#and watch and respond to my two ap psych videos | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

paranetics · 4 years ago

Note

hiya could you do a kiadam for 17. and 22.? if your not too busy. thanks !!

17. “Looks like we’ll be trapped for a while…” 22. “I’ve seen the way you look at me when you think I don’t notice.”

He’s completely minding his own business, being friendly with his physics textbook, all pressed up against the end of the bookshelf in the library, successfully having a love affair with headache-inducing math equations, when Mira ambushes him.

“Hiya,” she says, suddenly right in his face.

“Aisghls!” he gurgles, in a completely manly way, thank you. She sits back on her heels and laughs at him, loud and mocking. He scowls at her.

Her braces are blue now, matching the streaks in her hair. She looks nice, he decides, all neon green and blue. The loudness of her wardrobe suits her -- she’d be strange to him if she ever tried to tone it down.

“Oh, man, you should’ve seen your face.”

“Fuck you,” Kai snaps, smoothing out the pages of his book. “I am busy learning how to destroy the AP Phys exam. Stop being a distraction.”

She pouts at him. “Come on, you're seriously not still mad at me about the ceramic pig.”

“I’m always going to be mad at you about the ceramic pig,” he says primly. Then he sighs, unable to resist. “What’s up?”

Her smile turns bright, and his heart does that familiar little stutter. Kai has always, always loved her. Sure, she’s Adam’s best friend and has inclinations more Reeve-based, but there’s always going to be something about her that just catches him in the right spot. He’s over it now, and he has erm, other areas of interest, but she’ll always be special.

“Nessa’s having a party--”

“Ugh,” Kai interrupts.

“--with alcohol--”

“Double ugh.”

“And cute boys will be there,” Mira wheedles, whipping out her best puppy-eyes.

“I don’t care,” Kai says, shuffling away from her and looking back at his textbook. The particles will... he reads.

“Adam will be there,” she tries. Obvious trump card. Goddammit.

He cuts his eyes toward her, calculating. She’s grinning, triumphant, confident that she’s got him. He groans internally, because it’s either that he goes to this party and enjoys at least twelve percent of it, or Mira and Adam will wake him up from a dead sleep sometime in the AM, drunk and needy.

Part of his resistance is a lie, he always likes parties. He doesn’t like Vanessa, but she’s Reeve’s friend, and by proxy, Mira’s friend. He can pretend to like her for one night, especially if he gets to hang out with people. What can he say, extroversion. It’s a disease.

It’s just, recently, there’s been this trend. It’s like he’s been cursed.

Kai pretends to think about it.

“Fine,” he grits out.

“Yay!” Mira says, standing up and doing a little celebratory wiggle. She pulls her phone out of her pocket and unlocks it. “I’ll add you to the group text. Also, I want Reeve to drive me so you’re taking Adam alone okay bye.”

“Huh,” Kai says as she speed-walks away from him. “What? Hey!”

But she’s gone, vaguely eucalyptus-scented-shampoo left in her wake. Alone? With Adam? Fuck.

His phone buzzes.

Group: party 🎉🥂🥳🎊 time

mirakat added humantorchkai to the group

abeaverdam: Oh he’s coming?

lochnessa: Damn I didn’t know he left his house anymore

mirakat: ya i cornered his ass in th library

mirakat: hes a total slut 4 skool

mirakat: kais my bitch tho lol so ya hes comin

mirakat: dam hes drivin u

abeaverdam: Is that ok kai?

humantorchkai: yeah

humantorchkai: when?

lochnessa: Friday.

Kai’s late to first period on Wednesday, which Reeve notices, and bugs him about for ten minutes straight. He rolls in twenty minutes after the bell, wearing the clothes he left on his bedroom floor, all rumpled up and disorganized, and without a note. He drops into his seat and makes it approximately two minutes before Reeve leans over, into his space, and starts the interrogation.

“Oh my God,” Kai says to the ceiling. “For the last time, my alarm didn’t go off.”

“My Spidey-senses tell me you’re a liar,” Reeve says, and seriously, what does Mira see in this complete dork? He’s so nosy.

Kai drags his gaze from the ceiling to stare at him. “I think your janky-ass ‘spider-sense’ needs a psych eval.”

Reeve crosses his arms and sniffs at him. “Rude. I thought we were friends.”

“We are--” Kai scrubs his hands through his hair violently, frustrated. He catches the smirk on Reeve’s face. “Hey! That doesn’t work on me anymore. I’ve evolved.”

The smirk doesn’t leave Reeve’s face.

The truth is, Kai’s late because he had a nightmare. Or a wet dream. Depends on your definition of either thing. It’s been reoccurring pretty consistently, and Kai always wakes up from it breathing hard, adrenaline in his veins, and a hard-on. Today just happened to be shittier, and he couldn’t get back to sleep right away, so he overslept when his alarm went off.

It’s pretty much the worst, been happening for almost a month, and Kai is slowly losing his mind. But. whatever, the important part is this: he’s with Adam, and Adam kisses him. They could be in space, or in a submarine, or whatever Kai’s subconscious feels like cooking up. They could be anything, pirates, elven rebel warriors, it doesn't matter. In every dream, Kai’s with Adam, and at some point Adam leans over, the smell of Hennessy whiskey on his breath, and kisses Kai.

It’s why Kai’s been so rigid lately, avoiding his friends and refusing to go to parties, because of what happened Last Time he’d gone.

Mad Libs! Fill in the blanks, Sherlock.

He’s so totally, totally, totally screwed. And no one is allowed to know, not even Reeve, who knows Adam’s a flirty drunk and that Kai’s pathetic, and hasn’t even told anyone any of Kai’s other secrets, because this? This is world-ending levels of FUCK.

So, when the bell rings, Kai basically sprints out the door to avoid Reeve.

Group: party 🎉🥂🥳🎊 time

speedyskeet: should i bring da weed

reever: ohhh shiiiit hell yeah

lochnessa: No LSD though

speedyskeet: :O

speedyskeet: um ok MOM

reever: wtf ness

reever: psychedelic rights!!!

speedyskeet: let me get us fkd up!!

mirakat: wait didnt we hav 2 call an ambulance 4 coop last time u brought more than weed to a party

mirakat: or was tht a different school

speedyskeet: .........

speedyskeet: ok so im assuming edibles and my bong right

Kai takes his lunch to Mr Tucker’s room.

Mr Tucker is the APUS history teacher for the senior class, and he is the only non-STEM teacher that Kai likes. Mira is also his favorite student, so he lets them eat lunch in his room. It’s better than fighting for a spot in the crowded cafeteria, and Kai likes hiding from the rest of the student body.

Adam, Reeve, and Mira are sitting at one of the table groups when Kai walks in with his plate of chicken nuggets, Vanessa and Skeet nowhere to be seen. They’re probably getting high in the parking lot.

Mr Tucker is scrolling through youtube, his computer desktop displayed on the projector screen.

“Why’d you look up Nyan cat?” Kai asks, tilting his head as he watches Mr Tucker scroll.

“It’s stuck in his head,” Mira pipes up, helpfully.

Mr Tucker grunts confirmation and apparently selects the version he likes. Reeve groans when it starts playing, slumping forward over his tuna salad. Mr Tucker picks up his normal vegetable-based salad, his bushy mustache wiggling in that way that means he’s smiling.

Kai sits next to Reeve, across from Adam. Mistake, Kai realizes too late. Big mistake. Because now they have to make eye contact, and Kai’s belly catches fire at the memory of drunkAdamhe’sKISSINGMESOMEONEHELP when he looks down at his plate of chicken nuggets. It’ll be obvious on his face in a few moments, he’s never been able to fight off a blush well, and then there’s going to be Questions. Capital-Q Questions.

But Reeve’s talking about, like, whatever drama majors talk about, and when Kai chances a peek up, Adam’s not looking at him. So.

Kai can’t help it, okay? He’s creepy. Sue him. No wait, that’s not-- ugh.

Kai studies the contours of Adam’s face while he’s not looking. His high cheekbones and his sharp chin. His heavy eyebrows that are shaped perfectly (”Ugh, you’re so fucking gross,” Reeve had said when Kai had voiced this thought aloud. “His eyebrows? I think you need to ask him out. Get it out of your system.”) and his eyes are that warm shade of brown, almost gold, soft and kind.

His hair is longer now, and errant curls flop over his forehead and around his ears. Kai watches the long line of Adam’s throat when he tilts his head back from the force of laughing at something Reeve said. Kai’s transfixed by the inviting stretch of dark skin, entertaining a thought of leaning over and just biting down so it’s not his fault he doesn’t see it coming when Reeve violently jabs him in the rib.

Kai jumps. “Ah! What the fuck?”

“Language,” Mr Tucker says in the toneless inflection of someone who doesn’t really care but responds on reflex. He’s now scrolling through Seasame Street videos.

Reeve shrugs, unrepentant. “You were gone there, dude.”

“Yeah,” Adam agrees, eyebrows raised in polite curiosity. “Planet Zenon gone.”

Kai ducks his head. “I’m, uh, stressed about AP physics?” he tries.

“Uh-huh,” Reeve says, “and are you asking us to confirm that for you?”

“Leave him alone,” Mira interrupts mildly. “Only, like, a hundred people a year get above a three on that exam.”

“Wow, how is that class still funded?” Adam asks.

“Elitism?” Mira guesses. “Maybe it’s like, a torture thing. Like, a test within a test.”

“What,” Reeve says, “like, if you pass you can become a super-secret spy?”

“Or I can, like, do another Chernobyl. Or I’m allowed secret access to government secrets. Ooh, maybe they’ll tell me the moon is a projection into the sky.” Kai says, warming to this idea.

“Then how would they explain waves?” Reeve asks.

“Uh, giant wave pool,” Kai answers.

“Hot take: the world is in a giant wave pool,” Mira grins at him.

Adam blinks almost in slow-motion, the sweep of his eyelashes against his cheeks, a smile growing on his face, and Kai is once again caught like a fly in honey. Just like that, all the saliva is gone from Kai’s mouth, and he’s completely lost the thread of whatever’s happening around him.

Okay, so, recap: totally, totally, totally screwed.

adam: U sure you’re ok driving me?

kai: dam i swear its fine

kai: i’d say something if it was a problem

kai: my parents have been trying to kick me out basically every weekend, this’ll make them so fucking happy

adam: Lol

adam: [A stock photo of two white parents sitting on a beach towel in a tropical location, smiling adoringly at each other. In the blurry background, a toddler with similar skin color and hair is being attacked by a seagull.]

“There is a PROBLEM!” Kai announces, flopping heavily onto his bed, tossing an arm dramatically over his forehead. Mira doesn’t even look up at him.

“Hm?” she says from the floor, knees drawn up to her chest, eyebrows furrowed in deep concentration. She’s looking more at her iPad than at him.

“Oh my God,” Kai groans. “You don’t even care. I’m nothing to you. You enjoy my suffering.”

“Die white man,” Mira says tonelessly. “I’m trying to beat my old high score in Tetris. What’s your damage.”

“I have nothing to wear on Friday,” Kai moans, pained.

“What? Why do you even care? Your regular clothes are fine.”

“Oh my God, Mira! It’s a party,” Kai breathes the word like its holy, a precious thing nestled in the crook of his tongue, not to be defiled by people who wear school clothes to special events. “And I want to get hit on.”

“I’ll hit on you,” Mira promises. The iPad makes a wah-wah-wah sound. She sighs, setting it aside and looking up at him, expression thoroughly unamused, clearly blaming him for her high-score loss.

“I did not do that,” Kai says. The blood’s started rushing to his head, so he sits up and blinks away the black spots as they dance in front of his vision. “I just wanna be hot,” he whines.

“Okay, so, wear that stupid blue button-up with the tigers on it, and the black skinny jeans. It brings out your eyes,” she elaborates. “And tucked-in button-ups are hot on dudes. Oh, and--”

“If you’re gonna Queer Eye me, I swear to God,” Kai complains.

“Will you just... I was gonna say you should wear a tiny bit of eyeliner. It’s like, accentuating your features or some shit.”

“Why should I trust you?” Kai asks playfully. “I’ve never seen you go anywhere near a make-up in my life.”

Mira shrugs. “I saw it on Instagram. Anyways, Reeve said I have ‘good bone structure’, what does that even mean?”

“That he’s an idiot and I can’t believe you’re into him?” Kai ventures. Mira glares at him, so Kai leans back on the bed, rolling his eyes up to the bedroom ceiling at the glow-in-the-dark stick-on stars that have been there since he was seven. “Okay, okay. He was probably trying to compliment you, but since he’s a robot sent by aliens to infiltrate the earth he did it in a really bizarre way.”

Mira perks up. “You think?”

“He said ‘good’.”

“What should I say back?”

“Erm, that you’ll have his babies?”

Mira throws one of her glittery highlighter pens at him. It bounces off the center of his forehead and onto his lap. He laughs, picking it up and tossing it back.

“I don’t know,” he admits. “Maybe say that you like his bones, too.”

Mira takes out her phone.

adam: [A picture of a pina colada sitting on a kitchen counter in a pool of sunlight.]

adam: Winky face

kai: you could just like, use the emoji keyboard instead of typing it out

adam: Don’t make me frowny face

Kai spends fifteen minutes messing with his hair in the mirror. He gels it sticking up, twists his mouth critically at his reflection, and wets his hands to wipe it out. Nothing’s working for him today. It’s just one of those things, his clothes seem to hang off him awkwardly, and nothing looks right.

He makes a sound of frustration, and his mom pokes her head into the bathroom.

“Oh,” she says. “I thought you were going to a party?”

“Mom,” he growls. “I’m getting ready!”

“Hm.”

She pushes the door all the way open, surveys him from head to toe, and reaches over to run a hand through his hair, leaving parts sticking up in her wake. Kai looks in the mirror. Now, instead of awkward ‘trying-too-hard’, he looks artfully tousled. He unbuttons two top buttons of his tiger shirt, and messes with the collar to make it look like someone had grabbed it and reeled him in for a kiss. He grins at himself.

“That’s better, I think,” she says.

“Thanks Mom,” he says, shuffling past her and out to the hallway.

“Limit yourself to three drinks!” she calls as he stuffs his feet into old converse. “If you get too intoxicated to drive, spend the night! Just text! Don’t forget to wear condoms and--”

Kai shuts the door in her face.

His car is a silver Prius, owned five times prior to him. The interior always smells a little bit like shamrock shake and in the winter requires a prayer and three engine turnovers to start. Kai loves it.

He pulls up to Adam’s street and texts without looking that he’s close. He parks in the street, and jogs up to Adam’s front door. He raps his knuckles on Adam’s door, the red one with caterpillar decals, and a blue handprint on the doorknob.

Adam throws open the door. “Gimme a sec, gotta grab my jacket.”

He’s wearing a white shirt and Kai’s favorite jeans of his (do Not judge him, okay, liking your crush’s ass is basically a given and is no longer considered a sin under the New Testament, so really Kai’s not weird for liking this pair of Adam’s jeans because it accentuates his butt.), the ones with rips in the thigh and at both knees, because Adam lives reckless and dies reckless.

He jams his feet into vans and grabs the heavy olive jacket off the coatrack and follows Kai out to the Prius.

“You look nice,” Adam says, offhand. Kai feels how hot his face immediately gets and hopes it isn’t ugly, sometimes his blushes look like a rash.

“Thanks,” he says, rubbing his neck, right hand fumbling for his keys.

They slide into their seats, and Kai is hit with the violent-sense memory of Hennesy whiskey, and dark streetlamps, and Adam’s soft voice and brown puppy-dog eyes imploring Kai, look at me. Look at me, please. And. And.

His phone buzzes.

“Oh, Vanessa wants us to pick up some soda,” Kai says through the rock in his throat.

“Ooh, ooh. Cherry 7-Up, Jarritos Lime, uh like, a ton of Mountain Dew... and Coke! We’ll need Coke,” Adam rambles as Kai pulls away from the street and heads toward the local general store.

mira: WHERE

mira: R

mira: U

mira: 2

mira: !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Kai frowns at his phone. They’re in the check-out line, waiting for their turn with about three tons of soda on the conveyer. Kai’s got a fifty dollar bill from his parents, because they’re stupidly open-minded, but he’s still gonna make Vanessa pay him back. Adam’s inspecting the tabloids, making comments about all of the covers and whatever he thinks about them.

kai: WE’RE

kai: FUCKING

(Not sent !) kai: GETTING

(Not sent !) kai: DRINKS

mira: FUHDUK WHATTTT!!!?????????

Kai groans.

The party’s already alive by the time Adam and Kai get there, music thrumming against the walls of the house, the glass panes of the windows shaking with the vibrations. Weighed down by plastic bags full of drinks, and a little bit anxious, Kai fumbles with the door handle three times until Adam reaches over him and opens it.

The crowd is huge. He didn’t even know that Vanessa and Skeet knew this many people. There’s a wall of heat that hits them when they step inside, the difference between the inside and outside must be a solid ten degrees. Most people are crammed in the living room, near the speakers, where a sort of impromptu dancefloor has evolved. There are plenty of people lining the hallways, sitting on the stairs, and spilling over into the other places of the house.

Vanessa has changed the lightbulbs to fuschia, cobalt, and teal colors, so the house looks almost like a club from a TV show. There’s this haze over everything - and, yep, definitely Skeet’s weed - that makes it seem smoky and mysterious. Adam kicks the door shut behind them as they begin to navigate the crowd.

Skeet’s leaning against one of the walls, talking to a tiny girl with piercings and too much eyeliner. She tosses her head, her hair flying up like a halo for a moment, luminescent in the multicolored lights of the house, and leans closer to Skeet. She’s holding a red solo cup, Skeet’s holding weed, and Kai’s arms are starting to hurt from all the soda.

“So, your, like, real name is Skeet? What kind of name is that? I mean, like, who does that to their kid?” she’s asking, valley girl accent and everything, even twirling a strand of hair around her finger.

Skeet shrugs, unbothered. “My parents are hippies.” he spots them, then, and lifts his joint in a get over here gesture. Kai and Adam shove some people to stand in front of him. He grins. “Oh, dudes, nice. You got drinks. I wasn’t sure if you would, since Mira told us that you, uh, made a pit stop.” he waggles his eyebrows.

Kai groans, flushing.

“Uh, yeah,” Adam says, lifting up his bags. “for drinks? Hello?”

Skeet leers, grin stretching bigger. Kai scowls. He’s going to eat her one day, all Hannibal-Lecter style.

“Where is Mira, anyway?” he cuts in before Skeet says anything weird. “Where should we put the drinks?”

“Oh, just, you know,” Skeet makes a vague gesture with his hand that doesn’t really mean anything. “I think I saw her in the kitchen?”

“Thanks,” Kai mutters, shoving through the crowd and deeper into the house.

Mira and Vanessa are leaning against the sink, Reeve’s standing at the counter, completely covered in bottles of alcohol, thumb and forefinger at his chin like he’s surveying fine art.

“Oh! You made it! I hate vodka without coke,” Mira says, striding forward and grabbing the bags from Adam.

Kai followers her back to the counter, and shoves the receipt into Vanessa’s limp hands without looking at her. Together, Kai and Mira start to set up the drink line, stacking up all the empty red cups at the edge of the counter as they try to make sure all the soda and alcohol are equally accessible. How Skeet even gets this stuff... he shudders to think.

Kai waits until Adam and Reeve have wandered out of earshot to lean into Mira’s space. Vanessa had vacated the premise the moment it looked like any physical work would be happening, so he doesn’t worry about her particular brand of nosiness. He takes his phone out of his pocket and tilts the screen so she can see it.

“My texts didn’t send,” he tells her in a low voice. “We weren’t actually, you know.” he flushes violently.

Mira shoots him a grin. “No, I guessed that something had happened. It was just funny. You look nice.”

He smiles at her, genuinely, which means his gums are probably showing. She looks nice too, in her little black dress with a flared skirt and combat boots. The neon green streaks in her hair glow in the weird light of the house.

“I like your outfit,” he says. The din in the background is starting to grow. More people have probably showed up.

She nods at his jeans. “Cuffed jeans. The true mark of a bisexual.”

Kai nods very seriously. “I can’t leave my house without announcing every aspect of my sexuality to the entire world.”

Adam’s talking to a group of people at the other end of the kitchen, his smile is blindly white in the pink light, skin pitched a shade darker, a stark difference against the glow of his white shirt. Staring, unable to look away, Kai steals Mira’s cup and takes a swig. It’s straight vodka, so Kai coughs immediately when it hits his tongue.

Mira laughs at him.

Group: party 🎉🥂🥳🎊 time

speedyskeet: do any of u know anyone named travis montery

mirakat: no

lochnessa: No

abeaverdam: Nope!

humantorchkai: no

reever: nah

speedyskeet: fucking L lmao

speedyskeet: im kicking this fool out then

Kai’s wandering around, pleasantly buzzed from two Cherry 7-Ups with a tiny bit of vodka, looking for any familiar face. Mira and Reeve had abandoned him pretty much straight away, he’d left Adam alone in the kitchen, and he’s actively avoiding Vanessa.

He stumbles around, moving his shoulders a bit in time with the music, his body gone languid and loose from the heat and the alcohol and the atmosphere.

His phone beeps at him again. He really hopes it's not Skeet checking with them before he bounces a guy again. It’s just Mira, he sees, when he’s fumbled his phone out of his back pocket. He has to squint to read in the pink light amid the thrumming bodies of people all around him.

Eventually, he escapes the crowd and heads down the stairs to the “game room” and finds another living room, with a soft white carpet and a couch in front of a big flatscreen. There’s a group of about a dozen kids, plus Kai’s friends, sitting on the carpet in a circle by the couch, with a beer bottle laying on a Monopoly game board. Kai blinks, the lights here aren’t fun colors, and everyone in the circle raises their arms and cheers when they see him.

He walks over to them. Mira grabs his arm and begins to drag him onto the carpet beside her. The group begins to chant.

“Spin the bottle! Spin the bottle!”

Oh, no fuck, Kai thinks, beginning to resist Mira’s grip on his arm. His drink is sloshing about, and Kai holds it away from his shirt and pants as he tries to reverse his crouch and pull his arm back. Skeet reaches up and confiscates the cup, downing the rest of it in one go.

“Spin the bottle! Spin the bottle! Spin the bottle!”

But he’s buzzed and his coordination is spotty, so when Adam reaches out with his hand and spins the beer bottle, Mira tugs once, hard, and Kai crashes onto the carpet, and the bottle spins,

and spins,

and spins.

And points the neck straight at Kai’s disheveled spot in the circle.

So, let’s revisit that cursed theory, shall we?

Kai looks at Adam, and Adam looks at him. He’s got that dopey half-smile on his face, and his pupils are blown wide, iris a thin gold ring around them. Kai knows when Adam’s drunk, or blackout, and he’s tipsy right now, just like Kai. And... oh no. But the kids in the circle are jeering, giggling delightedly.

“Uh,” Kai says.

Adam licks his lips, and Kai tracks the movement of his tongue helplessly. His eyes are moving on Kai’s face, like he’s cataloging everything, like he can’t keep them still. Kai’s mouth is very, very dry, and he misses having the cup in his hand.

“So, uh,” he says, and the tension buzzes even harder. “Is this, like, a kissing thing?”

Skeet grabs him by the arms and manhandles him up. Reeve and Vanessa grab Adam and start frogmarching them down the short hall toward some rooms and closed doors.

“No,” Skeet says, “This is more like a seven minutes in heaven thing.”

“Wait,” Kai says. Skeet reaches past him and opens a door. “Wait.” Skeet pushes him in, and Adam follows behind. “Wait.” The door clicks shut, then there's a clunk, then the sound of something heavy being pushed against the door.

Kai tries the knob, but it's locked. He jiggles it, but his muscles won’t cooperate and yank hard enough. Adam could probably break it open, but Kai has the vague thought of Vanessa’s parents and property damage, and underage drinking.

“Guys!” Adam yells. He pounds on the door with his fist. “Guys! This isn’t funny!”

But they don’t answer.

Evil. Mental note: make sure your friends aren’t evil next time.

“Looks like we’ll be trapped for a while,” Kai sighs, giving up on the door.

They’ll just have to wait out the seven-minute sentence. It’s simultaneously worse and so much better than the alternative. This way, Adam won’t have to kiss Kai if he doesn’t want to. But also: he won’t have to kiss Kai if he doesn’t want to. It’s a testament to how drunk all of them really are.

Kai turns, presses his back against the door, and slides down it, pulling his knees to his chest, wrapping his hands around his shins, and resting his cheek on his knee. He surveys the room. It’s small and dark, Kai doesn’t have the wherewithal to search for the light switch, but from what Kai can see it looks like a guest room no one ever uses and has accumulated with old junk. There’s a tiny window at the opposite wall that leads up to the lawn. Adam groans and drops onto the ground beside Kai.

The night is clear the moonlight is touching the window and peeking into the room. Adam’s shirt is glowing against his skin from the moonlight, his eyes a bright point in the semi-dark of the room. Kai locks eyes with Adam, and the tension from earlier crops back up tenfold.

This situation is... stupidly pointed. Kai’s pretty sure Reeve is the only person in the world who knows Kai thinks Adam is kinda hot, but he’d also have to be massively stupid to ignore the strain in their friend group lately.

Adam’s looking at him the way he does right before he reaches out to touch Kai’s hair, or brush his fingers against Kai’s freckles, or leans over to kiss Kai’s cheek. He’s looking at Kai like a hungry man, like he’s about to make the stupidest decision of his life and never look back. Kai can feel the pull of that look drawing him in, the temptation to run his hands against Adam’s chest, touching his shoulders or his mouth.

So Kai does the only thing he can think of.

“What did you think of that new Hey Arthur episode?”

Adam blinks at him. “Uh. You mean that kids show?”

Kai bites his lip and nods vigorously.

Totally. Totally. Totally screwed.

reeb: [A video of Mira on the dancefloor among a huge throng of teens. The song in the background is completely drowned out by people attempting to sing along drunkenly. She’s grinding against Vanessa, who’s wearing Skeet’s sunglasses and drinking a mimosa with a cocktail umbrella in it.]

(Not sent !) kai: let us out of here!!! its been like 15 mins!!!! guys!!! dam’s phone is dead!!!!!

(Not sent !) kai: goddamn it COME GET US

(Not sent !) kai: NOTHING IS SENDING!!

reeb: lol wya we cant find dam either

(Not sent !) kai: YOU LEFT US IN THE BASEMENT

“Ugh,” Kai says, flopping back down onto the pillows beside Adam. At some point during their imprisonment slash debate on the ethics of twenty-three seasons of the same children’s cartoon, they’d moved from the floor to the twin bed. “I’m pretty sure they forgot about us.”

“Well, it’s been like thirty minutes. And they’re drunk.”

Kai’s starting to sober up. He has to pee, and his mouth tastes like cherry coughdrops. He stands up on the bed, bouncing a bit on the mattress. He reaches up and touches the seam of the window and the sill.

“What are you doing?” Adam asks, trepidation in his voice.

“Uh, escaping?” Kai says.

Kai presses his foot onto the upside down elliptical that’s propped precariously against an old wardrobe. He puts some of his weight on it, testing. Satisfied that it won’t give, Kai lifts himself up onto it, closer to the window, and pushes against the glass pane. The window opens out suddenly, making Kai wobble. The wardrobe groans.

“Careful!” Adam barks.

Kai glances back at Adam, his worried eyes watching Kai from the bed, sitting up on his knees in a half crouch. Kai sticks his head out the narrow window, then his shoulders, and manages to drag himself up and out.

He turns back around and offers his hand to Adam.

“Come on,” he says. “I’ll help you out.”

Adam climbs up onto the elliptical like Kai had, reaches his right hand to Kai’s left and uses his left to leverage himself closer to the window. The wardrobe and the elliptical make that sound again, like they’re scraping together.

“Hurry!” Kai says, afraid of the whole makeshift apparatus falling apart. Adam’s left palm slaps against Kai’s right and Kai pulls.

The elliptical falls over as Kai yanks Adam up, a great big crash resounding in the room they just escaped. Kai’s momentum and Adam’s weight makes Kai step back once, then twice, then his footing goes and he sprawls onto his back, Adam on top of him, in one big undignified heap.

Adam looks down at him. He looks more sober, too, like he hasn’t had much to drink. Kai should really be pushing Adam off of him. Or trying to sit up. But his hands are on Adam’s waist, and Adam’s looking at Kai’s face like he can’t quite look at anything else, and Kai cannot, for the life of him, break this moment.

Adam’s hands are on either side of Kai’s face, boxing him in. His breath puffs against Kai’s mouth over and over as he breathes shallowly. His eyes flick all over Kai’s face, and Kai’s thinking kiss me, please so hard he’s pretty sure NASA catches the brainwaves.

“I’ve seen the way you look at me when you think I don’t notice,” he says, voice soft and vulnerable, like Kai has the power to hurt him with whatever Kai says next.

Kai’s hands tighten on Adam’s waist. He’s thought about this a lot. Like, a stupid amount. Who doesn’t daydream about confessing to your crush? But Kai cannot dredge up any words to say. He’s dry, completely dry, and he can only think about how good Adam’s weight feels on him. He dips his eyes to Adam’s mouth and thinks This is where I kiss him, right? and Adam’s eyes slide shut as he leans in, towards Kai, and Kai loses his mind.

The backdoor opens, the sounds of the party spilling out into the night air, pink light washing over them. Adam scrambles off Kai so fast that he’s pretty sure he breaks the world record for speed, and stands up.

Kai props himself onto his elbows and squints at the silhouette in the doorway.

“Vanessa?”

“Oh my God, there you guys are!” she leans back into the house to yell, “Guys! I found Adam and Kai! They were fucking around in the backyard!”

“Hey!” Adam snaps indignantly. “You locked us in the basement! We had to escape!”

Vanessa rolls her eyes at them.

adam: hey uh

adam: sorry about what i said when i was drunk lol

adam: i didn’t mean it

Kai turns his phone off and stuffs it into his bag, frustrated. He hadn’t meant to not talk to Adam all weekend, he’d just needed to think things through, and then his dad had asked him to help paint the deck, and he’d had to finish up some code for robotics and time had kinda slipped away from him without really meaning to.

He hadn’t meant to ignore everyone else, either, but they weren’t in a Situation with Kai on Friday night, and he’s not in love with them, and they didn’t seem to mind so much.

Kai had spent all weekend staring at the texts, in between being too busy to answer them, but he can’t figure out what to say back. He’d gotten them Saturday morning after the party, probably because he hadn’t stuck around long enough to be left alone with Adam again.

Kai had left because.

Well, because.

Because he feels played.

Is that it? He can’t tell. He just feels so hollow about it. Adam doesn’t mean to, Kai knows that, but it still feels like he’s being led on. Adam has kissed him once while black out and almost kissed him while tipsy and flirts pretty outrageously, and it’s all too much for Kai’s head, which is designed for building robots and lying to his English teachers.

So at lunch, instead of going to Mr Tucker’s room, he lets Freddie from Calc drag him to the auditorium to help build the drama department’s Spring play set.

He’s not avoiding anyone. He’s just... helping his friends.

Fuck.

reeb: ok i give

reeb: wtf is going on

kai: ?

reeb: don’t “?” me mfer

reeb: adam is sulking n shit and u’ve been sorta MIA

kai: i’ve been busy, sorry

kai: i am the captain of a team u know. its not personal. i’ll hang out with you guys soon

reeb: spidey sense says there is something u are not telling me

kai: i really do think your spidey sense is actually overactive bladder syndrome

reeb: [An image of the caveman spongebob meme.]

He’s in the library, sitting in his favorite spot nestled in the bookshelves, brow furrowed over The Great Gatsby, his English journal, the notes Hannah lent him, and the Sparknotes page for the novel, surrounded by every color highlighter and pen, just trying to get his homework done, when Adam ambushes him.

“You’re avoiding me,” he says, out of nowhere.

Kai jumps, sending his highlighters and books flying. Adam is standing above him, eyebrows furrowed and his arms crossed. He looks a little bit light a superhero, all righteous indignation at injustice, his muscles buldging slightly. You’re dead. Goodbye. his brain supplies.

“Holy shit,” he says, gathering his stuff back up slowly. “You scared me.”

Adam’s eyes soften. “Sorry,” he murmurs.

Kai shrugs. “Don’t worry about it.”

The silence hangs there as Kai avoids his gaze, reshuffling Hannah’s notes back into their correct order. He’s lost his page in the book, so he opens it to the middle and starts looking for the correct page number. There’s no sound in this corner of the library except for Kai’s over-loud breathing and the turning of pages.

Go away go away go away, Kai prays, wanting the world to end so he won’t ever have to face this moment. He thinks about the echo of Adam’s voice in his memory, Kai, look at me, the feeling of Adam’s weight in his lap, the ache Kai feels when he looks at Adam, and wishes that he could just stand up and run.

Adam clears his throat. “You’ve been avoiding me,” he says again, only this time it comes out more like a question.

Kai keeps his face as blank as possible, schools it into something politely curious unlike the shattered glass mosaic he feels like. “Am I?”

Adam rubs his hand across the back of his neck. “Look, I’m sorry,” he says haltingly, sliding his hands into his pockets. “I shouldn’t have... come on to you like that. It was inappropriate, and we were both drunk. And I didn’t mean it.”

Kai looks at him for a long moment. He can feel it, a rock on his chest, crushing him. He feels the ball in his throat, the hot prickle against the backs of his eyelids. “I know,” he says eventually. His voice comes out steady, even though he feels like he’s falling apart.

“So... we’re cool?”

Kai forces himself to nod. “Okay.”

“Really? Because I still feel like I fucked up somewhere here.” Adam takes his hands out of his pockets to open them, palms up, like he’s pleading. “Tell me what I did wrong so I can fix it.”

And it’s now or never. As much as Kai abhors the idea of talking about his feelings in the school library at 4 PM, as much as he wants to just lie through his teeth and stitch this all back up into one big internal bag of FUCK and pretend like nothing happened, he’d be leaving Adam hanging, and Kai’s not a dick.

He takes a deep breath. Then another one. He tries to channel his internal Reeve, but decides against it because Reeve’s kinda an asshole.

“I just... wish you did,” Kai says eventually. If he wasn’t himself, he’d slap him. Adam stares at Kai like he’d just spoken another language, like he’d just spat out part of a puzzle to piece together.

“Wish I did... what?” he asks slowly.

“Mean it,” Kai grits out, the words dragged from him. He feels ridiculous. This is stupid.

“Mean...?” Adam says, like he’s stupid. Kai scowls at him.

“Do you remember the St Eve’s party?”

Adam shrugs, looking helpless and confused.

“I drove you home that party. I drive you home every party. And every time we’re alone, you say that you like me, that you want me to go inside with you, that you think about me all the time,” Kai’s stomach is churning and Adam looks like he’s about to faint.

“I didn’t...”

Kai can’t hear him say it again. “And I know that you’re just drunk, and that’s just what you’re like when you’re drunk, but I just... I just wanted it to be true so bad. Part of me kept driving you home because I wanted you to be like that with me, part of me just wanted to pretend. But then you kissed me, and I just...” Kai makes a helpless gesture with his hands.

Adam licks his lips. He’s breathing a bit hard.

“...Fell apart,” Kai finishes.

Adam’s looking at him, wide-eyed, deer-in-the-headlights look, pure panic. Kai’s fucked it up, ruined their friendship, destroyed their friend-group, and will probably be unable to look anyone in the eye for a very long time.

Adam didn’t want to hear this. Kai should’ve just lied, shut it all up and let himself wither up inside. He should’ve avoided Adam harder, or refrained from falling in love with him in the first place. He should’ve just dated Jesse when she’d asked and made himself get over Adam.

“How long?”

Kai blinks. “Huh?”

“How long have you wanted...?” he shrugs.

Ah. The million dollar question.

“Officially? Middle of junior year. If I’m honest with myself? Probably since middle school.”

Adam’s mouth opens and closes nonsensically. Kai asks God to strike him down, just so this can end, just so Kai can go back to trying to figure out what the fuck is up with Gatsby and Jay, just so Adam will stop looking at him like that, like Kai’s killed his puppy.

Adam drops to his knees in front of Kai.

“Okay. Since freshman year. And I’m a liar. I did mean it. I kept thinking, you know, maybe you’d like me back, because I could see you looking, but I just couldn’t make myself say anything. And I meant it. I mean it. I do. I want to kiss you.”

Kai swallows. He’s feeling that dangerous thing again, like there are snakes in his chest, or his feelings are in a bucket that’s about to overflow.

“Okay,” he squeaks out.

Adam leans down and fits their mouths together. It’s chaste, and Kai’s lips are a little bit chapped, and he didn’t close his eyes, but when Adam pulls back Kai smiles so hard his mouth hurts.

And he leans up to kiss Adam, insistent, insistent, tasting Adam without Hennessy whiskey (and he does taste fantastic), and something electric happens to Kai’s spine when their tongues touch. He feels like he’s going to burn up, burst into stars, create a fissure in the earth that goes down to the core, or all three at once.

Adam licks along the roof of Kai’s mouth and yeah - that’s the one thing he’d like to never, ever, ever forget.

He’s about to be totally, totally, totally screwed.

Group: dandilyin hoes MFERsssss!! skeet DONT CHANGE CHAT NAME

mirakat: omfg

mirakat: k & a suckin face in library

mirakat: [A blurry creeper picture of Kai pressed against the bookshelves, Adam leaning over him. Their silhouettes are blacked out against the sunlight streaming in through the window, so they almost look like one body. It’s taken at an angle and half of a wooden shelf is in frame.]

speedyskeet: arent they in this GC too

lochnessa: Lmfaaooooooo

speedyskeet: they r gonna see this.....

reever: WTF ADAM’S INTO KAI???

reever: ?????

lochnessa: What planet do you live on

speedyskeet: fuckin jesus christ reeb

locknessa: Literally no one knew KAI was into Adam. EVERYONE KNEW ADAM WAS INTO KAI

reever: WHY AM I THE LAST ONE TO KNOW STUFF

mirakat: s2g i tld u this whn we were @ fortescue’s u nvr listen 2 me

“I hate them all,” Kai announces.

Adam looks up at him from where his head is pillowed on Kai’s thighs, Pride and Prejudice held aloft.

“Don’t worry, I set all their ringtones to Maroon 5.”

send me a ship + a prompt and i’ll write you a drabble!

#The Hollow #My writing #answer #kaidam

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187days · 6 years ago

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Day One Hundred Forty-Two

I just got home from the first track meet of the season. I’m tired, I have no voice, my face is windburned, and everything is awesome. The team did so well, especially considering today was the first time they got on a track. I was psyched that I was able to teach blind relay passes to my rookie 4x100 squads, and two of the three boys’ hand-offs were actually really good! It bodes well for the season...

I had a fun day teaching, too. My APUSGOV students presented group projects; one whole group was absent, which I just shrugged about. After the two groups that were there presented (on different aspects of policy-making), I lectured a bit to sum up what they’d said, and what I’d taught previously, and then let then have the remaining twenty minutes of class to do whatever. Some started reviewing for the AP exam, some did work for other classes, some sat and talked about college with me... All good things.

Chillest AP teacher ever. I’m saying.

I tried out a new lesson in World to introduce my students to different aspects of East Asian cultures. I chose things I thought they’d enjoy: anime, baseball, life in high school, holiday traditions, wedding traditions, naming conventions and honorifics, and history... They watched some videos on the laptops, read and responded to some articles, and did some research. Anything that didn’t get done in class became homework.

I thought it went really well because students were engaged, and had a lot to say- especially about different high school experiences in the region- and everyone was able to work at their own pace. If it goes well tomorrow, too, then it’s definitely a keeper.

#teaching #teachblr #educhums #edublr #education #high school #social studies #coaching #track #teacher #day one hundred forty two

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youngerdrgrey · 8 years ago

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okay but shouldn’t we be the epicenter? // a Dear White People fic, part 1

full title: *lionel voice* okay but shouldn’t /we/ be the epicenter of black life on this campus?

chapter title: shouldn’t we be (idk) calling out our friends?

or, a further exploration into these black lives on Winchester’s campus, making my way through the season for further depth and hilarity

about: what happens when Defamation ends and Jo pauses in her screaming with her heart still racing to go and get her boy. Or, the time Jo calls out Reggie for letting his jealousy get the best of him on a sacred night.

references include Scandal, Orange is the New Black and the completely unnecessary fucked up death that I will never forgive them for, the 100 and the death that I don’t have an opinion on bc I never watched that show, and casual use of both dicktamized and heedlessly in the same sentence #codeswitching

+ this chapter takes place at the end of episode one; read on ao3?

Honestly, even the Defamation live tweets coming from AP got interrupted today so people could throw in their two cents about Sam, Reggie, and the white boy coming between them and the movement. And it’s not like Joelle would normally care that much about the gossip. Everyone on campus knows that race relations at Winchester are like the pre-teen child Sam and Reggie adopted just when a group home or juvie were closing in on ‘em. But there’s a difference between the normal talk about Jo’s friends and the talk tonight. Normally it’s just a few direct tweets, but tonight, half her timeline’s subtweets about just whip it out already #nottalkingDefamation or #loveitwhen bae meets activist!bae for the first time or just a simple *Crazy Eyes voice* swiiirl swirl swiiiirl swirl. So fine, Jo can’t even scroll through her timeline without having to address this, so she needs to address it in person. Even if all she can do is snap at Reggie about growing the fuck up.

She gets out her chair to stalk over to him at his. “You couldn’t wait, could you?”

Reggie peers up at her, still too deep into his feigned nonchalance to lift his legs back off the arm rest. As if she doesn’t deserve the full extent of his energy, or a head to head showdown. Honestly, his mind’s probably still on whatever ‘girl you better watch’ text he just sent Sam about the end of the episode. He flips his phone onto his stomach without even killing the screen.

“Wait for what?”

To whip his fucking dick out and wave it in Gabe’s face. Seriously, what’s with that impulse in guys? Jo’s not out here in booty shorts and bandeaus to prove she’s got more going on than Sam does. (Not that she does. Not that it’s a competition. She’s not competing with her best friend; she’s merely pointing out that she doesn’t have the same need to constantly battle anyone that her crush is into.)

(( Not that it’s much of a competition anyway. Guys always go for girls like Sam, don’t they? Girls who don’t really have to try to summon all the light in the room and can go on without necessarily having to know what it’s like to be black in ‘post-racial’ America. ))

((( Sam knows what it’s like. She knows what her experience is like, anyway, and Jo’s really not trying to get too deep into the whole color-ism of it all. European beauty standards are bullshit and forced on everyone. Jo’s got a banging body that works for a lot of guys who might not want to fully claim her, but she’s not all too interested in guys who unironically use ‘females’ to describe women and call her Queen before they ever even think to ask her name. )))

(((( Wait, what was the point again? ))))

Reggie cocks his head to the side. Assured and righteous as he normally is. But he’s the one in the wrong right now. The one pouncing instead of giving Gabe two seconds to try being in their lives.

“Come on, Reg. He—“ and Reggie groans and rolls his eyes immediately, so Jo just talks louder “—he was here for all of two minutes before you jumped down his throat to make sure everyone in the room could see how down he was.”

Reggie nearly snorts, singing lightly, “‘He ain’t really down.” But it’s Reggie playing those games you do, not Gabe. Reggie throwing his name in the Goblet of Fire for no fucking purpose but to run into the maze and get spat back out for doing it. “Come on. Not even a chuckle? You love old house music.”

She also loves getting to enjoy her hate-watch without being constantly reminded of their stupid relationship drama. “Be serious. I’m not happy either, but you don’t see me picking fights during Defamation.”

He shrugs. “You would if you weren’t so busy snapping at everything Olive does."

“Not everything.” Olive could literally control the whole world if she wanted to, but she keeps on going back to that trash ass president she put in the oval. Plus, the shit they do in there? Five seasons in, there’s probably permanent grooves on the rug that her knees put there. Which, whatever, but it’s been years, and Olive won’t leave someone who’s no good for her. “She needs to wise up, and so do you. Jumping all around the point.”

Reggie sits up so straight his shoulders level out. The steel in his eyes snags the light from the TV while his jaw locks up for a beat. “What’s your point then, Jo?” He asks as if he doesn’t already know.

Everybody on this campus knows how Reggie feels about Sam. Including Sam, on some level; she’s just somehow deluded herself into thinking that Reggie only wants her mind, or her activism, or a partner in the movement. But Reggie’s been into every piece of Sam since she still had a relaxer and shared a room with Coco Conners. He’s been trailing after her since the first time she spoke up in class freshman year, and if Jo has to hear about how Sam was like a blacktivist Hermione Granger one more time, she will Obliviate herself, him, and anyone else who’s had to listen to it. But none of that knowledge changes anything. None of that brings what’s been subtext to the forefront quite like this does.

“Sam brought him here on Defamation night. She’s serious about this.” Serious enough that she didn’t tell either of them. And Jo’s not quite sure if Sam’s ashamed of his whiteness or their unapologetic blackness or maybe just that she got dicktamized into a relationship with the very sort of guy she normally mocks heedlessly, but here they all are. “I mean, we’ve supported her through worse.”

“Like what?”

Like the time she single-handedly tried responding to every single person who justified Poussey’s death in Orange is the New Black, dedicating a whole episode of DWP to debunking its use in the narrative. (It’s still a great episode, complete with gems like, “Dear white people, if you fix your mouth one more time to tell me why Poussey’s death was okay but you’re still crying over Lexa from The 100, I honestly don’t have the time to deal with you.” Top ratings, top notch, though it led to some serious rifts within the LGBTQ community on campus.)

Or the time she dated Troy. She planned yacht trips over rallies and acted like Jo and Reggie were both in the wrong for wondering if everything with them was just some dalliance in danger, like a pre-approved trek through the blackness of Sam’s identity before settling in to a non-confrontational future. But even then, Troy was the heir to respectability at Winchester, the crowned prince of how to be the right kind of negro who everyone can rally behind when something goes south and they wind up dead. He couldn’t so much as choose a cereal without his dad’s approval, so Sam and him were never gonna last. Not at this part of her life anyway.

“Just — Sam’s no Olive, Reg.” She won’t be with Picture Frame Gabe more than a few months, not when his true politics start coming out. He might be ready on paper to be part of this, but nobody understands the work until they’re in it. “She won’t choose some white boy over everything else she cares about.” Sam loves them.

Reggie leans up so his chest meets his knees at the armrest. It puts him at her level for the first time this conversation. He asks her, “You sure about that?"

Sam helped Jo take out her braids the night her Hulu trial ended and all they had were YouTube videos for filler. Sam missed her own midterm for psych last semester to help Reggie study for his midterm in poli sci. (Never mind the fact that Sam’s psych class dropped the lowest midterm score; the girl needed the points with the number of events that she kept scheduling during that class.) Sam’s their girl, for more than the movement and for nothing less than life. And if Jo has to fight against the need to widen her eyes and has to run these memories through her mind to convince herself that all of that still matters, then she’s not going to tell him.

“How can you not be?” she asks. Sam’s not going anywhere, even if Jo has to hold her down herself. Friends don’t let friends fuck the president. (And friends, real friends, tell you if they are, don’t they? Real friends let you in on the stuff they’re ashamed about, or wondering about, because if they don’t talk about it, then it’s not real, and if you’re not the one they go to, then maybe your whole friendship was just one of convenience. Maybe it’s high school all over again and the fact that your friends now are cool black kids instead of cool white ones doesn’t actually make a difference. Maybe you’re nothing more than the Coco of junior year.) “I’ll talk to her. Can you just hold off on vilifying her boy until then?”

Reggie plucks at a thread on the seam of his pants. “‘Her boy.’” He yanks the thread a little too hard, but it doesn’t go anywhere. Just leaves him with his fist clenched in the air over nothing. “He said, ‘it’s not worth it,’ then left.” Back in that fight? Seriously? Reggie glances up at Jo again. “He mean her when he say that?”

Because that’s what actually eats at Reggie, isn’t it? That someone on this planet could see his almighty love Samantha White and think she’s anything less than pure perfection.

“Of course not.” Everyone loves Sam; it’s them that everyone else seems unsure about. Because Reggie’s smart and brilliant, but he’s millitant in a way that can chafe at people who want to just enjoy themselves. And most people don’t know that he’ll talk shit for two seconds about the lives they’re ignoring by binge-watching The Get Down all day but that he’ll give himself over to it just a few minutes later. Or that he hasn’t missed a single night of Defamation since the first time Jo dragged him along after Open Mic let out two seasons ago. “Gabe just meant fighting you wasn’t worth sticking around tonight.” She swats a hand at his knee, batting at him as playfully as she can get. As casually as she can make this right now. “Good thing too. You too damn stubborn to ever stop.”

Reggie grins, but his eyes still have this shade over them. His brow crinkles while his nose scrunches up. He’s probably wondering, is it worth it to keep fighting? Think Sam will ever notice? Think Sam will ever fight for me too? At this point, it’d take an act of either God or the devil to get a reaction out of Sam, and after this blackface party, it sure seems like the devil’s more likely.

Jo swallows that comment down, scans the room to get away from soft eyes that never seem soft just for her. “Now get up. Walk me back to my room.”

He groans, but he pushes up off the chair. Throws his arm around her and tugs her into his side. Her eyes flutter closed, and she gets a whole three seconds of imagining that this could be about them. This could be them. Soft smiles and warm arms wrapped around each other. “You think she’ll ever leave him?” Then he opens his mouth and says that. His voice still comes out a little too heavy. He clears it while she blinks away the three second fantasy. “I mean, the oval’s got to have dents from her knees in the carpet at this point.”

“Oh!” She cackles — quick and bright and like the Defamation flashes are going off inside of her. Olive. Does she think Olive will ever leave the president? Not Sam. They’re finally done talking about Sam. And, okay, seriously, “That’s exactly what I said. Like power to her, get some, but does it have to be with Mr. President?”

“No eyebrows having,” Reggie starts.

“Disrespectful ass,” she continues.

“‘I know what you taste like’ Gerald Grant III.” They shudder together, and if she nestles in closer to his chest on the rest of the walk, they don’t talk about it. Maybe that’s how their little trio works — talk about everything but the big three: how Jo feels about Reggie, how Reggie feels about Sam, and how Sam might not be theirs forever.

Or maybe that’s just post-Defamation overdramatic thinking.

Yeah. (Maybe.)

#dwp #dear white people #dwp series #joelle brooks #reggie green #joelle x reggie #shouldn't we be #mine

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erraticfairy · 5 years ago

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Podcast: Simple Psychology Explanations with Dr. Ali Mattu

Do you enjoy watching YouTube videos on psychology and mental health topics? But are you tired of wading through all the mindless fluff, meaningless new-age jargon, and overly pedantic lectures? There is a better option out there – The Psych Show, created by Dr. Ali Mattu.

It might seem frivolous, but YouTube videos aren’t going anywhere. They have become one of the most common ways we access information, and this is especially true for young people. Join us as Dr. Mattu tells us how a PhD psychologist became one of the first YouTubers, how he decides what type of content to feature each week, and what role on-line videos play in the future of psychology education.

SUBSCRIBE & REVIEW

Guest information for ‘Dr. Ali Mattu Psychology’ Podcast Episode

Dr. Ali Mattu creates entertaining, empowering and educational mental health media. He’s a cognitive behavioral therapist who helps kids and adults with anxiety disorders. Through YouTube, Dr. Mattu teaches a global audience on how to use psychological science to achieve their goals.

Dr. Mattu is a licensed clinical psychologist and assistant professor at the Columbia University Irving Medical Center in New York City.

Computer Generated Transcript for ‘Dr. Ali Mattu Psychology’ Episode

Editor’s Note: Please be mindful that this transcript has been computer generated and therefore may contain inaccuracies and grammar errors. Thank you.

Announcer: Welcome to the Psych Central Podcast, where each episode features guest experts discussing psychology and mental health in everyday plain language. Here’s your host, Gabe Howard.

Gabe Howard: Hello, everyone, and welcome to this week’s episode of the Psych Central Podcast. Calling into the show today, we have Dr. Ali Mattu from the very popular YouTube channel, The Psych Show. Ali, welcome to the show.

Dr. Ali Mattu: Gabe, I’m so excited to be here. Thank you for having me.

Gabe Howard: I am very excited to have you because we have the same mission and that’s genuinely rare. Believe it or not, because…

Dr. Ali Mattu: Yeah. Oh, I believe it.

Gabe Howard: And when I say we have the same mission, we both really, really value correct and accurate information. We want people to have the facts when it comes to mental illness, mental health and psychology.

Dr. Ali Mattu: Absolutely.

Gabe Howard: But we know that it’s dry info.

Dr. Ali Mattu: Yeah, it can be.

Gabe Howard: It can be, and what I really like about your YouTube channel is that you’ve taken concepts like… What is schizophrenia? What is psychosis? What’s the difference between a psychologist and a psychiatrist? These are things that people are thinking about and you’ve put them into these little snippets with graphics and your shining face. And you answer all of these questions in a way that I really think that the general public responds to.

Dr. Ali Mattu: Mm hmm, mm hmm. I agree, that’s the case, yeah.

Gabe Howard: So let’s start at the very, very beginning. First, you’re a psychologist, correct?

Dr. Ali Mattu: That’s right. Yep, yep.

Gabe Howard: It is unusual for a learned man. You know, somebody with a PhD, I mean, you’re a doctor. You have a doctorate and you’re also a professor. So YouTube is not your day job.

Dr. Ali Mattu: No, it’s not. It’s not.

Gabe Howard: But you’re on YouTube and you’re explaining this to people. And that is incredibly rare. YouTube has a lot of people like Gabe Howard, a lot of people living with mental illness, talking about living with mental illness. People like me are well represented, but there’s not a lot of people like you. So what gave you the idea to do this?

Dr. Ali Mattu: It goes back… So the long version of the story is I’ve been toying with this kind of stuff for a very long time. If you want to go way back, I was a very socially anxious kid. I’ve lived with anxiety. I was probably selectively mute as a kid in certain situations. I didn’t speak, and I accidentally enrolled in public speaking in high school. And that class changed my life because it took me from a kid who believed that I was weird, I was strange, and no one else was like me, and it helped me to understand that these fears I have fitting in, everyone else has those too, to some degree. And so I took public speaking. I did speech and debate in high school, and I continued that in college, and I had an amazing introductory psychology class in community college. I was actually not a good student in high school, didn’t do that well and went to community college, which kind of opened up the whole world for me. And so I really loved that class. And one of the things that really motivated me about going on to getting a PhD is I wanted to teach other people as well. I wanted to do for others what Professor Goesling did for me at De Anza College. And so I did teach a lot in grad school. I taught a lot of introductory psychology. And then as I moved forward and started to do more clinical work, more being involved in the role I am now, I was moving farther and farther away from that original goal of teaching a wide variety of people and introducing them to psychology. So that’s one thing that happened. The other thing that happens that sets up this story: So it was late 2014, and I was working with a teenage patient of mine. She, in one of our sessions said, “Hey, I saw this YouTube video. It really helped me, really motivated me. I want to share it with you.” I said awesome. Amazing. Oh, my gosh. Let’s watch it together. I want to understand what it was about this that helped you. It is only three minutes long. We watched it, and it was another teenage girl talking to the camera and talking about her experience and what helped her with this issue and mental health. And I’m watching it, and I’m thinking, oh, my gosh, this is really not good advice. It’s like completely goes against the kind of stuff we’re working on. And I shared some version of that with her, with my patient. And I said, you know what? Give me a day. Let me find some quality content that’s speaking to the same issue, and I’ll email it to you. Now, I was looking that night. I could not find anything that really fit that criteria of something that was quality information and also something that she would sit down and watch. Now, I found a lot of one-hour, two-hour long videos by other psychologists that were these long lectures about that topic, but nothing that was really digestible, interesting, and relatable. So, I was venting about this to my wife. I’m like, what the heck should I do? And she said, well, you know, what you gotta do is you’ve got to make that video. And that is kind of how my channel was born.

Gabe Howard: I love this story, because it’s so close to how I ended up as a podcaster.

Dr. Ali Mattu: Really?

Gabe Howard: I mean, almost identically. I have this joke where I said, if you’re diagnosed with mental illness, you’re prescribed a blog. And because when I got started, everybody had a blog.

Dr. Ali Mattu: Yeah. Yeah.

Gabe Howard: But, you know, podcasts are harder.

Dr. Ali Mattu: Yeah, totally.

Gabe Howard: YouTube channels are harder. And having a quality podcast and YouTube channel is even more difficult. And I remarked this to Dr. John Grohol, the editor in chief of Psych Central. And he was like, you know, hey, let’s work together and start a podcast. The thing that we were so worried about was, like you said, that marriage of accurate information and is anybody going to listen to this?

Dr. Ali Mattu: Yeah. Yeah.

Gabe Howard: And this is really, really important, because when you were telling the story, the first thing I thought is… I completely understand why that that young woman who’s telling the story of living with mental illness is going to attract people because, man, that’s so brave. But I knew that you were going to say she had all the information wrong because how could she get it, right?

Dr. Ali Mattu: Yeah, yeah, totally, totally. And there’s a lot of value there to people telling their stories. And at the same time, there’s a lot of difficulty getting access to quality information about mental health, about psychological science, about all these different types of things. And there I put a lot of blame on the field of psychology. It really bothers me how hard it is to access this kind of information. So for most people in the public, you’re going to get exposure to psychology maybe through an AP psychology course if it’s in your high school. But then again, a lot of high schools don’t have access to that. My high school didn’t.

Gabe Howard: Yeah, neither did mine.

Dr. Ali Mattu: Yeah, right. I don’t know that many people who had that in their high school and then the other thing is, OK, maybe in college you take an introductory psychology class, but a lot of people don’t. And that’s only if you go to college. So there’s very few pathways to formally learn about this while you compare that to something like biology, where people are making papier mâché cells in elementary school and you’re getting a lot of the foundations of that science so early on that it just kind of builds upon each other. So by the time you’re in high school, most people have had a lot of exposure to biology. But you compare that to psychology, and they haven’t and then you balance this out by how everyone thinks that they are their own naive psychologists. Like they have an understanding of why people do what they do and how emotions work and how thoughts work, because we just believe that we know ourselves. And so that creates a situation where a lot of people just don’t have this information. And people in my field, people who go through professional training, we don’t know at all how to share this information with people who aren’t other people in our field. Like we get very good at learning this information, learning the science, learning how to do the science or practice psychology. We get very good at that, but we don’t get any training on how do you actually talk about this in a way that people in the public will actually listen, find it interesting and be able to apply it.

Gabe Howard: So, let’s talk about that. You’re John Q. Public, you’re a lay person, you’re on the Internet, and you’re searching for information. Can you share some tips with people so that they can understand the difference between a personal story, which again, I completely agree has a lot of value. It just… it has value as a personal story and a Dr. Ali Mattu video that that has a factual basis and everything in between. How can a lay person know that what they’re watching is reliable information?

Dr. Ali Mattu: That is such a good question, and it’s a really tough question. I think that, Gabe, you’re here highlighting probably one of the biggest challenges of just 2019. How do you evaluate all the information that’s coming at us and the information that we seek out? And how do you determine if it’s accurate or not? That’s a pretty big challenge. So one of the challenges of YouTube is there is a difference between making content that is compelling, hooks you in, keeps you watching, takes you on emotional roller coaster ride, is memorable, is shareable. There is a big difference between that and content that is accurate. There are some people who are very good at doing both of those things. But I think most people who I’ve discovered are very good at either the art of it, or might know a lot about the information and are trying to share the information. So one of the things to look up when you’re watching YouTube videos is trying to understand who is the person or the people behind the video. That’s always really important. Do they have training or knowledge or any experience in the area that they’re talking about? Sometimes that doesn’t matter. I found a lot of YouTube videos that have helped me solve a problem and that person might not have been an expert. I had a problem with my toilet a few months ago.

Gabe Howard: That’s the exact example that I was thinking of. I just watched a YouTube video to fix my toilet.

Dr. Ali Mattu: I love those videos where people are like, Hey, you know, I’ve been having this problem and maybe you’re having it, too. Here’s how I fixed it. I hope it helps you. Like that is such a big percentage of all YouTube videos, the other half just being like cute cat videos. But so sometimes it doesn’t matter too much if they’re a professional or expert or not. But I think in the mental health world, it very much does. What’s the background from which they’re speaking? Now, I have blind spots as a professional. Like I am very much coming at this from someone who has formerly gone through this training that comes with certain biases. Now, I’ve I’ve lived with anxiety, social anxiety in particular, so I can speak to that experience. But there’s a lot of things that I can’t speak to. I’ve never had an eating disorder. I have not lived with bipolar depression. I will never know 100 percent what it’s like to feel those things. So, of course, I have my own biases. I have my own things that I bring to the video. But I can talk to you about some of the science behind these things. I can talk to you about treatments related to these things. So try to evaluate who’s behind your video. And there are some YouTube channels out there where it’s very hard to know who is behind this video. And you gotta take those with a grain of salt. You have to be careful about those videos that you consume. YouTube as a platform is very good at recommending content that you might like. It’s not very good at recommending content that might be accurate. Those things are very separate in the algorithm. YouTube really wants to recommend stuff that’s going to keep you watching more content. It doesn’t really factor in how accurate is it. It’s really just factoring in Does it keep you watching? So that’s number one- is to know that production values different from accuracy and try to figure out who’s behind the video. And I think, in general, that is good advice for podcasts and blogs and websites, as well as… Who are the people behind it? What is the experience like for those individuals? I know here on Psych Central, there is a quality control check with all the content that is going through the organization. Similar for me and everything I put out. It has my name by it and there’s been times I’ve made mistakes, and then I correct those mistakes. But if you’re not sure who’s behind it, that’s a big red flag.

Gabe Howard: We’ll be right back after this word from our sponsor.

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Gabe Howard: We’re back speaking with Dr. Ali Mattu. You know, it’s interesting that you said sometimes that you make mistakes. I like that example because it really is a “buyer beware.” It’s smart to keep an open mind just because somebody has all of the degrees in the world and you like them and you love them and they’re perfect and they get it right 99 percent of the time, it doesn’t mean that they’re not incorrect once. And the reason that they could be incorrect could be because science evolved, thinking changes.

Dr. Ali Mattu: Absolutely. Absolutely

Gabe Howard: So it’s not even that they were wrong. It’s that research showed something different a year later or whatever the case may be. And I think it’s very valuable that people keep that in mind, because so often somebody watches a video. They’re like, no, no, no. I got the answer that I wanted, and that’s all I want to hear. And if the only reason you like the answer is because it’s the answer that you wanted, that’s a big red flag. Seek out multiple sources.

Dr. Ali Mattu: That’s great. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely.

Gabe Howard: Even in your toilet example, I believe your exact words were, “Hey, I had this problem with my toilet. Maybe you had this problem with your toilet. Here is what I did. Maybe it’ll work for you.”

Dr. Ali Mattu: Yes. Yes.

Gabe Howard: So, yeah.

Dr. Ali Mattu: Yeah. Yeah. That was exactly the video, and my toilet was fixed. This solution could work, but I couldn’t reach the thing that I needed to reach because of the way the toilet was installed. I still ended up calling a plumber to fix it, but I think that example is actually a good parallel for mental health because mental health, psychology, people are complicated, complex, and what might work for one person in one situation might not work for someone else. And another thing that I’ve found in my life and in my patients lives is something that works for you now, might not work for you three years from now. And you’re right. The science evolves. A great example of that from my channel is I made a video a few years ago about my own bee phobia. And it’s a video that shows how exposure therapy for anxiety works with my bee phobia. And you see me actually facing my fear of bees in that video. Now, that video is… it’s done pretty well. And a lot of people when I go to anxiety conferences, some people are like, Hey, it’s that bee guy from the video.

Gabe Howard: I love it.

Dr. Ali Mattu: People really like showing that video as an example of exposure. But what’s happened since I released that video is I’ve learned a lot more about newer approaches to exposure therapy. And one of the things that I realized is, hey, in this previous video, I think I over emphasize something that now a lot of people are saying is not really important for that treatment. And I think I neglected to include something, or really emphasize something, that is a big part of it. A lot of exposure therapy is built on this idea of habituation, that the longer you stay in a situation, the less your body’s responding to it and you kind of get used to it. Well, a lot of newer research has shown that habituation might not happen for everyone, and it might not be the important thing. The big, important thing might be changes in your memory related to this fear. So it’s not that my body got used to the bees that’s important. It’s that I learned that these bees, that I thought were going to come and attack me, through the exposure, I learned that the bees really were minding their own business and they couldn’t care less that I was there. That’s the thing that changed. So what I did is I made a follow-up video where I talk about that, and I then try this newer approach related to another fear I have. You’ve got to be open-minded there. And another challenge here. Gabe, I’m sure you run into this challenge. I’m sure you’re going to be running this challenge as we’re recording this. It’s hard to really get into all the details in a short amount of time that’s digestible for people. So podcasts, whether it’s half an hour, an hour, a YouTube video, 5, 10 minutes, it’s hard to be comprehensive and get at everything in that short amount of time.

Gabe Howard: And I’m really glad that you brought that up, because the reality is, in order to understand these things very, very well. You do need the two-hour lecture.

Dr. Ali Mattu: Right.

Gabe Howard: And actually you need the two-hour lecture twice a week for like eight years.

Dr. Ali Mattu: Yeah, right.

Gabe Howard: And then you have a PhD, or a PsyD, or an M.D. You have all of these degrees. And even then you need continuing education credits for your licensure and then everything changes. For example, if I was diagnosed all the way back in 1950, I wouldn’t have bipolar disorder. I would have manic depressive disorder. It just changes and changes and changes and changes as new information becomes available. So that kind of leads me to my second question. One of the things that you said early on is that doctors and providers and therapists, they have trouble explaining this in ways that, you know, lay people can understand. But of course, they are our providers.

Dr. Ali Mattu: Right.

Gabe Howard: I know that a lot of patients feel that, Hey, I don’t understand what you’re doing to me, and I don’t know how to get this information, and you’re not explaining it to me well. Where is the intersection there? Because clearly the answer is not to fire all the psychiatric providers, but patients are confused. And as you found, there is that disconnect.

Dr. Ali Mattu: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I think one of the problems there is it is very hard to remember what it was like to not know something. So we can’t remember what it was like to look up into the sky and not know that the moon is the moon. You can’t remember being a kid and looking up and being like… What is that? Like is that like a big piece of cheese? Like what is that thing up in there? We just know it’s the moon. We know it’s this thing that orbits us. We take that knowledge for granted. And a very similar thing plays out for any professional mental health provider. It’s very hard to remember what it was like to not know what a manic episode is or what anxiety is like or how people experience depression. I think about this a lot when I’m working with family members and talking to a family and trying to help them understand their loved one’s diagnosis. For many people, the idea of depression is just so alien. Like they have a very difficult time trying to understand what that’s like. And so I’ll sometimes do analogies like, you know, it’s not that they’re lazy, they’re not lazy, it’s not laziness that’s keeping them in bed or making it hard for them to do all this work that they’re supposed to be doing. You know, depression is more like carrying this massive weight. It’s almost like walking around with a backpack full of boulders inside. They can go through the motions, but it’s so much harder, so much more difficult. It’s so exhausting. And that might help. Or someone’s having a hard time understanding what a panic attack is like, and I’ll have them hyperventilate for a minute. And I’ll say this experience that you’re having right now, it’s hard to catch your breath, or your vision, it’s a little bit blurry. It’s really hard for you to focus on my conversation. What’s this like for you? And they’ll say, oh, this this is horrible. This sucks. And I’ll say, now, imagine if you experienced this out of nowhere. And they might say, well, that would be so scary. And I’ll say, that’s what a panic attack is like. But a lot of therapists, we have a hard time remembering what it was like to not know these things. And so that can make it very difficult for us to explain these things. To walk someone through a diagnosis, to walk them through what a treatment is like. It’s the curse of knowledge. And I think we all experience it in whatever thing we really know, whether it’s Pokemon or psychotherapy. It’s really hard to remember what it was like to not know this stuff.

Gabe Howard: You’ve made a ton of videos and you’ve been doing this for a little over four years now. Where have you made the most impact? What do people watch most often and maybe even comment on?

Dr. Ali Mattu: So when I started making The Psych Show, I wanted to very much have it be that experience I had in my introductory psychology class where it was not just mental health, but there was social psychology, there was cognitive psychology, there was sensation, perception, neurobiology, all that sort of stuff, the whole gamut of what psychology is. And as time has moved on, life has become more complicated. I’ve had less time available to make content, so I have to be much more precise in my surgical precision of what topics I’m covering. And then also… Who’s my audience? And how do I make content that is really resonating with the audience that The Psych Show has attracted? And so looking at my data, one of the things that became very clear to me is the content that was most popular was mental health content, and the content that was really leading people to share more and comment more, it was all the mental health content. Which is great because that content’s easier for me to make because that is my area of expertise is in the mental health world. So I’ve transitioned from making much more broad content to much more specific mental health content. It’s a collection of videos. I have a video where I made my wife watch Star Wars for the first time and then we record our reactions, and I talk about the psychology in the whole experience, which is kind of a very different video.

Gabe Howard: As a content creator, it is always important to eventually force family members to help against their will.

Dr. Ali Mattu: Yes.

Gabe Howard: That that’s almost a requirement.

Dr. Ali Mattu: Absolutely. My wife and I have a deal, which is once a year she will participate on the channel. And then for the rest of the year, I don’t bug her. And it’s been great. My favorite videos that I’ve made more recently… it’s a series called “Real Therapists, Fake Therapy,” where I am playing the part of a therapist myself. And then I’m also playing the part of the patient. And I am showing what a therapy session will look like. And so I really let my audience’s reactions direct the kind of content I make. As long as it’s still interesting and fun for me to make, and it’s resonating with my community, that’s a direction I go.

Gabe Howard: This has been overwhelmingly positive. People are getting information that they need, they’re getting education that they need. And even if they disagree with you, they’re disagreeing with you accurately, factually. They’re seeing it differently, but they’re seeing it correctly.

Dr. Ali Mattu: Yeah, I would agree with that, and overall I would say it’s been largely a positive experience hopefully for people who watch and also a positive experience for me.

Gabe Howard: That is fantastic. You know, I love what you’re doing for a variety of reasons. I love it as a fellow content creator. I love it because I live with bipolar disorder. And I remember when I was diagnosed all the way back in 2004, and my family, they knew nothing. And they wanted to know a lot because they just wanted to know a lot. And, you know, YouTube didn’t exist back then. At least I don’t think it did. Did YouTube exist back in 2004? See, you’re now a YouTube expert. See?

Dr. Ali Mattu: 2005 is when it first came out.

Gabe Howard: I’m pretty sure that Rachel Star was there on day one. I think we can…

Dr. Ali Mattu: I think so.

Gabe Howard: I think we can all agree with that.

Dr. Ali Mattu: That’s true. She’s an original YouTuber.

Gabe Howard: She is very, very cool. And for those who don’t know, we’re talking about Rachel Star, the host of “Inside Schizophrenia.” Also available on the Psych Central Podcast Network. You can go over at PsychCentral.com/IS and check that out. And the first episode also features Dr. Ali Mattu.

Dr. Ali Mattu: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Gabe Howard: So, if you just haven’t had enough, they can find you in so many places. Now, off of Psych Central, where can people find you? What are all of your web addresses?

Dr. Ali Mattu: Yeah, so definitely at YouTube.com/ThePsychShow will get you to my YouTube channel and I’m also pretty active on Twitter @AliMattu. A L I M A T T U will get you to me on Twitter and Instagram @AliMattu as well. And then on Facebook, The Psych Show has a presence over there, too. So you can definitely “like” The Psych Show on Facebook.

Gabe Howard: And do you have a website?

Dr. Ali Mattu: Oh, yeah. Yeah. If you go to AliMattu.com, that’s where you’ll find more about my day job and you’ll find more about other stuff I’m doing on the Internet. On A&E, on Wednesdays, you can catch me on The Employables. So we air at 10:00. It’s a show that celebrates neurodiversity. Every episode of the show follows one individual on the autism spectrum and one individual who’s experiencing tics and Tourette’s and follows their journey as they meet with different experts to help them find a job. And I’m one of the experts on the series. So check that out Wednesdays on A&E.

Gabe Howard: Well, that is incredibly cool. We appreciate you so much, thank you. And thank you so much, everybody, for tuning in. We really appreciate it. Do you want to interact with the show on Facebook, suggest topics, comment on the show and be the first to get updates? You can join our Facebook group at PsychCentral.com/fbshow. And don’t forget to review our show on whatever podcast player you found us on. And do me a favor, tell a friend. And remember, you can get one week of free, convenient, affordable, private online counseling anytime, anywhere, simply by visiting BetterHelp.com/PsychCentral. We will see everybody next week.

Announcer: You’ve been listening to the Psych Central Podcast. Previous episodes can be found at PsychCentral.com/show or on your favorite podcast player. To learn more about our host, Gabe Howard, please visit his website at GabeHoward.com. PsychCentral.com is the internet’s oldest and largest independent mental health website run by mental health professionals. Overseen by Dr. John Grohol, PsychCentral.com offers trusted resources and quizzes to help answer your questions about mental health, personality, psychotherapy, and more. Please visit us today at PsychCentral.com. If you have feedback about the show, please email [email protected]. Thank you for listening and please share widely.

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