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junghelioseok · 3 years

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heart-on.

↳ your one-night stand definitely isn’t relationship material, but maybe—just maybe—your manager’s son is.

◇ hoseok x reader ◇ smut | strangers to lovers!au ◇ 10.1k [1/1]

❛❛ my boss is always telling me how perfect her son would be for me and she promises he’s coming to the next holiday party and don’t worry he’s heard all about me too and ALSO there’s this dude i slept with once a couple of months ago and sometimes he still sends me dick pics when i ask him to at 3 in the morning cause seriously dude’s got a good dick ❜❜

notes: welcome to the first installment of the serendipity series! we’re starting with hoseok, because, well, have you met me? 🤣 be warned, however, that this isn’t anywhere near as edited as i’d like so i’ll probably give it another read/edit tomorrow but for now!!! here it is!!!

⇢ series masterlist. | inspired by this post.

warnings: dirty talk bc hoseok’s got a bit of a mouth on him, unprotected sex (wrap it before you tap it, kids!), sexting. dick pics, obvi. brief mention of a dead pet goldfish :(

You’re refilling your mug when you hear it. Voices filter out from the kitchen, floating past the coffee station where you’re pouring yourself another drink and hanging in the open air of the hallway that leads back to the rest of the office. They’re familiar voices, too—voices that belong to the resident gossips of your workplace. Lottie’s pitchy, nasal tone melds with Hyejin’s higher one, their conversation interrupted every so often by an exaggerated exclamation or gasp from Sandra, the third and final member of their trio.

“Haven’t you heard? Carolyn’s divorce was finalized over the weekend, the poor thing.”

“I can’t even begin to imagine how she’s feeling. I mean, getting back into dating at her age? Goodness!”

“And now she’ll be all alone at the holiday party, too. How sad is that?”

“It’s tragic. Poor thing.”

Rolling your eyes, you grab a packet of sugar and tear it open, upending it over your mug and watching the crystalline granules fall into the dark liquid within. You know for a fact that Sandra and her husband can’t even stand to be in the same room for an extended period of time, considering how they’d spent most of last year’s holiday party talking to entirely different groups of people. You’d sat two tables away from them during dinner, and they hadn’t even made eye contact once. And as for Lottie and Hyejin, well, you’re certain that their relationships aren’t much better. All three of them are miserable people as far as you’re concerned, and you make a mental note to check in on Carolyn—a sweet woman in her thirties who always keeps chocolate bars in her purse—on your way back to your desk.

“Sheesh. Vultures, the lot of them. Don’t you think?”

You whirl at the sound of your manager’s voice. Kyunghee Jung is a dark-haired woman in her late fifties, and she laughs when she sees your startled expression, her eyes crinkling at the corners. “Easy! You’ll spill your coffee if you’re not careful.”

“I’ll probably have a heart attack first,” you reply, pressing a hand to your chest. “What was your job before this? Some kind of intelligence operative? Are you a super spy?”

Kyunghee laughs again and joins you at the counter. “Nothing even remotely as exciting as that,” she answers, plopping her mug down beside yours. It’s decorated with what looks like every color of the rainbow, a massive smiling sunflower taking up the majority of the surface, and the only remnant of the ceramic’s original color is on the very edge of the handle where there’s a lopsided little patch of white. The piece is clearly handmade, and a stark contrast to the simple mint green cup that houses your coffee. Looking at it, it’s impossible not to smile.

“I love that,” you remark, inclining your head at her mug. “Was it a present from one of your kids?”

“Hoseok,” she confirms, running a fingertip along the imperfect handle fondly. “I’ve told you about him before—he’s right around your age.”

You chuckle. “Right, I remember. That’s why he’s the perfect match for me, right?”

“Come now, there’s more to it than that,” Kyunghee defends, waving a hand. “But yes, to answer your question. He gave it to me as a birthday present when he was eight.”

“Well, you never told me he was an artist,” you tease. “Does he have an Etsy? Can I buy one of these off him? Does he do custom orders, maybe?”

Normally, your manager is more than happy to play along with your jokes, but today Kyunghee fixes you with an uncharacteristically serious look. “Why don’t you ask him yourself?” she asks. “He’s coming to the holiday party, after all. I figured you could finally meet.”

You blink. Kyunghee has been making offhand remarks about how well you would get on with her son, Hoseok, for over a year now, but you’ve never even come close to broaching the topic of meeting him. You don’t even know anything about the man beyond the fact that his name is Hoseok and that he works somewhere downtown. He also favors tall socks and yellow suspenders if the framed photograph on Kyunghee’s desk is any indication—or at least, he certainly did when he was still in diapers. Whether he still does, is anyone’s guess.

“Wow, I had no idea he was even interested in coming,” you manage when you’ve recovered from your surprise. “Did you bribe him?”

If Kyunghee notices that your voice is a few pitches higher than usual, she doesn’t remark on it. “Oh, you know. I just told him that this would be his last chance to score free booze on the company’s dime.” She laughs. “Three more months and it’s going to be all beaches and sunshine for me. I might even become a cruise person in my retirement.”

You gasp and slap a hand to your heart. “Kyunghee! Think of the environmental impact!”

“I said I might!” she retorts immediately. “Sheesh. Even in my old age, it’s hard to conveniently forget how shitty and unsustainable those damn boats are.”

You pick up your mug and raise it in a salute. “Well, the oceans thank you.”

“My husband doesn’t,” she answers with a sigh. “He’s been dying to book one of those trips that stop all along the Mediterrannean coastline, and I can’t exactly blame him.”

“That is tempting,” you admit. “You’ll have to send photos, if you do end up going.”

“You’ll be sick of me and my photos before the first day is even up,” she promises. Then she pauses, her eyes darting toward the kitchen where silence has fallen in the last few minutes. “Speaking of being sick—you think the vultures are still hovering around in there? I haven’t had lunch yet, and I need the microwave.”

Obligingly, you edge a little closer to the kitchen doorway and poke your head around the frame, scanning for Lottie and her sidekicks. “Coast is clear. Enjoy your lunch, Kyunghee.”

She nods and raises her mug at you, returning your salute. “I always do.”

///

As soon as the work day ends, you fall into your usual routine. Your commute home is easily walkable on nicer days, and though the winter weather is brisker than you’d like, you decide to walk for the sake of stopping at the convenience store on the corner of the block.

Once you arrive back at your apartment, you change into your comfiest sweats and a loose tee. You turn on some music while you throw together some dinner, and settle onto the couch half an hour later with a full plate and Netflix. Television is a welcome distraction from the events of the workday, and you manage to get through three full episodes of your current show before your pesky brain decides to revisit the events of today, replaying the conversations that you’d both had and overheard.

There’s no denying that you’ve been single for quite some time now, and for the most part, it’s been by choice. Ever since graduating from university, you’ve chosen to focus more on your career, and it’s paid off both in terms of the important position you hold in your company and your above average salary. And yet, you can’t help but think back to the gossip you’d overheard earlier—about the supposed tragedy of being single and attending the upcoming holiday party alone. Your mind wanders to Kyunghee’s son, Hoseok, and how he’ll be in attendance this year. You wonder what he’s like, and whether he really is perfect for you, as Kyunghee seems to be so fond of mentioning.

And then your mind goes to Jay.

You met Jay two months ago, on a well-deserved night out after a hellish workweek. The bar was crowded, and the music coming from the neon dancefloor in the back was just loud enough to drown out your inhibitions. That, combined with the alcohol swimming through your system, made you bold. You sashayed your way across the dancefloor, dodging inebriated bodies and swaying limbs as you fixed your attention on the head of pale lavender hair and deliciously broad shoulders that awaits you just behind the bar counter. The bartender is nothing short of gorgeous, and you’ve thrown all caution to the wind. Sure, several other women are eyeing him like he’s their next meal—several men are, too—but you need another drink. And while he prepares it, you plan to flirt.

A lot.

The bar counter is sticky with spilled liquor, but you don’t pay that any mind as you lean across it, the wood digging into the narrow strip of exposed skin left by your cropped top. “Hi!” you call, and the bartender looks up from where he’s just finished pouring a round of shots for a group of raucous young men.

“Hi yourself,” he says, his pillowy lips stretching into an easy smile. “What can I get you?”

You pretend not to notice the way his eyes flicker down to the dip of your cleavage and instead put on the sultriest smile you are capable of mustering. “Vodka soda,” you tell him, injecting a bit of purr into your voice. “A bit of lemon too, if you have it.”

“Trust me, I have it,” he assures, his smile growing as he reaches for a clean glass and a clear bottle. “Name’s Jin, by the way. I’m here all night, if you need anything e—”

A loud clatter and the sound of breaking glass interrupts the rest of his sentence, and all eyes at the bar go to the source of the disturbance. Conversations stutter to a halt, and even the thumping bass of the music seems to dull. Jin darts to the other end of the bar, where you can see that one of several barstools has fallen to the ground. There’s a man on the ground as well, surrounded by shattered glass and spilled dark liquor, and your eyes widen when you realize that you know him.

And arguably, a little too well.

“Fuck,” you mutter under your breath. People are starting to lose interest in the spectacle, turning back to their own conversations and continuing on as if nothing had happened at all. The man is beginning to clamber to his feet, and a few people lend a helping hand as Jin begins barking out orders for everyone to step back so he can sweep up the broken glass. You seize upon the opportunity, latching on to the nearest arm and pulling them close so you can hide behind them. Vaguely, you’re aware of them sputtering in surprise, but you only have eyes for the man who had fallen off his stool, watching him carefully as he brushes himself off and tries to play it cool despite the sizable patch of whiskey soaking his white shirt.

“Hey, uh…” Your human shield is speaking. “Are you okay? You’re squeezing me pretty tight.”

That draws you out of your daze. Abashed, you loosen your grip on his arm and look up into his face, your throat going dry when you realize how handsome he is. His black hair is parted over his forehead, a stray strand falling into warm brown eyes set above a straight nose and an inviting mouth. There’s a freckle above his top lip, just shy of the center, and your inebriated brain wonders just what it would be like to kiss it.

“I, um—” You clear your throat and try again. “Sorry about that. I just didn’t want him to see me.”

Your newfound companion raises an eyebrow and glances over his shoulder at the drunk man, who is now being ushered out of the bar by his buddies. “You know that guy?”

You nod, cringing. “Yeah, his name’s Trent. I… may or may not have dated him for a few months last year.”

The man laughs out loud. “You dated a Trent?”

“What, like you’ve never made a questionable life choice?” you challenge. “Besides, you shouldn’t judge someone based on the sins of their parents. It’s not his fault they gave him a terrible name.”

“Sure, but it is on him for going along with it,” he replies with a shrug. “I would’ve changed my name as soon as I could if my parents had named me Trent. But hey, that’s just one man’s opinion.”

You laugh. “Okay then, Not-Trent.” Relinquishing your grip on his arm, you let your fingers graze his hand before pulling away entirely. “What do you say we continue this conversation over a drink?”

The man, whose name is decidedly not Trent, catches your fingers in his and gives them a gentle squeeze. “Happily.”

One drink turns into two, and then three. By the end of the hour, you are feeling pleasantly warm, the alcohol spreading through your veins like molasses and turning your surroundings into a hazy blur. The music has grown even louder, pounding against your eardrums, and you grab onto Not-Trent’s wrist as he sets his now-empty glass back down onto the counter.

“Do you wanna get out of here?” you ask, raising your voice to be heard over the thumping bassline. “I can’t even hear myself think.”

“The parking lot’s out back,” he suggests. “Why don’t we get some air?”

You nod and stand up on wobbly legs, cursing your decision to wear heels when you stumble into your companion. He steadies you with a gentle but firm hand, and you don’t miss the way his touch lingers on your lower back, his palm warm through the material of your blouse.

Together, the two of you pick your way through the throng of swaying bodies on the dancefloor. The bassline thuds in your ears, dark and hypnotic, and you can feel the reverberations thrumming across the slats of your ribs and echoing in the cavern of your chest like a second heartbeat.

It’s almost a relief, then, when you step out into the cool night air. Your ears continue to ring for a few seconds, but it soon fades and leaves behind only the muted hum of traffic from the street and the faint sound of music from inside. At your side, Not-Trent releases a long breath and leans against the brick wall of the building, and you turn to take in the steep slopes of his side profile as he tilts his head up toward the velvety night sky.

He’s handsome. Dressed in ripped jeans and black leather, he’s a sight to behold, and you’d be lying if you said you hadn’t been craving a bit of intimacy for quite some time now. The alcohol swimming through your system makes you bolder than you normally would be, and you reach out to lay a hand on his arm. He turns toward you with a silent question glimmering in his irises, but you simply step closer, until you’re pinning him against the wall with your body and you’re breathing the same air.

“Hey,” you say, your voice an airy whisper. His eyes are near obsidian in the dimness of the parking lot, illuminated only by the orange glow of the streetlamps on either end, and your gaze flickers down to his mouth before roving to the freckle that sits upon his top lip. “Kiss me?”

Your companion’s eyes widen. His lips part, but no words come out, and you’re about to repeat your question when he finally finds his voice again.

“That’s really… that’s not a good idea.” Awkwardly, he clears his throat, but the hoarseness of his voice and the harsh bob of his Adam’s apple give away his true desires. “Look, you’ve been drinking. We both have, and—”

You cut him off, pushing up to your tiptoes and planting a messy kiss to the soft dip just beneath his bottom lip. “Don’t care,” you mumble against his skin. “I want you.”

Your companion laughs weakly. His hands find their way to your waist and pause there, as if he can’t decide whether to push you away or pull you closer. “You don’t even know me,” he murmurs.

“I don’t have to know you,” you reply. Your fingers drag down his chest, trailing along the delicate silver necklace that rests against the black of his shirt. From the chain hangs a round pendant, the surface engraved with the letter J. Slowly, you trace it with a fingertip, the metal shining even in the dim light, and satisfaction blooms in your heart when your companion’s throat bobs again. “I want you,” you breathe, soft but insistent. “Isn’t that enough?”

“I—” He clears his throat and tries again, and you wonder if he realizes that his hands have slid down to your hips, or that there’s a growing hardness against your lower stomach that’s becoming increasingly harder to ignore. “Look, I’m flattered—really, I am. And you’re… I mean, fuck, you’re gorgeous. But I don’t think we should do anything when you’re clearly not in the right frame of mind to be making this kind of decision, and—”

“And, nothing.” You wind your arms around his neck, pressing close and grinding subtly against the bulge in his pants. You smirk when he releases a low hiss from between his teeth, and hide it by laying a trail of kisses along the stretch of bare skin exposed by the dip of his collar. “Stop being such a gentleman,” you whisper. Your fingers trail down his chest, past the silver of his pendant and down to the faded denim of his jeans, teasing at the cool metal of his belt buckle. “I want this. But if you’re not interested, I can always go back in there and—”

The rest of your sentence dies in your throat. Your companion has tugged you flush against him in one smooth motion, and your gasp is cut off by the firm press of his mouth against yours. Immediately, you melt into the kiss, and a moan tears from your lips when he spins you around and pins you against the brick wall of the building.

“You’re a spoiled little thing, huh?” His breath fans hot against your cheeks, and you shiver when you meet his eyes and see the dark promise reflected there. “Used to getting what you want, huh, princess?”

Your breath hitches at the endearment—something your companion doesn’t miss. “Oh, you like that?” He chuckles hoarsely, and when he speaks again it’s in a rasp that sends heat straight to your core. “What else do you like, hmm? You want me to be rough with you, princess? Or should I be gentle and treat you like a queen?”

You reach up, raking your fingers through his hair and skimming across the soft strands of his undercut before finding purchase at his nape. “You talk too much,” you whisper.

And then you’re crushing your mouth back against his, whining when he immediately takes back control of the kiss. His grip slides downward, his fingertips digging into the skin just above the curve of your ass, and you squeak when he grabs the back of your thigh and hooks your leg around his waist.

“You feel that?” he rasps into your ear, nipping at the delicate shell and chortling when you keen. Your skirt has ridden up dangerously high on your spread thighs, and you let out a soft whimper when he grinds harshly against your center. The lace of your panties and the denim of his jeans are the last barricades between you, and you wonder, vaguely, whether your companion has a bit of an exhibitionist streak when he slides one of your sleeves down your shoulder and begins kissing a trail down to the swell of your cleavage. “You feel how hard you’ve gotten me?”

You lean down, kissing the soft spot where his jaw meets his ear before letting your teeth graze against his skin. “Why don’t you do something about it then?”

He hisses out a sharp breath, his hands tightening their hold on your hips. “You’ve got quite the mouth on you, huh? I can’t wait to make you eat your words.”

Any retort you may have had is interrupted by a sudden swell of music and the sound of a slamming door. Whirling to face the source of the noise, you immediately spot a familiar head of lavender hair atop broad shoulders encapsulated in the black uniform of the bar. Jin hasn’t noticed the two of you yet, his attention fixated on his cell phone screen, but he looks up when you let out a little squeak of surprise and shove your companion’s chest in an attempt to create some distance between you.

“Hey.” Jin raises a hand in greeting, a knowing smirk curling his lips. “This phone call shouldn’t be too long, so please. Don’t stop the party on my behalf.”

Heat floods to your cheeks. There isn’t much use protesting against his insinuation, considering the rather compromising position you’re in. Much to your relief, though, your companion simply huffs out a chuckle and waves Jin off. “Thanks, man, but we’ll get out of your hair.” Lowering his voice, he turns back to you. “Coming, princess?”

You nod. He offers you his hand, and you take it gratefully, adjusting your skirt so that it drapes properly over your hips and thighs again.

“Have a good night!” Jin calls after you, amusement lacing every word. You can’t work up the nerve to respond, and luckily, you don’t have to. Your companion leads you around the corner of the building, where several rows of cars are parked beneath an orange streetlamp. On this side, the exterior brick wall is painted with a mural, and you admire the colorful galaxies and nebulae swirling amidst silvery white stars and the word serendipity spray-painted in pale blue.

The last car in the row is parked just beneath the letter Y, and it’s here that your companion stops. The sleek black vehicle has an almost vintage feel to it, and you glance up when you hear the jingle of metal.

“I’m guessing this is yours?”

He nods, pulling a set of keys from the pocket of his leather jacket and inserting one into the lock. “Yeah. You like it?”

“It’s beautiful,” you tell him, tracing the edge of the passenger window “Makes my car look like a total piece of shit by comparison.”

Your companion chuckles, pulling open the driver’s side door, and you catch a glimpse of your reflection in the window as he presses a button to unlock the rest of the doors. Your hair’s a bit of a mess and your mascara has smudged beneath your right eye, and you hurriedly swipe at it as your companion turns his attention back to you.

“So,” he says. “Now what? I can give you a ride home, if you want.”

Deliberately, you let your gaze drop down to his crotch, where his bulge—albeit waning—is still visible. “Seriously? I thought you were going to… what was it again? Make me eat my words?”

And just like that, it’s as if a switch has flipped. His eyes darken to obsidian, his lips settling into a stern line, and you barely have time to draw in a breath before he’s caging you against the side of his car and molding his mouth to yours. Your lips part beneath the onslaught, and he wastes no time in dipping inside to explore, licking into you until you’re both breathless.

“Inside,” he breathes once you’ve broken apart, and you instantly obey. You wrench the door open and all but tumble into the backseat, and he isn’t far behind as he slots himself between your spread thighs. Your hands fly to his shoulders where you help him shuck off his leather jacket, tossing it carelessly to the front where it lands in a heap on the dashboard before focusing your attention on the hem of his black t-shirt. Your companion obliges you as you push it upward to expose his toned abdomen, grabbing it by the collar and pulling it off the rest of the way when your reach falls a little short in the cramped interior of the backseat.

“Your turn,” he whispers when you try to reach for his belt, his hands settling around your wrists. “It’s only fair, princess.”

Pouting, you let your hands fall limp in his grasp, and he chuckles as he leans down to pacify you with a kiss. Deft fingers find the hem of your blouse, pushing it up until you can twist out of the material. You throw it aside with no regard for where it lands on the ground, and lay back as your companion drinks you in, his dark gaze raking across the lacy black lingerie that decorates your curves and skims you like a second skin. “Fuck,” he breathes, his voice hoarse with a combination of amazement and disbelief. “You’re stunning.”

You smile, trailing a fingertip from the dip of his collarbone down to the silver necklace that sits prettily against his bare chest. “You’re not so bad yourself,” you tell him, tracing the letter engraved into his pendant. “Jay.”

Your companion—newly dubbed Jay—smiles back. “You’re something else, princess,” he murmurs, before leaning down to kiss you again. He explores your mouth thoroughly—languidly—before moving down to nip at your neck, and already, you can feel the beginnings of marks beginning to form, blossoming across your skin as irrefutable proof of your tryst.

It isn’t long before Jay frees you from your bra, watching with carnal fascination as your breasts spill out of the lacy material. You whine when he reaches out to cup one, his palm hot against your bare skin, and he smirks crookedly when a pinch to your nipple makes your back arch off the leather of the seat. “So pretty,” he rasps. “I can’t wait to see how you look stretched around my cock.”

“Stop waiting, then,” you tell him, trying again for his belt buckle. This time, he lets you fumble it open, leaning back to watch you work with hooded eyes and a lazy little smile. Emboldened, you push aside the denim of his jeans and free his cock from the confines of his underwear. He’s hard and hot and heavy in your palm, and your tongue darts out instinctively at the sight of the pearlescent precum beading the tip.

“Jay,” you murmur, thumbing across the head of his erection and smirking when he hisses in pleasure. “Fuck me.”

Jay seems to consider your demand, mischief flitting across his features before he manages to school his expression into something more neutral. “Where are your manners, princess?” he asks, pushing your hand away and giving himself a few long, slow strokes. “Say please, if you want it so bad.”

For a moment, you consider refusing. Jay seems to be the type of man who enjoys a good game, but between the state of his cock and the earlier interruption, you’re pretty sure he’s nearing his limit. And even if he isn’t, you are. And so, you shelve your pride for the time being, and trail a hand down the length of your bared body as you bat your lashes up at him. “Fuck me, Jay,” you repeat. “Please. Want your cock so bad.”

His answering smile is equal parts amusement and satisfaction, and altogether sinful. “That’s my girl,” he rasps, before shoving your panties aside. Lining the head of his cock up, he enters you in one smooth thrust, and you moan as your walls stretch to accommodate his girth. You’re more than wet enough to take him in his entirety, your eyes fluttering shut when he bottoms out, and he groans hoarsely as he takes a second to relish the feeling of your walls gripping him so tightly.

“Fuck. You’re so wet, princess.” Jay dips a thumb into your slick, spreading it across your clit and rubbing a few experimental circles around the sensitive nub. He groans when you clench around him, his hips stuttering, and you squeeze around him again just to hear him grit out another curse. “Shit. I’m not going to last long at this rate.”

“Don’t care,” you murmur, rocking against him and sighing when the motion sends him a little deeper into your core. “Just fuck me, Jay. Please.”

Jay leans in, a dark lock of hair falling across his forehead as he plants an indulgent kiss on your waiting mouth. “Anything for you, princess,” he breathes. Slowly, he pulls back until only the tip of his cock remains inside you. Then he’s slamming forward, and you can’t even find it in yourself to care about the obscene sound of skin slapping against skin or the way the car rocks. Jay’s thumbing across your clit in tight circles that he times perfectly with the rock of his hips, and you wonder whether the rapidly building pleasure in your belly is due to your dry spell or if he’s just that good. You can feel every inch of him as he fills you up repeatedly, his brows furrowed in concentration and his dark hair flopping as he drives deeper in search of the spot that will have you seeing stars.

You know he’s found it when the pleasure in your belly spikes, your back arching off the backseat. Your skin is sticky against the dark leather and you’re certain the sweat gathering at your temples has destroyed the last of your makeup, but Jay alleviates your concerns with a particularly well-timed thrust and a harsh nip to the soft spot at your clavicle. You keen out something unintelligible, and his lips stretch into a smirk against your skin.

“That’s it,” he encourages. “Cum for me, princess.”

That’s all it takes for the mounting pressure to snap. Your body collapses into a searing orgasm, the pleasure flaring out like a supernova and spreading through your veins like wildfire. “F-fuck, Jay—” you gasp, your fingers scrabbling at his back for purchase and no doubt leaving scratches in their wake. “Fuck, you feel so—”

The remainder of your words trail off into garbled nonsense, and Jay huffs out a strained chuckle as he begins chasing after his own orgasm, rutting against you in a way that both prolongs your pleasure and sustains his own. “Shit,” he groans, his eyes fluttering shut. “Fuck, that’s it. Look at you—taking my cock so well. So pretty and perfect and—”

Whatever he was going to say dissolves into a groan as he gives a few more erratic thrusts before his release overwhelms him. Creamy warmth floods through you, and you rub his back tiredly as his head drops onto your shoulder, his breath flaring hot against your skin as he rides out his orgasm.

It takes several long seconds for the pleasure to recede. Your legs are still shaky when Jay pulls away, straightening up and tucking himself back into his jeans. There’s an empty ache in your core now that you are no longer stuffed full of his cock, and already, you are missing the feeling. Still, you push that aside as you sit up, adjusting your panties and wincing at the wetness that soaks the material and sticks to your skin.

“So,” Jay says after a moment’s silence, and you glance over at him when he huffs out a short chuckle. “That was fun.”

“Not bad at all,” you agree weakly, an irrepressible smile tugging at your lips.

Jay grins. It’s a bright, infectious grin—and it’s one that you’ve already grown rather fond of in the short period of time you’ve known him. It’s a grin that showcases his perfect teeth and crinkles his eyes into crescents, and one that all but forces you to grin back.

“Here, give me your phone,” he says, and you watch as he punches in his number once you hand it over. “Just in case you ever wanna do this again,” he tells you, handing it back. “Don’t be a stranger, princess.”

You glance down at his contact information, saved under the moniker you’d given him and affixed with a short string of emojis. “I won’t,” you tell him, chuckling. “In fact, I just might take you up on the offer.”

The screen of your laptop has long since gone dark, and you stretch your arms overhead before waking it again. Rolling your shoulders, you navigate back to the main Netflix menu, hovering over the resume button and watching the trailer loop in the background.

You’d be lying if you said you didn’t think about Jay often. You’ve texted each other quite often since that night in his car—usually when you’re bored and alone and have had a few too many glasses of wine in the evenings. You’ve found yourself tapping on his name instinctively during those odd, ambiguous hours—when late night and early morning meld together and you’re aching for a bit of relief.

And as if he knows you’re thinking about him, your phone buzzes against the coffee table, the screen lighting up with a familiar name.

[11:22pm] Jay 😘🍆💦: thinkin about u, pretty girl 😘

It’s followed by an image, and your heart rate picks up, thudding loudly against your ribs as you open it.

Fuck.

Your memories of Jay’s face—made all the more hazy by the alcohol and the amount of time elapsed since your first and only meeting—truly don’t do him justice. Though the photograph cuts off just above his nose, you can still admire the sharp angle of his jaw and the fullness of his puckered lips. His skin is golden against the white of his t-shirt, and you lick your lips before thumbing across your screen to respond.

[11:23pm] You: yeah? what else are you thinking about, hmm?

His response is instantaneous.

[11:23pm] Jay 😘🍆💦: thinking about that pretty little pussy of yours

[11:23pm] Jay 😘🍆💦: how good it looked in that pic u sent me tuesday 👅

You barely even notice the way your hand begins trailing down your body, pushing aside the elastic waistband of your sweats. It’s as if you’re on autopilot, as your fingers find their way to the damp spot growing on your panties.

Yeah? you write back with your free hand, already teasing at your clothed folds with the other. Tell me more.

///

It’s an uncharacteristically warm Friday morning when you find yourself in the elevator with Jimin, a good friend of yours who works on one of the lower levels of your office building. “Morning,” he says as he steps in, a large iced coffee in hand despite the fact that it’s still very much the middle of winter. Then he squints, leaning a little closer. “Oh my god. You got laid!”

“Oh my god, not so loud!” you hiss, whacking him on the shoulder and jabbing the button to close the elevator doors. “And no, not exactly. I’ve just been texting Jay.”

“Texting, sure.” Jimin mimes air quotes around the word and rolls his eyes. “You’re sexting him, and we all know it. How many pictures of his dick do you have saved on your phone now?”

“Oh my—” You sigh, trailing off. “Can we not talk about this right now?”

“Right, of course.” Jimin takes a sip of his coffee and pretends to check his watch. “When would you like to talk about it then? Do you need to check your calendar? Can I book an appointment for later this afternoon?”

You stick your tongue out at him. “Shut up.”

Jimin just grins, his lips puckered around his straw. “So, how’s Jay? Have you asked for his real name yet?”

You shrug. “What’s the point? It’s not like we’re friends or anything. We’ve literally only met the one time.”

“Yeah, but that’s just because you’re a coward,” Jimin points out. “What’s stopping you from meeting up with him again? You have his number. You have at least one photo of his dick. Ask him out already!”

“It’s not that easy, though,” you sigh. The elevator doors open to let a few more people in, and you move to the side and lower your voice so that only Jimin can hear. “Jay—he’s not exactly boyfriend material. I mean, we fucked in his car the first night we met.”

“So?” Jimin frowns and takes another sip of his iced coffee. “You talk about things besides sex, don’t you? You definitely told him about your goldfish dying, at least. I mean, you told him before you even told me!”

“Yes I did, and he was appropriately sympathetic about Mustache’s passing, unlike some people,” you sniff. “Get over it already, won’t you?”

“Never,” Jimin replies, ignoring your pointed jab. “I’m sure you only told him because you knew you could get a sympathy sext out of it. How many dick pics did you get out of that night, anyway?”

“You’re gross,” you tell him, punching him in the arm. “Not to mention that’s exactly why Jay’s not boyfriend material. He’s perfectly happy with—whatever it is we’re doing. I can’t just ruin that by asking him to get dinner.” You frown, gnawing on your bottom lip. “I don’t want to make this into something that it’s not.”

Jimin hesitates. “Fine, okay. I guess I can understand that.”

“Yeah.”

There’s a pause, as the elevator makes a few more stops. You watch the numbers crawl higher, and know that you’ll soon have to part ways with your friend..

“Hey.” You nudge Jimin with your shoulder, just as the elevator doors close and you begin the ascent to his floor. “Wanna know something interesting?”

Jimin looks up from his phone, where he’s scrolling through Twitter. “Always.”

“My boss’ son is coming to the party tomorrow.”

Jimin’s eyebrows disappear into his ashy blond hair at your revelation. “Kyunghee’s son? Hoseok, or whatever?”

You chuckle. “The one and only. She’s found about a million ways to bring him up in conversation this past week. She thinks we’re a match made in heaven.”

“Wow.” Jimin releases a long breath. “I wonder what he’s like, then.”

You shrug, adjusting the strap of your work tote over your shoulder. “I guess we’ll find out, won’t we?”

///

The morning of the party, you wake up to an empty refrigerator. Half stale cereal and the last dregs of milk from the carton become your breakfast, and you munch on that as you mull over the contents of your closet. You’re still in your pajamas, but you pull out your comfiest jeans and a sweater to change into after you finish eating. Then you turn to your collection of dresses, rifling through them and mentally debating the merits of each material and color.

You could go in one of two directions tonight. On the one hand, this is still a work party, and as such your attire should probably maintain a certain level of decorum. But on the other, you’re meeting Hoseok Jung for the first time tonight. You aren’t necessarily looking to start anything with the man, of course, but you do want to look good. With that in mind, you eventually settle on a deep red number that you pull out of the very back of your closet, made of a silky material that skims your curves and accentuates your best assets. Laying it on the bed, you begin your hunt for a pair of matching shoes. Twenty minutes of searching and another five of agonizing later, you step into the bathroom, intent on showering and getting on with the rest of your day.

Upon exiting the bathroom, you decide that tackling the state of your refrigerator takes top priority over your other weekend errands. Sitting down at the dining table, you take stock of what you have in your pantry, planning out your meals for the upcoming week and making a list of what you need to purchase in order to make them a reality. It’s just after one in the afternoon when you exit your apartment with a completed grocery list and your purse stuffed full of reusable canvas bags. The store is a short walk from where you live, and you decide to put in your earbuds as your feet navigate the familiar route. The temperature is surprisingly mild for winter, and the sun shines bright from its perch in the cloudless blue sky. It’s perfect weather for a walk, and the fresh air clears your mind and eases your heart.

At the grocery store, you forego the stack of baskets and instead grab a shopping cart. Weaving your way up and down the aisles, you check items off the list on your phone one by one. Eventually, you find yourself in the cereal section, grabbing a box of granola before turning to where your favorite cereal normally sits. It isn’t there, and you turn in a full circle, confused, until your gaze finally lands on the familiar box on the top shelf.

Great.

Sighing, you push up to your tiptoes, stretching your arm as far as it can reach. Your fingertips graze the shelf, but you can’t quite get a grip on the box itself. Glancing down, you scan the bottommost shelf and wonder if you can step on it to give yourself a boost.

“Need a hand?”

The voice comes from behind you, and a vague sense of familiarity sparks in your brain. Slowly, you turn around, and your entire body freezes when your gaze slides up to the speaker’s face.

“Jay.” The syllable escapes you in a near whisper. “H-hi.”

“Hey.”

Jay stands before you, looking like sin incarnate in a faded denim jacket, black sweatpants slung low on his hips, and not much else. At his throat, his silver necklace sparkles, the silver J pendant glinting beneath the fluorescent lights of the store, and you’re suddenly beyond grateful that you decided to put on a decent sweater before leaving.

“Here,” he says, stepping forward until he’s close enough that you can smell his cologne—sandalwood tinged with sweet citrus. “Let me help you with that.”

The sudden proximity has your breath hitching in your throat. Your heart thuds erratically against your ribs as he reaches around you, the denim flaps of his jacket gaping in a way that exposes even more of his bare chest. By the time he pulls back with your cereal box in hand, you feel almost faint, belatedly realizing that you’d been holding your breath.

“You wanted this, right?” Jay asks, and you aren’t sure if you’re imagining the innuendo underlying his words or the teasing inflection of the syllables.

“Y-yeah, that’s the one,” you manage, fighting to quell the uneven tempo of your heartbeat as you accept the box. “Thanks.”

“Happy to help,” he replies. Then he leans in, close enough that you can feel his warm breath fanning your cheek as he murmurs his next sentence into your ear. “Anything for you, princess. You know that.”

Heat floods across your cheeks. Your heart skips two full beats before taking off into a sprint, and it’s impossible to ignore the way your core begins to thrum, as if anticipating a repeat of that night you first met all those weeks ago. Almost instinctively, your eyes dart up to the ceiling where the security cameras are, and Jay follows the trajectory of your gaze with a low chuckle and a soft brush of your cheek with the pad of his thumb.

“Sorry, princess. As much as I’d love to get my hands on you, I’m kind of on a time crunch today.”

You can’t stop the wave of disappointment that washes over you, even if you’re in the exact same boat. “Rain check, then?”

“Rain check,” he agrees. Slowly, you reach up to touch the engraved silver pendant resting against his chest, rubbing it between your fingertips before tracing the curve of the J, and he catches your wandering fingers between his and presses a gentle kiss to your knuckles.

“You know how to reach me,” he murmurs with a mischievous wink. His gaze lingers even after he’s released your hand, and you clear your throat awkwardly before turning to deposit your cereal box into your shopping cart.

The two of you go your separate ways then, exchanging goodbyes. You finish the rest of your grocery shopping in a daze, idly going through the motions at checkout and letting muscle memory guide you back home. Your arms are aching by the time you step past the threshold of your apartment, and you heave your shopping bags up onto the kitchen counter with a relieved sigh before returning to the entryway to toe off your shoes. You throw together a sandwich as you unpack your groceries, taking a big bite as you walk back to your bedroom to look at the dress you’ve picked out. Pacing over to the closet, you double-check your shoe choice. Briefly, you debate whether or not to wear flats instead of heels.

There are still a few hours left before you have to start getting ready, so you take the last of your sandwich back to the kitchen and whip up a smoothie to go with it. You scroll through your phone as you eat, browsing through the latest news headlines and scrolling through your social media accounts. Just before six o’clock, as the sun starts setting beyond the horizon and casting long shadows across your living room, you start getting changed. You snap a photo in the mirror once you’re dressed, pulling up Jimin’s name in your phone and sending it to him.

[6:13pm] You: last chance to come tonight

Your phone buzzes with a response almost immediately.

[6:14pm] Jimin: nah. i’d hate to step on hoseok’s toes.

You laugh. Not so fast, you text back. We don’t even know anything about the guy yet. What if he’s boring? Or sexist?

[6:15pm] Jimin: if u think kyunghee raised a sexist you’re seriously deranged

[6:16pm] Jimin: now stop taking selfies and get your ass out the door! you’re gonna be late!!!!

///

Each year, the holiday party tends to be a little over the top, and this year is no exception. The company has bought out the entirety of a restaurant for the evening, and you glance around in amazement at the twinkling lights and lush evergreen boughs decorating the walls and strung up along the ceiling. An assortment of sparkling ornaments hangs from the massive tree in the far corner, interspersed between silver tinsel and more lights. Grabbing a champagne flute off a passing server’s tray, you head farther into the restaurant, skirting around tables draped in creamy linen and greeting your colleagues and friends.

“Is she alone?”

“Figures.”

The voices come from the direction of the open bar, and somehow, you just know that they’re talking about you. Lottie, Hyejin, and Sandra are clustered in the corner with glasses of wine in hand, casting glances around the restaurant and gossiping about anything and everything with a pulse. You’re sorely tempted to grab the nearest pitcher of water off a table and pour it over their heads, but you suppress the urge and instead head over with a saccharine smile. “So lovely to see you, {Name},” Lottie says as you approach.

“I love your dress,” Sandra adds. “Very slimming.”

“Thanks,” you reply, putting on your brightest, fakest smile. “Yours is great too. How are you and your husband enjoying the party so far?”

Sandra’s face sours, and you hide your smirk in your champagne flute. Maybe it’s petty to bring up her rocky relationship, but you’ve been subject to snide comments from Sandra and her friends for years now and it’s become increasingly hard for you to bite your tongue. A few tables away, you spot Sandra’s husband, Rodney, take an enormous gulp of his whiskey and wince as it burns down his throat.

“We’re all having a wonderful time, aren’t we, ladies?” Lottie cuts in when Sandra takes too long to answer. “Hyejin’s date is over there with Rodney, and my boyfriend is fetching himself a drink. You remember Dev, don’t you?”

You nod, even though it’s a lie. “Sure. Say hi to him for me.”

Lottie’s lips curve up into a smile, her head tilting to the side, and you’re suddenly reminded of a snake rearing its head back for the kill. “So, what about you? Have you brought someone tonight, or—?”

“Hi ladies!” Kyunghee materializes at your side, her lips painted a festive red shade to match her dress. She’s wearing the disingenuous smile that she reserves for the resident gossips of your office, and you try not to let your relief show on your face when Lottie’s attention refocuses on your manager.

“So good to see you, Kyunghee,” she simpers. “Have you been here long?”

“Not as long as you,” your manager replies, nodding at the near-empty wineglass in her hand. “I see we’re already making a dent in the wine supply, and you’re falling behind, {Name}. Why don’t we go remedy that, hmm?”

She doesn’t give you a chance to respond, grabbing your arm and leading you away. Kyunghee is surprisingly spry for a woman her age, and you follow after her with some difficulty as she marches through the throngs of conversing people, all the way to the line at the open bar.

“I’d like you to meet someone,” she says, gesturing at the man standing at the end of the line with his back to you. “{Name}, this is my son, Hoseok.”

The man turns around at the sound of his name, a warm, affable smile stretched across his face. “Hi, I’m H—” he begins, but he’s cut off by your sharp intake of breath. His eyes go wide, his smile fading as his mouth falls open, and you’re certain you’re wearing an even more dumbfounded expression. “It’s you,” he says, his voice hoarse.

“Wh-what… how…” You trail off, speechless. The words flounder and die in your throat as your brain struggles to process this development, and you practically feel the way the gears in your head churn to a stuttering halt.

Because this man standing before you, the one that Kyunghee has just introduced as her son, is none other than Jay. He looks completely and utterly devastating in a navy waistcoat and matching slacks, a green tie shaped like a Christmas tree knotted loosely around the white collar of his shirt. His dark hair is parted, his undercut exposed, and you can’t tear your gaze away from the loose strand that has fallen across his forehead.

“H-hi.”

Jay—Hoseok—swallows. “Hi.”

Kyunghee glances between the two of you, her brows furrowing. “I take it you two already know each other?”

Hoseok’s ears begin taking on a scarlet tinge, the color spreading to his cheeks as he struggles to find his vocabulary again. “I—yeah. Yeah, we’ve met.”

“Right. Do I even want to know how?” she asks dubiously, before shaking her head and huffing out a sigh. “No, forget I asked. I don’t want to know. I’ll just leave you two to… catch up.”

Waving goodbye, Kyunghee disappears back into the crowd of partygoers milling around. Hoseok turns back to you, sucking in a deep breath, and you fight the urge to stare down at your toes as his gaze roves across your face.

“I can’t believe this,” he says, breaking the silence that’s fallen between you at last. “My mom’s been talking about you for months, but I never imagined that it’d be you.”

“You’re telling me,” you reply, finally having recovered your voice. “Kyunghee brings you up all the time, but I never thought… I mean, we didn’t even know each other’s names, and now…” You shrug. “Here we both are.”

“It’s a pretty crazy coincidence, huh?”

“Definitely.”

A beat passes, and then two. You’re fully aware that you’re staring, but you don’t dare blink, afraid that he’ll disappear if you close your eyes. Of all the things that you thought might happen tonight, this particular meeting wasn’t even close to making the list. Never would you have thought that the man you only knew as Jay would turn out to be Kyunghee’s son. Never would you have connected Jay to the photographed little boy in yellow suspenders on Kyunghee’s desk, or realized that they were one and the same.

From behind you, someone loudly clears their throat. Another voice calls for you to get a move on, already, and both you and Hoseok belatedly realize that you are still standing in line for the open bar. Hoseok’s eyes go wide again, and you nearly tread on his toes when you both try to move forward. “After you,” he says with a chuckle, gesturing for you to go in front of him, and that’s enough to break the tension. You step ahead of him with a laugh, catching up to the line, and Hoseok doesn’t stray far as he follows your lead.

“So, what are you drinking?” he asks, a smile playing at the corner of his lips. “Vodka soda with a twist?”

“Actually, I think I’m going to stick with wine tonight,” you reply, peering at the bottles lined up on the counter. “What about you?”

“Hmm. Jack and coke, I think. Nothing else is really calling my name right now.”

Grabbing your drinks, the two of you begin searching for a place to sit. You spot Kyunghee at a table near the front, and she smiles knowingly and offers you a thumbs-up when she catches your eye. Eventually, you settle on a table near the Christmas tree, the lights glimmering off the glasses and reflecting off your knife as you pick it up to butter a slice of crusty bread from the basket in the center. Hoseok follows your lead, grabbing a piece for himself, and the two of you munch in silence for a few seconds before Hoseok breaks it.

“You know, my mom says you’re the perfect girl for me” he says with a dry little chuckle. “Think she’s right?”

“I don’t know,” you answer. “It’s funny, though—Kyunghee’s been telling me the same thing. She sings your praises all the time.”

Hoseok laughs and scratches the back of his neck. “Oh, jeez, that’s kind of embarrassing. I’m glad she’s saying good things, at least.”

“You don’t have to worry about that,” you tell him, grinning. “She’s only shown us one photo album from your childhood.”

His face crumples. “Was it the Disneyland one?”

You nod, fighting back laughter, and watch as Hoseok groans and lets his forehead meet the linen-covered tabletop with a dull thunk.

“I don’t like rollercoasters,” he mumbles into the tablecloth, his voice muffled by the material. “They make me queasy.”

“Even now?” you ask, and he nods.

“Yep.”

The clinking of a fork against a wineglass—amplified and broadcast through an array of invisible speakers built into the restaurant’s walls—interrupts any further conversation. You twist in your seat to watch your company’s leadership give their opening remarks, listening as they congratulate everyone for a great year and wish you a happy holiday season. The servers begin going out with plates of food, and you thank them as they set yours down. Hoseok does the same before raising his glass in your direction, clearing his throat and offering you a crooked little smile.

“Here’s to second meetings.”

“Third, if you count the store earlier,” you correct, and he chuckles and nods in agreement before clinking his drink against yours.

You spend the entirety of dinner chatting with Hoseok, getting to know him beyond the few facts Kyunghee has mentioned and what little you’ve gleaned from texting him the last two months. He tells you all about his dance studio, Hope World, where he teaches both contemporary dance and the occasional Pilates class. You find out that in addition to rollercoasters, he also dislikes sour foods and raisins, but he loves mint chocolate and sweet and sour pork. He also has a very low tolerance for alcohol—something he tells you as he tilts the rest of his drink into his mouth. “Should I be worried?” you ask as he sets his glass back down, and he chuckles and shakes his head, sending the loose tendril of hair flopping across his forehead.

Dessert is served, and subsequently eaten. The music is turned up, and people slowly begin finding their way to the open space that serves as an impromptu dancefloor. Hoseok rises to his feet and extends a hand toward you, and you only hesitate for the briefest of seconds before accepting it. He leads you out amongst the other swaying couples, his hand finding its way to the curve of your waist, and you rest your hand on his shoulder as he begins guiding you in a slow, simple waltz.

“So?” Hoseok’s voice is a low murmur, soft and gentle against the shell of your ear. “What’s the verdict?”

You blink. “The verdict?”

Even without looking, you can tell that he’s smiling. You can hear it in the lilt of his voice, and imagine it in the curve of his lips. “About me,” he clarifies, carefully pulling back so you can spin in a circle beneath his outstretched arm. “About us. My mom will never let me hear the end of it if she turns out to be right, but I still wanna know. So what are you thinking?”

“Are you asking if I think we’re perfect for each other?” you ask, giggling. “I don’t know if I believe in all that, to be quite honest. Destiny and soulmates—I mean, doesn’t it seem a little too good to be true?”

Hoseok hums. “Maybe. But considering all that’s happened to us in the last couple of months, don’t you think there’s a chance that it's all more than simple coincidence?”

“Maybe,” you concede. “Still, I don’t know if I can give you a verdict just yet. We haven’t even gone on a date.”

“We did do things a little backwards,” Hoseok admits, tugging you close and winding his arm around your waist. “Let me make it up to you, then. Are you free tomorrow?”

“What if I am?” you challenge.

“Then, I’d like to take you out for breakfast,” he replies without missing a beat.

The prospect of a proper meal with Hoseok Jung does something funny to your insides. Still, something makes you hesitate, and you avert your gaze as you search for your next words. “I wasn’t expecting to end tonight with a date,” you admit slowly. “I honestly didn’t even think you were interested in… well, anything beyond sex, to be honest.”

Hoseok’s face creases into a frown, and you look up again when he murmurs your name. “I understand why you would think that,” he says. “Really, I do. But honestly? I had every intention of texting you and asking you out properly. I was going to play it cool and wait a few days, which was stupid in retrospect. And then you texted me first.”

“I texted y—” You trail off. “Oh, god.”

“It seemed like you’d been drinking,” Hoseok says with a shrug, and you press a finger to his lips before he can say anything more. You remember the night in question, and you remember the bottle of wine you’d consumed. And you definitely remember the photographs you’d sent of yourself, and the ones Hoseok had been kind enough to send in return.

“Wait, so you were going to ask me out? And then I… I sexted you?”

Hoseok nods, and you groan and bury your face into his chest.

“I can’t believe this,” you mutter, and you feel laughter rumble through his chest before a hand comes up to stroke along your back.

“Believe me, I’m not complaining,” he assures you. “But I’d still really like to take you out, so what do you say?”

His gaze doesn’t leave yours for a second as he awaits your answer, and your heart skips a beat when you look up to see the earnestness in his eyes and the hesitant smile playing at the corners of his mouth. “Breakfast sounds wonderful,” you whisper, and the smile that blossoms on your companion’s face is nothing short of radiant.

“Good,” he says. “Great. Breakfast tomorrow, then. Now, can I kiss you?”

You’re already pushing up to your tiptoes, your fingers fisting in the soft hair at his nape. “God, yes.”

///

“Hey, you made it!”

You beam. “Hi.”

You and Hoseok are about to commence your first date, having just sat down at a cozy little café for breakfast. Hoseok has pulled your chair out in true gentlemanly fashion, and you can’t help but smile over your menu at the few lingering snowflakes that have yet to melt into his dark hair.

“So, here we are,” you remark. “Our fourth meeting.”

Hoseok’s lips stretch into his signature grin, breathtakingly bright and infectious. “And hopefully many more.”

You grin at him. “Yeah? Too bad this is breakfast, because I’d drink to that.”

He leans forward, his grin widening. “Next time,” he says as his hand finds its way around yours, his fingers slotting comfortably into the spaces between your own. “We can do dinner, maybe. Or I can cook for you. But for now, I’m just happy that we’re finally doing this.”

You give his hand a soft squeeze. “Me too.”

“Just promise me one thing?”

The sudden seriousness of his tone has your brow furrowing in concern. “Sure, of course,” you reassure. “What is it?”

He winces. “Please don’t tell my mom about all the dick pics.”

#hoseok #hoseok smut #hoseok x reader #bts smut #bts scenarios #hoseok scenarios #jhope #jung hoseok #bts #bts fanfic #bts fanfiction #bts fic #kpop scenarios #hoseok x you #strangers to lovers!au #strangers to lovers #lia writes #gonna change that stupid summary if i can think of anything better LOL #my brain went all mushy on me idk what's happening

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thepapercutpost · 3 years

Text

Female Artists Fighting For Their Due Are Not Being Greedy; They’re Defending the Futures of Their Industries

"Scarlett Johansson" by Gage Skidmore is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0 (left). "File:191125 Taylor Swift at the 2019 American Music Awards (cropped).png" by Cosmopolitan UK is licensed under CC BY 3.0 (right)

In May of 2010, Iron Man 2 introduced Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow to the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

A few months later, Netflix—whose subscribers were, in majority, still receiving DVDs—began offering a standalone streaming subscription independent from its DVD rentals. It wasn’t until nearly ten years later that Disney, parent company of Marvel Entertainment, would launch its own streaming service, Disney+. And in 2021, after three pandemic-related delays, Black Widow, Natasha Romanoff’s solo film which fans had been demanding for 11 years, was finally released.

The long-awaited film garnered $80 million in North American theaters during its opening weekend, more than any other film released during the pandemic era. (In comparison, MCU’s last pre-pandemic release, Spider-Man: Far From Home, made $185 million). Because of the somewhat mercurial state of indoor gatherings around the world, Disney chose to make Black Widow available simultaneously in theaters and for an additional $30 fee for Disney+ subscribers. After opening weekend, in an unprecedented move in streaming service transparency, Disney revealed the film had grossed $60 million through Disney+’s Premier Access feature.

The next weekend, the film suffered a 67% drop in box office sales. Disney has not since released streaming numbers.

Within a month, news broke that Johansson was suing Disney over the film’s hybrid release. Her suit claims that her contract for the film guaranteed an exclusively theatrical release and that her compensation was largely tied to box office revenue, which was impacted by the film’s simultaneous availability on Disney+. The breach of contract is a serious allegation against the company, and it comes from the embodiment of one of the longest-standing pillars of its most successful franchise.

Disney’s response? Make her the bad guy. Paint her as the greedy, insensitive Hollywood prima donna. Publish her salary to prove it, despite a policy of “never publicly disclos[ing] salaries or deal terms.” And blame the pandemic.

In a statement, the company claimed Johansson’s suit had “no merit whatsoever” and called it “especially sad and distressing in its callous disregard for the horrific and prolonged global effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.”

Their argument here is twofold: 1) the pandemic prevented them from releasing the movie in theaters, and 2) she should be happy with the millions she has already gotten.

We have all had to make concessions due to the pandemic, albeit most of us on a smaller scale. But Disney’s sudden overwhelming concern for public health and safety is less than convincing. Their claim that they couldn’t have released the film in theaters proves baseless on account of it, well, being released in theaters. What they seemingly meant was that the pandemic meant a smaller payday from movie theaters, so they found an additional method of distributing the film that just so happened to free them of the obligation of splitting its revenue with the star, not to mention movie theater companies.

Appealing to the sympathies of the billions of people in the world who can’t even fathom the amount of money Johansson and her movie star peers earn for each film they make is a slightly smarter move. After all, a jury who decides whether she wins her case will likely consist of non-millionaires who may be biased against a woman who out-earns them by two or three digits. Regardless of the amount of money in question or the wealth of the individual, a deal is a deal, and a written contract is legally binding. The bottom line is that Disney failed to honor the agreed-upon contingencies (ie. a theatrical release). Not to mention, this argument expects us to forget that Disney itself is a conglomerate worth hundreds of billions of dollars, hardly a poor, innocent victim of a rich woman’s greed.

In fact, Disney’s mentioning of “the $20 million she has received to date” only broadens the scope in Johansson’s favor. She is a Tony winner, two-time Oscar nominee, and one of the highest-grossing actors in box office history. If she retired today, her entire family would be able to live a life of luxury for generations to come without having to work a day. So why nitpick over the extra $50 million or so she could have earned with a theaters-only release, cause a Hollywood-sized fuss, and risk the company dragging her name through the mud, as they so predictably did?

Let’s ask Taylor Swift. The singer-songwriter shot to international superstardom in 2008, making her the face of pop music. In recent years, she has fiercely advocated for artists’ rights after experiencing her own long and ultimately failed attempt to buy back her master recordings from Big Machine Label Group, which was acquired by music manager Scooter Braun in 2019.

Similarly, Johansson’s representatives attempted to reach out to Disney after the announcement of Black Widow’s hybrid release, which could possibly have amended their agreement and avoided the lawsuit altogether. But, like Swift, she was ignored.

Swift famously writes her own music, often from her own experiences. Scott Borchetta, founder of Big Machine, claims that she had the opportunity to own her masters, but, from both his account and Swift’s, the offer was contingent upon her staying with the company. Seeing as doing business with his company was what landed her in this situation, she was not willing to accept this condition, nor did she later accept Braun’s offer to buy back her music, a deal from which Braun would have profited and which came with its own condition: an NDA.

Her claim that Braun’s deal “stripped [her] of [her] life’s work” ignited a highly publicized feud not just between Swift and Braun but between their friends, loyalists, and supporters. Swift’s team shared her stance on artists’ rights while Braun’s defended his nice guy image. Braun himself didn’t comment, instead allowing his allies to take shots at the singer. His wife, Yael Cohen Braun, in an Instagram post referred to Swift as a “bully” and to her claim as a “temper tantrum,” telling her, “the world has watched you collect and drop friends like wilted flowers.” Justin Bieber, a client of Braun’s, suggested Swift's intention when expressing her disgust over the deal was “to get sympathy.”

Even after selling her masters to a private equity firm for $300 million in November 2020, Braun continues to profit off every CD and every stream of every song from every one of the six studio albums Swift recorded while she was signed with Big Machine, an agreement she first entered into at age 15.

Where Johansson is clearly in the right legally, Swift is morally right. Borshetta and Braun were under no legal obligation to sell her the rights to the songs she wrote and created, but they should have.

Both Swift and Johansson have incited high profile disputes, and both have been called by critics the “wrong person” to serve as the figurehead for the big picture arguments based on how much money they make. Two multi-millionaires are hardly the best representatives of the little guy trying to make it in the entertainment industry. It’s no skin off either of their noses if they don’t revolutionize the way artists and actors are paid.

Actually, it makes them the best voices for their causes. The millions of dollars at stake in each of their deals, while massive amounts to the average onlooker, would be a drop in the bucket of their wealth. Yes, they both have huge platforms and established fanbases they can use to garner support, but the fact that they have no skin in the game is their real strength. They don’t need the money, which proves they’re not doing it for themselves.

Disney is trying to hide behind the pandemic to defend its decision to release Black Widow on Disney+, but the issue was present even before the pandemic started, evident in Johansson’s agreement that the film have an exclusively theatrical release. Her suit claims she insisted upon this contingency when the streaming service was launched.

Streaming changed the game. Johansson is likely not the only one to have lost out on media companies’ failure to compensate talent fairly in the wake of the streaming evolution, but she is the first to draw the amount of attention to it that she has. Her claim opens the eyes of fellow actors, film distributors, and the public to an issue that extends beyond her: if the film industry is capable of adapting their content to this new source of distribution, then they can accommodate the role of actors into the changing environment and pay them, and other individuals who make their films possible, what they’re owed.

Record companies can stand to shake things up, too. Contracts that grant an artist’s masters to the labels that produce their music, such as the one Swift signed with Big Machine in 2004, are the norm in the music industry. Hers is far from the first battle to be fought by artists over the rights to their own music. There was the famous Paul McCartney v. Prince debacle in the 1980s, for example. In most cases, revenue is doled out to the label, the producers, the managers, and, last and least, the artists. It’s a system that assumes the performers are just lucky to be there, to have the opportunity to become the next Taylor Swift.

But streaming isn’t just for the movies—it’s changing the music game, too. Artists used to be entirely dependent on record companies to promote their music and get it into the hands of radio stations, but streaming sites and social media have allowed artists to release music independently. Working with a record company is still highly advantageous to an up-and-coming artist, but the other options available to them leave some breathing room for an artist to negotiate and retain the rights to their own music.

So, will wins for Swift and Johansson mean making two rich people richer? Yes. But it also starts a conversation. It gets the word out to young artists and actors that they should expect more from the publishers and executives they work with. And it sends a message to CEOs and big corporations: change with the times.

Since leaving Big Machine, Swift has signed with Universal Music Publishing Group in an agreement that guarantees her the rights to the music she creates with them, from Lover on. She is also in the process of re-recording her first six albums, an endeavor that began with Fearless (Taylor’s Version) in April and will continue with the scheduled release of Red (Taylor’s Version) in November.

“Hopefully, young artists or kids with musical dreams will read this and learn about how to better protect themselves in a negotiation,” Swift wrote in a post. “You deserve to own the art you make.”

#opinion #entertainment #business #feature

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diveronarpg · 5 years

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In fair Verona, our tale begins with MONA CHEN, who is THIRTY-FOUR years old. She is often called QUEEN MAB and works as an ASSOCIATE for the Montagues and Capulets. She uses SHE/HER pronouns.

Hers is not a story that starts with a beautiful little girl wrapped in silks and satins, nor is it one borne from unconditional love or a doting mother’s generosity, but is a tale woven purely as the result of a grave MISTAKE—something Mona’s mother never let her forget. She wasn’t planned, but rather thrust upon a woman who never should have bore a child for there was no room in her heart for anyone but herself. As selfish as she was mean, Caroline Chen was a con-artist who SWINDLED men with deep pockets and even deeper insecurities, swooned with just one bat of her lashes and a quirk of her brow, turned pliable and spineless at a simple graze of her fingertips to their lapel. A few words of praise, maybe even a night to remember if she was feeling particularly generous and they were exceptionally handsome, and it wasn’t long before they were laying money by the thousands at her feet. First it started as some sob story told about her very ill daughter, poured on thick with calculated tears from the supposed damsel cuddling beside whichever unlucky BASTARD thought it wise to trust the pretty woman at the bar last night. And as Mona aged, the lies aged with her. Illness turned to a depressing tale of her father abandoning her and her mother, leaving them with nothing but the clothes on their backs and no place to call home, and with such conviction, Caroline weaved a web thick enough to convince one of her conquests to buy them a house. But what of the little girl who’s life is determined by falsities and half-truths, by a mother who saw her daughter as nothing more than a meal ticket? Deception becomes the only way to survive and SECRETS become sustenance.

It doesn’t take a genius to trace back Mona Chen’s roots, the barely-there strings that tie her back to a woman now rotting away in PRISON and the one-night stand that cultivated her existence. It takes her six months to track him down, to get the full story on how he met her mother in a seedy bar, took her back to his hotel room, far too deep into his cup to even realize she’d lifted his wallet and his keys, and never heard from her or his Mercedes again. He had no idea he even fathered a child, and in fact, married three years later and started a family of his own. I have siblings? She’d asked, somewhat wide-eyed but never dumb enough to be truly HOPEFUL. Like a man suddenly aware he revealed too much information, all he did was nod. Took a sip of his side-of-the-road diner coffee and looked out the glass window to his right. They sat there in silence for a bit. Mona took in his visage from beneath her thick, mascara donned lashes, memorized the details of his face, his eyes, his nose, everything that looked like something he’d given her, and then she left. It can’t be said she never gave him a second thought because there are often times when she does exactly that. Think of him. He floats into the edges of her mind as she graduates college, a hard-earned degree in business paid for through less hard work and more STOLEN checks from dalliances too focused on her petal-pink lips and plunging neckline to notice her hand slipping into their breast pocket. Mona walks across the stage, accepts her diploma with a handshake, and distantly wonders if her father would be PROUD. He recedes from her memory as she starts her career, an intern at a financial firm in downtown Verona, clouded by the stress of starting her adult life, but her best-laid plans of shedding her mother’s tangled roots crumble when she’s released from prison, showing up on her daughter’s doorstep looking for a place to stay. A couple weeks, she’d said. Just until I get back on my feet.

Her mother stayed four days and ROBBED Mona blind, taking everything from the few designer dresses she’d managed to afford on her minimal salary down to the silverware. Anything that could be pawned, she took; anything that could be worn, she stole. And perhaps what hurt the most wasn’t that if only her mother had just asked, she would have helped, however begrudgingly it might have been—no, it was that Mona was clearly no better than her FATHER. A source of income, a thing to be used until there was nothing more, left behind once her value had been diminished. Credit cards maxed out and bank account emptied, she lost her apartment the following month. Repossessed by the very banker she’d overtly flirted with to get the lowest rated mortgage, and with such a pompous smile. Like he knew she bit off more than she could chew and proven him right in less than six weeks. Fast and all at once, Mona found herself back on the STREETS with nothing but the clothes on her back to her name. Those, and her wiles at least. The one good thing her mother had ever done for her: taught her all the ways to survive. Her father moves into view those first few nights, the ones she spent on park benches or huddled inside bus terminals to fight off the cold. It took him three years to get his life together after meeting Caroline, after she CONNED him for all he was worth. It takes Mona six months to do the same, and in record time if she does say so herself. She spends her nights at the Emelia first, catering to older men who love to look but never touch. They just want someone to listen, and listen she does. With ears perked up and brows knitted in a perfected feigned sympathy to their first-world blights and white man problems, all while she dips her fingers into their very deep pockets. Her time and attention, she quickly learned, was worth a pretty penny, and it wasn’t long before Mona built herself a clientele, dreams of an EMPIRE slowly coming into view upon the horizon.

She was never a girl built for the white collar life, spending her days catering to the wants and whims of men who thought it funny to slip their palm against her derriere at the copy machine. It was a life she tried, a life she told herself she wanted time and time again; anything to not become exactly like her mother. But like her mother does with all things, she took, she stole that dream, pried it right out of her daughter’s fingers and forced her back down into the dirt from whence she came. Not unlike a PHOENIX, though, Mona rose from the ashes of her mother’s relentless destruction and became anew with many a lesson learned. Never again would she be made into a thing of value for someone else. Nor would she settle for anything less than all the control. And if there’s anything her clients love more than drinking, it’s spouting off at the mouth about all their supposed POWER. One name found its way into her whispers over and over, like a broken record, the man who changed it all, blessed the poor and turned them rich: CAPULET. She went to him with an offer, a business plan to turn his subpar front of a casino into something worth remembering. And what would you give me? He asked, smoke curling out from the sides of his mouth. She answered him with one word and one word only. Access. The deal was simple. Mona passes along whatever whispers are pertinent to the mob’s success and Cosimo garners forty percent of the profits. And thus THE DARK LADY was born. It took little effort to convince her clients to follow her, offering them VIP entry to the newly remodeled den of sin as compensation for their loyalty. Within two years, Mona adds to her ranks, donning her little birds Sparrows and sets them off to gather more whispers, encouraging them to always listen and never stifle the words their clients offer up. Intimacy is never a must, but trust is paramount.

Once upon a time it was an empire Mona wanted, a kingdom forged in her own image, something that was hers and hers alone, but as the years have gone by, she has realized it is within the DARKNESS she shines. When will you join our ranks, tesoro? Cosimo still asks, still begs the question and waits with bated breath for her answer, hoping for her to utter a long-awaited ‘now.’ Why would I do that? She asks back, a quirk to her brow, lips twisted up in a knowing smirk. Here, I’m the QUEEN.

LUCREZIA FALCO & CALINA SOKOLOVA: Emissaries. Where there is a will, there is a way, and Mona Chen’s will is by far the greatest. She is an expert in bending those around her to her will, and if there was anyone strong enough to gently caress the ego of Lucrezia Falco without falling prey to her piercing onyx gaze, it was the Dark Lady herself. The same cannot be said for the Montague, a girl who’s mind and motives Mona cannot seem to pierce or probe despite her best efforts. Calina is not so easily read, nor so easily wooed for her ego is not what matters most to her like the Capulet. It is by a leash the two emissaries think they have the Queen of Whispers, pulled taught around her throat so as to keep her in line and keep the interests of their Dons at the top of her list. Little do they know Mona fastened the collar to her neck by choice; hold your allies close, your adversaries closer.

YAMAMOTO OMI: Favorite. Of all her Sparrows, her exquisite collection of rare beauties, Omi is by far her best and without a doubt her most cherished. It is with an uncharacteristic compassion Mona handles Omi, with soft touches and forehead kisses, offering up words of wisdom at every turn to better the little bird. To further her ability to dissect secrets from the toughest of subjects and show her how to hold on tight to those whispers, for they are the only true currency worth a damn in this city drenched with sin. And to be rich in this respect is of the utmost importance, a necessity to survival. More than anything Mona wishes to see her succeed, and while there’s pleasure to be had in the taking, the real joy comes from wielding such power. There’s no use for a Sparrow on which these teachings falls flat, and Mona has not spent years training Omi to be her best asset if she didn’t think they were capable of greatness—together.

RONAN IVARSSON: Indenture. He is weak, and that is, perhaps, Mona’s favorite thing about him. Privileged in every sense of the term, he glides through life as if this world was made for him, taking whatever he wants and using those he deems as having talents worth his time, but ultimately he is selfish. He uses people like they’re his playthings, and while the same argument could possibly be made against the Dark Lady, she knows how to cover her tracks. But even more so Mona knows how to actually care for people, how to let her walls down and offer entry into her heart, however guarded it may be. It takes strength after the luck, or rather the lack thereof, the universe handed her. For now, he is a slave to his desires, as most men are, and it is a fact that elates Mona for it means he has secrets, and it is those little whispers he thinks he can keep to himself that she is after. Watch yourself, Ronan. Mona Chen sees all; hears all. And how bad it would be if she took your exploits to that little group you’ve pledged yourself to across the bridge.

HARRIET D’ANGELO: Closest friend. There are few people in this city—on this Earth entirely—that she trusts, but Harriet has become one of them. Enigmatic and exceedingly intriguing, Mona was drawn to the woman from the moment the two first met haphazardly at the Tempest. Harriet with nothing more than a regal air of solitude weighing the space she occupied alone, and Mona with a few Sparrows-in-training by her side, the two exchanged pleasantries in line for the bathroom, and as hackneyed as it may be, the rest was history. From their first meeting, there has been a bond, a certain kind of kinship Mona has been deprived of most her life. Someone to share her soul with, not a lover but a love between almost sisters. The madame is quite protective of the D’Angelo woman, especially as her path begins to collide with the seedy underbelly of Verona. And make no mistake, anyone who dares to cross Harriet D’Angelo will have the Dark Lady to answer to.

Mona is portrayed by GEMMA CHAN and was written by SIDNEY. She is currently OPEN.

#mafia rp #bio rpg #lsrp #lsrpg #gemma chan fc #mona chen #ow #w #o #neu

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lucy-sky · 5 years

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Home

A Lawn Dogs drabble

***

He sighed, sitting at the bar counter. Ordered whiskey. Why the hell does he feel so goddamn tired? It’s Friday night after all… Apparently these times when Friday nights meant parties were gone. Well, what did you expect? You’re almost 45, Trent… No, actually 45 is not that old yet. Bullshit. Maybe it’s some kind of a midlife crisis or something?..

He sighs again, takes off his glasses and rubs his eyes, then puts the glasses back on. Takes a sip of his drink. He’s thinking about how tired he is of this whole routine where every day seems similar to one another.

He can’t really tell what’s wrong with him. Everything is fine. He’s got a job. Not super exciting, but selling lawn mowers is definitely way better than mowing the lawns. Of course there were times when he used to dream bigger, wished to become a professional sportsman, for example… But he can hardly remember these days. Most of his youth he just wanted to find a decent job with decent salary, to become somebody - not just a trashy lawn mower boy living in a dirty trailer in the woods. And he succeeded. He earns good money, owns a flat in the city center, people respect him and no one calls him “trash” any more. He did good.

So… Why is he in such a shitty mood? Everything is fine. Even better than fine. But he feels like something is missing. This feeling doesn’t let him enjoy this Friday night and this really good whiskey he ordered. What the hell?

It’s totally not about relationships. After his latest breakup he realized he actually quite enjoys being a single man. Women seem to find him pretty charming, so… Casual flirt, casual sex even… For now he was okay with it and didn’t feel the urge to settle…

But at the moment he feels lonely. Lonely and tired.

He empties the glass and orders another.

So weird. He used to hate his life back in the days. He was nobody. With no money, no normal job and place to live, practically a hobo… But there were moments he felt so stupidly, ridiculously happy and free. Right now in the hustle and bustle of the city and the office routine he’s almost forgotten this feeling. It would be nice to go back there, to that beautiful and quiet place by the lake. Switch on the music, jump into cool water… No. He’ll never come back. That’s the page of his life he’s turned ages ago and there’s no return.

It’s not his home.

But where is it though?..

- Hey there.

He turns his head to the sound. A girl. Definitely younger than him. Rather tall and slim. Long blond locks. Her big grey eyes are scanning him with a hint of curiosity and he catches himself on a thought that this look is somehow familiar.

- I figured… If we’re both lone rangers tonight, it might be a good idea to join you, - she says and for a split second he’s a bit baffled by her boldness.

- Do you always approach strangers in the bar just like that? - He finally asks, chuckling.

- Well, let’s call it my style, - she smirks. - So, may I?..

He shrugs and she takes a place next to him. The barman approaches and she orders martini. Trent gives her a curious glance.

- Um, may I ask…

The girl looks at him questioningly, taking a sip from her glass.

- What is a pretty young woman doing alone in the bar on Friday? Bet you’ve got a bunch of guys who’d be glad to accompany you… Or at least a bunch of friends to hang out with?

- These guys are boring me, - she replies. - I’ve always been a weird one. As for friends… To tell the truth, I probably had only one true friend in my life.

- Oh, - he nods. - I can relate to this, I guess.

- Really? - She smiles again. - I thought handsome men like you are never lonely.

- Jesus, - he lets out a small laugh. - Your flirting style is really on point.

- Thanks, - she gives him a proud look. - Your laughter… It seems somehow familiar… Could we possibly meet before?..

- I doubt it. Most of the time I’m busy at work, you know…

- What do you do?

- Nothing special. Just a boring job of a boring man. You won’t be very impressed.

- Okay. And I’m an artist.

- Artist? Do you um… paint?

- Not… exactly… I do some other… artistic stuff… - She stumbles for a second. - Well, actually at the moment I work in the museum of modern art… But I do something in my free time… I’ve got lots of projects.

He smiles, looking at her. Apparently, the routine hasn’t consumed her yet, hasn’t made her give up on big dreams… Good for her.

- Well… Cheers to your projects to become reality than, - he says, raising the glass.

- Cheers.

For a while they keep talking, laughing and drinking. Trent feels warm inside and he’s sure it’s not only because of alcohol. He likes her company. And she seems to like his company as well. At some point he realizes they don’t even know each other’s names. He’s about to ask when she suggests going for a smoke. It’s one of those bars where you can’t smoke at the counter and at the tables.

He follows her to the smoking room, his mind already pleasantly fuzzy due to the alcohol. The bar was dimly lit, and here it’s even darker. At the doorstep he awkwardly trips, almost bumping into her, but manages to hold onto the wall.

- Sorry, - he mumbles, realizing she’s trapped between him and the wall, his hands at her sides.

- It’s okay, - she smiles, her face so close he can feel her breath on his skin.

- Your eyes are really beautiful, - she suddenly says, bringing her hands to his face and taking off his glasses. She puts them on a small table in the corner and for a split second they just stare at each other. He’s not sure how it happened, probably alcohol is to blame once again, but the next moment his lips are on hers. She seems to be waiting for it, eager to return the kiss. Her lips are soft and warm against his, it feels nice, yet he senses there’s something wrong about kissing her. Something he just cannot quite catch. So he chases the thought away, deepening the kiss. They’re both are adult people after all.

Her hands skim down his chest, slip underneath his shirt, and he shivers as her fingertips brush against the old scar on his belly… That’s when she suddenly stops kissing him. Her face changes as she’s drawing away from him.

- Trent?..

He blinks at her in confusion, his foggy brain struggling to understand what’s going on. He wants to ask, but the words stuck in his throat as her fingers move to undo a couple of buttons on her blouse. Enough for him to see a long scar between her breasts.

- D… Devon?..

His heart skips a beat at the realization as she nods slowly, looking into his eyes before reaching out to cup his cheeks. And at this moment he sees very clearly that little girl he used to know twenty years ago. Probably the only true friend of his. “Home is in my hands” - she said to him the last time he saw her. Now he’s back home.

- I missed you, - she breathes out, pressing her forehead to his.

- I missed you too.

He examines her face. It’s ridiculous. How come he didn’t recognize her? He smiles.

- Man, look at you!…

She smiles back, fighting the urge to cry, tears already twinkling in her eyes.

- Come here.

He pulls her in a tight hug and she buries her face into his shoulder.

Words become useless as they stand there holding each other.

- Trent and Devon. Devon and Trent, - she whispers. - Do you remember?..

Of course he does. Always did.

#sam rockwell #lawn dogs #lucy tries to write

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rkjoohyvn · 5 years

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NAME bae joohyun NICKNAME baechu REASON FOR NAME her last name, and a play on the word for napa cabbage BIRTHDAY march 29, 1996 AGE 23 GENDER female PLACE OF BIRTH sydney, australia PLACES LIVED SINCE from birth to 12: sydney, australia / present: seoul, south korea PARENTS’ NAMES, BACKGROUNDS, OCCUPATIONS

father: bae hyungki, 56, professor. was the lead singer and guitarist in a band in high school and college; eventually ended when all the members grew older and had families to take care of. owned a music shop in sydney, but had to close it down due to slow business. instead, became a professor in music at university of sydney. when his father had a stroke, he moved his family to seoul, where his father lived with his korean wife, so that he could help take care of the aging man.

mother: jin yuna, 49, flight attendant. a former beauty queen, she and yuuto met at a college party as the only two sober people in the entire frat house. they’d spent the entire night talking until the sun rose. after retiring from the pageant circuit, she became a flight attendant for qantas airlines, eventually transferring to korean air after the family moved to seoul. she is currently estranged to yuuto and his family due to having been cheating for years and having a second family.

NUMBER OF SIBLINGS ( 1 )

abigail bae ( jooeun ), 28, announcer. originally meant to be the “big name musician” of the family, she relinquished that burden after finding she could not sing, and hated the way the guitar calloused her fingers. instead, she became an announcer, and is currently employed by sbs as a morning newscaster. she is engaged to jeon baekho, a hospital director. they both live in hannam-dong, yongsan-gu, seoul.

OTHER IMPORTANT FIGURES

family pet: dubu, 11, pyrenean mountain dog. he was a gift to joohyun from her father on her eleventh birthday. she singlehandedly took on the responsibility of feeding and training him, and has loved him all the while. tofu is getting quite old now, and has become blind in one eye due to cataracts.

grandmother: jin okbin, deceased. a tough but loving woman, she helped raise joohyun and jooeun whenever her mother was away because of work. she helped instill confidence and morals into joohyun, and would support joohyun’s every whim, from vowing to become the prime minister of australia to wanting to reincarnate as a rock. jin okbin passed away in february of 2004 without ever discovering her daughter’s infidelities.

RELATIONSHIP WITH FAMILY joohyun was very close with her family until she discovered that her mother had been cheating on her father for years and that she has a whole other family they never knew about; she is currently unsure of how she feels about her mother---she misses her, but doesn’t want to admit it. she moved back into her father’s home, partly because she could no longer afford rent on her own, but also to help take care of her father, who had fallen into quite the slump. although the experience had been a tragic one, she, her father, and her sister have become even closer than they were before. HAPPIEST MEMORY ( 2005 ) her father brings dubu home for the first time / ( 2006 ) began taking hip-hop lessons / ( 2015 ) accepted into k-arts CHILDHOOD TRAUMA ( 2004 ) her grandmother passed away ( 2018 ) discovered her mother’s infidelity and lies

〈 PHYSICAL 〉 +

HEIGHT 162 cm / 5′2″ WEIGHT 50 kg / 110 lbs BUILD slim but toned, athletic NATIONALITY australian ETHNICITY korean DISABILITIES none COMPLEXION clear & bright; a small tattoo on her upper left ribcage of australia ( x ) FACE SHAPE oval DISTINGUISHING FACIAL FEATURES large eyes, downward facing lips, facial symmetry HAIR COLOR naturally black USUAL HAIR STYLE down, no bangs, natural off-center split EYE COLOR dark brown GLASSES? CONTACTS? none STYLE OF DRESS/TYPICAL OUTFIT(S) very casual and laid back, t-shirts that are too big, distressed denim, boyfriend & bomber jackets TYPICAL STYLE OF SHOES sneakers, flats HEALTH in good health, athletic GROOMING typical five step korean skincare routine, showers before bed ACCENT? australian accent when speaking english, very slight accent while speaking korean UNIQUE MANNERISMS/PHYSICAL HABITS running fingers through hair, or playing with it in general; standing with hands on hips, nearly toppling over when laughing too hard ATHLETIC? yes; used jogs every weekday morning, do taekwondo every monday, tuesday, and friday nights; after getting signed she no longer jogs every morning, but works out at the gym and dances for hours; she continues to attend tkd lessons on saturday nights

〈 INTELLECT 〉 +

LEVEL OF EDUCATION graduated high school in 2015, currently on leave at korea national university of arts LEVEL OF SELF ESTEEM previously 10/10; currently at about a 5/10 due to being surrounded by such talented people, but is slowly building it back up GIFTS/TALENTS singing, tap, hip-hop dance, guitar, taekwondo SHORTCOMINGS a short attention span, too impatient for theory STYLE OF SPEECH can be abrasive and blunt, very casual, curses a lot LANGUAGES fluent in korean, english, and japanese “LEFT BRAIN” OR “RIGHT BRAIN” THINKER? right brain ARTISTIC? yes MATHEMATICAL? barely MAKES DECISIONS BASED MOSTLY ON EMOTIONS, OR ON LOGIC? emotional NEUROSES perfectionism LIFE PHILOSOPHY "work hard, play harder.” RELIGIOUS STANCE barely christian CAUTIOUS OR DARING? daring MOST SENSITIVE ABOUT/VULNERABLE TO lack of creativity; that she can’t write her own music; family is her biggest weakness OPTIMIST OR PESSIMIST? optimist EXTROVERT OR INTROVERT? extrovert LEVEL OF COMFORT WITH TECHNOLOGY basic knowledge of technology; knows how to use her devices effectively but doesn’t know what to do with them if they were to stop working

〈 RELATIONSHIPS 〉 +

CURRENT RELATIONSHIP STATUS single SEXUAL ORIENTATION heterosexual PAST RELATIONSHIPS

( 5 ) nearly gave her father a heart attack when she came to him with stars in her eyes, yelling “dad, i’ve got a boyfriend!” the furthest they ever went was calling each other by boyfriend and girlfriend,, and held hands once. the infatuation ended when preschool did.

( 16-18 ) perhaps it wasn’t the greatest idea to date the lead singer and lead guitarist of the band, but she’d thought it was real. unfortunately, their relationship ended when the band did, and no one really knows whether or not it was because they broke up.

( 19 ) met at an inter-university meeting where there were instant sparks. for weeks, it was passionate and amazing and it was like fireworks every time, but after a few months, it all began to fade. they went separate ways after breaking up, and haven’t spoken since.

LEVEL OF SEXUAL EXPERIENCE relatively inexperienced STORY OF FIRST KISS she was at a friend’s birthday party and they decided to play a little game. the spin of a glass bottle decided the fate of her first kiss, and it was gross. he’d tried to stick his tongue in her mouth and that earned him a slap across the face. STORY OF LOSS OF VIRGINITY instant sparks are a hard thing to ignore, and she’d given herself to him after meeting him for the first time that night. it had been awkward at first and painful, but it was passionate and exciting. he was the first and only person she’d ever been with in such an intimate setting. A SOCIAL PERSON? very MOST COMFORTABLE AROUND (PERSON) jinyoung, mason, nana OLDEST FRIEND mason HOW DOES HE/SHE THINK OTHERS PERCEIVE HIM/HER? in admiration of her skills and talents, respect for her take-charge attitude HOW DO OTHERS ACTUALLY PERCEIVE HIM/HER? probably as someone overbearing, can be bossy and mean-spirited

〈 VOCATION 〉 +

PROFESSION dog daycare employee, student trainee PAST OCCUPATIONS working at her father’s music store PASSIONS singing, dancing, guitar ATTITUDE TOWARDS CURRENT JOB proud of how she achieved trainee status, but still overwhelmed by everything ATTITUDE TOWARDS CURRENT COWORKERS, BOSSES, EMPLOYEES she looks at all her sunbaes with stars in her eyes, especially the girls of eclipse; she follows all the rules and regulations given to her by coaches and trainers, so they probably have a positive impression of her; she doesn’t believe she’s on katie lee’s radar yet SALARY below minimum wage and thankful for free food and rent from her father and sister

〈 SECRETS 〉 +

PHOBIAS losing her family, dying as an unknown LIFE GOALS to be able to provide for herself and take care of her father in his old age DREAMS to become a household name GREATEST FEARS failure MOST ASHAMED OF her weaknesses MOST EMBARRASSING THING EVER TO HAPPEN TO HIM/HER fighting with her ex-boyfriend on stage and breaking up and crying about it in front of a small crowd COMPULSIONS playing with her hair and/or any jewelry she’s wearing, talking over others, giving advice even when it’s not asked for OBSESSIONS music, old rock bands, records, MYNAME SECRET HOBBIES nothing secret SECRET SKILLS nothing secret, though most don’t know she’s a skilled tap dancer/4th degree black belt PAST SEXUAL TRANSGRESSIONS none? CRIMES COMMITTED trespassing WHAT HE/SHE MOST WANTS TO CHANGE ABOUT HIS/HER CURRENT LIFE she wants to debut! WHAT HE/SHE MOST WANTS TO CHANGE ABOUT HIS/HER PHYSICAL APPEARANCE nothing at all~

〈 DETAILS &. QUIRKS 〉 +

DAILY ROUTINE ( AS OF JAN 2019 )

kt’s trainee schedule can be found here

taekwondo lesson on saturday nights

family time on sundays

NIGHT OWL OR EARLY BIRD? a little bit of both LIGHT OR HEAVY SLEEPER? heavy sleeper FAVORITE FOOD dad’s bulgogi with hanwoo beef LEAST FAVORITE FOOD bitter foods FAVORITE BOOK the maze runner series LEAST FAVORITE BOOK text books lol FAVORITE MOVIE the marvel cinematic universe/disney movies LEAST FAVORITE MOVIE none she can think of FAVORITE SONG 80′s rock bands/pop songs LEAST FAVORITE SONG none she can think of COFFEE OR TEA? tea CRUNCHY OR SMOOTH PEANUT BUTTER? crunchy TYPE OF CAR MOTORCYCLE HE/SHE DRIVES 2004 honda cbr600rr LEFTY OR RIGHTY? right-handed FAVORITE COLOR red CUSSER? yes SMOKER? DRINKER? DRUG USER? drinks, but usually not too heavily BIGGEST REGRET wasting two years of her life in a band in high school PETS? dubu, her 11-year-old pyrenean mountain dog VOTED most likely to become famous

#.;* canon ;#( i've had this in my drafts since seola was first accepted into rookie sa;kdhgou )

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forbidden-sorcery · 7 years

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The Bridge To Body Island

(re: @skograt regarding the terrible film adaptation) Background: in 2006, author Robert D. Schneck released a collection of strange American tales titled The President's Vampire: Strange-but-True Tales of the United States of America.

One included story claims to be a true event related to the author, entitled The Bridge To Body Island. (outside of the paranormal ouija spirit shit, I have a lot of family in middle Wisconsin, the “body island” thing is related to reality, there are a bunch of little islands in the Wisconsin river that have occasionally been the resting place of corpses floating down the river over the years.) In 2014, the rights to the story were acquired in order to adapt it into what became this fucking awful movie The Bye Bye Man. I heard this story in the middle of the night when the author was discussing the book on Coast To Coast AM. This is how us small town hicks got our urban legend kicks before creepypasta. Without further apology for the shitty movie, follows the original incarnation:

“At the end of the summer of 1990, three friends living in a small town in Wisconsin carried out an experiment with an ouija board that brought them into contact with a monster. “Eli” wrote this account in third person form. Sun Prairie is in the southern part of the state and is best known as the home of artist Georgia O’Keefe. [She was a painter of big blowers and cow skulls; O’Keefe hated Sun Prairie.] It is surrounded by dying family farms and scattered hamlets like Pumpkin Hollow and Killdeer Creek. It has some of the last one-room schoolhouses in this part of the country, and more importantly for this story, is just three miles from the railroad hub between Chicago and Minneapolis. I had just received a BA in Cultural Anthropology from the University Of Stevens Point-Wisconsin and decided to pursue a graduate degree in Madison, Wisconsin. Katherine, my long-time girlfriend, was born and raised in Madison and was working there for the summer. I got a job at a group home in Sun Prairie, working the night shift. It came with a small salary and a smaller apartment in the basement of the house. It was on the outskirts of Sun Prairie, a stone’s throw from Pumpkin Hollow on a dead end street near the county line. I was responsible for watching over three adults who had Prader-Willi Syndrome (PWS), a genetic disorder named after two German doctors. People with PWS manifest a number of disturbing symptoms, including stunted growth, limited brain development, and high-pitched voices like cartoon characters, but the most dramatic symptom is their insatiable appetite. PWS patients do not produce the hormones that inform the brain that the body has had enough to eat, so they always feel famished. Since the brain thinks it’s starving, it sends message to the endocrine system that stunt growth and preserve every calorie taken in. A vicious cycle develops, with the body squeezing every last bit of fat out of food while cannibalizing the muscles for more protein. As a result, those with PWS get obese with fewer calories than normal adults, and never feel full no matter how much they eat. In order to satisfy their ravenous appetite, patients will periodically try to escape, break into stores, order huge meals at restaurants, etc. They would eat anything, whole jars of mustard, toothpaste by the tube full, even medications if given a chance. My job was to keep them in the house and out of trouble in the evenings. Katherine’s parents and most of her friends had moved away and she was working part time for a political organization. Her job did not pay enough for her to live in the city, so she moved into the basement with me. I drove to school every day and dropped Katherine off at work; then we rode back to the group home at night so I could work. Between school and the group home’s evening schedule, we didn’t have time to meet new people in the area, so we were very happy when a mutual friend moved there from Stevens Point. John got a job as a dishwasher and took a room in a nearby boarding house run by an old woman. The three of us hung out all the time in Sun Prairie. We took walks in the fields, checked out the local graveyards (some of the oldest in the state), and collected local folk tales and urban legends. (I was studying both anthropology and folklore and previous had done parapsychology work with OBE’s at Stevens Point.) [An O.B.E. or “out-of-body-experience” is the sensation of having left the body. Spiritualists call it “astral projection” and it may or may not be paranormal in nature.] That fall, a childhood friend gave me an ouija board that he’d found in the attic. It was an old wooden board and John and I spent hours trying to get messages, but all we ended up with was gibberish. I convinced Katherine to join me at the board but our results were no better. Then she tried it with John and they immediately started to get results. For the next few days, the three of us spent hours on the board. The messages came from the “Spirit of the Board,” an entity that had never lived and that acted as an interlocutor between other entities and us. These entities had different personalities and individual ways of moving the planchette: some used abbreviations, some were terrible spellers, and others used Latinate words with some skill. Some preferred using the pointed end of the planchette to choose letters while others like the porthole. The Spirit of the Board would control and introduce each of these intelligences, and for weeks we communicated with them. Like the Spirit of the Board, they claimed to not be spirits of the dead but some kinds of archetypes or free-ranging consciousnesses. Each entity had its own personality, but for the most part they concentrated on imparting New-Age wisdom and philosophy. Since the board would only work when Katherine and John used it, I got the job of transcribing the proceedings and carefully filled notebooks with correspondences. I am interested in scientific parapsychology and wanted to find out if some sort of paranormal phenomena was indeed happening, so I started to conduct a number of experiments with John and Katherine. They got messages from the board by touching the planchette with their palms or a single finger, with the ouija board turned around, and wearing blindfolds in a darkened room while I followed the planchette with a flashlight. No matter what innovation I introduced, the results were the same; the entities kept communicating. I suggested automatic writing and even attached a small golf-pencil to the planchette but this did not work. Then we tried for EVP phenomena with similarly disappointing results. [EVP or Electronic Voice Phenomenon are the “spirit voices” caught on recording equipment, especially audiotape.] We also tried pendulums, but again the board was the only method that got results. I decided to add a new twist to the procedure by writing down the questions without saying them out loud. I selected questions that would need to be answered by numbers, words, or letters. Though the answers were vague, as usual, they remained consistent and could be said to correspond with the questions. After weeks of this, John and I were getting bored with the eight or so entities that the Spirit of the Board would let us communicate with and their repetitious philosophy. I was determined to talk to a spirit that had lived, whose existence could be verified, and who would give us information we could check. At one point the board told us that there were indeed other entities we could communicate with, but they might be dangerous, and it encouraged us to continue talking to the other entities. After some digging, we heard about a sinister entity that wanted to communicate with them. They also found out that this entity was not only a human but was still alive. John and I were eager to communicate with whoever it was, but Katherine was adamantly against it. She had a history of paranormal experiences and had been sufficiently spooked by them to not even watch scary movies; she certainly had no interest in deliberately contacting something sinister. Katherine refused for a few days, but the two of us were able to wear her down and she agreed with try again. She was not happy about it but was very close to both of us and we were determined to see it through. At first, to Katherine’s relief, the board simply refused to communicate with the desired entity and instead brought us the same old tiresome folks. The questions that I wrote or asked were now all about the living mind that wanted to reach us. At one point we learned that all of the other entities knew about this person and gave us a name; he was called the Bye-Bye Man. Upon seeing that name spelled out on the ouija board, Katherine panicked and quit the board again. We tried to press on without her, but nothing happened. Katherine was now very clear; she refused to try to communicate with the Bye-Bye Man, but we cobbled together a compromise. We would not communicate with the Bye-Bye Man directly but would try to get some piece of information about him from the other entities, something that could be tracked down an verified. Now we began interrogating the spirits but they refused to cooperate until John got an idea: we would stage a strike. The Spirit of the Board was given notice that we were tired of the entities and their refusal to tell us anything about the Bye-Bye Man, so from now on we were going to be using the Parker Brother’s board that we’d bought for the planchette. We tried the new board for a few days but got nothing. Even Katherine and John got nothing useful. Still, we waited a few more days before picking up the old board and discovered that the strike had worked; when we communicated with the Spirit of the Board again it agreed to tell us about the Bye-Bye Man. The story came out in bits and pieces over several sessions. It began in Louisiana sometime in the 1920s, when an odd little boy was put in an orphanage in Algiers. Nothing is known about his parents but the boy had albinism, a genetic condition that causes a lack of pigments in the eyes, skin, and hair; but it was his behavior that was strange. Maybe part of it was the physical and social isolation that can happen to children with albinism; their unusual appearance, the way they must avoid the sun, and, in this case, ever worsening eyesight. He could not play games and may have been teased or bullied by the other children. As the boy grew older, his behavior grew worse, and there were run-ins with the people who ran the orphanage. Then one day he was arguing with the head nurse in her office when he attacked her with a pair of desk scissors, leaving her an invalid. After this savage assault, he fled. He ran away to the train-yards, and began traveling around the country by jumping freights. The viciousness he��d already shown was now unleashed, and he began carrying out random killings. His eyesight finally failed, but that did not stop the Bye-Bye Man; he created a companion for himself, sewing together pieces of his victims into something named Gloomsinger. Gloomsinger was made from tongues and eyes and endowed with some kind of life. It acted like a hunting dog, sighting the next victim and letting out a whistle that the Bye-Bye Man could hear, which brought him to the scene. In order to keep Gloomsinger in good repair though, it was necessary to sew on new eyes and tongues regularly. The Bye-Bye Man became something of an expert at removing them, and their removal identified his handiwork. The organs of his victims were kept (along with his other belongings) in a seaman’s bag he called his Sack of Gore. At some point, he also developed a kind of telepathy and was able to sense when people were talking, or even thinking about him. As long as they thought about the name “the Bye-Bye Man,” they were psychic beacons and he was able to get a bead on them and slowly track them down. He would travel hundreds of miles by rail to attack unsuspecting gossips, and talk of the murders quickly spread through the rail-yards and hobo camps. The board also gave us some other details. The Bye-Bye Man had long hair and a tattoo on his wrist; he wore glasses that were painted black and wore a wide brimmed hat that covered his white face and something that looked like a pea-coat. And he carried the Sack of Gore. We also got a magic recipe that would help the Bye-Bye Man find us. I don’t remember the details, but we had to take a big green glass bottle, cork the mouth, and go out into the moonlight, Then if we quickly uncorked it and held it to our ears, we would be able to hear Gloomsinger whistling. We also asked where the Bye-Bye Man was now. Chicago, the board said, and coming closer. Katherine became very afraid, and refused to participate in any more sessions. I was not happy because I didn’t think we’d gotten anything worth checking, and preliminary searches produced nothing. John, meanwhile, thought the whole thing had been very interesting. It looked as though the experiment was over and the ouija board was put away. Soon after that, Katherine began waking up in a panic; she had suffered panic attacks as a teenager, but they were back and they always seemed to hit at 3 AM, the “soul’s midnight.” [This refers to the idea that most deaths and suicides take place at 3 AM or between 3 and 4 AM. It would require a statistician to prove whether or not this is true, but the idea is certainly widespread. “My grandfather was in the Merchant Navy in WWII, and he said the worst watch to be on was 3-4 AM because that’s when your soul was supposed to be ‘at its lowest’... “I remember my grandparents (both nurses) referring to 4 AM as “death hour” or something like that, as it was the most common time for patients to die. They put this down to probably being in deepest sleep by that time, and that it’s the coldest part of the night...” “I can also state from personal experience of signing search warrants, that the police still like to raid drug dealers at 3-4 AM as they figure they will be at a low ebb then and less likely to put up resistance.] John’s work schedule had changed so we saw less and less of him. Without the ouija board experiments, the focus returned to normal pursuits like work and school. One day I ran into John at the Student Union at the college, so we had a beer and talked. I was worn out because Katherine kept waking up with panic attacks at 3 AM and when I told this to John he turned grey. He said he had been waking up at the same time with a feeling of great uneasiness (not panic attacks per se) since they stopped using the board. He chalked it up to a change in his work shift. He was taking some kind of vitamin supplement to regulate his sleep, so I got the name of it and bought some for Katherine in hopes that it would help her and me sleep. A week or so after the meeting, I returned to Wausau to see a concert and brought Katherine with me. By this time it was winter, and we had time to kill before the show started, so I took Katherine for a walk downtown. It was Sunday and most of the businesses were closed, so after hanging out at the bookshop and record shop we had run out of distractions. I suggested a walk across the railroad bridge to a little island in the middle of the Wisconsin River, locally known as “Body Island.” The island is down-river from Big Bull Falls, and one explanation for the name comes from this being the place where bodies in the Wisconsin wash up. In the 19th century, many lumberjacks drowned while dislodging logjams, and their remains ended up here. Some say the name comes from a woman that worked at Prange Way in the 1970s. [Prange Way was a department store; today the building is the Eastway Corporate Offices.] She used to cross the trestle bridge as a short cut on her way home until one night when she vanished. After an all-night search, she was found on the tip of the island, staring into the water. She had been stabbed and was in shock and died at the hospital; what made this murder so memorable, though, was that her sister was killed a few years later in the cemetery where this woman was buried. Despite the morbid associations, Body Island is a pretty little preserve of wild grassland and offers a nice view of the city. [Its real name is Barker Stewart Island and it is named after the lumber company that once had a mill there. A few years ago a woman was beaten to death on the shoreline opposite the island.] Katherine and I were walking along the track when something got my attention. I don’t remember what it was, but I climbed down from the bridge to the riverbank to look, while Katherine waited on the wind swept trestle. While she was standing there, she heard a faint noise. At first she feared it was a train whistle - it is an active train bridge - but soon she realized that the whistle sounded more human than locomotive. She felt the familiar sense of fear rising up inside, and when I returned she was having a full-blown panic attack. She said she heard something, but as much as I tried I couldn’t. Then she heard it again, “as if it were right over my shoulder.” Still, I heard nothing, and after we left the bridge Katherine suffered from panic attacks for the rest of the day. Back in Sun Prairie, we found a message from John on the answering machine. He sounded upset, and when I met with him, he told me a strange story. He had come home from work, and when he arrived at his room in the boarding house, had tried to do some drawings (John’s hobby is art.) He couldn’t concentrate, though, and had an “uncanny feeling,” so he decided to call us, not knowing that Katherine and I were out of town. Not finding any of his friends at home, he tried reading, but couldn’t. By this time it was late enough for him to get some sleep, but for some reason he couldn’t stand lying in the bed and decided to sleep on the floor. He fell fast asleep and at some point a knock on the door woke him up. “John,” he heard Katherine say, “let’s go out to breakfast!” We often stopped by to pick up John for breakfast on our way into Madison. It was a common enough thing. He got up and was looking for his clothes when he noticed that it was still pitch black outside. He heard the voice again saying, “John, let’s go out for breakfast.” It couldn’t be us, not that early in the morning, and he was overcome by a fear so intense that he felt limp and laid back down on the floor. The time the voice, still sounding like Katherine, said, “John... open the door!” But he just laid on the floor where he could see hall light through the crack under the door and the shadow of someone standing outside. It went away, but he did not sleep the rest of the night. I told him that it couldn’t have been us because we were in Wausau. He checked with the old woman and the man who lived across the hall to see if they had knocked on his door, but they all said no. The woman kept the front door locked at night, and she was the one who opened it for visitors. No one stopped by that night. John still wonders what would’ve happened if he had opened that door.”

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igotapps · 4 years

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Sandra Bridewell

Biography

Sandra Camille (Powers) Bridewell, was born, April 4, 1944. She was adopted as a child by Arthur and Camille Powers of Sedalia, Missouri. She was known primarily as a destructive con-artist, as, over the course of more than 3 decades, the woman who became known as the “Black Widow”, deceived both lovers and friends for hundreds of thousands of dollars. She is also suspected of being a part of, atleast one of her husbands and also a close friend death.

It all started in a disconcerting and traumatic childhood. Reports indicate, that at the age of 3, her adoptive mother, Camille, was killed in a car-accident. Bridewell’s father, Arthur, who both managed and commanded a Dr.Pepper bottling factory, eventually re-married, and the family were re-located to Oak Cliff, Texas, a suburb of Dallas. He resigned from his previous position and found new employment, becoming a cemetery plot salesman.

Bridewell discovered that adjusting to her new surroundings was not the problem, the problem was adjusting to her new stepmother Doris. The two of them were continuosly fighting, whilst Bridewell would protest that her stepmother regulary locked her inside a closet, refused to send out birthday party invitations and enjoy telling her that nobody wanted her.

Bridewell graduated high school in the year of 1962. As a high school student, she would rarely date, however after graduation, she soon began dating a series of different men. She was extreamly seductive, many of the men became totally smitten with, what a later friend would describe as, “her, ‘lady-like’, ‘poor-helpless-me’ routine”. Bridewell attended junior college for a single year, it seems Bridewell had already decided her intentions, she wanted to marry into money.

Crime

For Sandra to achieve her intentions, she began living a life, littered with deception and deceit. She would tell some friends, that both of her adoptive parents were killed. She would tell some others she was daughter to Irish aristocrats. The most common deceit that she used with regularity, was the “West Point Boyfriend”, this entailed the story of a boyfriend who shot himself while she sat next to him in a car.

Despite Sandra’s continuous deceptive nature, she was able to convince many people to believe her lies, especially men. Many stories from these men, were very similar and followed a general theme, recalling, “She had a way” and, “Men, just sort of… were fascinated with her”. Sandra through the course of her life, would intensify the deception and lived with many different aliases.

There were many victims, from her guiltless deceit. One such victim, was the up-shot dentist, David Stegall, who was schooled in Los Angeles and was a regular dentist for high-status Hollywood stars. Stegall had a compulsion towards, Cadillacs, large homes and pretty women. Sandra noticed something she liked about Stegall, and by the year 1967 she had married him. Within the first few years after the marriage, the couple began to raise a family, and soon had 3 daughters, Britt, Kathryn and Emily. The family enjoyed a high-class lifestyle and lived in a most desirable Dallas neighbourhood.

Sandra’s taste and passion for the finer things were even more profound than her husbands, and desite the massive salary and reputation of Stegall, Sandra’s tastes were beginning to strain and taking the family to the brink. Sandra was a connoisseur of many things, she loved beautiful artwork and expensive furnishings. By the year 1974, the couple’s marriage was in turmoil and the family was in severe debt, forcing Stegall to loan a substantial sum of money from his father to pay off a number of the hefty bills.

By February 1975, the situation had over-come Stegall, and he tried to commit suicide. Reports indicate that Sandra discovered a distressed Stegall closed in a closet with a gun pointed at his head. Sandra was then able to persuade Stegall to re-consider. However this did not change Stegall for the long-term, and a few weeks later he was discovered dead. Lying on in his bed with both wrists open and a.22 caliber gunshot wound through his head.

Sandra swiftly took action towards straightening her financial situation. This started with the collection of her husband’s life insurance policy, sold the lat Stegall’s practice and began dating other wealthy men. After a mere 3 years of her husband’s death, Sandra was married again, this time to well-known Dallas based developer, Bobby Bridewell.

Soon after the wedding Bridewell took the decision to adopt Sandra’s 3 daughters and the family made their’ home in the fancy Dallas neighbourhood of Highland Park. However in 1980, life changed and in dramatic and tragic twist Bridwell was diagnosed with cancer. Sandra found the diagnosis extremely painful, as she continued her life in her usual way, with an elemental grieving. During her husbands battle with the illness, Sandra decided to have the family’s entire household remodelled, forcing the weakening Bridewell to move into a friend’s house. Bridewell after a 2 year struggle, finally succumbed to his diagnoses and died.

The impact of Bridewell’s death was hard-felt by Sandra. At least for the short-term, she was able to gain support and hope, in the friendship of Bridewell’s oncologist, Dr’ John Bradwell and his wife Betsy. In the beginning the couple were more than happy and open to offer support to their friend. Sandra over-time, began visiting the Bagwell household with more frequent persistence. Whilst the doctor and his wife were enjoying a vacation in New Mexico, Sandra went as far as to show up unannounced. Her ever increasing requests were frequented with pleads of childcare and harassment through phone calls.

The Bagwell’s soon decided upon action, and attempted to extricate themselves from the relationship with Sandra. Sandra however would not allow it. In June 1982, she made a phone call to Betsy, and requested she take her to the hospital, so she could rent a car as her’s wouldn’t start. Betsy supplicated and would take Sandra to the hospital, and then back to the Church were Sandra was previously parked so she could retrieve her license, which she claimed on arrival, had been forgotten.

The exact details of the encounter remain shrouded in mystery. What is understood, is that on June 16, 1982, authorities discovered the 40-year old Mrs. Bagwell, dead in her Mercedes i the airport parking lot. There was a large gunshot wound in her head, and a stolen.22 caliber pistol held in her right hand. when the verdict was given, it was concluded as a suicide.

Despite the verdict, there was still many questions unanswered. The police were aware that Sandra was the last person to have seen Betsy alive. Questions emerged about the death, these included the absence of a suicide note. The police however refused to re-examine the case and it remained closed.

As was so accustomed to Sandra, she non-chalantly continued with her life. As of June 1984, another man had fallen into her clutches. The victim, a good-looking 29 year-old, Alan Rehrig, had just moved to Dallas to begin work for a mortgage company. Sandra was conversing around her yard, when Rehrig, searching for a place he could call home, happened to pass by in his car. Pulling his Ford Bronco over to the side of the road, he asked Sandra if she knew of any apartments to move into. She admitted she did not, instead, agreeing to help him out.

Within just a few short weeks the pair became inseparable. Rehrig was extremely fond of Sandra’s 3 daughters, who, at their’ mother’s calling would announce themselves upon an unsuspecting Rehrig, whilst he was busy working at his office. Sandra, by the fall of 1984, had some unexpected news for Rehrig and delivered the news that she was pregnant with twins. This situation was even more curious for one important reason, 7 years previous Sandra underwent a successful hysterectomy. This was yet more deceit from Sandra, feeling that as she gained some weight around her stomach, that she could lie effectively. There were of course more lies, lies including her age, telling Rehrig she was 36, when she was in fact 41.

A trustworthy Rehrig, had no reason to doubt his new girlfriend, as he still felt the were getting to know each other. Despite the intervention of friend’s to demonstrate to Rehrig the speed at which his life was changing, he was also in love, and, December 1984, Sandra Bridewell and Alan Rehrig became husband and wife.

There was always the awareness to Sandra, that the pregnancy lie could only take her so far. With, Rehrig committed entirely to his wife, Sandra was able to easily change the story. So, in February 1985, she made a phone call to her husband and told him the unfortunate news that she had a miscarriage.

The news was devastating to Rehrig and the marriage began to suffer as a result. Like her previous two husbands, Rehrig was beginning to realise that his wife a pallet for expensive tastes. She would push him to make more and more money, and made him take out a big life insurance policy. Friend’s recall how Rehrig complained of Sandra’s habits, as she spent $20,000 a month on clothes, food and travel.

November 1985, and the couple separated. Rehrig was convinced he had to end the relationship with Sandra and moved into a friend’s home. The two of them, were separated for a period of several weeks and they didn’t so much as set eyes upon each other. Then in early December, Sandra phoned Rehrig and arranged a meeting at a storage facility at which the two had stored some items.

The true happenings of what ensued over the next several hours have never been determined. What is understood is, Rehrig was located slumped over in his Bronco in Oklahoma. The were vast gunshot wounds to both the head and the chest. It was also determined that Rehrig has in fact been driven all the way to Oklahoma. The death of Rehrig was heavily scrutinised, Sandra was suspected of his murder, however nothing could be pinned on the woman who had become known around Dallas as the, “Black Widow”. Her demeanor under interrogation could be described as coy, almost playful. There was then a total switch in behaviour from the “Black Widow”, and she became completely uncooperative, refusing anyone to talk to both her and her daughters.

If there was any grief towards her husbands death, then it was being hidden well. Sandra, was scrimping on funeral expenses, selecting the most in-expensive casket possible for Rehrig and then convincing her friends to cover the burial costs. On the day of the service, she arrived late, dressed head to foot in a rich mink coat. This was an affordable expense, Rehrig’s death had provided her with a $220,000 life insurance claim, dropped straight into her bank account.

Sandra’s reputation however was in tatters. A popular local magazine, detailing Sandra’s curious past, and recounting her behaviour was to serve to this. Sandra was soon to leave Dallas for good, she re-located herself and her family to the San Francisco area. Sandra still contained the same charm and engaged it upon Marin County, she soon began dating a gaggle of wealthy men, who were sympathetic towards her past story, this story would often incorporate the use of a trust fund that she was about to be receiving and her non-restrained sexual inhibition. One of the men loaned her $23,000., whilst another was suckered into parting with $70,000, which he pulled up through a pension. Neither of the men received a single penny of their loans back, even though they took their’ claims to court. Soon, the same and similar stories that had surrounded Sandra in Dallas, began to appear in San Francisco.

By the early 1990′s, Sandra changed her name and was now known as Camille Bridewell. She had left California, and moved to Boston, where she took up residence with a boyfriend. She was also a resident in Connecticut and Hawaii. Despite the change of addresses, the same meanness still stewed in her underbelly. She would now steal the Social Security numbers of other people, she would take out credit cards, and rack up huge purchases, without an intent to ever pay the money back. she was so malicious in her actions, that she even destroyed the credit of her daughters.

As the millennium came around, Sandra was now middle aged, and shifted from sexuality to religion, as to draw her victims closer. The basis of her stories would now involve the invention of stories such as, she was a missionary who had traveled the world and work with orphans. As usual she was very persuasive and had a way to make people submit to her wants. She then befriended a couple who owned and managed a motel in the state of Alabama. Despite the fact that she was unable to even pay for a room, she was receiving food and money from the cople.

she continued with the missionary story, and as she moved herself to Atlanta, she would change her name slightly, from Bridewell to Bridwell. She then convinced a woman she met at church to split with the cost of an expensive condo rental. After a little time passed, Bridwell’s new housemate, found she was paying for everything, as Sandra claimed she was waiting for a large sum of money to be delivered form her trust fund.

As 2006 ensued, Sandra surfaced in North Carolina, at a new church and changed her name to Camille Bowers. Later that year, in September, she moved herself in with Sue Moseley, a 77 year old woman, residing in a million dollar home on the Carloina coast. Sandra struck up a deal with the son, Jim, that in return for the management of the housekeeping, she would receive free room and board.

She began to build a respectable reputation around the local community, and spoke several times at a local women’s club. Sandra then began the process of acquiring the finances of the Moseley’s. She gathered tax records, collected her Social Security payments into a separate account, siphoned off mortgage money, created credit charges and used Mosele’s bank account to fund her personal expenses, including spa treatments and expensive shoes.

Jim soon became suspicious of the new housekeeper, and early in 2007, he stumbled upon a length newspaper story in a Dallas publication, chronicling the exploits of her life. Jim, working alongside the police, as a front man in a sting, aided the arrest of the “Black Widow”, on 2nd March 2007 in a cafe in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Aftermath

The story of Sandra Bridewell culminates with numerous charges under her name. She was committed of, identity fraud, fraud, mail theft and Social Security fraud. After the arrest and the heavy publicity, the police took a renewed interest in the death of Rehrig and the police of Oklahoma City, pour more resources and more manpower towards the case.

February 2008, and Sandra Camille Powers, pleads guilty to one count of identity theft, later the same month she was formally sentenced by the judge. The “Black Widow”, had left a lasting impact and trail of destruction wherever she went, leaving a trail of victims desperate for her sentencing. When justice was finally insued, she was ordered to pay a $250,000 fine,a dn pay more than $1,600 dollars in restitution to the Moseley family.

Source by Matthew A Black

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from Development of application specific interactive software https://igotapps.com/sandra-bridewell/

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momosmessages · 6 years

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Day of Language and other Miscommunications

As I mentioned in my previous post, I returned to the United States last week to attend a friend’s wedding. A few days beforehand, I wrote this post. I had issues with my house’s internet, and therefore, could not post it.

On this blog, I want to share all of my experiences here - both the good and bad. I want this blog, I want to be as real, authentic, and open as possible.

I want share my successes AND my frustrations. I feel that this post shares both.

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“Now I see the mystery of your loneliness .”

― William Shakespeare, All's Well That Ends Well

Today is Monday, April 23, the anniversary of William Shakespeare’s birth. Here in Barranquilla, it’s celebrated “Language Day.”

Apparently there is another holiday called “English Day”, but it’s in August.

I felt that the meaning behind the word “language” was both fitting and ironic for the events which took place.

Yesterday started off how the day would be - full of miscommunication.

On Monday mornings, Silvia doesn’t have class in the first period, but I do. I always forget this. I think this is a more recent thing though, because I vividly remember this wasn’t a problem when I first moved.

Normally Silvia makes my breakfast. But because she goes to school later, she slept in. When I came out of my room, ready to go to school, she was in the middle of getting ready. Roberto was awake because he will leave the house at the same time as Silvia and I for school. He realized this dilemma and tried to compensate.

He opened a new bag of milk and then attempted to open my new bag of cereal, “Zucaritas” (Frosted Flakes). I normally don’t eat that for breakfast; I only snack on it throughout the day. I felt bad that he already opened a new bag of milk, so I told him I’d just pour the cereal myself. I ate it with a yogurt drink I had bought the week before, knowing cereal alone would not satisfy my hunger.

When I was almost finished eating, Roberto informed me in broken English that he was leaving and his mom was going in later, because of her schedule. It seemed to me as if she was almost ready to leave, so I decided to wait for her and not walk with Roberto.

And of course, I assumed wrong.

After 10 extra minutes of waiting, I realized my mistake. I then saw no point in walking to school on my own. I was already late, and I knew that my students this period were working on a project. I waited another 5 minutes for her to be ready, and we left together.

By the time we got to school, there was only 15 minutes left of the first period.

This class was the 11th grade Advanced Level, and they were working on career-themed posters in English. The objective was to create a group presentation in English about their career of choice. They had to include what steps one must take to obtain that career, the pros and cons, the salary, etc.

I helped one student who wanted to be a lawyer. She asked me what qualifications she needed to study or work as a lawyer in the United States. I told her she’d first have to take an English level test to prove she’s proficient enough of the language. Then she’d have to take at least a bar examination. It made me remember my privilege as an American citizen.

Unknown to me, this would be my only class of the day. As I entered my second classroom, a group of 8th grade Beginner-Level, the my students just looked at me and all nodded their heads “No” in silence. Another teacher sat at the desk, unaware of my presence and busy taking attendance. And so I slowly retreated, wondering what this was all about.

I met Mentor outside of the teacher’s room. We shook hands.

Whenever I first see him in the morning, he will shake my hand.

After he shook my hand, he told me he was sick. Great.

I asked him what was going on, and if it had something to do with Language Day. He told me that there would be an event in the third period. However, the second period classes were switched with the third period classes.

This meant that I had this period free. So I reminded him of a meeting we had.

Back Story - Social Project or Hidden Imperialism?

As a mandatory element of the Colombia Bilingue program, English Teaching Fellows must create what is called the “Social Project”. It is a project that is meant to help better the community in some way. It can be themed around helping the environment, helping women and children, promoting literacy, etc.

At the beginning of our semesters, all fellows had to write a detailed proposal. We had to include the dates, teacher involvement, the budget, etc.

My proposal was due the day after my first day at my school. From the start I had mixed feelings about this project. I felt like it was a “White Man’s Burden” to come to a country you barely know, and start telling them what’s best for them, without knowing the community’s needs at all. And as a white person specifically, this made me uncomfortable.

But I did it anyway, because I had to.

I created an event centered around Earth day. I wrote that students would have booths with presentations about how to keep the Earth environmentally friendly. I pictured a student art contest, where students had to create art pieces out of recycled materials. I envisioned students singing songs, or reading poetry about the environment.

But every time I brought it up to Mentor, he would talk about my English Club, or brush it off.

My English club is supposed to be part of my “Cultural Hour” - another mandatory element of the program.

Last semester’s fellows did not have to create social project as elaborate ours. So the last fellow at my school, who I am often compared to, only did an English Club.

About a month ago, a little before Semana Santa, I reminded Mentor that I needed to begin preparing for my Social Project. He told me that Julio*, a science teacher, already had a project going on that was similar to mine. I felt more comfortable with the idea of working with an already ongoing project, so I told him I’d be happy to help. Mentor told me he’d set up a meeting with me and Julio, but never did.

At this time we were also trying to get the English Club started. Mentor needed to create a permission letter for parents, as well as select certain students for the club. Every time I mentioned English Club, he would say an excuse about how busy he was and would try to work on it the next day.

I first hand how difficult a teacher’s life can be, so I decided to remain patient.I figured I wouldn’t press too much about the Social Project, and let him work on one thing at a time.

But last week RC told me that I needed to start working on my project, pronto. Apparently, my Social Project Proposal was chosen as one of few out of Barranquilla. I even learned today that the Ministry liked my proposal so much, they want to put it in a book for next year’s fellows.

THE COLOMBIAN GOVERNMENT WANT TO PUT ME IN A BOOK. I REPEAT - THE COLOMBIAN GOVERNMENT WANTS TO PUT ME IN A BOOOOOOK!

This week I am traveling home to attend a close friend’s wedding. Therefore, RC told me she’d come to the school in order to convince my Mentor realize that this was serious. She said she had to observe me in a class anyway, so she’d kill two birds with one stone.

In fact, last week I had not one person but TWO pepole observing my class, at the same time. The other woman, Jinger*, came straight from the Ministry. Afterwards she asked me questions for a survey. Jinger also told me how much the Ministry liked my proposal. This made it feel so much more real!

After the class, RC talked my principal and Julio, stressing the situation. Julio said he was willing to work with me. They planned to have a meeting for Monday, April 23 at 9am.

Back to Earth

And of course, what we didn’t plan for, was the Language Day Event.

In yesterday’s “second” period, the 10th grade girls had created stands outside their auditorium, across from the gym. Every girl was assigned to create a poster featuring a famous artist. One of my favorite students, Jordan*, explained everything to me, because of course, I had no idea what was going on. Her English is amazing, she plays three different instruments, and if I were her age, I’d want to be friends with her.

One table had a box which said: “Classic” and “Modern”. Students were encouraged to vote for which type of literature they preferred.

A variety of books were laid out across tables. Never in my life had I seen so many Spanish books all at once. I’m just only used to seeing it as a teeny tiny section in a Barnes and Nobles.

Some students got really into it!

It was also super cool to see famous young adult novels in Spanish, such as John Green books, Harry Potter, and the Book Thief.

Student-made posters of famous authors

The gym was decorated with balloons of all colors of the rainbow. Small cut-out alphabet letters hung on string from both sides of the bleachers. Larger cut-out letters spelled “Dia de Idioma” over the Balloon gateway.

Here, students presented poetry, sang and played instruments, and even acted out poems.

Literature has such an immense affect on my own culture.

An 11th grade student performing a poem

It was cool to see for myself how it can have a similar affect on another community that’s so different than my own.

When RC came to the school, these presentations were still going on. At first I couldn’t find Mentor.

Students singing a song

Instead I found Julio, who told me in Spanish (I think) was that we couldn’t have the meeting because of the event. I explained that RC was physically here, and he told me to just talk to Mentor, who in that moment, seemed to come out of nowhere.

Students acting out a poem

I told him RC was here. He just said “No, we changed the meeting to next Friday.”

I just blinked at him with confusion.

“Did you already talk to RC?”

“No.”

“Um, okay. But she’s here?”

“Oh RC is here?”

*Inner face-palm*.

“Yes, she’s here in the principal’s office.”

Mentor then told me how the Ministry sent him an e-mail, saying they would visit next Friday. Even though I told him that morning and last Friday that we had a meeting with RC, he seemed to have fused her and the Ministry together.

So, we went to the principal’s office without Julio.

Now, this part is what makes me most frustrated. In this conversation, I felt like although RC tried to talk to Mentor about my proposal, he only talked about the ideas that HE had. Mentor and I had talked about his ideas the past Friday. I had explained that a lot of his ideas were very similar to my ideas in my proposal.

But again here today, he talked about the project as if these ideas were all new, and just repeated things that RC and I had been saying on repeat. For example, HE even told RC how we “really had to hash out the details of the project”, yet didn’t provide any solutions. And this was the entire reason why RC had come in the first place!!!!

In this conversation I just felt so frustrated. I felt like I couldn’t speak because he just kept talking, and he never asked me to contribute. The only time I spoke was at the end of the meeting, when RC asked me if I had questions.

I just felt so thwarted. Here I was, a 24 year old adult woman, feeling like I’m 12 years old parent was speaking to a teacher for me.

The Ministry had selected ME specifically for my own project, yet he completely overlooked this fact. I knew my RC was trying to politely stick to the facts and be solution oriented.

I hate saying this, but through his actions felt like he was just being a stereotypical man. In my experience in working with men, this happens so often. Also in the past, the men I’ve worked with won’t do something unless they think it’s their idea, which was totally happening now.

At the end of the conversation, I suggested to Mentor that the two of us should meet tomorrow and finalize the details. I said that at home after school, I would reorganize my proposal to fit for May, and he agreed. I said want to have something done before I leave on Thursday.

RC left, I talked with him a little more. I asked him at what time tomorrow he was free to talk more about the proposal. I said I was free tomorrow at fourth period.

But then he then told me at fourth period that the 10th grade would be presenting.

“Tomorrow they’re presenting? Not today?”

“No, today they are presenting.”

“Um okay so are you free tomorrow?”

“Oh no I am not.”

“Okay, so when are you free to go over the proposal once it’s reorganized?”

“Oh, can’t we do it at today’s meeting?”

Every Monday we have a meeting with the other English teachers. They normally speak in Spanish the whole time, but I was determined to have a say this time. I felt it was important to inform the other teachers about my project, since this did involve English. But since I didn’t have a revised proposal and we just talked about this, it didn’t make sense. I explained myself again.

I think after a few times he understood, and we settled on a time on Wednesday instead.

Normally that wouldn’t have made me impatient, but I felt so pissed off inside. We literally had just talked about this, and I felt like my head was spinning in circles.

The following period, the 10th grade really were presenting. I had noticed in the beginning of the morning that they had decorated the Auditorium in red and black. But I didn’t know the purpose of it!

When I returned for the second part of the morning, a red carpet was rolled out. The windows were covered with long strips of red paper.

About a dozen tables lined the inner perimeter, surrounded by students in uniform, and in red and black costumes. Cut-out decorations of spades, hearts, diamonds, and clovers covered the walls, and pop music blasted from the speakers.

I then bumped into one Spanish teacher. She informed me that this was supposed to be a “Casino”. The “games” were like card-games, but based off of literature. She then had one student take me by the arm and led me to a table. She wore a purple blazer over white button down shirt, and half of her face was full of white makeup.

At this table, students had a deck of cards and poker chips spread out. From what I understood, three people at a time were to pick and flip a card. Whoever had the lowest value card won a poker chip.

If you had a chip, you could use it to bet on other games.

I found one of my co-teachers, JF playing a game. The students had orally told a story, and contestants had to answer a series of written questions about it. JF was so excited about it.

“Here if you win, you win a free book!”

I thought that was pretty neat.

I had also seen the principal and other teachers there, participating in games.

As I walked around the auditorium, a sentimental yet melancholy feeling came over me. This event and it’s atmosphere reminded me of all the events me and my City Year team did. Almost every month we’d have some sort of event, including two huge events during the year for students and parents. We got so into decorating that we’d plan months in advance.

It made me reminisce on how much fun we had making it, especially because we made it on our own. We had a lot of freedom with our events, and though it was a lot of work, we truly enjoyed it.

A thought dawned on me - that even though I was an experienced, well-equipped and creative event planner, I wouldn’t have the freedom to make my Social Project as awesome as it deserved to be.

In the classroom I feel as though I don’t have much control, because the teachers rarely plan with me. I thought that maybe this would allow me to feel in charge of my time here. I had also thought this about the English Club. But since that isn’t happening either anytime soon.

And once again, I felt powerless. I feel like I have so much potential to help students here, but it’s not being used. And it’s unfair to me, to the students, and to the government.

I left the auditorium and walked to the audio visual room. One of my favorite students, Jessa* told me that she would be presenting there. These were the girls who put on the Saint Patrick’s Day Parade for me. And so, I tried to put on a happy mask over my true feelings.

The room was covered from top to bottom in constellations. Black, ripped garbage bags had been tapped onto the walls, and string Christmas lights were pinned at the top, and lit all around the room. Jessa and another girl, Joy* welcomed me in white lab coats. On their pockets were names of a Nobel Science winner. There were about a dozen students in the room, and everyone had a specific constellation or planet to explain. Jessa and Joy knew my spanish wasn’t enough to fully understand everyone, so they went around the room with me, translating what every presenter said.

Some girls connected the planets to literature. One talked about a fictional planet from the “I am Number Four” series.

I am always amazed by these girls. They work so hard and always put on incredible presentations.

My takeaway from the day is this:

I love how holidays are celebrated here. It reminds me and encourages me to celebrate every aspect of life. I wish we had a Language Day celebration like this in the United States!

But if having so many celebrations comes with a price, and causes so many mishaps, like schedule changes and missed time, I think I’d instead take a consistent schedule any day.

#language day #23 de abril #english teacher #frustrations #shakespeare #colombia #barranquilla #teaching fellow #social project

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