#i was actually a great student bc i had guidance on how to take notes and learn

[thedisablednaturalist]

I've been making worksheets to map out thoughts for different situations and they've been really helpful for my adhd and chronic illness brainfog. I might put them up on kofi eventually idk.

[aruuq]

to be honest anyone in the gangs of tokyo rev might as well cried in the exam because im guessing none of them actually put in much big effort to study in education

except mitsuya and hakkai, kokonoi and taiju seem more serious too,draken probably puts only like medium effort. takemichi, with hina's guidance might pull through. and then there's definitely kisaki...

yk im probably even guessing that mikey doesn't even attend the exam- or does he???

i mean we've seen baji, and many people think he's dumb in terms of education but what if what if, the rest of the boys are too??? or they just study till they barely pass or something

but then again i could be wrong since a lot of them made it to highschool ( but then again it's because toman disbanded and everyone just worked in their own ways? )

( this isn't a discrimination against their education smarts but just a simply thought )

Hmmm.....

-random anon

Types of Students – Tokrev Headcanons

characters: baji, chifuyu, draken, hanma, inupi, izana, kakucho, kazutora, kisaki, koko, mikey, mitsuya, pah, peh, ran, rindou, sanzu

genre & style: fluff, headcanons

word count: 0.8k

notes: at first i started answering your ask anon and then i realized how long it had become, so, well, i can as well put it into a full ass writing. tysm for the idea! 

warnings: not proofread ‘cause i’m almost sleeping while writing it (will correct it tomorrow morning)

Mikey doesn't and won’t care. An image of Mikey with a book, learning of his own free will about, let’s say, human anatomy, or doing a whole page of complicated equations with square roots and logarithms, doesn’t sit in my mind right. We’ve seen him saying that attending school is important, and then sleeping on his desk during every lesson, it’s obvious he doesn’t care

Draken is a bit more tamed, he may even prepare for an exam once in a blue moon, but he still doesn’t care about the whole school thing much. My boy has his goal and he does everything that may help him to achieve it – which means if he doesn’t see any value in learning a certain subject, he simply won’t do it. Bike shop supremacy, Kenny says.

On the other hand I know for a fact Mitsuya studies. The boy doesn’t sit with books until midnight each day, but he still grasps as much as he can from the education he’s provided with. He’s thankful for what he has plus he just wants to be a good example for his little sisters. Huge good big bro vibes.

Chifuyu looks like someone who doesn’t study much, yet soaks knowledge like a sponge. If he attends classes, he doesn’t have to learn anything at home. If he has a few days break from school, well… good job Fuyu, bcs ur gonna be a bit fucked! But somehow this lucky boy manages to get a decent mark every time, what we can’t say about…

…his dear comrade. Baji ain’t the sharpest tool in a shed, nor is he someone with a great attention span. The only way he gets good grades is when Chifuyu revises material with him. For the younger boy it’s a little repetition, for Keisuke a battlefield.

Kazutora isn’t bothered by the idea of studying. It’s an option. Sure. Is he actively doing anything connected with school? No. Why would he? He does get the concept behind it, but he simply doesn’t want to. He’s fine without it, luck's on his side and he almost always passes exams on his first tries.

When it comes to Pah and Peh I think they are at pretty the same level of smartness. As much as I’m sure Peh takes a book once in a while to make sure he’s going to pass the semester, Pah doesn’t care. He knows his future is secured so he focuses on anything he wishes for.

I don’t think Sanzu even attends school??? He doesn’t look like a type to think hmmm, yeah, it’s a great day to meet these annoying fuckers, have hands covered in a nasty ass chalk, and to do some useless assignments! On the other hand Haru looks like someone who has absorbed chalk like candies as a kiddo, so I’m sure there has been time he attended school. He just doesn’t do it anymore lol

Inupi studies only on specific subjects, the one with teachers he likes and respects. He doesn’t care much if it’s a subject he likes or not, if the person teaching him is likable he’s going to do his best not to disappoint them, and if not… he’s gonna make sure they're gonna remember him. I just think he’s still this salty ‘n petty kid deep, deep inside lmaoo

Koko’s naturally good. He doesn’t learn much, he has decent grades on default, just ‘cause he’s smart. Oh, and he’s this annoying kid who always argues with teachers and corrects them. He doesn’t care if they don’t like him, after all there’s nothing they can do to him due to his high grades.

Izana isn’t bothered by most of the subjects. He doesn’t even attend them if he finds them useless. But if there’s a person he despites, he does everything to humiliate them in terms of knowledge. He studies only on this exact subject he shares classes with this person, and does everything to be better than them

Kakucho is a perfect example (I would say the best in the whole Tokrev) of a good student. His learning habits are well-balanced, he knows when to make breaks, doesn’t overwork himself, and gets the best grades. Somehow every teacher likes him and doesn’t get how he’s friends with somebody like Izana

Ran and Rindou are these mysterious fellas who appear only on the day of final exams. There are many rumors about them, ‘cause they don’t attend any classes, don’t do any assignments for the whole year, just enter the building as the finals start, complete them, and forget about this place for next few months until the next important test happens. Do they pass? barely…

Does he look like he cares? Exactly. Hanma doesn’t find anything exciting in the idea of studying, learning from some extremely fucking boring books, so why would he even try? Why would he even attend school? I mean, there are times where he is seen on the school grounds, don’t get me wrong, but it’s always ‘cause he wants to kick somebody’s ass, educational purposes not detected.

Kisaki is a genius. Perfect grades – no studying involved. Sly motherfucker.

[svtxsoju]

00. prologue | dear miss soju

ღ Synopsis: College is hard. Love is even harder. Good thing the students of Mansae University can write in to Miss Soju, the campus’ very own romance advice columnist! The only problem is she’s never been in a relationship. Ever. There’s no telling what kind of chaos she may cause in the love lives of several of MU’s most eligible bachelors. Too bad no one knows who she really is!  ღ Characters/Pairings: college AU! Seventeen & OC’s, Pairings TBA!  ღ Genre: Romantic Comedy, Slice of Life ღ Warning(s): Mentions of alcohol, underage drinking, mentions of sex, language, bad jokes ღ Word Count: 2.6k words ღ Binu’s Note: hi to anyone who is reading this!!! i’m super excited (and kinda nervous :0) to post this bc i’ve been working on this project for a while now. aaaa i hope there are at least some people who can enjoy it! this is a relatively short-ish chapter but it’s p dense with exposition lol but anyway if ur reading this, thank you i love you!!! 

《 ⊛ Author’s Note & Credits ⊛ Masterlist ⊛ Navigation ⊛ 》

《 Previous ⊛ Next 》

Introducing The Front ’s New Romance Advice Columnist: Miss Soju! 

We all have an ideal: an ideal type, an ideal first date, an ideal relationship. The problem is love isn’t ideal at all. And sooner or later, we find ourselves sitting on that plastic chair in that tent on the side of the road with an ache in our chest. You’re hurt, confused, and kind of going crazy-- all the tell-tale symptoms of heartbreak are there. And the only cure? Soju, of course! 

Finding a decent partner and maintaining a healthy, sustainable relationship is difficult enough as it is. Then layer it with the culture shock of university, where you’re experiencing actual adulthood for the first time without mommy and daddy to hold your hand. It’s enough to make anyone lose their minds! Sure, you could always turn to your friends for support and advice, but in all honesty, they’re even more of a mess than you are. 

That’s why Mansae University’s affiliate newspaper, The Front, will be reviving our romance advice column this fall! Each week, Miss Soju will be answering all your burning questions, and that means all of them. Her expertise touches on topics as simple as explaining to that one guy that your love is fated because you passed each other at Yuhaeng Quad, like three times, and extends to more extreme situations that require an anonymous veil, like how to confess to your new boyfriend with the furry fetish that you’ve been severely allergic to animals since you were three and you have no idea how any animals act, let alone… Yikes. 

It’s true, college is full of new and bizarre experiences, some we must go through and some we’d much rather avoid. Who knows? Maybe you’ll meet the love of your life here. But it’s okay to admit that you need a little guidance through the mystical and confusing world of college dating. Miss Soju has got your back, and she’s not afraid to hit you with that real shit. As she always says, good advice is like taking a shot: sweet on the lips but burns your throat as you swallow it down. 

Monday, June 3rd, 2019 3:07PM

“Jihoon, I don’t know if I can do this.” 

Name: So Joohyun. Major: Journalism major with a minor in communications. Estimated graduation year: 2021. Desired position: World News Journalism Intern. That was what she had put on her application for The Front’s junior internship program. She had made sure to attach her published articles and to emphasize her interest in-- no, her passion for-- reporting compelling stories on an international scale. Not once in her application did she indicate that she was an expert in love or sex, let alone qualified to give others advice on the subjects! In fact, she was probably the least qualified person on campus for this position, which was probably the most perplexing aspect of the whole situation. 

But despite all of that, there she was, sitting in Yuhaeng Quad with her best friend, reading the promo piece she had written for Miss Soju. Jihoon had been ecstatic when he had thought of the nickname back in high school. She had snuck bottles of the alcohol over to his house one night after finals week, and he had drunkenly claimed that the name was doubly clever since So-ju were also the first two syllables in her name. When the newspaper had told her she needed an anonymous pen name, it was the only thing she could think of, mostly because creating a secret identity had made her in desperate need of a drink. She changed her mind. Having a secret identity was equally as perplexing as pretending to know how to spice up people’s sex lives. It was like she was some kind of Love Spiderman. She was not ready for that kind of great power or the great responsibility that came with it!

“‘I don’t know if I can do this’?” Jihoon repeated her words slowly. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you say those words in that order. Can I take your picture? I need to commemorate this moment.” 

“Can’t you see that I am having a crisis?” she whined. “The integrity of my career is on the line because I’ve never bothered to go on a date!” 

“When are you not having a crisis?” Jihoon laughed. He sat up from lying down on their picnic tarp to give her full view of his smug grin. Originally, he had dragged Joohyun outside in hopes that the perfect summer weather would help relieve some of her stress from the past week. He even found her favorite spot under the shade of an ancient tree that overlooked the stretch of green field. But Jihoon could not call himself a proper best friend if he passed on an opportunity to rub all of this in her face. “This is what you get for chickening out on all our group blind dates! I could have scored that hot bassist girl with the thigh tattoo, but nooo, you always had to put your career first.” 

“Sue me for having priorities!” she huffed. Leave it to Jihoon to chalk this all up to karma. Now that he mentioned it though, she couldn’t help but feel like a higher power was taking a piss on her life. Or maybe it was just the shit-eating smile on Jihoon’s face that had her on edge. Joohyun tried to avert her focus to a couple of boys tossing a frisbee around instead, but somehow that irked her too. The idyllic weather, the carefree students, everything that was pleasant seemed to mock her sour mood. She pouted at the ground in defeat, and continued, “You are the first person to know that if I was told that dating and fucking around were going to be crucial to my journey to becoming South Korea’s top journalist by the time I turn 25, I would have become a hoe long ago.” 

“Woah, are you gonna start your thot phase for this? Are we gonna have a hot girl summer?” The boy began to bounce excitedly. Joohyun felt it was high time to give him the finger, but she also felt a small smile tugging at her frown. “Easier said than done, though. Remember Jessi from high school?”

“Yeah I remember,” she said with a sigh. High school romance had lured so many of her friends into its clutches, with its enticing promises of sweet chocolates and stuffed animals, and she had helplessly watched from the top of the class as they forsook their grades for boys who didn’t even know what deodorant was. She only shuddered to think of the state of their grades after a nasty break up. It was then that Joohyun had decided that her future was not worth risking over a boy’s attention. “Which is exactly why I never got involved in all that mess in the first place.”

“This must be the gods telling you that it’s time to.”

“What kind of fucked up god sets up a virgin as a love advice columnist?” she asked the sky loudly. If she had known there was anyone listening, she would have insisted that her question was rhetorical and was not in need of any type of response! However, the gods cared not for grammar technicalities on the mortal plane. They just couldn’t resist the chance to respond to someone so openly questioning their decisions with some good ol’ spite. Honestly, with the way things were going for her lately, Joohyun probably should have expected the frisbee flying merrily towards her face, even if she hadn’t just challenge the universe. 

“Oh fuck!” Joohyun jerked out of the way and felt the frisbee thunk against her shoulder instead. “Ow.” At this point, she didn’t even have the capacity to be annoyed; she just braced herself for whatever misfortune life threw at her next. 

“Sorry about that!” A boy called out, jogging up to them. As he came into clearer view, she noted that he looked far from misfortunate, and also had to remind herself that staring was rude even if someone was unnaturally handsome. His features were soft yet striking, like he had been carefully sculpted from cotton candy. Or maybe a fluffy rain cloud? Joohyun shook her head a little as if that would get her to stop staring so shamelessly. She speculated whether it was the sun that made it look like his blond hair was a glowing halo. Okay seriously, stop staring! He gave Joohyun a sweet smile when he reached them. “My friend got a bit distracted. Now that I’m here, I can’t say that I blame him. Hope we didn’t do too much damage!” 

“Uh,” was her captivating reply.  

Jihoon, never one to miss such a ripe opportunity, piped up beside her. “She’ll be fine. This is Joohyun, by the way.” 

His smile widened at Woozi’s introduction, and Joohyun could swear there was an actual twinkle in his eyes. ��Nice to meet you both. I’m--”

“Yoon Jeonghan!” They all looked towards the call. The ethereal boy let out a startlingly loud cackle at the sight of his friend, who gave the two strangers a sheepish wave before continuing to gesture for Jeonghan to return. Joohyun must have been put in a staring mood, because she didn’t miss how his friend’s big ears were a shade of pink and how they bloomed into a cherry red when they briefly made eye contact. She caught herself wondering if all the boys at Mansae University were always this cute. 

“I guess I better go,” the boy named Jeonghan shrugged. Joohyun felt his fingers brush against hers when he took the frisbee from her hand, his eyes glinting mischievously. Now she was sure she was seeing things. “See you two around!” 

They both watched him retreat in an awestruck silence. That was certainly… unanticipated. Even long after Jeonghan and his friend were out of sight, the brief encounter left a blanket of fogginess lingering over them. Had she not felt his fingers on hers, Joohyun would have easily believed that it had all been in her head. At the same time, she was pretty sure that she wasn’t bold enough to conjure up someone that looked like that on her own. As she continued to fathom how a human being could glow, Joohyun felt the fog dissipate into the warm summer air. She felt like she was waking up from a disorienting dream, and she blinked to hasten the process. To her growing bewilderment, she found that her heartbeat was steady as she came back to her senses, her mind seemingly devoid of the panic and doubt that had plagued her all week. It was a gasp of fresh air. 

Jihoon, on the other hand, had long broken free from the strong impression that the blond boy made. He noted the dazed look on his best friend’s face and rolled his eyes. Who knew that a pretty boy was all it took to make her shut up a bit? He nudged Joohyun impatiently, so that she could pay attention to him while he roasted her for totally flubbing her chances.  “You thinking of risking it all for that guy?” 

In an instant, Joohyun slammed herself back into reality just to shove Jihoon away from her. “That is so not happening,” she said a little too indignantly. Before Jihoon could reassure her that the guy seemed interested enough even though she had only said a single syllable to him, Joohyun suddenly turned to him very seriously. “Do you really think I  can do it, Jihoon?” 

“What, bang that guy? I can try calling him back here if you want,” he snickered. 

“You know what I mean!”  

“Okay sorry, I couldn’t resist,” Jihoon replied, his grin now melting into a familiar smile, the one that could put her at ease on her lowest days. “I just don’t know why you have to ask. You and I both know that you kick ass at writing. You’ve written about stuff like natural disasters and the student protests, no problem at all. It’s not like you have a PhD in environmental science or politics. How is this any different? ”

Joohyun scrunched her face as if Jihoon had just suggested that chocolate milk came from brown cows. “Dude, they’re completely different. Those articles were reporting on facts. I did research, I conducted interviews!” 

“That’s what I’m saying, Joo!” Jihoon exclaimed suddenly. As smart as she was, he couldn’t help getting a little giddy whenever he thought of a good idea before her. “Why not treat Miss Soju like any other of your other projects? I mean, love is probably one of the most well-documented experiences throughout history, and people are still going through all the same shit. There’s probably thousands of resources for a man simping on a hot chick alone. You can even take your pick, like movies, songs, books, weird couples on Youtube?You don’t need to have experience, because you can just do the research! ” 

“Research?” Joohyun repeated. If there was one thing that she was good at, it was doing the work. From the moment she had decided to become a journalist, everything she had done was a strategic move to get her closer to her end goal. She had spent sleepless nights perfecting the details of her writing, countless hours reading through endless archives of old articles. Hell, she even restricted herself from dating for years just so she could focus on keep her grades up. It was almost too easy of a solution. Maybe she was meant to do this after all.

 Another couple of months of research would simply be another hurdle on her way to the finish line and she was getting closer and closer. Finally, she felt a smile spread across her cheeks, a real, genuine smile. “I… I can do that.” 

“Now that,” Jihoon said as he took her hand in his, pulling her up to her feet, “sounds like So Joohyun. Or should I say Miss Soju?” 

She laughed as she dusted the grass off of her butt. “You know, it’s probably not a good idea to include the first part of my name in my anonymous persona. It makes it so obvious that it’s me.”

“Yeah, I mean it would be obvious if people actually knew who you were in the first place,” Jihoon scoffed, narrowly dodging a kick from her. “That’s a good thing for you! Anyway, let’s get out of here, I have a couple of tweaks to make to my song before releasing it tonight. Could you listen to it by the way? I need to know if it’s too cheesy.” 

“Oh, the song you’re writing about your mystery muse?” Joohyun hummed playfully while packing up their blanket. She followed after her best friend as he began the short climb uphill. “I don’t know if I want to, you’ve been pretty out of pocket today.”

“Hey!” he said defensively. “First: I don’t need a muse for my songs, I just have a very vivid imagination and my talent does the rest. Second: I literally just stopped you from giving up on your lifelong dream of becoming a journalist, so I think you owe me one. You’re just jealous I can write love songs without having an existential crisis.” 

“See, that is what I mean by out of pocket,” she paused for a beat. “I may be willing to listen to your song. For a small price, of course.”

“Okay, deal,” he agreed without hesitation, missing the way Joohyun deviously smirked beside him. They reached the concrete pavement at top of the hill and headed in the direction of his nearby apartment. “What is it this time, Ms. So?” 

“Well Mr. Lee, thanks to your lovely suggestion earlier, I have been inspired to begin work immediately. So we shall be watching Twilight on movie night,” she said all too gleefully, mostly for satisfaction that Jihoon’s twisted face of disgust gave her. 

“Do we have to?” he groaned.

 “It’s for my research!”

[roominthecastle]

I’m in this fb tgp group and there was this post abt how they said satan was her type and if they would end up together and all the antis were giving the usual “no they have a father daughter relationship” and like not a single one of them gave a logical reason other than Ted being nearly twice Kristen’s age like god these antis really embarrass me. (sorry if u get a lot of msgs abt this)

Yeah, sadly this is a thing you can never avoid w/ age gap ‘ships, anon, it will always be there. I personally have no problem w/ fans who are like “I prefer to interpret it this way regardless of what canon says or doesn’t say”. I don’t really understand the appeal but I don’t have to understand and I can certainly respect it; no explanation is required since we are all here to have fun. But I have a problem w/ those who act like this claim is canon-to-be-accepted-fandomwide and try to silence/shame/police/harass everyone who disagrees (which still keeps happening in this fandom in rather manipulative and sometimes straight up offensive, disgusting ways).

Claiming they have a f/d relationship in canon and not tolerating/shaming those who see something else there stems from a common thing among antis:

And they never offer a rundown of their thought process bc there isn’t one involved, really. They look at him and reflexively shove him into a stereotypical, one-note role and ignore actual characterization that clashes w/ it – this in the same fandom that keeps echoing “not a girl” 24/7, so we def don’t suffer from irony deficiency. Janet is not reduced to/defined by her looks (which is a good thing ofc), so why is Michael reduced to/defined by a human skin suit he did not even choose in the first place?

Ted “acts against” his appearance as Michael (if you wanna see him in paternal mode, watch him as D.B. on CSI, the difference is palpable). There is always a clash btw what you expect someone looking like him to be like and what he is truly like in this role, which is one major source of fun (the big S1 twist itself is built on fully subverting this expectation) and contributes to the peculiar complexity of the character. You wipe that away when you try to parent zone him.

Chidi and Janet (even Eleanor) have done more ~~parenting~~ on this show than Michael, and he was often the recipient of it, yet I have yet to see either Chidi or Janet (or Eleanor) being referred to as a “parent figure” w/ the pointed expectation that all “decent fans” should agree. Michael isn’t a centered and sage afterlife elder who guides humans. Not at all. He runs around w/o a clear direction, improvising and often ending up in a bigger mess than he started with. He remains inexperienced, lurches from one puzzling problem to the next, and always needs input/guidance from the others. Even in the latest episode we can see him needing/getting a time-out as an “assistant” & Eleanor using her breakup w/ Chidi as a teachable moment to further educate him in human affairs, then it’s Janet she turns to for answers/advice/consolation. I mean, how much clearer do they have to make this? (But I love how that “Satan is my type” comment riled some antis. Satan shape-shifts throughout the story, so - to me - the only plausible explanation for Eleanor reading Paradise Lost is that Milton’s Satan is also a messy bench who loves drama. He even ends up w/ a lil’ crush on Eve when he marches into Eden to mess w/ her, IIRC, but I digress…)

The S3 finale also highlights Michael’s borderline visceral need for occasional ego strokes bc outside his v limited comfort zone (=chained to a desk, following orders and meticulous, ready-made plans) he is still insecure and panics easily (he was already at a disadvantage and anxious when Gen cut his prep time short). The scene where Eleanor is trying to talk him up by calling him a great leader is a good example: it’s a lie, a quick ego stroke, and it doesn’t hold. Him randomly trying to play parent w/ her (= trying to exert control he never had over her and never will) in an earlier episode is a spin on this song, too. The word “self-appointed” is key there bc it literally means “behaving as if you had a quality/position without actually having it”. Both attempts are about his ego, both fail, both get shut down bc there is nothing to sustain them. A f/d dynamic would mean Michael is above Eleanor but that’s simply not true. But Ted summed this up much better here.

None of the core 6 characters has received positive parental guidance (maybe Chidi is an exception but we have yet to learn more about his backstory), so it’s only natural that now they take turns holding each other up to the best of their respective abilities. They all do it. Chidi teaches and guides. Janet protects and gives answers/stuff they need. Tahani organizes. Jason channels the team spirit. Eleanor thinks on her feet, leads, and lies for them. Michael tries and fails and tries again but he remains the most confused bc while he can read the entirety of the world’s literature in an hour, there are no “superior being shortcuts” to gain the experience and wisdom he clearly lacks. Gathering that takes time and quality interaction w/ the humans. It takes opportunities to fail and learn and experiment within meaningful relationships. These are the exact things he is deprived of in S3, so he is not wiser than he was at the end of S2 and he was no parent figure there either.

Locking him into the parent role (esp opposite Eleanor) bc “he looks old” and acting like that’s the be-all-end-all of canon is willful ignorance at best. I bet these are the same type of ppl who, after watching S2, claimed that he was a mentor when back then he was literally Chidi’s student.I don’t think M/E will be canon but they def do not have a f/d dynamic. They are friends and that’s all the labeling we need canon-wise, imo.

[teddystrap]

[神なる君と] Spirit duo - Rei

なんかちょっとラストスパートな感じですけど…

Rei is the friendly spirit that Sakuya and co. met when they were investigating rumours about hauntings in the old school building. He’s arguably the most ‘mysterious’ character, since nothing is known about his former life, and I was super curious what his deal is. Not to mention he’s the final obstacle standing between me and Mikoto!! Ψ(￣∀￣)Ψケケケ

Truth be told he’s not really my type, though - since I’m not 15 anymore. I mean he’s a ghost but looks more like a forest elf / Mori Boy circa. 2001, and his voice sounds like it’s breaking. Compared to the other characters also he has a personality (or lack thereof) that is blander than konnyaku. In fact I found myself opening all the Yuzuru options in his common route first before going back and redoing them for Rei, because senpai saranghae I only wanna be wit u <3... 

Aaanyway.

-Mizuniwa Rei-

Rei-kun’s common route was actually quite revealing and interesting - in two of his ema, Mikoto actually asked to tag along, so it seemed like there might be some important information there idk. 

In his second ema, Mikoto tells Sakuya that she has the power to push people who are on the brink between Life and Death into one world or another, depending on what kind of guidance she gives.

Which in retrospect seemed like heavy foreshadowing for what’s about to come.

Fuu-san’s backstory was also revealed here:

Around 10 years ago, Fuu-san and his bff, a boy named Kawashina Yuuya, were students at Mikagurayama High School. One day they found a hidden basement storage room in the old school building, and turned it into their hang-out spot.

The basement used to be a bomb shelter, and had some books left over on occult spells and curses, that were used during the war to protect the townspeople. Fuu-san found a book with a spell to summon the powers of the Great Demon, and wanted to try it out of fun/boredom, but Yuuya was against it.

So Fuu-san did it by himself anyway. He got the sealed cursed box from the magical cave and took it back to the basement to perform the spell. Halfway through he passed out... and when he came to, he realised that Yuuya saved him by transferring the spell onto himself. 

Yuuya never woke up again, despite a lot of medical attention and whatnot. After half a year, Fuu-san decided to quit school and skip town to learn exorcism so that he can save his friend. But when he finally returned a few years later, Yuuya had already died...

Fuu-san lived with guilt all these years and thought that Yuuya died hating him. But when he went down to the basement with Sakuya to liberate his spirit, Yuuya’s spirit communicated through Sakuya that he doesn’t ever regret saving Fuu-san, and he hopes Fuu-san can stop blaming himself and go forward in life, smiling... By this point I was pretty much crying like a baby... ｡･ﾟ･(ﾉД｀)･ﾟ･｡

Oh how I wish there was a Su-sa-no-o in my neighbourhood, with a sexy store-owner like Fuu-san... 

But we’re not here to court Fuu-san (I wish we could, mang. I wish we could), so let’s get back to Rei. In his route Sakuya tries to help him to find out about his family and his past. She asks Aki for help ofc, and Aki reports back that she couldn’t find anyone matching Rei’s description in the database of deaths, nor the missing persons list...

And the mystery deepens dun-dun-DUN. This would’ve made for an interesting story development,... except the writers totally abandon it and instead opt for Rei and Sakuya frolicking around in the forest, true to his Mori Boy style (wholesomely tho, since they are both underage XD). Then Rei realises that he’s not long for this world, and he tries to put some distance between them - but Sakuya eventually convinces him that they should spend his last remaining time on earth together and make lots of beautiful (wholesome) memories.

There were a lot of group events in his route, which was nice since I got to see Yuzuru-senpai mucho. (Although he’s not an option here obvsly T_T)

You know I will happily choke on a fish bone for you, senpai <3.

So hoshimatsuri night, Rei undergoes the ceremony to pass into the other world. Sakuya stays home, because she’s not strong enough to go and say goodbye to him. Is this like deja vu from the Yorihito/Nisei story arc or what?? ...After that, Sakuya goes to the old school building one day after school, and finds a note from Rei. SURPRISE - he’s still here.

...

It turns out that Sakuya’s, uhh, clinginess is keeping him from successfully departing. At this rate he’s going to grow weaker and weaker and become trapped in the interstitial space between two worlds - forever. They keep communicating through notes, and through voice chatting over radio, while Sakuya grows enough balls to finally let him go.

Eventually she does. Because let’s face it - Otomate can’t afford to pay their seiyuu to carry on a story for like two gajillion chapters.

In his final moment of departure, he appears to Sakuya in a dream, but they can’t hear each other’s voice. Just as Sakuya is freaking out, he pulls her in and kisses her, then disappears into the ether. (*ฅ́˘ฅ̀*)♡

...I guess Yuzuru and Rei’s routes don’t work the same way as Narumi and Yakumo’s, bc you don’t get the alternative ending by choosing the ‘wrong’ option for the last couple of choices. I wasn’t strong enough for senpai’s bad end, but I was actually pretty curious about Rei’s, although all the same I wasn’t able to unlock it. Either way I hope he didn’t get stuck in between worlds forever, poor kid has been through enough.

1. Good end: Fast forward 10 years, Sakuya becomes a teacher at Mikagurayama High School, just as Rei had hoped. She still goes to the garden every day to take care of Rei’s flowers. The old school building is about to be torn down because it’s too old and might be a safety hazard. She’s on her way there one last time... when she gets a call from Aki, who finally found out what happened with Rei’s past-life investigation 10 years ago. Unfortunately Aki trips on something and the line cuts off before we get to hear it. _(:3」∠)_

So Sakuya is there happily watering her flowers, when guess who appears - ahem *Rei*, now all grown up. He tells her that this time he’s not a spirit anymore... and the scene just ends there. I’ve seen a lot of abrupt endings but this has gotta take the cake. Although I’ll admit adult Rei is kinda sorta smoking hot, so less talk more making out!

[Thoughts] What can I say? This route really didn’t explain as much as I thought it would, although there were some good bits. For one, the Fuu-san backstory really got to me. Fuu-san was always the side character that I was most curious about, since he seems kind of... shady, and like he might’ve had a colourful past. His arc really delivered, and it’s my favourite out of all the four side stories, although I loved them all in their own way.

I was expecting to find out about Rei’s past here, but I guess the writers are saving it for Mikoto’s route / wrap-up, which almost certainly means there’s going to be a surprise revelation. So I am looking forward to that and I hope they don’t fuck it up.

The route itself actually felt like it was mostly stuff that belongs in a fandisk, rather than an individual character route. All the group hangouts, and scenarios that reveal idiosyncrasies about the other characters (e.g. everyone’s drawings in the Fuu-san arc. I finally got to see Yuzuru-senpai’s kawaii creations! :3).

Senpai’s art totally unleashes his inner otome...

As expected, Rei failed to give me any doki-doki feels... except at the end, where we saw grown-up Rei and got to hear Iguchi Yuuichi’s normal voice for like 2 seconds. (I wish this game had a fandisk bc I *definitely* need more of that!!) From the other character routes I got the sense that he’s an iyashi-kei type of guy, and he’s probably the most consistent out of all of them, because he continues being selfless and caring about Sakuya before himself throughout - e.g. helping her to find her future path despite not having one himself. 

Still I gotta admit, when he confessed that he liked Sakuya, I did a silent fist-pump in the air, because FINALLY here’s a guy who said it first. I’m so tired of always having to make the first move >;(

Also the thing that Narumi said really touched me here: that Rei would rather choose a lonely existence as a spirit trapped between two worlds for the rest of eternity, than force Sakuya to let him go. Even when he was weakening, he never said anything to Sakuya. In a way he was perhaps the most adult-like one out of all of them. Admittedly I didn’t like Sakuya very much in this route. She seemed very self-absorbed and immature, refusing to face the truth. But eventually Narumi kind of slapped some sense into her (figuratively ofc, I mean Narumi would never actually slap her XD) and she did choose to do the right thing.

...I guess Narumi is determined to be the guy that has a crush on her and ‘saves her’ one way or another in every route. Kudos to him but he’s still only, like, my third or fourth favourite lols.

Lastly, I felt that this route was actually the most poetic + metaphorical one so far. (Maybe the other ones were, too, and I just wasn’t paying attention?) ...The metaphor of flowers bearing seeds that blossom into new flowers, bearing witness to their relationship and carrying on their legacy. When they first met the flowers were newly planted, and when they said goodbye they were just about to wither. 

Also Sakuya and Rei always met after class at sunset, the time between day and night - like the space between Life and Death. Idk mang but that’s, like, really beautiful or sumshit.

But this is the most poetic thing of them all~!

[purplesurveys]

459

Ok I’m sorry but these name surveys have turned out to be loadsa fun for me so let me just take another one lmaooooo. 

I honestly find it therapeutic since it allows me to reflect and look back on all of the people I’ve crossed paths with before, whether for better or for worse :) Sorry if I’ll repeat names/explanations, I’ll do my best to remember more stuff about them!

aaron: Already mentioned this in the last survey, but he’s a part of my high school friend group. He was one of my first guy friends ever and he was very nice to me from the very beginning; always made sure I felt like I belonged in a crowd. Also studies in UP and I think he is taking up sports science because he wants to go on to med school. abby/abbey: This is my mom’s name. She goes by the first spelling. I know an Abby from high school; she studies in La Salle now. adam: I don’t know him personally but there used to be a dude from WhatCulture Wrestling (a popular YouTube channel) named Adam – he was my favorite to watch until he got caught in a major fuck-up and was booted from the group. adel adrienne ajee

ajla alan: I have an uncle named Allan. He was part of my dad’s friend group in college; they met each other in their org. He was in every birthday party when I was a kid, but I don’t see him anymore now because his family already migrated somewhere else. alex: Broad comm student who plays the guitar and sings well; I haven’t talked to her. I also knew an Alex from 6th grade and she was just...not a very bright student. She had to move because I don’t think her grades reached the standard in my school, and now I think she lives in California. If not there, then somewhere else in the States. Alex is a fairly common name here, though, and I know I’ve missed out on a bunch of other Alexes.

alexa: Again, another girl from high school. Was a cool girl and a party girl from the very start. Like I said in my past survey, she lives in Australia now. alexis alexzandria alicia: My friend Alliyah’s boss, who she has a huge crush on, is named Alicia but she goes by Alice. alisa allie/ally: Gossiping fake loser from our rival journ org who does nothing but spread black propaganda about our org to keep people from joining ours – when she talks to us, though, she’s super nice. I’m so fucking happy she’s graduating because she has such a toxic personality :(  allison: Former prof in Comm 100. Wasn’t very good but I had a crush on her from the very first lecture. She had a serious car accident in the middle of the sem and had to wear like a nose brace thing for the rest of the sem. alycea/alycia alyssa: I rode the school bus with a girl named Alyssa but I was much closer to her older sister Alex. There’s also an Alyssa from broad comm and I was classmates with her in my political science, history, and broad comm classes for this semester. She’s the niiiiiiiicest girl and would always help me out if I have missing notes or whatever. amanda: Girl from my org who’s taking up engineering. I was her VP last semester, but she had personal problems and so she wasn’t able to work much under me. Whenever she did, though, she was always reliable. Quiet girl, a little socially awkward. amari amber andrew: I first met him at a rally/protest I attended in 2017. Hit it off well right from the start because I saw that he was wearing a wrestling shirt, so we bonded over WWE that day. He plays the guitar and has released his own EP, is a junior DJ at one of the hip radio stations in Manila, and has done his fair share of hosting gigs. He used to take up engineering but shifted to journalism as he likes it better. Is very adventurous and amiable but tends to get too friendly; some might find it tiring but I honestly think it’s just his personality. He was my groupmate in communication research and I thought he was decent. angela: My best friend’s name is Angela. We first met each other in Grade 1 when we were 7, and we became friends after I stabbed her palm with a newly-sharpened pencil. She still has the pencil mark today. anna: Anna is a popular secondary name in the Philippines, but no one actually uses it as their main name. anne: Same with Anne. annie: My grandma’s best friend who used to come over the house every Sunday. Like I said in the past survey, I’m honestly not sure if she’s still alive lol. She was already pretty old when I was still very young. anthony aasad ashley: I *think* I have a distant cousin named Ashley that I first met at a family reunion last year. But let’s be real, Filipino families are huge and I don’t even know if I remember her name correctly, if she’s even an Ashley. aubri: One of my closest friends in high school was Aubrey. We were very, very close in junior year until she dropped a bomb on me that her family was migrating to California by the time we start senior year. We don’t talk anymore because of the distance and the timezones, but I’ll always be there for her no matter what. Incredibly talented dancer and figure skater. She’s in UCLA right now and as far as I know she is killing it over there. austin autumn: I know an Autumn from my wrestling fandom days. I think she was a redhead, but I don’t remember anything else. barbara becca: A girl from broad comm. She was one of the principal actors in one of the productions we did for BC and she has a really cute laugh. Super elegant; she reminded me a little bit of Audrey Hepburn because she was really graceful. She’s the older sister of my orgmate Rita, who’s from psych. ben beth bethany betty: I have a friend-ish named Bettina. Betty’s kind of like a goofy nickname; she actually doesn’t use it but I think it still counts. I’ve known her since first grade; she peed her skirt in our first day of Grade 1 and I remember her crying a lot. She had a wild TV show phase starting from Grade 5 and she was into Nicole Kidman, Paula Abdul, Kara DioGuardi, Shania Twain, Celine Dion, Stana Katic, Kate Walsh, etc etc etc and a bunch of shows like Private Practice, Grey’s Anatomy, Castle, Suits etc etc etc. She was super shy, very awkward in person so I’m glad her love of TV shows and actresses sprung her into life for the most part. She’s in UP Manila and I think too busy to get into fandoms now. bijan bobby bram brandon brandy breanna/brianna: Brianna is my friend Pat’s middle name. I honestly used to be so envious of this name of hers because I thought it sounded really nice, but now I think it kinda sounds like a bratty name hahaha. brendan brian: I have an uncle named Bryan, but we aren’t related. He’s my mom’s cousin’s husband. He’s VERY shy and likes to keep to himself or his kids at family gatherings but turns really cool when he’s had a little to drink. brittany/brittney/brittni brock brooke bruce buck cameron camille: Nice girl from my childhood school bus. There’s an unofficial norm in private schools in that when you’re older, you get to be mean to the younger kids. Not her. She was always nice and include us second graders in her antics in the bus, even though she was several years older. I was bummed when I found out they moved to the States. candy carina: I used to ride the school bus with a Carina but she was much younger. I was already in high school when she was in kindergarten. She’s the younger sister of Carissa, who I always found to be pretty weird. Anyway, these girls were clearly rich and pampered; they had a nanny ride with us in the bus. carly: I had an Internet friend named Carley; she was my first online best friend. We met here on Tumblr in like 2012 and got close because we were both huge fans of Stephanie McMahon at the time haha. We would video-call EVERY afternoon when I would come home from school while she would get ready for school (she’s from Pennsylvania). Eventually she’d disappear off the face of the earth and stopped talking to me but resurfaced a few months later. She’d continue to do this like 10 other times until I got tired of getting my hopes up of having her back. She’s tried reconnecting with me again on DMs but I just ignored it cos I knew there was a good chance she’d just cut off our communication again. We’re still Facebook friends and she’d pop up on my news feed from time to time, but that’s it. carol: I have a great-aunt named Carol. But my grandma has so many sisters that I honestly do not remember which one she is. carrie cassandra: I had a batchmate named Kassandra, who went by Kasey. Really bright, sweet, intelligent girl. She moved to Singapore in 7th grade. She was very, very simple and very kind to everyone and you wouldn’t be able to tell that she’s crazy rich. Her dad’s a top exec for a famous food and drink company and she lives in the same village I do–their house is guarded 24/7. cassidy chantel charlotta chelsie: Chelsea’s part of our high school friend group and is also crazy rich. We always hung out at her place because her house is huge. She’s very maarte, which I cannot really translate to English...the closest term is probably high maintenance hahaha; but she’s very sweet and generous and kind too. cheryl chris: One of Gabie’s best friend is a Kris. Other than liking outdoorsy stuff like going to the beach and hiking which is all I know about her, I think she’s also half-American. christopher: I have an uncle with this name but like I said his nickname is Perry. He works abroad like my dad (his brother-in-law) and my dad’s sister (his sister-in-law). cienna clare: Guidance counselor for several grade school levels. Understandably, she is very maternal. I once had a nasty fight with another girl and we had to be sent to her office. clarissa: Went to school with a Clarisa. We first met in Grade 4 because she rode my school bus, and instantly clicked. She was very nice, very sweet; she was simple to the point that, like Kasey, you’d have no clue how rich she was. She lives in a huge mansion now but she lived in a huge house before that as well, it’s crazy. Really, really sweet and she would give the best hugs. I played table tennis a lot with her in high school too. She studies in Miriam now but I’m not so sure about her course. claudia: Already said a lot about her in the last survey. Popular girl her whole life. She still goes to a bunch of parties but she is so much nicer now than she was when we were younger. cody cole collin corey corinne: One of my former teachers named her daughter Corinne. I think she’s 8 this year. courtney crissy: Chrissy was one of my very best friends in preschool and grade school. She looked Chinese even though she had a Filipino-sounding surname, and I was never sure if she had Chinese blood or not. She was boyish so she was very rowdy, liked to play rough, and punched other girls if she got pissed; but other than that she was very quiet and shy. She was constantly on the basketball team too. Eventually her family moved to Canada. crystal dallas dan danielle danika: An orgmate that worked under my committee two semesters ago. She’s from business ad and was juggling another org so she wasn’t very active at all to begin with. Her performance just plummeted every month and she ended up ghosting my org last semester–never replied to anyone when we tried to check up on her. I was very mad at her until she restarted contact with us recently and explained how tumultuous stuff suddenly got in her personal life and mental health that she had to take care of herself for a while, which we all understood immediately. She’s coming back to the org this year and we’re more than ready to welcome her. She’s very charming, goofy, and kind. She has a very life-of-the-party personality haha. danny: I have a friend-ish named Dani that I met through Angela. We all sat at the same table during the senior ball at Ateneo in 2016 so we got to talk then. She played volleyball in high school and she studies in San Beda now. She wants to take up law school so I think her course is in political science.  darious david: Pat’s boyfriend from Serbia and Patrice’s boyfriend from economics HAHAHAHA. Also a sucky groupmate from my comm res class who did absolutely nothing to contribute in the final paper that Hannah and I worked our asses so hard for. dean deanglo derrick destiny devin dillon donna dwayne [Random survey-taker note: these are all very Western names...] emie emily eric: My godfather is an Eric. Like my Tito Allan, he also met my dad through their college org. He’s an exec in a bank now and is suuuuuuper rich. Has a daughter named Arya which he could’ve named after the GoT character but am not really sure about that. everette felicia gabby: Wildly popular name. 1) My girlfriend’s name is Gabie; 2) there was another Gaby in my high school batch. 3) I have a friend from the Tumblr wrestling fandom named Gabbie who was really good in Photoshop – we study in the same school but have never met each other. 4) I have a high school batchmate whose little sister is a Gaby, annnnnddd I also just remembered that 5) there was another Gabbi in the wrestling fandom who also made good edits at the time. gerald gina guliana gloria: Do last names count? Hahaha. Gloria is the surname of my instructor in my class in international relations just this past sem. He’s a new faculty member but is craaaazy good at teaching; clearly knows what he’s talking about. He was passionate about his subject and I always admired that about him. I was really sad when class had to end. grace: I have a great-aunt named Grace; he’s my late grandpa’s sister. She’s really...quite fabulous; she has connections with super prestigious people and has a fancy wardrobe. She’s the only Filipino grandmother I know who goes by ‘Nana’ to her grandkids, which I note because Nana is like a super Western thing afaik. She has drama queen tendencies though and can be sensitive to a lot of things lmao. gracie hannah: One of the close friends I’ve made in college so far! Our first meeting was when she and Macy moved from UP Los Banos to the Diliman campus (where I study) and the three of us enrolled in our classes together. I was closer to Macy first, but eventually me and Hannah got a stronger friendship. Best groupmate, workmate, and David Archuleta fan I know. Sings great and plays the piano great. An absolute angel. hasan hawa hayley: I only know a dog named Hailey lol. heather: Someone from my high school batch is a Heather! We were never in the same cliques but she is one of the friendliest people I know. She knows how to talk to anyone which I appreciated. We bonded over One Direction in high school and she also confided in me a few times about her relationship and how her parents forbade her from seeing her boyfriend because he was trans. She also studies in my school now, taking up business economics. We barely see each other but say hi whenever we do. holly hunter ibro isaac isaiah jack jackie: One of my aunts has a relative named Jackie and I literally only found this out earlier when we met up and caught up with each other. jacob jacquelin jaden: A kid of my mom’s best friend is a Jaden. He was named after Jaden Smith because he was born during the time the Karate Kid remake made big waves. jake: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA I had a garbage instructor with this name. This dude was in charge of my weekly crying binges and panic attacks because I was never sure if I was gonna pass his class. He seemed to enjoy giving all of us failing marks too which made me hate his piece of shit ass more. He’s supposed to be really good at what he does but I guess knowledge just does not always translate well in the classroom. Ended up passing his class, but now I’m cursing his ass forever. james: I have a younger cousin named James. I’ve only met him twice; once when he was a newborn, and then when he celebrated Christmas 2018 with us. His family’s lived in New Zealand and Vietnam since 2008, which is why we never get to see him, and why he does not remember me at all. janai janveia jared jason jay: My uncle is a Jay; he’s my mom’s brother. I disowned him as my uncle many years ago. He’s a terrible drunk, a disgusting smoker, and an annoying freeloader. I tried giving him a chance before, but after I found out that he drunkenly punched a cat once, I ignored him forever. Sometimes my mom and grandmother would ask me to acknowledge him at family gatherings, so I’d have to begrudingly do so; but other than that he’s out of my life. jazmine: There was a Jasmin from my old school. She’d always been very artistic and she was into K-Pop very early on. She’s taking up linguistics in my school now. jeana jeanette jen: Girl from the now-ancient Tumblr wrestling fandom. She’s probably the biggest and most passionate wrestling fan I know as she would follow both the mainstream and indie promotions the last time I checked up on her. She was kinda vain and kept on taking selfies while captioning each one as ‘ugly.’ I remember that she has a dog she really loves, and that she lives in Boston. jeralyn jerry jesse jessica: Meh, annoying girl from high school. I’m sure she’s nice(?) but her personality just didn’t click with me. She was too vibrant and too friendly that it almost seemed fake; but what do I know, I never really made the effort to know her better other than bonding over 1D here and there. jim jocelyn jodi: I know a Jodee from my old school. Spoke straight English, is intelligent, but is a huge goofball and very mischievous/rebellious. She was a smartass and liked testing the teachers’ patience whenever she can, but she always did it in a very funny way I think. She was often called to the guidance counselor’s office for having relationships with other students (I went to a Catholic all-girls’ private school, so this was obviously not allowed) but she always stood her ground about it and was never afraid to fight back. She had a phase of unhooking our bras in like 5th grade. joey: My blockmate has a younger sister named Joey. I think she is also studying in UP. john: The cousin I’m closest to is named John, but it’s not his preferred name. jonathan jordan josh: I know two Joshes, but only because they are boyfriends of a couple of acquaintances. jossie julia julie junior justin: I went to school with a girl who initially went by Justinn, but like she all wanted to start calling her by her other name, Ria, as we grew older. I also briefly rode the school bus with a girl named Justine, but we didn’t talk much. kailyn kaitlyn kaleb: Chelsea’s brother is named Caleb. kali karrie karli kasey: Oh, I guess Kasey (under Cassandra) falls under this too lmao. kasahwn katarina: Not exact, but Katrina’s a fairly popular name where I live. My cousin’s boyfriend is named Katrina, my aunt is a Katrina (but she goes by Bianca), and I also went to school with a Katrina even though her nickname is Cheenie. kate: Already talked about this in the last name survey. I met Kate through my org; she’s a huge joker/goofball, is naturally very friendly, and has an awesome wardrobe. When she’s bored and we both aren’t doing anything, she puts makeup on me. Works very well but is also a huge partier HAHAHAHA. katie: This is my nickname for Kate, if that counts. kayla: There’s a Kayla in my college, but her course is in broad(cast) comm(unication). I remember her very well because she is the first person I EVER talked to when we had our freshman orientation in UP. We didn’t become close after that. She’s pretty, has nice clothes and hair, is part of the popular circle, and she’s part of streetdance which is like one of the cooler orgs on campus. kelli kent: I have a younger cousin who’s a Kent. We used to be close when we were both kids, but now we’re shy towards each other. He was obsessed with dinosaurs when he was younger, like 5 or 6. kerna kevin kiana: I have an orgmate named Kiana! SOOOOO pretty and has like the clearest skin. Very simple and down-to-earth. Is nice but can kick your ass because she has a black belt in taekwondo. She’s smart as hell and I’m pretty sure she’s graduating as magna cum laude, besides the fact that she’s going to UP Law right after. kiley kim: I also have an orgmate named Kim :) He’s the sweetest guy ever, and is just so easy to talk to. He has a really cute relationship with one of the org’s alumni. I didn’t get to bond with him much but am sad all the same that he’s graduating this year :( kimberly: Went to my old school with a Kimberly but she went by Kim. Was one of the rougher, lesser-behaved kids. She was a demon in grade school. Not quite sure how she’s doing now. She’s my friend on Facebook but can’t really care less about her life updates. kirsten kristy kyle: Kyelle is a kinda good friend of mine. He’s from the same circle, but we aren’t close in particular. He’s very nice though, very silly and likes to goof around. laila lain: I used to have an orgmate named Laine. She was our VP for External Affairs two years ago. She’s now in law school. leah: Cheenie’s mom is a Lea. She’s probably the best mom friend my mom made from my school hahaha; she’s known me since I was 4. lexi: I have a high school batchmate named Alexa but I think she goes by Lexi, judging from her Twitter name. Is naturally quiet but gets very friendly when you get her to open up. Easy to talk to. liam: Liam is my youngest cousin, I think. He was born in 2014 or 2015. I’ve never seen him, because he and his family lives in New York. I’ve only ever met his big sister. :( lilly: This girl I was classmates with for a journ elective. I found her to be verrrrry pretty and she had the biggest, most piercing eyes; until I found out that she was one of those die-hard Catholics who are vehemently pro-life. She once defended a fraternity whose members were confirmed to be misogynist, sexist, racist, homophobic and transphobic pieces of shit in a leaked groupchat simply because she believes in ‘forgiveness.’ She caused another ruckus two weeks ago when she made known her pro-life views well known. I wanna unfriend her ass so bad but she just keeps making all the wrong opinions that I just wanna stay and watch her get schooled by my less-than-thrilled college mates hahaha. lina liz: If I remember correctly, there was an Elizabeth from my wrestling fandom who went by Liz. She lives somewhere in the UK, had reddish hair, and was in love with John Cena lmao. She would sometimes make edits too. loren: Other than the Lauren I mentioned in the previous survey, I also had a friend named Lauren from the Tumblr wrestling community too. She was one of the first friends I made. She was two years older than me, fancied Andy Samberg earlier than anyone else, had a cool room, was obsessed with cats, and loved tie-dye stuff. lydia lyndsey lynnette macaila mack: JM’s dad goes by Mackey, if that counts hahahaha. He’s a lawyer and a college professor. mckenzi macey: I went to high school with a Macy and now she’s in college with me too. She used to study in UPLB but moved to Diliman after a year, since she always planned to take up journalism (she didn’t pass the cutoff initially, so she had to stay in LB for a year before she moved). I was very close with her throughout high school, but idk, she’s just never been in a good place mentally so our friendship is very up-down-up-down. I tried to reconnect when we were reunited in college, but she’s found her crowd now so I’m happy for her nonetheless.

There’s also a Macy in my org who worked under my committee for a year before she moved to finance. Quiet girl but was always nice to everyone. She’s also graduating this semester :( maddie madison margo: Went to elementary school with a Margo but she preferred to spell it as Margauxe lmao. We became close for a while because we rode the school bus together and she would lend me the other half of her earbuds so we can listen to Ashley Tisdale’s Headstong and Vanessa Hudgens’ V every day (this was when High School Musical was peak popular). She sort of had a tumultuous family life here until she moved to Hawaii a few years ago. I think she may have moved to California now too. maria: Again, this is like the base name for like half of all Filipina girls. It’s so common that it’s just simply shortened to ‘Ma.’ because everyone knows what it stands for. marina marisa: Kayla’s middle name is Marissa. marquis mary: Macy’s first name is Mary. mathew: I know a bunch of Matthews from both high school and college but they all go by Matt. The one I remember the most is Matthew from another high school friend group who was close with my group. Our group was invited to their Christmas party, and they had a gimmick that each member of their group was gonna be paired with someone from ours, and it was gonna be a costume party. I was paired up with Matthew (but they called him Cho), but I never went to the party so I never got to meet him. I’m sure he’s nice, though. matt: See Mathew. maura mechelle: I have an orgmate named Michelle. She’s clumsy, kinda awkward, but she does it in a very cute way and we all love her because she’s so funny haha. She passed the toughest med school program in the COUNTRY but chose journ in the end. Is the most Chinese Chinese-Filipino girl I know. megan: I know someone whose middle name is Megan but she goes by a different name. melissa: Hahahahaha. I knew a Melissa all right. Freeloader. meredith mersadies micah: I was classmates and friends with a Micah in grade school. My parents and hers were close, so we became close too. She was very smart but I remember her to be deathly afraid of walking on beams when we had to do it in PE. She moved schools in the fifth grade, and she studies in UST now. michael: His full name is Michael, but Mike is a guy I almost went out with in high school. Wasn’t really attracted to him, but he’s like super smart so it was a huge plus point for me lol. I also have an orgmate named Michael but we all call him Elis. He’s unreliable. miranda: If surnames count, Gabie’s best friend’s last name is this haha. molly monica: Some girl who went to my old school but transferred schools early on, like in 2nd or 3rd grade. She was Gabie’s childhood friend though so I still hear from her from time to time. She’s in UP now too, but I don’t know what course she’s taking. morgan nashid natasha: I went to high school with a girl named Natasha, but she goes by Tashie. Huge girl and a beast at softball. Can be a big softie but she has weird mood swings too (and when she’s mad, she’s quite violent) so I just tried not to piss her off while we were still in school together lol. nate: Yeah he’s in the same college as me but I know zilch about him other than he’s supposed to be really good in making films. nathan neema nichole: Annoying younger busmate who graduated high school this year. nick: Nick is the codename I gave to one of my first crushes. Obviously not his legit name so I don’t think this counts. nicholas olivia paige preasia preme prisilla: When I was still applying for AIESEC, Priscilla was assigned as one of my groupmates. I was originally iffy because she didn’t get online to work until like 11 PM, but when I did see her start working, she was a GODDAMN BEAST. Amazing. Did everything I assigned to her. When I met her in person the next day, she spoke very well and was very put-together. My respect for her soared even more after that. I dropped my application soon after for unrelated reasons but it was a pleasure working with her. Last I heard, she’s a councilor-elect in her local college’s student council. rachel: My math teacher in Grade 1 was a Rachel. I don’t remember her at all, except for the fact that when she found our class noisy one day, she completely stopped talking and mimed everything for the rest of the 45-minute period. raheim raven: Creepy, weird dude from my org who’s always looking for a dick to suck. I’m not even trying to insult him, he’s just perpetually thirsty and makes sure the whole world knows it for some reason. ray renee: Sweet, intelligent, hilarious girl from my high school. She’s very makwela, which in English means zany/funny. Her dad is a national basketball coach so it’s no surprise she followed in his footsteps. richard riley rita: Sweet, sweet girl from my org. We all just kinda naturally flock to protect her from bad influences or creepy people because she just has such a sweet soul. She’s my successor VP in my committee. robby: I have an Uncle Rob, but he doesn’t go by Robby. He’s the husband of my aunt (my mom’s cousin). He’s from New Zealand and has a Masters or a PhD in film theory, I don’t actually remember which. ryan: I used to see him a lot at a relative’s house until I was like 8. I’ve never seen him since and don’t actually know how he’s related to us or me lmfao. sabrina samantha: I have a younger cousin named Samantha. Sam was born and raised in New York but visited the Philippines last year and I was primarily in charge of taking care of her. She’s just the cutest darling I’ve seen and has the most perfect accent ahuhuhuhuhuhu. She likes My Little Pony. sara sarica sean: Someone from a lower batch in high school has this name. I never knew her but we follow each other on Twitter loooooool. secilia seliena: My older cousin’s first name is Selina but she goes by her second name, Bianca or Bia for short. We were inseperable as kids but we grew shyer as we grew older :( shannon shauna: Gabie’s orgmate. That’s all I know. She liked my tweets in the past but that’s the most contact we’ve made. shayna shelby sherry seirra skylar spencer steven stevey susan: I have an Aunt Susan. She took care of me my whole childhood; fed me, gave me baths, all that stuff when my mom was too busy with work. She got run over by a hit-and-run motorcycle when I was 9 and she was never the same after. She was crankier and had violent outbursts. tamara: I went to school with a Tamara; her nickname was Tammy. She was a gentle giant; like she was a naturally big girl but was very soft-spoken and SUPER shy. We got close for a while in 4th grade but her paths differed not long after. tashryha taylor tayshaun terrell tiffany: I had a batchmate named Tiffany. She was kinda mean in grade school but got nicer as we got older. I never really got the chance to know her well. tori trevor trisha: Another high school batchmate. All I remember was that she would cheat on tests by changing her wrong answers when the teachers would give our results back so they could correct it for her. Also a big Justin Bieber fan lol. trista tylik vanessa: There was a Vanessa in an older HS batch but she went by Via; she just graduated college yesterday but that’s all I know. There’s also a Vanessa in my sister’s HS batch; she’s half-German and that’s also all I know. victoria: Some girl I had a class with was named Victoria but it’s her middle name; we all called her Kristine. wally will wyatt zach: Another guy from the wrestling group I was in. He was one of the older dudes so I was more scared of him than the rest. zachary: Same answer as Zach. I think this was his whole name. zoey

[xviistudy]

Things to remember in Senior High

Well, it’s summer now and 11th grade is over. Next year I’ll be graduating High School, then I’ll be off to college. That being said, here’s everything I have learned from my first year in Senior High in a nutshell: 

#1: Don’t take sleep for granted 

When you hear your older sister/brother or your friends from the 11th and 12th grade telling you to sleep while you can, we actually mean it. The first quarter of the year is alright. There’s not much to do but when y’all really start to work, sleep is literally non-existent. Approximately, in a week, a student who strives for academic excellence will get at least 15-20 hours of sleep (since our school days range from Monday to Thursday and Friday is a free day, psyche it isn’t bc you still have to go back to school to finish whatever PTs and projects you have’t finished yet HAHAHAHHA). When the exams hit, it is what you literally call hell week since in the three days of the exam, I had approximately only had 8-10 hours of sleep. Imagine that? In three days. That’s why when we tell you to sleep, YOU SLEEP. It’s not fun being a coffee zombie all day, everyday. 

#2: Don’t take your mental health lightly 

I cannot tell you guys how many mental breakdowns I have had in this year. There was so much going on and it was so much. I went as far as telling myself that it was okay for me to faint/collapse, as long as I pass my exams. I would breakdown randomly in class for some apparent reason, I don’t remember it anymore. I would get so anxious and tired whenever I would think about all I had to do for that specific week and then proceed to have that breakdown. Please, my darlings, when it all gets too much, don’t push yourself if you can’t do it anymore. It will take a toll on your mental, physical and emotional health so much. You will regret it when the year is done, trust me. During the year, I repressed all my feelings bc I had to get all my work done in order to get a good grade. Now that it’s summer, I am an depressed, emotionally unstable and anxious mess bc all those repressed feelings are finally coming out. 

#3: Don’t forget to eat and stay hydrated

Coffee can only do so much. Don’t drink that like water just so that you can stay awake to do your homework. During the school year, I lost so much weight and that is not good. The weight I lost was due to stress and lack of food intake. The lack of food intake was caused by being too busy to even eat my lunch and we obviously couldn’t eat in class. So please, bring at least sandwiches and a huge waterjub so that you can eat and drink the water you need.

#4: Don’t put off your homework

This is a mistake I made frequently which caused me to stay up late since the deadline was already the next day. When the homework is given to you, do it on the day because the next day you will be given new assignments. This sounds standard but we still tend to do this because we rely on the fact that the deadline is still next week or next month. Don’t do that because the month will go by and the next thing you know, the deadline is already tomorrow. If you don’t understand, please ask for help from your classmates. That will help you finish faster rather than spending hours going over material that you don’t understand at all. On the other hand, if you’ve spent just 10-30 minutes reading and rereading the material, take a break and go back later. There’s a huge chance that your brain is too tired and you need to rest before it can function. After that rest, maybe to your surprise, you might understand the material. 

#5: Listen to your teacher

This is standard but you know when you get those days when you’re just out of it and you don’t listen nor copy the notes? Yeah, those days. No matter how out of it you are, you need to listen or else you will regret it. I suggest you listen rather than taking down notes because if you’re busy taking down notes, you might miss half of the lesson even if you did write it down because you might not even remember why you wrote it down or short cuts. If you can do both, then that would be great! If you’re the type to take down notes because you can understand it more, then go ahead! You do you, boo. If you’re being out of it is caused by your mental or emotional state, then please go to your guidance center. No matter how hard you try to listen nothing will happen because you’re not okay. 

#6: Surround yourself with people who make you happy

No joke, this is a big factor since when you’re surrounded with people who make you happy, then you will be somewhat happy if not completely happy. When you’re happy, you have the motivation to do your work because being happy gives you more energy. They will also make going to school easier since you’re looking forward to seeing these people. These people will also act as your support group. They will push you to do your best and push you to grab the opportunities that you’re to scared to do on your own. I swear, if you find the right people, no matter how stressful Senior High is, you will have the time of your life. 

#7: Get rid of the toxic people in your life

This is also a huge factor. If you still have toxic people in your life, get rid of them. All they’ll do is stress you out even more when there’s actually nothing to be stressed about. I started the year with a toxic person and it was hell. I felt like I was trapped and suffocated. I did not want to go to school and I did not feel wanted in school at all. All I was to this person was a personal slave. So when I decided to leave, this person got even more mad and gave my friends and I a harder time. You don’t need these kinds of people in your life at this point because you already have too much to worry about, you don’t need to add another one.This is why while it’s still early, get rid of them. To identify a toxic friend or relationship, click here. Click here to know how to deal with manipulative people. Click here to know the 10 differences between a toxic friend and a good friend. 

#8: Enjoy your time while it lasts

Enjoy all this while it lasts. You may not know it now but you will miss everything about whatever you have experienced in all your years in school. Next year, I will be graduating and I regret not spending enough time appreciating everything that I had when I was in the years prior. Appreciate your teachers, your friends,  your classmates, the lunch ladies/ janitors, the security guards you see and greet every morning and just anyone you see in your High School everyday because you will never find anyone like them in your new school for college. Appreciate how your school looks - the trees, the pathway, the parking lot, the classrooms, the canteen, the chapel - because you will miss the familiarity, how at home you felt in it, when you reach college. 

That’s all I have to say for what I’ve learned this year. I hope you guys enjoyed the read and took my advice into consideration! To all the graduates this year, congratulations! I am proud. Good luck on your next chapter in life. To the people who are still far off, enjoy it while it lasts. Graduation will be here quicker than you know it. To my batch, one more year and we will be off. I hate to admit it but I’ll miss you all. Curious and curiouser, it feels as if yesterday was the start of 7th grade. 

[ask-svt-hearteu]

Superhero School! Svt (and how they meet you;)

The Rosenity School for the Supers is the world’s most prestigious academy for the training of the future’s next superheroes. At Rosenity, the staff are dedicated to training and understanding our students and their powers and hope that with the proper guidance, they will one day, truly save the world~

Admin note: HAPPY HALLOWEEN EVERYONE!!! This wasn't requested but I had the idea so here it is, a special au for Halloween! If you want full au versions, we might be considering doing those once requests are back open:)

Seungcheol- Super Strength

always has a lot of expectations and responsibilities put on him

comes from a long line of superheroes

everyone knows he’s going to be “The Chosen One”

has the power of super strength and could probably lift a whole building without breaking a sweat

his responsibilities take a toll on him though 

doesn’t ever want to disappoint someone or appear weak when he is not

that is until he meets you, a super with the power of telekinesis

you can easily move anything with your mind

you also think he could never disappoint anyone:)

one day, you accidentally use your powers on him, making him accidentally run right into you…

Jeonghan- Reality Manipulation

has the power of reality manipulation

can make people see snow on a sunny day or a rainbow on a cloudy one

can show people exactly what they want to see

or he can show them their darkest nightmares

isn’t sure exactly what to do with his powers

besides pranking his friends by making it look like there’s chocolate right in front of them when there isn’t

until one day he gets dared to prank you

a super with the superpower of aversion

little does Jeonghan know that you can not only weaken and completely stop his power from working on you

but you can also reflect his powers back at him...

Joshua- Atmokinesis

used to literally walking around with his head in the clouds

power to control the weather

making it sunny on the day of an important field trip or making it snow on the day of an exam

super helpful ;)

can make mini rain clouds indoors

legit can make the sun shine down on him like a halo

thought he had things under control until one day he creates a storm that’s big enough to destroy the whole school

and he can’t seem to figure out how to get it back under control

until you, a super with the power of energy manipulation, take his hand

and the energy he used to power the storm gets changed by you into a bright light as the storm disappears…

Junhui- Telekinesis

used to getting what he wants

with telekinesis

can easily summon a can of soda from the school’s vending machine or his favorite snacks from the cafeteria

all without leaving the comfort of his room

but doesn’t know how to fully control his powers

especially scary when he finds out he can control people as well as objects

scares him into almost not using his powers at all

until he meets you, a super with the power of emotion manipulation

he learns that he’s not the only one who can control what people think and do

and that there are scarier things than loss of control, losing you…

Soonyoung- Pyrokinesis

can be kind of a hothead, literally since he controls fire

makes for some great party tricks on the weekends though

everyone’s roasting marshmallows using his hand as a fire pit

very flashy and vibrant personality, gets in trouble just as many times as he plans on saving the world

might joke around a lot but truly believes he can be an amazing superhero

even though some people say that his power is dangerous since fires destroy stuff

too loveable that no one can hate the guy though and super competitive

wants to win the school’s physical powers showcase for the title of next best hero

but his biggest competition is someone who is faster, gone one second and teleporting in the next second,

you…

Wonwoo- Telepathy

knows everything and anything

including the times anyone has cheated on a History of Superpowers’ test

or skipped class to party

knows because he hears what people are thinking

and he can talk to people without saying a single word aloud by speaking to their heads

for some reason he doesn’t say much aloud at all if he can help it

his best friends are the books in the library, stories he chooses to listen to

it’s quieter in the library until he meets you, a transfer student from a different school who also has telepathy

the weird part for him is, you seem to be able to read his every thought

but he can’t read yours…

Jihoon- Super Speed

the world has always been too slow for Lee Jihoon

a super with super speed

can have all his hw finished in the span of 0.789 seconds

take a round trip around the world for ramen in Japan

and still make it back before you finish saying his name

for someone who seemingly has an endless amount of time since he works at speed levels faster than everyone

he can’t seem to understand why he suddenly wants everything to slow down when he meets you

a super with plant manipulation 

why did suddenly meeting you make him want to take a slow walk in the park with you

and just watch the flowers grow around you?

Seokmin- Aquakinesis

one of the most well-known supers on campus because he’s literally so friendly and everyone loves his happy personality

can control water which is probably why he’s not allowed to compete on the school’s swimming team

his favorite trick is turning on the sprinklers every morning and making the water reflect rainbows everywhere

always has a water bottle next to him so he can use his powers to water some of the planters on school

likes these planters because they give him a tad bit of privacy from his busy life where he can just unwind

and forget his superhero-in-training responsibilities for a while

loves telling jokes to the plants that he later uses to make everyone else laugh

even though flowers aren’t good listeners lol

one day Seokmin finds you flying around on the roof watering some of his favorite flowers

and he can’t help but think you’re more beautiful than any flowers he’s ever seen….

Mingyu- Teleportation and Invisibility

 a super rare case because he actually has two superpowers

and it’s super funny when a giant tall person suddenly disappears and people don’t know if he teleported

or just went invisible

good for playing pranks on the upperclassmen or lowerclassmen

but he’s so loud and goofy he would probably die laughing before he pulled off the prank

once got locked out of his room after a shower

legit freaked out for a whole five minutes before he remembered he can turn invisible

is sometimes pretty klutzy when it comes to teleporting

and accidentally goes invisible while teleporting and doesn’t know how to become visible again

and no one can see him to help him, except for you, a student with super-vision….

Minghao- Precognition and Photographic Memory

low key a mystery to everyone bc he can not only see the future but he also remembers everything

super powerful and everyone wants to know what he knows

can see any future timeline if he focuses on it

his predictions change often because the future is not set in stone yet

but sometimes he’ll get a really strong vision where there’s no denying it he knows it will happen

like that time he predicted how it would snow in the dead middle of May (people didn’t believe him until Josh accidentally had a brain freeze from eating ice cream too fast and actually made it snow)

Minghao also has photographic memory and can remember everything which makes studying for tests real easy too

and one day he gets a really strong vision of the future, one that he knows would be impossible to change

of you, a super with super speed who’s in danger and might die

and he refuses to just sit by and not try to change the future and save you…

Seungkwan- Shape-shifting

shape-shifting is an incredibly rare power, and it’s extremely powerful

which has people confused as to how such a young kid like Seungkwan could have such a strong power

not that he uses his powers immaturely (ok maybe just a little)

just small things like spying on his friends by transforming into literally a fly on the wall

or changing his appearance to look like the History of Superpowers professor and making everyone laugh at his impressions

easier for him to change into animals than other people of course, it takes a lot of energy to mimic people versus animals

which is good, since he once almost got away with being Hansol for a whole day before two Hansol’s walked into the cafeteria and suddenly Seungkwan’s prank was exposed

doesn’t really feel comfortable in his own appearance and doesn’t really know how to use his powers for good rather than laughs

until one day on a school field trip he accidentally bumps into you, a super with mind exchange powers

and you get stuck with his powers and he gets stuck with yours, and you both don’t know how to change it back….

Hansol- Super Healing

everyone always uses Hansol as a backup plan

if they sneak out past curfew to train their superpowers against real criminals and villains outside the school, they bring Hansol

that way if anyone gets hurt, he can help them

but he’s still really new to the whole superpower thing and when he exposes some students for not following the curfew rules

he gets a lot of shit for being responsible and trying not to hurt anyone

even though all his friends and Seungkwan constantly tell him he did the right thing

doesn’t want anything else but for all his friends to be happy and safe and healthy because as a super healer that’s his job

really loves animals and volunteering in the infirmary at the school because he gets to see how other people’s powers work but also gets to help heal them if they’re hurt and make them feel better

and one day he meets you, a mysterious student who has been in the infirmary for weeks in a coma, and no one knows what your power is

until Hansol tries to heal and wake you up….

Chan- Power Mimicry

the youngest student ever to walk the halls of Rosenity

everyone is kinda scared of him because he can copy anyone’s powers even if it’s only for a few minutes to an hour

he makes a few close friends though

twelve of them in fact, all with different powers and he learns how each works

and sometimes uses them to prank all the older kids

super intelligent too because he knows how it feels to use a variety of powers

is really actually a squish and needs to be protected

he honestly doesn’t even know if he can be considered a hero since his powers don’t last very long when he copies someone’s

which you can relate to since you’ve been Rosenity’s only non-super student ever in history, with no superpowers

or at least you assumed you had no powers, until Chan tries to mimic you and discovers something even you didn’t see in yourself

MASTERLIST

[couldnt-think-of-a-funny-name]

pls expand on your ridiculous experiences during one semester at a fake college

okay I got a few asks about this so let me see what I can remember right now. These might not all be in chronological order

- At orientation, they were talking about the reservation near campus and all these pretty sites and this kid in the back of the auditorium goes “So uhh…heard this place might be built over a Native American burial ground?”

- The speaker: “…Let’s not think about that, okay?”

- The freshman were on campus alone for like a week and a half (other than the RA’s) before the other students and I just. The parties. Were out of control. An ambulance was called basically every night.

- I walked into the bathroom the first night there to find a girl literally dying because someone slipped something in her drink and she was having a Very Bad Reaction

- Sting- you know, the singer- ‘s son lived in my residence hall. This boy almost accidentally killed me on three separate occasions (while I was just trying to do my laundry)

- I told my family about this at Thanksgiving. Everyone in the room advised me to seduce him

- I ate breakfast in the dining hall exactly once. I got scrambled eggs. I noticed no one had brought out ketchup with the condiments and politely asked about it. I received glares from at least ten different people. Apparently people there don’t believe in ketchup on eggs.

- There were these two boys in my English class known as “The Lumbard Guys”. They didn’t live in my residence hall, but they would come over almost every night, start a party, and destroy part of the basement.

- At orientation this one kid got mad and set his shoe on fire to prove a point

- Also at orientation like??? My roommate disappeared???? And I never saw her again???

- Listen like…this campus just looked like the perfect setting for a horror film, but none of the people from the area got that. They all thought I was crazy until some comic from Comedy Central did a stand up act and said “Why the hell is this campus so creepy? I feel like I’m gonna leave here with someone else wearing my face!”. I felt way too validated.

- ALL OF MY CLASSES WERE SO FAKE

- My “math” class was actually a disguised home ec. course???? All we had were word problems that were incredibly detailed recipes or instructions on how to fix things. The teacher, who I swear to GOD was actually my Mr-Rogers-Wannabe guidance counselor from high school in disguise, spent more time trying to come up with names and backstories for the models in the text book than actually trying to teach

- I had to take a class called “first year seminar” because neither of my parents went to college. It was supposed to be teaching you about how the school works and stuff but SUPRISE BITCH WE’RE JUST GONNA YELL ABOUT RACISM AND PRIVELGE FOR AN HOUR.

- Literally that’s all we did. Just the whole class bonding over all these struggles we had gone through and getting fired up. Like, it was great, but I also ended up knowing very little about campus and school stuff bc that was the class that was supposed to be teaching me lmao

- My Psych teacher was fucking hysterical for the first few classes but then he just. Vanished. I had to drop the class

- My Fine Arts teacher just. Couldn’t stick to a teaching plan. Her entire wardrobe was scarves. She was very passionate about African masks. She had a flapper haircut. She spoke quietly, but with a marvelously forced tone of voice that I’m certain was her trying to sound impressive and hide a Boston accent. She didn’t seem to understand the year was 2014. She took us into the city to go to the Art Museum and we lost her in there, never to be seen again

- I’m not even kidding

- My “writing” teacher was my absolute fav omfg. She was this long grey haired hippie lady who worked as a nurse for the Grateful Dead and was still stuck there. She may or may not have hooked up with my uncle. I was her favorite student because one day I came in wearing a “HAIR” shirt. She wanted to take the class to England for the sole purpose of going on a Beatles tour

- But like…she did not teach a writing class omfg. She taught a social justice class. All we did was have informed debates about The Issues and listen to music and occasionally watch the Breakfast Club. Every time there was a big paper due on the syllabus, she’d just sit on her desk and go “I mean, I don’t have to cover anything, right? You guys know how to write!” Like I genuinely don’t think she knew what class she was teaching

- There was a boy who sat next to me in that class. He was deaf in one ear and used that as an excuse when he got caught blatantly not paying attention. It worked every time. But I was right next to him. I saw him playing Yu-Gi-Oh on some website on his phone under the table. One time we started talking about model cars and he pre-cummed.

- There was a boy who roamed the campus in a long black trench coat and a weird hat. I never saw his body and started to suspect he might not have one, just the theory of one. He took interest in me because I was the only person in class who ever got his Doctor Who jokes. He’d come up to me at dinner and blast quiz me on various nerd culture before running off and disappearing into the shadows. Just as I was starting to grudgingly accept I was probably going to have to eventually hook up with him for the greater good, I apparently offended him by saying I like Picard more than Kirk. He didn’t stick around to listen to my reasoning. Whenever I saw him after that he would loudly start talking about how great his girlfriend was. Everyone knew he was lying. I wonder if Kirk ever sucked his theoretical dick as well as I would have.

- I gave a football player a shout out on Yik Yak. He really appreciated it, and gave me some fries laced with weed as a thanks. That was such A Night ™ , I watched the Lorax and left the dimension.

- Every time we had dances, this creepy guy named Horace would find me and use my obvious discomfort to make me dance with him. He’d hold my wrists and shove his crotch on mine while vaguely swaying to the beat. I had to escape to the bathroom every few minutes. Finally the security just banned him from the events altogether. I can still see his face clearly in my mind.

- One night, I walked into the bathroom to find a perfect, untouched pizza laying on the floor…but not in a box. Someone literally just took it out of the box and laid it down. I’m still fuming.

- One time I was in the mostly empty library when I smelled something. I walked down the rows of shelves before rounding the corner, and found the President of the college hidden there, sitting on the floor, smoking, a bottle of vodka in his hands. We held eye contact for a solid minute. He slowly shook his head at me. I said “Sir, your house is like…literally across the street.” He shook his head more vigorously. I left the library.

- One night, I heard screaming. I looked out the window to find a girl in a giraffe costume scaling my building. People were throwing water bottles at her. I was concerned. I didn’t know who to talk to for answers.

- I was in line trying to pay for dinner. One of the lunch ladies climbed on top of the ice cream machine and refused to come down. Her friend came over and they started recreating the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet. Very few people acknowledged it.

- Someone jacked up the soda dispenser so it was only dispensing beer. None of the staff cared enough to fix it.

- I caught my RA in the middle of a drug deal so she gave me a coupon for free ice cream

- Also side note: The soft served ice cream machine on campus was actually a frozen yogurt machine. I had no problem with that, but like, advertise correctly, you know? Nobody else seemed to understand my confusion. Nobody else seemed to understand that froyo and ice cream are two different things. What the hell.

- There were just…so many moths all over the campus. A terrifying amount. When it started getting colder I was like, finally, I won’t be attacked by moths anymore! Only for even more moths to appear. I asked a local about it. “Oh, those are the winter moths!” What the fuck are winter moths? What the fuck, Massachusetts? My friend back home grew convinced that Mothman was in the area. I was inclined to believe her. Sometimes I close my eyes and all I can see are moths everywhere, waiting for the moment to strike.

-  I’ve encountered deer many times in my life. I know how they act around people. But the deer on this campus were just weird. They’d run out at people all the time. One almost shoved me into traffic.

- My roommate gave my phone number out to literally anyone she found who mentioned they liked to read or liked Doctor Who. She was concerned I had no friends. No one ever called.

- I met a small Greek girl in my Fine Arts class. Our first day of talking, she made me climb a mountain with her so she could get to tutoring, even though I had no reason to be in that building. Her roommates kept mysteriously disappearing. She was late to everything. She’d call me randomly to get food at 1 in the morning. She kept somehow breaking phones and tvs and other electronics. When I asked her how they kept breaking, she waved it off with “Oh, I have OCD. You wouldn’t understand”. I have OCD, and I still don’t understand. One time she invited me out with her friends from high school. I waited outside her building for two hours, while the other friends waited in the parking lot for two hours, because we didn’t know how to find each other. She eventually came outside at 10:30 pm. We went to Friendly’s. She made us stop at her house so she could grab something. We pulled up a long, winding driveway and stopped in a parking lot. At the end of the parking lot were stone stairs that lead up to a mansion on a hill. She ran inside and the rest of us stayed in the car, listening to High School Musical and talking about Supernatural. When she came out 40 minutes later we decided to try and prank her. It went wrong. We almost ran over her friend’s sister with the car. They invited me to a pumpkin patch. When I started complaining about my roommate, she asked me to move in with her. I thought about the other three girls who had seemingly gone missing. I politely declined. Six months after I left the school, I received a text from her asking for notes for an exam, and radio silence after that. I can’t find her on facebook. I fear she might have gone missing too.

- One night, as I was standing outside huddled in the cold, a boy came up and offered me a cigarette to help me stay warm. I turned it down, but he stood around talking to me for a few minutes afterwards. I felt absolutely no awkwardness at all. He was a musician from Colorado. He sang a bit of one of his songs. He was dropping out of school to go to California the next week. He told me I had beautiful eyes, but his were the most alive eyes I’ve ever seen so I couldn’t believe the compliment. We talked for about ten minutes and I fell a little bit in love. He had to rush off to a club meeting, but he told me he’d rather keep talking. He gave me the sweetest smile before he left. I didn’t get his last name or number and I never saw him again.

- There was a dance on Halloween. I couldn’t think of a sufficiently slutty yet classy costume, so I just went as Osgood from Doctor Who. When I got there there was a huge crowd, but people quickly grew bored and started leaving. There ended up being six people left (myself included). We stayed because we could see the upset faces of everyone who had planned the event, but actually had one of the most fun nights of my life. We- myself, the girl from across the hall, Trench Coat Boy, his tiny friend who never spoke, and a boy and girl I didn’t know who seemed to be professional dancers- danced nonstop for almost three hours. The strobe lights and poppy music solidified an unspoken bond. I had never and to this day haven’t felt as free as I did that night. The tiny quiet boy’s smile could have lit up a city. It’s etched into my mind. We all left the dance talking about the surreal feeling in the air, as if something had shifted. None of us ever mentioned the dance again. It’s still one of my fondest memories.

- For a solid month, there was someone in a gorilla costume running around campus.

- There was a rash of sexual assaults on campus. A gang of boys kept jumping girls in the woods. The only thing the school board did was give out free rape whistles at lunch one day. I missed that day, making me one of the only students on campus without a whistle. Later that night when I ordered pizza, the delivery guy tried to start up a conversation with me about all the assaults. He blamed the girls. I took back my tip.

- Sometimes the showers just…filled up with black sludge. No one knew why.

- The girls in the room next to me were very bizarre. They always shot me odd looks and whispered to each other constantly. I couldn’t figure out if they were sleeping together or not. They never washed their hands when we were in the bathroom.

- The doors to each dorm were thick and heavy and required effort to push them open. My roommate and I made sure to lock ours every night, and would triple check it. It swung open by itself almost every night. The channels on the tv would change with the remote equidistance away from us. Sometimes I heard humming in the showers when I was the only one in there.

- My roommate…deserves a whole separate post dedicated to her, honestly.

- She would call her mother and have her do her homework for her. She blasted music constantly, and it was either country or hard rap, nothing in between. She sexiled me constantly. I once walked in on anal. She’d meet guys on Tinder, fall in love with them after a couple of days, and then bring them into the school and into our room like it was no big deal. One of them made it clear he was a budding serial killer. She was in a new drama every week. One time someone called her a dilf on Yik Yak. She was firmly convinced her cousin was blonde because her aunt dyed her hair when she was pregnant. She tried her hardest to get me laid by a football player. She was the loudest drunk I’ve ever encountered. Honestly there’s just too much about her for this omfg

- John Zaffis, the famous paranormal researcher, came to the school on my birthday. I went because I’m a loser who’s been watching shows with him since I was a kid, and I was having a bad day so I decided it could be a treat. I sat in the front row. He held an uncomfortable amount of eye contact with me the entire presentation. He was impressed with my questions. He lamented about the fact he’s always cut out of movies or replaced by priests that look like him. He apparently came to the school every year around Halloween to do a ghost tour around the campus for the students. A girl allegedly killed herself in my floor’s bathroom. He apparently always got a lot of activity around the campus. Everyone in the freshman class started wondering if the rumors about the Native American burial ground were true.

- One time in “writing” class the teacher gave us a number and then whatever song came up as that when we put our music on shuffle we had to play for the class. I ended up with “Touch Me” from Spring Awakening. Midway through the song, the teacher from another class came to complain that they could hear everything. My teacher tried to defend that all music has an important message. “Molly, dear, tell her the message in this song!” I looked around the room and at the other teacher. “It’s about sex,” I said quietly. She stormed out of the room while the class started laughing.

- There was this girl that just had the natural ability to make anything boring. I feel bad saying that, because she’s such a sweet girl, and she’s smart, and she’s gorgeous, and she’s talented, but just…every time she says anything, it’s boring. I’m still friends with her on facebook, the talent transcends to writing as well. You could be having a fun, lively conversation and she could say something completely relevant to the point and yet it would still just be boring. It’s a baffling talent, I still don’t understand how she does it.

- There was a boy who’d come into my room. He lusted over my s’mores poptarts. He kept trying to hit the high notes in Broadway songs. He didn’t understand my sense of humor at all, so we both were constantly worried we were offending each other. He cried about Selena Gomez a lot.

- The dining hall only offered horrendous food. I had pasta almost every night because it was the only thing remotely edible. If you wanted good food, you had to go to Late Night, which was between like 10:30 and 1 I think??? They set it up specifically for stoners and people leaving parties. I was frequently the only sober person there. Except for the moths.

- The chief at the pasta place found out I like theater and got like…weirdly passionate about it. He kept telling me about different theater groups in the area and wanted to know if I was in the school musical. He asked me every time I went up for food.

- There was a disproportionate amount of large black birds to trees. It wasn’t hard to figure out why we so rarely saw smaller animals

- When I told my advisor I was thinking about leaving (mostly for financial reasons but also the fake classes were preventing me from getting an education I wanted, you know?), this little old man looked around his office as if checking for people listening in, then put his hand on top of mine, leaned in close, and whispered “Oh, you sweet little girl. Run as fast as you can.”

There’s definitely more but listen. This school was weird and fake and vaguely surreal and off-kilter. I am fully afraid that one day, years from now, I’m going to be driving through the back roads and pass the place where the campus should be, only I won’t find anything there at all, and won’t be able to find any trace of it ever existing. I won’t be able to find any record of it. I won’t be able to find a record of any of the people. Every time I think about this place I just get a weird feeling, like I somehow managed to escape the Twilight Zone but left a part of me behind in the process. Be careful when applying to college, kids.

[imisswonho]

before i start i’m sorry if this doesn’t make any sense bc i’m too emotional right now and i’m crying as i write this lol but i’ve never thought i’d feel this validated before in my life so

ohg my god my heart is literally beating so fast i’m so so so so so incredibly happy right now and today honestly made me feel like i’ve actually accomplished something in life????

ok so not too many people know this but i had a really really rough start in community college 5 years ago. I was suppose to graduate in 2 years and transfer to a uni in a perfect world, but I was failing classes and was miserable because I couldn’t find a major I really liked. But when I discovered that Communications was something i could actually STUDY, I never felt more relieved in my life. Then as I started my 4th year at cc, my advisor recommended I join an organization on campus to “strengthen” my extracurricular activities and somehow i ended up joining student government.

I know it might sound boring (I was honestly so bored at first; this was the last org I ever thought I would join) but after a couple meetings I was so intrigued as to how SG worked. Next thing I know, I was interviewed as senator and then appointed as an executive board member??? And this all happened SO FAST like I blinked and I was running for President in April of last year and actually WON??? Then last year, my last year, I worked so incredibly hard to change the dynamic of the campus and cater to what the students needed and ACTUALLY TRAINED AND WORKED WITH THE SENATE TO GET SHIT DONE. I was so happy that the campus was changing and that people were noticing that the environment was more inclusive and accepting, and even though others would praise me for the initiatives I took, I always made sure I didn’t take credit because I didn’t feel like I deserved it since I worked with such an amazing team.

So today, afterbeing asked to attend the 8 hour district board meeting as an alumni, the meeting was going to adjourn when the Trustee President (whom I got to work with over the years), told everyone to stop and turn their attention to me. I froze and got so embarrassed bc I thought I did something wrong but he stood up in front of like 100 people and started making a speech about how I’ve changed the entire school for the better and that he’s never witnessed someone so inspirational before. Then his secretary brought out something and made her way towards me with a medal in her hand?/? And then he went on to explain that I have left a legacy on this campus and how I have set the bars of equity higher than it has been before??? oh my god i was so shocked i couldn’t feel my legs and I just started bawling and then everyone started clapping and cheering and I just couldn’t comprehend anything at that moment...

and to top it all off, my advisor asked me to attend the student senate meeting (since it was after the board meeting) and when I walked in, the new board (which I have never met before) all stood up and was like “oh my god is that C??” and started clapping again and I was just so in shock that I started crying again???? and after the second meeting I stayed behind to talk to some of the board members and they were asking me for advice and it just felt so... good?? to have people look up to me?? and ask me for guidance?? I never thought I would be worthy to be in such a position but I just was smiling the whole time and now I’m home and I found a random note attached to a bday card that the board wrote for me and it said this:

“Happy Birthday C! I know you don’t know me but I want to say thank you for the great leadership trademark you left as this enabled us to be able to guide the senate. Stay awesome and continue to grow in life”

And ya’ll I just lost it like??? a COMPLETE STRANGER said this about me and I’m just so emotional and I didn’t know where else to write this and I just feel so full and appreciated and I’ve never felt this way and I jsut fdflakfjs sorry I don’t know how to end this so I”m jsut going to end this here... thank you so much for reading this long ass ramble ahh

[convndrums]

here the FAWK she ( the semi-finished masterlist of all my characters ) is ! took way too long but hopefully as you proceed to click on the linque below you’ll know why smh but yep ! i’ll be adding their pages on my account when i’m done with them soon i hope and maybe come back with a bunch of connections for each character but for now this is all i got & smash this like or im me for plots i’d love to get on those finally xx

reintroducing amanda wheeler;  intro & info page.

queen of irony. rich post- faux country gal who’s a loud homosexual and writes hetero fics/has an indie het smut for the absolute shits and giggles. dates a married woman she’s utterly in love with and will pull the life support cord for. said to be possessed by a possessed flapper. cute and knows it even though she looks like a republican. socially open & everywhere. morally grey.

reintroducing imogen yates; intro & info page. ( tw violence )

the grey area between your mom friend and your drunk aunt. happily vegan & owns a vegan restaurant called the fork, alt. the vegan cult’s lair. won’t kill you, but will convince you she really wants to. local brat tamer. minds her business via minding others. clashed head-first into nature’s very own reset button: amnesia. used to be satan and traumatized everyone. disgustingly active and accomplishing.

reintroducing ethan holland; intro & info page. ( tw suicide )

he is a sk8r boi, she said see ya later boy ( and meant it. they’re dating now. hey lourdes ! ) a nice person, so nice he doesn’t realize how fake he sounds/is. a certified headass. previously a bully/bully enabler, current guilty fuck. #torn. does the most for his loved ones. doesn’t remember his own birthday. googled foot fetishes once. trolls stan twitter with his fake selena gomez stan account when tumblr crashes. burned a sue of cide note with his name scribbled on it.

reintroducing sebastian miller; intro & info page ( tw violence )

kazimer sokolov whom. russian ex-cult member well-adjusted into a mundane life via lies, a fake canadian accent he’s ‘trying to get rid of’, being a twilight saga aficionado and a dickwad, a lame record store and a tumblr blog to keep himself sane by maintaining a general aesthetic and shitting on people and every discourse out there. knives/books sniffer. allegedly fucked a moose. probably kinkshames as a way to deal with his own “kinks” aka please keep the dead bodies away. ( im kidding i swear but [redacted] )

reintroducing prudence zima; intro & info page ( tw death )

parents died in a fire when she was two months old and it shows. idolizes avril lavigne & her favorite movie is lords of dogtown for aesthetics references. dude. social leech or effortless networker ? both. remains in her lane regardless. cry-types probably. here for a good time, not a long time. steals your stash and smokes you out with it. avid dick connoisseur. minimum effort lifestyle. either on her way to become a manager of some one hit wonder band that finds it’s demise in a freak accident, a drug dealer or god forbid, a guidance counselor; depends. mild cool girl syndrome. 

reintroducing jennifer meade; intro & info page ( tw death, violence and abuse )

bi/pussy muncher and proud misandrist, first and foremost. remembers killing her brother very fondly. the one girl in a room to call when you want to kill a bug and you’re relieved until she kills it with her bare hand. tops. unstable & chaotic evil, respectively. the ginger devil. biased and has her minion whom she invests a great deal of her time in brain washing and obsessing over. supposedly here to make amends but that’s not happening any time soon.

reintroducing margot williams; intro & info page ( tw mental illness )

deserves better. very gay. all her friends are heathens xtra, take it slow. corrects typos in the gc. a nerdy editorial assistant daydreaming about publishing houses instead of the magazine she works for. lowkey shy and she’s angry about it. goes off if she must. jacks off to #knowledge and yuri anime. helps with homework and essays and takes the kids out. deadpan because we’re original but she swears it’s just the face & unresolved trauma. stans her therapist. unofficial older sister.

reintroducing chandler accardi; intro ( re-written ) & info page

needs to do better. dropped out of college for culinary school then dropped out of that too. was engaged to an absolute goddess he ultimately wronged ( with her damn best friend, bitch disgostin* ) and got kicked out to the curb. currently residing in the couch of his sister until things are resolved. thot-by-default & annoying. has like three ( 3 ) redeeming qualities. has never been told to shut up and it shows. works at buzzfeed.

reintroducing abel gautier; intro & info page

french and “confused”. lives a minimalist n’ expensive life. if american psycho & french kiss were the same movie. wine sniffer. the devil bakes croissants. will watch you die. takes grudges to the afterlife. gets attached but either ruins it or ruins it to spare everyone, himself included. falls in love a lot but knows how to calm the fuck down. very giving, fortunately. manipulative but isn’t too wild about bending everything to his will. 

reintroducing simini gale; intro & info page ( tw abuse, violence & mental illness )

token white actress & character in rosie’s show. [ britney vc ] its me.... against dissociation. a loud mess with an intense mental state and anger issues dulled out by her prescribed meds and whatever pill she got in the bottom of her manager’s purse. dependent and distraught about it. grocery shopping for garbage food and attending comedy stand up shows half drunk as a hobby. stable ? where. very nice and super flighty. heels are hot. wishes she could fight someone without feeling the urge to actually fight someone. 

reintroducing calvin o’shea; intro & info page ( tw mental illness )

it’s not just the depression more than the incredible self hatred. walks into rooms with his bad energy, grumpy mood and cunty attitude. graduated college just to shut his dad up. wants to die harder than edward cullen. just doesn’t give a shit. has a baby named freddie mercury ( also known as the antichrist, with alanis, his mortal literal enemy whom he absolutely despises and will not hesitate to put his dick back in again lbr ) who will probably grow up to talk shit about his parents whom he also mentioned in his tell-all book on ellen. works at his family’s bookstore that sucks the life energy out of college students nearing a mental breakdown.

reintroducing isabel pavia; intro & info page ( tw drug use )

contemporary dances her feelings away. too ambitious for her own good but knows what she’s doing. in a goth ass secret society ( here ) a.k.a her new found purpose. knows everything eventually. oddly trustworthy. doesn’t know what speaking loudly is, let alone yelling. loves the moon & has that moon app. had to take painkillers when she twisted her ankle very badly and would take them for a while for stress and performance reasons, but has stopped. a quiet angel. 

reintroducing anastasia zeller; intro & info page

ambitious/multi-talented asshole. horror trash & an emotional/mental maze which translates well into her weird works on no sleep reddit and current horror comedy podcast. ( click here for info ). needs a therapist according to a friend, whom she dropped for saying that. will bite your head off. obsessed with her works to an unhealthy point. would love to establish a company and stuff out of it and is working on that. healthy relationships are a semi-foreign concept.

reintroducing morgan booker; intro & info page ( tw death )

vape-curious and takes photos of ghost towns and abandoned-everythings because #vision. had a roadtrip phase like the fake deep idiot he is. morally grey. genuinely here for a good laugh and spreading joy in the form of hover-friendships and taking lit candids of his friends. knows shit and comes off as a creep sometimes but does he really care. knows your mom’s name. lives in a disused hospital bc he’s marinating on that aesthetic. 

reintroducing bowie harmon; intro & info page ( tw drug use & abuse )

part of a duo in a web series as the anxious n’ cackling mess. showcases her depressión & anxieté by her colorful wigs n’ new hair dyes. painful receptionist at a tattoo parlor. recovering addict who advocates for drug use. thinks tattooing a ruler on someone’s dick one day would be the peak of her accomplishments as a tattoo artist. daily bad decisions. “ it’s complicated. ” when asked about literally any relationship she has with anyone in her life. traumas include her failed singing career. an ex viner-by-association.

reintroducing shaheen bin baz; intro & info page ( tw violence & mental illness )

the physical deception of going through hell in a short amount of time with zero mental durability to begin with during midterms. trigger-anxious. will shoot your toes off your foot if caught off guard. aided in criminal operations with the brilliance of his mind in codes. would not mind dying. seasons your food. waters his crops in his balcony garden. the grey area between a super laidback dude and a crackhead with violent tendencies. nearing a mental breakdown probably. 

reintroducing minka abbott-santos; intro & info page ( tw abuse )

defeats the evil stepmom stereotype one breath at a time. the human embodiment of a deer. gothic angel. alarmingly gets black swan. type to wake up to her staring at you from an armchair across the room, but lovingly, with a book she was reading in hand and two hot cups of tea; she was waiting to start the day with you. spooky until you get to know her and even more spookier when she’s ( note: calmly ) pissed but that’s extremely rare. gentle voice, soul and everything.

reintroducing reuben faulkner; intro & info page ( tw abuse & violence  )

rekt hell prince. lived in an amish community with his family until he got kidnapped away from home when he was seven into an awful living situation. doesn’t remember if the gas leak that happened five years later and killed everyone was his doing or not. knows where his real family is after months of tracking them down but. blood kink under investigation. shady bouncer at a shady club. has issues he has no care or time to diminish. fights for the shits and giggles. leaves texts at read. leaves you alone for your own good and his own sanity. 

reintroducing alexandra turunen;  info page

wants to do everything and be everything and doesn’t know what to do with herself ( read: post-graduation identity crisis ) currently investing in a motorcycle for no reason. essentially jobless. a “retired” kathryn merteuil who “outgrew” her cunning ways since highschool but really only found new socially destructive interests. appears to be self-possessed but she’s #shaken. doesn’t care about how well she presents herself anymore after getting rejected by four universities and refusing to accept her father’s offer to pull some strings to get her in one. sleeps a lot. 

reintroducing giuseppe del vecchio;  info page ( tw death & drug use  )

goes by pepe because well. son of italian oil peeps & is extra. said to be in a cult when all he’s in is this extra ass dining club that does the most for initiation ceremonies. ready to fall in love with you. goes to the king’s college in london and studies business & changes his minor way too often for everyone’s liking. into everything and will be down to do whatever. faux deep. mischievous shit. incredibly unbiased. had his rawrk n’ roll phase that died along with someone in a club literally. still has it but he knows god now & less drugs.

reintroducing kelian scott;  info page ( tw death & drug use  )

a father/father figure who tries™. runs a mechanic shop/chop shop because bad decisions and dire needs ( had his son to send to school and his daughter who passed away due to a disease he couldn’t afford to treat even after turning his shop into a chop shop. his wife then left him ). stares into the distance. wants the best for the kids but one of them is a junkie ( he doesn’t know yet ) and the other -- his niece -- is an orphan he’s worried about. thinks ahead 24/7. needs to pull out of this dull n’ depressing daily routine he has fallen into like the basic ass divorced dad he is. 

reintroducing sal presley;  info page

smexy trace & fingerprint detective. talks. the perfect illusion to bring home to your parents and friends. gets shit done which is both a good thing and a bad thing. looks calm, collected n’ well-rested but isn’t. his actual name is salvatore but no. knows how to mix drinks and more; used to showcase his multi-talented ass to make his ( currently ex ) fiancée look good now just himself. was engaged three times; two of those times with the same person. obsessive; gets into his job a little too intensely for no reason but #justice and maybe something else whom knows. loses sleep at least two nights a week as a habit at this point. has an extended family back home he misses occasionally. wishes he could calm down truly. 

[travelworldnetwork]

By Rossi Thomson

4 February 2019

From the 2nd Century AD to the end of the Middle Ages, it was an accepted tenet that monkeys had the inner workings quite like those of man. This was the anatomical point of departure established by the 2nd-Century Greek physician Claudius Galenus – commonly referred to as Galen – who at the time was the authority on all things medical in Western Europe and Byzantium. Yet due to religious, legal and cultural taboos, he had never systematically dissected human bodies. Instead, his writings and dissections of monkeys, specifically Barbary and rhesus macaques, guided the development and practice of medicine for around 1,400 years.

And then something ground-breaking happened.

A scientific revolution burst through the self-imposed limits of ancient knowledge. After human dissections being frowned upon for hundreds of years, in the 16th Century a shift to scientific research and observation allowed the real picture of human anatomy to emerge for the first time, paving the way for the practice of medicine we see today.

At the forefront of it all was one Italian city – Padua – and its university.

View image of During the 16th Century, Padua, Italy, was on the forefront of a scientific revolution (Credit: Credit: Enrico Della Pietra/Alamy)

You may also be interested in: • The island that forever changed science • How France created the metric system • The revolution that mapped the world

Padua has a rich artistic, religious and literary heritage. It’s best known as the setting of Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew and where Italian artist Giotto – recognised as the Father of the Renaissance – frescoed the Scrovegni Chapel with biblical scenes loaded with human emotions. What is most remarkable about this northern Italian city, though, is that it’s the cradle of modern medicine.

Medicine had been studied in Padua – once a free commune – for many centuries. This tradition was upheld when the University of Padua was founded in 1222. A renowned centre of the sciences, the University of Padua enjoyed unparalleled autonomy and religious tolerance even after it came under the rule of the Carrara dynasty during the 14th Century. When Padua was conquered by the Republic of Venice in 1405, the Venetians kept the university as the main educational hub of the Republic and managed it under the motto of Libertas docendi et investigandi (Freedom of teaching and researching).

“The Republic understood that the university was a fundamental opportunity to foster a culture that celebrated Venice’s government,” explained Fabio Zampieri, associate professor of history of medicine in the Department of Cardiac, Thoracic and Vascular Sciences at University of Padua Medical School. “The best professors were called from all around Europe, captivated by the guarantee of freedom of research. The fame of the best professors attracted the best local and international students, too.”

As a result, the University of Padua became the centre of what Zampieri describes as ‘the Scientific Renaissance’, part of the larger Renaissance period.

View image of Founded in 1222, the University of Padua was the main educational hub of the Republic of Venice (Credit: Credit: Brenda Kean/Alamy)

This was a time of major change. While the Middle Ages relied on theology and knowledge that was acquired through the reading of theoretical books, the Renaissance period brought with it a shift to a scientific method that relied on practical testing and experimentation.

Zampieri continued, “During the Renaissance, Galileo taught mathematics here and spread his new quantitative method, which deeply influenced also medicine. William Harvey – who first described fully the human blood circulatory system – was a student of medicine in Padua. Santorio Santorio – a professor at the university – invented the thermometer. Giovanni Battista Morgagni – a professor of anatomy here – founded modern anatomical pathology in the 18th Century. The first human heart transplant in Italy was performed in Padua in 1985.”

A brisk 15-minute walk took me from the Padua train station to Palazzo Bo in the city’s heart. The historical seat of the University of Padua, Palazzo Bo is the place where medicine finally received the systematic approach it needed to grow into a modern science. On my tour, I could feel the echo of galvanising lectures and ground-breaking scientific and medical discoveries that took place here.

Stepping into the monumental courtyard decorated with the colourful heraldic crests of former students, I stopped for a moment. This is where in the 16th Century, Andreas Vesalius performed systematic dissections of human bodies in a temporary anatomic theatre in front of crowds of 500 people or more.

View image of Many famous scientists passed through the University of Padua, including Galileo Galilei (Credit: Credit: Rossi Thomson/Reproduced by concession of the University of Padua)

Born in Brussels, Vesalius arrived in Padua in September 1537 where he completed a doctorate in medicine in December that same year. He immediately became chair of the university’s Anatomy and Surgery Department – a position he held until the early 1540s.

During his time in Italy, Vesalius wrote his revolutionary work De Humani Corporis Fabrica Libri Septem (On the Fabric of the Human Body in Seven Books), which was published in 1543. The seven books explained the workings of our bodies in unprecedented detail, with help from meticulous illustrations executed by artist Titian’s studio in Venice under the close guidance of Vesalius himself.

Greek physicians Herophilus and Erasistratus performed systematic dissections of human bodies in the first half of the 3rd Century BC in the Greek School of Medicine in Alexandria, Egypt. However, the writings about their findings were lost in the great fire that devastated the library of Alexandria – the ultimate scientific and cultural hub of the Ancient World.

Human dissection fell into disfavour in both Greece and Rome, becoming such a cultural taboo by the 2nd Century AD that Galen had no other choice but to dissect animals in his quest to understand the human body. This led to several errors in his findings, and because there was no acceptable way to refute them, Galen’s assumptions persisted as medical knowledge for more than 1,400 years.

View image of Andreas Vesalius performed dissections of human bodies in the courtyard of the Palazzo Bo (Credit: Credit: Rossi Thomson/Reproduced by concession of the University of Padua)

It was only towards the end of the Middle Ages that a wind of change could be felt. By the 1300s, human dissections were introduced as a valuable teaching exercise for medical students. However, dissections were not a common occurrence, and anatomists merely directed the proceedings by reading verbatim from Galen’s texts, leaving the actual dissection to a surgeon. It wasn’t until Vesalius came along that people truly began to question the existing knowledge of the human body.

“Vesalius revolutionised the teaching of anatomy by performing the dissection himself. Vesalius commented on the cadaver in front of him, thus putting for the first time the human body as the book of nature at the centre of anatomical research,” Zampieri explained. “He also revolutionised the content of anatomy, by demonstrating that Galen never dissected human bodies and that the animals which he dissected presented many anatomical differences with man.”

On the Fabric of the Human Body in Seven Books caused quite the stir in the 16th-Century world of medicine, provoking a strong rebuttal from Western Europe’s most illustrious medical professors and practitioners who were devoted Galenists. Vesalius felt ostracised, and abandoned his academic career. But his departure didn’t stop the advance of medical science at the University of Padua. Anatomists and physicians like Gabriele Fallopio (who first described the Fallopian tubes) and Bartolomeo Eustachi (who was the first to accurately study the anatomy of the teeth) took the proverbial baton and then passed it on. Nowadays, portraits of these luminaries of modern medicine adorn the Hall of Medicine at Palazzo Bo.

View image of Andreas Vesalius revolutionised the teaching of anatomy (Credit: Credit: Universal History Archive/Getty Images)

Just over 50 years after Vesalius performed dissections in a temporary anatomical theatre in the university courtyard, the world’s first permanent structure designed for public anatomical dissections was erected inside the Palazzo Bo between 1594 and 1595 next door to the Hall of Medicine.

The guide led our group to the ‘kitchen’ – a room with dark-coloured walls where the cadavers would be prepped for the dissections. We accessed the anatomical theatre from the door through which bodies were once carried and crowded right below the spot where the dissection table used to be placed.

This was a time of major change

In the dim light, I could glimpse the six narrow tiers on which up to 250 medical students and other spectators would congregate. There were no seats, no space to take notes and, initially, no windows. Shaped like a funnel and beautifully carved from wood, the concentric, gradually expanding tiers had amply-high balustrades to ensure that the spectators, if they fainted, could not fall and disrupt the dissection. Students, professors, aristocrats, visiting dignitaries and even noble ladies would attend the candlelit dissections. A violin orchestra would play on the top-most tier to make the atmosphere feel less nauseating.

Each body would be dissected over several days in winter, traditionally during the Carnival season – a licentious period when social mores would be more relaxed and dissections could be performed despite the still-existing taboos around them.

A range of emotions took over the group as we listened to the guide describe what took place where we stood. The more squeamish ones among us squinted their eyes and looked a bit put off. One surgeon who had travelled all the way from Canada to see this sanctuary of medicine for himself couldn’t get enough of the tales about the world’s first permanent anatomical theatre.

View image of The world’s first permanent anatomical theatre was built in the Palazzo Bo in the late 16th Century (Credit: Credit: DEA / A. DAGLI ORTI/Getty Images)

After touring Palazzo Bo, I ventured back into the city where a number of other sites highlight Padua’s influence on modern medicine. I made my way to the Museum of History of Medicine (MUSME), which relies on hundreds of artefacts and dozens of interactive displays to tell the complex story of how we came to understand and treat the human body. From there, I strolled through Padua’s porticoes, past the Basilica of St Anthony to the university’s botanical garden.

Founded in 1545 and now a Unesco World Heritage site, the botanical garden was vital to medical students’ studies of botany – particularly the therapeutic and healing power of plants. Many new botanical species were introduced to Italy via this beautiful place, including sunflowers, potatoes and sesame, as well as jasmine and lilac.

According to Zampieri, Europeans even have this botanical garden to thank for coffee. “It’s a fact that the first mention in Europe of coffee was in [the 16th-Century work] De Medicina Aegyptiorum by Prospero Alpini, who was the garden’s director.”

View image of The University of Padua’s botanical garden was founded in 1545 to help scientists study the healing power of plants (Credit: Credit: Hilke Maunder/Alamy)

As I left the botanical garden, I thought of what Herbert Butterfield, history professor and vice-chancellor of the University of Cambridge, wrote in his book The Origins of Modern Science 1300-1800, published in 1959: “In so far as any single place could claim the honour of being the seat of the Scientific Revolution, the distinction must belong to Padua.”

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By Rossi Thomson

4 February 2019

From the 2nd Century AD to the end of the Middle Ages, it was an accepted tenet that monkeys had the inner workings quite like those of man. This was the anatomical point of departure established by the 2nd-Century Greek physician Claudius Galenus – commonly referred to as Galen – who at the time was the authority on all things medical in Western Europe and Byzantium. Yet due to religious, legal and cultural taboos, he had never systematically dissected human bodies. Instead, his writings and dissections of monkeys, specifically Barbary and rhesus macaques, guided the development and practice of medicine for around 1,400 years.

And then something ground-breaking happened.

A scientific revolution burst through the self-imposed limits of ancient knowledge. After human dissections being frowned upon for hundreds of years, in the 16th Century a shift to scientific research and observation allowed the real picture of human anatomy to emerge for the first time, paving the way for the practice of medicine we see today.

At the forefront of it all was one Italian city – Padua – and its university.

View image of During the 16th Century, Padua, Italy, was on the forefront of a scientific revolution (Credit: Credit: Enrico Della Pietra/Alamy)

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Padua has a rich artistic, religious and literary heritage. It’s best known as the setting of Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew and where Italian artist Giotto – recognised as the Father of the Renaissance – frescoed the Scrovegni Chapel with biblical scenes loaded with human emotions. What is most remarkable about this northern Italian city, though, is that it’s the cradle of modern medicine.

Medicine had been studied in Padua – once a free commune – for many centuries. This tradition was upheld when the University of Padua was founded in 1222. A renowned centre of the sciences, the University of Padua enjoyed unparalleled autonomy and religious tolerance even after it came under the rule of the Carrara dynasty during the 14th Century. When Padua was conquered by the Republic of Venice in 1405, the Venetians kept the university as the main educational hub of the Republic and managed it under the motto of Libertas docendi et investigandi (Freedom of teaching and researching).

“The Republic understood that the university was a fundamental opportunity to foster a culture that celebrated Venice’s government,” explained Fabio Zampieri, associate professor of history of medicine in the Department of Cardiac, Thoracic and Vascular Sciences at University of Padua Medical School. “The best professors were called from all around Europe, captivated by the guarantee of freedom of research. The fame of the best professors attracted the best local and international students, too.”

As a result, the University of Padua became the centre of what Zampieri describes as ‘the Scientific Renaissance’, part of the larger Renaissance period.

View image of Founded in 1222, the University of Padua was the main educational hub of the Republic of Venice (Credit: Credit: Brenda Kean/Alamy)

This was a time of major change. While the Middle Ages relied on theology and knowledge that was acquired through the reading of theoretical books, the Renaissance period brought with it a shift to a scientific method that relied on practical testing and experimentation.

Zampieri continued, “During the Renaissance, Galileo taught mathematics here and spread his new quantitative method, which deeply influenced also medicine. William Harvey – who first described fully the human blood circulatory system – was a student of medicine in Padua. Santorio Santorio – a professor at the university – invented the thermometer. Giovanni Battista Morgagni – a professor of anatomy here – founded modern anatomical pathology in the 18th Century. The first human heart transplant in Italy was performed in Padua in 1985.”

A brisk 15-minute walk took me from the Padua train station to Palazzo Bo in the city’s heart. The historical seat of the University of Padua, Palazzo Bo is the place where medicine finally received the systematic approach it needed to grow into a modern science. On my tour, I could feel the echo of galvanising lectures and ground-breaking scientific and medical discoveries that took place here.

Stepping into the monumental courtyard decorated with the colourful heraldic crests of former students, I stopped for a moment. This is where in the 16th Century, Andreas Vesalius performed systematic dissections of human bodies in a temporary anatomic theatre in front of crowds of 500 people or more.

View image of Many famous scientists passed through the University of Padua, including Galileo Galilei (Credit: Credit: Rossi Thomson/Reproduced by concession of the University of Padua)

Born in Brussels, Vesalius arrived in Padua in September 1537 where he completed a doctorate in medicine in December that same year. He immediately became chair of the university’s Anatomy and Surgery Department – a position he held until the early 1540s.

During his time in Italy, Vesalius wrote his revolutionary work De Humani Corporis Fabrica Libri Septem (On the Fabric of the Human Body in Seven Books), which was published in 1543. The seven books explained the workings of our bodies in unprecedented detail, with help from meticulous illustrations executed by artist Titian’s studio in Venice under the close guidance of Vesalius himself.

Greek physicians Herophilus and Erasistratus performed systematic dissections of human bodies in the first half of the 3rd Century BC in the Greek School of Medicine in Alexandria, Egypt. However, the writings about their findings were lost in the great fire that devastated the library of Alexandria – the ultimate scientific and cultural hub of the Ancient World.

Human dissection fell into disfavour in both Greece and Rome, becoming such a cultural taboo by the 2nd Century AD that Galen had no other choice but to dissect animals in his quest to understand the human body. This led to several errors in his findings, and because there was no acceptable way to refute them, Galen’s assumptions persisted as medical knowledge for more than 1,400 years.

View image of Andreas Vesalius performed dissections of human bodies in the courtyard of the Palazzo Bo (Credit: Credit: Rossi Thomson/Reproduced by concession of the University of Padua)

It was only towards the end of the Middle Ages that a wind of change could be felt. By the 1300s, human dissections were introduced as a valuable teaching exercise for medical students. However, dissections were not a common occurrence, and anatomists merely directed the proceedings by reading verbatim from Galen’s texts, leaving the actual dissection to a surgeon. It wasn’t until Vesalius came along that people truly began to question the existing knowledge of the human body.

“Vesalius revolutionised the teaching of anatomy by performing the dissection himself. Vesalius commented on the cadaver in front of him, thus putting for the first time the human body as the book of nature at the centre of anatomical research,” Zampieri explained. “He also revolutionised the content of anatomy, by demonstrating that Galen never dissected human bodies and that the animals which he dissected presented many anatomical differences with man.”

On the Fabric of the Human Body in Seven Books caused quite the stir in the 16th-Century world of medicine, provoking a strong rebuttal from Western Europe’s most illustrious medical professors and practitioners who were devoted Galenists. Vesalius felt ostracised, and abandoned his academic career. But his departure didn’t stop the advance of medical science at the University of Padua. Anatomists and physicians like Gabriele Fallopio (who first described the Fallopian tubes) and Bartolomeo Eustachi (who was the first to accurately study the anatomy of the teeth) took the proverbial baton and then passed it on. Nowadays, portraits of these luminaries of modern medicine adorn the Hall of Medicine at Palazzo Bo.

View image of Andreas Vesalius revolutionised the teaching of anatomy (Credit: Credit: Universal History Archive/Getty Images)

Just over 50 years after Vesalius performed dissections in a temporary anatomical theatre in the university courtyard, the world’s first permanent structure designed for public anatomical dissections was erected inside the Palazzo Bo between 1594 and 1595 next door to the Hall of Medicine.

The guide led our group to the ‘kitchen’ – a room with dark-coloured walls where the cadavers would be prepped for the dissections. We accessed the anatomical theatre from the door through which bodies were once carried and crowded right below the spot where the dissection table used to be placed.

This was a time of major change

In the dim light, I could glimpse the six narrow tiers on which up to 250 medical students and other spectators would congregate. There were no seats, no space to take notes and, initially, no windows. Shaped like a funnel and beautifully carved from wood, the concentric, gradually expanding tiers had amply-high balustrades to ensure that the spectators, if they fainted, could not fall and disrupt the dissection. Students, professors, aristocrats, visiting dignitaries and even noble ladies would attend the candlelit dissections. A violin orchestra would play on the top-most tier to make the atmosphere feel less nauseating.

Each body would be dissected over several days in winter, traditionally during the Carnival season – a licentious period when social mores would be more relaxed and dissections could be performed despite the still-existing taboos around them.

A range of emotions took over the group as we listened to the guide describe what took place where we stood. The more squeamish ones among us squinted their eyes and looked a bit put off. One surgeon who had travelled all the way from Canada to see this sanctuary of medicine for himself couldn’t get enough of the tales about the world’s first permanent anatomical theatre.

View image of The world’s first permanent anatomical theatre was built in the Palazzo Bo in the late 16th Century (Credit: Credit: DEA / A. DAGLI ORTI/Getty Images)

After touring Palazzo Bo, I ventured back into the city where a number of other sites highlight Padua’s influence on modern medicine. I made my way to the Museum of History of Medicine (MUSME), which relies on hundreds of artefacts and dozens of interactive displays to tell the complex story of how we came to understand and treat the human body. From there, I strolled through Padua’s porticoes, past the Basilica of St Anthony to the university’s botanical garden.

Founded in 1545 and now a Unesco World Heritage site, the botanical garden was vital to medical students’ studies of botany – particularly the therapeutic and healing power of plants. Many new botanical species were introduced to Italy via this beautiful place, including sunflowers, potatoes and sesame, as well as jasmine and lilac.

According to Zampieri, Europeans even have this botanical garden to thank for coffee. “It’s a fact that the first mention in Europe of coffee was in [the 16th-Century work] De Medicina Aegyptiorum by Prospero Alpini, who was the garden’s director.”

View image of The University of Padua’s botanical garden was founded in 1545 to help scientists study the healing power of plants (Credit: Credit: Hilke Maunder/Alamy)

As I left the botanical garden, I thought of what Herbert Butterfield, history professor and vice-chancellor of the University of Cambridge, wrote in his book The Origins of Modern Science 1300-1800, published in 1959: “In so far as any single place could claim the honour of being the seat of the Scientific Revolution, the distinction must belong to Padua.”

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If you liked this story, sign up for the weekly bbc.com features newsletter called "If You Only Read 6 Things This Week". A handpicked selection of stories from BBC Future, Culture, Capital and Travel, delivered to your inbox every Friday.

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