#like i wrote the entire history of the school she attended

[lazuilis]

on the bound

[phereinnike]

OMINIS LORE DROPPED BY DIALOGUE AT THE END OF THE HISTORY OF MAGIC CLASS QUEST!

Pardon if the wording isn't exact, as you can see by the screenshot I'm playing in spanish, but here are some dialogue lines Ominis speaks to Natty and you if you stay to listen after finishing the History of Magic class map quest:

Quidditch:

"Next season the Chudley Cannons will be invincible, you'll see!

"My father was a great seeker and he always thought I'd be one too. Thank Merlin they cancelled quidditch."

"I miss attending the matches. Cheering everyone was very fun. And watching Isaac Cooper."

"My friends and I like to spend the evenings watching the sun set from the quidditch pitch. This year it isn't much good for anything else, unfortunately."

"I spent the entire summer practicing a full turn on a broom. What a waste!"

Family:

"This is the first year my sister is in Hogwarts. Whenever she pretends she doesn't see me in the corridors I make her trip with a jinx."

"This is the first year my siblings and I are together at Hogwarts. Our poor mother doesn't know what to do with so much time on her hands, so she knits. She sends us a new sweater each week."

"You try to work with a wand that has been through your three disastrous sisters."

"My father says he used to hide his homework under his bed."

"I used to write to my parents every week. Now I can't recall the last time I sent them an owl, do you think they know i'm still alive?"

"I hadn't met any of my cousins until i came to Hogwarts and saw that we were all in the same house."

"My brother has promised to give me his old broom when he saves up enough to buy himself a new one. I can't wait!"

Studies/teachers:

"If I manage to stop dissappearing my class notes while practicing evanesco I might even pass the Transfigurations O.W.L. this year."

"Professor Weasley is a trully incredible teacher. She never makes us write scrolls longer than necessary."

"Professor Weasley is already preparing me for the Transfigurations N.E.W.T."

"The other day Professor Black looked at me in the Great Hall and I spat my breakfast. I don't know if he might've taken it the wrong way."

"What a relieve that Black's children are too young to attend Hogwarts. I'd hate having my father as headmaster."

"Obviously, Hogwarts is the best magic school in the world. Everyone knows that. Of course, we'll be the best at magic in the world."

"Professor Howin is going to ask us about aquatic animals next week. I can't wait to tell her I saw a kelpie in Ireland this summer."

"I took my copy of 1000 Herbs and Magical Fungy to Herbology and left it in the greenhouse next to the mandrake seedbeds. Sharp was horrified by the fact that i didn't have it in class. He said I needed to sort out my priorities."

"Everyone is afraid of Professor Sharp, but not me. He's a brilliant man. And he has only yelled at me twice this week for setting my cloak on fire."

"I wonder how Sharp injured his leg. Surely, it must've been during his time as an auror."

"You should hear Shah talk about Divination. It's a miracle Onai's ears aren't burning. I'd say stars are more knowledgeable than cards."

"I'm still having a hard time brewing antidotes. I'm surprised to many of them ask for mandrakes. I'll make sure I set my career goals far away from that."

"That reminds me, did miss Scribner say we could take the book out at night or that she'd punish us if we did?"

"I've notices that if I pretend to pay attention in Potions, Sharp lets me be. It works well enough, unless he asks me a question. Then it's not a good plan at all. Actually, I wouldn't recommend it."

"Sharp caught me making faces behind his back. It was horrible... not to speak of all the house points I lost."

"if someone needs help with their studies or homework, I don't mind lending them a hand. Yesterday I wrote half a scroll for Binns during lunch break."

"I have no problem saying I have trouble understanding that Black is married. What kind of witch would give her hand to a man like that? On the other hand, that means there's hope for everyone."

"I need dragon-skin gloves for Herbology. I refuse to touch chinese chomping cabbages with my naked hands."

"Why aren't we allowed to use gillyweed? What's the point of learning Herbology if we can't mess around with gillyweed? If by the end of the trimester I haven't personally met a mermaid I'll be mad."

[unlike others] "I do like Transfigurations. The complex and precisse nature of transfigurations is admirable."

"I met some of my best friends in Flying class. Nothing strenghtes a bond like thinking you're going to die."

"Professor Weasley must be exhausted doing all her work and then Black's. We're lucky to have her."

Slytherin house:

"Someone got home-made chocolate cauldrons and shared them in the common room. But I think they might've confused the sugar with salt. There were half-eaten chocolate cauldrons in the common room for days."

"I don't know why each common room has a secret entrance. Who would want to go to another common room? We got sorted to our houses for a reason."

"Our dorm is atrocious. I wish people cleaned up after themselves once in a while. Last night a bundimun ate my homework. The potions one, too."

"I like to have a wiggenweld potion under my bed. Not to name any names but someone spent a lot of money on Zonko's."

"My side of the dorm is always impeccable, but I can't say the same about my dorm-mates. If I didn't know them I'd say they were raised by trolls."

Others:

"Has there been any news about the Pitt-upon-Ford Dragon? It makes me want to move, to be honest."

"My great-aunt was a Hufflepuf. She says they have the best common room because it's the calmest. Well, compared to the others."

"I wish I had brought a pet owl to school. I mean, I love my toad. More or less. You wouldn't be interested in getting a toad, would you?"

"Do all professors have their own owls? They must sent lots of letters. To the Ministry or something like that."

"So many letters arrive every day and none are for me."

"If i turn my toad into a cup again, I think it might insist I leave it like that."

"I'd like to retire in Hogsmead. Open a bar. Bore Hogwart's students with my childhood stories."

"I'd like to have a shop in Hogsmead one day. Gladrags Wizardwear could use some competition."

"I guess I'm curious about the beautification potion. What? It's not for me, idiot! It's for a friend. Don't say dumb things."

"Has there been any new about the Pitt-upon-Ford Dragon? It makes me want to move, to be honest."

"My great-aunt was a Hufflepuf. She says they have the best common room because it's the calmest. Well, compared to the others."

"Do all professors have their own owls? They must sent lots of letters. To the Ministry or something like that."

"So many letters arrive every day and none are for me."

"If i turn my toad into a cup again, I think it might insist I leave it like that."

"Have you been by the owlery lately? the house elves haven't been cleaning much this week."

"The other day Peeves distracted me and I bumped right into Adelaide Oakes. Both our books went up flying int he air. Peeves loved it."

"I don't like the size of my legs. Well, you were asking the other day, so I'm telling you."

"I had been collecting chizpurfle fangs all trimester when I thought, why not keep some chizpurfles."

"I really pity those who never get owl-post, poor guys. Have you seen their faces in the great hall?"

"I've heard girls talk about african snake skin near the bathroom. Do you think they're brewing pollyjuice? Oh, what if they've already brewed it and Sharp is actually that hufflepuff girl with the long arms?"

"Today I'm going to the green-houses to sow some knotgrass. Did you know it's used for pollyjuice potion? I think it's what creates the connection to the other person."

"There's an ex-auror living near Hogsmead. She wants to live a quiet life after fighting dark wizards."

"Do you know where I can get leaping toadstoll caps?"

"I just don't get it. Opalum. Who would think to put that in a potion?"

"The other day I got stuck in the Great Staircase for an hour waiting for it to change. Sharp wouldn't believe me when I told him that's why I was late."

"Parry Pippin sure did save me with his wiggenweld potion. In my opinion, his shop's better than any of the ones in London."

"Did you buy your bitterroot from Pippin or did you pick it up yourself? I need some desperately."

That's all I got after staying to listen for about an hour <3

[aetherdoesthings]

HANAHAKI!READER X ROBIN PART TWO

forethoughts: i think i'm getting better!!! that's a lie i've been coughing all afternoon. oh welp. also lowkey i feel like i'm kinda been teaching y'all about absolutism in some sense through the fic. idk.

notes: fem!reader, hanahaki au (it's in the title), modern au, high school, swearing?

The next day at school, you avoided Robin like the plague. You wore a mask, making people think you were just sick, not batshit crazy for coughing up flower petals. During lunch, you hid in the library, a place you rarely saw Robin in since she was always on the podium eating lunch with other juniors. You were fine throughout the entire day; you didn’t see Robin, you didn’t hear Robin, or ever mention Robin once. 

You had decided to keep a small journal with you ever since you had ‘fallen in love’ with Nico Robin, the goddess herself. You wrote down every moment you coughed, keeping track if your symptoms were getting worse or not. You kept the notebook to yourself, keeping it in your bag. It was also one of those notebooks with those stupid padlocks they sold to kids when you were younger, just so that your secret was well hidden.

Robin had started talking to you on Instagram. Whenever your phone suddenly turned bright, you held your breath, checking the notifications to see if it was Robin. When it was, you’d be happy and jump up and down for a solid minute before finally responding. Your god awful disease seemed to go away whenever you talked to Robin via text too; maybe there was a way to keep your disease under wraps after all.

But there was one key thing that foiled your plan to stay immune to Robin forever. The attendance sheet. You can’t just skip History, the only class you had with Robin and had a goddamn group project with. So you walked into the classroom, taking your seat next to God herself, who was busy talking to her other comrades. You tried not to look at her, staring at the clock, the floor, that mold on the wall that seemed to keep growing. There was 60 minutes to this class. 60 minutes of purgatory. Your heart thudded, trying to leap out of your chest and look at Robin, wanting to express your love to her in the cheesiest way. Your mind rebelled, battling all the thoughts about the Goddess away. No. You had spent the entire day trying to figure out what triggered your coughing and made your throat want to kill itself. Right now, you were sitting next to Robin, and your heart was trying to think of her and daydream about you and Robin making out and having--

“Oh! Y/N! I didn’t see you there.” You nearly jumped out of your seat at her voice, as you whipped your head towards her, that sensation in your stomach burning out. Holy shit her smile was so much more beautiful than you had imagined. The corners of Robin’s lips curled upwards, forming a gentle arc. It was warm and inviting, like a blade of light in the darkness dungeons. Her face seemed to have lit up the moment she saw you, as her cheeks flushed pink, but so faint you needed the sun to see it clearly. You wanted to bask in the radiance that shone from her smile, wanting to feel it and experience it in its entirety.

That’s why you let out a harrowing cough, ducking your head and moving away from Robin. The petal moved up your esophagus, landing in your mask. You left the petal there, as you turned your head towards Robin again. Your stomach dropped when you realized her smile had disappeared. A frown replaced the smile, her eyebrows were furrowed and disappointment in her eyes.

“Oh. You’re still sick.” Robin sighed, a small smile on her face. “Well, I do hope you get better before our presentation. Is it a cold?”

“Y-Yeah, cold.” You nodded your head.

“I see. Do feel better soon, I don’t want our grade to plummet if you can’t present well.”

That sentence drove a knife into your heart, as you looked at your desk. “I hope I do too.”

While Robin wasn’t looking, you reached your hand into your mask, grabbing the petal and shoving it into your pocket. You drummed your feet against the ground, waiting for the lesson to start.

45 more minutes. The teacher had just given instructions on what to do and announcements. Everyone started to pull out their laptops the moment the teacher stopped talking, including Robin. You placed your laptop on the table, opening it and signing in, opening the document you and Robin were working on, as well as the slides.

“Okay, progress seems good. We have three more days until the presentation and we’re already halfway done. We just have to find a modern day example for Elizabeth I for extra credit, and we’re good.” Robin said.

“Yep.” You replied, wanting to limit your speech as much as possible. You had a bunch of tabs opened from last night, but your lovesick mind was too busy drooling over Robin to try and close some of them.

“Do you have any ideas about what modern day example we should do?” Robin asked, looking over at your screen.

“Um, the obvious answer would be Elizabeth II, but she was more of a constitutional monarch than absolute, so maybe we can do Elizabeth II, and just compare personalities and accomplishments.” You responded absentmindedly. When Robin didn’t respond, you looked up from your screen, looking at Robin. Your heart immediately dropped, as your finger scrambled on the trackpad, closing all your tabs you had open since last night.

“You saw nothing.” You simply said after a cloud of silence fell upon the two of you.

“Definitely. Let’s get back to work.” Robin replied, looking back at her screen.

Your cheeks were red, your fingers shaking as you tried to type one word on the slides. If the whole room was absolutely silent, everyone would’ve heard your heart thumping, roaring loudly. You spent your night trying to find out how to cure your hanahaki disease, or at least not trigger your symptoms. Tired and absolutely drained, you closed your computer and just went to sleep, not closing your tabs at all.

Does Robin know I have that stupid love disease? Does Robin know I have a massive crush on her? Does Robin think I’m weird? Does Robin know? Shit. Shit. Fuck. I think she knows. Oh fuck, I’m fucked. Robin knows. She knows I have that stupid love disease. Your mind raced with thoughts, all negative and solidifying your doom. Robin definitely saw the tabs of you researching hanahaki, and now she knew you were in love with someone to the point you coughed up flower petals because of a person.

She doesn’t know it’s her. She doesn’t know I like her. She doesn’t know I love her. I’m fine. I’ll be fine. I’m not going to die if she knows I have a massive crush on her. You took a deep breath, holding onto those words like it was your life line. Robin didn’t know it was you, she just knew you were in love with someone.

But she’s smart. She’s going to know. 

No she’s not.

Yes she is.

The two voices wrestled in your head, growing louder and louder, shutting down all your other actions. You were certain Robin was talking, maybe to you or to someone else. Your fingers stayed put on the keys, not a single letter being typed out. All you could focus on was the voices arguing about your fate. It felt like drills digging into your skull, piercing through the bone and turning your brain into mush.

You abruptly stood up from your seat, closing the lid as you walked up to the teacher, telling him you needed to use the bathroom. You stormed out of the classroom, making a beeline to the stalls. You chose the farthest one from the door, turning the lock so fast it should’ve flown off. With your back against the wall, you sunk down to the ground, bringing your knees to your chest as you dropped your head, letting your forehead rest on your knees. 

You hated this feeling. You hated feeling helpless and hated having your well being dependent on a person.

You never wanted to fall in love with Nico Robin. You never wanted to have this feeling in your heart, this constant need to see her and hear her voice.

Now this? 

Why did you have to fall in love with Nico Robin? 

There were two ways to get rid of the stupid love disease. You had to tell Robin you loved her, and if she loves you back, you’d stop coughing up flowers. If she rejects you, you’re done for. 

You let out a sniffle, knowing which option would become reality. 

Nico Robin was going to kill you, whether you told her or not. She would’ve never liked you back, not in a million years.

Your fate was sealed the minute you saw her on your first day of junior year.

You were going to-

“Y/N? Are you in there?” You lifted your head so abruptly, the back of your head hit the concrete wall, causing you to wince. Robin? From the gaps on the bottom, you could see Robin’s shoe slowly approach your stall, the tip of her shoes pointed towards you.

[lil13]

pov: you and calum have been best friends for nearly 20 years, feelings for each other arrived about a year ago. so, after not seeing your best friends for over a year, you plan a visit to surprise them.

warnings: some language (that’s literally it, it is all fluff)

•

“Are you sure it’s okay?” You spoke into your phone as you walked down the streets of Sydney.

It was late-afternoon and you’d finished a day of school a couple hours prior, you taught a music class for the older kids at the school you’d once attended. You’d just finished a term for school and about to have an over two week break.

“Of course it is!” Crystal’s perky voice flooded the speaker, “I wouldn’t have planned this with you for the past month or so if it wasn’t, Y/N.”

She was right, there’s no way the plan would’ve gotten this far if it wasn’t plausible for you to join the boys for the last couple stops of tour. You’d grown up with the boys of 5 seconds of summer, attending school with them when you all were young. While they’d gone off to become a world-famous band, you finished your schooling and then went off to America for university.

Luckily for you, you’d chosen a university in Los Angeles, keeping you around the boys when they lived in the city between tours and while they wrote albums. But then, after graduation, you returned to Sydney, knowing that being a music teacher at your school was what you’d always wanted to do. There was no amount of protests from the boys that would stop you, you’d made your mind up.

You were always very sure of every decision you made and once you’d made your mind up there was no changing it. And they knew that.

“The boys are coming off stage at any minute now so we need to make this quick, but when does your flight get in?” Crystal had successfully confused you, then it clicked, you’d forgotten about time zones. It was late-afternoon in Sydney, but nearly midnight the night before in Los Angeles.

You let out a breathy laugh, “11:00 on the 23rd.” Which was tomorrow for you, but two days from now for them.

“Perfect! Love you, thank you.”

And the call was over.

You couldn’t believe it, you were essentially only a plane ride away from seeing your boys.

•

“They’re going to lose their shit.” Crystal laughed as she drove down the interstate.

You were nearly at the venue where the boys were rehearsing for their show that night and couldn’t stop shaking. It had been well over a year since you’d seen any of them in person. Your communication had never lacked though, especially with Calum.

Calum Hood was your best friend in the entire world. It didn’t matter how close you got to any of your friends, Calum would always rank higher. The two of you would do anything for each other.

And maybe that’s why neither of you could keep relationships.

If you called Calum, he’d drop everything to answer? and vice versa.

The two of you had became friends the first day of year 1 when Calum asked for part of your snack and the rest was history. You two had been attached at the hip ever since.

Eventually, you arrived at the arena, Crystal urged you to keep your luggage in her vehicle and you’d think about it later. She was probably more excited about this surprise than anyone. She’d mentioned that Luke’s wife, Sierra, had wanted to come to the airport too, but the boys would’ve gotten too suspicious.

Crystal gripped your hand tightly, “Go wait in the green room and i’ll tell them I brought them a surprise.” She urged and shoved you toward the room.

The next 5 minutes were brutal, dragging on.

But then they entered the room and it was like everything was right in the world again.

“YOU’RE FUCKING KIDDING!” Michael exclaimed, being the first one in the room.

The other three were confused because Michael’s rather large frame had blocked you from their sights. He ran to you, enveloping you in the biggest hug possible.

A sigh of relief, you were so happy to be back in their presence.

“Holy shit, that’s Y/N!” Luke yelled, turning to look at Sierra and Crystal, “Were you two in on this?”

They both smiled and nodded.

Luke was the next to you, his hug lifted you off the ground. Aside from Calum, you were closest to Luke, knowing him longer than you did the other two.

Ashton gave you one of his famous hugs, kissing the top of your head, before moving out of the way. Everyone knew what for.

Calum stood dumbfounded in the doorway.

He was shocked. There was no part of him that could believe that Y/N Y/L/N was standing in front of him and wasn’t an ocean away. He’d clearly forgotten Australia’s school calendar because he forgot you were on break now. It didn’t matter that you had reminded him of your upcoming break on your weekly facetime with him the week before, he couldn’t really remember anything right now.

“Am I gonna get a Calum hug?” you teased, trying to mask how nervous you were to be in the same room as him.

You two were always close, but you hadn’t realized you developed feelings for him until the last time you’d seen him in person, realizing after he got in the uber to the airport that you wished you could’ve kissed him goodbye. And now, you’ve been harboring feelings for over a year.

Your eyes crinkled when you saw the tears welling in his. He finally moved, crossing the last few feet between you. Calum squatted down just barely, enough to wrap his arms around your waist so he could pick you up in your hug.

His presence was overwhelming.

Your arms hooked around his neck, one hand holding the back of his head to keep him near. You even tucked your head in close.

“Holy shit, Y/N/N, I needed this bad.” you wanted to cry at his whispered admission.

Because it was true, you needed this as much as he needed it.

Without you realizing at first, until the door clicked shut, Crystal and Sierra had ushered the other 3 boys out of the room. Everyone knew that this moment deserved to be private.

Everyone knew the feelings the two of you felt for each other, except for the two of you. Neither knew that their feelings were reciprocated.

Calum had come to terms with his feelings for you around the same time you had and he hated that he felt the need to hide this from you. You two never hid anything from each other.

His hands sliding from your waist to your thighs, urging you to wrap your legs around his torso, brought your attention back. You stayed tucked into him while he blindly walked over to where he knew a couch was, sitting down with you on his lap.

Your heartrate skyrocketed when you sat up, allowing yourself to look into his beautiful brown eyes.

“Hi.” you whispered, not trusting your voice to go any louder.

The cutest smile stretched across his face, one he only showed when he was genuinely happy. You knew the difference between all of his smiles.

His hands sat on your hips, thumbs caressing the bare skin of your torso that had only been exposed during your hug. “How long has this been a plan?”

“A couple weeks.” you responded, your normal voice holding strong.

Calum’s eyes never left yours. “Did you somehow telepathically figure out that I really needed my Best Girl here with me?” Your stomach always went wild when he called you that.

Best Girl.

“I’m just that good, Cal.” you faked your confidence because you truly felt like a little girl with the biggest crush on the inside.

He stared at you instead of continuing to speak. Your eyes, your clothes, your lips.

Your stomach continued to run wild.

When you noticed him starting to lean in, you panicked, quickly sliding your hands from around his neck to holding his shoulders tight. His gaze switched to the utmost concern, “What’s wrong, Y/N/N?”

The self-doubt was running wild in your head, feeding you such false information of Calum’s opinion of you. “If you’re not 100% sure of what your intention is in the follow up after what you’re thinking about doing, please… don’t do it.” You’re not sure why you were essentially telling him not to kiss you.

But it kind of made sense. You’d had intense feelings for him for over a year and you didn’t want one kiss to leave you pining for someone who will never give you what you want.

A slight chuckle fell from his lips, the boy smiling as he shook his head. It had just clicked for him that you felt the same.

“I’ve never been so sure of something in my life.”

And then he connected his lips with yours.

Fireworks exploded in your stomach as your eyes fluttered shut. Your hands now sliding back to their original position, pulling him as close to you as possible.

This was not only the best kiss of your life, but the happiest moment of your life thus far.

[listerbirdloml]

The Death of Your Dog, The Stretch of Our Skin.

Summary: At fourteen, Rowan's dog died. At fifteen, Jimmy's grandmother died. And now, at twenty, Lister has lost his father.

Characters: Alister 'Lister' Bird, Jimmy Kaga-Ricci, Rowan Omondi, Piero Ricci, Chiara Ricci, Graham Duncan, Mention of Cecily Wills and Louise Bird.

Warnings: Death of an animal, grief, self effacing thoughts, strong language, minor violence, someone says the wh*re word, someone also tries to say a racial slur but they do not manage to.

Ships: Bicci kiss teehee

Word Count: 4.6k

just a little thing I wrote about the ark boys comforting one another through different types of grief. PLEASE BE KIND IVE NEVER PUBLISHED ANY WRITING BEFORE LMAO

Tilly Omondi.

When they were fourteen, Rowans dog died. 

It had been a truly unremarkable day at school. They played in the music room, ate their lunch, attended their afternoon lessons, and then walked to Rowans. He had the better gaming system out of him and Jimmy, and he even had the new Red Dead Redemption game. He’d gotten his mum to buy it the day it came out, and now they were all excited to see how it was. Especially Lister, since he didn’t have a play station or anything of his own.

As they walked down the road to Rowans, conversation flew freely among them. Per usual, it was dominated by Lister and whatever random topic entered his mind. Jimmy was content to sit back and listen, chipping in whenever he thought of something relevant to say. Meanwhile, Rowan was more than happy to shut down particularly stupid conversations Lister started or rise up to the challenge whenever Lister turned to teasing him. 

When they arrived at Rowans home, the three boys began untying their show laces and shucking off their winter coats. It wasn’t exactly freezing anymore, but it was cold enough for the jackets to still shelter them from the Kent winds. Earlier in the winter, Rowan noticed Listers coat wasn’t the warmest, so he’d given him one of his own under the guise of wanting to get rid of it.

When Rowan opened the door, the lack of four legs bounding towards them was immediately noticeable. Tilly, the Omondi family dog, was a little white Jack Russell with the sweetest of nature. She was a lap dog at heart, rarely barking. She was always found greeting anyone who entered their home at the door, her little tail wagging while she waited to be greeted in return.

"Mum?" Rowan called out pensively, thinking perhaps she’d taken an impromptu walk with the little dog. There was noise from the kitchen, as though someone was startled at the idea of Rowan being home at the time he was.

"Hi sweetheart." Came the call from Rowans mother, but she didn’t leave the kitchen. Lister thought he could hear a waver in her voice. But then again, he was starting to believe he was hardwired to detect the negative emotions people portrayed. even if they weren’t there. "Uh, Ro, can you come to the kitchen, please?" Rowan glanced at his two friends who waited in the doorway, all three clearly confused. With a gesture signalling the other two to wait, Rowan headed down the hallway and disappeared into his kitchen.

Standing just the two of them, Lister suddenly ran out of words. He was entirely focused on a loose thread in his school shirt, and Jimmy was too nervous to start a conversation himself. If it wasn’t in band practise or their shared history lesson, Jimmy found it difficult to talk with Lister. He found the other equally intimidating as he was admirable.

The blonde had definitely made huge progress with his confidence around the two friends, but deep down he was still pretty shy. He still held the fear that he was only there because he knew how to play the drums. He was a friend of convenience until Jimmy and Rowan could afford another drummer or even meet a better one. A drummer who wasn’t self-taught like he was, someone who could actually afford the lessons needed to become successful. While he still had these fears and and worries, he had begun to use them for the better. He was worried about being replaced in their band, and so he practised as hard as possible. He was worried about being replaced in their lives, and so he made as big a space for himself as he could. A space big enough that they would sorely miss him should he leave it.

"So uh-" Biting the bullet, Lister had gone to say something. But as he did, Rowan reappeared down the hallway, shoulders slumped, and face a mixture of shock and tears. All trace of nerves or awkwardness had immediately subsided from the two left in the hallway, both meeting Rowan half way. Jimmy put a hand on his shoulder, his own face contorted with worry. Lister didn’t doubt that Jimmy had thought up every single worst-case scenario he could.

"Tilly died."

There were two sharp inhales, and then silence.

Neither seemed particularly sure how to continue, but they both knew that their friend needed them. And so in a fluid motion, Lister and Jimmy had wrapped Rowan in a big group hug, pretending not to notice the way his body was wracked with sobs.

"There was a- a car." Rowans explanation was met with shushes. Lister knew that talking about it more would just upset Rowan, and he had plenty of time in the upcoming days to process the loss. Right now, he was allowed to just feel it. Feel it, with the safety of his two closest friends.

They stood in the Omondi garden, with Lister on one side of Rowan and Jimmy on the other. They both had a head leaning on Rowans shoulders, arms around his middle as he cried. His mother and sister had cried too, but nowhere near as much as Rowan. He had always been particularly close to the little dog.

His dad had just rested Tilly in the ground and let Rowan lay her favourite toys and treats with her before he began to refill the dirt.

Lister had never been to a funeral. Neither had Jimmy.

When Lister was ten, his grandmother on his dad's side passed away. Even though he had been very close with her, his dad didn’t want him at the funeral. He didn’t want Lister to have to stay the few days at his new home; his wife and new kids clearly objected to the older boy’s presence in what was their family home. It wasn’t exactly like he could own a pet either, the landlord of the flat he lived in with his mum was very clear about that.

Jimmy had never been to a funeral because no one in his family had died yet. There had been the rare distant aunty or several times great grand-something or other, but no one closely related to him. The thought alone of losing anyone in his family made him want to lie in the ground alongside Tilly.

"It’s okay, mate." It was Lister speaking, which wasn’t always the safest bet in a rocky situation. But Rowan was too upset to form words, and Jimmy was too scared he’d say the wrong ones.

There’s silence between the trio for a moment, until Lister starts speaking again. "Hey Jim?"

"Yeah?"

"Can dogs go to heaven?"

"Well... they’re creatures made by God? So, I would assume so."

"Me too! I think if any creature on earth should enjoy an eternity of peace and happiness, it’s dogs. Not humans." He turned his body to face Rowan. "And when your time comes, you can wave up at her."

There’s silence before Rowan chokes out a loud and abrupt laugh. He covers his mouth, his shoulders shaking from laughter even as the tears freely flow down his cheeks. Jimmy can’t help but begin to chuckle too, even if he himself had been tearing up. And when Lister joined them, they came together again in a group hug, sandwiching Rowan.

Joan Ricci.

Jimmy wasn’t in school today.

While Lister himself had missed more classes this year than possibly anyone else in their school, and Rowan wasn’t immune to the odd sick day, Jimmy was never sick. And even if he was, he made his way to school for fear of missing anything important and having his schoolwork snowball.

The most concerning thing about his absence, however, was that he hadn’t responded to any texts from the two boys. He hadn’t even read their group chat either. And now, at four o’clock in the afternoon, the two were headed to the Ricci house, sat on the bus in silence. Thankfully, Lister no longer felt awkward in the presence of one of them alone. He still felt incredibly aware of the split between them, between childhood best friends and drummer, but it no longer prevented him from connecting with either Jimmy or Rowan.

He had just come to accept that he would forever be the odd one out. the one who lived on the council estate, the one whose mum had him as a teen, the one with an estranged dad. He could never compare to Jimmy and Rowan, with their private music lessons and middle-class homes. The kind that weren’t even attached to the houses next to it and were made of the fancy looking red brick.

"What if he's, like, dead?" Rowan interrupted the silence, looking down at his still-unanswered text to their friend. Lister sighed and lightly shoved the bassist on the shoulder. They were almost at the bus stop near Jimmy's grandparents home.

"Mate, you sound like Jimmy when you think like that. 

With a reluctant sigh of agreement, Rowan followed Lister out of their seats and down the aisle of the bus to wait at the door for the driver to let them off.

As they walked the last few minutes to the Ricci household, Lister could feel dread settling in his stomach. He didn’t know what for, or why it decided to make itself at home in his gut, but he almost had to stop walking. Something was wrong. Something was really wrong. He wasn’t sure if it was with Jimmy or what, but he was definitely more eager to pick up the pace to the Riccis to ensure their singer and best friend were okay.

The first thing they noticed about the Ricci household was the cars parked outside. Neither of Jimmy's grandparents could drive anymore, and Jimmy wasn’t even old enough for a provisional licence yet, let alone a car.

But for some reason, there was four or five cars around the driveway and road in front. Lister glanced at Rowan, the taller one seeming confused as well. But instead of looking at Lister, he kept walking, jogging up the steps, and ringing the doorbell. Lister soon joined him, hands wringing together uncharacteristically. Through the stained glass of the front door, he was sure he could hear soft murmurs from the living room. way more voices than the three inhabitants of the Ricci home. Soon a figure from the inside was moving down the hallway to open the door, and it was immediately apparent it wasn’t Pierreo or Joan. This person moved far too quickly, and before Lister could say anything else, the door was opened.

It was a woman that Lister had never met before, but he could tell instantly who she was. She was tall, about the only thing that didn’t resemble their friend. But the shape of her eyes, the curve of her nose, and the slant of her jaw was almost entirely Jimmy. The grumpy frown was the splitting image.

She had only glanced at their uniforms before she sighed and went to shut the door. "Jimmy can’t come out right now."

"Wait!" Lister cried out, sticking his foot in the doorway. The woman looked mildly infuriated, and distantly, Lister couldn’t help but think this was a terrible first impression with Jimmy's mother. "Is he okay? He hasn’t answered us, and he wasn’t at school. We were just…" Lister trailed off as he caught sight of Piero walking out of the living room.

"Pierro?" Rowan called out, and Lister could hear the apprehension in his tone. The old man’s face had sunken even since they’d seen him at the weekend. They’d been celebrating Rowans fifteenth a week early, and Joan had managed to get out of bed to bake him a huge cake before they had band practise. But now, Pierros eyes looked red-rimmed, and he was leaning heavily on his walking stick with every step.

"Boys," he sighed, joining his daughter in the doorway. Lister was the closest to him, with his foot still in the door. Pierro opened up the arm not relying on the cane, and Lister quickly accepted it for what it was: a hug.

"Is Jimmy okay? Did something happen?" It was Rowan again, and as he pulled away from the old man and glanced at Jimmy's mum, who still stood watching, Lister couldn’t blame the worry in his voice. If Rowan was feeling anything as unease’d as Lister in the presence of the usually aloof CEO, then Lister was unsure how Rowan was so well at hiding it.

"Boys." It seemed that Pierro couldn’t say anything else; his voice was fading. "This morning… Joan passed this morning."

The dread in Listers stomach had spread to his whole body, his heart aching as it pounded a mile a minute in his chest. He couldn’t form words, but tears had begun to well in his eyes.

"What? no… No she… What?" Rowan was scrambling to find the right words. He hadn’t begun to cry yet, but Lister knew it was from shock. His own tears were spilling onto his cheeks already.

"I’m sorry, boys." Pierro shook his head, and as though they were driven by the same force, Rowan and Lister descended on the old man with bone-crushing hugs. He tried his best to reciprocate them, but Lister could feel the quiver of his hands and the shallowness of his breath.

When they pulled apart, Lister wiped at his face a little too aggressively, but his shoulders were still high to his face, and he was still shivering from the force of his tears.

"Jimmys upstairs. I think he might like to see the both of you."

 

When they opened the door on the furthest end of the upstairs corridor, they noticed the lights were off and the curtains were drawn. There was a figure sitting up on the bed, a blanket draped over their head as they seemingly stared into space.

Pushing the door over further, the creak of it and the intrusion of the hallway light made Jimmy turn his head, the blanket falling to instead rest on his shoulders. His face was void of emotion, but even from where he stood in the doorway, Lister could see how puffy and red it looked compared to normal. Cheeks that still carried baby fat were raw with tears and the motions of wiping them away. Rowan and Lister had only just managed to compose themselves.

No one of the trio said anything; instead, the two newest additions to the room made their way over and sat on either side of the singer. He managed a small smile, trying to convey his appreciation for their attempts at comfort.

"She died." He croaked out, looking between them. Lister had a hand up to Jimmy's face, carefully moving some of Jimmy's shaggy hair out of the way of his face and behind his ear.

"We know, Jimjam." His voice was so foreign, even to himself. It was soft in a way he didn’t know he possessed anymore. He couldn’t help but think he almost sounded like his mum. The hand that had been fixing Jimmy's hair now rested gently on his shoulder, and he used it to bring the smaller one into a hug.

They could feel Rowans arms wrap around them, Jimmy circled. If Lister wasn’t the token atheist of their little group, he would think that it was symbolic or something. The wings of an angel maybe.

They should write a song about that.

Alister Bird.

Bringing a hand up to his earpiece and pulling it out, the full noise of the crowd hit Lister instantly. It was the end of their first show back, and now only Lister stood on the stage. Jimmy and Rowan had already made their exit, and now, standing up from his drum kit and holding his sticks in the air, it was Lister's turn.

He was panting, and he’s sure he looked like a sweaty mess, but the crowd was losing their minds, and he had never felt more alive. He jumped down from the platform where his drum kit was stationed and exited off the side of the stage towards Rowan and Jimmy, who were waiting for him. They both were panting and sweaty, but the grins on their faces resembled their thirteen-year-old selves so much that Lister didn’t care about it when he dragged them into a group hug, jumping up and down from excitement.

"That was fucking class." Lister managed out, his arm still wrapped around Jimmy's shoulders when they pulled away, his boyfriend (boyfriend!) leaning onto him.

"Profound as always, Alister." Rowan teased, the both of them pretending to fight for a moment or so longer before they were all ushered away from the backstage area and towards the dressing rooms.

Jimmy held a firm grip on his hand, and when they found an area secluded enough, he used it to detour them into a hidden crevice. His hands balled into fists around Listers shirt, and he used it to push him against the wall.

Lister laughed, but his chest was still heaving. "Jimjam, slow down." He could see the way the singers eyes drooped, the way they seemed fully focused on the way Listers lips moved around his words. He kept leaning in to try and kiss them, but Lister was feeling mischievous. He kept holding the singer away.

"Lis, I swear to God." He had a glare on his face, trying to appear intimidating. He failed to realise that to Lister, he did the exact opposite. Feeling empathy for the clearly desperate singer and giving into his own urge to kiss his boyfriend stupid, Lister leaned down and pressed their lips together.

He could feel Jimmy relaxing in his hold. He could feel the heat radiating from the frontman's body after the long show, and he could still hear the commotion of the crowd as the lights were turned on and they were ushered out of the venue. It was hard for Lister to believe that he was lucky enough to experience this. Not just the resurrection of his passion for music, but also the chance he’d been given to live a life by Jimmy's side. He’d lived in the frontman's shadow all these years, but now he had been given permission to love him. To kiss him freely without the guilt of another drunken mishap. To hug him without feeling that he had ill intentions.

He hoped the way he held Jimmy could convey all this. It was difficult to show the full extent of your love with only one arm around the middle. To share your soul with someone in the hopes they’ll accept it and, in turn, share their own.

His hands were in Jimmy's hair now, tugging at the strands on the back of his neck. Jimmy's hair had thankfully recovered from the years in which he straightened it, and now it was styled in its more natural waves. It was thick and bushy, and when Lister needed something to do with his hands, he would try to braid it. It wasn’t quite long enough for that, though, as Jimmy still preferred it short.

"Mr Bird."

The voice made both stars jump, with Lister keeping hold of Jimmy until he could see who it was who had interrupted them. He only hoped to God that it wasn’t a fan. But then again, not many Ark fans were middle-aged, bald white men with security written in bold letters over their chests. If this was a disguise to get backstage, it was a damn good one.

"Sorry to bother you, sir. But there’s a gentleman here who says he needs to talk with you." The man held a hand to his earpiece, turning away slightly as he likely received more information. Lister's thoughts had begun to run wild. He wasn’t sure who it could possibly be. He hadn’t spoken to any hookups in months and hadn’t initiated any since he and Jimmy had been talking. The guard turned back to them, ignoring Jimmy entirely. "A Graham Duncan, sir."

While it was clear the name didn’t ring any bells to Jimmy, Lister had sucked in a breath through his teeth so deeply that Jimmy could feel his chest move with it. Lister gently nudged at Jimmy's shoulder, urging him to back up so that Lister could move away from the wall.

"How did he get in?"

"His ID, Mr. Bird. Miss Cecily has a list of approved names, and he was on it, sir."

Lister sighed and rubbed at his forehead, post-show high clearly gone as he looked back to Jimmy.

"There he is!"

There’s excitement in the voice, but the room is silent around him. Rowan was sat on the couch farthest from the door, Lister stood from where he’d been sitting on the sofa, and Jimmy still sat next to his old spot. The father and son stared at each other for a few tense moments. Listers face was unreadable as he crossed his arms over his chest. Graham looked as though he'd been here to joke around with his son, coming close and punching him lightly on the shoulder.

"What you been up to then, boyo?" Lister could see Rowan raise an eyebrow at this, his face screaming, 'What does it look like we’ve been up to?' But Graham didn’t seem bothered by waiting for a response from Lister. He looked around at the two other members of the band, likely not wanting a crowd for his conversation with his oldest son.

"What do you want?" There was no pleasantry in Listers tone. He felt no need to pretend. To act like he and his dad had spoken since he’d turned ten, since his half brother was born and he himself was thrown to the side. Lister was the child born from a teenage mistake to the woman Graham had married for only two years before cheating with another woman. He wasn’t something Graham wanted to remember. And yet, he stood in their dressing room as though they were old buddies.

Graham laughed, spluttering on words for a moment as he clearly struggled to find what to say. "I can’t come see you then?" He landed on, earning a scoff from Lister, who walked away from the older man and made his way to the refreshment table in the corner. It was obvious to those who knew him that he was acting on instinct. Looking for something to drink. Looking for something to take the pressure of the situation off. But of course, there was no alcohol on the table anymore. Just water and juice. The juice would have to do.

"Ally, don’t be like that. You’ve no seen your auld man in donkeys, and this is how you want to act?"

"Lister." It was Rowan who had corrected him, sitting up on the couch and levelling Graham with a glare. While he knew very little of Listers family, he knew that this man was no father. He had just so happened to be Listers biological parent. There was nothing more between them.

"What do you want?" Lister asked again, holding the juice bottle to his lips and drinking almost half of it in one go.

Graham once again looked like he was about to obfuscate, but dropped it when Lister went to turn away from him again. "The house, Alister. It’s gone up... Me and Maria are struggling."

Rowan and Jimmy looked at each other, utter disbelief written over their features. The gaul of the man who had neglected their friend since he was a toddler to then come to him and ask for financial aid?

It would appear Lister also caught the irony, laughing bitterly as he finished the rest of his drink. "The house I have never been to? The house the woman you cheated on my mother with asked you to buy, so that you could play happy families while me and mum rotted away in a fucking council flat?" With each sentence, Listers voice rose higher and higher. "That fucking house?" He rounded the sofas to once again stand in front of the now angry man.

"You can fuck right off." Lister hissed, pointing to the door.

"I am your father, Alister. I helped raise you. You might look back on it now and scoff with all your multi-millions, but it was the damned best I could do." He was shouting too now, poking lister repeatedly on the chest. Rowan and Jimmy had stood up, fearing the worst with Lister's temper.

"You gave my mum fifteen fucking quid a month."

"It was all I had, Alister!" But Lister wouldn’t accept that. He threw the bottle across the room, watching as it grazzed past his father's head.

"Get out!"

"You are fucking pathetic. Your mother did about as much as I did, and you bought the stupid bitch a house? You give her money so she can prance about like she wasn’t some little fucking whore. And now, you’re acting like some big rockstar." He looked at Rowan and Jimmy. "But its just you and two fucking da-"

Graham Duncan didn't get to finish whatever hateful words he had wished to shout, as Lister had slammed his fist right into the centre of his face, feeling satisfied at the crunch of bone he felt and the cry that carried out through the room. The older man seemed to be torn between hitting back and staggering away, but the door was already open, and security was swarming Graham, dragging him out.

"Lis." Jimmy’s hand was on Listers shoulder from behind him, and Rowan was also taking a step closer so that he could make sure his friend was okay. Listers shoulders were hunched, and his face contorted as though he were in physical pain.

"Why... why doesn’t he care? Why does he..." He had begun to cry, and Jimmy was quick to tug him down by the shoulders in a hug. He rubbed at the drummer's back as he cried, shushing him gently to try and calm him down. Rowan also had a hand on Lister's shoulder.

"It's okay, Lis. he's gone." The bassist reassured. The drummer turned his head to look at Rowan, a small and appreciative smile on his tear-stained face.

"Well, he seemed lovely." Jimmy sighed, and Lister couldn’t stop the wet laugh he let out, rubbing at his eyes.

"A fucking delight, right?"

The three of them can’t help their giggles. Rowan quickly checked Lister's fist to be sure he hadn’t hurt it.

No matter how much it had hurt Lister to be confronted by his father, he felt comfort in the fact that he’d always been right about the man. He didn’t care about Lister or his mother. He only cared about himself and what he could get out of people. Perhaps it was a good thing that Lister had been raised by his hard-working and considerate mother. As much as he used to long for a father in his life, he knew now he was better off without him. It was his job to grow up to be a better man. not because of his father, but to spite him, to show him that not everyone was doomed to fall headfirst into the bottle and to never make it out. No. he had reason to live. to live happily.

"If I ever become a dad, I am never asking him for advice." Lister sniffed out, Rowan and Jimmy laughing as they pulled him in for a group hug.

[heich0e]

liv…. i eat up your dialogue EVERY TIME like a crazy person.. if you post smth for someone i dont go here for, i read it just because 🤍 i 🤍 love 🤍 your 🤍 writing 🤍 but that being said……. i must know the details of the canonverse levi wip you posted. what did erwin do! what was levi and r’s relationship! how!!!!

if you're genuinely interested, i really don't mind telling u what the plot is because i will quite literally never post it. it was the first fic i ever wrote for any anime, and i hadn't even gotten very far into the actual show at the point of writing—so while some aspects are (tenuously) canon-compliant, there are also many very clear ways in which it is not.

so, to reduce that terrible levi x reader fic (it's so bad and i MEAN that!!) down to its barest bones, start to finish:

[WARNING: THERE IS AN ENTIRE FIC SUMMARIZED UNDER THIS READ MORE AND IT IS MULTIPLE THOUSANDS OF WORDS LONG. THEMES INCLUDE: DUBCON, CANON CHARACTER DEATH, VAGUELY MISOGYNISTIC TONES, AND EVERY SINGLE CRINGE-Y FANFIC CLICHE U CAN IMAGINE. BYE.]

at the point where the fic opens, reader is a young, low-ranking soldier in the survey corps on her way to mitras with levi and erwin to attend a small gala being hosted by a very wealthy family that they're petitioning (effectively wooing) to provide funding for the corps

the reason reader is asked to come along is because she comes from a very good family in mitras and is connected to the "high society" folk—though never explicitly stated, erwin very much intends to use her and her social graces as a sort of poster child and mouthpiece for the corps, in hopes that she can charm ppl and help them gain favour to accomplish their goal

all things considered, reader was very privileged growing up and had as comfortable/luxurious of a life as anyone (at least anyone in paradis) could possibly hope to have. her family is aristocracy/noble and comes from a long line of "wealth." her father is a doctor who consults with the military in a high ranking capacity—though he's never actively been a soldier, and it's largely just a cushy job where he doesn't do much actual grunt work, just gets consulted on things and sits on boards or whatever

reader graduated from school and enlisted in the military when she came of age—to the shock and horror of her family (especially her mother) and their noble peers. but she felt an impetus to do something with her life that wasn't just sit around docilely and look pretty until eventually her father handed her over to an advantageous husband and she went from daughter to wife and surely then eventually mother—while never actually having any agency or choice for herself

because reader was well-educated from childhood, she did well academically at the cadet academy, and because she grew up in a comfortable home she is physically very competent as well (though truthfully her skill as a soldier is often very OP and cringey to read back now... but it was my first fic! sue me!)

levi and reader don't interact much in the corps (as he's not her squad leader) but when they do they're constantly at odds—he thinks less of her as a result of her silver spoon upbringing, and while she doesn't dislike him, per se, she definitely resents his treatment of her

on the trip to mitras (alongside a very uncomfortable homecoming to her estranged family's home with two men who are effectively her bosses) they attend the gala/banquet and it's revealed that the family hosting it is the most wealthy in mitras (save for the royal family, though they're sort of unofficially considered the second-in-command) who reader is very familiar with—they have a son her age, and a few daughters slightly younger, who she grew up close to (i made all these characters up btw.... first fic liv was rly going wild)

the son from this family was always sort of sweet on reader growing up, and they have a vaguely romantic history in their teens (before reader enlisted.) reader very quickly surmises that she was brought along (or at the very least is able) to possibly sway the son in their favour, as the eldest and heir to this family's fortune, who would in turn convince the father to support the corps

the son (his name is adam btw. if anyone cares? lmao) is actually very sweet, and earnestly cares for her. he's just blinded by his own affluence to a lot of realities—like most extremely wealthy people are

reader is a good soldier and she's cunning, and she knows that what she's doing is ethically/morally questionable but in the interest of the greater good she goes along with some flirtation/manipulation for the cause

the story progresses and reader continues her work in the military, but the heir from this family is clearly infatuated with her and he (and his father/family by extension) begin implicating themselves more heavily with the military as an excuse to see her/spend time with her/etc though of course it's all under the guise of official business

so it's like the life she fled is bleeding into the one she built for herself, and it's stark juxtaposition becomes very clear in those instances where they overlap and she's forced to juggle them both

she just wants to be a soldier and do good. erwin is (in so many words) pressuring her to do her part and keep up the charade. levi is watching this all unfold from the wings and starts to feel some genuine sympathy for her

lots of very dramatic things happen, yadda yadda yadda. levi grows less hostile over time, and reader becomes closer to him. she's always respected him and that grows into something mutual. there's a lot of unspoken tension brewing between them

it's revealed that reader threw her cadet exam results so that she wouldn't be in the top of her class, and therefore couldn't become an MP and had to join either the garrison or the scouts. she did it intentionally (erwin knew and used this to his advantage) so that her family wouldn't be able to force her back to mitras. when levi realizes what erwin did/knew and how he used it to his own advantage it really upsets him, because he's basically pimping reader out for the betterment of the survey corps. this is the first time you really see levi get angry about the way she's being used (and you can infer in this moment that he maybe cares about her a bit)

more dramatic stuff happens!

the story culminates in the reveal that the son is planning to ask for reader's hand in marriage. her own family has already agreed. part of the financial agreement the powerful family has made with the survey corps is that reader will effectively be retired once she marries (and transferred to a clerical role with the MPs. desk work, basically. fake work, for all intents and purposes, because the position was made up just for her)

reader goes to erwin, understandably extremely distraught when she finds out, and begs him to stop it from happening. she doesn't really care about getting married, but she doesn't want to leave the scouts. he effectively (though not explicitly/in these particular words) implies that maybe if she fucks her "fiance" he'll be more open to compromise and let her stay in the corps

she does it, but unsurprisingly loverboy is not about to let the woman he's obsessed with (who he has now officially boned lmao) go back to risking her life every day in the military, and it's almost immediately revealed that her plan didn't work at all

(erwin pretty much knew the whole time it wasn't going to work. bastard.)

reader feels betrayed and helpless. she goes to levi the night before she's set to leave—who basically is like "uhhhh i told you so??" upon finding out what's happened—and they end up sleeping together anyway in a very emotionally fraught and vulnerable moment

she leaves the next day

a timeskip happens. turns out that the ENTIRETY of the wealthy family was killed in the attack in mitras (like between annie and eren's titans i think? don't remember what season that is. a lot of ppl get smooshed in a church. they were there.)

but reader had already been married into the family. she wasn't in the church and inherited the entirety of their wealth as the sole surviving family member.

she was also.... pregnant :) (of course she was! this fic hits every trope and bad fanfic cliche! maybe it's twins!)

levi is back in mitras years (??) later (listen.... i didn't know where the hell the canon storyline of this manga was going at the time so FORGIVE ME for the fact that obviously this is not canon compliant l m a o)

reader has become sort of a recluse since everything happened in mitras, but having inherited the wealth she's become a key figure politically and particularly with respect to the military because of her influence as a donor.

levi tracks her down to this surprisingly humble property on the outskirts of town.

there's a little boy playing in the yard. no more than four or five. he has dark hair and slate grey eyes. levi looks at this child and sees his mother's face.

the little boy speaks to him but levi is (understandably) very confused and disoriented. reader comes outside and is shocked to see levi there. like she's seeing a ghost.

reader tells the little boy to come to her and scoops him up in her arms, and she quietly reminds him (his name is Teddy btw... short for Theodore) that he's not supposed to talk to strangers.

and Teddy leans in real close and says "but mama... he has your wings" because Levi is wearing his survey corps uniform with the insignia on them. you've kept your own patch (a parting gift from erwin when he sold you off... how thoughtful) and treasure it.

all of which is to say that basically Levi is the kid's father, but because reader was already married when her pregnancy was discovered and the timeline still checked out—so no one ever questioned the paternity (especially because she was a WIDOW by the time she gave birth.)

teddy is now the "legitimate" heir to the entire fortune that was left by reader's husband/his family, but until he comes of age it's reader's to manage, so she can provide a safe home for him to grow up in—though notably removed from the society that she was raised in.

it's heavily implied (though not actually confessed) that reader and levi have been in love with each other for all these years, and there's a kind of optimism about what future is ahead for them now that their paths have crossed again. (present day canon-knowing liv is laughing at this part in particular.)

the end.

[butterflydm]

origins of the wheel of time

I was originally planning on reading Origins of The Wheel of Time after my reread of the last three books, but it has arrived and also is so much shorter, so I’m going to read it first instead, lol. It’s not a narrative, but I’m intrigued to find out what it has to say about the series. I’m not entirely sure if it’s written more like a sourcebook or whatnot. 

My thoughts contain spoilers through a memory of light

1. Okay, looks like it’s broken into four sections -- first will be a bit of a biography of Jordan, then there’s specifically a whole section about how Tolkien inspired him, then his writing process perhaps (the summary on the inside of the book cover notes that there’s a previously unseen early draft of a cut scene from Eye of the World, so maybe that’s there; and then one about “the real world” comparisons (mythology-related maybe; I know that there’s a lot of mythological connections tied into the imagery, especially with Rand, Mat, & Perrin).

2. The full world map that we get (it says it was adjusted based on things that Jordan had said about the maps that had previously been made) shows how the Westlands/Randland is actually the smallest section of the map -- Shara is bigger, the Mad Lands are bigger, and Seanchan is enormous. lol, yeah, Tuon ain’t gonna be ruling all of that. I don’t care how great a general Mat is. Both of them are gonna die long before that area gets back under her iron grip (especially if she really does manage to keep herself from channeling - man, it would be so funny if she actually does get around to channeling one day but is only as strong as Morgase, literally the weakest channeler possible. I feel like Jordan wouldn’t have been able to resist making her Nynaeve-level strong, because of how much he was contorting and manipulating the story to appease her in the narrative, but her being super-weak would be so much funnier). Nation building is not easy and it’s gonna take time for her to even get over there since she will need to finish ‘settling’ the Seanchan-ruled Westlands first (and she’ll have to worry about Westlands-based rebellions as soon as she leaves for Seanchan proper too - the original plan that the Empress had seemed to be that her daughter would rule over the ~new land~ in her name while she kept a tight grip on the homeland, but now the rest of Tuon’s family is dead, so it’s more likely that she’s gonna have to pick if she wants the Westlands or if she wants Seanchan, because she has no one she can trust to rule either of them in her absence). I wonder if Jordan was planning to handwave her to be the ruler of the disputed lands quickly so that he could tell another story about... Mat being miserable and Perrin needing to kill someone? Or if he was going to take into account how likely it would be that Tuon would NOT be able to actually regain control of the majority of the continent. I mean, since he only left two sentences behind about the outriggers, he probably hadn’t even decided yet.

3. Oh, gosh, the author of this book teaches at The Citadel, where Jordan went to school after he left the military. The Citadel had a pretty heavy hazing/bullying culture, at least back when Jordan attended (from what I’ve read) and some Weird Ideas about men and women, and definitely some “beating students is good for the learning process” vibes. A lot of the odd quirks in Jordan’s worldbuilding seemed to be based in him assuming that his culture’s particular practices and his own personal kinks were just ~human nature~, including some of the stuff that seemed to be essentially ‘taught’ behind-the-scenes at the Citadel. Oh, and this author (who teaches Military History specifically, it sounds like?) was consulted about the writing of The Last Battle in the final book. This book was also written at the same desk where Jordan wrote Wheel of Time. That’s actually quite interesting to me, and I wonder if that contributes to... when Jordan wrote about war, it was very personal, because he’d been in war. But if your main consultant is someone approaching it from an academic PoV rather than a ‘in the trenches’ PoV, that definitely lends a different angle onto the way the battles are written about.

4. Ah, WoT was a formative book series for the author -- he read EotW when he was fifteen. So he is quite a bit younger than Jordan. He even interviewed at the Citadel for his teaching job knowing that it was where Jordan had gone to school. He did know Jordan personally as well (I’m going to be using his pen name for WoT as opposed to his personal name because, well, I never knew him. Though I did meet him at a book signing once.) - it looks like they met when Jordan was already quite ill. And that’s the Foreword.

5. Every time it’s noted that Harriet (Jordan’s widow) was his editor, I feel the urge to wonder why on earth she was asleep at the wheel for Crossroads of Twilight and Knife of Dreams (though, honestly, the books started to lose focus and needed much tighter editing starting in Lord of Chaos). I mean, it’s common in a LOT of series, once they become popular. But wow there’s a lot of needless fluff in the later WoT books.

6. Okay, the biographical section of the book. First thing relevant to the books is that even as a kid, Jordan was exposed to war-related PTSD - his father was in the Pacific during WWII and “For years afterward he would sometimes wake up in the night, sweating, afraid that in his sleep, in his remembered dreams, he might have hurt the wife he loved.” I’m seeing a lot of Rand in what’s written here about Jordan’s father. A gentle man who did his best to be honest and good but was terrified that he might hurt the people he loves.

7. Ah, Jordan ran into a very common trouble of gifted kids once they get into college -- he had always been smart enough to glide through classes, so he had no clue how to study, and floundered once the classes were hard enough to require it. I mean, mood. Been there. 

8. That’s when he enlisted, and he spent two tours in Vietnam. Even before I actually read the section on it, I can say that (much like Jordan was second-hand aware of how rough WWII was on his father), I have seen the effects that going to Vietnam had on my own uncle. Incredibly traumatizing experience for him that he still has after-effects about, even today. It’s affected him his whole life. 

9. Jordan was aware that his own personal experiences had an impact on his writing -- he even pointed out himself that his own personal trauma from instinctively shooting a woman who aimed a gun at him during his Vietnam tour was basically why Rand (& Mat) have issues killing women. So, he was dealing with his own trauma while writing. I think it’s possible, as a reader, to be aware of that personal history but also go “but Rand’s attitude really doesn’t fully make sense with the worldbuilding and can get pretty frustrating, especially to female readers”. Both of those things can exist at the same time, I think. Bringing personal experience to the writing process is a double-edged sword that way. 

To go back to that worldbuilding thought, there are definitely times where it feels like Jordan failed to fully do the mental math on what a world that has the backstory that he has given WoT would look like (and the show actually reflects the book’s reality more in what Liandrin says about how despite the power of the Aes Sedai, there are still many places where powerful men are in a position to hurt little girls). A non-Jordan example of this sort of thing would be Dragon Age: Origins. In the character creation screen, the player is straight-up told that women and men are treated equally in the world setting they’re about to play. In some of the character origin choices, this is disproven within minutes of actual gameplay, with oversexualized female characters and sexual assault threats that are pretty much only directed at women. Because that stuff is subconsciously lurking in the background of the writer’s mind and it just seeps out. While Rand’s sexism is more ‘benign’ in that it stems from him holding women above himself as a category, this still harms the women around him (and harms himself). I do think Jordan was aware of that, because we do see negative results from Rand’s No Woman Must Be Killed stance, but, again... given Rand’s cultural background, him having this stance at all makes very little sense, because he didn’t grow up in a culture where women were treated as fragile flowers that must be sheltered and kept from the dangers of the world (and it makes no sense for that to be LTT’s background either).

10. We also get the note in the middle of all this that Jordan’s mom was “a housewife”... but she worked “in defense” during the war “when everyone worked” and then later in her life, after she had kids, she suffered frequent nervous breakdowns. Which sounds like a very familiar story in terms of some of the history I’ve read on women during/after WWII, where they got a taste of freedom and independence during the war and then were expected to completely give up that part of themselves when the men came back to reclaim their jobs. Just stuff all their feelings inside to be the ~perfect housewives~. And this also makes me think of how Jordan always has a “but you gotta quit your job if you decide to have a husband/family” clause for the ‘working’ women in the series who aren’t nobility/elites (Aiel Maidens & Seanchan to’raken riders).

11. His experience in Vietnam sounds like it definitely also contributed a lot to Mat’s characterization in TSR/TFoH. This whole entire section here on page 14 vibes very Mat (before he got sucked into the Seanchan ‘storyline’, such as it was). “In the end, for most of us, the medals boiled down to managing not to die.” ... “That is why I am not I repeat, not! a hero. I just managed to stay alive.” From reading this, it sounds like Rand was based more on his father’s experiences/PTSD from WWII, and Mat was based more on his own experiences/feelings in Vietnam (or, to put it another way, Rand was based more on an outside view of how PTSD affected someone that he loved, while Mat was based more on his own internal experience of war). Though his descriptions of being ‘in the zone’ (which I’ve definitely heard other people talk about too but have never experienced myself) sound similar to how being a channeler affects people, in terms of time slowing, your senses feeling sharper, etc.

12. Okay, skipping past his early writing career (he first met his future wife Harriet while he was out shopping his first book, in her capacity as an editor), the first books he wrote under the “Robert Jordan” pen-name were some novels in the Conan universe (I’ve never read them; I saw the movie(s)? but never read any of the books) and I am reminded that the first plan for the WoT books was a six-book series. So that was after Eye of the World had already been completed and he was almost finished with The Great Hunt. Plan at the time was six books total but morphed as the books progressed.

13. His illness really was the kind that progressed very rapidly. I never read about all the details back when it happened, but it all happened over the course of about a year and a half before he died, it sounds like here. Maybe two?

14. Harriet, as both his widow and editor, was entrusted with the task of finding someone to complete the books. She first found out about Sanderson based on reading the eulogy written by him on his personal blog post when Jordan died (that a friend had sent to her), and decided on him as the one after reading Mistborn. He was the only name on her list of potential authors who she thought could finish the series, though it sounds like it didn’t hurt that he was already under the Tor umbrella.

15. So, the epilogue that we have in the current series is, basically, the one that was dictated by Jordan once he’d realized that he was most likely not going to recover in order to finish writing the series himself (and recorded by Team Jordan).

16. “All told, there were roughly two hundred manuscript pages of book-specific notes left behind. Some of the pages were outlines for complete scenes - bit and pieces of what became the published prologues for the final three books, for instance, as well as the all-important epilogue of A Memory of Light - but others were only hints of plots and solutions. And then there were the thousands upon thousands of pages of series-related notes, glossaries, lists, and other working materials Jordan had left behind in his personal files. It was all they had, and it left so very much undone. There wasn’t a full outline. There wasn’t a sequenced plot. Most of the puzzles only had pieces of the solution. One of the questions that Maria never got to ask Jordan - the next one on her list that Friday before he passed - was about the final moment in the series: “How did Rand light his pipe?” The answer to this, and everything else, now fell to Brandon and Team Jordan.”

17. What a massive, unbelievably massive undertaking. “Along the way, there was also a keen awareness that Jordan had made and then cast aside many plans throughout the writing of the series. Did they need to use all the hints in the years and years of notes? Surely not, since at times the notes didn’t even agree with each other. Jordan had a habit of stockpiling old files, after all: a boon for the later researcher, but a nightmare for the present writer.” And, for me, whatever you might say about Sanderson as a writer himself, whether you like his writing style or not, or like him as a person or not, you can’t say that he wasn’t sincerely doing his best to live up to the legacy that Harriet handed to him, or that he’s not a genuine fan of the series. Same thing with Rafe Judkins now -- agree or disagree with the changes that have been made, but Rafe is a very sincere fan of the series and is adapting the books with a sincere heart.

18. “Had Jordan lived to complete the work himself, it’s unlikely he would’ve managed to fit all that needed to be done within the single book he’d promised. Light knows, it might well have grown even beyond the fourteen volumes that Brandon and Team Jordan ultimately delivered.” I’ve literally said exactly this same thing, lol. And, with that, we are done with that section of the book.

19. The next section is about Tolkien’s inspiration on Jordan and the series. On why Jordan wanted to write his own fantasy series: “One of my themes is (and it’s one reason I wrote the books as fantasies) there is good, there is evil, there is right, there is wrong - it does exist. If you do that in a mainstream novel you are accused of being judgmental unless you’ve chosen the right political viewpoint.”

20. This section talks about fantasy in general as a genre before noting the specific elements (especially in EotW) that are inspired by Tolkien - the Shire/the Two Rivers; the Fades/the Black Riders -- and all this was very deliberate on Jordan’s part, to evoke a sense of nostalgia before he went beyond those general outlines of what had been inspired by Tolkien. And he also took inspiration from the same places that Tolkien took inspiration -- the myths and legends of our own world.

21. Then he goes on for... a while about language evolution through time, but I’ve read about that before, so I’m kinda skimming this part, ngl. But essentially, he kinda links what Tolkien was doing with language in LotR with what Jordan does with the concept of the Wheel of Time itself.

22. But then he does also go on to point out that having been in the military and going through war is another thing that Tolkien and Jordan had in common, and something that can be seen in their protagonists, that Frodo at the end of LotR also appears to be suffering PTSD/‘shell-shock' and is never the same again.

23. Okay, now in the next section, we dive into the actual creation of the series itself, starting with the first idea of it in the mid-70s, which was the basic notion of ‘what is it REALLY like to be the savior of mankind and what kind of toll might that have on someone’ with the addition of ‘and you’ll go mad and die to save everyone’. So that’s the core of the narrative that Rand believes he’s walking for the majority of the series. But he didn’t actually write anything on the idea until 1983 when the success of his Conan tie-books led them to asking him if he could write a fantasy book or series of his own.

24. lol, first it was gonna be a single book. Then maybe a trilogy. The publisher though “knew how Jim liked to tell a story” so offered him a six-book deal.

25. Yeah. I knew that “Tam” essentially (whatever his original name was) was the original character idea, before Tam became the foster father and Rand became the main character and that makes so much sense after seeing how much Jordan based Rand’s fears and personality on his own father. Of course he thought of the character as an older man, who’d lived a life. That was who he was basing it on. 

26. So some parts of Jordan’s collection are staying sealed until 2037. It doesn’t really say why most of it is already opened to the public but some of it is being unsealed in the future. I wonder if some of his notes have maybe some more personal comparisons not comfortable being made public at the time? But in his earliest notes, three books “dominated his early decisions regarding the scope and course of The Wheel of Time”. Lord of the Rings, Le Morte d’Arthur, and The White Goddess: A Historical Grammar of Poetic Myth. I have not read the last two, so I’ve gotta trust what the author tells me about them, lol. I do roughly know that Le Morte d’Arthur formed the basis for a lot of the current stories about King Arthur, but I’ve never heard of The White Goddess before.

27. Apparently, The White Goddess is not considered... um, particularly accurate as far as the connections that it makes between various myths and legends of different cultures. “It was, at its core, a kind of conspiracy theory. Those sell.” Ah, it’s about the idea that there was an overarching goddess that cultures all worshipped before the current forms of religion existed. Okay, yeah, I’m definitely seeing how this would inform some of his writing ideas as he was pulling the story together.

28. I do like that the author here -- Michael Livingston -- sets out what he believes are Jordan’s INTENTIONS in the text (based on what his various notes said about the story) but says that it’s up to the reader as to whether or not Jordan was successful in translating that to the narrative. Example: he points out that while Jordan’s intention in creating the saidin/saidar binary was to point out the damage that one side unchecked can do and to show a need for balance rather than one half overpowering the other half, this is something that can certainly feel exclusionary to people who don’t fit into that binary. I do appreciate that acknowledgement; that Jordan’s intent in the story isn’t the only thing that matters.

29. But that does get me to thinking about... benefit of the doubt and what we extend to authors. For me personally, CoT/KoD were an overall bad experience and wore away so much of my own pool of belief and so I don’t extend the same benefit of the doubt to Jordan’s writing and intentions that I might have in earlier books. I look at the current ending (confirmed in this book to be dictated by Jordan, with only “a couple” of scenes by Sanderson) and I look at where we left off in KoD and I go, “yeah, I kinda think Jordan would have screwed up in a lot of similar ways to what people who dislike the Sanderson books are unhappy about, because the vast majority of the ‘harvest’ in the Sanderson books comes from narrative seeds that Jordan sowed, and there’s no way to know if he would have solved the narrative problems better than Sanderson did”.

Non-Seanchan example: Jordan clearly didn’t know how he was going to get Rand from “deeply traumatized” to “ready to wander the world carefree” or he would have left notes about it. And it’s easy to say that he would have figured it out as he went along, but there’s absolutely no guarantee that he would have done it in a way any better than what Sanderson ended up doing. There are some specific things that I’m sure that I’ll probably point to and say “eh, I feel like Jordan might have stuck the landing better on that one” but I’m no more guaranteed to be right than anyone else. There’s absolutely no way for any of us to know, you know? I can look at the Seanchan plotline as it stood in KoD, look at Mat’s ending, and say, “yeah, there’s nothing that Jordan could have done to make any of that feel anything less like a shit sandwich” but someone else might look at those two plot points and go, “well, if he did a. b. and c., then it would actually be a great story.” And they might even be absolutely correct that it would be a great story... but there’s still no guarantee it’s the story that Jordan would have written. And that’s not me saying that I think Jordan was... a terrible author at the end... because there still are some great scenes even in CoT & KoD (and New Spring is one of the best books in the series imo), but I do think he lost the thread of his story and wandered off into the weeds. And I don’t think that there was any guarantee that he would ever have picked it up again successfully. We might have had six more meandering books in the vein of CoT/KoD before sputtering to an end. Or he might have looked at how much easier and more crisp New Spring was as a read and reworked his future plans to put out a great banger of an ending. No way to know which direction he might have gone.

30. Tam had already turned into (unnamed as yet) Rand by the time Jordan got to the outlining stage - “Young man (age unspecified, but 18-25) in small village”. Interesting note that at this point in the outline men and women also had some different “abilities” from each other, not just different strengths. Oh. and the Dark One was also an alien at this point in the outline, “Sa’khan” and the Forsaken & Shadowspawn were fellow aliens that he brought with him from his dying world. But he had figured out already that he wanted the person who opposed “Sa’Khan” to be named the Dragon, and the origin of the savior/destroyer viewing of the Dragon was based on Jordan comparing the Western stories of dragons (fairly destructive) to the stories he heard in Vietnam (life-giving, standing for power and prosperity). Plus the various dragons and serpents in other cultural stories as well - the Norse world-serpent and the dragon in the Christian book of Revelation (sounds like Revelation is where he got the “seals on the Dark One’s prison” idea).

31. Looks like Rand’s original name was “Rhys al’Thor”, though Jordan played with the last name for a while. He liked the way “Arthur” and “Thor” had similar sounds and was looking to invoke both at the same time - so combining those two mythical figures is how he started with Rand -- a King Arthur who was also the god Thor. There’s a lot more King Arthur in the early books than the late books -- once we hit around The Fires of Heaven, we really move away from Rand being much involved in Arthurian myth (and that’s left more to Elayne & her family). Interestingly, al’Thor at this time was known as “The Hammer” - that part of what he envisioned for Rand kinda spun off into Perrin’s character, it sounds like.

32. Hmm, the original concept for Warders was a lot more of an equal partnership than it ended up being -- they were originally men “who watch the borders of human lands” and have “some abilities gifted from the Power, but they themselves have no use of the Power”. They’re bonded to a female wielder of the Power but notably “she cannot compel him to obey her” but if he disobeys, it breaks the bond between them. The gifts they were given were a “sense” for the presence of evil, some good self-healing, and slowed aging.

33. Ah, the name Aes Sedai is based on the Irish myths of aos si (faerie from the Otherworld). And he based the White Tower structure on “the pre-modern convents of the Catholic Church”. He was also amassing a list of names yet to be attached to any characters: Lewin, Thom, Emon, Jaim, Elaida, Mina.

34. This is Jordan’s own (very early) list of how the characters he was creating matched up to Arthurian myth:

Merlin: Amyrlen

Igraine: Tigraine

Arthur: Rhys al’Thor

Gwynevere: Gwyn al’Veer

Morgan le Fay: Emorgaine

King Lot: (?) Lor

Margawse: Morgase

Gawain: Gwayne

Gareth: Garth

Interesting to see which names roughly survived and which didn’t. He’d already decided at this point that his “Merlin” figure would be a woman, the “Amrylen” (Amyrlin Seat). He’d already decided that “Gwynevere” would be a ‘village girl’ as well. I wonder if at this point “Gwyn al’Veer” was “Rhys al’Thor’s” only love interest or if he’d thought that far yet. “Sir Gareth” would be ‘one of the village lads’. Lancelot was turned into “Lan, the Warder”. “Sir Galahand” was originally Lan’s son.

35. In 1987, he wrote a new outline for the first book, with Rhys still his hero. At this point, several of the pieces of Winternight are already in place - the yearly festival, “Rhys” lives with his “widowed farmer” father outside the village, an attack by “half-beast” mean and the dad getting injured badly by one of them. The story that Tam tells about finding Rand is somewhat similar, though the Aiel were “savage tribesmen, horse-mounted clans” at this point. Oh! Oh! The change that the show made with Tam and Tigraine came from Jordan’s notes!!!! (either a consultant read the public notes or they were just very in tune with Jordan’s original thoughts): “he found a woman, a warrior of the enemy, on the slopes of Dragonmount, dying of her wounds. She was pregnant, and though it was obviously not time for the baby to be born, her wounds had brought on labor. He helped the woman birth her child, and buried her when she died”. And at this point, he had vaguely thought of a “Green-God” at the end of the book who would help Rhys defeat the forces of “Sa’khan”, a god that would be revealed as a construct of the Power who watched over a magical pool (which is basically the end of the Eye of the World).

36. In June of 1987, Jordan did a second version of his ‘namelist’ for the book. This one was 33 pages long. 33 pages of names for people, places, and things, with handwritten notes to adjust them further. Changes:

Dark One renamed to Sha’tan

The Ogyr are now tall instead of short and are excellent stoneworkers and foresters.

Rhys is now officially Rand

Has already decided that Rand would fake his own death after defeating the Dark One though “Moiraine, Arinel (an early name for Elayne), Equene (the current name for Egwene) are among those who are not fooled and will not let him go alone

Tam gets a name, though it’s short for “Tamtrim” at this time; he based it on Mesopotamian mythology: Tammuz (Dumuzid) who was the god of shepherds & ‘the life-giving growth of plants’

He shorted Tamtrim to “Tam” and gave the second syllable to “Matrim” also known as “Mat”, though it was currently a name without a character

originally there was a complex set of religions in the Westlands, but he dropped that in favor of “cultural mentalities” of groups like the Children of the Light, the Red Ajah, and the Tuatha’an.

sa’angreal were based on the idea of the Sangreal aka the Holy Grail from Arthurian literature; objects imbued with the One Power

Padan Fain was originally named “Eward White” - he died in the attack on the village in the first draft but was mysteriously surviving in future drafts and spotted in the city

“Nyneve Bayal”, based a bit on Nimue from Arthurian legend, was one of his first characters, and was originally meant to have a darker role where she died, was brought back from the dead, and is serving the Dark One, getting Lan to oppose Rand at one point, and also was going to ‘kill’ Moiraine (who had ascended to the Amrylin Seat) but actually trap her “half-way between life and death” to be brought back later. So parts of this role were given over to Lanfear.

Gentling was a much more violent process originally, and there was also originally a testing in place for men once they came of age. Originally, being gentled didn’t cause an intense depression but was “a form of lobotomy performed with the power that makes the victim very passive, incapable of violence, and receptive to being commanded” and he called it being “gelded”. It sounds like it didn’t actually remove the Power from them but instead turned them into tools to be used (which sort of got adjusted and moved to how the Seanchan find and treat the women they turn into damane, it sounds like).

37. The next step was the “Test Manuscript”. Further changes in this:

Peddler now named Mikal Fain.

Rand has friends! Matrim Piket, Dannil Aybara, and Perrin Dael. Dannil actually survived long enough in the drafts that he’s in the original cover art for EotW, I learn. Sadly, I think I no longer have my original battered copy of EotW - I replaced it last year when I decided to do my reread.

Dannil got cut from the book because Harriet pointed out that he was doing absolutely nothing (again, Harriet, where was this energy for CoT & KoD?). The general plot was roughly the same as the finishing product at this point, so I assume Perrin was with Egwene, and Mat had stolen the dagger and was with Rand, so... where was Dannil in all this? lol, Jordan tried to keep him in by arguing “he’ll be important in book 5!” I wonder if he was originally the boy who would go over to the Seanchan and Mat took over that role?

Yeah, the version of the Test Manuscript that has Dannil in it is a lot less focused than the finished version.

38. The next surviving revision is “Revision 23″. Changes of note:

The Ogier “Jak Vladad” become Loial.

Jaren Telamon becomes Lews Therin Telamon.

39. Honestly, given the things that I hated so much about what CoT & KoD gave us, it’s almost sad to read Jordan writing:

The main thrust of the story will not be how fact becomes legend, however. Rather it will explore the nature of good and evil, of free will and the duty owed by the individual to humanity as a whole, of why and how mankind makes the choice to oppose evil, and the harm that can be done in the name of good.

People who do not champion and support good are acquiescing in the press of evil.

Some people who believe they are championing good actually fight [for] the cause of evil, for they would bind the free will given by the Creator.

That is EXACTLY what it feels like the story lost for me in Rand, Perrin, & Mat’s storylines in CoT & KoD. It felt like Jordan got so caught up in the shiny newness of allying with the Seanchan that he overlooked his own themes in the series and how he was undermining them.

40. At this point, Jordan is drafting The Great Hunt and has a somewhat comprehensive summary of the long game of the series as a whole:

Rand tries to flee his destiny but this only brings him into further conflict with the Forsaken

Determined to unite the people to face “Sha’tan’s” minions, by force if necessary

This middle section here I’m not certain about though -- he tries to defeat the Dark One, fails horribly, and must flee to regroup. That doesn’t sound like something that happened during his fights against TDO. That sounds more like when he tried to take back Ebou Dar from the Seanchan. Interesting change.

Rand was supposed to be completely without allies at some point in the story, originally, but that never quite happens in the books. The closest we really get is his flight from the Darkfriend Asha’man who attack him at the end of The Path of Daggers, but even then he flees... to his allies in Caemlyn (picking up Nynaeve, etc) and, of course, Min is surgically attached to him nearly all the time after that point He was supposed to realize that “by attempting to force humankind to oppose evil he was attempting to circumvent the free will that the Creator had made a central part of all humans”.

The ending is essentially what we got -- Rand binds away evil rather than destroying it because it “cannot be destroyed any more than can Good. Evil must be opposed by people who choose to champion Good”.

“Humanity, to be human, must have something to oppose and something to support, and the free choice of which will be which.” I feel like that is essentially exactly what happens in Rand’s confrontation with TDO in Shayol Ghul, yes?

also, no mention of allying with slavers, just pointing that out.

41. lol, damn, in the Test Manuscript, Min bangs Rand in the first book, right after “Eguene” breaks up with him. lol, and, wow this is... not super-great. So Lord of Chaos/A Crown of Swords Min was always in the plans, it seemed. It does seem like Jordan lifted some of the ideas in this scene for the post-Rand/Aviendha sex scene -- Rand talking about how they have to get married now that they’ve had sex and her being like “lol no”. Min also talks here in a way that makes it clear that she already had a viewing about having had sex with Rand, though she’s... happy enough about fulfilling the prophecy in this version.

42. Oh, here we go! First mention of what would become Seanchan in Jordan’s notes. I really am intrigued to see how this idea grew (and eventually took over and swamped) the rest of the series, even if I’m unhappy at the results in the books themselves. So, the first idea for the ~other continent~ was that Rand would be “shipwrecked on the coast of a Blight” and find himself in a land broken into city-states, each ruled by an Aes Sedai. Pretty different from the Seanchan we ended up with. Rand was going to fall in love with the daughter of a general that he was “given” to but then have to leave to avoid being gentled by the Aes Sedai in charge of the city-state, with not!Tuon bringing an army with her to help him take the “Stone of Stair”. Okay, Michael calling Tuon a ~young general who is also a ruler~ is hilarious. Tuon never showed an ounce of tactical knowledge in the entire series. Anyway, changing from Rand shipwrecking in Seanchan to instead having the Seanchan invade was supposed to... tighten the plot. Best laid plans o’ mice and men. Best laid plans. Boy, wow, it did the opposite.

43. Unfortunately, we don’t get a timeline here of when and how Jordan swapped things over from one version to the other. It was mentioned in the start that a lot of Jordan’s notes were not dated, so it can’t be certain exactly when certain things happened. The author notes that Jordan had also wanted to “dive into the complicated politics of a land invaded”. Again, shame that Jordan only really did that in WH and then decided Mat navel-gazing for two books was more interesting (in fairness, he does continue to explore it a bit in the prologues but, yeah, it really feels like he dropped the ball in the main storylines featuring the Seanchan).

44. Oooh, getting into Taimandred. “To imagine that an author never changes their mind about their plots or characters -- especially in a work as massively complex as The Wheel of Time -- would be foolish” .. “Another example of this -- interesting both for the ramifications within the narrative and its importance to fans -- is the shifting identity of the character Demandred. It’s a perfect microcosm of not just Jordan’s ceaseless creative process, but also the kinds of problems it left Brandon and Team Jordan in the wake of his passing.”

45. Interesting! Even after he’d finished The Great Hunt and was working on The Dragon Reborn, Jordan hadn’t finalized all the names of the Forsaken yet. In his notes he had:

Ishamael (check and already in the books)

Lanfear (ditto)

Aginor - already dead

Balthamel - already dead

Sammael

Rahvin

De’ath (...literally just the word death with an apostrophe)

Moloc

Be’aldrid

Maladour

Malifecin

Sha’rein

Savintar

46. “If we rewind back to Jordan’s own notes, however, we can see that at least at the time Jordan was writing Lord of Chaos, Taimandred was absolutely true.” Twice in his private notes for the books, Jordan wrote “Taim/Demandred showed up” at Dumai’s Wells. In his notes where he was summing up the accomplishments of the Forsaken, for Demandred, he wrote: “He will show up claiming to be Mazrim Taim, taking advantage of Rand’s amnesty.” And he was also supposed to originally be the person who’d killed Asmodean (makes sense, since it happens very soon before “Taim” shows up in the story). We know this because he wrote in a note about Nynaeve - “She does not know that Asmodean was a prisoner of Rand, nor, of course, that he was killed by Demandred.” The author says that it’s difficult to tell from Jordan’s notes when and why Taimandred changed into two separate people. “Sadly, we’ll never know. Jordan shared a great deal with Harriet and the other members of Team Jordan, but he hardly told them everything.”

In my own reread, it felt very much like Taim was Taimandred in LoC and very clearly that he was only Taim in WH, but the parts in between are wobbly and uncertain.

47. Honestly, I feel like pivoting away from Taimandred was a mistake on Jordan’s part. Him being the author of the slaughter at Dumai’s Wells and him killing Asmodean just... makes so much more sense than what we ended up with. I’m gonna hope that the tv rule of conservation of characters leads the show back to Taimandred as a reality, lol.

48. It was Brandon who came up with Random Sharan Army to try to explain why the fuck the Dark One was so pleased with Demandred in LoC if he wasn’t Taim and therefore had accomplished absolutely nothing of note on the page. Interesting. I was sure that the Random Sharan Army was connected to Jordan’s pivot to allying with the slavers, because the numbers just didn’t seem justified otherwise, but I guess Jordan was allying with them... for who knows why tbh. The mystery of why Jordan was obsessed with allying with the slavers remains a mystery thus far into this book. It kinda seems like it will be one of those forever questions that is never answered.

Jordan just... he really didn’t successfully sell me on it actually being NECESSARY to ally with the slavers, and I think a lot of that is rooted in his arbitrary withholding of information from Rand? Like, Rand is trying to ally with the slavers because he believes he has no choice, but HIS OWN ALLIES (including his LOVER!!!) are straight-up withholding vital intel from him re: the slaver army’s weaknesses for... absolutely no good reason at all. The deck feels so artificially stacked in the Seanchan’s favor due to Min and Nynaeve undergoing voluntary amnesia rather than any actual narrative reasons for the Seanchan to have the advantage. Again, it’s a place where I feel like I can literally see Jordan’s puppet strings on everyone’s shoulders rather than it making sense that the characters would behave this way.

49. Okay, the summary of what we know about the “outriggers”:

Set 5-10 years after the Last Battle

“focused on Mat, Tuon, and the changes faced by the Seanchan as a result of the events of the Last Battle” lol what changes. that was the whole issue through KOD. That Jordan refused to let Tuon change or grow even the slightest bit. I guess this would have been changes that happen despite Tuon throwing tantrums and kicking and screaming the whole way (and probably murdering and enslaving a LOT more people).

“All that survives, in fact, are two tantalizing sentences. One depicts Mat lying in a cold gutter, the dice having failed him. The other sees Perrin on a boat, sailing to Seanchan to kill an old friend.”

honestly, if it had the same energy as the Mat and Perrin chapters in CoT/KoD, then it’s hard to imagine the outriggers being anything but a boring slog where our main characters constantly think about how they should oppose slavery but then don’t actually do anything useful because slavery is just so gosh-darn helpful and some of the slavers are just so pretty. I’m just... I do wish more notes had survived on this, because Jordan’s pivot towards having all his main male characters working towards allying with and appeasing the slavers has been THE thing about CoT & KoD that really ruined those two books for me, and I just wish I understood WHY he went from his interesting and nuanced storyline that he had all the way through Winter’s Heart and instead changed it to Mat acting like “wanting to brutally torture and enslave people” and “not wanting to be brutally tortured and enslaved” are two equally valid points of view, with the edge being given to whoever has the most mysterious eyes.

50. More interesting to me are that Jordan had been considering writing a prequel about Tam. Basically the story that Jordan had first considered, all those years ago, about a soldier who has finished with his war. The other prequel he’d wanted to write would have been Moiraine and Lan’s lead-up to Winternight -- what led them to Two Rivers just in time. “As with the outrigger novels, however, Jordan’s archived papers contain no complete sequences or outlines”.

51. And the rest of the book is a glossary of the various characters, places, and ideas, with how they connect to mythology or the real world. I might potentially use it in the future during fics maybe but I’m not going to go over it here.

Overall, this was very interesting, even if the questions that I most wish could have been answered still remain mysteries.

[peaceisadirtyword]

Pull the trigger III (Modern!Ivar/Reader)

A/N: Hello❤️ this is the third part of pull the trigger! I’m glad you guys are liking it🥹 I hope you are patient because I said slowburn and it really is a slowburn😂 thank you so so much for reading and I hope you enjoy it🫶🏼

ps. I had it scheduled for 20.00 but Tumblr didn’t post it🥲 so sorry for the delay!

Warnings: another argument x2 (y/n is not ivar’s biggest fan), mention of possible SA... 

Words: 3129

Read on AO3

Fic masterlist

You were never late. You always left home with enough time to get to class and sit on your favourite seat before anyone else entered the classroom. That gave you time to open your laptop, read some of the notes you had taken during the latest class -the ones that you always promised you'd read over the weekend but never did- and even reply to some texts before Alfred (and the rest of your classmates) arrived. But that day Astrid's girlfriend had spent the night, and as she was in her last year of the local cooking school and made the best breakfasts you had ever tried in your entire life, you were late.

Thank God you always showered before breakfast.

You met the Scandinavian History professor at the door. He looked at his watch and raised an eyebrow at you in disapproval, but after you shot him an apologetic smile, he gestured for you to enter the classroom before him. Muttering a thank you, you quickly entered, immediately scanning the room in search of your favourite seat.

Which was taken.

You glared at Alfred, who sat next to the girl that was now occupying your seat, and he shrugged with a pout. That day every single person enrolled in the course had decided to attend, of course.

You sighed in relief when you spotted an empty seat, but the sigh nearly turned into a whine when you saw who sat next to it.

As the professor seemed not to be in his best mood and as you considered it would be too impolite to leave the classroom when he had offered you to enter before him, you walked slowly to the empty seat, ignoring the people's stares and especially ignoring Ivar's little smirk when you sat down next to him.

The professor started talking, and you opened your laptop and pretended not to even know about his existence as he kept staring at you. Finally, you looked at him with your lips pressed together. His ocean eyes, framed by long, black eyelashes, seemed to mock you as you glared at him.

“What?" you whispered, narrowing your eyes at him. Ivar shrugged, and looked back to the blackboard, where the professor was writing some dates in silence.

You stared at him. He had his laptop opened, but he wrote on paper. Even if his handwriting wasn't the best, he wrote quickly as the professor spoke, Ivar's eyes never leaving the paper and he seemed to remember every single thing he was saying. He even added some things, and his concentration was hypnotising for you. As you always sat a few rows behind him, you never actually saw him in class, and thought he'd probably be scrolling down his phone or distracted on his laptop, like the majority of your classmates.

Suddenly, he raised his head, looking at you with an eyebrow raised. Fuck.

Quickly, you looked away, to your empty word file that you had opened to take some notes. Clearing your throat, you typed on your keyboard the dates and the names the professor was saying, even if you had missed some things, you'd just google it afterwards, as always.

You didn't need to look at Ivar to know he was smirking again. Clenching your jaw, you tried to ignore his mere presence while he kept writing down his notes, he seemed to go faster than you, which annoyed you to no end.

It was during the third time you were caught staring at him, after surrendering and accepting the fact that you weren't focused and it would be better to just wait and ask for Alfred's notes during lunch, when he finally parted his lips and whispered, so low that you were sure you were the only one hearing him:

“See anything you like?"

You pressed your lips together, not really understanding why you wanted to yell at him and his annoying smile so bad. Well, he's an asshole.

“No, thank you"

“Do you find me more interesting than the unification of Denmark by king Harald Blåtand?"

“No" you rolled your eyes, and Ivar chuckled.

“Seems like it" he shrugged “Are you trying to copy my notes then? If you ask me nicely, I might give them to you"

“I would never ask you for anything" you narrowed your eyes at him, trying to keep the volume down to avoid annoying your professor more than you had already done.

“Good, because with those manners, I wouldn't give it to you" he rolled his eyes “In any case, you look distracted" he looked briefly at your screen, a few words typed around the file you had opened with no connection or context whatsoever “And you got that date wrong, the one about the Jelling runestone... Are you thinking about going back to that idiot's bed so soon? Is that why you were late this morning?"

“Shut up" you glared at him “I woke up in my own bed, for your information, but that's none of your business" you moved your laptop away from him so he couldn't see the screen.

“I should have guessed that, you look too uptight to spend the night in someone else's bed" he shook his head, almost like he was disappointed, but the amusement in his blue eyes told you a different story.

“Excuse me?" you gasped, maybe a bit louder than you intended. Your reaction only seemed to amuse him even more, his eyes returned to his notes and he kept writing, almost like he forgot you as soon as he tore his eyes off of you.

When you looked away though, you were aware of the stern look the professor sent your way, so you had to swallow your anger and go back to your notes, typing the new words and dates that had appeared on the blackboard. Finally, the professor shook his head and sighed, continuing his explanation. You could feel Ivar chuckling next to you, but you kept your mouth shut and focused on ignoring him for the rest of the class. You knew that next time the professor would expel you from the classroom for disturbing him if he saw you distracted again. Not Ivar, though, he wouldn't even dream of scolding his favourite student, the brilliant Ivar Lothbrok.

_____________________________________

“He called me uptight, Alfred!" you scoffed, still very annoyed, as the two of you sat down on a lovely table next to a window inside your favourite café near university. It was a relaxing place, where you usually read or studied, or listened to your favourite playlist as you worked on some essays. Always accompanied by your favourite sandwich or a cinnamon roll and a cup of tea. That day, though, you weren't especially relaxed.

Alfred looked amused as you ranted about how much of an idiot that boy was.

“To be fair, Y/N, you're not too likely to spend the night in someone else's bed, especially Erik's... Why the hell did you even kiss him?"

“What's that supposed to mean?" you frowned, crossing your arms “And hey, I can hook up with whoever I want, Erik is not that bad!"

“It means" Alfred shot you his diplomatic smile, the one he always used when he was about to say something you wouldn't like but that you needed to hear and hoped you wouldn't hate him afterwards “That you are not the type of person that would sleep in a guy's bed when you have class the next day, and you definitely wouldn't stay until after he's awake" he shrugged “It's not inherently bad, it's just not you, especially if that guy can't maintain a proper conversation with you... Seriously, Erik?"

“What's so wrong about him?" you scoffed “Everyone rolls their eyes and shakes their head when I mention Thora shouldn't be fooling around with Hvitserk Lothbrok but I hook up with someone and suddenly they're not good enough?"

“It's not that" Alfred shook his head with a sympathetic smile “You never talk about him, not as much as you do when you actually have a crush on someone, and I've seen you talking to him, you look bored, you even yawned the last time!" he laughed “Besides, Erik doesn't have a good reputation, Hvitserk might be a jerk sometimes but at least there's no rumours of him taking advantage of drunk girls"

“Now who's being unfair?" you raised an eyebrow "I do find him interesting, he's very different from me, so we can learn a lot from each other" you shrugged "And, those are just rumours, there's also rumours about Hvitserk Lothbrok killing people and I don't see anyone freaking out"

Alfred shrugged again.

“All this 'opposites attract' thing is fine, Y/N, but you actually need some common ground for these things to work... And you have no common ground with Erik, you just have some free time and are scared of loneliness"

You gasped.

“Who asked you to psychoanalyse me?"

“I'm not..." Alfred sighed “I'm just saying that I don't think that guy is good for you, I care about you, you're my best friend and I want you to be happy and find someone, like I did" he smiled softly “But I guess, you need to make your own mistakes to keep learning"

“You sound like my grandfather" you rolled your eyes, not letting the conversation become too deep. The familiar itch in your throat and the burning of the tears in your eyes were too much to handle in public, especially in front of Alfred.

You noticed he stared at you for a couple of minutes after you ended the conversation and started scrolling down the digital menu before the waitress came to your table, with a smile on her lips.

Your eyes scanned the prices, biting down your lip. They had to raise the prices for the food, which you understood as it was a small, family-run business, but it was becoming more and more difficult for you to eat there and pay the bills every month.

Alfred looked at you again, and sensing your hesitation, he ordered your usual favourite before you could open your mouth. When the waitress left, you glared at him.

“My treat" he winked at you. He didn't add anything else, luckily, but you knew what he was thinking. You made a mental note to invite him to the cinema or something like that when you were able to pay for it.

“Thanks" your shy smile told him you weren't truly annoyed or angry at him.

“I could talk to Ubbe, maybe he could tell me when there's an open position and I could give him your CV. It's not your dream job, I know, but they pay very well and..."

“I'd rather starve" you replied, rolling your eyes. Alfred laughed then, assuming the defeat with a shrug.

“That pride of yours, Y/N, is your worst enemy"

_________________________________

You snuggled in your couch with your laptop on your lap, your favourite sitcom playing in the background as white noise while you typed on your keyboard. A warm blanket kept you cosy and your eyes half closed while you researched some things for class. Thora was in his room, alone or with Hvitserk, you didn't really know because you arrived after her. Astrid was with her girlfriend and Ingrid texted you earlier telling you that she would be going on a date with a guy she met on Tinder and that she'd be back for dinner.

Even if you were trying your best to appear completely fine with the fact that you now practically spent your days all alone, looking for temporal jobs online that you could balance with your classes and not really knowing what to do with your future, so they would keep going with their lives without having to stop to check on you constantly, some days were harder than others.

That day, after the fight with Ivar Lothbrok and his bodyguard from the weekend and the little conversation you had with him in class, especially after having lunch with Alfred, who seemed to know what you were thinking and feeling all the time, you were particularly sensitive.

A part of you wanted to call Erik, knowing he'd come if you asked him, but he wouldn't offer comfort, just sex, and for that you already had your vibrator, which would probably offer you way better results.

And, to be honest, you weren't in the mood to deal with him.

The doorbell rang. You hesitated, thinking that as you weren't waiting for anyone, maybe if no one opened that door they'd leave. But you instantly regretted it, sighing before pausing the series, leaving your laptop on the couch and standing up, checking your reflection on the mirror next to the door before opening.

And your jaw dropped in disbelief when you found those eyes you were starting to hate looking at you.

“Hello" Ivar smiled mockingly at you, bowing his head softly and tilting his head.

After blinking a couple of times, you parted your lips and licked them before speaking.

“What are you doing here?" you blurted out, scoffing "How did you get our address?"

He laughed then, almost like you had said the most ridiculous thing he had ever heard.

“I came to collect my dear brother" he shrugged “Our mother asked me to, and I figured he'd be here, it's not the first time I've been forced to find out an address to take my brother away from a girl's bed"

“I don't know if Hvitserk is here" you crossed your arms, but a groan and a loud giggle coming from Thora's bedroom answered you.

Ivar raised an eyebrow at you and shrugged.

“I think that was a pretty good confirmation" he pushed the door open, and you had to step back into the flat again so you could put some distance between the two of you. Ivar entered the living room leaning on his crutch and closing the door behind him. You gasped in disbelief and turned to look at him.

“I didn't say you could wait inside"

“I invited myself" he shrugged, walking to the couch and sitting down, leaving a black backpack on the floor next to it “As you're being a terrible hostess"

“I'm not a hostess" you argued “This is my home, Lothbrok, I'm the boss here, not you, so drop the cockiness"

“Will you at least offer me a drink while I wait for my sex-addict brother?" he pouted, ignoring your words.

“No" you closed your laptop.

“I'm thirsty, I'd like a glass of water" he tilted his head, his wide eyes fixed on yours and a small smile curving his lips.

“Then you can get up and grab one yourself, I'm not your servant" you shot him a fake smile, immediately rolling your eyes. Ivar's smile faded. This time your smile was genuine, a strange feeling of triumph replacing your annoyance for a few seconds “You're not so brave and cool without your bodyguard, are you?"

“Whitehair is waiting for me in the car" he shrugged “I figured I'd leave him there as you two clearly don't get along"

“Nice, well, I'm not your lapdog and I will not wag my tail, bark and sit when you order me to, so don't treat me like it, you're in my house, here it doesn't matter how much money you have, or how dangerous and important you think you are"

Ivar looked a bit annoyed now, which he deserved, in your opinion, because he had been annoying you for the entire day.

“You're obsessed with my family's money" he rolled his eyes “Hvitserk told me you hated us for some reason"

“For many reasons" you rolled your eyes “I don't hate you, I'm just tired of everyone treating you like you're some kind of royalty around here, it's just... Indifference"

“I don't recall even talking to you before this weekend" he shrugged “And here you are, acting like I just killed your entire family and forced you to watch, I feel like this" he pointed first to you and then to himself “Is personal, love, almost like one of my brothers fucked you and then never called you back when they promised they would" he frowned “If that's what happened let me tell you, you're not the first nor the last one going through that, you'll get over it" he winked at you and you let out a forced laugh, shaking your head.

“As if I'd ever believe anything that came from you or anyone from your family"

“Trust me, we can be very convincing" his smirk, that smirk you hated with your entire being.

“You love to think you're the big bad guy that everyone is scared of, right?" you replied “It's ridiculous"

Ivar hummed, nodding before leaning on his crutch and standing up. You stepped back, suddenly a bit intimidated by him hovering over you, watching you like a hawk that is about to catch a squirming rabbit.

“I don't love to think it" he muttered “I am"

You rolled your eyes again and opened your mouth to reply when someone cleared their throat.

Hvitserk looked amused when you looked away from Ivar. Thora was beside him, her eyes widened and a confused expression on her face.

“I didn't think you'd actually come up here, brother" Hvitserk chuckled “At least you had time to get to know us a bit better, Y/N"

You stayed silent, because the only thing you had on your mind at that moment were insults.

“Hurry up, we're late" Ivar pushed his brother to the door, and only turned around to grab his backpack and open it, throwing a few paper sheets on your table “The notes I took during today's class" he pointed at you “i think you need them more than me" the smirk again, this time accompanied by a wink.

When the door closed behind them, Thora looked like she was about to burst out laughing and you were seeing red.

“Who does he think he is?" you whispered, glaring at the notes he just left on the table.

“I don't know Ivar that well, but Hvitserk said he'd like you"

“Oh, yes, he loves me" you rolled your eyes, sitting on the couch again, she sat next to you with a small smile on her lips.

“If we get married you'll be my maid of honour and Ivar would be Hvitserk's best man"

You turned your head with narrowed eyes.

“Are you getting married?"

Thora laughed, shaking her head.

“It was a joke, Y/N"

“Well, it's the unfunniest joke I've ever heard"

She kissed your cheek.

“I'll make dinner, should we watch Shrek?"

___________________________________________

Tags:  @istorkyou @barnes-lothbrok @naaladareia @youbloodymadgenius @southernbe​ @yummycastiel @nothingtolosebutweight @noway4u @cdauni @heavenly1927​ @ivarhoegh​ @biancathecool​ @helleiaiwritting​ @marvelsangels​ @ironynoticony​

[historyhermann]

Kizuna no Allele Spoiler-Filled Review

Kizuna no Allele is an idolish music series directed by Kenichiro Komaya. Wit Studio and Signal.MD produce the series. The latter is known for series such as The Ancient Magus' Bride and Spy x Family, and the former for FLCL Progressive and Atom: The Beginning. In addition, Deko Akao wrote the show's scripts.

Reprinted from Pop Culture Maniacs and Wayback Machine. This was the forty-sixth article I wrote for Pop Culture Maniacs. This post was originally published on August 25, 2023.

The series itself has a strange origin. It is an adaption of a YouTube channel by Kizuna AI, a Japanese virtual YouTuber, known as VTuber. This has led to claims that the series is a "forced meme" or that it embodies the "artificiality of pop entertainment in Japan." Whether that is entirely true or not, the series clearly has some positives in its favor. Well-known studios are producing it. A scriptwriter (Akao) is known for her work on My Roommate Is a Cat and Komi Can't Communicate. One of the show's composers (Go Sakabe) composed the opening and closing songs for Gosick. The show's art director Masakazu Miyake worked on series such as Fate/Zero, Spy x Family, and Steins;Gate.

While saying all of this, I had serious reservations about Kizuna no Allele, regardless of whether it an attempt by Kizuna AI to revive her brand or not. For one, the musical sequences, reportedly resembling actual VTubers, seem awkward and strange. This is especially the case to those who don't watch that sort of content.

The main character, Miracle (voiced by Ayumi Hinohara) is not as sympathetic as she could be. She is trying everything she can to become a virtual artist/performer, i.e., a VTuber. She attends a school named Artist Garden (Aden) Academy dedicated to that goal. That school is almost equivalent to a school where people train  to be influencers on Instagram or a YouTuber. It is clearly absurd.

One character shines through: Noelle. Voiced by Yuka Nukui, she challenges Miracle, a huge fangirl of Kizuna, to be better. Both go to school in the virtual world. Possibilities are said to be limitless. At first, it appears that Noelle is bullying Miracle. It is later revealed that her family pressured her to be "the best."

Later, she becomes a mentor of sorts telling her to face songs head-on. She brings her to a room where bubbles light up different colors depending on the interaction. In a touching scene, she declares that if you understand a song's lyrics, it will come out differently. She encourages Kizuna to tap into her abilities.

She has stronger character development than Miracle. This truly begins in the show's fifth episode. Some painful history which weakens her emotional connection to her parents is implied. In a final scene, she declares that everything must be "perfect."

One parallel is Kōsei Arima in Your Lie in April. His mother gives him strict piano instruction. He is so scarred that after her death he stops playing piano since he can't hear sound when he plays. This series is different. Noelle is pressured by her parents (and sister) to be the best. However, she has the notion she must be "perfect," even though they never directly told her this. Miracle plays an important part in making Noelle a more whole person.

The series seems to be pro-A.I. An A.I. named Vaity wakes up Miracle in her swanky high-tech apartment every morning. The character, Chris, is hinted as A.I. before episode seven. Chris (voiced by Hikari Codama) is clearly crushing on Miracle, calling her cute and kissing her on the ear in the second episode. As such, the series is yuri-ish, as much as Ippon Again!. It isn't directly yuri like Yuri Is My Job!, Birdie Wing, or Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury. The latter, not the former, makes the series enjoyable, including when Chris gives Miracle tips on how to improve her dancing.

The person in the atrium adds mystery to the series. This character eats neatly and drinks tea. In some ways, the character reminds me of Victorique de Blois in Gosick. He seems out of place since much of the series takes place in Aden Academy and like a character in another show. This is the case for a (different) character named marumaru. Miracle often uses marumaru as a pillow, with the latter calling the former "ordinary".

While the fact that there are contests and school administrators is consistent with other idol shows. What sets Kizuna no Allele apart is the direct mention and almost encouragement of A.I. In a post-credits scene in the third episode, there is a question about non-fungible tokens, known as NFTs. A simple explanation is provided. NFTs have clear copyright, storage, environmental, and security issues.

This is compounded by the fees charged and manipulation of NFT prices. Some have voiced concern that these tokens are pyramid/Ponzi schemes and pointed to financial uncertainty of the data files. They function like cryptographic tokens, but are not so-called "cryptocurrencies." This isn't mentioned at all. This led some to say the show is shilling for NFTs. In this series, A.I. tools rank V-Tubers. In the 11th episode, participants in a music festival get an event NFT as a prize.

This uncritical focus on A.I. stands in contrast to the omniscient, godlike A.I. as depicted in the six-part OVA named The Orbital Children. This series almost encourages creation of anime by A.I. The latter is not possible. A.I. tools like ChatGPT are "incapable of creating anything new." They can only pull in what already exists. Consider Angela Carpenter in Carole & Tuesday who works with Tao, a music producer who uses advanced A.I. to ensure performers are profitable. That plotline is better constructed than Miracle wanting to write her own lyrics rather than A.I. tools.

Other series are more critical of A.I. than Kizuna no Allele. The same can be said for Cleopatra in Space. It has a paranoid A.I. scared of ghosts, near PYRAMID Academy which generates electricity for the campus. Later, an evil A.I. named Cyrano created by Octavian tries to control one of the protagonists.

Star Trek: Lower Decks and Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur portray A.I. with more depth than anything this series has to offer. The former series has a malevolent computer A.I. in the second season. The latter has a "living" A.I. supercomputer and an entire episode on the dangers of A.I.

Otherwise, this series also reinforces, in many ways, expectations of idol femininity, even if it possibly subverts it. This isn't, necessarily unique, as those series within the Love Live! franchise, BanG Dream!, and If My Favorite Pop Idol Made It to the Budokan, I Would Die, to name a few of the over 90 idol anime and manga out there, do the same.

Undoubtedly the series has a strong animation style and intriguing designs. But, it isn't as nuanced as Do It Yourself!!, which gives the lesson that do-it-yourself (DIY) ethics can mesh with techno-optimism and technology. Instead, Kizuna no Allele appears to be taking the side of the tech bros who favor A.I., rather than approaching the topic in a more critical way. This is one of the many downfalls of this series, to build upon what I've mentioned earlier in this review.

Another one of the issues of Kizuna no Allele is that it took time for all those in the opening sequence of the series to have a significant role in the series. For instance, Riz (voiced by Arisa Hanawa) does not have much a role until later on in the series. In fact, she begins to get a spotlight in the end of episode eight, when she declares that she might have collected enough data as she rides on her fogelboard (a hoverboard-like device) catching the viewer's attention for the first time in the series.

The music in this series is only passable, apart from opening and closing sequences, by Ayato Fujiwara and MikitoP respectfully. While this is the first series Fujiwara has worked on, MikitoP has composed for Kochoki. Sometimes it feels like the V-Tuber music would be better to listen to than watch. The animation sequences with characters in V-Tuber form can look a bit ghoulish.

Apart from previous criticism of Kizuna no Allele, in terms of subpar music and positive views of A.I. (and presumably NFTs), there are some positives. For one, Noelle takes Miracle under her wing and teaches her the importance of music, while Miracle does the same for Noelle. In fact, in the show's sixth episode, she helps give Noelle the confidence to write her own song, and get beyond her previous dedication to be the best she can be, which even resulted in self-harm.

More importantly, Miracle, and the show itself, emphasize that you should follow your own goals, not those imposed on others, and that it more important to be someone you love than to be perfect. This emphasis on self-love allows Noelle to open up more to Miracle, resulting in her smiling, and laughing, for the first time in the series.

There is the continuing mystery of marumaru and Chris. The series, like Ippon Again, seems to be saying that hard work can pay off. That isn't always true. Furthermore, the animation of this series flows well and there are some cute scenes with Miracle, meaning that she is relatable.

In the seventh episode, Chris goes on a journey to find herself. Miracle and Noelle look at her previous streams to find out more about her. They become such good friends that Noelle finger-flicks Miracle on the forehead when she gets annoyed. This shows their connection between each other.

The importance of self-discovery fits with other themes in Kizuna no Allele. In episode seven, one of the best episodes in the series, there is an unsurprising revelation. Only half the students base their avatars on their real-life appearance. Chris seems to be a real-life student, but Miracle doesn't want to bother her.

This episode builds on previous plot development. Specifically, Chris is even more direct with her romantic feelings with Miracle, declaring she can only overcome obstacles with Miracle in a sort of love confession. She later adds that she wrote lyrics only thanks to Miracle, who says she wants to be better friends with Chris.

All of this interlinks to the growing camaraderie, by the seventh episode of Kizuna no Allele, between Chris, Noelle, Miracle, and even marumaru. Miracle is criticized by Noelle for "dragging" them down, as she hasn't produced original lyrics. Even so, Miracle still supports her. Almost akin to the sub-plot in Alice Gear Aegis Expansion, Principal of ADEN Academy reportedly has a devious, or evil, plan. One character says in the 11th episode they need to stop ADEN's plan. The academy is described as existing across the world and run by the ADEN Network.

Many loose ends are tied up in the eighth episode of Kizuna no Allele. At first, it seems like any other episode, with the video streams of Noelle and Chris. Miracle worries that she is falling behind in her rank and views. However, something important is revealed: marumaru is actually Quan (voiced by Rina Kawaguchi). Miracle has been confiding in marumaru since episode one. Only the audience knows they are the same. As such, it is clear Quan has been front and center the entire time. Miracle even states that marumaru is not boring or pathetic.

The 11th episode turns this on its head. Noelle, Riz, Miracle, and marumaru perform at the Shower of Sound festival. While they fail, marumaru feels that their present form isn't good. Even though Miracle says that marumaru doesn't need to change anything, they transform into Quan, their "true self." This Quan is not like the one in the aviary. Rather Quan is a girl who appears in the series' opening sequence. Quan in the "real world" is a mystery, but could be a trans girl who hasn't transitioned. If so, Quan would have similarities with Snapdragon in High Guardian Spice, a trans woman shown prior to transition.

One of the strangest parts of Kizuna no Allele were the post-credit scenes in V-Tuber style, described as "recommended videos". While some were on topics like drawing, design, food, in-universe trivia, or something else entirely, they pale in comparison to those primarily about Sakura's outfits in Cardcaptor Sakura and Cardcaptor Sakura: Clear Card.

A later episode features a competition where characters race on hoverboards. In the case of the former, Riz got a lot more airtime. She becomes a stronger character, sharing the lesson that you shouldn't spread fake news. It appears she has a crush on Miracle, saying Miracle really interests her. The comradeship between Riz, Miracle, and Miracle's other friends, makes the series that much more enjoyable.

Riz, who only wants to get better data and cares little about her rank, served as a vehicle for the story to push Miracle forward by stating that she should think for herself rather than relying on others. Predictably, this causes Miracle to post videos and people accuse her of "copying others". She gets so much negativity that she even thinks of quitting becoming a V-Tuber!

This anxiety she faces is nowhere near what a high school student, an owner of a popular cat on social media, experienced in the 10th episode of Too Cute Crisis. In the case of that series, she could more effectively deal with her anxiety by not desiring to keep every single picture perfect, drawing from the terrible blurry photographs taken by protagonist Liza Luna of her cat Yozora.

Coming back to Kizuna No Allele, I liked that Miracle's friends don't abandon her, but cheered her up. In fact, Riz states that Miracle shouldn't be dependent on her friends and should walk alongside them instead. This causes Miracle to declare she will express herself the best she can in the virtual world, showing her "true" self. She expresses this even more directly in the series finale, where she embraces the idea of them playing a collab concert so they can qualify for the Virtual Grid Awards (VGA)

Furthermore, this episode not only highlights the clash between Lapin d'Or Ada (who heads the VGAs) and ADEN Academy principal Auris (voiced by Masumi Tazawa), but the value of originality. For one, Lapin is concerned about collaborative concerts, feeling they are copying one another and look all the same. She changes the system so students aren't rewarded. Many students to abandon the idea as a result. The latter impacts the friends of Miracle. They believe that working individually is  "better." This quickly dissipates as each of them realizes their connection to her.

In a powerful end to Kizuna No Allele, Chris, Quan, Noelle, and Riz all sing and dance together with Miracle in a concert as PathTLive. The 3D animation of the concert isn't terrible. It is more passable than previous 3d V-Tuber videos in the series. The lesson in the episode is that connecting and inspiring others is a good thing. It can even allow people to overcome obstacles, as Miracle and her friend make their way into the top 15 qualifiers for the VGAs. The series ending leaves open the possibility of a second season. Although it appeared to be very unlikely, when I wrote an earlier draft of this review, it was reported that another season will be premiering in October!

On the other hand, the show is not critical, in any way, whatsoever, of the YTuber culture, equivalent to social influencers in the U.S. There are no episodes, like those in the first season of The Proud Family: Louder and Prouder or Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur. Both focus on the dangers of online trolls and the power of a social media influencer. Instead, the videos have in-universe product placement. There is an advertisement for a bubble drink in one episode and an ad on the reported "value" of e-sports. Getting a high rank in the virtual world is indicated as important.

Such an emphasis reinforces the problematic idea the highly rated/ranked content is "good". In reality, this cannot be further from the truth. Even if a video has a lot of views, comments, and reactions, this doesn't mean that it is "good", as it can be actively harmful. Such content may not be to everyone's taste either. There can be "hidden gems" which don't get as much recognition. Although the show implies that Miracle's videos are awful, she is obsessed with getting a higher ranking, so she can compete in the virtual award competition.

While the series is watchable due to the interactions between Miracle and her friends, the yurish subtext, important of self-love and self-discovery, and sometimes absurd storylines, there are many issues. This includes non-existent criticism of VTubers, social media influencers, and A.I. Subpar music, lack of character development in the protagonist, and other problems are additional problems. Hopefully, a second season would fix these issues.

Kizuna no Allele is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

© 2023 Burkely Hermann. All rights reserved.

[pagetwo]

New York City: Feb. 14- Feb. 19

Friday, March 10, 2023

From February 14th-19th, I had the opportunity to go on a university class trip to New York City to meet with professionals in the Art History field and to explore the rich art scene of the city. This is the second trip of this sort that I have gone on with my school, but this trip was special because of the emphasis on meeting with art museum professionals- the field which I will be entering after graduation. During the week I was in the city, I visited the New York Public Library, the Morgan Library, MoMA, the MET, the Brooklyn Museum, and the Rubin Museum. We met with so many amazing professionals, including the chief curator of the Egyptian exhibit at the MET and one of the Egyptian artifact conservators who works at the MET as well. 

On my first night in NYC, a couple of classmates and I explored the city in search of Anish Kapoor’s mini-bean under the jenga building. Visiting this newest iteration of Cloud Gate was a great way to start our art history trip- seeing this new piece of history that had recently been installed in the Big Apple. Visiting such an iconic piece of art, regardless of how one feels about Kapoor, was a grand way to kick off the trip!

On the 15th, after visiting some of the photo archives at the NYPL, our class attended a guided tour of the Morgan Library. We got to have such a surreal, humanizing, and unique experience during the tour when the docent pulled out a 5000 year old cylinder seal from ancient Mesopotamia and let us each hold it. My passion for art history was sparked when I first learned about ancient visual culture, so being able to hold this piece of history was a full-circle moment for me and my peers. It brought to life what we often can only view in photos or behind glass. 

At the Morgan Library, we toured the exhibit “She Who Wrote: Enheduanna and Women of Mesopotamia, ca 3400-2000 BC.” It was all about the women of ancient Mesopotamia and how womanhood was understood during those times. We learned so many beautiful things about women deities who were bringers and takers of life, or wagers and enders of wars. A piece that really stood out to me was the costume for a Mesopotamian queen. The beading was gorgeous, featuring lapis lazuli- indicating the reliable trade the Mesopotamians would have had in what is considered modern-day Afghanistan. I noted that her headdress must have been an inspiration for Queen Amidala’s styling in the Star Wars franchise, calling back to the powerful women of our ancient civilizations. 

After visiting the Morgan Library, we went to the MoMA. This being my second time at the museum in the last 10 months, I was comfortable visiting the pieces I missed the most- one of which being Matisse’s Dance. This painting always stuns me due to the grand scale of it and the use of vast fields of cool toned colors- green and blue. 

On the 16th we spent the entire day at the MET. This was my second time at the MET as well, so I spent a majority of my time catching up where I left off last year- finally entering the wing of the Greek and Roman galleries where the cubiculi and mosaics are housed. The Chroma exhibit throughout the galleries was stunning to put it lightly! Classical sculpture is where my heart lies and finally I was seeing what the people I admire so much were seeing when these sculptures were at their prime. The Boxer sculpture has always been one of my favorites, so seeing it in such surreal detail was overwhelming and unforgettable. The Chroma exhibit had me imagining what my life would be like if I worked in the MET and got to study sculptures and look for remnants of pigment on them. It is groundbreaking research and I have such immense respect and appreciation for the brilliant art historians and scientists who are doing geeks like me this service.

Some things that were stunning and gripped me in tears for an hour were a mosaic of a woman in a wreath, coins depicting Trajan, and the vibrant cubiculi that I did not have a chance to visit last year. These are what it is all about for me. These are what my discipline mean to me! Seeing the mosaic mere inches from my face, as opposed to from around a roped-off corner as I did last year, allowed me to see all of the individual tesserae and imagine how it would have looked inside of a Roman villa. The coins with Trajan on them made me incredibly emotional, as I am somebody who studies Roman emperors. These were undeniable visual evidence that these subjects I devote so much of my studies to were real people! Real people who had real impacts on the world and who I only wish I could have met. The star of the show for me though were the cubiculi. I had been dying to finally enter one ever since I first studied Roman villas, particularly Pompeiian villas. As I stood inside of the cubiculum pictured, I took my time admiring all of the gorgeous frescoes. Frescoes I had only seen in textbooks and on powerpoint slides. There they were, right in front of my face. All the room needed was the proper furniture and I would have been exactly where my heart longs to be.

Lastly, on Friday the 17th, we visited the Brooklyn Museum as a class and later some of us visited the Rubin for a free guided experiential tour and DJ event. At the Brooklyn Museum, we got a tour from one of their museum educators of the Thiery Mugler exhibit. My goal is to be a museum educator, and to make museums enjoyable and understandable for every visitor. Our tour guide did exactly that for us. Part of our tour included ten minutes for us to go around the exhibit with provided paper and pencils, to draw any of the costumes we were drawn to and to think about the material or how the costume must have felt. She provided us with an activity that I definitely would have done if I were in the same position. That activity engaged our intrinsic motivation, allowing us to connect with a piece of our choosing, but it also encouraged us to think critically about the pieces in the exhibit. How would they have felt? Who would wear them? Why am I connecting to it? She showed me exactly how effective and necessary museum educators are in order to engage all visitors and to break down barriers of intimidation in museum spaces. 

The Brooklyn Museum had a lounge area that I connected with during my individual expiration of the museum. Museum fatigue is real and can be a huge barrier to enjoyment for museum-goers. Not only was this room visually stunning, the ottomans were also art and welcomed visitors to be comfortable and relaxed. This is something that I am passionate about as I prepare for my future in museums. I know how important comfort is when people have so much going on in their days and lives. My respect for the Brooklyn Museum only went up that day, as I went down and laid on one of the ottomans. 

At the end of the night, at the Rubin museum, I attended a guided tour of the galleries. The Rubin is a museum of Himalayan art and visual culture. The gallery is meant to be experienced rather than viewed. We explored our senses as we explored the galleries, we meditated, we transformed our energy into something beautiful. The whole design of the museum and tour were a unique take to museums and welcomed visitors into Himalayan Buddhist culture and practice. I think that this is a museum that everybody should visit if they have the opportunity to do so. 

Overall, this trip did a lot to prepare and excite me mentally for my impending future. Soon I will be released into the world, no longer in school, no longer in a classroom. The professionals we met with during our trip provided a lot of insight into the many avenues and journeys one may endeavor to get to where they are going. My journey so far has had so many twists and turns, and it was comforting and affirming to hear their stories. I related to so many of them and I felt assured that at the end of the day, if I continue chasing my dream and my happiness, I will end up exactly where I belong. Being an art historian is so much more than being a student or being an academic. Art can be found anywhere: on the street, under buildings, in libraries, or in museums. Wherever there are people, there is art. Wherever there is art, there are art historians. Not everybody in the museum or art historical world comes from an art history background. The greatest thing I took away from this trip and the stories I heard at these various institutions is that achieving one's goals is all about accepting any and every opportunity for growth, as opposed to making some sort of five or ten-year plan and adhering strictly to it. I came out of the trip knowing that my path to being a museum educator is unclear but that I will get there as long as I continue chasing it.

[kharmii]

People of a certain ideology are always pulling 'gotcha' moments on Christians for what a small number of people believe. They always pull the 'we are on the side of science' while their institutions become hives of indoctrination where people often end up with debt they'll never be able to pay off pursuing degrees that will never make them money.

Mainstream Marxist universities aren't on the side of science. After all, they heavily push the transgender movement catering to the delusions of mentally ill people with mutilation kinks. Empty people with no personalities generally become substance abusers, but now they can become gender obsessed and inject hormones! That's the socially acceptable way to become a junkie!

Universities are hives of degeneracy. Side note: Low functioning autistic incels are always complaining about how '1% of men get 99% of women'. I finally figured out what that means. University culture tells women they shouldn't settle for marrying an average guy when they can become groupie whores for semi-retarded athletes pursuing fluff degrees. After all, they are considered the pinnacle of humanity. -And the autistic incels want in on that. If they are that goddamn stupid, they deserve to die alone. Everybody in college is dumb af. It isn't the best and brightest pursuing higher education anymore.

Finally, -because American grade schools are dumbed down and cranking out illiterates- your modern college student has never read an entire book. That's too damn mentally exhausting. From the Atlantic:

The Elite College Students Who Can’t Read Books

To read a book in college, it helps to have read a book in high school. By Rose Horowitch

October 1, 2024, 7:30 AM ET

Updated at 10:57 a.m. ET on October 1, 2024

Nicholas Dames has taught Literature Humanities, Columbia University’s required great-books course, since 1998. He loves the job, but it has changed. Over the past decade, students have become overwhelmed by the reading. College kids have never read everything they’re assigned, of course, but this feels different. Dames’s students now seem bewildered by the thought of finishing multiple books a semester. His colleagues have noticed the same problem. Many students no longer arrive at college—even at highly selective, elite colleges—prepared to read books.

This development puzzled Dames until one day during the fall 2022 semester, when a first-year student came to his office hours to share how challenging she had found the early assignments. Lit Hum often requires students to read a book, sometimes a very long and dense one, in just a week or two. But the student told Dames that, at her public high school, she had never been required to read an entire book. She had been assigned excerpts, poetry, and news articles, but not a single book cover to cover.

“My jaw dropped,” Dames told me. The anecdote helped explain the change he was seeing in his students: It’s not that they don’t want to do the reading. It’s that they don’t know how. Middle and high schools have stopped asking them to.

In 1979, Martha Maxwell, an influential literacy scholar, wrote, “Every generation, at some point, discovers that students cannot read as well as they would like or as well as professors expect.” Dames, who studies the history of the novel, acknowledged the longevity of the complaint. “Part of me is always tempted to be very skeptical about the idea that this is something new,” he said.

And yet, “I think there is a phenomenon that we’re noticing that I’m also hesitant to ignore.” Twenty years ago, Dames’s classes had no problem engaging in sophisticated discussions of Pride and Prejudice one week and Crime and Punishment the next. Now his students tell him up front that the reading load feels impossible. It’s not just the frenetic pace; they struggle to attend to small details while keeping track of the overall plot.

No comprehensive data exist on this trend, but the majority of the 33 professors I spoke with relayed similar experiences. Many had discussed the change at faculty meetings and in conversations with fellow instructors. Anthony Grafton, a Princeton historian, said his students arrive on campus with a narrower vocabulary and less understanding of language than they used to have. There are always students who “read insightfully and easily and write beautifully,” he said, “but they are now more exceptions.” Jack Chen, a Chinese-literature professor at the University of Virginia, finds his students “shutting down” when confronted with ideas they don’t understand; they’re less able to persist through a challenging text than they used to be. Daniel Shore, the chair of Georgetown’s English department, told me that his students have trouble staying focused on even a sonnet.

Failing to complete a 14-line poem without succumbing to distraction suggests one familiar explanation for the decline in reading aptitude: smartphones. Teenagers are constantly tempted by their devices, which inhibits their preparation for the rigors of college coursework—then they get to college, and the distractions keep flowing. “It’s changed expectations about what’s worthy of attention,” Daniel Willingham, a psychologist at UVA, told me. “Being bored has become unnatural.” Reading books, even for pleasure, can’t compete with TikTok, Instagram, YouTube. In 1976, about 40 percent of high-school seniors said they had read at least six books for fun in the previous year, compared with 11.5 percent who hadn’t read any. By 2022, those percentages had flipped.

But middle- and high-school kids appear to be encountering fewer and fewer books in the classroom as well. For more than two decades, new educational initiatives such as No Child Left Behind and Common Core emphasized informational texts and standardized tests. Teachers at many schools shifted from books to short informational passages, followed by questions about the author’s main idea—mimicking the format of standardized reading-comprehension tests. Antero Garcia, a Stanford education professor, is completing his term as vice president of the National Council of Teachers of English and previously taught at a public school in Los Angeles. He told me that the new guidelines were intended to help students make clear arguments and synthesize texts. But “in doing so, we’ve sacrificed young people’s ability to grapple with long-form texts in general.”

Mike Szkolka, a teacher and an administrator who has spent almost two decades in Boston and New York schools, told me that excerpts have replaced books across grade levels. “There’s no testing skill that can be related to … Can you sit down and read Tolstoy? ” he said. And if a skill is not easily measured, instructors and district leaders have little incentive to teach it. Carol Jago, a literacy expert who crisscrosses the country helping teachers design curricula, says that educators tell her they’ve stopped teaching the novels they’ve long revered, such as My Ántonia and Great Expectations. The pandemic, which scrambled syllabi and moved coursework online, accelerated the shift away from teaching complete works.

In a recent EdWeek Research Center survey of about 300 third-to-eighth-grade educators, only 17 percent said they primarily teach whole texts. An additional 49 percent combine whole texts with anthologies and excerpts. But nearly a quarter of respondents said that books are no longer the center of their curricula. One public-high-school teacher in Illinois told me that she used to structure her classes around books but now focuses on skills, such as how to make good decisions. In a unit about leadership, students read parts of Homer’s Odyssey and supplement it with music, articles, and TED Talks. (She assured me that her students read at least two full texts each semester.) An Advanced Placement English Literature teacher in Atlanta told me that the class used to read 14 books each year. Now they’re down to six or seven.

Private schools, which produce a disproportionate share of elite college students, seem to have been slower to shift away from reading complete volumes—leading to what Dames describes as a disconcerting reading-skills gap among incoming freshmen. But private schools are not immune to the trend. At the prep school that I graduated from five years ago, I took a Jane Austen course my senior year. I read only a single Austen novel.

The issue that Dames and other professors have observed is distinct from the problem at community colleges and nonselective universities, where some students arrive with literacy and comprehension deficits that can leave them unable to complete collegiate courses. High-achieving students at exclusive schools like Columbia can decode words and sentences. But they struggle to muster the attention or ambition required to immerse themselves in a substantial text.

Faced with this predicament, many college professors feel they have no choice but to assign less reading and lower their expectations. Victoria Kahn, who has taught literature at UC Berkeley since 1997, used to assign 200 pages each week. Now she assigns less than half of that. “I don’t do the whole Iliad. I assign books of The Iliad. I hope that some of them will read the whole thing,” Kahn told me. “It’s not like I can say, ‘Okay, over the next three weeks, I expect you to read The Iliad,’ because they’re not going to do it.”

Andrew Delbanco, a longtime American-studies professor at Columbia, now teaches a seminar on short works of American prose instead of a survey course on literature. The Melville segment used to include Moby-Dick; now his students make do with Billy Budd, Benito Cereno, and “Bartleby, the Scrivener.” There are some benefits—short works allow more time to focus on “the intricacies and subtleties of language,” Delbanco told me—and he has made peace with the change. “One has to adjust to the times,” he said.

The Columbia instructors who determine the Lit Hum curriculum decided to trim the reading list for the current school year. (It had been growing in recent years, even while students struggled with the reading, as new books by nonwhite authors were added.) Like Delbanco, some see advantages to teaching fewer books. Even the best-prepared students have probably been skimming some of their Lit Hum assignments for years. Joseph Howley, the program’s chair, said he’d rather students miss out on some of the classics—Crime and Punishment is now off the list—but read the remaining texts in greater depth. And, crucially, the change will give professors more time to teach students how they expect them to read.

But it’s not clear that instructors can foster a love of reading by thinning out the syllabus. Some experts I spoke with attributed the decline of book reading to a shift in values rather than in skill sets. Students can still read books, they argue—they’re just choosing not to. Students today are far more concerned about their job prospects than they were in the past. Every year, they tell Howley that, despite enjoying what they learned in Lit Hum, they plan to instead get a degree in something more useful for their career.

The same factors that have contributed to declining enrollment in the humanities might lead students to spend less time reading in the courses they do take. A 2023 survey of Harvard seniors found that they spend almost as much time on jobs and extracurriculars as they do on academics. And thanks to years of grade inflation (in a recent report, 79 percent of Harvard grades were in the A range), college kids can get by without doing all of their assigned work.

Whether through atrophy or apathy, a generation of students is reading fewer books. They might read more as they age—older adults are the most voracious readers—but the data are not encouraging. The American Time Use Survey shows that the overall pool of people who read books for pleasure has shrunk over the past two decades. A couple of professors told me that their students see reading books as akin to listening to vinyl records—something that a small subculture may still enjoy, but that’s mostly a relic of an earlier time.

The economic survival of the publishing industry requires an audience willing and able to spend time with an extended piece of writing. But as readers of a literary magazine will surely appreciate, more than a venerable industry is at stake. Books can cultivate a sophisticated form of empathy, transporting a reader into the mind of someone who lived hundreds of years ago, or a person who lives in a radically different context from the reader’s own. “A lot of contemporary ideas of empathy are built on identification, identity politics,” Kahn, the Berkeley professor, said. “Reading is more complicated than that, so it enlarges your sympathies.”

Yet such benefits require staying with a character through their journey; they cannot be approximated by reading a five- or even 30-page excerpt. According to the neuroscientist Maryanne Wolf, so-called deep reading—sustained immersion in a text—stimulates a number of valuable mental habits, including critical thinking and self-reflection, in ways that skimming or reading in short bursts does not.

Over and over, the professors I spoke with painted a grim picture of young people’s reading habits. (The historian Adrian Johns was one dissenter, but allowed, “My experience is a bit unusual because the University of Chicago is, like, the last bastion of people who do read things.”) For years, Dames has asked his first-years about their favorite book. In the past, they cited books such as Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre. Now, he says, almost half of them cite young-adult books. Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson series seems to be a particular favorite.

I can imagine worse preparations for the trials, and thrills, of Lit Hum. Riordan’s series, although full of frothy action and sometimes sophomoric humor, also cleverly engages in a literary exercise as old as the Western canon: spinning new adventures for the petulant gods and compromised heroes of Greek mythology. But of course there is a reason that, despite millennia of reinterpretations, we’ve never forgotten the originals. To understand the human condition, and to appreciate humankind’s greatest achievements, you still need to read The Iliad—all of it.

y’all I CANNOT

[softspaceboibrian]

Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy || Eddie Munson || Chapter 1

Chapter 2 || Chapter 3 || Chapter 4 || Chapter 5 || Chapter 6 || Chapter 7 || Chapter 8 || Chapter 9

Pairing: Eddie Munson x Y/N Henderson || I used she/her pronouns, but there is no actual physical description, so the pronouns can be switched with whatever anyone wants or prefers!

Summary: Eddie needs help with an English assignment, and who better to ask help from than the best student in his class, Y/N Henderson?

Warnings: "fuck" is used a lot. fluff, a lot of pining and crushing. steve being a bit of a dick at one point, and Dustin not being able to keep things to himself. just bad writing, really.

Wc: 5397 (it's kinda long, I know... but I didn't know where to stop! sorry!)

A/N: this is my first ST fic ever. and actually the first time I wrote after some very long months of writer's block. hopefully, it's not too bad. I have a chapter 2 in mind already, if you guys liked this! please let me know (I would have to work on it next week, since I have an exam on Monday, ugh..). Also, the title will probably make more sense in the following chapter(s).

Eddie hated going to class. He didn’t completely hate high school because there he had some friends and the Hellfire Club. But attending classes was a whole other thing. And he hated it. Sitting still at a small desk, on a hard chair that made his back hurt, which always made him feel older than he was – and he was already older than any other kid there. Listening to teachers talk and ask stupid questions was hell incarnated to him. For example, when would he ever need to use trigonometry in his life? It wasn’t like he was going to become a space engineer or an architect. Given that that’s what you would use trig for. He definitely didn’t know and didn’t want to find out. Or, like, Shakespeare. That morning he found himself having to listen to his English teacher reading once again lines from Romeo and Juliet, as if they would need to know that “the window is the East, and Juliet’s the Sun” to get somewhere in life. If it were for him, they would spend every single English lesson reading Tolkien or King, and not that boring stuff that everyone calls classics. Shining. That’s a classic.

The only reason he ever really enjoyed English was Y/N Henderson. She sat in front of him in English and History, and they had PE together. Eddie hated every single one of those subjects, but her presence made them less terrible. Not that they were friends or anything. She’s Dustin Henderson’s older sister; she’s the smartest person in the entire school, hell, possibly in all of Hawkins. And he was just Eddie “the Freak” Munson. She wouldn’t want to be friends with him. Of course, she was the kindest person in school, and she always smiled at him whenever they crossed paths. But still, he was the school’s freak. And she deserved better than him. Yet, he couldn’t help himself but smile back, or get a little bit excited when he remembered they had class together. He would never, for the love of God, admit the feelings he felt for her. He was completely sure that, if he just ignored them, they would simply disappear. It wasn’t like a tested theory, but he was sure it worked like that. It had to work like that.

“Bullshit.” Eddie was pulled from his thoughts by a soft voice. He quickly looked round the classroom, only to notice Y/N shaking her head. “Pardon me, miss, but it’s all bullshit.” Eddie was not sure what he had missed, but was now all ears.

A blonde girl from the first row snapped around to look at Y/N. And if looks could kill, Eddie was sure Y/N would be well on her way to the hospital now. “Do you have something to say, nerd?” He never really understood on what basis people used nerd as a mean name. As if being a nerd was a bad thing. Also, being good at school doesn’t make you a nerd.

“Actually,” Y/N sat up straight. “Yes, I do have something to say.” Eddie always found Y/N’s will to speak her mind fascinating. She always said what she believed in. And she always tried not to hurt anyone’s feelings in the process. “I think it’s bullshit that you think- actually, that everyone thinks that Romeo and Juliet is the epitome of love. I mean, let’s be real, that story is unrealistic. I know that Shakespeare had to stick to time a certain time frame and everything, but who falls in love on sight, immediately decides to marry each other, and not even three days later kill themselves because of the stupid decisions they took? Because, in this regard, we have to remember that Friar Lawrence plays a major role in their dooming end, since he is the one that suggests the whole poison gimmick.” Eddie could not help but smile. He found amusing the hurt look on the blonde in the front row as Y/N dismantled her beliefs, or at least he thought, he wasn’t really paying attention before. “I mean, I get how appealing the trope of the star-crossed lovers is. Really, I do. But are you really telling me that Romeo and Juliet’s is a better love story than Beatrice and Benedick’s, or even Rosalind and Orlando’s? I would so love for someone to carve love poems for me into trees so that our growing love could forever live in nature.” Did they read about that in class? Eddie had no idea who those people were and was more than confused at that point, but still extremely intrigued.

“That’s not what I was saying!” The blonde replied, obviously offended that someone had told her that she was wrong.

“Then what were you saying? I’m open to clarifications.” Y/N smiled kindly, but it was obvious that the other one didn’t take it as so. Eddie looked at the girl, waiting to hear her answer. But then the bell rang and everyone started gathering their stuff. Lucky girl, saved by the bell, he thought. He would have loved a bit more drama, it always made classes more interesting.

As everyone was rushing out into the corridor, Eddie included, the teacher tried to get everyone’s attention one last time. “Please, remember that next week we are moving all the way to the gothic novel and that you have to prepare a 3-page essay on any book you want from that genre.” He stopped in his tracks, right in the middle of the entryway, and was pushed aside by two guys who wanted to get out. What? And essay? When did she say that? If it had been any other time of the school year, he would have not cared, but Eddie knew that, with spring break coming up, he had to start working seriously if he wanted to graduate that year. Fuck, he thought. I’m fucked. He quickly looked around the room, as if a miracle could just fall into his lap.

Y/N was still at her desk, struggling to close her ever so full pencil case. “Miss Henderson” the teacher walked over to Y/N’s desk. “I know you’re passionate about literature, but you cannot answer like that to your classmates.”

“I know, ma’am… it’s just, they don’t understand it. They don’t understand literature and why it is important.” Y/N sighed, fidgeting with her hands. “You know I try my best to stay calm, but sometimes I just… I just can’t.”

The teacher smiled kindly at her. “I understand. Don’t worry.” She walked back to the front of the class and started cleaning the blackboard, before turning once again towards the girl. “Just, try to avoid using bad words next time.”

Eddie was standing right outside of the classroom, still panicking over the assignment, when Y/N eventually walked into the corridor. And that’s when an idea came to his mind: if Y/N was actually so passionate about people knowing more about literature, then maybe she would be so kind to help him. Yes, that made perfect sense. She would do what she loved, and he would become one step closer toward graduation. Also, on an even brighter note, he would have to spend time with her, which never hurt. He shook his head, trying to shove that thought in the far back of his head.

He looked around, his eyes scanning the corridor until he found Y/N’s figure walking alone towards the cafeteria. He started walking, almost running, trying to catch up with her. “Y/N! Wait up!” He found himself calling out for her, something he never really thought he would do. But he did. When Y/N eventually realised she was being called, she stopped and turned around. However, at that point Eddie was walking so fast that he didn’t stop in time and completely ran into her. “Oh, Jesus, I’m so sorry!” He started apologising immediately.

“It’s okay! You didn’t hurt me” Y/N laughed, looking up at him. He had never realised how tall he was compared to her. “Did you have something to ask me?” He couldn’t believe how kind she was with him. Any other person wouldn’t even have stopped for him, they would have just flipped him the bird or exclaimed something along the lines of fuck off, freak, and went on their way. But, yet again, she wasn’t any other person.

“I, ehm… yes, actually. I…” Then and there, Eddie thought about turning around and running away. But that would have been too embarrassing. So, he just went for it. “I was wondering if you could, maybe, help me with the English assignment. You see, I’m not really the best at English, but I cannot flunk this class, so-”

“Of course!” Y/N cut him off, still smiling. “Just know that you are the one that is going to do all the work, I’m just going to help. I may be kind, and you may be cute, but I won’t let anyone take advantage of me, alright?”

Cute? Did she just call him cute? Was she for real? Did she really think that? And why did he feel like he was a middle-school boy talking for the first time with his crush? What was that feeling in his chest? Also, why did he feel warm on the face and ears? Was he blushing? Fuck, how embarrassing! But still, cute? Did she find him cute?

“Hey-oh!” Y/N waved her hand in front of Eddie’s face. “Earth to Munson. Are you still there? Are you having a stroke?” She said playfully, pinching his arm as in a further attempt to gain back his attention.

Eddie shook his head, and then nodded. “Yes, sorry. I just… I really expected you to say no, so…”

“Okay, so it has nothing to do with me calling you cute, right? Because I wouldn’t want it to be a problem.” She chuckled, and Eddie was completely taken aback.

Come one, dude. Concentrate. You cannot get lost in your head whenever she smiles at you, or she’s going to think you’re a creep. “It’s not going to be a problem, I promise.” He laughed, raising a hand to the back of his neck, a bit embarrassed. Definitely not a good first impression, Munson.

“Okay, so, I know you have Hellfire Club tonight, right?” She asked, and Eddie simply nodded in response. “You could come over to our house for dinner, which would mean I don’t have to drive back here to pick up my brother and I can get ahead with my assignment, because you would take him home. And then, after dinner, we can start talking a bit about what you’re going to work on.”

“Are you sure for dinner? Like, I don’t want to be a bother.”

Y/N put a hand on his arm and shook her head. “Not a bother, trust me. Plus, Dustin will be more than happy to have you over for dinner. He talks about you constantly, about your campaign and how cool you are. Like, really, if I didn’t know he was in a relationship with that Mormon girl, I would have sworn he was in love with you.” She laughed, and so did Eddie. “But really, if you want and can, come over for dinner.”

“I mean, it’s not like I have plans…” Eddie said under his breath. Or that many friends, for that matter.

“Then it’s decided!” Y/N smiled. “So, let’s recap: after school you have your D&D meeting, then you drive Dustin home, we have dinner, and after that we’re going to start working on your assignment. Sounds right?”

“Perfect!”

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“You have actually invited Eddie “the Freak” Munson over to your house? You’re not joking!?” Like every other day, Steve had picked Y/N and Robin up after school to drive them home. But today he was complaining about what Y/N had just told them. “I’m telling you, he’s not good news!”

“Oh, come on, Steve! He’s nice!” She replied, throwing her hands in the air.

“How do you know that, uh?! His reputation precedes him! Everyone at Hawkins High knows about him and his dealing!” Steve kept moving his eyes between the road in front of him and the rear-view mirror to look at Y/N sitting in the back.

“Steve, calm down. Y/N is a grown-up woman. She can defend herself.” Robin tried to help her friend. “Plus, she’s a pretty good judge of character. I mean, she decided to be your friend when everyone else though you were a douchebag.”

“I still think he is a douchebag.” Y/N whispered, crossing her arms in front of her chest. “Listen, it’s my life, and I make friends with whomever I want, okay? So, whether you like it or not, he’s going to come over to my place, he’s going to have dinner with my family, and then we’re going to work on our English assignment together.”

“Yeah, and it’s not like they’re going to fall in love!” Robin added and Steve raised his hands from the wheel for a couple of seconds, as in a sign of surrender. However, Y/N did not answer to that. Obviously, that wasn’t her plan, to fall in love with Eddie Munson. But she could not deny to herself the fact that she found him charming in his own way. Yes, fine, he wasn’t the conventional pretty boy her mom would want her to end up with, but that didn’t mean that she couldn’t find him cute. Hell, cute was probably an understatement. She thought he was hot. Maybe it was the hair, or the leather jacket, but she couldn’t help herself, and whenever he walked by, she would just find herself smiling at him, deep down wishing he would stop and talk with her. Yes, her brother being part of his D&D party had its perks, because she then had to see him every time she went to pick up her brother from school. Also, having a few classes together was something. Not that he paid much attention, but that also meant he wouldn’t notice whenever she turned around to steal a glance. Fuck, she thought, I have to keep my feelings under control. She shook her head in an attempt to push away the thought of Eddie, and tried to make small talk with her two best friends, but her mind wasn’t of any help, and the image of Eddie looking down at her with his big, chocolate eyes in the corridor a few hours prior kept popping up, distracting her from whatever the other two were saying. I’m screwed.

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When Y/N’s mom called her into the kitchen, it was about 7:30 in the evening. “Darling, please, help me set the table. Dusty and his friend are on their way home.” Said the woman, handing her the plates. Y/N fought very hard the urge to tell her mother that Eddie was also her friend and that he was going to be there for her and not Dustin. But instead, she simply took the plates from her and started placing them on the clothed, round table. She hummed to herself as she moved back and forth between the cabinets and the table, stealing, every once in a while, a piece of bread.

A few more minutes went by, when she finally heard the front door open and Dustin’s voice announce their arrival. Their mother quickly left the kitchen to go greet them, whereas Y/N stood frozen for a moment. She looked at her reflection in the small mirror hanging on the wall, and tried to fix her hair and her clothes – a simple t-shirt and a pair of loose jeans. Yes, she could have definitely changed into something a bit nicer, but there was no time now. So, she sighed and stepped into the front hallway, hiding a little behind her mother’s figure, as if hoping they would not pay that much attention to her. However, that didn’t last for long. “Y/N!” Eddie smiled, taking a step towards her, but then stopping. They both looked at each other for a few moments, unsure of what to do. Should she hug him like she does whenever Robin comes over? Or nod like she does with Dustin’s friends? A similar thought process was going on inside of Eddie’s mind too. When he first had taken the step towards her, his intent was to give her a kiss on the cheek, but he had immediately changed his mind, thinking that might have been too much. Afterall, it was the first time they were actually hanging out.

Luckily, Dustin stepped in and shouted. “Y/N/N! You would never believe how cool today was! Remember the villain I told you about, right? Vecna. The one we thought had died. Well, yes, I said we though because, plot twist, he was still alive!” She looked at her brother and smiled, wrapping her arms around him for a moment, before giving him a kiss on the cheek.

“Dusty, go wash your hands! It’s ready in here! You can tell her more about it as we eat.” Mrs. Henderson shouted from the kitchen, and Eddie could not believe how close the two siblings actually were. Like, yes, Dustin would always talk about her in the cafeteria, but he would have never thought they actually were that close. So close that she knew everything about his campaign, the one that himself, Eddie, had spent days preparing.

Dinner went on smoothly: the food was delicious and Dustin spent most of the time talking about Hellfire Club and the assignments he had to prepare for the following week. Eddie and Y/N would, every now and then, exchange a look or a smile, without saying a word. But both of them were fine with that. However, things changed a bit when Dustin turned to Eddie and exclaimed. “Dude, you should ask my sister to help you write some of the one shots for Hellfire! She’s a great writer!” Eddie turned to look Y/N, wanting to ask her more about that, but instead he found her with her head hanging low.

“Oh, yes! I never read anything of hers, but Dustin has read everything and loved every single bit, so I suppose that means she’s good.” Her mother added, obviously wanting to contribute to the conversation. However, Eddie couldn’t help but notice Y/N’s discomfort.

“Can we please talk about something else?” Y/N’s voice was soft, and her eyes never left the almost empty glass of water in front of her.

Dustin tried to gain back Eddie’s attention by exclaiming. “She writes a lot of fantasy, stuff with vampires and faes and all of that. I think you could use that in a stand-alone quest.”

“Dustin!” Her voice was now louder, and the girl was visibly upset, but the younger boy would not stop talking about that. “Dustin, stop! You know I don’t want you to talk about it!” Y/N got up from her seat, still not looking anyone in the eyes. She had her hands closed into tight fists as she walked towards the corridor.

“Come on, Y/N! Don’t be mad! I was just trying to-”

“I know, what you were trying to do, Dustin. And you know I don’t want you to do it. That is personal stuff and I don’t want you going around telling people about it.” Her voice was cold, but Eddie could ear it tremble slightly. “Now, if you excuse me, I’m going to my room.”

And with that, Y/N left the kitchen, leaving her tablemates speechless, with their eyes glued to where the girl was standing a few moments before. Mrs. Henderson sighed and tried to explain to Eddie that Y/N had always been very proud of her things, especially of the ones she made herself. She explained that ever since she was young, she had always been a very reserved girl, not sharing much with others, and that was the reason she found so surprising the friendship between her and her two best friends, Robin and Steve. She told Eddie about how hard on herself she was, how much she studied everyday wanting to get the best marks possible. She explained that she had no idea why she acted like that, since no one ever asked her to get straight As or to get into the best colleges. But as Y/N’s mother talked, Eddie couldn’t stay still. He wanted to make sure, he needed to make sure she was okay. So, as soon as they were excused from the table, he asked Dustin which room was hers and went straight to her. He walked down the corridor, the carpet softening his steps, and stopped in front of the last door. He knocked gently on the door, waiting for an answer. “Y/N…” He called, turning an ear to the door, trying to understand if she had moved at all. “Y/N, it’s me, Eddie. Ehm… can I- can I come in?” He stayed quiet for a moment, but still no answer. “I promise we will only talk of the English assignment or whatever you prefer. Promise.”

“Okay” A voice came from behind Eddie, making him jump.

He turned around and found Y/N laughing at him, a hand on her stomach, one in front of her face. “Damn, Henderson, I thought you were in your room!” He exclaimed, laughing a little himself.

“I was, but then I had to go to the bathroom.” She moved past him and opened the door to her room. “Come in” She smiled, standing aside to let him in.

The room that Eddie walked into was far from what he had imagined Y/N Henderson’s bedroom would have looked right. Not that he had spent that much time thinking about it, but he definitely did not expect the giant posters on the wall of David Bowie, Labyrinth, Queen, or the beautiful drawing of The Lord of the Rings. What he did expect to see, on the other hand, was the floor-to-ceiling, wall-to-wall library. “Wow, Henderson. I must say, you’re not what I thought you were.”

Y/N sat on the edge of her bed; her arms crossed. “What did you think I was?” She asked, more curious than anything.

“I don’t know, actually. I thought you were going to have pictures of, I don’t know, Johnny Depp, John Cusack or some other heartthrob girls love. Definitely not them.” He walked over to the side of the bed and pointed to the Queen poster.

She got up from her seat and walked next to him. “Well, I do like Johnny Depp.” She smiled. “But he is my kind of guy, actually.” She tapped her finger on Brian May’s figure.

“Not Roger Taylor?” Eddie brought a hand to his mouth, as if to fake shock.

“He’s alright.” She raises her shoulder. “But you see, Brian is tall, has dark, long, curly hair, plays guitar. There’s nothing sexier than that to me.” She replied, eventually turning around and leaning against the wall. It wasn’t until she finally met his eyes that she realised what she had just said. She bit the inside of her cheek, quickly moving her eyes everywhere but on him. Fuck, fuck, fuck. So much for “try keeping your feelings under control”.

Eddie, on the other hand, couldn’t help the smile that lingered on his lips. He nodded, biting slightly his lower lips, trying to conceal the pleased look on his face, but it was too hard. I mean, I am tall, I have Brian May’s hair, and I do play guitar. Does this mean that I am sexy to her? He was very close to asking her, but decided not to, wanting to avoid making her feel frustrated or embarrassed. Afterall, it was very much possible that, even though he perfectly fit her description, she still did not like him like that. Hell, it could even be that she did not like him at all.

So, after a few moments of silence, he turned to the Lord of the Rings poster, studying it. “This is very beautiful.” He said, changing the topic to make her feel more comfortable.

She looked at the poster herself and smiled. “Oh, ehm… Dustin and his friends got it for me for my birthday last year. You see, I used to read it to Dustin before going to bed when we were younger. Actually, I read him The Hobbit, but still. After that, he started telling his friends about it and they all wanted to know more about it. So, when they were old enough, I got everyone a copy and put up a small book club for them. It only lasted a few months, until everyone was done reading the book, but I think it contributed to their passion for D&D.” She finally looked at him with the softest look anyone ever gave him, and he swore he could have melted right then and there.

“I wished someone read me Tolkien when I was younger.” Eddie murmured, going over to the bed and sitting there. “My parents, they… – he sighed – and my uncle… he was always out. So, I spent most of my evenings and nights alone. I still do. Unless I’m out for a deal…” Y/N sat next to him, so close that their legs were brushing, and if she leaned a little to the side, their shoulders would touch. But this time neither of them said or did anything. Eddie enjoyed the closeness, the warmth that came from her body, and a part of him wanted to reach for her hand, to hold it, to play with her fingers. Whereas Y/N realised only then that she actually knew nothing about him, about his parents, his family, if he had any siblings or cousins. “But I read Tolkien.” Eddie broke the silence. “I have a very old copy of The Hobbit back at my place. I think I found it at a yard sale a few years back. I could show it to you, if you want to.”

“I would actually love that” She smiled.

“But my favourite author is King. Man, I love his stuff. Shining was great, but I also liked Carrie and Pet Sematary.”

She never thought she would, on day, spend an evening with Eddie Munson, let alone talking about books. Still, she wished that evening would never end. “Well, if you’re into horror stuff, I think I have idea about what you should do your English assignment on.” Eddie had completely forgotten why he was there in the first place, and that sentence brought him back to reality. He looked her figure get off the bed and followed her to the bookshelf. She browsed it for a few moments, her fingers gently caressing the spines as she looked for the book she wanted. “Here it is.” She exclaimed, picking out a very thick book, with the spine completely cracked. “Don’t worry, you don’t need to read all of this.” She chuckled when she saw the fear in his eyes. “It’s called Night Pieces and it’s a collection of stories by Hoffmann. There is one in particular I love which is The Sandman.” Eddie carefully took the book in his hands and observe it. He obviously wasn’t thrilled at the idea of having to read something he knew nothing about, but he trusted Y/N, so he nodded. “I promise it’s good. If it’s not, then you can… I don’t know, force me to watch a horror movie.”

“I like the sound of that.” He laughed, laying on the bed, his back against the soft duvet that smelled of fresh laundry. “Do you think I could start reading it here? Or do you want me to go?” He looked at her, propping himself up on one elbow for a moment, wanting to look at her better.

She found herself thinking, please, stay for the whole night if you want. But instead, she simply nodded, grabbing her own book before lying next to him, this time leaving a bit more space between them. And they spent almost an entire hour like that, each reading their own book. Y/N could swear that she caught him staring at her a couple of times, but so could he. Eddie went on reading, eventually turning on his stomach, and in doing so he got closer to her. Y/N, however, kept staring at the words on the page in front of her, unable to concentrate enough to actually understand what she was supposed to read because of that closeness. A little voice inside of her kept telling her “Reach for him. Lean on his shoulder.” But she was too shy to even just move a little closer to him, let alone do any of that. And if they were characters in a story, to any omniscient reader, a situation such as this one would be extremely frustrating: the two of them, lying together, their arms or legs brushing against each other’s every now and then, both of them pining for the other, but neither of them realising their feelings were reciprocated.

Eventually, Dustin walked in on them, wanting to bid goodnight to his sister, but remained dumbfounded when he realised Eddie was still there. “I thought you had already left. It’s 10:30. On a school night.”

“Dustin, we’re old enough to stay up late if we want to, you know that?” She replied, getting up from her spot, immediately missing the warmth irradiated from his body.

Dustin looked at his sister, then the man laying her bed, and left without saying anything. “Yeah, maybe he’s right. It is kind of late, and you probably want to go to sleep.” Eddie didn’t really want to leave. On the contrary, he wanted to stay with her for as long as she let him.

And the same went for Y/N. But she nodded at him and put her book on the desk. “I’ll see you tomorrow at school, though, right?”

“Of course! Plus, I only have like 10 pages left to read, and I am completely enthralled. I really thought I wasn’t going to like this, but hell, was I wrong!” He smiled, putting the book in his backpack as slowly as possible, almost wanting to take everything out only to have to spend more time there putting everything back in. but he resisted the urge and put the backpack on his shoulder.

“So, no horror movie then?” She smiled, leading him out of her bedroom and down the corridor.

“Well, I mean… we could still watch a movie together some time… if you want, that is.” Eddie scratched the back of his neck, trying hard to play it cool. “It doesn’t even need to be a horror movie, really.”

Y/N stopped in front of the front entrance and turned towards him, smiling. “I would love that.” She opened the door for him and stood aside to let him through. She watched him walk down the driveway to his car, hoping he would turn around and come back to her. But he didn’t. He just got inside his car and started the engine. Fuck it, she thought, as she started running down the driveway too. “Eddie, wait!” She called for him. She jogged to his car and stopped for a few moments, before pushing herself on her tiptoe to reach his cheek and leave him a kiss there. Eddie was visibly caught by surprise, s much so that his cheeks started turning a soft shade of reddish pink, like they did that morning in the hallway at school. “Don’t be a stranger, okay?”

He smiled, gently placing a hand on her cheek, the cold metal of his rings sending shivers down her spine. “I won’t, princess.” He leaned forward and placed a soft kiss on her forehead.

After that, he waited for her to go back inside her house to do anything. But as soon as the door closed, he started basically dancing inside the car, humming the “Oh, love… oh, lover boy!” verse from Good Old Fashion Lover Boy by Queen as that was the song that had been stuck in his head for the entire night. Hell, what a day!

A/N: if you read this, thank you very much! Please, feel free to like and comment! I'd love to get some feedback! <3

[rrazor]

hq boys as non-sexual things that feel sensual

tags: mildly suggestive content (mostly pining)

bokuto: certain phrases are very sexually charged; “make me,” or “what are you gonna do about it” lunch time!! bokuto comes back from the cafeteria with his pork-cutlet sandwich to see you engaged in a card game with three other people. He sees that everyone’s bet something and you bet a strawberry danish you bought this morning and bokuto’s eyes go 🤩 he forces himself in LMFAO and makes sure to sit next to you 🥰❤️ in the end, it’s only you and him left (konoha and komi come over from their classes to see what all the fuss is about and they’re like …..how is bokuto doing so well 😶)

but you win and steal his sandwich on the desk 😈 he tries to defame you for cheating lol but all you do is look at him coyly like “and what are you gonna do about it, bokuto-kun? 😇” and suddenly his tongue feels heavy and his cheeks flush and he’s all 🥺👉👈 he asks you for the bread back because its his only lunch 😭💀 but he ends up winning sm more because you offer to share your bento with him and his heart goes 🥰💖💞

akaashi: sitting next to someone and your shoulders/thighs touch it’s the sports festival!! and it’s lunch break. he spots you sitting on a bench and he starts sweating at the idea of sitting next to you but he wants to be near you somewhat because then MAYBE you’ll talk to him??!? hopefully 🥺💔

he swallows his nerves and sits on the bench too but on the other side with a huge gap between you and your friend. he pulls out his phone to look “busy” LMFAO then, more of your friends come over and suddenly, you’re snug against him, your BARE THIGH touching his because you’re both in shorts and akaashi thinks he gonna pass out with the bashful apology you give him 😵 he thanks every deity he can think of that your friends came over and STAY because your leg is still touching his and he’s holding a conversation with you 😭🥺🥳💕💖❤️😍

konoha: having someone use your keyboard standing up while you’re sitting in front of it you’re in one of the school’s computer labs working on a research essay. akinori sits next to your station, having worked up the courage earlier to ask you if you could help him with his. he sneaks glances at you at the printers as you refill the trays with more paper 👀 he blushes even though you aren’t even doing anything to him 😭😔💔

before he can stop himself, he calls your name lmfao 🗣 but manages to save himself from utter embarrassment by asking you to look over one of his passages. coming over, you lean over him, hands on his keyboard as he leans back. his eyes are wide and cheeks ruddy as he tries so hard to keep cool because you’re so close 😍🥺💕 and god does he hope what he wrote was coherent because he thinks he’d d-word if you said it made no sense 😓😵

kuroo: when you’re sitting next to someone and they lean over and reach across you to grab something another day, another group project. kuroo gets added to a group with you and another guy because he was absent for volleyball. the two of you push your desks next to him and he’s fist pumping internally because you’re sitting next to HIM and not the other guy and he gets to act as the barrier AHAHAH 😇🥳😛

you’re working together when you ask one of your friends to pass over the notes she took from you. she’s sitting in front of kuroo, but diagonally to the right so she leans back and you lean forward to grab the papers. your arm accidentally brushes his chest and kuroo short circuits 😶 you’re SO CLOSE and your body is nearly laid over his entire desk and if he moves his hands up he could probably touch your chest HJAKHSDLKASD 👁👄👁 the guy next to him looks at him all 😐 as kuroo goes INSANE 🤯

kita: hugging from behind he’s home alone, studying in the living room for his university exams. you’re in the kitchen with his grandma helping her with tonight’s dinner. he smiles softly to himself hearing the two of you laugh 😊🥰💞

he’s halfway through a derivatives question when you hug him from behind, arms coming around him as you rest your head on his shoulder blades 🥺💘 when you softly tell him dinner is almost ready, his chest warms and a soft smile appears on his face ❤️💖

atsumu: the guys strapping you in on a roller coaster. are we gonna kiss? why are you giving me that eye contact? inarizaki’s vbc get together to go to the local amusement park!! they get in and the first thing the twins want to do is ride all of the roller coasters so after a ridiculously long line up, atsumu’s sitting next to osamu, waiting for an attendant to come buckle them in, when you suddenly come up in your cute uniform and hair tied up and atsumu’s like SHIT ITS YOU 😳 also damn y didn’t you tell him you worked here he could have gotten discounted tickets smh 🥴😒

anyways you come up to them to buckle them up with him first and he doesn’t really notice anything but you buckle the first strap really tight and he’s like “does it need to be so tight 😘” and you tell him, making eye contact, using your best customer service voice (vocal bottoming but at least you get paid) and with a pretty smile on your face that doesn’t reach your eyes, “yes, unless you want to die. and if you do, don’t do it on this ride because my shift ends in ten minutes and i don’t want to stay here to write a report about a dumbass who ko’d on a roller coaster 🥰” and he BLUSHES oop— 👁👅👁

osamu: having your back scratched you sit next to each other in class and it’s self study time and you’re helping him with the english homework that was assigned when his back starts feeling itchy. he rolls and moves his shoulders to try to alleviate it, but it just isn’t working so he brings a hand back to scratch at it, but he’s not flexible enough to reach it 😔 you ask him what’s wrong and he puts his arm down like he got burned because he doesn’t want to be seen doing something weird in front of you or making a weird face so he just says nothing but you raise a brow and go “are you itchy?” and he nods JAJCKKAD

you bring your arm up to where he was just scratching, “here?” a shake of his head, “no, a little to the right.” AND YOU SCRATCH RIGHT AT IT!!!!! he can feel his shoulders slump as he closes his eyes and groans a little WHOOP he’s SUPER EMBARRASSED but you just laugh it off and scratch him some more before going back to work and he looks at you like 🥺💖 why’d you stop?? even though you’re not even looking at him LOL 😞 touches his back that night in the shower like your hands were so small 😯😍😳 and maybe he should be itchy more often but it also quickly turns to she better not be touchy feely with anyone else 😒

suna: someone writing on your arm he’s forced to take this one evening class this semester because it’s not offered the next one and he needs to take it because it’s a prereq for almost every other course ugh but at least the cute girl who sits next to him lets him copy her notes LMFAO 😭💀 he left all his belongings in the gym’s lockers because he was going to go back anyways for practice so when the professor gives out a code for a free trial of the software they have to use for the homework assignment due in a week, he’s like shit; he left his phone in his bag 🤡💔

you offer to write it down on his arm, grabbing a pen from your pencil case. he nods like sure why not so you take his arm and push the sleeve of his hoodie up and start writing and he just stares at you 👀 your writing is cute and he kinda likes the feel of your hands on him 🤧 class ends and you part ways with a wave. It’s not until he’s reached the gym that he realized you could have just messaged the code to him on facebook 🤨 so he pushes his sleeve up and sees your phone number on his arm under the code 😘 aren’t you smooth!!! 😌

iwaizumi: when someone is putting the car in reverse and they put their hand on the back of your seat iwaizumi been interested in you for a while, and ever since he came to the revelation he finds it really hard to talk to you because he’s afraid of coming off too aggressive or you figuring it out 😔💔 good thing kindaichi reveals that you’re his older cousin and that you’ll be driving some of them to their next practice match because the volleyball team’s bus is out for a checkup!! 😍😘 oikawa, matsukawa and hanamaki all force him to sit shotgun as you drive (even kunimi and yahaba get in on it). iwaizumi grumbles about it and all but he’s secretly super happy he gets to be right next to you omg 👀😭 he takes a bunch of glances around the interior of your (parents’) car and sits a little straighter than he usually would.

he can feel the stares on the back of his head from the other third years egging him on to make a move and just when he works up the nerve to say something to you, you put the car in reverse to back out the parking spot and put your hand on the back of his seat 😳😤 iwaizumi thinks you look so cool AND HOT he clams up and just stares at you with his jaw slightly open 👁👄👁 💕pls save him 🤧

matsukawa: when a girl puts her hand up to yours and remarks on how yours is so much bigger you got randomly paired up with each other to do a presentation for your world history class and so you’re sitting next to each other on a saturday afternoon at the public library doing research together. matsukawa spent more time than he would like thinking about what to wear because he doesn’t want you to think that his fashion sense was as grotesque as the school’s khaki pants 😷🤢 (when you complimented him nonchalantly about how he looks a million times better in casual clothes compared to the school uniform and joking said that he should start a petition to get rid of the school’s ugly khaki plaid pants and skirts and use a photo of what he was wearing today as the main piece of evidence, he almost doubles over 💀)

you’re sitting next to each other and he’s still kinda reeling from the previous interaction ahjdalhd but he does his best to pull his weight. he’s taking notes in a notebook and you look over and comment out of the blue that his hands are really big as you look at yours 🤧👀 he blinks and looks at you like “yeah?” and you nod, putting your hand up and he does it too because he thinks he’s having a fever dream at this point, but not even in his wildest dream did he’’d ever think you’d push your palm against his and say “your hand is so big! 😳” he has to excuse himself to go to the washroom to scream 😘🥰❤️

hanamaki: when you’re sitting next to someone on public transport and the centrifugal force from the vehicle firmly mooshes the two of you together hanamaki pines for you silently and you can’t really tell he likes you because he’s pretty decent at keeping his emotions hidden. or maybe you’re just so busy with your senior year you don’t notice anything that isn’t the impending doom of university applications and keeping your grades up 😤😇 anyways the two of you get on and off at the same stop each day (which he secretly thanks god for 😭) and you’re sitting next to each other and hanamaki thinks he’s gonna combust because you’ve never been this close!! 🥺🥰

he can feel his hands getting sweaty already. hanamaki sneaks glances at you and tries to see what you’re doing on your phone LMFAO suddenly, the train lurches a bit and you slide from the inertia right into his side and then he can feel the warmth coming from your thighs, side and your shoulder are touching holy sh— 😭❤️😵👀💖 you look up to apologize as he takes a breath and you’re a little shy in your apology but he takes that chance to ask you about something mundane and he makes you laugh!!!! he thinks about the interaction for the next two weeks because he finally got to talk to you dhaskld ☺️🥺💕

kyoutani: when anyone raises their arms to stretch and their shirt gets lifted up slightly gym class—you’re doing timed runs today!! kyoutani is already finished with his so he’s just sitting off the side of the track, staring not-so-subtly at you but you don’t notice because it’s your turn next!! you’ve got the typical school mandated shorts and plain t-shirt on but kyou is all 👀 at your tastefully exposed skin. he thinks you look pretty with the sun hitting your face as you give a smile to your friend, squinting at the sun light 🥰

he’s just mindlessly staring at this point but then you raise your arms to stretch your triceps and the hem of your shirt rises up a little to expose the tiniest sliver of skin before it’s covered again 👁👁 his cheeks pink a little and you catch him looking LMFAO but you don’t think anything of it and just smile and wave as kyoutani burns bright red, heart battering against his ribs and looks away 😡🤡🥰💕 he saves it for future reference HURDURDUR 😇😛

ushijima: when a woman does that thing where she tucks her hair behind her ear while making direct eye contact ushijima is INTERESTED in you, likes you, is intrigued, would like to hold your hand and rub the back of your hand and feel the soft skin with his thumb—same thing 🥰 you’re talking to him about something for the cultural festival and he’s nodding along to what you’re saying because you’re so brilliant and responsible for working on the school festival committee wOW 🤩

time seems to move in slow motion as you look up him whilst tucking a piece of hair behind your ear. he zones in on the shy smile on your face, your cute cheeks, glossy lips and pretty eyes 🥺🥰 “ushijima-san?” “yes?” “what do you think?” “that’s a great idea, I will ask my team members for their input as well.” you nod exuberantly even though he has no idea what you’re talking about but your cute smile makes him all mushy on the inside 💖💕

semi: making eye contact with another customer at the grocery store around the same age it’s 2:11pm on a tuesday and semi’s at the grocery store because it’s summer and his mom was all “go to the store and buy these shimeji mushrooms for me, eita, they’re on sale!!! but only until 3pm so get skedaddling!” 😩 so he’s here and he swears housewives are the most powerful people on the planet because he thought he was gonna d-word just tryna get his discount mushrooms. he spots you in the condiments aisle looking at sesame oil and he gives you the up, down and lingers a little too long on your exposed legs 💀

he thinks you look really cute in your t-shirt and jean shorts though 🥰 when you look up and make eye contact with him and give him a little smile and wave he BLUSHES 🥺 and is right about to take the chance to talk to you but a granny hip checks him trying to get to the soybean paste and he almost trips and lands on his face 😔💔 so much for looking cool in front of you 😢🥺

tendou: having someone else play with your hair satori sees you on cleaning duty carrying the recycling to the bins as he finishes his runs around the school, about to make a turn to the gyms. he makes a beeline for you, calling your name with a bright smile on his face and waving his arms in the air. 🥰💞🥺

he bounds up to you and offers to help even though the bin is really light, cheeks warming at your smile 😊 when he takes the bin out of your hands , you wave your hand to get him to bend down. he complies, eyes widening when he feels your hand in his hair. he straightens up to see you holding onto a couple pieces of cherry blossom petals 🌸 he laughs bashfully; it feels like time has slowed and you’re the only two people in the world 💖💕

sakusa: if you’re on a pc/laptop, somebody leaning over your shoulder to look at the screen with you. the close proximity of your faces can feel awkwardly sexual you’re in the same kinesiology class and sakusa first noticed how GOOD your presentations are wtf and he’s even more impressed when he hears that you winged the whole thing because “i conveniently forgot about this until one in the morning when I decided it was a good time to reorganize your entire dorm room” ALSO you offered him hand cream the one time you caught him staring and against all reason he said yes and ever since he’s been dying to ask you where you got it from because HOLY was it nice 😍

you get paired up for the final pair presentation and he’s only become more interested in you! you’re easy to talk to and don’t pry too much and he finds himself oversharing at times 💀 the professor gives the class part of the lecture time to work on the projects so you’re sitting next to each other working when he asks you a question about the academic article he just found and you lean over his shoulder to look at his screen 👁👁 for anyone else, the close proximity of your faces would have grossed him out but he can’t stop thinking about how good you smell and how cute your ears look 👀🥰 when you tell him he’s found a really good source with an excited smile on your face, he BLUSHES and promptly wants to pass away because he has no mask on to cover him 🤡😭😵

sachiro: when you have a melting popsicle, there often comes a time where you must choose between eating it too quickly, or sucking it off so it doesn’t drip on you sachiro hums happily, holding your hand as the two of you walk home after your date and stopping at the convenience store where he buys the two of you popsicle sticks 😋

you’re talking about something funny you saw hoshiumi do in the class the other day when your popsicle drips onto you. you kitten lick at your hand and take the whole thing in your mouth to get rid of the more liquidy parts of your ice cream and sachiro is all 👁👄👁 he swallows thickly, cheeks warming and heart beating a little faster; why’s he suddenly so thirsty? 🥵💦🙈

gao: getting a strong whiff of somebody’s perfume when they pass you gao really wants to talk to you, like really really wants to talk to you 😖😭🙏 but you’re talking to your friends about something and the cute way you laughs and joke with them has him all 🥺🥰🤩

he’s about to walk up and join the conversation because let’s face it, gao isn’t afraid of much 🤧💀 too bad the teacher calls you back into the classroom about something. when you pass him, he gets a good whiff of your shampoo and his stomach flutters 😍😊🥺💕💖 follows you with sparkly eyes and wishes he made the choice to talk to you sooner 💔

futakuchi: bending over to pick up something you dropped kenji is watching (glaring) as you talk to one of the baseball team’s starting players 🤐 he’s so ticked but he doesn’t admit it like where does this guy get off making you laugh and smile like that wtf 😒🙄 luckily for kenji, the guy gets pulled away by the class rep for something so kenji calls your name to get you to look at him instead 😤

you come over and just as he’s about to stand up from his desk, he knocks over his eraser. you crouch down to pick it up and he finds himself really liking it 👁👁 he doesn’t get it either 🤡 like you aren’t bending and snapping—just folding your knees to get his eraser for him, but the way you tucked your hair behind your ear before you bent down so prettily has him ☺️😉🥵

terushima: when you’re eating and chatting with someone and they lick their lips yuuji pulled you away from your friends when it was time for lunch, wanting to spend more time with you one on one. he was so busy with volleyball and school lately 😞 and when he managed to get you to tell him how lonely you felt without him, he made it his mission to spend more time with you!!! 🥰😘💕

you’re eating together, sharing food and talking about everything and anything when he notices you lick your lips; he zones in on your little pink tongue as it swipes across your bottom lip 👁👁 “yuuji, you okay?” a hand on your cheek and suddenly, he’s kissing you. he tastes like the leftovers your mom packed you for lunch 🥰😋

[library-goblin]

The very first time I sent an email to someone other than a friend or family member was when I was 12. I had just finished primary school and about a week into secondary school, I realised that my primary school had done a really bad job at teaching the grammar of my native language. Because of how the system works where I live, I realised that this would be a problem for all my courses and that if I did not do something about it, I would never be able to attend a university, despite the fact that I excelled at all my other courses. I put on my big girl shoes (I’ve always been a somewhat nervous person), and decided to write an email to my teacher, explaining the situation and asking if maybe she knew someone who could tutor me or if she maybe had some exercises that I could do on top of the homework. It was the very first email I sent to someone who had “authority” in my eyes. 

The answer I got was revolting. Instead of answering my email, she had copied mine, coloured all the grammar mistakes red (the entire email was red), and told me she was not going to answer an email that was written that poorly. Clearly, she agreed with me that I had a problem, I knew nothing about grammar, but instead of encouraging me to learn by helping me, she had embarrassed me. 

It got worse.. At the start of the next class, my email was up on the screen (she removed my name, but she might as well not have) and she told everyone that sending these kinds of emails was inappropriate. It became an exercise, everyone had to correct the grammar mistakes in the email, I still couldn’t. The problem is that I agreed with her: sending poor quality emails is inappropriate. That was the whole point, I wanted and needed to learn. 

I taught myself the grammar. I bought some books, my parents helped me, and I am now able to write “appropriate” emails. The problem is that, even now, I proofread all of them hundreds of times before I send them. I make my parents read them. Whether it is an email enquiring when something will be, or a really formal email asking someone to write me a letter of recommendation, or even something stupid like “here is the form you asked me to fill out”, every email I send has been proofread at least 50 times. And if I find a mistake after sending it? I want to die. I tell myself I’ll look stupid, that it is inappropriate, and that it will be the end of my career. All because of that teacher. 

There have been so many points during my secondary school period that still haunt me, that absolutely broke me. The teacher who told me I was “too dumb for maths” even though I used to score straight A’s until I got him. The history teacher who said I would never score a sufficient grade because “I didn’t try,” whilst I studied so hard; I loved history! The economics teacher who marked my answer wrong whilst my classmate wrote the same thing and it was marked right, because “mine sounded a little too blonde” (I am blonde, she was not. Why this matters? You tell me). The teacher who refused to give me the booklet at the universities’ fair because “I would fail if I went, so I shouldn’t try”. I have now got a Bachelor’s degree and a Master’s degree, both cum laude.

The only class where I was never hurt, was in English. It seemed to be the one place where I could turn all my anxiety into something that worked. During the oral exam for my native language class, I got a panic attack because, quite frankly, I was attacked. All of the questions she asked where irrelevant, from things that weren’t on the syllabus, or from novels we hadn’t even read. I spoke to my classmates, their orals were not like that. They all passed. I failed. One day after, I had my English oral, and I was shitting my pants. But I didn’t stifle in English. When things were said I disagreed with, I spoke up. I gave opinions. We had to prepare an article, I told them that the article that I was assigned was incorrect, and listed all the reasons why. He showed me pictures that I had to describe, and I believe I steered the conversation to politics and the climate crisis, telling them the world was dying. The teachers in all my other courses would’ve said I was out of line, but I got a 10/10, the highest grade possible. When something had to be read aloud in class, I was always picked by the teacher, hell, I volunteered. I LOVED it. It was the one place in school, where I felt like I could speak.

People always ask me why I am becoming an English teacher, even though I did fantastic in university and could become anything in the field I’d want to. This is the answer. Schools are not doing what they should be doing. The extroverts, the ones who already dare to speak up, are being encouraged, their bold ideas applauded, even when they are straight up wrong. The quiet kids suffer; after six years, whilst having learnt so much, they feel less confident speaking up than before. The quiet kids matter too. We are raising the next generation, don’t let the quiet kids slip through the system. They got big words, once they dare to say them; I want to teach them how to say them. I am becoming an English teacher because if the past years have taught us anything, it is that people without voices stay forever silent, even when they are the ones that should be shouting. I will be to them, what my English teachers were to me; a safe haven; a place to learn how to shout. 

[bbangsoonie]

goal: your heart

member: sunwoo genre: fluff word count: 5,423 synopsis: due to a budget cut, you have to follow the soccer team around for both the school newspaper and yearbook despite knowing nothing about sports. before you know it, you find yourself warming up to the team’s star player, who you swore was the most annoying and arrogant person ever.

a/n: this is a part of the star player collab with @atbzkingdom​ for sunwoo’s birthday! (also, this will be written with the american academic calander in mind)

You knew exactly what you were doing. You were the top student of both your class and school and the leader of many clubs. Your college application was full of achievements and your essay exquisitely written. The only problem? You had no idea what to do after graduation. You didn’t know where you wanted to go or what you wanted to study.

Growing up, everyone told you that you’d eventually find something you love. By senior year, you thought you would at least have an idea by now.

But nope, you were even more lost if anything. Dream job? That was just a capitalistic lie meant to make people happy to slave away for money.

Grumbling, you listened as your friends rambled on about the campuses they visited. It was only the first day back and everyone was already obsessing over one thing and one thing only.

“Y/n, you’re so lucky,” Juyeon pouted. “You don’t have to worry about getting into a university. Your stats are literally perfect.”

“I have other things to stress over,” you groaned. “At least you know what you wanna pursue.”

“Y/n has other things to worry about. She’s about to graduate without ever finding love,” Younghoon teased.

“It’s all our fault,” Jaehyun squinted as he pinched his nose bridge. “We raised her standards too high. I’m sorry, Y/n, that I can’t take responsibility.”

The notebook in your hand threatened to fly over to his seat. Luckily for him, he was saved by Juyeon’s very unnatural attempt at changing the subject. He inquired about the school newspaper that was barely spared in a major budget cut last year.

Thinking about it made you sigh. You had poured in so much effort over the years for the paper and it was almost taken from you. The school was cutting funds for a lot of clubs and diverting the money to the many sports teams that brought home trophies.

A part of the negotiations to save the newspaper club was to feature more sports events and student athletes in order to garner support for the teams. You weren’t pleased with the decision. Your plate was already full without trying to inflate the ego of players who had a god superiority complex. Jaehyun was a great example of the type of jock you didn’t want to raise on a high pedestal.

You had also promised Kevin, the president of the yearbook committee, to help out with photographing games since you had to attend them anyway. Despite the many tasks assigned to you, you were relieved that you could spend your last year continuing to write articles.

“Does that mean you’ll get to come to practice with us? The basketball team is always on my ass about introducing them to you. Now I can finally stop being pestered to be the middleman,” Jaehyun grinned.

“No shot,” Younghoon shook his head. “My swim team has already tried but Y/n puts up a cold front.”

“Hey, I’m a delicately guarded rose with sharp thorns,” you joked, making Jaehyun pretend to gag. This time, the notebook hit his arm.

“No one is good enough for our Y/n,” Juyeon defended. You turned around to coo at him and said something about him being the only nice one as Younghoon guffawed.

The first day of soccer practice meant you had to stay behind after dismissal to meet the team. The coach introduced you to the players and beamed when he got to the last one.

“This is our ace, Sunwoo. Although I’m sure you know that already,” he said proudly.

To be honest, you had no idea who he was. The school was too big to know everyone and you had absolutely no interest in sports. You rarely even went to Juyeon and Jaehyun’s basketball games and Younghoon’s swim meets.

Not wanting to offend anyone, you simply smiled. Sunwoo, catching your hesitance, raised a brow. However, he kept quiet until he approached you during one of his breaks.

“Do you really not know me?” he asked as he took a seat next to you on the bleachers.

Surprised by his sudden question, you blankly stared at the boy in front of you. Sweat was dripping from his hair but he paid it no attention as he chugged an entire water bottle.

“How cocky are you?” you scoffed.

“You really don’t know our soccer team’s star player, Kim Sunwoo?” he gaped.

“Sorry to disappoint but I really don’t care or know much about soccer. Or any other sports for that matter,” you shrugged.

“You’re going to write about the soccer team… when you don’t even know who we are or what we’re doing?” he asked incredulously.

“That’s why I’m here to observe,” you snapped back.

Finding you amusing, he finally wiped away his sweat as the coach blew his whistle to gather the players again.

Sunwoo always gave it his best but for some reason he found himself practicing extra hard that day. Knowing your eyes were on him motivated him to show off his skills by annoying his teammates and stealing the spotlight. After his third goal in a row, he looked at you to see your reaction but was baffled to see you busy writing something down.

Frustrated and peeved, he kicked at the grass with a huff.

When practice came to an end, he snuck up behind you to see what you were so intently focused on. Reading the notes on your notebook, he hummed.

“So that’s what you were doing instead of watching me,” he mused.

You were listing physical traits and personality attributes of each player. He scanned the paper for his name and frowned when he saw what you wrote about him.

“Arrogant and conceited? That’s all you have to say about me?” he whined.

“What? It’s true,” you deadpanned.

“Haknyeon gets “tall, bubbly, and extroverted” but I get “arrogant and conceited”? That’s not fair. This is biased journalism!” he exclaimed.

Realizing that practice was over, you gathered your belongings and stood up to leave. With his cheeks puffed, he watched as you left the field. You were unlike any person he had ever encountered.

“Sunwoo? Kim Sunwoo?” Younghoon repeated with his eyes wide. “The soccer caption Kim Sunwoo?”

Jaehyun and Juyeon’s chopsticks froze midair in shock. Finding their reactions odd, you nodded as you took another bite of your lunch.

“I can’t believe the lady killer got rejected by the man hater,” Jaehyun broke out into a fit of laughter.

“Now that’s a title I’d like to see on the school newspaper,” Younghoon snickered.

“Okay, first of all, I did not reject him because he did not come on to me,” you rolled your eyes. “Secondly, who the hell is he anyway? Why do you all know him?”

“He’s notorious for his fuckboy image. Although I think that’s an exaggerated reputation,” Juyeon said you picked out all the vegetables from your plate. He willingly moved them to his own and you smiled gratefully in response.

“So my first impression of him was correct,” you said.

“He’s not that bad. He’s actually pretty cool. Rumors don’t do the sweet guy justice,” Juyeon explained.

“Our lovely Juyeon sees the good in everyone,” Younghoon gushed as he pet his friend, earning him a smack on the back of his head.

“We were partners for a history project,” Juyeon clarified. “I got to know him a bit and he’s a good guy. Just enjoys attention a little too much. Like Jaehyun.”

Weirdly offended, Jaehyun scowled. You shrugged it off, returning your attention back to your food. You had no intentions of getting to know Sunwoo anyway. At least, that was the plan until he bombarded you in the hallway while you were walking to class.

He blocked your path with that irritating smirk on his face. Exasperated, you asked him what he wanted.

“So I’ve been thinking about what you said yesterday,” he started.

“Oh, so you do think?”

“Hey!”

“Do you think you can move and get out of my way?”

“Anyway, as the president of the newspaper club who’s in charge of covering the soccer team, I think you lack way too much information about the sport. And our school’s players.”

“How do you know I’m the president?”

“I asked around.”

You look at his eyes, trying to peer through any ulterior motives. He was being suspiciously generous. But he wasn’t entirely wrong. Even you thought it was ridiculous that a person who didn’t know a thing about soccer had to write articles about it.

You were also aware that any interviews with the athletes would be surface level stuff that all the students probably already knew. You were the only one out of the loop.

You pursed your lips, annoyed that he was right. Realizing that you were in agreeance, Sunwoo grinned.

“I am offering you the very special privilege to follow me around and learn everything there is to know about the team. For the paper of course,” he quickly added the last part after seeing the look on your face. “I can teach you about both soccer and my teammates.”

After pondering his proposal, you finally nodded.

“Deal,” you eyed his happy expression. “What do you want in return?”

He was taken aback by your question. He hadn’t expected you to assume that he would demand compensation. Your presence and attention were what he was after in the first place. However, he couldn’t let the opportunity pass by.

“Bubble tea,” he declared after some thought. “You can treat me to bubble tea after practice and I can tutor you then.”

“Fine,” you sighed before pushing him aside to make it to class before the bell rang. He was left behind with a stupid smile on his face.

The first tutoring session was extremely awkward for you. You weren’t used to hanging out with guys other than Juyeon, Younghoon, and Jaehyun. They were the only members of the male species you didn’t despise. This riled up Sunwoo’s competitive side. He was determined to get close to you.

He couldn’t stand having someone not like him. He was used to being on friendly terms with everyone—including teachers and even wallflowers. He had a strong desire to receive acknowledgement from everyone.

Perhaps that was why so many girls fell for him.

Nevertheless, the wall around you remained thick and high. Just as he was well known for his playboy persona, you were infamous for never letting guys in. You cold heartedly turned down any and every guy who asked you out. And there had been a lot.

Sunwoo, on the other hand, was excited to spend time with you. Bubble tea was just an excuse to meet you outside of school grounds.

His phone dinged, notifying him of a text. Haknyeon had sent him a screenshot of a post made on the school’s gossip page and wrote “this you?”. He snorted at the content speculating his relationship status after supposedly receiving another confession and rolled his eyes. Curious, you asked him what he was looking at.

“Ah, it’s nothing,” he shook his head as he put the device away. “Just the stupid tea account.”

“Oh you mean that anonymously run social media page that popped up over summer break?” you frowned.

You hated everything about it. It spread rumors, without fact-checking, and started drama. It resulted in both a breakup and the end of a friendship in the span of two months. It was exactly what you and the school newspaper stood against.

Nothing could be done to stop the false information and invasion of privacy because it wasn’t officially affiliated with the school and the students continued to feed into it. People even sent in stories to be posted.

“So tell me what you do know about soccer,” he leaned in and propped his chin on the palms of his hands.

“I know the very basics from catching glimpses of the World Cup,” you leaned back on your chair, making him pout.

“Well, to be honest, explaining the rules is a lot easier to do when directly pointing things out during a game. There’s a match airing tonight. Do you want to come over and watch it with me?” he asked expectantly.

“We can watch the replay tomorrow during study hall,” you said.

“Then we can start by talking about me today,” he chirped. “My squad number is 19 because 9 is usually worn by centre forwards but I wanted to be special and added a 1 in front of it. I’m the centre forward, which is the main striker. That means playing offensive is my main objective. Which is why I’m the highest scorer on the team.”

You wanted to wipe the smug look off his face. It irked you how he so easily bragged about himself.

“I also really like movies and can play the guitar. A true all-rounder and romanticist,” he smiled.

He continued to reveal fun facts about himself for another half an hour. It was only at the end that you realized most of it was useless when writing for the paper. You groaned, realizing you had fallen for his trap.

Still, you learned some things about soccer and his position in the team. Following him to the cafe hadn’t been a complete waste of your time.

The next day, Sunwoo hunted you down to make sure you kept your promise about watching the game together. He dragged you to the computer room during study hall and pulled out the earbuds he prepared. He had purposely rummaged through his drawers the night before to the share wired ones with you.

You had to admit he was extremely helpful when explaining the rules and strategies of soccer. Despite being uncomfortable with the proximity of his body to yours, he was a great teacher. He made everything sound so simple. After you began to understand the game, you even found yourself enjoying the match.

After spending a week with him, you hated that you couldn’t say you still disliked him. After all, you two met almost every day for hours.

You had a gut feeling that you would come to regret it and were proven right. You had a bad feeling the moment you saw Jaehyun run up to you as if his life depended on it. Panting, he barely pulled himself together to show you the post that made him immediately report to you.

“KSW and Y/INITIALS seen cozily spending time together. Will he be the one to finally break through her?” you read aloud.

A photo of your backs from the computer room and a mosaicked side shot of you two at the cafe were attached to the title. The comments under the post were even more ridiculous.

“A challenge to be anticipated.”

“Poor girl will only end up as one of his many heartbroken playthings.”

“I know who KSW is. Who’s Y/INITIALS??”

“The legendary man hater? With a guy?? Wow how good must he be 👀”

“Damn so she rejected me for him?”

Your blood boiled and you shoved the phone away. Trying to calm yourself down, you closed your eyes and took a deep breath. And failed.

“What is this, fucking Dispatch?” you exploded. A few students passing by stared at your outburst and widened their eyes when they saw that it was you. You sighed, knowing that the whole school saw the post.

“I’m not a celebrity! Why are people so invested in fake rumors about me?” you yelled, trying to keep your voice to a whisper as you pulled Jaehyun into an empty classroom.

“I’m sure it’ll blow over,” he assured.

“If I ever find out who the admin of this page is, I will ruin them,” you glowered.

You almost didn’t go to the soccer practice that day. But you knew that avoiding him would only add fuel to the fire so you sucked it up and went to the field after school as usual. You heard the hushed murmurs that stirred among the team when you arrived and you wanted to turn back around and leave.

Before you could, however, Sunwoo appeared and shut everyone up with a warning glare. He announced that the coach would be late and to start by running laps.

You were more annoyed than upset about the post. It just stupefied you that people really had nothing better to do than gossip about you. You didn’t think you were that interesting.

You were so close to escaping after practice but Sunwoo caught you trying to sneak away. He stood in front of you, crossing his arms as if to ask where you were going. Giving up, you muttered a “fine” and waited for him to change out of his uniform.

This time, you two wordlessly agreed to go to a different cafe. With the bubble teas on the table in front of you, you sat in silence until Sunwoo finally spoke up.

“Don’t mind what the post or others say,” he huffed.

“I’m not too bothered by it,” you shrugged.

“Good. Because I want to get to know you as just Y/n and Sunwoo. Through whatever you wish to tell and show me. I feel like we’re always just talking about me.”

His words left you speechless. Juyeon hadn’t been kidding when he mentioned how thoughtful Sunwoo was. You felt your heart warm as you smiled.

“Well what do you want to know about me?” you asked.

“Anything. Everything.”

So you spilled about your interests, hobbies, and goals. It was strange. Although it hadn’t been long since you met him, you felt comfortable around him. He made you feel at ease and you didn’t think twice about opening up to him.

You told him about your struggles as a high achieving student. About the pressure you felt and how embarrassing it was to tell people that you didn’t have any dreams.

With your grades, all the teachers expected you to apply to medical school. On the other hand, your parents encouraged you to work towards a high paying and stable salary as a corporation employee. Your friends suggested that you go for something in journalism because of your passion and commitment to the school newspaper.

But the club was just something you did for fun. You didn’t know if you liked it enough to pursue it as a career.

Sunwoo listened attentively as you went on about your concerns. From the outside, you looked like you had your life together. You were the perfect student and the girl that many guys chased after. But as he spent more time with you, it became clear that you were very uncomfortable with boys.

“Can I ask how you got so close with the Bermuda line?” he asked.

“The Bermuda line? What’s that?”

“You’ve never heard of the term? Juyeon, Jaehyun, and Younghoon are called the Bermuda line because they’re the most popular athletes out of all the sports teams. The girls say that once you fall for them, you’re stuck in between them forever because you can’t get out.”

You hadn’t laughed that hard in so long. You knew they had fans but found it hilarious how the trio even had a nickname.

“Oh man, I can’t wait to make fun of them for this,” you laughed, nearly in tears.

When he told you that they actually took great pride in the title, you bursted out in laughter again. Their self love truly was on another level.

“So how’d you end up friends?” he asked again.

“Juyeon, I’ve known since middle school. We were in the same class for all three years. Jaehyun didn’t go to the same school as us but he was friends with Juyeon because they played basketball together. I met him and Younghoon at the end of freshman year. They kinda crash landed into my life but we really clicked so that’s why I still bless them with my friendship.”

Sunwoo giggled at your own overwhelming confidence. He loved that you never sold yourself short. He didn’t notice he had been staring at you until you pointed it out. Blushing, he insisted that it was nothing and took another sip of his bubble tea.

Two months passed by and you eventually came to call Sunwoo a friend. Younghoon teased you about him being more than a friend and at first, you thought he was crazy. But with him planting the idea in your head, you began to question your own feelings. Cursing Younghoon, you blamed him for confusing you.

As the designated photographer, you tagged along to the soccer team’s last match. The entire team was nervous as it would determine the winner of the tournament. Even Sunwoo was anxious.

Before the game started, you offered him a supportive smile and he felt all worries lifted off his shoulders. He erased all thoughts of winning and losing and just concentrated on the ball. He wanted to enjoy the last match of the season and look cool in front of you. That was all that mattered to him.

Fortunately, he got both plus the win. The crowd erupted into cheers as he scored the winning goal just seconds before the whistle was blown to signal the end of the game. His knees fell to the ground and his teammates rushed to surround him.

Seeing how happy he looked brought a smile to your lips. He jumped up and scanned the bleachers for your face. When he finally spotted you, he broke away from his team to run up to you and embrace you in a giant hug.

Caught off guard, you froze as his teammates hooted and applauded. You felt your cheeks heat up at the attention.

“Congratulations,” you chuckled, patting his back. “You did well.”

“Did you get a lot of pretty pictures of me?” he grinned, pulling away to look at you.

“No, I only took pictures of Haknyeon,” you joked. By now, he was used to your teasing and simply ruffled your hair in response.

“There’s gonna be an after party tonight,” he brought up carefully. “I’d really like it if you came. Only if you’re okay with that type of scene though.”

Surprised, you nodded before you fully thought it through.

That was how you ended up moping at Jaehyun’s house. The invitation was extended to the Bermuda line as well and they were all planning on dragging you there. Younghoon was excited at the thought of finally going to a party with the whole group and Juyeon was picking out an outfit for you from Jaehyun’s sister’s closet.

“I don’t know if I trust your fashion sense,” she made a face at the top he held up.

This was your first party and you weren’t sure how you felt about it. There was a reason you hadn’t gone to one throughout your high school years.

Nonetheless, you were dressed up in an outfit that definitely reflected Jaehyun’s sister’s style more than yours. She fawned over how pretty you were and urged you to go with the boys.

So you walked through the doors and into the house vibrating with music. Everyone who recognized you was shocked to see you there. Feeling awkward, you stuck by Jaehyun’s side as you maneuvered around the throng of people. When he finally caught sight of Sunwoo, he dipped and left you alone with him.

“Thanks for coming,” he shouted over the loud music.

“Thanks for inviting me,” you shouted back.

Sunwoo offered you a drink, which you declined. Following your choice, he opted for a soda instead as well. You weren’t much of a dancer so you enjoyed people watching instead. It was fascinating to see your classmates have so much fun.

You giggled when you saw Juyeon be so painfully oblivious to a girl’s advances and walked away to dance with Younghoon. Meanwhile, Jaehyun was having the time of his life flirting with girls. You blocked your eyesight when you saw him leaning in to kiss one of them.

“Ugh, gross,” you cringed. “I do not need to know this side of my best friend’s love life.”

Laughing, Sunwoo offered to take you outside for some fresh air and a change of scenery. You gladly agreed and let him guide you to the backyard.

The night sky was full of tranquility that contrasted the chaos that ensued indoors. You sat on the grass and Sunwoo joined next to you.

“You look beautiful today,” he commented.

“Only today?” you laughed.

“Especially today,” he answered in a serious manner. His sincerity made you clear your throat and look away. He stunned you by cupping your face with his hands.

“Can I kiss you?” he asked.

“Are you drunk?” you blinked.

“I haven’t had a single sip of alcohol.”

His voice was slow and raspy. Your heart was beating faster than you wanted it to and you knew the corners of your lips were betraying you.

“You can either lean in or pull away,” he said as he brought his lips closer to yours.

Your heart now felt like it was about to jump out of your chest. Red alarms were going off in your head and you didn’t know what to do. All you knew was what you were only a few centimeters away from kissing Sunwoo.

So you did what any insane person would do and closed the gap between your lips. You wanted to punch him when you felt him smirk but he pulled you closer and held onto you tightly.

The weekend passed without much changes in your relationship with Sunwoo. You were worried that you had either ruined your friendship or that he was sick of you but Juyeon reassured you that he probably wanted to talk about it in person. Anxiously, you overthought things until Monday finally arrived.

Wanting to keep yourself busy until you met Sunwoo, you stopped by the club room early in the morning to import the photos from the last game. Shortly after you connected the camera to the computer, you heard a knock on the door.

Startled, you looked at the door and saw Jacob sheepishly poking his head through the door. You told him to come in and he took a seat next to you.

“Kevin told me to drop by before class for an interview,” he said. You nearly facepalmed. You had completely forgotten about that. You were supposed to interview him for the paper.

“Oh yeah! Hold on, let me go get my notebook,” you searched through your backpack to find it.

The volleyball player was this month’s star of the month and you had to write a piece on his past achievements. He was extremely kind and was careful not to use any advanced sports terminology to make sure anyone could easily read the interview, which you were grateful for.

Before you parted, he gave you a side hug out of habit and apologized when he realized that it was only his first time meeting you. You laughed it off and insisted that now you could be friends since you two hugged already. Relieved that you weren’t disturbed, he happily waved goodbye to you as he walked away.

Being in a different class than Sunwoo meant that you had to wait until lunch period to see him. You honestly didn’t even know if you wanted to see him. You weren’t ready to face him yet.

When the bell finally rang and it was time for lunch, Juyeon forced you to go to the cafeteria instead of hiding out in an empty classroom. The moment you sat down with your tray, however, you felt all eyes on you. Your stomach dropped, knowing it couldn’t be good news.

“Y/n, is this true..?” Jaehyun asked, showing you the new post on the gossip page. You hated that you were always right about bad intuitions.

KSW and Y/INITIALS caught making out at last night’s party… is BJY a side hoe?

You had no idea when a photo was taken in the brief second you and Jacob hugged that morning. When you scrolled and saw the next part, your heart dropped.

A shocking revelation of history: Y/INITIALS and SYJ used to date in freshman year. Does this have anything to do with the swimmer and basketball players always next to her?

You felt your breath caught in your throat as you read through the comments.

“Isn’t BJY on the volleyball team and SYJ on the baseball team?”

“Wow she clearly has a type.”

“I guess athletes just hit it well 👀”

“And here I thought KSW was the hoe… who’s playing with who?”

“Aye so KSW finally managed to break through her. Thanks for my $10 bro.”

“Aren’t the basketball players LJY and LJH? And the swimmer KYH? The Bermuda line, right?? I always thought she had a thing with one of them.”

“So much for the icy Y/INITIALS. She was acting all pretentious when she was already having all her fun.”

Juyeon grabbed the phone out of your hands and glared at Jaehyun. You never thought your past relationship would ever get exposed. There were only a handful of people who knew about it and it had stayed hidden under the rug up until now. It was something you wanted to bury and never think about ever again.

Shakily, you got up and ran out of the cafeteria with Younghoon calling out after you. You ran as fast as you could. You didn’t stop until you busted through the doors and collapsed on the rooftop. Your lungs were on fire and you closed your eyes to stop the ringing in your ears.

Meanwhile, Sunwoo was running across the school to find you. When he didn’t see you in the club room, he changed his target and sought out Eric.

“Is it true?” he demanded when he finally saw his friend.

“I can’t believe people already figured out that it’s me,” Eric sighed.

“Is it true?” Sunwoo repeated.

“Yes, yes, it’s true,” he answered with his hands up in defeat. “She never wanted anyone to find out. We didn’t exactly end on good terms. It’s something I’m not proud of.”

“What happened?” he asked, trying to contain his anger. “What did you do to her?”

“I…” Eric trailed off. “I cheated on her.”

“What the hell, Eric?” Sunwoo yelled.

“I-I was stupid! And young. It’s the biggest mistake I made in my life,” he admitted.

Frustrated, Sunwoo left and ran off in search of you again. When you weren’t anywhere to be found, he checked the rooftop as a last resort. He didn’t expect to actually see you there.

“Y/n,” he breathed. You felt a lump form in your throat. It was the first time he had addressed you by your name.

“Get away from me,” you glared. “Was I nothing but a bet to you? Was I just a challenge for you to win?”

“Y/n, I never placed bets on you. I don’t know what other people have been betting on but I have always been genuine with you,” he affirmed.

You refused to let your tears fall. There was no way Kim Sunwoo was going to see you cry.

“I like you,” he confessed. “I like you a lot. I meant to say this that night but got too flustered. So I wanted to tell you today. Whenever I see you, the butterflies in my stomach won’t go away. When I don’t see you, I miss you like crazy. You inspire me to become a better person and all I want to do is hold you and call you mine.”

And now Kim Sunwoo has officially seen you cry. He bent down to wrap his arms around you as you sobbed into his shoulder.

“You’re an asshole,” you mumbled after you calmed down.

“I think you mean the opposite,” he chuckled. “Whatever barriers you put up to protect yourself, I’m going to take them down one by one. With you. Together.”

“Who said I’m helping?” you muttered.

“Then I guess I have to work twice as hard to prove myself,” he softly smiled.

“This is embarrassing,” you groaned.

“This will only be embarrassing for me if you reject me,” his hand reached out to the nape of his neck. “So what do you say? Will you go out with me?”

“I’ll think about it,” you huffed, prompting a chuckle from him.

[fernpost]

Cycle 0 - Interviews

[read on ao3]

[next]

Taako Taaco. 114. Elf. Wizard; Specialization in transmutation and inventive magical applications.

Previous experience: Top of class at Tredore, Academy of Magics and Technology; recently graduated.

Criminal Record: Multiple counts of petty theft.

Davenport likes to think of himself as calm and composed. It’s hard to throw him off. He has to be in order to have gotten this far in his mission as fast as he has.

But when he turns around from shutting the door to see his interviewee with his feet kicked up on the table, twirling a wand through his fingers, he’s a little shocked. He’s been doing these interviews for two days now, and even the more relaxed and confident people have held a bit more sense for decorum.

It’s a bit rude.

It’s also a little interesting.

He sits at his desk, pulling the elf’s papers away from his boots (shiny, and though they look expensive he can see they’re worn down and well taken care of) and glances down. “Tell me, Taako Taaco, what makes you want to explore the planerverse?”

“Bored.”

If the feet on the desk threw him off for a second, that floors him entirely. “Bored?”

“I’ve got nothing else to do on this plane, why not, you know?”

“No burning desire to go further than any being has gone before?” That’s one of the normal responses, the well-planned out speeches he keeps getting in response to his opening question.

The elf crosses his feet, leaning back somehow further into the provided chair. Davenport worries for a second that he may fall as he continues on, “that’s cool too, I guess. But I figure, why wouldn’t you want the great Taaco name aboard your ship.”

Davenport picks up a pen from his table and makes a small note on the paperwork, “no offense, Mr. Taaco, but you’re rather cavalier about this interview that determines whether or not you’re accepted into a program that may redefine our understanding of the world.”

The elf shrugs and takes his feet off of Davenport’s desk, flashing him a smirk, “you’ve seen my sister’s paperwork, yeah? No way you’re not going to accept her, and we’re a package deal. Says it right there in bold at the top of my application, my man.” It does, in fact, say that at the top. Cursive words noting how he refuses to accept any position on the ship if his sister isn't there too. When reviewing who he was interviewing today, he saw similar words on Lup Taaco’s paperwork.

“You’re very confident in your sister’s abilities.” Davenport begins, pausing for a second as he notes the way the elf begins to tense up before continuing, “however, I wouldn’t sell yourself so short. You also graduated top of your class, and excelled in the art of transmutation multiple times. One of your letters of recommendation even noted how you made many spells easier to cast, somatically speaking.”

“What can I say, I’ll find any short cut I can.”

Davenport makes another note on his paper. “Now, I do need to ask about your record of petty theft.”

“Oh, natch.”

Lup Taaco. 114. Elf. Wizard; Specialization in evocation and applied magic regarding planar research.

Previous experience: Top of class at Tredore, Academy of Magics and Technology; recently graduated.

Criminal Record: Multiple counts of petty theft.

“Lup Taaco, it is nice to meet you.”

“The pleasure is all mine, Captain.” The woman in front of him smiles. The resemblance to her brother couldn’t be more clear, and though her demeanor is quite similar, she at least doesn’t have her feet on his desk.

Not that his desk is anything fancy, but the point stands. “I’m not technically the captain yet, you know.”

“Potato, potato.”

Davenport is fairly certain that’s not how that phrase is used. “You did research into the planes at Tredore, correct?”

“Quite a bit, yeah. I’m sure my brother told you?”

The slight tilt of her head and lit of her voice tells Davenport this is some sort of test, which is confusing and a bit disconcerting, considering he is the one conducting the interview. He checks a quick box on his papers. “He talked you up a bit, yes. But this is your own interview, and I wanted to discuss your own knowledge with you, personally.”

She smiles, a touch more warmth to it than her previous attitude. “Oh, of course. Did quite a bit of studying at Tredore. First real school we attended. Kinda boring at times, you know?”

“If you’re accepted into this program, it’s going to be four intense months of studying and teaching you the more complex workings of the ship. Plus the two months of actually being on the ship.”

“That’s the fun stuff. Not a third semester in a row of another language I already figured out most of years ago.”

“How many languages do you speak, Ms. Taaco?”

“Including common, five languages.”

“Impressive.” Davenport himself only speaks three. “Now, I would like to ask you about your criminal record, if you don’t mind?”

Her smile grew sharp as she laughs.

Honestly, he isn’t surprised. Her explanation is the same as her brothers. Grew up on the road, needed food and other items on occasion. Didn’t always run fast enough. Davenport can’t fault them, and certainly won’t hold it against them.

He glances down at her paperwork, about to ask another question about her education, when she speaks up. “I’ve got a question for you, Captain.”

“Oh?”

“The ship- we’re really going with the name ‘The Starblaster’?”

Davenport sighs. He knew this question was coming, but he was expecting it to come during a press conference from a reporter, not a potential shipmate. “Yes. To be fair, it was a communal name we put to a vote from everyone who worked on building the engine.”

Ms. Taaco smiles. “Dope.”

Barry J. Bluejeans. 37 years old. Human. Wizard; specialization in applied magic regarding bonds and planar research.

Previous experience: Current assistant professor at Duffman University of the Arcane, part-time employee at the Institute of Planer Research and Exploration.

Criminal Record: Previous altercations regarding necromancy; no crimes against the nature of life and death ever committed.

Mr. Bluejeans is an interesting man. By the look of him, you’d expect to see him fumbling his way through a PTA meeting for his two kids. Instead, Davenport is staring down the word ‘necromancy’ on his paperwork on an application regarding literal planar travel on a ship called 'the Starblaster.'

So far, the interview has been going well. He’d listened to the man explain his research into the arcane, and he’d understood planar travel as well as any of the current scientists and engineers at the Institute. He was called in often for conferences and meetings about the bond engine. He’d seen the man walking around on occasion. They’d never been in a meeting together before, but he’d seemed nice.

But he also had a history of necromancy.

Now, Davenport doesn’t like to judge people. However, being in an enclosed space with someone who needed to specify he had never technically committed “crimes against the nature of humanity” isn’t the most comforting.

But, he was a smart man. Easy to get along with, too. So far. Necromancy notwithstanding.

Best to get it over with, “so, Mr. Bluejeans. I do need to ask about your criminal record-”

“Oh! Yeah, I never killed anyone. Or un- killed anyone. Uh, resurrected, I mean. Just did lots of studying into the application of necromancy and necromantic spells. Got in trouble because I toed the line of ‘research’ and ‘bringing my cat back to life,’ but got a stern talking to. Didn’t try it again, and don’t plan on needing to deal with those types of authorities again.”

Okay, normal enough answer, far as the situation applies-

“My current research into it has stayed purely theoretical, and it won’t interfere with the mission at all.”

So the man is still into necromancy.

Davenport glances down at the man’s file, thick with it’s attached papers Bluejeans has done on planar research. He’s not even stuck up about his level of education, and that’s extremely rare for the field.

Holding back a sigh, Davenport asks, “Can you explain the paper you wrote on the outer planes interactions with the inner planes for me?”

It was a really good paper.

But the man is still into necromancy.

Lucretia. 20. Human. Chronicler; Specialization in journalism.

Previous experience: Due to multiple NDA, she is unable to give us the exact number and titles of books she has written, but she sent letters of recommendation from Duke Rensburg, Lady Norabelle, and Warren of the Seatree Clan.

Criminal Record: Acquisition and attempted use of a false ID.

“So, Ms. Lucretia, I understand you cannot provide us with most examples of your works, but from what you have provided, you seem to be very, very good.”

“I like to think so, yes.” The young woman in front of him seems polite. She’s quiet; he saw her waiting outside with a few others before her interview, and while most of them were engaged in some awkward small talk, she sat away from them. Likely partially due to her age- she is much younger than the people outside- but she also simply seems quiet.

Which wouldn’t be the worst quality in someone you would be sharing a small, enclosed space with for an extended period of time. But, if she couldn’t bond with the others sufficiently, the bond engine won’t work.

(Hell, the bond engine was already finicky, they figured out the tech only a month ago, and they only have four months to bond an entire crew to pilot it and-)

“Can you explain to me why you acquired a fake ID and tried to use it at a, uh,” Davenport glances down at the records in front of him, holding back a chuckle, “at the forbidden section of the Library of Runar?”

Lucretia looks uncomfortable for a second, and he’s sure if the lighting in the room were better he would be able to see her flush with embarrassment. She gives him a hesitant smile, “I can’t get into the explicit details, but I was working on a book for an older client whose memory was becoming patchy, and I wanted to confirm some details before I put their name to it. They wouldn’t allow me into the section without the proper documents, but my client refused to agree that I should double check his work, even though I was almost certain he was wrong, so I simply… found a way to get past their guard. I wasn’t going to steal anything and I was going to use the proper equipment to read through the documents.”

Davenport smiles, “pursuit of knowledge and truth is important to you, then?”

“I don’t think spreading lies, especially in that context, is very honorable, no.” Her hands are folded in her lap now, and she seems a bit more relaxed.

Considering the others he is planning on accepting, he may be wrong about her getting along with them. Anyone willing to break the law just to prove an old man wrong would at least get along with him. Davenport refuses to have any pushovers aboard his ship.

Magnus Burnsides. 19. Fighter; Specialization in protection fighting and mechanical engineering.

Previous experience: Current bouncer at Apex Club. Currently enrolled in Gallier’s Fighter Academy and College.

Criminal Record: One count of assault and battery, appealed for defense of another person present. One count of indecent exposure and public intoxication.

Davenport will be the first to admit it can be tricky to follow human aging patterns, but he knows he’s not mistaken in thinking the man in front of him is barely out of “child” territory. Nineteen is a very, very small amount of time to be alive. Also, a very, very small amount of time to learn important things, like how to run what is basically a ship right out of a science fiction novel- complete with breakthrough technology.

Despite this, it’s hard to not find the young man in front of him to be endearing, and mostly knowledgeable in the things they need him to be.

“Magnus. You’re very young, one of the youngest applicants we have. What makes you think you’re qualified as the head of security of the ship?”

The young man in front of him- Gods, he really is young- grins and lifts his arms to flex, a show of pride and ego almost unbefitting of an interview setting, “Have you seen my muscles? I’m very strong, and a very good fighter.”

Many of today’s interviews have been quite different than he was expecting.

“I was referring more to job experience.”

“Oh!” Magnus shifts in his seat, fingers drumming against the table as he thinks. “I worked as a bouncer for a club while I was in college and did, if I must toot my own horn, a very good job. You should have a letter of recommendation from the owner-” He leans forwards, reaching a hand out as if to look through his own files to show him the letter.

“Yes, I did read through it. She was very thorough in stating how eager you were to help.” Davenport glances down at the papers in front of him, holding back a sigh. It truly was a glowing review of this young man. While his grades from the aforementioned college weren’t the highest, especially in classes one might consider important for an institute of planar research, the two letter of recommendations he submitted from teachers of his explained how Burnsides was very persistent when he wanted to learn something he didn’t know. He also had taken quite a few classes regarding vehicles- not enough to claim the young man was an expert but enough to provide a solid basis to show him how things worked and could be repaired on the ship.

The kid’s attitude was something of a breath of fresh air in this place. However, there was one glaring concern.

“I was also a bit concerned about the criminal record we have on file for you. Assault and battery as well as the indecent exposure and public-”

“In my defense for the second one, I was drunk with some friends and maybe thought it’d be funny to streak in the lake. Who hasn’t been to a party that gets a little out of hand.” He holds his hands out as if to say “am I right?”

Off the record, Davenport is inclined to agree that he was right. On the record, he is choosing to ignore it. “And the assault and battery? The file says it was in defense of a young person.”

Burnsides grins, “that’s how I got hired as the bouncer!”

He waits a moment, expecting Magnus to continue. When it seems the young man is assuming that is enough explanation, he prompts, “by beating up a man outside the club?”

“Yeah! He was harassing someone outside, and I was walking home and passed by. I told him to step off, and he didn’t. So I decked him, and he was out right away.”

It lined up with the records he had, and honestly, seeing someone so ready to step up to the defense of a stranger was a good quality. Better than some of the older applicants who were much more… formal in their training. He wonders briefly how Burnsides would react to an altercation against someone with magic.

Glancing down at his records, he guesses he would run headfirst without thinking.

Stifling a small grin, Davenport continues, “Now, tell me. Assume we’re up in space, and something goes wrong with the bond engine. What would your course of action be, Mr. Burnsides?”

Merle Hitower Highchurch. 214. Cleric; Specialization in botany, religion, and medical treatment.

Previous experience: Current botanist at the Institute of Planar Research and Exploration. Professor of botany at Narvick’s University for four years.

Criminal Record: Multiple counts of loitering.

The door is pushed all the way open before Davenport can even call out the next person.

A short dwarf slides into the room with a wide grin, “hey Dav!” A mug of tea is pressed into his hands.

“Hello, Merle. You do know this needs to be at least a little formal, yes?”

“Formal schmormal. Ask me your silly questions already, bud.” Merle Highchurch, resident botanist at the Institute of Planar Research and Exploration, plops right down in the seat he’d taken to commandeering once a week, for the past three weeks.

Davenport had seen him around before, but a botanist in an institute designed for exploring other planes that had little capabilities to actually go to those places yet was rarely busy, and even more rarely called upon. He still barely knew the guy, but after the day they’d gotten stuck in the elevator for ten minutes when it broke down, the dwarf had come to his office for tea each Wednesday.

It was a bit strange, but the tea was good.

“Tell me about your work experience.”

Merle laughs heartily, “they barely have me do anything around here, ‘cept tend to the couple of plants they’ve grabbed from the ground plane.”

“It’s the Elemental Plane of Earth, and don’t sell yourself short, Merle. This is basically a job interview, you know.”

Merle slurps loudly at his own mug, “aren’t you planning on nepotism hiring me, because we’re buds?”

“That isn’t even what that word means, Merle.”

“Isn’t it?”

Davenport stares into the tea, “is this made from the Earth plant?”

“Maybe?”

Davenport. 276. Captain and navigator; Specialization in mechanical engineering and arcane components combined with contemporary technology.

Previous Experience: Crewmate on the Lady Blue for twenty years. Graduated from Grensville University. Current staff at the Institute of Planar Research and Exploration.

Criminal Record: Unlawful resistance of orders from captain, raising of commotion on board ship while employed.

Davenport handed the six files over to Selune, “These are them.”

The halfling woman flips through them, eyebrows raising higher with each one she sees. “You’re sure you grabbed the right ones? A few of these I understand, but you do know we had the Issaiah Broler apply.”

He folds his hand in front of him, nodding. “I also know that during the interview he made me want to pour my tea on his lap. There’s no chance of getting the bond engine going with him. These are the six I picked. They’re all qualified- and the ones that are less educated in the specifics in the field I’m sure will pick up on the important information quickly. The Taaco twins already will give the bond engine a huge boost. Ms. Lucretia will ensure we have everything chronicled, something I’m sure you can appreciate, Selune. Mr. Bluejeans previous work shows he will thrive given the opportunities awaiting us. Mr. Highchurch is an educated man, and I trust him to keep the crew healthy and provide ample information on anything botany related we encounter, and I’m certain Mr. Burnsides will provide ample help in any task we show him how to do.” He sighs, glancing out the window of her office. There were a few people lingering outside in the courtyard of the Institute. “We have been given a tremendous opportunity to explore beyond what we can imagine, Selune. The last thing I want is to be bogged down by people stuck in their ways, who have been working in this field long enough to have their preconceived notions about what to expect and who will react badly when they’re proven wrong. I trust my own judgement in picking a crew, and I hope you trust my abilities to get these people ready to set sail in four months.”

What he doesn’t say is that he doesn’t want a bunch of stuffy jackasses on his ship. He’s not even sure picking all the over-qualified people would pass through the higher-ups' inspection of the crew. The people he picked were qualified enough to get a quick sign-off, but not too much. Anyone “overqualified” would probably get rejected. The ship had been built in basically six months. It’d get them off the ground, sure. It wasn’t going to explode on them once they got up there, but it wasn’t safe. There was a reason Davenport was the captain at all.

The six candidates in those files didn’t have a name for themselves as “important” to any stuffy scientific group or noble family. These people he picked were just that- people. A group of people who he believed deserved this opportunity. If anyone was getting the chance to make a name for themselves- to have the chance to redefine everything they know about the planar systems, he wanted to make sure they deserved the chance. A dangerous chance, sure. But what was science if not a little risky.

She sighs, opening the file on top. Her hand reaches for her pen, “Davenport, I got the final say on the name of the ship, I suppose the least I can do is give you final say on the crew.” She begins to write ‘approved’ at the top of the file, flipping through each one before giving him a pointed look. “But when I get angry calls about how you approved a bunch of nobodies and two people not even old enough to drink, I’m transferring them straight to your crystal.”

“And I will not be answering a single one.”

“I wouldn’t expect you to, Captain.”