#a tiny eraser and a ballpoint pen

[corvid-convergence]

bugbugbug bug bug b ug bug gbug

[hellenhighwater]

Do you carry any other fun and whimsical things in your purse besides the brass measuring tools? can we see them??

"What do I carry in my purse" is actually a really long answer! Not very whimsical though.

I don't carry a very large purse but it is actually jam-packed with stuff. Obviously the usual—credit cards, ID, badge, money, car keys.

But the rest is taken up by a tidy little lineup of things that are useless 99% of the time and crucial 1% of the time. Some of it (most of the top row) floats loose in my purse; most of the bottom row packs into the little bag there. My sketchbook du jour is usually carried separately.

So: top row:

Sketchbook and the little brass drafting tools, which I carry inside the sketchbook, and also a little metal ruler that has honestly become redundant.

Then, a bunch of pens and marking tools: A ballpoint, some pencils, paint pen, permanent marker, white gel pens, white paint pen, white mechanical pencil, and eraser. This varies depending on what I'm working on and what I've absently left in the wrong place.

Some lip gloss, hand sanitizer, concealer, chapstick, nail polish, and heavy lotion (clay dries your hands out SO hard) and a hair pin. Usually there are several sword shaped hair pins also; I took them out while working on a project and they'll migrate back when I'm done.

Headphones, a couple knives, and a tiny foldable gerber multitool. A little flat card multitool, with a heavy needed shoved into its case also, and a pack of clear sticky notes.

A two-port USB brick; I usually also carry a power bank but it's charging in the car right now.

My change purse and my wallet, which is just the IDs; my actual cards are in a pocket in the purse that also has a little nail kit. My car keys, which have a bottle opener and a combined window breaker-seatbelt cutter, a 64 gig USB key, and keys to my studio, house, garage, and the courthouse.

The bag itself is metal mesh, which means it’s durable but also somewhat see-thru.

That little tin is a tiny first aid kit, which probably I should have unpacked, but it's got bandaids, bandages, skin tape, blistex; antiseptic, itch, and burn cream; eyedrops; several small packets of common meds (tylenol, advil, etc) and a little folded chart for meds, since I’m terrible at remembering which can be taken with which; a breath mask. There's also a razor and some safety pins tucked in there. It's held shut with a hair tie.

There's some single-use earplugs and some zip ties, some more eye drops, and a tiny vial of liquid breath mint.

A deck of mini playing cards.

A tiny sewing kit--needles, pins, earring backs and pin backs, some heavy black thread on a bobbin, a measuring tape, and some foldable scissors. There's a couple glasses screws in there from before I had Lasik.

Another little multitool, some binder clips, a tiny level, a 120 gig USB, and some bobby pins.

Matches and a lighter, a flat pen, and coils of 20 lb fishing line, picture wire, and monofilament, as well as two short USB cords.

A tide pen and a glasses screwdriver.

The bag contains cardboard strips with several yards of tape: Electrical, packing, scotch, duct, gaff, and skin tape. Superglue. A spare piece of heavy cardboard to use as a cutting surface if needed.

An Xacto knife with the blade reversed (learned my lesson after jamming my hand into my bag and taking a chunk out of a finger when a springloaded switchblade opened itself) and spare blades.

Some more clear sticky notes and a tiny lined notebook for when I just need scratch paper.

My car actually includes two slightly different emergency bags—one for regular roadside emergencies (including emergencies in blizzard weather) and one for camping emergencies, and a bit more of an extensive first aid kit.

[chikorra]

Me: "Dang this wacom pen is really dying, it keeps glitching and the eraser doesn't work!"

*used a part of my last saving to buy a new one*

Me: "What a relief! Now I can break the broken one down for fun and research purposes!"

*accidentally fixed the pen and the eraser with a ballpoint pen's tiny trampoline and now it works perfectly*

Me:

Me:

[dackeleinhorn]

inventing a new study aesthetic called "dork academia" where anything goes, no matter how silly - silliness is actually encouraged - as long as it makes your studying experience more fun and/or productive! Here are some of my personal examples:

I got notepads and binders that are size A5 instead of the normal (larger) A4 format. Why? Because they fit in my favorite messenger bag and also small things are fun. (Plus lecture hall desks can be tiny as heck.)

Got homework? I put sticky notes with the individual tasks on fun-size treats in an effort to dog-train myself into voluntarily doing homework.

I make my personal study notes as entertaining as possible by adding puns and doodles in the margins.

Cute/silly stationery. It doesn't have to be Mildliners or other expensive things. My current faves include glitter gel pens, Halloween washi tape, peanut-shaped erasers, and a gaudy-ass ballpoint pen - all courtesy of discount shops and TK Maxx.

Feel free to add your own "dork academia" things!! I'd love to hear them.

[sevicia]

you WILL perceive my OC process / thoughts / ETC . had an idea for a game the other day while in the shower (they weren't kidding that shower can think) . two main characters they are sisters , you start playing as the older one ETC , and the idea is that she is withdrawn , nervous , responsible and insecure about where she is in life (she is about to start college this is important to the plot but not for what I'm talking about rn) . first instinct was to give her short spiky black hair

first thing I drew (did a couple alt hairs tho) but I felt like the expression did not match what I was going for at all (she is the type to try her best to look calm and reliable) , and neither did the clothes which I drew with the beauty of the opossum in mind . very prevalent today for no reason still a wonderful animal . I did like the hair though and I wasn't ready to give up on the opossum vibe (lol) , so I decided to do a paper doll type thing and start drawing by clothing layer so I could go slowly and think about what she'd be wearing

did not have the willpower to try & make the hair look the same in the paper doll version , didn't wanna overthink her expression either so I really ended up with a completely different character . . . who I really like !!

I have always wanted to do a story set in a cold climate , really had an idea for a different character back in high school (blonde, earmuffs, cheeks are always pink), but gave up on her when I just couldn't figure out what I wanted her to look like . . .

I got the idea for this character to be either in the 3rd or 4th year of high school , she's pretty much an outcast out of habit at this point , enjoys taking walks and being in places she has no business being in . I thought of her being talked to by a teacher (librarian?) on the subject of not just her grades but mostly her behavior at school, gives me the chance of saying if there is something bothering her and affecting her behavior then there is something she needs to get over but I really dunno how to write (think) about something like that ;_;

^ her & her bag . . . NOTHING IS TO SCALE !!!!!!! she has:

- notebook: ripped the used pages from a previous notebook and just kept the empty ones, the thing is beat up to the point the spiral's coming off and the corner of the cover is peeling off ... the cover design is a cloud castle with rainbows , a bundle was on sale and while she doesn't really like it , she doesn't particularly dislike it either .

- pencil case: heart-themed , the fabric is starting to fray after years of use . in it she has: a highlighter, a ballpoint pen, a regular pencil (chewed up), a tiny colored pencil, a container + sharpener combo, and three erasers: one of them is just a formless little thing, the other is a brand new one that she doesn't really wanna use because it's brand new, and the last is one of those useless decorative ones, shaped like a flower. no white-out because she is very very brave .

- water bottle: literally just a plastic bottle she bought a while ago & keeps washing & reusing . getting more & more crumpled up by the SECOND . . .

- strip of paracematol: self explanatory . doesn't get headaches TOO often, just often enough to justify carrying a strip of it around lol

- juice box + tupperware: her mom cuts apples for her and always gets her apple juice cause apples were her favorite fruit growing up ... she really prefers oranges now but doesn't have the heart to tell her . tupperware also has soda crackers . must be mentioned that this is NOT her lunch, just a snack. she gets free lunch at the school cafeteria ! only tasty less than half the time tho ....

- library card: she uses it a lot and has been doing so for a very long time . usually reads non-fiction about unexplained events (she likes ones involving forests the most), but is starting to enjoy horror & sci-fi a bit more lately

- Frankenstein (borrowed from the library): her current read, which she is really enjoying , though she's not sure if she is really getting the "message" of it . happens a lot with fiction books, which is why she doesn't read a lot of them

- flashlight: permanently borrowed from her dad (he insists he's gonna ask for it back eventually so she needs to take good care of it), she uses it for exploring. it gets dark pretty early and the library closes pretty late, so she just goes wherever she wants while her parents think she's at the library . they believe her because she does spend a lot of time there and she keeps feeling guiltier and guiltier ...

- opossum plushie: pretty much her best friend, she carries him everywhere . very soft fur , nice and squeezable too !!

OK ramble over for neow maybe . . .

MILA

[annothray]

The Selkie Sister

“Yu sneak, what happened to my seashell earrings?” I cried  against  the pounding brakers rushing in several feet behind us. . ”You know those earrings meant a lot to me. They were Grandma’s last present  before she died, you know,” I  went on. I stood over my sister, casting my shadow over her stupid beat-up book of dumb songs she was busy scribbling. She stared up from her perch on the large, black flat “Thinking rock” as she called it and stared with her pretty sky -blue eyes up at me.  

“Sorry, sis.”  Keira said lamely. But I saw no hint of a true “sorry” in those eyes of hers. I watched with some amusement as a gust of wind whipped at her pages. She held it down with her free hand, the other holding her favorite green ballpoint pen so poetically poised over the scribbled page between her long fingers of her left hand. Of course, she had to be so unique that even God--or whatever drunken muse was responsible –heck if I knew about myths like that—had to make my sister left-handed.  

At that moment, I couldn’t stand being ignored by my little sister anymore. Overhead,  the  sky was thick with dark clouds,  like the ones erasing any sense I had left in me. “No, not ‘sorry, Sis .’” I snarled. “What happened to my earrings?” 

Keira looked up suddenly. “I lost them running and I tripped. I didn’t know they mattered so much to you. You never wore them, so I did.” 

“Uh, yeah, they did matter to me, Keira. So what if I didn’t wear them. That’s not the point. You wore them without asking me first just to look sexy for  Liam.” 

My words felt like glass in my mouth. I knew they stung my sister. She stood, angry now as she faced me. Behind her, the dark ocean waves grew wilder, louder, crashing over each other with a boom -whooshing as the foaming breakers rolled over each other impatiently for land. The tide was slowly rising. 

Suddenly, Keira slid off the rock and stood to face me. “You know, it’s mean people like you, Shay, Liam doesn’t like,” her words punched me in the gut as those blue eyes seared into me. “NO wonder he broke up with you last year. You judge people, you freak out before you think,” she said. 

“I judge people. I freak out?” I laughed bitterly. “Liam obviously doesn’t like fat girls like me,”  I said, suddenly staring down at my thick legs, nothing like the long lean runner legs my sister stood on.

“He didn’t call you fat,” Keira said like I was stupid. “He just wanted you to run with him in the Hungry  shark charity race. You’re the one who threw his guitar across the room and called him a shallow eel.” 

My eyes stung at the memory of that fight last summer. I had met Liam in the ninth grade, after he moved to Turtle Rock island from the mainland with his mother to be with his grandfather on the island. It turned out, like many kids on Turtle Rock, Liam sucked at science but was a god of a musician. I sucked at anything artistic—music, drawing and anything else artistic—but science . Now that I did well. It started out with me helping Liam study for biology exams in the spring. I thought he was cute. He thought I was smart. but mostly, I loved how he made me feel things in my dark secret places on my body with his mouth, his hands and voice against my bones when we lay together. 

He claimed he liked how different I was from many island kids. Me, who studied how water molecules boiled  and how I kept my  shoebox collection of the tiny lightning rods from the beach once sand grains turned  to glass. He said opposites attract and I thought that was true. But it really isn’t true, even if the negative to the positive charges in science say otherwise. 

It wasn’t long before  Liam found that other attraction, the one only dreamers find like with my sister, Keira. They met at the Coffee Crab shack open mic. Keira sang and Liam  his guitar instantly fell in love with Keira like a muse he  finally found after so much searching. YOU  totally won’t find me at those sappy Tuesday open mic nights, though. NO, I preferred to stay home and get lost in the drama of a good wildlife documentary  or a science-fiction movie of some  sort. 

“You don’t know how he said it,” I said  defensively. “I just wish  you and everybody would stop acting like I like what you do. Running. Swimming. You know I trip on my three legs. The water  scares me,” I said, thinking back to the time when I was ten and my cousin dared me to swim out too far before I nearly drowned. Dad had to rescue me. I never tried to swim since, only wade out now and again since then into  water. “ 

“I’m sick of your blubbering,” Keira said. She jabbed her green pen at  me as if it was a wizard’s wand about to cast an angry spell. “I’m sorry I look sexy with your  earrings you never wear and can wear prettier  clothes than you. It’s always about you, you, you and how you look. Maybe, you  start doing something about it. Quit binging on snacks and making excuses about why you can’t do this or do that.” 

 The  volcano in me rumbled dangerously to the surface. I felt it in my blood, growing hotter and in my hands. What was she talking about it all being about me?  It had always been about Keira. IN fact, only Grandma had cared about me because she was smart like me. 

In sixth grade, when my hurricane  exhibit was going to be judged at the school science fair, Keira  chose that night to sprain her  ankle while trying to fly like Wendy to audition for the Peter Pan school play. Instead of  being grounded after this stunt, Keira got ice cream and hugs from my parents, even though she had fallen from our pein tree she was told never to climb, thinking she could defy gravity. But not me. 

When I drew pencil “Xu” and “So” on the side of the house to let my parents know I loved them in some weird artistic way, my father flipped out, saying I had to paint over the writing since he had no time to do it. So, when I  attempted drawings properly on paper as a kid, my sea turtle picture was stuck lower on the fridge, thought to be a rough -lined beetle. It went lower down the door than my sister’s drawing. Mine was ignored until it fell off, got stepped on by Mom and was ruined.  Meanwhile, my six-year-old sister sketched a ridiculously  realistic dolphin. It was gushed over by my mom and neighbors for weeks. “She so talented,” Mom kept saying. “A little Paul Cadden, with all those realistic lines?”  And me? Who was I in Keira’s shadowy light? “too lazy…procrastinator…loner” the teachers and my parents said disappointingly. Just not with science. The science nobody cared about except for me, how things worked, how animals survived in the wild, how maybe we had stardust in our own bodies, too. But Keira…I admit, she  barely cracked open her books, run off with friends and get a magical A. But I had no friends to run off with. I did not get As . this year especially, now getting closer to the dream of going off to college someday, go into biology somewhere real fancy. But my grades…

“I tried,” I started, unable to stop my frustrated tears in my eyes. “Eating helps me feel better. I just get bad cravings when I’m upset. Exercise isn’t for me.  Nothing on this stupid island is.” 

“OH, stop,” Keira said, sounding like Mom. “There you go crying again. You wonder why you don’t have friends.” 

“Because girls are idiots around here,” I said. “They only care about music, art, who’s dating who crap. They think I’m ugly and super weird for being smart. some girls accused me of cheating on math and science test this year. I have like no friends now. So I’m better alone doing what I’m good at.” 

“Yeah. You’re good at feeling sorry for yourself, instead of thinking about how you hurt everyone else. Like I said, do something about it,” Kei

ra said, voice cold as the sea rushing ever -nearer towards us.

Suddenly, the lava in my veins violently exploded as the words burst from my lips. “You think just because you can sing a few off-key notes and fake your way with Liam’s garbage music you can say whatever you want. You don’t know what it’s like to be the oldest sister and be treated  like I am .” 

  “You jealous jerk,” Keira said with blazing eyes. “You know none of that is true. Liam plays guitar great, and I can sing,” she seethed  as she rose to her feet, climbing down from the Thinking Rock to the sand. “Maybe Liam was right about you. You are just a  blubbering fat baby.” 

Something in me broke, shattered like sharp little pieces in all directions in my mind.  I lunged towards my sister, who was stepping past me then. With one savage motion, I snatched her notebook out of her hands. 

“Take it back,” I growled in her ear. Seagulls screamed as they flocked inland, the wind a constant roar in my ears and snapping at my oversized t-shirt. 

“No,” Keira said fiercely, her hands reaching for the notebook. I held it away from her. 

“NO?” I said with some surprise. “Why, because Liam said that? or what?”  ?” 

Her eyes grew glassy and her face serious. Now real guilt flashed in her eyes as she looked desperately at her notebook I held over my head. I waved her book out of her reaching hands.

“I said them,” Keira said, watching with horror as I slowly tore out a page and let it fly out into the wind. It sailed over the incoming waves, before falling into the churning water like a bird with a broken wing.

“Shay, stop!” Keira wailed, as  if I had tossed a helpless kitten into the waves instead of her worthless song lyrics into the water. “Please—just don’t. What do you want? New earrings? No, wait. Look, you’re not that fat. I freaked out this time,” she smiled a bit, trying to smooth over the pain. “We’re even, right?” 

I was just about to  tear out another page. I paused .  Studied her face. It was serious, seeming younger as her tears ran . 

”wow, a real apology,” I said, a bit sarcastically. Somewhere in the back of my head, I knew she meant it.   But the bigger feeling in my way  was the pain of her words , the rumbling anger  simmering and boiling from earlier. I freak out, like I was out of control all the time. So not true. Just with her lately. And judgmental. And seriously, a Liar? Too much too late. 

“Should have thought of that before calling me all those things a bit ago ,” I yanked out another page. It came away from the binding with a satisfying rip.

“Be mad at Liam. I know you are,” she said, but her words were like feathers trying to stab at my rock-like anger, unmovable, thick and cold.  “Just give back my book. It’s the only place my songs are right now. We’re even, okay? I’m a jerk. And you’re smarter than I’ll ever be. I wish I was smart like you. Art isn’t everything, you know. You’ll be this rich scientist one day. Me? Ha,--Just some girl singing in a pub probably making quarters. C’mon. You’re so lucky. Things aren’t that bad for you really. Look, I’ll do anything to make you feel better. Just stop getting so mad. You can stop now.” 

“But you’ll do anything?” I asked. What a liar. Smart like me.  She would hate to be smart like me. 

It was obvious smart girls get nowhere in places like turtle rock Island. And yes, I was still angry at Liam about everything. It was time I made my point.

“Okay,” I said, racing to the water’s edge. “Go get it.” With a quick snap of my wrist,  I flung Kei

ra���s notebook. It tumbled…and silently, it splashed into the roaring sea. I watched the notebook drift away like an abandoned little soggy raft, rising and falling on the waves.

Keira only screamed as if I had murdered more kittens. “What did you do?” she screamed  again, racing into the water. I smiled but did not follow her.

I watched  with fascination as my sister, fully clothed, flung herself into the wild waves. Powerfully and with effort, she swam out, jumping the waves as she kicked her way to where her notebook bobbed just out of reach. 

Then, my triumph turned to cold horror. A wave , taller than me by several feet, came slamming down over my sister.  For a moment, Keira fell away from sight under the waves as the rain pelted down like god’s angry garden hose over me.

It was then  realized my game was no longer a game anymore. It was getting dangerously real. Keira reappeared, gasping, her notebook nowhere in sight with the thrashing white and gray waves as thunder burst the sky. I watched as Keira came up, then down. UP and down, face just visible, her hair a tangled dark mass around her unseen body in the water.

Heart pounding  with fear, I forced myself into the slamming breakers. They smashed against me, toppling over into the sucking sand beneath. They thundered over me even in the shallows as I found myself flailing with a moment of panic. I kicked wildly and slapped the water with hands against relentless wave over wave. I choked in salt water. My head was plunged into the darkness below the pounding surf.

I didn’t know how to swim. I wouldn’t make it. Keira...would she make it?

My head rose up above the surface. The lightning strobed. Thunder crashed as if applauding  my fight against ocean versus human. “Keira?” my voice was nothing, a whisper in the rushing waves and cold stinging rain in my face. Another wave rolled me under. Again , darkness. I was shot towards the shore, just another lifeform to spit back. It shot me back with a whooshing foaming rush of the current. Did it spit Keira back, too?

I remember crawling. Crawling slowly up the wet sand. Everything so wet. So cold and wet.

I measured time between thunder. It slowly growled farther and farther from me. It was the relentless smacking of broken shells, tangled stinking seaweed and something harder  in the back of my head that made my eyes open at last. I lifted my head, turned to see a bobbing blue sandal. Keira’s sandal, one strap torn away.

My heart jumped. “Don’t be dead, don’t be dead,” I chanted to myself, slowly standing to throw up salty water and whatever else before dizzily moving along shore on shaking legs. The many dead fish, their  bodies rotting in the air. The smell made me pause, taking in the reality of things stop  after some wandering in circles for several unsure moments.  I sat down, pulling my knees up to my chest against my damp, clinging tent of a shirt and shorts as I began shivering.  I just wanted to be home, warm with our parents. B a child safe in bed in the cave of blankets and stop shivering. But mostly, I wanted Keira now with me, to hear her sincere words, see her tears again. Where was she? Somewhere down the beach?  I did not want to think of the other reality.

I pressed Keira’s broken blue sandal to my chest like some relic. ”I’m sorry, sis. I’m so sorry ,”I moaned. “Just come home. I love you,” and I actually meant those words, words I Had not spoken in so long I forgot when. My tears fell in twos and threes there into the murky foaming water near my feet. 

A sliver of red peered out from the west as sundown came. But I didn’t move.  I couldn’t go home, not without Keira. Could I ever? 

   It was then I saw something in the water out a short ways in front of me. Something dark…something round…a head. It had to be, but no, I didn’t want it to be.

My  limbs grew cold. I wanted to hope, but I was afraid to. The form drifted nearer…and even nearer as if the ocean was a morbid little child excitedly saying, “Look, look what I found, Shayla?”  

I squeezed my eyes  shut, unwilling to look. “. “I can’t. I can’t look…can’t look, not like that,” I said to myself, beginning to tremble with an icy reality I did not want to make real. But the noise made me look anyway. The strange, grunting sound of an animal. Alive, beckoning me to see it. So I did, letting out the gasp of air I held tight in my lungs.

The dark-headed seal was so close to me. Its whiskered face and strong, thick paddling flippers helping it move even closer to me to touch. But it was not a seal, not a seal at all. It had those eyes, blue like the sky, dreaming of rivers and oceans of feelings, singing them in her head at night. Keira.

With more speed than I knew I had, I was on my feet, moving back from Keira’s sleek-furred form. Those eyes pleaded with me, so human in their large sockets I could not miss them. They watched, they held me. “don’t leave,” they said. “Be with me.” Trembling hard, I stumbled as I tried moving from Keira farther onto the beach. Determined, Keira struggled to pull herself onto the sand with her flippers, a motion clumsy and horrible all at once in her wild form.

“go back! Leave me!” I screamed as her front left flipper’s sharp claw brushed my foot. Opening her mouth with its sharp teeth in her dog-like face, Keira let out a shuddering, haunting moan of human -like sorrow that cut me in half. Like a weapon, I brought her sandal down on her head. I sobbed and shook as I defended myself—defended myself selfishly and against who? What had she become? Smack, smack, smack went the flat shoe. 

I flinched as Keira growled and snapped at my leg, just grazing it. A thin river of blood streamed where she had caught my tender skin above my right knee.

I was afraid of her, of this new thing she had become, something animal , something not. I regretted hurting her again, this helpless creature, all at once. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to,” I said, unable to stop staring at this muscular, sentient beast of the sea—my sister. “I will never be you!”  

Unable to stand it,--this dream, this living nightmare from those myths in dark heavy books--I sprung away from her up for the hill, back towards the outline of our house. But even as I ran, I heard Keira’s mournful cry echo. Even worse now, as if she were crying. I could run tonight but it was clear to me. Our fight was not over.

*** 

It’s  funny how  time seems to stop when something really big goes down. Especially when big things go down in turtle Rock Village on our Island. It’s not  often, believe it or not, we remember someone who’s drowned. Mostly, it’s the old people who go first, their hearts unable to take any more of the heavy shell of the world on their backs and its pressures after nearly a century of living. 

Sometimes, someone from our village we knew doesn’t return from the mainland and has a horrible accident there. But it’s the young people here, which aren’t many—maybe a scattered handful in the few families, who are a big deal to lose. The youngest person to die before Keira did was only twelve -years -old, a boy, Sam Palmer, who died of hypothermia after a boating accident left him stranded at sea for two days during a cold rainy night three years ago. Keira was drowned young person number two. It had been  a week since my sister’s “death” as everyone else thought it was. But it felt more like a month and really, let’s be honest., She   had…disappeared. Of course, nobody but me could ever know that. 

The small community—the whole village really-- gathered in the narrow church on the hill to remember my sister. Keira Gray, fifteen-years-old. Invisible in body  but her memorial made it seem otherwise.

There were flaming candles. Incense that made people sneeze and hymns to a God   I still questioned. I stood quietly, a watchful ghost through the whole thing, like a far-off movie I was not sure I wanted to finish as I listened to the snatches of stifled sobs, coughs and sniffles around me. I remember how the rose perfume from my eighth -grade teacher, Mrs. Gladstone, encircled me like some angelic symbol of hope I did not feel as she wrapped me tenderly like a second mother  in her arms. 

I overheard my  teacher whisper to my parents how brave I was, how it was nobody’s fault about what happened to my sister. Nearby, my parents  stood together, two inconsolable figures standing in the stale air in the back of  the church. I watched Moms body shake, my father’s brown, sore -red eyes blink  like a confused owl awakened     in bold daylight  in his sullen face. 

Nobody really knew what had happened to Keira. They only knew what I told them. The lie. 

how Keira accidentally dropped her notebook in the waves when trying to capture some line about their dramatic motion. How I failed to pull  her back at the last minute as she was torn away from me by the strong water. How I nearly died myself. The lie, a skeleton in the sunken treasure  chest of my soul weighing me down. They could not know and would never know what creature my sister now was. 

“So brave,” my teacher said, turning  to me. “You tried your best. I’m here for you if you want to talk,” she  said, face wrinkling with her sad smile as she turned to go out the doors into the May evening light.

Then I saw him, just a flash of his drawn face, dark shaggy hair and the same worn out jeans and flannel shirt. Liam Walsh, the very person who caused all my anger and the regret I now felt seeing him because of it. My heart squeezed in me, not sure what to say to him as he came in my direction where I stood near the exit . Beside him limped his Grandpa Jack and his mother, solemn as they approached me near the door. 

Liam’s green eyes met mine but he did not seem to have words to say. I was glad, unable to move or make much of a sound. I was not sure if I was still angry or sorry for Liam, maybe both. His grandpa Jack, or Poppy Liam called him, filled the silence as he turned to me, leaning  on his gnarled driftwood cane I  worried would break under his weight. “I don’t know why everyone’s so upset,” he said,  seeming confused as he gazed around at the somber people around us. His gaze grew pointed as it settled on me. “You especially, Shay, should know the sea…it saved her life. She’s been singing every night, you know,” he lowered his voice as he leaned in close to me so I could smell the peppermint candy on his breath. “Just the other night, under the moon, I was playing seal music on my flute there down by the water, you see, and I saw  your sister with the others. I saw her eyes, all sad in her seal face and crying,  Wasn’t she, Liam my boy?” , 

Liam said nothing.  He only shook his head as if embarrassed at his grandfather.   With a sudden thud, Grandfather Jack pounded his old wooden cane on the church floor. It boomed at my feet causing my parents and others nearby to glance our way. “Now listen, here,” he started. “Liam here was with me. He saw the whole thing. Keira’s alive—” 

“ Jak,,  , that’s enough,” hissed Liam’s mother with an embarrassed tug at old Grandpa Jacks arm.  “Look, you’re making a scene ,” She turned  apologetic eye on me. I pressed myself hard against the old wooden wall as if I could fade into its dark paneling. 

“I’m so sorry, shay. He’s just so stressed from everything going on. Take care, honey.” 

Beside his grandfather and mother, Liam just glared at his Grandfather,  disgusted with what seem like nonsense.  But I knew it was a frightening  truth. NO matter how hard I pushed it out, the scabby wound above my right knee where my sister had caught me only days ago was no dream.

As they left, my bones felt like liquid ice as I heard Grandpa Jack protest loudly so his voice echoed back at me even out the door. “I’m making a scene, huh? Liam,  you good for nothing. Why didn’t you back me up about Keira?  I’m no fool .  I know selkie magic…” before his voice faded.

I stood there stunned. What had Grandpa Jack just said? That word…it sounded like sell something magic. Key magic? Silky magic? Just a made up word for his serenading the seals at night? O was it a special word for what Keira was now? I never heard of it. 

And Liam. He was obviously playing stupid about what he knew. Was he embarrassed because I was there?  I knew Grandpa Jack’s moods by now and how serious he was and angry, too, when Liam played dumb. 

It was true, too, what Grandpa Jack had said just then. All week long, Keira’s voice had been somewhere in my dreams, on the wind ever since her, well, change.  

Grandpa  Jack, the oldest person on the island,   had been the first to see the secret in me as if my soul was a deep lake and he saw right down into it. Frozen ice ran through my legs at the thought. What else did he suspect of me?

Did Grandpa Jack know how it had happened, Keira’s change? Sure, it was no secret Keira had drowned, but I had to avoid Mr. Walsh from now on. Maybe even Liam. But could I really? 

As long as nobody found out exactly how Keira had really become seal, (if that was what it really was)then I was safe.  Let the island believe I failed as a sister to save Keira. I would not be a murderer.

*** 

Grandpa Jacks’ words haunted me. They followed me as I puzzled out their meaning. I had to admit, he was right. Keira was with me. All throughout the start of June,  the night was the worst time. The time when Grandpa Jack’s words were too true.

my dreams with tangible color and sound found me like a prowling animal. At least once  a week I had these dreams, when the tides were high and overtook the beach I walked earlier in the day. Keira was in these dreams, a seal with her human face and teeth sharp as nails driving into my hands. My finger bones breaking, cracking in her powerful jaws as she devoured them like hard-shelled shrimp. I awoke, gasping and frantically feeling my hands in the dark in bed, finding them whole.

Another week drifted by like stray gull feathers on the breezes as the days slowly grew longer as the end of June approached. I could not feel the energizing brightness of the sun or push  out the heavy absence of Keira  anywhere. I felt a dark  shadow in me growing by the day. 

This shadow fell over me as I saw the flyers advertising the Hungry Shark race in the Coffee Crab  windows where she excited her listeners with her liquid voice. 

If only I could run that race…if I was in better shape, I  would run it for her, I thought miserably eying the cartoon shark on the colorful blue and yellow flyers shouting at my eyes. 

”Keira, you’re right. I am too fat,” I said to the flyer behind the sea -sprayed glass. I was Wheezing like  a gasping fish only after running halfway across the beach behind my house.  Bent over wanting to throw up in horrible baggy green shorts I found somewhere in my drawer , my heart slamming.  I hated my legs, especially, like two thick tree trunks  holding me up on the sand. 

I hated my body so much. My body…Keira’s seal body. Well, at least I was no seal. I was not covered in fur with a whiskered snout and blubbery flippers weighing a few hundred pounds. No, I was not that ugly or even fat really …

But poor seal Keira. Was she really ugly in the form she had become? Wasn’t nature kinder than that in making her so made for the rough waters and the deep, dark night of below the ocean’s surface away from so much light? Yes, yes she was still beautiful. And for me? What a selfish jerk I was for feeling sorry for my human body, the one I still had and my sister did not, all because of me. I could adapt, too. I could change myself. 

I turned, shaking as I walked away from the coffee shop down the sunny sidewalk . Hot tears stung my eyes as thoughts crashed in on me. 

no. I didn’t deserve a second chance.  Because of me, Keira lives this alien death as another creature from humanity, the people she loved, the hopes and dreams all now nothing. If only she had really drowned like a normal person, this wouldn’t be so bad. But she still existed, probably having nightmares of her old human life…That was more painful than eternal death. 

And me? I got to wake another day, feel the sun like now on my face, the breeze in my hair, still hug my parents. I was such a monster. I had no right to stay on this island.  

A car past. Windows down. An old eighties song was playing. “…Get my message in a bottle. Message in a bottle,” the singer said to a pounding drumbeat that throbbed through my feet. I paused at the street corner. The car past me. 

A message? Send a message to Keira? But seals didn’t read, right? But what if she could? Could it help to tell her, tell someone, how sorry I was?

*** 

Without Keira, our small cottage was quieter, though the memory in her room upstairs near mine and photos on the walls screamed loudly in my face.

Keira’s room, an untouched shrine. My mother refused to do anything about it, as if Keira could come home any time soon. I knew my parents would probably soon box up her many poetry journals in the locked wooden trunk she bought herself at some yard sale with her money earned watching the Hanlon’s’ dog two summers ago. Her indie band posters on her walls, her name-brand clothes and her tray of collected sea glass on her dusty dresser. But nobody was ready to do that, at least, not Mom and me. Dad insisted it was time after a month already, to accept the reality of Keira never coming back.  

I sat on her bed, shoving my message deep into the blue decorative bottle I stole from the window sill collection Mom kept in the living room. She’d never miss it, I figured from the dozen  others collecting dust. The bottle would go back to sea. Keira would find it. 

If we were really all that connected, like the stars in our makeup to girls turning into seals, then somehow my own magic  would work, too. I mean, I’m no believer but nothing screams real as blood. If all those sayings about blood is thicker than water and sisters are bonded by blood, well, maybe there was truth in it. 

Carefully, so carefully, I pricked my finger with the needle from Mom’s sewing kit. The pain was a miniature firework on the pad of my left index finger. A bead of deep red dripped to the paper. Then, lowering my trembling finger below the written words, I signed….

*** 

I would have not gone to school but my parents insisted on it, though I was half alive when I was there. I checked out books in the tiny library on marine life to study the seals. I failed at drawing one with round blue eyes like Keira’s. But her image stayed in my mind, those cutting teeth and wild beautiful eyes reflecting me. My mistake, my doing. I had made her. Instead of taking notes or studying for the final math test as I was supposed to, Inside my head, I burned to ask Liam about Keira’s singing Grandpa Jack had told me  at Keira’s memorial. Did Liam here it, too? Did Liam have a secret, a secret like mine? I had to share it…share it with someone. I carried it like  a whale hung on a string from my guts. It was getting too big, too heavy to wake up to day and night.

But Liam avoided me in the  halls, at lunch, in class. It wasn’t hard to guess he didn’t want me to exist suddenly in his world. One week left of school and  my eyes spark and blood  glowed like hot lava  when I saw him scurry away to his guy buddies, who always seemed to be hovering in the right places to surround him in their noisy huddles. 

At home after school, the day I knew I had flunked the math test, I found Mom.  She was lounging on the couch, the place I found her lately in the past few weeks when I got home, watching TV. I dropped my backpack to the floor with a soft thud near the living room door and stood quietly there, my eyes drawn to the watery scene on the screen. The seal swam, dark eyes seeing things I could not. I was caught in place as the seal suddenly powered its flippers frantically through the water, frantic as something huge and dark moved in behind it. A shark, silent, deadly,  persistent. Red. Red everywhere as it clouded the black -blue… 

“No!” I cried, my eyes catching a framed photo on the wall just above the TV screen. Keira’s smiling face taken two summers ago. Red on the screen. The seal alive, but fighting for its life, wounded. Keira’s smile, Keira’s blue eyes. Now the seal,  cutting through the dark -blue ocean with a muffled human -like  cry…fighting and losing…losing, dying… 

My hand found the sea green bottle on the window sill. Whipped it hard. No more. Just no more. I wish it was me. IN the deep dark blue. That blood…that should be my blood. But it’s Keira’s blood.. 

A sudden crashing of glass, fast and sharp, slammed me back into the room. Mom suddenly standing. Her body blocking the silent TV. It  was off now.  Mom stared down at me, confused, sleepy. She had been asleep. Not now .

“Shayla? What was that for? Why you mad?” 

I blinked. Keira’s picture was not on the wall now. I was shaking. Time felt like it had been rubbed in gum and stuck the minute hands  in my head. So slow. But no, only a few seconds?

“blood. I hate blood,” I lied as the tears fell hot and fast down my numb face. What was happening  to me? OH, wait, that’s it. It happened finally. The dreams. All of it. I’m losing my mind.

“NO,” Mom shook her head, cutting through my lies. She tossed her frizzy red hair aside and sighed like a breezy tree. Her glance just caught the space where Keira’s picture on the wall now lay in its broken frame on the floor near the Tv. “It’s her. I know,” she said quietly, too tired for anymore tears. She gestured for me to sit near her on the couch as she lowered herself slowly like an old lady on its worn blue cushions.

Slowly, feeling hollow, I sat, too. I expected a lecture, about my angry outburst. But nothing came. Mom had no more energy for that. 

It was my fault that she was this way. Depressed again. She had been doing so well, too, working again at the antique shop, even laughing more. The medicine was working but it no match for grief this big. If only she knew Keira lived…lived on shrimp and slept in kelp and on lonely cold windy rocks and sang to grandpa Jack’s flute music in remembering her human self. Or did she? WAS it better she didn’t? 

“I know you miss her,” Mom went on, not reading the pictures of seal Keira in my mind. “I do, too. But You know it was…it was a horrible accident. You can’t blame yourself. You tried to help.” 

A few tears quietly ran down Moms face. I looked away, unable to stand it. The words , so close to my mouth melted in fear as I almost formed them like rocks in my teeth. I could not admit that I had made Keira go out there, made her drown against a wave she could not swim against. And for what? So I could feel powerful and in control of something I never was? Myself. My feelings. 

Mom’s attempt to comfort me felt cold as a damp towel around my shoulders. I let her do it but it was a shark she hugged,  hungry, running on instinct without feelings for others. Just a cold, calculating machine with too many useless facts about things and not of feelings for others. Just a predator, another wave knocking everyone down.

“You know,” Mom said then, “as ridiculous as Liam’s grandpa is, he was right when he mentioned Keira’s still here with us. IN here,” she pointed to her heart. “I heard him talking to you at the memorial. You know, Kee, , She loves you.” 

Mom’s words struck me and the sobs tore from me. She held me until I quieted like a child, and our tears made our clothes and hair wet as we cried. While she cried for missing Keira, I cried for Mom, for everyone I had been lying to, for a reality I faced alone and with no way out of. Or was there? What magic did Grandpa Jack know?�� 

Forget stupid Liam and his stupid games. He couldn’t hide that for  long. When I found out, he would pay for  his silence in leaving me in the dark like this. He knew what Keira was like Grandpa. His screaming denial  burned in me now.

Forget Liam right now. I’d go to the man himself, learn the language of the seal magic. Find Keira  again. And then what?

I wasn’t sure. But I wasn’t dealing with science now. More like the theory humans had stardust particles in them. Connected to something mysterious, ancient and unknowable like space itself. Keira was like that. My crying slowed and I grew still, thoughtful. . IN that moment, these sleep -walking  dreams, Her moaning songs at night…it all had to end. Keira was not dead, after all. Just different. And Alive. Alive out there, while I was here, on land. Safe in my home at night. But Keira…at night…was she safe?. 

*** 

Then came the sleep -walking dream, in the last week of June. Keira’s cry,, that moaning song that pulled me from my core like a magnet towards the sea. She called me, longing for me to be with he. I sensed her desperate calls as I moved through the dark of the sea cave, out into the waters that pooled around my knees, my waist…the rising tide…

The thunder rose from Keira’s music, her mouth open wide, the surf joining its roaring boom. I awoke, col and  not in bed. 

My father found  me, crawling on my hands and knees near the kitchen door. He was home before dawn from his shift at the lobster packing plant. I was there, mumbling, not knowing what was real and not.  , “Which way? Keira?” Dad smelled of the cold, stale beer and the stink of lobster on him as he lifted me up into his strong arms like a child. With soft steps, he climbed the stairs. ”Quiet, shay-Shay,” he said, my childhood nickname a small comfort. I wondered if Dad, too, could hear    Keira’s defeated seal music over the sudden gust of rain wind rattling the windows before I drifted back into sleep in my own bed.  

The next day was Wednesday. Last night’s thunder storm spit up driftwood, shells, sea glass, dead fish, all along the shore as I hurried in the direction to Grandpa Jack’s cottage later that day. It was near Liam’s cottage though, which frustrated me. I hoped I wouldn’t run into Liam right now. I was too angry to see him.

Breathlessly, I ascended the steep grassy hillside to and not the path to Grandpa Jack’s plain cottage. He insisted on living in one similar to the old style kind like the fisher’s cottage from what I knew. Said it had the original character and spirit of the old island he loved so much.

Heart skipping with anticipation, I knocked hard on the weathered wooden door. It swung open and I blinked as Liam’s Mom, Mrs. Walsh, peered out looking exhausted. 

“Shayla,” she said with surprise. “It’s nice to see you. Is everything okay?” 

I never visit Grandpa Jack. I never wanted to before. Before all this, he was just an old man who believed in fairytales and lived like some dreamer everyone said. I didn’t have time for that. Who had time to wonder about the mysteries of magic and the what -ifs of reality?

“Is Grandpa jack here?” I asked in a small voice.

“OH, honey,” Mrs. Walsh’s eyes grew watery. “He had a heart attack last night. He’s at the mainland hospital. The storm stressed him out I think. I’m just taking care of some things here.” 

My breath caught. I was speechless, frustrated and afraid. “Is he…okay?” I couldn’t say the word “dead.” 

“He’s stable but we’re not sure yet,” she said, seeming like she would cry any second. 

My heart fell. Without Grandpa Jack, I couldn’t find my sister again. I didn’t know how I would understand what she wanted from me in the songs I heard in my dreams Liam’s grandfather supposedly knew. 

Suddenly, someone shuffled in into the room from behind Liam’s mother. It was the last person I wanted to see. Liam himself.

“Hey, shay,” he said. The anger burned through me. AT school, he kept running from me. But would I run now, too? My feet did a hesitant dance as my emotions fought there in the doorway. NO, I would stay and not be the coward he was.

His mother stepped aside, trying to be friendly and polite as always. “I’ll let you two talk,” she  said. I watched her drift into the darkened little kitchen beyond, leaving Liam and me alone with the surf pounding outside behind me.

“so,” I began, steadying my voice. “sorry about Poppy,” I said, using Grandpa Jack’s nickname. I  knew his family loved Grandpa Jack, as strange as he could be. Liam’s father had divorce divorced many years before, so Grandpa Jack had become a second father to him in a way.

Awkwardly, I shut the creaking door behind me and stepped into the dusty living room. I saw Grandpa Jack’s many beach treasures.  ON a tall bookshelf beside the lumpy sofa, there shelves were crammed with Various gnarled driftwood, some plain, some painted with colored designs. There were shells and oddly -shaped stones ,starfish and more.  Beside the shelf, Stacks of thick old books nearly toppled over each other on the floor beside the sofa. The curtains were open and dust motes floated in the beam of late afternoon light slicing across the worn carpet between Liam and me. It was the longest day of the year, I realized, the start of the summer solstice.

Liam’s eyes met mine. Sad brown eyes, maybe even worried I thought. “Yeah. He’s old,” he shrugged. “But hey, he might pull through. And…if not,” he paused, fighting something in him and failing to hide it in his faltering tone. “Well, Poppy got to have one last adventure. 

I moved to the shelf of treasures. And froze. I hadn’t seen it at first with everything crowding around it, but it was there. But was it the one?

Hands shaking, I carefully picked up the blue glass bottle. It had been hidden behind a large stack of driftwood. I only spotted it because of its top showing. It was open, cork removed. It was empty.

“Yeah” Liam started, moving close to me. “So Poppy went out like always at the butt crack of dawn. Found that, what you’re holding in the mess the storm washed up. Of course, he showed me what he found at lunch today. It was this letter…” 

My ears rang. It was the one. I sat down  suddenly on the sinking  sofa.

“You okay? You look weird,” he stared at me. There was no room to be angry with him. Only afraid now that Liam knew. How could he even be talking to me?

“No,” I finally said. The room seemed to spin as he sat silently next to me, like old times. Somewhere deep down, beyond the anger, I wanted him again. But it was far away under confused feelings around it.

“I know you wrote that letter. You’re name…was that blood?” Liam said.

His words stabbed me like tiny knives. The tears blurred my eyes. I smelled his spicy scent, felt the warmth of his presence keep me suspended between the real world and myself. He was not angry. He was gentle, and that was the worst. 

“You should scream at me. Run away,” I blurted out. “I killed her, Li. I killed my sister!” the words came out in a wail. I forgot everything about what made me hate him, for ignoring me, believing he knew about Keira’s magic change, too.

His arm was warm around me. “NO, no, you didn’t ,” he insisted quietly. I saw his face then, leaning into mine. My brain thought he wanted to kiss me, but another part of me knew he was whispering. 

I heard a cupboard door slam in the kitchen. Right. He was only close to keep his mother from hearing us.

“the ocean…it does what it does,” he said almost to himself. “I saw her, you know. Keira.” 

Now the anger ignited again. Just a tiny spark above the fear and deeper desires with Liam’s arm around me. 

“You saw her when? How? Like Poppy?” I said, an edge to my wondering tone.

“With Poppy . he played some songs on the flute. The seals came in . but one came really close to the shore. It was dark but I saw her eyes…this blue in the moonlight. They looked…looked at me. She made this noise…but in my head, it was like Keira’s music, not like the seal sounds, you know? 

“You’re lying,” I said, because it felt good . I wanted him to be lying. To not have known a truth I had kept so guarded all this time. I pushed him off of me, moving to stand.

“No,” Liam said, frustrated as he stood. “The stories of the selkies, they’re real, and…and I think you know it, too. You have to know. You were there when she…when she left us,” he said in a shaking voice. His eyes pleaded with mine, and we didn’t speak for a few seconds. WE heard dishes rattling in the sink as Liam’s mother busily washed them.

“I know you know,” he insisted. “You came here to talk to Poppy about it. You didn’t know he was in the hospital obviously so what else would you want from him?” 

“I did,” I said, looking down at the creeping sunbeam fading away from us as time went on. 

“I want to see her again , too. But I can’t play flute like Poppy did. Just guitar. It doesn’t work for some reason when I play guitar. And you don’t play so don’t suddenly think you can call her, too. I think it’s in the way the music speaks that calls the seals,” he said with serious eyes watching me like a lecturing teacher.

“why didn’t you say something when Poppy brought this all up at the church way back? IS that why you kept avoiding me at school?” 

His eyes flickered from one side of the room and back to me, considering. “Yeah. I didn’t think you would get it, being all rational and stuff. And face it, we’re not the same you and me since we broke up.” 

More silence, uncertainty  between us both in the uncomfortable space. I broke the quietness. “That hurt, you keeping it from me what you knew. You have no idea what I’ve been through.” 

“I’m sorry. I really am now. I was…a coward,” he said, and looked me right in the face. I couldn’t take the intensity of his gaze. I turned away just as his mother came into the room, then went upstairs.

“I shouldn’t have judged you like that,” he continued after a hard swallow. “But you’re letter. I see you are really upset  by what happened. You didn’t kill her, whatever you think you did. Everyone feels guilty when they can’t protect someone they love.” 

“It’s not like that,” I started. He wasn’t understanding me. 

I had nothing to lose, I realized. This shared secret, that was all it was. WE would never be lovers again, never be the same.

“I made her go into the water. It was me.” 

“But it was out of your control. Just accept that  she  got a second chance, Shay,” he said. “Let her go.” 

“I can’t,” I said. “My parents are wrecked over her death. The whole island. She did so many things, made people happy, believed in so many hopeful things and cared so much. Not me. I just took someone’s life away and others are hurt now because of me.” 

“that’s how you feel now,” he said. WE moved back to the bookshelf. I set down the bottle, slick with my sweat on the dusty side table near the book stacks. “Life goes on. You’ll go on, do great things,” he was trying to be helpful but he was not.

“I want to find her, I said, not realizing it was out loud. “What is she? What was that thing Poppy was talking about? 

“Selkie magic, Liam said, touching a colorful pink shell on the bookshelf. “Poppy says on Summer Eve, they throw off their seal skins, become human once a year. Visit their loved ones. Sing on the beach.” 

“wait,” I said, thinking. “Human? Keira can be human again?” 

“Yeah, I guess,” he said. “I never saw it. I guess we’ll find out.” 

“But she’s supposed to e dead. If other people see her…so she’s not trapped forever like a seal? She can stay,” my voice rose with hopeful excitement.

“quiet,” Liam warned me. His eyes went to the ceiling, where his mother’s footsteps thudded overhead. “No, shay. IF you read any of the legends like Poppy has, all of them say the seal people will die without their skins. Die. Like forever in the ground as humans. For  real. . You want that?” 

“Don’t be upset,” I said. “It was…just an idea.” 

“Well, obviously these things are true so not a good idea. Look, nobody knows about this, okay? I don’t think Keira wants just anyone hunting her down in the town if they find this out.” 

“Of course not,” I said, horrified by the idea of my sister being hunted down, her skin a trophy. I shuddered at the thought. She had to stay safe.

I started for the door. “Hey, are we friends?” the words slipped out of my mouth easier than I thought.

“Yeah,” he said from the middle of the room. I slowly opened the door to the evening summer’ air filled with sea spray. “Hey, Shay?” 

“Yeah?” I turned to face him as I stepped out into the lowering sunlight.

“I hope you find what you want soon.” 

*** 

What I wanted was my sister. I wanted to believe in the stories, the power of Summer’s Eve and a defiance of physics itself as animal became human. The plastic instrument, Keira’s old recorder I found from the forgotten box in the attic when she was in fourth grade. She hated the instrument, preferring to learn the keyboard instead. 

I could at least try.  There,  on  the darkened shores of the empty beach, some ways beyond the thinking rock, I blasted out a few screeching notes. They were swallowed up by the sea. I managed a few actual squeaking notes on the scale but beyond that, nothing really like a song. I held the notes each, long and loudly like a dying bird call.

Finally, after several lousy attempts, I threw the recorder into the waves near my feet. I couldn’t see in the moonlight really where the recorder ended up as it floated away. I didn’t care.

I screamed, yelled my sister’s  name as I stood on the rock, crying and screaming all at once.

Exhausted, I climbed down the rock. I saw nothing in the waves move beyond the darkness. It was late, maybe eleven o’clock by now. Mom thought I was sleeping, as she had fallen asleep earlier on the couch. Dad was at work.

I couldn’t complete my plan without Keira, though. I needed her. Needed her to make it all work. But it seemed Liam’s grandpa was a dreamer after all and Liam…maybe a liar, too. Or the myths were lies and nobody knew a thing about selkies. Yeah, that had to be it. Nothing else made sense otherwise.

Feeling defeated, I trudged home. I couldn’t take another night alone in realizing that, really, I had failed at magic. Figures. I was no dreamer. I wished Grandpa jack was here, because maybe he could help me. But he wasn’t.

Sneaking into the house, I listened. Heard the TV ramble on and Mom’s soft snoring. Her anti -depressants were kicking in, making her sleep like a log. She would sleep for hours even with a herd of deer came galloping through the door. 

As quietly as I could, I Crept up the wooden stairs, careful to avoid the two groaning steps that croaked like frogs.  It was then I realized the top landing was dark with water. A lot of water. I froze on the top of the stairs, confused.

I looked up , but saw no leak in the ceiling.  I realized then the puddle of dark water on the carpet tracked away from it, leading into both my room and Keira’s room down the hall. My heart pounded a bit louder now, afraid of what it meant but also excited. What if? What if it was true, I thought, stepping into the soggy carpet where sand grains and the smell of seaweed hung in the air. To Keira’s room I went, the door shut. Dark.

Slowly, I creaked open the door. Smelled the seaweed stronger in here now. Sensed something…watching me. Mouth dry, I snapped on the light. I stumbled back with the surprise I was not ready  for.

there she was, naked on the edge of her bed, something large and dark folded at the end of the heavy gray -blue comforter. Keira sat there, her dark brown hair dripping nearly black, skin smooth and white, her blue eyes fixed calmly on me.

My stomach flipped. “Ki-Keira,” I rasped, unable to catch my breath. “You’re a dream,” I said, blinking, not sure why I was in so much denial. Why, after wanting to see her for so long .She had defied the law of physics. 

“Shayla,” she said, voice still hers but yet different. It held a note of something older, as if Keira had been away for a hundred years instead of nearly two months. Maybe in seal time it was like a hundred years. I stared unable to see the old scar on her left arm from the time she fell from the pine tree she tried climbing as a kid with me at Grandma’s house. Now, it was erased, her skin new like a child’s.  “Not a dream. I’m here,” Shayla said with certainty, eyes steady on me as they gazed deep into mine. I blinked, unable to stand her strange owl -like stare. 

My heart smashed in me as I hurried to her, wrapping my arms around her warm sooth skin. She smelled of the sea, of fish and as bad as this all would have been, I could overcome it. Something deep like joy rushed through me, turned my mouth to smile and my eyes to throw tears over her through a mix of amazement and sorrow too big to hold back.

I slowly stepped back then, and eyed her seal skin beside her. Oily, dark and sleek it seemed impossible to have kept her alive in its folds and structure  these weeks.

“Did you cause that storm?” I questioned eagerly.

“I’m sorry, I did,” she said simply. . I do things through nature. I know it’s hard to understand,” she began slowly, searching for the words. “But I needed to reach you. I didn’t want you to forget me.” 

“Forget you? I can’t live like this anymore,” I said. “It should have been me the ocean took, not you. You had so many dreams of going on, making music, art, supporting things you loved. Why aren’t you angry with me? Just say you hate what I did. I deserve it.” 

I stood in front of her, shaking, angry at her calmness. Wanting a  reaction of some sort. This was not my old sister. This was someone new who looked like her.

She seemed to age a  hundred years as her eyes looked into mine. “I was angry. It was dark. Cold. Frightening at first,” she began. “I wanted you to come with me, but I knew that meant, well, dying.” 

“That’s what  I want,” I whispered, the words releasing something in me, like a chain snapping. The words felt freeing.

“NO,” she shook her head. “No, it’s not. This magic, it’s torment. Caught in two worlds always, land and sea. You don’t want it.” 

“Maybe not,” I said, wondering. “Let’s go outside, get some air. You have all night with me, right?” 

“Yes. But only,” she warned. She gathered up the heavy seal skin. Before leaving the room, I made her throw on one of her blue summer sundresses on over her nakedness. She had no issue with it but it was too weird for me to keep looking at. 

Like ghosts, we left the house. We went down the shore, to the Thinking Rock. WE sat on the rock together, unafraid anyone would find us after midnight. 

“You didn’t call me, by the way,” Keira explained to me as we sat with the seal skin between  us. “I would have come anyway. It is the way of the sea. I always watch the island, you know. I  watch  everyone –you, Poppy, Liam, our parents. I can see them, but I know they can’t see me. I know they’re sad for me. But I’m  okay, shay. Really, I’m strong in the water. It’s a second home to me, but it will never be my first.” 

“It’s wrong,” I said, touching the skin.. “I’m leaving with you.” 

“You can’t,” she said. “You won’t.” 

“I need to,” I insisted, then snatched up her skin. It was heavier than I expected. “I mean nothing here to no one. I’m a liar, a killer and give nothing good,” and I leapt away.

Keira followed with struggling  steps, unused to her human legs. I somehow got ahead of her, back in the water.  The rising tide pulled me in fast, the sealskin like a weighted blanket around my shoulders  as I threw it over me. Would it work? Would it turn me seal?

“Stop!” Keira’s words were right behind me as I plunged into the water. The skin hung around me, refusing to become anything but what it was. Just a skin, a skin that dragged me down, an down.

Strong hands raised me, up and up into the black air of night. I gasped as my body  grew lighter. The skin was off, my human limbs heavy as my sister’s strong body pushed me back to land. 

ON shore, we gasped for air together. I saw her dark human shape, the skin draped around her shoulders like a strange oversized coat. “So,” she said, the venom of her anger finally breaking through her calm. My sister was back. “You want to die? You want me to die, too, alone here without you?” 

“No,” I said, not understanding as I stood up , dripping wet. “I want to take your place.” 

“Very compassionate, Shayla,” she said, voice softening. “But you don’t understand the power of this skin, the sea, the worse consequences of what you almost did.” 

“I just want to make it right,” I sobbed. She came closer to me. Her long hair touched my shoulders and dripped seawater.

“Shayla,” she said in the softest of tones. “I love you. This island is not for you. You have dreams, too. Chase them. The world needs thinkers like you. The world needs more than art. It needs both.” 

“But you—you are trapped like you said. I can’t—” 

“You can,” she insisted. “You can accept what I am. My destiny is not yours. If you love me, like I know you do, build new dreams. Make new scientific discoveries,” she laughed then, sounding so normal now, and not like a seal girl. “Become a marine biologist and keep us seals safe from pollution. This ocean’s pretty awful like that.” 

We laughed together. It was the first time in months we shared a joke like that. Then we grew serious.

“I’ll be back next year,” my sister said. “I will always find you no matter where you go in the world. I bit you the first day, remember?” 

“yeah, that hurt,” Is said, recalling the now healed wound on my knee. “What was that for?” 

“One, to prove I was real to you. Two, because sisters are bonded through blood. You’re my sister forever, she hugged me then, long and tight.

The hours flew as the sky lightened into gray dawn. My head filled with stories of Shayla’s underwater world, I sadly walked with her to the edge of  the water.  “Hurry—I need the sea,” she managed to rasp out.  Her webbed hands shook with effort as she leaned against me. Afraid for her, I adjusted the seal skin over her body, but not before helping her remove the cotton dress over her head.

She knelt, the skin falling over her body, the seal’s head a hood thrown back from her human face. “Remember what I said tonight,” she said, squeezing my hand in hers with rough fingers. 

We suddenly heard a far-off bark of a small dog. It was our neighbor, Mr. Hanlon for his morning beach stroll.

“Shay,” she said in a whisper, the nearby breakers crashing a few feet from us. “Be free,” were her last human words.

I watched my sister shudder. Watched the seal’s face enclose over hers. Her voice a seal’s barking of departure. Awkwardly,  she moved on four flippers back to sea. 

I stood, watching the dark heads emerge. There were others, waiting friends as my sister’s dark head  vanish into the jeweled morning sea in the rising sun. She would be alright. And so would  I.

[gimbledim]

#being an artist is such an integral part of my identity and i hate that i’ve put all of these expectations onto myself cause of it ):#i don’t know how to love making art if the art isn’t a perfect finished piece.#i know people always say ‘make bad art!!!!!’ but i don’t know how to learn to enjoy making bad art?#and i can’t slog through smth i don’t enjoy at least a little (adhd)#and i just. i want to love making art again.#like when i was in elementary and middle school just drawing in a lined notebook no expectations just drawin pokemon and animals

the thing about being an artist is that you never stop being an artist. even if you never draw another thing for the rest of your life! and any time youre not making art youre building up experiences and lessons that you can put back into creating. thats a vital step.

if you dont like that answer i can suggest some things

make art around other people. painting parties are the most fun with friends who insist they arent artists. grab a friend and go adventure to find a cool leaf or building or something to sketch together. swap notepads every few minutes to keep things spicy

work with an unfamiliar medium. its hard to be a perfectionist about something you arent good at yet. youve tried a lot of different things so idk uhhhh. paint minifigures or make friendship bracelets or collage pressed flowers or something. every new skill is something added to your artists caddy. you can bring a friend to this one too

(example -i learned recently that you can play around with printmaking by using those big pink erasers does that not sound baller???)

channel tiny middle school you and draw on that lined paper. use a shitty ballpoint pen and dollar store markers and some flimsy paper that bleeds through. lower the stakes

make Bad Art. the on purposed kind. make art that you think people would hate, that gets scoffed at in galleries. like, gross and confusing and hard to relate to. make art that if you personified it into a person it would be quietly asked to leave every public location its even been do. duchamp did that, pollock did that, and rothko and a bunch of other famous dead guys. i dont remember what point i was making. you dont gotta show it to anyone though.

i guess the main goal is to take the pressure off of yourself. you dont have to be a capital-a Artist, you can just be a person, who also makes art. how or when or why isnt as important. itll come back to you when youre ready.

sorry this is random as fuck but. does any1 have any advice (or reading recs) for drawing with less expectations/pressure on yourself? like. advice on how to just enjoying the act of making art vs. drawing with the final product in mind?? how do i enjoy art again.

[sporesgalaxy]

hi this is a pretty out-there question but. do u have any advice abt getting over obsessing over drawing consistent faces? i try my best to ignore focusing only on the face but then find myself spending literal hours perfecting only the face :( i want to be able to be free in making comics and having fun drawing like you, but i cant seem to get over this very weird hurdle :,-(

PEN. PRACTICE SKETCHING WITH PEN!!!!! or something else that you cant erase! No pencil sketch beforehand, just straight pen!

(If youre used to pencil, a ballpoint pen will be able to do some pretty faint lines if you apply light enough pressure. It may be most comfortable to start with since it's similar to pencils in that way.)

This will force you to start over completely when you get too caught up redoing details. Historically this has really helped me reel in my perfectionism!!! It can be frustrating but remember thats kind of the point! learning to STRATEGICALLY give up and live with something a little wonky!

Try doing a lot of smaller sketches on the same page so that you can look at each past attempt for reference, too!

AND NO SCRIBBLING OUT THE SKETCHES when you start a new one!!! Sometimes you'll sketch something a few times and then look back at an earlier attempt you initially didn't like, and think "well, that one actually looked the best! I was just too absorbed in this one detail, but everything else looks nice compared to my other attempts now that I have some perspective!" And that's a really refreshing feeling!

I also feel like it makes me better at getting it right the first time, just via developing a muscle memory.

When you're correcting a drawing, you're often doing these little tiny strokes, or if its on paper youre getting caught on the old pencil indentations, etc etc. It's not actually giving you any practice making the bigger strokes in that you'd use for making the initial sketch. Practicing by starting over completely a lot will help build up a muscle memory for that initial sketch, so that it feels easier to do it first try!

LASTLY, if you do this for a while and just find yourself getting more and more fed up, remember to quit and take a deep breath. I've been there! When I first started doing this, I definitely had to be in he right headspace to do it, so always feel free to throw in the towel and try again another day!!!!! Good luck!

[hannanodaa]

Hello! Can I ask how you managed to get smooth clean lineart with your Venti drawing?

Hey there!! Quick summary since I suck at explaining things 😅 If you’re unsure of how you want your overall linework or even just art in general to be less stressful, I suggest making quick tiny thumbnails sketches just map out your overall composition. You can also just skip that part and just start sketching lightly directly into the paper with pencil (I recommend 2H pencils for this). Don’t make it overly detailed, just draw enough that you can get an idea of what your finish piece looks like. Once you’re satisfied with how the rough sketch looks like, you can start with the lineart. I personally prefer using ballpoint pens, but you can use any other ones (just make sure that it’s waterproof if you plan on painting the piece afterwards)

Start off light and slow so that you can map out the overall piece and have more control of your lineart. When you’re done, simply erase the pencil marks on the paper (but make sure to be careful when erasing or you might accidentally crumple the paper. Also wait a bit for the lineart to dry up before erasing or you might end up smudging the lineart). For more weight variety in your lines, just go over that area again one or two times. You can also finish it off by adding in a bit of colours if you want, colour pencils are fun to include one sketches. And that’s pretty much it! Hopefully that helps ☺️☺️

[smallgodseries]

There are few things in this world more perfectly and pristinely satisfying than the presence of Pierce.  He comes not for those who choose the miracle of the mechanical pencil over the manual crank of the sharpener, the sweet smell of the shavings, the onomatopoeia of the mechanical sharpener’s grinding gears. They have their own divinity, kept in click and refill, in never needing to worry about the dullness of entropy and time.  But he is both the pen and the sword, chronicler of the classroom and shiv for the unwary.

Scholars can also be soldiers, in their way.

Even those without a scholastic bent have found their path to him, understanding that in a school setting largely and blessedly devoid of weapons, the pointed lead can be used as the most effective of needles, providing both bloody amusement and the occasional unwanted but thankfully temporary tattoo.  Lies and rumors of graphite poisoning will occasionally pull him from the dust-stained hands of his faithful, but he is cheap and easy and the infrastructure for his return sits in every classroom known; he always returns. He always will.

Unlike the deceitful ballpoint pen, he wears his remaining usefulness on his yellow sleeve, easy to mark and measure.  When the time comes for his retirement, he sails into the wastebasket, chewed eraser and all, and knows, to the bottom of his #2 heart, that his return is already ordained.  For he is a cyclical god.  He sharpens to be worn down to be sharpened again, over and over, forever after, amen.

In Pierce’s name, we fill out our standard tests, and we pray, and we pray, and we pray.

.......................................

Artist Lee Moyer (13th Age, Cursed Court) and author Seanan McGuire (Middlegame, Every Heart a Doorway) have joined forces to bring you icons and stories of the small deities who manage our modern world, from the God of Social Distancing to the God of Finding a Parking Space.

Join in each week on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for a guide to the many tiny divinities:

Tumblr: https://smallgodseries.tumblr.com/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/smallgodseries

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/smallgodseries/

Homepage: http://www.smallgodseries.com/

[averlym]

^^^!!!

[the-human-sharpie]

Nobody asked for this, but here’s a list of things that make me happy:

Sparkly bits in the pavement

Finding smooth rocks

Horseshoe crabs

Finding tiny crabs at the beach

I hate the beach :D

When a wave hits a sandcastle and the sandcastle stays standing up

Catching or really just watching frogs at the little pond a few neighborhoods over

Tiny candy canes

When rooms smell like oregano, basil, rosemary, or thyme

The rest of the list is under the cut :)

Eating basil leaves directly from my garden and feeling like I outsmarted the rabbits and groundhogs because apparently all they know is destroying my herb garden and eating all my blueberry bushes like mf just take a tomato i don’t like tomatoes it’s a win win if you go that way just don’t eat my fucking basil leaves istg

Getting to explain the physics/aerodynamics of the twin sonic booms that the Atlantis shuttle makes upon re-entry into earth’s atmosphere to little kids in a way that makes sense to them

Space

The way that people’s eyes light up when they infodump about their hyperfixations and/or special interests

Frogs

When movies take physics and accurate terminology into account

Using a new sketchbook that has really good paper

Ballpoint pens!!

The Royal Opera House’s ballet adaptation of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

Sergei Prokofiev’s Cinderella

Watercolors

When a locket makes that good click clack noise when you open and close it

Making other people happy

The way that kiwi birds run and hop around when they’re happy

Finding a snail

Finding a cat

Feeding the stray turkeys that randomly appeared in my yard one day (I hope they’re doing well)

When people do the thing like jingles out in my silly little jester hat like the fool i am

Accidentally sneaking up on friends bc I tend to walk really quickly and seeing their reactions

My pencil not dying 5 minutes into drawing something

The way I used to surprise the athletic kids— yes, I do mean the highlighter outfit ones— at school by surpassing them in physical strength bc apparently I looked like a twig to them

Antique shops (they’re so magical and special, even if it’s an old spool of thread that probably hasn’t been touched in years, everything there has a story behind it)

That one ikea teddy bear

Seeing people speak with so much adoration about their comfort characters

Seeing people gushing about their comfort characters in the tags of a reblog

Good mechanical pencils

Erasers that work

Riddles

Playing random pieces on the piano at 3 in the morning and otherwise enjoying the silence

Green things

In depth analysis of different characters and acknowledging character flaws of the ones who people adore and seeing the good (if possible) in the characters who people loathe

Good dreams that last long enough

Dreams that seem like a literal staged and edited shitpost

Seeing what songs people associate their ccs with and why

Trubbish

Joy Again (it’s a lovely band, really)

[geniiekid]

Went to Muji and bought...

- a tiny pencil sharpener

- 2 of the 3 colour ballpoint pens

- a mini calculator

- a smooth gel ink ballpoint pen knock type in 0.5 mm grey

- another smooth gel ink ballpoint pen knock type in 0.5 mm blue black

- 2 smooth gel ink ballpoint pens knock type in 0.5 mm black

- a glue stick

- a mini stapler

- a large hard type black eraser

- and some whiteout

I spent about $20 in total, which is way past my stationery budget, but I'm on spring break. It's fine. 😆

[sockori]

I internalized this jokey headcanon I saw that Hidan is nearly illiterate, so handwriting is atrocious. Deidara's handwriting is probably weird because he doesn't want stuff touching his palms? I definitely agree that Sasori has that really neat and tiny handwriting.

I thought about Hidan’s handwriting and I was secretly thinking the same thing… It may be a trope on his part, but I do think the poor boy has trouble reading now and then. If you can consider it legible I think it’d be super big and audacious. Bro’s scribbles take up the whole fucking page and bold font ‘writes in all caps’ Kakuzu is sitting there with his ballpoint pen like “will you chill for a fucking second”.

my take on Deidara’s is that his handwriting is also pretty bold, but its actually pretty neat, and its not as big and scribbly. His letters are never properly aligned though (which makes sasori’s eye twitch just a little bit), just slightly bouncing off in different directions, so it looks like a cartoon title. A bit like the fonts Mansalva or Caveat Brush. Though I mentioned in a comment it’d be really funny if his handwriting was messy as fuck not because of his handwriting, but because of the hands. There’s drops of saliva in some areas, a huge tongue smear splitting entirely through the paragraph. Deidara gives back Sasori’s eraser, of which has a whole bite taken out of it. “Sorry, my man, talk to the hand.”  

[thestorytellerofkpop]

Talk Nerdy to Me

Title: Talk Nerdy to Me

Word Count: 4k+

Rating: T+

Genre: Realistic fiction, slice of life, college AU

Warnings: Fluff~

Pairings: Junmyeon (Suho) x Female Reader

Summary: Junmyeon, the Vice President of the Geek Culture Appreciation Club and biggest history nerd on campus, falls for the cute little freshmen wearing a limited edition Star Wars shirt. He knew it was love at first sight when he saw Han and Leia on your torso. Oh yeah, and you were pretty cute as well. 

A/N: For @cuddlejeongin, thank you for being patient with me!

Expo day was always Junmyeon’s favorite part of the freshman orientation at his college. All the clubs lined out in the quad, showing off their skills and trying to get new members to join them. Junmyeon loved the colors, the music, the laughs and noises when all intertwined together created an organized catastrophe and an euphoria of sensations that gave Junmyeon chills.

He was actually at his own club’s table, Geek Culture Appreciation to be exact. Right in between the digital arts and LARP-ing clubs. He smoothed down the blue tablecloth for the nth time that morning, making sure the pamphlets were neat and the visual aids straight.

“Junmyeon, you never fail to amaze me.” the president of the club, Baekhyun, patted him on the back. “And you brought cookies?” Baekhyun smiled, reaching out to take one when Junmyeon smacked his hand away, Baekhyun whining in protest.

“They’re not for you.” Junmyeon shot his president a glare, wiping away the crumbs that fell from the plate.

“Geez, Baekhyun making you vice president really has let your more aggressive side come out.” Xiumin snickered when he came up to the table.

“Keep in mind this is only our second year of having this club, little junior Junmyeonie was my only contender.”

“Don’t baby me, we’re both juniors and I’m older than you, you brat.” Junmyeon squished Baekhyun’s cheeks, who just swatted his hands away with a cheeky grin. Junmyeon couldn’t help but smile back. Annoying as Baekhyun may be, he was just too cute for his own good. 

Soon enough the freshman class flowed out of the gym and into the quad, timidly strolling the isles and looking amongst the booths. Some of the returning students explored as well, Junmyeon waved at a scowling Sehun (his fellow friend, majoring in History with a focus in European history, just like Junmyeon was) and even Amber ran up to him in greetings, giving him a hug and taking a pamphlet and one of the cookies with a wink and the promise to join this year.

“Seriously we need more girls.” Baekhyun sighed, tapping his fingers against the table in thought.

“I know, HR told us if we didn’t get more females we’d be in deep shit. Something about diversity.” Xiumin sighed. “Which is silly in my opinion since we’re basically 20 members strong and one of the largest growing clubs at this school. They can’t just shut us down because we have a 1:5 female ratio. Junmyeon what do you think?” Xiumin turned towards his friend, who was staring intently at a girl exploring the World’s Showcase club.

“Woah, Baek, check it out.” Xiumin nudged his friend and pointed at the girl, to which Baekhyun just gasped.

“Is that?”

“A limited edition Millennium Falcon shirt with Han and Leia that was released in 1979 to promote the early access premiere of ‘The Empire Strikes Back’ in Hollywood that was given to those only at the first screening?” Junmyeon spewed out his words like an encyclopedia, staring in awe not only at the shirt, but the girl wearing it as well.

“Damn Myeon, no wonder you’re VP.” Xiumin patted his friend on the back.

“We have to have her in this club, she’ll be a great addition!” Baekhyun smiled, preparing to approach her when Junmyeon’s hand stopped him.

“W-Wait. Maybe we shouldn’t.” his cheeks felt hot, and he knew for sure Baekhyun could feel his hand shaking.

“Why not? Junmyeon you look like you’re going to be sick.” Xiumin placed a hand on his forehead, pouting in concern.

“Junmyeon?” Baekhyun gasped, a sly smile playing on his lips. “Could this be our little Myeonnie’s first college crush?”

Junmyeon swore his face got ten times more red, looking at the ground in embarrassment. He fiddled with his hands and began to stammer out excuses, but his friends awes and squeals drowned out his words. Soon he found himself smushed between two bodies, two pairs of arms hugging and squeezing his abdomen tightly.

“Now I have to get her over here.” Baekhyun snickered and before Junmyeon could stop him, he scurried over to the World’s Showcase table, smiling and introducing himself to the girl. Junmyeon could see her smile and follow Baekhyun to the table, to which Junmyeon’s cheeks flushed deeper.

“Guys, this is Y/N. She said she’s interested in finding out more about our club.”

“Hey, I’m Xiumin, and this blushing nerd over there is Junmyeon, our vice president.” Xiumin shook Y/N’s hand, nudging Junmyeon to do the same.

“It’s nice to meet you.” Y/N smiled at Junmyeon, holding out her hand to him. Junmyeon deadpanned. Her smile was out-of-this-world and for this first time in his life, Junmyeon felt his brain short circuit. It took Baekhyun’s hand on his shoulder and Xiumin’s shaky laugh to remind him where he was and what he was supposed to be doing. He took her hand and smiled back, albeit nervously and he couldn’t help but notice the giggle fall past her lips.

Baekhyun and Xiumin started explaining the basis of the club; what they did, how often they met, but Junmyeon couldn’t seem to muster up any words to add. He was too busy sneaking glances at the girl in front of him, nibbling on the chocolate chip cookie she grabbed, happy as can be. His cheeks still held their pink tint as he drunk in her features. Her smile and the way the corners of her lips turned up, how her eyes crinkled when she laughed, and how she shuffled her feet when shifting her weight.

“So I guess we’ll be seeing you at our first meeting?” Baekhyun asked after he handed her all the club forms.

“Oh most definitely! I can’t wait! I hope to see all of you there.” Y/N said. Junmyeon locked eyes with her and for the briefest of seconds, he could’ve sworn he saw her eyes sparkle. He watched her leave with bated breath, nibbling on his bottom lip in thought.

“The least you can do is stop blatantly staring at her ass, dude.” Baekhyun snickered, throwing an arm over his friend’s shoulders. Junmyeon shook his head, a sigh leaving his lips.

“You’re so whipped.” Xiumin chuckled.

Yes. Yes he was.

~*~

Monday couldn’t have come fast enough. Junmyeon had woken up bright and early, anticipation and excitement raced in his veins as he made his way to the showers. Junmyeon always loved the first day of school. Ever since he was a little boy. He loved the smell of fresh paper, the way ink would splatter on his fingers from writing too fast (because he only used gel pens and refused to settle for ballpoint), and how new erasers felt in his palms.

He rushed back into his dorm, freshly showered and ready to face the day, grabbing a water and a protein bar from his tiny mini fridge and throwing a pillow at his sleeping roommate who groaned in annoyance.

“Chanyeol you’ll be late if you don’t get up.” he called, already halfway out the door.

“’S the first day Myeon, give me five more minutes.” Chanyeol mumbled, but Junmyeon was already gone and didn’t hear the annoyed words from his friend.

He was the first in the classroom on the third floor of the Roosevelt building, claiming his favorite spot, in the middle slightly off to the left. He brought out his laptop and a notebook, the feeling of taking handwritten notes always felt better than typing notes out. But when he wanted to do extra research later he would make a note in his Word Document on the topic. Students soon began to trickle in, and Junmyeon smiled when his blonde friend plopped in the seat to his right, Starbucks latte and all.

“Sehun.”

“Junmyeon.”

“Do you-”

“Still too early Myeon, I’m just now waking up.” Sehun sighed. He took a sip of his latte and removed the bulky black sunglasses from his face, setting up his own laptop. Junmyeon pursed his lips and Sehun just sent him a sly wink and Junmyeon couldn’t help but smile.

Five minutes before the class was ready to begin, Sehun nudged him out of his focused stupor.

“Who’s the cutie just walking in?” Sehun pointed her out and Junmyeon had to pinch his leg to make sure he wasn’t dreaming. It was Y/N. The cute girl from the expo. Junmyeon shook his head and tried to hide his blush.

“Never seen her before in my life.” Junmyeon shoved his head back into his computer, pretending to look busy.

“She looks like your type, a little young to be in a 300 class though, don’t you think?” Sehun pondered, following her around the hall with his eyes. He snickered and leaned in close to Junmyeon’s ear.

“She’s coming down here.” and Sehun laughed at Junmyeon’s expression; an utter look of horror. She had chosen the seat next to him, him of all people in this goddamn classroom.

“Hey, Junmyeon right?” she smiled at him and Junmyeon could only nod.

“He’s usually not like this, normally I can’t get him to shut up in these types of classes.” Sehun chuckled and leaned forward to meet the girl’s gaze. “Well, Junmyeonie, aren’t you going to introduce me to her?”

“Y/N this is Sehun, my excruciatingly diva-like best friend.” Junmyeon smiled when he managed to pull a laugh past Y/N’s lips and he couldn’t find himself to be bothered when Sehun clicked his tongue at him, playfully flipping his hair back.

“I know I’m the world’s biggest diva, but that doesn’t mean you have to say it aloud.” Sehun rolled his eyes, turning back towards Y/N with a smile. “So, you look a little young to be in this advanced class. What’s a baby like you doing down here with us old folk?”

“Well, um, I took a lot of dual enrolment history courses in high school, and the college took all my credits, so they moved me up to the junior level.” Y/N explained and Junmyeon was fascinated.

“What area of history is your favorite to study?” he asked.

“Oh, well hit me with the hard questions.” Y/N chuckled, pulling out a notebook and an array of colored pens. “I’ve taken a lot, but my favorite is European history, between 1860-1950. But Ancient and Colonial History around the world is also fascinating to study as well.”

“What a small world, the area Junmyeon focuses in is European history of the 19th and 20th centuries. I’m much more into the Cold War era, Soviet Union History myself what with my Russian minor and all, but you’ll definitely be seeing a lot of Junmyeon then.” Sehun snickered and Junmyeon felt his face heat up.

The professor suddenly walked in and Junmyeon’s attention went straight to her. European dictators of the 19th and 20th century. That was their focus for this semester effective immediately. That’s what Junmyeon liked about this professor, she never delayed her teachings on the first day when most professors would go over the syllabus and classroom introductions for the entire hour and fifteen minutes. He found it quite pointless really, when you can just read the stupid thing yourself and talk to those you found appealing, but he supposed there were some people who needed it.

Francisco Franco would be their first dictator to study, but the professor expected basic outline notes on all the dictators they would be studying before they dived into the finer details. He felt a nudge on his left side and looked at Y/N quizzically. She passed him a sticky note, which he opened and read the sentence she wrote over and over again.

I wouldn’t mind seeing a lot of you, y’know.

Junmyeon looked back over at Y/N to see if she was just waiting for him to look over only to laugh in his face, but, she was just scribbling away at her notes. Her eyes focused on the paper in front of her; she didn’t even spare Junmyeon a second glance.

Junmyeon noticed the Ravenclaw stickers on her binder and suddenly a domestic scene clouded his mind. No longer was he thinking about God, Gold and Glory or of Francisco Franco. Rather, a warm fireplace in a small cozy living room. Rain pelting the windows in sheets, and Y/N sitting in his lap, wrapped up in a soft fluffy blanket with a mug of something sweet in her hands. Junmyeon smiled when she pushed his glasses back up his nose for him, loving the way she giggled and snuggled into his body even more. It was warm, warm, warm, and Junmyeon couldn’t help but place a kiss upon her cheek. He pulled the book he was holding up closer to his face, (Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix to be exact) and continued reading the passage aloud.

He was brought out of his stupor when Sehun nudged his shoulder, leaning in close to him to whisper into his ear.

“You were daydreaming. You never daydream, especially in these classes, are you alright?”

Junmyeon shot a quick glance to the girl on his other side. She was deep into the lecture, taking notes so rapidly Junmyeon wondered how her hand hadn’t cramped up yet. Her focused look, the way her hair fell into her face. Oh. He was royally fucked.

“I’ve never been better.”

~*~

Junmyeon drew six columns in his notebook, the lines as straight as he could them before organizing each column by color. Hitler in green, Stalin in red, Lenin in purple, Mussolini in orange, Franco in blue, and Kai-shek in pink. He flipped through one of the textbooks laid on his bed to the section on Hitler’s rise to power, ready for an extensive note-taking session, when his thoughts strayed away from Nazi Germany (arguably one of the moments in history Junmyeon found most fascinating).

Chanyeol looked up in alarm when Junmyeon threw his notebook to the floor, highlighters and colored pens scattering through his bed-sheets. He watched him remove his glasses and sigh, running a hand through his disheveled hair.

“European dictators of the 19th and 20th centuries finally getting to you buddy? It’s only been two days.” Chanyeol chuckled, peering over the edge of his phone to watch Junmyeon go pick up his notebook.

“Nice ass by the way.” Chanyeol snickered when he bent down and Junmyeon had half-the-mind to smack his friend silly.

“Not in the mood today, Chanyeol,” Junmyeon plopped back down onto his bed, shoving his glasses back up his nose. “I already can’t focus, I don’t need your extra side comments distracting me either.”

“Woah, touchy are we?” Chanyeol sat up, staring Junmyeon down until he looked at him.

“Seriously though, what’s bothering you? You only ruffle your hair like that when you’re nervous. You’re giving off a very good impression of Park Jimin right now.” Chanyeol threw his phone across his bed with a little plop and watched as Junmyeon, yet again, pushed his round wire-rimmed glasses up the bridge of his nose.

“It’s about a girl.” he started.

“Oh you mean Y/N, the one you couldn’t stop staring at during the orientation expo?”

“How did you-”

“Baekhyun tells me everything sweetie. It’ll take a lot to get one past this man.” Chanyeol smiled, throwing Junmyeon the cheesiest finger-guns he’s seen since 2nd grade.

“Anyways…she’s in this history class with me and Sehun. Like she’s wicked smart for a freshman, she took so many history courses in high school and got enough credits to jump into our level. She’s just really intelligent and cute and she was wearing this limited edition Star-Wars shirt that was made in-

“Oh my god,” Chanyeol cut off Junmyeon’s rambling, a smirk playing on his lips. “You have a crush on her don’t you?”

Junmyeon felt his cheeks flare up and scowled at the way Chanyeol giggled and told him how adorable he was.

“I can’t stop thinking about her, that’s why I cant concentrate.” he admitted and was soon met with a plethora of kissy noises and awes from his friend across the room.

“I can hear the bells.” his friend sang and Junmyeon cocked his head in confusion. Chanyeol dead-panned.

“It’s from Hairspray dude, you need to get out more.” Chanyeol shook his head. “Anyways, what are you going to do about this predicament?”

“I don’t know dude. I really want to get to know her first. But I’m not ballsy enough to just go up to her and say ‘Hey, you’re cute. Go on a date with me?’.”

“Damn right you’re not.” Chanyeol laughed and Junmyeon shot him a glare.

“Doesn’t mean I need you to say it back.”

“Anyways,” Chanyeol spoke over his friend, giving him a pointed stare. “You need to get her attention first before you can make any moves on her.”

Junmyeon looked up in exasperation at his friend, who was oh-so grinning cheekily behind his large framed glasses. He noticed how Chanyeol’s eyes looked bigger behind the frames, almost sparkling behind the glass while his own glasses did nothing to enunciate his face. Damn Chanyeol for being able to make even the clunkiest of objects look attractive on him.

“Yeah? And how exactly am I supposed to do that?”

“Y’know, be all like, ‘Oh my god I’m on fire! I need to stop’-” Chanyeol slid from the bed, Junmyeon watching in horror when his friend’s tone turned suggestive and sultry.

“Drop,” Chanyeol spread himself out on the floor, his legs widening as he arched his back. “And roll.” Chanyeol rolled himself onto his stomach, resting his head on top of his hands. He sent Junmyeon a wink and proceeded to roll away in laughter when his blushing roommate threw his pen at him.

“You’re out of your mind if you think I’m going to do something like that in a public place.” Junmyeon groaned, covering his ruby cheeks with his hands.

“Take a joke Myeon, maybe just start by saying hi?” Chanyeol chuckled before hoisting himself back onto his bed.

Hi? Yeah, Junmyeon could do that for sure.

~*~

Turns out Junmyeon couldn’t do that. When Y/N arrived in class the next day he could barely open his mouth to stutter out a ‘hi’, instead opting to allow his pink blush to brush his cheekbones and his eyes to sneak glances at her in between note taking and during club meetings. Junmyeon didn’t think he could ever find the opportunity (or courage mind you) to utter a sentence around Y/N and would just have to suffer the next three years of college in agony. That is until Y/N approached him first.

“Good discourse tonight guys! And gals,” Baekhyun sent a cheeky wink to all the females in the club before continuing his closing. “Next weeks discussion; Marvel vs DC, so make sure to pick your sides and prepare your arguments for next week! Have a good night guys!”

Everyone dispersed, a couple of the students raiding the leftovers of the snack table when Junmyeon approached Baekhyun.

“We need to meet to make the next few months schedules.” he said pointedly, allowing his eyes to glance over at Y/N who was talking to Amber animatedly.

“Sure Myeonnie, maybe we could meet on-” Baekhyun’s words trailed off and he smirked as he looked over Junmyeon’s shoulder.

“Hey guys!” Junmyeon turned around and saw Y/N standing there, a smile etched on her face.

“Oh, lovely Y/N, the only defender tonight in saying Quicksilver and Scarlett Witch are the best twins in literature and/or comic fiction. What can we help you with this evening?” Baekhyun asked.

“Well, normally Amber would walk me back to my dorm, since it’s on the outskirts of campus near that sketch gas station, but tonight she’s chasing after Loona,” Y/N chuckled and her cheeks flushed. Junmyeon saw her eyes shift over to him and he suddenly became bashful.

“And I was wondering if one of you would mind accompanying me back? It’s just so late, and you never know what kind of people could be lurking about and-”

“No, my dear, it’s perfectly understandable. Which dorm is it?” Baekhyun asked.

“University Hall.”

“Ha! As a matter of fact, Junmyeon dorms there too, don’t you Myeonnie?” Baekhyun nudged his side and Junmyeon looked up at Y/N, eyes wide and mouth slightly parted. Him and Baekhyun always stayed late to clean up the club room and he never even guessed that Y/N was in the same dorm building as him. The thought that Y/N was living so close to him all this time had his stomach churning in nervousness, but excitement.

“Y-Yeah, I do. I don’t mind walking you back if that’s okay with you?” Junmyeon cringed at his slight stutter and he could practically feel Baekhyun shaking in silent laughter next to him.

“I would like that. Just let me go get my bag,” she smiled, rushing across the room to grab her things.

“This is your chance Myeon! Go get her man!” Baekhyun whispered hastily, shoving Junmyeon towards the door despite his friend’s protests.

“Ready?” Y/N asked Junmyeon, fidgeting with the straps of her bookbag. 

“Yeah, lets go,” Junmyeon held the door open and smiled when Y/N blushed, thanking him as she stepped into the nighttime air.

They walked for the first couple minutes in silence, Junmyeon internalizing the silence in his mind as awkwardness and that Y/N really didn’t want anything to do with him until-

“So…” Y/N started, but stopped her sentence just as quickly, bringing her gaze down to the ground.

“Hmm?” Junmyeon asked.

“I’m sorry if I’m making this awkward, I just don’t know what to say.” Y/N chuckled nervously.

“What? No! You’re fine Y/N, more than fine actually.” Junmyeon spoke before he thought and instantly broke out in a blush once he realized what he said. Y/N giggled.

“I, uh, I really liked the shirt you wore at the expo! I-I should have told you sooner, but I guess we just never had the time to talk about it.” Junmyeon chuckled nervously, rubbing his hand over the nape of his neck. 

“Oh? You’re a Star Wars fan too?” Y/N’s interest was peeked and Junmyeon suddenly felt more comfortable.

“Hell yeah, it’s far superior to Star Trek.”

“I know right?! Some people don’t understand when I only like the one instead of both but c’mon, anyone with half a mind would know Star Wars is obviously the better space sci-fi franchise.”

And that’s was the entire topic of conversation until Junmyeon dropped you off in front of your dorm, laughing while he shushed you as to not wake the other people (probably) sleeping around you both.

“I really had fun tonight,” Y/N said after her giggles had died down.

“I did too, surprisingly you’re easier to talk to than my anxiety made it out to be.” Junmyeon admitted, making Y/N chuckle softly.

“Junmyeon,” Y/N started, stepping a bit closer to him. “I was wondering…o-only if you want to of course! To, um, maybe possibly go on a date with me? W-We can even make it a study date since we do have that essay on Hitler due in a few weeks and-”

Y/N stopped when she felt the pair of lips on her cheek. Junmyeon chuckled when he pulled away only to see that her cheeks were as red as his.

“I’d love to. You have my number from the club papers right? Just let me know what times work for you.”

“O-Okay, goodnight Junmyeon.”

“Goodnight Y/N,” Junmyeon turned on his heel once Y/N was safely in her dorm, quickly walking to his dorm and slamming the door shut behind him. He let out a yell of victory, doing a dance in the doorway when he heard a cough. Chanyeol was watching him with a shit eating grin on his face, game controller in hand.

“Didja finally get her Junmyeon?” Chanyeol teased as Junmyeon plopped onto his bed.

“I got her alright Chanyeol. Her and Hitler.”

[always-keep-goghing-blog]

Coloring

The ginger cat watched, alert and curious, while the tiny girl stooped over the vinyl table. The girl had found some scratch paper. It probably belonged to her father. She had found a red ballpoint pen, too. Her diaper bulged, her socks were sagging, and she stooped over the table, red pen in hand, furiously scribbling shapes and lines on the paper.

>

Nothing mattered but the circles, the loops, the dots. Nothing mattered but that scratch, that pull on the paper. Nothing mattered because she was making something new. Her lips, sticky and wet from the juice her mother had given her, stretched wide in a grin. Her eyes shone in wonder.

>

There would never be anything as good as this.

>

That ginger cat would be gone within two years. And the girl grew up. The red ballpoint pen would change to paintbrushes and charcoal and pastels. The scratch paper would become canvas and cold-pressed, 140lb watercolor paper. The grin would become scrunched up lips, pursed in concentration, paired with a furrowed brow, betraying the turmoil within.

>

The girl would be creating something new, something that hid her pain. Something that would erase the decades of mistakes, of missteps, of tragedy and disappointment, of abuse, of cruelty, of misplaced devotion to those that claimed to love her, something that erased her life and how pathetic and unimpressive it had come to be.

>

The girl’s hand cramped. She sat back, rubbing it idly, and glanced up; she saw the wrinkled photograph of the tiny child stooped over the table, with the curious ginger cat. With her lips now tight and drawn, eyes now tired, she considered the grin on the small girl’s face, the bright enthusiasm.

>

How had it come to this?