#that english class in elementary finally paid off

[maximumeffort]

today is the day

that we cheer for everyone

that dare celebrate

[scott-mccall-the-hot-girl]

theodore raeken: missing persons

( okay so i kinda had an idea ,, and then went through the whole teen wolf timeline to see if it would work ,, so here it is !!

theo’s backstory !! it started off way more messy headcannon format & then it got kinda a real story vibe ,, def thinking about making it an ao3 one shot eventually )

-

TW: very sad & hurt my feelings

don't imagine:

eight year old theo raeken...

who sleeps at his best friend scott mccall's house almost every single night, stiles is almost always there too.

theo and his friends where they all watch movies together until ungodly hours of the morning. stiles loved star wars, theo will never forget that. they had gone as luke, han and chewy for halloween that previous year. melissa went as leia. scott has always been more of a indiana jones fan himself. theo would watch either, anywhere where harrison ford was theo didn't mind being.

in this little trio, who were all raised in the mccall house, where they were given eveything they needed. sometimes when theo thought about her, when he needed to remember the good things in life. he never quite knew how she managed. expecially with scott's dad who floated in and out of the picture.

yet, it always was melissa who gave scott extra lunches to take to school because theo and his sister, who were often forgotten by their parents usually were left to fend for themselves and a fourteen year old girl rarely had the funds or mind to give a growing boy a nutritious lunch. these packed lunches always with the crust off because that's the way theo liked it. melissa always remembered.

theo had three favorite places: scott's bedroom, the corner next to his bed where theo's blow up mattress was. the bridge in which tara and he crossed everyday on their way back to raekens from school. his final place was actually beacon hills elementary.

theo always liked school. theo was good at school. he didn't realize this until mellisa had pointed out an exceptional report card. he didn't think it was much of anything to be proud of.

he liked recognizing big words from english class and novels that would help him when his mom watched jeopardy. she would watch the show every night. sitting in a daze in the raekens dark living room. not paying much mine to the eight year old, until he started blurting out the answers to her favorite show. she beamed at him. he loved his mother's smile, she had the same dimples as tara.

so yeah, when a seventeen year old theo raeken spent months filing the names of anyone ever involved in the mccall pack, current members, deceased and ones that just fell out of beacon hills. he remebered some names.

theo raeken grew up in beacon hills, and beacon hill wasn't to big of a town.

theo rembered issac lahey a quiet boy who had been in his thrid grade class, jackson whittemore who was a grade older than them and everyone knew him because he was was offered a spot on the middle school lacross team, he knew erica reyes who he rembered for her epilepsy and it made him hate himself a little less for being the king of the heart condition, he even remebered names like derek hale- who was in the same grade as tara. theo even rembered the name malia tate as she was small girl who did go to beacon hills elementary, who was always startled and always walked a bit faster than everyone else through the halls. or even lydia martin, a girl stiles had a crush on. she talked to theo a lot, lydia used to call him teddy, he didn't know when it started but he let her do it purely to spite the fact that lydia gave theo a nickname and never bothered to acknowledge stiles.

theo rembered all of them, i mean for years of his life all he had to rely on was his memory to make sure it was real.

though during the line memories turned bitter and he was left with the sour taste of resentment.

so it was weird to think despite it all, that year was one of theo's best. he never felt like he belonged. sure he had scott and stiles before but gaining friendship & being labeled as an "inseparable trio" by the sheriff station deputies, whenever they rang havoc through their office made theo's mouth crack a toothy grin. he felt like he had a family.

that was until the air started getting colder in beacon hills. theo started hearing the voices. though, even so much later in life he never could quite pin point how it started, like his brain couldn't truly decipher what was going on. some of it felt like dream, though the dreams and the thoughts. sometimes they didn't feel like his own and made him so scared he would leave the day feeling nauseous.

though this all came in spurts. his birthday was that november, and that was magical. he spent the weekend with stiles and scott, theo's mom actually made the point to bring the three of them bowling. the boys pitched in on buying theo a big millennium falcon lego set because he was always doing things with his hands, something he picked up not being so most athletic of the bunch. they also got him big poster of han solo just to spite him. he blushed and yelled at them for stupid gifts but they knew by the smile on his face he loved them.

he loved so much because despite the fact that they were poking fun at him ever so lightly, they were good natured and they held thought. they really thought about theo enough to know what he liked. he never had that before.

so the voices started getting louder again around christmas time. it was weird for theo, the happiest time of the year filled him with such excessive dread. it didn't feel right. theo's life changed that month.

then one day scott and stiles get sit down because something tragic happened. tara raeken is dead. the details are fuzzy and they don't really understand how, seeing as these boys are just in fourth grade. they are horrified, it's one of the only other times they've experienced death besides with stiles mom. though claudia stilinksi was sick, sometimes sick people die. learning about tara left a bad taste in their mouth. she was young.

they try and call, bike past is his house. they don't hear from him. they go to her funeral, scott and stiles, high on anxiety attached to their parents just trying to sneak a peak of where their best friends may be. he's gone, that's the conclusion they come to, he's gone. they don't know how it could have happened, they just know that he isn't there. why wouldn't he be there?

they try and talk to the raekens but haunted by their daughters death, they paid less attention to theo than before. they barley give them a straight answer, melissa explains what grief can do to a family and not to blame them but is equally suspicious.

just take a minute to think, while scott and stiles are scared and searching for their best friend, theo raeken, barley nine years old is given a heart transplant. alone in a dark and cold sewer hidden deep under beacon hills, horrified and a failure, that's what the dread doctors tell him. a boy who keeps quiet, does what needs to be done and has to survive. doing absolutely everything he can to be kept around, the second he heals (which theo recognizes is abnormally fast) the doctors are straight out of beacon hills.

the doctors eventually find his parents too, who leave beacon hills, he doesn't exactly know what happened to them. he doesn't everything he can not to think about the possibilities. he hopes he has a chance, survival instincts flourish but the ideal of living isn't quite the same as surviving.

one day, the doctors inform him he has absolutely nothing to go back to, he figured this he just be didn't think they would actually tell him. they never told him much.

they are far away from beacon hills- much farther than he assumed. he has no sister, and his parents are gone.

he is alone, and he is finding out that now, he has one more secret to hide. the poor boy has claw and fangs and often thinks about using them to rip himself apart, i mean he deserves it right? he just watched his sister die, to go down with the last living part of her, his own heart.

while theo is expecting his fate, stiles and scott and stuck in months of confusion. missing posters of the boys face are strung up everywhere they can reach, once his parents are gone. they know they need to do everything they can.

mellisa feels like she's been punched in the gut, so she helps her boys. she calls every hospital in the county, and then she starts reaching out to some of the bigger hospitals in the state. spreading word of a missing nine year old like wildfire. she spends nights after her shift arguing with noah stilinksi, he has been looking to. he tries to bargain logic with her.

"yeah it's strange he never said goodbye, he wasnt at the funeral- it's weird, yes, but his parents left too. their daughter just died melissa. maybe they didn't want to stay."

melissa knows, yeah that makes sense. theo had to of just moved with the raekens but something about it doesn't feel like it makes sense.

he would have said goodbye to her. she knows it.

other people in beacon hills were actually thinking the same thing, something wasn’t quite making sense.

those other people being some who can sense unrest in supernatural frequencies. a family who makes it their business to monitor the supernatural. the hales.

though, talia hales supernatural concerns didn't often revolve around fourteen year old girls who drown, shes curious. the girl, was in dereks grade. the mother in her falters but it doesn't get strange until the police reports reveal the fact that the girls heart was gone, she was found. gaping chest wound, lying in the river.

so she starts to suspect somethings wrong. she's seen the raekens case, something about it doesn't make sense. sure, the death of a teenage girl is overwhelmingly tragic but there isn't much to investigate. though talk of the raekens is getting loud, she comes to find out this is because of the raekens youngest, who was nowhere to be seen days before the funeral.

she knows the hunters are back in beacon hills. so wonders if the two correlate. so she starts asking questions.

talia, with her daughter in tow see two boys standing outside the sheriffs station, stopping people when they walk in to show they a poster. it's theo raekens missing poster, though there isn't much official about it. it seems like the sheriffs department couldn't issue anything official, so as she walks up to the boys seemed to have made dozens of copies themselves. there information seems formal enough.

she catches their anxiety heighten as talia hands the poster over to laura who stands behind her.

the taller one raises a brow, "have you seen him anywhere miss?"

she smiles, "miss hale- you can call me talia though. this is my daughter laura. we haven't seen your friend but we'd like to help..."

the taller boy nods, "well, i'm scott. that's stiles. how could you help?"

talia hale lies easily, "i've heard about what happened to the raekens and it sparked my concern. i have a friend, local sheriffs station who is awfully good with the police dogs. if you have anything that your friend owned i might be able to call i'm a favor."

a few days later, stiles had found her in the same spot as last time with a small black sweater. she smiled and told him she would do her best to help these two boys. not sure if her intrest in the case was supernatural based or because she didn't want these boys, who smelled like anxiety and exhaustion to fall down the hole of loss themselves. she wasn't sure where investigating theo’s disappearance themselves would leave them, she didn't want them getting caught up in the supernatural spiderweb of beacon hills.

though, talia hale looses scent and momentum on the case. literally and metaphorically. she finds herself near some suspicious tunnels, leading right under beacon hills but scent falls short. she's frustrated, and the time since his disappearance is lengthening but her families needs become increasingly concerning.

she's listens, she likes to know what's going on. so when she hears her sixteen year old whispering a bit more with her kid brother she raises suspicion. she doesn't trust peter like she used to, not after getting involved with the desert wolf.

paige dies months after that, dereks heartbroken and talia is trying to put together pieces of a story that turned her babies eyes blue. to young. beacon hills doesn't quite understand how another student is dead, with no previous medical history. this, the death of paige she knows is supernatural.

kate argent moves to town and in months, the hale house is burned to the ground. inside, theo raekens black sweater. tucked away in a room, where news clippings and missing posters caught fire the fastest.

so with no surprise, another tragedy is unleashed and it's the talk of the town. memory of theo starts to fade, like most things do in beacon hills. it's not anybodies fault but it still stings. though, theo million miles away hasn't felt much of anything latley.

it's been a little over a year. he hasn't cried in the past three months. he won't let himself. nobody is going to find him. he isn't going to het out. so he puts up his walls, as many as he can. he just has to stay alive a little bit longer. make something worth taras sacrifice. they had started to kill off more of the chimeras, more of their science experiments. he can't get killed, he can't do that to tara.

theo was always a fast learner. theo always liked school. theo was good at school. this wasnt exactly the same as math class at beacon hills elementary but he was picking up skills quickly. theo didn't quite recognize himself after that year. he wasn't that same boy, and that had to suite him just fine. he never had much of a choice in this. he just chose to try and keep her heart beating for as long as he could.

so theo raeken adjusted, he had to.

[vanderlindemangofarm]

The Van der Linde Gang - Jobs in a Modern AU

I’ve been really inspired to write about this lately and I’d love to hear your takes! These are the occupations that I think each gang member would have in a modern AU. Some were more challenging than others, but hopefully you guys can see where I’m coming from with each! 

Arthur: Film location scout. His natural eye for photography and framing makes Arthur the perfect member of a pre-production team. His no-bullshit approach to everything means he keeps to deadlines, although he’s known to go wandering off into the wilderness for unknown amounts of time. He enjoys the lone working side of his job and finding exactly the right spots that would make the film come to life. He doesn’t always like the films once they’re finished (in fact he’s often bought cinema tickets and walked out half way through, grumbling that it wasn’t worth the popcorn) but he can’t deny the excited buzz he gets every time he gets hired. In his early years as an assistant he met Bertie Mason, a nervous but talented photography intern. Despite an ill-advised hookup after a week joined at the hip they have remained close friends and still go out on shoots together. 

John: landscape gardener. John? Flowers? Yes, alright, I found it hard to believe too. But look, it’s not about the flowers, even if he does get misty-eyed at the sight of a sunflower in the early morning light. It’s about the challenge, the outdoors, and solving problems. After all the renovations he did to his house and garden (some more successful than others) John found how much satisfaction he got from digging and reshaping and planting. Don’t get me wrong, he’s often without a shirt, even in the colder months, much to the delight of some and the horror of others. He always makes friends with the household pets and is wonderful with the kids, always dropping his task to throw a frisbee around for a bit or cheekily accept an ice cold glass of lemonade from their mothers. Whenever he drives past one of his projects he feels himself glowing with pride - “I did that!”. 

Dutch: philosophy lecturer. As always, late with Starbucks. Will he actually grade your essay? Will it mysteriously disappear? Keeps you on your toes, doesn’t it? Sitting precariously on the very edge of his desk, leather jacket hanging off his shoulders and losing his balance every 15 minutes, Dr Van der Linde is nothing short of a wonder. For the love of all that is holy, do not get him started on Kant. Kant has no place here. You want to talk about your precious Kant? Get your butt down to Dr O’Driscoll’s class, he has plenty to say about Kant. Perhaps a little too fond of Socrates. Plato who? Completely illegible handwriting and definitely sleeping with several members of the faculty. But somehow his students always walk away with excellent grades. At the end of each term Dutch takes everyone out to a local bar for drinks, insists on buying tequila which no one really fancies at 11am. Claims to ride a motorcycle called The Count which no one has actually seen. Impossible to hate, and he writes everyone great references for their summer internships. 

Hosea: social worker. In a crisis, there’s no one better to knock on your door. Hosea has seen it all and he’ll see it all again, but that doesn’t stop him from treating every single case he gets with the upmost respect and care. His no-nonsense approach to his work means he gets things done, but he never sacrifices his compassion. He mostly works with teenagers and has a way of being able to connect to each individual without coming across as patronising. He’s been in the field for over two decades and is an invaluable mentor for any newcomers, always willing to share a word or two of advice or be a shoulder to cry on. 

Javier: guitar teacher and music therapist. During his worst years, Javier’s guitar was his lifeline. And he wants to help others find their lifeline, too. He works on a freelance basis, mainly going into mental health hospitals, schools and prisons. He runs workshops focusing on guitar playing, but brings other instruments (mainly percussion) to try too. He’s a gentle teacher, always with a joke in his back pocket for when you need it most. He has nicknames for everyone and remembers everything they’ve ever told him. He’s patient and never lets anyone feel bad for making a mistake. Javier also runs an after-school guitar club at the local middle school alongside playing his own music at gigs whenever he can. No, he doesn’t reply to DMs no matter how thirsty they are. 

Sadie: self-defense instructor. After surviving an attack several years ago, Sadie used her ferocity to get her qualification in self-defense to teach other women how to fight back should they need to. Her husband Jake helps out in her classes, happily allowing himself to be thrown around and slammed onto the mat as many times as required. Her students are terrified of her in the best and nicest way. Sadie also volunteers at a women’s refuge, providing emergency care and taking phone calls. 

Charles: environmental campaign manager. Charles has always been drawn to charities and started doing voluntary work for Greenpeace when he was at university, securing an internship with them in Canada which led to a full time job. Whilst Charles mainly hosts meetings and organises events, he also works closely with elementary schools and runs workshops with outdoor activities, crafts and music. Last week they made bird feeders! It was awesome. He’s also a keen activist and regularly meets up with Javier to go to protests and community events, most recently for BLM. 

Micah: motorcycle mechanic. Micah is massively invested in motorcycle culture and treats his beloved bike better than his own mother, if he still spoke to her. Although he pretends not to care, fixing bikes is his greatest passion and almost looks...happy when he’s doing it? Maybe? He likes knowing more than the people who stop by his shop and makes sure they know it. Occasionally he leaves his number on a scrap of paper inside women’s handbags when they’re not looking but for some reason none of them call. Like it or not, he’s incredibly skilled and will have your motorcycle singing a tune if that’s what you want. Euphemism? Of course not. 

Abigail: nurse. She was so shy when she realised she wanted to pursue nursing - would people laugh at her? Was she too impatient, too nagging, too shrill? Her dyslexia always put her off going into further education and she was always discouraged by her parents. But with lots of encouragement from Hosea (who helped her to fill out her applications and other forms) and her friends, Abigail went to university in her 30′s to get her degree. She graduated top of her class and now works full time in her local hospital, based mostly in the emergency room. From drunken brawlers to tearful children and grumpy old men with lumbago, Abigail has learnt to keep her cool and to have faith in her own ability. 

Molly: holistic therapist and masseuse. It took years to get that bastard of a philosopher out of her head (and out of her bed - damn those happy hour drinks “for old times’ sake”), but she’s finally free. Molly radiates a kindness that few took to the time to see, and she wanted to take strength from her past struggles to help others who may need someone to listen, just as she did. Molly took a bunch of online courses in various holistic therapies, including aromatherapy and massage, as this was something she had always been interested in. She runs a tiny clinic on a quiet street, the rooms filled with sunshine and the scent of geraniums. She also has a quite popular ASMR YouTube channel, Emerald Eyes ASMR, which she shyly admits just reached 500k subscribers. Her most popular video, ‘Irish Girl Helps You Fall Asleep (soft spoken, tapping, mouth sounds)’ just reached over a million hits. 

Kieran: veterinarian specialising in equine care. Much like Abigail, Kieran didn’t like the idea of going back into education. He’d had a rough time of it as a teenager, dropping out of high school early and working a string of menial jobs for the next decade. They paid his rent, but he still felt poor. His favourite job, however, was working at a stable. The horses made him feel calm and he found that he could read them better than most people. He went to the library and read as much as he could about them. From there, he got himself an apprenticeship which paved the way for him to earn his degree in veterinary science. He smiled so hard in his graduation photo his eyes disappeared into his cheeks. He travels all over the local countryside, visiting farms and ranches to care for the horses. His confidence picked up after the first few blunders, and little by little he’s saving up to buy his own ranch one day. 

Lenny: political science student. You know that kid who always looks amazing, even in 9am lectures? Yeah, that’s not Lenny, but he’s sat just behind. See him? Yep, the one rubbing sleep from his eyes as he pushes through the effects of another all-nighter. It’s not due to procrastination, but from perfectionism. He spends hour agonising over references, appendixes and even titles. One time he was so tired he signed his work “Ynnel”. He’s completely in love with his course and relishes every class he takes. Oh, he’s taking Dutch’s ‘History of Western Philosophy’ module by the way. Sitting in the front row, middle seat, directly in front of Dutch, his eyes glinting wickedly. Poor Dutch. Lenny has a counterpoint for absolutely everything and can barely stifle his laughter as Dutch gets more and more flustered. He’s been dating Jenny Kirk, an English Lit student, for the past few months and it’s going well. So well in fact, that he might stop hiding his Doctor Who merchandise every time she comes to his dorm room. 

Tilly: business student. Tilly started university at the same time as Lenny and they still always go to the library together, rolling their eyes at each other over their morning peppermint lattes. Tilly is at the forefront of any and all on-campus activism. Think of Sam from Dear White People - that’s our Tilly. She wears her Ravenclaw scarf all autumn and winter long and posts scathing Instagram stories about the cafeteria food. But she’s powerfully kind and very ambitious, taking on a part time job tutoring kids with dyslexia in their reading and writing. 

Susan: midwife. Think having a baby is scary? Try crossing Nurse Grimshaw. She’s here now, and that baby is coming out of you one way or another. She’ll hold your hand through thick and thin but if you dare say “I can’t do it” one more time she’ll unleash hell. Susan will make sure everyone has a job to do. Partner just standing there like a lemon? Not on her watch. She’s harsh but kind to her trainees and will always offer a cup of coffee and a shoulder to cry on, but there’s a time and place for slacking and it’s not on her labour ward. 

Trelawny: talent agent. Our Josiah is cunning, infuriatingly charismatic and with an eye for the best of the best - what else could he do so effortlessly? He’ll wrangle you a 10 second role as a latrine cleaner in a non-profit film and he’ll still make you feel like the next DiCaprio. You’re a diamond, don’t you know? Of course you could nab Elphaba, we’ll worry about the singing later. How do you feel about cat food commercials? No no, it’s not pornography, it really is cat food this time - he double checked. On top of this, he knows everyone in the business. No, really. He can’t move 3 feet down Broadway without someone booming his name. The tone of said boom depends, of course, but who hasn’t been caught with his bottom out in that director’s wife’s en-suite? 

Sean: outdoor activity centre instructor. You mean you can actually get paid to swim in lakes, ride ziplines through the forest and eat roasted marshmallows?! Sean couldn’t believe his ears. But it was true, and he’s living his best life. He may be on his penultimate warning for unruly behaviour, but he knows he could never really get fired. How could they? Everyone loves him. And to his credit, he’s a fantastic instructor, especially with kids. Everything from canoeing to caving, wild swimming to climbing, Sean has mastered it all and he always makes it fun. No one is allowed to feel left out or silly for not being able to do something. Sean has a way of making everyone feel included, even if you can only make it up the first few rungs of the ladder. Hey, that’s still off the ground! He once knew this feller Bill who cried because a moth flew into his face. You’re doing fine. 

Mary-Beth: librarian and YA author. Sweet Mary-Beth, how could she be anywhere else but surrounded by books? She adores her job at her small, local library and is always looking for ways to make it even better. She often gets tangled up in the stories she reads whilst organising shelves, but it’s quiet enough most days that she’s rarely caught. She loves helping people find their books or recommending her favourites. She also runs the toddler storytime groups and a writing club for older kids. Of course, she’s also writing her own books. The first of her ‘Valentine Mysteries’ books made a modest profit and she’s excited to write more about the adventures of Leslie Dupont. 

Karen: actress. Realising that she had a knack for accents and even after an especially successful high school lead role as Roxy Hart, Karen didn’t really acknowledge her would-be passion for acting for a long time. But she used her talents to get herself and her friends into X-rated films, dive bars and successfully pull off dozens of prank calls. It wasn’t until one of her friends was going to an open-call audition for a short film and wanted someone to go with her that Karen had her epithany. She was cast on the spot, much to the dismay of her friend. Since then, she’s been in a handful of arthouse films, a commercial here and there, and recently enjoyed a short run as Hermia in A Midsummer Night’s Dream at a small theatre downtown. Does she want fame and fortune? Honestly, she hasn’t really thought about it. Right now, she’s just enjoying the ride. And the phone numbers left for her at front of house from many admirers. 

Strauss: financial loan adviser. Oh boy, perhaps you saw this one coming. Then again, maybe not. Old Leopold isn’t quite the two-pronged-tongued eldritch horror people often mistake him for. In fact, he actually advises people against loan sharks. He had his fair share of debts y’see and he genuinely doesn’t want anyone else to go through the same thing. He’s not exactly sweet and cuddly, but he might let you have a free pen if you call by his office. I mean, technically they’re not free but...never mind, just take it. 

Bill: plumber. It was purely accidental that Bill bashed his way into his career. No, really. His sink was blocked and after an hour of poking and prodding the pipes he started hitting the poor thing with a spanner out of pure frustration, cursing all the way. To his shock, it worked, and he suddenly had running water again. What shocked him more is that he realised he wanted to know how. So, he bought a book. And he read the book. And one thing led to another, and now he’s the proud owner of Williamson Plumbing Inc. The money is very good, but for Bill that’s not it. You have to understand that for him, it’s the act itself of fixing something that brings Bill immense satisfaction. And Bill isn’t used to knowing more about something - anything - than those around him. For the first time perhaps in his life, he can sit down, solve a problem, and know that he’s done a good job. 

Swanson: AA group leader. After getting completely sober almost a decade ago and staying that way, Orville wanted to give something back to the people who had helped him out so greatly. Becoming a volunteer to help those who were trapped where he was seemed like the only path, and it felt so right. Orville is there in meetings, making coffee, handing out donuts and training new volunteers. If anyone wants to talk about their faith he’s all ears, but he never pushes it as a cure-all in any situation. Orville’s sobriety has also meant that he’s learnt to make the most phenomenal mocktails. 

Pearson: grocery shop manager and cooking teacher. Simon has his small grocery shop on the edge of town which has a wide range of regular customers. But he wanted to do more, so he set up a small class to teach fellow veterans how to cook. His wife helps out, and they grow the ingredients together in their garden and down at the allotment. It’s just an therapeutic for him as it is for his students, as he’s only just realising how much he wants to talk about his time in the navy. 

Uncle: unknown. For the longest time, everyone thought Uncle worked at one of the worst dive bars in town, as whenever they stumbled in for a nightcap he was there, behind the bar, happy as a pig in shit. Turns out that he just started going there one night and no one could get him to leave. And so every evening he’ll appear like a phantom, sit himself in the half-broken chair behind the bar (clearly labelled “not for customer use”), order the cheapest beer on the menu and sit there until midnight. No one can understand how he gets the means to live as he ragingly denies receiving any government handouts despite his lumbago. Claims to be a veteran but hasn’t fought in any wars anyone has heard of. 

[trashcankitty12]

Stella Headcanons:

You know her. You love her. 

She’s bubbly, she’s fun. (And she’s pretty funny.)

She’s Princess Stella Sol of Solaria. 

(These headcanons are all in relation to my ‘main verse’, which is the New Company of Light/Balance Verse. And it can also translate into my Left verse.)

Under the cut because it’s long.

About Stella:

-Her fear of heights comes from a major fall she took as a child off of her grandfather’s pet dragon. (He was teaching her how to ride and… She wasn’t holding onto it well enough and down she went.)

-Stella is fluent in nearly 56 of the Magical Dimensions languages. (She was to stick to the languages spoken by the realms who interacted most with Solaria.)

-After meeting Bloom and spending a little time on Earth, Stella is also trying to learn a few of the Earth’s languages. (She’s mastered English and Spanish, but she’s still working on French and Russian.)

-She loves sweets. (And food in general. But considering she’s Solarian, that’s to be expected. They tend to eat more than most people in the Magical Dimension.)

-Stella may or may not glow in the dark. (It’s something she can control and she has to be focused to do it. She inherited that gift from her mother.)

-Stella’s mother was religious and has a close relationship to the Moons, while her father, despite being so close in relationship to the Suns of Solaria, isn’t religious. Stella personally has mixed feelings on religion. She likes the idea of spirituality and having a higher power to rely on, but organized religion makes her heart hurt. (They tend to talk down about those who don’t follow a ‘certain’ way of life, which to Stella isn’t a cool thing to do, unless, of course, the other people are actually hurting someone else.)

-She was almost a big sister. Her mother had been pregnant when she was seven. (They don’t ever talk about it. And, as an adult, Stella can see where this was a turning point for her parents and their relationship. Her mother just wasn’t quite the same after losing Diana.)

-Stella is a dog person and was so happy when she finally got a puppy for her birthday one year. (The dog was her best friend and her main confidant.) Unfortunately, Stella’s dog only made it to four years old. (It had an illness that not even magic could fix.)

-Stella hasn’t been able to stomach the thought of another dog since. (However, Brandon may or may not offer for them to get a dog later on. You know, as their “first child”.)

-Stella can spot patterns without trying. It’s so ingrained in her after being around fashion, and the practical applications of pattern spotting have made her life so much easier.

-Here’s the thing about Stella… She’s somewhat dyslexic. Words and reading do not come easily to her. On the flip side, Stella can give one hellova speech. Her charisma and charm make her a natural at hyping up a crowd.

-Stella had a fairy godmother until she was 13. An elderly woman named Glinda. Glinda helped Stella with her shyness and in her first fashion attempts. And Glinda was the one who helped Stella gain her magic winx the first time with encouragement and confidence. (After all, how else should a future queen bring out her power?)

-After gaining her wings, her father gifted her the Ring of Solaria. It was done in a ceremony to the Suns and Moons of Solaria and the Ring had to choose Stella just as it had Radius and their family before them. Once Stella and the Ring bonded, she shifted for the first time in public to show off her wings and magic. Her parents couldn’t have been prouder.

-She went to a private school on Solaria for her elementary and middle school education years, but she was somewhat isolated due to being the Princess of Solaria (making the other kids judge her ahead of time as some sort of prim and proper prep they didn’t want around) and due to some of her ‘uncool’ hobbies.

-(Those uncool hobbies? Stella is actually into comics and superheroes, but until meeting the rest of the Winx, she wasn’t interested in sharing that side of herself. Solarian Comics actually helped Stella with reading because of their writing structure. Stella is also a fan of learning cultures and wanting to see what benefits other places and if it could be replicated to help Solaria. And Stella was kind of a… Horse girl. She spent many, many, many summers and school holidays at her maternal uncle’s horse ranch in the Western Spaces of Solaria.)

-Stella tends to use her solar powers more than her lunar ones. It’s not because she doesn’t feel close to her mother or to her mother’s family, it’s just a little more difficult for her tap into that part of her magic. (Solar magic is easy and tapped into by thinking of warm and splendid times. Lunar magic requires a bit more… Reflection. And Stella doesn’t like having to think too long about things. Not because she can’t, but because if she starts to really think about things, she tends to overthink them which leads her down a dark rabbit hole.)

-Stella’s best friend growing up was Nova Rinae, despite being two years older than the other girl. Nova’s mother is the head of Luna’s guard, and Nova was often in the palace. (Making her one of the few children always around. And because she shared several of Stella’s interests, they clicked rather quickly.)

-(Her parents also encourage this friendship as it’s important to them for Stella to be close to those who may serve alongside her when its time for her to become queen. Friendships can be turned into unwavering loyalty, and that can mean life or death in certain situations.)

-Before she ever got her magic, Stella’s parents thought she may end up being the ‘New Host’ for the Light Dragon. (Bloom was never found, which meant no one could say for certain what happened to the Light Dragon, other than it had to be alive still. Otherwise the Balance would have been off.)

-Because of their thoughts on her having the Light Dragon, Stella was taught basic hand-to-hand skills as a child and was instructed to be wary of “golden eyes” in the shadows. She was also to learn Solaria’s history as well as Domino’s. (Though Stella mostly paid attention to how the two worlds overlapped instead of their separate histories.)

-Stella actually knew Layla, Sky, and Diaspro as children. But because so much can change from being five years old to being 15/16, she didn't recognize them when they met again. (They had all been at a major conference for the realms and while their parents ‘talked shop’, they went to play. It was their first and last time together like that until years later.)

-Despite being a princess, Stella tends to be a bit messy. At least, as far as her room itself. Her workspaces (wardrobe and vanity and tailoring areas) are the most well-kept areas in her care. (She likes to work in clean spaces… But in her room, the space where she lives, she likes it to look lived in.)

-Stella originally got into fashion at about 10 years old in an attempt to get closer to her mother. Her mother always had work to do as a queen, and for her off-time, she went to fashion shows (which in a way, were also work, because as a queen she’s expected to be aware of trends and present herself in a certain way). So to spend more time with her mother, Stella started having an interest in fashion. (Which quickly became a hobby she loved when she found the different ways she could express herself with fashion.)

-In a bid to get closer to her father, Stella took a major interest in cooking. (Her father can bake. He’s messy at it, but by the Dragons do his pastries and cookies taste of heaven.) Granted, Stella didn’t inherit the baking skill, but she can recite recipes and judge pastries and baked goods like its her job. (And for some of Solaria’s festivals, it is.)

-Have I mentioned she’s an expert equestrian in the Solarian Rodeo? Her go-to is barrel racing and square-dancing competitions, and she’s even dipped her toes into riding the bronco and in cattle roping.

-Stella has far-sightedness. She can see things far away, but things up close are blurred. She used to wear glasses, but after elementary school, she swapped to contacts. (However she does still wear glasses and keeps them close by just in case. They’re a stylish silver-blue and not quite thick-framed.)

-Stella has formal training in ballroom dancing. (Her favorite is the Eraklyon Tango. Or at least, it has been for the past few years. Wonder why…?)

-Stella also has a minor fear of spiders. (It’s not really a fear either… More like a squick. She doesn’t like them, but she doesn’t mind them being around if she doesn’t have to see them. It’s because one of her school teachers thought a great Life Lesson would be for the class to witness his pet tarantula eat a live meal. Not fun for little Stella.)

(Not fun for him either, once the parents got a hold of him…)

-Stella lied about what happened during her ‘real’ first year at Alfea. She honestly did blow up the Potion’s Lab… But it wasn’t because she was researching color theories…

-Just before Stella was meant to leave for Alfea, like a week or two before, she found out from Nova, NOVA, that her parents were getting a divorce. Luna and Radius never told her. Her friend told her.

-Stella didn’t want to leave after that, afraid that if she was gone, she couldn’t help them patch things up. (She truly believed they could work this out. She just needed to be there. She needed them to see her and remember why they fell in love.)

-They dropped Stella off, but still didn’t discuss or leave room to discuss the divorce. (Stella didn’t want to let them know she knew because she didn’t want Nova in trouble for listening in on their mothers’ conversations.)

-Which led to a panicked Stella trying desperately to pretend to be okay while in the presence of the others. (She’s a princess, she can’t show despair. Especially without reason.)

-Stella was angry that her parents still hadn’t talked to her and that they had sent her away. She was feeling left out and scared and confused. They were in love. Right?!

-So she started doing small things around Alfea to try and get her suspended. Not expelled, just suspended. (She needed time at home, before the holidays.)

-She verbally attacked other Alfea students, playing up the pompous princess act. No luck. She mocked Palladium. No luck. She even cut classes. No luck. So as a last resort, without having to go to Cloud Tower and stir trouble up there, was to mess around in the potion’s lab. It worked… Too well.

-She was expelled and sent back to Solaria. Her parents were upset with her, and disappointed (which was the worst ever for Stella who really wanted their approval in everything). Stella broke down and finally told them that she knew and that she didn’t want her family to break apart. That she was scared and shaken and angry. Angry that they could pretend so well that everything was fine when it obviously wasn’t.

-Luna and Radius decided to try a form of family counseling to try and help Stella. (They hated seeing their daughter so upset, but they knew in the long run that staying together would have damaged her further. She didn’t need to grow up with constant arguing and avoiding each other, that wasn’t a love story they wanted her to follow.)

-(They also explained the situation to Faragonda and promised to pay for the damages. Faragonda allowed Stella to return within the next school year if her progress with the counselor went well.)

-Stella, even though still upset with her parents’ divorce, was a bit more accepting of it after taking the school year to focus on them as a family. (Even one that was split.)

-Stella does have hope they’ll reunite, but she understands a bit more now why they split up. (And even though they are in separate palaces, Luna taking residence in the Lunar Sections now, she knows they love her very much.)

[power-house-fan12]

Updated version

I don't own any characters but Firefly

I don't own video

Hero name Firefly the artistic hero

Student name Kazami Hotaru

Class 2-A

Age 16

Birthday may 9

Height 5ft5

Weights 129 pounds

Hair color rosey pink long grudge to the waist then pixie cut

Eye color amber like flame

Blood type AB

Hero number 8866

Power 5/5

Speed 4/5

Technique 5/5

Intelligence 4/5

Cooperativeness 6/5

Hero type student

Fighting styles Savate, capoeira, gymkata

VoiceActor

English: Carrie savage

Japanese: Maaya Sakamoto

outfit pink and gold marching band hat, pink ,black, white with gold sleeveless circus top,  black daisy dukes shorts, black white short boots that turn into roller-skates, gray artesian gloves with show cuffs, waist bag, black kneepads

Winter outfit long dark pink tail coat performance jacket, white turtleneck, black pants.

Old costume black kanji coat, black pants with holes and her rollerblades

Quirk light

able to create different color lights coming out of her finger tips, she can draw in the air around her to create anything she wants if she puts effort into it it can come to like if she uses her body heat and controls them as well. If she uses too much of her quirk she will loose body heat and become cold from lacking of, if use in a big creation she will be burn.

From a young age Hotaru has a artistic mind with her quirk she inherited from her mom a pro hero go by as Miss blight, soon things change when her mom had developed cancer and her dad she hasn't seen before she was born so she believes it was her fault but then when she got her quirk she accidentally hurt her mom by burning her arm which made her upset about herself and isolating around her.

When she got older she uses her drawing as a excuse to escape from reality and begin to become depress she then decide to to become a hero by practicing her quirk in secret, learning gymnastics and taken upon rollerblading her mom saw how much better she was doing and then learn that her mom had finally beat cancer.

But one day after school in elementary school she went to visit her mom knowing it was the day she was discharged she then saw her mom outside with a hero hunter who has a bounty on her head, he then tell her that he has a bomb in the hospital he would make a Exchange her life for theirs, with the other pro heroes not being able what to do think about the others inside of the hospital, blight look to see her daughter giving her a sad smile and she went forward and to hotaru dismay she ran after her only to see her mom get a bullet through her head. Crying on her mom body she accidentally unleash a move on the hunter a weak one but can become powerful called holy light, the hunter was astonished at this and his mask was cracked revealing him and left but will remember her.finding out the bomb was a fake her sacrifice was all for nothing.

After the death of her mom she had no place to go she lived by herself in a small apartment where her grandparents paid for her rent she was heading down a deep depression, she went to the same middle school that kirishima and Mina went she became friends with kirishima, after hearing about the villain attack she was worry about them but soon Kiri and Mina had became distant from her due to them going to UA think he didn't have time for her anymore, soon during the night she would roam the streets looking and harming herself with her own quirk, soon she was in a bad situation where she was bullying by others she was then ran out of school after a fight occurred she ran from the school and confuse by Mina, her uncle who is Kumi wood found her in alley and help her get back on her feet.

She then went onto Kentsubutsu academy she was in a depression and want to try to get back on track but she didn't know how she try to put on a smile but it was fake. She then got her license after ms joke came back she did had a hard time making friends but she still kept going.

Soon she was place in the asylum along with the other children that were taken by widow with that she didn't know what to do but just stay out of the way with her quirk not being able to work, through the drugs and tortures she didn't know how much she can take, after the war ended some of the kids and herself were sure that they will never be rescued and soon begin to doubt this society. She was drawing on the walls in the asylum were she came across deku who saw her art work and amaze by it she just shrug it off but then during a fight he recognized her mom quirk and help her win with His strategize, soon Hotaru became close to the small group.

Soon when word got out that heroes were coming to save them she and the others decide to make a plan to get their cuffs off of them and then soon she was separated by the others and was out of the asylum only to be reunited with kirishima the attack by shard they we're having a hard time battling her, soon shard taunt to hotaru who then yells back at her spilling almost everything she went through causing her to create a flare around her nearly loosing control kirishima comes and hugs behind her apologizing for not being able to be by her side when she need him the most, with her mind straight she came up with an idea of him going unbreakable move to force on her with her light arrows him being the shield and her the archer they were able to break shard, after that hearing about widow being defeated it was finally over and hotaru was smiling for the first time in years.

After everything that happen she was on the half of the people who couldn't go back to their old school which she didn't care but she wanted a new start at UA so she decided to transfer.Soon she became part of the bakusquad along with namine, Hotaru started to become more joyous again and change everything her hero costume to being able to draw again which her classmate were impress with. Her quirk is becoming more brighter then before. Hotaru and Kirishama have rekindled their relationship and hopes it will grow better.

[waitineedaname]

davekat childhood friends remeeting in college au please,,,, my heart (also congrats!! you deserve all the love i stan you sm)

you have all my uwus omg

----

Going to college far away was fucking weird. Dave didn’t mind it, but it was just… well, there were pros and cons to his choice in higher education.

Pro: the school had a really great photography program.

Con: he was really far away from basically everyone he knew.

Pro: being so far away meant he didn’t have to worry about his Bro breathing down his neck anymore.

Con: no, seriously, like really far away.

Pro: his professors seemed decent so far and the dining hall was close to his dorm.

Con: oh god what the fuck was he thinking.

Okay, maybe he was overreacting a little bit. It wasn’t like he was completely cut off from everyone. John had agreed to Facetime him regularly, and Jade sent him tons of Snapchats from wherever far off place she was gallivanting through before she had to go back to school too. Rose was close enough that they could occasionally road trip and visit each other, but not close enough that it could be a regular thing. And hey, maybe he’ll really hit it off with his roommate or something, and everything will be okay.

He plopped himself down on the far side of his English classroom and pulled out his notebook. It was the first day for this particular class and it was only an hour long, so he doubted they’d be doing much else than going over the syllabus, but having his notebook out meant he could doodle and, subsequently, pay attention better. He was busy trying to draw a hyperrealistic eye over a ridiculously abstract SBaHJ mouth just to see what it would look like when the professor reached his name in roll call.

“Here.” He said, glancing in her direction before pulling out the syllabus so he could read over it while still doodling. Having a last name that started with S usually meant they were nearing the end of the attendance sheet by the time they got to him, so unless someone had a name that started with V or something, they were basically done.

“Karkat Vantas?” The professor said, and Dave’s head snapped up. Wait, what?

“Here,” came the raspy response near the door. Dave’s eyes nearly bugged out of his head. He’d thought maybe it was just a weird case of someone mysteriously having the same name as his childhood friend, but no shit, that was Karkat. He was like ten when he last saw him, so he looked a lot older and a hell of a lot more exhausted, but there was no mistaking him. Holy shit.

Dave barely paid attention the whole time the professor went over the syllabus, too busy trying to catch Karkat’s eye, but dammit, he was totally focused on what the professor was saying. He almost laughed at how little things had changed. Karkat was always the one hanging off their teachers’ every word, while Dave was the one with the undiagnosed ADHD trying to distract his best friend with whatever he had on hand.

He finally managed to tune back in to catch his professor saying something about how she wanted them to “really form a bond with your fellow classmates” and how they should “pair up with a classmate you don’t know so you have a buddy if you miss class or need help.” Dave damn near leaped out of his seat when she let them loose to socialize for the last ten minutes of class, and he made a bee-line to Karkat’s seat.

“Karkat.” He said, bouncing on his heels at Karkat’s table. Karkat looked up from where he’d been shoving his books back in his backpack and gave him a confused look.

“Uh, hi.” He said, giving him no sign that he recognized him. Dave panicked.

“It’s me!” Dave said, then immediately winced at his own vagueness. “Dave.”

“That… sure is your name.” Karkat was continuing to disoriented and more than a little annoyed.

“No, dude, Dave Strider. We went to elementary school together? You had those bigass glasses and I called them ugly on the playground because I was a stupid five year old with no sense of etiquette - not that I’m much better now, I guess, since this is probably the most awkward way I could’ve possibly reintroduced myself, but, shit, I’m getting off track. You threw mud at my shades and said now we both had ugly glasses, and then we ate lunch together like every day after that. Do-. Do you remember?” He faltered a little bit, worried this was an unfortunate case of mistaken identity. Karkat’s eyes widened cartoonishly as recognition passed across his face.

“Holy shit. Dave?!”

“Yeah, dude, the one and only.”

“Jesus fuck, you got tall.” Karkat commented, sitting back and looking him over.

“And you did not.” Dave teased, relaxed now that they were on the same page. He hopped up to sit to the side of Karkat’s desk. “How the fuck have you been, man? Where the hell did you even move to? It was like you disappeared off the face of the earth.”

“Basically.” Karkat snorted. “My dad got a job transfer out of fucking nowhere that summer and the whole family had to move. It sucked having to start all over in sixth goddamn grade, but whatever. I’m sure you weren’t too distraught at my absence since you had John.” Karkat added, gently shoving at his leg in a halfhearted attempt to get him off his desk.

“I mean yeah, John and I got hella tight after that, but it sucked losing my oldest friend.” Dave shrugged. Karkat gave him a skeptical look.

“You cannot be referring to me.”

“No, I’m referring to some other idiot I started hanging around when I could barely walk. Yeah, I’m referring to you, dipshit. We were like soul brothers, man. Joined at the goddamn hip. Two peas in one dumbass pod pretending to slay dragons on the playground. Or aliens. Or that one time your furry sister started reading those Warriors books and she convinced us to roleplay cats. How’s she doing, by the way?”

“Nepeta’s fine.” Karkat said, amused. “What, are you looking for someone to help you break out of your repressed furry state? Do you want me to draw you a fucking fursona?” He patted Dave’s knee and put on a condescending tone. “It’s okay, bro, I won’t judge.”

“I mean, are you offerin’? What’re your commission rates?” The look Karkat gave him was scathing. “Nah, I’m kidding. If I want furry art, I can just hit up Jade. What I am wondering is if you wanna maybe grab something to eat?” Dave asked, faux casual. “I dunno if you’ve hit up that burger place by the university union, but they’re not half bad, and their fries fucking kick ass. Like seriously, orgasmic level shit. I’d fucking live off of those fries if I could. I mean, I probably could eat nothing but overly seasoned fries until the day I die, but that date would be way sooner than it should be because I’ll have destroyed my digestive tract with salt. But, you know, you gotta make sacrifices for what you love, and I’m telling you, I really do love those fries.”

“Jesus christ, you really haven’t changed.” Karkat rolled his eyes. “Here I was hoping - no, praying that puberty might have forced you to finally grow a single brain cell, but I guess I should be used to my dreams being dashed and splattered to oblivion like someone took the most fragile, paper thin egg thrown against a brick wall. Oh, you see that tiny little dribble of yolk sliding down the most microscopic sliver of an eggshell? That’s the last of my hope for humanity leaking away because you’re still a goddamn imbecile.”

“Yeah, well, puberty finally helped you grow a jawline. Shit could cut diamonds. Uh,” Dave panicked, “Not that I’m checking out your jaw or anything. Fuck, that wasn’t even a good come back, goddammit-”

Karkat’s simultaneously exasperated and fond made his heart flutter just the tiniest bit. “Just take me to the fucking burger place, shitbrain.”

“Yeah, okay.”

Maybe he wouldn’t be too lonely after all.

[jkarma]

First = Last

Once there was a boy named Jeff, he was a smart kid who was really into learning and is fascinated by both the genres of math and science. In his elementary life, he was not a bad student, usually in the top 10 of the class if not in the top 5.  But there was a slight problem. He wasn’t having the best time since he was always being bullied verbally. This never got into him much and he thought that elementary was going to be the hardest thing ever, but this all changed when high school came along.

6-8-2016 

On the first day of class, Jeff felt excited because he knew that elementary was over and this is going to be a new step in life. And so it is. It’s like he was in a new school or something, and everything seemed new. Half of his classmates were either from the other sections or were from other schools, his teachers were all new and even the lessons are new! So the day went on, the English class was over and the Chinese class was coming. He wasn’t really a big fan of Chinese since he isn’t as good at it compared to English, but nonetheless he usually still gets to the top 10 of the class which is decent for him. But the one thing that really changed his life forever was the moment when he met a girl in Chinese class. He thought it was cool at first but eventually learned how “infatuation” works. Her name was Melanie. He found out that two to three other boys liked her too but this wasn’t a big issue for him at that point since he thought that education was still more important than “infatuation”.  A few months passed by, and he’s starting to like this girl even more! But they don’t talk much because they have totally different lives and he couldn’t tell anyone about it since he was scared and because his best friend likes her too. So he kept it for himself.  But not until it came to a point where he told Melanie exactly what he felt about her and nothing much really changed after that. He tried to talk to her a little more and even wrote letters to her, but then again, “We’re still too young, and education must be focused first.” He said. So he started to forget about her and focused on his studies like before.

3-10-2017

The 4th grading periodical examination is just around the corner and one evening, Jeff was studying Filipino. One of his hatest subjects. “Why don’t I check my Facebook for a moment, I’m sure it's not gonna take long,” he said. While scrolling on Facebook, Jeff saw a girl named Sarah who has more than 100 mutual friends. He then asked one of his friends about who this girl was, and his friend said that Sarah is one of their batchmates and had just transferred to their school this year. I sent her a friend request in the hopes of meeting a new friend, and with no surprise, she accepted it. They started talking in messenger and slowly became friends. Summer went on and they talked all day every day and they started to know way more about each other and started to become close friends. 

4-15-2017

It’s the middle of summer and things started to become boring. Fortunately for Jeff, Sarah was there to keep him company. Day and night they would chat and on this exact day, Jeff fell for her. But again, he was too shy to tell anybody so he initially kept it for himself. They kept talking and even became best friends at one point even though they have not met each other in person yet. Could this be it?

6-10-2017 

School is just 3 days away and Jeff is excited to meet his new teachers and maybe even new classmates and friends, but one thing he really was up about was to finally talk and meet Sarah for the first time. He even asked Sarah if they could like to talk sometime or hangout or something. I mean, he does like Sarah so why not become close to her personally? So he kept on encouraging himself to not miss out on this opportunity but...

6-13-2017

It’s the first day of class. Oh man was he excited for this day. “Time to be who I really am!” said Jeff. The first few subjects were great for Jeff, lunch was coming and he wanted to somehow talk and meet Sarah in person but it came to a point where he was too shy to even approach her. So this rendezvous of theirs didn’t push through and remained like that until around the third grading. But this didn’t affect him as much because school was still pretty busy. So when he started to gain some confidence, he asked Sarah if they could meet up somewhere and he thought that the library was the best place since they both liked books, and so they did meet the following day. It was kind of awkward as expected but it wasn’t the end of the world for Jeff, in fact, it was just the beginning.

12-10-2017

At this point, Jeff and Sarah were best friends but still don't really talk much in person. And a great opportunity was up ahead! It’s gonna be Christmas soon and of course, there was an upcoming Christmas party in school. Jeff wanted to give something to Sarah as an appreciation gift for always being there for him. He asked her what gift she would want, and she obviously denied that she wanted something and said that anything would be fine. At first, Jeff had no idea what to give to Sarah. He asked for help from friends and all, but he had no luck. After a few days, he thought of something that she might like and use, a watch.

12-15-2017 

The Christmas party went on, and Jeff had so much fun. Afterward, Sarah and her friends went out to hang out with one another. Jeff thought of this as another opportunity to get closer to Sarah in person, and so he went with them. Jeff’s best friend was also there so it wasn’t really a problem for Jeff to fit in. They went to a mall and did all these crazy things such as karaoke singing in Timezone. Before the day ended, Jeff noticed that Sarah wasn’t going with the others and instead will be going home with her family, Jeff then took that opportunity to at least try to get a picture with Sarah whilst it’s still possible. So they did take a picture and Jeff was as happy as he can be, but he almost forgot one thing.

1-4-2018

Christmas break was done and a lot of things happened the past 2 weeks. Well, in messenger, Jeff and Sarah still talked pretty much every day and all that stuff but they were starting to lose touch. “But why tho?”, asked Jeff and he did some investigation. After a while, he found out about this dude named Charles who likes Sarah too! Charles and Jeff were decent friends because they went to the same tutor the year before. “What a coincidence?” said Jeff. So he decided to give this Charles a chance to prove himself to Sarah because she promised Jeff that she would never like Charles back and that they would not end up being together. Days passed by and both of them became closer and closer, which scared Jeff a little bit. He had very supportive friends who stood by his side when he needed it, and this helped him a lot especially when he feels like a loser because of what is happening around him.

1-15-18

It’s Sarah’s birthday, and Jeff wouldn’t want to miss the chance of proving to her that he cares about her. He not only planned to make her a video, and give her a gift, but he also planned on giving her letters from the entire batch. As he was about to give the gift to Sarah, something tragic happened. He lost the P1,000 gift card from H&M that he was supposed to give Sarah, and it was nowhere to be found. He explained everything to Sarah and she said that it was okay.

1-31-18

At this point, Jeff and Sarah were still friends. But one day, Charles had authority over Sarah’s Facebook account and used it to keep her away from Jeff. How? By blocking Jeff in her account. Pretty smart, but it definitely was not good news for Jeff. Even though he knew that Sarah would never want him to be her boyfriend, he still wanted her to be his friend, his best friend.  Because of this, he was devastated. But after a while, he thought that maybe she might still unblock him sooner or later. Day after day, week after week, month after month, and still nothing. He started to forget about her because of this, and so blocking Jeff from her life might not actually be that bad after all.

5-14-18

Remember Melanie? Well, she was one of the main people who helped Jeff forget about Sarah and move on. Even though she knew that he once liked him, he still treated him as one of her best friends. At this point, Jeff has fully moved on from Sarah and just went on with life, but there was something missing. Jeff and Melanie continued to talk in messenger and got closer and closer. Eventually, he thought “This was the girl whom I liked before, why don’t I pursue this and maybe, just maybe, even get her heart?” He then thought “But Melanie isn’t allowed to have a boyfriend yet. Oh gosh, what am I thinking?! This will just hurt me, and I’ll be the one who’s going to be disappointed again.” He then stopped thinking about this and focused on his studies once again.

3-8-22

It’s their Senior High School graduation and all the effort that he had done all paid off. Jeff was the valedictorian of their batch and received numerous medals and awards all throughout. “If there was one award that I had missed, it would definitely be the award for love. But I guess it’s one of the reasons why I’m here right now so I might as well miss it and try again next time. This is just the first few steps in life, and there’s a lot more to go.” He said. After graduation, he approached Melanie and said something to her. This is how their conversation went.

Jeff: “Hey, Melanie. I can’t believe it’s graduation already ahhhhh!”

Melanie: “Yep, haha. Time really passes by so quickly.”

Jeff: “What are your plans after this graduation?”

Melanie: “Hmm, I dunno... Probably go to college? Hahaha.”

Jeff: “True. Haha. Remember the time when you said that because of a promise, you weren’t allowed to have a boyfriend until you graduate Senior High School?”

Melanie: “Yeah why?”

Jeff: “Well uhm, since we have already graduated, would you like to go out with me?”

Melanie: “Wait, what?”

Jeff: “Yeah ‘cause why not? Haha. You’re a very special girl and I just want you to be the girl whom I spend the rest of my life with.”

Melanie: “Thanks, but I don’t know.”

Jeff: “Come on Mel, we have known each other for probably 6 plus years now, haha, and I wouldn’t want to miss this chance because I don’t know if I’ll have the chance to ever meet you again. I like you.”

Melanie: “Uhm... I’m sorry Jeff, but I don’t think this is going to work out because I don’t really want to mess with your already “great” life. I’m just an ordinary girl, and I believe you deserve someone better than me. I’m not saying no but I’m doing this for you.”

Jeff: “Mel, don’t say that. You’re a wonderful and amazing girl. I don’t care what others think about you. All I know is that I like you because you’re you and nothing can change that.”

Jeff hugged Melanie for the first time and Melanie quietly said: “You’re the coolest person I’ve ever met and I would be more than willing to be with you.”

- Conrad

[therealconservative101]

Want To Put America First? Focus On Our Education

Our nation, like every other, has problems within our borders. While the media and elected officials across the nation portray our most important problems as a wall and governor’s yearbooks, we as a nation tend to ignore arguably the most important problem: our education. 

We have all heard numerous times in our lives: “children are the future”, and they truly are. The students sitting in school today are the future doctors, politicians, lawyers, teachers and artists. They are also the future carpenters, electricians, plumbers laborers, and mechanics. All of these jobs are necessary for our society to function. Yet every student is taught the same as if they are all going to have the same path in life, and that is just one of the many problems in our educational system. 

Everyone reading this has sat in a classroom for years and many can attest that school is not for everyone. Yet instead of focusing on students’ strengths, our nation approaches our education with a liberal arts mindset. Yes, we need our core classes like math and English but these subjects are focused on too heavily. Schools, in all levels of education across the nation, judge and rate our students on their performances in their cumulative grades in all core subjects as well as examinations in the respective subjects and this is not a true assessment of our students. The next mathematician in our country is looked down upon because he or she cannot remember how President James Polk acquired New Mexico. Just like how the future architect is judged for not remembering that the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell. 

A liberal arts education has its benefits, however it cannot possibly help most students. Our education needs to direct our students towards specific careers and fields based on the skills and knowledge they obtain and develop in elementary and middle school. Successful education systems all over the world use this mindset such as Germany. After World War II, Germany went through the Miracle on the Rhine which centered their funding not into their military, but into several domestic policy issues such as education and it truly paid off.

In Germany, children aged three to six, may opt-in to attend kindergarten. After that, school is compulsory for nine or ten years. From grades one through four children attend elementary school (Grundschule), where the subjects taught are the same for all. Then, after the fourth grade, they are separated according to their academic ability and the wishes of their families, and attend one of three different kinds of schools: Hauptschule, Realschule or Gymnasium.

The Hauptschule (grades 5-9) teaches the same subjects as the Realschule and Gymnasium, but at a slower pace and with some vocational-oriented courses. It leads to part-time enrollment in a vocational school combined with apprenticeship training until the age of 18. 

The Realschule (grades 5-10 in most city-states) leads to part-time vocational schools and higher vocational schools. There is also the possibility for students with high academic achievement at the Realschule to switch to a Gymnasium upon graduation.

The Gymnasium leads to a diploma called the Abitur and prepares students for university study or for a dual academic and vocational credential. The curriculum differs from school to school, but generally includes German, mathematics, computer science, physics, chemistry, biology, geography, art (as well as crafts and design), music, history, philosophy, civics, social studies, and several foreign languages. In recent years many states have changed the curriculum so students can get the "Abi" at the end of the 12th grade. Other city-states are making the transition but may still require a 13th grade.

This system provides different types of students with different skills and abilities with a more individual approach to education. This allows weaker students to focus on their best skills and pursue a career path where they can succeed, while allowing stronger students to garner more of the appropriate attention needed. It allows focus on different levels of intelligence in different ways unlike our educational system.

Our educational system actually does the opposite. Especially schools in urban areas of the country, our educational system suffers from a “Brain Drain”. The literal definition of this is the emigration of highly trained or intelligent people from a particular country. Focusing the term to our education, the “Brain Drain” takes highly skilled and intelligent students and places them in classrooms with students who struggle academically. 

We can see radical integration of intelligence levels in schools with the current mayor of New York City, Bill De Blasio. The mayor wants to abolish the Specialized High School Admissions Test. The mayor even wrote in an op-ed for Chalkbeat(an education website) “The Specialized High School Admissions Test isn’t just flawed — it’s a roadblock to justice, progress and academic excellence,”. The mayor and many other elected officials focus more on the students demographics then students capability. 

Another flawed integration of intelligence levels can be seen in “AP For All”. The name itself is the first of many problems in our education. Advanced Placement is not for everyone, in fact it is an opportunity for the students who are capable academically to take a college course in high school. While AP courses are a great addition to our schools, statistics show only 59% of the students scores showed they are qualified in the respective subject in 2018. Allowing deserving students into AP classes simply brings down the course itself once again harming the education of both the top students and the academically average or academically weak students. 

While there is a laundry list of problems with the courses and curriculum in our school system, a problem that is overwhelmingly ignored is the classrooms itself. Our classrooms are extremely outdated and shows how much we truly ignore the need for improvement in our education. We have been through two different revolutions between the past three centuries; the Industrial Revolution and the Technological Revolution. Despite society completely changing during these two revolutions, our classrooms seems to have changed the same. 

Our schools use bulk processing of students—lumping them by age and clustering them in groups of roughly twenty. Then, the desks in our classrooms are placed in rows that are directly parallel to the front of the room where the teacher stands showing the clear authority of the teacher. And finally, students hear a bell to know when to get up, and move on to the next classroom. 

This has been the way classrooms are made for centuries, so what is the problem? The problem is that the design of the classroom and some of the behaviors that go with being in it are based on past ideals. Schools were used during the Industrial Revolution for the sole purpose of preparing children to work in factories. Classrooms continue to be designed to simulate factories preparing students for the assembly line, not for the current real world. We have an unlimited amount of resources due to the rise of the internet. Times have changed and our classrooms need to change as well. Our classrooms need more technology and less students per teacher. The classroom also needs to become comfortable for the students to develop skills and attain knowledge. Our classrooms don’t need to resemble assembly lines. 

Our teachers are underappreciated and need the recognition they earned. According to the National Education Association, the average K-12 teacher earnings was only $58,353 as of 2017, which in fact is almost $3,000 less than 2010. To work so diligently and put so much dedication for the future of our nation, teachers should receive a salary that reflects the important work they provide. 

As a global leader, the United States should have one of, if not the greatest, education system in the world. Yet we disappoint our teachers and our students with an embarrassment of an education. The Trump Administration is halting any possible improvement of our education with his latest budget proposal. According to the White House, the Education Budget will have a $7.1 billion or 10.5-percent decrease from the 2017 enacted level. Our teachers need to be given the resources to make a proper curriculum and courses to allow them to teach as efficiently as possible. Our nation needs to provide our students with the necessary environment and resources to learn and develop. 

If our politicians truly want to put America first, they will reform our education system into an effective system. An effective system that works for all students. A system that will directly benefit our future blue collar workers and our future white collar workers. It will take time, and it will take funding, but our nation's future is priceless. 

[wannabemerida]

I had so much fun writing my first kid fic with the help of my beta, @heartthrobphilly  and basing it off of @bluevlvvt ’s artwork (the link above!) —— Word count: 2.6k Prompt: Phil offers to drive his friends daughter (lola) to her ballet lesson. he runs into a cute dad with his daughter rosie. he offers to drive lola to her ballet lessons every week after that. (slow plot development lol) Warnings: light cursing, angst —— It’s 3:02pm as Phil waits outside of Brookside Elementary School. According to Ian, Lola usually exits through this door and waits to be retrieved from the playground. So far, there’s no sign of the little blonde girl playing outside.

A shout of “Uncle Phil!” catches his attention and he turns around to the soccer pitch just in time to see the kindergartener running at him, embracing him in a hug when they collide. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m taking care of you tonight, remember? Your dad has a big business dinner, and your mom is in Wolverhampton for her job, yeah?”

“Ohhhhh, I just thought Grandma would be taking care of me again,” the six year old explains, not seeming particularly fussed.

“C’mon, let’s head home.”

Two hours later when Phil suggests they order Chinese to the brick house, Lola quickly shuts his craving down. “Uncle Phil, we can’t have Chinese tonight, Thursdays are always Kraft Dinner nights, dummy!”

“Hey Lola, are you done with your dinner? You have ballet soon and still need to get ready!” Seeing Lola’s face that has a bit of the cheesy noodles left on it from quickly scarfing down her meal, Phil grabs a paper towel from the roll on the kitchen counter.

“Yeah! Do you have my leotard?” Phil grabs the light green leotard out of the overnight bag that Lola had brought along, handing it to her with the napkin, (“Lols, you’re a mess!”) her slippers, and a pair of tights.

The drive to the Portner Ballet Studio takes about 15 minutes, with Phil accidentally hitting every red light possible. This causes Lola some distress, claiming that the five minutes she has before class “isn’t enough to talk to Rosie, and she’s the only nice one there that I like.”

Nevertheless, when the raven-haired man and his favorite “niece” enter the building, a small girl with fluffy brown hair immediately runs up to Lola and hugs her. “Rosie, this is my Uncle Phil!

“Lola! You’re finally here! Daddy said you might not be coming today because you’re normally here before me,” the brunette pauses, “but you’re here now, see, Daddy? I told you she would come!”

Phil is frozen. The man who walks up behind Rosie is the most beautiful person Phil has seen, and that’s saying something, considering that Chris Hemsworth exists. But no, the curly brown fringe, hazel eyes, tall, lanky stature, and his soft face (not to mention his monochrome aesthetic and “best dad in the world” travel mug) easily outrank even the likes of Thor.

“Um, hey?” Phil is snapped out of his trance, needing to be able to respond to the greeting. “You’re Lola’s uncle?”

“Well, um, sort of? I’m really good family friends with Lola’s dad, and so I’m kind of an unofficial uncle to her.” Had he been responding to anything else, Phil probably would’ve stuttered, but the number of times he’s had to explain the title makes it so he can explain perfectly, even in front of someone this stunning.

“I’m- I’m Dan.” The two men glance over at the young girls who are chattering animatedly.

“Oh, yeah, Phil Lester.” Dan holds his hand out for a handshake.

“Rosie’s my daughter,” he says quietly, but there’s no mistaking the fondness he has when he says it.

“I can tell, she looks just like you, without the black and white.”

“Oh, I guess we do? My parents keep saying she looks like, um, Angie-” Dan’s voice decrescendos as he gets further along his sentence.

“Angie … is Rosie’s mom?”

“Oh, um, yeah.” Phil’s heart drops.

“Cool.” Not cool. Dan has a wife. Dan had a kid. With his wife.

“Have you got any kids?” Dan asks, a light blush still visible across his cheeks.

“Ah, no, I didn’t have time to find someone in Uni and now I’m single with 2 masters degrees.” Phil unconsciously plots a way to make himself seem more interesting.

“What are they in?” Dan asks, looking genuinely curious.

“I got my first one in English language and linguistics, and my second in post-production editing.”

“What do you do with those? How do they fit together?”

“I’m a special effects engineer for Disney, and they don’t really fit together to be honest,” Phil pauses, “although I do make YouTube videos and that kind of meshes them together,”

“Wow, um, cool,” Dan stutters.

“So what about you?”

“Huh?”

“What’s your job, besides ‘best dad in the world’?”

“Oh, yeah, I’m stupid.” Phil giggles, thinking of how his father would reply with ‘Hi stupid, I’m dad!’. “But I’m a writer for Vogue and I dabble in fashion photography. It’s mainly just taking photos of Rosie if I’m being honest, but the photographers sometimes get sick and I end up doing the shoot.”

“Vogue? Like, the fashion magazine?” Phil doesn’t know much about fashion, but he’s seen the magazine numerous times in the Tesco checkout lane.

“Yeah, well, technically it’s British Vogue, but…”

“Yeah.”

There’s a calm but slightly awkward silence as the conversation loses direction. The two men avoid eye contact, not wanting to make it worse.

The silence is broken by Dan’s tenor voice. “So what films have you worked on?”

“I got to work a bit on Spiderman: Homecoming, but the Live-action Beauty and the Beast was pretty fun. You know the scene where the gold leaf comes off of the ceiling to go on Belle’s dress?” When Dan nods, Phil breaks out into a grin. “That was me.”

“Wow.” Dan breathes out. “After she saw that, she kept trying to put stickers on her ceiling in the hopes that they would transfer to her shirt. It was a nightmare.”

“Ah, sorry.”

“Nah mate, it was kind of funny as well. I’ve got a few photos that I’ll save for when she graduates.”

“She’ll love that,” Phil chuckles, and the deep, throaty sound makes Dan’s heart stutter. “So you’re into fashion?”

Dan blushes. “Yeah? I mean I can’t really afford any designers, but I’ll turn into a fanboy at times.”

“Why do they charge so much? Like, half of the suits these designers make look identical to something I could buy from a department store for thousands of dollars less.”

“Well, a lot of designers carefully hand-make every piece, whereas the stuff you get in a store has probably been made by a pre-programmed machine and poorly paid workers in a factory. There’s also differences in fabric types, quality, and origins. And, a lot of designers will tailor the suit to perfectly fit you for a slightly higher price. If you go to a department store-”

“I see what you mean when you say you turn into a fanboy, but thank you for the mini lesson on why celebrities are willing to spend so much money on a navy tux. Your insights are amusing.” Phil grins.

“Did you also know that navy suits are better investments than black ones? It’s because the blue fits into so many more settings than a black one.”

While Phil could watch Dan talk about his passions for hours, just watching and memorizing how the lines change across his face, and God, that dimple, Phil supposes his relentless staring would get a bit creepy. “So what are the ballet lessons like? I’ve only been to a few of Lola’s performances.”

“Oh, um, well, they spend the first 20 minutes warming up, and then they move to the barre where they practice a bunch of stuff that’s in French that I can’t remember, and then they start to go over the routine for their next performance.”

“What is it?”

“What?”

“Their next performance?”

“Yeah! Sorry, I’m stupid,” Dan blushes for what must be the fiftieth time since he first met Phil. “The studio is putting on The Firebird.”

“No! Um, I mean, you’re not stupid. I’m sure there’s nothing wrong with The Firebird. What is it about?” Phil has heard the name before, but only in the context of movie scores resembling Stravinsky’s composition. “It sounds kind of intense, doesn’t it?”

“Oh, um, I don’t know much, but from what Rosie’s told me, the firebird gets caught by a prince and when he lets her go she helps him defeat the magician to save some princess, but I’m pretty sure I’m missing like half of the plot. I would say to just Google it and not to go by my word,” The nervous laughter emitted by Dan makes Phil instantly worry that he might have made the brunet uncomfortable or misread Dan’s friendliness as a blossoming friendship when it might have been a ploy to gather gossip for the nosy ballet moms.

“Thanks, I think I’ll trust you on that.” Dan offers a small smile at Phil’s response, letting the two men fall into silence as they watch the group of young girls and 3 boys practice their pliés and dégagés. An hour and a half later, the children exit the studio and find their guardians to go home.

“It was nice meeting you, Phil,’’ Dan admits as Rosie and Lola exchange a goodbye hug. The six words send Phil’s heart into overdrive and he feels his cheeks heating up.

“Yeah, you too, Dan,” Phil replies, proud of himself for not tripping over his words. Looking back, Phil’s whole interaction was impressive, considering his track record of ending up injured in some way.

Last time, Phil wound up with a broken ankle, having paid more attention to the cute digital renderer than the set of stairs they were walking down. It wasn’t all for nothing, though, Phil having gained the cute man’s phone number. Not that that did much for his love life, finding out two days that the boy he had his eyes on was dating the very female gaffer of their most recent movie, but that’s not the point.

This time, nothing will happen, because a) Phil dropping Lola off at ballet was a one time thing, so most likely, he’ll never see Dan again, and b) Dan has a daughter, who is his genetically, which means he has (or had) a wife, all summarizing that no matter how cute the brunet is, Dan is straight.

Not that Phil’s brain will accept that Dan is off-limits as a possible partner. Over the next few days, the image of soft brown eyes, curly fringes, and lanky limbs continuously make appearances in the back of Phil’s head. The very effective distractions cause Phil’s co-workers to worry, and PJ’s repetitive “have you been sleeping okay?”s have driven Phil to the point of insanity.

The answer to PJ’s question is quite easily “no”, Phil having only slept well once that week (he refused to admit it but that was the night that he got off to the image of a faceless figure who looked suspiciously like the boy who wouldn’t leave his head.)

By Wednesday, Phil was fed up with his brain’s reaction to not having seen Dan since the previous Thursday. Pulling out his phone, he does the only thing he can think of to satisfy his hungry mind. He calls Ian.

“Phil? Do you need something?” is the answer he gets when Ian finally picks up.

“No, um, I was just wondering, would you like me to take Lola to ballet again tomorrow?” Phil looks at the lines he had written down on a notepad, an effort to keep himself from going into a 20-minute rant about how in love with Dan he is.

“Sure, I guess? Why are you offering?”

“Just thought that you and Pam could use a break,”

“Oh, okay then, thanks! Same as last week?”

“Sure! Talk to you later!”

Phil’s convinced that his squeal of excitement was the reason that the people who lived across the street turned their lights on and not the fact that their smoke detector went off. He probably set that off too, in hindsight. And caused the stove fire.

23 hours later, Phil finds himself standing inside the dance studio again, surrounded by shrieking kids, chattering parents, and the faint sound of the top 20 radio playing in the background.

“Mister Phil! Where’s Lola?” Rosie pulls on Phil’s sleeve, stopping when she sees her best friend walk out of the bathroom.

“Why, Miss Rosie, she’s right there!” Rosie giggles, pulling out of a hug with Lola.

“I know that now, silly.” She and Lola run into the studio, eager to get to do the optional partner stretches before class starts.

“Are you Lola’s father?” A woman dressed in a skirt suit and heels walks up behind Phil.

“Oh, no, I’m just a family friend. I occasionally take Lola to ballet to give her parents some alone time.”

“Ah.” The woman sticks her hand out for a handshake. “I’m Angela Wright, Rosie’s mom.”

Had there been a small creature under it, Phil’s heart would have killed it from the speed at which it fell. He knew that Rosie had a mom, that Dan had a wife, that Dan wasn’t available. So why did it still hurt so much?

“Oh, cool,” Phil responds a moment later, his voice considerably deflated.

Phil’s unspoken question is answered right as it pops into is head. “Dan contracted the flu, and is stuck at home in bed, which is why I’m here this week. I’m normally responsible for taking Rosie to taekwondo while he takes care of ballet lessons, but that evidently won’t work this week. Honestly, it’s just like Dan to get a winter disease in the middle of summer.”

“I was going to ask about setting up a playdate between Rosie and Lola, but…” Angie trails off.

“Yeah,” Phil nods in understanding, not liking this woman any more than he did a minute ago. “I’m gonna go sit down.” No response comes from the woman, but Phil’s not particularly bothered.

Maybe he should be nicer to the wife of the man he’s stupidly trying to woo, but he just can’t. How is he supposed to be nice to his competition, who’s already clearly won?

When he vaguely notices the ballet instructor make a big motion with her arms, Phil decides that watching a group of five and six year olds is an adequate distraction from the turmoil in his brain. After 10 minutes of watching the kids do various tasks, jumping and prancing around the room, he zones off.

“Uncle Phillll, come onnnnnnn!” wakes Phil from his trance, no longer seeing the ballet students in the studio but now milling around the lobby and leaving. “Class ended like, forever ago! Can we leave? I wanna go get ice cream!”

A quick look at the clock told Phil that class had only ended 5 minutes ago, but to an antsy six-year-old, he supposed that could feel like an eternity.

“Lola, we aren’t getting ice cream. I’d rather not have your parents be mad at me for loading you up on sugar, right?” The small girl pouts but grabs Phil’s hand, dragging him to the car.

While it was easy getting Lola into her car seat, getting her out was a whole other task. It took Phil, Ian, Pamela, a blanket, 2 stuffed animals, and a lullaby to successfully remove the sleeping child out of the carseat, into the house, and onto her bed where she could sleep without interruption.

Once he was back in his car, Phil sat in the driveway, resting his head on the steering wheel, regretting ever offering to take Lola to dance lessons at all. Remember back in college when all those crushes were single? You fucked up, bud.

[reylo-solo]

a secret admirer

(rated G; 3536 words)

A Reylo Valentines AU from a cute prompt left by @nite0wl29 where Ben leaves secret Valentines cards in Rey’s locker! Thanks for the prompt, beautiful! I hope you all enjoy the adorableness! Happy Valentine’s Day, reylos! ❤

Read it on AO3.

10-20-30-40.

The lock opened into her palm with one firm pull. Rey slipped it out of its place and pulled her locker door open.

She was expecting to find nothing unusual inside her locker when she opened it, because it was her locker. No one knew the combination to get inside besides her. What else should she be expecting besides the same, small magnetic calendar that was two years out of date, but which she was keeping for the cute photos of kittens? What else, besides the little Polaroid pictures of her and her friends? Or the drawing she’d done of a horse that she was still quite proud of. Or the overdue library books, which were shamefully stashed away in the back, behind her textbooks and binders.

No, she did not expect to find any surprises when she opened the door. And yet, there was one, taped to the inside of her door so that she couldn’t possibly miss it.

A card, hand-made with fine, recycled stationary, decorated with gold leaf accents. Her name was printed in beautifully flowing calligraphy on the front, the ink a beautiful navy blue colour. She gasped as she saw it, and the fact that someone had been in her locker didn’t even hit her, so struck was she by the simplistic beauty of the thing.

Carefully, she pulled off the tape which secured it to her door and, leaning into her locker a little, opened it inside.

The same flawless lettering greeted her, along with something that completely shocked her: a hand-drawn portrait of herself, done in graphite and charcoal. In the drawing her hair was pulled back into her signature triple-bun style, and particular care and attention had gone into adding each freckle that graced the bridge of her nose and her cheekbones. Her eyes were downcast; her lashes, long and dark, casting a shadow over her cheeks. It looked like she was studying something, but there was a hint of a smile there upon her penciled lips, as though she had heard something amusing a minute ago. Whoever had drawn this had watched her intently for a little while. They had to share a class with her, she thought.

The other half of the card’s interior was dedicated to a brief but lovely message, which began quite eloquently with the opening stanza of Lord Byron’s “She Walks in Beauty”:

She walks in beauty, like the night

Of cloudless climes and starry skies;

And all that’s best of dark and bright

Meet in her aspect and her eyes;

Thus mellowed to that tender light

Which heavy to gaudy day denies.

-         Happy (almost) Valentine’s Day from your secret admirer.

P.S. I hope you like the portrait. Though it can never compare to the real thing.

P.P.S. You should really think about a more challenging lock combination. That was far too easy.

            It took Rey another few minutes before she even began to realize how much her cheeks hurt from smiling. She closed the card and clutched it to her chest. She’d never gotten a Valentine like that before! Or at least, she’d never gotten one that didn’t have a cute bear or cartoon character on it, and those certainly never had romantic poetry included with them.

            “Lord Byron…” she murmured to herself.

            They must be in my English class. We just covered Lord Byron’s work a few days ago…

            But…who was it?

            She spent the next two days trying to puzzle it out on her own. This also meant that she had paid little to no attention in her English class since receiving the mysterious Valentine. The entire time her eyes had been secretly jumping around the room, as though she could catch someone staring at her, and maybe doodling in their notebook at the same time…

            She ruminated the possibility of it being any number of people, but none stood out to her. She even thought about it maybe being her best friend, much to the detriment of her own anxiety, but then she remembered that Finn can’t draw, and he certainly can’t do calligraphy like that. No, it couldn’t have been him.

            It was almost maddening, trying to figure it out. She began to second-guess herself. Maybe the Lord Byron thing had been a fluke. Maybe it was someone in her history class, or math. Maybe it was janitor Bob for all she knew.

            Rey was starting to feel down on her luck when she opened her locker between fourth and fifth period and something fell out, gliding down to land perfectly atop her shoes. She bent down to grab it and her heart skipped a beat.

            Another Valentine! Written on the same paper! Oh, and the writing is the same…

        There was no poem this time; instead she found a personalized message just for her:

            Rey,

Still can’t puzzle it out, can you? That’s okay. I’m not giving you very many hints, am I? Maybe I should change that for you. I’m a male in your English class, if the Byron poem wasn’t a big enough clue. We’ve had lots of classes together over the years, but you’ve probably never noticed me before, not like I’ve noticed you.

I saw you looking for me the other day in class, though. You weren’t very sneaky about it, but I didn’t mind. You looked right at me for the longest second of my life, and I thought maybe…maybe you saw it in me, but you didn’t. It’s a good thing – I’d rather you see who I am outside of class anyway.

        Speaking of, Valentine’s Day is only a week away. Think you can guess who I am by then?

-         Your secret admirer

He had gifted her another portrait. This one was done faster than the other, and he’d left it looking half-finished, but she liked it like that. He’d captured her mid-laugh, with that cheesy smile of hers. He’d even gotten her dimples right. Even though his pencil had spent the briefest of time on this page, he’d created something which Rey thought was even prettier than the real thing.

“Whatcha got there?”

Rey jumped and the Valentine slipped from her hands. She bent fast to pick it up but another hand had caught it before she had a chance. Rose Tico’s eyes widened as they saw the beautiful calligraphy on the front of the card, addressing it to Rey.

“Oh, wow…what is this?” Rose inquired. She waggled her eyebrows suggestively at Rey. “You’re already getting Valentines? What am I saying…of course you are, look at you.”

“I-it’s nothing,” Rey excused, trying to grab for the card to no avail. Rose kept twisting away, keeping it just out of Rey’s grasp. “Can you give it back please?”

“Who’s it from?” Rose grinned broadly and opened it up, her eyes hungrily skimming over the message. She gasped. “A secret admirer?!”

“Shh!” Rey demanded, finally swiping the card away from Rose now that she was distracted enough. “Say it a little louder why don’t you, I don’t think everyone heard…”

“I can’t believe you have a secret admirer! That’s so exciting and romantic!”  Rose squealed, in a much quieter tone. “Who do you think it is? And am I mistaken, or does that message sound like you’d already gotten one card from him?”

Rey sighed, looked at her friend, and figured she had not one hope in hell of keeping this secret any longer. Besides, she thought, she could use the help figuring out who the mystery man was. So, she dug around in her schoolbag and produced the first Valentine, allowing Rose to read it, provided she keep it close to her person so no prying eyes could look over her shoulder and see.

“Wow…this is beautiful,” Rose whispered. “That drawing is…wow…”

“I know,” Rey said, swiping the card back and stowing it safely away, along with the other one.

“Who could it be, though? He said he was in our English class…”

“Yeah, I have no clue,” Rey groaned. “I’ve been trying to figure it out since I got the first card and I’ve gotten nowhere since.”

“Hmm…well, two minds are better than one. Let’s go grab some lunch and Nancy Drew this shit, shall we?” Rose offered Rey her arm, which Rey happily took.

“Let’s.”

The two settled themselves in a secluded area of the cafeteria, safely away from prying eyes or ears. First, they had to remember all the boys in their English class, which took much longer than they thought it would. Once they’d recalled mostly everyone (there were a few relatively new kids whose names they couldn’t remember, and so they were referred to as ‘boy with really thick glasses’, ‘boy who wears the same jacket everyday’ and so on), they began to break it down individually. This too was a little tougher than they had anticipated, once they eliminated all the boys they knew to be in a relationship. They were left with about ten viable options after that, and they had to go through each one and decide if they fit the bill or not.

Rey eliminated four of them right off the bat, either because she couldn’t stomach the thought of them leaving romantic notes for her, or they truly didn’t seem the type to think romantically, let alone write in beautiful calligraphy and make lovely sketches. Then there were a couple who hadn’t said more than one word to Rey since elementary school.

Suddenly, Rose gasped and made a low ‘ohhh’ sound.

“What?” Rey demanded. “What is it?”

“What if…no, he wouldn’t…or would he…?”

“Spit it out, Rose!”

“What if it’s Ben?”

Rey went still. Her eyebrows shot up in surprise but she didn’t move or speak for a moment. Rose was monitoring her reaction with keen interest.

Ben Solo. Tall, dark, with a boyish grin, he was alluring in the most unique of ways. He had thick raven hair and deep, soulful brown eyes; his strong, broad frame was built for endurance and power. But he hadn’t always looked that good. Rey remembered a young, gangly boy, with messy black hair and a pasty complexion, whose ears stuck out a little, running around the playground during recess with his toy spaceships, playing games with his friends.

It had been that little boy who Rey had opened her crying eyes to when she had fallen off the swing and hit her head in second grade. He’d been standing over her, blocking out the sun, and offering her his hand.

“Hi, are you okay? Do you need me to get the teacher?” he’d asked, and his voice had had a minor lisp, because he was missing two of his front teeth.

Rey had sniffed and wiped away her tears, not caring if the sand and dirt smudged on her cheeks. She remembered feeling flattered as she had taken his hand and allowed him to help her up. She hadn’t wanted a teacher to come over, and so he had offered to sit with her for the remainder of recess, until her tears stopped falling. And so they had sat together by the swings and talked and laughed until the bell rang, and by that time Rey’s head had stopped hurting, and she had long ago stopped crying.

“Ben…?” Rey whispered to Rose after mulling it over for a moment. “No…no, it couldn’t be. I haven’t had a real conversation with him since…middle school, I think.”

“So? He seems like the type to pine over a girl,” Rose argued. “You know, I’m sure there’s a proper gentleman beneath that surly exterior.”

“But he has lots of friends. Some of them are girls, even.”

“Again, I ask: so? He’s single, isn’t he?”

“I-I don’t know.”

“Hm, well, I’m just saying. If I had to bet on it being anyone, I’d bet on him.”

Hmm…

*

She didn’t receive another card until Valentine’s Day, and even then she didn’t receive it until the day was almost over and she was cut straight through with anxiety.

During that time between card two and card three, Rey had tried desperately not to convince herself that it was Ben writing them to her, but it was tougher than she anticipated. She’d continuously catch herself absentmindedly referring to her secret admirer as Ben, and then she’d proceed to mentally slap herself for doing so. She hated getting her hopes up; she’d had them crushed too many times in the past.

But she was powerless against the idea that it might be him. The thought of him bent over a desk that looked far too small in comparison, his dark locks falling over his brow and tickling the bridge of his long nose, as he penned her part of a Lord Byron poem and sketched her image just made her feel giddy for some reason. It made the cards even more flattering, and she found herself looking at them repeatedly, reading and re-reading their inscriptions.

She also had found herself watching for Ben, something she hadn’t really done before. She’d constantly be looking past someone’s shoulder, or looking over her own, trying to spot him. Every now and again she’d hear his distinct laugh or his deep, warm voice, and she’d stand up a little straighter and fix her hair.

She hated it.

It felt like he had some kind of control over her. Only he seemed capable of making her palms that clammy. She’d find herself getting annoyed at him from a distance. Who does he think he is? Walking around in his dark wash jeans, with his hair all messed up like that, smiling that goofy smile. What have you done to me, you evil, handsome snake…

One of these times, when she was viciously cursing him in her head, her eyes had actually locked with his across the school courtyard. It had just been for the briefest of moments, but in that time it felt like all the sound was sucked from the world and everything around them stopped moving. Rey’s heartbeat hammered in her ears, steady and loud. There was something there, in the space between them. Something visceral and real and tender.

Or maybe it had just been wishful thinking.

And it was that kind of doubt which had fuelled her panic on Valentine’s Day when she arrived to her locker in the morning, after having practically ran the entire way there, only to find no card inside. And it didn’t help when Rose kept asking after every period of she’d gotten it yet, and Rey kept having to answer with ‘no’.

So when she got to her locker, fully exasperated and confused, at the end of the day as everyone else was scrambling to gather their things and get the hell out of there, and found a letter taped to the outside of her locker, she nearly squealed in excitement.

This one was safely kept in an envelope (which she tore open quite quickly). There was no drawing in this one, only an urgent message:

Meet me in the theatre, right now.

She didn’t even put her books back in her locker. She took them with her as she raced past the swarm of bodies towards the theatre at the back of the school. Her heartbeat was pounding in her ears and every person who got in her way came perilously close to having their toes viciously stepped on.

This was it, she thought to herself. The mystery was finally coming to a close. She was going to find out once and for all who had been behind all those letters. She was going to see who her Valentine really was.

She braced herself when she got to the theatre doors, taking a deep breath in before pushing them open. Her nerves almost had her trembling.

She walked into a mostly-dark theatre. The only light was a silvery glow angled at the stage, where an old piano sat. Upon its bench was a person, playing its keys slowly and a little awkwardly. Rey didn’t realize she was holding her breath.

Oh my god. It’s him.

The door closed with an echoing click and the piano music abruptly stopped. Ben stood, all six-foot-two of him, nearly knocking the piano bench over in his haste. His eyes landed on hers, all the way across the theatre, and his hands rubbed themselves upon the thighs of his jeans.

There it was again – that crackling in the space between them, like a field of exhilarating static.

“Hi.”

His voice echoed, too; its deep, nervous lull drew her instantly closer. She walked down the aisle towards him, one step at a time, until she had reached the stairs up to the stage. Once there she paused, staring up at him as if she couldn’t quite believe he was really there – and a part of her certainly couldn’t believe that. But the rest of her was internally screaming because, damn it, she knew it!

“Hello.” She said, her voice strangely quiet even to her own ears.

He leaned down and offered her his hand. She appraised it for a moment, her eyes roaming over its lines and freckles, before slowly, temptingly, taking it. Their fingers wound around one another and held on lightly. She took the steps up to join him on the stage.

Suddenly their bodies were very close together. She could feel his warmth and smell his entrancing scent. Her eyes travelled up to his face, and she thought her heart was going to jump from her chest when she saw those deep brown eyes lingering on her; looking at her like they never wanted to look at anything else again.

“So? Are you surprised, or did you puzzle it out on your own?” he asked slowly.

“I…had my hopes up that it would be you,” she answered shyly.

He smiled that incredibly handsome, boyish smile, and it was just for her. She couldn’t help but giggle and smile back.

After a moment, she couldn’t help herself from asking, “Why me?”

“Why you?” His eyebrows raised in surprise. “I thought you’d know.”

She tilted her head, puzzled. “Know what?”

“Ah…do you remember back in like, second grade or whatever it was, when you fell off the swing?”

She blushed. “Yes, I do. You helped me up and wiped away my tears.”

“Yeah, and we spent the rest of that recess talking,” he smiled warmly. “I don’t remember exactly what we talked about…probably silly kid stuff. But, I do remember thinking you were pretty, and that you should never have to cry like that.”

“Even then?” she whispered.

“Even then.”

“Then why…why now?”

“Because…I suck. I spent all these years with a crush on you that I could never move on from and I…I was way too nervous around you because of it. I still am, but I just…well, it’s our senior year, so I thought it was now or never. And I realized I really, really couldn’t stand the thought of it being never.”

Rey hadn’t realized until just that moment that they had been slowly getting closer and closer together. When her chest brushed against his she couldn’t help the gentle gasp she made, or the steady pounding of her heart when he didn’t move away.

One of his fingers brushed a lock of her hair away from her face and she wondered, in that brief moment when his skin made contact with hers, if he could feel the heat he’d created upon her flesh. Did he know what he was doing to her? The undeniable nervousness in his shining eyes said yes, he knew firsthand.

“If I never got to see you like this, if I never got to be alone with you again…I think I’d go mad,” he continued, his voice a softly rasping whisper. “If I never got to kiss you…”

“Then do it,” she begged, daring to place her hands delicately upon his chest. “Kiss me, now.”

His fingers trailed along her jaw as he lowered his lips to hers, and she held his hand there, as she felt the roughness of the stubble on his cheek with her other. His lips were soft upon hers at first, and alluring. He was clearly allowing himself to enjoy every tiny moment of their kiss, and it was so romantic of him, but she couldn’t resist the insatiable pull she felt within herself. She wanted more.

Her fingers threaded themselves into his hair and pulled him closer, holding him there, securing him before her. The feeling of his hand travelling down her side and slipping around her waist almost made her moan. It felt like the world was finally giving her everything she’d ever asked for, and she felt equal-parts thrilled and stunned that it had been right in front of her this entire time.

When their embrace finally ended, they looked at each other through half-lidded eyes filled with stars.

“Happy Valentine’s Day,” Ben whispered.

Rey chuckled and let her head settle on his chest. His arms wrapped protectively around her and she felt as comforted as she had that day on the playground.

“Happy Valentine’s Day, Ben.”

[baromtm-blog]

⋆ ╰  another  year  at  hollingsworth  ,  another  year  of  the  big  six  rivalry  .  i  hear  that  BAROM  BANG  is  ensuring  PHI  GAMMA  IOTA  gets  a  solid  pledge  class  and  stays  at  the  top  of  the  ranks  . oh  ,  you’re  not  familiar  with  HIM  ?  ROMY  is  the  KIM  YUGYEOM  look  alike  from  CHARLESTON  ,  SOUTH  CAROLINA .  apart  of  PC  ‘16  ,  he  is  majoring  in  FINE  /  STUDIO  ARTS  and  has  plans  to  DEBUT  HIS  ARTWORK  AT  A  RENOWNED  MUSEUM  after  undergrad  .  it  makes  sense  they  pledged  their  house  ,  their  SAGACIOUS  &  CHIVALROUS  attributes  make  them  perfect  matches  .  however  ,  their  PUERILE  &  CONCUPISCENT  attributes  keep  their  name  alive  on  greek  rank .  if  you  don’t  catch  them  dancing  to  PLAYING  GAMES  -  SUMMER  WALKER  at  a  fraternity  band  party  this  year  ,  you’ll  be  sure  to  catch  them  nursing  their  morning  hangover  at  THE  LOFT  APARTMENTS  . cheers to  another  wild  semester  !

          hi  babies ,  it’s  ares  again  with  another  muse  !  he  is  a  slight  mash  of  the  chara  i  was  originally  gonna  bring  to  the  group ,  but  decided  that  i  like  this  version  much  better  !  i  won’t  talk  your  ears  off  about  myself  or  anything  since  i  know  this  intro  is  about  to  be  ...  how  do  i  say  ...  lengthy  as  it’s  very  background  /  family  history  heavy .  but  as  always ,  i  can’t  wait  to  write  with  everyone  (  again  !  )  and  i’m  not  ashamed  to  admit  that  j*stin  b*eber’s  ‘ journals  ’  helped  a  lot  with  muse  lmao . i’m  also  a  complete  IDIOT  who  reblogged  the  same  gifset  twice  but  i  refuse  to delete  it  because  yugyeom  is  beautiful ,  don’t  fight  me  on  that .

trigger  warnings :  detailed  talk  of  religion ,  minor  mentions  of  death ,  poor  writing ,  and  sugaring .

korean name  :  bang  ba-rom .

preferred spelling / arrangement  :  barom  bang .

nicknames  :  romy  /  romey  and  romeo  (  by  his  older  sister  only  ) . 

birthday  /  age  :  february  14th ,  1998  /  21 .

zodiac  :  aquarius .

pronouns  :  he  /  him  or  they  /  them .

gender  :  genderfluid .

sexual  orientation  :  bisexual .

romantic  orientation  :  biromantic .

height  :  6′0″  (  six  foot  ,  zero  inches  ) . 

hometown  :  charleston ,  south  carolina .  (  click !  )

current  location  :  savannah ,  georgia .

nationality  :  korean - american .

ethnicity  :  korean .

languages  spoken  :  english ,  korean ,  japanese ,  elementary  latin ,  and  conversational  mandarin .

bang  family  inspo  :  the  greenleafs  (  greenleaf  )  ,  the  gemstones  (  the  righteous  gemstones  )  ,  and  the  osteens .     

          𝖎𝖙  𝖜𝖆𝖘  𝖙𝖍𝖊  𝖘𝖚𝖒𝖒𝖊𝖗  of  1958  when  𝑘𝑖𝑚  𝑗𝑖-𝑚𝑖𝑛  was  born  in  sydney ,  australia  to  dong-wook  and  sook-ja ,  immigrants  from  seoul ,  south  korea .  the  family  was  small ,  but  loving  as  it  was  fueled  with  love ,  patience ,  and  the  parents’  love  for  the  lord .  ji-min  grew  up  in  a  home  that  was  religious ,  but  not  to  the  extreme ,  as  she  was  expected  to  go  to  bible  study  on  wednesdays  and  attend  service  on  sundays .  dong-wook  and  sook-ja  were  pillars  of  their  community  --  they  hosted  potlucks  after  service ,  always  had  small  cookouts  whenever  they  felt  the  need  to ,  and  they’d  give  the  clothes  off  of  their  backs  if  someone  needed  clothes .  overall ,  the  kims  were  the  neighbors  that  everyone  wanted ,  so  everyone  around  them  was  crushed  when  the  kims  decided  to  leave  behind  australia  for  the  states  --  specifically ,  south  carolina .

          𝖙𝖍𝖊  𝖋𝖆𝖒𝖎𝖑𝖞  𝖔𝖋  𝖙𝖍𝖗𝖊𝖊  settled  in  the  city  of  charleston ,  south  carolina  and  during  this  time ,  dong-wook  and  sook-ja  came  up  with  the  idea  to  open  their  own  church .  so ,  in  the  late  1960s ,  songbird  church  was  born .  of  course ,  the  congregation  was  small  (  as  was  the  church  building  itself  )  and  the  kims  paid  their  way  through  divinity  school  in  order  to  become  pastor  and  first  lady  respectively .  through  the  years ,  the  congregation  at  songbird  began  to  grow  to  the  point  where  they  were  able  to  purchase  a  bigger  building ,  and  the  kims  were  once  again  pillars  of  their  community .  during  this  time ,  ji-min  met  a  member  of  the  congregation  named  𝑏𝑎𝑛𝑔  𝑗𝑜𝑛𝑔-𝘩𝑦𝑢𝑛  who  was  only  a  year  older  than  the  then  fourteen  year  old .  the  couple  dated  for  four  years  before  getting  married  in  1982 ,  about  four  months  after  ji-min  turned  eighteen .

          𝖜𝖎𝖙𝖍  𝖙𝖍𝖊  𝖉𝖊𝖛𝖊𝖑𝖔𝖕𝖒𝖊𝖓𝖙  𝖔𝖋  technology ,  it  was  the  start  of  1986  when  songbird  was  first  televised  and  thus  changed  from  songbird  church  to  songbird  ministries .  dong-wook  and  sook-ja  drew  in  a  large  amount  of  viewers  through  their  channel ,  and  it  was  soon  that  they  were  moving  their  church  once  again  to  a  bigger  building .  ji-min  and  jong-hyun  decided  to  head  off  to  harvard’s  divinity  school  to  help  run  the  church  as  co-pastors .  soon,   the  televised  services  were  being  given  in  english ,  spanish ,  and  korean ,  one  of  the  first  churches  to  do  so .  three  years  later ,  ji-min  and  jong-hyun  welcomed  their  first  child ,  𝒏𝒂-𝒚𝒆𝒐𝒏 ,  in  the  winter  of  1989 .  after  the  birth  of  na-yeon ,  the  bangs  were  soon  having  the  second  child ,  a  son  named  𝒋𝒊-𝒄𝒉𝒆𝒐𝒍 ,  in  1993 . 

          (  death  tw  )  𝖘𝖔𝖓𝖌𝖇𝖎𝖗𝖉  𝖒𝖎𝖓𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖗𝖎𝖊𝖘  𝖍𝖆𝖉  𝖎𝖙𝖘  first  tragedy  when  dong-wook  passed  unexpectedly  from  a  heart  attack  in  1995 .  considering  that  dong-wook  and  sook-ja  never  had  any  other  children ,  the  position  of  lead  pastor  was  given  to  ji-min  and  jong-hyun  was  considered  to  be  the  ‘  first  husband  ’  of  the  church .  sook-ja  took  on  the  role  of  co-pastor  as  she  was  getting  older ,  and  would  often  lead  women’s  retreats  and  things  of  the  sort .  three  years  after  dong-wook’s  unexpected  death ,  jong-hyun  and  ji-min  welcomed  their  third  baby ,  another  son  named  𝒃𝒂-𝒓𝒐𝒎 .  it  was  a  year  later  when  sook-ja  decided  to  formally  retire  from  songbird ,  leaving  the  church  in  the  hands  of  jong-hyun  and  sook-ja .  the  two  of  them  brought  new  ideas  to  the  table  and  soon ,  the  church  grew  even  more  than  it  had  in  its  near  30  years  that  it  had  been  open .

          𝖎𝖓  𝖙𝖍𝖊  𝖘𝖕𝖗𝖎𝖓𝖌  𝖔𝖋  2000 ,  the  final  bang  baby  was  born ,  a  healthy  baby  girl  named  yuna .  the  family  continued  to  hold  high  positions  within  their  community ,  and  everyone  knew  their  names  wherever  they  went ,  and  in  the  fall  of  2008  the  family  opened  the  doors  of  the  songbird  ministries  campus ,  where  they  were  able  to  seat  16.9k  congregates .  by  this  time ,  na-yeon  was  attending  duke’s  divinity  school  with  aspirations  of  becoming  a  co-pastor  at  songbird  while  ji-cheol  was  a  youth  pastor .  so ,  where  did  that  leave  little  ba-rom  ?

          𝖋𝖗𝖔𝖒  𝖆  𝖞𝖔𝖚𝖓𝖌  𝖆𝖌𝖊 ,  barom  knew  that  he  didn’t  want  to  be  a  part  of  songbird .  while  he  did  love  the  church  and  everything ,  he  knew  that  being  a  pastor  wasn’t  in  the  cards  for  him .  much  like  many  middle  children ,  barom  felt  like  he  was  often  overlooked  or  ignored ,  so  his  parents  didn’t  really  pay  much  attention  as  he  did  what  he  wanted  to .  it  didn’t  help  that  na-yeon  would  often  cover  for  him .  barom  was  the  child  who  only  embraced  his  church  boy  image  when  it  was  necessary  for  him ,  and  when  he  reached  high  school  and  would  often  find  himself  sitting  across  from  the  principal ,  his  favorite  phrase  was  ‘  don’t  you  know  who  my  parents  are  ?  ’   barom ,  even  though  he  was  often  overlooked ,  was  ridiculously  spoiled  by  his  parents .  during  his  summers  away  from  charleston ,  he  was  often  spending  time  at  the  family’s  summer  house  in  the  hamptons  or  when  winter  break  rolled  around  he  was  jetting  off  to  the  aspen  mountains  for  some  snowboarding .

          𝖉𝖚𝖗𝖎𝖓𝖌  𝖍𝖎𝖘  𝖞𝖔𝖚𝖙𝖍 ,  𝖇𝖆𝖗𝖔𝖒  had  an  affinity  for  the  arts ,  particularly  fine  arts .  he  liked  going  to  museums ,  he  enjoyed  getting  new  art  supplies  for  christmas  or  his  birthday ,  and  he  often  took  home  first  place  whenever  he  entered  into  his  school’s  art  competitions .  this  explains  why  after  he  graduated  from  high  school ,  he  began  to  look  into  art  programs  at  various  schools .  the  summer  before  attending  college  (  ultimately  at  hollingsworth  u.  )  barom  goes  off  to  italy  to  take  a  summer  long  art  course .  he  was  staying  in  venice  and  spent  most  of  his  days  sketching ,  painting ,  and  making  memories  until  he  encountered  a  man  a  few  years  older  than  him .  at  only  twenty  six ,  the  man  was  wealthy  and  liked  to  flaunt  it ,  especially  with  a  wide - eyed  barom .  they  spent  time  on  the  man’s  yacht ,  partying  with  other  wealthy  italian  locals .  funnily  enough ,  at  that  time ,  barom  only  wanted  one  thing  from  the  man  --  his  money .

          𝖔𝖋  𝖈𝖔𝖚𝖗𝖘𝖊 ,  𝖇𝖆𝖗𝖔𝖒  𝖈𝖔𝖚𝖑𝖉  pay  his  own  way  and  do  whatever  he  wanted ,  but  there  was  something  about  being  able  to  bat  his  eyelashes  and  make  someone  weak  in  the  knees  that  made  him  feel  powerful .  in  essence ,  barom  had  become  a  sugar  baby ,  and  he  was  perfectly  content  with  that .  no  one  could  tell  him  no ,  and  boy  was   he bratty  if  they  even  attempted  to .  the  summer  comes  to  a  close  and  he’s  back  stateside  to  attend  his  first  year  of  college ,  and  all  goes  well .  during  this  time ,  barom  decides  to  pledge  phi  gamma  iota ,  the  epitome  of  nice  boy  frats ,  but  barom  was  nothing  close  to  a  nice  boy .  during  his  second  semester ,  barom  became  involved  with  his  second  sugar  daddy ,  a  rolling  in  dough  man  in  his  forties  who  was  bound  to  take  over  his  father’s  oil  company  in  texas .  the  man  was  on  vacation  in  savannah ,  ga  (  with  his  wife ,  no  less  )  when  he  encountered  barom  at  a  lively  nightclub  in  town .  he  may  have  only  been  eighteen ,  but  barom  soon  had  the  man  tipsy  and  wrapped  around  his  finger ,  whispering  sweet  nothings  into  his  ear  while  getting  what  he  wanted . 

          𝖙𝖍𝖊  𝖗𝖊𝖑𝖆𝖙𝖔𝖓𝖘𝖍𝖎𝖕  𝖈𝖔𝖓𝖙𝖎𝖓𝖚𝖊𝖉  𝖊𝖛𝖊𝖓  after  the  man  returned  to  texas ,  but  that  didn’t  stop  barom  from  going  to  live  his  best  life  in  new  york  over  the  summer .  once  again  he  spent  time  focusing  on  his  art  in  a  new  city ,  but  he  also  found  himself  playing  the  same  tricks  on  a  man  in  his  thirties ,  who  became  trapped  under  barom’s  thumb  with  only  a  few  kisses  on  his  neck  and  his  skilled  usage  of  his  ‘  fuck  me  ’  eyes .  out  of  the  sugar  daddies  that  he’s  had ,  the  one  from  new  york  was  the  only  one  that  he  had  ever  been  intimate  with .  to  barom ,  this  one  was  a  bit  different  for  whatever  reason  and  the  two  decided  one  night  to  go  out  to  an  upscale  club  in  manhattan .  the  two  sipped  alcohol  until  the  early  morning  hours ,  soon  leaving  the  venue  so  wrapped  up  in  one  another  that  they  missed  the  paparazzi  lingering  outside  (  did  i  forget  to  mention  that  his  man  was  ahem  ...  ~famous  ?  ) .  so  anyways ,  some  risque  photos  of  the  couple  get  taken  due  in  part  of  these  fools  not  letting  up  the  window  to  their  car  (  nothing  bad ,  but  let’s  just  say  that  barom  looked  as  though  he  was  thoroughly  enjoying  himself  ) .

          𝖙𝖍𝖊  𝖌𝖚𝖞  𝖊𝖓𝖉𝖘  𝖚𝖕  ending  their  relationship  when  he  gets  blackmailed  for  them ,  and  maneater  barom  had  his  heart  broken  for  the  very  first  time .  thus ,  when  he  returns  to  #hworth  for  his  junior  year  ,  barom  avoided  getting  another  sugar  daddy  for  an  entire  year .  he  focuses  on  his  fraternity ,  schoolwork ,  and  really  buckles  down  on  his  art .  his  junior  year  goes  well ,  but  an  old  dog  won’t  learn  new  tricks ,  so  the  summer  before  his  senior  year ,  barom  picks  up  his  fourth  (  and  most  current  )  sugar  daddy ,  a  guy  who  lives  in  buckhead ,  atlanta  and  honestly  don’t  ask  me  why ,  but  i  picture  him  as  a  young  matthew  mcconaughey .  again ,  DON’T  ask  me  why .

          𝖆𝖘  𝖋𝖔𝖗  𝖍𝖎𝖘  𝖕𝖊𝖗𝖘𝖔𝖓𝖆𝖑𝖎𝖙𝖞 ,  barom  is  quite  wise  for  his  age ,  and  he  partly  blames  that  on  the  fact  that  he  grew  up  in  the  church .  if  you’re  in  need  of  some  sound  advice ,  he’s  your  man ,  but  he’s  gonna  beg  you  not  to  ask  as  well .  despite  his  sugaring  ways ,  he  is  also  very  independent  and  likes  to  do  things  on  his  own .  his  family  may  have  provided  him  with  the  best  of  things  ranging  from  maids ,  butlers ,  and  a  slew  of  foreign  cars ,  but  he  liked  to  do  things  on  his  own .  he  found  doing  his  laundry  or  washing  his  dishes  after  dinner  as  quite  therapeutic ,  and  he’s  still  the  same  way  to  this  day .  negatively  speaking ,  barom  can  be  very  childish ,  but  i  would  say  leaning  more  on  the  bratty  side .  as  a  man  who’s  used  to  getting  his  way ,  being  told  no  will  turn  him  into  a  pouty  baby  in  no  time  and  he’s  the  worst  because  i  swear  he’ll  sit  in  the  middle  of  the  floor  and  pout  until  someone  says  yes .  he  can  also  be  lewd  in  his  speech  and  it  mostly  stems  from  the  fact  that  he  is  extremely  confident  with  his  sexuality .  it’s  even  worse  when  he’s  had  alcohol  --  this  is  when  he  gets  more  relaxed  and  he’s  more  likely  to  start  turning  those  sweet  nothings  to  tender  touches  and  soft  kisses .  also ,  you  should  know  that  he’s  the  biggest  blackpink  stan  so  if  you  hear  him  blasting  their  music ,  chances  are ,  he’s  wearing  a  face  mask  with  his  hair  pulled  back  by  a  pikachu  hair  band  and  living  his  best  life .

as  for  most  wanted  connections  :

i  would  really  love  the  drama  of  someone  figuring  out  that  he’s  a  sugar  baby  and  holds  it  over  his  head  all  the  time  ?  and  barom  always  is  whisper  yelling  at  them  to  not  tell  anyone  or  his  life  would  literally  be  ruined .

hmm ,  i  think  it  would  be  interesting  for  him  to  have  a  crush  because  he  wouldn’t  know  what  to  do  with  himself .  he’d  be  a  little  awkward  baby  around  them  with  blushed  cheeks  and  probably  stuttering  all  the  time  ....  i  need  it  !

i’m  literally  so  desperate  for  an  angsty  friends  with  benefits  or  ex  friends  with  benefits  because  i’m  such  trash  for  plots  like  these  it’s  not  even  funny .

um ,  i’m  also  down  to  brainstorm  or  work  based  on  chemistry  but  i’m  really  excited  to  plot  and  interact  with  everyone  again  ! 

[purplesurveys]

535

What is your favorite thing to do on your phone? Tweeting, looking at my photos, or more recently, playing Mario Kart Tour hehe. Do you know what you are going to be for Halloween this year? If so, what? I dunno if we have plans for Halloween this year. I don’t really want to spend my money on a costume either. Do you still go trick-or-treating, and if so, how old are you? I do it for some years. I think the last time my friends and I did it though was 2015. Gabie’s sisters trick-or-treated last 2017, but we just accompanied them.

Which Disney princess resembles you the most? Physically? Moana would probably be the closest. Which fairytale seems closest to your life story? I don’t really like fairytales so I don’t know enough of them to identify which one I could possibly relate to.

What color was your first phone? It came in a red Winnie the Pooh skin when my parents got it for me. Was your first phone a flip phone? Nah it was the old Nokia 3310. My third phone was a Sony Ericsson flip phone. Have you ever butt dialed someone? Nope, but I’ve called people in my sleep haha. What is your favorite pizza parlor? Pizza parlors aren’t a thing here; we just have Italian restaurants in general. My favorite place that serves Italian food is Mama Lou’s. What is an old website that closed down that you miss? TWITPIC. I posted so many photos there from 5th grade which was my favorite year of elementary school. I have no idea how to retrieve them since the site shut down around five years ago. I’d be happy even to find out my pictures just floating somewhere around the internet; I just don’t want them gone forever. If you're a girl, have you ever had an embarrassing period story? Yeah, I was in PE class two months ago and was doing sit-ups when my partner looked at me nervously and she said I had a huge stain on my shorts. I had to do the rest of the workout in denim, ripped jeans. ...If so, what happened? ^ That. What was your worst experience in high school? Not having friends and struggling to know who I was and what I wanted. What was your high school's mascot? Meh my school doesn’t have one. How much did your senior prom dress cost you? A few thousand bucks. I didn’t take my prom seriously so I didn’t want my parents to shell out too much for my dress. Do you listen to Grace VanderWaal? I know a couple of songs of hers and I admire her, but I’m not a rabid fan. ...if yes, what's your favorite song of hers? The song she sang at her AGT audition has always struck me. I think I’ve cried every time I came across it. Do you watch America's Got Talent? Nah I only watch the really viral ones and the golden buzzer bits. Which country has the best accent? I can’t distinguish or identify English accents but I reeeeally like the way Tanya Burr sounds when she speaks. That’s an accent I really like. Oh and the one Claire Foy uses in The Crown; I’m not sure if that’s her natural accent but anyhow that one sounds pleasant too. Which country's flag do you like the best? The ones that go outside the box, like Nepal and Switzerland. Libya’s old flag (all-green, no design) was a bit interesting too. Did you cry at your high school graduation? No. I cried the days before. By the time of my grad I think I was just elated to finally finish high school and excited to finally be out with Gab. Did you cry at your college graduation (if applicable)? I haven’t reached that point yet but I have a strong feeling I’ll be trying not to cry the whole time, because my dad plans to be there and he’s never been to any of my graduations yet. Do your parents try to stop you from chasing your dreams? No. I know they support me so long as they know I can handle whatever it is I want to attain. What dreams have stuck with you since childhood? Going to the moon, fighting a fire, having a job that involves caring for animals. Oh and stepping in a wrestling ring. Who is a former friend that you wish would come back into your life? Sofie. She’s still a friend, but I’ve seen her like twice in the last three years. Sad, considering how ridiculously close we were in high school. Have you ever been in a serious romantic relationship? Yes. Who was your favorite Spice Girl? Uh I was too young to ever be a big fan. Did you ever want to be in a band or music group? I wanted to learn how to play the drums, but I didn’t actively aspire to take up a career in music or be in a band. What instrument did you play in the marching band? If you could take any one type of dance class right now, what kind you take? I’d love to go back to ballet. Who got kicked off of your favorite talent show that you were mad about? Pia Toscano and Siobhan Magnus from American Idol, without a doubt. Do you own the entire series on DVD of any TV show? If so, what? My dad got me Seasons 1 and 2 and a bootleg pack of Seasons 3-8 of Perfect Strangers. What show did you always want to be on when you were a kid? Hi-5!!! I always wanted to be a part of that crowd of dancing kids. I had no idea they shot everything in Australia, and that just because they air the show in the Philippines doesn’t mean the studio is also located here. Can you tell the difference between Mary-Kate and Ashley? No, I never paid that much attention to them. I know they dress nicely though. Who is your favorite set of twins? Les Twins! They’re Laurent and Larry, dancers who’ve performed with Beyoncé for the last several years. What is the stupidest baby name you have heard recently? Stupid is kinda harsh...but a weird name I’ve heard of would be Luckysia. I can’t even begin to think where that came from. What is the grossest thing you have ever vomited up? OMG I dunno...straight-up vodka, I guess? I don’t look at the things I throw up lmao. Have you ever thrown up in public, in front of someone else? Yep. ...If yes, was it embarrassing? Very. I haven’t gotten that drunk since. Did you ever take your dog to school? No as pets aren’t allowed in my school. Name one person you know who had a baby in high school. I don’t have a batchmate who gave birth while in high school, but there are several who have since had kids while in college. If you had had a baby in high school, what would you have named him or her? I’d probably have named a girl Audrey and a boy Gino, because those were my favorites back then. I still like the name Audrey but now I’m not so sure if I’d still want it as a first name for my kid. If you had a baby now, what would you name him or her? Olivia. Dunno what name I’d pick for a boy. Do you make lists of names that you like? Yes, but it’s a list for girl names only hah. Do you keep a list of your favorite quotes? Nope, I don’t like living by quotes. Describe your dream wedding in three words. Lots of: flowers, people, food. What is your favorite Chinese restaurant? The Shang Palace in Makati Shangri-La. Does Chinese food make you feel sick? Nope. It’s part of our culture so it would be unusual to get sick from Chinese food. I know it spoils quick, though. Have you ever seen someone throw up on a plane? Nah I’ve only seen that in Mr. Bean haha. I’ve seen more people get dizzy and throw up in boats/ships. Do you get motion sickness? Yes, mostly in cars, and especially if it isn’t my parents driving. Has God ever healed you of anything? If so, what? Do you believe in God? Do you pray, and if so, to whom? What is the most boring church you have ever attended? All of them. What is the most lively church you have ever attended? Do you find church fun or boring? Boring as fuck, but that’s because I’m a nonbeliever and am only forced to go because my mom is a crazily devout Catholic who makes sure her whole family catches church every Sunday. When was the last time you went to a church service? Last Sunday. When did you learn to ride a bike? I never learned :( A couple of years ago my dad tried to teach me and I was able to retain my balance for like three seconds, but I was never able to repeat it. What do you hate the most about summer? When it gets too boring it’s usually easier to fall into depression or negative thoughts in general. What is your favorite thing to do in a swimming pool? Just float in the water and relax. Which part of your body is the most muscular? I don’t know. Do you like sugar skulls? I’ve never encountered those before, so no.  Have you ever painted a sugar skull on your face? Nope. Are you an artist? I am not. Did you ever take Latin in school? No, but we were briefly taught French in Grade 1 because my school's origins is in France. They didn’t keep up the lessons, though. What was the last race you ran called? Idk, does Mario Kart on my phone count? Hahaha Do you prefer to run in the street or on the sidewalk? I prefer to...not run at all. Which major holiday is closest to your birthday? Easter Sunday, typically. Does your zodiac sign fit your personality at all? I don’t care. What is your zodiac sign? Taurus.

[phantumpoftheopera]

Having a “gifted” sibling really sucks

Apologies for the length of this, but it's something that I've struggled with voicing for a while now.

I see posts all the time about how hard it is for "gifted" kids and of course there are plenty of studies about how hard school is for students who struggle academically as well, but you know what I never see?

Posts about how hard it is for the siblings of "gifted" kids.

I wonder why that is, honestly. And it bothers me, as a sibling of a former gifted kid. And here's why.

When I was a kid, I was "smart." I knew I was. I was a little full of myself, probably. My brother and I were both praised for our intelligence by family members all the time.

But something changed when I was entering fourth grade (he was entering second).

See, his first grade class had done some testing to see if any of them qualified as "gifted and talented" enough to qualify to go to the new magnet program at a different school the next year. He was one of the three in his class who got in.

And I was jealous. And once I found out I could also take the test to see if I could get in, I wanted to. I begged my mom to let me take the test. And she did. And I did not get in.

I was not "gifted" enough.

And so then, at the age of 8 (because I had not yet turned 9), I realized the difference between me and my brother. And I was jealous. And that jealousy would haunt me for a long time, and yes, continues to this day.

When he had to leave the magnet program at the end of second grade, partly because he missed his old friends, but mostly because the teacher required all assignments to be printed from a computer, which was hard for us as a family that did not own a computer until I was in middle school, I was happy. I felt guilty about it but I was happy, because it meant he was no longer "special." He was the same as me.

But he wasn't. Not really. And as years went on, not being gifted like he was hurt more and more.

Like most gifted students who aren't challenged enough academically, he slacked off. His grades were bad because he wouldn't do homework. It was a waste of time to him. He would finish assignments in class and then read a book the rest of the class instead of finding something else to do. You know, the typical gifted child burnout stuff.

Our grades were pretty similar. I did my homework more, paid more attention in class. I got mostly A's in my classes throughout elementary school. And I got praised for it. Even when I didn't get an A, it was okay because I was doing things to the best of my ability. But when he got a B, he wasn't living up to his potential.

It wasn't an intentional slight against me. My parents didn't really know what they were subconsciously teaching me. Until recently, I didn't consciously think about it either. But I learned that no matter what I did, he would always be better. My former teachers praised his abilities in ways they never praised mine, always with the caveat that he would be so successful if he just applied himself more.

Middle school came. For the first time, I almost failed a grade. A lot of things contributed to that, mostly unrelated to any of this and a lot to do with switching schools midway through the year and being bullied. My parents actually paid attention. For once, I got the "not living up to my potential" speech. This continued into seventh grade, back at my old middle school, because I had fallen into a habit of not doing homework because if my brother didn't have to, why should I? We were still in different schools. He was still in fifth grade at this point.

Then in eighth grade, suddenly, we were in the same school and I had to try again. I had to be better. Only now, I was behind. I had been "smart" before. I was still in honors classes. But now I didn't know how to study. I didn't know how to take notes. I hadn't bothered learning any of that before. And while my grades improved, I had unknowingly sent myself into a spiral I couldn't escape.

After two years of horrible grades (I actually failed math in sixth and seventh grade), the fact I was now getting Bs and Cs was enough to please my parents. An A made them ecstatic. But we were back to the old days of my grades being "the best you could do" and "at least you tried" while my brother's similar grades were "not applying himself" and "laziness."

Deep down I wanted to shout at them, to tell them that this was NOT the best I could do! I didn't try at all! But there was a lot of other stuff going on at home and it was my job to be as accommodating as possible and not act out in any way.

Instead, I wanted to prove myself, to them and to myself, and start fresh in high school. For the first time since my first term in sixth grade, I had straight As again in my freshman year. I could do it. I was finally the "smarter" kid.

But my brother still got the academic attention. My mom started asking me to type up my brother's papers for him if he dictated them. I liked writing, so of course I would agree. She acknowledged it wasn't fair to ask that of me, but I did it anyway. But God, I resented myself for agreeing.

Tenth grade was okay, I think. I had an English teacher I hated and my stubbornness won out, earning me a C in both English and Journalism that year (he taught both classes) but overall I did well.

And the rest of high school, well...I didn't really attend classes much. A lot of factors went into that. And I didn't do my homework as often as I should have. But it wasn't because of my brother by this point. I just didn't expect to live past 18 anyway or go to college, so what was the point? I have a lot of regrets about those two years, especially regarding college, but...well...it's in the past.

And college was a struggle too, since I never learned to study or take notes or manage my time. It's still a struggle, even now, after I somehow finished undergrad and am a grad student. I still can't take notes well. A lot of it is mental illness, because I mean...depression makes doing assignments very very difficult most days. But a lot is also this sense of inferiority, that there's no point since I'll never be smart enough.

I know it's not true. Intelligence does not determine your value. Being good at something or not does not determine your worth. But living your life always comparing yourself to a sibling (in my case, a younger sibling especially) who gets praised for things you thought you were good at when he doesn't even put any effort in (a college professor we shared praised an essay he wrote that he barely tried on, he got a better score on the writing section of the SAT, etc.) is discouraging. I know now that comparing yourself to someone else, even a sibling, is unfair to yourself and that person, but it's a habit that's hard to break.

Basically, I wish people would pay attention more to how hard it is for the "ungifted" child, the one who is smart but not "smart enough" to get special attention. It's so easy for those kids to get swallowed up without anyone ever noticing or caring because all the attention is given to those who shine the brightest.

[wardoftheedgeloaves]

China Story Time II: Learn Programming and Epidemiology the Very Hard Way

I haven’t posted more than two installments of my promised series on Chinese historical linguistics and dialectology. In lieu of progress on it, please gather round the campfire and enjoy this entirely unrelated story about the time I taught the summer camp from hell in Shenzhen. (Dialectology tie-in: we once had a cabbie who only [?] spoke Canto.)

I wish to emphasize that this story has not been embellished.

Summer in China is a sultry and slow-paced affair for the private-school English teacher--you stop teaching seriously in late May, school gets out in late June, and you don’t have to be back until early September. Your pay is good enough that you’ve got savings to last you the summer, but you could always use a bit of spare cash. Unless your social situation is good, your isolation (and the weather) doesn’t help your work ethic too much. Your life is lived at tea houses, reading thinkpieces and books and procrastinating on writing more thinkpieces and working on your Mandarin and getting around to that damned monograph. (Alternative English-teacher mode: hit the bars prowling for locals who may or may not fit within the (n/2)+7 rule, demolish a couple of six-packs’ worth of alcohol, hit the hay at 2:30 in the morning, wake up at noon, repeat. I was luckily never this much of a degenerate.)

As in the US, the affluent Chinese parent often sends their offspring to summer camp for some educational enrichment and peace and quiet at home. So it was that a recruiter offered me, and another English teacher (we’ll call him...Nick) in Chengdu, the chance to earn 7000 kuai (~$1050) each teaching programming in Shenzhen. A class in the morning from 9-12, repeated from Monday to Friday, with a chance for a second week in Lu’an, Anhui. Plane tickets and accommodation included, other details vague. Technically illegal--you’re not supposed to do any work outside of the job sponsoring your visa--but nobody cares about summer camps.

To learn programming, the students (and we) are provided with little inch-by-inch-by-inch plastic cubes with wheels called “Pocket-bots” or something of the sort. These are actually rather nifty little gadgets. You connect to them with your phone or computer in a spacious computer lab (or so the brochures say) and click and drag instructions to create and run programs. E.g., you might tell the bot to go forward for 10 seconds at speed 10, then check to see if it was on white (rather than black) paper, and sing a little song if it is, then turn left and repeat. The software allowed you to do if-loops, for-loops, and while-loops at the very least, which is pretty good for small kids. Satisfied that we would have the equipment needed to teach the class, we packed our Pocket-bots and arrived in Shenzhen on a sticky, hot, sunny July morning.

Now, a word on Shenzhen. In 1978 when Deng took the wheel, Shenzhen was a sleepy little fishing village of thirty thousand people whose only interesting feature was that it was right next to Hong Kong. This made it perfect for the early-80s experiments in capitalism, and over the next four decades it exploded (it now has 12 million people and a standard of living on par with Western Europe). As a result of its early rise to wealth and power, it’s home to the first private school in China, founded 1994. However, private schools in China tend to be boarding schools, and boarding schools tend to be out away from the city center where land is cheap and distractions are relatively few.

So this place is in the middle of nowhere, or as close to the middle of nowhere as it’s possible to get in the Pearl River Delta. It’s surrounded by forested mountains (Guangdong is surprisingly hilly). It’s about 95 (35) degrees, humid as hell, and in direct sunlight--July, south of the Tropic of Cancer. We’re in the kids’ dorm rooms (luckily we each get our own private dorm room with a private, cold-running shower.) We drop our bags, wash up, and go meet the kids.

And it turns out that a fifth of them are Americans! You see, this wasn’t just a programming camp--it was also an English and cross-cultural experience camp. Approximately 15 high-school kids from Florida and California were being flown out, all expenses paid, to be big-brother/big-sister with the Chinese kids, who were in late elementary school. The chaperone (we’ll call her Margaret; in fact I can’t actually remember her name, but it definitely wasn’t Margaret), the mother of one of the kids, was thoroughly perplexed--but, hey, a free trip to China.

So Nick and I go and look at the teaching rooms (this is about one in the afternoon). These aren’t the sparkling, spacious computer labs we saw on the website, oh no. We have a couple of primary school classrooms no more than about five meters by six, with laughably tiny kindergartner-sized chairs and tables. There’s a smartboard, which we can barely get to run and which we can’t connect to our computers to show the programs the kids are supposed to run. There’s no free access to the wifi. Instead, we have to get our teaching assistants to put their login credentials on every single device that needs to connect to the wifi--and since you have to have wifi to connect to the robots, well. In other words, it’s going to be a s***show, and we’ve got five mornings of it ahead of us.

We know the inevitable talk/confrontation with our boss/program coordinator is going to be a disaster, so we leave for a few hours to try and find a six-pack of Tsingtao. Remember how I said this was in the middle of nowhere? It was in the middle of nowhere. We walk out of the gates for a full kilometer (possibly more; the road meandered, and the terrain was by no means flat) past construction sites and dense forest bordering on jungle until we finally, finally reach an air-conditioned convenience store nestled between auto-repair shops, low-rise tile-walled tenements, light industry and eight-kuai noodle parlors. (Those of you who have been outside of a major city center in China will know the kind of neighborhood I’m talking about--not dangerous, by any means (except for the traffic), but boring, sprawling and not overly prosperous.) But they have beer, and we knock back two each along with a good liter of water.

We have a chat with the supervisor at about 9 o’clock that evening while the kids are engaging in...god, I don’t even recall. I think the Chinese kids were in bed, while the Americans were playing cards and vidya. Now readers who have spent much time in China or with Chinese organizations will know that it is a faux pas in China to admit fault, and an even bigger faux pas to play hardball to get somebody to admit fault. The result, usually, is deflection--our supervisor didn’t know about any of this, it wasn’t her fault, she would ask her boss to try and improve things.

(I don’t wish to come across as too hard on Chinese culture here. I think this is really a situation where American and Chinese culture are doomed to clash, and clash badly. If you fuck up in the US, you’re supposed to admit fault and apologize, at least theoretically--deflection and white lies are infuriating on the receiving end and the natural reaction is to start tearing them apart to get an admission of contrition. In China, the convention is often that you tell a white lie or deflect to save face--and if the other person you’re talking to is Chinese, they’ll often accept that even if it’s not really believed. The result in Chinese-American communication can be an arms race, where the American will get ticked off at the deflection and perceived dishonesty and start playing hardball, which prompts more deflection. Looking back on it now, it was clear that trying to play hardball with our supervisor was pointless--we were never going to get good computer labs or WiFi, and the only thing to do was to figure out something to do. But knowing that we’d at least theoretically been hired to teach programming, we endeavoured to do our best. (Remember, between flying all the Americans over and the company’s profit, the Chinese parents were getting fleeced.) Nick had recently discovered the stern precepts of Jordan Peterson after catching herpes-type-2 (that’s the bad kind) of the mouth from a liaison with his dermatologist, and reminded me that it was our duty to do the best we could by the students.

Day one: Monday.

There are about 70-75 kids in the program between the Chinese and the Americans, so we have about 35 each at least in classrooms of about fifteen square meters, sitting on tiny little kindergarten chairs at tiny little kindergarten desks (not so much of a problem for the Chinese elementary-schoolers, much more uncomfortable for the American high-schoolers). Our teaching assistants spend most of their time in the back playing on their phones after they’ve set the WiFi on each device, which takes about an hour to get worked out. (Remember, three-hour class with a fifteen-minute break). Each room has an underpowered air conditioner which succeeds in reducing the temperature from the mid-30s C to the upper 20s (from about 92 to 78 in freedom degrees) if the windows are closed, at the cost of any breezes.

And we run into the first problem. Your device uses WiFi to connect automatically and effortlessly to a nearby Pocketbot. That’s not a problem when you’re in a spacious computer lab with ten other people and a strong signal. When you’re in a tiny little room with thirty-five other people and a network that wouldn’t have been out of place in the last years of the Clinton administration, well. 

Some kids couldn’t connect to their bot at all. Others were controlling four robots at once with a single device. Some were able to stay connected through the session, others’ internet kept crapping out every ten minutes.

After an hour and twenty minutes of this, we call a twenty-minute break.

easternestablishmentarian: “What the fuck do we even do?”

Nick: “No idea. Start in on the basic ideas of programming. Have the teaching assistants translate.”

We do. The teaching assistants are not all that happy about having to play translator, particularly since their English isn’t very good and the concepts are, well, complicated! I had some success in doing the teacher-as-robot routine you see in intro programming classes, where you have to tell the teacher exactly what to do (Keep going! *teacher-bot crashes into wall*), and extended this up to about half past eleven by making it a group activity where the Chinese kids had to direct their American big-sibling robots around the room. We spent about another fifteen minutes trying to do something, anything, with the robots--remember, we couldn’t show our laptop screens on the smartboard, which didn’t work, so we had to draw the program with chalk. At about 11:45 we just call it quits and let them leave for lunch early.

Right after lunch (which, incidentally, was extremely strange--the cafeteria staff had been instructed to try to make some sort of Chinese-Western fusion, with results like spaghetti with both tomato and soy sauce. If only they’d just stuck to good local dishes, of which there are hundreds, but oh well...) we call an emergency meeting with Margaret.

Margaret: You guys aren’t going to bail on us, are you? I have no clue what’s going on.

Me: No, but it’s clear that there’s no way to do programming and the kids’ll hate it. Let’s just do a regular summer camp.

Later that day we go back out for more beer and sketch out a plan. We don’t have WiFi or devices worth a damn, so electronics are off. However, we do have a campus of at least twenty or thirty acres filled with small fields and six-story dorms and classrooms connected by a labyrinth of walkways. (During the school year, the school is home to about three thousand students, all boarding, so it’s the size of a couple city blocks at least.)

We call a meeting with our supervisor.

Nick: This isn’t working. We can’t do programming.

Supervisor: Well, do you have any other ideas?

Nick: We could do sports and games.

Supervisor: Oh, I think that will be wonderful!

(Nick, later: “How much are these parents paying again?”)

Day two: Tuesday.

We start with Sardines, which degenerates into chaotic hide-and-seek but keeps them occupied for a good hour and a half. The teaching assistants are sent to look for athletic equipment like basketballs, which they’re not too happy about. Midway through break we run out of cups.

Us: “It’s 35 degrees outside and we don’t have enough water. There are only two water dispensers for 80 people and no more cups.”

Teaching assistant: “Oh, well, we didn’t know we would run out. I don’t know where the water is, maybe they can bring some tomorrow.”

Us: *sigh*

We discover that some air-conditioned buses (dlory! dlory! hallelujah!) stop right in front of the school and run towards a major commercial center. We go out for hotpot.

Nick: “So, fun fact--I’m actually on a spousal visa. I married a local chick for visa purposes.”

Me: “Huh.”

Nick: “Yeah, we divorced, but the immigration department doesn’t have access to divorce records and my visas’s still valid. Can’t technically work on it, though.”

Day three: Wednesday.

Capture the Flag, followed by semi-structured time in which the Americans are divided into groups, assigned Chinese students, and instructed to create activities. We run out of cups again.

Nick: *drinking straight from the water dispenser tap*

Me: “Didn’t you say you caught...”

Nick: “Shut up, easternestablishmentarian.”

Me: “...”

Me: “There are seventy-five kids here.”

Nick: “Just shut up.”

I buy my own personal supply of bottled water that afternoon. He did agree to only fill up a bottle from that point onwards.

Us: “Supervisor, please tell us--will there be WiFi when one of us teaches programming with the robots in Lu’an in Anhui?”

Supervisor: “Oh, uh, I don’t know, I am not going to Anhui.”

Us: “Please find out.”

Day four: Thursday. 

It being sunny and slightly cooler, we take the kids on a hike through a back trail that goes by a farm and into the woods. Guangdong proves to be home to some terrifyingly large arthropods, none of which are aggressive.

After lunch, we debate who will go on to Lu’an. Nick makes a good case for needing the money, so I cede it (in part because Anhui is a notoriously boring and underdeveloped province, and Lu’an is only its second- or third-biggest city).

Us: “So, supervisor, please tell us.”

Supervisor: “Oh, yes, there is no WiFi for the summer camp in Anhui, I asked.”

Us: “But Nick’s going to be teaching robots again?”

Supervisor: “Well, maybe he can also teach something else, like English, but yes, it’s a robot camp.”

Us: “But you need WiFi to work with the robots.”

Supervisor: “Oh, I’m not the supervisor in Anhui, just here in Shenzhen, so I didn’t know.”

Day five: Friday.

After a laughably pointless closing ceremony, we collect our paychecks (in cash) and head into Shenzhen, where Nick tries to send it out. 

Bank teller: “So, uh, what are you doing in China?”

Nick: “I’m visiting family, it’s a spousal visa.”

Bank teller: “OK, so I don’t think this is possible, you have the tax form?” (note: this is quite common for foreigners, even those on legal visas--foreigners’ money has all sorts of systems and regulations surrounding it that most bank tellers don’t know how to handle (because there are so few foreigners), and to avoid losing face they will often just tell you that it’s not possible to do what you want to do.)

At this point, I’m starting to shake my head furiously in Nick’s direction--get us out of here before they start asking questions about where this money came from and call immigration. After two hours, we give up.

Me: “You could have gotten us deported.”

Nick: “Nah, man, they’re just clueless bank tellers.”

I fly back to Chengdu the following day seven thousand kuai richer, while Nick hangs on until Sunday and then flies to Lu’an with the Americans, where another group of Chinese kids get their parents fleeced for robots that don’t work (though, as he told it, things worked out fine, kind of.) The kids, incidentally, were great about the whole incident--the Chinese kids I think in part because their lives are so structured that just getting to run around was a breath of fresh air for them. The Americans were fairly willing to work around the absurdity. Nobody got deported and nothing’s appeared in the news about an epidemic of the sort of disease that schoolchildren aren’t supposed to get.

So we come to the moral of the story, children: all’s well that ends well, and buy your own water.

[kitsunefyuu]

   You know, I sometimes think about the fact I was quite popular with the boys but my own lack of interest made relationships nearly impossible. So unless the guy had the guts to ask me directly I tend to get angry or brush them off. Also, there were MANY guys that liked me, I was aware they like me, but I was friend zoning the heck. Because I don’t lead guys on if I realize it I try my best to make sure they understand I see them only as a friend.

   I was on the honest belief I would never marry and that maybe becoming a nun would be the best course for me. Because of well-living single near impossible in this society but a nun? Well, that definitely cut expenses because of religion- Anyway.

    My husband- I did NOT see him coming though I honestly thought I annoyed the hell out of him. You see I have a bad habit of dumping my life angst and stuff on those who are easy targets when I was in high school and he was super nice yet also not. I have known him since elementary but we never really talked till a little in middle school but we REALLY talked in Highschool French class. Language is HARD for me, I have like a god damn handicap when it comes to language English was hard for me and that my first language!

   So you can imagine how insane French was, but he was the best in the class so of course the teacher seeing I was earnestly trying set me up with him... Too bad he was having his own angst and did not give any fucks about helping so he mostly helped me cheat. LOL! I wasn’t complaining language was hard, but I paid him back by dumping my troubles from home on him constantly. I was chipper, bubbly and pestering him about French, what the frick I’m reading and complaining about home.

   Note I was very self-aware I was annoying so imagine MY SURPRISE WHEN SURPRISE HE ASKED ME OUT.

   Now usually no one has the guts to ask me out since I tend to subtly try to avoid this so I was unprepared. I still remember thinking it wasn’t real but I accepted it because man I’m bad at saying no and he was nice... Let just say it was weird dating as both of us had no idea what the hell we were doing and he basically put me on a pedestal.

    I didn’t like it and was honest about it, I eventually called him out when he tried to pretend I could do no wrong. Until I finally got him to admit that YES I WAS ANNOYING and I still remember him being like, “ARE YOU HAPPY?”

     And you know what? I WAS! You’re a naive idiot if you think your partner going to never get annoyed or isn’t going to recognize your flaws. And I even told him yes because I didn’t like how he was acting toward me since we started ‘dating.’ As he wasn’t treating me like a friend and I hated it I wanted my friend who I bothered back. Let just say I was so bad at a relationship for some reason a part of me assumed once on summer break it ended.

   NOPE, IT WAS STILL A THING AND I WAS SO AWKWARD- So this ended up being the start of me and him being on and off. He was persistent and there were tons of hiccups when we broke up and forced him to be my ‘friend’ it was nice. He wasn’t as needy and slowly worked out but when in a relationship we both were just so bad at it. I was not emotionally available and he was needy and stressed by a lot of things.

    The hardest part was me trying to get him to understand my side and how he was demanding to much and how I can’t provide him all that. Every time we broke up was because I felt like I wasn’t good enough for him. Irony right? But no really he was the sweetest boyfriend a girlfriend could have, if he wasn’t so clingy-

   I think what changed tho is when I was in the army and he was being even more clingy demanding my time because I was so far. Now I was stressed, depressed and a mess like I was losing a LOT of weight because I barely eat because well- Army sucks there no way around it. When I got out of the army I decided enough was enough and broke up with him hard. Even explaining I was unwell and unhappy so can’t, I got out of the army barely eating or doing anything I spent all my savings I earned on BS. I was bad.

    I could not handle his BS with my own and told him that he has to handle that himself because I had my own issues. I was not this perfect person on this pedestal nor can I fix his problems I was suffering.

   I think that finally snapped him out of this neediness, so we were ‘friends’ again but nothing more. He relearned how to be my friend again and we built up our relationship as friends and that transitioned into a romantic relationship. There was no more neediness, clingy, the constant need for validation or self-worth. We talked when we had time but he didn’t pester me when we didn’t for a while because he understood.

   Every time people see us now, they think Wow they are so happy and it so cute. Because we are friends who are romantically involved and that honestly the most important part. You should not be cutting out who you are, putting them or letting them put you on this unrealistic pedestal, and your partner should be your BEST FRIEND.

    My husband is my best friend who finally understands and knows me better than anyone because I made sure he sees me. Not the unrealistic image that he kept trying to have of me just like he helped me to become more emotionally available. To open myself up finally as he became my friend who cares and wants me to be happy. He is my beloved and I want him to live long and happy.

   If you read all of this, thank you also I just wanted to rant about my husband and how I still can’t believe I’m married and happy.

[artificialqueens]

skirts (trixya) - lem0n_b0y

an- so this is a chapter from a one shot collection that have one theme and its skirts. it was one of my favs because it’s just domestic trixya. trixies a elementary teacher and katya is a highschool therpist. causal home life with some red wine.

“Why did I become a teacher? I don’t even like kids, Katya. I don’t like kids and I get paid terribly. Why am I making myself suffer?” Trixie lays her head onto the hardwood table, laying her arms out in front of her.

“Because you actually like kids but you hate when they are bad.” Katya responds from the other side of the table, reading a small book casually. Turning the page, she looks up to see the blonde melted onto the table. “Let me rephrase- you LIKED kids until you have to see them for 5 days a week.”

“Sometimes 6 when we have those family carnivals.”

“M-hm.”

Trixie had become a first grade teacher. She thought she would enjoy helping children learn and show them learning can be fun. Within the first quarter she had realized it was a terrible mistake. Everyday she’d come home with crayons stuck in her hair, paint on her clothes and the memories of having to send a student to the nurses because they had been bitten by their table mate. Each day becoming harder and harder to push through, she relied on Katya to help keep her from quitting.

Katya was her best friend, roomie, and all around helping hand to her in times of need. She’s a therapist at the local highschool. Working with teenager’s was more her speed, which she had suggested Trixie transfer to be the music teacher at her school. Trixie declined because she knew the students we’re terrible. Her job would be even worse with students that talk back and fight all the time.

“Maybe teaching wasn’t my calling. Maybe I should just sit behind a desk all day.” She lifts her head up from the table, adjusting her lashes slightly. “Like maybe I could work at a bank, or better yet, from home.”

“What exactly would you do from home?”

“I have no clue..” Trixie holds her face and turns to Katya who was back into her book.

Bookmarking the novel, she closes it to look at distraught blonde. Twiddling her finger around her loose curl fallen from her bun, Katya sighs softly. “You really should consider working at the school with me. The kids aren’t that bad, and hell you could be a music teacher. Pretty sure we need one.” Standing from the chair, she stands behind Trixie, rubbing the knots out of her back. “You really need to relax more.”

“Thank God it’s Friday I guess.” She mutter, leaning her head back against Katyas stomach, looking up at her. Smiling, she sighs in relief, her body finally relaxing from the massage. “I’m gonna take a bath tonight, drink, and just worry about lesson plans tomorrow.”

Katya smiles and leans down to press their noses together gently. “Is there any way I can help you feel even more relaxed?” Winking to the blonde, Trixie chuckles pressing a small kiss to her lips. “Maybe later. But I’m so ready to change out of these clothes.”

Katya steps back, walking to the fridge as Trixie stands to her feet. Kicking her heels off next to table, she smiles big. “Oh my God, my feet feel so much better.” Walking towards the fridge that Katya stood at, she leans against the side of it. Katya pulls out a bottle of red wine and shows it to Trixie.

“Stress relief?”

“Mh-hmmm! I’ll just drink it from the bottle-” Trixie extends her hand towards the bottle to have it moved away. “Nope. We bought wine glasses for a reason.” Pulling glasses from above the sink, she hands one to Trixie. She unscrews the cap on the long bottle to pour crimson liquid into each of their glasses carefully. Katya taps her red painted nails against her own glass before gesturing it towards Trixies. “To new jobs?”

“To new jobs.”

The two sip their glasses quickly, both drinking half of theirs within one gulp. Trixie leans back against the front fridge with Katya in front of her. She really was glad she had someone like her in her life. They have been bunked together for a few years now, and it didn’t seem like they would ever move away from eachother. Katya often referred to her as her soul mate and so did Trixie. It was as if they were best friends with benefits in a strange way.

Katya adjusts her glasses and holds Trixies waist with her free hand. Her fingertips dance over her plush purple skirt, holding her side gently. “So how was your day Kats?” Trixie says, smiling as she sips her drink.

“Same old same old. One of my favorite kids told me today she’s questioning her sexuality.”

“How’s that?”

“I told her to not be afraid of who she is. Told her that as a queer woman myself that it really does get better.” Katya shrugs, sipping her glass.

Trixie raises her brow a little to her statement. “You told her you’re into women? Did it make her feel better at least?”

She nods, swallowing quickly. “She seemed suprised and she asked if I had a wife. Told her marriage wasn’t my thing but I’m emotionally married to my best friend.” Katya grins before kissing Trixies cheek. “-and she asked how I found out. So we just talked for the entire period, by the end she looked a lot more happy. Maybe since she missed her English class but as long as she’s happy I suppose.”

Trixie rolled her eyes as blood warms up her cheeks from the mention of her loveable companion referring to their relationship as “emotional marriage”. Finishing her glass she holds it to her side. “I’m glad you could help her out and reassure her. Wish I had that in high school.”

“I think every kid that was like us from our generation would agree.”

“You say that like we’re old! I’m not old but maybe you are a little!”

The two chuckle as they start their second glass of wine. Soon they ended up into a cuddly embrace as the wander around the kitchen, listening to the record player. Katya hums next to Trixies ear down to her jaw, giving her random kisses on her cheeks. Her breath smelling of sweet liquor, she presses pecks to Trixies familur lips. Each small kiss coming with bigger and bigger smiles, the two dance their way towards the bathroom.

Gently, Katya presses the blonde against the bathroom, pulling away from the assault of kisses. “Want to stop?”

“Just for a little bit. But you can hang out while I take my bath?” She bats her lashes at the dirty blonde who had a smitten blush across her cheeks. “Want me to grab the wine?” Katya suggests, pressing one last peck onto Trixies lips. Nodding quickly, Katya releases the womans hips, turning to head into the kitchen.

Trixie heads into the bathroom, starting to run her well deserved bath. She warms up the water to her taste and waits for the tub to fill up. As she waits, Trixie begins to strip out of her clothes. Starting with her top, she feels the humid air of the room against her exposed chest. She liked her chest. Her breasts are a managably large size, but not large enough to cause any back pain. Trixie cups them from the outside of the bra and looks into the mirror.

Katya opens up the bathroom door, walking into the warm room with the bottle of wine they had decided to chop away at. Her eyes look to Trixies reflection. “Hey hot stuff. ” She says in observation. Sitting on the edge of the tub, Katya watched as her blonde companion strips down.

“Hey babes, you have a yellow paint hand print on your skirt.” She says, chuckling slightly.

“What the fuck? How did I not see that!” Trixie groans, slipping her favorite skirt off. Standing in only some pink underwear and walks over to the sat Katya. “Tomorrow will you please take it to the dry cleaners?” She pouts her lip out as she looks down at the smiling woman. Her smile was to die for in Trixies mind. Katya bright smile could swoon any woman within a 3 mile radius. “Of course.”

Turning off the running water, the bright blonde slips off her underwear before submerging herself into the semi hot water. The water pricked at her skin as she relaxes into the comfortable tub. She loved to take baths, it was a source of comfort during her particularly stressful days. Katya pours more wine into their empty glasses to hand one back to Trixie. “Here ya go Ms. Mattel.”

Katya takes a seat on the bathmat in front of the side of the tub. Her back leaned against the warm surface, she continues reading the book she had paused earlier. There she sat with loose waves of hair that Trixie had once compaired the color to sundried wheat, focusing on the pages but not much so the words. Her glasses periodically slipping down the bridge of her nose.

Trixie laid comfortably in the steaming water. The tips of her wavey blonde locks being soaked, she lays with her eyes closed. The room was filled with soft echos of water dripping from the faucet, small waves of water from the large water droplets hitting the calm surface.

Sipping her glass of wine, she rubs the condensation off of the glass slowly. “Katya, can I ask you a question?” With her eyes still shut, she places the glass on the side of the tub.

“Of course dear. What’s up?” She replies, not looking from her book. Turning the page, she rubs her eyes slightly.

“Do you really think I should transfer to your school? For my benefit or yours?”

“Yours. Small children aren’t what you are good at, you would handle older kids a lot easier, I promise you. Of course wait til next year but think about it. Plus during lunch we could eat together.” A small curl of a smile comes to Katyas lips before she turns another page of the hardback. She rubs the corner of the page with her fingers.

Trixie leans up with eyes opening. The young blonde leans toward the hutched over woman near her, pressing a kiss to the back of her neck. She wraps a damp finger around one of the baby curls that were too small to fit into Katya messy bun. “That would be nice.”

“It would, wouldn’t it? Guess you could say we would be high school sweethearts?”

“That’s not how that would work.” Trixie chuckles, kissing the back of her neck more.

Each kiss was a reminder of how much she enjoys her company. Something about having your soulmate being your best friend was the most comforting feeling. It would be Trixies safe feeling I’d the school day was going downhill in any way, she would just remind herself she could would be home with her Katya soon enough. Katya aura was what attracted her to be her friend in the first place.

“Hey Kats, you know I love you, right?” She presses one last kiss against Katyas baby hairs that layed against the back of her neck.

“Of course I know you love me Trixs.”

“Well I just love you. I mean it. Okay?”

“That’s just the wine talking. I love you too, you dumbass.”