Reward system for getting semester grades turned in

[lachrymosy]

Well over five years ago my first and favorite therapist suggested that I might have ADHD and I kind of ignored her because there were so many criteria I didn't think I met. Anyway I'm sitting here the day before semester grades are due, with Mary Poppins playing on the TV because it seemed like it wouldn't be too distracting, having finished my coffee and done just about every task I can think of besides grading the remaining projects, and I have concluded that what I am really missing that would help me get these grades done is *an elaborate system of rewards.* Maybe I should write my former therapist someday...

Fic Writing Reward System

Why is me writing something a reward? I don't know but it seems like it might work right now so let's try it.

Post a prompt here (any fandom, any style of prompt, whatever) and I will write you a little drabble/ficlet when I have completed grading a chunk of assignments. The deal here is please come back and say something about the ficlet, even just "this was great!" and even if it actually isn't very good just say something. I really need to get these grades turned in I need the dopamine.


Here's a basic list of fandoms I've written in the past though I have other fandoms I've never written for:

SEVENTEEN (Band)
Day6 (Band)
Avatar: The Last Airbender (Cartoon 2005)
Life with Derek
Miss A (Korea Band)
Wonder Girls (Band
GOT7
How I Met Your Father (TV 2022)
Dollhouse (TV 2009)
Lockwood & Co.
The Princess Diaries (Movies)
12 Monkeys (TV)
Mary Poppins (Movies)
Degrassi the Next Generation



ok thank you

Comments

[bookishdagger]

ok here is a list of prompts that i hope are not too vague to spark something <333

-atla linguistics fic. atla language imperialism. atla language learning? something with culture and worldbuilding?
-network love line fic!!! i don't have a specific prompt per se but i just want network love line, maybe something regarding what we discussed before about the miracle of a group with 13 members two of whom are chinese staying together for as long as they have? enlistment period as career development vs the guilt of not having to enlist themselves?
-suzy fic. i don't know anything about suzy except your fic so i can't say more but. suzy fic.

[lachrymosy]

ATLA linguistics fic! | 686 words

The light from the oil-burning lamp flickered over the scroll Katara held in her lap, making the ink-scrawled characters dance in front of her eyes. "Gran-gran," she whined, falling onto her back and lifting her chin to look at the upside-down figure of her grandmother. "Why do I gotta do this?"

Gran-gran did not look up from her sewing. "You must learn to read, child."

"But it's boring," Katara sighed. "I don't know half of these words, and the other half don't make any sense! What is—" Katara stopped to frown at a line on the scroll. "His esteemed ruler before the world beyond—"

"It's the Earth King, stupid," Sokka interjected, earning himself a sharp kick in his arm. He stuck his tongue out at Katara.

"If you do not wish to read the scroll, then go back to writing," said Gran-gran placidly. She was tired, that much was clear. Katara knew her joints hurt her. Every time she held a brush to show Katara the order of ink strokes, her hand trembled, and the lines came out wobbly. The characters in the scrolls were all precise, even in size and shape. Not like Gran-gran's, or Katara's.

"Why do none of the other kids have to do this?" Katara sighed. She imagined being outside instead, maybe down by the shoreline, letting water run between her fingertips. Sometimes she could feel the water, like it was alive. Not the way a person or an animal was alive but the way the sun and moon were alive, something big and beyond knowing.

"Because the other kids are dummies," said Sokka.

"No," said Gran-gran firmly, casting a stern glare in Sokka's direction. "It is because their parents do not know how to read."

Katara sat up. "But you do."

"I do." Gran-gran frowned at the garment in her hand and began undoing her own stitches. "I learned as a child."

"In the Northern Water Tribe, do all the kids learn to read?" Katara asked.

"Typically," said Gran-gran. "It's a very useful skill."

"But reading is so boring."

"That's because you do not know enough words yet." Gran-gran nodded toward Katara's abandoned writing scroll. Katara sighed, and crawled over to pick up the ink brush again. Some of the other villagers had remarked on the cost of ink and paper the last time a trading ship came through. They couldn't believe her gran-gran would waste a good trade on something so useless. It had made Katara feel a little ashamed, though she loved the trading ships. They always looked so different, they even smelled different, like they came from some magical place far away.

"Yeah, Gran-gran is right," Sokka said. "This scroll is talking about people who can fly."

"People can't fly!" Katara protested.

"They can in this scroll!" Sokka picked up the scroll and waved it around. It had a notable lack of drawings to accompany the text.

"Some people can fly," Gran-gran said. "Or, there used to be people who could. I don't know if there is anyone left who can."

The tone in Gran-gran's voice tightened around Katara's heart like an otter-eel. She glanced over at Sokka, who looked back at her with wide eyes.

Gran-gran turned her stern gaze on Katara. "This is why you must learn to read," she said. "The rest of the world writes its stories down. If you cannot read their stories, they cannot recognize you in return. You must learn to read, because it is one of the few things I can give to you to ensure you find a place in the world after I am gone."

Katara sat in silence, staring at her grandmother. She could not imagine her gran-gran passing on any more than she could imagine where the trading ships sailed to when they departed. What difference did reading make to her place in the world? She couldn't imagine it.

"Hey, Katara…" Sokka drawled. He waved the scroll again. "They're talking about water-walkers now…"

"What! Let me see that!"

Gran-gran smiled to herself as Katara tackled Sokka, desperate to find the meaning in the ink.

[lachrymosy]

Network Love Line fic! | 1282 words

"So does that mean Shua is the leader?" Junhui asks, leaning forward in his chair at the conference table.

Joshua gives him a look. "I don't wanna be the leader. You be the leader."

Junhui shakes his head rapidly, laughing as his mouth moves rapidly between a smile and a grimace, his eyes darting over to Minghao. Help, they seem to say.

"Myungho will be the leader," Vernon says, his eyes on the glow of his phone.

Minghao shrugs. "Sure." It's not a real position, anyway.

Joshua grins in the way he does when he's thinking about something else. "Great," he says as he gets up, patting Minghao on the back.



Minghao has seldom been in a leadership position, save for the occasional variety show game (and not even then, really), so he's unsure of exactly how he wants to go about being the leader, even if it's not a real position. He thinks about it, though, while he's on an airplane headed for Shanghai. In the hotel, when the room feels so quiet he starts to ask existential questions that have no good answers. On the plane back to Seoul.

After a while, he figures he's not so much asking what kind of leader he wants to be, as he is asking what he'd do if he could do it all over again. It's a labyrinthine question, his thoughts orbiting toward the future and then back around to the beginning, when he walked into the Incheon airport knowing no Korean and the only Mandarin-speaking staff person at Pledis came up to him speaking in a hurried, accented stream-of-consciousness that he only later realized would define his entire experience of the entertainment industry. We're going to be late, we're so glad to welcome you to—oh, watch out—anyway practice starts in an hour, and have you eaten? We've got a lot of work to do. Welcome to Seoul.



"Why don't you want to be the leader?" Minghao asks idly, tipping his water bottle up for the last sip of water.

Joshua shrugs. "I used to watch Coups bite his nails. All the way down, until they bled." His nose scrunches up and he shakes his head. "Terrible."

Minghao hasn't thought about Seungcheol's nail-biting habit in at least a decade. It had been scolded out of him, Minghao remembers vaguely. He squints up at the ceiling. "Didn't the manager make him wear mittens?"

"Gloves. And it was Seungkwan." Joshua grins over at him. "Coups failing to follow the rules stressed him out, so he went out and bought gloves. Stood over him like a hawk. I think the real lesson of self-control was Coups suppressing how badly he wanted to tackle Seungkwan."

"If he had, Seungkwan would have been like, 'no fighting!'" Minghao makes his best impression of high school Seungkwan's face.

Joshua snorts. "Exactly."

"Seriously, though. Don't you want to?" Minghao frowns, looking at him. "You have to translate for all the English-language interviews anyway."

"It's not that big a deal." Joshua peers at him. "If you don't want to be the leader, then we won't have one. Or we could make Chan our leader."

"I'm not really interested in recycling Jeonghan-hyung's joke."

"Aw, he'd love it though. It would make him feel included." Joshua laughs. "Seriously. It doesn't matter."

"Well, I don't not want to do it," Minghao says, noncomittal.



One time, when he and Junhui were back in China, they'd gone out for a pretty late dinner. It was a hole-in-the-wall restaurant, meant to close a half hour after they arrived. Junhui, weirdly charismatic when he wanted to be, had persauded the owner to let them order with a winning smile and a promise of a signed polaroid.

Minghao always felt more solid when he was in China, even if he felt alien to himself. It was like his body recognized familiar ground and stood more firmly upon it, even while his mind was somewhere far away. Junhui seemed that way, too, casually chatting with the owner of the restaurant. Their manager, assigned to them by the management team they'd signed to work wtih in China, sat idly smoking a cigarette while they waited for the food, disinterested in the conversational prowess of the celebrities he was charged with babysitting. On the television mounted to the wall, a drama was playing, costumed actors walking through the Forbidden City, caught up in a plot Minghao could only guess at.

Junhui sat back down at the table. "We have the same hometown," he said.

"What?"

Junhui tilted his head in the direction of the kitchens. "His grandmother and my great-grandmother are from the same hometown."

"Oh." Minghao didn't know what he was supposed to say. He'd lost the script somewhere en route.



"I voted you the leader because I thought you'd be good at it," Vernon says.

Minghao spins a little in his rolling chair, looking around the studio. "I don't think I'm the leadership type."

"Okay."

"Why did you think I'd be good at it?"

Vernon frowns. "Well, you're decisive, you're creative, and I guess… I'd say you're thoughtful, too."

Minghao knows to take compliments from Vernon seriously, not because he is stingy with them, but because he only says it if he means it. "And you think those are leadership qualities?"

"I do. What do you think are leadership qualities?"

Minghao shrugs. He feels disinclined to admit, somehow, that his vision of leadership pretty much looks like the three leaders in their group. He can only estimate his own abilities in reference to them.

Vernon blinks at him, visibly working through a thought before he speaks. "A subunit with the four of us will always have a different character than the whole group."

Minghao smiles. "Will it?"

"Of course," Vernon gives a real smile. "I mean, we're the foreigners. Aren't we?"

Minghao never truly thought of Vernon as foreign until he was in Vernon's mother's house, and then he realized that in spite of the English and his appearance, he'd miscalculated. At least a little bit. Vernon's mother had a big refrigerator stocked full of half-finished jars and a pottery kiln in her yard. When she spoke, her voice blended with the hum of the television set she'd left on in the living room. Vernon seemed vaguely uncomfortable, having him there.

"I guess so," Minghao agrees.



He remembers putting his things in a plastic box to store beneath his bunk. He couldn't understand a single thing being said unless Junhui was there to translate, but Junhui forgot to translate half the time and, as far as Minghao could tell, was keeping up two separate and unrelated conversations. He seemed nervous, like Minghao was a puppy he'd just acquired and had no idea how to care for. He kept asking him questions in a running stream, never waiting for the answer.

One of the others broke away from the group and sat next to Minghao on the floor. Minghao couldn't remember his name.

"I'm Joshua," he said in Mandarin. He gestured to Minghao's suitcase, asking if he could help.

Later, Minghao would wonder why he'd let him. Joshua arranged everything in a way that Minghao thought was absolutely wrong.

Minghao kept all his things exactly as Joshua had arranged them until he moved out, though. After, too. If he goes and looks now, he'd find all his pants in a drawer folded just the way Joshua had done it that day, a habit persisting through time as if to remind himself that once he'd been different than he was now, that his life now was a sedimented memory of the people who had made it so.

[breakfirst]

hi I was trying to think of some locklyle ones but my brain won’t wake up and I’ll just post these first heh

day6 - AU - “I can’t believe I’m sitting space jail with you of all people”

day6 - you guys did ex-member jae just soft launch his relationship???

ATLA - AU - where the avatar that katara finds is a 100 year old fire nation prince instead

[lachrymosy]

day6 space jail | because it's for you i made it an Andor AU! | 695 words

"I cannot believe how stupid you are," Brian spat. "Look at this. Look around you."

"I'm not stupid. You're stupid!" His bespectacled cell mate shot back.

"I told them I wasn't bringing some radicalized, ignorant idiot on this mission and look. I was right."

Glasses scowled at him. "Yeah? Well, maybe you should be a little more radicalized. Look around you, okay. At least I tried to do something."

Brian slumped back against the wall of his cell, rubbing a palm over his face. He had not wanted this assignment on this shithole planet crawling with Imperial troops. But he was a good soldier. He went where he was told.

"You know I'm right."

Brian looked up. He knew that Glasses' name was Jae. They were from the same planet, but different continents. Brian's hometown had been turned into an Imperial outpost. Jae's had been razed to the ground. Brian wasn't going to split hairs about who had seen the worst of it.

"We have a mission here," Brian said firmly, staring Jae down. "We can't complete that now."

"I was saving a life."

The set of Jae's jaw spoke to an idealism Brian had long ago compartmentalized. It was what made him a good spy. Everyone liked him and he never ruffled any feathers. Most of the time, he was able to leave a planet without anyone being the wiser about what he'd done there in the first place.

Jae would never be like that. He'd go blasting through doors and yelling about the rebellion and get them all killed.

"Let's just see if we can find a way out of here," Brian said through gritted teeth.

By some stroke of luck, they were being held by a local police force. This planet had little imperial presence, but Brian knew well enough that it would not have been hard, even this far away from a single star cruiser, to whisk the two of them off to a faraway jail without anyone being the wiser. The local police, on the other hand, had neither the infrastructure nor the resources to make much of their case. They simply saw a man interfere with an arrest, and arrested them all together.

Jae removed his glasses and began fiddling with the arms. "I don't get you," he grumbled. "Everyone was all, oh you gotta meet Brian, he's one of the best, blah blah blah. And you're just—"

"Just what?" Brian demanded.

Jae scowled. "Less interesting than protocol droid."

Brian briefly considered sticking his tongue out, but decided not to follow through with such a juvenile gesture. He continued feeling the walls in a desperate search to find some kind of latch. It could be hours before anyone came back to look at them; it wasn't like this jail was well-staffed. They had to make the most of their time.

"Here."

Brian turned around. Jae was holding out a needle-thin object, blinking rapidly and squinting in Brian's direction.

"What is it?"

"It's a laser, stupid. I thought you'd want to use it."

"Oh." Brian tentatively reached out and took it. "Why are you trusting me with this?" he asked before he could stop himself.

"Contrary to what you might think, I don't actually go blasting through doors. I'm not a total idiot." He gave a derisive sniff. "You're the expert here, you cut through the cell walls. I'll wait."

Brian hesitated only a moment, then nodded. He turned toward the nearly-invisible hinges he'd noted on the door and got to work.

"It was the right thing to do," Brian admitted after a moment. He pictured the fear in the Ortolan traveler's eyes as the officer closed in, right before Jae stepped between them. Now, in the jail cell, Brian closed his eyes. "That doesn't mean it was the smart thing to do."

Jae doesn't speak. Brian almost thinks he won't say anything at all. Then,

"How do you know which to choose?"

Brian has been at this job for a while. He remembers every single person he could have saved.

He turns to look at Jae. "I don't know," he admits.

[kkulecru]

brewing up the vaguest, vibes-based svt prompt or two for u in case it helps.. u can do it 💪‼️

- steaming hot broth in the cold air; spice on the tongue reflecting life; appreciating 손맛/a homemade touch (jun or josh (fish balls), perhaps?)

- komerobi is sunlight filtering through tree leaves; 윤슬 is light glittering on the water
(a moment with peace and light and nature in the midst of contrastive life?)

[lachrymosy]

Jun and Mingyu at a restaurant | this meanders lol | 795 words

Junhui can't remember the last time he ate a meal alone with Mingyu. It's been years, maybe. If Mingyu thinks it's weird, he doesn't show it. He's got his thumbnail between his teeth while he scrolls on his phone. "Jeonghan-hyung sent me something," Mingyu explains, though Junhui hadn't asked. "It's a deal for some kind of herbal medicine drink. I don't know why he thinks I'd want that."

Junhui runs his fingers along the condensation on his glass. Every time he goes out to eat in the US he hears his mother's voice, somehow blended with Minghao's, reminding him not to eat cold food. Especially not when the temperature outside is cold, too.

"Maybe he thinks you need it," Junhui offers, noncomittal.

Mingyu makes a face. "Seungkwan put him up to it."

The server arrives then. Mingyu puffs up a little, his smile growing a few watts brighter, his eyes sparkling. As far as Junhui knows, Mingyu doesn't caculate this. It's just how he is with other people. The waiter looks a little dazed, his smile quickly melting into confusion as Mingyu tries to explain something in English. Mingyu switches to Korean. "Sorry, I only speak a little," the guy says in an accent Junhui vaguely associates with Joshua. Mingyu goes back to English, smiling brightly again.

Junhui wants to ask how Mingyu feels, having gotten his enlistment date earlier in the week. He isn't sure if he's allowed to ask about that. He turns his straw idly around in his drink, ice tinkling against the sides of the glass. He's so tired he could fall asleep with his face on the tabletop.

"Okay, well, we'll get what we get," says Mingyu, turning his big smile on Junhui. Junhui makes a feeble attempt at returning it.

The thing about Mingyu is that he's always taken up so much space. Even when they were much younger, before Mingyu had figured out who he wanted to be and how he wanted the world to see him, he'd still expanded his space in a room. Expanded his space in everyone else's lives. Even then, Junhui couldn't figure out if he needed the attention or the affirmation. There was some kind of need, whether or not Junhui could figure it out.

It had always gotten in the way of the two of them being close friends. Junhui couldn't really understand someone who leaked his feelings everywhere he went. It felt like squinting into the sun. Bright, but not always pleasant.

"What are you going to do while you're home?" Mingyu asks.

"What?" Junhui says. "Oh." Next week, he has three whole days off. His mother convinced him to return to Shenzhen. His cousin is getting married. He should sing in her wedding. Is going to. Sitting at the table with Mingyu, Junhui just shrugs. "Eat, I guess."

"Nice," says Mingyu, pulling his phone out again.

They lapse into silence. Junhui wonders if he's supposed to ask what Mingyu will be doing on his days off, but just as he starts to, he remembers that Mingyu and Seungcheol have concert rehearsal. He closes his mouth again.

"We should go somewhere."

Junhui looks up. "What?"

"Do you want to?" Mingyu meets his gaze head-on. "I don't know, like a bar? I don't want to go back to the hotel."

"Maybe call Coups?"

Mingyu shakes his head. "Come on. You're here, you're out. When do you ever go out for fun?"

"I go out plenty," Junhui protests.

He doesn't know how Mingyu does it. Lately, Junhui's been paranoid about his fans, or maybe it's the others' fans—hard to say—like he's waiting for a match to ignite. It just feels like if he takes one wrong step, they'll tear him to pieces.

Anyway, he always feels weird dancing in public. He'd be afraid Mingyu would ditch him, too.

"I won't ditch you."

The other annoying thing about Mingyu is his weird ability to kind of read your mind. Junhui guesses that comes with being a people-person. Maybe it comes with language, but Junhui doesn't think he can do that in Chinese any more than Korean.

"Why do you want to go out?" Junhui asks.

Mingyu shrugs. "I won't have the chance for a while, you know?"

The server brings out their food then. Two bowls of noodle soup, steam visible in the air. Junhui looks past Mingyu, out the window. It's colder out than Junhui had imagined it would be.

"Okay," Junhui agrees.

Mingyu looks up, noodles hanging out of his mouth. He slurps them up quickly and smiles. "Yeah?"

Is he acting out of guilt, or affection? Junhui isn't sure he knows the difference sometimes. But the noise in his head fades a little. The noodle soup isn't half bad.

[kkulecru]

i will sob... my JUN!!!!!!!! my heart!!!!! 🥹

[lachrymosy]

THANK YOU FOR THE PROMPT AND FOR COMING BACK TO READ I am happy to report I turned in all my grades 🤗

[heartmuseum]

hi friend, hoping one of these prompts (decidedly, blessedly, less sad than the next couple scenes we’re meant to write lol) unlocks smthing heh <3

> jeonghan-centric, humans au fic!! where he’s a synth recalling his saved memories. hehe inspo from this poem:

If I can let you go as trees let go
Their leaves, so casually, one by one;

[…]

And, treelike, stand unmoved before the change,
Lose what I lose to keep what I can keep,
The strong root still alive under the snow,
Love will endure - if I can let you go.

(from May Sarton’s “Autumn Sonnets”)

> sungjin character study post-jyp game caterers ep

> mingyu and jennie exes fic, inspired by lost time by lucy dacus:

I wonder how long it would take to walk eight hundred miles / “To say I do, I did, I will, I would” / “I’m not sorry, not certain, not perfect, not good”