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smallfrenchstudyblr · 3 years

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hey! you seem like you're a really good TA (? idk if that's the right term but you seem to have some prof/teacher tasks?) and i was wondering how you got the confidence to do that? i'm basically on your level of education but i wouldn't think i was smart/capable enough to judge other students' writing and stuff, i feel like one of them more than one of the teachers if you get what i mean. do you have any advice?

Hello !

That is such a thoughtful question - and I am sure all postgrads who suddendly have to start teaching feel the same at the beginning. In my opinion, it is a fairly healthy mindset to have, as long as it does not inhibit your own teaching and remain just some healthy awareness that, hey, you are still learning many things yourself.

I am very touched you think I am a good TA - I hope I manage to be a helpful one at least.d I definitely still often wonder "am I qualified to teach this ? To... grade this ? Who am I to say whether this is good work or not?" But here are a few thingsm coming both from my experience so far and my discussions with other TA, which could maybe be of help to you (each developed under the cut)

1. You know more than your students, and that will be enough to help them.

2. Teaching is a two way street : you are not lecturing to them, you are working with them.

2bis : Give constant verbal feedback to your students !

3. Your own experience of being an Undergrad may not be the best point of reference

4. Talk to other TAs ! You all face the same issues !

5. Try out things, and if they do not work, it's fine.

6. Organize your session alternating moments where you take the lead, and moments where students take the lead.

7. Help, My students are not talking !

8. Grading is tough, but we can make it easier.

I hope they will be of help, but no worries, it takes practice, trial and errors, and time will help you figure it out. Do not hesitate to come back here if you have any question or something you want to discuss ! (And tell me how your teaching went, I would love to hear it!)

1. You know more than your students, and that will be enough to help them.

It means you do not have to be an expert in the topic you teach. You may even just be familiar with it. But by virtue of being a postgrad student, you know how to do the reading effectively, you will get very quickly what is important, what to retain from this or that reading. And you just need to know more than your students. Which you absolutely will.

I think being passionate, showing that you are excited about what you are teaching, giving them this energy, this interest, is much much more important than being a full-blown expert in your area.

2. Teaching is a two way street : you are not lecturing to them, you are working with them.

And that is not me being vaguely pseudo-inspiration ; it is something I have learnt and truly realized when I took a course on teaching. There is much literature on this, but the take-away is that especially as a TA, it is helpful if you see your job as working with students. Engage with them, offer them different options to choose from during the session, explain that you are here to support their learning, and give them some space to have some agency over what happens ! Trust them to at least try their best - many are!- and they will trust you in return, and will be more likely to give you some feedback.

2bis : Give constant verbal feedback to your students !

This does not come easy to me, but students NEED to be told when they said something good ! Because if you do not tell them explicitely, how would they know that, hey, this was a pretty cool comment !

But also, be clear when answer or a point raised is not relevant or wrong, because it also guides their understand of the topic. "Ok, I can see why you would say that, but it's actually abit trickier...". "Ah, yes, it is very interesting that you raise it, it is a common misunderstanding and I am glad you are pointing it out, because it is an interesting discussion to have!"

3. Your own experience of being an Undergrad may not be the best point of reference

When I started teaching, I made the mistake of thinking "ok, what sort of TA/tutorial do I wish I had, in Undergrad?", and went with what I know I would have enjoyed. Except I am a passionate nerdy introvert who hated talking to my peers and doing group works, and wanted a TA who was no-bullshit, clear, professional. Most of your students are probably not, and may indeed enjoy group work, or the opportunity to connect with their peers during your tutorial. Most of your students will appreciate a TA who is more forthcoming, friendly, and may crack a joke or two. And it is a weird role to have, it may clash with your personality (it definitely clashes with mine), but it's ok if it takes time to find the right zone for you ! It is absolutely part of the process !

4. Talk to other TAs ! You all face the same issues !

Pooling experience with other TAs is fantastic. Because no matter what issue you are facing, one of them faced it already. How do you teach in the shitty Room 605 where the computer does not work ? How do they deal with students who do not do the readings ? How to they handle lack of motivation from students ? What sort of group work do they organize ? Who sort of online tools do they rely on ? How do they deal with all the emails they get ? And on that note...

5. Try out things, and if they do not work, it's fine.

Do not be afraid to try things. I tend to stay away from "complex" activities which can confuse students, or rely too much on technology. But group work ? There are so many types of group work ! Why stick to just the "think of this question in group of 3 for 5 minutes", when you could do a syndicate, snowballing, 2-minutes essay, fishbowl, think-pair-share, buzz groups...

And sometimes, it will not work. Just... a bad session. And you feel that it's on you, that you did not manage to do your work, that you are a bad teacher... And refer to Point 2. Then, calmly, talk about it with another TA. Explain what you did, and try to get their opinion on it, reflect on it. But it is never all on you.

6. Organize your session alternating moments where you take the lead, and moments where students take the lead.

Teaching is exhausting, learning is exhausting, genuinely, so balance out moments where you do the heavy work, and moments where they do. I like to have a rough session plan with all the activities I have planned, and indicate for each if it is "ME", "STUDENTS", "ALL". And also ensure that your students are given the opportunity to really take an active role, which is way better for learning !

7. Help, my students are not talking :

This will happen. You will ask a question, no one will answer. Big, awkward, heavy silence. You reformulated the question, but clearly it is not working. Here are a few ways I have reacted to it :

- Show of hands 1 : for a quick diagnosis. "Can you raise your hand if you have done the reading for this question ? Just so I know if this is maybe the problem". Encourage the ones who have done the readings to explain it to the others.

- Show of hands 2 : "Ok, there are two ways to answer this question X and Y. Can you raise you hand if you think Y, and lower it if you think X?". Encourage some who picked Y to explain why, then same with X.

- Show of hands 3 : "Ok, let's lower the pressure. Who thinks they kind of have an answer, but is not sure about how to word it, or properly argument it?". Ask whoever raise their hand to start, and pick up yourself from there.

- Switch to think-pair-share : "Ok, how about we think a bit about this on our own for a few minutes, and then you can compare your own answers with your neigbour"

- Collapse the classroom : "Ok, I can see that this is not working. It's ok, can you tell me if it is because the topic is not super interesting, or the reading ? Are the questions not what you expected?"

- End of the session clear-up : [once everything is over] "Ok, so now that the session is over, can I ask you guys why it was difficult for you to talk today ? Just so I can make sure I can come up with questions that are useful to you, next time. If some of you want to stay a few minutes to talk about what you would like to change for the next tutorials, we can talk about it now ; you don't have to, of course"

8. Grading is tough, but we can make it easier.

Especially if you are grading things like essays, we can often feel uneasy, unsure how to grade them, how legitimate we are to grade them, especially with the sheer impact grades can have on students. Ideally, you want to have a list of things that are PLUS POINTS, and perhaps some that are MINUS POINTS, and have those strictly guide your grading, to be fair to all students and assess them similarly. I also found that it is helpful to grade the paper, only the paper. When there is a really, really bad essay where clearly the student barely tried, it's easy to get frustrated, because you did your best, and clearly the student did not care ? But you never actually know what happened. Real examples of students submitting absolutely terrible work include : a student who was grieving her mother, a student who had been in hospital and did not know she could ask for a delay, an adult student whose child had gotten sick the days before, a foreign student with a poor grasp on English... When you are grading the 78th essay of the week, it is easy to forget that each of them is from an individual, and we get to judge the work they do, but not why they did it. Even in your comments and feedback, always be compassionate.

#life as a TA #teaching #University #phdblr #gradblr

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ashintheairlikesnow · 4 years

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Drop: Chris (BTHB: Wrapped in Blankets)

Prompt fill for @badthingshappenbingo : Bundled Up in Blankets, requested by @scorpiowhump for Chris.

CW: Trauma recovery, referenced pet whump and institutionalized/legal slavery. Referenced negative/self-injury stimming including head banging.

Direct sequel to This Isn’t Hypothetical for Chris.

“I, I’ll just drop the class. That’s, that’s, that-that’s what I’ll do, just drop the, um, the the class, Jake, is all-”

“Bullshit. Making you drop a class because you were right is fucking bullshit.” Laken sits back, frowning, and Chris’s eyes skip to the side, away from the sparking, crackling fury there. Their fingertips brush over the bandage they’ve applied to the side of Chris’s forehead, and he winces at the sting. “Sorry. You were hitting your head again, weren’t you?”

Chris lets his eyes roll up towards the ceiling, chin tipping with the motion, and he doesn’t answer the question. He only pulls the pale blue weighted blanket that Laken gave him for his birthday around himself tightly. With its heavy soft warmth, he feels less like he’ll float away, or crack apart into a thousand puzzle pieces.

“Chris,” Laken says, soft but insistent, taking his hands in theirs, holding his long, cold fingers in their warmer, smaller hands. “You can’t keep doing that. You’ve been banging your head all week since it happened. You’re going to hurt yourself.”

Chris’s fingers twitch in their grip, but he doesn’t answer them. He can’t, can’t think of how to explain the noise inside his head, the jangling off-key sound of his thoughts, the way every bit of light overwhelms him, all the sounds of people shouting and laughing and talking and not being like him makes it build and build until there’s nowhere else for it to go.

There are dark places, quiet places, but he can’t be in them all the time, and the cold light inside of Chris needs somewhere to go.

“Al, already did,” He finally says, with a slight smile. “That’s why the, the the-the bandage, right?” They don’t return the expression, only shake their head, a bit of thick wavy black hair falling over one of their eyes, and rub at his shoulders and arms through the blanket.

He reaches up, lets his fingers run over the short undercut they wear along the side of their head, the way it feels soft like fur under his fingertips, rougher when he runs back the wrong way. He hums, and Laken only watches him, worry in their eyes. It’s familiar, reminds him of someone, but he can’t think of who.

Baby, you’ll get a concussion that way, we have to redirect, okay?

Who told him that? Who taught him to redirect? Do they know he keeps forgetting and has to learn it all over again? Would they be disappointed in them, if they knew?

Something tells him it doesn’t work that way, not with the shadowy memory-voice he hears sometimes, whoever it was had the brush of hair over his cheek, whoever held him when he couldn’t stop screaming.

“You’re past the drop date for this class,” Jake says heavily. He’s sitting on the couch, leaning over the paperwork Chris brought back from his meeting with the grad student and the professor officially overseeing the class. The grad student’s written summary doesn’t match what Chris said, but even more than that, it doesn’t match Chris. Chris doesn’t have violent outbursts, and he certainly doesn’t have violent outbursts without provocation. Chris isn’t someone who starts yelling over nothing, he’s just… not the person they’re saying he is, at all. It’s a piece of creative writing masquerading as an incident report. “If you drop now, you fail, full stop. Do not pass go, do not collect $200, your GPA will take a hit-”

“I don’t, don’t, don’t-don’t-don’t care.” Chris shakes his head, just to feel his hair move against his skin. “I… I have to, to drop, anyway. He… he said, he, um-”

“What?” Laken leans forward, until their forehead just touches Chris’s, careful to avoid the injured spot, the sensitive bruised skin under the adhesive pull of the bandage. “What did he say, Chris?”

“I said us,” Chris whispers. “When I talked about, about… pets. Instead of them. He knows.”

There’s a silence that draws out, in the living room. The sound of Jake shuffling papers around, and of Laken’s calm, steady breathing. “There’s nothing in here about that,” Jake says in a low voice. “I didn’t see-... I’ve read this stupid fucking essay that asshole wrote like three times-”

“He didn’t write it, it down.” Chris tightens his grip around Laken’s fingers, but his own aren’t warming up to match theirs. “He told me after the, the professor left that he heard it. Which means-”

“He could report you.” Jake sighs, rubbing his hand over his face. Chris feels suddenly very, very small. “Per-fucking-fect. Did he say what he intends to do with this information?”

Chris swallows. “Nothing.”

Laken and Jake exchange a look that Chris can’t read, he’s not good at reading the looks where people have whole conversations without actually saying anything. He looks up between them, one to the other, wondering what they are saying about him without speaking.

“So… if he’s not going to do anything-”

“He won’t say anything to, to, to anyone,” Chris says, softly, “as long as… as I drop the class.”

There’s a beat of quiet again, and another conversation held in silence that Chris can’t follow, only feel its weight, and then Jake clears his throat. “Chris, did he really-”

“Yeah. He really.” Chris shakes his head, pulling away from Laken’s grip, sitting back in the armchair. His right hand traces over the sleeve of his compression shirt on his left, and he taps against the back of his hand. He has no tears left. “He doesn’t want to… to get charged with, with corrupting influence if, if, if-if I get picked up. He said he, he doesn’t… doesn’t want to, to, to-to teach… pets.”

“This is bullshit,” Laken says again. “You’re not a fucking pet anymore. They can’t-”

“Take the fail,” Jake interrupts, and Laken spins in their chair to look at him, but Jake is staring down at the papers. “It’s fine. You can take an extra class later to fix a little of what it’s going to do to your grades. Just take the fail.”

“Jake, you’re not fucking serious-”

“Yeah, Laken, I am.” Jake’s anger is usually worn openly, but now it’s tightly coiled inside of him. Chris can feel it underneath the air in the room. Once upon a time, every hint of safety he could hope for was based on how well he could read the anger in the handlers or his Sir before it came down on his head. Most of it is gone, but… but in these moments, his skin prickles, the hair on the back of his neck wants to stand up.

Danger. Run. Danger. Hide. Danger. Be still. Danger. Be good.

“This asshole can’t force Chris to-”

“That asshole can call Chris in, report him, report us. They charge people like me, and they charge people who know and don’t report, like him. I get it. I get it, but I fucking hate it.” Jake sits very still, and then he’s up and off the couch and Chris flinches instinctively back as Jake balls up the paper with the grad student’s report on it and throws it violently at the wall. “Fuck!”

The little ball of paper bounces harmlessly off and hits the floor.

“That is singularly un-fucking-satisfying,” Jake says, staring at it. Laken and Chris only stare at him, Laken with the same anger in their eyes that Jake feels, and Chris with an old, barely-concealed fear.

There’s a beat of silence before Jake speaks again. His voice is back to calm, but there’s an edge to it that gives him away, no matter how even-keeled he is trying to keep himself.

“If those are his terms, we take it. We can’t risk safety to prove a point, to be right. Understand? It… it sucks, and I’d give my right fucking arm for ten minutes alone with that dick with no consequences, but… but this is still an out. He’s still giving us a way he won’t report. If he’s giving me a way to keep Chris and my rescues safe, I have to take it.”

“But… that’s-”

“Bullshit?” Jake twists a wry smile. “You bet your ass it is. But that’s-... that’s lib life, isn’t it? Just wading through waist-deep bullshit trying to give people the life they deserved after their real lives were fucking stolen, and the whole time I’m building up the fucking fort, these assholes - from dickbrain grad students right up to the goddamn Senate - are taking bricks out from the bottom hoping it’ll collapse and I can’t-... I can’t risk it, just to fight this, Laken. I have to think about everyone, not just Chris, but also… I have to think about Chris. Winning this battle could cost him. I want to - I want to fight this - but if we do…”

“That dumbass gets Chris in trouble,” Laken says, and groans. “Which means cops, and jail, and worse. Christ, Jake, do you think he just doesn’t want Chris in his class and this is a way to make it happen so nobody will fight it?”

Jake takes in a breath, lets it out. “Maybe. His worry could be legitimate, though.”

“Or he could just not want to face how fucked up this is,” Laken points out. “But he’s got us fucked both ways from Sunday for sure. We’re boxed in, no matter what we do.”

“Don’t say, say box,” Chris whispers, a shudder racing through him.

“Yeah, pretty much.” Jake paces, walking from one end of the living room to the other and back again. On TV, a cartoon about a spy is playing, but none of them is paying any attention to it. It’s just background noise to the conversation none of them wants to be having. “He could report Chris anyway, honestly. He doesn’t have to keep this promise. And if he does-”

“WRU will, will, will take me back,” Chris says, pulling his blanket as close as he can as though he could hide within it, and the tremble in his voice catches Laken and Jake’s attention again. The two turn to look at him, and Laken leans back forward, hands on either side of his face. Their hands, pale palms with warm brown skin, nails painted thick matte black, are warm and dry, and Chris lifts his own to cover them, closing his eyes.

“They won’t,” Laken says, with fierce and total conviction. “They won’t. Never, ever. Now that I know, I’d-... Chris, I’d never let them. I have… my family knows people, we could get you somewhere else.” They lean forward, and he feels the warmth of them just before their lips touch his, and he answers the kiss. The throb of fear and anger inside him fades, a little, under the strength of their need to be here for him, even when he is difficult, even when he can’t stop hurting himself, even when he says us instead of them.

“I can’t believe he would rather turn Chris in than teach him,” Laken says, after a second’s pause. “I thought-... you know, the grad students aren’t that much older than we are, and people don’t think about it the way they used to. I just… I just thought-”

“I know. I used to think that, too. But.” Jake sighs, and moves to pick up the little crumpled ball of paper. “Maybe lighting this on fire would make me feel better?”

“Doubt it.” Laken pulls Chris’s head against their shoulder, the denim of their black jean jacket scratchy but still soft with wear and age, and he hums, rocking into them lightly, as their arms slide up and around behind his neck to hold him. “You’re okay, Chris. One failed class is nothing. We’ll figure it out. We’ll figure this out.”

“Maybe I should, should, should drop out. Give up on, um, on college.”

“Absolutely not,” Laken says, at the same time Jake says, “No fucking way.”

“You’ve worked too hard for this,” Jake says after a pause. “You spent years working to relearn how to read so you could start studying for your GED and get a good score, you were so excited for this. This is just one bump in the road, this isn’t a dead end, I swear. We’re not giving up, Chris.”

“But-”

“We’ll tell him you’ll drop the class. He’ll keep it quiet, and you can go right back to normal. Nobody has to know but us.” Laken’s voice is low, and Chris wants to trust them, wants to believe.

“We’ll figure it out. One failed class won’t wreck you, Chris.”

Jake sits on the arm of the chair Chris is in, and slides an arm around his shoulders behind him, over the blanket. Laken is warm in front of him and Jake is warm beside him, and Chris hums again, but lower-pitched this time. The two of them are the soft, soothing darkness that holds back the white light.

“I just-” Chris lets the words die in his throat, and taps on his own stomach while Laken and Jake hold him, tears hot behind his eyelids that he refuses to let escape. He’s so tired of crying, he’s so tired of it being hard, he’s so tired of something unsettling his world every time he thinks there won’t be any more earthquakes.

Brick by brick, Chris is building a life - and the time he spent on his knees and on his back comes back to haunt him, whenever he lets himself relax. Whenever he feels safe. Whenever he thinks it won’t haunt him any longer.

“We’re not giving up on you,” Laken murmurs. “Don’t you give up now, either.”

Tagging: @burtlederp, @finder-of-rings, @endless-whump, @whumpfigure, @slaintetowhump, @astrobly, @newandfiguringitout, @doveotions, @pretty-face-breaker, @boxboysandotherwhump, @oops-its-whump @moose-teeth, @cubeswhump

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notbigondoors · 3 years

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{out of equations} I am a little afraid that I’m being misunderstood because of how it appears I am running my blogs. The truth is, I am a shy, derpy potato, and I suspect I’m just coming across in a much different way than I wish to. Below is my attempt to clear some of that up, so that hopefully anyone whom I’ve inadvertently made to feel like I am ignoring them or don’t want to write with them can feel better. Thank you for reading, if you do, and otherwise I hope everyone is having a lovely day. =)

I don’t know if this is actually a thing or not, but it occurs to me that I may be giving people the wrong idea about my blogs. It’s been so for a while that I keep getting compliments on my writing/portrayals, but then so many of my mutuals never interact with me and eventually unfollow, or start threads and drop them after a few replies. Now, people are entitled to lurk, change their minds, become disinterested, lose muse for a thread, and/or decide they don’t like writing with me or feel that my writing doesn’t measure up to theirs once they start. That’s perfectly okay! I’m not mad, I’m not calling anybody out, that’s absolutely okay! Right now, I’m talking to any of my mutuals who feel intimidated by me, feel I don’t want to write with them because I haven’t reached out to them first, or feel like I’m basically telling them they’re not good enough to write with me because I haven’t started something with them. I want to take the time to say how wrong all of that is and to give you an idea of how I really run my blogs.

First of all, real life has not been easy for me lately, as I’m sure it hasn’t been for everyone, given various things going on in the world. Between what’s in the news lately, the pandemic, and a chronic illness of mine coming out of remission after 20-ish years, I am definitely not at my best. I am on many medications for my chronic illness that come with a shopping list of side effects that make me feel physically horrible on a daily basis, but also they cause brain fog. I’m legitimately having trouble remembering things, which means that starter I told you I’d write you and then never did? Yeah, I don’t hate you, and it’s not that I don’t want to write with you, I just have honestly forgotten I even said I would do it. Combine that with my Tumblr notifications not working properly and a large influx of new writers and interactions lately due to WandaVision, and I am really honestly forgetting what I’ve said to whom on here. Side effects of my meds also include insomnia (which I already had, so it’s gotten worse... yay?) which means I’m not getting enough sleep and that’s compounding everything else that’s already making it hard for me to keep everything straight.

In addition to that, I have very bad anxiety, of the kind that interferes with my ability to do everyday things. Social anxiety is a huge facet of my generalized anxiety disorder. Simply put, I am introverted, shy, and terrified of talking to new people, even online. Even messaging with people I know can sometimes drain me mentally. It is not that I dislike you, or that I don’t want to talk to you, or that you are bothering me. None of those are true. I just am not good socially. I don’t know what to say, I don’t know what to do, and I feel so intimidated, especially with so much amazing talent on here. I would like to think that I am a nice and approachable person, but I rarely ever reach out to people. Liking a starter call almost gives me a panic attack. Sometimes I sit and stare at one for an hour, really wanting to do it, but then I think... well I’d have to put my url since all my active rp blogs right now are sides. Would they get mad that I’m not just hitting like? Is that already too complicated and they’d just ignore me? Yeah, they probably wouldn’t want to write with me anyway. Aaaaand I close Tumblr and never like the post, heh.

I see talented writers on here all the time, I read their really great, funny, interesting, harrowing, or exciting threads and think... I wish I could write threads like those. But I just lack the social skills to get involved. My anxiety tells me things that aren’t true all the time, like that I’m extraneous, people have their groups and I should leave them to have fun in peace because I’d only be bothering them. It is not my intention to always make others do all of the work by waiting for them to reach out, or hoping they write that first starter instead of me, or waiting for that indisputable starter call that finally makes me feel comfortable enough that yes, they want to rp with someone like me... it’s just unfortunately where I’m at mentally right now.

Time is also an issue. I work full-time online as a teacher for a university, I have about 160 students, and I have students all around the world in all different time zones, so my job is pretty much 24/7. I am constantly answering student emails, grading assignments, dealing with technical site issues, etc. Sometimes I really want to interact with new writers on here, but I don’t bother because I am afraid that my activity level won’t be what they want or expect. That’s a big reason why I haven’t been expanding my roleplaying to Discord or joining large rpg groups. I can’t guarantee activity. Sometimes I will be very active, sometimes I won’t be active at all... and I won’t always know ahead of time.

Anyway, this is a lot of rambling and I’m sorry for that, but I wanted to clear up any notion that I am aloof, that I am super selective and that’s why I’m not rping with you, or that if I seem to be ignoring you, I am. SO. NOT. TRUE. It’s a combination of my being too afraid to reach out, having health issues that make me very forgetful at times, and feeling like I have to hold back because of scheduling issues or a lack of free time. So... yeah. That’s that. If you’ve gotten this far in reading this post, you are sweet and precious and a wonderful human being. Thank you for taking the time to do so. If I said I would write you a starter and never did, please remind me. I am 99.9% sure the reason is that I just plum forgot. If I appear to have dropped a thread you really loved, please remind me about it. I may not have even seen your reply with Tumblr’s crappy notifications not showing up for me. And if you want to rp with me, I don’t bite, I’m not intimidating, yes I want you to reply to that open starter, yes I want you to randomly tag me in a starter or drop something into my ask box, I am honestly just a scared potato who really cannot Social™ well.

Wanda, Vision, and Pietro are most active right now. Please bother them. I have a leafling OC who is very adorable and versatile, I promise you. Please bother him. I also rp Gizmo. Please bother him.

Bother whoever you like, ask me questions about them, answer open starters (literally any of my blogs you can just search for “open starter” and they’ll all come up), and send in memes.

~ Silence, a.k.a. Si, a.k.a. Shy Derpy Potato, out. (^-^)/

#{ out of equations } ᵒᵒᶜ #{because things aren't adding up}#{and it's just occurred to me that i'm creating the wrong look here}#{with how i run things}#{my apologies... i hope we can start over}

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tev-the-random · 4 years

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What it Ursa took her children with her? - Pt.2

As we were saying:

Little over year has passed since the family arrived in Hira’a, and fateful news gets to them: Ozai remarried. His new wife is someone who is honoured to marry the Firelord and doesn’t mind the fact that his head is so deep up his own arse- anyway, and they are expecting a child, who is to be the Firelord’s legitimate heir.

Azula’s hopes and dreams are shattered. At age ten, she is quite literally being replaced in her beloved father’s life. It’s like she’s never even existed, and she can’t help but wonder what she did wrong.

Zuko is also upset, of course. All those years when Ozai told him he was unfit and worthless come flooding back. But somehow, he already expected things to turn out like this. Unlike Azula, he wasn’t so deeply feeding on hopes that things would go back to normal. He sees it more as a situation that was out of everyone’s control.

He convinces Azula it’s not her fault, and these kids will still be trying to understand and defend their father later down the road. There must be a reason for all of this, right? They start thinking of a reasonable scenario…

Ursa just feels sorry for the poor woman who has to deal with Ozai now.

So we get a timeskip: about three years came and went. Zuko and Azula – treated as kids and not as weapons – lead a peaceful and happy life whenever they’re not thinking of their father and everything they could be doing out there.

They have become known local troublemakers in their spare time. Kids know better than to challenge them, people know not to leave flammable goods out in the open – a strict policy regarding fireworks has been established after a chaotic incident – and failure to keep an eye on them this one time led to… well, let’s just say that the town is still unsure of whether or not they’re is being haunted by evil spirits.

They aren’t allowed anywhere near Forgetful Valley, but bold of you to assume they never tried. In-jokes arise.

‘No, I’m serious: that tree’s face looked exactly like yours, Zuzu. You really should befriend it,’ Azula mocks, remembering a particularly ugly tree they encountered in their adventure.

‘Sorry, I wasn’t looking at it. I was busy looking for whoever it was that asked you,’ Zuko retorts. ‘Since Forgetful Valley has all the kinds of crazy stuff.’

‘Maybe we should go back and look for your impulse control, then.’

‘None of you are going back in there,’ Ursa reprehends. ‘It was very irresponsible of you. Forgetful Valley is a dangerous place, you could have gotten hurt!’

‘Your mother is right, you know?’ Noren comments. ‘I’ve been to that jungle before, and it’s definitely not a playground. But I swear…’ He makes a dramatic pause. ‘I once saw Ursa’s sense of humour in there.’

The kids burst out laughing while Ursa sighs. ‘Since you can find such amazing things in the valley, dear, why don’t you go back there and find yourself actual funny jokes? I’m sure my sense of humour will be around the same corner.’

*More laughter*

(IDK, I write crappy comedy, ok?)

They still have a bit of a hard time making friends. I wouldn’t say they are shy, but they definitely have a talent to say the wrong things at the wrong times, and it’s hard to make deep connections. Sure, they would play with other kids from time to time, but in the end, Zuko and Azula are each other’s best friend.

They’ve cleared an area by the beach that any Hira’a resident knows to stay away from when they’re training.

Azula discovered a great passion for theatre. Not only are her acting skills fantastic, she also seems to be naturally aware of what makes a good scene. People say she’s Noren’s Little Assistant.

She hates being called Noren’s Little Assistant. She would much rather be called Ursa’s Little Star, because goddamn is she a good actress and she needs everyone to know that.

Zuko is more of a plant-lover guy. Unfortunately, he hasn’t inherited his grandmother’s green thumb, and despite Ursa’s best efforts to teach him, it seems like everything he touches dies.

He has grown to show a way with animals, however. Any variety of frogs and toads love him; lizards of all kinds are attracted to him like he’s a magnet; furry animals big and small adore him and any type of bird-like creature seems to think he is the best human being in existence. But his favourite animals are still the turtleducks.

Back in the palace, Iroh eventually learns of Ozai’s bullshit and how he got the throne in the first place. And you know what? The time has come for Iroh to draw a line in the sand. He confronts his little brother, who confronts him back by telling him that, should he try to tell anyone in the Fire Nation the truth – that Ozai was a top-grade traitor who actually had no right to the throne –, no one would believe him. Since his brother won’t be sensible, Iroh decides that’s it: he’s fucking out.

Now a fugitive from the Fire Nation, he somehow winds up owning a lovely traveling tea shop called the Jasmin Dragon. Most people don’t even suspect he is the fearful Dragon of the West, because he’s just so nice?

You can bet he serves blends of tea from all across the nations.

The tea shop is also a good cover up for his exchanges with the Order of the White Lotus. He gives and receives information, and does his best to help villages to either defend themselves or evacuate during Fire Nation attacks.

One day a member of the White Lotus travels to Hira’a for one reason or another and finds Zuko and Azula. This person then sends a letter to Iroh.

Iroh comes to Hira’a to visit the family. He’s glad to see they’re ok, even if he can’t stay for too long. But long enough for some Quality Time – these kids have grown so much!

Iroh doesn’t know of Ursa’s part in Azulon’s assassination, and only assumes she knew of Ozai’s plan. But now, it’s time that her children learned a couple of things, and he is willing to teach them, so that when the time arrives for them to meet their destiny, they should be able to choose wisely and face whatever comes their way. So he asks the children to accompany him in his travels.

Ursa doesn’t want to let them go. They’re children, they should be here living a peaceful life, not meeting some grand, dangerous destiny! What if something horrible happened to them?

Iroh understands the pain of losing a child. He doesn’t want to make Ursa spend her time worrying about losing two, so he respects her decision and soon leaves the town.

But the siblings are not about to just sit here when they know they’re destined for something greater. What incredible knowledge did their uncle hold? Did their father have something to do with this? They always knew there was more to their fate than just living in Hira’a for the rest of their lives, and this is their chance; it’s now or never.

Zuko and Azula are about to sneak out and follow Iroh when Noren spots them. But instead of trying to stop them – he is well aware that he can’t – he gives them two masks and some advice about never forgetting who they were.

Why yes, I am saying that they eventually take the masks and become partners in crime, Zuko as the Blue Spirit and Azula as the Red Spirit, because parallels.

They catch up with their uncle and adventures and shenanigans issue as Zuko, Azula and Iroh cross the Earth Kingdom.

Now imagine this trio: two of the most awkward firebending teenagers travelling with their old tea-loving uncle, who spits proverbs like he’s made of them. The possibilities for both hilarious and heart-warming moments are endless.

Iroh thinks himself a matchmaker. Whenever he thinks he sees some romance going on, he encourages his nephew or niece to make a move. His flaming cupid arrows do more damage than good, yet he only has good intentions at heart. Teens all around the kingdom encourage you to stop, sir.

Their new life is even more humbling than in Hira’a, since they are constantly travelling. But they manage, and they know their uncle is nothing but wise… even if Azula is still quite arrogant and manipulative, and Zuko is impatient and hot-headed, which can lead to a lot of conflict.

Iroh teaches them both how to create and redirect lightning. Zuko is better at redirecting than Azula. Creating it, on the other hand, is a bit more complicated, and both of them get their fair share of explosions while learning. Neither of them really gets a hang of it – although Azula is better at it than Zuko, that’s not saying much – for they still have a lot of identity-related turmoil inside them that won’t let them grasp the energy.

Guess who else teaches them? Other members of the White Lotus. Both Zuko and Azula get some swordsmanship Skills™ from Piandao, some different (and somewhat unwillingly taught) firebending technics from Jeong-Jeong and a lot of things from Bumi, including but not limited to: creative thinking, the art of patience, strategic planning, dealing with pirates and a surprising amount of rocks-related knowledge.

Bumi adopted Zuko and Azula and gave himself the role of Second Uncle. You cannot convince me otherwise.

So one day, little over a year after the siblings joined Iroh, they wind up in a city where this big circus is performing. Uncle Iroh decides to take his niece and nephew to see it. And oh, aren’t they surprised by who they see performing?

Even though Ty Lee was essentially the only one between her sisters to befriend Azula – and consequentially, the only one to periodically spend time in the palace with her –, Zuko and Iroh still have a hard time distinguishing her from the six other girls who look exactly like her, uncertainly calling her all different names before Azula snaps ‘you idiots, that’s Ty Lee!’.

The acrobat is so glad to see her friend again, because damn: it’s been nearly four years since they last saw or even heard from each other! And Zuko, I thought you were dead? This is such a neat reunion, there’s so much for them to talk about! And sure, the circus has to leave soon and so do the siblings, but Ty Lee reassures them that, if they ever needed her, she wasn’t hard to find. This isn’t the last we’ll see of Ty Lee.

Azula doesn’t let it show, but she resents Ty Lee a little bit for choosing to abandon her noble life. She really wishes she could have had a choice.

Uncle Iroh tells the siblings stories about the war that would have some day mesmerized them. But now, his opinions about those events and what he did as a prince general have changed; that, along with what the family sees in their journey – all the horrors brought to innocent people – gives Zuko and Azula a new perspective on what they used to think was a greater good. It will still take a while for Azula to understand that no, these people are no lesser than her and for Zuko to understand why any of that matters.

Iroh eventually tells them the truth about Azulon’s death. Or at least, what he knows of it: their father killed Azulon, banished them, took the throne by force and planned to gain more power at the expense of everyone. This is a lot to take in, and the siblings don’t quite believe it.

After four years thinking about it, Zuko and Azula decided to take their mother’s early words – they went to Hira’a to be safe – and formulate what for them was a reasonable scenario. They believe that Ozai never actually wanted any of this to happen. The whole family had to have been in danger, be it due to some political, social or personal threat, and Ozai wanted to take it all by himself to protect them. So he sent his wife and children away, concocted a plan with Azulon to cover for them and, once Azulon died and left him the throne, remarried to keep appearances. To Zuko and Azula, this makes perfect sense. And they thoroughly convince themselves of that.

They initiate an argument, thinking that Iroh is jealous of Ozai.

Their uncle sees these children are starting to stray from their path, but he knows this is a necessary journey for them. They will never be able to deal with reality unless they face it.

The siblings leave Iroh, planning to head straight to the Fire Nation capital and find out what really happened. Maybe now that they are older, it would be a perfect time to come back home; they surely could defend themselves from any threats.

Of course, they’ll be very disappointed to know that Ozai was just a bitch and never actually cared for any of them.

I don’t have a full formed idea about how their reencounter with their father would go down, but I say Ozai would officially banish both his children from the Fire Nation for trying to cause a commotion – which could easily be perceived as a threat. Not only that, but Zuko and Azula are the children of a traitor; cue for Ozai revealing what happened that night four years ago, confirming that he was the one to kill Azulon with Ursa’s help.

I also think that, after that day, the Firelord would have discreetly helped spread rumours about Ursa that would drag her name through the mud in the Capital – was she cheating on Ozai? Was she selling Fire Nation information to the Earth Kingdom? Was she planning a coup against the Firelord? Her crimes change from mouth to mouth. In the end, no one would take Zuko or Azula back unless Ozai wanted it. But he doesn’t. Not now, at least…

But Ozai also decides to play with his options: he plants a seed of doubt in his children’s minds; should they prove themselves useful later on, it would only take pulling a few strings for them to come crawling back to him. So he tells them that they needed to prove themselves for everyone to see that they weren’t traitors like their mother. They needed to prove their worth so that he could accept them.

Ozai goes a step further with Azula and tells her that, before his demise, Firelord Azulon had a plan. A plan to bring her back and put her in the leading, prestigious role she was always meant to get. But they needed to wait for the right time. There is a right time, Princess Azula. Your hopes were right all along, they will come for you eventually if you prove yourself.

The siblings have a lot to think about while they’re leaving the Fire Nation. They idolized Ozai so much all these years. But the undeniable truth came crashing down on their heads, spoken by the man himself. What would they do now? They didn’t think it possible, but their harsh actions made things so much worse: they couldn’t come back to their mother, they didn’t have many hopes of running into Iroh again, they can’t even set foot in their homeland anymore; Zuko and Azula are all on their own.

Maybe it’s time to turn a new leaf. It starts with them being fairly neutral, not completely loyal to either the Fire Nation or to the rest of the world. During this period, they would argue a lot about what to do or where to go next, getting separated and going their own ways before destiny makes them stick together again, over and over.

They manage to get a few deals and own a few favours here and there, become known thieves as the Spirits, and maybe meet up with Ty Lee’s circus every now and again. Life is hard.

But there is one thing that is about to be a beacon in their darkness…

Time to catch up to the show. Oh, you thought I wouldn’t go there?

Part 3 coming right up!

(I know I said this would be a two-parter, but it got ridiculously long, so I split it again. Three-parter now.)

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softboyscully · 4 years

Text

Public School Stuff I Wanted to Share

public school is both beautiful and horrifying am i right

so ill just go by the grades i guess

Kindergarten, first year

i did kindergartden at a catholic school in a relativly big city so this one’s got some shit

we went to church every wednesday, me and best friend (lost track of her when we moved, wish we’d stayed in touch, she was awesome) would giggle the whole time, pretty sure we made fun of jesus once, can’t remember why, possibly the hair

i had the nicest teacher, she was (as i remember her) young, blonde, and super sweet, that was the first and last year i ever had naptime

SPEAKING of naptime

i never slept during it

once i found what i remember being a nut of some sort on the ground, probably came off someone’s shoe

i grab it, turn to sarah (my best friend), say something about putting it up my nose

sarah, apparently having common sense, says, “no dont do it!! we’re supposed to be sleeping!!”

i put it up my fucking nose

try to get it out, just push it farther in

im crying a little bit now, that shit hurts

go up to my teacher

“you’re supposed to be asleep!”

“i have a nut up my nose and it wont come out”

teacher tries to get it out, but it wont budge

just. sends me back to my mat

that was it

the art room was tiny

like re-purposed broom closet tiny

there was a copy of the mona lisa in the hallway, someone had drawn ray bans on it with a pencil, never got replaced

there was a creepy-ass basement i went down to after school, we ate cheeseballs and sandwiches with some kind of meat, mayo, and that kinda yellow bread

someone broke his leg down there once, think an older kid threw him at the ceiling or something

we learned how to play Silver Bells with actual bells in music class

Kindergarten, second year

i remember these two teachers as the evil step sister-type look, but it might be my little kid imagination

but seriously they were horrible

we learned stuff in a room that was more middle-school styled, except everything was green or black and it was v dark

me and sarah attained a new friend, john

honestly i think we would’ve stayed friends for a while if i didnt move away

i have two vivid memories

one is of me really wanting to go home, so i walked by the teacher’s desk and did a fake sneeze

they laughed at me and told me to go sit back down

the other is john leaning his chair back and then falling, so me and sarah went to help him back up

it was funny, so he did it again

and again

me and sarah were laughing, had the time of our lives

after the maybe fifth time the teachers said “john can get back up by himself. sit down and stay there.”

one of the reasons we moved was bc i got sent a letter from my fourth grade buddie

most of the words weren’t spelled correctly, many letters were backwards

my mother was horrified

ofc now we know it was probably a learning disability

1st grade

this is when i moved

beginning of school i was ASTOUNDED we didnt have uniforms, one of the best things ever to happen to me

nothing wrong with this teacher, she was cool

thing is i was a little shit

told everyone my dogs died (they did but i was maybe three when it happened, i remember it not)

all my personal narratives were bullshit (only one sticks in my memory, wrote it about celebrating christmas AND hanukkah with my dad’s friends who were jewish, i have never even met those friends)

had a crush on this kid, best friend (she was terrible and helped wreck me emotionally) told me to kiss him in music class. me being a stupid ass bitch, i did it, aND HE GOES TO THE TEACHER AND CALLS ME OUT. at the end of class she gets both of us to stay for a bit, AND I DENYIED EVERYTHING. i walked across the fucking classroom, kissed him on the cheek, ran away giggling, told my teacher i didn’t do anything, AND GOT AWAY WITH IT. i’ve embarrassed myself further with this child but thats another story

2nd grade

i loved this teacher but honestly he was absolute shit

like. all he did was play the guitar and sing with us

never actually taught us stuff???

middle of the year, my mom goes in for a parent-teacher conference, he tells her i dont pay attention is math.

“what do you mean?”

“she doesn’t listen, she just takes out a book and starts reading.”

“........have you.... tried taking the book away?”

“sure, i could try that.”

“o....kay”

he also told her i’d be a girl who’d grow up to love spellcheck (which i do lmao)

like ???? why not just??? teach me to spell????

there was this one dude who one day showed up, gave me a pink stuffed cat, and then asked me where i lived

funniest thing was he lived on the same street as me

something that is vivid in my memory is showing up to class one day and realizing that i was wearing my regular clothes over my pajamas

also we had fish

every day someone else was in charge of feeding them

one of the times it was my job, i grab the fish food and walk over to the tank only to find all of the fish floating on the top

i screamed “THE FISH CAN FLY?!?!?!?!?!”

everyone ran over, all of us scarred for life when Mr. G walks over and goes in the most normal voice ever “no theyre dead”

we held a funeral

the cause of death is still undetermined

3rd grade

this year just draws a blank for me

all i know is that whoever the teacher was, they neglected to teach me how to tell time from a clock

also we learned the Cotten Eyed Joe dance in gym around here

4th grade

i had two teachers this year

one was the same one from 1st grade, the other one was a total bitch

made a girl named hannah ball her eyes out once, never apologized

i was (and am) and avid reader, so my reading skills were high above average

instead of being proud of me she told me i was weird, not normal, and too smart for a 4th grader, so i MUST be cheating.

she was the start of a lot of self confidence issues for me ngl

this was around the time i went and got tested for ADHD (me and my grandmother almost broke down on the highway but thats another story), Mrs. M (the nice one) was super supportive when i told her why i was leaving early but Ms. S (bitch) told me ADHD wasn’t real and i just wanted to be special for once

she sucked, Ms. S

5th grade

this is getting super long so this’ll be the last one i do

but my teacher..... Mr. F was A+++++

he legitimately taught me math

we had i guess like,,, a buddie class we switched with sometimes

the teacher of that class was Mrs. R, who had crazy red hair and many freckles

at one point she referenced a meme and my entire class started screaming

also there was another Mrs. S (to differentiate this one will be called Mrs. Su)

she was kind of crazy

she was the astronomy teacher and she told us many times that the moon landing was faked

once she handed out sunscreen and had everyone put it on their whole body (this was in december, fyi)

Mr. F also hosted an ‘archeological dig’ which sounds cool but in reality he had a bunch of arcade prizes from his childhood buried in little flower pots we dug into with plastic spoons

also heres some stuff i cants pinpoint the time of/happened in multiple grades:

someone held a who-can-scream-the-most-like-a-goat contest

a guy named Makenzie won

remember we planned it while the teacher left the classroom so the teacher walks back in and one by one everyone in the room starts screaming, there was some applause, a few kids got a standing ovation

we cleaned out our desks in the middle of the year, i found 3 socks and a dog treat in mine

like how the fuck did any of those things get there

and where’s the fourth sock

b o t t l e f l i p p i n g

but no seriously there were at least five water bottles stuck in the ceiling in the cafeteria

my sorta friend charlie was obsessed with paper airplanes

one time he might’ve broken the world record for longest time in the air but he was counting in his head and it was at recess so there was no video

four square and gaga ball would be played no matter the setting, time, or conditions and it was super competitive

like if you could get to king in four square you got the everlasting respect of everyone

and everyone was super educated on four square special rules, special plays, that kinda shit

no but guys i grew up with bus stop, candy store, haunted house on mondays, haunted mansion on fridays, zombies was fair game unless it was Zach, Ryan, Chrissy or Vee

me and one other guy named andrew were the only known pjo fans, had the time of our LIVES making refrences

“HEY ANDREW IM NOBODY”

“I HAVE WAITED YEARS FOR YOU, NOBODY, COME HERE AND FACE YOUR DEATH”

“hey annabeth, i thought you looked like a princess when i first saw you. i printed out a picture you sent me casually and kept it with me. i snuck along on a quest so i could save you, endangering myself immensely. i held the sky for you. when you talk about your crush on luke, i get jealous. beckendorf understood, but hes dead.”

“ikr we’re literally the best of friends”

“RIGHT”

also the first time we finished mark of athena we were in the same classroom and we individually dropped the book, stood up, looked at each other, and screamed “WELL FUCK YOU TOO RICK RIORDAN”

#public school #percy jackson #percabeth #my childhood #you dont have to read this but i felt like posting it lol #if you've read this far #i applaud you #thanks for listening to my meaningless shit #im gonna be a comedian #school #school stories #adhd #kind of

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apex-academy · 3 years

Text

Chapter 5: Caring Is a Hazard to Your Health (#24)

After an extended nap and some light reading, I head out to supper.

Seems quiet in here.

Only natural at this point. Just 8 people—

Stop. It...

It’s just quiet because Aidan isn’t here at the moment. Yeah.

Still, silence beats fighting. I hop in the kitchen to make some vaguely lumpy onigiri and eat it in there. Not feeling sociable yet. I’ll probably head upstairs for the rest of the evening. Get a few games in. Or...

“I could go further upstairs than that...”

I still feel like I haven’t been that thorough looking through the new floor, and now...

Where did that key come from, anyway? To show up in the gym... It was right after we got our motive, so any of us could have dropped it then. Even Monochap.

There’s no telling. I’ll just investigate and hope this doesn’t turn out to be some kind of trap. If someone wanted this to be found, then... probably Kanagi? She started Horse. Not easy to believe she’d mastermind a trap like that, though, so I won’t point any fingers yet. It’s probably just what it looked like, anyway. Slipped out of a pocket somewhere.

Impatiently, I finish up my supper and head out. I cross Tsunyasha in the hall, but she doesn’t make any death threats, so not worth my attention. Maybe I ought to be hunting Mahavir down instead, but... I’ll just burn myself out if I’m not careful.

I check the Nurse’s Office anyway, but it’s empty.

Upstairs, then.

This many flights is a bit of a haul, but I’m not that tired. That, and I should probably double-check the shutters they’ve been using in here.

...Yup. There’s still a flight closed off. At least it keeps moving up.

“All right. Let’s see if I can get into anything.”

I dig around the Computer Room first, just in case I may somehow get access to a computer, but it’s not looking promising. If there are any secret compartments in here, they don’t have visible keyholes. Kind of a long shot, anyway.

I go ahead and try the mysterious office at the far end of the east wing, but the key doesn’t even start to fit. Figures.

Finally I move to the Secretary’s Office. The door is unlocked, but...

“Probably my number-one suspect.”

I jiggle the key into the file cabinet’s key slot. It actually goes in, which is a good start, but it sure doesn’t want to turn. Maybe I’m wrong.

“Doubt I’m going to snap this thing in half, though.”

I give it another two rounds of heave-ho before it finally turns. I rub my fingers to try to get the key impression off of them before reaching for the topmost handle.

“Is there some way to make sure I’m not about to set off a bomb?”

Not that I know of, so I’ll just have to hope. Can’t see any wires running into the cabinet, so that’s a good sign.

The drawer offers some resistance, too, making a series of clangs as I pull and push on the handle. But then something manages to rattle loose, and the drawer comes on out. Not all the way, thankfully, since that probably would have knocked me over. But far enough to see the contents. Five files hang between the sides of the drawer, so widely spaced it still feels eerily empty. All but the first are labeled at the tab.

“Aidan, Aki, Arthur...”

These are files on us? In... first-name alphabetical order for some reason, but the secretary’s personal preferences probably aren’t worth worrying about. I reach for the unlabeled file. The thing is full up, but it looks like most of the papers are copies of blank forms. Mostly demographic-looking. Not terribly informative. But at the front...

“ ‘ Recruitment Guidelines’.”

If the files in this cabinet are on students, I doubt it’s guidelines for recruiting staff. As far as the student side goes, I honestly know precious little aside from the fact that they do recruit. I think there was something flowery about my qualifications on my acceptance letter, but I can’t remember the details now. So I can’t exactly verify this, but it looks authentic enough.

“ ‘Must be a legal resident of Japan or be or become fluent in Japanese within one year’...”

A lot of the qualifications are kind of arbitrary with a nice touch of legalese, so that’s not helping me any. The only thing that really strikes me is how vague the most significant qualifications are.

“ ‘Has performed a feat or collection of feats that could not be expected of any other student’.”

“...Have I done that?”

I guess tournaments must count. Otherwise, I’m not sure how I qualify. But it makes sense. It was probably similar for Kazusuke and Kanagi, and maybe some of the artistic talents. Seems boring, almost, but otherwise this school would just be a collection of obscure world record-holders, wouldn’t it?

At any rate, this isn’t helping my search for the young master. Or whatever I’m searching for right now. Honestly I feel like I just showed up over here without an actual goal in mind besides “try key.” But whatever. No one else should be coming in here, so I can take all the time I need. Might be nighttime soon, but that just means less chance of anyone being out to see me by the time I finish.

Anyone who follows the rules, at least. But no one would be looking for a victim so soon, right...? I won’t worry about it. Maybe bring some kind of blunt implement with me on the way back, but. Not worth any more thought than that.

I put the recruitment guidelines away semi-neatly and browse the rest of the cabinet. There are a few files in each drawer. At least, each drawer I can get too. Bottom one’s thoroughly jammed. I can deal with that later if I feel the need to. For now...

“...My file.”

This is the closest I could possibly get to verifying this cabinet’s info. I pull out the file with my name and stare at it.

“Why do I feel nervous about opening it?”

It’s not like it's a report card or anything. Probably? Would they have those mixed in here, too?

But there’s no reason for me to be nervous about that, anyway?? Just shut up and read it.

I start flipping through. Aside from a few oblique mentions, I don’t see any grades in here. Just the demographic-ish paperwork. That, and a few grainy copies of championship certificates. Guess I got accepted here for consistency, because no single one of these is that huge a deal. Unusual for someone my age, maybe, but...

“Anyway, seems legitimate enough.”

Time to check out the rest. I put my file back and start at the top. Aidan’s first, then. I remove his file and gaze at it in my hands for a while. Seems kind of personal, now that I think about it. But most of this would be public information, anyway, right? That, or something that’s no big deal, like hometown.

Well, I won’t find anything either way if I don’t even look. Open sesame.

First few pages are the same forms, filled out differently. He is indeed from America, specifically Oshkosh, Wisconsin.

“Never heard of either of those, but sure, why not.”

Blah, blah, height, weight, medical conditions... Nothing earth-shattering. And then...

“What the heck? Everything on this page is redacted.” Aside from a few prepositions that don’t tell me anything, all the text has been reduced to a stuttering black line.

I try looking at the other side, then holding it up to the light, but it gets me nowhere. Nothing I can do with this besides think about it, and I can save that for later. There’s a newspaper clipping in here that looks a lot less difficult to read, so I’ll try that.

“ ‘Bioterrorist Attack Kills Three, Hospitalizes Eleven Others’.”

It goes on to summarize a recent anthrax-like attack on an air control tower that pretty much took out everyone there, lethally or otherwise, within a few minutes. One Abe Sorakubo managed to hang on long enough to redirect traffic despite technical difficulties and guide one plane safely to the ground when it was unable to change course. Abe remains in critical condition...

“...’but has received a better prognosis than the 12-year-old child caught up in the attack alongside him’.”

The child had already stopped breathing by the time EMS found them on the floor of the control tower wearing one of the controller headsets. Abe stated that the child was an aspiring air traffic controller, and he wanted them to be able to wear it before they died, even if they were already unconscious at the time.

“...........”

Yeah, three guesses who the 12-year-old child was. Is it really okay for me to be reading this? I mean, if it was in the news, a lot of people already have, right? And whoever was putting together the recruitment files read it, too. They even highlighted the bit just before Abe’s statement.

I quietly refile the papers and put the folder back. Next is Aki...

“...”

I don’t know if I can do this right now. Maybe I... I’ll come back to her later.

Arthur, then.

Still hurts a little to thumb through his profile, but it’s a muted enough pain by now. At least we weren’t really friends. Classmates, for sure, but...

“...........”

Anyway.

Born on some kind of British military base in Germany, looks like. And lots of travel from there. Even his list of actual residences goes on for pages. Nothing in here seems suspect, though.

Instead of third-party material, his additional insert is more of a handwritten memo. Notes on his total distance travelled, the success of his blog, and an addendum that Super High School Level Hitchhiker may not be a very standard sort of talent but would nonetheless fit him and the standards of the school.

I flip through everything again just to be sure, but still, nothing of interest. “He’s been a lot of places” is about the whole gist of it.

“Ichiriki, then.”

I sort through his main file, which tells me a whole lot of nothing. Heir of the Tokino Hardware empire. No major moves.

No psychological profiles or anything, either. That would be too helpful, huh?

Instead of a single news article, his has several, though none of them actually have photos of his art. A few of them explain that he considers photography an abomination against everything chalk art represents. None of them specify what it’s supposed to represent, but I guess that’s to be expected.

At any rate, it really does look like he’s here as the Super High School Level Chalk Artist. As much as I’d like to say he has some fake talent to hide his involvement in this whole thing as some kind of warped observational psychologist, between this and his actual art skills, I really have no basis for saying anything like that.

Darn. He’d make an awfully convincing bad guy.

Maybe not so much at the moment, but. Overall. I can’t discount him entirely just because his talent is genuine, though, so there’s still that.

And that’s all the files for the top drawer.

“...........”

I’m weirdly tired already. Maybe I should take a break before I start overlooking any real clues. This cabinet won’t be going anywhere, right? And it probably is getting late by now.

“...”

I lock up the cabinet with much less struggle than it took to unlock it. I tug at each drawer afterwards, but they’re all sealed up pretty well.

All right, then. I can jump back in tomorrow morning.

Assuming nobody’s dead by then.

“...............”

Let’s just get moving.

[BACK] [NEXT]

#apexplot #apex5 #fanganronpa

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szipps · 3 years

Text

Feeling like shit today lul.

I went shopping for clothes but today for the first time I felt extreme anxiety. My parents are, to my knowledge, probably getting a divorce so my mom had my dad buy me clothes for when I go back to school. I don't think I've ever gone shopping alone with my dad so it was awkward. I didn't know where to look for clothes and I didn't have a second opinion like I would if I were with my mom, sisters, or friends. I felt so lost. I'm usually fine in my own skin and how I dress since I know what I want and I'm confortable with it but all the clothes they had just weren't for people like "me". It was all crop tops, flowy dresses, cute thin blouses, etc... The type of clothes you see people on tik tok wearing. Just trendy clothes that in all honesty, just look like a grandmas closet I'm sorry lol.

Anyways, I felt really out of place. None of it looked like something I'd wear and I just felt like a hick wearing my old clothes. My hands were getting so sweaty.

My dad is taller than me too so when we were walking around so I was kind of chasing after him the whole time we were shopping. I honestly hate that he was walking in front of me in the first place. I know he probably didn't think about it and was in a rush because he had some work to do afterwards but it made me feel like a fucking burden and a slug lol.

I felt like shit for being short, not liking any of the clothes, not having any money, and not having anyone to have fun with.

I know what kind of clothes I want to wear of course, I know those clothes aren't what I want to wear at all, I just felt like I wasn't welcome in a way...

Then come the feelings of feeling like I'm unlovable lol.

Of course I know that's not true at all because even the fucking weird kids have dates 💀 but I just feel like I'm so fucking boring and have a shit personality that ill never be able to catch anyone's eye. Also I'm straight and men lowkey terrify me because of crimes against women and just general "boy talk". I hope it easy to figure out what I mean.

I just think that if I was attracted to women I'd have an easier time finding someone to fall in love with, not having to panic because I feel like male culture is completely different than female culture. I don't know if that's true or not but its like were two different species.

My posture is bad, I'm a bit overweight, I don't have good skin, I'm not very friendly, I don't have many interesting hobbies, I'm not really sure what I look like to be honest lol, I'm fucking short, and my "standards" are too high.

I wish I was like my friend. She's really outgoing and has lots of friends. She even asked her boyfriend out first and they've been dating for about 2 or so years now? They're really happy together too.

Now look back to me lol. I freak out whenever I see any attractive boy and act "cool". Cool being uninterested and just acting like normal. Fucking seriously? I just can't imagine anyone legitimately being interested in me because literally no one is. Not even my own fucking friends and family. Feels bad :(

I want to fall in love and date someone cool, funny, and friendly. Hell, he doesn't even have to be even that attractive, I just want to date a good person who I know won't kill or harm me. The bar really is that low, wow.

But at the same time I want to date someone I can be proud off and show off. Fucking embarrassing 🤦 for someone like me to think about.

I really hope I'm completely wrong about the way I see myself but there's something that tells me I'm not. I'm self aware. I know what is proper and what isn't. I'm a damn clown fiesta.

I'm not going to accomplish anything. I won't even get a job and I'm already fucking 17. I don't even have my fucking license. I feel like everyone's leaving me behind. I can't see a future for me and I never have been able to. I don't have any real aspirations and I sure as hell don't want to live in the "real" world. I'm honeslty debating whether I should really kill myself. I'm such a fucking coward lol.

I know this is long already but bear with me lol.

I honestly don't even know if I even want to be friends with my best friend anymore. We've been friends for almost 10 years now and have gone through so much together. Well, I've gone through a lot of what she's gone though. No real pain in my end.

She has a troubled life and I honestly feel really bad once I think about it but most of the time I don't. Shes outgoing, friendly, cool, and basically everything I'm not. I'm not saying I'm jealous of her, I just feel like we're not very connected in most ways. Hell, I'm not really sure why we're friends in the first place. We know eacother really well, yes (thats probably why you're friends, dumbass) but I honestly don't like most of the things she does, which is to say, drugs. Yeah she's a fucking druggie lol. Not really, but she smokes a lot. I wouldn't really mind if she did, but its literally all she does and talks about. I'm not really comfortable nor do I care about drugs.

I hate that she smokes. It fucking stinks and it sticks everywhere. I come home smelling like cigarettes and weed and my mom is very against things like that. I don't think they've smelled it, but it they have, they haven't said anything.

With her smoking comes the realization that she really doesn't give a shit about me. She drags me around to her friends houses so she can get free weed and the like. She drives the car while high, Smokes in the car, all while I'm in the car with her.

Girl, I'm fucking getting second hand smoke over here!!!

Its not like I ever tell her how I feel about it, but its not like I should have to. Normally you don't blow your smoke at people who don't smoke. It's fucking rude.

Honestly, I've been feeling this way for some time, since middle school really.

We just stopped talking and hanging out all through middle school. All our interactions were just sitting together on the bus.

We've been friends since 3rd grade but she always says she didn't have any friends in elementary school. I feel like I wasted my fucking time. I didn't even have many friends but her because the one time I had another close friend, she got really jealous and aggressive towards her. Not that I have any bad feelings towards her then, we were kids, but it just feels like all I did with her then was really nothing at all for her.

I don't ever plan to tell her any bad feelings I feel towards her since I feel like if I did, it be a pretty hurtful think for her. I guess I did it to myself since I never complained and just silent company. I understand shes depressed and is having a really hard time, but it really feels like a waste of time when we hang out since all we do is lay in bed on our phones because she doesn't want to go outside.

I feel like its been long enough now. I've ranted for more than I wanted to lol. My earbuds have run out of battery and I'm in a better mood since I began ranting. My feelings are precious and not something I really want to share, even to the people closest in my life. I know I'm not alone in my feelings since there are way more people in the world than I could ever imagine, and there's bound to be someone who thinks the same way I do. So, I hope whoever reads this gets to be entertained by seeing what goes on in someone else's life or maybe no one will ever read this and I'm just talking to the void, at least ill be getting my feelings straight and sorted somewhere I can look back and laugh.

Goodnight! I hope things get better.

#getting this off my chest #ranting #feelings #feeling like shit #this fucking sucks

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noona-clock · 5 years

Text

Expectations

Genre: College/Roommates!AU -- Pure Fluff

Pairing: Hanbin x You (Female!Reader)

Warnings: Cursing

Part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 | Words: 1,806

The downside to going to a university halfway across the country from where you grew up?

You knew nobody. You had no friends.

And your roommate was going to be somebody you’d never met before.

You were a fairly easygoing and tolerant person, so most likely you would get along with whoever was assigned to your room...

...but what if you didn’t?

No, no, no. There was no room for that kind of thought! Whoever ended up being your roommate would be completely and totally fine because you were you! You were a team player, and you liked meeting new people and making new friends. The fact that you would be sharing a dorm suite with this mystery person for a whole year was not daunting in the least.

If you could handle being Class President, Editor-in-Chief of the school newspaper, Vice President of the Debate team and get good enough grades to earn a scholarship for this university all during your last year of high school... you could pretty much handle anything!

If you could handle driving for two straight days on your own with just about everything you owned packed in your car because, even though this school was hours and hours from your hometown, it had the best psychology program in the country... you could pretty much handle anything!

“Yes, I can handle anything,” you murmured to yourself as you hung up clothes in your new (tiny) closet.

You had just arrived last night, but you’d been far too exhausted from driving all day to unpack anything until this morning. After a somewhat restful sleep in your new bed, a hot shower, and a cup of coffee, you were fully energized and raring to get your room set up.

You were also raring for your new roommate to get here. You were tired of wondering what she would be like and if the two of you would get along or not; you wanted her to get here so you could finally meet her!

“I can handle anything,” you repeated with a nod as you grabbed a hanger and slid one of your plaid flannel shirts onto it. “And I will be the best roommate this dorm has ever seen. My roommate won’t know what hit her! -- I mean, not literally. A good roommate would never hit, obviously, I just mean -- she’s probably not expecting someone who’s as determined as I am to be a good --”

Just as you hooked the hanger onto the rack in your closet, you heard the rattle of a doorknob, the sound interrupting your unexpected pep talk...

You froze, your heart suddenly skipping a beat before it began to beat double-time. Was she here? Finally?

You stepped out of your bedroom and into the shared living area, wringing your hands together as the front door slowly swung forward.

This was it, apparently. This was the moment you’d been waiting for.

A sweatshirt-clad form appeared in the doorway, the hood pulled up over her head as she scrambled in with quite a few duffel bags and suitcases.

You rushed over to help her, a smile tugging at your lips as you said, “Here, let me --”

At the sound of your voice, your roommate lifted her head to look at you...

And you quickly realized your roommate was not a her.

He was a him.

...Oh.

A strangled noise of confusion bubbled up in your throat, and you took a staggering step back.

Your roommate... was... a guy?

(Side note: in the very depths of your mind, you corrected yourself. Your roommate was a very cute guy. But that particular thought didn’t need to be addressed right now. ...Or ever.)

“Oh, shit,” he murmured, his brow furrowing as he looked at you. “Sorry, I must have the wrong --”

He set his bags down and backtracked, stepping outside the door to peer at the number tacked on the front of it. Oh, thank god. He must have the wrong room!

But then you saw rather than heard him say the number 210, and he dipped his head in the slightest of nods.

When he stepped back into the entryway, he lifted one hand and gestured toward you. “You’re room two-ten?” he asked in a low voice.

“Y--yes,” you stuttered. “Two-ten.”

His brows raised and he brought his hand up to slide the hood off his head. “Okay, then. I guess we’re roommates.”

The way he said that was so... casual!

Like he wasn’t bothered whatsoever!

“Are -- I mean, are we allowed to be roommates?” you asked, watching with the most wrinkled forehead as he began to pick up his bags once more.

He shot you a bemused look as he hefted his duffel over his shoulder. “What do you mean?”

...Huh?

What did he mean ‘what do you mean’?

“I -- I just don’t know if this dorm -- if they allow... co-ed roommates,” you clarified, though it should have been extremely obvious what you’d meant.

You waited for your new roommate to stop, realizing that you were more than a little surprised and uncomfortable at the moment. But he simply began shuffling toward the other bedroom, rolling his suitcase behind him.

“I think the Housing building is over on North campus,” he finally called out just as he approached his bedroom doorway.

...Oh.

Okay, then.

“Okay, I --” you began, watching as he disappeared into the room. “I’ll go see if I can sort this out.”

Just as you were about to turn and grab your purse from the kitchen counter, your new roommate appeared back in his doorway.

“I’m Hanbin, by the way,” he told you, the faintest of smiles pulling at his lips. “Kim Hanbin. In case you need to know my name.”

Hanbin. For some reason, you hadn’t been expecting that to be his name. Which was totally ridiculous because what had you been expecting? I guess you just hadn’t thought about it since you’d been set on the idea he would be a female.

His name just didn’t quite seem to fit him.

“I’m Y/N,” you replied, though you almost immediately felt silly. He’d told you his name because you were going to Housing to see if there was any way to switch roommates. He didn’t particularly need to know yours right now.

“Y/N,” he repeated, the faint smile growing just a bit wider. “Nice to meet you.”

You simply forced your lips into a close-mouthed grin and nodded before sliding your purse strap over your shoulder and heading for the door. It was nice to meet him, of course, but you didn’t want to get too friendly if the two of you weren’t going to end up actually living together.

As soon as you exited the dorm and closed the front door behind you, you let out a soft breath, one you hadn’t even known you’d been holding in.

The past ten minutes or so had just been a lot to take in, that’s all.

You’d been expecting a roommate -- a female roommate with whom you could grow close, become best friends. You two would eat dinner and watch romantic comedies together, share secrets and gossip, navigate the crazy life of a university student together.

But you got...

Hanbin.

Don’t get me wrong! You weren’t writing him off just yet, not at all! You just... would Hanbin really want to eat dinner and watch romantic comedies with you? Would he really want to share secrets and gossip with you? Would the two of you really become the best of friends?

You could certainly befriend a guy, so it’s not like you even had a legitimate reason to be disappointed!

You just... Well, you had set expectations for your first year of university, and already those expectations had been thrown out the window.

You weren’t exactly a fan of change, so starting on this whole new life path after high school was a huge deal, to begin with. Adding yet another change -- a male roommate -- might just be too much to handle.

You thought you could handle anything... but I guess you were wrong.

Well, that had been a waste of your time.

You’d spent the last hour in the Housing Office waiting room only to be told within two minutes of meeting the supervisor that there was nothing they could do.

“All rooms and room assignments are full as of right now,” she had explained with a perfunctory shrug. “If you want, I can put you on a waiting list to have you transferred when something opens up.”

“How long is the waiting list?” you asked, just to see.

The supervisor had flipped a page on her clipboard and replied with, “About five hundred.”

...Okay, so that was a ‘no.’

“It’s fine,” you assured her. “It’s really not a big deal. But thank you.”

So, now here you were. Trudging back across campus to your new dorm. To your new -- and permanent -- roommate.

I mean... Really, though, it wasn’t a big deal.

He was just a guy! And you were in a dorm suite, it’s not like your beds were in the same room. And even then! You were (practically) an adult! You were mature enough to sleep in the same room as a guy. You were mature enough to be roommates with a guy!

You took back what you thought before. You weren’t wrong! You most certainly, definitely, absolutely could handle this.

By the time you arrived back at your dorm, you had resolved to make the best of your situation, and you were currently working on a plan to be the best roommate Hanbin could ever want.

Just after you closed the front door behind you, Hanbin’s head popped out of his bedroom. “Any luck?” he asked with raised eyebrows.

“That depends on what you mean by ‘luck,’“ you replied, your tone incredibly optimistic. “There are no more dorms left, so that means we’ll be roommates for the year.”

“And... you’re okay with that?”

“For sure,” you answered with a nod. “I was just a little startled, but it’s all good. I’m actually super looking forward to --”

“Okay, good,” Hanbin interrupted before sticking his head back into his room and closing the door.

...Ah.

All right then.

So, I guess you would be pushing back step 1 of your plan to a later date. Hanbin didn’t feel up to getting to know each other through Ice Breaker games at the moment, apparently.

That was fine. It was just the first day! Classes hadn’t even started yet! You had plenty of time to get to know each other. Plus, you were very confident in your ability to solve problems.

You were going to solve this roommate/friendship problem.

Part 2

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cynical-gamer-media · 5 years

Text

Consider... Felix x Leonie Headcanons

I feel like these two would have interesting chemistry! (That’s some good ship)

At first Leonie despised him, thinking that he was a lone wolf because he thought he was better than commoners.

Naturally she stormed up to him and challenged him to a fist fight.

At first Felix thought she was bluffing, only for her to deck him in the face.

They started to get into a lot of fist fights (Caspar joined in for the fun of it).

Overtime Felix admits that he finds her a worthy foe.

“You think you’re better than everyone!”-Leonie. “...When did I ever say I did?”-Felix, legitimately confused.

Once she finds out from the Blue Lions that he likes to distance himself from everyone Leonie calms down.

But she sure as hell does not like losing to him in fights.

Their once heated fights are now just a daily routine for the two. Both enjoy it (though they don’t admit this).

Quite a few times Felix looks for her because he genuinely has a good time sparring with her (she’s also not obnoxious like Caspar).

He likes her hunting dog. She sees a soft side in him every time he rubs her dog’s belly.

Much to their surprise they both like the same type of food: mainly hot dishes.

(Sometimes they compete to see who can eat the hottest food without needing a drink of milk. Dimitri and Claude are there with the bottles).

Leonie gets Felix to smile more. All the Lions are stunned, including Felix’s friends.

If they’re tired from sparring they usually sit against a tree shoulder to shoulder and compliment one another.

Whenever Felix is too lazy to study Leonie challenges him to see who will get the better grade (whoever wins has to clean the stables of the opposite House).

This always gets Felix to work harder.

If Leonie is down then Felix is always there to be blunt with her and say that she’s better than this, i.e. “stop moping; you’re not a baby”, and this gets her fired up.

If Felix is down then Leonie will come and rub circles on his back. She doesn’t have to say anything.

Leonie does find him handsome; she’ll drop comments indicating that she finds him so to see him get flustered.

He doesn’t get flustered, but when he says that she’s pretty then she blushes and calls him an idiot with bad taste.

“Why do you like fighting her so much? You used to challenge Byleth and Catherine all the time; they’re better fighters!”-Caspar to Felix.

Felix has no come back to that. Caspar makes a good point; Leonie is strong but not as compared to the Professor.

Caspar is then all “oh... oh, ho, ho, ho~!”.

Naturally Felix beats him before the Eagle can voice out his hunch.

Him? In love with someone? That’s ridiculous.

The Lions don’t think it’s ridiculous. Sylvain comes up to him and asks at the top of his lungs “how is your Deer girl doing, Felix?”.

Leonie is also mocked by Claude, who just wiggles his eyebrows and is all “So... you and loner wolf Felix?”.

Both laugh about how their House mates think they’re a couple. Ha, ha... ah... oh no...

When they see each other they have blushes of embarrassment and pretend that whatever their House mates are wrong anyway...

One day when they’re in a heated sparring match (both pissed off with each other about something) they confess their feelings.

Exhausted and lying on the grass floor they just... talk about why they fell in love with one another.

And at that moment they’re truly... surprisingly... happy about being in love.

Especially with each other.

#Fire Emblem #Fire Emblem: Three Houses #FE16 #FE3H #Leonie #Felix #Leonie x Felix #Felonie?#Baloni?#Text #My Text #Headcanons

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luki-fanfic · 5 years

Text

What About Midnight?

How I’ve gone from never writing theories about shows to writing two for BNHA I’ll never know. But this is something that will not leave my head lately, especially with the recent chapters.

Now, I know that a big part of the fandom likes to believe Eraser Head was probably a transfer kid – because his quirk wouldn’t give him any real advantage in the UA entrance exam. Which does make sense, except...he’s a character that has proven he’s well aware of this. And given that he hasn’t changed personality wise all that much from his days as a student, suggests he might have already been planning for that before he reached UA.

Case in point:

He was training with his capture tape for 5 years before he considered it ‘mastered.’ Which could very easily mean he was training with it before he came to UA. And since the entrance exam allowed tools or weaponry, he could have taken his tape into the exam. Between that and the inevitable rescue points he would have gotten (my brain keeps insisting that he saved Hizashi from his own quirk at some point in the exam), Aizawa could have – perhaps not easily, but certainly possibly – passed the original exam without too much suspension of belief.

But there is a member of the faculty, that even with their current skill set, I refuse to believe would be able to pass.

Midnight.

Her quirk, if anything, is even worse for the entrance exam than Eraser Head’s. Much like his, it only works on people, and specifically works better on one half of the population, and it incapacitates whoever she uses it on – so it would take some amazing creativity to use it in a rescue scenario in that kind of exam.

Now admittedly, she does know how to use a whip – which in reality isn’t a great choice in weaponry but an ‘anime-whip’ is usually a whole different grade – but much like Aizawa, it’s an addition to help her fight, not something that enhances her quirk (Especially since her go-to whip is definitely more an accessory than a legitimate weapon). To be honest, she probably picked it for it’s aesthetic, of all the hero’s in the show, she’s definitely the one most devoted to it – which to me suggests she picked it up after arriving at UA. I could be wrong, but Midnight’s general use of her quirk suggests that she picked it up as an addition rather than a devoted skill.

Why?

Because she never uses it!

Unlike Eraser Head, whose quirk and weapon basically work in synchronization now, Midnight’s modus operandi is, ‘quirk first, whip if that doesn’t work, quirk again, repeat.’ Yes, I know she uses it in the test, but only after knocking one student out – she could have easily done it to both, but had to give them a chance to pass. Most of the other times we see her in action, her quirk is the immediate go to.

Admittedly, most of my examples of this are from the spin off Vigilantes series, but the point is valid. Even her stats admit that’s she's not a particularly powerful or fast hero, but in quirk use, she one of the highest ranked.

Basically, while people might like Aizawa for the underdog trope, if there is any character in the series who would have been almost guaranteed to fail the entrance exam, but EXCEL in a one-on-one tournament style fight...Nemuri’s your girl. The sports festival would have been the perfect place for her to display just how powerful her quirk was for subduing villains with minimal damage (which lets be honest, is a rare thing for heroes post-All-Might).

So while Aizawa might make sense plot wise given his tutoring of Shinso, I think it’s more a case of respect – and might also explain why he’s close friends with Nemuri despite the fact that she definitely seems to get along better with Hizashi than him. Their quirks aren’t flashy or loud, and require a lot of additional training to compensate for that. They both respect each other for what they had to overcome.

(Or maybe Aizawa just likes surrounding himself with loud, obnoxious people. Who knows?)

Regardless, I’d dearly love to know if Nemuri passed the exam, because she is definitely the one character in the show young enough to have had to pass it, but have no logical way of doing so.

#boku no hero academia #bnha #my hero academia #midnight #nemuri kayama #headcanon #not fanfiction

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tetsusimp · 5 years

Text

Soulmate! Connor Murphy HCS

tBased off of this post since it did really well

okay so at first when Connor was really little he was super excited to talk to his soulmate !!

The catch was your name would be scribbled out if you tried to write it, so Connor never knew his soulmate’s name

After the printer incident though, he stopped writing back to his soulmate

By now everyone had already decided Connor was a freak, in second grade. Even parents felt “Sorry for whoever ended up with that boy”

He started wearing only long sleeves and jackets in fifth grade

His soulmate wrote to him until sixth

Mostly messages like Are you okay? Why won’t you talk to me? Are you mad at me?

The last thing they wrote was I’m sorry.

His soulmate still wrote on themselves but never actually talking to Connor, it was usually doodles, homework, notes, things like that.

Connor wore long-sleeves to keep himself from being tempted. It also kept his soulmate from finding him if they were closer than he appeared.

High school sucked even more because of that, he had to watch everybody else meet their soulmate or talk about them and he was the only one who couldn’t be with that person.

He tried to pretend like he didn’t care but he did, he cared a lot

Connor was convinced that he was doing his soulmate a favor. Lots of people didn’t actually get into relationships with that person for whatever reason. Whoever his soulmate was, they could someone who wasn’t as damaged as he is.

So come gym class, the heater is broken in the gymnasium and it’s like a sauna in there.

Connor can usually wear his hoodie in any weather, but even this was a bit overwhelming.

He takes off his jacket and his arms were covered in doodles from him soulmate in blue pen

Little does he know he’s caught the attention of a classmate across the gymnasium who has doodles on their arms mirroring his own.

“Alright we’re playing kickball, Murphy, you’re on the red team!”

Before Connor can go to his side of the gym he’s stopped by a classmate

He turns around and ya know since he’s legitimately a pole he kinda towers over them

All this person says is “It’s you...” and it takes a minute for Connor to process

Oh...

Shit

He doesn’t really know what to say at first, he doesn’t really have to say anything since they just... drag him out of the gym

He doesn’t fight them on it but he’s mentally preparing himself for the speech

“So I don’t think we should be together since you’re kind of an asshole and also a monster and you’re probably gonna shoot up this place by the end of the year.”

It never comes and they just go on this whole half-excited/half-hurt tangent and Connor is #confused

“I always kinda had a feeling it was you !! You just kinda gave off this weird feeling, but why did you stop writing ? I thought I did something wrong and I kept overthinking and I just wanted you to be okay and wow Im just so happy I found you and-”

“Wait wot-”

They’re happy ?? that it’s him ?? HUH!?!?!?

Lord help this sad sad boy

It’s really just a heart-to-heart in the hallway with Connor apologizing like

“Fuck I didn’t mean to hurt you just- shit I’m so bad at this and I just thought you’d be better off without me since I’m me and-”

“Oh my god Connor shut up there’s nothing wrong with you”

He’s lowkey taken aback about that

“Yeah you have your issues but guess what so do I !!! and like every other person here !!! and I wanna help you through it !!!”

Honestly he’s just so in disbelief about it at first but he’s looking at them and his heart is just kinda like “i want that one !!!!!”

he gets that one

#this made me soft writing it #i love him sm oop #connor murphy #connor murphy headcanons #connor murphy x reader #connor murphy angst #connor murphy fluff #mike faist #alex boniello #dear evan hansen #evan hansen #lexi’s DEH

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maribelsawyer · 5 years

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- ̗̀ * ( ella purnell + cisfemale + she/her ) have you seen ( maribel sawyer ) walking around campus ? they are a ( nineteen ) year old, studying ( journalism ). we hear they are in ( delta gamma chi ), and can be ( benevolent & impressionable ), maybe it’s because they are a ( gemini ). they sort of remind us of ( scraped knees , magnifying glasses , vintage oxfords ), maybe we can find out more ! * ̖́- + newspaper writer

god okay looks like i’ve fallen in love w ella purnell and i want to b her. anyways maribel is my newest baby n im sorta making her up as i go so pls bare w me lmao

TW: eating disorder mentions, subtle abuse?

{she is not currently in that mindset ^}

gen. info

full name: maribel ottoline sawyer

nickname(s): mari, bell, lottie b/c middle name, etc. etc. just sawyer sometimes idk

b.o.d. - june 1st, 19 yrs old

label(s): the marionette, the demure, the prevaricator, etc. etc.

height: like 5′3″ prolly tbh

hometown: duluth, minnesota

sexuality: shit she don’t know

bio. info

her dad’s in the air force, her mom’s published three diet cookbooks and two different DVDs--maribel is the only middle child

one of those conservative, all american families, they were strict and definitely made it known that they were parents and not friends by any means

9pm curfew, not leaving the dining room until all ur food is gone, grounded if ur grades were below their expectations, etc. etc.

her older sister can evoke emotions in others thru her acting like no other. has taken the hearts (and leads) of all her acting directors since childhood. her voice is broadway material.

and her older brother? has been the best linebacker on any high school team he’s joined; hopes to make it to the big leagues. but if he doesn’t? he’s been taking college-level classes since he was a sophomore.

and...maribel?

maribel is...just, maribel.

for the longest time, there was nothing special about maribel

she couldn’t sing, or dance, or compose words in pretty prose

her grades were only satisfactory after hrs n hrs of studying everyday

homegirl can’t even cook w/o smth exploding

in short, maribel has never been good at anything. can’t draw within the lines, can’t follow the line, opens her mouth at the wrong time. etc. etc. shit? rough.

ANYWAYS

her family moves around a lot b/c of her dad, so she’s never really been in one place long enough to really prove herself? always been the quiet girl in class while her siblings brought home gold stars everyday

the kinda girl others would sorta push around n bully a lil bit bc she would never know what to say; prolly just cried a lot tbh

grew up w a lot of insecurities b/c of this

definitely doesnt help that her mother is obsessed w beauty n fitness n like

their mother p much forced her lifestyle onto her children, mari has a rough relationship w food b/c of it

ANYWAYS part 2

grew up always in the shadows of her siblings and their accomplishments, and spent a lot of her time tryn find something to be good at just so somebody could give her a stamp of approval

was always the ~wannabe~, the girl who would just endlessly suck up to the most popular girl she could find and try to mimic her to the best of mari’s abilities, just so she could survive her school experience

by the time mari was a freshmen in high school, her parents had divorced and she finally thought she could have a normal school experience and make something for herself

obv not. her mother shipped her off to a boarding school in nevada and that was it; her sister had already graduated and her brother was still in middle school.

it was finally just mari.

of course like she tried to suck up to others but it wasn’t really helpful, everybody was a lil too boujie for her and she always froze up when she tried to speak to the ~popular kids~

they only rly spoke to her b/c she’s got this knack for forging shit, like i dont think she even has her own handwriting; she always copies other people’S b/c she’s just. so used to tryn to mimic others n be them as much as possible

around this time she found herself fucking around in her computer class more often than not; it’d been the only elective left b/c she arrived in the middle of the year

but she surprisingly enjoyed it, like, a lot

her parents never really allowed much computer use b/c like. rots ur brain or whatever.

got into programming, but when she found out that u could ? hack shit ? kinda peaked her interest.

her shift into programming to hacking was subtle but before she knew it, she was fucking around on websites for the fun of it. never anything severe

computers became her friends, y’know

that was until her sophomore year and there was another loser fucking around on the computers during lunchtime

and like...they just started kinda talking, y’know? became friends, prolly mari’s first legitimate friend in...forever, really

the kid was kinda weird but she didn’t mind b/c fuck, mari couldn’t be picky n she didn’t mind weird

like...they were obsessed w conspiracies n mysteries n shit

it started to rub off on mari too, b/c homegirl is an idiot but. an observant idiot.

so she started getting reeeally into mysteries and shit. started acting like a mini investigator w/ her pal; solving stupid things like ‘who wrote ‘mindy is a whore’ in the bathroom stall’ and ‘does mr. roberts have a secret obsession w kpop’

no mindy is not a whore it was slander

yes mr. roberts is into kpop

ANYWAYS part 3

so they were these nancy drew, scooby doo, veronica mars knock off duo

by junior yr her partner started getting into like. drinking and minor drugs and other things that the other boarding school kids were smuggling in, y’know.

this meant that mari was getting into that shit too, y’know. cant stay innocent forever.

became a lil bit of a pothead lmao

so like now theyre just stoners who go around solving shit and prolly also stirring shit up for the hell of it

so like . . . . . one night they were doin’ their thing, right? and her partner brings up this...completely wild idea

they live in nevada. y’kno what else is in nevada?

area 51

these fucking idiots want to go break into this fucking. air force base. to find area 51.

guess what they did?

they attempted to break into the air force base. like. of course they tried.

they failed like, super miserably, got arrested for trespassing and had to be bailed out of the county jail by their parents

her dad almost lost his job so he was mcfuckin PISSED esp once they figured out she was high as shit

her partner? disappeared. nobody knows where they went.

mari was moved from the boarding school to a public school closer to where her mother could, begrudgingly, keep an eye on her

kinda spent the rest of her high school career p miserable, she gave up on her whole ~detective~ thing and resorted to making fake IDs for her fellow high schoolers

was drug-tested like every week or so, too

around this time her mental health and relationship w food got worse, she barely made it to graduation. took a gap year to recover, worked a buncha jobs but usually gets fired from them b/c she’s really fucking bad like most things besides her two (2) unconventional talents that are decidedly useless

came to ucla b/c her mother p much made her, her mother’s a legacy and that’s about the only reason why she got into delta gamma chi

doesn’t want ppl to know she was a loser and also like . fucked up her dad’s life a lil, b/c it was def a thing that made the news and the only reason why her name wasn’t in the articles was b/c she was a minor at the time

so she like...lies abt her childhood a lot

tells a lotta lil white lies b/c she just. doesn’t wanna b her

uuuhh wanted to do computer science bc she loves it but her parents were both like ‘lmao we’re not paying for shit if u do that’ bc they don’t think it’s very ~ladylike~ n they still want her to like. just be submissive and obedient n shit.

so she took up journalism b/c neither her parents think it��s like a real career and they just want her to find a husband n get married n settle down n stop being troublesome

fun fact: she has a scholarship for being lefthanded so that pays for Some of it esp b/c she’s an out of state student

still struggles a lil bit w food but she’s like. doing a lot better. goes to group therapy, probably

uuuh that’s it for now i think ??

OH SIKE !! she’s a writer for the newspaper and writes ADVICE columns on various topics b/c she’s good at offering advice but only when she can sit down n think abt it lmao

^^she goes by an alias b/c she just. doesnt want ppl to know its her idk she thinks its embarrassing

other than that she’s probably like ... doing campus tech support b/c that’s her current job but who knows how long that’ll last lmao

knowing her she’s going to accidentally switch into her phone sex voice (another, old job she doesn’t do anymore) n get fired for tryn seduce a man with ‘did u try turning it on and off again?’

OKAY i think that’s all lmao

personality

mari is just. awkward, man

i mean like...she’s sorta bad at talking to others a lot of the time??

like ppl r kinda like ‘how tf r u a delta gamma chi girl’ n she’s just like i mean u h h h h

prolly stutters a lil bit b/c she’s usually rly anxious

but she’s v v nice, like, she tries her hardest to be a good friend n everything

but she also kinda switches her personality to appeal to whoever she’s talking too ?? like she wants to be. likable. she’s not real w/ others v v often

if ur boujie yeah she’ll pretend to be boujie too

she prolly still sells fake IDs to high schoolers n some of her college peers, she has one herself n hasn’t gotten caught yet sooo

always fidgets like she can’t rly sit still often b/c she’s so nervous

is a lil bit of a stoner but i feel like u can’t ever tell tbh

a lil shy n hesitant at first i’d imagine, or maybe just always lmao

has a bit more of a personality once she sucks it up n gets closer to u but she’s always v v cautious abt befriending ppl just b/c she’s had a bad time w bullies n her one friend in life disappeared so like...bummer, y’kno?

can never say no. like, i dont think it’s in her vocabulary. she’s a yes gal.

will p much do anything u ask of her b/c she’s constantly seeking approval

can ramble a bit when she’s nervous which is always but she also apologizes like a lot.

squeaks like a mouse

present at parties but it’s always kinda like. who r u. n she has to remind everybody that she’s a sorority gal too

considers herself v v forgettable, like, just v unimportant

like she’s just rly insecure

still does computer shit n is still rly good at it but she hasn’t done anything srs w/ it so it’s just wasted potential

going to use her journalism degree to do investigative journalism and maybe escape her parents, eventually

she just. bends easily to other’s wills, y’know? she’s hashtag soft

even tho she’s like. shy n awkward n shit it doesn’t take a lot for her to like, laugh, or smile

like she tries rly hard to appear happy n an optimist n just like. unfettered

a lil plain jane we stan

i cant think of anything else but she’s. she’s a good kid

OH she’s rly good w numbers n math but like that’s abt it. she’s a whole dumbass on everything else sometimes

is bad w talking n giving advice like in person but like ?? in her column or ovr text or smth ? she’s good. she’s concise.

is a good team player/good w/ projects/etc. etc.

OH OKAY YEAH

she’s rly observant n b/c she’s a lil bit of a compulsive liar she can usually tell when ppl arent honest

depending on how close y’all r she’ll prolly crack down on ur bullshit

but she’s also timid so like who knows tbh

this isn’t a personality trait but she wears like medium hoop earrings all the time n it’s cute ok bye

OK OK LAST THING

she’s so. fucking. clumsy. she will bump into everything. she’ll bump into the air. fuck, she prolly falls over just standing straight. usually has bruises n scratches from just being a clumsy idiot

like she can b a lil ditzy y’know ?? doesn’t have much common sense, sometimes, n can b naive but idk it’s all rly dependent on her n who she’s w n just. how i end up playing her lmao

lovs vintage. is cute.

wanted connections

her roommate uwu

ppl she’s interacted w/ during her childhood !! she’s moved around a lot so like . . . . they could kno each other

mmm sorority sisters

um gimme a ride or die or like a best friend or smth PLS she needs more friends

just more friends in general. she’s awkward but she needs ‘em

?? a one night stand ?? she’s not really . . . known for hooking up w/ ppl but i think an accidental occurrence would b fun!

idk somebody for her to just. crush on from afar. prolly stutters whenever they come near or talk to her or smth

^^i mean like an unrequited crush

SOMEBODY USE HER ! RUIN HER !

FRIENDS OR FUCKING OR WHATEVER

fake friends too! use her for her ~kewl skillz~

bad influence

let her b a good influence

some kinda...skinny love idk what that means. a will they wont they. smth cute. smth pure

it’d be wild if her partner just popped up outta the blue like that b/c mari 100% thinks they were like killed by the government

ppl she gets high w n talk abt conspiracies w/ tbh

ppl she gives or has given advice to w her column pieces ! love it

idk partners in a class

enemies or smth. i want conflict.

a tutor for her dumbass

but also anybody who needs help in math? she can tutor u

idk like this we can work a lil smth smth out

i give u one penny, if u plot w me. pls. i am poor.

#uclas:intro #like if u'd like to plot w her !!#pls give her love i think i love her

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tjkiahgb · 6 years

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Episode Recap: 2.19, “Andi’s Choice”

The episode begins with a cold open that’s a solid instructional video for good oral hygiene. Which is important. Take care of your teeth, folks. Always remember to floss.

It really has nothing to do with the plot of the episode, though, other than to inform us that Andi’s breath probably doesn’t stink in any of the scenes that follow.

Bowie and Jonah hang out at the music store talking about how Jonah didn’t go to the high pressure music audition. Jonah talks about how something came up and worries Andi doesn’t like him anymore. Bowie says last he heard, Andi thought he didn’t like her. But now Jonah really likes her. And Bowie wants to know if she knows that. And the answer to that, Bowie, is nobody knows. Maybe? Probably? Maybe.

Jonah says he bought her a gnome, and Bowie says “A gnome is nice...”

Counterpoint:

No.

Bowie knows something Andi would like, though: writing her a song. It’s also easy, he says. Just sing your feelings. Jonah says feelings? He says he doesn’t talk about his feelings, coming oh so close to really nailing the problem but still coming up empty.

If it makes Jonah feel better though, that doesn’t disqualify him from a successful career in music. There’s more than enough room on the market for another singer doing meaningless, catchy songs about nothing. Whoa. You didn’t come here for jokes about the state of the music industry, but you got ‘em anyway!

Bowie presses on. Talking about liking someone and them liking you back? That’s feelings! Bowie asks Jonah for a word that rhymes with back. Jonah says quack. Bowie asks for a non-duck word. Jonah says plaque. In fairness, Bowie didn’t stipulate that these words be any good.

Andi heads into The Spoon when Walker facetimes her. Andi explains how Buffy’s moving in a few days. Walker says if she can, get a bubble machine, it makes you happy.

But listen, I want to warn anyone considering this: rent, don’t buy a bubble machine. First, no one ever factors in the cost of maintenance for your bubble machine. But, second, the happiness bubbles give you reaches a level of diminishing returns very quickly. Sooner rather than later, you’re making excuses to use it just because you have it and you feel you need to. You take it out to the yard and turn it on, but the happiness is never the same. The bubbles float down to the earth and pop like so many unrealized dreams. Eventually you stop using it all together. It gathers dust in the closet. Things pile up on top of it. One day, you accidentally come across it and sigh. Where did the spark go? That old adage is an adage for a reason: the two best days of a bubble machine owner’s life are the day you buy it and the day you sell it.

Andi says she’s already got a bubble machine, and I think the fact we’ve seen how little use it gets throughout the course of this show proves my point.

Over at The Fringe, Bex is covering the store with sticky notes for free makeup appointments she’s got coming up.

Brittany tells her that they can’t do free makeup appointments anymore, things have been too slow around the store. Bex says she can’t just start charging for them, but, Bex, yes you can. Obviously you can. That was the point of getting your certificate of completion from the beauty school: to get paiiiiiiid. Frankly, it’s sort of nuts that you were going to do all of those for free. That’s so much makeup and time to just give away.

Hey, listen, I know I got in some trouble last week for talking about people’s choice of expression, but I have to say something again.

I hope those are earrings meant to look like screws and not real screws. The thought of Brittany jamming a real screw through her ear hole is making me wince. Do you twist it in? Could you use a screwdriver to do it? (Phillips head, clearly.) Also, she has to realize if she bumps the side of her head into something, she’s going to stab herself in the base of her skull. The risk of it all! I’m just going to assume they’re earrings. I need to to move on.

Brittany was close to laying Bex off, but she won’t now that Bex is the top rated cosmetologist on Whelp. Whelp: it’s the “Property” of internet review sites.

Property: Now With 40% Less Lead™

Brittany thinks Bex has left all those fake positive reviews for herself to increase her status among the local cosmetology ranks, but Bex hasn’t. Bex realizes Celia must’ve done it.

Buffy joins Andi and Cyrus at The Spoon with a box full of stuff they’ve left at her house.

She presents Andi with Noodle, which is clearly a stand-in for Tamagotchi, which made me wonder, do you kids still know what Tamagotchis are? I had one when I was a kid but only because we didn’t have smartphones back then that had whole worlds of much more interesting stuff than a stupid pixel-y digi-pet that would whine all the time and die constantly. I wouldn’t guess there’s any way a child of Andi’s age would’ve had one.

Andi realizes Noodle’s dead because she hasn’t fed him for seven years. A moment of silence for Noodle please.

♪ ♪ In the arms of the Angel ♪ ♪

Buffy then takes out a letter of recommendation Cyrus’s mom wrote on behalf of Cyrus when they were in the second grade, which is embarrassing, sure, but it’s also a strong letter. After reading that, I’d definitely consider adding him to my friend group. I’d need to see his résumé, first, of course, but a good letter of rec goes a long way.

Walker then shows up and for some reason Andi acts like a horse wearing a hat just walked into The Spoon: surprised and mildly upset?

It’s a weird reaction that gets carried over into the scene after the commercial.

Listen, Walker seems like a perfectly fine young man to me. Charming, if quirky, as artists can tend to be. But I feel like the show’s done him wrong by making some of his interactions play out stranger than they needed to be.

Like, I think the facetime convo from a few episodes ago was not meant to come off as stilted as it did. I think it’s the product of editing together two people who aren’t really having a conversation, especially because his interactions with her in real life were much more natural. (The facetime scene from earlier in this episode was better, but still not totally fluid. They probably should stop doing scenes like that as a general rule.)

And the reaction in this scene? I still have no idea what effect they were going for here.

Even after Walker has introduced himself to Cyrus and Buffy and they’re cool with him and happy to have him sketch them, Andi continues throughout this scene with this body language.

On Mack Chat, they suggested that while Walker is comfortable with Andi, she’s not as confident with him. Is she still trying to get a feel for his personality? I suppose it could be that. My best guess was it being guilt for going on a date with him while still being in limbo with Jonah? But again, I’m really not sure about the whole mood of the scene, at least from Andi’s perspective.

About the actual scene though, Walker introduces himself to Cyrus and Buffy as the caricature artist from the Bash Mitzvah, which, by the way, did we ever get an answer as to why the party planner or whoever hired a child to work a large Bar Mitzvah party? Then again, they also hired what, given what we know now, appears to be a fortune teller with legitimate psychic abilities.

She’s 3 for 3 on nailing Andi’s, Buffy’s, and TJ’s fortunes, and we won’t know about Cyrus’s fortune until he goes to college, so, her track record is perfect as far as I’m concerned.

All that considered, maybe hiring a child isn’t the weirdest thing.

Walker wanted to meet Buffy before she left and wanted to sketch the whole group as a going away present for her and so Cyrus leans in to what’s bound to be a long, uncomfortable pose for that.

At The Fringe, Zoe, a rival cosmetologist comes in looking for a fight. She thinks that Bex is using fake Whelp profiles to attack her business. She reads the fake name on the review and Brittany gasps and Zoe has determined that’s enough to take Bex to court and sue her. I disagree. Seems like flimsy evidence at best but what do I know, I’m only the assistant professor of law at Yale.

At the music store, Jonah rehearses his song for Andi. Jonah isn’t confident but Bowie tells him performing is all about confidence. He says the audience will know if you’re doubting yourself and then they’ll rip you to shreds like a pack of hyenas. Oh, by the way, you’re performing in front of an audience tomorrow.

Again, I’m but a humble professor of law at Yale, not a trained psychologist, but is treating panic attacks by trying to force the person experiencing them into constant high pressure situations a thing? I’m starting to feel like Bowie is not a trained psychologist, either.

Jonah reminds him he has panic attacks and Bowie says he won’t have them because he’ll be playing guitar. Jonah thinks maybe he should just go to Andi’s house late at night and throw a rock at her window and perform it for her like that. Bowie thinks that’s too cliché. I mean, in movies maybe. In real life, it wouldn’t be. It’s actually pretty rare in real life because it more often than not leads to too much broken glass and the police being called.

Plus, Bowie suggests, everything is so much cooler on a stage.

This somehow assuages Jonah of his fears.

The GHC gather to discuss Andi’s two-guy dilemma. Cyrus says Andi’s been keeping stuff from them, but it’s probably more that they haven’t really hung out together since “Perfect Day 2.0″ which was like a week ago in show-time?

Andi says Walker was just one date, but Buffy and Cyrus still think it’s a big deal. Cyrus says Andi’s life is a romcom now and he’s her “sassy friend Cyrus.”

Really feels like there’s an adjective missing there. “Sassy __ friend Cyrus.” Sassy something friend Cyrus. I can’t put my finger on what that word would be.

Buffy argues she’s Andi’s sassy friend. It’s kind of equal parts funny and sad that they both realize they’re the supporting characters of the Andi show. Things are getting real meta up in here.

Andi’s having a tough time figuring out how she feels about both Jonah and Walker. Cyrus says it’s a real job being her sassy friend. Almost like it’s a thing he has to do. Almost like he’s paid every week to be around Andi and get involved with what’s going on in her life. Like it’s a role he has to play. Like everything’s scripted. We’re all just pawns, moving where others tell us, saying words others write for us. This isn’t a house! It’s a set! Are we even real?! I’m freaking out here, man!

Anyway, Bex goes to talk to Celia about her reviews. Celia doesn’t want to take them down even though Bex is worried about being sued. Celia says no one’s going to sue Bex because all they would get is a used motorcycle and a punch card for a free taco, which is just a devastating slam.

The best slams on this show always seem to come off-handed.

Bex wants to succeed on her own. Celia will take down the reviews if Bex lets her help in other ways. Bex doesn’t want it, but Celia tells her she won’t get anywhere if she doesn’t think big and take action. She wants to know what’s next for Bex but Bex leaves.

Hey, I have a question. Why is The Spoon populated almost entirely by loose children?

Do none of these kids have parents who eat? Is The Spoon a daycare center?

Cyrus and Buffy continue to razz Andi about picking between Walker and Jonah when Jonah shows up to invite people to the show that night.

He tells the GHC about the open mic and invites them. He says he’s performing a song and everyone seems surprised. Andi didn’t know he sang or played guitar, but Jonah says he didn’t know either. As of a week ago he hadn’t ever picked up a guitar and now he’s performing original music on stage. Oh what a week it’s been!

At The Fringe, Bex has run out of sticky notes to make appointments on when Celia shows up in time with a day planner. Bex thanks her for the gift, but Celia says she has another gift: The Fringe. Bex is rightfully confused, but Celia says the business wasn’t doing well and it wasn’t even that much. This store is mostly full of the cheap stuff you win at a carnival and the walls are made of papier-mâché! I bought it with the loose cash I had rolling around in my purse!

Hey, where is Ham? Is he ok? I wonder how Ham feels about this. Buying a small, failing business. In this economy. Looks like they’re delaying traveling the world for another year.

Also, Bex couldn’t figure out to buy a planner for herself. She kept filling up the store with sticky notes until she ran out of them. That was her long term plan for that system. Anyway, here’s a small business to run.

Celia wants Bex to take action and this is action. Bex asks if Celia remembers promising to let Bex succeed on her own, and the way Celia says “No.” is perfect.

Also, she didn’t.

At the music store (Red Rooster Records, I’m going to try to commit this to memory eventually), there’s an accordion girl on stage and she is, no lie, killing it.

They say accordions are only for old mustached men to play at romantic Italian restaurants and Weird Al Yankovics, but don’t listen to them. I love what you’re doing. You go, Accordion Girl.

Jonah, intimidated by the other acts, heads backstage to talk to Bowie. He’s nervous, but Bowie says he was nervous before performing, too. He got over it by finding Bex in the audience and singing to her.

Jonah asks if he should look at Bex while he sings.

“Explain this to me as if I was a Golden Retriever in a boy suit.”

“What?”

“Nothing. No reason.”

Bowie tells him to look at Andi and that he’s got this.

Meanwhile, on stage, Accordion Girl finishes with a heck of a flourish and not a single philistine in the audience throws her a damn rose. Shame on them all.

Bowie comes out and introduces Jonah. Jonah gets out there with his guitar and sort of sits around awkwardly. Things are looking bad.

Then he starts playing. It’s going alright, but then he looks at Andi and does start getting into it.

The GHC start realizing this might be about Andi.

(The song is actually pretty sweet. And Asher performs it well.)

The performance goes well and Jonah gets applause as the open mic ends. People start filing out. Buffy touches Andi’s shoulder and I’m thinking DON’T DO THAT!

You’re going to rip the pearls off!

Jonah asks Bowie how it went, but Bowie directs him towards Andi for his answer.

Andi walks up to Jonah, grabs his hand, and gives him a kiss and the episode ends with them smiling at one another.

So... I guess this is going to be the worst thing I ever say on this blog, but... I didn’t hate that.

If you aren’t a Jandi fan, I wouldn’t panic too much. I very much doubt this is the final iteration of that relationship.

The show is about change and growth. First season Jandi obviously wasn’t going to work because both Andi and Jonah weren’t in an honest place. Andi was trying to change herself too much to make Jonah happy. Jonah was everybody’s friend, carefree Jonah Beck who doesn’t have labels.

This version is better, but still not quite there. Jonah still has trouble confronting his feelings and is definitely leaning too hard on a relationship to fix things. Andi, at least, is more comfortable being herself with him.

But for things to advance anywhere plot-wise, this needs to happen. They have to figure out what works and doesn’t work: with relationships, with themselves. Maybe this will be the beginning of the last version of Jandi, or maybe it’ll eventually return and be endgame. Who can say? But the only way to know is to try.

As much as I joked about Bowie pushing Jonah too much, too fast with the music, there’s a certain wisdom to the idea of just getting on stage and going for it. There are certain things you don’t learn until you test the idea yourself.

#Andi Mack #Jonah Beck #Cyrus Goodman #Buffy Driscoll #Bex Mack #Bowie Quinn #Celia Mack #Walker Brodsky #Brittany #Accordion Girl #Andi #episode recaps

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marypsue · 5 years

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Imbalance, 10 / ?

Well, tumblr disappeared my original post, so let’s try this one again.

Previous chapters can be found on AO3 under MaryPSue!

…

Liliana can't breathe.

She feels pretty stupid about it, actually. She knew there was probably some kind of evil wossname from beyond their plane of existence on the loose, using the circle she herself had broken to get in and eat the universe. She smelled smoke as soon as she set foot in Storm's apartment - hell, she'd taken the batteries out of his smoke detector when it had started going off - but saw no sign of candles or incense or anything that might be causing it. And now she's choking to death on evil smoke from somewhere beyond her plane of existence. Who could possibly have seen this coming.

Well, serves her right. She just hopes the others don't find out how she got killed, she'll die of embarrassment.

"It's all right," Storm says, somewhere in the whispering haze, his voice friendly and comforting, smooth and even and easy to listen to. For the first time, Liliana understands why other people waste their time watching Storm play video games. "You never really had a chance. None of us did."

"Don't...patronise me...you little asshole," Liliana coughs out. She knows as soon as she does that she's made her fatal mistake. Should have saved her breath instead of trying to be a smartass one last time. Her lungs burn, her throat is on fire, her vision blurry either from the tears stinging her eyes or the clouds of billowing, soft grey smoke tracing hypnotic swirls through the air. Her knees, then her shoulder, smart as she hits the ground, but even that's muted, muffled somehow by the smoke.

"It's useless trying," Storm says, sympathetically. "I understand now. No matter how hard you fight, no matter how many battles you win, there's always something bigger and worse waiting in the wings. You can fight and fight your whole life, and any ground you might gain will just be taken back after your death. It means nothing." His smile is bitter and aching. "All you're doing is wearing yourself out, trying to fight the inevitable. You can rest. It'll all be over soon."

Liliana sucks in one final breath, preparing to curse Storm out, but all she gets is a lungful of bitter smoke. Distantly, she thinks she hears Storm say something about endings or silence or some edgelord crap, but it's impossible to make out over the rising whispers. The edges of her vision are darkening, tunneling away into pinpricks of grey as the smoke steals her oxygen. Her last, fleeting thought is to hope somebody will figure out something happened to her and check up on Mavis and Mookie before they both get so hungry they try to eat each other.

And then there is light.

...

The Plane of Thought is home to all kinds of fantastic inventions. Its inhabitants have shaped metal and lightning around ideas that, on other planes, would have been accomplished with advanced spellwork.

And they've managed to come up with things that the other planes would never dream of. Stones of Farspeech are a complicated enchantment capable of incredible communication across continents. But no one, yet, has thought to connect them all together so that the same messages can reach everyone, all over the world, at nearly the speed of light. And no one, yet, has engineered a twenty-four-hour news cycle to make sure those messages get hammered, repeatedly, into every mind around the world. Over, and over, and over again.

"...new report indicates that, without dramatic policy and industry changes, global temperatures will rise enough to render the Earth uninhabitable within the next thirty years..."

"...despite widespread protest, the unpopular piece of legislation was passed on Friday. Legal challenges are expected..."

"... natural disasters compounded by extreme weather..."

"...allegations of sexual misconduct dating back to the early nineteen-seventies..."

"...will walk free..."

"...unable to afford the necessities of life..."

"...human rights violations..."

"...hate crime rising..."

"...unexpected cancellation of hit series Ray Donovan..."

"...corruption..."

"...collapse..."

"...devastation..."

"...despair..."

...

"Yes," the man at the door deadpans. "This is a bad time."

"Oh," Rowan says. "Sucks to suck, huh?"

"Yeah," the man at the door says, and shuts it in Rowan's face.

Rowan stares at the door. The door does not stare back at Rowan, because it's an inanimate object. That should mean it can't laugh at him, either, and yet, somehow, that's exactly what it seems to be doing.

From somewhere behind the impossibly smug door, Rowan can hear another voice - familiar, but in the way the voice of a teacher you had in elementary school is familiar - complain, "What'd you do that for?"

"He can come back with a warrant," the guy who opened the door snaps, and then the conversation veers into Spanish that's a little more advanced than what Rowan vaguely remembers from eighth grade.

Rowan stands on the doorstep for another moment or two, feeling the hot flush of embarrassment creeping up the back of his neck. The door does not reopen.

"Okay," Rowan mutters to himself, turning away from the door. He does not add, "Now what?". He's uncomfortably aware that no one else is going to answer that question for him. "Well, shit."

He starts down the walk, vaguely considering whether Liliana will be upset if he shows up early to pick her up. He doesn't like to admit it, but something about that Storm guy she hangs around with makes him indefinably but distinctly uncomfortable. Nothing personal, just...Rowan gets the strong impression that the guy's watched The Craft one time more than is strictly healthy.

Maybe Indigo's home. Maybe all that reading she - or he, or maybe they, Rowan hasn't checked in yet today - did on the D&D planar system will give him some clue. Rowan's still not sure if Gary Gygax was just plugged in to some fundamental truth of the universe, or if something about the Story and Song somehow made D&D-like shit real, but the end result is the same. Rowan's extensive knowledge of the Wiccan and neopagan traditions is less useful, practically, than some nerd with a 5e Monster Manual.

He has to admit, it does sting a little.

He's halfway down the walk when the door behind him swings open and a voice - familiar, but in the way that a celebrity's voice is familiar - calls, "Hey, do you really know anything about magic?"

Rowan turns. Joaquin Terrero waves one red-sparking hand at him.

“Sorry about that,” he says, looking at his own hand. “I can’t, uh, make it stop.”

"Well, shit," Rowan says.

...

"Hey, Griffin. Question."

"Shoot."

"Are we...are we going to get to...fight something, at some point?"

...

The alarm on Marial's implant cuts out abruptly as she and Dead Guy Gary reach the third floor.

Gary gives her a hopeful look, but Marial shakes her head. "It'll keep going off. Every four hours." She's exhausted, and her left arm is starting to ache, her fingers numb and tingly. She keeps jumping at little noises, thinking it's either Barry or one of Gary's zombies, and she's shaking so badly that it takes her three tries to turn the handle on the door out of the stairwell. This is really too much excitement for one lifetime.

...

"Yes, you are. In fact, you're going to get to fight something very, very soon."

...

Lup gives her scythe a sweeping stroke through the air. There's a noise like paper tearing, and a burst of stinging grey smoke billows out of the hole she's cut into the Astral Plane. It disperses quickly, but leaves a bitter smell lingering in its wake.

"Well, that's probably not a great sign," Lup mutters, under her breath, and then ducks through the opening in the air.

Taako turns to Magnus, but Magnus isn't there. Taako just sees the soles of his boots following Lup through the hole in the air. His voice drifts back through the planes. "Taako! Are you coming?"

"Let me just - let me ask you something. What part of 'Taako's good out here' keeps giving you all so much trouble?"

Magnus doesn't answer, just leans back through the hole in the air, grabs Taako by the collar, and yanks him through.

The hole in the air closes seamlessly behind them.

...

"Okay, but Griffin, how soon is 'very, very soon'?"

...

"What is all this commotion?" someone asks, pleasantly, as Marial slips out of the stairwell. "I thought we dealt with the fire alarm. I've lost two appointments already."

Marial mutters a curse under her breath. She’d really hoped the alarms would have cleared everybody out, but the professionally-(if garishly-)dressed woman with her dark hair in a sleek coil at the back of her neck leaning against the reception desk is standing between her and the cardiac clinic. And doesn't look like she's about to evacuate anytime soon.

On the other hand, Marial's a patient here, and she has a legitimate medical concern. And whoever this is doesn't seem like she wants to stop doing her job and leave until she can personally see flames licking out of the walls around her. Maybe Marial can use this to her advantage.

She takes a step forward, already working up a sheepish smile and a story about a mispulled fire alarm, and the woman standing by the reception desk turns to meet her eyes.

Marial stops in her tracks.

There's nothing immediately and obviously wrong with this picture, which makes it worse. Marial finds herself searching the woman's expression of detached, professional curiosity as it fades into concern, her carefully-applied makeup and enormous eighties Jem and the Holograms earrings, the hall around the reception desk, the friendly but confused smile from the guy behind it, for something to explain the sudden wave of sickening dread that crashes over her. Marial ends up studying the helpful sign listing directions to the different departments so that she doesn't have to meet the woman's kind grey eyes. She's never noticed before that psych and cardiac are on the same floor.

"Can I help you?" the woman asks, and the hall seems to bounce it back to Marial strangely, giving it a mocking, sarcastic tone.

"I - I don't think you can, actually," Marial stammers. She can feel the way Dead Guy Gary's gone tense beside her, prickling like a wall of static shock. She wants to ask him if he can tell what's got his back up, but something tells her that talking to thin air in front of this woman would be a bad idea. "I need the cardiac device clinic."

The woman smiles, broadly, stepping away from the reception desk and towards Marial. Marial takes another step backwards.

"I think what you need is a little dose of perspective," the woman says, still smiling, still friendly. That strange mocking echo in her voice seems to be growing stronger, picking up harmonics from somewhere. Marial takes a third step backwards and finds herself backed up against the stairwell door.

...

"Well, uh, right about - right about now, actually."

...

The Astral Plane is spooky.

Well, okay, so a place where dead people go to their eternal rest is always gonna be spooky, but the Astral Plane is spookier than necessary. The last time Magnus saw this place, it was through an enormous gemstone mirror, but it had seemed...peaceful. With the whispering ocean of souls, even a little bit...tropical? Of course, your umbrella and swim trunks would have to be black, but - yeah, he could imagine taking a beach vacation there. A very, very creepy beach vacation.

But this time, as he follows Lup across the dark, formless ground and waits as she chooses where to slice open another portal, Magnus can't imagine the pina colada that would make this palatable. It's just so quiet. The shifting sea seems to be still for once, and he doesn't think it's his imagination that the ethereal blue light it casts is getting dimmer and dimmer. If Magnus squints, he thinks he can make out a faint grey haze casting a pall over it and soaking up its light. He's willing to bet actual human currency that, up close, it smells strongly of smoke.

"Hey, uh, Lulu?" Taako asks, and though his voice is deliberately nonchalant, Magnus can hear the tightness in it. "You done something new with the place? Really working the, the old, 'abandon hope all ye who enter here' vibe."

There's a little frown creasing the space between Lup's eyebrows as she glances distractedly back at them.

"Look, I've been a reaper for less time than you've been dating one," she says. "But no. I don't think any of this is right."

Magnus rests a hand on the head of his axe as he looks around, just in case.

There's another burst of smoke that leaves them all coughing when Lup opens the portal to the Plane of Thought. It still dissipates quickly, but the smell seems to linger longer this time.

They're in a wide, airy, square hall, its walls painted a pale yellow, a huge plate-glass window overtop of a desk just beside them. There are printed signs labeling everything and offering directions down the hall, and all put together, it reminds Magnus of the Halls of Healing back in Neverwinter.

"This better not take too long," Taako complains. "I have an, uh, a guest appearance on, uh, uh, uh, Beat Bobby Mindflayer booked for tonight -"

"It's gonna have to wait," Lup says, warningly.

Magnus follows her line of sight.

The three people standing by the heavy metal door don't seem to have noticed them yet. As Magnus watches, though, the figure to the left - the skeletal figure, flickering in and out of visibility and crackling with red lightning - slowly, slowly turns, and stares directly at him. He's unmistakably a lich, but instead of the red robes Magnus is used to, or even the traditional necromancer's black, he seems to be wearing an extremely ugly neon tracksuit.

The woman standing beside him, in the day-glo suit and enormous earrings, also turns in their direction, and Magnus stumbles backwards. She's got to be the female lich Lup had mentioned, the one who still had her body. There's just something about her eyes -

The girl standing between the two neon horrors half-turns, her breath catching in her throat, her eyes wide and frightened. That's all Magnus needs to see. He pulls his axe free, and, ignoring Lup's shout of "Magnus, wait -", rushes in.

The frightened girl, the one Magnus had pegged as a helpless captive, throws up both hands. And then she throws a fireball the size of a basketball down the hallway at Magnus' head.

...

"I'm gonna need you boys to roll initiative."

#the adventure zone #balance arc #this is mary's fic tag #:jazz hands: chaptur

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