#(so i could teach other students how to navigate the school's systems and how things work)

[feinstone]

Congratulations on graduating! That must be an amazing feeling.

thank youuuu <3

technically i won't be graduating until the end of the year because i finished past the cut off date for my uni's mid-year graduation ceremonies, but i'm happy to have finished regardless.

it's been a really difficult and long process, and i had to delay finishing my degree by 2 years due to a long string of Life Events (Not Fun) that got in the way of me completing the last 2 courses i had left in my degree as of mid-2022, so i'm glad i finally managed to get to the end of a semester without some random bullshit stopping me for the first time in several years lmao.

i dropped out of high school after i got sick, and i thought i was gonna have to drop out of uni too, despite all the work i've put in to pull my life together. it really means a lot to me that i managed to make it through to the end this time, even though it was tough to keep my head above water sometimes.

[majycka]

hi quick random question, do you think Kyoto students and utahime especially her dynamic with Gojo could have been utilised a bit better in shibuya because they have potential if they were fleshed out.

what are your thoughts i just feel there could have been potential.

There certainly was a potential anon!

Reading this linkspooky anon ask, she said that the mechamuru traitor plot line could've been fleshed out more to point out the flaws of the school system(which gege isn't really interested in exploring) thus also allowing us to explore the differences between teacher Gojo and Utahime plus their kids. I agree with what the anon and she had to say so imma try to explain it further.

I know canon told us that Utahime was able to figure out the mole via process of elimination but if we were to really to draw out the traitor plot line, I can imagine Utahime, the investigator, digging deeper into the motive on why possible Mechamaru even considered doing it. She's an attentive teacher afterall so I wouldn't doubt she probably cares about why her kid ends up like that. In this way, we get to see the differences between how Gojo and Utahime treat their kids as well as how the school system using these kids as child soldiers affects them. Through this way, we get to see Gojo and Utahime interact more. I’d dare say that Utahime will probably call out the way how absent and “sink-or-swim” Gojo’s ways of teaching are. I mean, it does work for his students, but sometimes he ignores a crucial and obvious part that they are STILL kids.

That’s the whole point of Nanami’s care for Yuuji who’s originally under Gojo’s wing, and how Yuuji expressed that it’s Nanami underestimating his skills when in fact, Yuuji is STILL a child, and Nanami, as the adult, has to protect him.

Gojo is not too aware of this fact that they ARE still child soldiers because he is raised in the same system afterall. However, with Utahime’s caring, and doesn’t-take-any-bullshit-from-Gojo personality, there’s no doubt she’ll call the fuck out of him. 

Moving on to the actual students themselves, I actually like how Gege kept the Kyoto kids lowkey in this arc and when they showed up, they were a team (even Todo included with his help with Yuuji). I'd like it more if we were shown how the Kyoto kids navigated the culling game arc because the game could have forced Kyoto plus Tokyo to cooperate with each other. Maybe even under Utahime's wing because most of the adults got nerfed in Shibuya. Also, Kyoto kids offer the weaker pov things in the series, and I'm all out for underdog characters. There’s just lots of inner conflict going on when you’re in a world who favors the strong while the weak gets hammered down. 

Moreover, another thematic potential I can think for the kyoto-tokyo dynamic is sharing comradery on entering adulthood. This is somehow shown with Kamo & Maki vs Naoya fight, and imo, this fight is a good CANON example that "at the very verryyy least"  fulfilled the potential of the Kyoto-Tokyo dynamic.

More yapping under the cut cuz this is actually one of my fav fights in CG arc >.<

The goodwill event shows the battling philosophies of the schools, however it also shows how complementary they are..Kyoto wants to be understood in a lashing out way but Tokyo merely responded with callousness to it and has the "who cares what others think" mindset.

Nobara and Momo fight on misogyny

Mechamaru expressing his disability with panda

Megumi vs Kamo "We are the same"

Maki and Mai "why didn't you left the Zenin clan"

I mean Tokyo ain't wrong about their individualistic mindset but at the same time, it just sounded unsympathetic especially when all those kids are all in the SAME boat being child soldiers under the jjk ruthless system. Kyoto kids unhealthily lashes out but they aren't wrong about it either cuz it's a reality that they suffer a lot from this system. These openness of Kyoto Tech however did make them closer like mutamiwa and kyoto girls (mai, miwa, momo).

Overall, Tokyo needed the Kyoto comrade nature while at the same time Kyoto needed the independence of Tokyo kids and in that kamo-maki vs Naoya fight, it showed us how these philosophies made a great working teamwork for them...

Recap to that fight, Naoya shows up as a cursed spirit and boom maki has to deal with it now luckily Kamo is there to help. With the help of Kamo's teamwork, Maki was bought some time to recover (deal with those samurai and sumo duo) and boom defeat him. 

Kamo sympathised with Maki’s situation after the fight. Even back in the fight with Megumi, Kamo seems to be one trying to seek understanding from kids under the big clans because he kinda understands the pressure they are under. Despite barely interacting on screen, it's no wonder 100% Kamo backed up Maki. Moreover, what makes this fight pair up fulfilling is the parallels they have despite being different ends of the spectrum. They even opened up about their family problems, and this is coming from Maki who tends to keep to herself.

"Don’t fall in the same rut."

Maki opens up and give advice in communicating more to their family because Maki regretted not doing the same for their mom, and we cut to throwback of the Kamo’s mom was that she named him Noritoshi just to spite the Kamo clan.

I've seen criticism about this part. It's pretty shitty the mom named her kid practically Hitler,  abandoned the same kid, and expects the kid himself to come back, and I agree with the criticism. However, looking at it from a different angle, it's shown at the same time that jjk is a coming of age series, kids growing into adulthood aka shouldering the shit that adults have failed to do...

Adults can be shit at doing their job to their kids like what Kamo's mom did to Noritoshi. Like c'mon mom! you could have done your job as an adult and be the one to approach your kid or pull him out of the clan situation but no. Sometimes the Reality is fully accepting that parents are shitty sometimes and the kid of the situation has to push themselves to be mature and take over the adult's work, and as for Kamo, that is having to be the one to find his mother to find closure and from then on, he will be the one to decide what will be next.

[nothorses]

Hi I have a question/discussion? about public schools and ik this is your area of expertise so I thought I'd ask your opinion. When I ponder the problems of schooling, I think about things like: how we value grades more than actual learning and information retention; how late work policies aren't representative of how the real world works and needlessly puts extra stress on students; how we don't give students that need it the additional support they require to succeed; how we overemphasize success on the first try rather than allowing multiple attempts, which isn't reflective of how to appropriately navigate life; how we require students to be unnaturally quiet, still, and non-disruptive, which is genuinely difficult for a lot of kids, especially younger ones, and can impact their ability to learn; how we give them too much work for too many subjects at once...

And it genuinely feels like the root of a lot of these problems, aside from teaching philosophy, is a simple lack of manpower- we don't have enough competent teachers for the amount of kids we have in public schools. A lot of these problems, in my opinion, don't result from teachers or administrators who have a meanspirited or incorrect philosophy about teaching, but from the fact that it is impossible to manage an ideal classroom environment in a room of 30 kids to 1 adult (or 2 adults if the teacher's lucky enough to have an assistant). We require kids to be silent and still because in a room of 30 children if all of them got to fidget and move around, no one would be able to focus on the lesson or even hear it. We have late work policies because the teacher needs to be able to get a move on on the curriculum and can't spend forever on a few students for one topic. Etc etc

I struggled immensely in public schools, so much so that continuing to go to school there irreparably damaged my mental health. I was lucky enough to get transferred to a private school with a max of 4 kids per class after being hospitalized when I became a danger to myself. The learning environment there was so much better and it pretty much solved every single issue I ever had with school; I was able to build a personal relationship with all my teachers and I learned more effectively there than I had anywhere else. The teachers also had room to diverge from the curriculum as needed and move as quickly or as slowly as the class required, so we could spend more time on important, interesting, and difficult topics and skip past the easy ones within a week. My history teacher was able to make his own unit on greek philosophical history just because he wanted to and we were all interested in it. I really think the small class sizes was what made all the difference.

How accurate is that assessment? And is there really a solution other than simply more people going into teaching so we can have smaller classes?

That's a huge chunk of it, yeah- large class sizes cause a lot of those problems, and smaller class sizes create a lot of flexibility for teachers that we currently lack in the public ed system.

The thing about it, though, is that those policies are often not even up to the individual teacher. They do usually have control over late work policies, accommodations they can personally offer, and how much fidgeting they'll allow; but they often don't get a say in things like curriculum, the physical classroom they teach in, school policy, and certainly not in standardized testing and the prep that comes along with it.

Education as a whole is designed to be "optimized", in a way, in order to run as effectively as possible on a shoestring budget.

You'll often see that schools in wealthier areas tend to have smaller class sizes and better learning environments on the whole, and that's because school funding is partially local property taxes, and they have the money to hire more teachers, reduce class sizes, fund classroom furniture and accommodation tools, and give them more control.

But even then, they still have to follow district- and state-mandated curriculum requirements, they will definitely still have to go through standardized testing, and their schools will still be limited by the larger, system-wide roots in that sort of "optimization".

How many students can we educate? Where can we best put our money to support learning? is that gonna be 24-32 new exercise ball chairs and a box of fidget toys, or is it gonna be new learning materials with updated content, informed by modern learning science?

These aren't obvious choices, these are genuinely difficult questions to answer. A lot of people spend a lot of time doing research and writing papers and having discussions in attempts to answer them.

A lot of future-teacher education that I've been through has talked about what we as teachers can do with the tools we're given, and less: democratic classroom environments, anti-racist and culturally-responsive teaching practices, trauma-informed care of students and classroom culture, critical literacy and student empowerment, and removing unnecessary access barriers (late work, testing, etc.).

As a student teacher, I worked with my teacher to redesign his whole grading structure to be more equitable- all according to what I had been learning at my university. But according to the school, I still had to take attendance, mark tardies and absences, and make sure only one of my (high school!!!) students was out of the room at a time. And I felt like a fucking warden.

It's not just that we need more people to go into teaching; I assure you, lots of people want to teach. Lots of people love teaching. And there are things we need to address to enable them to teach: teachers usually go into debt in order to get their degrees and certifications, and the whole field pays so little that they are extremely unlikely to ever pay off that debt without significant outside help. You have to be able to afford to teach.

Not to mention it's an extremely emotionally intensive- even traumatizing- job, and access to mental health support is reliant upon income that, again, does not exist.

We need to pay teachers more; not because They Deserve It (they do, and so does everyone else on the fucking planet), but because if we don't, we won't have teachers. They will leave the profession, they won't enter it in the first place (I'm getting higher degrees partially so I can go into education in a better-paying position), or they'll burn out, undergo trauma, won't have the care they need- and that impacts the health, wellness, and safety of students, too. And that means more funding toward education.

The other piece of it is, again, school culture; schools being run on these shoestring budgets means they have to answer these difficult catch-22 "what's more important" questions, and those answers will never be good enough. It will never be "good" to choose better text books over fidgets, or to choose engaging readings over experiential learning opportunities.

Schools- not districts, not higher-ups in the system- should have enough money that they can run the way they want to run, that their students need them to run, without having to worry about whether this field trip to a science museum is going to deprive other students of filling, nutritious school lunches.

I know "fund education" isn't the most controversial take here, but I do think it's important to emphasize just how much of an impact that has on the system overall: not just the day-to-day decisions, not even just the teachers, but the culture and the fundamental structure of our schooling.

[harrydracobang]

Harry/Draco Big Bang Week #1 Round-Up

Below you'll find a round-up of all of our amazing submissions that have posted during our first week of @harrydracobang​! 

We hope you’ve been enjoying all the novel-length Drarry and amazing art so far, and we want to thank everybody who has been following the fest and supporting our participants with comments, kudos and recs! You are amazing and we know for certain our fantastic artists and writers appreciate all your support! <3

The next fic will go up tomorrow, and we still have one more week of amazing fic and art, but for now, check our first week below to make sure you didn’t miss anything. Don’t forget to leave some love for our participants as you make your way through the submissions!

Make Yourself written by @anyaelizabethfic​ with art by @zigster-ao3​ [Explicit, 103k] Summary : Harry just wants to be safe within the freshly painted walls of Grimmauld Place, with his friends around him. But when he hears Draco Malfoy has been spotted at the local soup kitchen, he can't help but encourage a different type of stray to come under his roof. -Zigster's Tumblr Art Post 1 -Zigster’s Tumblr Art Post 2

sweeten to taste written by @bigblackdogfic​ with art by @babooshkart​ [Explicit, 51k] Summary: It starts with Draco's buckwheat crepes with honeyed oranges. Or maybe it starts with his porridge with toasted walnuts and homemade apple butter. Or perhaps it starts with the cinnamon buns Draco made from scratch with mascarpone icing. Harry just knows he's hungry for more. -Babooshkart’s Tumblr Art Post

Graceless Heart written by @orange-peony​ with art by @chuckalart​ and @secretartlair​ [Explicit, 132k] Summary: Harry is lost and broken after the war. He has gone to countless funerals, broken up with Ginny, moved back into Grimmauld Place—which feels darker and dirtier than ever before despite how much he tries to fix it. He feels lonely and desperate, but he won’t ask for help, and he still can’t cry.

When he agreed to help the Aurors at Malfoy Manor over the summer, he thought that he would be breaking dark curses. Harry never thought that he would actually spend his days sorting out dusty books with Draco Malfoy, or teaching him how to cook.

Little by little, as they begin to navigate their life post-war, Harry and Draco become intimate…in more ways than Harry could have ever expected.

See How They Run written by @harryromper​ with art by @inveigler81​ [Mature, 51k] Summary: Harry’s living above the shop in Knockturn Alley, working as a private detective after a failed stint as an Auror, when he gets an invitation from Luna Lovegood to the last place he could have imagined: Malfoy Manor.

As Luna and Draco’s friends gather for the weekend, it isn’t only memories of wartime violence that surface. It seems that a lot of the guests have things they want to hide, including murder.

It falls to Harry to solve the mystery, and while he’s at it, to untangle his feelings for Draco Malfoy once and for all. -Inveigler81′s Tumblr Art Post 1 -Inveigler81′s Tumblr Art Post 2

Brave Though The Stars They Make Me written by @dwell-the-brave​ with art by @puncertainty​ [Mature, 108k] Summary: After the events at the end of his Sixth Year, Draco Malfoy has been kept all but prisoner in his childhood home, Malfoy Manor. Alone, terrified, and desperate for some way out, he begins to have strange dreams - dreams of Harry Potter. Are they a trick of his mind? Or are they a way to change his fate, and a chance at redemption? -Puncertainty's AO3 Art Post -Puncertainty's Tumblr Art Post

Nor All That Glisters written by @sweet-s0rr0w​ with art by @deancebra-art​ and @fantalf​ [Explicit, 110k] Summary: Lonely and frustrated on house arrest, with no prospects for the future, Draco begins brewing Felix Felicis in an attempt to improve his lot. Just in the short term, of course. He isn’t a total idiot.

But before long he finds himself with a thriving business, a nice flat, some actual (albeit irritatingly Gryffindor) friends, and a very satisfying sex life. What’s more, no-one is hexing him in the street. And Harry Potter is single, and gorgeous, and giving Draco decidedly interested looks.

Stop taking the Felix? You must be joking… -Fantalf’s Tumblr Art Post

spins madly on written by asofthaven with art by @iaooa​ and Monotremata [Teen, 56k] Summary: As part of his probation, Draco Malfoy returns to Hogwarts to complete his N.E.W.T.s. Gobstones, the political machinations of the Hogwarts student body, and one Harry James Potter captures Draco’s attention instead. -Iaooa’s Tumblr Art Post

Chasing Shadows written by @manixzen with art by @avaeryn [Explicit, 93k] Summary: The murder of Lucius Malfoy seems impossible—no cause of death, no traces of spell-work, no potions in his system. The only leads Harry and his partner have are the trail of missing wizards the deeper they go. That and the help of the victim’s estranged son who now spends his time bartending at a queer-friendly Muggle pub.

A case fic featuring a closeted Harry Potter, an out-and-proud, tattooed Draco Malfoy, and a murder mystery that seems to lead to more questions than answers.

Home Truths written by @skeptiquewrites​ with art by @fantalf​ [Explicit, 67k] Summary: In the off-season Harry decided to fix up Grimmauld Place and found that Draco Malfoy was the only person who could help him. A demanding career and unrelenting press scrutiny were enough to deal with before Harry added a house with a mind of its own, family history, and a tense, flirty, complicated relationship with his childhood nemesis to the mix.

On professional Quidditch, magical houses, hard choices, Life Debts, and inconvenient truths. -Fantalf’s Tumblr Art Post

The Lost Art of Keeping Secrets written by @iero0​ & @ladderofyears​ with art by @egggnoodles​ and @faevorite-main-blog​ [Explicit, 287k] Summary: Hogwarts is the very last place that Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy want to return to after the war. The Castle feels claustrophobic and stifling. Both feel trapped within its walls.

Harry is traumatised by the war, by his sudden breakup from Ginny, and by the knowledge that his friends all know what they want to do with their life.

Meanwhile Draco is reeling. He has narrowly escaped an Azkaban prison sentence and is struggling under the strict rules of his probation. He doesn't know where his mother is, and finds himself a pariah among the other students.

The last thing that either student wants is mandatory Mind Healing. What has happened to them feels so big and devastating, that writing to a stranger feels farcical.

Even so, they are not given a choice.

Harry and Draco are both given a shared magical diary, and soon they begin writing letters to an anonymous fellow student.

Their letters, terse at first, grow longer as the days pass. Before long, each wizard confesses their secrets and their fantasies, their wishes and their dreams.

What will happen when their true identities are exposed? Will their vulnerable new relationship be destroyed before it has even begun? -Egggnoodles Tumblr Art Post

A Sense of Scale written by @fantalf​ with art by @dragontamerdame​  [Mature, 71k] Summary: Potter merely shrugged, as if it was nothing. After all, it wasn’t his life’s work. “You can try to win it over.” Draco snapped, “What?!” “The school. Win it over.” “How the fuck do I win a school over, Potter?! It’s a bloody school, not a person!” And he didn’t win people over that easily, overall. “I don’t know. Use your charms. I know you to be very inventive.” —— In which Draco spends an obscene amount of time thinking of new nicknames for The Living Git, lying to himself and using his charms to seduce an extremely uncooperative sentient school.

Independent Art: Homage by @cambiodipolvere​ [General] Summary: A space between dangling feet, less than a foot.

[acertainmoshke]

Aaaay, happy STS, Moshke! :D I'm aiming for To Die Among the Stars here, but this would be just as funny with Legends of Halara too: If your main characters were sucked into our world, The Devil Is a Part-Timer-style, how well would they fare? What would they do to survive, and most importantly, who is working at McDonald's?

Oh goodness. I’m trying to flesh out TDATS more so basically all my answers for the foreseeable future are going to be about that cast.

I’m going to pick a few random secondary characters for this one:

1. Acorn—I think xe would actually like a lot about our modern world. Xe is ADHD af and would enjoy the fast paced social media as well as actually having a way to connect with other people without needing to go out and find them. Xe wouldn’t mind working in a restaurant, with its fast pace and all, but would be much better on the cooking side of things than customer service.

2. Nozomu—he was a small league wrestler in the future, but I think he would enjoy being some kind of kids’ sport coach in our world. He would enjoy how official things are, the required background checks and official programs both for social aid and community involvement that are mostly lacking in his world.

3. Kitty—she pays more attention to grander social trends than most of the others and would know that our modern era is right before the great shift where we finally got our shit together, saved the Earth, and had about 50 great years before society slid back towards what they know. She would be fascinated from a historical perspective and glad to know that people can be as kind and loving now as ever—but also very disappointed to find our world almost as inaccessible as hers. With one major difference, of course—all schools must be accessible for all students. She would like to teach sped I think, but would never manage to finish an actual school program without getting bored, so would probably end up as a writer and making a lot of YouTube videos about people and society.

4. Twig—oh gosh. She doesn’t do well in any setting ever, but she also doesn’t care much. She would get a kick out of social media and immediately watch all the cute animal videos, followed by binging YouTube videos teaching every kind of skill she could reasonably practice, just because. She was a mechanic and would be fine still being a mechanic, except in our world I think she would get fired for her poor customer service and liberties taken with what not to try on engines.

5. Du—well, for one thing he could get proper care for his depression. I mean, if he could navigate the system and get insurance to pay (there is some potential tragic humor there). He would love the variety of even low paying jobs. I think he would like to work in a fiber arts store otherwise staffed by old ladies, and they think he’s just adorable. He’s not the most experienced knitter there but he will keep trying on a new style until he has it down, and in this one area he’s surprisingly good at customer service.

6. Zjav—he’s the one actually working at McDonald’s. He’s the technically-good-customer-service-but-in-a-deadpan-way type. He makes his coworkers laugh, sometimes on purpose and sometimes with his random cluelessness.

Also, I like to imagine all of them trying to navigate a modern grocery store. It’s not like they don’t go shopping in the future, but it’s very different.

[celestialarchon]

Celebrating 600+ Followers

i can’t believe i’m writing another celebration post less than two days after my first

this has been rotting in my head all day and might become a series in the future

Genshin Impact x F!Reader | Modernish AU | warning: it’s cute!

“I hope you don’t mind, we gave you a student teacher as well. It’s only fair since you were given the most troublesome class,” Headmistress Ping smiled at you warmly.

“Ah,” You nodded, “Thats fine.”

The elder woman patted your back, “Genshin Academy is truly lucky to have you. Your track record is impressive and you have an extremely rare vision. I think you’ll get along fairly well with Mr. Aether, he’s a good kid.”

You smiled at her, honored by her words. Genshin Academy, the elite and prestigious school, had taken you as a teacher. The education system was impressive and diverse, teaching elementary to college aged students. You were given the first year elementary school students and now a student teacher as well. No matter how troublesome the class may be, having assistance would be appreciated. If it didn’t, the extraordinary pay would make up for any issues you had.

The older woman walked you to the doors of the building and then left you to prepare yourself. Clutching your class roster, you stepped in and made your way to your classroom. When you entered your room, you were greeted by a young blonde man. He introduced himself as your assistant teacher and made some small talk before leaving you to prepare for the day. You appreciated his thoughtfulness as you tidied the room up a bit, smiling at your class pet, Dvalin.

Soon enough, the children poured in and greeted each other and you. Aether returned to the room, beaming at each child. You took attendance, ticking off each name as they all answered. Qiqi, Teucer, Klee, and Diona seemed to be the most lively of them all. They were also marked with asterisks as the worst “troublemakers” but so far things were running smoothly.

“Welcome, my name is Miss Bright,” You beamed at the children, “Let’s have a good year, okay?”

“Wow, you’re very pretty Miss Bright!” An energetic Teucer exclaimed.

Klee squealed, “I’m so excited!”

Diona scoffed and Qiqi nodded in agreement. You went through the motions, following your detailed curriculum perfectly. There were two separate general subjects, academics and control. One was simple enough, teaching the kids by the book. The other was all about assisting your students in controlling and growing their abilities as vision users.

By the end of the day you were exhausted. Soon enough the week flew by. As Friday came, you were exhausted. Most people had made these kids out to be terrible and mischievous, and in some ways they were. Yet, you had already grown very fond of all of them. They were much more tame than you had expected, save for some explosions and outbursts. Now you were stuck as some of the children were late being picked up.

“I hope my big brother gets a girlfriend like Miss Bright. She’s so nice and pretty.” You overheard Teucer whisper to the last three kids.

“Oh yeah!” Klee’s whispers weren’t whispers at all, “She’s like a princess. My brother is a prince. I wish he’d marry Miss Bright.”

“Tch,” Diona intervened, “Honestly, I wish Miss Bright had adopted me instead of that annoying man at home.”

“Qiqi thinks Xiao and Zhongli would like Miss Bright a lot.”

You giggled at their words, they were too sweet. Aether chuckled overhearing them as well and waving you off.

“Go finish up your paperwork, I’ll take care of them.” The cheerful blonde nearly pushed you out the door.

You sighed and made your way to the office up front. Paperwork was such a drag, not nearly as fun as over hearing those brats gossiping. The paperwork ended up taking up the rest of your time. By the time you were done you wanted to scream. As you left the office, a handful of coworkers approached you and invited you out. No was not an option as they insisted you let them treat you.

You were exhausted as they led you to their favorite bar. Aether followed like a lost puppy and you sighed.

“You can’t drink can you?” You questioned him.

“Ahhh,” Aether started but was interrupted.

“It’s fine! I know the owner. He doesn’t have to drink he can just babysit us.” Venti exclaimed.

Poor Aether couldn’t get out of it either. Once you entered the bar, things blurred. Immediately, your coworkers bought you many drinks. Venti was especially aggressive about drinking. The short music teacher was babbling to an extremely handsome bartender with vibrant red hair.

The scarlet haired man seemed to be a bit annoyed by the drunken chaos ensuing. Amber was giggling crazily and the school nurse, Baizhu had cornered a tall man with amber eyes, and Ganyu was petting you. Aether was awkwardly fidgeting, stone cold sober. Eventually, your poor student teacher ended up having to call a cab and carry you home. He was forced to try and navigate to your cozy apartment by unlocking your phone with your drunken face. It took way too many attempts.

You awoke the next day with a pounding headache and over a hundred notifications. The night was still a blur so you proceeded to try and take care of yourself. Aether was kind enough to go out and buy you some pain medicine and left it on your counter with your keys. It was embarrassing how you couldn’t find any memories of your adventures in liquor.

The weekend flew by until Sunday night came and your phone buzzed. You looked down and horror filled your body. Tomorrow was parent conferences. It wasn’t mandatory for parents but encouraged. Suddenly, you were tearing through your apartment trying to prepare for the upcoming doom.

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Before you knew it, parent conferences were upon you. Aether wasn’t attending because it wasn’t mandatory and you insisted he go home and rest. He had done so much for you already, you didn’t want him to suffer through it with you. You looked up as somebody knocked on your class door and opened it to see two beautiful blondes.

“Hello, is this Miss Bright’s room?” The woman’s blue eyes met yours.

“Yes,” You held your hand out, “Hello, I’m Miss Bright.”

The woman shook your hand, “I am Jean, Klee’s guardian. This is her older brother Albedo.”

The young man’s beautiful eyes bore into you as he shook your hand. You stepped aside and gestured to the tables in your room. The two took their seats and almost immediately a tall red haired man sauntered up to you.

“Hello!” His tone was cheerful, “I’m Childe, Teucer’s older brother!”

“A pleasure to meet you, Childe. I am Miss Bright.”

“Ah,” a crooked smile formed on his lips, “The pleasure is all mine. You are just as beautiful as Teucer claimed.”

You blushed and laughed nervously, but before you could answer he was shoved into your room. He turned to glare at the two dark haired men in the doorway. Huffing, he found his way to a table and sat.

“So annoying.” The shorter of the two men scowled.

The taller one sighed, “Hello, Miss Bright. My name is Zhongli, and this is my cousin Xiao. We are Qiqi’s foster family.”

Xiao stomped past you, Zhongli followed him quickly. You didn’t have time to introduce yourself to either of them before they sat down.

“How rude,” A smooth voice came from your door.

Two men stood there, a tan man with dark hair and a very familiar red head. Internally, you groaned at the sight of the bartender. It was going to be a long conference wasn’t it? You were glad you had organized your agenda so well.

“Diluc. Guardian of Diona, and this is my brother Kaeya.” The redhead said almost sternly.

He strolled through the doorway to sit at a table, all four families spread out. Kaeya winked at you and followed his brother. Now you were sure the night would be long.

No other families came, and you were left alone with the strange bunch. In the back of your mind, you were thinking of your roster and the asterisks. The irony in all of it was that the troublemaker’s parents were the only ones who showed. The room was quiet, families only talking among themselves. You cleared your throat and introduced yourself once more, starting in to your very planned speech.

A short time had passed but it felt like years to you. You felt incredibly awkward but continued on. Childe raised his hand which nearly made you laugh but you contained your amusement and paused.

“Yes?” You called out to him.

The lanky man smirked, “I’m sorry but what sort of vision do you use?”

“I will address that later on.” Your voice was kind but also stern.

This response earned several looks from the families listening. All of a sudden, their full attention was on you. The change of atmosphere had put you on edge. You tried to continue on but Childe stood abruptly.

“That’s an interesting response.” He chuckled.

“Tartaglia!” Jean intervened, “Thats enough.”

Kaeya kicked his feet up on the table, “You can’t say you’re not curious though, right? It’s only natural we want to know. This school has just as much focus on vision skills as academic skills.”

You were beginning to grow irritated. The children were more respectful than the adults. Composing yourself, you sighed. Nobody denied Kaeya’s words, although Zhongli and Jean seemed to disapprove of the attitude.

“As i said before i will-“ you were interrupted again by an arrow of water, you easily side stepped it.

Jean stood, sword in hand and glared at Childe. Diluc shoved his brother’s feet off the table and scowled. Albedo yawned while Xiao clicked his tongue. Zhongli merely observed the scene. Childe cackled at Jean which only angered her more as she dove at him.

You opened your mouth to say something but were forced to dodge a cold sword. Kaeya grinned at you but was yanked back by Zhongli. The room was in utter chaos. You gritted your teeth and once more tried to remain calm. Another arrow narrowly missed your ear and you felt yourself become enraged. Kaeya dodged Zhongli and thrust his sword at you but was stopped by a sharp pillar of light.

“That’s enough.” Your voice was cold as you used your own weapon to shove the pushy cryo wielder away from you.

As if by magic, suddenly everyone stopped to stare at you. Quickly, they sat down. Albedo’s eyes were alert now, he was suddenly interested in every word you had to say. Even Xiao seemed to have a better attitude.

You continued your speech without any further interruptions. Finally, the end was in sight.

“And to answer your earlier question,” You pushed your hair back behind your ear to reveal your vision on an earring, “I am a light wielder. I will not take any questions on it. Have a wonderful night and thank you for coming.”

You turned and exited your classroom quickly as murmurs spread across the room. Light visions were only gifted to those who were recognized by multiple gods. Light was a strange element that could mold itself and change to take shape of different elements, although it wasn’t perfect. Elemental mastery took a lot of time and the light could only bend to your will for short periods of time. Using light as anything other than itself could backfire easily. Ontop of the many complications, attaining a light vision meant going through a crisis so terrible that multiple gods had to intervene. It was a blessing and a curse.

As you headed home, shivers ran down your back. You couldn’t help but feel that you were being watched or followed. You shook it off and returned home. It was just paranoid thoughts after a rough night.

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After the conference, you seemed to be plagued by the families. Outside of work you ran into them constantly. It was nerve wracking.

“Miss Bright, Teucer loves you so much. He’d love to see you on the weekend. We could get lunch and then have a play date with him. What do ya say?” Childe grinned at you as you exited your classroom.

“Sorry, sir” An arm slid around your shoulders, “But i’m afraid she has plans for this weekend.”

You looked up to see the school librarian with a tight smile. Lisa was so kind, saving you from his shameless flirting. Although, she often seemed to flirt with you as well. You couldn’t really tell if she was being nice or flirting though.

He scowled and turned. Lisa laughed and squeezed you tighter. She escorted you out of the building, telling you about the new books the library had just received. Her eyes twinkled as you laughed at her puns and asked her questions about being a librarian.

“Excuse me,” A deep voice said “May I have a moment of Miss Bright’s time?”

You turned to see Zhongli, one of the only reasonable guardians you’d met. So far you’d not seen him after the meeting so you felt safer around him. Even Jean had appeared before you several times, though it didn’t seem intentional. You weren’t entirely sure but you’d swore you’d even seen Xiao lurking around when you were out.

“Of course,” You waved Lisa off.

She frowned and kissed your cheek before sauntering off. Zhongli raised his eyebrows as you laughed, clearly embarrassed. The nerve of that woman sometimes.

“Sorry, she’s a friend but she’s very affectionate,” you apologized quickly.

“Hm,” Zhongli nodded and stared at you intently, “I’m sorry to bother you but is there a way I could schedule another meeting with you? I would like to hear about Qiqi’s progress.”

Your heart nearly melted. He was so kind and it was refreshing.

“Of course! How about this weekend?” You beamed at him.

The two of you scheduled a conference lunch and parted ways. From afar, Diluc grimaced. He was curious about Diona’s behavior in school. She was a very moody child. Furthermore, he was curious about you. Kaeya had also pestered you for a date so the scarlet haired man was trying to find the right time to ask you. He didn’t want to come off the way he was sure Kaeya did.

“I would also like to attend the meeting.” Xiao announced to Zhongli once he got into the car.

“Too bad,” Zhongli chuckled “It’s one on one, you’ll have to schedule your own.”

Xiao huffed at his words. He disliked the idea of the two of you doing anything one on one. He couldn’t decide whether he was jealous of you or Zhongli. He decided it was you, since both Qiqi and Zhongli seemed to be infatuated with you. He clicked his tongue, Zhongli merely smiled, and Qiqi demanded coco goat milk.

“Does she like science?” Albedo questioned Klee.

“Miss Bright likes a lot of things I think.” Klee said, ice cream smeared on her face.

“I want to know more.” Albedo stated.

Klee grinned, “More ice cream?”

Albedo nodded, only hoping Jean wouldn’t catch them.

This new job had many opportunities open up for you. With so many people in pursuit of you, who would you choose?

[dio-icarticaae]

Adding my two cents, since I've faced a similar decision:

I've always really wanted to go into a particular field (not naming it because it is Very Specific) but for a while I was considering going into Law instead because I could make a bigger difference there, and look at all the things that need to be fixed in this world.

But I thought about it, and though I know I would be a very good lawyer, I would not be happy as a lawyer, and I would be in the other career field. So would going into polisci make you happy? Or would you be miserable?

Also, you can absolutely make a huge difference as a teacher - both through teaching students and through being in a teacher's union. And, being a teacher doesn't preclude you from running for office as well! You can be on the school board, which is a vitally important position as we've seen with bigots' recent attempts to use them to ban books etc. Local elections often make a huge difference, in my experience.

I would also recommend looking into advocacy groups for issues that are important to you. It's a great way to get experience with the political system and make a difference. That's what I do, as a volunteer, and have for years. I've done advocacy at multiple levels of the government and it's given me a good understanding of how politics actually works and how to best effect change with them. It can be challenging at times, but it's very fulfilling as well to see the bill you've been working on persuading politicians to pass go into law and begin to make a positive impact.

I've navigated wanting to make a difference in the world and wanting to do something that makes me happy by going into a field that I enjoy, while also doing a significant amount of volunteering and advocacy to make a difference in the world.

Definitely follow Phoenix's advice of finding a guidance counselor and/or trusted adult to talk with about figuring this out though - they know you better than us strangers on the internet do. :)

This is a bit of a silly question, but you honestly seem to know a lot about political, business, and economics, so I thought I would ask.

So I’m seventeen, soon to be applying to universities, but I’m already so disillusioned with the world. Like, don’t get me wrong, I still have hope in collective action and volunteering and voting and all that, it just makes me sad that the entire world has kind of gone to hell. I like english literature and I like history and I like studying them, so I used to hop to study both at uni. I wanted to get a job as a teacher, because I want to make a difference in the world and have more variety than a typical desk job.

However. Being on Tumblr since the age of thirteen has taught me that no matter how kind or good or hardworking one person is, or even a lot of people are, one politician can still screw things up for entire groups of people. I mean… a few politicians overturned Roe Vs Wade and that sort of thing. The disability benefits bank account thing. Politicians have an enormous amount of sway over the world, and that area seems to be where someone could make the most difference.

From what I’ve seen of a political science degree, I genuinely don’t think I would enjoy it much, but I could get through it. I want to make a difference in the world very badly — it’s the only sort of legacy I care about leaving behind. And I thought being a teacher could do that for me, but the scale of being a teacher and a politician are on entirely different levels, and Tumblr has really shown me that.

So I guess I’m just asking, since you seem to be passionate making the world better too. Do you think I should study politics, so that I can try and change things on a large scale? Or study what I love and make a much smaller impact.

I honestly don't think I'm the best person to ask this question. A lot of how I ended up where I am was a matter of luck, including the luck of having parents who let me live with them rent free while I put together some savings (and even while I was unemployed).

I don't know a whole lot about polisci. I was a business major and, honestly, that major did not come in useful when hunting for a job after college... partly because all the jobs it was a foot in the door for were uhhhhhh let's go with Not The Right Fit. Most polisci majors are... I guess probably pre-law and intending to become lawyers, and lawyers do in fact

My first instinct is actually 'learn a trade and join a union.' The last few years have been pretty evidential of the impact that unions can still have on both the business world and politics in general: see the impact that UAW is having, at least in the media, on the presidential election. Unions are also a pretty solid option for local networking, which is pretty key when it comes to having an impact on local or regional politics. A trade job is also something that is in high demand, stable, and pays reasonably well in most places, including paid apprenticeships, so it would give you the financial stability to focus your free time on what you want instead of on stretching to pay the bills, or having to worry about student loans. It also gives you an expertise or specialty that you can then leverage as 'evidence' of understanding the working class as a unit when engaging in something like a town hall.f

Being in a union or other local organization will also give you a more hands-on understanding of how politics and things like that work, as you'll have things like contract negotiations, union votes, and policy debates going on regularly.

If you aren't the kind of person who thinks they're a fit for trade work (I'm definitely not), then college might be the right fit! But I'd definitely consider going into it with a plan for how you want to impact the world. Look up some charities or impact organizations and see what it is that they need. A lot of places are looking for grants writers or financial coordinators, or just someone who can do the accounting. It's not glamorous, and it's not like you'll be held up as a hero the way a doctor in a warzone is, but keeping track of funds or writing letters requesting funding from the government, for something like Doctors Without Borders or Planned Parenthood or Coalition for the Homeless is still an important part of the process.

Local volunteer work is also often a lot more personally satisfying and requires less overhead, so more of the money goes directly into the community you want to help, e.g. the grant writers and accountants do need a salary in a huge organization, but a local soup kitchen can probably just hire someone from the local tax office once every few months and call it good. Doing volunteer work once a month, for a soup kitchen or a homeless shelter or summer childcare program, can make way more of an impact than maybe getting a position as a staffer for a politician you may not even like that much.

That said, if you think you're good at polisci, that you'd be good at law, or that you can get a different degree with polisci as a minor that would then help you enter politics directly... maybe college for polisci is the right choice for you. Maybe you have the finances to not worry about loans, you have parents that would be supportive, and you can find an effective position after you graduate.

I can't make that decision for you. If you have a guidance counselor and they're any good--not a guarantee, but let's hope--talk to them. If you don't have a guidance counselor, maybe find a trusted teacher, or a local librarian, something like that. I don't really know you or your situation well enough to tell you what to do, but hopefully I've given you something to think about.

[ilikemesometaetaes]

Don’t Hold Your Breath ~ jjk

Prologue

•••> Author: @ilikemesometaetaes​

•••> Summary: As the CEO of an international government security company, you have the world at your fingertips. Living life lavishly and extravagantly has become the norm. Behind closed doors, however, you host a past that renders you lonely and, quite frankly, miserable. It’s only a matter of time before your past comes back to bite you right in the ass.

•••> Pairing(s): Jungkook/Reader

•••> Inspo: This fic is inspired by the song “SAVAGE ANTHEM” by PARTYNEXTDOOR. Thank you to @btssmutgalore​ for everything you’ve done to help me! You’re amazing!

•••> Word Count: 2.3k

•••> Rating: 18+ • Please do not read if you are below the age of 18. I do not condone minors reading my work. Of course, I cannot stop you.

•••> Tags: angst | ceo!au | rockstar!au | CEO!Reader | Rockstar!Jungkook | AU!BTS | Exes to Lovers

•••> Warnings: a boatload of angst, heartbreak, cursing, pining, kissing, depression. Warnings are written specifically to chapter. Refer to the DHYB Main Page for the full rundown.

Note: I don’t have a beta reader so please forgive any mistakes I may have missed. Also, if you are confused by the italics, refer to the DHYB Main Page for info on that.

Copyright © 2020 ilikemesometaetaes. All Rights Reserved.

Taglist: @apurpledheart​

If you’d like to be added to the taglist, add a comment to this chapter or the DHYB Main Page!

NAVIGATION: | > Chapter One (M) –> Mini-Masterlist -> Series Masterlist

~#~

NOW.

The bed was cold around you.

You felt yourself breathe. You felt your heart beating in your chest. You felt the evidence of physical life within your body.

But you couldn’t help the withdrawn and frigid feeling of death laced into your mind.

You felt alone. You felt longing. You felt numb yet riddled with too many emotions to comprehend all at once.

Overwhelmed with confusion, you went to the moment that brought you calm. It brought you peace and happiness despite the things lost.

The beautiful dream-like vision of butterflies and a certain meadow filled your memory as you laid in the darkness. Sighing with content, you let yourself remember.

“Fuck Jimin and his girlfriend. We can have all the fun on our own.” He sneered in his Satoori accent. After years of knowing you, Jungkook slipped from his proper accent whenever the two of you were alone. All you could do was chuckle at his harsh words.

The blanket laid out before you was a pristine sky blue. Jungkook had gathered small stones to hold it down at the corners.

“What have you been up to today?” You asked with a hint of breathlessness due to the trek the two of you had made to get to the peak of the large hill. Turning your head to look at him while you spoke, you noticed that his head was craned upwards, gaze locked on the sky.

In response to your query, he collapsed back onto the blanket, allowing his white t-shirt to slightly ride up, revealing a small sliver of the skin on his stomach in the process. The white reflected the sun in your eyes almost painfully, but not enough to take away from the angel-like glow that it gave him.

“Nothing much. Played video games for an hour or so. Cooked and made breakfast.” He angled his head slightly to look at you. "Finished up my essay for my philosophy class. You?”

“Oh, just the usual. Didn’t finish my calc assignment by noon so I’m only going to get partial credit for that.”

Your reply reminded you of how different the two of you were when it came to school. His alone time spent in his dorms went one of two ways; he either played video games with Taehyung or studied- there was no other. His scoff broke you out of your brief thoughts.

“You know, you’re going to end up falling behind this semester, and then we won’t have the same class for our last semester as college students.” His pout that accompanied his statement had your eyes flicking to his bottom lip which shined with a slight sheen of saliva, accentuating the plumpness of it.

It was no secret that you found Jungkook attractive. Hell, even Yoongi found him attractive and Yoongi was quite impassive. Even now, with his eyes squinting under the light of the sun, his hair messy, and a thin layer of sweat covering his skin, you found him absolutely breathtaking.

You remembered how the two of you met.

Shared classes brought you closer together. Ever since you had first met him during your sophomore year when you became part of a foreign exchange program in South Korea, the two of you clicked. Realizing that he spoke English- rough English- had you giddy and eager to teach him to perfect his language skills in return for helping you with your Korean. Needless to say, you learned Korean a bit quicker than he learned English seeing as one of your majors was dedicated to the language learning.

After you decided to stay in Korea and finish the requirements for one of your degrees at your other university online, the two of you grew close in the process of mutual education. When you decided to stay was when you actually got to know him.

He was pursuing a degree in music, specializing in vocal performance, while you were working towards a double major in political science and language studies with a minor in business. Although you were packed full of classes, your work ethic was definitely capable of improvement despite having helped you survive to senior year.

“I know, Kook, but I honestly don’t know why math is required for my major anyway. I just want to be done with it.” You grumbled and adjusted your clothes before laying beside him.

He sighed wistfully, signifying his state of relaxation and calm, which you found yourself fighting a smile for. Of all of the time you had been around Jungkook, he was always emotionally charged or stressed. There was never a time you knew him to be absolutely at peace or silent in the way he acted. To hear him decompress was still a relatively new concept to you and had you giddy to relax with him in hopes that he would open up to you.

A few moments of silence rested between you both, effectively ending the previous conversation.

“Do you think about him anymore?” He voiced, distracting you from eyeing a cloud as it covered the sun. The break from sunlight was welcome on your straining brows.

It took you a moment to respond, caught off guard by the loaded question. He knew of your situation because you were open with him. But why did he care? “Sometimes. I know that he wasn’t good for me. I know that I gave him too much slack and that’s why he lied to me.” You sighed.

“Yeah,” He chuckled dryly. “That dude was an asshole.”

“I still don’t get it. I told him that everything he did was okay. I told him all he had to be was honest and that I wouldn’t be mad at him.” The frustration of your breakup with your ex-boyfriend was nowhere close to being gone. Eleven months of lies and deceit despite the good memories was difficult to remove from your conscience.

He had used drugs, something you weren’t a fan of. Despite this, on top of the fact that it was illegal, you knew that it helped his depression and you loved him throughout his questionable choices on how to treat himself. All you had asked for was his honesty; all you wanted was for him to tell you when he used.

Jungkook sat up to look at you. He frowned and then reached towards you to brush away some of the hair that fell over your forehead.

“I get that he did you wrong. Believe me. I get it. But the fact that you still think about it is irritating. It’s been a year, right?” His scowl made him look adorable.

“Something like that.” You sighed.

“And you haven’t moved on?” He asked, concerned. You were about to reply in defense before he cut in again. “I mean, don’t get me wrong. I know you don’t have those types of feelings for him anymore, but you haven’t moved on from the situation?”

Your reply was curt. “I’ve moved on. I’m just annoyed.”

He sighed and looked down at his hand that he wasn’t leaning on, toying with the fabric of the blanket, before laying back down with an elongated exhale. He knew this conversation was over.

After a while of laying down in the sun in comfortable silence, you noticed that the clouds were starting to roll in more frequently, accompanied by a cooler breeze. When you craned your head back to look upwind, you saw the darkness of a storm system crawling across the sky.

“Hey Jungkook. I think we-“ Snore.

You cut yourself off at the sound, quickly snapping your head to survey the sleeping boy beside you. Eyebrows completely relaxed and lips slightly parted, he was a sight to behold. His hair had fallen over his eyes slightly, urging you to return the favor in brushing it out of the way. He stirred slightly before settling back down and sighing. What a sight to behold indeed.

The deep rumbling of thunder is what caused you both to jump and look at the sky. “Jesus.” He croaked while abruptly sitting up and rubbing at his eyes. “How long was I out?”

“I’m not sure. I only realized you were sleeping a few seconds ago.” You began picking up your things whilst he picked up the blanket, draping it over his arm.

The first few raindrops of the storm had only just begun; a light pitter-patter at random places in the grass began slowly at first, gradually picking up pace as you and Jungkook were packing up the last of your things.

You giggled as the rain started hitting your face. It reminded you of tiny, cold kisses. Jungkook, on the other hand, used the blanket to shield his head after slinging his backpack onto one shoulder. His face was scrunched up in an unconscious attempt to keep the rain out of his eyes.

“Let’s get out of here.” He huffed tiredly.

“Good idea.” You laughed.

The trek down the hill and back to Jungkook’s old truck accelerated to a jog following the increased pattern of raindrops hitting the ground. Before long, even you were seeking shelter under the blanket he was holding over his head. After a few minutes of laughing breathlessly and bumping into each other on the path back to the truck, you had decided to hold the other end of the blanket since he wasn’t really holding it over your head effectively. His free arm consequently ended up slung over your shoulders while your free arm draped over his.

The tan truck came into view after your twenty-minute journey back. By this point, the blanket had soaked through and both of you were drenched. Making quick work of the passenger side door, he slid in first to cross the seat while you followed suit with a huff.

“Well…” Jungkook trailed off, placing his bag and the wet blanket between you before running his fingers through his long and very wet hair in order to push it away from his eyes. “Shit.” He looked at you with finality and a small grin gracing his face.

You gazed at his beauty, glancing at his lips as he spoke, before meeting his chocolate brown gaze. Want filled your body as the adrenaline from the past few minutes surged through your veins, rendering you mute. Heartbeat running absolutely erratic and breath suddenly short, you became acutely aware of how tight of a space the two of you were in and how quiet the cabin of the truck became.

Oh, how you wanted to kiss him.

The seconds seemed to pass like hours. The mood in the truck morphed from playful and light to something else. Something thicker. Headier. Heavier.

The pressure of the moments passing by bristled you with tremors as your previous levels of adrenaline spiked almost uncontrollably. You didn’t miss the way his bottom lip twitched in the slightest of movement.

His eyes glanced at your lips for a split second, giving you no time to adjust to the quick movement, before his hand was on the back of your neck to usher you to him in a messy kiss. Heat flooded your body as the taste of his breath caressed your tongue.

“Y/N.” He breathed after momentarily pulling away. His dark eyes were filled with passionate fire, pupils dilated almost scarily. “You-” His lips reattached to yours before he could finish speaking, illuminating just how shocked and pleased he was with your kiss.

His lips were as soft as silk as they glid against your own, slotting perfectly in shape. His warm breath tasted mildly of morning breath- not that you minded- but mostly blueberry as you came to discover that he had slipped a jolly rancher into his mouth sometime during your journey back to the truck. You giggled at the thought of how much he loved candy, earning a smile from him as he continued to press his lips to your own.

There was no way you’d be able to pull away just to speak. Speaking was so unnecessary. Words were irrelevant in that moment. 

Why speak when you could kiss him? When you could feel the way his lips moved against yours in ways they could never move when speaking? When they conveyed more emotions than any word could ever express? Why would you even bother ever speaking anymore when you could spend the rest of your life kissing Jeon Jungkook?

You answered your own questions as his arm lopped around your waist to pull your body closer to his: you wouldn’t.

Of course, those were thoughts in the heat of the moment. Simpler times called for simpler feelings. The pure and innocent ardor of love and adoration paired with the excitement of new attraction was a welcome sensation in contrast to the empty and cold feeling of your everyday life. You were sick of feeling numb.

Too many years were spent in emotional solitary confinement. Keeping your emotions at bay began affecting your health, causing your hair to thin and your skin to wither like paper. It took looking at yourself in the mirror after mulling over a photo of you and Jungkook before you noticed the difference. You hadn’t even noticed that you lost a considerable amount of weight.

Therapy had helped for a little while, but it didn’t assist you when you began seeing his face on news articles and TV once your sessions ended.

Even after the things that he had done, you were no stranger to the feeling of longing that you had for him- for the echoes of what used to be.

In your cold, companionless room, tears ran down your cheeks in mourning.

Of course, it was too good to last.

[amandadeibert]

A Love Letter to Parents At the End of The Most Difficult School Year EVER

WOW, that was really something, huh?

It’s the end of the most difficult year school for all of us: teachers, parents, students… Hell, probably even the neighbors of parents and students. I would say “at least we survived!” but this has been more than a year of illness and mental health crises… not all of us did. Some of you are mourning those loses. I am so sorry.

As my daughter celebrates her final day of Kindergarten, and I celebrate my final day of supervising hours of zooms and packets full of work, of being her mother, teacher, confidant, chef, maid, PE teacher, and playmate… I have a lot of emotions. I’m sure you do too.

It was hard for those of us who, like my family, spent the entire year in virtual school: never meeting teachers or classmates in person. Those of us who spent so much of the year trying not to worry about excessive screen time while going against our intuition to coax children to sit up and pay attention to their computers.

It was difficult for families who did hybrid and had their bits of in-person “normalcy” sporadicly and suddenly turned to quarantines every time there was an exposure so that there could never be a true routine.

It was complicated for parents navigating this with multiple children who all needed different things at the same time. I know in my daughter’s own little kindergarten class we over-heard older siblings’ music lessons, younger siblings’ infant-wails, and parents trying to deal with their work zooms while 6 year olds struggled to concentrate on learning to read.

My heart especially goes out to the parents of children who need extra attention or services, some of whom lost out on months or a year of in-person therapies. This is unfair and horrible. This has been infuriating, unfair, and horrible. You have been dealing with far more worries than you should have had to and I am so sorry.

And then there’s work… whew. As a working mother who went to work in person in full PPE, then worked from home with endless Zoom meetings while my daughter put Elsa stick-on earrings all over my face, and then who lost my job due to pandemic related situations. I know it was difficult to work and teach and parent and be a child’s only friend and entertainment.

For those of you who are essential, for those of you who work in healthcare and mental healthcare… I just, I can’t even begin to tell you how much I admire you and also know my admiration doesn’t do a fucking ounce of good to help alleviate all you’ve had to juggle and endure.

So much has fallen disproportionality on mothers. We can see it in hard data. This will have ramifications for years to come. Just as it will on our kids… in ways we don’t even fully understand yet. Just while trying to write this essay…. my daughter and our kitten have crawled into my lap. They are both here right now.

And yes, I know plenty of amazing Dads who have been struggling right there with us. My dad-friends and I have leaned on each other TREMENDOUSLY this year, so please don’t think I don’t see you out there struggling through this too.

As I look back over this past school year (and the end of the academic year before) I am feeling sad for the milestones my child didn’t get to have. The things we didn’t experience as planned. The fond farewell to her preschool of 3 years we never had. The kindergarten teacher she never met in person. The first year at an elementary school where we haven’t yet been inside the building. I have so much dread for the coming separation anxiety after more than a year of never being apart. Hers and mine. This was not how things were supposed to be. No matter how you’ve experienced the pandemic, because we’re all doing it differently… this was not what we “planned.” It’s also not something anyone else alive has ever had to deal with before.

I want to stress that again:

No parent alive has ever dealt with anything like this. No one alive has experienced anything like this as a child. Bad things? Yes. Worse thing? Yes, even. But not THIS.

So if your parents/elders are giving unhelpful “advice” about how you should/should have handled things please remember THEY HAVE NO IDEA. None. At all.

This is one area where you can laugh and laugh and be like… “YOU HAD OPEN PARKS AND SCHOOLS AND KIDS COULD GO RIDE THEIR BIKES UNRESTRICTED. YOU COULD GO SIT IN CHURCH AND THE KIDS WOULD BE IN SUNDAY SCHOOL. YOU CAN NOPE RIGHT OFF.” Love them. Love their advice, but they don’t actually know what it is like.

I hope they are offering love and support. I don’t have living parents, but my grandmother is the first to say that even as a stay at home mom whose husband was away fighting a war, she can’t imagine being unable to simply take her kids to school or to run errands, or to let them play with other children. Her situation was very difficult and complicated. I don’t have it worse. Not at all. It’s just that this school year has been one hell of a weird one.

There have been bright spots. I loved getting to watch and experience my daughter learning in real time. Seeing the day-to-day progress and truly knowing what is going on in her classes. Again, that isn’t the experience for parents who have children unable to access their child’s IEP help in the way they should.

I love the extra time we’ve gotten together as a family. The movie nights outside and snuggles and lack of rushing around from place to place. I enjoy as an Angeleno not being stuck in traffic for hours. Not everyone has been able to work from home like my wife and I have mostly been able to do for much of this and I am grateful for that too.

My hope is that when this is truly over, when we get back to whatever new life looks like in the next school year, that some of the good will stay. That I will be more involved in our child’s education than maybe I would have been before because I know what it looks like. That we will spend more time as a family together just us. That I won’t say “yes” to things out of obligation that don’t add value to our lives. That we won’t be too busy.That’s probably naive, but we can sure try.

I hope that you have some bright spots to look back on from this past school year. I hope you can share them with your children and they can share theirs with you. Whatever you had to do to get through this, I am so outrageously proud of you. I am proud of me too. And wow, our kids. They’ve been through some shit. I’m super proud of them.

Please, please take some time to celebrate what you have managed to get through. I got cupcakes for the kiddo and some cocktails for grownups. Please do whatever version of that sparks some happiness.

PUNT THAT SCHOOL-ISSUED LAPTOP INTO THE SUN.

I mean, yeah okay, we’ll all responsibly return it fully charged and be so grateful to the school system that we didn’t have to use Mommy’s work laptop for it but you know… metaphorically it’s that scene from Office Space. (Your kids wouldn’t get this joke but this isn’t for them. JUST LIKE THE COCKTAIL/CHOCOLATE/BUBBLEBATH/WHATEVER YOU ARE GONNA DO TO CELEBRATE YOU )

Anyway, you are amazing. Maybe you don’t feel like many people noticed. I see you. I’m toasting you from this weird half-teacher’s lounge we share.

If you’d like to share some of your brightest spots, or most amazing, brilliant parent hacks from all this madness, I would love to read about it in the comments. We’ve got to hold onto the good.

[corinnesamuels]

Guarding the Gates, Chapter 9: Discretion is Such a Valuable Tool

Shoutout to the AMAZING @the-dream-team for creating this for me! Gives the fic a lil razzle dazzle, don’t you think?

A good old patronus soul mate trope to get the blood flowing, Remus has a hard time, and Lily and Sirius confront old friends.

In the weeks following James and Miranda’s breakup, there had been speculation amongst the gang about what that meant for Lily and James. For the two people in question, however, there was no indication that anything would be changing. They laughed at the same jokes, and the time they spent in person still had the same cadence. They were  friends , and the two of them reinforced that dynamic whenever asked. Secretly— irritatingly —Lily reinforced it with herself every time she saw that lopsided grin, which seemed to be making more and more of an appearance lately. 

It was as if the breakup had broken a dam inside of him, and now he joked more and laughed with less reservation. The glint in his eye that appeared when he was contemplating mischief had reappeared. Every day he became more and more like the version of him she’d once known. Sirius had made similar observations, saying how great it was to have his friend back at full force. 

Lily had loved getting reacquainted with James when she returned to England, but to see those parts of his personality return warmed her from the inside. He seemed happier, more free. Lily loved the way it looked on him. Except for when she didn’t. This more robust version of an adult James was a lot for Lily to take in. His personality was simply overwhelming some days, not because he was being obnoxious, but because it was almost impossible not to be drawn to him. It threatened to disrupt the precarious balance that her emotions currently maintained. Lily couldn’t risk disrupting that balance, so she made it a point to carry on the same life she had been living, and her occasional recreational dalliances helped a great deal.

Except for when they didn’t. Like today, when Lily realized that she’s going to have to let go of Terry.

It’s a shame, really. He’s a nice bloke and gets the job done well enough. But Lily has noticed that he seems to be straying from their original arrangement. He usually either left first thing in the morning after their liaisons or stayed just long enough to make and wolf down a quick breakfast. Lily had appreciated it because, as her friends love to point out, she’s terrible at cooking.

But lately, he’s attempted, thrice now, to stay into the afternoon. While Lily doesn’t want to be rude or harsh, this just isn’t what they signed up for. Especially not on a day when she is already running a little late to an Order meeting. He jokingly asks why she seems like she’s in a rush and hints at not believing that she really had somewhere to be. 

It takes everything she has to remain calm.

“Nothing about our arrangement requires me to share my daily schedule.” She’d said at close to noon that day as she hastily put on her shoes. She waved her wand toward his belongings, and they began hurtling at him faster than she’d intended due to her irritation, but he’d gotten the hint after that. 

When she arrives at the meeting a few minutes late, she waves off Marlene and Dorcas’ concerns with a “don’t ask” and a resigned rise and fall of her hand before jumping into the agenda.

The Order of the Phoenix functions well. Dumbledore has instituted a complex but subtle system for meeting locations, dates, and times and spends early meetings going over spells and skills that might be useful for the days ahead. Dumbledore picked most of them because they had excelled during their time at Hogwarts, but certain forms of magic were usually beyond what even the brightest seventh years managed before their time at school ended.

And so, they found themselves assessing the talents of the group and ways to maximize them. It was a well-known fact that The Marauders were good at stealth due to their ability to cause mischief as students. So Dumbledore tasked them and the Aurors of the group with assisting the rest in learning advanced magic related to stealth and concealment. “You lot must not have been too good at being stealthy if you got caught so often.” Dorcas quips during one meeting. The four men looked at each other and grinned. 

“Meadowes,” Sirius tuts. “We very rarely got caught on accident, love.”

“You can’t be legendary if no one knows your story.” James chimes in with a mischievous glint in his eye. “Sometimes you have to let yourself get caught for the greater good.”

“The most legendary thing about the two of you is your detention records.” Marlene smirks, looking over to Lily before rolling her eyes. 

“Was that supposed to contradict what I said?” James asks with a laugh. Remus does his best to cover up a laugh of his own.

Lily, Marlene, Caradoc Dearborn, and Elphias Doge led the group in potions making. In addition to maximizing stores for members to have available to them, Dumbledore also had them work on potions whose brewing processes made Lily feel as if she’d run a marathon once completed.

Little by little, Lily began learning the strengths of various members of the Order of the Phoenix. Most everyone in the group was an accomplished dueler, particularly the Prewett twins and Edgar Bones. People like Hestia Jones, Sturgis Podmore, and Emmeline Vance were able to navigate Ministry circles to subtly gather information that employees were too afraid to say around Mad-Eye Moody, Frank, and Alice. But nothing surprised Lily more than discovering that the slovenly thief Mundungus Fletcher was a member of the group  because  of the fact that he was a thief.

“Dung was dead helpful while we were in school.” Peter says in Mundungus’ defense after one meeting. Lily, Marlene, and Dorcas let their eyes travel from Peter to his friends with raised eyebrows, waiting for confirmation.

“Let’s not go into the details, Peter. They aren’t necessary at this juncture.” Sirius cuts in. When Lily’s face still holds traces of mild judgment, Sirius rolls his eyes. “Oh, don’t look like that, Red, you were a spy. Surely you saw worse than a thief.”

Lily had, of course, seen much worse. “Yes. Usually, the kind that were sober while on the job.” 

“It’s helpful to have someone in a group who can acquire…things of questionable origin.” Remus says diplomatically. “Especially information.”

“Yeah, it makes sense for Sturgis, Hestia, and Emmeline to do reconnaissance at the Ministry.” James replies. “But they can’t very well walk through Knockturn Alley and ask pointed questions without looking suspicious, can they?”

“How do we know that he’ll even remember what he learns from poking around in Knockturn?” Lily asks skeptically as she watches Mundungus falling asleep in his chair. “Surely you don’t think he’s going to go sober?” 

The gang takes a moment to observe Mundungus with her. It is a valid question they hadn’t considered.

“Pensieve, probably.” Sirius says finally. 

“Ah.” The others hum and nod in agreement before going back to their tasks.

In one particular meeting, Dumbledore decides to cover communication methods between members.

“I am sure you will find that we need ways to communicate with each other that owls and the Floo won’t be able to accommodate.” He says. “You may need to send a message quickly, and with the way Lord Voldemort’s ranks are growing, we may soon find the Floo Network being monitored surreptitiously. Muggles have a delightful invention called the ‘telephone.’ You pick up a receiver and can be in conversation with an old friend in mere seconds.”

Lily and Dorcas exchange grins, thinking of the summers they spent in the muggle world, on the phone with Mary, giggling like the schoolgirls they once were.

“It inspired me to create something similar,” Dumbledore continues, “and after perfecting it, I am ready to teach it to each of you. How many of you are familiar with the Patronus Charm?”

Various sounds of mild shock reverberate across the room as members of the Order exchange confused looks with each other. “Sir, I’m sure most of us have heard of it, but from my understanding, Patronuses don’t talk, do they?” Lily asks, voicing the confusion of the group.

“Not until recently.” Dumbledore replies. “As I said, I’ve perfected the method.”

A shocked James lets out a huff of air before catching Lily’s eye. She knows that his thoughts echo her own.  How in the fuck was Dumbledore so good at magic? Who would even think to take that charm and make it twice as useful and three times as difficult?  Lily shakes her head and lets out an exhale of her own, and he grins at her. 

It takes more effort than it should have for her to pull her eyes away from that grin.

“There are fully-trained Aurors who can’t even pull off a corporeal Patronus.” Frank says from the back of the room. “And you’re saying that you’ve amended it in some way?”

“I am.” Dumbledore says patiently, as if the people in front of him aren’t intimidated and shocked by the idea of performing this level of magic.

“Stop gawking and get a move on.” Moody growls from his section of the room. “Being afraid of a charm isn’t going to help you learn it.” He mumbles about the lack of gumption witches and wizards show nowadays.

At this, and with looks of slight trepidation over their shoulders toward Moody, the members of the Order of the Phoenix began working on casting the Patronus charm. Lily, who had always been adept at Charms, was able to produce a slight mist by the end of the session. Frank, Alice, and Moody could already produce non-corporeal Patronuses and worked on getting them to take shape before they left to return to the Ministry.

“Duty calls.” Alice says with a wave as they leave. 

Lily is still working on producing more mist when she sees James frustratedly struggling to produce even that. She smirks at him as she lets her mist float into his line of sight. “And to think you used to say you were better at Charms than I was.”

James cuts his eyes at her, irritated at not being able to gloat at the moment. “I used to say I was  just as good  as you at Charms, Evans. And I am.”

“We’ll see.” She says with a shrug before turning back to her Patronus. 

James rolls his eyes. “Professor Dumbledore, what transfiguration-related spells do you have for us?” 

“Grow up.” Lily retorts.

“Get a room.” Sirius grumbles with an eye roll of his own. Marlene laughs from her place next to him. 

“If they start acting like they did in sixth and seventh year, I’m going to bring up the idea of shoving them in a broom closet again.” Marlene says.

“And this time, we’ll actually do it.” Sirius replies dryly.

Lily’s words lit a fire in James that he hadn’t felt since playing Quidditch before his mother died. He always had thrived on competition. So after the Order meeting, he goes to three different bookstores and buys all the books he can find on the theory behind casting Patronuses. Sirius scoffs at this initially, but he, Remus, and Peter soon end up joining James in the sitting room of the manor, pouring through books and pages. They hadn’t made this much of an attempt to learn something from a textbook since James, Sirius, and Peter became animagi. And while the others may just want to learn because Dumbledore requested it, James is not only determined to produce a corporeal Patronus, but to produce one before Lily does.

To his frustration, Lily just barely beats him. 

They had been reviewing the spell at the beginning of an Order meeting, and they’d both been producing dense mists, just starting to take shape before dissipating. James closes his eyes, calms his nerves, and takes a deep breath to regroup before attempting the spell again, but before he can focus on his happy thought, he hears her excitement across the room. Knowing that it could only signal one thing, he curses under his breath before turning to see the inevitable.

He curses again, audibly and disbelievingly this time, when he sees the Patronus ambling across the room. Four legs, hooves, ears upright. In his shock, he doesn’t realize the strange looks he’d gotten from the people standing closest to him.

“Are you alright, James?” Peter asks.

But James is back in time, recalling a passage he’d read in one of his books while feverishly trying to pin down the charm—the one he and Sirius had joked about before ultimately ignoring it and going back to working out the incantation. 

  There is a belief amongst wizards that similar Patronuses are shaped by deep feelings one may have for another. Indeed, many agree that witches and wizards with the same or similar Patronuses may even be soulmates.

  James doesn’t answer Peter as he watches Lily’s doe move about the room and returns to her. She looks at it fondly and drifts her fingers along its silvery glow before it bows and disappears. He notices that Lily still has that look about her that she’d had when she was introduced to new magic in school—reverence mixed with the pride of accomplishing something new. He can’t help but grin at her across the room, nodding his head in salute as she smiles back and shrugs one shoulder before hugging Dorcas happily. It reminds James of all those days he used to watch her in classes…when they’d joke during their rounds…how she’d hugged him and smiled in a way that lit up the room after Gryffindor had won the quidditch cup during their last year…

He’d known it would work this time before he even recited the incantation. “Expecto Patronum!"

Read the rest at ao3!

Start from the beginning

[cosmicpines]

Merry Christmas, and happy @codesecretsanta​! I’ve lurked for enough years and finally found the courage to participate.

This is for @cidnets​. They asked for something with the whole gang, so I wrote about some early gang friendship as they try and figure out how to navigate their new friend group.

Enjoy! :)

Jeremie Belpois didn’t have any friends before an evil AI possessed a vending machine and nearly electrocuted him to death a month ago, and he sure wished he remembered how that fact changed.

As far as he could remember, he went to get a drink from that vending machine, the same he did whenever he was feeling particularly down and decided to “treat” himself (quality of the hot chocolate questionable as it was), when suddenly there were three people talking to him like they knew each other, dragging him away to his room to tell him about an adventure he could barely believe happened. It took until he saw files on the supercomputer that weren’t there the day before, images of these apparent friends of his side by side with Aelita, to believe they weren’t all pulling an elaborate prank on him.

That gap in his memory itched at him in moments like these, when, between the mission shot calls and terror-filled calls to the person on the scene (Ulrich, this time, helping evacuate students from a water system that was flooding the school), there was the dreaded mission banter.

“Woah, Jeremie, I think we see why there’s a number mismatch,” Yumi’s voice reverberated through his headset, as the three dots on his map that indicated his friends (the word still felt wrong) rounded a bend to what looked like on his screen to be one Blok, but that the sensors identified as 7.

Odd laughed. “Oh man! Einstein, it’s like a Jenga tower!”

Yumi’s snicker came in response, confirming that this was a joke he wasn’t getting and Odd just not being dumb.

“Sorry?” Jeremie said, pulling up a visual on his screen, seeing all 7 Bloks stacked on top of each other, Yumi’s fan barely missing the bottom one, “It’s like a what now?”

“Jenga! You know, Jenga?” Odd repeated in what many may consider the least helpful clarification possible.

“Is that… a movie?”

 “No! What? How have you never played Jenga, Einstein? Haven’t you been to a game night or anything?”

Jeremie bit his tongue, weighing responses, the gap in his memory weighing on him. He often wondered, in times like this, where he failed to get jokes and carry on banter, what the hell the Jeremie of that timeline had done to trick the three of them (four, if you counted Aelita, who was a different mystery in of itself) into thinking they liked him in the first place. He wondered what that Jeremie would say in response to this, what he would do to make all of them laugh and like him.

“I have more important things to do than play whatever Jenga is. Like babysitting a supercomputer.”

“Well, we have to fix that! Yumi, do you have a copy?”

Of course, logically, he knew that the “other Jeremie” was really just him; that “he” would be struggling with this just as much.

"A copy of Jenga?” Yumi grunted as a laser hit her, (30 lifepoints left, should he say something? Should he wait for her to finish talking? What’s the protocol here?) “Maybe? My dad doesn’t have the patience for that kind of game. Luckily…” She tossed a fan with a cry, destroying one of the bloks on the bottom of the stack, sending the rest tumbling down. “I don’t either.”

“Oh, great job, Yumi!” Aelita’s grin was obvious, even though just her voice. She started making her way to the tower as Jeremie still tried to come up with something to say, thoughts spiraling as Odd and Yumi kept talking and he kept saying nothing, sitting there with nothing. There was a part of him that wondered if he was just a convenient means to an end to them. Someone to press the buttons and let them play superhero and talk to their much cooler digital friend.

“How about your room, Einstein? That way, Aelita can join us too!”

Crap. That was directed at him.

“My room? For what?”

“Earth to Einstein!” He cringed at Odd’s sudden increase in volume, “Game night! We’re going to teach you Jenga and every other game you’ve missed out on!”

He blinked, mind going blank again, for very different reasons. His fingers froze momentarily over the keys, before the defensiveness he had built up over the years fell out of his mouth. “Sure, Odd. As long as you don’t make another mess like last time.”

“Hey! That wasn’t my fault!”

“Uh huh,” he said, as the supercomputer pinged in response to the tower being deactivated. He started typing, hesitated, then reached in his bag for where he kept his notes. Almost had the return procedure memorized, but there was that step he always forgot. He’d hoped that he’d get Aelita to Earth before he’d need to memorize it, but materialization was harder than he thought.

As he typed, his mind conjured images of a game night – of friends on his floor, of laughter and fun. Maybe it was possible. Or maybe he was getting his hopes up again. Maybe  Odd just wanted to use his room for a game night so they could hang out with Aelita; nothing to do with him.

(Of course, why, then, would it be at his lack of knowledge about Jenga to prompt it?)

(…this was hard.)

“Return to the past now.”

 Odd Della Robbia wasn’t going to let this friend group fail.

Despite coming to Kadic in the middle of the semester (it wasn’t his fault his geometry teacher flunked him out of his last school, yeesh), he hadn’t been particularly worried about making new friends. People were naturally drawn to his charms; always had been, always would be. What could he say? He was great! I mean, sure, a lot of those old friends didn’t answer his calls after he had been kicked out of school and, yeah, one argument broke a lot of those friendships, but that didn’t matter. He had never been lonely before, and Kadic was going to be no different. And one day here had proven him right!

But these friends… they were different. Normally, Odd found himself with people who were similar to him – loud, excited, larger than life, up for anything – but his first day shoved him elsewhere. (Not that anyone would call his first day not loud, exciting, and larger than life). And maybe that wouldn’t have been a problem, except these friends didn’t seem to know how to be friends. Like, Jeremie looked surprised every time he and Ulrich sat next to him for dinner (at what was he was determined to become their table). It took Yumi at least a week to start hanging with them around campus after classes instead of going home. And his roommate… well, he was just a piece of work.

But there was something about these guys that was special. He was determined to make these friends a group anyone would envy. And the first thing to do to make that happen was easy: snacks and games.

“I still don’t get why you’re so insistent on this,” Ulrich said as they walked back to Kadic from town late that Friday night, arms laden with the most unhealthy things they could afford on a student’s budget.

“Oh, come on, Ulrich! Aelita and Jeremie both have never been to one! It’s our duty as their friends to enrich them.”

Ulrich rolled his eyes, shifting the bags in his arms. “Oh yeah, the joyous splendor of game nights is just what Jeremie needs to get out of his shell.”

“Well, why not? Besides, Yumi said she’s sneaking back on campus to join us, too. It’ll be great!”

“If you say so,” Ulrich shrugged, “I don’t get the feeling that he’s too jazzed you invited yourself into his room all night.”

Odd brushed him off. “It’ll be fine Ulrich, trust me.”

He only grunted in response, clearly not convinced. Odd frowned, clicking his tongue. “Aren’t you excited, Ulrich?”

“No.”

“What? Not even a little?”

“I’m excited to destroy this bag of Doritos and then go back into my room to read a book.”

“Boring!”

Ulrich grunted again, and silence fell on the two roommates as they entered the building. Odd just didn’t get this guy. What could convince him to just have a little fun with his friends?  

“Not even with Yumi there?”

It was a hunch he had for at least a week, and possibly a low blow to bring it up like this, but Ulrich’s reaction made it all worth it: he almost dropped his bag, his face turned red, and he pointedly stared at the opposite wall, as if doing so would mean Odd couldn’t see him. Bingo.

Ulrich cleared his throat after a moment. “I don’t know why that would make a difference.”

“Don’t you?”

“I don’t, so knock it off.”

“Knock what –,”

“Odd.” He growled, as they climbed the stairs to the boy’s floor, “Knock it off.”

“Okay, okay!” Odd grinned, “But I’m just saying, I’m happy to see someone melt that icy heart of yours. If you ever want any pointers on how to woo her, I’d be more than happy to –,”

“Alright, that’s it.” Ulrich muttered, turning around and heading back towards their room.

Odd felt his stomach drop as his roommate retreated. “Hey – hey Ulrich! Oh, come on! Don’t be upset, it was just a joke!” He grabbed his shoulder, and Ulrich turned around and looked at him.

Odd was used to friendships falling apart, was used to rejection and anger. Hell, even though he had only come to Kadic a month ago, he had already gotten slapped by a girl who was mad at him for brushing off their study date (his own fault, he knew, but he had just gotten a new game for his Gameboy Advance and completely forgot! Why couldn’t she understand that?!). So he knew what to expect from Ulrich here – he just hoped it wouldn’t be a friendship-ending argument.

But what he saw in Ulrich’s face wasn’t the pure anger he had grown toe expect; it was hurt. Ulrich was glaring at him, but his eyes were red, and he was blinking rapidly – staving off tears, Odd realized with a jolt.

“Ulrich, I…”

What could he say? What had he done wrong? Odd was just teasing him! It wasn’t anything for him to get so upset about! His stomach was churning as he looked at his roommate, desperate to think of what to say to brush this all off, get him back into Jeremie’s room for game night, and get him back in his good books.

Only… was Odd even in Ulrich’s good books? Was this friendship based on nothing but a housing mistake to drop Odd into Ulrich’s room and a supercomputer to drop them in the same double life? If they didn’t have that, would they even consider each other friends? Odd didn’t know. He bit his tongue as words failed to come to his mouth, and Ulrich turned away. And that possibly would have been the end of the night entirely, if it wasn’t for the muffled yelling that suddenly came from Jeremie’s room.

Newly forged instinct sprung to life in Odd, and he dashed down the hall to where Einstein must have been in danger – a possessed heating system! Flashes of lights that blind you! – Ulrich was at his side, too, and Odd felt something between dread and relief. Odd reached for the doorknob, when –

“I just don’t know what I’m doing, Aelita! I should be happy they’re hanging out with me, but –,”

Odd’s eyes widened, another pit forming in his stomach. He pressed his ear to the door, and barely caught Aelita’s reply.

“…something that usually stresses people out?”

“No! No, it’s just me being stupid and awful at this!”

“Awful at what?”  

“Friends! Aelita, I haven’t had friends before this! And I’m trying so hard to make it work with these but I don’t – I don’t know if they really like me at all. I seriously…”

Oh, this was a conversation they really shouldn’t be listening into.

 Odd nudged Ulrich, who was staring at the door in a sort of blind panic, pushing him back down the hallway.

“What are you – “

 “Shh!”

Odd’s mind was racing at Jeremie’s words. How would they not like him? He glanced back at Ulrich, who was staring at Jeremie’s door, but whose eyes drifted down to his. Ulrich’s eyes softened a bit, and he nodded, heading back towards their room. Odd’s heart sank, until he saw Ulrich picking up the bags of groceries.

 Odd grinned, then raised his voice, “Oh man, Ulrich! I cannot believe how late we are!”

           Ulrich stared back at him for a second, and then a hint of a smile formed on his lips. “Oh, Odd, I know, I know! But it was your fault for having to go back for Pringles.”

           “What can I say? I have great taste! Besides, I know the plain ones are Jeremie’s favorite!”

           “Uh – yeah! We… sure want to make sure we have that!”

           Odd knocked on Jeremie’s door, loudly. “Jeremie! We’re here!”

           His heart pounded as he heard a shuffling inside, and then, blessedly, the door opened. Jeremie stared at them for a second, something like distracted concern in his eyes, and then he gestured in, to where Odd saw he had put some blankets on the floor and cleared space off his normally disastrous desk. Aelita waved from the computer screen.

“Make yourself at home.” Jeremie said, shutting the door behind them.

“Will do, Einstein!” Odd breathed a sigh of relief as he unloaded his snacks onto the desk.

It was rough going. But he was going to make it work.

 Aelita was finding humans more and more confusing as each day passed.

Not ten minutes ago, Jeremie was telling her how much he was scared of this game night happening. He had even started yelling, which was something she’d only seen the boy do once before, when he was sharing how scared he was about their fight agains XANA.

It was something that had sat with her since they had made that promise the day they had met – they were all doing this for her, and it wasn’t getting any safer. They swore that, one day, she would be sitting in this room with them, instead of sitting in a quiet, empty tower, looking through a window into a world she found as strange as they found hers.

           Yumi had arrived five minutes ago, arms laden with games. “I stole these out of our house,” she had said, dropping them onto the bed and sitting down, “Sorry we don’t have a huge selection. Luckily, we did have Jenga afterall.”

           Odd had jumped up and wrapped his arms around her – a hug, Aelita remembered, from one of the movies she and Jeremie had watched – and Yumi had looked confused as he retreated, then had helped him begin setting up the game.

           Jenga, it turned out, was a rather simple game: stack the blocks in a tower, take out the pieces and place them on top, and try and keep it from falling over. She watched her friends take their moves in turn, and was fascinated by the dynamic in the room. Aelita had never seen them all interacting in a context outside of battle, and the lack of harmony was unexpected.

Yumi made her moves quickly and decisively, never hesitating for more than a second once her turn came around. She had knocked it over more than once like this, but didn’t seem to mind too much, and was quick to set it up again to keep going. She made loud noises after every round, and often poked fun at the others for their moves, which Jeremie and Ulrich didn’t seem to like. Yumi stopped this, after a while, but still tried to get everyone to speak with her.

Jeremie, meanwhile, was slow, eyes sweeping over the whole tower before choosing his move. When Yumi asked him what was taking so long, Jeremie had looked confused, before saying, “I’m evaluating my options!” That seemed logical to Aelita, but Odd and Yumi both laughed, like Jeremie had made a joke – or, as Jeremie had confided in her once, they were mocking him for saying the wrong thing. The way they continued smiling at him, though, didn’t indicate that.

           If being slow was something to laugh at, though, she wondered why Odd didn’t do the same with Ulrich, who took equally long turns in silence. Unlike Jeremie, who looked around the tower contemplatively, Ulrich kept bringing his hand to the tower, then pulling it back, over and over again, until he finally picked a move and performed it just as slowly. When the tower didn’t fall, he would breathe a sigh of relief. When it did, he would look furious with himself.

Odd couldn’t be more different than Ulrich, as, once he chose which to take – he pressed his finger against a few before choosing, he yanked it out deftly. The first time he had done this, Ulrich had muttered something about cheating, but Odd had shot back that Ulrich should read the rules sometime. Then, after placing the block back on top, he had smiled at his friend, but when Ulrich didn’t reciprocate, Odd’s smile slipped away.

           That wasn’t ordinary, Aelita had thought at the time, and, after Ulrich toppled the tower one more time and yelled out in anger and Yumi suggested moving onto another game, she could see that strange emotion again in Odd’s face – hesitation and fear. It was something she saw on Jeremie often, but never on Odd. She would have to remember to ask Jeremie about it afterwards.

           “How about Monopoly?” Yumi asked, holding up another box.

           Odd groaned. “That game takes forever and I’m horrible at it.”

           “Okay,” Yumi responded, putting it back down. “Sorry?”

           “Sorry for what?”

           “Ha ha, very funny.”

           Jeremie and Ulrich were both sitting silently on the ground as Odd and Yumi debated which game was next. Ulrich was cross legged, staring at his napkin covered in snacks – Doritos, Cheetos, and Pringles, Aelita remembered, from squinting at the packaging to her right and looking it up online. She read how the flavors differed and tried to imagine it herself; that was very hard, considering she didn’t even have taste buds. Her gaze drifted over to Jeremie, and she was momentarily startled, seeing him looking at her. Aelita smiled at him, and he smiled back. She glanced over at Odd and Yumi bickering over games, and then back at him, silently asking why he didn’t help. He glanced at his friends and shrugged, going back to picking at his snacks.

           This wasn’t the way Jeremie had explained a game night to her. This wasn’t the “fun” that she had expected to see.If she was there, she would drag him over to the board games and help him pick one. She would be the one to ask him, quietly, in case it was something that embarrassed him for some reason, which games he liked, and which he didn’t. She would laugh at Odd’s jokes and make some herself. She would try the snacks and have favorites and ones she hated. She would be able to have her own strategy for playing Jenga, and she would knock that tower down and learn to do it better.

           But she couldn’t. She was here, in an entirely different world, barely able to interact with them at all. Her voice didn’t come from her mouth, but from tinny speakers that echoed through the room; a quiet conversation wasn’t possible when she was being broadcasted to everyone. She watched as Jeremie quietly got another drink for Ulrich and Ulrich smiled back at him; somethings she couldn’t be part of. All she could do was loudly proclaim “hello! I’m here too!” before she was forgotten again in the excitement of another game she couldn’t touch, couldn’t join in, couldn’t be there for.

           And at what cost, would it be, to bring her there? What danger to the world must be done to let her join them, to let her touch the objects that Yumi was handing out?

“You know the rules for Uno, right?”

No! She didn’t! She had no idea what Uno was, or why it was played, or what some of them were finding fun and what some of them were stressed about! She had no idea how or why humans did this – Jeremie said nebulously “it was fun,” but Ulrich looked miserable, Odd looked scared, Yumi looked distant – she wanted, wanted, wanted to be there, wanted to be part of it… But how much was she worth? How much did they have to do for her?

So she sat silently and watched, only the briefest eye contact with Jeremie reminding her that they knew she was there at all.

Yumi Ishiyama didn’t think this game night was working.

She was leaning against Jeremie’s desk, getting herself another Coke, and watching as the boys played for second place in an Uno match after she had gotten out. Odd laughed as Ulrich played a draw two card on Jeremie, whose hand was already at least a quarter of the deck, but shut up as Jeremie dropped three more on top.

“Draw eight, Odd.”

A faint grin was on Jeremie’s face as Odd scowled. “I never should have let you guys convince me to use stacking rules!”

“You were the one who suggested it,” Ulrich muttered, sorting his own hand.  

Yumi smiled, sipping her drink, thankful for a moment of unity in the room. The boys had been awkward all night; Jenga was a nightmare that she was glad was over. It wasn’t like she was doing much better – her competitive instincts from playing with her family didn’t work well with Jeremie, who didn’t know the rules, or with Ulrich, who was in what she was quickly finding to be a usual bad mood. Odd didn’t seem to mind, but she always had a hard time understanding Odd at all; his easy grins and fast jokes couldn’t always be genuine, could they? How could someone be that happy all the time?

But Odd was grating on the other two just as much as she was; his jokes falling on just her laughter, becoming more and more tired as the other two didn’t respond. It was a nightmare, trying to carry the conversation like this, and it was clearer now that she had stepped out of the game. Ulrich and Jeremie just played the game, an ocasssional single quip, and Odd tried his best to fill the room with chatter that fell on deaf ears, his persistant smile fixed and tired. This whole thing was a mistake. None of them were having a good time, and none of them wanted to be there.

What is wrong with us? Yumi thought, unconsciously crushing her now empty cup in her hand. Why couldn’t they just have fun, the way friends were supposed to? Yumi hadn’t had any friends before she and Ulrich were attacked by that electricity ball and her life got flipped upside down, and now she wasn’t even sure if she was doing it right. There were times that they got it, that they laughed and hung out, but there were times like this, too, where everything was just off.

She sighed, turning to throw out her cup, thinking about making an excuse about wanting to get home before Jim noticed her, when she suddenly remembered that they weren’t the only ones in the room. Aelita’s face was on the screen, watching the boys play Uno. She suddenly felt bad about not speaking to her most of the night.

“Hey Aelita, how are you doing?”

Aelita turned to her, smiling brightly. “Oh, just fine, Yumi. Humanity has created so many interesting ways to keep itself occupied in its leisure, hasn’t it?”

“Yeah, I guess so.” Yumi’s heart melted with Aelita’s enthusiasm for something so simple, “Are you understanding the rules?”

“Oh yes, I have the Google to thank for that.” Aelita motioned to something in front of her that Yumi couldn’t see. A smile twitched at the corners of Yumi’s mouth at Aelita’s awkward phrasing. She found herself briefly forgetting her desire to book it out of there as Aelita continued. “I’m learning a lot! Not just on the games, but on ‘fun’ too.”

“On fun? What do you mean by that?”

“I didn’t really understand quite how it worked before now; I don’t have a lot of time for ‘fun’ on Lyoko. It’s not like I can go play Uno or Jenga with XANA.” She looked wistful for a moment, then smiled again. “But I can see the way that you guys are doing it, and it’s very interesting. It seems like ‘fun’ is something you have to learn to do as much as ‘work’ is.”

“Huh? What does that mean?”

“Well,” Aelita hesitated for a moment, “I found that whenever I need to learn something new, it takes me a bit to get it right, you know? And you guys are doing that with this – you were yelling before, but not now. Odd stopped bothering Ulrich. Jeremie is speaking more and more.”

Yumi was crushing her cup again, and noticed the lack of the sound of cards in the room meant the others had stopped playing Uno and were listening in on the conversation.

“From what Jeremie tells me,” Aelita continued, “Between your schoolwork and fighting XANA, you don’t get a lot of chances to do ‘fun.’ I’m glad you found a way to do it today, and that you’re all practicing it together.”

Practicing having fun.

It was a very strange way to put it, Yumi thought, her eyes sweeping over the room, as they all shared glances with each other, but not something entirely wrong. How many times did she see any of them with people who weren’t each other?

           Yumi looked back at their digital friend, whose animated face was impassive, then grew more confused as she didn’t respond. She stole another glance at the rest of the room and felt her insides unclench. Her face twitched, and laughter started spilling out of her mouth.

           None of them knew what they were doing. None of them – not a single one of them – knew how to do this right. This was ridiculous; they were all so stressed about playing Uno.

           Maybe they did need the practice at being friends.

Her laughter subsided after a moment, and, although it wasn’t the cathartic group laugh that she was hoping for, the atmosphere in the room felt lighter than it had a moment ago.  Yumi tossed her now destroyed cup the trash, reinvigorated to figure out how to salvage a night for them. All of them.

“Hey, Aelita. Why don’t you join us, this round?”

“Huh? I can’t –”

“No, you totally can,” Yumi grinned at her, “We can find a way to hold some cards up for you, and we can just play them for you.”

“Yeah!” Odd perked up as he shuffled everyone’s cards back into the deck, “That’s a great idea, Yumi! I can help her!”

And they did. Everyone seemed to be trying a little harder at keeping the mood going. It was sloppy. They still stumbled over words, still had awkward moments between rounds. But the silence was shrinking. Yumi’s competitive shouts were responded to – hesitantly at first, then more excitedly. More people laughed at Odd’s jokes, and Jeremie even made some himself.

“Can you put down my fourth card?” Aelita asked, smiling innocently.

“Sure I – SKIP? SKIP?! YOU’RE SKIPPING ME?” Odd gasped, his hand filled with cards.

“Oh, I’m sorry, did you not want me to try and win?”

They laughed – all of them, finally. She wasn’t sure what had flipped the switch in the room; maybe they all came to the same conclusion she did, maybe they all just wanted to try and prove to Aelita that they did know what they were doing. Either way, the games of Uno pressed on into the night.

“Draw two, Yumi.” Odd dropped a card, grinning.

“So sorry, but I think that Ulrich will be drawing four.”

“Tough, Aelita’s drawing six.”

“If you play my third card, you will find it’s Jeremie drawing ten.”

“…Okay, I officially withdraw my support of stacking rules.”

“What, just because you’re losing?” Yumi teased him, and Jeremie – miracle of miracles – actually stuck his tongue out at her and grinned as he drew his cards.

Maybe they would figure this out, eventually.

 Ulrich Stern was exhausted.

He didn’t really know what he was signing up for when he agreed to go to the game night, but whatever that was certainly wasn’t it. It had started out as horribly as he expected, but then Yumi somehow completely turned it around. Hell, the three hour-long rounds of Uno (stacking rules were a mistake, it turned out) they played with Aelita were actually, dare he say it, fun, and he left the room around two feeling a lot less crummy than he had when he walked in. He even agreed to Jeremie’s suggestion that they do it again next week, returning the exhausted smile Jeremie offered him.

“I’m going to sneak home,” Yumi said, as they headed down the hallway. “I’m not sure who I’m more scared about finding me; Jim or my parents.”

“Do you want me to scout ahead?” Ulrich asked immediately, hoping he didn’t sound too eager, “I’d get in a lot less trouble with Jim than you would.”

“Yeah, that would be great! Thanks.”

Her smile made his insides melt, and Ulrich scampered away before Odd could make fun of him for it again. It wasn’t his fault that Yumi made him happy. The whole night she was fighting to make sure they were all having a good time, and it was so nice to feel like someone cared about him. It was just a pain that he was so bad at letting her, or any of the others, know that.  

A dash down the hall, a surreptitious glance right and left, down the stairs, and it was all clear. He waved Yumi over, and she was at his side faster than he expected.

“Thanks,” She grinned at him, punching him on the arm. “See you on Monday?”

“Unless XANA calls over the weekend.”

“Ugh, I sure hope not. You guys can sleep in; I have to pretend I went to bed early tonight.”

He snickered. “Goodnight, Yumi.”

“Goodnight, Ulrich.”

She disappeared down the stairs and he watched, a tired smile lingering on his face. He let himself stay for a moment longer, relishing the solitude. People were exhausting. And he still had to face one of them, even though the main activities for the night were over. He dreaded going back. He didn’t want to hear a barrage of mockery for being all too eager to help Yumi out, or more insisting that he “lose the grumpy act.” Nothing he’d ever said before had convinced Odd to shut up, and he was starting to think this was just going to be a constant part of his life.

A yawn overtook him, and he figured that needing to sleep would be a good way of getting Odd off his back as quickly as possible. He headed back to his room and went inside. Odd was there, of course, already changed into his pajamas, a finger to his lips as Ulrich shut the door behind him. “Kiwi’s asleep,” Odd whispered, pointing to the drawer that his dog slept in.

Ulrich nodded, thankful. An even better excuse; one Odd would adhere to since it was his own pet. He excused himself to the bathroom to get ready for bed, smiled at a text from Yumi that told him she got back safe, and returned to the room, a sinking feeling in his gut when he saw Odd was still awake.

“Night.” Ulrich muttered, trying to make it clear that no, shut up, not tonight, getting in bed as quickly as he could.

“Goodnight.” Odd replied, his voice smaller than usual.

Ulrich frowned, staring at the wall in front of him. Not even a single joke? Well. Better for him. He closed his eyes.

“Hey… Ulrich?”

He opened his eyes.

Maybe if he didn’t say anything, Odd’d think he was already asleep.

“Ulrich, are you awake?”

No. He thought, as if that would work.

“I’m going to assume you are and you’re just being a grumpy butt again.”

He hated his life.

“Listen, Ulrich I… I’m sorry about earlier. I don’t know really what – I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. And I’m sorry if that screwed up game night and… I dunno. You’re all my friends, and we should try and do these things! It was fun, after a while, right?”

Odd trailed off, and Ulrich stared at the wall in front of him as if it magically had all the answers to the asked and unasked questions Odd posed, the ones that haunted Ulrich. He had a million things on his mind, a million responses to make, a million confused feelings clenched in his gut.

“And I guess I – I feel like I’m doing something wrong with you, Ulrich. I want to be friends, and I – I dunno. I’m sorry.”

“…I didn’t think sorry was in your vocabulary, Odd.”

“Rude.” Odd shot back, but without any venom. “Friends?”

He let the question sit for a moment, and Ulrich smiled, thinking of the laughter they all shared as Aelita destroyed them for the third time in a row.

“Yeah. Yeah, we are.”

[alchemabotana]

Shamanic Identity

Today I’m taking the time to write this post about something so personal and dear to my heart: Shamanic Identity.

You’ve probably seen it too: people with no right to the word Shaman using it liberally to describe the work they do. I’ve written several other posts about shamanism, its history, and my personal practice here on this blog, but that’s not exactly what I’m writing about today.

The word “appropriation” doesn’t begin to cover this topic, although it is a word that applies to the concepts I’m addressing. The concept of Shamanic Identity is actually not a complicated one at all: a Shaman is an intermediary between the Spirit World and the Physical World, between the multiverse and dimensional realities that are unseen and the seen world. These people do so by simply existing and taking up space. There are Shamanic Practices, Shamanic Techniques, Shamanic Ceremonies, and Shamanic Rituals, but that’s NOT Shamanic Identity. These things are simply words and labels we’ve developed as Shamans to describe categories of actions that we take in the world, not our Identity.

For example, if I stopped offering healings, making medicine pieces or altars, performing rituals or ceremonies... I would still be a Shaman, because that’s who I was born to be. I know Shamans who drive trucks for a living, are maids, trash collectors, incarcerated, or in a mental hospital: but they’re still Shamans. They don’t need to take a special class, tell you their genetic lineage, or practice a specific modality to be a Shaman.

So what has created the Shamanic Identity crisis that is so widespread in this current age? What it boils down to is The Cultural Iceburg. 

The Cultural Iceburg is the concept that what we see when interacting with an individual is not all there is. When people think of Shamanism they associate it with our Customs, Language, and Music. But they mistakenly ignore Values, Priorities, Assumptions, Body Language, Stories, Manners, and Space/Time Concepts of our LIVED EXPERIENCE.

This is why it’s so easy for someone to put on the headdress, get a rattle or drum, and start claiming that they are a Shaman. Why do these people do this? Primarily to gain a position in some social group or setting they’d like to belong to (usually not the cultural group they are appropriating from, but others in their racial/social/socioeconomic/class structure). These individuals are also highly motivated by FINANCIAL GAIN.

I want to take some time to talk about financial gain and Shamanism. I’ll be frank, I don’t know any rich Shamans. I don’t know any Shamans who feel completely comfortable charging a fair price for their services, and I know a lot of Shamans who have gone hungry and homeless because they don’t feel right about charging money. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t pay a Shaman the fair price for their work (services or goods). Just as you would pay someone a fair living wage for hours worked, you ought to pay a Shaman for their work. It’s that simple.

But there are many clear examples, unfortunately many of them in my hometown community, of people taking Shaman Schools or Shaman Certifications or Shaman Classes (usually online - not that there aren’t authentic shamanic online courses) in order to claim that they are a Shaman or to show “proof” that they are “qualified” to be a Shaman. I ran into this when a local hospital approached me about coming on board as a Shaman in their clergy. It became very obvious that their department had no real clue what a Shaman does, as they asked for proof of my schooling and accreditation as a Shaman. When I told them I wouldn’t provide those materials because it is not culturally appropriate, they asked me for the names and qualifications of my teachers. My teachers also did not have the qualifications they were looking for, and I REFUSE to play the “show me your identification card” game which is insulting to our elders. 

Are you starting to get the picture?

Shamanism is a complex identity structure. It requires a person to have certain prerequisite gifts. That’s not something you can give a person or teach a person in a course or school. Some will argue that you can transfer gifts, but I will argue that you have to be a Shaman already to receive them. In my experience as a Shaman it has often been necessary to teach other Shamans how to manage their gifts so that they would not be overwhelmed by them. Shamans have to deal with a complex cultural stigma against their very identities: don’t talk to dead people, don’t listen to voices, don’t communicate with spirits, don’t you dare see one or you’ll be labeled insane. If you’re a Shaman of BIPOC origin, just go ahead and layer institutional racism on top of it, and you’re in for a flurry of misunderstanding and bigoted response to your very identity out there in the “real world.” Shamans have to learn to navigate incredible barriers to basic human rights when they take the steps to seek help for mental or physical health issues. Some of those issues have nothing to do with them, except that their care providers are too ignorant on complex cultural matters to be good advocates for their care. This is why the great majority of Shamans that I have taught, studied with, or been in the care of, have tragic stories of healthcare gone wrong & wrongful incarceration/mental institutionalism. I really don’t know a single Shaman who doesn’t struggle with a mental health diagnosis, complex PTSD, or Epigenetic Trauma.

For those of us born of family lineages, we have to navigate Epigenetic Trauma as well. We have to face a healthcare system that was built on experimentation on our ancestors, and overcome major trust issues to receive treatment for conditions that most average citizens of the US suffer from as well: anxiety, depression, PTSD, domestic violence, sexual violence, etc. Except, when a Shaman goes to receive help they have to explain why they see spirits and their whole cosmology before someone takes them seriously around conditions that have nothing to do with their Shamanic Identity. Sometimes Shamans feel they HAVE to be honest about their experiences with these providers, even if it hurts them. They have most likely been abused for their Shamanic Identity, and aren’t so much sharing their experiences to seek help for the woo-woo, but help navigating abuse.

But those without real Shamanic Identities just take off the label Shaman whenever it is convenient. They do not have to bear the burdens of Shamanic Identity, but receive the financial benefits of associating themselves with the term. These are the folks who come to me desperate to associate themselves with me as a student, so they can claim they have met the “requirements” to be a practicing Shaman for their business profile. It’s been incredibly hard for me to navigate this within myself and not respond immediately with rage. Instead, I try to educate people tactfully - some are more responsive than others. For example, I had a student once inquire about my Shamanic Mentorship - a mentorship program I offered pre-pandemic in which I explicitly stated the purpose was to receive mentorship from a Shaman. Nothing more. This particular individual had a yoga studio and wanted to “Add Shamanism” to what they offered. I tried to explain the impossibility of such a venture, especially with me as their token Shaman who would bestow this identity on them, so they could monetize my cultural and identity for their benefit. I never heard from the person again, although they do still own and operate a studio in my hometown, they have taken no actions to support our Shamanic work on any level. My hope is that they realized the futility and ignorance of their request, although I’m certain they had no intention of ever supporting us at all. 

You’ve probably seen this kind of “shamanism” online on instagram posts, influencer pages, and people who are what I call “shamanic curious”. All these individuals have done nothing to truly commit to alleviating the pains and sufferings that they’re causing by appropriating someone’s actual identity. They feel like they have the best intentions: “Omg! No!! ONLY LOVE AND LIGHT SIS!” (eye roll). However, they tend to be completely ignorant to the damage and stress they cause to real Shamans through their selfish actions. “Being curious is ok right? I mean, I have the right to explore my identity through yours and see if it gets me friends, likes, follows, and MONEY, RIGHT?” No. Go home. Think about what you are doing when you try on someone’s identity and put yourself out there as the face of that identity. Would it behoove you to consider that Shamans themselves have had to strenuously defend their identities to others? Would it perhaps be a real act of love and light to give up your curiosities and turn over that experience to an actual Shaman? Have you considered that you cause real physical, spiritual, and mental harm to Shamans, and clients that you take on in your exploration of Shamanic traditions, rituals, and ceremonies?

If you don’t truly have a Shamanic Identity I encourage you to stop what you’ve been practicing right now, sit down, and ask for forgiveness from the Spirits, as well as living Shamans and their Ancestors. I would go to a real Shaman and pay them properly to remove the slew of crazy toxic attachments you’ve definitely been accumulating, and release you from the karmic debt you are certainly incurring. If you can get a job doing anything in the real world sector that doesn’t involve you crawling up into someone’s energy stream, I would suggest you take that job and step out of a sector you know nothing about. It’s amazing to me what people think they can make-up about themselves and others because deep down they also believe that Shamanism is made up. If it’s all made up, then you can do anything you want with no repercussions and still make money off someone else’s identity. And you still think you’re not harming anyone? 

If you’re a Shaman you know that you can’t fake it til you make it. There’s no faking the Spirits, Guides, and Ancestors. There’s no faking a spiritual or psychic attack. There’s no faking the spirit’s communication to you, or their visible presence. And when you go out into the world, no matter what you do, people are going to find you for your Shamanic Identity.

For example, I once worked at a test grading facility one summer marking up EOG exams. While at this job at every break an elderly woman would come up to me and share her stories, always with the caveat “I don’t know why I’m telling you this but...” and then go into a story about how her deceased father was contacting her at her home. He would do so by knocking things off tables and moving things around. I asked her what he thought he was trying to tell her. She eventually concluded that he wanted her to move from her house, but she didn’t feel ready for that. I suggested that she tell him this next time he made his presence known. Next time we talked she shared that she had spoken with him and that the incidents then stopped. After that she didn’t come up to me to talk, and someone new started talking to me. My boss brought me photographs from her time in AZ as a young woman, depicting petroglyphs that matched my shamanic tattoos. She said “you know that means you’re a shaman right?” I laughed and nodded. At one point everyone in my grading group was feeling very ill, one of the proctor overlords had decided to crank up the AC and everyone was freezing cold. I brought everyone blankets and stones. One gentleman later asked me what the stone meant. I told him, “it’s a piece of quartz, it doesn’t have to mean anything, it can just be beautiful”. He said “No, I mean - they mean something. I know this sounds crazy, but some really bad stuff was going on with my family: financial and health problems. But when I brought that stone home, everything changed immediately. I need you to know that.” I acknowledge him and told him yes, this can happen - the stones heal who they want to, that’s just part of our understanding of them, but we don’t expect others to believe the same way. He said “I don’t need convincing, I experienced it myself”.

No one article can even begin to truly communicate the issues surrounding the theft, appropriation, and misrepresentation of Shamanism in our world, let alone the internet. I mean, the Q Anon guy called himself a Shaman too and the media just ate it up. Why? Because it is exotic and ignorance makes for good press, and good press makes for money. 

And I don’t write this to depress or discourage anyone, especially others out there with a Shamanic Identity. Instead, I hope that this encourages you and helps you advocate for yourself in this crazy world. I hope you stand up for yourself to people trying to take advantage of you, especially people in the medical field. I don’t believe that our medical field is based on true healing practices, and I can’t really get into that rant here, but I also don’t believe our doctors mean to be “bad people” or wallow in ignorance: they’re just products of their own cultural issues as well! 

However, if you’re a Shaman struggling to receive mental or physical healthcare because someone in your family or caregiver team is purposefully using your Shamanic Identity to paint you as crazy, please feel free to show them this article and demand that they use DSM-5 to evaluate you. You deserve nothing but the best treatment. You don’t need to feel ashamed for feelings of paranoia, terror, anxiety, depression, or PTSD. People who aren’t Shamans deal with it too, so don’t be afraid of those words. I don’t know many Shamans actually disturbed by their gifts. They aren’t actually suffering mentally from seeing or hearing spirits, but from the reactions of their family, friends, colleagues, and health professionals to their actual identities. These Shamans aren’t afraid of the Spirits or Ancestors, and have had to be put in the position where they rely on those spirits to provide the care and discernment of truth that should be provided by the health and wellness systems. It’s time for the gatekeepers of the medical industry to acknowledge their bias, their systemic failure of these individuals, and the exploitation of in-need Shamans. Once that has happened, real care can be provided for issues not caused by a Shamanic Identity inherently, but by external forces of society that come against a Shaman. 

This article is dedicated to the sweet Shaman who visited my shop today with only $2 to exchange for altar work. She shared her story in great detail of how the medical industry was abusing her in the ways I’ve outlined before. She was discouraged by it, seeking information to provide to herself and her care team so that she could get real care. I was happy to provide her with the shamanic goods she needed and gift it to her as a birthday present. I tried my best to give her free resources to access for her healthcare and talking points to share with her medical team. Sister, this is what I promised you on my blog, and I hope you enjoy it. Also, I wish you the Safe Passage you’re so willing to offer others, as well as the brightness of your spirit back to you. I hope that things resolve quickly and you get the respect you deserve, because I honor your Shamanic Identity, and I appreciate you honoring mine.

[capechicago]

CAPE Network Forum Newsletter: West Chicago

In this issue of the CAPE Network Forum Newsletter, we are excited to celebrate the newest after-school partnership between CAPE and West Chicago School District 33. What began as an idea from CAPE teaching artist and resident of West Chicago, Anni Holm, has now blossomed into a robust inquiry-based arts integrated after-school program serving over 350 students and community members across four schools.

From early conversations beginning in the summer of 2020, to the navigation of complex federal and state grant management systems, to the kick-off of programming in January of 2021, this program is testament to the power of partnership in spite of the COVID-19 pandemic.

CAPE is grateful to Anni Holm for making the initial connection, District 33 leadership’s openness to expanding their after-school program, and Hannah Martin, CAPE’s West Chicago Program Coordinator, who is doing incredible work behind-the-scenes to make the whole program function. CAPE is also grateful for the incredible creativity and energies of all the West Chicago teachers, staffers, and the many new CAPE artists who have made this all possible and greatly expanded CAPE’s Network of Artist/Researchers.

Below you will find the perspectives of Joie Frankovich, District 33’s Coordinator of Partnerships, Yaritza, a fifth grade student at Currier Elementary, and documentation of in-process work from many of the online classes transpiring in West Chicago.

— Joseph Spilberg

Interview with Joie Frankovich, District 33’s Coordinator of Partnerships

Tell us the story of your relationship to CAPE and how this partnership came to fruition.

I'm the Coordinator of Partnerships with District 33. The district has had a 21st Century Community Learning Centers grant for eons, and for the last 10 years of that grant, we worked with a somewhat local partner, and they were always our applicant on it. With COVID-19, they felt that the program was no longer aligned with their mission and chose to step away from the grant. That left us needing to find a new co-applicant.

We reached out to a lot of different organizations and just tried to put feelers out there because it's a fairly hefty grant. I mean, there's a lot of red tape and a lot of requirements, and an organization needs to have capacity to do it. We actually had a lot of organizations turn us down because we were in the middle of a pandemic, and all these organizations are just doing their best to stay afloat, the same that the school district was.

Anni Holm, who I know is a CAPE teaching artist and a District 33 parent and staff member, had always raved about CAPE as an organization and the kind of the model that CAPE uses. She had sent a connecting email to Joseph and me just saying let's see if there's anything that can come from it.

So I reached out to Joseph. I just said, “You mentioned you're looking to expand your reach. You're looking to be in more suburbs. You’ve worked with 21st CCLC grants. Are you interested in being our co-applicant and seeing if we can figure something out?” And Joseph said yes immediately.

I think ISBE approved of the grant on January 18th. So in six months, we created a budget, and we put a program together. Then the program started running February 1st!

What does collaboration look like for District 33?

I think the relationship between District 33 and CAPE has already started with an intention to be collaborative from the very beginning. I remember when Joseph and I were first talking, one of the big things that I was focused on was the fact that the district still wants to work with other partners. How do we blend other organizations and people into this program?

It's just kind of this constant throwing ideas out there and saying, What makes sense? How can we work together? We've been working with a lot of our local partners to the park district, the library, some help from some of our local health partners, and finding ways to embed really collaborative family opportunities on top of the traditional kind of classroom stuff that's going to happen in the afternoon, spring, and summer programming. And it's been absolutely wonderful.

For the future, I just envision this continuing to expand and really grow, because we only really started in February with Joseph. I have been referring to this semester as our pilot, like, let's just go for it. Let's see how it goes. Let's learn lessons. And then for next year, we can really think about how we build this out even more, make it more robust.

And for us, when we talk about collaboration, a lot of times what we talk about is that often, whether it's education, nonprofit organizations, people are asked to do so much more than what they should have to do. And a lot of times it's beyond the scope of their position. Teachers are being asked to be counselors.

For us, these collaborations are really about bringing in everyone’s expertise and passions. Really work together so we can just do the things we're good at and let others do the things they're good at so that together we're really working towards those goals. CAPE has this beautiful model, inquiry based arts integration. So CAPE tells us how that looks, because you have that expertise. District 33 has some other expertise. How do we work together to create something really beautiful for students? I mean it's all about the students and families in the end. So how do we work together to create something that's really special for them? It’s been just incredible how open and ready everyone's been to just say, OK, let's figure this out. Let's be creative. Let's bounce ideas back and forth. And we just make it work. And it's pretty awesome to have a partner who's just has a bent towards wanting to operate that way.

Family Night is where the community’s families come together and share out what they’ve been learning in CAPE programs. CAPE has hosted a few Family Night events over the spring semester. How does Family Night serve the district?

Students don't exist in isolation. They are a family unit in some way, shape, or form. It looks different for everyone, but you're a part of something larger. If you want to support students, our belief is you need to be supporting the guardians or the adults or whoever else is in that home with reaching their goals and removing barriers for those folks.

We do a lot of activities and events where we try and bring families together to do shared learning or just have shared experiences together. For example, we offer ESL classes for parents and guardians. And in the evenings we know that often child care could be a hindrance for them to be able to attend. We also offer a child development program for the children of parents and ESL class where the children are doing their own learning.

The other big thing we really focus on is this idea of doing things with families and communities, not doing them to families and communities, and really providing opportunity for families to say, this is what I want this to look like, or this is how I think you should be. And not just assuming we know better because we're, I don't know, an organization or professionals or whatever.

So the Family Nights that we've had so far, it was amazing. I mean, I think I shed tears a couple of times. So cool to see and particularly knowing everything's been virtual for us this whole time. Yeah, I still see the impact that's happened in the relationships that have been built has just been phenomenal. It really gives an opportunity for parents to be able to kind of get that insider view of the program, and also a chance for students to just show off, show their parents what they did, and ask, How cool is this? And I really enjoyed being able to see the teaching artists and our district staff show off, too, because they were doing a lot of the sharing. It's just so incredible.

I think down the road, what would be amazing is that when we have these events in person, hopefully in the near future, that they also are really embedded in the community, too. So people have an opportunity to really learn more about West Chicago and the community that they live in and contribute to. So it's really supporting a broader community engagement too, not just that inner family engagement.

Student interview with Yaritza, a fifth grader at Currier Elementary School

Why did you join CAPE after school?

Because I like after school programs and theater. It's fun learning more stuff after school.

How is this after school like class and environment different than what you do during the school day?

It's different from the school day because I get to move around a lot more and play more and have more fun than just sitting there and writing notes.

Can you describe to me what kinds of things you've been doing in this class (Life Out Loud!)?

We play fun games. And we have time to spend quality time with other kids, and draw everyday. We do theater games and create stories and fun scenes. And we write some of our ideas down.

What is something that you hope to do with the class before the school year is over?

One thing that I like to do with the class before the class is over is do the puppet shows we’ve started. And learn more games.

If you were to tell someone of the kids at your school, a reason to join CAPE after school programs or this after school program, what would you say?

I like doing after school programs because it gives you more time to spend time with other kids and not be on the on your screen, and to create things on your own with artists.

At Gary Elementary School, students show off their trolls before the mischievous creatures run away, led by artists Anni Holm and Buddy Plumlee and teacher Jacqueline Neidhardt.

Students at Leman Middle School share their Alebrijes and masks inspired by traditional Mexican art, led by artist Sarita Garcia and teacher Carlos Osorio.

For the parent class at Leman Middle School, parents practice drawing still lifes using objects that represent their identity, led by artist Jessica Mueller and counselors Graciela Moreno, Lori Koch, and Melinda Ayala.

[kuramirocket]

Created by Elizabeth Ito, the animated series City of Ghosts explores the history of different neighborhoods in Los Angeles through friendly ghosts that make the past of this metropolis real. Our guides into these adventures, created in documentary style, are a diverse group of children, the Ghost Club, who navigate each encounter with curiosity and compassion.

For episode six, focused on Koreatown, the creators recruited professor Felipe H. Lopez, a Zapotec scholar to help them portray the Oaxacan community of L.A. With Ito and producer Joanne Shen’s support, Lopez brought authenticity to the depiction of certain visual elements, such as the grecas de Mitla, geometrical designs specific to the Indigenous people of Oaxaca. More importantly, he voices an animated version of himself, as well as Chepe, a lovable alebrije ghost at the center of the story. Lopez’s dialogue is both in English and Zapotec.

A native of the small Oaxacan community of San Lucas Quiaviní, where the vast majority of the population speaks Zapotec, Lopez has become a binational bastion in the preservation of this Indigenous language and the culture it gives voice to. He came to the United States when he was 16 years old speaking mostly Zapotec. He learned English first and then he worked on improving his Spanish while at Santa Monica Community College.

In 1992, Lopez got accepted into University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) in the Latin American studies program; he has restlessly devoted himself to preserving the identity of the Zapotec diaspora, which has been present in the United States since the days of the Bracero program. Lopez first found support in linguist Pamela Monroe with whom he created the first trilingual Zapotec dictionary, which was published in 1999 via the Chicano studies department at UCLA. Today he is a postdoctoral scholar at Haverford College.

Below, he expands on his life’s work and the significance of the positive mainstream representation of Indigenous peoples.

What was the impulse or situation that made you realize you wanted to dedicate your professional life to preserve the Zapotec language and culture?

There’s always this relationship between economic gains with language. I saw how a lot of families in the Oaxacan community were raising their kids. Even if they didn’t speak Spanish fluently, they wanted to teach their kids Spanish rather than Zapotec. In a sense, they didn’t see a lot of usefulness in teaching their kids Zapotec. Interestingly, some of them actually were teaching their children the little English they knew. They even skipped teaching them Spanish. The parents would speak with each other in Zapotec but then would talk to the kids in English.

Being a college student back then and thinking about those things made me realize that the language was being lost and being substituted by either Spanish or English. At that moment I thought, ‘Maybe my language is going to be lost. I’ve got to do something about it. Even if it is just to leave a record. I want it to at least be known that we spoke this language at one time.’ That’s what really drove me to seek out somebody to help me because I’m not a linguist. Ever since then, we’ve been creating a lot of open source materials in Zapotec for people to use. We now have dictionaries. We’ve really used the technology in order to make our language, our culture, and how we are visible. City of Ghosts is another component that continues the work we started in 1992.

One of the interesting things about Indigenous languages is that sometimes they are not seen as real languages. You have this battle against the established ideology that Indigenous languages are not really languages. It’s almost like being salmon going against the current, if you’re trying to preserve your language because there are very few spaces for you to use your language and it’s not being taught in public schools in Mexico. But I was fortunate to be able to teach one of the very first courses in Zapotec. In 2005, UCSD [University of California, San Diego] asked me to teach a course in Zapotec. We needed to create all the materials from scratch because unlike Spanish or English or French, which are the dominant languages, you have tons of materials. If you want to teach Spanish you can go to the library and you have tons of materials to teach. But for us as Indigenous teachers we really need to create materials.

Language is deeply connected to how a culture sees the world. In that regard, why do you think it’s necessary to protect and teach Zapotec and other Indigenous languages in Mexico?

A lot of our Indigenous knowledge is embedded in the language. For example, when I think about how we’re being taught math in school from a Western point of view, we have the decimal system of counting: 10, 20, so on. But in Zapotec we have a different counting system, which is a base 20. We do 20, 40, and 80. Sadly, in Mexico something people say, ‘Why do you want to preserve the language? It’s not even a language. It’s a dialect.’

Fortunately, last year, I think if I’m not mistaken, Mexico changed the constitution to recognize more than 68 languages spoken in Mexico as national languages. There has been a long struggle. I’ve been doing work both in the U.S. and Mexico. Currently I’m teaching a free course on Zapotec in one of the universities in Mexico, because I want to contribute. Indigenous languages are important because they represent our history. They represent our identity and the ways in which we see our surroundings. There are even words in Zapotec that I can’t even translate into Spanish because there are no concepts that are equivalent. They need to be explained.

With the constitutional changes that you mention and someone like actress Yalitza Aparicio inspiring conversations about racism in Mexico and across Latin America, do you believe we are on the brink of a deeper appreciation of Indigenous culture and language?

It’s interesting that you mentioned Yalitza because when she first came out people attacked her. They would say, ‘She’s an Indian. She doesn’t deserve to be there.’ It is the sentiment that has endured in Mexico and Latin America. It’s a colonial mentality. If you look at the soap operas and Mexican TV shows just about every single actor or actress is white. There has been a push historically for Mexico to aspire, to be white. We, as Indigenous people, have been perceived to be a problem for modernity. They feel like, ‘How can Indigenous people be modern?’

We tend to be very fluid and move into different cultures, into different eras. I can speak my language in my pueblo, but at the same time I can use the Internet and I can speak English.Being Indigenous is never a detriment.In Mexico, the dominant culture, the politicians and the [non-Indigneous] intellectuals, see us as something less than Mexican. They speak about Mexicans versus Indigenous people. I’ve always questioned that because they like to talk about Mexico’s Indigenous roots, yet ostracize and put us on the margin. When they speak about Indigenous communities, they tend to think of us in a museum because once you put us in a museum it means that we no longer exist. There is this contradiction in terms of where we are, where we fit in Mexican society. That’s why we’re pushing so hard to make ourselves visible.

Specifically speaking about Zapotec people, and other immigrants from Indigenous communities, in the United States, what are the major obstacles in resettling?

Indigenous immigrants go through two steps of assimilation, because a lot of us who move into the States, we bring our indigenous language and culture. But the dominant culture that exists in LA is a Mexican or Mexican American culture. It’s a mestizo culture and there’s Spanish. So we as Indigenous people first need to assimilate into that culture and then assimilate into the mainstream culture. We need to speak English, but we also need to speak Spanish. There are two steps of assimilation for us to even try to situate ourselves in mainstream American society.

Tell me about your experience working on such a unique show as City of Ghosts, which really digs deep into the cultural fabric of Los Angeles. What convinced you that this could be positive for Indigenous communities?

One of the things that I asked Joanne [Shen] was, ‘How much say do I have?’ Because I didn’t want to be there if they already had an idea and they just want me to emulate something. So she said, “No, we want to sit down with you and talk about what are some of the important aspects of Zapotec society and what is it that really impacts you guys? How do you see the world?” That was one of the most important things for me in order to agree to do the project.

We had several meetings in terms where they asked me questions. Once I looked at the whole script, not just mine but also those for the alebrije ghost Chepe and Lena who is voiced by Gala Porras-Kim, I made some changes according to how I felt it represented Zapotec culture. For example, tying the idea of the ghost with the idea of the nahual orthe alter ego in Zapotec and Mesoamerican culture, as well as the use of alebrijes and the colors, which properly represented Zapotec culture on the screen.

They were very sensitive and they wanted to get it right. I really commend them for that, because I’ve worked in projects where they don’t really care. They have an agenda. But for this project they were so attuned with me.I think that’s what makes City of Ghosts such an important program for kids and just for the public at large to understand who the Zapotec are, because when we think about the Mexican community we assume that everybody speaks Spanish. This program, and specifically episode six, will help people to at least begin to rethink Mexican society and that not all Mexicans speak Spanish. Not all of them are mestizo, but rather that we are a multilingual and multicultural society, and we are bringing that to the States. I hope it makes people at least curious.

One aspect prominently mentioned in your episode is how certain Oaxacan communities use a whistling language. Why was this a significant element?

To be honest with you, I have no idea where it came from, but as far back as I remember when I was a kid we would just whistle to communicate basic phrases to each other. Also when we go to work on the field and you see somebody far away, you whistle at that person just to get some information like, ‘How are you doing? What’s going on?’ Since, we didn’t have any phones back home then, we whistled to communicate, but it’s not entirely just Zapotec communities. There are other Indigenous communities in Oaxaca and Mesoamerica that use whistling as a means of communication. So when I was asked to be part of the show, I did a lot of whistling in the episode just demonstrating how we communicate and that we don’t need words. Whistling is another expression of language.

When you think about Angelenos you think about Mexicans or mestizos at the pueblo of Los Angeles. But we rarely talk about the Indigenous people in LA. By having the Zapotec people in this sho2, we begin to have this conversation go beyond thinking about this land only having Latinos, African Americans, and whites. There are these hidden multicultural societies here that have been fighting and resisting against all these forces.

One thing that is so interesting to me is that when we are on the margins, we tend to fight and resist at the margin to maintain our language and culture. So then by bringing us into the light and being visible, even by asking, ‘Where do you guys come from?’ We can say, ‘Well, we’ve been here all along. You just haven’t seen us.’ With these particular episodes on the Zapotec, all of a sudden some people might learn something. I’ve seen on Twitter the young Indigenous people express they feel so proud of the fact that Indigenous people are represented in this show. There’s something unique about this show, because it really brings some of the historical aspects of the composition of LA, specifically of the Pico-Union area.

The most important thing people should take out of those two episodes that talk about Indigenous communities, it’s the very first time that we see Indigenous communities well represented and not objectified, but just as human and what they do in everyday life. And also how we bring our traditions and cultures to some of the megacities in the world, coming from small communities, such as mine where we have about 1700 people, yet we are being represented in such an incredible episode.

City of Ghosts is streaming on Netflix.

[smartguyreviewed]

2x5 - Dumbstruck

Original air date:  October 8, 1997

Yay, an episode where TJ is actually acting like a kid! And also an excuse for me to rant about how much I despise group projects.

A very over it Lisa Simpson (played by Yeardley Smith) is handing back tests to her dumb ass students save for TJ and this annoying white kid named Clark that we’ll be introduced to briefly because Mackey ended up being the lead token white on this show, right next to Yvette’s cute friend Nina.

Clark asks how TJ did. He humble brags and Marcus snatches his test to gloat about his brother finally not doing well at something. Sike! TJ got a 110 on his assignment. Marcus is dumbfounded since he clearly doesn’t even put in the bare minimum. 

Lisa has to remind Marcus that demonstrating how you actually studied will get you more points. She gives her lazy, remedial students a chance to make up for their piteous attempts with a makeup assignment, an oral group report on WW2. Now everyone is mad at TJ because he fucked up the curve of the grading system, facilitating the need for a makeup assignment. Mackey is pissed.

Marcus and Mo of course decide to stick all the work on TJ while they go to Dawgburger. TJ, now wanting to fit in with his cool brother and bestie, agrees but is promptly thrown into a garbage can by Mackey and his 30 year old goon when they give him shit for being smart. Because the plot calls for it in this episode, TJ isn’t masterminding a plan to put fudged up charges on Mackey’s record or flunk him out of school forever. 

At the Henderson crib, TJ is attempting to do the assignment but the boys are watching The Three Stooges with non-copyright stock sound effects and can’t be bothered to lower the volume. Even Floyd stops scolding Marcus and Mo to join them. Apparently, TJ thinks being a genius and being entertained by slapstick are mutually exclusive.

Yvette is in the kitchen frowning at her fruitless yogurt when TJ comes in to whine about feeling left out. Yvette, as usual, is there to provide motherly advice and reassure TJ that he’s too brilliant to relate to simpleton humor. She even suggests that he’ll be the only non crooked black politician on the Supreme Court. Aww. TJ will revenge porn her in the future.

Just then, a truck pulls in with daddy Floyd’s wood--hehe--and the boys, including Mo, gather in the garage to bring in Floyd’s wood--last time, I promise--to wherever it needs to go.

Yvette comes in after the gang delegates how the work flow will commence and then commands the plot for the episode when she tells TJ his shoe is untied while Mo and Marcus are handing boards to each other. This ended well.

After passing out, Marcus, who is terrifyingly not alarmed, just calls for Floyd and then we end up at the hospital where it seems that TJ’s relatively light board smack has now rendered him dumb. Not only dumb but more childish than usual.

Marcus cares nothing about TJ’s prognosis, however, because he is a horny teenage boy and the doc is hot. Yvette has to literally drag him out of the room by his ear.

The doctor tells Floyd that this strange concussion could leave TJ acting like this for weeks. Of course Floyd is concerned since TJ is gifted. The next morning, TJ is so forgetful and delayed at breakfast that Floyd and Yvette have to play charades to help him navigate feeding himself.

Marcus comes in and asks if TJ is back to normal because he doesn’t want to do anything that makes him use his own damn brain for a change. After Flody sees this because Marcus did it right in the kitchen where he was about three feet away, he of course takes Marcus aside to tell him to quit badgering TJ to get well again.

At school, Mo thinks it’s a good idea to simply undo TJ’s problem by hitting him in the head again. Since we’re working off corny sitcom logic, he’s not exactly off base here. I mean, it did only take two light hits from a wooden board to turn TJ into an imbecile so why not do the same to get him back to normal, right?

During class, TJ is wowing everyone with his diminished IQ that was announced to everyone in the class for some reason. Eh, it’s Piedmont so I really shouldn’t be surprised that all of his business is out there.

Lisa is pissed because now that TJ is dumb and she hates Clark for some reason, teaching will be damn near impossible because nobody participates. I think I feel her pain because she asks a super easy question (what naval base did the Japanese attack) and nobody but annoying ass Clark answers. Poor thing. She probably came into this profession bright-eyed and bushy tailed, ready to change students’ lives and become the next Erin Gruwell but ended up becoming nothing more than a de facto babysitter.

TJ is taking advantage of being one of the guys by making fun of the more deadly effects of dropping bombs and says it led to radioactive monsters. The boys laugh but Lisa is aggy that nobody is taking this seriously. To spite her idiot students, she makes the reports worth half of their grade. Mackey blames Clark instead of the teacher who literally just assigned it. For some reason, this tickles Clark even though he’s going to end up in the garbage soon.

Since TJ is one of the guys again, he manages to tag along with the crew at Dawgburger, a place he wasn’t invited to earlier since he was going to do their group assignment all by himself. In hindsight, I hated group projects because I did all of the work anyways since my cohorts were dumb as rock boxes, so this wouldn’t have bothered me at all. Abolish group projects!

Post Dawgburger, TJ is in bed reading a comic and shooting the shit with Marcus. This is sweet. I like seeing siblings bond on TV shows because the regular narrative always seems to involve them all hating each other. Here, there’s no drama, just Marcus actually being responsible because he’s studying for the oral report and TJ, in what would be his natural state if he weren’t a genius. They even have a heart to heart when TJ asks if he’ll be okay and what would happen once he’s back to normal. Marcus says he’ll still stick up for him. Aww.

In geometry the next day, TJ’s intelligence just comes right back after he flawlessly recites the Pythagorean theorem when the dorky teacher asks. Once he realizes this, and after having probably the few easiest days in a while, TJ understandably commits to pretending to be a dolt. That is until pops sees TJ’s quantum physics magazine inside of a comic book!

Floyd traps TJ by making up a pretty damn good scenario in the Jughead comics but later confirms the lie by letting TJ know that wasn’t in the comic. He goes into how he likes being dumb with the guys because they like him more. Makes sense! TJ has nothing in common with them outside of attending their school but now he’s intellectually on their level. He knows this would change once he goes back to his regular self. Floyd should know this too but alas. I do love how he tells TJ he won’t rat on him. TJ returns the favor by telling his dad that he should write for the Jughead comics because that story he made up made him LOL super hard.

We cut to school where Mackey is just finishing up his group presentation about the X-Men invading Iwo Jima. Lisa Simpson isn’t impressed. Marcus and crew are up next and poor Marcus is struggling. I think it’s so funny that Marcus, a singer with a whole ass band, has stage fright upon trying to remember everything he studied for but just goes to show that music comes easier to him than school.

The internal monologues of everyone come up. Marcus is trying to remember what he studied. TJ contemplates bringing his brain back. Mo is...fucking beatboxing in his head. This shit had me dead when I first saw this episode. 

However, Lisa ain’t having it. She is two seconds away from using the dreaded red pen before TJ saves the day and begins talking about WW2. The boys are shocked but it helps trigger Marcus’s memory and then he’s able to spew out the facts. Mo doesn’t contribute but he will definitely take the credit! 

Later in the Henderson crib, Marcus is pissed because TJ almost let them fail. Although TJ is reminding Marcus that he put his effort into something and it paid off, Marcus is still annoyed leading TJ to think he doesn’t like him anymore.

Marcus explains that he enjoyed TJ’s company when he was dumb because he finally felt like what he is: his older brother. Kind of hard to feel that way when your younger brother is better at everything you do and a major know-it-all. He even admits that he can’t even pretend now that TJ is smart again because it won’t feel the same. I like when Marcus is doing more than chasing girls every episode because he shows maturity at times that is pleasing to watch.

He offers to instead be an older brother in other ways like threatening other people with violence if they make fun of TJ. Cute, but we all know Marcus is scary. Nice gesture though! Floyd comes in and tells the boys good night. At the end, we see Floyd took TJ up on his advice and is submitting an idea to the Jughead comics. Aww Floyd. I wish we’d gotten a subtle nod to if his idea was used because he seemed really happy with himself afterwards. Eh, whatever. Parents aren’t people so who cares.

Things I noticed:

- Clark being oddly satisfied that he knows Mackey and his fellow middle-aged adult friend are going to put him in the trash. Clark either has a crush on Mackey and didn’t like TJ for the attention he got from Mackey or he has some sort of a trash fetish. Or both. Maybe that’s why Lisa doesn’t fuck with him.

- “Okay students, now watch as I turn left to a right triangle.” I’m a dork and this actually made me laugh. Tough classroom, though.

[notsosilentsister]

I have some respect for the GameStop deadenders who went into this clear-eyed, in the spirit of spite and nihlism, to expose the rottenenness at the core of the system, etc., but I'm teaching high school economics, and from my view on the ground, my current impression is that if that's the goal, it's kinda backfiring. This week all my classes wanted to talk about GameStop - I rarely see my students this engaged. And not in the sense of, "let's stick it to Wall Street", more in the sense of "Could we do this too?"/"Could we get rich this way?".

So I spent a good deal of time explaining how risky this particular scheme is, and how  extremly likely it is that retail investors will get hurt eventually, but then my students just wanted to talk about other stocks and investment opportunities. This current episode is really not doing anything to put them off the whole affair, on the contrary, it's giving them all kinds of ideas. And I'm feeling kinda weird about it? Because on the one hand, sure, I'm thrilled that students are showing interest in my subject! Students actually coming to you "Can we talk about this in class?" and it's a topic that's even on the curriculum - how great is that? But on the other hand, this topic is always tricky for me, because I have to be very careful to keep my personal opinion out of the lesson as much as possible, firstly, because I don't want my students to feel indoctrinated, and secondly, because my personal opinion on this matter somewhat undermines me as a teacher. I'm supposed to teach financial literacy, and, regardless of any feelings I might have about the merits of capitalism, I think that's a useful thing to do. As long as that's the system we have, it's a good thing to give kids the means to navigate it. I don't want my students to become the dumb money. But sometimes I wonder whether the way I teach this topic might be desigend to discourage them too much from investing in the stock market (I don't have any sleepless nights over it though, because it's clearly not working anyway; they're, as I said, very much not discouraged). But the horrible truth is that in my heart of hearts I don't really believe that success on the stock market is very much about financial literacy. In my heart of hearts I believe there's basically no art to it whatsoever as long as you have so much money that you can invest a good chunk of it without ever actually needing to turn it into cash particularly urgently, so you can diversify your portfolio and just sit out any drama. And if you don't have that sort of money (which applies to the majority of my students; this is not a fancy private school or something), it's mostly gambling. Which can work out well enough, I guess, if you somehow manage to mostly gamble with other people's money, but of course that's not the direction I want to steer my students in. Because I don't want them to become the smart money either, who takes advantage of the rubes. But in a way it's not for me to make that decision for them, and I can't anway, and that's probably for the better.