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ginnranger · 5 years ago

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A Strange New Student

Summary:

Ginn is a new student in a prestigious London private school. It’s pretty obvious she is not the type to be in private school, but is that going to stop her? Honestly, she doesn’t even know the answer to that one.

But she does have a pretty good guess, when she meets Alex, Martin, George, Louise, and Elsie. They are pretty different from her. They seem nice enough, but will her past lessons allow her let them in? Another good question.

Word count: 6542

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The large, stone hallways of Churchill high school were a lot less busy than Ginn’s old public school back in Liverpool. She guessed that was because barely anyone was able to afford the tuition to actually attend this school. How she got in was a complete miracle, sparked by some pretty unfortunate events.

The biggest understatement of her life.

Ginn was not used to anything that she had already faced in this new school at all, and she had only been in the building ten minutes. The students hanging around in the hallway before class were well behaved, milling around and chatting instead of running and fighting. The floors and lockers were clean, free of graffiti and chewing gum. The uniforms were the weirdest part; everyone wore it neat and proper, the boys’ ties being evenly tied, their shirts neatly tucked into their trousers, which were not sagging halfway down their butts, and their blazers free of burn holes and glue stains. The girls’ skirts were closer to the knee than the butt, their blouses also neatly tucked, and their cardigans neatly buttoned. Everyone’s shoes were perfectly shined, not a scuff in sight.

Every student had neatly styled hair, not a strand out of place. They all had perfect posture, shoulders squared and backs straight, the girls tending to keep their feet touching each other. Their faces shone with happy, satisfied smiles. There was no anger, hunger, or sadness in these people’s lives. Very different to what Ginn saw back in Liverpool. It was obvious these teenagers knew their place in the world. So did Ginn, and it was not surrounded by these people. They made that clear with their odd looks.

She stood out for many reasons around these people. For one, she was the only girl wearing trousers and a tie. Ginn flat out refused to wear a skirt, and the rules said trousers could not be worn without a tie, so she was stuck in the unflattering, unfitted, too big boy’s uniform. Her tie was relatively neat, but she had not buttoned the top of her shirt, and pulled the tie down slightly to accommodate the room the lack of a top button provided. her blazer sleeves had been rolled up slightly to accommodate her shorter arms. Her shirt was tucked in, but it was not neat. the sides of the shirt were bunched up, as she had tried to angle it in a way it was more fitted to her feminine frame. It was not working, but she felt comfortable. When Ginn stood, she leant on one leg, arms crossed, and her feet obviously not touching. Her shoulders slumped, and her hands folded into fists, no matter whether she was walking or standing. When she walked, her back curved forwards slightly, and her eyes shifted between everything that moved, glaring into every pair of eyes she met. Ginn had to be aware of everything that was happening around her. Just a little compulsion of hers. Her hair was cut short, mostly jar length, with layers getting shorter as they went up, and a fringe cut in line with her eyes, parted favouring the left side, and whilst that was not abnormal for girl, it was expected that she would make an attempt to calm and style her messy mop of ginger hair. But she didn’t. She liked it messy. It gave her an excuse to have her fringe covering her left eye. You see, Ginn had heterochromia. Her right eye was a bright, electric blue, whilst her left eye was a shining light brown, almost orange when the light hit it just right. Ginn preferred to cover her left eye with her hair, as it blended in with the orange strands better than the blue did. That, and the brown colour was not the genetic colour. Her mother had blue eyes, and her father had green eyes, so brown was definitely not a family eye colour.

Ginn could tell people were looking at her as she wondered the fancy hallways towards the administration office, though she couldn’t tell if this was because of her rough, stand-offish appearance, or the fact that it was early November, and she was a new student entering year 10. Honestly, Ginn didn’t care which one it was. She didn’t expect to form relationships with these people.

She managed to reach the administration office, where she was expected to pick up her time table and ID card, after a few minutes of cluelessly wondering around, following strange signs written in the worst font for someone like her; cursive. How is that acceptable, you may ask? It honestly isn’t, but this school had an aesthetic to stick to. Ginn was dyslexic, so anything that wasn’t block letters or her own handwriting was torture to read. As she reached the old looking, oak wood door, she straightened her back and readjusted her backpack, forcing her face to change from confrontational to neutral. This was the face she preferred to show in front of adults, as they could never figure out what emotion she was feeling so they struggled to ask her questions. She opened the door and walked up to the desk, waiting for the old woman sitting, typing on her computer, to look up at her. She did quickly, luckily.

“Hello there! What can I do for you today?” Her voice was far too perky and high pitched. It irritated Ginn’s ears. Ginn forced her face to remain neutral, pushing down her natural, uncomfortable reaction, so she could respond as quick as possible.

“I’m the new student. I was told to pick up my stuff here.”

“Ahh, yes! Ginn Ranger, am I correct?” The woman squeaked, smile never faltering.

“Yeah, that’s me.” Ginn avoided eye contact, uncomfortable with her full name being announced.

The woman rooted around the organised mess that sat on her desk, until she found the right envelope that held Ginn’s ID card and timetable. She handed it to Ginn and asked her to sit down for a moment, as the headmaster wished to speak to her before classes started. Ginn forced herself to swallow a groan as she nodded and took a seat next to the desk, facing the door to the headmaster’s office. Her leg bounced quickly as she stared into space, trying to concentrate on her thoughts rather than the loud world she lived in. She slouched in her seat after finding a comfortable place in her imagination to rest. Sadly, it only took two minutes for her to be called into Headmaster Windsor’s office.

“Hello, Miss Ranger.” Mr Windsor was far more serious. much more pleasant to Ginn’s ears. “It is a pleasure to finally have you here.”

Ginn only forced a smile as she sat awkwardly in the chair. Her eyes quickly scanned the room, taking in every detail she could. the shelves behind Mr Windsor mostly held the textbooks this school studied. Two of the four shelves held the textbooks. one held a collection of frames, some holding pictures of what Ginn assumed to be Windsor’s family, other holding certificates. One was a certification of first aid, one an inclusivity certificate, another being Windsor’s degree in teaching. The inclusivity certificate intrigued Ginn, as she knew for a fact that this school was pretty exclusive.

‘Guess it’s for everything except class.’ She thought to herself.

The final shelf held folders, ordered by category. The first was labelled ‘Enrolment’. The second was labelled ‘Disciplinary Reports’. The third was ‘Human Resources’. The fourth one was what Mr Windsor pulled off the shelf and flicked through. It was labelled ‘Inclusive Support’. Yay.

“So, Miss Ranger-” Ginn interrupted Windsor.

“Call me Ginn.” She said quickly and sheepishly, shoving her hands under her legs to avoid her usually gesturing that annoyed so many adults. “I prefer just Ginn.”

“Ok then.” Mr Windsor peered over the top on his reading glasses, unhappy with the interruption. “Ginn. Your old school transferred us your files and records last week, and I feel we must discuss some things before you head to classes.”

Ginn bit her lip and nodded. She had always gotten pretty good scores in lessons, but she was by far the favourite student to any teacher she ever had. She had a tendency to speak her mind, even when out of terms. Especially then, actually. She also did not have the best track record when it came to peer relations. Most of her past incidents were not her fault, but she had to claim some as her own doing. What could she say? She knows how to stick up for herself.

“These records say you are a very smart young girl, you could thrive in an academic environment, if provided with the right resources. This is why our scholarship program chose you to be our first representative of the… less fortunate.” Windsor hesitated with that last part. He really needed to brush up on his appropriate language book.

‘Just say I’m poor and move on.’ Ginn thought to herself.

“However,” the dreaded sentence conjunctive. “You do have a worrying amount of negative peer relations reports. I must tell you, Ginn. Fighting is strictly prohibited on the campus of this school.”

Ginn let her voice take the lead. “What’s your stance on fighting in self-defence? Mine is that is fine to fight, as long as you don’t start it. Pretty sure those records say that’s what I did.”

Oh dear. She really should have thought before speaking.

Windsor looked exasperated. Ginn was clearly not the first wise crack he had dealt with. “I believe anything can be sorted with the right words. As long as it is reported, it will be dealt with.”

“What about the times it can’t be reported?” Ginn’s voice deepened as she became serious. “That’s what happened in my experience. I couldn’t report it, and if I could, nothing happened, so I sorted it myself. Sure you wont have to worry though. This doesn’t exactly seem like the place where fights happen.”

Windsor chuckled and nodded. “You are an interesting young lady, miss- Ginn. I’m sure you will fit in with the class I have placed you in. All of your teachers have been informed of your mental heath and learning difficulties, as per your request.”

Ginn hated how that was phrased, but she thanked him anyway. ‘Gotta try and be polite’, after all.

“I have assigned a young man to help guide you around school as you settle in.” Oh no. forced interaction. “He should be outside now.”

as Windsor finished his sentence, the phone device on his desk beeped, and the voice of the receptionist through the door sounded out, saying ‘a Mr Peterson was here to see Headmaster Windsor.’ Windsor told the receptionist to send him in, and the device buzzed, causing Ginn to cringe. That sound was horrible!

Before she could fully recover, the door opened behind her and a boy around her age walked in. He had pale white skin, with bright blond hair, shaved at the sides and combed over, the parting favouring the right side of his head. His eyes were cornflower blue, shining and bright. He had a small, wonky smile on his face as he greeted the headmaster and took a seat on Ginn’s right side.

“This is Alex Peterson. He will be, what we call, your class escort.” Windsor introduced the boy to Ginn, and the boy turned to Ginn and smiled, offering his hand to shake, which she just looked at nodded to him. Windsor broke the awkward tension between the two and continued. “He will show you around until you are comfortable with your surroundings.”

Ginn hated this idea. She could see why they implemented it, many people would want it, but she was not one of those people. She would much rather just figure it out on her own, even if it meant being late to all her classes.

“The bell is about to ring. You two should head off now.” Windsor gestured to the door, and the two teens picked up their bags and walked out.

“So…” The boy, Alex, said, drawing out the ‘O’ sound. “Can I see your schedule? Just so I know for sure where you are?”

Ginn wordlessly shoved the piece of paper into Alex’s hand, still avoiding eye contact with him. Alex shot her a strange look, realising this was going to be so much harder than he originally thought. He did think she would be quiet, being new and all, but dang.

“Cool, you’re in mine and my friend’s form.” he handed back the paper to the new girl and started walking, being closely followed by her. “You’ll like Mr Caxton, he’s fun.”

Ginn hummed in response. God, she was not making it easy for Alex.

The bell rang and Ginn tensed, her shoulders squaring, and her fists clenching. Another loud, irritating noise. This school was just made to make her uncomfortable.

Unfortunately, Alex had noticed her reaction to the sound. “You ok? It’s just the bell, no need to worry.” he chuckled.

“Fine.” Ginn grumbled through gritted teeth. She started storming off down the corridor without a plan, and luckily Alex jogged to catch up to her before she reached the turning point.

Alex desperately wanted to break the awkward air between them, but did not know how. This girl seemed tense, understandably, as she seemed quite strange to the standards of this school, so he did not know how to approach anything with her.

“So… where you from?” Alex asked, trying to study her body language. She walked like she was trying to look tough, as well as be silent in her steps. She succeeded on both aspects as she definitely looked intimidating, and her steps barely echoed around the halls.

Ginn subtly looked Alex up and down, figuring out his motive, in both the question and with helping her. He stood straight and proud, taller than her by a good few inches. Although, that wasn’t hard, as Ginn was only 5”3’. She estimated him to be about 5”9’, and she guessed he still had room to grow. He was looking at her expectantly with a small smile, his blue eyes shining in curiosity. She could see no malice in his wonderment, so she answered.

“Liverpool.” She said, bluntly. To be exact, she lived in a small terrace house, in Roscoe Street, very close to her primary school, Pleasant Street Primary. Ginn had hopped around several high schools in the past four years, so she couldn’t say how far she lived from them. She did not live in a great area, but it was close to the city centre, and she always felt safe there with her parents. She missed Liverpool.

Alex nodded, biting the inside of his mouth in mild frustration at Ginn’s refusal so converse. “Cool. Good city. What brought you to London then?”

“Family stuff.”

The two sighed, knowing that conversation was not going to happen right now.

The two arrived at the classroom after everyone else had arrived and sat down. Alex greeted the teacher with a cheerful ‘good morning’ and he sat down on a table for four, with two other boys, whom he greeted and immediately started chatting and laughing with. The boy sitting next to him had slightly more tanned skin than Alex, but he was still quite pale. He had neat, honey brown hair, with a full fringe that was cut just under his eyebrows, the top of head was thick with hair facing forwards, and what Ginn estimated as one inch clipped shaving around the rest of his head. His eyes were forest green, thoughtfully staring at Alex as he spoke, but also at someone on the other side of the room Ginn couldn’t locate. The other boy had his back to Ginn, but from what she could see, he had dark, sun kissed skin, and the only messy head of mahogany brown hair she had seen in this school. Well, there was an order to this mess, unlike the mess that sat on her own head. His hair was methodically spiked up, then brushed forward. He appeared to have every portion of his hair cut to a similar length, apart from the front.

Ginn heard her name and she turned, seeing the teacher beckoning her towards his desk. she walked over, head down.

“You must be Miss Ranger!” Oh god, he was perky. “Now, I like to ask before I start teaching new students, if you don’t mind, what would you like me to call you, and what pronouns shall I use for you? And are they the same in class, privately, and in front of other adults?”

Ginn blinked at the sudden questions as she let her mind catch up with her ears. “Just Ginn, thanks. Female pronouns, all the time.” She said quietly.

“Perfect.” Mr Caxton smiled softly at Ginn, then continued. “I have been told of the support you require, so don’t be afraid to approach me any time!”

Ginn felt extremely awkward, biting her lower lip, and nodding, avoiding eye contact. She always hated it when her personal stuff was brought up by other people. She knew they were only trying to help, but it never helped Ginn. all she did was nod.

“Ok, so everyone in this class has their seat. I had everyone choose to sit somewhere at the beginning of the year and that is where they sit for the rest of the year. The only available seat is across from your guide, Alex. Go sit down, and we’ll start up, ok?”

Ginn glanced over at the table of three boys. She would be sitting next to the dark-skinned boy. He looked like the more energetic person in the trio. Freaking fabulous. At least the seat was on the left side, so she wouldn’t be bumping elbows with the seemingly right-handed boy.

Ginn had nothing against boys. Truly, she didn’t. She was just very insular, and teenage boys tended to be pretty rambunctious. She also didn’t exactly have a perfect track record with relations. Not just with boys, girls too. But, well, Ginn’s short, slim stature was not a good match up when she fought with boys. Luckily, she is quick, so at least she has that going for her.

She sighed and walked over to the table, unslinging her bag off her shoulder and sat down, immediately leaning on her hand and staring at the floor. She dazed, and started thinking about what she could draw. She thought of characters from tales she enjoyed, and she started moving her finger on one spot of the table, mimicking drawing. This was something she did when uncomfortable. Actually drawing is much better, but she hated showing others her stuff, so rarely drew when sitting at a table with strangers. Or classmates, as she should call them.

the three boys had noticed Ginn sitting down, and turned to her to smile and greet her, but she was avoiding all eye contact. Alex shrugged, realising this was going to be his week. Boy to Ginn’s right decided to break the awkward silence by introducing himself.

He went to speak, nudging her first to get he attention, but before he could speak, she jumped at the sudden touch, tensing her shoulders and clenched her fists, straightening her back and gasping lightly. Her duel coloured eyes stayed locked staring forwards, and she took a few breaths before she snapped her head to look at the boy and growl, “What?”

Now she could see his face, she took in his features. He looked nervous, likely due to Ginn’s aggressive nature. He had warm, russet brown eyes that where currently wide in shock. He was handsome, with a square jaw, and strong cheekbones. His mouth was tight in shock at her reaction. Luckily for him, he recovered quickly. His eyes softened into a more relaxed form, and his tight mouth morphed into a cool side smile.

“Hey,” his voice was smooth and joyous. Enjoyable to Ginn’s ears. Wait what? “I’m Martin Williams. This is George Groden, and you’ve met Alex. It seems like we’re desk mates!”

Ginn struggled to relax her muscles from the sudden touch. She swallowed and forced her hands to open as she shoved them under her thighs. Her voice was failing her, so she just looked back at the table and nodded, humming ‘mm hmm’.

The boy, Martin, made eye contact with the other two, concerned by the reaction. He decided to pry a little, tying to get Ginn out of her shell. “Ginn, right? Interesting name, never heard it before. Where’s it come from?”

Ginn was shocked by the question. Usually when people found out about her name, they made a joke about alcoholic parents, or threw out guesses as to what it was short for. Her name was Ginn. Not Ginera, or Ginevra, or even Geneva, shockingly. This question made Ginn happy, and her vocal cords decided to work.

“It’s a combination of Gill and Finn.” Ginn kept her head down but was smiling lightly for the first time in a while. “Gill was my mum’s mum, and Finn was dad’s dad. They wanted to honour both of them, so it was either Ginn or Fill, and Ginn was pretty gender neutral.”

She huffed in amusement at that last bit. the story of her naming was always interesting to her, especially when you think of the whole story of a young pregnant woman and her husband staring at each other, trying to make the other back down, until they came to the compromise of combining the names.

“That’s cool!” Martin said, enthusiastically. “You have such an interesting story! I’m just names after my grandad!”

Ginn smiled, amused by the boy’s excitement.

Before they could continue, the teacher cleared his throat and started the lesson. It was English. This was not the best subject for Ginn due to her dyslexia, but she had a creative mind, and enjoyed story telling, so it wasn’t so bad. Well, unless they were reading old stuff, like Shakespeare or Jane Austen, they were utter torture for Ginn’s brain. Sadly, that is exactly what they were doing. Romeo and Juliet, to be exact. They started the lesson reading the play, the characters being assigned to a random assortment of students. Ginn struggled to follow along as they worked, not understanding anything they were saying. The words were floating around the page, lines and letters flipping and swapping place, it was giving her a headache. It didn’t help that the most dramatic character in the play, Mercutio, was being voiced by Martin, who was slowly becoming more and more dramatic in his reading, his movements rocking the table, making reading even harder for her.

After they had finished the first four scenes, Mr Caxton instructed the class to discuss them as a table. Ginn was thankful for this as she could finally rest her eyes for a minute. She rubbed her eyes and led her hands up to brush her hair up out of her face, letting it fall how it wanted, which was apparently not in front of her eyes. She looked at the trio of boys expectantly, waiting for a conversation to start, when she noticed they were all staring at her. Alex looked shocked, staring curiously, eyes switching between each of her eyes. George seemed curious, one eyebrow raised, and a small smile spread on his lips. Martin was far too excited for Ginn’s taste.

“Woah!! You have heterochromia?!” He said far too loud. “That’s so cool!”

Ginn quickly dipped her head and brushed her fringe over her brown eye, feeling her face flush red.

“If you say so...” She muttered under her breath.

This conversation was clearly going nowhere, much to the dismay of the three boys. Ginn was obviously not a conversation person, and the boys were not interested in discussing Shakespeare, so decided to further press.

“You don’t think so?” George questioned.

“Let’s just say it’s not my favourite thing about myself.” Ginn grumbled, shooting them a sarcastic and awkward smile. The boys shared a look, all expressing different thoughts and emotions. Martin locked eyes with his friends, then looked at Ginn quickly, and back at them, wiggling his eyebrows and smirking. The boys shot him warning looks, but he ignored it, turning around to look at Ginn, leaning his elbow on the table and putting his head on his hand, wearing his flirtatious, lopsided smirk.

“Well,” He said, making Ginn look us at him. Once she saw his face, she huffed, rolling her eyes, and looked back down at her work. “I think they are beautiful, completing the gorgeous image you hold all over.”

Ginn felt panic rise in her chest. She had never been complimented like that before from the mouth of someone who... had little to no obvious ill intentions. This boy did not seem to be particularly threatening, but still, Ginn could not be help but be wary. She clenched her fist around her pen in panic, as her defence mechanisms snapped into position.

“Say anything like that again,” She turned and glared at Martin through her hair. “And I break your hand.”

Martin tensed up, squeaking in fear as his arm slipped off the table in surprise. Ginn did not break eye contact, however, needing to maintain her tough exterior.

“Well ok then.” He squeaked. Pleased with herself, Ginn looked back down at her work, deciding to do the work herself. The boys fell silent and just did the work, quietly discussing Shakespeare out of fear for their hands.

At the end of the class, after a long lesson of awkward silence between the four tablemates, the boys packed up and met with Elsie and Louise. Ginn had rushed out of the classroom a lot quicker that the others, so Alex had already failed at his job of making sure she was ok. This was going to be a rough day.

The final class of the day was P.E. Luckily for Ginn, sport was something she excelled in. Unluckily for Ginn, she had to get changed in front of other people, which was less than ideal.

Alex instructed her to follow Louise and Elsie to the girls’ changing rooms. Ginn kept her head down and shuffled along with the other girls as they chatted, complaining about the lesson they were going into.

“P.E. sucks, I hate it so much!” Louise groaned, dramatically. “I mean, I like exercise, but the structure of P.E. is so messy, and its so boring!”

“I know!” Agreed Elsie. “It’s even worse right now, doing those weird drill things.”

Ginn perked up at that comment. If they were anything like the ones she used to do in Cadets, she was golden! She didn’t look at the other girls, but she did smile and huff in satisfaction.

“You like P.E., Ginn?” Said Louise, sounding surprised. The girl looked Ginn up and down quizzically. She did not exactly fit the typical description of a fit girl. She looked very skinny, but Louise guessed that was mainly due to her oversized uniform.

Ginn hesitated with her answer, wondering how to answer without sounding weird. “Yeah, kind of. I like exercise, and I’m used to pretty strict sessions, so nothing really bothers me much anymore.”

The other girls seemed satisfied with her answer luckily.

After only moments, the three girls had reached the girls’ changing room. As the tried to find a free section of bench to place their bags and clothes, Ginn was silently praying that no one would pay attention to her so she could change and slip out unnoticed. She utterly hated changing in public. Sadly, her prayers were not answered, as the only available space was on a bench in the middle of the room, with a group of chatty girls surrounding it. Perfect. The three set down their bags and started undressing, quickly swapping from blouse to P.E. polo shirt. Ginn was particularly mad about their easy method of swapping from skirt to shorts without presenting their underwear; slipping the shorts on under their skirts, then taking off the skirt from above. Ginn, wearing trousers, had no such luxury, so had to take advantage of her too big shirt and take off her trousers, hoping they would cover her behind as she slipped the shorts on. Now for the bit she dreaded: changing from shirt to polo. She wanted to do this as quickly as possible, but struggled due to her ever growing anxiety. She slipped off her tie and unbuttoned her shirt, then readied her polo shirt to be the correct way to slip on as soon as she rid her back of it’s professional cotton attire. Quickly, she took off the shirt, and immediately heard what she feared.

Louise and Elsie had gasped, quietly. They had finished changing and lacing up their trainers, and were waiting for Ginn to finish changing so they could walk out together, and happened to glance up when they saw her take off her shirt. The two girls were sitting on Ginn’s right, so they could see what Ginn was worried about clear as day. Right across her back, from the bottom of her shoulder blade, creeping up to the top curve of her right shoulder, were two long, pale, jagged, and bumpy scars. They looked awful, and the two girls were certain that they were from a horrible incident from a long time ago. This scared them, as they worried about Ginn’s safety and current situation.

Before they could say anything, Ginn tugged her polo shirt over her head, hiding the scars before anyone could ask questions, or, god forbid, anyone else saw them. Louise opened her mouth to speak. She was not sure what she would say, but it was instinct. Before she could make a sound, however, Ginn shot her a warning glare, her blue eye shining like a lightning storm, her amber eye shimmering like a raging fire. Her lips were tight and eyebrows knitted in a tight V-shape. Her ginger hair had fallen before her face, blocking the light from reaching her face, only making the looming pit of aggression in Ginn’s aura stronger. Her fists were tight. Louise only just realised the new girl’s flat and scarred knuckles. Louise immediately shut her mouth. She offered an awkward, slightly scared smile, but Ginn just straightened her back, slipped on her battered old trainers, and started towards the door. Louise and Elsie shared a concerned look, then darted up and dashed to keep up with Ginn, who had suddenly developed a quick, strong stride.

Once all of the students had gathered in the sports hall, the P.E. teacher, Mr Dullan, called registration and introduced the aim of today’s class. The class knew they would not like this lesson. Mr Dullen was clearly in a bad mood, he was completely stiff and glaring at everyone who made eye contact with him. Ginn was not happy when he grabbed her shoulder and pulled her to face him when she marched into the hall, so he could interrogate her about who she was. He seemed satisfied after a full 30 seconds of comparing her to the ID picture that was on his register. But, this was a respectable school that definitely would not accept her doing what she wanted to do at that moment, and tuition was far too expensive for her to be kicked out on her first day, so she let it go.

“Ok, everyone!” Mr Dullen shouted, making a huge, distracting echo ring around the room. Ginn knew she would barely be able to understand him immediately. “I don’t want to deal with teaching you all today, so you’re just going to do run laps around the school grounds all lesson.”

The entire class groaned and started quietly complaining to themselves and their friends. Well, all except Ginn, who enjoyed running. Also, the echo in this room was getting to her, and she was finding it hard to concentrate. She silently thanked every deity she knew of that the run was outside.

“Alright, alright, quit the complaining!” Mr Dullen yelled, making Ginn bunch up the hem of her polo shirt in her hand to squeeze. She found early on that this was a better coping mechanism than her automatic reaction, which was covering her ears and gripping locks of hair and pulling. Distractions from bad noises are always oh so fun. Mr Dullen carried on, interrupting Ginn’s thoughts, “Everyone get your butts outside!”

The crowd of grumbling students headed towards the doors leading to the yard so they could start the run. Before Ginn could disappear into the crowd and go off to enjoy her run, Louise had grabbed her wrist and started to speak.

“Hey, are you ok? We should talk abo—”

“Do not touch me!” Ginn growled, ripping her hand away from Louise, immediately marching off in a strong, quick pace.

As soon as she set foot on the outside area of the school grounds and witnessed part of the crowd all heading in the same direction, she started her rounds of the school with a light jog, preparing her body and lungs for a long, pleasant run. She really needed to calm her mind, after everything that had happened today, especially in the last few minutes.

Louise was incredibly confused by that reaction. She had noticed Ginn tense up and ball her shirt in her fist, and she knew Ginn had not calmed down from whatever emotion she was feeling after presenting those scars in the changing rooms.

“What was that about?” George said, the four friends walking up to Louise so they could walk the laps of the grounds together.

“She’s seemed pretty tense all day.” Alex offered. “Maybe you just scared her and she reacted.”

She definitely has something she’s hiding.” Elsie said, as the group wondered outside and started walking. “She had two huge scars on her back. She got real tense, more than usual, when we saw them.”

“Let’s go find out what’s up with her.” Louise said, determination in her voice. Then, she sounded unsure. “If we can catch up to her...”

Ginn was no where to be seen as they walked their round. They knew this because Ginn was extremely noticeable in the crowd of students, being one of the only people in the school with ginger hair. She was even more noticeable because her hair was messy and choppily cut short, and her P.E. kit, like her uniform, was too big and looked it. They walked quickly around the grounds, talking and looking around. Ginn was nowhere to be seen.

“She must actually be running.” Martin shrugged. “That girl is an enigma.”

“An enigma you’re crushing on!” Alex said teasingly, elbowing his friend in the side and laughing.

“Shut up!” Martin pushed Alex to the side, a crimson blush rising in his cheeks. “I am not!”

“Then what was that comment in the changing room about?” George smirked and raised and eyebrow.

“Ok!” Martin’s dramatic flare revealed itself as dramatically waved his hand in the air and pointing at nothing in particular. “You have to admit, she is quite pretty!”

Martin stared a the group, waiting expectantly for their response, to which he got a couple nods, but mostly just looks of ‘my dear boy, calm yourself’.

The group continued to walk around the school grounds, giving up on searching for the strange new girl, she was far gone and they could not see her at all. The lesson went by relatively quickly, the group only lapping the school once and only going another 20 yards before Mr Dullen blew his whistle and called everyone into the changing rooms five minutes before the final bell rang. The five friends wondered back into the school, avoiding the stares of disapproval from Mr Dullen.

Louise and Elsie were slowly changing out of their kits when Ginn finally appeared by their side. She was sweating slightly, despite the November chill outside, and her breaths were long, quick, and laboured. As expected, she did not greet the girls, she just started changing, first preparing her shirt to be quickly thrown on after she removed her polo. Louise and Elsie tried not to look at her, feeling her haste and discomfort with being around people after what happened earlier. However, Louise is a pretty stubborn girl, so waited for Ginn to finish changing before she confronted her.

“Hey, where were you all class?” Louise tried to keep her voice perky and welcoming, rather than the interrogating tone she almost used. “we were looking for you when you ran off.”

Ginn let out a small growl of annoyance. “Ahead of everyone. Just needed to run.”

She removed her shorts, her shirt covering her underwear, and slipped on her trousers, then sat down to put on her school shoes. She never looked at Louise. Not that that was expected. This girl is so strange.

“You must be quick then!” Louise laughed lightly. Ginn just hummed. “It’s pretty impressive, running is pretty hard.”

This made Ginn’s head snap up, shooting Louise a confused look. “How is it hard?”

Louise and Elsie shared an amused look. Elsie laughed lightly and said, “You know, keeping pace without losing your breath, stuff like that.”

Ginn hummed thoughtfully whilst finishing up lacing her shoes. Once she was done, she stood and picked up her bag, just in time for the final bell to ring. Ginn attempted to supress her cringe at the sound, but her efforts were in vane, as the other two girls noticed. Luckily for Ginn, all they did was share a look and stand with their bags.

“Not sure I follow, but ok.” Ginn broke the silence, starting to walk out alone. However, Louise and Elise had other plans, both speeding to catch up to her and standing on either side.

“You’re a real enigma, you know?” Louise chuckled. That was apparently the wrong thing to say, as Ginn glared at her, a quiet and low growl echoing from the bottom of her throat. Her eyes raged, like a fearsome lightning storm and a blazing fire. Even though she is a very small person, Ginn knew how to make herself look large and terrifying.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Erm... well, I... I just meant that you, well,” Louise stuttered and squeaked, as if she were learning how to speak again. “I just mean that you’re, you know, pretty mysterious...”

Ginn grunted and said something like ‘that’s the point’ as she stormed off, out of the building and around the corner towards the front gates, not to be seen again that day.

“Well, you kinda fucked that one up, huh?” Elsie chortled anxiously.

“Thanks for helping there Els. Come on, let’s just go find the boys.”

Alex, George, and Martin exited the boys changing room a few minutes later. The girls explained what happened as they walked out of the school and back home. The only thing they could all agree on when it came to Ginn: She would be very difficult to befriend.

#no war au #rangers alive au #ginn ranger #Alex Peterson #george groden #martin williams #louise mitchel #elsie brown

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lawleon · 8 years ago

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Review of the Official English Translation of Touhou Suzunaan Forbidden Scrollery

Today’s the day! Well, 2 days from now technically, but I got my hands on a copy today, so today’s the day! I was fully prepared to write a scathing review of the official English translation, luckily I don’t have to do that. I very much enjoyed the translation and found it to be very good overall. There are a few minor complaints which I will address, along with some praise, but if you’d rather not read all that I’ll just say upfront, if you are a Touhou fan who was on the fence about picking this up I do recommend buying this.

Well, without further ado let’s start by addressing the criticisms.

Criticisms

Just to begin with, this is a rather minor one, but it was the cause of 95% of my unease before buying this book, the synopsis on the back cover. There is a specific word choice on the back cover of the book that had me quite worried. “Demonic books…” was the root of my negative expectations for this book. The youma books are center stage as a plot point throughout Forbidden Scrollery, so I was quite concerned that youkai was going to be translated as Demon, and youma was going to be translated as Demonic.

I am happy to report that “Youkai” and “Youma” are left as I spelled them. Yes you read that right “Y O U K A I”. It’s not spelled yokai, it is spelled in the book properly as youkai. Well, I’ll get in to that more specifically in the praise section of this review, but the back cover synopsis was a source of a great deal of unease in the months before the release, it was the synopsis for the series listed on all book retailers, and it was the only translated text available to read for quite some time. After that slow pitch, let’s get into the single worst Translation in this book, Akyu Hiedano.

I don’t get it, I just don’t. I don’t know how this translation was decided upon. You were even so careful to even spell youkai correctly, with the long o sound. The most egregious error must be Akyu. Her given name is Akyuu, with a long u sound. Akyu is incorrect, this spelling is more incorrect than where the “no” was placed. Speaking of the “no” in Hieda no Akyuu, there was quite a bit of discussion around it when this translation was first discovered. I decided not to say anything about it until I had the book in my hand, but now that I do have the book I can see that the translation answers this debate in the form of a TL note.

Spelled right there properly on the front gate to her house, Hieda.

The “no” in and of itself is there to make Akyuu sound important. The no is also not in a proper reading of the kanji making up Akyuu’s family name, it’s present, but it’s to add that societal weight to her name. This inconsistency in the translation makes it seem as if in Chapter 2 Kosuzu walks into the Hieda household to find “Akyu Hiedano” sitting around looking at books inside. I know that this is addressed in the first line on the next page with Kosuzu stating, “Your mansion is always so over-dramatic.”, but it needs to be said. This just doesn’t flow well in English. If the translation of Hiedano is to be kept, please be consistent translating all future instances of Hieda to Hiedano, though I hope this choice is reconsidered. Personally I’d like to see it translated as Akyuu Hieda. I feel that it is shown in Forbidden Scrollery that Akyuu is quite important and comes from a well-to-do household, therefore leaving the no out is an acceptable translation to me, since that societal weight is shown in a different way. Moving forward, there are a few other names this translation choice will change, Hata no Kokoro or Fujiwara no Mokou, should be translated as Kokoro Hata, and Mokou Fujiwara respectively. I do hope someone at Yen Press reads this or perhaps other fan reviews and reconsiders the overall translation of Akyuu’s name, it’s the only really noticeable blemish on this fantastic translation. Other than that, there are 2 instances where I feel that the translation is a bit off. The first occurs in the first chapter right here:

“But I have to say, my favorite book…” “…is this one!” You can see in the line prior Kosuzu is referring to all Imported Books from outside Gensoukyou, however in the next bit she refers to her favorite books, youma books in general. The subject should be plural, reading like this, “But I have to say, my favorite books…” “…are these!”

The second is here:

“…If you must use the picture scroll…” “…try to use it about once a month.” “You may end up summoning a terrible youkai someday.” The entire tone and meaning of these lines is off. Here Mamizou is coercing Kosuzu in a round about way, asking her to read the scroll once a month in order to avoid summoning a “terrible youkai”. In all actuality, she wants to buy the scroll to produce baby tsukumogami so she can empower them during a tanuki banquet. This is her way of forcing a compromise between between her will and Reimu’s will with Kosuzu as the middleman. Kosuzu keeps the scroll under Reimu’s orders, but once a month Mamizou gets her way and has the opportunity to increase the strength of the Tanuki. I don’t have my Japanese copy in front of me, but if I was to re-translate this panel it would be, “It should be okay to read that scroll about once a month. If you don’t, you may end up summoning a truly terrifying youkai someday.” This tone appeals to Kosuzu, she wants to read the youma books in the first place since she’s drawn to the danger of them. If she can read this book that Reimu has designated “off limits” once a month and stop a disaster from happening she’ll do so religiously. Final complaint and it’s a short one. The font choice for the out of bubble, or side speech text was a poor choice. I’m sorry, but I have excellent vision and some of it takes a double take before I can decipher what’s written.

These pictures are zoomed in in comparison to a normal reading position, and those y’s in particular are awful. Whew, personally I think most of that is minor grievances. It’s long, but I do feel the need to express why I feel that these are complaints. Onto praises! Praises Firstly, I noted this earlier. They spelled youkai correctly and used youma books for the official TL, yay! I’m not sure is any of you have played any of the Play Doujin! releases that have been translated into English officially, but they spell youkai as yokai, and it really gets on my nerves considering how often the word is used. They didn’t go all the way and spell Gensokyo properly as Gensoukyou, but getting that changed across the fandom is basically asking for a miracle at this point. Second, there is a pun in chapter 2 that was translated beautifully.

I know it’s a “word-eating worm”, but gramma-tick, just flows with the joke. The Enenra is the main youkai antagonist of chapters 2 and 3, so playing around with the name of this youkai for a joke is fine in my opinion. While I’ve never seen the type of basic math problem (maybe I just don’t remember seeing them) they are talking about, I think making a small pun off of basic school subjects makes much more sense than the fan translated version. With this translation I can at least see a little of the original joke shining through. Final Thoughts As a long time Touhou fan, I was overall very pleased by this translation, and I would recommend it to any Touhou fan. Seriously, go pick up a copy when you can, not enough Touhou fans know there even are manga series. I can’t say that this would be a good place to start in Touhou though, I feel as if Silent Sinner in Blue would be the best Touhou manga to begin with, as it shows more of Reimu and Marisa’s character rather than how they are perceived in the eyes of a third party, that party being Kosuzu. If someone does begin Touhou by reading the English TL of Forbidden Scrollery, I hope you were bewildered to the point where you are asking yourself, “Who were all those charterers, and why do I only have a decent grasp on one weird bookseller?”, you’ve started down a slippery slope friend. In the end I’d like to thank @yenpress for bringing over Forbidden Scrollery officially, overall you guys did a great job. If anyone out there read through my thoughts all the way to the end, thanks for reading!

#touhou #touhou project #forbidden scrollery #review #manga

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cockadilf · 5 years ago

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Hey people who make video games please put in settings to change the font sizes and not just the font for cutscene subtitles that gets me excited cuz I think “oh yay finally I’ll get to *see* what I’m playing” until, no, the controls and functions and words during gameplay are all still tiny specks on the screen and I need my brother to tell me what button to press as the quick time events come in because they’re so tiny and you don’t even color coordinate them even though I’m playing PlayStation and the buttons *have colors* please *use them* I understand your artistic integrity says black and white and simple fonts but *please* if you can’t let me change the font sizes at the very least then I can’t *see* and I *die* because you people think quick time events pass for proper gameplay

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suzanneshannon · 5 years ago

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The 2020 Guide to Creating Quality Technical Screencasts, Presentations, and Remote Meetings

I've had a lot of people ask me to write up a guide to creating great technical screencasts. This is an update to my 2011 post on the same topic.

What are you doing? STOP and reassert your assumptions

Hang on. You're doing a screencast or sharing your screen in some way for a meeting, presentation, or YouTube. What does that mean and why did I suggest you stop.

This isn't a stage presentation or even a talk in a conference room. Screencasts and remote meetings have an intimacy to them. You're in someone's ear, in their headphones, you're 18 inches from their face. Consider how you want to be seen, how you want to be heard, and what is on your screen.

Try to apply a level of intentionality and deliberate practice. I'm not saying to micromanage, but I am saying don't just "share your screen." Put your empathy hat on and consider your audience and how it'll look and feel for them.

Initial setup and tools

You can use any number of tools for screen capture. They are largely the same. My preferred tool is Camtasia. Other valid tools are CamStudio (a free and open source tool) and Expression Encoder Screen Capture. You can also use OBS to record your screen and webcam.

When you're using Skype/Zoom/Teams to record live, you're already set as those tools will share for you as well as record.

Windows Look at Feel

At the risk of sounding uptight, how you setup Windows and your environment is the difference between a professional and an amateurish screencast. It's shocking how many folks will start recording a screencast without changing a thing, then wonder why their 1600x1200 screencast looks bad on YouTube at 360p or low bandwidth on a phone. If you find yourself doing screencasts a lot, considering making a custom user (maybe named Screencast?) on your machine with these settings already applied. That way you can login as Screencast and your settings will stick.

Resolution and Aspect

First, decide on your aspect ratio. Your laptop may have a ratio of width to height that is 3:2 or 4:3 but MOST people have a 16:9 Widescreen system? A VERY safe resolution in 2020 is 1280x720 (also known as 720p). That means that you'll be visible on everything from a low-end Android, any tablet, up to a desktop.

That said, statistics show that many folks now have 1920x1080 (1080p) capable systems. But again, consider your audience. If I was presenting to a rural school district, I'd use 720 or a lower resolution. It will be smoother and use less bandwidth and you'll never have issue with things being too small. If I was presenting in a professional environment I'd use 1080p. I don't present at 4k, especially if the audience is overseas from where I am. You're pushing millions of pixels that aren't needed, slowing your message and adding no additional value.

On Windows, consider your scale factor. At 1080p, 125% DPI is reasonable. At 720p (or 1366x768, using 100% scaling is reasonable).

Background Wallpaper and Icons

Choose a standard looking background photo. I prefer to use one from http://unsplash.com or the defaults that come with Windows 10 or your Mac. Avoid complex backgrounds as they don't compress well during encoding. Avoid using pictures of your kids or family unless it feeds your spirit and you don't mind mixing the professional and personal. Again - be intentional. I am neither for nor against - just be conscious and decide. Don't just accept the defaults.

Hide your desktop icons. Right click your desktop and hit View | Show Desktop Items. Also consider whether we need to see your desktop at all. If it doesn’t add value, don’t show it on the screencast.

Fonts

Try to use standard fonts and themes. While your preferred font and colors/themes offer personality, they can be distracting. Consider the message you want to present.

If you're using Visual Studio or Visual Studio Code, remember that your audience likely hasn't changed their defaults, and if you show them something fancy, they'll be thinking about how they get that fancy widget rather than your content. In Visual Studio proper, go to Tools | Options | Environment | Fonts and Colors and click "Use Defaults."

In all your text editors, consider change your fonts to Consolas Size 15. It may seem counter-intuitive to have such large fonts but in fact this will make your code viewable even on an iPhone or Tablet.

Remember, most video sites, including YouTube, restrict the embedded video player size to a maximum of around 560p height, unless you go full-screen or use a pop-out. Use the font size recommended here, and use Camtasia’s zoom and highlight features during editing to call out key bits of code.

Don’t highlight code in the editor by selecting it with the mouse UNLESS you've deliberately change the selection background color. Defaults are typically hard to read editor selections in video. Instead, zoom and highlight in post production, or use ZoomIt and practice zooming and emphasizing on screen elements.

Browser Setup

Unless your screencast is about using different browsers, pick a browser and stick to it. Hide your toolbars, clear your cache, history, and your autocomplete history. You'd be surprised how many inappropriate sites and autocomplete suggestions are published on the web forever and not noticed until it's too late. Don't view pr0n on your screencast machine. Be aware.

Toolbars

Your browser shouldn't show any, and this is a good time to uninstall or hide whatever coupon-offering nonsense or McAffee pixel waster that you've stopped being able to see after all these years. Remember, default is the word of the day. Disable any Browser Extensions that aren't adding value.

If you are using Visual Studio or an IDE (Eclipse, Photoshop, etc) be aware of your toolbars. If you have made extensive customizations to your toolbars and you use them in the screencast, you are doing a great disservice to your audience. Put things to the default. If you use hotkeys, tell the audience, and use them for a reason.

Toast

You've got mail! Yay. Yes, but not during your screencast. Turn off Outlook Gmail, GChat, Twitter, Messenger, Skype, and anything else that can "pop toast" during your screencast.

Clock and Notifications

Go to Start on Windows 10, and search for System Icons and turn off the Clock temporarily. Why? You can't easily edit a screencast if there's a convenient time code in the corner that jumps around during your edits. Also, no one needs to know you're doing your work at 3am.

Clean out your taskbar and notification area. Anything that visually distracts, or just hide the taskbar.

Audio and Voice

Use a decent microphone. I use a Samson C01U. You can also use a USB headset-style microphone but be aware that breathing and "cotton mouth" really shows up on these. Test it! Listen to yourself! Try moving the microphone above your nose so you aren't exhaling onto it directly. Use a pop filter to help eliminate 'plosives (p's and t's). You can get them cheap at a music store.

Be aware of your keyboard clicks. Some folks feel strongly about whether or not your keyboard can be heard during a screencast. Ultimately it's your choice, but you have to be aware of it first, then make a conscious decision. Don't just let whatever happens happen. Think about your keyboard sound, your typing style and your microphone, and listen to it a few times and see if you like how it comes together.

Avoid prolonged silence. There should be ebb and flow of "I'm saying this, I'm doing that" but not 10 seconds of "watch my mouse." Speak in an upbeat but authentic tone. Be real.

Also be calm and quiet. Remember you are a foot from them and you're their ear. It's a conversation with a friend, not a presentation to thousands (even if it is).

Don’t apologize or make excuses for mistakes – either work them in as something to learn from, or remove them completely.

If you are editing the presentation - If you make a mistake when speaking or demonstrating, clap your hands or cough loudly into the mic and wait a second before starting that portion over. When editing, the mistakes will show up as loud audio spikes, making it easy to find them.

Camtasia has decent automatic noise reduction. Use it. You’ll be surprised how much background noise your room has that you, but not your audience, will easily tune out.

If you must overdub a portion of the audio, sit in the same position you did while recording the original, and have the mic in the same spot. You want your voice to blend in seamlessly.

Preferred Video Output for Prerecords

Your screen capture tool should be produced at the highest reasonable quality as it will be compressed later when it's uploaded. Think of it like producing JPEGs. You can make a 5 megabyte JPG, but often a 500k one will do. You can make a 10 gig screen capture if you use uncompressed AVI encoding, but often a high bit rate MP4 will do.

The trick is to remember that your compressed screencast will be recompressed (copies of copies) when it is run through the encoding process.

Edit your screencast, if you do, in its recorded native resolution which hopefully is what you'll publish to as well. That means, record at 1080p, edit at 1080p, and publish at 1080p. Let YouTube or your final destination do the squishing to smaller resolutions.

Personally, I like to know what's going on in my production process so I always select things like "Custom production settings" in Camtasia rather than presets. Ultimately you'll need to try and find what works for you. Use an H.264 encoder with a high bitrate for the video and 44.1kHz/441000Hz 16 bit mono for the audio. Basically make a decently sized MP4 and it should work everywhere.

Do you have enough bandwidth?

In my opinion, if you are doing a live call with Video and Screensharing and you want it to be high definition, you'll need 4 Mbps upstream from your connection. You can check this at http://speedtest.net. If you have 5-6 Mbps you've got a little more headroom. However, if someone in the house decides to get on Netflix, you could have an issue. Know your bandwidth limitations ahead of time. If it's an important stream, can you dedicate your bandwidth to just your one machine? Check out QoS (quality of service) on your router, or better yet, take your kids' iPads away! ;)

Conclusion

Take some time. I put about an hour of work into a 15 min screencast. Your mileage may vary. Watch your video! Listen to it, and have your friends listen to it. Does it look smooth? Sound smooth? Is it viewable on a small device AND a big screen? Does it FEEL good?

Sponsor: Have you tried yet? This fast and feature-rich cross-platform IDE improves your code for .NET, ASP.NET, .NET Core, Xamarin, and Unity applications on Windows, Mac, and Linux.

The 2020 Guide to Creating Quality Technical Screencasts, Presentations, and Remote Meetings published first on https://deskbysnafu.tumblr.com/

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philipholt · 5 years ago

Text

The 2020 Guide to Creating Quality Technical Screencasts, Presentations, and Remote Meetings

I've had a lot of people ask me to write up a guide to creating great technical screencasts. This is an update to my 2011 post on the same topic.

What are you doing? STOP and reassert your assumptions

Hang on. You're doing a screencast or sharing your screen in some way for a meeting, presentation, or YouTube. What does that mean and why did I suggest you stop.

Initial setup and tools

When you're using Skype/Zoom/Teams to record live, you're already set as those tools will share for you as well as record.

Windows Look at Feel

Resolution and Aspect

On Windows, consider your scale factor. At 1080p, 125% DPI is reasonable. At 720p (or 1366x768, using 100% scaling is reasonable).

Background Wallpaper and Icons

Fonts

Try to use standard fonts and themes. While your preferred font and colors/themes offer personality, they can be distracting. Consider the message you want to present.

Browser Setup

Toolbars

Toast

You've got mail! Yay. Yes, but not during your screencast. Turn off Outlook Gmail, GChat, Twitter, Messenger, Skype, and anything else that can "pop toast" during your screencast.

Clock and Notifications

Clean out your taskbar and notification area. Anything that visually distracts, or just hide the taskbar.

Audio and Voice

Avoid prolonged silence. There should be ebb and flow of "I'm saying this, I'm doing that" but not 10 seconds of "watch my mouse." Speak in an upbeat but authentic tone. Be real.

Also be calm and quiet. Remember you are a foot from them and you're their ear. It's a conversation with a friend, not a presentation to thousands (even if it is).

Don’t apologize or make excuses for mistakes – either work them in as something to learn from, or remove them completely.

Camtasia has decent automatic noise reduction. Use it. You’ll be surprised how much background noise your room has that you, but not your audience, will easily tune out.

If you must overdub a portion of the audio, sit in the same position you did while recording the original, and have the mic in the same spot. You want your voice to blend in seamlessly.

Preferred Video Output for Prerecords

The trick is to remember that your compressed screencast will be recompressed (copies of copies) when it is run through the encoding process.

Do you have enough bandwidth?

Conclusion

Sponsor: Have you tried yet? This fast and feature-rich cross-platform IDE improves your code for .NET, ASP.NET, .NET Core, Xamarin, and Unity applications on Windows, Mac, and Linux.

The 2020 Guide to Creating Quality Technical Screencasts, Presentations, and Remote Meetings published first on http://7elementswd.tumblr.com/

0 notes

animusharmonia · 8 years ago

Text

At about the beginning of last school year, I began logging the random stuff I’ve heard or seen around the wonder that is high school. Admittedly, some of this contains some of my shenanigans, because who am I going to pay more attention to other than myself. Writing every single thing all at once would take a while (the document I’ve been using is nearly to 16 pages as of now), so this is just a collection of some of what I deem funnier or more bizarre.

Class split into groups of 4. The four Asian kids teamed up. The one guy of the group whispered “Asian Invasion”

The manga section of the school library had two volumes of yaoi

The manga section of the school library being mixed in with the comic section

The comic and manga section of the school library being in the middle of the non-fiction area because “its cultural”

“I can’t reach the top shelf in my house, and who’s going to help me there? My dog? I don’t think so.”

“Wow! That’s so cool! I don’t care, I might tomorrow. No, wait! It’s Saturday!”

“This one is fancy heels, this one is fancy pants”

“Wait, it’s a different Louis?” “There are a lot of Louii”

“And then the guillotine was too slow, so they shot them instead” “...okay”

“This is due Thursday, right? Let’s discuss who’s doing what slide and leave it at that because yay, procrastination”

The Latin teacher teaching us how to say “Go to hell” in Latin when she told a story about someone in the Latin 3 class having asked what the phrase in question from one of their books meant

The radio was playing music over the gymnasium. My Immortal came on. “I’m so tired of being here” “Hah, same”

“Everyone knows what a coup d'etat is, right?”

We got the majority of the class

“An overthrowing by the military”

And we got this kid

“It sounds like something from Lion King”

“???”

Someone said “Coup d’etat” slowly, to the tuneish of “Hakuna matata”

The realization and understanding dawning across the class

Waiting in those minutes for class to end, a few people sat there quietly singing Hakuna Matata

“A coup d’etat-ta, what a wonderful thing”

“And this guy was like “Hell yeah, we want change…””

“Probably using different words”

“Well yeah, he used French”

“Is that a lacrosse ball?” “Yeah” “We’re in theater, how the fuck did you get that?”

One girl sitting on one of the plastic desk chairs with her knees to her chest, calmly eating a salad as she participated in the class discussion

One girl dislocated her arm in sports and, instead of keeping it in a sling, got this exoskeleton thing made to keep her arm at a 90 degree angle. She was way too excited to discover it was at a perfect angle for dabbing.

“I swear, if we have a pop quiz in that class I’m going to cry. Or kill a man. I can’t tell which anymore”

One girl all but sprinting down the hall as she let out some low shrieking noise, only stopping when she got to her friend’s side and leaned far enough in front of him to make eye contact.

“I was doing, like, six things at once and thought ‘What if the building fell right now? I would get nothing done.’ Because hey, it’s the end of the year, I got all this stuff to do, and it would be really inconvenient.”

One guy had a table in the lobby and stood, roll of tinfoil in hand and tinfoil hat on head, yelling about the Illuminati, aliens, and government. He was passing out tinfoil hats to anyone who wanted them

Someone walked into my Latin class wearing one and magistra asked if the guy was talking about the “Alluminati” instead of the Illuminati

One girl’s promposal where she called out the other girl’s name to get her attention as one friend to her right began playing “Never gonna give you up” and the friend to the right held roses. The sign she held read “It would meme a lot if you went to prom with me” in large shiny foil letters, meme in purple as opposed to the gold of the others, and a pepe in the bottom right corner. It was adorable.

“I nearly got a detention for reading in reading class. I was tempted to continue just for when people asked me what I was in for”

On a Latin test, there was a section where you were given 7 names and you had to give a fact about 5 of them. For Vulcan, the Roman god of fire, someone put “A species of alien that appears in the series Star Trek” and he got a point for that.

A girl put “Got a Yugioh card named after him” in small font for Regulus, but filled in 5 others seriously

One girl who is Very Passionate about Yugioh

The teacher was making hand gestures as he spoke. He paused in gestures with his hand outstretched, still addressing the class, and the person sitting right beside him reached out and gave him a high-five

The guy who gave him the high-five had hacked his (the history teacher’s) computer earlier that year

The common “Final” for jazz band is that the teacher brings in Rock Band and they play that

“I’m amazed, you can hear the lack of brain cells”

One meme of a girl wrote “I’M SCHLEEP” on the whiteboard in band. She took a picture of it and walked away satisfied with herself. A few minutes later, the band director piped up from the back of the room. “Hey, Ashley? What does ‘schleep’ mean?” “I dunno”

Someone hiking up their shorts to the length of girls’ shorts, pulling his shirt down so you can’t see them, and Naruto running a circle around the room

Due to state testing, classes were shortened. On the day of the final band concert, those involved went to their first three classed but remained in third (concert band. Those from wind ensemble were pulled in as well) and lurked there for the rest of the day to practice. Pizza was ordered and soda was brought for a celebration of sorts. The 32 pizzas ordered were emptied within around half an hour.

A group of three girls and two guys. The third girl declared herself the fifth wheel of the group, staring tiredly at the two couples.

She didn’t really seem to care, though, and generally could be found latched onto one of her friend’s arms. Both the friend and friend’s boyfriend didn’t really seem to care either.

The other couple, meanwhile, was fluent in innuendos and suggestive comments that tended to scare away the asexual fifth wheel.

“Freshmen, do not climb into the trash cans, thank you.”

One girl convinced some guy in class that Inside Out ends with the girl dying

“That’s not possible.” “It’s magic, shut up.”

“Why is the final cumulative? I can’t remember shit.”

One girl’s realization that graduation was the following day (seniors have been out for well over a week, it’s hard to tell) and the complaint at how “WE HAVE TO PLAY AT THE FREAKING THING, WHY DOES NOBODY TELL ME THESE THINGS?!”

One kid brought in wasabi candy. He offered some to his table mate before telling him what it was. He ate the offered treat with hesitance and a shrug, but the underlying regret was visible before long.

“I hope you know my scoliosis doesn’t like you.”

Some people (4 or 5?) in the corner of the room, taking the Rice Purity test and comparing answers

Apparently the sole girl of the group had the worst score

A math teacher who doubled as the theater director had his yearbook picture taken in a ghillie suit

The ghillie suits had been gotten for the production of Little Shop of Horrors the year prior

“I love getting stepped on!”

Someone was complaining about how their hair looked bad. Our teacher just “Yeah, tell me about it,” gesturing to his own balding head

One of the freshmen band kids after graduation reverently whispering “You’re free” to every graduate they passed

For graduation, all of the people of the band and choir were wearing muted colors - whites, blacks, pale blues, soft floral patterns, etc. - and then we have one cackling flutist in fluorescent orange

“If Kim Kardashian doesn’t feel ashamed, neither should you” - the fucking valedictorian speech

It contained other golden moments such as “I got to work with some of these students due to my participation in The King and I,” (Note: he was the king) “and one of them said something profound that stuck with me. He beckoned me closer and made me lean down and he whispered in my ear… “yolo.” Now, according to Urban Dictionary, yolo is “a term that should have stopped being used five years ago and means You only live once””

He kept looping back to yolo. “What does yolo mean to you”

Next day some of us from the musical had been talking about that the next day. The collective statement was “Hudson. That was Hudson”

“We were the first class to take keystones, and the last generation to not get touchscreen laptops. What a time to be alive!”

The “corner crew” of Latin class (the people who had taken the Rice Purity test) decided to get a group picture with the teacher. One person in the group is my book-nerd friend who had been placed there by the teacher in an attempt to break up their antics (it didn’t work, they absorbed him, much to his exasperation). My friend is the smallest out of the group, so they decided to pick him up. The picture was taken with “Te Amo, Latin” written on the board behind them, my friend held aloft horizontally, and magistra slightly crouched in front of the group with an unsure smile.

The corner crew also had done a presentation on how Canada is just a government conspiracy and also the government is run by shape shifting lizards

“Did you really assign a project? Mr [Last name], I am appalled! There are four days left in school”

It was a 6 prompt essay. All prompts had to be answered with proper sources and everything.

That got a lot longer than intended, so I only covered the happenings of last year (still 6.5 pages of nearly 16)...

#long post #school #school shenanigans

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glopratchet · 5 years ago

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Longer pose

Oh boy. You get up and go to the kitchen, where you find a bottle of wine on the counter. You take it from the fridge and pour yourself a glass before heading back into your bedroom. You grab your laptop and head over to Twitter, checking for updates about what's going on in Washington D.C.. Nothing seems out of place; you check the news first though as that always gives you an idea of how things are going in other parts of the country too. You need to pee, so you do just that. It's not like you can't hold it, but it still feels weird to be standing up all by yourself in this house after having been sitting down for hours. You then notice something strange on your screen... A message has appeared! It's from someone called "Samantha Carter!" You need to poo. Crap. I have to make a decision between telling you what happens and narrowing the possibilities of who sent this! See if you can figure it out♪ ~ Chapter 3: Out of Body Experience ~ Yadda yadda, you end up taking care of your bathroom needs, then check your laptop. You ponder over the message for a while longer before finally deciding to reply. ... You've been staring at the screen, trying to think of what to write for at least half an hour now. It seems like this should be easy enough-- After all, you've been communicating with people through text most of your online life-- But for whatever reason, you're font. Strange how a kids' website template could slowly become closer to reality... The last year must have been harder on Sam then you thought. Now for a story about alligators fire and fight or friendship... Fire and fight? Stop trying to make Papa the Crocodile make sense, he doesn't. ... Okay, so that last one was completely unrelated. You take a deep breath and put the laptop aside. There's got you nowhere. Maybe you should try doing something else for a while... Finish a crossword puzzle? Ha ha, perhaps another time. Let there be some light. You keep trying and trying to move your body, though the most you seem to get is sporadic discharge from your nervous system. You feel like your foot might be able to twitch a little-- But it might also just be your imagination. The best you've gotten out of your arm is being able to make your fingers slightly bend if you concentrate really hard. ... ... This was how your life was going to end? Sleeping for who knows how long with the knowledge that when you finally did wake up, it would be too late to do anything. You could already feel yourself disappearing; first your body failed to work, then your mind-- Not Afraid helpless to whoever came by to just lob off your head and add what was left of you to their Soul Jar... Or whatever those things were called. 404: not found. You try to get up, get out, save somebody yourself-- Take a breath. Calm down... Think. Whatever this strange power is that's lingering in you, it isn't completely gone yet-- But how long did you have, really? The only thing to do was push yourself back up, get your thoughts together and face the end as everyone had to at some time. 404: not found. You try to get up, get out, save somebody yourself-- Take a breath. Calm down... Think. Whatever this strange power is that's lingering in you, it isn't completely gone yet-- But how long did you have, really? The only thing to do was push yourself back up, get your thoughts together and face the end as everyone had to at some time. Now for a story about alligators fire and fight or friendship... You're visited by a tall figure cloaked in shadow; all that could be seen of its face were its eyes, gleaming red in the eternal darkness that shrouds them. What sort of words escaped those dark grey lips of them you will never know, but they couldn't have been pleasant. Just as well-- You couldn't have understood any way. Was this death? No, this couldn't quite be death.... Fire and fight? With an explosive cough, your blue fire was back. That lurch in your stomach from before? It hadn't gone away, and probably never would. Your brain suddenly decided to stab itself out of disgust for what it had done. Stop trying to make Papa the Crocodile make sense, he doesn't. 404: not found. Let there be some light. ... Now for a story about alligators fire and fight or friendship... Your eyes snapped open. You were in the backroom that you slept in at Lil's. The lights were off, it was still early morning and raining outside, sheets of water cascading down sounding like dragon's breath as they pelted the alleyway behind the bar. Maybe people had finally realised how stupid it was to live on a flood plain... one can only hope. Your head throbbed as you slowly sat up, ugh, what a night. You might've been better off staying unconscious. Tiff would be in to open the bar soon, you may as well wait until then for your explanation. Going back to sleep might help your headache in the meantime-- Your hand pushed against something on your bedside cabinet and you half-giggled to yourself as you felt the empty bottle that you had knocked over in the night. Oh yay, you had drunk straight from the bottle and fallen back asleep with it still in your hand. That was mature. Shaking your head, you put the now empty bottle back where it belonged and shuffled under your covers to try sleep away the rest of the morning. You didn't make it easy for yourself though. Did you really drink that much last night or was it just a semi-regular occurrence? What sort of idiot gets addicted to clearly poor-quality alcohol anyway? You'll have to ask Lil when she gets in-- No, first thing is to get the bar open and then you can question her about last night. Come to think of it, she hasn't been around and you don't remember seeing her at closing time either... Oh no... You swung your legs over the side of the bed and immediately wished you hadn't. Your feet touched the slightly chilly wooden floor and immediately sent shooting pains up your legs, you could swear that your calves were cramping. Wincing, you pulled yourself up and got into a standing position. Well at least you didn't feel THAT bad... Alright no more stupid stunts for you son, you're starting to regre-- ... Oh. Right. Your teleporting feats from last night, where had your mind gone? Your body swayed as you took a moment to remember everything else... "Guh... Keeping up with Ragnor... That was stupid," much unlike you, your mouth decided to admit to yourself silently. You grunted in response. Well, it had been an interesting night at least, shame you couldn't remember most of it really, it'd only been when you were drinking the purple alcohol that things got interesting after all. That stuff really happened to be completely disgusting. You wouldn't drink that again if you had the choice, no desire to turn into a wailing UKIP supporter. Speaking of choices though; choices lead to unity... Your headache came back full force as you remembered Ragnor's 'unity' spee ch from last night. The message repeated itself on loop, "Believe in me..." over and over again, each time with slightly more volume than the last. Coupled with the hang over, you were in no mood to entertain this sort of behavior right now. "Ah...!" Your groan was interrupted by a cough, one that didn't sound like your own. You turned your head and spotted a young girl wearing a black cloak with pink trim on the floor to your right. She stared back at you with heavily made up blue eyes. Her make-up was everywhere, coincidentally, much like the graffiti you had seen on the walls when you were out last night. Well, that explained the cute cough you heard earlier. There was nothing else in the room though besides the pair of you and the bed you were sitting on. So she'd be on the floor then. You knew things had gotten bad when under-agers were starting to sneak into your motel room... That was beyond the point however. She wasn't supposed to be here, she was a customer for goodness sake! "You!" you said in your manliest voice. This caused her to cringe and pull herself into a little ball. Good, now she knew who was in charge, "Get out of here, I'm not serving you drink!" Your sudden order confused her, "But, you saved me... I'm not old enough to drink." "Eh?" She gave you a quizzical look, one that didn't match her anxious expressions or tone. "You've saved me from those nasty thugs, how can you turn me away now?" "I..." you mumbled in response. She had a point. Though you had more annoying thoughts in your head to contend with alongside your pounding headache... Wasn't having girls here against the law or something? Or at least improper...? "You don't want to send me away, neither of us wants that. Please, I've nowhere else to go. No parents, no food, nothing. There's only one man in this city who can help me now, you!" Her story was bizarre and you weren't buying it, not entirely. Surely she had some place to go. It was probably true that she shouldn't be here though. You don't remember any legislature that outlawed giving those under 18 alcoholic drinks though. The only thing you could think of is that she might be a potential stripper with her overly revealing clothes. Shrugging, it doesn't matter either way. You'd be doing the world a favor ridding it of some future sinful women by turning her away now. You didn't even want to deal with this right now. One... "I'll lose customers if I kept you here," You said without thinking, immediately silencing her. Any thoughts you had about kicking her out left your mind as she gradually stood up and moved closer towards you, an almost lifeless look on her face. This wouldn't do, you didn't like people looking like they were going to cry. Especially not some little girl who had done nothing wrong. There was a reason you helped those men last night even if it was against your better judgment. You placed your hand on her shoulder to reassure her that everything was going to be fine, but quickly pulled it away as she made a funny noise. After rubbing your hand against the fabric of your pants to dry it off, you gave her shoulder a proper squeeze. The girl didn't seem to react... oh wait. She had fallen unconscious. You shook your head, what kind of stunt was this? Was this whole story we're her making up? Why would an underage girl act like that just to gain entrance into a motel room? You didn't even realize that you had carried her virgin style into your bed, leaving her clothed as you did so. Must be the headache talking... and the fact that she looked really cute right now despite the inappropriate uniform. Guess it didn't matter that much since you were already thinking about firing her anyway. Although it appeared you wouldn't have to worry about it now... Good thing the headache wore off by morning and you could think more clearly again. She wasn't saying much, just standing over by the window acting like she was counting something outside. "You should go home," You tell her flatly. You were expecting a disappointed reaction since she had been really pushy last night in her begging. It annoyed you really, that instead she turns away from the window and smiles at you. "I knew you were going to let me stay!" She exclaimed. You didn't ask why she was so sure about it, but instead shot back with even harsher tone. "I didn't say that." "You didn't have to." Yep, you were getting a headache just from talking to her. Two words, false advertising... Why was it so quiet all of a sudden? "Um, sir?" The nose bleed returned with a vengeance as you feel warm blood flow down into your eyes and onto your lips. She called you sir... Her voice sounded so soothing too... or were those the dealer's words? You were about to dismiss them as phoniness when everything changed yet again. And this time in a way you never expected. "AHHH! MY EYES!" Now you had a reason to scream. The excessive light from outside came pouring into the room, blinding you until you could no longer stand the pain. Was this is? Was god punishing you for all your sins? Was this karmic justice? Eventually the light dimmed and faded and when your eyes recovered, they looked upon a most magnificent sight... or at least it would have been if it wasn't already set on fire. "Alrighty then, enough dilly-dallying, let's crack these babies open and get ourselves some o' dat good ol' Ultra Heat!" The speaker stood in front of you, a massive... thing, made completely out of scrap. It was a rectangular shape with a cone that had what resembled eyes at the tip. Below that was a garbage bin connected by a long exhaust pipe and resting on wheels. Two short legs extended from each side to keep it balanced and a head slowly rotated on a joint as the thing assessed you. It reminded you of something you would have killed in your previous job. It didn't take long for you to realize there were more, five in total each identical to the one in front of you. The one nearest to you opened its mouth and unleashed an inhuman shriek as the others took that as a signal and converged on your location. Well, it was nice knowing you... There was no time to think as their hands had already latched onto you and anything within grabable distance. Every movement brought fresh waves of excruciating pain as you were tossed about like a ragdoll between the giants. "Pam! Dis one not burn good! Need mo' heat!" "Hey, leave dat one alone! Cannot yoo see dose are delicate?" "Me scoured fo' dem! Den let me try! Your way no work, Pam. Me take conTROLLle...!! "Knock it off over there! You break it, you buy it!" Welcome back nausea... A crushing pain suddenly struck your lower back as one of the massive abominations picked you up with one hand. Even though most of your pain receptors were already used up by this point, the faces of the creatures were probably worse. Each one twisted and morphed in various states of decay and were decorated with unnatural piercings without any care to hygiene. Standing at what would be roughly eight feet if they weren't hunched over due to the low ceiling, they resembled a drooling idiot after taking huge bong hits. Each one had their own unique variety of smells they brought with them, all of which combined to create a stink aura that could be classified as a toxic contaminant. Even though you were already expecting the worse, it was still a shock when one of the things ripped off what was left of your pants and shook them out.. "Ay! This ones nekked as a babe!, Alrighty then, lets see if da rest areples!" "Can I have his boots?" "NO! Me seeed dat first!" You didn't want to imagine what "Bootlegs 'R' Us" would look like in this world. Clothes shopping in general was probably an interesting affair. You were thrown into a swirling vortex of limbs while being jabbed with sharp objects. Occasionally, something soft would fall out which apparently these people were Fans of. Unfortunately for you, your junk was the first to be found and swiped clean off your person along with your boots. At this point, you wished for death; and unfortunately in this world, death was cheap... very cheap. Heap in more pain, spikes breaking through your flesh, anything to put an end to this nightmare meant as punishment. After what seemed like an eternity, you were thrown back into the rubbish bin which had now been turned over for your inconvenience. You lay broken and bleeding piling whatever you threw up last as it began to harden and cake on the side nearest your face. You were broken, beaten, and demoralized: a shell of your former self; but perhaps worst of all was what had happened to you. You were afflicted by a curse so dark it is impossible to describe the horror only felt by the unluckiest of souls: As you lay dying, your tainted soul entered eternal slumber, cursed to leave this dreadful place and be reborn again from one of these hideous human women... The horror doesn't end there... You had been reborn as a half breed; bound to live your life as an abomination to nature and the laws of gods and men. Welcome... to the world of dark magic and creatures of the night. If you're reading this, then I'm the one who linked this MMO subreddit a few months ago. I write this so that others may know the risks they take when involving themselves in these dark arts of unnatural magicks. These things are profane and of the devil, created only to cause great harm and misery to the world and all those who live in it. It was by them that I damned myself to this fate, and I have regretted it every single day since. The horrors I've seen... no man, beast, or God could ever conceive in their wildest nightmares. I wouldn't wish this upon my worst enemies, and you? You now possess the means of opening a portal to these very same horrors... use them wisely. Most won't believe, most won't even embrace the idea despite what you may see and experience. Even if they do ask, be sure to keep your story consistent; it'll make things easier all around. And for God's sake, don't attract attention with wild claims. I made that mistake once... just trust me on this. Best to keep a low profile, and in time you'll be able to teach those around you to do the same. Be aware that teaching others of the arts involving necromancy, daemonology, astral sorcery, etc. are considered criminal acts and punishable by death in most kingdoms and societies; however I'm sure you're smart enough to figure out when it's best not to call attention to yourself and your deeds, right? Again, use your head for something other than a portal to the Infernal Realm. Bad news indeed for you, but take some solace in the fact that you're far from alone. There are many like you out there; some good, some evil, some struggling to maintain that fine line between the two. Others have no such quarrels and relish in the act of giving in to their born nature: that of a monster thirsting for blood and power. Which are you? The world trembles at the might of the cruel tyrant, the horrifying nightmare, the great devourer of nations and builder of empires; but how far will you go? What atrocities will you commit for your eternal pursuit of power and dominance? There is one last bit of warning I must pass on to you, my unfortunate successor: never ever summon an Eternal. These are lords of the Necronium, undead beings of such immense power that they make a Dread King look like a lost and clumsy apprentice. Do not attempt any dealings with them; if you feel you absolutely must, then prepare to sacrifice millions, if not billions, of lives and a stack of human souls piles miles high... I implore you to forget this message ever appeared on your screen. Forget that I am here. Forget that the Daemons exist. Just... go back to your video games, or television, or whatever it is the kids are watching these days. Goodbye, Internet, and goodbye, Reality. I'm returning to you both, never to part from either again. Through magic, science or madness, I have bound my soul and memories in this copy of Binding Of Isaac: Rebirth. If you are reading this, then that means I am dead and the gateway to my precious treasures has been opened. I have been fascinated with Ebb Creations ever since my restless, teenage years, where I would spend hours upon hours basking in those free games that you could access without a login. Be it the simple overload-your-computer-with-fish-then-get-a-free-song games, or the gloriously disturbing shoot 'em up. Though Three Dead Trolls In Arizona will forever be one of my favorites. Who else but Ebb could create such a masterpiece? Though I find it odd that of all the creations Ebb has given to the world, it is only by means of freak accident that my mind and soul were bound to such an abomination... I still shudder to remember my time with those head-chin humans. Though perhaps they were right to loathe us so. Perhaps... You holding this game now would imply a certain sentimental value that you have towards me; I hope that's the case, for it was most certainly mutual. From beyond the grave, I love you. My gift to you is self-explanatory: a copy of the game Three Dead Trolls In Arizona. A wonderful first-person shooter, mixed with real photographs and GPS technology. The location? My old house. My old room, more specifically. The message? I'll leave that one to your interpretation. Nevertheless, I hope you have a future in game design waiting for you, perhaps even with Ebb Creations themselves! I was always a fan of their artwork: detailed sketches of innapropriate matters and a vibrant color reminding us that life is beautiful... despite our undead states. To celebrate your future in the game designing industry, I have sent over your rewards. May good health be with you. In love and loyalty, Joachim Karel Adinaldo Kierkegaard Crowley Lovecraft sits in front of his laptop, watching the credits of an iphone game called Three Dead Trolls In Arizona roll by. The atmosphere is somber. At last his watch beeps, waking him up from a trance. He walks numbly towards the large machine in the corner, preparing to fulfill his promise, then hesitates. Suddenly tears fill his eyes as he remembers his father's enourmous development of that same machine, and the slim chance that he is still alive. Decades pass. He still has his confidence... then storm clouds roll in. Will anything in his life ever remain permanent? Would any future relationship with his father be authentic? Would anything his father says be trustworthy? Could he even have committed those unholy acts? Were the videos documenting a lie? No, protests a voice deep inside. Foolish Child! Do not search for his trust, for you will never find it! Determined, he slowly seats himself in the machine, buckling the protective gear around him. After a moment of hesitation, he closes his eyes and waits. Rain pours outside the house as he descends into darkness. At last, he awakens. Sight returning to him, he finds himself sitting at a desk. In front of him lays an old desktop, a logo with the word EBB printed on it facing him. A gentle tapping is heard, and he notes that rain drums against the window to his right.. Sounds from below rain through the floor beneath him as students scurry to and fro, shuffling back and forth to different classes. Behind him, a small crowd of onlookers crowd around the doorway. His backpack lies on the ground beside him. Laughter bursts forth from the crowd, and he can hear security guards trying to rouse him. Hearing this, Kralmer rises to his feet. Still groggy from the trip, he tests his footing with a couple of steps, finding that he is able to stand steadily. With a start, he walks over to his backpack and pulls out his phone. A surge of messages and notifications hit his screen. He tries to decipher them. Then with newfound energy, he heads towards the door. "Alright, show's over," a voice says. A security guard in a blue uniform with black and yellow trim appears on the other side of the door. The crowd of onlookers disperses. "Let's go somewhere mo... Ack!" Kralmer pounces onto the man, sending them both to the floor. With a martial arts chop, he knocks out the guard. Tempted to steal the weapon, he decides it would be better serve elsewhere and tosses it aside. The entire process took two minutes and twenty seconds. With haste he continues down the hallway towards his father's office. As he pushes the doors open, he enters the room. In the middle of the room stands a brown desk. A golden nameplate proclaims: "DVLIMA". Walking quietly, he approaches it. Leaning against it is a leaf-bladed sword. Crouching down, he picks it up. It feels good in his hand. With a start, he looks at the computer. Then, taking a deep breath, he pushes the power button. Strangely it doesn't turn on. It seems that it needs a password... Suddenly he feels wild, indomitable power coursing through him. Then, he feels a shift in his mind. He recognizes it as the imposed subconscious of his father- an ID signature. If he can rewrite it, then he should be able to unlock the computer! Guiding the power under his control, he begins to rewrite the sequence. The code falls away like dominoes. To his amazement, a password appears before him: "Rebcca". Without hesitation, he types it in and hits ENTER. Then... He awakens in his pod. Scanning his surroundings, he wakes up. To the right are desks lined up in perfect order. Ahead is the door that leads back to the Eternals' Quarters, and to the left is the one to his father's office. Suddenly, he stands up, and walks out of the pod. Before he can turn to continue his search he hears someone trying to get into the room. Already tired and panicked, he climbs back into his pod and tries to get some rest. With a whirring of servos and a hiss of gases, Kralmer's pod closes in. Strangely, the chemicals from the last time the Eternal Prjkt experiments on someone flows from the pipes above onto his body. With a yawn, he closes his eyes... Cecilia was right; Dvali is trying to purge the mutants. Already he's eliminated the Albino, the Kid, the Rabbit, and... her. And now he's trying to do the same with me, Kralmer thinks. The only question is, if I'm being framed, then who? Dokkrus? Henry-X? Another Eternal I haven't seen yet? Vadic Junior, Aztorian and Garth-Vader are on his list... so is Cecilia. The Albino has been gone two years, might as well make it an even three. It only takes that long for a mutant to lose it's instinct to breathe outside of it's sealed environment at the bottom of the caverns. Who, indeed? And so Kralming waits; for he needs new allies, the quest to find those who truly care about him... "You're the offspring of traitors, eternals." Dvali yells, spit flying in Kralmer's face as Dvali holds up the poster with quotes. There were more about his mother and father, but these are the ones that still burn into Kralmer's eyes every night he tries to sleep. He nods as if agreeing, and waits for Dvali to lower his guard. Looks like he'll need allies after all. Checking the room for cameras and other witnesses, he sees none. Good. Then, nodding, he tunnels into the ground with a thought. After walking for a few minutes through the earth, his feet lands on dirt again. Thank God these Eternals don't bother placing sensors in the ground. He emerges from a manhole in the middle of the night, immediately helped up by someone... Henry-X. "Jesus, I thought you'd be taller." Kralmer says. "Sorry to disappoint" Henry-X smiles, extending a hand, which Kralmer takes. "So, what brings you here?" "Dunno." Kralmer says, and tells him about his predicament. "So yeah-- I need an escape plan." "Well... how about this?" He asks. "Come with me while I spread these posters, then at dawn we'll escape together." Kralmer nods. "Deal." The two of them fly around on brooms, plastering posters of Albino Cruel along the way. To ensure the rumors, Kralmer even throws in a little poster of Commander Salk that he found in Cecilia's room. Hopefully, that'll throw them off the trace when they find me gone. So as dawn breaks, the pair of them take to the air and fly towards an abandoned castle build by humans a very long time ago. It's high walls will make finding a good spot to perch easy for the day, and flying over it before approaching will remove any doubt that there are gunfire traps set up. It takes an hour to get there, and sets down on a rocky hilltop overlooking the fairytale castle... and it's fields of ticky-tacky armored checkpoints, machine gun pillboxes and hoverwatch towers. It looks like Fort Knox joinedmed with Alcatraz and a tiger cage. "Well... that sucks." Kralmer says. "Any ideas?" As he scans it for weak spots, however, a familiar voice cries out... "Fire!" Kralmer ducks as gunfire erupts in the castle grounds, tearing thuink! into the stones near him. "SHI-!" He looks up, to see a Albino-led Eternals rapidly scaling the walls of the castle from hemp ropes. They quickly overwhelm the guards, before tossing firebombs into the prision walls. They quickly bust out their imprisoned Albino brothers and sisters, who begin swarming... right at where he and Henry are perched on the hill. "Come on!" He yells, grabbing Henry and taking to the skies once more. The Albino prisoners immediately see them, and open fire. Henry is hit twice in the leg, and begins bleeding from his thigh as Kralmer struggles to carry him while flying. Suddenly, something smacks into Kralmer from behind, hurling him forward at a breakneck pace... then a grappling hook catches him, spinning him around and pulling him backwards. "Let's get you to the butcher's block!" Elf-Head hisses in triumph, reclaiming his sword and dragging Kralmer behind him, while Albino soldiers fire at them. Soon, Kralmer's paws are bound. "Bring out the prisoner!" An Eternal yells. "It's near dawn! We must identify it before the Dawn!" Kralmer gives a cry of surprise as Henry-X is dragged out of a nearby tent, dressed in rags and covered in blood. The poor fool is still having his false Albino Memories altered to make him fond of the cause. They've left him probably forget who he was within a few months... "Henry-X! They're using you! It's Kralmer, your eternal brother!" He yells, struggling against his chains. Henry-X nods slowly, taking in his surroundings. "Let... Let me free." He says softly, staring at the soldiers gauna him. "I should... I have to help my brother." The lead Eternal, one Captain Ratbane shakes his head slowly. "I regret this." He says. Just then, Henry takes his opportunity. He bites the closest Eternal, tearing out his throat before engaging the rest. He cries out, as much in rage as in pain, but holds his own against the Albino soldiers. He bought you the precious time you needed. You rip your limbs free of their chains with a single pull, and toss a crate at one oflier, head-butting another backwards. Elf-Head doesn't react quickly enough to keep you from getting his sword, and you use brute force to beat down hell. He starts to choke you with his whip, but you apply the blunt side of a sword quickly, forcing him to relinquish it. Then, Ratbane steps in and smashes you across the face with a bolt, using his crossbow as a bat. You stumble back.... Toppling off the castle walls... right before a soldier grabs your leg... "Give me your hand, quickly!" You look up, to see a Albino soldier extending a hand for you. You reach for it, as you see Elf-Head's eyes narrow into a glare. Having seen your reaction to his potion, he immediately figures out who you are, despite the cowl. He raises his pistol slowly... taking the shot as the Albino tries to pull you up. A golden bullet directly to the heart. "No!" The Albino cries as you fall. You're going to hit the ground pretty hard. The fall kills you instantly, but not before the Albino and your brother reach your corpse. Captain Ratbane picks it up. "Tell Dad he was an honorable opponent. We'll wrap him in their flag, don't worry." "One day, our children will learn of The Albino's treachery. One day." Your brother says bitterly, as he leaves you to the crows. The Albino goads his soldiers on as they set fire to Green Eye's temporary camp, burning your body, and those who still resist alive inside.

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