#I'm being bullied by high school algebra

[meltedmercury]

WHY.

[be-the-glenn-to-my-maggie]

Hello ! Okay so this question really has no connection to any fandom in general (except, maybe, Avatar on the intelligent non-human species side?) but I just saw an article about orca intelligence and the fact that we now know they have very strong social bonds, even teach each other things and even have names they use between each other! Anyway, I just saw this and was also thinking about the fact that most people still think they're just big dumb fish and don't ask me why but it made me think again about your excellent posts on Avatar (I told him there was a link!), Quaritch and Jake's family in general.

So I was wondering what you think? About their intelligence and the fact that some people would like them to be considered as non-human (I admit I think that about cetaceans in general personally) as well as your opinion on the fact that individuals in captivity are often captured in the wild and find themselves in honestly pitiful conditions in the company of orcas they don't know and therefore can't communicate with (fun fact: each pod, or group, of orcas has its own language that doesn't correspond to that of other pods).

If you already knew this, I'd be delighted to know ey if you didn't, I might have raised your interest in this and that's just as well. What's more, it might also raise the interest of other people who see it...

What a fun question!! Honestly, no worries at all for any non fandom related question, it means so much that you guys care for my opinion on anything at all! I love the Avatar questions a ton, but it's super fun and special when a question branches out into another fandom or topic.

Yes, I do know about wales and orcas! I was always one of those dirty little mud kids who was obsessed with all animals and bugs and wildlife. I had bins and bins of plastic dinosaurs and book after book on wildlife. I was going to be a vet until senior year of high school, when I decided that taking algebra for the third time meant I wasn't cut out for a math or science career lol (I took it for a forth time for no credit in college 😬).

There is a ton to be said about captivity in general, and the ethics of zoos and wildlife centers. Thankfully most zoos follow much stricter laws now, and the majority of animals you see in care are unable to be released into the wild or are being rehabilitated until they can be. I don't know that there are these same standards yet for large aquariums, and places like SeaWorld that have orcas and whales and sharks. I am not an expert, and it's not something I've looked into in a long time. In general though, I think most of these places have improved, but these large animals, I don't see how they can ever be kept ethically in captivity,

There is also the matter of orcas, who have been a huge talking point as of late because of them sinking ships. They truly are the dickbag bullies of the sea lol, so it's funny to me to compare them to the tulkun. Actually, maybe all the dolphins are the dickbag bullies of the sea. But, orcas are dolphins so they are the same thing. But orcas (also dolphins do this with fish) play catch with seals dude, they slap them back and forth and don't even eat them. Sometimes they make waves too knock animals off of ice and then wait for them to get back on the ice so they can do it again. They are sociopaths. So I think they are smart, but also I'm scared. Dolphins (orcas are dolphins) are one of the few animals besides humans that hunt for fun as well as for food.

BUT ANYWAYS. I don't think orcas can be considered human, they are non-human. Humanity sets itself apart from other species with large scale cooperation, culture and tool use, and abstract thought and reasoning. These are things the tulkun possess in Avatar, and things that are not shared by any other creature on Earth that we know of.

[slickshoesareyoucrazy]

A Not Literally Real But Essentially Real Part (With a Short Reason For Why I'm Sharing It Today)

Yesterday, J and The Boy and G the Psychotic Clown Dog and I took a walk in a county park. There are two parks closer to our home, but we went to the one with the long trail yesterday, sort of as a 'treat.' You know...for G mostly, but for all of us since it's the one we don't go to as much and it's obviously a longer walk outside and a longer time together. We all expected it to be a nice time. As we turned one trail corner, another couple was walking a cute little corgi (we love corgis). All of us focused on the adorable dog, but as they got closer to us, the man half of the couple was someone who emotionally abused and kind of terrorized me seven years ago, back when I considered him a friend. I won't get into the specifics of what he did here, but I guess if you want those details, I probably should talk about it more to deal with it, since even with not seeing him at all for seven years, and never thinking about him at all for most of those seven years, seeing him for maybe 10 seconds yesterday still triggered me. I've written recently about how being lonely in my life has led me to connect to some pretty shitty people. I've never had an easy go of things making and especially keeping friends. So I've fallen for users and narcissists more than my fair share of time in the friendship department across my life. J is the most important and easiest connection I've ever made in my life, and yeah...I've had bad luck with human connection, particularly making lasting friends, but J isn't my only good connection, and I do have some good friends. I really do. So today I'm sharing a piece of my novel, Community, which is the sequel to the first novel I wrote and let other people read, so it's the same characters.

I didn't literally meet my friends A and D this way in middle school, but I DID meet them both in middle school, and they were the first two people to be genuinely kind to me at a new school where I didn't know anyone. I wasn't bullied in elementary school like Jess was, but I did feel separated in a permanent way when I left my old district, and I was really separated for partial days from the other kids while I was there, into a group of me and just boys. Josh Shepard is heavily inspired by my real life bestie, A, and Kurtis Richardson is heavily inspired by my real life dear friend, D, who truly was literally the first person to be nice to me when I moved to my middle/high school school district. I am so grateful for these men. They're real. They befriended me despite how weird and quiet I am, and have always appreciated the quirky shit about me, and have never lied to me, and have never used me. So anyway...this isn't literally real, but it's how I emotionally feel about meeting A and D, and how I feel about their continued friendship and positive, kind, supportive presence in my life. They are my old friends.

Excerpt from Community:

Josh Shepard drew a snake-like, fire-breathing dragon on the slick top of his seventh grade pre-algebra desk in number two pencil. It was incredibly ornate and lifelike, but when Mr. Ramos entered the class with a new student practically hiding behind him, Josh licked his thumb and erased his work, staining his skin, so he looked like he’d just had a thumbprint taken.

“Why don’t you draw that stuff on paper, man? So you can save it? That’s good stuff,” Kurtis Richardson said from the seat to his right. They were the first two students in the first row. Mr. Ramos was known for making his classroom hyper-competitive, which Kurtis thrived on and Josh hated. They were the highest two averages, thus the seating positions. Sometimes Kurtis and Josh switched chairs at the beginning of a week, but they always occupied the first two seats. Three other students sat to Kurtis’s right, but there was an empty seat at the end of the row, because there were only five A’s in the honors class. The rest of Ramos’ tough math section were B’s and C’s.

“Wastes paper. Besides, it’s all up here,” Josh said, tapping his temple with his pencil eraser. “I can recreate that dragon whenever I want. Worst case? I improve on it next time I draw it.”

“You got a real unique view of the universe, Sheep.”

Kurtis and Josh met in preschool, and were virtually inseparable despite their rather significant personality differences. Kurtis was outgoing and popular. Josh kept to himself, mostly. Kurtis was an athlete. Josh was an artist. They were both quite bright, though, and because of their congruent academic talent, they made fast and lasting friends.

“Who’s the new kid?” Josh asked, still unable to see anything around Mr. Ramos but a pair of skinny, denim-clad legs and blue Chuck Taylor sneakers.

“Dunno.”

Jessica Fielding stood staring at the floor, feeling all the eyes in room trying to see through Mr. Ramos to get a good look at her. She usually didn’t register anyone looking at her, but couldn’t be immune to it in an enclosed space where everyone was. She stayed behind her new math teacher and tried to slow her breathing. She felt anxious, and knew she had to calm herself before anyone asked her to speak, or she was sure she wouldn’t make any friends. She’d go too fast. She’d stutter. She’d end up in the same boat she was at her old school. Jessie liked herself, awkward dorkiness and all, but she expected it to be difficult starting over finding other people that she felt comfortable around; that would be comfortable around her. She knew she was an acquired taste. Her own mother had told her so repeatedly. And the kids at her old school, especially the girls, ostracized her for it.

Jess had been part of a select gifted program there; herself and four other students, all boys. She was already inclined to like ‘boyish’ things, and those interests naturally developed and blossomed spending most of her time with only boys. She didn’t like wearing dresses or playing with dolls as a little girl; she liked wearing sneakers and overalls and watching sports and learning how machines worked. She didn’t draw pictures of horses and rainbows and princesses; she drew knights and dragons (but still rainbows). In the first grade, she’d had her hair cut short like Mary Lou Retton. This, added to being part of that program where she was removed from ‘regular’ class for a large section of the school day to be the only girl in a group of boys, triggered the girls in her class to start callingher a boy. Instead of Jess, they called her ‘Jeff.’ That name stuck even after she’d grown her hair back out long. ‘Jeff’ lasted all the way into early seventh grade when she’d left. She didn’t miss her old school at all, but being in a new place made her nervous in equal measure to relieved. She couldn’t help fretting that this new place could be worse.

“Shepard? Richardson? First row? Move on down a seat,” Mr. Ramos said. Kurtis and Josh looked at each other and stacked up their books to move over, already impressed that whoever the new kid was had unseated them in spots one and two.

“Smart new kid,” Kurtis whispered. They took their new desks as a tiny, red-haired girl sat in the far left front row seat. They both smiled at her. She smiled back, but it was an obviously uneasy smile.

“S-sorry.” She apologized for uprooting them on her behalf, and pretty much existing in her current form. She put her head down on the desk, fevered that she’d stammered even just that one word already.

“Not ‘sorry,’” Josh insisted. “You earned the top seat. I shouldn’t have drawn on it like it was mine before you came in,” he said, apologetic himself, still two minutes to the bell.

“You made the dragon?! That’s amazing,” she said clearly, smiling wider now.

“You...can still see that dragon? I thought I...” Josh stared hard at the spot on the desk where he’d drawn, unable to see any residual lines, then at his dark gray thumb.

“Yeah. I’m um...good at that. S-sorry,” she said again.

“Don’t be sorry for what you’re good at. Be proud of it,” Kurtis said. “Whatcher name?”

“Like you’re ever gonna call her by her name...” Josh laughed. This sentence made Jessica panic, wondering what it meant, but she answered him anyway.

“J-Jessica.”

“Ok, J-Jessica. Imma just call you ‘J.’ I’m K. Ramos is gonna say ‘Kurtis Richardson’ on the roll inna second, but I’m K. Yeah?” He nodded at her, his already friendly smile becoming friendlier. She already reminded him of Josh. He’d reacted the same backward, halting way when they’d met as four-year-olds.

“Okay. K. And then you’re…?” she bashfully addressed Josh.

“That’s Sheepherder,” K answered over Josh.

“What?” Jessie said, totally confused.

Josh and Kurtis both chuckled that she seemed to not understand it was a nickname. “I’m Josh. Shepard. Shepard. Y’know? Shepherd’s a sheepherder?”

“Oh. R-right.” Her face turned red, feeling silly and stupid that she took Kurtis so literally.

The bell rang, and Josh leaned over to inform Jessica, “Y’know, K is likely to change up your nickname once he knows you better. Just a warning. I’ll be surprised if just ‘J’ sticks long term.”

“Oh. Well, that’s okay. I mean, y-you guys um...you can call me w-whatever. I don’t care. Long as it’s not mean. Y’know? Like...not mean stuff.”

“K would never ever give somebody a mean nickname. Unless the person was actually mean.”

“That’s enough, Mr. Shepard. Class is up here now,” Mr. Ramos said, knocking the chalkboard with his elbow. “Ok, radicals and exponents...”

“Seriously, Jess...Jess ok?” Josh asked, not much caring if Mr. Ramos called him out again. He wanted to put her at ease; which is the other reason Kurtis called him ‘Sheepherder.’ ‘You’re a real ‘go get the lost lambs’ kinda guy, Sheep.’ Jess nodded, her eyes darting from Josh to Mr. Ramos frantically, fearful he’d get in trouble for her. “We’re gonna be friends. No mean stuff. I promise.” Josh smiled at her, and she felt more comfortable than she’d ever felt at her old school. Josh didn’t make fun of the anxious stutter or her red hair or her perfect math score. And he liked to draw things, just like her. And Kurtis had already given her a nickname. Not Jeff. A nice one. That’s what friends did. She visibly relaxed, and paid attention to the lesson in front of her, even though she’d already gone over radicals and exponents weeks ago in her previous pre-algebra class.

***

“So...tell me ‘bout yerself,” K kindly demanded as he set his tray of square cheese pizza, carrots, corn, and chocolate milk next to Jessica’s. He planted his feet firmly on the floor, turned toward her, engaging in direct eye contact with a goofy grin on his face, and rested his chin in his hand, giving her comical but clearly undivided attention.

“Can you maybe turn the volume down?” Josh said. Kurtis was the stand-out in this new group of three they’d formed, and Josh wanted to keep it a group of three. He loved K, but sometimes, he wanted the opinion of someone more like him; another obvious introvert. He didn’t want K’s ostentatious manner to frighten her away. But he shouldn’t have been so concerned. Jessica was giggling.

“No, don’t,” she laughed. “I like you loud.” Kurtis looked across the table at Josh, his expression saying, ‘How ‘bout that then?’ Josh thought for a moment K might actually stick out his tongue. “Um...I don’t know what to say,” Jess offered.

“Why’d you move here mid-year?” K asked.

“Moved to a bigger house ‘cause...um...baby brother on the way,” she said.

“Yeah? How many brothers and sisters do you have? I have a brother and a sister,” Kurtis informed her. “Big brother, little sister. George and Aisha.”

“Just the baby brother on the way.” She shrugged.

“You’re almost an only child. Were one for a long time. No wonder you’re just like Sheep.”

“No siblings?” she asked her counterpart as he drank his milk directly from the carton without a straw.

“Nope. Just me and my mom.” Josh quickly turned the subject back to Kurtis’s family, because he didn’t want to discuss his own. “George is in high school this year. Aisha’s a fifth grader.”

“Cool,” Jessica said, nodding at Kurtis.

“New baby’s pretty cool,” Kurtis said. “You’ll be able to really teach him stuff and not fight with him. You miss your old friends?”

“What old friends?” she said, shrugging again. Kurtis and Josh looked at each other and made a wordless pact that she’d never say that sentence again. They’d become her old friends.

[okamikami1996]

Chapter Three- Disabilities and School

I'm going to say two words and almost all of you will probably not even need to read this chapter: Middle School. Let me say two more that will probably have half of you running for cover: Girl Drama. One word: hormones. Last word: disability. I'm pretty sure most of you already know what I'm getting at: my failed middle school career.

My family may have had a little-- or maybe a lot-- of trauma from the response to my 504 plan in elementary school, to the point where we didn't even try in middle school. We were too afraid of disappointment. So we shut up and allowed ourselves to suffer in silence. My school placed me in algebra. If you've read chapter two and how I have dyslexia, I'm pretty sure you already know that math was not going to be my favorite subject. My first year of middle school I flunked my math class. God awful. Math became not only my worst subject, but my least favorite subject. It also became another thing that was wrong with me. My ego was the equivalent of an egg that had been dropped, had cracks, but had somehow managed to retain its ovular shape. My math teacher saw I was trying-- and God knows I was, lunch periods, asking questions, getting tutoring, trying to get seating that was away from chatterboxes, asking for more information-- he gave me a C, instead of the D that my grade most certainly was. My mom had me retake the year. Guess what? I got an A. Weirdly, it didn't give me that "Oh, I actually am smart feel", instead I felt like I just got lucky. Self worth was almost a zero. I wanted people to accept me as I was, but it isn't that easy. I should have understood that, but I think I was desperate for someone to like me despite having four disabilities: I told people that I was ADD, I told them I was bipolar, I told them I took medication. It didn't go well. I still had friends, thank god. However, if I'm being honest, I'm not sure how healthy some of the relationships were. Two of my friends thought I was an attention hog. Can't blame them, how many disabilities did I have? How hard was it to have them? How many boys bullied me? To them, I probably was fishing for attention. It's kind of like Trump says: "There's no such thing as bad publicity". Maybe that's what they thought I was doing?

I had another friend who argued with me about whether it's sadder to get a puppy and watch it get sick and die, or have a dog your whole life and have it die. How many times did I tell her that I thought both were sad? I also had a super amazing friend who stayed with me from the 5th grade. She was literally my saving grace up until high school when we went to different schools. Middle school was mainly a development of extreme depression that was kept hidden by my friend group. In all honesty, I was lucky to have a friend group at all with how disabilities and taking medication was seen at the time.

I was taking 90 mgs of Abilify (no idea if that is how it is spelled) and 900 mgs of Seriquiel (no idea if that is how this is spelled either). For any of you who don't know: these are dangerous amounts of drugs to take. Like really, really dangerous, and my doctors probably should have lost their licenses. The reason behind my taking so much drugs was simple: if 60 mgs don't work increase it to 90 mgs. Yeah. According to them this was the only drug to treat bipolar disorder we HADN'T tried.

High school was absolute hell. My friends all went to the other high school, and I went to the new charter school. Fun, right? I had learned more or less what a shit idea it was to announce that I had disabilities. Well, just being depressed for now reason was no better. Or not being able to hear people. Let me be straight, Da Vinci Charter Academy was a school that valued group projects. We had no choice but to talk to each other and communicate. Everyone at the small community school thought I was just being difficult. That I was faking not being able to hear. After a few failed attempts at taking direction for my peers I was cut out, even if I asked for them to write it down.

"Nevermind." That is all I got back. Finally, I closed myself off. Completely from everyone at school. I'm pretty sure high school was also when I began to hide away in my room all the time. I began to see kitchen knives and stand in front of them for ten minutes just trying to get myself to kill myself and be done with it. I had an impulse I could not control where I would blurt out, "I hate myself and I deserve to die". I almost blurted it out in the middle of a lecture more times than I can count. There would be times where I was actually happy and laughing with my family where I would all of a sudden just say, "I hate myself and I deserve to die". I ruined a lot of happy moments with that. It was an impulse that I could not control. I couldn't go to therapy, my first and last therapist, Susan, was a mistake my family could not afford to repeat. So we just followed what the doctors said and added more drugs. I was numb to almost everything but my own pain. I didn't trust people, I couldn't take compliments. There was a boy who tried to hang out with me, but I told him to just leave me alone because he was friends with the boys who hated me. Imagine walking up to a table or being invited by another girl and have the group stop talking when you came to sit down. Imagine trying to join the conversation that started back up and have everyone just be silent. Imagine having people tell you to just "go the fuck away" when you came to talk to them. By year two, I didn't speak to anyone unless I had to. I had to constantly remind myself that my classmates were not to be trusted.

I had a teacher named Mr. Milsap who was pretty nice to me. We had moments of awkward silence when I answered questions, but I really liked his class. Loved it. I surprisingly don't remember very well when I got my 504 plan reinstated. I should, but I don't. I know it had to be in the second year of high school, when I was so depressed and miserable at school that I was literally barricading myself in my room so I didn't have to go to school, that my mom had enough. She thought that the kids would at least stop leaving me out of conversations if they knew I had a hearing disability. I was against it, at first. Terrified of what would happen if everyone knew I had a disability. We held a meeting. I had to sit and listen to teachers compliment me on my strengths. That was torture. I had a physical aversion to being complimented, like I needed to leave the room right away if someone did. It was painful to be complimented. I remember my teacher Maestra Rameriez was the teacher who I owed the most to. She was a woman who never treated me inferior to other students despite my butchering of the Spanish language in class and my endless need to repeat things. She was the most accepting of my 504 plan. If she ever reads this, and knows who I am: thank you so much, you have no idea how much you meant to me in school.

Mr. Milsap was not. In fact, he argued against it the whole time. I remember nothing after the first part of the meeting when the teachers all went around the table and complimented me. I do remember almost word for word the conversation afterward where my mother spoke to me about her less than spectacular impression of Mr. Milsap. I only know that he was the only person to argue against my 504 plan through her retelling. I don't think I actually remembered even as we drove home that day. After that, my time in his class became terrible. God awful. He would often yell at me randomly in my TA class with him. Then, there was that project. We were told to give a presentation on how someone had discriminated against us. I used my hearing disability. I had been given hope, finally. It was true, the kids no longer left me out of conversations now that I had a 504 plan. I thought maybe this would further turn the tables. At least twice a week I took the project into Mr. Milsap until he told me I was sure to get an A. Full credit. I got I C. Why? According to him, I went five minutes over the time limit. Two grades lower because I went over the time limit?

That may have been it for me for a while. I didn't talk anymore in that class, or not as much as I had been. My ego had been shot again. I was still majorly depressed. I could tell you good things about people who constantly bullied me or spoke rudely to me, I don't think I could have told you one good thing about myself. I was a wreck. I was constantly fighting with my mother, a few times I almost ran away from home during my nightly dog walks. I lived for the most part like I was dead. I graduated high school went to a community college, and got hit with something much, much worse: rheumatoid arthritis.

[bookishhealing]

Finding Light in the Darkness ~ #1

TW: Bullying, Depressive episode, mentions of s*icide

I'm starting out this first post by summing up who I am as a person. I am a 20-year-old woman who is in college and struggles with Depression, Anxiety, and PTSD. I often struggle with who I am as a person. With how I look, with how people look at me, and what they think of me. I am doing this blog for healing. For putting my truth out there. I will be discussing anything from friendships that have ended horribly to how college is treating me. Today, I'll talk about my experience with friendships during High School.

I'll start out with how I met these friends. We'll call them Haley and Rebecca (Those are not their names, I'm changing them for privacy and safety reasons). I met Haley in 8th grade in Pre-Algebra. We liked the same books and movies, and we became best friends pretty quickly. I had struggled with making friends in the past, and I truly believed that we would be friends forever. Flash forward a year later, Rebecca is a new student, and I become pretty fast friends with her as well. I introduce Haley and Rebecca to each other and they become friends, and later on, they start dating. They didn't tell me and they hung out a lot behind my back. I would sleep over at Haley's house, and bring over food. Of course, it was junk food. I thought it was a staple of high school sleepovers. But I hear Haley and her mother outside the door, and Haley's mother starts going off about how I'm "fat" and how this is why no one likes me. Now, keep in mind, I am a freshman in High School at this point. I can only assume Haley was telling her mother things about how I looked beforehand because that just ended up being who she was. She had no respect for other people. She got that from her mother. I think that moment really shaped how I look at myself and how I feel about myself.

I know now that it is not my fault she thinks that way. That she was and is unhappy with her life. But 14-15 year old me believed Haley's mother and took her insults and wrapped them around myself like a blanket. I began to eat more because the food was the only source of comfort for me despite the negative things that were said.

Flash forward again to March of my Junior Year of High School and COVID had locked down everything. Haley and Rebecca and I had multiple fights throughout those next two years (one ended up in a book I loaned Rebecca being burned at an end-of-school-year bonfire). I kept being drawn back to them like a moth to a flame. But this... this fight was the worst one yet. My mental health had taken a nose dive because my routine was thrown off track and I wasn't seeing anyone outside of my family due to school being shut down. My grandfather, who I was very close to had passed away the previous summer, and I watched him die. I had already been diagnosed with PTSD, Depression, and anxiety. I messaged the group chat between Haley, Rebecca, and I, and told them I wasn't doing great. That I was feeling worse than ever and my mental health was rapidly declining. They kept pushing me off and ignoring me in the group chat. I snapped, telling them I would drop everything and listen to them whenever they complained, or needed to talk about something as serious as their mental health. Haley turns around and says "We won't always care, or listen". That hit me like a punch in the gut. In my depressive state, I took that as "We wouldn't care if you ended your life."

I left the group chat and had to deal with the loss of friends on top of everything else. I ended up getting better obviously. I'm too afraid of death to actually act on thoughts. This wasn't supposed to be so heavy, but I guess I really needed to get it out. I'm better now, and I don't talk to them anymore even though I had reached out to Rebecca afterward and forgiven her. She had metaphorically stabbed me in the back again later.

Because of everything that happened with Haley and Rebecca, I find it very, very, difficult to trust anyone. To let anyone get that close.

I hope I didn't make anyone severely depressed after reading that. This is purely for my own healing.

[lumine-no-hikari]

THIS. Fucking...!!!

Being "gifted" ain't all it's cracked up to be. And what they also don't talk about is how absolutely fucking isolating it is.

I scored ridiculously high on all the standardized tests (like, nationwide 96th percentile). Maintaining near-perfect marks in school was effortless for me. I never had to study. I took the SAT in 6th grade, and I didn't have to study for that, either. I have a brain that just knows what to do with factual information. And maybe this sounds like some kinda superpower, but... it's really, really not.

Meanwhile, all my peers were struggling with algebra. And like. There's nothing overly special about taking the SAT so soon. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with struggling with algebra!! But there IS something wrong with being the only one in your middle/high school who doesn't, and everyone is mad at you because you don't struggle like they do, and so they decide the thing to do is bully you, even though you'd happily help them if only you knew how to speak like a Normal Person™, but no wait, you fucken can't because in addition to being autistic, you grew up in an abusive house where you'll get smacked around if you speak out of turn, and so you've learned to be afraid of speaking at all, and everyone mistakes that for you thinking you're too good for them or some shit. 🙄

All it's ever done is isolate me and make it less likely that I'll be able to relate to other people. I process information differently than Normal People™, and what this translates to is near constant miscommunications, and me trying to talk about some concept or pattern that they just. can't. fucking. see. And then they look at me like I've suddenly sprouted like half a dozen heads, and they back away slowly because they think I'm either bullshitting them or I'm off my fucken rocker. And who knows... maybe I am off my fucken rocker by now; I've got 34 years of living in a world that thinks that people like me ain't worth shit.

So like. Whoop-dee-fricken-doo, I'm good at playing fetch on the standardized tests, I'm lightning-fast at identifying patterns and putting them to good use, and I can quickly and efficiently put together factual information in logical ways that allow me to learn and to synthesize new information faster than ordinary, but like...

Being able to do any of that has no practical applications if you're not a white neurotypical man. Because like... even if you get the right answer, right? Even if you're ahead of the "curve", you still have to overcome the hurdle that is being taken seriously in a world that doesn't value you because you weren't born with the correct body/neurotype for people to imagine that your mind is worth anyfuckenthing. I see patterns and warn people about them and I'm right 9.9 times out of 10, but then they turn around and tell me that even broken fucken clocks are right twice a day, and... the whole thing is a very Cassandrean Task.

And also... there's lots and lots and LOTS of stuff that I can't do. Because like... socially I'm blind, and the world I live in is VERY unforgiving when it comes to that. Also, even in ordinary contexts, I speak using Big Words™, because what I'm going for is precision and clarity (because when I don't, I get horrendously misunderstood), only to have the other person perceive arrogance and pretentiousness (and being AFAB absolutely does not help with that), and... just... ugh...

"Giftedness" is a fucking scam, and I'd give just about anything to have a different neurotype and also to not be traumatized. Maybe then I could fit in with other people.

people misunderstand what ‘gifted kid’ actually means but it’s ok it’s fine it’s cool it’s good

[boomerang109]

asfdkslsck Boom I love you so much, I can't do math either and it made me so happy to see you work through it on the "no gay has all 5 post" because that's exactly what I did too

this made me SO 🥰🥰 cause i think i saw it right when i woke up? and for context, i posted my lack of math skill at like 2am and i had to wake up at 8 to finish an assignment before my 9am, so i was fucking EXHAUSTED and i just really needed the ego boost of getting love from a mutual (especially right before my terrible morning class) so thank you 🥰

[specialgrades]

"caught red handed." - miya atsumu.

omega!miya atsumu x top!reader

wc: 1.4k 🥴 oopsie daisy

summary: it's all bullshit. social higharchy my ass. but the sweet omega smell of the blonde miya twin and the flushed stare he gave you gets the setter in a very, interesting, position.

cw: con noncon, somnophilia, a/b/o dynamics, weed use/mentions, breeding, belly bulge, gangbang mention, voyeurism if you squint, degradation, light feminization (calling ass a cunt), mild dumbification, brat!atsumu if you squint

a/n: i do not remember the last time i ever published my work please bare with me lol. i've also only watched like two episodes of haikyuu. not proofread, its 9:00 AM and i haven't slept

IMPORTANT: I NO LONGER WRITE FOR HAIKYUU

it's all bullshit.

thats what you told yourself, watching everyone have their coming of age moments. alpha this, omega that. it was a crock of shit.

the social aspect at least. the physical aspect was all too real. the girls in your college algebra class talked about the different suppressors they were put on, and the boys bullied the few omega males in the locker room when their scent was overwhelming.

you couldn't really care for it. social higharchy was never something that interested you. your sister dubbed you a sigma when you shared this with her; thus yelling at her to fuck off.

it made sense. you could be an alpha if you really tried, but cared more about getting high than being an upstanding citizen. it was alright, you didn't mind.

spring was hell for everyone. people often missed school and work for one reason or another during it. it got to the point that spring break got extended and applied to the work force to accommodate.

you took this chance to chill with your friends and fuck around. it was dubbed osamu's turn to host.

only now was that seeming to be a horrible idea.

atsumu, osamu's twin brother, was stuck at home doubling up doses for the spring time. osamu told him to not leave his room while his friends were over; if the faint omega smell wasn't enough to rile up a group of delinquents.

atsumu was horrible at following instructions. after about the fourth blunt rotation the smell of weed seemed to disappear. the sweet smell of an unmarked omega wafted through the apartment.

"i'm only here to get a drink man, piss off." he told his twin, desperately trying to ignore the hungry eyes on him.

atsumu was known for masking his omega-ness. he didn't pretend he wasn't one, no, just avoided the concept like the plague. spring time made it almost impossible for him to keep that facade up.

"you stink, 'sumu." osamu spoke, jokingly pinching his nose. atsumu rolled his eyes, grabbing a soda can from the fridge. "at least i don't reak of weed." he combated. he took a glance at the group in the living room and felt small under the gaze of his brothers friends. his eyes caught yours, and his breath caught in his throat.

you weren't an alpha, right? the only alpha in the room was his brother. everyone else was a beta or some other. but god, his knees almost buckled under your gaze.

the sleezy smile you sent him made blood rush south. he couldn't move, and you wouldn't stop staring.

"oi, stop eye fucking my brother, (Y/N)." osamu smacked you upside the head, not focusing long enough to notice the wink you shoot atsumu. he makes a b-line to his room, shutting the door behind him.

everything felt hot. have you always been that, attractive? he's seen you at their volleyball games, hunched over in the bleachers and ragging on his brother afterwards. why did he feel this way now?

atsumu has been through enough springs to know the only way to fix this by himself. still against the door, his hand shakily went under his sweats. he barely grazed his cock and he moaned, his free hand flying over his mouth. he paused, listening for any hints that someone heard him, before fishing his small cock out of his sweats.

it took all he had to not moan like a whore just to his own stimulation. it became increasingly more difficult as his brain wandered.

what if it was your hand fisting his cock? what would you tell him when you forced his smaller body on your knot? how would you smell as you used him?

he didn't even notice he was getting louder, his hand doing little to muffle any sounds he made. "(Y-Y/N)- fuck! please!" he whined, bucking his hips to meet his hand.

he came for the first time that evening whimpering your name, knees threatening to buckle as he did.

if only he knew the smirk on your face as you heard his wonton moans on your way to the bathroom.

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

a lot of weed and bad horror films took out a lot on your little posse. osamu and you being the only ones remaining. osamu told you to not fuck anything up, he was going to his room. the mumbled affirmation you sent him was all he needed before disappearing down the hallway. you waited for the click of the door locking before standing.

maybe it was the weed talking. maybe the sleep deprivation from midterms. you couldn't put a finger on what pulled you to the blonde miya twin's room.

he looked so cute sleeping. all sprawled out with the blanket barely even covering him. he slept nude, it was like he knew you were gonna fuck him!

silently tugging your pants open, hand slowly jacking your cock to full mast as you positioned between the legs of the starfished setter.

three fingers later and atsumu was still fast asleep. his little omega cock now leaking precum and slick covering his puckered hole allowed you to deem him ready.

pushing the tip in, he finally stirred. his eyes squeezed tighter and tried to push away from you. "shh, it's okay baby." you whispered, pushing hair out of his face. something in you pushed forward, everything up to the thick knot at the base inside of the sleeping miya boy.

well, previously sleeping. the intrusion making his eyes flutter open. blinking away the sleep in his eyes, he realized what was happening. when he did, he started to fight back.

"hey hey, shh baby. you want this, don'tcha? otherwise you wouldn'tve been jacking your little cock to the thought of me earlier." his eyes widened at your words, and kept trying to push you off of him. his hands pushing at your hips and lips pouting.

how cute.

swiftly pinning his wrists above his head with one hand and holding his hips down with the other, you stared into his eyes. the moonlight caught his blown pupils perfectly; illuminating the cocky smirk that formed on your face just right for him too.

he yelped when you pulled back and slammed back in. not breaking eye contact, his body thrashed as you thrusted your cock into his tight little cunt. he resisted the best he could, but the way his cunt clenched around your cock told you he was loving every second of this.

it didn't take long for him to stop thrashing, whining and moaning as you abused his prostate. he felt your hand go to his tummy, rubbing the bulge that appeared every time you thrusted into him. the knowledge made him moan out loud.

"keep that up and your brother will catch us, baby. or worse, one of the others in the living room. don't think i could stop them from further destroying you if they saw us." atsumu whined in response. "or would you like that? taking multiple knots to satisfy your omega cunt?" he glared at you but clenched harder at your words. "such a slutty cunt, omega. you know what? be loud. let everyone know who's cock you're losing yourself to." atsumu opened his mouth to talk, only weak whimpers leaving his throat.

"did i already fuck you stupid? oh baby, you're too cute. babbling like an idiot on my cock." he shook his head. "'m not an idiot." he barely managed. a chuckle verbarated in your chest.

"no, you're not are you? you're no idiot, you're a dumb whore f'me." the setter whined again, hips pushing back against your thrusts. he bit his lip to muffle his cries as he came.

"dumb whore came just from some mean words? pathetic." he could feel your knot swelling every time you thrusted in his hole. he nearly came again just from the thought of you knotting him.

"'m gonna give you my pups, 'tsumu." you breathed, thrusts starting to falter slightly. "all mine?" he weakly asked. you smiled and cupped his cheek.

"yeah, all for you 'tsu." for the first time that night you kissed him, finally thrusting your knot into his tight heat, swallowing his moans as you filled him with your cum. he felt so warm and full, euphoric. he came again with you.

he went to push away, thinking you were done. your stronger arms pushed him back down.

"who said we were done, baby? gotta make sure it sticks, right?"

[monstermoviedean]

dean + ged thoughts under the cut, featuring some of my favorite things: dismantling the american education system, bullying sera gamble, john's journal, and sad dean hours.

the ged. oh my god the ged. look. the students i knew who went for geds instead of traditional diplomas either wanted to get out of high school early because they were miserable, or were coming back after dropping out. and regardless, it was tough. it's time-consuming, it's expensive, and it requires specific knowledge that i'm going to assume was hard to track down in the late 90s/early 00s.

imagine you're dean, you've been to multiple schools a year, you have no consistent foundation for any academic knowledge, and your dad thinks it's all pointless because he just needs you to follow orders. you missed the unit on polynomials in algebra because you were out of school for three weeks helping your dad track some ghouls. one state teaches us history in eighth grade and one teaches it in ninth, and moving between states means you missed parts of each. you've got to find the money to pay for these, find the curriculum to study, and be a resident in the state long enough to take all four tests - not to mention take and pass all four tests. and he did it. he fucking did it!

he's smart! he's so fucking smart! and i say this with two caveats: 1) that intelligence is a white supremacist concept and 2) that the american education system is primarily based on compliance and memorization, not actual skills. but figuring out how to navigate the system, figuring out what he needed to learn, learning it, and passing those tests with all the obstacles he faced. that takes so much.

here's the thing. the ged line comes from gamble and that makes me think it was intended to be a joke about dean being dumb. but i'd argue that getting a ged in his circumstances was much more difficult than getting a traditional diploma. especially with this kicker: john's journal says dean graduated with a traditional diploma, on time. and you might say, arden, you gotta stop talking about john's journal. to which i say: no <3

john's journal, according to the author, is, "if not official canon, then certainly authorized." he wrote it in conversation with kripke and cathryn humphris during season 4. the ged line is from 05x02 (so dean having a diploma predates dean having a ged). and john's journal says unequivocally that dean got a diploma on june 16, 1998 (page 146).

so what does this mean? you might say the journal is just a stupid semi-canon moneygrab and doesn't count. okay. you might say john doesn't know the difference between a diploma and a ged. fair. i say that we have two options: one, dean had gotten his ged much earlier in secret as a contingency plan and faked getting a traditional diploma for john, or two, dean dropped out without telling anyone, faked getting a traditional diploma, and did his ged later (i'd guess stanford era when john let dean go out on his own).

why? i'm guessing john emphasized repeatedly how important it was for his kids to get "normal" diplomas like "normal" kids. and dean didn't want to let him down. hell, john describes dean graduating as "getting one of my boys through school." no credit to dean, of course. i think there could be an issue too of dean knowing he's not supposed to be the "smart one." john calls sam a borderline genius in his entry about dean's graduation and spends way more time talking about sam than dean. maybe it was in dean's advantage to play dumb? maybe sam's?

finally, timing. if he got his ged early, i'd guess it was because he wanted to drop out and help john hunt. he probably went through the whole process, got it, and never told john because john wouldn't have let him drop out. if he got his ged later, i think it was for cassie. maybe he thought if he got the ged he could go be a college kid just like her.

bottom line? i'm so proud of him. i'm so fucking proud of him.

[blazehedgehog]

Do you ever think of yourself as being on the ASD? Up until the past few years (I'm 25 now), I never considered the possibility but as I delved deeper I identified with a lot of common behaviors (obsession, preferring isolation, social issues/anxiety, pickiness) and explained why I found it so difficult to assimilate in high school.

I’ve occasionally wondered, but there are a lot of things that kind of go against the grain of that kind of diagnosis. The few symptoms I exhibit of ASD also overlap with something that’s far more likely, and that’s that I probably have ADHD.

I had two or three teachers growing up try to convince my Mom that I had ADHD and that I needed to be medicated for it. My Mom refused to believe them, because back in the early 90′s, the traditional definition of ADHD included hyperactivity, and I was not a classically hyperactive kid. The image of ADD kids back then was being unable to sit still, unable to stop acting out. ADD kids were loud and grabby and uncontrollable, which I definitely was not.

We understand a lot more about the condition now and even though you should never self-diagnose, I’m 99% sure I have ADHD. My inability to focus on one singular hobby (hi, I’m an artist, game developer, sound engineer, youtuber, streamer, and writer), my extremely selective and poor memory, my inability to switch tracks and get motivated on something else after my mind is already set, my utter impatience for certain things, etc.

My isolation and social issues can be explained simply by my depression more than ASD, I think. I’ve talked about this before but I fell apart in high school. Things happened to me in middle school; I had bullies that acted like my friends, they did some deeply horrible things to me, and it completely destroyed my ability to trust anyone for decades. To some degree, it still persists to this very day. It just... wrecked me, in a way that’s hard to describe, and harder to even comprehend. I stopped showering. I stopped brushing my teeth. I just gave up on taking care of myself. I’ve blocked most of the memories out because of trauma coping mechanisms; I only know some of these things because other people have told me they happened. It really was that bad.

I had a really bad stretch of like, five years, from around 13 years old to 17 or 18, maybe even 19. I did eventually get away from those bullies in high school, but the combination of self-loathing they left me with combined with my ADHD and the mounting anxiety problems I was developing meant I coasted through an entire semester of algebra class absorbing absolutely nothing and I got a failing grade. Friends (new ones) dared me to skip one class with them for fun, and I figured “Well I’m doing bad in algebra anyway, so yeah, I’ll skip with you and go to the bowling alley.”

And that started the snowball. I became unmoored from the routine of school, which can be a big problem when you have ADHD. Skipping algebra every now and then became always skipping algebra. Then I started skipping gym too, because getting undressed in front of the other kids in the locker room was an introvert nightmare. Skipping two classes turned in to skipping three. Then four. Then all classes. Who cares, right? I couldn’t muster up the interest, especially when I realized I had no idea what the current lesson plan was anymore.

My girlfriend dumped me. The school waited until the start of my senior year to pull me aside and inform me that it was impossible for me to graduate under any circumstances (the first and only sign of disapproval they had shown me in three and a half years). My internet friends were yelling at me. I lost touch with my real-life friends. I had massive, gigantic, reality-ending panic attacks that left me too paralyzed to leave my room even to go to the bathroom. I teetered on the edge of having a nervous breakdown. I lost over 100lbs, leaving me nothing more than skin and bones. The mountain of stress I was feeling was taking a toll on my health.

I shut down. Closed myself off to the outside world. Ryan did not exist anymore. And for something like a decade, that’s how I lived. My only human contact was with immediate family (when they could drag me out in to the sunlight against my will) and with a core group of shrinking internet friends. The few that did not lose respect for me, anyway.

That does things to you. The parts of your brain that knew how to socialize atrophy and you forget how to hold a conversation. When I was still going to school, my cousin and I told each other we should become therapists, because we were excellent at listening to people and being mediators. We could fix anyone’s problems. Now, those skills died inside of me. I went from being able to make anyone feel better to constantly sticking my foot in my mouth. Being a nuisance, even when I wasn’t trying to be. I lost all sense of what was appropriate to say, or how to convey my feelings. Or convey anything outside of a keyboard, really. I made a lot of people angry and upset totally by accident, or pushed them away without realizing what I was even doing.

And all of these bad habits fed in to each other like an endless loop. It was a slippery slope that steeply went down, and down, and down. The more isolated I became, the more I wanted to isolate even more. The shame and embarrassment for who I was becoming kept getting stronger. I was caught in a spiral.

I was getting close enough that I could see where the bottom of the barrel was. I call myself introverted, but I’m also the guy who, completely of his own volition, downloaded the Shoutcast Server software in September of 2000 and hosted an all-night live internet radio broadcast. Alone. I was livestreaming myself playing video games for the internet four years before Twitch.tv was even invented. Whenever it came time to read aloud in class, I was always one of the best, clearest students, never needing to sound out words or pause for anything. Nowadays I'd never say I was anything but an introvert, but deep down there’s also been a voice inside of me dying to get out, and at some point I woke up and realized I could be better. I just need less fear and more confidence.

The person you see writing this blog today is the result of finally starting to become aware of what I was doing to myself, and forcibly dragging myself back out in to the world, inch by inch. I don’t think it’s going very well, but at least I’m still making an effort. I fell apart in to many small pieces, and they’re taking a long time to reassemble. I finally graduated high school about five years ago. (I re-read that post a few months ago and started crying.) As you may pick up on from the differences between that post and this one, I’m still learning a lot about myself and what’s wrong with me. The picture is always becoming clearer by the day.

But knowing the problem means you can find the solution, right? That’s what you’re doing, too.  It’s a slow process, but I continue the fight to heal the damage I’ve done to myself.

Anyway, sorry for getting so randomly heavy and spilling my guts out like this. I appreciate people looking out for me like this. And who knows, maybe I am on the spectrum after all. Just because I have my own theories doesn't mean they're necessarily right.

[pixiescriptures]

Found Family ;

Chapter 3 ;

Illuminated By The Light on My Laptop

----

A/N: this chapter will have multiple group chats, each group chat name will be in blue and italicized. Here are the group chat names and the member's in each chat, along with their username.

Also, there are mentions of age regression. IT IS STRICTLY SFW!!

-----

Felix, Han and Co.

Felix - felex

Jisung - JiJi

Chan - chris

Changbin - binnie

Jeongin - babie noises

Seungmin - killer babie noises

Minho - catboy

Hyunjin - hyunnie

~

3Racha Sauce

Chan - CB97

Changbin - SpearB

Jisung - J.One

~

Danceracha Shit

Felix - Pixie

Hyunjin - Prince

Minho - Cat

~

JeongMin

Jeongin - Jeong

Seungmin - Min

~

The Gayz

Felix - Lixie

Hyunjin - Jinnie

Minho - Meanie Hyung

Seungmin - Minnie

Jeongin - Innie

------

3Racha Sauce

J.One: so, which song are we recording next, hyungs?

CB97: we're not sure. honestly, I'm thinking we should record Matryoshka.

SpearB: it's 3 in the morning you sick fucks shut up and go to sleep

CB97: sleep, who's she??

J.One: I have insomnia you little shit.

SpearB: go text Felix, then. I'm sure he's awake.

J.One: mmm... nah

CB97: still embarrassed about the 'head' thing, sungie?

J.One: don't mention it it's so embarrassing I'm gonna cry wtf

---------

The Gayz

Lixie: hey, @meanie hyung. when we were talking did you see those two guys who were totally eavesdropping??

Meanie Hyung: I believe so. One had blonde hair and the other was unbelievably gorgeous.

Lixie: uh. sure. I was just thinking. Chris hyung and Binnie hyung said they were nearby, what if that was them? Oh fuck. What if they heard the story about the crash and never talk to me again its alk mu failt

Meanie Hyung: pixie, breathe. I doubt it was them, first of all. Second of all, everyone makes mistakes. You both survived, a little worse for wear but physically Jeonginnie has no injuries. You two got super lucky and it's not your fault. It was an accident.

Jinnie: what's going on?

Jinnie: oh lix...do you want me to come over?

Lixie: mm... yes please. or just a video call, I don't mind

Jinnie: I'm on my way, baby, keep breathing okay? Minho, keep an eye on him till I get there, okay??

Meanie Hyung: if pixie weren't on the edge of a breakdown I'd be sassy but I'm too worried about my bubby so yeah. I'll watch him. How long till you get there??

Jinnie: well, I'm on the other side of Seoul so like...an hour??

Meanie Hyung: I'll video call him.

--------

The sound of Felix's ringtone broke him out of his self-deprecating thoughts, his hands shaking as he looked at the screen.

Minho Hyung, he read, sliding his finger onto the accept bar.

"Pixie?" Minho's voice came through the speaker loud and clear, soon joined by his face. He was obviously tired, but he had just gotten home from work and was working on feeding his cats again. "Hi hyung...how are...Soonie, Doongi 'nd Dori?" Felix asked, cooing when he saw Soonie rub up against Minho's arm. "Doongi's passed out on the couch. Dori's...somewhere, and Soonie is apparently hungry," the male laughed, gently petting his cat.

"Hyungie," the Australian said, causing Minho to smile brightly at the screen. Minho could tell the other was regressing and knew Hyunjin needed to get there quick. "Yes baby?" He asked, moving to sit on his bed. Felix let out a little whine, "am sleepy but I can't sleep. hyungie, I want cuddles," he said, letting out a soft whimper. "Hyunjinnie is on his way, baby, can you wait for him?" Felix nodded quickly, getting up and grabbing a pastel pink blanket and a pure white teddy bear. Minho cooed at the sight, finding his best friend to be the cutest thing on the planet. "Do you remember the day you met hyungie?" He asked, wanting to sidetrack the male. Felix shrugged a bit, "fuzzy," he mumbled. "Want hyungie to tell you the story??" Felix nodded quickly, eyes sparkling. "Okay," he said, "listen closely baby."

Minho walked around the empty hallways of the high school, a slight limp with each step. He could barely hear the sound of someone sniffling, which didn't concern him at first until he heard the tell-tale sound of sobs. "Shit," he grumbled, cursing himself for being somewhat worried about the person crying. He hated how his body reacted, turning towards the noise and rushing - as much as he could while his ankle was sprained - to the sound.

What he saw when he opened the door to the boys' bathroom broke his heart. A small, fragile-looking boy was sat, curled up under one of the sinks which was attached to the wall. His face was pale, limbs trembling as he sobbed. When he saw Minho, he quit crying as much as he could, mustering up the courage to mumble out a 'sorry,' before standing up and turning to the sink. Minho sighed, "are you new?" He knew full well about the "hazing ritual" that the popular kids did. It mostly consisted of stealing your lunch for the first few weeks, using you as a punching bag and forcing you to do their assignments, all in the name of getting used to life at Levanter High.

"Yeah," he whispered. "I moved here from Australia a week ago. Started school today," he hummed. Minho winced at his broken Korean, nodding his head. "Stick by me, kiddo. I'll keep 'em away from you," he didn't know why but he felt the need to protect the Australian boy. Maybe it was the innocence he could see in the smaller's eyes, tucked away behind all of the pain and sadness that their peers caused. Maybe it was because the boy looked like he weighed twenty pounds and hadn't eaten for a month, though Minho was almost certain he had because he felt like not eating for a month would be a struggle, and he wasn't certain you wouldn't die from that.

Felix looked at him with wide eyes, "really?" The hopeful look soon died down as he hummed out, "why? what's in it for you?" This caused Minho to scoff, "I've always wanted to get back at my brother for bullying the new kids," he said. Felix's eyes widened in shock, "your brother is Lee Jinhyung??" He asked, furrowing his brows. "Now that you told me that, I don't trust you. However, I do need to find a way to actually get lunch cause I'm kind of on my own in Korea which means I barely have money for food so..."

Minho sighed, "what class do you have now?" He asked, gently hooking his arm into the other's. "Uh...ew. This year is Algebra II." "Ah! That's where I'm headed, kiddo. Oh! I'm Minho, by the way. I got held back a year for punching someone," he laughed it off like it was no big deal but Felix couldn't stop himself from looking up at him in admiration. "I'm Felix. Lee Felix, the transfer student from Australia who got emancipated at the ripe age of sixteen," he said, most of his words in English, but Minho thought that was something good so he smiled at Felix.

With a hum, the two set off to find the Algebra classroom, not knowing that their friendship would be the start of something that would, ultimately, change their lives for the better.

When Minho finished telling the story, he looked up at Felix who had his eyes trained on the door. "Is someone knocking, baby?" Felix nodded, scared. "Go see if it's Jinnie, okay? But take the phone with you." Felix got up and walked to the door, quietly mumbling out a 'Jinnie?'

"Hey Lixie, can you open up for Hyung?" Hyunjin's voice rang through the door, loud and clear. Felix's lips curled into a smile and he unlocked the door, opening it quickly. "Hyungie! Cuddles!" He shouted, happily.

[animentality]

There was a gay guy named Javier who was in all of my high school math classes except pre calculus. I also knew him from middle school, since he was in a lot of my lunch periods and assembly periods.

He was one of the most obnoxious people I've ever met, acting like some kind of prima donna, talking over people, being rude to teachers who are just trying to teach, being sassy just for the sake of being edgy. Guy wore makeup and would point out other people's facial blemishes and say "I'm just joooking" if they looked upset.

Guy just dripped of disdain for other people. He and a huge group of girls would always be blocking the hallways. He was flamboyantly nasty and consistently would roll his eyes at completely reasonable requests from other people.

Seriously, the guy had a gross personality.

The area I grew up in was mega liberal, so he's not getting bullied for being gay or anything.

He's just a dick because no one's gonna call him out on it.

Anyway.

I remember one time in high school I was in algebra...wait no, geometry.

I had a math teacher that I liked a lot because she was pretty nice and fairly encouraging of everyone.

But she's like, reached her limit of dealing with Javier on this particular day.

Because Javier has been giggling and on his phone for most of the year.

He's always talking while she's teaching, he's always walking in late, and making a shit ton of noise every time he does and spreads all his junk around.

He continuously whines about why math is pointless.

So today he interrupts her during a lesson and says "I don't understand."

And she's like "what part? I can go over it again, step by step or we can talk more after class-"

And he's like "no, i don't want to be bored twice. I just mean I don't understand why this matters."

And like the entire room was sort of not paying attention up until that point, but now they are.

Javier is smirking because he's just a prick like that.

He thinks he's said something clever or funny.

And my math teacher is like.

One of the nicer teachers who doesn't actively let the students know she hates her job. She's a decent teacher and a good person who's just getting by. That's the vibe I got from her.

She just whips around, and there's some kind of ancient primeval fire in her eyes and she walks right over to him with the math textbook and she puts it on his desk.

And she's like:

"wow, the gravitational pull from the center of the universe just yanked that textbook out of my hand, weird."

And she just.

Gives him this look.

Of utter disdain.

And it's like.

It honestly was such a powerful moment for me because I had been silently hating Javier for maybe three years up to that point.

You know, i'm a fairly introverted person but I was a lot more shy than introverted in middle and high school.

This kid always calling out other people for stupid things or SQUEALING and giggling and being either passive aggressive or just toxic towards other kids because it's just part of his "fun loving" flamboyant attitude always made me uncomfortable and irritated.

So seeing my teacher drop a book on a student's desk and look him in the eye and mock his self aggrandizing persona and loud bullshit behavior and "me me ME" attitude?

One of the very few moments of my teen years that are worth remembering.

And just an addendum:

The only reason I mentioned he was gay is because he wore a lot of makeup, nail polish, and was extremely catty in that high school girl bringing other people down way.

It's not that boys aren't also vain and rude in high school, it's just in a different way.

And the way he was rude was in that reality TV star way, and I needed to emphasize that because this is not a Tumblr scenario.

This did actually happen.

Real life is complicated and real people can be like that.

And newsflash.

Just because someone's LGBT doesn't make them a nice or even a good person.

Javier was not a good person.

Maybe he is now, people can change. But the person I knew was disrespectful, melodramatic and held grudges, and couldn't handle a joke or the subject of conversation not revolving around him.

I hated that kid and I have no compulsions about saying that because Tumblr needs to remember that people are people, and being a part of the LGBT community doesn't negate the fact that sometimes you're just not a likable person.

Just saying before I end this post I don't need the simplistic cries of "but he was gay, he might've been covering for his insecurities-"

I don't know the kid's whole story, but from what I saw, he was a privileged white gay of European heritage who regularly mocked other people for their looks and talents.

Don't make excuses for a guy you don't know either.

[emjenenla]

I'm Holding On; Why is Everything so Heavy? [a SoC Fanfic]

Modern AU. Kaz knew he only was only asking because he thought he was supposed to. Most people were like that; Kaz’s multiple lives and many secrets relied on it.

Warnings: violence, panic attacks, PTSD, mentions of car accidents, near drowning, sex trafficking

Title: I'm Holding On; Why is Everything so Heavy?

Author: Emjen Enla (Fanfiction)/emjenenla (Tumblr)

Teaser: Modern AU. Kaz knew he only was only asking because he thought he was supposed to. Most people were like that; Kaz’s multiple lives and many secrets relied on it.

Rating: PG-13/T

Canon/Timeline: Modern AU; same general time frame as SoC (Kaz is seventeen, Jordie is four years older which means he’s twenty-one)

Dominant Characters: Kaz Brekker, Inej Ghafa, Jordie Rietveld, appearances by Jesper Fahey, Nina Zenik, Alina Starkov, Per Haskell, mentions of Pekka Rollins, Jan Van Eck, Wylan Van Eck, Mal Oretsev, one OC, various others

Pairings: technically more Kaz & Inej friendship than legitimate Kanej, mentions of Wesper

Warnings: violence, panic attacks, PTSD, mentions of car accidents, near drowning, sex trafficking

Notes:

- Long story short, I became obsessed with the idea of Kaz in a hoodie riding a subway with earbuds in so no one would try to talk to him and this fic happened. I hope you all enjoy. :)

-Special thanks to wylanvanwreck on AO3 and their story The Mighty Dregs as well as a post by @crows-and-co. Both formed the basis of the thought experiment that became Kaz in this AU.

-Also, why is Jordie in the Fanfiction archive character list as Joshie R.?

Disclaimer: I don’t own Six of Crows or “Heavy” by Linkin Park (the song I got the title from)

--

Kaz knew that his day was officially a bust when he had a panic attack in third period.

Okay, technically he didn’t have a panic attack in third period. He realized it was going to happen and fled to the bathroom, where he locked himself in a stall and waited until he could breathe again. The bathroom was thankfully empty. If someone heard him, one of two horrible things would happen; he’s be pitied or mocked. He’d lost a lot of his bully shielding when he’d cleaned up his school presence during the switch to high school. That change had been necessary both for Jordie’s peace of mind and to keep Kaz Rietveld and the Dregs lieutenant Brekker separate. Of course, that meant that he’d gone from that scary kid who smoked weed behind the school to a crippled AP student who no one thought could fight back.

Even worse than bullies would be if some well-meaning student told the nurse. Marya Hendriks was one of the nicest people on earth and she meant well, but if she figured out about the panic attacks she’d tell Jordie. Kaz had been hiding his admittedly shaky mental health from Jordie basically since the accident that killed their parents. He knew that was a bad idea in the long run, but it didn’t change the fact that therapy and meds cost money which was something the tragically orphaned Rietveld brothers did not have.

So he hid alone in the bathroom until almost the end of the class period before he admitted to himself that he had to go back. He felt shaky and a little panicky, but he was standing by the sink washing his hands when Jesper came in.

“What are you doing here?” Kaz asked. “You’re supposed to be in class.”

“So are you,” Jesper said. “You’ve been gone a long time. Are you sick?”

Jesper was Kaz’s oldest friend, though they didn’t spend as much time together as they once had. If asked Kaz would blame that on Jesper starting to date Wylan, though he knew it was at least partially because of the Dregs and the ever-lengthening list of things that Jesper didn’t know about.

“I’m fine,” Kaz said drying his hands and brushing past the other boy. “Did Dryden manage to explain anything today?”

“I don’t understand it,” Jesper said. “And neither does anyone else. Can you tutor me after school?”

“Lunch or tomorrow morning,” Kaz said. “I’m busy tonight.”

“Fine, lunch then,” Jesper sighed. He liked to have his lunch periods and he hated getting up early. “I honestly don’t get how you’re the only one who doesn’t get confused by Dryden. Everyone else is struggling.”

“That’s because I’ve long since accepted that Dryden doesn’t know how to do algebra and I don’t try to understand what he’s teaching,” Kaz said. “I still get all the right answers, so there’s nothing he can do to me.”

They reached the algebra classroom. Kaz’s bad leg was killing him after all the time spent curled up in the bathroom stall. He really should have been using a cane, but when the injury had first happened he’d refused. He’d come around to it after joining the Dregs because it turned out a cane was a pretty good weapon. Unfortunately, since the cane was now connected to Brekker, Kaz Rietveld couldn’t start using one.

Kaz opened the door just as the bell rang and students began pour out. He stuffed his hands into the big pocket of his black hoodie and tried not to hunch his shoulders to obviously. Touch aversion was on the list of things he’d pretended to get over to keep from worrying Jordie, in reality it was hard to shake the horror of being trapped with his parents’ bodies in a car that was slowly filling with water. The negligent and painful treatment he’d received from the doctors afterwards hadn’t helped either.

Kaz twisted his hands around the black leather gloves hidden inside his hoodie pocket and tried not to think about how much better he’d feel if he was wearing them. He could wear the gloves as Brekker because he could explain it away as trying to avoid leaving fingerprints, but there was no explanation for Kaz Rietveld wearing gloves.

If he was completely honest, he hated being Kaz Rietveld.

He crossed the room to his desk and began gathering his books. Dryden looked up from arranging papers on his desk. “Are you alright, Kazimir?”

Kaz knew he only was only asking because he thought he was supposed to. Most people were like that; Kaz’s multiple lives and many secrets relied on it.

“Yes, sir,” he said with a submissive smile that he knew Dryden’s ego liked. “Thank you for asking.”

~~~~

Kaz was feeling a little calmer by the time they got out of school. Helping Jesper with algebra during lunch had helped a lot. Kaz loved math; it was easy and straightforward and never failed to make him feel like he was at least partially in control of his life.

When the last bell rang, Kaz made his way through the halls to his locker, hands buried deep in his hoodie pocket. He unlocked his locker and pulled his ancient slide phone out of the front pocket of his backpack. The only texts he had were weird Instagram photos that Jesper had sent him during study hall. No texts from any of the Dregs which meant that things were still on for tonight.

Someone slammed into his back and Kaz almost broke the kid’s arm. He’d learned from being Brekker that nothing kept people from touching you without mockery or pity like the promise of violence to anyone who violated your personal space. Unfortunately, that was on the list of things that were frowned upon at East Ketterdam High.

He glared at the kid until he was gone, then pulled his second piece of ridiculously outdated technology out of his backpack. It was a 4th Gen iPod Nano in an absolutely revolting shade of orange. The thing had been Jordie’s first and bore his dubious taste in color as a result. Jordie had given it to Kaz shortly before their parents had died, and Kaz had been stuck using it ever since.

Still, it was better than having no music player at all. Kaz unwound the black earbuds and shoved them into his ears. He put his playlist of pirated music on shuffle and gathered up the rest of his things. Then he swung his backpack on and left the school.

He made his way to the nearest subway stop. Subways were pretty much the only type of transportation he could manage these days. He was so deathly terrified of cars that some days it was a struggle to cross the street, and buses could still be struck by other vehicles and be pushed off the road into water. Subways ran on tracks and had only limited interaction with other subways, so he could handle them.

The subway was busy enough that there were no seats. No one stood up to offer him a seat, but that was okay; Kaz didn’t want anyone’s pity. He hooked an arm around one of the poles and leaned against it, watching as the stops zoomed by. He finally gave into the urge to put the gloves on. The subtle leather covered his hands, and he felt a million times safer.

He got off the subway at a stop near West Ketterdam High. He was now on the opposite side of the Barrel from his school and the dingy apartment he and Jordie lived in. It was a long trip for what basically constituted as a commute, but when he’d joined a gang he hadn’t wanted to risk running into someone he knew from the East Barrel.

He climbed up the steps out of the subway station and set off down one of the streets. His bad leg was throbbing worse than before after the jarring it had received on the subway. He wormed a bottle of Advil out of his backpack and shook two into his hand. He chewed them so they’d kick in faster and put the bottle away. The Advil would barely help, but his prescription meds were too expensive to use most of the time.

His mouth was still full of the sour, acidic taste of medicine when he reached an old but well-kept house in a dingy side street. He climbed the front steps and knocked. A minute later Alina, Inej’s foster mother, answered the door. She was a young woman and dressed casually, her long, inexplicably white hair was hanging loose around her shoulders. “Hello, Kaz,” she said with a smile. “You know you can just come in. You don’t need to knock.”

“I know,” Kaz said stepping into the house.

The smile Alina gave him was fond and it made Kaz want to do something to wipe it off her face. “Inej isn’t home from school yet,” she said. “I made some cookies this afternoon, though. Do you want some?”

“Maybe later,” Kaz said. “I’ll wait for Inej upstairs.” He tried to avoid Inej’s foster parents as much as possible. He knew that they’d assumed he was Inej’s boyfriend though to be honest he wasn’t sure if he and Inej were even really friends.

He climbed the creaky stairs and headed into Inej’s bedroom. Her foster sister, Nina, was already there lying stretched out on her bed on the left side of the room. Kaz raised an eyebrow. “What are you doing here?”

“I was sick today,” Nina said in an airy voice that suggested she’d just skipped out.

“Fun,” Kaz crossed to Inej’s bed on the right side of the room. He took off his backpack and lowered himself to the floor, suppressing a hiss of pain. Then he leaned over and began rummaging under the bed.

He heard Nina’s sheets rustle as she rolled over. “Is it a big job tonight?”

“You know that I can’t tell you that.”

“Oh, come on, Brekker,” Nina whined. “I thought you’d stop this when I joined up.”

“Whether or not you’re a Dreg doesn’t change the fact that this is an active job,” Kaz said without looking at her. “Only people involved can know about it right now. If you want all the details, I’m sure Inej will be happy to fill you in tomorrow.”

“Fine,” Nina grumbled and fell silent.

Kaz pulled a heavy cardboard box out from under the bed and opened it. Inside were his and Inej’s knives, lockpicks and other equipment. He began separating his favorites out and strapping them to various parts of his body underneath his clothes.

“You know if Alina and Mal find those Inej is going to get in a lot of trouble,” Nina said. “This house has a ‘strict no weapons policy.’”

“I bought all of these,” Kaz said. “That means they’re technically mine, and I don’t live here.”

Nina snorted. “You know, I’m not sure Alina and Mal would accept that loophole.”

Kaz opened his mouth to respond, but something changed, and he knew Inej was there. He turned to see her standing silently in the doorway in her leggings and boots and oversized knit sweater. He didn’t know how he always knew when she was around, but he did.

“Hello,” he said.

“Hi,” Inej crossed the room and began taking her knives out of the box. “How are you today?”

Kaz did not let himself think about the panic attack he’d had that morning. Besides, Inej didn’t know about those so he couldn’t tell her anyway. “Ready,” he said.

“Me too,” Inej said. Settling down to strap on her weapons.

Inej had been abducted by sex traffickers at fourteen. She’d been rescued a year later and put into foster care while the system tried to find her parents. Two years later and it was blatantly obvious that no one was actually looking for Mr. and Mrs. Ghafa, and Inej would probably be stuck in the system until she turned eighteen.

Kaz finished arming himself by sliding an oyster shucking knife into one of his battered high tops. He worked himself to his feet, ignoring the worried look Inej gave him and moved his backpack into Inej’s closet. His cane—a sleek black thing with a rounded knob on top—was also there, leaning against the wall. He took it out and tried not to lean too heavily on it.

“Ready to go?” He asked Inej.

She nodded. At some point she’d changed out of her fuzzy knit sweater and put on a dark-color zip front sweatshirt with a hood that she could pull over her head later to keep her braid out of the way.

“Tell me how it goes,” Nina called after them as they left the room.

Inej called goodbye to Alina at the front door and they let themselves out into the street. At the sidewalk, they turned right and began the walk to the Slat. Kaz knew that Inej rode the bus to the Slat when he wasn’t around. When he’d first started keeping his stuff at her house, she’d suggested they ride the bus a number of times. He’d gotten around it by simply ignoring her and walking; eventually she’d stopped asking.

It took them a little over twenty minutes to walk to the Slat, which was a beaten down four-story building of an indeterminable original purpose. Even though it wasn’t even five o’clock yet, the place still had a number of seedy looking people hanging around. Those were the gang members who made their livings working for the Dregs and nothing else. That was Kaz’s legacy to the gang; before he’d joined up and started running things Per Haskell had barely been able to pay his own expenses let alone anyone else’s.

Kaz let himself and Inej in through the creaky front door, then he stalked across the big front room and knocked on Per Haskell’s door. “Come in!” the gang leader called and Kaz stepped inside leaving Inej outside.

“Just letting you know that Inej and I are here,” Kaz said.

Per Haskell looked up and snorted. “You look like a high school nerd, Brekker, that undercut doesn’t help.”

Kaz looked down his oversized hoodie, dark jeans and old high tops. “This is how I dress, sir,” he said hoping he didn’t sound like a petulant teenager, this was not the first time he and Per Haskell had had this conversation. “If you want me to wear a full suit, give me the money to buy one and I will.”

Per Haskell hacked out a sound that was half laugh half smoker’s cough. “That would be something to see,” he said. “When are you leaving for the job?”

“When it gets dark,” Kaz said. “It should only take us an hour or two”

“I’ll let you handle this,” Haskell said leaning back in his chair and reaching for the large mug of room temperature lager sitting on the desk. He spoke like there had been a chance he would come. Per Haskell hadn’t done any real work in as long as Kaz had known him; he didn’t even know exactly what the plan was, only what the goal was.

“I can handle it,” Kaz said without letting any annoyance in his voice. He reminded himself that his long-term goals relied on Haskell’s incompetence. “Don’t worry about a thing.”

~~~~

When the sun set, he and Inej rode the subway out of the Barrel and into the business part of Ketterdam. At this time of day, comparatively few people were heading into the business district because people didn’t live there, so they were both able to sit, something Kaz would never admit to being relieved about.

After they got off the subway they only had to walk a couple blocks before the headquarters of Van Eck Industries rose up before them. They stood on the corner looking up at the darkened windows. Kaz pulled off the backpack he’d brought from the Slat and pulled out a pair of ski masks. It was almost hilariously like something out of a movie, but they needed to make sure their faces didn’t end up on any of the building’s copious security cameras. They would deal with them, but only from the inside.

They both fitted their masks on and became a pair of extremely stereotypical bandits. Then they headed across the street to the employee entrance. The door was locked with a randomly generated password, but Kaz whipped out one of the laptops he’d bought for the Dregs with Per Haskell’s money and within seconds had bypassed the lock and they were in.

Once they were inside, they made their way to the security room. The guard on duty tonight was exceedingly lazy which was why they’d chosen tonight for the job. When they entered the security room, the man was sitting at his desk watching a soap opera and vacantly munching on potato chips. He obviously wasn’t watching the many security camera monitors around him, because if he had been he would have seen the two masked people slinking through the hallways.

Inej crossed the room on silent feet and punched the man a couple times with a pair of brass knuckles she always kept in one of her pockets. When he passed out, she heaved him out of his chair and began to drag him towards a closet.

Kaz sat down in the security guard’s chair, stuck a flash drive into the computer and released the most potent of his half a dozen custom computer viruses into the system. When he was finished, he glanced at Inej who stood in the center of the security room watching the security footage on the computer screens flicker out. “I’ll never get tired of that,” she said with a smile.

Kaz smiled as well and made sure he kept his face turned away until he could smooth out his expression again. “Whatever,” he stood up, and pulled his mask off. Now that the security cameras were out of commission there was no reason to keep wearing it. “Let’s move. We’ve got thirty-one minutes before the second security guard finishes her round and gets back here.”

~~~~

Jan Van Eck’s office was on the top floor of the building. With the computer virus in effect, Kaz had to open the electronic lock by opening it up and fiddling with the wires, but it still took him less than a minute. He’d started to learn to pick locks at age nine, while in the hospital after the accident and trying desperately not to think about any of the bad stuff. He’d kept practicing afterwards and now he was one of the best lockpicks in Ketterdam.

The door to Van Eck’s office opened into a borderline ridiculously expensive space that was exactly what you’d expect of man of his wealth and famous arrogance to have. A DeKappel painting hung on the wall behind the desk. Kaz and Inej lifted it down to reveal the safe.

Inej stood guard by the door while Kaz cracked the safe. Even though they were in the middle of a big job, Kaz found his nerves settling. Lockpicking was as relaxing as math.

He got the safe open in what he estimated to approximately half the time it would have taken the Dregs’ second best lockpick. He swung the safe door open and shone a flashlight inside to get a better view of the contents. There were stacks and stacks of cash inside along with some other boxes and papers. Kaz whistled softly. “Someone learns to learn that keeping copious amounts of cash in his safe is just asking for it to be stolen.”

“Is there a lot?” Inej asked.

“Yes,” Kaz began taking out the cash. It was all carefully tied up in those little paper slips you got on bills from the bank. Kaz estimated there was around twenty thousand dollars. His fingers itched to take the money for himself. Twenty thousand dollars would take care of rent and food and all that credit card debt Jordie pretended they didn’t have. He pushed the urge away; Per Haskell might be one of the most useless generals in the Barrel but stealing from him was still a bad idea.

Inej left her guard post and began loading up her backpack with money. Kaz dug deeper into the safe and pulled out some jewelry that was probably worth a couple hundred dollars apiece. Kaz stuffed them into his own backpack with part of the money and laptop he’d used on the outside door, then began going through the papers. This was not strictly part of the plan, but Kaz and Inej built their reputation on having dirt on everyone in Ketterdam so it wouldn’t be right to pass up a chance to gain some new information.

He found a couple worthy-looking papers and memorized them in a handful of seconds. When he was finished he looked around the office. His eyes fell on the DeKappel sitting in its frame against the wall. It was probably a nice painting, though all art looked the same to Kaz. Still, it was expensive and the fact that Van Eck had it so prominently displayed meant that it was important to him...

“Do we have a screwdriver?” Kaz asked Inej.

“Yeah,” Inej said still focused putting the last of the money into Kaz’s backpack. “Why?”

Kaz grinned as his heartbeat sped up. This was going to be great. “We’re taking the painting.”

Now she looked up at him, confusion on her face. “Why?”

Kaz’s smile got even bigger. “Why not?”

She stared at him for a moment then she smiled and shrugged. “Sure,” she dug around in the front pocket of her backpack and pulled out a screwdriver. “Here you go.”

It took them almost ten minutes to get the back of the frame off and the painting taken out. Once that was done they rolled the painting up and fitted it carefully into Inej’s backpack. Then they put the back of the frame back on, closed the safe and hung the empty frame on the wall again.

“Alright,” Kaz turned towards the door, pulling on his own, now significantly heavier backpack. “Let’s get out of here.”

They left Van Eck’s office and headed down the stairwell towards the outside. They were almost to the ground floor when they heard footsteps and voices. They both froze and stared at each other. “How long have we been here?” Inej asked.

Kaz checked his watch. “We should still have ten minutes,” he said. “Maybe-”

A door above them opened. Kaz looked up and his stomach clenched. A couple big, burly men Kaz recognized as members of the Dime Lions were pushing their way into the stairwell. He and Inej looked at each other in shock. Where had the Dime Lions come from? Had they just so happened to plan a break-in for the same night?

“You there!” one of the Dime Lions yelled. “Intruders! Stop right there!”

“Run!” Kaz told Inej and they took off down the stairs.

More Dime Lions entered the stairwell from the bottom. Inej slid down the railing of the last flight of stairs and slashed at them with her knives. Kaz reached the bottom a second later and took out one of the Dime Lions with a well-placed swing with the knobbed end of his cane. They shoved their way out of the stairwell. Within seconds they were out of the building through a different side entrance that opened onto a boardwalk facing the harbor.

“Split up,” Kaz ordered. “We’ll meet up later.”

Inej nodded and took off one direction. Kaz knew that within minutes she’d be up a building and well out of any danger.

He, on the other hand, had it a bit more difficult. His leg meant that he couldn’t climb as quickly as Inej could and he couldn’t run as fast either. Still, he would get away; he was way smarter than basically everyone Pekka Rollins had working for him.

Kaz pounded down the boardwalk with the Dime Lions after him. It sounded like most of them were after him. Which probably meant that they’d recognized him and Inej. They knew that he was Brekker, the most wanted man in Ketterdam, and they knew they’d never catch Inej.

He knew he’d never outrun the Dime Lions, so he just needed to find a good place to stand and fight. He turned left and ran along a narrower part of the boardwalk that jutted out into the water. When he was halfway along it he whirled around and lifted his cane, prepared for a fight.

Half a dozen Dime Lions pounded down the boardwalk after him. The front two charged him immediately. Kaz simply stepped out of the way so one ran into the boardwalk railing and beat the other over the head with his cane.

He stepped away until his back was against the railing opposite the one the Dime Lion had just hit. “So what are you all doing here tonight?” he asked with a classic Brekker smile. “Did the Dregs beat the Dime Lions to the pigeon?”

“We’re not Dime Lions,” one of the men said, eyeing Kaz like he was trying to come up with a halfway decent plan to attack him. “We work for Jakob Hertzoon.”

Kaz had never heard of Jakob Hertzoon before, but he also knew for certain that at least four of these people were definitely Dime Lions. You didn’t just switch loyalties in the Barrel, especially if you worked for Pekka Rollins. Something weird was going on here. He and Inej were going to have to look into this Jakob Hertzoon person. “Oddly enough, I don’t believe you,” he said.

“Give back the property you stole from Van Eck Industries, Brekker,” the man growled. That alone proved that he was definitely from the Barrel. Kaz’s face had never been picked up by the government, so no one outside of the Barrel gangs knew Brekker was really a kid.

“I think I’ll keep it,” Kaz said.

“Get him,” the man said and all six of them charged. Kaz swung his cane and caught the closest one in the nose. She screamed and stumbled back. Kaz got the next one too, but then the rest were on him, grasping at his clothes and backpack, shoving his up against the railing. Their touches were a million points of horror. Kaz struggled but couldn’t get free, his cane rolled out of his fingers.

They were trying to get the backpack off him. Kaz tried to twist away from their hands and felt himself fall backwards into space. He was weightless in the air for mere seconds before he splashed into the harbor.

The water of the harbor was cold, dark and dirty. Kaz couldn’t tell if his eyes were open or closed. He couldn’t tell which way was up. He couldn’t tell anything at all, because he was back in that car eight years ago, trapped with his parents’ bodies while the cold, disgusting water creeped inside.

He struggled but it was in vain. He couldn’t get out of the car, he was going to die here. There was nothing he could do to stop it.

Then hands grabbed him and dragged him out of the water. He struggled to get air into lungs that didn’t want to inhale. He was out of the water, he wasn’t going to drown, but now he was going to suffocate.

Hands grabbed at him, trying to sit up him up. They were too much like the bodies of his parents which had bounced and pushed against him as the car filled with water. He shoved the person away. “Get your hands off!” he screamed with all the air his starving lungs possessed. “Don’t touch me! Don’t touch me! Dontouchme!”

The hands vanished, and Kaz collapsed again. Gravel drug into his cheek and that was what reminded him that he wasn’t still in the car; there was no gravel in the car.

He lay there gasping for an indeterminable amount of time until his vision cleared, and he felt like he could sort of breathe again. Then he peeled his eyes open and looked around.

He was lying on his side on a gravel bank underneath the boardwalk, the water lapping a few inches from his shoes. Inej was crouching a little further up the bank, as dripping wet as he was. She must have dived in after him and pulled him out.

“I’m sorry,” she said quietly. “I thought you were drowning at first, so I tried to sit you up to see if you’d breathe easier that way. I didn’t mean to make things worse.”

Kaz realized immediately that the game was up. If Inej had been less perceptive she might not have realized what had actually happened, and he might have been able to pull the drowning card, but she knew. He could tell that she’d recognized the panic attack for what it was. He could see her rearranging every interaction they’d ever had--everything about him that had never made sense from the buses to the gloves--to accommodate this new information. He could see her bursting through the armor that was his Brekker identity to the sad, weak, pathetic Kaz Rietveld underneath. It was horrible.

He forced himself to his feet. Cold, slimy harbor water ran down his body. He tried not to think of the car. “Let’s go,” he said attempting to sound normal with dubious success.

“Kaz,” Inej said carefully, still not moving any closer to him, “the Dime Lions left after you fell in the water. We’re safe here for a couple minutes if you want to catch your breath.”

“I’m fine!” Kaz snapped. He tried to walk and stumbled, catching himself on one of the boardwalk supports. “Let’s get back to the Barrel before one of the Dime Lions manages to come up with the brilliant idea of calling the cops.”

“Kaz,” Inej said. “You know you can-”

“Inej,” Kaz spoke over her with his nastiest tone. “Let’s go.”

~~~~

Per Haskell found Kaz and Inej’s sodden appearances hilarious and spend a good five minutes laughing until he had tears in his eyes. He was decidedly less pleased about the soaked money in Kaz’s backpack and the ruined laptop. He told them he was docking part of their shares even though the money would dry out useable enough and he thought the laptops were useless anyways. At least Inej had had the foresight to ditch her backpack before jumping in the harbor, so her half the money and the DeKappel were fine.

After finishing up with Haskell, Kaz and Inej returned to Inej’s house. Kaz had a change of clothes stored there for bloody jobs (jeans, a tee-shirt and another hoodie, this one navy blue) but not a second pair of shoes so he had to settle for being completely dry aside from his feet. He tried not to think about the harbor water squelching between his toes as he gathered up his school backpack and fished his iPod out of the front pocket.

Inej watched him from her perch on her bed. “You know you don’t have to leave just yet,” she said. “There are still some cookies left over from this afternoon. We could watch a movie. I could probably convince Mal to make popcorn.”

Kaz knew what she was doing, she was trying to convince him to stay because she was worried about him, because she thought he was weak. He would not allow that. “I’m leaving,” he said without bothering to come up with an excuse. He had no idea how he was going to salvage this situation, but he was going to have to do it somehow and he needed some space to think about it.

“Kaz,” Inej said. “I’m not trying to make you uncomfortable, but I don’t think that just ignoring that is a good idea. You can talk about it with me; you can trust me.”

He couldn’t trust anyone. He’d learned that in the years since his parents had died. Even Jordie, who should have been his partner in this quest for revenge, could not be trusted. Kaz had something he needed to hide from absolutely everyone in his life.

“No, we’re not going to talk about that,” Kaz said as coolly and Brekker-like as he could. “As far as you’re concerned that never happened. Never bring it up again, and if I figure out that you told someone else--anyone else--I will not hesitant to kill you.”

Instead of flinching back in fear, Inej lifted her chin. “I don’t believe you,” she said. “You’re not that cruel.”

“You should,” Kaz said even if he wasn’t totally sure if he would kill her either. “Good night,” then he turned and left the house.

~~~~

It was now after ten pm, so the subway was nearly empty. Kaz sat in one of the cars, folded over at the waist, his forehead pressing into his knees, eyes squeezed tight closed, earbuds blaring overly loud music into his ears. He couldn’t get his mind off how catastrophically badly tonight had gone. Kaz Rietveld’s weaknesses were not supposed to affect Brekker. Brekker was supposed to be strong enough to get revenge on Pekka Rollins.

One of the curses of having a memory like Kaz’s was that nothing ever faded. Pain never got duller. He could still remember the exact way his dead mother’s soaked hair had felt against his hand. He remembered the way blood had trickled out of his father’s mouth. He remembered struggling to keep his head above water when his leg was too badly shattered to kick. He remembered it all as if it had just happened, and he would for the rest of his life.

Mr. and Mrs. Rietveld had died after a multi-car pileup had forced their car and a couple others off a bridge and into the harbor. Officially, it was just a horrible accident, but the fact that the accident had been orchestrated by Pekka Rollins and the Dime Lions was an open secret among all of Ketterdam. When Pekka Rollins wanted someone dead, they died, but what Kaz had never been able to figure out was who the target that day had been. He knew it was ridiculous to get caught up that detail, but he needed to know. He needed to know who Rollins had been after. He needed to know what his parents had died for, once he knew that, he would gladly rip Pekka Rollins’ throat out and everything would be better.

Kaz wasn’t stupid, he knew that destroying everything Pekka Rollins loved and then killing him wouldn’t fix any of his problems, but he had to believe that. He needed to believe that killing Rollins would be the magical cure for everything that was wrong with his life; he didn’t know how he would keep going if it wasn’t.

The subway arrived at his stop. He got to his feet, hissing in pain. He chewed another couple Advil while he climbed out of the subway station and stuffed the bottle into the pockets of his new hoodie. He headed down the dimly lit streets to the tumbled down apartment building where he and Jordie lived.

Their apartment was a two room, one bathroom flat that they probably paid too much rent for. Still they stayed because as long as they paid the rent, the landlord would overlook anything. That had been especially helpful back when they’d both been minors and their uncle had never been around enough to constitute as their actual legal guardian.

Their uncle had been supposed to take care of them, but instead he’d fooled around and burned through their admittedly meager inheritance before Jordie reached eighteen. He also went on long trips without telling them where he was going or when he’d be back, so they’d mostly fended for themselves. They hadn’t seen him since Jordie had turned eighteen and Kaz privately hoped the man had managed to die, though he doubted they were that lucky.

Kaz struggled up the steps to the eighth floor, wishing the elevator actually worked. Still he eventually made it to the apartment and reached for the knob.

The door was unlocked.

Instantly on high alert, Kaz pulled out his earbuds and slid his backpack from his shoulders. He’d left all his knives at Inej’s, but the backpack was heavy enough to serve as a weapon in a pinch. He twisted the knob quietly and stepped into the apartment.

He made his way silently down the tiny hallway to the main room. He saw the form of someone sitting on the old, saggy couch. He hefted the backpack up and stepped closer, then stopped. “Jordie?”

Jordie jumped and whirled around, getting to his feet. It was obvious he hadn’t heard Kaz come in. His face twisted into a frown. “Kaz! It’s about time!”

“What are you doing here?” Kaz asked. “You work nights on Thursdays.” That was why he’d planned this job for tonight; he knew Jordie wouldn’t be around to notice he was gone.

“We’re not talking about me right now,” Jordie snapped. “It’s after eleven! I’ve been calling you for hours! Where were you?”

Kaz knew he was failing at completely keeping the surprise off his face, he hadn’t checked his phone picking up his backpack and apparently, he should have. “Hanging out in the university district with Jesper,” he said. He remembered that Jesper had mentioned that he and Wylan had been going on a date in the university district tonight, so perhaps if Jordie had called Mr. Fahey this story wouldn’t be instantly disproven. “We lost track of time.”

Jordie ran a hand through his shaggy dark hair. “Kaz, you can’t just wander around the city with no one knowing where you are. I should give you a curfew.”

For as long as Kaz could remember, Jordie had always been a little more. A little taller, a little heavier, a little better looking, a little more trusting, a little more tactful, a little better. It wasn’t until Kaz had created his Brekker identity that he’d truly acknowledged the ways that he was more. He was smarter, and braver, and a better fighter, and a better planner. He was more untrusting and untrustworthy, more hardworking, more reckless, more morally gray, and above all more vicious. Jordie was the better brother, but Kaz was the one who would get them their justice.

That was how he knew Jordie would never go through with the threat of a curfew. Jordie liked things to be easy; he knew that he would have to fight tooth and nail to impose something like that on Kaz and he’d rather not do the work. Kaz resented that on some level, because it was the same method of thinking that kept Jordie from truly trying to seek justice for their parents, but in this situation, it was helpful.

Suddenly Kaz was very tired. He’d had an absolutely horrible day and he really just wanted to curl up on the couch with a warm blanket. He’d make himself a mug of hot chocolate and maybe spike it with that bottle of whiskey that Jordie thought he didn’t know was hidden under the sink. He’d turn on the TV and watch whatever mindless programs were on until he fell asleep. Now his brother was here, and he had to deal with him instead.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to worry you.”

Jordie wasn’t done, “I asked off of work tonight, did you know that? I wanted to spend some time with you. We’ve barely seen each other recently and I thought it would be nice to have a night just the two of us. Instead you spend the whole night galivanting around the city and I was stuck here watching the hours tick by and thinking of all the money I was losing!”

Kaz would not stand for that. “You know,” he snarled. “If you wanted to spend time with me, you could have asked me in advance. You could have said, ‘Hey, Kaz, I’m thinking about taking Thursday night off, so we could hang out. Do you have any plans?’ like any normal person. You can’t just expect me to never have anything going on. I’m not a little kid content to sit around practicing magic tricks and waiting for you to finally have time to notice me!”

That was a low blow, and mostly untrue because while Jordie had had increasingly less time as he picked up jobs to try to take care of both of them, he’d always tried to make time for Kaz. Kaz knew he’d feel guilty about playing that card eventually, but right now it didn’t matter.

Jordie’s mouth opened and closed in shock. “How can you say that?” he asked. “Everything I’ve ever done is to make things better for you.”

“If you really wanted to make things better then maybe you would have stopped our uncle from spending all our money,” Kaz snapped. “Maybe you would try to make Pekka Rollins pay for what happened to our parents!”

“Kaz, I can’t either of those things!” Jordie snarled. “You can’t just expect things to work out the way you want them to all the time, sometimes you have to accept what you get.”

“And sometimes you can’t just lie down and let the machine walk all over you!” Kaz said.

“I can’t bring Mom and Da back, Kaz,” Jordie said. “Getting Pekka Rollins won’t bring them back either.”

“I know that,” Kaz snarled. “I’m not a child, but that doesn’t change that he still deserves to pay.”

“Let it be, Kaz,” Jordie said quietly. “There’s nothing you can do.”

“If that’s the way you want to be,” Kaz said crossing his arms. “Then I don’t see why you’re so angry about where I was tonight. I told you that I was hanging out with Jesper and we lost track of time. I’d known that we were going to hang out for a while, if you’d asked me beforehand we could have avoided this whole situation. Now, I’m going to bed and there’s nothing more you can do about this situation.” Then he turned and stalked off into the apartment’s only other room.

His bed was on the right and Jordie’s was on the left. He peeled off his wet shoes and socks and kicked them as far under the bed as he could so Jordie wouldn’t step on them or something and start getting more suspicious. He took off the gloves too; he was lucky Jordie had been too angry to notice them. Then he threw himself face down onto his bed without bothering to change. Perhaps his eyes were a little wet, but he’d never admit that; Brekker didn’t cry.

Jordie never came into the bedroom, and when Kaz got up for school the next morning he was already gone.

--

Honestly, I think that one of the things I enjoyed most about this story was exploring the dynamic between Kaz and alive!Jordie.

Anyway, hope you all enjoyed.

Emjen

[the-fire-bubble]

Cantsleepcantsleepcantsleeeeeep cantsleepcantsleepcantsleeeeep cantsleepcantsleepcantsleeeeep cant sleeeep caaant sleeeeeeeeeeeeeeep.

Met ny grandmother from cuba ror the first time in 23 years and I couldn't hold a full conversation with her because she only speaks spanish and i mostly speak english but holy shit i was ecstatic to see her and talk what little i could with her. She still wants to talk to me too! But im sad because my spanish is so poor and I wonder if my white grandmother hadnt pretty nuch forbid me from using 'beaner talk' at home if i would have been able to keep more spanish in my head or like if she intentionally wanted all the grandma love to herself.... idk. I'm like Will Jay in the sense I'm ashamed I can only do or say so much but like..... I was bullied for years and trying to blend in meant trying to seem white even when I'm not. Idfk. This is probably shit for my counselong session. I was gonna sleep but my brain wont stop thinking about things like the placement test and maybe i could get my high school algebra 2 teacher to help me prep or something idk im terrified ill have to take extra math if i dont place well and I just dont want extra classes becauae that's extra money i do not presently have a gurantee on. Im very grateful to talk to my grandma in cuba though. So grateful. So grateful. I didn't know if I would ever see her let alome be able to talk to her and through technology, I finally did! After 23 years of living, I met my own grandmother! Am I exhausted from all the childhood trauma of being called shit like a beaner and wetback flashing.back? Yeah. Am I also fucking excited? YES. ITS A BONUS GRANDMA TO LOVE AND SUPPORT ME. ONE THAT MIGHT NOT BE TOXIC AT ALL?!?!? EVEN IF I HAVE TO LEARN ANOTBER LANGUAGE AGAIN. YOU BET YOUR ASS, IMMA PUT ALL MY FEET FORWARD IN THIS. also, kudos to me. I actually sent a message to that one person, and didn't seem like a total creep. AND I SAVED MS GLORIA OVER 140 DOLLARS TODAY. Even though I may bave missed like 2 things of plates (1 intentionally because I thought it double scanned) (it didn't but whatever. It was 1.29 no biggie.) And like WILD DAY. ALL THE FEELS. I WILL PROBABLY BE DRINKING MUCH APPLE JUICE IN THE DAYS TO COME. BUT HOLY SHIT. STILL. SOME GOOD NEWS AND IM LIKE.... REELING. IDK. Still fucjing nervous about college but like FUCJ THAT I JUST GOT TO MEET MY GRANDMOTHER TODAY FOR THE FIRST TIME IN MY ENTIRE LIFE. INCLUDING MY BIRTH. SHE WAS STUCK. IN CUBA FOR THAT.

Fuck dat embargo and fuxk america. Yo sou cubano y estoy muy ... proud. Idk. I'll fucking get thwre one of these days. Stella outtieeeee

[clonesome]

Unpacking so high school bullshit, ignore this if you dont the topics of homophobia/general bullying/people just being horrible.

So okay it was The Day of Silence and me, being the lesbian that I am, always participates bc it's super important. So for those who dont know what the Day of Silence is it's basically a day specifically to remember those of the LGBTQA community who have committed suicide, and all those who participate basically stay silent for the whole day.* So the school that I went to was pretty redneck, with the exception of the group of people who actually have common sense but needless to say the close minded ruled this school.

So sophomore year, Day of Silence. I had a little paper card that I would carry around and show to teachers and whatnot saying I was participating. Not only did this one group of people on the bus who usually bullied me try to get me to talk by telling me about how when the bus picked me up they say one of my cats dead on the road, then later on when I didn't at another stop it was a dead kitten blah blah blah. This one girl who sat behind me kept pulling my hair. This brother and sister sat across from me, just spewing all of this homophobic bullshit at me. I was probably crying at this point but I ignored them as per usual but like what the fuck really?

First block, gym. Dodgeball. Pretty sure this guy was trying to break my nose with how hard he threw that ball at my face. This girl tried to out me in the locker room. She wasnt even my type but damn was her and her friends obsessed with trying to out me.

Second block, latin 2. So the teacher was Catholic, reminded us on many occasions. She tried to embarrass me about asking me a question about leprosy (we were watching Ben Hur at the time so it was relevant to latin or whatever). So you know I show her the card and she instantly starts to go off, about how pointless that day was, about how she was the teacher I had to do what she said bc she was the adult and students didnt have rights, she just was going to keep going until I either ended up answering her or ended up in the principal's office. So, at this point the class is super pissed at her and instead doing what I should have and kept quiet I snapped a bit and gave the whole class a few minute long lecture on leprosy (using examples from how it devastated Hawaiians around the 1860s). She didnt ask me mother question for about 2 weeks after that.

Third block, theater. Omg I loved this class so much, everyone that was in it was wonderful and brilliant and totally not above murder when it came to protecting a fellow there nerd. Love and miss you guys lol.

Fourth block, algebra 2. So not only was the fucker who assualted me every class for about a month there but he also sat behind me due to the seating chart. Even though the teacher knew. The only friend I had was absent that day so that didnt help what little self esteem I had at that point.

Bus ride home, felt like the bullies just got closer even though there was no way they could have but for fucks sake it was suffocating I remember that much.

But geez, all this is just bring up other shit high school that I probably should talk about but damn I dont want to feel those emotions again and also I feel like I should have already put this shit behind me already. I'm so done with this shit. Just going on over and over and over and over again. I dont understand why my brain keeps going back to it. Is it bc I havent talked about it or just.. am I always going to be a bit stuck in the past? Uuh.. this post was way longer than I thought I'm sorry guys. If you read this far then I'm sorry for wasting your time.

*If you want more info on it please visit this link https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Day_of_Silence

[onemattwolf]

Ya honestly, this was very similar to my school career.

Due to these kinds of tests, I was also labelled as "bad at math." I almost didn't manage to escape the "locally developed" pathway in highschool due to that labelling--the school saw my elementery math scores and tried to place me automatically, but I'm fucking stubborn and I argued until they said they'd let me into Applied on a trial-basis. It's the same way I was able to go from Applied to Academic level english--they wouldn't normally let you switch streams like that, but my grade 9 grades in english were good without me putting in a lick of effort, and I was bored to the point that my teacher had to give me extra, harder assignments to keep me engaged. She ended up advocating on my behalf for me to be switched over for grade 10.

Some background: applied is the lowest academic level in the Canadian school system, at least when I was in high school, and it's very hard to get out of that stream. Locally developed becomes Work place math in grade 11, Applied becomes College, and Academic becomes University. What path your in determines you post-secondary level.

Back to math: I fought the school's decision to place me in locally developed since, I knew a large portion of my poor math grades were due to not paying attention, and missing a lot of school.

Not ALL of it was, though, and I knew that, too. I was happy to be placed in the applied level, I didn't push for academic. I knew I had learning disabilities; they weren't diagnosed at that time, which meant I had no IEP (it would've helped a lot), but I still knew they were there, and that they affected certain math capabilities. I couldn't understand fractions and decimals; I couldn't graph... still can't... and I kept failing geometry. I never could memorize my timestables, though I tried super super hard. But, I could do mental math fairly well despite this, I ADORED long division, and I excelled at algebra. I loved solving math puzzles--even if so little was intuitive or immediate for me. I had the kind of brain that was designed for problem solving, and algebra allowed for that. I KNEW that, and I knew locally developed would not have been challenging enough. I knew i'd get bored, skip classes, not do the work, and I'd get labelled as being even more "bad at math" then I had been before.

Hell, the applied level was even too easy! Until it wasn't. We'd get to subjects that I could not get my brain to understand, to the point that I'd get stress-induced nosebleeds and migraine, and would have to work one-on-one with the education assistant in a separate room. So... It was a happy medium, I guess?

But it all started with those fucking tests. A fucking test meant I couldn't get into the gifted program even though I was told my english scores were well within the gifted level. But my math score was too low.

I told my family that, and they thought I was lying. My 2 siblings, who were in the gifted program, told me I was just making that up to feel included, that intelligence was an average and you couldn't be "partially" gifted. So, those tests even framed how my own family saw my intelligence.

My mom kept pushing for LD testing, but I wouldn't do it. I didn't want to be labelled, I didn't want to give my family more reason to doubt my intelligence, and I didn't want to be bullied more by my peers.

When I switched schools, not having an official diagnosis didn't matter. I was labelled as being special needs academically, and was pulled out of class daily (during our math time, for some reason, which made me even MORE "bad at math"), to a special group for kids with reading and language struggles. It was the only "special" program my tiny elementary school had, which wasn't an all-day separate classroom. I couldn't stand it--I was 10 or 11 but, despite dyslexia, I was reading well above my grade level. The teacher of that special class quickly saw that and let me be. She saw that the only way to keep me focused and to stop me from skipping was to let me help the other kids with their work, or just let me doodle and daydream on my own.

When they finally did some testing (only focusing on language and reading comprehension), which allowed me to go back to only being in the main-stream class, I was [again] tested as being well within the gifted level. They told my mom I had no reason for being in the special class, and she completely dropped bugging me to get tested for LD's after that. Since now I was "gifted." Which... She shouldn't have dropped it. It was only testing one subject.

As an adult completing my psycho-ed assessment, which diagnosed my ADHD (the psychologist also said she had no idea how I hadn't been diagnosed--not only was I one of the most obvious cases she'd ever seen, but she said my teachers had commented often in my reportcards that they suspected ADHD, which I didn't know), I was tested as being in the 95th percentile for my language-based intelligence. I don't understand percentiles, not really, but I logically know that's pretty far up there.

But my visual-based intelligence scores?? My scores ranged from everything from impaired to average. The worst scores were in working memory, grapho-motor skills, and... I'm blanking on the technical term, but, I'm nearly incapable at rotating objects in my brain, which is one reason I kept failing geometry. Visual processing? I dunno.

On a whole, though? There was no single score labelling me as bad at math. The learning disabilities and my actual impairments affected certain aspects of math, but as I grew I learnt how to play to my strengths, use the skills I had to make math bearable. My actual math scores were all average, some in the higher average range, some in the lower range.

Nothing screamed "bad at math." But that's what I kept being told, and what I kept telling myself, from grades 1-8. In grade 11 I was at the top of my math class (I discovered years later that my grade 11 math teacher skipped over certain parts of the curriculum, conveniently all the subjects I would've struggled with, since she hated teaching them loooool), but if 17-year-old were to go to the past and tell my family that, they wouldn't have believed that. Since these tests had labelled me as bad at math.

It's all just bonkers.

i knew in the 2nd grade that standardized testing was bullshit. harry potter book 4 had just come out and i was at a good part. harry had just found out someone put his name into the goblet of fire.

during the standardized test, we were allowed to keep a post-test book on our desk. i diligently got started on part 1: english. at the time, all of the answers went on the same sheet, but all of the questions were in different booklets. so i finish all my english questions, read in my extra time, and then it’s part 2: math.

i realize i have answered all of my english questions on the math portion of the answer sheet. at first, annoyed but undeterred, i’m like. okay great i gotta erase every bubble. but i get bored around question 5 of doing this because… like… harry potter is sitting on my desk and i could just give them the wrong answers. so i answer maybe 10 whole questions in the math portion, copy the english answers over to where they actually belong, and then crack open the book and call it a day.

i obviously failed. this is the real life, not a movie. my parents were called in. i had scored in the lowest percentile. i was bad at math. i was concerningly bad at math. i could have done better just guessing than how i did with the english answers. 

if this was just a funny story, someone would ask me “why did you do so badly when you usually get fairly average grades” and i would have said “i wanted to read harry potter, not take this stupid test.” but it’s the real life, and nobody asked. instead, i was branded stupid and bad at math. i got placed in a lower math than i needed to be in; got bored, stopped paying attention. knew i was in the “worst at math” group, started saying “i’m bad at math” and 100% stopped trying because the further i fell behind, the worse i got. through the rest of my academic career - until senior year in high school, i never got above a c on a math test, because i was “just bad” at math.

i had undiagnosed adhd. the only reason i know now i have adhd is because at 22 years old, i finally went to a therapist, who effectively said, “are you kidding me you have the most obvious case of attention deficit i’ve ever seen.”

but nobody had been looking. my one test grade had given teachers permission to not look, because, obviously, i was bad at math. the one time i got 100% on a math test - that one time in senior year - i remember my math teacher looking at it and saying “it’s clear that if you just focused, you could do the work.”

in college i’d take a math class and i actually “just focused” for the first time in my life - meaning i treated math as a challenge, but one i could overcome with the skills i’d learned all on my own, through constant work and practice. i got the highest grade in my class. i still think i’m bad at math. 

which makes me wonder: how many people got fucked over because of something stupid like “i was too preoccupied with harry potter”. who had nobody looking out for them. who slipped under the radar because - come on, aren’t some people just bad at things?