#notes. collage. group project. i can do it

[mars-ipan]

okay. locking in

[fophelia1331-oldblog]

Aight, I'm kinda tired so I'm gonna wait to give the whole big lore drop, but here's some stuff about my Project Sekai unit swap AU.

All the cutouts are courtesy of @prosekaiuwu, aside from the VBS Miku, MMJ Miku, and Luka heads (which I cut out myself).

Groups:

COLLAGE

A performance squad that blends wildly different sounds together. The roots the respective members have in classical, idol pop, musical soundtracks, and street songs are all honored in their new sound.

Genre: Mixed

Faded Smiles

Many smiles and cheery sounds, though the lyrics they sing often have deeper meanings. Each member has loved and lost... you can hear it in their voices if you listen long enough.

Genre: Indie Pop

fragile

The lyrics are distorted, the melody is crisp yet echoing. The nostalgia for childhood from an observer far away. The sound of crystal and glass.

Some Notes:

Genre: Denpa

Heartbreak Re-Take

Lone souls put their hearts together in this band. Half rough around the edges, half polished to perfection. The songs call out, the music tells you that it will all be okay.

Genre: Shoegaze

Monochrome (K)Nights

There's a story to every tune, and a hundred more they could tell. Three members of different background and talents work together to immersive each passersby. Every day a new tale is woven.

Genre: Lyrical (with aspects of musical numbers and indie)

Serpent Intent

Mythology, folklore, and tradition are at the core of this group. They pay homage to what has brought them to this point in life with music that carries one through time itself. The wings of a butterfly... the words of a serpent.

Genre: New Wave

Haruka enrolled at Kamiyama instead of Miya Girls. She's in class 1C with Akito, and he ends up shooing some nosy classmates away from her a couple times.

RIP to the Wonder Stage, the source of the easiest backstory angst for Emu. Sorry hun. (In clearer words: the stage was demolished. I didn't do it because it was easy, but it is easy angst.)

Honami dropped out of Miya Girls early into the year, but was classmates with Emu for a short time. She's doing online courses now.

Honami also doesn't work as a caretaker at all, so definitely not for Kanade.

Kanade was going to visit her father in the hospital when she heard piano music from down the hall. She ended up in the ward Saki stayed in and saw Saki at the piano. Kanade listened for a bit, but Saki couldn't play for long because of her health. Kanade left, but she didn't forget the song Saki played.

Ichika couldn't always make it out to visit Saki at the hospital. Thus, she ended up giving some notes and gifts to Tsukasa so he could deliver them. The two had an excuse to spend some time together, which was equally appreciated. Ichika and Tsukasa were both kinda lonely, so it was nice to have someone around.

Ena ended up needing to go to extra lessons before her night classes, which Tsukasa also was a part of. Ena immediately would say Tsukasa was annoying, though she admired how bold and upfront he seemed to be.

Though Ena and Tsukasa weren't really friends, Tsukasa was one of the few students in their extra class who went out of his way to speak to everyone. He was one of the only people Ena had interacted with at school. When Ena got forced back into day classes and put into class 2A with Tsukasa, he immediately offered to help her get used to the new schedule. Ena's fate was sealed. She became friends with Tsukasa.

Shizuku can play violin. Look at her. Violin. Shizuku. Yes.

Mizurui friendship in middle school. Mizuan friendship in their first year of high school. Rui transfered to Kamiyama, falling back in with Mizuki, and now An. Mizuruian rooftop trio.

(M(K)N was the first group I came up with. I really liked the way An and Mizuki looked in the knight costumes? (I don't remember what it's called, but it's in the base game, no card unlocks.) So I added Rui in there, and I loved that group ever since. What a dynamic. I could see them going roller skating on the weekends.)

Serpent Intent: also known as, how much can I angst Minori while building that Miya class 1A group? I mean, there will be Shiho and Kohane angst too. But the start of the group is built on Minori angst.

Kohane will totally get a glow up, and it's [hopefully] going to be a bit different from her VBS one.

I said this would be simple. I think I lied to myself. Well I'm gonna call it here for now, but I'm totally going to put up some more about this AU, so stay tuned! And I'm open to questions/asks too. Thanks for checking this out!

[daisynik7]

This is for your y2k!

“Photograph” by Ed Sheeran for Toji Fushiguro - angst

We keep this love in a photograph, we made these memories for ourselves.

Read Part Two - Make You Feel My Love

Pairing: Toji x f!reader

Word Count: ~3.1k

cw: implied family abuse, angst, some fluff, modern day-au, no curses au, a kiss, time skip

Summary: Toji Zenin is scary; he’s the most intimidating boy in your class. When you’re paired with him for a group project, you’re nervous that he’s as bad as he seems. However, you learn that behind that hard exterior is a person yearning just to be normal. 

Author’s Note: The first story for the y2k karaoke party! Inspired by “Photograph” by Ed Sheeran. Thank you @gojoshooter for submitting this song/request! I hope you like this one! Divider created by @/cafekitsune.

You meet Toji in high school, when you’re paired up randomly for a project during your last semester of senior year. He’s a transfer student, having just joined a month ago, introducing himself briefly with a scowl on his face, uninterested in anything. Aside from his obvious stature, the evident scar running across his mouth stands out. Most of your peers avoid him, intimidated by his overwhelming presence. He’s bigger than everyone else, both in height and muscle; he looks like someone you don’t want to mess with. Even teachers do their best to evade him, leaving him to his own devices in the back corner of the classroom. At least he isn’t disruptive; most of the time, he keeps to himself. 

Of course, in a school as small as yours, gossip spreads like wildfire. They say he comes from a prominent family, the “Zenin’s”. You’ve never heard of them; apparently, they are notoriously elitist and filthy rich. So, it surprises you that a son of the Zenin clan would attend a public school like yours rather than a private institution. Maybe he’s different. 

Everyone dreads group projects, let alone randomly assigned group projects. Everyone is on pins and needles, waiting to hear who their partner is. When your name follows his, your heart sinks into your belly. Sighs of relief wash over the rest of your classmates, thankful that they aren’t you. Taking a deep breath, you get up from your seat, slowly walking towards him. When you’re by his desk, he doesn’t look up. You clear your throat to say, “Hello. I guess we’re partners for this project.”

He scoffs, twirling a pen between his fingers, brows furrowed, irritated already. “Great,” he mutters, sarcastically. 

Okay, maybe he’s not different.

~~~

Your teacher calls this project “A Week in the Life”. Basically, you’re tasked to capture your partner’s daily routines throughout the week in the form of photographs. Each student is given a disposable camera, loaded and ready to use. Once developed, you’re supposed to put them together into a collage, decorating it however you desire. A short essay is also required, describing what you will learn about the other person after spending this time with them. You have an entire month to complete everything. Weekdays are repetitive, considering most of the day you’re in school; it’s the afternoons, nights, and weekends that set each person apart from the other.  

“I’m not inviting you into my house,” Toji says, crossing his arms over his chest. 

“But that’s part of the project. I’m supposed to see what you do on a daily basis.” You resist the urge to sound equally as annoyed, not wanting to start off on the wrong foot.

He glares at you, hunched over his desk. “I avoid going home as much as possible. That’s what I usually do.”

You swallow hard, unsure how to respond. Eventually, you murmur, “Well then, you can do me first. We’ll just figure yours out later.”

He shrugs, unenthused. “Whatever.”

You pull your phone out of your pocket, sliding it towards him. “Let’s exchange numbers so we can coordinate our schedules. We can start next week.” He doesn’t argue, pushing his cell to you to do the same. 

As planned, the following Monday, Toji begins taking random photos of you during the school day. It starts off in class when he captures you working at your desk. Other students are doing the same, so it isn’t as awkward as you expect it to be. Still, it feels odd being watched by Toji through the lens of the camera.

At lunchtime, he sits with you and your friends in the cafeteria, his big body smushed next to yours as you munch on your meal. You notice that he hasn’t brought anything to eat except for a protein bar and sports drink. Not thinking anything of it, you split your egg salad sandwich into two triangles, handing him one. He glances at it, then at you, confused. “What?”

“Eat it.”

He makes a face, taking it reluctantly, having the audacity to sniff it before taking a bite. When he doesn’t say anything, expression relaxing, you smile to yourself, satisfied. It’s gone two bites later, and from your peripheral, you see him lick the excess off his thumb. Mouth still full, he mumbles a brisk, “Thanks,” snapping his drink open to take a swig. 

After school, you attend a book club meeting that’s hosted every Monday by your friend. Toji snaps a photo of you and your group posing with your book for this month. Before you leave for dinner, a few of the girls whisper to you about how hot he is, how lucky you are to be paired up with such a hunk. How scary he comes off with his scowls and glares. They’re so loud, you’re certain he can hear, but he doesn’t mention anything about it. That is, until you’re alone with him, walking home together. 

“So, do you think I’m scary?” He has his hands in his pockets, looking down at the ground where he walks besides you. 

The question catches you off guard. “Huh?”

“Do you think I’m scary?” he repeats, looking at you now, smirking. 

You grin. “Maybe a little bit at first. Not so much anymore.”

“What changed?”

“I saw you inhale that sandwich. The tough guy act disappeared in that moment.”

“Hey, that thing was tiny. I could have swallowed it in one bite,” he chuckles, kicking a pebble on the ground. “And I’m not putting on a tough guy act. This is just who I am.”

You giggle softly, smiling at him. “Well, I’m looking forward to getting to know you better, Zenin.”

“Toji. Call me Toji.” 

~~~

Dinner with your parents goes by smoothly. You’ve prepared them for this special visitor, urging them to be on their best behavior and not judge a book by his cover. Naturally, your mother is startled when his big frame enters through the doorway, but when he bows to her, introducing himself respectfully, she eases up. After a quick tour of your house, Toji snaps shots of you helping your parents in the kitchen. With the whole spread laid out on the table, he takes another photo before you all gather around to eat. 

Much like earlier in the day, Toji scarfs his meal, mumbling out compliments to the chef. Your parents are thrilled, dropping more servings onto his plate, watching with pride as their cooking is devoured. You can’t help wanting to capture this memory, so you retrieve your own disposable camera from your backpack, taking his picture. He doesn’t seem to mind. 

The two of you eat ice cream sandwiches in your backyard while your parents wash the dishes. The sun is setting, beautiful golden streaks shining from the horizon. Your classmate takes a candid of you sitting on the patio chair, staring at the last moments of daylight. “Do your parents cook like that every day?” he asks, finishing off the last of his dessert.

“Nah, they just wanted to impress you.”

“Well, I am thoroughly impressed. That was the best meal I’ve had in a long time.”

After just one day with him, you feel comfortable enough to ask, hoping that it isn’t crossing the line. “Do you dislike eating at home?”

He doesn’t respond right away, thinking of his answer carefully. “Yeah, I do.”

“Why?”

He smirks, running his thumb along the scar on his lips. “Dinners at my house don’t always end in dessert, if you know what I mean.” 

Your jaw drops, unable to contain your reaction. “You’re saying…”

He leans back into his seat. “Yup. Got a knife thrown at me.”

“What?!” 

Laughing, he nods. “After that, I didn’t like having dinners there.”

You’re tempted to ask for the whole story, but you know it’s pushing it. Instead, you offer, “Well, you’re always welcome here.”

It’s a simple comment. To you, it’s nothing. Maybe it’s because you’re used to offering kindness to others; it’s what you were raised to do. It’s what the people around you do. It’s common. Second-nature, really. 

But as Toji stares at you, wearing an expression you’ve never seen before, one of genuine gratefulness, you realize that to him, it’s not nothing. It’s special. 

Throughout the remainder of the week, Toji spends practically his whole day with you, morning, noon, and night. During this time, you learn that his family is wealthy, though he chose to attend this school on his own will, just to spite them. He considers himself an outcast, the black sheep of the Zenin clan, so much so that he even refuses to associate himself with the family name. And while he’s sure he’s better off away from the snooty rich kids of the school he would have attended, his intimidating appearance and less-than-friendly attitude has made him an outcast amongst your peers. You feel guilty being part of the problem, judging him before getting to know him. He’s actually easy to talk to. It helps that he’s an open book about his personal life. 

Saturday, you plan to go to the aquarium with your family, inviting him to tag along for the project (and for fun). Toji is at your doorstep right on time, dressed in a tight black tee shirt and grey sweatpants, accentuating his chiseled figure. There’s no denying it; he’s very attractive. You’d be lying to yourself if you said it hasn’t crossed your mind. But Toji doesn’t need people to be attracted to him; he needs a friend. And that’s what you’ll be to him. 

It’s a fun day, observing all the fish and aquatic creatures swimming in their tanks. He takes pictures whenever it’s appropriate, covering the flash with his finger as to not disturb any of the animals inside. You eat lunch together in the cafeteria, Toji offering to pay for it as thanks for all the kindness he was shown this week. Near closing time, you take one last stroll through the jellyfish section, marveling at the wonderfully bizarre invertebrates floating in the water. 

“I’ve never been to an aquarium before,” he admits, quietly admiring them beside you. His eyes twinkle with the glow of the iridescent jellyfish swimming in front of him.  

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

You nudge him playfully. “So, what do you think?”

He smiles, rubbing the spot on his arm that you touched. “Better than I expected.”

~~~

The following week is his turn. The closest you get to his mansion of a home is on the outside, not even through the gates. 

“This is for your own good,” he warns, throwing a twig aggressively between the spaces of the iron bars. 

You snap a quick photo with your disposable, not questioning it. When you’re finished, he smirks. “So, ready for some real fun?”

Toji spends his days after school at various locations. Basically everywhere except his own home. The public library, the gym, arcades, shopping malls, cafés, you name it. He’ll eat dinner at whatever restaurant his stomach fancies at the moment: Ramen, Takoyaki, steak, even instant ramen, depending on his mood. And while his life seems fun from the outside, like a kid in a candy store, it’s lonely. Except for when he’s with you.

Saturday is different from the other days. On the weekends, he goes to the beach, bag packed with his favorite books and snacks, ready to relax on the sand with the waves crashing against the shore. He sets up a large umbrella to cover both of you as you settle into the big blanket laid flat. He passes you one of his books, a volume of his favorite manga. The two of you read in a comfortable silence, sharing a bag of chips, fingers brushing against each other’s whenever you reach at the same time. 

Out of the blue, he comments, “This is nice. It’s normal.”

Laughing, you reply, “What do you mean?”

He sets his book down, looking at you. “Nothing about my family is normal. It’s just nice to feel like a human instead of a failure.”

Your eyes widen, uncertain how to respond. Before you can say anything, he murmurs, “Sorry. I didn’t meant to kill the mood.”

You close the manga, smiling gently at him. “Don’t be. I can’t imagine what it’s like. My life is very normal.”

“That’s what I like about you, though.”

Heat rushes into your cheeks at his statement, and maybe it’s your imagination, but you see him blush. You’ve taken enough pictures to complete your project, but there’s still a bit of film left. “Let’s take a picture together,” you suggest, holding the camera in your hand, trying to lighten the mood.

“Seriously? Why?”

“To celebrate being normal, even if it just for a day.”

He grins, scooting closer to you. “Okay.”

You lean against him, both of you smiling, capturing the moment with the click of your finger. 

~~~

Toji doesn’t stop eating lunch with you. Even with your photos at the lab, being developed, he remains by your side, eating the extra sandwich you always pack for him now. Occasionally, he’ll stop by for dinner, always welcomed by your parents. On the other days, you accompany him to whatever restaurant he’s craving. 

When the photos are complete, you pick them up together, not wanting to share them yet, hoping to be surprised on the day they’re displayed in the classroom. At home, you compile the pictures into a stylish collage, decorating the borders with fun stickers, smiling as you gaze at each photo of him. One at the arcade, holding a toy guy in his hands with the high score flashing in the background. Another at the gym, where’s he’s kicking a punching bag, making it look far too easy. Finally, there’s the last photo you took at the beach, the two of you posing for the camera. It’s a cute picture, one that shows two people who live very different lives happily enjoying their time together. You tape it right in the middle. 

When everyone’s posters are hung around the classroom, many people flock to Toji’s, desperate for a glimpse in his mysterious life. Many gawk at the mansion behind the gates, unaware of the dark secrets it holds. The girls ogle the gym picture, while the boys admire it, asking for workout tips. Toji looks pleased with how his collage turns out, especially intrigued by the photo in the center. “You included the one of us, huh?” 

“It’s too cute, isn’t it? I had to include it.”

He smiles at you. “I totally agree.”

He walks you home that afternoon, a usual part of his routine now. Curious, you ask, “So, what did you write about me for your essay?”

“I wrote about how nerdy you are, going to class and willingly going to clubs after school. For fun,” he emphasizes, rolling his eyes, teasing you.

You poke his arm playfully. “And…?”

“I said that you and your family are really nice. And that your parents should be chefs,” he adds, grinning.

You laugh, hooking your arm around his. “That’s more like it.” 

Before you know it, you’re at one of the parks he frequents, sitting side-by-side at his favorite bench. “What did you say? About me?” he asks, staring at his hands in his lap. 

Without thinking, you rest your head on his shoulder. “That you’re not actually scary. You’re just you. And who you are is pretty great. Really great, actually.” 

There’s a pause while he processes what you said. Afraid that it’s too far, you attempt to back away from him, but he catches you first, pulling you in for a kiss. It’s hesitant, like he’s unsure if this is okay. And when you place your hand on his chest, feeling his quickening heartbeat race against your fingertips, the kiss deepens, his lips parting open to slide his tongue inside your mouth. Before it gets any further, he pulls off quickly. Electricity hangs in the air, buzzing on your lips, tingling on every inch of your skin.

“I’m sorry,” you apologize, throat heavy. “I shouldn’t have done that. I just thought – ”

“You’re right. You shouldn’t have,” he spits out, jaw clenched, avoiding your gaze. It’s a harsh voice you haven’t heard the entire time since the start of your friendship.

“But I thought you liked – ” 

“You’re wrong. I don’t. I – ,” he swallows, struggling to get the words out. “And I never will.” He stands up, turning his back towards you, leaving you alone with tears streaming down your face, embarrassed, confused, and heartbroken. 

It’s the last time you’ll see of him. He doesn’t come back to class after that incident. Rumor has it that he came in early the next morning to gather all his belongings, which wasn’t much to begin with. There’s more gossip about it, of course, ridiculous chatter. Eventually, they fade, and his name is no longer uttered by anyone, including you. Months pass, and gradually, new memories overtake the old ones. Life goes on without him. You don’t notice the center photo of your collage is gone until you collect it at the end of the schoolyear. 

He’ll never tell you that it’s for your own good. That turning his back on you is the best option to keep you safe. No matter how much he opens up to you, his reality is much worse than you can ever know. Hurting you is his way of protecting you. Because loving you is too dangerous, especially for someone like him.  

~~~

Ten years later, you’re an elementary school teacher in your hometown. You planted yourself right where your roots grew. There is nothing but grand memories in this place you’re lucky to call your home. The only exception is the abandoned plot of land where the Zenin mansion was demolished a few years ago without any explanation. You preserve its memory in the form of a tattered photograph, forgotten somewhere in your closet.

Today, there’s a new student transferring into your kindergarten class; an adorable little boy with jet black hair and long eyelashes named Megumi. He reminds you of someone from your past, someone you kept buried in the back of your mind a while ago, for your own sanity.

Little do you know that on the other side of the door, Toji Fushiguro leans against the wall, listening carefully to your familiar voice introducing yourself to his son. He smiles to himself, the month you shared together all those years ago fondly replaying in fast forward in his mind. He’s no longer a Zenin, unleashed from the cruelty of his ancestry, liberated from the life he was cursed with from birth. Free to love who he wants without fearing that their life is in danger by the hands of his wretched family. 

He sticks his hands in his pocket, fingers brushing along the corners of the withered photo of the two of you smiling at the beach. With a deep breath, he grips the handle of the door, finally ready to face you at long last.

[babey-fruit-bat]

Practical Life Skills for Everyone

Wolverine X Reader FLUFF

Content: The new Home Ec teacher encounters the Shop Class teacher at Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters

Note: photos come from Pinterest and collage made by me hehe

Tw: SAFE FOR POC/FEM READERS- Author can’t write dialogue, Logan is called short ONCE (written with comic accurate Wolverine in mind-but can be movie Logan too) reader is given pet names/refered to as she/Ms.

I haven’t written a serious fic since high school and I want to get back out here again hooray!

—————————————————————————

A new semester, apple on the desk, pots and pans freshly washed, sewing machines at the ready. Nothing this semester could stop you- starting fresh at Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters brought to fruition everything you’d hoped for. Family, a career, children, and most importantly- stability.

A word normally foreign for mutants of all kinds, yourself included. Settling down as a teacher helped to blend your identity. Charles had located you on purpose- something you’d come to terms with over the last few months spent bonding with the staff and fellow X-Men. You’d been offered a position as a teacher and had accompanied several missions, all successful due to your mutation. It wasn’t easy- and took many years to develop and control your abilities the way you could. You’d managed on your own just fine before this but life was lonely at best, suffocating at worst. A life spent using your mutation to survive- Now you could live.

You’d initially been brought on to train a young mutant named Rouge- with a similar ability, training her was rewarding. It was like a reflection of your younger self staring back st you. About a century ago you had no community, family, friends.

That reality seemed so far away compared to the life you lived now. You mused this thought to yourself unlocking the door to your classroom. You set the books on top of your perfectly organized desk- perfect timing as the students began filling in for the day.

You pulled up their bell work to complete on the projector watching one by one as they sorted themselves into groups ready. A slight drone of music started down the hall and the bell announced the start of another day.

Beginning with collecting the bell work, you started the students off with a simple recipe to complete before the end of class. Classic chocolate chip cookies- a family favorite and good way to observe the student’s skill levels.

“More salt Colby, the acidity is necessary”

“Yes Ms. Y/N”

“Scrape the flour off the top of the measuring cup for an even amount, Emma”

“Thanks, professor Y/N!”

It wasn’t long before each student had a decent batch of cookies ready to grade and devour- the edible ones at least..

But before any grading could be done- or eating the music level from the hall rose to an absurd level

“Does anyone know who has their music so loud this morning?” You stated opening the door to the hallway “I hardly think this time of morning is-“

“It’s the shop class down the hall” one of the students stated, also mildly annoyed

“Hmmm, shop class? I didn’t know we offered shop this semester.. Do you think the professor would-“

A chorus of “No way!” “Do not!” and “He’ll kill you!” erupted from the students

“Who? I hardly think anyone would be so ill-tempered about asking to cut the music down so early”

“It’s professor Logan, he’s back this semester”

“Then I guess we’ll have to give him a ring- this volume is a little much, surely he wouldn’t mind?”

The students held their breath as you dialed the shop’s classroom on the school phone

It was a wonder anyone picked up the phone in the shop. Many students gathered around the bike Logan was introducing as the senior class project. A chance to not only test their skills but add personal flare- a teenagers wet dream truly.

Some eager students had been sent to gather the tool on the bench when one notice the phone ringing. They answered and briefly spoke to the teacher on the other end before hanging up the phone. One student simply turned the music down- enough for Logan to notice. He didn’t like the settings messed with unless he did so himself, especially by his students.

“Who touched the radio?” He demanded

The students silently stood there as the music paused completely. One student bravely spoke up

“It was the phone-“

“The phone cut the music down?” He interrupted

“No, a teacher called and asked us to do it”

“Who? I sweat if you answered Scott and listened! What’s the first rule in shop!?” He sighed, already tired from the day and needing a drink.

He wasn’t cut out for this ‘teacher’ shit, Logan thought to himself. He’d tried to argue with Charles claiming he had better things to do and had been promptly reminded of how much time he spends in the garage should be put to good use.

He signed as he sensed his pupils unease and cut the music back on and instructed them to get started. He stalked to the phone clicking a few buttons to figure out what classroom called to complain ready to give Scott a piece of his mind. He ran out to steam seeing it was your classroom that had called. The new teacher who’d started their first semester just down the hall. He’d meant to stop by and welcome you but meeting people without confrontation had never been his strongest quality. What better time than now. He left the students to their assignment and carried himself down the hall ready to introduce himself.

A knock on the door interrupted the classroom buzz and a hush fell over the students. You padded over to the door and peeked out the small window. A short man, clad in a black t shirt and jeans stared back at you with an unreadable expression.

“Good morning! What can I do for you?” You trailed off not recognizing him.

“You called the shop a minute ago” he stated twirling the toothpick in his mouth

“Yes, I’m sorry to bother- You must be professor Logan”

“Mm hm” he answered shortly, stepping out further in the hall while you closed the door behind you.

“I’m sorry if I upset you, it was just a little loud for my students and I this morning-“

He held a hand up “Not a problem, doll. I can’t upset my favorite teacher, right?”

“Favorite teacher? We just met” you said with a light laugh

“I’ve been around a long time- I know a good girl when I see one”

“I hardly think that’s appropriate to say here”

“No? Maybe I can say it another way or another time?” His lips curling up in a smug smile “How about you come down to the shop after classes- Grab a drink later?”

“Oh! Uh sure? I guess so?” From the way the students reacted you’d assumed this teacher was awful, even horrible. Be here is his- polite as ever and asking to grab a drink?

“I like that answer” he laughed leaning closer “Meet me later at garage three- I’ll take you to Abe’s”

Abe’s was one of the nicer bars in the city, a place known for anniversaries, couples flocking there left and right for an evening out. You’d never stopped by until tonight- now you had plans for once with a complete stranger- a handsome one at that.

“I’ll see you later then, garage three”

“Looking forward to it, sweetheart” he said turning to head back to his class

You entered your room once again as the class held their breath. No yelling, no cussing, no words of any kind were heard and the students had feared your first day would be your last- they didn’t know that this was just the beginning

[jamsandsuch]

field notes: cheap goods

preparing for an event this weekend i set out to find a thrift store where i could hopefully find some scrapbooking material. it's rare that i see truly eclectic thrift stores in this trendy city where the local value village will already run you a diabolical 20 dollars for a pair of jeans.

but i had heard good things about this thrift store, so following the instructions on google maps I walked down along the rows of cafes and asian restaurants and descended down a set of stairs brandishing the proud sign "50% anti-tariffs sale!"

the store was fairly empty today, fair given that it was a thursday afternoon. i was delighted to see a whole area labelled 'crafts' fashioned from scrap fabrics and buttons. mission accomplished. but first, a set of community brochures by the door caught my eye: a meeting by the local government to support recent graduates seeking employment. a senior wellness group. some general touristy brochures. what did catch my eye, though, was a partnership with a local animal rescue. noticing my moment of pause, i was taken out of my trance by the middle-aged man at the register. "you lookin' at the rescue posters?"

as a graduate student during the last week of classes, today has been a long day of big vocabulary words and projects to juggle. some casual conversation was comparative relief. i walk up to the register and i strike up a conversation about the animal rescue, mentioning that i myself volunteer at one in another city. following a friendly exchange of animal photos, he extends his hand towards me and we exchange names with a firm handshake (i will never get used to handshakes. maybe growing up in asia has conditioned me to always bow). he tells me proudly of all the charities the thrift store's proceeds go to and their upcoming events, and i thank him for all the work he does because "god knows we need more community these days". laughing, he puts his hand on his hips and sighs. "oh yeah, we do."

he lets me go, telling me to check out their crafts section after i mention my interest in collaging. what proceeds is an hour of sifting through every map, every magazine, every discarded sticky note or memo donated to this store as the shopkeeper happily belts his bob marley songs in a booming voice that reminds me of my father's.

i listen passively as customers trickle in every now and then, noticing that with each one he greets them by name when he can remember. "how's your day been?" "it's been a while!" "good to see you!" they talk about the weather. they talk about where the many knick knacks the store come from. he teaches another middle-aged woman old enough to be my auntie how to tell if porcelain-ware is cracked by giving it a good tap.

meanwhile i sift through postcards, magazines, film slides, discarded pieces of people i will never know and places i will never go. handwritten in blue ballpoint pen ink: netherlands. the siene. dates on the backs of postcards: 1971, 1969. maps of macau. photos of indonesia. i carry so much i'm holding an armful of paper scraps and magazines. when i'm not looking the shopkeeper sets a basket behind me.

60 minutes later, i've had my fill. i set my basket down on the counter with an 'oof' and figure that things this valuable are going to run me a handsome sum. surely at one of those trendy 'vintage stores' they'd be selling these things for 15 a pop.

he pats two of my magazines. "since you're a first-time customer i'll give you these two for free." i thank him and wonder if he will remember me the next time i come by. i think what a nice thing it is, to be remembered.

i leave the store with:

a set of old astronomy magazines commemorating the anniversary of the griffith observatory

a set of national geographic magazines with stories and photo essays from the covid 19 pandemic

a dusty book dated to 1950 of chinese cities at the time

a map the tokyo transit system

a postcard of hiroshima

a ziploc baggie of stamps from cities around the country

a full heart

all for the humble price of $6 and a new person i know in this city.

[greenrow]

Working on a project together

Lance thinks he's so sneaky (he's not)

this is an adaptation from @herodzn other klance comic

you can also find it on ao3 here

They were in Keith’s collage room. It was a cozy little space, walls filled with posters with his favourite movies and bands. Keith had his laptop open on his lap, typing away for the project they had to deliver for professor Coran’s class. His back was being supported by two fluffy pillows, making him sink into them a bit.

Lance, who was previously scanning the book for any type of information that might be helpful for their project, glance up taking in Keith’s concentrated face. He could see Keith’s eyes scanning his screen, his left eyebrow scrunching the slightest. His bangs were falling into his eyes, escaping from the half up-do he had made some 20 minutes ago. Lance took a mental note of how Keith’s hair had grown since their first year. He thought back to that time. How it seemed as if they couldn’t stand each other, just like water and oil. Fire and ice, red and blue. He bit back the little giggle threatening of escaping his throat. First year him would be so confused if he knew that, right now, Lance was sitting in Keith’s bed, barely a foot away from him, using Keith’s own pillow to support his back.

Tilting his head, Lance lets his eyes rest on Keith’s figure just a moment longer. He could feel how his cheeks grew warmer. Maybe it was the temperature in the room, the comforting light pink walls making it cosier somehow, or, maybe, it was all because of Keith. Him in his ugly blue sweater (although ugly wasn’t the first word popping in Lance’s mind while looking at the boy), his trademarked black pants and his messy hair. Lance wanted to rip his hair out from just what Keith made him feel. Nonetheless, Lance keeps his eyes trained on him and his smile grows softer.

Keith’s voice rang in the previous silent room, slicing it.

“Hey, Lance? Do you know if we-”, he cuts himself off, lifting his head from his computer screen, finally.

“Uh?”, he says out loud, tilting his head to the side slightly. He wasn’t expecting Lance’s eyes to be on him already. And, most of all, he was not expecting to see that look in Lance’s eyes. Soft adoration.

Keith knew all to well about that look. Shiro would not stop teasing him about it when they had their weekly hang out sessions. He would always comment how Keith’s eyes would soften comically fast while looking at Lance. How Keith looks at him like he hung the very stars he’s so passionate about. Keith would always deny it, but he knew it. Knew Shiro’s observation was right. How Keith’s eyes would automatically look for Lance in a crowded room, how he would seek his companionship in their group, how he made sure to present professor Coran all the reasons for why they should be allowed to work together in this project. He knew what he felt for Lance went beyond what normal friends feel like. He loved Shiro like a brother would, he loved Pidge and Hunk as friends. Hell, he even loved Allura as a friend, now, as well. But, Lance… Lance was different. He had always been different. Made him feel different. He wanted to have a different relationship with Lance, something beyond being just friends. Something more. But for now he would stay put. For now, just having Lance feel comfortable around him was enough.

Keith observed how Lance’s expression changed to one of shock. He looked flustered. He looked away for a second, at the wall to his left, taking in the posters littered on his wall. He quickly looked back to the book in his hands.

“Oh.. Sorry, I spaced out…”

Lance’s voice came soft, almost shy like. Keith couldn’t help the smile creeping way to his face. They locked eyes once more when Lance, almost defiantly, glanced up. They held eye contact for what felt like an eternity (it was a few seconds at best). Looking down to their respective literatures, they kept on working on their project. A silent question dangling over their heads. They would answer it some other time.

For now, they would freeze this time.

For now, they would finish their assignment.

[nonsubstantial]

APRIL 2024 ART FASCINATION DIARY

This is another post about the art that I've been fascinated with this year. I make these posts monthly, so that I can look back and remember all the things that were keeping me happy and inspired! If you are reading this, then I hope it will be somewhat interesting to hear about. First, a collage of my interests this month, then there are descriptions below.

MUSIC / ALBUM I heard about Everything Harmony by The Lemon Twigs because Vinny Vinesauce liked it enough to feature it on his twitch channel four times within this last month. After checking it out, it quickly became a favorite of mine as well. It's inspired by 60's era rock bands like The Beach Boys and The Beatles, and the two brothers in charge of The Lemon Twigs were basically raised from birth to create this kind of music. They're excellent musicians, but I do have a few complaints, mainly that their band is a four person group that started as a two person group, and it shows. The musicians on their drums and backing guitar are unnoticeable most of the time, or even make their music worse when I really focus on the boring repetitive parts that they play in the mix. I think that it would improve things if we heard the other two members’ creativity shine a little more. On a different note, their lyrics also feel kind of hollow to me, sort of like facsimiles of themes that we heard out of the 60’s pop music that they’re inspired by. Maybe the brothers’ odd upbringing is what makes their lyrics feel like nothing more than dreamy imitations of other lyrics, rather than being something written from their own hearts? In any case, their vibe is really bizarre, but despite all my criticisms I did really enjoy this one album from them. (And actually, their new 2024 album is already out! It’s also fantastic, and I’ll talk about it on my May list.)

FANFIC / CREATIVE WRITING I've been working on a long fanfic for fun since last month, and every time I write a new scene for it I'm filled with a sense of creative euphoria for the rest of the day. It's not always perfect, but there's no real pressure to write something good, so it just ends up being an enjoyable outlet for my passions. Even if I never publish anything, being creative and exploring my own imagination is satisfying in itself, and I wish I had the time to do it every day! (HONESTLY, there could and should be time, if only our society actually prioritized taking breaks for mental health and personal wellbeing over making endless amounts of money and increasingly insubstantial products to be consumed by only the luckiest members of our parasitic upper class. I hate our unsympathetic workaholic capitalist culture with every fiber of my being, and wish that I could fucking end it all, but I digress...) Writing is just so fun. And I'll be working on the same projects for another few months, probably, as long as I can keep on keeping up with them.

REALITY GAME SHOW The finale of RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 16 concluded this month, and I thought it was absolutely fantastic. Now that it’s over, we’re starting back from season 1 and we’re going to try to eventually watch it all! (We actually did finish season 1, right before posting this. It was interesting and groundbreaking in its own right, and it introduced me to Tammie Brown, who is now one of my favorite queens. Then, we started season 2 and I’m pretty sure that this is where the show’s bad reputation got its start, because I really can’t stand any of the season 2 contestants. Too bad, but we’ll keep on watching and see how it pans out anyway.) In season 16 though, there was just so much unique creativity and talent on display, and so many jaw dropping ‘holy shit’ moments, that I think it was one of the best things I have ever watched. It had the hypest final lip sync battle I ever could have imagined, and I had no idea which way it was going to end. In whole, I feel like the show was a wonderful watch, and I’m glad that our friends convinced us to give it a shot.

LIVE THEATER MUSICAL My partner and I were given a gift card to our local theater last year, so we finally used it to go see a live production of Annie! We don't live in a place where live musicals are very common, and I actually hadn’t seen any since highschool, so we had to make plans very early in the year to go watch it. And after having done so, I can say for certain that there is a unique magic to watching a live theater performance. I’m surprised that it was all performed so perfectly, even with children and a dog on stage, and remarkably, it sounded better than any recording I could find online before or after the event. It was so incredible all around that it totally transported me into a unique creative headspace. There were people of all ages there, some dressed up, some appearing more casual, but the atmosphere was delightful and jovial all around. I’m not going to comment about what was or wasn’t problematic about Annie; it’s not really that deep and you can probably figure that out on your own. But I will say that the magic of a live performance depends entirely on the energy in its room, and I was totally swept away by this experience. Without the discount, it would have been very pricey though, so I’m hoping that we can put away a little money to see a different live musical next year.

BOOK / AUDIOBOOK About a month and a half ago, I started Leo Tolstoy's epic work of historical fiction, War And Peace. I love a book that I can get completely lost in, and War and Peace is one of those books. I made it about 1/4th of the way through it this month, and even though it started slow, I’m now sure that it’s going to be an all time favorite. I read Anna Karenina years ago, and thoroughly enjoyed it, so I expected to like this one too, but there was still a sort of learning curve to overcome at the start. After over a month of engaging with it, I feel like I’ve finally gotten over its barrier to entry, and now I’m picking up the pace. Most people have heard of this book before, so let me tell you that its high-sounding title is no false advertisement. It’s a Russian slice of life book set during the Napoleonic Wars, dealing with a huge assemblage of political and philosophical conflicts, and it will have you exasperatedly crying “time is a flat circle!” as you realize that humans today have nearly the same brains and political interests that they had over 200 years ago. It is already a masterpiece, in my opinion, and I’m going to be reading this book for the entire month of May also, so that’s something to look forward to. If you’re interested in checking out an audiobook, I’m also listening to the Maude translation, narrated by Neville Jason, and I think it’s quite good! (That's it for April! But we're already a few weeks into May, so expect more Lemon Twigs and more War And Peace. Thank you for caring about me, and I hope you have a good day! ♡)

[bifairywife]

I'm so fucking devastated and there's absolutely nothing I can do to get back what I lost.

I use canva pro on my senior high school email cause it's for free.

They told us that after graduating shs, we have two years extra with it.

The expiration was last year... it didn't come. I went "oh my gosh!! maybe there's no gmail expiration!! i'll have my canva pro foreverrrrr~"

I got too complacent. I backed-up NONE of my projects.

They did an auto delete on ALL of us today. There was no one week warning. Nothing.

I don't know about the others but I lost. So. Fucking. Much.

I'm can't draw, I'm really more of a writer. But i LOVE to edit. I love making visual stuff. Putting things together, placing pictures and elements and playing with colors and font styles.

I lost a total of two AND a half years worth of stuff. A mix of stuff for uni, things i made for my parents, and most of all my personal projects.

Tons of presentations for classes (this goes back on grade 11 too,,,,, oh the memories)

Literally so much assignments?! Posters, presentations, AND EVEN MY FUCKING RÉSUMÉ

Moodboards on dozens of OCs (Layla and Dominic for Invincible, Devina for Elden Ring, Medina "DeeDee" for Trese, like 5 of my DnD PCs, Octavia and Marie for Nevermore, Lorena "Lorrie" for TOH complete WITH A WHOLE NEW SCHOOL I CALL MOONVEIL ACADEMY IT HAD A CURRICULUM AND CLUBS AND PRINCIPAL OC TECHNICALLY TOO)

Moodboard on the characters for my book (I got references for appearances AND outfits)

Presentations and notes on my ship AUs (mostly jaystephroy in the fashion industry, DnD style medieval fantasy, and this one 2004 movie with gerard butler)

Presentations and notes on my winx club reboot (so, so, soooo much fashion notes and references for the winx AND trix)

Presentations for silly fandom stuff that I was really excited to show to my friends and post here (potential of jaysteph as a ship, dilf ranking in invincible for that one anon, a very descriptive "what's in the bags" of cott seven, other rarepair ppts to get my friends to ship em GAH)

DnD templates for this campaign with my jhs friends (I had stuff printed out for my bard's SPELLBOOK and we could use so much of those edits for notes and extra character lore)

Personal stuff I made for myself (like that magazine style in landscape form about my life updates, a little modeling stuff I did to compile clothes inspo for winx club, this REALLY colorful and cute collages for my wallpapers)

Personal stuff I made for my friends (a couple of memes, birthday stuff, this really cute and sweet virtual scrapbook for "meet the members" with my college friend group)

TONS of invincible characters icon edits (they've been in there FOR MONTHS, the requests oh i am so sorry moots and anons)

A couple stuff i made for my mom and dad (they got to use them all so they're not wasted)

I'm just,,,,,, so sad I didn't get to back them up. I only posted some of them and sent even fewer wips to a few friends.

Honestly I think the biggest tragedy here for me is that I won't ever be able to recreate them. A lot of the texts and descriptions I made were written there DIRECTLY. I had lore. I had dialogue. I had details and stats.

Two and a half years of editing personal projects and assignments. Just. Gone.

There's absolutely nothing I can do to get any of them back. Now all I can do is grieve and hope that I can recreate them.

[pbandjesse]

My voice continues to allude me. I was such more squeaky today which was more painful. But thankfully I did not have to talk much at all. That did not stop me from still talking but still. I tried to rest my voice at least a bit.

I did not sleep well. I don't know what it is what at night I get this pathetic wheezy cough that keeps me up and makes me feel terrible. I was able to sleep but it was sitting up again. Which I hate.

At least I was able to sleep at little bit though. And woke up at 7 and was like. Wait it's Wednesday I can sleep later. So I reset my alarm for 745 and got a little extra rest.

When I got up James was there and that was nice. They also had a later start today because of extended hours. So they would come out with me to go for a bike ride and enjoy their free morning.

I had an alright drive but there was a bunch of traffic. Which was whatever. No one was waiting for me for anything. No one would even be in until almost 10. So I had time to just be alone and that was good. More rest for my voice.

I spent that first hour in the very cold art building. My fingers would hurt from working and putting things away and sorting. But it was nice just having a specific task. And I was able to basically get everything put away and organized and ready for the spring. I did find out 3 hours later that I will have another field trip this season, which is shocking because it is usually too cold for kids to be outside for field trips but that's fine. At least I know now that it's all ready to go.

I went back to the office and soon people were coming in. Heather was the first one in and she told me all about her project that she came up with with maiden choice and creating a summer camp program week for them during our orientation in the spring / beginning of summer. And she was so excited about it and I thought that was so sweet. And I really think that if we can get the funding for it it'll be really cool. But with all the staff needed both on our end and theirs, it would cost somewhere in the ballpark of $37,000. Which is a lot for one week. But I think it would be really awesome for the group if we can make it happen.

Pretty quickly everyone else was there and I asked Sarah if she had made any headway redesigning the display poster. It is super out of date and the pictures are from like James's child. She said we had chosen some pictures but beyond that she didn't know how to really start laying it out if she didn't have the prints. So I suggested that I start throwing something together in Canva. And I actually got really really into this and I worked on it from around 10:00 until around 1:30. Just picking fonts and designing it and making a really nice. I ran it past Jess a few times too because she has such a good eye for it but her main comments were just that she didn't understand why everything was in capital letters. But that was just the font choice. And then she had some issues with some of the alignment but because we're going to be printing it to cut out and collage anyway I'm not that concerned about it.

Everyone else still had a few notes in the office. A couple little spelling things a couple changing how something is worded. They wanted to replace a few pictures to make things look a little bit more diverse. But overall everyone really liked my design and that always feels really good. I'm going to be designing some more signs and stuff and honestly they could not be picking someone who is more excited about it than me. Both excited and the correct person for the job because I have a good eye for signage and design. I'm also possibly going to be doing some smaller murals with Sarah and I'm really looking forward to that too.

Ever since the man that usually painted the signs passed away they haven't had anyone to really do it. One guy from Friends of puhtok has done a couple small things but if me and Sarah are really interested I think they'll really let us jump into a lot of it and that's really cool.

I did take a couple small breaks but by the mid-afternoon I kind of was just like bored of sitting and there wasn't a ton for me to be doing. I had printed out all of my summer lesson plans and start organizing those into what needed an example and what didn't. But I needed a break from the computer so I decided to go for a walk.

I walked up to the art building but then I turned around and went down the path towards the frog pond. It is completely dried up and there is no water in it at all. Very weird. And then I walked through the woods down to the Alaskans and over to the Glen. When I got to the Glen I saw that bee hotel has kind of fallen apart and so I've made that a new personal project. I want the bugs to overwinter well so I'm going to also build a couple bug snugs over there too. Since we don't really have any more groups except for a few here and there I will have time for these very silly projects that I have come up with. But it is also important to me that our bugs have somewhere safe to overwinter. And if I can make a nice little space we can also make a display sign for it and use it for educational purposes. In the meantime I took the bee hotel and I filled it with leaves. And tomorrow I'm going to bring my drill in a good bit and a gun to drill out some logs for solitary bees to live inside of. And maybe other crotters but I'm mostly I'm worried about the solitary bees.

I would sit on a bench for a while and watch TikToks on my phone. I found today that I do have a little bit more of a voice which is nice but it's so squeaky. And if I don't talk for any length of time it's really hard to get my voice back up again. I also sound ridiculous. Kind of like spinelli from recess. The TV show. Just really straining.

After my walk I came back to the office and started printing bear patterns for my workshop on Friday but also they will be used for my summer program. I wrote instructions on them about where to tuck and sew ears and where optional sew lines are as well like in the arms and legs to give it a more floppy appearance. And then just to make sure that they can be used over and over I cut them out and laminated them. And then I laminated them a second time. Because I find that when you cut them they start to separate but if you reheat it up it has a better deal and lasts longer. It takes a really long time to laminate stuff but I really enjoy it. It's that thing again about just having a defined task at the beginning and end. And it was just nice to sit there and work on that.

Me and Sarah would have a really nice conversation with Heather about plans for the winter and things that we want to do for the upcoming year to make camp a little nicer. Some exciting stuff and just little maintenance things. We also talked about doing more field trips and activities together as an office to go see what other things are going well at other places. And Heather suggested that we go on a trail ride as a staff group tomorrow. I don't know if Elizabeth or Alexi will do it with us but me and Sarah are totally down. And Heather is such a horse girl so it's going to be nice to see her ride too because I never get to see that. I just know that she does it at home. So I'm excited to see that.

We were stretching in the office and talking about figure skating and roller skating. We ended up talking to Chloe about roller skating later and we're going to try to get everyone to go roller skating with us so that is very cool. But she was also eating tortellini and I was like I should go get something to eat too. But the only thing I wanted was a hoagie. If I didn't leave right then I wasn't going to be able to get back to Manor Mill in time for our class.

So at 5:00 I left and I went to Wawa. It took like 20 minutes to get there because of traffic. And they took a while to make my sandwich mostly because they had a lot of like Uber orders. But it was fine. I mostly went there because I didn't have to talk to anyone. Can order and pay on a screen.

Doing my post right now is very rough and is making my throat feel very uncomfortable because I kind of have to hold the air in the back of my throat but I'm not really using my vocal cords as much as you would think. It is not comfortable. Once my post is done I'm going to try to be quiet again for a very long time. (Oops instead I tried scream singing to 100gecs and might have dislodged some thing and I can actually talk???)

I know again that a lot of typos in this and I'm doing my best and I will go back and edit them before I post it hopefully.

After I got my sandwich I ate it while I drove which I'm sure looked very silly. Eating a hoagie with hands and driving with my elbows. But I made it in one piece to Manor Mill. GPS took me the weirdest and most backwoods way possible but I made it there without hitting any deer or causing any accidents. And I was there exactly on time.

I didn't throw anything today but I did decide to make a few more small critters. This time I made stars shaped bears. So they're flat. I'm not sure how I'm going to glaze them because they don't really have a side to stand on. I might have to leave a note about them going on a pin or something. But beyond that I worked on trimming things and I got to get a few of my pieces that were glazed last week and they look great. The one feedback I have for myself is that you accidentally made the bears green. But that's okay they're not on a part you're going to eat anyway so I might just paint over them is fine. I think the blanket design looks so cute and my little house even though it came out kind of modeled it looks really neat. And I'm just really proud of them. Though the blue bowl is stuck to a tile. I put too much place on it I guess.

I would work on my bear vases from last week as well. Just trimming symbols and then once the bears were dry enough I worked on cutting them open. While they were hollow they were not very hollow. So I'm going to have to carve them out a little bit more. I also decided that I would put keys on them, the little triangles, so that the lid fits on the base nice. And they kind of kind of look like they can pee like pause. I might put a little details on them to make them more pot like. But in general I'm really happy with the work I made today and I just felt really productive. We also just had some really nice conversations and we're very silly. Me and Lindsey the teacher, who was practice week and me really bonded because both of our siblings have been in jail for so long. Mine is dead but still lots of common. And I told stories about her and I was just really nice because it was her birthday so recently and I don't really get to talk about her much. I try not to make too many jokes to make other people uncomfortable but I always say that she was a terrible sister. But she was my terrible sister and I've been robbed of knowing about all the terrible things that she would have done if she was still alive. And man was she good for a story. I do miss and I hurt for my dad and for her kids and her mom and I know that she's definitely very much in the forefront of everyone's mind right now. I know she is for me.

I decided to clean up and leave around 8:30. I wanted to get home so I can wash my hair and try to get more sleep tonight. Hopefully I won't have to sleep sitting up. Right now I'm okay coughing much. I'm mostly just really squeaky. But we'll see what happens. I'm really looking forward to seeing James and hugging sweetp.

I'm going to start doing some research from murals and me and Sarah going to go and clean the lodge before we go on a trail ride. I don't know what else the day will hold but I think it will be a beautiful day and maybe my voice will be back. I'm not holding out hope for that one but maybe

I hope that you all have a really good night tonight. I hope you sleep well and I hope that you are appreciating that you can talk. Because being basically silenced for the last week has not been fun. I'm miss singing most of all. Good night everybody. Be safe out there.

[souldoodle]

WEEK 5

ANJA: summary and analysis During this week, we transitioned into our second sketchbook. It has made me reflect on the project as a whole. The daily artworks doesn't feel like a chore, and I know that I'll treasure these sketchbooks for the rest of my life. I think I would benefit personally from continuing this project in some way. I have continued to make collages + detailed fine liner drawings. Several of the pages have a combination of techniques, and the colors yellow, red and blue show up a lot. The majority have some form of color, in addition to having simple artworks with space around and a lot of detail. The March 31st artwork is cropped from an artwork I did in practice with the group I've had - it was the last day, and I had said goodbye to them. The original artwork was a collage made with ripped up pieces from paintings the clients made about uncomfortable and bad feelings. The pieces were then repurposed into something different and beautiful. It's a nice memento from my time with them, and I wanted them to be a part of my PiP-book. I also wanted to remember the positive feedback I got; how my presence added a lot to the therapy, and that the interventions I created and led them through were good. The artwork with it's ripped up pieces from the other's pain, kind of mirrors how I will carry pieces of these people with me. The colorful circle on April 5th is also from practice. During a session I made an artwork inspired but that circle, that let me reflect on the journey I'm on and how it might be scary, but I'm also undoubtedly moving forward. I wanted to put that circle into and eye, to remember to see that I'm going somewhere, and that days like today is part of it. The April 2nd artwork is a bit surreal and might not be that hard to understand for others. It's about my back hurting and how all-consuming pain can be. I couldn't think of anything else to make because of it, so it consumed that day's pages. Looking at it now, I can also see how the color on just the skeleton part where my pain is, draw the attention because the rest it simple and without color, and therefore consuming the attention of the viewer too. I felt empty and low on April 6th, and couldn't think of doing anything else than painting the pages dark. Then, spontaneously, I cut out a bunch of hearts from a photograph and glued them in. They shimmer in the light, and remind me of the good things hiding in the darkness. It's hopeful.

Kila's thoughts When I first looked at Anjas week, I noted many different styles of art. Once again there is a self-portrait. I was intrigued by the 2nd and wondered if this was a visual representation of physical pain, through talking with Anja I found out this was correct. It was an eye-catching piece and I commented how the bright colours which are limited to a small section of the drawing keep one’s attention and focus, this mirrors the sense of pain that is all consuming. I was interested in the 5th also as this picture almost makes me feel dizzy, I wondered if it was representative of less positive emotions for Anja. I could tell that Anja had time to spend on her entries this week and had fun with them. While we spoke I came to understand that we both had relatively good weeks and it was interesting to view how two different people represent these feelings.

KILA: summary and analysis This week I moved house, and I can see that this was the focus in many of my entries. 31st March was the day before we got the keys to our new apartment and I spent the day packing, this was the first time I have used a photograph in an entry, I found a bunch of packs of photos and this one was a nice memory but terrible photo, it felt like a good way to use a photo that would otherwise be thrown away. I also used a photo the day after which I took on the same day once we got our keys, I can tell that I was excited from the colours that I used however it was also late and I didn’t have much time to spend on the entry. The 2nd of April I had no time or energy to spend on artmaking as this was the day that we moved all of our belongings. I was in a great mood but exhausted, I created this image which to me represents steps, both the literal moving I did that day and the steps I am taking in life. I find through looking at the week as a whole that the I was in a good but tired mood overall. From the beginning to the end of the week I grew more content, I can see that I started using softer colours such as pink more. Anja remarked that she can see that pink, red and yellow are my happy colours. It was interesting talking with Anja, she noted that she felt a prominent sense of movement in the week, she also commented on the words I wrote on the 1st, she couldn’t make out one of the words and she was amused to find out I had actually written the word movement. Overall I think this was a week where I didn’t have much time however, it is a nice week to have memories of and I think that I will appreciate being able to look back at how the week unfurled.

Anja's thoughts Kila's artworks this week have lots of colors throughout, and most of the pages are filled. I think red and orange especially are prominent colors - coincidentally the same color (ish) as her hair. I interpret them as her happy colors. I have used the word movement a lot when I did the initial analysis of Kila's week - six times, in fact! The artworks seem very alive, happy and bubbly. On April 1st, she had written several words with a very light color, so I could only read three of the four words: excitement, finally and life. When I asked about the last one, it was of course movement. It struck me that the word I had written so many times, was actually hidden in one of the artworks. The big move happening this week, is very much influencing the artworks. All of them, except April 4th, has been about it in some way. The vibe I'm getting is that she feels good about it - and this was also confirmed. Her art makes me happy to look at, especially the April 1st entry. It's a pretty straight forward week, art wise, but it's also very cool to have this moment in time when she's bought her first home and can finally move into it, captured by the sketchbook.

[charcherry-weekly]

Charcherry Weekly - Issue 183

Hello everyone, this is Mage of Light Nick Card. Peace seems to have returned just in time for February to arrive. The news continues regardless.

Clear Skyes Cubed

On January 30th, Skye Macdonald (all of them) celebrated her birthday. As for her ages, that has been considered indeterminate, due to at least one instance of her living in a timeless realm, and another having forgotten a number of things upon arrival. Regardless, Shutterbug Skye, Train fiend Ms. Macdonald, and Maid of Void Skitis celebrated the special day together with cake, razz berry jam, and a pair of tool guns that can summon and un-summon Perfectly Generic Objects. Green cubes were found all over Gene's garden the next day.

Getting Schooled

Classes have officially started for the Grand University of Time's Bounty in Grand Junctionia. Reportedly, there are 570 students this semester, with 352 taking classes in person, and at least 218 students currently taking their classes online. Much of the teaching staff is currently a set of archive accessing AI descended from The Curator, though less synthetic teachers are expected to add to this initial batch of teachers as time goes on. The great amount of students in the now bustling collage town has lead to a great uptick in local business, with many having arrived from outside of Korous. Local business taxes have made this a boon for the korosian economy, while regulations have made sure that prices aren't too high or too low.

Classified ads

Job opening for the snack stand is still open, contact shinyJiggly for details

The Desertian Transit Authority is hiring new staff for the stations! Do note that most if not all work will likely take place in a dark (but properly lit) realm beyond conventional time and space. Please contact theUnderground for details.

Experts on childhood trauma counseling, rehabilitation, and/or Alternian ecology (still) needed! Contact artificedAttendant for details if you have any of the individual credentials listed, or something of a similar nature.

Do you want an ad here? Contact lavenderSiren to get an ad for whatever. If you don't write it yourself, you risk the newsletter writer writing it instead, do be warned.

This week’s known market stands in Desertia Town:

DTA train ticket stand

Katie’s potion stand (Not available to plitlanders due to regulations, available to all others however, ran by CaFAI)

shinyjiggly pokesnacks stand (ran by Rufus)

Candy conversation heart stand

Brae's produce stall: - Potted vegetables - Jarred vegetables - Various jams - Hisuian herbs (medicinal leek, pep-up plant, king's leaf)

Food trucks in Grand Junctionia this month:

Mondo Malasadas

Fish tacos

Bug Burgers

Steakfruit Salads

Space Ramen

Potato Mochi

Shaved Ice

Okay, I think that covers it. Most of the group has been trying to recover still. Further details are best kept private regarding that. In less secret news though, there's been recent progress on left beef, as well as my current game project. Changing the graphics scope was definitely what it needed, and now I'm roughly at the same spot I was, but with more planning. Not sure how long it'll take, but I'm hoping maybe to shoot for a 4/13 release, if possible. Regardless, I need my sleep soon. https://letssosl.boards.net/thread/418/charcherry-weekly-issue-183

[jenestaa]

CTS B Manifesto

Based on the seven CTS B topics that we have learnt, we came up with seven different statements. Each statement focuses on one topic.

First, “To be expansive and connective”. This statement portrays that we can broaden our knowledge by gaining a deeper understanding of our creative practice. While interlinking critical thinking into creative practice.

Second, “Understanding the context of other viewpoints as well as my own “. It is to convey that we can take note of other people’s theories and also our own. Relating them to real-life practice.

Third, “You can’t design in a vacuum”. Through this statement, it is to portray that we as designers, whenever we see good references, we will get influenced by their projects or artworks. We should also try to be socially-engaged with society.

Fourth, “Understanding where you come from, gives you perspective”. Different people have different viewpoints. It kind of depends on our family’s historical traditions and lineages.

Fifth, “Be critical and self reflective to understand your audience”. Whenever possible, we can try to think critically about our processes while reflecting on ourselves. This methodology helps us to know better about ourselves or our audiences.

Sixth, “Analyse your creative practice”. Everyone has our own creative practices. There are reasons as to why we design our artworks in a certain way. Moreover, we should study carefully into our passions, so that we can achieve our own unique creative practices.

Seventh, “You don’t have to have an endgame, but you have to have a sense of direction”. This implies that it isn’t necessary to know exactly what our artistic vision statements are. However, we should have an idea of which route we are leaning towards through interests.

Currently, I do not have an alternative manifesto personally. However, if we were given more time, I will try to do more research on the various interpretations of manifestos. I may also try my best to come up with my own manifesto.

Maybe if we were given the opportunity to design it digitally, I will suggest to my group mates to do a digital collage. By using imagery, we can collate relevant images that we took on our own. Provided that everyone doesn’t mind sharing them. Thereafter, combining the images that we have into a collage. This is so that it can be a photographic visual representation of our group’s manifesto.

One aspect of CTS B that was particularly significant to me is on the topic of connecting theory with practice. Where there is a discussion on the concept of identity. In relation to the Design Skills and Application module, for my video editing project. I use the concept of reflections and also other point-of-views to portray my own self-identity.

Another aspect will be on the topic of connecting practice with society. For Studio, we are working on a visual identity system for our chosen festivals. This relates to the topic as we get to integrate it into real-life context.

(492 words)

References:

“Collages | A visual manifesto on Behance.” Behance, 11 March 2020, https://www.behance.net/gallery/93637703/Collages-A-visual-manifesto.

#manifesto  #collage  #digital  #imagery  #reflections #identity

[grad604-gracemacd]

Week 7: Feedback + Notes

The Formative Presentation was an eye-opening step for my process in this course. Firstly, I was inspired by the work of others in my class but also expanded my visual library and inventory for designers. I felt asking questions to my peers particularly interesting and understanding their perspectives on their creative communities. As well, this opened the door for similarities and interest but highlighted the different styles which I particularly enjoyed. However, these presentations were valuable for my own reflection, I feel as though I have been inspired by others and with conversations with the teaching team I feel as though I have better understanding of how I can dive deeper into my own creative community and highlight important ideas.

The following are notes I have made from the feedback to help with the progression of my project.

Design Research Notes:

Review of Feedback

Dive deeper into designer influences

Underlying message behind the away they have created the work, messaging in the work

How your process is different, finding the purpose of the work you are creating

Addressing the questions in the break

Contexts and influences – reason behind these influences

Monday 18th for the blog – improve and dive deeper

Field of ideas that orbits their work – i.e., pop art, global art distribution, commerce, design, what are the politic, relationship to time and place

Own is springboard to go further

Connect whakapapa

Concepts – idea and challenge processes to come up with a better (sophisticated) idea

Push the ideas

A2 Poster Montage and Inventory

Twenty elements montaged as a design artefact

Paired with contextual inventory of each element

Must include name

Alt Group Example (Do Disturb)

The Poster

The right hand – inventory

Explain the significance of the objects to your work

Modes of representation – Joseph Kosuth (conceptual with representation)

The system to talk about message and meaning, the three things you are using to position

Describe to analyse and collate – underpinning contexts

Graphic system that relates to the design practise you have, i.e., type specimen sheet if interested in type.

Conceptual argues/talk to connection to you

How the ideas connect to the context – physically with thread for example

Example: Montage (annotation, print from nature)

What does the poster communicate about you?

Example: interested in editorial (index or table of contents) – systems that help with the representations of writing

Workbook – hdrescher.com/wishlist/

Field notes, workbook

Other Ways:

Mixed Media – collage, Stephen Sagmeister

Publication layout but with collage – unconventional

Homework:

Formative on Canvas

Layout of Poster

Collecting 20 Object and the story behind them

IDEA: path, still discovering but could use techniques have experimented with as getting older.

View of art table broken pastels, paint, etc

Take on Laura Hilbert work

Why you want to particular design

Influencing you as designer

Positioning the research

Methodology: material, feeling and guide you as a designer

Let how the clay form, how does this inform your practise

Are there are people out there doing it

Connections with creatives and your interest

Here is why I have used these in my design – cross over with the history of the art

[memphisfaith]

Hearts of Lust: Chapter 10

Pairing Kim Namjoon X Reader

Genre: Collage!AU, Smut

Word Count: 1.7K

Warning: Cursing, mentions of smut, smut, consumption of alcohol, mentions of violence, violence, crack personality disorders, Chaotic energy.

Summary: College is any young adult's prime years, at least that's what Lee (y/n) and Kim Namjoon thought. The two are infamous for two reasons, by two very different crowds. Among the professors they are picture perfect students with perfect scores, attendance, and image. However, among the student body they're the very essence of lust with amazing bodies, sex appeal, and skill. The two, although strikingly similar, butt heads quite a bit with competitions of everything from grades to who can get a person to drop their pants the fastest. With the two of them ready to conquer the school year it's all a matter of Go Big or Go Home.

Looking down at my laptop I scroll through different pictures of marine wildlife, I sigh and glance down at my sketch book. It had a few ideas of What I wanted to do for the powerpoint, but I didn't know how I wanted to design the leaflet that RM and I would pass out for the presentation, and don't even get me started on what I should do for the 3-D model. 

I thumb through a few notes RM jotted down for me to go off of but it only helps so much. I glance over at said man to see him writing down things before scrolling down on his laptop every few minutes. 

Looking through different animals and jotting down the name with a vague sketch of it before looking for something new. Looking at the clock on my laptop I see the study hall has only just started. 

I drop my pencil before running a hand over my face in frustration. I stand from my seat and stretch before sitting back down. I scroll some more before RM hands me some paper, I scan it to see a list of animals. 

I look over at him to see him close his laptop and scoot closer to me. He pulls my laptop closer to him and opens a clean tab before closing my old one. "That list is a food web of the Epipelagic Zone more commonly known as the sunlight zone." He explains.

"So like...If J-Hope was a part of the ocean." I reference, an amused smirk grew on RM's face at my comment but he nodded anyway. "This section is where Coral reefs grow and have a more diverse population of creatures." He continues. "I was thinking we could do Raja Ampat, it's diversity in species is the richest in the world with 1700 different species of reef fish. It's even home to rare marine mammals." He lists.

"Do they have sharks?" I ask looking over his small list of animals, "Whale sharks and black tipped reef sharks." Namjoon answers. I hum with a small smile, "Noona, we should go to the aquarium that should help you get better references than internet pictures," Taehyung says as he pops up behind me and takes up residence on my shoulder. 

My eyes widen at the idea, "That would be a good idea," I comment over to RM. He didn't get a chance to say anything as the five other males ran over and piled on top of us screaming at him to agree. RM groans before finally agreeing, "I guess we could go this weekend. We could go tomorrow since it's Friday." He suggests. It didn't take much force for all of us to agree.

I looked through my bag one last time making sure I had everything. I got my wallet, notebook, sketchbook, digital tablet and pen, and a few other small things like band-aids and lipgloss. I pull my hair up in a ponytail adding some last minute touch ups to my make-up while I wait for Yoongi to pick me up.

I hear a honk from outside signaling he's here. I walked outside, but I didn't see Yoongi but Namjoon waiting for me. As I get closer to the car I can see Jungkook and Taehyung sitting in the back. 

"Hi there boys," I smile at the two in the back, before looking over at Namjoon. "Jin divided us into groups of four, Since we need to work on a project we got stuck together. He then claimed that we need to take care of our children." He mutters, jabbing his thumb at the two in the back. 

The two whine at his comment, further proving his point, before sitting back with a pout. I roll my eyes, "Then what does that make the rest of them?" I scoff, Namjoon shrugged. "I didn't want to ask." He mutters, "Understandable," I muse turning my head to face the two in the back. 

I look at them for a minute, Why would Jin think they're our children. "Noona, you're scaring me," Tae spoke up, "Sorry Taetae." I muse before looking forward. "So did you have any ideas on how we should make our way around?' I question before digging out my notebook and pin. 

"Somewhat, I made a list of the animals that are from the reef that the aquarium takes care of. We can make our way around the best we can, but I promised Tae and kook an hour for lunch and break." He said and I nodded. "Makes sense we are in charge of them and we will have to drag them around for a while. It's only fair that we give them an hour to do what they want." I agree.

It took ten more minutes before we parked in the aquarium parking lot. When we made our way to the entrance we found Jin, Hoseok, Yoongi, and Jimin. "Look who decided to finally show up." Yoongi scoffs, I flipped him the finger and continued to make my way inside. We each paid for our tickets before we regrouped.

"Okay Jin and I, more like Jin, decided on groups." Namjoon spoke up, "The group you arrived with is the group you're staying with, anyone deemed a child of their respected group is to not wander too far from their group, Anyone deemed a parent or elder of their group is to watch over their respective group. Lunch hour will start at 12:00 and end at 1:00 while free hour will start at 1:00 and end at 2:00." Namjoon announced.

Jungkook raises his hand and Namjoon sighs, "Yes we will go to the gift shop before we leave." He answers, Jungkook's hand falls back down to his side as he flushes red. "Any questions?" Namjoon asks, with no more questions we break off into our groups. 

Namjoon and I looked at a map and to our luck the aquarium has an Indonesia section, which makes our job a lot easier. Jungkook and Taehyung bounced from tank to tank as we made our way to that section. Upon reaching it my eyes blew wide at all the colorful reef fish. I took out my digital pad and pen and began to sketch away.

I made a new folder with one section named Fish, thus far the section has five different pages of brightly colored fish. I made a new section and illustrated the different live coral that is said to grow in that environment.

Namjoon sat beside me as he wrote down different things from the information tablet provided in front of the large tanks. I would stop and glance around to see Taehyung and Jungkook jump from tank to tank. 

After Namjoon and I are satisfied with this subsection of the area we move on, Taehyung and Jungkook drag us down a large tube that goes through the middle of a large enclosure. My eyes widen as a whale shark swims by. I follow it up and down the tank sketching it as quickly but as detailed as I can. 

Once I finished I began a sketch of a black tipped reef shark. Luckily for me it didn't drag me up and down the tunnel like the whale shark did. When we finally moved on we crossed a large glass wall, I looked deep into it and gasped. A manatee, there were no seats so instead I sat on the floor sitting the tablet in my hand. 

I draw the lines slowly and smoothly unlike the sharks, I'm so into it I don't hear Namjoon take a seat beside me. I feel him hovering over my shoulder looking at the drawing, "Did you know when pirates and sailors would dock their ships in shallow water or sail through rivers, they would claim to have seen mermaids when in reality they just saw manatees." I whisper softly.

Namjoon shook his head, "Historians claim it's one of the origins of the mermaid myth." I add gently drawing the large tail. "When I was a kid my mom used to take me to this river and told me if I was quiet and waited long enough I would see a mermaid. But when I told kids in my class they would call me stupid because everyone knew mermaids live in the sea." I smile.

"Yoongi always came with me to the library to read about mermaids but, I'm sure he was just there to read about the pirates." I laugh quietly as I color in the manatee. "I guess that's one of the biggest reasons why I like the ocean," I hum, adding in the wrinkles of their skin with a darker gray.

When I look up from my tablet I find Taehyung and Jungkook had joined Namjoon and I on the floor. "Hey Noona I think you would make a pretty mermaid," Taehyung spoke up with a small smile. I huff but a smile that matches his slips onto my lips. I ruffle his hair before saving the picture and standing up.

My back pops from the strain of leaning over my tablet for so long. I stretch out before checking my watch, "It's almost 12:00, let's head over to the café for lunch." I sigh in bliss. Jungkook and Taehyung are quick to bounce to their feet and dash in the direction of the café. 

"AISH DON'T RUN TOO FAR WITHOUT US!" Namjoon yells after them as he gets onto his feet. I sigh and stuff my tablet under one arm before taking a hold of Namjoon with the other and dragging him along with me to catch up to the two boys. 

By the time we caught up to them they were in the main area deciding which Café they wanted to go to. "Okay," I huff out of breath, "Which one do you want to go to?" I ask. The two boys scan the different Cafes, but eventually they settle on one.

Upon entering the Café we became the center of attention, The two boys who were previously child-like and playful switched their switch and their inner succubus came out. Lustful gazes and sexy smirks in all. Not that they're the only ones, One quick glance at Namjoon and I could tell he's oozing his sexual dominance. I plant a small suggestive smirk on my lips and run a hand through my hair to make it a bit more messy and wild before I cross my arms to push up my breasts. 

As we wait in line I can see everyone scoping us out, Some look like they're going to make a move while others whisper amongst themselves about us in their corner. When it came time for us to order the cashier looked visibly flushed and baffled. 

I smile at them with a well practiced charmed smile. I lean onto the counter giving a few in the Café a good view of my ass while giving the cashier a good view of my breasts. I smirk as they visibly swallow the lump in their throat. 

"What-What can I...What can I get you?" They stutter, "breath darling, we don't bite." I smile calmly, "Not unless you want us to," Namjoon smirks. I shot Namjoon a challenging gaze and he returned it, fine game on. 

I bring my hand up to my lips and draw small subtle circles around my lips as I look up at the menu. When I figured out what I wanted I glanced at the cashier, smirking as I saw then gnawing on their lip harshly while they eye my finger and lips.

I slowly lean forward, careful not to knock them out of the trance I put them in. I hear them whine as I slowly pull their lip out from between their teeth, "Now darling if you're willing I'm ready to order." I spoke calmly in a smooth suggestive voice. 

The cashier nods their head rapidly, lip once again caught between their teeth. I lean forward and pull it out again, "Darling if you keep biting your lip like that I'll have to give you a real reason to bite onto something," I whisper darkly. I watch completely amused as I watch the poor soul catch themself with the counter to keep themselves from falling to the floor.

"I would like a number three with a lemonade." I order softly before pulling away. I take a step back and watch as the cashier visibly relaxes. "Your move RM," I whisper challengingly, taking a step to the side to watch. The Cashier stiffens as soon as RM steps up to order. This should be fun.

<---- Prev // Masterlist // Next ---->

[the-lincyclopedia]

High school English doesn’t look just one way

I’d like to stab the next person who responds to someone’s failure to understand theme/symbolism/metaphor/etc. with “clearly you didn’t pass high school English,” but a.) we’re not in the same physical space, and b.) even if we were, I don’t want to get arrested, so I’m writing this post instead.

This site is abounding in assumptions about high school English, and I want to burst the bubble of everyone who holds those assumptions, because high school English looks a whole lot of different ways. Different schools and districts use different curricula, different teachers have different quirks, AP differs from IB, etc. For better and for worse (quite possibly mostly for worse), there is no uniform knowledge base held by people who did, in fact, pass high school English.

I did the International Baccalaureate program in high school, but I did that program in the Midwestern US, and this is very much a post about my experience in the US school system. Here’s what my high school English experience looked like:

FRESHMAN YEAR

My freshman English teacher was funny and personable but not very good at teaching English, and I have no idea what was up with the curriculum. We only read two books (The Scarlet Letter and Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass) as a group all year. We read poetry (Emily Dickinson), short stories (Edgar Allan Poe), and excerpts from a variety of things (Thoreau sticks out in my mind), and toward the end of the year we had to pick an American author (I think from a list?), read one of their books, read a biography of the author, and then do a project, but overall it wasn’t a very reading-heavy year.

Nor was it a writing-heavy year! Most of our assignments were art projects. One of my least-favorite days was the day we came to class with the first of our “creative journal” entries (i.e. mixed-media projects that connected our personal lives to the topic we were studying) and my teacher said, “I can already tell, without looking at any of your assignments, that none of them are creative enough.” I have no idea why we spent so much time on collages and whatnot in my English class, but we did.

Point being, this was emphatically not a time when I learned a lot about metaphor, symbolism, plot structure, etc.

SOPHOMORE YEAR

My sophomore English teacher was new to teaching after having been a professional dancer for over a decade. She was really cool! She was both humble enough and secure enough in herself to admit when she didn’t know things, which is not a universal trait for teachers. She was also great at fostering community, and the class got close and grew to respect one another.

Unlike freshman year, this was an incredibly reading-heavy year. We started out with creation myths and excerpts from the Iliad and the Odyssey, and what followed was a barrage:

Antigone (the Greek play)

Canterbury Tales

Dante’s Inferno

Macbeth

Much Ado about Nothing

Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus

The Importance of Being Earnest

And then at the end of the year we had to pick a novel written by a non-Western author and write a report on it. (I’m not complaining about that assignment in particular; the whole lot of it taken together was just a lot for one year!)

So, okay, we read a fuckton that year. And we did write some papers. But, as with freshman year, many of our assignments were creative projects. This worked better with this particular teacher and this particular class both because of the community we had built and because we had several very creative people in the class: there was this girl who was a mixed-media artist who made sculptures just about every time, and this boy who was an aspiring filmmaker who would make little movies every time, and this other boy who was an amazing composer who wrote an original song for every creative assignment (and also wrote a 40-minute-long musical with a bunch of original songs at the end of the year to express his appreciation to our teacher).

In the multiple-page thank-you note I wrote to this teacher at the end of the year, I told her I learned more in sophomore English about respecting and admiring my classmates than I did about English. Once again, not really a time when I learned about metaphor, symbolism, plot structure, etc.

JUNIOR YEAR

This is the point when I entered actual IB classes (the Diploma Programme--yes, it’s British and is spelled that way--only covers the last two years of high school, and my school wasn’t officially part of the Middle Years Programme when I was a freshman or sophomore). My junior year English teacher was a hardass who denied my accommodations request and treated us all pretty badly, but she understood more about teaching English than my previous two English teachers had.

It was another reading-heavy year, with our reading list looking like this:

Poetry by Mahmoud Darwish

Short stories by Lu Xun

Agamemnon

The House of Bernarda Alba

One Hundred Years of Solitude

Othello

Junior year, finally, we were actually writing. However, none of our writing assignments were called “papers.” They were either journals, which basically meant we were answering a set of questions and didn’t need to be super formal about it (punctuation, grammar, and citations were still expected, but paragraph structure could be looser), or commentaries, which were usually about some very specific aspect or section of what we read (say, a single monologue from Othello, or an argument for why a specific character was the protagonist of One Hundred Years of Solitude).

The thing about the IB style of commentaries, at least as they were taught at my high school, is that they were very concerned about how language means--how individual words combine to create a very specific meaning. You were never allowed to summarize anything, because phrasing and word choice were the entire point. Any paragraph would have to introduce a point, cite a quote that illustrated that point, and then dissect the quote to prove how it illustrated that point. You were never allowed to assume the quote proved the point on its own, nor were you generally allowed to point to several connected instances in one paragraph and reference them without direct quotes (say, with just page numbers).

So this was a year when I learned some things about things like metaphor and symbolism. However, plot structure basically got lost because it’s a harder thing to talk about when you have to pull a quote every single time you want to make a point. Moreover, the definition that all the teachers and professors from throughout my education used for metaphors was very different than the definition most people on Tumblr seem to use (which I’ve rage-posted about before).

SENIOR YEAR

Still IB, still writing commentaries that required direct quotes for everything and more often than not focused on a single paragraph or monologue. My senior year English teacher was much nicer than the junior year one, at least.

Our reading list:

Margaret Atwood’s poetry

Dust Tracks on a Road

Hamlet

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead

The Lion and the Jewel

The Glass Menagerie

At this point, we learned about allegories, particularly when analyzing The Lion and the Jewel, a Nigerian play with a lot to say about colonialism. Once again, I’ll point out that the divide between allegory and metaphor in my high school English class was incredibly different than people on Tumblr claim it to be.

IN CONCLUSION

I spent the first half of my high school English career making art projects and the second half writing commentaries based on a single paragraph or monologue from the source material. When we spent time on the plot, it was usually for comprehension purposes, not analysis purposes; when we did analysis, it was usually at the word and sentence level, not at the story level. This means we learned a wildly different set of skills than a lot of Tumblrites assume are universal to high school English.

TL;DR: Shut up about “you clearly never passed high school English.” You have no idea how different high school English looks from one school to another.

[get-shiggy-with-it]

Ch. 1

Shigaraki Birthday Week! MINORS DNI DO NOT PUT THIS ON TIKTOK

Pairing: Tomura Shigaraki x fem!reader

Word Count: 3k

Warnings: reader is marked fem cause Tomura is a little sexist and hates you cause you’re a woman, no pronouns, incel!shiggy, collage au/no quirks, tomura is an asshole, gratuitous swearing, like so much, shiggy has a dirty mouth, mentions of shigs being anxious, let me know if I’ve missed something

Ch. 1 | Ch. 2 | Ch. 3 | Ch. 4 | Ch. 5 | Ch. 6

Summary: Tomura gets stuck taking an English class to graduate and is partnered with you, a bitchy try hard (his words not mine) for his final project. But over the course of the semester he finds that while he hates everyone, he might hate you just a little...less. 

AO3 mirror

The door at the back of the room creaked open and jarred Tomura from his half-sleep state. He didn’t look at who’d bothered to slip into this fucking class late, and instead tried to let the prof’s inane droning on Timothy Whoever The Fuck’s 18th weirdo letter book lull him into day dreaming. 

He only made it about a quarter of the way back into his boredom induced coma until he was dragged unwillingly into wakefulness once more. 

“Sorry, could you plug this in for me?” 

Tomura jumped again when you leaned over to whisper to him, computer charger in one hand, gesturing to the outlet on the wall by his head. You’d left the typical courtesy seat empty between the two of you and he stared blankly at the way you leaned your weight on the vacant chair. 

He recognized you.

The classic, dumbass teacher's pet who was always front and center of the room, iced drink at the ready looking like you belonged on the set of some god awful college b movie. 

Well, almost always. You certainly had that loud ass drink, but you’d tucked yourself at the end of his row towards the back of the room and was clearly a bit embarrassed for bursting in almost 15 minutes late. 

Tomura swallowed hard as your shirt gaped in the front. It took an immense amount of control to not gaze outright into the swell of your chest. 

“You good?” you asked softly, head cocked like you were straight out of a fucking manga panel—tits on display with that stupid innocent, puzzled expression.  

“Uh yeah, sorry,” Tomura mumbled. 

You offered him this gross, clearly fake smile—because why the hell would you be grinning like that if it wasn’t just because you wanted something from him—as he threaded the cord behind his chair and plugged it in. 

“Thanks,” you replied and turned back towards the professor, typing away cause you actually take notes in this class. 

Of fucking course you did. 

Probably trying to impress everyone with how you typed practically every word the prof said. Tomura decidedly did not take notes, and didn’t really pay that much attention in general. Usually he just played some trashy phone game under the desk or dozed with his head against the cement wall. 

It had gotten to that portion of the semester when it was warmer outside but the buildings still had the heat cranked all the way up, especially here in the basement where the classroom was. That environment along with his usual hoodie/joggers combo created grade A napping conditions that Tomura took full advantage of. 

As a rule, he actually cared about school and he did relatively well. But this was just some dumbass liberal arts requirement course that had nothing to do with his actual major, so he was perfectly fine with coasting. Why his comp sci degree required him to take a fucking Restoration era English class, he had no clue. Apparently neither did his advisor other than that the ‘administration recommended it’ so their students would have a ‘well rounded learning experience.’ 

It was almost certainly just a cash grab to make him take more credits than was necessary to graduate, but whatever. He was here now. And so were you. Your presence was overwhelmingly clear, typing away and smelling like one of those insanely specific laundry detergent label scents—fucking rolling meadows and grandmother’s clean linen or something like that. 

He’d never sat this close to you before, but that didn’t stop you from annoying the shit out of him for the previous whole half semester and going since it was just now passing midterms. Long enough for him to have pegged you as a textbook try-hard, pick-me bitch. You contributed to discussion at every opportunity, turned in shit early, and debated other classmates regularly enough to disrupt his in-course sleep schedule. 

The way you dressed pissed him off too, with a particular style that was enough to stand out but not so over the top that it would cause disinterest from any potential mates.

And now you were filling his corner of the room with the overpowering smell of freshly washed hair and demanding he do things for you. 

Fucking disgusting. 

“Tomura Shigaraki.”

He jumped a third time, attention directed from his lap to the front of the room where the prof stood, listing out names from the board. He heard your name next followed by Kai Chisaki. The list was projected on the board as well, grouping everyone into twos or threes with “Final Project Partners” listed in bold Helvetica font at the top. 

Only fucking English profs used Helvetica. 

He vaguely remembered mentions of a final presentation—one of like three grades in this class cause the prof was almost certainly a sadist. 

No, not almost—definitely. Otherwise he wouldn’t have stuck him with you and that weirdo Kai pre-med student who insisted on acting so elitist you’d think he already had his fucking M.D. 

One time he asked Tomura to move seats at the start of the semester because he looked “dirty” and Kai liked to sit in the back—which, fair enough, it wasn’t like Tomura showered as frequently as he probably should but what the fuck??  

With you rushing in late, chest out and panting every now and again from your apparent sprint across campus, Tomura was certain he’d be subjected to a whole 6 weeks of watching you try to mount that fucking Kai dude instead of actually working. 

This was going to be a nightmare. 

From the end of the table, he saw you shifting and turned to find that stupid fucking smile flashed his way once again. 

If you had a tail, he’d bet it would be wagging. 

“Hey, well that’s convenient,” you chuckled and plopped down directly next to him, sliding your noisy ass drink across the table with you and brushing against his thigh when you shifted your bag to the side. 

“Yeah,” he nodded.

It most certainly was not. 

But Tomura would never say that because—as his roommate put it so kindly—he was kinda a pussy. 

People made him nervous, they always had. That’s why he liked computers so much. Code made sense, there were clear rules and when something didn’t work out, he could fix it eventually, but you couldn’t see people’s codes. You had to fucking guess at shit and it made his anxiety skyrocket which the sides of his neck and finger tips suffered for. 

So he cowered like the fucking dog you probably thought he was instead and kept his eyes on the floor, letting you set up in silence. 

“Who was our third?” you asked, glancing around the room. “Sorry, I was busy making a shared drive and I came in  late so I missed that last bit.”

Why the hell did you feel the need to apologize all the goddamn time? Seriously, who would believe you were actually sorry for being irritating as hell. 

And god if he thought you were irritating. 

“Kai,” he grumbled simply as the man in question sauntered over to the table and fucking Clorox wiped down the seat before sitting.  

Tomura watched your smile falter just a bit and grinned inwardly at the slip in your fake little persona. But you didn’t say anything more, just moved your chair back so the three of you were in a semi-circle and pulled up a few pdfs on your laptop. 

“Cool, so I was looking over the directions on the syllabus last week and I set up a little work delegation thing so we can distribute everything pretty evenly,” you jumped right in, tone matter of fact in the down-to-business manner he was used to hearing from you during class discussions. 

It was better than you so clearly forcing yourself to be overly polite, and he honestly couldn’t really care less if you wanted to take charge of this thing. You seemed kinda bossy, but he begrudgingly admitted that your suck up behavior did mean you sort of knew what you were talking about. He was just here to pass and you might actually make that a lot easier. 

It was okay as long as he was taking advantage of you, he told himself. And you would be too stupid to notice, so he could play your game and play pretend nice all the way to an A. 

That walking condescension on the other hand— 

“I’m not doing that,” Kai huffed through his ever-present mask. 

Tomura wasn’t actually sure he’d ever seen the bastards face without it. 

“What?” you laughed awkwardly. “Yes you are, you don’t really have much of a choice.” 

You stared at your classmate who simply stared right back with his own, equally confused expression. 

“Why do you look so surprised?” you asked after a moment of silence. 

You weren’t smiling anymore and your voice had dropped down about a fucking octave. At least you sounded more like a person and not some wannabe uwu gamer bitch.

“People don’t talk to me like that,” Kai looked at you down his nose, legs spread wide and elbow resting on his knees. 

Tomura could feel the pretentiousness wafting from him in waves, and waited with bated breath for you to get kicked off your pedestal. Just a bit though, he did need you around to do most of his work for this thing. 

But in a shocking turn of events, you just laughed dryly twice and turned back to your laptop screen, mumbling as you did. 

“Really? Well they should.” 

Tomura would have laughed too, but he didn’t feel like inflating your ego. Kai on the other hand looked a bit like you’d just spit on shoes and furrowed those stupid, plucked thin eyebrows at the back of your head. 

“So Tomura, you code right?” you asked, turning away from Kai completely to address him. “I just remember you saying you were in comp sci when we did introductions.” 

He was taken aback by the knowledge that he existed as a person in your head outside of this room for a moment and simply nodded—suddenly feeling far too hot in his black on black sweats and hoodie. 

God just talking to you made his skin burn. 

“Great, cause we’re allowed to chose the medium we present in and I was thinking of taking it in a more creative direction cause I’ve had this prof before and he eats that shit up,” you begin to ramble again, scrolling through a bulleted list, shifting the screen for him to see. 

“Right,” he murmured, still surprised you’d thought this far and not...actively hating what you’d brainstormed. 

Well, it was a bit juvenile and you clearly didn’t know what you were talking about but the concept wasn’t horrendous. He could work with that and it shouldn’t be too hard. It kinda seemed like you’d overestimated a bit with how challenging it would actually be and saddled yourself with most of the heavy lifting. That or you were just a control freak which was a little more believable.

He wished you would stop looking at him over the edge of the screen. He could feel himself starting to sweat. Rivulets falling down the nape of his neck and racing across his bare chest under the sweatshirt. Tomura sorta regretted not wearing a shirt underneath but he knew that he wouldn’t have taken off the insulating layer even if that had been an option. 

It would just mean you had more drying, pale as fuck skin to look at and judge him for because he knew that’s what you were doing. Fucking vapid and shallow like everyone else. 

“It’s really rough so far, but I have it the gist outlined,” you indicated to another tab and then turned back to Kai who had been sitting silently glaring daggers into your back. “So, Kai, since you’re in STEM I figured you’d be okay with doing more of the preliminary research—”

“I don’t think so,” Kai interrupted, shaking his head and pushing off his knees to lean back in the cheap, plastic seat. “Look, it’ll be easier for all of us if you two just make it look pretty and I can handle the oral presentation.” 

You gaped and looked to Tomura with this pathetic fucking incredulous stare, like you thought he’d back you up. 

Which actually, now that he thought about it was probably a good idea—he did need you to remain somewhat cordial with him—but he certainly didn’t care enough to defend you in any way. Kai was a dick, sure, but he wasn’t gonna let you rope him into being your white knight or whatever. 

He settled for a similarly disgruntled downward twitch of his lips. The movement pulled at the cracking skin which stung as it tore open even more. Tomura felt the familiar crawling feeling on his neck and shifted in his seat to resist the urge to scratch. 

He couldn’t pinpoint why exactly you staring at him was so uncomfortable. He didn’t like you, he didn’t care about you and by extension didn’t give two shits what you thought of him, but anything he might have said shriveled on his tongue when you spoke or looked in his eyes too long. 

Tomura had never made a habit of talking to females and they certainly had never wanted anything to do with him either. 

Maybe he was fucking allergic or something. 

Whatever the case, you seemed to take his half frown as a sign of solidarity and leaned back in your own seat. 

“Okay, look,” you retorted. “If you’re seriously not gonna at least try to cooperate, then there is actually an option to do the project by yourself and I suggest you take it.” 

The look on your face was distinctly impolite. There was a sharpness to the set of your jaw that Tomura had never seen before, but it looked practiced enough that he could bet it was simply the snake that resided in every woman just waiting to come out. 

“Look sweetheart—” that masked jerk began, also for some fucking reason looking to Tomura for support. 

For someone who was very much used to blending into the background scenery, this was the most eye contact Tomura had ever made in a day. 

Except on the rare occasions his roommate had friends over and he had to make the dreaded trek from his room to reach the fridge. 

“Oh yeah I’m not doing that,” you closed your laptop sharply and rolled your eyes. “I get it, but I’m really just trying to graduate. I don’t think this is going to work out and you,” Tomura froze as you shifted your gaze to him once again, “seem okay, so Tomura and I can just work this out by ourselves and you can find a different group.” 

Kai scoffed behind the black layer of fabric covering his mouth and slung his backpack over his shoulder. “Whatever.” 

Tomura watched him saunter straight out the door as the room was filled with the shuffling of notebooks and zipping of backpacks. 

“God,” you huffed and turned back to him. 

His raw skin burned under the new wave of heat and accompanying moisture that slicked his skin when you scooted closer to him. That clean laundry and shampoo smell was suffocating from this proximity. 

Did you fucking bathe in the stuff? 

He was becoming increasingly aware of his less than pleasant aroma and the fact that you not scrunching your nose up in disgust just out of some stupid, ingrained need to appease him. 

“Well, that was...weird,” you chuckled in a way that was probably meant to break the tension. 

Unfortunately Tomura felt more like he was about to break out in hives if you came any closer so it really just ended up making the atmosphere ten times more awkward. At least for him. You, somehow, remained resolutely unaware. 

“Mhm,” he hummed in response and picked silently at the skin of his fingers. 

“Anyway, I have a meeting in a few but we can trade numbers and pick a time to meet up sometime tomorrow maybe?” you suggested, quickly saving the steadily degrading vibes of the conversation and pulled out your phone. 

He really hated the full body pulsation that rushed through him at the thought of getting a girls number. It made him fucking sick at himself for falling into your stupid trap to get him interested. Was your plan to just use him to get a good grade or whatever and then block his texts?

It wasn’t like Tomura didn’t know about his status as the class ‘freak.’ That one guy everyone whispers about and makes sure not to sit next to. And he knows you know, so why the hell else would you act so nice?

He wanted to say something scathing in return. That he could do the whole thing by himself too—which he definitely couldn’t but that was irrelevant—and that he didn’t need you bossing him around either. 

“Sure thing,” he said instead and took your offered phone all too eagerly, typing in his number and watching as you shot off a text back so he’d have yours. 

His phone buzzed against his thigh and he jumped a fourth time, but you seemed not to notice as you packed your bag and grabbed your basic ass drink. The ice clattered against the tumbler, dropping cool condensation against the searing skin of his hand. 

Tomura shivered as you waved over your shoulder and slipped out the door with another rush of students. 

He sat silently in the empty room for a moment, trying to process the last hour. He pinched himself idly, wondering if it had all been just a weird dream, but the results were inconclusive. A minute or two passed before he pulled out his phone to scroll through the list of reddit and discord notifs to find your text. 

Unknown Number:

— pEopLe DoN’t TaLK tO mE liKE ThAt 

— not very plus ultra of him...smh

— anyway, library at 6 tomorrow ?

 Tomura caved, digging his nails into the side of his neck and hissed at the pain, confirming the day's horrible reality.