#and like i refused to take some classes last semester because then my school would get longer for sure

[strange-lamp-stranger]

OKOK this is just pasted in from my notes app so apologies if the formatting is weird! it's very much so just the way i spat it all out of my brain and onto the page, lol. i also started actually planning out plot beats n stuff in case i was gonna write a whole fic but i don't think that's gonna happen anytime soon, so i'll throw those in too! it's all under the cut because. long.

Modern AU Kyana-centric. Takes place in Canada because i said so.

She's studying business administration in uni and feeling really stuck in life. She rents a tiny basement apartment, and while she gets along with most of her classmates, she's not close with any of them (but she is closest with Ione, who has a crush on Kyana). Not to mention, the department head, Dr. Rose Sephrum, who is incidentally Kyana's great-aunt and closest living relative, is bitter and overly strict. While Kyana is actually pretty good at most of the stuff in her classes, she's struggling to keep up because she isn't receiving any supports for her (undiscovered & undiagnosed) ADHD.

Kyana's backstory: grew up in foster care after her parents died when she was a toddler. She never got adopted and bounced around a lot of different homes. Dr. Sephrum could have adopted her, but refused. When Kyana turned 18, she entered into a government program supporting young adults coming out of the foster care/child welfare system. She basically gets a government stipend every month. It pays her rent and groceries and not much else, but between those payments and gov't student loans/grants, she's able to comfortably support herself. She volunteers at a local animal shelter every other weekend WITH IONE!!

Dani's backstory: She grew up with her cousins Roy (4 years older than her) and Egan (1 year older than her, but 100% the baby of the family) under the care of her Uncle Oto. (The three of them nicknamed their backyard and make-do play area "the Heap" because it was. well. a big heap of junk that Oto could never be bothered to clean up). Oto was one of those father figures that is definitely shitty, but also definitely cares and is always doing what he thinks is best for the kids, even if it's incredibly misguided. In highschool, Dani's only good grades were in math and tech/construction classes, but she had a reputation for doing dangerous and impulsive things in her tech classes without her teachers' permission. She got an apprenticeship as a mechanic at a local appliance repair shop right out of highschool. DANI IS AUTISTIC. IT SHOWS. KYANA'S TOO POLITE TO ASK ABOUT IT SO FOR A GOOD WHILE SHE JUST THINKS DANI'S WEIRD FOR NO REASON. (Dani got diagnosed in middle school because social differences were really starting to show and she was getting kind of bullied, and the school psychologist saw her and was like "hmmm i have a suspicion".)

Fic begins when Kyana's roommate moves out mid-semester (they were apparently on academic probation and got their last strike), leaving Kyana stranded and needing a last-minute roommate. She put out an ad and the first person to respond was Dani. Dani the appliance technician apprentice. Dani with her wild blue hair and adorably annoying cat, Plug. Dani's passion for life rubs off on Kyana, who begins to feel inspired again.

Eventually, Ione moves in with Kyana and Dani [she DOESN'T get together with Kyana, who is Very Aroace. Actually, when she learned that her feelings weren't and never would be reciprocated, Ione decided, in her self-destructive ways, that the best way to deal with it would be to completely break off her friendship with Kyana so that Ione's feelings might fade. After a year or so, her romantic feelings DO fade, but she still feels a gaping, Kyana-shaped hole in her life. Ione's convinced it's because she's not actually over her feelings for Kyana yet, but really it's because—regardless of the type of attraction she feels—she's in love with Kyana and has developed a similarly strong "squish" (platonic crush). Kyana, after some prodding from Dani, decides to try to reconnect with Ione, and that's when they become friends again, and move in together and eventually become platonic life partners.]

Plot beats (UNFINISHED):

- Dani moves in. Background exposition on why Kyana needed a new roommate. Kyana instantly falls in love with Plug. Kyana is clearly burnt out from school.

- Kyana goes to class. We meet Professor Sephrum and Ione. Kyana and Ione study together. Kyana laments how much she dislikes the program they're in, and Ione agrees but says that she herself feels like she just needs to suck it up until she graduates. she thinks it'd be a waste of her athletic scholarship otherwise (Ione is a lightweight wrestler. Kyana was on the highschool wrestling team with her but dropped it after highschool). Kyana thinks that is a really sad outlook to have.

- Kyana fails one of her courses because she couldn't keep up with the courseload. She desolately contemplates dropping out. Dani learns about Kyana having failed that class and gets Kyana her favourite flavour of gum (she'd seen Kyana chewing it while doing chores around the house) and gives Kyana an awkward pep talk. Plug is a cute little asshole. Dani tries to steer Kyana in a positive direction and asks what course(s) she did best in. Kyana says she got a 78 in her kinesiology elective. [warblingly like, yknow, someone who was just crying really hard a few minutes ago] "I wish I'd done better, honestly. It's the one class I actually looked forward to."

- Semester 2 reading week—Kyana and Ione finally catch a break and Dani invites them to come with her on the roadtrip she's been planning on taking to go visit Roy and Egan. (Incidentally, Kyana has been taking another kinesiology elective and really enjoying it also. She's considering declaring it as her minor.) The three of them (and Plug. he has a cat backpack) pile into Dani's old little 2008 Volkswagen (golf?). on the way down, Dani and Ione learn that Kyana's never been to an amusement park. There's a big one in the city that Roy and Egan live in, and so the five of them (plus Roy's fwb, Cressida) spend a day at the amusement park. Kyana turns out to be a total adrenaline junkie and goes on all the huge rides with Dani. They convince Ione to go on the biggest rollercoaster with them. She's scared out of her mind the whole time but Kyana is happy so it's worth it, Ione thinks. when they get back to Roy and Egan's place, Plug is smugly napping in a pile of upturned potted plants.

- [SOMEHOW, THEY RETURN HOME.]

- Dani's been helping Kyana with her homework whenever she can. Kyana has to take a statistics class and Dani is like "fuck yeah, math, something i actually understand!" Because of this, Kyana managed to do pretty well on her midterms. Kyana mentions she's considering declaring a kinesiology minor. Dani's straight up like "why just a minor? don't you like it way more than business or whatever-the-fuck? you can still change your major, yeah?" Kyana's like "huh, i think i can? i don't know yet though. Business is more... there's more job opportunities, i guess?" Dani says Kyana could keep business as a minor then, since she's probably already got like half the required courses for it. Kyana thinks about it.

- Kyana is walking to her one evening class from the animal shelter. Her and Ione were helping out with a vaccination clinic the shelter was holding. she couldn't help with the vaccinations, obviously, but she helped with, like, client intake and stuff. Ione was really good with the nervous animals. anyways, before class she stops in to see the kinesiology department head, Dr. Enoch. She wants to know what switching majors would be like. Enoch notes that her grades are pretty lackluster and that she'd probably need to bring her grades up a bit before the administration would let her declare a new major. Enoch offers his help, pointing Kyana to resources around campus, etc. He asks about what Kyana feels like she struggles with the most, and when she explains, he's like "oooohhh, okokok i've heard that one before. go to the uni's medical centre, tell them exactly what you told me, and say that your advisor(s) have recommended you get an educational psych assessment focusing on adhd. your uni health insurance plus provincial student funding should cover any costs. alright?"

- Kyana's working part-time (25ish hours a week) over the summer at a local café (Wild Springs Café & Bistro) to save for when her funding cuts off. Her bosses are Finbar and Elyse, who were Dani's neighbors growing up. Dani frequently stops at the café for coffee runs for her work, even though it's a 10 minute drive. She says that it's cause the coffee's better here than any Tim's or McD's and also the longer drive gives her more of a break, but really it's mostly because she likes annoying Finbar. Kyana learns the absolutely wild lore behind Finbar and Elyse's relationship. Ione picks Kyana up after her shift and confesses her romantic feelings. Kyana has a hard time reacting and tries her best to turn Ione down ("you're my best friend, and i love you. i love you so much. but—i don't really think i love you in the same way you love me? i don't think i can love anybody that way. i... never have. i can't really imagine it, if that makes sense? i'm sorry.") Ione cries, Kyana offers a hug, Ione refuses and says goodnight.

- Kyana is leaving the doctor's office, adhd diagnosis in hand (figuratively speaking). [NOTE THAT THE DIAGNOSTIC CLINIC HAD TO CONTACT DR. SEPHRUM SINCE SHE'S THE ONLY PERSON WHO KNEW KYANA AS A CHILD. DR. SEPHRUM WAS NOT EXACTLY THRILLED.] She's in a mix of shock and relief and happiness and when she gets home she collapses on the floor to pet Plug. Dani asks how it went and when Kyana tells her, Dani fist bumps her like "hell yeah, brain buddies!" this is how Kyana learns that Dani is autistic. Kyana has barely heard from Ione in a month and a half, now, (Ione's even been volunteering at the shelter on opposite weekends from Kyana) and asks if Dani knows what she's up to. Dani says she doesn't, but she'll reach out. Meanwhile, Kyana needs to contact her school's accessibility office in order to get the accomodations she needs, which is a whole other hurdle. She wishes she had Ione to support her.

- Dani contacts Ione. As soon as she brings up Kyana, Ione gets very weird about it. She tries to change the subject and is generally very cagey. Dani gives up and tells Kyana about it. Dani asks about what even happened between the two of them. Kyana explains and is generally very distraught, says she thinks it's her fault but she doesn't know what else she could've done. Dani is very matter-of-fact and is like "you did exactly what you thought was best and let her down easy, the rest of this is Ione's shit to figure out". Kyana sees her point but doesn't feel much better.

- Kyana and Ione start their second year of uni. Kyana's grades go up significantly and she is able to switch majors. she keeps business as a minor because she basically already has all the credits she needs for it. However, this means that Kyana and Ione don't have nearly as many classes together. In their one business class together, Ione acts very standoffish and avoids Kyana. Until one day, they end up in a group/partner project together (Kyana was away sick the day it was assigned, and Ione hadn't found a group, so they end up having to partner up) for their final assignment in that class. Incidentally, Ione's been performing very well in her wrestling matches, but she looks run ragged and frequently complains about being really sore.

- After a very awkward evening of working on the assignment together at the school library, Ione needs to get home. However, it's completely dark out and Kyana knows she's not keen on walking home alone when it's dark out. Also Ione generally looks like shit and Kyana wants to try and do something nice for her. So Kyana asks if Ione wants her to walk her home, and Ione's like "I... yeah. I'd appreciate that." At the end of the walk, before Ione goes inside, Kyana says something along the lines of "You know I don't resent you or anything, right? I still wanna be friends. I really, really want to." Ione is like "not right now you don't. i'm sure. not until i stop... wanting you. you can pretend it doesn't make things weird but i know it does." Kyana tries to impress upon the fact that it really doesn't but Ione doesn't really believe her. they agree on a time and date to finish the assignment and then say bye.

and uhhhhhh that's the last beat i'd written down. which is not the best place to leave off, huh. but!! i also wrote down what i called "the killscreen/end conditions" for the story, which are as follows:

- Kyana and Ione in QPR, Dani is their best friend (if Ione was a middle aged man she'd call Dani "wife #2")

- Kyana has her kinesiology degree and becomes a certified physiotherapy assistant

- Ione drops out of university and goes to college to get her veterinary technician diploma

- Dani starts her own appliance repair business (?)

OUAUGH i forgot how much i like this AU... i really wanna actually figure out how it ends one of these days,,

hello I have recently been made aware that a bad situation I am in is much worse than I thought, and I really could use some fluffy (or honestly angsty too) rwd thoughts or headcanons

[stillagoodwitch]

can my advisor PLEASE approve my classes or message me to say i can’t take that many so i know if i can graduate in time

[aching-tummies]

Citrus Latte

(In terrible 90's commercial cheese-y announcer) Back, for a limited time!

Jokes aside, I've been slowly getting settled into my new life. I won't go into details but my non-min-wage part-time job kind of got the ball rolling on me furthering my education to maybe get certified to do more work in that field, eventually. I've still got the min-wage food job and I'm attending courses as an in-person student for part of the week. Basically, I signed my life away for the foreseeable future, committed to having no days off unless it is a government-mandated holiday where the post-secondary institution is required to be closed and neither one of my jobs calls me in for such a day.

Trying to get used to my new life has taken a few weeks and it's been a grueling few weeks. Lots of nodding off in classes or in transit, napping between classes or trying not to fall asleep at my food-job. Trying (and failing) to go to bed earlier and try to be asleep before midnight. All that jazz.

Sleep is out of whack so I've been surviving on coffee. Doing my best to brew at home because prices on campus make me think that it isn't tuition or lack of working hours driving the 'broke student' trope. Seriously, a slice of pizza and a fountain drink together go for more than the standard minimum-wage on-campus. I refuse to support that kind of gouging so I've been committing to staying up until 2AM meal-prepping to ensure I can grab and go at 4AM to catch the first buses heading to my campus. No, my classes are not that early. But transit in my area leaves much to be desired and when the bus is scheduled to show up once every hour--and often skips two or three buses, a frazzled student's gotta do what they gotta do.

Today was one such day where I was running on coffee and panic. I'd forgotten to get my coffee stuff laid out for me to easily use in the morning so I scrambled to make anything that would be my sweet-treat drink of the day and settled on powdered iced-tea mix. It's got sugar and a bit of caffeine so I was hoping that it'd do the job. 4AM, off to catch a bus that may or may not show up.

By around 3PM I was flagging after having basically chugged the iced-tea in hopes the sugar would revitalize me. When I nodded off in my class I knew I had to take drastic action, so I ran down to the nearest coffee shop and committed to paying way-too-much for a hit of the good stuff. I got some Caramel Latte concoction or something and it was divine. I went and attended my last class of the day while trying to ration that precious water of awakefulness.

Our last class decided to let out early so we wound up being done around 5PM. I had plans to rush home, deal with what I had to deal with, and maybe hit sleep-ville by 8PM.

As I was packing up my school stuff, classmates kept on approaching me. Some to chat casually. Others to ask me for help proof-reading their assignments or to ask about a specific section of the lecture that they couldn't hear very well and were hoping to compare notes with mine (I'm considered a keener and open about trying to help everyone pass the course so people approach me often). While I normally don't mind this kind of interaction 'cuz the more of us that pass, the less I have to worry about making friends in future semesters…today just wasn't my day.

For those that do not know what a Latte is…here it's basically a shot of espresso with the rest of the cup filled with milk. A shot is not a lot of liquid so probably only 1/8th of my cup was coffee and caramel and the rest was all milk.

Milk normally doesn't play nice with my guts anyway, but today the milk had trickled into a system completely saturated with lemon-y, sugary tea. My guts were cramping and twisting like an angry viper for the last 10 minutes of class and I was in a hurry trying to pack up my things to beat a hasty retreat before my stomach decided to void itself by any means necessary.

I stayed behind to chat with a few classmates, not wanting to be rude, but the second all my stuff was in my bag I basically booked it out of the room and down the stairs.

My stomach hurt so, so, so, so bad!

I nearly tumbled down four levels of stairs because my stomach hurt so bad and I just wanted to curl up and rub it…or rip it all out to get rid of the problem completely. Plans to rush home were immediately dashed and I bolted in the hopes of finding a less busy washroom.

I had started the day out on an upset stomach. Stress, lack of sleep--etc. In the morning, I'd had the sense to find a washroom hidden in a corner of campus that had no classrooms (just an out-of-use office) so that washroom basically experienced zero traffic and likely only ever saw single-digit visitors throughout the course of an entire day. I got to use it in peace in the morning.

Unfortunately for me, my last class of the day was diagonally opposite that secluded washroom and my cramping tummy was making it very clear that it would not let me clear campus. I ended up rushing into one of the more busy washrooms and doing my business there. I definitely stayed there longer than I needed to just to wait for a lull when the washroom would be empty so that I could beat an exit without anyone giving me weird looks.

I ended up getting home maybe an hour and a half later than I'd planned because transferring on transit amplifies wait-times. Being 10 minutes late to the first bus you take snowballs into having to wait another 40-50 minutes for the next one, which snowballs into waiting 20 minutes for the next transfer, which snowballs into 20-40 minutes for the last transfer--and that's my route to and from campus…so…like…being in the washroom for an extra 10 minutes has a domino effect on timing.

I'm home now. Luckily, my stomach didn't embarrass me on the ride home. I got home, rushed around my place trying to get things in order. I've let laundry pile up for three weeks, haven't put away my socks or whatevers, and needed to sort out clean from dirties and figure out which items had to be hand-washed and air-dried. Once I got all those stressors out of the way and finally allowed myself to sit down, I finally had the mental capacity to pay attention to my body. My stomach is hurting again.

Send me your best responses? My stomach's been upset all day and chugging lemon-tea and following that up with a latte that most definitely curdled going through my citrus-y guts has done it zero favors. Any ideas on what to do to the mess that is my achy tummy?

[strwberri-milk]

I’m thinking of kaeya x reader Academic rivals to lovers

i just have to say kaeya is a habitual smirker and if i ever met him i think id cry really hard bc hes just so pretty with a smirk

I think just generally, Kaeya isn't too competitive. He's pretty confident with himself and where is in in life, and really enjoys the system he's got going on right now. He doesn't have to worry about too much outside of his own work, so he just goes to class and then goes home.

However, that all changed when one day, you ran up to him, showed off your better grade, then ran off. He knew who you were and somewhere in the back of his mind it registered that you're his rival of some sort as you also had pretty high grades, but he never though to care until now.

The fact that you were celebrating your victory against him meant he clearly was missing out on some competition and he had no interest in losing now that you've directly challenged him.

Kaeya seems like he doesn't care about his grades since he doesn't seem to do any work outside of school. He finishes his assignments fairly quickly and doesn't spend the entire exam break preparing for his tests. Instead, he's going out or just hanging around while everyone around him struggles, which is why you thought knocking him off his high pedestal was going to be easy.

You had no idea that he was easily maintaining his position above you through the power of time management and ridiculously high standards. Kaeya expects himself to do well, and anything falling short of that will not make it to the grading process. Having such a low tolerance for failure meant he aimed for perfection on the first go, and if he didn't achieve that it meant locking himself in his room for days on end until he did. He was just really good at hiding his academic panic.

When you got a higher grade then him again, as well as props for doing so good on the assignment he decided it was time to take things seriously. He started focusing harder on his assignments, doing even more work than he usually would, and looking especially smug when he retaliated with a simple flourish of his own grade.

You didn't expect him to pick up so fast, nor for your victory to be short-lived but you refuse to go down this easily. Now, you knew you had to up the ante, not caring about getting good grades only for yourself but also to rub that ridiculously handsome smirk off his face.

He found it amusing to see how you were now practically attached to him, constantly trying to get information out of him and see if he'd tell you what his plans for the next assignment were to beat him, or see if you could distract him enough to flunk a test. It seemed to always fail as he always just barely glanced at you or would finish his exam first and then give you a wink before running off.

The tension between the two of you only built on your end. Kaeya found you very adorable, and didn't seem to mind too much the way you tagged after him because he knew he could just keep winning. Once the end of the semester finally came he decided to really up the ante, waiting for you outside of the classroom before dragging you off somewhere privately.

"Kaeya! Let me go I have to get home and start the final project!"

You try to yank your arm out of his grasp and he lets you, standing against the tree with his arms crossed against his chest. He seems to invite you to leave, but something compels you to stay. The two of you stare at each other before he finally speaks, not of course without that signature smirk of his.

"I'm glad to see you're taking our little rivalry seriously. I thought you had given up after that dumpster fire of your last assignment."

You gasp, offended he would say that and huff.

"It's not my fault you got only 2% higher than I did." He shakes his head, tsking scoldingly.

"I only got 2% because that was all that was left to get! I could have done better if I needed to."

This part of him infuriated you. It was clear to you he only dragged you out here to humiliate you and you make to leave. You liked it back when he was ignoring you and the two of you barely spoke and just flashed grades at each other with sneers. Actually talking to him was draining and you didn't feel like dealing with him right now.

"Now come on, don't tell me you're going to leave before I give you an offer to make our last competition for the year more interesting."

"Fine but make it quick," you say, turning to face him again.

"Loser has to do whatever the winner wants." You roll your eyes.

"I'm not going to humiliate myself for you. You really think I'm that dumb?"

"Come on, I'll even tell you what I'll do when I win! That way you can be more motivated to lose."

"You mean when you lose?" He laughs, the sound alighting your chest.

"Considering the result of the last assignment I wouldn't bet on that. When I win I'm going to take you to dinner."

You stare at him with wide eyes, trying to see if he was joking. He seems to not be, casually twirling a lock of his hair as he waits for your response.

"If the idea of that is so detestable I'm sure you'll work hard to win."

You detect the slightest hint of hurt in his voice, masked with his signature aloofness. You bite your lip a little, gnawing on it as you think.

"Fine, but when I win I'm choosing where we go."

His face lights up before he quickly clears his throat and turns around. You think you can see the tips of his ears turning the slightest bit pink, smiling to yourself as the fire underneath you is lit again at the added stakes to the competition.

"Deal," he says, leaning down and sealing the conditions with the soft press of his lips against yours.

[wttcsms]

sorry if you're not comfortable answering this, but I saw you say that you've been diagnosed with depression. how did you know when to seek help?

tl;dr: from a young age, i never lived a healthy lifestyle with an easy pace. i (and maybe even my family) put too much pressure on me, and i never really coped with it in a healthy manner. my attempt at handling things "with ease" and "not stressing" was actually just me bottling up my emotions, and it's not until things started getting really bad that i finally sought help.

nothing uncomfy abt it at all! discussion of mental health is pretty important! tbh, i never thought i would have depression or be diagnosed with it; i started showing symptoms for around a year before i started really thinking to myself, hey, i think there might be something up with me mentally and this isn't just some silly, quirky thing i'm going through. ever since i was around 18, i went through great lengths to ensure i would achieve maximum academic success but while being a full-time college student and consistently working 60+ hours a week (70+ during the summer bc my junior year internship was so intense; i also went to college 2 years early, so i think that's when the internal pressure to "do well in life" began) was taking a massive toll on me mentally and physically. i would survive off of 4-5 hours of sleep, consume concerning amounts of caffeine, i was losing hair, i was losing drastic amounts of weight, i was breaking out and breaking down, and even when i got better, i still wasn't fully ever healed from that experience purely bc my schedule just never slowed down.

i am still a full-time student, i am still working 7 days a week, leading to 60+ hours (40 hours internship, 20 hours at my weekend part-time job). on top of that, i am in the second to last semester of my grad school, i help out around the house bc after my older sister moved out, i took over the eldest daughter duties, i am still holding myself to a very high standard academically (already planning to apply to phd programs, studying for the cpa exam, already have another summer internship lined up). i knew things were getting bad because 1) i am finally older (im abt to turn 21! yay!) and i realized that the lifestyle i'm living isn't healthy and 2) a lot of my behaviors didn't feel "normal" to me anymore. it finally hit me around two months ago, when i realized that i sort of lost my love for fanfiction. i've been in a weird mood where i didn't want to read any fanfic whatsoever, but i chalked it up to being "too busy" and focused on other things. when i couldn't even find the energy to read my own mutual's fanfic, i knew something was up bc i always try to power through and remain enthusiastic on my friends' behalf. more behaviors that were a cause for concern:

my disinterest in everything that brought me joy previously. sweet treats at the end of the day, coffee before work, buying makeup from sephora, cleaning my room (sounds silly, but i love having a clean living space and cleaning my room used to be a source of peace and joy for me), writing fanfiction, reading books, watching youtube videos, catching up on shows that would release weekly and that i used to count down the days to watch — none of it held my interest. i wasn't excited, i didn't care.

it wasn't just a lack of joy from things i loved, either. rejections from programs i looked forward to/rejections from opportunities, abysmal grades in class, looming deadlines that i most likely wouldn't make, growing assignments on my work to-do list; none of this elicited a reaction from me. there was no stress (that i was feeling; subconsciously, i think the stress was still there and i just refused to acknowledge it), but there also wasn't disappointment or sadness. i had no emotional response to anything, and that was very concerning to me, and the main reason i contacted my sister and then her boyfriend (who is a licensed psychiatrist)

i could sleep for 12+ hours a day. there are many days in the week where all i want to do is rot in bed. not even in a "go on my phone and dick around in bed" type of way, either. i would have certain days where i couldn't leave the bed. sometimes, i wouldn't even feel tired, but i would just sleep. my internship is wfh and if it was a slow day with no assignments, i would clock in and spend that whole day in my bed, sleeping. it got to the point where i wish work was busy so i would have something to force me out of bed. yes, i would be aware of my tiredness sometimes, but this felt different altogether. i just wanted to basically hibernate lol.

i had constant headaches. i thought it was because of the nature of my job, where i look at computer screens all day, or maybe it was bc i wasn't drinking enough water. i would also get unexplainable cramps sometimes.

tmi, but little to no pleasure and an extreme decline in interest in sex

i had extreme issues with focusing on work and studying; a lot of my work (and school materials) centers around thinking through problems and applying tax law or guidance to certain situations.

my diet fluctuated; some days, i wouldn't want to eat, yesterday, i gorged myself on food, eating to the point where even i had to pause and go wtf.

not very often was i randomly sad, nor did i ever want to kill myself or self-harm; when i was a teenager (17/18) and probably showing signs of depression, i was very irritable, angry, sad, and had suicidal thoughts, thought i was worthless, an idiot, etc. however, i mostly just feel empty and apathetic during my episodes now.

what helped me seek help was knowing that my behaviors and how i was feeling didn't feel healthy, but also, my best friend recently shared her diagnosis with me and i would have never thought she would be depressed. my sister's bf was also a major help in getting me comfortable to consider the possibility of having a mental illness and also in finding someone to talk to. hope this helps!

edit: forgot to mention it, but i exhibited many/all of those symptoms for around the past 3 months before ever seeking help. those behaviors started manifesting tremendously and seriously disrupting my daily life, and i knew i needed to do something to get my life back on track.

[funnylittlelad]

life update, or a not-quite-so-funny story about disability, loss, and academia:

i go to school. i did well enough in community college to earn a place in all the honors classes i wanted, started a new wave of activism on my campus, and then got into what was meant to be a fancy program and transferred. now by the time i started the transfer process, i had already been going to the doctors. doctors who told me i was fine, i needed more exercise, i need to learn to just live with my body how it is, and there's nothing wrong. so, i had an idea something was up and i was worried. what if i start this whole big new thing and i end up actually being really sick? then i hear some amazing news from the program! they've had a student who had become ill and needed to take time off and were able to do so without an issue! great! well, i won't get into all the stress-inducing, symptom-worsening stuff that happened in between, but i will say this: it was utter bullshit.

there was a week last october where i buried someone incredibly important to me and a few days later received a hypermobile ehlers danlos syndrome diagnosis. A diagnosis i knew was coming by this time, but was hard all the same. i tried desperately to arrange time off. i had just started a new student organization that was, once again, trying to start a new wave of activism on campus, but i was (and still am) grieving so many things, including my own living body. when i tried to ask, beg, plead for just one semester off- just one- i was essentially told no. i asked about a medical leave, since i was told about that student who got sick and needed time. i was informed i either had to drop out entirely or go part time and risk my funding. they were nice enough to find a work around for me to stay on part time without sacrificing funding. it wasn't enough. it wasn't even a good idea.

i needed time to not be a student, student leader, or activist. i needed time to grieve and stop putting my health to the side and build back as much as i could. i was terrified because of how things were worded that if i left now they would make it harder for me to come back. so, i decided to tough it out.

here's the thing about disability: it can't be toughed out.

i didn't have the capacity to deal with it all and so many things were neglected by me because of it. my grades have suffered and so have i. now, i spent a year of school that did almost nothing for me as a student but instead stressed me out to the point of barely being able to function because of how bad my physical symptoms have gotten.

i'm dropping out for now. i have like a year left and i can't make it through as i am. my mobility has declined so much and i've lost a notable amount of weight. i can't be in school and focus on getting the medical care i need. it feels like i wasted so much fucking time when all i needed was a break to deal. and now i can't stop thinking about the student i heard about who got so sick and the school was able to help and provide a break for and i realized the difference. they had something they could make better. they had something they saw a horizon on. i don't. they don't trust i wont need more breaks so they refused to give me even the one.

oh, and after not giving me the time off i begged for, causing my grades to suffer, they now want half my funding for the last semester back.

at least im leaving that campus with better access to gender neutral bathrooms? i don't know im just trying really hard to find a bright side.

[fictionaltimer]

“Sweetness, do you like the dark?”

Pairing: Larissa Weems/Alicina Dimitrescu(Main), Gomez Addams/Morticia Addams, one sided (Gomez/Larissa) and Alcina Dimitrescu/Original Female Character(s).

Summary: On a late-night walk back to her dorm Larissa runs into a new student.

Warnings: explicit language and explicit sexual content.

A/N:

So, I wrote this on a whim, it’s complete and edited as far as I’ll be taking it. I enjoyed pumping out this little peace, this little universe is fun and flexible with the right provisions. So, for context, Alcina is a transfer junior into the school and Larissa is a sophomore because that works for some reason. Nothing too crazy happens here, at least not until the end. I’m working on merging these worlds in a way I like; this one has brief nods to the 80s.

*Aubrey is 18.

I hope you enjoy reading it. Leave me a little note if you do. Thanks.

It was just the start of the semester and Morticia was going to drive her mad.

“I just need a few hours Rissa,” the witch said, “It’s just for a few hours and then you can come back.”

Two months into their sophomore year Larissa realized she was going to hate living with the witch now.

Morticia’s growing relationship with some boy was making her ask for space in their shared room. Larissa did not mind, even if Morticia refused to tell her who it was. She had grown used to the girl asking her to leave and come back later, but it was growing annoying.

Larissa sighs, “This is the second time this week,” she looks over her advanced studies history class homework, “I mean what do I get?”

Morticia sucks her teeth, “What could you want?”

“I don’t know, but maybe I’ll figure it out and somewhere to be if you agree,” Larissa smirks at Morticia, "My terms.”

Morticia walks over and shakes her hand, “I agree, you nasty shapeshifter.”

Larissa laughs, “Whatever witch, give me ten minutes.”

“Hurry up and get out.”

She dressed fast, she’d still in her uniform, this week’s version was a pleaded tennis skirt and a purple sweater over her polo shirt. She puts on her shoes and grabs her books.

“Remember to stay off my side,” Larissa says, “My things should remain untouched.”

The witch rolls her eyes, “Your love of old things does it for him. I’ll make sure nothing is touched.”

Larissa nods, “Fine. Remember to actually study for Chemistry.”

Morticia shakes her head, “Yes.”

She looks at the witch, “When are you gonna tell me who the lucky animal is?” Something shines in the witch's face and Larissa catches it, “Your really not going to tell me?”

“Soon.”

“You said that last time,” Larissa says, “He must be ugly.”

Morticia laughs and something about it is sad, but Larissa smirks,

“See, witch, I know you. Remember what I said.”

The girl nodded, “I will. Make sure you come back after 12:30, please.”

Larissa rolls her eyes, “You owe me big time.”

**

The Nevermore library was huge, open most hours and she could get all her work done in peace. Or, she could wait for the time to return to her dorm.

Tonight, was one of those nights.

At 12:47 am, she yawned and decided that her bed would be better than a chair and she wanted some sleep. She’d finished all her homework for the week. She finished a paper she knew Morticia would ask for help on later. Plus, she studied for two tests this upcoming Friday.

She’d given Morticia enough time with their room.

So, after packing up and ensuring everything was organized, she grabbed her Walkman and set to go back to her dorm.

 The campus was nice, and she loved how Nevermore looked, but the nighttime always made her a little afraid. She thought about shifting into someone else but shifting into people on campus wasn’t allowed and was considered rude. So she hummed, New Kids on the Block as she speed-walked. The path to the dorms was long and mostly dark. She’d thought in two years she’d be over it or take the short path, but no the long way it was to give Morticia time.

When she turned toward her dorm, she remembers the last long dark path that leads to her building. As she walks it, she hears a howl that makes her stop in her tracks.

Fuck that, the wolves had free roam some nights, she didn’t think it was tonight.

She quickly turns around and walks toward the other way, not looking and walking right into something.

She’s on the ground fast, her uniform probably a mess and her books spilled from her bag. The ground is cold and annoying under her hands and butt. A scratch is on her knee and it stings.

“Holy hell,” she hisses.

“Oh my, let’s get you up sweetness.”

She looks up and the tallest girl she’d ever seen is offering her an alabaster hand with long black nails. That was what she ran into. The girl leans down, even more, hand close.

“I don’t bite, at least not without permission,” the voice says.

Her eyes meet golden ones and Larissa is taken back, she’s flushed, and when she takes her hand it’s soft but ice cold.

“There we go little one,” the hand helps her up, easily pulling her to her feet. She’s lifted gently and her back is picked up as well. Her books are held in the girl’s hands as golden eyes trace over her body, “You have a scrap little one.”

“I'm 5’10,” Larissa says, “I'm far from little.”

“You're little to me,” the girl says.

On two feet the girl towers over her, she’s easily over 6 feet, much closer to 7ft.

Larissa blushes, “I’m sorry, I,” but she’s taken back when the girl leans in close and smells her just slightly, “Oh, excuse me.”

“You smell lovely,” the taller girl hands her back her books, “I transferred in this year.”

Larissa smiles, “Oh, wow I hope you're enjoying it. I love-“

Howling broke the air again, sounding closer than before, Larissa wasn’t worried about being bit but she was afraid.

“You don’t like the wolves? Me either.”

Expect she can tell this girl isn’t afraid of them.

“They’re allowed to run free as long as no one gets hurt,” but she nods, “Yes, I normally avoid this part of campus during their free time,” Larissa says, “What year are you?”

“A junior,” Golden eyes shine, “A friend of mine is out with the wolves. I can tell you feel a little afraid. Would you like me to walk you to your dorm?”

The blonde bites her lip, she doesn’t want to look afraid, she’s not in danger.

Another howl sounded out, followed by several others that sound closer and closer. But she doesn’t know this girl, whose face she can barely see, but her eyes glow golden. She needs to be smart.

Larissa shakes her head, “No...no...but thank you so much. I need to take care of my leg.”

Golden eyes blink softly, “It's fine. How about I help you out?”

Her brow raises a little, “How?”

The tall girl takes a few steps down the dark path and a little light shine over her giving Larissa a look at her. She’s stunning, with full lips and long dark hair. Those eyes shine brightly when she smiles at Larissa before turning towards the woods like she’s about to speak, but she shouts.

“Karl, keep your dogs away from this one!”

Larissa looks at her before something like a howl is heard and then shouts, “Fine! But go away!”

The tall girl gestures to the path, “All clear for you.”

Larissa nods and quickly walks towards her, “Thank you so much. I don’t know how to repay you.”

The tall girl leans near her again and smells her, “Don’t you worry your pretty little face.”

Larissa blushes, “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” the girl pats the tops of Larissa’s head a little, “Now go before something else gets you.”

Larissa nods and quickly walks, turning back and waving, “Thank you.”

The girl waves her off and when she looks back again the tall girl is gone. Howl’s break out across the campus and she all but runs to her dorm building door, opens it, and goes inside.

She rushes up to her room and when she gets there Morticia isn’t there. But the scent of a familiar boy lingers in the room. She knows whom the girl is seeing, she just wants her to say who.

“Fuck, I didn’t ask her name.”

That is all she says about the girl, realizing she barely had a face to remember, but she’d remember that voice and those eyes.

**

She wakes up before Morticia and shakes the witch awake before taking the bathroom first.

“If you're going to wash that skinny ass before mine, don’t wake me up.”

Larissa pops her head out of the bathroom, “You should’ve been up ten minutes ago for morning fencing practice.”

“Fuck!” she watches the witch scramble but helps.

“Just grab the black bag, I packed your stuff,” Larissa says.

She’d packed Morticia’s bag earlier and set aside fruit for her. When the girl noticed she smiles.

“My little redwood,” Morticia says, “Best roommate ever.”

Then she’s grabbing the bag and left Larissa with their room.

Her mind keeps thinking of last night and how the hell she’s going to find that girl. She was sure she was a vampire, but she doesn’t know what kind. She’d never seen her around campus before this time. So, she wasn’t sure where the girl liked hanging out. She just wanted to know her name.

**

A week later, Larissa was sitting in her dorm in the dark while Morticia by candlelight read from a journal.

“Her name is Alcina Dimitrescu and she’s a new student.”

Larissa nods a little, “Alcina…Alcina…Alcina.”

Morticia shakes her head, “She’s a vampire and a hot one,” Morticia raises an eyebrow, “Prefers a love meal of only girls.”

Larissa hums, “Anything else witch?”

“She definitely gets around. She's dated three girls since the semester started.”

“Are you telling me to be careful?”

Morticia laughs, “No, your single let her break your pretty little heart.”

Larissa rolls her eyes, “I don’t want her.”

“Did you feel the draw in?” Morticia said looking at her, “So my gossip said the girls feel this draw to her and end up dating her or letting her bite them,” the witch wiggled her eyebrows, “Sounds hot.”

Larissa shakes her head, “Horny, that’s all you ever are.”

Morticia laughs, “Please, you’re horny for this chick.”

“I am not,” Larissa says, “I just want to know about her.”

Morticia shrugs, “I don’t have a hangout for her. Apparently, she hangs with some people who all transferred at the same time as her.”

Larissa nodded, “So…”

Morticia laughs, “You’re her type.”

Larissa looks at her, “How do you know?”

“Well, one of the girls on the team told me, that she knows the last girl Alcina dated and she’s a blonde. Plus, she’s tall-ish.”

Larissa sighs, “Thank you very much. I just want to thank her.”

“So no more finding information on her?”

Larissa sucked her teeth and turned over in bed, “I didn’t say that.”

Morticia shakes, “Theirs a lot you didn’t say, but I know to keep digging.”

**

 A few days go by, and she hadn’t seen any signs of the girl. Morticia’s gossip runs dry after about a week and she’s left to find information on her own.

On a Friday night, she goes to the library late, studies, and does her homework. She wears a cute skirt with her uniform and hopes she runs into the girl

She’s nervous with energy, but she wants to see those golden eyes again.  So, she leaves the library, and tonight there is no howling just the dark paths back to her building.

She hovers near the edge of the darkness and right when she’s about to just run, she hears a voice.

“Sweetness, do you like the dark?”

Relief washes over her and she turns to see Alcina again, this time with no hat and she can see her face. She’s stunning. Her hair is pulled back in pins, off the neck, almost old school. Her uniform was pressed and clean. This time she was sporting a white skirt, her Nevermore blazer gone, and with it a white polo with the school's logo.

“I wanted to thank you,” Says walking up to the girl, “And um ask your name.”

She’d avoided saying the girl’s name, she didn’t want her to think she was some creep. It gave her at least a reason to look for her.  

“So, you came looking for me in the dark?” The girl says, “Bold.”

Larissa fights a blush, “I’m Larissa Weems.”

The taller girl is right in front of her and holds out the same hand she used to help her up. The first touch is icy cold and then just cool, “Alcina Dimitrescu, very nice to meet you.”

“Alcina,” she repeats back and realizes she did it out loud, “That’s pretty.”

“Thank you, Larissa,” Alcina says, “So what are doing looking for me?”

Hearing the girl say her name creates a warmth inside her, “I looked for you around campus and couldn’t find a trace of you.”

The girl laughs, the sound low, “I take the night classes and I keep a low profile.”

Larissa nodded, “Do you normally like to hang out at night?”

“Yes and no,” the girl laughs, “I’m waiting to feed.”

“Oh…oh shit,” she stammers, “I don’t mean to slow you down. I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be,” she smiles, “I like seeing you around.”

Larissa smiles, “Oh.”

The girl’s eyes trail over her from head to toe, lingering around her legs and then her neck, “That’s pretty.”

“My neck?” the words leave her fast and she’s reminded of what Morticia says about her wit.

 Alcina is laughing a deep rich sound like liquid honey, that makes her bite her lip, “Oh goodness yes, but I meant your skirt.”

The blonde is bright red, “I swear, I wasn’t-“

“Flirting, all the girls use that one,” Alcina says, “Be more honest than that, Larissa. It's mature.”

She feels bold for a moment, “I wanted to know if we could talk outside of meeting out here?”

The girl's face shifts just slightly as she steps closer, she can tell the woman can smell her scent. The woman is smiling, “Your heart is beating so hard and fast.”

Larissa sighs and an anxious laugh escapes her, “I’m not used to my emotions being read from my body.”

Alcina nods, “Its fine Larissa. How about this? I usually go to the art studios in the early night around 8 or 9. Feel free to come by. Let me draw that pretty face.”

Larissa is fighting blushing, “Thank you.”

The girl nods, “Your welcome darling, but I mean it. Maybe tomorrow night?”

Larissa takes inventory of her schedule, running it over in her head, thinking of what could go right and wrong.

Alcina smiles, “Look, how about I walk you to your dorm? You can think about it. I’ll be there tomorrow no matter what.”

“I was going to enjoy my roommate being gone for the weekend, be it I think I can stop by,” Larissa says. She’s nervous, she remembers what Morticia says.

“Please feel free.”

“We can walk and talk so you don’t miss your meal.”

The girl looked at her and turned her head just the slightest, “You are a polite little thing, but don’t worry they can wait while I walk you to your dorm.”

Larissa smiles when the girl gestures for her to follow her in the dark but walks slowly next to her. She’d never been afraid of anyone or anything at the school, Larissa’s fear of the dark was from life in general, she wasn’t the biggest fan of when she couldn’t see. So, she avoided it, but in this situation, because this mysterious girl was walking around campus with her it wasn’t that bad.

In the pale light, Alcina glows, almost ghostly pale in her white uniform. Her eyes glow and Larissa makes sure to avoid looking into them.

“So, Larissa, how do you enjoy Nevermore?”

Larissa smiles, “I mean besides the occasional fight with my roommate,” she rolls her eyes at Morticia, “She’s a witch. It’s been good.”

“So I should expect a flourishing love and social life?”

Larissa sighs, “Ummm…well last semester a boy I liked to let me know he didn’t like me,” she hums, “But that doesn’t mean you can’t have what I can’t.”

She leaves out knowing about the girls she’s dated and some just made out with.

“How unlucky for him and lucky for me,” Alcina says, “Rejection can be hard, but you're adorable. I’m sure you will be asked out in no time.”

Her mouth is dry and her voice hitches for a moment, “You are a dangerous flirt.”

And then they were at the steps to her dorm. Alcina was smiling, “You make it-.”

And then a stunning girl comes out of the building. Her hair is almost a fire-red color, but her eyes glow blue. She’s probably a siren. The girl beams at Alcina.

“Hey, sorry I’m running late,” then she notices Larissa, “Who is this?”

Alcina doesn’t seem to miss a beat and turns to the other girl, “That’s my friend Larissa, she needed to be walked over here.” Then she’s standing right next to the girl, she looks tiny and Alcina looms over her, “You’re late for my meal.”

The girl’s bright green eyes go wide, “I wanted to make sure I looked great.”

Alcina is quiet, she looks at the girl hard before her eyes shift to Larissa, “Come on Larissa.”

Larissa walks past the girl who squints at her but doesn’t say anything. She climbs the steps with ease and goes into the door where Alcina follows her standing right in front of Larissa. In this space she can smell her perfume, it’s mature in a way she’s smelled with other vampires but unique.

“So I’ll be at the art rooms tomorrow night, come and model for me.”

Larissa thinks of the redhead waiting, “I don’t think your companion would like that.”

Alcina hums, “Hannah is my meal and she’s no decision-maker for me.”

Larissa watches the vampire lick her lips and caught a glimpse of sharp teeth. Her gut clenched in warmth and she worries her lip a little, ruining her lipstick, “I don’t want to step on any toes.”

“You aren’t,” Alcina says, “Tomorrow.”

Then she walks to the door and Larissa shakes her head, “You know I didn’t say yes.”

The vampire smirks, “Yet you didn’t say no. No one tells me no.”

She watches the vampire leave and she can hear the other girl as soon as Alcina comes out the door. She leans against it to hear better, the wood cold on her ear.

“Who is that?”

As they step away she can faintly hear the vampire.

“My friend,” Alcina’s voice is a purr, “Come pet, I’m hungry.”

Larissa pulls away from the door and makes her way to her dorm fast.

 She arrives to a note from Morticia saying she’d be away for a fencing tournament, which she already knew because she packed her bag for her. She’d given the girl a homework schedule and notes for their shared classes which the witch thanked her for.

On her bed was a set of small potion bottles, some she knew the witch made others she got from her mom for Larissa. A note saying the noise ward was up and that she was free to blast music made her smile.

With Morticia gone she didn’t have anyone she trusted to talk about this with, sure she had a few friends she liked, but she hadn’t told a soul besides Morticia she liked girls. The witch had been annoyingly accepting of her and even pushed her. She knew the witch would tell her to go, she’d say throw caution to the wind and invite her over. She’d have to act or she knows the witch will be disappointed.

Plus, she has to admit she’s excited, something in her wants the taller girl. Something is drawing her in and she wants to explore it.

**

In the deep edge of the woods, Alcina Dimitrescu is regretting wearing white to dinner, but Aubrey is a tasty meal.

The girl’s hands stroke along her neck and into her hair, while Alcina sucks slowly at her neck, making sure not to waste a drop or get it on herself. Her hands slide under the girl’s skirt and when the redhead leans her head father back Alcina growls into the bite, sucking harder.

She lets her hand wander right up the girl’s skirt and she when meets wetness she groans. Her fingers slide into the girl and Alcina bites hard, sucking until she feels the girl shake under. Fingers pull at her hair and Alcina pulls back, “Yes, love.”

Aubrey groans, her voice a little weak, “I need a little break. I’m lightheaded.”

Alcina nods and lets the girl down. She licks her wound and pulls out a little first aid kit. Her partner is still as she cleans the bite and puts a band-aid over it.

“You should get rest some,” Alcina says licking her lips, “We can meet again next week.”

The girl’s blood was tasty, a smooth bold flavor that came with sea species humans. Aubrey tasted like a shrimp pasta she had in Italy once, but it left her wanting more.

“Are still hungry?” the girl asks.

She’s always starving in a sense and has a yearning that drives her to drink and often. She was never full lately.

“Yes, I’m full,” she wasn’t even close, and it wasn’t Aubrey’s fault, “Let’s go to the greenhouse.”

She could hear the girl’s excitement, “Of course lover, let’s go.”

The girl takes her hand and Alcina follows her, thinking of the blonde that she’d been watching all week. The girl whose blood she thought about all day now and how she was going drink deeply from her.

[therealraeweber]

Logging on to Tumblr last night and seeing the hashtag "AI art" was trending was an experience. I expected to click on it and see a flood of those "me if I was a Greek Goddess, AI generated" posts (which... by the way... none of those posts ever look like the op, or a Greek Goddess... just saying). Instead, I saw people talking about the ethics of AI art and MAN WAS THAT REFRESHING! We haven't been talking about this enough. Here's my little rant for the day.

I'm going to preface this by saying, yes I have used AI to generate images. I used to do it for fun when DALLE was first gaining popularity, because who wouldn't want to make a silly little picture of Gonzo from the Muppets at a pride parade, or the 11th Doctor working as a Walmart cashier. I have also been using AI a LOT recently, but not of my own volition, but because we had not one, but TWO AI ART PROJECTS that were mandatory for the Digital Media class I took this semester at university. Being an art student is frustrating some times.

I also want to say, yes I have shared some of the AI pictures I've generated on Tumblr, thought I always disclose when something I post is AI generated, and make sure no one thinks it is my own artwork or photography. I also only post the silly ones (like the aforementioned Gonzo at pride parade), nothing that I think would look like it has been stolen or referencing someone else's artwork.

Ok, now that that is out of the way, AI ART IS UNETHICAL. I've been realizing that more and more as I've been using it and as it's become more popular. Not just because it's taking jobs away from artists (which it is and will continue to do), but because it directly steals artworks from artists without their consent, uses them to spit out a new image, and gives absolutely no credit or compensation to the original artist.

I didn't realize until very recently just how much it steals from artists. If you are an artist who has EVER posted one of your pieces to social media, or anywhere on the internet for that matter, you are at risk of having your art stolen and ripped off. That's a terrifying thought.

In my digital media class, our assignment was to use the Midjourney AI to create a series of 10 images. I remember originally being very upset and frustrated about this assignment because I'm paying to go to art school and take art classes, and yet we have an assignment that has absolutely no creativity required? Our assignments should be encouraging us to practice creativity, not just type a few words into a computer and call it a day. Originally, this is what upset me most, but as I got into the project more and more it quickly became the ethics of the project that were aggravating to no end.

Our prof wanted us to play around with style. I remember his suggestions of typing in "In the style of _____" to make a piece that emulates the style of a specific artist. This just felt super icky to me, so I stuck to only generating things that said "photo realistic", so it didn't feel like the computer was stealing someone's art style for me. I haven't got the marks back for this assignment yet, but I'm going to assume I didn't do well because I wasn't very experimental with the style of the images, but I simply refused to steal another artist's style of work for my project.

I remember about half way through the assignment, we had a mid-project critique session, where we shared a couple of the images we generated with the class and shared what prompts we used to create these images. I remember one of my classmates said something along the lines of "I really liked the style of this artist, so I tried to get the AI to generate something in his style. I ended up not using them because they always added his signature to the bottom corner, which made me super uncomfortable because it felt like stealing his artwork". I remember our prof's response to this was "Don't worry about it! You can photoshop out the signature before you hand it in!"... UMMM WHAT. If that isn't a perfect example of how dangerous this AI is to artists then I don't know what is.

We did have a little bit of a discussion of the ethics of AI artwork creation in this class, but it was mostly by the students, as we were complaining about having to do this and how icky it was. I really wish now that we had had a full class designated to discussing this in more detail.

Anyways, I do think AI art is unethical, and I did feel really gross about doing it as an assignment for an art class. Now... am I still using the AI? Yes. I'm using it because I had to pay for a month's subscription to this thing for my assignment, so I want to get my money's worth. I don't think there is much harm in me using it just for fun, provided I'm not using these photos for anything or sharing them anywhere. They are just going to be sitting on my computer as pretty images for me to look at, and I would be lying if I said it isn't fun to generate them. But I wouldn't use them for any art purposes, and especially never claim that I made them. That being said, I am using some of them as base references for paintings I've been making, but I do make sure that I am just using them as inspiration, rather than copying directly, because you never know whose stolen art has been used to generate a piece. I've generated quite a few images now that have got me excited to paint again, so at least one positive came out of this assignment.

If you are someone who posts AI generated art without disclosing it is AI generated, or worse, you claim to be the "artist"... shut up. Please. See the toll that AI is taking on the artist community and just stop.

So that's my little rant about AI art and my art class. Don't mind me, I'm just going to reblog a few posts now about the ethics of AI because it's important to me that these posts get shared and the message gets around, especially to non artists. Have a lovely day everyone.

[anterocash]

Mr. street pt. 3

part one. / part two. 

The semester was basically over, with summer around the corner. Min knew if he confronted Mr. Street as he wanted, he would ultimately be expelled right before graduation; that felt like letting that geriatric bastard win again, and Min refused to leave Hotchkiss like that. He didn’t apply to many schools, but the ones he did apply to accepted him. Minkyu did an exuberant amount of extra credit in different classes to try and compensate for the dip Mr. Street put in his GPA. It worked. Min didn’t want to spend his last semester doing random assignments. He pushed through it; he would have rather died in heavy traffic than have his unweighted GPA ruined by some decrepit piece of shit. 

His method of confrontation didn’t matter; once he had seen his grade, Min began to formulate his next move. Everyone at Hotchkiss has super-rich white people/ old money waspy names. ‘Huck’ ‘Tripp’, well, there was a computer genius named Fletcher Allen Jr; his parents were low-budget Hiltons, own a hotel chain he’s set to take over when he’s older. But to bide his time until he moved into his dorm room at Harvard, for the right price, he did things for people on the computer. He and Min were sort of business partners. Min wrote the essays, and Fletch, as he was affectionately called, did the more technical stuff, grade changes, and pranks on other students. He was air-dropping things before AirDrop was a thing. 

Fueled by humiliation and rage, Min shoved a few hundred dollar bills into the wannabe Mark Zuckerberg’s hand, asking him to ruin everything for Mr.Street. Fletcher was apprehensive at first — why Mr. Street? Everyone liked him, even when he was a hardass. 

“He fucked with my GPA,” Min explained as if that should be a sufficient answer. “Do your worst, or we’re both going down,” because if Min were to rat Fletcher out about his grade-changing gig, he’d have to confess to the essay writing he did for three and a half years, which simply couldn’t happen. The underclassmen ruined the poker nights; they didn’t need any more run-ins with the administration. “Are you threatening me, Min?” Fletcher asked, unsure whether he wanted to fight the guy or not. In the end, money was money, and Fletcher liked a challenge. Minkyu looked at the tech wiz expectantly; it wasn’t a threat but a promise. 

“Fine.” 

—

Two days after Fletcher agreed to help Minkyu, he cornered Minkyu in the library. Minkyu was writing another essay for another jock for money to spend in the city that upcoming weekend. 

“You want me to do what?” Minkyu stage whispered from behind a bookcase in the non-fiction section, away from the other studying students. That didn’t stop Fletcher from looking around cautiously before leaning back in. “I can’t do it from my dorm; his laptop is too far, I need you to get it closer, or I can’t do anything.” 

Minkyu sighed deeply, lulling his head side to side in consideration.  He wanted Mr.Street to suffer for what he did, but he didn’t need the opportunity of trouble to walk in his way. Minkyu already gave Fletcher the money. He wanted to get what he had paid for. “Okay, okay. I’ll see what I can do this week. Time is ticking, Fletch.” 

Minkyu decided the best time to try and get the laptop would be near the end of the school day, when the faculty stood in the hallway, monitoring students as they went to their various after-school activities. Earlier that day, Minkyu laid down the foundation, and once the bell chimed, he decided to strike. He felt like James Bond, a very tall James Bond, as he waded through the throng of his peers. It was easy; Mr. Street kept his room unlocked, eliminating one thing Min would have to do. Everything seemed ten times louder in his ears in the quiet classroom as he walked between the rows of desks until he reached the back where Minkyu sat.

It was a notebook Minkyu left on top of the AP Chemistry textbook stored underneath; he quickly shoved it into his messenger bag. While he walked out, he stopped by the teacher’s desk and snatched his laptop, charger, and all, pushing it into his bag before high-tailing it out of there. Heart pounding in his ears, panic ran through him at the sound of his name being called out. 

“Minkyu, come here for a second.” Mr. Street called out, forcing the teenager to turn around and walk over, holding his bag against him protectively as he stood in front of the teacher. The older man sized him up with a look. “Did Yale get back to you yet?” Oh, right. In a way to ‘bond’ with Minkyu or something, Mr. Street had suggested he apply to the man’s alma mater, something the teenager found laughable since the old bastard tried to ruin his GPA and still expected Minyu to be the exemplary student (he was, he couldn’t help it.) Minkyu shrugged, “I haven’t checked yet.” They accepted him, and Minkyu didn’t want to give the chemistry teacher the satisfaction that they would have something in common. 

“You’re a bright young man, Mr. Lee. But don’t let that be the only thing about you. You’re more than just your grades, don’t forget that.” 

Minkyu didn’t know what to say. To be honest, it was too late. He and the other adults around him had already made him ‘gifted’ his whole personality. It didn’t matter that he also played sports, liked to watch war movies and wrote poetry. Min was the kid going into his first year of university, technically a sophomore from all the college courses ( Mr. Street’s included) he had been taking since 10th grade, he was soooo smart, and that was the only way Minkyu could get anyone to pay attention to him. 

(Ten-plus years later, Cash wonders what life would have been like if he had taken the man’s words to heart, it probably would have helped him a lot.)

“Thanks,” Minkyu muttered awkwardly before taking off to meet with Gideon.

—

It’s mid-lesson when the head of the school walks into Mr.Street’s classroom, and the room goes silent as he’s taken out into the hallway, “what do you think happened?” Anderson asks Minkyu as he taps away on his phone, no doubt texting their mutual friend. Min merely shrugs, playing unaffected; Fletcher had texted him the week prior, saying he got the job done. After the run-in, Minkyu snuck back into the classroom to put the laptop back once it was within range, and Fletcher did his thing. All Min had to do was leave an ‘anonymous’ tip and let the dominoes lay how they wanted. Min didn’t know precisely what Fletcher did, just that he had some outside help from his dark web friends; the less Minkyu knew, the boys couldn’t incriminate themselves, technology works in mysterious ways, and they didn’t need it to get back to them. 

The voices in the hallway began to grow in volume, Mr. Street yelling and shaking his arm out of the police officer’s grasp. Indeed this had to be a mistake; he wasn’t into that stuff. It takes three cops to escort him off campus; the school head awkwardly stayed and played substitute after handing the laptop over to a detective. Quickly the word got around how he was arrested during the middle of class for having kiddie stuff on his computer, a concerned informant made to Litchfield County Police, and they took him in for questioning. 

“Yo… that’s insane,” Gideon said as he sat with Min and Anderson after school as they retold the event from earlier that day. 

“I…” Min’s voice trailed off as he shrugged. Now that Mr.Street’s life and reputation were finally ruined, the teenager wasn’t sure how he felt. The immediate dopamine rush as he heard the cops escort Mr.Street off campus had finally waned, and Minkyu wasn’t sure what would happen next. The C was forever on his transcript, and Mr.Street wouldn’t be able to teach again, something Min thought was a fair trade. The contents planted were a bit much, and he even texted Fletcher saying so, who said it wasn’t his idea; but his dark web friend’s. Minkyu was somewhat amazed and dropped the subject. 

“So close to graduation too….” Anderson lamented. He never had an issue with the chemistry teacher. Minkyu never thought this would happen. Gideon squeezed Anderson’s knee in an attempt to bring the boy some sort of comfort, and Minkyu rolled his eyes, not in the mood for the couple’s affection (if Minkyu was single, he wanted his friends to be single as well, which he couldn’t control and hated that.) “Oh well…” Minkyu sighed and stood, stretching out, “see you guys at dinner? When you’re done sucking each other’s dicks.”

Min swatted at the paper balls that were tossed at him with a laugh, giving the couple the finger before taking off. 

– 

“We need to talk.” Was the first thing Fletcher said to Min a few days later. For the millionth time, he found himself sighing and rolling his eyes as he followed him to the courtyard where students weren’t because it had just rained the night before. “What is it? The bell can ring at any moment, now.” Minkyu looked at his watch; he didn’t like being the last person to walk into the classroom, nor did he like being the very first. Min was weird, and he knew it. “Why did you want to set up Mr.Street?” He asked Minkyu demandingly, whose eyes narrowed, and he stood up straighter. “Why does that matter? I didn’t ask you about what you did, which was….” Minkyu shook his head in disgust. 

“This isn’t about me, Min. Answer the question. Mr. Street do something to you?”

“Why does that matter?” Min snapped, growing impatient. 

“Because I feel bad!” Fletcher exclaimed in a growing voice. “You don’t feel bad? I thought it was just a prank. I didn’t know you wanted to get him fired –”

Minkyu slapped his hand over Fletcher’s mouth, “Shut. The. Fuck. Up. Have you lost your goddamn mind? Lower your voice.” He hissed in Fletcher’s face, who shoved at Min, which prompted him to shove the other boy back. They went back and forth like this. A crowd gathering at the doorway caught a teacher's attention. Who had pushed her way through the crowd just in time; Minkyu had his fist thrown back when she got in between them.

“Enough! All of you! Go to class now!” 

The teacher doesn’t discipline the pair since graduation is so close. Fletcher and Minkyu are usually well-mannered boys (or so she thought.) This had to be a simple misunderstanding, and she hoped they could make up without it getting physical again.

–

The senior activities go as planned, even with the Mr.Street scandal looming over the school like a stormy cloud. Word spread, and the administration didn’t want the image of the esteemed prep school tarnished by a beloved teacher with an apparent dark side he kept very well hidden. It was the world’s quietest investigation known to man. The last thing they wanted was to lose the endowment money and the potential for more with bright new students with very wealthy parents. 

–

Minkyu knew his parents would be in the crowd, bragging about his academic achievements. As if they helped him through it all these past years. Minkyu was letting it slide. He was not going to let those grifters ruin his day.

They had finally got to the L’s – the whole row of teens moving towards the stage in anticipation; it’s all white noise until it’s not. 

“Minkyu Lee…” he could hear his friends cheering for him just like he did for them, and if he listened hard enough, he could hear his parent as well. This is what he wanted, right? For everyone to be cheering, his parents acknowledging his existence – proud of him. He was so happy he could have cried, and his eyes grew hot behind his glasses, and he quickly shook that off – the last thing Minkyu needed was someone to see him showing some sort of emotion to be used against him later on. His scholastic achievements were listed like a grocery list, and Minkyu couldn’t help the pride he felt. 

Yet, in the back of his mind, Minkyu knew this was all temporary and the happiness wouldn’t last.

Only a matter of time before the bubble bursts, and he lands back in reality.

[damnedmidnights]

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐎𝐧𝐞; 𝐰𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐧 𝐜𝐚𝐭𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐨𝐩𝐡𝐞.

𝑰𝒕 𝒐𝒏𝒍𝒚 𝒇𝒆𝒆𝒍𝒔 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒔 𝒓𝒂𝒘 𝒓𝒊𝒈𝒉𝒕 𝒏𝒐𝒘. . .

𝑳𝒐𝒔𝒕 𝒊𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒍𝒂𝒃𝒚𝒓𝒊𝒏𝒕𝒉 𝒐𝒇 𝒎𝒚 𝒎𝒊𝒏𝒅.

Growing up, people always asked, "what do you want to be when you grow up?" I always responded that I aspired to be a writer, driven by an unrelenting passion for books and the power of words on pages. I can tell when an author bares their soul and lets themselves bleed on the pages. That's why I loved books and enjoyed getting lost in them. My parents refused to support my passions once I voiced them. Mother insisted women in our family must either join the business or pursue law, crushing my desires. Her words, "Lana, be useful, we have no use for writers or poets, it's absurd," shattered my dreams, proving my life wasn't mine. It was 𝙣𝙚𝙫𝙚𝙧 going to be mine. My life's path was predetermined at birth, including the schools I'd attend and activities I'd participate in, all figured out in a frustrating way.

I am now facing a situation where, despite being in my mid-twenties, I’m still fighting to be my own person. My parents invited me to dinner, apparently to reconnect after almost two months, but it was actually a deliberate ambush.

“You will finish Law School, Lana. That is final, or I will cut you off.” My father stated, and I shook my head while gazing down at the dinner, instantly losing my appetite. “How did you find out?” I asked, but my mother responded, “The principal and I have a good relationship. I requested she confirm your enrollment for the fall semester, and upon learning you hadn’t, I informed your father, in case you entertained any notions.” My mother’s smirking gives me an ick, if only I could wipe it right off her face. “You’ve enrolled in some creative writing classes—additional extras and distractions. You won’t pursue those next semester right, Lana?” My mother's scolding persisted until my father joined in. "Is this what this is about? Face the facts, Lana, you were 𝙣𝙚𝙫𝙚𝙧 destined for writing success." His words cut deeply, and I began to question why I endure this treatment from them.

They are my parents, but neither of them seem to care for my thoughts or feelings, so why do I persist in clinging to a thread that would be easier to sever? For too long, I let them diminish my power and stifle my voice, but I'm done with that.

𝙏𝙤𝙣𝙞𝙜𝙝𝙩, 𝙄 𝙨𝙝𝙖𝙠𝙚 𝙤𝙛𝙛 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙞𝙧 𝙨𝙝𝙖𝙘𝙠𝙡𝙚𝙨, 𝙣𝙤 𝙢𝙖𝙩𝙩𝙚𝙧 𝙬𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙛𝙤𝙡𝙡𝙤𝙬𝙨.

“You know what? I think this conversation is over. I thought this dinner would be different, that you two would be different, but you'll never change! It's all about control for you! I'm not a business project or something you need to put together. I'm your daughter!” I felt a sense of relief, like an inner weight had been shed, and for the first time, I felt free. I shouldn't have had to beg for affection or feel insufficient unless I complied with their desires. I couldn’t endure it anymore.

Whatever else they were saying didn't matter because I was walking out. I'll definitely need a drink and some fun to take the edge off. It would've been nice if my Indogo ( @VirulentRequiem ) answered, but she was incognito. I was eager to share with my best friend how I stood up to them, but I'll save it. Tonight, it’s just me and my woes, singing beneath the pale midnight at the lake, seated by the rocks with tequila on my tongue…

𝙄 𝙣𝙚𝙫𝙚𝙧 𝙩𝙝𝙤𝙪𝙜𝙝𝙩 𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙨 𝙣𝙞𝙜𝙝𝙩 𝙬𝙤𝙪𝙡𝙙 𝙩𝙖𝙠𝙚 𝙖 𝙩𝙪𝙧𝙣 𝙛𝙤𝙧 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙬𝙤𝙧𝙨𝙚.

My eyes opened slowly, and the intense light above momentarily blurred my vision so I turned my head but doing that triggered a stabbing pain, forcing me to minimize my movements. I clearly had too much to drink last night, but this bed and its linens are unknown to me. What happened last night? I grimaced in pain while attempting to move my arms, only to find them tied down. Panic surged through me as I tried to move my legs, but they were also bound.

I hear footsteps closing in, a tall figure dominates the space, blocking the light. A man with long dark hair and a masked face looks down, his piercing green eyes locked onto me with a predatory intensity. I perceive the threat I'm facing. A knot emerges in my throat and my heart pounds so fast it pains my chest.

“What am I doing here? Please let me go!”

Begging for my life was my instinct, but I knew it would be pointless. He turned his head to the side, suddenly drawing a blade, and I watched in terror as he caressed the right side of my face with it and brushed my hair back. “No! Please don’t-“ His hand abruptly went onto my mouth, forcing my silence as he shushed me and said “Quiet. Don’t speak unless I ask you to.” His voice was deep, and a hint of darkness lingered beneath it, sending shivers down my spine. He continued tracing the blade down to my neck, where it nicked my flesh. I winced at the pinch and it elicited a scoff from him at my discomfort. Was he really taking pain in my pleasure? What did I ever do to be stuck with a psychopath?

I hear the door swinging open, I have a feeling things could only worsen from here, but he diverts his gaze from me toward whoever was there. Though visibly irritated, I sense reprieve as his focus shifts elsewhere. “Why didn’t you call me when she was awake?” He asked him, but he didn’t say a word. He shrugged his shoulders, turning away from me, and walking over to the man at the door, who, oddly, wasn’t wearing a mask. I guess I expected him to be. “I thought about it, but then I changed my mind.” He finally responded and the other man appeared displeased. He narrowed his eyes, asking, "What the fuck do you mean you changed your mind? Don’t start this shit again. We got a job to finish!"

A sense of unease settled in, I grasped his words pertained to me. That I was the job that needed to be finished. I thought I had escaped one set of constraints only to discover myself trapped in another, and nothing about this feels fair. Tears flood my eyes, spilling down my cheeks, and their intense heat feels like a burning flame. Was I fated for misery? Did life promise nothing but ceaseless torment?

I thought things were worse before, but now I'd rather go back if I knew I'd be trading one prison for another.

[hotchshands]

Chapter 1 | First Day of Class

Masterlist | Taglist | Other Chapters

Summary: The first day of class is upon you and first up is Professor Hotchner's lecture, Intro to Profiling. You've been anxiously waiting for this day to arrive, having picked out your outfit and prepared yourself for his lecture weeks in advance.

Word Count: 2.3k

Contains: professor!hotch x student!reader

A/N: Welcome to the first chapter of Teacher’s Pet, a Professor!Hotch AU (Yes, I changed the title for the second time). Oh, and imagine readers wearing the outfit above. Last thing to keep in mind, the university is totally made up, but the mechanics are modeled after my uni.

The start of the new semester rolled around quickly, signaling the end of summer and the start of yet another academic year. You weren’t looking forward to the start of the semester until you reviewed your course schedule and saw his name, Aaron Hotchner. The name alone brought back memories of why you registered for the class in the first place.

Fall registration rolled around sometime in March. You had put it off for a while, but you needed to sign up for a university lecture, as your school required every student to take two before graduation. Luckily you were able to take one relevant to your major, so all you needed was one more.

As you scrolled through the course catalog, you were doomed to be unlucky. Everything was completely out of your field of study, and none were remotely interesting, though there was one that sounded like it could be. Intro to Profiling? Hmm.

You click on the course to read more. As you read the course description, the class seemed to be more and more like something you should register for. The lecture meets on Mondays and has discussion sections on Wednesdays at 10 am. The course would be taught by Aaron Hotchner and some TAs would lead the discussion sections.

Aaron Hotchner? Because you weren’t a criminology major, you’d never heard the name before, so you decided to do some research. You did this every semester: Look up the professors and see if there were any major red flags before signing up for their courses. As you Googled Aaron Hotchner, all you saw were articles upon articles about his achievements at the Behavioral Analysis Unit or BAU. Most are about the cases he has worked on, and others about his leadership as the Unit Chief of the BAU.

Clearly, the man was well-educated in the field of profiling, not that it really mattered to you. Now for the ultimate final test: RateMyProfessor. You go on the site and type in his name. Thankfully, several results popped up. Most were from Georgetown University in DC, but a few were from your small private school.

The reviews varied, but they all had one commonality: the man was strict. “Insanely strict,” one reviewer put it. That same reviewer went on to complain that he "failed them." You started to become hesitate. As you continued scrolling through the reviews, more and more said things like “Don't take his class” and “He refuses to give A’s.”

As a person who craved academic validation in the form of a 4.0 GPA, straight As, and high praise from your professors, your brain was screaming RUN. However, a small voice in the back of your head told you to continue your research, so you did.

You read through some of the more nicer reviews. “He's strict as hell, but put in the effort, and you'll get a B.” another reviewer said. Another wrote, “Forced to take this horrible class, but my God, does the professor put the hot in Hotchner!” Your eyes widen at that. Secretly, you always wanted to witness the hot professor trope in action; maybe this was your chance.

You go back to Google and look for images of the man. Since he had been in the press quite a bit, it wasn't hard to find several photos of him in action. Some of the photos were from press conferences, others were taken from the scene. You study each picture you come across like it was a painting. You take in the lines on his face, the browns of his eyes and hair, and the mole on the right of his nose. Right then, your mind was made up; you were taking his class.

As you were preparing for the start of the fall semester, you huffed at all the clothes in your closet—or, according to you, the lack thereof. Hours later, you decide on a more preppy look. You choose a pale blue button-up, a plaid skirt, and a navy blue blazer for your outfit on Monday. The look felt like a cliche, the teacher's pet kind of cliche, but you wanted to impress Professor Hotchner, so you pushed the doubts aside.

The weekend could not have gone by any slower. By the time Monday came, you were antsy. You woke up later than you would have liked, at 8:30, giving you less than an hour to get ready if you wanted to be early for class. One thing you did not want to do was show up late on the first day, especially to Professor Hotchner's lecture. Another commonality those RateMyProfessor reviews had was that Professor Hotchner hated lateness.

You rushed out of bed, brewed yourself a cup of coffee, and got dressed. By the time you were dressed and ready to go, it was nine o'clock. Crap! You didn't have time to make breakfast, so you left the house, stopped in your favorite local cafe, and grabbed a quick bite and another cup of coffee. You were by no means a morning person, so caffeine was a must for a 10 am class, especially one you feared would kick your ass. He had better be worth it, you thought, as you made your way to the classroom listed on your schedule.

The campus was quiet in the mornings, so thankfully, you didn't have to deal with crowds of students. You searched the halls of classrooms before coming across room 213. The door was closed, making you think you were late, but when you glanced at your watch, it was 9:46. You sighed and slowly opened the door into the classroom. Your heart was pounding as you entered the room, which was empty except for one man. You gulp as you look around.

“You're early,” a deep voice spoke.

You look at the man standing in front of the class. He was facing the chalkboard, so you couldn't see his face, but you knew who he was. After he finished writing on the board, he turned around and faced you. “Well, I didn't want to be late on the first day, so...” your voice trailed off as you took in the man now facing you. He looks down at a sheet of paper on the desk in front of him. “What's your name?” he asks while looking at the sheet of paper.

“Y/N,” you answer.

“Y/N, Y/N... Ah, found you,” he mutters, assumely marking you present for class. The sound of your name falling from his tongue mesmerized you. His voice was deep and commanding, and you didn't know if it turned you on or terrified you. He looks up at you again, taking in your frozen state. “Well, uh, find a seat. We'll start at exactly ten o'clock,” he said, returning to work.

You walk toward the middle of the classroom, not wanting to sit in the front or back. Once you sit down, you take out your note-taking materials and wait as students begin to fill the empty seats.

As soon as the clock struck 10, Professor Hotchner began class.

“As many of you already know, the next fifteen weeks will be your introduction to the study of profiling. I will be your instructor on Mondays for the lecture portion of the class. On Wednesdays, my TAs will lead you in discussion. We'll get to introductions in a moment,” Professor Hotchner pauses, picking up a thick stack of papers before handing them off to one of the TAs, who begins distributing the papers to the students.

“The syllabus for the semester is going around. I expect you all to keep up with this, and should any of this change, I will let you know via email. Now, does everyone have a syllabus?” the professor scans the room before continuing. “Good. Let’s get started. My name is Aaron Hotchner. I’ve been a profiler for almost twenty years now and am the Unit Chief of the Behavioral Analysis Unit over at Quanco. My TAs are my colleagues who help me profile all sorts of cases from kidnapping to serial crime.”

Professor Hotchner goes on to talk about his work at the FBI. You dazed off into space shortly after. Rather than pay attention to what was being said, you paid attention to who was speaking. That one review was right. He was hot and completely your type—no one would ever know this because you knew admitting to liking older men would elicit judgemental looks of disgust. Although you were well aware of your preference, you couldn't help but feel like it was a fucked-up fantasy that would never come true. Regardless, it couldn't hurt to dream a little.

“I will expect a level of professionalism from you all and will require your undivided attention during class. If I catch you glancing at your phone, that will be the last time you will have it out during class. You may get away with stuff like that in your other classes, but not in this one. Do I make myself clear?” He pauses, remaining authoritative. The class nods as if this was the moment in the horror movie when the victims knew they were going to die.

“I also expect you to arrive to class on time as we start promptly at ten and end at eleven thirty. If you are late, you will receive dedications in your final grade. Attendance accounts for twenty percent. Remember that,” Professor Hotchner scanned the room, ensuring everyone understood his expectations. His eyes stopped toward the middle of the classroom where you were sitting before turning his gaze to the desk before him.

Man, he sure has high expectations. Do people really fail for being late? I was never one for lateness, but sometimes it's inevitable. I looked around the classroom. Everyone looked terrified, as if they were going to pee their pants. One or two students looked up to the challenge, eager to learn from him—makes sense considering he's the best profiler out there.

Professor Hotchner's firm voice continues, “For your midterm, you will present a profile. For your final, you will write a ten-page essay, which we will discuss in further detail later in the semester. Just note that if you pay attention in class, study hard, and take notes, you'll pass. You may not pass with an A, but I'll admit this class isn't an easy one, so simply passing is quite that accomplishment.” His eyes once again seem to gravitate toward you, and this time, they linger.

“I can already tell whose going to pass and who isn't, but I hope I'm wrong, and you'll all pass. So, prove me wrong,” Professor Hotchner chuckles as he prepares to go over the syllabus.

“How?” you ask before you even realize it. Once you realized you spoke, your eyes widened, and there you were, a deer in the fluorescent lights of the lecture hall.

A hint of a smirk appears on Professor Hotchner's face. You were eager to learn, and he liked that. “Body language reveals so much. I can learn a lot about someone just by observing them,” he spoke professionally.

You ponder his words before speaking, “So you can profile us based on our body language?”

Professor Hotchner's smirk fades and his expression becomes more serious. “No, not exactly,” he answers, his tone firm and serious. “Profiling is about using observations and knowledge to get a sense of a person's behavior. Body language is part of it, but a lot more work goes into it.”

You nod and go back to remaining silent.

Professor Hotchner finishes the class by going over the syllabus in great detail and answering questions, “Alright, that's it for today. I will see you all next week.” Students quickly begin leaving the lecture hall, and the TAs follow, leaving you and the professor alone in the big, empty classroom.

“I appreciate your questions in class today. I hope you'll continue asking questions throughout the semester. Don't be too intimidated by the content. I know it's a lot, but I can tell you're one of the brighter students in the class,” Professor Hotchner said as you exited the row you were sitting in.

You smiled at that. It was nice to hear a professor praise you for once. “Thanks, I didn't mean to interrupt you or anything—” you began before he cut you off.

“Nonsense. You didn't interrupt me.”

You pause at that. For someone so strict, you seemed nice, almost welcoming. “Well, uh, thanks away. I'll see you next week,” you said, turning to exit the room.

“Wait! I uh couldn't help but notice you don't seem like a criminology major, so why take this class?” the professor ejects, looking you over.

You face him, surprised that he knew without actually knowing you. “How did you figure that out?” you said.

He chuckles, looking down at his shoes. “Well, you're dressed like a schoolgirl. Your demeanor is curious yet kind, and you looked at me the entire class rather than at the syllabus or your classmates. Criminology students tend to be professional and overly confident and see their peers as competition. They show up to class right on time, not early, dressed like they already work at the FBI, and pay most attention to those around them.”

You were stunned. How did he observe all this in only 90 minutes? Was he really paying attention to you?

“So what's your major?” Professor Hotchner repeats his earlier question.

“Literature,” you answer.

He smirks, “That makes sense. It suits you. Hopefully, you'll find my class just as suitable.”

You smile, “I hope so, too. Goodbye, Professor.” You exit the class, taking one look back at him before closing the door behind you. He is going to be the death of me, you thought as you walked down the hall, anxious for it to be Monday again.

Taglist: @zaddyhotch @none-of-your-bullshit @snapessecretdiary @uselessnewt @presidentdangdang @lalaehlaa @de-duchess @targaryenswhxre @chicagotrio101 @barbeddreams @adrienneleclerc

[th3houseofleaves]

i am simply thinking about samuel vasilyev today.

he's such a good older brother and teacher.

like i just know his students love him because he's so chill? and he tries so hard to make sure all his assignments n such are accessible to all of his students. bc he's got enough experience with his siblings and his cousin to understand that sometimes, school can be hard. not everyone learns the same.

spending time with noah and seeing some of the difficulties he has reading (bc the language he first learned to read in wasn't english AND dyslexia on top of that) and he decides to research more accessible fonts n types of assignments n books n such for his students that would benefit from them. within the first couple of weeks after he's started offering alternate versions of text (usually that he's personally retyped in a dyslexia friendly font, or that he's found in different languages [as they're available] on the off chance that one of his students isn't as comfortable reading in english as they might be in there first language, something that he definitely understands) students that had been struggling and performing poorly start to improve bc they! can actually understand the assignments and it's not so frustrating to sit down and do them.

& spending time with his cousin milan, someone with the WORST adhd who struggles so much with school, pushes him to figure out ways he can accommodate students that he has that are neurodivergent. he asks milan what usually works best for him and he says that it's the easiest for him to learn when he can listen to the lesson in a recording while working on the assignment, sitting in a lecture hall is hard for him but when he actually records the lecture and can listen back to it, he figured out that he understands things better AND it lets him learn while also keeping himself busy!! bc milan can sit still but it's easier for him to focus on one thing if he's doing another.

so sam takes that into account and when he can he finds audio sources for some of the stuff he assigns to read and shares those resources with his students. he lets them record his lessons, or even does it himself, so that they can listen to it later if they need to and even for neurotypical students, once he starts doing this? grades start improving a lot and students are less stressed about completing assignments and coming to class.

and sam makes sure his students know that if they need any kind of accommodation, he will try and do that for them. if one student needs a little bit more time to do an assignment, he'll give it no questions asked. if a student tells them they have anxiety attacks when they test, he'll ask how he can help and if that means that when they test with him they get to listen to their music or take their test during their free period / lunch period than he'll do it. if a student is worried about having a fidget or about needing to stand or move during class he explains that as long as they're not purposefully trying to disrupt class than they're okay to do what they need. he starts adding visuals to his assignments and using more clearly defined prompts instead of vague ones when students tell him that they learn better when they can see examples or they struggle to complete an assignment when it's not clearly laid out for them. like yes, if it's something requiring their opinion or whatever he's not completely telling them what to write but he is letting them know like. what he wants them to write about? if that makes sense. he's not just asking them to comment on what they read without explaining what exactly he'd like to see. (this is based on my own struggles with my soc class last semester bc my professor didn't have prompts for our weekly discussion posts so i had anxiety attacks bc i had no idea what she expected from me bc i need rules to exist lmao)

and he refuses to startle any of his students who fall asleep during class. he's had that happen to him as a kid and he quite literally ran from the class because it triggered him real real bad. and he's seen how both his brothers react when someone does that and. he's not about to get fucking punched at school lmao (if you wake aeron up and catch them by surprise they come out swinging, something that noah failed to mention the first time sam tried to gently shake aeron awake. the incident ended with aeron apologizing over and over and sam holding an ice pack to his face and rocking a black eye for like the next week.) the other thing with this is, if a kid falls asleep in his class he's gonna figure they need the sleep. he knows how stressful high school / middle school is (idk what year he teaches atm) and he knows what the workload is like + a lot of his students have other responsibilities outside of school. he gets that they're bound to be tired as hell. so if they need to take a little nap during the period they're with him than so be it. he's got the lessons recorded anyways and he knows his students are surprisingly good at helping each other out?

other teachers don't understand why he's so fucking popular lmao and he's like ??? im literally doing the bare minimum and not being a dickhead to these kids i really don't get it either.

he doesn't see anything he does as going above and beyond when it is! he's using so much of his limited free time to make learning easier for his students! he's doing so much, he's doing more than basically every teacher bc they don't have the time or the resources!! and that's no shame on them at all. being a teacher is hard as hell.

[ak357]

Checkmate

As Logan opened the door to his office he can't help think back on what brought them here.

-------------It was a day like any other when he met him.---------------

Logan had a routine, he woke up at precisely 7:00 and put on his glasses got dressed in a black polo shirt with a pair of jeans with a black belt and a blue tie. And went down to make breakfast and say goodbye to his mom who's going to work. After eating breakfast and cleaning up he went to the bus with his backpack. He went to sit the same seat he always sat the second last row to the left by the window. Next to him sat James reading a book about flora and fauna. And they chat idle for a bit.

When he arrived at school everything seemed normal until he went to his seat only to find a boy sitting there. "Excuse me, you appear to be sitting in my seat. "The boy turned around to look at him with his hazel and brown eyes looking at Logan. "There is no assigned seating and I quite like this one." As the teacher walks in Logan huffs and sits next to him. "Everyone I have an announcement to make we have a new student, Janus Serpentine please welcome him with the same respect you would give to your other peers, Janus you can come up here and tell a bit about yourself." Janus stood up and went to the front of the class. "Hello I just moved here from Catania, Italy. I like snakes and reading. I used to be apart of the debate club at my old school and I didn't like moving to a different country"

"Okay why don't you sit back down and we can find you someone to show you around school." Janus sat back down next to Logan. "Logan why don't you give Janus a tour of the school." Logan sighed and stood up and went to stand by the door, "are you coming?" Janus stood up to follow. Logan and Janus spent most of the tour talking about whether or not the school system is a good thing the tour lasted until lunch. Janus ended up joining Logan & James for lunch. "Who's this, Lo?", asked James. "This is Janus Serpentine he is in my homeroom, and will be in my English, geography and PE this year." James nodded. They spent the rest of the day together.

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

Logan sighed as he went to sit at his desk. He began pulling out paperwork as Thomas came in. "I brought those case files you wanted, sir" Logan looked up at Thomas. "Thank you, Thomas. Did you interview Miss Havenwoods?" Logan said while he sorted out the paper work. "Yes sir, but she refused to talk to me" Thomas said a bit ashamed. "Did she mention why?" Logan said looking back up. "Yes she said she already lost one son she didn't want to lose another." Logan's brow furrowed as he puts the paperwork down "Dammit she was our only lead to taking down the mafia" Logan groaned in frustration. "Thomas, I need some time alone to think about our next step." Thomas nodded and left through the door.

Logan stood up and went to his file cabinet and began pulling out several files. He went to sit back down and started looking through the files.

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

"School is so annoying!!!" yelled Jessica as the librarian shushed her. "Why are you complaining your always in the top 5 without trying" James said as he rolled his eyes. "Well just because I am naturally smart doesn't mean I don't have to love school!!! Janus back me up" Janus looks up from his book. "Yes of course I would love to be included in this childish debate, instead of doing this project that's worth 50% of our grade" Jessica lightly pushes Janus causing him to huff dramatically. "Since when do you care I'm pretty sure you cheated on the exam last semester." Janus playfully shoved back "Oh, how sure are you?" Jessica rolled her eyes. "Like 90% sure" Janus mockingly squinted his eyes at her. "Really how sure are you?" Jessica laughs "Okay 75%, but I know you didn't study, so you must've cheated" Janus smirked "Not in any way you can prove" Jessica shoved Janus again while he's laughing...

"Hey, Logan, you spaced out, are you okay?" Janus asked giving a gentle tap on Logan shoulder. Logan suddenly looked at Janus startled. "Yea..ye..es yes of course, just thinking." Janus hummed "About what, do tell me." Logan avoided Janus's gaze instead looking at the wall. "I'm merely thinking about the project." Janus narrowed his eyes "Well-" Whatever he was about to say got interrupted by James and Jessica bickering. As librarian came over to shush them. "So are we doing this project or not." Janus turned his attention back to James. "Yes, if the both of you can stop bickering." They spent rest of the time doing the project.

As Logan packed up his school bag, Janus suddenly grabbed his arm and dragged him out of the library and into a broom closet. "Is there a reason for you to drag me in here?" Janus rolled his eyes "You lied back there, what were you thinking?" Logan tried to look anywhere but his friends eyes. "You know we care about you, we'll always be there for you no matter what and you can tell me what's wrong I'll help even if it means thrashing the principle car" Logan snorted "What we both know he deserved it, he had no prove that Jessica cheated" Logan smiled and shook his head then looked back up towards Janus.

"I...my mother...our home was trashed..."Janus looks surprised. "And we've been starting to get death threats about money....I confronted my mom about these and she....she then admitted to borrowing money from the mob." As tears started showing in Logan's eyes. "How....how much does she owe...?"Logan shakes his head. "She still owes them 5000.She said she needed the money for grandma's surgery...I don't know what to do we don't have the money to pay it back..." Logan breathing turned rapid. "Logan look at me, everything is going to be fine, take a deep breathe for 4 seconds." Logan breathed in. "1...2...3...and 4, your doing good. Now hold for 7, and now breathe out in 8."Logan breathed out. They repeated this a few times until Logan clamed down. "Now listen everything is going to be okay. I'm going to help you with the money."

Logan shook his head. "I couldn't possibly take that much money from you...I'm not sure if we can even pay it back." Janus placed his hands on Logan shoulders. "You don't have to pay it back..." Logan looked shocked. "Bu...but...you don't have to do that.." Janus smiled "Logan you're dear friend to me and I know you can't pay for it." Logan smiled at Janus. "Thank you..."

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

The traffic light finally turned green. Logan drove his car forward and towards the first crime scene. He turned on the radio to help calm his nerves in the middle of a song a call interrupted .Logan answered the call. "Logan we've might have found a lead on who's the mafia's boss" said Thomas on the other side. Logan turned his car around to go toward his office. Thomas was already waiting in his office, when Logan enter it. "Hello sir." Logan nodded towards Thomas. "Who's the suspect?" Logan said when Thomas handed the file to him. "Janus Serpentine" Logan dropped the file in shock. "I'm sorry... I didn't think I heard you right..." Thomas looked shocked "I.. said Janus Serpentine"

Logan remembers crying in Janus bedroom. He remembers Janus voice saying "It's gonna be okay Logan... Maybe I can get my parents to take you in." He remembers looking up to Janus in a sort of disbelief mixed with suspicion. Janus nodded knowingly "Do you want to talk about it" as he wiped the tears from Logan's eyes "What should I talk about that this is probably the last time we see each other or that I have to move to a different country with an aunt that I barely know or maybe the fact my mother died" Janus hugged Logan "it's okay one day you'll figure out what to do, whether that is to avenge her or honor her wishes that'll be up to you, but until then you just need to try healing." Logan remembers that was the last time he saw Janus.

Logan didn't want to believe it, the first few weeks of investigating was a blur to him, but after the first few weeks his emotions began to clear up from anger, confusion and sadness to determination. After months of investigating more and more evidence came to light each one more incriminating than the last until finally there was enough evidence to arrest Janus Serpentine, most of which is circumstantial

It had felt like a long drive to Janus mansion. Logan never wanted to believe it but there was too much evidence supporting it. And besides looking back it made sense, after all Janus never told anyone what his parents did for a living that made that much money. It explained the strange men that visited his house and the strange look in his eyes whenever there's a mafia related death, how he had known how Logan's mother had died without being told and without it being in the papers first. Why the cop looked the other way the only time he had convinced Logan to skip a class and they went to an abandoned library that was being remodeled. "We're here!" a loud voice knocked Logan out of his thoughts.

"Thomas stay in the car if I'm not out in our agreed time call for backup" Logon told Thomas as he was getting out the car. "Shouldn't I go with you, we're not allowed to go in alone" Logan shook his head. "I'll be fine, I need to do this alone" Logan closed the door and began walking towards the mansion gates. Logan pressed the intercom's button, it buzzed and a gruff voice answered "Who's there, and could you state your business with Mr. Serpentine?" Logan responded "Could you inform him that Logan Berry is looking for him."

After a few minutes there was a buzzing noise and then the gate opened. Logan steeled himself and walked in and towards the mansion front door. It open as Logan reached for the door a tall bald muscled man in a black suit greeted him. "Follow me" the man in the black suit quickly turned around and begun walking, Logan followed him. After a while they reached a large ornate door. The man in the black suit knocked on the "he's here" he walked away as the door opened. Logan walked in and was greeted by a tall blonde man with burn marks on half of his face, his were amber and brown, he smiled to Logan. "It's been a long time we last saw each other, would you like some tea?"

"Your apart of the mafia..." Janus smiled weakly as he poured a cup of tea for Logan. "Why don't you sit down" Logan hesitantly shook his head "No I won't I am here to do my job" Janus cocked his eyebrow "Really than why did you come here without a partner or backup" Logan narrowed his eyes. "Why didn't you stop them" Janus seamed surprised by the sudden question. "I'm sorry but your mother was barely able to pay the first debt I couldn't get my parent to agree me paying off her debt a second time, besides I think they knew she couldn't pay them off, I belief that they just wanted to use her as an example." Janus said expressionless. "Why didn't you call the police" Logan said in anger. "I couldn't betray my family like that, no matter who had to get hurt."

Logan hand clenched into a fist. But he took a deep breath to calm down. "Janus you and both know you're guilty so it would be beneficiary if you'll confess and turn yourself." Janus studently angerly stood up "YOU DARE, come in my home after we haven't spoken in years and accused me on circumstantial evidence, and you and I both know you'll never find enough evidence to even get a warrant so, if you so please leave my home before I'll have your fiancé sleeping with the fishes, as they say." Logan looked shocked "How..." Janus rolled his eyes "Did you really think I wouldn't notice you poking around" Logan's face morphed into one of anger "You have no right to threaten him, or-" "Or what are you going to be doing, nothing, so I suggest you skip town before you end up just like your mother." Deep seething anger boiled in Logan's chest, so much that he pulled his pistol from his jacket and year of determination of looking for a way to bring his mother killer to justice, years of being lied to and unanswered questions, months of dead ends and false herrings and a decade of pent up emotions fueled his actions, as he aimed his gun towards Janus and then-"

"Bang"

[polaraaace]

Tales of my Calculus 2 professor because I’m still not sure how I feel about the guy

Opened the first class by telling us that he failed Calc 2 the first time he took it and barely scraped through the second time. This ended up being much more encouraging than it should have been

He spoke so. Slowly. And punctuated his lectures with. Dramatic pauses. Which sounds great, and it did set a pace that wasn’t overwhelming, but it was extremely distracting and it caused me to start thinking of him as Professor Shatner

I had taken Calc 1 online with a different school than my community college, so I was a little apprehensive about any possible differences in the curricula. I emailed my professor asking to meet during his office hours the day after the first lecture but never got a reply. I assumed he’d be there during his pre-posted office hours, so I showed up and waited 30 minutes. He finally answered my email saying there would be no office hours that day with no further explanation

After that, I brought my Calc 1 notes to the second Calc 2 lecture. He skimmed through it—including looking closely at the very last page, which summarized everything I had learned about integration up to that point, and simply said “this is great note-taking! Keep it up this semester!”

The day before the first test, I was studying in my school’s math tutoring center when I realized I had no idea how to integrate the square root of x squared plus nine. I called over Professor Shatner for help since he was nearby, and he said “that’s u-substitution,” like I should know what that was. (In his defense he thought I should have since the college I was at for calc 2 covered it at the end of calc 1, though the college I did calc 1 with covered it at the beginning of calc 2.) When I asked “what’s u-substitution?” he told me to get on Khan Academy and resumed eating his lunch. He managed to deliver that whole interaction without seeming rude at all, just preoccupied by his casserole

The next day I emailed him explaining the school difference situation (again) and asking for lectures on the topic I’d missed. He was really nice and sent over a couple of his own recorded lectures. I fully intended to watch these but never did because by the time I remembered I had picked up what I needed to know by watching Professor Shatner do u-substitution problems like the class already knew how to do them

He would let us ask for help with calc 1 stuff (except for u-substitution) on tests

The standards for homework were kind of insane. He would assign a list of problems at the start of every unit, and we had to turn in either a stapled packet or email him a PDF of our work on the day of the test. It had to be “professional,” but he refused to elaborate on what that meant. He did show us an example from last semester and mention that he had docked a point because the student didn’t leave enough space between words

Told us to use Desmos for any graphs because he “didn’t want to see (our) ugly scribbled graphs”

His wedding was the Thursday we were supposed to start the second unit, but he had scheduled that and his honeymoon so that he could be back the following Tuesday. Unfortunately, that’s not quite how it played out—his flight home got delayed a day, and then he got sick, so he returned to campus a week later than he’d planned. He later said he’d missed 13 days of work, which was more than he’d ever done before, and the only way that was possible is if he counted weekends as work days

I was kind of shocked when I found out he had married a woman

I had a field trip for another class the day of the second test, so he scheduled an appointment with me to take it the day after

Unfortunately, because I was taking 18 units, reading some pretty dense books for fun, and kind of depressed, I barely studied for the second test and didn’t even come close to finishing the homework. It didn’t help that I struggled with that chapter to begin with and Professor Shatner’s extended absence meant we had to teach ourselves from recorded lectures through a lot of it

I came into his office the day before I was supposed to take the test on the verge of tears to explain the situation and ask if I could just skip the test and get a 0 on the whole unit “to spare us both.” He looked at me like I was suggesting he throw me out a window and said gently, “just take the test at the time we scheduled and you’ll do what you can”

I showed up the next day at the time we agreed on in the room we agreed on and he wasn’t there. I waited 5 minutes. 10 minutes. 20 minutes. Nothing. I checked his office repeatedly. I went around peeking into every classroom in the math building. I emailed him, trying not to sound as frantic as I felt. I finally started asking every math faculty member I could find if they knew where Professor Shatner might be. They had no clue. Hours after the scheduled time, he replied to my email saying he wasn’t on campus that day and set another time for me to take the test

I tried to use the extra time to study but it wasn’t enough. I came into the room, sat down, and started crying silently as I fumbled through the test knowing I was going to fail. I had written “I’m so sorry :( I promise I’ll do better next time” on the homework as a pre-emptive measure, and I apologized again on the test

I did fail that test. Badly. But I did the math to check and he gave me the minimum number of points needed to keep me above an overall failing grade, and when I brought up the possibility of dropping the course he encouraged me to see it through despite just having warned the whole class that if we thought we might fail we should drop and retake it

He also allowed people who had dropped the class to keep attending the lectures so they could keep up and be prepared for when they retook it

He didn’t let us keep our tests after they were graded. If we wanted to go over them, we had to do it there in class or schedule office hours with him

The one time I scheduled office hours with him to go over a test, he wasn’t there. I had to use process of elimination to track him down to the math tutoring center

On the third homework assignment, he only gave me a 14/15 because I hadn’t drawn the arrows on a graph exactly how he wanted me to but didn’t leave any notes or comments on my work explaining what I did wrong until I directly asked him. I’m still pissed about that

When I asked him if I should skip math the semester after and re-teach myself calc 2, he told me I should charge straight into calc 3 and specifically wanted me in his class. His lecture didn’t fit with my schedule but his help and encouragement

He would go off on tangents about how AI was going to change everything and he was worried about how it would jeopardize his students’ future careers, but he also encouraged us to use things like Wolfram Alpha to help teach ourselves

Loved to say that math was a language, which really resonated with me. Unfortunately, this led to some jarring quirks like him ending every problem with a period because he compared equations to sentences

Attendance/participation wasn’t mandatory and he recorded all of his lectures and uploaded them to Canvas, but still had a very high attendance rate

When I brought up the idea of skipping math for a semester to re-teach myself Calc 2, he encouraged me to push forward into calc 3 even though my major didn’t require it. I trusted him, so here I am now. I’m still not sure if that’s a good thing or not

When I ran into him just before my first calc 3 test this semester, he told me, “come back and tell me about it when you get that big A!” I ended up getting a C, but his faith in me is still helping

[ur-dad-satan]

Can I just take a moment to seriously talk about the impact my school is having on my mental health? It may be stupid and I know things are happening that are way worse than what's happening in my school but I still want to talk about it.

I no longer find my school a place that I enjoy. Between fights making the staff take away our privileges like a one hour lunch and the literal bathrooms, and emergency drills like lock downs, school has become so depressing. I actually looked forward to the one hour lunch we had where we could hang out with our friends, take our time to eat, and visit teachers to get extra help on work. Now with the three 20 minute lunches for all students to eat, it takes away any and all semblance of relaxation lunch once had. Now everyone is forced to sit in a silent classroom in a study hall while they wait for their 20 minute lunch to begin. That 20 minutes includes walking to the cafeteria, waiting in line for the food, and eating. It's not enough time to do anything but eat and go back to class. Lunch used to be a time for hanging out with your friends and relaxing or finishing last minute work. Now, it's just time for you to eat and go back to class.

Fighting amongst other things got us into this mess in the first place. My school is in its second semester of the school year and there were over 40 fights in the first. The number of fights combined with people vaping/getting high in the bathrooms, hooking up in the bathrooms and hallways, and a small number of people overdosing on literal drugs amounted to most of the school bathrooms being shut down, and the twenty minute lunches we have now. The school literally isn't safe and there's so much going on at all times that our one time to actually relax and have to ourselves is gone.

Another thing about the school not being safe is the emergency drills. I understand the fire drills and weather drills like earthquakes and tornadoes, and I don't mind them; however, I absolutely hate that American schools have to have "lockdown" or "intruder" drills on the off chance one of the kids goes crazy. That's so unfair to our mental health that that's a reality. My school has a little daycare program where the teachers' little kids who are too young for elementary school can go to learn and stuff. I feel so bad that these 3, 4, and 5 (maybe) year olds have to experience this at such a young age. The reality of knowing that I could at any day be murdered at my school- a place that's supposed to be for learning and have safety as one of our top priorities- because some kid got tired of being bullied and no one would help, or because some kid lost a fight and was mad or anything like that. I hate knowing that it could happen and it makes me so nervous to even talk to people I don't know. Not to mention that this is only happening in America. The supposed land of the free and home of the brave, where people are too cowardly to give up automatic weapons because of our "right to bare arms".

All in all, I think the American public school system is doing a horrible job at protecting us. They can't even stop bullying, so how are they going to stop an angry student, or Christ forbid a teacher, parent, or staff member from killing or attempting to kill another person? The American people are too afraid of giving up their freedom because they refuse to raise their child to know wrong from right, and are afraid to discipline them. They're too afraid of giving up their automatic weapons because it's their "rights" to have them even though those types of weapons were not invented when that document- the very same one saying that one can't discriminate against other people based on their skin color, sex, ethnicity, etc. yet so many people still do- was created.

I'm sorry this went on for so long, I just needed to get all this off of my chest. The American public schools system takes a huge toll on high schoolers' mental health and no one is doing anything to help. This is our cry for help.

[headspace-hotel]

I remember sitting at my desk in my dorm room and thinking to myself, on a scale of one to ten, how would I rate this pain?

Ten, I thought to myself. I remember that I wrestled with this answer, trying to revise it into making sense even though it was my automatic, thoughtless, and sincere judgment.

How could psychological distress, a subjective experience, be measured? How did I know that a feeling of distress was "this bad" or "that bad?" And anyway, I couldn't be feeling a ten because nothing was happening. I wasn't even feeling anything that I could identify. It was just...a sense of everything screaming. The closest I could come to naming it was "upset."

I spent so much of last year in the most excruciating psychological agony I had ever felt and I had no idea even what emotion it was. I remember, at times, being so stressed that my entire body felt physically frozen, like I couldn't will myself to move. I stopped feeling tired from waking up early, stopped feeling sleepy at night. I slept lightly; it felt like some part of me was still awake somehow, conscious of how many hours and minutes it was until class. I felt like I was going crazy.

My health was starting to collapse: I wasn't menstruating at all, my lymph nodes were constantly swollen, I was having dizzy spells, my blood pressure was higher than it should have been, I had constant nightmares and would wake up sore from how tense I was. I was failing a tai chi class because my body refused to cooperate with me. My instructor would be whispering "soften, just let your body relax" and I would be literally shaking with tension, in pain from how rigid my muscles were. My back constantly hurt.

By the end of the semester, I weighed roughly what I did at 13 years old—since beginning college, I had lost thirty pounds.

My school had mental health services; I had an RA; I had an advisor that cared about my success; I couldn't and didn't seek any of these resources for help, because I didn't have even the beginnings of a word to describe what was happening inside me. I was barely aware that there was anything wrong. I was thriving. I was coping. Nothing was wrong. I was always thoughtfully applying coping skills, always reaching for another tool in my toolbox. I redirected negative thoughts. When I paused for a second, sometimes I could hear my entire soul screaming in agony. Does that make sense?

Last year I learned a lesson I will never forget, and it is this:

You can become so resilient and adept at coping that you will step unflinchingly into a bath of boiling water and die.

The couple months after returning home were a black hole. I barely remember them. I did nothing but lie in bed. I was overwhelmed by a simple conversation with my family; I didn't have the energy to reply to a text message half the time.

I continued having nightmares about my roommate for weeks. I had nightmares about being raped, too. There is no clear reason for the latter; I feel certain it must have been my subconscious attempting to communicate, in the strongest language it could, just how fucking bad my situation was.

I wish I had been told "You are not obligated to endure everything you are able to survive." Of course, it wasn't a simple matter of realizing earlier that I was having a colossal mental health crisis with something trauma-adjacent that I needed immediate help with, that I was in an abusive relationship, and that losing my freshman friend group and having my closest friend on campus involuntarily committed to a mental hospital was MAYBE bad for my mental state, on top of the stress of having unaccommodated disabilities forcing me to spend hours on "10-15 minute" assignments. Instead, I would have to go farther back, undo the years of cognitive behavioral therapy and psychiatric labeling of my anxiety disorders that taught me to cope and push through and cope and push through, to label my fears and discomforts as "irrational," to take upon myself the responsibility of ignoring my feelings. I would have to undo the trauma of being autistic, of learning that it is a basic expectation to endure agony.

I kept being haunted by how I had just kept going like a zombie, even when every step forward felt like burning knives, doing self-care and applying coping skills, never letting it get bad enough for total collapse. I couldn't be self-destructive or suicidal, I knew how to talk myself down from all of that, I could barely fully think a self-loathing thought before I had censored it from my head.

Meanwhile the inside of my brain felt like burning grease. It literally felt like I physically had no choice but to deal with my emotions in a healthy way using CBT techniques, like my brain literally wouldn't let me near the "bad" options, and I'm glad I didn't self-harm or anything like that, but it was also fucking horrible to be unable to behave like a person going totally unhinged with distress. I could do well in my classes, stay hydrated, shower, and contradict negative thoughts like I was some kind of mental health mech suit over which I had no control, designed to torture the person inside it.

I physically could not have a panic attack. I had learned how to make the symptoms stop a long time ago and now my body had forgotten how, and just vibrated with awfulness nonstop. There was no peak and then relief after; it never stopped and there was no way to release it. As awful as panic attacks are, it is so much worse to feel like you are on the cusp for days on end without any release.

I felt so unsure about dropping out. I came close to not taking time off at all. Two weeks after returning I still wasn't fully aware of how bad it was; I decided to withdraw on an instinct, something screaming within me like an air raid siren.

If I hadn't taken that uptight professor that took letter grades off for forgetting page numbers and that shitty math class, god knows what would have happened to me, because if my grades had not faltered significantly, I might not have been able to come up with a reason to withdraw.

No more resilience. No more coping. Not for me. If it sucks, hit the bricks.

It just hit me.

I have been home from school for one year.