#for my english class our teacher picked some students to act out the scenes

[eebie]

considering checking out my achools theater department

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Erec Smith

Published: Apr 19, 2024

I grew up in a predominantly white neighborhood in southern New Jersey. My neighborhood was so white I could have been used as a landmark when giving directions.

Sadly, as one of the few Black kids in the neighborhood and one of the even fewer who spent any time with white peers, I was a daily target of racist bullying. In fact, one could say it was a pastime of sorts. In some neighborhoods, kids got together to play tag or a pickup football game; in my neighborhood, picking on me was the organized game. Who I saw as a friend or an enemy changed all the time. Someone being nice to me on Tuesday would be leading a racist horde on Wednesday, only to be friendly again on Thursday. (It’s amazing I don’t have trust issues.)

Some of the adults weren’t much better. I remember one of my teachers standing with another teacher as I and other students walked into class. Out of nowhere, my teacher told me to “walk like Richard Pryor.” When I told her I did not want to, she raised her voice: “Do it.” Both teachers laughed as I did my best impression, not completely sure which Richard Pryor act I was expected to emulate. (At the very least, they could have narrowed it down to a scene or two.)

My only reprieve came when I did something considered “Black”: like praise a rap song, dance, or do well in a basketball game. All my other attributes were ignored.

So I was excited about graduating from the eighth grade and going to a regional high school with a large Black population. I could finally leave my misfit status behind and enter a diverse environment where I would feel included. It’s not that my white peers had succeeded in making me feel inferior, but not having to deal with their attempts would be a breath of fresh air. The energy I spent upholding mental and emotional armor against their attacks could be spent on more fulfilling things.

However, these hopes were quickly dashed. The Black peers I encountered the most did not accept me either. To them, having grown up in a predominantly white neighborhood had made me white — too white for their tastes. Politeness on my part was considered weakness. My general disposition was not “real” enough in their minds. In this school, too, I was usually left alone if I was behaving in ways coded Black, but there was more to me than that.

The most disheartening aspect was that both my previous white tormentors and my new Black ones were implying the same thing: You’re not fulfilling our ideas of what a Black person is, and for that you must pay.

I do not tell this story to garner pity. (I’m not big on the whole “victim” thing.) I do not tell it to guilt my childhood antagonists. (There’s no benefit in doing that.) I do not tell it to gain some kind of catharsis. (At this point, I’m over it.) I tell it because I am now a mid-career college professor, and these types of bullies have not gone away. They are now academics and administrators at prestigious universities; they are now running HR departments; they are chief editors of prestigious journals. They are prizewinners for their work in diversity, equity, and inclusion.

The problem with most DEI

Once, I committed the sin of saying that knowledge of standard written English may be valuable to all students, regardless of skin color. For this, I endured vitriol. Because standard English came from England and was used by imperialists and slaveholders, I was told, it was inherently racist to teach it to nonwhites. On a now-defunct academic listserv, I was accused of white supremacy, of being unconcerned with how such thoughts, coming from my Black body, were doing harm to other Black people.

These academics would deride me to each other while ignoring my explanations and clarifications. Many who did not participate in these online degradation ceremonies cheered on those who did. For wanting to teach standard English, and for wanting to have a real conversation about its efficacy in American life, I was deemed a pariah.

It was remarkably reminiscent of the bullying I experienced while growing up.

To be clear, I was not being denigrated for simply having a particular outlook; my transgression was having that outlook while Black.

This story illustrates a distinct kind of racism that goes unacknowledged in its particularity. I am describing a kind of racism that more easily masquerades as magnanimity, empathy, and righteousness. I am describing a kind of racism that, often, is unwittingly embraced by its very targets. I am describing “prescriptive racism.”

Unlike traditional racism — the belief that particular races are, in some way, inherently inferior to others — prescriptive racism dictates how a person should behave. That is, an identity type is prescribed to a group of people, and any individual who skirts that prescription is deemed inauthentic or even defective. President Biden displayed prescriptive racism when he said “If you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, you ain’t Black,” a statement that implicitly prescribes how Black voters should think.

“Prescriptive racism” is probably a new term for most readers, but it’s not exactly a novel concept. It has a historical analogue: the concept of the “uppity Negro,” a Black person who dared to act like an equal to whites. One of this term’s most famous usages is attributed to Lyndon B. Johnson, who apparently said: “These Negroes, they’re getting pretty uppity these days and that’s a problem for us since they’ve got something now they never had before, the political pull to back up their uppityness.” Clearly, “uppity” was meant to describe people of color who exercised “agentic” power — that is, they were competent and did not need a white person’s heroism. These “uppity” Black people were forgetting their scripted lines, as it were.

However, prescriptive racism casts a broader net, disadvantaging people for not abiding by a long list of things a Black person shouldn’t do. A prescriptive racist may not mind that a Black person has a master’s degree, but he may scoff at the sight of a Black man watching the Masters — especially if Tiger isn’t playing. A white prescriptive racist would look at a Black person speaking standard English the way a Black person would look at a white person wearing a dashiki. Lest you think that last statement is mere speculation, I have met several people who have voiced derision and irritation upon hearing standard English come out of my mouth. My use of language was an affront to their expectations and sensibilities.

Many prescriptive racists are often people of the same minority group. A Black person lambasting another Black person for acting in ways deemed racially inauthentic — for example, speaking in dialects coded “white” — is engaging in prescriptive racism.

And prescriptive racism is not just a social phenomenon; it is now being institutionalized. More and more, it is erroneously labeled diversity, equity, and inclusion, and it is winning out over initiatives more in line with the civil rights movement and classical liberal values like individuality, free speech, reason, and even equality. It is becoming policy in academia, corporate America, and even the military. To put it another way, contemporary DEI is prescriptive racism.

In academia, I’ve found, Blackness is a role, a “pre-script,” to which Black people are expected to conform if they want to be accepted or, sometimes, acknowledged at all. A Black scholar cannot simply study and write about Plato; she has to write about Plato from a Black perspective. Nobody shows much interest in a Black graduate student drafting a dissertation on American Transcendentalism that isn’t focused on its relevance to the Black experience. In this sense, applying for graduate school or a professorship is akin to auditioning for “Black person” in some live-action role-playing event.

The term “politically Black” adds yet another layer to prescriptive racism. Often, Black scholars doing “Black scholarship” must do it in a politically Black way: a way that conforms to a particular political and decidedly countercultural position. This is what the journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones meant when she said, in a now-deleted tweet, “There is a difference between being politically Black and being racially Black. . . . We all know this and should stop pretending that we don’t.” For many involved in social justice — be they academics, politicians, or activists — progressive ideology is the only authentic form of political Blackness.

Political Blackness made much more sense several decades ago. Both Malcolm X and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. could have been construed as politically Black. Why? Because, when these men lived, whether Black Americans were gay or straight, Islamic or Christian, working class or middle class, none of them could sit at the front of the bus in the Jim Crow South. However, in this third decade of the 21st century, the efficacy of political Blackness has waned significantly. Though things are not perfect and racist environments still exist, policy changes have afforded Black Americans opportunities and resources traditionally denied them. As a result, “the Black experience” has become so varied that the use of “the” is questionable.

The idea of an indefinite abject oppression that justifies essentialism and political Blackness does not reflect reality. The facts that roughly 80 percent of Black Americans are working class or higher and that the number of Black immigrants has skyrocketed (strongly suggesting that the United States isn’t a fundamentally anti-Black country) are just two of many things that illustrate this. But activists who still want power must fabricate an insidious specter of oppression, and an essential victimhood has to be prescribed, whether they are homeless or Oprah Winfrey. If you are a Black American who does not abide by this prescription, be you liberal or conservative, you are seen as weakening the political power of Black Americans.

The inherent paradox of contemporary social justice is the essentialism that says “you are bad if you stereotype other people, but you are also bad if you don’t.”

The concept of microaggressions illustrates this. In a definition made popular by clinical psychologists mainly from Columbia University, microaggressions are subtle insults, intentional or unintentional, “that send denigrating messages to people of color because they belong to a racial minority group.” Yet it is prescriptive racism to suggest that Black people, regardless of context, interpret every term or experience the same way.

For example, according an article in Harvard Business Review, “I believe the most qualified person should get the job” counts as a microaggression because, apparently, it means to racial and ethnic minorities “that someone is being given an unfair advantage because of their race.” But that idea itself is a stereotype that essentializes minorities as people who, as a whole, would be offended by that particular statement. The idea that a Black person could agree with that statement is unthinkable. If one were to point out this contradiction to a person who believes such a statement is an insult to minorities, one shouldn’t be surprised if the person — whether white or nonwhite — commits an act of prescriptive racism: “Well, they should be offended.”

When people refer to “the Black experience,” they are, in effect, telling you who I am, what I’ve been through, and how I interpret the world. But they have no right to do that.

What to do about prescriptive racism

None of this is to say racism does not exist. I know we do not live in a utopia of racial harmony. However, too many initiatives to improve race relations have done more harm than good, and they are winning out.

Instead, I think we can achieve true diversity without erasing individuality.

To accomplish this, I and a few others have cofounded Free Black Thought, a nonprofit newsletter and podcast representing “the rich diversity of Black thought beyond the narrow spectrum of views promoted by mainstream outlets as defining ‘the Black perspective.’” We come from a classical liberal standpoint, meaning we believe people should be treated as sovereign individuals and not deindividuated members of a group. In other words, we’re sticking it to the prescriptive racists.

The “free” in Free Black Thought is both an adjective and a verb. We want to promote thought free from the tyranny of prescription, which means we publish and promote a wide array of ideological points and artistic expression, highlighting Black artists and thinkers typically neglected in mainstream media. But we also seek “to free” Black thought by offering alternatives to K-12 curricula informed by critical social justice, like BLM in Schools and Woke Kindergarten, to let schools know that other ways to promote true DEI do exist.

Sadly, prescriptive racism is being lobbed at students throughout primary and secondary education, from mathto ethnic studies. This is why Free Black Thought has partnered with the Institute for Liberal Values to create curricula and resources that promote “empowered education” over dogmatic “prescriptive” DEI agendas and are accessible to teachers and parents. We promote such classical liberal values as equality, free speech, and, of course, individual liberty, which are the keys to social justice when universally applied.

At the end of the day, the founders of Free Black Thought are exercising our freedom of association to combat an almost tyrannical conformity imposed from an annoyingly indignant moral high ground.

For me, DEI done right is DEI based on traditional liberal values. These values make for social justice if we can live up to them fairly and universally.

To come full circle, experiencing racism in my childhood may have been arduous, and perhaps I was victimized. But that didn’t make me a victim. It opened my eyes to the nonsense of race and identity, and it forced me to embrace my individuality. For that, I am grateful. Prescriptive racism and other forms of prescriptive essentialism rob people, especially young people, of their ability to make their own paths and cultivate their own individuality. After all, we want our youth to think, not to have a group ideology think for them. They all, regardless of race, should be emboldened to let their thoughts be free.

Erec Smith is a research fellow at the Cato Institute, an associate professor of rhetoric and composition at York College of Pennsylvania, and cofounder of Free Black Thought.

[ Via: https://archive.today/q0jmb ]

[rainywritingsx]

Scenario: Shoji, Todoroki and Midoriya protecting their very shy s/o

Request: Would you be okay writing about Shoji, Shoto and Izuku protecting a very shy s/o? Maybe someone is mean to them or there's something falling from somewhere. S/o can't stand up to ppl (maybe s/o is also not in the hero course but in u.a.?) thamk so much and have a nice day ~the one you matched with shoji btw lol

oh hi there :D this request is so cute, I hope I did okay with writing it! You didn’t specify whether you wanted  a scenario or headcanon, so I went with scenarios, hope that’s okay. Have fun reading!

xxx Damla

Reminder that as of right now, requests are closed!

Warnings: none :)

words: 2670

If you’d like to give me a small tip, you can buy me a coffee! ^^

Shoji Mezo

As soon as the bell rang, I pretty much jumped out of my seat and left the classroom. Finally, I can leave. This class isn’t particularly my favourite, which is due to the fact that I don’t have any friends here. Most of them, as well as my boyfriend, are in the hero course.

When I arrived at my locker, I was surprised not to find Shoji waiting as usual. Maybe he had to train? Right at that moment my phone beeped. I opened my bag and took it out. Shoji had texted me.

I’m sorry love, I was training in teams with Tokoyami and he got injured. I will be there in 10 minutes

A soft smile spreads across my face. He really is one of the most caring people I know. While I’m not exactly happy to be alone, it’s most likely that some of Shoji’s classmates can be found in the cafeteria, so I will just go there.

I open my locker and quickly take out the books I need after lunch. Luckily there aren’t many, since I only have English and then PE. I close it again and zip up my backpack before making my way to the cafeteria. Luckily it isn’t that far, and the halls are empty.

I look outside out of the large windows. The sun is shining brightly, and it's clear that it’s spring. Many flowers have bloomed, and I see a lot of birds. There are people having their lunch outside, some are even training. Wow, that’s some dedication… My eyes land on Jirou, who is sitting at a table with Yaoyorozu. Our gazes meet and she smiles before patting the spot next to her. Alright, I guess I’ll eat outside too.

I make my way towards the door. It’s pretty heavy, but thankfully I manage to open it. I’m about to run up to the girls, but I freeze when I hear what I think is the door slamming against someone.

“Oi! What the fuck!” I turn around wide eyed, to see someone whom I thought to be a student of my homeroom class. I don’t remember his name, but he has never been very nice to me. Something gives me the idea that I’m in trouble. I gulp and slowly walk backwards on the grass, but soon my back hits a wall.

“I-I’m so-”

“you’re sorry?” he interrupts, taking a step closer to me. I cower slightly. His closeness is making me way too uncomfortable. “Yeah, you better be! Maybe if you stopped daydreaming about your stupid boyfriend from class 1-A you’d actually notice your surroundings.” I’m speechless. A billion thoughts are running through my head. I want to curse at him for talking about Shoji like that, but my body isn’t doing anything. It’s like I’m glued to the brick wall my body is resting against

“You’re gonna pay for-”

“It was an accident.” An indescribable amount of relief comes over me when Shoji stands in front of me. His right hand reaches behind him for mine, and I immediately hold it. It’s only now that I realise my hands had been shaking the whole time, just like my legs. The guy who was almost yelling at me a second ago, now has a smirk on his face but I can tell he’s a little intimidated.

“Still, your partner should look where they’re going.” I can’t see any of their faces, but by his posture I can tell that Shoji remains completely calm and unfazed as usual.

“Okay,” he calmly responds. “I’m sure you’ve given them enough of a scare, so they’ll be more careful in the future. Still, I don’t think it was okay for you to talk to them like that. That wasn’t exactly behaviour fit for a UA student.” he didn’t even comment anymore, but just bowed to us both and apologised, his tone shaky. Before I knew it he was gone. He was all talk, I knew it.

Shoji turns back to me, still holding my hand and I smile. “Thank you, Shoji.” I can see his eyes moving upwards a bit, which shows he’s smiling too.

“No need to thank me. I guess it isn’t always bad to look scary to people.” I can’t help but laugh at that. Shoji’s appearance is something that he’s insecure about, so knowing that he can joke about it a bit makes me happy.

However, I can’t help but feel bad for not being able to have said anything to that guy when he was insulting Shoji. And I was sure he heard it too…

“I’m sorry.” I sigh, looking down in shame. For a moment, there's silence. Then I see Shoji’s feet taking another step closer to me. His other hand grabs mine as well.

“Can you look at me, please?” his tone wasn’t demanding, rude, or angry. He’s calm, it’s a simple request. He gives me the idea that even if I said no it would be fine, but I look at him nonetheless.

“Y/n, I really don’t care that much about people like that. He doesn’t know me, or you. I only care about what you and the other people in my life think. You don’t need to defend me. I know people like that don’t change minds easily.” I have to admit that he’s right. I mean, I don’t even know his name, so why did I care that much?

“Let’s go, I saw you were on your way to Jirou and Yaoyorozu, right? Tokoyami is there too now.”  I nod and Shoji is about to walk, but he stops when he realises I’m still standing. I smile and walk over to him, stand on my toes and kiss his cheeks. A giggle leaves my mouth when I see his eyes have widened. Even though I would usually have the same reaction, today is different.

“Yep, I’m ready now.”

Todoroki Shouto

Of course, as soon as one person found out I’m dating Shoto, the news spread around the school like fire. Of course I notice the glances at me in hallways, the quiet whispers, the way that people approach me now. Some act nicer, but there also some that seem to suddenly dislike me. And I can’t do anything about it.

In theory I can, but I’ve never been able to even tell someone that their tone was rude, or that something was uncalled for. I’ve even been called names sometimes, and when people see my flustered face, they laugh and throw more insults at me.

Despite all this, Shoto isn’t aware. I never told him, and I’m not planning to. He already has enough going on for him and what has been happening to me just seems like a mild inconvenience at this point. It’s times like this where I’m glad that he isn’t the type of person to keep pushing if he wants to know something.

And of course this happens today too, as I’m walking to the hero course department of UA. I can already hear some people snicker at the fact that I’m even here. I ignore it, because as usual, I don’t want to cause a scene.

My eyes scan the hallway. His classroom is supposed to be somewhere here, but where? Idiot, y/n, you had to ask him what class he currently is in. Now I have to check everywhere.

I don’t see any students from 1-A so he definitely has a class right now. At least I know something. I look through the windows in the doors, but every classroom is empty. Why are there even so many classes here? Maybe I can ask a teacher what subject 1-A has right now. Wait, but isn’t that weird? No, they probably know that I’m looking for Shoto.

In my train of thought, I completely forget my surroundings. So it’s no surprise that I bump into someone and fall on the ground. I hiss when my knees graze the floor, but then remember that that was a person that I bumped into. I look up and my eyes widen when I see Monoma from class 1-B. He looks down at me with a smirk and laughs at my confused state.

“Look who’s here. Looking for your boyfriend?” Without thinking, a billion apologies leave my mouth as I place my books that had fallen earlier back into my bag. My knees feel like they’re burning but I’m more worried about what just happened.

“Wow,” Monoma chuckles. I can feel his eyes on me as I finally zip up my bag and get up. “Can’t even walk properly. I knew that the other departments were losers, but this?” My grip on my bag tightens as he speaks.

“Well, at least you’re kinda good-lookingI guess. Still, I would’ve thought someone from 1-A would go for a person who’s way better than you.” In surprise, I lift my head up. Of course the thought of Shoto deserving better has crossed my mind before. He’s the son of the current number one hero, of course people expect someone who’s the opposite of me. I always try to tell myself it’s amazing I even got into UA at all, but at times I cannot help but wonder if it would be better for Shoto to leave me.

“You know it too, don’t you?” Monoma continues. “No need to tell me, I can see it in your eyes. You want to say so much, but you’re way too much of a coward to do it.” he laughs and looks away for a moment.

“That’s why everyone picks on you and your sweet prince charming has no idea. You can’t even stand your ground, how pathetic. Nobody understands what he even sees --” his voice trails of. Monoma moves his head to his side, and his grin widens.

“Ah, there he is, just as I was speaking about him!” I turn around and gasp when I see Shoto walking in our direction. Shit. He saw it all, didn’t he?

“Your prince charming just knows when to save you, huh? I mean, with such a weak significant other, I probably-”

“My classes are done, let’s go y/n.” Todoroki says, completely ignoring Monoma’s presence. He grabs my hand and is about to walk away.

“One more thing.” he says as he turns around and looks at him.

“Y/n is the best partner I could ask for, and if all you care about is what their education is, you are the disappointment here.” he glances back at me and grabs my hand with a small smile. “Let’s go.”

Midoriya Izuku

The silent aura of the library usually brings me at peace, but today, as I’m entering it by myself, I feel uneasy. A part of me feels like everyone’s eyes are burning through me. So, I keep my gaze down and just walk over to a random bookshelf. As I lift my head again and look through some books, I try nonchalantly scanning the library for any sign of my boyfriend, but Izuku is nowhere to be found.

My phone buzzes in my pocket, so I quickly grab it and see that Izuku texted me.

“I’m sorry sweetheart, I had to help Kaminari with something related to Hero Studies. I’ll be there soon. I love you ❤︎.”

He’s too sweet. I text him back, assuring him that it’s okay and put my phone back in my pocket. Maybe I should pick one book and read it until Izuku comes here, or else I’ll be bored doing nothing. Also, I feel like people keep whispering about me here.

Izuku may not be the most popular student of this school, but people definitely know of him. I mean, he’s a class 1-A student, he worked at Nighteye’s agency, and has done more impressive stuff. So obviously, when he gets in a relationship people will talk about it. While I do get it, I also hate the attention it brings. People have been mostly nice to me luckily, so that’s a relief.

I decide to take a seat at a table with only a few people. It’s also close to the entrance door, so Izuku will be able to spot me easily when he gets here. After also placing my bag on the ground, I finally start reading. After what feels like a few minutes, but probably is a lot more, I’m already halfway through the thing.

“Y/n?” a familiar voice whispers. A smile can’t help but grow on my face as I turn my head to find Izuku standing next to me.

“Hi.” I reply. He smiles and kisses me cheek, to which my eyes widen. We’re in public, what is he doing? I quickly cover my face with the manga I was reading earlier, so people don’t see my embarrassed expression. Izuku only giggles softly.

“Babe, there’s almost nobody here.” he reassures me. “and I missed you.” he adds with a small pout. Ugh, I can’t be mad at him when he makes that adorable face.

“O-okay.” I close the manga and get up. “I’ll just put this back, and then we can start studying.” he follows me to the shelf.

“So, how was your day?” I ask as my eyes scan for the right manga series. Izuku starts telling me about his day, making me almost laugh a few times when he mentions some silly moments, like Sero and Kaminari trying to prank Bakugou but only failing and angering him as a result.

“Oh, and we will get to work with the other departments of the school for some projects, I’m really excited about that.” I smile. Yeah, that sounds fun.

“What is it for?”

“Well,” I accidentally bump into the bookshelf behind me and yelp quietly. “Mr Aiza-Y/n careful!” I squeeze my eyes closed, preparing for anything falling on top of me, but I feel nothing. My eyes open again and I look up. Izuku is holding some books that would’ve landed on me if he wasn’t here. His expression shows that he was a little scared, but soon relief takes over.

“I thought something was going to happen to you..” he sighed as he placed the books back on the shelf. I awkwardly stand up straight and fiddle with my fingers, mumbling a soft apology. Of course I had to be stupid and not take in my surroundings

“Hey, it’s okay.” he grabs my hands and smiles. “I’m not upset, I’m just glad you’re alright. Just be a little more careful next time, okay, honey?” I nod, trying to hide how flustered the nickname makes me feel and squeeze his hands softly. I look at his hands, and rub my thumbs over them. There are a few new bruises on there.

“Did you get hurt again?” I ask, examining his knuckles. Izuku chuckles awkwardly.

“I-It’s nothing, don’t worry about it. I already went to Recovery Girl for it.” he lets go of one of my hands and wraps an arm around my shoulders.

“I-Izuku, there’s people here…” I say hurriedly, hoping that nobody will see us. I’m not embarrassed by him, of course not. It’s just that I always feel a bit nervous when it comes to PDA.

“I have an idea. How about we study in my dorm room? Can I have cuddles then?” he asks sweetly while removing his hands from me. I nod softly.

“That sounds nice..”

“Okay, let’s get some of your favourite snacks first and then go.” my face lights up and I nod again.

“Let’s go.” I hear him giggle before we both leave the library.

“Oh, we can also get dinner together somewhere if you want, I’m sure there’s food in the kitchen or we can get take-”

“Izuku.” I stop him. “L-let’s get those snacks and study first.” he chuckles and nods.

“Yeah, sorry, I’m just really happy we get to hang out again. Let’s go then, the grocery store is only a few minutes away from UA.”

[dontcare77ghj]

Teach me

Steve x reader x Wanda x Bucky

You'd all joined the Avengers at different points throughout the years. Steve had been the first, you'd come a few months later, then Wanda had joined and finally Bucky.

As you were part of the same team, you'd all been friends long before the prospect of a relationship. The four of you were too nervous to act on any feelings you shared, and it had driven the team crazy. It had driven the team so crazy that Natasha, Clint, and Tony had locked the four of you in a room and refused to let you out until you all admitted your feelings.

Two years down the track, the four of you were the most effective team this world had seen. Together, missions were easy. You did what you needed to in a quick and almost systematic way. 

As a quad, the four of you seemed to always be learning new things about each other. Even after years of being a team, friends, even after dating for two years. It appeared the surprises never ended.

"Am I allowed to move yet?" Wanda questioned Steve for the seventieth time.

"I'm almost done with the outline, Wand. Just a little longer, you look beautiful." Steve told her.

"Couldn't you just take a photo of her and work off that?" You asked, watching the scene from the sidelines. "Wanda looks like she's going to kill you."

"I could, but it wouldn't be the same." Steve shook his head. "Okay, I have an outline, you can move now, sweetheart," Steve told Wanda.

"Thank you." Wanda sighed. "Alright, I love you, but I'm going to lay down now. My back is killing me." She said, pressing a kiss to yours and Steve's cheeks.

"I still think you should have just taken a photo of her." You reiterated. "You never finish a painting in a day. You still have one you tried to do of the three of us that remains unfinished."

"I have to wait for the paint I want to arrive. There are certain colors I want to use, and I can't quite mix them." Steve told you as he got paint onto his palet. 

"But still, Steve, how do you remember all the details you need to?" You questioned, tilting your head to the side.

"Because he's a lovesick sap and stares at us too often," Bucky said, entering and sitting beside you.

"Look who's talking." Steve snickered, glancing up to see Bucky pull you onto his lap.

"I at least admit it," Bucky said, nuzzling his face into your neck.

"How hard is painting?" You asked Steve.

"Not very hard. It's all about the amount of patience and time you put into it." Steve told you. "Did you ever learn to paint?"

"No, I was homeschooled even before my mutation kicked in." You shrugged. "Art wasn't part of my father's curriculum."

"We're going to fix that," Steve said, pulling the canvas off the stand and replacing it. "Come here." Steve held his hand out for you. Climbing out of Bucky's lap, you walked over to the blonde. Steve positioned you in front of the blank canvas and put a brush in your hand. 

"What are we painting?" You quizzed Steve as he stood behind you.

"Whatever you want to paint," Steve said, pressing a kiss to the back of your neck.

"Whatever I want?"

"Whatever you want. You just say it, and I'll help you." Steve promised.

"I want to paint Buck." You looked back at the blonde with a smile.

"Then, Bucky, you shall paint." He said, beginning to teach you to paint.

For the next two hours, Bucky remained still as Steve guided you in your attempt at painting. When your impromptu art class was done, you had a finished picture of Bucky. It wasn't great, it wasn't terrible either, but it meant something to you because it was something you did with Steve. It was something Steve had taught you.

Non-reader POV

"How's Pietro?" Steve asked Wanda after she hung up the phone. 

"He's doing well." Wanda smiled. "He's joined in some prank war that Clint started. He sounded very content with himself." She added, taking a seat next to Steve.

The quad had been on vacation for the past two weeks. The world had been quiet for the past few weeks. And as Tony pointed out, now was the perfect time to take that vacation, the four of you had been talking about.

Two weeks ago, the four of you had all packed a couple bags and taken Tony's jet to his house in Australia. A home he'd ever so graciously loaned to the four of you, provided you do him a favor one day in the future.

Pray to Thor Tony got drunk enough to forget all about the promise of a favor.

"They haven't burned down the tower, have they?" Steve asked her, worry coloring his tone. Clint and Pietro working together was not a good idea.

"Not yet," Wanda assured him. "Give them another week, and we'll revisit this conversation."

"Don't even joke about that." Steve chuckled, wrapping an arm around her shoulders.

"He's a good man even if he does act like a debil." She smiled, resting her head on Steve's broad shoulder.

"Debil?" Steve rose an eyebrow. "I don't think I know that one."

"It's like an idiot, but a step further." Wanda attempted to explain to him.

"Moron?" Steve offered.

"Yes. Moron." Wanda snapped her fingers. "Pietro can act like a moron, but he has a good heart."

"How do you say that? Good heart?" Steve questioned, turning towards her.

"Khorosheye serdtse." 

"Khorosheye serdtse,"  Steve repeated clumsily. "Khorosheye serdtse." He said again with much more clarity this time.

"Very good." Wanda smiled, leaning up to kiss his cheek.

"Could you teach me some more?" Steve asked her with an enthused grin.

"Of course," Wanda told him. The two sat on the couch for the next hour, Wanda patiently teaching an eager Steve her native language, until Y/N and Bucky arrived. 

"We're back!" Y/N said as she and Bucky entered the living room, arms laden with grocery bags.

"Dobro pozhalovat' domoy." Wanda and Steve greeted the two in unison.

"I didn't know you spoke Sokovian, Steve." Y/N commented as Wanda moved to help you and Buck.

"I didn't speak it until an hour ago," Steve said, kissing first Bucky and then you in greeting. "Wanda's been teaching me."

"Tell me, is Steve still a terrible student?" Bucky asked, causing Y/N and Wanda to giggle as Steve scowled.

"I was always a good student." He denied the brunette.

"Our French teacher wanted to wring your neck." Bucky deadpanned.

"He was a dick," Steve swore under his breath, but the other occupants of the room heard it, evident by their boisterous laughter.

"Anyway, what other sentences did you learn?" Y/N asked the blonde.

"Ya lyublyu vsekh vas," Steve said. "I love you all." He repeated in English.

"Love you too, sweetheart." Y/N said, kissing the man quickly.

"Love ya, ya punk," Bucky said, also kissing the man once Y/N had moved away.

"I think you'll have to teach me more Sokovian Wanda," Steve commented.

"I'll gladly teach you, Steve. Any time." Wanda responded with a smile.

"That smells really good," Wanda commented, entering the kitchen to see Bucky behind the stove. 

"Thank you," Bucky said, looking up at her entrance. "I picked it up while on the run." He mentioned, pushing some of his hair out of his eyes.

"You need to do the cooking more often," Wanda told him, sneaking a taste of the sauce.

"Germs, Wand," Bucky said, shooing her away from the stove. "Besides, if I did all the cooking, we wouldn't get to have your paprikash." 

"I'll teach you how to make paprikash if you teach me how to make whatever this is." Wanda bargained.

"It's chicken marsala," Bucky explained to her. "And you've got yourself a deal." He added, shaking her hand.

"Great." Wanda chirped, throwing her hair into a ponytail. "What can I do to help?"

"Can you use the mallet and flatten the chicken out?" Bucky asked her.

"Yes, chef," Wanda smirked, moving over to the board where the chicken breasts were waiting. "So who taught you how to make this?"

"I was bussing at a restaurant somewhere in Italy," Bucky told her. "I was friends with one of the chefs, and he would teach me some recipes after hours. This was one of the few things I was good at."

"I highly doubt you weren't able to master everything you were taught." Wanda rolled her eyes at his modesty.

"Seriously." Bucky nodded. "I almost burnt the kitchen down once. I spilled a bottle of liqueur near the flame and would've burnt the whole place down. If it weren't for the fact, there were fire extinguishers in every corner of that place."

"Maybe we should bring that idea back to the tower." Wanda giggled as she finished flattening out the chicken. "Okay, what next chef?"

"We get them in the pan," Bucky told her. "Bring the board over, and I'll show you the perfect way to get them cooked perfectly."

"Bold words." Y/N said as she and Steve entered the kitchen.

"Just you wait, kitten. You'll see." Bucky promised, smiling as the two sat at the island.

"How was your day?" Steve asked Wanda and Bucky.

"Surely much more relaxing than the two of yours," Wanda smirked. "How was the skype meeting?"

"Hell." Y/N groaned, resting her head on the marble. "It's such bullshit they called. We're on vacation." 

"I know, moy sladkiy." Wanda cooed. "If you want, I can tell Pietro to annoy them." She offered, turning the chicken as Bucky told her.

"Fury would kill him, doll," Bucky told the witch. 

"And Tony would glue his feet to the floor." Steve chuckled. 

"Dinner is almost ready." Bucky nodded, stepping away from Wanda to open the wine. "Y/N, could you grab plates and glasses? Steve, could you grab the cutlery?" Bucky asked.

"You got it." Y/N said, hopping off the stool.

Y/N and Steve set the table as Wanda and Bucky finished off the delicious-smelling meal.

"And we proudly present chicken marsala," Bucky said, dishing up each plate.

"This is delicious, you guys." Y/N moaned.

"And that is the highest compliment I need," Bucky said, cutting into his own meal. "What do you say, Wand?"

“It’s all I need.” Wanda smiled.

Reader POV

The four of you had returned home a month ago. You immediately wished you were back in Australia. It seemed as the world was on pause in Australia, but the second the four of you returned to New York, the world was playing again.

It had been back to back missions and meetings for the past month, and it was taking its toll on you. You felt drained. You felt tired, no matter the amount of caffeine you consumed. But you also felt too wired to even try to sleep.

You needed a break. You need five minutes for yourself.

It was 1:04 in the morning as you dragged yourself out of your shared bed. You grabbed the bag you left by the elevator doors and stepped in, rubbing your eyes before stretching.

"To the studio, please," You said, leaning against the wall.

"Of course." The Irish A.I. said before making the elevator move. You quickly made it to the studio and sat on the floor as you opened your bag. Pulling out your pointe shoes brought into you a feeling of nostalgia. 

It had been a while since you'd pulled them out of storage. 

The lacing of your pointe shoes and the stretches were ingrained into your bones. You were almost vibrating in joy as you tied the final lace. It was funny, you hated ballet when you were younger. Hated that you were pushed into it with no regard as to your own feelings. Yet now, it brought you joy. Brought you calm.

The world faded as you asked F.R.I.D.A.Y. to play your playlist. You had finished your third routine when you heard slow clapping behind you. Looking up and into the mirrors, you saw Bucky standing behind you with a smile.

"Did I wake you?" You puffed out, spinning around to face him.

“Wasn’t sleeping anyway.” Bucky told you, stepping forward. “You were so into your dances, you didn’t even notice me standing there.”

“Sorry.” You muttered, looking down.

“Nothing to be sorry about, kitten.” Bucky said, raising your chin and kissing you softly. “You looked beautiful.”

“Thank you.” You responded, cheeks flushing redder than they already were.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you dance before.” Bucky stated. 

“You weren’t missing much.” You shrugged, moving for your water bottle. “I don’t do it as often as I’d like anyway.”

“Don’t say that, kitten. I think you’re really good.” He said, sitting next to you. “Do you think you could teach me a little?”

“Really?” You asked him in surprise. No one had ever wanted to dance with you.

“Really, really.” He smiled. 

“Okay.” You grinned. “Okay yeah. I can teach you whenever you want.”

“How about now?” Bucky suggested, standing and holding a hand out to you. You smiled widely and grabbed his hand and he twirled you into his arms. “See I already know a few tricks.”

“Guess an old dog can learn new tricks.” You teased him. “Let’s see if I can teach you a few more.” You added, leading him into the middle of the room.

Time flew by as you began to teach Bucky. The tricks started off easy but it turns out Bucky was a fast learner and an ambitious one. The sun was beginning to enter the room as you and Bucky tried a new lift (12 seconds).

“Please don’t drop me.” You laughed giddily.

“Never, Y/n.” He promised, gently lowering you down.

“Do we want to know how long you two have been in here?” Wanda asked, standing in the doorway, red robe tied tightly over her body. Steve stood beside her in his pajamas with a smile on his face.

“Probably not.” You nodded.

“You do know it’s six in the morning, right?” Steve asked the two of you. After the two of you shook your heads, he let out a sigh. “Come on, let’s get some breakfast. The two of you can show us what you’ve been up to after.”

“Sounds good to me.” Bucky said, grabbing your bag in one hand and your hand in the other.

The four of you had been together for years, and yet the four of you were constantly teaching each other new things.

Taglist

@rvgrsbrns @smilexcaptainx @hopingforbarnes @starlingelliot @piper-koko-barnes-rogers @jelly-fishy-babie @skeletoresinthebasement @agent-barnes40 @reann-loves-sebstan @skadikh

Coming soon

Dean x reader Cas

Bucky x reader x Natasha

Meg x reader x Cas

Wanda x reader x Vision

Steve x reader x Bucky x Peggy

[fyeah-bangtan7]

The Boundless Optimism of BTS

IT IS THE MORNING OF CHUSEOK, A KOREAN HARVEST FESTIVAL akin to Thanksgiving, and the members of BTS would normally be spending it with their families, eating tteokguk, a traditional rice-cake soup. Instead, Jin, 28; Suga, 27; J-Hope, 26; RM, 26; Jimin, 25; V, 24; and Jung Kook, 23, are working. Practicing. Honing their choreography. In a few days, the biggest musical act in the world will perform in the live-stream concert that, for now, will have to stand in for the massive tour they spent the first part of this year rehearsing. At this moment, they’re seated inside Big Hit Entertainment headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, the house they built, dressed mostly in black and white, ready to answer my questions. They’re gracious about it. And groggy.

Before I’m done speaking with them for this story, BTS will have the number-one and number-two songs on the BillboardHot 100, a feat that’s been achieved only a handful of times in the sixty-odd years the chart has existed. Their next album, Be, is weeks away from being released, and speculation about the record, the tracklist, the statement, is rampant across the Internet. BTS are, to put it mildly, huge.

There is something about complete world domination that can really cement a friendship. What jumps out at me as I connect with the members of BTS is their level of comfort with one another. Tension has a way of making itself evident—even over Zoom, even through a translator. There’s none to be found here. They are relaxed in the manner of family. Lounging with their arms around each other’s shoulders, tugging on each other’s sleeves, fixing each other’s collars. When they speak about one another, it is with kindness.

“Jimin has a particular passion for the stage and really thinks about performance, and in that sense, there are many things to learn from him,” J-Hope says. “Despite all the things he has accomplished, he still tries his best and brings something new to the table, and I really want to applaud him for that.”

“Thank you for saying all these things about me,” Jimin responds.

Jimin turns his attention to V, explaining that he is “loved by so many” and describing him as one of his best friends. Suga jumps in, sharing that Jimin and V fight the most among the group. V replies, “We haven’t fought in three years!” They tell me this distinction now belongs to Jin and Jung Kook, the oldest and youngest members. “It all starts as a joke, but then it gets serious,” Jimin says.

Jin agrees and recounts what their arguments sound like. “Why did you hit me so hard?” he says, before mimicking Jung Kook’s response: “I didn’t hit you that hard.” And then they start hitting each other. But not that hard.

Since the start of their careers, BTS have shown a certain confidence in their aesthetic, their performances, and their music videos. It’s right there in the name: BTS stands for “Bangtan Sonyeondan,” which translates to “Bulletproof Boy Scouts,” but as their popularity grew in English-speaking markets, the acronym was retrofitted to mean “Beyond the Scene,” which Big Hit has described as “symbolizing youth who don’t settle for their current reality and instead open the door and go forward to achieve growth.” And their affection with one another, their vulnerability and emotional openness in their lives and in their lyrics, strikes me as more grown-up and masculine than all the frantic and perpetual box-checking and tone-policing that American boys force themselves and their peers to do. It looks like the future.

“There is this culture where masculinity is defined by certain emotions, characteristics. I’m not fond of these expressions,” Suga tells me. “What does being masculine mean? People’s conditions vary day by day. Sometimes you’re in a good condition; sometimes you aren’t. Based on that, you get an idea of your physical health. And that same thing applies mentally. Some days you’re in a good state; sometimes you’re not. Many pretend to be okay, saying that they’re not ‘weak,’ as if that would make you a weak person. I don’t think that’s right. People won’t say you’re a weak person if your physical condition is not that good. It should be the same for the mental condition as well. Society should be more understanding.”

When I hear these words in October 2020, from my house in a country whose leader is actively trying to make the case that only the weak die of COVID-19, well, it sounds like the future, too.

IF YOU ARE JUST NOW CONSIDERING GETTING INTO BTS, IT IS natural to feel overwhelmed by the sheer amount of stuff. It’s a bit like saying, right this second, “Let’s see what Marvel Comics is all about.” In the streaming age, BTS have sold more than twenty million physical units across fourteen albums. Their multi-album concept cycles, The Most Beautiful Moment in Life, Love Yourself, and Map of the Soul, have unfolded over multiple records and EPs. There are collaborations with brands, including a BTS smartphone with Samsung. There is a series of short films and music videos, called BU, or BTS Universe, and an animated universe called BT21, in which they’re all represented by gender-neutral avatars. Their fan base, known as ARMY, is a global cultural movement unto itself.

“Dynamite,” their first English-language single and their first American number one, is pure, ecstatic pop. Shiny and joyful. What sets them apart from many of their peers, and many of the pop acts who achieved worldwide fame before them, is what came earlier. Beneath the sheen and the beats has always been an unflinching examination of human emotion. Their lyrics seek to challenge the conventions of society—to question and even denounce them. BTS’s first single, “No More Dream,” unveiled at their debut showcase in June 2013, concerns the intense pressure South Korean schoolchildren face to conform and to succeed. According to Suga, lyrics about the mental health of young people were mostly absent in Korean pop music. “The reason I started making music is because I grew up listening for lyrics that speak about dreams, hopes, and social issues,” he tells me. “It just came naturally to me when making music.”

Suga’s early ambition of making music didn’t involve him being in a group at all. About a decade ago, in his hometown of Daegu, the fourth-largest city in South Korea, he started recording underground rap tracks under the name Gloss, listening to and learning from the early works of songwriter and producer Bang Si-hyuk, known as Hitman Bang. Bang is the founder and CEO of Big Hit Entertainment. In 2010, Suga, a junior in high school, moved to Seoul to join Big Hit as a producer and rapper. Then Bang asked him to become part of a group, envisioning a hip-hop act with fellow new Big Hit recruits RM and J-Hope. The guys call this “season one” of their development.

“At that time, I don’t think our label exactly knew what to do with us,” RM says. “They just basically let us be and we had some lessons, but we also just chilled and made music sometimes.”

It got more intense. The family grew, occasionally by accident.

V accompanied a friend to a Big Hit casting call in Daegu for moral support and ended up being the person chosen from those sessions.

Jung Kook was signed in a feeding frenzy after being dropped from the talent show Superstar K, fielding offers from numerous entertainment companies before settling on Big Hit because he was impressed by RM’s rapping.

Jimin was a dance student and class president for nine years running at his school in Busan; he auditioned at the behest of his teacher.

And then, to hear him tell it, Jin got picked up off the street. “I was just going to school,” he says. “Someone from the company approached me, like, ‘Oh, this is my first time seeing anyone that looked like this.’ He suggested having a meeting with me.”

“Season two is when we officially underwent hard training,” J-Hope says. “We started dancing, and that’s how I would say our team building started.”

School in the daytime, training at night. “We slept during classes,” V says.

“I slept in the practice studio,” J-Hope counters.

Hitman Bang kept the pressure comparatively low. And he encouraged the guys to write and produce their own music, to be honest about their emotions in their lyrics. Suga is on record saying that no BTS album would be complete without a track that scrutinizes society.

And yet for their new album, Be, they’re putting that aside. Even this has a greater purpose that relates to mental wellness: RM, the group’s main rapper, says, “I don’t think this album will have any songs that criticize social issues. Everybody is going through very trying times right now. So I don’t think there will be any songs that will be that aggressive.”

Though the new rules of COVID-19 mean they can’t come here and promote Be, its first single might not have happened in the first place but for the pandemic. “ ‘Dynamite’ wouldn’t be here if there was no COVID-19,” says RM. “For this song, we wanted to go easy and simple and positive. Not some, like, deep vibes or shadows. We just wanted to go easy.”

Jin agrees. “We were trying to convey the message of healing and comfort to our fans.” He pauses. “World domination wasn’t actually our plan when we were releasing ‘Dynamite.’ ” World domination just happens sometimes. You get it.

MAP OF THE SOUL ONE AIRED VIA THEIR ONLINE FAN PLATFORM and attracted almost a million viewers across 191 countries. The guys say they tried not to think about the enormousness. J-Hope adds, “I felt a little bit more nervous knowing that this was being broadcast live. I actually feel less nervous performing live at a stadium.” Jin replies with a smile, “J-Hope, born to perform at a stadium.”

The graphic layout of the title throws a colon between the final N and E, which makes it look like Map of the Soul On: E, and as I watch it live, as I do in my office at 3:00 a.m. with noise-canceling headphones and a steaming pot of coffee, it feels a lot like I’m watching Map of the Soul on E. It is an explosion of color and fashion and passion, over four gigantic stages, from the boozy swagger of “Dionysus” to the emo-trap introspection of “Black Swan.” Not a step, not a gesture, not a hair is out of place. If there were nerves, they didn’t come through.

There is also, at the end of Map of the Soul One, an intimate version of their 2017 track “Spring Day,” which encapsulates what’s really made BTS stand out. On the surface, it’s about nonspecific love and loss, about yearning for the past. “I think that song really represents me,” says Jin. “I like to look to the past and be lost in it.”

Fair enough, but there is an undeniable allusion, in both the song’s video and its cover concept, to a specific incident in recent South Korean history. “Spring Day” was released just a few years after the sinking of the Sewol ferry, one of the country’s biggest maritime disasters, in which a poorly inspected, overloaded ferry toppled in a sharp right turn. Hundreds of high school students drowned, having obeyed orders to stay in their cabins as the boat was going down. According to some reports, the South Korean government actively tried to silence entertainers who spoke out against it, with the Korean Ministry of Education fully banning the tragedy’s commemorative yellow ribbons in schools. I ask whether it was about a specific sad event, and Jin tells me, “It is about a sad event, as you said, but it is also about longing.” The song kept the disaster front of mind for young Koreans and for the media, indirectly leading to the impeachment and removal of then president Park Geun-hye.

If an overburdened, undermaintained, slow-moving vessel capsizing because of a reckless rightward turn strikes you as somehow symbolic of the country in which BTS are about to explode even further, you won’t hear it from them. “We’re outsiders—we can’t really express what we feel about the United States,” says V. But their actions speak volumes; in the wake of the George Floyd murder and subsequent protests in America, the group made a $1 million donation with Big Hit Entertainment to Black Lives Matter, one that was matched by BTS ARMY.

The fans offer a fascinating inversion of stan culture: Rather than bullying rivals like many other ardent online fan bases do, ARMY have put the positive message of the music into action. Their activism goes deep. Through micro-donations, they’ve regrown rain forests, adopted whales, funded hundreds of hours of dance classes for Rwandan youth, and raised money to feed LGBTQ refugees around the world. Where pop fans a generation ago might have sent teddy bears or cards to their idols for their birthdays, where five years ago they might have promoted a hashtag to get a video’s YouTube viewer count up, for RM’s twenty-sixth birthday in September, international fan collective One in an Army raised more than $20,000 for digital night schools to improve rural children’s access to education during the COVID-19 crisis. ARMY may have even entered the conversation around the 2020 presidential election when hundreds of thousands of Tulsa Trump rally tickets got snapped up online in June. The event’s actual attendance was pathetically low. No particular person or entity claimed credit for this top-notch trolling, but a video urging BTS fans to RSVP to that rally did get hundreds of thousands of views. We have no choice but to stan this fan base.

The relationship is intense. “We and our ARMY are always charging each other’s batteries,” RM says. “When we feel exhausted, when we hear the news all over the world, the tutoring programs, and donations, and every good thing, we feel responsible for all of this.” The music may have inspired the good works, but the good works inspire the music. “We’ve got to be greater; we’ve got to be better,” RM continues. “All those behaviors always influence us to be better people, before all this music and artist stuff.”

Yet for every devoted member of BTS ARMY, there is someone who’s looked right past BTS. Jimmy Fallon, whose Tonight Show hosted the group for a full week this past fall, was one of those people. “Usually if an artist is on the rise, I hear about them ahead of time. With BTS, I knew they had crazy momentum, and I’d never heard of them.”

Here’s a thought that used to be funny to me: There were members of the live audience of The Ed Sullivan Showon February 9, 1964, who weren’t there to see the Beatles. Elvis was in the Army, Buddy Holly was gone, and the three number-one albums in the months before Meet the Beatles! were an Allan Sherman comedy record, the West Side Story original cast recording, and Soeur Sourire: The Singing Nun. America had left rock ’n’ roll behind for the moment, and with the culture aimless and fragmented, it wasn’t quite sure what to pick up in its place. It is possible to imagine that a youngish, reasonably hip, and culturally aware human being might cop a ticket to that week’s show, settle into his seat, and say, “Bring on a medley of numbers from the Broadway musical Oliver! and banjo sensation Tessie O’Shea.”

The instinct is to laugh at that guy, and it’s a good instinct, because what a dope.

And then you become that guy.

Sometimes there is a whole universe alongside your own, bursting with color you’re too stubborn to see, bouncing with joy you think is for someone else, with a beat you thought you were finished dancing to. BTS are the biggest thing on the planet right now, yet the job of introducing them to someone new, particularly in America, seems like it’s never done. Maybe it’s because they are adored by screaming teenagers and we live in a society patriarchal enough to forget that screaming teenagers are nearly always right. Maybe it’s the cultural divide, in a moment when our country is unashamed enough of its own xenophobia to get openly bent out of shape when it has to press 1 for English. Maybe it’s the language barrier, as though we understood a single word Michael Stipe sang before 1989.

Whatever the reason, the result is that you might be missing out on a paradigm shift and a historic moment of pop greatness.

IF BTS SEEM A BIT CAUTIOUS WITH THEIR WORDS PUBLICLY, IT’S because—perhaps more than any other massive pop act in history—they have to be. Shortly after our second meeting, BTS were given the General James A. Van Fleet Award by the U. S.–based Korea Society for their outstanding contributions to advancing relations between the United States and Korea. In his acceptance speech, RM said, “We will always remember the history of pain that our two nations shared together, and the sacrifices of countless men and women,” as seemingly diplomatic and innocuous a statement as he could have made. But because he didn’t mention the Chinese soldiers who died in the Korean War, it didn’t go over well. The Samsung BTS smartphone disappeared from Chinese e-commerce platforms, Fila and Hyundai pulled ads in China that featured the group, the nationalistic newspaper Global Times accused them of hurting Chinese citizens’ feelings and negating history, and the hashtags “BTS humiliated China” and “there are no idols that come before my country” began trending on the social-media site Weibo. The pressure is not small.

Even as the number-one pop group in the world, even with their hard work day in and day out, even with tens of millions of adoring fans redefining the concept of “adoring fans” by literally healing the planet in their name, these guys still suffer from impostor syndrome. RM explains, “I’ve heard that there’s this mask complex. Seventy percent of so-called successful people have this, mentally. It’s basically this: There’s this mask on my face. And these people are afraid that someone is going to take off this mask. We have those fears as well. But I said 70 percent, so I think it’s very natural. Sometimes it’s a condition to be successful. Humans are imperfect, and we have these flaws and defects. And one way to deal with all this pressure and weight is to admit the shadows.”

The music helps. “When we write the songs and lyrics, we study these emotions, we are aware of that situation, and we relate to that emotionally,” J-Hope says. “And that’s why when the song is released, we listen to it and get consolation from those songs as well. I think our fans also feel those emotions, maybe even more than us. And I think we are a positive influence on each other.”

If there’s one thing they’re sacrificing, besides free time and the ability to speak freely without the Chinese foreign ministry releasing an official statement, it’s a love life. I ask about dating, broad questions like “Are you?” and “Is there time?” and “Can you?” and the answer to all of them is pretty clear: “No.” “The most important thing for us now is to sleep,” Jung Kook insists. Suga follows right up with “Can you see my dark circles?” I cannot, because there are none, because flawless skin translates even over Zoom when there’s an ocean between us.

So they’re not, at least publicly, having romantic relationships with anyone. If there is a strong relationship that’s guided their journey into adulthood, it’s with Big Hit. “Our company started with twenty to thirty people, but now we have a company with so many employees,” RM says. “We have our fans, and we have our music. So we have a lot of things that we have to be responsible for, to safeguard.” He considers it for a moment. “I think that’s what an adult is.”

“Our love life—twenty-four hours, seven days a week—is with all the ARMYs all over the world,” RM adds.

In a world that is determined to sand down anything that isn’t immediately recognizable to the average pop-music fan, when it comes to acquainting you with Korean culture, BTS very much do not wanna hold your hand. While the first song on night one of their Tonight Show week was a joyous but expected take on “Dynamite” with Fallon and the Roots, they took some chances during their second performance.

As a friend of mine, a thirty-three-year-old BTS fan in Los Angeles, told me, “The second song they performed was ‘IDOL,’ ” from 2018’s Love Yourself: Answer, “and it celebrated their Korean identity. They performed it in Gyeongbokgung Palace in Seoul. They wore clothes inspired by traditional dresses called hanboks;it was almost entirely in Korean, so it felt super subversive. As a fan, I read it as: ‘Dynamite’ was an invitation, and this is who we are and this is our home.”

“I was a little concerned that people might not understand,” Fallon says. “I was like, ‘There’s nothing in English here.’ But what you see is just pure star power. Pure talent. Immediately, I thought, Oh, this is everything. If you’re that powerful, it transcends language.”

American popular music in the twenty-first century is more fragmented than it has been since . . . well, since Allan Sherman, Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim, and the Singing Nun battled for that number-one spot. The monoculture that the Beatles helped bring on has breathed its last breath. Each of us is the program director for our own private radio station, letting our own past habits and streaming-service algorithms serve up something close to what we want. Which is great, except that huge moments can whiz right past our ears. Each of us, even if we’re more clued in than our parents were when they were our age, can miss some era-defining, excellent shit. Particularly if the radio is our Spotify Discover Weekly, or the Pandora channel based on the band whose T-shirts we wore in college. We can let a moment pass us by if prime time is a Netflix binge, and the Tonight Show hour is spent on one more episode before bed. But we shouldn’t. “Honestly, I think it’s history that we’re living through with BTS,” Fallon says. “It’s the biggest band I’ve seen since I’ve started late night, definitely.”

THERE IS ALSO THE SMALL DETAIL THAT, UNLIKE THE BEATLES AND literally every other worldwide sensation to break in America, BTS don’t particularly need to go to the trouble. They are massive all over the world. Thanks to the recent IPO of Big Hit Entertainment, of which each member is a partner, they are all now incredibly wealthy. (Hitman Bang is the first South Korean entertainment mogul to become a billionaire.) What good is a culture in decline to a pop act this much on the ascent? “When I dreamed of becoming an artist, I listened to pop and watched all the awards shows in the United States. Being successful and being a hit in the U. S. is, of course, such an honor as an artist,” says Suga. “I feel very proud of that.”

They’re breaking out in a country that either worships them or fails to notice them. So do they feel like they’re getting enough respect in America? “How can we win everyone’s respect?” Jin asks. “I think it’s enough to get respect from people who support us. It’s similar everywhere else in the world. You can’t like everyone, and I think it’s enough to be respected by people who really love you.”

Suga agrees. “You can’t always be comfortable, and I think it’s all part of life. Honestly, we are not used to getting a ton of respect from when we first started out. But I think that gradually changes, whether it be in the States or other parts of the world, as we do more and more.”

There is, without a doubt, one colossal, unmistakable sign of respect for a musician: a Grammy. They’ve been nominated only once, and even then it was for best recording package. But their sights are set on a big one next year. RM puts it out there: “We would like to be nominated and possibly get an award.” Dragging the hoary, backward-looking, and Western-focused Grammys into the gorgeous, global world of the present through sheer force of will, talent, and hard work? Stranger things have happened. “I think the Grammys are the last part, like the final part of the whole American journey,” he says with a smile. “So yeah, we’ll see.”

The Recording Academy’s seal of approval is one thing. But BTS have already conquered the world, clowned tyrants, inspired individual fans to perform the small and achievable acts of activism that have collectively begun to save the planet, challenged toxic masculinity by leading with vulnerability, and, along the way, become bajillionaires and international idols. Whether the Grammys are paying attention matters about as much as what an Ed Sullivan audience member expected to see that night in 1964. BTS have already won.

© source

[parkaiur]

Snowy Days - Jihoon

❀ genre: college life + romance + a dash of angst 

❀ word count: 5491

❀ a/n: just read the tags below but if ur too lazy to basically: don’t expect lots of updates and i just wrote this as a form of therapy for me. i guess i missed writing and needed to rant /shrugs/ 

also this title sucks but idk what to do with it either LMAO 

❀ ❀ ❀

It was a quiet, winter evening; the snow was gently falling outside and the laughter of college students filled the dorm hallways. 

I, on the other hand, was curled up in a ball on my bed, reading a book. The soft sounds of my hand turning the pages lulled me in a dreamland of swoon-worthy boys. 

Suddenly, I heard a loud bang. 

I flinched and jumped up on my bed to see what had dropped. 

“Sorry! Just dropped my pan, how’s it going?” I sighed thankfully, realizing it was just my roommate, Naeun. Naeun was a freshman like me; we hadn’t talked much before rooming together. We got along most of the time, but being around people just irked me sometimes.

I pointed at the book, trying to hide the girlish daze in my eyes. 

“Just reading, like usual.” I kept my words short, hoping she would get the hint that I wasn’t in the mood to talk. It wasn’t like I was mad at her or anything, but I need my breaks with all the socialness of college. I don’t think people understand how tiring it is for introverts to have to be “on” all the time; “on” meaning social. 

She nodded. “What book?” 

“It’s called ‘Win Some, Lose Some’ by Shay Savage. It’s a really amazing novel about a boy who was Autism and a girl who ...” I trailed off when I realized she had her back towards me. The sound of her pots and pans flying into her drawer was distracting. “A girl who befriends him basically. How was your day?” I asked politely. 

I braced myself for her long winded answer. Most people just say “good” or “it was pretty alright” but not Naeun, she pops off and talks about things no one really needs to know, and no one really cares. 

“It was okay. I saw one of my friends on campus and I waved to her because it’s so weird, right? Seeing people you know on such a large campus. And then I walked to English and my professor was just such in a good mood today, she’s so nice, I love her.” 

I smiled carefully, hoping she doesn’t realize how much I do not care about who she waves at or how her professor looks. 

“Then, I went to the library and did some of my math homework and I got started on the next chapter. And then I started to do my English homework which I got kind of stumped on. Anyway, all I could think about is this big burrito when I was studying.” She took out two large burritos and plopped them on a blue plate. 

I nodded and told her I was going to go back to my book. She nodded and right as I was about to plug in my earbuds to drown out her voice while I read, she stopped me with her voice.

“Hey, I’m bored, do you think Ahyoung and Somi are busy?” I took out my earbuds once more and shrugged. 

“Probably not.” 

“Hm. Is it cool if I invite them over? I mean, you don’t have to say yes if you just want to be alone, I know how you get like that.” 

I forced an awkward smile. “Um, I actually want to just chill and be alone, but you can always go to their rooms... they live in the same building.” I tried not to let my annoyance show in my voice, but it was rising. 

She furrowed her brows and sighed. “Yeah, but they’re so far...” She whined. 

Don’t roll your eyes. Don’t roll your eyes. Don’t roll your eyes. 

“I mean, they always come to our dorm, maybe go to them today?” I really didn’t care what she did, I just wanted to be alone. 

I turned on my music and opened my book so I didn’t have to hear her complain. She went back on her phone and I was content reading in peace. 

Five minutes later, I heard loud knocking on the door. 

What? She did not just...

“Oh, hey, Ahyoung! How’s it going?” 

No way, she did not just invite people over after I told her not to. 

I felt my blood boil, but I tried to keep my calm. I was not going to make a scene, especially since Ahyoung was my friend. 

I locked eyes with Naeun, who I visibly glared at. 

“It’s chill, y/n, you don’t have to talk we are just gonna hang a bit and then go watch some TV.” 

I bit my tongue to not snap at her. Her insensitivity was rubbing me the wrong way, but I didn’t want to blow up. We were all adults here, I didn’t want to seem like a child who got irritated when they were forced to socialize with their mom’s friends. 

Soon, I heard another knock. 

“Hey, Sooyoung! Come in, we are picking a show to watch.” 

I tried to calm down and read my book, but when I say I want to be alone, I really mean I want to be alone. 

I felt myself boil over in anger as I could still hear them over my earbuds. Their laughter and constant chatter couldn’t be tuned out. 

“Ok, we are gonna go to the lounge and watch TV. High five!” Naeun held her hand right in front of my face and I hit it just to make her leave. I swear, I’d rather hit her face instead. 

As soon as I heard the door slam shut, I pulled out my earbuds and went to rinse my face. 

How insensitive of her! I explicitly told her not to invite anyone over to the dorm, and there she goes. She can’t walk up one flight of stairs to see our friends?? So fucking rude. 

Living in the dorms as an introverted person was terribly hard. I don’t even know if introverted is the right word for it anymore if I want to go days without talking to people. And it sucks when no one truly understands me and doesn’t take my words seriously. 

I groaned and stared at myself in the mirror.

“Just two more quarters and you’re free for the summer.” 

I sighed and wiped my face on my towel. 

College was hard. 

I had found my group in college, but unfortunately, I had made the same mistakes as I did in high school. First, I stayed connected with some friends from high school who I had planned on cutting off. And most importantly, I put too much time and effort into people who disrespect me and don’t care for me. 

And now I live with someone like that. 

It angered me to feel so out of place, so alone in the dorms even when I had friends. Whenever I wanted to escape, there was no where to go. All my friends were here. 

I clenched my fist. 

All of a sudden, I couldn’t just sit down and read. I glanced over in the corner of the room and saw the camera from my photography class sitting there. 

I looked outside my window and saw the soft snow falling down. 

I quickly pulled on a warm, puffy jacket, jeans, and headed out to take some photos with my trustworthy camera. 

-----

The air was colder than I remembered. I felt my nose crinkle as the wind blew snow into my nose. 

The city was beautiful; it was painted in white sparkles. I snapped a few photos and took a deep breath. 

I loved being outside and having no one notice me; this was one of my favorite things about living in the city and college in general. I snapped pictures of groups of people walking across the street. The blur of the street lights combined with the softness of the snow captivated me. 

“Some nice pics you got there.” 

I jumped at the voice and almost dropped my camera; thankfully, it’s always wrapped around my neck.

“Oh gosh, I’m so sorry! I didn’t think you’d get so scared.” 

I looked up and saw a boy around my age staring at me. And dang, was he cute. 

I thanked God for the weather because my cheeks were already red. 

“Uh, um, it’s fine.” I fibbed quickly. I felt awkward because I didn’t know how to act around guys my age, especially ones as cute as him. 

Be friendly, be friendly. He just wants to be friends.

“Um, I’m y/n by the way.” I took out my hand to shake his. He chuckled and reciprocated the action.

“Jihoon, Park Jihoon. You live in this building too?” He pointed at the building next door to me. I shook my head and watched as the snow fell onto my shoulders.

“Oh no, I live in this one.” He nodded. “Are you a freshman?” I asked. 

He laughed heartily. I liked how he didn’t hide his emotions. “Oh no, I’m a sophomore this year but I’m an RA in this building.” 

I made an “O” shape with my mouth. “Ah, a resident adviser. I’m applying to be one next year, kinda nervous but hopefully I’ll get the job.” 

His eyes widened. “Oh really? I rarely meet people who want to baby a bunch of freshmen.” I laughed at his comment. “But hey, it’d be cool if we were in the same dorm next year. You could teach me to take such pretty pictures.” I laughed and flipped through the photos on my camera out of habit.

“Don’t get your hopes up, I haven’t even been accepted for the job yet. Also, I’m taking photography 101 with Professor Lee Miyoung, I’m sure she’s a better teacher than I am.” I teased. 

He shrugged. “Well, I doubt she’s as pretty as you.” 

My heart froze. 

W-what? Did he just flirt with me? Oh god, what do I say now? How do I flirt back? I-

“Sorry, was that weird? I wanted to call you pretty but I didn’t mean to lowkey talk about a professor’s beauty either.” He looked mildly embarrassed when he shook out his hair full of snow. 

I gave him a small smile. “Um, no, not weird, it was actually kind of smooth. I don’t really know how to respond to flirting.” 

Oh my god. I just said that. 

His eyes lit up mischievously as I tried not to blush even harder.

“Oh flirting? Is that what we are doing?” He teased.

“Technically, that’s what you are doing.” He laughed loudly and his voice echoed throughout the streets. I only hoped to have that loud of a voice as an RA. 

“You got me there.” He then looked down at his watch and frowned. 

“What’s wrong?”

He looked up at me with his soft brown puppy eyes. I swear this guy is too cute to be real. “Um, my shift is starting soon.” He then took out his phone. “I know we just met, but you seem pretty cool-”

Before he could finish, I took his phone and typed in my number.

“There, now you can teach me how to be an RA and I can teach you how to take photos.” I said as confidently as I could. 

He seemed a bit surprised at my voice, but nodded.

“Sounds great, see you later.” He waved to be as he walked away, but slipped on a patch of snow. 

“Ah, be careful!” I shouted. He gave me a small smile and walked back into his dorm.

Well, at least this day ended on a high note. 

-----

“Hey, where’d you go last night? We were wondering where you were at.” 

I’m an adult, I don’t have to tell you everywhere I go.

I bit back the words and forced a small smile. “Oh, I just went to take some photos for my photography class. The snow looked really pretty last night.” I left out the minor detail that a cute boy started to talk to me. I wanted to keep the giddiness to myself. 

“Oh cool. I just came back from the gym. I saw a really cute boy in there. He was really fit, dark skinned, dark hair. And he smiled at me and I smiled back. We didn’t get to talk because I was so out of breath, but I hope he’s at the gym again.” She went off without me asking her too. 

I understand that I’m being a bit tough on her, but she irritated me first by inviting people over when I told her not to. People always talk about communication in college, but sometimes people just don’t listen to you. 

“Cool, hope you see him again.” I said nicely. I have to put on a nice face with my roommates, as I don’t want to be in an awkward living situation. 

“Yeah... how was your day today?” 

-----

“And then she just invited you guys over, disregarding what I had just said before! Isn’t that rude?” I voiced to Ahyoung, my best friend. I’d known her before going to college, well, I’ve known her since we were 8. 

She looked a bit hesitant on what to say. 

I went on about the situation. “I’m not saying I hate seeing you guys, but you know how I get when I want to be alone. I...I just want to be alone and it makes me crazy when I see people. Plus, I told Naeun I wanted to chill out and be alone and then she just invites you guys over, without telling me?? I’m not crazy.” I ranted. 

Ahyoung sighed and took a sip of her coffee filled with milk and sugar. 

“I mean, she did say she was inviting us over in the groupchat.” 

I glared at the younger girl. “Excuse me, I was sitting right next to her, she knows I didn’t check my phone. It’s rude to not tell your roommate you’re inviting people over, and it’s even ruder when we just talked about how I didn’t want her to invite people over. It’s not like she forgot within the five minutes.” 

“True. That wasn’t nice of her.” I noticed she hesitated on saying anything bad about her. We were all friends, but I was the one who had problems with friends in the group, as usual. I didn’t like very many people, but I was civil and nice to everyone; that’s what being an adult is all about. 

“Yeah...” I trailed off. I don’t know when it got so weird between us, but it felt like I couldn’t talk to my best friend about things in my life. I didn’t even tell her about the cute guy who flirted with me. Deep inside of me, I knew she didn’t deserve to know these things about me when she didn’t want to hear the bad parts of my life. 

It felt like everyone wants to be around me when I’m laughing and joking, never when I’m serious and want to talk about my feelings. No one wants to listen when I want to rant about real things in life, yet they love when someone rants about some “dumb” thing a girl did in the hallway. 

I didn’t get why they judged people before they knew them. I always tried to talk with people before I made judgements, yet people think it’s weird when I judge people I talk to. That’s the way you’re supposed to judge people... when you get to know them personally. Duh.

As I was talking, I saw her eyes focused on something far away from me. 

I turned around and saw her crush standing there. She stopped listening to me as he waved at her. I saw her eyes bright up when she saw him and I grew annoyed. I was telling her about something that was bothering me, and then she chooses a boy over me. Not cool. 

“Hello? Earth to Ahyoung??” I teased. She shrugged me off. 

“He’s so cute. I know he doesn’t like me, but I can’t help myself.” 

I snorted. “Yeah, he doesn’t like you and actually, he only dates white girls and you my friend, are not white.” I knew I was being harsh, but I hear about him every single second and it angers me when I want to vent about something in my life and she doesn’t think I’m as important as her crush.

She flinched at my harsh words. 

“You just wouldn’t understand, you’ve never had a crush before. You’ve never been in love before.” She said matter of factly. 

Ouch. 

This was all true, but it hurt when she said it like that. I’ve never felt romantic love, wow, thanks for reminding me. Maybe I’m too busy taking care of my dumb friends who don’t care about me. 

Maybe.

-----

“Bye, see you later.” I waved her off as we both went to class.

As soon as I turned around, I saw a familiar face. 

Jihoon. 

I fixed my hair and prayed none of my mascara had smeared on my face. 

Be confident, make friends. 

“Hey, Jihoon.” He turned around with a confused look on his face. I felt a leap in my heart when he smiled at me.

“Oh hey y/n, it’s weird to see you without a camera.” He joked. 

I felt my heart skip a beat when he said my name; I was so used to people forgetting about me. 

“Hah, well it’s weird to see you in the daylight.” I joked. When I saw him left an eyebrow, I knew I said something wrong. 

I felt my face burn up at my own words. 

“Not like that.” I blubbered out. He let out a light laugh. 

“Well, I mean, you’re right.” He took note of my embarrassed state and changed the subject. “So, what class are you headed to?”

“History of the Ancient Greek and Roman worlds, how bout you?” 

“Woah, what an interesting class. I’m heading to choir practice actually.” That made me stop in my tracks.

“Wait, you sing?” 

He chuckled. “Yup, that is what you do in choir.” I felt a bit embarrassed at my statement. “I’m joking, I’m joking, but yes, I do sing. Have been doing so for my whole life.”

“I did choir up until high school, I didn’t feel good enough for college. I still don’t know how to read music and it’s been years.” 

“It’s hard, but you get used to it. You should give it a shot if you really want to though. Or come watch one of our performances.” I smiled at him.

“One day.” I stopped walking and pointed at the building in front of us. “This is me. I’ll see you later?” 

He nodded and smiled. 

“I’ll see you later.”

-----

Two weeks had passed and I hadn’t seen much of Jihoon. We waved to each other in passing, but it was midterms soon, and exams were the only thing on my mind. We sent each other memes daily though and we just got each other’s humor- that was rare. 

I was filling out my history study guide until I heard my roommate, Naeun, walk in.

“Hey, y/n~ Ahyoung, Sooyoung and I saw you talking to a boy yesterday~ Oooooooo what’s his name?” 

She sat right in front of me, not giving me any personal space. 

I tried not to blush but honestly, my face was turning red because I was so annoyed at her.

“His name is Jihoon. He’s an RA in the dorm next to us, we met at an RA informational meeting.” I lied. I didn’t want to tell her I ran out of the dorm because I couldn’t handle her and people.

“He’s cute, nice body too.” I felt a an overwhelming sense of jealously and protectiveness wash over me. I hated it. I didn’t want to be this person. I probably only felt this way because I didn’t like Naeun right now. 

“Yeah, you can have him if you want. I’m not into him.” I lied. 

She raised a brow. “Really? Don’t be upset if he falls for me then.” I knew she was joking when she flipped her hair dramatically, but I wasn’t into it. 

I felt my buried insecurities rise when I stared intensely at her face. Her eyebrows were neatly plucked, which I was always too scared to do. Her skin was tanned and even, not blotchy and red like mine. Her fashion was trendy and most boys liked her because of her socialness, on the contrary, I was awkward and mean to boys, unintentionally. 

I just went back to doing my homework, shaking off the comparison. 

-----

Later that night, I saw a message pop up in my texts which was weird because I usually mute everyone.

‘hey midterms are killing me and i dont understand anything... want ice cream?’ 

I tried not to laugh even though both my roommates were at the library. 

‘uhhh shouldnt u be studying if u dont understand anything?? mayb??’ 

‘LOL thats not how it works young padawan’ I rolled my eyes. He thinks he’s so much older than me. 

‘also I don’t eat ice cream, i don’t eat dairy’

‘... aight imma head out’ 

I snorted and tilted my head back in laughter. 

‘ok, no ice cream... what DO you like?’

You. I like you. 

... Definitely not sending that.

‘UMMM i like hot chocolate?’ 

‘okay, i’ll be at your dorm in 5. what is your room number again?’

‘303′ 

‘aight’ 

I looked down at short shorts and tank top and then at the harsh winds outside. I threw on a pair of cute leggings and a heavy sweater. I put on a black jacket over it and placed a beanie on my head. 

I did my brows and put on a few swipes of mascara. I carefully applied my lightly colored lip balm and sprayed face mist to look dewy and cute. 

Is this a date? Or is this just two friends being adventurous? 

Whatever, I want to look cute at least.

Seconds after I finish, I hear a knock at my door. I took a deep breath.

This isn’t a date. This isn’t a date. Calm down.

I opened the door. 

He was wearing a puffy jacket and dark black jeans that outlined his thigh muscles. Yum.

I also noticed he was wearing a gray beanie... which was identical to mine.

“Cute hat.” I noted. He grinned and tugged on my beanie. 

“Same goes for you. Ready for some hot chocolate?” 

“Yes, where are we going to get said chocolate caliente?” 

Jihoon gave me a weird look. “Chocolate what?” 

I stared at him, stunned. “Chocolate caliente. Caliente means hot in Spanish. Therefore, hot chocolate. You didn’t take Spanish in high school?” 

He shook his head. “Nope, I took Japanese because I’m a weeb.” I snorted. 

“Wow, I should be surprised but I’m not.” He pushed me playfully and I tried not to freak out over the warmth of his skin. 

“You’re telling me you don’t watch any anime?” 

I rolled my eyes. “Of course I watch some anime. But am I full blown weeb... no.” 

He narrowed his eyes at me. “I can change that, don’t worry.”

“You still didn’t tell me where we are going.” My fingers felt crisp from the cold air. It wasn’t snowing tonight, but the ground was still white. 

“Aha, we are going to my favorite cafe called ‘Pink Heart Cafe’. It is decked in pink hearts.” 

“As expected from a Pink Heart Cafe.” I joked. In the near distance, I noticed a sign that had a baby pink heart that wrote ‘Pink Heart Cafe’ in cute lettering. 

I crinkled my nose from the cold air. “What, you don’t like pink?” 

“No, no, I love the color pink actually. It’s just kinda cold out here.” He nodded. 

“Maybe it would be warmed if we held hands... maybe.” 

For the first time, I felt comfortable with someone’s flirtatious comment.

I smirked and hooked my hand with his. I felt my heart beater faster. Much faster. And I loved it. 

I saw him smile widely and hide it with his hair. 

“I’m a lucky guy.” He whispered. 

We walked into the cafe. 

“Hi! Welcome to Pink Heart Cafe, for here or to go?” 

“For here, please.” The woman nodded. 

“Please take a seat. We will come take your order soon.”

We took our seats in the corner, next to the pink fairy lights. I was in love with the aesthetic. 

“Cute place. And fancy it seems, they come take our order at the table.” I sang a bit of Twice’s Fancy. 

“Oh gosh, you love Twice?? Me too!” I shrugged nonchalantly. 

“I mean, I like them, their songs are cute and catchy but I’m not a diehard fan.” 

He frowned. I can change that too. 

I sighed and rolled my eyes dramatically. “Wow, it seems like there are a lot of things you want to change about me. What do you even like about me?” I teased. 

He smiled harder and I noticed a blush on his face. 

“Uhhh, that’s a good question. I like... I like how you’re honest with your emotions. I like how you’re good at photography. I like that you want to become an RA because of the money and--” I gasped and pushed him on the arm.

“That’s not the only reason! Yes... the pay is good, but I like helping people.” 

Our laughter died down as he gazed at me intensely. 

“You like helping people? Tell me more about that.” 

I paused. No one had asked me that before. 

“Um, no one’s asked me that before. I guess I just like to see people happy. I like appealing to people’s emotions and most times, I’m pretty good at making people like me.” I said honestly. I saw his face light up at my words. “And I also want to be a teacher after I graduate, so being an RA would help improve my social skills and teach me how to interact with those younger than me and work through their problems. I don’t know, people say it’s hard and that it can be tough if kids come to you with suicidal thoughts and feelings of anxiety and depression, but I mean, I just want to do it and give back to the community somehow... I don’t know. ” I mumbled off, feeling like I said too much.

His gaze was so serious, I was scared I bored him to death.

He leaned closer to me and I freaked out. I held my breath, waiting for what was next until he spoke. 

“You’re so awesome.” He finally said. 

That... that was surprising.

“Um, thanks?”

“I’m serious! That’s so amazing why you want to be an RA. Honestly, I took up this job because it pays well and I’m good at talking to people, but sometimes I couldn’t care less about my residents. I like how you’re so kind to people.”

I laughed, “I’m not that nice.” 

“Yeah right, you were nice to me the first time we met. And I could’ve been a creepy dude and I almost made you break your camera.” 

“Well, I was nice to you because you are a cute boy.” He choked on his drink at my blunt words. I grew shy all of a sudden and laughed with him. 

“Jesus, give a boy a warning before you say such words.” He was pink in the face and I felt my heart warm. 

“It’s true, you are attractive. But it is also true that I’m not nice. My roommate is irritating the heck out of me and I have to tell myself every time I talk to her to say nice things and not hurt her feelings ‘cause she’s so damn sensitive.” 

He paused for a moment. I was nervous he would think I was a bad person. Which... technically is what I’m trying to convince him of. 

“Wow, you just got ten times nicer.” Now it was my turn to choke on my drink. 

“What? I just told you I have to force myself to be nice to my roommate even though I just want to snap at her all the time.” 

Jihoon leaned back in his chair with a smug look on his face. “Exactly! Most people would’ve just called her a bitch and moved on! Moved out or from what I’ve seen, some girls do mean shit like throwing another girl’s clothes out of her closet or flirting with her boyfriend. You... you just be nice when someone is mean to you.”

“She’s not mean, just rubbing me the wrong way.” Jihoon rolled his eyes.

“See? You are still defending her even though I’m sure she’s putting you through more than other people would take.” 

I shrugged. “I don’t know, most people don’t take me seriously when I talk about it.” 

“Try me.” 

I hesitated at first, but when I saw his open and honest look, I spilled.

“Well, I’m quite an introverted person so I need my alone time. And when I told her, this was actually the night that I met you, um, I told her that I wanted to be alone. And then she invited people over to the room and yes, they left soon, but when I’m in my isolation mood, I just... I just don’t even want to look at people.” 

He stared at me with a curious look so I rambled on. “I know, it’s dumb-”

He placed a gentle hand on top of mine.

“No, that’s not dumb at all. She should’ve respected your words. I would be so mad. Give me more!” He pounded his fist on the table for dramatic effect. 

I felt my heart lighten when he wanted to hear more of my words. I was so used to people ignoring me and brushing over my concerns.

“Uh, well, just... well not just Naeun, my roommate, but some of my friends in the same dorm as me. They are just really judgmental and the negativity just pains me. I don’t like judging others before getting to know them, so hearing them talk bad about random people they don’t know just pains me. And I’m no saint, yes I judge people, but I make sure I talk to them first and get to know them before I make judgments.”

Jihoon smiled. “You keep getting better the more I get to know you. I do the same thing, my friends think I’m crazy when I say ‘hey that dude looks kinda mean and no one likes him, i’ll be friends with him’!” 

My eyes widened. “Oh my god, that’s how I met most of my friends!” 

We laughed as we bad mouthed our friends and the people who have hurt us. 

“Why do you stick with such crappy friends? No offense, you deserve so much better.” 

I shrugged. “I mean, everyone says that to me and truly, I don’t even know. I just feel so connected to them now and they have their good moments-”

“Good moments aren’t enough if they consistently hurt you.”

“I know, I know! I just... maybe I’m not that good of a person then if I stay with them. Like people say, you are who your friends are.” 

“That’s bull, you’re a good person, I know that. And your friends don’t even care to listen to you rant, I can tell I’m the first person you told all this stuff too because you have flames in your eyes. You deserve friends you can trust and are able to rant to. I promise.” 

I bit my lip, thinking of what to say. 

“Thank you, I guess I just think I am helping them by staying with them. I don’t want to hurt their feelings.” 

“Just know that you have me now, and if you ever need to rant or vent or whatever, I’m here for you. You have me now.” 

I felt a wave of emotion wash over me. No one’s ever said that to me before and meant it. I know he meant it, it was written all over his face. 

I nodded slowly, accepting the moment we were having. 

We sat in a moment of silence until the waiter came for the check.

I dug through my pockets to get out the ten dollar bill I stuffed in there. 

“Hah funny,” Jihoon chided when he whipped out his card before I could do anything. I gasped. 

“Ah, Jihoon, I brought money!” 

He tsked and stood when the waiter gave him his card back. “Yeah right, I’d never let a girl pay on the first date, that’s like... illegal.” I rolled my eyes, until I realized what he had just admit.

“Date?” I questioned carefully. 

He looked away from my gaze, like he didn’t mean to say the word. 

“Yes... date. Do you have a problem with that?” 

I grinned.

“Nope.”

[itrytowrite-things]

Welcome to Buzzfeed high

Summary: Reader works at Buzzfeed and is filming ‘Following a High School Schedule for 24 Hours’ video with Jazzmyne and Lindsay. Can shane and Y/N keep it professional when Shane is suppose to be her teacher? This fic is based off of this video. 

A/N: Hey guys, so how this is going to work is normal text is the actual scene and bold represents the interview scenes. I couldn’t think of a better way to distinguish between the two if you guys have any ideas please let me know. Sidenote: thanks to @fuckhead-writer for helping me edit this fic 

The small board room erupted with laughter, everyone staring down at the “school” schedule that had just been handed out. Y/N shook her head at the silly thing, already knowing that she would hate almost every second of the day tomorrow.

“Okay here is how the day is going to go,” Allsup said breaking the laughter from the head of the table. He goes into the spiel about how Buzzfeed will be running the video. The three women were prompted to vlog during any moments of the day when a camera was not set up for them. Allsup then started listing how the classes where going to be run. 

“So your going to my teacher huh?” Y/N leaned over whispering into Shane’s ear, bored of Allsup’s rant. Shane tipped back in his chair, smirking slightly. They both found the newest project extremely funny. The list of teacher/student taboo jokes would write themselves tomorrow; making the episode better.

“Okay Shane,” all the attention was turned towards the lanky man as Allsup addressed him directly. “Do you have a lesson plan for tomorrow?” The question hung in the air before Shane cracked a joke. 

“Oh yes! These women better be ready for the rigorous lesson I have planned, really going to make them work.” The group laughed at the comment before Allsup moved on to the next “teacher” asking about their lesson plans. That’s how it went the employees telling their boss that they did have a lesson plan that they were excited for, until it was Janna turns to talk about her lesson. She stood up passing out a paper to the three women that would be portraying the students. 

“I actually have a homework assignment for my students, they will be responsible for reading Act 1 scene 2 of Romeo and Juliet and writing an analysis paper on it.” Y/N’s heart started to beat a little faster. She had been great at English back in high school, but she hadn’t written a paper in ten years. Not to mention her hatred for anything Shakespeare. 

Y/N glanced down at the paper, taking in all the details of the assignment. Settling back down, she noticed the paper only had to be one page; double spaced. How hard could that be? After all the details were written up, the meeting was adjourned with the reminder that the school bus would be picking them up outside of Jazz’s house at 6:50 am. 

Y/N sat in between Jazzmyne and Lindsay, light shining down on the three of them. They were filming the intro before leaving to officially start the challenge with their homework tonight.

“Hi I’m Jazzmyne.” The woman to Y/N’s left introduced herself. 

“I’m Y/N.”

“And I am Lindsay.”

“And we are following a highschool schedule for 24 hours.” The three said at the same time, slightly out of unison. Y/N flashed the schedule to the camera giving a glimpse of what the viewers had to look forward to. 

“We have a set of rules, you disobey the rules you get a strike. Three strikes you get sent to detention.” Jazz explained. 

“The rules are simple: no skipping class, no foul language, no phones out in class without permission, no bad behavior, hall passes are required, follow the dress code, and lastly do not be tardy.” Lindsay said reading from the list they were given. 

“So what I am hearing is, all of us are going to end up in detention by the end of the day?” Y/N joked laughing. The other women soon joined in. Jazzymne stated what rules she would have a problem with before announcing their homework assignment.

“We have to write an essay on Romeo and Juliet. It has to be a page analyzing act 1 scene 2.”

“It’s double spaced right?” Lindsay asked, giving a worried face to the camera. 

“My significant other, K8, is a 9th grade english teacher who teaches Romeo and Juliet.” Jazz mentioned, leaving both of the other women mouth’s in a pout. 

“Well, that’s just not fair.” Y/N stated.  

Y/N sat on the floor with her legs crossed, knees pressed up against the coffee table. Her laptop sat open to an empty word doc, the paper describing her assignment sat next to it. She quickly pulled out the small black camera Buzzfeed had supplied her for vlogging. 

“Okay guys so It’s 9 o’clock at night. I have read the act, understood almost nothing, and now I am going to attempt to write my paper.” The woman talked to the camera before switching it around showing her blank doc. “Shane refuses to help me.” Y/N turned the device again showing her boyfriend slumped on the couch above her, typing on his phone.

“Sorry, have to do it on your own.” He says unapologetically, shrugging his shoulders dramatically for the camera. She shut the viewfinder and placed the camera on the table. Y/N scanned over the requirements of the assignment once again before typing in the doc.

So wrapped up in her work, Y/N didn’t even notice Shane slide off the couch onto the floor. Him reading over her shoulder. He placed a quick kiss to her arm startling her out of her work flow.

“It’s good sweetheart, really good.” Shane wraps his extremely long arms around the small woman, smiling as she continues typing.

“Thanks bub.” She said taking her left hand off of the keys, and nessiling it in his floppy brown hair. He smiled happily pushing his head into her hand. Kissing at her neck, a laugh escaped her diaphragm. 

“Shane. Stop. Have to. Finish my paper.” She let out in between giggles. 

“Mmh or you could blow it off like a real high school student.” He suggests looking down at the clock on her laptop. It flashed 10:39 in the lower right hand corner. Y/N turned her head, looking into his golden brown eyes. The puppy dog look that was displayed on them melted her heart. Causing a smile to appear on her face, she pressed her lips against Shane’s for a short kiss. She was reluctant to pull away. 

“I am almost done babe, go play some video games or something. I promise ten more minutes and I will be finished.” Shane let out a pout, kissing her again before standing up. His long legs unfolded as he stands, them cracking slightly, producing another laugh from Y/N. 

She was a woman of her word. Less than ten minutes later, she closed her laptop, happy with her paper. Y/N looked up at Shane, he had changed into a pair of plaid pajama bottoms and a white tee. He looked comfortable. his thumbs lazily moving across the Xbox controller. She stood in front of him, smiling down at him. Shane raised his head to peer up at her, pausing his game. She crawled into his lap, watching as he returned her smile with one equally as kind. 

“So Mr. Madej, what will you be teaching me in class tomorrow?” She asked in a teasing tone, hands wrapped around his neck. He placed a hand on her back, the other to her hip as his thumb rubbed her hipbone like the controller, lazy and soft.

“Mmh can’t tell you that princess, now can I? That’s just not fair to my other students.” His voice was a soft whisper as he spoke. She stuck her tongue out at him, giving him a kiss before laying her head in the crock of his neck, feeling suddenly tired in his warm embrace.   

 “Well let’s get you to bed little lady. Big day tomorrow, first day of school.” Shane stood up, as Y/N clung to his body sleepily. Legs wrapping around his slender waist as he carried her to bed. 

Her arm shot out immediatly, shutting off the stupid alarm. One of the perks of working at Buzzfeed, is they normally have pretty slack business hours. Which meant the women normally strolled in at 10, but not today. Her alarm was set for 5:50 last night and it did not disappoint, going off at 5:50 am on the dot. Y/N  tugged on the string of her lamp. Rolling over, she was met with Shane’s bareback. She moved closer to him, craving his warmth. As soon as her body was press against his, Shane was turning around. 

“Got to get up sweetheart, suppose to be vlogging.” Sitting up, he kissed her on the forehead before getting out of bed and walking into the master bathroom they share. As much as she hated to admit it, he was right. 

The vlog camera was held above her as she laid back down into the bed, head resting on her pillow. 

“It’s currently 5:58,” she said and held up her phone showing the time “This freaking sucks, I don’t want to get out of bed.” She snuggled closer into her pillow before switching the camera off and getting out of bed.  

“It was the worst part.” Y/N claimed, pouting at the camera. Jazz and Lindsay nodded in agreement 

“Like I remember pulling all nighters or staying up until 4 am doing school work in highschool and waking up at 6. I have no idea how I did that, I only stayed up until like 11:30 the night before and it took everything out of me to get out of bed in the morning.” Y/N explained herself. 

“Exactly! Damn teenageers are ruthless.” Jazzmyne added. 

“Yeah, I certainly don’t miss that part of school.” Lindsay said making the final statement. 

It wasn’t until 6:48 when Y/N pulled out the camera again. She was in her car outside of Jazzmyne’s house. She huffed lightly, straightening out her baby blue jean jacket. It was over a black band tee paired with black ripped jeans. She decided to dress like she did in highschool going back to her edgy roots. 

“So It’s 6:48. The bus gets here at 6:50 and I am just now arriving at Jazz’s house, so that’s my morning. Oh there’s Lindsay. Glad we all don’t have our shit together.” She turned the camera showing Lindsay pointing her camera at Y/N. They both gave an unenthusiastic wave to the other person’s camera. Before stepping out of her car, Y/N turned her camera off shuffling over towards Lindsay to get in the frame of her camera. 

“So running late as well?” Lindsay poses the question with a laugh, Y/N just nodded her head laughing as well. 

“If we are running behind, I can’t imagine what Jazz is like.” Y/N said adding fuel to their laughter. 

“The bus was suppose to leave at 6:51. I didn’t walk out of my house until 6:53.” Jazz rolled her head with statement, her black frame sunglasses sliding down her face. 

“Thankfully the bus was still there. Normally that would not happen.” Lindsey butted in.  

“Actually I made really good friends with my bus drivers, they would have waited for me.” The woman on the left clapped back.  

“Of course you did. I can see it now, ‘Oh Jazzmyne, I love her let me just give a little honk’.” Y/N pushed her palm against the air to stimulate a horn. The three women busted out laughing knowing that’s exactly what happened. 

Allsup was standing outside of the office in a suit, his hands held behind his back looking strikingly like a real principal. Y/N so desperately want to laugh at the man pacing in front of the door. The three women dropped their heads as they passed him on their way into the building, each mumbling their own version of ‘Hello Principal Allsup’.

Buzzfeed had went all out for this video, even going as far as making a little hallway lined with lockers with posters hanging around them promoting fake clubs and plays. Each woman chose a locker and placed their gym clothes in it along with anything extra they didn’t need. The women stared at each other after they closed their lockers.

“Okay well I have to go do morning announcements.” The blonde said sipping what Y/N assumed was water through a pink straw. 

“Okay, see you in first hour.” Jazz said throwing her backpack over her shoulder and heading towards stage 8 for their first class of the day. Y/N gave a small wave to Lindsay before following behind Jazz. 

“Our schedule starts with history with Mr. Madej.” Lindsay points out while waving the schedule back and forth in front of the camera. She turned to wiggle her eyebrows at Y/N. Y/N felt a small blush heat up her face. 

“We know that will be your favorite class.” Jazz said and bumped shoulders with the woman teasingly. 

“What can I say, I like history.” She retaliated, shrugging her shoulders. 

First hour was with Shane, and Y/N couldn’t help but be excited to see him. They typically get to commute to work together. She missed that time they normally got to share together, so she was eager to see him.

“This is so cute.” Jazz said gesturing to the tiny classroom that Buzzfeed had set up in stage 8. It truly was cute, a little chalkboard was set up in front of the room, a world map drawn on it in chalk. There was a table with three red chairs in front of the board. A small circular table sat next to the board, a water bottle and book placed on it. Then there was Shane. He leaned over the tiny table reading the book. 

That’s what Y/N eyes trained on, she couldn’t focus on anything else. Shane was dressed professionally, wearing a white and navy blue striped button down paired with a red tie. It made his torso look long and lean. His lengthy legs were covered by black skinny jeans held up by a brown belt. He looked so handsome. Her eyes couldn’t focus on anything else, her mouth felt dry looking at him. 

“Good morning.” Shane Mr. Madej said as the two women entered the room. He nodded softly, watching as they took their seats next to each other. Jazz sat in the middle seat as Y/N took the one closest to the wall. 

“You look spiffy.” Jazz said from her seat.

“Oh thank you.” Shane replied looking down at his outfit, tugging at his tie. Y/N nodded her head in agreement. Words not really working out for her at the moment. They sat in silence for a moment before the speaker crackled from somewhere in the room. Allsup’s voice filled the room. 

“Goodmorning Buzzfeed High! Hope you all have a fun day, but remember to have fun, you have to follow the rules.” Shane pointed up in the air at the word ‘follow’ and back to the two women at the word ‘rules’. Y/N and Jazz laughed pointing a finger back at him. There was silence as the mic was passed to Lindsay. 

“Please stand for the pledge of Allegiance.” Her voice boomed. 

“Here we go I was waiting for that.” Shane smiled pointing towards the small American flag that he had taped up on a bookshelf. Y/N smiled at his pride for the tiny flag. The announcements carried on with Lindsay stumbling through the lunch menu. 

“What the hell? These announcements suck.” Jazz laughed. The mic was passed back to principle Allsup. 

“Let’s go corgi’s, go get them, woof woof!” And that was the end of morning announcements. 

Lindsay soon joined the other two women in history, taking her seat next to Jazz. She placed her bag on the floor getting comfortable for the lesson. 

“How’s everyone doing this morning?” Mr.Madej asked clapping his large hands together. 

“Well you know, it’s early.” Jazzmyne mumbled back at him. 

“I am gonna see if I can switch this board around.” He pushed the board forward trying to flip it to the other side. He unfortunately didn’t pull it forward enough, causing it to smack against the wall. The sound echoed throughout the room. She tried to hold it in, she really did, but Y/N couldn’t fight back the bubbling laughter that flowed out of her. Shane’s head snapped back to the woman, a smirk plastered on his face. 

“You think that’s funny Miss.Y/L/N?” 

“Yes.” She gasped, barely getting it out among the fits of laughter. Shane stared her down, trying to be serious but he couldn’t help but laugh back. Everything about Y/N was contagious, so it wasn’t a surprise when only laughter filled the room. 

“Mr. Madej was a cool teacher.” Jazz stated, Lindsay nodding her head in agreement. 

“It was a nice way to start off the day.” The blonde said. 

“He was hot.” Y/N said dryly, like him being hot was a fact not a statement. The other woman burst out laughing. 

“He just had a great way of connecting with us, having fun.” Lindsay added trying to get the conversation back on topic, but failed as the next thing out of Y/N mouth was:

“I really wish I could have connected with him a little more if you know what I mean” She gave a wink to the camera and a smirk to go along with it. 

Y/N blanked out as Shane started his lesson. Her focus was on the way Shane moved around the chalkboard, scribbling his messy handwriting in orange chalk. She watched his lips move, he was talking about something history related she was sure of that, but she didn’t exactly know what. 

“Miss. Y/L/N are you okay?” His voice snapped her out of her trance. 

“Yes sorry just a bit distracted.” 

“And what is distracting you?”

“You are, with those tight jeans and perfect lips.” She teased back at him, Lindsay snickered at the comment.

“That’s highly inappropriate Miss. Y/L/N.”

“I believe that falls under bad behavior Mr. Madej.” Jazz points out smirking at Y/N. Her eyes widening back at the short haired woman. 

“I am afraid I have to agree, sorry that’s a strike.” Y/N’s face was priceless as her mouth hung open, her eyes so wide they might explode out from her. 

Jazz tried to talk, but the laughter was too much. She and Lindsay both hunched over with their laughter. Y/N on the other hand, sat in the middle, fake fuming for the sake of good entertainment. 

“Okay sorry,” Jazzmyne said finally calming herself down “So Y/N got a strike for flirting with a teacher.” 

“I really thought it would be Jazz to get a strike for being inappropriate, but here comes Y/N talking about Mr. Madej’s tight jeans and perfect lips.” Both women laughed at the reintroduction of Y/N words. 

“He really should have been filtered.” She crossed her arms over her chest a pout coming out on her lips. 

“But the best part was a second later she got another strike because she flicked him off when she thought he wasn’t looking.” The women were almost on the floor at that point. 

The bell rang dismissing the women to the next class which was Englsih with Ms.Macatangay. The women underestimated the time they had to get to this class, causing them to have to run up the stairs nearly dying on the way. They luckily made it just in the nick of time. They were forced to read their homework assignments in class, which made Y/N feel like she was actually back in highschool, anxiety racing through her. However, she recited it without a hitch.

Before the women knew it, it was time for P.E. They had survived physics and Spanish and they were on their way to grab their gym clothes out of their lockers. Buzzfeed had made cute little gym shirt they were black and read “Buzzfeed 2019 highschool athletic department” in white. The women were also granted other classmates in this class. Of course among those classmates was the famous Ryan Bergara. Through the two years of dating Shane, Y/N and Ryan had became somewhat close. Bonding over their shared love for the tall boy like man. So it was natural when he dropped down next to her on the floor.

“Ten minutes into P.E and Jazz gets called out for talking.” Lindsay says. 

“All I said was she was thick.” She defended herself. 

“Which I think is unfair that I got a strike for that.” Y/N chimed in. 

“That was different, I didn’t tell her to her face that she had perfect lips.” Y/N face heated up as she smirked. 

The dodgeball game started with a whistle. It was Y/N and Jazzmyne on one team and Lindsay and Ryan on the other. Y/N’s team lost the first game prompting Ryan to trash talk to her about her crappy throwing skills. Which was not a good idea because now she was out of blood. She waited for the whistle, foot touching the back wall, staring daggers at Ryan. She used her foot to push off as soon as the whistle sounded. Y/N quickly grabbed a blue ball, aiming it straight at Ryan.

“This is for trying to steal my boyfriend Bergara!” She shouted, ball flying out of her hand hitting Ryan right in the gut. He played up the pain for the camera hobbling over towards the sidelines grumbling about how Shane was his first. Her team ended up winning the second and third game. 

Lunch was the worst, the food was cold. It also didn’t help that everyone else in the office was eating chipotle. Y/N was over the day at that point. She was hungry, tired, and her brain ached from all the knowledge that had been thrown at her. She grumbled her way back up the stairs for 6th hour which was math.

“I walked in thinking it was pre-cal, but it was trig I never took that class in highschool.” Lindsay complained. 

“Same.” 

“I took it, but I didn’t remember anything.” Y/N stated, her enthusiasm slipping. 

Y/N sat through the class, head in her hands trying to understand what Mr. St.Juste was writing on the board. She might have been the only one to take the class in highschool, but it didn’t make the subject any less alien to her. Luckily they all passed and were on their way to their last class, home ec with Mrs. Mcclenny. They were making Tamagoyaki, a japanese style omelette. It was delicious which was amazing because Y/N was starving. A huge sigh left all three women lips as the final bell rang. 

“It was exhausting and I never want to do it again.” Y/N stated bluntly. 

“Yeah, teenagers deal with a lot of shit and we should appreciate them more.” Lindsay said. 

“Exactly, well that was following a highschool schedule. We are going to go home and sleep for five years.” Jazz said. 

“Bye!” All three said in unison waving at the camera. 

Y/N was slowly grabbing things out of her locker when Shane creeped up and leant against the locker next to hers. Looking like a stereotypical jock from a teen movie. He smiled, watching as her slumped body packed up her things. 

“Need help with that beautiful?” She smiled as his voice put some energy back into her. 

“Do you flirt with all your students Mr.Madej?” She asked walking away from him. He followed after her, a cheeky smirk played on his face. They dropped the subject on their walk to the car. 

“I am so tired Shane, today was fun but awful.” She groaned resting her hand against the handle of the car. 

“Well, let me take you home and make it better princess.” A smug grin crossed his face. 

“I don’t think so asshole, you gave me two strikes.” She held up two fingers before sliding into the car, Shanes grin fell as he too got in the car 

“You’re joking right?” He asked hopefully. 

“I don’t know, get me home and we’ll see.” The grin returned as he started the car. I guess sleep could wait a little longer. 

[falsificatore]

       introducing liam d’antona as antony

“ our courteous antony, whom ne’er the word of ‘no’ woman heard speak ”  - enobarbus, antony and cleopatra (act II, scene II)

gday ! my name’s jason, i’m 18, use he/him pronouns, and live in eastern melbourne/the aedt timezone. this is my last year of mostly free time before i move to scotland to get my bachelors degree in acting - i’m insanely excited for this group, and i can’t wait to meet and write with you all! without any further ado, here’s liam!

stats

full name: liam riley santino d’antona age: 18 dob: 5th of december, 2001 gender: cis male pronouns: he/him nationality: english hometown: london, england current residence: edinburgh, scotland spoken languages: english & italian, both fluently - also knows some latin from school

history

( his full bio ended up being i-dont-even-know-how-many-thousand words long - again, kati, i’m so sorry - so for this intro i’m just gonna do my best to boil it down to the key points, but if you’d like to take a gander at the full thing you can do so here! )

tw for parental neglect, alcoholism, and death

liam d’antona was born the first and only child of an english businessman and the heiress of a historic italian winery - his parents had met in edinburgh in their early twenties, his father a student at ashcroft and his mother simply there on holiday. they kept up correspondence even when she returned home to campania, and pretty much as soon as he graduated he came down to stay with her - he won her parents affections through very quickly managing to expand their business to being more of a household name in the uk, and after they got married only a year and a half into their proper relationship they spent a few years making connections, going to lavish parties, and spending way more money than they needed to. both had already come from fairly wealthy families, but the increase in business certainly helped boost them a fair bit. 

finally, for no reason that liam could retrospectively figure out, they had him - and it was fair to say they weren’t the most generously loving parents. he was more a trophy baby than anything else, and while they were never especially vicious to him, they didn’t go out of their way to make sure he was being cared for. luckily, though, he had relatives who did - those being his grandfather on his father’s side, and his nonna on his mother’s. 

the two of them had only met in person once at his parent’s wedding, but they played equally important roles in essentially raising him as he grew up. his grandfather’s house was only a few minutes drive from his parent’s in london, so he spent more time there than not in his early childhood, spending most his time being read any book from his shelves that looked intriguing visually, and when it wasn’t that he would be taken to plays, galleries, museums, he’d be taught how to use a fountain pen and tie a tie, told stories upon stories about his life before his father was born. that was only for three quarters of the year, however - in the summers, liam’s family would travel down to campania to be with his mother’s family. while his nonno took care of business and entertaining his parents, his nonna would tell him about their family history, take him through the vineyard and down ancient streets, let him vent about his school life and tell reaffirm all the things he should be proud of about himself, her passerotto - she’d only ever get stern with him when his italian was off, but even then, she’d come round and forgive him within seconds. 

he doesn’t have a lot of clear memories of his early childhood, but he knows one thing for sure - it was golden.

primary school is where his early memory starts to clear up, especially when it comes to how he met his best friends - distracted when they were first put together as a group for an art class, they’d ended up essentially just spending the first ten minutes throwing paint at one another to see what worked, and when they got sent out and told to wait in the hallway, they’d ended up just heading outside and spending the rest of the lesson time trying to clean their uniforms under the bubblers while they got properly acquainted. he did manage to get on the good side of pretty much everyone else in his year level over time - he could tell jokes, he could speak italian, he knew enough random bullshit to impress people, and he’d actually argue with their teachers but in a way he just couldn’t get in trouble for it - but his gang of four? they were absolutely inseparable. 

when it came to actually learning, that’s where liam fell short - he’d only be able to focus if he actually cared about the subject, which was rare, and even then, liam’s always learned in conversations - all the random bullshit he’s learned, that’s all through things people have told him in discussion. he needs to be able to talk back if he wants to actually retain anything or he’ll just zone out and do something he finds more interesting - any individual studying he’s done is just to win an argument or make a point. the only extracurricular he ever did was debating - he was on his primary school team for his last two years there, but wasn’t allowed on his highschool one given how he outwardly said that the other teams points were ‘absolute bullshit’ when it was his turn to speak in the trial debates.

for his whole schooling career up until he was 16, there were only two classes he could say he did well in - latin, since it was close enough to his second language to be able to piece most things together, and english/literature, since he’d spent most of his time as a kid reading the books that would end up part of the curriculum. pretty much all of his electives were either with teachers he knew loved him, ones no one else would pick so all his friends could make it in, or simple bludge subjects - and one of the ones that fell into the last category was philosophy. he went into it with no clue what he should be expecting, but within twenty minutes he’d fallen in love - it was the one class where he was supposed to argue about nonsensical bullshit, supposed to think of out-there justifications, supposed to do all the shit he’d been sent outside time and time again for in every single other subject. it was like it was made for him - and for a teen alcoholic with an unfavourable learning style, those sorts of classes don’t come easily.

an alcoholic isn’t what liam would call himself - but the compulsive liar he is, his word shouldn’t always be trusted, especially when it comes to drinking. for him, it’s never been a risk, never an act of rebellion - his family’s fortune, his parent’s whole relationship, it was built on wine. he’s been drinking since he was five, sat up at his nonni’s dinner table with a glass of red next to his meal, and when he was finally allowed to tag along to his parent’s parties, no one seemed to mind him taking the champagne only offered by the waiters out of courtesy - some because they found it adorable, some because they were too inebriated themselves to think about it, and his parents? they simply just didn’t care. his mother had grown up with the same familiarity - it was just family custom, really. family custom that may have lead to a dependence, sure, but custom nonetheless - the passing around and judging of a new brand is the d’antona monopoly night.

for seven years since he started, his consumption was minimal - he’d have a glass at dinner, of course, and he’d take something if he was offered at a soiree, that was just polite - but it wasn’t until he was twelve when he slowly started to swim into dangerous waters. he himself wasn’t fully aware of the cause, but then, he wasn’t fully aware anything was changing other than he suddenly needed more and more to distract himself and feel anything but how he was - but the cause was there.  

his grandfather’s passing was nothing less than objective - one day he’s in his library, bitching about one of the dickheads from across the city they’d debated in their tournament that afternoon, and less than a week later his father arrives home from an unusual absence, sits him down at the table, and tells him - actually, he doesn’t know what he told him. he just comes away from it knowing he’d died. he can’t remember the conversation, can’t remember anything between the talk and the funeral - only that he hadn’t cried. neither of them had cried. he treated the funeral with the same business formality he treated his parent’s parties, keeping conversations short with a polite enough smile - but then, when the service starts and people he’d never met before start coming up and telling stories about him, his whole life, a life he’d only been there for a tiny fraction of, and the sheer love they have for him, the same as his - it’s too much. he can’t carry the coffin, can’t watch the hearse drive away - he simply collapses into his mother’s shoulder when they walk past the front row, and he sobs. for the first time since he was a newborn, he goes to her for comfort, and she gives it, in murmured italian he can’t be bothered trying to understand - but it can only last a few minutes before he has to pull away, wipe his eyes, and join the rest of the crowd. he stands alone at the burial. he doesn’t go to the wake. 

from then on out, he does remarkably fine. he goes back to talking at the back of the classroom, back to roaming the city with his friends, back to fancy parties - yes, he’s started topping up his own glasses more, taking a bottle with him when he and his friends go to hang out in the park, but he’s not crying, he’s not wallowing, and that, to him, is what matters. if there is one thing, though - he can’t bring himself to clear out the house with the others. when he comes home from an outing he’d organised as an excuse to get out of it and finds boxes and boxes of books in the corner of his room, he can’t touch them - can’t touch them for two more years. it’s only when he wakes up, fourteen, with one of the worst hangovers he’s ever had, that he finally turns to them - he can’t leave his room, he can’t look at a screen, so he finally grabs one at random. and he reads. and he cries, a bit, when he comes to the parts he can suddenly remember reading with him, when he’d do the voices or chime in to explain for the millionth time why what a character did was stupid - it’s cathartic, in a way. that becomes practice - whenever he’s hungover, at first, but soon it’s whenever he’s bored, whenever he’s lonely, he’ll go over and pick up another book, and he’ll read it until it’s done. soon enough, he uncovers a set of fountain pens, the ones he’d been taught to use as a kid, and he starts to use them again, properly, even if his friends give him shit for it at first. he goes down to his grave for the first time since he was buried, and though he doesn’t cry like he still feels like he’s meant to, he opens up a bottle of baileys - his favourite - and just talks. fills him in on all he’d missed, how his friends are doing, the girlfriends he’s had and lost since he started highschool, everything - and though he doesn’t stop drinking or properly clean up his act, he’s able to carry on.

as much as he would like to carry out all the wishes he doesn’t fully know, theres one thing liam knows he can’t do - and that’s go to ashcroft. both his father and grandfather went, business and literature majors respectively, and he knows full well they were both star students - but school’s not for him, especially not a school that posh, no matter how much they’d both encouraged him to apply as soon as he’s able. he’s seventeen, and he and his friends are taking full advantage of the fact that the school courtyard’s empty during their free gcse study period while everyone else is either in classes or, in their year, in the library - and then one of them comes up with the first spark of the plan. it’s simple - he knows he won’t have good enough results to get in, so to get his dad off his back, he’ll send whatever he gets off to ashcroft anyway, tucked in an envelope with a letter from his philosophy teacher - because who else - and some bullshit essay, and when he inevitably gets rejected, he’ll take as much money as he can and flee in shame. they all will - they’ll move to another part of london, or travel europe, or go to stay in campania, or wherever, and they’ll keep living their lives in opulence, only several hundred miles from where they first began. he does his exams, completely wasted all the while, and when his results come back he doesn’t even bother giving more than philosophy a glance before throwing them into the photocopier and sending the copy away to edinburgh. it’s flawless.

it should’ve been flawless.

when the acceptance letter comes, an actual letter in the actual post, the dickheads, he’s stunned. it takes over an hour for him to process it - there’s no way in hell he should’ve got in, but it’s his name on the envelope, his name at the top of the letter, he’s read it over and over and over again, there’s no mistake. he spends hours trying to find where the original copy of his grades were - on the photocopier, where he’d left them - and when he actually looks, he’s nearly paralysed where he stands. his mark for every subject, they’re all amazing. his whole life, he’s barely managed an average for most of his classes - when he asks his father, he just shrugs. he knows, he knows these can’t be his actual grades, he barely even remembers the exams - it isn’t until muckup day that he finds his answer.

they’re hidden at the back of the staffroom pigeonholes, only the ones belonging to his teachers - in each one, three bottles of wine, tied together with a ribbon, and attached, a card he immediately recognises as bearing an all-too-familiar signature.

it’s a school full of rich wankers, any family could use money as a bribe for better grades - but he knows full well how much all of this is worth.

not just any family can freely give out some of the finest wine in europe.

at first, he wants to go straight home, shout at his parents, call them out on all of their bullshit - he’s lied to get out of worked, sure, but he’s never cheated to get a ‘not exactly one in a million but pretty damn close’ position in one of the most prestigious schools in the country, and this isn’t even what he wants - but as he’s heading down the hallway back towards the main entrance of the building, he realises. he can’t. if he tells them he knows, then he’s admitting that he didn’t want to get in, he’s admitting he was trying to get rejected - he’ll ruin any chance he may have at salvaging the plan.

so he doesn’t mention it. he books a hotel he can stay in while he’s there for the campus tour, packs a bag and jumps on the 5:30am train from london to edinburgh. when his phone inevitably dies, he’s left only with the book he threw in last minute if he doesn’t want to just stare out into the countryside like he’s reenacting some kind of harry potter bullshit - it turns out to be moby dick, which is fine, not ever really a favourite, but decent enough for passing the time - but then he hits chapter 39. 

‘i know not all that may be coming, but be it what it will, i’ll go to it laughing.’

he’d managed to forget about it until that moment, let it sink away like basically everything else he’d lost from his childhood, but - it was the quote his grandfather had always used to reassure him, to give him confidence. the evening before his first day of primary school, he’d kneeled before him, lifted his chin, and they’d said it together, and he had, he had gone in laughing, if he hadn’t he wouldn’t have made any of his friends, gotten away with any of the shit he had - it feels like a sign, in some stupid sort of a way. and then, when he actually arrives for the tour the next day, he happens to spot a board up on the wall, and at first he’s willing to just look past it, it’s just a boring old honours board, he’d seen plenty in his time - but then a name catches his eye. his grandfather’s name, illuminated by the faintest bit of sunlight coming in through the window - and it hits him like a bolt of lightning.

he has to be here. 

it only cements itself further and further as he walks around with the rest of the group, takes in the art, the architecture, everything - it doesn’t matter if he doesn’t deserve to stay, he’ll make it so he does. he’ll work hard. he’ll actually pay attention, even when he doesn’t want to. he’ll study everything he’s told, not just the things he wants to prove a point about. he won’t stop drinking, but he’ll only do it at the end of the day. he’ll be the model of a philosophy student. he’ll care. because if he doesn’t, he’ll have to leave - and if he has to leave, he has no idea what he’ll do with himself. 

it may be a retrospective resolution, but he’ll do it. he’ll earn his place at ashcroft or he’ll die trying.

personality 

(very, very narrowed down, only key points)

+ definitely something he’s inherited from having successful businesspeople as parents, liam is quite the charmer - he’s been able to get away with most of the shit he’d pulled at school for so long simply with a smile, a shrug, or a baffled ‘i don’t know, it wasn’t us, do you want me to try and ask around?’  + despite being largely neglected save for social situations by aforementioned successful businesspeople parents, liam is genuinely compassionate more often than not, and he tries his hardest to stay polite and civil, avoiding conflict when possible and trying to include people if they’re being left out - or at least figure out why it is they got left out in the first place. + even though schoolwork isn’t really his forte, he is naturally quite curious about the world, and loves debating questions and figuring out answers - if something intrigues him, he won’t be able to forget about it until it’s properly dealt with - even then the chance of it leaving his mind is rather small. when he wants to learn, he’ll learn, and he’s good at it - he’s a quick thinker and has a good memory. + above all else, liam is a romantic - he’s had more than his fair share of partners, but all of them he’s treated with equal adoration and respect. he falls in love with someone before even properly realising they’re in front of them, and he’ll do anything he can to make them feel cared for and like they can be comfortable around him. he has a lot of love, not just for people - old books, italy, good drinks, fountain pens - he’ll love something for the love of it, not because it’ll make him look more cultured or help him get further with those around him.

= liam is fairly matter-of-fact and objective - though this helps him get things done and does certainly lend a hand coming straight into the middle of a post-murder scene without letting emotions that aren’t really his cloud his vision, it can get in the way of him properly connecting with people he may not see as justified.  

- though it did help him make his way through both primary and secondary school without having to do much work, liam is a compulsive liar, and he has very little problem with it - he’s keeping up a lie he was at first horrified by that his parents put in place to stay at ashcroft, for example. being a good bluffer isn’t necessarily a good thing, and he doesn’t fully understand that. this extends to how he acts around others, able to quickly put on a mask and discard his emotions, no matter how well he’s actually doing. he doesn’t have time to feel bad, he has a job to do.

- although he does try to avoid lashing out, his temper can quickly rise and get the better of him - he does try to handle his argumentative streak by debating about irrelevant, stupid topics, which does work a treat to stop him from yelling at people, but it can definitely be annoying to some.

- despite confidence being good in some situations, it doesn’t always lend him a hand in trying to fit in with the others - especially in the aftermath of a murder, he should have more tact when it comes to approaching members of the society, but he really has no qualms with going up and just talking to them even if they’d love nothing more but to swat him like a fly, which, in some cases, he may definitely deserve.

- unless he really cares for the subject, liam will put in as little effort as possible, if any, to try and do a good job - despite being energetic, he mostly directs it strictly away from his schoolwork. if he doesn’t want to lend a hand, he’ll simply walk away with no concern for who he’s leaving behind.

imperium

it’s fair to say that liam got into not just ashcroft, but the imperium society because of his family’s notoriety and history with the school - but his name isn’t all he has, even if he doesn’t fully see it himself. he’s a skilled debater, able to see things both objectively and have that objective be outside of the box, and this has lent more than a hand when it comes to his work in his philosophy classes. he can take a lot of knowledge in and boil it down to the things that really matter, which, given how large some of the concepts covered are, is a fairly significant skill for his subject, and he’s able to apply or retract lenses to matters at the drop of a hat to see things from another perspective. he can find an argument in anything, and until he’s perfectly sure he’ll never be 100% concrete in any one view. in short; despite being brash about it, he’s a good philosopher.

octavia

liam honestly didn’t even know that there had been a murder at ashcroft until after he arrived - when he did learn about it properly, he was already beyond the point of being put off from the school by the fact. it was only when he was invited to the imperium society that he had to properly think about it - because it didn’t take a genius to realise there’s no way he’d be in if the spot hadn’t open up. immediately it started gnawing at him, and it was only made worse when he moved into escalus house, in the empty room he quickly learned was once lysanders. he’s felt like he’s being watched since he came in, and even though he knows its ridiculous and he has no reason to feel like he’s overstepping by being there, he’s tried to avoid being in the room on his own since he arrived, much preferring to hang around the communal spaces or just stick close to ophelia. he’s tried to avoid getting involved in the other member’s feelings about octavia’s death since it’s not his place and, honestly, he has no real idea what to make of it. he knows it was a tragedy, and he know it affected them all deeply, especially his cousin who he has the heaviest concern for - but he’s never been the best griever, he knows that just carrying on with his life and ignoring it isn’t a good way to go about death even if it “worked” for him, what’s he supposed to say to those still in the throws of mourning?

he doesn’t remember when he first dreamed about her, because really, he didn’t even know it was her - it wasn’t until he saw her photo up in one of the rooms that he was able to put a person to the face, but by that point, the dreams had been numerous. at first he just brushed it off - he’d probably just seen the photo in passing, and drinking a bit too much every night to make up for not being able to do it between classes like he had in highschool probably did something to his mind. but they kept coming, relentlessly - so, slowly, he’s started looking into things. this is just a problem he needs to deal with, deal with it and he’s done, he doesn’t need to get it involved with the others - and even though he tells himself he wants it to be done with faster, truly, he’s intrigued. he can’t rule out ghosts not existing, he’s a philosophy student, he’s spent more than his fair share of time debating it in class, what happens after death - so if she is really her, and it isn’t just because he’s thinking about it a lot more now, then doesn’t that mean something’s happened to bring her back? he’s no detective - but he’ll find an answer. despite this, he’s avoided joining in on rumours of her return, and denies ever having seen her, dream or otherwise.

miscellaneous

ExTP (50/50 observant/intuitive) the debater/the entrepreneur 9w8, the referee  sanguine gryffindor

- he has genuinely no idea what he wrote in his essay to get accepted into ashcroft - he was drunk while writing it, which isn’t a huge surprise given he hasn’t been fully sober at any given moment since he was about 14, but usually when he’s closer to sober than not he’s able to recall something. with the essay, though, complete blank.

- he’s never played any instrument, but he loves violin music - his first celebrity crush was alexander rybak, and he still has most of his discography on his playlists 11 years after first seeing him in eurovision.

- he’s been to italy every summer without fail since he was born, and though his mother was fluent in english, she still spoke to him in italian when they were at home.

- he is dependent on alcohol, but he’s pretty good at hiding the fact he has a few shots to wake him up in the morning and at least two glasses of wine in the evening - but he’s been drinking as a family thing since he was a kid, so you’d suppose he’s used to it. it takes a lot for him to get properly drunk.

- he’s never learned how to drive, but, again - hasn’t been sober since he was 14.

- he never watched a lot of movies or tv growing up, and still doesn’t, but he adores the truman show - he watched it for his philosophy class in high school when he was first starting out, and now it’s a go-to whenever he’s bored.

- he likes the debating aspect of his philosophy classes more than actually learning about the philosophers behind what he’s being taught.

- his handwriting is more than illegible, and it’s definitely not helped by the dual factors that he’s using easily smudged fountain pen ink and that half his notes are in italian - granted, translating helps him remember, but it’s no help to anyone else who wants to read them for revision.

- as far as his gang from school are aware, he hates ashcroft and is still trying to find a way to get himself expelled.

- he’s good at breaking things but can rarely put them perfectly back together - in his own words, he’s perfectly capable of undoing knots, but he struggles beyond shoelaces and ties and has literally no clue how people manage to tie two pieces of string together.

- despite struggling in school environments, he does still know a fair bit about history and just general random trivia, though for the most part its just things he picked up in conversations.

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[heartfeltheart]

Alchemy: Magic Vs. Science

Chapters: 18/25 Fandom: Fullmetal Alchemist/Harry Potter Rating: T Relationships: Edward/Winry, Lan Fan/Ling, and May/Alphonse. Primary Characters: Edward Elric, Severus Snape Additional Tags: Crossover, Teacher!Edward, BrOtp Edward/Severus. Sassy beyond measure. Series: Part 1 of 9. Summary: Magic and Science, are they the same or are they completely different? It just takes one person to point out all up and downs. Along with breaking the stereotypes that come up with being a wizard, alchemist and most of all being human. Thank you, @amynchan! D/C: I do not own Harry Potter or Fullmetal Alchemist. Discord: La Red(Mesh Mash of… stuff.): https://discord.gg/KYjmVAb Alchemy Series: https://discord.gg/DejEYNJ

“English and Edward’s accented voice.” “Amestrian or another foreign language.” “Written notes.” ‘Thoughts.’ First Name: Informal Last Name: Formal (Or used to annoy others)

Christmas day.

A day to be around friends and family, being around people you love and care for. To wake up fully energized at the prospect of running over to the fully decorated Christmas tree to open presents. Once that was said and done, go outside and play in the snow. To have snowball fights, build snow forts and perhaps a game of Quidditch. Then go back inside to sit around a fireplace to drink hot chocolate, play Exploding Snap or Chess.

Right now, eight Alchemy students prefer to sleep in as much time as they could before their day could start. All of them are sleeping in a room in the Military Barracks in bunk beds. The room was usually used for Military personnel that do not have a home in Central City and stays in the Barracks when on duty. Their instructors are given their own rooms but would rotate when making rounds to check on the students. The only one that remained awake throughout the entire night is the head of this Field Trip.

He was too busy decorating a decent size pine tree with decorations he had packed up in his suitcase with the help of the Mustang Unit. Edward picked up a giant mug of coffee and took a deep gulp of the bitter drink. Standing there with the said mug in one hand and another on his hip as he took in the sight in front of him. A decorated pine tree standing in the corner of the room, multiple presents underneath it and the smell of apple pie filled the air. About a couple of hours ago, multiple owls flew in and dropped out present after present for his students, Rolanda, Quirinus, and too much to his surprise, Edward also got a few gifts. Every present is placed under the tree to surprise everyone else once they step into the room for breakfast.

"What exactly is this thing again?" Jean Havoc asked once he finished decorated the tree.

"It's a type of holiday tree." Edward responded with a shrug.

"Well...I hope they like it." Jean shrugged his shoulders, he wasn't going to argue with the other's plans. This just showed a whole other side of Edward, something many would have thought he does not have. "It strange, but...let's just hope they like it."

"In the Grand Hall of the school, they have one that nearly touches the ceiling filled with... magical... decorations and it looks whimsical. This might not match up to it, but I hope it is enough for them." Edward explained, he finished his drink and slammed the mug on a table when he felt his tongue burn due to the hot liquid. "Ugh...my tongue...I need to go wake them up before they start wandering around and get lost. Go see if Mrs. Hughes needs anything."

"Got it, boss."

Edward rubbed his face with both hands to ward off any sign of sleep. He hoped despite the fact his students are going to spend their Christmas in a Military Barracks, away from everything they know, they have a good time. Telling them his past with a Military was rather...not awkward, not tense but draining to tell. The result is his students believing he was some sort of Magical Police Officer. Auror? Eh, something like that.

A Magical Police Officer... Nah, sounds too much work.

-.-

Edward walked down the hall that headed towards the rooms his students and fellow instructors. He stood in front of Rolanda's room and was about to knock on it when it opened see said person fully dressed. The Alchemy Teacher took note at how Rolanda is wearing a fancier set than her typical robes, but not over the top and did not have on a robe or hat. She still looked a bit out of place, but at least without the robe, she won't appear completely out of place. In the Quidditch Instructor's arms is a basket filled with small presents wrapped in shimmering paper and ribbons. "Morning."

"Good morning, Mr. Elric." Rolanda responded with a nod, she stepped out of her room and closed the door behind herself. "Have you awoken the students?"

"I was going to wake you and Quirinus before we woke them up and get them ready for today. I have a surprise ready for everyone?" Edward explained with a grin, he and Rolanda walked down the hall to the Muggle Studies Professor room.

"Don't tell me... you have a surprise Christmas Party planned?" Rolanda asked, she raised an eyebrow at Edward when he remained quiet. She only shook her head with a slight shake of her head. "Of course, you did, how did you manage to pull that off with your superiors?"

"I er... My boss is a softy and I am the one that is paying for everything." Edward deadpanned the last part. He stopped in front of Quirinus door and knocked on it. There was a slight shuffle from inside the room before the door opened. What Edward saw made his jaw dropped in horror and shock. Edward could not even describe what he is looking at and even Rolanda is shaking her head Quirinus appearance.

"R-ready?" Quirinus asked, he was about to close the door behind himself when Edward pushed him back into the room. "W-what, are yo-you doing?"

"There is no way you are walking around here wearing that! Wear your regular outfit without your robe." Edward snapped at the older man, he shut the door to Quirinus room and hit the door to get his point across. "Whoever taught you about MuggleFashion has no taste whatsoever."

Edward turned his head over at Rolanda with a questioning look. "And this guy is supposed to be the Muggle Studies Professor?"

"The Magical Community is completely cut off from the Muggle World, this tends to happen due to that reason." Rolanda stated with a pinched expression.

"Even though I had a questionable taste in fashion, I would never stoop that low to wear that!"

-.-

Edward hid his grin at the looks of joy his student gave when Rolanda handed each of them their presents. Each of them received a small box of sugar candies in a decorated tin that had an image of a Golden Snitch flying around the tin. The students are wearing their uniforms, minus their robes and hats. At least their uniforms looked normal here in Amestris compared to what Quirinus was originally going to wear. Edward still cannot get that image out of his head. "We have a busy schedule ahead of us today, very busy day."

"What are we going to be doing today, Mr. Elric?" One of the student's asked.

"I will explain everything once we finish with our breakfast." Edward explained to the student, he along with everyone else was walking down several hallways to their intended location. Several soldiers that they passed by looking at the group with curious eyes but that was replaced with looks of respect and awe at the sight of Edward. The students, Rolanda and Quirinus wondered about the looks and the salutes that were shot at the Alchemy Teacher's way.

"Little brother!" A high pitch squeal filled the hall and the sound of rapid footsteps caught everyone's attention. The only one that did not seem surprised was Edward, he simply turned to face the direction where the squeal came from. Down the hall is a pig-tailed sandy blonde girl running up to them with her hands extended out.

Edward extended his arms out and braced for impact when the girl launched herself into her arms. He swung her around and their laughter filled the hall. Once he stopping spinning them around, the girl went a thousand miles an hour and every occasion, Edward would nod or just smile at her. Once the girl slowed down, Edward placed her down back on the ground and patted her on the head.

Louder footsteps came down from the same direction the girl came from. Looking over, everyone saw two men running down the hall with looks of complete distress. They stopped in front of Edward and the little girl, completely out of breath. They explained something to the Golden Blonde before he waved them off and they ran off in the same direction they came from. Edward scratched his head while he looked down at the girl, who was still smiling at him. With a sigh, he waved a hand towards his class direction. "This is my class, I am a teacher at a school in a different country, Elicia."

"You? A teacher? Hahaha!" Elicia giggled humorously at the notion of Little Brother being a teacher.

Edward pouted, why does everyone laugh at the thought of him being a teacher? Dammit! He hasn't killed anyone yet or maimed anyone for that matter. His students are learning something without the fear of being getting their asses handed to them. Nooooo... it's a flipping joke to everyone that knows him. "Why does everyone keep laughing at me whenever I tell them that?"

"It's funny~" Elicia continued to giggle at the thought.

Edward only shook his head, he motioned for the little give him his hand. "Come on, I'll take you to your mom."

"Okay, little brother!"

"Little brother my..." Edward grumbled under his breath, he looked back at his class and fellow instructors. The students were whispering among themselves about the scene before them. This is a completely new side of their teacher. Is she related to him? It was obvious by their interaction, they know each other to the point of the Alchemy Teacher acting like a doting older brother or even a father. "This is Elicia, the daughter of an a...good friend of mine."

Without saying another word, Edward continued his way to the surprise location. Well, he would nod or mutter something that went along with whatever Elicia was saying to him. The chatter stopped when they stopped in front of metal double doors. On top of the doors is a sign that said, 'Dining Hall' in Amestrian and a poster taped on the door too. Edward turned back to give his class a devious grin. "Here we are..."

Edward opened the door and motioned for everyone to enter. The students saw it was a dining hall, only having the minimal required items and furniture for such room. When their sights landed on the far corner of the room, their jaws dropped. Right there in the corner of the dining hall is a Christmas tree with piles of presents surrounding it. The two tables were pushed together to make one long table and had plates of food on it. There was a woman wearing an apron and oven mitts, holding what appears to be a pie. She smiled at the newcomers as they entered the room. Elicia let go of Edward's grasp and ran over to her.

"Even though we do not celebrate this holiday, all of you do. So... uh..." Edward struggled with his words and made it a point to not look his students. He understood what the holiday means, especially what it meant for his students. Even if the trip is for them to get away from the Magical World and dammit! He wants to make sure they have a decent holiday. Especially seeing and reading in between the lines about his student's lives. "Go do... whatever you normally do."

Without another word, Edward's students ran over to the tree to see what they got. One or two of them hung back and hesitantly approached the others. They ran once their fellow classmates yelled at them when they state there are gifts for them under the tree.

"It is not exactly a party but...it will suffice." Rolanda stated to Edward.

"H-how long h-have you pla-anned this?" Quirinus asked.

"When the trip was approved. I had Zefferus pack the decorations and sent a letter to my superior if he could help me make this happen. He agreed after I told him I would pay for it..."

"You sound like you don't like the man?" Rolanda asked, her eyebrow twitched slightly.

"...It's a long, long... long story." Edward sighed, he scratched the back of his head. He headed over towards the table filled with food. "Come on, I am hungry!"

-.-

"Hmmmm... Pie..." Edward hummed in content. He had just said his temporarily good-byes to Elicia and Mrs. Hughes before they left with a promise of seeing them again before he returned to Great Britain. Glancing over at his students, Edward saw that all of them are eating and looking over their gifts. The only gifts that were left under the tree belonged to him, Rolanda and Quirinus. All in all, it appeared to be a good Christmas in his opinion.

Well, it was until the doors slammed open and Edward did not bother to hide his frown. Everyone sitting around the table looked over to see General Roy Mustang. The General is grinning manically as he headed towards their table. "Good morning everyone, I hope you had a good night rest."

"Ugh...." Edward bemoaned, he ate another spoonful of apple-pie. It no longer tasted the same as it did like the previous bite. "Go away...I am trying to enjoy my breakfast."

"What was that, Fullmetal?" Roy asked, his expression stern as he stared Edward down. This made Edward's students and fellow instructors nudge away from the possible upcoming fight. There was clear tension in the room that started to build up and... are those flames and lightning in the background?

Edward took in a deep breath, berating himself. He wondered is it worth acting like the perfect soldier to keep up appearances. The last thing he needed is his students believing the Amestris Military are a bunch of idiots or worse... have them look like their Ministry. Then again, the last thing he needed is for them to fear the Military to the point of making them fear Alchemy. There are so many pros and cons to the whole situation. Seeing as Roy and the Mustang Unit are going to be the ones representing Amestris during the whole negotiations between Amestris and Magical Great Britain, might as well show them nothing is to fear. "Could you stop calling me that?"

"You will always be dubbed as such, I have the paperwork to back me up." Roy tutted Edward, he reached over and grabbed an entire pie. "Once you are down here take your class to the Library. Captain Hawkeye will be waiting there for your arrival."

"By any chance, has Grumman pass any laws since I've been gone?"

"No... You know what... the entire unit has asked me that minus Hawkeye. What do you know?" Roy asked with a critical eye.

Edward popped another spoonful of pie into his grinning mouth. "I don't know...Why don't you go eat your pie...alone."

"You're just jeal... This would have sounded better if you weren't engaged to your mechanic." Roy muttered under his breath before he left the dining hall.

-.-

Edward hesitantly scanned a brightly wrapped box in his hands. He slowly opened the package to reveal a bronze tea set decorated with sapphires. There was a card inside the teapot and Edward took it out with an eyebrow raised. Once reading over the card, the Golden Blonde let out a soft chuckle. Filius had sent him and his fiancé a tea set. 'Tea...hm... I have to get him something.'

Once packing the tea set back in its box and putting it in his suitcase, Edward picked up another package. He reached for another present that was wrapped in emerald green and silver stripped wrapping paper tied around in a green ribbon. One guess on who sent him that? Edward kept the present at an arms distance in case it might go against him. Once the wrapping paper was removed and opening the box that contained the gift, Edward peeked inside to see a bottle of firewhiskey and two decorated drinking glasses. "I like...I like this very much."

Edward stuffed the present into his suitcase with a chuckle. He picked up his coat, suitcase and headed out towards the door. Once he gets some alone time, Edward would have to do something shopping. The moment he was about to turn the doorknob, the Golden Blonde reached into the collar of his coat and pulled out a folded piece of paper. 'I have to do this too.'

-.-

"This is it... The National Central Library." Edward announced to his class as they walked up the steps to said building. He ignored the curious looks and whispers, especially if they were giggling females that kept blowing him kisses. Clearing his throat once he stood on the top step, he looked down at his class with a knowing look. "This is the nation's largest literary repository and contains texts and reference materials collected from all over the nation and throughout Amestris history. It is separated in several branches, some are open to the public while others are only open to the Military with proper ranking and State Alchemists..."

Edward glanced over at main entrance of the library, frowning. The library had gone over a complete makeover once Grumman was put into leadership and him putting Edward to rearrange the place while his brother recuperated. Several restrictions and bans were lifted on certain topics, take Alkahestry for example. The topic of human transmutation is something that and several others are still iffy about it, one hand it is to warn other or to get that idea into someone's mind for them to try. The one place that truly changed is the branch that the State Alchemist mainly used. There is a hidden section that showed the complete history of Amestris from a different point of view. The only few know of that location and will only be told if it is necessary to ensure history does not repeat itself. Still, even with the changes, it still felt the same.

"Mom! Is that him? The Fullmetal Alchemist?"

"Not so loud, Selim. Yes, it is him."

A shiver ran down Edward's spine, that voice. That voice sounded so familiar and it irked him to no end. He slowly turned around to see a very familiar boy being held back by Mrs. Bradley. She looked up at the same time Edward looked over and caught his eyes. The older woman shot him an apologetic smile when Selim managed to escape her grasp. She mouthed an apology when her son ran over to him.

Edward froze when Selim latched himself onto him, he clenched his hands onto his side to prevent himself from doing anything to the... child. A three-year-old child that is looking at him like some sort of hero, far more different than the first time he met him some years ago. Taking in a deep breath, Edward grinned at the kid and loosened up a bit. Just a bit. "Hi."

Selim gasped out, his eyes widen in shock before a look of complete admiration overtook his expression again. The fact the kid's eyes are sparkling was sort of helping his case with Edward. His smiled so widely that it made Edward's cheeks hurt just to look at him. His hero just said hi to him. To him! "Coool!"

"Mr. Elric sure is popular."

"What makes you say that?"

"This is like the hundredth persons that hugged Mr. Elric with an excessive amount of sparkles."

"You're overexaggerating."

"People yes. Sparkles...not so much. That is in the thousands."

"...So much sparkle..."

"What is it about this place that has people...sparkling!"

"For your own sanity...do not ask that question."

All of Edward's students, plus their professors, turned around to see a woman dressed in an Amestris Military Uniform standing next to them. She stared up ahead of them to see an exasperated Golden Blonde and his adoring fan. The woman cleared her throat loud enough to catch Edward's attention. "Colonel Elric, are you ready?"

"No...help? Please? Please? Please? Please..."

-.-

"Like I said before... The National Central Library has multiple branches, this is just one of them." Elric said in a low enough voice to not bother anyone else who is using the library for whatever reason but high enough to be heard by his class. He leads them toward the back of the building. "The one we are currently in is primarily open for the entire public."

"Mr. Elric?"

"Yes?"

"If we are studying alchemy, shouldn't we use the one that is open for State Alchemists?"

"What we are going to do today does not involve us going into that Branch."

"What exactly are we going to do?"

"All of you will see soon enough." The Alchemy Teacher grinned at his student with a devious grin.

"My, my... I would have never thought of you becoming a teacher. Considering who your teacher is..."

Elric grumbled under his breath, his cheeks turned pink in embarrassment. "I was bribed..."

"They have a library, don't they?"

"..."

-.-

"What is wrong with his face...?"

"He looks like he just came out of a potion's accident."

"A very terrible accident."

"It is rather rude to talk about someone that is standing right in front of them..." Elric whispered to his whispering students with a stern look. Said students froze in their spots at being caught, well they weren't exactly being quiet either. All of them are in a secluded room that looked like a classroom with a couple of chalkboards. Writing on a chalkboard is an older man in his late fifty's, wearing a lab coat from what Professor Quirrel once stated, and his most notable characteristic is that his face is disfigured beyond recognition. Mr. Elric and Captain Hawkeye did not even flinch at the sight of the old man. If anything, Mr. Elric and said man appeared to be good friends. "For your information... he knows English."

"You just took the fun right out of everything, Edward." Dr. Tim Marcoh grunted under his breath, continuing writing seemingly random things on one of the chalkboards.

"I would say I am sorry, but I am not." Elric snickered at the older man, he passed out several packets of papers to his students. One by one, each student glanced through the packet wondering what exactly was given to them. It appeared to be recipes, information on flowers, plants, recipes, and other random things. Nothing was making sense to any of them. Once the Alchemy Teacher stood in front in front of the room and stared at his students expectantly. "This is Doctor Tim Marcoh... A former State Alchemist, the Crystal Alchemist."

The students sat up in their seats, their attention completely on the Crystal Alchemist. This is will be the fourth person they had met that has or had the title of State Alchemist. The first one will be their teacher, Fullmetal Alchemist, then that half-naked man back at the desert, Strong Arm Alchemist, their teacher's superior, Flame Alchemist and finally the man in front of them, Crystal Alchemist. The only issue they all have is the fact none of them had seen any of them perform alchemy. None what so ever. Perhaps that will change soon.

"Dr. Marcoh will help you figure out those packets I just passed out. Doc...they are all yours..."

"...You are going to leave me here with them, aren't you?"

"I need to run a couple of errands around the city...I'll pay you back somehow."

"...Fine. Go."

"With that said...do not do anything I would not do."

"That is a very short list, Mr. Elric..."

-.-

"We will be leaving Central in two days and take a train to Resembool... Don't worry, Mustang has people patrolling the train stations and the tracks... Yes, I have that... What do you mean Xerxes did that?... Ugh... Stupid owl... Sorry, I'll get you a new one... Winry?... have an apple ready for me?... I'll see you in three days." Edward hung up the phone with a soft sigh. He ran a hand through his hair, a small smile played on his lips. Edward was about to walk off when something caught his attention at the corner of his eye.

Slowly turning around to see what exactly caught his attention. What Edward saw caused him to groan in frustration. Leaning far too close for comfort and grinning frantically, is none other than Roy Mustang. The man is wearing his civilian clothing to oppose his military uniform. At least it was not one of his flashiest set of clothing.

"Hello there, calling your girlfriend?" Roy asked in a sing-song voice.

"Fiancé, thank you very much!" Edward growled out, his good mood just flew out a window and replaced with annoyance at the appearance of the man in front of him.

"Oooooh. Fiancé... Tell me how you managed that?" Roy asked, not at all bothered by Edward's change of behavior.

"What? You need tips on how to get into an official relationship?" Edward asked with a snicker.

Roy sputtered out, his composure gone momentarily. Before he could retort back, the Golden Blonde grabbed him by his collar and dragged him out of the building. "Hey! Watch the suit, it's new!"

"Then you should have worn one of your other ones then." Edward stated he loosened his grasp on Roy just enough for the older man to pull himself away. Once that Roy pulled away from his grasp, the Golden Blond stuffed his hands into his coat's pockets. "Hurry, I left my class with Dr. Marcoh and I don't want him to turn my class against me."

"Hawkeye still with them?"

"Yeah, she'll take the class to a café for late lunch where I am going to meet with them."

"What about me? Where am I in this equation?" Roy asked with an eyebrow raised.

"I...I...ugh... I need you to do me another favor..." Edward managed to say, he shifted his shoulders uncomfortably. It was one thing to ask the Flame Alchemist to accompany him while he ran a couple of errands around Central. The Alchemy Teacher needed a ride and the Flame Alchemist is the only one in the area that owns a vehicle.

"Yes?"

"I...I need your help with... I need your help with my and Winry's wedding." Edward finally said the tension in his shoulders left him at that moment. He avoided making eye contact with Roy and speed forward when he saw said man's car up ahead.

Roy's eyes widen in surprise, he swore his mind momentarily stopped. To think that Edward Elric would ask him for his help for his own wedding. It was one thing to invite him to the wedding, but to be a part of it means a lot to him. There are many more things that could be said about his relationship with the younger man. They have an amicable animosity between them, a mutual dislike and yet have a great deal of respect between them. Many will swear they are father and son with how they interact with each other. No, that title belongs to someone else that is long gone. What he is to the young man is someone he trusts even if it appears quite the opposite. "Do you have a suit? Rings? Please tell me you at least got her an engagement ring?"

"No. No. I talked to Pinako and uhm... Winry has her mother's engagement ring but..."

"But...?" Roy drawled out, he took out a set of keys to open his car.

"Winry misplaced the ring several times and it gets in the way whenever she works on automail." Edward explained, once he and Roy got into the latter's car. "I want to get her earrings."

"Hm... nice. Different but nice. Anything else?"

"...I need to go get something for Ling, the idiot needs something and wants to make sure Lan Fan doesn't find out."

"...Where do we go?" Roy asked while he turned on the car.

"It's this place..." Edward pulled out a piece of paper and handed it to Roy.

Roy took the paper and raised an eyebrow at what he was reading. He snorted as he handed the note back. "First stop... The Jewelers of Amestris."

-.-

2 eggs

1 cup vegetable oil

2 cups white sugar

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

½ teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

4 cups apples-peeled, cored and diced

...

Alpine Rose...

Chamomile...

Cornflower...

Edelweiss...

Fire Lily...

Greenspire...

Silver birch...

Spindle...

White mustard...

Norway spruce...

...

Holsteins

Jerseys

Guernseys

Ayrshires

Brown Swiss

Milking Shorthorns

Dutch Belted

...

Apple Cake Recipe (equals) Mathematical notions

Types of flowers (equals) Formulae of shapes

Types of dairy cows (equals) Chemical formulas

That was just the beginning of the packet Mr. Elric had given to his student to go over with Dr. Marcoh. What appeared to be completely random jargon, there is far more than what it looked like at first glance. Page after page contained hidden information they would have never expected to find in 'original' text. Now it is understood why Mr. Elric had them solve riddles, looking at everything at a different perspective and drive it into their heads that nothing is at it first appears. That was only the easy stuff, the harder part is figuring out how to decode a three-page paper that already appears to be decoded already!

"Time. Pack up, it's time for all of you to leave." The scared doctor/alchemist announced to his temporary class. "Keep working on this, it is due the first day of classes. Follow Captain Hawkeye, she is going to take you to Truth knows what..."

"Where exactly are, we going?" One of the students asked.

"We are too meet with your teacher for lunch. If we hurry, we will get to the designated location before the lunch rush starts." Captain Hawkeye announced to the class, she signaled for everyone to follow her.

"Do you believe Mr. Elric finished with his errands, Captain Hawkeye?" Madam Hooch asked the younger woman.

"I am actually more worried if we have to meet the Colonel in a jail cell along with my superior."

Silence...

"Wha...?"

"Elric and Mustang do not get along, they enjoy to antagonize each other." Marcoh explained while he cleaned the chalkboards with a rag.

-.-

"BASTARD!"

"PIPSQUEAK!"

"How many times do I have to tell you...WE ARE NOW THE SAME HEIGHT!"

"For all I know, you could have put extra padding in your shoes!"

"Gasp-Take that back!"

"Make me!"

Ah... There it is... the yelling and screaming matches between Roy Mustang and Edward Elric. A very common occurrence in Central; Amestris in general. There go that last couple of months of silence...

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[iampikachuhearmeroar]

honestly I think the number 1 (no. 1) reason i outgrew my interest in drama/acting and studying acting, was because of the classic “washed up amateur actor who ends up several thousand dollars in debt who just ends up being a children’s party entertainer (usually a clown)* trope..... that even ended up as a joke in kids shows or movies when I was a kid, where it was mostly like:

*open scene in a fredrickson high’s career advisor’s office, with carter henderson and the career advisor, ms. ganthrope.*

ms ganthrope: so carter, what do you want to be when leave school?

carter: i want to be an actor!

ms ganthrope: oh carter, pick something more achievable and realistic and helpful to your parents 🙄😤! what about being a teacher or something like that? do you really want to be an actor? maybe reconsider your interest, yeah?

carter: but i want to be an actor though??? why is that so bad?

ms ganthrope: do you think you’ll be successful, carter? or do you want to be washed up and jobless in your 20s while everyone else you know has a stable job? how will that help you? will you still be passionate about it when you’re constantly between jobs and working as a barista???? becoming a successful and famous actor, like i suspect you’re thinking you will turn out to be, will be as achievable as miss Coltrane’s dream job of being a politician.

carter: um what? i..... i never thought of that. maybe i will have to think about it. but what if I am successful though or whatever and don’t actually want to be famous and all that junk???

ms ganthrope: that ends our meeting today carter, want to meet next week?

carter: but, like, miss, you didn’t even answer my questions??? what does jenny got to do with this conversation?

ms. ganthrope: thanks mr. henderson, come back next week *looks down starts writing notes*

carter: *gets up to leave* well thanks, i guess, miss. *shrugs and walks out*

*end scene*

okay the above example is pretty awful, but you get my point, yeah? because a fair amount of interactions between usually a teenager expressing they’d like to be a actor/actress or do something in the arts, usually ran like this in any tv show etc, and it really pissed me off. like why must the kid who has in interest in being a writer/artist/actor etc always reassess/reevaluate their career aspirations, while the character who is always pitted against them is from a field in stem or education or whatever, as if those fields have more achievable career paths etc.... when nowadays literally nearly EVERYTHING requires a masters degree to look good and to be successful.

anyway, to get back on track. even years after I grew out of my interest in acting, i was finding this joke in kids media. for example, I went to watch Pixar’s inside out with my best friend’s mum back in 2015..... and we stayed to watch the end credits. during the end credits, they show you inside other people’s minds (not including Riley and her parents) and how their emotions worked for the lighthearted end of movie lols.

one mind they look into is that of like a 40 year old (let’s say) man, who, no surprises here, is literally the trope that I mentioned earlier. one of the guys “feelings” per se, even said something wryly along the lines of: “why did I even bother doing this? $40,000 & four years of drama school for this! ugh! I can’t believe I’m this washed up and dressed as a clown while doing it! I’m 40! well played, Dave, old buddy. well played.” my assumption is that it was meant to be some type of dark humour joke for the adults who go with their kids.... or like young adults who still watch Pixar movies (like myself at the time at 19/20 lmao).... and that they might try to rely on kids not staying to watch credits....

but like..... imagine being a kid, say aged 10 (ok im not sure what the main age demographic was/is for inside out, but im assuming it was/is like 5-12) hearing that joke for the first time in the end of a kids movie???? like what the fuck is that??? like why are studios putting these jokes in kids shows/movies anyway???? and telling kids that their aspiration of being a successful actor is a pipe dream????

like don’t get me wrong, i know being an actor (like a hugely successful one or even a moderately successful one) is a pipe dream for many many people, including myself, due to the realities of life not playing out like they wanted them to or like.... the money aspect of going to a good acting school being a hurdle (for example, i S T U P I D L Y wanted to go to the aussie version of Juilliard, in Sydney- the National Institute of Dramatic Arts (NIDA)... or where half of australia’s premier hollywood acting stars attended- which meant I had to move to sydney to be closer to it.... and then also pay for compulsory class trips throughout the course to LA/hollywood and London, for starters... both of which my family couldn’t afford even if I’d had financial aid..... like tell me chasing the dream of studying and pursuing the passion of acting ain’t just made for moderately well-off/rich kids lmao).... and a whole other set of factors that mean people can’t/don’t achieve their “dream” of being a “real” actor...

but with the above, what im mainly saying is that kids shouldn’t have “deadbeat actor” type jokes in their media... because I think it’s idk hurtful to always have your field of interest always put down and kinda shunned from the minute that you’re watching tv and movies.

like I’m not gonna lie, I did run with the “I’m gonna be a deadbeat broke actor” stereotype joke for a while in high school, because I thought it was funny af.... but after a while it wore me down.... mainly because it made me realise just what a shitty industry acting- and the whole entertainment industry in general- can be for some people.... when this is like the number one stereotype that people know (particularly) amateur actors as and for.

anyway yeah. I hope these jokes stop popping up in kids media sometime soon. like hell, we’re all in significant student debt etc etc, no matter what study field we’re in these days. stop pitting arts fields (and it’s actually bad in arts faculties as well; like with journalism/communications/acting departments vs arts departments like philosophy and English at my home uni where I did my undergrad) against fields in stem or law or even business majors as better things to study, when even people in those degree streams can struggle to find jobs in their desired fields. like we’re all struggling to find meaningful and stable graduate work out here y’all... not just acting students, christ. most of us will probably be washed up at 40 no matter field we’re in, in this godawful global captialist hellscape that is 2019 almost 2020.

lol here’s another rant.

[missmeikakuna]

So, Apparently, I Find Fairies Hot Chapter 1

Rated: T

Fandom: Original Fiction

Relationship type: Male/Male

Description: You know those movies and TV shows in which an effeminate gay character has a crush on the popular jock? Strike that, reverse it.

Daniel is technically popular at school but fades into the crowd. After an injury at footy (Australian football) practice, he is forced to focus on improving his grades, starting with English. Luckily, the new kid in school knows a lot about Shakespeare and is willing to tutor him. Now if only this new guy wasn't so attractive.

CONTENT WARNING: Homophobic slurs are used. Also, there are some sexual references but nothing too graphic.

Chapter 1: Is it gay to stare at a dude?

Daniel rushed outside, finally free from his plaster prison. He tilted his head up to the sun and closed his eyes, basking in the glory of… something. He just needed to bask in something. Anything was better than white walls, constant beeps and the smell of shit food with a top note of piss.

‘Don’t run too much. You’ve got to keep your leg safe for the next two weeks just in case.’

Daniel turned around and glared at his mother, who dropped his backpack, crossed her arms and glared back. ‘And that means you’re not playing footy for another two weeks.’

‘But mum-’

‘Where did you learn the word ‘but’? Certainly not from me. You can focus on your schoolwork.’

She leaned down and picked up the backpack, taking out a book and shoving it into his chest. He fumbled the book until he was able to catch it.

‘Read it on our way home. You’re falling behind in English.’

Daniel turned the book over and groaned. ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’. Why did he have to keep reading these stupid plays from a billion years ago? It wasn’t like he was going to join the theatre. He didn’t see any point in an aspiring footballer reciting Shakespeare. It was like forcing an aspiring actor to learn trig.

He followed his mother in the car and did as he was told, but frowned the whole way home. He only got past the first page before he reached home. Couldn’t someone translate this damn thing?

He asked his mother this. Her sharp features became as hard as stone like her eyes could petrify her own face. ‘Get your teacher or a classmate to help you. You could invite someone to study with you after school since you can’t go to practice.’

Daniel’s knuckles turned white as he nodded, still sitting in the car. His mother swung the door open, her hand on her hip.

She chuckled. ‘Has your leg stopped working?’

Daniel growled with his mouth closed.

By the time he reached homeroom the next day, his hands were sore from high fives. He slumped into a seat and circled a dent in the desk with his finger.

‘So, how’s your leg?’ Mrs Meek asked with a grin and a slap on his back ill-fitting of her name. Daniel gave her a thumbs-up and a small smile. 

 A tall boy with messy hair slid into the seat next to Daniel. ‘You okay?’ he asked.

Mrs Meek’s smile grew bigger. ‘You actually decided to show up, James B!’

James nodded and leaned back in his chair. Mrs Meek walked up to him and shoved the chair forward.

‘Nice try.’

Daniel rolled his eyes and looked around the room. Something was different. His eyes moved from student to student until he discovered the outlier, who sat at the front of the room.

A pale boy with long black hair in a high ponytail twirled by a curling wand was looking at himself in a compact mirror and puckering his lips, which were the colour of pink lady apples. Daniel wasn’t completely sure, but the boy seemed to be wearing mascara. His lashes were certainly long. Not that Daniel cared. His boredom as Mrs Meek called the roll was simply forcing him to stare at the boy. 

‘How about you introduce yourself?’ Mrs Meek asked.

The boy tucked a strand of hair behind his ear and stood up, turning towards the students. He spoke with a voice like a kitten’s meow. If that kitten had something up its nose.

‘Hi, everyone! I’m Eddie Ironpoe and I’m a Sagittarius!’

Silence. 

Then a few hesitant claps, with some added snickering.

‘Is that your real name, Mr Ironpoe?’ Mrs Meek asked with a smirk. 

Eddie laughed and sat down.

Daniel kept staring at this boy as he gussied up in front of his compact mirror. The bell informing the school that first period was about to start jolted him out of… something. Not a trance, no way, but something akin to it. 

First period was English. James patted his shoulder and cocked his head to the side, his way of saying ‘Let’s skip.’ Daniel followed him for a while until he saw Eddie walk towards the English classroom.

‘Actually, I want to see if that guy says something ridiculous again.’

James nudged him. ‘Ooh, got a man crush?’

Daniel pushed his arm away. ‘As if!’

When he entered the classroom, he saw that Eddie was sitting at the front of the classroom again, except this time he didn’t have his compact mirror in his hand. Daniel was going to sit in the back of the room like he usually did in English class, but he had one question nagging at him. That and he needed to do better in English.

No way was he going to sit right next to Eddie, but he did sit two seats away. ‘Hey, uh, have you heard of a smartphone? You can put it in selfie mode and use it as a mirror.’ Daniel waved his hands around. ‘Not that I do that! I just see girls do it all the time.’

Eddie smiled at him with toothpaste-ad-white teeth. ‘Well, I don’t think we’re allowed to have our phones in the classroom. And besides, mirrors are way better at capturing how I look. Phone cameras are kinda shit.’

A tall figure lumbered towards the front of the room. Daniel’s shoulders rose and his hands rushed to the safety of his pockets.

The figure scratched his bald head before facing the students. ‘Good morning, everyone.’ His already narrow eyes narrowed further as he spoke louder. ‘Good morning, everyone!’

‘Good morning, Dr Daylings!’ The students cried.

‘Better. Open Act 2 Scene 1. Who wants to play… on second thought, I’ll have Daniel play Robin. Who wants to play the fairy?’

Eddie shot his arm up. Dr Daylings nodded. ‘You must be Ed Smith.’ Eddie pouted. Daniel noticed how shiny his lips were. Dr Daylings crossed his arms. ‘You will have to wipe that makeup off.’

Eddie smiled again, his eyes glimmering. ‘Actually, I read the uniform guide and there’s nothing in there about boys wearing makeup.’

‘The lipstick is too bright.’

‘I haven’t got any lipstick on. Only clear lip gloss. My lips are naturally this colour. And I go by ‘Eddie Ironpoe’, by the way.’

Dr Daylings glowered at Eddie, who kept his smile and a straight, studious back. The teacher held his head in defeat. ‘Very well.’ The class laughed. Dr Daylings took a book from his desk and slammed it down, silencing the class.

Daniel tripped over his words as he read his part aloud. He had no clue what he was talking about. He had to reread words and ignore the sympathising stares.

Eddie spoke with the confidence of a Shakespearean-trained actor. He put emotion into every line, the words flowing out of his mouth like he was having a casual conversation. Despite having no clue as to what he was talking about, Daniel couldn’t help but watch. He became so engrossed in his performance that he forgot when it was his turn to speak again, earning chuckles from the class and a scowl from Dr Daylings.

At lunch, Daniel, James and a few other people Daniel sort of knew sat on the big couch in the student hub room, eating different snacks.

When Eddie entered the hub, a few people from English class flocked to him, asking him questions ranging from which school he went to before to what curling wand he used.

Daniel looked away, but his ears perked up when he heard a question he had rolling around his mind.

‘Um, no offence, but are you…. gay?’

Eddie bit his lip. ‘Uh, none taken? Yeah, I’m gay.’

A girl jumped at the chance to play matchmaker. ‘So which guy here would you date?’

Daniel’s shoulders rose. He coughed after choking on a piece of apple. James patted his back and asked if he was okay. Daniel could only nod.

Eddie looked around the room. ‘Well, judging by appearances, no one.’

Silence.

‘Wow, rude,’ one of the boys said with a smirk on his face.

‘Well, I don’t know anyone’s personality. I could get to know someone. Who here’s gay?’

A girl answered, ‘No one.’

Eddie wagged his finger. ‘There’s bound to be someone, statistically speaking. They just need a key to open their closet. Though, to be honest with you, I’m not interested in being someone’s closet key.’

Daniel looked away and bit his tongue, ripping pieces of his muffin off.

The school bell rang at the end of the day and Daniel stretched his fingers, relaxing into his chair for a moment before standing up. He waved goodbye to James and headed to his locker, noticing that Eddie was standing by the locker on the other side of the hall. He tried to say something to him but it was quickly drowned out by the hordes of students rushing to the locker from further away classrooms.

After ten minutes passed and the students had dissipated, Daniel walked up to Eddie, who was sticking postcard-sized posters on the inside of his locker door. Daniel didn’t pay attention to what the posters contained because Eddie was pouting when deciding where to place each poster, the redness of his lips all the more visible.

‘Uh, hey,’ Daniel said, looking at the ground. Eddie whirled around and held two posters up. Both posters were of…. Daniel guessed they were drag queens judging by the exaggerated makeup, both in gothic outfits.

‘Which one’s better? I only have room for one more inspo photo.’

‘The one with the Scissorhands thing going on is cool, I guess? Um, so, where did you learn to read Shakespeare like that?’

Eddie stuck the photo in the last space. ‘Oh, were you in my English class?’ Cold sweat ran down Daniel’s spine. He felt like an aspiring footy player who was just told he didn’t make the team. Eddie didn’t notice this. ‘Well, I just love reading Shakespeare so much. I don’t want to be an actor, but I love watching it too. Musicals are alright but I feel they can’t compare to Shakespeare’s words and rhythm. It’s pretty easy to read his work as his rhythm mirrors the human heart and the number of syllables makes each line sound like a real conversation.’

Daniel put his hands in his pockets. ‘It’s not easy for me. Old English is tough.’

Eddie wagged his finger. ‘It’s not Old English, it’s Modern English. Old English is before the Middle Ages, and Shakespeare’s works came out after the Middle Ages.’ Daniel scratched the back of his head. ‘Oh, sorry for the lecture. Is there anything else you wanted to ask me?’

‘Could you teach me? You know, about Shakespeare stuff. I’m not doing so well in English.’

Eddie released an awkward chuckle. ‘I don’t know if I’m going to be any better than an actual teacher, but I guess I could help you out.’

‘Are you busy this afternoon? I can’t go to footy practice, so I’ve got nothing to do except homework.’

Eddie put his backpack on one shoulder and shut the locker. ‘Sorry. I’ve got something on tonight. But every other night I’m available. Do you want my number so we can make plans?’

After exchanging names and numbers, the two waved goodbye. Daniel’s mother picked him up from school. Neither mother nor son said anything as they travelled home.

Once he was in his room, Daniel lied down on his bed and stared at Eddie’s number on his phone. Should he call him to plan the group study? He just saw him. Maybe he should text him. But would that be too cold?

Daniel rolled onto his side as he pondered this decision. He eventually gave up and dropped the phone next to him, pulling his doona over himself before falling asleep.

‘Shit!’ Daniel spat a few hours later.

The bed was wet, and not from urine.

Daniel couldn’t remember what the dream was about, though he vaguely remembered the images of both Eddie and a friend who moved schools the previous year. He wasn’t sure what they were doing in the dream, only that he needed a cold shower stat.

The room was dark. He looked at the clock. It was already 7.

When showering and trying to ignore the pain coldness brought, he remembered his old friend. Logan was a short, stout boy who obsessed over both footy statistics and hot women. When they talked about statistics, he and Daniel got along just fine. When Logan got a girlfriend in his final year at the school before moving, Daniel started hanging out with him less. Something about Logan’s girlfriend, though he wasn’t sure what, pissed him off, and Logan always brought her along when they hung out.

Daniel rushed back to his room with a towel around his waist. He hated being naked and had to clean his pants before his mother saw. He picked up his phone and, his hands shaking, messaged Eddie.

Wanna meet tomorrow?

He gave him his address.

He waited. And waited. He washed his pants and sheets and dried them, then waited.

Was Eddie still doing whatever he said he was going to do that night? What if he was never going to reply? What if he was only trying to be nice when he agreed to tutor him and had no interest in actually doing it? Would he have to pay him? How much?

He thought about what Eddie said to that girl about closet keys. He shook his head. It wasn’t like he was gay anyway, so it didn’t matter what Eddie thought about him… right? 

He took his books out of his bags and got lost in triangles and revolutions. He was broken out of his focus by a ringtone, which was of ‘Now You’re a Man’ by DVDA. He picked up his phone and smiled, some unknown yet familiar force lifting his body up. He hadn’t felt this sensation since he started going out with a girl in his class earlier that year. 

Sure :) How does 4:30 sound?

Should he reply back straight away or keep it cool? He remembered something his now-ex girlfriend said to him.

‘Talking to you’s like talking to a ghost. Are you even here?’

He went through a long, agonising word-choosing process.

Sounds good.

Daniel flopped onto his bed, letting his phone rest on his chest as he tried to slow down his breathing.

[spellbounding-slytherin]

So, talking about my Novels a bit more....

Hey there its Vira!

Thought I would talk about my novels a bit more, just so you guys know what you all would be getting into.

So, lets talk about Novel 1.

The Rings of Gallilea: Sworn to Rebirth

(Aka: TROG/ TROGSTR)

So here are the main plot points of the novel:

It is the sacred duty of the Celestial Trinity (the Sun, Moon and Earth) to protect the life in their solar system from outside alien threats

An imperial speciest race known as the Cantillians dub Humans inferior to them, thus sparking a war between them the Celestial Trinity.

The nine planets ally themselves with the Celestial Trinity to protect themselves from a God-destroying weapon created by the Cantillians known as the Catalyst.

The Rings of Gallilea are formed in an attempt to protect the solar system.

The goddess of the moon utilizes their influence on humanity to create a re-birthing curse. As long as humanity shares legends of the gods they will not die.

During a battle with the Cantillian emperor (known as the Serpent) Earth is hit by the Catalyst, destroying his physical form.

One-by one the Rings of Gallilea and the Celestial Trinity fall.

Eventually it is only Mercury The god of knowledge, Moon, the goddess of magic and Pluto rhw God of Alchemy left

In order to save humanity, Moon forces Mercury to give her an "unforgettable" curse so she will retain her memories as a goddess.

Moon uses what is left of her magical power to trap the Cantillian emperor in a diffrent dimension, before she is killed.

Moon falls to earth taking on the form of a human infant.

She is found by the son of a former cult leader and raised moon aware of her godly identity.

Out of gratitude, moon grants her new father figure the "Power of The North Star" and shares a magical bond with him

Their mission now, is to locate the fallen Gods and prepare them for the fight against the looming Cantillian threat.

In summary:

The Rings of Gallilea is a magical Sifi adventure, with sub themes of romance, and drama. The message of The Rings of Gallilea is self-sacrifice, defying fate, humility and mercy along with second chances.

Lets meet our cast!

Luna Abyss- our female lead, Luna is the Goddess of the moon and Magic. Before what Luna refers to as "The Fall" she was regal, elegant and refined. Growing up on earth with her drunkard guardian Victor, and running from government officials who seem to pick up on Luna's signals wherever she goes changed her quite a bit. Luna uses her twin blades Artemis and Frigga to fight off the Cantillian forces sent by recon forces. Luna likes dancing to loud music at ungodly hours, getting fast food at midnight, dogs, and exploring places she probably shouldn't.

Terra Greenwood- Our male lead, Terra is the God of Earth, Nature and humanity. Terra grew up with his Grandma after his dad walked out on his drug-addicted mother. Terra is a member of the Apache Indians, and lives on a reservation in Greenville New Mexico. Terra, despite struggling with depression and minor anger issues, dreams of living a normal life. Getting a good education, a well paying job, taking his grandma and moving far away from Greenville....that Is until Luna shows up. Terra fights with his magic spear Gia, and can command Earth and Nature on a whim. While his abilities are still weak, with some training there is no doubt that Terra can return to his former Glory. Terra enjoys driving his old pickup truck down town, while listening to the hard rock radio station, helping his grandma take care of her garden, and hanging out with his best friends Mitchel and John.

Stella Brighton- our rich mean girl archetype. Stella is the goddess of the Sun. Stella grew up in her mother's mansion sheltered away from the middle and lower class, until one day she forms an unlikely friendship with Terra. An Unlikely friendship turns into an unlikely crush and an unlikely romance. That is until Stella's hopes and dreams are crushed when she discovers her mother and Stepfather have planned an arranged marriage for her. Stella breaks off her relationship with Terra and keeps her head held-high. Stella fights with her fiery bow, Apollo, and can spark a wildfire wherever she pleases. Stella enjoys shopping, traveling, taking selfies, and flaunting her status as Student Council President.

Mitchel James- the Nerd boy archetype, Mitchel is the God of Mercury, Knowledge and Communication (arguably revenge as well) As a young lad, Mitchel idolized his dad, who was in the military. Oftentimes it would be him and his mom while his dad was on deployment. Mitchel took a liking to computer science and technology, because thanks to that he was able to keep in touch with his dad even when he was far away. When Mitchel was 8 years old his dad died in active duty, and it wasn’t long until his mom took to a Sugar Baby lifestyle to try and provide for Mitchel without having to get a job. Mitchel is bullied at school for being the scrawny nerd boy, and takes revenge on his bullies by hacking into their computers and leaking their search history. After Luna rolls into town Mitchel's world is flipped upside down. Suddenly he isn’t armed with just brain-power but physical power. Mitchel fights in a way that is unique to the Rings of Gallilea. Mitchel can create Angels to fight as champions for him. He also uses a Chackram named Athena. Mitchel enjoys hacking into local security cameras to see whats up around town, exploring the dark web, arguing with radical political activists on-line.

John Kingsman- The play-boy Archetype, John is the God of Jupiter Kings, and lightning. John lives what is arguably the best life of anyone in the rings. His parents breed police dogs. Meaning his house is always full of puppies. John's dad is a former military officer, and both him and his mom are current police force members. John is the baby in his family, but is held to high standards. Be home before 7, get good grades, and take care of the dogs. John fights with his Claymore Sword, Odin, along with special abilities like lighting and psychological manipulation. John, obviously enjoys taking the dogs for walks, playing basketball, and going to the shooting range with his mom.

Hotaru Kawaguchi- The goth archetype, and Goddess of Saturn, Time and Death. Hotaru's parents immigrated to the United States after the death of Hotaru's older brother, Hikaru. They came here to give the intellectually gifted Hotaru better opportunities as she grew older. To help support her, the family opened a restaurant in the down town area that quickly became one of the most popular spots in town. Hotaru never really got over Hikaru's death, and took comfort in the macabre. Over summer, Hotaru picks up a second job to earn enough money to afford her dream car, working in an occult shop. She also finds herself involved in an unlikely summer romance. Aside from being able to freeze time and communicate with the dead, Hotaru fights with her staff, Hades, that can transform into a scythe. Hotaru loves books and quite sunny spaces, she likes painting, meditation, watching Elvira specials, and helping her mother and father learn better English.

Aries Vailakis- the Jock archetype, God of Mars and war. Just like Stella he too grew up with rich parents. His family comes a from proud Greek heritage, and own a chain of Mediterranean style restaurants. Aries is a star member of the football team, and is expected to take over the family business when he gets out of college. Most people think there isn't much to Aries other than food and football, sometimes Aries thinks that too. But being a competitive teenage god, can lead to some intense shenanigans. Especially when family, love and blackmail are involved. Aries fights with some seriously thick brass knuckles that spit fire. His brass knuckles can also transform into a large shield, Neiro. Aries likes cooking, working out, watching horror movies with his S/O, and very secretly likes looking at minimalist homes in the Greek countryside in homeowner's magazines.

June Smith, the flip Archetype, Goddess of Venus beauty, seduction and battle. June's mom divorced her dad to be with another man when she was young. Years later June would find out she died of cancer without telling her or her father. Needless to say June had a rough start in life. Given that her dad was the high school principal, she couldn't even act out and punch some nerd in the face. In the day light June masquerades as the nerdy turtleneck loving teacher's pet kinda girl. At night June flips ditching her turtle neck for something low cut and preferably leather. Sneaking out under the ruse of sleep or studying, June slips out to hang out on the edge of town with the local biker gang known as the Black Cat Bikers. Junes got the best of both worlds, her dad wrapped around her finger, and her legs wrapped around the back of her boys bikes. June fights with the sword Atalanta, and can change into any weapon June sees fit. June can also manipulate peoples hormones, making them fall for her or anyone. June will never admit it, but she likes wearing pink fluffy sweaters, she also loves getting fucking drunk, going out to see drag shows, sleeping in until noon, and playing with makeup.

Serena Paisley- The hippy archetype- Serena is the Goddess of Neptune, the ocean and family. Serena is the younger twin sister of Heath. Serena grew up close to her mother, who was somewhat of helicopter parent. Serena’s mother owns a brewing company, and is heavily involved in the Greenvile political scene. growing up in a spotlight Serena wanted to use her spotlight to encourage others to do good, and can often be found doing charity work. One big secret Serena has, is that she is a big fan of smoking weed. being a politicians daughter was a stressful job after all. Serena, can command any body of water and has great people skills. Her very loyal weapon is her trident, Namaka. Serena’s hobbies include Yoga, smoking weed, collecting crystals, playing the pan-flute, and thrift store shopping. 

Heath Paisley- The rich boy archetype- Heath is the God of Uranus, Ice, Snow and Vengeance. Heath, is the polar opposite of his sister. He grew up chasing the affections of his long-distance father, who is an actor in Hollywood. Heath has a cold demeanor, and takes a some-what sadistic pleasure in controlling others. He is the student council president at the private school he and Serena attend, Hayden Heights Academy. Heath is secretly insecure about his sexuality, and is in denial about being attracted to men. Heath spends a majority of his time covering for his sisters ‘distasteful shenanigans” in student council meetings, or following in the footsteps of his politician mother. Heath has the power to control Ice, and cold temperatures, he can also force criminals to admit their deeds.Heath fights with twin sickles Poli’Ahu and Endymion.His hobbies include: casual business luncheons, bossing his underclassmen around, and he secretly likes it when his S/O leans over his shoulder while he is trying to work. 

Romeo Barns- The rebel archetype- Romeo is the God of Pluto, Alchemy, and Transformation. Romeo has always felt like a social outcast, specifically because he discovered his godly powers at a young age. Romeo lives with his overly preachy preacher uncle, who believes in only one good god above. Romeo, being a sarcastic little shit, decides he needs to be everything his uncle isn't. Romeo sells weed for the Black Cat Biker Gang, his true "Family". Which is how a filthy little grunge rat like him became friends with Serena Paisley. Roemo's godly body grows organic blade-like structures which he can use to defend himself. His clawed-gauntlets, Thanatos and Cerberus add an extra punch. In his spare time Romeo can be seen around town riding his motorcycle. At night he is out spraying unique and vulgar messages on billboards. At school he likes to read the "boring unpopular books" like Catcher in The Rye and Lord of The Flies, and strumming along to his favorite songs on his base guitar

And thats just novel number 1! I'll make a second post about novel number 2 since this is already a quite lengthy post.

Let me know what you guys think, and if you wanna see more.

See ya later

- Vira!

[stopforamoment]

Part Seven: Demonstrations (Series 18, Part 7 of 9)

Series Eighteen: The Conference, Day One (9 Parts) Part Seven: Demonstrations (Series 18, Part 7 of 9) My masterlist is at the end of my bio.

Book: The Royal Romance (After Book Three) Pairing: Bastien Lykel x OC Rinda Parks Word Count: 1,208 Rating: M for Language Author’s Note: Obligatory disclaimer that Pixelberry Studios owns the TRR characters and my pocketbook with those darn diamond scenes. OFC with all of her quirks is all mine. My apologies if Tumblr or I do something stupid when I try to post this. The keep reading link shows up on my laptop but not my phone. Ugh. Thank you @asherella-is-a-dork-3 for always being my sounding board! Thank you @cora-nova @silviasutton1989 @bobasheebaby​ @riseandshinelittleblossom​ for being my thirsty Bastien friends and for still being a part of the journey! Series Summary: This focuses on day one of the conference and Rinda’s interactions as a professional, friend, and girlfriend.

Chapter Summary: We learn a little more about Rinda’s grandpa and events from her life in Wisconsin. This series takes place in the beginning/middle of November, before the French Yellow Vests demonstrations that started November 17, 2018. My thoughts and prayers to everyone who is affected by these events.

Demonstrations

“So Tria, you told me that you only know conversational French and that you learned it from Grandma Lorinda.”

Rinda nodded. “True story. My grandpa was born in France but came to America when he was a child, and his parents encouraged him to assimilate as quickly as possible. He wanted to know more about his homeland and culture, but his parents were adamant that he Americanized as soon as possible. They came when the depression hit France, around 1931, before the U.S. clamped down on its immigration quotas. They wanted to leave a lot of bad memories from their war behind and just have a better life, achieve the American Dream. “Anywho . . . he died when I was pretty young, so Grandma Lorinda was only able to pass along the basics. And even then, she spoke French with a very heavy German accent and it was very dated, from the 1940s. Those are some of the reasons I don’t consider my French to be very good—and why Nadia has so many great stories about my gaffs.”

Nadia gave her friend a warm smile. “Actually, Rinda’s French isn’t as bad as she says it is and she picked up a lot from our trips. It’s just that our trips to France were cross-categorical. It would be a literature class through the English department, an immersion experience through the foreign language department, and a chance to research a historical location for the history class. We would have students read boring academic articles in French, and that’s where Rinda struggled.” Nadia shrugged. “We all struggle with that boring shit, even though part of being an academic is to pretend to love—and understand—that crap.”

“So where would you go, and Nadia, do you still do the tour with students?”

Nadia smiled at Drake. “Château des Milandes. It’s in France’s Aquitaine region, near the Dordogne River.” Nadia laughed. “And before you even ask, it’s about a six-, maybe seven-hour drive from Paris. At one point the château was owned by Josephine Baker, who was a prominent entertainer during the Harlem Renaissance.” Nadia nodded toward Rinda. “That’s Rinda’s main area of study, although she also helped me teach some of the French classics.”  

Rinda nudged Bastien and whispered in his ear. “She did a famous banana dance. True story!” Then she winked, knowing how much he hated bananas.

Nadia arched her brows but turned back to Drake. “She used the château during World War II to hide Jewish refugees and stash weapons for the French Resistance. That’s where the history department focused, and Rinda helped with that too.” Rinda quickly interrupted before Nadia could say anything else. “Yup. I’m a history dork and my grandpa was born in that area. I seriously geeked out in the historical records building whenever we went.”

Drake laughed. “So what did you do, Nadia?”

Nadia waved her hand in the air and assumed an air of ennui.

“I got drunk on wine, ate good food, and spoke French. That was my cultural contribution.” She smirked. “But all of that is over. Too many budget cuts, so I moved back to France. My wife is an American and was reluctant to leave, but it was the best choice we ever made.” She looked at Rinda. “I know things weren’t easy when you left, and I missed you, but you left at the right time. From a professional standpoint, there’s nothing left for you there and everything for you here.” She reached across the table to squeeze Rinda’s hand. “I’m so happy for you.”

“And I’m happy for you and Kathleen.”

The ladies smiled before Nadia turned back to Drake. “Your question about if we do the trip anymore. Since I’m not at the university I won’t do the trip anymore, but I don’t even know if they can do the trip for very much longer because of budget cuts and limited course offerings. And especially this year.”

Rinda nodded. “Jacques called me a few days ago to check if people from the university were still making the trip. A lot will happen between now and January, but he was worried about us. It sounds like there are constant demonstrations in Marseille and although we should be safe by the château he didn’t recommend going into Paris with students. Even during the week.”

Rinda felt the slight change of Bastien’s body posture when she said that, so she continued the conversation. “Nadia, what have you heard?”

Nadia smiled. “Well, you know me and Kathleen. We do plan on joining a gilets jaunes demonstration next Saturday. I want to make a difference without violence and I want to be a part of such a historical movement. I haven’t done anything like that since Act 10.” She sighed. “I’m opposed to Macron, but I’m not an extremist. I want to be supportive, but I’m sure it will go on longer and be more violent than we are prepared to deal with.”

Act 10. One of Scott Walker’s first acts as governor of Wisconsin, the start of the teacher demonization and the beginning of the end of the state’s education system as Rinda knew it. No more collective bargaining for teachers, so thousands of teachers went to the state capitol to protest. Rinda went for one day, on a weekend, to be a part of the experience. She didn’t want to leave her classroom, and even though it was exhilarating to be a part of something so big and so historical, she was afraid the entire time. Many people brought their children so they could experience the history. Perhaps if Henry were older she would have brought him, but it only took one person to destroy a peaceful demonstration. It was always in the back of her mind, and it terrified her.

Jameson went too, for several days. Extra security was needed to protect the protesters, so local departments across the state sent officers to help. Jameson walked the halls while protesters slept, making sure they were safe and their personal belongings were secure. It only took one person to start a chain reaction that would turn a demonstration into an insurrection. There was one day when Jameson had to stand next to piles of protesters’ personal belongings “to guard them.” But Jameson saw the bomb sniffing dogs carefully examine every pile. It only took sick fuck, with one explosive device . . .

It was a lot of overtime pay and they squirreled it away, knowing Rinda’s job security was in question for as long as Walker remained governor. But Rinda was relieved when the demonstrations were over, even though nothing changed and Act 10 still happened. Jameson was home safe with her and Henry.

In Wisconsin they were lucky. But in France? “Nadia, please be safe. You and Kathleen.” She shrugged, her way of trying to physically shake a bad feeling. “When it’s finally over we all need to make a trip to Château des Milandes. Laura too. And this time just wine and good food. No students. I might even limit my geek out in the historical records.”

Bastien smiled as he leaned down to kiss Rinda. “I’ll believe that when I see it.”

[glassbangtan]

Criminal {Kim Taehyung}

Words: 2986

   Notes: Part 2???

   Summary: You truly thought that the criminal you gazed at every night couldn’t see you. He thought you were stupid for thinking that.

  Warnings: None.

  Pairing: Kim Taehyung x Reader

   He only ever came out at night, which was probably for the best.

   A spray paint can in his hand which he shook up roughly every two seconds to create the thick lines of art which you watched him create with a sense of guilt washing over you each time. He always had his face mask on, pulled up on over his chin to hide the bottom half of his face – an unrecognisable figure in a town where everybody knew everybody.

   Maybe that was why you had kept him a secret for so long.

   Graffiti was illegal. A crime which could get you set in front of a court if ever found out about, and the strangers art work hadn’t gone unseen by the authorities. It was him who nobody knew.

   Nobody but you. You didn’t know his name or his face or his features due to how well he hid them underneath thick layers of clothing, but you see him every night. Being the daughter of a police man basically made you part of the force – you could have reported him a thousand times before. You could have called the police and gotten him arrested, freeing the town from his crime for good.

   But you never did. Instead, you sat down in your usual spot – the roof of a building which overlooked the street, giving you a perfect view of him as he painted on the bus stop – and you just watched him. It was peaceful, and simple and you were hidden. You could just enjoy the silence for a few hours.

   And that’s usually how long you stayed for. Hours. The night sky would be a calming feature to the scene, you being so high up that it felt like you could reach out and easily touch the stars which hung above you. But they weren’t the view for the night – they never were. It was always him, the oblivious criminal with whom you took such great pleasure in admiring.

    You weren’t sure if he had ever seen you before. With your legs hanging off the lip of the roof, all it would take was for him to look up with a good enough light to see you, but he never had. His eyes were always trained perfectly on whatever scribble he was painting that night, whatever wall he was vandalising, whatever crime he was pursuing that day.

    If he were to look up at you, you were equally as unsure as to what you would do in the first place. You didn’t want him to see you – your name wasn’t exactly a secret to the towns people, if he even was part of the small town you lived in. Most people knew you as the police mans daughter, so him seeing you could never be a good thing. He would recognise you, freak out and most likely never return to this spot again.

   Weirdly, you didn’t want that to happen. Weirdly, you enjoyed this part of your day; watching him, admiring the way his artwork was so beautifully crafted against the bus stop or the wall or the ground. It was a rush to wake up the next morning to your father yelling in frustration, angered that another building had been vandalised and yet he still had no leads on who the culprit was.

   Little did he know, you knew. You saw him everyday. And he saw you just as often.

   Taehyung wasn’t stupid. Taehyung also had senses. Senses which easily picked up on the eyes that beamed into the back of his head every night. At first, it had been a shock to him when he first saw you, only the light of the moon illuminating your propped over figure on the rooftop. Dressed in all black as if that would hide you from him – it didn’t.

   He had panicked on that first night. He knew who you were – the police man’s daughter – and so seeing you for the first time made him freak out just that little bit. He had gathered his things quickly and fled from the scene before you could even notice he had seen you.

   But then you kept coming back, and so did he. It was like there was some kind of pull, making him go to this spot at least once a night, just to check if you were there. You always were, propped up on the edge of the rooftop with your feet swinging idly and one hand pushed under your chin as you gazed down at him doing his work. It soon got to the point where you were just routine. He would see you every time he walked up to the spot, see you shuffle to get a better look at him, and then he would get to work and it was fine. It didn’t bother him anymore, because seeing you made him a little bit happier.

   He wasn’t always such a massive advocate for vandalism. The odd house spray painted on, the odd rooftop kicked in – that was what he used to partake in. That was until he had a motivation to come back. He had never had anyone like his art as much as you seemed to, and the feeling sent him crawling back to the same bus stop just so he could feel it again. Sometimes he would hear you whisper a, “Wow,” which made his cheeks flush behind his face mask and the night sky.

   But you two had never spoken, which was annoying to him and you both. It had been nearly three months since you two had met up at the same place, every night without fail. Two teenagers who had nothing better to do than get lost amongst the stars with nothing but a can of spray paint and curious eyes.

   He wanted to speak to you. He wanted to speak to you more than anything in the world. One day, he would. He was sure of that. One day, he would finally turn around and tell you to come down off the rooftop so you could talk and get to know one another, but that day was long away. He didn’t want to ruin the perfect scenario he had now, so he stayed back.

   For once, the criminal was taking the safe route.

   “Everyone, I’d like to welcome a new student to our English class today,” Miss Wright called out from the front of the classroom on one winter afternoon. Fifth period English language – a drag, a bore and something you were not interested in in the slightest. You had no plans to live in an English speaking country, so most of the vocabulary your teacher threw at you went right over your head before it could settle anywhere else.

   You shimmied further down in your seat, gently placing your hand under your chin as Miss Wright leads the student in question into the classroom. A tall boy from what you could see – a tall boy with messy brown hair, a sharp jawline and eyes which met yours in seconds.

   Almost as soon as you two make eye contact, your heart is stopping in your chest and your palms are becoming sweaty. Because it’s him. It’s him, and you know it is just from the way he holds himself, and the little dabs of spray paint which have indented in the tips of his fingers.

   You sit up faster than you’d like to admit, your knee slamming off the bottom of your table at the speed. Heads spin to look at you, but your eyes never leave his.

    “Miss L/N?” Miss Wright questions. “Are you alright?”

   You swallow thickly and nod your head, looking down at your hands in a mix of shame and embarrassment. He had never seen you before. He didn’t know who you were or why you were acting so jumpy. There was no point in reacting.

   “Well, since you seem so excited, Mr Kim, would you like to take a seat beside Y/N?”

   Mr Kim.

   “Sure,” the boy grunts, and in seconds he has waltzed over to your desk and is taking the free seat next to you. Immediately, you find yourself shuffling closer to the window, a sense of anxiety washing over you that you can’t control even if you tried. It makes your palms sweat even harder, your head hurt and your heart slam against your ribcage in a way that you’re positive is almost dangerous.

   Miss Wright continues on with the lesson, speaking in a language that you don’t understand. You lose yourself for a moment, your pen tapping idly against your bottom lip. All concentration for the class had been thrown out the window, replaced with this overwhelming desire to scream and run for the hills.

   Nobody knew what this boy did. Nobody but you, and it wasn’t an exciting feeling any more. He was beside you now, listening to the same lecture you were, doodling on the back of his notebook just like you always did. He was here and you were lost and you didn’t know if it was a good thing or a bad thing that he was here.

   But god, did it feel wrong. It felt so wrong. A police man’s daughter sitting next to a criminal – what a coincidence. A crazy, fucked up coincidence that you would pay good money to get out of.

   “L/N Y/N.”

  The words are falling from the boys lips before you can comprehend them. Your heart lurches into your throat as you turn to look at him, an eyebrow raised as you try your hardest to look cool, to look calm and collected. That’s all you can do – he has no idea who you are outside of this classroom.

   “Yes,” you squeak out. “That’s my name.”

   The boy doesn’t move his eyes away from the front of the classroom as he speaks, and his words come out in long, drawn-out heaves. “I’m Kim Taehyung.”

   Kim Taehyung? You had never heard that name before – he had to be new.

   “Nice to meet you,” you reply. “Are you new to the town?”

   Taehyung nods gently, and for a moment you can almost swear there’s a smile playing at his lips. It confuses you. What was he smiling at? Had you said something wrong?

   “Just back from Daegu,” Taehyung says. A lie. He had been in Seoul for three months now – at least. You saw him every night, but he didn’t know that.

   “What a change,” you grumble. “You’re good at drawing.”

   It’s this comment that makes Taehyung freeze, his arm reflexively shooting out to cover the abstract doodles he had been scribbling on the back of his notebook for a while. You pale at his reaction, feeling your stomach curl as if you had done something wrong. He made you on edge – very on edge.

   “They’re nothing,” he says.

   “Do you draw a lot?” You were pushing it. You could feel his muscles tensing at the side of you with each question, him suddenly regretting ever speaking to you at all.

   “Not much,” he says. “I like paint more than pencils.”

   You fight to bite back the smile that wants to play at your lips. The innocence in the conversation exists only in his brain, but you know it all. You’ve seen him almost every night for the past three months painting.

   He was basically a wanted criminal at this point.

   “Paint is messy,” you find yourself commenting. “But the stuff painters come out with is – it’s really nice. I’d love to see some of your stuff one day.”

   “We just met.”

   Oh yeah. Forgot. You don’t know who I am.

   You blink twice, not replying before you turn back to the front of the room. Your pen goes back to bouncing on your bottom lip as you try your hardest to listen in to what Miss Wright is saying, but her thick British accent slices right through your brain, leaving more than enough room for you to think of nothing other than Kim Taehyung.

    Tonight was the night Kim Taehyung would say hello to you. After seeing you in class, learning your name, talking with you, he was ready to finally do it. You knew who he was, he knew who you were, and the confirmation of it all only drove his desire to say hello.

   He had never planned to be in your class. He didn’t know you went to the local high school, didn’t know you took an English language class. He was just – hoping, he supposed. Hoping he would see you there, hoping he could at least make eye contact with you when the two of you were on the same level.

   He had gotten a lot more than he expected, though, and he was grateful for it. He could hear your voice for the first time, test you to see just how easily you’d be willing to slip up and call him out for the crimes you had been watching for the past three months. Truth was, he had moved from Daegu to Seoul when he was only around three years old. He had grown up in Seoul, and had only lived a couple towns over from the one you lived in. His family had moved a few weeks before, and his education had started again only that day.

   You would know that. You of all people in that damn classroom would know that, and yet you didn’t call him out on it. That was a good enough sign for him.

   And so, that night, Kim Taehyung waited at the bus stop at an earlier time than usual. Ten o clock hadn’t even struck yet and here he was, his jacket zipped up to the throat and his face mask pulled on over his chin, waiting for a girl who he had only spoken to once.

    He messed idly with the lid of his spray can as he waited, time ticking on until ten o clock finally hit – and you were there, walking up the side walk with that guilty look on your face as you made your way over to the building he knew you would climb to get to the rooftop. Just like you did every night.

    “Y/N L/N,” he is calling out before he knows why. You stop dead in your tracks, and Taehyung can’t help but smile behind his mask when you do so. You turn to look at him, eyes wide as if you were a deer in headlights.

   “Shit,” you whisper, truly believing he couldn’t hear you.

   Taehyung shakes his head. “You always did underestimate my senses.”

   “Jesus, Taehyung,” you hiss, trying to make yourself look tougher than you felt. “What the hell are you doing out so late? It’s cold.”

   “Don’t act stupid, Y/N,” Taehyung grumbles, finally coming to a stop in front of you. It makes your heart beat speed up with the way his eyes gaze down at you, the way you two actually stand on the same level, the way you can smell the scent of spray paint on his clothing.

   It’s dizzying, almost.

   “I know what you do every night,” he continues, and you gape up at him. “It’s been three months. How can you not expect me to notice you?”

   “I don’t – I don’t know what you’re-”

   “You do. We both know you do, and I just need to thank you.”

   You narrow your eyes. “Thank me?”

   “For not telling on me. I’m a free teenager right now just because you didn’t tell your father about the things you see me doing.”

   You blush and look down at the floor, biting on your bottom lip to rid yourself of some anxiety. “I mean, it’s not a big deal. Nobody uses that bus stop any way.”

   Taehyung chuckles, and the sound if like music in your ears. He seemed so sad in class today, seems to sad almost every time you see him – hearing him laugh was a good thing.

   “I wish that was the way everybody looks at it.”

   “It should be,” you say. “Your artwork is gorgeous, Taehyung. It’s a shame that people can’t appreciate it just because of the canvas it’s on.”

  “Well, it is government property.”

   You shrug. “Maybe people like them need a bit more artwork in their lives. Boring old-”

   “Look at you,” Taehyung chuckles, cutting you off. “Looks like my Y/N has some pent up anger about the vandalism laws.”

   My Y/N?

   You look away, shrugging your shoulders again. “I just – I like what you do. That’s why I drag my ass out of bed every night at ten pm just to see you work on it. I had no idea you saw me.”

   “I’m an observant guy.”

   “I can see that.”

   Taehyung smiles. It’s a wide smile this time, one which makes his eyes slip into the shape of crescents, and it’s in the shape of a rectangle. He looks so happy for a moment, a completely change from what you had initially thought. The vibe he used to give you was never anything close to this, and you find yourself thankful that you’re seeing it first hand.

   Taehyung looks down at last, hiding his large grin and the blush which is creeping up his neck. “Well Y/L Y/N, how about you help me with this next piece? We won’t get caught – not if you have a face mask and good speed.”

    You chuckle, pulling your face mask out of your back pocket without even giving it a second thought. “I’d love to, Kim Taehyung.”

[xiel-posts-blog]

Okay, so some stories from my school:

1) 8th grade English class. -Teacher decided, screw one of the last big assignment being an agrumentative essay that students don’t want to write and I don’t want to grade and gave us 3 days to write a free-writing assignment with a prompt. -Teacher was out and we had a sub. We were reading Fahrenheit 451 (which has cursing in it) and the sub didn’t want to read and we didn’t have access to the audio, so she had another student read it. We were on a section with a ton of cursing and passionate yelling and this kid just stands up proudly and reads it with a beautiful amount of passion and just reads “bitch” with no regrets and I told that kid that he was a fucking legend. -Kids that I was friends with would legit look at Star Wars and Harry Potter memes the second/third day of every writing assignment because they were already finished and would fucking giggle at them and the teacher gave no shits. -Most fucking laid back teacher ever. She was quirky and even let us curse in class. -Last assignment was an acting assignment and we had to act out 5 minutes of part of A Midsummer’s Night Dream (Shakespeare) and I did Puck and my best friend of 6 years now was Oberon and we saw how a more recent interpretation played out the scene we were doing and Oberon fucking picked up Puck and twirled him. We wore flower crowns and she fucking did the twirly thing on me and it was great and we still refer to each other by Puck and Oberon to this day.

2) Best 7th grade story I have is in my social studies class where we had to research a historical figure we were assigned to. I can’t remember who we were assigned, but we had to reenact their lives in a video and we got the highest score on it out of the entire class because of our teamwork. But what actually happened was that one of our teammates just disappeared for the entire project and when she was there, she was waiting for us to assign her a thing to research so she didn’t do shit and she was there to record, so she held the camera. Problem is: we couldn’t finish the assignment because she wasn’t there for research. When we handed in our project it had to be 5 minutes (ours was 3) and the only reason it was three is because the person who edited it turned a running scene slow mow and it lasted for 2 fucking minutes. Remember: we were given the highest score out of the class.

3) Fucking freshman year: -First fight I witnessed was at lunch and started over a kid getting a hard boiled egg landing on them and the assistant principal slammed me into a the table as I tried to rush to the bathroom to get away from it. I was terrified, but it’s still fucking hilarious. -A fight almost started outside of my bio class and all you hear is this girl go “You wanna fucking step up <some other girl’s name>?!” in the most stereotypical preppy girl voice. -Got a history teacher who literally didn’t give a shit, cursed in class, let us be on our phones (it was our fault if we failed), and his entire class was just taking notes and take the test which was just the notes. We even had an open-note test as our final. -Algebra 2 teacher told the best fucking stories and was the funniest math teacher ever. You just had to be in his class to understand what the hell I’m talking about, but he made two “that’s what she said” jokes. -The best story from that math teacher was (that he didn’t tell) was he was telling a story before starting class and just as he was about to start class a girl raised her hand, he called on her and she just points to the projection of the screen and says, “Your laptop’s about to die” and just as she finishes saying that, the laptop dies. -Bio class was pretty similar to the history class, but the teacher had manners and wasn’t okay with the phones thing. -We got bathroom passes taken away because some kids stole iPad out of unoccupied rooms and it happened fucking 3 times. -A freshman (who I know) and a senior (who I know) had sex in the bathroom where most students would do inappropriate things and the Theatre teacher walking in and heard it. -That freshman was dating my friend and was known for doing dumb shit and failed freshman year after getting and OSS for 3 months. Asshole got what he deserved. -My closest friends and I did so much stupid shit at our lunch table and never got in trouble for it including, but not limited to: girls getting mad at us for playing a kazoo and some other guys were hyping us up and even got the girls to shut up about with a coin toss (we bought them something nice for their cooperation), yelling everyday: “Do you wanna join the gay gay club?!”, we played games similar to cards against humanity, and there was a furry there and me (someone sexually attracted to robots) and we were constantly (jokingly) made fun off by other members of the table and introduced our different types of porn to each other, we had two normal people sitting at the table who were fucking chill with us, and we watched some kids destroy their textbooks by playing baseball out in the courtyard. -I was on crutches twice and we had a tornado drill and I was upstairs and had to walk down the stair and then sit down (and some kid wouldn’t move to let me sit there even tho I was on crutches) and then couldn’t get up and I still find it funny. -I smashed a kid’s toe in because he wouldn’t move when I was on crutches and it was the only way through. -That kid got arrested for drugs. -And pretty much, my inner circle of friends were the only ones who passed freshman year.

I’ll post more tomorrow and in a different post.

[nsofties]

high school!jeno

just an honest and hardworking student who's just trying his best which is why whenever they sleep through class, jaemin, haechan, and renjun pester jeno for the notes from class his best class is calculus, but honestly he really enjoys his art classes much more.... wants to major in architecture in college because isn't that? the perfect mix of math and design? all of his teachers think that he would do wonderfully as an architect major with his work ethic and classes he decided to take in high school applied all over the country to some of the best architecture programs in the country, but honestly he knows he'll probably end up going to the college nearby like everyone else doesn't have a complaint seeing as the architecture program isn't bad and he'd probably get to keep his job and that's a plus to him since he wouldn't have to job search again... his worst class is literature but it's not like it's really his fault it's just boring and so when they meet up with their older friends from college for tutoring it's up to taeyong to make english interesting for jeno and to convince him to study harder and it usually works and bless taeyong for helping jeno pass literature in high school takes dance classes at the local gymnasium with jisung and sometimes haechan will show up if he's feeling like it he and jisung are the top dancers in the class so it's usually between the two of them as to who's going to be the lead/center for the shows and they tend to rotate between the two was asked to try out for the basketball team after the captain saw jeno playing a game at the park with his friends, but jeno respectfully declined because the combination of school, work, and dance proved to be a lot and takes up most of his time works at the local grocery store after school (sometimes) and on weekends with renjun, haechan, jaemin, chenle, and jisung main job is to restock things that get low throughout the day but also works the register "bright smile" jeno; hardworking and honestly the only one out of his ragtag group of friends who actually doesn't mind working at the grocery store tells jisung to stop complaining since he only works on weekends and jeno wishes his weekend schedule was that nice but on weekends jeno works late nights and restocks overnight but overnight restocking is the perfect time for jeno to practice his dances while working so he dances up and down the aisles as he works - restocking down the aisle, then dancing back down it, and then off to the next aisle it may seem like that makes jeno's night go off longer, but honestly it's not like he has anywhere else to be at midnight on a friday night and he's worked at the grocery store for several years now and the manager trusts jeno to finish everything on time sometimes jaemin and renjun also help with overnight restocking, but it's usually jaemin pushing renjun around on the cart through the store and jeno just doing what he always does so, yeah, jeno wishes he could have a regular shift on the weekends, or none at all so he wouldn't be so tired at dance class but he isn't one to really complain and honestly is the one keeping everyone in his group of friends in line since mark went off to college and even though mark is still closeby, the gap between high school and college still seems huge to them so he tries not to bother mark a lot (which honestly has mark feeling a little sad and abandoned) but will go with everyone else to visit mark and lucas (xuxi? yukhei? what has he decided that everyone should call him in college? is he telling everyone something different to confuse them? probably?) and everyone else when he has free time but honestly doesn't have a lot of free time since he works hard to make sure that his grades stay up and that he memorizes the dances (which honestly is easy for him but he's a perfectionist) and that he gets to work on time and finishes on time and it's halfway through his senior year of high school and all his college applications are in and he and the guys are hanging out at the pizzaria down the road before they have to head to work in a few hours and in you walk and jaemin roughly elbows jeno in the side causing him to make this loud, strangled noise and you look over in confusion because? was that a human? a cat? oh no it's just jeno and friends so you wave and grin and ask if they got the special pizza that's offered today and it starts a huge debate between everyone about pineapple on pizza so you just laugh, apologize for even asking, and order just a slice of cheese pizza to go which instigates renjun asking where you're headed on a cold winter afternoon and you explain that a bunch of people from your class are going out to the hill half an hour away to go sledding and jeno slumps because he wants to go, too so jaemin pipes up, "hey, let's all go next weekend! we have off, right?" and everyone agrees and you smile and nod and tell them to let you know when they're going and you'll meet up with them jaemin: "it'll be easier if we all go together, right? jeno will drive! and you can co-pilot since you'll know the way, right?" you agree and tell jeno to text you next weekend when he's on his way to your house and oh you'll send him your address because maybe he doesn't remember from that time in sophomore year you two had to memorize a part of macbeth and act it out in class together jisung: nope he remembers you: what jeno: HAHAH yeah that would be great thanks! jisungshutupisweartogodiwillgetyoufiredfromworktoday you: awesome see you then! also i think we killed our little scene in class so mr. jung can take that C he gave us and - oh, gotta go! jaemin: jeno. you got a c? on an assignment? chenle: he was probably too busy staring at them during the scene he forgot his lines haechan: that's exactly what happened i was there i got it on video wanna see so next weekend everyone has off from work and jeno texts you "hey, on my way!! get ready!!!" and when he pulls into your driveway you're already standing outside with a sled and a backpack with a giant thermos on the side that you explain has hot chocolate in it as he packs your sled into the trunk of his mom's caravan and did he want some before you leave because your mom has travel mugs ready inside you know what come inside and have a bagel or something everyone else can wait a little longer so that's how jeno ends up inside your house, shoes and your bags abandoned at the front door as your mom makes you and jeno breakfast sandwiches to go and gives you travel mugs of hot chocolate and reminds you both to stay warm and have fun and drive safe and call if you need anything and, embarrassed, you say yes a million times and grab jeno and leave the house and he's pretty flustered at you holding his hand but you're also flustered from your mom and you apologize but he just gives you his prettiest smile and says, "it's okay. i understand" and oh did your heart beat? of course it did this is jeno's high school!au and whose heart wouldn't skip a beat at his smile? you two pick up the others one by one, though you're about half an hour behind and jaemin, the last to be picked up, wiggles his eyebrows at jeno and the latter threatens to spill his hot chocolate on jaemin's lap if he says one word and you're just chilling in the front seat as a war is raging outside of the car haechan, inside of the car: hey can you drive let's just leave them here you: uh renjun: don't worry i'll do it chenle: MUTINY!!! you: maybe we shouldn't - chenle: I'LL DO IT THEN haechan: DO NOT LET CHENLE DRIVE jeno, opening the drivers seat door stares at the sudden mess in the car that is you and haechan trying to keep chenle from getting into the driver's seat as renjun is taking off his gloves to fight and jisung sighs tiredly from the back groaning about how they're the real children in the friendship jaemin just laughs as he easily shoves chenle into the back of the caravan and plops himself between jisung and chenle and tells jeno to hit the road it's time to sled! when you all reach the hill all is good and fun until chenle's inner-tube sled pops as he's sliding down the hill and he looks at you with a big pout until you give him yours that you brought and then you're standing there without a sled and jeno brought his large sled that can technically fit two people but honestly long-leg mcgee needs a longer sled but jaemin shouts that you can ride in front of jeno and you're like "we're two fully grown teenagers" and jaemin goes "that sounded stupid out loud just ride down the hill together we didn't come here for you to stand around and do NOTHING" "give me your sled then, jaemin" "sorry i suddenly can't hear bye!" and that is how you and jeno end up cramped on his sled and he's apologizing loudly about how cramped it is and his arms are wrapped around you and to be honest can you hear him? not really because you're panicking too and renjun is like "this is stupid good bye" as he pushes you two down the hill and you're both laughing and shouting and tumble out of the sled into softer snow at the bottom of the hill and when he sits back up he laughs more and then says "let's ditch them" and you would agree if jisung wasn't with all of you "he's just a kid we gotta get him back home we promised his parents" "not chenle?" "chenle tried to take your car at jaemin's house and leave you both behind" "ok so we take jisung and leave the rest" of course you two don't ditch everyone else but you're the last to get dropped off and it's around dinner time and so your mom runs out and invites jeno in for dinner and says she'd be heartbroken if he didn't accept and that's how he ends up at dinner at your house that night and is it awkward? yes. are your parents questioning jeno? yes. does your dad pretend not to remember him from the last time he was over? yes. are you mortified? yes. you're even more mortified when your parents go upstairs for the night and you and jeno are sitting at the kitchen table staring at one another so you blurt out "wanna play a video game or something? i have zelda? and? idk you can take a look if you want?" and in the end jeno just offers for you two to watch a movie and that's how you end up watching a movie that just recently came out on dvd and talking about school and eventually the conversation shifts over to college and that's a whole other breed of conversation and you both admit that the thought of college sounds so overwhelming and it's also the thought of moving away from what you've grown up with that's frightening and it's a nice conversation and jeno gets up to leave when the movie is over but before he goes he stops to tell you how he had fun and dinner was great and it was nice to just get to spend some time with you and you should do it again sometime and you just grin and say "it's a date" and walk him out to his car and then both of you are panicking because did you really just say it's a date oh god you did and yes it's a date because the next time you two hang out jeno brings flowers and you smile because yeah, a date sounds nice and the future is pretty uncertain but, hey, it's not as scary when you're surrounded by great people