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colemanepihjort · 1 year

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10 Clever Ways to Spot the Greatest & Worst Doggy Trainers on typically the Web Or inside Your Town!

Many average trainers train "average group sessions, " charge a person an "average price" and have, nicely... that "average" information and skill regarding dogs, dog coaching, dog behavior and even canine psychology. Most owners who no longer know better or who don't definitely care about these types of facts, just reconcile with such instructors and end up with "average results" or even worse-NO RESULTS-in training their very own dogs! In distinction, the Master Minds Soon we will be describing in this chapter usually are your average in all and are usually proven to beat typically the odds. Who emerges from the package? There is a great amazing energy and even spirit regarding these people which you'll discover right away that goes far over and above dog training. Actually they know it is much more than coping with dogs, plus this is exactly where I'll open your eyes to the attributes and qualities involving the SMARTEST plus the most successful dog experts in typically the business. Due to their expertise, skill and character, they are not really only making it--but making it large with class plus integrity. Again, just remember that , I'm referring in order to the SMARTEST, so a person don't think which they just got lucky to be at the particular "right place, inch at the "right time" or by meeting the "right person. " Even if that was the particular case for a couple of in order to some degree, before you know it, they took more than and kept on boating on their personal. I learned the long time back when you need to get better in anything, you have to set your ego aside and learn by far better and better minds than oneself. Sometimes this basically was really hiring the best expert money can buy. (I've also learned the lot from the worst-of-the-worst. After all, this is when you learn just what To refrain from giving. ) After studying those which were thought to be as the "real package, " I've noticed that they all came from a completely diverse class and mentality, and it's no surprise why their effectiveness was so hard to ignore. When subjected to the test, that they all possessed these kinds of ten qualities about them: 1. These people Care about An individual, Your Dog and Their very own Reputation You observe, it can not always about how exactly much you know or how wonderful you are, nonetheless it is also about just how much you "care. " This just means these instructors are truly nice people. The old saying, "nice guys end last, " basically their motto. Research have shown of which nice people live longer, are more happy, get more recommendations, are usually surrounded by simply friends and relatives, rarely get sued, and rarely acquire killed. Some may possibly also have a great sense of humor. Sorry, just some. We almost all know someone together with a sense of humor and recognize that this demonstrates they love what they do, don't let items bother them because much, and treatment to make some others if not have a good laugh, at the least smile right here and there. Precisely why the majority regarding dog trainers are extremely rude, mean, and disrespectful and act like Mr. /Mrs. Know-It-All, is beyond me. It's no secret that a majority of of the time you might tell a lot about someone typically the minute you talk to them on typically the phone or within person. That once again is, if, you might be even able to reach any associated with them on the phone. Which brings up the simple fact of caring, once again. Individuals who truly CARE not only can get back to you, but usually try to reach you immediately. They already know you may need help right away!! You'll soon discover that will most dog coaches make you hanging and even you start to increase gray hair waiting for a call back or even an e-mail. When you are eventually able to get a live person about the phone, create sure you get a good vibe from the particular very start, if not, why take the time? This means zero matter how good they are often, you may be stuck together with a jerk, psycho, weirdo, nut job along with the list moves on and on. Females are much a lot better than men with their very own intuition. They claim, "It has to sense right. " Or perhaps "I didn't find a good feel from him/her. very well If this the person makes you sense uncomfortable by being too pushy, rude, condescending, or presently there is something you don't like about him/her, then you could be caught up with this person inside your home, inside private, or regarding six-eight weeks along the line. Leading trainers usually answer your tough concerns with patience plus respect and no longer mind or acquire offended by just how much you concern their knowledge or even expertise. They no longer just deliver, although often OVER-deliver. This kind of is because they love their photo and their reputation and even truly want to remain out from the rest. They know heading that extra mile WILL get all of them that extra interest. In fact, how a lot of times perhaps you have chosen a painter, a new contractor, a lawyer, or even even a barnepige who disappointed an individual using their poor job ethics? They would a poor job or didn't attention much. As some say, "They merely go with all the flow, " without treatment about any beneficial criticism from ANY PERSON. You simply may observe that "wow factor" or that "pizzazz" inside their work. Noooooooo, I didn't say pizza again. Thus undervalue the Parmesan cheese. If you have already hired some sort of dog trainer previously, you probably went out of your respective approach to make sure you were employing a "pro, inches just to find out that they can were certainly a "pro" but also an expert to do a lousy job or a pro in--"ripping an individual off! " Exactly how fast someone gets back to an individual, and even if, that they even bother to be able to get back to you are all the qualities an individual should look intended for. For example, a lot of group class trainers if they avoid have a category starting up soon, or their class is actually completely full, won't even take the time to call a person back. They perhaps get lazy to mention this issues answering machine. This will never happen with those who actually care about your dog. Once you reach actually chat to they, you can't help this but notice precisely how honest, caring, genuine, and professional these people come across. No matter if it is in person, contacting companies, or even by e-mail, the particular ones who understand they may be on best of their games never sound pushy or desperate. In fact , they know not necessarily everyone recognizes, likes, or even deserves the very best. This is just a simple fact of life. Those who are among the best-of-the-best in the world of dog coaching, are considered to become as remarkable teachers/counselors and don't find mad when We add this-even perfect therapists. The truth is, of which the majority associated with dog owners do not technique, get stressed, act tense, are too harsh with their own dog, get as well loud, or they will can't get organization enough if and when necessary. And what's even more sad will be none of the particular trainers who they even hired inside the past, irritated to indicate their GREAT qualities either. Everybody knows it's not that hard to point out someone's weaknesses. What tends to make a fantastic trainer excellent is his/her potential to praise the particular owners' good behavior while correcting their mistakes within a polite manner. Unfortunately typically the majority of doggie trainers lack individuals skills and are renowned for treating the particular owners like pups. I had to be able to learn this the hard way. So the ones that DO come up with a positive effect among pet owners are the particular ones that know there exists a difference between insulting someone plus giving a critique. A person see, you can find countless numbers of great "trainers" out there, thousands--but just one or two great "instructors! " Training in addition to teaching the proprietors is where lies the particular real challenge. two. Their Training Approach Is Backed by simply Practical As a new writer I dislike saying this, but please don't consider everything you read-especially items that just don't make any sense. If you don't see virtually any logic or rationality behind it, how carry out you suppose your current poor dog is going to make any sense from it? Here's an example. I have a client that owns a Cocker Spaniel which was bad toward dogs in addition to children. The behaviorists advised her to be able to do lots involving parallel walks with bag of snacks to utilize when the girl ran into additional dogs and guys. The dog would likely stop eating the particular treats and STILL lunge at any canine they encountered. My partner and i guess he found them as a dessert after those yummy treats. Again, there were no typical sense behind the behaviorist's advice, had been there? While visiting suspect, always ask: Truly does this seem reasonable? Am I buying anywhere with this specific? Are people going to laugh from me? Even along with everything you read in my book or on my site, observe it with the open mind and maybe TRY it first, after which be typically the judge. After you consider something, then you can get certain whether it did or did not work for an individual and your pet. Otherwise you are usually just relying upon assumptions rather than specifics. The same concept applies if an individual are instructed simply by your trainer, find it on television, have been instructed by your own trainer in a team class, and even in the event that it comes coming from someone with some sort of Ph. D. you need to halt and ask yourself where's the logic and practicality at the rear of their advice? Get smart about this , nor let others brainwash you simply by trying methods of which have no rationality to support all of them. Smart trainers don't mind asking a person, "Does this help make sense to you? " or "Do an individual see the common sense behind what many of us making the effort to accomplish? inches Again, if that doesn't make any kind of sense, please don't make a fool out of yourself. Smart Canines - Dumb Coaches: Trainers who suggest that you should sound off in your dog, roar at your dog, yelp like a dog, or perhaps ignore your dog's unacceptable such as jumping up on a person, barking toward you, don't make sense and their tactics won't job. If they conduct, knock yourself out and about. Folks, we were taught to make use of standard sense from a new very early age group in kindergarten. Inside case you did not remember, the teaching has been: "Stop and Believe. " It had not been "Go for that Chopper! Then we'll think of the particular consequence. " (Now for some involving us, getting the lessons afterward works significantly better. I guess as long as we "get it" that's just about all it really matters, doesn't it? ) 3. They Have an Uncanny Ability to Pay Attention to Details Sure, details my dog-loving friend. These professionals are like some sort of sponge and soak up everything and rarely miss even typically the smallest details. ( I've been informed that I'm that way. Just in circumstance it will be met with a shock regarding those of an individual who prefer to hire me throughout person. ) Regardless of whether people request which i go to them or if they will prefer to send out their dogs in my experience to be qualified or rehabilitated, just like a skilled criminal offenses scene investigator, Items ask questions and then observe everything intended for myself, and We do mean ANYTHING. Chances are, you should have gotten a good idea of what I am referring to by making time for details. In case not, be confident to read typically the chapter on (Questions you have to ask before hiring ANY expert. ) But permit me be a little specific. I see your technique, your current posture, voice strengthen, attitude and total perception. Will you be company, easy-going, loud, severe, stubborn or dependent on your disposition, an assortment of all? How about too nervous, scared or maybe an individual think that expressing "NO" to the dog might damage his feelings and even we may never see that butt wag again?

The importance of such details is the reason why I cannot focus on enough how crucial working with an professional in "private" definitely is. Because associated with my attention in order to details, whether or not My partner and i train your pup WITH OUT your involvement, I will still have the ability to attain much more when compared with a group category packed with twenty pups. All of the topnotch teachers you study, likely to notice that every individual one of them have trained their particular own dogs WITHOUT HAVING any distractions very first. So why should it be any kind of different with a person? Top trainers often introduce distractions in order to their dogs systematically and this is definitely why you genuinely see a huge difference inside their dogs' functionality and command reply. They strongly believe that it's not reasonable should be expected you or perhaps your dog to learn properly in the unfamiliar setting along with lots of different distractions, and foresee seeing a true difference in typically the dog's learning improve. It's a whole lot worse inside group classes in which there are a lot of other pups distracting you by constantly pulling prove leashes, barking, whimpering, lunging, or operating hyper around each another. Bottom range, by working within private, you will see issues from the owner's and from the dog's perspective. Hiring a great expert in exclusive is the only way you'll always be able to inquire questions that pertain "specifically" for you plus your needs. Best dog experts recognize this approach is usually THE BEST in addition to fastest way to be able to get maximum results and swear by it. 4. They will Will Make Confident You Don't Conclusion Up With a "Half-Trained" Dog This particular means the thing is a "practical" approach behind their training approach. Remember, your technique has to job anywhere and whenever, or else you're wasting your time and establishing yourself and the poor dog way up for a failing. Allow me to clarify. These trainers will help to make "sure" your doggie is NOT just another half-trained doggy. You already know the ones that: * Brain their owners inside of a group class, but perform like idiots at home. * Listen perfectly once you have treats, but disregard you otherwise. * Listens only if the trainer's close to, but hardly in all at other times. 2. All training go out the windows when you run into strangers or other dogs. Which what I imply by the "half-trained doggie. " Elite teachers always prepare you and your canine to become street-smart. Competition training, exhibit confirmation, agility teaching and making your current dog do tricks sure look sweet and are sometimes impressive, but are generally not applicable out in real life. Typically the majority of doggie owners tend not to seem to really care for them anyway. Remember this: If your current training technique can't be applied inside your home, on your neighborhood, or perhaps on your everyday routines, sorry, you may not refer to this as "real-life" doggie training. This means you've been very damaging your time and money with the wrong method, completely wrong trainer, or together with wrong group courses. You see, if a new method is effective, you'll see this working immediately, plus if it's just simply nonsense-- you will see this too. https://carefreepuppy.com/ is how top rated experts often supply jaw-dropping results in seconds. I always explain to my clients: "By the second training, we could talk about how negative your dog utilized to behave, and how she has changed intended for the better already. " If might paid attention to my movie clips in the web site, you may get surprised to find out that most of people dogs have already been trained by myself in matter of minutes. I have the dog under manage immediately and create them mind me on the identify. The remaining is just perfecting up, and getting sure the doggie obeys the user. After all, it is not necessarily my dog along with the dog should comply with the owner. a few. Their Training Technique Even Works through a Distance in addition to Off-Leash Only a new few get to this kind of level. You need to at some point have COMPLETE HANDLE of your doggie without being leashed anywhere, anytime in addition to in front regarding the most luring distractions the outdoors world throws at you. This means throughout the room, across the street, in the garden, front yard and in fact from far away together with just the strengthen of your words. I said the voice, not screaming from your top associated with your lungs. Top rated trainers proudly market this specialty and even can pull that off with the individual dogs. Only true professionals can offer such results. You'll find that most trainers are deemed as part-timers in addition to hobbyists. That sad truth is, hobbyists rarely are capable to get your pet reliably off-leash skilled. It's no key there is a leash law. Which is usually why having your own dog completely "off-leash trained" isn't merely cool nowadays, nevertheless a NECESSITY! You and your pooch need to be prepared regarding that "what if" moment. What if your dog bolts out the door, handles to slip out there of her scruff of the neck, lunges and fractures her collar, attacks a dog, the cat, or maybe anything was fine plus your dog was running free enjoying herself, when just about all of sudden ________ (you fill in the blank). The particular fact is, zero matter how careful or responsible you might be, your dog will STILL GET FREE and definitely will make some sort of fool outside of you. Only a very small percentage of trainers have got the expertise to show you the genuine art of off-leash training; make positive you look in the right places. Some sort of huge listing of my personal clientï¿½le includes these who are passing away to obtain their pups completely off-leash trained. For the reason that the coach through which they've proved helpful with, didn't include a clue on how to get his/her individual dog off-leash trained--let alone be able to help somebody else with that. Or, you find the trainers' canine was truly the only real "trained dog" in there, but they just can't get the inadequate keepers to achieve typically the same results with their dogs. How sad and pathetic! six. Your Dog's Grow older NEVER Matters in their eyes Whether be a ten week older pup or eight years adult doggy, your dog is smart enough to find out what exactly is right and what is wrong. What is acceptable and what basically. Your dog's bad less than comfortable habits such as: Barking, Jumping, Growling, Snapping, Bolting and Not Being Fully House Trained, together with any other negative habits and even reacting to your every day commands aren't difficult tasks for the particular real experts in order to overcome. Therefore they will are well-educated in addition to experienced in resolving your dog's day-to-day issues and love to take on the particular challenge. Why let your older canine or your little puppy run your own life for you personally, any time you are typically the one who may be paying out all the bills and providing anything else? The least the dog are able to do is in order to respect and obey your commands and respect the guidelines of your house. Will be that a lot of to be able to ask? 7. They Gladly Accept Still Hard-to-Train Breeds Specific experts in canines are skilled, versatile, and welcome the battle of working using stubborn AND dominating dogs. It will not really matter to them whether your pup is labeled as intense, un-trainable, red area, or hopeless. They may be willing to accept the chance and supply you and your own dog another trustworthy chance. Pit Bulls, Rottweilers, Akitas, Dobermans, German Shepherds, Half truths Dogs (English or even American), Chow Chows, Shar Pei, in addition to those giant different breeds that look like Pit Bulls at its best. My partner and i is talking concerning: Presa Canario, Cane Corso, Argentino Dogo and Kevin Salemo, are just to name a few among the hard-to-train breeds. You may well find this hard to believe, but even Labrador Retrievers can become a challenge to be able to train. This is usually because they can be identified to be really strong, hyper, over-friendly and easily diverted. You see, when a dog professional is happy to accept a case associated with an aggressive, sensitive, overprotective, excessive barker, whiner, or even one this is a bit capricious, that's when they HAVE TO count on years of encounter, knowledge, skill and even their intuition. This is because they can be a genuine dog lover and even don't discriminate towards certain breeds in addition to experienced enough to take on any challenge. Small , big, scary, wussy, mixed, pure breed of dog or not, this doesn't make certainly not one bit of difference to all of them. A dog, is merely another dog for them. 8. Their Approach Might Be Company, nonetheless it is Also Sort Let's face it. No parent may ever raise some sort of child properly with out being firm and kind. Firm alone may well still get a person some results, yet that "kind" is definitely what makes it more of the loving and wholesome relationship. I attained a trainer yrs ago that a new super dog. This specific dog was the most well-trained German Shepherds I have ever seen. The sad part is, whenever his trainer might release him plus send him off of to experience, the pet dog would still remain there and show in him for another command word. Yes you suspected it. The dog became a gift, a robot of which just couldn't possess fun anymore. He wouldn't even want to or perhaps knew how, to play with our dogs. How unfortunate. I told typically the trainer that you are absolutely this dog's learn, but not his best friend. He shrugged and stated, "Kevin, you may be his closest friend. I don't really care about stuff like that. very well In order to be able to make sure you no longer end up together with this kind of dog, you need to be sure you are also your dog's "buddy. " When your dog makes a new mistake, you need to correct this at that "exact" moment, and likewise praise and incentive it lavishly upon the spot. Because long as you don't confuse company with harsh or even abusive, you need to be fine. Only don't forget. Organization could be a simple as tugging on typically the leash if you catch your dog misbehave, and follow it with praise in addition to affection when an individual see him abide by or stop an unwanted behavior. It might also be to be able to stop your dog's lunging, jumping, screaming, snapping as well as crotch/butt sniffing. Just having tightly in your dog's leash to your existence isn't training, that's called restraining. Do you want in order to train your pup or restrain it? That is what I assumed. Now you'll usually know when an individual see a true pro. They make working with all dogs seem to be so easy, of which you swear these people can even take action blindfolded. Your doggy will listen and obey them without any yelling or perhaps the need associated with excessive force. You'll see the smoothness along with the flow in their own technique, as your current dog performs with his best appropriate before your eyes--as if it is definitely "their" dog plus NOT yours. This simply reflects the point that they've worked along with a huge number of different bread of dogs of dogs, have got years of hands-on experience, and have got that amazing ability to accurately read dogs' temperament and body language with no effort and become able to use their training method on your dog. Their uncanny potential to read dogs so well and enjoying the confidence and typically the skill to rear it up, is the reason why they are therefore well reputed for providing such outstanding results. 9. They Let You Experiment with using Different Teaching Tools You can accumulate the best dog experts in typically the world, don't offer them any leashes, no collars, zero harnesses, no whistles, no ropes, not any toys, no treats and no golf balls--they might since well take their particular swimming suits. In that case throw in several unruly dogs in there. You'll see that will there will not be a great deal that anyone may do. Unless one of many possess some sort of mind control like Criss Angel over the puppies and people, which usually I really would like to observe for myself to be able to believe, there is not much any of these kinds of top experts can do with no best training tools. Consider about it with regard to a moment. Can you do YOUR job without your dog pen, paper, phone, the desk, your automobile, your pc or the certain tools in addition to equipments that make the job run much easier and smoother? Maybe you can. But an individual may as well be touring back in its history with your current time-machine hundreds many years back. I remember consent that certain equipment DO work far better and faster? Really not much different when it comes to be able to dog training instruments. If there is definitely a tool that works best on your current dog, these trainers enables you to try this. They truly use every weapon these people can get their hands on and make sure you are ready to control your pup in ANY scenario and therefore are happy together with your results. This is because that they always think outdoors the box. Varied Trainers know from experience that there isn't that "one magical tool" of which works on every single dog, every time. They improvise in order to make sure what works today, furthermore does tomorrow! Following all, why use a tool that ended working, was never ever effective in typically the first place, or perhaps doesn't even seem to faze your own dog when a person REALLY need that to work? Again, I will be referring to be able to see if of which tool of your own choice is really mainly because effective around strangers and the pups in which your current pooch is not really familiar with. A few not forget typically the cats, kids going around, and also the joggers. Every one associated with these examples are generally considered as your daily distractions, avoid they? Most teachers nowadays will include a nonsense instrument that might been employed by with a small, less dominant, fewer hyper and certainly not as aggressive canine, hoping it will have the same effect which has a much larger, stronger and far more aggressive dog. It will remind of "Bringing a new knife to some sort of gun fight. inch What's sad will be that the vast majority of these teachers will stubbornly decline to let typically the poor clients get diverse by trying a different tool. This kind of especially doesn't help to make sense in my opinion whenever you've exhausted typically the use of many different training resources up to this time and are needy to try anything at all that would operate. In summary, this all comes down to finding the tool that is a best match based on your physical strengths, limits, coordination Along with your dog's size, speed, type, prey drive and how much your pet responds to an individual with and without having challenging distractions. ten. They Rarely Offer Up and Stick to "Diverse Method" Topnotch trainers never believe your dog are not able to be trained. Their way of pondering is completely different. That they focus more in HOW they can certainly enable you to train your own dog. This means they are willing to be able to explore different strategies whenever needed. Inside a nutshell, the actual these trainers excellent is their capacity to mix different techniques of training to custom fit what works top for you as well as your pooch. All of which really matters to them is generating sure that the particular method works-and that works "every-single-time. inch Sometimes this indicates it is advisable to get company along with your dog, plus sometimes you need to simplicity up and slice him some slack. There you possess it. Now perform you believe me? Didn't I say that they truly create merely one percent regarding the dog professionals in the business? You'll agree with me that, there are many teachers around, but just a few masters. These are the particular true qualities of the legendary dog trainers. Such greatness is very hard to come by. As My partner and i mentioned earlier, My partner and i strongly believe that they earn less as compared to one percent associated with dog experts in the industry. That they are surely by far the most highly paid canine experts money can easily buy. In gathering these individuals I discovered them to end up being amazing. They had been excellent trainers in addition to amazing instructors. They were extremely comfortable, and sometimes also a bit cocky--but always backed up with their expertise and skill. This particular reminds me of my personal what I always say, "It's good to be able to be humble until you are constrained against the wall membrane and later then need to you be capable of CRUSH your opposition. " Or, "Act strong when you aren't weak and poor when you are generally strong. " ( That last 1 isn't mine. I actually borrowed it from a boxing motion picture. ) A large number of people have dedicated decades of their hails from making a variation by helping pets, pet owners, and even other dog trainers. Bear in mind, there is a massive difference between having some sort of well-behaved dog plus possessing the technique, the information, the endurance, as well as the proper interaction skills to INSTRUCT it in front of large audiences. These experts have acquired all of five of these guidelines! For this reason they happen to be incredibly successful in addition to come strongly suggested by simply everyone. If you are a fitness instructor reading this, to be one of typically the greatest, you want to improve inside all of these types of ten areas. Gowns right. Not merely very good, better, or outstanding, but to turn out to be among the best icons, dog phenomena, plus the true legends. Teaching group instructional classes quietly every Wed night at seven won't do it. Is there a new legend in your own town? Maybe, not. Most of my personal clients travel hrs to work alongside me. Many even have myself fly for their town and sometimes even COUNTRIES because they will weren't thankful for virtually any other expert regionally, or were informed that their doggy was hopeless. There are many experts, but only some legends. Isn't this true in virtually any profession?

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thedreadvampy · 3 years

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On the other hand, and moving away from direct Mechanisms Discourse (which I prefer to not get over involved in tbh but also this ISN'T about that it's just jumping off it) - it absolutely is deeply classist to assume that somebody is illiterate or ignorant because of poverty/assumed poverty, and that's a huge problem. but also I think on a broader social level (at least in the UK) there is an idea in the left that it's classist to acknowledge the connection between poverty and illiteracy, while the truth is that illiteracy is a problem of poverty (poverty not in the sense of just Not Having Money but in the sense of system denial of adequate resources). Poverty doesn't = illiteracy but illiteracy is very much a problem of poverty - not a failure of a marginalised individual but a failure of the system marginalising them.

Adult illiteracy is a surprisingly large issue in eg both rural and urban Scotland, but it's not because poor people are stupid, ignorant or unwilling to learn - it's because schools are inadequate or inaccessible, classes are managed not taught, teachers are stretched thin and schools are underfunded so don't have resources to help struggling students, if you get to secondary school still unable to read and write you're completely locked out of the educational system unless you can access a school with the resources to teach you individually, and because of this, classism and a lack of support, poorer kids are more likely to switch off school as early as possible.

Social geography is also a big issue. In urban areas, schools in poorer areas get bad reputations, so they're underfunded, so they do worse, so they're funded less, etc, until they're a bare minimum of staff just trying to get through the day in collapsing buildings with no resources and five textbooks. Where better-funded schools can afford teaching assistants, 1:1 support for struggling students, decent food provision for kids, follow-up on children in need of support at home, more teachers for smaller classes, maybe counseling and psychological support, maybe Special Educational Needs classes for older kids to work on basic literacy and numeracy to catch up, worse-funded schools have one underpaid unsupported teacher trying to manage a class of 35 kids with wildly different needs. They don't have the resources to help support kids with issues that might affect their schooling, like parental abuse or neglect, trauma, a parent in prison, care responsibilities, hunger, homelessness, neurodiversities that affect their ability to learn in the prescribed way, learning disabilities like dyslexia, physical health issues including visual or auditory impairments...all things that when supported are highly surmountable but when unsupported often end up with children being perceived and treated as stupid, disruptive or evil. The problem then compounds itself because the kids are badly treated which makes them more disruptive and less able to learn, and more and more work is needed to help them which teachers continue to not have any capacity or resources for.

Rural poverty comes with its own schooling issues as well, in that poverty is generally correlated with remoteness. Poor rural communities are often hours away from population centres, so either you have tiny highly local schools serving a handful of families where a single teacher needs to invent lesson plans that somehow balance the needs of 11 year olds and 4 year olds of all abilities, or your kids need to somehow get into town every morning before you get to work, which may mean dropping them off at 6am, having to part pay for buses, taxis or ferries, sending them on their own, or leaving them with friends and family, and realistically the way that often shakes down is that they don't go. You teach them at home, and they may not even exist for the truancy office to know about.

Literacy is also connected to family culture. Both my parents were people with degrees from educated families, and my mum was a full time parent, and the result is that school didn't teach me to read - I was already a confident and enthusiastic reader. Even richer families may hire tutors for small children, pay for extracurricular learning, etc. The poorer a family is, the more likely neither parent is available to spend time reading with their kids, because they're working full time - at that economic level a single income household is almost entirely unviable so either both parents work or there's a single parent working extra hours or they're just exhausted from worrying about the bills and what's sold to them as a personal failure to look after their family.

One thing it's easy to forget is that while people in the UK still do drop out of school in their teens to work, a generation ago it was almost the norm for a lot of communities (especially the children of farmers, miners and factory workers) to have left school well before the end of compulsory education, both because of school being a hostile space and because of the need for an additional income. Now as well as then, a lot of kids drop out to work as unpaid carers, disproportionately in poorer families that can't afford private care or therapeutic support. Literacy aside, generations of leaving school with no qualifications doesn't tend to teach you that formal learning is as important as experience and vocational learning, and you don't expect to finish anyway so why put yourself through misery trying to do well? But it includes literacy. I grew up in a former mining area and a lot of people my dad's age and older were literate enough to read signs and football results, but took adult classes in middle age or later to get past the pointing finger and moving lips. and if you're parents don't or can't read, it's a lot harder for you to learn.

There's a lot of classism and shame tied up in the roots of illiteracy. Teachers and governments and schoolmates will often have vocally expressed low expectations of poorer students; a rich child who does poorly at school has problems, a poor child who does poorly at school is a problem child. They're often treated with hostility and aggression from infancy and any anger or disinterest in school is often treated not as a problem to be solved but as proof that you were right to deem them a write-off. Poorer or more neglected children (or children for whom English is a second language) will often be deemed "stupid" by their peers, and start at a disadvantage because of the issues around early childhood learning in families where parents are overstretched.

Kids learn not to admit that they don't know or understand something, because if you start school unable to read and write and do basic maths when a lot of kids your age are already confident, you get mocked and called stupid and lazy by your peers, and treated with frustration by your teachers. So kids learn to avoid people noticing that they need help. That means that school, which could help a lot, isn't somewhere you can go for help but a source of huge anxiety and pain - more so when you factor in the background radiation of classism that only grows as you get older around not having the right clothes, the right toys, the right experiences, my mum says your mum's a ragger, my mum says I shouldn't hang out with you because you're a bad lot - so again kids switch off very early and see education as something to survive not something helpful.

The same is very much true of adult literacy. A lot of adults are very shamed and embarrassed to admit that they struggle with reading and writing - a lot of parents particularly want to be able to teach their kids to read, but aren't confident readers themselves, and feel too stupid and embarrassed to admit out loud that they can't read well, let alone to seek out and endure adult literacy classes that are a constant reminder of their perceived failure and ignorance (and can also be excruciating. Books for adult literacy learning are not nearly widespread enough and a lot of intelligent experienced adults are subjected to reading Spot the Dog and similar books targeted at small children's interests). Adult literacy classes also cost time and also money, so a lot of people only have the space for them after retirement, if at all.

And increasingly, illiteracy (or lack of fluency in English) increases poverty and marginalisation, and thus the chances of inherited literacy problems. Reading information, filling out forms and accessing the internet in a meaningful way are all massively limited by illiteracy, and you need those skills to access welfare, to access medical care, to avoid exploitative loans, to deal with any service providers, etc. Most jobs above minimum wage and a lot below require a fairly high level of literacy, whether it's office work or reading an instructional memo on a building site or reading drink instructions in McDonalds. Illiteracy is a huge barrier between somebody and the rest of the world, especially in a modern world that just assumes universal literacy, and especially especially as more and more of life involves the internet, texting, WhatsApp, email, and so on - it's becoming harder and harder for people with limited literacy to be fully involved in society. And that means the only mobility is downwards, and that exacerbates all the problems that lead to adult illiteracy.

People who can't read after the age of 6 or so are treated as stupid. People who can't read fluently when they're adults are seen as stupid and almost subhuman. There's so much shame and personal judgement attached to difficulty reading, but the fact that illiteracy is almost exclusively linked to poverty and deprivation is pretty conclusive. Illiteracy isn't about the failure or stupidity of the individual, it's about the lack of support, care and respect afforded to poor people at all stages of their life. Being illiterate doesn't make you stupid - many people are highly intelligent, creative, capable, thoughtful, and illiterate. I know people who can immediately solve complex engineering problems on the fly but take ten minutes to write down a sentence of instruction. It isn't classist to say that illiteracy is caused by poverty - it's both classist and inaccurate to say that illiteracy says anything about the worth, intelligence or personhood of the poor, that it's a result of a desire to be ignorant, or that it's evidence that people are poor because they're stupid, incapable, ignorant or bad parents. The link between poverty and illiteracy is the problem of classism and bigotry, no more no less, and we deal with it by working against the ideas that both poverty and lack of education are a reflection of individual worth.

Illiteracy isn't a problem of intelligence, it's a problem of education, and that matters because education is not inherent. it's something that has to be provided and maintained by parents, by the state, by the community. you're not born educated. you are educated. except more than a quarter of the Scottish population isn't educated, because the system doesn't give a fuck about them and actively excludes them or accidentally leaves them behind.

#idl why i wrote this I'm just very angry about how we as a culture treat adult illiteracy in the uk #which is to say - we don't #we ignore it and think about it as a problem of the past or of other countries #and if we do encounter it we treat illiterate people as uniquely stupid and ignorant #as if it's a personal not systemic problem #26.7% of people in Scotland are either illiterate or have severe issues with literacy #16.4% in the uk as a whole #it's this invisible symptom of deprivation that nobody fucking talks about #less than half of people in prison have basic literacy and numeracy skills #and that's not because only stupid people end up in prison it's because illiteracy is a symptom of the poverty pipeline #and i don't think there's current data on this but I'd guess we're going to see an ongoing dip in literacy rates #correlated with austerity from 2010 on #because child poverty and child hunger in this country has consistently steeply climbed since then #and you don't. learn well. when you're hungry.#and also i anticipate a drop in literacy associated with Covid. it's two years where kids without existing literacy skills #parents who are home and consistent internet access have really been unable to engage with a lot of classes #and teachers have been even less able to offer meaningful personalised support #and two years is SO LONG in early years. being set back two years compared to other students can affect your education your whole life.

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honeypiehotchner · 4 years

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i knew you (Bucky Barnes soulmate AU) -- part six

I keep forgetting to post this story OOPS

Warnings: panic, general self-deprecating thoughts, unrequited love thoughts, maybe slightly ooc!Tony, I think that’s all

Sam, Steve, and who you learn to be T’Challa, now King of Wakanda after his father died in the bombing at Vienna -- which makes his obsession with clawing Bucky’s eyes out make much more sense -- are shoved in a vehicle alongside you.

You have no idea what they did with Bucky -- other than he’s still alive -- and you have no fucking clue where you’re going, but the ride is long. Too long to be in a car with Sam and Steve, especially with Sam trying every second he can to get on T’Challa’s nerves.

“So you like cats?”

“Shut up, Sam, please, for once in your life,” you groan from your spot next to him.

Even Steve gives him a look.

“What? Dude shows up dressed like a cat and you don’t wanna know more?” Sam asks.

“Your suit…” Steve narrows his eyes. “It’s vibranium?”

“What is that?”

You don’t get an answer.

“The Black Panther has been the protector of Wakanda for generations. A mantle, passed from warrior to warrior. And now, because your friend murdered my father, I also wear the mantle of King. So, I ask you, as both King and warrior,” T’Challa pauses. “How long do you think you can keep your friend safe from me?”

The silence is deafening.

“It wasn’t him,” you blurt, earning yourself a glare. “Laugh at me all you want, but it wasn’t Bucky that killed your father. Don’t get revenge on the wrong man.”

T’Challa turns to face forward, refusing to say another word.

You do the same, instead focusing on what Bucky is feeling. You wonder if he can feel just how pissed off and panicked you are. You’re pissed, of course, because all of this fighting wasn’t necessary. You jumped off buildings for that man, and he still insists that he doesn’t know you.

Maybe you’d be able to write it off as a dreadful miscommunication for the past decade of your life, but you can’t. Not when you can physically feel that he is lying. The tightness in his chest doesn’t lie. Neither do his eyes.

But God, you wish they could.

You turn your head to hide your quivering lip. The last thing you need is to break into a sobbing mess in the back of this vehicle with three men surrounding you — especially when one of them was just trying to kill the same soulmate you’re upset over.

You know it’s not true, but part of you does wish Bucky was dead.

It was a lot easier on you to fantasize and dream about him when you thought he was dead.

+++

The government facility in Berlin looks far more secure than anything you’ve ever seen. Having guards posted all around when the four of you step out of the vehicle almost seems like overkill. They already took your weapons, what are they expecting any of you to do?

You glance over your shoulder to see Bucky in a small container. Your heart breaks at the sight of him, being restrained and in such a tight space. But the fact that he won’t even look your way breaks your heart even more.

“What’s gonna happen to him?” Steve asks, having the courage to voice what you want to know.

“Same thing that ought to happen to you,” the man replies. He’s short and wears a gray suit. It’s hard for you to take him seriously as an authority figure when it looks like his pants need to be hemmed. “Psychological evaluation and extradition.”

You cross your arms over your chest, keeping your mouth shut. Sharon stands next to the man, but at least she looks like she’s on your side — or Steve’s, since she obviously has a thing for him.

“This is Everett Ross, Deputy Task Force Commander—” Sharon begins introducing him, but you stop her.

“A guy too big to introduce himself?” You raise an eyebrow. “Wow.”

Everett barely smiles, but it isn’t friendly. “Yeah, uh, who the hell are you?” It’s taunting, but you’re too exhausted to give in.

“No one,” you wave your hand, letting Steve keep going.

“What about a lawyer?”

Everett finds that about as amusing as your sentence. “A lawyer, that’s funny.” He turns to address Sharon. “See that their weapons are placed in lockup.” Then turning to the four of you, he says, “We’ll write you a receipt.”

As if on cue, men pass by holding Steve’s shield and uniform, Sam’s wings, and your gun and bullet proof vest. You had almost gotten away with the vest, but once they felt it, they wanted it off -- probably afraid it had some explosive inside it. So, now you’re without your protection, and you miss the weight of the vest. Something about it soothed the ache inside you.

Sam looks ready to burst at the seams. “I better not look out the window and see anybody flying around in that.”

You’re ushered forward by some guards and you go without resisting. You see Steve take one more look at Bucky, but you don’t bother. No sense in looking at someone who doesn’t want to see you, anyway.

Everett walks ahead, leading the way across a glass bridge to the other side of the facility. “You’ll be provided with an office, instead of a cell.”

“How kind,” you snort.

He ignores your comment. “Do me a favor: stay in it.”

You roll your eyes. What does he expect you guys to do? Start a fight when the ratio of unarmed super-soldier to heavily armed guards is about 1 to 1,000 in here?

Natasha joins the group, giving you a particularly cold stare before talking to Steve. “For the record, this is what making things worse looks like.”

You manage a chuckle. She has a point, after all.

“He’s alive,” Steve says matter-of-factly.

Yeah, you think. A lot of good that’s doing to everyone.

By the time you reach the other side of the bridge, you’re ready to ask T’Challa to claw your eyes out instead. You won’t even put up a fight. You’re just tired of holding these tears back and feeling this burning pressure in your chest. You don’t know if it’s yours or Bucky’s emotions at this point, all you know is that you want to be left alone.

The weight of it all is crushing down on you now that there aren’t guns firing at you.

He doesn’t want you.

Your soulmate doesn’t want you.

Fuck.

You wipe a stray tear away, spotting Tony Stark up ahead. Tony seeing you cry is not something you ever want to happen, so you chew on the inside of your cheek instead, hoping you can slip past him quick enough that he won’t notice.

But, of course, that’s too much to ask for when you’ve got Sam and Steve next to you. And when the three of you are now criminals.

“Colonel Rhodes is supervising clean up,” Tony says to someone on the phone. But, because he’s Tony, he has to glare at the three of you while he says it. “Consequences? You bet there’ll be consequences. Obviously you can quote me on that because I just said it, anything else? Thank you sir.”

You take a deep breath, steeling yourself. Here we go.

“Consequences?” Steve inquires, very obviously not giving a damn from the sounds of his tone.

“Secretary Ross wants you prosecuted,” Tony pauses, looking pointedly at you. “All of you.”

You glare at him. “I wasn’t expecting to be an exception, if that’s what you were thinking.”

“That’s not what I was thinking,” Tony replies, always having to have the upper hand. “What I was thinking, is that when I paid for you to have top of the line combat training, I didn’t mean for you to use it on something like this.”

“For God’s sake,” you mutter under your breath, ignoring Steve and Sam’s bewildered stares. You should’ve known he’d use this moment to blast your secret to everyone.

Your training is something you kept under wraps because naturally, if someone knows you’re going to be a challenge, they normally take it. You wanted to be as off the grid and as normal appearing as you could, so you quietly trained while loudly posting about your degree and only your degree. No pictures with Sam or Steve in them when they’d come to visit. Just you or your best friend, nothing more. You wanted to appear as though you were staying out of the way of any and all affairs that could deal with The Winter Soldier. You knew you’d be left alone if you acted as if you didn’t care. You even went on random dates and posted about them. You slipped under everyone’s radar just like you wanted.

“I’m not doing this right now,” you push past Tony in search of an empty office.

“No, I think we are doing this now,” Tony pulls you back by your arm, which you wrench out of his grip immediately. “I paid for those classes so you could defend yourself, and now you’re a criminal. How do you think that makes me look?”

“I don’t know. Grab a goddamn mirror. It’ll tell you.”

Your sarcasm only fuels his anger. “Listen to me—”

“No, okay?” Your voice cracks and you hate it. You hate the way Steve has been looking at you, like you’re about to break into a million pieces right on the floor in front of everyone. You hate that Tony thinks he can just lecture you about something he has no fucking clue about how it feels. You hate that Bucky doesn’t want you and you hate that he’s in a tiny box right now and that if you never would’ve met Steve two years ago then you wouldn’t be hurting like this right now.

Tony stares quietly at you, waiting for you to finish.

So, with as much strength as you can gather, you finish. “I’ve just jumped off buildings and almost taken bullets for my soulmate who does not even want me.” You pause to let it sink in. “So, if you don’t mind, I’d really love to go cry my eyes out for thirty minutes. You can lecture me after.”

Tony’s face falls and pales a little even, but you’re too exhausted to notice.

By some stroke of bad luck, Everett Ross happens to overhear your words. His dumbfounded expression comes into view and it takes all of your leftover energy to not deck him right in the jaw.

“Did I just hear you say that you’re his soulmate?”

“No,” you snap. “Because he doesn’t know me and doesn’t want to talk to me. So, sorry, you won’t get to weaponize me today. Now, do you have an office I can cry in? Or do I need to go find it myself?”

Stunned, Everett flounders for a response. “Uh, you can just pick an empty one.”

“Great,” you swallow around the lump in your throat, keeping your eyes on the ground as you finally escape from everyone around you.

The office is glass, so it isn’t like you’re getting much privacy at all, but it’s enough. You take the farthest one, turning to face the wall so no one else has to see your pathetic tears as they stream down your face.

Saying it out loud made it real.

Bucky doesn’t want you. He doesn’t know you. He doesn’t care what you feel. He doesn’t care that you’re his soulmate. He doesn’t want any part of any of it.

Your chest feels like it might rip itself open just for your heart to escape, and part of you wishes it could. You wish you could be without your heart and this soulmate business just for one day.

All those years. Thinking he’d want you.

The past two years. Rehearsing how to talk to him. How to make it work because you weren’t foolish enough to think it’d be easy. You knew it would be hard, that he’d be troubled with his own issues. But you never thought about the possibility of him straight-up rejecting you.

All of it. For nothing. For a soulmate who insists he doesn’t know you.

You try to muffle your choked sob as best you can, but you fail, the noise only causing more tears to fall. Stupid, stupid, stupid. He was brainwashed by HYDRA and you were stupid enough to hope that he’d want you in his life, that he’d remember you.

Maybe he doesn’t remember you. Maybe when they did something to his mind, it erased all of you.

But he remembers Steve, you remind yourself, and the hurt takes over once more.

You turn and press your back to the glass, shutting your eyes so you won’t see if anyone is watching you. You know how absurd you must look. It doesn’t matter. He doesn’t want you. What does any of it matter anymore?

You slide down to the floor, burying your face in your knees. God, it hurts. It hurts and it hurts and it hurts and you want it to stop. You wish you never went to that damn exhibit with your best friend. You wish you never knew about Bucky. Living in blissful ignorance was painful, but at least you had peace alongside the pain.

At least that image of your soulmate wanted you.

+++

Back outside, Everett watches your shaking form with a newfound worry. “Is she gonna be okay?”

“I don’t know.” Tony hangs his head. “Do you need me for anything?”

Everett glances at his watch. “No, actually I’ve got things to get to.” He disappears without another word.

Tony thinks it over, wondering if he should even go check on you. You’re like a daughter to him, though he’ll never admit that to you, and you’d never suspect it. The two of you hardly speak. You were surprised when he reached out about your protection. Steve had apparently mentioned you, and Tony being Tony, knew he had the money to make you feel safe.

And he did. The classes helped. Keeping everything about you, except what you wanted people to see -- that you were an Honors student, a well-supported, intelligent young woman -- a secret helped.

The two of you bicker. You argued when you first met. Tony wanted to pay for extra security, personal security that would follow you around. He wanted to move you from the college apartments to some fancier complex where he could control the security protocols. You turned him down, asked about classes. He compromised. But not without some off-handed, pissed-off remark, that you promptly replied to with, “Fuck off.”

You’re strong, he’ll give you that. Anyone else would’ve denied their feelings, sworn they weren’t the soulmate of the fist of HYDRA. But you embraced it. You knew you couldn’t change it. You knew you would get Bucky back one day -- your Bucky.

But you never would’ve guessed that he would’ve reacted this way. Shielding you from bullets while insisting that he has no idea who the hell you are.

His insistence is what hurt you the most. You had thought when you confessed that you can feel when he’s lying, he would’ve given in. That maybe he needed a confirmation, a reason to believe it was really you, because anyone can lie. Technology -- Stark’s, at least -- has advanced, anyone can look like whoever they want. You thought Bucky needed proof. But that wasn’t it.

He just didn’t care.

Tony watches as you turn around, pressing your back to the glass. Your eyes are closed, face wet with tears and hand pressed over your mouth. You slide to the floor, and that’s the last straw.

You look up when you hear Tony knocking on the glass.

Once you see it’s him, though, you put your head back in your hands. “I said thirty minutes,” you mumble. “I know damn well it’s only been ten.”

“Just shut up and come here.”

You look up again, your expression pained as if he just slapped you. Tony frowns. He’s making it worse when he wants to make it better.

“What do you want?” You ask tiredly, rubbing both hands on your face to wipe the rest of the tears away. You sniffle loudly, grimacing at the noise. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry, just come here.”

“What do you want?”

“To give you a damn hug,” Tony mutters, invading your personal space by sitting next to you on the floor.

You accept his hug, but only for a few seconds. That’s all you can take.

“Sorry,” you murmur, shrugging him off and scooting a foot away. “Anything that touches me makes me want to punch. I don’t know if it’s him feeling that, or me, but…” You sigh. “Regardless I’d just like for this to be over.”

“You and me both, kiddo,” Tony exhales, leaning his head back against the glass. “Why did you go with Cap and Sam?”

You shrug. “If it was Pepper...wouldn’t you?”

“Pepper wasn’t brainwashed by HYDRA,” Tony says. “And Pepper didn’t assassinate dozens of people.”

“But if she had, if it was Pepper in that box right now, wouldn’t you have done anything? Even if you knew it was a losing battle?”

Tony stays quiet, thinking. “Yeah.” He nods slowly. “I would.” Then he lets out a dry laugh. “I don’t think she’d put me in that position -- I think it’s more likely the other way around.”

You look over at him, frowning.

He sees you looking and sighs, closing his eyes. “We’re taking a break.”

That explains it. “I’m sorry.”

He shakes his head. “It’s fine. In her defense, I’m a handful.” Typical Tony. Deflecting his real feelings with humor. “Anyway, I’m sorry, too. Earlier. I shouldn’t have spilled your secrets like that.”

You shrug. “It’s whatever. It’s out there now. I’m sure Everett is thinking of every way he can to somehow get through to Bucky through me.” The mention of your soulmate has tears jumping back into your eyes.

Then a wave of panic rushes over you.

Your eyes shoot open and you scramble to your feet, moving to the farthest corner of the office to get a good look at the screens. Without audio, you can’t tell much, but that doesn’t make it any better.

“What wrong?” Tony asks, joining you.

“He’s panicked,” you murmur. “Where’s Steve?”

Tony doesn’t have time to answer you before you’re practically running out of the office to find Steve. You find him with Sam and Sharon in another office.

“Steve--” You stop when you hear the audio. It’s Bucky’s voice.

“Where’s Y/N?” He says. You look at the screen, thinking your ears have deceived you, but he says it again. “Y/N, I need to talk to her.”

“What’s going on?” Steve asks, noticing the look on your face.

“Something’s wrong,” you say, shaking your head. “I don’t know what. But he’s panicking. Or maybe it’s me. Something’s wrong.”

About that time, the power goes out.

Literally. Everywhere. Emergency lights coat the room in a soft blue glow, the red of the exits the only other light working in the place.

“Fuck!” You smack the table, looking to Sharon. “Where is he?”

“Sub-level five, East wing,” she answers quickly.

You don’t look to Sam or Steve, you just start running.

The slapping of footsteps behind you is the only indication you have that they’re following you. Tears spring to your eyes as another wave of panic comes over you, nearly choking you this time. Something bad. It’s something bad.

Anger comes next, burning in your chest. What the hell is happening? That psychiatrist -- what’s he doing to your Bucky?

Then you feel it.

It spreads throughout your whole body. The old feeling you had once forgotten. Two years is long enough to get used to Bucky and forget all about The Winter Soldier, but not long enough to not recognize it when it returns.

You push forward, running as fast as you can. You slow once you’re at the correct sub-level, waiting for Sam and Steve. You hold your hands up when they come into view.

Steve comes skidding to a stop. “What?”

“He’s not Bucky right now,” you say quietly, despite the thrumming in your ears. “He’s the Soldier. We have to be careful. I don’t know what happened, but I felt it.”

“Shit,” Steve cusses. “Okay.”

Back on track, the first sign that the Soldier is here is all of the guards lying unconscious on the floor. Inside the room, the psychiatrist sent to evaluate Bucky -- though you’re suspecting he isn’t the psychiatrist -- lies in the middle of the floor, barely conscious.

Steve walks in and drags the man up off of the floor, pinning him to the wall.

You’re right. He’s not who he says he is.

While Steve is handling him, you and Steve step up to the doorway, but you pause, pressing your arm to Sam’s chest.

Shit. He’s in there.

Sam either doesn’t catch your signal or doesn’t want you walking in by yourself, because he ignores you and steps into the room. Regardless, it earns him a punch to the face that he barely dodges.

“Bucky!” You scream, pushing Sam out of the way before Bucky’s metal fist can smash his head in. “Bucky, stop!”

But he doesn’t. He keeps going after Sam, and only stops once he has thrown Sam halfway across the room into the box he was kept in. Sam falls limply to the floor, unconscious.

“Bucky, look at me,” you plead, tears pushing to the front of your eyes, but you blink them away. “You have to come out of this!”

Bucky pushes past you, going after Steve this time. Well, you think. First, he knocks the psychiatrist out cold, but you don’t mind that. What you do mind is when Bucky focuses back on Steve, choking him up against the wall.

You try to pull on his arm, but you know it’s useless. He holds you back, keeping you away from him, but still not hurting you.

You think. Quick. What would help? Why isn’t he hurting you? He’s capable of handling more than one person, and you’re obviously provoking him in some way right now as you claw at his back. But still, he isn’t hurting you. Why?

A long shot of an idea pops into your head.

“Soldier!” You raise your voice, straightening your shoulders, hoping it’ll give you the look of an authority figure. “Soldier. I said stop.”

Steve hits the ground with a thud, coughing loudly.

“Soldier,” you repeat, keeping your voice even. “Look at me.” Slowly, Bucky turns around. He’s still the Soldier, but at least he isn’t trying to kill Steve. “What are your orders?”

“You give them.”

You blink. “What?”

“Orders are to protect you,” the Soldier says. “Keep you safe.”

Your breath hitches. You push away your emotions, thinking instead how you can use his orders to your advantage right now. You don’t exactly like using him this way, but you don’t have any other option when he’s a highly trained and chemically enhanced assassin.

“Steve is a friend.” You pause, nodding to Sam who is slowly coming back to consciousness on the ground. “So is Sam. Do not hurt them. Understand?”

Firmly, Bucky nods.

You look over your shoulder at Steve. “We’ve gotta get him out of here,” you say. “They’ll kill him if they find him like this.” Regardless of the fact that he’s listening to you.

“Yeah,” Steve agrees, voice hoarse. He goes over to Sam, pulling him off the ground. He’s disoriented, but awake. “Come on. We gotta go.”

“Okay, Soldier,” you almost wince, hating talking to him like this. “Get us out of here. Can you do that?”

Again, he nods. His flesh arm wraps protectively around your waist, practically picking you up as he begins to walk.

You try your hardest to ignore the effect it has on your body, but you can’t help it. The combination of his strength and this being the most intimate way that he has touched you yet leaves you breaking out in a cold sweat.

“Wait,” you pause, and Bucky stops. “I’ll hold onto your arm,” you say, slipping his arm from around your waist. You grip his bicep, your other hand sliding into his. You hate to be doing this because you know once Bucky remembers, he’ll probably hate you even more for it. But right now, the Soldier won’t walk two inches without some sort of grip on you. “Is this better?”

The Soldier’s bicep flexes underneath your fingers. You swallow thickly. Maybe this was worse.

“As long as you’re safe,” is all he says, before continuing on.

You look back over your shoulder to find Steve watching with a sad smile.

You shove down the swelling sadness in your chest. You know this is the last time you’ll get to hold his hand, or hold onto him like this. But he can’t stay the Soldier forever. He needs to be Bucky again.

Even if Bucky is the one who doesn’t want you.

#i knew you #bucky barnes #james buchanan barnes #james buchanan bucky barnes #bucky barnes soulmate au #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes x you #angst #angst city #all angst #bucky barnes fanfic #bucky barnes fanfiction #marvel #the winter soldier #cacw

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maybedefinitely404 · 4 years

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Day 8: Moceit

@tsshipmonth2020

Day 8 - The temperature of your chest gets hotter when you are closer to your soulmate and colder when you move further away.

Content warnings (oh boy): This is an afterlife fic! Meaning there is technically character death, but it is essentially the beginning of a whole new life, and the death itself is only briefly touched upon. That being said, warnings for; hypothermia/frostbite, death, car accident, talk of past death, mention of cancer, brief description of body horror (no gore).

Word count: 2.8k

It started when Janus was two. His parents were awoken by his feral cries, throwing open the door to his room, imagining the worst. They recoiled immediately upon touching him, his skin almost freezing to the touch. They closed the bedroom window and piled him in more layers until he stopped wailing, but that was only the start.

When he was six, his mother explained soulmates to him. He looked at her with huge eyes, fiddling with the sleeves of his oversized hoodie, a blanket wrapped around his shoulders.

When he was ten, he had grown sick and tired of the constant cold. A majority of his classmates and friends hadn’t met their soulmates yet, but they all didn’t seem as bothered by it as he was. They didn’t keep their winter jackets on in class, no matter the season, and their hands were never too cold to hold a pencil.

When he was thirteen, he caught hypothermia. At the insistence of his older brother, he joined him outside in the snow for a hike in the forest. His countless layers and heat pads in his pockets only did so much when they got hopelessly lost in the woods, and while his brother seemed to be unaffected by the cold, Janus woke up the next day in the hospital. He could vaguely remember falling face first into the snow, his cold slowly morphing into pleasant warmth, his brother shouting his name. The doctors were unable to save his left eye, leaving him half blind, and his frostbite scars never quite disappeared. They said the very fact that he survived was some kind of miracle. He didn’t go into the snow after that.

When he was sixteen, his mother took him to a doctor. After thorough examination, the man could find nothing wrong with him. He suggested B-12 supplements and a list of ways to increase his circulation, and when that did nothing to help months later, he sat them both down in his office and explained it most likely meant Janus’ soulmate had died. Janus didn’t know until that moment that it was possible to miss someone you’ve never met, but he cried on the way home. His mom said nothing.

When he was eighteen, Janus was alone. He had become reclusive and standoffish, unwilling to spend time around any of the people who tried to befriend him. All of them had soulmates. All of them got to be happy.

When he was twenty, his family suggested group therapy for those who had lost their soulmates, and he had reluctantly gone to one session. For a moment, he felt at home, surrounded by other people in thick sweaters and jackets and gloves, until he learned that all of them had lost their soulmates after meeting them. They had been able to spend years together, enjoying each other’s company, before losing the love of their life. When he explained his situation, he was only met with the same sympathetic looks he’d received everywhere else in life, and he never went back.

When he was twenty-two, he graduated with his Bachelor’s degree in psychology. The crowd was the quietest it had been all night; no one knew this guy, but it felt wrong to not cheer at all. He shook the Dean’s hand with thick yellow gloves and took the diploma, ignoring the man’s confused raised eyebrow and walking away to the noise of half-hearted claps.

When he was twenty-five, life was okay. Not good, just okay. He’d found a lab job in the psychological social experiment aspect that paid decently and wasn’t a total bore. Most nights he was numb, especially after experiments that revolved around soulmates, so he turned on Netflix and poured a glass of wine and fell asleep on the couch, wrapped in a thick weighted blanket. Life is fine, he told himself. It could be worse.

And when Janus was twenty-seven, he died. It was an accident; a mix of a long tiring day and an ignored red light just as he was crossing the street. The car barreled through the intersection, other car horns blaring, and he looked up just in time to see the person looking down, probably on their phone. He’d never know. The impact was quick, and he didn’t even have time to feel pain before the world went dark. He was a little grateful for that.

It stayed dark for a long while after that. Well, in full honesty, he didn’t know how long it was. It felt like a long time, but it also felt extraordinarily short. The seconds turned to years and millennia became mere minutes, the very concept of time fading away just as he did. A minuscule part of him was still aware that he was conscious, and he probably should have been a little scared of that, because did that mean he was destined to float around as an unattached subconscious for eternity? A larger part of him was just relieved to finally rest, with the weight of student debt and an exhaustingly lonely life finally gone.

Until it wasn’t. The light crept into the center of his vision first and he grumbled in annoyance. Let me just enjoy it a second longer, he thought distantly, but the light didn’t listen as it slowly spread across his vision like molasses. For the first time in his life, he realized with a start, he didn’t feel cold. There was a heat in his chest that he’d never felt before, and he was scared when the darkness faded, so would the warmth.

“Janus, are you okay?” A desperate voice broke through his dark haze in whisps, slowly clearing the fog that had set in. It rambled on, “Oh, stupid question. You just died. Sorry! Can you see me?”

His vision lit up all the way, replacing the darkness but not taking away the heat. Perfect. He was about to answer no to the stranger’s question; there was just a blur of blue and white and green, until the figure loomed that much closer and came into focus. It was a man, probably his age, with bright blue eyes and floppy golden hair, his freckled nose just inches from Janus’. His eyes held concern but he was smiling like no tomorrow. The man seemed to realize when Janus could in fact see him clearly and backed away, holding out a hand to help him up. Why was he lying on the ground? Where was he?

That question was answered as soon as he took the offered hand, looking around him in shock. Apparently the dark void hadn’t held him for as long as he thought. A distant siren pierced the air, and people’s shouts rang over each other as they milled around the body in the street, his body. The car that had hit him was nowhere to be seen. It was all too surreal, too uncomfortable, and he turned back to the man standing in front of him. They were standing on the sidewalk, just meters away from the gruesome scene on the street, and Janus suddenly felt very lightheaded.

“I carried you away as soon as your soul formed. Didn’t want to overwhelm you when you opened your eyes for the first time.”

“I’m dead?”

“Yep,” The man answered just a bit too cheerfully, before noticing the newcomer’s expression and softening, “Sorry. I’ve been here for a while, the shock has kind of worn down.”

“What’s here?”

“The afterlife. Deathny World. Aliven’t. I’ve heard it all.”

“Ah,” Janus choked, trying to take in the environment around him without looking at his own dead body, or the paramedics that had just arrived on the scene. It looked like the real world, and obviously they were still in the real world to some extent since he was witnessing the aftereffects of his own death, but the subtle mist floating through the air was definitely new. It curled through the air gently, resting on every surface it could land on, coloring the world with soft rainbow hues. It was the real world, it was just as if he was seeing more of it for the first time. The parts that were invisible before. An orange tuft graced by his ear and he could just make out the sound of someone laughing, the smell of fresh bread, the taste of fresh jam on a summer morning. A smile tugged at his lips before he realized.

“Forgotten memories,” The man spoke up, as if reading his mind. “Every lost memory of every person winds up here. Mostly good ones, but some are bad. You’ll learn how to sift through them soon enough.”

Janus was finally able to pull himself away from the colorful world, staring into the bright eyes of the stranger. “Who are you?”

“I’m Patton,” he said with a new grin, scratching the back of his neck nervously, “I’m your soulmate.”

--------------------------------------

It took Janus a much longer time than he would have liked to admit to unfreeze from the revelation, Patton taking his hand gently and sinking them out to a new location. His stomach churned upon rising up, the new sensation making him nauseous. He didn’t recognize where they were, some cafe, and Patton gently pushed him into a seat before strolling up to the counter with no hesitation, starting a conversation with the barista and gesturing to Janus. The mist, the lost memories, were gone, replaced with a golden haze that gave the world a soft glow. The air was thick with the smell of coffee beans and cookies that instantly calmed Janus’ stomach. When Patton finally walked back to him, two mugs in hand, he explained.

“This is the soul world. We can pop in from the real world to this one whenever we want. Some souls choose to stay on one side predominantly, some switch back and forth a lot.”

“This single cafe is the soul world?”

“Oh! No, my bad! There’s a whole lot more outside. I’ll have to show you later. Right now, though, just relax. You’ve had a… long day, to say the least.” He pushed one of the cups into Janus’ grasp.

“What is it?” He asked skeptically. It looked like coffee, but who’s to say anything anymore.

“Whatever you want it to be. Think of your favorite drink, then try it.”

Janus narrowed his eyes but lifted the mug to his lifts, trying to think of a single drink he liked. His mind decided that this was the ideal moment to forget everything he ever drank in his entire short life, so when he finally took a sip, the liquid was disgustingly tasteless. Like warm water. He set the drink down, watching Patton intensely.

Janus took in his appearance, his general shock finally beginning to wear off. An open light blue button up over a white shirt, sleeves rolled up to his elbows. He was pretty much Janus’ definition of cute, what with those stupidly adorable dimples and little golden locket hanging on his neck. If he’d met him when he was alive, he no doubt would have fallen head over heels for him.

“You’re my soulmate? How is that…” He cleared his throat, hoping he wasn’t blushing, “How is that possible?”

Patton hummed, wiping off what appeared to be a hot chocolate moustache, “I died when I was three. Cancer.”

“That’s awful.”

Patton shrugged, taking another sip, “It wasn’t great. I woke up by myself, still half wedged in my own corpse. It was terrifying. My parents were crying, and I tried to tell them I was there, somehow, but they couldn’t see me.”

“Totally not traumatic at all.”

The man actually laughed, despite the dark story, “I had to figure everything out for myself. Sinking down, navigating both worlds, how to control my own form… which you are doing surprisingly well at, by the way.”

Janus glanced down at himself. He definitely wasn’t alive, that much was sure, if the wisps of yellow smoke cascading down him were any indication. If he concentrated hard enough, the fog began to disappear, leaving him looking normal, albeit a bit paler. As soon as his mind drifted, however, the golden trails were back.

“This was the first place I was able to rise up in in this world. It’s kind of an easy access point. I popped up behind the counter, scared the living daylights out of Virgil.” He pointed to the barista who was currently chatting with another person ghost, laughing over identical mugs with them. “He’s been here a while. Two hundred years, give or take.”

Janus paled, the idea of eternity becoming just that much more real. “Oh…”

“Yeah. He kind of raised me. And then when I was old enough to understand, he explained that I’d left a soulmate behind. I cried for hours after that.” He smiled sadly, finally meeting Janus’ eyes.

“You knew my name,” The younger recalled suddenly, sitting up a little straighter, “Right when I was waking up, you said my name.”

Patton looked almost sheepish, focusing back on the cup between his hands, “After Virgil told me… I kind of made it my personal mission to find my soulmate. I spent a lot of time in the real world, years, trying to find you, and of course checking in on my parents sometimes. Ghosts don’t need sleep, we can sleep, if we want, but we don’t need to, so it was a constant search. And then, my parents both ended up in the hospital, long story, and I wanted to be there when they woke up. Make their transition into the new world a little easier than mine was,” His expression lit up, wiggling a little in his seat, “And while I was there, I stumbled across a certain young patient with severe frostbite and hypothermia.”

“Me.”

“Mmhm. And I felt this weird warmth in my chest, which is weird, because ghosts don’t really feel temperature. It didn’t last that long, just a couple seconds, really, but it was enough time to know.”

“The soulbond.”

“Yep.”

They both drank in unison. This time, Janus’ drink tasted like the unsweetened chamomile tea from the hospital. He made a sour face and put the cup back down. He stared into his reflection for a moment, almost captivated in the sloshing against the sides of the mug, before Patton spoke again.

“I spent most of my time in the alive-world after that. With you. And it sucked, because there was nothing I wanted more than to talk to you and hug you and just let you know I existed… you were so sad…”

“Yeah…” Janus mumbled, tapping the ridge of his cup with his fingernail. “Is that why you were at the accident?”

“I tried to stop it,” Patton whispered, a look of pure guilt crossing his face, “I couldn’t tug you back though, and you didn’t hear me. So the least I could do was pull you out when you formed and take you away from the crowd.”

The odd language was starting to confuse Janus, the weird differentiation between his soul and his body, the terminology regarding the soul world he didn’t understand… it was all just a lot.

“So… Do we age? You’re obviously not three anymore. But the barista doesn’t look two hundred.”

“Virgil. And… I don’t know.”

“Very comforting.”

“You’re sassy.”

“That I am.”

For the first time in a very long time, Janus’ lips twitched into a smile in response to the absolute beam on Patton’s face. No one had ever taken his snark as anything other than bitchiness, but this guy, his soulmate, seemed to love it.

“As far as I know, we won’t. I think I only aged along with you, and now that you’re here, we’re probably done.” He had finished his drink, the barista swooping in out of nowhere and plucking it from his grasp with an impish grin. Patton shouted his thanks as Virgil disappeared into the back room. “He’s been waiting to meet you for a long time. But he can be a handful, so we’ll save proper introductions until you’re settled. Speaking of which…” He stood up, smoothing out his shirt and offering his hand to Janus once more. “I can show you where residency is, if you’d like. It might be nice to take a nap, just to process.”

Janus considered. The vague sounding ‘residency’ was intriguing, but he was much too restless to sleep right now. He voiced as much. “Maybe later. Do you think you could show me around first?”

The grin Patton gave him was bright enough to power a city block. Janus took the extended hand and the man squealed, pulling him towards the door excitedly. Yeah. He was definitely already falling for the literal ball of sunshine that was his soulmate.

“One grand tour of the afterlife, coming up!”

#lywrites #tsshipmonth2020 #janus sanders #patton sanders #virgil sanders #sanders sides #sanders sides fanfiction #ts afterlife au #moceit #ts soulmate au #sanderssides #soulmate september #soulmateseptember

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kakashiswilloffire · 3 years

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STEAM, not STEM

ao3

word count: 1.6k

kabuto x sai, college au, enemies to lovers ish, same age au

this is my first server collab with @konoblog-simps! the prompt was college au for august, and you can see the rest of the multifandom fics and artwork here!

***

As a biochemistry major focused on pharmaceuticals with a five year plan included finishing this undergrad degree, moving across the country for a masters in organic chemistry, then likely moving again for a doctorate in organic, along with four internships along the way, so that he could become a renowned creator of antianxiety medications, he was pretty confident in his knowledge. There was nothing a chemistry professor could ask that he couldn’t answer. Calculus came to him as a breeze. His psychology courses presented absolutely no challenge to him. Statistics, courses in professionalism and building his portfolio, and meetings with potential employers never caused him to break a sweat.

This fucking art class might kill him, though.

He had resented for years that humanities courses were required in science degree paths. It was his junior year and he had fought with his advisor for the past four semesters before finally giving in and agreeing to take a class on charcoal sketching. There was no way he would be caught dead in the hugely popular pottery class taught by the blond professor with tattoos of mouths on the back of his hands. Nor would he voluntarily take any basic introductory course in drawing or painting.

That was how he found himself in an advanced charcoal techniques course, prepared to blow through a handful of drawings and easily earn high marks.

However, in a class size of eight, he was drawing attention for the wrong reasons.

To start, the others all seemed to know each other from previous courses, which immediately made him the outsider. To make matters worse, the professor greatly preferred their work to his own. A part of him couldn’t blame the man who insisted he be called Tenzo rather than by any title or honorific. His drawings were definitely in a different style to the rest of the class, and it was a style that didn’t seem to be changing or improving as the weeks passed.

It wouldn’t be so frustrating if it wasn’t the first thing he had ever tried that was proving to be a struggle. As if that wasn’t enough to deal with, the asshole in the front row seemed to take to charcoal like breathing.

On the first day, when Tenzo had gone over the syllabus, he had also made them all introduce themselves and play a get to know you game. They all pretended that it wasn’t for Kabuto’s benefit. Fu and Torune had begun, making a point of making physical contact with each other the whole time they spoke, though he had never seen Torune take off his gloves. The had tuned most of the others out as they spoke, noting Shin seemed decent enough, though he’d prefer if the man stopped coughing for more than a moment. What grated him to no end was the final person to speak.

Sai.

He spoke with a fake smile plastered across his face, eyes closed and voice dripping with confidence. He listed his credentials off without any thought, and it infuriated him that the list of accomplishments and certifications rivaled the length of his own. Sai listed his specialty in art as black and white realism, and his preferred medium as painting, though he was looking forward to learning more about charcoal. From there, he had turned to Kabuto with that same overly-relaxed smile and offered:

“Your turn, flash cards.”

The familiarity rubbed him the wrong way and he had been irritated with him ever since. What made it worse was that Sai was actually really good in the course. He hadn’t been lying about his skill in realism—anything he rendered looked like it was about to run off the page. He seemed to prefer birds, in all species, but every individual feather breathed and flowed and he never got the black dust accidentally smudged on his paper. In fact, he never got the dust anywhere. Kabuto always left the class covered in black smears on his skin, clothing, and bag, and there would always be some hidden patch of charcoal that he never found until he showered that night.

It infuriated him to no end that this shallow jerk who modelled his personality around whoever he was with was also, genuinely, so much better than him at this class that he desperately needed to pass.

Midterm grades had come back the other day and a vein had nearly popped out of his forehead when he saw the disastrously low score. Tenzo had noted that he saw improvement between this and where Kabuto had began the class, but it was still not on level with the rest of the class and where he would need to be in preparation for the next level pastels course. Apparently, it didn’t matter that he wouldn’t be taking the next level course. If he didn’t pass this course with a reasonably high grade, his scholarship sponsor, Orochimaru, would be furious. Risking the scholarship not being renewed meant risking the entire five year plan, and for that—

He’d have to suck it up.

“Hey, Sai?” he asked, forcing himself to keep his tone level. Admitting weakness was not his strength and he had no intention of making this a habit.

The crop top wearer glanced up from the hyper-realistic sheet of mice that he was effortlessly rendering. “Ah, Kabuto,” he said, the same smile from before falling across his face. “Lovely weather we’re having, isn’t it?”

He gritted his teeth, then forced his jaw to relax. “The rain we’ve had all week? Sure, Sai.” He pulled up a stool, settling in to the easel next to him. “I wanted to ask you a question.”

Sai nodded, not pausing his movement as he gave life to a mouse’s tail. “My answer is yes.”

Kabuto blinked. Was asking for help really this simple? “You’re willing to tutor me for the final?”

That caused Sai to hesitate, tilting his head slightly to the side. After a beat, he replied “I suppose I could do that. You appear to be capable of learning how to improve your questionable techniques.”

Ignoring the dig, he pressed on. “I would appreciate that. Tenzo said that my linework is improving but my shading is still not where it needs to be. Something about being more mindful of my light sources.”

“I agree with his analysis,” Sai said, continuing on his sketch. “Your grasp of line weight is abysmal, which is a step up from your initial attempt, which was horrific. Your shading on our last assignment, the brickwork, was essentially nonexistent. All of your pieces so far have had at least four light sources that have no apparent source. It’s clear from your work that you have no regard for art and no passion for creation at all.”

He delivered the critique without halting a single graceful stroke on his canvas. There was no malice in his tone, and he said the words almost pleasantly, despite the cutting content.

“I am willing to teach you more technique and skill so that Tenzo is able to assign you a passing grade in this course. However, I do not believe you are capable of being an artist or creating anything of value in the world as you currently are.”

Kabuto froze. He had only meant to ask for a few tips, not to be dragged for all he was worth in this godforsaken art course. How dare this arrogant prick think he was incapable of creation?

He gripped his charcoal stick so tightly in his fist that it crumbled. “Listen, inky. Just because I’m focused in science doesn’t mean I can’t create anything meaningful. My goal is to be a pharmaceutical chemist, to create medications to change people’s lives. Just because I can’t draw some fucking—I don’t know, a fucking rat or a bowl of fruit or whatever, doesn’t make you better than me. So fuck off with that.”

Sai smirked, his eyes closing in his familiar pattern. “I never implied anything about our worth relative to each other. But I do think that it’s cute that you’re concerned about appearing to be less than me. That will create an excellent motivation for self-improvement for both of us in our relationship.”

The light caught Kabuto’s glasses, a white reflection flashing across the lenses. “We don’t have a relationship.”

Finally, Sai put his rectangle of charcoal down on the easel and sat up. “Do we not? What was the intent of your original question to me?”

Kabuto spluttered. “What do you mean? I came up and asked if you’d help me with the final and you said yes, then you were an ass.”

It was now Sai’s turn to blink. “You said that you had a question for me. I replied that my answer was yes. As a result, we are now boyfriends.” He wiped his fingers on a handkerchief hanging on the corner of his easel. “Was your question you intended to ask me not if I would be interested in a romantic relationship with you?”

He flushed a deep red. Sai was attractive, that was undeniable, but that was not how this encounter was meant to go. Romance was not in the five year plan. “I—”

“Just do it,” sighed Tenzo, sitting at his desk with his head in his hands. “For the love of God, both of you, stop staring at each other and bickering and just go out, would you?”

Sai smiled, the classic closed-eye smile that looked more genuine each time he did it. “Thank you, Tenzo.”

Kabuto was confused, but in order to learn the skills he needed to pass this class, he’d need to go along with the game. Without another word, he reached out and took Sai’s hand. Might as well give it a shot, right?

#kabuto x sai #sai x kabuto #kabuto fanfic #kabuto yakushi #konoha simps server collab

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cake-writes · 5 years

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Breathe (Lecture 1)

Pairing: Bucky x Reader

Story Warnings: Slow Burn, Angst, Fluff, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Mixed Delivery (Social Media & Written Parts), Eventual 18+

Summary: Bucky takes a history class at his local university in hopes of catching up on the last few decades, on everything he’s missed whilst under Hydra’s control – but he winds up learning a lot more than what’s on the syllabus. He learns how to heal.

Written for @the-omni-princess’s 1k writing challenge!

(Formerly Hope & Happiness; I decided that I needed a better title!)

TAG LIST: OPEN

💛 This fic is interactive. Here’s how it works! 💛

So I took the time to find an actual university course to complement this story because I’m just that invested, you guys. (I’m also a huge history nerd, lmao.) The syllabus and lectures are real, and any content relating to these in my story is straight from the source.

Lectures are recorded and available for a listen! Most written chapters will correspond to a lecture; I’ll list which one at the top of the chapter if you want to learn along with Bucky. Each one is about 40-50 minutes long and in English. Click here to access them!

This is definitely optional, though, so please don’t feel pressured to listen, but if you’re a history nerd like me then you may want to take a look!

Wednesday, August 24

Lecture 1: Introductory Lecture

Although Bucky had been on campus a couple of times before now – first to apply, and then to meet with an advisor as all new students were required to do – he didn’t think he’d ever get used to the sheer size of it. Universities these days were massive: cities within a city, buildings upon restaurants upon shops and all he wanted to do was learn.

That was all he’d ever wanted to do, really. Learn about himself. Learn what made the world tick. Learn all the things he didn’t know. He’d always excelled in school, and once upon a time he’d started to save money in order to attend university. Didn’t know what he’d study – just knew that he wanted a degree in order to support the family he thought he’d have one day.

Ambitions for the future.

Then came the draft. Because hadn’t yet been able to save enough, he’d been shipped out to the European Theater – sent to hell, not to college.

Ambitions for the past.

Two years spent in cold, wintery foxholes gave him an opportunity to think, but all he could think about was the stench of death surrounding him, surrounding his unit, surrounding every waking moment of his life at war. Not his death, of course, but it may as well have been.

Bucky learned to hone in on the sound of his heartbeat in his ears, the rush of adrenaline in his veins, the sensation of his boots in mud and snow. He learned to focus. He learned to survive.

And all the while, he lived with the very real possibility that he wouldn’t make it through – and, well, he didn’t. Not really. Some parts of him never made it back; what little remained became the property of Hydra. Mind corrupted, soul shattered, will broken into sharp, jagged shards of glass.

Fragile. Breakable. Erased, but still alive.

Bucky may have survived, but he’d never really been right since – never really been whole. Physically and mentally, with too many pieces of himself missing or damaged, one constant stayed the same: a desire to learn. He’d gotten through the war and Hydra’s harsh training because that quality was a part of him – one of the only parts that made it through.

Battle-worn and weary from surviving – not living, not really – Bucky finally had the opportunity to take a step back from the battlefield to just… exist. To live. To breathe. In taking a leave of absence, he embarked upon another journey: to rediscover the man he used to be.

It would be difficult task, he knew. The twenty-first century was far cry from the 1940s, a far cry from home, and the sheer size of the college campus only served to remind him of that. In fact, he was only able to recognize that he was still in New York because this school happened to be the very same one he’d once planned to attend so long ago. Staten Island University. Right across the bridge from his present-day apartment in Brooklyn, not to mention his old family home.

Home.

But this unfamiliar new century was his home, now, so he sought to learn what he’d missed over all the decades he’d lost to Hydra. In the process, maybe he’d learn about himself, learn what made the world tick, learn all the things he didn’t know.

What better place could there be to do that than at a university?

Bucky soon found out that his education would be paid for by the United States government for his service in the military. Ironic that the very barrier which forced him into war was the same thing being gifted to him now. The GI Bill. A reward for his patriotism. A thank you for his sacrifice.

Flowery words for a bribe meant to keep him silent. Call him jaded.

Worse still, if Bucky thought tuition was expensive back then, he didn’t know what to call it today. He’d been rendered speechless when he found out what a single class would cost, but rest assured, Uncle Sam would pay for it so that he didn’t have to.

Physically, it only cost him an arm but mentally, it cost him so much more.

U.S. Society and Politics Since 1945. Mondays and Wednesdays at two o’clock. Three credit hours, whatever that meant. He signed up for the class after his first meeting with an advisor – thought that it might do him good to put his past behind him and learn.

Bucky arrived about twenty minutes before the class was due to start, all nerves and first day jitters – absolutely ridiculous when he really thought about it, so he tried to put it out of his mind and selected a seat in the very back row in hopes of not being noticed.

Counting seats proved to be a good distraction. Three hundred seats. Would there really be that many students? Save for a handful of his new classmates scattered about, the too-large lecture hall seemed like it would never fill. Sure enough, however, it eventually started to – not all three hundred seats, but close enough.

It wasn’t until then that Bucky realized he might have been woefully unprepared. Just about everyone else had laptops sat out front of them, and while he could use one – clunkily – he still preferred something more a little more tangible. All he’d brought along was the required textbook, a notebook, and two pens, one of which he’d been rolling in between a gloved thumb and forefinger for the last few minutes.

That was a nervous tic of his, one he’d picked up in the army, except today it was a pen instead of a cigarette and he sure could have used a pack of Lucky Strikes right now. A cigarette would have done wonders to take the edge off, but he didn’t smoke, not anymore. Frustrated, he dropped the pen back down onto his desk and slumped down in his chair.

Had school always been this nerve-wracking? He couldn’t remember.

A snort drew his attention, and Bucky glanced to his left to find you sitting a few seats down in the same back row, watching him in amusement.

It caught him off-guard.

“Is this your first class?”

A innocent question, unprompted – untainted.

While Bucky knew that there would be some socializing required, especially in the discussion section of the class, never in his wildest dreams did he think that anyone would be willing to strike up a conversation with him. He had half a mind to say ‘no’ and ignore you as long as possible, but for whatever reason, he didn’t. He opened up.

“How could you tell?”

You shrugged. “You’re fidgeting, for one. But mostly because you don’t have a bag.”

Why would he need a bag? He was only taking one class.

At his doubtful look, you spoke again, voice light and airy, “Don’t worry. You’ll learn.”

Well, that was foreboding. Then again, you seemed like you would know. You looked slightly older than most of the other students who were likely fresh out of high school, and you appeared to be all sorts of prepared, what with a leather laptop bag on the chair to your right and some brightly-coloured notebooks, binders, and a few thick textbooks all strewn about the desk in front of you.

A laptop bag, but no laptop. Strange.

Bucky wasn’t really sure why he wanted to know, but he nodded to your books and asked anyway, “What else are you taking?”

“Mostly upper-level psychology classes. I’m in my final year. What about you?”

“This is my only class,” he admitted, and to him, that wasn’t a satisfactory answer. He was only taking the one class with no particular goal in mind, but here you were, taking at least four other classes judging by the number of textbooks on your desk.

You had a goal.

He didn’t.

You didn’t ask why, though; instead, you offered him your name, along with a bright smile.

“Bucky,” he found himself telling you way too easily.

“Well, Bucky, it’s nice to meet you.” You paused, then, before you made an offhanded comment of, “I think it’s really good to have a friend in class, you know? Mostly so you can steal their notes when you skip.”

A joke, perhaps, but Bucky took it literally. That may have been the stupidest thing he’d ever heard. “I’m not gonna— Who pays thousands of dollars in tuition and then decides not to come?”

Your brows rose in surprise for a moment or two, but then you laughed at his stick-in-the-mud response. “Oh no, you’re one of those. What a goody two-shoes!”

Don’t worry, you’d said. You’ll learn.

But the mischievous sparkle in your eyes let him know that you were just teasing, and what’s more, he actually didn’t mind. No, he kind of liked it, having some normal human interaction for once – not whatever the hell he’d grown used to at the compound. Between blood-spattered banter in the field and too-dark humour used as a coping mechanism, his interactions there were anything but normal.

Bucky also liked that you had no idea how wrong your sentiment was; not that he’d never admit it. This was the first time in a long, long while that he’d been treated like a regular person – not enhanced, not a science experiment, not an Avenger – and he had no intention of shattering the illusion anytime soon.

“I’m not giving you my notes, either,” he deadpanned.

“Oh, I’m sorry. Super goody two-shoes. My mistake.”

When he opened his mouth to respond to your sassy one-liner, however, the professor’s voice sounded from the front of the lecture hall. You gave him a final wink before you turned to face the front, purple pen already poised and ready to go.

Good afternoon! Can you hear me in the nosebleeds? Yes? With me? Okay…

Forty-five minutes passed in a blink, and most of the students quickly started to pack up their belongings – but not you. No, you stayed in your seat and continued scribbling away at something in your notes, seemingly having zero plans to leave anytime soon. Bucky couldn’t help but be curious as to why you weren’t packing up, but it wasn’t any of his business and he didn’t ask.

Armed with a new syllabus and a daunting list of required readings for the week, he pulled himself to his feet and collected his own belongings; only managed to push the chair back in and take about two steps toward the door before he heard your voice again.

“Hey, Bucky, wait.”

He turned around to see you still reading through one of your textbooks, not even looking in his direction, but in your outstretched hand was a bright pink sticky note.

What?

“Come on,” still focused on your reading, you waved the post-it, pink paper flapping in the makeshift breeze but staying stuck to your finger anyway, “Take it. Here.”

Hesitantly, Bucky stepped closer and accepted the proffered note. Upon it, he found that you’d hastily scrawled your name and phone number, along with what he assumed was meant to be a smiley face. The drawing was god-awful, and a welcome distraction from the way his heart had immediately leapt into his throat because a woman had just given him her phone number.

Her phone number.

“Th— Thanks?” he stammered, unsure.

Now, he certainly wasn’t one to jump to conclusions, but this—

“Don’t get any weird ideas,” you interrupted his train of thought, finally pulling your eyes away from the textbook to look up at him.

Gorgeous, glimmering, big doe eyes focused right on him, now, and seeing you up close like this, a fleeting thought crossed his mind about how attractive you were. He blamed it on the fact that you’d just given him your number, and now his brain only wanted to overthink what he’d interpreted as the first sign of potential interest from the opposite sex in – well, far too long.

Bucky hadn’t been expecting that at all, and he wasn’t particularly interested to pursue such a thing, either. At least not right now. He still needed to get his head on straight; still needed to figure out his own problems before he took on someone else’s.

Even if you were a pretty little thing he might have taken dancing, once.

Then you added, “If you have any questions, just shoot me a text, okay? I remember how lost I was when I first started, especially because I’m a,” you did some air-quotes, then, “‘mature-aged’ student.” Another snort, one much less ladylike than before. “Mature-aged. I’m not that old!”

So it was a friendly offer. Nothing more. Not like the implications in the 40s – and Bucky thought, then, that if you were considered to be ‘mature-aged,’ he didn’t want to find out how he’d stack up.

“Thanks,” he said again, this time a little less unsurely. “I appreciate it.”

Another one of your bright smiles brought a sense of calm over him, a feeling that carried over even when you poked fun at him again, “Then I guess I’ll see you next week, Mr. Goody Two-Shoes.”

“Yeah,” he responded, feeling the corners of his lips turn up just a little at your goodnatured teasing. “See you next week.”

And when he left the lecture hall, fluorescent pink post-it stuck to the inside of his notebook, Bucky’s footsteps felt just a little lighter than before – and so did his heart.

Part Two

#bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes x you #bucky x reader #bucky x you #bucky barnes #breathe

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stoweboyd · 9 years

Text

What’s My Agenda: the Future of Work and Work Technologies, or Work Futures

People tend to think of not knowing as something to be wiped out or overcome, as if ignorance were simply the absence of knowledge. But answers don’t merely resolve questions; they provoke new ones.

| Jamie Holmes, The Case for Teaching Ignorance

[Note: This piece was originally published in August 2015 at Gigaom.com. I am reposting it here as a response to various inquiries, where people have been asking for more of a background on the topic of work futures. It has been slightly updated and reformatted.]

The central line of inquiry for my work as an analyst and researcher is the future of work and work technologies, or ‘work futures’, for short. Before breaking that down, let me try to clarify what those terms mean. I will do so by asking a few questions, with Jamie Holmes’ observation, above, in mind.

On one hand, the intent of the phrase ‘the future of work’ is obvious, just like any other ‘future of’, such as ‘the future of dentistry’ or ‘the future of the European Union’. But the reality is that the meme of ‘the future of work’ has developed a strong connotation related to a specific set of progressive ideals about work, and an underlying implicit criticism of the state of work today, and the preceding era, as well.

‘The future of work’ is an academically-oriented domain of discourse, with a strong lean into new theories of humanist business management, and with closely related ideas of economics and organizational development. As a simplification, I have been using work futures as a shorthand or synonym for ‘the future of work and work technologies’, and will do so for the rest of this post and going forward in general. In fact, work futures was the name of the consulting company that I created when the old Gigaom shut down in March 2015.

The growing interest in work futures has arisen as a central area of discussion about organization, management, and adaptation to new technologies, especially those which are based on the form and function of social networks and social media. This is an expansion and absorption of the discipline called social business, that started in the early ’00s and had been drained of emotive force by 2010, principally due to the blur caused by vendor marketing that has drifted back into the ‘right information to the right people at the right time’ vein, and lost the thread of a more humane workplace and the aspiration for people to find meaning and purpose in work.

The first wave of social business was principally an adoption of technologies like blogging, wikis, forums, intranets, community software, and various sorts of messaging. This was an early phase, much of which predated social networks like Twitter and Facebook.

The second phase of social business tech was more of an aspect of Web 2.0 era technologies, transitioning to software-as-a-service, and increasingly mobile. However, it was principally a desktop-based era, and newer solutions and practices have emerged which are much more mobile at their core, and less likely to be deployed behind the firewall on company servers.

Enterprise 2.0 was a school of thought that was strongly technology centered, based on the parallelism with the term Web 2.0. It was a school of thought that took the ‘tech’ side in the perennial debate about ‘which is more important, the technology or the people side of social business?’ Andrew McAfee of MIT is perhaps the leading advocate for the term, but it has been displaced first by ‘social business’ and now by ‘the future of work’ and ‘digital transformation’.

Digital transformation can be thought of as an industrialization of the thinking behind the research and practice of work futures, building around the growing popularity of customer experience as a unifying metaphor for customer-centered business thinking in an increasingly digital world.

Just as fast as social business has been eclipsed by work futures, in turn work futures is rapidly being crowded out in entrepreneurial and existential management and tech circles by digital transformation. Digital transformation can be thought of as an industrialization of the thinking behind the research and practice of work futures, building around the growing popularity of customer experience as a unifying metaphor for customer-centered business thinking in an increasingly digital world.

Here’s a definition I used in a recent presentation:

Digital Transformation: A new operating model of business — based on continuous innovation — by the application of digital technologies and the restructuring of operations around customer experience to better engage with customers, the company ecosystem, and the greater marketplace.

Note that the work futures content is buried mostly in the ‘restructuring of operations’ phrase, and the shape and tenor of those changes is in service to the need to get onto a digital footing in relation to customers. The focus on humanization and democratization of work in work futures discourse is shifted to customers at the center of the digital transformation weltanschauung.

I threw out the terms ‘entrepreneurial and existential management’ above, and they warrant some unpacking.

Entrepreneurial management is the branch or thread of management thinking and writing that extols entrepreneurialism above other approaches, venerates start-up culture, and which advocates for the application of practices that have come from that quarter for other, and older, companies. This includes lean and agile practice, data-centered management, and valuing experimentation and learning over tradition and institutional knowledge. There is much to admire in entrepreneurial thought, but there are aspects of this body of thought that carry forward questionable practices from the past, such as the central role of consensus building which can lead to group think and the suppression of innovation and diversity.

Existential management takes entrepreneurialism and macro-economic ideas–like Christensen’s disruption theories–and casts the challenges of business into a zero sum landscape shaped by arguments to induce management to operate through a sense of impending doom, that without new principles of business their companies will crash and burn. To the good, there are times when raising the spectre of a dangerous future can help focus attention, but this is easily overused.

I am not making light of the core truths of some of these ideas, such as the potential for companies to disrupt established industries or markets, as Apple, Google, and Uber have done, or the vast potential of lean and agile practices for business. However, the tendency toward hyperbole, and a deeply sententious, and sensationalist writing style by many in these threads often obscures the foundational value of the core ideas being expressed.

At the highest level, those exploring work futures blend cultural and economic criticism, advocacy for a more humanistic set of principles for the management and operation of business, and the scientific insights coming from fields like complexity theory, cognitive science, behavioral economics, and social psychology. As I said in a recent keynote, the shared premise of those investigating work futures is the application of new understanding about human interaction, motivation, and drive, and to embody that understanding in a new way of work.

In the months and years to come I will continue to explore and research the threads that make up the fabric of work futures, including these:

Tools for Work Communications: ‘Social Collaboration’, Work Management, Work Chat, Working Out Loud, and Workforce Communications — I will be closely observing the shifting landscape of the tools being applied for work communications, and the many diverging and competing theories of management that are buried in their architectures.

Culture Management — The tools and techniques being used to create an organization climate where higher levels of feedback and greater degrees of quantitative assessment of engagement lead to a better understanding of the sentiment and orientation of all involved in the workplace.

The New Social Contract — I’ve started a new series on Gigaom Research focused on the changing social contract: the operating premises that underlie the relationships between employees, management and the extended workforce of part-timers, freelancers, and independent and dependent contractors. The new social contract is also influenced by issues like diversity, economics, regulation, and the role of government and other non-corporate actors, like unions.

AI, Robots, and The Ephemeralization of Work — The rising power of robots, artificial intelligence, and algorithmic processing of data is leading to many occupations being taken over in whole or part, with humans having to find work elsewhere. This is one of the most critical trends in work futures. I wrote in the Pew Research report AI, Robots, and the Future of Jobs,

The central question of 2025 will be: What are people for in a world that does not need their labor, and where only a minority are needed to guide the ‘bot-based economy’?

Fast-and-Loose Organization and Culture — A great deal of the smoke and heat in ‘the future of work’ is about new forms of organizations relying on different cultural foundations. This includes the democratization of work in general, and the adoption of new approaches — like Holacracy — that rework the notions of business management. The emerging consensus is that organizations are moving toward lateral and bottom-up networks and away from top-down hierarchies. (Note that hierarchies are networks, too, but ones with slow-and-tight forms of communications and control.) Today’s companies are becoming fast — agile, flexible, resilient — as opposed to slow — stable, rigid, unchanging. To become fast, you have to become loose: relaxing the strong ties of hierarchic controls. I will be tracking the advances made in this area closely.

Leadership and Management — Even management gurus have been suggesting that management has to be rethought in light of the changing conditions for organizations, today. Gary Hamel described the need to move away from bureaucracy in The Beyond Bureaucracy Challenge: Creating Inspired, Open, and Free Organizations, and asking the questions that will shape my investigations in this area:

Managing is largely about controlling and coordinating — the question is, can the work of managing be pushed out to the periphery of our organizations? Can it be automated? Can it be dispensed with entirely? Is it possible for an organization to be highly decentralized and precisely synchronized? Can you get discipline without disciplinarians? Are there ways of combining the freedom and flexibility advantages of markets with the control and coordination advantages of traditional hierarchies? Can we reduce the performance drag of our top-heavy management structures without giving anything up in terms of focus and efficiency? To what extent can “self-management” or “peer-management” substitute for “manager-management?”

Lamentably, bureaucracy lives on, where the few rule the many, and hierarchic management is still accepted as the norm. Entrepreneurial management is becoming the norm, but that may not be going far enough.

Innovation, Creativity, and Learning — Central to many discussions about work futures is the premise that increasing innovation in established companies is problematic, but unleashing the creativity of employees is essential for companies to compete and survive in times of rapid change. As a result we see a great deal written about practices to increase innovation, such as continuous learning, and the selection of people with certain psychological traits — like curiosity — as a precondition of increased innovation.

Cognitive Science — It’s interesting to see that cognitive science has recently shed light on common fallacies about learning, such as the notion that we learn better by focusing on a single skill at a time (see Cognitive Science Upends Conventional Wisdom About Studying). Like that example, there’s a long list of new findings from cognitive science that should have major impacts on business, management, and how we perceive behaviors at work: others and our own. However, much of these findings haven’t found their way into the workplace.

Work/Life Balance and the Costs of High Performance — Recent discussions about the costs of high pressure work environments — including the buzzfest about the New York Times exposé of Amazon — have brought the tension between ‘high performance’ workplaces and work/life balance to the forefront. I will be at the forefront of those discussions.

Open offices, remote work, and the mobile workforce — A revolution has taken place in business in just the past five years, driven by the rise of mobile devices and ubiquitous connectivity, we’ve witnessed wholesale changes in the physical layout of offices and the diaspora of workers from the old notion of working nine-to-five at the same desk for twenty years to a way of work that would have been unimaginable ten years ago.

Incentives, Meaning and Purpose — Moving past the extrinsic motivations of money and benefits, one of the major themes in work futures is interleaving intrinsic motivations — like meaning and purpose — into a larger mesh, in which human striving can be better understood.

Digital Transformation — Digital transformation is gaining greater weight as a result of growing awareness regarding the ‘digital customer’ (which might be better considered the ‘connected customer’). The premise is that businesses have to basically turn themselves inside out to engage customers who are migrating away from traditional forms of media consumption, and are now connected at nearly all times through mobile and other digital devices. This is associated with the growing role of new marketing thinking — based on reaching the customer at all ‘touch points’ along the ‘customer journey’ — and the declining power of the CIO and IT. Companies undergoing a digital transformation often appoint or hire someone to act as chief digital officer, which may be a stint while the company is being transformed, or may be a replacement for the CIO.

You can be sure that I will be trying to create new questions, not just answer the ones I am starting with.

It is, I realize, a broad palette, and I am sure that I am setting myself a stretch goal to included all of these topics. On the other hand, considering how these topics inevitably influence each other — or better said, are inherently tightly linked to each other — it would be pointless to enumerate only a few of these and to pretend that the others can be ignored.

You can be sure that I will be trying to create new questions, not just answer the ones I am starting with.

#work futures #the future of work

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dropsofletters · 4 years

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one hundredth page

title: one hundredth page pairing: qian kun/reader genre: university!au/silent love!au/friends to lovers!au summary: a thesis is just one big, long goodbye to university and a tremendous hug from adult life. it is also a headache if you happen to be a psychology major. when her friend basically ditches her as her partner on her thesis and the textbooks are unable to give her an eventful idea to get the best grade she can, her whole world comes crashing down. behind some textbooks in the library seated her savior, glasses propped on the bridge of his nose, lowered by his fingers when she screams: “qian kun, i need your help!”. type: fluff/romance word count: 10,756

As though needles are going through her throat, she feels. Swallowing is already difficult on its own, but having to sit down and work in a word count that seems unreachable. The line in the document blinks, mocking the stupid fifteen words she has out of hundreds more. Her head, though thumping with the need of rest, seems to be stuck in doing both things—writing her thesis and keeping her eyes opened, skin shivering with a triggered fever, blankets covering up her head to warm the air around her up while she shivers. Everything seems to be twisting and turning, her eyes glossy and unable to concentrate on the task at hand.

This was the worst season to get sick.

Sniffling, her fingers skim around the keyboard using too many ‘therefore’s’ and ‘furthermore’s’, none coming to the presentation of an issue that she should have plotted long ago. Nothing sounds perfect, keeping her in a never-ending state of turmoil and frustration. Leaning her head against her couch, she uncovers her face to breathe some fresh air in, wanting to toss her hand against the keyboard and then just send it her thesis partner’s way so she could get it over and done with. Nonetheless, that is far from the reality that she could potentially depend on, so she ignores the clogged up nose and the headache, and lets her hands do its magic in the blank document.

Only that her body jolts awake mere hours later, sweat pooling on her lower back and her forehead. When she opens her eyes, she hears the sound of pots clashing against one another—one of her three roommates must have gotten home, but the obnoxiously loud sound is not equal to the ringtone that fills the room. Draping one arm over her eyes, she remembers that her laptop is resting over her abdomen when the sound of a low battery percentage has her looking at the screen. Groggily, her hand pats around the coffee table, taking the device in between her fingertips, the name of her thesis partner glowing in the screen.

Not to be mistaken, this is quite possibly the most beautiful stressful time that she has ever gone through. A little bit of masochism there, something her psychology major tells her, but it is her truth. A thesis means that she is one step closer to earning that degree that she has worked endlessly for, long hours of studying sounding melodious to her ears when she recalls that she doesn’t have to do it anymore. Or, rather, she won’t have to do it after her thesis.

Gravity brings her phone down to her ear, nervousness coming to her senses when she realizes what time it is. Eight at night, and she started working on it at four. Whether it was her fever or the fear of failure, she did not know, but one of those had caused her to sweat endlessly, the friction in between her partner and herself suddenly becoming palpable when she picked up.

“Where’s your part of the thesis?” Swallowing thickly, she listened to the roughness of the woman’s voice, only to have her grasping at her throat. Somewhere on the internet, after tired research of what to do for her sore throat, she had heard that rubbing her knuckles down the column of her neck would help ease the pain and make it easier for her to even swallow saliva, but when she does such thing and tries to speak, her voice fails her, breathy and raspy. “Answer me! Hello? Are you there?”

“I—I’m sorry. I’m still sick.” And damn her body for not reacting how she wanted it to, but not enough reverse psychology has helped her to do anything that she should have done long ago. Her eyes are aching when she put her laptop down on the coffee table, turning to her side on the sofa when her classmate continued speaking.

“Well? You just have to sit down and write something. We have one month left and you’re procrastinating—”

“I’m trying. I’ll send it today.” She spoke, desiring her hardest not to snap at the person on the other end. Perhaps, the fact that she did not like being bossed around played a huge part on it or she sincerely only paired up with her classmate because said woman was the best in class, but that excitement to work together is long gone, as it seems.

Scoffing, the other woman says: “When will you send it? In the middle of the night as always?”

“What?” She asks, wincing audibly when a shrilling pain settled on the back of her throat. “I never do that! You’re just overreacting. Can’t I get sick for once without having you being so annoying?” Her eyes widened, her headache worsening with the stress that now took over her body. Typical, untasteful, bringing her a sense of panic and fear that shook her every joint, articulations too sore to move to her will, but the whisk of anger falls to lifelessness when she realizes she can’t even transport properly.

Miserable as always and obsessed with perfection, her thesis partner screamed into the phone before she could even say anything else. “I don’t know about you, but I actually want to graduate and with honors, not like some half-assed Freud wannabe.” Her lips parted at the sound of her voice, sitting up when she realizes it is just one of those nights where everything falls upon her feet, crumbling down to nothingness. “I’m kicking you out of this project. Don’t even dare do anything with it—”

“As if I would, you’re just studying theories that have been proved plenty of times before.” She lands some punches, threatened and triggered both at the same time, deciding that if she is going to sleep tonight, she has to do it with peace, knowing that she sat someone’s ass down.

“At least I know about said theories—”

“Yeah, whatever. Bye.” Her fingers press down on the red button like her life depends on it, closing her laptop with a thud before laying back on the couch, pulling the blankets up her body and deciding that for one night and simply one night, she is going to relax.

The next morning comes with the crippling fear of not graduating at the time she had hoped and of course, with lack of caffeine given that she can’t even let the liquid go past her throat without hissing at the pain. To say the least, she wants to run into dreamland and get lost in it, using her body’s automatic mode to start a new thesis and get it over and done with, but by the time she is out of her classes, she realizes that there is more to this world than letting it win over you, so with the little determination she has left and her hoodie pulled over her head, she lets the air of the campus caress her face, walking over to the local library to get lost in psychology books, free Wi-Fi and definitely and most importantly…get to that graduation and have her farewell with university.

The library is a place she frequented the most when she was a freshman or a sophomore, definitely the home for productivity during the hardest time of her university life. Those years, she did live far away from the campus, more often than not staying at the library when she had various classes in the day, studying in those hours and leaving to her home at ungodly hours of the night, only to wake up even earlier. She will never recover those nights of sleep, she realizes, the bags under her eyes more prominent at this time of her life than they had ever been before, but she thanks the excellent knowledge she earned in that time to the hardships.

She had forgotten the wood was dark in the library, definitely not the minimalistic style of decoration but it did have a monochromatic color scheme, tables filled with books and laptops, the book-club individuals clearly visible by the smiles on their faces as they read and the hardworking students even more noticeable with their looks of distress, in the verge of crying or laughing about their misery. Coffee filled the air, typical of students, and definitely somewhat intoxicating the more she neared the tables in the back—her caffeine intake was low, making her drag her feet against the floor, nodding her head to someone who greeted her though she did not even look their way, plopping down on the seat and putting her laptop down, her eyes trailing down the psychology section when she sees someone taking out a handful of books, turning around to introduce his enchanting face.

Oh, she knows this guy…and he may be the only great thing she has seen all week.

His brown hair neatly falls over his forehead, clear that he takes the time to make himself look good, the collar of a white shirt appearing under his beige sweater, the epitome of a studious guy as he makes his way through the library. In reality, he was there in those eventful days of studying in the library in her earlier years of university—Qian Kun is a studious psychology major, as well, definitely the type of person everyone envies for his habit of acing everything he tries. His features, though meant to be stoic and harsh, fall into the name of beauty—slightly bigger nose, thick eyebrows framing his sweetened eyes perfectly, thin lips in a rosy color when he takes a sip of his tea, different from the rest as he dives deep in a story of knowledge.

His name is at the top list of everything, word of mouth in the shape of those syllables that represent him, but he always disappears in the back of her head, memories that she never recalls of silent endeavors. She thinks that if they have talked once, it is an exaggeration of her, because in reality they only know of each other thanks to acquaintances. Not to be mistaken by lack of interest, because Qian Kun is evidently a man of high interests, sweet talk and enchanting nature…but he will always be another person in this world, people that will never have to deal with her…

He’ll always be Qian Kun. Never Kun. Never a friend. Just someone else in this library, taking the same space as her in that book-filled fantasy of hers.

Standing up from her spot, she was mindful of keeping her things organized before looking for her favorite textbooks in the psychology side of the library. Her nosy curious pushes her to press her hands on the expanse of the bookshelves to look at Kun’s face, writing down notes from something he just read, nodding his head along to what he had just written, using different types of pens and colors. Mindful, he is, and she bites her lip when a smile tries to escape, dancing along the subject that she had completely forgotten how cute he really is. In the first few months of university, she had prayed to have some classes with him in one of her semesters…and it never happened, fate knowing more than she ever would.

Taking out a few books, she rests them in between her chest and her crooked arm, taking one last glance at Kun before returning to her seat. On the way there, though, her body is stopped when a loud sneeze leaves her lips, sniffling her runny nose away and looking around to see if anyone had seen her. Not a single ‘bless you’ is thrown her way, but she does see Kun lifting his eyebrows, waving his hand at her softly with a pen resting in between his hair and his ear. She does the same, fingers wiggling before settling her mind into the task at hand: coming up with a thesis name, subject and getting it over and done within a month.

She can absolutely do this.

She will, rather.

In dreams, actually, because the hours she spends there are spent in absolute distress as she tries to come up with an idea, only to erase it quickly when she realizes it is not interesting enough. She crosses over the thoughts she had written down, the list becoming shorter and shorter with the passage of time. At some point, people start to leave, chairs dragging across the floor, the smell of coffee being replaced with sad and tragic atmosphere of the library when alone. The lights feel somewhat scarier when they cast down on her textbook, her laptop longing for some touch of interest, but it is abandoned. Her hands try to rub at her throat, wishing that her water bottle had some more of that juice her roommate had prepared for her, but that would never happen in such a bad week.

The sound of someone’s laptop shutting is not different from anything she has heard in the past hour but the smell that lingers fifteen minutes later does make a difference, much more when there is heat radiating towards her hand when someone places something down on her table. When she lifts her gaze, she sees soft fingers wrapped around a Styrofoam cup, reading a tea order that she would never be able to forget. Chamomile, good for the stomach and for the heart, but the person who put it there is even more interesting. Kun’s hair is a little bit more rustled, as if he had run all the way there, but that must be impossible. His cheeks are pink, tilting his head to the side slightly when he speaks.

“I thought this would be good for your cold.” Though, what she has is definitely the worst cold that could have gotten to her—she’d even call it a flu or the reason of her imminent anger, but she can’t voice that out, not when her voice suddenly disappeared in the morning, thanks to the usage of her voice the previous night. Her hands fiddle for her notebook, watching Kun’s smile fall when she uncaps her pen and writes down on the page.

“Sorry, I can’t speak well. My throat hurts too much.” She writes down, hoping that he understands her handwriting and it seems he does because he pushes the cup closer to her, humming at her reasoning.

“More of a reason for me to give you this cup of tea.”

“Thank you.” She mouths, watching the confusion on his face when reading her lips only to reach forward for her notebook, sighing with a smile on her face and writing what she wants to say. “Thank you, Qian Kun. It’s nice to see you.”

“It’s a pleasure seeing you, too. Well, I always see you around the campus, you know…” He trails his voice, licking his lips before giving her a shy smile. Wishful thinking is for her to desire to have a voice just to ask how he has been doing and what there is to him that makes him so interesting, but she is stuck in the state of blueness that overtakes her with sickness. “I’m glad to help.” She only manages to nod her head, lifting her thumb up in the air and making him chuckle, delightful to her ears when he waves at her. “I’ll have to get going, though. I’ve been working on my thesis all night…” It shows through his face, definitely not as clear as the helplessness in her face, but something is lacking in his precious and bright persona. “Go home soon, okay?”

And with that, she sees Qian Kun leave like he normally does, a stranger like always…a book she will never get to read, much less now that she is about to graduate—

If she finishes that thesis, that is.

📑

Seeing the starlight is the most magical moment of her night.

Working as an intern on top of being a student is the most difficult task of her life currently, draining all energy away from her, keeping her from dreaming the most impossible of things simply to stay in the now. Stars, however, do not think that way. They calm her down when she takes a deep breath against the bus’s window, clouding her vision for a moment, though it is forgotten when she closes her eyes. She weights the option of sleeping for a bit while she gets to the campus…or simply staying awake and relishing on a good night of sleep, forgetting the thought of getting lost in the middle of nowhere for her negligence. It seems the first option wins against the rational one, her head leaning back slightly as she relishes on the nicest sleep she has gotten ever since last week, when she was terribly sick.

The air in the bus is perfect, too, shy in its touch but cold when it approaches her, barely passing through her sweater but definitely not as welcomed by her leggings. Her eyes are droopy, already closed by the time her hands relax against her backpack, but the sound of someone sitting beside her wakes her up, gripping the straps of her backpack on her lap just in case someone tries to steal from her. Now with her mind buzzing with fear, she turns to look at the suspect, surprised by the turns of life of getting her to see a person she rarely catches up on twice in less than a month, Qian Kun’s gaze not even touching hers.

Did he sit beside her because he wanted to or simply because he decided to take whatever seat came first to his mind? She wonders, looking at Kun’s expression as he stares ahead. His hair is sleeked back, office clothes cladding his body, his blazer hanging from his crooked elbow, his tie a little bit loose—he probably doesn’t like being too put together, but he has to do it for his job. The stars disappear when he is there beside her, shining with the thin layer of oiliness around his nose, eyes portraying all the patience in the world when he breathes out to the atmosphere around them:

“I wanted to see how you were doing…” He says, turning his face to her and she can’t help but smile softly. Kun’s overall personality is very welcoming, the manly and naturally charming way he uses to speak coming off a bit nerdy when she looks more into him. Qian Kun reads like a man who is afraid of not being better, of not being good to others…and that is such a nice thing to have in someone’s personality at this era in the world. “Not that I got in this bus knowing you were here, though.” He excuses himself, even when she knows that is not the case. “…I didn’t even know you took this route. I found a job just last week and…you know, now I know you go through the same place that I do. We’re going to the campus, too.”

Chuckling slightly, Kun seems to be surprised by the sound of her voice. Void, it once was, not too long ago, and now life fills her fervidly with happiness. The sleepiness drains away from her, staying in the form of aching eyelids and a sense of hotness that lingers on her body even when she speaks to him. “Better. My throat doesn’t feel like hell for once,” She says, pressing her backpack to her chest before sighing. “I didn’t know you worked nearby, either.”

“I’m working for a psychologist. I’m still in the trainee stage…but I’m getting a paycheck, that’s good enough for now.” She imagines he is the one to search for bigger and better things, never staying in one place for too long if they mean to cut his wings. “I’m surprised you’re speaking.”

“Tell me about it. I drank lots of tea with honey.”

“Chamomile?” He hopefully asks, earning a shameful smile from her when she replies with a shortened ‘yes’. “I really enjoy the taste. It keeps me awake for when I have my long nights of studying. Much more now with my thesis and all…” One good look at him is enough to know Kun does not deserve to be alone in this world. No one does, unless they want to, to be completely alone—he deserves endless conversation, a text to welcome him after his long endeavors of studying, nothing more and nothing less. He, with his glasses propped up in the bridge of his nose, silver brimmed and shining beneath the lights inside the bus, looks like someone who has been alone once or twice in his life and though he had given his heart out to the stars, he never asks for it in return. She remembers him like that even from the first time she met him, fixing his glasses when he flipped a page to continue reading…he seemed so alone in his table and she was alone, too. What a curse of destiny to keep them that way.

“God, don’t even say the T word.” She sighs, closing her eyes tightly before leaning her head back. After all, keeping eye-contact has never been her best habit. She doesn’t do it often, really. “My partner left me and now I have to start the thesis all over again.”

“No!”

“Yes!”

“Who was it?” Kun asks, looking forward by the time she returns her gaze to him. You see, it has always been like this—when life reaches out to them to unite them, someone is out of pace. It is told that when someone is dancing and they cannot keep the tempo, their partner gets lost as well…and that is what happens with them. Two people who are so used to being alone that they don’t recognize company.

She pushes her lips forward, thinking about the uneventful night more than a week ago. “Did you ever have a class with Yuna?”

“The one in top of the class all the time?” Out of habit, he fixes his glasses and it feel damn right to have someone listen to her. What she rarely has now that she spends most of her time seated in desks, working for others and completing university tasks as an almost-graduate. “What did she do?”

Qian Kun is more than just a name; he’s the right amount of curiousness that a person needs to live an eventful life. Not to be mistaken, he’s not perfect, too manly in his way of speaking, perhaps a little bit obstinate with the people that bother him, but he’s charismatic, opening the gates of her heart as they go towards the campus. When the bus arrives to their destination, she feels like she is unable to pull away from him, finishing a story about something that happened in her past with a smile on her face, Kun listening with intent, ears made to make the world feel alive and his words light up the crowd in her stomach with warmth.

That night, even when she enters her dorm and all the lights are turned off, indicator of her roommates being asleep, she feels like she is not alone. That night, everything seems to be able to be okay for once.

📑

If she ever becomes a famous psychologist, and only if this happens, she wants every chapter of her life to be titled “what the fuck?”, either in all capitals or in lowercase, depending on the levels of confusion on each of these states.

Pushing her head further into her palm, she wonders if she will ever get an idea nice enough—even her new tutor tells her that she can’t seem to find her vision, the thoughtfulness that exudes from her when she actually thinks of something. However, her creativity is lacking, blocked by the utter stress of other classes and continuously working, leaving her with a mess of previous printed works in the library, reading over titles to see if she can get some inspiration. None of them hit her wildly enough, or none of them sound interesting, and the deadline is coming sooner. Three weeks to work through a presentation, write a thesis and ace it, as well as make a PowerPoint presentation that is both elegant and fulfilling.

Whites, grays, those are the colors that give out the most professional look, she imagines…but it’s not something she can do or think about if she hasn’t worked through the tangles of the project first. If she hasn’t picked a subject, actually. Turning around on her seat, she flips one of the printed thesis closed as she tosses the plastic-covered work to the side, picking another one up and reading through the first few words. Another Freud based work, next.

Her fingers are starting to become dry as she continues to flip through the pages, one after the other after the other, picking another thesis up and finding everything but inspiration. Sleeping sounds good at the moment and maybe, she should be back in her dorms instead of staying in the 24-hour library her university offers. She should really just try to rest properly and maybe; he’ll brain will work nicely again. She has only barely studied for the test she has tomorrow, given that she has been working endlessly n the new office and as an intern, she still has to organize the list of patients by case and date of their last appointment. It’s not exactly what she is studying for, but if she wants to be taken seriously as a psychologist, she has to go through this.

Through all the pain that settles in the back of her eyes, wishing to check the endless notifications she has on her phone of months’ worth of negligence, of forgetting about family, friends and roommates simply to sit down and get that degree. The hardest part of the run is when a person is about the reach the end-line; suddenly, she realizes how tired she is, how the other competitors are catching up to her and those who are ahead seem to be mocking her by now. What she wants and what she needs seem to be different, leaving her angered as she wonders if university was really the best decision.

When she lifts her gaze, she hears the sound of someone entering the library, restlessness taking over his body when her eyes take in his appearance. Qian Kun’s glasses are crooked, hair done a mess as he wears his pajamas—they are matched, nothing to be surprising about that, and she even catches herself gliding her stare across his toned arms, the definition of his waist when he leans over the table after picking out a variety of books. His jaw, marked down in a slightly curved shape and she swears that even though he is not smiling, the holes in his cheeks gave the depth of craters. Hypnotized by the beauty of him and lacking sleep, his legs seem a thousand times more inviting now that he sits down, meaty in just the perfect amount and…

The least she has to think about is making out with Qian Kun in the back of the library with one of those thighs propped in between her legs, but there she is, shaking her head as if she had just thought of the devil.

But Kun is an angel, there is no way he could ever be half like what has gone through her head just now.

Taking out his laptop, Kun gets to work even when she swears she sees eye-boogers in the inner corner of his eyes. His fingers move diligently, looking down at the set of words he had just pointed at with his finger, moving his gaze from the screen to the book, the screen to the book. He’s diligent, totally expected of him and the exact reason why she takes up on the challenge of standing up from her spot and screaming at the top of her lungs.

“Qian Kun, I need your help!”

Someone shushes her from afar, not to be misunderstood, even though almost five students are all the people that stay in such a place at that ungodly hour of the night, she is still a bother. Lowering her head slightly to the librarian, who only gives her a dirty look, she turns back to see Kun’s widened gaze from behind his glasses. She picks up the big amount of printed works she had picked out for the night, dragging them to Kun’s table and settling them down. The thud is softer than her shout, taking a seat in front of him in the matter of seconds. “Won’t you ever stop calling me Qian Kun? It sounds like you’re my professor.” He says, earning a giggle from her that she tries to muffle.

“I just have heard everyone call you that when they talk about you to me. Qian Kun.”

“Just call me Kun.”

“Okay, I will. I’m sorry.” She points out, knowing well that if she ever wants to tease him or get that supposed obstinate side of him out, she will use the Qian Kun card. Fiddling with her thumbs, she wonders if she really is interrupting him; he has taken out his set of pens and pencils, has a notebook open and is writing down whatever he has read in that textbook. “I was going to ask you, if it’s not too much of a bother however, if you could help me come up with a subject for my thesis.” It sounds stupid and it makes her feel even more so when she realizes that she is so idiotic that she can’t even come up with an idea. Kun frowns at that, blinking quickly as he wishes he could be more helpful.

“I would have to think for a bit…but…it was already hard to get an idea for mine.” He chuckles, rubbing the back of his neck before stopping the movement of his fingers over his keyboard. “Ah, you know…my tutor was telling me that I shouldn’t work on this thesis alone and that I need to do some major improvements if I want it to be as interesting as it can get, so I think we could work together.”

On his head hovering was a halo, it has always been there, typical of an angel like him, but right now it seems to be shining towards her, a reminder that kind people still exist in this world. “But, I don’t want to be bothersome,” Still, doubt takes over her heart, afraid that he could ever think she is using him. “I don’t want you to think I am using you.”

“I wouldn’t think that!” He exclaims in a whisper before turning his laptop around, showing the title of his work and the pages that he has written. “I’ve been writing my thesis but it’s incomplete. I studied, theoretically, the aftereffects and psychological changes of physical affection after several meetings. I took up on different theories; from what could change if a person were to kiss a stranger or what years’ worth of a relationship can do to PDA.” The explanation is brief, simple, interesting and touching on a subject that everyone goes through. More often than not, students in university or college get lost in nightly affairs with absolute strangers and after graduation, most get married. Marriage life, however, can turn all types of affection into boring routines. “But Mr. Hung told me it’s too much theory. Real, but not practical.”

Her lip is bitten down by her teeth, staring at the screen and pressing down on the buttons to read more of the information. A frown settles on her face, taking in the information before clicking her tongue. “You have to study subjects, that’s what normally makes a thesis interesting. Like, a little investigation.” Finally, she looks at him. “We can find some people in the campus. Let’s find people that have been together for long, friends kissing, and maybe strangers kissing. We could study the state of nervousness, the levels of awkwardness, possibly the aftermaths and if they create some kind of bond in between the two. We could compare the passion between two strangers and of course, a couple.”

Kun nods his head frantically. “I have a camera, actually. We could make that work.”

“We could.” She breathes out, realizing that she is leaning over the table, pretty much nearer to him than she was in the beginning.

“If you want to work with me on this thesis, that is.”

“What? Qian—Okay, Kun, this is way better than the thesis I had been working in before.” Her eyes gleam with excitement, taking out a textbook from her backpack before smiling. “You have vision.”

“You think so?” He asks and she nods her head.

“I do.”

📑

Meanwhile, the video titled The Kiss Experiment shines bright on the screen, one of the earbuds in her ear and the other inside Kun’s, staring at two people kissing while monitoring their levels of stress and the heart rate, with interviews directly edited by her own hands. Not to say it was not awkward, because it is, simply sitting beside Kun as they look at the subjects, people that they had gathered from around the campus to share a kiss, whether they were a couple or complete strangers. One of them, even, is Kun’s roommate.

The closeness is permanent, knees touching each other under the table as they look at Dong Sicheng portrayed in the screen, along with the woman she had been friends with for a while, a sophomore in her own major. His fingers touched the loose strands of the black bun behind his head, the apples of his cheeks tinted pink but the tips of his ears shining with the color of red. Sicheng’s plush lips move as he tries to talk things out with the stranger, one of the many subjects that wanted to create a conversational bond before diving in the kiss. She realizes, too, that Sicheng is the nervous type—one that wants to please everyone and everything around him.

The magic was done in one week; finding the supposed ‘cast’ for this project, recording it and using the black and white color scheme that they had opted for their project. She has written far more in that week than she had done in the past, using the few free minutes she has at work to write down with endless inspiration, or even getting out of class with the document open in her phone, typing on the screen frantically. Kun is the same, sharing e-mails with her and texts asking how she is doing, their tutor becoming used to the new portrayal of Kun’s project and being far more interested, too.

Pointing at the screen around Sicheng’s face, she clicks her tongue before clicking her pen. “His level of stress is high. He continues touching his own hair and he keeps tapping his foot. Write that down.” And while she adds yet another line to the notebook, divided in different and typical reactions to the situation, Kun makes his annotations in their final draft. She looks at the paused video, Sicheng’s face on the frame when he looks the most stressed out. “Your poor roommate was so scared.”

“I had to get him out of his shell. He’s been so down after his break-up.” Kun tells her, that boyish tone on his voice when he finishes typing, returning his gaze to the screen even though hers is inspecting his expressions. There is something so radiantly natural about him, like he is exactly what he shows, not overly innocent, not exactly devilish. “Besides, he really liked the kiss.”

“Tell me about it,” She scoffs, resuming the video and turning to the screen, watching as Sicheng leans down to capture the woman’s lips in a kiss. “They were into it.”

“It was awkward, wasn’t it?”

“Well, we were locked in a classroom with twenty-six people, all paired up to kiss. And they all kissed right in front of our eyes. I think that’s awkward enough.” She chuckles, Kun’s eyes forming bags under them with the weight of his smile.

“People are going to think we’re cucks.”

“Damn straight.”

Taking her pen in between his fingers, he points at the screen once again, showing the side of Sicheng’s partner face. He is tentative, pointy in his approach when he has a theory. “I think she’s relaxed. Comfortable. Look at her body expression,” Just then, she realizes just how professional Kun is and that magnifies his attractiveness not by a hundred, but multiplies it to a thousand. His eyes study the situation nicely, legs spread and body confident as he speaks. His tone is casual, bringing a sense of comfort to him. “She has her arms wrapped around his waist, unlike most of the people who were embarrassed, and look.” His fingers press down on the spacebar to start the video again, pointing at the movement of her hands. “Sicheng took a little bit more of time to move his hands to her body, but her hands move from his waist to his shoulders and wrap around them. That shows she is the most confident one in the situation, thus the most comfortable.”

“Huh, I hadn’t noticed that…” She mumbles, even though she had been the one to edit The Kiss Experiment. Like gravity, she looks at Kun once again, realizing that he has left her pen over her notebook and writes something down on the paragraph they have been working on for the past couple of minutes. He is so poised, spending the last week giving her instructions and listening to her every word, as if they were meant to work together from the beginning.

As always, she finds herself staring at him and wishing that she could cross that line that keeps them as acquaintances and soon enough, colleagues. His fingers push his glasses up his nose, makes sure they stay in place as he continues to write, hair perfectly put together as always—unless she is counting that time last week when he came to the library after falling asleep, strands tussled to all sides—, sporting that peaceful look on his face. This is the type of beauty no book-club enthusiast could ever describe.

📑

“Go team!”

Clap. Clap. Clap.

“Go team!”

Clap. Clap. Clap.

“Go team!”

And she has never hated her youngest roommate, Mai, quite as much as she hates her right now. Mai is a sophomore, as well, going through the psychology major with the strongest of will but the tiniest of interests. To her, living is in the now, in the air they breathe in the present, which means that education comes second to the importance that is socializing, and, of course, going to the football game in the university campus sounds like an excellent idea. If only Mai was not screaming directly to her ear for the team to do something, when all they are doing is running from one corner to the other, falling on top of each other as if they had money on their hands to steal. The tiny woman by her side dressed herself appropriately, jumping on her seat with the university’s logo imprinted on her t-shirt and her reddened lips shining even more thanks to the Kool-Aid-looking drink she just had. Maybe, having a cheerleader girlfriend did rub off on Mai a little bit…or maybe, she is just naturally obnoxious.

Seated on her chair, she tries her hardest not to fall asleep. As of now, she has already taken her phone out to work on her last version of the thesis—but it is under revision, and instead of studying in the last week she has before her presentation, she is now in some football game because Mai insisted that she needed to have her last ‘university experience’ before she graduates. If she even dares to blink, she is scared that her roommates are going to take her out for a one night stand or some ‘sexy hook-up’ to give a ring to her studious experience. Instead, she opted for the least draining and the most annoying option of her university experience dream which is going to this football game.

Tugging on Mai’s shirt, the woman looks down at her with widened eyes. “What?!” She screams over the noise of equally as excited students, making her wince at the sound contamination that is going around the place.

“I’ll go get something to eat, okay?!”

“What?! I can’t hear you!” Mai points out, her hands cupping around her ears. “You’re going to fit what?!” She doesn’t know what Mai is understanding at this point, but she does movements with her hands, faking that she has a plate on one and is using a fork with the other before screaming once again.

“I’ll go get something to eat!”

Nodding her head, Mai gives her a sweet smile, typical of the charismatic woman. “Ah, okay. I’ll wait here for you!”

The hardest task comes when she has to push through the crowd of overly excited students, all placed on her way until she finally gets out of the masses of people. The farther away she is from the groups of people, the nearer she is to the food stands waiting with microwave heated junk food to fill her stomach. However, when she tries to look for the little bit of money she had brought with her, she is surprised to hear the sound of someone calling her name. The hallway is mostly lonely, apart from the workers of the food stands, but when she really does look around, she realizes Kun is rushing towards her, cheeks heated thanks to the work-out he had just done to get there. Just like Mai, he is wearing one of those notorious football team’s t-shirts, still fitting his frame nicely.

“I didn’t know you were coming here!” He says excitedly, hands resting on his knees as if to catch a breath. She chuckles at his actions, pushing her money down on her pocket once again when she crosses her arms over her chest.

“Why were you running?” It is common nature to be surprised by Kun. The more she spends time with him, the more she feels like he is truly the most genuine person ever. They share a Google Document, spending a chunk of their time leaving little notes and information on the document for the other to read. Whenever they come together in the library, conversation always ensues, about psychology or movies, even getting distracted with magic videos as they try to solve them. Kun is deeply interlaced with hope for her, now.

“I—One of my friends is playing, but I didn’t get here on time. The game is about to end, right?” He asks, only to earn a side-grin from her.

“Ask me again and I’ll still come up with nothing. I was sitting on the bleachers but mentally I was taking a nap.” Sweet and elongated laughter leaves his lips when he stands in front of her and she joins him slowly, realizing that this is far funnier than anything she has done with Mai. “I came here with my roommate…I was going to be studying for our thesis presentation, but she told me I needed the university experience and I came to my first football game. I regret it, though, not as fun as I expected.”

Kun’s eyebrows shoot up at that, pointing down at his shirt. “I like football.”

“I could tell.” Without knowing, they start walking down the hallway, getting further away from the masses of screaming people and nearing the tranquil campus with each step. “Why weren’t you part of the football team?”

Thoughtful he has always been, fixing the glasses that frame his face as the habit that will always stick with him. Whether they are sharing a spot in the bus, like they do almost every day, or if they are seated in the library, Kun is always a masterpiece to look at—and to hear him, god, to hear him is heaven itself. The nature of his word is caring, honest, he has the littlest bit of mischief that she likes to turn around so it ends up somewhat affecting him. She simply adores listening to his voice, the honey of her tea. “Do you even see me as the type to be in the football team?” He asks. “They are all buff.”

When she interlocks her hands behind her back, she comes up with the perfect retort. “…You’re not so bad yourself.”

“Thank you, but I’m not even football-team level of buff.”

“Oh, no, I don’t mean that. But don’t look me in the eye and tell me you don’t work out even the tiniest bit.” She judges him, a smirk appearing on her face when she sees him nod. They stop right in front of the entrance door, the little glasses on the upper part of them showing the stars that decorate the sky, enamoring her with a night of sleep.

“I do,” He announces. “Still, not as buff as a football player.”

“But you’re better in my eyes.” She shrugs, all knowing of the fact she is practically flirting with Kun…but hey, only a week from then, she will be saying her goodbyes to her thesis and thus, her goodbyes to Kun. This has always been written in their story, mainly because Kun has never shown any signs of romantic interest—of juvenile kindness, of course, he has. One day, they will be two strangers again; when he gets that full-time job in the office he has been working in and at some point, she’ll get a lift in her job, or maybe, she’ll move to another state. That’s what she doesn’t know, what the future uses to mock her when she realizes that being an adult is just as puzzling as growing through teenage years. “What matters is that you try.” She says.

Shrugging his shoulders, he stares into her eyes before leaning against the doors. “I never thought I would be the type of guy to be in the football team.” He clarifies, taking out any clouds of confusion that may be in between them. With each moment they spend together, a layer of their past, present and future shows for the other to judge. “I’m not in for the frat-boy lifestyle. I came here to get a degree, make some friends and leave without any judgement. I didn’t want to be known as the football player, or the book-club guy, or whatever. I just…I don’t know; I don’t like titles to my name.”

“You just only wanted to be Qian Kun.” She teases, biting her bottom lip to stifle a laugh, but Kun simply rolls his eyes, a defeated smile making a plot-twist on his face.

“Kind of. Yeah. I like who I am.”

“You should.” She says. “Not a lot of people are like you, me included.” When she crosses her arms over her chest, she opens the doors, watching the night sky from a nearer perspective, letting the gust of air rub on the skin of her collarbones, Kun’s cheeks and for a moment, it messes up his hair. “People like me…we just look at life as tasks. We leave everything for the last minute, we…need inspiration to continue with life. You are not like that.” She whispers to the night, as if she wants to take the opportunity to tell him everything he has shown her with the most simplistic of gestures. “You are Qian Kun, responsible guy, even more responsible worker. I’m sure whoever hires you is going to have a blast.”

“…But when you get inspired, you create magic.” Kun reassures, something that has her scoffing. “I mean it! Your way of redaction, your ideas—your editing, the colors you used for The Kiss Experiment were beautiful. You may not be based on theory, but your creative approach is…wow.” The compliment has her smiling, suddenly realizing that they are alone while everyone else has fun.

“Thanks, Qian Kun.”

“Kun.”

“I’m just saying your last name.”

“But it feels like a teacher is calling my name. It brings me high school flashbacks.”

“Well, sorry.” She excuses herself with a smile on her face before nodding her head slightly, more towards the door as if to prove a point. “Do you want to go grab some real food before we have to go back to our dorms? I’m starving and I think if I eat those nachos over there, I may not make it to the thesis presentation.”

Stepping out with her, the man hums a small ‘yes’ before frowning deeply at a thought that seems to bother him. “Now that we’re mentioning high school…on a scale of one to ten, how much did you hate it?”

“Nine point eight.”

“…I don’t know what kind of answer I expected, but I should have expected that one.”

Some days, talking does not come easily—either her throat is hurting because she is sick or simply, she doesn’t want to deal with the effects of talking. Other days, shutting her mouth up is the hardest task ever, this happens when she is worried out of her mind and she needs to rant about all the possibilities to the person that stands in front of her, but Kun has this effect on her that has her talking, but at the same time she basks on the sound of his voice, on the gleam of his eyes with the night sky reflecting on them when they share a meal together in his favorite cheap restaurant near the campus. His excitement at life is enviable and sometimes, she thinks he is a walking encyclopedia. He knows too much, talking comes easily to him and there is never a dull moment with the man. Boring, he’s not, rather, he’s enchanting.

A gentleman crafted by his own actions, though subtle, in the way he accompanies her in the campus and reassures that he is going to walk her to her dorm. The walk there is even more enjoyable, looking up at the night sky with more of a silent atmosphere around them; the jocks must be celebrating, the cheerleaders must too, the chanting people are probably careless of the exams they have to present this week and went out, as well and their suspicions are made a reality when she approaches her building to realize there is not a lot of noise, even a penny falling to the floor would outcast the sound of their hushed voices.

“So, here’s mine.” She finishes after giving him an introduction to her building, his gaze that had been everywhere but on her now resting upon her features. His fingers are resting inside the pockets of his jeans, smiling softly at the woman he is about to say his goodbyes to. “You shouldn’t have walked me here.”

“This campus is crazy, we don’t know what could have happened to you if I didn’t.” Kun says, licking his lips before tilting his head to the side. “But hey, I made sure you got here safe.”

“You should go back now, too…it’s late.”

“I should, I’m dying to get some sleep.” Her fingers hook around the key to her dorm, twisting it when inside the doorknob to open her door. “I had an excellent night. I—I wanted you to know that.” The man says with a stutter, making her smile when she pushes her door a little bit more.

“Yeah, we should do it again sometime when we don’t have to worry about our thesis.”

“I would love that.”

“Goodbye, Kun.” Though, she doesn’t want to say goodbye. What she wants to do is stay with him, even in utter silence, because talking to him is heavenly but getting to feel his presence is more so.

“Have a nice night!”

“You too!”

When she closes her door, she is surprised to see the lights turned on but when her gaze falls on the three women seated on their small couch, she realizes that she has just been waited-on by her group of roommates. Mai is the one that looks the most disappointed, given that she was also the one that ended up being abandoned in the middle of the football game, but her two roommates spur to life when the sound of Kun’s footsteps get far, far away, cradling their roommate in between their hands to push her to the couch, as well.

“Oh my God, you like Qian Kun!” She can’t help but let out a smile at that, denying it with the most cynic of expressions because…she may like him a bit. The next question thrown her way, however, puts her off guard.

“Is his dick big?”

Sitting up, she opens her mouth wide at the sound of one of her roommate’s voices. “I didn’t see his dick. Is that why you were waiting up for me?”

The three people that shrugged at her shouldn’t have been as surprising as it was at the time.

📑

One day. Make that twenty-four hours. If in one hour there is sixty minutes, in twenty-four hours there are one thousand four hundred and forty minutes. That should be enough preparation for a duo of people who are trying to speak about the effects of one-night stands, romance and how it develops in physical touch throughout the years, the levels of stress it brings and obviously, the easier it becomes with the passage of time. This, on its own, she already knows it. The…hundred and something pages that she needs to read, re-read and continue to do so until her thesis presentation comes by is a little bit more difficult to remember than the simple fact of their experiment.

Lucky for them, or for Kun, one of the professors loves him enough to lend them a classroom. This classroom had welcomed a group of students a handful of weeks ago to use them as experiments, basically, but is now the peaceful place in which they stay as they study together. Hours and hours have gone by, practicing their introduction, what they are going to say, the possible questions and the answers that they could give, taking something that is learned by memory and turning it into passion, into basic knowledge for everyone to understand. All energy is drained away from them at that moment, leaving them lifeless in the spacious classroom, white walls and blinding lights making it seem like she is about to lose her mind. Her partner, on the other hand, seems to be somewhat sleepy, but calm.

His cheek is pressed against a guitar that they found in the classroom, resting on his lap in a comfortable manner. Under him there is the textbook she owns and Kun seems to adore—no, he simply fell in love with the words, the knowledge, the written explanations that leave nothing to the imagination. On the desk, there rests an empty box of pizza from some place Kun has been gushing about lately, but she can’t even concentrate on the hunger that starts to settle on the pit of her stomach when she realizes that there are only twenty-four hours until she defends her last bit of knowledge from her major. That is scary on its own.

The sight of her face must have shown every ounce of anguish that she feels in her heart, because the sound of Kun standing up from his seat and moving towards her catching her attention. He places his hand down on her hand, stopping the movements of her fingers against the desk as he gives her a natural smile.

“Is there something bothering you?”

Everything.

Fucking everything.

She didn’t even realize when she had grown up and right now, at this point of her life, she still feels like a damned teenager. She doesn’t know where she is going, if this job is good for her, if she is knowledgeable enough in the major she has picked, if she will ever be able to give a presentation to this thesis and make it worthy. All she knows is that she is stuck in this moment of reality in which she knows she is about to give one huge, big step into adulthood and it is the scariest thing she has ever done. Nodding her head, she tries to find her voice, like the moment almost a month ago in which she had encountered Kun in her life. “I am just…nervous.” Her tone is tiny, like it may get lost in her windpipe if she simply doesn’t open her mouth a bit more. Shuddering away from him, she crosses her arms over her chest. “What if I don’t do good?”

He shakes his head, dragging a seat until he is seated in front of her. “That is impossible.” This confidence radiates from him sometimes when he has a really good gut feeling. She doesn’t know how Kun does it, but it may come from the fact that he is based on theory…he knows how people work, what they do, why they do it, like any good psychology major should. “You have helped me craft this thesis into the beauty that it is today. I am sure you will do excellently as long as you don’t let your nervousness get to you.”

“But what about life, Kun? What about how I will do at life?” She asks, warming up to him like she has only done it with a handful of people. Most of the time, she likes to speak about subjects as such with people she has known for years, but Kun is special in his own way, radiating an aura of understanding nature. “I’m afraid that I will go out to the real world and that my major will looked down upon. There are plenty of people who go to university and less that graduate, but still a number of people, and they could all be more outstanding than me or better at their jobs than me.”

Humming, he moves his head from side to side. “That can happen,” He starts, blowing at her heart with his words, a little bit of pain ensues from what he says. “But that doesn’t mean it is a bad thing. It will only push you to work harder. Just think of what happened last month, you had already worked on a project and she left you alone. But…when you started to work with me, you were so fast. You did everything exactly how you wanted it and it worked out perfectly.” The compliments have her looking at him with interest, wondering what she had done to get such a full person in such little time. “That shows that you accommodate to the situations in life and that, even when you do it last minute, you come up with incredible ideas and turn a bland project into something incredible.”

“You were the one to create this experiment.” She pushes on him, and the man simply hums.

“It wouldn’t have worked the same if it wasn’t for you. I wouldn’t be half as into it if it wasn’t for your idea.” He argues, earning a smile from her when he rests both hands on the desk, their legs touching under the tiny frame of it. “Let’s practice it one more time and leave it at that. We’ve been locked in here for hours and I feel I’m going crazy.”

He would never notice the beauty of him, the way he stands with pride, how he passes every PowerPoint slide with such ease. The tone of his voice, his intelligence, all masking that naturally enchanting side of him that she has always gushed about. Qian Kun, a month ago, was nothing more than a name and now…it holds the meaning of a person she can’t get out of her head.

📑

The air is taken out of her lungs, limbs shaking by the time she is standing in front of the thesis judges, a few of her classmates sitting down and looking at the presentation uninterestedly, much more given to watch the initial video showing their experiment. It was a risk to do such a thesis, but it was loved by their tutor—something that needs to be studied, sexuality and romance both being equally thought-provoking in the scientific light. The green dress makes her feel a bit stupid, maybe it is not really her color, maybe it should be tighter, but she is trying to remember everything she had learned, giving part of her thoughts and her insight on everything that she is saying.

Kun excels, easily, like he usually does without knowing. She swears she can see the light in his eyes passing through his glasses when he speaks, the same one that he held while they were in the library, wasting or earning time she doesn’t know. Even when he was totally nervous, he still manages to make her feel better—because that is how he is. Psychology teaches people that they have to study others, look for an issue, a pattern, a certain numeration of dots that shows a conclusion in a hundred, but she doesn’t want to study Kun or look for the bad in him when all he has shown her is good. He deserves that, the hug that she gives him when the judges congratulate them, the hundred out of a hundred they got on their presentation, making her wrap her arms around him and hold him in his arms out of thankfulness; the feeling that bursts from her chest mixing in with it.

She has never hugged Kun and this is definitely a good start for that touch. His arms wrap around her waist, finally feeling the tightness of his muscles, the soft skin of his fingers digging on her skin. His smile is prominent to the point she feels his cheeks pressing on her shoulder, chin digging on her scapula. She holds him by the shoulders, and just like he said when he pointed out Sicheng’s video, her hands go to his neck, brings him closer as she thanks him over and over again, getting out of the room whilst talking, their eyes only trained on the other, barely acknowledging the people who congratulate them out of formalities.

Kun takes his backpack away from its spot, opening while she speaks to him. “I can’t believe we got…shit, like, Kun, what are we going to do to celebrate?!” She asks, voice loud now that they are away from their judges. At some point, she knows she is going to have to take a picture with him and commemorate the moment the ‘Freud Wannabe’ got a better grade than her previous thesis partner, but that is in the back of her mind when Kun’s cheeks are flushed and his eyes are almost tearing up out of excitement.

“I don’t know!” He says, taking the well-known textbook out of his backpack before giving it to her. “Take this. I forgot to give it back to you yesterday and…yeah…”

“Why did you carry this here?! This is heavy.” The sound of her voice is surprised, pushing the book under her armpit to keep it close to her body, but Kun only smiles.

“There’s something on the hundredth page.”

Her forehead tightens under her frown, dragging the book away from its spot only to open it on the hundredth page. Flashbacks come back to her, notes stuck to notebooks, pens of all colors, all the essence of Kun in them, but now one of them is attached to the beginning of the eleventh chapter, the one they had studied endlessly for their presentation. The paper is brightly yellow, the letters in black as she reads the words ‘do you want to go out on a date with me?’ there and she swears she feels a smile permanently making home out of her face. When she looks at Kun, she realizes he wants to run away at that moment—afraid that he has pushed her away from such a question.

Little did he know that this is only the first page of their story.

#kun scenarios #kun #wayv scenarios #wayv #nct scenarios #nct #kpop scenarios #writing #cpop scenarios #wayv au #wayv fluff #kun au #kun fluff #the love diaries #university!au #psychology major!kun #nerd!kun

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evakuality · 4 years

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Since we are all bored in quarantine I have a prompt for you. You've (jointly!) written two Davenzi soulmate AUs, and I am curious if there are qualities or events in canon that you consider solid 'soulmate material'? As distinct from other really good pairings.

Hmmmm, this is a really interesting question, anon. First, I have actually written other soulmate things for other pairs under a different name (and no I won’t say what name that is!), but you’re right in that Davenzi are the only pair so far that I’ve done more than one for. In general I just like soulmate ideas, at least when there’s some sort of difficulty around it, where it’s not just ‘find your soulmate and everything is wonderful’ - I need there to be some ‘what sort of world would this look like?’ stuff. So from one point of view, I just like exploring soulmates and the ways that can look.

(putting the rest behind a barrier because as usual for me, it got long)

Still, I’ve been thinking about this ever since I got this ask and I think there are things that feel more soulmatey with Davenzi than other pairings I enjoy. To be clear, when I think soulmates in ‘realistic’ terms I think more about equality, compatibility, trust and therefore the longevity potential of the couple rather than actually being ‘connected mystically’ since I don’t believe that exists in the real world (lol as if fiction is ‘the real world’ but you know what I mean). And in those terms I feel like Davenzi have more of that than other ‘really good’ pairings I enjoy.

One thing Davenzi has that a lot of the other pairings I love don’t is that they are both at the same age and the same stage of life. I know it’s a personal thing, but I love equality between the characters I fall for and it’s very very hard to do that when there’s an age or experience gap. I’ve seen it done well sometimes (I would argue that at least at times this can be true even of Evak), but it often just doesn’t work for me. So Davenzi already have that on their side. And then they both deep down just want the same thing: to be loved and accepted for who they are. There’s a compatibility in what they want, and also in the way they go about loving. They each do that in the way the other most needs: Matteo with an absolute rock hard conviction that they should be together and refusal to accept anything else (which David needs since he has a tendency to try to push away even those closest to him). David with a gentle pressure that knocks Matteo out of apathy and lets him know that he’s been seen and accepted for who he is, which is what he wants most (think of that ‘fitting in’ speech he gives Sara).

This is true for another of my loves as well, of course. Evak also both want to be loved and both think their true self is unloveable in some ways, and I do absolutely love their dynamic in which they both even out what the other most needs. But the thing that’s different between the two pairings is how long they keep secrets from each other for, and that degree of trust they have. It’s pretty clear that Even is still very insecure about himself and his worthiness in comparison to Isak. Isak seems to be fairly secure, except where it comes to Even’s old friends (and how sad that we never really got to explore either of those issues - there was so much there that was left unspoken). They do trust each other, but they also hide things from each other and/or avoid talking to each other about those things.

But what we see with David, for example, is that once he has Matteo’s support and the rest of the gang has made it clear that they’re with him too, he doesn’t seem to obsess over it the way Even does and he doesn’t keep more secrets. The things he and Even were hiding are very different of course, but it does lead to a different sort of dynamic between the pairings. David doesn’t appear to have any further secrets left and so he and Matteo are very secure pretty much as soon as s3 is over. Even still holds some things tight to his chest right through s4 and so while I do think Even and Isak are rock solid, I feel like they need more time and communication to get to the point where Davenzi are by the end of s4.

Or look at a couple like Jonas and Hanna, who I also enjoy by the end of s4. Their issues stemmed from a problem of mistrust and miscommunication (and from other people messing up their relationship with half truths etc). I think they are a ‘really good’ couple, but there’s no way they radiate ‘soulmate’ energy the way Davenzi does for me. They were never equal to start with (Jonas always considered himself superior to her and he had relationship experience etc), and while they are compatible, the lack of trust and bad communication caused some disastrous problems for them.

The thing with all three of these couples is that I do think they all work extremely well together at least in the end. They are all what I would class as ‘really good pairings’ and they are all compatible with each other. But the thing that, for me, defines that idea of ‘meant to be’ is more prevalent in Davenzi. If we break it down by the categories I said at the start:

Jonas and Hanna: equal: not really, though it’s better by the time they get back together. They’ve both had pining experience over the other since they broke up and they both decide they want to work at the relationship. Compatible: yeah, though again it’s something they may need to work at a little. But one thing they always did have was that they seem like they’re friends as well as lovers and that’s always important as well. Trust: hmmmm, well, certainly not at the start, and I think there are still things they need to work through by the time we see them at the end of s4, but I do think they have the tools now. Longevity potential: I’m not 100% sure that they will last forever. I think they can, but it would take work and so because of that I can’t say I see this as ‘soulmates’ in the way I imagine that looks in real life.

Evak: equal: in many ways, yes. But we do have the issue that Even was older and had more experience when they met and so he took the lead in a way that meant Isak became more of a follower than he had been in the past. Then, Isak was much more easily able to slip into a situation where he saw them as together forever, whereas Even still had his insecurities and fears and so he was keeping things back from Isak for a lot longer. So while they’re equal, there are ways in which there are/were still some imbalances. The fact that Even is seen as mysterious and unattainable by Isak for so long is such an integral part of their dynamic that it’s hard to ignore it even once the tables turn later in their story. Compatible: yes definitely, no questions here at all. They work together in a way that’s really wonderful to see, and they do each give the other what he most needs. Trust: well, Even’s tendencies to think of himself as not good enough and therefore to hide things from Isak is a possible point of contention. Longevity potential: If they talk it all through, I feel like there’s a good chance for things to be really amazing with them into the future, but Even’s issues with being fully open have the potential to be a stumbling block. I think they have a MUCH better chance at lasting than Jonas and Hanna, but there’s that one shadow looming. I suspect this would have been different if we’d been allowed to see their complete story but because we never did then we get this thing where it could go one way or the other.

Davenzi: equal: yes. They are the same age, they’re in a similar situation to each other, they want and need similar things. Compatible: yes, definitely. The things they each need are given to each other very freely and effortlessly (think about the way Matteo immediately respects David’s boundaries when he says the pinned together pages of his art book are too private, the way he hears ‘I’m not into you’ and absolutely refuses to accept it as truth because he sees easily behind the words to the truth of David’s feelings even if he’s a little confused, or the way David encourages Matteo, without being aggressive, in the early days or the way he lets Matteo lean on him when he needs it, and seems to readily know exactly when those moments are, but also can get Matteo to do what he needs to do by perfectly aimed reverse psychology stuff). Trust: I literally wrote an entire multi-part meta series on how good these two are at communication even when they aren’t great at it verbally. Because of this, by the time David has opened up to Matteo about being trans they are rock solid despite some of the stuff that happens. From that moment they are completely together and that’s never shaken at all. Longevity potential: I just can’t imagine a pairing that’s less likely to split than these two. The communication stuff is so important, they survived an entire road trip together, they just seem to ‘get’ each other, and know what the other needs, in a way that is very natural and effortless. Their similarities and differences just seem to blend together perfectly in a way that’s really hard to define, but that has a lot to do with the fact that they are the same age and they have had similar experiences.

To be completely clear: I love all three of these pairings, but this is just to show my own personal reasonings for why I see ‘soulmatehood’ more in one than the others. Also to be clear: I fully expect all of them to make it and I will never write any of them breaking up. But this is just how I see each of the three dynamics.

#druck #my meta stuff #Anonymous

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gliagirlphd · 4 years

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Hi! I saw your post about reading principles of neural science! My undergrad physics dept has a tradition of sending grads off with a book they think they’ll find useful in grad school - and this is the book they sent me away with. I’ve been a little lost since graduating two years ago (working in industry currently) and would love to hear about your path!

Hello! Wow, your department gives out such useful gifts; my department gave me a luggage tag id (I plan to make good use of it during grad school when I go to conferences).

So, my story is not very “inspiring” and it definitely did not start with Neuroscience. In fact, I graduated with my Bachelor’s in Genetics. My journey to grad school, and current path, actually starts with developmental biology and signal transduction pathways.

In my third year of undergrad, I picked up a class completely out of the blue called Neural Development; I had no background in Developmental Biology or Neuroscience prior to this class. The last time I took anything close to “Neuroscience” was AP Psychology in high school! In fact, most of my classes and interest revolved around statistical genetics. The professor for the class (henceforth called Dr. E) was very engaging, funny, a bit eccentric, and a very very bad artist. He started out the class with a saying - “cells communicate”. Sure, I had heard this phrase in Intro Bio before but I really didn’t care much for it. As I had started to study for the class, I became really interested in a lot of the unanswered questions. How do cells “talk”? How many forms of communications are there? What happens when cells talk too much or too little or not at all? What happens when some cells ignore the conversation? How does this communication play a role during developmental stages or even pathologies? And all of this I was learning in the context of a developing nervous system.

I loved Dr.E’s class so much that I asked him if I could volunteer in his lab (he worked in signaling pathways of developing nervous system); after one semester volunteering, I was sold on my project and decided to officially join his lab as an undergraduate student doing research for class credits (my graduate student mentor also was a contributing factor to me loving the lab). And thus, I leaped into the world of developmental biology and signaling pathways. Moreover, I fell in love with it because dev bio is elegant, and crucial in our understanding of biology, diseases, and even evolution. (You’ll be surprised by how many biologically components are conserved!). I spent 2 years under his mentorship and did an undergrad thesis project. At the same time, I was also working in two other labs as well, one in synthetic biology (international collaboration), and one in biofuels. In the end, neural development became the heart of my future research interests. (Funny side note: the rotating graduate students told me that I spent more time in lab than a graduate student did, which is how I knew I loved doing research and that my next chapter in life involved going to graduate school).

When I was applying to grad school, I knew that I wanted to be part of the Developmental Biology community. Unfortunately, the graduate program I am a part of doesn’t have a degree in Developmental Biology; but, several departments at my university (Genetics, Neuroscience, Cell Biology) fall under this Developmental Biology program. The lab I rotated in and ended up joining fell under this umbrella. I also briefly rotated in a human genetics/bioinformatics lab that I really loved but I decided to stick to my “roots”. What really spoke to me about my current lab was that my PI had an up and coming project that fell right in my wheelhouse and in a fascinating organ. My work also delves a bit into regenerative bioscience; my scientific interest has always been in contributing in increasing our knowledge in basic science, so that it can be applied in developing biomedical therapies. My current research topic touches this concept (how glial cells contribute to nervous system regeneration).

The more I learn about the brain (especially at the molecular level and in different organisms), the more mystified and amazed I am by it…

In summary, I was part of several research labs during my undergrad and it helped pave my path into molecular neuroscience (neurobiology, neural development)!

#tulip.replies #juliarosedott #thank you for asking such an interesting question!#tulip.about

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atasteforsuicidal · 4 years

Text

five years ago today, i had my first shift at 10am at starbucks, the whole time during which my sister was in labour and i was eagerly awaiting news. then i had class that night at 6pm, and she was still in labour. i saw my beautiful, itty-bitty niece for the first time as i sat in one of utm’s lecture halls learning, ironically, about developmental psychology. i still remember getting utterly distracted looking at the first photos my mum sent me of my sister holding her.

it’s so fucking wild to me how time flies?

in that time, i’ve only been able to spend one halloween, one birthday, and two christmases with her, among a handful of non-holiday trips, including visiting for the birth of her little brother and two bereavement visits. last year was actually the most times i’ve visited home in a single year since violet was born, and it’s almost like the world knew what was coming, because with this pandemic, i can’t begin to guess the next time i’m going to see my family from back home. it will be a year come january, and lord knows we won’t be much closer to a solution by then, given that it’s barely two months away.

it will never stop making my heart ache to miss all those celebrations and milestones, not just for one little darling anymore, but for two, and video-chatting tonight to wish my mum and my niece both a happy birthday and hearing that little girl tell me she misses me and she’s sad that i can’t visit broke my heart. knowing that river is going to have no real memories of me from his younger years kills me - i saw him four time in his first year of life, and then that was it. i met him sooner than i met violet, but he won’t have the same kind of spread-out memories of me that she does. it kills me.

in that five years, i also lost two grandparents, and i watched from afar as my other grandmother and one of my uncles struggled against, and ultimately beat, cancer. i received the kind of messages you don’t ever want to receive - i had to call the ambulance for your father. your aunt had a stroke. someone had a miscarriage. your cousin’s wedding is off. your grandmother is in the hospital. your grandmother is gone. your grandfather is gone, too. your other grandmother had a bad fall. now she’s had a stroke.

but there were good calls, too. ever since the 911 incident, your dad hasn’t needed insulin anymore, it’s like something reset in him. your sister’s pregnant again. your cousin is pregnant. that cousin is also engaged again. and there were good visits, too! my parents visiting for my graduation from university. a different cousin’s wedding. river’s birth. a christmas where everyone came home for the first time in years and years and years. a birthday visit from my mum.

i actually graduated from university with an hba after taking two years off in the middle of the degree. i sat on my ass and did nothing with that degree, hemming and hawing over going for a masters. i had a few really wonderful visits with some important friends. i got closer to my cousin kat, and i met morgan. i made some new friends at a regular gaming event thanks to some co-workers. i discovered some new things about myself. i learned to explore my own intimacy. i got active in fandom life again and made some new online friends. i started seeing a therapist. i went back to school and have been absolutely killing it. i started writing again. i actually spoke to one (1) whole person on a dating app. for the first time in my life, i have savings (ignoring the fact that i still have student loans, too). i have really good credit, after struggling on-and-off with debt for years.

but i also broke my own heart - badly. i lost touch with a lot of people who still mean so much to me, and i broke a really important promise to one of those people in doing so. guilt eats at me every day for it. my social anxiety grew worse than it ever was before, and i closed myself off. a mix of social anxiety and a change in location had me not really seeing those games night friends anymore. i forgot how to do anything but keep people at an arm’s length. forgot how to trust, how to let people in. more than ever before, i am a listener and not a talker. it took me days to tell my roommates about my grandmother’s stroke. hell, kat knew my other grandmother had died because her parents called her and told her so she’d come pick me up at work, but when my grandfather passed, i don’t think i said a word to my roommates until i already had my flight booked. i started college in the hopes of meeting people and a global-fucking-pandemic pushed my classes online, secluded me more than ever. i continue to be atrocious at keeping in touch with people online, too, and thus continue to estrange myself from my family and friends, and being unable to visit makes it even worse. discounting kat and her parents and brother, i saw family for the first time in a year this month. that’s. that’s unheard of, in my family. it’s just not done.

and throughout all of that, i’ve had so many ups and downs at work, too. i’ve worked at three different stores in these five years; worked under nine different store managers, two interim store managers, and five different district managers; and, in a few months, it’s going to be coming to an end. i’d be lying if i didn’t say that i’ll be a bit sad, but, more than anything else, it’s going to be a huge weight off my shoulders, and i’m so looking forward to my departure. it’s too social a job. literally being told to talk to customers makes me want to run into traffic, that’s how bad my anxiety has gotten. these last two or so years, making “customer connections” has felt like pulling teeth because opening my damn mouth to make words come out feels like it’s going to kill me. that’s. that’s so fucked up. i spend more time at work thinking about creative ways to kill myself than i do about actually enjoying my job. it’s a shame, it really is. i work for a surprisingly good employer - not a perfect one by any means, but a good one. i used to love the job. now it makes me miserable, and it’s only partly because of the micromanaging.

seeing hundreds of faces a day is exhausting. and then coming home to people who are significantly more social than myself... it’s draining. i feel like i’m being crushed under the weight of it sometimes. i’m under no illusions that the career path i’m aiming for now will still require socialization, but it’s not going to be at that same level. it’s a job that will drive empathy and give you the chance to actually connect with clients you see and correspond with regularly rather than customers who get lost in an endless sea of people day in and day out. i’m ready for that change, i really am.

it’s been a long five years, and it’s been draining, and exhausting, and discouraging in a lot of ways, but it’s had some really rewarding times, too. it’s hard not to look back at the start of those five years and wonder what the fuck happened that i’m still where i’m at now, but the important thing to remember is that i’ve already started the process of getting out of this slump. my motivation comes and goes, and i seem to be dipping into another slump again, but that always happens as winter approaches; i’m used to it now. it’s important to acknowledge where you’ve been and what you’ve gone through, but i just need to keep telling myself to keep my gaze ahead of me and continue moving forward.

so, yeah. ramble-rant-thing over, i guess.

here’s to five more, or whatever. may i have a lot more successes to bring forward at that point.

#this was supposed to be a short little wow time flies post #instead i decided to dump my emotions everywhere holy shit i'm so sorry #uhhh cw for talk of death and illness and depression among other topics #oh and i guess for mentions of suicidal ideation #maybe i can find something in here to talk to vivian about later this week

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bangtangcorner · 4 years

Text

Sexstasy - Jeon Jungkook

pairings: yandere!fratboy!jungkook x reader, minor fratboy!seokjin x reader

word count: 4.3k

summary: On the outside, you didn’t like Jeon Jungkook and he didn’t like you. But what you both really wanted deep down, was each other. By the time you found out how insane Jungkook really was, and how wanting him was maybe a mistake, it might’ve been a little late.

warnings: cussing, oral(f.receiving), fingering, nipple play, oppa kink (oops), mild violence, yandere behavior, alcohol, drug usage

a/n: ok so my FIRST time writing smut and my longest imagine yet! I worked really really hard on this, I hope whoever read this ends up liking it :) If you liked this, then feel free to also check out my other works. Also I LITERALLY have no idea about drugs lol. Also Sexstasty is originally from what I’ve read a combination of ecstasy and viagra and is used by men, but in the fic I switched it up a bit ok bye. Feedback and criticism of any kind is always appreciated <3

(Edited)

***

The party was already in full swing by the time you and Y/f/n stepped in the frat house. Alpha Kapa Si had successfully sponsored five events under the biology sector in a month, creating yet again, a new record. And this of course, called for a celebration. The house was dimly lit, fairy lights hanging at almost every door. As you expected, Drake was blasting through the speakers at the highest possible volume and every student looked like they were having the time of their life.

“Come on, let’s go find Hoseok!” Y/f/n screamed over the loud music, her hand slipping into yours as she pulled you through the crowd. Both of you made your way to through the sweaty bodies and found Hoseok in the kitchen with Seokjin, refilling their red solo cups.

“Hoseok!”

His face whipped around as his eyes landed on Y/f/n. A big grin stretched across his face as he made his way towards her and enveloped her in a hug, squeezing her too tight in your opinion. He pulled away and looked at you, a smile still evident on his face.

“Hi Y/n”

“Hi Hobi.” He gave you a side hug and then out of the blue moon, started squealing.

“We’re going to party so fucking hard tonight baby!” He jumped like a child who had received candy before dinner and Y/f/n joined him. You shook your head at their silliness and but couldn’t stop the smile that broke out on your face. They were both literal embodiment of sunshine, always happy and cheery, brightening up everyone’s day. So it was no surprise to you when you got a call from Y/f/n in the middle of the night, shouting from too much excitement after Hoseok had asked her out. Of course this meant that you were going to be introduced to Hoseok’s friends and maybe, become friends with them.

To say that they were famous in the university would frankly be an understatement.

Kim Namjoon, doing his PHD in psychology, became President of Alpha Kapa Si last year which was genuinely expected by 95% of the college. With an IQ of 148, he was a born genius. Excelled in not only academics but extracurricular activities as well. He was your kind of guy, minded his own business and had the cleanest reputation out of the 7 boys.

Min Yoongi, pursuing music, honestly looked the most intimidating to you. All the times you had seen him in corridors or in the one class you shared with him, he always had a frown etched upon his face and would cuss out anyone who would cross his way. He was terrifying and you tried to stay as far away from him as possible.

Jung Hoseok, he probably was the happiest human you’d ever come across. Doing his course in MBA, he was ready to take over the family business as soon as he was done with Uni. But that was something he was being forced to do, his heart was in dancing. Also the President of the dance club, Hoseok was pretty much the female version of Y/f/n.

Kim Seokjin, completing his degree in theater arts and animation, was next to Namjoon in terms of being the most sane. He had a little crazy in him too but just the right amount. Being around him made you nervous for some reason, the tension was always thick in the air whenever you two were in the same room. Y/f/n always suggested that you both could ‘fuck that tension out’ to which you always responded with a smack across her head.

Park Jimin, ethereal face, every girl wanted to sit on that dick and most of them actually already had. Being a contemporary dancer, he had probably one of the most beautiful bodies you’d ever seen.Through all the attention he got, he remained humble somehow. You gelled well with him shockingly, to this day you don’t know why.

Kim Taehyung, also known as the Prince of art around the college. He was artistic in every way possible and his passion for painting was unbeatable. With extremely striking features and the sweetest voice, he made girls and even guys swoon. But he was too in love with his long time girlfriend Hwasa to notice any of that.

Lastly, Jeon fucking Jungkook. In the four months that Y/f/n and Hoseok had dated, you had not once interacted with Jungkook properly. His gaze always made you feel uncomfortable, something about him just seemed off. He also never missed a chance to get on your nerves, often stimulating your triggers and making you feel more conscious about yourself than you already were. The worst part was, both of you were in the same photography major, meaning you shared almost all the classes. He was the most infamous out of the 7, often got into fights and had been suspended way too many times. You resented Jeon Jungkook.

“Aren’t they the cutest?” You turned around at the voice.

Seokjin was standing next you and was looking at Y/f/n and Hoseok as they made their way to the middle of the house, probably to dance. He handed you a cup which you greatfully accepted, the finals had you too stressed and you were in desperate need of chilling the fuck out.

“Yeah they are.” You said putting the cup to your lips, chugging down the sweet taste of the punch.

You could feel Seokjin’s stare burning holes in the side of your head. Usually, you would play it off or ignore it, but with the alcohol in your system, you were girl with a mission, a mission to ‘fuck the tension out’.

You turn towards Seokjin and raise your eyebrows, “What? Something on my face?”

Seokjin turned red and averted his eyes to the ground, you chuckled and moved closer to him. His eyes widened a little as you closed the gap between you both, your chests almost touching. You bring the cup to your face and tilt it towards him, “Refill for me please?”

Seokjin shuddered and nodded, taking the cup from your hand and walked towards the kitchen, his pace a little too fast in your opinion. You giggled and shook your head, leaning against the wall.This was so unlike you. You weren’t a typical nerd, sure you kept to yourself and didn’t really stick your nose in other’s business, but that doesn’t mean that your head was always in books. You had your fair share of fun too.

“Ahem.”

“Y/f/n don’t”

She raised her hands in the air, a cheeky glint in her eyes as she trudged towards you, “I’m just saying, maybe it’s time for you guys to just fuck and get over with it.”

You rolled your head to the side and looked at her, a lazy smile forming on your face, “Maybe it is.”

Her eyes almost bulged out of their sockets as she chocked on her drink. A loud laugh escaped past your lips as you patted her back, helping her calm down.

“Who are you and what have you done to Y/N?”

“Just” You paused for a second, “Wanna let loose tonight.”

“Girl, you do you.” She grinned, “But Y/n, you don’t have to do something you don’t want to.” Her serious tone made you smile warmly at her, you were so lucky to have a friend as caring and loving as Y/f/n.

“I’ll be okay babe.” You squeezed her shoulder in reassurance.

“Am I interrupting you ladies?” Seokjin’s voice pulled you both out of your little stance.

“No no, not all all.” Y/f/n beamed, a playful smile on her face.

“Your drink” Seokjin said as he passed you the refilled cup. You thanked him quietly and turned to look at Y/f/n, raising your brows, silently asking her to leave. She smirked in return and looked at Seokjin, “I’m going to go, she’s all yours Jin.” Her right eye dropped in a wink.

Jungkook had been distracted by you all night. (a/n: Don’t consider the locket) Hell, you’re the only thing he had been watching all night. You looked marvelous in that mini skirt and crop top even though you showed too much skin according to him. He was so used to seeing you in jumpers and jeans that tonight, you just blew his mind dressed up like that.

To put it simply, Jungkook was infatuated by you. From your bambi eyes to your chubby cheeks, everything about you was mesmerizing to him. It was not only your adorable little habits that pulled him in, it was actually the fact that you were one of the sweetest humans alive, too kind and nice to everyone. You worked hard and never backed down from a challenge, that was something he admired about you.

When you distanced yourself from him as soon as you and Y/f/n started hanging out with their circle, he was hurt. He had expected you to be shy at first given his reputation but he had not expected you to completely pretend as if he didn’t exist. He knew there was something between you and Seokjin, he could see it clearly. It angered him how well you got along with Jimin and not him, it made him upset to watch you laugh carelessly with his friends in front of his own eyes. So he took his anger out on you. Even if you were pissed at something he said, he would be happy that you’d at least respond to him.

He’d been watching you again when you leaned against the wall and stood a little too close to Seokjin. Your cheeks were red, movements a little slow, of fucking course, you were drunk.

“Did you see Y/n tonight? Holy shit who knew there was all that underneath those baggy clothes.” He snapped out of his thoughts at the voice, turning to look at a couple of guys from the basketball team, snickering while smoking a joint in the corner.

“Look at that skirt, would love to rip it apart and eat that ass out.”

In the next second, all Jungkook could see was red. He marched towards the group of boys, picked one of them by his collar and threw him against the wall. The boy yelped in pain as the others backed up, everyone was aware of Jungkook’s anger and it was advised to not get on his bad side.

Jungkook threw a punch to his jaw and then grabbed him by his throat, pushing him back against the wall and leaned down to his ear, “You better not talk about Y/n ever again. You better not look at Y/n ever again or I will fucking bash your skull, you get me?”

He could only whimper in response as Jungkook was pulled away by Namjoon and Jimin. By now, the music had been lowered down and everyone was witnessing Jungkook’s yet another brawl unfold.

“What? Move!” He shouted as the music was again set at a higher volume and people scattered quickly, too afraid of Jungkook. He pried off Namjoon and Jimin’s hands off him and turned around to look back at where you were standing but was met with an empty spot. He groaned and pushed past people swiftly to find you.

You were just making small talk with Seokjin when you heard the commotion. You didn’t even have to go over to see what was happening, you already knew it was Jungkook. Seokjin titled his head in confusion as you sighed before placing your drink on the table beside you and grabbed his head, pulling him through the crowd that had gathered in the living room.

“I’m assuming it’s Jungkook.” You say in a whisper as both of you reach the living room. Your assumption was confirmed when your eyes fell on a very angry Jungkook holding up a boy against the wall, his hand clasped around his throat. The neck in his veins were protruding, his skin flaming red. The words that came out of his mouth not only shocked you but pretty much everyone present there.

“You better not talk about Y/n ever again. You better not look at Y/n ever again or I will fucking bash your skull, you get me?”

You froze as you digested his words, mind going blank for a second as a shiver ran down your spine. Few people around you turned to look at you, disgusted expressions visible on their faces. Of course, Jeon Jungkook can’t go for someone like Y/n Y/l/n.

And then, you ran. You ran up the stairs as fast as you could, Seokjin trailing behind hot on your heels. You could hear Jungkook shout in distance as you slammed open the door of the first room that you could reach and immediately locked yourself in the bathroom.

“Y/n? Y/n?!” Seokjin’s knocking on the door was fast and sharp.

You splashed some water across your face and closed your eyes. You took deep breaths, trying to calm yourself down. You didn’t know why you were reacting like this, maybe it was because you found Jeon Jungkook really fucking hot, or maybe because you had hots for him since the day your eyes fell on him even if he was an asshole to you. Maybe it was because your body reacted to him in a way you didn’t want it too. Maybe because you wanted him.

You contemplated for a minute so as to what to say to Seokjin. There was something between the two of you for sure, you just couldn’t put your finger on what it exactly was. You opened the door to reveal Seokjin sitting on the edge of the bed, looking down at his feet. His face immediately shot up at the noise of the bathroom door opening. Both of you remained silent for a second, just staring at each other. You broke the silence.

“So Jin” You began as you walked closer to him, “You wanna fuck?”

Seokjin chocked on his spit as you straddled him, your hands resting on his shoulders to support yourself. You had never called him Jin and he had never ever imagined that would you be this blunt. His hands naturally landed on your waist as a blush spread across his face.

“We don’t have to do this Y/n, are you sure?”

“Yes Jin, I’m very fucking sure.”

“But you’re drunk”

“And I also want you to make me feel good Jin.” You bent down and slightly grazed his earlobe with your teeth, your hot breath fanning his skin. He sucked in a deep breath and before you could process it, his mouth was on yours, moving fiercely. Your hands fisted his t-shirt as his arms circled around your waist and pulled you closer. Your tongues explored each others mouth, all hot and messy but soft at the same time. Without giving much thought to it, you started grinding on Jin. Both of you let out loud moans at the friction created, your heads being thrown back as your hips worked against each other.

Jungkook walked upstairs to look for you but stopped dead in his tracks when he heard moans coming out of his room. He grumbled to himself about locking his door from the next time and slammed it open to kick out the horny teenagers from his room when his eyes fall upon sight that made his blood boil and mind fog with anger.

You were sat in Seokjin’s lap, your lips interlocked with his as your hips rolled against his crotch. You jumped at the noise of the door hitting the wall and turned around to see Jungkook standing at the door, fuming and looking like he was ready to murder anyone that came in his way. Your eyes were practically hanging from their sockets as you tried to catch your breath from the heavy makeout session you just had with Jin. Your gaze met Jungkook’s and you knew, whatever was going to happen, it was not going to be good.

“Jungko-”

“You have 5 seconds to get the fuck out Jin. I’ll deal with you later.”

It was so silent in the room that you could feel the beads of sweat rolling down from your hairline to your neck. Jin gently pushed you off him and placed you on the bed and made his way to the door quietly. He turned to look at you one last time before leaving, his eyes practically sympathizing with you. He closed the door behind him, the noise echoing in the room.

Jungkook stood frozen on his spot as you your heart ran hundred miles per second. He then walked towards the dresser and shuffled around it for a minute before walking towards you with what looked like a bottle of water.

“Drink up.”

You gulped as you took the bottle from his hands, your fingertips touching, the simple action causing you to quiver. You took a few sips before placing it on the side table beside the bed. All this time, Jungkook stood leaning against his study table and watched your every move.

“Quite a bold move you know, making out with one of my friends in my own room, on my own fucking bed.” His tone was cocky, a little smirk on his face as you looked up, parting your lips to reply but no coherent response coming out.

“I... Jungkook..I”

“Y/n” You could feel his voice coming closer.

Then it happened. You felt a sudden rush in your body, senses becoming extremely strong. Every part of your body became sensitive and you got slightly dizzy, your panties suddenly dampening as there was a sudden rush to your southern region. A soft whimper escaped past your lips as you gripped the bedsheet underneath you.

“W-What is h-happ-ening to m-me?”

Jungkook released a chuckle as he bent down to your level, his hands taking a hold of your waist to keep you steady.

“My sweet girl, don’t you know you’ve been mine since the beginning?”

Want and need were now flowing in your body like blood, the need to release this built up tension had become even worse. It was as if that Jungkook’s words only amplified this, causing you to squeeze your thighs together.

“Uh hu my sweet girl, you shouldn’t do that.” He punctuated his words with his hands parting your knees, the smell of your arousal almost intoxicating him.

“Wha-at did y-you do t-to me?” You muttered out through the frantic spread of pleasure in your body.

Jungkook let out a boisterous laugh and then proceeded to tuck his head in your neck. His tongue made contact with your skin as he licked a long swipe until the base of your ear.

“Sexstasy.” His voice came out in a whisper.

“Huh?”

“One pill of Ecstasy mixed with some other drugs that will keep you turned on for at least 2 hours.”

You felt your breath catch in your throat, “H-how-w?”

He lightly traced your earlobe with his lips, occasionally placing a few kisses in the way, “The water you drank.”

With every passing moment, it was becoming unbearable for you to even sit.

“Jungkook.” You whined, your hands clutched his shoulders as you moved forward to press your front against his. Jungkook hissed, his hands moving to unzip the front zipper of your crop top and then took a place on your inner thighs.

“What is it baby?”

“Please”

“Please what?” His fingers made light circles on your skin.

“Please help me Oppa.”

Jungkook’s movements haltered, ragged breaths escaping his lips. His mind went blank for a minute at your words, wondering why did he take so long to have his way with you.

“What did you just say Y/n?”

“I want you to help me Oppa, it hurts.” You moaned as his fingers traced your slit over your panties, the touch making you tremble.

“Yeah? Be a nice girl for Oppa and lay down baby.”

You obliged immediately and fell back on the bed, your legs spread open for Jungkook at the edge of the bed. Never in a million years did you think that you would find yourself in a situation like this. But with the drug and alcohol in your system, all you wanted was Jungkook to eat you out like there was no tomorrow.

His hands pushed up your skirt, causing it to bunch up at your waist. His fingers hooked in the sides on your underwear before pulling it down in a swift motion.

Jungkook couldn’t believe his eyes, his dreams were finally coming true. You were laid out on the bed, a beautiful flush spreading across your chest. Your pussy was so pretty and pink, clenching around nothing, only because of him. He used a finger and moved it up and down your slit which resulted in you letting out a loud moan, your eyes screwing shut. He stood up from the floor and hovered over you, his fingers moving away causing you to open your eyes. He straddled you, making sure to not put all of his weight on you. His hands grabbed your crop top and pushed it upwards, causing your bare breasts to be revealed. He sucked in a breath at the sight, your tits looking more appetizing that any meal he had ever had.

“Look at you, you dirty girl, no bra huh?” He mumbled as his hands cupped your boobs, taking the nipple in between his fingertips and pinching it. You threw your head back, your eyes rolling to the back of your head.

“Jungkook” His name fell out from your mouth in a whimper as your eyes met his’s. His eyes darkened as he suddenly bent down and took your right nipple in his mouth, sucking gently. His other hand kept toying with your left nipple as the only sound heard in the room were your moans. His fingertips trail across your stomach and go lower as his lips place soft kisses against your chest and move upwards towards neck.

He spreaded your arousal on your pussy lips with his index and middle finger as you arched into his hold and mewled, your mind blocked with too many sensations and pleasure.

You screamed as he plunged his fingers inside you without a warning, your knuckles turning white as you clasp the sheets in your hands, the need to hold something becoming stronger.

“So fucking tight baby girl, and so wet and warm. All ready for Oppa huh?”

In the next second, you felt Jungkook’s lips on yours. His lips molded with yours perfectly, tongue massaging against yours as his fingers maintained a steady rhythm. His other hand held the back of your head as the kiss became extremely hot and searing. You could feel him get hard against your thighs, so you moved your hand to palm him.

He pulled away and grabbed your hand that was trying to reach for his crotch and placed it beside your head.

“It’s about you baby.” His words make you more red than you already were, if that was possible. He smirked and bent down on the floor again, your pussy right in front of his eyes. He watched his finger go and in and out, the action almost mesmerizing to him. The squelching sounds of your pussy could be heard throughout the room as he latched his mouth to your clit, earning a loud cry from you. He moaned against you, the vibrations maximizing the pleasure that was coursing through your veins.

Your hands interlocked in his hair as you moaned out his name. Jungkook devoured you like you were the most delicious thing he had ever tasted. He pulled away for a second, “Tastes so sweet baby, just like you.”

You looked down at him through half lidded eyes and he smiled in return. Your right hand came up to play with your nipples as you whimper again, “Please make me cum Oppa.”

He growled as fingers gained speed, his mouth sucking on your clit again. Both of you never broke the eye contact as his fingers finally touched the spongy spot inside of you that made you choke on your breath, tears welling up in the corner of your eyes.

A wicked grin took over Jungkook’s lips, “There baby?”

You frantically nodded as Jungkook assualted that spot repeatedly with his fingers. Your fingers tightened in black locks as you pulled him up in a passionate kiss, your cries and whimpers dying in his mouth.

“Do you think Jin could make you feel like this jagi? Do you think he could fuck you this good with his fingers?”

His lips ghosted over yours as tears started streaming down your face.

“No, N-no Oppa”

He could feel your walls tightening around his fingers as you pulled away from the kiss, your breathing erratic.

“You’re gonna cum for me baby? Milk Oppa’s fingers huh?”

You stumbled upon your words as your body shuddered, an ear-splitting scream came out of your mouth. You vision went blank as you tuned out from the rest of the world for a minute, the intensity of your orgasm too much for you. Jungkook slowed down the movement of his fingers, helping you coax out of your orgasm. He cleaned up your juices with his tongue as you squirmed, too sensitive at the moment.

Jungkook took in your post orgasm beauty. Your hair was messy, hickeys littered over your chest, lips red and swollen, cheeks tear stained. He cooed at the sight, you looked heavenly.

You opened your eyes and saw Jungkook standing in front of you. His gaze met yours as he licked his fingers clean, a blush spreading across your cheeks at the action. His eyes were still dark, an evil glint in them.

“You’re mine jagi, and I don’t like sharing what’s mine.”

He bent down and whispered in your ear, “The next time you do something like this, I will fuck you in front of everyone to show you that you belong to me and only me.”

You gulped.

What the fuck had you gotten yourself into?

***

Masterlist

#bts x reader #bts imagines #bts fanfction #bts smut #jeon jungkook #jungkook x reader #jungkook smut #kim namjoon #kim taehyung #kim seokjin #jung hoseok #min yoongi #jungkook #jin x reader

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