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notanotherinfjblog · 3 years

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The types as strangers I wish I had known (version 4)

Previous versions: One, two, three

INTJ: She was the first person to show me kindness in a new place. Moving across the country all alone in the middle of a pandemic is not exactly the ideal start of your first real job. So she took it all on herself to take me by the hand, to organise all the things that I had no clue about. She gave me a little tour around the workplace, recommended me places to eat once the pandemic is over, asked me about how I was settling in, remembered little things I mentioned. She was the only person not working from home when I first arrived and so it was just the two of us. She was quiet and reserved as most people here seem to be, and she was awkward in every way when interacting with me. But she tried so hard and maybe it’s just me projecting, but she said her son was in the very same situation as me right now, and it felt like she tried to help me in the way she couldn’t help her son, like she wanted to take me under her wing, but not make it awkward, and then actually making it slightly awkward in doing so. Her heart just felt warm and so did mine when I said thank you.

ENTJ: Everyone knows the classic character of a self-righteous doctor in a hospital show. You know that one. The one that everyone thinks may be hard-working and clever, but heartless and uncaring and egocentric, but a few episodes down the line you start to see that there is more going on underneath the rude attitude. I’ve always believed this to be a stereotypical depiction that is more of a caricature until I met her. She was a doctor at a hospital I stayed in, and damn, she was just like that. She stormed into the rooms, rolled her eyes at a patient whose German was bad, even though she had a thick accent herself, couldn’t be bothered to commit to polite standards of communication like saying hello or thanks, and she didn’t care to wait for just a second when a nurse was in her way and pushed her aside instead. Especially two young nurses were exasperated with her and complained about her as soon as she stormed out of the room. They really made me feel like I had gotten myself into a hospital show as a patient, it was fantastic. And I have to say, even though this young doctor had all of these flaws, she was the only one that actually talked to the patients and explained what was going on, hell she even talked to that woman’s daughter on the phone for a few minutes because the woman didn’t understand the language. Just like on tv, she may have been rude, but at least she seemed like a good doctor.

INTP: My university department held a conference and I was responsible for making sure that all these professors and PhD students didn’t die from their coffee cravings, so I spent most of my time running around with giant coffee cans. And I have to admit, among all the scientists that were roaming the halls, I couldn’t help but stare at him. He was a PhD student from the Netherlands and there was just something about him that did not fit in. You know how professors are often a bit eccentric or strange by normal standards (which explains why we had to explain to an unspeakable amount of them how a coffee can works), so you’d imagine he’d fit right in. But he didn’t. He was his own universe. While everyone was networking, he was studying the research posters in silence. Not because he was too shy, he seemed very comfortable in his own skin. He just didn’t seem to care all that much about other people. I got to listen to a few talks and as he sat in front of me, I saw him play a video game. At an international conference. With professors and colleagues sitting behind him. And he still managed to ask intelligent questions about the talk afterwards. No idea how. Part of me wished I could have talked to him, not because he was cute though he was, but rather because I really could not tell you what kind of person he was. Was he a good person? A bad one? Probably something in-between. But I don’t think my opinion would have fazed him all that much, since to me, he seemed like the kind of person that valued his own opinion on himself the most, and I think that’s a good thing that he’s got there.

ENTP: I had just moved to a different city in a completely different part of the country, and I had just gotten back from my first walk around town. Sounds exciting, but I got back to this unfamiliar flat that I was supposed to call home now and I was panicking. So I stepped out on the balcony hoping the cold air and the stars above could calm my nerves. But it wasn‘t them that did. I stood there in the dark and saw an elderly couple in the parking lot. The woman was in a very similar mental state as me. She was running around their car and was talking about all the things they still had to take care of and things they‘d need, but had forgotten, and her voice got higher and shakier with every word. And then her husband just went and hugged her. She kissed him goodbye three times and every time she did, he let out a little laugh, calm and gentle. He pat her on the back and said that everything was going to be okay, that they would see each other again tomorrow. She kissed him goodbye one last time before she drove away, and I stood there alone in the dark and thanked the universe that I was there at the right time to hear this old man‘s words. For some reason he always seems to appear every time I‘m feeling low and strikes up a little chat with me. And every time he leaves, I have already forgotten what I was sad about.

INFJ: I think everyone pursuing an academic career has this one hero, this one scientist that lit the spark in their heart to dedicate their life to science just like them. I know I have one. So when I started an internship at his lab with one of his colleagues, I didn‘t really expect to meet him. I had seen him around once in a while, yes, but who was I to approach a stranger to tell him what his work meant to me? But then came the plenary meeting that was meant to get more people of the lab to get to know one another - and he approached me. He sat down next to me, asked me about my academic past and future, asked about my current project with his colleague. And I still can‘t believe it. Only a little girl singing in the church choir who is suddenly approached by Beyoncé can hope to imagine what it felt like. He was an internationally renowned scientist, he would have had every reason to look down on the rest of us. Many of them certainly do. But here he was, talking to a little intern from abroad. He was such a genuinely nice person, was sweet and slightly awkward, he even mirrored my weird head nodding that I always do when all the words have left me. He felt like a kindred spirit. I didn‘t tell him what these few minutes talking to him meant to me though part of me wishes that I did, yet still he invited me to the meetings of his research team even though I was not a part of it. And when I came and sat down, he turned around, smiled at me and turned away again, and I can‘t tell you how insane it feels that all of this actually happened.

ENFJ: I’ve written about him before and I will write about him forever. I remember the day our eyes first met in that crowded school corridor almost half of my life ago. I don’t know why neither of us could look away that day, why neither of us could ever look away again from this day on. Somehow our eyes always found each other. I remember the snowy day at the train station so many years later, how he stood there alone in the cold and how he slowly walked towards me, his eyes glued to his feet that abruptly stopped right next to mine. And yet he stayed silent. As did I. So we stood there for an hour waiting for our train, quickly averting our eyes every time they came close to meeting. I remember him looking back at me over his shoulder once we got off the train. He seemed quite flustered that I was about to find out that he had parked his car right next to mine and so he fled. Both of us kept parking our cars next to each other, even when we didn’t see each other for months. But I could never follow him out. He was my own personal mystery. I spent countless nights staring at the ceiling wondering what it was, this strange thing that was going on between us, this little secret that we shared, and I wondered who he really was inside, not who he pretended to be in front of his friends. He was like an island in their midst, always a bit detached, always tucked away behind a smile. Soon twelve years will have passed and still we’ve never spoken a word, but somehow these dark brown eyes still feel more familiar than my own, these eyes that always seemed to look right into my soul. I could have stared at them my whole life. I honestly have no idea what it is that is tying me to him, what it is that I felt back then and what I’m feeling right now. Maybe I’ll never know. I haven’t seen him in three years, but I know our paths will cross again some day. I can feel it in my bones. This story is not over yet. Maybe then we’ll finally be ready to meet properly. Maybe then we’ll finally be able to speak.

INFP: I happened to stand at the window when I saw the new postman approach our letterbox, and so I watched him throw letters and magazines inside - and stop. He moved his head closer to the box and a frown appeared on his face. He backed off, wanted to leave, came back again and didn’t seem to know what he was supposed to do. So he rang the doorbell. As I opened the door, there he was, shy and with slight panic in his eyes. “I’m so sorry”, he said. “There is a sign on your letterbox that you don’t want advertisements, but I saw that too late and I had already thrown it in. I’m terribly sorry. I can’t get it out of the box and so I thought, I should ask if that’s alright.” And my heart just went awwww, that’s adorable. I smiled at him and told him that it was absolutely fine. He seemed so relieved. So he went away and I closed the door.

ENFP: This is for the man with the kind, but heartbreakingly sad eyes who sometimes sits in front of the train station silently begging for money. This is for the grandparents who spent their train ride trying to teach their little grandchildren the numbers from one to five. This is for the old woman who always kneels down in the middle of the train station with her forehead pressed to the ground, keeping still for hours, enduring the devastation of thousands of people passing by without stopping. This is for the woman who knelt down next to a homeless man, who took his hand and asked how she could help him. This is for the man who made faces at the little boy sitting next to him on the train to make him laugh. This is for the anger I felt when I saw the distraught face of a 10-year-old boy coming out of the movie „1917“ at the cinema with his father. This is for the happy little puppy who lives next to the bakery where I usually grab my lunch. This is for the twenty people who decided to all speak a foreign language during a meeting with each other just because I was there too, a total stranger they had never even seen before who is bad at their native language. This is for the creep that asked me in the middle of the street at night to accompany him. This is for the two teenagers who went to buy sandwiches and coffee for a homeless woman. This is for the families I often see sitting at the train stations, sometimes with a baby in their arms, holding a sign saying „Syrian family. We are hungry, help us please.“ This is for the man who yelled at his girlfriend because she gave them some money. This is for the people who play music during everyone‘s morning commute on the train. This is for all the people who approached me speaking in French and started to laugh when I apologised for not being very good at it. This is for Paris, in all its beauty and all its ugliness. This is for humanity, in all its beauty and ugliness.

ISTJ: He was sitting alone on the train, looking out of the window while listening to something with headphones. He was a tall guy in his mid-20s, one with a full beard, long brown hair in a neat ponytail, and a t-shirt of some rock band that I had never heard of. So, I was sitting there, three meters away, minding my own business, when I suddenly heard a giggle. The entire car of the train had been quiet all this time as it usually is, so I looked up and saw this guy trying to contain his laughter. He pressed the lips together, scratched his nose in order to inconspicuously cover his mouth. I don’t know where this sudden burst of laughter came from. Maybe he was listening to an audio book and reached a funny part. Maybe he was listening to a voice message of a funny friend. Maybe he just had a very amusing thought, I don’t know. But I’ve always had a soft spot for people who randomly start laughing in public and get embarrassed about it cause it’s always, always adorable.

ESTJ: She was a PhD student at my university and she was the one who mainly organised the conference that the above mentioned INTP was attending, too. And even though she didn‘t get tired of complaining about how much work this all was, how typical it was of her boss to volunteer to hold the conference at our university and then not lifting a single finger, she was like a fish in the water, not out of it. She observed everything and everyone, immediately recognised little problems or things that could become a problem, she was constantly running around checking everything, and she kept so many things in mind, it was impressive. One of the attendees sat in a wheelchair and as soon as she noticed, she made us rebuild the entire cafeteria immediately so that everything was reachable for her. And in all the running around, all the obligatory smalltalk, all the stress, she still found the time to stand with us student helpers and joke around.

ISFJ: It was 6pm on a Friday afternoon when all of Paris was trying to get home in the middle of a train strike, so the trains that did run were even more crowded than usual. I did not enjoy sharing 5 square metres with almost 40 other people. But then he entered the train and stood right next to me, leaning against the doors without moving, looking like an intellectual in gangster clothes. We were surrounded by noise of people talking and of rails screaming, by strangers breathing onto our skin, and he just stood there unfazed by it all. He radiated calmness like I‘ve never seen anyone do before. Soon it reached me too, filled me up and left no place for any distress or anxiety. He was like an island in the storm that grew and grew and grew until all of the 40 people around him were safe. I felt safe. I don‘t think he has even the faintest clue about how special he is, but I feel like it has been a privilege to have crossed paths with him.

ESFJ: Did you ever meet someone who, on first glance, looks like the perfect example of a jock, just a short guy with bigger arms than he’s tall? But then you look again, take a closer look at him and you realise that his face has goodness written all over it. He may be horribly bad at grammar for a linguistics student and he may be a bit too sensitive for his own good, but he never made it a secret of how much of a sweetheart he really is. And in situations like these, when he talks about how emotional he got as a tutor when his student told him about a dying grandfather because he felt responsible for the student’s wellbeing, in situations like these, when he approaches my friend after a class to apologise for his harsh criticism of her presentation and to tell her that he didn’t mean it that way, to which she gets all confused because she didn’t take the slightest offence to anything he has ever said in his entire life and he mumbles that he may have to stop beating himself up about stuff like this, I just want to give him a hug and never let go.

ISTP: I saw her on the metro during rush hour in Paris, and I immediately noticed her to be different. Everyone else always only stares at their phones or into space, everyone else always look like a tired zombie. She was not a zombie. She was leaning against the doors, shaking her leg in the rhythm of the music she was listening to. She was short and skinny, and not even her punk boots could hide that, but there was such a confidence shining out of her, a confidence in who she was that made her look like a giant. She looked like she‘s probably had it rather rough in life, but it didn‘t break her. She rose to the adversity, rose in spite of it all. She seemed to be capable of so many things. Intelligent enough to go into science if she ever wanted to, vicious enough to end someone who ever dared to cross her, warm enough to love deeply and with all her heart if she let it.

ESTP: It was a hot day and far hotter than a September afternoon ever should be. I was stuck in a traffic jam in the city, melting in my car as were so many others, waiting for that red light to finally turn green. And then he came, a young guy in an ugly shirt and with a hat on his head. He started to cross the street, but then stopped right there in the middle. And he started to juggle. In the middle of a traffic jam on a Friday afternoon, he juggled. Just before his green light turned to red, he bowed down to the cars a few times, and then jumped to the sidewalk and left. Thanks, mate, you enigmatic juggling traffic hero.

ISFP: I met him at a wedding. He was a bald man in his 70s with thick horn glasses and probably the most intimidating person I’ve ever met. Not because he was mean, but because he was so confident in himself and so observant. His gaze constantly changed direction. He took everything in that happened around him, he didn’t miss a single thing that was going on, and still he was calm and sure of himself that everyone at our table felt like they had to impress him in some way. Just by looking at him you knew he must have lived an extraordinary life and he really did. He liked talking about himself. He talked about living in the American desert, on a mediterranean island, in a Buddhist monastery, and on a cruise ship. He talked about the smell of the desert at night, about the taste of oranges picked from a tree. He talked about the people he met, about professors and musicians, about cooks and monks. He talked about how much his village loved him. But he also liked listening to others talk about their own lives. It was obvious that he treated life as an experience, as a journey that cannot be planned or imagined, only lived. When we said goodbye, he looked me right in the eye and told me that he thinks it’s great what I’m doing with my life and that he’s looking forward to meeting me again some day. It felt a bit like receiving praise from a deity.

ESFP: He was a nurse in the accident and emergency department at the hospital and the first person to talk to me while I was waiting in front of an examination room. He was only passing by with a colleague, but he stopped the conversation when he saw me and put his hand on my shoulder. “Aw, sugarmouse, what happened to you?”, was the first thing he said to me. You know, if an unknown man in his 50s is coming towards you and calls you “sugarmouse”, you’re usually not exactly happy, but he was just an overwhelmingly non-threatening guy that called all of the nurses and doctors by kitschy nicknames and radiated warmth wherever he went. He had noticed that I was nervous, and so he came to me and tried to gently put my mind at ease and I was really grateful for it.

#writing this took 3 years #nothing happens during a pandemic but all the more important this kind of testimony to these people feels to me #esfj has actually become a friend of mine by now #isfp is part of my family now since it was his brother's and my mother's wedding #and the enfj guy is the same as in the first version of this post that i wrote 5 years ago #i don't know where he is now or what he's doing but i really hope that his life is filled with love and happiness #i just think it's strange that after graduating i never saw 98% of the people i went to school with again #but the two people i did meet again dozens of times? were enfj and his little brother #sometimes it felt like a conspiracy of the universe and we were just too stupid #every time i think about how we had eye contact while driving past each other twice i think i‘m going insane #mbti #myers-briggs #types as #strangers i wish i had known #intj #entj #intp #entp #infj #enfj #infp #enfp #istj #estj #isfj #esfj #istp #estp #isfp #esfp

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quicksilversquared · 4 years

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Max and the Murky Story

Max isn't always the best at social stuff. People don't behave in the same way numbers do, and they can be confusing. So when things at school with their newest classmate just aren't adding up quite right, he starts collecting data. And what he finds?

Well, it's a bit surprising.

links in the reblog

Something funny was going on at school, Max was 87.5% sure of it. But he just couldn't put his finger on what.

Frowning to himself as he sat in front of his computer, Max listed off the facts in his head, hoping to gain a bit of perspective on the whole thing. It was worth a shot, and with any luck, Max could figure this whole thing out and stop waking up in the middle of the night, a niggling feeling dancing in the back of his mind.

Fact one. Marinette was one of the friendliest people in the class, and rarely- if ever- disliked people without good cause. Max might have been inclined to even go as far as to say that Marinette never disliked someone without good cause, but it was never a good idea to talk in such absolutes when considering a human element. There were almost always exceptions to the norm with living beings, and ignoring that and speaking in too broad of terms was- well, it wasn't a good idea.

Fact two. Lila was a new student, one who- at least according to her, it wasn't as though Max had independently verified those stories- lived an exciting life, with a mother who was a diplomat and frequently traveled. Lila had talked about meeting celebrities, all sorts of famous people with serious connections. She apparently had just as much bad luck to counter out the good, though, considering that Max had heard her complain of allergies and other ailments on more than one occasion.

Fact three. Marinette did not like Lila. In fact, Max might even dare to say that Marinette hated Lila. She refused to hang out with the rest of the girls when Lila was with them, even going so far as to turn around and leave after Lila turned up and joined their group when they were going out to watch a movie. Marinette had even once joined Chloe's group for a project so that she wouldn't end up being paired with Lila.

(Fact three-and-a-half: that was, objectively, really strange.)

Fact four. Pretty much everyone else in the class loved Lila. Except.

(There was almost always an except. Humans very rarely dealt in absolutes.)

Adrien also seemed to avoid Lila, if Max thought about it. Sure, he was polite and didn't turn away and hate as openly as Marinette, but he very rarely looked comfortable with Lila. Of course, the reason there might be because Lila sometimes seemed to forget what personal space was and Adrien was the kind of person who was only really comfortable with a select few people getting close to him like that. But there was a possibility that there was something else going on there.

(No hypotheticals and guesswork, Max scolded to himself. Theorizing wasn't going to help him any. So fact four-and-a-half: Adrien was the second exception to everyone loving Lila, and did not seem comfortable with her. The reason for that was unconfirmed.)

Fact five: The teachers and principal also seemed to like Lila, enough to make serious accommodations for her while Lila wasn't in school. They hadn't raised any concerns, but, well….

Fact five and a half: The staff at Dupont were not always through in their investigations. Point in court: the entire day when Marinette got expelled, considering that it had all been walked back and retracted the very next day.

And that led to fact six: Lila had made several large accusations against Marinette over the course of one day, leading to Marinette's abrupt expulsion. An expulsion that had been walked back less than twenty-four hours later. And, well- it wasn't a fact but a feeling: all three of those accusations had seemed strange. The answer sheet had been found on top of Marinette's things in her bag, when the test had been several days prior. Lila hadn't actually been limping and hadn't looked at all mussed after she claimed that Marinette pushed her down the stairs. And the fact that Lila apparently knew who had taken ("taken"?) her heirloom necklace and where it had been put….

Looking back on it, that was a little weird. A lot weird, even. But there could be data missing, incomplete information biasing his view. It wouldn't be smart to jump to conclusions now. The probability of him getting something wrong- well, it was too high.

One thing was for sure- to draw an informed conclusion, Max needed more data.

One of the most important things to do when collecting data was to make sure that it could be found again. Being able to cite references was important.

So Max recruited Markov.

His robot companion usually came to school with him most days anyway, in order to listen in on the traditional human process of teaching and learning information and to be able to spend more time with Max. All Max really had to do was ask Markov to keep audio files on record of everything Lila-related. Whenever she talked, whenever she was being talked about, whenever there were people talking to her. If Markov was out- and Max wasn't sure that he wanted to have his companion out until the strangeness surrounding the Lila situation was cleared up- then he would keep that visual file, too. On top of that, Max was going to try to do short narrations of what Lila was up to on a regular basis, just to add to his data set.

If there was something strange going on, Max was going to figure out what it was. Even the best-kept secrets couldn't hide against a deluge of data. Maybe there were other ways to do this, and maybe all of the audio-journaling was overkill, but this was Max's preferred way of investigating. By his calculations, it had a 97.7% chance of successfully producing truthful results within a five-week time frame. There was a potential for getting results even earlier, of course, but five weeks was pretty much the optimal collection time when Max factored in both the chance of success and the amount of time invested. After five weeks, he would likely get diminishing returns on the additional time spent collecting information. Continuing his data collection would only be advisable if the data that he collected in that time period turned out to be inconclusive.

Max really hoped that things wouldn't turn out inconclusive. It was so frustrating when things went that way. He liked clear-cut answers, things set out in black and white instead of blurry grey. Contradicting and/or incomplete information frustrated him, because it could throw his calculations way off.

But in the end, it only took a week for some inconsistencies to show up.

"On Monday morning, Lila turned down the opportunity to share a croissant with Alya after Marinette brought some in to share with Alya, Nino, and Adrien," Markov reported Friday evening, after running an initial scan on all of the data. "She claimed that she was dealing with a gluten sensitivity recently and couldn't eat bread. Then on Wednesday, she took her lunch at school and ate the pasta that the cafeteria was serving, which was not gluten-free."

Max frowned, noting that down on his summary sheet. "I suppose that sensitivities can come and go, but surely it would make more sense to gradually ease back into eating wheat instead of having a plate of pasta."

"On Tuesday afternoon, Lila stated that she was going to have a video conference with Prince Ali of Achu that evening about their charity work regarding pollution," Markov continued. "I have run a scan, and Prince Ali is currently only involved in children's charities, largely dealing with those concerning children's hospitals, childhood homelessness, and child hunger. There are also no mentions of any Lila Rossi being involved with Prince Ali, even though all people who have assisted him are mentioned on his website. Even your classmate Rose is listed."

Max's frown deepened. "Hmm."

"On Wednesday morning, Lila mentioned having attended the Royal Wedding," Markov continued. "There were plenty of pictures taken at the Royal Wedding, both of the couple being married and of the people attending. I ran facial recognition software on all of the photos and came up with no match for Lila, though I did recognize Adrien and his father as well as Kagami and her mother."

Odder and odder. Of course, it was possible that there were people hidden too far back in the crowd to be easily seen with a photo, and of course, Lila was shorter than adults, so it might be easier to miss her. The fact that Adrien and Kagami were seen could, of course, always be attributed to them just getting a better seat, so by itself that didn't necessarily mean much.

"Wednesday afternoon, Lila showed off a picture of herself in Berlin," Markov continued, and Max nodded, remembering that photo. It had been passed around, and he had managed to show it to Markov without anyone noticing. "It was on a well-known street in their shopping district, and Lila said that it was taken earlier this year, when she was absent from school for several months. However, there are no pedestrians or cars in the photo, even though there is a street behind Lila, and one of the stores pictured moved out of that location five years ago. A web scan turned up a poster of that street that matches exactly, available to purchase in a local poster shop for eight euros and fifty-two cents."

….what.

"There was nothing of particular note on Thursday, but on Friday afternoon, Lila claimed to be allergic to tomatoes after Sabrina invited her over to dinner and told her that it would be tomato soup and grilled cheese," Markov finished. "Even though she had had a tomato sauce on her pasta for lunch on Wednesday."

Max's frown deepened and he nodded sharply. "Okay. Even though I hadn't planned to stop collecting data for another four weeks, I think we have enough to draw some preliminary conclusions. Namely, that Marinette was correct when she called Lila a liar. Some things on their own could be explained away, but all of them?"

The chances that there was some unlikely excuse to explain away all of those contradictions… well, the chances of that were pretty low. Single digits, even. And when Max considered the comments about the food all on their own-

"Max, did you say that Lila's mom was the Italian ambassador?"

"Yes, that's why she travels so much and meets so many people," Max responded absently, wondering if he should bring what data he had to Ms. Bustier right away, or if he should wait for another week. "Why?"

"I cannot find data on who the current Italian ambassador, but a query about the duties of an ambassador do not mention anything about constant traveling to other countries as part of the job," Markov told him. "Their only travel for work would be between their home country and the country that they're stationed in. There is nothing that says that they would be traveling elsewhere over the duration of their time in the position."

….that was concerning. Add that to everything else that he had collected over the course of the week, and Max was pretty convinced now that he did have enough evidence to build a convincing case to present to Ms. Bustier. Maybe he should compose an email tonight, and have Markov make a copy of the pertinent voice and visual clips to attach to it. Maybe she already knew and an email would just be a bother. Maybe she would be annoyed that one student was recording and digging into another student's stories. Maybe she would object to the recordings altogether, even though Max had gotten permission from the class- including Lila- to have Markov in the room, with the understanding that he took in and processed information via audio and video recordings.

But it was better safe than sorry, and Max wanted to make sure that the teachers were as well-informed as they could be.

The email that Max got in response was- well, it was baffling, to say the least, and not nearly as concerned as he would have expected.

Thank you for the information. I talked to Mr. Damocles about your concerns, and he informed me that Lila told him that she has a medical condition that makes her sometimes tell lies. Please keep that in confidence, as we are not supposed to share any information about student medical conditions and I am only bending that rule to explain our response.

"I have done a preliminary scan of the web and found some information," Markov reported as Max scanned the email for the thirty-eighth time in hopes of getting something else out of it. "There is a condition called pathological lying- or perhaps it would be called a behavior, and it may or may not have a medical reason behind it. But if we look at the pattern of lies and include the presumed lies, the lies seem more premeditated rather than impulsive or spur-of-the-moment. And if Lila was the one who told your principal about her supposed condition…"

Markov didn't need to finish the sentence. The ending stood obvious, a glaring brand in Max's mind: she lied about that, too, to get herself out of something.

Well. Probably. After all, now they were building their assumptions on stories that they were just assuming were lies, based on related but perhaps somewhat indirect evidence. Like the fact that diplomats didn't travel from country to country when they were meant to be stationed somewhere, and the fact that Lila's photo of herself was in front of a poster. Both of those were stand-alone pieces of evidence that suggested that Lila's months-long trip "all over the world" had just… not happened. And lying about something of that magnitude- not making up a story about something that had happened before she arrived in Paris but instead actively going out of her way to create a narrative that did not line up with reality-

Maybe Max should stop questioning if Lila's lies did or did not fall under the category of typical behavior seen by pathological liars. After all, he was not any sort of mental health specialist. He hadn't had any training in diagnosing mental illnesses. But his mom had a friend who specialized in mental health services. Maybe she could answer some of his questions about pathological lying, or at least advise the school on the correct way to deal with a pathological liar in the student population. After all, something told Max that ignoring the problem and not letting any of the student population know so that they would be able to adjust their behavior and expectations accordingly was not quite what a professional would recommend.

Especially in their current akuma-prone climate. Lila had been building up a lot of people's hopes with her claims of connections, and the disappointment of inevitably being let down was bound to cause some strong akumas.

Akumas! There was another spot where Max could gather data, of course! Lila had claimed connections to the superheroes multiple times, and Ladybug and Chat Noir could confirm or deny those stories. Max might have some trouble getting in close enough to catch them at the end of an akuma attack- he wasn't Alya, getting caught up in akuma attacks had the annoying habit of giving Max nightmares instead of a 'fun' adrenaline rush- but Markov could probably slip past unnoticed.

But- well, that would just be more data points, when Max already had enough to make some strong preliminary conclusions. Talking to the superheroes wouldn't address the current issue, also known as the fact that the teachers and principal were aware that Lila sometimes (or often) lied and weren't telling their students or doing anything about the lies to keep them from becoming a problem. That needed to be addressed. Everything else could wait, at least for the time being.

After a moment's consideration, Max pulled up his list of contacts, searching through the list for his mom's friend. He had put her information in just in case, and a quick check from Markov confirmed that the information was up-to-date. He forwarded the email he had received to her with a quick message listing his concerns about how the school was treating the situation and then, after a moment's thought, also sent a blind copy of the email to Kim and Alix.

Maybe Ms. Bustier had asked him not to tell any of his peers about Lila's lying condition, but that just didn't feel right to Max. His friends deserved to know that Lila couldn't be trusted, because he knew that Lila had claimed connections that had impressed them, too, and Lila could very well use those "connections" to manipulate Kim and Alix into doing things for her.

Also, they both had big mouths and the likelihood that almost all of the class would be informed about the contradictions by Monday if he told them sat at a solid 85.7%. Max doubted that anyone would try to tell Alya- after all, she was so focused on having an in with Ladybug's best friend that she didn't even want to consider that Lila might not be telling the truth- and of course Marinette already knew, but the news would probably spread to everyone else.

Max supposed that there was a possible exception of Nino as well, just because of his connection to Alya, but- well, the exception of the two of them and Lila herself still qualified as "almost" all of the class, right?

Max did some quick calculations. If everyone but those three heard the news, the percentage of the class who would know would sit at a solid 80%, which was definitely a majority. But did it make sense to count everyone? Marinette already knew about the contradictions- and Max was willing to bet that Adrien did, too- so maybe they shouldn't be included in the calculations. By that logic, maybe Lila shouldn't get counted, either. If he took those three out…. That was still above 80%. Still a solid majority, even if Max removed himself from those calculations, too, since he would be the source of the information this time around.

But that was nitpicking, and also not completely relevant to the issue. What Max did know was that, come Monday, Lila's reputation and place in their class was likely to be very different than it had been on Friday. How different depended entirely on a number of very human and very unpredictable variables, which made making any predictions about it largely useless.

"Well, Markov, I think that's all I really can do about it right now," Max commented, checking one last time to make sure his messages had sent before closing the window and turning to his friend. "Now we can only wait."

Monday morning, the usual crowd around Lila had dwindled down to only a handful of people, Nino and Alya and a few people from other classes. She looked a bit thrown off by the change, particularly when Rose and Juleka hurried past with barely a glance and not even the prospect of news about Prince Ali could make them pause for more than a moment. A flash of fury crossed Lila's face at that as soon as the two girls had turned away again, her glance at Marinette a second of pure murder.

Hmm. Perhaps Max should give Marinette a heads-up about the information he had gathered and the emails that he had sent out. After all, if Lila decided that Marinette was behind the rest of the students' decision to stop listening to her, then Lila could very well try to retaliate. Considering that Lila's earlier retaliation- or assumed retaliation, to be more accurate- had consisted of an attempt to frame Marinette for cheating, stealing, and assault, some warning about another possible attempt at something would probably not go unappreciated. With some warning, Marinette could be on guard.

Max felt a little bad about that, actually. This time, Marinette had not been the source of the- well, not the gossip, because that suggested not entirely truthful rumor-spreading, but perhaps the discord regarding Lila. Max had been the source of the information that Lila very likely didn't want getting out, but Marinette would probably get most of the repercussions from the other girl simply because previously, Marinette had really been the only one calling out inconsistencies.

"Yo, dude, that was a weird email you sent out over the weekend!" Kim announced, making Max jump in surprise as his friend popped up next to him. "I can't believe we didn't notice some of that stuff ourselves!"

"Well, it's hard to remember everything people say," Max said instead of admitting that he hadn't noticed, either. Not really- not specifically. All he had really picked up on was the fact that an unidentified something was off. "Thus the data collection." He adjusted his glasses, glancing over at Kim. "So who all knows now?"

"Who doesn't know would be the better question. I know Alix told most of the other girls. She tried telling Alya, but. Uh." Kim cringed. "I think Alya just really loves the idea of having an in with 'Ladybug's best friend', because she wasn't willing to listen. I don't even think Alix got to the part where it was you that was saying anything instead of Marinette."

"I did wonder if anyone would even try to talk to Alya. She's been most invested in Lila's stories, it seems. Unfortunate, considering that that has to be hugely frustrating for Marinette." Max glanced across the gym again. Nino was starting to look a bit on edge, thrown off by the number of people who usually would be joining them in listening to Lila but who were clearly avoiding the Italian girl now. "And Nino?"

Kim shook his head. "I don't think anyone tried talking to him, considering how Alya blew Alix off. I bet he's going to be asking around now, though. Since everyone else was willing to listen, he might figure that we actually have something worth listening to."

Max nodded, in full agreement with Kim. With the rest of the class believing them, it was only a matter of time before the final couple people were at least willing to listen. "Hopefully. Should we head to class? I want to talk to Marinette before everyone comes in."

Kim snickered. "You're really going to assume that Marinette is already there? I mean, you're right this time," he added hastily. "I've already seen Marinette this morning. But considering how often she runs late…"

"I had also seen her already, or I wouldn't have made that assumption." Max led the way, away from Lila and her dwindling audience and towards the classroom. He pushed open the door to see Marinette very obviously trying to look like she wasn't paying attention to the woman talking to Ms. Bustier and Mr. Damocles in the front of the classroom.

The woman who looked very familiar. Apparently his mom's friend had been concerned enough by the email that she had decided to come in in person.

"They seem to be alternating between being happy that there's a specialist here and insisting that they can handle things and they can't disclose any part of a student's medical record without permission," Marinette murmured as Max headed up to his seat, doing his best not to look like he was listening in. Apparently someone- Alix, if he was to guess- had already filled her in on Max's investigation and subsequent emails. "Though I think the being thankful for a specialist is winning out, because she's told them what all would be required to properly handle a condition like the one Lila is claiming to have."

Max nodded in thanks, glancing back towards the front once before retreating to his seat and watching the adults' expressions as they talked. It was fairly easy to deduce from the expressions that Mr. Damocles was all in favor of handing over Lila's entire file and letting the expert deal with her "condition", while Ms. Bustier was far more concerned about student privacy. If Max had to bet, he would say that Mr. Damocles would probably win the discussion, if only because his status as principal afforded him more clout when making decision.

And sure enough, two minutes later, the meeting broke up with Ms. Bustier looking less than pleased as she sunk back down into the chair behind her desk.

""I think it would be a good idea for her to at least talk to Mrs. Lenoir," Mr. Damocles told her, heading for the door. During homeroom, if you could- I don't want to waste Mrs. Lenoir's time. And you know that we haven't had a case like this before- we didn't know what paperwork we should be asking for, or that we would need to be working with a therapist daily."

"It's overkill, surely," Ms. Bustier protested weakly, clearly well aware that she was losing the argument. "She's getting along just fine with the others in the class, she's popular-"

"And how long will that last once people realize that the stories aren't based in fact?" Mrs. Lenoir challenged. "How upset will they be about being misled? Is that a safe gamble to make with Hawkmoth still on the loose?"

Ms. Bustier fell silent. Up front, Adrien's head went up, clearly forgoing the pretense of not listening. Mr. Damocles glanced between the two of them, clearly a little uncomfortable, before Lila's arrival with the remainder of her entourage broke the silence.

"Ah, Ms. Rossi, just the person we were looking for!" Mr. Damocles announced at once, and Lila clearly startled. He gestured towards Mrs. Lenoir. "This is Mrs. Lenoir! She came by the school today to talk to you about- well." He paused, clearly suddenly aware of the filling classroom. "The condition that we discussed a couple weeks ago. You two can take my office, I can work from the library for the first hour."

"Oh, that's fine, I don't need to talk to anyone!" Lila tittered at once, and now that he was looking, the level of fake in her voice made Max cringe. "I've already seen experts back home, you know-"

"And yet we don't have records on file here, so I'm afraid that until we can get those, we'll need to start from scratch," Mr. Damocles told her kindly. "It won't take long now, and Ms. Bustier has already agreed to excuse you from homeroom. Now, if you please?"

Lila glanced between the adults, a small frown on her face. "Is this really necessary? I mean, my mom's just been too busy to ask that the files be sent, I'm sure, I can just remind her tonight-"

The smile on Mr. Damocles' face gave way to a frown. "Now, Ms. Rossi."

Max didn't miss the tiny flicker of outright panic on Lila's face as she was ushered out the door.

By the end of the day, Lila had been expelled from Dupont and reported to the school board. Several eye witnesses said that the elder Rossi had come to collect her daughter in a huff, with a police officer accompanying her. Whether or not Lila would even be staying in Paris sounded like it might be up for debate, because Hawkmoth's presence meant that Lila could still last out.

Frankly, Max hoped that Lila would be removed from the city. Her akuma forms had a high potential for causing catastrophic confusion and danger, and she was crafty enough to use the powers to their full advantage. With her mom and the school board (and the police) on her trail, Lila would just get plan after plan disrupted, which would no doubt frustrate her to the point of akumatization. Who she decided to go after when that happened… well, that was about as close to a wild card as Max had ever seen, and he didn't like the odds of Lila targeting all of her old classmates, simply because she didn't know who had gotten Mrs. Lenoir called to the school.

Presumably Mrs. Lenoir hadn't given Lila any specifics during their short but fateful chat. She would know how bad of an idea that would be, what with Hawkmoth around and far more opportunities than usual for revenge (however temporary) available.

The class was still reeling from the deceptions- exactly how many of Lila's stories were made up was still being investigated- but Max suspected that it wouldn't be long before something else came along and pulled everyone's attention away again. They would move on, Lila would be forgotten, and everything would go back to normal. Or at least as normal as Paris got these days.

Max smiled at the thought. Maybe his next data-collection project could have something to do with Hawkmoth and his akumas. It would be interesting, and anything he found- well, it could potentially have some pretty serious implications.

Yes, Max decided, that sounded like a good idea. It would be a challenge, particularly figuring out how to approach his study and data-collection in a way that would actually produce meaningful results- after all, surely the police already were looking at the available data to try to find Hawkmoth- but Max rather fancied a challenge. Figuring out what was going on with Lila had been just a touch too easy for his tastes, and figuring out Hawkmoth would be much harder. Still, Max was convinced that it was doable.

After all, well…. Hawkmoth might be doing his best to keep his identity secret from all of Paris, but he was still a mere man. He was prone to making mistakes, to leaving clues that might be overlooked, to falling into familiar patterns. All things that could be collected, could be analyzed, could be built into a bigger picture that, with any luck, would lead them to Hawkmoth.

Maybe most superheroes didn't fight their supervillains using metadata, but there was always a first time.

#Miraculous Ladybug #My writing #max kante

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bqstqnbruin · 3 years

Note

if u wanna rant abt the person u h*te go for it !

I’m going to put this under the cut because it’s just a lot but

to preface this: it takes a lot for me to genuinely hate a person. Like there are people that I dislike, but that’s different from me hating them, ya know? I HATE this girl.

So y’all know I was a chemistry major in undergrad, right? I did organic chemistry research the summer after my sophomore year until I graduated. There were four of us: myself, the other girl in my year who was also new to the lab that summer, then two girls who were going into their senior year, one that I liked, one that I didn’t. The one I didn’t like was technically ‘in charge’ because she had been there the longest, she was a year ahead of me (she was class of 2019, I was class of 2020). Let’s call her Jane, because there are a lot of people in this story.

This girl is really smart. Like brilliant. 4.0 as a chemistry major with a physics and math minor, is currently getting her PhD at Harvard in Physical Chemistry.

She is the kind of girl who would get the highest grades in the class, ruin the curve type of student. And that’s fine, if you’re smart, you’re smart, get those grades. She would make sure everyone knew that she got the highest grades and make snarky little comments about how “well if you just tried harder then you could get these grades too!” like bitch ??? science is hard calm down ! we know you’re smart ! If you got a higher grade than her, she would make you feel bad about it in a ‘well how did you get a better grade than me’ kind of way.

So I already didn’t like her going into the summer.

The night before, my friend and I who were new to the research group get a text from one of our friends saying “Hey, just so you know, Jane was bragging to us yesterday that she was planning on hazing you guys. It shouldn’t be anything actually dangerour, but please be careful.” Keep in mind: hazing is against university policy. In the student handbook, it says that anyone who is caught hazing other students will be removed from the university.

First day in lab, my research partner and I were there, and she starts telling us to do all this stupid shit, like saying we have to weigh everything out on the scale three times to make sure that it’s accurate, giving us random goggles to wear when we used certain equipment, telling us to yell “fire in the hole” when we used the dry ice tank, that sort of shit. Jane was bragging about it to a professor and he literally had to tell her “if I hear Christina and her partner say anything else about what you’re doing, I’m reporting you to the university president” as if her basically telling him she was hazing us wasn’t enough, but whatever.

In our lab, we use a lot of glassware. For whatever reason, we call them our “dishes.” Not sure why, that’s just the way it’s always been. It somehow fell on me to do all the dishes, to the point where I would have to come to the lab an hour earlier than everyone else and leave an hour later than everyone else just to get everything done. Our lab was joined with another lab (there was a doorway connecting the two), so we spent a lot of time with that other lab group, and the sink was right by the door that connected them. We were all in the back talking to each other, I’m standing there doing all the dishes, and Jane is complaining about how she hasn’t been able to do anything. So my friend, the one who had texted us saying Jane was going to haze us, was like “Well, why?” Jane turns to me and goes “my minion isn’t washing my dishes fast enough for me.” I was shocked and didn’t know what to say because, like, what the fuck? My friend goes “Maybe wash your own dishes instead of making Christina do them when she has her own shit to do.”

I still ended up doing all the dishes. At one point, she threw a dish into the sink when I was standing in front of it doing dishes, and it shattered in the sink. Shards easily could have cut me had I been standing a little bit to the left.

Her 21st birthday was during the summer. Lab tradition is that anyone who has a summer birthday gets like a little celebration: we decorate the lab, we make them a cake, that sort of stuff. So we did. We went all out, because that’s what the lab did for everyone, and that was a tradition we did even after she left. She brought in a bottle of vodka to the lab (I think her boyfriend had picked it up for her and brought it to the science center). We’re a wet campus, so having alcohol isn’t a problem as long as you’re of age. We were all in the back room of the lab, and she passes out cups to everyone, and I tell her, “Oh, I really don’t drink, I don’t want one,” and apparently that meant nothing to her because she kept yelling at me to take the shot of vodka until I did, which, considering I was 19 at the time, definitely wasn’t legal. If the professor of the lab we were in had walked in 2 seconds earlier, I wouldn’t ahve had to drink it.

So that’s not even all of it. This shit continued into the school year. We were all in the chemistry club (because we’re NERDS). She was one of the presidents with the other girl from our research group in her year, the one that I liked, while I was treasurer and our other friend was secretary. At the begining of the year, she sends me an email outlining the potential fundraisers that we wanted to do, and asked me for my thoughts. The included things like having nights at the local restaurants where they give us a cut of the profits, selling custom stickers that we bought, bake sales, that stuff. She told me, “send me your thoughts.”

One of her ideas was making and selling liquid nitrogen ice cream. Outside. In November. In Philly, it doesn’t get horribly cold in November, but it gets cold enough that selling liquid nitrogen ice cream outside isn’t the best idea. I had suggested “we can do another bake sale, or other clubs are decorating flatware beakers and selling them like that, we could do that instead. And then we could do the ice cream fundraiser during the sping because it will be warmer and more people will want it.” Everything else, I told her, sure, I like those ideas, this is how I can make them work, this is what I already have going through with the restaurant stuff.

She texts the other president throwing an absolute fit that I turned down the ONE fundraiser for November, telling her “she needs to step up and do better” and that “I’m telling her that this is what we’re doing and she has to do them or we’re removing her from her position.” My friend literally told her, “No, Christina said she would do everything but the one fundraiser and I agree with her.” One of the professors had to get involved because they found my crying in the lab over this, so that was fun.

I had mentioned the dishes before, but that part of the saga continues. I was the only one doing the dishes still. the girl I liked did hers all the time and tried to pick up the slack, the girl in my year wasn’t doing research during the semester and wasn’t technically allowed in the lab because of legal safety reasons. Jane was still using glassware and not cleaning it. Our research advisor tells us “the health and safety inspector came by the lab and saw all the dishes in the sink. If they aren’t clean by whatever date he comes back, we’re going to get in trouble.” So ok. We have three group chats for the lab: one with the four of us and our advisor, one with the four of us, and one without Jane. Both the one with and the one without Jane were going. In one of them, someone said “we need to figure out a schedule of who can go in when so we can get these dishes done.” I said “I’ve been doing them, but no matter what I do, more and more end up in the sink and I can’t keep up. Maybe if her highness did her own dishes instead of expecting me to do them all, this would get done faster and it wouldn’t be a problem.” I thought I was texting the one without Jane. I wasn’t.

She responds back “Um, haha, wrong group chat” I go, “oh well, do your dishes.” So she knew I didn’t like her, and she definitely didn’t like me. It was pretty obvious before, but now it was pretty much confirmed.

We had a few research presentations together as a group. Keep in mind, she didn’t much over the summer in terms of research, and what she did do, never worked. Which is fine, that’s how science goes sometimes. She spent more time in the lab working on her applications for various shit. She took our research and presented it at so many different conferences. Granted, we didn’t do much, either, since we only had two months of work which isn’t a lot of time, but she left our names off the posters and really didn’t give us any credit. She said it was because ACS rules stated that the only people who need to go on the research poster were those presenting that actual poster. I went alone to a conference in Florida in 2019, and I had to have her name on the poster for some reason, though.

That’s pretty much the end of what she did to me, but there was so much other shit that she did to other people, too. I mentioned her intelligence. Her boyfriend LEFT HIS MASTERS PROGRAM TO MOVE WITH HER TO CAMBRIDGE. HE LEFT IT. I’m still mad about that. He deserves better.

Before she had decided to go to Harvard, she had the audacity to tell me that she didn’t want to go to Boston because it was more dangerous than Philly (statisically, it really isn’t).

She had a restraining order on a guy who was a year behind me because he “assaulted her.” I know both of them fairly well. What had happened, according to him and other students, was that he was getting up from his desk, and the way he swung his backpack to put it on, it ended up hitting her by accident. It was not intentional. The rows of desks are close together, and she was standing close to him. He did not do it on purpose. This guy was also not well liked by people, and something tells me they wouldn't defend him if he actually did it on purpose.

For graduation, you know how people wear cords and medals to represent their activities and accomplishments? She was jealous that the girl in our lab group had more chords than her, so she went and bought more for herself.

What’s frustrating is that because she was so smart and had so many grants and got the school a decent amount of attention, whenever we said anything or talked about it, nothing happened. The professors knew her and I hated each other, but they didn’t seem to believe why. Whatever.

I think that’s it. I hope she fails in life, honestly. I do not like her at all.

Sorry that was a lot, but thank you for letting me rant about this oaidjfaoi

#tw abuse #tw alcohol #there's def a mention of alcohol idk if it's abuse though

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avengerscompound · 4 years

Text

She Sets the City on Fire - Summer’s Day

She Sets the City on Fire: A Bruce Banner Fanfic

MASTERLIST

Buy me a ☕ Square: @brucebannerbingo - R5, Summer

Rating: E

Warning: Age Gap, Self Doubt, Smut (M|F oral and vaginal sex)

Word Count: 5901

Pairing: Bruce Banner x OFC (Summer)

Summary: Bruce is drawn to Summer. She’s everything he wished he could be. Carefree, exciting, and she knows exactly who she is. There are so many reasons a relationship with her wouldn’t work. So why can’t he stop thinking about her?

A/N: at end of fic

1. Summer’s Day

Bruce followed the group of Professors, Post-Docs and Ph.D. students down West 88th Street. It was one of those oppressive New York Summer’s days where the streets smelled of garbage and the humidity in the air clung to your skin. There had been a conference on at Columbia and he had been invited out for drinks with a small group of people. They’d been treating him like a celebrity, something he didn’t think he’d ever get used to, but he couldn’t pretend wasn’t nice. It was nice getting recognition for all the work he had done that previously he’d just been hunted for like some kind of animal.

They were just stopping by one of the Post Doc’s place for a few drinks before going to the official dinner tonight. Aidan was quite excited that he had this group of esteemed scientists to bring back to his home. Bruce was mostly just happy it had just been about science so far. No one had brought up the Hulk or the Avengers or even Tony Stark which at least would have been in the realm of the same topic as Nuclear Physics.

Aidan stopped at a brownstone half a block from the park and headed up the stairs. Bruce and the rest of the group followed after him as he let himself in and then headed down the hall to the first apartment on the left.

Aidan stepped through the door and groaned. When Bruce followed him through he saw the object of Aidan’s frustration. A woman was standing in front of an airconditioning unit with headphones on. She wasn’t facing them and didn’t seem to be aware they had even come into the room. She was wearing a t-shirt that was so big on her that it was difficult to tell if she was wearing anything underneath it or not because it sat so far down her legs. Such beautiful legs too. Long and slender with just the hint of muscle definition. Her skin was pale like milk and her hair hung loosely down her back in deep red waves. She bounced around with her hands on her ears singing along to the song only she could hear.

Aidan approached her and tapped her on the head. She turned and smiled holding the headphones away from her ears. Bruce nearly audibly gasped. Her eyes were the palest, brightest blue he’d ever seen. And so big. He thought it might be possible to actually drown in those eyes.

“Can you clear out?” Aidan asked.

“Hey! I was here first!” She protested.

“Go on, fuck off,” Aidan said giving her a little nudge. There was clear affection in her voice, despite the harsh language. The kind of familiarity that was built over a long time.

She rolled her eyes and took her headphones off and began walking in the direction of Bruce. “And stop stealing my clothes!” Aidan added.

“Fine! Fuck!” She snapped and pulled the shirt off and threw it at him, completely uncaring that she was sharing the space with half a dozen middle-aged men.

She was wearing something underneath. Black hot pants and a white bra with pink polka dots on it. Bruce’s face flushed and he looked up at the ceiling, feeling extremely awkward.”

“Fucking hell, Summer!” Aidan yelled. “Grow up!”

She gave him the finger and headed back towards the door. She stopped in front of Bruce. “Hey! I have a poster of you on my bedroom wall at my parent’s house.”

Bruce shifted his gaze down to her face. She was smiling at him and it somehow looked both devious and playful.

“Oh… uh… that’s… cool… I guess… Hello.” Bruce stammered, willing himself not to look down at her chest.

“It is decidedly uncool.” She said and tapped his arm as she passed him and went outside. “See ya!”

“Did she just go outside in bare feet and her bra?” One of the other professors asked.

“She’s probably just going to the courtyard out back,” Aidan answered as he went to the kitchen. “Who can I get a beer?”

There was a general agreement from the group, though Bruce just asked for iced water. “Who was she?” He asked as Aidan handed over the glass.

Aidan groaned and rolled his eyes. “My sister. Half-sister technically. And before any of you ask, I think she’s single, but I never know. Yes, you’re welcome to try.”

“Welcome to try what?” Bruce asked.

“Asking her out or whatever you’re all thinking,” Aidan said.

One of the others laughed. “Aren’t you supposed to be protecting your sister from lecherous old men like us?”

“Well, I once tried that. When she found out, she punched me in the back of the head and said she was quite capable of policing her own vagina,” he shrugged. “That’s how she talks. Anyway, so far almost every guy I’ve brought ‘round has tried. She’s rejected them all. So, like I said, go for it if you want.”

The others started milling around and talking about the conference and physics and gossiping about other doctors that were attending. Bruce walked over to the window and looked out as he ran his finger around the rim of his glass. Summer had indeed gone out the back. There was a trampoline out there and she was jumping on it. She had the purest expression of joy on her face he’d ever seen in an adult. Occasionally she’d attempt a forward flip. When she pulled it off her whole face lit up and she’d clap her hands. When she failed, she’d just let herself fall into a heap laughing hysterically.

“Go out and talk to her, if you want,” Aidan said.

Bruce turned to him, blinking. “What?”

“You’re staring at my sister,” Aidan pushed. “Go talk to her. She’s actually pretty cool. Weird. But cool. I think you’re probably too old for her, but she’s still interesting and talking is better than staring.”

“Right,” Bruce said, feeling his face heat up a little. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Aidan assured him. “It’s fine.”

Bruce gave a nod and put his glass down, heading outside with his hands in his pockets. He didn’t exactly know what it was he was doing right now. He didn’t date and if he did it wouldn’t be women that were half his age. He just found himself drawn to her. It was like she was the polar opposite of him. Free and unthinking and completely out of her head. It was fascinating.

“Hello again, Bruce Banner.” She said without pausing in her jumping. That bra was not exactly built to support such a workout and her breasts looked like they might just escape due to the amount they were bouncing. Sweat beaded on her skin only making her look more attractive. He felt a sudden shove forward in the back of his brain from the Hulk. A little lust but mostly just a shove to stop him from chickening out.

“Uh, hello. Summer, right?” Bruce asked.

“That’s right,” she replied. She attempted another forward flip and only half pulled it off, stumbling on her landing. She quickly recovered and continued jumping.

Bruce glanced around for a topic of conversation. He still wasn’t quite sure what he was doing out here talking to her and he was already getting to the ‘overthinking it’ point. “Nice trampoline,” he settled on, and mentally cursed himself.

“Thanks,” she said, smiling. “It belongs to the family in 4B. I said they could put it out here if they let me use it. They laughed and said yes. I don’t think they thought I was serious.”

“What do you mean, you let them? Are you guys the landlords?” Bruce asked. She looked too young to be in charge of running a whole building. Aidan was in his mid-thirties, so maybe he was the landlord and she was just making herself in charge by association.

“Oh,” she said. “The building belongs to my dad. I’m studying at Columbia So he bought it and said I could live here if I let Aidan live with me and we had to run it like a business.” She answered.

Bruce blinked up at her. “Your dad just bought you a building? He’s not Tony Stark is he?”

She giggled. He could fall in love with that sound. It was so pure and unfiltered and genuine. It made him feel light just hearing it. “No, not him,” she said. “But I mean, he makes money from it. I know it’s over the top. I sometimes wonder how messed up my sense of entitlement is. I don’t really know what it’s like to not just get what I want.” She gave a small shrug and jumped around in a circle. “Now, I have a question for you, Bruce Banner.”

Bruce raised his eyebrows at her. “What is it?”

“Why aren’t you on this trampoline with me?”

Bruce laughed gently. “I don’t think it’s built to hold two adults.”

She stopped jumping and looked down at him, rolling her eyes. “Puh-lease. They had 20 kids on here last weekend. It’ll be fine.”

Bruce slipped off his loafers and took off his socks before climbing up on the trampoline. He willed the Hulk to stay back. He didn’t think the Big Guy would break for this, but he’s also never been on a trampoline before. She took his hands in hers and they started bouncing. To begin with, they didn’t leave the mat, they just bobbed up and down in time with each other. Her hands were warm and soft and she held him with no hesitation or awkwardness. As if they’d been doing that kind of thing for years.

“Why did your father make Aidan live with you? Why couldn’t he have his own place?” Bruce asked.

Summer shrugged. “It’s kind of shitty really. He’s a child of dad’s first marriage. That’s why the age difference is so big and why we don’t look much alike. I actually didn’t really know Aidan growing up. Dad just paid out the child support and didn’t have a lot to do with him. He went off the rails and I made dad feel guilty about it So he thought if he forced us to live together maybe Aidan might calm down a little. I don’t know. Maybe it just made me go off the rails.” She said and quirked an eyebrow at him.

“Oh? How did you go off the rails?” Bruce asked.

Summer started to counter the bouncing so that when he went down, she went up. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

“That’s why I asked.” Bruce deadpanned.

“Maybe if you play your cards right, I might show you,” She said. Her voice was tinged with that sexy tease some people were so good at but Bruce had never been able to master.

Bruce shivered a little. This woman had just gone from ‘you’re someone here to talk’ to ‘I’m going to fuck you later’ in 0 seconds flat.

“Hey, I bet if you jumped really high when you landed, I’d go flying.” She said, shifting from ‘let’s fuck’ to ‘you’re my new best friend’.

Bruce chuckled and started to jump. Each time he landed she’d get thrown higher and higher until she was being lifted right above his head. Each jump would make her squeal with pure delight that rolled off her into him. It made the Hulk raise his head in interest, but Bruce wasn’t worried. At least not yet. He was watching but he was staying back. They were soon both laughing and she grabbed his arms as she flew up and pulled herself down and into him when she landed. He stumbled back and they fell to the mat, clinging to each other panting and laughing.

Bruce had that feeling of euphoria that you usually only get when your adrenaline kicks in. For him, it was usually accompanied by the Hulk. Right now, he only felt good and he couldn’t remember the last time that had happened. “Okay, okay. I need to stop… gotta watch the heart rate.” Bruce said, patting his chest.

“Okay, okay.” Summer said, patting his chest. “Did you have fun at least?”

Bruce smiled. “So much fun.”

She took his hand and started to trace a fingernail over his palm. “I’d like to give you kudos for not just staring at my tits the entire time we’ve been out here, Bruce Banner.”

“Why do you keep saying my whole name like that?” He asked.

She took his hand and put his palm against her cheek. “I just like the way it tastes.”

He ran his thumb over her bottom lips and they parted. As his thumb slowly dragged across, she closed her eyes and he pushed it into her mouth. Her tongue brushed over the pad and she took a deep breath that shuddered through her as she exhaled.

He pulled his thumb away but kept his hand on her cheek. She leaned into it and hummed softly. “I love when guys do that. It makes me think about kissing and sucking dick. Do guys think that when they do it?” The question sounded rhetorical. Like she was just musing to herself. It made Bruce’s cock twitch and once again he started to question what in the hell was he doing with this much younger woman. “I have another question for you, Bruce Banner.”

“What is it?” He asked.

“When you first kiss me, do you want it to be here on the trampoline, or in my bedroom?”

Bruce swallowed thickly and let out a breath. “He - here.”

She leaned in toward him and he bridged the gap. Their lips touched and in that moment Bruce knew he was done for.

They started slow, her soft lips barely parted. Their mouths moved only a little. It gradual deepened. They sucked on each other’s lips, his hand pushed into her hair and he moved her backward. She pushed her tongue into his mouth and he met it with his as they tasted each other. She lay back into the trampoline and he moved between her legs. It had been so long since he’d allowed himself this. The thought of the Hulk getting in the way not even passing through his mind. He felt like a teenager again. Just making out in the backyard with his cousin’s friend. Hoping it might lead to sex but knowing it probably wouldn't. No concerns about big green rage monsters getting in the way.

His hand moved up to her breast and he stroked his thumb over her nipple. I hardened to his touch and she hummed, wrapping her arms around his neck and pulled him deeper into her.

Someone cleared their throat behind them. Bruce jumped up, started to see Aidan and a few of the other men standing at the edge of the trampoline.

“We were going to head out again. Will you be staying here, Doctor Banner?” One of the other scientists asked.

Bruce flushed a bright red, but Summer didn’t even look up and acknowledge them. She just nuzzled into his neck and started sucking on his throat.

“Yes… uh. I’ll stay behind,” Bruce stammered trying to shake off that feeling like he’d just been caught masturbating by a family member.

One of the men laughed and turned back to the Brownstone. “Have fun, kids.” He called, waving to them.

“If you fuck my sister, you better be ready to propose to her,” Aidan teased and grabbed Summer’s ankle and shook it. “And you. Take it easy on him. He��s too nice for you.”

Summer didn’t even look up, she just gave Aidan the finger as he walked off. Bruce found it charming that Aidan didn’t seem to know who he wanted to be protective of. When the men disappeared into the building he turned back to Summer.

She looked up at him with those clear blue eyes of hers. She took a lock of his hair that hand fallen over his brow and twirled it around her finger. “So, Bruce Banner. Would you like to go back inside and have me not take it easy on you? You can prepare your proposal while I’m going very, very hard on you.”

Bruce swallowed and looked her up and down. There was a strong push at the back of his head. The Hulk letting him know he wanted this too. He nodded slowly and Summer got up and took his hand, leading him back into her apartment.

There was no stopping to offer him a drink or any other pretense that they weren’t now going to have sex. A very small part of him had hoped that maybe there would be. That maybe she might decide it was a bad idea because he couldn’t even remember the last time he’d been with a woman and he was terrified. Instead, Summer led him straight to her bedroom. Bruce had the brief chance to notice how hard she’d tried to pull off the poor college student look in her room with things that were actually really expensive. There was a king-sized, four-poster bed near the window. Along with the standard gauze curtain in a purple, paisley print hanging from it, she’d wound a string of fairy lights that also ran around the walls and over the bay windows that looked out over the street. Where most students would have a cheap metal frame, hers was solid hardwood. Her duvet was a similar paisley print, but the pillowcases were purple with white spots. There was a wing-backed chair in the corner of the room and on the bedside table sat an ornate carnival glass lamp.

That was all he could process before she’d pushed him against her door and her mouth was on his. Her hands went up under his shirt, her nails grazing over his stomach. He slid his hands up her back and under her bra strap, pulling her hard against him. She pulled back suddenly and headed to the window, her hips swaying as she walked. When she pulled the curtains closed she turned to face him.

“Tell me, Bruce Banner,” she asked, trailing her fingers down her stomach and over her pussy. “What would you like to do to me?”

He took a deep breath and moved toward her unbuttoning his shirt. When he reached her, he snaked his hands around her waist and pulled her against him. He leaned down, but she pulled back, avoiding the kiss he was trying to initiate.

“No, no, no.” She purred putting her hands on his chest. “You need to talk to me. I want to hear what you want.”

Bruce swallowed hard. How Summer could switch from innocent and carefree to sexually overt so seamlessly was probably the biggest turn on about her. “Take off your clothes.” He said, aiming for a commanding growl, but missing it completely.

She smiled and bit her bottom lip, letting her teeth rake over it as she slowly released it again. “Ordering me, huh? I like it.” She said, unhooking her bra. She slowly slid it down her arms and tossed it onto the wing-backed chair. Bruce took her breasts in his hands, palming them and rolling his thumbs over the pale pink peaks of her nipples. She turned in his arms and one of his hands traveled up to her throat. He pulled her head back so she was leaning on his shoulder and kissed her. As he did, she pushed her shorts down and wriggled out of them.

He turned her to face him and wrapped his hand in her hair, holding her head so she was looking up at him. He ran her thumb over her lips and she nipped at it. “I do think of you sucking my dick when I do that.” He said.

“Is that what you want?” She said breathily. “You want me on my knees? You want to fuck my face?”

He moaned and let her go. She dropped down and unbuckled his pants, pulling them down. She nuzzled at his crotch, running her nose along the tent his cock was forming in his boxers. She worked them down and he stepped out of them. His anxiety was starting to rise again but if Hulk was there he was being quiet. She took his cock in her hand and pumped it as she swirled her tongue over the head.

She looked up at him and went to say something and then stopped. His anxiety started to rise and he felt Hulk push on him. Telling how stupid and weak he was. That, of course, this beautiful young woman wouldn’t want someone like him.

“It’s okay. You don’t have to do this if you don’t want.” He said, stroking her hand through her hair.

She furrowed her brow. “No… I just… I know you might have issues with the other guy. But I like it when my hair gets pulled. And you can be rough. It’s okay if you don’t but I can take it.”

Bruce faltered. He’d expected her to say so many things, but that was not even in the realm of what he’d expected. He gave a short nod and Hulk backed off again. She opened her mouth and dropped her head down, taking him deep into the back of her throat and rolled her tongue so it wrapped around the underside of his shaft. He groaned and closed his eyes and just appreciated that wet warm feeling as she massaged his cock with her tongue. It had been so long and it felt so good, now what he worried about was not lasting long enough. He bunched her hair in his hands and started to thrust, opening his eyes again so he could watch her. She hummed and smiled up at him around his shaft, keeping her eyes locked on his.

He pulled her hair a little harder and picked up his speed, letting himself go a little more. She seemed to be in complete control of herself even with the fact he was holding her head in place. If she had trouble catching her breath she would twist slightly and release him only to plunge back down and suck harder than before. She gripped his ass and pressed her fingers against his asshole. Her tongue moved expertly against him, rolling and circling his cock.

That control both reassured him that he was safe exploring this and brought him closer and closer to the edge of orgasm. He pulled back as he felt it building and guided her to bend over her bed, pressing his cock against her cunt.

“Bruce, stop,” she moaned.

He pulled back immediately and looked around wildly. “Sorry. I’m sorry. I thought this was what you wanted.”

“It is. But you gotta wrap it up, pal,” she laughed.

“Oh. Oh, I’m sorry. I - uh - I don’t have any protection. We can do something else if you want.” Bruce stammered, pulling away.

Summer pointed to the bedside table. “Don’t worry. I’ve got you covered.”

Bruce pulled the drawer open and gasped. Inside were boxes and boxes of condoms. He had figured Summer must be a little promiscuous. He’d never had a woman just want to go straight to bed with him before. Not that he judged that kind of thing. He was friends with Tony after all. The way she had kept repeating his whole name had made him think that everything had gone a little faster because there was a little celebrity crush. Which now he thought about it was probably worse. He shook his head and looked at her. “How much sex do you have, Summer?”

She burst out laughing and rolled over onto the bed, crawling up next to him and looking into the drawer. “Not quite this much,” she giggled. “I mean, I’m not going to lie, I’m a bit of a slut,” she added at a whisper like she was letting him in on a big secret. “I just really like novelty condoms and I can’t stop buying them.” She reached down and started to gently stroke his cock.

Bruce shook himself. This had all started to feel like a terrible idea and he was starting to get that dull rumble feeling like the Hulk was moving forward. He’d gotten caught up in the fact that Summer was weird, and unself-conscious, and just stunning, and she wanted him, that he hadn’t stopped to think long enough that he hadn’t slept with anyone since the Hulk and that maybe sleeping with a woman he only just met when he didn’t actually know anything about her, including how old she was, might be a very bad idea.

“How many men have you slept with?” He asked.

“Men? Umm… six,” she answered, her fingers still teasing along his shaft. “Why? How many men have you slept with?”

“None,” he answered, turning to look at her. “So you’re bi?”

“I don’t think of myself as anything,” Summer said. “Do you not want to do this anymore? I can make your dick look like a kitty cat.” She rummaged around in the drawer and pulled out a box of condoms that according to the picture on the box, each one looked like a different animal when it was rolled on. As she pulled the box free a baggie of pills that had been taped to the inside of the drawer got knocked free and fell down. Bruce picked them up and looked at them.

“Is this ecstasy? Are you high, Summer?” He asked. It would explain everything really. Why she was acting the way she was. Her manner of speech. The fact she was even attracted to him. He mentally kicked himself. He was a stupid old man who got too caught up in some weird fantasy to realize that it was too good to be true. He got up and went to find his underwear.

She got up and came up behind him, wrapping her arms around his waist and pressing her forehead against his back. “I’m not high, Bruce. I use those at raves. Not like, in the middle of the day on a Tuesday. This is really just how I am. If you don’t want to fuck now, that’s okay. But can you do me the decency of telling me what happened?”

“I don’t even know how old you are.” He said turning to face her. She reached up and twirled a lock of his hair around her finger and pulled it forward over his brow.

“Hi, Bruce Banner. My name is Summer Martin. I’m 24 years old. I have an older brother named Aidan, who is 36, and a younger sister named Dakota who is 17. My dad is wealthy. Extremely wealthy. He buys love rather than showing it. I study Classics at Columbia. I’m currently doing a Masters. I have only really had one serious relationship and that was when I was 16. It lasted for three years. Then I moved in with Aidan, and I started partying. I smoke pot and take ecstasy recreationally. Pot more than E. E is for special occasions. Very rarely and when I’m with the right people, I drop acid too. Even with all that I managed to get straight As at college. I like to have sex. But I won’t just do it with anyone. They need to connect with something in me. I don’t have a sexual preference other than that need for some connection. If I meet someone who is interested in me and I genuinely enjoy being in their company in a pure way, I do not go slowly. I have had sex with 15 people all up. Six identified as male. Seven had penises if that matters to you. I am always careful and I get tested regularly. My last test was a month ago and it came back clean. I thought we had that connection. On the trampoline. We had genuine, uncomplicated fun. I thought you might like to continue that in a more adult way. I’m sorry if you got caught up in the fantasy of who I am or something. I never meant to lead you into something you didn’t want to do.”

She let him go and stepped back. He looked her over and let out a breath. She had just laid herself bare to him and even though some of what she’d just said startled him and maybe even scared him a little - he had no idea how he could keep up with this woman - he wanted her. Hulk nudged him forward and he picked her up and kissed her passionately as he carried her to the bed.

“Okay, Summer Martin,” Bruce said, dropping her onto the mattress. “Let’s make my dick look like a kitty cat.”

She started giggling and opened the box, rifling through them until she found the one labeled cat. She tore the packet open and rolled it on over his length. The thing looked ridiculous. It was bright yellow and had a bulbous cartoon cat protruding from the end. They both looked down at it and broke down into peels of laughter.

“Summer! You gotta stop laughing at it!” Bruce teased, as he laughed himself. The laughter helped to be honest. It relaxed him and pushed all remaining concerns about the Big Guy right back.

“I’m not! It’s so cute. I’ll stroke the cute little kitty,” she said, running her hand up and down his cock.

“Little? That’s not very nice.” He teased, rolling her onto her back and kissing down her throat. He pushed his cock against her cunt, sliding it up and down her folds. She would take a sudden breath in every time it pressed against her clit. “Cats really like boxes. Have you got one this kitty can hide in?”

“Well, I’m not going to call my vagina a box. So no.” She said breaking down into hysterical laughter.

“You don’t like stupid euphemisms for vaginas? I can put my meat sword into your velvet purse?” Bruce said trying to think of the stupid things he’d heard Tony say when he was trying to get Bruce or Steve to blush.

Summer completely lost it. So was laughing in that hysterical way where you think you’ve stopped only to start up immediately again. It was like music to his ears. “Velvet purse! Oh god, help!”

“Summer Martin, I’m going to put my flesh flute into your pink taco!” He said.

“Please, no!” Summer squealed and he entered her. She moaned and wrapped her arms around his neck. “Oh, fuck yes.”

Bruce rolled his hips slowly against her, letting her body adjust to him. Having his cock buried in her heat was some kind of bliss. He had no idea why he had waited so long. Maybe it was just the laughter that had allowed this to happen when he had failed so many times before. He nipped at the skin on her throat and ran the tip of his nose up to her chin. “My trouser snake just crawled into your love cave,” he said, making his voice breathy, to begin with, but breaking down into giggles by the end.

Summer shook her head, unable to form words, completely consumed by her laughter and her moans brought on by the feeling of his cock inside her. She brought her knees up and wrapped them around his waist. Her feet pressed on his ass and pushed him deeper into her.

Bruce started to thrust harder into her. The heat from her cunt felt like heaven around his cock. He imagined how she’d feel without the condom. The moisture of her arousal engulfing him and soaking his dick. She finally gained control of her laughter and began to dig her nails into her back. She contracted and released her pelvic floor in a random pattern that was bringing him to climax much too fast.

He kissed her and shifted his body so it was curved more, his cock penetrating her deeper than before. He flicked at her nipples with the tip of his tongue and she let out such a low and loud curse that it made him blush.

He sucked her nipple into his mouth and started pounding into her.

“Yes! Bruce! Just like that!” She cried, her body arching up into him. Her words were like encouragement for him. He went harder but with an irregular rhythm. Her hand snaked down between them and she started rubbing her clit. Her body seized up, contracting around his cock as she came. She let out a string of curse words and her nails dug into his back.

His hips jerked as her walls milked his cock and he emptied inside her. He slowed down his movements as his cock pulsed and twitched inside of her before slipping out.

He looked down at his dick and chuckled at the sad-looking slimy condom he had on. “Aww… kitty looks all sad and disgusting.” Summer teased.

“Poor kitty. He had a nice time at least.” He said making Summer break down into peals of laughter. She pointed at a wastebasket sitting next to a hardwood desk.

Bruce got up and removed the condom, tying it off and tossing it in the trash. He returned to the bed and Summer opened her arms out, welcoming him into her embrace. He nuzzled into her neck and draped his arm over her.

“I know this is really corny and something you’re not supposed to do. But Summer, that was really fun. I haven’t… since … the other guy I haven’t been with anyone. But even before, I never remember having that much fun during sex before.” He said as Summer carded her fingers through his hair. “Thank you.”

She smiled. “I was the first one?”

“Mmm… I mean I’ve tried, but… he was harder to control back then. I have more control now, but I still …” He shook his head, not wanting to go into the massive lists of reasons why he kept women at arm’s length thanks to his litany of mental blocks. She was here for a one-time thing. She didn’t need that. “There’s a dinner on for this conference tonight. Would you like to come? Aidan will be there.”

She giggled and sat up. “My brother is not the selling point you think he is. But sure. I’ll come. It will be interesting.” She sat up on the edge of the bed and looked back at him and trailed her fingers through his chest hair. “Or we could have a nice cool shower and maybe instead, we can order in some food and do that again?”

Bruce sat up and kissed her shoulder. “It is pretty hot out there and you do have air conditioning.”

“If you make a joke about Summer, I’ll kill you.” Summer laughed getting up and grabbing a satin robe and throwing it to him.

She wrapped a pink robe with flowers all over it around her and headed out of the bathroom. Bruce got up and put the robe on, watching her ass as she sashayed from the room. He jogged after her.

“Oh, I’ve got one!” He said laughing. “I sure am looking forward to spending this day in Summer.”

// NEXT

A/N: Back in the days I wrote RPF I invented an OC named Summer. I was kind of in love with the character but I stopped being able to write her story because the muse for the context I put her in was no longer speaking to me. I’ve wanted to bring her over to Marvel for a while but I couldn’t think of who to pair her with. Then I had Summer as a prompt on my Bruce Banner bingo card. Due to the fact this is Bruce paired with an OC and there’s an age gap, I’m assuming I’ll get almost no one reading it. So I'm writing it for me. Some of the chapters are just rewritten from her original fic changed enough to work for the older, much more reserved Bruce. Some are half rewrite/half new. Some are totally new. Unlike most of my fics, I’m not going to keep to a publishing schedule because this is for me. You might get a lot quickly and then a break while I work on other things. You might get it regularly for a while. I might change the days I publish it. Please if you like it let me know. It will encourage me to post more regularly and I’ll love you forever for loving my girl.

#brucebannerbingo2019 #bruce banner #bruce banner x oc #hulk #hulk fanfic #fanfic #fanfiction #smut #she sets the city on fire #summer's day

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comicgeekscomicgeek · 3 years

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Their Hero Academia - Chapter 72: Summer Shorts Part 1

Presenting the next installment of my on-going, nextgen, MHA fic! Earlier chapters can be found here

Shota Shinso in Student-Teacher Conference

At the knocking at his apartment door, Shota Shinso paused the video he’d been watching, a special counting down the top ten most amazing Hero battles from the previous year. The votes for the battles had come from an online poll, which he’d voted in, so they were probably a little on the biased side rather than being truly objective or anything like that. But he had to admit that most of the ones which had made the cut were the same ones he would have chosen.

Unsurprisingly, Uncle Izuku had made the list twice, for his fights against Doom-Fist and the Maximums. Shoto was on the list two times as well; Ingenium and Gale Force had both made it on there once, as had Kestrel and Rodeo. Red Riot and Real Steel shared a spot on the list. And then there had been Ground Zero’s battle against Megastorm…

He’d had to fast forward through that. It had sent his mind flashing back to the day of the Nomu attack. He’d heard the sounds of tearing flesh and the Nomu’s terrible scream. His hands had felt wet with Ground Zero’s blood as he’d desperately tried to provide what first aid he could. His nostrils had filled with the coppery smell…

It had taken everything he had not to scream and destroy the apartment. At least with Mom and Dad both at work, there hadn’t been anyone else around to see.

He’d been doing so well. He’d actually passed his exams at school and made good use of his Quirk during the Heroics final exam. He was able to be around Kirishima-Bakugo without flinching or expecting her to be mad at him. He only had nightmares about it every so often.

He hadn’t counted on what actually seeing Ground Zero would do to him. Shota had been doing a good job of keeping himself from thinking about him. He’d hidden away his Ground Zero posters, statues, toys, and other merchandise. He’d set his phone and internet browser to screen any mention of him. If he kept himself from thinking about Ground Zero, then he could keep himself from thinking about what happened.

Shota knew what happened wasn’t his fault. He’d been told that often enough now, had enough therapy that he could say it without feeling like it was a lie. But it was still like standing on the edge of a cliff. Somedays, it didn’t take much to send him over the edge.

Dumb, really. He should have expected that Ground Zero would have been in such a video. His fights had always been amazing to watch. His Quirk, his strength, his skill, all of it was… had been simply amazing.

And maybe he wouldn’t be anymore.

Because of him.

Dang it, he was supposed to be moving past this!

He shut his eyes right for a moment, doing the calming exercises Hound Dog had taught him. Deep breaths. Focus his thoughts on where he was, what he could see. Whoever was at the door knocked again, and his eyes snapped open as he got off the couch. “Coming!” he called out.

He opened the door before they could knock again.

“Hey, kid. Can we talk?”

…It was Ground Zero.

***

The park near his apartment was busy today, with lots of kids playing around, happy and carefree. He could see a group of elementary school-age kids using their Quirks to keep a Frisbee up in the air. One had some kind of wind Quirk, another an arm-stretching Quirk, and the third and fourth, who looked like twins, seemed to have some kind of telekinetic push and pull Quirks. He smiled, remembering doing the same kinds of games with Toshi, Shinji, Izumi, and the others as a kid. Of course, there was the time he’d hit the Frisbee with a sonic blast and knocked it out of the park…

Maybe they ought to bring that back. It’d be a fun game and good Quirk training!

He and Ground Zero sat on a bench, eating the ice cream they’d bought. Though lots of Pro Heroes, especially the Top Ten, went out in some measure of disguise when they were off the clock, Ground Zero didn’t bother. He was very good at radiating “keep at least three meters away from me if you know what’s good for you vibes.” It was something his daughter was also extremely good at.

Ground Zero clearly wanted to talk, but Shota didn’t have any idea what it was about. It was all he could do to keep from shaking and panicking. The ice cream gave him something to be present in the moment in, something else Hound Dog had taught him to do when he thought he was going to have a panic attack.

“So,” he said quietly, “you wanted to talk?”

Ground Zero took a moment, as though sizing him up, then nodded. “How you doing, kid? Katsumi says you did pretty good during the exam.” His voice lacked some of its usual hard edge. The question sounded sincere.

Kirishima-Bakugo had talked about him? And said he’d done good? He wouldn’t have expected that. Shota nodded. “It was really nuts! Uncle Shota got actual bad guys to fight us! Even Shadow-Thief! Boy though, did Mom and Dad give him an earful about that! Mom really doesn’t like her for some reason, maybe because Dad says she used to try and flirt with him whenever he’d try and catch her, but that’s silly, because they’ve been married forever now… But yeah, I was one of the last ones left standing, and we zapped the big guy really good….”

It had made him feel like he could actually do something right. It was a good feeling. He’d actually helped his friends when it had really counted.

“That’s good,” Ground Zero said, more indulgently than most adults did when he went on about something. “Sounds like you really kicked their asses.”

Shota actually laughed a little bit at that. Ground Zero definitely had a way with words. “Yeah, I guess we did.” He frowned a little. “What… what about you? Are you doing okay?”

Ground Zero went quiet for a moment, before he went on. “Getting better every day,” he said. “Physical therapy three times a week. Hasn’t been the challenge yet that can beat me. Glasses and Tintin’s wives are working on a better prosthetic. I’ll be kicking ass again before you can blink.”

It sounded reassuring. But it was still a challenge he wouldn’t have been facing if it hadn’t been for Shota. If he hadn’t been trying to keep him safe… Ground Zero looked down for a moment, at his leg, then over at Shota, then sighed. “You know this isn’t your fault, right, kid?”

Shota frowned. He closed his eyes. “Sometimes,” he said after a moment. “Maybe not all the time. But it’s hard not to think it was.”

“It wasn’t,” Ground Zero repeated, more forcefully this time. He tossed the remains of his ice cream in the trash and put a hand on Shota’s shoulder. His grip was firm and strong. “Look at me, kid.” He didn’t speak again until Shota was looking him in the eyes, something that took more willpower than he thought he had.

“Listen,” Ground Zero said. “You, Shota Shinso, are not to blame for what happened to me. Not one damn percent. You got that? Whatever sick f—er, bastard made that damn monster is to blame, not you.”

Shota nodded, mutely. He’d been told that so many times, from so many people. Some days, he believed it. Ground Zero though, was one of the most direct and honest people he knew. If he blamed Shota, he’d have no problem letting him know. If he didn’t blame him, maybe there was some truth to it.

“Good,” Ground Zero told him. “And anytime that thought starts running through your head, I want you to punch it, hard, for me. You picture it, shout kill and let it have it. You got that?”

He nodded again, his head bobbing up and down quickly. He could do that!

Ground Zero looked him over again. He let out a puff of breath. “Look… I ain’t good with words. So maybe I’m not gonna tell this real well, but… Listen, I have been exactly where you are.”

“You?” Shota asked. “But you’re Ground Zero! You’re not afraid of anything! You’re the most confident Hero ever!”

Ground Zero shook his head. “You remember Kamino? All Might’s last fight with that masked potato-faced freak?”

Who hadn’t heard of that? Uncle Izuku had told the story plenty of times of how he and his friends had gone to rescue Ground Zero from the League of Villains, while All Might had battled his long-time enemy. It was the climax of all kinds of documentaries about All Might’s career. Everyone who was around and aware then had a story about where they were when they saw it happen. They studied it in school! He’d seen the video hundreds of times! Shota nodded again.

“I went through the same thing you’re going through,” Ground Zero said. He gazed off into the distance. “I blamed myself for causing All Might’s retirement. I thought if I hadn’t been so weak, hadn’t screwed up and gotten captured, he wouldn’t have had to use up the last of his strength to save me. I blamed myself, for weeks. Without even realizing it, it affected everything I did. I was even nastier and louder and angrier than usual. I was such a shit, I’m amazed any of my friends stuck around. But after I failed the Provisional License Exam, well… let’s just say it took Deku beating some sense into me for me to realize what I’d been carrying around.”

“Really?” Shota asked. He’d never heard this one before! “Uncle Izuku never said anything about that! And you always seem so confident! But you… you blamed yourself too?”

He knew Heroes got scared sometimes. Uncle Izuku had talked about it, so had Uncle Denki, even Uncle Inasa had. Uncle Shota even said that fear was a logical response sometimes. And he knew they had doubts and worries. But of all the Heroes in the world, he never would have expected Ground Zero would!

“Yeah, I did. And there’s still times where I wonder what would have happened if I hadn’t been such an arrogant dumbass back then.” He looked over and smiled a bittersweet smile, then gave Shota’s hair an affectionate tussle. “So don’t go letting me hear you needed Toshi or Katsumi or somebody to beat you up, okay? There’s nothing wrong with needing help. Hell, you start feeling down, you call me, day or night, okay?”

Shota nodded rapidly again, the bad thoughts banished for the moment. He knew they’d be back. “Okay!”

Seemingly satisfied with that, Ground Zero nodded. “Which is kind of why I wanted to talk to you in the first place, kid. You know how All Might’s taking over from Nedzu as principal?”

“Oh yeah!” Shota said. “He’s gonna be really awesome at it, I just know it! He said he might still teach a few classes, but that we’re gonna get a new Heroics’ teacher! He said they were looking into some people, but he didn’t really know who it was going to be…”

Ground Zero cleared his throat and interrupted him. “It’s going to be me.”

“Oh, wow!” Shota said. It was only then that he realized what Ground Zero had actually said. “Wait, what?”

A smile passed over the Hero’s face. “It’s gonna be me. All Might offered me the job before you all went off to Ponytail’s island.”

“Oooh,” Shota said. “You’d be really good at that! I learned a whole bunch when I was your Intern! And Kirishima-Bakugo’s really super talented, so you must have taught her a whole lot too, and you’re one of the most awesome Heroes around, with one of the best fight records and…”

Ground Zero held up his hands. “Breathe, kid. Breathe. I know I’m pretty awesome. So you’re damn right I’ll be a damn good teacher. Even if I have to drag some of your classmates forward kicking and screaming.”

Shota didn’t know who that would be. All his friends and classmates worked so hard and had such amazing Quirks! “But… why would you want to talk to me about that?” he asked. He wasn’t family or anything.

Ground Zero gave him a small, sympathetic smile. “Because I knew you were probably still blaming yourself. Even though I told you not to. I didn’t know how you’d take it if you had to see me every day.”

“What?” Shota asked. The question didn’t make any sense.

“Kid,” Ground Zero said patiently, “you practically had a damn panic attack when I showed up at your door. You’re going to be seeing me every Heroics Class if I take this job.” He tapped his knuckles against his knee. It made a small metallic clang. “And you’ll be thinking about this.”

“That’s not,” he started to say, but stopped himself. He can’t help but stare now, his eyes wide and wet. What if Ground Zero was right? “Maybe.”

This got him a nod. “That’s what I thought. But here’s the deal. If I’m going to be a teacher, then I’ve gotta look out for my students first. Which means I have to look out for you, before I even teach a single class.”

Shota felt his eyes growing wet. “But… but…”

“Aw, for the love of…” Ground Zero started, waving his hands rapidly. “Don’t cry, kid! I cannot deal with crying! You’re worse than Deku, I swear…!”

Shota sucked in a breath and fought back his tears. He couldn’t just cry like that in front of one of his heroes! He wasn’t a baby, even if he was a little younger than all his classmates. He was training to be a Hero. He had to be strong!

Ground Zero was being a Hero. He was thinking of someone else, Shota, putting his needs first, even if it meant he didn’t get to be a teacher. Shota… Shota couldn’t take that away from him! And he’d be a good teacher too, he knew it!

And if he knew what to expect… then maybe he could be ready for it! He could psyche himself up! Hound Dog said that getting in the right mind space was important! He’d even know him all kinds of exercises for how to do it.

“A Hero’s got to be brave,” he said finally. “I can be brave too!” He was almost sure he meant it. He could do it! He could do it! He was getting better every day! He had his bad days, but maybe if he really worked on it…

Then Ground Zero held his gaze and if Shota hadn’t known his Quirk was Explosion, he would have been certain he was reading his mind. “All right,” he said. “I believe you. But I’m going to be watching you. And I’m going to hold you to telling me if you start having trouble, got it? You’re going to be a damn good Hero someday, kid. Especially with me in your corner.”

***

Chihiro Kaminari in Kiss and Make Up

“Chihiro! Chihiro! Watch! Watch me!”

Chihiro looked over to where her eight year old sister, Hikari, was playing on the monkey bars. The purple-haired girl was hanging on by one hand, her other limbs dangling in the air. “Okay, okay,” she said, “I’m watching.”

“Okay… Watch!” Hikari released all her fingers and Chihiro’s heart lurched. If her little sister got hurt on her watch, she was going to be in a load of trouble! She started rushing forward only to realize that Hikari wasn’t falling. Despite her fingers not touching anything, her palm was still flat against the bar and she wasn’t falling.

Chihiro’s Cords perked up as she got closer, tiny sparks dancing along their tips. There was enough electricity flying about that she could feel it. The fact that Hikari’s hair was standing straight up was another clue. She crossed her arms. “Let me guess, Spark Plug,” she said. “You’re using your Quirk?”

“Yep!” Hikari said proudly. “Daddy and I worked real hard on this one!”

Hikari’s Quirk was called Static. It let her absorb ambient static electricity and release it and apparently also stick to things with it like a balloon. She had to laugh a little bit though. She and Dad had certainly driven Mon to yelling at them more times than she could count for doing dumb things with their own Quirks. Her younger brother Reylo got yelled at less often, but only because his Quirk was sound-based and Dad couldn’t teach him anything dangerous.

Chihiro gave her a thumb’s up. “Cool trick,” she said. But she noticed that Hikari’s hair was starting to settle back down. Her Cords were starting to spark less too. She took a few steps forward and held out her arms, letting Hikari fall into them.

“Off!” Hikari said, looking surprised and annoyed. “How come I fell?”

“Ran out of juice,” Chihiro told her. “You don’t make your own electricity, remember?”

“Oh. Right! I knew that.”

Chihiro just laughed again and set Hikari down on the ground, letting her run off to the next piece of playground equipment. Well, at least her little brother Reylo had half a brain. One Kaminari ought to have at least half a chance.

“Stay where I can see you!” she called out. “And that goes for you two too!”

She looked over to where her other charges (Heh. Charges. Why was she always this funny when no one else was around?), a small brown-haired girl and a blond boy: Mako Midoriya and Tai Kirishima-Bakugo, both five years old. When the kids’ regular sitter had bailed, she’d volunteered to watch them. She was already watching Hikari anyway and didn’t have any plans. Plus she was getting two thousand yen each for the two of them. They gave her a friendly wave.

There were also, she would readily admit, advantages to living in a gated community, including a private playground. Almost all the families that lived here were Pro-Heroes, though there were also a few Support Company officers, and a few other careers, such as Mom’s split career as Hero and musician. The kids certainly seemed to enjoy it anyway. She’d already been ten by the time they’d moved in and was starting to get too “cool” for that kind of thing.

Of course, to hear Mom tell it, the reason they bought the house was all Dad’s fault. Dad had brought home a Great Dane puppy instead of groceries… somehow. Since Sparky was going to quickly get too big for their apartment, so they’d gone house shopping. Of course, to hear Dad tell it, Kirishima-Bakugo’s dad had nearly flipped a gasket when he’d found out they were going to be neighbors…

Chihiro let a smile spread across her face as she watched the kids play. Hikari was making herself dizzy, spinning around on the merry-go-round, while Mako and Tai were playing on the teeter-totter. It was nice. Peaceful even. She could quietly zone out just a little bit.

“Stuck on kid duty too, Kaminari?”

Taken by complete surprise, she let out a cry of alarm as she turned. Her Cords shot out and unleashed a mild pulse of electricity the second they made contact with… something.

“AAAAGGGGGGGGGGG!””

Shiro Monoma hit the ground with a small thump.

***

“You killed him!” Hikari shouted. “Mom and Dad are gonna be so mad!”

Chihiro shot her sister a fierce look. “No, I didn’t!” she protested. But as she quickly turned her attention back to Monoma, she wasn’t so sure.

“He’s still breathing,” Monoma’s younger sibling said, sounding disinterested. Takeru, right. That was their name. And non-binary too. Important to remember. Chihiro thought they were the same age as Tai and Mako, but they sounded like they were going on forty. They gave him a look which suggested they’d long grown bored with seeing accidental misfortunes befall their older brother.

“She really made him go zap!” Mako said. “He lifted up and then… Bzzzzt!” As she talked, her hands copied the motions Monoma had gone through.

“Yeah!” Tai agreed. “I saw sparks! It was so cool!”

Chihiro gulped and looked down at Monoma. He was still breathing. That was good. She probably hadn’t hit him with that many volts. He’d just surprised her.

“It’s not my fault!” she said, throwing her hands up in the air as she paced back and forth. “He snuck up on me!”

“Uhhh.” A noise from Monoma caught her attention instantly. His eyes fluttered open. How could someone be electrocuted, fall in the grass, and still be so damn pretty? Especially while wearing a t-shirt and shorts? “What hit me?”

“You snuck up on her and she electrocuted you,” Takeru told him flatly.

“I did no such thing!” Monoma protested. He ignored her hand up in favor of bouncing to his feet under his own power, dusting himself off once he landed.

“You were doing that thing where you don’t make any noise,” Takeru said. “No wonder she didn’t hear you coming.”

“Yeah!” Chihiro said, pointing at him. Maybe she could spin this as his fault after all! “Why do you gotta ninja around all the time?!”

Monoma seemed offended at that, putting a hand to his chest. “I did no such thing! I do not “ninja around!’” He wilted under her glare ever so slightly, however. “Well… perhaps I do have a bit of a silent tread. I can apologize for that, at least. I’m sorry.”

Great, how was she supposed to be mad at him when he was apologizing? Completely unfair! She didn’t want to be thinking about him at all! “Yeah, well…,” she said, “I probably shouldn’t have zapped you. You okay?”

He produced a flick comb from his pocket and fixed his hair. “No harm done, I suppose,” Monoma said.

Chihiro realized the children were all watching them still. “Okay kids,” she said, waving her hands vaguely in the direction of the playground. “Show’s over. Go play!”

Hikari crossed her arms. “Aw, I wanted to see you zap him again!”

“Go!” Chihiro repeated, pointing more dramatically this time. Her little sister turned tail at that. Meanwhile, Takeru was being dragged off by Mako and Tai under half-hearted protests.

“So…,” she ventured, looking back at Monoma. This was definitely awkward. Why the hell didn’t she keep the kids around? Now all she could think about was how he’d kissed her and how Mika had said she should date him! Maybe she should shock him again, run away, move to a new city, start a new life on the run singing for coins on street corners…

Okay, maybe not that bad.

“Um, yes,” Monoma said, and she was somehow glad to see the awkwardness was mutual. It was so rare to see him as anything less than composed that she considered it a victory even in embarrassment.

And then he said the most dangerous words of all.

“Can we talk?”

***

They were far enough away that they wouldn’t be overheard, but not so far away that they couldn’t keep an eye on the kids. Hikari had met up with one of her friends and Chihiro gave a wave to the kid’s parents before giving Monoma as much of her attention as she could.

“So,” she said. Her Cords make small circles through the air, as she crossed her arms. “You wanted to talk. Talk. I’m listening.”

“Ah, yes, well,” Monoma began. Alarm bells were already ringing in her head. Granted, her guard was always up around him. Sure, she’d eat lunch with him with Mika, Koda, and Fukidashi or Tetsutetsu. He was tolerable in small doses. Especially if he kept his mouth shut. But she’d never seen him as at a loss for words as this.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t have just kissed you like that without asking. It wasn’t very gentlemanly of me. I was… overcome with emotion at resolving some of my own issues, and let my exuberance get the better of me.”

Chihiro blinked slowly. She definitely hadn’t been expecting an apology. Even with the one he’d given a few minutes ago, she wasn’t even sure he really knew how to apologize. But she looks over and he was so earnestly apologetic that even her background level of irritation at him started to fade. “It’s, ah, it’s fine,” she said. “You were excited. Happens.”

He looked a bit surprised. “That’s happened before?”

She had to laugh at that. “No, that one was definitely a first.” Her left Cord shot out and gave him a soft poke in the chest. “Definitely wasn’t expecting my first kiss to be you though.”

He looked offended at that. “That was not a first kiss. All I did was kiss you on the cheek!”

“A kiss is a kiss!” she shouted at him, moving closer. “Doesn’t matter where it was!”

“You’re out of your mind!”

“I thought you were apologizing!”

“I did! You were the one who tried to turn it into a semantics argument!”

“It’s not semantics if I’m right! That! Was! A! Kiss!”

Their faces were mere centimeters from each other now. His eyes were big, blue, and ever so close. He really was just too ridiculously pretty for his own good. Probably spent more time in front of the mirror than she did. About the only person who might outdo him in the hair and skin care regime was Aoyama.

“That wasn’t a kiss!” Monoma snapped. “If I’d really wanted to kiss you, I’d have done it like this!”

Before she could blink, he’d reached out and put his arms around her, spinning her around into a low dip, before planting his lips on hers. Her eyes went wide as he held the kiss for a long moment, before spinning her back into a standing position.

“What the hell?!” she snapped. “What the hell was that?!” Her Cords flew about her head like angry snakes, sparking with electricity.

“I… I don’t… it just happened!” Monoma said, backing away from her nervously. He looked ready to run and hide. Good! Who did he think he was, kissing her like this was some made for tv romantic movie where they yelled and kissed?!

She pointed her Cords at him aggressively, taking aim, her face flush with anger. “I oughta just take you out!”

His eyes widened in surprise, but then he smiled that same smug, irritating, and entirely too good looking smile. “Well.. Why not?” he asked. “I am finding your company surprisingly enjoyable, even without Mika as a barrier. Pick me up at seven tomorrow evening then?”

Her mouth dropped open. She could feel her mental footing slipping away as she shifted lanes from furious to baffled in the space of an eye blink. Mika’s advice to give him a chance came back to her. And she definitely wasn’t about to admit that she’d really enjoyed that kiss. But the other hand, he was absolutely infuriating. And sure, he’d shown her a more vulnerable side back at school…

Her Cords sagged, the sparks fading. “…What?”

“That, ah, that is… if you want to,” he said. Awkwardness replaced the smugness. And now he had his hands up, protecting his face, as he backed up. “We could go on a date. And I promise no more kissing.”

The words unless you want to hung silently in the air.

“Why me?” she asked, after letting him squirm uncomfortably for a moment. “I know Mika’s your ex. Going from her to me has to be a pretty steep downgrade.”

He looked puzzled for a moment, until his eyes widened in realization. He crossed his arms. “You do remember I used to date her before she, ah, blossomed. I’m not so shallow as to be purely attracted to… that.”

Okay, he did have a point there. “Okay, but the first question still stands. You’re all fancy pants and I’m… me. In fact, up until you kissed me, I was pretty sure you didn’t even like me.”

A blush spread across Monoma’s face and he smiled sheepishly. “Mika insists I have a thing for women who can beat me up. You do fall into that category, of course, but the fact remains that you are a fascinating and attractive woman. You’re talented, with varied interests, and you are entirely willing to call me out to my face when I’m being a pretentious asshole. After some rather blunt conversations and realizations… I’m… trying harder not to be that person anymore.”

Okay. That was… actually pretty respectful sounding. Which was definitely a first for him when it came to her. Sounded like somebody had called him out. Mika, maybe? Or Tetsutetsu? Koda was too nice to have done it…

“Okay, fine,” she said. She tried to project with her tone that she was doing him a favor, not that she was actually possibly maybe kind of interested in him. “We can go on a date. On one, no, two conditions.”

He seemed surprised at that. “All right, I completely understand if you don’t wish to…. Wait, what?”

“One, no more kissing me out of the blue. You try it, and I’ll shock you so bad you’ll never get your hair to look right again.”

He chuckled. It was actually somewhat pleasant when it wasn’t paired with taunts. “A tremendous threat. Very well. And the other?”

“Don’t you dare tell Ojiro about this. Or put it on-line or anything where she can somehow find out about it. I’ll never hear the end of it.”

Monoma nodded. “I suppose that’s reasonable. So long as you do the same with regards to Fukadashi. I don’t need her comparing me to some anime or manga more than she already does.”

He had a point there. Fukidashi was weird. And given the company she kept, that was saying something. “Deal. It’s a date.”

“YAY!”

Chihiro’s head snapped around and she saw that the kids were staring at them. Hikari was the one who’d shouted, but they all looked enthralled. Well, everyone but Takeru did.

“How long have you been watching?!” she demanded.

“Long enough,” Takeru said. They looked over at Chihiro. “You should have shocked him again. Otherwise he won’t learn anything.”

She had to laugh at that. “Okay,” she said. “You, I like.”

“Yay! A date!” Mako said. “My big sister went on a date too! With Haruto Sero!” She danced about as she talked, kicking up a little bit dust. “Ah… ah… choooo!”

Chihiro’s eyes went wide as Mako’s Fire-Breath Quirk went active with her sneeze. Instantly, she tackled Monoma to the ground, as a blast of flame went through where his head had just been. Her face went flush as she realized how close they were again. Hastily, she shoved herself up and off him.

She offered Monoma a hand up and this time he took it. His hands weren’t anywhere near as soft as his pretty boy imagine would have suggested, she realized. “Sorry about that. She doesn’t have full control of her Quirk yet.”

“Quite, quite all right,” Monoma said, sounding a bit shook from his near-fire experience. He was blushing too, she noticed. He dusted himself off. “But seven, tomorrow then, if that’s agreeable to you?”

“Yeah, all right,” she said.

Great. That gave her more than a day to figure out how to explain to her dad she was dating a Monoma.

One date. Not dating.

She definitely wasn’t thinking about kissing him. …Dating him! And she wasn’t thinking about that either!

…Crap.

#my hero academia #their hero academia #shiro monoma #chihiro kaminari #shota shinso #katsuki bakugo #fan fiction #fan fic #my writing

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jimlingss · 5 years

Text

Jungle Park [11]

Chapter 10 - Chapter 11 - Chapter 11.5 OR Chapter 12

➜ Words: 7.7k

➜ Genres: Fluff, Light Humour (?), Slice of Life, Workplace Romance!AU

➜ Summary: The equation is simple. Hoseok needs to hire someone. You need a job. Except like any actual equation, it’s not fucking simple at all! Not when you have to add the fact that he was forced to hire someone he doesn’t want in his office, he has little respect for your job in general, and oh yeah...once upon a time you might have—*CENSORED*.

The sound of wheels rolling over the ridges of tile follow with the parade of steps. You grip onto the handle of your luggage, dragging it behind you as you follow the signs to the gate. It’s bustling, crowds shuffling together, trying to get to their destinations whether it’s a vacation spot or to home. There are children chasing after parents or running off, couples holding hands to their honeymoons, businessmen and women adjusting their ties as they go off to their business trips. But never once is it suffocating. It’s spacious with modern architecture, plenty of light coming through the large windows that allows you to see white aircrafts parked right outside and those descending onto the runway. The intercom blares above you every so often, giving last calls for boarding flights. Thankfully, you don’t hear any calls for your own flight and you make it to the gate right on time. “Was everything alright?” Sunyi asks as you appear, joining the group. “Security took a while for you.” “Yeah, it was nothing.” You look around to see if you missed anything, but Yoongi is texting on his phone, Seulgi is at the gift shop, and Hoseok is preoccupied on his laptop, typing away. There’s nothing out of the ordinary. “Jungkook’s in the washroom and Jimin went to get coffee or something. We’re boarding in about fifteen minutes.” “Sounds good.” You sit down with her, settling in your seats and preparing for a three hour long flight. “Is there anything I should know?” “Not really. It’s just a conference on child welfare. So just sit and listen to presenters, and eat free food and mingle and network.” The lawyer softly smiles and sighs. “It’s actually kind of boring.” You nod, still unable to dispel your anxiousness away, curious as to what will happen and worried that you’re not prepared. “I’ve never been to anything like this before.” “There’s nothing too difficult, don’t worry.” She leans closer, dropping the volume of her voice. “If there was, I wouldn’t go. Neither would Seulgi.” Sunyi’s not wrong, especially considering that Seulgi isn’t a lawyer and is a paralegal, but personally volunteered to help take notes and be everyone’s assistant. You weren’t supposed to come either. It was only a three day conference business trip, but Naul couldn’t make it because her son was in town and Taehyung had to stay back since he had already booked appointments with his client, so you took the invitation. And here you are, sitting at the gate before lining up to get onto your flight. Jimin sips on his coffee, staring at the ticket in his hand before he leans over to glance at yours. Slowly, the line was shuffling forward, all those in business class coming after first. “I think our seats are switched,” he tells you. “They must’ve had an issue with printing. You’re sitting with Hoseok now. Do you wanna switch back?” “I..uhh…” Right as you’re about to speak, you notice Hoseok glancing up from his phone screen, giving you the briefest of peeks. You don’t want to give the wrong impression and you respond with, “It’s fine.” The lawyer nods and chimes out, “Then I get to sit next to Jungkookie~” Said student lawyer appears disappointed, doe eyes becoming puppy-like, mouth drawing downwards and you plop a hand on his shoulder to appease him while promising, “I’ll sit with you on the way back.” His cute smile returns instantly. “Okay!” Sunyi lifts her hand next to her head like she’s waiting to be called on. “Can we switch too? I don’t want to sit next to him.” Her thumb hitches towards Yoongi who seems even more exhausted, eye bags going to his knees. “Can I get some aspirin? She’s giving me a migraine.” “No,” Jimin shoots down the plea. “That’s too much of a hassle. Just keep things the way they are. You guys need to learn how to cooperate with each other anyway.” “But—” “Don’t argue with each other,” you step in to reprimand and then you turn to Sunyi, reminding her of the technique that you both established many complaint sessions ago. “Deep breaths.” She doesn’t seem amused. The line up doesn’t take long and by the next few minutes, your ticket is scanned, passport glanced at, and you’re on your way inside the plane. The two pilots greet you, the pretty head stewardess that seems to glare at the female pilot for some unknown reason, and you make your way down the narrow aisle towards business class. Your seat and Hoseok’s are the first ones, extra leg room when there are no seats in front and just a plain wall with tiny televisions. Hoseok helps lift your luggage into the overhead bin without you needing to ask and he offers the window seat which you take to spare the debate and argument. “Are you still working?” you ask him in disbelief and awe when he pulls his laptop out. “Just getting as much done as possible,” he mutters, eyes trained on the document and you don’t bother him further. Instead, you watch the other passengers shuffle their way through the aircraft, energetic children and cooing babies to the elderly holding onto seats as they pass. Jimin and Jungkook a few seats down appear like they’re getting along, but Yoongi and Sunyi who are behind them not so much. They have enough dignity to not rip each other’s heads apart in public, so you’re not too concerned. From across the aisle, Seulgi has her own seat next to a handsome stranger and she shoots you a wink before returning to the conversation with her new friend. You also look out the window, watching as air traffic control brings luggage on the plane and checks around the craft. With the white noise and low stimulation, you become increasingly drowsy. Your lids become heavy, vision hazing over, mind blank, and you’re about to fall asleep, except your lull is interrupted when Hoseok finally shuts the lid of his laptop and stuffs it into his bag. He glances at you. “Comfortable?” “Very.” You inhale a deep breath, body relaxing even more. “I don’t think I’ve ever been in business class before.” He hums. “It’s better than economy, that’s for sure.” Hoseok moves to push the buttons on the monitor in front of him while you keep one eye open, leaning back in your comfortable seat, watching him browse the entertainment selection. “Are you going to watch a movie?” “Maybe. I’ll probably do more work after take-off, but I want to see what they have.” “Why are you on the thriller and horror section?” A sleepy smile pulls into your cheeks and you know that looking at the movie poster and reading the title is enough to make him scared. “Comedy’s to your left. Right there.” He presses on it and shifts in the seat. “How did you know I like comedy?” You shrug, too drowsy to find some kind of explanation. “I know a lot of things about you.” A snort of air leaves his nose. “Is this a confession from a stalker?” You laugh as he returns to browsing and your lids become heavier and heavier against your will, even when you’re fighting to stay conscious. “You wish….” “Hmm, this looks good.” He’s chosen a romantic comedy that’s at the top of the selection and skims the description. It’s an older one called ‘When Spring Meets Autumn’ and he recognizes a person on the cast list, a fairly famous actress that also happens to be his secret celebrity crush. “Has decent ratings.” “We already watched that,” you mumble, recognizing the movie. His brow lifts and his neck cranes towards you, expression incredulous. “We did?” “Yeah, in theater,” you hum underneath your breath and if he wasn’t right next to you, he wouldn’t be able to hear. “It was really bad.” It’s quiet. The white noise drowns into the back. For an extended moment, his breath hitches in his throat and he doesn’t make a single sound. Eventually, the intercom flares to life above him, the pilot greeting the passengers and the flight attendants make their rounds to check trays and overhead bins. As they do the safety demonstration, Hoseok finally returns to his senses and turns back to you in a gentle whisper— “Y/N?” But then your head slumps on his shoulder and you don’t make a single movement. He can’t help but stare down at you, how peaceful your features have become, without the frown or the expressions of fear or surprise. From the proximity, he can see each of your lashes, the dip of your cupid’s bow, the rise and fall of your chest. He traces his eyes against the slope of your nose and he lets you sleep. You seemed tired these days and he didn’t want to stir you awake. “Excuse me.” He lifts his free hand slightly when an attendant brushes past. “Can I get a blanket?” “Certainly.” Hoseok adjusts the arm rest, putting it up so the metal isn’t digging into your ribs. Thankfully, you’re both already seat belted in and he just has to take the blanket the attendant gives him and drape it over your body. He secures the warm wool up to your shoulders and carefully reaches up, turning off the air conditioning above him and pulling down the cover of the window. Takeoff is smooth and when it’s over, he reclines both your seats back. You still use his shoulder as a pillow, cheek smushed on top of his sweater — though Hoseok doesn’t mind too much, even smiling after a second of staring. He doesn’t pull out his laptop or phone to work, fearing that too much movement would wake you up. Instead, his arm extends, finger pressing on the movie that you watched with him….. The movie he doesn’t remember. You’re right. It’s bad. The actress that he likes gets killed off in the first ten minutes in some stupid car accident. Jung Hoseok can’t even finish the darn thing as his lids become heavier and heavier. Against his will, he dozes off too, head resting on top of yours. Your hands nearly brush one another. // The landing of the plane, getting your baggage from the overhead bin, bidding the pilots goodbye, cutting straight through baggage claim to grab a cab is all a blur. The world seems to be moving faster than you and you’re left dazed, dragging your body along as your mind is left behind. The seduction of sleep is still lingering and you’re not sure if you’re dreaming or not. It isn’t a surprise considering how you were completely knocked out during the entire flight. Hoseok is in a similar sleepy state, being oddly quiet and rubbing his eyes every so often as if he can dispel the drowsiness away. You wonder if he fell asleep too. In the meanwhile, Seulgi is super excited about arriving, as is Jimin who insists a sight seeing event is crucial. Yoongi and Sunyi are busy bickering about who took up more space on the plane and how they couldn’t even get a wink of sleep while Jungkook discusses the movie he watched and how great it was. Once you’ve arrived at the hotel, everyone makes their way to the front desk to grab their key cards. There were three rooms booked in total, Hoseok and Yoongi rooming together, Jimin sharing with Jungkook while you, Sunyi, and Seulgi shared another. You’re more than happy with the arrangement considering that you’ve always liked the two girls and your desire to get closer to them was flaming. “Did you end up getting that stranger’s phone number?” you ask Seulgi and her hand goes into her pocket, two fingers taking out a slip of folded paper. She throws her hair behind her shoulder and gives a cocky smirk. “Right here.” “Wait.” Sunyi swipes the card at the door and takes off her shoes as she enters. “Who?” “Seulgi sat next to one hell of a handsome stranger on the plane.” The lawyer groans in jealousy and sets down her luggage while you also slip off your boots. “You’re so lucky. I had to sit next to Min the entire time. Wanted to blow my brains out.” “He isn’t so bad,” the paralegal comforts her. “He’s an ass,” she counters. Seulgi shrugs. “Still better than sitting next to Hoseok.” “Right.” The lawyer remembers and as if to share her sympathies, she turns to you with a sorrowful expression. “I’m so sorry, Y/N.” “Did he nag you the entire trip?” “No. He’s actually not that bad, you guys,” you murmur in discomfort, trying to keep it positive. They’re entirely mistaken about their boss and you don’t know how to explain yourself or defend him. “Hoseok’s nice.” Sunyi hangs her head and the corners of her lips quirk. “He’s not here right now, you don’t have to pretend.” Before your mouth can even part and you can say something in return, Seulgi pushes her way out of the foyer of the hotel room and enters with a gasp. “Oh my god, this is so beautiful.” The two of you follow after her, eyes scanning the modern aesthetics of the room, the small kitchen, the open living room, and the bedroom with two impressive queen beds side by side. “I’m sharing with Y/N.” Seulgi grabs your arm, hugging it, and she tells Sunyi, “You can have that one bed to yourself.” “What?” The woman narrows her eyes, having thought that they’d be fighting for the empty bed. It’s suspicious for her to offer like that. “Why?” She shrugs with a pout. “I sleep in my own bed every night. It gets lonely. While I have the chance, I’d like to fill the empty side with cute Y/N.” Sunyi’s brows raise and you wonder if this is reverse psychology or if she’s being genuine. Either way, she’s either a genius or super sweet. It’s a win-win situation. And the lawyer takes the bait with her hands on her hips. “Okay, no. I call sharing the bed with Y/N.” You laugh, having never been fought over before. “Who said I want to share with any of you?” In the end, you get the empty bed and they get to share. // It doesn’t take long to get settled in, change clothes and get comfortable. Everyone washes up before getting back to the internet after being absent for so long and you also take the opportunity to stare at the city view for a while until your eyes are satisfied. But it’s not long before there’s three rapid knocks on the front door and the bell ringing throughout the room. You open it, finding Yoongi on the other side in a plaid flannel and wearing a reserved smile that you return. “Hey, where’s Sunyi?” “I think she’s in the bathroom.” You lean back, shouting her name and telling her there’s someone at the door. “Oh no, it’s fine,” he says a bit too late while scratching the back of his neck. His voice remains low and raspy. “Just wanted to let you girls know we’re thinking of going out to dinner.” “What.” Sunyi leaves the bathroom and stops in her tracks when she sees who’s standing by the doorway. Her expression falls and her eyes become dead. “Oh. It’s you.” Yoongi grins. “It’s me. Get dressed.” His eyes skim down her frame, obviously judging at her choice in attire, oversized hoodie and sweatpants. “We’re all going out for dinner.” “I thought we were getting room service,” Seulgi comments as she pops her head from the other room. “Nah. Hoseok and Jimin changed their minds,” he says and Sunyi nods, grabbing her flats to slip into. His brow lifts. “Wait. Are you really going to go out wearing that?” “Okay, fuck off. Is there a dress code for this too?” The lawyer lifts up his hands, palms facing out like he’s being arrested. “Hey, I never said it was bad. Just looks like your pajamas.” “Yoongi, eat a—” You clear your throat and the hostile environment is brought down at once. Sunyi’s choice of comfortable attire causes a train reaction and everyone ends up in clothes that reminds them of a time when they were in university preparing for finals. And while walking on the sidewalks of the unfamiliar city with the rest of them, you really are brought back to the carefree years of uni. “Where are we eating?” Jimin asks, twirling around to address the group. Seulgi pipes up in surprise, “I thought you guys decided.” “No.” He matches her frown. “We didn’t.” “Okay.” Yoongi takes a deep breath. “So where are we walking off to?” Everyone looks at each other. There’s a long silence. Sunyi whirls her head over. “I was following Jungkook.” The boy’s shoulders are tense and he looks like a toddler who got into the cookie jar. “I was following Yoongi.” “I was following Jimin.” “I was sightseeing,” he responds with a shrug. “Oh my god.” It’s a bit humorous when a swarm of intellectuals with fancy degrees on their belts and years of working experiences on their shoulders find themselves completely and utterly lost. It’s a bit of a pathetic sight when all of you pull out your phones, pulling up GPS and doing google searches to find out where you are and the nearest place to get food in your systems. Indeed, it was reminding you more and more of your university years...especially when you end up in a McDonald’s. There’s a sea of complaints, but everyone’s too tired to keep walking and too hungry to waste time filing in a taxi, navigating the streets, and waiting for food. Plus, everybody is in their sweats and going into a proper restaurant would garner nothing but odd glares and odd looks. Jungkook and Jimin make a ginormous order for the entire group and Hoseok says it’s his treat since it’s not that expensive anyways. You grab a long table in the corner, finding it funny how a high end law firm has swarmed into an empty McDonald's at nine at night. It’s not high end or modern, but cozy and intimate, and you like it that way. “They didn’t have it.” Jimin sets down the tray and everyone begins dividing the food up. Hoseok glances up at him. “Didn’t have what?” “Hulk.” He plops down into the booth seat with a long sigh. But Jungkook looks worse for wear, pouting with his bottom lips slightly jutted out, doe eyes glossed over like a child sulking. As if trying to explain why he looks that way, Jimin continues, “Didn’t have Iron Man either.” “Do you guys seriously collect those superhero toys?” Sunyi asks and Jimin gasps while Jungkook makes the most offended expression of all. It’s amusing to see the usually timid boy act so passionately in anger towards his senior. “Hey! I’m not judging, I think it’s cute.” “Didn’t you collect rocks as a kid?” Yoongi’s brow shoots up, clearing his throat. “Yeah. So what?” “Isn’t it kind of pathetic to have a pet rock? Couldn’t get any real friends, Lee?” Her eyes narrow onto his smirking face. “At least I have friends now, you son of a bi—” “Can we have one meal in peace?!” Jimin interrupts their argument and they immediately shut up while everyone around the table releases a snort through their nose, continuing to eat. Instead of stepping in like usual, Jimin takes control of the situation this time around to give you a break and he scolds the two lawyers for always making it about themselves. He nags their ears off, and in the midst of the chaos, you turn to Hoseok who’s sitting beside you in curiosity. “Do you still collect those bear figurines?” The lawyer blinks at you. He’s in a simple black hoodie and white tee, dark jeans that are ripped at the knees, and if you didn’t think too much, you’d get whiplash from the nostalgia of a decade ago. “Y-yeah...I do.” “What?” Yoongi from across the table intervenes in your private conversation, doing anything it takes to shut Jimin’s mouth. “I collect those bear figurines,” he explains while the group listens. “The brick ones?” “Oh, those.” His friend nods. “I have a few of them too.” “I’m surprised,” Sunyi comments and swallows down her mouthful of food before speaking again towards her boss. “I thought you would collect books or something like that.” Hoseok frowns, finding such an idea strange. “No, I don’t really collect books. I think Namjoon does.” As you sit quietly and observe the interaction, you muse how sad it is that his employees don’t know a single thing about him. It’s especially heartbreaking since they’re pretty much the only people he interacts with and you know how much he cares for them. “I would’ve thought you collected spiders,” Jungkook mutters out of nowhere and you can sort of trace his thought process since Hoseok does come across as intimidating. But the mere idea of it has you bursting out laughing. Jimin’s also smiling, but everyone turns to look at you like you’ve gone crazy. “God, he would never collect spiders. Hoseok’s scared of anything with more than four legs. He’s scared of anything with wings. He’s scared of all bugs and tarantulas and—” “That’s enough.” His lips are sealed, though the corners are pulling and he pushes french fries in front of your face, stuffing your mouth with them as you giggle and he laughs. The two of you don’t notice how everyone’s staring with slight frowns, surprised at how close you both seem. “I never knew that,” Sunyi murmurs in slight astonishment. “I thought Jin was the only one in the office scared of bugs.” “I scared him once with a ladybug.” Jungkook has a shit eating grin and he laughs cheekily. “He was screaming so much.” “Yeah, and it accidentally made him spill coffee all over me.” Seulgi dips a french fry into ketchup, grimacing at the memory before a thought passes through her mind and a feeling akin to missing her chaotic coworkers nudges her. “What do you think the others are doing?” Jimin bites into his burger. “Others?” “At the firm,” she clarifies. “Probably home by now,” Yoongi says after glancing at the time. Jimin laughs and nudges his partner. “I wonder if Taehyung and Seokjin stole our offices.” At the reminder of her two colleagues, Sunyi leans back in her seat. She takes a sip of her soft drink and hums. “Thank god they didn’t come. They’d be a headache.” “They don’t act their age,” Seulgi further disses them and the lawyer agrees. “Sometimes I wonder how Taehyung made it through law school.” Jungkook giggles, bunny teeth exposed in his cute grin. There’s a mischievous glint in his eyes as he talks trash about his mentor, a once in a lifetime opportunity. “It’s a miracle.” “But whether we like to admit it or not, they’re entertaining,” you add mid-chew, trying to chase away the gossiping behaviour. You know it’s in all good fun, no one meaning any harm, and the insults are more playful banters. But you’re still striving to create a more friendly environment. That and you know you’re right. “They’re fun.” A few of them agree, but then Hoseok scoffs. “We can have fun too.” “I don’t know,” you tease with an expanding smile. Your pupils glance at each person around the table who was just nagging how the others don’t act their age and they’re too loud. “We sound pretty old, don’t we?” And that’s how the entire group ends up at some hip club. The music is blaring, strobe lights flashing, burning the back of your eyeballs and nearly making you go into a seizure. All of you are dressed in rags compared to everyone else in tight shirts or sparkling dresses. You only managed to get in after the guys had pushed you, Sunyi, and Seulgi in front of them. Apparently increasing the female count was the only important thing to the bouncer, regardless of your shabby attire. But even when all of you fork over a hefty amount for some stale drink, you lean against the bar and stare out at the dance floor in distaste. “Why did we think this was a good idea?” Seulgi asks and no one has an answer. Yoongi sighs and takes another sip of his whiskey. “I feel too old for this.” Jungkook’s eyes stray off and he catches a couple in the corner, a male younger than he is slipping his hand up the girl’s skirt while her head is thrown back. His face scrunches in disgust and he looks as if he ate an entire lemon. “This is kind of gross….” “The drinks are overpriced,” Hoseok comments after doing a few calculations in his head, knowing full well he could get more bang for his buck if bought an entire bottle himself. “They’re all a bunch of babies grinding on each other.” Sunyi shudders, unable to imagine joining the dance floor to be pushed up against children who have barely become legal. She’s a professional for god sakes, not some rebellious young adult. The music was also horrendous with a beat that she can’t find the rhythm to. The music was bad, the drinks were bad…. “Maybe we really are old,” you admit with a smile, trying to uplift them a bit more. “Don’t be such party poopers, guys!” Jimin spins around in his stool, lifting his arm to call the bartender towards him. “Times like these I miss Jin and Taehyung. Come on, I’ll pay for all your drinks, let’s enjoy ourselves!” Park Jimin is the only one who’s lost his sensibility and tries to retain onto his lost youth, and act like he isn’t already a stable businessman who owns his own divorce law firm in the sea of struggling students and wasted young adults. Still, no one minds the place or the time when it’s free drinks. Jimin orders a round of shots and there’s some kind of drinking game that takes place before everyone just downs the little glass they were given. In between working at the office and driving a cab at night, there’s not many opportunities to drink, so your drinking tolerance is naturally lower than the others. But when you turn beside you, you burst into another fit of giggles. “What?” Hoseok stares at you, his lips parting into a heart shaped grin when he watches you laugh. “I forgot you can’t drink at all.” You point. One shot in and he already looks like this. “Your entire face is already red!” “I can drink fine!” he defends himself to no avail, voice moving up a higher pitch that you can hear over the deafening music. The blue back light of the bar casts its shade onto his visage, painting his sun kissed skin in a cooler shade. Jung Hoseok should look excellent here — hot shot lawyer in a sleek suit, dark locks neatly styled in a comma hairstyle, silver watch on his wrist and one leg thrown over the other, holding a drink in hand while wearing a cocky expression. But here he is instead, casual hoodie and jeans, tuft of hair ruffled like a cloud, cute cheeks puffed out and skin flushed pink, pouting at you like a baby. You wonder if the others see what you do. Maybe they wouldn’t be so afraid or mistaken of him if they got a close look or paid any attention. Or maybe the real problem is that you pay too much attention to him. “No one’s going to carry you back when you fall asleep!” “Who says I’m going to fall asleep?!” You can’t resist the laughter that bubbles up your throat. “I know you’re a sleepy drunk!” Hoseok’s mouth downturns, though he’s being nothing but cute towards you. “Says who?” “Me!” He scoffs, noticing another drink held in your hands. “And what kind of drunk are you?” Your smile becomes more playful and you lean closer towards him, everyone else preoccupied in their conversations and no one noticing your private little bubble created in the chaotic nightclub in some unfamiliar city. “Wouldn’t you like to know?” // After that, everything becomes a blur. The rest of the night melts together until all you hear is the music throbbing in your ears and skin vibrating from the drinks. The details become a mess inside your head. There are snapshots and handfuls of seconds that you recall — laughing, dancing, drinking, being brought to the cab, swaying in the hallway, collapsing on the bed. It’s only when the bright sunshine pierces past the glass windows and stabs you through the slits of your eyes that you throw your body upwards, experiencing the worst of headaches and falling back onto the mattress. It takes one second, one deep breath before your eyes are shooting open immediately. Right away, you turn beside you. No one. Your hands touch your torso. Clothes still on. And when you look to your left, the two ladies you’re rooming with are snoring side-by-side. Thank god. You’ve watched enough rom coms and chick flicks to be afraid of drunkenly sleeping with someone you’re not supposed to. Even if you feel like absolute shit, at least you still have your dignity. Mostly. You don’t recall saying or doing anything inappropriate, never doing anything that would have the HR representatives of the world crying out in agony. And on the brighter side, you’re not the only one who’s suffering under a massive hangover. “Oh god, I feel horrible,” Seulgi wails out while she hugs the toilet bowl in the bathroom, having just expelled her stomach. Sunyi looks downright awful even if she didn’t need to throw up, and she’s mentally preparing herself to jump into a cold shower. “Well, we have a conference to go to in two hours.” Everybody gathers in the lobby of the hotel in business attire. They’re dressed crisply, dress pants and shirts, pencil skirts and ironed blouses, leather shoes and kitten heels. It would look like a really cool advertisement if your faces were cut out. Each person is suffering in their own way, your dark circles that makeup can’t save, Jungkook who keeps yawning every other second, and Jimin who appears to be having it the hardest. The usual chirpy male stays quiet and you all grab breakfast to feel better. “I remember why I don’t drink anymore,” Yoongi muses and runs a hand through his untamed hair that sticks up in all directions despite watering it down earlier. It’s even more amusing that Hoseok is the only one who seems completely fine. Even when he was bright pink last night and the biggest lightweight of the group, he’s made a fine recovery. Compared to the rest of you, he’s trotting along like the ultimate happy ball of sunshine. “I hate him even more,” Seulgi mutters in jealousy, glaring at him from afar and you hold back a laugh. // The conference hall is a fancy large room, a ceiling that would require three ladders to reach. There are rounded tables and chairs, placements already assigned through name tags, an open stage that’s currently playing music to fill the background. There aren’t just lawyers around, but also social workers and counselors as well. Despite the differences of occupations, people still shake hands and mingle with each other, networking and expanding their contacts. You meet a few people here and there yourself, but for the most part, you hang at the back near the table of refreshments. There’s a cup of water permanently glued to your hand as you force yourself to keep hydrated and dispel the hangover away. “These events can be so boring,” a raspy voice pipes up beside you, causing your body to turn. A man has a reserved smile, blonde hair pushed back, skin glowing and arms muscular even in a dark dress shirt. He’s familiar, but you’re not sure from where. “Really? I don’t think it’s so bad.” “It’s the people who make it better.” He smiles. “People like you.” You shake his hand, mirroring the way his lips quirk upwards. “You don’t even know who I am.” “But I can learn.” He’s smooth, flirting openly with you, and you’re absolutely flattered. You can’t remember the last time someone expressed interest in you — Seulgi’s teenage brother doesn’t count. “My name is Jackson.” It rings a slight bell in the back of your mind, but you still can’t put your finger on it. “Y/N.” “Beautiful name for a beautiful woman. What do you say? Would you like to grab dinner with me so we can learn about each other?” “I….don’t know.” It’s been too long since you’ve been approached like this and you’ve forgotten protocol. Though you give a more mischievous smile, deciding to skirt around the idea. “How can I trust you?” “Because I wouldn’t waste your precious time,” he states confidently, but still hesitates, not wanting to pressure you into anything. The man digs into his suit pocket. “Then at least take my phone number. In case you change your mind—” “What’s going on here?” An arm is slung around your shoulder and you jolt in surprise before easing when you see who it is. The close gesture doesn’t mean anything. You already know that Hoseok is naturally affectionate. “Jung?” The man’s eyes flicker to you and then back to the lawyer. His jaw drops until a fly could accidentally wander into his mouth. “You two know each other?” Hoseok scoffs, eyes slightly rolling. You remember now. You’ve met Jackson on the mountain, his entire firm actually, BTS. They’re the top competitors with Jung and Park. “Do we know each other? She’s my employee.” Jackson points to the person beside you who still has his arm around your shoulder, eyes wide and ogling at your features. “You work for him?” You offer a sheepish smile. “I’m in HR.” Jackson’s hand removes from his pocket, digging into his pants pocket instead. He stands back, somehow becoming repulsed and uninterested in the split of a second when you revealed your workplace. He eyes you both carefully. “Are you guys...together?” Your blood runs cold at the implication. Yet, Hoseok remains impassive, except for the cocky smirk gracing his visage, recalling your exact words from last night to mock the man, “Wouldn’t you like to know?” The two males are absolutely childish to each other, and Jackson is the first to back down, scoffing and turning away. “I’ll see you later, Jung.” “Was he bothering you?” Hoseok asks once the other man has disappeared from sight. The lawyer turns his head and when he realizes your face is a mere inch away, he lets go and puts more distance between you both. “No. He asked me to dinner,” you admit quietly. “He was about to give me his number.” “Trust me, you don’t want to go to dinner with that jerk. It would be a waste of your time.” “I don’t know…” You shrug, letting the opportunity go with strange ease. Your shoulders lose their tension and you decide to tease him, “He’s the son of a rich mongol, right? Maybe you just made me lose my only chance of being the trophy wife to a business tycoon.” “You deserve better than to be some asshole’s trophy wife.” It’s things like this. Little things like this that have you smiling too widely. And it doesn’t help when he also smiles and tells you, “If you want to live luxuriously, stick by me.” You’re all too painfully aware that it means nothing, but it doesn’t fail to send a lump in your throat. Hoseok continues, “Jung and Park will let you retire early and then you can go take vacations at any resort or villa you want.” Your voice cracks slightly against your will and you mask it with a scoff. “Be careful what you say, I might take you up on that offer.” “I might have to negotiate with Jimin, but don’t worry.” He pats his chest, standing straight with the sweetest of smiles. “Rely on me. Your pension plan will be beautiful.” It’s hard to imagine what the next thirty years of working together would be like. Is it possible to last that long? The question remains unanswered inside the hollows of your mind. // The conference proceeds without much delay. There are a variety of presenters and inspirational speakers, from social workers to retired lawyers and judges, all speaking about how to help kids when they’re put in difficult family situations. There are also people who speak from first-hand experiences and they explain how to minimize trauma to general welfare issues of children. It’s fairly interesting and you enjoy yourself, listening, clapping, eating food, mingling and networking. “That wasn’t too bad,” Yoongi comments outside the hall. The lawyer had thought it would be boring, like that time he went to a conference about social development and it turned out to be entirely about the environment and had little to do with him. He knows going to these things looks good for the firm since it shows that they care, but good god, he wanted to cut down a tree that day and let it topple down on him. “I’m stuffed.” Sunyi pats her stomach in appreciation. “Food was great.” Seulgi stretches out her arms, feeling the knot in her neck. “One more conference tomorrow and then it’s home.” “What did you think?” Hoseok asks you privately, curious since you had an outsider’s perspective, the least engaged with the law out of all of them. You tip your head to the side, not taking long to come up with an honest answer. “I liked it. It was touching and informative. It was good. I’m glad I went.” He smiles and nods in satisfaction, turning forward again. At the same time, Jimin spins around to address the group. “Should we go back to the hotel? Or do you guys want to do something?” “Let’s not go drinking.” Seulgi casts her opinion and the rest agree that they’ve done enough of that for the rest of the month. In the meanwhile, Jungkook is distracted by flashing lights, doe eyes glazed over, and he lifts his arm, pointing a little beyond the horizon. “What’s that?” “Over there?” Jimin squints. “Looks like an amusement park.” Sunyi gasps. “Let’s go!” Jungkook is as equally excited as the female and while the rest of them are rather apathetic to it, Hoseok has gone visible pale and strangely quiet. The flashing lights, children running past, screams echoing in the night sky, and overall cheerful atmosphere doesn’t seem to improve his mood. Sunyi points and goes running off with Jungkook to buy tickets as Yoongi slowly follows behind. Seulgi and Jimin try out a carnival game, shooting down bottles on a shelf and the female wins a toy monkey with three bullets. Jimin fails every shot and begins sulking until the paralegal ends up giving her prize to him, placating him immediately. You eat cotton candy, offering some to Hoseok and he pulls out a tuft before letting it melt on his tongue. “Are you okay?” “I’m fine. Why?” “I know you don’t like rides. I won’t tell the others if it bothers you that much. And you don’t have to go on any if you don’t want to,” you tell him and he remains quiet for an extended second. Hoseok’s mouth parts to say something, but then the group gathers again. “We got enough tickets for everyone to ride three rides!” Jungkook cheers, holding the long tickets in his hand, and you’ve never seen him happier. At this rate, he’s jumping up and down like a jackrabbit and his adorable grin might cause his rosy cheeks to burst. “They were going to get enough for ten rides, but I stopped them,” Yoongi declares like he wants praise. “What should we go on first?” Seulgi asks and Jimin points. “Let’s go on that roller coaster!” The ride in question goes up at a height that causes your neck to knock back in order to see the top. There are screams as it loops around, a drop that seems steep, and while Jungkook replies to his boss with an enthusiastic ‘yeah!’, you have other plans. “I...I might sit this one out, guys.” Hoseok looks at you, knowing that you’ve given him an opportunity to opt out. But then Jungkook’s doe eyes sadden and Sunyi pouts. The two of them have been reduced to being kids. “Aw, I thought we could all go. We could get that photo. The one they take half-way? Rub it in Taehyung’s face when we get back.” “If she doesn’t feel well, then she doesn’t need to go,” Yoongi chides and lightly karate chops the top of her head. He looks at his friend. “Are you going, Hoseok?” “I….I’ll go.” The man builds up courage and shifts to you with a tiny smile. “Wanna come, Y/N?” “Are you sure?” you ask him when he should be asking you. But your concerns are lessened when he nods and smiles. “Yeah. It’ll be a good memory.” “O-Okay, I’ll come too then.” The man forces a calm facade, channeling bravery for the sake of his employees. Jungkook cheers and a bunch of them go running off, but despite what Hoseok says, you can still tell that he’s scared. He remains deadly silent at the lineup, face falling, hands shaking. Jimin comforts him, only for him to brush his partner off. Still, Hoseok manages to shuffle his feet forward, stepping and sitting down in his seat when the time has come. Jungkook and Sunyi are sitting all the way up at the front, screaming their lungs off already in excitement. Seulgi and Jimin are behind them, getting hyped up. Yoongi is sitting by himself behind you, staring out at the scenery and grumbling every so often, while you are beside Hoseok. “Are you alright?” you inquire for the millionth time, gazing at his profile and how he’s grabbing onto the hard lap bar that’s strapped over his shoulders and across his torso. “Hhmph...mmh…” “It’s not that bad. Just scream and close your eyes and it’ll be over.” “Yeah…” The entire ride jolts. The cart begins to move ahead and the attendant wishes you all a fun experience, something you’re certain Hoseok won’t have. Everyone’s cheering and hollering, being loud and rambunctious. Hoseok screams a few times himself like he’s trying to release the tension in his muscles and no one hears except for you in the sea of noises. You’re leaning back as the roller coaster begins to climb up the steep incline at practically ninety degrees. In the next blinks, you’re high up. The wind cards though your hair. The entire amusement park is beneath your feet. The lights of the carousel and rotating ferris wheel twinkle with the stars glittering above. It would be quiet if not for the music of the ride and the screams of the surrounding people. The coaster stops right on the edge after climbing its hill, moments from teetering and plunging downwards. “I’m scared,” Hoseok admits in cute squeals and he’s trembling. “I’m scared, Y/N.” You lift your hand, not wasting one second to latch onto his. Instantaneously, Hoseok laces his fingers tight through yours, twining his hands to hold on for dear life, like his existence depends on it. And you squeeze your palm with his to tell him that you’re here. “It’s okay! Just scream!” “Y/N!” Hoseok shuts his eyes tight and you keep yours wide open. The roller coaster teeters and then dives straight to the ground. There are a hundred screams of happiness and fear. Hoseok screams too, bloodcurdling, while you shout at the top of your lungs. The ride goes in for quick turns before looping around and the lawyer becomes absolutely hysterical. “Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god!” He sounds like he’s giving birth. You can’t help but laugh and giggle the entire time in between your own screams. For the entirety of the ride, Hoseok holds your hand, simply frightened for his life, intimidation all lost. He shouts your name somewhere in the symphony of shrieks and no one hears except for you. When it’s over, Hoseok slumps in his chair, defeated and drained, like a computer logged out. You’re more giddy than ever, still giggling and laughing while Hoseok never lets go of your hand. It’s there that he decides not to go on anymore rides and you join him in eating candy apples for the rest of the night. Jimin orders the picture and you do as well for your own personal keepsake. The image is snapped right when the coaster began to fall, when you took his hand. While sitting on the bench, hearing Jimin’s screams on the swinging pirate ship, Hoseok is pouting and childishly sulking at your teasing. You can’t stop looking at the picture, no one else noticing that your hands are wrapped around each other’s, and Hoseok chews on his candy apple before leaning his head on your shoulder. He tells you that he wasn’t scared at all. You turn your head, unimpressed, though you’re reduced to speechlessness at how cute he’s acting towards you, trying to gain your favour so you don’t tell others what happened. The intimidating, strict lawyer is nowhere in sight. There’s only a bright young man with hope glittering in his brown irises, the epitome of sunshine, making you realize that you don’t need to see the stars in a light-polluted city like this one when he’s beside you. And that’s when you decide— You’re going to make the people in the office see what you see in Hoseok.

#bts fanfic #hoseok fanfic #hoseok fluff #jhope fanfic #bts scenario #BTS JUNG HOSEOK is rrly not that scary??? /pikachu shocked meme/#also OC who looks like she finally has friends in the office! let's get some high fives!!

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yinzhengs · 5 years

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timeline of zhai tianlin drama

—aka, why OS s2 is in peril: the tl;dr is that people are casting suspicion on zhai tianlin’s phd thesis’ validity + it’s blown up. this is taken from this weibo post here that tried to give a summary / timeline of events (note that as far as i can tell, OP is biased against ztl...)

note that a lot of (if not all) of these claims are unsubstantiated / based on questionable “evidence.” my heart goes out to ztl for having to deal with the massive influx of hate — tags abt this have been trending all week, and this drama’s even made the news. (link to english article, south china morning post)

avenuex also made a video about it here (which i haven’t watched yet bc frankly i don’t have the emotional energy, but i’ve heard it’s good)

throughout the post they refer to ztl as “翟博士” which is lit. doctor/phd zhai. whether or not it’s snarky... well... i’ll leave it to you to decide. all my additions in the form of links or supplementary info are in square brackets.

一个翟博士引发的惨案 / lit. a massacre that dr. zhai started

背景：翟博士微博晒出北大光华学院博士后站录取通知书，自勉“加油，小翟”。

background: dr. zhai shared on weibo his acceptance letter to the brilliant beijing university, encouraging himself with the caption “加油 [jiayou], xiao zhai” (approx. keep up the good work, little zhai) 第一波：翟博士不知知网。网友问他能否在知网看见他的博士论文，他一头雾水问“知网是什么” 翟博士：自我挽尊“我说不知道1+1=2都有人信”。 the first wave: dr. zhai didn’t know about 知网 [zhiwang] / China National Knowledge Infrastructure (wiki link provided, but it’s a research database similar to jstor in the west). netizens asked if they would be able to read his phd thesis on CNKI. completely confused, he asked: “what’s CNKI?”

dr zhai [later], trying to save his own dignity: “people would believe me even if i said i didn’t know 1+1=2.”

[ie. he commented this to note that he meant it sarcastically. ppl on the net didn’t believe him, sparking the next events...] 第二波：翟博士无c刊论文。网友通过知网查询，发现翟博士没有c刊论文，正规大学毕业一般都需要发论文。翟博士轧戏无时间上学。网友分析翟博士博士期间的工作量，基本都在拍戏和活动，完全不符合全日制学生的在校时间。翟博士工作室挽尊：“博士论文将由学校统一上传”，“通过函授、导师进组指导学习”。

the second wave: dr. zhai doesn’t have a paper in the CSSCI (a rather unhelpful wiki link provided, essentially the largest social science publication citation index in china + a measure by which a publication’s authenticity/accredibility is measured). netizens searched across CNKI and found that dr. zhai didn’t have any papers [cited] in the CSSCI, though according to usual university graduation standards, theses must be published [into the system].

dr. zhai had no time to attend class while filming. netizens analyzed dr. zhai’s workload during his phd program [2014-2018] and found that he was always either filming or doing promotional activities — there was no way he could have had time to attend full-time schooling during the semester.

his studio’s damage control: “[ztl’s] doctoral thesis will be organized and uploaded by his university,” “through correspondence [long-distance teaching], his advisor oversaw his studies”

第三波：网友继续质疑没有c刊论文如何答辩。粉丝拿翟博士唯一发表在《广电时评》文章挽尊，但被嘲笑不是c刊，又挽尊北电不一定用c刊。

the third wave: netizens continue to question — without a published thesis, how could he defend his dissertation?

fans tried to defend him with an essay he published in “广电时评” [a film-related magazine], but were mocked because that wasn’t a CSSCI publication. fans also tried to defend him saying that beijing film academy [where ztl got his phd] didn’t necessarily use CSSCI. 第四波：于妈下场。于妈发出对话截图，证明翟博士有十万字论文，且高达645k，赞他写的好。网友质疑十万字论文怎么只有600多k，引用文献和开头学校图标都没有吗。 the fourth wave: mama yu [nickname for director yu zheng, notable for shows like story of yanxi palace + yin zheng’s upcoming winter begonia] appears. yu posts a screenshot of their chat history [with picture of attachments sent], proving that dr. zhai had a thesis w/ over 100,000 words, and a file size of over 645 kilobytes, praising that he wrote it well.

netizens call into question why a 100,000 word thesis is only ~600 kilobytes — was there no bibliography, or even a icon [ie. picture file which would increase file size dramatically] of his school[’s logo]?

[unfortunately... this didn’t really help his case, considering yu zheng has also been involved in controversy regarding plagiarism allegations many times]

第五波：同学被拖下水扒皮。与翟博士一起毕业的其他学生名单被翻出，网友挨个知网查询，均有3-5篇论文，有人非c刊。电博士不用发c刊论文，含金量受质疑。

the fifth wave: classmates are pulled into the controversy + not spared. the list of the other classmates that graduated w/ dr. zhai was dug up. netizens searched each of them one by one on CNKI: they all had 3-5 papers, some didn’t have CSSCI publications.

beijing film academy’s phd students don’t need to publish CSSCI-level papers — beijing film academy’s academic standards are called into question. 第六波：翟博士抄袭。翟博士发表在《广电时评》的普通文章知网查重高达40%，抄袭十几年前的文章。文章被抄袭的黄教授朋友圈回应“春晚饰演打假警察的人要我来打假”。打脸工作室声明没有学术不端行为。

the sixth wave: dr. zhai’s plagiarism. the essay [mentioned earlier], published in 广电时评 was ran through CNKI and [supposedly] had a similarity rating of over 40%, with passages plagiarized from papers over ten years old.

professor huang li hua posted on his wechat: “the one who acted on 春晚 [lunar new year broadcast show] as someone exposing cops as fake has to be exposed by me as a fake.”

[ztl’s] studio officially announced that no academic dishonesty had taken place.

[huang later continued, translation from the south china morning post: “The celebrity’s management company claimed Zhai had no academic misconduct issues, but my essays a decade ago were copied paragraph by paragraph. The truth trumps his argument,” Huang wrote on the Chinese social media app WeChat.] 第七波：学术不端列撤。四川大学将翟博士事件列为学术不端案例，几日后又删除。

the seventh wave: removal from “academic dishonesty” list. sichuan university listed dr. zhai’s case as an example of academic dishonesty, but deleted it after a few days. [link to the world’s worst screenshot] 第八波：导师被拖下水扒皮。翟博士导师被扒出，身为博导却是本科毕业！导师另一位弟子也无c刊论文。

the eighth case: [ztl’s] academic advisor is dragged into the controversy. dr. zhai’s advisor was dug up — he was appointed phd advisor, but had only an undergraduate degree! another one of this advisor’s students also didn’t have a CSSCI-level publication. 第九波：官媒发声。人民日报、共青团微博、紫光阁等官媒发表对翟博士的质疑。北电回应：自查自纠小组成立。北大回应：看北电查的怎么样根据规则处理。

the ninth wave: official state media starts reporting: people’s daily [newspaper], the communist youth league’s weibo, tower of purple light [magazine], etc. publish articles regarding the suspicion surrounding dr. zhai

beijing film academy’s response: an internal investigation committee has been established.

beijing university’s response: we will wait on beijing film academy’s investigation results, and then follow standard regulations to deal with this matter.

[ according to smcp: around this time, essay is also reported to have been taken down from CKNI ] 第十波：院长被拖下水扒皮。翟博士毕业答辩导师、北电表演系张院长被网友扒出五十多岁娶了自己的九零后学生刘某，也是杨紫同学，北电下制片厂投资两人演男女主角，找杨紫张一山关晓彤当配角，只获得75万票房。 the tenth wave: a university dean is pulled into the controversy. [one of the] advisors dr. zhai had to defend his dissertation against to graduate, dean zhang of beijing film academy’s acting school, is revealed to have married a student (surname liu) of his born in the 90′s(?), despite being over fifty himself. she was also a classmate of yang zi [this is very irrelevant but she’s a very famous post-90′s actress who graduated from beijing film academy. you might know her for being in ashes of love.]

a movie production studio under beijing film academy invested in producing a movie where dean zhang + his wife liu were the male/female leads, getting yang zi, zhang yishan, and guan xiaotong [all v v v v famous] to play supporting roles, though it only made 750,000 at the box office.

[so i did some digging and it appears that this is the movie they’re talking about. again it’s mostly irrelevant if you ask me, but maybe you wanted to know. mostly the controversy is for like, taking a really young wife and then making beijing film academy pay for his romantic fantasy movie lol.

what does this have to do with zhai tianlin? pretty much nothing tbh] 第十一波：北电侯亮平、阿廖沙再次被提起……北电的水有多深? 豆瓣赐翟博士新绰号：靖北侯。

the eleventh wave: previous allegations of professors’ sexual assault cases / misconduct brought back into question ... how much is beijing film academy hiding?

[ the specific cases they reference are 阿廖沙 and 侯亮平, both web names that anonymous posters used on weibo to report/investigate sexual assault allegations at beijing film academy. (the second name is a reference to a character in a tv show who’s a anti-corruption prosecutor); i can talk about those cases but it’d take a whole separate post — tl;dr anonymous poster shares account of sexual assault and ensuing ostracization from faculty/classmates when they tried to bring it to light and ultimately turned to weibo. it was a rly big trending topic for a while back in 2017. ]

douban confers on dr. zhai a new nickname: 靖北侯

[the meaning, v. approx “peaceful north marquis” is a reference back to “平��王,” “peaceful west king/prince,” the nickname for 薄��来 (bo xilai), a PRC politician sentenced to life imprisonment for corruption — obviously, the 北/bei also refers to beijing film/uni + 候 is a convenient callback to the previous anon investigator into beijing film sexual assault cases]

that was very very long. i hope this was somewhat helpful ;-; chinese social media has been blowing up about this, this is an attempt to capture some of the context. (this has been stressing me and my friends out as well — fingers crossed for ztl to get out of this unscathed.)

#zhai tianlin #translation #zhai tian lin #翟天临

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konvolutes · 5 years

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I’ll never forget the first time I met Frances Fox Piven. I had just arrived to Chicago for the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association to moderate a roundtable discussion. I got to the conference room 5 minutes early and to my surprise, there was sitting Frances Fox Piven at my table with a friend of hers. At a conference where even the regular sessions are often poorly attended, the roundtables are sort of like poster sessions - it’s not uncommon that there are more presenters than participants. But she was there to hear a handful of papers being discussed on housing justice. The three of us dove right into discussion, and it quickly moved from research to organizing and political tactics. We skipped over the entire professional niceties to both of our delights. I’ll never forget she just asked some real blunt question about the tension between increasing housing codes, conditions, or quality vs. availability, accessibility, affordable housing, or quality of housing for the poor. Something I thought about the lots in my research on the legalization of homeless camps, but also with respect to some deplorable “permanent” “supportive” housing in San Francisco I’d been researching for my dissertation. The presenters arrived, other professors and students, likely all drawn to participating in a discussion with Frances. It was a great session. The highlight of that conference for me.

In 2016 I convinced our cohort of Berkeley Social Justice Fellows to invite her to be our keynote speaker. I couldn’t make her evening talk, I was participating in a protest I’d helped organize with the SF Coalition on Homelessness on the Embarcadero against Mayor Ed Lee’s intensified sweeps of encampments to “cleanse” the downtown for that year’s Superbowl festivities. But I made the lunch. What struck me most was her discussion of her personal experiences in the welfare rights movement, and her laser-focused questions about our analysis of the organizing activities each of us were involved in. This article captures this spirit.

- - - -

“Working on any political project is enormously fun,” she said. “You don’t have to win for it to be really terribly satisfying. You get good friends. You do the right thing. You test your courage.”

#piven #bookshelf #us politics #poverty #sociology #academia #nytimes magazine #activism #2019 #journalism

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theblueroute · 5 years

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On March 27, four Widener English majors–all Blue Route staff members–and two faculty members traveled to Portland, Oregon to attend the annual Association of Writers and Writing Programs conference. Along with nearly 12,000 other writers, readers, editors, and publishers, the team enjoyed three amazing days of panels, networking opportunities, enlightening readings and keynotes speeches, and of course, the pacific northwest! Read on for a few words from all four senior English majors about their time in Portland!

Kelly Bachich Carlie and I signed up for an hour of manning the FUSE table in the book fair section of the conference. While we were setting up, Carlie nudged me and said, “Kelly, doesn’t that dog on that poster over there look just like the one you wrote about in Historical Fiction class?” Low and behold, I look over and the juxtaposing booth is sporting a poster of Laika, the space dog from the Sputnik II mission that I had just written about the week before coming to AWP. Naturally, I had to go over and investigate. I asked the woman working the booth why Laika was on the poster and she informed me that their book press had published an author who just wrote a biography on Laika. Not only were they selling copies, but he would be there signing them in an hour!

I purchased the book and stood waiting in line, mustering up the courage to ask the author, Kurt Caswell, if I could send him my short piece to read. I am a pretty confident and outgoing person but, for some reason, the minute I was next in line I almost chickened out. I told him about the poster and why I had to buy his book and meet him to tell him that I had also just written about Laika. He handed my book back to me after a really great conversation about Laika and I knew my window to ask him to read my story had closed. Then, to my complete shock, he asked me to send him my story to read and even gave me his personal email to send it to. I was elated.

Later that night, Rohan met a panelist named Shayla Lawson who wrote a poetry chapbook mixed with Frank Ocean songs and got us invited to a “battle of the bands” where she performed her work with her band. One of the opening acts, however, incorporated the song “Space Oddity” by David Bowie into his piece. The minute I heard the lyrics my head snapped over to look at Carlie who was already staring at me, mouth agape. “Space Oddity” is also an integral part of my short story about Laika. In a three-page story there is not much room and for two major aspects to crop up so blatantly at AWP had to be a sign for me to continue working with that piece. AWP is an invaluable resource for English and creative writing majors, it is a hub for creative minds and a space where we can feel important and bond with other professionals.

Vita Lypyak The first panel I attended at AWP was one of my favorites. It was titled “Translators Are the Unacknowledged Ambassadors of the World,” which is a play on the famous Percy Bysshe Shelley quote, “women are the unacknowledged poets of the world.” I speak two languages besides English, so languages and translation is something that always interested me. The final panelist opened my eyes to the Iranian culture and the struggles associated with translating Iranian literature to English. Unlike the first two panelists, she explained that Iran, as a nation, hinders its own artist by utilizing strict censorship and even executing writers. As a whole, this panel made me understand the crucial role translators have in the dissemination of literature. It helped me understand that translating is also a form of creative writing; a translator has to not only present the same meaning of the original work, but also closely match the same style.

In a sense, translators are poets and makers of things, too; they give readers access to things they could have never reached, due to a language barrier. AWP features a lot of intellectually stimulating and educational panels, which are great, but they can also cause a lot of mental fatigue. By attending poetry readings and readings of other kinds, it really helps your mind slow down and recharge, at least that was my experience. At “A Wild Girls Poetry Reading,” I was particularly moved by one poet, who wrote a collection of poetry where she was attempting to deal with the grief associated with her younger brother’s suicide. The stories she told the audience and the poetry she read were so raw and they made me empathize with her so much. I attended this reading on the first day and I could not stop thinking about her work. Her words impacted me the entire trip to the point that on the last day, I went and bought her book. I had to or I would never forgive myself. After I purchased it, I sat outside and read it from cover to cover, and her words continued to move me.

Rohan Suriyage I decided to go to Page Meets Stage, a reading that is a yearly tradition at AWP. This was the best decision I made throughout the time of the conference. The reading consisted of five poets reading and performing poems after one another, “popcorning” in order and choosing what to perform based on what was read before them. The panel was led by Taylor Mali, four-time poetry slam champion and arguably the most famous American spoken word poet, and consisted of other notable poets like Anis Mojgani, Mark Doty, and Shayla Lawson. For the whole hour I just sat there, mouth agape, at the incomparable stage presence and refined performing art they all shared with the room. When it was time for Shayla Lawson to read, she prefaced her poems in explaining they were all from a book of poems inspired by Frank Ocean, an R&B artist and one of my main artistic inspirations. When Shayla finished performing “Strawberry Swing” from her poetry book I Think I’m Ready to See Frank Ocean I struggled to retrieve my jaw from the floor and knew I had to speak to her after. Upon the panel’s conclusion I was able to do so.

We talked about Frank and our common interests, and after we spoke, she invited me to come to a reading she was orchestrating in downtown Portland. Of course, I obliged and I ended up going after the last of the panels of the day. In the library room of the Heathman Hotel, I heard Shayla and 4 of her colleagues read marvelous poetry. All of them are part of an association of writers called the Affrilacians, about 2,000 southern writers strong (per Facebook). Two of them I met and spoke with, published poet and educator Mitchell L.H. Douglas and former Kentucky poet laureate and educator Frank X Walker. Both were incredibly down to earth men who gave me insight on getting published and furthering my education, and I thank them for that. To whoever made the decision to take me as one of the students to go on AWP this year: thank you. Thank you. What I owe you can never be repaid. This was a span of days I can’t see myself ever forgetting, a span of days I firmly believe will prove to be important as I further my writing career.

Carlie Sisco One of the panels I attended was titled “8 Techniques Guaranteed to Take Your Script to the Next Level.” Using examples of films such as “Juno,” “Star Wars: A New Hope,” “Pulp Fiction,” and “Little Miss Sunshine” among others, this panel offered techniques relative to character, scene structure, descriptions, and dialogue. Though I do not write screenplays myself, I have always loved reading the screenplays to my favorite movies and television shows. It makes a very visual experience feel like reading a book. This panel demonstrated the ways in which some screenwriting techniques have the ability to transcend into fiction writing, because, even if I am not worrying about camera angles, it is still storytelling. Screenwriting can sound like a novel just as a novel can read like a screenplay.

Something that stood out to me in particular had to do with a tip on character development: “we watch movies because we want to connect with our characters.” Is that not the same for fiction writers? Shouldn’t I also be focusing on want versus desire, asking emotional questions in scenes, considering symbolism and foreshadowing, making my language visual or finding imaginative ways to introduce my characters? Isn’t it good advice regardless of the medium to think about increasing tension and suspense by slowing down, using misdirection to reveal information, or revealing my characters through their actions? I chose to go to a variety panels on screenwriting and playwriting not because I want to try my hand at either one, but because I know that the techniques between them and fiction writing are interchangeable. I also know that films and television serve as my influence, the driving force that compels me to provide visual detail and intricate characters. I would not have been able to explore what that means to my writing or how related the two mediums are had I not been given this opportunity. My path may not have been the one most fiction writers would typically take, but I think that is what was so amazing about AWP at the end of the day. I was able to find what interested me and gained insight from an influencing medium all while taking my own unique path.

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by Carlie Sisco

Recently our senior staff members attended the 2019 AWP Conference in Portland. Click the link to read about their experience! #AWP2019 On March 27, four Widener English majors–all Blue Route staff members–and two faculty members traveled to Portland, Oregon to attend the annual…

#AWP #Books #Creative writing #Poetry #short stories #Undergraduate Writing #Widener University #Writing

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dragobsessedandposessed · 5 years

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Lets talk about growth.

August 2016. I’m starting my sophomore year in undergrad. Last semester, I had my revelation and dove into the two Earth Sciences intro courses. I’m starting my first advanced core course in the curriculum. Geochemistry. It’s a 300 level.

I walk in the room, early as always, for the first day of class. New faces stream in. Nobody sits next to me. I sat in the first table in front of the door. Two minutes before class starts a senior rushes in and slides into the seat next to me and warmly introduces herself. Sophia.

The first Wednesday lab there are trays of six rocks and ten minerals, unlabeled. Half the class has taken min/pet (the class about rocks and minerals). Half the class has not. We are told we need to get reasonably familiar with these specimens so we can have context for the geochemistry course content. We get a mini lecture on rock and mineral ID. We do a lab. Sophia can pick everything up and just say “sodium rich plag(ioclase)”. I am completely lost. She tries to walk me through but I don’t get it. I can’t see it. What’s cleavage? Is this greasy or vitreous lustre? Did this streak or not?

I am frustrated. We are told we have a quiz on Friday. I email the prof and ask if she can meet in private. She emails the class and invites anybody. Six people show up. She stays with me and one other girl until 5:30. I’m still struggling but I’ve come up with little cheat cheats for remembering the obvious ones.

I am frustrated and it is obvious. Misty eyes and everything. My professor sits down next to me and says “I know it feels kinda like drinking out of a firehose right now. It’s a lot of information to throw at you. The only reason I can do this is because I’ve spent years locked in a basement with these guys. It takes time. And practice. Hah! And I’m not giving you those!”

She was trying to make me feel better. But I was mortified that I had let a professor see me so frustrated and teary eyed. I thought she thought I was a child. But really, I was frustrated with not knowing how to handle struggling in school. It never happened before. My grades were inconsistent on the first couple labs. My exam grades fine. But it was the hardest class I ever had taken. And it was enthralling. Every day at lunch I’d say to my friends “my brain explodes out of my head like twenty times a class!” I was desparate to learn. I put in the work. I read the textbook paragraph by paragraph, trying to absorb. I watched youtube videos to help me.

Our final project was a mercury research project of our own design. Soph was my partner. And now one of my best friends. She introduced me to the other students in the department, who are all awesome, and things get warmer. I have this idea to study soils at a site related to my job. The prof is completely into it and thinks it’s really exciting. And she knows it’s really my project, even if Soph is my partner. I still think she thinks I’m a failure.

She is so enthusiastic about this dang project. Keeps dropping hints “you know if you wanted to continue this project I’d support you. I mean you already know how to use the instrument and I could get you keys to the lab from Deb.” “This could really be a thesis.” She and I talk about my job. She has this idea about strontium isotopes and we talk about it on a couple occasions. She says that if we did it, she’d take me with her to the lab where she does all her research. Fly out to Arizona in the summer. Between these conversations I got questions wrong on assignments and labs and exams. I said inelegant things. I thought she thought I was stupid.

I convinced myself. In spite of all evidence. That I was stupid and doing everything wrong. But I simultaneously became so sure that this was everything I wanted to do with my life. I have a post saved in my drafts from that semester. It says “I know what I want to do in my life. Geochemistry. Specifically isotope geochemistry. I love it and it’s all I want to do”. But I thought I wasn’t good enough while so desparate to be.

And it was all lies. I was lying to myself. I was too hard on myself.

It’s the first day of 2019. That august when I was almost crying over a box of rocks is two and a half years behind me. What’s happened since then?

The very next semester that professor called me into her office. She told me I was on the top of her list to join a project the Smithsonian contacted her about. I dove in. She flew me to Arizona and I did that lab work. I took that project to two professional conferences. At the first, I gave a poster. At the second, I had a 15 minute talk in the middle of a 4 hour session with 20 minutes for cumulative questions at the end. Every. Question. Was for me. I am first author on a peer reviewed scientific paper on that project.

She was thrilled to be my thesis advisor on a completely different project starting one year later. More isotope geochemistry. I flew to Arizona for a second time. That project had so many ups and downs. So many successes and failures. But it never got me down, truly. It was hard, but I never doubted that I could make it work through the frustrations and confusions. I’m getting honors on my senior research thesis. The department gave me not one but two awards for my research. I wrote and got fully funded three grants for that project.

I had the guts to apply for a research expedition to the remote arcitc. I got accepted. I went. It was hard. But incredible. Stunning. I presented that at a conference too. I’m writing my second peer reviewed publication now. I haven’t graduated from my undergrad.

Every single one of my professors individually approached me and told me I should be applying to a hyper-competitive national fellowship because they think I stand a real chance. I submitted my application in October. Fingers crossed till April!

I also took the rocks and minerals class. I was the teaching assistant for Geochemistry this past semester. The first time it’s been offered since I took it. The professor and I walked among the tables as students were struggling through their packets. I sat down with people and guided their eyes until they saw it. I shared my story with them. It resonated.

I’ve had a career/course request/grad school chat with probably every single junior and sophomore in the department because they come to me for advice. They recognize me as someone relatable but successful. That means everything to me.

And guess what? Here I am, applying to graduate school. In what? Isotope geochemistry. I was right, two and a half years ago, about one thing. Not that I was stupid or unworthy or incapable. Certainly not that my professor hated me. She’s said multiple times that she hates sitting through graduation but isn’t going to make any excuses this year because she needs to cry as I walk across the stage. I was right that isotope geochemistry is gonna be my life. I’ve already made it my life for two whole years. Every professor I’ve interviewed with has told me know impressive my research experience is. They wonder why I’m doing an M.S. and not a PhD. I emailed one the other day telling her I don’t plan on applying to her program because she can’t offer me an M.S., and she wished me the best and told me to get back in touch if I want a PhD after my M.S.

And guess what? I can look at myself in the mirror and say “you are amazing. Look what you’ve accomplished. I am proud of you and all that you’ve done. You are driven and strong and smart and take advantage of every last opportunity. You are deserving of everything you’ve achieved. You are loved, respected, and appreciated. Never doubt yourself. You’ve proved yourself.” And that is so so sweet. I’m still hard on myself, but it’s because I know I’m so capable. And it doesn’t get me down, it moves me forward. And it doesn’t stop me from acknowledging my accomplishments. That was my pitfall two and a half years ago.

So for 2019, I want a continuance. I will continue to be staunch and self-assured, even in the face of rejection. I will make the best decisions for myself because I wholly deserve it. I will be kind to myself. I have lots of great adventures in store. Lots to look forward to. So much potential. I speak this into existence in 2019. And I will practice it.

#personal #2019 #new year #resolutions #long post

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everythingshawnmendes · 6 years

Text

A Heart’s Memory (Teacher!Shawn Mendes x Reader)

A/N: I read something like this in a Harry Styles fic, I really don’t remember from where though. If you are the writer and want this removed, with all due respect contact me, I am in no way shape or form trying to plagiarize.

Summary: Shawn is an elementary school teacher and has a son with his wife who unfortunately died during childbirth. Y/N has a daughter the age of his son and they go to school together. Little does she know her kid’s teacher is her first love from school.

5k+ words

tag @xmanorianx @shawnsassymendes

Inspired from this:

“Can you ever stop loving someone?

You never stop loving. Once you love someone, honestly, truly, you will never be able to un-love them. At that time your old love will not feel so strong, but it is a heart, and it will never let you forget something that ever made you happy.”

Shawn sat back and admired his newly decorated classroom. It was August 30th, the day before school would start again. He taught the 2nd grade, the grade his son Thomas was in.

Teaching elementary school made Shawn so incredibly happy. He loved kids, and what he loved even more than them was his role of leading them through the beginning of their lives and making sure each one of his students was happy. Childhood was really a crucial part to anybody’s happiness and life, and he wanted to make sure every child felt like home in his classroom. He decorated the room with plants, planning on assigning one to each student so they can water it and let it grow. In the corner, he put blankets and bean bags for naptime, because the lucky 7-year-olds he taught were granted a nap time twice a week after lunch. He also purchased new games, books and coloring sheets for downtime. He also hoped to get a pet fish or hamster, so they can look after it together, but he would have to check out the dynamic of the group before that. One year, his class and he had a goldfish and it was truly a part of their class; another year, they had a betta fish and the students completely neglected it and Shawn had to be the one feeding it everyday.

He also put posters across the walls, bright colorful ones to mask the dull white that surrounded the room. He checked out his class list. He was very happy, since from a special request, most of his students from 1st grade that he taught last year will have been moved to his class so they can do 2 years together. He wasn’t one to choose favourites but there was this girl that was best friends with his son Thomas, that he absolutely adored. Witty, comical and yet very understanding, Rose was for sure one of his most prized students.

He checked the cabinets to make sure there were cookies and cups. The first day of school always ended with a teacher-parent meeting. He was never really nervous for those, since he knew that he was a good teacher, and everybody else seemed to think so too.

Shawn closed his classroom door, waved goodbye to his colleagues and went to the school yard where he left Thomas. The end of summer breeze was certainly there, but he was warm enough in his thin button up shirt.

“Hey buddy, we’re leaving!” He ran up to his son, who was sliding down a slide that was Shawn’s height.

“Daddy I don’t wanna go! Rose is here.”

“Oh hey, Rose, didn’t see ya there!” Shawn waved at the smiling girl behind his son.

“Hi Mr. Mendes! Is Tommy gonna be in our class this year?” She asked, two (your hair color) French braids falling down on her shoulders.

“No unfortunately. Rules say it wouldn’t be fair if a kid had their parent as a teacher.” Shawn made an exaggerated pouty sad face.

“No!”

“It’s okay Rose, we will see each other at recess. And lunch. And second recess.” Thomas said affirmatively.

The two slid down the slide to join Shawn on the pebbled ground.

“Wait a minute.” Shawn frowned. “Rose, how’d you get here?”

“I Apparated, duh.” She said, making Shawn chuckle. The saying sounded vaguely familiar, but he just brushed it off, assuming he just watched Harry Potter too many times. “My babysitter drove me.” She pointed at a car in the parking lot, in which sat a woman on the phone.

“My bad. So will I be seeing your parents tomorrow?” He asked her.

“Hmm… I think my mommy will come!”

“Alright cool! I’ve never met her actually.”

“She’s the best. I’m cooler of course, but shh don’t tell her I said that.” She smiled even wide, her smile making Shawn melt.

The three walked to the parking lot, Shawn racing them to the fence and letting them win, feigning being out of breath.

“Beat ya!” Tommy shouted as he watched his dad stagger up to him, clutching his chest.

“Yes, you did! My man.” Shawn exclaimed, picking his son up and twirling him in the air.

They both waved goodbye to Rose and got on the road. They didn’t live very far, only a couple minutes away. It was a neighbourhood school after all, none of the students living over twenty minutes away.

On the way home, Thomas told Shawn a story about a game he played, but Shawn zoned out a bit.

He thought about what Rose said about her mother saying, which lead him to think about Thomas’ mom.

He got married to her and had Thomas, but unfortunately, she passed away from a mishap during her C-section. They were both so young. He pushed the thoughts away from his mind. It was very hard to get over at first, but he had quite a distraction since Thomas was still to be taken care of. They were quite happy, Shawn remembered. But she was gone, and it had been way too long, and the memory of her became very foggy. He wished Thomas could grow up with a mother, because even though he gave his son everything, all of his love, a child deserves a mother’s too.

“And then BOOM! Thomas the train crashed into the station!”

Shawn snapped out of his trail of thoughts and grinned at his son through the mirror.

“You’re kidding!” Shawn exclaimed.

“Nope.” Thomas said, before looking out the window, the TV episode clearly replaying in his head.

Shawn shook his head, smiling and pulled up to the driveway.

“Alright buddy, what do you want for dinner?” He ruffled his son’s head as they took off their shoes in the entrance, Shawn picking up a bunch of toys left astray.

Thomas pondered a while, as if this decision was as important as choosing a wife.

“Lasagna!”

“I think we can make that happen. Wanna help me?”

“Okay!”

Y/N turned her key in the doorknob and opened the door.

“Mommy!” Rose came running down the stairs to hug her mother.

“Rosie, hi darling.” Y/N kneeled down to hug her daughter tightly.

Y/N was a full-time single mother and worked her ass off everyday. She was a private optometrist, having her own clinic. Her hours usually extended from 9-6, which is still pretty late as Rose finishes school at 3. Y/N was a terrific mother, and Rose was the center of her world. She knew when to be soft, when to be harsh, what to teach and how to teach it. The only thing was she worked, to give Rose and her the most comfortable life possible.

Y/N got pregnant with Rose the last year of optometry school by her then-boyfriend. He left them and ever since then, Y/N had been on her own. She was definitely not as strong as she made her look, but Rose was her drive in life. Ever since then, she had worked so that she could be where she was today.

She lived in a comfortable home, not too big since they were only two, plus their cat. Rose had a babysitter from 3-5, as Y/N could almost never make it to pick Rose up when school ended.

When Rose was even younger, and Y/N’s clinic had only started and she had to work longer hours, Y/N would often bring Rose to her work. Now though, they had a much nicer schedule. Y/N’s clinic was popular enough for her to hire another optometrist to work the evening.

“Hi Sam, thanks so much.” Y/N hugged the babysitter goodbye. “So, what were you up to today?” She said, taking off her blazer and going to pull out a dinner out the fridge that she had prepped during the weekend.

“Can you come to the parent-teacher conference tomorrow after school? I wanna you to meet my teacher.”

“Wait, are you gonna have your last year’s, the one you absolutely adore?”

“Yeah! Mr. Mendes!”

“Hmm. Okay love, I’ll try.”

Shawn dressed up a tiny tad fancy for the first school day. It was elementary school after all, the dress code was very very flexible, but he wanted to make a good impression on the parents. He had a weird feeling in his stomach as if someone he knew was going to be there and he wanted to look his best, but he shook it of as nerves. He opted for a cool printed blue shirt and added a jacket on top.

His day had been amazing, his students rushed in when the eight ’o’clock bell rang. They took their seats, and they played games, then designed their own name cards to stick on their desks. Shawn had lunch in the teacher’s lounge and chatted with the school secretary Amanda, a cute blonde he went out with once. The afternoon, he taught his students how to play chess and discussed on the subject of getting a pet, which was warmly welcomed.

“Can we get a dog?” A boy asked.

“How are we gonna keep a dog in a school?” Rose giggled. “We need an animal that won’t run around everywhere and won’t mind being in a cage at night when we’re not here!”

Shawn nodded.

“Wait, but don’t be sad Ollie.” Rose whispered to the boy who suggested the dog idea. “The dog was a really good idea. I actually really want one too, but my mommy doesn’t wanna.”

The day ended, and Shawn and the kids cleaned the class for the parents. The ones whose parents couldn’t come went home, and those who stayed colored on the paper cups their parents would drink coffee from later.

Thomas came from the other class to join his dad. He was sitting with Rose who was fast at work, decorating her cup with flowers. Her mom loved flowers.

A couple parents started walking in, greeting Shawn and then sat by their children. When only one or two chairs were empty, Shawn decided to start. He opened his mouth to greet the socializing parents but was interrupted by a woman’s voice by the door.

“Hi, is this- hey Rose!” Y/N said, spotting her daughter.

Shawn turned around and his insides came to a halt.

By the door stood a woman who looked no different than any other woman, that yet stood out to Shawn as if she was the only one he has ever seen. With soft (your hair color) hair that lay delicately on her shoulders, she had a smile that Shawn had seen too many times. Y/N, his first love from university. Her voice had not changed one bit, still honey-like smooth, and bird-song like melodic. She laughed when Rose ran up to her, and Shawn’s heart felt a pang. He hadn’t heard that laugh in over a decade, and yet the sound of it entering his eardrums again brought everything back and triggered a series of memories. Shawn ogled her. God, she was beautiful. She wore simple high-waisted work pants matched with black heels. Shawn smiled weakly, remembering something she once told him about loving loose pants, because it felt like she wasn’t wearing any. He was surprised to see her in heels though, because in university she absolutely swore off them. Well, things must’ve changed since they last saw each other, Shawn thought. Yes, things have changed. But the fluttering sensation his heart used to make around her did not fade away.

Y/N stood back up, placed a strand of her hair back and scanned the room for the teacher she had heard so much of. Her gaze laid on Shawn and she swallowed. Her university best friend turned lover looked ethereal to her right now. He looked exactly the same, and completely different. He was a man now, no longer a student boy; and yet all of his features were familiar. The brown of his eyes, the soft brown curl of hair that always fell in front of his eyes.

Shawn swore at himself internally. Of course, Y/N was Rose’s mother. Rose was the reincarnation of her, and all her mannerisms, her quirks. They had the same hair color, the same eyebrow shape, the same sense of humor, the same curiosity. He wanted to kick himself for not having realized the uncanny similarities. He gathered everything he had in him and approached her.

“Hi.” Y/N said, looking up at him. She chuckled. “Sorry I’m late, I wish I could just Apparate haha. I should’ve known it was you Rose was talking about when she spoke of a certain Mr. Mendes who loved to play guitar and had a mini Canada flag in his pencil holder.”

“And I should’ve known you were Rose’s mom. She’s just like you, it’s unreal.” Shawn said. He couldn’t help but glance down at her lips, and see they remained just as blossom-like, pink as they once were.

“Well, I’ll go take a seat. Maybe we can catch up after?” Y/N said hopefully.

“Of course.”

Y/N walked to Rose’s desk and sat down on her tiny chair, pulling her daughter onto her lap happily.

Shawn cleared his throat, suddenly way more nervous about this than he was twenty minutes ago. He proceeded to welcome everyone warmly, and talked about himself a bit, then his plan for the year, as well as some fun field trips he would like to take the kids on if the school decides to fund them.

In brief, Shawn thought the parents had taken a good liking to him. As they left one by one, he was greeted by handshakes and smiles. He saw Y/N in the corner of his eye looking around the classroom carefully. He knew she wanted to hang back and talk to him, and he was happy she did.

Thomas and Rose were in his little game corner, already cracking open the brand-new Monopoly game Shawn bought yesterday.

“I love what you did to the classroom.” Y/N turned around to Shawn, as he leaned back on a desk.

“Thanks, it’s really nothing. Just thought it’d be more pleasant to learn in a colorful class, you know?”

Y/N smiled at him, eyeing him. Finally, she said:

“I just can’t believe we bumped into each other like this again. How long has it been?” She asked almost breathlessly, as if amazed by the lapse of time that has passed.

“At least 8 years.” Shawn answered back incredulously. Y/N took a seat on the desk beside him, crossing her ankles.

“Damn.”

“So what have you been up to? How’d you have Rose?” There were so many questions Shawn had. They had gone from being inseparable to complete strangers, and a part of him wanted to make up that time. A part of him remembered her way too clearly now.

“Well. Since university, I’ve gone to optometry school. Got pregnant with Rose during my last year. When I graduated, her dad left us, so I worked my ass off to try to get my name out in the market. Worked for a couple clinics, before opening my own. And now I’m here!”

“I’m sorry about Rose’s father. Do you still have contact with him?” Shawn asked subtly.

“No, um we haven’t spoken since he left.” Y/N looked down, before looking back up at him. “And you? Thomas is a great kid.”

“Haha thank you. Um I’m widowed actually.”

“Oh shit, I’m so sorry.” Y/N put a hand on his arm.

“No no, it’s okay. It was a long time ago, I’m over it. But she was cool, you would’ve liked her.”

“Man, we’ve just got the best luck huh?” Y/N chuckled lightly, nudging his elbow playfully.

Shawn laughed with her, reddening slightly at the contact.

Y/N watched their two kids play.

“Rose loves Thomas, you know. Every day she’ll come home with some story about some shenanigan she pulled with him. He takes after you.”

“Thank you. And Rose is an absolute delight to teach.” “Really?” “Yeah.” “That’s great.”

They sat there for a while, just looking at each other and talking about nothing.

Everything had changed and yet, their conversation felt as if they had never lost contact with each other.

“Well, look at the time. I better get going, don’t want Rose to go to bed late and be sleepy for her second day of school!” Y/N stood up.

For a second, Shawn debated whether he should hug her goodbye or not. Who was he kidding, he couldn’t, they were good as strangers now. And that hurt him to think that.

“’Course. And don’t you worry about that, there’s a scheduled naptime for the kids tomorrow after lunch.” He smiled.

Y/N rolled her eyes.

“So lucky! I could’ve done with some scheduled naps when we were at school.”

Shawn chuckled. A vague image of Y/N laying on top of him, in nothing but underwear and a flannel, fast asleep, flashed across his mind.

“Rosie! We gotta get going hun.”

“I’m- I’m not even ti-i-ired.” She yawned. Y/N kissed her cheek laughing.

“Sure, you aren’t. Bye Thomas! It was really nice seeing you again, Shawn.” She waved.

“As for me. Oh! Will you come to the end of summer barbecue? I’m grilling.”

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world. I’ll look out for it in the school newsletter?”

Shawn would’ve given her his number, but nodded.

“Rose’s mommy is pretty.” Thomas said, once the two girls were out of earshot.

Shawn laughed.

“She is.”

The rest of the week passed very quickly. Although Y/N and Shawn didn’t see each other, they were all they thought about.

Y/N sat at her desk, fiddling with her glasses. Why did she feel all jittery at the thought of Shawn? Her mind wandered about, thinking of how nice he looked. He was always cute, when they were in university he was already very good-looking. But now? Oh my fucking lord. He was a man. Y/N shook her head and shrugged her shoulders, feeling herself get all warm.

She stood up, checked the clock and walked over to her next patient.

“Hi, how are you?” She smiled cheerily to the squinty-eyed old man in clear need of glasses.

Shawn sat at his own desk, eyes skimming over some exam sheets. The kids were currently playing (2nd grade was definitely a tough year) and he decided to take this time to try to sort out which examinations would be appropriate to give his students in the near future.

His eyes stayed unfocused on the text before him though. Instead, images of Y/N flowed through his mind. Man, he hadn’t seen her in years. She was beautiful when they were together in university, but now. God. She still had that youth glow and shine to her, but everything seemed to have matured, grown sharper. She was a woman now. He smiled to himself. He was really proud of her.

“What if, Shawn, what if I don’t make it?”

Shawn looked down at her, who was laying on his lap. He continued running his fingers through her hair, but turned the TV down.

“What do you mean, not make it?”

“You know. What if I fail at like, life? What if I don’t finish this degree, and then like become a secretary?

“Listen. You are the brightest person I know, Y/N. Seriously. You’re so fucking smart, sometimes I just look at you and go «What the fuck?»”

Y/N smiled, and Shawn’s hand stroked her cheek.

“Thanks.” Y/N kissed his hand.

Boy, have they come a long way. Shawn went pink, thinking about what happened after that little conversation they had. How Y/N trailed kisses a little further up his arm, then to his neck; Shawn shifted in his seat and focused on what was in front of him.

“Mr. Mendes, can I go to the bathroom?”

Friday rolled around the corner in a flash and before he knew it, he was out in the school yard holding a ladder still while Amanda attached big helium balloons onto the huge banner that said, “Welcome back to school”. He watched Rose and Thomas fast at work in the sandbox, constructing what weirdly looked like a temple.

“Enjoying the view?” Amanda teased.

Shawn looked back at her.

“Wha-oh um. Haha.” He frowned to himself.

“So, why didn’t you call me this week?” She said, hopping off the ladder.

“Oh um.” Shawn scratched the back of his neck. “Thomas, was sick.”

“Oh no!” She looked over his shoulder to see Thomas running full speed toward them.

“Yeha, he made um a fast recovery.” Shawn reddened. He turned around. “Hey buddy!”

“Hi daddy. I’m hungry, when are we eating?”

“Uuum.” Shawn checked his watch. It was 4:30. “Can you wait another half hour?”

Thomas nodded. Rose appeared at his side.

“Hi Mr. Mendes!”

“Hi Rose! Your mom thinking about swinging by?”

“Yeah I think so!”

And with that, the two kids ran off to help themselves to lemonade at the drink table that Amanda had unnoticeably went to go help out at. Shawn cleared his throat and took the ladder back to the storage room.

What the hell was Y/N doing to him? He didn’t expect them to get back together anything, so why was he getting so nervous and excited each time the prospect of seeing her came about? He glanced at himself in the mirror. Somewhere deep down wanted Y/N to look at him though. He wanted to catch her staring, so he can see her cute blush. And with that, he unbuttoned a button on his grey shirt.

Y/N threw her purse over her shoulder and fumbled in it for her keys.

“Bye Gina!” She waved at her assistant, who lowered her glasses.

“You’re out early.”

Y/N leaned over the counter, smiling.

“Gotta go to my daughter’s school barbecue thing.”

“Ooh nice! You’re going to get tipsy on the free sangria for the parents, huh?”

“Maybe.” Y/N drummed her fingers on the desktop happily before walking out into the parking lot and hopping into her car.

Getting into her house, she ran up the stairs to her closet. Picking out an outfit she hadn’t worn since she became a mother, she looked at herself in the mirror.

Then sighed. What in the world was she doing? She was wearing a body suit with cut outs at her waist and shorts that Katy Perry sang about in “California Girls”.

“I’m way too fucking old for this.” She muttered to herself, taking off the ridiculous outfit.

Why was she so preoccupied about how she looked? She never gave a shit about her appearance. Hell, most of her life was spent in sweatpants, although that still attracted men’s attention..

It was Shawn. The back of her mind wanted to look good for him, wanted to see his gaze linger a little bit on her..

She checked her phone, 4:30. Slipping a simple black maxi dress on, she made her way to the school.

Man, she felt like a teenager again.

It was a very pleasant evening. The air was warm, and a calm breeze carried it to wrap it around everyone’s shoulders like a cozy blanket. The sky was still sunny, but everyone knew that soon the sun would be setting much sooner. It was a quarter past five, and Shawn stood at the grills along with the gym teacher and were working on burger patties, hotdogs, corn and vegetable skewers (Shawn knew those would be untouched, but maybe he could bribe the children to eat them with dessert.)

Y/N had arrived fifteen minutes before they got the grills started and chatted merrily with Shawn. It only took them those few minutes to warm up and shake the formalities away. If anyone saw them now, they would indeed believe that they were once best friends in university. Not lovers though, because the two tried their best to keep their eyes to themselves.

But it was so hard to. Shawn forgot how good Y/N looked in dresses. And the one she was wearing highlighted every part of her, but flowed in the wind so she looked effortlessly beautiful. It was always like that with her. She never really had to try and Shawn would find her mesmerising.

And Y/N couldn’t really stop the pinkening of her cheeks. They laughed, teased each other slightly (friendly banter you know, nothing more), occasionally bumped shoulders.

Now, Adam the gym teacher had gone to chat with the other adults and Y/N stood beside Shawn, cooking her half of the grill.

“You know I hate the stereotype that only men can barbecue. Like, do you know what bomb-ass chefs women are?” Y/N said, flipping nimbly the corn on the cob to leave pretty, checkered black but not burnt sear marks.

“So are we not going to address that lonely sausage on the ground you dropped?” Shawn rose his eyebrow at her, clicking his tongs.

“I was distracted! Too busy fake-laughing at your terrible dad joke.”

“Suure. That laugh was genuine.”

Y/N eyed the drinks table, which did not go unnoticed by Shawn.

“Wondering if there’s some spiked punch over there for the parents and teachers?”

“Ooh, you read my mind, Mendes.”

“See you’re still a booze fanatic.”

“Hey, alcohol is a mom’s best friend. In moderation of course.”

As if on cue, Rose and Thomas came up to them with their ketchup smeared paper plates.

Y/N looked at the two children. Shawn watched her expression, one of pure adoration. He remembered once being on the receiving end of that look.

“What’s up guys?” Y/N chirped.

“Can we have dessert?” Rose beamed.

“Did you have a bit of veggies?” Y/N raised her eyebrows.

Rose looked up at the sky, shuffling her feet.

“Yes.” Thomas said.

“Gimme your plates, both of you, ya naughty kids.” Y/N teased, putting a vegetable skewer on each of their plates.

To Shawn’s surprise, Thomas ate it along with Rose. Normally, he had to hide it in dishes like smoothies or blend it into homemade pasta dough, so that his son would get his daily dose of vegetables.

Then, the two ran off to help themselves to sweets at another table.

“Well, I think all the kids have eaten. We can probably start now.” Shawn said, waving at the parents.

“Mhmm, I’ve been eyeing everything since the start of this thing.” Y/N said, helping herself to a hotdog and corn. “Ketchup?” She said, holding up the bottle.

“Oh yeah, thank you.” Shawn said, holding his plate to her so she can apply ketchup on his burger.

Y/N slipped the lid open, a bit of the condiment slipping onto her finger, then added a nice layer of it onto Shawn’s food. Closing the lid with her middle unstained finger, she set it down and sucked her index clean.

Shawn felt warm once again, vague memories of what her mouth can do crossing his mind.

They loaded their plates and went to take a seat at a picnic table where sat the principal, the secretary Amanda and a couple other parents.

They sat beside each other, chatting casually with the others. Their elbows touched lightly every so often, whether it was when they were using their knives and forks, or when Y/N would move her arm to tuck her hair behind her ear, or when they both rested their elbows on the table to listen to the conversation and Y/N’s right would coincidentally touch Shawn’s left.

“Ooh, I completely forgot about the drinks table. Want anything?” Y/N said gently, getting up.

“Yes please, thanks!” Shawn watched her walk away.

He was about to half-shout to her that he wanted a margarita, but seeing her pick up the jug with limes, he trusted that she knew his favourite summer drink.

“So, Shawn I never got that phone call back from you.” Amanda leaned closer to him.

“Oh, I’m so sorry! When are you free, we can go to dinner.” Damn Shawn and his polite Canadian self. But once again, he didn’t know why he was closing himself off to her. She was perfectly okay, nice, pretty.

“I’m free tomorrow night.” She said.

“Cool, I’ll pick you up at 8.” Shawn smiled, his jaw slightly uncomfortable at the not-so-genuine smile he gave. He told himself he was being stupid though, and that whatever tiny, miniscule feeling he had with Y/N was just surprise of having found each other again.

Y/N came back, setting a cup beside his plate.

“Welcome.”

“Thanks.” Shawn chuckled, clinking his cup to hers in cheers before they both downed the contents.

“So, Y/N. It’s so nice seeing you here, you’re like never around school.” Amanda said.

“Oh well, I have a lot of patients, but I try my best.” Y/N answered politely.

“What is you do again?” Amanda said, voice bright.

“I’m an optometrist.” Y/N responded. “And you?”

“I really like your dress, seems expensive.” Amanda complimented, disregarding Y/N’s question back to her.

Y/N laughed. “No no, I got this at Walmart actually. It was on sale, they actually have cool stuff.” She answered.

Amanda didn’t completely hide her distaste. Shawn breathed out, looking around for a way to end this weird one-way passive-aggressive exchange. Lucky for him, and Y/N, Rose came up to her mom, hugging her.

Y/N gladly pulled her up on her lap, and wrapped her arms around her little middle.

“Hi Rosie.” She said, bouncing her slightly on her thigh.

“Rose here, is a model student.” The principal turned around from his conversation once he spotted her.

Y/N looked positively gleeful.

“Ooh, are you Rosie?” She turned her head to look down at her daughter, kissing her temple. Shawn’s heart felt warm, his brain making an “aww” feeling.

“Maybe.” Rose giggled.

Y/N held onto one of her little hands, as the other one reached around her mother’s plate for any food.

“Uh uh uh no, you cannot drink this.” Y/N said, pulling Rose’s arm back.

“Why?” Rose pouted.

“Because I don’t think you will like it.” Y/N laughed.

“But-but how will I know if I never try?”

Y/N looked at her daughter.

“Okay, stick your tongue in, see if you like taste for yourself.”

Rose stuck the tip of her tongue in the liquid, and immediately pulled back, frowning.

“Ew!” She said, making the whole table laugh.

“Told ya.” Y/N said, squeezing her daughter’s side.

“I would personally never feed my kid alcohol.” Amanda whispered to Shawn, and his laughter died down. He glanced sideways at Y/N who thankfully did not hear because she was too enamored with her child on her lap.

“Well, she had like a quarter of a lick, it won’t do anything.” Shawn pointed out.

Four drinks later for Y/N, and one for Shawn; they found themselves in a heated soccer match against their two children. Y/N had kicked off her sandals and was running barefoot, her dress flowing behind her. Thomas had the ball and was blocking her, who was making exaggerated arm movements to make him laugh.

Shawn was covering Rose, who was desperately trying to get to her teammate.

“Pass it!” Rose cried. “Thomas, we can lose to my mom! She’s the worst at soccer.”

Shawn laughed and looked at her, and she took this opportunity to escape and go join Thomas.

“Shit.” Shawn whispered to himself. He jogged up to what seemed like a leg wrestling match, with Rose and Thomas desperately hogging the ball and Y/N wiggling her leg in between them to try and take it away while unable to contain her laughter.

“Shawn come help me!” Y/N said through tears of laughter. If it hadn’t been for the drinks, she still would be in this state. She was a child at heart and had fun in anything.

Thomas had gotten a hold on the ball and began running toward Y/N and Shawn’s empty net. Rose was tugging on the back of her mom’s dress and seized Shawn. The three tumbled forward, knocking Thomas too in the process; all wheezing of laughter. Y/N rolled off Shawn giggling, Thomas picking himself up and dusting off the front of his shirt.

Shawn gave Y/N a hand up and admired her flushed skin.

Thomas stifled a yawn.

“I think it’s time to go home, huh buddy?” Shawn said, giving his son a piggy back ride.

“It’s probably Rose’s bedtime too.” Y/N said, taking Rose’s reaching hand.

“Hey, are you sure you can drive?” Shawn looked over at her.

“Yes..” Y/N giggled.

“You lightweight.” Shawn poked at her.

“Am not! But I can do with a lift.”

This did not go unnoticed by Rose.

“Can we have a sleepover?!” She asked.

“Please?” Thomas pleaded.

“I don’t want to be a bother, Shawn-“

“It’ll be my absolute pleasure. I have an extra bedroom and I think I still have a pair of Rose’s pyjamas in the laundry basket from the last time they hung out I think.”

“Okay then! You sure though, that we won’t be any trouble?” Y/N’s voice turned serious.

“I promise Y/N, you would never be a bother.” Shawn looked into her eyes.

Suddenly the cooling night air turned hot again.

Thomas and Rose were both in his bedroom on the floor in sleeping bags, and were playing a board game. Y/N and Shawn didn’t mind too much because they knew they would probably fall asleep very soon anyway so they let them stay up a little longer.

Y/N had changed into one of Shawn’s sweatpants and t-shirts and was cozied up on the couch with blankets. The pants were a bit loose on her, but she tightened the waist the best she could and the t-shirt looked unbelievingly good on her.

Shawn handed her a mug of tea and joined her on the sofa.

They flicked through old photo albums and reminisced.

“What really happened to us?” Y/N asked him, head resting on the back of the couch.

“Honestly, now that I think of it, I don’t even remember. We just got so busy.”

“Well, I’m happy we bumped into each other again. You were one of the people I got along with the best.” Y/N smiled.

Ten minutes later, sat Shawn with Y/N asleep on the other end of the couch, wishing his night tomorrow could be just another cozy one with Y/N with full of meaningful yet fun conversation and tea, instead of a dinner with Amanda.

Part 2

#shawn mendes #shawn mendes imagine #shawn mendes fluff #shawn mendes x reader #dad!shawn #teacher!shawn

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the-tales-of-horror · 7 years

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I had a really difficult experience with a disturbing student. I don't know how to deal with this.

Original Link By senbei-bob

I had a really difficult experience last Friday that I need to get off my chest.

I work as a Portuguese teacher in the basement of an ordinary office building. Most of my students are Japanese business people in their 40s and 50s, who are relocating to Brazil because their company forces them.

Being on the absolute rock-bottom of the corporate ladder, I have no say in who I teach, but up until last Friday I had exclusively taught adults. Of course, being forced to learn Portuguese and shipped off to Brazil against ones volition will inevitably make anybody unhappy. The environment in which I work is also terrible. There are no windows and no air conditioning. The whole place is covered with a purple carpet with stains all over it. The classrooms come equipped with a whiteboard, a wobbly desk and two chairs. Nothing else. No ABC posters, no pictures - NOTHING. It often reminds me of an interrogation room. A bell rings at the start and end of every lesson for reasons I have yet to understand.

Last Friday was no different from any other day. I had my business students and went through the excruciatingly dull and soul-sucking steps of going through the mandatory textbook which is forced on us from the upper-management.

My supervisor- let's call her Linda- was in a terrible mood as always. She yelled at me in front of everyone for not wearing my hair in a proper ponytail. She rolled her eyes at me for standing in her way in front of the microwave during lunch. She made rude comments about my skin (I had acne in the past and still have some light scarring). In other words, she was being her usual, insufferable self.

Most of the time, I just try to ignore Linda since I'm a nobody in this giant corporation and nobody listens to me anyway. Being my supervisor, Linda also has access to my schedule and can alter my lessons and who I teach whenever she wants. For example, we had a very handsome business man once and he was originally scheduled to have a lesson with me but when Linda heard about it she promptly moved his lesson to her own schedule. She spent the entire lesson laughing and flipping her hair and her falsetto squeals could be heard all the way down the dreary, windowless, fluorescent lighted hallway.

Last Friday was a national holiday in Japan, so all the other teachers left early (including Linda who also gave herself the next three days off but denied everyone else the same privilege). As I watched my coworkers excitedly bolt through the door, I asked if I could leave early too but Linda just scoffed loudly and said: "Oh my GOD. Who do you think you are? Are you SERIOUS!? If you think you can pick and choose your days off you're clearly in the wrong business. Bye!". And then she left with a loud door slam.

I was all alone. In a way, it was nice. It was nice to not be bullied and put down by Linda for once. I looked at my schedule. Only one student left. "That should be easy", I thought. His name, Taro, sounded familiar but I hadn't taught him before. He worked for a pharmaceutical company. Nothing unusual.

The bell rang its usual depressing chime and I steered towards room number 1. But the light was off. I figured he might be late and on his way so I fumbled in the dark to turn on the light.

What met me in the light was not an empty classroom but a little boy sitting on one of the chairs. He was about 5 years old and wore red t-shirt and blue shorts. He still had his "Thomas the Train" schoolbag on his back. I felt the anger build up when I realized that Linda had given me a kids lesson without notifying me first. It was clearly on purpose. Despite being a relatively new teacher, my annual performance had been impeccable and she wanted to sink my ship by giving me a lesson that I had no experience teaching. She wanted me to fail.

So there I was, a business Portuguese teacher with no experience with kids whatsoever.

"Hi there. What's your name?" I asked.

No answer. The boy just stared angrily at me with dark bags under his eyes.

"Are you Taro?" I tried again and gently sat down across from him.

Still no answer. I desperately looked around for some toys or puppets but of course, Linda hadn't prepared anything for me. And Taro wouldn't take his eyes off me. Wherever I went in the little classroom, searching in vain for anything that could entertain him, his angry eyes followed me. And It was then that I realized another strange behavior. He was jutting his jaw back and forth like an old man.

"Do you have your textbooks? We need to look at your homework." was also met by silence.

I decided to reach for the backpack on his back and take out his textbooks myself. I don't know how to deal with kids so that was the only solution I could think of at the time. I don't know this kid’s parents, so I don't want to get a customer complaint just because the kid refused to participate.

This idea turned out to be bad. No, disastrous. Taro, upon seeing my hand moving towards his backpack opened his mouth aghast and let out... well nothing. I thought he was about to scream but he just sat there with his mouth wide open. It dawned on me that he had no teeth despite being 5 years old. I wondered how he chewed his food. Did someone spoon feed him? I pulled my hand away from the bag and watched him go back to his "normal" jaw jutting, angry self.

It was becoming clear that Taro did not like me at all. He pulled the straps of his backpack to his chest and hid under the desk. Any time I tried to go near him he hissed at me and created a clicking nose from the back of his throat.

His parents were nowhere in sight so I decided to just sit by the desk until the lesson ended. That was company policy after all. I heard the backpack unzip under the table. "Great, maybe he is ready to make some drawings or something. My distance clearly paid off". But I was wrong.

I discreetly looked under the table to see what he was up to. It was hard to get a clear picture in the shadow but I could distinguish that he was holding something. It still hard to talk about this because it disgusted me SO MUCH.

It turned out to be a dead frog. It has been rainy in Tokyo lately and there are lots of frogs in the Shinjuku-Gyoen park nearby. I thought to myself that he might have caught it and killed it by accident. He is just a kid after all. But the way he held it was not normal. He dug his nails into its limp, lifeless body and shook it violently.

By now, the clicking throat sounds and weird jaw movements had increased and were freaking me out a lot. We still had 20 minutes to go so I just continued to sit there pretending not to exist. I watched as Taro took color pencils out of his backpack, sharpened them and dug them into the frogs flesh. He seemed amused by this and proceeded to stab the frog with every single color pencil except for the black one. Every stab was followed by the clicking throat sound. He seemed as if in a trance.

The bell finally rang, signaling the end of the lesson after what felt like an eternity.

But of course, Taro refused to leave the classroom. I had to lock up the school and leave but he completely REFUSED to move from under the desk. His parents were not there to pick him up, I didn't have their contact information and there was no other staff member on duty.

I can't believe I did this but after 2 hours of trying to get him to leave, I just locked up and left, leaving him and the frog under the table. I thought I'd definitely get fired and maybe even reported to the police but when I came back the next day Taro was gone and everything seemed normal.

I tried to get the whole incident out of my mind but when Linda came back three days later (with a new tan) she promptly wanted to speak to me in her office. I froze to ice. This was it, I was getting fired or going to jail for leaving a kid unsupervised in an office building in the middle of the city.

She looked annoyed and gestured towards a chair for me to sit down. "I forgot to tell you last Friday, Taro cancelled his lesson" she said. "He had a last minute pharmaceutical conference in São Paulo. Here's a Starbucks gift-card for your trouble".

#I had a really difficult experience with a disturbing student. I don't know how to deal with this.#Horror Stories #TTOH #Scary Story #Reddit NoSleep

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liliannorman · 4 years

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Today’s nico-teen addicts: What role does ‘juuling’ play?

Parents may not recognize on sight a JUUL or similar pod-type electronic cigarette, but many of today’s tweens and teens will. These have quickly become the leading vapes of choice for the legions of U.S. e-cig users 18 and under. Vaping isn’t a healthy choice for anyone. And, new data show, these pod-type e-cigs might just be the worst choice of all for kids who have decided to experiment with tobacco products.

U.S. minors cannot legally buy vapes. And that’s one reason the majority of them find these pod-like devices so appealing, says Bonnie Halpern-Felsher. She’s a developmental psychologist at Stanford University in California. These pod vapes have a deceptively large amount of nicotine, she notes.

That nicotine can harm the developing brain, adds Suchitra Krishnan-Sarin. Whether kids know it or not, their brains will undergo a lot of developmental changes between the ages of 10 and 25. Krishnan-Sarin works at the Yale University School of Medicine, in New Haven, Conn. There, she studies how nicotine affects smokers and vapers.

Explainer: The nico-teen brain

Most nicotine research has taken place in rodents. “In adolescent animals,” she notes, “nicotine is a neurotoxin.” It keeps the brain from maturing normally during adolescence. This can harm the ability to learn, to make memories and to maintain attention, she explains. It can even lead to hyperactivity.

Krishnan-Sarin spoke at a news briefing for reporters earlier this year. Adolescent animals, she noted, “are very sensitive to even low levels of nicotine.” And that, she explained, “means they get addicted very easily.” The same, she added, is likely true for human teens.

Yet some kids aren’t aware that pod-like e-cigs contain any nicotine. That was one finding of a new survey. At an October workshop at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md., Halpern-Felsher and her Stanford colleague Karma McKelvey shared data from their survey of 445 teens and young adults. Each had been asked whether they knew about — or used — pod-like e-cigarettes. The researchers focused on such devices, they said, because JUUL now accounts for between 70 and 85 percent of e-cigarettes vaped in the United States.

Nearly one-quarter of the students said they had vaped. Of those, more than half said they had used JUUL or other pod-like e-cigs. These devices all are really small. And they don’t look like earlier types of e-cigs. Those had resembled mechanical cigarettes or were clunky. JUUL’s sleek pods look a bit like thumb drives. What’s more, they release a relatively small cloud of the vapors from which vaping takes its name.

But these devices hold more nicotine than most earlier e-cigarettes, says Halpern-Felsher. Each JUUL pod, for instance, contains 41.3 milligrams. That’s as much nicotine, she notes, as someone can get smoking 26 to 40 conventional cigarettes (depending on how they are puffed).

Moreover, the salt-based form of nicotine in the pods feels less harsh than the nicotine in true cigarettes and earlier e-cigs. So the pods’ nicotine is less likely to turn off a new user, Halpern-Felsher says. And that may encourage kids to overdo it as they experiment.

Bonnie Halpern-Felsher’s team at Stanford developed this visual illustration of the high quantity of nicotine in several types of pod-based e-cigs — shown in terms of their cigarette equivalence.Tobacco Prevention Toolkit, Stanford Univ.

Some kids are already paying a high price for their covert vaping. Data released Dec. 18 by a federally funded study — Monitoring the Future — finds that 8.1 percent of U.S. 12th graders say they are hooked on vaping. That’s more than twice the 2018 number. What’s more, Halpern-Felsher has found, most teens “don’t recognize how addicted they are.” Some nicotine addicts she surveyed didn’t realize they were hooked at all.

Yet newly emerging data suggest the nicotine delivery by pod-like e-cigs likely makes them at least as addictive as cigarettes.

‘Juuling’ has become a teen thing

Those pods have become so big that they now define much of teen vaping, note Halpern-Felsher and others. Ask kids if they vape and some may say no. To them, she explains, they’re doing something cooler: “juuling.”

Liam Dell, 17, agrees. He’s seen it throughout his Buffalo, N.Y., community. When scientists at the Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center asked this City Honors School student what his classmates were using, “I said JUUL,” Liam recalls. “You can’t get around it as a high-schooler. You see kids using it as they walk down the street. You see it at friends’ houses. You even see it at school. It’s absolutely everywhere.” Kids describe their use of these devices as juuling, he says.

Even some adults may not view JUUL use as conventional vaping, notes Taylor Reed. She’s a research associate who conducts vaping studies in and around New York City. One of her roles, at New York University Medical School, is setting up in-home visits. “Typically,” she says, “on the phone, I’ll ask an adult if anyone [in their home] uses tobacco or nicotine products. And some will say, ‘No, I juul.” They don’t see a pod as a tobacco product.

First-generation vapes (shown left to middle) tend to loosely resemble the cigarettes they had been designed to replace. Later mod-type e-cigs had a bigger well into which people could put custom-selected e-liquids. These vapes also allowed users to boost their temperature for a bigger nicotine hit. Later came the pod-type devices. Though smaller, their innovative use of nicotine salts delivers nicotine more efficiently into the bloodstream, new data show.Tobacco Prevention Toolkit, Stanford Univ.

But the U.S. Food and Drug Administration does. It describes e-cigs as ENDS — short for electronic nicotine delivery systems. Because tobacco is the source of that nicotine, FDA has ruled vapes as tobacco products. Indeed, e-cigs were developed as a way for smokers to wean themselves off cigarettes. Because smokers are addicted to nicotine, e-cigs would help smokers only if they could supply that nicotine.

Yet many teens who never smoked don’t know that, Halpern-Felsher has found.

But Liam does. In fact, he did a study of JUUL’s nicotine as part of his sophomore science fair project. We caught up with him in Pittsburgh, Penn., where his work was being judged as part of the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair. (That fair is a program of Society for Science & the Public, which publishes this magazine.)

Small device, big hits

For his chemistry analyses, Liam used instruments at that nearby Roswell Park cancer center. He confirmed that JUUL vapors carry more nicotine than standard e-cig vapors. His data also show they dispense what he describes as “a more addictive form” of nicotine. Known as non-ionized (Non-EYE-oh-nyzed) salts, it “is able to bond more easily to your lungs and to your brain,” he says. “So you could say it sticks more.”

These boxes of colorful Juul-like pod e-cig systems appeal to teens and young adults. But if users don’t see the packaging, they might not realize that these devices dispense high concentrations of tobacco’s nicotine, an addictive drug.E. Karey

The manufacturer “doesn’t seem to hide the fact that JUUL dispenses high levels of nicotine,” Liam says. It’s on the label. However, the label does not mention what chemical form this nicotine takes. Liam found that “99.4 percent of the nicotine salts were in the non-ionized form. That’s just ridiculously high.” For comparison, he says, “nicotine in e-cigarettes is typically around 80 percent un-ionized.”

He didn’t measure how much of that nicotine ends up in the body. That’s what Jessica Yingst and Jonathan Foulds have just done. These public health scientists work at Penn State Cancer Institute in Hershey. They headed a team that measured blood levels of nicotine before, during and after someone had smoked a cigarette or had taken 30 puffs from an e-cig over a 10-minute period. All the vapers were former smokers.

The vapers used their own devices. In the first of these studies, those recruits used early models of e-cigs. A few of the vapers used so-called cig-alikes (which look somewhat like cigarettes). The rest used advanced “mods.” These allowed users to choose the flavor of liquid they vaped.

Blood levels of nicotine rose as someone vaped. But that average rise (8.2 nanograms per milliliter, or ng/ml) was far lower than in the 10 smokers who each puffed normally on a single cigarette (about 21 ng/ml).

That was “a bit of a surprise,” says Foulds. After all, some of these pre-JUUL devices had vaporized liquids that contained a lot of nicotine. The only explanation, he says, was that these e-cigs “just didn’t deliver nicotine efficiently.”

His team published its findings July 25 in PLOS One.

These data, Foulds realized, might explain why many smokers who had tried vaping went back to cigarettes. Perhaps they just didn’t get a big enough hit of nicotine to sate their cravings.

To test this, his team ran the same trial in six JUUL users. And as soon as the blood data came back, Foulds says, “We went, whoa! That’s a lot of nicotine.” The rise averaged some 28.6 ng/ml.

The Penn State team reported these findings November 15 in JAMA Network Open.

Addiction becomes a real threat

That was a small survey, Yingst admits. Still, she notes, “the nicotine delivery in all six people was pretty similar.” That suggests, she says, they were getting far more nicotine than do users of earlier types of e-cigs. In fact, these new data show, “JUUL delivers nicotine very similarly to a cigarette.”

The company that makes these pods knows that, Foulds adds. His team’s new data are “comparable to what [JUUL Inc.] found in its unpublished data,” he says. The company referred to those data in its patent, he found. He notes that, “[The company] also presented it in a poster at a conference we were at.”

So if these devices deliver as much nicotine as a cigarette, Yingst says, they “would have a similar potential to cause addiction.” In fact, Yingst and Foulds also have just measured the extent to which the JUUL users experience symptoms of addiction. Penn State has a special survey to measure that in users of tobacco products.

Its researchers surveyed cigarette smokers on this 20-point scale. Higher numbers indicate higher levels of addiction. On average, smokers scored a 14, Foulds says. Among users of the pre-JUUL types of e-cigs, the average addiction rating was 8. But among people who vaped JUULs, he notes, the average was 14. These preliminary data now seem to “confirm what many people had suspected,” he says — “that this product is as addictive as a cigarette.”

That should prove as true for teens as for the adults in these studies, Halpern-Felsher says. Yet kids don’t know that, her team finds.

Her group used a different survey to measure addiction. On its 10-point scale, “even scoring a 1 signifies addiction,” she says. And most teen vapers that her team surveyed averaged a 2.5 to 3 on this scale. People who are addicted have a very hard time quitting. Yet these kids don’t realize how dependent they have become on the nicotine they vape.

“They don’t know they’re addicted,” Halpern-Felsher says. “But we do.” She’s published data on this. The young vapers were asked such questions as how quickly did they feel a need to vape after waking? Or did they need to vape even after being told not to use e-cigarettes? “The point is,” she says, “most of today’s youth don’t truly know what addiction means.”

In one October 2018 study, her team assessed how teens and young adults view pod-type e-cigarettes. Ironically, those young people rated the pods “as posing less harm or addictive potential [than other vapes].” At the same time, these so-called juulers showed more nicotine dependence than users of other types of e-cigs.

“It’s just the perfect bad storm,” concludes Halpern-Felsher of juuling.

New trends prompting action

Just eight years ago, teen vaping was virtually unheard-of, note analysts at the Universities of Michigan and Minnesota. They work for that long-running Monitoring the Future program, which has been tracking teen substance abuse for 45 years. Last January 10, they wrote a letter that appeared in the New England Journal of Medicine. In it, they noted that the current growth in vaping seen in high school teens is the greatest jump in nicotine exposures that their program has witnessed in 44 years. Today, more than one in four U.S. high school seniors has at least tried vaping in the past month. The survey’s just-released 2019 data show that more than one in 1 in 10 of these kids now vape daily. Nearly the same share of 8th graders now report they’ve vaped in the past month.

Some states, New York included, have raised to 21 the age at which people can buy vape products. But that hasn’t slowed the rise in teen vaping. Doctors and others are aggressively looking to reverse this trend.

Patrice A. Harris is one of them. This physician is president of the American Medical Association. On November 19, she issued a statement saying, “It’s simple — we must keep nicotine products out of the hands of young people.” That, she explained, is “why we [the AMA] are calling for an immediate ban on all e-cigarette and vaping products.”

On the same day, Letitia James filed a lawsuit against JUUL Labs, Inc. As the attorney general of New York, she has a lot of clout. Her state’s lawsuit charges that “JUUL’s aggressive advertising of its multi-flavored products has contributed to a public health crisis.” Indeed, it argues, this crisis “has left countless New Yorkers — many of them teenagers — addicted to its products and fighting for their health.”

youtube

“How Juul made nicotine go viral” is a historical review of the way the sleek, discrete design of this e-cig brand helped it overtake the e-cig market, especially among teens and young adults.

California’s attorney general also sued JUUL. His office and the city of Los Angeles also argued that this company and other pod-makers have targeted kids. “JUUL and other nicotine product makers must be held accountable” for not preventing sales to underage users, says Los Angeles District Attorney Jackie Lacey.

“There can be no doubt that JUUL’s aggressive advertising has significantly contributed to the public health crisis that has left youth . . . across the country addicted to its products,” noted James. The company’s advertising has been “glamorizing vaping, while at the same time downplaying the nicotine found in vaping products,” she added. “I am prepared to use every legal tool in our arsenal to protect the health and safety of our youth.”

Halpern-Felsher’s team has its own Tobacco Prevention Toolkit aimed at doing this. Its materials can be downloaded free from the Stanford School of Medicine’s website. They describe a wide range of non-cigarette products that can hook kids on nicotine. They also explain how the toolkit can be used to better inform today’s tweens and teens on those risks — hopefully, before they get hooked.

Today’s nico-teen addicts: What role does ‘juuling’ play? published first on https://triviaqaweb.tumblr.com/

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srta-jax-blog · 5 years

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NTPRS Day 4 & 5 (This one’s gonna be a long one!)

I’m putting these two days together because Day 5 was a half day and both days consisted of one-hour sessions addressing special topics. On these days, presenters like Mira Canion, Bryce Hedstrom, Jim Woolridge, and many others presented, and I consider myself very blessed to sit at the feet of more experienced professionals and learn from them. I went to sessions with Von Ray, Bryce Hedstrom (2x), Clarice Swaney, Scott Benedict (2x), Nathan Spencer, and Mira Canion. Thursday was also when Dr. Bill VanPatten gave the keynote speech, which was mind blowing. (I’ll address BVP’s address separately, because this is already a very long post!)

The first session was conducted by Von Ray. (I guess I didn’t get enough of him the first three days of the conference!) He presented on the value of developing good improvisation skills, which he pulled from “Truth In Comedy: The manual of improvisation” by Charna Halpern, Del Close, and Kim “Howard” Johnson. It was during this session that Von said that “Bad TPRS is better than good grammar” and that “Anything worth doing well is worth doing poorly in the beginning.” I think the best pieces of advice that I got from this was that I should try to be funny/make jokes, I should embrace the unexpected, listen and make connections, and make the students look good.

Blaine Ray sat in on this session, and he gave a ground rule that he uses in Storyasking: Once I state the fact, you cannot contradict that. This was in response to someone asking about students adamantly trying to change the details of the story to suit themselves. This is one of the concerns I’ve had, but having a succinct rule like this will be very helpful.

I went to two sessions with Bryce Hedstrom because he had two topics that I really wanted to know more about: passwords and student interviews. The passwords session was first, and it was really helpful. Bryce gave great tips on how to introduce and teach the passwords, and gave some tips for how to get through them in a time crunch. After the morning sessions, I did go buy his book on passwords, just so that I could peruse the material at my leisure again and again. The book also has lists of passwords that can be used at different levels, which is helpful for me to have handy. I can’t wait use these in my classroom (and I’ll probably even make my administrators say the password when they come to visit!) He also talked a little bit about how he handles late students. They don’t have to say the password, but they do have to say “Lo siento” (I’m sorry) and the class responds with “Está bien” (It’s okay.) His reason for this, which I thought was beautiful, was that the students need to learn to forgive and also that they can be forgiven, which is a concept that so many students are unfamiliar with these days. Bryce also gave some neat little tidbits about things he does in his classroom… but you had to be there. ;)

I tried doing student interviews last semester, but the students didn’t seem to get super into it. In the second session I went to with Bryce, he explained his Special Person Interviews (we discussed the unfortunate naming, and someone suggested Selfie Talk to match with other CI terms like Picture Talk and Movie Talk) and demonstrated how he handles them in class. He said that this all stems from his personal philosophy of helping students realize who they are, what they are about, and what they want to do so they can realize Ikigai. In other words, he is using the target language to help his students become better people. He has posters with his Special Person interview questions (and sentence frames for answers) up all year round. This is an easy way to differentiate for varying processing speeds.

In this session he also addressed quizzes based on the SPI, free-writing, do nows, and how he organizes it all in a composition notebook and grades the various things within. I really liked how he organized it. I was planning on having my students get binders, but I may have them get composition notebooks and use those as well to develop a portfolio of writings throughout the semester. (I’ll be having mine keep their composition books in the classroom.)

I think part of my problem last summer was that I did not do a good job of asking follow-up questions, and I limited the questions they were asked too much. In his demonstration, he showed how he was able to get a lot of follow-up questions based on the answer to the question ¿Qué te gusta hacer? (What do you like to do?) This year, I plan to stick closer to his script for the questions that are being asked.

Which leads to the first of the two sessions that Scott Benedict presented. Both of his sessions were very helpful (and I had originally only planned on going to one of his sessions), the first one addressing using the Super 7/Sweet 16 verbs as the basis for a world language curriculum and the second regarding grading and flexible seating.

Scott explained how the Super 7 (Dr. Terry Waltz) and Sweet 16 verbs (Mike Peto) give our students the ability to communicate pretty much every idea they need to if they can use them in the past, present, and future tenses. The students will not be able to say everythingthey want say in the exactway they want to, but they will be able to circumlocute (talk around) pretty much every concept they can be expected to talk about. In Scott’s school district, the main focus of Spanish I and II is to get the students to “own” these 16 verbs across all persons in the most common present, past, and future indicative uses, although they are introduced to other tenses.

The big takeaways from this session:

1) less is more-If I focus on teaching and repeating a small set of words-the Sweet 16 and personalized, releveant vocab, the students will retain that and then some.

2) Focus on the Super 7 first, but teach “disgust” before “gust” so that the reverse construction doesn’t confuse them too much.

3) We are language parents, not language teachers. That’s actually a Haiyun Lu quote, but the point is that we need to talk to our students like we would talk to a little kid. In general, a parent corrects their child by restating their statement with correct grammar, not making them parrot it or lecturing them on grammar.

4) Shortrunposters is the cheapest website to get posters made for your classroom. Scott has made posters of the Sweet 16 verbs in a number of languages using the most common past, present, and future forms of the verbs for free on his website, and he had them blown up, printed, and laminated for his own classroom. I have done the same for the 9 I’m sure I’ll need from day one as well as 2 pages of Bryce Hedstrom’s Special Person Interview document. (In a few weeks I’ll do another order to get the rest of the posters made, because even though each 17”x22” poster was only $5.50, I’m still not made of money.)

In the second Scott Benedict session I attended addressed classroom layout and gradebook layout. This was an accidental session for me, I intended to go to a different session, but couldn’t find it. I had already planned to go deskless and begin implementing alternative seating, but this session really helped me feel better about that decision and get a better idea of what that could look like.

The benefits of a deskless classroom:

1) There’s more space. Chairs, yoga balls, and bean bags take up a lot less space in the room than the traditional chair-desk combination. This helps me stay close to everyone, which improves classroom management and lets me have a bigger staging area.

2) I can rearrange and group students easily.

3) Desks are a barrier to conversation and give students a place to hide illicit activity (phones, food, etc) or disengage by putting their head down.

4) It’s easier to implement alternative seating. There is only so much space in a classroom, having to accommodate a yoga ball next to a chair-desk or a table takes up a lot more room or makes it almost impossible to reach everyone quickly.

Scott doesn’t implement alternative seating until a few weeks into the school year, and lays very clear guidelines for the use of alternative seating.

Scott addressed how he uses various posters to develop his classroom culture, including classroom rules, a word wall, his Sweet 16 posters, question words (I like that his don’t have the English on them, but rather are illustrated with pictures), and behavior warning posters. He uses a clothesline to hang his collection of funny hats to be used by student actors (or student behavior problems) and some shelves to store realistic animal plushes that he gets at zoos all over the country. (They look amazing, and I want to start similar collections!)

Finally he talked about how he sets up his gradebook. He divides his into Speaking, Writing, Listening, Reading, and Culture categories that contribute to the students academic grade, but he can/does track things like participation, homework, effort, etc in a 0% category for documentation purposes. The percentages he uses align with blooms taxonomy and range from 10%-30%. For his level 1s, there are no speaking and writing grades in quarter 1, but he has them for the full school year, and he gives three grades per category per marking period. Two are formative, one is summative, and he assesses all the categories in one exam at the end of the quarter. This means he’s giving 15 grades/quarter, and is taking at least 1/week. He recommended staggering when grades were taken among classes, especially for the formative assignments to reduce the amount of grading done at any one time.

I don’t think I will implement this exact system next year, at least in terms of percentages, but we shall see.

Mira Canion spoke about assessing reading comprehension. She pointed out that we need to be doing this consistently because it tells us what our next move is. We discussed the ACTFL and WIDA standards for comprehension on the different levels, and how they are only somewhat helpful in guiding what assessment should look like. One of her more brilliant points was that by using the target language to teach content using Comprehensible Input Methods, we can bypass arguments about explicit grammar teaching because we aren’t teaching that.

Mira then talked us through reading strategies we could teach and then use to assess our student’s reading comprehension.

Strategy 1: Read the text, comment on it/make a prediction/ask a question/clarify something, and reread it if you are completely unable to do one of those things. We can have students write these down, and then sort them to assess.

-Deep questions/comments get an A.

-Simple questions/comments get a C.

-If it is between the two, it’s a B.

-We need to model asking deep questions in L2 (the target language) in order to help our students do the same, then supplement the ones who do with more complicated texts, and we can do that starting in Level 1.

Strategy 2: Have the students make a web of information around a topic based on a reading.

-It’s important to have the students drawing this web, not just filling information out.

-Have them sort whether statements pulled from the text are linked to the main idea or detail, and explain why the details support the main idea.

-We need to really teach students how to find the main idea, not just have them read a text and then ask “so what’s the main idea?” Sure they should have learned that in their English/Language Arts classes before they get to us, but odds are good that they haven’t.

Strategy 3: Students find the story structure.

-If a students can find and talk about the various elements of a story structure, then they understand the story.

-You can give them a chart with columns to support them creating sentences. Ex: Somebody/wants/but/so.

R Clarice Swaney’s session dealt with doing Picture Talks. I’ve done Movie Talks with varying degrees of success, so I understand the concept of a Picture Talk, but it was still good to go to a session that specifically addressed doing them and reinforce what I already knew. The big takeaways for me was to make sure that my picture was interesting, I used creative cropping to create interest and build suspense, set clear expectations from the get-go, and have a loose plan of questions to ask that blend talking about the picture and talking about the students.

I really like the way Clarice phrased her expectations:

1) Nothing on your lap, nothing in your hands. (She’s deskless too!)

2) One person speaks, all others listen.

3) Professional posture

4) Use the Target Language, make interesting suggestions.

5) Demonstrate understanding or ask for clarification

If a student breaks those rules, Clarice doesn’t make a big fuss, but acts like she didn’t go over the rules and refreshes them.

I really liked the suggestion of using Picture Talks to introduce or examine things of cultural reference. Working more culture study into my classroom is a personal goal for this year, which means I will have to be more diligent about researching culture in various countries, but not all of my Picture Talks this year will be about culture. I learned so much in on these two days, and I wish I could have gone to more individual sessions! I have a ton of new methods and strategies in my teacher toolbox that I can’t wait to use this year!

#ntprs 2019 #comprehensible input #language acquisition #world languages #educational strategies #teaching proficiency through reading and storytelling #pedagogy #classroom management

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