#I went with average middle/high school subjects for this

[rileys-battlecats]

What school subject would be each micaclan cats favorite? What specific unit in that subject? Why?

oh heck you're gonna make me remember school subjects?? EVIL

let's see....

Mudpaw would be a fan of algebra, because once you know a formula you can apply it anywhere where you need it. There's clear cut right or wrong answers that can be found and proven, which makes thinking about it simpler in his head than something like literary analysis for example

Wrentail would like literature classes for the exact opposite reasons for mudpaw liking math; it's up to interpretation, and no one can tell you your interpretation is incorrect, since it's all subjective

Larkstar would also be a math fan, but particularly calculus. Long, engaging problem solving with clear-cut answers are right up her alley

Foxjaw would like science classes, specifically when they do those units where they write a hypothesis and make observations and then write about what you got right and what you got wrong. He likes learning :)

Owlpounce would enjoy history; seeing how events in history connect to each other and influence one another would be fascinating to her

Whitepaw would like literature classes, but mostly only for the reading. Especially classics from people like Shakespeare, I think he would appreciate the prose

Hawkpaw would like chemistry, because if you have a fun teacher you get to do crazy stuff with chemicals and Bunsen burners

Puddlepaw would also like chemistry, but only because they like learning the ways chemical chains interact with each other and learning the components of different molecules

Robinsong would like literary analysis like her brother, but mostly because she would like getting into an author's head and figuring out what they were trying to communicate through subtext

Gullytuft would like geometry, because it has the appeal of knowing there is a clear cut right vs wrong answer, but it also has a three dimensional element that makes it easy to apply in day-to-day life

Sandleap would like social studies classes, learning about how communities function and how people interact with each other to make a cohesive society, cause he likes people and learning about them :)

Laureltail would like grammar classes, since I think she would be very eloquent already and be very good at the class

Embertooth would say he doesn't like school but he secretly loves reading poetry

Pearfur would like art classes, specifically units where the class tries to emulate a specific artist in history, since it requires a steady hand and a sharp eye for details

Snaptail would like history classes, especially units on local history, cause they get to go on field trips to historical locations or museums :)

Birchspeckle would like PE cause you can hit people with dodgeballs and not get in trouble

[jikigo]

you ever just see a post and just

. 😭

.⬅️🫀⬅️

[edmcmayonnaise]

Months ago, I wrote "biographies" for Edwin and Simon in the style of the Edwardian (Third Edition published in 1915) study on "Sexual Inversion" (medical phrasing that pre-dates the term "homosexuality") in the style of Studies in the Psychology of Sex by Havelock Ellis. This book can be found for free online and is a treasure trove due to the collection of biographies written by queer people.

Maybe against my better judgment, I will share them now for Simon Appreciation Week, as they capture to some extent how I perceive their interpersonal dynamics.

HISTORY E.P. - English, student at public boarding school, aged 16. His father, who comes from an unremarkable middle class lineage, is a physician. His father has been deployed to France since 1914 for wartime service. His mother’s family has a history notable for hysteria in his maternal grandmother, and his mother he describes as a high-strung and nervous woman who herself has been intermittently institutionalized for afflictions of mood. 

He has no siblings, and describes the relationship with his parents as distant. He lived most of his early childhood life in the care of a nanny. At age seven, was sent away to boarding school. 

He has never been attracted to girls or women, though had minimal contact with girls his age, He takes little interest in women or in their society. There is nothing markedly feminine in his general appearance, but he does believe that his general kinesthetic disposition is not viewed by others as manly. Specifically, he says that he is concerned that the animated way in which his hands is too recognizable as a symptom of what he considers to be his congenital condition. 

He is of average height and medium-slim build, but generally normatively developed and healthy. He considers himself to lack skill in athletic pursuits with the exception of fencing, but is an omnivorous reader and excels in academics. 

In his own words:

“I have always been very shy of showing any affectionate tendencies. Most of my acquaintances (and close friends, even) find me curiously cold. For obvious reasons I have been unable to speak as to why this is. I fear being cruelly misunderstood, and I have at times felt as if wrestling in the folds of the morally reprehensible python of inversion.

"I find myself cut off from others, feel myself to be an outcast, and, amongst others my age, am intensely withdrawn. Privately, I am miserable. The desire to love and be loved is hard to drown, especially when treading through a veritable pool of ‘what-ifs’ as I am surrounded by male virality in all aspects of my life at school.

“I am not sure entirely what it is for which I am longing. Certainly, my parents neglected to impart to me any sort of knowledge of the adult modus vivendi. The only thing I do know with confidence is that no bodily satisfaction should be sought at the cost of another person’s distress or degradation, including my own.

“At my school, I have heard rumor, and in fact been the subject of rumor, regarding attachments and gratifications with other boys, which are all untrue. As with any topic that is discussed only behind cupped hands and in whispers, the stories become more and more fantastical as they are shared from schoolmate to schoolmate. Upon my truest promise, I have never yielded to the temptation of any sort of intercrural connection. I have preserved strict chastity. I do not know how long my mind can hold back the instincts of my heart and body, but I am terrified that I will soon lose this seemingly never ending battle.”

Shortly after E.P. submitted his history for publication in this book, it was reported that he and several other boys at his school went missing in what the school is calling an Act of God. Any additional information about what may have happened to this youth and his friends is not forthcoming at this time. 

~

HISTORY S.M. - English, student at a public boarding school, aged 17. Father and mother both living; the latter is of a better social standing than the former. He is much attached to his mother, and she gives him some sympathy and companionship, when he is at home. He is the third of four siblings, all boys, and he suspects that his next elder brother is also inverted.

In early life, S.M. was of delicate constitution and his studies were often interrupted by illness. Though living under mostly happy conditions he was shy and nervous, often depressed. This he attributes to having been on several occasions mishandled by his next elder brother; concedes that his brother is prone to foul and violent moods. However, his brother is well-liked, by his father and other siblings, he says, because of his masculine character. His brother has many friends at school. Though S.M. does report that he does have some influence over some of his classmates, he has few close friends.

Of his inversion, he reports the following:

“There is a boy in my year who has become the absorbing thought of my school days, and who comes to me in my dreams almost nightly. I have absolutely no words to tell you how powerfully his beauty affects me. He is well-formed, lean, shy, and in my dream he sits beside me, allowing our legs to touch and for me to caress his thigh. He looks at me with desire in his eyes, green, but clouded over dark with his want for me to kiss him. And I do want to kiss him– on his wrist, and his palm, and into the gentle, milky curve of his neck, and to leave my lover’s mark on him, to say to anyone who might pursue him that he is mine and mine only. 

“I keep my feelings hidden, however, hardly daring to look at him for fear of being found out. His bed is next to mine, and the rest of the dormitory is boisterous and lewd, and there is a good deal of bullying, which I cannot bear to have directed my way.

“I have tried to tell myself that these dreams are not due to a moral failing of my own, but indeed this boy’s own influence upon me. I love him and I resent him. His seeming indifference towards my existence, as he has never responded well when I have plucked up my courage to speak with him, angers me. I want him to look towards me and love me, too.”

S.M. was involved in the same incident as E.P.,  where he and several other boys went missing from their school. It is reported that their last known whereabouts were their school dormitory rooms.

[haikyuufanficwriting]

Chapter 8: Ushijima

Prompt: Reader falls asleep on Character’s shoulder Character: Ushijima _________________

Since starting your third year at Shiratorizawa Academy, you can’t remember the last time you’ve gotten a proper amount of sleep.

Much less sleep in general.

Being in such a prestigious school, of course the workload would be bigger than any average high school. You just didn’t expect to be struggling this hard.

Back in middle school, you remember being levels above your peers. Maybe it was the hours your parents spent drilling you at home, or just natural talent, but you’re pretty confident that your reputation half brought you here.

But as you would learn, reputation and talent could only take you so far.

With your house being way too far to walk or bus, your parents allowed you to stay in one of the schools many dorms. While you were ecstatic about your new freedom, it did have some pitfalls.

Pitfalls being that your study habits were only enforced by your parents. So as any normal teenager would, you started to become lazy. And your grades began to slip.

Fortunately for you, there was rule where students had to obtain a certain average by the end of the year, or they would be kicked. That rule definitely blew some smoke up your ass, because during your first and second year, you did your absolute best to keep above that average. Which you did. Fairly well, too.

But entering your third and final year, you were just so tired. All of the motivation and strength seemed to vanish the harder your classes became. You couldn’t understand your subjects, which lead the unhealthy habit of pulling all nighters, trying to grasp the material on your own.

Eventually, your sleeping schedule had become so messed up that you were only powering on coffee and instant noodles just to get through the school day. And like a deadly cycle, certain classes and concepts were harder to comprehend the longer your brain was starved of sleep.  

One example being. Advanced Functions.

For the life of you, you just couldn’t seem to understand anything in that class. No matter how hard you tried to concentrate, tried to focus, it was always in one ear out the other. The textbook seemed so convoluted that it only managed to confuse you further, so studying on your own was a no go.

Needless to say, you weren’t even close to passing this class, and final exams were coming soon. You absolutely needed to do well in this, or else you’d get a letter sent home to your parents, and you can’t even imagine what they’d do to you.

Thankfully, your teacher had the same thought. After class ended, he called you over to his desk.

“I’ve asked a student in this class if they’d be willing to tutor you. I haven’t told them anything about your grades, just that you need some help. They’re available to work with you on Tuesdays in the library. Will that be alright with you?” You manage to keep your face passive and devoid of any emotion. Honestly, you weren’t exactly keen to be tutored, but with your grades this low, you’re really don’t have any other choice other than to throw away your pride and bite the bullet.

“Yes, thank you Sensei, that would be perfect.” You bow and make your exit, having your respectful smile drop the second your face is out of view. You sigh heavily as you made your way to your dorm.

You just hope whoever’s tutoring you can help make sense of this nonsense.

~~

Ushijima was a busy man. Key word was. After losing to Karasuno, the time he needed spend in the gym was significantly less than before. Of course, he went to the gym to practice regularly anyways, working on anything and everything to improve. But, after the coach found out, he told Ushijima to relax and take a break, claiming that he should take this time to rest and relax. Just for a couple weeks, and to take time focusing on his studies.

The only problem was, he didn’t need to focus on his studies. Or relax. He already had highest marks in most of his classes, and stress had never been an issue for him. While most ordinary students could study everything under two hours, he could. While most couldn’t function with five or less hours of sleep, he did. Ushijima had gotten so used to his hectic timetable, that having a huge chunk of it missing was extremely odd to him. Like he didn’t know what to do with himself.

“This is your time to find a hobby, Wakatoshi-kun.” Tendou had told him, to which he only tilted his head in confusion.

“But I do have a-”

“One that isn’t volleyball.” That made him pause. A hobby… That wasn’t volleyball?

Was there really anything?

If there was, he couldn’t think of one.

“How do I find a hobby?” He asks, causing Tendou to hum.

“You gotta try different things out. See if you like it or not.” Ushijima nods, absorbing the advice. It was good advice, but it did bring up an important question.

What’s one thing he could try?

That stuck with him, circling his head for the rest of the day. There seemed to be too many and none all at once. Even if he did find some that seemed interesting, which would he do first? Could he do multiple at once to become more efficient? What if he liked a new hobby but had to stop due to his schedule becoming normal again? If that’s a possibility, what was even the point of trying to find something new?

Ushijima was close to exploding with all the questions that he couldn’t answer and was about to call Tendou again for help, at least until his advanced functions teacher called him to his desk.

“Ushijima-kun, I need your help with something. There’s a student in this class, (Name), who needs a little help understanding the material. Since your season is over and you’re fairly good at the subject, do you think you could help her out?”

As if the gods heard his cries for help, an opportunity had dropped on his lap. But did tutoring count as a hobby? It seemed like a commitment too…

‘You gotta try different things out. See if you like it or not.’ Tendou’s words ring in Ushijima’s head. Well, if he had to try different things out, this seemed like a good start. With the thought being the final push, he agrees with a solemn nod.

“I don’t have a problem with it.”

~~

You jerk awake from the bell ringing loudly in your ear. You confusedly look around to see students getting up and collecting their items around you, signaling in your brain that you must’ve fallen asleep in class again, and you slept through yet another lecture.

Guess I’ll be staying up late again…

You yawn, standing and picking up your bag before making your way out of the class, about to go the cafeteria, at least until you feel your phone vibrating in your pocket.

Was someone calling you?

Confused, you pull it out to hear a soft alarm and text across your screen in dark bold letters reading ‘Tutoring today at the library!’ causing your eyes to widen. You had completely forgotten about it! You let out a slur of curses as you rush up the stairs to the library, hoping that you didn’t make your tutor wait too long.

Practically slamming the library door open, you speed walk to the study area of the library, searching the students that littered the desks, seeing if you recognized anyone from your class. You stand there for a couple minutes longer than necessary, with your extremely heavy eyelids making it considerably difficult to scan peoples faces, but after not seeing anyone at first glance, you start to walk around the area. You don’t know how much time passes until someone calls out to you.

“(Name)-san.” The deep voice makes you jump far harder than it should’ve, with you almost dropping your school bag. You collect yourself as fast as you could and turn your head to the sound, finding none other than the star of the school.

Ushijima Wakatoshi.

Your brain blanks as you continue to stare at him, your mind too tired and too shocked to put together sentences. After a couple minutes of silence, he tilts his head, clearly waiting for your response. That manages to kick your brain into gear.

“Wakatoshi-san.” Your voice is meek, and your face flushes at how stupid you sound. If Ushijima sees your cringe, he doesn’t acknowledge it.

“I’m glad I found you. I thought for a moment you had forgotten about our session.” His comment confirms your suspicions, but it only manages to disorientate you further.

You just never would’ve assumed that the Ushiwaka, the ace and captain of this powerhouse school, was wasting his time tutoring you. You mean, you’re not entirely surprised he was picked to help, he was one of the smartest in your class, (You’re fairly certain he’s a robot, how could someone be so good at everything?) but you just thought he would be way too busy to help anyone.

You also thought with his personality he wouldn’t want to help anybody. Honestly, you’re just confused as to why he even agreed to help you at all. Maybe to put it on his resume?

You don’t know, you assumed that being a prodigy in sport was enough, but you digress.

“Come, I’ve already set up a table.” He motions you to follow him, and with a soft ‘alright’, you follow him to a more secluded part of the study area, with a single desk surrounded by bookshelves, each stocked to the brim with dusty old books. On the desk was you assume his study books and utensils neatly organised. Of course he was a neat freak.

You sit in the chair just across from his, feeling your body almost go limp in exhaustion the second you sit down. You wait until he settles himself and opens one of his books. Your brain once more begins to fail you as you stupidly watch him flip through pages, basically falling asleep with your eyes open. You don’t even realize until you hear a sharp knock on the table.

“(Name)-san?” The voice suddenly comes into focus and you snap up. “Y-yes?”

“Aren’t you going to pull out your books?” Ushijima asks, face stoic as ever. You stutter out a slightly slurred reply as you open your school bag and search for your books.

Only to not find your math books, but your biology books. You scrunch your nose in confusion. It takes your brain a couple of seconds to realize what you did.

You switched your books on accident.

Oh, how badly you want to curl up and cry right now.

Not only was it embarrassing to have one the most popular boys in school tutor you, but to also act like a total ditz was almost too much for you to take. It’s almost like the gods want to mess with you for shits and giggles at this point.

You have to slowly put your bag down, and look back to your tutor, who’s been staring at you for the past few minutes now.

“Wakatoshi-san, I just realized I brought the wrong books by accident. I’m sorry but I’ll have to go back to my dorms to get the right ones.” You give him what you hope is an apologetic smile and begin to stand up, until his voices rings in your ear once more.

“That’s not necessary.” You pause.

“Excuse me?”

“We’ve already wasted enough time as it is. I have no problem sharing my books for this session.” With that he pulls out the chair right next to him and offers the seat.

You’re pretty sure almost every girl would kill to be in your position right now. You can’t stop the blush that forms on your tired face.

“Oh-uh… ah, thank y-you.” You finally managed to get out, wanting to slap yourself subconsciously as you take the seat next to him. The second you sit down; your overworked brain is hit by so many things at once.

He smells nice. Like really nice. You definitely wouldn’t mind curling up to that. Not to mention, his warmth.

You can feel the warmth coming off him in waves.

Sleeping next to that would be so comforting…

You’re snapped out of your thoughts again when you hear a textbook being slid over to you. If you were a little more awake then you are now, you would realize how intimate this was. Sharing a book caused you to be a lot closer than necessary, but of course with you being sleep deprived and Ushijima being Ushijima, neither of you commented.

“So, what are you having troubles in?” He asked, and you go to answer, only to be met with emptiness.

You were so confused; you didn’t even know what you were confused about. You mentally kick yourself. That’s a new low.

Of course, not wanting the captain to know how much a dumbass you were, you responded, “The first couple chapters really messed with me.” Which isn’t a lie, you just didn’t mention the rest of the chapters that messed you up as well. He nods and goes to the beginning. Then begins to explain the main concepts of the chapters.

“A polynomial function has specific characteristics that define them from another other kind of function. With those characteristics being a domain of real numbers, a possibility of the range being restricted by both upper and lower bounds, and these functions do not have horizontal…”

You hear his words turn into nothing but mixed sounds as he continued to explain. As much as you tried to focus, you feel your eyelids becoming impossible heavy. You were trying, you really were, even pinching yourself ever once in a while and biting the inside of your mouth as hard as possible, but with Ushijima’s voice this low and soothing, you were fighting a losing battle. You didn’t expect that when he wasn’t scaring you out of sleep, that his voice was actually extremely nice to listen too.

Not to mention his unexpected but totally welcomed comforting aura, his warmth, his smell and the quiet atmosphere, they were all begging you to let go and leave the realm of the conscious. While you were too busy fighting the war, Ushijima was too focused on the book and pointing out examples that he didn’t even realize.

You only manage to last a couple more minutes, until you see nothing but long awaited black.

~~

“…Then there’s quartic, quintic, so on and so forth. There are polynomials bigger than these, but the likely not to appear on the exam so we don’t have to cover them. Between these main five functions there are subdivision that we can also use to characterize them, for example-” Ushijima is cut off by a warm pressure falling on his arm. He turns confused to find you, positively knocked out and now using his arm as a pillow. His thought process is cut off.

Well this is… a development.

Ushijima figured you were tired. In fact, he had known for a long time, that you weren’t getting the sleep you needed. Just a quick glance in class, or talking to you, your slurred speech and heavy eyes, made it easy for anybody to figure out. However, he didn’t think it was to the point of passing out anywhere and everywhere.

He’d be impressed if he wasn’t inherently worried.

He been around people who were sleep deprived, previous senpais and enthusiastic kouhai’s who couldn’t get enough of volleyball, and it does terrible things to brain. Once it had been the point of someone ending up in the hospital.

Ushijima watched you with worried thoughts swirling his mind, as you had a look of absolute comfort on your face, even sleepily nuzzling your face into his arm, which caused him to stare at you a couple seconds above normalcy.

His slightly weird stare was cut off by the bell, which did put his thoughts back into gear. What was he supposed to do? Wake you? Call a teacher?

Well, one things for sure, he couldn’t just leave you here.

So, seeing this as the best course of action, he attempted to wake you.

“…(Name)-san…” He said gently, nudging you with the arm you were sleeping on, you made some sounds of discomfort, before rubbing you nose into his arm again and falling back to sleep.

It was almost cute. Almost.

“(Name)-san.” Ushijima says with a little more finality, which does cause you stir a little more, even causing you to open your eyes a little, but he could tell you were far from awake.

“She’ll be right with you.” You breathe out, which does make Ushijima lips quirk up the tiniest bit.

“(Name)-san, you have to wake up.” He’s reached his regular loudness now, hoping that he wouldn’t have to raise it higher to get you to wake. Thankfully, you manage to open your eyes fully, but is was safe to say that you weren’t completely conscious. You were almost like in a drunken state, with your pupils blown wide and the dazed expression you wore. Looking at you, Ushijima then decided what he needed to do. He couldn’t possibly let you go to class like this, not when you needed something so vital to the brain.

He grabs you by the shoulders to bring your head off him, making sure you don’t wobble too much. Once he’s sure you won’t bang your head on the table, he gets up and starts to collect your things.

“Hm? Is the session over?” You slur, eyes have lidded as you watch him pick up your bag.

“Yes.”

“Did I do well?” You ask with a tired smile, clearly not remembering what happened. Or what didn’t happen. For reasons even he didn’t know, Ushijima decides to humor you.

“Yes.” You raise your arms in the air in happiness, letting out an excited ‘yay!’ in a shushed voice, which Ushijima is extremely grateful for, as he didn’t want to cause a ruckus in the library.

He turns back to you. “Can you stand?” His question turns your mood for some reason, and you huff like a child. “’Course I can stand! Who d’you take me for?” And very quickly, as if to prove your point, you stand from your seat, only for your mind to spin and knees to wobble. Out of reflex to stop you from falling, Ushijima grabs your waist to steady you.

You two stand like that for a while, with your bodies a lot closer than they should’ve been. After what felt like an eternity, you break out into a goofy yet proud smile.

“See? Told ya I could stand.” Ushijima face is passive at best and remains silent. Only giving you a nod while he grabs his stuff along with yours as you two make it out of the library. He holds onto your waist to make sure you don’t fall when walking, but when he secures that you can walk, albeit a little slow, he still doesn’t let go. Walking through the halls and out to the dorms you both we’re met with a lot of stares. And whispers.

Not that either of you noticed.

After he’s exited the school and begins to walk to the girl’s dorms.

“What is your dorm number?” Ushijima asks, for you to snap out of whatever trance you were in.

“Uhhh… red… I think…” He looks at you, visibly confused.

“What?” You look at him back, clearly trying to think through the mess that was your brain.

“Wait… What did you ask me?” Ushijima has to keep in a sigh.

“Your dorm number.”

“Oh… That’s… Uhh… four…thirty-one.” You say.

“(Name)-san, there’s only two floors.” You two now stand in the front of the girls’ dorms, and since it was lunch hour, the likelihood that someone would be there, was considerably low, which did save Ushijima the explanation. You try to articulate a proper answer, but your brain this melted, Ushijima didn’t really have high hopes. So instead, he let go of you for a second, to read the names on the lists of the many mailboxes that littered the entrance hall. After a couple minutes, he found your name.

“208.” He says. Not even close. He watches the look of realization appear on your face.

“Ohhh, yeah that’s right!” He doesn’t hold back the sigh this time, grabbing your hand, and bringing you up to your dorm. Surprisingly, the dorm is unlocked, but you must’ve forgotten to lock it this morning when you left. He opens it and leads you in. You just follow in after him and just stare, clearly not knowing what to do.

Ushijima drops your things on your desk and takes you and sits you on your lower bunk bed.

“You should stay here and rest. You don’t have to worry about your next class, I’ll go and tell your teacher that you’re not feeling well.” He tells you, but like before, you just stare at him, telling him its just going in one ear and out the other. Out of the corner of his eye, he’s spots a random notepad and pencil. Ushijima turns away from you and takes the notepad and pencil.

“I’ll just write this down for you, so you can read it when you are in a correct state of mind. I hope you can learn to have a proper sleep schedule, it’s extremely vital to your health and not sleeping is actually- ” When he turns to you again to place the note, he finds you just as before. Knocked out on your bed, not even lifting your legs from the ground.

Ushijima watches you again for more than he cared to admit, before taking his stuff and leaving your room.

And to think he just wanted to try something new…

~~

You slowly open your eyes, to find yourself on your bed and still in uniform. You sit up, confusion hitting you hard.

How did I get here? What day is it? What time is it? How long did I sleep for?

You started panicking a little, at least until you spot a piece of folded paper on your nightstand. Curious, you open it.

(Name)-san, you fell asleep during our session, and I didn’t feel it was acceptable to leave you, so I brought you back to your dorm. I told your teachers that you weren’t feeling well, so please feel free to relax and rest. I strongly recommend that you get a proper sleep schedule, as what you are doing is dangerous.

We’ll continue our tutoring next Tuesday, hopefully you should feel better by then.

Ushijima Wakatoshi

You might just have cardiac arrest.

[catboybiologist]

Holy fuck this got long.

@glorhatransgal asked about my "queer timeline", and I'm making a separate post for reblog control. Feel free to engage in the replies or my DMs, though! I'm a pretty open book, except some stuff I would rather leave to DMs.

The tl;Dr is that I think I knew from the time I started puberty, but I had a weird commitment to suppression and misery. I've only managed to tackle that feeling in the past year or so, and I still need to socially transition.

Long long thing under the cut with mental health CWs!!!!!

I'm pretty sure the first awareness I had of queerness was when California proposition 8 was a thing, in the 2008 election. I was ~10 or 11 at the time, and asked my mom what the big deal with letting two men marry was. She explained a bit, explained that "you'll like girls when you get older but you shouldn't judge what other people do" and then emphasized that I shouldn't really ever worry about dating or relationships ever because I should focus on school.

That was a HUGE underlying theme, not just from my parents, but from the area I grew up in overall. Very high academic pressure just kinda.... Oozed out of everywhere, without any one specific parent or teacher particularly overemphasizing it (with notable exceptions). This came up a lot, and made me feel stupid or vain for engaging in any other aspects of my personality, including queerness.

I remember having some semblance of trans thoughts back in Middle School, without ever learning what trans people are explicitly. None of the adults in my life wanted to discuss the subject, mostly brushing it off as "it's something other people do and you shouldn't judge them". Very little explicit hate, to be fair, which is good. But a lot of changing the subject. So to me, it felt like basic vanity- eg, a shallow desire to be "pretty" that everyone had, of course, that I just needed to get rid of to focus on academics.

And of course, on top of that, I was more tech literate than the average kid. So my head was stuffed with the.... Unique.... Perspective on queerness, particularly trans people, provided by the unrestricted wilderness of the 2009-2016 internet. Since no adult in my life would really address it, it gave me a lot of really bad perspectives on the whole thing.

I'm not quite sure when bisexuality entered the picture, but I called myself "straight with exceptions" from the ages of 14 to 21 at least. My earliest clear memory of being attracted to a man was when I saw Aragorn in LotR for the first time (can you blame me?). If you want to make fun of my little nerd ass more, my first distinct attraction to a woman was probably Padme's midriff outfit in Attack of the Clones. Again, since my head was stuffed with weird ideas of queerness, gayness was often portrayed as a disgust or lack of attraction to women. I didn't have that, so I couldn't be queer, right? "Straight with an asterisk" it was.

Dysphoria kinda crackled in the background and grew as I went through puberty. The way I've described it is that my "resting state" was never happy pre-HRT. I could easily make myself happy and distract from it, but I didn't "come home" to a good feeling. Not an overwhelming feeling, not a suicidal one, but just being miserable in the background if there wasn't something to make me happy.

So when I hit a wall with my mental health in high school, it ended very poorly. I was in mostly advanced programs until then, but couldn't keep up due to things I *now* realize were ADHD symptoms. I had ongoing physical health problems that meant orthopedic surgeries, multiple extended times on crutches, limping around a lot, and ongoing pain and lack of physical ability that most people couldn't see, making me feel hopeless about my body and future. Add in a nice little dysphoria bundle in the background of all of that…and yeah. That's the self harm and suicidal period of my life. I was very weird in high school, oscillating between AP classes and almost failing out. I was also really just... Nasty to a lot of people around me, as a shield for how miserable I was. So uh, if you knew me in high school and stumble across this somehow... I am truly sorry. But I made it through, mostly through the patience and good graces of friends and teachers.

Anyways. I'm on a tangent.

Undergrad wasn't that memorable for my queerness- I lived at home while attending a local state college, and dated one cis girl for about a year there. Years later she told me that she realized she's bi, so that was kinda validating. I dove a lot into a academics, research, and volunteering to distract myself, and was academically successful.

I was asked out by a gay guy at one point in undergrad. He was someone who I had talked about my uncertain sexuality with and helped me work towards calling myself bi. When he asked me out, I got a bad vibe, and told him I actually thought I was straight. He was later arrested for rape. So uh... Bullet dodged? After his arrest, I started openly calling myself bisexual, but didn't really do anything with it- no dating and no community. It was a long time coming by that point, and the experience made me realize that I didn't have to be attracted to *all* men to say I'm attracted to men. After all, I wasn't attracted to all women either.

I graduated from undergrad in 2020 and stayed at the same uni for my MS. And this is where we enter "how much do I say" territory. My MS was instrumental in figuring out my transness, but was also a fucked up ongoing situation that involves several other people's dirty laundry that I don't necessarily want to air. I can talk a bit more about this in DMs if I know you and trust you, I guess. Sorry OP. So uuuhhh... Let's just say that I was extremely miserable and living mostly alone, so in the Fall of 2020, I ordered my first skirt to try and alleviate that background misery. I called myself a femboy as a last ditch effort to “just be a feminine man”. It was a key part of figuring myself out, though, and I loved the online community I made that way. About a year afterwards, I was having a shit time, and started the CatboyBiologist account on reddit to distract myself from it. I worked more and more from home, and would dress up as a "femboy" as I did.

I graduated from my MS in 2022 in a miserable state, probably worse than I was even as a teen. But it made me realize three things: one, some kind of mental illness made it really easy for my life to derail, two, my dysphoria made it such that *when* my life derailed, I had nothing to be happy about, and three, my weird standards growing up gave me the subconscious sense that I HAVE to be miserable, otherwise I'm not "accomplished" or whatever.

That's kind of the theme of my queer experience. I always knew it was there, but I excused it as "stupid" or just ignored it because I thought everyone was supposed to be miserable by default.

When I entered my PhD, I made a promise to myself to get rid of my weird connection to misery, and actually work on the first two. I joined a grad student queer group and started therapy almost immediately. At first the focus of therapy was essentially immediate trauma support. Slowly, however, I was able to tackle the underlying issues in therapy. I also brought my "femboy" fits to events organized by that queer org, and social events with the friends I made there. I fully engaged in my bisexuality and had a hot girl summer last year, dating men, women, and enbies for the first time since my undergrad GF.

Oh, and btw. Being a feminine man gets you laid. I'm sorry, it's just how it is. Take notes, alpha males, and put on the fucking dress.

With that support, I finally started HRT in August of last year, at the age of 25. I'm still a mix of boymode and girlmode- I girlmode around queer friends, and boymode most of the time otherwise. I've also told several people that I'm transitioning, but just to treat me as a man for now and wait for me to come out more publicly. My plan is to take a hiatus from my PhD this summer, and use that to travel and socially transition. So that's my upcoming landmark experience.

Up until this past month or so, I was the happiest I've ever been. Some out of the blue bad things happened this January. But I realized something- for the first time ever, bad shit happened in my life, and I didn't derail. I was sad. I cried. I was frustrated. I yelled. I had dynamic emotions and handled it. That's never happened before.

Obviously it's always an ongoing process, and it's linked to so many details of my life that it's really hard to say things about “just my queer experience” but uh yeah. Idk if anyone read all that and I'm taking multiple passes to trim out details that got too personal, but fuckit I'm already extremely doxxable at this point.

[carnivorous-horses-lover]

Thank you for tagging me, @gellavonhamster! Sorry for the late answer, I can be a bit shy sometimes ;))

were you named after anyone? No, but my parents chose my name in part to honour my mom's father.

when was the last time you cried? The first part of July.

do you have kids? No.

do you use sarcasm a lot? Not really! I'm more of an irony person, though I try to use it less online.

what's the first thing you notice about people? The face, I think? Though with my poor eyesight, it's a very blurry face. Mostly the overall way they carry themself.

what's your eye color? Green.

scary movies or happy endings? Both are good! Though I can never say no to a good drama with strong thought-out plot.

any special talents? I can open the door handle with my toes while holding two tea cups, and not have it spilled ;))

where were you born? I'd rather not tell, but it was somewhere in this Solar System.

what are your hobbies? Drawing! (Though maybe doodling is the better word.) I draw rather poorly, but I find the process quite soothing. It's rather meditative! Listening to radio, reading anything and everything - from manga to classic literature to fanfic, watching some series and movies.

have any pets? A cat! She's my precious little darling.

what sports do you play/have you played? None. I'm not very... sports person, though sometimes I regret it a little. Once upon a time in middle school I went to choreography classes, but it wasn't very serious.

how tall are you? Ahahah, oh boy. I don't really know! Maybe about 1,6? The last time it was measured in high school, I think. I'm average short. I'm tall enough to grab onto subway or trolleybus handrails, but I'd have to use my full hand length and there is a chance I'd have to stand on my tiptoes.

favorite subject in school? Literature and history.

dream job? Book store or library, though I'd probably get fired for getting lost in reading and not doing the work like Sheska from FullMetal Alchemist ;)) On some days I delude myself into thinking I could work in stables! I really like the smell of stables and horses are some of my favorite animals , but alas - I would give up on my first week of shoveling horse poop.

tagging @kanotototori, @darkstarshine, @abluescarfonwaston, @jake-meraga, @btbtbtran, @amethavender, @animate-mush, @liesweliveby, @thorin-is-a-cuddler, if any of you feel like it! (No pressure, please feel free to ignore this!)

[vostok3-ka]

15 Questions for 15 Friends

Thank you so much for tagging me @vivelarevolution13. So lovely of you!!!!!

Are you named after anyone? >>> Yeah! I'm named after one of the most loved and strong historical women in Arab and Muslim history, the wife of the Prophet peace be upon him, Aisha. She was known to be very lively and lovely, and was incredibly clever and loved to have fun. In my culture we believe that naming a baby gives them some of the characteristics of the person or thing they are named after, and I really hope that's true, because she was an awesome woman.

When was the last time you cried? >>> Last time I cried was when praying for Gaza. Half of my family are either Jordanian-Palestinian, or Palestinian and when I see pictures of little children being hungry and frightened I can very easily image my siblings or little cousins in their place. It is only a border-line that separates us, and I could easily have been from Gaza. So yeah, I was quite upset.

Do you have kids? >>> No, but would love to someday, really would.

What sports do you play/have you played? >>> The first sport I ever did was Taekwondo as a little kid, I loved it but stopped when I got the blue belt due to life circumstances, before starting riding lessons. That went on for a few months and I was so happy. I loved it so much, but the prices became higher so I had to stop and was very sad about it. Then I did Brazilian Jiu Jitsu for a few years, and stopped when I got my grey and black belt. Then I did swimming, and stopped after around a year and a half, then I started archery about nearly two years ago, which I am still doing, and I absolutely adore it. I compete amateurly, and it is super fun. I also do kickboxing, have been doing so for a year, and it's such a good sport and I enjoy it so much!

Do you use sarcasm? >>> I don't really. Got told off by my mother too many times for using it that I only do sometimes, and lightly now.

What’s the first thing you notice about people? >>> Their eyes. And their cheeks, if they dimple. I just find both really pretty!

What’s your eye color? >>> Amber/Golden-lightish brown? Not really sure but between light brown and amber.

Scary movies or happy endings? >>> Happy endings! I prefer tragic endings that leave me nearly gasping in emotion, but I do NOT like horror unless it's gothic/existential without any jump scares.

Any talents? >>> I am not sure honestly? Writing I suppose? I am a little uncomfortable with calling what I can do talent, I think I'm quite your average Joe or however the phrase goes ;) I do think I sometimes write some alright poetry though!

Where were you born? >>> In the Gulf of the Middle East. My family are expats so I wasn't born in the Levant!

What are your hobbies? >>> Archery, Kickboxing, Writing both poetry and prose, reading, and occasionally playing video games. My favourite book by far is Catch-22 and my favourite video games would have to be either S.T.A.L.K.E.R. or Metro 2033

Do you have any pets? >>> I used to have a dog when I was really little, then some fish, then some cats, then a hamster, and then a bunny, then a parrot and then a cat, and now I currently have none!

How tall are you? >>> 172cm

Favorite subject in school? >>> Literature, WWII History and Psychology

Dream job? >>> Humanitarian or Army medic. I would love to be able to help people in warzones, and I get bored really easily so a high stress job would be perfect for me. I would also really like to be a firefighter or a detective.

I had so much fun answering these, and would like to no-pressure tag @writethewolvesaway @bbyboybucket @sadeyedlady-writes and @catcoffeeenjoyer !!

[subdee]

Tagged by @hxhhasmysoul thank you!  Let’s see how far I can get before I give up and go to bed... 

1. Are you named after anyone?

My parents stole my name from my aunt, who was considering it for my cousin.   I was born first so the name went to me instead.  It’s a random one out of a book. 

2. When was the last time you cried?

A few months ago I think... definitely baby-related.  

3. Do you have kids?

His five-month birthday was a few days ago!  

4. Do you use sarcasm a lot?

Almost never

5. What sports do you play/have you played?

I’ve played softball and baseball on formal teams and I was on the middle school gymnastics team.  Up til middle school I considered myself good at sports, I was usually picked first /second in pickup games (privilege of having an earlier birthday than others). Puberty wasn’t kind and now I don’t play many sports at all, maybe like pickleball or badminton, sports where you don’t have to run.  I do have fairly good coordination & reflexes though.  

6. What’s the first thing you notice about other people?

Usually weight... sadly....  

7. What’s your eye colour?

Same as munen (dark brown).  

8. Scary movies or happy endings?

Depends on my mood, if I’m depressed I want the happy ending.  In general I want movies to not be predictable (same as munen again).  

9. Any special talents?

I can touch my nose with my tongue 

10. Where were you born?

One town over from where I currently live 

11. What are your hobbies?

Reading is the main one, or if I’m feeling stressed out I’ll buy children’s craft kits and do them. A while back my stress hobby was watching ACNH videos on youtube and updating my island; before that it was watching bullet journalling videos and prettifying my bullet journal.   Writing & playing video games are my big social hobbies I’ll do to find a community and make friends but both require a big chunk of uninterrupted time so I haven’t been able to do either lately.   

12. Do you have any pets?

two cats

13. How tall are you?

average height

14. Favorite subject in school?

math & science

15. Dream job?

I have complaints about my job (high school math teacher), it’s stressful, but overall I can’t think of anything else I’d want to do more.  

Tagging but only if you want to: @cateringisalie, @autumnxsunflower

[dove-da-birb]

so in the US we have state mandated tests or exams to prove you know stuff but they still let u pass even if u do shit on it its to collect data and see how they can improve curriculum n stuff

here in Texas it's called staar (state of Texas assessment for academic readiness (I have it memorized)) but it goes by different names per state but their all pretty similar being around 50 questions on subject. depending on the grade u will take diffrent stars I think my middle school and elementary school one had essay sections and a personal writing section.

PSAT and SAT. are used to help with collage emissions if you get rlly good scores u can get like scholarships n stuff a new of Mt friends have them but you can tell by my amazing academics I really care about those/j

theirs apparently other ones (thanks Navi bc I wouldn't have known otherwise) that are for other collage stuff and aren't don't by the college board

im great at non math standardized testing tho preforming way above average for my age group

Yeah, we don’t have that, and the thing that is most similar is EQAO.

“The EQAO is the provincial Education Equality and Accountability Office. It is an independent govern- ment body that develops and oversees reading, writ- ing and mathematics tests that Ontario students must take in Grades 3, 6, 9, and 10.”

For college and university emissions they look at your top 6 Grade 12 college or university classes (ie Grade 12 U English is needed in order to get into any university after high school) <- reason why I took an extra English course.

I SUCKED at math though; failed Grade 10 Academic math twice but went to Applied and passed with flying colours.

[chickensarentcheap]

Detailed OC Questions

1, 6, 14, 20, 27, 36, 39, 45, 50

Thank you!

What is their full name? Does it have any meaning? Why was that chosen? Her full name (with maiden last name) is Esme Michelle Drummond. Esme was the name of her paternal great-grandmother (Esme's dad picked the name as he was very close to his grandmother, and Esme was the last of his six kids and only girl) and Michelle is her mother's first name

6. What were they like at school? Did they enjoy it? Did they finish? What level of higher education did they reach? What subjects did they enjoy? Which did they hate? She was an above average student that finished on the honour role in high school. She went onto university and received a degree in psychology before going onto the Marine Corps and becoming an intel specialist. Her favourite subjects included chemistry, biology, English, music, social studies. She hated all the maths, though. All of them lol

14. Do they have any specific memories of food/a restaurant/meal? When she was pregnant with Millie, Tyler used to get up in the middle of the night to make food for her. So she has memories surrounding those moments. Tacos, pasta, cheese toast, an ice cream concoction that consisted of rocky road ice cream with melted peanut butter drizzled over it. He once made her a cake and they ate the entire thing while hanging out in bed lol

20. Do they like musicals? Music in general? What do they do when they’re favourite song comes? She loves musicals and loves to attend Broadway shows when they're staying at their place in NYC. She's a huge music fan in general and especially loves to listen in the car and sing and dance in her seat. She'll dance around the house while she's cleaning too lol

27. What makes them sad? Do they cry regularly? Do they cry openly or hide it? What are they like they are sad? Esme is an incredibly sensitive person. She'll cry (and tell him off) if her husband raises his voice at her, if she watches those SPCA commercials, if her kids are sick or hurt and crying themselves. She is very open crier lol

36. What are they good at? What hobbies do they like? Can they sing? Esme is an excellent baker and loves to bake. She enjoys gardening, hiking, paddle boarding, rock climbing. She loves to sew and crochet.

39. Do they like letters? Or prefer emails/messaging? She doesn't mind any of those things and she'll take any of them :)

45. How do other people see them? Is it similar to how they see themselves? People see her as a social butterfly. Very outgoing, very warm and welcoming, very much a nurturer and a care taker. With a slightly neurotic side. And I think she sees herself those ways :)

50. If they could only take one bag of stuff somewhere with them: what would they pack? What do they consider their essentials? She would definitely take some skin care products, especially those to protect the skin from sun damage. She takes very good care of her skin. Toothbrush and toothpaste, a journal and some pens, a good book to read, her cell phone and charger, and her most comfy pants/leggings and a couple t-shirts and a hoodie of Tyler's

[manipulatorkaleidoscope]

Any headcanons for Pri Forsythe (The Lesbian Ever)?

okay bet.

I’m just going to start by saying that Pri was absolutely great and she is 100% gaslight gatekeep girlboss material. So much, that each time she was in a match, I would be like “I hope she gaslights gatekeeps girlbosses the other person OUT Of ThERE-“

yahhh Pri is really cool.

Anyways…!Time for the (rather few) Pri head cannons:

She likes mint chocolate chip ice cream. Bel doesn’t. They argue over this.

If you’re being super SUPER annoying she will actually ignore you by putting her headphones on at full blast. That’s how you know if you’re annoying to her or not. Sorry not sorry 🤷‍♂️

I still feel that even though she blasts music to block you out, most of the time, her headphones are at relatively low volume because my girl here doesn’t want to go deaf at 25.

Pri probably liked shiny stuff. Not just like jewels or whatever but genuinely any shiny fabric like ever. It’s just captivating to her.

The reason that she didn’t dance that much during her time is because she wasn’t that confident in her dancing abilities. (I needed to find an explanation for this, and this one was kinda reasonable so I just went with it. A.K.A this is subject to change)

after the events of season 7, it took Pri a while to rebuild trust with her brother, but they did so eventually, and now they are chill with each other again.

One time someone mistook her and Phi’s name by accident and even though she didn’t know who Phi was (or at least knew who he was but she had forgotten he existed), she was ready to drop everything and throw hands

Pri has a stupidly high chance of either being a magical girl or liking magical girls and there is no in between.

last but not least, she obviously likes baggy clothes, but unlike your average middle school boy, she can make it look good.

(Pri) Rating time!!

easy ✨9.5/10✨. The series decided to end with one of the best protagonists of any season EVER and I’m so glad for that. I really liked Pri. She didn’t feel like a copy paste protagonist. The writers really did her justice, especially by adding depth to their characters. I especially liked how they made her have a just a teensy tiny existential crisis over her own identity, which literally no other bey burst protagonist had (closest that came to that was probably Aiger, and cmon, Aiger was protagonist like 3 seasons ago before Pri showed up). All I wish for Pri was for her to have another season and for her to battle either Bel or Pax in the seventh season finale, but alas, we don’t always get what we want. She made season seven really fun, and I’m so glad that girlie here was the best case of gaslight gatekeep girlboss there ever was.

[octavianxbishop]

IN CHARACTER INFORMATION

• FULL NAME: Octavian Bishop • FACECLAIM: Michael B. Jordan • GENDER: Cismale • PRONOUNS: He/him • SEXUALITY: STRAIGHT • AGE + BIRTHDAY: 32 + 02/24 • LENGTH OF TIME IN FAIRFORD: 20 years • HOUSING: Downtown • OCCUPATION: P.E. teacher at Fairfield High • PERSONALITY: Confident, charming, persuasive, arrogant, immature, indifferent

DIGGING DEEPER

Q: “What’s it like, living in Fairford? Did you ever picture yourself settling down here or did you always know this would be your home?”

A: “It’s not ideal, It’s – I mean it’s fine, but not what I had planned when I was younger. I try to make the best of it though.  I always thought I’d want to travel, live somewhere warm, where it’s practical to have a backyard, in-ground pool accompanied by a trophy wife. Things didn’t work out that way, thanks to a few things out of my control. Number one being, my mother getting sick and needing in-home care. This caused me to leave my scholarship at UCLA, and to finish my degree in Fairford.” 

Q: “What’s your family like? Are you still close, or have you blocked all their numbers?”

A: “It’s really just been me and my mom for most of my life. I remember visiting some cousins of mine in Chicago and Memphis when I was younger. Family hasn’t really been all that important to me, at least, not extended family.”

Q: “Top five songs currently on your Spotify?”

A: “I can think of a few of my favorites that I work out to.”

“Turn Down For What” - DJ Snake

“Come As You Are” - Nirvana

“B.O.B.” - Outkast

“Straight Outta Compton” - N.W.A.

“Genesis” - Justice

Q: “Would you say you’re easy to get along/work with? Why or why not?”

A: “I think most people would. What’s not to like about me? Intelligent, attractive – I’ve yet to meet someone who doesn’t like those traits in coworkers, teammates, friends, whatever.  It’s possible maybe, people who are introverted might not enjoy my company, but I’ve been known to help even the most reserved to break out of their shell.” 

Q: It’s the little things in life; tell me three things that bring you a great deal of joy or put a smile on your face.”

A: “Number one is definitely a good breakfast. French toast, pancakes, bacon, the works. Second is hitting a game winner at the buzzer when playing with friends. And third is definitely getting a girl to crack a smile.” 

BRIEF BIOGRAPHY: 

• Octavian was born in Chicago, Illinois. At the age of ten, his mother took on a job across the country, which landed them in Fairford, Washington. She thought it would be a good place to raise her child, and for her son to see more of the world, beyond just the inner city. At the time, Octavian didn’t care for the change, but as time went on, he genuinely enjoyed his new location. 

• In High School, Octavian was a standout in both baseball and basketball. His mother didn’t allow him to play football, which he reluctantly respected the wishes of. Despite being a bit of a “smart-mouth” as labeled by a few of his teachers, Octavian’s grades were average, despite opting to go out with friends rather than study.

• Octavian received a few baseball scholarships, opting to attend UCLA. However, after his freshman year, his mother needed assistance at home due to an illness. This prompted him to move back home, finishing his Education degree locally. This was humiliating to Octavian, having to return home after enjoying his independence in sunny Socal. 

• After taking a P.E. position at a middle school in the Seattle area, Octavian would later decide to take a job at his Alma Mater, Fairford High. He’s been teaching there for the past 2 years. He enjoys his work, knowing it’s one of the few subjects students actually find entertaining.

[ravagedarkness]

Spider-Man: Home Rebuilt, Chapter 48: Ravencroft

Friday rolled around. It was a totally different vibe from yesterday. At work, Jonah was extra grouchy. He was still heated that Cyclops crashed his show. It probably didn’t help that the X-Men were still trending on Twitter and the opinions of the team was still extremely divided. No matter how much Jonah and other likeminded news reporters and personalities tried, they couldn’t shine enough bad light on us to make the majority of the public see us as the bad guys in the situation. I did wonder, however, if that was because they sympathized with us, or if they hated Hammer that much.

While the optimistic side of me hoped it was the former, I wouldn’t have been upset if it was the latter.

After that, I went home, got ready for class, and went to school. The lesson was rather light. It was as if Scott knew I was rather anxious about this upcoming weekend. He didn’t even assign homework. Well, he did, but it was optional and for extra credit. After class, Scott kept me behind as the other students left. Once it was just the two of us, Scott walked up to the door before he closed it and locked it. He then let loose a breath before he turned and looked at me.

“How’d it go with MJ last night?” he asked as he walked back to his desk and sat on top of it. I was sitting at one of the classroom’s desk, the one closest to his. I smiled slightly.

“It was awesome,” I answered. “We… we spent time on the rooftop of Midtown High School, eating Big E Style Chopped Cheeses, talking and other stuff…” I averted my gaze as my face heated.

“Did you two…?”

I quickly brought my head forward and shook it emphatically. “No, sir. I just meant that MJ and I made out… rather intensely.”

Scott was quiet for a few moments. “Am I… am I off base for assuming that you already got ‘The Talk’?”

“No, sir.” I chuckled awkwardly. “Aunt May… she gave me that talk during my last year in middle school.” I cleared my throat. “I may or may not have been caught watching something I should not have been watching.” Scott nodded. There was no expression of judgment on his face. “But… yeah. Making out was all MJ and I did last night and it’s all we’ve ever done to this point.”

“Okay.” Scott paused for a moment. “Look, I know I’m not your father, uncle, brother, or even cousin… at least, not as far as I know.” He tilted his head briefly. “My family tree is a mess, to say the least. But… the point is… even though I’m not any of those things to you, I do still feel responsible for you. So, just know I’m just looking out for you.”

“I understand, and I appreciate it,” I assured him. I paused for a moment. “Um… since we’re on the subject of romance and the like… do you like Joanna?”

Scott was given pause. I was surprised, however, that he didn’t glare at me.

“I don’t know yet,” Scott admitted. “…My ex-wife… Jean… She’s a telepath. And she was one of the most powerful telepaths on Earth until she left the planet. So, with her… I didn’t have to try hard to explain or be open with my feelings. She could easily read me, for better or for worse. And there was a comfort with that. Even with that aside, Jean was the only woman who I had romantic feelings for. She’s the end all, be all of my romantic experience. So, now there’s Joanna. To be honest, she intrigues me. She’s forward, she’s flirty, about as crass as you’d expect from the average Marine, and yet there’s this kindness and softness underneath it all. So… I guess I’m just treading carefully.” Scott paused again. “…Thank you.”

I tilted my head. “For what?”

“For not giving me any advice.”

At that, I scoffed. “Scott, I’m the last person to give anyone relationship advice,” I pointed out. At that, Scott chuckled.

“Well, I didn’t keep you behind to talk romance.” He paused for a moment. “How are you feeling about Sunday?”

I shifted in my seat a bit. “I would’ve marked it in my calendar if I wasn’t paranoid about that possibly exposing us.” I shook my head. “I…” I took in a breath. “…In my whole entire life, I’ve only really hated a few people – the one who killed my Uncle Ben, Mysterio, and Green Goblin. Other than that, I’m not one to hold hatred in my heart for people. I didn’t even hate Toomes. While what he did was wrong and could have led to a lot of people hurt or worse, I can understand going the extra mile for the people you love… Sympathize, even. But…” I balled my right fist up. My heart rate rose. I took a moment to take a deep breath. “I just want this to be over, even if it’s just temporarily.”

“I get that,” Scott replied with a nod. “But remember, it’s just that – temporary. As we continue our lives as heroes – and as X-Men – we’re going to have adversaries that are going to continue to be a thorn in our side, even from beyond the grave.” He paused for a moment. “That’s something you should already know, of course. So, expect Justin Hammer and Scorpion to be a long term problem. But, this weekend, we’ll make sure they’re sent on their way for the short term. Got it?” I nodded. “Good. Now go about the rest of your day. I believe you, Craig, and Kitty have a busy night ahead of you.”

After class, I stopped at home and changed into my quick change outfit before I made my way over to Peter Pan. Craig and Kitty were going to meet me there. I met MJ there, as usual. As semi-usual, Ned was there as well. What was unusual, however, was MJ taking her break after she got me a cup of coffee and a peanut butter cup donut. She sat with me and Ned, with her to my left and Ned to my right at the counter.

“How are you holding up?” MJ asked.

“Just a bit antsy for this Sunday,” I told her reassuringly. “Other than that, I’m good.”

“I’m looking forward to this Sunday, too,” Ned spoke up. “Take care of business on that day, and then we can focus on other things – like the Valentine’s Day dance.”

I couldn’t help but scoff as I shook my head. “You know, pre-You-Know-What, the fact that I didn’t get a suit yet would have had me freaking out. But now, I’m just… annoyed. A little more than mildly annoyed, but just annoyed nonetheless.” I picked up my donut and took a bite out of it.

“If it makes you feel any better, I haven’t found a dress yet,” MJ sympathized. “Between making sure that I’m still on track for college and worrying about you and your coworkers, the dance has been far from my biggest concern.” She shrugged. “To be honest, you and rest of the American Idiots are the only reason I’m excited for going.”

“Honestly?” Ned replied. “Ditto.” He sighed. “The only downside is that we might have to deal with Flash.”

“Always the highlight of any day,” I deadpanned. During this, Kitty and Craig walked in. They were dressed in their quick change outfits, with the former’s mask probably tucked away in her jacket and the latter having his hood down.

“What’s good, people?” Craig greeted as he took a seat next to Ned. Kitty sat to the left of MJ.

“Just talking about the Valentine’s Day dance,” Ned explained. “How was your day?”

Craig shrugged. “It was meh. I had a meeting with an IRS agent.”

I tilted my head as I looked at him. “How come?”

“I had to do my taxes. That, unfortunately, took a lot of time since a certain job doesn’t come with a W-2.”

“Wait, you have to pay taxes on that money?” Ned asked.

“As a matter of fact, you do,” Kitty confirmed. “That’s how Al Capone was taken down.”

“But aren’t you afraid that could...?” MJ began before she trailed off. It took me a moment to realize what she trying to ask.

“The agent I work with?” Craig started to explain in a whisper. “We have an arrangement. I do some favors for her – favors that aligns extremely well with my expertise – and she makes sure I don’t end up getting flagged for anything.” He raised his eyebrows briefly. “Being a vigilante can be quite the perk when you have some anti-Accords folks in the right places.” He chuckled. “Anyway, we’ll chill here until you’re finished, Pete. And then we’ll dip.”

After I did finish my food, Craig, Kitty, and I said our byes to Ned and MJ, with me doing my special handshake with the former and kissing the latter. We left in Craig’s Scion xB before we started to drive around. With Craig driving, I took shotgun while Kitty sat in the backseat. She had a tablet in her hands.

“So, we got quite a few locations from Joanna,” Kitty stated. “Some of them I already looked at and decided they weren’t worth checking out.”

“How come?” I asked.

“Well, for one, some of those locations are a little too close to civilian population for our comfort,” Craig said. “Secondly, some of them are seaside.”

“Is that really an issue?”

“Look, man. I ain’t putting a dang thing past Hammer when it comes what he’ll throw at us. The last thing we want is to give that man a chance to do something crazy like roll up on us with a warship or attack submarine or something.”

Had we been talking about anyone else, I might’ve called Craig overly paranoid. But since this was Hammer we’re talking about, one could make a case that he wasn’t being paranoid enough. So, I nodded in concession.

“So what are the other places?”

“Well, there are a couple of places,” Kitty informed. “Each one has their own pros and cons. First up, we have the former Hand Compound. On one hand, most of the buildings are still intact and its’ pretty far from general population. On the other hand, it’s also one of the locations that Scott has scouted for future use as a new headquarters for The X-Men once we expand. Second, there’s Kingsbridge Armory. It’s pretty intact as well, but it’s rather wide open on the inside. Then there’s the third option.”

I heard the sound of bones cracking. I turned my head to see Craig’s hand tightly holding the steering wheel. Something told me I wasn’t going to like it.

“What’s the third option?”

Craig sighed. “There’s an abandoned sanatorium in Westchester County,” he said reluctantly.

“How abandoned?”

“It literally hasn’t been touched in decades,” Kitty responded. “The thing is… the place is said to be cursed. People avoid it like the plague. Not even squatters and urban explorers want anything to do with it.”

“Do you believe it’s cursed?”

Kitty scoffed. “Sweetie, after all the stuff we’ve seen and went up against in our lives, we’d have to be rather dense to not, at the very least, acknowledge the possibility.” I hummed in acknowledgment as I nodded – she had a huge point. “But, creepy as the hospital is, it’s out the way of civilian population and we could possibly find an area in the building where’s only one way in or out. We could also lay some traps down along the way. So, which one do you guys want to check out?”

Craig and I looked at each other. We then sighed in resignation.

“The sanatorium,” we both replied in reluctance.

“Okay, well, if we’re going to head to Westchester, then we need to grab food along the way,” Kitty declared. “I’ll even pay. Are you guys up for Five Guys?”

After we went to Five Guys and grabbed food, we made our way over to Westchester County. The drive wasn’t too long. It was only about an hour. It wasn’t exactly a short trip, but I’ve been on longer drives. Once we arrived in Westchester, we used the GPS in Craig’s phone to track down the sanatorium. It took us about twenty minutes. And that was mostly because Craig was driving a little slower than usual. I didn’t know if it was because he was being extra cautious due to not really knowing the area that well, of if he was really reluctant to go to this sanatorium.

After some time, we found the road that led to our destination. To say the road was in bad shape was a huge understatement. Chunks of the pavement were missing, either the results of pieces being broken off or it being worn down by the elements. There were of grasses growing with the cracks. There was even a point where was an abandoned vehicle on the road that was blocking the path. Craig and I handled it – between his power to control friction and my super strength, moving the vehicle out of the way was easy. Still, the approach was rather slow – while a Scion xB is sort of shaped like an SUV, they were far from that and they never meant for rough terrain. Making things a little worse was the fact that the sky, in an occurrence that couldn’t be more clichéd, became rather overcast.

“Man, even the weather is telling us to turn back around,” Craig grumbled.

“You and Peter agreed to check this place out first,” Kitty pointed out.

“Yeah, and I’m starting to think I’m stupid for doing so.”

Eventually, we did reach the sanatorium. After we pulled up to the gates, Craig put the car in park. We stepped out of the vehicle. I stared at the gates, taking note of the words that adorned them – Ravencroft Institute. I looked past the gates and at the buildings that took up the grounds. From what I could see, there was a small church, buildings that looked like dormitories. And I was pretty sure there was a graveyard out in the distance. However, what really got my attention was the main building. It looked Victorian, and was seemingly built with red brick and mortar. It was about four stories tall and had multiple towers that looked like it housed bells.

“This is the place,” Kitty stated. “Codenames from here on out. Let’s scope it out.”

I nodded as I masked up before I stepped up to the gate. There was a steel chain with a lock holding the gates closed. I was about to just rip it off before Frictor stepped forward and pulled out a lock pick. He grabbed the lock and used the pick to unlock it.

“I could have ripped it off,” I pointed out.

“I can’t let you do all the work,” Frictor replied. “Besides, we need the chain intact.” With moments, the lock was picked open. He pulled unraveled the chain before he left it hanging on the gate. He pushed the gate open wide. “I’m going to pull the car in.” Kitty and I stepped onto the property as Frictor hopped inside of the Scion before he drove it past the gates. He then hopped out, walked up to the gates, pushed them closed, relocked it. After that, he stepped back into the car and beckoned us to hop back in. Once Shadowcat and I were inside, Frictor drove the rest of the way up the driveway before he pulled up to the front door and put the car in park.

Once again, we stepped out of the vehicle. Frictor walked around the Scion and unlocked the hatch before lifting it up. He pulled out a black Jansport backpack before he closed the hatch. After he pressed a button on a small remote on his keychain, locking the vehicle, the three of us made our way to the front door. Once more, Frictor took the initiative to pick the lock. Once he had it open, he pulled open the door and held it open for me and Shadowcat to enter.

After Frictor stepped inside, we all looked forward. Frictor unzipped his backpack and pulled out three flashlights. He handed two of the flashlights to Shadowcat and I before taking the third one for himself. After we clicked our flashlights on, we looked forward at the scene in front of us. As expected from a defunct medical facility, there was a front desk and remnants of a computer. The walls were stained with mold and what I hoped was rust. The floor was rather grimy. And the smell reeked of something awful.

“Prime real estate,” Shadowcat deadpanned. She turned her flashlight and aimed it towards the back. She illuminated the steel doors of a pair of elevators. “There. The stairs should be nearby.” She walked forward, and Frictor and I followed suit. The three of us walked up to the elevators before we looked around for a stairwell. Finding a door with a sign indicating it led to the stairs, I beckoned towards the others to follow me. We walked up the door. I twisted the nob and pushed the door. It opened with a rather loud creak, and a rat suddenly ran out, causing the three of us suddenly step back in surprise.

“Man, screw this place,” Frictor grumbled. Still, we entered the stairwell. We ascended slowly. Fortunately, the stairs were rather sturdy, having been made from concrete.

“So far, so good,” Shadowcat whispered. We passed the second floor landing as we continued our ascent. But when we got to the third floor landing, we found our way blocked by a load of debris – there were pieces of concrete, metal, and wood. “…Great, I pulled a Ned.” I chuckled as I shook my head.

“…Looks like we’re checking the second floor for another stairwell,” Frictor said. We made our way back down to the second floor landing before we stepped through the door. As we lit up the hallway with our flashlights, we saw that it was a hallway full of glass windows. Frictor took in a breath before he walked forward. Shadowcat and I looked at each other before we followed him. As we passed by the window, I glanced inside, seeing that they were examination rooms. Some of them had medical equipment. Others had gurneys and chairs with harnesses. Frictor suddenly came to a stop and looked at one of the rooms. Shadowcat and I came to a stop next to him and looked through the window. Looking back at us was rows and rows of mannequins in various states of disrepair.

“…Are we in Westchester, or are we in Silent Hill?” I commented dryly. From the corner of my eye, I saw Frictor shake his head.

“I hate every bit of this,” Frictor muttered out.

“Let’s just keep going,” Shadowcat urged.

We did just that, making our way down to the other side of the hall. We found another stairwell. We entered it. We moved up the stairs before he made our way to the top floor. We stepped onto the floor. This floor seemed to be for administrators. As we walked down the hall, we passed by doors with nameplates too damaged to read. There was only one name that was somewhat legible. All I could make out was “el Ess”. We continued down the hall until we found the headmaster’s office. Shadowcat moved forward and grabbed the knob. She twisted it. The knob creaked, but twisted nonetheless. She opened the door. We stepped inside. It was a pretty large office – about as big as my apartment. Bookshelves were knocked over. A large desk was on its side. Broken glass was on the floor along with other pieces of garbage.

“…I think we got something here,” Shadowcat stated.

“Yeah, we got a potential for a Tetanus outbreak,” Frictor snarked, prompting Shadowcat to halfheartedly slap his chest with the back of her left hand.

“No, seriously, think about it. Obviously, the elevators are out. The electrical systems of this place are probably too worn to even be powered. With one of the stairwells blocked…”

“There’s only one way in and one way out,” I finished for her.

Shadowcat looked at me and smiled. “Exactly. We can set traps along the way to cull their forces – non-lethally, of course – and make things a lot easier for us.” Her smile became wider. “We can even use the mannequins we saw. We can dress them up in mock ups of our suits and place them in different areas as distractions or lures.”

“…You’re right,” Frictor conceded. “…Okay, let’s get the heck out of here and we’ll tell Scott about it when we get home.”

We did just that, making sure to lock the gates back up before we drove away.

We drove straight back to the bunker before we hopped in Craig’s SUV and drove to the X-Men’s apartment. Once we arrived and went inside, we found Carmilla and Scott sitting on the sofa, watching TV. They looked up at us as Kitty closed the door.

“Hey guys,” Craig greeted. All of us removed our shoes before we joined them. I took the couch with Kitty while Craig took a seat next to Carmilla. After Craig shared a brief kiss with Carmilla, he looked at the screen. “Oh, Smackdown is on?”

“Yeah, it’s the last fifteen minutes of it,” Scott replied.

“I don’t know who this Roman Reigns is, but I don’t like him,” Carmilla stated with a pout.

“Is it because he’s a heel?” I asked.

“No. His hair is prettier than mine.”

“I beg to differ,” Craig replied as he wrapped around her shoulders and pulled her close. “Handsome dude, he is, but I’d take you over him any day of the week.” Carmilla blushed a bit as she smiled.

“So, how did the scouting go?” Scott asked.

“Well, good news,” Kitty replied with a smile. “We found a place in Westchester County. It’s the Ravencroft Institute. It’s creepy as hell, but in the main building, there’s only one way to the Headmaster’s Office. The office is pretty big, too, so we can fortify it. Other than that, there are other buildings on site we can worth with.

“Good, good.” Scott nodded. “We can go over there tomorrow. We can go at night and – ”

“Can we do the morning or at least early afternoon?” Craig cut in. “Because, seriously, the place is creepy enough as is. I don’t want to go there at night.”

“AAAAAW, is my All-American scared?” Carmilla mocked, teasingly poking her finger into Craig’s cheek.

Craig turned his head towards her and gave her a solemn look. “Yes, actually! That whole place was on some Silent Hill type stuff. There was even a cell full of creepy mannequins!”

“It was pretty creepy,” I said in agreement. “The whole place just gave me a bad vibe.”

“It would be a bit safer to go during the daytime,” Scott mused. After some moments, he nodded. “Okay, we’ll go in the afternoon. We’ll stop at the bunker and gather any supplies we need.”

“Do I still have weapons there?” Carmilla asked.

Scott nodded. “You do.” He then looked at me. “I’ll also contact Pepper to see if there’s any way we can borrow a fabricator for us to use.” I nodded. After that, he addressed all of us. “We’re going to be working hard tomorrow. So, I suggest you take the morning to relax and eat up. I’ll make sure we have food with us while we work. We’ll do everything we can to be prepared for Sunday so we can take down Scorpion and whoever else Hammer is throwing at us.”

“We’ll send them packing, Scott,” Kitty assured. “And then after that, we can spend time worrying about more mundane stuff, like the Valentine’s Day dance… and college.”

I looked at her. “You’re thinking about going?”

“We all do, Peter. Craig, Carmilla, and I talked about it for a while.”

“I even got my GED and everything,” Carmilla added. “…I don’t really care about getting a degree in and of itself. Don’t get me wrong, if I’m going to college, I’m going it to graduate. But… I just want to have some semblance of normalcy.” She then smiled. “Also, I have a thing for theatre.”

“The only thing is… I’m not sure I want to leave New York,” Craig spoke up. “And at the same time… I’ve grown attached to everyone as well.”

“MJ did say that it’s a conversation that all of us American Idiots should have,” I stated. “We’ll talk about it afterwards.”

I spent an hour or so more at the X-Men’s apartment before I made my way home. Once I got home, I took a quick shower before I went to bed. I was about to close my eyes before an idea hit me. I pulled out my phone and called up MJ. I waited patiently before she picked up.

“Hello, Loser,” she greeted.

“Hey Em,” I greeted back. “Um… are you doing anything tomorrow morning?”

“Unfortunately, I am.” I could hear the exasperation in her voice. “I’m picking up a morning shift at Peter Pan. So I have to be there around nine in the morning.”

“I see.” I sighed. “I was… I was just going to ask if you’re up for going out for breakfast. I… I wanted to spend some more time with you before I head out to Westchester in the afternoon.”

There was a pause on MJ’s end. She then spoke up. “…We don’t have to eat out,” she said slowly.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“We can eat at your place. I’ll come by super early and we can cook and eat together.”

I smiled widely. I thought it was a great idea. But of course I did. Spending time with MJ would always be a great idea to me, no matter what we spend that time doing. “I would love that. Just… do me a favor. Would you kindly bring some rooibos tea?”

She chuckled, and that brought a warm feeling in my chest. “Of course. I’ll see you in the morning. I love you, Tiger.”

“I love you, too, Em.”

“Bye.”

“Bye.”

I hung up the phone. I then hooked it up to the charger before I lay down and went to sleep.

[setaflow]

Get to Know Me

Thanks for the tag @ghostoffuturespast (please take me on a nature walk with you I'll bring granola bars)! In my decade of using this Tumblr I don't think I've ever done this tag prompt so it's nice to get some fresh answers. Let's see...

Are you named after anyone? Technically? My mom was considering a bunch of names for me when she was expecting, the name she would eventually choose being among them (I think the frontrunner at the time was Vanessa), When she went into labor, one of the nurses helping her was an older woman named [insert my name here] and she said "oh there hasn't been a baby named [insert my name here] born in this hospital in 30 years! :)" so my parents eventually picked that one instead of Vanessa. I get that I wasn't technically named after that nurse, but I was definitely named with her influence, and that has to count for something there lol.

When was the last time you cried? Within the last month, not really willing to get that personal here though. On average I'll cry like 3-4 times a year.

Do you have kids? Hell no, could you imagine?

Do you use sarcasm a lot? Only with people I'm close with. It used to be a running joke that I couldn't do sarcasm well-- still really can't, to be honest-- so I really use it sparingly and try to make it obvious if I do.

What sports do you play/have you played? Tons, surprisingly! I was a fairly active kid and dabbled in softball, ballet, soccer, basketball, and fencing at various points in my life. I swam competitively for 12 years, played lacrosse for nearly as long (first as a defender, then as a goalie), and played a little bit of field hockey as well through middle and early high school.

What's the first thing you notice about other people? Height, usually. Comes with having an egregiously tall 6'8 brother-- first thing I do is mentally check if they're taller than him or not.

Eye color? Blueish-gray. I have minor partial heterochromia as well: a streak of light brown in my right eye.

Scary movies or happy endings? I've been getting into scary movies lately! I binge the Dead Meat YouTube Channel at work for background noise and those videos have increased my interest in horror movies over the last few months. I always love that horror movies have interesting horror and trivia behind their productions and hearing the host James detail them all out has really given me a new appreciation for the kinds of work that go into them.

Any special talents? I can bend my elbows more than 180 degrees.

Where were you born? Northern New Jersey, about 15 minutes west of New York City.

What are your hobbies? Writing, reading, cooking/baking, hiking, running, swimming, video games, watching video essays about things I'm interested in, obsessing over New York sports teams.

Do you have any pets? I take care of my roommate's dog from time to time. He's not mine, but he's a sweetie and I'm basically his aunt, so sorta-kinda.

How tall are you? 5'8.

Fave subject in school? It cycled when I was still in school, but they tended to be History and English. I was a really good essay-writer and there are several periods of history I love learning about-- it's probably why I took to the Assassin's Creed series as much as I did-- so depending on the teacher it was usually one of those. I took a few media and film classes in college and I loved those as well-- I love media analysis with all of my heart.

Dream job? Used to be Olympic Swimmer, then Marine Biologist, then SportsCenter anchor. I came really close to achieving a few of those, but alas :P

Tagging @skippygiraffee @beammeupbroadway @trashcatsnark @seraphfighter @clusterfxckedbysirens and @shadesofchaoticenergy if you want to give this a swing!

[the-river-is-right-there-chopper]

I've just lost at least 4 braincells, 2 hours and my laptop is melting so storytime!

I have this class at Uni that specifically teaches how to write and format research papers/reports/theses. For our semester long project each student had to pick a random article from a science magazine and write a few pages on its topic, along with some pictures and graphs.

Mistake number 1: The article was in English. The project was supposed to be in Polish (my native language). And since the topic of the article was "Social outcomes of education" while the subject of my studies is nowhere near that field of science, I figured I'll just translate the thing, format it as the professor likes and be done with that course. It's not like I have to do my own research (that doesn't stand nowhere near my future engineering degree) in this class that focuses purely on mastering Word, Excel and PowerPoint, right? Wrong! I have to write the project myself and use real, accurate data to make my own graphs.

Mistake number 2: Remember when teachers in high school would tell you "You have to cite your sources. Wikipedia is NOT a source"? I've never had to use it but it was a well known lifehack to cite Wikipedia's sources instead. So where did my mind go? Just see where the article got its data and use it yourself. Fuck the text, I'll rewrite it later, now let's make some graphs! The sources are right there, it's that easy!

So I went to the European Social Survey website, feeling so good that my data will be up to date, downloaded the results of the latest survey, opened it with my spreadsheet,

which started lagging immensly,

after a few minutes I could move the mouse again.

There were THOUSANDS of variables and TEN TIMES MORE the amount of values. The only words I could recognize, while searching through the program ad 2 seconds per frame, were names of countries.

I decided that even for the course's standards this was way out of my league. Unfortunately I had a hard time finding any more casual user friendly data on the topic so I was back at the ESS. This time around I saw I can manually select variables I actually need. And they have descriptions what their values mean! This will go smoothly!

It did not.

Mistake number 3 and the reason I decided to share this: I open a clean soreadsheet with only 2 variables - educational attainment and life satisfaction. Entries are divided by countries. Goal: Make a graph that shows people with higher education feel happier. I need to take the average score (1-10) from each group (1-5). Let's start with Belgium. I go to the data spreadsheet, filter the score for only the grouop with the lowest education. Select first value, endless, laggy scrolling to the last value, shift, select. Average score: 7,6.

This made me feel weird, since it's a 1-10 scake and this score should be the lowest from the 5 groups. Oh well, maybe Belgians are just very satisfied with their lives. Jealous.

Next group's score was 7,2. Now that raised my suspicion. All 5 groups of people with different educational attachments scored well within error of 1 point. That wasn't supposed to happen. I double checked with the article and, well, on its survey the differences between Belgian groupse were indeed small. So I decided to check which country had the highest differences and check it next. What will it be? Poland. Oh, yeah, Poland do be having differences.

Back to the spreadsheet, I settled on only checking the lowest, highest and the group in the middle to save time. Group 1 scored... around 7. Similar to group 3. Didn't even check the last one, Poles can't be that satisfied with their lives, can they? I should know, I'm one! And right now I'm miserable!

Devastated I checked the data sheet. Maybe I screwed up with the filteres? Let's check. Country? Show only Poland. Education? Show only level 3. Life satisfaction? There it is, scores of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 88. Wait.

Well it turns out, that the survey, apart from the regular scores was also accounting for answers like "I don't know", or "I won't say". And values for these were 55, 66, 77 and so on. So no shit the average scores were coming out wrong when each group had multiple Happiness Georges who were living their best lives Adn. Should. Not. Have. Been. Counted. I selected the scores excluding outliers and Poles' life satisfaction dropped to 5,5. Yeah, that's more like it.

Anyway that's it there's no moral I'm just really tired and wanted to vent have a great day

[harrpyotter]

The Average Fourth Grader Is a Better Poet Than You (and Me Too) BY HANNAH GAMBLE

While in graduate school at the University of Houston, I supplemented my income by working as a writer in residence for Writers in the Schools (WITS). I was with WITS for three years, during which I visited third, fourth, and fifth grade classrooms, and worked with groups of students visiting the Menil museum of art, the Houston Historical Society, and the Houston Arboretum.

When first hired by WITS, I expected that working to explain some of my favorite poems to fourth graders would result in me becoming a better teacher of poetry. What I wasn't expecting was that (thanks to having my brain blown apart on a weekly basis as I browsed my students' folders of barely legible poems) I would become a better poet.

Here are some lines written by students in grades 3rd-6th:

"The life of my heart is crimson.”

[Writing about a family member's recent death:]

"My brother went down/ to the river

and put dirt on.”

"Peace be a song,

silver pool of sadness”

"Away went a dull winter wind

that rocked harshly, and bent you said,

'Father, father'.”

[Writing about a terminal illness:]

"I am feeling burdened

and I taste milk……

I mumble, ‘Please,

please run away.’

But it lives where I live.”

"The owls of midnight hoot like me

shutting the door to nothing.”

[Writing about life as a movie:]

"The choir enters, and the director screams

'Sing with more terror!!!'”

"I have provisions. Binary muffins.

It's an in/out/in/out kind of universe.

We cannot help you,

this is a universe factory.

A sound of rolling symbols.

Disappearing rocks, screams of lizards.

Sanity must prevail. Save vs. Do Not."

"I, the star god,

take bones from the

underworlds of past times

to create mankind.”

These young writers are addressing subjects that still obsess poets fifty years older: sadness, death, love, responsibility, aging, family, loneliness, and refuge…and they are addressing these subjects in language that is new, and thus has the power to emotionally effect a well-seasoned (/jaded) reader. The average fourth grader is able to do this because she hasn't been alive long enough to know how to do it (and by “it” I mean talk about the world) any other way.

Story time: When I was a child I believed that one day I might be allowed to cross into an alternate dimension by walking through a quilt hanging on my living room wall. As I got older I stopped believing that this was a possibility—not because I grew to believe that the universe was not an extremely strange place where incomprehensible things could happen on a daily basis, but because I passed year after year after year not being able to enter the spirit realm through a wallhanging.

Anecdote that I hope you'll find relevant: When Jean Piaget began studying the intellectual processes of children, he was not doing so because he had any special interest in children. Piaget was interested, rather, in the intellectual processes of (adult) humans and was seeking a control group. [His first thought was that the best control group would be comprised of martians but, as he did not have access to martians, he decided to use children since children possessed what is farthest from human consciousness.]

So let's look at what happens to our young writers as they age [I took these lines from poems written by middle-school/ high school students (Italics, mine)]:

Snacking on this and that

my friends and I keep the party going

even when it is over”

"Whispers of a

secret crush being unraveled”

"I’m trapped in this hole that

I can’t break through”

"Barack Obama in the White House.

I can feel the inspiration

Can you feel it?”

"Now I feel secure with my head held high.

Sad times. By middle school/high school, the average student has learned how normal people talk. The resulting language is underwhelming and predictable—the safe regurgitations of a thoroughly socialized consciousness.

While the average older student's poems are heavy with allegiance to a limited view of reality, the average younger writer's vision of the world is nimble and surprising—bizarre, yet true.

Last year I spent every Saturday tutoring an extremely undersocialized kid in vocab. When I taught her the word blandishments (“to flatter, coax, sweet-talk, appeal to”) she wrote this sentence: “The blandishments of the sugar flowers made the cake so much more inviting.”

The sentence is interesting because the student understood that a blandishment is something that attracts favorable attention without fully realizing that people almost always use the word to refer to a human action.

The poet’s job is to forget how people do it.