#hush's bibliography

[dndtreasury]

Hush's Bibliography by lebiro

[loganlermanstanaccount]

Rigor Mortis (part 2)

College roommate!Miguel O'Hara x reader

(AO3 Mirror) (Wattpad) Series Masterlist, Main Masterlist,

Part 1, Part 3

summary: Your new roommate has... interesting habits.

warnings: sexually suggestive, nothing explicit.

a/n: i think i've realised miggy in this fic is a combo of his movie and comic counterpart. Miguel O'Hara: part-time whore lmfaooo

Thank you to my beta readers, @tianyhi and @urgonnaneedabiggership (they also write Miguel fics, I highly recommend! my favourite is this series), I couldn't have done it without you guys <3

Join my taglists here

wc: 4.2k

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

lady death, at the cradle of a babe.

You've decided: if Miguel's the Sun, then you're a black hole. Cold and dark where he was warm, to seemingly everyone else but you. Even then, the metaphor didn't carry, and O'Hara wasn't quite the shining centre of the universe you had first thought him to be.  

In the dim gloom of a little lamp on your bedside table, you’re left squinting at a crisp white document. Blank; save for a thousand tabs open, and the blue links of a half-hearted bibliography. You’ve got the bare bones of an assignment; left too late, as usual. The rest lies at the tip of your tongue; nips at the ends of your fingers like the heat of cigarette butts, and as fleeting as wispy smoke in an ashtray. To get yourself through it, you’ve resorted to romanticising it all, pretending you're a wistful poet dipping the feathered end of a quill into ink. Writing something… revolutionary; as opposed to the mish-mash of articles and studies you’ve crammed within the last hour and a half. There’s a pounding at your skull: the dull beginnings of a migraine, most likely. You squeeze at your temples, eyes shut – and the thrum matches the thud at your thin walls. Rhythmic, obscene, and it creates a cruel staccato; shaking the flimsy plasterboard that separates your room from your roommate’s. 

He’s fucking someone. Loud, like it can’t be heard by half the complex. It's the third girl he’s had over in as many weeks. Not that you were keeping count. For a supposed tutor, you hadn’t seen much studying - despite the bright eyed young women that seemed to be at your doorstep most days. Perhaps you're being dramatic, but you couldn’t quite wrap your head around the kind of pupils Miguel had had the privilege to “teach”.

You remember the first time the true weight of Jia’s words became clear: whilst banging on the front door after a draining day of lectures. 

You’d forgotten your keys after rushing out the morning of, and arrived to a locked door in the afternoon. You had been starving, insides churning with the thought of takeout you’d saved the night before; a greasy bag nestled in the corner of your shelf in the fridge. So maybe you'd been antsy, irritable at a stretch; fist on the door like a divorce lawyer, hungry in more ways than one. 

Wasn’t Miguel already home? He had to be, you can hear the low tones of his voice leaking from the gaps at the sides of the door. And.. rustling, the shift of fabric tousled and pillows hitting the floor. It’s then that you hear another voice, higher pitched; gentle and soft where his is baritone. If you’re not mistaken; and something at the pit of your stomach hopes you are, for some reason; he’s laughing, speaking in hushed tones, whilst she giggles at something he said. You bang at the door even harder, hoping the sharp rap-rap-rap interrupts him. It feels like you’ve had half of your college’s senior cohort in the city in and out of your apartment - or, at the very least, the pretty ones. For some reason, this is the straw that breaks the camel’s back; and your knuckles sting against the lacquered wood. You’ve half a mind to shout into the keyhole, to tell him to hurry the fuck up, or else–

Miguel opens, brow tight, and wiping something from his lips with the back of his hand. It’s suspicious; he looks carefully flushed, lips plump and cheeks slightly ruddy. You notice the way his head flops onto the lip of the open door; slightly out of breath like he’s done a dozen push ups. And with the way his biceps flex and tense under his open button up; paired with some slacks in a pitiful attempt to look less slutty; he might have. The image makes you purse your lips to stop inappropriate laughter: Miguel on the floor, brows kneaded in concentration as the woman in your apartment looks on, entranced. It feels more plausible than the reality; making out on your couch, whilst her hands travel to undo the button at his waistband.

What doesn’t help, is the look he gives you; like you’ve interrupted something important.

“Oh.” He says, clearly deflated. “It’s… you.”

You flash him a sarcastic smile and push past into the front room. You’ve seen her before: the girl on your couch. Sarah, a pretty thing in Miguel’s advanced Math class, you’d learned from the last few weeks. It’s not the first time she’d been over, but she doesn’t usually stay; rather, she’d drop something off at the door and twirl her hair whilst she waited. You’d answer, because of course he was never home at the right times, and she’d crane her head in for a glimpse of him. The first time; you were struck by the effortlessness of her beauty. And on your sofa, she seemed hardly fazed; the gentle curve of her stomach and thighs spilling onto the tattered cushions, donned in a patterned sundress. Her lips are pert, curved into a knowing smile as she giggles at the scene you and Miguel make at the door. 

“Hey, Sarah.” You give her a small wave as you make your way into the kitchen, heading straight for the fridge. However, you don’t have the energy to dignify Miguel with a response – so you stay silent. He bristles.

“You don’t have a key, or something?” You’re digging through the shelves as he calls out to you, hands on his hips like you’re in the wrong. You can’t help but hiss under your breath. He’s got an attitude, when only one of you had been left outside the door; starved and exhausted. And the other: getting off on your sofa. Poor Miguel, left with a limp dick and full balls.

 "Forgot." Your answer is curt, and you don't even bother to look up. You can hear him scoff, incredulous - as if the mere idea was so offensive. It makes anger bubble up at your gut, head still buried behind the fridge door. 

"That's convenient." You can't hear the words that come out after, but you're sure it's not exactly glowing praise. You lob a hypothetical grenade over the lip of the fridge door: a middle finger, crisp and clear. 

Takeout in hand, and a bag over your shoulder that feels like a concrete block; you drag yourself to your room, without giving Miguel so much as a second glance. When the door slams, you're hit with the full weight of Jia's words; a moment that seems so long ago. Miguel's probably picky about who he tutors for the same reason people swipe left and right on dating apps: he's an unrepentant whore. 

The thought had seemed somewhat premature, at the time. You had had little to no evidence: a string of pretty women in your apartment did not a slut make, after all. It wasn't quite enough, just a knee-jerk reaction after a bad day. The most charitable interpretations tell you that by all means, your roommate is an upstanding guy. A model student; who left his undergrad with honours and a disgustingly high GPA, head of half a dozen clubs and societies, and currently getting his masters sponsored by a prestigious biotech company in the city. He’s a chronic overachiever, more or less.  All things you've learnt from the people he’s tutored, small talk in between sessions (and they’ve all been nice enough). It seems a little more than convenient that the prettiest ones end up in your apartment - in his bed. And yet, you can’t get a straight answer from the man himself. Favours for a couple of friends, he says every time you complain. 

With the noises you hear from the room over, you wonder how he treats the friends he really likes. 

You think he’s doing it on purpose. That’s the only explanation you’re left with as you massage your temples in desperation. A steady pounding, that makes the shared wall shudder. Interspersed with graphic moans, the higher pitched panting of his partner; Yes Miguel and Just like that; seems to blend with his groans. Sleep pulls at your eyes, and you want to scream into the pillows. It’s muffled, but you can make out his voice beyond the wall; low, hushed tones that makes desire pool at the base of your stomach. And you’d rather die than admit it; but you zone out for a moment, a little lost in the haze of a daydream. God, his stamina. It feels like they’ve been going for hours, obscene grunts and groans spilling into your room. The wide span of his shoulders, the way light is cut at his jawline - and you wonder what he’d look like on top, or the sounds he’d make underneath.

Shaking your head, you try to convince yourself: it's the lack of sleep that makes you think of the way his hands would feel on your waist.

~~~

The honeymoon stage, if there ever was one, was well and truly over. 

In the morning, you’re woken up by the thud of the front door. Laptop cracked open on the covers, you shift to wipe the drool crusted on the side of your mouth. The good news: you remember getting down a couple thousand words before fitful sleep. Not to a great standard, of course, but as your deadline approaches, you’re grateful for whatever you can scrape together. Stretching, your back creaks with the memory of last night: hunched over your laptop, barely able to concentrate. Still in pyjamas from last night, you pad into the front room, looking for water to satisfy your dry mouth. 

The bad news: you’re met with Miguel on the sofa, splayed out on the cushions lazily. There’s a mug of something on a side table, which he’s clearly neglected; eyes closed, and an arm drawn upwards to expose the tan skin of his chest. He’s wearing nothing but loose plaid pants, hair a mess and frustratingly peaceful. For once, he’s not wearing the perpetual frown you’ve been subjected to for the past few weeks, and he looks five years younger as a result. You tilt your head to the side – like a mere 90 degrees would make him look any different – and you can’t believe this was the man who was terrorising you the night before. He looks… cute. Innocent, almost.

The sight makes you scoff. You snatch a glass from the cupboard with a clink-clink, and he stirs. You watch him stretch as you fill it; a mop of brown peeking over the back of the couch. He peers over, groggy and seemingly confused. 

"....When did you get back?" His voice is gravelly, heavy with last night's sleep – or lack thereof. You ignore the feelings it stirs up; pleasant and comfortable and domestic. 

"Good morning to you too, " You say it under your breath but he hears; catches it and holds it at his chest like a songbird. One hand over his heart, he smiles, wide; a lazy, sarcastic grin, but it still makes your face heat up. It's too damn early for this, you think. "I wasn't… for fuck's sake… I came back last night."

"Oh." He frowns, sweeping into the kitchen, and opening up the cupboard. 

"I couldn't sleep." Miguel's not stupid, and you wait for him to take the hint. "There was… too much noise last night."

"So that's why you're up early." He clicks his tongue. "You don't have a lecture to be late for?"

"You don't have another girl to fuck and ignore?" Without missing a beat, you snap at him – too tired and annoyed to entertain it. 

"Ouch." It's blaise, thrown over his shoulder without a second thought. He doesn't even look at you, head buried and eyes scanning the shelves – looking for his morning coffee, no doubt. He finds it, opening the packet and elbowing you in the process, and you give him a glare. Did he have to do that right next to you? 

You catch the ghost of a smile on his face. 

"...Miguel?" You say; quietly, because you can't quite find your next words. 

"Hmm?" He hums, fiddling around with the machine; a ritual you've only caught glimpses of. 

How do you tell your roommate you can hear him have obnoxious sex through thin walls? Well, probably by opening your mouth and saying it, but anything resembling your true feelings dies in your throat. 

He doesn't prompt you to finish the question, choosing to let the silence wash over you both. The clattering of a spoon against ceramic is the only noise in the little kitchen. It's not something you hear too often - never waking up at the same time as Miguel through a combination of coincidence and sheer willpower. Naturally, your routines are asynchronous - a half step, half-hearted jig to crashing music. That is to say: if you and your roommate were partners in a… ballroom, perhaps: you’d be stepped-on-toes and two-left-feet on the dancefloor. Disastrous, to say the least.

And yet, half-asleep, you watch as he pads around the kitchen; poking into cupboards and bringing out the ingredients to a hearty breakfast. Eggs and chorizo and tortillas; your stomach rumbles at the thought of a proper cooked meal. Ever the stereotypical college student, your usual food has mostly been instant noodles and leftovers. Maybe you’re just tired, but he makes the drawers and fridge shelves seem bottomless. It’s clear Miguel eats and he eats well – because of course he does.

“Could you…” You jump a bit when he places a gentle hand at your waist, moving you to the side as he reaches for a chopping board on the counter. “Sorry. Do you mind?”

It’s brief, but the fleeting touch fucks with your head as he cooks. Flashes of the night before run up your spine, electric. You watch his deft fingers fly on the chopping board; slender, a wide palm covering the span of a large pepper. How would they feel on your waist – properly – at the crook of your back, or at your thighs? Sighing, you chew the inside of your cheek and lean your head back against the wall. You feel the whispers of another headache. It's much too early for this.

He puts a pan on the stove. Shirtless, despite the heat of the spitting oil, and he pops a piece of a bell pepper in his mouth with a little smile that makes you roll your eyes. It's smug, somehow, like he knows something you don't – like he knows exactly what he did yesterday (or rather, who) and he’s enjoying your reaction.

Except: you’re exhausted, and he’s giggling like you’ve caught a kid with cookie crumbs on their face, empty jar in hand. 

It’s a quiet he sits with, comfortable; moving around the space with the kind of familiarity that comes with time. It makes you wonder just how long he's been here, which other roommates he’s terrorised over the years. Maybe, Miguel’s got a reputation, and there’s a Yelp review sitting somewhere you’ve neglected to read.

“Did you see her leave?” He still doesn’t look at you. Instead, his eyes are trained at the eggs on the pan, onions and veg making a lopsided smile in the runny yolk. Even his food seems smug.

“Her?” You frown, not quite following. 

“...Katie?” He says it like it’s obvious, as if her name alone should set off half a dozen bells in your head. It’s Katie, this time - not Jia, or Sita, or the slew of other girls he’s been fucking in the past few weeks alone.

Your eye twitches. Involuntarily, of course, but it feels like your body is physically rejecting his bullshit.

“I didn’t know she stayed the night.” A lie, obviously. You heard her well enough through the walls, not even a couple of hours ago.

“S’okay,” He shakes his head, nonchalant. You trace the curve of his shoulders and gentle slope of his plump lips. “I would’ve called her an Uber, or something.”

“You’re a gentleman, Miguel.”

And he laughs, a deep rumble that rings off the tiles. Admittedly, you like the way it sounds, and the way his eyes crinkle up into crows feet. He’s pretty, you think. In an annoying kind of way.

Oh, fuck him. You get closer, and stick a fingertip into the rich red of the pan. Wrapping your lips around it, with the heat of Miguel at your back, and yes, it's fine. Okay, fucking incredible – you know, nothing you haven’t tasted before.

Making eye contact, you watch him blink in surprise. It’s the first time you’ve seen him unsure of himself; not dripping with the arrogance of a few minutes ago. Not wanting to give anything away, you keep your face steady.

"Needs salt, I think."

The spell is broken and he clicks his tongue in disapproval. "I've seen the crap you shovel into that big mouth of yours… ¿mi mamá no me enseñó a cocinar para que vengas a decirme que sabe mal…?"

[My mom didn't teach me how to cook so you can come here and tell me it tastes bad…?]

It's your turn to smile at the sweet taste of revenge. Not enough to fuel the next couple hours of essay writing, but a small victory nonetheless. You flash him pink tongue, and watch as his gaze drops to your lips for a fraction of a second. 

"More salt?" He scoffs. "You wouldn't know good food if it bit you on the ass."

It's childish, but he chucks a tea towel at your head; and you narrowly miss it. 

"Asshole." You spit out, frustrated. Your stomach grumbles, loud, and you watch his face crack, amused. 

His lips curve into a shit-eating grin. "Idiot." 

Face tight, you storm out of the kitchen. 

You're holed up in your room for the rest of the day; only leaving for snack and toilet breaks. Luckily, Miguel doesn't disturb you, except for a full plate left outside your doorstep in the morning. It tastes delicious; warm and homely, but you'd rather pull your teeth out than see that stupid fucking grin on his face. Instead, you give him a grudging thanks, shrugging as if to say: it was somewhat edible. 

And when you hit send on your essay, with a whole 11 minutes to spare, you sigh in relief. You got through it, eventually; even though your roommate is trying to kill you, your new apartment is falling apart and you're failing half your classes already. But you're through the day, and approaching the end of the week with minimal emotional damage. Key word: minimal. 

In the warmth under the covers of your bed, it makes you think. It can't get any worse, right? It won't – it can't. 

Something shifts. Like a rip in the space time continuum or a malevolent god, the universe snatches up that thought; ripe and ready to spit you back out onto the fire. 

~~~

You wake up and something feels off, already. For one, light streams in through the blinds, a slight chill from the open window. It’s peaceful, and the first thing you hear is the song of morning birds just beyond the glass, instead of cars and clattering garbage trucks. 

But it’s a Friday, and you’ve got that 9:00am; the one you were insane enough to sign up for at the beginning of the semester. What you should be hearing is the call-for-war of your alarm; the one that slaps you square across the face and wakes you the fuck up. On time, of course, but still the kind of sound that strikes fear into the hearts of grown men. Groggy, you wipe the sleep from your eyes. And then you frown. The lilting chirp of songbirds (well-fed pigeons that shit all over your windowsill, large enough to be classed as biological weapons), instead of your alarm…?

Your hands go cold, and dread creeps in. Reaching for your phone, you click it on and it shuts off just as quickly. You’re met with the red icon of a dead battery. Fuck.

Leaping out of bed, you rush into the hallway. From there, you see Miguel; out of his workout clothes and flitting in and out the kitchen. Except usually, at this time he’s just coming back from his run and banging at the door to hurry you out of the shower. He spots you and furrows his brow in confusion.

“Aren’t you meant to be…?”

You don't let him finish, and call out. “–What’s the time?” 

He looks at his watch. “Uhhh… quarter past 8?”

“Fuck!”  It erupts out of you, and you bite down the rest; opting to dart back into your room.

Miguel gets closer, pops his head towards your door; in the careful kind of way someone might approach a sleeping bear.

“Are you–”

When you open it in a robe and toiletries bag in hand, he’s there; tentative, and slow, and in your way. A beat passes and your eyes widen, incredulous. Like a fucking lump of coal, he’s slow on the uptake.

“...Move.” 

You push past him into the bathroom and he throws his hand up to surrender. You’re the oddest person he’s had the pleasure (?) of sharing an apartment with, he thinks. Mostly harmless, but hard to read.

The shower sputters to life, changing from hot to ice cold in a second. You grit down a scream, powering through it until the suds wash off. Sheer resolve makes you towel off and change in record time. 

You’re grabbing your bag and chucking whatever you can find in the fridge onto bread. Whilst making a crude sandwich, you’re distracted – going through the calculations in your head. You’ve got a train to catch in about 20 minutes, and if you keep a brisk pace you can make the walk in 15. When you switch subway lines to get across town, it’ll be tight, but you can make it up by cutting across the barriers and keeping those elbows sharp on the stairs. God forbid you miss the transfer, because you’ll have to wait another 15 minutes for the next one and–

Miguel watches by the doorway, a little amused. So caught up in your own world, you don’t notice. He takes a sip of a mug of hot coffee, and you look up. Your face, cute and all scrunched up as you concentrate; but he can’t help but enjoy the flash of displeasure on your face.

“Don’t want to hear it.” You’re spreading butter aggressively, if there was ever such a thing.

He shrugs. “...I didn’t say anything.”

“I can hear it, Miguel. You’re thinking out loud, and…” Wrapping up your meal in tinfoil, you stuff it into your bag. “...I don’t have the time to tell you to fuck off.”

With a little gasp, he clutches at hypothetical pearls. He gives you a sarcastic grin before you’re off – slamming the front door in your wake.

_

_

_

[kraeted]

CONTAINS: hinata shoyo + fem reader + fluff

“Aren’t you forgetting something?” You say as soon as Hinata opens the front door to leave for his beach volleyball practice.

Your eyes don’t leave the laptop in your lap as you type away at your essay you should have finished days ago. The soothing buzzing of the ventilator in the corner of the living room serves more as white noise than its actual purpose, the wind it is producing just as warm as the summer heat intruding your apartment.

With furrowed brows Hinata stops in his tracks and he taps the pockets of his shorts to check for his keys and phone. “Check,” he mumbles to himself as he moves on to his backpack, throwing it forward over his shoulder and opening the zipper, “Cap, check. Sunglasses, check. Wallet, check.”

You softly shake your head with a smile in an amused disbelief. No matter how often you reminded him, somehow that one thing never made it onto his mental checklist. 

From the corner of your eye, you vaguely notice him looking up at you with a questioning gaze. Quickly his confusion dissolves as his face lights up. 

“Oh yeah!” You practically see the light bulb above his head turn on, before he rushes over to you, mindful of the coffee table his lower leg bumped into one too many times. He pulls his backpack against his chest to keep it from hitting you and he leans down to kiss your cheek.

“Well, that too.” His chest warming gesture makes you chuckle and you finally look up at him with feigned sternness. “But I was talking about putting on sunscreen.” 

The realization flashes across his face and he gives you a guilty, cheeky smile. 

The last time he forgot to put it on, the sun nearly burned him to the point of blisters forming on his shoulders. Pitying your boyfriend and ignoring the classes you had to attend the next morning, you went over to his apartment with aloe vera gel. You carefully applied it for him, but with every touch of his scarlet skin came a painful hiss, which you reciprocated with hushed “sorry”s.

“Where did you put it again?” The guilty grin is accompanied by his hand awkwardly rubbing the back of his neck. 

“The cream tote bag in my room, it’s probably on the chair.” You answer and you turn back to the screen in front of you. Hinata puts down his bag next to the couch and disappears into your bedroom.

You don’t miss the faint noises of him pushing things around in your room that probably don’t need any moving, before he finds your bag and searches around in the endless sea of random items you carried everywhere.

Two sentences later, he’s back in the living room, with an orange tube in one hand and a mountain of sunscreen in the palm of his other hand. He hands you the tube. “Can you do my back please?” 

What is a few more minutes if your essay is already late? You push your laptop to the side and get up from the couch. Your strained eyes definitely need the moment away from the blue light of your screen, the slight burn evident of your exhaustion.

“Turn around.” 

“Yes, ma’am.” Hinata does as he’s told, his back facing you.

You squeeze a generous amount of sunscreen on your hand and let the tube fall from your hand onto the couch. 

“How much do you still have to do?” He asks, dotting white specks all across his face before rubbing his hands together to massage what remains to the rest of his exposed limps. 

“I’m almost done with the last chapter and then I just have the summary and the bibliography left, but I also have to go over everything one last time.” You sigh, the thought of it all overwhelming you.

You apply the white cream on the parts of his shoulders, back and nape of his neck, his tank top doesn't cover. After a good amount of healing and continuous protection (to no help of his own) the redness of his burned skin had faded into beautiful golden brown, his sun lightened hair close to his current skin color. 

“You actually do that?” He turns to you when he doesn’t feel your hands on his back anymore.

As he rubs the white streaks into his arms, you reach for his face and Hinata instinctively closes his eyes. “Good students usually do, yes.” A clear jab at the stories he used to tell about his academic past.

He chuckles and shoots back, “Don’t good students usually submit their work on time?” 

You smile, your fingers caressing the variety of freckles sprinkled across his face. “Don’t good athletes usually show up to their practices on time?” 

His eyes shoot open and he glances down at the watch on his wrist. “Oh, shit. I gotta go.” He steps out of your vicinity and scoops his bag from the floor. He heads for the door, only to turn to you again and give you another kiss, this time a quick peck to your lips. “Love you, bye!” 

He dashes out of your apartment and closes the front door with a powerful swing, the walls shaking on impact. His quick departure almost makes you miss his words, but as soon as you sit back down on the couch, your eyes widen.

He loves you?

[multiwreckedmess]

Helloooo. Badboy!Yunho ??👀

yesssssss what about himmmm? you raaaaang? i'm always down for Badboy!yunho but he has many FLAVORS 👀

actually oh my god idea. badboy!yunho x nerd!reader no sex just build up but AHHHHHHHHHHHHhhahhahahaaha thoughts THOUGHTS no warnings ain't nothing here.

badboy!yunho is kind of the worst group project partner. He watches you tapping away at your laptop muttering under your breath with a shit-eating grin plastered to his face. It's not the grin that's infuriating, at least one of you is having a good time, it's the fact that he's only brought his cellphone with him to his make up meeting.

You see, you'd normally just do the project alone, holed up in your dorm, but at least a portion of the final grade is based on four mandatory group meetings throughout the semester. Unfortunately Yunho had been "sick" (read: hungover) for the meeting the past Sunday and you had agreed to meet up again for extra credit.

"Have any plans tonight?"

"I suppose you're going to ask if you can leave to go pre-game with your frat bros." You don't even bother to look up from the google doc, not yet even opened by him.

"That's what you think of me?"

"Am I wrong?"

The chair creeks as he leans away from you without answering. Phone laying neglected on the table, he isn't even pretending to work. Not that he did much on the phone besides scroll on Instagram with his volume up.

"I'm sorry but I don't see the point of us meeting if you aren't going to at least contribute something. I can't imagine that your phone is your only device available," you finally scoff, patience waning thin. The space feels more like an interrogation chamber than a study nook. Frankly the oppositional stance he'd taken across from you did not help with the tension, his eyes always tracing you.

"Is my charming smile not enough of a benefit?" He flashes a winning grin at you.

"No."

"What if we fucked? Would that be considered contributing?"

"My sex life is fine, thanks." Embarrassment burns in your cheeks as you try to hold the guise of studying. The cursor blinking hopefully on the long forgotten running bibliography tab.

Yunho sees his opening. Your head ducking deeper into the laptop screen without any sounds of typing is a dead giveaway. Getting up he circles the table to stand just over your shoulder, leaning in as though he was genuinely interested in the work you were doing. "That's not what I asked."

You lamely toggle the open windows on your screen, pretending not to hear him. Despite his hushed volume, his face was close enough to yours to feel the warmth of his skin radiating.

"I wanted to know, by your definition, if we fucked if that would count as participation in the project. We're going to fuck anyway, I just want to know if I'll get credit."

Goosebumps bloom down your shoulders all the way to buzz at your fingertips. Sitting in a stunned silent, almost out of body experience, you watch as Yunho rubs your forearm gently.

"Are you cold?" He asks a little too loudly before leaning over to loosely hold you in a back hug. "Or are you just excited at the thought?"

Maybe you are a little cold. His body heat feels nice to have so close to you. He's like a big electric blanket velcro'd to you and you can't help but start to enjoy the way your shoulders fit nicely between his. "No. Yunho, I need you to focus. I need to focus."

He promptly withdraws to your side, perched over the computer still but in his own bubble. Dragging a chair to your side he watches as you type, tabbing between windows and fleshing out the outline. Slowly his head weighs his arm down and he ends up nearly laying across the table, looking up at you instead of the screen. "If I focus, will you go out with me tonight?"

"Sure." You answer curtly. Then his question hits you in the back of the head like a stack of bricks. "No, wait, what?"

His eyes a brighten. "No take backsies, you said-"

"Are you joking?" Anger and embarrassment bubbles inside of you.

"I'm yours for now but you're mine tonight."

[reki-of-the-valley]

I am once again impressed by my bullshitting skills

[notajoinerofthings]

petition to ban all group projects from universities in 2k18 everywhere with immediate effect

[infinitesplinters]

Pretend Future Memory

What works for you, an insistent sea of words that mean the same thing as a blood tide wrung with this salt stained hide-away. Coin collapsed, under calling teems, the favorite way to die: another loud speaker with your name held high, like a banner, like a cock, like a piece of meat. Shouting sounds, signs that made meaning too soon. A bibliography of memories, the jaunts down the street, half is mine, the pounding of the docks by the storms and the violence and the men with their breath and the sorties have flown their wings, cannot make this headwork signify a new trunk full of anticlimax. Piling on the screens, every horseshoe through the shadow song, the time I learned to climb the walls until I fell, and I fell and I fell into the mountain fog. The briars of bad times, this fruit that eats itself, a rotten earworm, that holds its own even when the tides have gone. A matching pair of socks. Delicate fluorescent regret of when I should have gone to my stepmother's funeral. What's polite when I've cast out my seeing eyes, what's real when I've cast out my fingers. The words feel like a summer that never should seem to be. Who deserves, what remains, the bigger questions of where it went, a dignified way of crying: when no one's in my bed. Just the whisper of another dawn, how the light rolls up the velvet curtains, these small yellow tulips mixing past & future, how tortured in the daylight when we know night must come. Nevertheless to bask in the opening all the same, sunburnt and horrified by the rawness of the skin, but loving the pain, loving the way the wind shears another strand of hair, this way and now that, the taste of clean water, the touch of the nape of your neck. Freckles glittering when the second hand hits the mark, the sound of the bell, the movement of the spheres in time through time through this hushed tug of the hand tug of the start.

[bangtansfavwriter]

📚🌱book store owner! namjoon🌱📚

- you were still trying to find your way around town as you moved there like 3 weeks ago

-you spent most of your time furnishing your flat and getting groceries as you were snacking all the damn time

-the weather was also kinda bad so you didn't really mind

- on one morning you got up and it was surprisingly sunny outside

-so you thought "why not explore the city a bit?", got ready and went out

-after an hour or so that you've spent in a stationary shop, you noticed a cute book store that was right across the street

- you almost didn't notice there was a shop in there bc of all the plants and flowers hanging down the balcony above the shop

- that's why it felt like a huge discovery to you bc this was probably the cutest book store you'd ever seen, with a very handsome guy sitting at a table in the front of the shop, between some peonies and dahlias that were planted in raised beds

- the guy was fixing something which you recognized as a ukulele when you walked past him and quickly made your way into the book shop, when you heard him grumble and say something like "broke it again..."

-you shook your head when you walked in and forgot about the angry ukulele guy when you got the first look at the superbly organized and clean shop with freaking bonsai trees literally everywhere you'd look

- there were 2 kids at the comic section, some youngsters revising something at one of the tables inside the shop and an old man reading a book next to a tabletop fountain

- as you made your way through the store you noticed something else that made the store even better than you thought, because whoever owned this shop was a salty but funny book nerd

- the book sections were titled in a rather unusual way.. to say the least. one section, for example, was called: "books you probably hate when you start reading but when you get to the end you have an existential crisis because of how good it was"

-you walked to the next section, already curious to see what was next and were surprised to see pretty much the entire bibliography of kafka right there in the "love him or hate him, you ain't him" and chuckled, because you too didn't know anyone with a neutral opinion on Kafka, people either loved him or hated him for his work

-you, however, loved him and apparently so did the person who put this section together

-you full on started laughing when you saw the section "kinda overrated, but suit yourself" and saw "romeo and juliet" displayed at the very front

- "guessing from you laughter, I'd assume you probably agree with me" you heard someone say behind you

- you turned around and zoned out for a sec, as you mustered the gorgeous man in front of you who had the sweetest dimples you'd ever seen

- "you know... I'll get shy if you stare any longer" he said with his deep voice and a slight smirk on his lips

- you snapped back into reality after he said that and quickly tried saving yourself because you already felt your cheeks burning, and you didn't want him to notice that

- "oh sorry, I suppose I was just startled. you're very tall, you know? kinda intimidating with all that... height.."

- he smiled and nodded and you mentally slapped yourself for this statement of yours

- "you're right, by the way, about romeo and juliet. absolutely overrated story about dramatic teens." you said and put the book back "did you come up with these categories?"

- "yeah, maybe it's a tad bit too personalized, but it's my humble opinion about some 'classics' the general public is trying to shove down our throats" he said

- "like 'old man and the sea'" you said and started laughing when he shot you a look of bewilderment

- "don't you dare insult hemingway in this household" he said, but started laughing himself after he said that

- "that was by far one of the most boring books I have ever read in my entire life!!"

"but it depicts the long struggle of the old man who faces his struggles and realizes how they ultimately become his-"

"boooring! and hemingway got a nobel peace prize for literature? for that writing? you should make a new category in your store - 'got prizes but at what cost (hint: my patience)'"

-he broke into laughter and you physically had to refrain yourself from poking his dimples

- your felt your blood rush into your head again when he shot you a beaming smile and said "maybe I should make a new category. 'controversial opinions from a gorgeous stranger' - how does that sound?"

- you quickly changed the subject, because his smooth answer actually made you flustered - something almost no one ever succeeded in

- "are these all your bonsai trees?" you said and walked some steps away from him, secretly hoping he'd follow and continue the conversation you were too shy to make a flirt out of

-"yes, cost me a lot of money and almost a friendship, but these are my babies."

-"this friendship... there was a rather angry looking guy sitting in front of your shop. does it have to do anything with him?" - "did he have a ukulele?" - "...yes." - "yeah that's him. jin hyung is mad at me because he helped me carry that big boy there (- he points at the biggest tree next to the check-out) and I obviously couldn't see what was around me and I accidentally kicked his ukulele. apparently it's broken now, I don't know." - you could somehow understand the flower-boy's anger but the book store guy was cute so: "he shouldn't have left around a damn ukulele then?? i mean?? "

- you giggled as he blurted out "I KNOW, RIGHT?" while wildly gesticulating in excitement about the fact that a stranger agreed with him

- you both went silent after laughing together, the tension didn't go unnoticed by neither of you. you remembered what he said to you earlier and had to suppress your smile. these couple minutes you spent with this stranger made you smile more often than you probably did this month altogether and you were aware of the fact that this is obviously something very special. but you just moved here and had to get adjusted to your new life in this city, would it really be sensible to get a new guy this quick? hell, he probably isn't even single, right? with these looks AND that height plus these dimples that you highkey wanted to kiss?

- he interrupted your train of thought by just clearing his voice, which you were incredibly thankful for, as you got very tongue-tied that moment:

"I should probably get back to work..."

-that was definitely not what you wanted to hear and you clearly couldn't hide your disappointment, bc his eyes widened all of a sudden and he started fidgeting nervously.

- "I should go, too, then..."

-that was not what he wanted to hear either... he sighed deeply and looked around quickly before softly pushing you into an aisle ("yearning 101")

- your breath hitched, his breathing became rapid too, as there were mere millimeters parting your lips from each other.. he gently ran his hands up your arms and you felt goosebumps all over your body. the only time his eyes left yours that moment was when he looked at your lips, that were more than eager to meet his at that moment. just as he was about to lean into you - "KIM NAMJOON! You owe me a new ukulele, you airhead!" was heard across the entire shop, followed by the front door slamming shut

-both of you stared at each other in shock before breaking into loud laughter

- "Oh my god, way to ruin the mood!"

You rubbed your sides that started aching from laughing so much. "You should go after your friend, you know" you said and could tell, by the look on his, that this was certainly not his priority at the moment. He scooted closer to you again. "Tell me your name, gorgeous." - "Y/N..." - He repeated your name with a hushed voice, as if he wanted to keep it a secret from the world. The mere melody of name leaving his lips affected both of you in a way, that you knew you had to explore further. "Say, Y/N... Any chance you might come along again tomorrow?" - "Most definitely" you replied with a smirk on your lips. "Oh, that's a relief. That'll bring me through the day and dealing with hyung. Maybe I'll even build a new section until you come back." You chuckled and looked at him. "Surprise me then, Namjoon~" you teased. "Maybe something like 'books to read all night because you thought of someone cute'?" - "'Books I randomly put together after I saw the cutest smile on earth" may be an option, I don't know" - "Oh, you're getting bold! 'Books I should have sorted instead of blatantly flirting with a customer'. What are you intentions, hmm?" you retorted sarcastically and slowly made your way to the door. You laughed as you saw the slightly offended look on his face. "Books I need to convince a sweetheart that I'm nothing like Joe Golberg!" - "Books how to learn to let people go and then go apologise to people!" (You two were now shouting through the store, the customers were confused but smiled at you two)

"books I will never read today because I'll see you tomorrow!" he yelled last, before you waved at each other with a smile and you left the store.

- Namjoon was growing more and more impatient the next day, as he jumped everytime he heard the door open, but each time it was some customer and not you. He ultimately starting losing hope and felt a little stupid for actually staying up late and creating a whole new section in the shop, hoping to show it to you as soon as possible. The mere thought of seeing you again made his heart race, that's why it was even more disappointing for him when it was almost time for him to close the shop and there was still no trace of you. He heard the door again and sighed very, very deeply, as an old man walked into the store who was one of the few people Namjoon actually despised, because of his overly-specific wishes. And, of course, the fact that he never actually bought a book. As his life energy was once again being sucked out by the most pointless conversation ever, he thought of you again. He wondered if something happened that made you change your mind. Was he too cocky? Did you think of him as some player who just flirted with each customer he found attractive? He sighed again. "Young man, you don't sigh in front of customers! Were you not taught any manners!". Namjoon, with his best customer service smile, tried to convince the man that it was just him, being absent-minded and that he didn't mean to offend him (even though he'd have every right to do so). In-between all the hassle, he didn't even hear that the door opened once again. It wasn't until you called out for him, that he noticed you finally were in the shop, with him. He stared at you with a blank expression on his face when you rushed towards him and immediately apologised for taking so long, which was because of the moving company being earlier than expected. Namjoon just stared at you while you rambled on, as did the old man. You apologised over and over again and then excused yourself when you finally realized that you probably interrupted Namjoon while he was talking to a customer. "Y/N!" he called after you. You turned around and looked at him with a quizzical look. "There's a new section in the back... Maybe you should check it out." You two smiled at each other, neither of you wanting to break your gaze. "Young man... I think I'm gonna take this book here. You can never go wrong with the classics" the old man said and grabbed 'The old man and the sea'. Namjoon did his very best not to laugh in his face, only did he now have a smile on his face that he absolutely could not hide at that moment. Two victories in one day. This day could only get better.

Meanwhile, you went to the very back of the shop, curious about what would expect you in the new section. A book joke again? One of the things you were talking about yesterday? You lost your train of thought when you noticed a section, that you didn't pass by yesterday. "My loneliness is killing me", with books by Dickinson and Poe at the very front, followed by "I must confess, I still believe" with romance novels all across the table, decorated with peonies he was growing in front of the shop. "The new section is in the next aisle, love" you heard Namjoon say behind you. You hesitated a bit, kind of overwhelmed with how fast you could feel everything developing. Yet, everything felt so right. "Go right ahead, I'm right here", he said reassuringly, as if he sensed your hesitation. You nodded and smiled at him. The most beautiful table in the entire shop awaited you in the next aisle. Inbetween beautiful bouquets and absolutely dashing table decorations were Shakespeare's sonnets and other love poems that were among your personal favourites as well. You looked at the section title, written on a card that was put into one bouquet.

"Books that will help me ask you out"

💕

[gellavonhamster]

good people

gen || Montgomery Montgomery & Bertrand Baudelaire || pre-canon 

ao3 link eng  || ao3 link rus

Monty Montgomery learned about the deaths of Count and Countess *** somewhere about two in the afternoon, in the lobby of the Biology Faculty of Gerald Durrell University of Natural Science. He didn’t know them personally, and that day he could not even recall their faces when reading an article about their deaths, just as many years later he could not – unfortunately – recall the face of their son, whom he did know personally back in the day and had met as often as not. At the same time, he could remember in detail the moment he heard they were dead – the hum of voices in the vast corridors of the faculty building, sunlight glistening on glass in the frames of photographs and newspaper clippings hanging on the walls, the sound of his own footsteps. He was descending the stairs, almost hopping like a kid because he had just managed to talk a teacher into letting him submit the report a day later, and consequently was in a splendid mood. Few things can compete with the joy that a student experiences when the deadline for a paper that still exists only as a title page gets postponed for a later date. Immersed in happy thoughts, he went down to the ground floor, and was just heading for the exit when he suddenly saw a crowd of students and teachers huddled together and discussing something animatedly. One of the students was holding a widely unfolded newspaper, and several people at once were reading something over his shoulder.            

“Must be a change of government or something,” Monty thought as he approached them. Frankly, the prospect of writing a paper in two days concerned him much more at that time than a hypothetical coup. 

“Ah, Montgomery!” shouted one of those reading the paper, Professor Stein of the Herpetology Department. Stein was always shouting: he had hearing problems. Now, on the other hand, a raised voice was more than appropriate, for too many people were talking at once.  

“Good afternoon, Professor,” Monty gave him a nod of greeting as he joined the group. Getting closer to the paper was impossible – the crowd was too thick. “What’s the news?”

“A murder, Montgomery! A crime story at its finest; the whole city is going insane! Come read.” At that, Professor grabbed him by the elbow and pushed him into the middle of the crowd, so that Monty found himself right behind the left shoulder of the guy with the newspaper.

He took a look at the page, found the piece everyone was reading, and grew cold.

“Poison darts! With snake venom!” Stein exclaimed. Monty winced as if in pain. The loud noises around him were distracting; he wanted to read carefully, turn each word round in his head, persuade himself it was not what he thought it was. Coincidences do happen sometimes, after all. “And where – at the opera! Right during the performance!”    

“Yeah,” someone to the right of the newspaper chimed in, “straight out of Gaston Leroy.”  

“Leroux,” Monty corrected mechanically. He was suddenly overcome with fierce and helpless anger. He stepped back. “I’m sorry, Professor, I really have to go.”  

Walking quickly, even quicker than back when he was urged on by the unwritten report, he headed for the door.

Well then, La Forza del Destino. Poison darts. Snake venom.  

And his flatmate, who went to the opera yesterday and didn’t come back home.  

 ***

 Bertrand asked him to procure the venom about a week ago.

It might have been Thursday, or maybe Friday. Monty was writing a term paper then, one that he could not set about writing earlier because he was busy doing other things, from the tasks assigned to him by VFD to attending the parties organized by other volunteers, which in some cases seemed as important to him, even vital at times. VFD gave him time to deal with the exam period, relieving him from participation in any missions for the nearest future – the pursuance of science was highly valued among their ranks. Many volunteers flaunted some academic degrees, but not many of them got those degrees officially, even if they deserved them objectively. Some Doctors and Masters among them didn’t even hold a certificate of Bachelor’s Degree. Fighting the fires, both literal and figurative, took up a lot of time and energy, leaving virtually none of it for attending the lectures or even distance education. However, the VFD members had connections – Had Connections even, capitalized – owing to which many of them got the opportunity to call themselves professors or academicians, although all their scientific contributions, sometimes absolutely groundbreaking, remained hidden from the general public.      

At the Biology Faculty, VFD Had some Connections as well, and if Monty wished so, he probably could obtain the Master’s or even Doctor’s Degree without much effort, but he had no such wish. He desired recognition and respect from the people outside the organization, desired to make discoveries that he could tell the whole world about – desired for everything to be fair. That was why he had spent the whole previous week in a kind of a time loop. Every day looked like the day before: writing, writing, writing, leafing through the sources frenziedly after another bookmark gets lost, sorting the materials collected in the expedition, drinking gallons of coffee, and occasionally sleeping. And feeding Maturin, of course. As to Monty himself, it was Bertrand who had been feeding him, which was very kind of him, because Monty couldn’t even afford the time to heat some ready-to-cook foods. Bertrand simply used to come into his room, not even knocking anymore so that not to distract him, put a plate of vegetable couscous or spaghetti bolognese or something in front of him, and leave before Monty noticed that plate. The dirty dishes he used to take away in the same manner, unnoticed. Monty had to yell “Thank you!” for the whole house to hear, to which Bertrand yelled back “You owe me!” from his room or from the kitchen. He was joking, and Monty knew that, but still planned at least to stand treat at the pub after the exams were over.      

That morning, Bertrand knocked on the door again – first came in, then knocked. That meant he needed Monty to pay attention to him.

“Hello, hello, hello!” Monty exclaimed, turning on the chair, immediately knocked one his books off the table, and bent to pick it up. “I am listening to you attentively, o dearest neighbour.”  

“You’re going to the uni tomorrow, aren’t you?” Bertrand asked.

Monty nodded. “Yeah, to submit this Frankenstein’s monster. Only the bibliography left to do.”

“You’re a hero,” Bertrand praised him. Monty thought so too, in all honesty. “Could you do something for me while you’re at it?”

“Buddy, I would’ve wasted away without you here over the last few days. What exactly do you need?”  

“I need,” Bertrand felt for something in the pocket of his trousers, took out some scrap of paper, and gave it to Monty, “a vial of venom of this snake.”  

Monty’s heart lurched. He skimmed the note.

“Oh,” he said. “No problem. There are a couple of excellent specimens of this species at the City Herpetological Centre.”

“I know,” Bertrand replied. “I thought of asking N or S, but I don’t know them well. I wouldn’t like to shoot my mouth off in front of the people I do not trust completely,” he sat down on the edge of Monty’s bed. “Not these days.”  

Monty noticed that Bertrand was trying not to meet his eyes.

“I see. Tomorrow it’ll be done.”  

“Thank you,” Bertrand smiled slightly, still not looking at Monty. Instead, he was looking at Maturin, the turtle, which was chewing on a salad leaf in its terrarium. The turtle was undoubtedly remarkable, but it wasn’t hard to see that Bertrand was rather looking through it than at it. Sooner or later that was bound to happen, Monty thought. Sooner or later, each volunteer had to do something… like that. Not necessarily related to deathly poisons and what very logically results from their use, but still something that made it difficult to look one’s friends in the eye. Like it was now difficult for Bertrand.

“Who?” Monty asked in a hushed voice. “I’m not asking about the name, I’m asking if you know that person. Or were you just given a description?”

“A description,” Bertrand echoed. He smiled again, wider and brighter, but still somewhat stiffly. “Don’t worry about me. I am not a child, I’ll handle this.”  

 ***

 “And so he did,” Monty thought as he was unlocking the door to his flat.

Bertrand was already home; there was no need to call their acquaintances or go to Kit’s place. When Monty entered, his flatmate was sitting at the kitchen table and rubbing his knuckles on one hand with the thumb of the other. His face was calm, without any trace of either tears or smile. It reminded Monty of the kind of “Closed” sign that people put on the shop doors on Sundays.      

“There you are,” Monty said, peeking into the kitchen. Bertrand gave a start and looked at him.

“Hi,” he said, and offered Monty a faint smile. It didn’t look too convincing. “How did the report thing go?”  

“They let me submit it later,” Monty told him. He didn’t know how to ask Bertrand about what was really vexing him, so he asked another question that was, in his opinion, appropriate in any situation. “Would you like some tea?”

“That would be nice, thank you.”

Monty went into the kitchen, took the teapot off the stove, shook it and made sure it was empty, filled it with water, ignited the burner, put the teapot on the stove. Having been in a hurry to check if Bertrand was home, he didn’t have time to take his shoes off, and was now stamping around the kitchen in outdoor shoes. “Gotta sweep the floor later,” he noted to himself. It came with experience – the skill of not forgetting about the dull everyday things like cleaning and cooking while your entire world was in a whirl and threatening to fall apart.    

“I saw the article in the newspaper,” he began as he took teacups from the dish drainer. Bertrand was still sitting at the table in silence, still rubbing his hands absentmindedly. “About the opera.”

“Yeah, I’ve already read it, too.”  

“You lied when you told me you didn’t know who the target was, didn’t you? When you asked me to get you the venom.”

“I did,” Bertrand agreed. He leaned back in his chair. It wasn’t hard to see by his eyes that he hadn’t caught even a minute of sleep last night. “Do we have any lemons for tea?”  

“Um?.. I think there must be some. Check the fridge. Why did you lie?”

“You had enough problems of your own. And you still do. I didn’t want you to worry about me as well,” Bertrand got up from the table, walked up to the fridge, and took out a bowl containing half a lemon. Having taken a knife and a board, he started cutting the lemon into very neat identical pieces. Everything Bertrand did was neat.  

“Yeah, you can want whatever you like,” Monty muttered. The teapot was still taking its time to boil, and just standing empty-handed and discussing the murder committed by his neighbour was unbearable, so he took a cloth and started cleaning the sink aggressively. That was not the first time he procured poisons required by other volunteers. Perhaps he hadn’t killed anyone himself – yet – but he suspected that in a sense he already was partially responsible for a number of deaths. It was scary, it was weighing down on him, it kept him up at night and made him drink and dance and party with a vengeance in the hope of forgetting himself – but that was him, and when it came to Bertrand, it was a hundred times more of a shame. Bertrand was a good person. Bertrand didn’t deserve to be turned into a murderer. Monty was hoping he could express that all in such a way as not to make it seem like his heart is aching not so much for his friend as for his own hurt feelings, but the right words just wouldn’t come.        

“You are one of the best people I know,” he finally began. Bertrand made a strange sound, something between a laugh and a sob. Monty turned and saw that he had already cut the leftover lemon and was now standing with an absent look on his face, clutching the knife. “Don’t hold the knife with the edge toward you. Fucking hell, B,” he raised his voice when Bertrand didn’t react. “Don’t hold the knife with the edge toward you, and put it down anyway!”      

The knife fell on the table with a thud. Bertrand closed his eyes, leaned on the tabletop with both hands, and lowered his head so that Monty couldn’t get a good look at his countenance.

“I keep remembering that he hit O several times when boozed up, back when O was a boy,” he spoke quietly. “He used to drink, you know – not every day, but he used to go on drinking sprees from time to time. O’s taking after him in that respect. I keep thinking back on it as if it makes an excuse for me, but it really doesn’t, you see? And she was innocent – I mean, the rational part of me gets that she wasn’t, I know who she and her husband used to finance and what they used to cover up, but all I can remember is that she was usually nice to O, and to B after she moved to the City too.” Now his voice was taut, his face burning with indignation, his former numbness gone without a trace. “How come this task was assigned to B, of all people? After they had basically accepted her as family?”        

Monty knew, personally and by repute, several Bs among their associates, but this time Bertrand didn’t have to specify who he was talking about.  

“I am angry they made you do this, you are angry they made her…”

“Because she didn’t deserve this,” Bertrand interrupted him. “Because she’s a good person.”

Monty realized that Bertrand was basically repeating word for word what he had been reflecting on earlier himself, and smiled sadly.  

“How willing we are to assure the others vehemently that they are good people,” he spoke. He was completely in agreement with Bertrand about Beatrice. She was not just fun, but also reliable, which was much more important. She looked after her own. She was vivid and loud and incredibly brave and incredibly loving, and Bertrand was right: she did not deserve this. “And never as willing to defend ourselves the same way. Perhaps that is where our hope lies? In our inability to turn a blind eye to our own faults?”    

Bertrand took off his glasses, inelegantly wiped off the tears that had broken out after all, and put the glasses on again.

“Monty,” he said gently, “you’re a good person too, you know that?”

Monty blinked, then blinked again, feeling that soon he might have to wipe off the tears too. Bertrand was one of the best people Monty knew, and he didn’t deserve to be turned into a murderer, and didn’t deserve to labour under such grave delusion about other people either – but the fact that someone still considered him a good person gave Monty confidence that despite all his wrongdoings, he still wasn’t a lost cause.  

He reached out and ruffled Bertrand’s hair.

“Sit down,” he told him. “The tea’s about to be ready.”

[personalcoachingcenter]

A Smart, Educational Look At What POWERFUL SILENCE VS. AWKWARD SILENCE *Really* Does In Our World

New Post has been published on https://personalcoachingcenter.com/a-smart-educational-look-at-what-powerful-silence-vs-awkward-silence-really-does-in-our-world/

A Smart, Educational Look At What POWERFUL SILENCE VS. AWKWARD SILENCE *Really* Does In Our World

A Coaching Power Tool Created by Melanie Brown (Retirement Preparation Coach, SWITZERLAND)

To hear, one must be silent. Ursula K. Le Guin, 2012

Introduction

Silence as a power tool was inspired to me by a peer coaching experience. I was a fairly new ICA student and having my second peer coaching session. My peer client brought a very personal topic to the table: her estranged relationship with her sister. Every time she reflected after answering one of my (many) questions, I was already ready with the next one, rushing in to fill the gaps,  instead of just pausing and giving her the space she needed to reflect on this sensitive and emotionally loaded topic. I wanted to ensure that all PCC markers were covered and most probably also wanted to avoid any awkward silences as I was doing my best to be present, actively listening, and gaining more coaching experience.

During the feedback discussion after the session, she rightly pointed out that she had Asian roots, and brought to my attention the fact that in most Asian cultures a discussion often has a slower pace than in other cultures.

  Furthermore, during my first intermediate mentor coaching session as a coach, the ICA teaching gave me a very useful piece of feedback “You might,” she said, “want to think about using a little more silence.”

I thought carefully about what that statement meant to me.  I took her comments to heart and pondered what this would mean for my peer coaching practice and how to engage in “more silence”. I was curious to learn more about the use of silence in a coaching context, understand the cultural perception, and most importantly how it could become a powerful tool rather than an awkward pause to be avoided by all means.

  Explanation

Silence is often associated with religion or rituals as a means of spiritual transformation or a metaphor for inner stillness. Silence is also associated with shyness or introversion when someone doesn’t want to draw attention to themselves. Silence can also be used as a way to remember a tragic incident and to remember the victims or casualties of an event in a commemorative ceremony. Silence can also be legal protection enjoyed by people undergoing police interrogation or on trial in certain countries.

The cultural aspect associated with silence was a discovery to me, and I realized that it is a key component as the average pause length in a conversation may vary by language and culture. The perception of silence in a discussion may vary tremendously. Chances are that the “pause” will be two or three seconds at most. What one culture considers to be a perplexing or awkward pause, others see as a valuable moment of reflection and a sign of respect for what the last speaker has said.

Research (1) conducted at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands in Dutch and also in English found that when silence in conversation stretched to four seconds, people started to feel unsettled. In contrast, a separate study (2) found that the Japanese were happy with silences of 8.2 seconds –nearly twice as long as for Americans. In cultures such as those in Latin America or Italy, people often interrupt or talk over each other, so there is never or very rarely silence.

Besides the cultural and context, when is silence considered as awkward? A sudden absence of noise can be uncomfortable because it seems unmanaged. During an awkward silence, it could well be that one person might be panicking or that two insecure individuals are simultaneously acknowledging their security. People are not very familiar with silence and usually try to fill the gaps. Let’s now see what happens in a coaching context.

Application

During a coaching session, there is no power game at stake. One person, the coach, is managing the session and therefore the awkwardness described above becomes a space that enables the client to process their thoughts and feelings without distraction. It can be a great coaching tool as silence helps the client to gain clarity of the difficulties they face and consider a possible way forward.

To be able to perceive silence as powerful rather than awkward, an entire shift of meaning needs to be considered.

An awkward silence sounds negative in the coaching context and has synonyms such as quiet, still, gag, muzzle, censor, stifle and speechlessness, wordlessness, dumbness, muteness, taciturnity, reticence, uncommunicativeness, unresponsiveness.

A powerful silence has synonyms for the coaching context such as quietness, quietude, still, stillness, hush, tranquility, peace, peacefulness, peace, and quiet.

1) Disrupting the flow: How brief silences in group conversations affect social needs, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, NamkjeKoudenburg, Sept 2010

2) Yappari, As I Thought: Listener Talk in Japanese Communication, Haru Yamada, Global Advances in Business and Communications Conference & Journal: Vol. 4: Iss. 1, Article 3., 2015

Shifting the meaning and the perception of silence is a skill that can take a while to feel comfortable with and to master, often feeling that silence indicates that the coach has run out of questions. The coach may be met with silence when asking a question to the client – this could be that the client has not understood the question or they are thinking through the answer. A few things could happen then and experienced coaches will allow silence to give the client enough space to think through their response to the full. Less experienced coaches may want to dive in straight away with another question or rephrase the first.

Coaching silence goes beyond occasionally keeping quiet to provide the client with a few seconds of internal inquiry”. It’s a continual process throughout the coaching session and the coaching needs to create the right atmosphere and environment to allow for all the benefits of silence to be observed. It can enhance the coaching session.

These are the benefits of silence that I see in a coaching session. Silence can be :

A time to make connections, to reflect and wait for words or images to occur.

A space in which feelings can be nurtured and allowed to develop

A space in which the client can recover from “here and now” emotions and observe what he/she feels.

An attempt to elaborate an answer

Reflection

As I continue to train and gain experience in coaching I am also continuing to learn the power of silence and to use silence as a tool. I have realized that not only is silence important but it is also interesting as well to reflect upon when the silence occurs. What preceded the silence? Is the client reflecting? Is it the right time to give more space and allow my client to think through their answer more fully, to consider what answer they have already given, or to explore further options?

My learning has taught me to reflect on what silence means to me and my relationship with silence. I try to resist the urge to jump in or interrupt. It also allows me to be better able to gauge what questions to ask next.

The key learning of using silence as a powerful tool in coaching is actually before the session begins. I now pause and apply silence before a peer coaching session. This allows me to focus and reach a level of inner calm. That pause is an eye-opener for me, and although it feels like an eternity, I now realize that it is very brief.

While it may feel counterintuitive, especially for newer coaches like me, I find that in general when I am present but not intruding, I’m more fully connected to my clients and I feel their engagement in their process grow stronger. I am grateful that I was allowed to shift my mindset from awkward silence to powerful silence in coaching, and I realize now what a gift it is to simply sit with our clients in their deepest moments.

References / Bibliography

BBC Worklife article – “The subtle power of uncomfortable silences”, 2017

“The untapped power of silence in coaching”, ebook

Koudenburg, Namkje, “Disrupting the flow: How brief silences in group conversations affect social needs”, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, Sept 2010

Yamada, Haru, “Listener Talk in Japanese Communication”, Global Advances in Business and Communications Conference & Journal: Vol. 4: Iss. 1, Article 3., 2015

Prochnik, George, In Pursuit of Silence: Listening for Meaning in a World of Noise, Anchor Books, 2011 Original source: 

[gayhardmens82]

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[solipsistful]

City of Saints and Madmen thoughts story by story lmao here @chemicalkin here’s your debriefing. maybe i should wait until we’ve finished the other Ambergris books, but

honestly, my favorite part of Dradin, In Love is the later reveal that it’s a goddamn autobiography. i’m not even sure what that changes, if anything -- except maybe just that Dradin is actually Even Weirder than he already comes off, because he’s perfectly happy to write such a damning autobiography. actually a cute story about someone objectum-oriented meeting the love of his life and that’s the way we’re interpreting it hush

An Early History of Ambergris is fun and Duncan Shriek is the snarkiest academic. just, very good outline of everything, yeah? good contextualization. :V footnotes!

The Transformation of Martin Lake is the perfect treatise on the death of the composer? author and how knowledge of the artist’s experiences changes the interpretation of their art. or maybe someone else would come out with a different interpretation hahahah. it’s just. very good. second favorite story.

so the thing about The Strange Case of X is that its “twist” was. obvious. (”and then I flew back to Tallahassee” “... what the fuck”) and yet (1) the switch from third to first person was wild and i still love it, lmao, and (2) it’s really necessary to contextualize the appendix. Serpent ended up liking it a bit more because of, in his words, “fucking fictive world-hopping problems right?”

X’s Notes are, like, brrr right. and just like, his note that he wants more reading material even if he “theoretically” wrote it all himself which is a goddamn wild thought to have, huh?

The Release of Belacqua kills me too much for such a short thing because it reminds me of my favorite Vonnegut novel, Breakfast of Champions, and its end “release” of Kilgore Trout as a character (even though he kept writing him). “He is not a character. This has never been a story” found its way as an echo into my head, oops.

King Squid is my favorite story and i want to protect this screwy squidanthrope forever; this is my official Murderboy With A Sad Backstory i��m stanning (though he hardly counts for the category). i wasn’t super into the first part, like okay blah blah squids, but the annotated-bibliography-as-story killed me too much to not love it.

does The Hoegbotton Family History count as a story (yes yes it does) it’s just kinda. there. anyway.

The Cage was a trip just because I couldn’t forget the goddamn framing device of “this is a fictional story written by an Ambergrisian author.” like, what info in it is “canon Ambergris” and what is the fiction created by the author?? who knows?? also, “creating a physical imitation of a traumatizing scene in order to try to better understand it” is such a specific thing lmao

In the Hours After Death is just an enjoyable read, yeah? i feel like there should be more to say but yeah.

The Man Who Had No Eyes apparently was fully encrypted in earlier versions of the book, which is wild to me. decrypting the last bit took long enough (imagine us trying to count numbers out loud while Kylo, upset that noises are coming out of my mouth, tries to claw over the monitor we’re reading on), and like, obviously i’m gonna compare that to the other story i remember decrypting something for, which is House of Leaves, and the experience of writing this one out was. more than that. *lays down*

The Exchange is cute for X’s notes/talk about Madnok. like, that’s probably the point, the “story” itself not really being much at all, but i just like X and Madnok both as characters and i’m happy they’re inexplicably in contact :V

Learning to Leave the Flesh. so. the funny thing to me is that it’s framed as a “precursor” to Ambergris. actually, it reads to me as a precursor to goddamn Southern Reach. in so many little ways that it probably would be its own post, but like, yeah. VanderMeer sure has his Themes huh

maybe placed elsewhere The Ambergris Glossary would be fine, but it’s such a too-funny, too-straightforward thing to follow something like Learning to Leave the Flesh, like goddamn it, you can’t end on this.

- Ace

[peaamlipoetrydoctor]

Stepping through my post-doc archive: Jan 2022

So January was when I decided I should probably keep track of the things I'd been working on, which, according to my wee bibliography-of-me is as follows for 2021 into Jan 2022 -

Aamli, P. (2021a). Working through climate grief: A poetic inquiry (unpublished doctoral dissertation). Hult Ashridge Executive Education. Also available under “supervised theses” at: https://www.drstevemarshall.com/writing

Aamli, P. (2021b). Lockdown [Poem]. Allegro Poetry Magazine, 26(March). https://www.allegropoetry.org/p/issue-26-march-2021.html

Aamli, P. (2021c, April 08). I come from [Poem]. Dissonance Magazine, (NaPoWriMo series). https://www.dissonancemagazine.co.uk/zine/i-come-from

Aamli, P. (2021d, April 25). Rage is the thing with wings [Poem]. NaPoWriMo (Day25, co-featured poem). Retrieved on April 25, 2021 from https://www.napowrimo.net/day-twenty-five-7/

Aamli, P. (2021e, May 31). Small talk [Poem]. Shot Glass Journal (online literary poetry magazine, focusing on short verse), 34 (May issue).

Aamli, P. (2021f, July). The midnight hush [Poem / finalist]. Twelve ‘o clock poetry competition: Anthology. Wingless Dreamer.

Aamli, P. (2021g). Spring equinox in Leeds [Poem]. Allegro (online literary poetry magazine), 27 (September).

Aamli, P. (2021h, August 31). Dawn boat [Haiku]. South Wales Evening Post: Haiku of the day (Jim Young, Ed.).

Aamli, P. (2021i). The postman’s park [Poem]. In Between The Lines 2021: An anthology of creative writing. City Lit.

Aamli, P. (2021j, October 08). Sunset [Poem] Paddler Press, 2 (“Roots & wings”). https://paddlerpress.ca/issues-trip-log/

Aamli, P. (2021k, October 08). Before lockdown, I used to walk to work [Poem /nominated for a Pushcart Prize, 2021] Paddler Press, 2 (“Roots & wings”). https://paddlerpress.ca/issues-trip-log/

Aamli, P. (2021l, October 08).  VE fly-by as London unwinds out of lockdown[Poem] Paddler Press, 2 (“Roots & wings”). https://paddlerpress.ca/issues-trip-log/

Aamli, P. (2021m, October). Hope in mid-winter [Poem]. Decembré poetry competition: Anthology. Wingless Dreamer.

Aamli, P. (2021n, November). To my executors [Poem / finalist]. In M. Malamud, Ed., The art of death: Literary taxidermy competition 2021, p. 29. First Regulus Press.

Aamli, P. (2021o, November 28). Standing alone in the rain [Poem]. In The water episode (season 3, episode 10): Poetry on the theme of lakes, rain, the sea. Blue Door to the Cosmos. https://audioboom.com/posts/7987450-the-water-episode-poetry-on-the-theme-of-lakes-rain-the-sea-soft-spoken-poetry-to-hel

Aamli, P. (2021p, December 08). If nothing we do matters [Advent blog series, day 8]. EpicHR. https://epichr.co.uk/2021/12/08/adventblogs-if-nothing-we-do-matters/

Aamli, P. (2022a, January 01). Consider the foxglove [Poem]. The Tiger Moth Review 7, p. 63-64. https://www.thetigermothreview.com/issue-7

Aamli, P. (2022b, January 27). It does not say RSVP on the Statue of Liberty [Poem]. Freezeray Poetry, issue 21. http://www.freezeraypoetry.com/paula-aamli.html

And of all these pieces, I've decided to re-include Consider the Foxglove, which was published in Jan 2021 by Tiger Moth Review (with some small tweaks to make it easier to read) and subsequently included in my pamphlet, A Lockdown London Life...

CONSIDER THE FOXGLOVE

A Golden Shovel

My initial excitement at working there is

gone, obliterated by compromises. A

harsh critic of my life might define

this discomfort as envy, a failure to fine-

sse my way past the point that deline-

ates deciders from decided-abouts. Between

these two realms is a vast chasm and I a-

gree, younger me longed to live in clover

with the higher-ups. Now I understand,

even my own middling life looks like a

fantasy. Random chance was my friend.

Today, in mid-life, in central London, I stand

staring at the plants in our garden. There's

a foxglove exploding with purple bells, so a-

live. All week I have watched it unfurl its fine-

ery, slowly stretching from the leafine-

ss of its broad base, up towards the blue line

of the sky. In the brief beat between

glory and decay is this plant's reality.

Its whole point of being is to be, and

this is what I envy. Whilst I pretend

to be at peace, I have lost faith in the grand

unfurling of purpose through history. You-

th wants so much, strives so much and never

believes in age, death or failing. You know

that's how youth is supposed to be, still

certain of a place in the unfolding story. You-

th's future is a promise we should not breach

but our youth see an end approaching. The-

y know we will have to teach ourselves to stop

choking the ocean and uprooting the trees. If

the old story of repentance was ever true, it

is surely true today. Is there a way to was-

h our carbon sins away? That would be worth

the cost of conversion. Can we change the

course we have been setting? An up-hill

path, steepening the more we resist the climb.

I am encouraged by the rising clamour. There's

“boardroom chit-chat” about nature, perhaps a

sign of hope, whatever the motivation. Fine

if capitalism "saves the planet", if we confine

the level of pay-off flowing to the rich? Holine-

ss has always been a negotiation between

need and expectation. And still the foxglove

continues to unfurl, to make its brief stand,

stretching vainly to connect earth and sky. A

yearly ritual in which Nature happily waste

s energy from the sun on this brief burst of

life-becoming-compost. And tell me, at your

own end, will you account so well for your time?

[samanthacreed99]

Blog One: Multimedia Project

This project is a multimedia performance, meaning we must incorporate aspects of media such as, audial or visual. Previously, when I thought about media included in performance, I didn’t understand however from reading on the topic, I came across Donna Haraway’s idea that “all individuals in contemporary society have become cyborgs in their interaction with technologies.”(Natasha Lushetich P. 191) This stood out to me as I saw the importance technology now has on 21st century thus, to include it within performance it would bring a whole new audience interested in theatre.

Currently, our ideas are as follows: 

- A seance where the devil is summoned. Media such as wind gusts could be used to give the impression that there is a supernatural spirit present. 

- A performance based around the seasons changing, so this is more about the media rather than live performance. There could be a video playing in the background of them changing and potential sound scaping.  

- A hooded figure who is invested in the act of voyeurism over a young girl who is home alone. We could have one or two live actors and possibly two or three hooded figures. We had an idea to use projection to cast shadows of the figures as we thought it’d build tension due to the figures being ‘unknown’. The live actor(s) would react to the shadows, overall creating a terrifying performance.

From the ideas above, we decided that the intruder one would be the most interesting piece to create, especially with multimedia. Our inspiration for this came from the movie ‘Hush’ which was directed by Mike Flanagan and was released in 2016. In the movie, we witness a deaf woman defending herself against an intruder. There is an intense atmosphere throughout which inspired us to want to do the same and to heighten the audience’s senses with little or no lighting perhaps as we perform. Below is the trailer for ‘Hush’:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_P8WCbhC6s

We all have individual bits to bring together for the performance, mine include finding masks for the intruders, thinking about what I’m going to do and how I’ll react being the live actor and learn the scripted phone call, ensuring the timings are accurate.

Bibliography:

Lushetich, N. (2016), Interdisciplinary Performance: Reformatting Reality. Palgrave Macmillan Publisher Limited, 4 Crinan Street, London, England.

[parresafmp]

The Dark Side Presents:

High style and low morals

The Rana Plaza Collapse

Rana Plaza collapse was a structural failure that happened on 24 April 2013 in Bangladesh, where an eight-story commercial building containing clothing factories, a bank, apartments, as well as numbers of shops collapsed. The disaster resulted in 1134 death as well as over 2500 injuries  (Rana Plaza collapse: 38 charged with murder over garment factory disaster, 2016).

Figure One:

Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in Manhattan, New York City, happened on March 25, 1911, was the deadliest industrial disaster in the history of the city, The fire resulted in the deaths of 146 garment workers (Tragedy to Triumph: The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire, 2015).

Figure Two

2012 Pakistan factory fires

On 11 September 2012, two garment factories in the Pakistani  a textile factory in Karachi and a shoe making factory in Lahore caught fire, killing 289 people and seriously injuring more than 60 (Ur-Rehman, Masood and Walsh, 2012).

Figure Three

Iqbal Masih 

Iqbal Masih was born in 1983 boy in Pakistan, to a poor family and was put to work to pay off their debts totaling to 12 USD, After learning that bonded labor was illegal in Pakistan Iqbal escaped his slavery, Iqbal was shot dead by the carpet Mafia at the age of 12, he became a symbol of abusive child labor in Pakistan (Hansen, Diego Rosell, 2012).

Figure Four

Scandal: Boohoo

In July 2020 a story broke out in the UK, which accused Boohoo the fast-fashion giant of modern-day slavery, the clothing giant was accused of sourcing their clothing from Leicester's factory that pays their employees less than the minimum wage, it was also confirmed that they were not protected from Covid-19 and quiet poor working conditions.

Figure Five

Animal cruelty in fashion

Every year, millions of animals are murdered by the fashion industry. Animals are bred and murdered by Chinese fur farms, Indian slaughterhouses as well as the Australian outback, Animals are suffering a huge amount of pain for a fur jacket, leather belt, and wool sweater to be made all for fashion (More Info on Animals Used for Clothing | PETA, 2020).

Figure Six

Price of Honor, Murder of Tara Fares:

Murder of an Instagram star, Tara was shot to death by an unknown gunman in September 2018 in Baghdad, Her death was followed by a number of murders all against established women in Iraq. Women are being murdered by their fathers, partners, and extremist, and their deaths are going unnoticed.

Figure seven

Disappearance of Jim Thompson

Figure Eight

Jim Thompson was an American businessman and a suspected Spy who helped revitalize the Thai silk industry, he is known as the Sik King and is much loved in Thailand for his contributions to the silk industry, Jim went missing in 1967 from Malaysia's Cameron Highlands without any trace, his faith remains a mystory (Jonathan Walford's Blog, 2009).

Death of a supermodel Gia Carangi

The world's first supermodel whom died of AIDS in 1986 at age 26 becoming addicted to heroin.

Figure Nine

Mental illness in fashion: 

The fashion industry is represented as luxury, extravagance, glamour, and beauty, with never-ending excitement. Nevertheless, designers, models, and all professionals in the industry are subject to the dark side which are damaging to their mental health and have a serious effect on their mental health and well-being.

Figure Ten

Reflection: Through the result that I got from survey Monkey, I concluded that  68% of participant confirmed they would not mind listening to the repeated cases, However, the majority confirmed they would prefer the shows that do not repeat cases covered by other podcats, looking at those result I started looking to cases that I would like to feature as part of the Dark Side. I looked at Slavery, child abuse, addiction as well as people who had a significant effect on the fashion industry, mental health is another topic that is always looked over and maybe a bit Hush Hush both within and outside of the industry, I looked at cases listed above and if there has been a deep dive through any other podcasts, to which I can honestly say none of the cases that I am considering, have not been looked at previously. There are many booked, articles, documentaries, which I am hoping to use to produce a podcast that takes a deep dive into them.

Bibliography:

Afge.org. 2015.Tragedy To Triumph: The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire. [online] Available at: <https://www.afge.org/article/tragedy-to-triumph-the-triangle-shirtwaist-fire/> [Accessed 27 October 2020]. 

Digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu. 2012. [online] Available at: <https://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.google.com/&httpsredir=1&article=2854&context=key_workplace> [Accessed 28 October 2020].

PETA. 2020. More Info On Animals Used For Clothing | PETA. [online] Available at: <https://www.peta.org/issues/animals-used-for-clothing/animals-used-for-clothing-2/#:~:text=Every%20year%2C%20millions%20of%20animals,leather%20belt%2C%20and%20wool%20sweater.> [Accessed 29 October 2020].

Kickshawproductions.com. 2009. The Mysterious Disappearance Of Jim Thompson | Jonathan Walford's Blog. [online] Available at: <https://kickshawproductions.com/blog/?p=15863> [Accessed 30 October 2020].   

The Guardian. 2016. Rana Plaza Collapse: 38 Charged With Murder Over Garment Factory Disaster. [online] Available at: <https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jul/18/rana-plaza-collapse-murder-charges-garment-factory> [Accessed 27 October 2020].

Ur-Rehman, Z., Masood, S. and Walsh, D., 2012. More Than 300 Killed In Pakistani Factory Fires (Published 2012). [online] Nytimes.com. Available at: <https://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/13/world/asia/hundreds-die-in-factory-fires-in-pakistan.html> [Accessed 27 October 2020]. 

Figure one: the Guardian. 2016. Rana Plaza Collapse: 38 Charged With Murder Over Garment Factory Disaster. [Image] Available at: <https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jul/18/rana-plaza-collapse-murder-charges-garment-factory> [Accessed 27 October 2020]. 

Figure Two: Afge.org. 2015. Tragedy To Triumph: The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire. [Image] Available at: <https://www.afge.org/article/tragedy-to-triumph-the-triangle-shirtwaist-fire/> [Accessed 27 October 2020]. 

Figure Three:  Ur-Rehman, Z., Masood, S. and Walsh, D., 2012. More Than 300 Killed In Pakistani Factory Fires (Published 2012). [Image] Nytimes.com. Available at: <https://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/13/world/asia/hundreds-die-in-factory-fires-in-pakistan.html> [Accessed 27 October 2020].

Figure Four:

Figure Five: 2020. Leicester’S Cheap Labour. [image] Available at: <https://www.thegryphon.co.uk/2017/02/03/leicesters-cheap-labour/> [Accessed 29 October 2020].

Figure Six: : 2020. Leicester’S Cheap Labour. [image] Available at: <https://www.thegryphon.co.uk/2017/02/03/leicesters-cheap-labour/> [Accessed 29 October 2020].

Figure seven:  2019. Tara Fares. [image] Available at: <https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/tara-fares-iraq-instagram-shot-baghdad-0v2c3r37p> [Accessed 29 October 2020].

Figure Eigth:  The Mysterious Disappearance Of Jim Thompson | Jonathan Walford's Blog. [Image] Available at: <https://kickshawproductions.com/blog/?p=15863> [Accessed 30 October 2020].

Figure Nine:  2016. Death Of A Super Model. [image] Available at: <https://twitter.com/gr8magz/media> [Accessed 30 October 2020].

Figure Ten:  2020. Suicide. [image] Available at: <https://edition.cnn.com/2018/06/05/us/kate-spade-designer-deaths/index.html> [Accessed 30 October 2020].

[thekriegerpost]

Annotated Bibliography

1. Schnee, Alex. “Running.” Fulton Library, Utah Valley University, 2018,

 http://ezproxy.uvu.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ers&A

N=114325118&site=eds-live. 

The reason that I chose this source is because of the history that it gives of the art of running. It gives a good background of what running does to the body. The article then proceeds to give a brief history on running and how the sport of running has evolved, to how we know running today and how we participate in the sport. The article talks about the evolution of humans from the time we could stand on two legs to the competitions of the Greek Olympics. We then read about the anatomy of running and how there are three stages;  the stance, float, and swing phases. The article then talks about good techniques and common injuries from staying relaxed to shin splints. We then hear about the benefits of running. Some benefits include improved respiratory health, bone and muscle strength, cardiovascular strength, increased calorie burn and more. Lastly, it talks about running events and competitions. We see events from many distances whether it be on roads, trails, or on tracks. There are competitions where you have to jump over hurdles as well. Some of the most well known events are the 100 meters, mile, 5K, half marathon, and marathon. This article will be great to include for those readers that don’t know much about running and will be a great overview. I chose this article for the great background it gives and all the important basic information of running it provides for my research paper and for the viewer to look over and read if they want further information on running.   

2. Sarawut Lapmanee, Jantarima Charoenphandhu, Narattaphol Charoenphandhu, “Beneficial 

Effects of Fluoxetine, Reboxetine, Venlafaxine, and Voluntary Running Exercise in Stressed 

Male Rats with Anxiety- and Depression-like Behaviors.” Behavioural Brain Research, Elsevier, 

21 May 2013, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0166432813002891?via=ihub. 

This article is about how some researchers took stressed male rats and gave them medication and wheel running to see if their depression and anxiety went down or improved. They first exposed the rodents to mild but repetitive stressful circumstances. They noticed that when they exposed the rodents to these stressful situations, they had a greater chance of developing a mental health concern such as an anxiety disorder or depression disorder. They concluded that regular exercise that is voluntary, combined with pharmacological treatment, especially fluoxetine and reboxetine, could lower signs of anxiety and depression in the stressed male rats. I chose this article because it shows many different things that I found interesting. It first shows that when the rats are introduced to continual stress that they are more likely to develop anxiety or/and depression. It then shows that for exercise to be beneficial it must be voluntary and not forced. Lastly, the article shows that medication can be a good thing. I think in today's society we speak of taking medication in hushed tones and no one really wants others to know. This article shows that it can help, and while I understand that these are just rodents that were tested, I think this source will be beneficial for my research paper. I think experiments like these and others can be very helpful and can show us many insights to things that we were unsure of and give us solid concrete evidence and facts. 

3. Morris, Paul, and Helen Scott. “Not Just a Run in the Park: A Qualitative Exploration of 

Parkrun and Mental Health.” Fulton Library, United Kingdom : Taylor & Francis , Sept. 2019, 

http://eds.b.ebscohost.com/eds/detail/detail?vid=5&sid=b1475d8f-0bde-47fc-9163-c878cc5bcd7

7@sessionmgr102&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWRzLWxpdmU=#AN=2018-40729-001&db=psyh. 

This article talks about how some guys in 2004 put on this event called a Parkrun where anyone could come for free at a certain place and time to run five kilometers. At first they only had 13 runners show up, they now have over 100,000 participants with 445 events all over the United Kingdom and the world. I have always found that it is a lot easier to exercise and run when I am with others and when there is a set time and place. This gives people groups to run with and gives them something to look forward to. In the article they talk about how exercise is very important to people who have mental health issues as they are more likely to have a poor lifestyle such as a bad diet, drinking, smoking, and being overweight. They say that people with lower physical activity have a higher chance of having some form of mental health illness. This also goes to show that people who have mental health difficulties are amongst the most socially excluded people. This also shows that people who are socially excluded have higher mental health issues. The question that they most want answered is what are the experiences of people who have had a history with mental health difficulties when participating in Parkrun? I think this article will be very beneficial while I am writing my research paper. It shows that more than just exercise can help you with your mental health. I also love that this gives readers a chance to find a local Parkrun near them and participate. Someday I would love to participate.  

4. Sabourin, BC, et al. “Running as Interoceptive Exposure for Decreasing Anxiety Sensitivity: 

Replication and Extension.” Fulton Library, Taylor & Francis Country of Publication: England, 

2 Mar. 2015, 

http://eds.b.ebscohost.com/eds/detail/detail?vid=9&sid=b1475d8f-0bde-47fc-9163-c878cc5bcd7

7@sessionmgr102&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWRzLWxpdmU=#AN=25730341&db=cmedm. 

So this article is a little tricky, but I feel that it has some good stuff in it and it makes sense to why I chose it. In the study, they took 154 women who were afraid of how their body felt when it was aroused, rapid heart rate etc. The purpose was to see how running helped them decrease their anxiety sensitivity. They had them run 10 ten minute running trials over the course of 10 weeks. So, 10 minutes of running once a week. The goal of the trial and test runs was to get the females used to experiencing a rapid heart rate and all the things that occur to their bodies when they are running. This way their anxiety sensitivity towards arousal will go down. What their body experienced while running is somewhat similar to what they experience with arousal. If they get comfortable with how their bodies feel while running, their anxiety sensitivity towards arousal should go down. The studies in the article do show decreased signs of anxiety sensitivity in most of the women. The reason I chose this article is because it shows a different side of how running can be beneficial towards people with any mental health issue. Personally, I didn’t know that this was an issue, and I found it very interesting because I had never heard of it. I think it will be helpful to see all the different sides of how running can be beneficial not just for physical health but for mental and emotional health. I feel as though this article will provide a different view on how running can help people with mental health issues. 

5. Stephenson, Sharon. “Vampire Running.” Fulton Library, Bauer Media Group, June 2017, 

http://eds.b.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.uvu.edu/eds/detail/detail?vid=7&sid=bcfd0943-089b-448f-8

1f8-82e3d74f6616@sessionmgr102&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWRzLWxpdmU=#AN=123265249&d

b=f6h. 

This article that I chose is about a women who started to experience a deep sadness. She wasn’t experiencing such depression to where she was suicidal or wanted to harm herself but she just felt like a gloomy fog had overcome her. She had no reason to be sad. She had a family, a good job, food, and shelter. The winter sadness just seemed to hit her hard. So she decided one deary night that she was going to go for a night run and pull out the old running shoes. It was extremely cold outside but she was determined to out run the sadness. When she finally finished her run she felt endorphins flood her and felt that so called runner's high. She ran in any weather at night through that winter. At times she couldn’t feel her toes but she loved being out there by herself. She often complained but found comfort in doing it. A friend referred to it as vampire running, running at night when most wouldn’t. She soon began to feel less anxious and more calm. That was her favorite thing about running, how much it affected her mood for good. I chose this article because it yet again shows a different side of running and how it helped this woman. I love how we think of running as just running but there are so many different types and options for when and how to do it. Some prefer running in the morning while others at night and each work the best for every different person. I just love this source because it is a personal story and not just research or facts.  

6. Freeland, Ben. “The Healing Power of Running Very Long Distances.” Medium, Medium, 27 

June 2018,  

https://medium.com/s/story/the-healing-power-of-running-very-long-distances-3ae36e2ca

d3a. 

This article is about a kid who grew up as the non-athletic kid and never did much with sports. He had asthma so that always limited him but he always wanted to become an athlete and become a good runner. He was determined to do that but soon he had some severe asthma attacks in junior high that hospitalized him. Then to shoot down his determination even more he got into a car accident when he was seventeen that left him with a bad ankle fracture and some rehabilitation. Then at the age of 37 he took up running again due to the panic attacks that he started to have. He had had them in junior high and with asthma was used to the feeling of losing your breath but these ones seemed worse. By 2014 he was out of a job and found himself in a deep depression, the worst he had ever felt in his life. Running seemed to be the only thing to part the clouds of depression and all those anxiety attacks. I decided to choose this article because it spoke to me pretty personally. I have experienced anxiety attacks before and to see how much running has helped this man I just want to share his and my experience of how much running has helped us through our dark times. I just like the different views that this article offers and how it is a personal experience. I  love reading personal experiences. They are very refreshing and meaningful.

7. Baca, Jimmy Santiago. “[Today, Running along the River] by Jimmy Santiago Baca.” Poetry 

Foundation, Poetry Foundation, 

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/53240/from-winter-poems-along-the-rio-grande. 

I chose to include this source because it is unlike any other source that I have in this annotated bibliography. It is a poem! I think there are many ways to interpret poems and each interpretation is slightly different or can be completely different! I just love the variety that it brings and will hopefully bring to my paper. What happens is this man is out on a run and many things are on his mind. It sounds like it is a fall day. He passes the cathedral. He sees many birds out on his run. He scares some off but others stay where they are. He soon thinks about this woman that he is interested in. He keeps reflecting back on the cathedral. He soon hears a voice as clear as day that tells him to stay close to his spirits and do all things spiritually. Stay close to the creator and all his worries will be answered in time. I just love how he begins the run worried and thinking of all different things and ends with such clarity and peace. He ends it with ‘ah it is a good run..’ I don’t know, I just simply love that. Such a little piece of writing but there is so much in the poem. I enjoy these poems that can be abstract and that don’t really have a meaning but at the same time they do. I like thinking through them and rereading them and trying to figure out what it means. I also love that every person has a different meaning of the exact same poem.   

8. Suzuki, Wendy. “‘The Brain-Changing Benefits of Exercise.’” TED, 

https://www.ted.com/talks/wendy_suzuki_the_brain_changing_benefits_of_exercise/transcript. 

The reason that I chose this source was mainly because it was a TED talk, but I love how different this source is as well from the other ones. I think that videos like this can help others really learn better than articles can do at times. Wendy Suzuki is a professor of neuroscience that delves into why exercise is the most powerful and transformative thing you can do for your brain right now. She then talks about the prefrontal cortex of the brain. This is the center of decision-making, focus, attention, and your personality. She talks about the temporal lobe as well. You have two sections to this part, a right and a left. The temporal lobe is responsible for storing your new long term memories for facts and events. Wendy Suzuki had become well known for all her discoveries with memories and she spent lots of time in the lab and dark rooms looking over brain cells and finding new discoveries. It was great for her but she noticed something. When she took herself away from the lab she noticed that she had no social life, had gained 25 pounds, and just was in a really depressed mood. She should have been happy but she just wasn’t. That is when she turned to exercise. She soon lost those 25 pounds and noticed that her mood was always so much better after exercising. She came to three conclusions. First is that exercise has immediate effects on the brain; second is improved attention and mood; and third is it provides protective effects on your brain.

9. Oaklander, Mandy. “Running Can Help You Live Longer. And More Isn't Always Better.” 

Fulton Library, TIME Magazine , 

http://eds.b.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.uvu.edu/eds/detail/detail?vid=5&sid=8e97f0c9-ceef-459b-87

b8-c66315ce74ec@sessionmgr103&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWRzLWxpdmU=#AN=139553396&db

=asn. 

The reason that I chose this article is because it provides some solid facts and research into running but it shows how you don’t have to be a skilled runner who runs tons of miles every week. Researchers took over 200,000 people from all over the world and tracked their deaths and whether they ran or not. They found that runners were 27 percent less likely to die for any reason and had a 30 percent less chance of getting cardiovascular disease. Regardless of how much each person ran, they found that if a person ran at all they had the same benefits. When you run you grow new capillaries and small arteries which help lower your blood pressure. You also use up your blood sugar while running and this helps fight against cancer because your blood sugar is what cancer cells feed on. 46 percent of Americans don’t meet the physical requirements. I want to show how running can help with mental health issues such as depression and anxiety but I also want to show how it can help you with so much more than just your mental health! I’ve found myself to always feel so much better mentally and physically after I run. There are just so many benefits to running and you honestly don’t have to run that far. I think it is so horrible that almost half the American population doesn’t meet the physical requirements to keep their bodies healthy and up to shape. I understand that some really just can’t but still we need to try a little bit harder. 

10. Reynolds, Gretchen. “3 Hours of Exercise a Week May Lower Your Depression Risk.” The 

New York Times, 20 Nov. 2019, 

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/20/well/move/3-hours-of-exercise-a-week-may-lower-your-d

epression-risk.html.  

I’ll be honest, I chose this article because I couldn’t find any other sources and this one fit right in with my topic. Studies have shown that any type of physical activity whether strenuous or intense has shown to offset a person’s genetic propensity for depression. Depression is one of the most common world disorders and affects more than 300 million people worldwide. Some people’s genetics give them a bigger chance of suffering from depression. This just sometimes runs in families. Though people may have these genetic defaults, exercise has shown that it can decrease depression and decrease the intensity or duration of your down times. Exercise doesn’t eliminate the complete risk of developing a mental disorder such as depression but it sure does help. They took 8000 men and women and took DNA samples and had them take a survey on how much they exercise each week. They found that no matter if you have a high or low risk of depression, they found that when the participants exercised they had a significantly lower chance of developing depression than those who didn’t exercise. Concluding the article, they want to enforce that your genes are not your destiny and that you can change, prevent, and live a different life than what your genes may say. I personally love the fact that they focused on humans genes in this because this is something to be thought that we can’t change or are destined to but I love how they flip that and bring light that you can prevent certain gene disorders that you may or may not have.