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I was relistening to MAG 56 when suddenly it occurred to me that Martin was in no way victimized by Jon's shouting, he might have been very well into it. Hense the sleepy redraw of the Marina Diamandis meme

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been a couple years. still surprised they never gave the shakespeare murder nerd a Super Edgy™️ ‘out, out damned spot’ moment so i made it myself

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So despite the fact that Anthony Partridge is a teacher/professor of some sort in almost all of my fics and AUs (including several that I haven’t written anything for and might not ever write things for), I somehow frequently manage to completely forget that he was also canonically a high school math teacher before he worked for ODAR. Here are some thoughts about that era, because can you IMAGINE being in Anthony Partridge’s calc class?

Anthony was definitely the sort of person who planned on “””seeing the world””” after he graduated college (starry-eyed, that one, much as he likes to position himself as the voice of reason), but somehow he wound up back in his home town for a few months, which turned into a few years, which may have been a lifetime if he hadn’t begun the predictive algorithms project and gotten himself noticed.

But before predictive algorithms, and even in the early days of the project (back when it was just him scribbling numbers during his lunch break or late at night when he should have been grading papers), Anthony’s life revolved around imparting knowledge to the next generation.

(”The next generation”—some of those kids were less than a decade younger than him, had been his neighbors, children he’d babysat, family friends invited over on summer evenings. But already he felt so much older, so distanced, felt like he’d learned so much since when he sat where they did now.)

(He’d learned nothing, not yet.)

And the thing is—Anthony was good at it. Teaching, that is. He liked it, too, was passionate about “the future of public education in America!”

Sure, he’d go off on tangents in his lectures, and a lot of what he talked about wasn’t exactly necessary for kids to know, but it was interesting. Anthony was under no illusions when it came to the way most of his students felt about mathematics. He saw it as his job to help them engage with the subject in ways that made sense, made it feel worth learning. And if that meant saying “to HECK with the core curriculum, we’re talking about [cool development in the Math World] today,” then so be it.

(A quick aside: Anthony did not swear at school. He was even more cautious about it there than he was in the early days of aP. At least…he never swear at school if we exclude The Library Incident.)

Most of the students referred to him Partridge or Dr. P, but to some—the ones who had taken more than one of his courses, the seniors and the math kids and the students who had never been good with numbers but feel like they finally understand them after being in his class for a semester or two—he was “Tony.”

(”Tony,” said in that peculiar, occasionally mocking but mostly appreciative tone used only by high schoolers calling teachers by their first names)

The only other people allowed to call Anthony “Tony” are a few select family members and, in variations of the timeline where they meet, Mateo Morales (who just can’t be stopped, and probably also uses the name “Bentin Quarlowe” to Ben/Quentin’s face).

(Some of the Plasticity kids definitely also call him “Tony” in timelines where they know him; they remind him of his old students, and sometimes he forgets that it isn’t just another classroom, that none of those children are there by choice.)

I know that overhead projectors weren’t being used in schools back when Anthony was teaching but let’s be anachronistic for a quick sec here to imagine a scenario: Anthony Partridge, who will later in life literally build time machines, utterly incapable of operating a projector and refusing to acknowledge it. The record for the most time he ever wasted in class trying to get one to work before somebody intervened was 22 minutes.

The next day, his students walked in and the projector was in pieces on his desk. (”Today we’re going to figure out how these things work. A little learning experience for me along with all of you. Extra credit to whoever can correctly assemble it before someone notices it’s missing.”)

Anthony’s office hours were whenever a student needed help, even if it meant he was missing lunch, or staying late, or coming in at the crack of dawn.

Sometimes Helen just showed up at the school. All of the students who call Anthony “Tony” knew her and loved her.

There was a running tally of how many kids had accidentally called Anthony “Dad.”

There was a running tally of how many kids had purposefully called Anthony “Dad.”

Anthony didn’t care if people ate in class as long as they were still paying attention. He had to explain to the principal that just because the advanced stats class organized a weekly brunch potluck didn’t mean they weren’t learning.

(The explanation would have gone better if Anthony hadn’t been holding a half-eaten bagel at the time.)

Dungeons & Dragons wasn’t around at the time, but if it had been, Anthony absolutely would have hosted one-shot sessions for his smallest classes and gone through all sorts of hoops to justify it as relevant. Instead, he hosted occasional class strategy games, usually after exams. 

Being Anthony Partridge’s TA was a coveted position and the seniors usually ended up fighting for it. 

He absolutely had a petty interdepartmental feud going, probably with a teacher in the history department, and would pull kids out of his rivals’ classes to retake tests and whatnot whenever he got the chance.

Anthony wore the absolute tackiest suits and jackets imaginable to work. Somehow, his ties were even worse.

If he ran out of room on the chalkboard he was not above drawing with chalk on other handy surfaces (he can’t erase that yet, some of the students are still taking notes). 

He never ever won a teacher of the year award, or any equivalent, but one time a group of students presented him with a plaque they’d cobbled together in shop class bearing the inscription “#1 Math Man” and it hung above his desk for years. (He even took it to Polvo, where it mostly stayed in a box. After he went to the Blackroom, it eventually wound up in Helen’s possession, along with some of his other personal belongings.)

Although he never knew it, Anthony was one of the people who inspired Sally to become a professor. 

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Now presenting everyone’s favorite bisexual time traveling lemon drop distributor, Nikhil Sharma

Took me forever but I have to say I’m rather delighted by how this came out!

Also thanks to my co-worker for existing and unknowingly being an excellent model, you will (hopefully) never know about this but thank you anyway

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@arsparadoxica GOD DAMN IT

If there’s one thing I learned since I signed up on 08/30/2013 9:30:28 PM, it’s that #ars paradoxica takes up too much of my time.

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my name is sally grissom and i think i accidentally invented audio diary

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Guess! Who’s! Married!

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@estherroberts

Channukah prompts

bc i’m tired of seeing christmas fic written about jewish characters! anyway here are some prompt ideas, goy inclusive even. anyone is free to use/rb!

It’s an hour until first night candle lighting. Person A and Person B reach for the last pack of candles at the store at the same time

The neighborhood loses power. Person A, who is not Jewish, sees that their neighbor Person B has a lot of candles going and stops in for some light. (Surprise! It’s Channukah!)

Somehow person A gets roped into cooking all the latkes for a Channukah party, which is fine, until Person B decides to tell them they’re making them wrong. OR person B starts eating too many OR Person B causes a huge mess

There are accusations of dreidel cheating—which means Person A and Person B have to play with someone else’s dreidel and an audience for bragging rights. Trash talking encouraged.

Person A, a goy, was invited to Person B’s Channukah party but Person B didn’t think they’d attend—now it’s Channukah and Person A clearly has no idea what’s going on and it’s kind of endearing how clueless they are

“Your latkes gave me food poisoning” “no it was the horrid sour cream you insisted on putting on my perfectly good latkes”

You accidentally caught your Christmas sweater on fire at my Channukah party while inspecting the channukiah. we put it out immediately and I’m trying not to laugh but oh no you think I’m laughing at you, not at the ridiculousness of the situation

This is a Bring Your Own Channukiah party what do you mean you didn’t bring a Channukiah/candles i guess we can share

“Channukah is about the miracle of the oil” “Channukah is about military victory” “Channukah is about eating fried foods, clearly”

you got sufganiyot jelly all over your shirt and now you need to borrow something of mine to wear this could get awkward

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Dr. Sally Grissom from arsParadoxica

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...im sorry Mischa you hhhHWHAT

Seeing tumblr thirst for Ezra Miller is so weird to me

I went to summer camp with that kid

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But life can wait for one night, Juno.

Come here.

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I have a habit of waking up my boyfriend with news alerts but I think this morning I’ll let him sleep just a little bit longer before mentioning we’re officially back in the Cold War

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different on each nail, as distracting as possible so people look at his hand gestures instead of paying attention to what hes saying, because cha boy is constantly lying his ass off but he cant lie for SHIT

QUICK, what color would Taako paint his nails?

halloween is TOMORROW and I need to be ACCURATE

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[ID: Sketch of Brad and Leon sitting against each other at the small office table. Brad is a large orc with green skin and long black ponytail. He is pinching the bridge of his nose and looking down. Leon is a small gnome with green skin and absurdly long white beard. He is crying, his head on the table, on a high office chair. There are cactus  and and pens on the table. end id]

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every single fucking day I think about the TAZ lines that changed my life. “You’re going to have to fight… and you’re going to win!” “You’re going to be… amazing.” “See, there’s magic in a bard’s song.” “when someone leaves your life, those exits are not made equal.” “Don’t let them forget me.” “Those are the arms that have held my wife.” “Merle, I… I tell the trees when to shed their leaves, and I make every piece of fruit taste the way that it tastes, and I taught every blade of grass in the ground where to grow. Did you really think I had forgotten about you?” “What if you didn’t have to worry and could just cut out the bullshit and do good wrecklessly?” “Duck Newton, I… I’m sorry.” “Junebug.” “Are you my friend?” “Huh. I feel… sad.” “Break the bonds, Merle—“ “I think you choose joy.”

Taz is one of those things I’ll remember not just because it’s funny, or it brought me a lot of joy, but because of the way it fucking changed me. Taz balance taught me so much about myself and the world and what it means to be me. I could be amazing. I could fight. I could win. Even if I felt hopeless. Even if I spent my life feeling hopeless. It only takes one moment.

Taz taught me my body is important and special and it has all the memories of everything I ever touched or felt or made or painted. My body can be modified but never replaced. I should take care of it.

Joy is infectious. It can save people. It can save me. I can be miserable because of my situation, but I can always choose to swim towards the sun, even if I don’t know which way is up yet. Even if I’ve done terrible things, even if I’ve drowned myself in everything that makes me feel sad and shitty, there’s still hope. I can go down fighting. And that’s okay. My feelings don’t hold me. My depression doesn’t hold me. I fucking choose joy.

Taz taught me my destiny is my own.

Taz taught me about love. It taught me about friendship. It taught me love is slow, it is kind, it is paranoid, it is afraid, it is gentle, it is a storm, it is… so much. So many things. It is a force of nature. Nature is an act of love. Friendship makes you blind. Friendship lets you see the worst in people, the best in people, what you want to see in people.

Taz taught me I could survive.

I always thought, just like Magnus, I’d go down in a blaze of glory. Fighting for something. When griffin and Travis were talking about Magnus’ death, I laughed to myself and thought “he’ll probably be fighting a dragon or something.” and I was so shocked to hear Travis say “I think Magnus dies peacefully.” I saw so much of myself in him, wreckless, dangerous, hurting, alone. It was such a shock to hear that I could die… peacefully. And be old. I can’t see myself living past twenty. Not quite yet. But I hope that’s what I get when I die. Peace.

There aren’t enough words to describe what TAZ means to me. Not enough words, never enough time. Too many feelings. But this is a start. And I’ll never forget Balance.

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yknow how ned looks like brian blessed but most depictions are NOW brian blessed? for your consideration and amusement, brian blessed aT THE PEAK OF HIS CAREER, AS PRINCE VULTAN

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Bridget: Hey everyone, don't freak out

Sally: Why would we freak out?

Bridget: Because I just bailed Petra out of the police station

Bridget: She got pulled over for running a stop sign, on a motorcycle without plates or a VIN number, wearing a jacket that says "Pussy Magnet"

Carmen: What?

Sally: My god! That's a lot for me to process