Azula wasn’t kidding when she said that she wouldn’t have a problem with the class. She was easily one of, if not, the best student in the class. Constantly turning everything in a day in advance, including paragraphs of explanations and arriving to class every day.

Then, one day, she didn’t show up. Katara definitely noticed her absence but it was to be expected. Students wouldn’t show up all the time. But when Azula missed every class, Katara grew nervous. She send over an email to her twice and received nothing.

Finally, Azula returned but she was different. She was quiet and missing her classic snark. When Katara put everyone in groups, Azula’s group came to her at the end of the class and told her Azula didn’t do any work.

“Azula. Can you stay here for a few minutes?” Katara called.

“Sure.” Katara waited for everyone to leave before she sat down next to Azula.

“Azula? What’s wrong? You missed class, you aren’t talking and you didn’t do any work in today’s group work.” She said.

“My apologies.” Azula said. Her breathing was weird, as if she was keeping herself from crying, “It’s been a…difficult time. I’ll be better next class.”

“Azula, I just want to know what’s going on. You’re the best student here. I want to know as much as I can so I can-“

“You won’t care. It’s just petty college stuff.” Azula scoffed.

“Do you think it’s been like a decade since I was in college? I was in my senior year three years ago.” Katara tried to add a little laugh to her voice but Azula remained quiet, “Please.”

“My friends blocked me on everything and they said they don’t want to talk to me. I…I don’t have any friends now.” Her voice was quiet but Katara could still hear the sadness in her voice.

“I’m so sorry, Azula. Is there anything I can do?” Probably not much she could do, even if she was a professor, but it seemed like the right thing to say here.

“Could I eat lunch in here?” Azula asked.

Katara blinked her eyes in shocked, “Umm sure. Of course you can.” Much to Katara’s surprise, Azula launched forward and hugged her. Katara found herself wrapping her own arms around the woman.

“Oh. I umm…I should get going.” Azula pushed herself away from Katara, got up and ran out of the room, leaving Katara a little shocked but mostly happy. She didn’t know why but it filled her with warmth to know she could spend more time with Azula.

——————————---

The longer the months went on, the more Katara found herself staying after class with Azula for longer periods of time. Their conversations started with topics from class then fell into conversations about their own lives and experiences.

“No way! Is your brother Zuko Agni?” Katara asked. The two were sitting across from one another at a table in the classroom. They had started off talking about their own education, respectively, and the subject turned somehow to their brothers.

“Yes. My deepest apologies to you if you know him.”

“He dated my brother for a few months. They broke up when Sokka left after grad school.” Katara told her.

“Oh, I remember. He refused to listen to anything that wasn’t some sad and depressing breakup song. I thought I was going to lose my mind.” Azula groaned.

“If it’s any consolation I had to endure Sokka texting me 50 times a day asking if he made the right decision. One of the smartest people I know and one of the most indecisive.” Katara chuckled, "So, how are finals going?"

"Decent. Your final is looking to be my easiest." Azula said.

"Oh, really?"

"Yup. It'll be fun to easily ace this." Katara only rolled her eyes.

"Don't get cocky. The final might be harder than you think." Katara warned.

"You're a professor. Aren't you supposed to say that I'm such a good student and I'll have no trouble as long as I study?" Azula asked.

"All those things are true." Katara admitted, "But if you get overconfident then won't do as well on the final. I might have some tricks up my sleeve that you don't know about."

That was the moment both of them realized how close their were to each other. Azula moved her face forward while Katara moved back, making them both blush.

"I should get back to my room. You have my email if you have any questions about the final." Katara quickly said, grabbing her things and racing out of the room. Did Azula just try to kiss her? No. No, she had to have been imagining things. There's no way Azula did that, "She is pretty beautiful." Katara whispered.

"No." She shook her head as though that would get the thought out of her head, "No, Azula doesn't like you. Stop fooling yourself. You're acting like an idiot!" She snapped. Katara forced herself to continue doing her work and stop thinking about Azula. She only had a week left with the woman anyway before the last day of college and only three weeks until Azula graduated.

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

Katara would never admit it but she was sad when she posted those final exam scores. Not because the scores were bad, though there was one student who made her want to cry and scream when she read through their final, but because she would miss her class. Other professor's told her that it stopped being all that meaningful when she had been there for a few years, but, still, Katara couldn't help but find herself saddened when she send out everyone's final scores.

'Maybe there's another person you're sad you'll never see again.' Her brain supplied.

"Shut up." Katara mumbled. Though it was true, she was saddened that she'd never see Azula again, "That's just how things go sometimes. I need to accept that." She tried to speak in her most commanding voice, forcing herself to accept the fact that Azula had probably long forgotten about her as well.

Meanwhile, across town, Katara couldn't have been further from the truth when Azula opened her email to read her final exam score.

"WHAT!?!"

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

It was a calm day, a peaceful and quiet day. Katara was sitting on her couch, reading through a book when someone began pounding on her door. Confused, and a bit scared if she was honest, Katara slowly approached the door only to see Azula through the peep hole.

“Azula?” Katara asked, “What are you doing here? Is everything okay?”

“No! Because you took points off on the exam when I got the question right!” Azula walked into Katara’s apartment, allowing Katara to shut the door behind her.

“Excuse me?” Katara asked.

“Right here.” Katara looked at where Azula was pointing to see that she had the final exam up on her phone and was pointing to a specific equation, “I got the question right but you marked it as incorrect!”

"You are wrong!" Katara yelled.

"How do you study this stuff and not know that I'm right!?!" Azula yelled back, "Right here. You asked 'when did the first photosynthetic organism come into being?' and I said 'when the Earth's atmosphere and the shallow ocean first experienced a rise in the concentration of oxygen.'"

"And that's wrong!" Katara told her, "You needed to give me the exact name of what it's called. There are a lot of things you could have called it The Great Oxidation Event or Great Oxygenation Event or Oxygen Catastrophe, but you wrote none of that!"

“It’s the same thing!”

“Do you not understand how college works?! You had to write what the term was called! You didn’t and you lost points!”

“That’s ridiculous!”

“Deal with it! Accept your lost points and the fact that you rushed through the exam and didn’t read every instruction!”

“You’re the one who put instructions there meant to trip people up!”

“Or did you just not read because you thought my exam would be so easy?!”

By now both Katara and Azula’s faces were inches apart. Katara’s eyes momentarily fell down to Azula’s lips. Azula did the same then forced her eyes back to Katara. Only a second of silence existed between the two before they began kissing.

“I thought you didn’t want this?” Azula asked.

“And I thought you knew to read through instructions.” Katara grinned.

Katara brought Azula to the couch, causing her to fall back on the it. The two locked themselves into a makeout session that showed no sign of stopping. If anything it was getting stronger especially when the two began removing their clothing. Katara removing her shirt gave the okay for Azula to do the same.

“Can I?” Katara moved her hands to the back of Azula’s bra.

“Go ahead.” Thanks to years of experience, Katara undid the clasp with ease and tossed Azula’s bra to the side. One of her hands went behind Azula’s head for support and the other went to Azula’s chest.

“W-Wait.” Azula bit her lip to keep from groaning.

“What?” Katara sat back up, allowing Azula to use her free hands and remove her pants.

“Woah.” Katara whispered. She was beautiful.

A blush covered Azula’s face when she realized Katara wasn’t removing any other items of clothing, “Are-Are you okay with…us going there?” Azula asked, now suddenly feeling very self conscious and grabbing her shirt to put in front of her body.

Gently, Katara pushed her shirt away and kissed Azula, “Yes.”

Once again, the two girls were locked into kissing one another. Azula, having found Katara’s bra strap, also removed that and flung her bra to the floor. Katara’s pants weren’t far behind, leaving both woman completely naked.

“Ugh!” Katara moaned slightly when Azula pushed her body down so that she was under Katara’s chest, “God!” She bit her lip to keep from groaning too much, “Hey.” Azula pushed herself back up to be eye to eye with Katara.

“What?”

“I can’t let you do all the work.” The woman grinned, kissing Azula once more.

“Tell me if I should stop.” Katara whispered, moving her hands below Azula’s waist.

To anyone outside the apartment, it was probably very easy to guess what they were doing based on the sounds from inside, especially Azula’s groans, but neither woman could bring themselves to care or even think about the neighbor’s opinions.

“I’m guessing this is good.” Katara smirked, using her free hand to push herself up a bit and away from Azula’s lips.

Azula didn’t even respond, just pulled Katara back down to her as if the woman sitting up meant she was about to leave forever. Katara was sure though that she heard Azula moan ‘don’t stop’. After a minute, Azula forced herself to stop kissing Katara, only clinging to her as the woman kissed her neck.

"Can we...god...move this to the bedroom?" She asked, trying as hard as she could to force down her groans.

"Of course." Katara smiled.

Sometime later, both woman found themselves naked and breathing heavily in Katara's bed.

"If I had known this would happen, I would have come over months ago." Katara turned on her side to face Azula.

“You liked me that long ago?” She asked.

“Of course. I found you incredibly beautiful when I first came to your class but I suspected we could do anything because of university policy.” Azula said.

“You suspected correct.” Katara confirmed, “I could have been fired for dating a student.”

Azula winced, “Wow. Really great we didn’t get together then.” She said, “But I am really happy this happened. Are you okay…I mean was this good…I-I mean-“

Katara cut Azula off by kissing her, “I think you’re smart enough to figure out if I want to date you.” She grinned.

Azula smiled right back at Katara, “I’m sure I’ll get this question right.”

[redfurrycat]

🤠🪅👨🐓Sugar Daddy Fic Recs🐓👨🪅🤠

Check the Top Gun Masterlist post for the latest updated version. 💕

Ao3 Authors: Chase_acow, Ginnydear, Hangmanbradshaw, LulaluzHazel, Mackwinnon, Renai_chan, Thegeckbros.

I'm a babygirl in a daddy's world > Daddy Klnk

leave me with some kind of proof it's not a dream by ginnydear {E}

“Getting old,” she replies, humming again. “I guess that means you’re entering a new era of hook-ups though.” “What on earth are you talking about?” Bradley asks, turning down the television. “Come on Bradley, you know you’re gonna find some hot twenty-something who wants you to fu-” “Okay!” Bradley says, laughing a bit as Natasha sputters and laughs too. “I get it. You don’t have to continue.” “Don’t be such a prude,” Natasha says primly. “I was going to say ‘fund their grad school dreams’ before you so rudely cut me off.”

The Only Exception by mackwinnon {E}

Organized crime AU. Escort Jake meets Bradley in a club while he's with another client. Bradley's instantly intrigued and makes Jake an offer he can't refuse. It's just business. Until it isn't.

nothing’s good until it hurts by thegeckbros {E}  

there's money for the taking (and the happiness we all deserve)

“So, what, one of the richest dudes in New York wants to be your sugar daddy?” “Kinda?” Jake sits back up, straightening up and turning his body towards Javy. “He doesn’t want like sex or anything. He just needs someone to pretend to date so his uncle and PR team get off his back about his reputation.” Or a sugar daddy au in which jake is a struggling law student, bradley's a billionaire, and they weave a tangled web

you do it all your life and you never get through it

The silver lining, if there is one to be had, about watching his dad die in front of him is that the worst thing to ever happen to Bradley is over before his life has really begun. Every shitty breakup or spectacular fuckup, every broken bone or missed flight. None of it will ever come close to even touching the worst day of Bradley’s life. And then, 15 years after the worst thing that’s ever happened to him, it all happens again. Or scenes from bradley's life, before and after jake

We're Crashing Like Waves by Renai_chan {M}

Jake is a movie star looking to get some surfing lessons and Bradley is a surfer living a quiet life in Hawaii. Like the land and the sea, they come together on the edges of O‘ahu.

Sugar Daddy Bradshaw by chase_acow {E}

Cutting to the Chase

“I’ll agree to pay for one semester if you make me look good and let me touch your ass. I suppose I’ll have to live with the disappointment of no blowjob,” Bradshaw sighed, his shoulders slumping as he adopted a hangdog expression, for exactly five seconds before he grinned again. “But think about it. I can’t be your sugar daddy if you don’t give me the sugar.” “You’d be interested in something long term?” Jake asked doubtfully, wondering if he’d somehow been involved in a terrible accident and this was all a hallucination from his desperate brain low on oxygen. “Based on what I’ve seen so far, you might be sweet enough to pay through to your doctorate,” Bradshaw said with a shrug of his shoulders as if he didn’t care one way or another about throwing a hundred thousand dollars at someone he just met.

Party Favor

Bradley needed him to go to New York on a business trip, but first Jake had to have a suit that wouldn’t make the people they were meeting laugh. So Jake spent a very uncomfortable afternoon at the tailor playing a life-sized Ken doll while Bradley and the old man with too many straight pins talked about him like he wasn’t there. The suits he ended up with each cost more than his car. The bruises he ended up with when Bradley pulled him into the changing room and lifted him up to wrap his legs around his waist had faded by the time Jake got on the private plane for the trip. Earning his membership to the mile high club was kinda cool, too.

Ride 'Em Cowboy

Bradley had some work to finish, but he joined Jake in time to start the football game. As the Longhorns ran out on the field, Jake found himself sitting pretty in Bradley’s lap. His skin felt a hundred times more sensitive after staying naked and having Bradley prime him for so long. The mustache at the nape of his neck made him shiver. “Do you think you can come once for each quarter?” Bradley asked, hands on Jake’s knees to situate them to his liking. He licked his palm and then took Jake in hand, “I think you can do it.” * “Your team’s winning, baby. What do you have to cry about?” Bradley teased after they’d watched more of the game. One hand pet across Jake’s belly while the other twisted Jake’s head around so he could lick at Jake’s tears. “Is it too much?”

Know Better

“You can come, but I am not fucking you in my mom’s home,” Jake said, leaning into his stern voice. He’d learned enough about how to wrangle the older man in the last couple of months to know he had to start out solid and then stick to his guns. “And we don’t have time to fool around now. So repack, and you’d better pick at least one shirt that isn’t going to blind everyone with the print.” Bradley smirked, and Jake should have known better.

that little farm where every wish comes true by hangmanbradshaw {E}

Jake's only wish that holiday season was simple- to keep his family christmas tree farm. He never expected that wish would be granted via a man with deep pockets, an amused smile, and commitment issues a mile wide. He never expected to like him. He definitely never expected to love him. Hell, he never expected Bradley Bradshaw. Or Hallmark Christmas Movie but make it sugar (daddy) and spice and everything nice.

Serendipity by LulaluzHazel {E}

During his second year at university, Bradley found himself with no room or a place to live. Venting to his co-worker, a handsome customer overheard his problems and offered him a sweet deal: to stay at his flat in exchange for looking out for his cat. But why did his new landlord have to be a naval aviator of all things? Couldn't he just be a regular rich kid?

[mintmatcha]

I really do believe you got this Mint 🩷 grad school shit is tough! It took me forever to feel like I was ready to apply, especially after my undergrad. And even then I didn’t feel totally ready and I was nervous as shit. And applying was annoying!

The one thing that made me feel any better was that I could always change my mind and it could take as long as I needed it to. If I hated it I could stop and I didn’t have to be done quick

I’m taking one class a semester and no summer or winter classes. Idk when I’ll be done! But I’m readjusting to being a student and making school work in my own life

I hope you find programs that fit you, that you’re interested in and that give you opportunities. I hope you look at schools and feel, even a little, like you’re investing in yourself, doing this for yourself and it can turn out well

Good luck Mint! I really and truly mean it from the bottom of my heart. The world is a mess and life isn’t easy but you’ve been thinking about this for awhile and I hope that it works out for you in the end 🩷

I just dont even know where to start or what I'm qualified for. I wish i was in school so an advisor could help me

[osric-giroux-ffxiv]

On Integrity - OOC

Hi there,

Normally I don't do this sort of thing, and I assure you - if you follow this blog for OC content, you'll be back to your regularly scheduled content sooner rather than later (the broody boy will be back shortly, I promise). But for a moment, let's take a step down memory lane and let me tell you a quick story.

In early 2013 I was in my second to last semester of grad school and taking one of my last elective courses. It wasn't a terribly trying course, but it did require a group project with a presentation and a paper (because of course it did).

Shouldn't be a big deal, right? We're all graduate students - some of us just about to graduate, some of us just starting out in our programs, but no one in the class was brand new to college. We all knew the rules.

Cite your sources. Don't plagiarize. Have integrity.

Fast forward to two days before the paper is due and before we have to present in front of the class - one of my group members and myself were on the doc reviewing our parts when I (being a perfectionist) decided it might be a good idea just to check and see how the rest of the paper was looking - make sure things were in order...and noticed that one of the group members either had some amazingly technical writing skills (well above what one might expect for someone who was in their first semester of a graduate program)...or there was a problem.

And oh boy was there a problem.

When compared to the source material it was a word for word match.

And I lost my shit.

Keep in mind...I'm ALMOST DONE with my Masters, and if I hadn't caught this? There goes that degree.

I pointed it out to the other group member on the doc at the time, and between the two of us we managed to re-write the paper, citing the sources properly and without the plagiarism.

Went to class a two days later to present, and guess who didn't know their shit to present - if you're guessing our plagiarizing friend, you'd guess correctly.

I knew enough of the material to pull the group across the finish line - and myself and the other member who had been on the doc a couple days before had a chat with the professor after class was over.

Whatever happened to that other group member - I couldn't tell you, but what I can tell you is that their actions (and inaction) told me quite a bit.

So what does any of this have to do with ANYTHING on this blog? It comes down to integrity.

Doing the right thing when no one is looking.

In the academic world, there are very real consequences for taking someone else's work and claiming it as your own. I almost paid the price for someone doing just that on a project I happened to be assigned to with them.

In an RP setting, there's not a penalty for doing that kind of thing, at least not in the same sense - we just have to hope that people have the integrity and the honesty not to do that to one another.

There are so many stories out there to be told - so many characters to create.

And at the end of the day - I know every person who has an OC has put thought and effort into their characters (can we really quantify how much?) - but we each have to do just that...put in individual work.

It's one thing to be inspired by someone - but do the legwork, put in the effort...do the right thing when no one is looking.

This is a hobby that we all engage in, there are people on the other side of the screen. Respect yourself and the people around you. Be kind to yourself and the people around you.

There's no penalty in the RP world - but a little honesty goes a long way.

Thanks for listening/reading - be wonderful to one another.

[delusioncorner]

Knock at the Window

(Spider-Man x Reader)(T)

Whilst studying for a big final exam, you hear a knock coming from your bedroom window...which is weird because you live on the 5th floor of an apartment building. Who on earth could that be?

(This is kind of long and maybe a bit shit but I wrote it because I lowkey miss school)

-

The words begin to blur for the seventh time since I've started the tedious- and albeit very stupid- task of pulling an all-nighter for the exam I have tomorrow morning at exactly 7:30 in the morning. Hard, heavy blinks start to plague my eyes and I thought very briefly that I was going to lose this battle that I was fighting with my sleep. I sigh and close my eyes tight, taking deep breaths in and out, in and out, in and out.

When I open my eyes again I look towards the clock hanging on my wall and feel a sense of dread crawl up my spine. 3:45am. Another sigh escapes my lips and my heart begins to race. It's almost 4 in the morning, my exam- that my entire career depends on- is in 3 and a half hours, and I've barely read through half the notes I've taken in preparation for this goddamned test. My eyes start to well with tears and a sense of helplessness fills me rapidly. I've just been so busy the past couple of days with work, school, and my internship at Alchemex. Everything I do combines into one long event that starts at 6am and ends at about 9pm and the times I do have a small break I spend it with Peter. I know I should be focusing on my studies especially with the end of the year staring me right in the face and the promise of grad school welcoming me with its new and exciting embrace but I can't help it.

Peter Parker is in the Bio-Chemistry class I'm taking this semester- the class that I'm attempting to study for at the moment. He's one of the smartest people I've ever met and the depth in which he understands such complex theories will always astound me. I could have been studying with Peter and I honestly should have since he is quite the talented student but I can't focus on anything but him when he's around. It's quite the hopeless predicament I've found myself in. I'd like to think he shares the same feelings for me as I do him but every time I think something is about to happen between us he has to leave. It's happened too often for it to be a coincidence.

Today was a perfect example of that very thing happening. Peter and I were walking through the campus courtyard from our shared class, side-by-side, our hands brushing as we admired the cherry blossoms with their maroon-colored leaves. We talked aimlessly for what seemed like hours but were in reality only a few minutes before we reached the the grand fountain located in the middle of the school. We sat there and spoke, getting closer to one another as the minutes passed, until our hands overlapped. He said something that made me laugh and after I had settled our eyes locked and I felt my upper body leaning toward him like we were magnets, destined to connect. I looked at him through my lashes and tilted my head. I needed to feel his lips against mine. I needed us to feel one another. I needed him to need me just as much as I needed him. Just as our lips almost met...his phone went off and he was gone, running away frantically almost like he was awakened from a trance. I had no choice but to watch him leave.

I texted him before I started my slow descent into madness and I've still yet to receive a text back. I feel sick to my stomach. Recounting that memory combined with my sleep deprivation has turned my stomach in a way I hadn't been expecting. Standing, I carefully stretch and drink a bit of water because I am not about to throw up at- I glance over at the clock again- 4 in the morning.

Great. I managed to kill 15 minutes drooling over Peter. Could I get any more paths-

Tap. Tap. Tap.

I still. Was it my door? It couldn't be. My roommates are all sleeping. Walking over to my door, I open it anyway. Greeted with nothing, I turn to retreat into my room and before I get the chance to close my door I hear another sound.

Knock. Knock. Knock. Knock.

The tapping transitioned into harder, heavier knocks. They sound frantic. I know it's not my door this time so I turn to my window. My curtain-shrouded, no-fire-escape-having, 5th-story window.

"Dude, there's literally no way that knocking is coming from my window right now."

A gruff, strained, and slightly muffled voice comes from right outside the window. "Please. Please open the window." It's a man. I hesitate briefly but decide that if someone is truly outside my window right now, then it must be someone...interesting and I've always been a curious person. I close my door and saunter towards my window. Dread is filling me once again but I punch it down. I'll just take a small peek and if it's like the Green Goblin or some other nefarious ne'er-do-weller then I'll simply accept my fate and die.

...Yeah. Yeah, that's what my options are. I either die or...some other second option. Hopefully, option number two is better than death. So, which will it be?'

I reach the window and slightly move the curtain to reveal Spider-Man. The Spider-Man. Even though I couldn't see his entire body I saw enough. I saw his bright red and blue suit. I saw one of his gloved hands and I saw a sliver of his other hand clutching his side. His back was against the wall of my building, almost as if he were glued to it. Spider-Man is a good man. He helps the city and he totally fought some giant dude dressed as a rhinoceros last week who threatened to do something dastardly to the town so I think I would be okay if I let him in. Plus, it seems like he's injured and I'm not a monster. I glance at the clock once more- it reads 4:10- before I rip open my window.

As quickly as I open the window, Spider-Man is through it, and closing the window behind him with just as much speed, then he slunks against my wall in a boneless heap. His breaths are heavy and small helpless whines escape his mask-shrouded lips. I tell him that I'll be back and swiftly leave my room, closing the door behind me, and running down the hallway to the bathroom to grab the first aid kit. When I return, Spider-Man is away from the window and slumped over in my desk chair.

"Thanks for letting me in. Also sorry for getting blood on your rug maybe? I don't know actually, I didn't really pay attention." He's rambling. He's distracting himself from the pain, I can tell. He continues, "You really just went right to work, didn't you? No 'Hi' or 'Woah! Spider-Man? What a silly thing that's happening right now,' you just up and got a...first aid kit? Thanks but I'm okay. It's just a flesh wound."

"You're bleeding a lot. One could even use the word profusely. I don't know what kind of weird business you have going on but I can just...I don't know? Stitch you up? My mom was a nurse and she taught me a few basics on how to fix up small wounds." I open the first aid kit as I babble on. The room is beginning to smell like iron and I feel lightheaded. He begrudgingly agrees after I beg him to let me help and I thank him. He lets me gently lift the top of his suit and I get to it. I feel sick and as he hisses in pain as the needle digs into his skin, I can't help but also feel sorry for the pain I'm causing him.

He goes on to comfort me as I finish stitching him. He keeps up a nice banter with me, making jokes and asking me other questions about my hobbies, and soon enough I'm tying up the last stitch and taping a bandage over the wound. I take a deep breath and ask him if he's hurt anywhere else. He says no but I still do a quick check. I cannot be responsible for the demise of New York's favorite web-slinger all because I was reckless. I didn't realize it but I said that part out loud. He started to laugh. His low laugh turned into a loud booming fit of hysterics and I couldn't help the laugh that escaped my lips.

He seems so familiar but I can't pinpoint it. I'm so comfortable with this man that I've just met. I blame it on the fact that he's a well-known vigilante who helps others but the whole time we were talking, I couldn't help but compare him to Peter. Their mannerisms and humor are so similar that it seems like they could be the same people but that's such a far-fetched theory that I swept it from my mind as quickly as it entered.

More minutes passed and I accepted the fact that I'd probably fail this test. Maybe, if I play my cards right, I could convince my professor to let me take it again? Say I developed nasty stomach flu or maybe I'll say my mother is in the hospital. He doesn't know she's dead so no harm no foul. Spider-Man and I discuss everything from star signs to the best delis in the area. Our tones get softer and I feel a wave of calm wash over me for the first time in 3 days. A yawn escapes my lips and I accept defeat. I'll email my professor when I wake up. Hopefully, he's understanding.

Spider-Man also seems to have reached his limits. He stands and stretches his arms over his head, groaning obnoxiously in the same way Peter does. Spider-Man thanks me for my help and for the conversation but mentions how he has something to do soon and should probably leave. I don't want him to leave. I find myself wanting to keep him. A courage that I am unfamiliar with strikes my body and suddenly I'm reaching for his mask. I rest my hands on his cheeks as a silent question. Can I? He nods slowly and suddenly there I am, in the middle of my bedroom at who-knows-when, peeling the bottom part of his mask up, stopping just below his nose. I sway forward and all at once, we're kissing.

It's brief, almost as if it was a thank you. A thank you to him for helping me relax in my state of study-induced panic and maybe a thank you from him for helping him? For showing him kindness? Whatever the thanks was for didn't matter, so long as I felt it. When we parted, he pulled his mask down and walked towards the window, opening it, and preparing to disappear into the night. I spoke up one last time.

" Why did you come to my window? Seems pretty random, no?"

He simply looks over his shoulder and says, "Because I knew you'd open the window." And just like that he's gone and I'm left to ponder.

He knew I'd open the window?

[iam93percentstardust]

i don't usually do these kinds of things, but today was a nightmare of a day, so here's a vent post (it's long, so i'll put it below the read more)

the cast:

gina: PI for my research lab, was one of the very first people to catch covid back before we even knew what covid was and immediately developed long covid, is currently in her 4th year of an incredibly nasty divorce, has been so unhelpful and not present as a mentor in the last 4 years that we would all just like her to take a sabbatical please

me (alle): 6th year senior graduate student, was supposed to graduate this summer but had a nervous breakdown in the spring and deferred a semester, senior TA for gina's super special chemistry and politics class which i will inevitably wind up taking over when gina's health takes the same nosedive it's taken every semester for the last 4 years but god forbid i get paid as a lecturer, has put more hours into gina's super special chemistry and politics class than gina has which keeps me too busy to actually do anything for my dissertation

mingyu: 6th year senior graduate student, the literal definition of stoic, has had the good fortune of receiving federal funding for his project so doesn't have to TA, was also supposed to graduate this summer but gina decided to take on a new student (mina) at the last minute that he just has to train so he had to defer a semester, is so busy training mina that he doesn't have time for his own research

tessa: 4th year senior graduate student, junior TA for gina's super special chemistry and politics class, also the only graduate student who works with undergrads in the lab (she manages 6 of them), also got voluntold by gina to mentor two high school students this summer, TA + undergrads + high schoolers = no time for research, used to mentor ahmad but she is competent and he is not and it didn't end well

ahmad: 3rd year graduate student, the most incompetent man you'll ever meet despite being 10 years older than everyone else in the group (save for gina), 95% positive he faked his credentials to get into grad school because this man does not know shit despite being here for three years, this man poured liquid nitrogen down the drain and nearly ruined the 100 year old pipes in this building, this man told tessa's undergrads to catch concentrated hydrochloric acid with their bare hands, this man does not understand the concept of playing well with others and putting other people first, if there's an interpersonal conflict in the lab it's because he started it

mina: technically 3rd year graduate student but decided to abruptly switch research groups because apparently there are no jobs in inorganic chemistry anymore so she needs a biochem group (we are not biochem) ((and she refused to change her project so her research is still inorganic chemistry so i'm not sure what good this is doing))

kiara and darya: technically 2nd year graduate students but did the same thing as mina, not super relevant but i'll mention their names at one point or another, the most recent people to join the group three months ago

the background:

a month ago, tessa was supposed to give group meeting. gina cancelled that group meeting however, just like she's cancelled all but a handful of our group meetings for the last four years (i think i can probably count on two hands the number of group meetings we've had since her arrest. maybe). this would usually mean that tessa would present at the next group meeting, but gina cancelled that one too. for whatever reason, tessa took that to mean that she wasn't supposed to be presenting at the one two weeks ago. gina got (rightfully) pissy at her when tessa said she didn't have anything to present and hadn't even brought her computer, so gina told her to do a "chalk talk" where she outlined her entire project on the board for the high schoolers and new grad students.

(side note: gina explicitly said that chalk talks were a perfectly acceptable form of group meeting if we have new students in the lab and are trying to introduce them to each project or if we're trying to give her a summary of how far we've gotten on our project.)

i was supposed to go next for group meeting (which would have been last week), so i prepared a standard presentation with mostly data, but then i learned that we had two new grad students interviewing with us and that one of the high schoolers is interested in my research field, so i switched at the last second to a chalk talk to break down this project.

but then we got to group meeting last week and three things happened: first of all, gina apparently asked tessa to prepare a presentation on professional communication in the lab after a huge blowup between tessa and ahmad over ahmad stealing tessa's enzymes for his own project and not replacing them. secondly, out of the seven people in the lab (not including the two high schoolers), the only people who showed up in person were the three senior grad students (myself, tessa, and mingyu) so none of the new people who would have benefitted from a chalk talk were there (doubly funny that it was put together with ahmad in mind and he decided to sleep in). which would have been fine, i would have just switched to the original powerpoint presentation, except thirdly, gina decided that she needed extra time before class to get into the right headspace (since group meeting is right before class) and it became really obvious really fast that despite tessa originally thinking her part would only take 10 minutes, gina wanted to talk about everything in excruciating detail for an hour.

(side note: when i mentioned i was originally planning a chalk talk, gina was not only explicitly fine with this, but interested in seeing how i would break my work down.)

this would've meant that i would go this week, but gina said, and i directly quote, "instead of giving group meeting, alle, come meet with me personally." so we met and she reiterated that my meeting with her was instead of group meeting.

the story:

gina being the world's worst mentor, this wouldn't be the first time that she's gone back on something she said, so i was still prepared to give group meeting this morning. that is, until saturday. on saturday, she texted everyone to say that she had caught the flu and wouldn't be on campus today. yesterday, she texted us all again to remind us that she had the flu. now, given the four years of history with gina, i expected that meant that she would text us all this morning to say she was cancelling group meeting, but just in case, i made sure to wake up early enough to make it to campus on time.

this morning rolls around and she still has the flu, but wonder of wonders, she did actually want to hold group meeting but she wanted it to be short and over zoom. okay, fine. in the past, the words "short group meeting" from gina has meant that she wants a 2 minute research update from everyone and then she'll spend 20-30 minutes talking about her life and her personal problems, and we might circle back around at the end to talk about some housekeeping things (which we could have today, since conference registration in the fall is coming up). so i thought "okay, i'm off the hook until next week."

so we sit down for the zoom meeting (miracle of miracles, the four people who decided to skip out on last week's meeting (ahmad, mina, kiara, and darya (the junior grad students, for anyone counting)) were actually there) and gina immediately starts things off with "who's presenting group meeting today?" and i thought "well shit." but it's fine, it's okay, it's a little frustrating because it's a lot harder to do a chalk talk over zoom so i need to do the presentation, which is definitely not short, but it's fine.

but before i can even pull up the powerpoint, someone said "it's alle's turn from last week" (given his inability to stop himself from brown nosing and starting shit, i suspect it was ahmad) and gina. went. off. apparently the fact that i didn't already have the powerpoint pulled up and wasn't prepared to start talking as soon as we sat down meant that i was completely wholly unprepared for the entire thing. so she goes "alle why didn't you say anything when i asked? what are you supposed to be presenting? why didn't you bother to pay attention to the schedule?"

and i tried to say that i didn't say anything because i was originally planning on a chalk talk and that sends her off too because apparently, in the last week, chalk talks have become completely unacceptable to give in this group and tessa only gave one because she didn't have a computer with her during the group meeting she was supposed to present at but that doesn't mean that i can do one too, so again, clearly i'm not prepared.

this time i actually managed to get a word in edgewise, so i said "i do have a powerpoint i've been working on in the last few weeks, i just don't have it pulled up yet." hell, i could've actually shared two, depending on how long she wanted me to talk: the data one, which would've taken about an hour, and the one from the conference at the end of may, which would've been a great project summary for the new people and only about 20 minutes.

(side note: gina's never actually seen my conference presentation because she cancelled all of my group meetings where i would have practiced and "rescheduled" personal meetings i was supposed to have with her only to not go to them and didn't bother to show up to my actual talk, which i was terrified about given the aforementioned nervous breakdown.)

i was actively in the process of pulling it up, but before i can share my screen, she snaps no, once again, i've just proven that i'm unprepared and why is it always the senior grad students in this lab who are so unprepared (this is literally the first time i've ever, in seven years, been expected to present at group meeting and not been ready for it, and the sole reason i wasn't ready was because gina herself said she was sick and needed a short meeting) and why does no one in this lab (especially the senior grad students, according to her) take group meeting seriously (again, i can count on two hands the number of times we've had group meeting in four fucking years and more to the point, ahmad keeps skipping group meeting because he decides he didn't get enough sleep to go even when he's not presenting, but sure gina, the senior grad students are the ones not taking this seriously (also, remember who was present at last week's meeting and who skipped?)).

so then she goes off on mingyu because apparently the group meeting calendar that he put together isn't up to her standards. and not only does he need to do it all over again, but he needs to print it out and put it in the lab somewhere so that people stop being unprepared, even though that won't do any good given the number of times gina cancels (and the reason no one has been prepared is because she keeps cancelling and we lose track of who's supposed to present when when it's been two months since the last one, AND I WASN'T READY BECAUSE SHE SAID WAS SICK AND WANTED A SHORT MEETING).

and then she decided that we aren't having group meeting next week because she has jury duty and despite calling the courthouse, they're not letting her skip out on it (which, gina, what? no one ever gets out of jury duty by calling, that's not how jury duty in this city works). but when we have the next group meeting, tessa needs to go again to present the data from two weeks ago that she didn't present and then i need to go and, oh yeah, mina needs to go by the end of july because she has a conference and needs to practice (remember when gina cancelled all of my practices and talks with her before my conference presentation? lol yeah me too).

(side note: it has been a year and a half since ahmad last presented at group meeting, it's been a year since mina last presented, and kiara and darya have never presented despite being here for three months. every time gina resets group meeting, it's always me, tessa, or mingyu having to present.)

and then after 20 minutes of yelling at us, after all of that and making it clear that being unprepared for group meeting was unacceptable and the senior grad students were embarrassing her... gina decided she was too sick to continue with group meeting and told us all to go.

[dangerously-human]

Still fighting for my life with tuition benefit stuff, in case anyone was wondering. I would like to submit my request for this semester, but we're still duking it out over last semester because of a problem from over a year ago and I don't want to swing at two hornet nests at once, so. Took every single dollar out of my savings account to pay tuition for this semester and am just praying I can get reimbursed before another rent check needs to go out (and Lord willing, my car won't need massive repairs at inspection this year). I'm doing an actual research study for my mixed methods class this semester, and the professor keeps saying she's fine with giving us an incomplete so we have another year to wrap it up in order to actually get something meaningful out of it. I finally talked to her last night to explain that I cannot afford to take another incomplete and ask how I could do a legitimate study on such a condensed timeline. Thankfully she was understanding and came up with an idea I think will work, since it involves basically just doing the quantitative portion under an existing protocol at work and a qualitative portion that doesn't count as human subjects research, so I don't have to deal with an IRB pissing contest between institutions, nor the debatable ethics of collecting data without compensating people for their time, given that it's unfunded research (and I really can't afford to pay people out of pocket when I'm already paying through the nose to be in this class in the first place). I'm still reworking my research plan, but I do feel a lot better about this in comparison to my plan as of last week, which would have required either submitting to both IRBs (and my work IRB is notorious for having different standards than most, and they/the data lawyers that often end up getting involved move slowly in this kind of situation) or submitting twice to my university IRB, once per phase.

Anyway, dealing with all of this today had me looking at what I really have left to do before I graduate. I'm halfway through the program now, though it feels like I've done way more. After I'm done with this class, which meets my advanced methods requirement (although round 2 of statistics probably did too), I have to eventually go back and take the foundations of the program course that was a scheduling conflict my first semester and somehow hasn't been offered since; another research apprenticeship (I'll probably write another manuscript, ideally one that's already been in progress for a bit at work - if I can get a loan, maybe I can do that this summer with my brief report I'm first authoring); plus two electives, which I was hoping to concentrate on measure design but would also happily do more advanced statistics courses if I'm allowed to take them through the school of psychology (I've tapped out the school of ed on that score). I guess I should ask if I'm allowed to say my job counts as an internship, which from the course catalog it looks like it should, but idk. Theoretically that puts me graduating... fall '25? Maybe? I could go so much faster if it weren't for the financial aspect. I do have to meet with an advisor at some point, but I still don't have one at the moment (again), which really seems like a problem for future me to figure out. But future me before May, because I think I'm still recorded as supposed to graduate this semester, even though it's been clear from the beginning that I was not a full-time student. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

They really do make this grad school thing as complicated as possible, don't they?